Get Off My Lawn Podcast #24 | Valentine's Day is for the Boys
Today, I talk about that awkward age for boys when girls go from having cooties to being goddesses. It’s fun reliving all these various stages with my own kids but I’m constantly amazed how much of parenting today is about keeping them away from screens. My dad had no money and his childhood sounded like heaven. My kids have all they need and I’m constantly trying to drag them back to - if not my dad’s era - the 1970s so they can experience some danger and excitement.
Bitches go out, do whatever they do, shop, spend our money, and it's just the dudes coming by.
Show up at your buddy's house, big box of candies in a heart-shaped box.
You got your roses.
Come in.
What up, dog?
Just whip your roses at the guy.
Ha ha, he laughs.
He's already got like ten vases going.
Throws them in there.
Barely, he's all floppy about it too.
He doesn't care.
He's not a fag.
Throws the flowers in, and the guys just sit around.
What do you got there?
You whip them the box of chocolates.
I don't want any of those weird cherry ones.
Well, it comes with a map.
Talked about that in my new hit show.
Not the Valentine's Day thing, but the show I shot.
It's a version of my book.
I'm trying to get released, and it's running into some troubles I'll tell you about later, but another time, I mean.
But we're talking in the movie slash show.
It could be both.
When that dude goes, what's his name there from the show, the Tom Hanks guy, Forrest Gump?
And he goes, life's like a box of chocolates.
You never know what you're going to get.
Yeah, you do.
It comes with a map.
Oh, well, what if the guys, like, can't read?
Well, that's very rare.
With adults?
And so it's not enough for a colloquialism.
You know what I mean?
Like when they say a stitch in Time Stays Nine and they go, what about people with stubby hands?
Like who are birth defects and they just have like lobster hands.
Little mitts.
They can't stitch.
Yeah, I know, but they're abnormal and the colloquialisms apply to, you know, millions of people.
Millions of people can read.
Millions of people get that little map with the box of chocolates.
Anyway, Valentine's Day's got the chocolates and the dudes.
No chicks allowed!
Valentines.
That is my five-year-old son's attitude.
With his Valentines, he got a bunch of Star Wars ones where it says, you know, join the resistance and has Chewbacca or whatever.
And they come with a little tattoo that you can put sort of in the fold of the envelope thing, the little folded thing.
And then you seal it with a heart.
It comes with a big box of sticker hearts.
So it's Star Wars Valentines.
And I say, who do you want?
And he starts naming all his boys.
Sam.
Max, Matt, the guys, his crew.
And I go, all right, how about some chicks?
And he goes, what?
No, no way.
And, you know, he has a little boy's brain.
So he wasn't saying that's gay, but that was, that's the general crux of the vibe.
When you're five, you have your boys and girls are gross.
And so, for him and his friends, they're just exchanging valentines with each other.
Just the boys, man!
You wanna give a girl a valentine?
Are you a homosexual?
Why don't you go kiss her on the lips, fag?
You pussy.
God, I'm with my g- I'm giving- I'm sealing my little valentine tattoo with a little red heart sticker.
It's going to my boys!
That's one of the funniest things about little kids, too, is their attitude with girls, because they obviously don't want to make out with them.
But there is some sort of latent gene in there that goes, I like these.
There's something magical about them.
So like if you were to say, like say a five-year-old was with his buddy Matt and you go, is Matt your boyfriend?
He'd go, what?
No, what are you talking about?
But if he was near a girl and you go, is that your girlfriend?
They would get red and come and punch you and say, shut up!
That's still one of my favorite jokes.
It's when I'm walking down the street with a guy and there's a pretty girl.
I go, my friend likes you!
And then if he's really funny, he'll hit me and go, I do not shut up!
There's this one girl in my boys' class, Laura, and I go, she's really cute, and they play soccer, and she's like a little armadillo.
She just sort of gets the ball, weaves out through everyone, then boom, gets a basket.
Basket.
Scores a goal.
She's, it's funny to watch.
