The NJ DAD Podcast
The NJ Dad Podcast is where fatherhood meets humor. Join Andrew Parise for honest conversations about parenting, marriage, work, friendships, and the everyday chaos of suburban family life. Some episodes are solo, some feature guests, but they’re all built around one idea: being a better dad doesn’t mean taking yourself too seriously. Whether you’re changing diapers, coaching Little League, navigating date night, or just trying to survive another trip to Costco, you’ll find relatable stories, practical perspective, and plenty of laughs along the way. New episodes every Thursday.
The NJ DAD Podcast
How to Raise Strong Children
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SPEAKER_02If you're thinking of starting a family with somebody or marrying, it's great. Um, make sure that you are aligned with some of that bigger stuff. It is, it gets real. It gets really real. So just be ready. I am your fatherless friend Andrew, your quasi-big brother. And today we are going to start uh a three-part arc solo episodes about different facets of parenting. Today's episode, we're going to talk about keeping up with the Joneses. Those damn Jones. The only Jones I want to keep up with is Quincy, and nobody can keep up with Quincy Jones. May he rest in peace. The other thing we're going to talk about is I've alluded to this in other episodes. How do you raise strong children without big trauma, big life stuff, big struggle? And through my research, what I realized and what I read about, which was very reassuring, is that you don't have to, they don't have to suffer for that. It doesn't have to be that type of thing. I was sort of programmed to think that you have to endure all the stuff, metal, steel makes steel, metal against metal, whatever the hell the saying is. But what I found was very reassuring, and I'll share that with you. And I what I want to say first is first and foremost, if you're a parent out there, you're doing your damnedest, you're doing your best, you've got that mommy guilt, you've got that daddy guilt, you're working hard, you want to work, you want to provide, but you feel like you're not there enough. I'm just gonna give you a little cheers. Cheers to you. We have so many different things tearing us down as parents, including each other, which we'll get into. But give yourself a minute, give yourself a break. I'm gonna say that again, I'm gonna say it over and over again because parenting is very difficult. I do not complain about parenting at all. My children are the greatest blessing I've ever had in my life. And I don't complain about it, but it doesn't mean it's not difficult at times. So we're gonna get into all of that and more on the fatherless cheat sheet. Check it out. Okay, we're back on the fatherless cheat sheet. We're gonna get into all of it and then some uh I feel pretty good right now. I'll tell you why I feel good. I know I I I'm not a complainer. I'm not a complainer. Maybe if you've been listening, you've heard me complain a little bit about the cold in this space I'm in right now. And today, it's not that bad. And you hear the kids playing in the neighborhood, and it's just it's sort of the harbinger of what's to come, which is all this ice and shit melting. Finally, it'll melt sometime around tax day, maybe, if we're lucky. But the I was thinking about this as well. The snowstorms, the winter of it all, it shines a hot, bright light on the good and the bad of parenting. What I mean is this when you're inside with young children, or any children, especially teenagers, I'm sure, they're stuck inside. They can only play outside for so long. They get dressed, it takes 20 minutes to get the stuff on to dress them. They go outside for 25, they come back inside for hot chocolate. I'm almost certain my children only go outside and play just to come back in for hot chocolate. They've trained us, it's not the other way around. But it shines a light on the closeness, togetherness, the coziness, getting together, and it also shines a light on the closeness, the togetherness, the coziness, the tightness. And that when that cabin fever kicks in, it's just it's the truth. And I know other places around the country, West Coast is not not the same thing because it's just beautiful all year round. But it's an interesting thing where you've got all of that time, and time is the commodity. I beat the