2833 Parenting Without Punishment - Saturday Call In Show November 1st, 2014
As a parent, when is and when isn't it appropriate to say no? How do you prepare children for siblings? Is Aristotelianism compatible with atheism? We’re peaceful parents, but believe that we’ve made some mistakes, is it okay to not be 100% philosophical parents? As parents we’ve found that we use negative consequences more than positive ones, is this bad? What is the difference between teasing and abuse?Includes: Children repeat what they see their parents doing, removing temptation, the importance of preparation instead of in the moment problem solving, age appropriate expectations, electric teddy bears, hand-spiders which feast on lying, the horror of using preferences as punishment, dispute resolution between children, the death of Socrates for corrupting the youth, death penalty for apostasy, the intimacy of breastfeeding, unspoken history becoming the future of your children, investing in the bond, looking at things from the deathbed back, intimacy is not an on demand iOS application and horrified by the sounds of happy children.
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Other than that, Mike, I think we have a caller.
All right.
Up for today is Patrick, and Patrick wrote in, and has a couple of parenting questions, but the first one is, as a parent, when is and when isn't it appropriate to say no?
Ha ha ha.
Appropriate?
Oh my!
Have we ever...
Hey, Patrick, did you go to a humanities degree?
No.
No?
Okay, so where does the word appropriate come from and what does it mean to you?
Because it's a word that I am not hugely fond of, but I, you know, I'm sure I've used it, but what does the word appropriate mean to you?
Because it's got sort of moral kind, like, it's inappropriate for, say...
CBC radio hosts say that they want to hate-fuck their employees, which is sadly one of the things that happened in Canada recently.
And so that's sort of inappropriate.
Actually, downright horrible in harassment.
But it also means like, you know, it's inappropriate to left-hand signal when you want a right turn and so on.
So what is it that you mean by appropriate?
Wow, my question didn't even make it out of the gate.
I'm doing great today.
So, yeah, I guess appropriate would be just...
Is it, I'm trying to get a, I guess at the time I was trying to get a feel for, we're having issues with kind of standing up for, he's gotten to the age where he just gets into everything.
You know, if we're working on the laptop, he loves to come over and kind of get involved in that with us.
And, you know, sometimes we have to set boundaries.
And so we were trying, and I know it didn't answer your question about the word appropriate.
So, but I wrote that weeks ago.
Is it a moral thing that you're, like, is it a moral thing?
Yeah, that's really what I'm asking.
Okay, and so what moral rule is your – is it a son?
Yes.
He's three?
One in a month.
One in a month, okay.
One in a month.
And so it can't really be a moral issue yet, right?
Right.
Right, because, I mean, he's one in a month.
Like, 13 months is not quite at the age of reason yet, right?
Sure.
Okay.
Wait, you don't agree?
No, yeah, sure.
I agree.
I agree.
I think we're just – we're new to this parenting kind of methodology and we started out very paranoid, questioning everything that kind of we were taught.
And this was on the list, right?
We wanted to make sure like every single step that we took was founded in something ethical.
Yeah.
Yeah, but again, it's not ethics yet, right?
He's 13 months old.
So you can start to get some empathy and some reciprocity.
Like, I can't remember.
My daughter was pretty young when she sort of started feeding me back if she liked food, knowing that, you know, I had mouth and liked food taste.
So you can get some sort of reciprocal empathy and understanding of other people's emotional experiences, not to repeat myself too much.
But you can get that around this age, but I don't think you've got any – you don't have – he doesn't have the language for moral rules, right?
Yeah.
Right.
He's picking up on body language and facial expressions way sooner than...
Yeah, but that's just disapproval, right?
You can signal your disapproval, but you can't do moral rules, right?
Sure.
Yet.
Okay.
All right.
So the example is the laptop?
Yeah, sure, we can do that.
Whatever we're doing, if we have a drink that we have sitting next to us, if we're working on our laptop, it's shiny and bright.
He loves coming over and getting involved in what we're doing, right?
We, you want your wife?
Yes, anyone.
You said a we, and that maybe has something to do with what's going on.
It's mostly him and I. Oh, hey.
My wife's here.
Sorry.
I've had a few coffees and that's the exact voice of my conscience.
So, that's eerie, I'm telling you.
Although she's got a slightly more Eastern European accent for some reason.
Anyway.
So, sorry.
Hi.
Go ahead.
Hello.
It's mostly my husband and I that we're having the trouble with setting those boundaries, so that way when we have company over, that the company doesn't feel uncomfortable that he comes up and gets in their space.
Okay, so you said we.
So is it that both of you are working on laptops?
Yeah, we both have laptops that are not usually together, but he'll be working on a laptop while I'm watching the baby.
Or I'm working on the laptop while he's watching the baby, and so it's just...
No, the baby is the baby we're talking about, like the 13-month-old?
Yes, sorry.
Yes, our son.
I'm not sure how fertile you are.
Some people seem to spray babies out of their armpits if they hold in a sneeze, so I just wanted to make sure we weren't on round two.
Yeah, she's six months pregnant.
Are you really?
Yes, sir.
Wow.
You've got some splaining to do.
To the kid, I mean, not to your husband.
Maybe you do to your husband, I doubt it.
Anyway, second question is about siblings, so we'll get to that shortly.
Yeah, exactly.
Remember that special feeling you had before your sibling came along?
It's gone, baby, gone.
Okay, so...
It's...
Do you think the...
Is your son...
We'll just call him Bob.
Is Bob...
Does he want to interact with you or is it primarily the laptop he's interested in?
It's definitely the laptop in this situation.
Do you think he's interested in the laptop because you're interested in the laptop?
Probably that and, you know, it's shiny.
Yeah, I know.
But what I mean is that if you were playing with him in some room and the laptop was just on the table, would he leave you and go to the laptop?
Yes.
Oh, he would?
Okay.
All right.
And so he's really fascinated, obviously, by the laptop.
Now, does he have a tablet?
We have one, yeah.
He's got multiple electronic toys.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm in IT, so I have all the gadgets all over the place.
Okay, okay.
Now, is his first word rootkit?
What's his first word, rootkit?
It was, information wants to be free.
That was his first phrase.
Oh!
I'm not sure we want to send him down the Aaron Schwartz path, but...
Okay, okay.
Now, and the reason I'm sort of asking all of this is that, in my experience, children generally prefer people to things and parents to just about anything else, if that makes sense.
So if...
If you are working away, then your son will want to come and interact with you because he's – you are his world at the moment, right?
I mean you're the most important things in his world.
You are the source of his survival and his sustenance and all that stuff, right?
So he's going to want to – right?
Now, is he getting enough time with you guys?
No.
Oh, yeah.
My wife stays home with him, and then when I'm home, I try and kind of be with him and play with him until he kind of gets bored.
He does this really cute thing where he'll go out into the room, play with some things, and then come back and touch base sort of with me, and we kind of have a moment.
And then he's like, okay, I'm done with you, and he goes back out and explores and then comes back.
So I'm pretty confident that he gets more than enough time with all of us.
Okay.
And so, I mean, he's not crying on separation, although that actually can be a sign of very strong bonding.
So maybe that's not the best example.
But okay.
So what is it that you would like ideally for your son to do when you're working on the laptop?
I think it's the figuring out how to set boundaries.
And maybe you're right.
Maybe this is just too young to have this expectation.
But yeah.
Yeah, just say, you know, this space, this object is occupied right now.
Yeah, that's...
This word, no, needs to have some kind of power.
But yeah, I think you're right.
I think it's just too young.
Yeah, look, for a guy who's having two kids in two years, I think the word premature is probably not that alien to you.
Just kidding.
But...
Yeah, I think that to say, you know, this is daddy's workspace.
I am currently bringing home shiny coins for you to transform into food.
So I think that's not realistic at this age.
And I mean, it is, of course, frustrating for everyone when expectations may be premature.
So if you can work in another room, so much the better.
Obviously, then he's not going to be tempted by that.
But he is going to want to do what you're doing.
This is kind of how kids grow and are.
I'm not telling you anything you don't know, of course, but kids learn which berries to eat by following their parents around and picking the right colored berries.
And so whatever you're doing, he assumes that's what he's going to do at some point because we mirror the tribe that we're born into.
And so if it's like, ah, daddy touches shiny things, therefore I must touch shiny things, right?
And it's not particularly gender-specific, but it's how kids work.
They ape.
They imitate.
They copy.
And so whatever you're doing, he's going to want to do.
And if he can see it, he's going to want to copy it.
And this imitative aspect is how culture transmits, how language transmits.
And so I think just to recognize that, that he's just in photocopy mode...
And whatever you're doing, he's going to want to do.
And I don't imagine he's got much of a sense of, well, this is a toy and this is not a toy.
I would also strongly suggest, again, this is all just amateur opinion hour, but my strong suggestion is to keep the bans only for dangerous things.
Right?
So, obviously...
Don't stick forks in the electrical saw.
I'm sure you've got everything childproofed, but you know what I mean.
Don't jump off the three steps up.
It's too high.
So I think you want to keep your negative affect or your negative feedback to him only for things that are dangerous because I think that's what allows children to listen the most to parents' disapproval.
And if there's negative things around, well, that's my personal space or that's a laptop.
But the laptop isn't dangerous, right?
I mean, obviously, it's dangerous if he starts formatting things.
But I always try to keep my nose to stuff at that age, right?
Now it's different, right?
To keep my nose to the stuff which is specifically dangerous.
That way, he's always going to listen.
And I always have a good reason for it.
If you're trying to teach him boundaries, spaces when he's too young, it's going to be frustrating.
He's also going to sense that frustration, whereas don't grab strange dogs.
I think we feel pretty strongly about that as parents as a whole and so on.
So that would be my suggestion.
I'm all around removal of temptation rather than managing personal space.
You know, you probably don't have a big pile of chocolates on the floor and then keep saying no, right?
Because that would just be annoying for everyone involved.
And so I'm a big one for just remove the stimuli, remove the temptation, and then you don't have to worry about it.
So if you keep the laptop away, work on it when he's in bed or work on it when he's in another room when he's busy, I think that's a lot easier because I think it's pretty early for that personal space stuff.
Yeah, absolutely.
I agree.
Can we also kind of reframe that question as if we were two years into the future?
And kind of, what are your thoughts when they're, you know, two, three, four, five?
How does that change over time?
Laptops, you mean?
Boundaries.
Oh, do you mean, sorry, I was just kidding.
But you mean, sorry, I thought you meant two, three, or five, four or five kids?
Years old.
Or boundaries, like areas where the kids can't go or shouldn't go?
There will be no more kids.
We figured out how this works now.
If I remember rightly, there are a few instructional videos on the internet, also known as 99.9% of the internet.
Although, in 99.9% of the internet instructional videos, you really can't get children that way.
Anyway, that's another thing.
Framing it for when they're older.
Give me an example of a couple of years.
What do you mean?
What sort of boundaries do you want to put in place in a couple of years?
We can use the same situation with the laptop.
Maybe I'm working at the table or I'm sitting on the beanbag chair in the living room working.
Are you saying I should still be removing those temptations?
You're way too late at that point.
If you're expecting to set boundaries in the moment, then you're just not going to do it, right?
Because the kid's already interested, already excited.
So I have found diagramming to be hugely effective in this area.
And so in a year or two or whatever, you can sit down with your son and say, okay, there's different types of things, right?
And you can just draw.
And he'll love to draw.
Draw me a porcupine.
Draw me a porcupine with sparklers instead of quills.
This is fun, but dangerous.
Fun to look at?
Don't touch.
A car is fun to drive, but dangerous until you get older.
These different categories, things that are fun and not dangerous, Our teddy bears or, you know, whatever.
Draw me a teddy bear.
And if the kid's involved in drawing stuff out, drawing really keeps their attention, of course, right?
And you can make it sort of like it can be a fun game.
Now, how would we change a teddy bear from fun and safe to fun and dangerous?
Yes, we would set fire to the teddy bear.
Maybe not something that traumatic.
We would give him porcupine quills or something, right?
So, we would electrify the teddy bear.
Electric teddy bear is one of the lesser known of the KTL spin-offs, but...
So, have them draw these categories, and I found getting kids to understand categories, it's great for just having fun together, and it's also great for them conceptualizing different kinds of things, right?
And so, you can go around the house, you know, when you've got the categories down, you can go around the house and point at stuff.
Fun and safe, boring and dangerous, like the oven is boring and dangerous, boring and I guess boring and fun don't really make sense, but you've got these categories, right?
And I found that to be really helpful.
And kids, like, you won't believe what they're like.
They're like these giant mail-sorting machines when it comes to categories.
And so daddy's laptop is fun but dangerous.
And you say it's not dangerous to you, but it's dangerous because my work is all on there.
And if something spills or if it falls...
So it's fun but dangerous, right?
And so basically – and you can get like – draw on the outside a porcupine with sparklers instead of quills or something just so he remembers.
Fun but dangerous.
And fun but dangerous stuff we don't touch, right?
And stuff – there can be stuff you're interested in that's dangerous like what's bubbling on the stove and stuff.
And that kind of stuff, if you've got the categories down and you've explained the why – Then the child can self-sort what situation he's in.
And so that's what I mean.
Like, that's all preparation you do for hours beforehand.
And it's funny because, you know, as parents, we always feel like we're out of time for everything.
No time for anything.
One day, I'll bathe, right?
Actually, it's more for your wife because she's on.
But there's nothing that saves you more time than preparation.
And if you spend a couple of hours going through these categories and reminding, and you can make that a game, right?
You go to the store.
I mean, what's that?
What's that?
And you can come up with a wide variety of categories and stuff.
And then you just remind your kid.
What category is that, right?
Do we touch stuff that's fun but dangerous?
No.
Well, I really appreciate that.
Thank you so much.
That's very, very helpful.
And then I find that You've established it.
The kid understands it.
And you've taught a bunch of conceptual lessons and you've had fun together.
I mean it really is a sort of win-win-win.
And so I would say parenting as I've droned on about before and I'm doubtless drawn on about again.
Parenting like most things is all in the preparation.
Most people – I'm not saying you guys.
But most people parent like those dreams you have where you wake up and you're taking like – The LSATs or the bar exam and you haven't studied but you have to pass.
It's like you can't – preparing for the LSATs or I don't know, some sort of graduate exam or something like that.
I mean that's all in the preparation.
If you haven't prepared, then it's just not going to work.
It's the same thing with parenting with rules and all that.
If you layer in all the categories and get the kid to understand and have fun doing it and so on, they will – At least my experience has been that they're just absolutely fine with that stuff then and it's usually not an issue.
And if it is, it's just a reminder issue.
And when you have a reminder, you never need to escalate.
That's the beautiful thing about the preparation.
You never need to get mad.
You just need to remind because the work's all been done beforehand, if that makes sense.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I'm learning that I need to start framing my questions instead of, well, how do we stop this behavior or how do we handle this situation?
The question needs to be, how do we prepare for this situation in advance?
Oh, yeah.
No, it's prevention.
It's like health, you know?
I mean, prevention, prevention, prevention.
I mean, 90% of health is prevention.
And most parenting problems are – the most parenting escalations, I should say, The result of a lack of preparation and then, of course, the impulse is to blame it on the kid.
Like, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times.
But telling someone doesn't teach them anything.
They need to learn it for themselves and they need to learn the why.
We want to be a common law family, not a federal registry of 10,000 pages of rules that you just have to follow and no one can remember and all that kind of stuff.
So, I... Whenever you escalate, whenever you get frustrated, my first impulse at least is always to look at, okay, well, what did I do to not prepare for this situation?
Why am I up here singing?
Once I did karaoke and I wanted to sing Dr.
Feelgood by Aretha Franklin and I got Dr.
Feelgood by some metal band and once I did karaoke in front of about 400 people and they popped me up a Spanish song.
And, you know, I actually had quite a lot of fun doing it and it doesn't really matter because it just hammed it up.