I mean, you don't want to laugh too hard at kids because they don't like that.
They don't like being cute.
So you have to just sort of bite your lip when they say things or look away and pretend that you take them totally seriously even though they're little funny cute little tiny people.
And you have to go, yeah, that is cool.
Yeah, the Flash is still alive.
Yeah.
My mother boy, when he was that age, he had this buddy Mercer back in Williamsburg.
And they were friends.
And my middle boy, he goes through these phases that he's obsessed with.
And this was his Marvel phase.
And he was all about Spider-Man.
But he respected the Hulk quite a bit.
And Mercer goes, yeah, the Hulk's a bad guy.
And my son goes, what?
And he goes, he's a bad guy.
He hurts people.
He's in the Avengers, Mercer.
And then they didn't speak for three weeks.
I love their beefs.
But yeah, with him, I go, so if you how many girlfriends?
Oh, this is another weird thing, too.
He has this other guy.
I'm changing all their names, by the way.
This other guy, Nicky.
And I go, how many girlfriends does Nicky have?
And he goes, oh, he has 10.
I go, 10 girlfriends?
I don't want that.
I mean, I don't get these Muslims with their 72 virgins.
I would want, at the most, maybe three.
And two of them would have to just be incredibly gorgeous and live, like, next door.
I don't want to deal with three women in my house.
But ten?
And then I met Nicky.
I go, I hear you have ten girlfriends.
And he goes, what?
No!
I have, like, two or three max.
So, Nicky's into having girlfriends.
But you're also, you never talk about it.
It's just sort of an accepted thing.
And girls are gross.
So I don't know why he said it.
I know I'm contradicting myself here, but it's a complicated world, these guys.
I remember with the middle boy, his sort of Laura was this girl, Lois was her name.
And he never talked about her, but I could tell that he had a crunch on her, as they would put it.
And I go, so Lois was there, right?
And he goes, yeah.
So?
OK.
I don't know.
She seems very pretty.
And I go, what would you say she looks like, Dunks?
And he goes, shall we talk like this when he's a little kid?
And he goes, uh, exactly like a princess.
I just thought, like, she was a funny little, you know, they all look like squares with their fat cheeks and their little square feet, their little cubes for feet.
And she always had snot coming out of her nose because she was three or four.
And she would just walk in, hey, what's going on?
That's a jellyfish.
But the idea that seeing her through his eyes, he just saw this like, Lois, with her hair flowing in the breeze like Farrah Fawcett.
Hello.
She sort of flicks it over one shoulder.
What are you guys doing?
I'm Lois.
So, yeah, my boy and his boys think Valentine's Day is for the boys, and kissing a girl is for gays.
You know?
I always thought that was funny.
Like, you'd have a bunch of guys, and they'd see their friend with a girl on a date, and they'd go, what are you doing, you pussy?
Fucking fag.
You wanna go on a date?
And then the next time you see the guy, he's with kind of a tougher looking girl who's like smoking, and she looks like Pinky Descadero, and they're like, what's up?
And he's like, hey man, this better?
Yeah, I guess, but you could be hanging out with us.
You're still hanging out with a girl, and she's wearing a pink leather suit.
And then the next time you see him, he's with a dude, and the guy's wearing all leather, his leather pants on, and like a leather S&M thing around his chest, and they're like making out with their beards.
And he goes, how's this?
Yeah, now you're finally hanging with the guys.
You're finally not a homo anymore.
Now you're a real man.
A real gay man.
You do have to do some gay stuff when you're straight, though, like buying flowers.
I bought flowers today for Valentine's Day.
And you go into these flower shops, and they're so serious about the flowers, and you're like, I know what this is.
It's a joke.
It's like wine.
You're a sommelier.
You're not talented, OK?
Look, I'll grab this one, this one, this one, and this one.
There's no skill there.
Oh, really, sir?
Why do I need a license?
I'll tell you why you need a license, because we live in a nanny state, and it's insane that you need a license.
I think it's insane barbers need a license.
What happened is the government saw a massive profit margin.