drum on that. And then sometimes it's too much time, and you just everybody needs their own time. And the toggle for me in parenting is one minute you're it's trench warfare to go use the bathroom in peace and be able to lock the door and have some quiet for two minutes. And the other thing is, you know, your pictures pop up on your phone of just two years ago when they look completely different. Because my kids are so young and they grow so fast, and then you, you know, you you start getting misty-eyed. So it's all, boy, parenting is a really difficult thing. And the thing I've noticed is that we don't make it any easier on each other because there is the element of judgment, there is the element of keeping up with the Joneses, which we'll talk about. Why do we do that? We'll talk about that, how to not do that, we'll talk about that. But I think we live in an ultra-pressurized time period right now where you, you know, keeping up with the Joneses specifically is like adult bullying. It's it's ambient, it's everywhere. It's in your pocket now. So as kids can't escape bullying, they get in the house. Parents can't either, because you're opening up the phone, you see the family, other family down the street on vacation, and maybe you couldn't afford that vacation, whatever the thing is. So we're talking about all that stuff and more. I'm gonna turn this on its on its head though, real quick, and I'm gonna do a couple top fives up front that my lovely, beautiful wife provided, who I'm about to pander for a second, so excuse me, who I have to say is is if she's not in contention for a top five mother of all time, I'm not sure who would be. She takes care of these girls so beautifully. She handles the things that I just I I wouldn't know what the hell to do without her. And we make a pretty good team because I handle the, you know, a lot of the other stuff as well. But I asked her to do two top five lists for me. And I wanted her to talk about what her favorite part about our our parenting style specifically, and then also sort of some difficult things she feels are tough to navigate within parenting for her. So these are hers. And I'm gonna tell you right now, don't say a word about it. All right, don't say anything negative because I'll find you. Because I'm a little protective. So here we go. We're gonna do this real quick. My beautiful wife, she will remain named as the wife. So she loves she loves this about our parenting style. We'll go there for. You know what? We're gonna go, we're gonna go the the tough stuff first. We're gonna go to the bad news first. Uh wanting to raise strong people while trying to protect them from anything bad. Is she on brand or what? Because that's what we're gonna talk about as well. Giving the kids every opportunity without spoiling them. That's that's really tough. That's really tough too. Sort of aligns with the same thing. Making it a priority that they live in our world and don't live in theirs. Yeah, that's difficult because I think a lot of parents you blink and then you realize you're just constantly driving to games or adhering to their schedule and things like that. So that could be tough as well. Mommy guilt, feeling like I'm not doing enough, what I can't possibly do is do more. It's quite literally, that is exactly what it is. She does so much, and then some, and she's a great professional and working mom, and she's just she kicks ass and she's such a great example for them. But it is, I've seen this a lot with both moms and dads. We just want to do so much, and sometimes, again, I use the metaphor of just over-tightening the screw and then stripping that screw. It it can't work. You can't try so hard, you have to give yourself a break, as I'll say a thousand times today. Uh, this is difficult for her as well. Remind yourself to take a step back and enjoy every moment when the days and weeks go by so quickly. Yeah, sometimes the days are long and chaotic and tough, and then and then it's and then all the snow is melting. So those are all those are all great. Those are all great. Okay, what she loves about our parenting style. And again, we're not lauding ourselves. This is just our list. We do what we say. That's the truth. We do not negotiate with miniature terrorists. We don't. We say it, we do it, it's over.
SPEAKER_01That's just our way. Embrace them, embrace their individuality separately.
