Nov. 18, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
03:04:04
2844 The Dangers of Isolation - Saturday Call In Show November 15th, 2014
I have blanks in my blanks in my memory, is it possible to recover early childhood memories - or - how can somebody achieve closure despite having memory blanks? When starting a business or project – how do you find investors? Since babies naturally demand that their needs are served without consideration for their caregivers – are babies naturally narcissistic who best outgrow their narcissism with peaceful and compassionate parenting? My in-laws are religious and I’m not – do you have any advice on how to approach them regarding boundaries involving my child? Child abuse shrinks key brain memory centre: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21469-child-abuse-shrinks-key-brain-memory-centre.htmlThe Invisible Epidemic: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Memory and the Brain: http://www.pandys.org/articles/invisibleepidemic.htmlIf You Were Abused by Dr. Phil: http://www.drphil.com/articles/article/35
I am looking forward, as I always do, to chatting with what statistically I believe are the smartest and wisest listeners in the known universe.
Oh, yes.
I am willing to lick your ear in praise of your frontal lobes.
So, Mike, who do we have up first?
Alright, up for today is Lucas.
Lucas wrote in and said, I unfortunately have some blanks in my memory and was wondering if you had any advice on how to recover early childhood memories or how to achieve closure despite having blanks in memory.
Are the blanks around any trauma or are they just like things that you probably, you know, I assume that they weren't too boring to remember, you know?
Well, I can say, sorry, at first I can start it.
I've never been so nervous in my life.
Okay.
I know that my AC score is like 10 out of 10.
So you can imagine what I have the blanks about.
So yeah, basically I'm talking about trauma and I'm not like everyday stuff.
Right.
Now, have you looked into any of the biological or medical issues around trauma and memory?
It depends.
I'm not sure what you mean by that.
Okay.
Well, again, I mean, as you know, I'm just an amateur in these areas, as pretty much all the areas, but here is – and we'll put the links, I guess, under the video or in the podcast, but – So maltreatment of children has been shown a stunt growth of the hippocampus, a brain region vital for memory.
So big differences were seen in people who said that as children they had experienced verbal, physical or sexual abuse, physical or emotional neglect, bereavement, parental separation or parental discord.
Three sub-regions of the hippocampus were between 5.8 and 6.5% smaller in such volunteers compared with those who reported no maltreatment.
According to a researcher, Carmine Pariente, childhood maltreatment is like a surgical strike on the brain.
This explains why these individuals are at risk of developing a host of stress-related disorders later in life because they have an impaired ability to cope with stress.
This is Terry Moffat of Duke University.
Findings like this indicate that maltreatment can leave damage hidden deep inside the body that persists for many years.
Once we appreciate that child maltreatment brings hidden damage that can resurface years later as memory problems, preventing child abuse seems like a very good idea.
And from another article, Traumatic stress such as that caused by childhood abuse can have far-reaching effects on the brain and its function.
Recent studies indicate that extreme stress can cause measurable physical changes in the hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex, two areas of the brain involved in memory and emotional response.
These changes can, in turn, lead not only to classic PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, such as loss and distortion of memory of events surrounding the abuse, but also to ongoing problems with learning and remembering new information.
These findings may help explain the controversial phenomenon of, quote, recovered or delayed memories.
They also suggest that how we educate, rehabilitate, and treat PTSD sufferers may need to be reconsidered.
So the fact that you may, if you've experienced significant child abuse and you have gaps in your memory, there seems to be some medical basis for that, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, it makes any sense, but it doesn't kind of help me because I don't know what to do right now.
It's like I understand why I don't have the memory, but it's like prevention is good, but we cannot turn back time, so...
I'm not sure what I can do now, if you could have any advice.
Well, I mean, I think that I'm a big one for opposites, right?
The opposite of what is familiar is usually a good place to grow, assuming what you're familiar with.
It's not security, love, happiness, and peace of mind.
And so if you are, for instance, most people who've experienced significant child abuse grow up with a sense, and even as adults, they have a sense of isolation.
And so this is why I think a great therapist or a good therapist is so important because it allows you to connect with someone.
And I think to some degree, I'm again no expert in this area either, but I think to some degree Some aspects of therapy are around reparenting.
In other words, relaying the neural pathways against the tide of what happened in the past.
So I think that, for instance, if obviously through your childhood there's some dysfunctions that have arisen and if you talk to a great therapist and somebody really listens and really cares and really gets invested and involved and so on and helps you to If you go on the journey of self-exploration, then that is generally the opposite of what happened when you were a child.
If you have parents who are abusive or even people around you who are abusive and exploitive, which is really two sides of the same coin, particularly child abuse is the habit of exploiting the dependence of the child to discharge your own negative emotions and also to gain a sense of power when you are powerless to resist your own Ugly impulses.
And so for me, I'm just speaking from my own personal experience of years in therapy.
For me, what happened was a therapist obviously views you as a utility, right?
Because you pay.
But what I paid for was for someone to focus on me.
As an individual, as someone who had his own value and his own worth in exploring himself, so on.
Because when you're raised by mean and selfish people, or mean and selfish people are in your environment, they don't actually really care to get to know you very well at all.
And once I started to really get into therapy, and the time I spent three hours a week in therapy, but that was probably...
I would spend 10 to 20 hours also, you know, journaling and thinking about things, writing down dreams, drawing things and so on, just really trying to understand my own subconscious and its impulses and what it was trying to tell me, which is still a process I continue on to this day.
I don't have quite as much time to invest in mere journaling, but what that means is that somebody...
Is interested in you for you.
Not for how you can serve them.
You know, like there's this old joke from, what's it, Two and a Half Men, where the bartender is flirting with the loser guy and the Charlie Sheen guy says, and he's like, oh, she's flirting with me.
It's like, she works for tips, man.
And so she's flirting in order to get more tips.
And again, I understand that therapists take money and it's not the same as parenting because you don't pay your parents to be interested in you.
But once you get past the money aspect and if you get a really good therapist, then you're paying because they're better at doing their job than anyone else could be, even perhaps or probably your parents.
And their job, I believe, is to...
Have you become interested in yourself for your own sake?
When we are exploited as children, which is both neglect and abuse and so on, then we are utilities for other people to use.
We are receptacles for their intellectual and emotional poisons.
We are vents for their frustrations.
We are tools by which they reenact and inhabit the violating personas that raised them.
And to become interested in yourself regardless of your utility to others is a fundamentally powerful experience.
You can become interested in your thoughts and your feelings and all of the deep brain stuff that connects us with the past and with horizontally others in the world and to the future.
But to become interested in yourself is Not for the sake of achieving something.
You know, like a gymnast learns about his body and its limitations, not because he finds his body and its limitations intrinsically interesting, but because he wishes to become a better gymnast.
So his knowledge is in order to achieve something.
And that achievement is external.
You win a prize, you get a medal, you get to the next level, you get a coach, whatever.
And that is very important, I think, to go through that process of being interested in yourself, not for the sake of achieving something.
I mean, I first got into therapy because I hadn't slept in forever.
And so I was like, I'll go to therapy, figure out what the problem is, and then I'll be able to sleep.
So therapy was a means to get to sleep.
But even after sleep came to me, I continued to go, because I then became interested in myself, not as a means to an end, but as an end in myself.
And once you get out of looking at yourself as a means to an end, but rather as an end in yourself, you gain a power that really only the gods dream of.
Because the gods are not Of themselves, but generally the means of the priest to get what they want from the subjugated.
And I'll stop in just a sec, but I just wanted to sort of get your thoughts on when you were abused as a child, I'm going to assume, and correct me if I'm wrong, that you were not treated as an end unto yourself, but rather you were a means to other people's I mean, yeah, of course.
And the opposite of that, what would that mean to you?
What would the opposite of being of utility to other people, what would that look like?
I don't know.
I'm thinking about it and nothing comes to mind right now, but I guess being utility to myself, although I don't know what that means exactly.
Right.
No, because when it comes to the memory stuff, I asked it in particular because of my situation right now.
Because I did food for my family like three months ago actually.
And actually I know it's like the...
Very just weird experience I mean because the theory I had my mind and maybe I was wrong that you know once I get the toxic people out of my life like everything would go back to like relatively normal but Actually after it Actually, I'm more confused about my past than I was before I did it, and I'm really depressed right now.
And, well, you are the food from your family, so if you could, I don't know, maybe share some experience or something like that, because it's just generally weird.
I don't know what to say.
Well, I mean, did you go through, did you talk to a therapist before that process at all?
No.
And did you talk to a therapist during that process at all?
No.
Right.
Do you know why I'm asking that?
I mean, because you think it would be a good idea to talk to a therapist during that process, and you've said that several times, but...
So why would you want my advice now?
I mean, you didn't take it before.
I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just genuinely curious, right?
So you've heard me probably say a million times in this show that family separation, I mean, look, To separate from an abusive family is something that is surprising, if not downright shocking to a lot of people.
I mean, if you said, listen, I was married to a woman who beat me up and stole my money and whatever, right?
People would say, wow, good riddance, right?
I'm sorry that you experienced that.
But that prejudice, sorry, that understanding, even though you would have chosen that woman, And you didn't choose your parents.
That understanding of why you would want to separate from someone who was abusive and crazy, we extend that to marriage partners who choose their spouses.
We don't extend that to adult children of abusive parents.
It seems to be like the honor thy mother and thy father commandment is just the last one to go.
And it's like the last religion Even among atheists of the land.
And so, for those who don't know, I mean, obviously, you don't have to see abusive people in your life.
You don't have to see abusive parents in your life.
That is a simple statement of fact, and it should not be shocking that I say things that are true.
You don't have to see abusive parents.
Unfortunately, and it is very unfortunate if family separation is on your mind, But, you know, at least according to the mental health professionals that I've read, it certainly seems to be a beneficial option as a last resort.
But, I mean, I say to people who are thinking of divorce, which I think is fairly common, you know, go see a counselor.
Maybe you can save things.
And even if you can't, then the separation will be that much less contentious or fractious if you've given it your all.
So, yeah, my – I mean, I'll reiterate this for people who are hearing this maybe for the first time.
But if you are thinking of separating from your family of origin, then engage with a therapist who hopefully has some experience in these matters who can guide you through the process.
And assuming it's physically safe for you to do so, sit down and try and talk with your parents and connect with your parents and talk about what went wrong with your childhood, with your parents, with the aid of a therapist.
And you can also, of course, have your parents come with you to The therapist, so that the therapist can help you in attempting to connect with your parents.
And then it's really up to the therapist and you and your parents, of course, to act as you see fit.
Now, some people, of course, don't...
And look, again, I'm no professional.
This is just my thoughts.
This is what I did.
And it worked for me.
In that, you know, I really did strive to connect and I was in therapy and it just didn't work out and I got closure.
In other words, I've moved on with, I mean, regret for the choice, regret for the situation, but no regret for the decision.
But you didn't, did you sit down and talk with your parents about your childhood during this process at all?
I mean, yeah, a little bit, but it only kind of confirmed what I thought about it, because whenever I tried to talk to them, they basically got, well, really mad.
But I just want to go back to that therapist thing for a second, because I just want to explain why I didn't go, because it's not like I just ignored it.
I think that I always had a very big problem with therapy because, paradoxically, my family always pushed me to go, but I always felt it's because they wanted to label me as crazy or as sick.
And label themselves as healthy.
And that's why whenever I hear the word therapy, I can just hear the words of my mother in my head and I go insane.
So now I see the point and maybe I kind of understand that for the long term it's a good thing.
And I'm not saying I won't go, but that's why I didn't go.
When I look back at it, that was the reason I think the biggest one.
Right.
Now, did your parents acknowledge any of the harm that you'd suffered at their hands as a child?
It depends what you would consider acknowledging.
Well, getting angry at you for bringing it up would not be in that category, right?
Like, for example, I've talked with my mother about, because there were many things, and, for example, the only thing that she thought it was wrong, that she didn't force me to go to therapy, that...
Oh, my God.
Okay, so that...
No, that is not.
I mean, that is not acknowledging a wrong.
That's basically saying that you were so crazy that I actually should have forced you to go to therapy.
I mean, that's not exactly a parent taking responsibility for an adverse childhood experience score of 10 out of 10, which is as bad, of course, as things could possibly be.
So, no.
I'm comfortable and confident in saying that is not taking responsibility.
Let me give you a short example.
There was like a situation when like my Father was like just drunk and passed out on the couch.
And like police came knocking on the door and I opened the door.
And of course later I got a beating for basically letting the cops come in.
Because you know the problem is not my father passed out on the couch but me letting anyone into the house.
But why did the cops come by if the father was passed out?
No, I don't remember.
Actually, I don't remember at all, but there was some issue.
And so basically, whenever I talked about him, it's like, yeah, the only thing they said is that they didn't force me to go to therapy.
There was no acknowledging of anything done.
Right, whereas if it's an ACE of 10, You've lived with an alcoholic, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, criminality in the family.
I mean, just a real, a non-stop horror show, right?
Yeah, pretty much.
Although, maybe not paradoxically, now I see it, but they always appeared as like very well-behaved people on the outside.
Like, if people were looking at my family from the outside, they were like, you know, the perfect family.
Well, you know, I mean, there's probably some – obviously, they probably did have some good presentations, but I would not underestimate the degree to which people can see sanity even when there's nothing.
I don't understand.
Sorry.
So, I mean, as I've talked about before, my mom was severely dysfunctional in just about every level, and nobody acknowledged that.
Right?
So, you know, this, well, you know, they just fooled everyone.
It's like, you wouldn't believe how much people want to be fooled about what's going on in other people's families.
Oh, so like they really didn't want to know instead of they, like, were fooled?
Well, yeah, I mean, maybe your parents put on a good act, but don't underestimate how much people desperately want to be fooled about dysfunction in other people's families, even in their own, right?
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
So, you've tried to...
You've mentioned a conversation with your mom.
Did you try talking with your dad?
Yeah, with both of them.
And how did it go with your father?
Basically, with my father, it was like...
It was weird, because after I've talked to them about my childhood issues and all that, I never got anything, no emotion out of them, no acknowledging.
It was like...
Weird.
But actually, what I've noticed, for example, next week after that, he got back into a drinking binge and I, in a sense, couldn't talk to him anymore.
The conversation ended there.
So basically, I don't know if it was a way for him to run away from it.
Let me give you an example.
I tried to talk to him.
I asked him about my past and I wanted to know, for example, Why was it all this way, all the drinking and all that?
And he would always switch to something, like, very, like, just so not important, my head would hurt.
Like, something about who bought an apartment where, like, in the past, like, nothing about my childhood, just like, you know, where we lived or that kind of stuff.
Like, who, like, which uncle loaned him money, all the weird things.
Like, I ask him about my childhood and he tells me something like that, you know?
Yes, yes.
But my friend, of course he does.
Right?
I mean, I'm a bit annoyed, which doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong.
I'm just sort of sharing.
I'm a bit annoyed because you're asking me questions about yourself and you're talking a lot about your parents.
Right?
So are you trying to...
Look, you gave me an ACE score of 10.
Yeah.
Right?
So for those who don't know...
One is verbal abuse and threats.
Two is physical abuse, non-spanking.
Three is molestation, sex, rape.
Four, no family love or support.
Five, neglect, not enough food, dirty clothes, no protection or medical treatment.
Six, parents divorced.
Seven, physical abuse towards female adults.
Eight, lived with an alcoholic or drug user.
Nine, household member depressed, mentally ill or suicide attempt.
Ten, household member in prison.
Okay?
So I get what that all means.
And I sympathize.
I mean, My heart breaks to hear even one ACE, but the binary is the devil, right?
The 1-0 is as hellish as it could be.
Okay, so I'm sorry.
Hang on.
So are you trying to convince me or are you trying to get me to understand that your parents are not good people?
I know I asked you some questions and all that about them, but my question was, did you try and talk with them, right?
