Raising Her Right

Every dad wants to get it right. But when it comes to raising daughters, "right" looks different for everyone. In this episode, George and Tony get honest about what it really means to show up for the women we're raising — the wins, the regrets, the moments that define the relationship. From setting the standard to letting go, this one hits different. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Hey everyone, welcome to the Honest Hour, the show where we have real conversations about the things that shape who you are, how you lead, and how you connect with the people around you. I'm your host, George Adair. And with me, as always, is my co-host, Tony Diorio. Tony, welcome. Hello, thanks again, and I'm excited to get into it. Excellent. Well, if this is your first time with us, welcome. On our podcast, we work through difficult situations. We align these core leadership principles with real life problems. And we try to address how the economy around us will shape our perceptions, our perceptives, and maybe even our lives. On the honest hour, you will be challenged, provoked, and led in ways that will enlighten your view of the world around us. All right, let's get into today's episode. Today, audience, we're going to we're going somewhere personal. We're talking about dads and daughters. And I say personal because Tony and I are both living this. We have daughters. And I think there are questions that every father of a daughter carries around in his chest that they never quite say out loud. By the way, as well, this episode is great for men wanting to be fathers, also for moms and women wanting to be mothers, as it will relate to all of you who have a desire to raise girls and need to have that understanding of what good father figure is is meant to be.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Can I can I add one? Please. I think this show will also outline that you're not the only one. Yes. Right? A lot of people just feel like, why? Like, is this normal? And so I think you'll find some comfort that you're not the only one experiencing some of those things.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

That's right. That's right. And you're not the only one. And we're gonna address some pretty hard questions. We hope that by the end of this conversation, you have taken away some critical life lessons to help raise your daughters in a way that's impactful, that's meaningful, and serves uh your daughter well. Okay, Tony, you have both a son and a daughter. So you've got a front row seat to this comparison, right? Before we get into this research I'm about to give you, just a quick gut check. Does it feel different raising the two daughter and son? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

It's it's almost as if they begin the same and create a polar opposite within we'll call it three years. So they just start to separate and go. And it's it's amazing to watch, but they just start to go their own ways as a boy and as a girl. Yeah. Um, and you know, when you enable that that adventure for them, it is is it's it's very fun and enthusiastic, even to watch.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Yeah, yeah, I think that's exciting. I have two girls, so I don't really have a big fork in the road other than their characteristics are vastly different. But they are both every bit girl. They are all dull, they are all porcelain, they are all, you know, loving and caring, but at the same time, they both have that uh vigor and the you know the sides of them that can certainly uh go in different tangents, but they are definitely all girl.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

And I'd say uh, but I would my daughter represents that. The difference is when you have a boy, you're gonna give a little, you know, it's it's it's gonna be a give and take to some degree, right? Between what you want to play and what they're into. Luca gives, there's no give with Luca. We're either playing Hot Wheels, but we will not play Barbies. Yeah, right. So no matter what, my daughter in my experience is that she's more on the boy side and we'll accept the boy play, the boy activities, yeah, versus Luca is just hard no. Hard no on girl activities.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

I can see that. All right, let me give a quits quick stat. This is gonna sort of sort of uh uh springboard us into the first question. All right. Uh in 2022, Pew Research Study found that 62% of fathers say they approached parenting their daughters differently than their sons. Not necessarily stricter or more lenient, but emotionally different. They report spending more time in conversation, more attentiveness to mood and emotional cues, and a deeper anxiety about external threats, right? Interestingly, daughters themselves confirm that 58% say their dad treats them differently, and the majority say they value that difference. Really interesting piece of data that we all might say, well, that's obvious, but it's not necessarily sometimes, you know. So today, Tony, we're gonna get into some a very deep question here and the comparison of the culture, the protection, and and one conversation most dads keep putting off. I want to get into it. Real talk, no right answers, okay? Okay. All right. So the first question: you have a son and a daughter. So we've already noted that. So you're not guessing on this one. What are the big differences in how you father each of them? Do you parent your daughter differently? And if so, does it just happen?