SPEAKER_02That's a good one. I would take it, I would take it a step further. And we also don't like to say, well, she does this like me or you, or she does this like you or me. No, they're their own people. They didn't ask for this. So let them be their own their own people and themselves. And yeah, we do, we let them just we let them do do their thing. Always talk to the girls like adults. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, and we we baby talk the dogs instead. That's true. I baby talk my my puppies. I don't, I don't, I've never I've always I've always spoken to my girls since they're babies, like, you know, I was their union delegate and we were having a conversation in the back of the diner over something serious. You just shoot them straight. I think they respect that. And I I I think that it's worked for us, let's just say. No baby talk. But we're on the same page about 99.9% of things. Yeah, that's true. We're very very much alike on that thing. And I would say anybody who's unsolicited advice, if you're thinking of starting a family with somebody or or marrying, was great, um, make sure that you are aligned with some of that bigger stuff. It is, it gets real. It gets really real. So just be ready and make sure you're aligned in your value system and and all that big stuff. We know when the other one needs a minute of break and we step in. Yeah. About an hour ago, they all returned home, and I just saw the look on her face, her beautiful beat red face. I said, You need a minute, you good? But she didn't. She's a champ. So that was a great list. Thank you for that, honey. Um, and a good way, a good way to start this up. And I also want to start this up by I had a great conversation. Uh I drop off the other morning with a one of the moms of a boy in my daughter's class. I'm not gonna give her name. I told her I wouldn't, but she said it was cool to use the story. And she pointed to I asked her saying I was doing the show, and what is a challenge for you as a parent? Just a general challenge. And she pointed something out that I I will name in a little bit on that list. But she told a great story about her dad. And she said, I I can't believe how often I hear this. I hear it so much that my dad grew up without a father or my, you know, who what whoever. But there's so much fatherlessness. I I'm almost shocked by it. She said, Her dad grew up without a dad, and he traveled a lot. He had a traveling job, and he had three, he has three daughters, and God bless him. But what he would do is because he traveled so much, each trip, he would take one daughter with him to spend that quality time. I just thought that was such a wonderful story. And she mentioned in that same context that he always felt like, you know, he always felt guilty he wasn't around. But boy, you're trying to earn a living. You have to do what you have to do. Especially, you know, so many years ago, there was less remote work or whatever. Salesman actually had to go, whatever he did, sorry, whatever he did, you have to go to the thing. So I just thought that was a really wonderful story. And it meant a lot to her. And people would ask her, because he would be absent quite a bit, or not there quite a bit, not present. Do you feel like you have an absentee father? And she said, no, by no means, because I know he's doing what he has to do for the family. And he's making these efforts, he's making these overtures to bring one of the girls with him each time. I just thought that was a really great story because it he could have so easily just said, he could have rested on his laurels of his profession and said, forget it. I'm not, I'm not dragging one of these kids with me. I'm gonna just go do my thing and I'll see them when I get home. And she also made mention that he he got to everything that he possibly could. And I going back to the idea of effort and presence being the most important thing to a kid, not a lot of this other garbage that we put on ourselves, which is a good segue into uh the other stuff.
SPEAKER_01And I'll go back to sort of not giving each other a break.
SPEAKER_02I think sometimes human nature is we we boost ourselves up by sort of looking down on on somebody else. And when it comes to parenting, I think there's a lot of insecurity because you just never know if you're doing the right thing. And so we can say, oh, they let so-and-so run around the beach for that long. How could you do that? He didn't have a suntail lotion up. How do you know what's going on there? Conversely, within parenting, you constantly at every turn think you are messing up your child. And again, I'm not speaking for anybody else, I'm speaking for myself. And I will give a perfect example right now.
SPEAKER_01So I have cleaned my potty mouth up quite a bit since I've had children.
SPEAKER_02But being from the New York, New Jersey area, once in a while, that colloquialism of this effing guy will come out of my mouth. It's like giving to you on your birth certificate. Like you now can say this fucking guy as many times as you need to when it's appropriate. If there's a guy and it's a problem for you, you can say this fucking guy. Okay. Usually when it's uh the driving or with some uh, you know, the the the carnival, someone's not acting properly at the carnival, this effing guy. So I must have dropped this effing guy, and I don't know, I do not know the context. But about two hours later, my my beautiful doe-eyed three-year-old is sitting on the couch watching, and I had the local news. I remember I had the local news on, hyper-local news. There's nothing, there's nothing offensive on local news, hyper local news ever, like regional news 12. And all of a sudden, I even think it was the weather, which we could all get upset about. All of a sudden, with these Disney character doe eyes, all I heard was this fucking guy. And I thought, oh my god, daddy, you gotta, you gotta clean it up, dude. You need to relax.
SPEAKER_01Things like that happen.
SPEAKER_02We let stuff slip, we are imperfect. And I think, but for 10%, 5% of parents who are just just shot and don't know what they're doing, I think the vast, vast majority are trying to do the same thing in different ways, and we just love our children desperately, and it stuff just slips through the cracks and and we're imperfect, and we're just reaching for those those threads. Um but it was it was funny, and she's so angelic looking, sitting there, this effing guy. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01Oh so on a sort of on a keeping up with the Joneses on a personal level, we live in a nice area, but in a very humble home.