But, you know, you can't succeed really without preparation.
So that's my major suggestion for that stuff.
Well, what do you do in situations where you, like you just said, you haven't effectively prepared and you're caught in a situation?
You take your lumps.
I mean, like every time you haven't prepared, you take your lumps, right?
So let's say that you've not prepared for the laptop thing.
And then your son comes up and wants to play with the laptop.
You say, well, you know what?
I failed to prepare.
And so I have to say, sorry, we can't do this right now.
I have to close the laptop and I have to go play with my son and distract him with something else.
Okay.
And I mean, if you haven't prepared, you just have to take your lumps.
You know, it's like whatever has to be done then has to be done at like 11 o'clock at night or 1 o'clock in the morning if necessary.
But if you have not prepared, then you just have to Take your lumps and get your kid interested in something else.
And I've found it in general.
I try to avoid – like if I haven't prepared, then that's not the time to start explaining concepts because I'm already annoyed.
And so it really should be fun stuff that's going on then.
So yeah, I mean if you're not prepared, you've got to take your lumps, right?
Okay.
Alright.
Should I move on to my second question?
Sure.
Want me to read it for you, Patrick?
Well, I want to reframe it.
Okay.
Alright, I'll leave it to you then.
So, instead of saying, how do we handle this?
I want to say, how do we prepare a set of siblings for all the random challenges and conflicts that will arise in the house?
Yeah, I mean, I only have one.
So, I'm obviously – I grew up with a sibling, but I only have one.
So, there's not much – I can say from a practical standpoint.
I've certainly thought about it and I've mentioned this on the show before, so I'll keep it somewhat brief.
But there's not a great and easy way to sell a new sibling to an existing sibling.
You're going to have a new brother.
Mommy is going to be exhausted.
We're going to have no time.
Remember all that time we used – that's gone for the most part and we're going to be very busy and the house is going to smell like something halfway between an abattoir and a frat house.
I mean it's like there's not a lot of – you know when you want to crawl into mommy's lap, there will be a head the size of her boob there drinking away, which you can't disturb.
Remember how we used to make noise all the day when we wanted to?
Now we have to keep it down because the baby is sleeping.
I mean it's just – it's hard to sell a sibling.
I'm not having any sort of spontaneous rejection of a fetus or anything.
But I mean the sibling – and for the first while, it's not – it's not – I mean, can you think of a good way?
I can't.
I can't think of a good way.
Well, you know, in life's journey, it's really great to have someone who knows you the whole way.
In life's journey, one day, mommy and daddy will be dead, and then the only person to remember your childhood in any detail will be your sibling who you can go through life with.
Like, no kid who's three is going to have any clue of that, right?
So, I mean, there are huge benefits to siblings, but But I don't know how sellable they are to, I guess, what, your kid's going to be 14 months?
And so, you know, it's a hard sell.
And, I mean, obviously, you guys have thought of all this stuff, like make sure you still have time.
You know, the second child often can eclipse the first child because, you know, that major work is done And the new major work is coming along.
So obviously, prepare and say, listen, it's going to be a lot of work.
And we're going to be tired.
And we're going to have less time for a while.
And maybe we'll carve out more time.
We'll go do special days.
And you do need, of course, to have still one-on-one time.
With their eldest sibling to make sure that they don't feel like they just lost.
Mommy and daddy got eaten by a tiny baby, physics of which make no sense.
But I think if you sort of don't sugar it up, like, you're going to have a sibling, it's going to be the best thing ever.
And the sibling comes along and for a little while, not so much.
I mean, especially in the early little while, it's quite a shock, I think, to the elder siblings.
And there can be some resentment and they can feel displaced and, you know, things were better before.
And again, it's hard to make the case to a very young kid about the benefits of a sibling.
So I think the best that you can do is just really focus on, you know, don't oversell and really focus on getting as much quality time with your eldest child as you can.
Yeah, okay.
You mentioned earlier a common-law family.
How do you see that picture?
Common law is like as little law as humanly possible.
And that to me is, you know, I mean, our rule here, we say it like five times a week, safety first.
Right, safety first.
And so that's just a rule and it encompasses a whole bunch of other things.
The other rule, of course, is, you know, we keep our promises.
You know, promises are very...
Very serious things.
Again, you know, should things come up and whatever, right?
We explained it and we understand.
But, you know, a deal is really sacred.
And that's just trust and that's just like...
And it teaches kids to think ahead, right?
Because if they can change their deals later, then they can just change their deals later.
So they don't really have to think about the consequences.
And, you know, I think my job as a dad...
Well, anybody's job as a parent is to really attempt to extend and expand the time horizon of the child, right?
Because I think the most successful people in life tend to be those who look for the long-term gains and are willing to – it's like the marshmallow test, you know, where they give kids one marshmallow and say if they can not eat it for 15 minutes, they get two.
Well, the kids who grow up and do really well are those kids who – Wait.
You get the two.
So the capacity to defer gratification is really important and that means promises have to be something you can't renegotiate later.
And so promises are very important.
Deals are pretty sacred.
And I am very – and I say this to my daughter too.
I'm very selfish about retaining my pleasure in my daughter's company.
So anything that interferes – In my pleasure with my daughter's company, I will fight tooth and nail.
Fight, tooth, and nail.
And this is sometimes my own distractions and so on, and sometimes it's my daughter.
Like, you know, if we've gone through a day and she hasn't asked me what I want to do and it's just been about what she wants to do, I fight that tooth and nail.
And I say, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, you got to sit.
Because, you know, and I'm enjoying doing the things that you want to do, but...
I don't want to feel like it's just all about what you want and nothing to do with what I would like to do because I want to really make sure I enjoy every scrap of time that I have with you and all that.
So I'm very fierce to protect my positive experiences of all the people really in my life.
So I think just have safety first.
You keep your deals.
A promise is a promise.
I've never had to I really deal with any aggression on the part of my daughter.
I mean, I wouldn't expect her to be aggressive any more than I expect her to speak Mandarin.
She's not exposed to it.
And so I would say, you know, obviously no aggression.
And be honest.
Honesty is really important.
And again, that's not really been a big issue.
I mean, I had a fun way of teaching her the difference between truth and falsehood, telling the truth and lying, because we have in the family, my wife...
My daughter, myself, and two incredibly hungry hand spiders, which attack people's knees when those people don't tell the truth.
And so that became a great game for her.
And so she, of course, she experimented with lying, which is fine.
It's exactly what she should be doing.
She experimented with fake crying.
Kids should experiment with everything to get what they want, because they don't have a lot of power.
And so I was able to teach her all that in a sort of very fun way.
I mean, no aggression, safety first, keep your rules, sorry, keep your promises, a deal is a deal.
And, you know, think about what the other person wants as well and all that.
And with just a couple of basic rules, it really goes amazingly smoothly.
And I think that is, you know, that's important too.
I mean, like it was Halloween yesterday and my daughter, you know, Have as much sugar as you want.
It's Halloween and she makes good decisions about stuff.
So we've really relaxed a lot of the no sugar stuff and she understands cavities and diabetes and all that sort of stuff.
So that's relatively easy.
Transfer as much power to children as they can possibly handle.
Transfer as much authority to children as they can possibly handle.
And I don't believe that's the same as an adult because they're not paying their damn fair share of rent, those selfish little...
Anyway, but...
So I think just a couple of basic principles, whereas a lot of families are, you know, just rule and rule and rule and rule and rule and don't do this and you can't go here and this room's out of bounds, don't touch this laptop and this, that and the other.
And that to me starts to become a pretty claustrophobic sort of late government bureaucracy rather than just some simple principles by which kids can figure out what's reasonable and what's right and what's not.
Does that help at all?
Yeah, absolutely.
We've tried to take a different stance than I did with my daughter, where instead of doing, like you say, where we just kind of go around setting all these rules arbitrarily, we actually, you know, stop and think and decide if that's something that we really have to maintain control over, you know, hold on to the power.
What do you think about – so I kind of got an idea of what you mean by common law kind of family.
What about dispute resolution, like, you know, between siblings or – Oh, that's key.
Oh, I think that is key.
Look, I mean, you are going to spend a good chunk of time resolving disputes.
And I think it's really, really important to do that with siblings.
I mean I can't even tell you the number of times I've seen parents like, well, go work it out amongst yourselves or if you can't play with this toy nicely, I'm just going to take it away or you just both go to your rooms.
Like they just separate the kids and they don't listen to and adjudicate the rightness and wrongness of the conflict.
They just – they're bickering or the kids fighting is driving me crazy and so on, right?
And – So the first thing is if you've got honesty and if you've got non-aggression as just the sort of physics of the family universe, then you shouldn't have too much trouble resolving disputes with kids.
But I think sit down – like when the siblings have conflicts or your kids have conflicts with other kids, I mean you sit down and you go over it and you ask and you – without anger, without judgment, you try and figure out – How they ended up in this conflict.
But, I mean, a lot of parents are just basically like...
They just take a hose to their kids and separate.
That's cold, right?
Their kids go opposite corners.
They don't dig in and really find out what happened.
And then they wonder why their kids are always fighting.
Because if...
If there's no rightness or wrongness to what the kids have done, then you're basically subsidizing the wrongness.
I mean, it's like if...
If someone shoplifts and you send the shoplifter and the owner to jail, well, the owner doesn't want to report the shoplifter and the shoplifter feels that immunity and you're just guaranteeing more shoplifting.
So, first of all, you want to be with the siblings as much as humanly possible.
I know this is a bit more for your wife and all that, but be with the siblings as much as humanly possible and see how they interact.
And it's all...
It's all in the early days.
And, you know, if someone grabs, they say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
No, no, no, no, no.
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
What happened there, right?
Well, he had it and I wanted it.
It's like, well, that's – can that be a rule?
I mean I find UPB to be great with this.
Can we have a rule that if somebody wants something, they just grab it?
You know, like if you have a piece of candy and I want it, I can just grab it or – right?
And they'll quickly get that that is not a rule that they want.
They don't want the rule where you just grab whatever you want.
You're teaching them something very fundamental about ethics then as well, which is UPB. You could even go Kent's categorical imperative at that point, but not hugely important there.
So once you get the rules of how they can interact that they accept and that they want and that they're willing to give up their selfishness for the sake of Not having other people have permission to be selfish as well.
But I have found, like I spent, in conflicts my daughter has with other kids, I spent like 20-25 minutes just asking questions, trying to figure out what happened, how did it escalate and all that.
And it could just be, you know, kids are tired or whatever, right?
But that is really important.
And I don't do it like I'm just going to get some kid who did something wrong or anything.
I genuinely want to understand what steps occurred that ended with A conflict.
And, of course, the kids, you know, I want them to feel sort of secure enough to talk about these kinds of things.
And that is really important.
And it signals to the kids that conflicts are important, that it matters who's in the right and who's in the wrong.
And if you're in the wrong, it doesn't mean that you get punished.
Right?
It just means that – because then the people – the kids won't have the desire to initiate stuff because they can just get away with it.
Because if it's just, well, both of you kids go to your rooms, it's like, well, then the kid who wants something might as well grab because...
And then you barrier to the kid on the victim's side reporting it to the parent because the kid's going to get punished too.
So I think we have court for traffic tickets, for God's sake.
We have court for shoplifting.
It's much more important to have court in many ways, to have court for sibling conflicts.
You know, sit down, dig in, figure out what happened.
How did this come about?
And also, is it anything that they've seen around them?
Do they see shows where there's lots of conflict?
Is there conflict between mommy and daddy that's not resolved?
Is it in the atmosphere?
Are there kids around them, like cousins or friends on the street or whoever, who have negative habits of interaction and so on?
Dig in to really find the route because there is, of course, sibling rivalry and there are going to be sibling conflicts, just as there are going to be conflicts between all people.
But it's absolutely not inevitable.
And it can be an incredible learning opportunity to figure out why, but you've got to take the time.
Because every time parents wave away conflict, I mean, it's like covering your head in honey and waving away a wasp or a bee.
Welcome back!
Right?
It's just not...
So know the conflicts, avert them wherever possible, prevent them wherever possible, but when they occur, really dig in to find out what happened and how it occurred, and that is going to be incredibly powerful in helping the kids play more productively together.
Do punishments hold a place anywhere in that equation?
So if we have a rule that says we don't grab things and that happens, what happens then?
So you have this discussion, you break it down, you figure out what happened.
If they did it intentionally, what do you think?
Yeah.
So let's say that the older child grabbed something from the younger child.
Well, it depends.
It depends on the age.
It also depends on the repetition of the experience, right?
I mean, if you've gone over it 10 times before, then you're dealing with a more fundamental issue because you need to get agreement from people for a resolution to be resolved, right?
For a dispute to be resolved.
Both people need to agree that it's been resolved.
And that doesn't mean much about the past because you can't change that, but it means something about the future.
It means...
Here's the principle we've gotten out of this interaction.
Do we all agree?
Do we all agree that we don't just grab when we want something, right?
Now, if your kids agree to that, and they will, right?
I mean, because kids are very...
I mean, they want to manipulate the rules like all of us because we all want to be the government that's exempt from the government, right?
But if you're...
Let's say Bob, your eldest, right?
So if your eldest son agrees to the principle that we don't grab...
And then he keeps grabbing, then you have a much more fundamental problem than the moment, right?
The fundamental problems you have are that your son is agreeing to something that he has no intention of abiding by.
And that's at the level that you need to start dealing with it, not at, well, I'm going to punish you.
Because he's breaking his word.
So for the conflict to be resolved...
Everyone has to say, yes, we don't grab without asking.
We don't just grab things from each other.
We agree, and that's a deal.
That's a promise.
Now, if your son then just continues to grab stuff, it means he's mouthing the promise.
And that's indicative of a much deeper problem that punishment is only going to obscure.
So it means either he doesn't really understand what a promise is, or he knows what it is and he's willing to just manipulate with it.
And there's an empathy problem because, of course, the way you explain things to kids is, well, would you like it if someone came along and grabbed it from you?
Well, no.
So if the child really does get that, then – so if you're – I'm not saying he will.
But if your eldest son just keeps grabbing or keeps doing that kind of conflict, you have a much deeper issue.
And it probably has something to do with a challenge or a deficiency or a problem in the parenting or in the environment.
But if you just cover it up with a punishment – Yeah, I mean, just cover it up with a punishment.
That's like, I don't know, spray tanning skin cancer and say, look, it's all better.
It's not red anymore.
So you've got to go deep with that kind of stuff and figure out where is the disconnect.
You know, we had a deal.
Did you not agree with that deal?
Like, did you remember agreeing to that deal?
And he'll say, yes, right?
Well, did you mean it?
Yes.
Okay, well, then why aren't you doing it?
And that's not like, well, why the hell aren't you doing it?
It's like, genuinely, like, we, do I break my word to you?
And this is where, you know, one of my greatest strengths as a parent is, is I'll just move heaven and earth to keep my word.
I think maybe once or twice in my daughter's life, I have made a promise and been unable to fulfill it for a variety of reasons, but I just say, look, I mean, I keep my word for you, right?
And how would it be if I didn't, right?
Then you wouldn't know whether you could trust what I was saying.
And, of course, the other thing, it's not a punishment, but And consequences is important, right?
Because as I've said to my daughter, freedom for you is freedom for me, right?
And it's not a big issue for her, but when it does come up, it's like, you know, if you're not going to ask me what I want to do, then why would I want to ask you what you want to do?
Like, if you spend the whole day doing what you want to do, and I'm just using this as a repetitive example.
It's happened, I think, twice in our entire relationship.
But just helping her to understand that.
That she can't lower her standards that expect me to maintain mine.
And so if your son has made a commitment to not grab and then continues to grab, it means the commitment is false, which means that he's not recognizing what a promise and a commitment is.
And that's a big problem for him in life, right?
We don't want to just be opportunistic...
Waterfalls going down the mountain, right?
