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June 19, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
02:08:21
"I Am a Child Abuser - Please Help Me STOP!" Freedomain Call In
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Hi everybody Stefan Molyneux, I'm here with Kumar and I guess I think it's a very brave call and it's the kind of call I'd like to get more often because Kumar I think it's fair to say you're having some issues within your family and if you wanted to just read off the email that you sent me we can take it from there.
My family per se My immediate family, which is my kids and my mom, my wife, they are all good.
Problem is with me.
I am abusive with my kids.
I hit them a lot.
And I yell upon my wife and kids.
I just made up some stats that are on the ballpark of what I might have done over years.
I have a 10 year old daughter.
I might have hit her from her 3 year age through day before yesterday.
At least once a month.
Right.
And I keep yelling at her.
I know.
Is my accent okay, Stephen?
No, don't worry.
I can follow you perfectly.
Don't sweat it at all.
But I started listening to you about five years back when my wife was pregnant with my younger daughter.
I wanted to stop this before she came into life.
My younger one came into life.
When I followed you... I used to work a little far from my home.
I had time to listen to you.
And... I was... In my mind, I was almost set that I will not go back to that abusive times.
when we moved closer to my work and things got more involved I stopped listening to you for a while and I although I'm not very abusive with my younger one still my relation or my
Effect towards my older daughter has not drastically changed although it has reduced.
I have started listening to you from last six months.
But I'm not to the point where I want to be.
Right.
Was there a particular incident that prompted this email to me?
Day before yesterday I was working with my daughter, older daughter on math and we did about one and a half hour very well and I asked her to do 17 times 17.
I was trying to explain her square root.
I know it is over her age.
But I wanted to just give her concept so she can do the math quickly.
It was a subset of what we were doing for her math.
Excuse me.
I asked her to do 17 times 17.
She did 17 times 7 and she thought that's an answer.
She wrote, she was doing it on the paper and then I told her, you're missing 17 times 1 again.
Then she was bending on, leaning over the table and doing the math.
Instead of continuing it, she wanted to rub it.
Arise it.
Yeah.
And start over and which triggered me off and I hit her on her head.
Right.
And she striked her lip on the dining table and she started I mean it must have hurt her so much and it started bleeding and I was sitting there thinking it's just an accident.
and my my wife is very against it she was taking a nap and then she came and then of course I I usually have very guilt when I hit them over one or two days my heart is very heavy and I
I sit alone and think about it, do a rehearsal on myself that I will not do it again.
But that's not helping me.
I'm right back to where I don't want to be.
Right.
When you said that you thought of it as an accident after you had hit your daughter, what do you mean by that?
Just yesterday, a day before yesterday, I thought the bleeding was an accident.
I didn't mean to inflict that hurt, but I... I mean, I think I was just convincing myself.
Oh, so I see what you mean.
So you hit her.
You didn't mean to hit her hard enough, obviously.
So you hit her on the back of the head.
Was it her face or her lip that went into the edge of the table after you hit her?
Is that right?
Yes.
Right, okay.
So you didn't mean to hit her that hard.
But, I mean, that's the problem with this kind of violence, or any kind of violence, is it really is hard to manage.
It's hard to know what the consequences Yes.
And my wife keeps telling me that I do not have control when I hit.
hit her sort of at an angle, right?
If her face propelled forward into the table, you were hitting her fairly directly from the back of the head.
Is that fair to say?
Yes.
Right, right.
Okay.
And my wife keeps telling me that I do not have control when I hit.
And she also, she doesn't hit them, but she scares them, which is equally bad.
I keep telling her that I lose control in spur of a moment but you do it with conscience.
She doesn't hit but she goes around with a long spoon saying that I will hit you if you don't do it.
I keep telling her you are equally Your effect is equally bad as mine.
Right.
And you just have the two kids?
Yes.
Okay, okay.
And there's quite a gap.
Was it seven years?
Did I get that right?
No, five years.
Five years.
Or six years.
Six years, okay.
Okay, so listen, that's a heck of a thing to talk about and I really admire you for bringing this up and I'm hopeful, I'm very hopeful that we can get to the root of it and give you some freedom and hopefully work to start repairing your relationship with your daughter because you don't.
You don't want to be doing this, right?
I mean, you don't want this to even be on the list of things you could do, right?
I mean, it would be so much easier to have disagreements where you can have debates and discussions and learn things and, you know, it's... This is a heavy weight to carry, right?
Yes, sir.
Yeah.
Yeah, so good for you.
Okay.
So, the first question, well, you've listened to me for a while.
Any... Yes.
Any guesses as to the first question?
I know and I'm prepared to talk about it and I have not talked about it to anybody in my life.
Okay.
Well, I appreciate that.
I feel honored that you would talk about it with me.
So, what happened in your childhood and how were you raised and how were you disciplined?
I don't know where to start, but my first memory is We are from very conservative background and a very conservative country.
My dad used to work and my mom used to stay home for a while and then she started going to work and then she stopped.
I think she just worked for two years but when she stopped there was this guy coming to our home and it was just one kitchen and one room home that we were living in and they would lock themselves in the room where there is a bed and me and my sister used to be in the kitchen Doing homework.
That guy and my mom.
I think I was around 4 or 5 years old.
and they would, I'm sorry if I missed something, you said they would lock themselves into a room, but who's they?
That guy and my mom.
Oh.
I think I was around four or five years old.
That happened, I don't know how long, just a few weeks, but I vaguely remember Aya and my sister, my sister is two years older to me, We discussed about it that, I don't know what we discussed, but we finally thought we should tell this to my dad.
And we told it to my dad and even before all this, My mom was so... How should I say?
So intimidating.
She would inflict fear on us well in advance so we do not open up.
She used to hit us with hockey stick or anything.
We used to have bruises in the head, legs.
Hands.
And... Now that I think about it, she wanted to control us even before we open up.
Sorry, what do you mean by open up?
I mean, talk anything against her.
Ah, okay, okay.
That's what I think.
Now I... We told it...
I don't know if I told or my sister told or we both told my dad together and then we were not involved but there was some tussle in the family.
My mom's mom was involved and his brother was involved I think.
Tussle.
You said there was some, the word I got was castle, and I just want, I don't think that's what you meant, so can you just give me a bit more?
Tussle.
You said there was some...
Oh, tussle.
My apologies.
Okay, that was my side, not your accent.
Sorry, go ahead.
I think there was some patch-up in the family, and then that guy never came back, and then Right.
We were still okay, but there was so much silence, terror in the home that I never wanted to stay at home.
You became like a gypsy kid.
Oh, but we were not allowed to do that.
My mom was very disciplined.
Oh, but we were not allowed to do that.
My mom was very disciplined.
Even there were set times that we could stay outside, then we have to come do work at home.
I mean, homework and study at home.
Oh, right.
Okay.
And while she was around, well, it was not all the time like that, but when she hit her, the effect would be on us for about two, three days.
And it was terrifying for those three days or four days.
You mean the bruises and the pain?
No.
No, the feeling of terror or fear.
Yes.
That we will be hit again.
Right.
I mean, you're kind of trapped in an enclosed space where the violent predator almost like it's like falling into a lion cage at the zoo.
Yes.
And my sister was even more victim.
My mom, after we grew up, When we talked about it, she said that she would feel sympathy on me, but she would get more angry when she sees my sister crying.
And that's what I feel with my older one now.
Yes.
Yeah, I was going to say, like, you have more aggression towards your elder child than your younger.
Yes.
Right.
I cannot stand when she cries, but that's the feeling.
And I think our neighbors kind of realized that my mom was involved.
Then we moved from that location to some other location and where my school was a little further.
And I was very happy.
going to school and coming back that half an hour and one hour duration for the travel was very happy moments for me and after we moved my sister was in the ninth grade
and she skipped 9th grade and she was in 8th grade she skipped 9th grade and she was homeschooled to write a 10th grade which is a state test and she was sent to a tutor
close to the house and the tutor became close to my family and he was still a bachelor, I mean unmarried.
He used to come to our house for having lunch and dinner and I was forced to go and sleep At the tutor's apartment at night and study.
No.
He had his apartment, but he was not cooking.
I understand why you would not be, I mean, the tutor didn't sleep at your parents' house, did he?
No.
He had his apartment, but he was not cooking.
He was eating outside, so my parents offered him to eat at our home.
And he would come eat at our home.
So, in return, to show that he is favoring us, he talked them into sending me to sleep there at night so he would help me do better in my studies.
But why would you need to sleep there for...
If we are at home, I would probably sleep at 9 and if I'm there, I would sleep at 9.30 or 9.45.
there is like he can't cue to you while you're sleeping.
So I don't quite understand why you'd be sleeping at the Tudor Sands.
If we are at home, we would, I would probably sleep at nine.
And if I'm there, I would sleep at 9:30 or 9:45.
That gives another 45 minutes for him to watch me doing what I'm supposed to do is how he.
the portrait.
But were you far away from your parents' house?
No, it's just five minutes of work.
So, I mean, just, you know, help me understand here, and I'm sorry if I'm being very white and not getting this, but why not just send you back home after the tutoring is done?
I...
I don't know, there were a few other people staying.
Like me.
Yes.
