Ride Share Rhetoric
Real Stories from real people collected in a ride share
Ride Share Rhetoric
8 children 7 fathers WTF
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Another RIDESHARE RHETORIC podcast. this one about a mother who is pregnant with her 8th child
Hey and welcome to Rideshare Rhetoric. I'm Clarkey.
SPEAKER_02And I'm Margaret.
SPEAKER_00And we're here with another wonderful story from the world of rideshare.
SPEAKER_01Wasn't sure if you wanted me to go.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I want you to say, what is it? I'm excited.
SPEAKER_02Well, what's the story we're talking about today? I'm excited.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Now I have to not be judgmental.
SPEAKER_02Like when when I Good luck.
SPEAKER_00No, but when I drive around and actually meet people, I've got this conscious knowledge that I I can't be judgmental because they don't impact on me anyway.
SPEAKER_02So I think we should be like that anyway in life. Yeah, well that's true.
SPEAKER_00But it's really hard not to be judgmental sometimes. And this story sort of challenged my perspective on being judgmental.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. Oh, I'm curious now. Tell me more.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so I'm driving along and I've got a female to pick up. And she rocks up and she's heavily pregnant. She's thin and heavily pregnant. So I didn't I didn't make a mistake that she was overweight, and I guessed. No, she was thin and heavily pregnant. And I then she got in the car and I said, Hey, when are you due? And she said, In three weeks' time.
SPEAKER_02Oh, then she was heavily pregnant, yes.
SPEAKER_00So I said, Congratulations. And she spoke really well and she was presented really well. And this is where the judgment starts to come in.
SPEAKER_02I think it's more your questions that you ask.
SPEAKER_00I said, so three weeks' time, is it your first child? Because I'm guessing she's about, I don't know, 24, 25, 26. Now I'm not good at guessing ages anymore.
SPEAKER_02Well, no, I hear that the older we get, the the worse we get at this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's no doubt about that. So I was guessing sort of mid-twenties. And I said, Oh, is it your first child? Because I thought that sort of makes sense. And she said, No, no, no, no. I said, How many children do you have? She said, This is my eighth. She's not twenty-four, is she?
SPEAKER_02Eighth, oh my lord. Eighth child. No. That's a flat no from me.
SPEAKER_00So obviously I said, How old are you? And she said, I'm 34. And I said, Oh. Wow.
SPEAKER_02That's cool.
SPEAKER_0034, 8 kids.
SPEAKER_02She must have started young.
SPEAKER_00Well, I asked how old I asked if she had any twins or triplets to start with, and she said no.
SPEAKER_02So she said she had eight. Eight kids. That's like unimaginable for me.
SPEAKER_00So she it's her eighth child. And she didn't have twins or triplets. And I said, How old's your eldest?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And she said, eighteen. Oh. Didn't didn't that? It took me five minutes, but I eventually got there. And I said, So you were pregnant when you were 15. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, I was. And I don't know whether it's being smart or not, I said, you've basically been pregnant since you've 15. Pretty much. On and off. Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. By the time you have a child, feed the child, get pregnant again. That's pretty constant. Might have been a couple of little breaks there. So we spoke about the logistics of having eight kids. Because you think about my mother. Everybody I speak to about having eight children, they go, Wow, how can you have eight children? And it's a cost of living thing, I think, more than anything.
SPEAKER_02It used to be really normal, right?
SPEAKER_00To have lots of kids. My mother's part of ten.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00Ten children. And mad Catholics with no TV.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, he has that too.
SPEAKER_00And it was common. And of those ten children that my mother's on my mother's side, five of them had eight or more children. I've got hundreds of cousins running around the country I've never ever met.
SPEAKER_02Me either. I haven't met your cousins either.
SPEAKER_00Whether you want to.
SPEAKER_01Hope they're not listening.
SPEAKER_00No, I'm sure they're wonderful people. And so it was common like years ago. So but it's uncommon to hear it today.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So we're talking about logistics of having eight kids. I said to her, how do you get them to school? Because she doesn't have a license.
