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Oct. 14, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
02:29:59
In Which I Am SHOCKED! CALL IN SHOW
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Time Text
Okay, great.
Nice to meet you.
Look forward to the chat.
And I'm all here.
I guess your message was a little scant.
If you want to just sort of tell me about what the issues are, we can take it from there.
Well, there's two things.
Or as I said there, maybe it's one thing.
I don't know.
The more immediate pressing thing for me, which has been a problem for some time, is I have I've been dealing with insomnia for a while now.
And I remember you talking about you mentioned a few times that you dealt with that and medical interventions didn't seem to be working and you realized it was because you needed to rearrange your life, basically.
Yeah, I mean, technically, I didn't take any medical interventions, but I didn't take sleeping pills or anything.
But yeah, certainly it was true that I needed to sort out my life.
So go ahead.
And the other thing, which this makes me feel kind of foolish because I only kind of recognized this sometime in the past couple of years, and I'm in my mid-40s.
But I realized recently that my parents didn't really give me any advice,
any instruction about so many things, like, you know, how to make friends, you know, how to deal with girls, you know, how you build a career.
And like I said, I'm in my mid-40s and like when you're a little kid, like, you don't have anyone to compare it to.
So unless there's like obvious abuse, you're just like, I don't know, this is what families are.
And so I, and so, like, you know, looking back, I'm like, oh, that's what they were kind of supposed to do.
And I'm looking at, you know, I have kids and I want to do better, but I don't know how to hand on what I didn't get, if that makes sense.
It does.
Just tell me what you mean by you don't have anything to compare it to, because, I mean, there are other kids around with good social skills and in the environment.
Of course, I mean, we only really know our own parents, although there are other kids, of course.
I don't know if you had relatives or spent much time around other kids' houses or parents, but there's a lot of stuff that's going on that gives you some sense of comparison, if that makes sense.
Yeah, I guess it.
I guess I just, maybe I just wasn't particularly observant.
I just didn't really, I didn't really see enough of the inside of other people's lives to realize, you know, like I said, it wasn't like it wasn't, you know, physical abuse.
It wasn't like I'm not eating.
It's just, you know, I don't have, I should, you know, I should be getting something here that's not there.
And I didn't, I didn't realize like, oh, this is something they're supposed to be doing.
Okay, well, so this is description rather than detail.
So if you can tell me a little bit about your childhood and what did or didn't happen with your parents, I don't, I just have your report in it rather than the facts, if that makes sense.
And so I'd like to know a bit more about what actually happened.
I guess, like, the first thing I noticed was: I the first thing that, like, struck me as, like, this, this is a problem.
I never really got, like, quote-unquote, the talk about sex from my dad.
Um, and like I said, I have kids, and my oldest is about that age, and other than the you know, simple physical facts, I don't know what that talk is supposed to look like.
Um, and um, like I was, um, I remember when I was-you're kind of really struggling with your communication here, right?
I mean, it's like, and uh, I like this is like it's like we're pushing through hardening jello to get to get the conversation across.
How do you feel about the conversation?
So how do you feel about talking about this kind of stuff?
I guess I'm scared and I just don't know where it's going to go.
And well, if you didn't know where it was going to go, you'd be curious to explore it.
I don't think that's an accurate statement.
I'm not obviously saying you're lying, but I don't think it's accurate, right?
Like, if you didn't know where it was going to go, then you wouldn't have, you know, you'd have some curiosity, right?
It's not that you don't know where it's going to go, it's you're afraid that it's going to go to something that would be highly negative your relationship with your parents.
Yeah, I think that's part of it.
Okay, and it's sorry, go ahead.
It's also one thing complicating this is my mother died several a few years ago, and my dad is in his early 80s, and he's he's not entirely himself anymore.
Okay, so this is part of what I'm talking about.
You say, my, is he in his early 80s, and he's not like this pause.
It's going to be a 19-hour conversation, right?
And I'm just curious what the pause is.
Are you self-censoring?
Do you not know how to talk in any kind of reasonably rapid pace?
Or what do you think is going on?
Because I can't imagine that you have these pauses in general, right?
Because I mean, people around you would go slowly insane, right?
I guess I'm just trying to find, I'm trying to find the right words.
I'm trying to.
So, what do you mean by trying to find the right words?
This is not an exam.
You're not in court.
I mean, if I'm just asking for the truth, how is the truth so delayed?
So, when people delay that much, my strong sense, I could be wrong, obviously, right?
But my strong sense is that they are trying to come up with words very carefully chosen that don't convey too, too much.
You know, it's it's and that's not the kind of conversation that I think we should be having, if that makes sense.
Okay, I'm not trying to do that.
Okay, now there's another thing.
Did I accuse you of anything conscious?
No, okay, let me ask you this: how long have you been listening to what I do about 10 years, not like Sometimes, you know, sometimes in that more than others.
So, like, not everyone.
By definition, right?
It's not like you have exactly the same amount every day.
Okay.
So how long ago was it that you began to think that your childhood might have been a problem?
Some parts of it, some parts of it for a while.
And I really am, I've really just come to put together like the complete lack of some things sometime, I guess, the past couple of years.
And was there a particular moment or a particular show that you were listening to that you think gave you that sense that things might not be optimal?
Um, I don't know.
I don't, I think, I think for me, part of it is looking at my own kids and like realizing these are things I'm supposed to do for them.
And then, like, I don't know, I don't have a model for that.
I don't know what I'm supposed to do for them because I don't, I never had it done.
Well, no, that's causal, right?
That's not causal.
I mean, I did not have rationality and empathy and love modeled for me, but I did it with my daughter.
So it's not, because you lacked something doesn't mean, like, because you lacked something as a child in no way means that you then lacked that thing as a father.
In fact, it could compel you or impel you to go quite the opposite way, right?
If you're hungry, what do you do?
Well, you, you go and eat something.
If you're thirsty, you go drink something.
So if you're missing something, you add, you go and get it, right?
Yeah.
So, but you said, I couldn't do it for my sons because it wasn't modeled for me.
And that's just not, that's not true.
Otherwise, I would have no show.
Like, I wouldn't do shows.
Okay.
And the fact that you think it's causal after listening to me for 10 years and are trying to sell to me that it's causal is interesting, right?
Because it's very much against everything that I talk about.
It certainly is against free will and learning and so on.
So if 10 years ago you began to listen to a guy who talks about rational, objective, and moral evaluations of your childhood.
And none of this is critical.
I don't mean this in any negative way.
It's just an interesting phenomenon.
But then I'm a free will guy.
And one of the first things that it seems that you're trying to do is sell me a kind of determinism, which is why I couldn't possibly provide these things to my kids because they weren't provided to me as a child.
Which is like saying, well, I can't buy my kids' cell phones because there weren't cell phones around when I was a child.
Well, it doesn't make much sense, does it?
Yeah.
And again, none of this is critical.
I mean, we might as well start at the deep end, right?
What's the struggle here?
I'm trying to sound like you're giving birth to something cactus-shaped and sideways.
I'm sorry.
I'm just trying to think through like where how I like you asked how I came to look at look at this and realize this was a problem.
And I don't, I, it seems like it kind of gradually surfaced in my mind.
It wasn't like any one moment.
It's just like I know I'm slowly putting together things and then like one day I look up and there's a whole picture.
And I don't, I don't know any one instant, and any one instance where I'm like, oh, this was not the way it should be.
It's just, you know, little things added up.
Okay.
So why do you think you had to do this alone?
How long have you been married?
We've been married 16 years.
16 years.
Okay.
Okay.
So she knew you from your late 20s, early 30s?
Late 20s.
Late 20s.
Okay.
So did she never notice that anything was absent in you or missing from you?
I'm sort of curious, why would you have to do this all alone?
I guess we never, I guess we didn't talk about.
I'm sorry.
I'm not trying to be difficult.
I'm just trying to think through and I don't know.
I guess we didn't talk about some of these things.
Well, that's by definition, right?
If I'm saying, well, why didn't your wife bring it up?
In other words, why didn't she talk to you about these things?
And you say, well, I guess we never talked about these things.
That's not adding anything to the conversation, right?
Yeah.
Why didn't you meet me on Thursday?
Well, because I didn't meet you on Thursday.
Like that doesn't, that doesn't answer anything.
Did your wife ever, do you think that she's ever noticed that anything is missing with regards to your parents and family and so on?
Or are the same things missing from her parents and family?
She's blind to it for that reason.
I don't.
For one thing, my parents live where I am now, where we live, is over a thousand miles from my parents.
And so like, it's either by phone or they would visit a couple times a year.
And so she didn't actually see us interacting that much.
So you didn't talk to your parents much on the phone?
I tried to, I would try to call once a week or so.
Okay, so you talked to your parents a lot on the phone?
Yeah.
Okay, and she didn't notice anything different about you before or after.
Did she spend much time with your parents?
Did you spend Christmases together?
Did she know much about your childhood?
I mean, the fact that they live a thousand miles away is not a massive impediment to her figuring out the things were missing from your childhood, if that makes sense.
Yeah.
I mean, did you tell her much about your childhood over the course of the last 16 odd years?
Different parts, yeah.
Like how, yeah, how some of how our family got along.
And, you know, she noticed, she noticed things, you know, me and I have a sister, older sister, older brother.
And, You know, she's noticed, you know, what a couple other people have pointed out that, you know, my parents tended to focus very much on my brother, and my sister and me were just kind of there a lot of the time.
Ah, okay.
So she did recognize that you were missing things from your parents as a child.
I think so, yeah.
Sorry, what do you mean you think so?
I thought I was just confirming what you told me.
Two and two makes four.
So you're saying two and two makes four.
I think so.
It's like, no, no, I need to get a little bit more exactitude because I thought you were saying that this is something that your wife did notice.
Yeah, she noticed that element of our relationship.
Okay.
And given that there was this favoritism regarding your sister and certain things that were absent for you and your brothers, did she ask any sort of further questions or try to sort of figure out what may have been missing for you as a child?
Or what else, I guess?
Not really, I don't think.
I'm not sure what that, that's just a fog bank.
I mean, if you'd had those conversations, I'm sure you'd remember them.
Yeah, I not really a lot of conversations like that.
No.
Okay, so that's just more fog.
Not really a lot of conversations.
I don't know what that means.
Does that mean you had 50 of them, but you were thinking maybe you wanted 100 or 5 when you were thinking 50?
I don't know what that means.
How many conversations did you have about with your wife where she was curious about your childhood and what may have been missing?
Sorry to be such a dag.
I apologize.
You're trying to get information out.
I'm not...
I'm not trying to be a difficult witness.
I just don't, I don't feel like I. No, the honest truth, honestly, the truth is that you don't remember any particular conversations about these things with your wife.
Yeah.
Okay, so she's shown a fair lack of curiosity about your childhood.