SPEAKER_01 5:40

I I I think yes, as your overall more definitive answer. But I think it goes a little bit beyond that too. We have to understand why we do the human nature, right? And if you're going to be a good leader, you don't manage everybody on your team the same way either. Yeah. So you you manage to their strengths and you manage to their weaknesses. Much like when you're a parent, the big difference there is you want to always be boosting your children up, right? It's always a positive type of uh of conversation, or at least an underlying tone of a positive conversation. The difference that I see between the son and the daughter is that I I hold them to the same standard, I communicate differently because they understand it differently. Right. As a as a as a boy, Luca is a little bit more keen on the tone of your voice, whereas girls, or at least my daughter, will uh is more sensitive to the tone of the voice. So the tone will get Luca to respond, the tone will shut Talia down and become emotional. Yeah. So it's not that I parent them differently, but I do communicate to their strengths and weaknesses. I relate some of those strengths and least and weaknesses to their gender, right, as they develop. But it's more of a communication. I hold them both to the same standard, right? And I think that's I think that has to happen as we enter a world where you know we're empowering more females, we're empowering men. Everybody's, you know, we were coming to this big um kind of social crossroad of equalness, right? And to whatever interpretation that's going to mean, I think the girls need to understand what they're getting into. They're gonna have to communicate and mingle with males, right? So they're gonna have to understand those different points of communication. I think the boys are the same way. So it's it's more of communication and education than than parenting differently, but they're in my house, everybody's held to the same standard. And they'll call me out too if dad's not even, you know, if dad's not acting like dad's expecting them to act, then you know, they call they call daddy out as well.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Yeah, I I like what you just said there. And I want to tug on that a bit, and we're gonna probably uh continue to look into this is we've got a culture that is continuing to progress, as they say, and and really come into this new world where uh we're all playing an equal um, well, we all have an equal weight in a way. Uh, but um what you just said sort of lies into how men can translate their maybe old order, old way of parenting into a new way of looking at it as you're relating to the individual with where their strengths and their weaknesses are. You know, this goes back to one of my favorite books by Clifton Larson, strength-based leadership. I mean, it really it really leans into that. If I've got a team at work and three of them are not good at communicating, and two of them are, and I've got this new marketing campaign that needs to come out, but I need help in building it. I'm probably going to lean into those that have the more marketing experience and in and whatnot. And that's the same what you just said about parenting. That look, it's not that I'm being different with my daughter, but I am leaning into where they're stronger. You know, I see that often with my two daughters, where one of them is just she's just tougher in general. So I can certainly be a little bit harsher or harder with her when it comes to teaching sports. Uh, you know, the other day we were doing soccer and she wants to be a goalie. So, you know, I sat her down and we did some kicks, and so I kicked a little bit harder. Now, with the other one, she is not at all. She doesn't like uh, you know, pain and and uh falling down, all those kinds of things, you know. But uh, she's very smart, very smart. She can read a book, a 300-page book, and then come back and start telling me about all the details of it. Wow. Okay. So there's two different types of dynamics here, right? Um, and so I love what you just said about let's let's lean into their strengths versus their sex, right? Let's let's not think of gender so much and let's just think of strengths.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Well, and frankly, every girl's a little different, every kid's a little different, every body is a little different. So it's it's not as much the gender, although I think you have certain stereotypical things that are present within gender that we just can't ignore.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

But for an example, obviously, yeah. Yeah, I mean the kids were fighting, uh all kids, all siblings fight, right? So the kids were having a fight the other day, and I was cooking dinner, and so I stepped in, and you know, there was a big shout across the George knows how my house is, but across the house from the kitchen, shouting into the other portion of the house to tell him to stop bickering, fighting, whatever. And and you know, Luca will stop, but then Natalia's crying. So the interpretation of that message is just vastly different, right? So you have to then go and educate so that she doesn't feel hurt. Yeah, you don't want her to feel hurt by it, but you want to educate, you know, stay. Why we did it. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

What's the what was the reason to get the change in behavior?