You buy them for nothing, and you sell them for 50 bucks, these stupid real flowers from a fancy shop, which is where I'm forced to go.
And they thought, let's get a cut on it, exactly like the mob.
Where they see there's a big profit margin there.
If there was no profit, then you wouldn't have to get your stupid license.
But you've brainwashed yourself into thinking you have a talent.
It's arranging flowers, dude.
It's like interior decorators.
Can you believe that job exists?
Hi, can you buy me a couch I might like?
Can you put it somewhere where I would like it?
Can you buy some paintings for me to enjoy?
Because I don't even know what kind of pictures I like to look at.
What?
Are you blind and deaf and mute and you were just born?
Are you Tarzan?
Are you a feral child who was just brought into civilization and you want to blend in with the normal civilized people?
Anyway.
I bought those flowers.
Last time I had to go there for Mother's Day too.
She's not my mother, she's my wife.
Why am I buying these?
I buy my mother flowers.
Yeah, but your children, they can't buy flowers.
Okay, then cut out a flower out of cardboard or whatever.
That's cute.
The funny thing about Mother's Day is that the mom's first request is always, get these things away from me.
I want a kid-free day.
But on Father's Day, the first thing is, I want to spend all day with the kids.
You know why?
Because we're better.
We're just better people.
All round.
Women are evil, vindictive bitches.
Just looking for a break.
We're loving, wonderful guys.
As I've said about all guys, we're sweeties.
They're the ones who have rape fantasies.
We have snuggle fantasies.
In fact, the porn star Mercedes Carrera, she told me that male porn stars will occasionally get in trouble because they'll be caught sort of in the side room off camera during a break having loving, romantic intercourse with the lady after, you know, doing all the gross stuff on camera.
Because he just wants to snuggle at the end of the day.
But yeah, I wanted to talk about the evolution of That funny time when you're a little kid and girls are just, what are they doing here?
Why are you here?
Why do you exist on the planet?
You don't know anything about Star Wars.
You can't play soccer.
You can't play road hockey.
You can't fight.
Get lost!
You're boring.
And then, around 13...
They turn into goddesses.
And then they go from shitty men to sentient beings.
And then they're just...
You can't believe they exist.
Everything about them is such quality.
I'll never forget when I was about 13, Christy Bradnox.
I used her as a pen name at Vice for many years.
But Christy Bradnox was my first love.
And she was in track and field, bowl cut.
This is 1983.
And the elastics on her tube socks had died.
So she was holding them up with rubber bands.
I've had a sock thing ever since.
I remember just looking and the rubber bands were put there by angels.
And her socks were made of the finest silks.
You gotta be careful when you talk about this subject.
Because when you get the numbers off, you're sexualizing children.
That's wrong.
The numbers have to be close together.
13 and 13.
That's fine.
A 13 year old can sexualize a 13 year old.
I've had sex with lots of teenagers.
When I was a teenager.
And it blew, by the way.
I don't mean that in the metaphor you want.
I remember in high school there was this, I can't remember the name, Barry something and this other girl and they were maybe 14 at this time and word got out that they had sat naked on a blanket facing each other and just sort of like slowly at their own pace like touched one boob and touched a leg and saw how it felt and stopped and everyone was laughing their heads off at how lean that was.
And I look back as an adult and go, yeah, that's pretty much the ideal scenario.
Same age, going slow, figuring out as you go.
I think that's what God's plan was with the garden.
Just piece by piece.
I remember the other thing we would laugh at in junior high was someone dancing.
What a loser!
He went to the school dance and he was dancing around like crazy.
You're not supposed to do that.
You shuffle your feet left to right, right to left.
Left to right like a robot.
And you don't vacillate from those parameters.
God, doesn't anyone understand how to not enjoy your adolescence?
But, uh, so my son is in that age where, I was bugging him too, this is the five year old, I go, "So who's the prettiest girl in your school?" And he said, I don't know.
I guess Laura.
I guess she would be.
It's pretty fun.