And we would come back early in the morning, get ready and go to school.
No.
No, it is not.
Is it something culturally specific?
Because it seems like an odd arrangement to me, but if it's...
No, it is not.
That's the first time I have seen, for my age.
Okay.
And...
Did your father work during the day or at night?
- He has two shifts, but he will be back home by at least midnight.
- Ah, wait a minute. - But my sister stayed home with my mom, so nothing happened.
- Yeah, yeah. - Nothing happened.
I'm sure about it, but the reason I have to bring this is I saw my sister hugging the tutor.
Hugging or hugging?
Well, in our culture, that itself is... I mean, in private.
at the end of the world, right?
- Well, in our culture, that itself is, I mean, in private.
- Right, okay, okay, got it.
Do you think that the tutor was having an affair with your sister? - Not to the extent of sex, but he was, yeah, if there was an opportunity, maybe that would have been.
I saw that hugging and then while I was sleeping there one of the older kid abused me and I could not say it out.
Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that Kumar.
That's a terrible thing to hear.
Now, do you mean he molested you or sexually abused you?
Yes.
And what happened?
I could not say it out.
It happened a couple of times and I stayed away from him.
Of course, he was my classmate, but he was a few years older to me.
Right.
And how old were you at the time?
About 10 years.
And what happened?
What did he do?
He wanted me to hold his dick and he wanted to hold my dick and kiss me and that kind of thing.
Because there were few people in the room and the lights were off that's all he could get to do was Right.
Well, and this is the part that, and again, I just want to express my very deep sympathy for that.
It's a very difficult thing to go through, of course, but that's one of the reasons why you don't have your kids sleep over at strange men's houses, especially if you're out of control of the factors of the environment that your child is in, right?
Yes.
Yes.
I didn't have any relation with my mom.
Not the talking relation.
I had a good playing relation with my dad.
you could say, no, I'm not going back there.
This creepy guy wants me to touch his penis.
Yes.
I didn't have any relation with my mom.
Not the talking relation.
I had a good playing relation with my dad.
And they didn't have any relation either.
As long as I remember, they never slept in the same bed. - Yeah.
Do you know if your dad had any affairs?
No.
He's... I can bet on it.
He's not capable of it.
You mean emotionally or physically?
Emotionally.
He's very family oriented.
He loves us.
He used to spend time, he enjoyed spending time with us when he was at home.
Right.
Okay.
And when, sorry, when you saw, sorry to interrupt, when you saw the tutor kissing your sister, was this around the same time period?
Oh sorry, not kissing, hugging your sister.
Was this around the same time frame?
So she would have been around 12?
Yes.
Well, yeah, correct.
She went to tuition only for one year and this was that time when I was sleeping at his house and he was tutoring my sister.
And how long, Kumar, did you have to sleep at this tutor's house with this boy who was trying to molest you?
That guy joined towards the end.
So I slept there around one year.
But this guy was there for three months.
So three months you're going to sleep in this place with this grabby... No.
Well, I did not.
It happened only two times or three times and I didn't sleep anywhere close to him or Or he didn't continue coming at nights.
And to add on to that, shamefully, I have done the same thing to a little one.
little one.
Sorry, go ahead.
When I was 23 or 25, there was this my neighboring kid coming to our house.
I did the same thing to that little one.
Boy or girl?
Boy.
You mean the touching of penises and so on?
Yes.
And how long did that go on for?
Just two times.
And how did that, I mean it's a very risky thing to do of course, so how did you I thought he's little one so he wouldn't remember it when he was sleeping.
At ten to a year old.
judge that you could?
I thought he's a little one, so he wouldn't remember it when he was sleeping.
And how old was he?
Around 10 to 12 years old.
He was 10?
Yes.
Right, so the same age that you were when you were, okay.
He was my neighbor and I see him now, Well, not now, but not after moving to US, but after I started listening to you and after I had any guilt, I wanted to say sorry, but I could not get that courage.
And do you know how his life has turned out?
Oh, very well I suppose.
But we are not close to each other talking every day.
Right.
And what do you think it was that was I think guilt.
motivated you to do it.
I assume there's some repetition, compulsion, maybe based upon your own history.
But what was it that were you scared?
Did the desire to do this diminish?
Or why did you stop after you said just one or two times?
I think guilt.
Okay.
That you were harming him and it wasn't his fault.
Right.
Okay.
Or maybe because I did not want to continue and get exposed. - So sort of a combination of fear and guilt?
Yes.
Right.
And does anyone else know this?
No.
Nobody.
That's a hell of a thing to keep in your heart, right?
How would I tell anybody about myself?
Right.
Right.
This is...
And also, although I think my father is a victim, when I was 9 or 10 years old, he was holding my hand and letting it touch his dick.
When you were, say, nine or ten years old, this was your father?
Yes.
Oh, Kumar, I am... I'm very sorry.
I'm very sorry.
I know... I woke up from sleep.
He thought I was sleeping.
I know what was happening.
But I pretended as if I was not awake.
And from then I started having kind of hatred towards my mom because she did not give what my dad wanted.
Right.
- Oh, because they didn't have any sexual relations. - Right.
- Your perception was that your dad's sexuality got kind of warped, is that right?
- Yes.
He was still angry.
He was in 25s or less than 30s and they wouldn't sleep together.
They wouldn't... I have never seen my mom touching my dad.
Like not... Oh, not even a touch?
Not even a touch.
And progressively... I mean... She didn't even hug me as long as I remember.
Kumar, do you have any thoughts or ideas or evidence about anything that might have happened to your mother as a child?
As far as I think, she's from a wealthy family.
She's an anchor of nine kids and she was pampered very well and she did not go through any difficulties what I think.
It was a big joint family, there was no reason to think that a child would have been any difficult.
Well, I mean, I'm certainly not one to tell you about your country or your culture or anything like that, but I will say this.
I'm not going to say where I think you're from, but I have some idea.
And in my experience in talking with people from that culture, there's a lot of preying on children.
Correct.
lot of preying on children.
And I've even heard a statement which says something along the lines of, it's just anecdotal, so I don't know if it's true.
I don't have the statistics in front of me.
But I've heard statements such as, you know, a girl who grows to her mid-teens who's still a virgin must have no male relatives in the house.
You've heard the same?
Correct.
My wife doesn't allow my daughter to have sleepovers unless she's 100% sure that nothing would affect.
Right.
Yeah, and in my conversations with people from this area of the world that I think, it's, you know, just off the top of my head, whenever this topic comes up, it's about 100%.
in terms of what happened in your childhood and so on, right?
And so, obviously this doesn't diminish what happened to you, what may have happened to your father, and what you did to the boy, but it's not wildly outside the bounds of an average experience in some of these cultures, if that makes but it's not wildly outside the bounds of an average experience in
I do not know if that is any different in any other places in the world.
I don't, I don't either.
I don't either.
Because when I talk, when I listen to your shows, the people who get abused or who get involved in the Western world, It is acceptable to the society and it's open.
Of course there is this child abusing and illegal act.
Legally it is not open so they probably do not come out.
- Oh, so there's more visibility where there's more chance to talk about it, is that what you mean?
- Yes.
- Yeah, yeah, okay. - And we do not have a culture of dating. - Right, right.
We did not grow up spending private time with an opposite sex.
Look, I don't know where I'm going with this.
Oh, no, no, that's, and I mean, I'm aware of that.
I mean, I even knew one young man who's, well, he wasn't that young, I suppose, at the time, but he had not married, and his parents were so concerned that they took an ad out in a newspaper to try and find him.
That is very true, and it is not uncommon.
Right.
In U.S., and the Western world we have dating sites and in our culture we have matrimonial sites.
My mom was a very cool person.
Right.
Right.
Do you know why your parents didn't have any physical affection?
I don't just mean sex, but just physical affection.
My mom was a very cold person.
I think before her affair, they were okay.
And after that, after it broke out, it came in.
How do I say?
After it was revealed or?
Revealed.
Yeah.
I think she didn't want to...
She didn't have the same feeling.
I don't know.
Or my dad didn't have the same feeling.
They never tried to talk and patch it up.
Yeah, this talking it through thing is not universal around the world at all.
A lot of times it's just sweep it under the rug and make sure nobody knows and walk on like it never happened and put it behind you and all this stuff.
That is very true.
Doesn't tend to work out very well.
That's what I don't like about my culture.
Now, where did you meet your wife?
Again, the same thing.
Matrimonial side.
Of course, we are from the same caste.
Maybe very very very distinctly distinct relatives.
My family didn't know their family but I found her attractive in the picture and I told my parents that they can perceive the match and they spoke to her parents and then I visited India, looked at her
We spent a couple of hours talking and she liked me and I liked her in those just two hours.
I... And then we were engaged next week and married next week.
And, I mean, for a lot of people in the West, of course, that's quite shocking.
Now, I will say this, though.
I mean, some of the, you know, whether the happiness is there or not, some of the longevity of these marriages is quite similar to arranged marriages versus marriages that, in sort of the Western tradition, you choose based upon your romantic interests.
And that is, of course, extraordinarily rapid for a lot of people.
