17 Year Old Problems..Justified?

Sometimes mom and dads just dont get it and thats ok! 

Feelings are valid no matter the age. 

As middle aged man. I feel its our duty to tell the younger generation we have been through this and you arent alone! 

BAGELS HERE! 

https://www.brightside.kitchen/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Alright, we're freestyling. We're freestyling today. Do you guys know that there's a war going on? My God, I was watching YouTube last night, and then it, you know how YouTube works? It starts on one thing and then you completely derail and go to something else. And then I don't typically watch, I don't watch anything that has to do with the world, the war, the economy. I just don't care. It's all just crazy talk, but then they're like, we're in the middle of a war that we're losing. I'm like, we're at war? Holy shit. It just seemed like a snow day. And snow day in spring. What the hell? I know I talked about this last episode, but grow up, Mother Nature. This is your St. Patrick's Day edition of Shut Up and Listen. What is St. Patrick's Day? I don't even know what St. Patrick's Day is. There's a lot of things that I just don't know. I'm gonna look into that. Hope everyone's having a good week. What is it? Thur? Oh god, no, it's Tuesday. I tried. I tried. It wouldn't let me. It's still Tuesday. I've got an out-of-state job I'm going to this week. There's a buddy of mine. He's a carpenter in Indiana, but he also owns or he builds irrigation systems in fields. So you know when you're driving across the Midwest and wherever else, probably way out west, I don't know. There's those huge, huge systems in the fields that spin and they spit water all over the crop. That's what I'm going to build. So this guy's been building these forever. And I'll say, like, hey, I want to come help. That looks like fun. That looks like something I'd like to do. So it's never really worked out. But then last week he called me out of nowhere. And I feel like the universe is opening up to me right now. And we'll get into that. I'm gonna write that down so I don't forget universe. Uh but he called me. He's like, hey, I'm we got one going up in Ohio, and it's like five hours. Is that too far away? I said no. I'm down with that again. I've had an adventurous brain. I've need to go do things. And what sucks is Sarah gets back Wednesday late, and I'm leaving Wednesday morning. She's been gone for six, seven days. Six, seven days. So I leave the morning. She gets home until the weekend, and then it's a boy weekend. So like we have a trip planned, I think the 26th, 27th, 28th. I have no idea where we're going. I have no clue. It's like a birthday thing. No clue. Don't know what we're doing. Don't know where we're going. But yeah, so we really won't have much time alone until then. So like last night we were talking, I was just like, I hate it. Like, just freaking get it over with. But honestly, like in the grand scheme of things, A, it's awesome to have someone you miss. And B, it's only a few weeks out of our entire life. So not a big deal. Suck it up, buttercup. You'll be okay. Let's go right into a little bit of Am I the Asshole. But this Am I the Asshole is brought to you by a premiere sponsor, Bright O'Bagels, at Brightside Kitchen. You can find him at 106 East McClure Avenue in Peory, Illinois. Josh Lannon and his team just went to uh New York for, I believe, a week. He took his whole crew there, at least a couple of them I know, and just drew all sorts of inspiration from New York. He actually lived in New York for years. So I think for him to take his team back and actually experience what he's trying to replicate is such a freaking power move for a boss. I remember going to like building shows and stuff when I was woodworking, and I would come back with such inspiration. I'd have like this new profound fire in my heart. You know, it's just like anytime you go away for something specific, it seems like it puts it at the top of your brain with no distractions from the world, no blah, blah, blah. Uh so I think it for him it was good to take his his culinary team and uh really just kind of embrace themselves. And he's like, I had all sorts of carbs. He said like 13 donuts or 13 bagels and like all this other stuff. I'm like, oh, those are vacation carbs. You're fine. Those don't even count. So truthfully, if you want a kick-ass um bagel, go to Brightside Bagels. Idiot. Can't even read the name right. Bright O'Bagel at the Brightside Kitchen. Alright, we'll jump right into Am I the Asshole? Am I the Asshole for telling my son to man up? I have a 17-year-old son who has been driving me insane since the school closed in March. Uh, this was five years ago, so probably COVID. He's always been on the sensitive side. I don't care though. I know it bothers his dad. Okay, so this is mom. He is currently angry at his father for buying me a nicer car than him. Okay. My husband doesn't have the patience for this, so my house has been tense. Oh, Jesus. A week ago I found out he ghosted his girlfriend. When I ran into her, she was concerned because he'd been ignoring her for two weeks. When I told him how rude that was, he asked if I'd break up with her for him. I'm friends with her mom. Oh, Jesus, kid. Well, my husband is kind of an asshole, so he invited her parents over the other night and didn't tell my son. No, her father isn't happy. Okay. When they left, my son started whining about how his father makes jokes out of everything and how humiliating his pranks are. My husband didn't say much. My son started listing things from years ago. I told him to man up, and now he isn't speaking to me because apparently I don't understand anymore. Am I the asshole? So, in true like ADD fashion, I have to uh stop recording