Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - How to Kill HOPE! CALL IN SHOW

Oct. 17, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:17:27

How to Kill HOPE! CALL IN SHOW

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	So I am just hoping that we can shed some light on um kind of my family situation that I've got going on.
	Um I am 36 years old.
	I've got I'm a stay-at-home mom.
	I've got six kids.
	And um I'm sorry, that's just great.
	Congratulations.
	I'm sure everyone says that, but I'm just gonna say it too.
	So go ahead.
	Actually, no, so it's great to hear um some positive feedback.
	But um so I moved to be closer to my family um when my first daughter was born.
	And I I really had this hope and vision in my head that, you know, it was gonna be a great time living, you know, closer to my parents.
	And everything has just really slowly degraded.
	Um I kind of wanted to figure out if you know we could do like a bit of a deep dive and see kind of how I'm contributing to that or what's going on.
	It kind of what I would say is kind of set it off is that as I became a mom myself and started to choose to parent my kids in different ways or had disagreements with my parents about how they had done things with us, um, they started to get really defensive.
	And then I think that just kind of slowly eroded the relationship to where just things are things are really tense now.
	You know, we live we we actually live like next door to them.
	And um kind of the vision I had in my head of having like this great, you know, support system has really not come through.
	And it's been harder to be this close without having you know a good relationship.
	And then I've got two brothers that live um in the area as well, and things are completely different for them.
	And so I need to figure out sorry, you said things are different for them.
	What do you mean?
	I mean that the relationship that they have with my parents and um the treatment and their you know, their relationships are are very positive and they're very different than my own.
	I assume that they're not criticizing your parents that pretty easy to placate people if you don't criticize them, but sorry, go ahead.
	Yes, absolutely.
	Um how can I best help like adding more detail?
	Do you want me to just keep going and you can ask for questions or context?
	I keep going until um you feel like I've got a good lay of the land and then I'll ask questions.
	Okay.
	So yeah.
	So as I've, you know, I have my kids are from the ages of newborn to 10.
	And so as I had kids, there's just little criticisms that would pop in, or they would disagree with me.
	They started to really push back when I decided not to spank my kids.
	And, you know, it was a lot of um, you know, that's not how we did it.
	That's not what we did.
	Like you're gonna, you know, you're gonna somehow damage your kids by not hitting them, which the hypocrisy is just too much.
	I mean, is this that case the general like the kids need to learn respect and discipline and uh if you don't give them that, then they'll be crippled in life and they'll be lazy, or like what's the general argument?
	I think that's that's a large part of it.
	Um my dad is from the UK, and he is like the eldest son of a large Catholic family, and he has um this idea in his head that like the boys need to toughen up and I need to be like, you know, they need to learn um kind of it seems like physical violence from a young age.
	My boys are younger, they're between the ages of yeah, you know, six months and four.
	And my four-year-old and two-year-old have gotten an argument over a truck, and there was, you know, some squealing and some and I had gotten in the middle and broken it up and you know, no, this is this is what we're gonna do.
	It showed them how to, you know, get through it without just wailing on each other.
	And he pulled me aside and he said, I really don't like what you did there.
	Um, I think that you really need to let them sort it out.
	You don't understand, you know, what you're doing to them by, you know, making them little sissy boys, and just generally the the context of like I'm somehow damaging them by not letting them do that.
	He's very gruff.
	He's um he's he was a fisherman and uh, you know, he just swears nonstop.
	He doesn't censor any of his language.
	And so that's kind of been a sticking point too is like I think in front of the kids too.
	Oh, absolutely.
	I mean, yeah, I don't care what language you use, and I know you're just reporting on it, but what kind of stuff would he say?
	Um gosh.
	You can use anything.
	You can use acronyms if you're not comfortable.
	I'm just uh curious because uh that's quite surprising to me.
	Yeah, no, he he swore in front of me as a child all the time as well.
	And so just variations of using, you know, the F-word as nouns, adjectives, verbs, that sort of thing.
	And then like the boys had um their older sisters had put some nail polish on them and he, you know, just said in front of them that, you know, like they're turning they're gonna be little they're gonna grow up to be little pussies or they're gonna be little faggots because they're cis yeah, that sort of stuff.
	And I I correct him and I tell him, please don't do that.
	Like I really don't like it when you talk in front of the kids that way.
	And he'll kind of look at me like dear in the headlights and like just gloss over it and move on.
	But he never stopped when I was a kid, and I don't think he has any intentions of stopping now.
	You know, and I don't really know that what I think means anything to him, but I want to make sure that we're not starting to cross a line between like I don't like kind of how it's impacting my I I don't want his behavior to impact my kids the way that it did me, and I don't know if that's fairly naive, you know.
	Right.
	Well, that's kind of what I'm getting at.
	It's like I think it's fairly naive to think that's sorry, sorry to interrupt, but I'm sure you know this, like for kids, the the elders, particularly the boys, they're gonna model themselves after the elder male.
	And even he's gonna even have even more authority in a way than your own husband will.
	Your own father, like your father.
	Yes.
	And I've listened to you enough to to know that and and heard what you said to people about that, and that definitely hit home for me, which was wondering if it's like, okay, do I need to create some distance?
	Because there is like I I do feel that, you know, when we go around them that you know, they definitely still want to be the party in charge.
	And I've pushed back a bit.
	Sorry, they being like both your parents.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Like my parents.
	So like when we go over to their house, you know, it's like, well, things are our way.
	This is our rules.
	And I'm like, okay, well, you know, if they come over to my house, I've kind of made the rule that my d my dad's a pretty heavy drinker, and he used to be a pretty heavy smoker.
	And I basically told them, Look, like, we're not doing any of that at my house.
	And so then it kind of became like, well, I'm not coming to your house then, you know, because you can't make me.
	Sorry, when you say not any of that, obviously he's he he's quit smoking, it sounds like.
	But do you mean that like there's no drinking at all or just no heavy drinking?
	No, there's just no drinking.
	Okay.
	Yeah, that's fine.
	It's your house, right?
	My house, my rules.
	That's the way most of us grew up, right?
	Okay.
	That's exactly the way I grew up.
	But as soon as I tried to set some rules in my house, it was like, well, I'm just not going to your house.
	Right.
	Right.
	Funny how that that changes, right?
	Okay.
	Right.
	No, and he was a heavy smoker until he was diagnosed with lung cancer um about five years ago, and he had to have a section of his lung removed.
	And so that's probably the only reason that he isn't still smoking.
	Well, that's funny too, because most lung most people who get lung cancer from smoking don't get their second chance.
	I mean, basically the the guy in the black robe makes them quit, not their own willpower.
	But anyway, all right.
	Okay.
	Right.
	But that's And you can't you can't have swearing around kids.
	I mean, you just can't.
	And I mean, sort of the analogy that I use is like, it's like drinking, uh, it's like guns, it's like driving a car.
	You just kind of have to know what you're doing if you're gonna swear.
	You have to know when it's right, when it's wrong, appropriate, inappropriate, and so on.
	And kids can't figure that out.
	They don't think we we can't have them sign contracts and we can't have them do adult stuff and swearing is adult business.
	Oh, absolutely.
	And I think some of it is is just not coming up as um urgent on my radar initially because like this is exactly how he talked growing up.
	He has no filter whatsoever, whether he's talking around women or children.
	He just and my mom's kind of always given him a pass for that.
	Oh, that's just you know, it's just because of you know, his culture.
	And that's just how he talks.
	And there's there's no expectation that that would change.
	Hmm.
	Okay, so he swears like at the airport, he swears when going through customs, he swears if he's pulled over by the cops, like no filter, zero filter.
	Right.
	But the, you know, I've I've been with him, you know, out in public, and it's it's the people seem to like it.
	They see, you know, he's got a thick accent, and people just tend to go, oh, I love it.
	They're like, oh my goodness, like you where are you from?
	He's Irish, so I don't know why that has that effect on people, but they seem to they seem to find it charming.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So there are no there's no situation where he restrains his swearing, is that right?
	Probably the only situation would be talking to his mother, who is probably the only woman that I have seen him treat with respect.
	Not even your mom.
	No.
	Wow.
	What does he do that's disrespectful to your mom?
	You know, he's probably not it's it's not the same as with other people, but he definitely doesn't really attribute a lot of value to the fact that she was a stay-at-home mom.
	He was gone for probably between six and ten months a year until I was a teenager.
	He worked um out to sea.
	He was on boats.
	And uh he's really just kind of like he'll refer to things about like being a wife or a mom as like, well, that's you know, like that's women's work, that's for women.
	I'm not gonna help with that, I'm not gonna do that.
	That job is, you know, for somebody other than me, which ended up being my mom.
	And so there's a lot of like, well, you don't really have a job, you don't really make the money sort of thing.
	There's no preferential treatment in terms of like um just looking at like my relationship with my own husband, like he would go shovel, you know, when it snows, like he would go shovel.
	He would just go do nice things like that, or you know, because he wanted to, whereas like my mom was up, you know, with little kids, she was up making a fire in the fireplace, or you know, shoveling snow or doing things like that because my dad just didn't.
	Right.
	Okay, okay.
	All right.
	So can you think of a time when your dad has taken any kind of uh criticism to heart?
	Or even sort of feedback or requests or something like that.
	Nope.
	No.
	And that's from your childhood onwards.
	Yeah, there he can't be corrected about anything.
	He's actually told me he's never been wrong.
	And um, you know, in having in trying to have like conversations with my parents where I've kind of brought up things like, why were things done this way, or why did you make this choice, or how did you make, you know, they they moved um, you know, my dad's a complete continent away from any of his family.
	And then they when they started having kids, they moved um a couple hours away from my mom's family.
	My question was, why did you why did you do that?
	Like, why did you find that to be beneficial at the time in your life where you're gone and your wife is alone with little babies?
	Like, why did you move away from me?
	You know, and even then, like, which I thought was a reasonable question to try to ask, he just comes back with a lot of defensiveness, like, well, what did you want?
	Did you want to grow up in the city?
	Did you not want to have the opportunity to, you know, live in the country?
	Like, why are you why are you asking?
	Why do you need to know?
	So he doesn't really.
	It's funny, of course.
	I mean, what has struck me?
	And I say this, you know, with with some hesitation, because I'm just sort of getting the lay of the land here.
	But if your father believes that being rough and tough and spanking kids makes him strong and tough, then why he sees such a fragile little witch with a capital B when it comes to being criticized?
	Aren't you supposed to be tough and roll with the criticism because you've been raised hard, hard-handedly, and and shouldn't that make you tough?
	Like, why is he so hypersensitive and can't take any criticism if spanking is supposed to make you tough and strong?
	No, that's that's a great question.
	And I've tried kind of laying it out to him with some of your arguments, like, you know, what age is it not appropriate anymore?
	Like, if your wife talks to you, you know, disrespectfully, can you hit her?
	Like, why not?
	Like, you know, tried to get him to kind of just invoke some sort of thought about you know how the logical it is.
	And he's just like, you know, he just kind of doubles down.
	Like, and there's not, there wasn't ever really any sort of rationale.
	He wasn't like, you know, there wasn't firm rules on like what you got spanked for.
	It was basically like whenever my mom, you know, got overwhelmed and started yelling, like she would spank.
	My dad would encourage her to, like, when we got older, he was like, you know, give them the give the kids a slap in the mouth because you know, if they talk to you if you know disrespectfully, or if they say anything, like that's that's how you should handle that situation.
	And um I remember getting when I was 12, I remember like the last time I got spanked, and he spanked us because we had um written cuss words in like I don't know if you know it, like little mad libs are they're like little word puzzles where you add in adjectives.
	And we had we had written in cuss words because we thought it was funny, like me and my brothers, and my dad had found them and lined us up and like you know, had us all pull our pants down and get spanked for that.
	And I always I was just remembering sorry, hang on, hang on.
	Sorry, and I'm genuinely bewildered here because I thought I thought swearing was fine.
	No, just for him.
	Oh, so he swears all the time in front of the children, but then hits the children if the children reproduce any cuss words.
	Yes.