SPEAKER_02We love our home. It's not not a big home, not a flashy home. We we've made it ours, we've made it our home. There's a lot of life and laughter and anything you could fit on one of those wood panels, those signs that are in those rental homes, live, laugh, love, whatever, wine. That's our home, really and truly. And we're so happy about that. But it's even close friends have homes that are twice, three times the size of our home. Cars as well. So there are times when you think, oh God, what you know, you don't you hope your kids don't notice. And so far, so good. And once in a while we'll get home or something like that. And my oldest will say, Daddy, we have the best, we have the best house in the neighborhood. And it makes me so happy because I know she genuinely means it because she feels it and she doesn't, she doesn't understand what an appraisal is just yet. But the fact of the matter is, is I think that the stuff that we think about as parents keeping up with Jones is is more about us and less about the kids. Although when they get a little bit older, they notice a little bit more. I'm sure we'll we'll learn about that in the future.
SPEAKER_01Um So I wanna I want to just bring up you just gotta bear with me.
SPEAKER_02Why, the whys behind why do we keep up, why do we want to keep up with the Joneses? And I did a little research about that. So social comp I'm just gonna go, social comparison theory uh proposed that human humans evaluate themselves by comparing to others. In parenting, this often manifests as comparing schools, sports involvement, homes, and children's achievements. That's by psychologist Leon Festinger. Fear of social exclusion. Number two. Research shows humans are wired to avoid social rejection. I didn't get that memo. Parents may overspend or overschedule to ensure their children are not left out socially or economically.
SPEAKER_01That is what do we got there?
SPEAKER_02Baumgeister and Leary, The Need to Belong, uh status signaling and conspicuous consumption. Thorstein Veblen, not an Italian guy, described conspicuous consumption as purchasing to signal status. Maybe that's behind those Ed Hardy shirts. You remember those awful things years ago? If you have one, I'm sorry, but they're not, they weren't great. Modern behavioral economics show visible spending increases under social observation. Number four, intensive parenting culture. Sociologist Sharon Hayes described intensive parenting as a culture expectation to devote extraordinary time and money to child development. I think we're all in the thick of that right now. Number five, social media amplification effect. Yeah. Research links social media exposure with heightened comparison and parental anxiety. Digital platforms magnify perceived norms and unrealistic benchmarks.
SPEAKER_01Vogel 2014, psychology of popular media culture. Um yeah. That all that all tracks, as the kids say.
SPEAKER_02So what do we keep up with the Joneses about? I have a couple things here. And uh the same mom that told me that great story about her dad.
SPEAKER_06Bonjour, compadre.
SPEAKER_04It's the Priceline Negotiator!
SPEAKER_06How do I negotiate so many great travel deals? My greatest gadget. The Priceline app. It's got hotel deals, flight deals, rental car deals, all of those deals in a bundle. Deals, game day deals, concert trip deals. No one deals more deals than Priceline. Hold your horses, there's more. The app lets you filter hotels by neighborhood, vibe, star level, and amenities like pools and spas and beachfronts, and wait, I'm not done. Stop cutting me up.
SPEAKER_04Price line!
SPEAKER_01She also made mention of scheduling, overscheduling.
