Grown Ass Dads Podcast | Episode 4: Dad Stress Is Real – and We’re Feeling It 🧠💥👨‍👧‍👦

Welcome to Episode 4 of Grown Ass Dads, where three mid-life dads pull back the curtain on what it really feels like to be the steady one, the strong one, the one who’s just supposed to “figure it out.”

This episode dives into the unspoken stress of modern fatherhood—the emotional weight, the mental load, and the silent pressure we carry every damn day. From the everyday grind to the “oh sh*t, I’m not okay” moments, we’re having the conversation most dads don’t.

🔥 Episode Highlights:

• Why we bottle stress—and why it’s breaking us
• The pressure to be the rock, even when you’re crumbling
• How a simple "thank you" from your partner can flip your week
• Cracks in the armor – letting your kids see the real you
• Guilt, shame, and the fear of failing our families
• Trying to do it all vs. asking for help
• How our emotions leak out sideways (aka quiet rage and garage escapes)
• The surprising relief of being seen, even for a moment

🧠 This is for the dads holding it together with humor, bourbon, and pure grit.

You’re not alone—and you’re not broken. Let’s talk about it.

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💬 Drop a comment:

• What’s been the hardest part of fatherhood no one warned you about?
• What do you do when the stress starts to overflow?
• Ever get a “thank you” that changed your whole mood?

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Transcript

0:00

We're tired, we're stressed, and yeah, we might be emotional gorillas. Today, we unpack the stress of being a grown-ass dad and why telling your partner thank you might just save your sanity and your sex life. Welcome to the Grown-Ass Dads Podcast. Welcome to the Grown-Ass Dads Podcast. I'm Adam Bundren here with Jay Hilsing. Bones, good to see you again, brother. Good to be seen, baby. I am Jason Byrne. I don't have a glass in front of me, but hey, cheers to you guys. Absolutely. As always, here with Jason Byrne. So what we wanted to talk about today was the stress of fatherhood. Beautiful. Big topic, right? Huge. So, as always, Jason has brought us a plethora of questions and comments and pressure cooker moments, if you will, to kind of open the discussion up. Some feedback from the audience lately, which has been great, so keep that coming. Extra topics or things that you guys want us to answer is super fun and engaging, so keep that rolling. So, I guess, is there anything harder than being a grown-ass dad? Yeah. It's few and far between, but my opinion, being a grown-ass mom is harder than being a grown-ass dad. Oh, he went there. Facts. And the main reason for that is they have to do all the same stuff that we do, and they've got to manage our dumbasses. Yeah. They have one extra child. They have one extra grown-ass child that they have to manage. And I'll tell you right now, the grown-ass single mom, most badass on the planet. A really good one, absolute stone-cold killer. And I have a ton of respect for that. And most of the grown-ass dads listening to this are going to be like, fuck that. Our job's harder than that. Well, sit down and look yourself in the mirror real quick. And if you've got a killer wife that's your partner in crime there, I guarantee you that her job's harder than yours. And I'm recently divorced, and I still will give a ton of absolute props, accolades to my ex-wife, who is a Stone Cold killer. And she is a badass mom, and her job was harder than mine, as much as that pains me at times to say. We've got it hard. They've got one extra piece on their plate that they've got to manage, and we're fucking dumbasses. Facts. They also had that whole thing like creating the kid. They had to do that. Yeah, I'm going to hard pass that. It's kind of an easy couple minutes for us. There's dads that are out there like, man. I wish I could do that. Fuck that noise. No, absolutely not. No way. No. I mean, watching that happen and watching that 9 months of just absurdity, it's insane. I want nothing to do with that, and I am thrilled that I am a dude. agreed. So I think what Jay is trying to say is much love and respect to those grown-ass moms. To the grown-ass moms, absolutely. But what I will tell you here is, Bones, when was the last time you told your wife thank you? You said, honey, killed it today. Thank you for taking care of shit. I know I do, but I'm going to say I judge it as not nearly enough. Okay. I try to give gratitude as often as I possibly can. But even if I gave it every day, it wouldn't be enough because like you said, her job is infinitely harder than mine. And I won't say it's better or worse. It's totally different. And I don't want her job. Like it feels so much harder. Yeah. So I don't say it enough, but I do try to make a conscious effort to say it. Jason, when's the last time you told your wife thank you? I can't tell you exactly when it was. I will say that that is one thing I think that we're really good about is saying thank you as often as we possibly can. One thing that, now that you mention it, though, that I think is the funniest part about that is I feel like I am saying thank you more often for dealing with my shit than I am saying thank you for dealing with everything else. So we're talking about how we're like that additional child. I think I'm the hardest child for my wife to take care of than the 3 that are actual children of ours. I know your kids, and you are definitely the worst. You're the worst. With love, you're the worst. I do, and I love you, but you're the worst. I had that, and I think back to the time with her, and we spent 20 years together, and if I could go back and do that over again, verbalizing the things that she did for me and for our family and the shit that she had to go through. I didn't thank her enough for all the crazy shit that she goes through and still goes through. So I would recommend to the the audience uh unsolicited just go thank your wife and i don't care if you make up but just tell her hey killed it killed it this week killed it today i'll tell you what if if you don't if you don't give gratitude enough and you and you take the advice that you just gave and you sit your significant other down and sincerely look them in the eyes and say hey i just want to thank you for what you did and what you do for our family i just nothing specific you do so much and i just want to say thank you i bet the look on their face is enough fuel to allow you to do that more often Because I've had breaks in between, long breaks in between giving that gratitude and then said something of that effect. And what you get back is like, hey, I really needed to hear that today. Thank you so much. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So many people just feel like it's just assumed. Like, well, we're in it together. We'll always be together. As opposed to like, oh, this is a deposit that I have to put in regularly. And they have to put in regularly. And if you don't, that shit runs dry. So blessings, man. Thank you for sharing that with us. We are gorillas. I actually call my children mini gorillas. And what I think Looking back and thinking about it, I feel like if I did that more, I would want to do that more because in the gorilla world, we're going to get something back from that. And I'm taught, you know, you feed a gorilla and they're going to keep doing the thing that you feed them for. And so I think if us as the dads in that world give that, appreciation and give that verbal notice that we see you you're going to get that reaction you're going to get that look back you're going to get that big deep sighs like oh my god I needed that and then again as gorillas that probably turns into getting laid at some point in time because of it and so you know you have I'm not saying that's the only reason you want to do that but it's there's a that ain't going to hurt for sure that ain't going to hurt But in that same vein, being a grown-ass dad is still real fucking hard. It is really hard. So how do you handle the pressure of, and I know that your pressure is different than some. Sure, yeah. But how do you handle the pressure of being the provider, both in your household, financially, emotionally? How does that pressure manifest itself? It'll consume you. man i'll tell you what there there are a lot of there are a lot of dads that are really really struggling with it because that that will beat you the fuck down and if that's if you are fixated on it and that's not something that you're comfortable with that level of stress i'm willing to bet that's a lot of the reasons why there's so many dads that are just kind of walking around in a haze because they're just trying to make it through and what how i'm going to do the next thing And in that same situation, what we just talked about with the moms, when you have that, when was the last time that your wife told you, thanks for being the dude? Thanks for carrying the waterman? Often. Really? Yeah. Good for you. Yeah. And it usually comes through when I need it the most. That's awesome. And I think She's really great at seeing me when I'm in a really bad place and knows that I'm really fucked up right now and I'm dealing with depression or anxiety or versions of PTSD and she sees it and then she still sees me go to work or she still sees me go to coach the kids or she still sees me go and do the thing or come here or whatever. And that's when she's like, holy shit, he's pushing. He doesn't want to push, but he's pushing. And she shares that appreciation with me, which As like in my own head, I'm like, I don't fucking deserve, but God damn, it feels good. Yeah, buddy. Okay. I think, um, I think our house is actually, I've never really sat down and thought about it through this lens, to be honest with you. But I, I feel like our house is very, very balanced. And maybe that's why I consider our relationship and our marriage so damn healthy. Because sure, I'm dealing with, you can call it dad stress. What I'm calling my stress is work stress. She's dealing with a lot more work stress now than she ever has because she's got a new job and she's getting acquainted with it and all that kind of stuff. But she also handles a lot of the household stuff. So she's She's working part-time, but she's also taking care of the home, taking care of a lot of the things with the kids. She pays our bills. I like to joke about how I make the money, she spends the money. That's not always the case because she's making money and I'm spending just as much as she is a lot of the time too. our stresses are in many ways different, but I feel like they're balanced. And do as well take a lot of time to do that appreciation. I didn't get a chance to comment on it a few minutes ago, but That whole concept of the holistic thank you of just being who you are and doing everything that you do, I don't know that we do that enough or really at all. It's more transactional. It absolutely is. I know this afternoon before I left to come here. She said, thank you for all the laundry that you did today, or thanks for loading the dishwasher, or thanks for laying in bed with me for an extra 15 minutes this morning. It's transactional, is a great way to put it. I think it would be It behooves me to let her know how much I appreciate holistically everything that she does for the house as a mom. And I don't expect her to say thank you to me. But I also just feel like I'm doing what I'm expected to do as a dad. Yeah. Yeah, but DM doesn't feel good to be a gangster when that thank you does come out, whatever it was. I mean, I don't know. You're not going to peacock around after you load the dishwasher. I mean, maybe you do. Good for you if you celebrate that way. If it's the second time in a row, I'm going to peacock like a son of a bitch. You're beating that chest a little bit. I get it. But, you know, it's still as much as uh you know there's there's dads there's some some i'll call them snowflakes um that need to be told that they're good all the time and you know that's fine and if that's who you are and that's who you're married to then then tell them they're great all the time so they can keep that win in their sales uh then there's a lot of other dads that just kind of go through it and they they're like hey this is just expected this is my job this is part of being a grown-ass dad And even in that world, that occasional attaboy, that occasional, hey, you really did some things today, that will fill those sails in a big way for a long time, and that steam will go. Everybody's different in how that is, but I think the mutual respect and the mutual gratitude is something that you said earlier and creates a really healthy environment for your marriage and for yours. And, you know, dealing with what we're talking about and the stress of fatherhood being, you know, singular on that is you got a partner in crime, the both of you do. And, you know, I have a different outlook or a different scenario right now being, you know, the king of all at this point without a backer. without somebody to be in the boat with me. And so there's a different level of stress that goes along with that. Because if I don't win, if I don't make the money that I need to make, if I don't make the mortgage, if things go sideways at work or things go sideways at home, there's nobody coming to save the day. This is where, I mean, you know, my mom or my sisters might come save the day for me because I've got a really great network and they may come save the day even when I don't want them to. But I love having them around. But there's a level of stress that goes along with that, that if you're going to fixate and if I were to just sit with my own thoughts for 20 minutes or an hour or whatever, That's a scary-ass place to be in this coconut man. For sure. Because there's enough in life to beat you the fuck down. And when you're on your own, it could cripple you. as a grown-ass dad and why it's so hard, it doesn't matter. Nobody's coming to save the day, so you better get your shit together and you better get going. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the hardest things that is kind of adjacent to what you just said is I am constantly, burdened is not the right word, but I am constantly stressed about not fucking up my kids. Yeah, like it is constant, whether it's financially and giving them the ability to do the things that they want to do, play the sports they want to play, go to the school that they want to go to and have the opportunities that I want them to have. Or it's from a leadership perspective and helping them see the life through the lens of a leader and sharing very difficult moments with them and saying, hey, this is a reality of life, but or and you have to handle yourself a certain way or even spiritually. I look at myself as the spiritual leader of my house and I lack that. often in my spirituality. I know this isn't a spirituality podcast, but that's a very big part of our lives. We pray often. We pray at every meal and at night, and we give thanks and all those things. But I often see my shortcomings way more than I see my value, way more. And I'm in a business just like you all where I eat what I kill. So if I don't go out and make the money that I need to make in order to keep the roof over our head, we don't have a roof over our Now, it's worked out over the years to where I've been lucky enough to have built a nice business, but at the same time, I'm constantly preparing for it all to fall apart at all times. Luck doesn't have anything to do with it, Bones. Grinding it out. For sure. I love the people that go, oh, jeez, you're so lucky. I wish I could get lucky like you. Yeah. There was a lot of luck in the 60 to 90 hour weeks I was putting in and door knocking and doing all this shit to bang the fucking hole in the wall so that I can get through and actually make something out of this. And so the grind and what that is, is different. And dude, you're great at what you do. So you got to believe in that. And I know that you do. Yeah, and I mean, I do. I certainly go through moments where I'm like, if you put me in a room full of people that are in my same industry, I think I'm the best in the room. But that's part ego, part chip, part all of those things. Just to your point, when I'm alone and I'm in my head, it is terrifying. I mean, it is a fucking terrifying place to be because I am constantly wondering, am I doing it right? Am I messing my kids up? Am I sabotaging my future? Am I ruining their future? Am I spending enough time? It's constant. Sure. I don't think you're alone, though. I know that I'm that way. Yeah. I think most dads probably are, right? And I don't know that it's even necessarily a unique to dads thing. I mean, I think we as adults and anybody who's a parent is going to have some degree of concern about what, am I being successful at raising the children that I want to be raising and so on and so forth. So don't, my lesson there, not even lesson, just my suggestion there is don't think you're the only one that's fighting that battle. I can say definitively for myself that I'm there. Well, I wanted to, just because you brought that up, I want just to give a shout out to Mr. Nations. I just want to let you know that Adam said that he's the best realtor in the room. So just put that in your pipe and smoke it. I would tell him that too. Absolutely. The questions you had posed was something about the stress of feeling the need to be the provider. I don't think I ever felt the pressure or the need to be the provider until I wasn't. So what I mean by that was I worked in corporate America for 17 years, made great money, had great benefits. I was not the happiest person in the world, and particularly the last 3, 4 years of my career, I was very unhappy just because of things that were going on in the workplace and so on and so forth. will say that my wife was a huge, huge hero. because she saw that I was that way and she actually stepped up, took on additional hours at work, got herself to a point where she had benefits that allowed me to actually step away and pursue the adventures of entrepreneurship that we're on now. However, Those first 3 years when I left my, we'll call it my cushy corporate job, and I was no longer the breadwinner in the home, holy shit did I feel the pressure at that point in time that I really got to get back to where we were because all of a sudden it was one of those situations where we didn't realize how good we had it, right? Right. I have no idea where we were spending our damn money because we survived with no income for a year, almost 2 years until we got our businesses up and running and so on and so forth. And and that's when the pressure really kicked in was like, OK, I was serving as a provider and maybe didn't even realize I was a provider. But then all of a sudden the stress kicked up. And now with us being in a scenario where we eat what we kill, you feel that more, right? So like we are in a service industry. So when you lose a client, you got to pick up a client. And sometimes you don't always pick up a client right away. So all of a sudden then, yes, those pressures start to weigh down on you and you realize, wow, I am not providing for my family right now. How do I fix this scenario? Right. But again, my wife is phenomenal in those scenarios to make sure that she's keeping up with things and propping me up and not letting me go down those dark paths that we were talking about. So I think that everybody here and people listening from a financial standpoint, I think everybody's got relative pressure. whatever that is, and you're the main breadwinner, you're the only breadwinner, you share that load, you're not the main breadwinner. There's still, there's an amount, there's a level of pressure that goes along with that. What I will ask to you, Bones, is outside of the financial stress or the financial pressure of being that guy, being grown-ass dad, making money and keeping the roof over your head, if you will, What's the most pressure that you feel? What's the thing that you think about the most that you grind on the most that you feel pressure being a dad? Wow. Deep. I can chime in. No, go ahead. Mine's very vague, but I feel pressured or stressed about making sure that my children are happy. Okay. Regardless of what it is, are we providing activities to keep them busy and keeping them happy? Or are we sending them to a school that they're happy in? So on and so forth. Are we providing adequate meals? Are we doing this? Are we doing that? I am always worried that I want my kids to be happy all the time. And I realize they're not going to be, I stress and I worry about whether or not I am doing everything that I can to give them the opportunities to be happy. They can choose whether they accept those or pursue the opportunities that are presented to them. But that actually probably weighs on me more so than being a financial provider is just making sure that I am providing my kids with the opportunities to do the things that make them happy and keep them in a Because I've gone to dark places before and I want to just make sure that I don't I do whatever I can to prevent them from going down those paths as well. So for me, yes. I mean, I want my kids to be happy. I stress about that often. And it's not always the right way, but sometimes that manifests itself in like making sure that they have more shit, right? More stuff, more games, more devices, more activities. That's kind of my way of satisfying that. But I think more than anything, the thing that I stress about the most is making sure or trying to make sure that my kids do not feel the pain that I grew up feeling. And that is a heavy, heavy burden. What's the pain? Um, man, uh, how long you got? Uh, I, so I, I've like many people and many people that are probably, you know, going to see this, uh, have dealt with a good amount of loss. Um, you know, when I was a kid, I buried my brother who was a year and 5 days older than me, um, have, have buried multiple friends. Um, I have no grandparents. I buried my mother, my sister-in-law. Um, I've felt loss, like many people have, but potentially more than the average bear. And I want to expose my kids to that enough to where they know it's inevitable, but not so much that they feel like death is chasing them. I've lived a long, I've lived a couple of versions of this pain to where one, I felt like death was chasing me and I didn't want people to really get too close to me or I wanted to manipulate the version of me that they got. so that they wouldn't be on the hook