Smells Like Humans
Top 5% global podcast! Smells Like Humans is a seasonal podcast dedicated to bringing a humorous perspective to quirky and curious aspects of human behavior. Each show, the SLH crew will focus on a different topic, and share personal stories and observations in a way that sounds like you’re hanging out with your funny friends. The stories and commentary are presented with humor and warmth, since let’s face it: we all smell like humans. (Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com)
Smells Like Humans
MAYBE WE SHOULD CUT ADAM AND EVE (and the rest of us parents) SOME SLACK
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Regular and three-time mom Ami, joins Ross to discuss whether we are making parenting much harder and stressful than it needs to be. Tangents include: hot air balloons; "stealthing"; rubbers; biscuit brother; oafs; civil war reenactments. Ami once again references "Toxic" by Britney Spears.
Notes:
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31259595/
- https://www.parent.com/blogs/conversations/how-parenting-advice-became-an-industry
Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com
It's better. It's like having like you know how dogs always think you're so great? Yeah. Um wait a minute.
SPEAKER_02Am I like a dog in this scenario? You're like a smart, meaningful dog with a lot of self-assurance, right?
SPEAKER_01You're the smart dog. Welcome to another episode of Smells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do, the very human things that grab our attention, and cause us to wonder what and why. I'm Ross, your host, and today my guest is one of my very best friends, Amy. Hello, Amy. Greetings and salutations, Ross. Would you say I was one of your best friends, sir?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, without hesitation.
SPEAKER_01Oh man. I I I hesitated to ask. Hey, welcome to everyone to the show. We're really glad you're here. Thanks so much for listening. Uh, as always, you can help us out by sharing the show if you like it. Follow us on social media, support us on Patreon if you can. We love that you listen and support the show and any help you can provide us in growing our community. We appreciate it and we appreciate you. Let's talk. So, I gotta tell you something, Amy. No matter what we do, kids keep coming. They can't be stopped. And for every kid that comes into the world, there's at least one parent who asked that age-old question. Now, what the hell do I do? So we're here to say, relax, moms and dads. We are here for you. You are working hard at a mostly thankless job, and we appreciate you, and we got you. Okay, so over the centuries, there has been all kinds of advice given to parents. My favorite that I stumbled across when I was doing a little research wash a baby's head with brandy to prevent colds. Sound good?
SPEAKER_02I'm fairly certain that my parents did that.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, because you do like brandy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it worked.
SPEAKER_01Um and of course, uh, there's all kinds of advice on whether a kid should be raised in an authoritarian or permissive environment, encouraged to show self-restraint or be free range. Uh, everybody gets a trophy, or learn that life is hard and unfair. And depending on the era that you're looking at, you find the advice swinging one way or the other. And I found out, and this kind of was a surprise. I mean, it wasn't a big surprise, but I found out there's tens and tens of thousands of books that have been written giving parents advice. It's basically a billion-dollar industry, this parent advice industry. No doubt. And I Googled parenting articles and I got over 106 million hits. Wow.
SPEAKER_02Yikes.
SPEAKER_01That's a lot.
SPEAKER_02That's a lot of hits. It's too many.
SPEAKER_01Get reading. Get reading, parents. And with all this advice, some of it's contradictory, often it's not helpful, sometimes it's even harmful. It causes parents to feel inadequate or even more stressed out than they already are. Here's the good news. Here's the best news. Most kids survive. They just do. Because you know, we're still here, right? Right. I mean, we're hanging by a thread, but we're still here, and the kids just keep coming. And the fact is, in my view, most kids are resilient and robust and can overcome even the crappiest parents. I mean, look at Adam and Eve. I mean, they would be considered pretty crappy parents by today's standards. No doubt. I mean, one of the kids killed the other kid. If that happened today, it would be like uh on TV or there'd be a podcast on it. And people would be saying, What? Come on, Adam and Eve, you should have stepped up. You should have noticed you saw this coming. How did you raise these kids?
SPEAKER_02Overbearing mother, absent father, that's what I'm seeing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Freaking reduced rib father. But my question is, is it really fair? Should we give Adam and Eve a break?
SPEAKER_02Maybe not them specifically, but other parents, perhaps.
SPEAKER_01Do parents really matter that much? I'm wondering. Do parents really have that much control over how a kid turns out? I mean, all this parenting advice is predicated on the idea that if you just do the right things at the right time, your kid won't be such a bum.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no.
SPEAKER_01So, Amy, you are a parent, right?
SPEAKER_02I am. Many would say that.
SPEAKER_01And so and so am I. Between us, we have had five kids.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_01Not together, separately.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_01And at last check, all the kids survived childhood. They did. So you know what that makes us?
SPEAKER_02Successful.
SPEAKER_01Experts.
SPEAKER_02Ah, yes.
SPEAKER_01Even better. We are experts. Yeah. So I guess the first thing I want to ask you is whether you, when you were raising your girls, whether you had a philosophy that sort of guided your practice, or did you just sort of take things day to day without any real idea of what the hell you were doing?