I remember one time my other boy drew me a picture and it was two people watching TV, and on the TV you could see people kissing.
He was maybe five or six when he drew this.
And I go, what's going on there?
And he goes, that's two people watching a movie.
And I go, what's going on there?
And he goes, oh, two people are kissing.
On the movie, so the people watching the show are losers.
The way he pronounced losers.
Every time there's a movie and someone kisses they go, uh oh, we're a bunch of losers.
But as I got older and women became goddesses, I was blessed to have a dad who drinks a lot.
And he, though we were middle class, maybe even upper middle class, those people in Canada are Squaresville, USA.
So my dad ended up getting along better with the technicians from, he worked at Computing Devices Canada.
We were pulled there in the 70s because Ottawa government town wanted to build its own Silicon Valley.
And rather than let it happen organically, it's communism, so Stalin can just say, bring me all the smart men of Britain now, give them homes and make Silicon Valley happen today.
So, he was a good engineer, worked on, you know, stuff like the XM-1 tank, a lot of military contracts for American places.
Lots of technicians there, doing this sort of grunt work.
And they were good guys.
So I was friends with their kids.
And they would sort of live in townhouse type areas, which isn't fancy in Canada.
I guess condo would be the equivalent.
In Barhaven and Bellevue or whatever.
I forget the names of them.
But, great kids, you know, fun stuff.
And the parents were always cool.
That's the beauty of the working class.
Like, we'd be in a van, and the mom would be smoking pot.
We'd be in the back, projectile vomiting, because we were only eight years old.
I hung out with them my entire childhood.
Remember, one of them, his name was Peter, and he wanted to become a cop.
Not the brightest bulb in the tree.
And they said, he's filling out the forms, and it's like, street number, 38.
Street name.
And he goes, man, I don't really have a street name.
I guess people call me Pete.
So he writes 38 Pete as his address.
His mom always said, no matter what you do, I want you to be the best at it.
And he became a stripper.
And he was the best stripper the world had ever seen.
When he was like Chippendales, went out there and he was a cowboy and he did triple backflip pirouettes and his schlong was hanging out, wagging away.
Anyway, we would hang out in sort of the equivalent of the projects, but not that bad.
This is still Canada.
So blue collar, everyone has got two cars and is well fed and well taxed for it.
But there were these pretty girls who were 13, 14, 15 when we were 12, 13.
And they would tell us to go by... Now the look back then, this is the early 80s, was sort of old school Air Jordans with the tongue pulled so far out it's flapping forward.
Skin tight jeans, same ones you see today.
This was the first wave of them.
Like you needed a coat hanger to pull the zipper up.
And then what we called a lumberjack jacket, which was just like a big, huge, thick fleece, sort of a plaid fleece.
You'll see DOA wear them in the video of Taking Care of Business with BTO.
And then like a shirt with 77, Tony Gabriel from the Rough Riders.
And then the Farrah Fawcett hair, all feathered back.
Boys and girls all had that hair.
So in other words, they looked like complete goddesses.
And you talk to them and there'd be light shooting from their faces like in that Bonnie Tyler video.
Turn around bright eyes.
They were just, I couldn't believe the quality.
I would, excuse me, I would lie in bed when we had to go back to the stupid suburbs Where there was no goddesses, and my heart would pound just so green with envy that Pete got to live with these angels.
So they would tell us to go buy, they call us cute all the time, and they would tell us to go buy cigarettes.
And so we'd go, you're allowed to buy cigarettes, anyone could buy cigarettes around there.
And we'd go get them a pack of smokes, with their money, we're just errand boys.
And, uh, we would bring them the cigarettes and they'd give us a kiss on the lips.
And that would, like, make your knees shake, like you'd be in a daze.
You'd just float home on air.
I'm not saying that children are sexual, by the way.
I'm just saying, when it goes slowly, there is some beauty to it.
When it's just a mild game with close ages.
Nothing heavy.
No adults.
And it did get kind of bad with them too.