Do you think, I mean, how much do you know about her childhood?
Is this sort of a mutual inattentiveness, so to speak?
I know her, for one thing, her mother lives very close, and so I see them interact.
I know, you know, and her parents, you know, got divorced when she was when she was 18 or 20.
And by that point, she was relieved that they got divorced.
And I know something about like how she, you know, an old, older aunt or grandmother, you know, watched, you know, watched her and her cousin while her parents were at work.
And so it's and the kind of inattentiveness that went with that.
So she also had a neglected childhood that was relatively untrained, is that right?
Like she didn't get much feedback or proactive help with how to live?
I think I think she got more in some ways than I did.
Like I know she has a pretty, I think she has more of a relationship with her parents than I feel like I do.
So she got more sort of feedback and is closer to her parents than you are, that you were with your mom and dad than that you are with your dad.
Is that right?
Yeah, yeah.
So if 10 is like really good and connected and getting good kinds of feedback and zero is colossal indifference to the fate of the children, where would you rank you and your wife's childhood on that sort of one to 10 scale?
For me, it would be three or four, I guess.
So you got 30 or 40% of what parents should be providing to their children.
I'm not disagreeing with you.
I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying.
Yeah, like, I mean, our physical needs were cared for, but like, I don't feel like they're like, your physical needs could be cared for by kidnappers or prison or in some godforsaken foster care, so to speak, right?
So I'm really, sorry, my apologies.
I wasn't clear.
When I said 10 is close and connected and parents providing support on how to live and so on, I'm really not just talking about the physical stuff.
So just on that, and I'm sorry, I was unclear.
On that dimension of close connected parenting, caring about the children, teaching them how to live, as you say, how to make friends and how to negotiate and all these kinds of things, right?
So if 10 is parents who do a really great job of that and zero is parents who do very little, if any, of that, where would you put yourself on that?
So I don't want to puff up the stuff that's missing in your childhood with they gave me food and shelter, right?
Because that's not the issue.
So just on that dimension of being involved with your children and transferring wisdom to them, teaching them how to live and giving them good feedback on how to make friends, negotiate, and so on.
Where would you put yourself and your wife on that scale of zero to 10?
I would say for me, that pushes it down to three.
So it was three to four, now it's three.
Yeah.
So your parents gave you 30% of what you needed emotionally to succeed in life.
Something like that, yeah.
Well, okay, so I'm a little surprised, but okay, that's fine.
And where would you put your wife?
Probably more like six, maybe seven.
Okay, so she had more than twice the amount of emotional connectivity and mentorship and training that you did, right?
Yeah, at the same, it's also kind of complicated because like I said, at the same time, her parents divorced and did not have a did not have an entirely peaceful relationship.
So no, no, but that's in the realm of parental conflict.
So that's different from what I'm talking about.
Because it's not a sliding scale.
It's not like, well, the 10 becomes a 5, but you counted as a 10 because the parents were divorcing.
Whether you get the emotional training or feedback or connectivity or not, this is an absolute scale.
Like if both your parents got hit by a bus when you were six months old, from your parents, it would be a zero.
You wouldn't say it's a 10, but unfortunately they got hit by a bus.
Right.
So the fact that your wife's parents got divorced doesn't affect this scale at all.
It still is judged by the same metric.
Yeah.
So you're three, there are six or seven.
Is that right?
I think so, yeah.
Okay.
So with your three, just sort of help me understand that.
So once you, so three is not bad.
It's not great, obviously, but it's not terrible.
So, if, let's say, you only got 30% training on how to make friends, that's not the worst start to things.
And then you can often figure things out going forward from there.
And so, was it 30% in that you got, let's say, training?
So, give me a couple of things that you felt you'd mentioned at the beginning: one was making friends.
Tell me a couple of the others, just so I make sure I'm addressing the right issues.
Like, how to, you know, how to deal with girls, you know, how to go out and get ready for a career and life and a job, and like what to how to plan these things and what to like you know, it's basically go to college.
Okay, what do I do there?
I don't know, you could go to college.
It's like what about money and handling money and so on.
Would you do me a favor?
Every time I ask you a question, you go as if it's really exasperating.
If you could not do that, it's kind of a headwind that I have to fight, if that makes sense, because I really feel like I'm pushing you into these impatient corners of annoyance.
So, again, not a big criticism, it's just a minor request from my part that every time I ask you something, you don't go, you know, this kind of stuff.
So, what about did you get training on money and finances and debt and borrowing and so on?
Not a lot.
Directly again, I don't even think you noticed that you're doing it anyway.
Go on.
I'm not trying.
I'm sorry.
Not directly.
They listened to, they would listen to no, no, no.
I don't care what they listen to.
From parents to you, it being in the environment, like, you know, they listen to some podcast on money, right?
That's that's not the same.
So, from them to you, direct eye to eye, training you and stuff.
So, did they do that with regards to money?
Not much, no, not really.
Not much, not really.
So, some is that in the 30%?
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so almost a third of the time they would teach you about these things, right?
Yeah, okay, that's pretty good.
Okay, uh, one-third money, okay.
Um, but dealing with girls, was it one out of three times or was it uh uh almost zero?
That one I think would be almost zero.
I um what about making friends?
I don't really remember any advice from zero.
Hang on, and I'm sorry, I just want to run through this list.
Um, what about getting ready for a career?
Like I said, it was you know, go to college.
Okay, what do I do once I'm there?
Like, what should I study?
Like, where, where, what no, I'm aware of that.
I'm asking, was it close to zero?
I'm just trying to figure out where the third is that you're coming up with.
And I'm not disagreeing with you about the third, I just want to make sure I understand it.
In other words, is it if they only gave you a third on we've got five topics here: girls, friends, career, what to do at college, and money.
Money, you've got a third, deal with girls zero, make friends zero, get ready for career zero, and go to college to do what at college and how do you handle choosing college.
Was that a zero, or was that they did a third there as well?
Not really a lot of clear advice.
It's okay.
I, I, I, you have this urge to explain a bunch of things and give me a bunch of caveats, and I understand that there are caveats, right?
So, right now, uh, it's nowhere close to a three.
That's why I was surprised.
Because we've got five major topics.
Only one of them did you get one-third.
There's no way that that's close to three as a whole.
Does that make sense to you?
So you're saying I was, it looks like I was rating too high?
I'm not saying that.
You're telling me that.
Right.
So let me give you an example, right?
So we've got five things here.
And if they had done a 10 on all five things, like they really were involved, they really, you know, whatever, right?
Then you'd be a 10 in terms of parental involvement.
Now, for them to get a three as a whole, either some of these would have to be 10 or 6, but they can't all be zero except for one, which is a three.
There's no way that that doesn't translate to a three as a whole, right?
Yeah.
So if you were a salesman and you had five customers you were going to call on, right?
And I said, how many, what was the average of your sales to these customers?
And you said three.
And then I said, well, did you sell anything to the first customer?
Oh, no.
What about the second customer?
No.
Third customer, no.
Fourth customer, no.
Fifth customer, yeah, I sold that, right?
I sold three things, right?
Would that be reasonable to say out of these five things, the average that I sold was three when you, in fact, only sold three to one out of five customers?
No, that's not, that's not correct.
No, in fact, that's 1.5 because it's very low, right?
Yeah.
Well, actually, it would be even less than that, right?
So it's three out of 50 because each one of these being 10 would add up to 50, right?
Yeah.
But you got three out of 50, not three out of 10.
Three out of 50 is less than one because five would be one out of 50, right?
Yeah.
It's not great.
And that's why I was kind of surprised at the three.
Now, we could come up with other.
To be fair to your parents, though, were there other categories?
Because it's not like there are only these five categories.
Are there other categories where they did more than zero?
I don't know how much you'll count this.
I would say like the best thing, you know, the best thing they did for me when I was a kid, and the reason I'm probably still going in any sense, like basically, if the church doors were open, we were in church.
And I, you know, church services, youth group, and like, you know, getting together with the other, the, you know, teaching and the other kids there.
I'm not going to, obviously, I don't want to say that's not worth anything.
Of course it is, but that's also not your parents doing that directly.
Yeah.
Right.
So the question is, did they talk to you in depth about religion and moral responsibilities and salvation and all these other kinds of good, juicy, meaty topics, or did they mostly let other people do that for them?
There was more, there was more of that.
There was, yeah, we did that as a family.
And, you know, depending on, you know, Through the years, sometimes we did it more regularly than others, you know, and your kids get older and schedules get complicated.
And so sometimes there's less, but we did, we did talk about that and we did.
Okay, and that's great.
So what did what sort of conversations did you have about that?
I remember when I was very young, we would have like, I don't know how often we did it, but we would have like little family studies, I guess you call it, and just go over something from the Bible, like read something from the Bible and talk about it.
But you were very little, right?
Okay, so that's good.
So with religion, can we give them a three or would you like it higher or lower?
given that it didn't last much beyond your younger years, right?
I guess directly from them, it would be four.
Okay, let's be fair.
I want to be fair about that.
Okay, so for religion.
Okay, good.
Good.
Okay.
So now we're seven out of 60.
So we've broken a one.
One, one, and change, right?
I think part of the reason I'm I think part of the reason I'm moving so slow is I kind of think I didn't want to look at how bad things were, if that makes sense.
No, I get that.
I get that.
But I mean, and if you were 20, I would be delicate, but you're not.
And you're a 10-year listener, so we can go fairly fast, right?
Yeah.
Now, I'm sorry, go ahead.
I was just going to say, to give a specific example of the kind of things missing, you know, when I was in high school a few times, there was a girl I liked, you know, at this point or that.
And I don't think it ever really occurred to me to ask my parents for advice.
Oh, but then when you liked a girl, like what you might or should do.
Yeah, and that's that's really not good that that just like it wasn't like I tried and they didn't want to talk.
It just didn't occur to me, hey, this is something I should ask.
Right.
It didn't cross your mind.
Right.
Now, sorry, is there something else you wanted to mention about that?
Again, another specific example to kind of fill in details a little bit.
When I was in, I remember when I was in sixth or seventh grade, when I was in school, I was the weird, annoying kid.
And one of my friends, who was an actual friend, and he wasn't just trying to be mean here, but he said, you know, he said, I remember he said to me one time, like, you know, the reason a lot of kids don't like you is your parents never really taught you how to get along with other kids.
And I didn't really know what to do with that at the time.
And I just, I just remembered it.
Okay.
And what do you think was missing in your interactions with kids or present that they didn't like?
There's a sigh again.
I'm sorry.
I guess it's, I just, when I'm thinking, when I'm pausing to think about something.
No, a sigh is very specific.
a sign is a sign of resistance.
I'm pretty good at reading people's cues.
Anyway, I just ask you to keep an eye on it.
So, but go ahead.