And you did.
And you got insulted.
In other words, the only problem was that we didn't force you into therapy, you crazy bad child, right?
And, you know, I'd like to know more about my past.
Well, I remember when you were eight, I had ham for lunch or whatever.
Stupid shit goes on, right?
Okay.
Did you try any further to talk with them?
I'm not trying to catch you or tell you what you should or shouldn't have done.
So you had a conversation or two with both of them where...
You were unable or unwilling to push further and deeper.
Yeah.
With my mother, it was, I think, a little bit more than with my father because I didn't have contact with him for a long time because I lived in another country.
But yeah, that's pretty much it.
Right.
So why did you stop?
And I'm not saying you should have gone on.
These sound like, why the hell did you stop?
I don't mean that at all.
What I just mean is, why wouldn't you continue?
Okay.
To be perfectly honest, when I started talking to them, I really knew what would be the outcome.
There would be nothing that they could have said that would make me not leave them.
I'm sorry to interrupt you.
Okay.
But that can't be the case, because what you said to me earlier was you said, I am more confused now than I was before.
Okay, so I'm sorry.
Okay, so maybe let me explain that a little bit.
Like, intellectually, I understand that what I went through is terrible abuse, and I... And I basically don't want to be around toxic people.
I feel like there are some like, I don't know, emotions in me or like some subconscious impulses.
It's not like I think that...
Okay, stop, stop, stop, stop, Lucas, stop.
Because you lost me at intellectually, comma, right?
All right.
Right, so what does that mean when you say, intellectually, I understand, but, right?
What does that mean?
Mm-hmm.
I'm trying to think of a metaphor like...
You don't have a lived body experience of this history.
You have an intellectual analysis of it, right?
And how's that working for you?
Well, not well.
It's not.
It's not working well, right?
So, I mean...
There's a whole sequence to dealing with childhood trauma, which I've sort of formulated for better or for worse, but we don't sort of have to go into that in detail now.
When did you first understand that you had been abused as a child?
Well, I mean, kind of some memories start coming back to me like, let's say two years ago, something like that.
Right.
So it's very new for you to even think that you were abused, right?
Yeah.
Right.
And were you at any time in your childhood afraid of your life, for your life, afraid of dying or of being severely injured?
Pretty much throughout, yeah.
Okay, so you lived for, you know, 20 years or whatever under the threat of death or maiming, right?
Yeah, I mean, maybe I felt this way, yeah.
Yeah, I'm just asking your feelings.
I'm not asking for proof.
Right?
I still feel that way, but...
Right.
Right.
So, you lived under threat of death, and what that makes, your childhood, is something akin to a concentration camp, or perhaps a prison wherein you are in a deadly feud with a murderer.
The concentration.
This is very important because you won't get this intellectually.
I mean, you will, right?
But somebody who was brought up in a concentration camp obviously fears for his or her life on a continual basis, right?
But they know that they're in a concentration camp and everybody else knows that they're in a concentration camp, right?
Yeah.
But when you grow up in an Adverse Childhood Experience score of 10, nobody is willing to admit that you are in a concentration camp.
In other words, you're in a concentration camp, but everyone has to pretend it's a resort, right?
Or they say that you have to forgive your captors and, you know...
No, no, no, they're not even captors.
Does anyone ever refer to your parents as captors?
Well, no, actually, no, sorry.
What happened in the Nuremberg Trials?
Did they say to the Jews and the homosexuals and the intellectuals and so on who were imprisoned and sometimes slaughtered by the Nazis, did they say, well, you see, but the German guards were doing the best they could with the knowledge they had.
I mean, obviously they had your best interests at heart.
Clearly they, you know, may have been deficient in some areas, but, you know, it wasn't out of any ill intent.
They just, you know, the guards were raised really badly.
You know, parenting in the Weimar Republic was really brutal and, of course, They were raised by a lot of single moms because so many of the soldiers in Germany died in the First World War, and then there was this terrible inflation that wiped out the middle class, and then there was this Great Depression, then there was the rise of Nazism, and they'd been propagandized by the church and by the state.
So they were doing the best.
They were struggling to do the best they could in a difficult situation after having been propagandized from birth onwards.
These poor Nazi guards Jews and gays and you must forgive them and you must go and visit them and you must bring them food and you must drive them to their doctor's appointments and you must go and pull the leaves out of their gutters and you must go and help these poor prison guards who did some things that obviously weren't ideal but they did the best they could with the knowledge
they had.
Did you ever hear any of that coming out of, say, the Nuremberg Trials after the Second World War?
I believe that pretty much they just hanged them.
Well, they usually didn't hang the rank and file, but they certainly hanged anyone who was in authority, right?
Because if you are shot for not obeying orders, then you don't get hung after the war, right?
Because that would be unfair.
I mean, if you are drafted into the SS and you are shot for disobeying orders, you can't be hung after the fact.
But any son of a bitch who had authority and who did not have a gun to his head was shot and hung and buried in a nameless grave, right?
Yeah.
Did anyone have a gun to your parents' heads making them do what they did?
Were they drafted into Satan's army of child-mashing bad parenthood?
No.
No.
You see, they weren't taking orders and no one had a gun to their head.
So according to fairly well-established war crimes law, death penalty...
They were initiating the use of force.
No one had a gun to their head.
And if they had stopped at any time, nobody would have punished them.
You see, if your parents had woke up one morning and said, you know, we're really doing some bad shit here, man.
Really doing some bad shit here.
We better stop.
Well, what would have happened to them?
Are you still there?
Yeah.
Oh, he just dropped off for a second.
He did?
Okay, I'll keep going.
So, while I can tell you what would have happened to them, absolutely nothing at all.
Nothing whatsoever would have happened to these brutal and abusive parents had they decided to wake up one morning to change their ways.
I mean, they shot and hung Nazis when those Nazis would have had to flee the country.
If they had decided to change their ways.
Rudolf Hess flew to England.
I believe he was imprisoned.
I can't remember if he was shot after the war or not.
But you see, if there was some concentration camp guard who was there by choice, who applied to get that position, who worked very hard to get that position, who brutalized and threatened with death and maiming, And starved and refused to get medical treatment for the sick prisoners that he had.
And if he could have stopped at any time and walked away at any time or changed his mind at any time then he is actually acting under more volunteerism and more choice than even the top tier of the Nazi generals and commandants who ran the National Socialist War Museum.
Sorry, war machine.
Because they would have faced significant challenges trying to get out of Germany.
I mean, they could have been shot trying to get out of Germany.
They could have been...
I mean, where would they go?
I mean, I guess Brazil afterwards, right?
And so the challenge, morally, is that abusive parents have more choices than We shot the Nazis in charge of the Nazi war machine, and we did not command their victims to forgive them.
Ah, but parents.
Well, parents work very hard to be in charge of this concentration camp of an abusive household.
Not to say all parents, but those parents.
I'm pretty comfortable putting the parents who inflict an adverse childhood experience score of 100% shit on their children, of characterizing them to concentration camp guards.
Yeah, I'm pretty comfortable with that.
Well, those parents were not drafted.
Nobody forced them at gunpoint to take and mistreat children.
Well, Nazi concentration camps were taken at gunpoint and forced to mistreat Jews and homosexuals and intellectuals and people who are mentally handicapped and others.
Countless others.
Literally countless others.
Well, those young men were taken out of school after having been propagandized and their gun was put to their head and they said, torture...
And control and brutalize and sometimes kill these people or we shoot you.
This doesn't happen with parents.
Abusive parents.
Nobody forces them to become parents.
Nobody puts a gun to their head.
At all.
They assiduously pursue becoming parents.
They go out and kidnap from Plato's ether the children that they are going to torture.
Nobody makes them do it.
The concentration camp doesn't already exist.
And they're pulled into it at gunpoint.
No, they go and laboriously build the concentration camp and then create the inhabitants and victims of that concentration camp.
And they can stop any time.
You know, in America for sure, and I'm sure other countries as well, but in America for sure, if you don't feel like taking care of your kids anymore...
You can just take them to a hospital.
You can take them to a police station.
And you can just surrender your children.
And say, you know, it's really not for me.
I thought I wanted to become a parent, but I'm angry all the time.
I'm frustrated.
I'm hitting.
And this is the basic reality, is that Not only are the concentration camp guards the parents of this level of abuse, not only do they go and create and populate their concentration camps, but they can change any time they want and the children will be grateful and happy.
And they can also release their prisoners like that.
One phone call.
Can't do it.
Can't be a parent.
Pick them up.
Drop them somewhere.
Drop them at a church.
Drop them at a hospital.
Drop them at a police station.
Drop them anywhere where there's some kind of civil authority.
This is what I mean when I say it is kidnapping.
Kids can't get away.
Kids can't leave.
But the abusive parents pursued each other, had unprotected sex with each other, decided to not have abortions, decided to keep the children, can surrender the children at any time.
They have much more choice than Nazi prison guards.
Much more choice, infinitely more choice than Nazi prison guards.
And how do we feel about Nazi prison guards?
Well, kind of condemnatory, right?
So, that's my moral argument.
Is it airtight?
I think it's pretty good.
Is it the only thing ever to say?
No.
Is it a very important perspective?
Yes, it is.
And people can try arguing against it, but they're going to have a very tough time saying that parents who choose to have children, who choose to keep children, and who can stop being abusive at any time with no negative consequences, that those people somehow have less choice than a Nazi prison guard who was shot if he does not obey his orders.
I know we dropped you for a minute or two there.
I'm sorry I had to keep going.
That's alright.
I'll listen to it later.
This is what you can get intellectually, but it doesn't have a body, a physical, deep connection to you.
Yeah.
Or maybe it does.
What do you think about what I was saying?
I mean, that's the thing.
I feel a little emotion.
I can understand it intellectually, but I don't...
Sorry, did you say you feel a little emotion or a little emotion?
Right now, nothing.
Overall, I feel little.
You feel no emotion when I'm talking about your experience as somebody who was in a concentration camp.
I'm not criticizing.
I'm just curious.
Maybe there is something in there, but I don't feel it right now.
Right.
Yeah, and so this is why, and I understand that.
I do.
I mean, there's dissociation.
So this is why I make these suggestions to, you know, with a therapist, attempt to reconnect.
Because you are, I would guess, split, at least into two areas, right?
And the one area is the part that is violated and hurt and angry and enraged and agonized and full of piss and vinegar to right your situation.
And then the other part is the part that must obey the parents for fear of abandonment or even worse consequences than what you experienced, right?
And the confusion comes from, this happened to me and I must bond with my abusers.
I must please my abusers, though it displeaseth me.
Because if you are harmed by someone who has no power over you, you could be free to hate that person.
You can be free to act on that hatred in whatever legal and morally justified response.
But if you are harmed by somebody who has power over you, you must split.
Because they...
Continue to have power of you, and there's no greater power disparity in any human relation between that than that between parent and child.
And so you probably have some ambivalence because, you know, we're not – we kind of are and we're kind of not designed to grow.
I mean, for almost all human history, the tribe you were born into was the tribe you died in.
Pretty much.
I mean, nothing changed.
I mean, it was a small tribe.
So if you were raised in a brutal environment, your brain and your body just went, oh, okay, so we're in a brutal tribe and resources are scarce and everyone's an asshole, so we're going to comply or we're going to dominate, but there's not going to be any win-win shit going down, right?
I'm being trained to be a warrior.
I'm being trained to be brutal or being trained to be a slave, which is two sides of the same coin.
And so there was very little...
If any, change in most of human society during most of our evolution, right?
If you look at the natives in North America or if you look at the natives in the outback in Australia, I mean, it's pretty Stone Age stuff.
It hadn't changed for, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of years.
I think it was 40 or 50,000 years ago that There's some theories as to humanity hived off from Africa and became the three major races, right?
The Asians or East Asians, the Caucasians and the blacks.
And there's very little social adaptation.
But at the same time, we do have this capacity which we can see more in our capacity to Deal with new technology and to deal with new – changing social conditions like divorce, like promiscuity, which is sort of the new norm for kids, for young people.
So we can adapt to stuff fairly well, but we're not really designed to go from traumatized to non-traumatized.
It doesn't mean we can't do it.
It just means it's sort of an uphill battle.
Because there was little point to evolve that capacity because how many tribes in the 150,000-year history of humanity or 100,000-year history of humanity, how many tribes went from traumatic to non-traumatic, right?
Well, none.
We're still trying to get some less traumatic childhoods going out.
For more on this, you can...
Listen to my audiobook reading of The Origins of War and Child Abuse by Lloyd DeMoss, which is at freedomainradio.com slash free.
Just go down to the bottom.
It's available.
There's a feed well worth listening to.
And so we're really not very well adapted to go from extreme trauma to good mental health.
Again, it doesn't mean we can't do it.
I mean, we're not adapted to...
You know, be able to bench press 500 pounds, but, you know, with the right amount of chemicals, you can pretty much do it.
So, the adaptation that you are trying to move from and to, from traumatized to peaceful, is very much swimming against the current.
It seems to be a lot easier to break people than to heal them, right?
It seems to be a lot easier to traumatize people than to raise them peacefully.
A baby can push a glass figurine off a table but it takes an expert glass blower to make another one or even to fix it perhaps.
So when you look at the enormity of the task that you're trying to achieve, it is in many ways more difficult than becoming a champion in some sport wherein there's no trauma that's in your way.
It's just willpower and you have a whole support network of people around you.
Going from traumatized to healthy is a very difficult transition.
I believe it is the most difficult transition, which is why it has taken us so long to be able to do it, to be able to even really approach it.
Now, we've gotten a long way, although there's still a hell of a long way to go, but we've got a long way in gender relations in that voluntarism is now recognized as necessary.
In gender relations, in marriages and so on, you can't beat, can't cheat, can't, right?
But the big one is still parent, adult, child.
That's something that is so horrendous, you know, for people to conceive of or to understand or to sympathize with.
Children must always be sacrificed to the interest of parents.
That's a basic biological imperative.
But a biological imperative is two parents raising a household.
We seem to smash that up pretty much in less than two generations.
But what you're trying to do is more difficult than, say, you know, there was an Underground Railroad.
It was called the Underground Railroad.
Of course it wasn't.
But wherein there were these safe houses that would allow escaped slaves or slaves who were about to escape to get, say, from the south to Canada.
And That was a very dangerous and scary thing to do.
And of course, there was the...
I think it was in Holland, the people who kept the Frank family, the Anne Frank family, in their attic until they were captured and I think generally died of typhus as so many people did in those concentration camps.
But those people, the people who did the Underground Railroad, there was a community of people who did that.
You couldn't just do it alone, right?
Stick up a little...
We'll hide slaves for free.
And we're not even there.
I mean, there's barely any kind of support community for adult victims of parental abuse.
I mean, I know that there are some, like, you know, children of alcoholic parents and so on, and there are books like, you know, if your parent was a narcissist, this, that, and the other, right?
But...
We are still so early as a society.
The revolutionary always has to remember it's way earlier than you think.
We as a society, we can't even whisper about voluntary adult-child-slash-parent relations.
In fact, people who do talk about it are attacked viciously, endlessly.
Just attacked.
And there is as yet barely even a community of anyone you can talk about this stuff with.
I mean, that's why you're calling here, right?
Yeah.
I mean, who can you talk to about this stuff?
I mean, I cannot think of a person.
Right.
Right.
It is the most necessary and the most tragic and the most viciously attacked Moral step forward, I believe, in the history of the species.
And there's just this unbelievably and adroitly carved channels of propaganda where if people harm you when you're in a subservient position, right?
So there's this broadcaster up here, I think his name is.
And some allegations have come to light.
Of course, he'll have his day probably in court, but some allegations have come to light that he was rough with his sexual partners.
And he says that it was consensual, although in Canada you cannot consent to something that harms you.
I mean, unless you're a boxer.
Or...