	Okay, that's that's a little nuts, even by hypocritical parental standards, isn't it?
	I would agree with that, but that is that is the uh pattern, and that's what I've seen, you know, is that's what he you know, the rules for the for me and not for thee.
	Okay.
	So that's how that goes.
	And you know, my brothers, I'm the middle child.
	I have two brothers who, you know, he has very different rules for them and for me, where like kind of with alcohol culture was very promoted and very like acceptable.
	My brothers kind of kind of got in some trouble and made some bad choices revolving around that.
	And I mean, so has my dad.
	But like he would be really on my case about like you can't go anywhere, you can't like do anything without being monitored constantly because your girl rules are just different for you.
	Right.
	So I don't understand that.
	But him and my older brother got into it quite a lot.
	And you know, I like he uh I remember like my older brother got some I I would just say beatings, like I watched him get into it with him and like So beatings what uh you said spankings, what what differentiates a beating?
	Um in my mind, just the fact that he would actually like get really physical with him or use a bell, or I watched him kick him down the stairs once.
	Oh my god.
	Like when he was like 14, and like we were all standing there, and I was wondering like if what my mom was gonna do about it.
	She didn't do anything about it.
	And like I still just get anxiety thinking about it, just watching it, because I was like all of like 12, 13 years old, and I didn't know what to do, and nobody was standing up for him.
	So your father like hoofed him down a flight of stairs.
	Oh, yeah.
	And dude, this wasn't like a whoopsie, like this was a calculated boot down the stairs.
	I asked my mom about it, you know, like a couple years back, and I said, like, you know, was there any thing that you thought that you should stop?
	Like this was acceptable behavior to you in terms of like um how you wanted, you know, your husband to treat your children.
	And her response to me was, well, your older brother's not angry at us for it.
	I don't know why you are.
	Right.
	So it's just it's whatever you can get away with, right?
	Okay.
	Seem to be.
	Okay.
	But you know, my my older brother definitely took the brunt of that.
	That didn't happen to me.
	Um how often was these uh I mean, assaults or hittings or spankings, like how often would physical force be used against the kids.
	So probably until you know, we were like, you know, you start getting old enough where you can push back a little bit.
	So like early teens, and then my older brother joined the military and left at 17.
	Right.
	So from as early as you can remember until early teens, I guess up to 14 for one of your brothers.
	And the other question is how uh frequent was this kind of uh violence?
	Once a week, once a month, more or less.
	Probably I'd say in that time period, it would have probably been like every couple of months.
	My older brother was like much more of a um a troublemaker than my younger brother.
	I don't think he got near the um the same intensity of uh physical altercations with my dad.
	But um, you know, I think it definitely rubbed off on my older brother because he would pick on me a ton during our teenage years.
	So uh spankings or hittings were um a couple of times a year.
	Do I have that right?
	Are you asking for me or for them or just in general?
	Uh let's say for you and for your brothers, if it's a separate number, then uh I'd I'd be curious to hear the number for both.
	Yeah.
	So the last time I can remember being spanked was when I was 12, so it pretty much stopped after that.
	I got slapped by my mom a couple of times because my dad kind of at that point had kind of turned things over between me and my mom.
	He was like kind of you sorted out.
	She, I don't really know what to do with her.
	How how could I possibly know how to parent a girl?
	So he kind of left that sort of stuff between us.
	And then he continued on, you know, um, getting physical with my older brother until he left for the military.
	And um, the only time that I ever saw him do anything with my younger brother was um we were probably about 19 or 20, and I was walking upstairs to go go through our living room to my bedroom.
	My brother had had some friends over that were drinking, and one of his friends was on the couch, and he got up and he threw up, and I tried to help him to the to the bathroom when I called my brother out, and he like came after me and he was really angry that I had done more to help his friend or get him there because then he had to clean up the floor.
	So he punched me, and my dad was standing right there and saw it.
	So he then came up and punched him and like that up.
	But he told me, he told me once, he said, you know, I'll never take your word for on anything.
	I have to see it if you want me to interfere, because apparently his sisters, he felt like took advantage and were very protected by his dad.
	And so he said that his dad used to hit him a lot for things that his sisters hold like basically said, you know, he did so and so, then his dad would hit him for it.
	So still don't have a clear answer uh on how often the kids were hit.
	Sorry about that.
	No, it's fine.
	I think probably every couple of months there would be a big it incident um with my older brother.
	My younger brother, it was a couple of times, like after after the age of 12.
	Before 12, we would get, you know, spank it was mostly my mom because she was the one that was around and you know, be spanked and hit probably um weekly.
	Okay.
	And so the couple of times uh with the with a big incident, that's when things really get, I guess, hit peak violence, but you're saying that kids were hit uh weekly, is that right?
	Yes.
	Okay, got it.
	I'm sorry about that.
	Like I said, my dad wasn't really he wasn't really around a lot until um I was about 13.
	Yeah, because he was doing these like long ocean voyages with uh fishing, right?
	Okay.
	So that's that's a lot of hitting, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, just over a 10-year period, that's over 500 hittings.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So your parents uh both feel that this was good parenting, right?
	They had they haven't said maybe it was a bit much, or uh maybe we should have listened a tiny bit more, or anything like that.
	Or maybe I shouldn't have kicked my son down the stairs.
	No, they they would either fog out and say, Oh, you know, I don't really know what you're talking about, or you're remembering it wrong, or I didn't do that, probably end up doing that sort of thing.
	But you know, I did I did try to kind of have some of these discussions just lightly with my mom about just like, hey, look what's going on here as I started to kind of investigate things with my own parenting and um kids.
	And she, you know, told me she she listened and then she kind of defended, and then she just said, you know what, I don't have anything to apologize to you for.
	Um, you bet, you know, then she kind of went to the whole you were really difficult child, you know, you were just really difficult to raise.
	Like, what else were we supposed to do?
	Your dad was gone a lot.
	What did you want me to do?
	So I think that's kind of a a dead end.
	Well, it's like insult.
	It's saying that that you and your immaturity and and bad behavior that you were the one who caused the violence.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Was there any violence between your parents or or how did they get along?
	No, I never um I never saw more than just kind of like um, I mean, my dad really, he didn't ever really raise his voice at her.
	They'd uh like maybe throughout childhood, maybe like a couple, um, you know, like loud discussions, but I I he never he never hit her, did anything.
	And what about violence between the siblings?
	You mentioned some bullying.
	Um, yeah.
	Um my older brother picked on us quite a lot.
	I remember really not having any sibling camaraderie.
	It was more so like I wasn't excited to see them.
	It was like, uh, you know, I don't really want to be around them because I know that they're gonna they're gonna pick on me in some capacity or bully me or make fun of me.
	So um, you know, I was glad to see him leave when he went to the house.
	What did they pick on?
	Well, they would just, you know, they would make fun of me for, you know, oh, whatever, you know, hairstyle I had that day, or whatever clothes I was wearing, or you know, anything they could kind of latch on to.
	Um if you like the boy or something like that, right?
	Yeah, just anything that, you know, you would be vulnerable to as a you know, young girl, they would they would pick on me for.
	They never really uh stood up for me in any capacity.
	So I'm sorry about that too.
	Uh were there any tender memories or tender spots, or was it mostly just this kind of cold buffeting?
	There's there I know that there's good memories in there too.
	And, you know, like my inner mom will is definitely like when I when I say all this and I think, oh my gosh, that sounds awful.
	Like I hear her being like, hey, there was good trips, like we went on family, you know, we went to the lake as a family, we did this sort of stuff, like, you know, um, we had good times as a family as well.
	And you're she, you know, she tells me like you bring up the negatives a lot, and like, well, they're kind of what stands out, right?
	I mean that seems fairly normal to me to remember the the big issues, but there was there was good times too where, you know, and I still um I still see kind of glimpses of that when you know,
	every once in a while, like we um would get together with family get togethers, or when I got to my like early 20s, my parents would start kind of they they hosted like a uh family get together where our family from out of state would come and like everybody would get together.
	And that was just um that was like they were on their best behavior, you know, it was wonderful to see everybody and to catch up with any everyone, and that was probably the most kind of exposure to like a a really robust like family support system that I had, and I thought that it looked wonderful.
	Right.
	Okay, okay.
	And how did your teens play out?
	Um I guess thinking as expected.
	Um I don't remember being particularly happy throughout my teens.
	I didn't um have a lot of direction.
	My parents didn't really give us any sort of guidance on like what we were gonna do after um high school or what um kind of Life would look like.
	I remember my brother joined the military, and then I was the oldest child, and I didn't really know what to do.
	Both me and my older brother graduated from high school a year early because we didn't end up really we didn't end up doing like we had we had moved um like in he was like freshman and I was in like seventh grade and we had moved at that point and it kind of threw off like uh our social circles that never really got re-established and neither one of us was having like a great time socially in school.
	And so academically we just um we did really well and so we ended up graduating earlier, but then we were just kind of lost and didn't really know what to do.
	So I worked, you know, some odd jobs here and some odd jobs there and didn't and then didn't end up going off to college till I was 21.
	Okay, and what about your dating life?
	In my teens.
	Yes.
	Or just oh I it was pretty non-existent in my teens.
	I had like um I had a high school boyfriend for probably like four or five months, but I didn't have like my um like I had probably like my first serious relationship was when I was about 19.
	And I Were you discouraged from dating or were you depressed, or was there some reason why you weren't out there um doing your thing?
	I mean, like the I suppose like I could have.
	I just um I didn't really have any like, you know, relate serious relationships in my teens.
	It was just kind of dating here and there.
	Um, but I guess generally, like I my parents didn't give me any advice on dating or what to look for, what to do.
	They mostly just made fun of me if I liked a a boy.
	And then made yeah, that that's exhaust that's a bit a British thing too, where or uh maybe it's a a British Isles thing where you like somebody, ooh, you know, it just like it just makes you really self-conscious and kind of paranoid about things.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	And so I I there was like a lot of negative feedback where you're just like, oh my gosh, like it wasn't uh wasn't worth it as a teenager.
	And when did you move out?
	Um I moved out for uh like to go to college when I was 21, like uh, but I kind of I had a couple attempted move outs before then, between the 18 and 21 that like I was working crappy jobs at the time,
	so I'd move in with you know somebody that was we were working with at the time, and then like that wouldn't work out, so I would kind of bounce around from home to these um kind of crappy roommate situations.
	Right, okay.
	And then after I after I moved out to go to college, I pretty much that was I didn't come back.
	Okay, got it.
	Got it.
	All right, and when did you meet your husband?
	Um when I was 23.
	So I went to college for a couple of years and then transferred to a different state to finish my bachelor's degree and met him there.
	Okay.
	And what was your degree in?
	Uh I IT net I like networking.
	Okay, got it, got it.
	Ah, you met your husband while studying networking.
	Beautiful.
	I love the synchronicity of that.
	All right.
	Okay.
	And what's your husband's family like that?
	It's pretty dismal in uh pretty much the entirely other direction.
	Um his dad died of cancer when he was 19.
	He's the youngest of three kids.
	And his I've probably seen his mom.
	We've been married for 11 years now, and I've probably seen her three times.
	She doesn't really come around, doesn't really do anything, and doesn't uh involve herself.
	Does she work?
	No, she's retired.
	What does she live on?
	I assume her uh teacher's pension and uh retirement, or I don't know if she got like a life insurance settlement from when his dad died.
	Oh, Okay, right, right.
	Okay.
	Uh all right.
	And is she in her 60s or 50s or she's in um her mid-70s.
	Uh mid-70s, okay.
	Got it.
	Is your husband uh same age as you?
	He's 39.
	Okay.
	I'm 36.
	And what was his childhood like?
	We've just been kind of recently starting to like talk about that.
	And sure, it's been 11 years.
	Why not why not open up the origin story?
	Right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Um, we've just been uh trying to figure this out, and um he tells me that he mostly just remembers being alone a lot and that he was um you know, like he his his parents didn't really talk to him about anything, they didn't give him any sort of meaningful advice in life, and that when I say, like, hey, what did you what was your family's stance on this, or what did your parents encourage you to do?