SPEAKER_01Oh.
SPEAKER_00So I'm thinking I'm thinking the partner or husband or whoever it is or the um they have a truck. Let's throw them in the truck or the bus and take them to school. And she goes, No, I'm single.
SPEAKER_02Oh, oh okay. She's single and about to have her eighth child.
SPEAKER_00So she's single. And I said, Well, how do you get them to school, for instance? And she goes, Well, when they're five, I go down to the salvos and get a bike, put them on the bike, and send them off to school. Said, How do you know you get to school? How do they know those kids get to school? And I think she got a bit funny with me when I said that, but Well, maybe she walks them, like who knows?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. That sounds a little judgmental, that question.
SPEAKER_00Probably was. Anyway, we're sitting there and we're just talking about feeding kids and getting them around kitchen tables and all those sort of things. And in the back of my mind, I had one question I had to ask her.
SPEAKER_02Oh no. What did you ask?
SPEAKER_00What would you ask her? If you had no filter and you could just ask her whatever you like.
SPEAKER_02No filter, I'd go, how the heck do you stay stay trim with eight kids and being fresh?
SPEAKER_01Stay trim.
SPEAKER_00Didn't think of that one. I was thinking. I did ask her. I said, can I ask you a personal question?
SPEAKER_02Because the rest wasn't personal.
SPEAKER_00And she said, yeah, no problems. I said, how many fathers?
SPEAKER_02Oh, you didn't. You did. You definitely did.
SPEAKER_00How many fathers? I thought it was a pertinent question. And she went.
SPEAKER_01Seven.
SPEAKER_02So is this where the being non-judgmental part comes into it?
SPEAKER_00This is fantastic. Because the first thing that jumped in my head after that, I said, there's seven fathers. What happens at Christmas time? So they all come around to celebrate Christmas with the kids.
SPEAKER_02I suspect that's not the case.
SPEAKER_00Well, I asked her that.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you did. Of course you did.
SPEAKER_00And she said it's not really a problem. I said, Why is that? Because she said most of them are in jail.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I didn't know.
SPEAKER_00I'm going, this is crazy.
SPEAKER_02But can you imagine that's pretty tough? That's pretty tough.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's poor choices. And then this is the judgmental part.
SPEAKER_02I think that last comment was pretty judgmental.
SPEAKER_00I never spoke to her about this, and I'm thinking, you're just having children to survive. And what I mean by that is that our wonderful government Thanks, Senna Link. Yeah. Pay her to have children. Yeah, but you know you Because I had no idea where the other seven children were driving around. She's single, and there's seven children wandering around somewhere.
SPEAKER_02Did she have any kids with her?
SPEAKER_00No. No, that goes on to another part of this story. Because we picked up a friend of hers after that. Mm-hmm. And we drive up, and I thought it might have been like a friend that helped look out for the kids and supported her. And this guy walked out of this unit and I went, Oh my god, I don't want to talk to this guy.
SPEAKER_02He was This is the judgmental bit again.
SPEAKER_00He gets in the car and I'm I'm looking at him and I'm thinking, he looks like a character of some description. You know those little animals that you tip water on and they become really angry? It was a movie. What was that called?
SPEAKER_02I have no idea what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_00It was a movie.
SPEAKER_02Oh really?
SPEAKER_00They were cute little cuddly things, and you put water on and they became very angry.
SPEAKER_02Was it the gremlins?
SPEAKER_00The gremlins. The gremlins. He looked like a gremlin. An angry gremlin. Oh no. So he had hair all over the place and sort of just weird looking. And I thought, I don't need to talk to this guy. Anyway, he gets in the back with her, and I thought, well, maybe he's the eighth father.
SPEAKER_02Or the seventh father. Or the sixth father.
SPEAKER_00The seventh father, I guess. Anyway, he wasn't.
SPEAKER_02Maybe he is the eighth father.