You know, you're being spanked, in which case your consent doesn't matter because you're between 2 and 12 as long as it's not on your face and so on.
And you cannot consent to something which harms you.
Now, I don't...
And so some women say, well, you know, he grabbed me, pushed me up against the wall, you know, maybe he choked me or whatever, right?
And wasn't consensual and so on.
I mean, if he did that stuff, absolutely terrible.
Absolutely terrible.
I mean, time will tell.
We'll see.
But no one is saying to these...
People, well, you see, but he's Iranian, comes from a different culture, was raised.
I don't know if he's from Iran or whatever.
It's Iranian background or whatever.
It's more patriarchal.
He has a different view of things and he's an alpha male.
He made almost half a million dollars a year and blah, blah, blah, blah.
He had a lot of power in Canadian industry.
And so you've got to forgive him.
You've got to turn the other cheek.
There's nothing like that.
Basically, it's like, well, it's about goddamn time we had a conversation about men harassing women sexually.
Two MPs in Canada's parliament have just been suspended from the Liberal Party by Justin Trudeau.
And there are whispers, right?
I mean, nobody...
It's a bad personal misconduct or whatever.
Nobody knows for sure.
But, you know, there's whispers that, you know, on Parliament Hill is a patriarchal harassing of women culture and so on, right?
Now, I mean, this stuff has been...
Patently illegal for many, many, many years, and it's been talked about numerous times.
I mean, of course, it was talked about with Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and so on.
And we're not even close to the starting line of having this conversation.
And if it wasn't for the internet, this conversation, this aspect of the conversation would not be occurring at all.
The blackout would still be occurring.
Child abuse has only recently become illegal.
Child abuse has only recently become illegal.
It was really in the 50s that a doctor, or I think he was a surgeon, started writing articles like, there's just no way that these broken bones and these injuries and so on that I'm seeing continually in my practice, there's no way that these can all be accidents.
There must be something going on here.
This is in the 50s.
Well, beating your wife has been illegal for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.
People say it's a patriarchy.
No.
Beating your wife has been illegal for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.
Beating your children has not.
And it is only within the last couple of decades that we've even began thinking about protecting the rights of children.
I mean, the fact that women complain about being the underclass when women are the matriarchs who are often in charge of the child abuse is just a classic misdirection from abusers, which is exactly what you'd expect, right?
But nobody wants to displease the ladies.
Otherwise, we might not get at their eggs.
So, whatever the women want.
Oh, yeah, we'll go along with that.
You want us to talk about patriarchy?
Okay, we'll talk about patriarchy.
Don't want us to talk about female child abuse?
Okay, we won't talk about it.
You want us to pretend all serial killers are men?
Okay, all serial killers, right?
Whatever.
Eggs!
And so the reason that I strongly, strongly, boy, if I could command, if I believed in it or if it would work, if I could command, I would.
But I can't.
But I'm not an idiot when I say, get into therapy if you're going to take this on.
Because you will get nothing but attacks and undermining things.
From almost everyone else around you.
You need, you need, you need.
If you're thinking of separating from your family of origin, you must, you must, you must get into therapy.
It's hard to get out of an abusive relationship that has gone on for many years wherein you've felt threatened with death or mutilation.
It is hard to get out of of an abusive relationship even when society fully recognizes the relationship as abusive fully sympathizes with you as the victim and morally and completely and totally and outrightly condemns your abusers right so if you're some woman guy's been threatening to kill you for 20 years and been beating you up and threatening to maim you well that's all illegal you can press
charges the cops will come You will get to a shelter.
You will get support.
People will hug you.
People will cry with you.
People will understand it.
They will sympathize.
They will be all over it.
You will have all the resources you could possibly dream of.
And how many women get out of abusive relationships even when they have massive amounts of support from society, when the weight of the law is fully on their side, when they get paid For leaving, right?
You get welfare, get support, and so on, right?
How many women get out of these abusive relationships?
Well, some, with every conceivable amount of support in the known universe.
Ah, but, but, how many women would get out of an abusive marriage if everybody told them That they were wrong and evil and selfish.
For even thinking that the husband who threatened to murder them for 20 years could be anything other than an angel.
How many women would get out of an abusive relationship with a man if everything he did was legal?
And if everyone praised him and everyone said, Oh, are you thinking of leaving your abusive husband?
You must be part of a cult!
You're a bad person.
You're ungrateful.
You must forgive him.
He was doing the best he could.
You're bad.
I'm never going to talk to you.
And if you bring it up, I'm going to shoot scornful looks at you and I'm going to undermine you and I'm going to cut you down and I won't talk to you.
If we gave women who were victims of multi-decade abuse the same kind of vicious attacks and undermining that we provided to, say, men who want to get out of abusive relationships or women who want to get out of abusive relationships with men who want to get out of abusive relationships or women who want to get out of abusive relationships with their parents who they never chose to have in their lives, unlike the wife who chose the husband, who could not leave for the first 15 to 17 or 18 years of their lives, unlike the woman
who could have left at any time, how many women unlike the woman who could have left at any time, how many women would be able to leave abusive Thank you.
I will tell you, not many, if any.
So, when you...
Like, if you decide to leave, or if you're exploring leaving abusive parents...
You will then be exposed to abusive society who desperately, for complicated reasons we don't have to get into here, but who desperately need you to get back in that fucking box.
Stop questioning your parents.
Stop standing up for yourself.
Obey.
Submit.
Shut the fuck up.
Swallow it all and spit out praise for them.
I don't care if your ACE is 600 666, you get back in there and you worship at the altar of your parents because that's what the great Yahweh has commanded us.
Lo, these many thousands of years!
And so, if you decide to not see or to explore not seeing highly toxic and abusive parents, you don't get to escape the abuse because generally, in my experience and in the experience of people I've talked to, you will then get attacked for your self-preserving decision to not spend time with toxic people and you can't do it alone in my opinion we
are social animals we need people you need the support of an engaged and knowledgeable and empathetic professional because when you even think about not seeing abusive parents The amount society is going to shit on you for that basic moral decision of self-preservation.
I mean, the best you can conceivably hope for is a couple of shrugs and people saying tightly and angrily, well, I guess if that's what you feel you have to do, I guess, but let's not talk about it, please.
And you need someone in your corner.
You need someone who's going to help you through it.
You need someone...
Who is going to remind you that you're not crazy because sure as shit, other people aren't going to take that stance for the most part.
So I'm not kidding when I say if you're even thinking about not seeing abusive parents, talk to a therapist who's got some experience in these issues.
You can say to the therapist, listen, you know, I've got an ACE of 10.
I'm trying to talk to my parents, but they keep escalating or fogging or attacking or insulting or threatening and, you know, I need some help.
And if the therapist says, well, you know, I've got some experience in these issues and you say, well, okay, is your position that I should just forgive, swallow it and go back to the abusers no matter what they do?
And if the person's like, good heavens, no, I would never give that advice to a woman who was in a marriage and she chose that.
You're a kid who was born into a situation helpless.
We'll talk about it.
Well, okay.
Then go talk.
But if they're like, you know, well, your parents are right and you've got to forgive them and you've got to go back and you've got to spend time with them and you've got to wipe their asses when they get old and drive them to their doctor's appointments and, well, I'd tell you what I would do with the click that came next.
So, I'm not kidding when I say, don't try and do it alone.
Does that help?
Well, I'm definitely going to go to therapy, so I guess you've convinced me.
So, yeah, that helps.
Okay.
But just, I mean, not real quick, but because you've talked a lot about, like, how society attacks you for leaving the family, but even worse, I feel like, you know, when you've talked about, you know, the alter egos of your parents inside you, yeah, it wasn't kidding as well, like, You have to battle yourself as well.
You internalize your parents, and that feels like you're internalizing an enemy, but you're not.
You're internalizing a survival mechanism.
Your internalized parents are like your antibodies to polio or smallpox.
They keep you safe, but when you're around your parents, your inner parents keep you safe by making you feel like shit, right?
Because they're trying to get you to stop doing whatever will make your parents attack you, which means that your inner parent has to attack you first in order to avoid your outer parent from attacking you for real.
Because your inner parent can only attack you in terms of emotions.
Your outer parent can hit you with a baseball bat.
So, you know, you'll go with the cortisol rather than the two by four to the head or the beating or the hitting where you take a step backwards and stumble down the stairs and break your neck, right?
So...
So now you can take on internal, quote, abusers who are actually there to protect you.
You can take those on but not alone.
And the reason you can't take them on alone is that they grew in isolation.
They grew because you didn't have anyone to support you.
Look, if you have lots of people around you who support you in your fight against malevolence, you don't need to internalize evildoers.
Because you have support.
So the problem is you have internal parents because nobody was like your internal abusive parents because nobody was there to help and support you.
And so if you think you can take on those abusive parents who are only there because of isolation, if you think you can take them on on your own, you can't in my humble and amateur opinion, you can't.
Problems which grow in isolation, which only exist because of isolation, Cannot be solved through isolation.
You cannot take on these abusive alter egos on your own because they're only there because you are on your own.
They grow and feast on your solitude.
You need a connection, a support, someone in your corner to take them on.
Their magic, their stranglehold Fades in the face of support.
fades in the face of support.
That's another reason why it's so important to get a therapist.
Because if you detach from your external parents because of staggering levels of abuse...
Combined with a doubling down on the abuse when you start to talk honestly with them, then you cannot see them, but they're still in your head.
And you can't take on the ones in your head, the parents in your head, without a support system.
Now, I can't be a support system because I'm a podcaster.
I'm not a therapist.
I'm not a psychologist.
I'm not any of those things.
I can't be a support system.
All I can do is make the moral arguments, which I repeatedly and continually do.
I cannot be any kind of support system.
If I wanted to make a lot of money...
Then I would say to people, oh yeah, you know, you can do it all through this show.
Just keep donating, people.
Keep on giving me money and those internal alter egos will melt away and you'll be fine and your hippocampus will heal and your neofrontal cortex will heal.
You'll be like you and never abused.
Just keep listening and keep donating.
Right?
If I was a scumbag, then I would say that kind of shit.
I mean, I know when I tell people to go to therapy, it cuts down on donations.
And that's great.
I'm telling you, that is exactly what I want.
I want to have enough money to live, and I want the world to be a better place.
And I've always told people, if there's a choice between donating to this show and paying for therapy, for God's sake, stop your donation, stop your subscription, and pay for therapy.
We've even offered...
Rounded up money and I've sent money to people to help pay for therapy.
Because I cannot, this show cannot, this conversation cannot be any kind of support system.
Because that is a one-on-one personal relationship which I can't have.
This is why I'm telling people all the time, yes, I love it if you donate to this show.
You can.
Go to FDRURL.com slash donate and help out the show.
And I will use that money to help promote the show so I can get fewer donations because people are spending their money on therapy.
Yes!
That's what I want.
Don't give me your money.
Give the therapist your money.
Now, in the long run, you'll go through therapy.
Maybe you'll be very successful.
Donate back.
That's nice.
That's great.
Cross my fingers.
Love it.
But you need a support system.
You need someone in your corner.
And there's no, Lucas, there's no group in society that is there as yet to support you.
It's too new.
I did a search five or six years ago on anything to do with the voluntary family and came up with a big old bagel.
Goose egg, bupkis, nothing.
Zero.
But there was one book.
One book that was hard copy published many years ago.
By Beverly Slobin.
I don't think it was even available on Kindle.
One book.
Now, maybe even as a result of this conversation, I don't know, six degrees of separation, who knows?
Now we're starting to see a little trickle out, tiny bit, under the radar, quiet, shh.
Shh, don't tell anyone.
We're not supposed to talk about this, but this is possible, and this could be healthy.
This could be the right thing for you.
This could be good.
You need to look into this if, you know, but don't...
Now, of course, this should be front and center for everyone, right?
Because it's such a huge issue.
But, of course, it's not.
It's not.
Because everybody wants to talk about, what if your husband is a narcissist, right?
So, yes, you need a support system.
And this show cannot be that support system.
Some people have said, oh, you see, Steph, oh, you see, this is his sinister plan.
He tries to detach people from their parents and then attach them to himself.
I don't know what that means.
I mean, what if I have some sort of proboscis?
No.
Go into therapy.
Go into therapy.
And if you have any choice between donating to this show and giving money to a therapist, give it to a therapist.
I'm telling you, if I could order you, I would.
But I can't.
You need a support system.
Now, the goal, of course, being that when people go through this process and emerge on the other side and you have been healed and made whole and you've gotten your moral strength and your moral fiber and your moral certainty and your closure and your understanding and all that,
what will happen is that then you may hear whispers of somebody else with an ACE of 10 saying, Ah, you know, I just, I can't stand going over there.
They scream at me.
They yell at me.
I can't sleep for three days afterwards.
I'm shaky.
I throw up, right?
And you might say, oh man, you know, I can't tell you what to do, but I'll tell you this.
You know, I went to a therapist and, you know, I ended up not seeing my abusive family and, oh my God, it's great.
You know, nothing can make up for the tragedy and horror that I experienced as a child.
But the only thing worse than spending 25 years with abusive people is spending 25 years and one day with abusive people.
This popped up a little while back ago.
This is from Dr.
Phil.
I've read this before.
It bears repeating.
If you were abused, he said, the emotional wounds caused by parental abuse can last long beyond childhood.
If you want to rebuild a relationship with your parent now that you're both adults, Dr.
Phil has some advice.
Number one, Be heard.
You won't be able to repair the relationship until your parent fully understands how the abuse has affected you.
He or she may feel guilty, but you're the one who needs to be helped.
And what have I said?
For the last eight years, go talk to your parents.
Tell them honestly about what you experienced.
He says, number two, redefine the relationship.
It's up to you to express yourself.
Tell your parent what you need now that you're not getting.
Be honest and clear.
This is your chance to say exactly what you need emotionally.
RTR, this is what I think, this is what I feel in the moment.
Nothing can change the past, but you can create a new history with your parent.
Treat each other as the people you are now.
Do what is best for you, says Dr.
Phil, in conjunction with the top minds in psychology and psychiatry.
He says, consider the possibility that it may not be healthy to have any sort of relationship with your parent.
It's a difficult pill to swallow and should be used as the last option.
However, it may be the option that helps you the most.
Now, it's slowly, slowly.
Again, this is buried.
I don't think he's ever done a show.
On this, maybe, yes.
It's done like over a thousand or whatever, but it's coming up slowly, but it's very early on.
And even finding a therapist who's comfortable with this stuff may take some time, but it's well worth it.
But it is essential.
That's why I'm saying, like, that's why, you know, I've got to be honest with you.
I'm not seeing my parents and...
I'm more confused and I don't know what's going on and which way is up.
I haven't recovered my memories.
I don't feel better.
It's like, yeah, of course you don't.
I'm sorry to say, of course you don't.
But that's why I'm like, well, why the hell are you calling me now?
We didn't do anything that I suggested, for which I've explained many, many times.
But you get it now, right?
Yeah.
And I am incredibly sorry about your childhood, man.
Oh, Lucas, I mean, that's horrible.
You're in like the top five.
Of people who've ever called into the show, I am incredibly sorry for what you experience.
And I, you know, if I had the power, I would have given you to much nicer people, or even remotely nice people.
But that's a power you have now that nobody sadly had in the past, except your parents.
So you got a plan?
Yeah, and...
Yeah, and I guess if I could be an advertisement, then I would have to tell everybody that, you know, I thought I could do it myself.
But yeah, it's harder than I thought.
It's harder than anything I thought or did in my life.
Yes, it is.
You know that old song?
It's not that old song now, that U2 song, you know?
Sometimes you can make it on your own.
Well, that's...
In this case, I don't think it's possible.
I really don't.
And I've seen people who've tried, and they beat their head against the wall for a while, and then hopefully they listen to reason.
So I've got to move on.
But listen, man, incredibly sorry.