	Most of his answer is like, uh I'm not I never talked to them about that, they never said anything to me.
	Right.
	Uh sorry, and does he have siblings?
	He does, yeah.
	He has a brother that's two years older and a sister that's eight years older.
	And he didn't have any real contact with them.
	He was alone with siblings.
	Well, his brother just had like a completely different social circle.
	His brother was like kind of the archetypal, like fun musician, like, you know, in theater, like a lot good, like social and then my my husband's uh he's a mechanical engineer.
	So yeah, but I mean you you try and bring your brother along, don't you?
	I mean, to you know, maybe he can calm you down a bit, maybe you can jazz him up a bit.
	I mean, isn't there supposed to be a bit of cross-pollination between personalities with siblings?
	You know, that sounds wonderful, but that wasn't the experience that either myself or my husband had.
	Right.
	And was he uh spanked as well or no?
	No.
	He said that when he got in trouble, his parents would just put him in his room and shut the door, and then whenever he like he he said he can remember, you know, like throwing things or throwing a tantrum, and then whenever he came out, they just pretended like nothing had happened.
	Well, that's eerie.
	Okay.
	Right.
	So you were gonna say Oh, I was I was just gonna say, I think it's like completely the opposite experience that that I had.
	And um his I feel like it's probably just relevant to throw out, you know, his sister's so much older.
	He didn't have uh I feel like he probably grew up more so with just like a brother, because his sister was off to college when he was nine.
	Um, but he's kept in touch with her throughout the years, like you know, just like what like keeping in touch in his family means you call somebody on their birthday and have like a 10-minute conversation, a little like small talk.
	That's appalling.
	Okay.
	I agree with you.
	So tell me, tell me what you mean.
	No, no, you go ahead.
	You had another thought.
	Oh, I was gonna say I found I found it to be very odd, but as I try, like in the last couple of years, I've been trying to kind of like unravel these family dynamics.
	Like, why is this stuff why what is what is happening and why?
	And I've been kind of paying more attention to like what his mom does.
	And like she talks to his sister and his brother, but he doesn't really talk directly to his siblings a lot.
	But he'll mention, he mentioned something one time.
	His sister is um very liberal and she's made some odd choices in how they do things.
	And in this coming to light, I can get into it if you want, but it's probably not relevant.
	But in it what's relevant is that when my mother-in-law had shared this with my husband, he said, Oh, I don't really agree with that.
	Like that was the level of uh pushback that he gave.
	And his mom told his sister that he didn't agree with her lifestyle, he didn't support her, he didn't like her, and then she just stopped calling him and he stopped calling her, and like they haven't talked in five years now.
	Like Oh my god.
	What an evil that's how I felt about her.
	And I was like, I don't really think that I like her.
	I know that she did that on purpose.
	And like I put it together.
	Um, because he was like, well, she wouldn't have said anything.
	I'm like, she's the only one that could have.
	I'm like, ask her.
	Ask her and see what she says.
	And he asked her, he's like, Did you say anything to my sister?
	And she said, I might have.
	Probably.
	Wow.
	That's that's horrible.
	No, I mean, he could have called his sister to sort things out, right?
	Absolutely.
	And I told him that.
	I was like, you you could have called her and basically gone around your mom.
	But these social situations and families are kind of set up where, you know, everything kind of goes through the, you know, the parent.
	She she kind of wants, you know, she wants to know what's going on in everybody's life, but um, you know, she kind of interfered there.
	And I really, really did not like that.
	And I haven't said anything to her about it because I guess I'd just been avoiding it because I have enough of my own drama to deal with.
	Because to add um, like another layer to this, which I feel like is kind of relevant.
	We we kind of thought, you know, even though our families are weird and odd in their own ways, you know, like surely they would be there for you if you had um, you know, an emergency.
	That's I think that's kind of the story everybody tells themselves.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And then we had an actual emergency, and the the way that our family showed up is I thought what was the uh what was the emergency?
	Oh my god.
	Okay.
	I will try to get through it without No, no, but before we get to that, and just um with the sister, what was the general category of what your husband disagreed with?
	Was it like parenting?
	Was it like politics?
	Was it something else?
	Um, I'll just tell you.
	She her and her husband decided that they were going to stay married, but that she had realized after three kids and 15 years of marriage, she was a lesbian, so she was gonna date other people, and he was.
	Oh, so they'd have an open marriage and she would be a lesbian, she would date women, he would date women.
	Uh yes.
	I think that was the gist of it.
	Okay.
	And my husband had been like, oh, I don't really know that that's gonna be good for the children.
	How old were the kids?
	Um I think here.
	They would have been in the range of like eight to fourteen.
	So eight to fourteen, they decide to open the marriage and have a series of girlfriends.
	Okay.
	Yeah, I mean, I think that's not ideal for kids to put it mildly.
	So okay.
	It's kind of what I said, but then I was like, well, I don't know.
	I guess I have a lot more, you know, help now.
	No.
	I can't go with you there.
	I think that's a bit of a cow.
	But I mean, I I know you're joking, but okay.
	All right.
	So sorry, go ahead.
	I said I am joking just because you know, if you laugh, you'll cry.
	Well, this is probably another reason why he didn't really want to patch things up.
	No, and I guess, you know, patching things up, I I felt like would have been more relevant to just be like, hey, I actually didn't say this about you, you know.
	But like I'm I don't know that either one of us are really invested or interested in like correcting her life choices, you know.
	I have enough of my own stuff to deal with, but also that you know, he didn't need to be ostracized from her for five years.
	Like you can still Well, do you want to be around her?
	No.
	She lives too far away for it to be.
	No, no, no, but do you that's not the answer.
	Do you want to be around her?
	No.
	Yeah, I mean, that seems like such a non, let's just say non-traditional, right?
	But that just seems like such a non-traditional decision and kind of selfish in my humble opinion.
	Um that uh it would not be I wouldn't be around anything.
	I mean, I'm not saying I'm sort of the the gold standard or the test, but I I wouldn't want to be around anything like that.
	It's just no, I can understand where I come from.
	It's it's very strange.
	And I guess the only reason I paused is because my in my head I'm thinking, well, God, some amount of family support would be better than absolutely nothing, but maybe um sorry, but you mean by family support?
	Oh, just I mean, like any sort of like our kids have never met.
	Um I don't know if that's maybe a good thing or a bad thing at this point, but like nobody has really showed any interest in our kids.
	Like It took until my mother-in-law didn't like she didn't meet three of my children.
	Like we had five kids when we I I hadn't seen her in like five or six years.
	And like so, she had just had like three grandkids that she had never met.
	And then we meet them.
	And within 10 minutes, you know, she's like, oh my gosh, you have a lot of kids.
	Please tell me you're not going to have any more kids.
	This is so many.
	And I it's just and I I I couldn't be around the polyamorous stuff because uh if there's kids in I wouldn't do it even if there weren't kids involved, it's just too gross to me.
	And and selfish.
	Uh, you know, if you if you don't want to be married, don't be married.
	But don't just continue to be married and then expose your children to this.
	You know, plus there's, you know, you've got always the opportunity to, at least for the husband, he might get someone pregnant, he might get uh a sexually transmitted disease.
	Uh and you know, some of the you can pass to your kids, right?
	If you get herpes or something like that, I think that can pass uh through physical touch to to the kids.
	So you could get some real psychostalker or you know, just could be could be weird stuff that's that's going on.
	I I wouldn't want to be around that kind of stuff because they'd be like like most people who make these bizarre and I think very dysfunctional life choices.
	What happens is they won't accept any criticism whatsoever.
	In fact, they'd be enraged that you would come between them and their weird kinky desires.
	But then when the inevitable bad things happen, they want lots of sympathy, right?
	Yeah, I would say that that would definitely pencil that just the suggestion that my husband wasn't a hundred percent supportive was enough for her to stop talking to him.
	Yeah, good, good.
	I mean, honestly, uh nothing of value was lost, in my in my opinion.
	Okay, so I got that.
	And you know, may maybe maybe sorry, I take what back what I said about your mother-in-law, she might have done you all a massive favor.
	Well, she's been very, very supportive of his sister, and she's really had like her back and tried to like understand where she's coming from, and she's still involved with their family.
	She's just made no effort to help ours.
	No, no, but what I mean is that she by by provoking this level of uh anger or triggeredness from your sister-in-law, she probably did you and your family a great a great favor.
	Well, we didn't see her anyways, so I get where you I get where you're coming from, but she's you know, states and states away, so no, but I mean it's just uh when bad things happen, you'd be amazed about how distant people suddenly are in your phone every day, uh begging for support and help.
	If and when the bad things happen, and they'll never they'll never reference anything you might have said before.
	But okay.
	All right, so we get to the disaster that revealed the fragility of the family, the emergency, I think you've said.
	Yes, I don't I don't know why I needed it to come to that point because uh I think it should have been clear to me before.
	But I went ahead and took a break talking to my mom when um I was pregnant with our sixth baby who was born this February.
	And so kind of last summer, I just took a pause on like talking to her.
	I felt like I wanted a bit of a break.
	Um she was quite critical when I was pregnant with our fifth baby, and she was, you know, like you you really need to stop.
	Like she just couldn't say anything nice.
	This is your mother-in-law, right?
	This is my mother.
	Your mother, okay.
	So oh oh, this is why when I say congratulations on the six beautiful babies, you're like, it's nice to hear something positive, but seriously, congratulations on the six beautiful babies.
	I I envy that.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So your mother was like too many.
	Yeah, she's she's been very critical of um my choice to have more kids than her because she didn't feel like it she had three, and she was like, that was a reasonable number because I had three, but oh my gosh, like you just have too many children.
	So I mean sorry, sorry to interrupt.
	I'm sorry to interrupt.
	I just want to before I forget this point.
	So uh uh violent parents are often overwhelmed by more kids because their violence creates chaos and resistance.
	If you peacefully parent, I mean, and I know I I know, I know I have only one child.
	I get that, but I do have friends who have multiple children.
	And I think one of my friends has six or seven kids.
	And sorry, one of my friends has six.
	One of them has seven.
	I shouldn't say I don't even know how many.
	But they're peaceful parenting.
	So it's actually quite a lot of fun, right?
	Because if you peaceful parent, um more c more kids doesn't add more problems.
	It's not like you're adding more inmates in a rebellious jail or something like that.
	So so for them, it's like, oh, it's too many kids.
	I couldn't handle it.
	It's like, well, yeah, because you were hitting your kids.
	Whereas if you don't hit your kids, um, it's not more than you can handle.
	But sorry, go ahead.
	No, there's been moments of chaos, but overall, like love my children.
	I'm having a great time.
	You know, I just I I love hanging out with them.
	And, you know, I wish that like she would look at that and kind of see that, like, yeah, there's moments I'm tired, but it's also because, you know, we don't have a lot of support and we're trying to balance everything ourselves.
	And, you know, if she wanted to show up just for a little while, I'd probably be less exhausted.
	But overall, like, I I'm having a good time.
	So anyways, I took a break and I I got a little bit um I I just took a step back from the family.
	My brother and my parents live within like a Wait, will we get into the emergency or is this I didn't want to skip over that part?
	Well, okay, this I just want to make sure we didn't skip over.
	Okay, so we're heading the emergency is post February when you took a step back because of criticism about kids or other things.
	I said my my sixth baby was born in February, but I'm saying like when I was pregnant with him last summer, I kind of took a step back.
	I got a little bit um uh kind of distant from the family.
	My my I was just telling you for context that my parents and my younger brother live within 30 seconds of my house.
	Like we live very close, even though we're rural.
	My older brother's a little further away, but we're all in the same general area.
	Like I didn't get invited to Christmas, I didn't get invited to the, you know, get togethers, I didn't get invited to the house.
	Wait, you're 30 seconds away and you didn't get invited to Christmas?
	Absolutely not.
	That's but my sorry you said you took a step away, but sort of helped me understand what that what that means or how this came out this way.
	So I I just stopped picking up the phone and stopped responding to messages from my my mom.
	And because she runs all of the kind of social interaction in the family, then that kind of led like my younger brother to just not really contact me and not like they he him and his wife do a lot of things with my parents and they get together and um he he never reached out and like everybody just kind of we just kind of stopped talking to each other.