But at the same time, while that's one extreme, the other extreme is the sort of stuff that goes on in the West, where it's like, well, I dated this guy for three years, and then I dated this guy for two years, and then I hit 35, and I panicked, and I, you know, like, somewhere in the middle, I think, is sort of a sweet spot, if that makes sense.
Until I started listening to your calling shows, I was kind of, how can people have an More than one partner in the life.
Right, right.
It was my feeling, but although I don't know if I loved my wife or if I loved anybody in my life.
Every relation I have, I felt like it's just a transaction.
Except for my niece.
And my kids.
Just a transaction, that's very interesting.
It's very interesting the way that you put that.
What do you mean?
Like we are living together and the relation has to go on but inside my heart I don't, I feel like I don't know what love means.
So is it sort of like we divide labor in this way and we contribute in this way, but it's sort of like a little business?
Is that what you mean?
Yes.
After analyzing this, after your calls, I feel I have that because my mom never hugged me.
Well, it's not just that.
It's not.
Because if she beat you, With a hockey stick, which is an interesting reference to your childhood, but if she beat you with a hockey stick, if she'd hugged you, it might have even made it worse, right?
Because then you associate affection with violence.
At least this way you don't associate affection with violence, if that makes sense.
Feel free to disagree with me if I'm saying things that don't match your experience.
You know, I'm here for you, Kumar, not for my own theory, so feel free to disagree with me if I'm going astray.
I think I have good memories with my dad hugging me, playing with me, except for that incident.
I have no complaints.
Well, that's the incident you know of, right?
Because that's the one you were awake for?
I would have been awake, I would say.
I don't want to make you freak out or anything, but there theoretically could have been others that you weren't awake for, right?
I would have been awake, I would say, unless I was so little that I don't know what was happening.
So you said you had good playtime with your dad and hoax with your dad.
So he was more, obviously, I would say more physically affectionate because your mom wasn't at all, but he was affectionate.
Right.
Right.
And this was with you and your sister as well?
Yes.
Okay.
Now, after these many years, my mom and my sister are close, and I and my dad are closed.
I talk to my dad almost every other day.
And also, to make it worse, My dad is so simple person.
He would do anything that comes into his mind like helping others.
He doesn't think one and do another thing.
Right.
He was very open even with any damn, any, what is that?
Every other person, even he doesn't know.
Dick and Harry, what do you say?
Tom, Dick and Harry.
My mom used to be mad at him to talk openly to everybody where it is not necessary and he would help everybody and he's She thought that he is being vulnerable.
Right.
And everybody used to take him for a ride or use him.
Right.
And that would reduce the dignity of the family.
While she didn't have the value.
Unwise.
I think she may think dumb.
Sorry, you said he said as a sort of simple man.
Did she think that that was just kind of unwise or did she think he was dumb about it?
I think she may think dumb.
Right.
Because he would not think what not to do or what to do.
One and a half year.
We did not live together.
- Well, you said you got, you matched, you got engaged the next week, you got married the week after that.
And how long were you married before your first daughter came along? - One and a half year.
We did not live together.
She was still in India and I wasn't, sorry.
Oh, that's fine.
I'll change it.
I was in the U.S.
and it took a while for her to come and she was at a different place and I was at a different place even in the U.S.
and when we got together she conceived in 2-3 months and we were still thinking that it was an accident Sorry, what do you mean you thought it was an accident?
that she got conceived, we did not take precaution or we were not planning for a baby.
But you weren't, if you weren't using birth control, it's not really an accident then, is it?
We would use birth control every time but once.
We were not prepared for it, but we were okay with it.
I don't need to tell you these statistics, right?
Yeah.
Right.
We were not prepared for it, but we were okay with it.
I had a discussion with one of my so-called sisters.
She is not a relative sister, but I would call her sister.
She said... She talked about my age and her age and it's the right time and she said, you have to go ahead.
And after my older one came into life, that was the very happiest moment of my life, first time ever experienced.
Okay, good, good.
Now, so this is the part, and I appreciate all of this background, and I appreciate you sharing some, obviously, very, very difficult information.
but...
So this moment when your daughter is born, right?
You're holding her in that little baby burrito and she's got the little hat on and the dewy eyes are glistening and looking up at your face and she's gurgling in her toothless way.
That is a wonderful moment and it's a moment where you think like this Castle wall protector arises within you and you feel, I would do battle with the entire world to keep harm from this child's door, right?
You want to protect, you want to nurture and you feel your heart overflowing with love.
And that, the transition, right?
That's what I want to ask about in particular, Kumar, is this transition between that moment And the first time you remember getting really angry or impatient or yelling or hitting her.
You don't think it's possible when you first hold her.
Like, oh, I'd do anything to protect my child, fight battles, I'd bring down dragons with my bare teeth.
And then at some point you get so angry, you yell, you hit.
So do you remember how long it took before you began to... Three years.
Three years, you said, began to really lose your patience.
Well, I still remember one time I kind of, not a hit hit, but little snap or I don't know what.
I still call it as a subset of a hit.
Right.
What they call a swat.
Something called a swat, right?
Okay.
That was when she could see and hear me.
And she was walking.
I remember one time doing that, and after that... Wait, wait.
Sorry.
You could see... She could see and hear you.
Was she ignoring you, or did you feel that way?
No, I mean... I mean... She would know that I was... hitting her.
Or she would realize that I am hitting her.
I'm sorry, I don't follow.
Can you just give me a run at that again?
I don't know the instance, but I'll just make it up.
Let's say I do not want her to jump from the couch.
And I tell her a few times not to do it.
And she's still doing it and I go and hit her on her leg and say, I told you to stop it.
- Oh, I hear that tone.
Now I don't want to jump for the couch.
- Okay. - Kidding, all right. - That's probably around when she was two.
Right.
But very distinct incident that I remember and was very aggravating was, I have to give a little preface about this.
My wife is very
good at what she wants to feed kids the healthy food and not only the quality but quantity she wants to feed more and in in our culture I don't know if you have seen moms go behind the kids and kids are roaming all around the house moms go feeding them with their hands
And the feeding process will take about an hour for every meal.
And that's because the moms are feeding the children with their hands, the mom's hands?
Yes, and every damn mom in our culture feels that kids are underfed.
Right.
And this was very annoying to me.
Kids keep crying.
They say, I do not want it.
And mom keeps either telling stories or scolding them or yelling at them.
So the kids say, I'm full.
I don't want any more.
And the moms are like, eat more, eat more.
Yes.
They distract and feed.
They yell and feed.
They hit and feed.
I mean, my wife did not hit them, but
she would yell sometimes and I particularly remember one instant they were in the kitchen and this process was going on and she came to my rescue my daughter came to my rescue and and I was annoyed enough that as soon as she came to to hug me or to have rescue I hit her on her On her cheek.
Yes.
On her cheek.
Because I was... She wanted to get away from her mom so she doesn't have to eat.
Yes.
Right.
I missed that.
She wanted to get away from her mom so she doesn't have to eat.
Oh, so she came to you basically saying or like protect me from more food.
Yes, right.
Okay, so what happened in that moment?
So what happened in that moment where you wanted to hit her or you did hit her?
I think I was taking my wife's anger on my wife on her, saying, I may be thinking, just eat, why are you saying that?
No, but you agreed with your daughter.
Yeah, but I think, I don't know.
Oh no, you know.
You've listened to this show for a while, Kumar.
You don't get to pull the, I don't know, right?
You know, right?
That's a right question to answer myself.
stand with your daughter against what your wife wants? - Oh, that's the right question to answer myself.
She would say that you don't know, you keep quiet. - Okay, and if you say, "Well, no, I'm not gonna keep quiet.
"This is my child, this is my family.
"I'm the father, you're the mother.
"Let's have a discussion about this." Now, you may say, we'll have a discussion about it tonight, like not in front of the kids or whatever, and then what you do is you look up and you say, okay, well, how many calories a day do children need and how many calories a day are we feeding them?
And you would come up with some rational basis by which, because, you know, I understand in certain parts of the world being skinny is considered to be very lower class, right?
Because food is scarce and therefore to be skinny means to be poor, right?
It's not only that I don't know, but I will.
In my culture or in my family's.
I don't know what is in this mother's heads.
They spend so much in feeding and cooking.
Of course, cooking is good.
They spend so much in feeding and I was against her to start with.
You mean too much feeding?
Too much feeding and too much time spent on feeding.
Okay, so but what happened out of that conversation, right?
Like what happened out of your disagreement?
She would disagree with me and she would do the same thing every day.
But did she say your opinions don't matter or you're wrong or would she agree with you and then just do what she wanted to anyway?
Like how would that resolve when you had a disagreement?
That you do not understand moms.
She would say you will not understand moms.
The kids will wake up at night crying.
They will be hungry again.
So logically, the logical answer to that, your wife comes to you and says, you say you're feeding them too much, and then she comes to you and says, you don't understand moms, therefore I get my way.
Well, the logical answer to that, of course, is well, then you don't understand dads, therefore I get my way, and you should feed them.
That's not an argument, right?
You don't understand moms, therefore I get my way.
Well, you can just say the same thing about dads.
It never happened.
She would still disagree.
So what are the consequences of standing up to your wife and disagreeing with her in a way that is more assertive, right?