SPEAKER_02I think I had an evolving philosophy. So I did, when I had my first kid, I definitely read. There's a series of books. I'm sure you've seen it in your research, or perhaps Harry Potter. Yes. Yes. It's called The Twilight Zone. Um, the What to Expect When You're Expecting series. It's pretty old now. And my kids are, you know, my oldest is 21. So this is going back a but I think they're still around. And then there was like what to expect the first year and what to expect the second year. So I poured over those like I was taking a night class in college before my first kid.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02And you know, I think when you get that first human being home and you're like, why am I in charge of this person? Like there should have been a test, a quiz, a multiple choice, something, anything. It it doesn't seem right that I'm just responsible for this whole human being. But so you feel like you gotta read something. You gotta, you gotta get out there, you gotta click on some websites. You gotta bone up. You gotta bone up because you feel like the the worst that can happen is they're you know, they're gonna perish in the middle of the night. Like you're gonna forget to fold a blanket the right way, and right you're gonna you're not not gonna burrito them the way you're supposed to. Yeah, and uh your worst fears will be realized. But I think after the first one, I just started winging it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Just started seeing what was working and what wasn't. And there, you know, the thing about kids, of course, is, and you probably know this too, each one of them is like a whole different individual person.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And that kind of that was sort of the thing that got me thinking was that, you know, we spend all this time thinking about what's how what's my philosophy and how do I raise kids? But they all are different. Yep. Like you're the same, and maybe you've changed here and there, but I mean you're basically the same person, and yet the kids are all different. Like your three kids are all different from each other, right? Oh, totally.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And what worked for one kid, especially, you know, we're thinking discipline-wise or even like motivation-wise, worked for the first kid, did not work for the second kid. Right. There was one time my middle kid, we were out in a uh store, and I think a lot of parents of toddlers will recognize this story. And we needed to go, but the toddler didn't want to go. So they were lollygagging, hanging back, you know, looking at the things. And I was like, all right, Sarah, I'm gonna leave the store now. I think she was two. She was definitely too young to drive. And uh, so I turned around thinking, you know, I'm I'm gonna nail this. I'm a mom, I know how to do this. She's gonna come running after me the moment I turn around. Well, I get about 10 more steps, and I realized there's no kid behind me. Cause she was like, Yes, fine. I'll I wanted to stay at the store all along. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to live in this target. So that was a big eye-opener for the things that worked with my first kid were not gonna work with my second.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah. Mine were both really different. So I had two kids, they're both really different. Um, I think one sort of had a big footprint, one had a little footprint. So one was what does that mean? Well, it's just like one was just like you just knew when she was around. She was always like even from the beginning, like so. The first kid, super she didn't really move for like five years. Like you could just like at all? Like she just laid there? Uh no, uh you she would sit up and like look at a piece of lint for six hours. So it was like really easy. Then the next kid comes and like at birth, like they put her in this little glass fish tank to take her to the wherever they take the kids after they come out to you know, to do whatever they do, hose them off. The terrarium. Yeah, the terrarium. So I'm watching, and so I'm walking, you know, I'm making sure, you know, with I mean, as a dad, you have no idea you can't do anything. So you're like, I'll guard the fish tank as they were, you know. I don't know what I'm doing, but anyway, I'm walking along. And the kid, she's just born. So what what can those kids do? Nothing basically, and she's already like trying to get out, like she's smacking and she's squirming and unhappy. And so, you know, that kid was always just really different, um, always talking, singing, complaining about something. Uh, but the older one, just quiet, totally contemplative, totally watching. I used to call her big eyes and big ears. She was a kid who would like stand in the hall in the dark and listen to us talk. And then you'd come back, what are you doing? Uh nothing. And just like um, and and uh, but yeah, she would literally just like at first I thought, well, this is easy taking care of a kid, because she would just sit there and do nothing. I said, What's so hard about this? You feed her every once in a while, put her to bed. Um, so but they were so different. And then the younger one, stubborn as hell. I remember one time her mother wanted who knows what she wanted to do. This was a repeated story with her, but she said something like, Well, if you don't do that, I'm gonna make you stand outside. It was just outside on a porch, it was a covered porch. This isn't a horror story. Yes, but anyways, like you have to stand outside uh or you do whatever this thing is. And the kid says, I'll stand outside. And she's like four years old, and then she just stood there forever. Yeah, like she was never gonna come in until her mother finally cracked and said, Okay, get in here. You know, it's like yeah, right, right. It's like she was never gonna come in. She's still standing out there today. That's how stubborn she was. Okay, so like the older kid again, like we never taught her how to read. We didn't teach her because she just learned on her own.
SPEAKER_02Nice.
SPEAKER_01That's yeah, but what? So I'm driving, so I'm driving along, she's in the back seat, she's three and a half years old, and she asked me from the back, says, What does that sign mean? Stop ahead. And I go, What are you talking about? She goes, That sign back there, it said stop ahead. I go, how do you know what it said? I don't know. So I said, wait a minute, did you read the sign? And she goes, Yeah. I'm like, we never taught her how to we didn't teach, we hadn't even gotten to the point where we're teaching her anything. We were teaching her nothing. We just like read stories to her like regular parents. We didn't teach her anything. So I take her home and I say, Can you can you read stuff? So I give her a book, a kid's book, but it was you know like a book, a picture book, but it had the sentences and stuff. And I said, Can you read this? And she starts reading it. Wow. What the hell? So I filmed it because I couldn't believe it. But I we can't take any credit for that. We didn't do anything. I don't know how she learned it.
SPEAKER_02I'm honestly so uh, so the the second kid, you're walking along, you're watching the fish tank. Did you see the first kid come out? Because maybe it's a like alien situation. Is that possible?
