8 children 7 fathers WTF

Another RIDESHARE RHETORIC podcast. this one about a mother who is pregnant with her 8th child

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey and welcome to Rideshare Rhetoric. I'm Clarkey.

SPEAKER_02 0:03

And I'm Margaret.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

And we're here with another wonderful story from the world of rideshare.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Wasn't sure if you wanted me to go.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Yeah, I want you to say, what is it? I'm excited.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Well, what's the story we're talking about today? I'm excited.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Okay. Now I have to not be judgmental.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Like when when I Good luck.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

No, 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_02 0:37

So I think we should be like that anyway in life. Yeah, well that's true.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

But it's really hard not to be judgmental sometimes. And this story sort of challenged my perspective on being judgmental.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Oh, okay. Oh, I'm curious now. Tell me more.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Okay, 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_02 1:19

Oh, then she was heavily pregnant, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

So 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_02 1:32

I think it's more your questions that you ask.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

I 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_02 1:46

Well, no, I hear that the older we get, the the worse we get at this.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Yeah, 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_02 2:11

Eighth, oh my lord. Eighth child. No. That's a flat no from me.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

So obviously I said, How old are you? And she said, I'm 34. And I said, Oh. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

34, 8 kids.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

She must have started young.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Well, I asked how old I asked if she had any twins or triplets to start with, and she said no.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

So she said she had eight. Eight kids. That's like unimaginable for me.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

So she it's her eighth child. And she didn't have twins or triplets. And I said, How old's your eldest?

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

And 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_02 3:37

It used to be really normal, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:38

To have lots of kids. My mother's part of ten.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Ten children. And mad Catholics with no TV.

SPEAKER_02 3:46

Yeah, well, he has that too.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

And 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_02 4:03

Me either. I haven't met your cousins either.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Whether you want to.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Hope they're not listening.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

No, 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_01 4:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

So 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_01 4:31

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

So 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_02 4:45

Oh, oh okay. She's single and about to have her eighth child.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

So 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_02 5:13

Yeah. That sounds a little judgmental, that question.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Probably 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_02 5:31

Oh no. What did you ask?

SPEAKER_00 5:33

What would you ask her? If you had no filter and you could just ask her whatever you like.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

No filter, I'd go, how the heck do you stay stay trim with eight kids and being fresh?

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Stay trim.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Didn't think of that one. I was thinking. I did ask her. I said, can I ask you a personal question?

SPEAKER_02 5:54

Because the rest wasn't personal.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

And she said, yeah, no problems. I said, how many fathers?

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Oh, you didn't. You did. You definitely did.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

How many fathers? I thought it was a pertinent question. And she went.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Seven.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

So is this where the being non-judgmental part comes into it?

SPEAKER_00 6:20

This 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_02 6:31

I suspect that's not the case.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Well, I asked her that.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

Oh, you did. Of course you did.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

And she said it's not really a problem. I said, Why is that? Because she said most of them are in jail.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

Oh, I didn't know.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

I'm going, this is crazy.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

But can you imagine that's pretty tough? That's pretty tough.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Well, it's poor choices. And then this is the judgmental part.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

I think that last comment was pretty judgmental.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

I 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_02 7:21

Did she have any kids with her?

SPEAKER_00 7:22

No. 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_02 7:41

He was This is the judgmental bit again.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

He 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_02 8:02

I have no idea what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

It was a movie.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Oh really?

SPEAKER_00 8:06

They were cute little cuddly things, and you put water on and they became very angry.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Was it the gremlins?

SPEAKER_00 8:13

The 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_02 8:29

Or the seventh father. Or the sixth father.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

The seventh father, I guess. Anyway, he wasn't.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Maybe he is the eighth father.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

He'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_01 8:53

And 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_00 9:10

I said, How long were you in for? And he went, Oh, 12 months.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

Did he say 12 months this time?

SPEAKER_00 9:18

He 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_02 9:46

Mm-hmm. Should should be a thing.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Anyway, 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_02 10:02

Hey, that sounds like my dad. Red hair, thick glasses. The rest not so much.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

He'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_02 11:01

Yeah, that's that's not okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

And he did that for a number of weeks. It wasn't just a one-off occurrence.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

He would just appear out of nowhere just sitting in the backyard looking at her.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

That's that's breaking and entering, you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Anyway, 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_02 11:49

So 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_00 11:57

I'm sure, I'm sure. Like the angry gremlin sitting in the backyard just staring at you wouldn't be good.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

No, no, no, that's horrible. To be on the other end of it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

But 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_02 12:23

Oh, 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_00 12:37

So 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_02 12:49

Yeah, 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_00 12:58

It was a couple months ago.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

My goodness. Oh the people you meet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Anyway, 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_01 13:22

Bye.