What happens then?
What's she going to do?
It never happened.
No, I know, I know.
But the reason why it didn't happen is you have how it...
She would still disagree.
I mean, how else...
She's the primary to...
Okay, let's do it this way, let's do it this way.
You pretend to be your wife, just so I can understand how this conversation would go, right?
So just pretend to be your wife, she's overfeeding, right?
And I would say, let's say the kids are in bed or whatever, and I'd say, listen, this is not, you know, this is, you spend half your day cooking, we spend an hour at every meal, and you're putting kids, you're putting food in the kid's mouth that they don't want and they don't need.
So, let's have a conversation about how things might change a little bit, just so that we don't spend quite so much time, and it's also not really good for your relationship with the kids, and they're uncomfortable, they've had too much to eat, and let's just have a discussion about this.
And what would you say?
You don't know.
They are just playing.
They don't know what their tummy wants.
They are just avoiding food because they don't like this good food.
Well, but there's...
If I don't feed them...
Sorry, go ahead.
If I don't feed them, they will be hungry in next hour, and then they want some liquid, some milk or something.
And if their tummy is not full, they will be hungry, and they don't know how to ask, and they will all be depressed. - Yeah.
Wow, that's quite a disaster scenario you've got going on there, honey, right?
So, what you're saying is that if you don't stuff them full of food beyond what is comfortable for them, they'll be hungry in an hour, they won't know how to ask, they'll awake at night hungry and they'll be depressed.
Is that right?
They will wake up at night and then we have to give them milk which is not good to give them milk in the midnight.
Why is it not good to give them milk in the midnight?
Because doctors talk.
After a certain age it's not good to feed them after midnight.
Okay, so, but there are objective calorie requirements.
I mean, we're not guessing here.
This isn't witchcraft, right?
That is the reason I'm telling that we have to feed them before they go to sleep.
No, but children can sleep through the night, you know, after their babies and toddlers.
They can sleep through the night without needing to eat.
Like, that's a scientific fact.
That is known for sure.
They don't wake up starving.
They don't eat their pillow.
They don't chew on their own arms.
They, you know, they can make it for 10 hours without eating.
If I do not feed them enough before they go to sleep, they will not even...
Go to sleep, because they will be hungry.
And they will be all... They will not be in a sound mind.
Well, but you understand the physiology of this stuff, right?
So, if you feed the baby too much, right?
If you feed a child too much, or an adult for that matter, if you feed an adult too much, then what happens is the belly or the stomach stretches right out.
It becomes bigger.
And then, if you cut back on food, it takes... This is why people gain weight a lot of times, right?
So you eat too much, your stomach gets bigger, it stretches out, and then you feel hungry even when you just have a normal meal, right?
So, it may take a little bit of adjustment.
You are saying that I'm feeding more, but it is not more.
Look at the next door kid.
He eats so much.
And while we were kids, our mom used to feed us so much and I'm not even doing a quarter of what other kids eat.
Well, I don't know how a fat kid next door has anything to do with how we're feeding our kids, right?
Because that's not my child.
I'm not his parent.
So we're just trying to deal with what's going on in our family.
And there are objective requirements for how much food children eat, need, right?
And if we are exceeding that, it's going to make them uncomfortable.
And I think that overfeeding them is going to make their stomachs stretch.
They may get hungry in the middle of the night for a couple of nights while their stomachs readjust.
But wouldn't you like to have more to do than just putting food in your children's mouths and fighting with them every single meal, every single day, fighting with them to eat more?
Do you not think that the human body kind of has some idea when it's full?
To have more time with them, to have their growth well, I feel they have to eat what I feed them.
But why do they have to eat what you feed them?
I don't understand that.
Do they have no say when they're full?
I don't understand.
Because they don't know.
They are just kids.
I'm the mom.
I know how much they should eat.
Well, I don't know that you do.
Because I don't know that you've researched the calorie requirements.
I don't think you even know how many calories a day you're putting into their mouths.
So, I don't think you do know, scientifically and objectively, which is kind of how you should run decisions like this, right?
You are the dad.
I am the mom.
I know better.
I spend more time with them.
Well, you don't know better than science, my dear, right?
So we do have objective calorie requirements and we should have some idea how many calories a day we're putting into our children.
Because it's not healthy for them, you understand, like it's not healthy for them to overeat, right?
And I don't know for sure what their exact calorie requirements should be, I don't know exactly how many calories, but you do understand it is not healthy for them to overeat.
Now whether they are overeating or not, I'm not entirely sure, but I do have a concern when every single meal They're fighting and upset and sometimes crying and they don't want to eat and they're running to me for protection.
That's not right.
That can't be right.
We will stop the play here.
Me being in your place, while I'm talking to my wife, after two Exchange of two sentences.
I cannot be as peaceful as you are.
- Oh, you just get mad? - Yes.
- Right, and so, oh, so you get mad, you don't wanna yell at her, you don't wanna hit her, and so you just-- - No, I yell at her.
- Oh, you yell at her, okay, so what would you say to her in this role play?
We don't have to reverse it, but what would you say?
Let me have a taste of your anger.
I mean, I can handle it, right?
So tell me how you would say to her in this kind of, how would you relate to her in this kind of disagreement?
You don't know how you...
I raise my voice and shout, you stop doing that.
You are hurting kids and they do not want to eat and you don't have brains that you listen to kids.
You overfeed her.
You overfeed kids.
And I sometimes, I think I say names too.
You don't have brains.
You cannot think.
You're dumb.
said you stop, right?
You got very, and then you kind of pulled it back, maybe for my benefit.
But don't worry, I'm not the leading tower of Pisa.
I'm not going to fall over.
So tell me the kind of the strongest that you would get with her.
And you can use the names.
I just want to get a sense of what's going on in the household.
You do not have, you don't have brains.
You cannot think.
You're dumb.
You don't listen to me.
And then I think I will just walk out.
work.
Do you use stronger names than dumb?
No.
But my intensity or my shout is so annoying.
I mean, not annoying, but so terrifying.
Of course, she's aggressive enough and she's courageous.
She would confront me.
She would not agree what she believes.
She will not agree to what I say if she believes strongly on what she thinks.
Right.
But in some instances, if I am peaceful and we talk it out, she's very understanding.
Right.
Right.
And I do not have that patience to do it.
Well, no, but it's not, it's not patience.
It's not patience.
No, it's not.
No, it's not.
It's not a patience.
It's a lack of love.
It's a lack of love.
And I'll tell you what I mean by that.
Okay.
And when I analyze this, I have never seen my mom and dad talking to each other or discussing anything.
Right, I know, I understand that.
But let me sort of what I... say what I mean.
I mean, sorry, let me explain what I mean by lack of love.
So your goal would be to stop your children having a miserable time at meals, right?
Yes.
So when you raise your voice, you yell at your wife, you call her dumb, you are not achieving the goal that you want to achieve With regards to your children, right?
In other words, you're indulging your own temper rather than focusing on what's best for your children, right?
Now, if you loved your children more consistently, I know you do, right?
If you loved your children more consistently, you would bite back your own temper saying, it's not about what annoys me, it's about what my children need.
And what my children need is less fighting, less food, and so on, right?
Yes.
When I put it that way, does that change anything in your mind?
I cannot internalize it.
What do you mean?
Well... The... At that moment, this would even not occur to me.
No, no, no.
I don't mean in the moment.
I mean now, right?
So if your focus is on making a better environment for your children at mealtimes and therefore by extension a better environment for your wife and for you, right?
So that mealtimes are more fun and they're less... Because I imagine this is a pretty constant battle, right?
Between your kids and your wife and you get frustrated and so on.
Not anymore.
After my second was born, she was so adamant She didn't, she did not fall for this and then we both used to have our smile times when we were going against, we were winning our way.
You mean, you understand what I mean?
I don't quite follow.
Can you try again?
My younger daughter doesn't comply to get fed.
So she just says no uh-uh right?
No that's right and by that time my wife got little bagged out because I have been trying so many years or maybe she has a better understanding or she did not For whatever reason, she did not force as much.
And I and my younger one smiled behind my wife, thinking that we got our way out.
- Boy, that's gotta be kind of frustrating for your older kid, though. - Well, by now, she was eating herself well.
She didn't need anybody to feed, and again, to adverse effect, she was eating more. - Hmm.
And she became lazy.
What do you mean?
She's a little overweight too, how she needs to be.
Your eldest?
Yes.
Not so much but she if we call her to do something she will not come right away.
She is kind of lazy and slow moving kind and not only for the things that we want her to do even for the things that she wants to let's say she wanted to go out and we have 10 minute window To get ready and to be in the car.
We will all be in the car but she will still be doing packing up things or doing her own way and even that annoys me and we of course I do not hit her but I yell at her for not being on time.
And what do you say to her?
At the top of the voice, I would say, why do you have to get everything now?
Why don't you pre-plan?
What is it taking so long for you?
Why can't you cut down on some things and come on time?
And of course, this doesn't solve the problem, right?
Correct.
And it never solved.
Well, even the fights with your wife about food didn't solve it.
You just had to wait until you had some very strong-willed younger sibling and your wife was kind of half broken by years of fighting with your eldest and with you to the point where it's like, fine, okay, I won't stuff you full of food, right?