and actually read it to try to understand. So basically, we got a mom, she has a 17-year-old son that is sensitive. We know that off the top, which is not a bad thing at all. Um he's mad at here's the here's the list. He's mad at his dad for buying his mom a nicer car than him. I think that's just how it goes. At least that's how it always was. You got some sort of clunker typically. I had a 1980 K-10 that was fully restored, thanks to my father. My sisters had a cavalier. Yeah, they kind of had a clunker. I remember uh when my oldest sister, well, the oldest sibling that I lived with, I don't really know what that title is anymore. But when they were car shopping, like it was all these nice cars and blah blah well, then they brought home a 1994 Cavalier four-door blue with a faded hood, and you would have thought that the hell hell froze over. I remember a lot of tears, and the compromise was dad said, I will buy you a CD changer, the ones you put in your trunk back in the day. And I was like, that's sweet, take that. But no, that car, honestly, to have that thing back, it was such a simple vehicle. I remember it just being why won't they make cars like that? Just a simple line of vehicles, even though it's 15,000, 20,000, even up to 25, mate, nah, for a car. Probably not. But yeah, if they can make a car for under 20,000 that was just bare bones, I think that's where you go with it. Now, back to the story at hand. Uh, I had a delivery stop by the house, so I had to lose my track of thought. And then I lost the article. Worst podcast ever. But what what from what I couldn't recall? Yeah, the kid's upset about a car, his mom's car being nicer than his. Okay, first off, red flag. That's your first mistake. Second mistake. I really wish I could remember this. I'm gonna go back and listen. Hold on. All right, here's where I'm gonna side. Not that it needs a side, but yeah, it does maybe. I'm siding with the kid. When the mom said something about the dad didn't have patience for this stuff, that tells me there's a lot of um what did we talk about yesterday? Avoidance. There's a lot of avoidance going on because they don't know how to talk. Like he doesn't know how to talk to his son, which I can tell is having an impact because it also said that the son wanted the mom to break up with his girlfriend. That shows me that this child, because he is a child, he's 17 years old, does not have any sort of communication skills, does not know how to regulate emotion, does not know how to feel his feelings, because his dad was a little bit, he showed a little bit of that dismissive avoidance in his life. So, and then even to like bring it all together, it talks about how his dad is always pranking and the dad inviting the girl's parents over. Like, I've talked on a podcast, that's such bullshit. Yes, he's 17, he's a kid, but also this is the biggest thing he's ever dealt with. And then how do you respond as a father? You invite you invite the ops over? Come on, man. Like, I think that's just very ignorant fathering, if you ask me. And ignorant is not a I always say that. Ignorant is not a I'm not calling him ignorant. I'm using ignorance as like what the word means. It's it's uneducated about the situation. He's being very ignorant to his son's feelings, which is rough. Man, it's rough. I remember um remember I had his dresser in my room, like an old wooden tall dresser, and it's like there was a mirror on, and that's like where I did my hair in the morning for like junior high, you know, high school, it's where I got ready because there was no bath, the bath, the girls were always in the bathroom, so yeah, I wasn't going in there. But, anyways, I remember going up there one night, like I don't know if I just got broken up with or something I did something wrong in a relationship, I got caught doing something. I remember just like swiping the entire top of my dresser off and just like screaming. Like, I think that was really like my first adult outburst. I'd have been 16, 17. Um, and in my house, like dad wouldn't come upstairs much, like just to go to bed. But like if dad was upstairs, because it was just the bedrooms and a bathroom. If dad was coming upstairs at a different time, like you were probably in trouble. Like the sounds of footsteps coming up the stairs. Uh it was just like, oh, there's 15 steps, and there's three after you turn. So, like counting them as he came up, and my bedroom was first. I'm like, yeah. Uh, but on this instance, I don't remember if he came up. I don't remember if he came up, but I remember hearing, My God, you're 17 years old, almost like dismissing it. And I remember hearing that and thinking, like, well, it feels like this matters. Like, this feels like a big deal. Is this not supposed to be a big deal? Like, God, it feels like a lot, it feels like a lot of a deal. But I feel like this author's son is kind of in the same boat. Like, he doesn't know how to break up with his girlfriend because he's never had to talk about that or he's never talked about it. He doesn't know, you know, maybe all he knows is like he's gonna hurt her feelings or he's gonna get in trouble for saying how he feels. But then, like at the end of the story, like at the end of the thing, it said like he finally let a lot of stuff out, like making examples. Um, and I think that's good. I think he's just like brain dumping. So, like, what I would do, say I was in a room with all three of them, uh, to the mom, I'm gonna say, you are the kid's safe space. He was asked you, he trusts you because he asked you to um break up with his girlfriend for him. As silly as that sounds, like that is a huge level of trust that he's like he thought, you know, if this is the hardest thing he's ever dealt with, he did the first person he thought