Streetlight Angels Podcast
Creating safety awareness and mindfulness to the nation to help our children take back the ability to play outside "until the street lights come on".
Streetlight Angels Podcast
Unscripted Talks on Rebuilding Community Trust and Child Safety in a Changing World!
How can we reignite a sense of community trust and safety for our children in a rapidly changing world? Join us on the Streetlight Angels podcast as we navigate this question with our unique perspectives, including those of an active-duty military entrepreneur and a single parent managing both public and private school experiences. We promise engaging conversations that seek real solutions—eschewing political agendas in favor of actionable insights on how societal shifts, like the rise in dual-working households, impact our children. Let's build a village of support, creating spaces where kids can safely enjoy the world until the streetlights come on.
Our thoughts extend to the complex relationship between parenting, technology, and the media. With technology reshaping young minds at an unprecedented pace, we uncover its dual role as both a tool and a challenge for modern families. We address media influences over decades, advocating for genuine engagement and progress. By sharing our personal experiences, like raising a high-functioning autistic child, we highlight the importance of patience and alternative communication methods. We also examine the responsibility of public figures and influencers, urging them to guide young audiences toward independence and moral integrity without imposing their views.
Is it possible for children to play outside alone without constant worry? We voice the concerns shared by many parents and discuss our hopes for a future filled with trust and community engagement. The Streetlight Angels podcast provides a platform to voice these concerns, inviting listeners to share their perspectives and stories. We aim to foster a supportive environment where everyone can contribute to meaningful dialogue. Feel free to reach out and possibly join us as guest speakers to help us nurture a more connected and secure world for the next generation.
All right, so our very first, very first podcast episode is this one. Right here I'm Joshua Yarkowski, and this is Streetlight Angels podcast, and with me I have Casey Casey, introduce yourself.
Speaker 2:I'm Casey Young-Andreas.
Speaker 1:Casey Young-Andreas Casey Young-Andreas alright, josh Jarkowski and Casey Young-Andreas here with Streetlight Angels podcast. We are a podcast dedicated to essentially getting the children back to a time frame where they have the ability to go out into the streets until the streetlights come on. That's what we're really trying to do, right, absolutely yeah, so, um, so what we're really talking about now is no holds barred, um, you know, no pulled punches podcast to where we essentially talk about anything and everything we want to talk about. Uh, we don't have, you know, we don't have any politic views in this. We don't have, you know, any woke or BLM or white power or any of that stuff involved into our podcast. So it's really just us, you know, a man and a woman, somebody like me and someone like her, just talking about anything and everything we want to talk about.
Speaker 2:Like, give me some examples, case that we're going to be talking about Bringing safety and awareness back, bringing mindfulness back for our homes, our parents, our children, things going on within the school system, things that we can change as a society, that we've just been so quiet about and have allowed to get to this point, and bringing the safety back to our children so that they can be kids again.
Speaker 1:That's right, bringing the safety back to the kids. Are you kidding me again? That's right, bringing the safety back to the kids. Are you kidding me? Like we're in a nation now where we're literally designated in a podcast to talk about something like so important? You know where are our priorities. You know that's what we're looking at now. Like, look at everybody's priorities now, look at everybody's intentions and their thought process.
Speaker 1:If people are constantly thinking about irrelevant or unrelated things, that actually is going to benefit themselves and us, and so we're going to shed light on a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 1:We're going to give the speakers the opportunity to be able to, you know, email us directly and tell us, you know, opinions and views and things that they want to speak about that they just may not have the voice for, and so we're going to use them and their voice and listen to it and then project that here on this podcast for everyone else to hear and to discuss. And ultimately, that's what it's about. We're not going to allow ourselves to deviate from the original purpose. We're not going to allow ourselves to change the dynamic of the original purpose of this, and that is to make it to where we are a society and a community and a nation to allow our children to go out and, uh, enjoy themselves and play until the streetlights come on and give us the sense of comfort, as as parents, as guardians, um, to allow them to do that and let us be safe and more.