SPEAKER_02And that's I that's funny that that was in that top five. We, you know, we load these kids up a lot of the times because it's important too. You want to get them involved in activities and hobbies and this and that. They have to start to figure out what their thing is gonna be. But a lot of it is to say, hey, yeah, we're going here, we're going there. I gotta drive here. In that conversation, you want to feel relevant. You want to feel like your child is doing those things. So there has to be a little bit of a balance. And she also told me that they they schedule total free time during the week. I I loved what she had to say. It was a really sort of fun, interesting, uh, impromptu conversation that I usually wouldn't have before nine o'clock. Because I come in like the grumpy bear with the drop off. You know, I'll wave a couple times, but for the most part, I'm just getting her there and getting back in the car. But anyway, um, let's see, how else do we keep up with M. Jones's? Of course, money homes, vacations. Yeah, high school, a lot of kids were away for those vacations, those breaks, and I was just kicking cans down the road and then selling those cans for five cents a pop. No, it wasn't that bad, but it was pretty bad. Uh pop culture, pop culture, social media, you son of a bitches. Scheduling activities, screens and screen time, big, big deal there. You know, I'm already my oldest is six next month. And we're already talking about the phones and this and that, and what the hell are we gonna do and keeping her off social media, you know? Um, maybe she never finds out what the hell a twerk is, that would be a positive. So, all those things and more. This is a big one, and I had a front row seat to this one, and this could be another whole show.
SPEAKER_01We did talk about um youth sports with with Steve Thiel.
SPEAKER_02Shout out Steve Thiel, and that culture is hyper, hyper competitive, hyper cutthroat, and and to be honest with you, super fucking crazy. What we're doing to these kids in youth sports is nearly criminal, and a lot of parents should be ashamed of themselves when you see umpires and coaches fighting on the field and just d lunacy going on, and there's so that that could be its own whole episode. And maybe it will be. We'll do that again because that was fun.
SPEAKER_01Uh camps and schools, of course, or schools, right?
SPEAKER_02The um competition to get into working backwards, colleges, great colleges, and and who's going where and who's going here? That's a real thing. And even the pre-K's and getting in a you know whose doors are closed to who, whom? Clothing and trends, yeah, all this all this stuff. All this nutty, nutty stuff.
SPEAKER_01So we're gonna go. How do we how do we not? How do we avoid keeping up with the Joneses? Let's see.
SPEAKER_02Audit your exposure, limit passive scrolling and mute comparison triggers, that's tough. Comparison is the thief of joy. Define your family values in writing. I like that. Write it down. If you don't define success, social media will, sons of bitches. Separate appearance from outcome. Does it look impressive or actually help? Yeah, I find that the people that seem to have it together the most are the most full of shit, especially if they tell you they have it together. I don't believe it. I don't buy it. I'm not, I don't believe you. So it's just a lot of times and you're you're working that hard to convey that thing and say that thing. You ain't that thing. Normalize saying no. Boundaries build confidence. Talk about money transparently, teach trade-offs early. Yeah, responsibility. Delay major decisions, use a 30-day rule before upgrades. Yeah. Yeah. Don't go buy that Ferrari, Larry. Don't buy it. We have to make the mortgage, babe. Reduce status spending. Ask, would I buy this if no one knew? That's really good. Anchor to conch uh to contribution, not consumption. Ask, what did we give this week? What did we give this week? Choose your peer group intentionally. Well, I use that word a lot. Oh my goodness. The only intention that word, the only intentional thing that I used to know about was like the intentional walk in baseball. I know. I always go back to baseball.
SPEAKER_01So that's that's it for the Joneses for now. And now we're gonna talk about raising strong, mentally well children.