Right.
So you said about your eldest daughter, Kumar, you were talking about how you perceive her to be lazy, is that right?
Yes.
Alright, alright, alright.
Now that's a problem.
That's a problem word, right?
Because you raised her.
So if she has bad habits, and you distance yourself from those habits, and you make her wrong, and you right, That's kind of like me making a painting and then saying, that painting's ugly and I had nothing to do with it, right?
I'm not taking away my involvement, but I blame it on my wife more than me.
You chose your wife and you also chose to not stand up for your eldest daughter with regards to your wife, right?
So when your eldest daughter came to you to save her from overfeeding by your wife, you hit her.
You don't get to blame your wife because she's the woman you chose to be the mother of your children and you were involved and choosing not to be involved doesn't escape that equation, right?
So you were involved over the last ten years of your daughter being raised, right?
So you can't put things just on your wife.
You chose her, you chose to get married to her, you chose to have children with her, and you chose to let her have her way with your daughter.
And you say that your daughter is, quote, lazy?
Weren't you kind of lazy in standing up for your daughter?
or frightened or wanting to keep the peace or what?
I mean, tell me if I'm wrong.
I mean, that's what I'm saying. - No, you're right, but I keep fighting with my wife.
No.
Every day, both of them come from school and office, throw their bags, and don't put them where they belong.
Even my wife does it.
Well, I'm not blaming, of course I'm blaming my daughter.
I keep telling her that you look at me, I do not just come and fall on the couch.
I put my shoes where they belong, the box where I belong.
Can you do that?
I made her to write those steps and put it on the wall so she reads it and does it every day.
But it doesn't change anything, right?
Correct.
Right, okay.
So the first thing, right, so the first thing that you need to realize, and I'm sorry to be annoying, this is a terrible way to put it, but I'm gonna go ahead anyway, but if you're doing something that isn't working, And you keep doing it, it's because of some other reason, right?
So what you're doing with your wife, what you're doing with your daughter, it doesn't work.
It doesn't get you what you want, right?
Correct.
So I think your approach is, well, I say what I want.
If I don't get what I want, I just say it louder.
Correct.
I punish, I try to control, and it doesn't get you what you want, right?
Yes.
Right.
So then my question is, why do you keep doing something that isn't working, right?
You listen to this show, so you're a very intelligent man, I've no doubt about that.
So the question is, why don't you change what you're doing, right?
Because you're saying, my daughter doesn't learn, right?
She doesn't learn, she doesn't change her behavior, right?
But you're the one who's modeling, not learning and not changing your behavior.
That's why it's always kind of odd to me when parents say, I keep doing the same thing that doesn't work and I get mad at my children because they don't change.
That is the reason I tried giving her incentive for doing it and giving it sheet to follow the steps.
Yes, but that didn't work either.
Yeah, I did not stick to just yelling.
I changed my course.
I get that.
But you have an answer about why your daughter does what she does which is insulting to her and excusing of your behavior because you said to me she's lazy.
But you understand that's an insult to her and a perfect excuse for you.
Hey, I just have a lazy kid.
I just have a lazy daughter.
What can I do, right?
Yes.
But the question is, why does she do what she does?
Why does she do what she do?
Sorry, I should know this, I speak English.
Why does she keep having the same behaviors that drive you crazy, right?
Because you're both locked in this no change pattern, right?
She comes home, she throws her shoes anywhere, you get mad about it, you try incentives, you try yelling, you try punishment, you try whatever, right?
And then she comes home the next day and she just, right?
Just throws her shoes wherever, right?
So, you're the one who has to change, right?
Now, I don't mean change like, okay, forget it, I'm not gonna have any standards about where shoes go.
I mean, that's not, right, that's not reasonable either, because then there's no relationship if you just give up on standards or you just dominate her with your standards, right?
There has to be an agreement on reasonable behavior in the household, right?
Because once you get someone's agreement, you're 95% of the way to solving the conflict.
Right?
But my question is, why does your daughter throw her shoes?
We'll get to your wife in a second.
But why does your daughter throw her shoes and why, even when it's somewhere she wants to go, is she late getting in the car?
Now, you can just come up with some magic spell called, she's lazy.
But that doesn't add any knowledge.
That's a conclusion, right?
And again, it's insulting to your daughter and it excuses you.
But that doesn't give you any knowledge as to why she's doing what she's doing, right?
So why do you think she's always late to get in the car?
She has to, she wants to be perfect.
She wants to pack things well.
She makes a few things at the last minute.
She comes out and she forgets something and she runs inside.
Okay.
Why does she not plan ahead?
Now, okay, she's 10, right?
So there's a reason why she's not out and, you know, working as a bike courier, because she's only 10, right?
So she's only halfway to brain maturation, right?
So her brain is going to mature in more than 10 years, right?
So you can't expect her to have adult standards of responsibility, right?
So she's going to be forgetful.
But why is it I understand your question, but I do not know the answer.
what it does to other people.
So she has an intention.
She's trying to communicate something to you with her behavior.
Everything that happens in a family is a form of communication, whether it's explicit, like we're talking right now, or it's implicit, like someone is always late for something or just throws their shoes wherever.
She's trying to tell you something.
I understand your question, but I do not know the answer.
I'm thinking through it and I'm trying to analyze, but... - Okay, I'll tell you. - I cannot.
- Yeah, so this is, and so it's a, It's a hard thing to do.
So please, if it was my family, you'd be telling me.
So it's a hard thing to do.
But here's the reality.
If you want to know why someone's doing something, particularly a child, look at the feelings that your child's behavior evokes within you, right?
And that's most likely what the child feels but can't express.
So when you're sitting in the car, what do you feel?
I mean, there's frustration and so on, but what's the belief deep down about what your daughter is doing?
That she can avoid few things, but she still continue doing it.
No, that's not really a feeling.
So what does it mean about you, Kumar, that She's late all the time.
Does she care about your feelings when she's late? - The only thing she knows that I yell.
Yeah, so she knows it's upsetting to you if she's late, right?
Correct.
So she doesn't care that her behavior is upsetting to you, right?
I mean, something like this has got to be going on in your head, right?
- If she cared about me, she wouldn't behave in a way that she knows is annoying to me, right?
Especially when it's repetitive.
It's the first time, maybe, okay, right?
Sorry, you've got a scratchy noise going on if you could try and just be a little bit still.
So, you're sitting in the car and you're like, oh my gosh, she's late again, right?
Yes.
Now, if she cared about your feelings, wouldn't she be on time?
Wouldn't she say, well, you know, it really bothers my dad and it is kind of inconsiderate, so I'll work to be more thoughtful about how he feels and I'll work to be earlier, right?
Right.
Okay.
So you probably have a script going on in your head.
If she cared about me, she wouldn't be doing this.
If she cared about the family, if she cared that we had a good time.
Because, you know, if you're going on some little trip and there's yelling at the beginning, doesn't it kind of spoil the trip for a while?
Oh, sure.
It does.
So... Yeah, go ahead.
Even before my daughter, my wife is always late.
Right.
And my wife keeps telling these stories to people, saying that when we were first married, I did not give her enough time to get ready.
When she came from work, I used to take her to the places, but I used to give her only few minutes to get ready.
And she would, because that was a new marriage, She was scared to offend me, and she was stressful enough that she used to cry in the bathroom with the stress that she has to get ready in the short span.
If she doesn't, then I'll get upset.
Well, look, some of this is just male-female stuff, right?
I mean, I don't know what women do to get ready, but it's quite a lot.
And as a man, I don't know if you've got a full head of hair, I don't, so for me it's even easier, right?
Just a little bowl and bowl wax and I'm on my way, right?
So I can get ready in about 5 or 10 minutes.
But for women, it's a different time frame, it's a different time scale.
I mean, men can get mad at it if they want, but it doesn't really change anything, right?
Right.
I don't know why I brought this.
Maybe I'm trying to see the pattern.
Or maybe I don't give enough time.
Well, no.
See, I think that there's something deeper here too, which is this.
If she's being inconsiderate, and she is, right?
I mean, if there's something that annoys the other person, right?
If you and I are friends, right?
Excuse me, when you said she is that wife... My apologies, yeah, your daughter.
We'll just start with your daughter, right?
So if she keeps doing something that she knows is annoying to you, that's inconsiderate, right?
Yes.
But the question is, who modeled being inconsiderate To your daughter.
First.
Because your daughter is a reflection of what you and your wife have done.
I mean, there's genetic parts to the personality, and I understand all of that, but in terms of, oh, I have a problem with my child's behavior, the first question is, how does her behavior make me feel, and have my wife and I ever acted in a way that would make my daughter feel that way?
In other words, have you and or your wife ever acted against what your daughter wanted over and over again?
And you just gave me the example of the food, right?
Yes.
So with your wife, with the food, the modeling with your daughter was, I do it my way and I don't care about your preferences.
I will override your preferences according to my Preferences, right?
Correct.
Sorry, that's a lot of banging going on back there, man.
Sorry, Stephen.
I'm a little anxious.
I will run back to the restroom.
Thank you.
I just thought it could be post-processing otherwise.