Speaker 2:The cliche word would be we need to form our villages again, we need to form our communities again so that we can bond together. And society has changed so much in the last few years. Where parents are having to work, some families don't even have the option any longer of mom staying home. So you know, in a household where single parents are working, both parents are working, our kids are without us so much during the day that there's so many influences coming in, so many things that are trying to conform their point of views, and so it's about taking that power back and really having that village and that community within our neighborhoods, within our own communities, to create that safety.
Speaker 1:That's right. And so, like we're not here to shove, you know, anything down anybody's throats, you know we're not here to shove anything down anybody's throats. When I say we're no holds barred, we don't pull our punches. We're going to talk about anything and everything. So we're going to be completely open and transparent about maybe our opinions, maybe our feelings and with what's happening right now, no-transcript, right.
Speaker 1:So there are a lot of podcasters out there, there's a lot of TV shows and you know the news, like are you kidding me with the news? Like they just shove in what they think that you need to hear in their uh, faces and ears and eyes and and and trying to to force you into certain directions and possibly, um, but we're not, you know, we're not about that. We're, we're, we want to shed light on that stuff. Because if we're aware of the things that are happening right in our society and in the nation and we're aware of that and the issues like the pure, you know, problems, it's awareness would be number one to acknowledge it and then getting educated on it, right? So then we would talk about that and that's what we're going to do, or we'll talk about the maybe the educational piece, not from me, not from you know, from Casey, but uh, but from you all, on the education of it all, and and and allow us to exploit that Right.
Speaker 2:Well, and by bringing the awareness and education to people, we can also help come up with ideas on how to fix this, how to change things. You know, it's not just about finding the things that we need to fix. We're not trying to create a negativity, we're trying to create solutions, and so, by being able to pull in different points of view and different guest speakers on this podcast, we'll be able to give back some insight on maybe small changes that we can make at home, changes that we can make in the school systems, changes that we can make in society as a whole, um, or just things that we can do as individuals to make this better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so and we're we're not scared to be personal on this. You know, for example, you know me I'm active duty military currently, and you know I have my rules and stuff that are set in place that I am allowed to do and am not allowed to do, and I will abide by those. However, I will push that envelope to be able to discuss what we need to discuss as a nation. And so, as'm married, you know I've been married for 11 years and I'm still working through all kinds of crazy stuff with her and my boys. I'm learning every day from them, they're learning from me, and that's one of those things that you know is very important to me about this podcast is I really want everybody to have a voice so that I can essentially allow my kids or feel comfortable about my kids coming into the future and not having problems, not having to deal are or who you want to be just because of an assumption or an opinion or a standard that you think you should live based on other crap. Like to me. It's disgusting. Like everyone should be able to have their own life.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm a believer that you only got one of them. You only got one life. Why would you waste that worrying about other people? Why would you waste that worrying about opinions? Why would you waste that, and not only that, why would you waste the ability to be with your children and allow them to grow based on other people's opinions and other people's? You know, feelings like so tired of it, so tired of it, and that's really what it's about. It's going to be a little aggressive and we hope you guys can, you know, bear with us and and and stick it out with us, but ultimately, um, we're going to revert back uh, you know, always at the end to get us to the point where we're talking about the fundamental root of getting our children to be able to play outside until the streetlights come on Right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I can offer a different perspective on that. I'm a single parent. I do have three daughters. Two of them are in public school, my youngest is special needs and in a private school. So I have different perspectives on different angles that I can offer as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And you got that civilian kind of, um, you know corporate lifestyle that you've always had your whole life. You're an entrepreneur, right, you have a business up in Tennessee, yeah, and you're also an event coordinator and you're pumping out, like a lot of you know that, that style of living. Meanwhile, I'm active duty military Now. Granted, I'm an entrepreneur myself. I have two companies, a for-profit and nonprofit, and you know angel force foundation and angel force protection, which we'll talk about, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:Uh, you know many episodes, um, down the road here, um, but, but ultimately is we're, we're trying to get everybody to understand this that we are, we're going to meet every criteria that everyone wants us to meet and we're not going to be a bias about it. So, if you come at us and you say, you know, hey, Josh, I heard your podcast that first day, you know I would really love to talk about this X, y, z and we're going to say, all right, you want to talk about X, y Z, how about? We talk about Y, because X may be a little too much, and Z, yeah, just not. Not a conversation that's going to, you know, help us get to the point where we need to get to, and that we'll run polls for everybody. Allow them to decide which conversation that we want to talk about next. Um, obviously we'll take anybody's voice and go through those and see whether or not they're legit. And let's say, you have something you want to talk about that's a little aggressive. We will maybe get more information from you on that or we'll tell you no and the reason why we're not going to pull our punches If you come at us with some childish crap that's going to do nothing but waste time. We're not going to talk about it, all right, so hear us out on that. We're also normal humans and we've got things going on. So think about it y'all.