I mean, we want to actually have backbones, have standards of behavior, not like, hey, what can I get away with in the moment, right?
That's no good.
And so I think it's a much more fundamental issue.
You need to revisit, should that come up, you need to revisit commitment, the common law, the promises, the empathy, and figure out what's not connecting.
Right.
So what I got from that is that there really wasn't a pathway through that where there is any kind of punishment.
No, punishment is not instructive.
Okay.
And all punishment is going to do is teach the child that you're bigger, which the child already knows, right?
And that you can inflict negative consequences.
And like Isabella is fascinated by punishment.
I mean, we were just chatting at dinner yesterday.
She's like, well, Dad, what are the kinds of punishment?
That you can get, right?
So I told her, like, when I was in boarding school, I got caned.
And I had to write lines sometimes.
And when her mom was in school, you could rap or hit kids on the knuckles with rulers and detentions.
I get detention sometimes.
And, you know, and she said, well, what about in families?
I said, oh, well, you know, so if the kid really likes a toy, then the parents will sometimes say, well, if you don't do it, I'm just going to take away the toy.
And she's like, ooh.
And I said, and that's a problem.
And she said, well, yeah, because then you don't want to tell your parents what you like.
I'm like, oh, my God.
Like, watching her brain work, it's just incredible.
It's like I get this Halley's Comet flyby every 10 minutes, right?
Because, yeah, I mean, because then your pleasures and your joys and your happiness has become something that you need to hide from.
From your parents.
And she said, oh yeah, so if we did that, I'd say, Dad, I love broccoli and I hate chocolate.
And I'm like, yeah, you would.
You would try to reverse your preferences and hide your preferences from me if I use your preferences as a form of punishment.
And that messes up the whole interaction, right?
Yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, punishment, I don't know.
It's...
Look, I'm not averse to punishment as an adult.
I mean, like, for adults.
I'm not like, you know, let's hug the criminals or anything, but when it comes to kids, I think punishment just teaches compliance, conformity, and robs them of the internalization of rules and uses their pleasures and pains against them, which reverses what they're supposed to be doing, right?
So, does that help at all?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, very helpful.
I mean, there have been tons of studies that show that this is pretty true, right?
I mean, Alfie Cohen's got K-O-H-N. Alfie Cohen's got a bunch of studies about, you know, kids play more with a toy when it's just lying around than if somebody pays them $10 to play with the toy.
Kids do, you know, study puzzles longer and learn more and do better when they're just playing with them for fun rather than if somebody says, give you $10 for solving this puzzle.
So, I mean, it's just very shallow stuff, but it goes on and on.
Like, I mean, we all remember this from school, you know, at least when I was a kid, they'd crank up the video and be like, is this going to be on the test?
And if the teacher says no, then we just sit down and enjoy the video.
But if it's yes, we've got to dutifully go out and write stuff down and it's just...
So boring.
And then when you've learned what you need to regurgitate on the test, you then forget about it.
And I won't get into a whole rant about all that crap just to the degree to which we try to recreate human children as bad computers.
Let's offload the memory shit to the internet because that's much better at it than we are.
Sometimes too good.
So yeah, I think that punishment is a real breaking of the bond and very, very counterproductive and denies everybody such an opportunity for knowledge.
All right.
Well, thank you, Steph.
I appreciate the time today.
You're welcome.
Best of luck in what is hopefully three months to go.
You know, you guys aren't in your 40s, right?
No, I'm 33?
Four?
Oh, good.
34?
Yeah.
Ute!
Ute!
No, that's good.
You know, because I'm not the youngest dad on the block.
In fact, I was once mistaken for a grandfather.
I... I wasn't, you know, like two would be like, oh, really?
Do I have to?
But, you know, eh, you're 30, so you've got tons of energy.
Eh, no aches and pains.
So, thanks a little, man.
Keep us posted, and great, great questions.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Bye.
Alright, thank you very much, Patrick.
Up next is Ricardo, and Ricardo wrote in and said, In your Truth About Ayn Rand Part 2, you spent a lot of time focusing on and defending Aristotelian metaphysics.
You've also made the world very aware that you are a strong atheist.
My understanding of Aristotle's metaphysics strongly clashes with atheism.
How do you square these ideas?
How is Aristotelianism comparable with atheism?
Well, why don't you make the case about how it's not compatible?
Because Lord knows I get enough chance to talk at this damn show, so go for it.
Nice, Steph.
Yeah, so I'll admit, growing up, my understanding of our article has been a bit complex.
Clouded by, you know, in Catholic Church and Aquinas.
And I think really the ideas of first cause, final cause, and probably like hylomorphism and hylomorphism dualism.
Alright, so you have to break down some of this language to make sure everyone sort of follows what you're doing.
Right, so if I understand correctly, if I remember from school, high school, first course has to do with just the idea of the beginning of things, you know, everything must have a source, one beginning.
Final course has to do with purpose and teleology.
And I think hyalomorphism is more to do with just the idea of, well, there must be a separation between mind and brain and that kind of stuff, if I remember correctly.
So I think...
I think First Cause is not that big of a deal because, you know, the Big Bang is that.
I mean, you can just leave it at that.
That doesn't have to be a god or anything like that.
Hylomorphism is questionable or arguable as dualism because I think one can easily make a case for either or.
But final cause is the kind of tricky one for me.
If you're saying there's final cause or some kind of ultimate purpose in the universe, I can't see how you could be an atheist and acknowledge that at the same time.
But when have I said that there's a final purpose to the universe?
No, well, Aristotle makes the case.
That's what I'm saying.
Aristotle makes a case for final cause.
He has his four causes.
Final cause is one of them.
So I don't know if it's that you're defending or, you know, do you acknowledge final cause at all or you think Aristotle is just dead wrong on that one?
Well, no, see, I mean, I wouldn't accuse Aristotle of being dead wrong on anything because his mentor's mentor had been murdered for perceptions of atheism, right?
So, you know, when there's a smoking crater where your mentor's greatest loved human being was, when he's been forced to drink hemlock, then it's, you know, and the two accusations— Socrates, I mean, there were many, but the two accusations were corrupting the youth, freedom in radio, check!
And also, not believing in the gods of the city.
Given that I don't believe in the god of the city, check, check!
So, this is the amount of progress that philosophy has made over 2,500 years is, you know, people aren't just outright killed, right?
And so, I The question to me is not, is Aristotle right or wrong?
The question is, is the concept of a final purpose in the universe compatible with his metaphysics?
Now, he can layer in that into his say, it is in the nature of the universe that there's a...
But that's not rational.
I mean, you can add anything to anything, right?
But the question is, when we look at his metaphysics, can it support...
An argument for a deity.
Not, does he have an argument for a deity?
Of course he does, because he liked not dying.
Right.
At the hands – at the outraged hands of the people, right?
Yeah.
So saying what did Aristotle say to me is not particularly helpful.
It's like saying, well, you know, what did Solzhenitsyn say when he was in Stalin's Russia?
Right.
Well, he said, you know, what he said, and he didn't even say enough of that to keep him out of – he was in the gulags for 10 years if I remember rightly, right?
Right.
So – and sorry, that's sort of a long – so the question is to me, does Aristotle – Does Aristotle's metaphysics support the idea of a deity?
Now, first course and final course doesn't matter to me because the metaphysics that he's talking about are sense data, right?
The rigorous observation always trumps theory.
And so if observation and sense data always trumps theory, to me, that's the beginning and the end of the anti-religious argument.
Because there is no observable data that supports the existence of any kind of deity.
The existence of a deity is both biologically and physically contradictory and therefore can no more exist than a square circle.
So the moment you put reason and empiricism together, you have completely destroyed the idea of a valid deity.
Now, since he did put reason, man's highest oracle and empiricism was the foundation of his metaphysics, which is why he rejected the world of the forms, right?
Which is why he embedded concepts in the things themselves.
And he said, for Plato, in any contradiction between a perfect form and the thing itself, the form wins.
But for Aristotle, in any contradiction between the idea and the thing itself, the thing itself wins and the idea must be destroyed.
In other words, sense data, empiricism, and the rationality it generates trumps whatever goes on in your head.
And so if we take that basic approach to metaphysics and we look at the universe, What is the sense data for a deity?
Well, there's none.
There's no sense data for any kind of deity.
And there's not even indirect sense data for a deity.
In other words, there's not people who pray for things don't even get a half of a percentage chance, increased chance of getting them.
So there's no – we can't observe it.
We can't observe its effects.
We can't talk with it.
It's never been measured and so on, right?
And we can't even measure it indirectly even according to the standards of the religion because if the religion says, ask God for this and God will listen and God will try and do the right thing and give you what you want, then let's say that this was true for Catholicism.
Well, this is a fantastic – Albeit odd, but it's a fantastic empirical test.
Great!
So God listens to prayers and God answers prayers.
So then all the people who pray for this, who are sincere believers in that faith, should have a significantly higher percentage of achieving what they want.
And of course, as it turns out, right, they've had people pray for other people to get better and then not pray for other people to get better, where you take out the placebo effect, which is not insignificant, but obviously is not evidence for a religion.
What happens if Nothing.
Nothing happens.
There's zero evidence that any deity answers any prayers anywhere in the world.
And so we've got no direct data, we've got no indirect data, and the very concepts themselves are completely irrational.
As I've talked about in the show before, God cannot be both all-knowing and all-powerful.
Because if he's all-powerful, he can change whatever he wants.
If he's all-knowing, then he knows what he's going to do in the future and what everyone else is going to do in the future, and therefore he can't change it.
You can't have consciousness without matter.
That's like having gravity without mass.
You can't have the most complex being in existence be outside of evolution, which gradually produces more complex entities and so on.
So to me, the question isn't, well, did Aristotle bow to the law of And say, yeah, there's a first course and there's a final course because otherwise I'm going to get murdered.
Well, yeah, of course.
But that's like saying that somebody with a gun to his head is making an independent moral judgment.
I think we just simply compare it to what his metaphysics say and go from there.
And you don't have to go too far, I would say.
Yeah.
I think from my end, I think the well has been poisoned for me because so many of the people I clash with with respect to religious arguments and whatnot constantly champion Aristotle.
Sure.
It mostly filtered through Thomas Aquinas and say modern thinkers like Edward Phaesier, for example.
Yeah, they constantly say hammering final cause and first cause and then my non-religious friends would say, "Ah, well Aristotle was an idiot because of this," or something like that, and dismissed many of his arguments.
And I find myself like, "No, Aristotle was right on this, but..." And I think...
Sorry to interrupt, but the people who don't start their acknowledgement of Aristotle's religiosity with the fact that he was living in a goddamn murderous theocracy are very, very dishonest from an intellectual standpoint.
To ignore the gun in the room is kind of important.
You know, it's like those movies.
You know, you see a movie where It's a movie opening.
Some guy is strangling some other guy.
And you're like, ooh, that's a bad guy.
That's a murderer, right?
And then the camera pulls back and there's another guy with a gun to the head of the guy who's strangling the other guy.
It's like, ooh, maybe he's just doing it because there's a gun to his head.
Maybe he's not a bad guy.
Right?
And so this fundamental...
You can't look at Aristotle or Plato without the corpse of Socrates overshadowing their thinking.
Right.
I mean these guys lived in very dangerous times.
Yeah.
Like what is the opinion of Muslims in Saudi Arabia?
about Islam?
I don't know because the penalty for breaking with the Islamic faith is death yeah not a lot of people break with the Islamic faith, yeah I get that So I don't know what they believe, but I do know that there's enough doubt that they have to have a death penalty for apostasy.
So I'm not going to talk about the Islamic belief as if there's not a scimitar in the room.
I mean, that's why I don't talk much about the Islamic world.
And people say, well, you're a chicken for not talking about Islam.
Maybe.
But the reality is that Islam, to me, is not a belief system.
It's kind of like a gulag.
You know, the Scholz and Eton was not on vacation.
Even Denisovich that he wrote about, they weren't on vacation.
They were there at gunpoint and were shot if they tried to leave.
There is not an Islamic faith because I don't know what the beliefs of Islamics are.
I do know that there's a huge amount of death and violence.
People who blog about doubts about stuff, they have to flee the country or they get put to jail for 10 years or killed.
So I can't look at this belief system out there and say, well, I'm going to analyze this belief system because I'm not willing to pretend that people in a gulag are there by choice.
I can't do it.
And so with Aristotle, people talk about like he's some disinterested, objective observer who was able to reason and publish and speak in freedom.
No!
Absolutely not.
He was under threat of murder.
For atheism.
And to imagine that this didn't...
I mean, the fact that he lived meant that we don't know what his beliefs were, but we know that he was not free to write what he wanted.
Now, maybe, just maybe, he happened to have exactly the beliefs that kept him alive in that primitive theocracy.
Maybe.
But I really wouldn't put any money on it.
Like, maybe, you know, maybe everyone in the gulag was guilty of treason against the state.
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
Alright, yeah, that, okay, I just wanted you to clear that up.
I think the second question on marine states and psychonautics, Mike, I can't remember the question I wrote down, I wrote it so long.
I'm sure Mike has it, Mike, if you've got the second question.
I actually don't have the second question lined up, Ricardo.
If you could give it to us off the top of your head.
Okay, no problem.
I suppose that isn't done right.
The second question is, what's your opinion on the idea of, say, rational psychonautics?
You know, people experimenting with MDMA or proper experiments with respect to You know, manipulating brain states and that aspect of, you know, professionals, artists, how to improve, say, mathematics, for example.
And do you have any opinions on that kind of experimentation and chemicals and the use of chemicals?
Yeah, it's tempting.
I mean, I don't think I'll ever do it.
I mean, I have no dissatisfaction with how my brain works, so I'm sort of the if it ain't broke kind of thing, don't fix it.
But you can certainly find enormously productive people who were on some pretty intense stuff.
I think My basic idea is that if it's inner truth, you can get it through introspection, you can get it through therapy, you can get it through journaling, you can get it through your dreams.
If it's inner truth, I think there's healthier and better ways to get it than laden your system up with chemicals and drugs.
If it's an external truth, then you really need clear perception in order to get there.
And I don't think that messing up your senses or your sense of self is a great way...
I mean, you can't even drive a car on those things.
How on earth are you supposed to discover the truth about the universe?
So I think that what those drugs often do is they give people a sense of insight.
They give people sort of this, what Freud used to call this oceanic feeling or this feeling of oneness or these insights.
And, you know, I put this out seven or eight years ago.
It's like people say, well, you know, I get the most amazing insights when I'm on drugs.
I'm like, okay, well, tell me what they are.
Mm-hmm.
Well, you know, I just, I kind of got that we were one with everything.
It's like, come on, that's not, I mean, I can go off to a hop dog vendor and say, make me one with everything, right?
I mean, it looks like that didn't really help that much, right?
So I want to know genuine insights, genuine insights that people have gotten.
And, you know, a lot of times people say, you know, I had this most amazing thought when I was on this drug.
I wrote it down, and in the morning, it was like, Gefirna Froghead, Befortin.
Or, you know, make sure you get the fish scales out of your eyes.
I guess that's probably more of a biblical thing.
So, you know, there can be great productivity.
To me, the example of Ayn Rand on uppers, or this, quote, speed, and again, it was...
It wasn't a street drug and it was a common prescription for weight loss at the time.
Again, kind of lazy.
You know, geez, man, put the cigarette down and go for a walk.
It won't kill you.
But I think that the price that people pay for enhanced productivity when they're young is pretty high.
I think it's pretty rough.
I mean, after Ayn Rand was on that stuff for like 10 years, she never wrote another novel again.
And she did get giant novels out and she did have amazing productivity, but I think it burned her out.
And I think that's one of the reasons why she had all these classic symptoms of speed addiction later on in life, paranoia and megalomania and all that kind of stuff.
So, I mean, it's not a moral issue to me.
Unless somebody is parenting or driving or whatever, right?