So, yeah, what do you think was an issue with your relationship with kids?
I don't.
I mean, like I said, I was the weird, annoying kid.
I didn't, I don't know, I don't know what the specifics were.
It's very hard to get facts out of you.
So, when you say, I don't know what the specifics were, I don't know what that means.
Does that mean you know what the general things were?
Because I didn't ask for specifics.
I have to keep circling you back to figure out what the hell you're talking about.
I'm just pointing this out, right?
You probably don't get this kind of direct or blunt feedback.
But your language is extremely foggy and confusing, and it's hard to know what the heck you're talking about.
So, when you say, well, I don't know anything specific, it's like, am I supposed to ask now if you know something general?
What's the difference between specific and general?
Why are you saying, I don't know anything specific when I didn't ask for specifics?
I am, in fact, asking for general principles as a whole.
So, it's hard to know what you're talking about.
And I don't think that's accidental.
I'm not saying it's conscious, but I don't think it's accidental.
I just know I was considered weird and annoying by most of the other kids.
What was annoying about you?
You've had 40 years, almost 40 years, to figure it out, right?
And you got the feedback from your friend.
You've listened to my show for a long time.
What do you think, in general, was annoying about you?
I guess one part of it was I would, my tendency to like, you know, pick apart things people said.
And, you know, I don't know if, I don't know if you'll catch this, but like the, you know, there's kind of the joke, someone says, well, actually, and like, you know, analyze something instead of taking what they said in a reasonable sense.
I think there was some of that.
I guess.
Can you think of any examples or is that just a general principle that you think of?
There's that sigh again.
I'm sorry.
I'm not trying.
No, I want you to try to not do it.
Just be conscious.
Just be conscious.
Be in the conversation.
And, you know, if you said you would try to, so genuinely try to.
Be conscious of it.
That's all.
Because the sigh is hiding something.
It allows you to keep an emotional distance, which is kind of what we're trying to solve here.
So what were the general things?
Oh, sorry, what were the now specific, right?
What were specific things that you will actually and Fordora wearing kind of did?
I remember, and this was something someone who didn't like me much said at another point, but in the same general vein, they had said, you know, well, are you going to do, you know, are you going to do track next year or something like that?
Because I was running.
And I said something like, you know, unless my legs fall off or something to that effect.
And he said, well, that's the kind of thing that people really get frustrated.
Well, it's annoying.
Yeah, that's really annoying.
So why do you think you would do something like that?
Because you're still doing a bit, right?
I guess it was partly look at how smart I am.
Well, but it doesn't make part.
I mean, it doesn't make you look smart.
So why was it important for you that people think you were smart?
Because I didn't have a lot of other things to point to.
I didn't have.
Yeah, I wasn't like there were not a lot of other things I could, you know, say this was like, hey, this is why I'm worthwhile.
Okay, and why do you think there were things as a whole that you didn't feel worthwhile?
I don't know.
I...
I'm sorry.
I'm trying.
Well, let me ask you this.
Did your parents indicate that they took pleasure in your company?
Not just as a sort of bucket for religious instruction, but they enjoyed your company, they found you interesting or funny or engaging or thoughtful or, you know, something around taking pleasure in your company.
Did your parents seek you out and so on?
I know I spent a good deal of time pretty much by myself reading a lot when I was a kid.
And so I remember I actually just listened to it the other day.
You talking about Robin Williams several years ago.
And you talked about what you called me plus.
And I think, you know, as you know, looking at the way I am today and trying to, the ways I try to, you know, get attention, make people laugh, I think that's some of it.
I think that, that describes me somewhat.
Do you remember my question?
Did I'm not trying to be a gotcha?
I just don't want to repeat it if you do.
Did my parents show that they were interested in me, wanted me around?
I mean, it's sort of a bit of a joke in my household.
If my wife is busy, I'm like globbing onto my daughter for something fun to do.
And, you know, I enjoy both of their companies.
And so it's kind of like a joke, but I always want my daughter to know how much I enjoy her company.
Because I do.
is like super fun i guess i'd have to say no because i like i said a lot of a lot of my time as a kid was just you know hey i'll i'll be here reading you know by myself and
And also, like I said, my older brother tended to have priority most of the time.
Sorry, was your older brother or your older sister?
Older brother.
Okay, my apologies.
Okay.
All right.
So can you think of a time that your mother or father or both were like, hey, let's go do something or I miss you or I've thought of this fun thing that we could do together or something like that.
Yeah, we would get together, like all of us for like, you know, game nights or like we'd play card games or things like that.
And so we would when we were, when all of us, all of us as a family, we would do things like that a fair bit.
Ah, okay.
Got it.
So that's in general.
That's fun thing.
But was it you?
was it you as an individual rather than we're all playing uh this this game i don't i don't think so I don't think that's something that happened a lot.
Okay.
See, again, this is just fog, man.
Do you think that you're communicating anything other than confusion when you say, I don't think that happened a lot?
Am I supposed to know what a lot means to you?
I'm just in general.
Like I'm trying to understand your perception of what I need in the conversation.
I guess what I'm trying, I guess, don't guess.
Don't guess.
See, all of this hedging language, I guess maybe a little, perhaps somewhat, it's giving you an out.
It's defensive language.
If I was a hostile judge or a cross-examining lawyer, like, you know, this old thing from the West Wing where the lawyer's giving advice and he says, what, do you have the time?
And he says, yeah, it's three o'clock.
He says, no, no, that's not how you answer a lawyer.
The lawyer says, do you have the time?
You say, yes.
But you don't volunteer anything more.
So you are reacting to me as if I am a hostile, cross-examining judge or lawyer who has the power to throw you in jail if you say something wrong.
And so you are constantly using imprecise or frustrating language, if that makes sense.
And again, this is not a criticism.
I'm just sort of pointing it out.
I don't think it was zero, but it wasn't a major feature of tells me anything.
I don't know what that phrase means.
So you're saying it's somewhere between zero and infinity.
It wasn't zero, but it wasn't a major feature.
So it's somewhere between zero and a whole heck of a lot, but less than that.
did you see like i have no idea what to do with that yeah i And again, I'm just pointing it out, right?
So how many times do you remember your parents seeking out your company and wanting to spend time with you because they enjoy your presence?
not as part of a general board game or UNO game or something, but specific to you.
And this is not a cross-examination.
I'm just curious.
I'm not trying to catch you or get you or anything like that.
I can't.
I can't right now call to mind a specific instance.
So to your memory, it's zero.
Yeah.
So, why is that hard to say?
And again, I'm not criticizing.
I'm just curious.
Because I don't...
I feel like I'm attacking them.
And I don't feel like that's a thing I should do.
You feel like you're attacking them by being honest.
I feel like there must be.
I'm not trying to be dishonest, but I feel like there's something I'm missing.
Something I should be telling you that I just can't get at right now.
Like, there should be a positive here somewhere, but...
No, no, you've given...
Hang on.
It's...
See, you've given me two positives, money and religion, a three and a four.
Not great, but it's definitely more positive than the rest of the zeros, right?
Yeah.
So it's a little confusing, even from that standpoint, because you have given me some positives, right?
Yeah.
I'm suspect I'm scared that I'm scared that I'm lying through a mission somehow, that there's these great things that I can't call to mind that I should be telling you about.
And I'm painting this horrible picture and I'm not being fair to them.
Okay, so there's some emotion, and tell me more about what you mean.
I don't...
I don't want them to be awful.
You don't want them to be awful.
I don't want to say they're horrible because they're my mom and dad.
Is this a religious thing, like honor their mother and their father, or where do you think it's coming from?
Well, I mean, for one thing, I'm half her and half him.
If they're awful, then I guess I am.
Why is that true?
Do you think that I'm awful because my parents were awful?
That's not a challenging question.
I'm just curious about the logic of your thinking.
I mean, but like they're.
I mean, it's definitely true in some sense.
Like, I'm half him and half her.
No, no, no, you didn't answer my question.
Don't ignore it.
It's kind of rude, right?
I mean, you can tell me I'm not going to answer your question, but to go on as if I hadn't said anything, it's a little rude, right?
I don't.
No, I don't think I don't think you're you're awful.
I think I guess just you know your parents are a part of you even if you've even if you've even if you've gotten even if you've had to overcome their problems Your parents are a part of you even if you had to overcome their problems.
Okay, I think I think I understand that but why does that mean that if your parents are deficient that you're deficient or if your parents have weaknesses or things that they did wrong that or if your parents are as you say horrible that you're horrible and I'm just I'm not even disagreeing with you.
I just want to understand your reasoning.
I don't think I've thought that through that much.
It just seems like a, it just kind of seems like an obvious, it just seems like a axiom, I guess you could say.
It seems like something that's just there.
Well, I could understand it if you were fresh off the turnip truck, but you've been listening to me for 10 years.
And I assume that you think that I have some positive and moral things to say, but that would only be true if I was moral.
And you certainly know that my parents weren't.
So that's what I don't quite understand.
Is it just for you?
Is this rule just for you or is it for others as well?
I think, I think it's that I see, I can see reflected in me, some of the reflected in my actions, some of the same things from my parents.
And I don't know how to change that.
I don't know how to change direction.
No, no, that's, that's a whole different thing though.
That's a very, that's a whole different topic.
You're saying I can't criticize my parents because they're part of me.
And if they're terrible, I'm terrible.
And now I could have been a better father.
That's a whole different topic, right?
If you don't, if you don't manage to change direction, then you are just the same thing, I guess is, is what I'm, is what I, is where that's kind of where that is in my head.
Well, but that's the very much the opposite, right?
So if you say I can't criticize my parents and then you say, well, it's only bad if you don't change direction, but you can't change direction without criticizing your parents, right?
Yeah.
It's like saying, well, uh, I want to make sure that I don't end up in the wrong direction.
So the way I do that is never question whether I'm going in the wrong direction.
So, and again, you would have heard, I'm sure a whole bunch of call-in shows and this and that and the other.
So that's not the answer.
And again, sorry to be an egg, but that's not the answer as to why you won't criticize your parents.
And again, I say this with great sympathy.
I mean, I can tell you why you don't want to criticize your parents if you want.
I'm scared to, and I don't know.
I understand that, but that's the what.
That's not the why.
The what is that you're scared of criticizing your parents.
The question is the why.
Why are you scared of criticizing your parents?
I don't know.
I've said as much as I know how to say about it.
Would you like to answer?
Okay.
Sorry, is that a yes or a no?
Yes.
Yes.
Okay.
See, again, this is the precision in language.
It gives you an oddly feminine aspect.
I don't mean to say that you're feminine, but I mean, this not answering things directly is a kind of feminine thing.
It's actually kind of a slave morality, which we can sort of get into in a sec.
And I say this again with great sympathy, and it's not like I'm always direct.