	It's sorry, but but why um what happened that you decided to stop communicating with your mom?
	How much time do we have?
	We have as much time, my friend, as you need, because I wanna understand the roots of all of this, and there's no point climbing the tree if you don't know how deep the roots go, right?
	So uh what happened?
	Well, I was gonna say it's it's it just feels like a very long story.
	Um so just I'll try to tie it up somewhat neatly.
	But I told you we lived pretty close to my parents.
	My parents had originally bought this twenty acre chunk of land and they had started building a house for my older brother, his wife that they had offered to basically front the financing for and then my they were gonna sort that out once the house was built.
	But my sister-in-law and my mom like could not get along because my mom kept overstepping.
	My sister-in-law kept saying, Hey, cut it out.
	And then eventually my mom moved on to the property in a travel trailer to try to supervise everything, and it all it all blew up, and my sister-in-law said, I'm freaking out of here.
	No, I'm gone.
	Like, and they ended up like my brother and her walked, they built the rest of the house, they built themselves another house.
	Long story short.
	Wait, sorry, your mother built the sorry, the your mother built the rest of the house designed for your brother, and then your brother and his wife went and built another house.
	It's a little crazy, isn't it?
	Yes, and I I'm I'm trying to condense it for you because you might need a graph.
	Okay.
	So sorry.
	I'm so far.
	I'm so far I'm I'm okay, but uh maybe I'm at the edge.
	Go on.
	Yeah, so they took my my dad and mom took over, you know, like finishing up general contracting this house, building it, whatever.
	So they were using that house as a rental.
	They had their primary residence elsewhere.
	And then they had decided to build another house on the same 20-acre parcel for themselves to live in so they could sell the other house.
	Okay.
	Long story short.
	Like they now they live on one end of the property in a house, and I live in that house that um was a big thing.
	Oh, that they built for your brother.
	They built it, yeah, for my older.
	Oh, I got it.
	I fixed it.
	I fixed it in my brain.
	Okay, kid.
	Okay.
	All right.
	Okay.
	My younger brother built like, I call it his little clubhouse, but he built like a himself like a little small house next to my parents and lived there for years and years and years until he my parents gave him the 20 acres that they owned across the road, and his mother-in-law built him a house on it.
	And so now he lives over there.
	Okay.
	But we all lived very close.
	And so I could kind of see, you know, when I wasn't being included in the family get togethers or situations or things like that.
	You can see them having fun through the windows.
	Yes, quite literally.
	Wow.
	Um, my older brother was the only one that would still kind of stop by and talk to my family.
	He kind of got after me for he, you know, he was like, I don't know why you're picking on mom, like they did the best they could.
	You might have some contentions with her, but basically just stuff that down and and get over it for the rest of us so that we don't have to we don't have to deal with any level of discomfort.
	And he's sorry, this is this the brother whose wife couldn't stand your mother to the point where she wouldn't even take a free house.
	It was it was not a free house.
	Okay, a subsidized house or whatever, right?
	Right.
	Okay.
	Is it the same brother?
	Yes, that's my older brother.
	Okay.
	So his older brother, your your brother is like, don't fight with mom, even though his wife fought with your mom a lot.
	Right.
	But my so even though his wife and my mom, you know, could never get along, and his wife kind of exited out of dealing with the family for a couple of years.
	My brother kept showing up.
	Oh, so he'd show up without his wife.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	He kind of Oh my God.
	That's terrible.
	Does he mean?
	Okay, let me ask you this.
	Is your family religious still?
	My family is not religious in it.
	In it.
	My dad, when he left the UK, like his, you know, he's from a Catholic family, but he only ever goes to mass if his mom is is uh visiting.
	Okay.
	So your brother made vows to put no one in front of his wife, that they were one flesh or whatever, right?
	I mean, you could say whether you're religious or not.
	Those are still the vows, right?
	And bro is making like husband mistake is as simple as humanly possible, which is he's choosing someone other than his wife.
	Oops.
	That is a bad call, man.
	That is a bad call.
	All right.
	That that's what I thought.
	I had a like I I did have a like a chat with my sister-in-law last summer just to kind of be like, after I was trying to figure all this stuff out, I just kind of went to her because I was like, what are your thoughts and feelings on this?
	And she's done enough therapy to actually have some perspective.
	But um, she basically told me, yeah, it's a sore spot.
	I hate that he did that.
	He's always going to do that.
	And um, you know, the I can either accept that or or not, but they don't have any kids.
	And they kind of I would say have more.
	Oh, sorry, why don't they uh have any kids?
	Because they don't want any kids.
	Why don't they want any kids?
	Um I know that his wife came from uh a pretty like uh pretty bad upbringing.
	She was the oldest kid and her parents were so did you.
	What does an answer anything?
	Well, this is what she has told me when I asked.
	I don't want to have kids because my parents were bad.
	She basically said that, you know, she didn't Even know that people intentionally had children until she was like a teenager because she'd never encountered a situation as a child where anybody had reacted to babies positively.
	But isn't isn't therapy supposed to help you overcome this programming?
	Well, I'm not sure.
	Apparently it was just, it's not something that she wants.
	She's pretty she's pretty focused on herself.
	She, you know, um goes to they they traveled a lot.
	They like she went and lived in Europe for three, three months last year.
	Like they like to just get up and go places and do things.
	My older brother doesn't want kids either.
	He just, if I ask him about it, he just says, not for me, didn't want them.
	They're too much responsibility, like just kind of all the generic answers.
	But neither one of them wanted it.
	And uh And how are they with your kids?
	Um my brother probably sees my kids maybe twice a yeah.
	Oh God.
	Now, this isn't the one who's like on the same 20 acres.
	No, he lives about 30 minutes away, but he's at my parents' house all the time.
	So he'll, you know, come over and visit with my parents, and then sometimes he'll stop by, rile up my kids, you know, bounce with them on the trampoline and then leave.
	And that's pretty much the extent of his uh uncle involvement.
	And the other one?
	My other brother?
	Yeah.
	He does absolutely nothing.
	He has two kids of his own that are very similar age to mine.
	He never instigates getting them together.
	Um, he never contacts me.
	He we live 30 seconds apart, and um, I see him like what do you like?
	I don't understand this at all.
	Like, not even a tiny bit.
	I've been doing this for 20 years.
	I've never heard of anything like this.
	Like blood relatives living 30 seconds away who don't have anything to do with your kids.
	No.
	All right.
	Well pretty much sorry.
	So so what was it that happened last summer that had you?
	I'm still trying to get the last summer distance thing.
	And I know I'm I'm asking you for the backstory, so don't that's not that's on me, but but what happened?
	Okay.
	So the it didn't happen last summer.
	I was trying to fill you in to kind of let you know where the the family um environment was at with like nobody was really talking to me.
	No, no, hang on.
	But you you hang on, but you did say that you stopped talking to your mom last summer.
	I did.
	And then I'm gonna go to the city.
	So that's that's the like based because of what?
	What what happened?
	Oh my gosh, then we tried to go back.
	I'm so sorry.
	I tried to.
	No, no, you've nothing to I'm asking for all of these side quests.
	So so don't feel bad about that.
	I just want to know what happened last summer.
	So um there was a situation like kind of over COVID with my husband's job in which like it looked like he was going to have to transfer to a different company.
	Things were getting weird with his current employer in his particular field.
	There wasn't a lot of people.
	Maybe got the facts or something else.
	Um, yes, and no, um, it was he wasn't being forced to do that.
	It was just everything kind of came to a head during COVID with like his job situation.
	He worked for like a government contractor, and it looked like it was going that way.
	But he we know he like his bosses were pretty abysmal before that.
	So we were trying to get ahead of it.
	And if it looked like he was gonna have to change jobs, we wanted to be proactive about that.
	And he wasn't sure how much longer he could continue working for these people.
	Okay, because they were just kind of nuts as a whole.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Yes.
	And there's very limited in his particular field, it's very limited options locally.
	And so we had kind of thought about it and we thought, God, in addition to like the family situation and everything that we got going on and your work, maybe we should just move.
	Like, maybe this is just too much, and I just we don't want this in our face every day.
	And so we had looked at the prospect of moving to the extent where like we were gonna, you know, sell the house and move.
	And my parents kind of went, Whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't sell that house.
	Like, we sold it to you.
	You're not allowed to sell it.
	That was a condition of us selling it to you, which is not true and never happened.
	But they didn't want us to sell it, and it got to the point where like they were like, if you sell it, like we're gonna have to pursue legal action because we feel like you owe us money from the sale of the house because We sold it to you for less than we could have got it for market value.
	And it just got so freaking weird that I was just like, I uh among all the other issues that we have, I I I cannot I cannot handle this in addition to everything else.
	So your parents threatened to sue you if you took the profits from the house that they sold to you for less than market value.
	If you took full market value, they wanted a cut of that, right?
	And so why not just sell the house and give them a cut?
	Oh, they didn't want other people on the property because they wouldn't know who was coming in.
	They also didn't they didn't want us to sell the house.
	If we sold the house, they wanted money, but they were also really angry.
	And I guess the the answer to your question there is because we wanted to use the money to buy another house.
	And they I guess the like I'd offered to sell it back to them for the same discount that they gave us, and they said no, they didn't want it back.
	They just wanted money.
	And so I kind of felt like, well, you know, if you don't want it back, and like I I felt some sort of um obligation to, you know, to offer them the same deal, which seemed fair to me, but they didn't want it, and we needed the money to to buy a house if we were gonna go elsewhere.
	Yeah, so like you're gonna get some new houses discounted, so okay.
	Right.
	And it just became such a mess that I had kind of tried to talk to my mom about this.
	This is in addition to the fact that like, so I bought this house for them at you know, like I a slight discount from market value after renting it at at market value for several years.
	And my younger brother lived in a little house that he built on their property rent-free for eight years and then was given 20 acres and built a house across the street.
	And I had kind of looked at that and thought to myself, like, that's fine.
	Like, I I don't mind that, but why the difference?
	Why is it that he like you want to actively help him, and it feels like you're actively trying to stop me from having any sort of benefit that would be you know, they're they're helping the people who aren't having kids and they're not helping or in fact harming the family that is having kids.
	So, well, just to clarify, my older brother has no kids, my younger brother has two kids, and he is the one that um Oh, okay, sorry, sorry, got it.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Okay.
	So you were dismayed at uh being trapped in a house suddenly becomes a prison, you can't sell it, and your your parents are threatening to sue you.
	Uh I'm not sure how they would do that if there's no paper on the contract.
	But you know, nonetheless, it's an unpleasant experience and certainly an unpleasant threat, right?
	So your parents are talking about suing you if you sell the house.
	So they they basically forbid you to sell the house.
	Yes, and I know why legally they can't do that.
	I really just didn't want any part of that mess because I've watched my mom be in lawsuits with um the neighbors up here that um I wanted absolutely no part of.
	She she got in a lawsuit because she bought a property with an easement road and then didn't want people to use it.
	And she spent years and a ton of money trying to win this lawsuit.
	And so when she said she's gonna sue me, I I believe her.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah.
	I didn't want any of that.
	And so it just really like was very emotionally stressful for me.
	She had like we had, you know, my husband was ended up during this time, he took a different job, and he had to go, he had to be gone for a couple of months to get training in the job.
	And what we were we were gonna move there, and then with all of this happening, it like they ended up allowing him to work remotely.
	So that's so we could stay in our little house prison, I suppose.
	But he was away for a couple of months, and I tried to like have some talks with my mom.
	I tried to like really be um.
	Oh, you need some help just be like at this point, right?
	You have six or five kids and and your husbands away.
	Yeah.
	Well, you know, and my parents, uh, the business they own now is seasonal.
	It's very slow in the winter.
	I was, you know, kind of hoping they would help, but any time that I kind of act that ask them to help, it's always like, oh God, well, there's so many children.
	I really just don't think I can do it.
	I have to wait until, you know, your dad's there to help me too with the children.