Okay, so with regards to the food, and I'm sure that there were other issues as well.
Stephen, I said I'll Quickly run to the restroom and come back.
Oh, okay.
Sure.
Do you want yeah, just leave leave it open and I'll I'll just wait my apologies Sorry, I thought you had to go to another room.
Go ahead.
I'm back.
Oh sure.
Okay.
All right So I'll just I'll just repeat right the statement, right?
So you're sitting in the car feeling helpless and frustrated because your daughter's preferences are in opposition to your preferences and she doesn't seem to care, right?
She's just following her own preferences against yours.
So then when I feel that in life, I sort of look and say, okay, well, especially with regards to a child, did I act when she was younger such that my preferences overrode her preferences?
And Now, with regards to your wife and feeding, that's right, your wife had this compulsion to feed your daughter and your daughter didn't have any say in it, right?
And when she came to you for protection, you hit her, right?
Right.
So, I guess my question is, who the hell are you to say to your daughter You should prefer my preferences over your own preferences when, to some degree, you and your wife have modeled you prefer your preferences over your daughter's preferences.
She's just doing back to you what you did to her, right?
Right.
And that's what I mean.
So when you come up with a word like, oh, she's lazy, right?
You're taking yourself out of the equation.
I don't know, maybe she is, but I mean, in terms of like, that would be the last place to go after everything else has been dealt with, right?
She would have a preference to not get hit on the back of the head and bloody her lip on the table, right?
When she's doing a math problem, right?
17 times 17, right?
She would have a preference to not have that happen, right?
Yes.
But in that moment, you're saying, to hell with your preferences!
I'm doing what I want!
I'm going to indulge my anger, I'm going to indulge my emotions at your expense, right?
And then you get mad at her when she doesn't want to get in the car and prefers to indulge her emotions at your expense.
But you taught her that.
That's what aggression and this kind of selfishness of acting out your emotions on your children, that's what you get back, right?
Which is she's kind of modeling, or she's doing what you modeled.
My preferences matter, and if I can get away with indulging my preferences at your expense, well, I will.
I certainly will, right?
I mean, I guess you probably never hit her in public, right?
Or you've never hit her in a place where you could experience negative consequences for hitting her, right?
Right.
And my wife attests to it, that I would do it calculatively.
Right.
So you are perfectly capable of not hitting your child.
Because if there was a cop standing right there, you wouldn't hit her, right?
Yes.
Because I assume that would be illegal, especially if it draws blood, right?
Yes.
So you are perfectly capable of not hitting your daughter, yet you've hit her dozens and dozens of times since she's been a little kid, the last time where she bloodied her lip, right?
And then you say, That your daughter is, what, self-indulgent and lazy?
But you've modeled that laziness.
Hitting your child is lazy when you have the perfect capability to not hit your child.
So what you've communicated to your child is, indulge your own preferences at the expense of other people every single time you can get away with it.
Right?
So then you're sitting in the car.
She's not going to hit you because she's still smaller.
But she can make you wait, right?
And she will make you wait until you have a conversation about how self-indulgent you've been as a father, indulging your own anger, indulging your own lashing out, not restraining yourself when you can get away with it, but restraining yourself when you can't get away with it.
So you have hit her, you have yelled at her, you have failed to protect her from overfeeding, which may have laid the roots to her current excess weight, right?
So I don't think that you are in a moral position, my friend, to say to her, you're lazy.
I mean, hitting a child.
is lazy and self-indulgent, right?
You're just indulging your own anger in the moment rather than... If you could imagine that there was a policeman standing right next to you, you'd be sweet as sugar, right?
So how do you get to call her lazy?
Or inconsiderate of the feelings of others?
I mean, hitting her is certainly Inconsiderate to her feelings, right?
And listen, I'm not trying to say, oh, there's a terrible thing.
Of course, I disagree with the hitting.
Don't get me wrong.
And I'm not trying to just make you feel bad.
But what I am saying is there's a mechanics.
There's a mechanism to her throwing her shoes wherever.
There's a mechanism to her making you wait in the car.
And I'm telling you, man, this is why it's good that you're calling.
She's 10.
It only gets worse from here if you don't find a way to deal with it, right?
I feel it.
Right.
Yes.
She's going to get bigger.
She's going to get stronger.
She's going to...
Puberty hits and they get more aggressive and that's great if you have a good relationship.
That's what you want.
But if you don't have a good relationship, you are in for a crap storm, right?
Yes.
I wanted to do this even before my second one came into life.
Do what?
You mean change this stuff?
Yeah.
And listen, good for you.
I mean, I know I'm being pretty harsh and I want to temper that with my admiration for this conversation, which is not not easy, but I mean, is there anything I'm saying that you would strongly disagree with?
I will.
I do not disagree, but what?
I know you will not say what to do, but can you give me pointers?
How should, what should help me?
Right.
Never try to solve a conflict in the middle of a conflict.
That's like trying to fix your brakes while you're skidding down the road.
Right?
So, the time to deal with a conflict, like the one you have with your daughter or maybe even with your wife, is when you're both calm.
Is when you're both calm.
That's the time to deal with conflict, right?
Not in the middle.
Okay, in the middle if you can control your temper or whatever, but if you can't, right, then you try and deal with this, right?
So you can just sit down and say, you know, when we're trying to get in the car, you're late, I'm annoyed, everything we've tried to do to solve the problem Hasn't solved the problem.
And then what you do, in my experience and opinion, Kumar, is you take maximum responsibility for the issue.
Maximum.
So you say, okay, well, you could say something like this.
So I'm sitting there thinking, okay, how do I feel when you're late and I feel frustrated, like you're indulging your own feelings at my expense and you're not being considerate and so on.
Now, part of me says, well, that just means she's lazy or she's inconsiderate or she's selfish or whatever.
And then I sit there and think, okay, well, Wait, what have I done to contribute to this, right?
What have I done over the course of your 10 years on this planet?
And it may have been even before she was born, right?
If you yelled at her mom before she was born, then your mom pumped stress hormones into her little body and all she hears is... Yeah, my wife keeps telling that.
Yeah, and your daughter hears you yelling before she even sees you.
Sorry, your wife said what?
My wife said that I was so...
I was inflicting so much stress on her, even while she was pregnant, and that is the reason she is like this.
Well, that's not exactly your wife taking maximum responsibility either, but let's get to that in a sec, right?
That's kind of blamey and all of that, right?
So it's different.
With a friend, you can decide not to see the friend.
With a job, you can decide to quit the job.
You can even leave the country if you want to.
You can come to a new country and so on.
Particularly when you're a parent and you're married to your wife, you're going to stay married to your wife and you have your kids, nobody's going anywhere.
So maximum responsibility is the thing to do.
Now maximum responsibility can lead to exploitation, right?
So if your friend is always running out of money and you keep lending money to your friend, that's Not a good situation, right?
That's not a healthy situation.
So you can enable people.
So maximum responsibility is not always great, but I think particularly between parent and child, it is essential.
And in a marriage that you want to stay in, it is also essential.
Because a funny thing happens for the most part, Kumar, when you take maximum responsibility, is other people will step up too and you meet in the middle.
If you try and just meet in the middle, other people kind of stay slack.
They stay on their own side of the room, right?
But if you go over and help them up off the couch, you end up in the middle of the room.
And so if you take maximum responsibility, you say, okay, well, what have I done that has created this situation?
Now, I know that strips free will from other people in your environment, but it's worth, it's a great exercise because it invites other people to do the same.
So you say, "Okay, well, what have I done as a father and as a husband to model being selfish?" Just say, being selfish, right?
That's sort of being defined as indulging in your own worst nature at the expense of others and whatever, right?
So what have I done?
If you say, OK, well, I've done this and this and this and you can bring this to your family, right?
And they may take advantage of it for a little while.
They may say, aha, I knew you did all of these things.
And right.
And you can just grit your teeth and keep keep going further and say, OK, well, here's another thing that I have done.
to model this behavior, right?
And in my experience a funny kind of thing happens after a while is after a while you're modeling different behavior and because you're modeling different behavior other people change what they're doing.
It's sort of like if you and I walk up on the sidewalk and if I hold out my hand to shake your hand and you don't hold out your hand I have to change what I'm doing because it kind of looks weird for me to stand there like I got my hand open like a little drawbridge and you're not Taking it.
I have to change what it is.
So if you change your behavior...
It has a ripple effect on other people's behavior in your environment.
So if you start taking maximum responsibility, and what that means is you have to let go of resentment, and you have to be vulnerable to being blamed, and that's painful.
It's painful.
It's painful to sit there and say, I've done this wrong, and this wrong, and this wrong.
Because a lot of times, what people will do is say, aha, I knew it!
And they'll pile on, and you feel like crap.
You really feel like crap.
It's like a withdrawal.
of victimhood.
It's like a physical withdrawal of resentment and blame and so on.
It's a tough thing to go through, but it's so important.
Because once you start taking responsibility, you want your daughter to take responsibility, right?
You want her to grow into an adult who takes responsibility.
But if you're not taking responsibility, you're expecting the impossible and you're programming the opposite.
Because you're expecting her to do something you're not modeling, which is not going to happen.