So the reason you can't criticize your parents is you don't have a strong enough bond with them.
And so you are held hostage by your lack of a bond because you don't have a strong bond, and therefore all criticisms feel like they might just abandon you.
In other words, you don't know if your parents will still take care of you if you were to, in fact, criticize them, that they would simply withdraw and you can't afford to criticize them because you need them for your survival, but the bond isn't strong enough to handle criticism.
Like, I don't want to step across a bridge over a chasm if it's kind of half-rotten and I don't think it's going to make it.
I mean, I'm happy to walk across a bridge that's made of concrete, but not one that's half-rotten and it's fallen off and rope and it's made of rope and things like that.
Like, I'm not going to cross that bridge because it's not secure enough.
And your bond is not secure enough to criticize your parents.
You're terrified of criticizing your parents because if they aren't particularly attached to you and you criticize them, they might just tell you to F off and leave you behind.
I mean, that would be your instincts, right?
I mean, I'm not saying they would do that in reality, but as we evolved, criticism grows out of a strong bond.
And your parents did not welcome criticism.
Like, I ask my daughter on a pretty regular basis, is there anything I can do better or different?
Because parenting, as you know, is constantly changing.
I can't parent her like she was still five or 10 or even last year.
So I need to adapt based upon her needs, right?
And so I'm constantly asking.
I mean, I ask my audience all the time, what do you want me to talk about?
How can I serve you better?
And I ask my wife, how can I be a better husband?
And so like, what can I do that's different or better or how am I doing?
That kind of stuff, right?
So I'm constantly inviting feedback because I want people to experience their interactions with me as positive as possible, if that makes sense.
And I'm not sort of trying to pat myself on the back here.
I'm just trying to give you an example of what it means to have a strong bond.
My daughter can criticize me robustly and give me strong feedback.
And that's a good thing.
That's what I want, because the last thing I'd want is for her to bite her tongue and be unhappy, right?
And not tell me something that I need to know.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
So it's a terror of death, really.
that is the issue.
You know, if you're a prisoner, you're unjustly imprisoned in some horrible gulag and the guard says to you, I don't care whether you live or die, are you going to criticize the guard?
Not much, no.
Okay, are you back to not much?
No, seriously, man.
Like, what are you doing?
This is annoying.
You just got, would you criticize the guards?
Seriously?
No, you fucking die.
You would not criticize the guard.
Can we at least agree on that?
If he says, I don't care whether you live or die, and he's responsible for bringing you your food, will you criticize the guard, yes or no?
No, I'd keep my mouth shut.
You would keep your mouth shut.
And if some other prisoner tried to get you to criticize the guard, what would you say?
I'd rather not talk about that.
Right.
This is why you use fogging language, because you don't know if you're being trapped, if the guard is actually secretly informed, if the other prisoner is going to inform on you to the guard to get special treatment.
So you can't say, no, I love the guard, because then the prisoner will think you're a lunatic and will look badly upon you and might, I don't know, get mad at you and, I don't know, shank you in the mess hole or something.
And you can't say, I hate that guard, because then he might, so you can't say anything, which is where all your foggy language comes from.
And I say this again, with great sympathy, if that makes sense.
Yeah.
And I'm.
Like I said, I'm trying to change direction.
I'm trying to do.
I want to do better going forward.
I want to have more going forward.
But I. I want to have more going forward.
Hang on.
No, no, but do you see that you're still, I'm talking about your vague and foggy language.
And what do you immediately do?
I want to have.
You go to vague.
So you're not answering my question.
What do you immediately do?
Talk in ways that don't communicate anything.
Vague and foggy language, right?
It's driving people.
This is why, listen, I'm not saying that the people are right in terms of how they handled it as a child, but this is why when you were a kid, and maybe this happens as an adult too, this is why people find you irritating.
Now, please tell, I'm not saying at all that the essence of you is irritating or you're foundationally irritating.
And I can tell you why immature people can't communicate what's going on.
Why, I mean, do you have this as an adult?
Do you find that it's difficult to keep people's attention without the me plus making them laugh and so on?
Or do you find that people sometimes withdraw or are less seeking out your company and so on?
I don't have, I'm sorry.
I'm trying to.
Okay, let me ask you this.
Hang on.
How many close friends do you have?
And I know that sounds like challenging.
How many?
I'm just curious.
How many close friends do you have that you get together with regularly and talk about life and thoughts and feelings and arguments and I don't know politics and with people that you communicate with on a regular basis who you would consider close friends?
I'd say three.
That is fantastic.
So that's very good.
I mean, in your 40s, especially as a parent, right?
And so how often do you get together with these?
Is it men?
I assume it's men.
Yeah.
Okay.
And how often do you get together or how often do you have conversations with these men?
I'd say once or twice a month.
It's been there's scheduling.
You know, you have kids and they're busy with that.
Scheduling has been have you talked to these friends about your insomnia or about your hesitation about criticizing your parents or, you know, other things that we're talking about within the first hour of chatting?
I've talked about my sleep problems and they've heard plenty about that.
And have they given you any particular thoughts as to why this might be occurring?
They've tried to offer advice.
Have you tried this thing?
Have you tried that thing?
No, no, but that's just like valerian root or whatever.
That's just practical stuff.
What about something that might be going on that would be troubling your soul or something like that?
Not like, hey, have you tried melatonin?
Right?
Not analyzing things like that, no.
Okay.
Do they know about your parents' indifference to you as a child?
It's not something I've really talked with them about.
Okay.
So what is the deepest subject that you've talked about your friends with?
Honestly, I feel like maybe I'm cheating here.
Maybe I'm including something that doesn't really fit.
We get together and do record discussions about different poems and where, and not just about the poem, but about all the ideas that go into it.
And so that's great, but that's not personal, right?
That's about the problem.
Okay, so what is the deepest topic that you've talked about that is personal?
Like I said, the sleep problems and I'm worried about how things are going with my kids.
Okay, so are they parents as well, these guys?
One of them has been a parent for a while.
One of them just had a kid.
Okay.
Pretty good.
So with regards to being worried about how things are going with your kids, what sort of advice are you getting back from your friends, or in particular, your friend who's been a parent for a while?
Not a lot of direct advice.
It's kind of the general.
You're fogging again.
You're fogging again.
It's kind of a general.
Hang on.
Hang on.
What are you fogging about?
How am I supposed to know what you mean by not a lot of direct advice?
What does a lot mean?
What does not a lot mean?
And what the living hell is the difference between direct and indirect advice.
So you understand, we're back into fog language.
I don't know what you're talking about.
And you don't seem to know that I don't know what you're talking about right after I've given you like three annoying speeches on being direct.
Do you see what I mean?
Like you have this habit of just fogging and not communicating anything.
And then you tell me, well, I'm really close to my friends, but if you were close to your friends, your friends would have said, would have told you, I don't know what you're talking about half the time because you use all of this fogging language that is completely ill-defined.
And again, this is not a big nag of criticism.
I'm just pointing out a truth.
What does it mean to say he hasn't given me a lot of direct feedback or direct advice?
What is the difference between direct and indirect advice?
I'm just, I don't know what that means.
Is that mimed?
I don't see calling style.
I don't know what that means.
Sorry, go ahead.
What I was going to say is it's more supportive.
Like you can, you're doing okay.
You know, they're going to be all right.
You know, you're not.
So not, there's no advice.
No, that's not advice.
Not really.
that's a rejection of wanting to hear about the problem.
I mean, that's like the gym teacher, you know, your bone is sticking out your leg and he's like, walk it off, you'll be fine.
like I really won't be and we'll get to the issues with the kids right but But I'll tell you why I think people don't want to give you direct advice.
That's just brushing, that's just brushing you off, honestly.
I'll be frank with you, right?
I'll just say it's brushing you off.
Oh, you'll be fine.
Don't worry about it.
It's like, no, that's, that's, I mean, I'm having some real trouble here.
Like, can you imagine people call me up and my entire call-in show is like, eh, don't worry about it.
You'll be fine.
You're good.
You're okay.
Like, can you imagine?
I mean, who would listen to that?
That wouldn't be anything insightful or helpful, would it?
So the reason why I think people get annoyed, and I'm, again, I'm not saying you're annoying in any foundational sense.
I'm just saying that why people might have avoidance of your considerable depths, right?
So all the pluses that you have as a person, is because you treat everyone, I assume, or you're certainly treating me, as if I'm an abuser.
Right?
So if I treated everyone as if they were a hostile prosecuting attorney who had the power to throw my ass in jail for 20 years, right?
If I treated everyone like that, who would want to chat with me?
Keep them at a safe distance.
Well, it would be, I would be pretty stressed talking to people because everyone could throw me in jail like a prosecuting attorney.
And people wouldn't want to talk with me because I'm treating them as if they're a highly dangerous and toxic person with huge power over me.
Did you see what I mean?
Yeah.
I mean, there's an old story about talking to, I don't know, like the feds or the FBI or something like that.
So again, this is not legal advice.
This is just something I've heard, right?
Which is, so what they'll do is they'll say, when did this happen?
Oh, March the 12th last year, right?
And then they'll wait for a day or two or a couple of hours and then they'll say, when did this happen?
And if you say March 15th, because you kind of freaked out, or you say March 12th, two years ago or something, right?
Then you've told them two different things, right?
And then they'll say, well, one of these is a lie and lying to law enforcement is an offense, right?
So lawyers will advise often, and this is again, just my amateur understanding, I'm not trying to give any legal advice, but lawyers will say, and you'll see this when people get interviewed, but say, when did this happen again?
They'll say, I refer you to my previous answer because you're in a very dangerous situation.
And what do lawyers always tell their clients with regards to the police?
Don't talk.
Shut up.
If you have to take out a cross-stitching railway spike and stitch your mouth shut, shut up.
Because the police are way better at interrogating than you are at being interrogated because they've done it for 20 years and hopefully this is your first time.
So they just say, shut up, don't say anything.
Don't say anything.
Now, you can't, if somebody asks you a question, you can't just say, I plead the fifth, or I refer you to my previous answer, or you're going to have to go through my lawyer.
You have to actually communicate, but you can't say anything.
Because you couldn't say anything to your parents.
You had criticisms of your parents.
You were upset with your parents.
You wanted to be closer to your parents, but they rejected you.
And I'm sorry to put it so bluntly, but they did.
Like, I'm not starving people in the world that I don't feed unless I lock someone in my basement and then I sure as hell am starving them because they're reliant upon me for food and they can't get it anywhere else.
What's the same thing with love for children, right?
As a child, you need, desperately need your parents' love and care and attention.
And you want to know that they enjoy your company and that they appreciate your existence and that they take delight in your thoughts and feelings and want to know more about who you are and right?
Because you can't get it anywhere else.
You could only get it from your parents.