Will you keep us posted and let us know how it's going?
Sure, sure.
All right, so see you around.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for calling in.
Thanks, Lucas.
Up next is Chris.
Chris wrote in and said, my question about entrepreneurship has to do with finding investors.
I've studied the importance of savings and investment as it pertains to economic growth and things of that nature, but where does one go to find investors for their business?
Well, it depends.
I mean, what sort of money are you looking at?
What do you need?
Well, I don't have a specific amount.
I was more talking...
Well, I can do...
What do you mean you don't have a specific amount?
Well, I can guarantee you're not going to get it then.
It's more of a general question, because when I'm debating people about politics and stuff, and I try to give them alternate solutions to try and steer them away from the state, like maybe with roads or something, and say, well, in a free society, maybe you could do something to solve that problem instead of trying to use violence against other people.
I'm sorry.
Wait, wait.
I'm sorry.
I may have missed something.
Do you have a business you want to start?
No.
No.
Okay.
Do you want to know how to raise money?
Yes.
Do you have any idea how much you want to raise?
Let's say you wanted to raise $200,000.
$200,000.
Okay, fine.
Alright, so because, I mean, in many ways, the best way to raise money is to use collateral, right?
Okay.
So, you know, if you need $10,000, you could go around to your friends, right?
Okay.
And you can say, listen, give me $10,000 and I'll give you $1,100 back in a year, right?
Okay.
And, you know, you get five or ten friends and you've got some money, right?
Now, I mean, if it all goes tits up, Then you have some debts to pay, but that's probably manageable, right?
Right.
You can sell a car.
You can take a loan out against a house.
You can, you know, you can just go to the bank and ask for a loan.
You can even take money on your credit card if you are fairly sure you can get it back quickly because you don't want to get into that 20-point vortex of infinite interest, right?
Right, right.
So if you have, you know, 10, 20 grand, you could probably, you know, unless you're living...
Yeah.
And that's – and so, I mean, way back in the day, how we started was just went around to a bunch of people and said, you want to lend us some money and we'll pay you back and all that kind of stuff, right?
And we did.
And we paid them back a lot more than they lent us and all that.
So that's your 10, 20, 25 maybe or whatever.
And of course, if you've got a line of credit or you can get – if you've got good credit and good credit is one of these underappreciated benefits in life.
Like I tootle off to Amsterdam and people just lend me cars and people just – Actually, I didn't rent a car, but people were just like, oh yeah, he's good for it.
He's never been to Amsterdam before, but I'll give him food.
I'm sure he's good for it.
Well, it's because I have a good credit rating and I pay off my debts and it's just one of these things you kind of need to do.
I've certainly known people who don't have a good credit rating and their lives are not rendered uncomplicated thereby, to put it as nicely as possible.
So if you have a good credit rating, if you have borrowed – and sometimes just borrow and pay it back.
It's a little bit of paperwork, but then you're a guy who's borrowed and paid back even if you don't need the money.
It could be a useful thing to do.
So if you've got a good credit rating, you usually have access to 10, 20 or maybe even a little bit more amount of money.
So that's one thing.
Now, if you want to raise $200,000, then the most likely thing is that you don't have that collateral.
I mean, if you do, then you can really have an exciting rollercoaster.
If you don't have that kind of collateral, Then it's unlikely that you're going to get lent the money because banks aren't in the business of lending to entrepreneurs.
They're in the business of lending to people with assets that will cover the loans, right?
That's the way it works.
And the reason for that is quite simple, is that a bank cannot evaluate the risk of a particular entrepreneurial venture without spending more time evaluating that risk than they can probably make in profit.
And banks make like one or two percentage points on a loan, which means that they can't have really many failed loans at all, right?
I mean, if you're only making, you know, two points on a loan, 2% on a loan, then, you know, 50 loans have to work.
Well, more than 50 have to work for everyone that fails.
And so that's just not an entrepreneurial space.
The entrepreneurial space is where people have mad money, right?
Money that they're willing to lose, right?
Anybody who invests in an entrepreneurial venture should not do so with money that they're not willing to lose.
I mean, again, unless...
Well, willing to lose, yeah, of course, because you don't do it with your...
You know, that money was made with my daddy's blood!
Right?
But you don't do it with your grocery money, right?
You don't do it with your heating money.
You do it with money that you can afford to lose.
And so if you want to raise $200,000, then the first thing you need to do is you need to get your shit together and write a really great business plan, which includes market analysis, competitive analysis, cash flow projections, like all that sort of shit that has people know That you're serious and know what you're doing and you've thought things through, even if this is your first time, that you understand what that means.
And there's lots of templates, so you can take a couple of courses or whatever.
But, you know, I mean, in business in particular, cash flow is king.
I mean, it doesn't matter if you're going to make a million dollars in three months if you don't have enough money now to pay your employees, you're toast, right?
I mean, you can almost start borrowing against receivables, but that can sometimes be a hole but no bottom, particularly if things get delayed.
I mean, I remember about to close a deal worth a substantial amount of money and then a bunch of pilots went on strike and the whole thing was put on hold.
Just sometimes it happens or you're selling to someone and then they get fired or they move to a new position and the deal just doesn't happen.
So if you put together a really good business plan and you get all of your cash flow projections and Expenditures, overheads, taxes, EBITDA, earnings before taxes, interest and depreciation, all that kind of business-y stuff.
You get all that shit together and then you just go to a particular group of entrepreneurs or an investment bank or people who call them up and say, listen, I'd like to send you a prospectus.
I'd like to send you in a business plan.
If you know anyone in business, have them look it over and make sure it's not insane like you don't want to be that That Kramer guy from Seinfeld who pretends that he's a businessman and he hands in some report and this guy's like, I don't know what this says.
It's like you've never even been in business.
You just want to make sure you know what you're doing.
Once you get those meetings, if people are interested in what you have to say, then they will take those meetings.
If you're the ideas guy, then they're probably going to want a business guy.
Everybody knows that there are – I don't know.
There's an analogy.
I can't remember where it's from.
There's an analogy in the business world, which is – businesses are like landing on D-Day, right?
So to build a business, it's sort of like you need the scouts who are going to go in under cover of darkness and just sort of scout everything out and radio back about where the enemies are, maybe set up a couple of flares.
And then you need the guys who are going to land on the beach and fight their way through.
And then afterwards, you need the people who are going to be the policemen in the conquered town.
And these people are not the same people.
And, you know, very few business people make the transition from pure entrepreneurship to full frontal assault in a major market to then, you know, being the sort of quasi-monopoly or the major provider of the services.
Because, you know, the guys who are really good at scouting out the beaches under cover of darkness, they're kind of thrill junkies, right?
And again, Serious thrill issues, dude.
And they're not the same people who are going to be interested in catching Jaywalkers and giving out tickets after, right?
So if you are the idea guy and they're interested in your ideas and you show that you have some business sense, I mean if I'm an investor, I'm going to be like, well, it's great that you've got a bunch of ideas.
But I know that people who have a bunch of ideas, no matter how good those ideas are, are not very good at calculating the correct amount of payroll tax in each province or state.
They're just not the same people.
And so if you're going to be the idea hamster, who is going to make sure the lights stay on and who's going to deal with the leases and who's going to do all the boring business shit that you as a hopped up ferret in a double espresso machine entrepreneur aren't going to be that interested in.
So work your context.
Try and find out if there's someone – and look, you can also go in and say, look, I don't have – A business person, but if you like the idea enough, I'm happy to, you know, if you know someone who'd be interested in this and then, you know, go have coffee or lunch with the guy or the woman and see who's, you know, who you can work with and who you like.
But, you know, you have your great idea and you put it down on paper and you show that you have some knowledge about how business works.
And basically, you're not trying to raise $200,000.
That's the most fundamental thing that you need to understand and everybody needs to understand.
This doesn't matter if you're an entrepreneur or not.
It doesn't matter if you're a waiter or a dishwasher.
One of the only jobs I actually only lasted two days in, I couldn't take it.
It was too hot.
My pores were too open.
It was too steamy.
I couldn't be it.
But it doesn't matter.
Anything you do that involves profit and loss, you're not going to be a dishwasher so that you can charge the restaurant $10 an hour.
No, no, no, no.
You're going to be a dishwasher so you can make the restaurant $10 an hour.
And so you're not going there asking for $200,000.
You're offering $400,000 for a $200,000 investment.
Right?
That's the most fundamental thing to understand is that you are not there asking for money.
You are there offering money.
And if you get that, then you can approach that as win-win rather than approaching it like some sinner on his hands and knees asking the great Yahweh for absolution.
Right?
You are not there to ask for money.
You are there to offer money, but you need money to be able to create the return.
Does that sort of make any sense?
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, but you kind of glossed over what I'm actually trying to get at.
Wait a minute, wait a minute.
I'm already annoyed.
I'm already annoyed.
Go ahead.
Okay.
It's my fault.
No, it's not your fault.
You asked me, how could you raise $200,000?
What I actually asked was, where do you go to find these investors?
You say you get your business plan and you draw it up.
I told you.
What did I say?
You said, first you had the idea of banks and you get your collateral.
No, that's not what I know.
I said that for $20,000 to $25,000.
Okay, but then you brought up investment banks later on.
Yeah, there are investment banks and groups who – it's their job to find entrepreneurs and to match up entrepreneurs with funds.
And you just do a search for investment banks, investment groups, investment liaisons in your town or anywhere that maybe they'll take a remote or maybe it's worth flying out.
But there are groups that are specifically designed to match entrepreneurs with funds and that's how they make their bread.
Okay.
But instead of saying I glossed over it, I'm just – I'm trying to invite you into being less annoying in a business space.
Instead of saying I glossed over it, in other words, that it's me, Steph's fault for not answering your question, you could say if you could give me a little more information on this, I would appreciate it.
But you're already blaming me for providing you free advice when you said, "How do you raise $200,000?" and I'm giving you a whole bunch of things.
And out of the 10 things, you want more information about five.
Well, I don't know which one you want more information about, so I give you an overview and then you can ask me for more details.
But saying I glossed over it, in other words, that I'm somehow providing a deficient service by not going into grinding detail over all 10 points, I'm just telling you, if you're going to talk to business people, that might not be the approach that you want to take.
Okay, fair enough.
Sorry about that, Steph.
That's all right.
I'm trying to help you.
I'm trying to get you your 200K, baby.
You're open.
Thanks a lot.
All right.
Thank you very much.
And who do we have next?
All right.
Up next is Mariano.
He wrote in and said, Babies naturally and powerfully demand that their needs are served without any considerations for caregivers.
They cry to get their diapers changed in the middle of the night without the ability to think about how inconvenient they are.
Therefore, babies are naturally narcissistic, who best outgrow their narcissism with peaceful and compassionate parenting.
Are adult narcissists stunted in this development because of abuse or neglect?
I don't know.
Do you find babies short as well?
I don't know.
To me, narcissistic, because it's got a pejorative to it.
If I come and pee in your eyeball, I'm obviously not being a very nice guy unless it's some consensual golden shower Annie Sprinkle situation.
But a baby pees in your eye, they're not being mean, right?
They're just, you know, practicing, as the late Patrick Swayze said, to be firemen.
So I think that to apply the phrase, or sorry, the word narcissistic to babies, I think is not correct.
And narcissistic has somewhat of a moral dimension, but it certainly has a developmentally inappropriate.
In other words, nobody's like, yay, a narcissist is in the family or something like that, I guess, unless there are a bunch of other narcissists.
And so I think if we're going to say that there's some sort of problem with being a narcissist, which I think there is, it is considered to be a mental dysfunction, then I think we don't want to apply it to an involuntary state of, quote, selfishness, which is a baby.
I mean, that's like saying that a baby is developmentally delayed because it can't speak at three months.
It's not developmentally delayed.
To me, narcissism is a dysfunctional state.
In order for there to be a dysfunctional state, there must be a functional state that is possible, if that makes any sense.
Since there is no functional state of thinking sensitively about other people's thoughts and feelings for babies, I think that to say that they are in a dysfunctional state like narcissism You know, I have been listening to your podcasts or your videos, actually, for...
Maybe two or three years now.
And when I sent this question to Michael, and then Michael suggested that I ask you the question directly, I said, oh my God, I'm going to be live with Stefan.
And I started anticipating what your response would be, and I guess it's been so long I've been listening to you that I anticipated that answer.
Isn't that great?
Good, good.
Good.
Excellent.
I appreciate that.
Well, either that means I'm completely boring or quite consistent.
That's right.
Potato, potato.
Not boring.
That I will tell you for sure because, like I said, I've been listening to almost – I've been keeping up with all your podcasts for the past two, three years.
And the reason I got into your videos is my interest in becoming a better parent.
Good for you.
Actually, if you indulge me here, the route by which I got to your videos was Amy Goodman's Democracy Now.
Yeah, I know.
You're going to say, wow.
I mean, she's quite left, pro-government and all.
I know.
I love Amy Goodman because...
The Fox News anchors look like they've been created out of whipped cream and shellac.
They're basically made out of smooth, barbie-ass plastic.
There's not even any human pores there.
I think they must sweat through their ears and eyeballs.
I like Amy Goodman because she...
She looks like a human being with middle-aged skin.
And I mean, there's obviously other reasons I like her as well.
But I do appreciate that she doesn't look like she's just been, you know, jumped out of a hot yoga studio, being sandbuffed and polished and then covered in lacquer.
So I quite appreciate that.
But sorry, go ahead.
Oh, yeah.
But actually, I was a donor of her show because I really liked her.
which he went after hot stories.
And also another thing I liked about her was that she's a big fan of Dr. Gabor Mate.
And so after listening to him, I searched Gabor Mate and then I landed to you.
And then I found a lot of great stuff on parenting with the added bonus of the story, your position on government, which was a real shocker for me.
I mean, it's like, why is this guy talking about being peaceful to babies and being very concerned about government?
But that's for another call.
Hopefully, I'll have a chance to...
Well, I mean, they both involve nap times.
Ah, ah, ah!
NAP, non-aggression, nap for babies.
Anyway, we'll diagram that out later.
Mike has probably just fainted.
Oh, he says, oh, Lord.
I try to get all my bad jokes out before the show, and Mike is usually the unwilling victim of those bad jokes.
See what happens when we don't talk immediately before the show?
You see?
No, it's not good, right?
No, we didn't know.
This was coming up.
But if you've ever seen, like, they sometimes have, like, there are these old videos of guys from, like, the 1920s or 1930s, these fat guys, and they used to, like, in carny shows, they used to fire cannons into their bellies, and that's, Mike is, like, the human shield for the audience,
for, like, the Yeah, stand out a little bit more.
That's right.
That's right.
Yeah, go listen to Freddie Mercury and then listen to me and see if you can notice the difference.
Sorry, go ahead.
Okay, yeah.
So anyway, that's kind of an interesting intro.
But let me go back to this question that I sent about babies being narcissistic.
Yes.
And like I said, I kind of predicted your answer.
And I know that I've been reading up and learning about this psychological model of narcissistic and codependent personalities to explain human behavior.
And And I am less interested in the strict use of the term narcissistic as I am in this condition in which people just do not have the ability to take into consideration the position of others, right?
Which is really what I meant.
Not so much the word narcissistic.
I mean, by the same token, I can ask you, are babies quadriplegic?
because they cannot control their limbs.
And, of course, the answer would be no, babies are not quadriplegic because they have not yet developed their ability to control their limbs.
No, that's true.
Technically, they're not quadriplegic, although they're excellent imitators of my breakdowns.
But that's another...
Okay, so anyway, a quadriplegic person is somebody who at some point had control of their limbs, and then they lost it due to some accident, typically.
But I don't think that's the case with narcissistic people.
I think they just never developed that ability, and it was stunted, or somehow something happened by which they just never developed that ability.
Well, no, I would go a little further than that.