Flying a plane.
It's not a moral issue to me.
You know, go knock yourself out.
But what bothers me is the degree to which people need to drape all of this, quote, insight over recreational drug use.
You know, like, if you want to get high, get high.
I don't think you need it.
I don't think it's helpful.
I don't think it's valuable.
I think there's much better and more sustainable ways.
It's like steroids.
You know, you can bulk up, but It's not that healthy.
And so I just – it always has bothered me.
And this is just my personal opinion.
I'm not going to say this is any sort of philosophical fundamental.
But it just – it always bothers me when people can't just say the truth about what they're doing.
I mean that just bothers me because it's such a rejection of the basic virtue of honesty.
You know, like I take drugs to get insights.
No, statistically, you take drugs because you had a traumatic childhood and you're self-medicating.
Right.
I mean, that's the most likely explanation.
Right.
But don't give me all of this electric Kool-Aid acid test, self-knowledge, insights, you know, this, that and the other.
You know, it's like you need this stuff because your dopamine receptors were destroyed by early childhood trauma or hampered or failed to grow and you don't want to find alternative ways of deploying your brain's capacity for neuroplasticity to… Improve your mental health in the long run, right?
You know, you want a skinny pill because you like cheesecake.
Like, just say that, you know, but people want to drape all of this psychonaut stuff in, you know, oh, you know, it's like 20 years of therapy in one pill.
It's like, No, it's really not.
And I just want people to be honest and say, well, you know, this stuff makes me feel better and otherwise I don't feel that good.
And I, you know, I'm too chicken to look into more sustainable and better ways of improving my mental health.
So I'm going to take this stuff because I'm kind of broken and lazy and cowardly.
And it's like, and even if you, they don't want to have those kinds of pejoratives, right?
Even if they say, you know, like people don't take Pain pills like Vicodin saying, well, it gives me fantastic insights into the relationship between man's consciousness and Satan's armpit.
They say, my back hurts when I don't do it, so I take this stuff.
And I don't like it.
I wish it were different.
And I've gone to all these specialists and I've tried physio and I've done cupping and I've done ultrasound and I've done needles and acupuncture and I just got to live with it, right?
Like house with his leg, right?
But they don't give me all this bullshit about Insights and Pink Floyd levels of bullshit metaphysics.
I mean, they're just like, I don't like this stuff, but if I don't take it, I'm in pain.
Okay, so Ayn Rand could say, well, I could eat less, or I could exercise, or I could just take a pill.
Or I could negotiate a delay in the release of the fountainhead, or I could just take this pill and get the work done.
And she took the pill.
Right.
Just be honest about it.
I mean, okay, it stimulated your intelligence, it stimulated your creativity, and you got stuff done, and it was a drug-dependent book.
It doesn't mean that the book is wrong or you're bad or anything, but at least she didn't say, well, I take this stuff to get me insights.
She's just like, I like cheesecake, so I need speed.
So sorry for the long rant.
I just want people to be honest about it.
I don't drink coffee to get massive insights.
I like two cups of coffee a day.
I just do.
And it tastes good.
I don't really notice any particular alertness that comes out of it, but it's just something that I like.
But I don't sort of drape it in this goo of self-congratulatory metaphysics.
Okay.
If I remember correctly, there's a follow-up to the old joke with the hot dog blender.
He asks for change, and the guy says, change comes from within.
I think that was in H22, in Christopher Hitchens, one of his last books.
Christopher Hitchens made the joke a couple of times, yeah.
Yeah, I think that's great.
Right.
Well, no, Steph, thanks for that.
That's all I wanted to know.
I just wanted to hear your take on these matters.
And I think that's about it.
Listen, I don't want to prejudge you based on your accent, my friend, but can you give me a little weather porn?
I mean, are you in a warm place?
Yes, I am.
Okay, what's the temperature outside?
Now, you don't mind if you hear a grown man cry, do you?
Because we just got our first snow today.
So, what do you got there, brother?
I think it's 29 degrees Celsius.
Wait, that's Kelvin, right?
Oh, God.
I used to like winter.
I did.
I really did.
And now I have a child.
And no skiing for you!
No snowboarding for you.
No snowshoeing for you.
Um...
And is this what you call late fall, early winter, 29?
It's colder, but yeah, this is average, healthy.
Do you own any gloves?
No, I have to buy gloves.
Do you own any boots so heavy that you could put them on a jack to get a truck up?
Yeah, I own one because I work in civil engineering.
Oh, you've got like hard boots, right?
I just have hard boots, but nothing for temperature or warmness.
I'm bareback sweating right now.
Colonel, please stop torturing the host.
No, no, no.
Oh, come on.
My initials are SM. Let me keep going.
Okay.
Do you have any thick socks not associated with work?
Nope.
Nope, nope, nope.
Do you have any long-sleeved t-shirts?
A couple, yeah.
Because for the sun or like that kind of thing or if it's a little cool?
It looks stylish.
That's it.
It's stylish?
Okay.
Do you have any hats not specifically related to keeping the sun off?
No.
Is there any time of the day where you don't have a little sweat on your inner legs?
Uh, Well, Westy has good air condition, so I'll say, yeah, maybe.
Okay.
Do you ever go outside and shiver?
Like, just a little bit, even a tiny little chill?
Never, never, never.
Never happens, right?
Nope.
Is it ever too hot?
Yeah.
Yeah, a couple of days it was.
You lie!
That's a trick question!
There's no such thing as too hot unless you're currently in the middle of the sun itself!
Yeah!
Have you ever looked at a Christmas card and say, I wish I could climb inside that and make a snow angel?
A couple of times.
Have you ever been to a snow place?
Yeah.
I've been to Finland a couple of times.
It's pretty cool, yeah.
And did you go to the airport leaving Finland and say, wow, it's going to be so hot when I get back there?
I mean, these Finnish people have got it made.
This is like, I don't need to spend money on air conditioning.
No, I was totally, I was like glad to get out of there.
It was ridiculous.
I was like, wow, this is, no, this is not happening.
Do you ever, like if you ever take a child, take her off your porch, put her down, does she ever disappear?
Because my daughter will just disappear into snow.
Does it disappear into foliage or quicksand or anything like that?
That was the old joke of the abstract art piece with two dots in white and there's the polar bear in snow.
Right, so nothing like that.
Do you ever randomly slip on shit?
Like the banana peels everywhere or people just grease down?
Just random stuff like the wind blows and you're just on your ass?
No.
What?
That's alien.
Sorry.
Okay, what about like cars, right?
So you have a car, right?
You're an engineer, right?
So you have a car.
Yeah.
Does your car just like not move from time to time and you have to get like mats out and dig and throw salt and crap underneath the car to get it to move?
Nope, nope, nope.
Is it ever buried?
No.
Like in cocaine when you come back?
No.
Okay, okay.
Anyway, thanks for this.
Wait, one last question.
Sure.
You actually can't pretend you're a dragon.
That's the only thing that I will take from this conversation because you can't go and pretend you're a dragon.
And I feel that balances out everything else that we've been saying.
No, it doesn't.
I'm lying.
Well, enjoy your temperature.
I guess don't call back until it's 30 degrees here.
Oh, wait, wait!
Hurricanes!
No!
That never happens.
What?
Tsunamis!
Earthquakes!
Almost never.
The wrath of frozen-ass white people, resentment, just bringing cold fronts down from the north.
Anything.
Anything.
Nothing.
No, hurricanes just almost always, because where I am is Trinidad and Tobago, so it's very low.
So the hurricanes almost always just spin right up and hit every other island except for us.
Except for us.
Yeah, except for us.
I think 1993, one of them, it was supposed to hit and then it shrunk and went straight through the middle of two islands.
It was ridiculous.
It was really funny.
Poor guy.
Wait, are you saying that the worst thing is you almost got a hurricane like 21 years ago?
Yeah.
Wait, is the construction company hiring?
I hope so.
All right.
Well, listen, I appreciate your call.
Thanks very much.
Thank you.
I'm just going to go and bring up a picture of Trinidad and Tobago.
Go ahead.
Think warm thoughts, Dad.
Who's next?
Think warm thoughts.
They're very hot right now.
You know, he said the hurricane shrank, and you didn't go for the shrinkage joke.
You're letting me down, Steph, I must say.
I don't know.
I try not to go with Seinfeld trotting territory too often.
Okay.
Well, I've just been alerted that our next callers are from an igloo up in Alaska now.
Yeah.
Up next is Sean and Christy.
Another parenting call.
A better friend would lie better.
Yeah.
They wrote in and said, We've had our daughter in a Montessori school since she was three months old.
She's now three, and after listening to FDR for years, we can't help but think we've made a mistake.
We are peaceful parents, but will never have her go to a public school, yet are conflicted in the level of purity in our methods.
Is it okay to not be 100% philosophical parents when our prior choices led us here?
Oh, there's nothing better that a moralist likes than the word purity.
That never goes wrong.
I am more pure than you are!
Yeah, I thought I messed that one up after I sent that email.
I was like, I shouldn't have said purity.
Yeah, that's a little tricky.
I don't want to make you feel bad, Stefan, but we're sitting outside right now and it's 61 degrees Fahrenheit.
And we've got jackets on.
Igloo!
Igloo!
That's it.
I'm just going to go sit outside.
That's it.
I'm just going to go and do it.
The show may end in a sort of slight shiver and a tinkle.
It's pretty, though, up there, I'm sure.
So why did you put her in?
Pretty.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's the consolation prize.
Your wife's a bitch, but she's really pretty.
Well, that's right.
Canada's a bitch, but kind of pretty.
So why did she go in at three months?
Well, we...
I've talked to you before, and...
We want to discuss before that we found FDR soon after she was born and we were getting into the podcast, learning all these things.
But before that, we thought we were doing everything right.
You know, we were renting a house, we were able to save some money, but then we should buy a house, which led us to, you know, we need to pay for the house.
We were both working and so, you know, Christy needed to get back to work, you know.
After the maternity leave and everything.
So we looked at a daycare, and we looked at the Montessori school, and we really liked what we saw when it came to the Montessori method, things like that.
And we turned away from the regular daycare as soon as we walked in, walked out, essentially.
But then we liked the teacher.
We liked the method, we liked the teachers.
We just liked what we saw there.
But then after listening for a long time, Of your show and everything.
We're kind of second guessing the decision that we made.
What's her status now?
She's still in the school.
Does she like it?
Yeah, she does.
What are you thinking of as far as next steps for schooling?
The Montessori school that she's in actually goes up through 15 years age.
And I'm on the board of directors for their school as well.
And we're looking at going to a high school program eventually as well within the next 10 years.
At the Montessori school.
Right.
And do you have any concerns about the Montessori school itself?
Do you?
No.
Not about the school itself, just the fact that she's there.
And it's Our situation is, I mean, one of us could not work and pay for the house and everything else that goes along with the house.
Right, you mean like, are you guys still renting or did you buy?
No, we bought a house.
And we did buy a house that was Not updated in a good, safe neighborhood, but it wasn't updated so that the price was a little bit lower than anything else in the area.
In this area where we live, it's kind of pricey.
Also, you should know that we don't have family near us at all.
We moved here eight years ago separately for work, and then we found each other at work.
We still work at the same place together.
And so we both live about a thousand miles away from the closest family.
And even if the family was close, we wouldn't really want to spend time with them.
And that's a whole other issue because, you know, with the history of our family of origins, we're happy that our daughter is not close to them.
Brian, I'm sorry to hear about that, but I certainly understand.
So, are you thinking that your option is you either take her out of school or compromise your values?
Yeah.
We would love to have similar to what you talk about with at least one parent at home, but we don't know how we can swing it because of the house.
Well, no, you do.
Like, technically, you know how you could swing it, right?
We could.
We could.
Yeah, and I'm not saying you should or shouldn't.
I mean, just want to be precise, right?
I mean, we often will make things impossible in our heads so we don't review options, but that never works, right?
Because you can review the option honestly and then reject it and still be fine, right?
But you could do it, right?
It would be extremely difficult and, you know...
Well...
Yeah, it's...
No, no, no.
Come on.
Look...
If, you know, I don't mean to pull the C card, but, you know, cancer last year, extremely difficult.
Having to downsize your home, not extremely difficult.
Sure.
Right?
I mean, I'm sorry to be, and that's a cheap ploy, and I'm fully aware of that, but maybe my goalposts have shifted a little bit.
But, you know, it would be moving.
And I'm not saying it wouldn't be, you know, a challenge or whatever, but...
God, I hate to even talk about this in the abstract, but if your daughter got sick and needed to go someplace for treatment and you had to move there, well, you'd do that, right?
Yes.
Right.
So, again, it's possible.
It's not hell, but it's doable, but it would be a challenge, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
Now, my perspective on education, which remains fluid so that I can never be nailed down by anything, but my perspective, I've always said that I consider education to be an honorable and respectful and specialized profession.
I know that there's lots of people who unschool and homeschool and so on.
And, I mean, we've gone the tutoring route and all that kind of stuff because I think that Teaching children is not as simple as let's sit down and read together.
I think it's knowing which concepts to build on and when children are ready for stuff and so on.
I've had lots of conversations with educators before.
Making any decision and there's a huge amount of variability between children.
I know that Montessori supports that and all, but there's a lot of variability.
There's a lot of waiting until the child is ready and then knowing when to hit the gas and when to let it idle and all that.
It's not like a steady line, as you know, from being parents.
There's growth spurts and then there's stagnation and so I think that teachers, good teachers are, you know, like good dentists.
I mean, I kind of get the concept of dentistry.
I'm not doing it myself.
Yeah, it was actually what introduced me to the concept of Montessori was you had an interview with Stephan Kinsella many years ago and he had his children in Montessori school so I started looking that up and everything and you made that same analogy about the dentist in that call and that's what that's what kind of solidified that in in my head and that's what I that's when I presented that to Christy at the time and then you know So that's kind of what started our concept.
You mean the concept of home dentistry?
Yeah, that and...
Okay, got it.
So with the money we save from home dentistry, we can afford to send our kid to Montessori.
Yeah, no, I can see how you could swing that.
Hold still, honey.
This might take a little.
So, you know, if your kid is, I think, public school, I mean, I can't imagine any circumstance other than, like, imminent homelessness that would have me put my daughter in a I think we're on the same page as far as that goes.
To me, Montessori, sure.
You're on the board, you have control, all kinds of good stuff.
I have no worries whatsoever when it comes to something like Montessori or any decent and reasonable private school.
I don't think you have any issues as far as that goes.
The underlying issue is, I guess, the time with.
Because we have...
She's away for so many hours in a week that...
What is her...
Sorry, what is her day?
Her day is...
She usually wakes up right around 7.
Oh, no, sorry.
I just meant the days, the hours away.
Eight.
Eight hours a day.
Well, no, I'm just saying eight to five.
Yeah, eight to five every day, Monday through Friday.
Oh, that's nine, right?
Yeah, it's nine hours.
And I have tried to cut my hours, and I'm not sure if they're gonna work with me at all about that.
I've tried.
I mean, I've talked to three different people at work.
And what would be ideal for you?
I think ideal would be One of us at home, at least, the ideal would be to have both of us at home, but that's not going to happen.
But, you know, at least one of us at home full-time with her.
I do really like, you know, at least the Montessori method.
It doesn't necessarily have to be, I don't think, inside the school, but because of the graduation and how she learns and things like that, but It goes back to what you said about the dentist, and it's a specialized thing.
But, you know, I think that she would go to a school again when she's five, six, something like that, but then that loss of time, the way she could be learning those things, which we don't ourselves know, because it is specialized.
These are the thoughts that I have when I think about it.
You had a call with a gentleman named Mark, not that long ago, who did the The unschooling thing and I had a conversation with Mike about this a few months ago and talking about that I really felt you know anxiety listening to that phone call because I was imagining myself in his shoes if we did that and then you know years later we start to see hey you know we were doing this wrong
by doing the unschooling thing and you know What if she is behind?