So you were angry to some degree with your parents and also terrified because if they saw your anger, they might completely reject you and leave you behind.
And that's why you can't criticize your parents.
Now, the problem is because you haven't gotten to the point of just robustly criticizing your parents, also known as just being honest, thou shalt not bear false witness.
Am I right?
So because of that, you treat everyone like they're your parents, which is why there's all this foggy language that you can't ever be caught on that doesn't communicate anything.
It's a filibuster.
It's baffle cap.
They call it vamping, you know, like if someone's supposed to be on the air on your radio station, but they're a few minutes late, you just have to say stuff because you can't have dead air, right?
So because you treat everyone like you're cold withholding uninvolved parents, people get offended.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Like if I treated everyone, if I treated every woman like she was my mother, oh God, God help me, right?
I treated everyone, every woman, like she was my mother.
Would a quality, healthy, happy, moral woman want to spend time with me?
She probably has other options, so no.
She probably has other options, so no.
Just no.
It's just be robust.
Just know.
Of course she wouldn't.
Now, she might say, gee, I really sympathize or whatever, right?
But, you know, if every time she went to scratch her eyebrow, I dove under the couch and said, you're going to beat me, would that be a little tiring and annoying for her?
Like, I'm not going to beat you.
Did you see what I mean?
Yeah.
If I had a male friend and every time he went to the bathroom, I clung onto his legs saying, you're going to leave just like daddy did, would that be a little tiring for him after a while?
Pretty quickly, yes.
Yeah, because he'd be like, bro, I'm not your dad.
Like, go talk to your dad.
it's not me, right?
So if you treat people like they're your cold, controlling, withholding parents, and we'll get into why the fog language occurs in specifically with your parents.
But if you treat people like they're your parents, in other words, you have the same avoidant defensiveness and fogging that you had to have as a survival mechanism with your parents, if you treat everyone like they're your parents, people will find that annoying after a while.
Because they're not.
I mean, can you imagine if every conversation, like if every conversation I had was like conversations that I had with hostile reporters from the mainstream media back in the day, can you imagine people would be a little annoyed after a while, right?
Because they're not hostile reporters from the mainstream media from back in the day, right?
Okay, so what happened when you were a kid?
What happened if you made a mistake?
Were you punished?
How were you punished?
What happened when you made a mistake or did something that your parents strongly disapproved of?
I. I'm trying to come up with a specific instance so that I'm not just giving these general ideas.
Well, hang on.
Were you spanked?
Yes.
Okay.
Were you spanked?
Hang on.
Were you spanked open or closed hand?
Open?
Okay.
It was.
Was it on the rear end?
Was it anywhere else on your body?
Was it clothes on or bare skin?
Rear end, clothes on.
Was it painful?
I would expect so.
That's what I'm saying.
But when you were there, sometimes hitting is just shocking.
It's surprising, but it's not like I can't walk or I can't sit down.
It was never to that degree.
So it wasn't particularly painful, is that right?
No, it wasn't.
Didn't leave bruises.
No.
You could sit down and so on, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, not that kind.
Okay.
And who would administer the spanking?
That would be dad.
And did you always know or generally always know?
Sorry, generally always know it was a bit of an oxymoron.
Did you mostly know why you were being spanked?
Was it explained to you ahead of time?
Yes.
You did.
Were you given warnings beforehand?
In other words, like this was your if you do that again, this is what's going to happen.
Yeah, I'm not sure.
I don't.
You don't remember any.
I don't.
It wasn't a regular.
Give me a second.
It's the number of times I was spanked as a kid is.
I could count on two hands, maybe one.
It wasn't like once a year.
It wasn't frequent.
Maybe that.
Okay.
Maybe less.
Okay.
And how else were you punished if you were doing something your parents disapproved of strongly?
And by the way, congrats to your parents for relying on spanking so rarely.
But sorry, go ahead.
You go to your room, and you don't have such and such a thing for such and such amount of time.
Yeah, like no TV, no computer, whatever, right?
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
Okay.
And were you ever yelled at that you could recall?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So what would happen there?
And would it be mother or father or both?
Um, dad and just upset about something and yelling.
I think it was more yelling in general rather than like directed specifically at me, if that makes sense.
Like it wasn't like he was angry and he was yelling, but it wasn't necessarily like goddamn it rather than you stupid kid.
Yeah, more like that.
Okay.
And what about your mother?
Did she raise her voice or do any corporal punishment?
Dad, like I said, dad did spanking.
I think with her, it was more like, you know, I'm so disappointed in you.
I'm so like it, like, you know, this hurts so much.
Oh, she was like martyr mom.
Kind of, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be.
No, that's fine.
That's fine.
So how often would your mother get disappointed?
Would she lecture you or just be sad and how much you've hurt her by whatever?
That would, like that kind of thing would be, you know, probably a couple times a year.
Like it was, like it wasn't like a constant.
Okay, so it's very, I mean, and how often would your dad yell?
I don't know.
I'm sorry.
I don't know.
You must have some idea.
I mean, once a year, once a month, once every six months, once a week.
just roughly once a month maybe more Okay.
And did either of your parents ever call you names?
Or characterize you in some general negative way, like selfish or thoughtless or careless or the second part, like not call me names, but probably like you don't think about you don't think about other people or things like that.
Yeah.
And that was a fairly absolute statement, like you don't think about other people was something that they said as a general statement about you or, you know, in this particular instance, you could have thought about other people more or you forgot this time or was it just in general or as a sort of personality characteristic so you don't think about other people?
More a general statement kind of thing.
Okay.
And was that ever sorted out?
Did they ever say, well, I'm really glad that you're thinking about other people more.
I think that's fixed.
Or was that more constant?
No, it was never really resolved, never.
Do you think that your mother went to her grave thinking that you, her son, was going through his life not thinking about other people?
Yeah.
Okay.
Now, to what did they ascribe this selfishness, as they would call it, this narcissism or whatever they would say, that you just only think of yourself, you don't think of other people.
Where would they think this came from?
Or did they have a theory?
Why was it like the devil?
Was it like where?
No, I'm not kidding, right?
I mean, where would they think this personality trait that's pretty monstrous, where would they come from for them?
They never said, give me, they never attached that to any specific cause, so I don't know.
Okay.
Do you think it was selfish for your parents to withhold affection from you and not seek out your company and make you feel loved and treasured?
Yeah.
So that would be projection then on their part, right?
They're not thinking about you and what's best for you as a child in terms of love and affection and devotion and all of that.
They're thinking about their own particular needs, which is to not express that kind of stuff.
To not get into topics which might hurt.
I'm sorry?
To not get into discussions that might hurt or be uncomfortable.
Sorry, I'm not sure where you're going from what I said.
And I'm sorry if I just missed a bridge here.
If you can fill me in, it's not a criticism.
I'm just trying to understand where you got to.
Just that, like, if, you know, why do you feel that way if they...
Sorry, why did you feel what way?
If they address to me, why do you feel that way?
Where's the- Why do you feel what way?
Why do you feel what way?
What are you talking about?
If I was sad or lonely, you know.
Okay, but hang on, hang on.
So this is why I don't get the leap.
So I was talking about they should have provided you sort of love and care and affection, right?
But they were only thinking about their own needs and preferences, which was to not provide those things for whatever reason, right?
So that would have diminished a lot of your sadness and loneliness, right?
Yeah.
So that's why if they had been attentive and affectionate to you as a child, then you would not have felt lonely and you wouldn't have felt like you had to say, quote, clever things, like I'll do track and field next year if my legs don't fall off because you wouldn't feel like you didn't have anything to offer.
Because if we don't feel like we have anything to offer our parents, it's pretty hard to feel like we have anything to offer strangers, right?
Yeah.
So if they had been affectionate with you, there wouldn't be all of the sadness and loneliness.
I mean, there may be occasional times when you're sad or whatever, but they wouldn't be all the sadness and loneliness to deal with.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I guess what I was trying to say is like they didn't want to have they didn't want to have conversations that would they didn't want to get into conversations where it would where they would have to look at where where is this like why do you feel this way where is this coming from because oh and if it was like I feel distant from you mom and you dad and I don't feel loved and like that would be difficult for
right yeah that's what i was okay okay got it so so after they were already cold they didn't want to ask questions that might make them upset which is selfish on their part right yeah okay got it got it all right okay so i wanted to mention with regards you said that that money was a three religion was a four in terms of like out of 10 communicating something of value right
unfortunately and tragically really the fact that your parents have a four in religion makes it absolutely inexcusable that they would get zeros anywhere else because what does the bible say is the foundational responsibility of parents to train up children in the way they should go that's right to train up children in the way they should go do you believe that parents
should be motivated and express be motivated by and express love towards their children yeah yes i mean did jesus love sinners yes jesus loved prostitutes jesus loved the diseased jesus even forgave the people who were nailing him to a cross and sticking a spear through his side
jesus is love to a large degree right and if there is hatred it is only hatred of the devil and even though you may hate the sin you love the sinner right yeah so if a child is selfish whose fault is that i'm
not saying you were selfish i'm just saying if a child in theory in general is selfish and roughly what sort of age do you first remember hearing that you never thought of other people i'm
not sure it just was i was trying to come with an example of the kind of thing and that like i no that's the first one because that's a big one that's defining you as a narcissist that sounds like a kind of a kind of thing i would hear from them but i don't know when i i don't know when but there wasn't a time when i said i love how thoughtful you are towards other people and then later they said you only think of yourself so you are towards other people and then you have to learn you like you can go on and start writing and you tell us it's just one of the things that you're talking about
So I assume it was pretty early, or there wasn't something that you got worse from.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, if a child is selfish, whose fault is that?
Well, you say, oh, but children are naturally selfish.
Okay, well, let's say that's true.
Whose fault?
Whose job is it to teach them how to not be selfish?
Parents.
Right.
If a child is given some horrible swear word in place of the word tree, and they point at a forest at the age of four and say, my gosh, that's a whole lot of horrible swear words.
Whose fault is that?
Whoever he heard the word from.
Yeah, whoever taught him that the word for tree is horrible swear word.
Is it the child's fault?
No, of course not.
Because parents train up the children how to be in life.
And so if your parents weren't religious, I could personally forgive them a lot more the string of zeros they had in the other areas, right?
The friendships, the education, the college stuff, how to talk to girls and dating and right.
But because they were religious, they were continually exposed to the fact that the parents must show love to their children and train them in great detail and depth on how to be in the world, to be virtuous, right?
So they have no excuse.
And for a parent, is there anywhere in the Bible where it says, if your children behave badly, you have no responsibility for that as a parent.
It's not there, I don't think.
No, it's not, because it would be a complete contradiction to it's the parents' responsibility to train up the children in the ways of the world.
So unfortunately, because the highest thing that your parents scored on was that you have to love and train your children and they neither loved nor trained you, that makes it infinitely worse, just to be clear.
