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Jan. 14, 2023 - The Matt Walsh Show

13:45

Am I The A-hole? Sweet Baby Gang Edition

Matt hears from his loyal Sweet Baby Gang members to hear their AITA quandaries and decide once in for all, who is the a-hole? - - - Today's Sponsor: Genucel - Use code "WALSH" at checkout for additional savings on your entire purchase! https://genucel.com/walsh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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	It's now our time for our M.I.
	the A-Hole moral quandaries, which are always interesting.
	Now, last week when I announced that we're doing the members block this way, and I said that, you know, there's the Reddit forum of M.I.
	the A-Hole questions, which we can still harvest from and use.
	Then I also invited the audience to submit their own M.I.
	the A-Hole situations.
	And I have to say that I am impressed.
	It seems that the audience knew the assignment.
	So we have some good ones here, and these are all audience submitted.
	And we'll start.
	This is from Tim.
	Says, Hi sweet daddy.
	Today was my wife's dad's side of the family's Christmas gathering.
	The plan was to eat lunch and exchange gifts.
	My wife has a stepsister who's a double dinkwad, dual income, no kids with two dogs.
	She's a double dinkwad and brought her dogs to the party.
	My first question is, did you tell your sister-in-law that that's what she is, that she's a Dinkwad?
	Hey, Dinkwad, what's up?
	It's not an insult.
	It's like, that's what she is.
	That's her tribe.
	It says, I have two kids, ages three and one.
	From the moment we walked in the door, the dogs were all over my small children.
	They were in their faces, sniffing them, licking them, bothering them.
	In response, my kids just wanted to be held by my wife and I away from the dogs.
	After some time, we finally asked the stepsister to please put the dogs in the basement until we left.
	She refused, saying that they were her kids and that we should let her dogs sniff and lick our toddler children until they lose interest.
	My wife's stepmother agreed, adding that it's not that big of a deal and scolding me for being in a bad mood.
	I said to the stepsister that her dogs are animals, not her children, and do not hold a superior position to my actual real-life human children.
	My wife burst into tears as everyone started yelling.
	It got so bad that we just decided to leave.
	I've had family drama before, but never over something so remarkably stupid.
	Now we're trying to figure out what to do.
	I'm considering telling the stepmom, who we see frequently and took the side of the stepsister, who we rarely see, that she can't see our kids until she apologizes to us and our children for prioritizing the dogs over our own children.
	Well, you already know my answer to this.
	There is no world in which I would tell you that you're the a-hole in this situation.
	is more along the lines of straw breaking the camel's back rather than a first offense.
	Are you the a-hole? Well, you already know my answer to this. There's no world in which I
	would tell you that you're the a-hole in this situation. It is entirely on the stepmom,
	the stepsister, and part of this is setting boundaries, which is something that, you know,
	there's a certain element of that that is always necessary in any marriage.
	When wife and husband become one, you're forming your own new family.
	It's a new family unit.
	And so there's very often this process of drawing lines by setting boundaries with what is now the extended family.
	And it sounds like that's part of what needs to happen here.
	There's all kinds of boundaries being crossed.
	I mean, not just bringing the dogs in when they weren't invited, but just the way they responded to it.
	You have a reasonable request, which is that your kids are upset.
	They don't want to be, like, harassed by the dogs.
	And the way they respond to that reasonable request on their part shows, I think, boundaries being crossed.
	But overall, it's just as you pointed out, dogs are not people.
	Actual people needs to take priority.
	In some ways, the fact that this was, you know, her house, it makes us even worse in some ways.
	Like, I have, we have a dog.
	It surprises people to learn.
	We also have a cat, you know.
	Neither of these, like, I wanted, but we have them.
	When we have people in our house, Like, if they're not comfortable with the animals, then their comfort takes priority, okay?
	And I'm very cognizant of that.
	Like, our cat is a surprisingly friendly cat, and most cats aren't, but this one is, like, a little bit too friendly, and so maybe we'll have someone in the house, and they're sitting down, and the cat will just, like, jump up on their lap without even asking, invading their personal space.
	And when I see that, I'm, you know, we take the cat, we say, like, if you don't want the cat there, you can kick her off, we'll put her in another room.