Speaker 1:We've recorded a few hours already. So think about it y'all. We've been trying to. We've recorded a few hours already. This is, you know, this is another recording that we're doing. That's helping us get to the very first episode, final cut scene, no-transcript to get put out. So we're a little bit of everywhere into everything, and so that's going to be. One of our biggest things is to look, um, look at your guys's. Um, we're going to be one of our biggest things is to look at your guys'. We're going to need your opinion and we're going to need your ideas. We have a billion ideas to talk about, but we want yours specifically, right?
Speaker 2:So, with that, contact information for us, if you want to be on the podcast, you want to give your voice, you want to— Offer something to this, if you want to be a guest speaker on here, what's our email, josh, where people can contact and just get in touch with us to say hey, I want to come on this podcast, I'd love to speak and I'd love to offer an insight to this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, angelforcefoundation at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:We also have streetlightangelspodcast at gmailcom. Streetlightangelspodcast at gmailcom. We also have streetlight angels podcast at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:Streetlight angels podcast at gmailcom. Uh, that's our numero uno, our get to um. We're going to be building and establishing a website soon so that everybody could get on there and blog up. Uh, talk to each other. Give us some reviews. Tell us how trash we are. Tell us how awesome we are. You know you're not going. Talk to each other, give us some reviews. Tell us how trash we are. Tell us how awesome we are. You know you're not going to hurt my feelings or hers. I'm sure Just know we're probably going to laugh at you if you got some bad words to say we don't really care about your feelings. We're going to say what we need to say to get us back to the point where I can trust the neighborhood and the community and the nation. Let my children be grown into this lovely country we have.
Speaker 2:Absolutely where we can all trust.
Speaker 1:We can all come together. That's right. We can do better. We can do better. There's a lot of people out there running their mouths and doing stuff. A lot of people out there, lots of talks, lots of talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, doing stuff. And a lot of people out there, you know, lots of talks, lots of talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, no, no walk. You know, nobody's actually taking that extra step forward and doing it and it's, it's horrible because I can't show my kids that. You know what I mean. I can't, I can't, I can't allow or even see my children growing up in a world where everybody just running their miles and nobody's doing anything good about it. You know, I don't remember it being like that when I was a kid, do you?
Speaker 2:Yes, I know, I feel that there there have. There have always been good versus evil in the world. There have always been good versus evil in the world. I know that with technology and the growth in technology, things have changed massively. I think that that has really helped to mold and shape young minds.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that technology is a bad thing because we use it every day Cell phones, social media platforms, television but if we go back through the decades, history repeats itself to an extent and certain agendas are pushed through news stations, agendas are pushed through television stations.