I think in that phone call, the daughter was three years behind in math or something like that.
Then it would take six years to catch up or something like that because you're so far behind, then you've got to catch up to where they were, something like that.
Then it started filling me with anxiety that if we were to make this decision, then you have that missed opportunity of the structured program.
Yeah.
Yeah, okay.
But so we're talking about some – I sort of feel Catholic in this conversation.
I'm sorry.
No, it doesn't – because we're talking about a lot of things, right?
So we're talking about what you could do in the present, and you're basically saying to me that you don't want to change your lifestyle.
And I'm not trying to put lifestyle in some contemptuous way, but the house, the neighborhood, the situation that you have, right?
That's – yeah.
Yeah.
I'm not saying you should or shouldn't.
I'm just trying to really understand where you're coming from so we don't waste time on stuff that's not on the table, if that makes sense.
Sure.
Okay.
So if you're not going to change your lifestyle and if you can't adjust hours at work, then this can't change in the short run, right?
Yeah.
And there's no particular – I mean unless you like bend brain, mind and body to try and find some way to work from home and all that kind of stuff.
This is not going to change in the short run, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, so that's off the table.
Now, when she was three, was she in for nine hours?
Three months, sorry.
Yes.
Yes.
There's been no...
There's been no...
I mean...
No change in her schedule.
Yeah.
Other than they gave me an extra...
I was able to finagle an extra three or four weeks of maternity leave.
Right.
But that was it.
And how was that...
What was your experience for you at three months?
It was very hard.
Tell me a bit about that.
What was it like knowing that you were going to drop her off at three months?
Did you pump at work?
Did you keep the breastfeeding going?
No.
The breastfeeding did not...
It started and then it ended because...
I mean, I can say...
That it was because...
Excuse me.
When she was born, she had...
Sorry.
No, it's okay.
She was born with two teeth.
Wow.
And I can say that it was that reason.
But if I'm being honest...
I'm sorry to interrupt.
I don't mean to disconnect you from your feelings, but when you say she was born with two teeth?
Yes, she was born with two teeth.
And that was the reason for what?
I can say that that's the reason that I didn't breastfeed beyond...
Oh, I see, I see.
Yeah, no, I get it.
Yeah, they can be, I mean, those teeth, they might as well be fangs from Transylvania, right?
Right.
So, I can say...
But what was the other reason?
Well, I'm not comfortable with Intimacy and everything, so it's probably...
I mean, if anybody was to ask me, did I breastfeed, I would say it's because she was born with two teeth.
But the reality is that it's just not...
It wasn't physically comfortable for me, which makes me...
Wait, wait.
Physically or...
No, because you're saying physically or emotionally.
Emotionally.
Emotionally because it felt too intimate?
Yes.
Can you help me understand that a bit?
I just want to make sure I really get that.
I don't know if I can explain it.
Can you ask a question?
Would that make...
Sure.
So when your daughter would breastfeed, what was...
I mean, she's cuddled up skin on skin and all that kind of stuff.
What was the...
It just felt uncomfortable and I felt exposed.
Exposed how?
Just exposed.
I felt exposed, I guess, emotionally and obviously physically.
But exposed is not an emotional word.
Yeah.
So what was the feeling, though?
I don't know.
That's the only word I can think of.
Vulnerable?
Vulnerable?
Vulnerable, yeah.
that was sort of what I was thinking am vulnerable to what?
Emotion.
I mean, just vulnerable to the whole experience and opening myself up to something new and different.
Was it like a danger kind of vulnerability?
Maybe a feeling too much.
A feeling... I guess...
I'm not really sure.
And do you know what your own infancy was like?
I don't.
I really don't.
I've never really talked to my mother about that.
I mean, I tried when I was pregnant to talk to her about what it was like when she was pregnant, and she didn't remember hardly anything.
She didn't remember?
Yeah, she said she doesn't remember...
The stuff that I was talking to her about.
Wow.
She really didn't...
I don't remember...
I mean, I know that I asked her about it, but she...
I think I asked her about her delivery, and she didn't remember her labor, and she didn't remember anything about it.
Really?
Yeah.
I mean...
That seems kind of unbelievable, unless she actually had a brain injury or something.
Yeah, no brain injury.
And she did not have a C-section.
That much I do know.
Right.
So, actually, I don't even know if I was breastfed.
I have no idea.
So do you have warm memories of your mother when you were little?
Warm?
Yeah.
No.
No.
Actually, no.
Yeah, because she's basically pleading the fifth on something that's really important to you, which seems incredibly selfish to me.
You know, look, my daughter, you know, like, my brother said this to me years and years ago, and it's kind of true, right?
I mean, it's that you've got this Pandora's box of history, right?
And there are bad things in the Pandora's box of history.
Most people do.
And kids, they just...
Hey!
Oh, cool.
Here's a box.
Hey, it opens.
I'm just going to rummage around inside.
They don't know, right?
Especially if you're peaceful, good, decent parents.
You know, my daughter asks me about my childhood a lot.
Because, I mean, I tell her...
I want her to know that I was a kid.
Because I need her to know that I was once as she is...
And that she actually, as I said before, she plays with little Steph, right?
She thinks we would have been great friends when we were kids, which I think we probably would have been, but she asks me questions and she has every right to ask those questions.
And sometimes those questions are hard.
But I need to tell her, you know, in age-appropriate manners, the truth, as much truth as It's possible and appropriate and that's because she has a right to know my history because my history is also her history because there's no one link in the chain that is the chain.
They're all the chain and my history is my daughter's history and my unspoken history is my daughter's future.
Everything which I don't speak She will reproduce.
I'm very aware of that.
And so when you go to your mother and you want to know the truth about your history and she denies that to you, that seems unspeakably selfish and cruel to me.
I'm just telling you my opinion.
I think, you know, especially if parents have been bad parents, and that's obviously an all-encompassing title, but The worse they are, the more honesty they need to dig up.
But of course, the less honesty you're likely to get, right?
Right.
And so that's why I sort of asked about your history.
Because if your mother doesn't even remember being pregnant, I mean, I assume you're not like 80, right?
It's not some sort of miraculous birth from the crypt keepers, hoochie hooch, right?
And so...
I mean, she remembers being pregnant, but she doesn't remember stuff.
She doesn't remember stuff.
I know.
Of course, she's not going to say, I was never pregnant.
We found you in a bin.
You came with the pizza.
We checked one extra topping, and next thing you know, we've got something in diapers.
Yeah, my brother used to say that.
Oh, I'm sorry?
My brother used to say that.
That you...
Yeah.
You came in a pizza box?
Well, I was dropped off at the door, so he used to say stuff like that.
So you're joking about it, but he actually did say stuff like that.
Right.
Well, that tells me again a lot about family cohesion and trust.
As a matter of fact, when we got pregnant, and Sean was listening to your show, and he was listening to it before I was, and he...
Yes, I know.
I introduced her.
Extreme naughty points.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
He would talk to me about, you know, all of this stuff and about not spanking and I was like, why wouldn't you spank?
I don't even understand that.
I mean, I would spank and I'm white.
And no food!
Yeah.
Why would we not feed the child, right?
Yeah.
And then eventually I was like, oh yeah, don't spank.
And, you know, all the others, you know, Things are falling into place.
Yeah, and then I started realizing, and pretty quickly I realized how horrible my, you know, childhood was and that there wasn't really much in there that was warm, as you say.
Wasn't much in there that was warm.
Yeah, you asked me if I had warm feelings.
No, no, I know, but what a neutral way of putting it, right?
Yeah.
I mean, that's like Scott at the Antarctic saying, well, you know, just before I died of hypothermia, there wasn't much around that was warm.
Technically, it's true, but it's not really very accurate, right?
Yes.
So, and I'm going to ask you a very tough question here.
And, you know, please feel free to tell me to do whatever you think I should with any piece of my anatomy or anything around it.
But let me ask you a very tough question.
And I hope you don't mind.
Okay.
Is that okay?
Yes.
Was there any relief in dropping her off at three months?
No.
No relief.
No.
Okay.
So you wanted her to stay home with you?
I wanted to be at home.
As we were walking away, we were crying.
We sat in the parking lot and just stared at each other.
I know we talked about not knowing if it was right at the right time, but we didn't know what else there was that we could do.
Right.
Right.
Yeah, I mean, I know families of the grandparents are around, but elsewhere.
I tell you, I mean, I can't fathom that.
You know, and I'm sort of pointing this out, because look, if your parents, either one of your parents, or both, had said, grandchildren, we're moving, right?
We're going to live down the street, right?
And we're going to do whatever we can to take care, to help out, to, you know...
I mean, that would have been a different world for you, right?
Well, at the time when our daughter was born, Christy's mom came for the birth.
And then a couple of days later, her dad came.
And I do think that that presence in our home helped Christy feel uncomfortable.
And like she said, exposed for the breastfeeding, knowing that her father was just on the other side of that wall, something like that.
But if they were helpful, if you wanted them there, if they were helpful, if they were warm, if they were loving, if they were supportive, and if they were like, hey, it's round two for us and we're not spring chickens, but we're in.
I was talking about this with Izzy the other day.
I said, look, if you have kids, we're there.
You go live in Timbuktu, we're there.
We're there.
Whatever you need.
There's so much stuff in people's lives that I do not understand their priorities.
I mean, I'm sorry for this.
I just have to give you this little rant.
I've been pretty rant-free all evening, but I don't understand people's priorities.
I fundamentally have no clue.
And, you know, if I live to see my daughter have kids, I mean, I'm there.
I am there.
I don't care if I have to live in a box under a bridge.
You know, my wife and I, we're there.
And whatever resources she needs, we're there for.
What is more important than that?
What is more important than family?
And...
These priorities that people have...
That, oh yeah...
You know, the grandparents live in, you know, which is like five hours away.
It's like, Christ Almighty, move closer.
It's just a place.
Now, for you guys, there is a possibility that you can have your daughter home for a couple of years, right?
You can put her in school at six.
Most kids around the world...
They go to school when they're six.
And that's generally...
Because earlier, they don't have the social skills and all that, right?
So generally, I think around the world, particularly in Scandinavian countries, around six, you could.
You could do it.
Are you guys going to have more?
No.
So you've got a one-shot window here, right?
Yeah.
I want you to fast-forward you two being 80, right?
What does your 80-year-old self say about the next couple of years?
That we should have done it differently.
Oh, you mean that you should do it differently?
Yes.
That you should do it differently.
And what does your 80-year-old self say?
Other than, eh, what?
Speak up!
No, but what does your 80-year-old self say?
That she should have been home instead of in school.
Okay, so give me that speech from your 80-year-old self, trying to talk to you, and you can really get behind your 80-year-old self.
It doesn't mean you have to change anything you're doing now.
But what is your...
Give me the speech.
Give me the I-have-a-dream speech from the 80-year-old self about the next couple of years with your daughter.
All I can think about is by then our daughter will be almost 50, and she may be close to having grandchildren of her own, or...
We're close, and then we're children of our own, and we'll be sitting there giving her advice, saying that this is what we should have done.
And she'll say, why didn't you?
Yeah.
And what will you say?
We couldn't think of a way to make it work, and we regret it every day.
Well, no.
If I were her, I'd say, well, those are not the same things.
Because if you couldn't think of a way to make it work, And it was not like solving string theory in physics, right?
I can't think of a way to make string theory work.
I don't feel bad about that because I can't.
It's not possible.
I don't have any training in physics, right?
We're talking about splitting the atom in your basement, right?
So I would say then, well, what does that mean?
You couldn't think of a way to make it work.
Was it impossible?
No, not impossible.
It's not time travel.
So you could think of a way to make it work.
You did think of a way to make it work.
Not without...
Ah, you see?
Now this is the challenge that you face.
Yeah.
Do you see why I'm focusing in on this, right?
And again, none of this has anything to do with what you should do.
But you've automatically...
This is the challenge of decisions that you have not resolved within yourself.
is that you have to start obfuscating, even in this imaginary conversation, 50 years in the future, right?
Yeah.
Right?
You have to start weaseling and say, well, we couldn't think of a way to make it work, which I already talked about with you earlier in this conversation, right?
Which was not true.
You know how to make it work if that's your choice.
You downsize for a couple of years to an apartment, right?
You sell a car, right?
You stay home for a couple of years.
When she goes back to school, you can go back to work.
I'm not saying you should or shouldn't.
And I'm not going to keep saying that just because I never...
When I sort of give suggestions to people, these are just options.
But that is how you can make it work, right?
Yeah.
And what's the downside to that?
Here where we live...
I know that we could move somewhere else, and then that's something that we have talked about, was trying to find somewhere that's close to here where one of us can keep the job that we're in now, but where the housing wouldn't cost as much.
So that's something that we can look at.
But even if we were to get an apartment, it's still Not that much less than where we're at now.
Because like I said, when we did buy the house, we bought the cheapest house in the neighborhood that wasn't updated.
No, no.
But you sell the house.
Yeah.
So you have money.
But when we've talked about that, what I've thought of is we would have to put money into the house to be able to sell the house.
Which means that we would have to, you know, so if there would be money made after that, then it would be gone because you have to update the house to be able to sell it.
Well, no, but when you update the house, you built that into the price of selling the house, right?
I mean, it's like if you put a $1,000 back porch or deck on, then you raise the price of the house by $1,000 to sell it, right?
I mean, that's...
Yeah.
Right?
So that's not...
I mean, that...
If that's a net loss, you bought the wrong house.
We'd love to be in this house.
We have to spend a lot of money on it and then when we sell it, we're going to lose all that money.
It's like that is not a house you probably want to be in anyway because this is going to cost – so you borrow the money.
You get a line of credit.
You borrow the money.
You put the money in necessary to sell the house.
You sell the house.
You walk away with, I don't know, 50 or 100K or whatever it is in the bank.
You sell a car because maybe you don't need – Well, maybe you do.
I don't know, right?
If you're some public transit or whatever, I grew up with public transit until I was like in my 30s, so it's not the end of the world.
So you sell the house.
You put the money in the bank.
It's not taxable, if I understand, to primary residence, depending on where you live.
And then you have one less car, less gas, less insurance, no property taxes, or at least they're baked in, right?
No utilities, cheaper to heat, all that kind of money.
You save some money, right?
And then you can do it.
Now, let's say that you have to spend $500 a month But you just made $50,000.
That's 100 months, right?
So you can do it.
And when your daughter grows up and she has kids in 25 years or whatever...
If you've thought everything through and you have answers that your conscience is comfortable with, you won't need to bullshit her, as you were trying to do with me with this imaginary 80-year-old, right?
So if you look at it like if it was an emergency, you would do it, right?
Yeah.
And so if you want it, you can do it.
Now, if you choose not to do it, that's your choice.
I would do it.
Because houses are a dime a dozen.
Jobs can be replaced.
But if you're only having one kid, the next three years may be crucial in defining the next 50.
Right?
I know what this day is like because I've seen it.
Right?
You get her up, as you say, a little after 7 o'clock and you've got to hustle, right?
Right?
You've got to get food into her.
You've got to get her dressed.
You've got to brush her teeth.
You've got to comb her hair.
You've got to pack her lunch if you haven't done it the night before.
You've got to hustle.
This is not quality time.
This is conveyable time.
I mean, am I wrong?
You're not wrong.
Right.
You go pick her up, 5 or a little after.
You get her home, 5.30 or whatever.
And she hungry?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you've got to make some food, right?
Not quality time.
That's cooking time.
And then you've got to eat, and it takes a while.
She's three, right?
Then you've got to clean up.
6.30, 7 o'clock, does she need a bath?
Probably does, right?
Yep.
So then you've got to get bathed for half an hour, and now it's getting mighty close to her bedtime, right?
Yeah.
This is conveyable time, five days a week.
And because you're both working, what do you do on the weekends?