So one of the weird things about babies, and there's a lot of weird shit about babies, like their first poop is green.
Anyway, but one of the weird things about babies is...
And they've done these experiments before.
So a baby comes out of the mother with a sound like a – if I remember, it's sort of like champagne cork popping.
I can only say this because my wife never listens to my shows.
But a baby comes out of the womb and the baby looks at you.
And you stick your tongue out.
Do you know what the baby does?
Well, I was present at the birth of both of my children.
And, I mean, I don't know.
Let me see if I can remember.
They did cry.
And the baby was put on my wife's breast.
And they looked at their eyes.
I think she looked at her eyes.
Right?
Right.
But if a baby's looking at you right out of the womb and you stick your tongue out, oftentimes...
I can't remember the percentage.
It's pretty significant.
The baby will stick out its tongue back.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, no, we didn't know about that.
Do you know how insane that is?
Like, that literally is completely insane.
Because the baby has never used its eyes before.
The baby has never seen another human being, assuming that they're not, you know, like, blind-feeling in the cliché not-true way, their twin's face in the womb or something.
But the baby is just losing its eyes for the first time.
It has no idea.
It's never seen another human being.
It has no idea what a tongue is.
But you stick out your tongue, the baby will stick out its tongue.
That is freaky, freaky shit.
I mean, that literally is like me being hit on the head, thrown in a bag, shipped to Japan, And then having a conversation in Japanese.
Okay, yeah, I think I know where you're going with this, but let me see if I can stick to the issue here.
The burden of taking care of babies' needs is quite hard, or at least it was for me, or for us as a parent.
I mean, my kids are now seven and nine years old.
And so the first sleepless couple months and the ongoing tremendous attention that they need for the first few years is just very wearing on the parent.
And I think that's one of the reasons parenting is just so difficult.
We need to be like superhero champions of empathetic person.
No, I agree with all of that, but I'm going to assume that since you've been interested in good parenting that you and your wife are good parents and I assume then that you get along well with your kids and enjoy their company and, you know, I mean, yeah, it's a lot of work at the beginning.
Years, crazy amount of work.
But… But that pays off, right?
Okay.
Well, we're still – I keep telling my wife, look, we're on this steep uphill and we're like halfway.
I mean this parenting thing caught us kind of midair for us, for my wife and I. And we probably got married for some right reasons and some wrong reasons and with tremendous lack of self-knowledge.
And our marriage has been, many would say, exemplary.
I mean, I don't think there has been any infidelity.
There has never been any...
Wait, wait.
I don't think I've ever heard a less confident statement in my entire life.
What's that?
You don't think there's been any infidelity?
Well, I mean, I know for me, but I'm pretty sure not from her, but you can never know, right?
I'm pretty sure.
What do you mean you can never know?
No, I mean, only because I've never been like 100% with her, but you're right.
I'm like 99% sure that there hasn't been.
Okay.
I mean, I could be an obese black woman.
Right?
Just with massive amounts of makeup and I don't know.
But I mean, it's like...
Yeah, I mean, I guess, right?
But there has been no infidelity in my house.
100%.
100%.
No, I think I agree with you.
I think I should be able to confidently say that.
You're not an engineer, are you?
Kind of.
I work with computers doing 3D... Oh, right.
Okay, so any absolute statements that can't be empirically proven to make you...
I got a degree in mathematics, let's just say that.
Alright, occupational.
I did a bunch of proofs at school.
I'm okay in logic.
There's been no infidelity in my house.
Prove it!
I can't, so I guess I have to withdraw my love for myself.
No, no, no.
Actually, my love for her has grown tremendously since we started going to therapy a couple of years ago.
Yes, yes.
But there is, I mean, My A score, I think we did this some time ago, but it was between 0 and 1, I think.
But my wife's was like 4 or 5.
I forget.
We did this some time ago.
So we've been struggling with some of our past.
I mean, like I remember as a teenager, I did drink quite a bit.
And so we've been on this.
And I mean, our relationship with our kids hasn't been like...
I have yelled, and I remember I spunked a couple times, and the second time I said, no way, this just has to stop.
This is really bad.
So that's what I mean when I say, look, we're kind of getting there.
But it's a struggle.
Like, for example, last night, My seven-year-old girl must have been something she ate at three in the morning.
She's at her bed and like, my tummy hurts.
And that's kind of hard.
I've been working very hard in the past few weeks.
So...
They just need to be taken care of and the amount of attention that they need is just a lot and it can be very taxing for parents.
At the same time, I must absolutely tell you that my kids...
Continue to impress me.
The way we engage in conversation has definitely been better and better with both my wife and my kids since our therapist got us on the right direction.
She got us on Parent Effectiveness Training, Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kahn.
If you let me go on a slight detour here.
The combination of therapy and the right books and FDR, your videos, as a combination has been very effective, very helpful.
For us to get a grip on this parenting stuff because it hasn't come naturally to us.
We've had to work hard and struggle.
And I don't think therapy alone would have done it.
Definitely the books alone wouldn't have done it.
So I just want to know that I really appreciate and give you credit for what you do out there.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate that.
And, you know, I mean, I pay it right back to...
Of course, all the people that I've learned from and I've been praising parental effectiveness training for many years and so I hugely appreciate that and I guess it goes full circle because, you know, I try to get those experts on here too.
But no, I appreciate that.
Okay, so let's go back to narcissistic babies.
Yes, yes.
Right, so rather than getting stuck on the strict use of the word narcissistic, babies, like I said in my question, they don't care.
And you have even mentioned this in some shows in the past.
They need attention.
They don't hesitate to cry and to inconvenience others.
And that's what they need to do to survive.
Right.
Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Inconvenience?
What do you mean?
Like getting their parents up at 3 in the morning?
I'm sorry.
No, I need to understand what you mean by inconvenience.
Let me ask you a harsh question, if you don't mind.
Go ahead.
Would you rather wake up to a dead baby?
Oh, no, no, no, no.
Listen, of course.
Look.
They're not inconvenient, right?
They're telling you.
What they need.
And you want to give them what they need, right?
Yes, although it is taxing, I guess.
Maybe, again, using the right words here.
But it does require an effort that requires lots of love and lots of maturity to address, right?
No, look, I know I get all of that for sure.
But, I mean, let me ask you this.
Let's – and I'm just trying to sort of reorient you.
And I've made jokes about this stuff before.
So, I mean, I get – I'm not trying to pull a 180 on you.
I'm just trying to sort of help listeners breed.
But if you wake up tomorrow – I don't know.
Maybe you have.
But if you wake up tomorrow and you say, I want to run a marathon, right?
Now, that's going to take you, I don't know what kind of shape you're in.
I'm going to guess math major, not huge, but maybe I'm wrong.
So how long do you think it would take if you woke up tomorrow and said, I want to run a marathon in a good time, how long would it take you to achieve that?
Well, yeah, you kind of got it wrong.
I was a competitive cyclist and runner for some time, but right now I'm kind of out of shape.
I don't know.
Oh, no, you're a young parent.
Yeah, it would probably take me a year.
A year, okay.
Because I know how to get into it.
Okay.
And like Britney Spears, you have the underlying muscle memory and muscle mass and all that, so it won't be the end of the world, right?
Yeah, I think I could do it.
It would be hard work, but yes, I think I can do it.
Okay.
Now, if you made that choice, that's what I want to do.
That's hugely important to me.
I just want to run a good marathon, right?
Now, if you were to say to me, my marathon is very inconvenient to me, my marathon training is very taxing, and in a sort of way you were complaining about your marathon training, You understand that would be kind of confusing to hear, right?
Oh, yes.
Yes, and I think I know where you're going with this, but go ahead if you want.
No, no, go ahead.
Oh, no, yes.
I mean, that's where I was saying that both my wife and I got caught in mid-flight by surprise, but by the importance of learning about peaceful parenting and the latest conflict resolution technology with the children and but by the importance of learning about peaceful parenting and the latest conflict resolution Because we kind of didn't get it from our homes.
Okay.
And so for us, it was and it's still a bit difficult.
To deal with addressing our kids' needs.
And this is what can make us fail in our composure, in our dealing with issues.
But no, it's the conversation that you have about things, right?
Look, there's stuff that happens to you, obviously.
If you're doing anything in life, anything at all, then stuff gets fired at you all the time, right?
And I'm not completely subjectivist like Hamlet, who says there's nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
I don't think that's true.
But how we think about things has a lot to do with how we experience them, right?
And If you listen, I hope you will listen back to this conversation, if you talk a lot about, like, if you listen to the language that you use to describe children, it's kind of negative in a lot of ways, right?
You know, tiring, intrusive, exhausting, narcissistic, you know, daughter was up.
And even when you imitated your daughter, you made her sound whiny.
Like, Dad, why do you stomach hurts, you know?
Yeah, like resentful.
Like I'm...
You're resentful, right?
And then when you talk about your wife and your experience, you know, we were caught in mid-flight, we just had no idea, it's so hard, and so on, right?
So you decided to train for a marathon, right?
I mean, I assume that if there was infidelity, it wasn't with God himself, right?
So there's no divine immaculate conception here, right?
So you decided You and your wife with two kids, right?
I think you said seven and nine.
So you decided that you both wanted to run a marathon.
Yeah, but let me see if I can interject here.
I don't think...
No, no, no.
Wait, because I haven't finished my point.
Obviously, everybody knows that babies are hard work.
Everybody knows that toddlers aren't going to sit there and learn how to Program in C++ while you, you know, complete your cross-training, right?
I mean, that, you know, for kids to become even remotely self-sufficient, it takes at least sort of five or six years, right?
That's not a huge shock, I think.
And so you guys signed up for...
Now, you know, if I said, and if I said, listen, you know, I'm 20, I want to become a champion figure skater.
It's probably 20 is too late to start.
I don't know, like I'm 16 or 15 or something.
I want to become a champion figure skater.
That's what I want more than anything in the world.
And I'll do whatever it takes.
And then if I keep saying, oh man, I can't believe it.
I've got to get up early tomorrow again?
Oh my god, I'm tired.
I don't want to eat all this protein.
I want to have some cheesecake.
It's driving me crazy.
It's so much work.
And then there's more.
I pulled a tendon last week and that hurt.
And I've got to hobble around like an idiot.
If this was my If I had a continual conversation with myself and with others about becoming a figure skater, people would kind of look at me like, well, I mean, you want to be a figure skater.
I mean, you can either resist everything that you need to do that you know ahead of time you have to do.
Like, I mean, if I've been trying to be a figure skater for nine years and I'm, you know, doing well and I'm like, well, I have to practice tomorrow too?
Come on!
Right?
It's been nine years, right?
So my suggestion is it sounds to me, what do I know, right?
It sounds to me like you are still set against the necessities of parenting.
And that's going to have an effect on your kids, right?
And it's also going to have an effect on your pleasure in parenting.
And anything that affects your pleasure in parenting has a huge effect on your kids.
Anything that affects your pleasure in parenting makes your children feel a little less worthwhile, a little less a source of joy for you.
I mean, there is...
Something, you know, I mean, you have two, I have one, but you probably work outside the home or whatever, right?
But can I give you about 15 seconds of my day?
You know, I can tell that you are a super hard worker because I have difficulty keeping up with your videos and I know how much work it goes.
Okay, I appreciate that.
I know how much work it goes.
Let me give you, I'm going to give you 15 seconds of my day.
Are you ready?
Okay, ready?
Here we go.
Dad.
That's my day.
That is pretty much my day.
You should have thrown in the Can I Tell You Something, but other than that, yeah.
Well, yeah.
Dad, can I tell you something?
Dad, let me just show you something.
Hands up who wants to keep this picture, right?
I mean, and, you know, I mean, I very, very rarely have any work to do when I'm parenting.
Occasionally, it will happen.
But, I mean, literally, I'm, like, I'm talking with someone and, like...
I've been working for literally about, I don't know, 14 or 15 months with this and my daughter.
I'm talking to someone and she's just dead, dead, dead.
I'm like, do you see that I'm on the phone?
Actually, I'm talking to someone.
Can you wait?
Wait, wait, wait, wait, right?
So getting her to sort of defer the call and answer.
I mean, she expects me.
I think she expects to be like some...
Southern Baptist preacher with the call and response.
Dad, what?
Dad, yes.
Dad, dad, dad.
But this is it, right?
I mean, that's my day.
And most of it's great.
I mean, most of it's like, Dad, yes.
Oh, I had this dream.
Oh, tell me about your dream.
So, it's great.
But, I mean, I always want my daughter to know what an incredible source of joy she is to me.
And I'm sure your kids know that.
But kids know everything.
They even know things that you don't know.
And I would be fierce.
I'll tell you what I'm the most fierce about.
Well, lots of things.
But one of the things that I'm very fierce about is protecting my enjoyment of spending time with my daughter.
And so if she's doing something that's annoying to me, I have to tell her because I want to make sure that I enjoy as much of my time.
And I invite her to do the same with me as well.
And I get the sense...
Look, I mean, you and I have been talking for half an hour, so it's all crap, right?
It doesn't mean anything.
I'm just telling you what I think.
But I get the sense that you may be trying to resist the tide coming in of sort of parental stuff.
Well, everything that you described...
About how you go about trying to listen to your daughter.
I have learned recently, because of the therapy and the books and your videos, But it hasn't come naturally.
We have had to learn it.
And that's what I meant when I said that we got caught in mid-flight.
Ideally, my wife and I would have understood this very well going into it.
So definitely, I can tell you, we did not know what we were signing up for.
And And we're not totally bad, but we have had our struggles that have, unfortunately...
Wait a sec.
Sorry to interrupt.
I'm sorry to interrupt.
I really apologize for interrupting, but you said you had an ACE of zero or one?
Yeah.
I mean, I did this some time ago.
I know you always talk about it, so I should have looked it up again.
I remember.
No, no.
Look, I'm willing to accept.
I mean, fine.
So you had a mostly great childhood.
I mean, that's fine.
I have no reason to disagree with you on that.
But then I'm going to assume that You had a parent who invested with you and spent time with you, right?
Played with you and interacted with you and all that.
I have a lot of great memories of my parents, both my mom and my mom, my dad, but I also have some bad ones.
They were busy.
They weren't always available.
I'm sure you have been to your girl Sorry, did one parent work?
Yeah, my dad was mostly out and my mom was mostly at home working.
She had a side business.
Wait, your mom worked at home?
Yeah, she had a side business making, she was like a baker, making cakes.
A baker?
So that's an early morning.
It was like all day for her.
She was very busy.
So it was a full-time job at home?
Kind of, yeah.
She had helpers.
But yeah, I do remember, I mean, like my...
Well, helpers doesn't usually mean your business is smaller.
It means that...
It's bigger, right?
Yeah, I do have, like, early memories.
I remember my mom just being harried, busy, and my dad gone.
And then kindergarten and elementary school and everything went from there.
But wait, do you know if you're, I mean, how long after you were born or your siblings were born did your mom start doing this business?
Gosh, I'll have to work on that.
I don't know.
No, but do you have memories of her not being busy?
No.
Like kicking back and reading magazines and stuff?
No, no.
Having the time for her children.
I don't mean ignoring them in a magazine or ignoring them in a business.
I've been spending time with you.
Okay.
Let me respond by telling you this.
Okay?
No, no.
I don't want story time.
I just want a yes-no answer.
Do you have memories of when she wasn't that busy and had more time to spend with you?
No, not that many.
Okay, okay.
I'm sorry to just be interrogatory.
Yeah, yeah.
No, that's okay.
I appreciate that.
And was it that she needed the money?
I mean, why would she have children and then try and run an at-home business with employees?
I mean, that doesn't make much sense to me.
Oh, well, okay.
Yeah.
I mean, was your dad not – like, was he – Was he a hobo?
No, no, no.
My dad was actually, I mean, overall, I guess you can say, he was pretty good.
I don't know of any infidelity from him, and he was better for us.