It's like me expecting my daughter to speak Japanese if I never speak Japanese to her or expose her to Japanese as a language.
It's just never going to... I can keep wanting it.
It's just never going to happen.
So you want your daughter to start taking more responsibility and you want your wife to start taking more responsibility about coming home and just dumping stuff all over the place, right?
So if nagging them into taking more responsibility isn't working, as it's not, as it never does, especially because you've modeled not taking responsibility, right?
So then you take maximum responsibility and you just grit your teeth, and you weather the storm of other people unloading their resentment on you, to some degree understanding that you've earned it, right?
Because if you've been blaming other people for your own shortcomings, you've built up a huge excess of resentment in those people, and they're gonna get mad at you, and they're gonna take it out on you, and you're gonna feel like crap, and you're gonna feel like fighting back, and you're gonna feel like you're being pushed to the edge of a cliff, and it's self-defense, right?
And you just have to find a way to resist that, and just keep taking more and more and more responsibility.
I mean, in my experience, you take maximum responsibility, one of two things is going to happen.
Either A, the other people just view that as a move of weakness on your part and they just start dominating and bullying and controlling and so on.
And, you know, it's your family, man.
I don't know how that's going to play out.
But with regards to your daughter, you just have to model taking responsibility.
With regards to your wife, it's a different matter.
You guys did choose to get married.
Your daughter didn't choose to be there.
But you do take this, just take this maximum responsibility.
And at some point, and I know this, I know this at least in terms of my own parenting, you take maximum responsibility and a really funny thing happens with your kids is they'll start to say, well, yeah, I did do this.
Because you're taking responsibility.
And you're modeling what it looks like to take responsibility and say, listen, the way you are, I have a huge amount to do with it.
And so I can't criticize you So I say this out to her?
Well, I don't know enough about the family dynamics to know whether you should do it with your wife first, with your daughter first, all together, I don't know.
But I'm just saying, wherever you can take maximum responsibility is where your relationships can most dramatically improve.
And again, maximum responsibility You know, it's funny because it sounds like I'm saying, well, just accept the blame for everything wrong in the family and let everyone dump on you, right?
And that's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying if you model responsibility, usually in my experience, particularly with kids, your kids will start taking more and more responsibility, right?
Because do you have, like, let's say you want to convince your daughter to be more considerate, right?
Yes.
If your daughter were on this call, Kumar, and I were to say to her, give me five examples of when your dad was super considerate, what would she say?
She would probably say a few materialistic things, like I bought something for her when she wanted the most.
Okay, right.
But she can't buy you things, right?
That's not right.
So I would say, you know, forget the money stuff, right?
I mean, but in terms of just how he was as a person.
Can I ask her the question and email you?
You can, you can.
but if nothing's popping into your head, that's telling, right?
If nothing's popping into your head, that's telling. - Okay.
Right?
So that means that your daughter may not know what it looks like to be very considerate of somebody else's feelings.
She may not know what that looks like and then you're blaming her for not doing it.
it's like, how could she?
Your wife wasn't considerate of her feelings, your daughter's feelings when she was feeding her.
Your wife wasn't considerate of your daughter's feelings when she threatened to hit her repeatedly, right?
You weren't considerate of your daughter's feelings when she came to you for protection from your wife's overfeeding.
You weren't considerate of your daughter's feelings when she was struggling in math, right?
So you're sitting there in the car and she's like, man, she's so inconsiderate.
I'm like, how could she not be?
What else has she been taught?
And I know there's probably some exceptions.
I'm just talking about, you know, broad, a big picture here, right?
Yeah, I get that.
You know, whatever you want in your relationships, you have to provide to people.
Especially when you're the parent, you have to provide that first, foremost, and consistently for years before you get any of it back, right?
Maximum responsibility.
reality.
If you take the approach that everything your daughter is doing is exactly what you taught her to do, then you gain power.
The more you blame your daughter for things that you've created, the less power you have, which is why you keep doing the same thing over and over again and not getting any positive results, right?
Because you have no power.
Ownership responsibility is authority.
It's power.
It's not power over.
It's power to influence.
It's power to affect a different outcome.
And if you guys are stuck in this circle of your wife blames you for stress and you blame your wife for overfeeding and your daughter blames you and right?
If everyone's just blaming each other nothing's going to change and what's just going to get worse, right?
But if you say the world that I'm in is the world I created.
The daughter that I have is the daughter that I shaped.
She is me Reflected back.
then you have some capacity to change what's happening.
But as long as you just call her lazy, It's not only not true and not realistic, but you've no capacity to change anything because you're saying, you, my lazy daughter, should be considerate of other people's feelings.
But how considerate have you modeled being towards her?
And how considerate are you being of her feelings when you just call her lazy for habits that you created in her?
The reason we get so angry at our children is that they accurately reflect our own behaviors back to us.
Right?
You've been inconsiderate towards her.
You've been inconsiderate towards your wife.
Your wife is being inconsiderate towards her.
And I'm not saying that's all you've been, right?
I'm just talking about where the issues are, right?
We get so mad at our kids Because we see our worst sides manifested in their accurately reflective behavior, right?
They're just... They're doing what we taught them to do.
They imprint on us.
We model their behavior.
So when our children are scared of us, we get mad.
Why?
Because they're right to be scared of us.
Because we've been mean, right?
We've been harmful.
If our children are inconsiderate towards our feelings, we get very angry at that, because deep down we know that they have a right to be, because we've been inconsiderate towards their feelings.
And we just, we hate that reflection of who we are.
And again, I'm not saying it's all you are, obviously, right?
I mean, you've done good things in your life, you've, you know, but I'm just saying in this particular area, Your wife and your daughter come home, throw their shoes on the ground anywhere, because they're trying to tell you something.
Now, it's not a very mature way to tell you, right?
Which is not a great excuse for your wife, but your daughter's only 10, right?
So, they're coming in and they're saying, we don't care if it bothers you.
In fact, in fact, they might even like that it bothers you.
Like your daughter, sitting there being slow or having to go back, she might get a kind of dark satisfaction out of making you wait.
In the same way that you get a kind of dark satisfaction over calling her lazy and hitting her.
So they may even throw their shoes like, Eh!
Got ya, Dad!
That'll teach ya.
You got a problem with that?
They might enjoy frustrating you and making you feel bad because I guarantee you, man, at times you've enjoyed or found dark satisfaction in frustrating them and making them feel bad, right?
Yes, I, uh, yeah.
So that's all the bad news, but the good news is you're calling and you can, you can change it.
What's your relationship like?
You said that your sister gets along with your mom and you get along with your dad.
What's your relationship like with your mom at the moment?
I just talk to her.
Nothing touchy.
What if you were to say to her, Kumar, that it bothers you enormously that she never hugged you as a child?
What if you were to say to her, it bothers you enormously that she never showed any physical affection to your dad?
I don't know.
I know it goes enormously against the cultural grain, but what if?
She'll probably cry.
And what if you were to say, it bothers me that you're indulging your own feelings rather than dealing with what I'm saying.
So please stop crying and listen.
She will not show up.
What do you mean?
She will not show up crying when I say it.
She will stay quiet.
Right.
She'll probably feel or think about it.
But like, oh, I may have to go back, but go back to my school stays, but it's too late in the call.
I don't know if you have time for that.
If you can keep it brief, that's fine.
After my 8th grade, I was in the boarding school for 9th and 10th grade.
And I was so happy there.
I took up so much risk and challenges to be free out of home.
To the extent that we used to abscond from school and go to the late night movies at the age of 12 and 13.
And I used to enjoy those, enjoy that freedom.
And it was so risky.
It was about three miles from where my boarding school was and the theater.
We used to walk through the wilds.
I don't know why I'm telling this now, but... Well, I can tell you why you're telling me this now if you want.
You said that your home life was very restricted, right?
Yes.
So you had an adventure.
You had an adventure.
Young men need adventure.
They need risk.
Young women do, but I think even more so for young men.
I used to cross giant trestle railroad bridges.
Sometimes trains would come.
I almost got killed one night when I was 13.
I had to jump from one track to the other 500 feet above a stony riverbed.
I felt the suction of the train's wheels almost pulling me in.
I mean, that's a little too much.
But, you know, I was a single mom household.
You don't have to mediate risk at that age.
So you had some adventure, you had some independence.
You weren't controlled.
Right.
And you got to trust yourself.
You had to make your own decisions.
And you were with other boys having a great adventure.
And I was so good at that that I used to spend my pocket money in a day or two and then If I would offer my services to my classmates, that I would take them and bring them back safe, if they would pay me the ticket to watch movie.
Okay, okay.
So hang on to that thought, Kumar, because I know why you're telling me this now, as well as your own childhood, right?
So you were free in boarding school, When you were only a little older than your daughter, right?
Yes.
You were free to travel through the wilds for three miles to go to town, right?
Yes.
And your daughter is not free to get 17 times 17 wrong without being hit.
Thank you.
You understand?
Yes.
Your freedom was so important to you.
And your daughter can't make one mistake without ending up with a bloody lip, right?
She is free to make mistakes.
She's free to get things wrong.
She's free to take risks.
She has to be, just as you loved that as a child.
You were free in the night, in the wilds with your friends.