Errands.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
Bills, taxes, groceries.
So, doesn't it feel like conveyor belt time a lot?
Yeah, just losing time.
The sands and the hourglass just keep ticking away.
Yeah.
Gone time.
We are given so few grains of sand and so many of them blow away, right?
Now, if you're home, she wakes up When she wakes up.
If she wants to stay up a little later, you can do that because she doesn't have that fixed time to get up, right?
When she's napping, hey, I can pay my bills.
I can do my taxes.
I can make my phone calls.
I can vacuum the house or the apartment.
You get that quality time that's unstructured time.
That time to figure out who she is, what she likes.
What she dislikes, what her passions are, what her interests are, what her personality is.
I'm not saying you don't know these things.
Of course, you do.
You're her parents.
But we can know them better.
Much better.
Much better.
I mean, how much unstructured time do you have with your daughter in any given week?
Just a few hours on the weekend.
Right.
A few hours in the weekend.
Right.
A few hours in the weekend.
Is that why you became parents?
No.
It's not, right?
I mean, you're having a long-distance relationship with your own daughter in a way, right?
And these next couple of years, and it's not like it's going to end when that's done, but the next couple of years, if she gets a very strong bond with you, I think that will serve you very well in your teenage years.
But right now, my concern, again, all amateur hour as usual, but my concern, my friends, is that she's bonding with her peers and her teachers, not as much with you.
That's my concern.
And, I mean, if I could just talk to...
I'm sorry, I don't do your name.
You, the wife!
I mean, what's peer pressure like on a teenage girl?
It's horrible.
It's horrible, right?
I mean, it's exciting.
It's an opportunity to get to know your...
I mean, it's intense, right?
And it is a very challenging planet for teenage girls.
I mean, it is a very challenging planet for teenage girls.
I mean, we live in a hyper-sexualized culture.
There is...
This constant peer pressure to be a good girl, but also to be a party girl, to be a fun girl, but also to be a nice girl.
It's crazy, this balancing act, I think, that goes on these days.
Because all the social structures and supports that are supposed to help teenage girls know what is reasonable and good, all of the accumulated wisdom of the species that went on for about 100,000 years over the last two generations, completely blown away.
Now it's just like, Lord of the flies out there.
How are girls supposed to behave?
Are they Disney Montana or twerking Montana?
Nobody knows.
I mean, teenage girls can get attention for sexuality.
That's inevitable.
But that's not how we want them to define themselves.
I mean, I don't know how women know what to do with men these days at all.
Because there used to be this thing which says, no easy sex for men.
Right?
And now, I guess a girl can try that, but how does that work out usually?
Works out horrible.
Well, yeah, I mean, maybe in the long run it works out well, but in the short run, it's like, oh, so if you're square, right, if you're taste, if you're right, then you're a prude and nobody wants to talk to you anyway, right?
But if you're too slutty, ah, ah, right?
Slut.
I mean, it's a horrible balancing act that's really like watching a snail crawl along a razor blade, to quote from Apocalypse Now.
And to navigate that cliff edge, I think the stronger the bond with the parents, the easier that is.
Yeah.
And I think Even if you don't wait until you're 80, even if you don't wait until you're 50, I think you only have to wait 10 or 11 years or maybe even 8 or 9 years.
Then, saying to your daughter, well, okay, so for the first 10 years, we only had a couple of hours unstructured time a week.
The rest of the time, we were basically a maid, a cook, a cleaning service, and a driver service.
Now let's get close!
I don't know.
It seems somewhat unlikely to me.
You know, intimacy is not an on-demand application, right?
It is something that you have to nurture and grow over the years.
And this is, for the foreseeable future, the only shot you get for the kind of bonding that you can have in the 12, 14 hours a day that you could spend with your daughter.
Getting to know her friends, setting up play dates, having more relaxed time, having the chores done, having the house cleaned, because...
I mean, doesn't it feel like your day only damn well starts after she goes to bed?
Yeah.
More time with your husband.
Better sex life.
Because you're not, like, face-planting you to the pillow at 12.30 at night, right?
I know, you're hot.
Yeah.
Sleep, sex, sleep, sex, tick, tock.
Oh, I'm hypnotized.
I'm going to fall asleep.
So, I mean, that's the plus side.
The downside, of course, is, you know, I mean, you've got a house, you sell it, it's a hassle, it's moving, it's finding a new place and all that, right?
And you're going to give up a couple of years of career time and, like, I mean, I get all of that.
And I'm not saying that's, ah, who cares?
No, that's important stuff.
That's why, I mean, not that I ever should, but that's why I won't tell you what to do.
Again, that's a stupid thing to say.
That's why we're on the call with you, because we know it's important.
That's why we're just looking for your twist on it, your expertise, but your advice.
But we already knew what he was going to say.
Yeah, we knew what he was going to say.
We listened to you a lot.
We knew exactly what you were going to say.
Well, so you had a kid to be a parent, and right now, There's not a lot of parenting going on.
Is that fair to say?
Right?
There's a lot of taking care of.
There's a lot of cooking for.
There's a lot of bathing.
And these things, you can have fun, right?
I mean, and all that.
But this...
If you'd known ahead of time that it was going to be a couple of hours a week of unstructured time, it might have given you more pause, but you can't change that.
And...
If you decide to continue with your current course, which obviously you can do, if your conscience is at ease with it, then you can say to your daughter when she asks you that, which she will, when she listens to this call, which she will.
Hi, honey.
This is the moment.
This is the fork.
This is what they're thinking of.
So when she listens to this, if you have an answer that your conscience is – I've never done a podcast really on the conscience.
I mean I think there's a premium cost on what UPB is basically, the conscience.
But I will.
But conscience, or what Socrates called his gadfly, I mean his – or his demon, sorry, he was the gadfly.
This is an important thing.
If you can – like, if I had put my daughter in daycare, I could have written five more books by now, at least.
And then my daughter will say, well, how come I went into daycare?
And I'd say, one book, two books, three books, four books, five books.
And she'd say, was it worth it?
And I would burst into tears.
I would.
I would.
Because I'd know it wasn't.
Because they're books and she's a person who needs me.
Who I invited into my life with no choice on her part.
She didn't choose you as parents.
She didn't choose to be born.
The money will go.
The job is the job.
But the intimacy and the contact, which I think will be foundational to the remaining relationship you have with your daughter, that's once in a lifetime.
Yeah.
And I think you want to do it before she doesn't want it.
Right.
Before she gets so acclimatized to where she is and how she's been raised, which is going to be a shift, right?
I mean, she may catawail quite a bit about not going now, right?
Because that's her life restructure, right?
I don't know that she would.
No?
What does she want to do?
She wants to spend time with us.
Oh, she wants to be with us.
I mean, that's the conversation.
I should be talking to her then!
You should be talking to her.
Okay, well, I mean, that's about as clear, right?
I mean, if your child needs something, I mean, you wouldn't refuse her medicine.
You wouldn't refuse her shelter.
How can you refuse her more access to your hearts?
I mean, it's what God wants.
Sky ghost.
No, but it's what nature wants, right?
I mean, it's sort of not designed, right?
Sorry, go ahead.
It's what she wants.
It's what she wants.
And she has every right to want it.
And the right of refusal is sketchy at best, right?
Will you let me know what you decide?
We will.
Yeah.
All right.
Is there anything else I can say?
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
You're very welcome.
And thank you for entertaining the question and the possibility.
That's hard.
I mean, you...
I never even wanted to get married or have kids, let alone be a stay-at-home dad.
You know, I have more than a smidgen of ambition within me, and the idea that I was going to be playing a whole bunch of patty cake would just never have even crossed my mind in this or any other life.
But I would not have switched it or changed it for anything in this or any other world.
I'm just telling you, that's my experience.
I've got plenty of time to write books when I'm old, hopefully, but this is once in a lifetime.
Alright, thanks guys so much.
Thank you.
Mikey Mike!
One more!
All right.
Up next is Thomas.
And to go back to the subject we were talking about earlier, he wrote in and said, In this change to peaceful parenting, my wife and I have found that we are using negative consequences far more than positive ones.
Is this bad?
If so, what other methods should we be using?
Preparation.
My conscience again.
Alright, so what's the negative stuff that you're getting stuck into?
Oh, so the age of pure compliance and obedience and peacefulness.
And a general listlessness and a lack of energy, if I remember rightly.
Absolutely.
That I just have no credibility, right?
Yeah, basically they're like ferrets with espressos injected into their eyeballs, right?
Exactly.
Got it.
Yeah, okay.
They vibrate like a tuning fork all day long.
Why do you have to spend your entire childhood upside down?
Right?
I think I remember.
Yeah.
All right.
That's a challenge, right?
That's pretty exciting stuff.
And how are they getting along?
How are they getting along?
Yeah.
They do a pretty good job from time to time.
They have been wrestling quite a bit lately.
They get a lot of enjoyment out of that.
You can never tell when the Bears are coming.
Preparation is everything.
Got it.
Um, I mean, for the most part, I feel like they do a pretty good job interacting between each other.
And, um, been trying these last three months is when we've kind of made the change to Peaceful Parenting.
And, uh, so, styles have changed and Okay, so can you give me an example of behavior which would result in negative consequences?
Well, it's brought up quite a bit.
Going to the store and kind of behaving while at the store, we'll try to set what a good behavior is beforehand, and then we'll get them to agree with How does it work to take a park away from a six
-year-old boy?
Oh, he's so much more relaxed now that he hasn't had a chance to exercise.
Solid point.
Well, we're in the Seattle area, so there's times like now it's underwater.
Oh, right, right, right.
Yeah, it's basically an aquarium.
No, I get it.
Okay, and is it working?
I would say for the younger one, actually it works quite a bit.
That's why I wrote in that we found ourselves using it quite a bit because the three-year-old didn't He's pretty effective.
He wants to spend as much time as he can watching TV, playing video games, and so we threatened that way.
Wait, are you saying basically that time with you guys is the punishment?
Look, you're not distracted.
You've got to spend time with mommy and daddy.
That's about the worst thing we could think of.
So, too bad.
You must learn, right?
I don't think that's an association you want in the long run, right?
Not quite, no.
Right.
And he'll comply because he wants to do that stuff and he's smaller, right?
Right.
So as he gets bigger, right, his brain grows, he gets smarter, and he'll figure out what the six-year-old has figured out, right?
Which is he'll start weighing his costs and benefits, right?
It won't become a moral issue.
It won't become an issue of politeness or respect or anything like that.
It'll just be like, well, you know, this is my plus, this is my minus.
You know, like when we speed, right?
Not that I ever did or would.
But for those who do speed, they're like, okay, well, I get places 5% or 10% faster, and every three months I get a ticket.
So I'll speed, right?
So it just becomes sort of cost-benefit calculation, right?
Right.
And what that means is that when you want behavior to change, you have to increase the negative incentives, right?
You've got to turn the rudder more, right?
If you want the ship to turn, right?
Once you adjust to it, right?
Right.
And that's why that stuff tends to increase over time, particularly as they get bigger and more independent, right?
So what's a scenario for the six-year-old where you would take away privileges?
Do you have any comes to mind?
I'm sitting here with my wife and my mom as well.
Oh, hello everyone.
Nice to chat with you.
So it's store stuff.
Are they like running around the store grabbing stuff from the shelves?
Yeah, I mean most of the time when I take them to the store it's usually like after work and I just pick them up from daycare and I'll talk to them and tell them that What the expected behavior is in the store, and then I would say six out of ten times we go to the store,
the trip ends in the two of them literally running from one end of the store to the other and shouting and screaming and all that nice fun stuff that should be done outside and not in the store.
Yeah, except they're not outside and they've been inside a lot of the day, right?
Right.
Right, so they...
They're pent up, right?
I mean, kids...
Do you ever have or know anyone who's got what's called Jimmy Legs?
No.
Okay, so Jimmy Legs is like...
You lie down and your legs just get...
You've just got to keep moving them.
Oh, okay.
Or you sit down.
People who jiggle their legs...
They've got Jimmy Legs, right?
When I used to audition actors, sometimes there'd be an actor who'd give me a really dull recital or a dull reading, but his leg would be jiggling like mad.
I'd be like, I'd really like to audition the leg.
You, I can live without.
This leg?
That is a star, baby.
That's where your energy is, right?
I have to like, yeah, like before I put my daughter to bed, I have to stretch because I get Jimmy Legs.
Anyway, just sort of mentioned.
So, Jimmy Legs, right?
So they probably just, you know, they've been not cooped up.
That sounds like a chicken.
They've been inside a lot and so they're like, ah, right outside.
They're excited to see you guys and all that.
They want to play with each other and they want to run around.
Now, when you say about sort of expected behavior, what's in it for them?
What's in it for them?
Hopefully we've put some sort of incentive out there.
No, no.
Positive incentive, right?
You know positive incentives work a lot better than negative incentives, right?
Like, you know, have sex with me or I'll divorce you is not a romantic comedy of any kind.
You know, you might get some sex, but it's not going to be happy sex.
I'm sorry, there's a grandmother in the room.
Yeah, like she knows nothing about sex.
Anyway, so a positive incentive.
I mean to me, you're either going to have positive incentives.
You're going to have incentives or punishments, right?
Anytime you can have incentives, you're way ahead of the game, right?
Like appeal to their greed, appeal to their self-interest, right?
So what's in it for them?
To be, quote, well-behaved.
And by that, you sort of mean walk and, you know, they can help you with stuff and all that, but not, like, run all over the store.
What's in it for them?
What would be the benefit?
And I don't mean bribery, because that's, you know, kind of a manipulation, but what's in it for them?
I guess the opposite of what we were talking about earlier, and then go to the park if possible, weather permitting, and play some games.
I try to jump on as much as I can, play games with them, or...
You know, rent a movie or something like that, something they want to watch.
Okay, so then it's like, if you behave well in the store, you get these positive incentives.
Right.
But outside of those, it's a tough sell, right?
Sure.
Now, one of the ways that I keep my daughter close by is by telling stories, by engaging in sort of conversations.
Because then – so she loves Bible stories.
I'm not even going to go into the whys or the hows, but she loves Bible stories.
All right.
And so she's like – she's okay now because now we can give her a list and she could read and go and find stuff, and so it's fine.
But when she was younger, I was like, okay, we're going to a grocery store and so I would start telling her a big invisible guy story.
That would keep her close by because she wanted to know what would happen next.
Or she'd have some story that she really liked.
Or we play sort of verbal games, which there's like six million of them that you can – I don't mean like I Spy and stuff like that, but games based on movies or characters that she liked that we could just sort of make up on the spot and so on.
And if she's connected and conversational, she doesn't run off any more than kids leave the Halloween candy table to go get some broccoli.
In other words, the connection is more compelling than the sprinting.
So that's, again, I'm just sort of, I don't know what works with every kid.
I mean, I might have a, you know, if I had another kid, I'd be like, well, that doesn't work at all, but I'm just giving you sort of some stuff that's helped with me.
The second is, if she's cooped up, so to speak, all day, then, I mean, that was never her thing, but it would be, let's go to the park first, and then we'll go to the grocery store.
So then, you know, she could run around for an hour, and then she wouldn't be quite so hyper when We'd be doing that.
So that's sort of another possibility.
It also takes away the bribery element, which I think is not or it doesn't really usually work that well for very long.
So storytelling, jokes, asking them more about their day.
I don't know for a three-year-old, it sometimes can be a bit tough, but I'm sure it's sort of possible.
And the other thing, take them to a place where they can get their energy out a little bit first.
That's important.
Can you order groceries online at all?
I don't think we've Look into that.
I know Amazon's big in this area and I know they've got a way to order groceries online.
I don't know if they deliver out to our specific area.
That's what they'll look into.
But they may be able to deliver someplace nearby.
Like even if it's like 20 minutes away or half hour away, at least everything would all be there in boxes for you.