next, right? Very like final destination type shit. And then the other piece was like, this was my punishment. Losing everyone was my penance. And it comes from having this inherently belief that I'm bad, that I live a life of shame and I'm a bad person. And that comes from being a kid and not having the best go at it and dealing with a lot of shitty things that I think a lot of people also probably have in common. But dealing with pain at those levels has somewhat made me obsessed with trying to protect my kids from it. and it's so fucking hard to do, because pain and suffering is a part of life, and I can't shield them from that, and if I try to shield them too much from that, then they're gonna be blind to it, and I don't want that at all. i have uh so in my world yours yours is deep and in in the pain of that and i and i think that every people think about that as much as they're going to and you obviously have dealt with a lot of loss and um i my biggest stressor or what i think about the most with my boys is making sure that when I'm not around, and I'm not even talking about dying, I'm talking just when they leave my house, that they are equipped and they are good quality human beings that are Contributing members and they make the world better and when I say they make the world better I'm not even talking about somebody being the president or Humanitarian I'm not even taught. I'm talking about I would like Everybody wants their kids to make a bunch of money and and be something super special whatever and I got news for for folks. I All of your kids are not going to turn out to be the managing partner of a law firm or a brain surgeon or whatever, and some of them are. Well, we established in the last episode that they're all going to be Major League Baseball players. Correct. They're all going to be professional athletes and make 1000000. have told my boys from forever, whatever it is that you want to do, whatever you, whatever you love to do, go do that and do it really well and, and find and find some satisfaction in what that is. And if they're going to be blue collar guys and my, my younger son, uh, is potentially a carpenter or an electrician or a plumber or a blue collar of some sort guy. He loves working with his hands. He's always in the fight with me when I'm doing work around the house. My older one, when there's work to do around the house, he's like a fart in the wind. It's magical. I mean, he can disappear at the drop of a dime. But he has some great gifts as far as being a charismatic leader and communicating with people. And he brightens the room when he comes in. And so my biggest thing that I think about is I want to be able to set them up that whatever they decide they want to do, that's great and be great at it and be a hard worker, be a good employee, be a good entrepreneur, be whatever that is going to be. You're going to be able to make money. in anything that you do if you're great at it. People our age and a little bit older will look down on the people and go, oh, he must not have been really good at school. He's a carpenter. Well, carpenters in this area right now are making about one hundred and twenty five dollars an hour. They build the world. So, yeah, those guys are those guys are pretty smart and they're smart in their own way. And so that when and this wasn't exactly the question, but when when my kids are off on their own, it's what will satisfy me or what will I be able to look back at and be like, I did it. I did a really good job is if they are successful and happy. And to your point, Jason, the happiness part is absolutely part of it. Absolutely part of it because there are plenty of successful people that are fucking miserable, And so there are a lot of people that have a lot of money that are fucking miserable. And so if my kids grow up and they do something well and they enjoy what they do, very few and far between people love, they say, hey, do a job that you would do for free. there's not a whole lot of those. There's not a whole lot of those out there. But if they are happy more than they're not and they are successful to a point that they are going to be able to be contributing members of society and be grown-ass dads themselves someday, that's what I think about the most that stresses me out because I know that I have the ability to fuck that up. have the ability if they if I don't show them the right way to do this or I don't hold them accountable or I don't teach them enough I can fuck that up real easy right right so that that's that's where that's where my world is as far as stress so let me let me drop into a different question that we talked about before the show okay and and this is gonna be a hard 90 from where we just were. Let's go. Give me an example, and Jason, we talked about this a little bit also, of a time where you've had to give a pep talk to one of your kids that are fired up when you yourself are fired up. You're losing your shit, and they're losing your shit, and somehow you have to be the voice of reason. This is a terrible example because it's so petty and so small and so not important. But I'm dealing with this on a routine basis right now with my youngest. And I'm going to share some details of our last argument. And it's all around hockey. So I talked about it back in our sports episode that – We have gotten really good at losing to some degree, but you can't ever get good enough, especially when you just keep losing, right? So I'm trying to be that guy who's giving the pep talk to my son who comes out from a hockey game. will not acknowledge the fact that his grandparents are there or that my aunt and uncle came and watched or that we're even there. He comes out, throws his shit around, jumps in the car, slams the car door, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm trying to calm that down, right? Like, let's realize that we're here for fun. This is not the end of the world. Everything's going to be okay. Yet at the same time, on the inside of me, I'm going damn it, I cannot stand to watch this shit anymore. So I'm trying to figure out how do I convey to him, calm down, it's going to be okay, it's not the end of the world, when yet I am pissed as all get out inside, A, at his attitude, but also now at the fact that we've lost for the upteenth time in a row. So we're in the car coming home from a game, it was probably just this past weekend actually, And he was his angry little elf self. He literally has angry little elf on the back of his spring 4 v. 4 jersey. That's the name on his jersey. Because it's true. He's a little elf, and he's freaking angry. So he gets in the car, slamming his stuff around, and I'm like I can't believe you're doing this. Why are you so upset? So I start to lose my cool, right? And then, of course, Hillary's, calm down, calm down. I'm not getting physical. I'm just getting worked up. Passionate. Passionate, yes. So I calm myself down, and I'm like, buddy, we've got to figure this out. And he exploded. Like, he's 12 years old, does not cuss in front of us, and he literally looked at me in the rearview mirror and goes I'm sick of this shit. I'm never playing fucking hockey again. Woo. I turned around. So I literally had to say nothing from that point on because I knew that anything that came out of my mouth was wrong and it was not going to be good. So I kind of let that one go. And then I guess the way that I handled it, may have been wrong because I ignored it and just let it go. But then the next day I addressed it and I was like, okay. Cooler