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Um and how to prevent yelling in the future, right? I mean, look, if the yelling is the part that you take as the trigger, the whatever, right? Then here's how you prevent yelling. Right? Be more considerate. Yeah. Ask yourself a question before you take the action. Yeah, because those things would stop any discipline coming.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Yeah. Yeah. And I I love what you said there. I can certainly recall my grandpa, who was a strong father figure for me in my life. And he often would be pretty stirred about things, but he always had an explanation to it. And while as a kid, you see that as, oh man, I gotta go through this, gotta listen to this guy. Like, are you serious? I know I shouldn't, you know, take that knife and start, you know, cutting at the at the uh and you know, he'll explain to he would explain to me in great detail of the craftsmanship of the table, right? And he would go into like how hard it was for somebody to build that table. Um, and I'll give you one more example and I'll end here. We'll go to the next question. But I can recall my brother and I used to ride ATVs out in the open here in Colorado. We had 35 acres, we were always on them. Well, one day he decides to run over a very large. And uh, you know, we didn't think anything of it. We're like, it's an anthill, whatever. So the very next day, my grandpa goes down there and he just happened to be walking by the anthill, sees our tire tracks all over it, and is furious. Okay. We're thinking, man, grandpa, you know, you're a burly guy. You can't, you don't, you don't care about these ants. Well, he did. He very much cared about the ants. That's exactly right. And uh and so he walked us down there, held us by the hand, and didn't yell at us, not once, but looked down and said, Do you know how long it took those ants to build that anthill? And I remember being just so ashamed, so ashamed. And he didn't do it by screaming, didn't do it by yelling. I'm sure he probably wanted to, but just that, you know, old order dominion uh or uh demeanor about him that just did it did it justice, you know. Sure. Yeah. Sure. All right. Well, let's continue on. Um so the next uh stat is uh uh so this one I'm gonna jump into the McKinsey one. So we're gonna go down a little bit. So in McKinsey 2023, women in the workplace report women now hold 28% of C-suite positions in corporate America, which is up roughly 5% in 95%. At the current rate of progress, research projects that gender parity and in senior leadership by 2040, for daughters entering the workplace in the next decade, the ceiling is genuinely lower than it has ever been. The question for fathers isn't whether their daughters can lead. It's certainly whether we're raising her to believe she already belongs there. So I'll be honest with you, Tony. I struggle when it comes to the culture and how this paradigm has sort of shifted. But our current culture looks nothing like the one we grew up in, right? Women are leading companies, they're running countries, they're building businesses, and that shift is only accelerating. So I want to know how you process that as a dad. Does it excite you? Does it pressure you? And do you think about it when you're raising your daughter?

SPEAKER_01 14:09

I think you have to. If you're an effective parent, a loving parent, an involved parent, I think you I think you have to. But let me let me start my answer by saying, you know, I think it's great that the women have the opportunity to do those things now more than ever, or that parody is at least there if they want them. Yeah. But I underline and italicize if they want it. Because look, the the way I educate my daughter is not only are you capable and do you belong without a doubt, right? Because you can do anything you put your mind to, right? We show her that with her homework, we show her that with her activities and sports and whatever. But the reality in my household, and you can call it traditional, you can you can call it whatever you want, but the reality is how proud she should feel if she gets the opportunity to stay home and raise a family. Yes. Because in in in my mind, that is more important than any C-level job out there is raising a successful next successor generation, yeah, whatever you want to call it, right? But I I to us, it's more important that my daughter understands that she doesn't, she wouldn't be judged on a scale if she chooses that that glass ceiling goes higher, doesn't appear to her in her career, right? Maybe her career is over at the age of 23 after she's popped out her second child, right? And she's a stay-at-home mom. And I think that she needs to understand and be educated that that has just as much pride behind it than being the C level at some, you know, mid-market company. Because let's be honest, it's not going to be Fortune 100, most likely. Right. At least for my daughter, right? I mean, these are Ivy League kids, these are kids that usually there's a succession plan in place for them before they even got out of college. They knew where they were going or mommy and daddy and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So the reality is, is if my daughter does get presented with one of those glass ceilings that she could overcome, um, I absolutely teach her every day that she not only belongs there, but she deserves it. And that there's a parallel that you can be even more proud of. And that's just raising a family.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we we should definitely uh have a whole section on this because the cultural shift that really was a slow fade, I'll call it a slow fade from the expected adoption of the family values. I know we call it uh nuclear family, whatever the culture wants to call it today, that traditional family of yes, the mother stays home, she does uh she's expected to do that, to now it's not expected anymore. You now not only have the option, but we kind of need we want you in the workforce. Matter of fact, we need you because there is a paradigm shift. The old order of the autocratic ruler and kind of that uh you know top-down approach is now gone. Okay, and and organizations all over are thinking of ways to flatten it and to come up with a unification of uh how we operate this business. Well, guess what? Women offer a different paradigm, a different perspective, a different demeanor, a different approach than men. And so not only do we want them in the workforce, we need them in the workforce. But we also desperately need them in the house. You know, this is not a question, I'm gonna throw this out there, though. How do we, as leaders, you're a leader in your organization, I'm a leader, um, continue to promote that without sounding uh misogynistic or superficial or old order or whatever that term is, you know, your grandpa's generation. Um how do we continue to foster what you just said uh by promoting that, uh, but also saying, look, it's you know, there's two roads here now, not just one.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Well, I think as a society, we need to start promoting those stay-at-home bombs. We've we've just never done it. So if you if you want if you want people, and I'll just say people because the the guys are included in this, they they also right have to take on double if the wife is gonna stay home. So everybody's included in this decision. But I think I think when society here here's my big problem, and I'll back up one step. Uh you know, we have an issue with our with our social media platforms. Okay, so everything's right there. You can see how everybody judges everything in an instant, right? And everybody wants to be brutally honest with their judgment because there's no face to it. It's just a comment that they put out there. They don't have to see how that affects somebody, right? So that to me is kind of the baseline of the issue, right? As we kind of expand from that issue, if we were to start making it popular again to be home, and it's not even just popular, it's just not judging a stay at home, right? Because somewhere along the lines, and it's great if you are this person, no judgment against you, but somewhere along the lines, women got this feeling that to be fulfilled and to be happy, they have to be as successful as the man. Well, in my mind, raising that second generation makes you more successful than that man. If you had two individuals that in this day and age, I would even have my wife homeschooling them. I mean, just look at the statistics. We don't have to get into public education, but just look at the statistics. So I from a teacher to molding these people to productive members of society, right? That's huge. That's huge. It may only be two kids, one kid, three kids, five kids. So you may not be running a massive organization, but I can guarantee you it's just as challenging as running a massive organization.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