Income, we were like middle class, yeah.
So, hang on.
So, your mom didn't need the money?
At some point...
You couldn't pay the rent without her?
Yeah, no.
At some point, we did.
My dad...
I did bad in business.
I grew up in Mexico.
How old were you when that happened?
Let me tell you this memory.
I was about five.
How old were you when your dad did bad in business?
I was trying to tell you.
I was about five or six.
I remember the first massive devaluation of the peso.
It shakes the entire society.
I remember going from the dollar being 12 pesos per dollar to 22 pesos per dollar.
And people who had debt and people who were used to buying cars and stuff, then that means immediate hardship.
So I do remember that as far back as six years old, five years old.
And so, yeah, I do remember these turbulent economic times.
So it wasn't that your dad did bad in business.
It was that the government did bad in stability, right?
Well, yes.
And then later, I learned that he wasn't a very good administrator.
I mean, he was very good at other things, but then he did struggle and crashed and burned his farm and other stuff.
Okay, okay.
So when you were little, do you have younger siblings?
No, I'm the youngest.
You're the youngest.
Of five.
And how old is the eldest?
How much older than you is the eldest?
Okay, so for the first ten years, your mother ran a bakery from home, but she didn't need to.
No, I don't think she did the bakery until I was ten.
So that means like at least...
Wait, wait, what?
What?
Yes.
I thought you said that your mom didn't have time to play with you when you were little because she was running a bakery.
Well, that came a little later, but early on, no, she probably didn't have to work.
No, the bakery started when I was an older child.
Okay, so what the hell are we talking about here?
Let's go back to your early childhood.
Did your mother have time...
Because I asked you when, like, you said, oh, the kindergarten, and my mother was very busy, and I said, well, what?
And she said she was working at home.
She was doing a bakery.
So I'm talking like zero to five, and now you're talking ten plus.
Okay, yeah, no.
Okay, zero to five, I guess I don't have that many memories of, and maybe she never, she kind of neglected me there.
Yeah.
Do you have memories of your mother sitting down and playing board games with you or drawing with you or chatting with you or helping you build things or anything like that?
Vague.
Vague.
I do have some, but it wasn't like a predominant memory, I guess.
I have to think hard to remember, oh yeah, we used to play Chinese checkers.
I do remember playing Chinese checkers.
But, for example, one thing she did a lot was she started buying Lego sets for me since I was a little kid.
So that was great playtime for me.
And she played with you the Lego set?
No, I mean, I have no memory of...
I mean, she probably thought it was a weird thing and she just left me along to it.
And so, no, no Lego set building.
Oh, so here's the Lego I'm not going to play.
Probably.
But I'm sure you wanted your mom more than the Lego.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Maybe.
I don't know.
I do know.
Okay, and look, do you know why?
I'm sorry to interrupt again, but do you know why, Mariano, that I'm asking you all of this?
Do I know what?
What?
I think so, yeah.
Because you're trying to determine if I was neglected or not, or if I had a strong connection with my mom.
My dad was working, so it had to be with my mom.
Okay, but let's say that that's...
I wouldn't characterize it that way, but let's say that that's what I'm doing.
Why would I want to do that?
Just to determine why it has been difficult for me to...
To learn the physical parenting thing that it's been somewhat of a struggle for both my wife and I. No, that's not it.
And this doesn't mean that I'm right about anything, but I'll tell you what my motive is for asking you all these questions.
It's that if you are putting substantially more effort into parenting than your parents did, you're going to be conflicted.
Okay, please say that again.
So, if you're putting substantially more effort into your parenting than your parents did into their parenting...
And I feel that way, very strongly.
Okay.
Then you are going to be...
I am conflicted, I guess.
In what sense?
And I think that's what's coming out when you sort of feel...
I feel this sort of resentment and frustration with how much parenting there is to do for you.
And you say, well, basically, when you tell me My wife and I didn't know what we were getting into.
I had no idea that it was this much work.
What does that tell me about your parents?
That they didn't do us nearly as much as we did.
Yeah, that your template is, you know, and I'm going to be harsh and I apologize for the harshness, but your template is, throw some Lego at them, they're fine.
Yes, I think so.
I mean, I think you're right.
And these past two years that we've been going to therapy and reading books, It has been a process by which both my wife and I are starting to recognize this, and it's kind of painful.
I mean, it's probably a bit more painful for my wife than me, and she struggles maybe a little more than me with this, which is what results probably in resentment when we feel that we have to do so much to take care of their needs.
Yeah, because your parents didn't have to do that much.
So, I mean, you're obviously very good at math.
I'm not.
And so for you, if you and I were taking the same math course, I'd probably have to do like five times the work that you would have to do.
And I'd be like, damn, why is it so easy for him and so hard for me?
And I'd be annoyed.
Because you'd have to do a lot less work than me.
Now...
The way that you deal with the resentment is challenging, if you have this resentment.
And one of the ways is you say, well, it is a lot more work, but it's better parenting.
Yes.
Right?
Like, I mean, so if you were on the road, you know, like three weeks a year, sorry, three weeks a month, right?
You're just traveling, doing all this stuff, right?
And then some other guy was making less money than you because he wasn't willing to travel because he wanted to go home and spend time with his family.
Then you'd both be winning and losing, right?
Like you say, well, you know, I only get to spend a week a month, but I make $300,000 a year.
But, you know, the other guy makes like $100,000 a year because he's not willing to travel, right?
Mm-hmm.
Yes, I think I recognize everything you say.
So with your parents, they invested less in their parenting than you are.
Yes.
And there are benefits to that for them.
I think there are costs to the children.
Sure.
I mean, my daughter just wants to spend time with us.
And I just want to spend time with her.
I mean, look, it's not 100%.
There are times where, you know, but for the most part, right?
And that is a cost and a benefit, right?
Now, if you've made the commitment to be a more involved parent so that you don't have your kids grow up and say, well, you know, I think I remember my dad playing Chinese checkers a couple of times and he certainly bought us some Lego, though he never played with us, right?
All that sort of stuff.
If you want to, and it sounds like you do, invest in that, then I don't think we can make any commitment to an investment that's purely subjective or aesthetic.
So how do people do extraordinary things?
By elevating them to a real status, to their actual status.
So you are, to your eternal credit and to your wife's eternal credit, You guys are really aiming at being great parents.
You're doing therapy, you're doing parent-affectiveness training, you're getting some value out of this stuff and all that, which is great.
Now, the question then is, why are you doing that?
And I think you are making an extraordinary change from how you were raised, in that your parents were not very involved parents, like not very involved in your lives.
And you're making a different choice.
Now, I don't think we can say, well...
Six of one, half a dozen of the other, right?
Potato, potato.
I mean, the guy, I think we can all recognize that if you've got kids, you shouldn't be on the road three weeks a month and make more money because what do your children want?
They want you, not more money, particularly when they're young, right?
Yes.
It's a bad decision.
It's a bad decision.
You'll have lots of money.
Very few memories with your children, right?
Yes.
I think you're explaining something to me that I don't have to be convinced of.
I think I'm quite aware of the effort that my wife and I are into right now.
And so, yes, I definitely think I process everything the way you see it.
In that both my wife and I are doing what our parents did not.
No, but you're complaining about it a lot.
That's what I'm talking about.
I guess I have to say that, yes, it kind of weighs heavy, the effort that is required.
It does.
It does.
And that's because...
Look, it weighs heavy, but I embrace it.
It's just that I cannot pretend...
No, maybe you embrace it with other people, but you complain about it to me.
Well, I cannot pretend that it's not significant.
Okay?
And I think we look at it and charge ourselves up to say, okay, gotta try harder here.
And then we keep improving.
But...
I don't know if that makes sense.
Yeah, okay.
Then, you know, my invitation would be that I think that you're doing a much better job of parenting than your parents did.
I think that it's not right to have children and not play with them.
Yes.
I think that's literally like having a dog and never taking it for a walk.
That's cruel.
Okay.
Can I... Change the conversation a little bit to maybe what I meant to ask.
Okay, but it has to be quick, because I know I've tangented a bit, but we've got to be quick, because we've got another caller before the end of the show.
Okay, and this may be, I guess, theoretical, or how do you say, speculative, but I have been becoming more familiar, or I have been looking more into this issue of narcissistic and codependent personalities, And this condition that some adults,
they look like children when they expect the treatment that babies require. they look like children when they expect the treatment that I don't know if that makes any sense.
Narcissistic personalities just have no mind for the needs of others and become quite upset when it isn't given to them, when they expect it.
And so I'm starting to see that there's a resemblance.
And so, like I said, this may be just speculative, but it may be that narcissistic personalities are the result of them not outgrowing this.
No, and I get it.
I get it.
That's what we talked about at the beginning.
That's why I started talking about the baby sticking his tongue back.
Babies want to reciprocate.
Babies want to know how you feel.
It's not like children don't have to be Cultivate it to become nice.
In other words, I'm not saying this is all proven and this is true for everyone, but it's been my experience that babies aren't sort of born narcissistic and you have to coax them out of it.
I mean, babies are born with an inability to focus on other people's needs, obviously.
It's more sophisticated.
The same way they're not able to speak when they're born.
But You don't usually have to, I mean, you've been around kids growing up.
I mean, I don't remember teaching my daughter half the words she knows.
And she just picks stuff up.
So I didn't, you know, if I were to learn Japanese, it would take me forever.
But my daughter just kind of skates into language and continues to build on her language skills and barely even notices it.
And so I think that, in my experience, children will naturally grow up empathetic and And kind and generous and strong and all kinds of wonderful.
It's not like narcissistic people get stuck in the narcissism of infancy.
What happens is their natural growth towards empathy is smashed through trauma.
That's what I mean.
Yeah, that's what I was trying to ask.
Yeah.
They are smashed through trauma.
And...
I don't believe that it is a holdover of an earlier state.
It is like a tree that is cut down.
The tree is going to naturally grow towards the highest point it can reach to get sunlight and all that, and it's going to grow down to the deepest point it can get the minerals and nutrients and water it needs from the soil.
That is the natural process of a tree growing.
Now, if you cut that tree in half, like horizontally, you just chop it down, We don't say that the tree's growth didn't quite sustain itself to the next level.
It's like, no, the tree was attacked and was cut down.
Well, the growth was stunted.
Can that be said?
No, because the tree was attacked.
Or the growth was stunted because it was attacked.
Would you look at a tree that was cut down and say that growth was stunted?
I would say the tree was cut down.
The natural growth of the tree was stopped, was cut up.
I don't think that children are born selfish and mean.
I'm not saying you're saying all of that.
You have to coax them into being nice.
I think the children are born the way they're born, primitive and immature, and they will naturally grow.
Unless something violent and repetitive is done to impede that growth.
In the same way, a tree will grow, but if you set fire to it or chop it down or crash a helicopter into it, then the tree gets smashed up.
But it's not like the tree...
If you cut down a tree, it's not like it got stuck at being a sapling, right?
Let's say a sapling is like four feet high, right?
And then the tree is growing, and then you cut the tree down four feet high.
You don't say, well, the tree is just basically the same height as the sapling.
It's like, no, the tree was going to grow, and then it got chopped down.
It may be the same height as the sapling, but it's not like the sapling never grew up.
The sapling wants to grow up.
If it's violent, it interferes with it, can't.
Anyway, I hope that helps.
I'm going to move on to the last caller, but thank you so much for your call.
And thank you and your wife so much for your wonderful, wonderful commitment to peaceful parenting.
There are so many people who call into the show who I would love to be resurrected as their children.
And so you're on the list, man.
Thank you so much for calling in.
All right.
Up next is Marshall.
Marshall wrote in and said, I don't want my daughter growing up like I did in constant fear of a god.
Do you have any advice on how to approach my in-laws regarding my atheistic views?
Unfortunately, my recent attempt failed miserably.
Do you tell?
It was an email.
Ooh, really?
Really?
I would like you to break up with God.
I'm going to do it over email.
Yeah, we just get these, me and my wife both get these, you know, conservative, Christian conservative emails about how what's wrong with the world today is there's no God in schools and yada yada.
So I... Back in the 50s, the biggest problems were running in the hallway, chewing gum and blah, blah, blah, right?
Now that they've given up on Jesus, right?
Okay.
The fact that there's significantly less violence in society now is...
Anyway.
Yeah, right.
So I kind of responded a little bit like that and talked about my childhood and how there were moments when I wish I was retarded because I understood that if you're retarded...
You know, you couldn't grasp the concept of God, so therefore you'd get to go to heaven.
And there's times I wish I was dead.
I remember being like a 10-year-old kid and being at the Holiday Inn in Florida and looking down, I can still see the AC units.
And I don't think I was very close to jumping, but it's like I understood at that point that The rational move right there would be to jump and die because then I would get to go to heaven as if I wait too late.
Now it's too late to turn back.
I just don't obviously want my daughter to have to grow up with any of that stuff.
I've talked to them about it before in person and they still kind of send me this stuff.
These emails like I'm the only one on the chain.
It's almost like They're trying to convince me.
That's probably not the word, but I'm the only person on there.
I wouldn't send them an email with my atheist buddies and just throw them on there.
I don't know, so I responded.
I replied all, and it's her and a bunch of her friends.
My wife was a little bit rattled about it, but she's got my back.
What did you say?
My wife was a little bit rattled about the situation.
No, no, sorry, what did you say in the email?
It's pretty long.
Like I said, you want to read it?
No, no, I just, I mean, if you want to, I mean, I don't want to do it too long, because I want to make sure we get to the emotional side.
I think it's pretty long, but I just went on, you know, how it doesn't make any sense.
Let me look at a little bit of it.
Okay.
Were you talking about your childhood experiences with hell?
Yeah, with hell and worrying about that type stuff over something that you can't prove exists or not.
It just doesn't make any sense.
Well, but of course, that just means you didn't love Jesus enough, right?
Because if you'd loved Jesus enough and knew that you were right with the Lord, you wouldn't have feared hell, right?
I mean, this is what you can go back and forth with these fictions forever.
Right.
And my mom was a...
My wife grew up kind of an old-school Baptist.
They don't...
They don't talk about it, you know, at dinner we just pray and that's all that Jesus has ever talked about.
And my mom was pretty down with Jesus.
She would cry in church and hold her hand in the air, which I always, I guess, respected in a sense because I felt like she actually had a real relationship with, you know, this invisible man as opposed to most of the fake Christians, I guess, would be the word for it.
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, I know what you're saying, but there's a reason why the word committed is used in two senses.
I'm really committed to this belief.
Oh, my God, I just got committed to an insane asylum.
Right, right.
I mean, there is commitment that you want, but from good people.
Right.
And from sane people, right?
You don't want commitment from mafia people and from, you know, like...
You don't, like...
Jim Jones, the cult leader in Guyana, I mean, he was committed, right?
He drank the Kool-Aid.
I mean, you know, you don't, right?
No.
You don't want that.
I know what you mean.
But it also makes no sense to just pray, you know, and this 10-second prayer before every meal and claim that, you know, and go to church on Sunday but never talk about it.
You know, if you think I'm going to...
I know.
I know.
It's the same thing.
Yeah.
Good food, good meat, good God, let's eat.
Yeah.
I mean, if you think I'm going to hell at the end of the day, at least my mom is wanting to tell people about it.
You know, she'd go to prisons and talk to, you know, people about God.
I mean, most of the people I grew up knowing, they call themselves Christians, you know, don't even want to talk about it, which it's, you know...
Yeah, but she was a virus carrier.
Right.
Yeah, I mean, cough up some...
God-based smallpox.
Right.
But yeah, I'm just in this dilemma.
What's happened?
Is your mom still, I don't know, a religious hysterical?
Yeah, she reads her Bible an hour every morning.
And what's your mom's intelligence level or IQ, do you think?
Fairly smart.
Yeah.