	Sometimes it's a cat person.
	They say, oh no, I love the cat.
	I want to have pet the cat and all that.
	Sometimes they're not.
	And so we take the cat, we bring him out of the room.
	Put it in a room somewhere.
	You need to prioritize the comfort of people.
	And you can't assume, if you're a dog owner or a pet owner, that everyone is comfortable having an animal all over them.
	And that should never be a prerequisite.
	That should never be like something that's required of your house guests.
	You shouldn't require that of them.
	I've been in these situations myself before.
	Going into someone's house and they've got a dog.
	The dog's kind of like jumping all over me.
	And it's like, are you going to do... I'm sitting there.
	Are you guys going to do something about this?
	I'm in your house.
	I'm visiting.
	I didn't know I was entering a zoo.
	Like, I didn't know this was a petting zoo.
	I wanted to come talk to you.
	I wanted to have a human-to-human interaction.
	You see this dog that is... Can you do something about this right now?
	So, you're not the a-hole, not at all.
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	From Justin says, "My father had an accident "when I was two years old.
	"This accident damaged his mental capacity.
	"Everything up to said accident, "he could remember with perfect clarity.
	"Everything after was obliterated "by short-term memory failure.
	"My mother could not care for he and I both, "so my parents were divorced,
	"and she took care of me growing up, "and he ended up at a facility that could take care of him.
	"As you can imagine, it was impossible bonding "with a father that couldn't remember anything.
	"My father's side of the family was, "and probably still is, irritated at me
	"for not binding or visiting him enough.
	"He died some years ago from cancer.
	"I held this depressing, irresponsible viewpoint "till I ended up in rehab at the age of 35.
	"Then a brilliant therapist asked me to write a letter "to him, my dead father, of what I missed about him."
	Well, needless to say, that list ended up being all the things he wasn't there for.
	This shed some light for me on this issue.
	But I still want to ask if I am the a-hole, for everyone else is, who knew my father before his accident, or if no one is.
	Well...
	If there's a, you know, an a-hole in this situation, I mean, I only have the information that you've given me, but what you're telling me is that your mom divorced your dad because he had an accident and suffered a brain injury.
	Divorced him, And then ship them off to a facility.
	Really struggling with the, till death do us part, in sickness and health part of the vows.
	So to me, if there is a, if you like, an a-hole move in all this, that was it.
	But now, as it stands, you know, between you and your dad's family, there is no a-hole.
	Sometimes there are situations in life that are just terrible, and there is no exact right way to handle it.
	There's no way to handle it that's going to make it okay or better.
	It's just terrible.
	That's all it is.
	And so you navigate.
	It's a miserable situation.
	You navigate the misery as best you can.
	But you can't feel guilty about it.
	The other thing too is that, you know, I never blame children.
	For a lack of a relationship or a lack of a bond with a parent.
	That's up to the parent to form that bond.
	Now, in your dad's case, he had this accident, he was in a facility, he didn't have full, apparently, you know, cognitive capacities, so it's not his fault.
	That relieves him of the guilt there.
	But that doesn't mean the guilt goes back to you.
	Usually, if a child grows older, moves out of the house, doesn't really have a bond with a parent and loses touch with a parent, usually I put the blame on the parent because it was up to you to form that bond.
	You can't put that responsibility on your child.
	And if you don't do that when your child is a child, there's a very good chance when they become adults that they're not going to have any interest in being around you.
	You had your chance to form that bond and you didn't do it.
	It's on you.
	So it usually goes to the parent.
	In a case like this, it's really no one's fault.
	The guilt and the blame goes to no one.
	It's just what happened.
	So, I wouldn't feel any guilt about that.
	And then on your father's family's side, you know, they see the situation differently.
	They wish that you had a bond and they're allowed to feel that way.
	That's perfectly valid as well.
	From Becca, says, hey Matt, am I the a-hole for lying to my entire liberal family about being vaccinated?
	My mother said she'd refuse to see me or let me see my 98-year-old grandmother.
	Let's say, hypothetically, that I made an impressively accurate-looking fake vax card to sell this lie.
	So, I'm a liar and a hypothetical criminal, but am I the a-hole?
	And also, do I have to come clean with them like my Catholic priest told me to?