It is, it is, and I think that's what we miss uh conveying to women and probably girls. I often uh joke that you know we have raised our girls probably gener for many generations, but also in our house, just to naturally gravitate to that family desire and that need and that innate feeling by simply promoting the toys and the things that they have. You know, they have a house and they have dolls in it and they they have beds and they you see what I'm saying? This is all coming pre-programmed, if you will. Um, and so but it's also what they enjoy. You know, if you put a transformer in front of my kid right now, because I got two girls, they're gonna throw it away. They're gonna be like, eh, I don't like that.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

They'd be wearing a swimsuit in the barbie pool. Yeah, yeah, the transformer would just be wearing a swimsuit in the barbie pool.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Yeah. So, so there's this we're already pre-wiring, but they don't necessarily need to be unwired. So I guess what I'm tugging on here is do we need to change anything from toddler, from you know, diaper age to toddler age? Anything to sort of prepare them for this than that we've been doing for 50 years.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

I think we're doing too much today. I think parents are stepping in too much within those influential years. Just let them be kids. For Christ's sake, just let them be kids, right? In the influential years, right? Because kids don't know all of these surrounding factors until parents say something.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

So I think we're too involved in those influential years. Just promote being a kid, right? Don't overthink everything. It's a boy toy, it's it's a boy color, it's a girl color, it's a girl toy. Don't overthink it. If that's what they want to play with, let them play with it. Yeah. My problem comes in more of the I guess preteen to teen years, right? And and and what I was saying earlier is when you look at the reels out there and you look at the videos and you look at the advertisements that are available out there, when it portrays a woman, it portrays a woman in a successful career position most of the time. Now that's just where they start to collect this conditioning data where it's like, wait, if I want to be A successful happy woman, I have to have this illustrious career. And that's the part that's breaking down. We have conditioned, right? We've conditioned generation after generation just through optics, through viewing these things that now they think this is the the path to success. When frankly, and then I'll state it again because I'm sure I'm pretty clear on my opinion here, but I think it's it's either or. I don't think you can do both. You cannot be an amazingly successful parent, a mom, and have a crazy successful career. Probably not. So you're gonna have to pick, and it's either one, and I think they're both extremely fulfilling. But I will promise you, I you know, I not only do I have a daughter, but I grew up with two siblings, and they're both girls.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Right. And so I can tell you just being around girls my entire life, great relationship with my mom. I've been married for almost 15 years, all those things, being around the women, right, there is a piece. I don't think you even get the full fulfillment. Just biologically, how we're programmed by God. I don't think you get the fulfillment, the same fulfillment at the age of 40, 45, when you're when you're baby making, when your reproduction years are gone. They're starting to fade. You're you're out. And I think most women that I've talked to as as I enter that kind of age, when they don't have kids and they don't have a family and they focused only on the career, they feel empty. Yeah. And that scares the shit out of me for my daughter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Yeah. And that's an interesting dichotomy. That's that's something to dig into maybe on another show. But is the male liaring such that it promotes the absolutes of you know, black and white in the world, meaning we know how to accomplish A because we're going to do B. Okay. And so that's what we love. We love to pick up a shovel, we love to dig a hole, and we love to put something in it, and then we've we've gotten, we accomplished, you know, that thing. And I know it's a bad example, but I'll use, you know, we like to build houses, we like to build roads, we like to, we actually like to do it, believe it or not. I know there's a a world that's going away from the manual labor, but we also love to work. And that's just in us as men. We love to do it. We love to just go to work and work hard, come home from the day, know that we did a good day's work. I don't know, and maybe you're on to something, if women all, if they were being honest with us, could say the same thing. Do they love to do that or do they love to see relationship building? Do they love to see conversations happening? Is there a difference in what they truly love to do?