of to help to help mitigate the issue was his mom. So I think there is a lot of trust there with the mom. I think mom's probably the saving grace, probably not even on an emotional level, but she's just there for him and he knows that, and that's great. The kid, again, he's dealing with 17-year-old things. Like, yeah, of course he's mad that your husband invited his girlfriend that he doesn't like. Oh, that's strange. That's strange activity. That's strange activity. Um, but I think like 17-year-old, that's a crucial time in a kid's life. And I think I say that about every age. Every age my boys get, I'm always like, oh boy, this is a crucial age for him. But I, you know, you can't fault the kid for having feelings. I think it's just one of those things I wish that could evolve to know what feelings are, and then he could uh manage it a little bit better, maybe. Uh, but obviously I'm not faulting a 17-year-old kid for nothing. I'm not faulting any kid, I'm not faulting anyone under the age of 25 for anything. We didn't know what we were doing at 25. Are we crazy? Um, and then as far as the dad, like this is just my this is just my um my observation from not knowing them, what I was offered in the story. So I could be way wrong on who he is, but as far as the story and all the facts that I have, I think he's just like really maybe one of them, and again, immature isn't I'm not calling the guy immature, but he has immature ways, and everything's just kind of a fucking joke to this kid. Like everything this kid does, I feel like this dad would everything's a fucking joke, nothing's valid. It seems like it maybe it's always the kid's fault, and that's reading in super deep, and maybe it's just like kind of some feelings that maybe I have, but that's the only point of view I can give you. This story is my point of view. It doesn't mean it's the only view that matters, it doesn't mean this is right or wrong, but this is just the way I see the story. So, yeah, in my head right now, after that I was sitting there, I was like, dude, what's the hardest thing you've ever dealt with? You got divorced at 35. Well, guess what? Your son right now is 17. This is the biggest thing he's ever dealt with. Like, quit dismissing kids. Quit it. Quit it. Quids have feelings too. Okay, they're not rocks. So, am I the asshole? I don't remember what the actual am I the asshole for telling my kid to man up. Uh the word man up is very strange because what's society, what what makes us man in society? What what finally classifies us as big boys? We are men in society society. What we graduated, we had sex for the first time, we got married, we had kids. I'd done all those things, and I was not a man yet. I think the true the true measurement of a man is to me, a man that can control his emotions can control the world. You know, we kind of grew up in a weird time to where conflict was pretty popular, proving a point, using anger is very popular, joking about things that should be taken pretty seriously from the generation for the generation behind us. Um man today, in my opinion, is a man that is willing to extend all of the branches, able to sit and talk, able to give life advice uh from his experience. A man is someone that can control his emotions and not lash out like a man's supposed to do. Man is not strength, man is not money, man is not women, man is not success. Man is something in your soul that you're able to help, you're able to provide, you're able to and not even help in a labor type of way. Yes, we can all we can all help, you know, build a house, we can all help design a website. I don't know. We can all all men have different talents, right? But a man to actually help someone emotionally is I think a huge thing. Because contrary to popular belief, the world needs men. The world needs good men just as bad as the world needs good women, and it should be a compliment to each other. You should bring out your your partner should bring out the masculine side of you, and you should bring out the feminine side of your your um your woman, your other uh significant other that is a woman. Um, but yeah, uh d come on, dad. Come on, man. Like, understand that this kid is going through something extremely real in his life, as silly as ours. So uh the term man up, man, I don't speak those words. Um I if I saw a baseball hit my son in the leg and I know it didn't hurt him, and he was like limping, a man up, dude. Come on. But as far as like if my son's coming to me and doesn't know how to break up with a girlfriend or doesn't know how to handle a life situation, no, I'm not telling my son to man up. I don't want my son to be a man up kind of guy. I want my son to be a very good thinker. I want my son to take breaks before he lashes out. I want him to really think about things before before anything pops off and make wise decisions. So yeah, that's what I feel about telling a 17-year-old child, a kid, an adolescent, to man up. And that's that's the end of the story. That's the final straw. What would Paul Harvey say? And that's the other half, or that's the rest of the story. Paul Harvey. Boy, have I listened to a lot of Paul Harvey in my day. All right, shut up and listen. This was a kind of up and down episode, but also your reminder: if you're within an hour of Peoria, grab your keys, put on some pants, put on a bra, put on whatever you gotta put on, get your ass down to McClare Avenue, and get yourself the best bagel around. Again, I don't add bullshit, okay? This isn't a bullshit sponsor. Imagine me doing like a Tampax commercial. What business would I have? What business I have with the bagels? A lot. For one, it's in my town. For two, I love bagels. All right, guys. I hope you have a good week. Hopefully, catch you tomorrow. Love you. Goodbye.