SPEAKER_01It's always possible. Yeah, I you know, one of or both of them could have actually been hatched. I mean, the whole thing about the birthing experience could have been a just a big like hallucination or drug-induced thing.
SPEAKER_02They just like zonked you on the head, and then they just were there and they're like, I'm a baby, just let me sit and look at this lint. Yeah, no.
SPEAKER_01Um, you know, the the older kid is a little more taciturn. She's a little more. I wouldn't, I really wouldn't say she's introverted, but she tends toward the quieter side. And the younger one is like this interpersonal genius with all this empathy, and like she'll sit there, it will be in New York City, and she'll be smiling at people. It's like, what I look at her, I go, don't smile. Not here. Don't smile. What do you she was waiting for me somewhere? This was when she was a teenager. She was waiting for me somewhere in Manhattan, and I met her. And I come up across, I come up, you know, I come up to the uh building where she is, and she's leaning against the building, smiling at people. I said, What do you want to get choked right here? Stop smiling. There's no smiling in Manhattan. Just don't smile at people. They're gonna think you're crazy or they're gonna think you're stupid. Don't do it.
SPEAKER_02Or you're trying to invite them up to your room because you're leaning on the building, like yeah, that was the other thing.
SPEAKER_01That was the other thing. The whole prostitution, you gotta keep an eye on it.
SPEAKER_02You do have to.
SPEAKER_01So I have this idea that maybe parenting is really super simple.
SPEAKER_02Uh it it probably. That seems entirely possible.
SPEAKER_01I mean, the day-to-day, I'm not I'm not talking about the day-to-day work. That's a chore, and I know it's it's a lot of hard work. So I'm not saying that activity itself is simple, but the philosophy, the, the how, you know, the the the components of being a good parent are simple. And I only came up with two. I have a list of two things.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01I want to run this by you all right and see what you think. Yeah. So two things. Number one, all right, your job as a parent. Help your kids survive until they can do it on their own.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I'm a hundred percent. That's my actual parenting philosophy is uh you gotta work yourself out of a job.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01So, you know, feed them, clothe them, whatever. Yeah. Take to uh keep them, you know, to keep them away from the hot things.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01Keep them away from the edge of cliffs. Yep. You know?
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01Show them how to use an escalator without their clothes all getting ripped off and all their skin.
SPEAKER_02Escalators are dangerous. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, I got caught in an escalator once, and uh fortunately my mom rescued me. All I did is I lost a pair of those uh um those um rubber shoes used to put over your actual shoes to protect you from the um from the snow. I'm I'm I'm struggling describing these because we actually back then, remember a long time ago, back then we called them rubbers. Yeah, you did. Yeah, put on your rubbers.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, do they make those anymore? I know they don't call them that anymore. They were like slipovers, like rubber slipovers to protect your feet from the snow and ice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, where I came from, those were just plastic bags, but I I guess it no fancy people had rubbers.
SPEAKER_01The fancy people have rubber. Do you know right now, this is like one of the all-time tangents, but I was reading an article where a thing right now, okay. There's a thing apparently with younger people, okay, where the guy puts on a condom, which we used to call rubbers too. That's why I'm thinking about this.
SPEAKER_02Back in the day.
SPEAKER_01So he puts on a condom, sex commences, and somehow in the middle of it, he gets the rubber off on purpose. What it's it's called stealthing or something? Yeah, something like that. It's called stealthing, I think. I could have that wrong. You look it up, but it's like a thing now. It's and so I'm thinking, first of all, how are you pulling this off?
SPEAKER_02And then secondly, what my question is, why are you trying to get somebody to are are you trying to spread your seed?
SPEAKER_01Well, the well, spread my seed, wow, that is biblical. Right? I so no, I think the idea is if there is any idea behind it, and I was a young person once, and I didn't really have many ideas behind anything I did, but the idea might be that they're going for the the what they perceive as the more pleasurable sensation, which was no condom. No, I so they they present themselves with a condom to get in the door, so to speak. And then once inside the club, they you know, take it off and do their to start dancing. Yes, but I don't know how they do that without it being obvious. I mean, it's weird.
SPEAKER_02Where does it go? I I mean, uh without getting gross, like I don't I don't understand. It's a weird thing. See, this is exactly the sort of thing that now that I'm the age that I am and my kids are the age that they are, I have to ask them these things because I don't know.
SPEAKER_01I think it's called stealthing, and I and I'm not sure the article I read didn't explain why they do it or how they do it. It's just that they're doing it, and of course, in doing so, they um as you point out, they are taking a risk. Okay, the two things. Right. So help your kids survive until they can do it on their own. And they usually let you know when they can do it on their own.
SPEAKER_00Because they leave.
SPEAKER_01Um part two, and this is the only thing on my list. And it's multi, it's uh technically it's a multi-part, but spend time with them. Spend time with them because really that's all they want you to do, is they just want you to hang out with them. And when you do spend time with them, try to be present and try to be consistent.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Help them survive, spend time with them. Boom, you're done being a parent. That's all you need to know.
SPEAKER_02That's it. That's all there is. I think I might add, and this might be um a a part B to either one of your things. Maybe I I'm gonna add a third, which is let them be themselves. Oh, because I I think that's such a good one. Yeah, we really want little uses, and we really want our kids to like the things we like. And sometimes we get our feelings hurt when they don't like the things we like. We're very indignant.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02So I think let them be their own people, support them and love them to be who they are, I think is really important.