	They will without a doubt disown me and never speak to me again.
	I certainly would not call you In a-hole.
	So I'm going to say, no, you're not the a-hole.
	No one has a right to your medical information.
	That's the way that I look at it.
	Even your family members.
	No one has a right to that information.
	That is private information.
	You don't have a responsibility to give it to someone.
	And from, you know, your Catholic priest you spoke to, he's from the perspective of, it's never okay to lie.
	You told a lie, that's a sin.
	And I understand that perspective.
	I tend to look at it a little bit differently.
	You know, I tend to look at it as like, not everyone has the right to a certain truth.
	There are truths about you that not everyone has a right to.
	And if they're demanding a truth that they simply don't have the right to, then I think at the very least, your moral guilt in deceiving them is severely mitigated.
	At the very least.
	Maybe that's how I would put it.
	To kind of, you know, thread the philosophical, moral, theological needle here.
	That your moral guilt is very much mitigated at a minimum because they're demanding information that they simply don't have a right to.
	And finally, from Clint.
	My wife's 40-year-old brother has never grown up and after years of living on the street and only contacting the family for money, he decided to move back in with his mom because he didn't want to live on the street during the winter.
	After moving in with his mom, he finally got a job.
	My wife and I had to take him to and from work for about eight days until he got fired for cursing out another employee.
	This guy's a real winner.
	This guy is a winner.
	The money he earned was spent on booze and his mom told him he wasn't allowed to drink at her house.
	She asked me to come over to his sister because he wouldn't listen, so he cussed me out also.
	He just got another job and asked my wife to take him to work, which I told her to tell him no because we are not going out of our way to help him after he cussed me out.
	Am I the a-hole?
	Uh, once again, no.
	So these are, what is it, I guess this is four people in a row that I've absolved of their a-hole guilt.
	So this has been a surprisingly encouraging segment.
	And I'm going to say no, you're not the a-hole at all.
	It's a thousand percent the brother.
	When it comes to family, you should be there to help family.
	You should be willing to go the extra mile for family because they are family.
	But at a certain point, you're not helping them by helping them.
	You know, sometimes the best help for them is to not help them.
	And this sounds like a guy that, as you said, has never grown up.
	He's this infantilized, perpetually adolescent 40-year-old.
	And if he has any hope at the age of 40 of having any kind of like awakening moment and actually growing up, Having a very delayed coming-of-age moment where he has some hope of living a functional, productive life, if there's any hope of that.
	And there is hope.
	Because 40 is, like, you're getting old, but it's not—you can change, even at the age of 40.
	But that hope, I think, hinges, at this point, on tough love.
	And he's going to have to confront the consequences of his own decisions and his own actions.
	Like, people that are perpetually adolescent that never grow up, one of the reasons, one of the things that puts them in that state is that they were never forced to deal with the consequences of their actions.
	They live in this fantasy world where consequence is divorced from action.
	And the very definition of tough love, oftentimes, is to not be that barrier between the consequences of their actions and the action.
	To step out of the way and say, no, you're going to have to, I don't like to see this, I wish it didn't have to be this way, but you are going to have to deal with the consequences of your actions, even if those consequences are quite dire.
	And that means that, like, you end up on the street, because you can't even be functional in a job for, like, a week.
	That's a consequence of your action.
	You're going to have to deal with that.
	In this case, you got another job, and now you want a ride to work again, but you're relying on the person that you just disrespected in this way.
	No.
	That's a consequence.
	But you're not going to go help this guy out.
	Your wife's not going to go help him after he disrespected her husband.
	Consequence.
	Figure out another way to work.
	Walk to work.
	Take an Uber.
	Like, figure it out.
	I tell my kids this.
	This is something I have to tell my kids.
	Not like, figure out how to get somewhere, because they're still young, so it is up to me to bring them someplace if they need to go.
	But there are very often things in life, like, things that are frustrating them, and they need to be able to figure out.
	So I say to them, just, you gotta figure out, you gotta be able to figure this one out.
	I'm gonna step back and let you figure it out.
	And that's what you should do here.
	So, you are not the a-hole.
	He is.
	Everyone is absolved.
	We may all go in peace.
	That'll do it for today.

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