And you can set up your repetitive orders and stuff like that.
So that's a possibility.
You just go in and edit your list every week.
And again, I'm just sort of looking at ways to avoid and prevent rather than try and manage in the moment.
I talked earlier in the show about sort of the common law of family, right?
So the question is then, do they know why they shouldn't be running around in the grocery store, right?
Well, first of all, what's the problem with them running around in the grocery store?
Well, one, I guess we're not really keeping track of them.
Fear them.
But the six-year-olds can probably keep track of the three-year-olds, right?
I mean, as long as they know not to leave the store.
True.
I guess there's just general fear about somebody trying to grab them up and take off.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, look, I mean, that's so ridiculously rare.
I mean, I assume that you don't, you know, if there's a bit of rain, they're going to get hit by lightning.
I mean, just look up the stats, right?
Child abduction, I mean, of course it's everybody's.
Terror, but it's, you know, the idea that someone's going to grab screaming kids at a grocery store is so inconceivable and get out.
I mean, they'd scream like blue murder, right?
Fair enough.
Okay.
So, and look up the statistics, but as far as I understand it, it's so, like, incredibly rare.
I mean, everyone's like, the call is coming from inside the house.
I mean, the dangers to kids, and I'm not saying this is all the case with your family, but the dangers to kids come from inside the house, not from, you know...
Windowless vans.
I mean, that's...
And, of course, it's...
Violence is going down.
Violent crime is going down.
Anyway, all that kind of stuff.
So, I guess, secondly, it'd be just, you know, disturbing other people as they were trying to shop.
So, happy children disturbing other people.
I have two words for that.
Wait, is the grandmother still in there?
I'm okay.
Okay.
It's...
Well, fudge them.
I mean, I know.
People, you know, if I'm sort of playing with my daughter in a restaurant and, you know, I tickle fights and occasionally I'll get dirty looks and it's like, oh, I'm sorry, fellow human being.
Does the sound of a happy child bother you that much?
Shouldn't you be showing up in the Dennis the Menace cartoon as the mean neighbor or something like that?
I mean, shouldn't you just go live with Boo Radley?
I just, I can't.
Really give much credence to people who are bothered by the sounds of happy children.
Does it bother you when children are laughing and running around?
No.
Well, I hope not, because you've got a couple more years to go, right?
I hate it!
No, don't do that, right?
If they're wrestling or doing something like that, I don't know if they were laughing and having this time.
Good.
I love seeing that stuff.
I do.
Like, I... I don't know.
I mean, I just – I don't know what is that with people.
I'm sorry that the species is continuing and happy.
I don't know what to do.
I can't make my children unhappy because you have a miserable life.
If the sound of happy children is grating to your ears, I don't think it's the children who need to be adjusted.
So I just – because there is this, control your kids.
Yeah.
Really?
What, am I supposed to wrap them in duct tape and stuff cotton in their mouth so that you can have a tranquil afternoon?
I'm sorry that there are new people in the world to pay your goddamn old-age pension, but you might need them when you retire!
Because if we don't make more, you don't get paid!
So, I just...
Oh, there's a sound of joy and laughter!
I mean, when these people, like, storing up bile and spit it out, like some sort of toad striking down a turn...
I mean, just it really – I've just – I can't ever take that kind of stuff seriously.
And in my experience, it's women a little bit more than men who are like, children, be quiet.
The happiness police are out today and they're going to shoot you with a grappling hook and drag you off to some dark underworld should you experience or express any significant amounts of spontaneous joy.
I mean the world is not a library, right?
Have fun.
Be loud.
And – I mean, I'm really sad and sorry for people who are annoyed at the sounds of happy children.
I mean, it tells you everything about their own childhood.
It's tragic.
It's tragic.
But I just, you know, that's your life.
You didn't deal with it.
You didn't work it out.
You didn't figure out your own childhood.
And now the sounds of merriment bother you?
Well, that's too bad.
Guess what you're going to have to live with?
Sounds of merriment!
Because I'm not squishing my children because you were squished and didn't deal with it.
Like, I just won't do it.
So in terms of, like, what is the catastrophe?
What is the disaster scenario?
Now, I mean, I get that if they're racing around the corner, they might run full tilt into a cart.
And so I'm not saying, you know, yes, you know, give them four espressos and set them loose, right?
I mean, they do need to...
Maybe work out a deal, stay within eyeshot, no running around corners, something that can be worked out ahead of time.
I said this earlier in the show.
Sit down with – draw out a grocery store.
OK. You're running around here.
You're turning the corner.
Do you do that?
Yes.
No.
No, you don't do that because I'm running around the corner and the cart – and then draw a picture of a cart.
Kids – boys in particular will love this.
You draw a picture of a cart.
I say, draw a picture of two children run.
Here's the red.
Show me the blood.
Show me the blood.
Where do the brains go?
All over the wall.
That's not what we want, right?
So you can find fun ways of getting them to understand the sort of safety first principle.
Do we take a can from the bottom of the can pyramid?
No, we don't.
Why is that?
Here are all the cans falling on the child.
Show me the blood.
Show me the blood.
I mean they'll get into it and they'll be like, here's all – and you can create – I used to do this with my daughter.
You can create – it's called death supermarket.
Death supermarket is where children get horrible injuries.
Death supermarket, like what could happen?
You know, tarantulas in the bananas could happen.
Happened to a couple of people in the world, Harry Belafonte, I believe, being one of them.
But death bananas, you know, what else could happen?
You're climbing up a shelf.
The entire shelf falls over, crushes two children.
Where's the blood?
Right there, right by the tomato paste.
It's very confusing.
So you can...
Teach them safety in a way that involves drawing blood.
If it's drawing blood, kids, boys, I mean, incredibly happy with it, right?
Oh, they would.
And you can do that in a variety of ways to sort of help them understand.
And then, get them to agree with rules.
If you get kids to agree with rules, and I don't mean with bribery and punishment, that's the challenge.
If you take off bribery and punishment from the equation, then you have the challenge of how do you make this a win-win for everyone.
But – and the three-year-old, I know it's a little tough.
You can still work with him at three.
Depending if he's closer to four, it gets easier.
But if you have a – OK.
We got to sit down, right?
We got a problem.
We need groceries.
Draw me a picture of two children who haven't had food in two weeks.
I can't say where's the blood unless they're coughing up something.
Show me the ribs.
Show me the inverted belly.
Show me that Rwanda belly.
Show me their stick arms.
How hungry are they?
This is what happens if we don't get groceries.
So once they understand, okay, this is why – do you like to eat?
Are you a fan of eating?
So we need to go and get groceries.
Why?
Because we're terrible farmers, right?
We just don't.
So, and because we've, you know, neighborhood cats, we're out.
We're just out of cats.
They don't come over anymore because, you know, did you like your lunch?
Anyway, so once they understand, like, you got to eat, right?
And we don't grow our own food, so we got to go to the grocery store, right?
There's the death supermarket, all the terrible things that can happen.
Child trapped in a freezer.
Frost up the face.
Show me the ice particles.
How long will he stay mummified?
Who will buy him and put him in an oven to thaw him?
So you can explain to them all of the dangers.
Now, once they understand that you need to go to the grocery store and once you explain to them the dangers of the grocery store, of which there are some, but it's not like An automobile manufacturing plant or like a volcano or anything, right?
I mean, so, you know, you're welcome, you know, play.
No running around corners, right?
If they agree with that, because the agreement is everything.
Once you've got the agreement, then you have leverage, right?
And once they get that you are committed to making a necessary chore as much fun as possible, I think that they will be much more amenable to restrictions, right?
So if he's like...
We got to go to groceries.
Sometimes we have to go to groceries straight from school.
And, you know, I know you guys want to run around and so on.
So how can we make groceries as much fun as possible so that you guys have fun, but mommy and daddy don't drop dead from stress heart attacks, right?
I mean, and so really work with them to try and find a way that everyone can get what they want.
And I think if this becomes sort of a fun family planning activity and then you just keep repeating, you know, draw up a list of rules.
Do you understand the rules?
Do you agree to the rules and so on?
Now, they're going to get excited and they're going to break the rules.
Then you just bring them back and say, okay, do we need to revisit these rules?
No, no, no, no.
Okay, well, then we have got to obey them, right?
So that way, I mean, I think there's sensible things like don't pull heavy things off the shelves or when I was a kid, this is back when this actually mattered – I would wander around the grocery store peeling off the prices and putting them on my forehead.
And this is back way before scanners, right?
So this is when you could pay less for stuff by switching stickers because that's the only thing they had to go on.
So I was apparently priceless putting a big price on my forehead brain or whatever, right?
So no pulling heavy stuff off shelves, no running around corners and so on, right?
If they can agree, and I think you can give them good reasons to understand why they should agree to that stuff, then you can let slip the leash a little bit and give them a chance to explore self-motivated safety, self-motivated responsibility.
Certainly, the six-year-old is easily old enough for that, in my opinion, and the three-year-old will mirror.
The other thing, too, and I always hate to make siblings quasi-parents.
But the reality is that they want to go together, right?
Right.
And what – of course I'm sure the older boy does know this but the deal is if you want to go and play with your brother, your younger brother, then you have to be a little bit in charge.
Like that's just the way it has to work because you're older.
Sorry if it was the other way around, it would be the other kid but you are the older one and he's not got the same capacity to think and to know what's going to happen next and what the result of this or that is, right?
So that's the deal.
If you want to go and play with him, you've got to keep an eye on him.
And you've got to make sure he remembers the rules if you're not directly in my line of sight, right?
And so, I mean, these are just a variety of ways to look at it, but you can have a lot of fun planning these kinds of outings and making sure everybody knows what's expected.
Because the sooner that children internalize the safety first thing...
Then the endless paranoia of the death magnets of early childhood because basically babies and toddlers are just death magnets.
All you're doing is throwing yourself over them like a human shield and taking all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
The sooner you can get them to internalize their safety stuff, the more relaxing and the less stressful this is all going to be because you can't physically keep them.
You're going to tie them to the cart.
It might be tempting, but they're just getting bigger and stronger, and frankly, we're just getting older and weaker.
And so we need to find a way to transfer those standards and values so that they can have some fun so it doesn't become pure torture and eye-rolling hell to go to the grocery store.
You can have some sense of security, and everybody can commit to getting it done as quickly and as enjoyably as possible.
Does that make any sense?
Yeah, quite a bit.
Yeah, that's what I wanted to get out of this phone call.
When we made that transition to being a lot less authoritative from our old style, that's kind of what I fell into, was putting these consequences out there in largely negative ways.
I'm not going to agree to it, but that's what I fell into.
You know, it's funny because as an anarchist or a voluntarist, you know, I've played around a lot, and it actually turned out to be great preparation for parenting, played around a lot of the idea of how does society work in the absence of government-based or religious-based punishments and rewards, and all of that, like, Everyday Anarchy and Practical Anarchy and articles and podcasts and so on that I've done were actually fantastic preparations in a lot of ways for parenting without punishment and rewards.
Now, of course, in a free society, there will still be punishments and rewards for adults and so on, but looking at how things can be done without punishment and rewards in society helped me, I think, to be a lot more open to how can I parent without punishments and rewards.
Don't get me wrong and I've said this before and I'll say it again.
I have used punishment and rewards as a parent.
I absolutely have.
I don't regret it.
I don't think it was a bad choice at all.
It was tiny.
It was maybe 10 or 20 times over what's close to six years now and nothing over the past couple of years.
But there are times where I feel it's fine and it's – It's not like we don't do that either.
Like, oh, I had a workout.
I could have a milkshake.
I mean, we just sometimes do that kind of stuff and it's fine.
It's not the end of the world.
But I think it's all about the preparation.
If you have a repetitive problem, it's that old saying, a failure to prepare is preparing for failure, right?
The throwing of candy and punishments at kids to try and get them to change their behavior, I think, is because you don't have enough agreement ahead of time about how things are going to go.
And that way, all they're doing is trying to figure out what they can get away with rather than really being participants in the whole family problem and solution.
I mean, they know, I assume certainly the six-year-old will know, That you need to know where he is.
Yes.
Right?
So he knows that.
And he probably feels a little anxious if he doesn't know where you are, right?
Yeah.
So you have that to work with, right?
So you want to know where we are and we want to know where you are because we are in the death grocery store, the grocery store of child death.
Right?
And so, you know, we certainly need to know even more where the three-year-old is, right?
So everybody's going to agree to that, right?
And then how about the kids solve it?
Okay, so how do we do it?
How do we go to the grocery store so you can have fun, but you know where we are and we know where you are?
And they will come up with answers.
And because they come up with those answers, they won't be imposed.
You know, here's my worry.
You run around straight into a cart.
It's not going to kill you.
But it's going to be unpleasant, right?
It could be a bloody nose, it could be whatever, right?
And so how do we deal with that?
And oh, you know, the kids are, oh, let's not run around, right?
Run around corners and all that.
And if they're, they get, you wouldn't believe, I mean, I'm sure that you've done this at times, but it's amazing when you get kids engaged in how to solve problems.
I mean, they're all sticking their hands up, oh, try this, try this, right?
They get very excited about problem solving.
And then it's not something that's imposed with carrots and sticks from outside where they're just kind of grudgingly going along.
but they've generated the solutions and they are generally pretty enthusiastic about that kind of stuff.
Wait, that was a very noncommittal sound.
All I heard was, I'm not sure if you stubbed your toe or agree or disagree or if there's appendicitis happening or can you feel your left arm?
Is the Indian food coming back up?
I don't know.
Yeah, I said alright, and I was just thinking afterwards.
Apparently it came off more as a grunt.
He's very communicative, this one.
Ladies, what do you think of any of this?
Is there massive eye-rolling silence, or do basically your eyes look like Vegas slot machines, or is there anything useful in what I'm saying?
I think generally I'm the one that is with them when we have to go to the store.
And I think that if I can get them on board, like he said, that it'll make it for a better experience all the way around.
So help me not stress so much at the store, which in turn will help my reaction time when they are kind of wandering off a little bit, you know what I mean?
Right.
So I think sitting down with them and just getting them all on the same page and having them problem solve and draw and all that good stuff will really help.
What about a whistle?
I don't believe we have them.
Yeah, because you could have like battle stations, right?
Battle stations is also known as the spaceship's return to the mothership.
And the battle station alarm can be a whistle.
Even just a little coach's whistle or something like that?
Right.
That's the signal that the mothership is under attack from stress aliens and needs to have some trench bombs.
I don't know.
I'm probably taking the metaphor too far.
But you can have that too, right?
And say, look, if I don't know where you are, I can't come running around the store because you might be coming to look for me.
So we need a signal and it can be something as an owl.
It can be something ridiculous but something that they can hear.
Right.
So then at least you have a signal that they know and agree and it's kind of fun that you can recall them to you.
Right.
Because, of course, the problem is whenever you try and go and get kids, it instantly becomes a game of evade the bear, right?
Right.
Kids, you go lumbering up the aisle and they're like, yeah, you're running away, right?
And it's like, ah, I'm stressed.
It's not a game, right?
Right.
And so if you have a sort of fun way to call them back to you, that's, you know, that can be...
And I also, I'm kind of keen on stuff that also liberates other parents, like imaginative or fun or creative solutions to these kinds of challenges, which, you know, we all, of course, face.
Right.
But...
So you can, you know, like, would you like to get a whistle?
It can even be one of those, like, New Year's Eve party horns or something like that, like just something goofy.
And you practice, right?
Because it's all about the practice.
You don't sort of do it the first time when you're at the grocery store, right?
You say, you know, we're going to have a race.
Who's going to, you know, whenever the alarm goes off, you do it like 10 times before you even go to the grocery store just at home, you know, 3 o'clock in the morning, whenever, right?
But...
And that way, they hear the noise, they're conditioned to come.
And that way, you're not sort of taking it.
But so, again, these are just goofy ideas and ways to think about how it could work, which I think could be a lot of fun.