Speaker 2:Back in the 80s, there's no way that you would have seen some of the things that we have on TV now. However, some of the positives with that technology is and this is going to be an unpopular thing, possibly but we can now look up pedophiles that are in neighborhoods. Technology can help us in so many ways to create safety. You have cameras in homes where, if we are working, we can drop in on the kids and check in on them, but, on the same token, not keeping an eye on the technology and not being actively present in what our kids are watching on YouTube, on TikTok, on Snapchat. There are so many things that are woven into these platforms that are seeping into our kids' brains and molding and shaping them. So I feel that that has been a huge transition from when we were kids.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm closer to 40 than I am 30s now and I can't. I didn't have a cell phone until I was about 15 years old. There were no real social media platforms. We had MySpace and AOL.
Speaker 1:AOL. Yeah, I remember that MySpace Facebook when it first came out. Matter of fact, I had a friend create me a Facebook account back when it first started and I didn't know anything about it until it first came out. Matter of fact, I had a friend create me a Facebook account back when it first started and I didn't know anything about it until it was like you know, it was already like going, you know. But, yeah, aol, I remember. But yeah, I think technology is one of those. It's definitely one of those love hates. I think it's very good educational.
Speaker 1:uh, educationally, I think that the to use the education portion of the technology is amazing to have resources at their fingertips is, I think, absolutely amazing absolutely you know it's the by unpopular opinion, like you said um, you know you, we can see if there's a pedophile next door absolutely yeah, but so yeah, but they've always been there. That's the weird thing, right.
Speaker 2:They have always been there.
Speaker 1:They have but now we have the ability to see it, which scares us almost right. It makes us nervous. Now here's the thing we have always had, that. People may have already known it, but it was different back then. And why? It's because now we have fear instilled in us through this crap, so, and we also don't have trust in the community anymore. I believe there's the community is not trusting at all.
Speaker 2:Well, because neighbors don't come out any longer Like we used to I how many people can genuinely say that you know the names of your neighbors that are to your left, to the right, behind you and in front of you? That's encompassing your home.
Speaker 1:I just know across from me and to the left of me, that's it. And I've got neighbors that go all the way around me. But you're right, I don't know. And then, plus, I could probably name only two people in my entire neighborhood. Which is trash. It used to be back in the day where you could let your kids go out and your neighbor five blocks down or three roads down would hit you up and be like, hey, they'd be calling my parents. Hey, man, your kid's acting the fool over here, come get them.
Speaker 2:Actually, I do have that.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, you have that in your neighborhood right now I do. Oh well, that's nice.
Speaker 2:I don't know everyone. There are over a hundred homes in my neighborhood. I don't know everyone. There are over a hundred homes in my neighborhood but on the backside front, left right, I know my neighbors and I've actually had them call me and say hey, I wrote, I realized that your car's not in the driveway but your kids are ABC. Have you have you approved this, and I'm absolutely not I'll be right there to take care of that and they were just baffled that that even happened.
Speaker 2:but I have some, I have the, I have some of the best neighbors.
Speaker 1:That's good. I don't. I mean they may be, amazing neighbors, but we don't communicate like that. You know what I mean. We don't have that.
Speaker 2:How hard is it to walk next door and knock on someone's door and and make them some cookies or some kind of dessert?
Speaker 1:it's not hard.
Speaker 1:It's not hard yeah, and just shake their hand hi, you're right, I'm, it's not hard, but we don't do it. We've lost it. We lost that well before. And people blame covid and get out of here with the COVID crap. I just got over COVID, did you? I know? I just did again for the fourth time, like I'm so tired of the blaming COVID crap. All those were COVID days Like man shut up. We're going to keep going. We're going to keep pushing and and, and. I'm not going to change the way my life was before or after, and no one else should. So stop using COVID as a, as an excuse that you know we we're. Is that picking up on ours? Yes, holy crap, we're going to have to be in like a sound booth, like straight up. You guys hear that. You guys it does. I wonder if anybody hears that. I mean, I'm, I'm honest, we're sitting in a living room on a couch chilling, guys, guys, if you guys didn't realize that by now. So it lacks a dazzle. But back to what I was trying to say.