SPEAKER_01That is a really good one. And I remember the first kid, so like I said, she was more on the quiet side and just super nice and just not like me. And I remember there were just like minor things where I would try to persuade her or encourage her to be more like me. And one of the things was her first Easter egg hunt. And so I'm trying to pump her up to get as many eggs as possible. Because inside these plastic eggs would be candy, and the more candy you get, the more you win. Yeah. And my whole orientation toward everything was there has to be a way to win this.
SPEAKER_02Ah.
SPEAKER_01Let's win, let's compete, let's get in there and get as many eggs. So I pump her up for this. She's dressed up like an Easter kid. Or we are wherever we are, where they're doing this. And she has her little basket and she's picking. Up an egg every 10 minutes. And she's opening it and looking at it and enjoying it. And I'm like, no, go get the eggs. Come on, get some eggs. And like she'd start walking very deliberately to the next place where there might be an egg. And like 5,000 kids, you know, in a horde would like take over the area and rip it to shreds, and there'd be nothing left. And she was fine with it. Yeah. She was very present. Yeah. She didn't care about how many eggs she got. And it took me a while. Not a long while, but a while. I had to notice this more than once. But as I started noticing this, I realized, oh, this she's not like me. Uh-huh. She's her own person. She's also not exactly like her mother either. She's like her own, she does, she's doing this is how she does things. Right. And once I realized that, I relaxed.
SPEAKER_00Oh.
SPEAKER_01Because it wasn't about like I had to do anything to her. She was already doing what she does.
SPEAKER_02That's that's really um, that's important. It's good that you realize that. I realized while you were telling that story that I might be a terrible person and as a result, a bad parent.
SPEAKER_01So I was thinking of Did you knock a bunch of kids over and steal their eggs? Because I gotta tell you, I was tempted.
SPEAKER_02No, but I I would. I I yeah, I I definitely have some various things, but I recall two stories right away. One was um, so my oldest kids, um we lived in Baltimore when they were about a year old and it was Easter, and we were doing our first like Easter family pictures. And this was back in the day when you'd like set it all up on a tripod and we were standing next to a dogwood tree, and we all had, you know, ridiculous clothes on with hats and spats and leggings and whatever else. And it was not going well because we had a one-year-old and we were outside and she had a hat on and she didn't want a hat on, and the tripod wasn't working, all the things that that aren't going well when you're trying to take pictures. And we set her down and she we were on a little hill and she rolled down the hill, which I thought was very funny in the moment. Yeah, mostly in the sense that, like, none of this is going the way we planned it. And now the kids got grass stains and her hats off, and we never in the picture. I I wish I could show you this picture of she's got a very concerned look on her face. Um, so we are not getting any Olin Mills points. And then another time we were at a Civil War reenactment. And yeah, we were a cool family. This was also in Baltimore, actually, or just out. It was in Gettysburg, actually.
SPEAKER_01And uh wait a minute, you were a cool cool family, and cool families go to Civil War reenactments. Uh, make it come on, kids. Yeah, let's go see if the South can pull it out this time.
SPEAKER_02Okay, this time when well, uh it was July, it was the poor reenactors, they were wearing wool suits. It was very warm. Yeah, but they had real, I guess real, they had cannons that exploded. I as they were that real anyway. I don't know if you could have like taken down a ship or anything with them, but um, so one of them went off and terrified my my kid. Again, she was like 18 months old. Um, and I uh so that time I took a picture of her crying uh as she was very, very sad about this. And she was, you know, it really scared her. So I I might not have been a very good parent. So I may have given up a lot earlier than I thought I did, maybe.
SPEAKER_01Well, I don't know. I mean, um kids do tend to remember those moments more than the good ones. Like my kids are always reminding me of the things that they didn't think I did such a good job on.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01And yes, and when I say, Well, do you ever remember this or that good thing I did? And they're like, No, no, I don't remember that.
SPEAKER_02Well, are you sure that was you? I don't think that was you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, or that's they'll say that, oh, that was mom. It's like, no, I'm the one that went to talk to the teacher, you know, I'm the one that did this. I'm the one, no, and then it's like, what am I even trying to get credit for here? It's a lost cause. They don't remember, it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So, you know, and so yeah, so you think of ways to try to, you know, I would do that. I try to think of cool ways to spend time with my kids, you know, because I traveled a lot. So when I was with them, I wanted to be with them. So one time I got so I'd like to come up with these things, and one thing I came up with is the hot air balloon adventure.
SPEAKER_02Ah, that sounds delightful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, have you ever been in a hot air balloon?
SPEAKER_02No, never, but I've seen them on television.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they look so great. Yeah. So uh I got my kids, and um, for various reasons, I took uh my weird biscuit brother.
SPEAKER_02I'm sorry, what?
SPEAKER_01My weird biscuit brother. So, you know, we have a large family, we've talked about it before, and not everybody gets along, and he's he's just kind of weird, you know. He's I don't know. Is he made of biscuits or he likes biscuits? No, I call him the biscuit brother because one time, and this he's gets mad at me, has gotten mad at me in the past for many things, but we were at a biscuit place, and uh he was standing behind me. There was a couple other people there, and I thought I heard him say he wanted a certain kind of biscuit. It was one of these places that has like 500 menu biscuits.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_01So I thought I heard so I had invited him to go down to this biscuit place with a couple other people, so I figured I would just, you know, you know, uh pay for everybody, you know, treat everybody to a biscuit. Oh, nice. So I thought he said he wanted a particular click on a biscuit, and so I ordered that. And uh we get all get our biscuits, we sit down, we eat, we talk, we do all the normal things. Uh two days go by, and he says, I can't believe you did that. And I'm like, what are you talking about, weirdo? And that's not what I called him, but he said, Uh, you think you can control me? And I'm like, uh okay, can you tell me more? And he says, You ordered me a biscuit that I didn't want. Oh. And I'm like, okay, so uh why didn't you say something? Biscuit brother?