SPEAKER_01 24:39

Obviously, George, I'm not a woman, but what what my observations I guess my observation in that uh in that realm would be that women are social, men are task-oriented. Yeah. We don't care if we have 20 friends. In fact, a lot of us just kind of carry two or three for life, right? Women, social butterflies, right? They buy things because their friend bought something or they are influenceable, which is why advertising changed in the 70s to target the women of the house, right? And so we see this all over. We just have to we have to be aware of it, I guess, and understand its place rather than allow it to condition. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

And I don't think by any means do we change the paradigm. I think we're going in a in a direction that's going to be uh our culture for many, many eons. But I do think there's something to talk about here. And maybe next time we can bring um I'd love to have a woman a woman on who's you know, could give us some perspective. Okay, we're gonna keep going. We're moving along really nicely here. This is gonna be our last question, and uh we'll we'll tug on this one and see where it goes. So I'll start off. So I'll be honest, Tony. I struggle deeply with this one when it and what it is is when it comes to boys around my daughters.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Did you say their ages for the audience? I didn't.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

I should have done that. So uh I have a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

And you Luca is eight and Talia is six.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

Okay, so we have younger kids, they're not quite in the teenage years yet, but they're getting there.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Right. And I think that's important for them, the audience to understand when you go into this question. So please, by all means, go into the question, but now they at least know what generation.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

And we are certainly in a different phase than we will be in five years. All right, so you know, whether it's watching the boys with their roughhouse with them a little harder, right? We know this, or you know, the day that she once came home and told me she had a boyfriend. Okay, something fires off in me that I can't always explain. All right, do you feel the same or does it hit differently for you because you have a son and you're thinking about it from both sides now? Whereas I got two daughters.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

No, it's not different at all. Okay, good. But I think it's not different because we both know how we were when we were teenagers. It doesn't matter how they are as an eight-year-old for my boy, anyway, but as teenagers, we know exactly how we were, you and I, and both you and I are very proactive family men. So we're gonna get ahead of that. That's right. We're gonna control that and head that off as much as possible, right? So, so yeah, I I think it kind of comes from your in my past a little bit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Well, let me kind of let me kind of go into this further. So, yeah, I I get a little riled up. Let's start out with the rough housing. We'll go to that one first, then we'll move into the gosh. Am I really gonna have to think about them dating somebody someday?

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Well, and I I want to talk about the boyfriend dynamic, right? Because at our girls' ages, boyfriend is a word.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Yeah. So let but we'll hold that. Go ahead, get it, get it. Spot on. Okay, so it's the first one. So my kids are playing soccer now, and you know, I'm very happy about this because it is helping them to be a little more tough, a little more resilient, okay with chaos and and just uh you know, roughhousing around them. Sure. And not being in control, maybe? Because I like to roughhouse around them, but I can't. I just can't. Like, you know, the second I do any, you know, sort of roughhousing, it instantly turns into crying, and we have to stop and and put a put a stop to it pretty quickly. So I'm kind of like, yes, I like to see this because they're getting tougher. But then all of a sudden, when one kid, I mean, I watched this kid the other day, I've actually been helping uh in their practices. So I watched this kid the other day. It's across the field. Is it co-ed? It's a co-ed, yeah, it's co-ed. Um, and this boy, yeah, just decides to push my girl down. I mean, he shoved her. And there's just all the hairs in the back of my neck, you know, and uh wanted to certainly go over there and give him my word. Luckily, the teacher saw it instantly, you know, uh reprimanded him and put him to the side. And so I had to leave it be. But I hear about these sorts of stories all the time. My kids will come home, mostly my little one, because she's she likes to get involved with boys, she likes to be rough with them and stuff. So she'll come home and tell me, hey, you know, Blake did this or this kid did that, and he pinched me really hard. You know, it's just stupid little things. It's all little things right now. But there's a part of me who gets upset and I want to go do something about it. Do you have that same no? So here's where we're gonna differ.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Okay. Um mine's much worse than yours. So you from what I just heard you say, the difference between the two of us is you're gonna take the non-confrontational route and I go full-on confrontation.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Okay, gotcha. So you're still going on that, but you're ready to do not knock down the doors with my children, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:50