Did you just that make sense?
Yeah.
I'm sorry, this I'm not.
This hurts.
I know, I know.
It hurts to look at and think about.
I get that, and I'm sorry that it hurts, but it's better than insomnia.
The insomnia is there because you're replicating some of your parents'behavior, right?
Could be.
Well, if you haven't criticized your parents, you're doing what they do.
That's why we criticize.
That's why we go through the pain of criticizing our parents so we can change our behavior.
If I never doubt the direction, if I can never criticize the direction I'm driving in, can I ever turn around?
No, because you don't know you're going the wrong way or you won't say I'm not criticizing the direction I'm going in.
I can't possibly turn around.
All right.
So, none of this quite adds up to enough of this foggy language.
So, tell me a little bit about your older brother and why he got so much of your parents' attention, because I bet you there's something in that that fills the gap to me in your response versus the stimuli.
He one thing for me, one thing for me in specific, not with my sister, but they had my brother, and then my sister is two years younger, and then I was five years after that, and I was unexpected.
I was a surprise.
Sorry, how do you know that?
Because they said they told me I was a surprise.
But why, sorry, why on earth would they say that you were unexpected, unplanned, and a surprise, which is another way of saying they didn't want you?
Like, and why on earth would you tell a child that I don't know?
I have kind of, I have been, I have been upset with them about telling me that part for a while.
I did realize that you're enough shows to know that you're not supposed to laugh, right?
When this really that's terrible, it's a terrible thing to say to a child, we never wanted you, but you came along anyway.
We never planned for you, right?
Or did they refer to you as a happy accident and we were thrilled you came along?
They said things like that.
Yeah, it's just it.
I've told my friends, you know, like if you ever have a kid who's not kids who are planned and kids who aren't, like, never tell them.
Like, don't, there's, there's nothing, that information doesn't do them any good.
Oh, it's not going to know where it's going to.
It's pure harm.
Because it's telling the kid, we didn't want you.
Also, I didn't, not something that affected me as a kid because I didn't know this.
But like, for some reason, my sister was going through, like, we were looking at some of the old papers and stuff, and my sister was looking at like the record when I was born.
And like, she was like, well, I don't, I don't see, I don't know what this charge here is.
Like, here's like birth and delivery, and then there's this thing.
And then, like, oh, I think.
She wasn't Nick, was it?
And it's like, oh, I think that she had her tubes tied.
Oh, tubes tied.
Okay.
Oh, gosh.
And they really didn't want another.
Okay.
Yeah.
And I didn't know that when I was a kid or anything.
That was only fairly recently, but that just kind of adds to the whole awful.
Like you're trying to invite me into this kind of genial comedy shit.
Because otherwise, I'm a little afraid I might be crying.
And what's wrong with crying?
Thou shalt not bear false witness.
Did I get that quote wrong?
Laughing about something that's very sad is bearing false witness.
this kind of a sin, if you don't mind me saying so.
So what was going on with your brother that he took so much of your parents'attention?
He's I remember when I was a kid, he's mostly outgrown this, but he was allergic to everything.
And like today, that's relative.
That's not that hard to figure out.
But like, you know, at in the 70s and 80s, trying to get trying to, you know, get food for a kid who couldn't have regular bread and couldn't have eggs and couldn't have this.
Like that, like trying to trying to attend to that kind of thing would consume a lot of attention.
And then that, you know, he was the oldest.
And then by the time the to the the you know, my sister and Deb, by the time I got there, like attend trying to work around this kind of thing took a lot of attention, I would guess.
And I think he also I think there were also some kind of developmental issues they were worried about.
I don't know specifics about that.
But I think like he had he had issues that they were that focused a lot of attention on him.
And it just kind of sorry to even sorry to just to be clear.
So the food allergies, there was stuff he could eat, right?
Yeah.
So it wasn't like they had no idea what was going on.
I'm just kind of guessing at how this pattern came.
No, no, I'm just please listen to what I'm saying.
Please listen to what I'm saying or what I'm asking.
So they had a pretty good idea what was going on.
I mean, what was some of the stuff that he could eat as a kid?
There were lots of things.
I guess the thing is like the things, like eggs, he was allergic to eggs and those are in a lot of things.
And he was allergic to regular bread.
I understand that.
I understand that.
You already told me.
I mean, not about the eggs.
But there was stuff he could eat, right?
Yeah.
So they just give him that.
Yeah.
So help me understand.
I mean, I get that they have to make some separate food, which I understand is a challenge.
But, you know, you can just throw a part of whatever he can eat.
I don't know, brown rice and beef or whatever, like bone broth, whoever, right?
So you just throw a whole vat of that stuff together.
You put it sort of cook it all up on a Sunday night.
And then you've hopefully got enough for most of the week.
And then you just have regular meals for everyone else.
So I'm not saying it's unimportant, but it wasn't like he had, you know, crippling seizures and they had no idea what the cause was.
And he was biting his tongue half off.
Like, it's like, okay, so he can only eat X, Y, and Z. How is that so time consuming?
And I'm probably missing something.
So just help me out.
I don't know.
I was just.
I've tried.
This is just trying to figure out myself, like, why were they so focused on him?
No, but I asked why your brother consumed so much attention, and you said because he had allergies.
And my daughter doesn't really have any allergies, so I don't understand that world too much.
So I'm trying to figure out why that was so time consuming because that's why you told me it was time consuming, right?
So I'm just trying to understand why you told me it was time consuming because I don't understand the world of allergies very much.
So maybe I'm missing something obvious about why it was so time consuming.
I guess just that they were very worried about his health and worrying about Him getting the wrong thing.
Like we were at, I think, one time my shares a kid's school lunch or something, right?
Yeah.
And so, like, you have to, you know, put up these special little barriers around him, metaphorically speaking.
Yeah, you tell him you can't share kids' food.
Yeah.
No, no, no trade sees, right?
And like one, I, you know, one time, you know, mom had made, when he was very small, I was told that, you know, mom had made herself some eggs.
And like, you know, he went and he, he, you know, you know, got up and got plate from the counter and was, you know, shoveling, you know, mouthfuls in them and then, you know, broke out in hives for like, you know, two days after that.
And so, so his allergy effect was hives?
I don't know if that was it.
I think that's what I was saying.
But hang on, you just told me hives.
What do you mean you don't know that was it?
I wasn't there.
I don't know if that was all.
I just remember that was what they said.
Was he was like, cause, you know, some people can be killed by bee stinks, right?
Their throats closes up and if they don't get their epi pen or whatever, right?
So was he in mortal danger from food?
And I don't see this sarcastically.
I mean, some people are.
I don't know how bad it was.
I don't know whether it was the kind of thing that might have killed him.
They never, I never did they have an EpiPen.
No, I don't even know if that was a thing then.
Yeah, it probably was.
EpiPens have been around for a while.
Okay.
Let me, you know what?
Let me just look that up because I don't want to be unjust, obviously.
Why wasn't he assigned antibiotics in the 17th century, right?
I get it.
Okay.
Let me just ask our good old friend, Dr. Grok, come on, give me my mouse.
You can do it.
All right.
I can, I have big monitors, so I never know where the hell the mouse is.
All right.
Let's find out.
Again, I want to be as fair as possible.
Okay.
So, Grock, when were EpiPens introduced?
Now, of course, we don't know.
Just because they were introduced doesn't mean that they were common back in the den.
Oh, no, that's fair.
EpiPens introduced in 1987.
He would have outgrown.
It would have outgrown.
Okay, that's fair.
So I appreciate it.
I'm glad that we looked that up.
I thought it was earlier, but that's another reason why we look things up, right?
I want to be fair.
Okay.
All right.
So he had allergies.
You don't know how bad they were.
One thing that was reported was hives.
And of course, hives aren't fun, but as far as I understand it, they're not exactly fatal.
And at what age do you know did he outgrow these things?
Probably by the time he was a teenager.
Oh, so he was in his 20s by then.
No, by the time he was a teenager.
Oh, he was a teenager.
Sorry.
I thought you said I was a teenager.
Okay, my apologies.
All right.
So teenager is again very imprecise, 13 to 19, roughly when?
Probably by the time he was 13.
Oh, so by the time he was 13 and you were like eight, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
So for your first eight years, there were these allergy issues with your brother.
What else?
Do you think might have distracted your parents from?
Did they both work?
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay.
And do you know who took care of you when you were a baby?
Did your mom stay home with you?
I'm not sure how long my mom had off for me when we were a baby.
Well, no, actually, Hang on.
She had off as much time as she wanted.
She's not a slave.
Well, the other thing, right at the time, shortly before I was born, like that month, my dad got laid off from his job.
Right.
And so they would have been like scrambling.
Well, no, your parents are intelligent, right?
Yeah.
Right.
So that's why you save your money for these kinds of emergencies, right?
Plus, if you get laid off, was this in a Western country, right?
It wasn't in like Timbuktu or Ghana, all right?
So if you get laid off, normally you get quite a bit of salary, right?
Months, sometimes even more, like six months, or like you get quite a bit of pay when you're laid off.
So you'd have savings, you'd have pay.
And so I'm not saying that it's not alarming or anything like that, but they would have had savings and your father would have had a pay.
And then, of course, there's an employment insurance.
There's lots of things that can help.
So it doesn't necessarily mean that your mother immediately has to go back to work or very soon after you're born.
Because then you have to pay for child.
Well, I guess, did your father take care of you if your mom went back to work fairly soon?
I'm not really sure.
I don't know.
Do you know how long?
Sorry, do you know how long your mother did stay home with you?
I don't know.
Okay.
But do you have memories of her staying home?
Or who took care of you then?
Who was your first memory of caregivers or people who took care of you other than your parents, if it was people other than your parents?
There was a friend of the family.
We called her aunt blank.
And she wasn't actually my aunt, I later found out.
But yeah, a friend of the family who watched all of us when we were little kids.
Like all three of you, or that was like a neighborhood daycare?
It was the three of us.
It wasn't a general daycare.
It was not.
And so it was more personal than that.
And do you know at what age she was taking care of you, or like photos or anything like that, that may have given you some clues?
I do not know.
Okay.
So do you have any early memories of your mother being home during the day?
I mean, I guess you wouldn't know what day of the week it was if you're so young, so it could be a weekend or something.
Okay.
um what's the closest you remember feeling to your mother or your father i i
remember my mom would sometimes uh read to me before bed uh and i was i can't have been uh i'm trying i I remember the place this happened, and I'm trying to place that chronologically because we moved a few times.
And I would have had to have been like eight or ten, and I remember that, and I remember that mattering to me.
Okay.
Eight or ten, your mom was reading to you at bedtime.
Yeah.
It's kind of old.
I don't know.
I'm trying to think of the eight.
Yeah.
That's not a criticism.