	You know, I can't possibly and I'm not asking them to watch my children alone or more than like a couple, or like sometimes I was like, hey, could you just help me for an hour during bedtime?
	Just so I can pick off a couple of them.
	And um it was it was always just like, oh God, well, it's just so much.
	And we have a Why did you have so many?
	But yeah, yeah, okay.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	We have different plans where I end I understand then the last summer thing, and then what was the emergency.
	So okay.
	So I I will get there.
	I promise.
	No, and again, I'm asking, so don't feel bad.
	That's that it's really helpful to me.
	Yeah.
	So uh yes.
	So we had kind of I'd had to talk with my mom, and I had kind of told her I was like, between what had happened with this house here and then what happened with my brother, and just the discrepancy, and like you're creating a lot of animosity.
	Like me and my brother don't even really talk, but like, oh my gosh, I don't really like him.
	Like, this is really unfair.
	And what's what's going on and why is this happening?
	And she kind of had ended the conversation with saying, like, well, I wish you guys would have just I wish you would just leave then if you're so unhappy, you know, completely disregarding the fact that like she had tried to bar me from leaving.
	And so I just like kind of wanted a break, and I knew that she wouldn't be happy.
	Like, um, you know, if I had told her about being like with my sixth baby, she wasn't gonna be happy about it, and I just wanted some peace.
	And so I just sat with that kind of by myself.
	I didn't tell anybody.
	I I talked to um my aunt and uncle, who is my mom's brother and his wife that live about 10 miles away because my mom doesn't talk to him anymore.
	She like cut him off about five years ago.
	But my aunt.
	Oh, he didn't try to use the road, did he?
	Oh my god.
	I'm just kidding.
	Don't do that side quest.
	Uh I'll I bookwalked it, but go on.
	I was gonna say, we probably don't want to take that right now.
	But no, she she's not she tells everybody that will listen that she's has no idea why he won't talk to her, and she's very confused, and he's just awful, you know.
	But my uncle and aunt have been like wonderfully supportive in my life.
	But one positive I can say is like when my mom stopped talking to him, I started talking to him, and we kind of like bonded over that, and we're like, oh my gosh, like I guess we're both kind of being pushed out of the family.
	And he's done like a wonderful job, like kind of including us in like the stuff that he does over at his house with his circle of friends.
	And um, my aunt has has really provided a lot of support with the kids, and they've been very helpful.
	But my mom won't talk to him, won't talk about him, won't like she doesn't talk to him.
	So we're kind of like have this little division going on in the family where like because she won't talk to her brother, my brothers are also not allowed to talk to him.
	And so then me and him are talking, but and it just so I told him, I told him, and he was very happy.
	Um, and my aunt was very happy, and she agreed to provide some support postpartum for um when our baby was born.
	And so they knew, and like it's like the news of me being pregnant with our sixth baby kind of slowly got back around to the the rest of the family.
	Like my mom knew because my aunt told me that she confronted her and that she ended up telling her.
	And then um I didn't say anything to them, and they kind of pretended like they didn't know, and we just kind of had this weird little stance off.
	And then when my sixth baby was born, I had him at home.
	And um, my aunt came and provided some postpartum support, and I just say that because it's relevant, and he wasn't he wasn't doing well, he wasn't looking good.
	Like we were starting to think that maybe he was getting sick or something was wrong.
	Sorry, uh how long after birth did he look poorly.
	So he looked okay when he was born.
	And like a couple, like they do that.
	I don't know if you're familiar with it, they do that full soximity test when they're 24 hours old.
	Yeah.
	And he failed.
	And my midwife was like, I really feel like you need to take him in and get him looked at.
	So we took him in, and we have kind of like a family doctor who looked at him and was like, you know, there's a lot of complicated changes that happen um to baby circulation as they switch over from in neutral circulation to um out.
	Sometimes it takes up to 48 hours.
	I want to see him again tomorrow.
	Right.
	And then my my doctor got sick and he was out of the office, and so we ended up getting to like 10 days old, and like something was wrong.
	And I took him to the ER because and this is like the last thing that we wanted to do with everything.
	I had to call my I called my dad, and I was just like, I need you to come sit with my other kids.
	Like, it's not it's not it's no longer questionable that there's something wrong with my baby and I have to take him in.
	So my dad, my mom would not pick up the phone for me or talk to me at this point.
	So my dad came down.
	He sat with my other kids and me and my husband took our baby to the ER.
	And within like I got like I like we got to the front window and like they took one look at him and just grabbed him and just like ran.
	And so we followed him back there and they hooked him up to a bunch of stuff and like I oh my God it was so jarring and so abrupt and I had about like 20 like 20 minutes to process what the heck was going on.
	And they pulled me aside and told me that um he had a congenital heart defect his um his pulmonary artery and his aorta were switched.
	They were transposed so that he his blood was like his heart was hooked up essentially backwards.
	And babies have these little holes in their heart that allow mixing until they close at a couple like days to weeks after birth but because everything was reversed in his heart hit like pressure was backwards and so they weren't closing which was allowing him to get some mixing but he was just slowly going more cyantic.
	And so I had like 30 minutes to adjust.
	It means they're going purple.
	Like their oxygen is low.
	Oh, okay.
	And yeah, of course, that's dangerous to the brain as well, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, he was lucky that his, you know, he didn't get to like, I mean, he was very lucky that he didn't get to a dangerous level.
	But he was 80s.
	He was much lower than he should be.
	And so we had like 30 minutes and they like intubated him, sedated him and like loaded us up on a jet and flew us to the children's hospital like two states away.
	I went with him and my husband stayed with our other five kids and um I had like at this point like not prepared for an emergency of that level and I just kind of left with what I had like I immediately called my uncle and he um has like he had another house like he lived in that city he has a couple houses and he said okay I'll be there and he dropped everything and got on the next flight and came over with me.
	but my parents and my husband back here my husband's here with five kids we were not prepared for this we could really use some family support and some help and so we kind of put a call out to our families oh my god you guys we just had this huge crisis like our baby's being life-flighted and just anything you guys can do to help with child care support would be so wonderful and my aunt showed up and
	she was helping my husband and he took some time off of work to watch our other kids.
	My mom and dad showed up and they did dinner a couple of times and my mom helped here and there and then kind of backed off.
	And I got one text from one brother, nothing from the other.
	And my husband asked his mom to fly out and help.
	She said yes and then decided no, she didn't actually really want to come.
	And he got a text from his brother and sister being like, well, I hope it goes okay.
	And it just devastated me and I I don't know if it's even realistic to like feel devastated about that but I just felt crushed that like I was realistic to feel devastated by that.
	I arrived in the middle of the night, like at the children's hospital, like I'm trying to hit, like we, I had to be there for six weeks because my poor little baby, in addition to having a heart defect, he also had RSV and it was like really touch and go if he was going to make it for a little while.
	And then he had to have open heart surgery.
	And then after like all of that, I've been trying to keep up with parenting.
	I've been trying to keep up with like, he came home, like, and we had to feed him through a tube because after everything he went through like he didn't you know establish a good oral feeding routine and going to a bunch of appointments and a bunch of stuff and like waking up every three hours to pump breast milk for him like around the clock for months.
	Like I I haven't is he okay dad he he's in a he's in a much better place now.
	Like we just kind of turned a corner in the last month.
	Oh my god.
	It's appalling.
	I'm appalling for you and terrifying.
	I'm you know, I'm parent to parent.
	I mean, my gosh, that's that's just uh about as bad as things can be.
	And I'm I'm really sorry that you all went through that.
	Well, thank you.
	That that's how I felt about it, is it was about as bad as I could envision, you know, something happened to your your poor little newborn baby.
	It was just awkward.
	And it goes on and on, like months and months, like you said, it's February, March, April, May, June, July, August, you know, it's getting better over the last couple of weeks.
	I mean, that's I mean, that that takes everything out of you.
	And it did.
	It was just like everything that, you know, like I had to like be on sleep loss and to be watching this medically fragile baby that really nobody but me or my husband can watch.
	And uh running him to all of these appointments, and I'm trying to figure out like it took a huge amount of mental energy to try to figure out how to get him like weaned, because they send him home and you know, they'll be like, hey, we sort your baby survived open heart surgery, but now you have to feed him with a tube that goes down his nose, and and we don't really know at what point you should stop that.
	Okay, good good luck bye.
	Right.
	And they don't give you any advice on that, and then if you don't figure it out on your own, it snowballs into like all these other medical interventions on trying to get your baby to eat, and it's just like I never you don't realize how for granted you take all that stuff until you're like, oh my god, like what I would give to just have my baby eat.
	Yes.
	And like he because he didn't understand, like he didn't connect the idea of eating to sustain himself.
	And so it's been like a thoroughly exhausting job to like just this little like he is just as much work as the other five combined.
	Absolutely and my like my my older girls are so sweet and they want to help so much, and like I have to say, like they've been more help than anybody else, like just being like, Hey, can you play with your brother while I'm doing this?
	And like my you know, two and four-year-old, can you just keep him entertained right here?
	And and they've been very helpful.
	But we kind of thought, this is ridiculous.
	Like we lived next door to all this support, and they didn't show up.
	Like my parents did the I I will give them credit and say they did show, you know, like my mom did show up a couple of times.
	She watched the kids for as much as she could take, which was like a couple hours a day for a couple of weeks, and then she was like, uh, you guys should probably get a babysitter.
	But like my brother sent me one text, didn't try to come over, didn't try to help with the kids, didn't bring any food, like nothing.
	And I I just like I can't even look at him without being like, what is wrong with you?
	Like nothing.
	Right.
	I just thought I thought he would show up, you know, and he just didn't.
	And nobody really showed up, but they were all perfectly happy to be like really irritated with me that I didn't, you know, like well, you didn't tell us about the baby.
	I'm like, we weren't gonna do anything helpful anyways, quite clearly.
	Like, why why would I tell you?
	You know, and then my older brother had kind of pointed out to me, he was like, Well, you know, you should really say a big thank you to mom and dad because you know, at least they, you know, when you had an emergency, at least they, you know, they came over and they watched your kids, and you know, that's that's what family does.
	Oh, yeah.
	I mean, I'm just I don't want to make this about me, but I'm I'm it's not shocking to me.
	I mean, I went through um some trials and tribulations, you know, attacked to the mainstream media and I had cancer and and so on, and I mean, not one of my family members contacted me with the anything.
	It wasn't like it was private.
	I was literally all over the papers, right?
	So uh they don't uh yeah, it's it's I'm not shocked, but uh that doesn't make it easier.
	Right.
	I mean, it it's very odd where you're like, you know what?
	I thought I thought you would show up if it if it just if it was bad enough.
	Like I could somewhat adapt to the idea of like, you know, he's got his own life, he's not really interested in, I guess, getting our kids together or anything without you know, me being the one to organize everything.
	But then when that's this happened and nothing, like I I don't know.
	I it just something sorry, if there's something foundationally emotionally missing from people, it doesn't regrow in an emergency.
	You know, that's like saying, well, my uncle is colorblind, but boy, when there's an emergency, he can see the full spectrum of color.
	It's like, no, he can't.
	You know, my aunt, she she lost an arm, but boy, what during an emergency, she'll regrow it.
	It's like, no, no, she won't.
	Emergency does not change people's foundational personalities.
	It just usually makes them more of who they are to begin with.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Well, I I don't know why I had this naive idea that you know somehow people were gonna come through for me then because it's propaganda.
	It's it's you how many movies have you seen where you know the the the family closes ranks when there's an emotion like the p the fighting goes to side and everyone pulls together or when there's a storm or uh a war or you know we put our differences aside and we pull together because blood is thicker than it's propaganda.
	It doesn't actually come from the real world, but it comes from programming people usually to stay in dysfunctional relationships.
	Yeah, I guess that's you know, for whatever reason, what was in my head and was in my husband's head about you know, like what was gonna happen when we had like the biggest emergency of our lives, and I guess it's that was kind of uh a catalyst to make us look around and be like, is it way worse than that we thought?
	Like clearly No, it's not way worse than what you thought.
	It's not way worse than what you thought.
	It's just not gonna get better than what you thought.