SPEAKER_00He's just a friend. And I thought, wow, what sort of friends do you keep? And I thought, I'm not going to talk to him. Just drive to the destination. Anyway, it got the better of me in the finish. He's talking to her and he goes, something about corrective services.
SPEAKER_01And I went, made eye contact with him in the mirror and said, dude, have you been in jail? And he pulls out his knife. He said, Yeah, yeah, I have. Just got out a couple of weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00I said, How long were you in for? And he went, Oh, 12 months.
SPEAKER_02Did he say 12 months this time?
SPEAKER_00He could have, but 12 months. And I went, okay, you're not the father. I said, what were you in jail for? Because it's really interesting to watch. Yeah, yeah, of course. I've had a few people that have been in jail and have told me why they're in and all sorts of things. But this one I found surprising. And he goes, I was in jail for stalking. I said, no way. Oh no. Twelve months in jail for stalking. That's not a thing, surely.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm. Should should be a thing.
SPEAKER_00Anyway, he said, Oh, I get pretty aggressive. But I'm looking at him going, You're an angry gremlin anyway. Redhaired, red haired, sort of wild-looking guy with these really thick glasses on.
SPEAKER_02Hey, that sounds like my dad. Red hair, thick glasses. The rest not so much.
SPEAKER_00He's looking at me, he goes, Yeah, I I get pretty aggressive, but I don't hit anybody, don't don't physically touch anybody. I said, okay. So how'd the how'd the stalking go down? Like, what did you do? He said, Well, the police warned me a few times. Okay. Said, I've been in jail just in overnight and stuff like that. They didn't like the fact that other than the texting and the phone calls and the things that I did to her, because I said, Who did you stalk? Did you just stalk random people? He said, No, I stalked my girlfriend, ex-girlfriend. Okay. And so he goes. They got upset at the fact that I climbed over the back fence of her house with a chair, put it in the backyard, and sat on it and just stared at her house where her kitchen was.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's that's not okay.
SPEAKER_00And he did that for a number of weeks. It wasn't just a one-off occurrence.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_00He would just appear out of nowhere just sitting in the backyard looking at her.
SPEAKER_02That's that's breaking and entering, you know.
SPEAKER_00Anyway, they they came down pretty hard on him. We went to jail for six months. For twelve months. I said, Does she still live do you like she live locally or have you moved to the area? He was driving along, and this is this is an actual fact. We're driving along, and he goes, No, she lives locally. She actually lives right there. And I said, Are we breaking any any conditions you've got being this close to her? Anyway, it was quite funny.
SPEAKER_02So going back to the Yeah, we say that's funny, however, there is a seriousness attached to that whole stalking thing when you're on the other side of it.
SPEAKER_00I'm sure, I'm sure. Like the angry gremlin sitting in the backyard just staring at you wouldn't be good.
SPEAKER_02No, no, no, that's horrible. To be on the other end of it, yeah.
SPEAKER_00But that's where this judgmental came part came in. I thought, gee, I'm I'm being judgy, even the questions I'm asking these two, and I probably need to reflect on that. But it was an entertaining story. Entertaining ride.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it's definitely an interesting story, yeah. I just also take the you know, being the serious one of the two of us, like understanding the gravity of what it's like to be on the other end of of that behaviour. Like it's all good that we jest about it.
SPEAKER_00So I could be really judgy. Let's say the girl that's about to have the eighth baby. I could I almost felt like saying this to her, you've got another four or five in you yet. But I thought I'd better not.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think that was a good call myself. May she be happily have had a a safe birth because she would have given birth to be able to do it. Oh, absolutely, yeah.
SPEAKER_00It was a couple months ago.
SPEAKER_02My goodness. Oh the people you meet. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Anyway, that's another ride rideshare story that um I found entertaining. I hope you found entertaining. And if you like it, share, subscribe, whatever else you do with these things. And you'll you'll find all over the place. Anyway, until next time.
SPEAKER_01Bye.