heads are going to prevail. Let's have a conversation about this. And I said, buddy, what happened last night was not cool. I understand you were upset. I was upset too. So I guess the way that I approached it was like we came to the same level. We took the time to sleep on it, right? And then he's like, yeah, dad, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, okay, but really quickly, just for clarification's sake, because I want to make sure that I remember this correctly. Did you call me a piece of shit? And he's like, no, no, no, no. Never. Then I'm like, OK. Then it wasn't that bad. Because as I started to reel on this experience, that's what I started to remember was him calling me a piece of shit and then talking about how hockey you're not going to play anymore. But no, I think, honestly, back to the question about how do I deal with the situation when I know that I'm losing my mind at the same time is literally giving it some space, giving it some time. Because I know that if I come in hot, In a situation where I know that they're hot, it's not going to end well for either of us. Jay, what say you? Oh, I run a little hot. And I'm as competitive as any human being on the planet. And most of the time, this stuff runs either with school or sports, and most of the time sports. But you have a situation where the only Well, one of the things that I did that worked out really, really well was my oldest runs real hot also. He wears his emotions on his sleeve. And he's very easy to read. And if he's high, he's high. And if he's low, he's low. And He was really upset earlier this year about some stuff that was going on and I was pretty mad and he didn't handle, he hadn't been handling himself normally or correctly and we went home and we had a quiet car ride and he was mad, I was mad. And, uh, we got home and he, uh, he took a shower and, and got done and he came out in the living room. And I think he was expecting to get his ass ripped. I think he was expecting, like, I know that I, I know that I blew this one. Dad's pissed. And, I was pissed and I was, I was trying to figure out how do I, how do I talk to him and not make it worse because that, that would have been, that was kind of the easy spot. And to your story earlier, like as soon as, as soon as yours yelled at you and, and cussed at you, you could have been like, water and and that could have been just a powder keg of a really ugly car ride um but he he came out and and i i was sitting on the couch and i came over and i literally just gave him a hug and he just started bawling and i i knew he's twelve and it handling emotions of losing and handling emotions of failure and different stuff and and And sometimes we don't do a good job or recognize that. And I've definitely fucked that up in the past where he's done some shit and he's come out and thrown his bag or, you know, slammed a car door. I'm like, stop doing dumb shit. Like, figure it out. And knowing that he and I are the same exact person. And when I was 12, I'd have done the exact same thing and probably way worse. Gave him a hug and he cried for a little while. And then that was him getting the rest of that anger out. And so then we were able to sit down and be like, all right, that sucked. That was really rough. It was rough to watch from dad's perspective. I know that was rough for you. And, um, we were able to get to a spot where he was like, I, I'm not, he verbalized and I was super proud of him. He was like, I'm not happy with how that went and how I handled it. And I know that I gotta be better and I gotta be better for my team and and this and and the the hilarity of it is he kind of taught himself or talked himself into it and I got a little bit lucky I I really did it was more of a You don't think it's like this example that you've been giving him for 12 years and like parenting him and like being a good dad and all that stuff probably maybe. gave him his ability to learn another lesson? And I just let it breathe for a minute that I and and quite frankly, I learned a shit ton from that specific moment. I'm like, all right, he's going to remember doing dumb shit. I don't have to immediately rip his ass. This isn't a Labrador that if they, you know, pee on the floor that they're going to forget 38 seconds from now and I have to get right. I have to I have to let him know this. And so I got fortunate because I I made a choice that I because I was I was mad at the time. And I'm like, you know what? I don't know that this is going to be super productive. And fortunately, I'm a forty five year old grown ass dad because when I was 35, I probably ripped his ass right there and then it would have gotten worse. But I let it breathe a little bit. And he he was able to kind of talk to it. And he did more of the talking than I did, which From what I have experienced, the more that I can get him talking, the better that conversation goes and the more that he takes from that. Yeah. So that worked out really well. And I don't know. I got a little bit lucky. I think you made a good point there, though. I know I can speak for my household a lot is the pep talks that are literally sitting down, calm, cool, and collected, premeditated a little bit. and pointed are far more productive and show better results than flying off the handle raising my voice yelling anything along those lines because they they tune that out as soon as as soon as i start to yell or if my wife starts to yell or we start to get angry it's just a boop they've got this this volume control in their ear to turn it down whereas you You give them a few minutes to calm down and get over it. I don't care if it's a couple of hours or if it's even the next day or a couple days later. And you come back and you revisit it. It's given me an opportunity to think through how I want to approach this. But it's also given them time to reflect back on how they handled the situation. So those times that I will actually sit down and I'll be like, all right, buddy, listen, let's talk about what happened X, Y, Z night or what have you. I think it is so much more impactful that you just sit down and you talk it through. Don't dictate. Don't try to control the scenario. Have a conversation and do it in a productive way. And I just find that the results are so much better that Yeah. Bones? Well, I want to tell a quick story and then I want to answer the question because I think it's important. So, one of the things that I do, and I know that I've shared this with you men off camera or whatever this is, off the cast, is I'm a part of a men's support organization. And they do great work. They are exactly what that sounds like. So, there's men there that have run the gamut men that have dealt with addiction men that have been abused men that have been abusers men that have dealt with loss all over the place and it's just a place for them to get support and in that organization there's these retreats once a year that I went through a few years ago as a participant and now I get the opportunity to staff those weekends and And I staffed one last September and there was a man who ran the staffing, his name was Robert, I wish I could remember his last name, and he said something that I think about all the time. And he said, most men are going through their life dealing with something and they're afraid to share it because someone on the receiving end is gonna try to fix it. And they're gonna try to fix them. And that's not what they need. They need someone to hold space. And that's what we're gonna