And she can't even get a fucking math problem wrong without being hit, right?
You had the glorious anarchy of childhood and she's got the totalitarian fist face of claustrophobic control.
And the only way that you'll be able to set her free is by taking maximum responsibility for who she has become.
You want her to have that sense of freedom that you had?
I'm not saying send her out in the middle of the night to walk three miles, but at least let her get a math problem wrong, right?
I'm not saying send her out in the middle of the night.
And I think it's fair to say you might have a little apologizing to do.
Not just for the self-indulgence that you've displayed as a parent, but also blaming her for the effects of your bad behavior, right?
Yeah.
Yes.
She didn't ask to be hit.
She didn't ask to be yelled at.
She didn't ask to be overfed.
She's just trying to survive in the environment that you and your wife have created, right?
I keep thinking about that quite a lot.
other than your youngest who has no choice in the matter, right?
You can leave your wife tomorrow.
I'm not saying you would or should or could, right?
But, I mean, sorry, I'm saying you could, right?
And you chose to get married to her.
You chose to stay married to her.
Your daughter has none of those choices.
Neither of your kids have any of those choices.
I keep thinking about that quite a lot.
When I first heard you saying that when you ask kids if they choose to get born to me, If the answer is yes, you are successful.
Yeah.
You want your daughter to grow from here on in, from like tonight onwards, Kumar, you want your daughter, if she's asked that question, is there anywhere, anyone in the world who would you like to be born to?
Like my dad.
But you're not earning that yet, right?
I think it's fair to say.
Yes.
But you have a chance to change that because, you know, she's also right on the cusp of, you know, her peers are going to take over from you, man.
You know, she's going to hit puberty if she's not there already.
And then, right, her peers are going to matter more than you are.
You're going to be left in the dust, and you've got to fix things now, right?
You've got to make that connection, that bond, now so she trusts you, so she respects you.
Kids do have an enormous capacity to forgive, but not on nothing, right?
You have to earn it, but they have an enormous capacity to forgive.
And I really think it's now or never as far as really changing.
And your wife will probably try and pull you back to the old ways, right?
Because that's what she's used to and that's, right, that's her script, that's her train track, right?
Jumping the tracks in an established family system is a tough thing to do and it's going to demand a hell of a lot from you.
But you know, I mean, you know, how's it going to play out if you don't change, right?
What's your daughter going to do?
How's she going to be in 10 or 20 years with you?
Like one of those on your calls.
Yeah.
Yeah, she'll be calling me up and telling me all the things that happened and I'm going to be saying I'm so sorry.
But that's the amazing thing about you calling, Kumar.
You getting to change things.
That's why I admire what you're doing so much.
When I said I... I'm changing tracks here and I said I...
I do not know what love is and I feel that's like transaction.
Yes.
You said you find it interesting or something and I still feel that I don't know if I love my wife or not until recently but last few weeks when you said you love a person for values and virtue and She values, she has values and she has virtues.
She's very courageous and I started kind of having, I don't know if it is called love, but more interest and having a better relation with her from a few weeks.
Right, and that will only improve and increase, I think, Kumar, when you gain the self-respect of changing the course of your life, changing the course of your habits, changing the course of your parenting and being a husband, right?
If you, I mean, the feeling of bloodying your child's lip is beyond terrible and it leaves you with a profound mistrust in yourself, right?
Bad action we take can increase the likelihood of the next bad action we take, right?
It's a slippery slope.
But if you take maximum responsibility, grit your teeth and go through that challenge, then you will behave in ways that will engender self-respect.
You know, when I talk about love being our involuntary response to virtue, that's true, but it's most true with ourselves.
I don't like really the idea of self-love or loving yourself or I mean it just it sounds a bit solipsistic but I do think that we have to trust ourselves and in order to trust ourselves we have to consistently be able to choose good moral actions.
We don't have to be perfect, you know, we can have our foibles and our weaknesses and we don't, you know, like you can survive a chocolate bar a month kind of thing, right?
But we do have to have a basic belief that we are not going to do Bad things, right?
I mean, and with regards to how you feel with love, if you can trust yourself to behave in a more honorable fashion, in a more consistent way, then you will experience being loved probably for the first deep and philosophical time in your life.
Your father didn't feel it.
I mean, his wife was cold to him and had an affair.
Your mother didn't feel it.
She bullied her children and cheated on her husband.
Right?
So, it may be that, and I think it can be if you choose to do what's needed, that you will experience self-respect, self-trust, And then people will find it safe to love you, understand?
Virtue is a lot about people feeling it's safe to love you.
It's not safe to love you because you yell, you hit, right?
How can someone be vulnerable?
How can they give you their heart when you juggle it with Edward Scissorhands, right?
If you are not stable and secure and someone that is a soft cleft in the world, people can nestle in, right?
Secure.
If you yell, if you hit, if you're impatient, if you storm, if you rage, people can't feel safe around you and you can't love someone you don't feel safe around.
Particularly female to male.
They can't do it.
They can't do it.
I mean, a man can, quote, love a military general even if he doesn't feel safe, but in particular for women to men, they need to feel safe.
And if you're yelly and hitty, and not only is it weak and all that, but it's not going to be.
So if you're safe to be around, then, well, that's going to be a challenge.
I mean, the last thought I'll leave you with is that, in general, we are programmed into bad behavior so we don't experience love.
And the reason our parents, not conscious, right, I think, for the most part, but the reason our parents program us into doing bad behavior is then we never really experience what they didn't give us, because the moment we really experience what they didn't give us, it's pretty bad for our relationship with our parents, right?
So if you act in a way, Kumar, where you genuinely feel security with yourself, and a sense of self-respect, and consistency in your moral behavior, and your wife loves you, and your daughters love you, and that's gonna be very painful, because then you're gonna Talk to your mom or talk to your dad and you're really gonna feel the difference, right?
So, people who've hurt us keep us from acting well unconsciously so that we never get a sense of how much they hurt us.
Let's see what that means.
People who've hurt us.
Inspire us to bad behavior so we don't feel loved.
And then we never really experience how much they hurt us.
It's like if you're always hungry, you just don't feel hungry anymore, right?
After a while, right?
Once you get a really good meal, you're like, damn, I was hungry!
And that's why it's hard to improve when we've been harmed, because it is actually harmful to the people who've harmed us if we end up being loved, if we end up acting in that way.
And it's painful.
What we do is we say, oh, well, my parents, they acted badly because of X, Y, and Z. It's all determinism.
You've heard this a million times in my calls, right?
Oh, my parents acted badly because this, that, and the other, right?
But then what we're doing is saying, well, now I have permission to act badly because I was mistreated.
But the moment we say, I don't care if I was mistreated.
I mean, I care, but I'm not going to allow it to dictate my future behavior.
Right.
Right.
Then what happens is we say, damn, if I can change, my parents could have changed.
When I take responsibility, when you take 100% responsibility, You don't give 100% responsibility to your kid, because she's only a kid, but you give 200% responsibility to your parents, whether you like it or not.
Because they've had even more time to change, even more time to improve.
So, this is one of the reasons why maximum responsibility is so hard.
Not just how it flows horizontally and downwards, but how it flows up to your parents.
Because if you can change, why the hell didn't they?
If you can change, why didn't they?
That's a very tough question for people to deal with.
And that's another reason why we stay in this rut that allows us to endlessly ignore the potential of those who came before us.
All right?
Yes.
I would also recommend, as I do in general, if you're going to do this kind of big life change, which again I massively admire, I think a good therapist is a great way to go.
I'm a big fan of talk therapy.
If for whatever reason you can't, there's lots of books.
Nathaniel Brandon, I think John Gray has some.
There's a whole bunch of people who've got sentence completion books and workbooks and workshops that you can do even if you can't get to a therapist, but I very strongly recommend that because you know I your will in having this conversation is incredibly strong and I you know, I think you're gonna do fantastically, but it's It's tough to get really good at anything without a coach and that's my particular suggestion John Gray Yeah, John Gray I think that's John.
For some reason, I've had a blanket on this last couple of times.
These are the books?
Yeah, yeah.
So he's got some books.
Let me just double check this.
I apologize for doing this.
I sort of meant to do this before, but I forgot.
Yeah, I think it's John Gray.
Nathaniel Brandon, for sure, has got tons of books with sentence completion exercise and so on to give you more of a map of yourself.
But yeah, those are my sort of big, big thoughts.
Was there anything that you wanted to mention in closing?
I think I'm good.
How are you feeling?
I want to stop this.
In my brain, I have rehearsed this, that I should not do this.
I should not continue doing this.
I'd have to break it a few times, or a few years, but I still continue doing it.
Right.
I think if you get right to the root, it'll be easier.
Was the conversation, do you think, was it helpful for you?
Yes.
It opened up the ways that I can explore and take responsibility.
Good.
Will you let me know how it goes?
I'm very, very keen to find out how things go.
I think they'll go well, but I'd like to know.
Yes.
All right.
Well, listen, I appreciate the conversation.
Please, please keep me posted.
You were going to send me something your daughter may have said about times when you were considerate.
And again, thanks again so much for your generosity in this topic.
Well, thank you so much.
After you stop recording, can I say?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Let me just turn it.
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