Yeah, she's dealt with a lot of depression over her life, so I feel like me and my wife both feel like the chemicals, the drugs have kind of fried her brain a little bit.
Oh, she's been on antidepressants?
Yeah.
That seems like a rather secular answer to depression.
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, am I missing something here?
I mean...
If the Lord brings healing and love and if you have Jesus in your heart and he should take the wheel, does it seem odd?
It seems odd to me that then someone who's that into religion would then say, okay, give me some antidepressants because God made my brain wrong or I'm just not – Jesus isn't filling me with love.
Right.
I'm sorry to be – I don't want to sound nitpicky, but it seems to me kind of like a secular.
Yeah, totally.
Yeah.
I snort cocaine, I see God.
It's like, no, you see cocaine.
And I don't mean to laugh, but it seems like an oddly secular approach to an existential problem.
Totally.
She claims that she doubted, she had her doubts, but I think it's more of a why God type situation, like her looking at the Wait, wait, sorry.
She had her doubts about what?
She claims that she had her doubts about God.
I kind of came out to her recently, too.
My in-laws is who I wrote the email to, but my mom, I talked to her a few months ago about just if she's going to be around my granddaughter.
I don't want that talk.
I don't even want prayers, obviously.
I don't want to go to Christmas.
I don't want to be around any of it.
And I don't want her to try to sneak any of this stuff in at Christmas.
I've gotten into this with my wife, with my in-laws, not just through the email.
The email was pretty...
I guess I said some pretty condescending shit in there, but it wasn't...
No, it's okay, because they have to love you anyway, right?
Yeah, yeah, true.
In fact, the nastier you were, let's say, the more condescending you were, then the more they have to love you.
Right, but...
But her father-in-law, me and him have gone back and forth on it.
We can kind of vibe a little bit politically.
He's a great businessman, grew up poor, great story, but when it comes to the religious stuff, they're just old school.
Wait, but he's, sorry, he's a great businessman, like he's made a lot of money.
Yeah, he's done really well, you know, came up with nothing.
Wait, wait, what am I, I'm sorry, what am I missing?
I mean, doesn't Jesus say, sell everything you have, give the money to the poor, and follow me?
That's a good one.
Yeah.
I'm just, you know what it is.
It's just all ass backwards.
No, no.
I mean, and again, I don't mean to be facetious.
I mean, I'm not trying to catch anyone.
It's just like, okay, so did Jesus not mean that?
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know.
Pick and choosers.
And I have, years ago, many, many years ago, I did some work for a guy setting up some software and hardware and writing some code for him.
And he was a very successful guy and big house.
And I remember, you know, I said, oh, this is a beautiful house you got there.
And he's like, yep, the Lord has been good to me.
And I was like, oh, my God.
I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit.
So some...
Poor kid in Guyana.
Right.
You know, some poor kid, like, God's just not good.
You get a house because God likes you, and I got what?
God doesn't like me.
Right.
You know, like, I was hungry a lot in my childhood.
We didn't have rent.
We got eviction notices.
I couldn't afford anything.
Right.
I had to eat food that had gone bad.
I mean, like, oh, so you get a house because God likes you, and I got, what?
I mean, I'm hungry.
I mean, that's, what?
Like, that's so crazy, right?
And do they just, like, not know the bit about Jesus saying, go, like, sell everything you have, give your money to the poor, and follow me with nothing on your back?
That he who wants to get into heaven has to hate the world.
That it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Did they miss this shit?
Is that on the fucking B-side?
Do they just not flip over Bohemian Rhapsody to hear I'm in love with my car?
I just...
I don't get...
How do you not know that stuff?
Yeah.
It always strikes me as weird that everybody goes to...
Everybody goes to church and they're Sunday best.
Jesus wouldn't even be let in.
Sorry, no tie.
Right.
You're not supposed to look your best.
You're supposed to have sold everything you have, given your money to the poor, to get into the church.
And there sure as shit shouldn't be any stained glass on the walls.
Because that's also bread from the mouths of the poor.
So, with Christmas coming up...
It's just kind of obviously a weird situation.
I'm trying to talk to my wife's brother about it.
Where's your wife at this?
You said she had your back, but is she a heathen to you?
Where is she?
Religiously?
Yeah.
I got her to the agnostic level, I guess.
We started dating 12 years ago.
Old high school sweethearts.
Yeah.
And got married, you know, and since we got married is when I discovered, you know, I was probably agnostic when we got married, would you say?
Yeah.
But God, I would have done things so much differently.
I guess I'd be single right now, to be honest, you know, because I just wouldn't have been with someone who was a Christian, you know, I would have had a hard time with that.
I wouldn't have been with But she's agnostic.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, she probably wouldn't say that.
I think she has a tough time saying that word, you know?
Like, she'll listen to my arguments all day long.
She'll laugh.
Like, we'll job pretty well.
And I'll be like, so, I mean, you know, this was probably six months ago.
And I was like, so, would you claim you're a Christian?
And she's like, yeah.
I mean, she said yeah.
And that really rattled me.
But I think we're to the point now to where she probably would say she's agnostic.
Yeah.
Would she talk to me, or does she not want to talk to me?
No, I think she's pretty nervous.
No, I don't want to talk about religion with her, but really, you have a daughter, is that right?
One or more kids?
Yeah, we have one.
Yeah, one with one on the way.
Oh, one on the way?
Well, congratulations!
So, I mean, look, I appreciate you talking...
You know, it's probably a bit of a surprise, and I'm sorry for the conflicts with the families.
I mean, if, you know, they obviously really believe, particularly your mother-in-law.
I mean, she sounds, like, focused, is that the right word?
Focused on the afterlife?
Yeah.
And, you know, I kind of can get how, if you have that belief set, then they, you know, Trying to do the right thing according to that mindset and you guys of course can make your choices like you're adults and you can reason and sort of think for yourself about how you want things to go.
I think for me I don't say there is or there isn't but my sort of goal is to teach my daughter how to think.
Not what to think, but how to think.
Because I think that's going to do the most good for her in the long run.
And I think, you know, if I were to talk to the in-laws, the idea of...
You guys can still hear me.
Yeah, okay.
So if I were to talk to the in-laws, it seems like what percentage likelihood would you give it that they're going to become agnostics or agnostics?
A zero.
So not minus.
You're not going to get pulled back in somehow.
This giant claw of God comes and scoops you back into the Transylvanian change jar of history.
So if it's going to be zero, then if you guys enjoy the debates or the conversations, it sounds like Marshall does more than you, which I can understand.
But what I would say is something like this.
Look, we have differences of opinion on this.
I don't know if you want to use the word, my beliefs are evolving, because I don't know if evolution is a bad word in these circles, but my beliefs are evolving.
I'm going through changes.
I'm thinking about this.
I'm thinking about that.
And I said, but what I do want is I am the father.
My wife is the mother of the child.
We are the ones primarily responsible.
Our daughter has to honor her mother and her father as the good Lord intends.
What that means is that I am not going to teach her that there is a God.
I am not going to teach her that there is no God.
And I need you to do the same.
Because if you teach her that there is a God, and she's going to burn in hell, and then she comes to me and says, Daddy, is there a God?
And am I going to burn in hell?
You have just undermined my parental authority.
And then we are in conflict.
Like, we can have disagreements about theology.
Nobody's dead yet.
We can all change our minds as we go forward.
But I cannot, I cannot allow for my authority with regards to my daughter to be undermined.
Because I, you know, I'm not going to tell her You're a crazy superstitious lunatics, but you can't tell her that I'm damning her to hell.
She cannot be a pawn in our theological disagreements.
She has to be free with feedback, with reason, with thoughts, with learning, with education.
She has to be free to find her own way forward with help.
But she cannot be told what is and what isn't, and she certainly cannot be told or burn in hell.
Because if that stuff starts to come up, we are going to be in a huge collision course, which is going to fracture the family.
Because if you start telling her that she's going to burn in hell, if she doesn't do X, Y, and Z, then she's going to come to me and she's going to be terrified.
Yeah.
And then what am I going to say?
Am I going to say, well, yeah, but it wasn't that important to me.
I don't like getting up early on Sundays.
So yeah, I mean, I can't do that.
Then she's going to look at me like basically I was just watching her drown and not wanting to get up because a good tune was on the radio.
Right.
So you can't be telling her that she's going to burn in hell.
If you do that, then I have to tell her that it's not true.
Like, then I have to respond very clearly with her in my current belief state.
And then she's going to say, well, why are they telling me I'm going to burn in hell?
Says, well, they're wrong.
They're not thinking right.
This is the way – here's the arguments.
Like, then we are on a real coalition course.
Right now, we all adults – We can discuss this stuff and we can have disagreements.
We can reason each other.
We can bring evidence here.
But if she gets tipped over into the fires of hell, I have to rescue her.
That is going to be at your expense, oh family of mine, because I'm going to have to tell her, no, you're not going to burn in hell.
They are not telling the truth to you and they're scaring you.
I think what they would do was tell her about heaven.
You know, it seems like nobody's talking about hell these days, or maybe even when I was a kid.
I don't think my mom talked to me a whole lot about hell, but you just kind of learn that there's, you know, through hearing sermons or whatever else.
Well, okay.
No, but see, I'm sorry to interrupt, Marshall, but that's scarcely any better.
Because if your parents...
Would it tell your daughter that there's a special kind of candy and chocolate and marshmallows and caramel and ice cream and she could eat as much as she wants and it's actually good for her, but you've just been withholding it from her this whole time?
How would that do for you guys as parents?
Yeah, not too good.
Not too good, right?
How old is your daughter?
Two.
Okay, so she's got a little bit, but in a year or two, she's going to start to figure out death, right?
Yeah.
I mean, unless you live in the country, in which case she's probably already helped you bury nine things.
I don't know.
It's just different out there.
And so if they start talking about heaven, then they're talking about a soul, and they're talking about everlasting life, and they're talking about paradise, and being reunited with everyone forever in eternity.
Right?
Which is a pretty good deal, right?
I mean, boy, if we all believed that, I mean, who'd worry about a car crash?
It's like, here we go!
Right.
To the best place ever, right?
Yeah, my mom claims she wants to have a funeral when she passes away.
Not a funeral, but a funeral, because she's so excited.
Sounds like those antidepressants have yet to quite kick in, but all right.
Right, so yeah, so for them, it's like, you know, I mean, you tell your five-year-old you get to go to Disney World in the morning, they're like, they can't sleep this excited, right?
Mm-hmm.
And if you say, you know, a comet's going to hit the house in the morning, and they're like, well, great, we're going to the ultimate Disneyland that never ends called heaven.
So if they, you know, let's say they don't do the hell thing, but they give the heaven thing.
They're fundamentally changing what philosophers call metaphysics and what sane people call reality.
They're changing reality under your daughter's very feet.
Now she's got an eternal soul within her and she can live forever.
And now if you guys have to tell her that's not true, that's going to break her heart, right?
Right, right, right.
And then she's going to say, well, why did they tell me?
I mean, if your parents said, listen, you know, I don't know what her favorite thing would be, you know, but I don't know, like your very favorite toy, we're giving it to you for Christmas, and then she opened it up and the box was empty, she'd be really upset.
Right.
And so if the parents say...
Look, you get to live forever on a cloud with sing-alongs and nobody ever dies, nobody ever gets sick, and all your pets and, you know, like forever, grandparents, everyone's going to...
Right?
I mean, that changes her fundamental reality.
Now, the world beyond what she sees is the real world, and this is all just a fantasy.
This is all just a dream that she's going to wake up from and live forever.
And, I mean, kids really take that stuff seriously.
I mean, really take that stuff seriously.
And then if you all have to take that away...
I mean, that's going to be rough, right?
But even if they don't talk to her about this, it seems like to me that a prayer every meal, every time we go over there, they're pretty active grandparents.
My wife's parents are, at least.
And we were there at their house.
They cook all the time.
Well, she won't...
Look, your two-year-old won't know a prayer.
Yeah, but she will a few years from now.
She absolutely will.
And...
I don't know what you can tell her, but I can tell you what I would say, which, you know, may be useless as tits on a bull.
I don't know.
But I would say something like, look, this is some stuff they believe.
You know, they believe that there's a big ghost up there who watches but strangely doesn't interfere.
You know, when baby carriages roll downstairs, that would go into that.
But so, you know, they believe that there's a ghost.
You know, you can...
I mean, assuming you want to maintain a relationship with these people, which sounds, you know, grandparents can be great fun, then this is their belief.
Now, you close your eyes and you can mumble along, you know, we don't have to believe everything that everyone says, we don't have to agree with everyone on what they say, but this is their belief.
It's not my belief and here's why, but this is their belief.
And in my opinion, we can go over there, we can say stuff, doesn't really matter, doesn't change anything.
I would certainly resist, you know, full contact religion, like Sunday school, obviously, church and stuff like that because that's really – the problem with the religious stuff is that it's told to kids as if it's absolutely 100% totally true.
Now, that's not how – people don't call up me and talk like that.
They have debates.
But it's told to children like it's as true as the sun will rise tomorrow.
It's even more true because the sun might not rise tomorrow but Jesus and God will still be there.
Right.
And that's really disorienting because that's, you know, as soon as something that is not true that is essential and hugely important is told to your child as if it is true, then you're on a collision course with whoever told you that because it's not going to be healthy for you to allow your child to believe something that let's say is controversial.
It's not going to be good for you to, you lose authority then.
And whether you say it or not, your authority will be weakened.
If you let your child believe something is 100% true when let's just say it's at the very least debatable because you'll have to keep biting your mouth, your lips, right?
You'll have to keep biting your tongue and that's going to signal to your children that the grandparents are the real muscle in the family and you just kind of go along without asserting your own thoughts and feelings.
And, you know, I will do anything to resist the transfer of my authority to anyone else as a parent because it makes parenting so much more difficult if your children lose any respect for you.
And if your parents are like, it's 100% true and you've got to keep biting your lip, it doesn't really matter what the content is.
Your kids will get the power structure.
And they will also get that all you have to be is certain and more thoughtful people will give way.
And they will also get that you are acting with less integrity around people who are just kind of trumpeting their beliefs.
In other words, if you're kind of brazen and maybe even a little bit bullying, then you can get your way.
But if you're thoughtful, you have to give way to the people who are kind of bullies.
And there's a whole bunch of messages in there that you really don't want your kids to be getting.
And I would say the same thing if the situations were reversed.
Like, I mean, if you guys were religious and there were atheists around who didn't have any good reasons for what they were saying but just kind of rolled their eyes and – right?
I would say – I would be saying exactly the same thing.
It's not fundamentally about atheism versus religion.
It's about thinking versus dogmatism, which can be as much on the atheist side as it is – I mean, Lord, I'm an anarchist.
Try talking to atheists about the state and suddenly there are all kinds of fundamentalists, right?
So it's not about religion versus non-religion.
But you have to have the assertion as parents of not giving up on your beliefs because it's inconvenient to others, right?
Because that's going to teach them that being thoughtful, having doubts, being a skeptic means you get pushed around and you damn well shut up when other people say stuff that you disagree with.
And you don't want that...
Regardless of the content of that, you don't want that as a parent because, I mean, it's a lesson that kids drink deep very early.
Kids are always looking for who's got the power in relationships, and they will tend to conform and emulate whoever has the power.
And if it's not you guys, it's going to be someone else, and I think that's definitely going to be to your detriment.
I don't know.
Does this stuff make any sense?
Yeah, totally, totally.
Wait, totally to which one?
Going off on a tangent?
Yeah, yeah, it's making great sense.
Yeah, big help.
I guess that's good for now, man.
There's a million questions I have.
I'm going to be calling back a lot.
No, listen, we've got time for one more if it helps you because this is the last call we're doing.
Okay, so I mentioned my mom, not too active as a grandparent.
With my mom and my dad, they live right down the street.
I'm somewhat in business with my dad.
We share customers.