Speaker 2:So with that, though, COVID created a lot of anxiety.
Speaker 1:It crippled people. It crippled people's minds. It did.
Speaker 2:And it did create a lot of fear and anxiety and panic, it did. There were so many people that lost loved ones that you know it wasn't just a cold for them.
Speaker 1:You're right. You're right, but so was the flu. People lose people from flus constantly and pneumonia, and pneumonia All the time. We don't publicize that like they did COVID.
Speaker 2:But this was a mass outbreak, and so the United States hasn't really seen that before.
Speaker 1:It was weird because I was in Japan when COVID hit hard and then I was also there when all the bull crap was coming on in the States. Yes, you know, like with all the riots and all the stupid people doing stupid crap all the time, it's terrible Like I was looking at the news going I'm not going back to the States, I'm a I'm an active duty Navy military member where all my whole life is to protect the freedom of this country. I didn't even want to come to this country. You know what I mean. I didn't even want to come to it.
Speaker 1:I've been to war zones, you know, and I've done the dirty dirty, but I didn't want to come back to the country I was born in because there were places that the streets were shut down and taken over by some random people. Are you kidding me? What kind of shenanigans was going on back there? Then COVID hit and it was like look at the sheep. Now COVID was a sickness that nobody was using. You know what's funny? I read this on one of the Lysol bottles it says it's been around for yeah, covid's been around for years and years, and years and years.
Speaker 2:It has, but the issue with it was that-.
Speaker 1:The strand right.
Speaker 2:It mutated, just like any cold does.
Speaker 1:Well, what I'm saying is, I think that it did cripple the nation into a point where now it was it crippled them so much they're using it as an excuse. You know what I mean. Now there are, like I said, there are a lot of very unfortunate events where people you know people died because of COVID, but that is every day about everything.
Speaker 2:Well, and also you can die walking across a tree. You can Come on Well, and also walking across a tree you can, but it's also about instilling a sense of security back in the people too.
Speaker 1:True.
Speaker 2:Because I mean, let's be real, you could turn on the news, radios, news stations. Everything was so negative. Everyone's dying. Don't come out, stay in your homes. I mean, it was just negative, negative, negative. So then after isn't it still?
Speaker 1:I don't, I don't, I don't recall going on the news and actually seeing anything good these days, do you?
Speaker 2:I don't turn it on. If I'm being honest, I don't watch it. I I choose not to. I can pull up current events where I live and current events in the world, but I do not turn on the news because of the negativity and the anxiety that it breeds.
Speaker 1:It does. It's tough. My mom, she gets on there and she watches it every morning. She watches the stuff and a lot of times she'll give me like a lot of good stuff, but there's a lot of things that she sees on the news and then it affects her emotionally, which then in turn affects everyone around her emotionally, because she'll be like Josh, I need you to worry about this, this and this, and I'm like what, come on, get out of here. You know what I mean. Or I'll be like okay, well, I actually take you know that seriously sometimes. But, yeah, the news, holy cow, like that's going to be an episode, probably five episodes straight on that one. But you know, I'm pretty sure you know our listeners are going to have plenty to say about the news, but you know that's not it.
Speaker 1:Like I said, it's not only just the news. Now we have the technology, we've got social media, we've got, you know, very important people with very big listeners and crowds and people, um, that that actually follow them. You know, and making decisions for people is irritating for me as well, um, you know. So, not only the news, but you also have these. Who are they that are like, um, what are they called the people that are, uh, influencers, yeah, right, so now we have influencers, right? Yes, and so there are some really awesome influencers don't get me wrong like influencers that are good and mean well, but then you've got ones that shouldn't be influencers, that think they are Well. They are influencers because the people that listen to them or follow them you know what I mean or look up to them, you know they're affecting very spongy minds, to include my kids, and I'm going to tell you right now, like this podcast I'm going to call I'll call them out in a second if I've got somebody specific that I'm talking about and I don't care.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. Like, if they're affecting my child's mind because of their. You know they're supposed to be singing music and bringing joy to people's lives, yet they're going to be talking about politics. You know what I mean. Like, stay within your own realm, stay within your own reach and your own life. Like, if you want to have a voice, or you have a voice, kind of like what we're doing right now, don't make it a biased voice.