do this weekend. We're gonna shut the fuck up and we're gonna hold space. And when we wanna fix them, we're gonna shut the fuck up and we're gonna hold space. And when something triggers us to a point where we feel like we need to inject our own needs and our own desires and our own outcomes into it, we're gonna shut the fuck up and we're gonna hold space. Because we don't get that. And when you were just kind of talking about the way that you sat your oldest down and how you sat Carter down and you gave them the opportunity to open up and you held space. And I think that as a dad, if we can do that, if we can get our kids talking in a way where they can just be safe and we can hold space for them, then they have the opportunity to learn and we have the opportunity to learn about how they function. So I just wanted to share that story because while you both were talking, I had Robert in my ear screaming, like, hold space, hold space. So thank you for that. Hardest thing in the world is shut the fuck up. Isn't it? As a dad. As a caretaker, as a dad. Absolutely. Well, I know how to fix it. I know how to fake. Just listen to me. I'll tell you exactly what you need to do. And it's the hardest thing in the entire fucking world. It really is. So my answer is not always to hold space. I try. I do try. And I think with most things, I can come at it from a calm angle, right? So I always say, I joke a lot, Bundrens are really good losers, right? We're really bad winners. I'm really good at losing, but if I win, your ancestors are going to feel it. I'm going to let you know. I'm not a good winner. I'm a great loser. So I think for most things, from a competitive perspective, yes, I'm competitive and I get frustrated, but I think I shut that part down to try to give the lesson. Where I lose my mind is when my kids show like disrespect to their mom or disrespect to their grandma or just a thousand percent like if they if they sometimes like um my my mother-in-law is a saint and some she comes over and she does so much for those boys and sometimes they will just not even acknowledge that she has just walked in and and done these things or taken them to these places or done this stuff and i i I mean, I want to lose it. I want to grab them like Homer Simpson style and just strangle the shit out of them. And that's what we get in fights over is what my expectation is for you and then for them it's like, what did I even do? What's the problem? And so that's where I really need to keep my shit in check because I lose my temperature on that stuff in a drop. And most of the time, the way that those fights happen is they're sent to their room, which is like, hey, get away from me. Go to your room. And by the way, I'm going to follow you into your room and berate you and really get after it. And then usually it's like, all right, I got to get out of here for a minute. I come back and I'm like, hey, let's talk about this. So it's a little bit of the same of like give it air to breathe. But I think that's something I really need to like – I think that's an opportunity for me in improving like my initial reaction. And there's probably a million reasons why it stems that way. 1, it's like I have this like – this loss of my mom and I wish, you know, if I had, you know, there's all that type of shit that goes on. But also it's like, that's how I was kind of, it was somewhat beaten to me of like, this is how you treat your mother. This is how you treat, you know, your grandmother. This is how you treat the women in your life. And that's terrifying, you know, to like see them like, mouth off and i'm like oh no you're not you know yeah um so that for me it's it's a little bit the same um i'm certainly more calm around like the school activities and i can handle those or the the sporting stuff yes i'm competitive but when it comes to like the household fights or like My oldest picking on my youngest, dude. And I had 2 older brothers. That's like a real brothers are brothers. We all have boys here. But man, when I see it happen, there's like this protector that comes into play and it comes out sideways sometimes. I agree with you completely that the idea of disrespect is an absolute breaking point for me. But I think what I look to you guys for help with or anybody for help with is the majority of the time that disrespect is happening, they don't know they're being disrespectful. For sure. And I guess that's one of the reasons why I take a step back and I wait a little bit before we can talk about it because I know I'm going to go off the handle. Yeah. I'm all of a sudden going to be disrespectful right at them for being disrespectful to somebody else. Right. Where have I screwed up over the course of their development? They're twelve and the twins are 16 now. So there's times that they're being disrespectful now where I'm like, how can you not know that what you're doing right now is disrespectful? And I don't know how to correct some of those. I mean, like they're 16. Yeah. Ship is sailing. You just said something that really resonated with me because it's a conversation I have with myself when I'm starting to calm down. And it's this idea of like, how can I meet disrespect with disrespect and expect to get a good outcome, right? Absolutely. And that's been my stance on this idea of when I was a kid, I got spanked. I got the belt. I got the wiffle ball bat. I got whatever was nearest that could reach you. Send a message. Right. That could send the message. And as a parent, you know, and my wife and I, we talked a lot about as we were having kids of like, you know, are we going to spank our kids? Like, and initially like, I'll never spank my kid. And then they do something. You're like, I want to punch my kid in the face. Hard. Hard. You know what I mean? But at the same time, it's like, how can I bring violence and expect them to learn about whatever that message is? And the conclusion I came to is I can't. I can't do that. And so, you know, I'm grateful that we haven't and that I haven't gone off the handle. But, I mean, I've drug a kid by his shirt collar. I've drug a kid into his room. I've slammed doors. I've done all the things that probably scared the shit out of him. But at the same time, that's when I know I need to remove myself and then come back and say like, hey, let's revisit this now that, you know, you're mad at me because I lost my shit. I think one of the things as you guys are talking about like disrespecting your mom or grandma or you know other other females in general and having boys Um, that's a, that's a really, it's a really vital thing that they need to learn growing up. And it's very important to the 3 of us. And you have a very important, a unique outlook with losing your mom. And I guarantee you that goes through your head when they do stupid shit and you're like, I would do anything to have my mom here to be able to, you know, lose my shit when you didn't acknowledge her when she came in or whatever that was going on. And I think part of that reason, and I don't know what the right way is to handle that because you can't, you know, meet the disrespect with disrespect or the violence with violence, what have you. But why, and as you were telling that story, I'm going, okay, well, why not with grandpa? Why not? Why not with, you know, Uncle Adam or whatever? And I think part of that is because as they grow up and they end up potentially disrespecting other males, whether they're going to mouth off to them or they're going to do whatever. somebody's going to