Not a criticism.
I'm just a bit surprised.
It does sound old.
That's why I was not sure.
It could have been just sitting down with me before bed and praying with me or something like that.
Okay.
Okay.
Now, did you ever have a conversation with your parents about deficiencies that you felt they might have had as parents?
A little bit, yeah.
I told, I'm sorry, that's more vague.
I remember one time being probably early, late teens, early 20s, and you know, being mad at my dad and telling him, like, you know, you never, you never told me this stuff about, you know, sex or anything like that.
We never, we never talked about that.
Like, you tried, but you were horribly awkward.
And I, you know, I'd been through sex ed in school.
And so I just, like, that's, I, you know, they told us, they told us all this stuff, and you just left it.
And I, I remember, I told him I was, I was mad and I felt I, I was missing something.
And how old were you when that happened?
How old was I when I said when I said that?
The when I told him I was mad about it, or when he tried and it didn't go anywhere?
No, sorry, when you talked to him about it, late teens, early 20s.
Okay.
And what happened out of that?
I think he gave some excuse about why it didn't really happen.
And, you know, and he felt bad about it, but didn't really explain.
So he fogged.
Yeah.
Okay.
So that's maybe where you get your fogging stuff from to some degree as well.
If that makes sense.
Yeah.
Like you don't quite know what happened, but nothing really got sorted, right?
Yeah, it, it didn't.
I didn't have any kind of satisfactory resolution.
I can say that.
Got it.
Okay.
Now, what do you think might be going on with your own kids that might be troubling you?
Both of me and my wife work.
And I'm not happy with that.
And how don't you know how?
13, 7, and 2.
Wow.
You guys got a spread.
Okay.
Didn't try it.
And, but yeah, that's how.
No, no, we don't want to hint at accidents.
um so your youngest son is two and who takes you sorry is it his son Yes.
Okay.
And who takes care of your son?
His grandmother, my wife's mother.
Ah, okay.
And how is she with your son?
Do you guys agree on parenting as a whole?
I'm frustrated with it.
I'm not happy with it, but I don't feel like we have better options.
And what are you not happy about?
She's she can't get around much.
She can't.
Oh, she's got mobility issues and she's parenting a two-year-old boy?
Yeah.
Yoikes.
Yeah.
I assume he's a clamber monkey like all boys are at that age?
Yes.
Okay.
And so one consequence of that is that his older 13-year-old brother is enforcing a lot of that, which he's frustrated about.
Sorry, enforcing a lot of what?
Like he's having to chase his younger brother around because she can't.
Sorry, but when is he?
Oh, after school, but before you and your wife come home?
Oh, they're home.
They're homeschooled.
Oh, homeschooled.
Okay, got it, got it, got it.
Okay.
Oh, so some of the sort of chasing after stuff is happening for your son, like your eldest son.
Yeah.
He's having to.
I know he's kind of frustrated with that.
Okay.
And why do you both work?
Hang on.
How can he be homeschooled if you both work?
So your grandmother is not only parenting, but homeschooling too?
We have him work on assignments and then we check on them basically in the evenings.
Sorry, did I get this right, 13, 7, and 2?
Yeah.
So are they teaching themselves?
The program we have, it has video lessons.
So they're not being homeschooled.
They're being computer schooled.
Yeah.
Okay, that's not the same thing, is it?
I mean, they're on computers, right?
Yeah.
So they don't actually, I mean, it's just video.
It's not even a person.
Yeah.
Is that what you want for homeschooling?
No, I just, I don't know.
Well, why doesn't your wife stay home at homeschool?
She makes more than I do.
why don't you stay home and homeschool?
I mean, how, okay, how are they getting, and this is, I know it's a big common thing with homeschooling.
So How are they getting their social life?
When we have them visit with friends of ours, one of my friends who has kids, when we can, and goes both ways.
They'll come over here.
Sometimes we'll go over there.
It's not as often as it should be.
Okay, so we're back to Farkland again, right?
It's not as often as it could be.
What does that mean?
It would be great if we could do that.
How?
often?
Once a month or so.
So your kids are getting socializing.
Do they roam the neighborhood?
Do they play with other kids in the neighborhood or where are they getting?
They're socializing.
Kind of not.
They're like.
Bro.
Bro.
What are you doing?
What are you doing?
Come on.
That's not right.
I know.
Well, I don't know that you know.
Honestly.
What do you know?
Tell me what you mean by I know.
I know this isn't.
Don't say it's not ideal.
It's not, that's not, that's not honest.
I know this isn't what they need.
I don't know how to reshape our life.
Like, I don't know.
I don't know how to.
I don't know how to cut out.
I don't, don't.
Listen, you're a smart guy, right?
Yeah.
Don't go rubber bones on me and don't try and pull this crap with me.
Honestly, if somebody offered you $10 million, payable in six months, for you to find better ways to homeschool your kids, are you saying, no, I'm sorry, I got to walk away from the $10 million, man, because it's just, I can't figure it out.
Like, if somebody said to me, Steph, I'll give you $10 million.
If you can win a gold medal at the Olympics in gymnastics, I would have to say, you're going to have to keep your $10 million because that's never going to happen, right?
So when you say, well, I don't know, and I'm rubber bones, it's like, that's not true at all.
You know exactly what to do, right?
Someone needs to stay home and raise these children.
And it's not going to be a freaking screen.
Is that a fair way to put it?
Yeah.
Okay.
All of our ancestors figured out how to survive the Black Death, the plague, the war, the famine, terrible weather, marauders, slaughters, rapes, God knows what, right?
Your ancestors got through the Civil War, First World War, Second World War, and you're saying, well, I can't possibly figure out how to actually raise my children.
Come on, man.
Don't go rubber bones on me.
That's just not true.
Say you don't want to, but don't say you can't.
We're the second richest generation in human history, and you're saying nobody can stay home but the three children you voluntarily chose to have and keep.
Come on.
Like, I don't even know why people try this stuff with me.
I don't know.
And I almost respect you for trying, if that makes sense.
but it's nonsense.
Tell me the practical steps you could take to stay home with, because it's not just about staying home and teaching your children so they're not stuck on screens all day, but, and especially because there's an age gap, it's considerable age gap, they don't even play with each other that much, right?
right?
Yeah.
So they're isolated.
And what did you tell me about your childhood?
In my room, right?
Yeah.
You're up in your room reading and isolated, right?
Yeah.
How dare you re-inflict this isolation on your children?
You know exactly how tough it is, right?
Yeah.
So what are the practical things that you could do to solve this?
Because being home is not just about teaching them.
It's about setting up a community, getting to know the neighbors, about making sure that they have social life, which, I mean, and this is your teenager is absolutely going to need this.
Like, beyond oxygen, teenagers need peers.
Am I right?
Yeah.
Right.
So what could you do to facilitate this, to make this happen?
Your wife makes more than you.
Remind me why you can't stay home?
Just tell me.
I feel like in terms of money, we're just treading water as it is.
Okay, come on, man.
How many cars do you have?
Two.
Okay.
Do you necessarily need two cars if one of you is staying home?
If something happens to one of the kids, we'd need to be able to take them somewhere.
Yeah, that's what Uber's for.
That's what ambulances are for.
I get all of that, but it's not absolutely necessary.
I grew up with no car in the household, not even one.
So that's possible, right?
Do you live in a house?
Yes.
Okay.
What's your square footage?
I don't know off the top of my head.
How many bedrooms?
Three bedrooms.
Okay.
How much property?
Less than an acre.
I don't know.
Are you in the city, the suburbs, or the country?
Country.
Okay.
And do you own the house?
Yes.
Okay.
So you can sell the house, you can move to a smaller place, and you'll have more than enough money to stay home.
And you get rid of a car.
I mean, I'm just saying these are possibilities.
Say, oh my God, we can't do that.
It's like, bro, our ancestors lived in frickin' mud huts, okay?
And you're a Christian, right?
Yes.
Are you supposed to choose money over what's best for your children?
Is that the way of Jesus and the Lord?
No.
So what would Jesus tell you?
I mean, don't listen to me.
What would Jesus tell you to do?
Prioritise.
He commands you to sell everything you own, give the money to the poor and follow him.
He's not even asking for that.
Sorry, I interrupted you.
What would you just say?
Prioritize my kids.
Absolutely.
Are you supposed to place material stuff over what's best for your children?
I guess the other concern, the other thing that worries me about that is where we are, the general region.
Like if you live in a poor neighborhood, like there's not really poor and safe.
No, but they're small town.
You got an apartment in a small town, you're safe.
I'm just spitballing here, right?
Okay, give me a rough sense of your, you don't have to give me exact figures, but roughly what's your combined income?
I think a little over $100,000.
Okay.
So she makes like $60,000, you make like $40,000.
Is it that kind of thing?
Or $70,000, $30,000?
More like, yeah, $70,000, $30.
Okay, so you, in your 30, sorry, in your 40s, you make $30,000 a year full-time?
That's the other thing.
Did you answer my question?
I'm not full-time.
I try to stay.
So hang on, hang on.
Your kids are being raised by computers and a geriatric grandmother for the sake of $30K a year?
you kidding me?
How many hours a week do you work?
Uh, depending on the time of year, uh, maybe 30 hours, something like that.
You make you make less than 20 bucks an hour, yeah, because I because I'm trying to like if I were to what are you doing as a man in your 40s, your mid-40s, with three kids making 30k a year.
Like, I'm sorry, I'm just trying to follow this because I'm trying to get what time like to advance in terms of like, you know, money and position, I would have to put more time in no, no, hang on, but why do you have so few skills after a quarter century or more in the workforce that you're pulling in less than 20 bucks an hour?
I mean, have you made more in the past?
I mean, I'm just trying to follow this.
Do you pay the grandmother anything?
No, she's staying with us, so that's well, yeah, but she's also a primary caregiver to three active children.
Do you think she should get paid?
How old is she?
Um, mid-sixties.
Oh, okay.
That's not too bad.
I thought she might be 80 or something.
I don't know, right?
No, but she's not able to do much.
No.
Is she ill?
Arthritis, back problems?
Like, what are we talking here?
Yeah, she's she's uh like uh she's she can't she can't walk like she can walk, but not like she can't you know run around or things and or can't so she has significant mobility issues.
Yes, it's do you think that's the right thing to do is to kind of rope her into trying to take care of your kids when she has significant mobility issues?
It seems a little exploitive.
We started, when we started this along, it was, when we started this, you know, kind of general plan, she was in better condition.
What does that have to do with anything?
Of course she was in better condition.
People age, you've got to make decisions based upon ill health and mobility issues.
Is she in pain when she moves around?
Is it uncomfortable?
Yeah, somewhat.
Okay, so she's kind of half crippled, and I'm sorry to say it so bluntly, she's kind of half crippled in pain, and she's in charge of three incredibly are they all three boys?