Speaker 1:You tell these people that they can make their own decision. You don't say I'm going to make this, I choose this and I want everybody to do it with me. You're not a God, you're not a higher power. You're just a human being with a lot of social power as an influencer. Do not dictate or try to influence my children's brains into going into that direction. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I don't even do that to my own children. My wife doesn't do that to her. We don't do that to our own kids. We allow them the ability to be able to grow right On their own. We give them the tools to allow them to grow on their own and make their own decisions. If it's a bad decision based on the views of morals, that's right. Good, positive morals and standards, exactly, then that needs to be discussed, yes. But when it comes to, you know, any of this other stuff, we're done. I'm so done with them and this podcast right here, this is going to be my ability to be able to call them out on that crap. You know what I mean and I'm going to be obviously you know for the listeners a little bit more aggressive than Casey is, I'm sure, when it comes to this, but I know you definitely have some opinion on that. So you have three beautiful little girls that are very you know impressionable.
Speaker 1:Yes, extremely impressionable, absolutely, and I don't see you in any way allowing anybody else to make heavy impressions on them to where it's going to affect their actual life in the future.
Speaker 2:Right, I've raised my girls to have good morals and values and standards. Now, do they always exercise that? No, they're children, However, for the most part they're learning. They're learning themselves. They're learning to be. Two of them're learning. They're learning themselves. They're learning to be. Two of them are teenagers. They're young ladies. So developing their mind, developing a way to make good, healthy decisions for themselves, I feel is extremely important, especially in society today.
Speaker 2:They go to school for eight hours and then they have sports afterward. I may see them for a few hours before bedtime. So I am I'm fully on board with my children being able to make and me guiding them to help them along that path, but to make good decisions for themselves Now sure.
Speaker 2:My youngest child is. It's a little different for her, and that is something that I'm learning every day. She is high functioning autistic, and so she has taught me in so many different ways how to love differently, how to communicate differently, how to just my gosh, how to, how to even just have patience and not allow anxiety to take over. Um, but with that, her beautiful mind analyzes so many things on a different level, and so she's she's learning as well, and I do feel that it's different's different for girls sometimes than it is boys, but at the same time, finding a balance and teaching them to be mindful to be mindful, to have their manners and to still have their voice.
Speaker 1:That's right. Good, positive morals allow them the ability to grow. Morals allow them the ability to to grow. Uh, and we don't need any background trash to help us. You know, educate our children. You know what I mean. Um, trash is what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:That's where we can stand up and fight back now.
Speaker 1:That's right, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Um and and, and that's what we're going to do Right now. To this point, to this day, I don't feel comfortable with my kids going to ride their bikes outside by themselves. No, I don't. Well, I'm tired of that. I'm so tired of that. I want my kids, when they get older and they have kids I want my boys to be able to sit inside and relax and know that their children are safe when they're outside playing and enjoying themselves as children, right? So stay with us y'all.
Speaker 1:This is what we're going to be talking about. This is the stuff that we are going to shed light on in here at Streetlight Angels podcast. We are going to open up so many opportunities for people to voice their opinion and to raise awareness to the issues that we're having, and we're going to continue doing this, if anything for our own benefit, to be able to just vent and get it out there and learn to grow from each other, and we highly encourage you all to do this with us, and we're so excited to be here doing this and we're so excited for everyone to be a part of this with us, and we cannot wait to talk to you all again.
Speaker 2:We urge you, guys, if you want to be a part of this, if you want to have a voice, if you just want to shoot us an email, see if you can be a guest speaker, see if you can offer something to this Streetlightangelspodcastgmailcom. We'd love to hear from you.