I remember being babysat by one of them, Vicky, and she came over and she held us down, me and Pete, and she started making out with us.
She was drunk.
So we were probably 13, 12 or 13 at the time, and she would have been like 15, 16.
And we thought it was awesome, of course.
Pretended we couldn't get free.
She held us down, made out with us.
And then I remember the next day, you woke up at normal kid time, like 7.40 a.m.
She was obliterated, probably slept till noon.
And we just went, wow, this is what it's like to have a girlfriend.
And we both, Pete and I, went over there, like with our, you know, we just, our hair feathered and ready to rock, to meet our girlfriend.
Now the two decadencies there are letting a young teenager get wasted, and what she does to little boys, not little boys, young men, and then them, these poor dummies, thinking that they both had the same girlfriend.
That's when it gets depraved.
But getting cigarettes, getting a peck on the cheek, that's cute.
But man, it sure was fun hanging out with non-rich people as a kid.
There was so many adventures and abandoned parks.
That's what I'm trying to do with my kids.
Obviously not get to the point where they're having to make out with a drunk babysitter, but get to the trouble part, you know?
Here in the Burbs, I moved out here and I was hoping it would become the 70s, but it's not.
The kids, man, maybe we're too wealthy here in the area, but do kids still play on their bikes?
We got...
They're all at lessons or sports teams or something and it's hard to find.
And then you can find them if you do a playdate, but that's why we left the city.
Because of the playdates.
I didn't like that.
I want it to be organic.
I mean, organized sports is fine.
It's great if there's nothing else going on.
But I honestly think the ideal league is just kids in a park.
Especially young kids.
You know, you get to high school and you're throwing a fastball at 60 miles an hour.
Sure, you should just be competing with other high schools.
But up until, you know, teens?
Just wing it.
But they can't wing it.
The youngest son is fine.
We moved here when he was four, so last year.
So he'll develop organically here.
The middle kid, he just becomes totally focused on one thing.
First it was, yo, Gabba Gabba, where he had the outfit and the ghetto blaster would come out and go, yo, Gabba Gabba.
Then it was Spider-Man.
Then it was origami.
There's always a phase where he just has to be the best at that.
Totally consumed and now it's baseball so He's almost like I don't have to show up for work with him because even when I catch him Doing something he's reading baseball stats, and I mean that's not bad.
You know looking at perverted memes or anything Although I will say, being a dad, and I went to talk about cute stuff this time, but one minor uncute tangent is this corrections officer shit is getting old real fast.
I am a CO.
You know what I found behind the toilet the other day?
An iPad.
Because I go in knocking on the door, hey what are you doing in there?
Uh, what do you think?
You going poo?
Yeah!
I'd like some privacy!
I'm tempted to bust open the door.
But I don't.
And if I had, I would have caught contraband.
I would have caught an iPad.
I find a computer underneath another bathroom.
Underneath the laundry hamper.
Because it's raised off the ground a tiny bit.
Enough for a thin computer to slip in there.
Open that up.
Stranger things.
Still warm.
Find the other boy.
I get my phone.
I wake up at 7.30.
He's been up for an hour.
My battery's down.
He's been on.
I pick up my phone.
There's like 700 games on my phone.
I've never played.
I don't play video games.
Every time I hear silence, I have to sneak up.
And I have rules.
There's screen time.
Half an hour a day.
And if I catch you on your screen, You lose screen time that night.
They still break the rules.
I'm like, I have to enforce this.
And then I'm the bad guy, right?
Because I'm the guy that takes your screens away.
And here's another spooky thing.
Is this affecting my daughter's social life?
Because these young girls, they are on their phones so much now, I'm talking about 12, 13, that it's in their hand like it's part of their body.
They run with it.
If they fall, they fall with it in their hand.
They eat with it in one hand.
I mean, it's like they have a human hand and an iPhone hand.
So they're constantly texting each other, and I let her bring it to school, so she probably cheats there.
But is it possible that when you tell her, you ban a kid from their phone, you cut them off from their circle of friends?