And so if you're in a ball game, my kids play sports. My daughter, unlike your daughters, is not as much into the team sport, right? So she's more golf right now. That's where her interest is going. Dance class, where it's a little bit more on stage with a few people, but it comes down to individual performance. Yeah, right. And so she's doing these activities where you just don't have that physicality to it, right? But she has, where she's played baseball, where she's played soccer, and she's done these things. I can tell you a story, and you know, I know we're we're getting short on time to some degree, but we were at Skate City for anybody who knows Skate City in Colorado, right? So we're at Skate City down in Aurora traditional skate. See rink. Yeah, exactly. And and and it's the two by twos, not it's the two, it's the old skating. From the nineties, absolutely, old skating. Anyway, so we're there, and this, you know, my daughter's six, but my daughter, you have to understand, is in the teenth percentile for size. She's small, yeah, right. So for a six-year-old, she looks more like a four-year-old. There's a lot of three, four-year-olds that are taller and a little bit more stout than my daughter. Anyway, she's cute as a button. So we're on the roller rink, and it, you know, I would say he's 10, 12 years old, and he pushes her down, right? There couldn't have been, and I'm I mean, I was in the heat of the moment, but there couldn't have been but seven milliseconds for me to get up from my pizza, get on that floor with no roller skates on, grab that kid by the back of his shirt, take him off the floor, and have a conversation with him. Yeah. And I'm not sitting there yelling at him and being his parent, but I am letting him know that I saw him. Yeah. And if that's the way he wants to treat people, then he can deal with me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Yeah. Yeah. So I I had one of those uh situations. Kid was named Connor, and he's just a little brad. It's everybody. But I saw him uh do that or do something to my kid. I believe he like kicked her leg and she fell down. And so I instantly went up to him as well and just grabbed him by the back of the shoulder, pulled him to the side. And what's the back of the?

SPEAKER_01 31:49

I don't know why we do that, but whatever.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Yeah, it was a shoulder, it was a you know, hey. Um, you're lucky it's only the shoulder. Your ear twist, early neck, you know. Remember? Yep. I remember we had one guy who would always pull on our ear and just shove it down really hard. Okay, good old 90s. Um, so yeah, so I pulled him to the side and and told him that's the last time I'll ever want to see that. What nicely happened there was I don't know, was five minutes later, he started calling me Mr. Adair. So a little bit of respect. Now, probably not gonna stop the kid from doing it again, but who knows?

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Maybe it will. I we'll see. Look, you can only try. Yeah, right. I've had parents come up in the middle of those confrontations. You can't be talking to my, you know, calmly, because the moment you come off to them as as that person treated your child or whatever the scenario is, it's it's escalation and it's out of control, right? But if you turn to the parent and you can control yourself as a mature adult and you explain the situation and you explain what you're getting across to their child, most parents, and by the way, we live in Colorado, so it's getting a little nutty, but most parents understand that because most parents are trying to teach that value as well. Right. They don't want their kids walking around like jerks to everybody. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Yeah, luckily we didn't have we don't have parents, so we can we can do the parenting and not have to, you know, talk with people, just as long as we do it respectfully. All right, well, let's move into the next one. I think this one is increasingly more difficult. All right. So what's your what's your thought process on dating, let's say right now in this, in this very young age, we'll call it the toddler, you know, between age, adolescent, yep, now, and then what's your thoughts on how you might parent as a so we have a strict rule in my house, no dating.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