We have separate businesses, but we're around each other a lot.
The defilling...
Idea has been in my head for a while.
I've kind of done it without talking to them.
I told you I talked to my mom a couple months ago, kind of came out as an atheist.
She kind of, I didn't like her reaction, laughed at something I said, and then hasn't talked about it since.
You know, I told her the same things about, you know, me wanting to die as a kid or thinking that was, you know, the smart play, you know, this, that type stuff.
Yeah.
And we argued about the existence of a God, of course, which Jesus turns quickly to, well, there's got to be something, and that has anything to do with Christianity.
But anyways, I don't get anything from that relationship with my mom and my dad.
I don't enjoy being around them.
I'm constantly...
We're looking for excuses not to be.
Last Christmas, we just boycotted going over there just because it's the same outside of my mom and my dad.
It's cousins that I don't even know their names.
I don't even know their last names.
It's just people we see once a year that we live in the same city as, and we don't care to see each other every other day, so why would I care to be around you for Christmas?
I don't want my daughter to have to go to stuff like that either.
I was sick of going.
I never wanted to go as a kid.
I don't want to start this off with her dreading certain family environments.
I don't know if I owe my mom something.
She's not active as a grandparent.
Me and my wife dread it when she comes over.
She's in and out real quick.
How much is in Chicago?
It's almost like she's checking it off a list.
Something she needs to do.
Stop in and say, hey.
She's constantly telling my wife to send her pictures.
They live down the road.
Not even a mile away.
Not even a mile away.
I'd like to just disassociate without having that conversation.
I don't think...
The resentment I have towards her, I was spanked a couple of times as a kid.
Not that often.
I don't think it was that big of a deal.
I don't think I have any resentment for that.
But it's more so just the religious stuff, like what that did to me, what that did to my brain.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I do have a lot of resentment for that, so that's what I talked to her about.
She hasn't even said anything since then.
It didn't go anywhere.
I was on the verge of tears the whole time.
She just stared at me.
It was a pretty miserable conversation, but I don't know if she deserves for me to just peace out on her.
It's just a tough situation.
We live close by, but again, we don't see them all the time.
Me and my dad do share customers, so we see each other.
He's a laid-back, fun-loving dude who doesn't believe in any of that shit, but would never tell his wife that, which is completely weird.
You know, he said something to me about, man, why do you got to talk about that stuff with your mom?
You know, he just wants us, me and my brothers, to kind of just keep it on the low and, I guess, pretend that we believe in it, you know, make her comfortable.
Right.
Right.
So the only problem with the livid terror that you experienced as a child and the wanting to die...
Yeah.
Right.
I don't have a lot of sympathy for that perspective.
Yeah.
Like I just don't.
I mean it's like saying the only problem with the theft is reporting it or having a problem with it.
I mean does he know the fear that you experienced as a child?
My dad, I don't know.
I don't know if my mom told him that part of it.
I mean, I was a super happy kid growing up.
I was a really happy kid.
I had a great childhood.
I feel like nothing really to complain about outside of this invisible man that was going to throw me in a place for eternity.
Well, that's, you know, other than that, Mrs.
Lincoln, how did you enjoy the plays?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's sort of significant, right?
I mean, other than that, Mrs.
Onassis, how did you enjoy your trip to Dallas?
Right.
I mean, that's pretty significant, right?
Right.
You know, mine was I wanted to be a dog.
You wanted to be a dog?
I had that same thought, too.
Oh, man, are you kidding me?
When we moved to Canada and I stayed with an uncle, I hated going to school.
It was also boring.
I didn't know anyone there.
And I was doing my homework.
One of the few times I ever did homework in my life.
I was doing my homework.
And it was just boring stupid shit and I just didn't want to do it and all that.
And these guys, people we were staying with, they had a collie.
A collies are beautiful dogs.
I mean, basically you get covered in fur no matter what you do.
It's like standing in, just basically going into a giant fur vacuum ball void.
But But I'm doing this homework and I was just bored and I didn't want to do it.
I wanted to go outside and all that.
And I was just looking.
I think I was 11.
And I was 11.
And I was looking at this dog.
You know what this dog was doing?
Just lying in a puddle of sunlight.
You know, barely even bothering to breathe.
It's got its tongue hanging out on the linoleum.
Doesn't give a shit.
It's licking the floor.
It's licking the floor and it's got sunlight on its balls.
Yeah.
And it rolls a little bit back because, you know, you've got to get the two-ball sunlight action.
I mean, you're not just one.
I mean, you're all lopsided with heat, right?
Rolls on its back and sticks its ass in the sunlight.
Tongue flops down to the other side of the linoleum.
Doses there for a little while.
I'm doing my homework.
Gets up.
Eats a little bit out of the bowl, laps some water, goes back because the sunlight's moved a little bit, flops down.
I'm like, fuck me, that's the life.
Yeah.
That's, that's, oh my god.
I'm like, switch, I'm in.
You have the podcast.
I'm going to just get sunlight on my balls and have something to eat.
That was my thing.
You wanted to like, I was just like, man, that dog, that's, that's, you know, you wake up, you've got to go to school.
You've just got to find some sunlight and warm yourself up.
And then someone takes you for a walk, and you can take a dump on the road.
Fantastic.
Just fantastic.
Anyway, it's certainly been my hope to raise a child who would not want to change places with a pet, but that certainly was my situation.
So, no, I mean, but that's pretty significant stuff, right?
Because for you, again, not to use a $20 word, but it was kind of like existential, because...
Reality was not what you saw.
It was beyond.
It was above.
The real stuff you had to focus on was nothing that you could see or touch.
It was this other mind that permeates everything and this life is a dream from which you're going to awaken.
I remember that, like this burning eye of Sauron in my brain when I was a little kid about a god watching, judging, and anything I liked in this world I knew God didn't like.
Because I was being unfaithful to he who was supposed to be my true love.
I liked this Cliff Richard song called Power to All Our Friends or something like that.
It's a great song.
I love to sing along with it.
And suddenly I was like, oh shit.
No.
There's nothing about God in that song.
So that's bad.
I'm distracted.
I'm being unfaithful.
This burning eye.
Only look at me.
This stalker.
Only think of me.
I'm crawling up your legs.
I'm in your suit.
I'm in your books.
I should be in your brain.
Don't think of anything else.
And like, you know, that's kind of getting a little invasive there, Mr.
Ghost.
But so I remember that sense of no privacy.
NSA. People, I can't believe Christians are upset about the NSA. NSA, are you kidding me?
They can't look in your soul.
I mean, they can.
I got this thing on the news the other day.
You know, they're using low-flying helicopters to spy on your cell phones.
It's like, but you can hear them!
God comes in in very soft slippers in your brain!
Anyway.
So, I mean, that sense of no privacy, that sense of don't ever be distracted by things of this flesh, that sense of sexuality is against...
The divinity, because it's not of God, it's of the flesh.
Like, good food and comfort.
Like, you're just at war with yourself, at least that's what I remember.
Just this war all the time.
And constantly having to monitor yourself.
Because your thoughts wander, as they always do, right?
And especially when you're a teenager, maybe, I don't know, teenage girls, certainly for teenage boys, they don't wander far, but they wander.
And it's like, oh, that's bad.
You've got to constantly, like some people spray cats with water to get them, like you've got to get the God spray.
Oh my God, I'm not thinking, oh, I shouldn't say that.
Oh my goodness, I'm not thinking, get back to God, get back to God, right?
And your mind wanders, get back to God.
It's like it's exhausting, right?
Oh, I looked at someone with lust.
That's exactly the same as having slept with them.
Now I've got virtual STDs and God's got to clean up.
Yeah.
Right?
Oh, my God.
I laughed because somebody slipped in a movie.
Maybe that's cruel.
Bad.
Yeah.
Right?
I mean, just constant self-monitoring all the time and having to go against your natural instincts and – I shouldn't say urges.
That sounds really – urges.
It sounds really bad, you know, like – You know, urge to chew the head off cattle or, you know, nothing like that.
But just, you know, natural, you know, food, sex, biology, all that stuff.
It's just, man, it's tiring.
And that is the kind of stuff that can transfer, of course, from people who are really committed to the religious worldview.
That stuff transfers very, very quickly, particularly to little kids.
Because little kids see the world so close to the religious mindset.
You know, when you're a little kid...
You do have gods.
They're called parents.
Right?
They can do anything.
They can drive giant metal machines.
They can leap up three stairs at a time.
They can hold a note.
They're giants.
I mean, imagine your daughter's two, right?
You'd be the equivalent of like 30 feet tall.
Right?
And then we wonder why kids are susceptible to the idea of a god.
It's like, well, you're surrounded by a giant pantheon.
You might as well be in some ancient Greek Mythology, right?
And stuff happens.
You don't know what the hell's going on.
I mean, you and I at least know where food comes from.
Yeah.
Kids don't even know that.
They don't know, where does the toilet water go?
You know, like, they don't know anything.
And, you know, we have answers to everything.
I mean, we basically, to kids, we're, like, all-knowing and all-powerful.
I mean, when my daughter asks me something and I say, I don't know, she's like, no, really.
Push that part of your forehead that gives you an answer.
Just keep feeling around until you find that button.
Boink!
There you go.
She gets it now, but she kind of didn't believe me for a while.
She thought I was just holding out on her.
You say to a guy with money pouring out of his pockets, lend me a buck, and he's like, I'm broke.
I'm like, come on.
Really?
Kids, they're so susceptible to these ideas of all-powerful and all-knowing because they're just coming out of that phase.
And it's a way of sort of stretching that infancy almost out to eternity.
And so I really want to limit this stuff.
My daughter's met kids who, I mean, not religious particularly, but believe in things that, or say that they believe in things that just don't make any sense.
And so we'll talk about that and all that.
But I think she's pretty good with the skepticism and empiricism and stuff, right?
And actually, there was some kid at a playground we met once.
A kid says, I can see things that are invisible.
To which my daughter said, if they're invisible, you can't see them.
If you can see them, they're visible.
Like you just said something that doesn't make any sense.
So she's pretty good with that stuff.
But I really want to keep the, this is not the real world approach.
Away from her, because it kind of is, right?
I mean, there's not some sky ghosts and ether and heavens and angels.
I mean, they're fun stories.
And I think that there's some good morals in some of those stories.
But you can get the morals without the stories.
I can read an ancient Greek mythology about courage in the face of opposition.
It doesn't mean I have to then go and pretend that Zeus is real.
And so you can get some really great stuff out of that, but you have to, just to go back to my main point, If your child really respects you, and that doesn't mean, of course, that you're always right.
It means that you fess up and you're wrong and all of that.
But if your child really respects you, your job as a parent is so much easier.
You're just sailing with the wind at your back the whole time.
But if your child senses that you don't have integrity, that you'll kowtow to people whose beliefs you don't respect, that all this kind of stuff, I mean...
Parenting, like, suddenly the wind starts to turn, you know, and you're sailing against it, and you can still get there, but man, it's a lot of work.
Now, with regards to, you know, whether you see your parents or not, you know, it sounds like, I'm talking to Marshall, like, it sounds like your mom has, like, not given you much of anything positive, but it sounds like you have some value in your dad, right?
I mean, in that he's obviously more skeptical, and, you know, he's kind of willing to put up with your mom's stuff, and there's some business relationships there and so on.
Yeah, it would be pretty uncomfortable to tell him that I'd rather not see him at all.
And I don't know if that's the case.
Maybe Christmas once a year is okay, but I don't like him stopping by.
I don't care to shoot the shit for five minutes once a week.
But it's, I mean, given the, like, yeah, okay, so if it's five minutes once a week and Christmas, it's not a lot of bullets to take, right?
No, I don't guess.
And the reason I'm saying that is that if, because look, I mean, let's say, and, you know, listen to the first caller for more of my thoughts about this, although he was in a ridiculously extreme position relative to where you guys are.
Right.
But, so all the stuff about therapy and all that, I would certainly, you know, go listen to that, but if you were to say, look, I don't want to see my parents, right?
You're kind of pulling the pin on a grenade for people who live a mile away, right?
Right, so you may be in a manageable situation, and then to try and make it less manageable, sorry, to try and make it more manageable, you might end up making it a whole lot less manageable.
Yeah, yeah.
Because then, now you're really pushing it to brinksmanship, right?
Now people are going to get really upset, and then you might have a whole lot of intrusiveness.
Yeah, the play probably should just be how we're doing it, just pretty standoffish, not be the ones to initiate going out to dinner or doing anything like that.
They'll kind of get the point, and then We'll have to, you know, we'll discuss it from there.
But yeah, I don't think, I don't guess there's any reason for, I don't know, for me to have that talk with them.
Look, if your mom, I don't know, like latches onto your daughter at some point and starts, you know, breathing hellfire or heaven or whatever this nutty stuff is into her ear, then you may have a different situation.
But if you can keep things relatively civil and a kind of flyby thing, if you've got some resolution about it and it's not too intrusive, then it may be the best.
I don't know.
Again, I talk about it with a therapist, talk about it with your wife, of course, right?
But it may be like it's a manageable, mild annoyance, if that makes sense.
Yeah, that's probably what it is.
You know, whereas if you're like, you know, that's it, this family is, you know, done and you can't see your granddaughter anymore, you don't know what, you know, what's going to happen then, right?
What if your mom decides to move up the funeral?
I mean, who knows, right?
I mean, just making stuff up, right?
I don't mean to counsel like – I'm not saying betray your beliefs.
I'm not saying that at all, right?
Obviously, you need to – your beliefs are clear to yourself and you need to shield your daughter from all dogma, from any angle, right?
Because she's got to be – have the flexibility to think through things for herself.
So I'm not telling you to compromise anything that you believe in, but sometimes it's better the minor devil you know than mine.
Yeah, totally.
What did you say?
My wife wants me to...
Man, that's it.
We're good.
I don't want to...
There's another...
Somebody else waiting that's getting late.
I appreciate stuff.
It's incredible what you're doing, man.
We love it.
We love it.
Peaceful parenting on board.
This show has saved my life in the sense of looking at the world a completely different way, more positive.
I don't know.
It's a lot of fun, man.
Thanks for all you do.
Thank you guys so much.
And, you know, big virtual hugs and kisses out to you guys for what you're doing with your daughter.
If you don't mind me asking, how far along are you?
26 weeks.
How exciting.
Do you know the gender?
I don't, but he does.
All right.
So if you would order, say, sausages or eggs in the morning...
No, I'm just kidding.
So, well, that's fantastic.
I'm perfectly thrilled.
And I hear that it's, you know, not really much more work to have a second.
I'm just kidding.
Yeah, we were trying this go-around.
So, yeah, we're pretty excited.
My wife's awesome.
I think I'm doing an awesome job.
It's a lot of fun.
Fantastic.
Well, you know, there's two more...
Two more kids who've got some great parents, and that is absolute meat and drink to my heart.
So I hugely appreciate you guys calling in and sharing.
You've got lots of questions.
You're welcome to call back anytime.
And I guess drink lots of fluids and try and cut back on the stogies for the remaining couple of months.
And I'm sure you guys will be great.
So thanks so much for calling.
And thanks so much, everyone, of course, for calling and to support the show.
FDRurl.com slash donate.
This is what we do.
We've got the gateway drug of everything, and then we get to the peaceful parenting, which is everything.
And so this is what you do when you donate, when you help.
We get the message out to more people.
And you're $10 a month, you're $20 a month.
It could be 10 or 20 more kids who aren't getting hit.
If there's other ways you can make that happen, but I'm pretty sure that's how it's happening here.
So, I think that's fantastic stuff.
We are, you know, with my time and my deferred income and Mike's time and Stoyan's kidney, we are able to just get a whole lot more peaceful parenting going on this planet and critical thinking and all that kind of great stuff too.
So, I hope that you will help out the show and thanks everyone so much for giving me the trust and the opportunity to do what I do.