SPEAKER_03Of course.
SPEAKER_01And it was, you know, he couldn't do it because the world, I don't know, but it was just like, it's just like the so uh the before he was biscuit brother, but the we had this weird history, okay. So we have this weird history of things like that, where all of a sudden I find out I ruined his life by ordering him a biscuit that he didn't want.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god.
SPEAKER_01Uh, and you know, you think back, well, what would a normal person have done? They might have said, I don't know who you're ordering that for, but I'm getting my own biscuit. Or uh, I don't like this. Why did you do this? Or who knows? But no, he sits on it for 48 hours and then presents his case. Man, well, but before an activity like that will earn you the title of biscuit brother. Biscuit brother. So he's for some reason he's involved. I I invite him to come along on the hot air balloon ride. And otherwise doesn't really figure into anything, but he was there. So we all go up in the hot air balloon. It's a summer day, it's hot, and there's really very little breeze. And what I learned is that when there's very little breeze, the hot air balloon does not go anywhere. So the hot air balloon operator, which could have me might have been 15 years old. You know, I don't know. I'm not sure he's shaved yet. But uh he gets us up there and he didn't have a squeaky voice, but you can go ahead and imagine that he did. I like it. Okay, everybody, we're gonna be going up in the hot air balloons. Anyway, that's how I imagined him. And we go up and he takes us up higher and higher and higher to try to pick up a breeze so we can go someplace. Oh no. So now we're so high up, we're like illegally high. We're like plain high. Like, I don't know how high these things can go, but when you see them on TV, when you see them when you're driving through a countryside somewhere, they're kind of always at a reasonable height. Yeah. We were way, way up there, and finally we start to move. And we start traveling, and it's fine, and it's very exciting. And the way it worked, I don't know how other companies work in other places, but the way it worked where where we were is they kind of depend on the uh the graciousness of homeowners to let them land in their yards or fields or whatever. Okay. So they have a guy on the ground that's kind of chasing the balloon, and when when and they talk over a radio like walkie-talkies or something, and when it's time to land, the spotter kind of sees where they are and he just goes to the nearest uh homeowner and knocks on the door and says, Hey, can we land our balloon? And apparently a lot of homeowners are cool with that, but some aren't. So we finally get to the point where he has to land because we're running out of juice.
SPEAKER_02That sounds that sounds bad. That sounds bad.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, hot air balloon juice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you need that.
SPEAKER_01So I'm not saying anything to my kids, but I'm like, hmm. We barely clear these power lines trying just to hover over this yard. The spotter runs in, comes out, and says, they won't let you land. Oh no. So the guy starts going back up, but we're out of juice, so we barely clear the power lines again. And I'm like, I'm we're gonna get fried here, you know, me, my two kids, and biscuit man. So we we go over these woods, and now he goes, We are out, and we're going to crash into the woods. Oh my gosh. So we're just going down and there's nothing we can do. So, like, I tell my kids, get in the bottom of the basket, you know, so they don't get stabbed with branches and maybe hopefully don't get dumped out. And we do crash into the woods, but nobody's hurt. That's it. It's all fine. Okay. But, you know, we're like, we have to we hike out of the woods, and the spotter comes to pick us up. And before we get in the car, the the uh they say, Okay, well, that's gonna be whatever it was, whatever the price was. It wasn't cheap, you know, whatever the agreed on price was. He's like, Well, that's gonna be this. And I'm like, uh what? I'm thinking maybe a discount. We just, you know, we just crashed into the woods, and fortunately nobody got hurt, but uh, we didn't sign up for this. But it's the funny thing, well, I don't know if it's funny, but my first instinct when we crash into the woods and that we're all okay, is I look at my kids and I say, Don't tell mom. First thought, don't tell mom. I don't know what they remember about that, but I I'm pretty sure they remember the part where we crashed. Um maybe only that. Um, the one younger kid always says, Oh, yeah, you told us to stay down, but you kept up. And I said, Well, yeah, I want to see what was gonna happen. So, um, so we do the, I mean, we but the important thing is the way I would look at it, so some people would look at it and say, You were kind of a reckless father taking your kids on this hot air balloon with your biscuit brother. But the way I look at it is I was spending time with them. Yeah. We were present, we were there, we were having an adventure. So being a good parent doesn't always mean things are gonna go perfectly. And in fact, many times they don't. And it doesn't mean that your kids won't resent you. It's true, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, in fact, that's kind of how you know when it's time to spend less time with them when you start embarrassing them. Yeah, no doubt. Did your kids ever get embarrassed by you?