	Because you knew there was a mess, right?
	Yeah, I guess I I did, but you know, in the back of my head, if the planets align, the mess will be better.
	Yeah, I think I had some sort of fantasy about that.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I'm I'm I'm sorry.
	I'm I'm incredibly sorry because uh people I mean, just as a whole, people don't know the harm that they do when they fail to be there for people.
	And and what I mean by that is it it can never be undone.
	Like that's that's if I understand this rightly, certainly as an adult, this is like the lowest point in your family of origin relationships, and it can't be undone because you will hopefully never be in that kind of need again, or if you are in that kind of need again for whatever reason, you're not gonna reach out to them because they've already shown what they will and won't do.
	So you can't undo that kind of stuff.
	No.
	You know, and I just I came home just completely wrecked from this whole experience and needing support and like still, you know, like I guess it's completely predictable based off of how things have been, but like my mom still wanted to bring up to me, you know, that um gosh, you know, I haven't been a very good kid.
	I was in the hospital, I'd been in the hospital for a couple of days, and my dad called me, and this sounds ridiculous as I recall it to you as in the position that I was in, but he got after me because he said my four-year-old son had called my mom um old and grumpy,
	and he wanted to know what sort of like what sort of things I had been telling the kids about them and had I bad mouthed, you know, them and you know, and it's no, like it turns out she probably had just been old and grumpy and he called her old and grumpy because he's four, you know, and that's what but he and I I think to myself, like he called me up when I was in the hospital with my baby to berate me about being called a name by my four-year-old.
	Like, can you not handle that situation?
	Is that too much for you?
	Like no, no, because remember, he's a he's a really tough guy because he was faint, right?
	Yes, very turns out to be very fragile and and yeah, uh that's um I'm again I'm just I'm incredibly sorry.
	That's just uh that's just terrible to hear.
	Some baffling dynamic.
	No, I watched him get an argument with my four-year-old because my four-year-old wanted a different color of plate.
	And my dad said, We don't have that color plate.
	And my four-year-old went, well, I want it.
	And he just looked at me, he said, How many fucking times do I have to tell you we don't have that color plate?
	And I just I like to do it.
	Well, sorry, he said that to who?
	To my four-year-old.
	Okay, what are you doing?
	Hang on, hang on.
	Hang on.
	When did this happen?
	This is this is just this is like an average Tuesday.
	Like I was over at the time.
	He swears at your four-year-old.
	Yes.
	Okay, what are you doing?
	I you know what?
	Trying, I guess trying to adapt and find a place in a dysfunctional system that is never going to adapt around me.
	All right.
	Let me put it another way.
	Let me put it another way.
	What is your husband doing?
	I mean, he's supposed to be the protector, right?
	I mean, to take a real cliche view of male-female relations.
	He's supposed to be a protector, right?
	Yes.
	And I'm just trying to envision the scenario in which my husband would say something to my dad about that.
	And um Well, no, I don't know that he would talk to your dad.
	Okay.
	I mean, I I can only say what I would do if I were your husband.
	Let's hear it.
	Well, I'd sit down with you and I'd say, This this is not acceptable.
	Like, this is not gonna happen.
	And I'm not even gonna try and change some guy who's in his 70s.
	Who won't even admit fault and says he's never wrong, which is insane, right?
	So uh yeah, we have to uh we gotta get out of Dutch.
	We gotta bug out.
	Okay, well, in my husband's defense, that is essentially, you know, we didn't come to the same conclusion for exactly why, but as he watches me try to engage with them, he he kind of told me he was like, you know what, like we just have to leave.
	Okay, is it going to be a little bit more?
	When did that uh when did that come about?
	That was when I kind of told you about like we had discussed moving with and then all the drama.
	Oh, this was the last summer, and then your parents, you got the threat, and then your baby was very, very gravely ill and and so on.
	Okay, yeah, so I understand that, but that's is that the plan.
	You know, we're just kind of now like coming, like I feel like we're just coming above water and like being able to breathe easy again, and like actually like I feel like I I want I feel like I simultaneously could really use some time before I tackled like the massive logistical challenge that it would be moving and um you know everything that like is currently we're at with our family.
	And so I would wanted a little bit of time, but also it's very hard to exist here with my like it's hard to do everything by myself all of the time.
	And so there are times where I'm just like, God, I can really use some help.
	And you know, my mom's like sorry, but but you're blocked from help.
	That's the issue that I have.
	Right?
	You're you're actively blocked from having help because you have people around you who aren't helping, and because you're on this large property, you don't have neighbors you could befriend and have them help.
	I think to be fair, me and my husband are fairly poor at that anyways.
	Like I I feel like, you know what?
	Like I probably shouldn't give myself any excuses.
	I I should try to develop a network and a um a circle of friends that are.
	Well, but there's no point if you're gonna move.
	Yeah, I guess that's kind of like a big thing.
	And maybe that's one of the reasons you haven't poured energy and effort into this is because you know that there's a fuse on this situation.
	Yeah, I think that I've definitely been aware of that, and it's been kind of like, God, like I want to be able to put my effort into getting a good circle.
	And it just I've been distracted with a few things.
	No, no, I get that.
	And that this is all with with, you know, you had no bandwidth to deal with any of this stuff while you're trying to keep your baby alive.
	So I'm 150%.
	None of this is anything negative.
	I'm just I mean, when was your for how long was your husband?
	Sorry.
	For how long was your father saying, you know, we don't have the fucking plates to your four-year-old.
	I mean, how how long has that been going on for that's just how he talks to everybody like that's Okay, so it's been going on for 10 years?
	Yeah.
	So I you know, I'll give you I'll give you absolute I'll give you absolute carte blanche for the last six or seven months.
	What about the previous nine plus years?
	You know, not even to try to make an excuse because I don't think that there is one.
	But he's not he's not around my kids as much as my mom is.
	He's not around a lot.
	He tends to just kind of like pop in for an hour and then peace out again.
	So I don't leave my kids with him to watch, but when he pops in, like he'll he'll say things like that and I'll intervene and I guess I've justified it to myself, thinking like, well, I can hover and I can make sure that, you know, because I I got in the middle of it and I said, Look, you're fighting with a four-year-old.
	Like, stop.
	Like this is how we handle the situation.
	And I talk like, and I took over from there.
	I don't think that that completely justifies it.
	I'm kind of running you through like my thought process, whether that's dysfunctional or not.
	That's kind of what I've I guess what I've told myself is that I can run interference in it.
	And like he's he's not around a ton, but then also I feel a ton of guilt because when I have the you know, when I was in the situation in which I needed him, like he will show up and he has like an element of humanity.
	It's just like he can't take any sort of like with with kids when like anything comes up in a situation where he would have to, you know, handle it or use some emotional maturity, he just can't do it.
	Okay.
	So I guess that's how I've tried to justify it to myself, and um I've tried to protect them, but also I guess maybe looked at it through a little bit of rose colored glasses.
	So you try to protect them, but you can't claim you can't get points for trying to protect kids from someone you've introduced into their lives.
	Like if I buy some rabid animal and it starts attacking my family, well, you know, but I did try and protect them.
	It's like, well, I brought him home.
	That is fair.
	That is fair.
	I, you know, it's probably just your, does your husband swear a lot?
	Thank you.
	Um I mean, nobody really holds a candle to my dad, but he does swear.
	Yes.
	Okay, but not at the children or regarding the children or in front of the children, I hope.
	Occasionally, yes.
	Okay.
	And what does he say in front of the children?
	Mostly just um, if he gets like a little exasperated, you know, like um he he won't swear like at them.
	It's more of like, oh, this, you know, this is a look at this giant, you know, this giant m like mess that you made, or got this free, you know, like it's usually like pick up all of the shit or you know, like that sort of thing that to little kids.
	Yeah.
	I mean, would you accept that from a babysitter?
	No.
	I would not.
	Help me understand.
	Like, okay.
	I mean, maybe I'm misjudging here.
	Oh, it's always possible.
	Uh how long have you been listening to what I do?
	A very long time.
	How long have you been listening to what I do?
	Um, eight years.
	Eight years.
	Okay.
	Yes.
	Do you think that peaceful parenting includes yelling at your children to pick this shit up?
	Absolutely not.
	Does he ever speak like that to people at work?
	No.
	Oh.
	So the people he works with get his angel tongue, but the children get the viper tongue.
	We we've had this conversation several times about, you know, like as I go through like the parenting stuff and reading the stuff and trying to change the the way that I was parented and the way that everybody that we, you know, like in my, I guess my younger brother parents his kids that way, and what we see is not great.
	And I wanted to change it, and I've been kind of I've been looking into it and trying to get him into it and talking to him about it.
	And he does agree with me, but he just isn't completely on board when he gets frustrated.
	And I know that's not fair.
	Uh Hang on.
	How often does he get frustrated?
	He's usually a pretty mellow guy.
	I think it's just in the last um it would probably be like a couple times a year, but in the last six months, tensions have been a little high with the amount of stress.
	A couple of cuss words a couple of times a year.
	I'm not gonna go to the barricades for that.
	Obviously, it's not ideal, but that's not like he's not he's not yelling at the Bidaly and dropping F bombs in the general direction.
	So okay.
	All right, that's that's relatively okay, at least for me.
	So what is the foundational question that I can help you with in the time that we have part of my question was like it would be helpful for me to know why why is this like why am I still here?
	Why am I in this situation?
	And like, is there anything I'm doing to contribute to it, or can I fix it?
	Or is it basically just You fix it?
	Okay.
	No, no, you can't fix it.
	No, you can't because you can't fix people who don't admit they have a problem.
	So obvious, isn't it?
	No, yeah, I mean you can't absolutely it's absolutely not.
	I probably so yeah, uh this is why you know I sort of stopped earlier in somewhat disbelief when you when your fo your father said uh never made a mistake.
	I mean fucking life.
	Or some whatever he said, right?
	And and so yeah, so neither your neither your no no member of your family has as far as I know it, uh, indicated that anything they do is wrong, and therefore they are absolutely a hundred and fifty percent impervious to feedback or change.
	And not only do they not think they've done something wrong, they think that what they do is praiseworthy.
	And so your father thinks that the way he behaves is not just well, it's not bad, it's good parenting.
	Now, it's hard enough to get people to change their behavior, even if they admit fault and want to change.
	It's impossible if they don't even admit fault, and it's doubly impossible if they praise and think it's good what they do.
	Never going to change.
	I would as soon suggest that you try to reverse the law of gravity.
	as try to change someone who praises their own habits.
	Hmm.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	So accept them for who they are, they're not gonna change.
	Accept them for who they are doesn't mean have no willpower choice or judgment, but it's like don't don't sit in this fantasy that they're gonna change.
	Okay.
	Yeah, and I've I've probably lived kind of with this delusion that if I say the right thing or if I explain it the right way, or if I just if I could just let them know my point of view, they would see how much sense it made and they would be like, oh, that's a really good point.
	Right.
	Now, uh I also don't want you to turn on yourself and call it a delusion.
	Uh it's not.
	It's not a delusion.
	You're not crazy.
	It's completely natural, normal, and healthy that you would have this perspective.
	Because it is a survival mechanism for when you were a child.
	When you were a child, I assume your family was to various degrees kind of unbearable.
	As you said, you didn't like it when your brothers came home.
	I assume you didn't like it too much when your parents were home and you didn't have you know, you had some fun vacations and some fun times, but overall it seemed negative.
	Do I have that roughly right?
	Yeah, I mean, I I know it's complicated to say like, oh, it was either bad or good, but generally, you know, like I wouldn't I wouldn't want to go back there.
	Right.
	Okay.
	I would so want to revisit.
	So the only way we keep our capacity for love alive when we're in a bad family situation or bad overall.
	The only way that we keep our capacity for love and attachment alive is that bipolar four-letter word called hope.
	We hope.
	Hope is what gets us through the day.
	Hope is how we stave off depression.
	Because let's say at the age of five, uh, you know, like you you you vi there's violence in the family, and your mother is yelling and there's name calling, and your brothers are teasing and they're mean and and there's no comfort or love or happiness in in any particular way that's sustaining you.