I mean, I said this earlier, kind of gave everybody a little foreshadowing, but boyfriend is a word, and Luca loves to tease Talia because he'll say boyfriend, and she'll take that as a significant other, in which case it's just a boy that's a friend. Yeah, so it's just a word, right? Kind of like I said earlier. But we do have a strict rule in my house, and it's uh it's no dating till 30. Now we all know, and I'm sure a couple of listeners probably just spit out their coffee and you know, and and and laughed at there. Yeah, look, I can't control that by any means, but the more I condition around that line, it's just gonna be a mental thing, but they're not looking for it in their teens because it's not a priority until maybe their 20s. Yeah. Right. And and the other thing that I teach them is that dating, true dating, not boyfriend, but dating, right, is only a letdown in preparation and practice for what comes in your twenties before it gets serious. Yeah. So you there's no priority there. This boy is not gonna keep you from an education, he's not gonna keep you from your sporting events, he's not gonna keep you from dinners with your family, right? That's not the priority. Yeah, that becomes a priority when you want to expand your life, maybe you know, become the matriarch of of that household, right? Um, you know, things like that. But that should be after college. Once you've gotten done with what you need to do to establish your life, now you can pursue the other priorities. And those other priorities are either going to be a career or a family. Yeah. Right. And and how you boil it down. Because I don't want to get everybody yelling at me out there, but as you boil those down, those are really gonna be your priorities. You're either gonna chase that, chase that career, or you're gonna chase that, you know, that that motherhood or that family life, right? Yeah. Um, and so for me, dating now, that's kind of how we establish dating now. Dating as a teenager, I I think I kind of gave that to you, but it's the re-emphasis, reminding them it's not a priority because at that time we're gonna have hormones that we don't have now, and they're gonna argue with me. And they're not gonna see it as I see it, they're going to see it as a priority because of the hormones. And so I think it's just constant reminders, constant education.

SPEAKER_00 35:41

Yeah. Yeah, I I think you're definitely on to something really good here that the listeners need to hear is that there's still traditional fundamental values that you need to establish as importance in their lives. And that is, you know, if you're adolescent age, yes, we're not gonna probably put too much pressure on this because there's not a lot of things getting in your way. But teenage, yes, you're getting closer to uh what you're gonna be doing next in your life. Are you planning on going to college? Do you want to be this, that, or the other thing? And if that boyfriend of yours is getting in the way of that, you know, as parents, especially fathers, we should probably help to align that.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

You know, we have to show them our dynamics, right? They have to understand the marital dynamic, how we support on a daily basis, right? And it's not all sunshine and rainbows, yeah, but they need to see that that's what a real relationship is because when it's in high school, it's all sunshine and rainbows. Your parents pay for everything. We're picking you up from the movies. Yeah, that dinner that you took them to Del Frisco's, guess what? That was on daddy's. That's on somebody else. That's so they need to understand what that what the good and the bad looks like. And again, that you know, I kind of gave the blanket of education, but you've got to break that down for them, right? Your kids know what you're arguing, so tell them why you're arguing. You have to explain that stuff to them, and you have to be mature about it to know that hey, you're going to argue. Here's how you deal with it, and you have to own it, and you have to take accountability. So I think that dynamic just comes through education and constant reminders because kids forget it. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Yeah, and I think having that that that feeling that starts to get generated in the let's say teenage years of love, of excitement, of joy. Somebody loves you, somebody cares about you. Let's not use the word love yet.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

That's infatuation.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

Infatuation is better positioned, but it is a good launching point. I don't know if it's necessary, though, and I think you're on to something, you know, to have a good, healthy relationship in your 20s, let's say, when you are positioned for that, you know, I don't necessarily know if it's necessary to have those leadups because a lot of it's a lot of heartbreak and just disappointment.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

Um, and that, you know. And I think that's why your marital dynamic plays so much of a key role in those years, as they seem, because your their relationships are gonna be what you show it to be right.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

All right, Tony. This was fantastic. Those are the questions for the show, everybody. We're gonna go into rapid fire now. So this is where Tony's gonna give short answers. It could be quick answers, they could go, and they could be gut answers. We'll see what that we'll see what happens. Uh, but this is rapid fire section. Are you ready? Okay. Uh, first one son or daughter, who stresses you out more as a dad? Be honest.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

So the boy absolutely stresses me out more now, but I have my daughter is just so cute that I'm pretty sure in her teenage years that's gonna stress me out.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Yeah, and for me, I'll I'll answer these two just briefly. Um equally. Yeah. When you have two daughters, you're double. I know double. They're both beautiful, they're both lovely, they're both sweet, they're both kind, and yes, they both have their moments. And the innocence, as we just watch that innocence get stripped away. That's right. What's one thing? I'm sorry, rapid fire number two. What's one thing your daughter does that your son never would?