SPEAKER_02And how the hell do we do that without setting up sort of uh artificial boundaries and hurdles for them to get over? And so I have another quick thing about uh some research. And number one, study back methods for raising strong mentally well children. Authoritative parenting. I'm not even gonna give you the names. If if you need to test me, you could get in touch with me, I'll give it to you. Um, developmental psychologist uh Baumrind found that kids raised with high warmth and high expectations, what's called authoritative parenting, can consistently show better emotional regulation, academic performance, and social skills than either overly strict or overly permissive homes. Balance, baby. It's all about it's all about balance. Look, I I know what I don't know. What I do know is usually it ends up somewhere in the middle with that swing. I don't care if it's politics, spirituality, uh, school, friendship, romance, it's somewhere in the middle. You you know, you get in a fight with your your partner, wife, husband, wife, whatever. You're by both a little wrong, and you can figure it out. Growth mindset. We've heard about this. I read this book. Ah, I don't know. Um, I I think we have ceilings. I didn't really agree with a ton of what she talked about with that. But number two, growth mindset. Carol Dweck. Uh kids are raised, kids are praised for effort rather than innate talent. They develop more resilience, persistence, willingness to take on challenges. I agree with that. But the thing I didn't agree with with the book was that, well, you know, well, Michael Jordan went and practiced, da-da-da. Yeah, but he's he's Michael Jordan. You can't say that some kid named Eugene from the suburbs of Philadelphia can go practice and become Michael Jordan. That's not a thing. I would say it's more the outliers of it all. I'm getting off on a tangent. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book, a book called Outliers, and the super successful, it's usually a combination of things. Anyway, go check that. That's a good book. Go check that out. Uh, Unstructured Play and Autonomy. Well, if you grew up in the 80s and 90s, a little bit more of that going on. Research on child development shows that unstructured play improves executive function, the brain skills responsible for self-control, adaptability, and problem solving. Uh okay, sorry. I read that. I guess my brain skills haven't really improved on reading aloud since uh senior year of high school. Emotional coaching. Coach them up. I love coaching my girls up. We start pounding our chest like Makana, hey, in Wolf of Wall Street. I get them fired up. Uh da da da. Children whose emotions are validated rather than dismissed develop better emotional regulation and long-term mental health outcomes. I totally agree with that. I would just say I think we linger too long on that. I think maybe sometimes for me, I get in and get out, like, hey, I know you're upset. We're figured out. We're gonna move on. Like, how long do you need? Okay, good. I think sometimes we give it too much air, and then you're training the kid to just, you know, swallow up the entire room for the rest of the time. But that's just again, that's just me. Meaning and contribution. Research in positive psychology shows that long-term well-being is more strongly tied to meaning and contribution than pleasure alone. And kids given real responsibility develop higher competence and independence. Yeah, yeah, we all need, we all need purpose. I think we all need purpose. That's one of those things that is deeply bound to our psyche. And I think a lot of times when we lose that purpose is when we go off the rails and become depressed or anxious or we need to feel part of something. It's the fiber of our being. So I could with a kid, you know, we do that. We have the girls, well, we our older daughter, the little one, you give her a broom, and uh, you know, there's a lot happening when that happens, but watch your head. But it when you give them, when we give her chores, she started to wash the dishes, she puts the she puts the gloves, the dishwashing gloves on, you know, that my wife uses. Um I wash dishes, I just don't use the gloves. But she puts them on, they're up to her elbows. It's adorable, you know. But now I have to, you know, you now you can't put sharp objects in the sink anymore, which is defeats the purpose. But anyway. So uh so some practical ways to raise the strong children, make them do hard things, carry groceries, shovel snow, well, within reason. Walk instead of driving. Yeah, I I uh a lot of times, and I said this before, carry your backpack.
SPEAKER_01Carry your backpack.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it's raining? Okay, we'll put your hood up. We're gonna walk in the rain. You I like to personally, I like to just take the air out of it. Don't give it this this credence of misery that it doesn't need to have. You know what? Sometimes it rains, and sometimes you gotta walk in a goddamn rain, and it's not a big deal. Get over it. To that end. Let them sit in minor discomfort, boredom, waiting, losing, not getting what they want. I'm yeah, we're pretty good at not giving them what they want. I mean, look, there's nothing, I love nothing more than when they're cozy and happy, and I just made them a grilled cheese or pastina or and they're watching their their show, they got their spirit or Unicorn Academy on, and they're just so happy and content. But you can't, you just can't do that all the time. Again, going back to balance. Don't negotiate every boundary, warm and firm. Sometimes the rule is just the rule. Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing more to say about that. Uh, we do that. Um let them solve peer conflict first. Ask what do you think you should say? Well, here's the thing about the peer conflict. If they're fighting and I see someone about to fly off the you know dining room table like Jimmy superfly snooker with an elbow, I have to get involved. I try to let them hash some stuff out. We we try to let them hash some stuff out. But at the same time, sometimes you have to lean in. And I also think a lot of the stuff is for a little bit older kids. Model emotional regulation in real time. Apologize, breathe, admit mistakes. I will say this much. Emotional regulation has not always been my milieu. However, I've gotten a lot better at apologizing, admitting, hey, daddy shouldn't have said that, done that, that-da-da. You know, he he shouldn't have uh broken the uh tray over his knee. That was not necessary. No, that didn't happen. They're plastic anyway. That'd be nearly impossible. But I think it is important to show them that you can apologize after something goes down. And and they're really sweet and good about good about that. But it's hard. We're adults, it's hard for adults to apologize and uh acknowledge that they're wrong. Look, we're just giant children, all of us. Right? Basically. Uh don't make them the center of the universe. Family does not orbit the child. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of us. It is not it's not easy to do. It's really not easy to not have that happen, but you have to try your best. Expose them to competent adults, coaches, skilled workers, teachers, let them see mastery. Yeah, that's it's good. You learn from it. Uh teach money trade-offs early. If we do this, if we do this, we don't do that. We have to, yeah. Don't protect protect them from all consequences within reason. Natural outcomes teach more than speeches. Yeah, you have to let them unless they're really gonna hurt themselves or something like that, let them get the spill the chocolate milk all over that new new dress, which has happened.