SPEAKER_02Um, no, and I worked, I think partially because they knew that's what I was up to a lot. I'm uh so my youngest kid, maybe a little bit, but they were typically like they would just try to match me. I I definitely I think we've talked about this before, but I like to dance in a grocery store. I like a shoulder shimmy. Um I know, I know you don't like it, but you know, I would kind of do it to, you know, like oh your mom's dancing, this is toxic by Brittany Spears, and I'm going for it. Um, but they would just dance too. The the littlest kid, not so much. She would get a little embarrassed, but I don't know. She likes me for the most part, and so she just doesn't it's like a it's like a uh 70-30 on a good day. Um so she wouldn't get embarrassed, she would I think she felt really separate from me. Yeah, so not too much, and I did some pretty embarrassing stuff, I would say.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um and what what is it with like so if a kid turns out good, the parents get the credit, they often get credit for that. Okay, and it's like why? So I I've had people because most my kids turned out okay, so parents often I'm parents, people often the parents, say, Oh, you did a really good job. And it's like, I always feel kind of weird about that because I like I didn't do anything. Like I tried to kill him a couple times, but I haven't actually done anything. But then if you think about it, so let's say you get a kid who's kind of a bum, and a bum is a catch-all term for anything that's negative. So a kid who's kind of a bum kid. And what do we do? We blame the parents, right? Yeah, we blame the parents for a bum kid. Why didn't the parents do something? It's the whole Adam and Eve thing, right? It's like, why didn't you intervene with Cain before he, you know, put Abel in a bag and threw him in a river? I don't remember how he killed him, but it wasn't good. And if you're a bum parent, so there are bum parents out there, right? Sure. And they have successful kids, what do we do? We give the kid the credit. We don't say the parents anything, right? Because they're bums. The kid must have been like this superstar hero who overcame all this adversity. The fact is, bum parents can have good kids, and good parents can have bum kids, and maybe we should just not blame everybody or credit all these parents for doing stuff that they're not doing.
SPEAKER_02I think that's entirely possible. I like that as a response. Um yeah, no, I I can see what you're you're up to there. I think we like the idea that we have control though. Yeah. That that we can control the outcome. So I think it depends on where the person looking on is in their journey as a parent or a human being. So if I see a bum kid and some parents, I I think the parents are good, and I like the idea that parents are good people, but kids are bums, then I'm going with the parents did everything they could. They did the best they could in this then this kid, because I want to be sure that if my kid turns out to be a bum, I'm not gonna get blamed, right? Because that just happens. Kids just turn out to be bums.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but you don't want to get blamed. You don't want to get blamed for it.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_01So if you've done the three things, you helped your kids survive. Yep, you spent time with them to the extent you could that the circumstances allowed, and when you spent time with them, no matter how much time that was, you tried to be as present as you could, you tried to be consistent, and you let them be themselves and develop their own sense of who they are, you've done it. That's it. And you shouldn't, if the kid doesn't turn out so great, that isn't your fault. No, I think they weren't parents. De-stress. Um I think the the idea that, as you say, you said it beautifully, that we have that kind of control over this other human being. We already demonstrated these kids all come out different. It's like, what control do we have? One kid's quiet, one kid is, you know, breaking out of a fish tank. Uh what's with the fish tanks? Don't they have something in the hospitals? Don't they have something better than a fish tank to put a new kid in?
SPEAKER_02No, there's it's it hasn't gotten past fish tanks.
SPEAKER_01No. Some parents clearly are better. They're do better, they're more supportive, they're more encouraging. Some parents don't do so great, they're more sarcastic, they don't support the kids, they're less less present. You know, there's obviously a range. And and I'm totally obviously excluding the you know, abusive parents and all that stuff. They're already out of the game, and that they're not part of this equation because they're that's not what I'm I'm speaking to the mainstream here. The mainstream parents, some are a little better, some are a little worse. But if they're doing those three things, they're doing okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I think if parents kind of like the president of the United States.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02I I think we give the whoever the president is, we do the same thing. Like if things are going great, all credit goes to the president. Yeah. If things are going bad, all blame goes to the president. Right. But really, he or she, only he, I guess so far, he is like they're just really one step above cutting ribbons at at a bakery open. Like they're just barely, like most most of the time the country's just kind of doing what it does, and there's lots of other factors. But I think the same is true for kids. Like you're you're there you within a certain per level of um like parameters of of being, as you're saying. Like you can't go totally down the wrong path and get get best results, I think. But for the most part, kids are, you know, if they're resilient and they have a pretty good foundation, they're probably gonna turn out pretty good, even if you do sail them up in a hot air balloon and dump them out in the woods.