SPEAKER_01 39:11

Just come up and and uh cuddle with me. Yeah. Right? Just come and you know, watching a movie or something, and it's so nonchalant, but she'll just kind of, you know, like a dog that wants to be petted, right? She'll just kind of wedge her way underneath your arm, right? Or, you know, I still we read every night with our children. They read us a book before bedtime. So I'm laying in bed with my daughter before she actually goes to sleep. And uh she'll just grab my hand and kind of start rubbing her back. You know, and so that's just something that I don't think a lot of boys just yeah care that much about the physical interaction.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Yeah. Yeah, not that it'd be bad, but it it would be different, right? It wouldn't be a normal behavior. It's just not it's just not baked into most.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

I think you have everybody out there knows you've come across and ran into and even appreciate some more emotionally or sensitive men. Great. That child is probably gonna be a little different than my boy. Yeah, but yeah, that's my boy. My boy is not gonna be the touchy feely. Yeah, but his dad never was the touchy feely, so it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

Yep, got it. All right, rapid fire number three. One word for what you hope your daughter says about you when she's grown.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

Oh man, that's a good one. So I think it's it's a thank you. I think for just preparing her for what the world's actually like. I think a lot of people out there, and this one's gonna get some controversy, George, so I'm just gonna apologize ahead of time. But we like to prop our girls up on a princess pedestal. Yeah, and it's unfortunate. I I do call my daughter a princess, she is my princess, but the real world will never see your daughter the way you see your daughter. And the real world is an unforgiving place. So as much as she is my princess, she it's educating her on where she stands in the grander world, and I think she'll look back one day and go, you know, that was valuable.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

Yeah. I'm gonna steal both of those because both of those were really, really good. But um you know, I do think hopefully, you know, and I say this with a lot of hope, uh, that they do say um he was always there. Yeah, always there. Just always there. You know, and I forget that one because I am always there. So I don't even think about it, but you're right. Yeah. Okay, rapid fire number four. Finish the sentence. I know I'm doing something right as her dad when I see her interact with other people, right?

SPEAKER_01 41:49

Not not family people, neighbors, adults. Um, when I see my six-year-old holding a conversation with an adult, and the adult's not, I'll say diminishing, I don't think that's the right word, but the the adult is not changing the way they communicate to be at that child's level. They're just having a conversation.

SPEAKER_02 42:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

And there are many situations in the past six years, well, maybe I should say four because she didn't start talking out of the womb. But when she started talking and interacting with people, how many adults have come up to me, whether we were at a wedding or a gala or an executive event or whatever, and just said, you know, I I it's very rare that I have a conversation with a six-year-old. Your daughter's so articulate and beautiful, and you know, whatever. And so that starts to tell me that I'm doing something right. We're on the kids' side. And, you know, I see that when I see some other kids that you know, unfortunately, like it or not, we have less good parents in today's world than we did in previous generations where they're, you know, involved. Yeah. And so I'll see kids do some just outlandish things. You know, my kids were very proud of their Pokemon cards, is one of the things. And I watched one of the neighbor kids just take a couple cards out and they were gonna keep them. Now, I didn't get involved in that one. I wanted to see because there's no physical harm being done. And I can replace a Pokemon card. So it's so I wanted to see how that played out, right? And didn't get upset, right? Just said, Can you please give me those back? They're not yours, you know, and how they deal with that conflict and bringing that down versus most kids would just continue to escalate until it got to a point where I need to go get my mom, dad, or an authority, right? And so that that just makes me feel like I'm on the right track. But again, six years old, I got a long way to go, bro.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

Yeah, yeah, don't we both? I'll share uh one that came to mind. We are a faith-based house, we believe in Jesus. And so every, every just about every time we hear the ambulance, this is this is no joke, Brie will just start to pray. And and she's just kind of created that on her own. It hasn't been anything anybody stoked. She just says, real quick, uh, you know, hey Lord, I hope you uh hope whoever's hurting there is okay and you take care of them, and then a quick amen. So for me that was. It was just a good moment to say I think I'm doing something right. They may they may grow up and have different opinions of things, but I think that tells me that hey, they're on the right track. At least they got some some light to work with.

SPEAKER_01 44:12

As long as we can teach them how to make decisions properly, I don't think I'm gonna be critical of the decision that comes up.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

Yeah. All right. All right, Tony. That was a good one. That's going to do it for today's episode of the Honest Hour. Tony, as always, appreciate you bringing it real today.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

Absolutely. Can't wait for the next one.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

All right. If today's conversation meant something to you, do us a favor, share it with someone who needs to hear it. That's how we grow this thing, and that's how people get better together. Thanks for listening to The Honest Hour as we dive into what it means to raise your daughters right. That's our hour. Lead well, live better, and keep it honestly.