SPEAKER_01Um but so that's just some of those things. And as I sort of wrap it here, it's really if I've said this before too.
SPEAKER_02If parenting is is the is the best, it's the best. It's not easy, but it is such a blessing. If you want to have children and you can have children, do it. Do it. If you don't want them and you can't have them, God forbid, that is what it is. But if you if you can do it and you have some sort of fear of doing, you're never gonna you're never gonna be perfect. It's not a thing. So you just have to be, you just have to love your kids and and do your best with them and try to be patient, because they're just they don't sometimes we forget that they're just little kids, and even as they get older, teenagers and stuff like that, they're even worse. They're they're frontal whatever, cortex, lobe. It's not it's not there yet. I mean, I think about stuff I did in my 30s, for Christ's sake, and I still think, well, did that thing grow in yet? I don't know. I think it's grown in now. We're getting there. But uh one last thing is sort of encouraged to see this resurgence of a uh of a callback to how things used to be. I think it's just a natural pendulum swing to a little more of an old-fashioned approach. And it's one thing specifically. Um well, two a couple things, but I'm just I'm just yeah, let's go to two things. So one, one is sort of like old school style parenting, outdoor play. Um, parents are starting to prioritize unstructured outdoor play, which we talked about, reducing screen time, nostalgic routines to build independence and real real world skills, and uh which I think kids need to be outside. Thank thank goodness we live in a neighborhood where we have a backyard, we're so lucky, and they could be outside and enjoy that and play like kids play. Uh, and also the other thing is I think it's really great for them. And if if you could do that, if you're the place that you could do that, you know, even in a city. City's a great, I said I grew up going to the schoolyard up the block from my house and just hours and hours out there, you know, having a great time learning how to play and socialize. Uh, this is a cool one. Landline phones. Landline phones are coming back for kids, even as young as my older daughter, and she's got a little buddy who has a landline phone, and she's been having some conversations with her from my phone or my wife's phone, and it's just very cute. And it's a sort of a throwback, a fun little throwback. And I don't know. I think that so much good comes from technology that we have now. And I think at the end of the day, as parents, how much has our sensibility really changed? It probably hasn't changed as much as we think. It's to some degree the world around us uh shaping that or influencing it to a degree. But what I'll say is again, parents, you keep kicking ass, just love your kids. You're doing your best. I'm doing my best, we're doing our best. We mess up. And at the end of the day, just give your kids a squeeze, love them as much as possible, and that's it. So uh that was that was the parenting episode one of three. The next couple episodes, just give you a little teaser. Episode two is gonna be about the sandwich generation. You have young kids or kids and older, an older parent that's having much, much more. And then the third episode is gonna be about parental individuality. How do we maintain our individualism and hobbies and friendships and things like that? So I just thought it'd be a fun little three, three-episode arc. So I hope you stick around for that. And thanks for joining me on the Fatherless G.
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