SPEAKER_01Well, and the thing is about this control thing, it we all buy into it. So all of us, so all of us who have been parents know that, yeah, we don't have as much control as we want to believe we have, and we want that control, and we want to read the books and learn the formula and then apply it, and then oh, it'll all work out. But then the other end of that is we also all buy into it, and when we are thinking about all the stuff our parents did that we don't like, you know, they didn't love me enough, they didn't do this, they didn't do that. And, you know, I've talked before about this um continuum of involvement. So you have the underinvolved parent, you have the over involved parent, the helicopter parents, um, and then you have the sweet spot, you know, of involvement, where the parent is involved just the right amount to help foster the kid's self-esteem and independence and confidence. And of course, that's all situational because some things you need to be less involved in, and some things you need to be more involved, and sometimes, you know, the sweet spot is moving. So it's all very complicated. Um, but now it but you know, we look back at like I look back sometimes at my own child and say, well, my parents weren't that involved with me. And so that would have been really nice at certain times of my life if they'd been more kind of had seemed more invested in like what I was doing and get and it could have guided me. But the reality is when I look at the three things, the three things, they hit the three things. They helped me survive, they spent time with me. Uh, and uh they mostly let me be myself. I mean, they would have liked for me to be different than I was, but they also didn't really spend a lot of time trying to fix it. They spent a little time, but then they eventually gave up and just let me be a loser. I turned into a bum kid. But I went so lately, no, but lately I've been thinking about the things that like they did do that I kind of selectively forgot. So I I'm hopeful that my own kids will remember someday in the distant future, they'll go, Oh, yeah, I remember my dad did do one thing. Yeah, and I'm remembering so one time, okay. So I it's such a long story, I'm just gonna cut to the chase. I was involved with this group, and the group was having a father-son softball game. Okay, and I'm like 12. Um, I really liked baseball and I was good at it, so softball was a piece of cake for me. But my dad, I'd never seen him do anything athletic. I'd never seen him pick up a ball, a bat, a tennis racket, a golf club, a football, nothing. I never saw him run. Swim, jump, climb a tree, chase a squirrel, nothing.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Okay. So, but he's and and he's going to this thing with me. So as a 12-year-old boy, what am I thinking about? My dad's gonna embarrass me. Yeah, totally. He's gonna get up there and he's gonna swing the bat and let go of it and knock out somebody. Or he's doesn't know anything about baseball, so he'll run the wrong way on the bases and then argue with somebody that it's okay for him to do it wrong. And I'm just ugh. And there was this kid in this group in particular. His name was Brad.
SPEAKER_02I freaking hate Brad already.
SPEAKER_01I won't say his last name because he may still be somewhere.
SPEAKER_02But let's just say it was Pitt.
SPEAKER_01No, it wasn't Brad Pitt. This kid was one of those kids that at 12 he was already like 6'3.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god. Okay.
SPEAKER_01So he's a huge kid, but he was hulking. He wasn't like tall, skinny. He wasn't like tall, muscular. He was like an oaf.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01Do you remember oofs? Remember when there used to be oofs? It's called an oaf anymore.
SPEAKER_02Is Shrek an oaf? What's Shrek? Shrek's an ogre. An ogre. Okay. No.
SPEAKER_01Not really an oaf. An oaf is like a big kind of clumsy, not necessarily socially skilled person. Yeah, I got it. Sometimes those guys, if they had a bad attitude, they they they were a lot not fun to be around.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, I wouldn't say he was a bully, but he was just more of a negative guy. And he, because he was so much bigger than everybody, he had not experienced any kind of normal social correction. Okay. Because usually, you know, if you're mouthing off and being a jerk, you know, other kids will do something about it.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01But nobody's not if you're a big guy. No, you just kind of, you know, and again, some big guys are super nice, like our friend Rob. He was a nice kid, sensitive.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_01Brad was not. Brad was not nice.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01So I'm imagining my dad doing something stupid and then Brad getting on me about it, because that's the type of guy Brad was. So, okay, we go to the baseball game. We're playing. My dad comes up. I can barely watch this. I can barely watch this. Because I'm telling you, I never saw the guy do anything. I don't even know if he ever was a kid. For all I know, he was born in a business suit and he was running for an airplane, except he didn't run. Just walking fast. So uh he gets up there. First pitch comes. He smacks it. Oh my gosh. He hits it into the outfield. It's a hit. He's running properly to first base, runs to second base. I can't believe it. I really, it's to this day, it was like the most beautiful gift. If at that point, if someone said this is what God is, I would have said, Okay, I'm a believer. Like it was so great. I was so proud. I couldn't believe it. I was so proud of him. I felt so great. And like I went from being like cringy, like, oh my god, my father, he's gonna embarrass me, to like, yeah, that's my dad. What up?
SPEAKER_02Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_01Of course, of course. That's where I get. I was so happy. But you know what? There was more to this magic. There was one more magical thing that was about to happen. Okay. So Brad's dad gets it. And you know, Brad was a big guy. Guess what? His dad was the bigger version of Brad. Of Brad. Big Brad monstrous guy.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01The bat in his hands, he was a left-handed guy, I remember, and the bat in his hands looked like a toothpick. He was that big.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01And so I figured he's gonna get up and probably hit the ball into outer space and we won't be able to play anymore. You know, it's like, oh well, Brad's dead. He's so strong and big. He hit the well anyway. Or the cover will fly off the ball, like in the natural, or you know what I mean. It's just gonna be it. So I was like, well, that's just what'll happen. And he gets up there and he swings really hard and he misses. Oh. So I'm like, wow, I didn't expect that. But you know, two strikes more, so he swings again, misses again. So now everybody's starting to think like, hey, this dude may not be any good because he doesn't look good swinging. No, you can tell how somebody swings a bat, like if they know what they're doing or not.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Brad's father did not like knew what he was doing. And he could tell he was getting a little some some bit of he was experiencing some bit of consternation over it. We'll say that. Okay. So he steps out for a minute, kind of, you know, wipes his hands on his pants, steps back in and is kind of redoubles his determination to crack this ball over the fence. And he swings so hard that the bat keeps going, misses the ball, keep, but it keeps going all around him. Like it's almost like he was looked like he was trying to kill a snake in a foam boob. And he gets himself all wrapped up, but and so now his momentum's taking him around, and now his legs get twisted up, and he ends up falling down on his face. Brad's dad takes a dirt nap, and I look over, and Brad has this look on his face is just of mortification. And I can't say I can't really honestly say I was sad about that. It was a sort of a magic karmic balance that had been for that moment just restored in my life, where my dad was a cool dad that knew how to play baseball, and Brad, the kind of jerky oaf dad, had just had a dirt sandwich. And I think about that and I go, you know, if that's the only thing my dad did for me in my life, and he did other things, but if that was the only thing he ever did, that would have been enough. That would have been enough. That would have been enough.