And then you go, well that sucks, because it's either she's isolated, because she's not communicating with the gang, or she has her phone stuck to her face at the age of 12.
Man, every time there's silence, someone's on a screen.
Even at night, I'll have to look, like I'll have to do my rounds, maybe an hour after bedtime.
Just go up and down the hallways.
I look for light below the crack of the door.
Sometimes I'll open the door.
Sometimes I'll see some rustling, and I'll go, someone looks like they just turned something off.
I'll go over to the Kindle, because you're not allowed to look at anything after bedtime.
It feels warm.
I caught you.
Constantly catching them!
Jeez Louise!
You know what I'm having done?
I'm building a lockbox.
We have a safe, but it's not big enough for computers and iPads and it doesn't have a power bar in it.
So I have a thing in my closet that has a plug and it's a perfect shape for a door.
So I'm going to build a... Actually I'm going to have a carpenter do it because I'm so bad at carpentry I would devalue my home.
We're gonna have a carpenter build a nice door with hinges and a key lock with like a deadbolt.
And I'll be the one with the keys.
Exactly like a fucking corrections officer!
Anyway, I don't want to discourage you from having kids, but it's amazing how much Your job as a dad is just don't do that.
Don't sit there.
I tweeted this out, but I feel like a Paul Giamatti's version of Harvey Pekar.
Just constantly walk around the house scowling.
What are you doing?
Don't jump on the couch.
You have a play area downstairs.
You don't jump on the couch.
You sit down.
No, no, no.
And even eating.
You have to eat that.
You got to make sure they don't feed the dog.
Like, I got eyes in the back of my head.
I'm constantly up and down.
What was the bang?
What was that bang?
I'm so close to just taking a hammer to all these screens.
They're a curse.
And that's the funny part about civilization is we've gone too far ahead.
We're too advanced.
My parents' job wasn't denying me all these awesome things.
It was maybe buying me an awesome thing at Christmas.
Before that, awesome things didn't exist.
My dad just played soccer.
That was it.
He didn't have any toys.
In fact, one time his friends, he invited his friend over and he goes, Hey you, you want to come home and play with my toys?
Hi, alright.
I like going to someone's house to get old new toys.
You know, that's cool.
He goes there.
My dad's dad worked in a printing press and they had these sort of conical little wood stubs probably made of compressed sawdust.
No, no, back then they used real wood to hold the The cylindrical paper rollers.
So just these little nubs that would hold it in place.
And then they would wear out and get thin and be, wouldn't be perfectly circular and probably jam up the machine so they would throw them out.
So my grandfather would bring them home to my dad.
So it's just a stupid, little, probably maple cone.
Cedar cone.
That's it.
Just wood.
A wood cone.
And his friend comes home and he goes, Jimmy, these aren't toys!
And it was the first day my dad realized, probably at like eight, that he didn't actually have any toys.
He had some garbage from a printing press.
But I often think he has a better, had a better childhood than me, and I had an awesome childhood by the way.
My childhood couldn't have been better.
Bicycles, we were near a park, I talked about this on another show, just like making jumps.
Even in Scotland, when we'd visit in the summer, it was fun.
When you're a little boy, you'd be playing with little boys.
When you're a teenager, you'd be trying to get girls.
And then there was the 12-13 phase.
You know what we were?
Messengers.
So there'd be, like, say you're 11, 10 or 11.
There'd be a group of girls who were becoming goddesses in your mind, here.
And then maybe a hundred feet away, there'd be a group of boys.
And they'd be pretending they don't give a crap about each other.
This is in Glasgow in the 80s.
And you'd come over and you'd go... I would just do a Scottish accent as a kid there because I didn't want to draw attention to myself.
I'd be like, what's going on there?
What are you on about?
And he says, see that lassie with the red hair?
Tell her that Craig likes her.
Or Craig's thinking about her.
So then I would run back to the girls and go, I think Craig likes which one of you?
She likes the one with the red hair.
And then she'd giggle, and then we just, we were the messenger men.