eventually punch him in the face. Yeah. And then they're going to be like, oh, shit. I can't do that. Oh, I guess I wasn't supposed to say that. Grandma's not going to punch him in the face. I kind of wish my mom would at some point in time. But like it's you have there's a different they have to learn that differently. Yeah. And again, you will need none of us have daughters. I have a couple of nieces. One of my nieces is is fourteen and she's difficult to deal with right now. And she's got a lot of attitude and everybody's stupid. And she's I don't know that she will have the opportunity to learn the same way the boys were, because when the boys are fourteen and they disrespect one of their friends or say something stupid or continue to run their mouth, somebody's going to punch you in the mouth. Yeah, they get popped. I don't think girls do that. And so then it becomes catty and whatever that ends up being. But that is a vital I can remember with certainty 2 or 3 conversations where I've talked to the boys. I'm like, hey, here's the deal. under no circumstance like 0 tolerance policy that you will ever talk to your mom or grandma or your aunt like that ever again ever again and if that does happen again you know how you got grounded the last time or you lost your xbox or you didn't get to do something I go we're gonna scorch the earth and everything that you hold dear will no longer be yours Like, this is how serious this is. I will break all the shit that I paid for. All of it. All of it. And I go back to, there's a guy on the radio that tells a story all the time. It's my favorite thing, because it goes through my head all of the time. His kids are in college now, but they had an Xbox, and it was the big problem in their house. And I think a lot of the dads will be able to resonate with this and the fact that when your kid's on their Xbox or on their PlayStation or whatever uh there could be a bomb that would go off and there is nothing that is going to deter them from fortnite or whatever that is so this guy tells the story and i'm going to do this quickly he basically said i need you to when i ask you to do something to be able to disconnect from that machine Or else I'm going to throw it in the woods. And that was a, not an analogy, I'm being a moron here, but the kids thought, oh, an exaggeration, like that's never going to happen. And like a week later, whatever happened, happened again. And this guy goes over, reaches, grabs the Xbox, rips the cords out of it, walks out on the deck and literally throws it as far as he can into the woods. And he goes, I know that I paid for that. And it was absolutely worth the four hundred dollars that that was. I bet. and i and i thought about it and i think about it all i'm like this would be like one of the greatest feelings on earth to just light four hundred more dollars on fire and just heave this thing into the street and so when i when i talk to the kids about disrespecting females or specifically very important females in our life i'm like this is not just we're not going just a little bit of the way This is a all or nothing scenario. If you choose to do this, I'm keeping all of it. And because there's no, I don't know where that life lesson then comes from. There's no, I don't know how they learn that other than watching us. And I know for sure that I don't. Talk to my mother that way or talk to girls in the way or disrespect that because back in the day, that would have gotten me punched that like it would have been if I remember one specific time, which was hilarious, where I told my mother to shut up. And I created a really bad habit of telling people to shut up. I remember where I was the exact moment. We were in the minivan on the way to my grandparents' house on the highway with the big bird from the West County Mall on my right. And my mom said something. I said, Mom, why don't you shut up? And she backhanded me. I mean, I said up and then my mouth hurt because I got hit. And I was, you know, I was about 14, 13 years old and I was bigger than my mom at that point in time. And I just remember going. What did I just what did I do that again? I'll never do that again. But also knowing that if that wouldn't have happened when we got to my grandparents, where my dad was meeting us there, probably was going to be way worse than that, but mom took care of it pretty quick right there. And I have never told my mother to shut up since that very day. But there's not a whole lot of females that are going to do that. And I'm, again, not a proponent of hitting your children, but I never told my mom to shut up again. And so it's really, really hard because All of us, I think, have seen and see other kids that are just disrespectful across the board to everybody that will be there. And then other kids that are have either a chauvinistic dad or they they they're big. Hey, we're tough and cool and I'm the dude and I can say whatever I want. You're just, you know, some dumb girl or whatever. I can tell you I have 3 sisters and a mom, and I am the least smart of all of them. And so I need them in my life. Oh, it's shocking the level that would be there. If we were going to stack and we were going to rank my family in intelligence, that's an embarrassing scale and chart for me to witness. I'm going to walk away with this with a little bit of a dad win, I think, because I know I went down that path of my kids occasionally being disrespectful and it being something that is a breaking point for me. I don't consider them grossly disrespectful in any way and certainly not. aimed at a female more so than They're gender neutral. With the disrespect. Very open in the disrespect. And the majority of it is petty little stuff like asking why when they're told to do something. Heaven help them if they ever actually told my wife to shut up. Because A I'm going to take a dad win and say I'm very proud of my kids in that vein, that they do absolutely recognize that. And I'm going to go ahead and throw a shameless plug for their high school and say that they're growing into men of accomplishment, character and accomplishment. That's right. That's cute. I think that all of our kids are – really good kids and I think I don't want to say this has been blown out of proportion but I think we're striving for some sort of excellence not perfection everybody's gonna say something dumb and they're everybody's gonna say something they weren't paying attention or what have you but driving them to be really really great and understanding that if you do treat women with the utmost respect, it is going to benefit you in your life. It's going to make you a better person. People will recognize that. The women in your life will recognize that. And growing into as good as we can make them is where we're striving for. So we're probably a little nitpicky on it because none of our kids are – telling any grandma to fuck off. But there's still some things you're like, hey. That we know of. That we know of. God help them if they do. But I think we're striving for excellence to create those kids. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. No, not at all. So I want to put a bow on this episode. And I want to ask a quick answer here of what advice would you give a new dad or a young dad that's listening to the show that you think could potentially be helpful? That could be a very specific thing. It could be more of an open philosophical type thing. What advice would you give to a new dad or a young dad? Taking from what I said earlier, I think it honestly is take a deep breath, leave the scenario, come back with a cool head and address it. Now, granted, there's gonna be some things that happen that you need to address right away. I think the more that you can handle things with a calm, cool level head, and have a conversation about things, the better off you're going to be. Now, granted, when your kids are Sub 5 years old, having a intelligent conversation about what's right and wrong is a little bit more difficult. But I never, I will never agree that flying off the handle, whether it's physical, or it's verbal, or it's anything is going to have the long term impact that you think that it's going to have. And oftentimes, it's just a gut reaction. And I would highly encourage you to avoid it because you're doing more damage than good. yeah yeah mine mine would be whenever you end up in that stressed situation and discipline and when your kids do dumb is stressful because it's either embarrassing it's it makes you angry it does it there's a lot of different emotions that go into that when they're sub5, 6 years old, there's a lot of that stuff that's non-malicious. It's just reactionary. Try and have as much patience as you can, and that's easier said than done. But when they get a little bit older, I try my very, very best when I am going to have to have that conversation. And as quickly as I can, what would I want to hear? Because it wasn't that long ago that we were kids and we're immature and we're fucking gorillas as it sits. So I try very hard when my sons do dumb shit, which they do well. More than I would like. But before I go sit down and have that conversation, before I go fly off the handle, if this were me at 12 years old, this were me at ten years old, like what would have some sort of what would resonate with me? Yeah. Other than, hey, man, that was really dumb. Why did you do that? Like what? So if you can have an internal dialogue with yourself because those are your kids and there's a lot of you in there. So you're going to err on the side of caution by if you're talking to your old, 12 year old self, more often than not, you're going to get it right. Yeah. So that's how I would do it. That's fair for me. I would probably it would probably be a little bit more philosophical of in terms of you. You chose this like you chose to be a dad. whether you chose the result or didn't choose the result. Sure. You're a dad. And if you are a present father, then you chose to be a dad. And what that means is that you didn't choose everybody else's interpretation of what's important. Right. What's important is that little boy or that little girl in your family unit and that's it. I know it might sound a little bit more of like a sensationalist comment, but nobody else really fucking matters. People are going to come and go out of your life. Friends are going to come and go. Very good friends are going to come and go. Family can even come and go. But what will never come and go or what should never come and go is that family unit, is the relationship that you have with your kids, period. And if you can hold on to that and make that the most important piece, then I think that that's all you really need. You need to come from a place of like leading of like I love this child and this child loves me and I'm going to show up for them. And if you can do that, I think you're gonna be fine. But if you struggle with that part of it and you're worried about like, well, I don't want to discipline my kid in public because I'm in front of this person and this person is going to think something about me or I'm going to let this kid walk all over me because it's embarrassing for me to do otherwise. Or I'm going to show everybody who's boss to this kid in front of all these people like, man, fuck those people. Yeah. I mean, to be totally frank, like those are the people who can get it. You know, in my mind, like you chose that little person and that little person didn't choose you. Yeah. So it's your job to manage yourself in a way that puts them first. And like you've said before, this is not like you're not going to do everything right. Dude, no way. You're going to fuck up. So much. Hopefully not as much as you do right. You're going to do wrong, but be there. That's it. And own up to it. Let them know. And you know what? This is what I would love to end on. This is the deal. I recently, and when I say recently, within the last 3 years was the first time that I apologized to my 12yearold because I fucked up. I didn't do the right thing. I didn't say the right thing. I flew off the handle and I didn't do what I needed to do. And I remember the first time that it happened because I was like, I feel like a fucking asshole. And I feel like a bad dad. And I just got done yelling at him because he did this and he did that. And the punishment didn't fit the crime as far as the level of shit that i gave him for basically doing something a little bit absent-minded and i and i went and i went back into his room i sat down with him i said hey dude i'm really sorry dad messed up i messed up i know that you didn't mean to do that it wasn't worth this big hubbub and that that moment I felt better like I felt less shitty and he was like thank dad thank you I appreciate it and he was like oh man like he's talking to me like we didn't just have a do this one sided conversation and it was awesome and so It doesn't happen very often. But again, to my previous statement, that's what I would have wanted. My dad ripped my ass all of the time. And most of it totally warranted. But there was definitely a handful, if not more than a handful of times that I didn't deserve the fucking tongue lashing that I got in that world. And it would have gone a long way in my book when I was younger if my dad was like, hey Shouldn't have done that. Shouldn't have done that. My bad. Dad isn't right all of the time. And that would have been big for me when I was a kid. And hopefully I don't fuck up a bunch that I have to apologize to him every fucking week. That would be terrible. But at least owning that at that point, I think really changed some things for Joe and I in that world because he was like, oh, man. And I'm proud of him because he does a really good job of apologizing when he does dumb shit and owning his shit. And so I can get behind that. I make tons of mistakes all the time. Owning your shit, if we can get through that, and that's one of the things that he's good at when he goes to high school and goes to college, then he'll do well. That'll go a long way. All right. Well, thank you again for listening to the Grown-Ass Dad podcast. Obviously, if you're watching us on YouTube, please subscribe, like this episode, leave a comment. Also, you can find us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And I believe, Jay, we have a website now and we have an email address. We have all that good stuff, right? We are about as official as they get. So check us out online. On the line. On the line. On the line at GrownAssDads.com. You can listen to all of our episodes there. Read a fun little bio about all of us as dads. But even more importantly, let us know what you're thinking about the show. Comment on the socials. Hit us up with a DM. Send us questions. Let us know topics you want to hear. Share your stories with us. Maybe we'll bring it onto the show and share it with everybody else too. So you can do that on the socials or shoot us an email at GrownAssDads at gmail.com. Awesome. Thanks, boys. Enjoyed it. All right. Peace. See you, folks.