Yes.
Okay, so she's in charge of three energetic and active boys, and she's in constant pain and has significant mobility issues, and they're being raised by screens and barely see any friends.
Bro, the hell are you doing?
Come on, this is not right.
I know.
okay, for how long have you known?
For how long have you known that this is not right?
Months, years, years.
Okay, how many years?
point did you first begin to suspect that this might not be the ideal way for your children to be experiencing life okay and we've been talking for a long time so if you're going to give me these endless pauses it's not going to work
I guess at least four or five years.
Okay, so half a decade you've known that this is not ideal.
You brought another child into the mix, knowing that your wife's mother was not doing well.
So for half a decade, you've known that this is not the way to raise your children.
So why are you calling now?
Oh, because it's affecting you, not just your kids.
Because you've got insomnia.
So now it's about you.
It wasn't enough that it's affecting your kids negatively, which I would imagine it is.
But now, because it's affecting you, you're calling.
Is that right?
Yeah.
Right.
What about your wife?
Does she have any concerns with the setup you've got going with your kids and her mother?
Yeah.
And for how long has she had concerns?
Probably about as long.
Okay.
So why have you guys done nothing about it?
What about your wife's mother?
Has she expressed any concern about being in chronic pain, having mobility issues, and being in charge of a couple of kids half glued to the screen all day?
I assume the answer is no.
What about your kids?
Have they expressed any dissatisfaction and wanted anything different?
The oldest one, yeah.
And what does he say?
He doesn't he doesn't like it when both his mother and I have to be at work because he says he's well he's obviously he's the primary caregiver in many ways because he's the mobile one right and he says it's lonely right both of us are away and how long has he been talking about that for In those terms, maybe a year or so.
Okay, so for you and your wife have been very concerned about this for half a decade, your son has been complaining about it for a year.
So why didn't you call before?
just because it didn't affect you in the way that the insomnia is?
Would you say you're close to your children?
Not as close as I want to be.
okay that's not an answer i did not like i want to be now That's still not an answer.
Okay.
Zero to ten.
Let's do the scale again.
Zero to ten.
Ten being you're real close with your kids.
You enjoy each other's company.
You get along famously, blah, blah, blah.
They have an open line of communication with you.
They can say anything they need to you and all of that.
And you're there.
They know that you put their welfare first and foremost and would do just about anything to help make them happy and so on, right?
That's a 10.
A zero is, indeed, you know, because it was your parents' indifference regarding your questions about girls and so on.
Where would you put yourself on zero to ten with regards to your children?
And I would suggest being blunt about this, because they may hear this someday, right?
Three, maybe worse.
Okay, so what's your final answer?
Three.
Okay, so you give yourself a three.
So you're much better than your parents overall, right?
Because they were zero, zero, zero, zero, three, four.
And you're three across the board, which is much better.
They came out to one and change.
You're coming out almost three times better than they were, right?
And I just want to make sure I understand your scale.
I might have to move it down to two.
That's what I thought.
Okay.
And what about your wife?
Okay.
How would your kids rate their closeness to you and their feeling that you put their needs first and foremost and that you dedicate your life to making them happy and in reasonable ways?
Where would they put you on zero to ten?
Two, three, somewhere in there.
Okay.
Right.
Has that been fairly constant over the course of their childhoods, especially your oldest?
Or has that been better or worse at times in the past?
I feel like sometime in the past couple of years, in the past year or two, I don't know what changed, but I feel like he and I started getting along better.
Okay.
I don't know.
I can't point to a specific thing, but I just like it wasn't this one moment.
So hang on.
So right now it's a two, but in the past with your eldest it was lower, like a zero or a one.
because you're getting along better now it seemed like it seemed like for a long time we just are you like all we ever did was argue with each other Argue.
And what did you argue about?
You know, listen, you know, you need to do this thing.
You need to, you know, you need to, you know, clean your room.
You need to work on your own.
Oh, so he should do the right thing, but you're not doing the right thing, and neither is your wife.
He should make sacrifices for the family, which neither you and your wife are particularly doing.
Because you need your $100,000 a year, right?
So he was acting like you and your wife were, and that pissed you off.
So you nagged at him rather than looking in the mirror and saying, what am I doing that I could improve so I could model better behavior for my son?
You just nagged the shit out of him, right?
Yeah.
Right.
You are modeling selfish behavior.
And then you wonder why your son is not motivated to sacrifice for the family, right?
Yeah.
Right.
So why didn't you change it over the last half decade?
And you're going to have to engage in the conversation, these pauses, and huh?
Yeah, right?
It's not going to cut it, right?
Why haven't you acted over the last half decade, you and your wife, to fix this?
I guess I just don't see, like, I don't feel like, I don't feel like we're.
Okay.
Stop with the pauses, man.
Jesus.
I'm begging you.
No, you're just censoring.
You're just censoring.
Why haven't you fixed it?
Because I don't, like, we're not spending like we're not trying to be rich.
We're not.
And sent them to school.
Is school better than screens?
And a half-crippled caregiver who's in constant pain.
That's what I don't understand.
Let's say for some magical, fiery reason, there's a giant moat between you or your wife staying home.
Okay, fine.
I don't believe it, but let's just say that that's true.
Then why aren't they in school?
They have.
He was in school for a little while.
The oldest was.
And he had autism diagnosis, and he was like the school he was in, he was in a kindergarten, and they had like 20 years.
Why are you dropping this to me two and a half hours into the call?
Is he autistic?
Some, yes.
Okay, and how does his autism manifest?
It's not as bad now, but just he okay, how does it manifest now?
And why are you arguing with an autistic kid?
And shouldn't he get more specialized help if he's autistic rather than be home with screens all day?
Is that good?
I'm not an expert, but is that good for autism?
I don't.
I mean, what does a specialist say is best for him?
He had speech therapy from the school.
What does the therapy?
What does a specialist say is best for him as a whole?
I mean, I won't get into any particular details, but I certainly know someone whose autistic kid is in pretty specialized educational situations.
So, what does the specialist say is best for your son?
And do you have an autistic kid who's in charge of the other kids to a significant degree to the point where he's complaining about being in charge of the other kids?
Is the autistic kid the best babysitter?
I don't understand any of this.
What do you guys, I...
What does the expert say?
You've taken, he got diagnosed with autism, and I assume that they came up with some sort of plan to help him, right?
Yeah, yes.
Okay, and what was that plan?
Just roughly.
I mean, he was in school with other kids, and it just I get that, but there is plans.
Let's say for some reason he couldn't deal with the other kids, right?
Is that what you're trying to tell me?
Yeah, we were really unhappy with how that was going because he was him in a class of like 25 kindergartners, and there was one teacher and like one part-time teacher's aide.
And it just wait, so you're thinking when he hates five?
Yeah, that was when we pulled him out.
Okay, so he hasn't been to school for eight years.
Yeah.
Okay.
Have you taken him to a specialist to ask what is best for him?
Not this is a yes or no question.
Not since no.
Okay, so for eight years, he's been untreated, and there's been no particular that you haven't taken to any specialist to get a plan about how to best help him with his autism, right?
Yeah.
So both you and your wife, does this seem like a good idea to you?
Okay, I mean, that's sort of a rhetorical question.
I don't know what your pause is there.
Does this seem like a good idea?
Okay, if you don't want to talk, we don't have to talk.
I'm not sure if you're even still with me.
Are you with me?
Oh, did he go?
He left.
Oh, that's a shame.
Well, I suppose I'll just record my thoughts.
I suppose he disconnected.
Perhaps his phone ran out of power.
That certainly happened before.
But obviously, I've been doing this for a long time.
I'm kind of shocked.
And I'm obviously no expert in this, so all of this should be taken with no seriousness whatsoever.
It's just my usual amateur idiot opinion.
But this does not seem like the right course of action to me.
Certainly, I think that the young man, if he needs to see a specialist, needs to get evaluated, needs to get some sort of plan.
I would assume that being at home with screens all day is not particularly great.
But again, what do I know?
But I think it would be a good thing to get a plan going.
And I think that that's where the insomnia is.
I never really got the answer as to why he didn't and his wife didn't act over the last half decade that they felt this was not great for their kids.
I don't know the answer to that.
Maybe he doesn't know the answer to that either.
But I would assume this has got something to do with the insomnia.
So I'm very sorry that we didn't get a chance to end the conversation, but I suppose I suppose, again, it could be accidental, or it could be that he recoiled from the conversation.
I may never know.
But just, yeah, for those of you who are out there, please, please, just put your kids' needs first and foremost.
An extra 30K a year is not worth not being there for your kids and letting screens and videos raise them.
And listen, I mean, I have no particular issue.
I know that there are a lot of homeschooling kids who use screens, and that's not the end of the world, but they absolutely need a significant social life as well as that.
And they need constant conversation with their parents and all this, that, and the other.
So, I mean, I know that there's some hoops that homeschool kids have to jump through in various areas.
So I'm not completely averse to screens.
I know you can't teach your kids everything.
I get all of that.
But not just screens and very little.
He said once a month.
They get some socializing in.
And that's nowhere near enough, in my humble opinion.
Kids need socializing, particularly in their teens as they get into their teens.
So again, I'm sorry that we didn't get to finish the conversation with this gentleman.
But yeah, you just basically have to do what's best for your kids.
I mean, I know that sounds like a real cliche.
And, you know, most parents will say that, oh, we want to do what's best for our kids.
We'll do anything for our kids.
Our kids are number one and all that.
But to actually live that can be quite different.
And there's always options.
You know, go to your ancestors and say, well, we can't possibly get by on $70,000 a year, which is above the median income for most of North America.
And so the idea that you can't find a way to possibly survive on any of that is kind of incomprehensible to me.
And, you know, as a man, it's usually quite a good idea as a whole to try to make sure that you have some reasonable levels of economic value that you can provide, particularly if you have three kids, right?
But you can get by on 70K, in my opinion.
And what your kids will remember is they won't remember all the things that weren't bought, but they will remember the isolation.
And I would definitely try to avoid that with your kids.
So again, sorry for the mystery.
Oh, he's typing.
He's typing.
What's he typing?
What's he typing?
Hopefully, not a whole bunch of cuss words, but he's probably going to tell me that his phone ran out of power.
And we shall see.
I'm sorry.
My battery said 9% and then just went down.
Oh, shut down.
Okay.
Well, he's down.
And obviously, I hope he'll keep me posted about what's going on, but this seems to be a pretty tragic situation.
And I hope that he will get home with his kids and maybe get his son to a specialist to try and figure out the best way to move forward.
And I wish you the very best.
And I'm sorry to have heard this tale, but I hope some good can come out of it.
So thanks, everyone.
Freedomain.com slash Denny to help out the show.
Really appreciate that.
Take care, my friends.
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