We were like those pages in the court, just running in the House of Commons, running back and forth, delivering messages, helping the older ones court.
It was like a Lord of the Flies society.
Parents never set it up for us, and it worked.
And then when we got older, back in Canada, we'd go to the arcade, meet girls, they'd smoke cigarettes.
Here, now, in 2018, you know, it's mostly cute moments.
I don't want to discourage you, again, from kids.
Most of it is adorable.
Those things about, I'm only giving my guys valentines.
That is 70% of parenting.
It's just great little quotes and seeing them do things and Seeing your bigger boy play, you know baseball and get a home run and he's mr. Grand slam and that's awesome and your daughter with her Lessons, she's doing tap or whatever or she's in a play and then you go see the play and it's adorable That's most of it funny quotes.
We have this game not a game, but You ever have a really stupid thought like I was watching a commercial and I I was watching a commercial and... Sorry, my mind just had a brain fart.
Oh yeah, I was watching a commercial and they say, one way you know that a cat's happy is it meows.
And our dog's name is Leroy.
And for a split second I got worried.
Oh, I wonder if Leroy's unhappy.
He never meows.
That's called stupid thought.
And the kids love those.
So I would wait till they got home from school and he goes, well I had the best stupid thought today.
And they have a good laugh.
You know, those little thoughts in your mind before it naturally corrects itself and tells you that a dog is not a cat?
That's the kind of stuff I talk about with my kids.
That's fun stuff.
Corrections officer, it's tedious, but it's not like it dominates a lot of time.
But...
A huge part of it is just trying to get them away from all the awesome stuff they have.
Get them away from all this technology.
Get them outside, you know, try to warrant a tiny bit of attrition so they can garner some of the assets of figuring it out yourself.
Like, trying to get them bored is a challenge.
You basically want to just lock them in a cement room until they figure out, you know, with a piece of chalk until they figure out a fun way to draw on the walls.
Even when we had a place upstate in the country, I would lock them outside.
I'd come back ten minutes later and they'd be still by the front door, just staring at the snow.
So, we've probably quadrupled our income every generation, the McInnes men.
Much more with me, I believe, than my dad.
But still, drastic increases in income.
But as far as childhood goes, I'm scared to say the joy and thrill might be going down half every time.
The more, mo' money, mo' problems.
Mo' money, less bucolic childhood.
You know, I watched A Christmas Story and I see the bullies and fighting the bullies and stuff and I think, can I hire a bully?
Like, I want them to get into trouble.
I want the cops to bring them home sometimes, but that's all protected.
I'll just end this with my youngest, the one who valentines is for the guys.
He's got his gang, but there's this one dude who's pretty violent and sort of stamps on his foot and stuff.
Maybe it's like a baby gay and this is how he shows his affection or something.
He pinches my son on the back.
And I said, you take Tae Kwon Do, dude.
He's got like a, whatever, the white belt.
He's got a white belt in Tae Kwon Do.
That's another time you're not allowed to laugh.
When they show you their moves they learned, you have to go, oh jeez!
And you have to fall over and pretend it hurt.
Or he kicks you in the leg and you have to go, oh god!
What was that kick?
Where did you learn that?
Holy crap.
I don't know if I can walk.
And then he's all intense with his white belt on.
He's like, you know, 40 pounds, this little guy.
I can throw him across the road.
And he punches you in the stomach and you go, oh god!
And I go, you know Tae Kwon Do, you know all those moves.
If he hits you, you hit him back.
And he goes, no, we're not allowed.
You have to tell a teacher.
That's the modern rules.
We go by 70s rules.
Put him in the hospital.
Take him out.
We don't play those games.
But yeah, that's my goal as a dad, is to get them to play games, to play those games, to get them outside, to get them in trouble, to get them to experience the natural checks and balances of being a kid and making mistakes.
The majority of it is still incredibly cute.
Valentine's with the boys is one of the funniest things that's ever come across my desk.
But it is still very challenging, and that's got nothing to do with money.