SPEAKER_02That's that's amazing. That's a good story.
SPEAKER_01It's absolutely true. I still have uh almost chills telling that story because it was just it meant so uh much to me. There were other things, but that to me, I think that's probably the number one thing. And the and I did tell them that years later when I got older, how meaningful that was to me. I reminded him a couple different times. Um, you know, in the context of telling him all the all the ways he screwed me.
SPEAKER_02It's not all the elaborate, complicated big things that you plan, but it's the simple moments that you share because of the three rules. You're being present, you're giving your time, and you're sort of letting everybody be who they are. But I was about four years old, and um, my parents worked a lot, they were both uh quite busy, but they certainly uh made time for me when they could. And my dad took me out on a fall day in 1970 something, and he got a kite, which we put together with the little two sticks and the nice tail, and we you know went up into the nice blue sky, and I told my dad, and we were next to a little lake, and I told my dad, I said, you know what, dad? I'm gonna remember this day forever. And I remember my dad kind of laughing. And every time I retell the story, like right now, I say, Dad, you know, I still remember that day that we flew the kite together. And I think number one, I think that my dad was kind of incredulous that I would remember this sort of mundane day, like there wasn't anything particular about it, um, except that we were together and we were kind of doing this thing, and it meant a lot to me that we were doing that thing together. So I think uh that's uh similar, like it just means a lot to me that that we got to just be together.
SPEAKER_01It's that stuff, it's those moments, and that's not in a book. Like you can read 106 million articles, and none of them are gonna say, go out and fly a kite with your kids for 20 minutes and they'll never forget it. Yeah. Because it may not be the kite, it may be just watching TV, or it may be taking a walk, or it may be anything. It could be anything, but those are the moments that's what the kid wants. Yeah. My philosophy was pretty, I mean, I think for both kids, I wanted because you know, the only thing I've ever done is I've tried to have fun in my life. And I like sort of a creative lifestyle, so I wanted them to find creativity somehow in their life. I wanted to think critically and just ask questions about everything and be kind of, you know, oppositional and not to be afraid of being a little weird. And I think in their own ways, um, they've embraced those qualities, but they've also like they're a lot nicer than I've ever ever was or ever will be. They're like nicer people, they're more, they have more empathy. I think they're more courageous than I am. I feel like they're like braver.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01They're a better version.
SPEAKER_02You know, it is those things. Investing time in your kids, it sounds like a small thing, but I think it's really it matters. And I think the fact that you let your kids be weird in the way that they were weird and supported them and loved them. I I think that you should give yourself a little credit. I also think you have lots of talents, by the way.
SPEAKER_01But oh, well, you're always so nice, which is why I describe you as one of my best friends because you're always rooting for me to like be better. It's like having like you know how dogs always think you're so great. Yeah. Um wait a minute.
SPEAKER_02Am I like a dog in this scenario? You're like a smart, meaningful dog with a lot of self-assurance, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the smart dog in my life. Um, so you know, there's there's um so I just started thinking about all this because I think there's way too much, um, there's way too much buy into this idea that we we can control our kids and that we have all this influence and that if things turn out great, we did a great job. And we know we didn't do that much. We just you know flew a kite. It's not hard. Right. And then, you know, and uh and then when they don't turn out so great, it's like, oh, we could have done this, we could have done that, and we you can feel horrible and guilty about it. And then the kids always you know feel bad about their parents not doing more. I wish my mother had forced me to play the flute. You know, I don't know. It's just like, or why didn't they come to my recital or go to my games? It's like whatever, right? I mean, yeah, they could have done that, but in the end, were they were they did they do something? Yeah, and maybe just everybody just de-stress a little bit and create just give a little more grace on all sides. For sure. And maybe there isn't as much stress. Well, uh, hopefully my goal was to uh take parents off the hook a little bit. And I think by adding that third thing about letting kids be themselves, I think that's a really good addition.
SPEAKER_02And you're doing the best you can, just keep doing the best you can.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And when you're if you're a kid and you're mad about your parents, in most cases they probably were doing the best they could, even if it wasn't that great. That's probably all they're capable of because you don't there's no barriers to entry to becoming a parent. We've established that. Amy, I appreciate you being here today, and I appreciate you it appreciate you as a human. So thanks for being a good mom and hanging in there. Uh, likewise, Ross. I'm sure I've been a very good mom, and I'm sure your kids really appreciate you as well. Thanks for joining us for this episode, and thank you everyone for hanging in with us and doing this every week. We're glad to be there with you when you're doing dishes, cleaning the garage, driving to work, riding a train, or just hanging around. And if you like what we're doing, we'd love to have you help us. So you can follow the show on Instagram or Twitter. You can give us glowing reviews and places you can do that, like Apple. And uh it really helps us as we try to grow the show. We have a nice little community and we're trying to just spread the love a little bit. And we hope you will tune in to another episode because whether you are trapped in a runaway hot air balloon or just someone who likes to traumatize their children at a Civil War reenactment, it is important to remember that we all smell like humans. Goodbye, everybody.