And we'll hopefully take some of the stress out of it.
Right.
Right, and keeping them engaged and wanting it to be fun I think is important because when I am picking them up straight from school, like you said, the last thing they want to do is be, in a sense, be cooped up again.
They want to run around and have fun.
So if we can figure out a way to make the grocery store fun, it will be a better experience for everybody.
Yeah, I mean, listen, I mean, this is the big trick.
This is the ultimate trick, not just to parenting.
And again, I know you guys know all of this, but this is for everyone else, right?
But the big trick, the biggest trick for parenting or most things in life is that if you want people to listen, you first have to listen, right?
And when you impose rules and punishments and consequences, you're not listening.
You're imposing.
And, you know, I don't know if you've ever been to like a really crappy store where people come up and try and sell you stuff without even asking you a single question.
It's kind of annoying because it's like, what?
You know, you don't go to a, you know, the car store or a car dealership.
A car store, I don't know how to sound square.
A car dealership, the first thing they're going to do is ask you questions, right?
Do you have kids?
It's okay.
Well, then we're going to steer you away from the sports car or something, right?
And so in order to get people to listen to you, you first have to listen to them.
And if you ask your kids, what's your experience at the grocery store, they're going to say, oh, it's boring and then you get stressed and we get yelled at.
It's no fun, right?
Yeah.
So that's important information for you to have, right?
You can't bribe people into having fun.
You can only bribe people into compliance, right?
Like, you can't bribe someone into loving you if they're not specifically a Kardashian.
So listen to your kids.
Like, what do they not like about it?
How could it be more fun?
What do they want to do?
What do they not like about it?
And I think that could be...
You know, the other thing, too, is, you know, play a matching game, right?
I mean, particularly for the three-year-old who probably can't read yet...
If you've got to get some veggies, cut out pictures of veggies, put them on a strip and say, go find them when you're in the veggie area, right?
That could be kind of fun.
Anyway, just off the top of my head, these are just a bunch of things that could work, but listen to them and have them formulate the solutions.
You guys know, in the long run, you want them to proactively and creatively approach their own life problems and not just wait for people to give them sticks and carrots, right?
Right.
Absolutely.
So, yeah, that would be...
Those would be my suggestions.
Cool.
Thank you.
Will you let me know how it goes, or should I just listen to the children from whatever grocery store you're at, which I can probably hear no matter where, as they take hostages and say, we are now the kings of the death supermarket!
Something like that.
Absolutely, yeah.
We'll let you know we're pretty excited a couple months ago to We turn on to peaceful parenting.
It's still a pretty good transition so far, and we look forward to the years ahead.
Oh, my pleasure.
Listen, I hugely, hugely appreciate that you're calling up some internet lunatic for advice.
I mean, like, seriously, what are you people, crazy?
No, I just, I really, I appreciate it.
Look, parenting is a very sensitive issue, and I know how hard it is to ask I mean, I just hugely respect that you're doing that.
And I hugely, hugely appreciate that you would find me a useful person to talk to, assuming that you did.
It sounds like you did.
So I just really wanted to say thank you, thank you, thank you so much for that.
And of course, for allowing other people to listen in over time and hopefully get something useful too.
But that's really great.
You have two very, very Very lucky children.
And I hope that they grow up to appreciate all of that, as I'm sure they will.
If not, we'll make sure.
Yeah, if not, just, you know, give them some cake, and they'll see.
All right.
Thanks, guys.
So, Mike, two, one, two, one more?
Who's next?
Short?
Medium?
That's it, Steph.
That's all we got for today.
You're lying.
We actually made it through the caller queue for once.
Can you believe that?
What?
Is there anything you want to talk about?
No, I'm just kidding.
Oh, no, that's great.
Well, actually, if you do want to do one more, there was a question that was asked in the forum that I've kind of put on my list as a bit of a standby question because I thought it was interesting.
The question is, what is the difference between teasing in relationships and abuse?
Is teasing universally preferable or is it an activity?
What's...
Or is it an activity what's harm is entirely subjective to the level of circle of friends or the people involved?
Steph teases Mike all the time in their podcast.
Could friendly teasing be a marker of trust and friendship on a deeper level?
Yeah, I know.
I think so.
I mean, well, Mike, what's your experience?
Because I think we tease each other.
What's your experience of that?
Oh, I just silently stew in hatred myself.
Mission accomplished.
Absolutely.
Remember, the virtue is for outside the organization.
You know, we're like a sunlamp.
You don't get a tan from the inside, right?
Right.
No, I thought it was a really interesting question.
I mean, with me, I enjoy going back and forth with you.
To me, there's a line.
It's banter.
I think what we do is more appropriately called banter.
Yeah, I'd agree.
Even not on the show and stuff.
It's fun to joke around.
I mean, I have habits and things that can easily be made fun of.
Oh, everybody does.
Everybody who's honest, who's not putting on a complete front, has enough quirks and...
My eccentricity is to fill up a dictionary in half.
Steph may or may not have a problem finding his keys at various points throughout the day.
My wallet, glasses, left hand, eyeball, hair.
Yeah, no, things go missing quite a bit.
And the other thing, too, is that, you know, and I do appreciate those who enjoy my humor and jokes on the air.
Mike, in terms of quality, if we say...
That the maximum that I can do is on-air at 100.
Off-air jokes, where would you put them on that scale?
Oh, they're all over the scale.
Maybe it's a bell curve.
We'll say that.
Yeah, very kind.
Very kind.
It's like a bell curve, in other words, that someone's beating you over the head with a bell made of non-humor.
And you curve away from it.
But no, my jokes, on-air are fairly good, but off-air, I think, let's just say I take a few more chances, or...
Lizzie normally picks up the slack in the joke category.
Oh, she is funny.
Yeah, she is funny.
But I think that there is affection, obviously, and knowledge of somebody else.
I think to some degree Banter is saying, I know this about you and I will never use it to harm you.
Right.
I will use my knowledge of you to bring you happiness, that you feel seen and visible and known and loved for who you are.
Whereas teasing is, I know these things about you and I'm going to use them to hurt you.
And so I think that banter is a way of saying, I know you and I have great affection for the quirks and eccentricities and personality traits that make up who you are.
And I know them and Because I'm going to use them in a gentle, positive way that makes you laugh, you're going to feel visible and safe.
And I think that's banter.
But I think when you feel edgy about somebody who knows your vulnerabilities and so on, then that's a very different matter than someone saying, I know you and I can't be trusted with that knowledge because I'm inside your armor and I'm armed.
Right, right.
And yeah, I mean, you can take the same subject matter, and it could be coming from one person, and it's obviously teasing, uncomfortable, and inappropriate.
And the exact same subject matter coming from someone else, and the tonality and the way it's portrayed could be great fun.
Yeah, no, I mean, I had a guy I was friends with who I used to work with who, I mentioned this on the show before, but...
He would, whenever we were in company, he would tell everybody stories of when I had made mistakes.
I remember we talked about this before, yeah.
Yeah, and...
I remember that time that Steph messed something up.
Wasn't that great.
Yeah, and it's like, first of all, it was kind of compulsive.
It's like, ah, there are other people...
Like, he'd never do that when we were alone.
Then other people came in, and he'd be like...
All right.
And also, it was, like, nonstop, and he was generally the one who had the most emotional investment in the stories, and I don't think they were even that interesting to other people.
And so it was very transparently a form of one-outmanship that he felt compelled to do.
And, you know, I talked about it with him, but, you know, it's like, ah, I'm just making fun, I'm just having jokes.
And then you get the old, you know, don't be so sensitive, you know?
Boy, I can't take a joke, just trying to have a good time here.
What's your problem, man?
Yeah, yeah.
And with no curiosity.
And then, of course, you know, well, okay, so I have...
So are you saying that stories wherein I'm constantly being shown as somebody who makes mistakes, like, why wouldn't you balance that out with other things?
It's like, oh, you know, it's just joshing you.
It's like, well, why does joshing have to be about me making mistakes?
Can it be about me also making good decisions, you know, like hiring you?
Or being your friend, which is currently under review.
And so, yeah, that kind of stuff is...
It has mostly to do, I think, with if the recipient of the, quote, teasing experiences happiness in a non-masochistic fashion, then I think that's really all that counts.
It's comedy if someone's laughing, right?
And if the recipient of the teasing experiences happiness and pleasure in the teasing...
Then it seems to me that that's a sign of affection and trust.
And if the person is not comfortable and is not having a good time, then the person who's teasing has malintent by definition, right?
Like if I'm trying to make someone laugh and they burst into tears and then I just go and tell another similar joke and they cry more, then clearly I'm either – like I'm going from accidental cruelty to conscious cruelty, right?
So if I tell a joke and someone bursts into tears, I'm like, oh my god, I'm so sorry.
What did I say, right?
And, but then if I keep going, so if you tease someone and they're not happy, and then you keep going, then you've gone from, like, potential to confirmed cruelty.
Yeah.
Because you should know if someone you care about is not enjoying what you're saying.
And if you don't know, that means you don't read them, you don't know them, you don't have empathy.
And that's just a by the by.
That's always bothered me when people are like, well, but You didn't tell me.
It's like, really?
Really?
Was I laughing?
Was I participating?
Did you not get any body language of discomfort?
Can you pick up on a nonverbal cue or two?
Is that possible?
Yeah, 90% of communication is nonverbal, but apparently you need skywriting.
That's a lot more to do about your empathy.
But this is something that I'm always wary of when I bring up a problem with someone and they say, well, why didn't you tell me?
Now the onus is on me.
Somehow I'm a bad person for not having brought it up.
When I shouldn't have to bring it up.
It's sort of like a comedian keeps telling jokes night after night to a crowd that doesn't laugh and is continually thinning out.
And then he gets fired and the guy says, well, you're just not that funny.
And the comedian says, but I've been playing here all week.
Why didn't you tell me?
It's like, look, if you can't tell the audience isn't laughing and you can't tell that there's like two guys left and they're both your brothers and one of them left just now, then...
I shouldn't have to tell you because your job as a comedian is to gauge your laughs.
And if you don't even notice that nobody's laughing or even showing up anymore, then don't blame me for not telling you it's your job to know.
Right.
And your problem with you as a comedian is not that I didn't tell you you weren't funny.
Like if I told you day two that you weren't funny, would you have suddenly changed everything?
Well, I assume you're bringing your funniest material to the comedy club.
I hope you don't have a backup of really funny stuff for your next life.
Oh, there's another teasing thing that is just a personal pet peeve of mine that thankfully I don't have to deal with anymore.
But at my old jobby job, we'd get like the new people that would come in that would try and force a camaraderie that wasn't there yet.
You know, by no fault.
Maybe they're great people or something.
But, you know, you've just known them for a very short amount of time and they want to treat you like you're someone that they've known for 20 years, you know, and They just try and force that teasing and camaraderie thing into banter, and it's just like, this ain't happening.
This isn't working.
Why are you forcing this?
This is just awkward and confusing.
Please stop.
You're just scaring the children.
The rose of friendship takes a while to grow.
Stop slapping me with thorns.
This is not how it grows, right?
Exactly.
Haven't had that in a while.
It's like trying to spoon with someone on a bus.
It's just not going to go well.
Or if it does, it goes even worse.
Hey!
Yeah, ooh, they are spooning.
Ooh.
Eek.
Or as a caller from, I think the last call-in show would say, show me your tits, Steph.
Wait, no.
You know, I don't need a whole lot.
I don't think you really want to go down there.
But no, I appreciate the teasing thing.
But yeah, if you're not enjoying it, then it's more passive-aggressive bullying than anything to do with that.
And, you know, I really don't think that it's people's job to continually inform other people as to their emotional state.
You know, you have to do that with, like, autistic people.
Yeah.
It's pretty obvious if you're paying attention to anything at all.
It's a picture of 12 facial expressions.
Which one do you feel right now?
The edge?
No.
No.
The lettering?
No.
The copyright notice?
No.
No.
So, yeah, I think it's nothing wrong at the beginning, but people should pretty much figure out what's going on with you, and you shouldn't need to continually tell people.
And if people don't have any clue what you're feeling, then they'll generally, out of defensiveness, will try and tell you that the problem is that you didn't tell them.
And I'd be very skeptical, especially with longer-term relationships, I'd be very skeptical about stuff like that.
Because then the question is, well, didn't you know?
And then they say, well, I'm not a mind reader.
Yeah.
And that's just another defensive statement that people make, because it's a ridiculous standard, right?
I mean, people can tell facial expressions very quickly and very easily.
Primates can do it.
You don't need to see someone's facial expression, just standing, the shrug of a shoulder.
I mean, nonverbal cues are so clear for anyone that's paying attention.
Yeah, and it sort of has those mirror neurons and whatever, so...
If you find that you continually have to explain to people, and then they blame you for not explaining yourself to them earlier, and it just keeps going on and on like that, then it might be a relationship that's ripe for a significant performance review.
Let's put it as nicely as possible.
If you find a friendship completely exhausting, you might want to think about giving it the performance review, as Steph mentioned.
Yeah, I mean, friendships are supposed to be energizing.
They're supposed to be inspiring.
They're supposed to be...
It's motivating.
And relationships as a whole, if there's eye-rolling, if there's like, oh, not him again or whatever, it's like, you know, life is short.
Make it better or make your choices.
But yeah, so I hope that helps with people.
But the most important thing, it is important to speak up.
If you're in a relationship or if somebody's teasing you in a way that makes you unhappy or uncomfortable...
Then, you know, speak up.
Don't suffer in silence because either the person will find, you know, like somebody with empathy will be shocked and appalled, not that you didn't speak up, but that they let it go on for so long without even noticing that you were upset.
Yeah.
If they then start turning it all on you, I think that's really more the essence of the relationship, which is probably not going to be that productive in the long run if they don't work significantly to change.
Oh, when people stop taking responsibility for things that they brought to the table in relationships, that's normally a giant red flag and warning sign.
Yeah, because it means that you're going to get blamed no matter what, which means that they don't have the ego strength for self-criticism.
And if you don't have the ego strength for self-criticism, You don't have the ego strength for self-knowledge, which means that other people are going to forever have to manage your emotions and are going to be responsible for how you feel, and there's nothing more exhausting than pretending to be responsible for how somebody else feels.
That is a claustrophobic trap of nightmarish proportions because… They'll always take responsibility for their good feelings and always give you the blame for their bad feelings.
And, you know, like when good things happen, it's God's grace.
And when bad things happen, the devil won.
Hey, I think I get how this game is rigged.
So, yeah, be careful about those kinds of people.
Yeah.
Well, thanks for answering it.
I thought that was an interesting question.
If anyone has any more questions you'd like us to answer at the end of shows in this form or fashion, let me know.
Email me them.
Yeah, apparently we're out of callers.
I think it's pretty good.
It's been a pretty good eight years.
I mean, I think we've done pretty well.
I mean, I guess we're just out of...
When's the last time we got to caller number five on a show?
Did we do five callers, really?
No, this would have been five if we did pick one more.
Oh, okay.
Good to know.
No, that's great.
That's great.
All right.
Well, have a great weekend, everyone.
FDRURL.com slash donate to please, please help out with the growth and sustainability of this most essential conversation for the species, for the ages.
I think about 100 years in the future when this stuff is all transcribed.
Well, of course, it used to be like a library wall.
I think the collected works of...
Freud, including his letters, run like 26 volumes or something.
But this, I think we're blasting past this CD, DVD onto the Blu-ray, and soon it will be like, I don't know, Mammoth Tusk Memory.
I've been meaning to get all the podcasts together and do like a, for how many days worth of podcasts do we have?
Like if someone just found the show now, how long would it take for them to listen to everything, some ungodly number?
No sleeping, no sleeping, you weaklings.
Suck it up.
It's knowledge, baby.
Alright, have a great week, everyone, and I guess we'll talk to you Wednesday.