	And if somebody would said to said to you, don't worry, kid.
	It's only another 16 years.
	Then you can move out.
	Oh, and you're five, right?
	So 30 years from now, you're still gonna be wrestling with this family.
	I mean, I'm telling you, sis, you would not have been able to get out of bed.
	Do you do you get like this the bottomless depression?
	Yeah, the bottomless depression of like oh God.
	No one's gonna change.
	It's gonna be the same shit pile every day, and it's go gonna go on for 16 more years till I move out, and and 30 30 years I'll still be wrestling with all this crap.
	I mean, I'm telling you, I maybe this is just my thoughts and experience, maybe yours would be different.
	But I think it'd be real tough to get out of bed and go and study for a math test.
	Absolutely.
	So the way how do we get out of bed and study for the math test?
	We hope.
	We hope, we hope.
	And it's sort of like if you're stuck in a I mean, I use sort of exaggerated analogy here, but it I think it drives the point home.
	If you're stuck in a dungeon with a pile of keys.
	And there's a lock on the door, right?
	You if you were to sit there and say, oh my god, this I'm never getting out.
	These keys are just put here to torment me.
	They wouldn't lock me in with the keys.
	So the keys are just left over trash and garbage, and I'm uh like you would you would you'd be depressed.
	So what is it that keeps you going?
	Okay, I'll try this key, okay.
	Well, it didn't work.
	I've only got five thousand more keys to go.
	Okay, I'll try this key.
	And they all kind of half fit, and you know, you jiggle them a little, and maybe they're a little rusty and and so on, right?
	And you will spend your time trying all the keys in the lock to get out of the dungeon, right?
	Because if you were to say I'm I'm locked in here for the next 16 years, and I'll still be spending a good deal of time in this dungeon in 30 years, you wouldn't probably want to live.
	So you just try the keys and try I I gotta try the keys.
	Because if I if I accept that there's no key that fits this lock, uh I'm just gonna lay down and sleep forever.
	Does that make sense?
	Absolutely.
	No, that that's exactly what I've been doing.
	Yeah.
	And that's not crazy.
	And that's not, you said a delusion.
	No, no, no, no.
	I mean, I I I'm gonna I'm gonna fiercely stand between you and every negative statement you might make about yourself, because you are a wonderful young woman.
	You you have you know, six beautiful children, you have a husband you love, you guys are committed to peaceful parenting, with hiccups like we all have, so I'm not gonna finger wag about any of that stuff because I'd be fingerbagging in the mirror from time to time.
	So uh I am not going to let you disparage yourself even by saying, well, I have this delusion.
	It's not a delusion, it's what keeps you alive.
	It's what keeps your foot going in front of the other.
	And we all have to do it if we're stuck in dysfunctional family situations as kids, we all have to do it.
	We have to have hope.
	And the way that we have hope is we just keep trying the keys.
	Oh, this didn't work.
	Okay, well, I'll try another approach.
	Oh, this didn't work, okay.
	I'll try another approach.
	Well, this didn't work.
	And and so you had one last key, which is why you're calling me, I think.
	You had one last key to try called an emergency.
	Right?
	It's the only key you had to try.
	Yeah.
	Can I open this door to other people's hearts with a key called emergency.
	And you got the answer.
	And there's no other key.
	You've tried everything else.
	If emergency doesn't open the door to people's hearts, then it's not a lock.
	It's not a door, it's just a blank wall.
	And there's no getting through or over or under or around.
	And I think I think that's why you're calling me because that's the last key.
	Yeah.
	Case of emergency, break glass.
	This tea will work.
	It doesn't.
	And there's no more keys.
	Well, I I really can't envision an another situation which would somehow be the time that they change their behavior and come through like up until this point it hasn't worked.
	But how do you how do you look that, you know, from the perspective of a child trying all these proverbial keys and then realizing like I'm an adult, I don't have to do this anymore.
	And how do you let go of that and just lose use I guess you like the hope of ever having a functional family system?
	Well, I mean, you have yours, which is more important because that's the one you chose.
	So I mean again, this is part of the gentleness which we should have, I think, with ourselves, which is that we're not designed for any of this stuff.
	We're not designed to outstrip family dysfunction, because we mostly arose in tribes or feudal systems, or we were slaves.
	We had no chance.
	We had no chance.
	So there's this kind of weird flickering flame that is kept in the human heart over tens or hundreds of thousands of years, which is the hope to be rational, the hope to have virtue, the hope to be independent, and we couldn't.
	The possibility of living any kind of independent life free of tribal superstitions and customs is so recent it's ridiculous.
	Like it really has only occurred for I don't know, I mean, a hundred years, maybe a hundred and twenty-five years, and certainly with the modern economy being able to just pick up and go.
	I mean, I guess you could say, well, it happened to with um uh with the the new world, right?
	And people left the old world and came to the new world in part because they just wanted to be able to live some more rational kind of life.
	So we're not designed for this.
	We're we're designed to keep the hope alive and never to exercise it.
	I mean, if you were born in some feudal manner in the year 1300 in England or France, I mean, it's not like you got to go and be independent and live a rational life somewhere else.
	Wasn't possible.
	So the possibility of these kinds of conversations that you and I are having the possibility of being able to actually change our lives to be more rational and more moral and to live with greater integrity and independence is like we are Nietzsche's ubermensch, we have the over men and the overwomen.
	We can overcome tribal custom and dysfunctional custom and build a life independent of our origins.
	And that is not I mean, nobody had that.
	I mean, it wasn't like the king had all of this freedom either.
	Or his courtiers or the priest didn't have uh the freedom to be rational, empirical, and scientific and and live with integrity and independence.
	So this flame really has been kept alive for like hundreds of thousands of years, and only now can it actually catch fire in our hearts and warm our futures.
	Not to get overly poetic, but uh we uh we stand on the the precipice of a life of actual reason and independence, which the internet has granted us, and the modern economy has facilitated.
	So it's a massive project.
	And really uh the suffering of all of our ancestors was to keep this little candle of hope alive until it could be used to light a hearth or a heart, so to speak.
	So it's not individual to you, it's not individual to me.
	All of our ancestors, hundreds of thousands of years.
	You could go back millions of years if you want, but hundreds of thousands of years our ancestors have kept alive this hope of reason, this hope of independence, this hope of integrity.
	And it has been crushed and squashed and blown out and pissed on and frozen repeatedly by brute power in politics, nature, theocracy, You name it.
	And finally, now we have the opportunity to take that little tiny flame and use it to light the way forward.
	And it's a much bigger project than you, it's a much bigger project than me.
	And I very much look at our ancestors as nodding in satisfaction.
	Thank you.
	This made all the suffering and the keeping of hope alive worthwhile.
	Because the keeping of hope alive was a real torture.
	Because I mean, think of how many people just broke their hearts out, you know, smashing their heart against some mad bugger's wall.
	Just smash their heart into pieces for their whole lives, put it back together, glued it all up, smashed it again, just to keep that hope alive.
	The suffering is staggering at how much it cost in people's blood, sweat and tears to keep that hope alive.
	And now it's been handed to us and the universe, the world, the society, the system, has finally given us the opportunity to live with more just live with more than just futile hope.
	Because in a way, the hope of being able to affect the impossible to change the physics of somebody else's personality, because free will give you choices, but most people are just defensive, and as you pointed out with your dad, like this defensiveness means there's no input, and therefore he's just a machine of avoidance.
	And so to give up the hope, I know it sounds like we're keeping this flame and you gotta, but the way that you end up with a better life is to give up the hope of changing people who are dead set against change, whose entire egos and personalities are founded on being always perfect and always right and never admitting fault and never being wrong.
	And it is taking that fire and not wasting it, getting out of the dungeon and building a genuine fire to warm the hearts and hearts of people and to demonstrate that to everyone else.
	Because your children and my children, my child, they don't have to live in hope, right?
	They're listened to, they're respected, they're engaged with.
	I just spent most of the day, like six, seven hours out toodling around with my daughter doing a bunch of errands and stuff like that.
	And we had a blast.
	We had just had a lot of fun.
	And I I'm really relishing it because she's, you know, next year she's probably uh out, right?
	She's probably gone, right?
	Because she'll be old enough.
	She'll have graduated high school.
	So I really want to enjoy this time and she doesn't have to live in the hope of a reasonable parent.
	She doesn't have to live with her fingers crossed.
	She doesn't have to try and figure out how to warm my heart.
	She doesn't have to figure out how to try to love me, how to step over these sort of frozen icicles of defensiveness and avoidance and rejection and vanity and narcissism, and she doesn't have to try and figure out.
	There's no dungeon.
	There's no door, there's no bars, there's no need for keys.
	She's already out in the sunshine.
	She's already out, she was born outside of prison.
	And your kids born outside of prison.
	They don't need hope.
	Because they have.
	They don't need hope.
	That something might come along because it's what they've lived with their whole life.
	So you kept your hope alive in order to keep your heart and optimism alive, your capacity for love and parabonding alive.
	You had to have hope.
	So your children don't need hope to survive, but enjoy that connection and the love they have for their parents and with each other.
	Already you said your girls are so sweet with your youngest and his medical issues, and they're happy to help, and so on.
	So you've created the family you wanted as a child, you have provided what you were denied.
	You half froze to death in the wilderness, and you've created a giant roaring fire where people dance and cook and are heated and sleep in its warm embrace.
	You don't need to look to warm the hearts of people.
	I won't even say frozen hearts, because frozen hearts could theoretically be thought, but you know, holes in their heart the size of their heart.
	It's just nothing there.
	So rather than say, how can I how can I how can I fix my family of origin, look at what has been fixed for your children and that they don't need hope because you've manifested everything that was missing for you as a child, and that's the greatest gift that you can give.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	That that's definitely been my goal is to make sure that I can I can bring them what I wish that had been provided for me.
	But you have done that.
	I mean, perfectly no, but neither have I, right?
	But sorry, go ahead.
	No, we've done uh but that's that has been my goal.
	So why can't I shake this idea that I'm fundamentally denying them in some way if I take um their grandparents away?
	My my children.
	Well you are denying that.
	But you are denying them access to their grandparents.
	Sure.
	Sure.
	Right.
	And I guess.
	And when I and when I when I lock away matches from my little girl, I'm denying her access to matches.
	And when I take the handles off the pots and I turn them away, so they're facing the back of the stove when my baby was a toddler, I'm denying her access to scalding water.
	Of course you're denying them.
	You're denying them access to a car when you don't let them drive when they're eight.
	Of course you're denying them.
	But what are you denying?
	Why do I things that are good for them or things that are bad for them?
	Absolutely, I get your point, but I'm saying, why why do I feel like I like that is a negative thing that I'm taking for them, and why am I being told by like my older brother that taking my kid like, hey, whatever issues you have with mom and dad, set it aside so that your kids can have a relationship with them.
	Why is this competitive?
	Okay, hang on.
	Hang on.
	Hang on.
	Is this the brother who barely sees your children?
	Yes.
	Well, I mean, they both.
	Hang on.
	You're being played.
	You're being played.
	Go on.
	Well, if he cared about what was good for your children, wouldn't he have a relationship with them?
	He doesn't care about your children.
	He's just using them to control you.
	Oh God.
	He's using them to control you.
	If he cared about what was best for your children, he cared about your children, he lives a stone's throw away.
	He'd be over.
	He'd have a relationship with your children.
	But he doesn't have a relationship with your children because he doesn't care about your children.
	So for him to say, well, you you shouldn't be denying that which is good for your children, but I care about your children.
	I want what's best for them.
	No, he doesn't.
	Your oldest is ten.
	Right.
	Bro has had a decade to get to know your kids.
	The eldest.
	He doesn't.
	That's something.
	Doesn't care.
	Doesn't care.
	He got really, really angry with me, like uncharacteristically angry, and said that it was completely crazy that I hadn't um told him about my last baby.
	He like freaked out and like wrote me this long scathing email, and then as soon as he was hospitalized, I didn't hear Pete.
	It's so obvious.
	I don't know why, like I didn't go to the whole, oh, he he just doesn't care.
	Well, he doesn't care about the kids.
	Because if somebody is a stones throwaway and doesn't spend any time with your kids, clearly they don't care about your kids.
	I mean, that's just that's not even open to interpretation.
	That's not I'm not trying to read minds here.
	I'm an empiricist.
	No.
	That's pretty obvious.
	Yeah.
	So if he doesn't care about your kids, why would he be talking to you about what's best for your kids?
	So that he can bully and guilt you into seeing your mom.
	What's in it for him?
	Um Probably his mother put him up to it.
	Probably his mother is uh is or your mother is is wanting that and and you know when you grow up with selfish parents I mean is that a fair way to characterize your parents?
	I guess that if they're prioritizing their own needs and you know over their kids.
	That's what I would call selfish, yeah.
	Okay.
	So if you grow up with selfish parents, you have to do what they want at your own expense.
	Because they don't think about your needs and your preferences and they don't negotiate with two people in the room.
	Even if they're the parents and they get the final word, there still should be negotiation, right?
	So if you if you grow up with selfish parents, you have to do what they say, and you can't oppose them, and you can't criticize them, and you can't negotiate with them.
	They just get angry.
	Or impatient or escalate or or I guess with regards to your husband's parents, they just throw him in his room and then pretend he didn't have a tantrum, right?
	Yeah.
	Which is saying that he has no authority, control or influence over them, which means they're never gonna negotiate with him, right?
	Yeah.
	So for your brother.
	Yeah, so uh and and people who are uh selfish love to have power over others.
	And so I would imagine that your mother wants more compliance from you, and she may maybe she's deployed with certain linguistic tricks your brother, or maybe your brother just wants to be able to make you d do something, and he's just searching for the buttons that make that happen.
	And if he cared about you, wouldn't it be nicer to you when you were a kid?
	If he cared about your kids, wouldn't it be nicer to them when they are now they are kids?
	So he doesn't particularly care about you.
	Otherwise he would have sat down and said, you know, I was kind of mean to you when you were little and that was not good, and I was the older brother, I should have done better, and you know, like, you know, some basic human decency stuff, right?
	So he doesn't uh uh I don't know where you stand politically, but I'll sort of give you an analogy, right?
	So uh so the Democrats don't want people deported from America for a variety of reasons we don't really have to to get into, but like they get extra votes in in Congress with this and they uh have a path to citizenship to dangle in front of people to get political power.
	So they don't want people to get deported from America.
	And it's not because they care about those people, it's because they want political power, right?
	Com uh do we sort of agree on that roughly?
	Yeah.
	Now what they do is they will find some crying child and they will say, Oh, this poor little kid is gonna get deported and and duh, right?
	They they just and and now do they care about that little kid?
	No.
	I mean, over what was it, a hundred and eighty thousand or more kids, or maybe it was three hundred thousand kids went missing under the Biden regime.
	They just nobody knows where they are.
	Now, if they cared about kids, they'd be moving heaven and earth to find out where those kids were, right?
	Right.
	It was not it was never about the kids.
	Oh what are they getting out of using the kids?
	Right.
	So uh it's the same thing like uh um it'll be the same thing if they try to deport people from, say, the UK.
	Then people would be like, oh, there's a crying child, and it's like but like a million British girls were raped or assaulted by mostly immigrants.
	And there was no pictures of crying children then, right?
	So with the Democrats, what they'll do Is they'll hold up these crying children, not because they care about children, but they know other people care about children.
	And of course, if if Democrats cared about families and keeping families together, they say, well, if you deport uh the families could be split up.
	It's like I don't remember any of those concerns when the Democrats, mostly the Democrats, were willing to rip families apart over the COVID vaccine, and in fact encouraged families to uh ostracize um unvaccinated, right?
	And there were lots of crying children who couldn't go to see grandma or couldn't go to family gatherings because their parents were invited, weren't invited because the parents were unvaccinated.
	You didn't see any of those crying children, right?
	So it's not with the Democrats and you know, Republicans do this in other areas, but we're just looking, I think that this one's pretty pretty pretty vivid.
	So the the people who show you these crying children, they don't care about children, but they know that you care about children and it's a way to get what they want.
	So he knows that I care about my children.
	So he's working that angle and saying you should not.
	He knows that you're a very conscientious and dedicated mother, right?
	Is this the brother without kids or the brother with kids?
	Without kids, okay.
	So he knows that you're a very conscientious and dedicated mother.
	And so he knows that if he can convince you that something is bad for your children, he can control what you do.
	I mean, yes, that would certainly get my attention.
	Sure.
	Sure.
	And so the danger of having a passionate devotion to truth, reason, and evidence and what's best for your children, is that if you're around people who share your values, that's great.
	If you're around cold-hearted people, they will immediately understand that you care about your children deeply.
	And if they can tell you what's best for your children, they've now controlled you.
	They now control you.
	Why would they want to control me, though?
	What like obviously I'm I don't feel like I don't feel like that would benefit them.
	Why would you say that?
	Hang on, you don't think cold-hearted people like to control others?
	They don't think you don't think human beings like in general like having power over others?
	I mean, you and I probably not, but most do.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, I was gonna say it just seems like if you don't like somebody, it would be much easier to just not have any dealings with them than to try to manipulate and control them.
	Well, I obviously can't read your brother's mind, so I don't know for sure, but I would imagine that the family wants the appearance of everyone getting along.
	And that if you, for instance.
	Yeah, so if if you, for instance, are not going over and you are not responding to your mother's texts and and so on, then there is a blemish in the family portrait, right?
	It would be like if your family sends out Christmas pictures and you and your kids were just not in them.
	That would be very uncomfortable for people because they like to display the appearance of everything's going well.
	It's it's a status thing, right?
	No, absolutely.
	That my parents are just for context, they're highly vested in the appearance that they have in their social circles.
	Right.
	So then the question is, how do we get you, the daughter?
	How do we get you back in the fold, back in the family portrait, without admitting we did anything wrong?
	How do we get you to give up this resistance or this criticism or this integrity or this requirement or this demand, or whatever it is that you have?
	And I'm not saying like it's unimportant, but it's a variety of things.
	So how do we get her to come over and break bread with us and give the appearance of a good and happy family.
	How do we get her to do that without listening to her or addressing any of her problems or admitting any fault whatsoever?
	We say, oh, but the children need the grandparents.
	It's bad for the children if they're not around their grandparents, and you wouldn't want to do anything that's bad for the children, would you?
	Because you care about your kids.
	And I do too, you see.
	So I just want what's best for your children.
	And coincidentally, what's best for your children is to be around people you criticize without them having to apologize or take any criticism.
	It's a way of silencing you.
	Because if they really cared about your children, and they really cared about you, they would address your concerns, right?
	Because that would solve the problem.
	Mom, I've got some criticisms about how it was raised.
	Oh, I'm so sorry, sit down.
	Let's talk about it, blah, blah, blah, right?
	I mean, that's certainly what my first reaction would be if one of my kids came to me issue.
	And and and that would solve the problem, right?
	Or if there's a massive seven month medical emergency, move heaven and earth to help out as much as humanly possible, right?
	Or if you're if your husband has to spend some months away because he's changed jobs and you have five kids and you're pregnant, you know, maybe do as much as you possibly could to help out, right?
	But they don't want to do any of that.
	They don't want to do any of that.
	They don't want to address your concerns, they don't want to help out.
	But they do want you in the family picture.
	So the best way to do that is to manipulate and guilt you into obeying their wishes without them having to address any of your concerns.
	Well, that's dismal.
	I mean, there's there's really not anywhere to go from there.
	Well, I mean, tell me what you think.
	I mean, this is my perception of it.
	That doesn't mean that I'm right, but tell me tell me what you think.
	I think you're I think you're very close, and I think it makes a lot of sense based off of obviously the the years of information that I have and you don't, is that would be their primary motivation.
	I just find that terribly sad that they care more about what strangers see than the actual dynamic of our relationship or how things are for our family.
	And there's definitely been pressure.
	Sorry to interrupt, you've seen that heat map probably on social media.
	I mean, I'm sure you haven't spent much time on social media, sorry, while you're while you're poor, uh, your poor son is sick.
	But that heat map is like, are you out of directed or inner directed?
	In other words, where do your sympathies lie?
	Now, for a lot of people, of course, and this is most of the people who are conservatives, uh, the the area of focus is your children, your family, extended family, people who your church, you know, and and you don't really care that much about strangers relative to obviously your own kids and so on.
	Now that's people who are conservatives kind of on the right as a as a whole.
	But there's a whole other group of people.
	Yeah, in group preference.
	Yeah, yeah, in group preference.
	There are a whole bunch of people who have massive out-group preferences.
	Massive out-group preferences.
	And their heat map is is out of directed.
	They don't have much care or compassion for the people in their lives, their family, their kids, but the opinions of strangers.
	Well, that means everything.
	Wanting to look good in the world, that means everything.
	Wanting to look good in front of their own family members, it doesn't really matter.
	And if you're around those kinds of people and you are obviously family-directed and interdirected and all of that, uh, it's a it's a it's almost like a civil war, really, like of the mind.
	Because you're like, well, why are you nicer to strangers than to me?
	And they're like, why aren't you doing what I say?
	To make me look good for strangers.
	That's been a Yeah, that's that's been uh a very typical like argument.
	Right.
	Right.
	And I I don't understand the outer directed people, the other directed people.
	And these are the people who were like, well, I mean, if if if little kids get sexually assaulted, at least the migrants are are happier.
	And uh to me uh it's beyond incomprehensible.
	And I'm look, I'm I'm sure that my perspective is incomprehensible too.
	A hard time making an argument for that.
	Yeah.
	So no.
	I I mean, I I it's it seems to me like this this outer focus or this focus on others at the expense of people who are closer to you, it's just it's just being a traitor.
	Because you care more about those outside your group than those inside your group.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I was gonna say, wouldn't wouldn't showing up for your daughter and her family during a crisis make you look very good?
	Wouldn't that reflected positively.
	Well, but you could just lie about that.
	Oh my god.
	No, you could oh our daughter, oh, she's had medical issues.
	Uh we've been moving heaven and earth to help her, or uh, my husband flew out, and he helped them out.
	And oh, they could just say stuff, right?
	Or they either keep it hidden or they just uh It just didn't even occur to me that they could lie about it because that was silly of me.
	But yeah, I suppose that would be the easiest option.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, listen.
	I mean, I uh I read my father's uh story of his life, and certainly the parts that overlapped with me were not uh not let's just say 3,000 percent accurate, right?
	So yeah, so people um they can just say stuff.
	And it's just at the core of it, they're just trying to avoid taking accountability or changing in any capacity.
	Uh yeah, I I don't know, again, because I don't really understand the mindset.
	I I can't describe really what's going on uh in the core.
	But I would imagine that uh the way that I view I'm not saying this about your family, because I'm just sort of getting a flyby here.
	But the way I view outer directed people as a whole is they are they have founded their entire sense of being good people on the positive opinions of others.
	Um Ayn Rand used to call them uh social metaphysicians, like their whole sense of reality.
	They don't ask what is true, they ask what do people believe is true.
	And so they have taken their whole sense of identity, their whole sense of virtue on how other people see them.
	And it's easier to manipulate strangers than skeptical family members.
	Because strangers don't know the truth.
	Whereas of course you've had 35 years' experience with these people, you kind of know who they are.
	So I view them as addicted to falsehood, and therefore they view any truth teller as someone who is coming between them and their drug of choice.
	And if you've ever spent time around addicts, you know that if you interfere with them getting a hold of their drug, they get pretty freaking vicious, to put it mildly.
	Yep.
	Okay.
	Yep.
	I've just thinking when when we were little, me and my younger brother stole a part of my dad's cigarettes and buried them in the yard to try to get him to stop smoking.
	Right.
	Right.
	All right.
	Well, that's been uh fairly illuminating.
	And um and it's frustrating as heck to deal with people when stuff seems so blindingly obvious to you and they simply do not see it the same way.
	And and you're like, But but this is how it is.
	You you you you should be there for me when there's an emergency.
	Right?
	I mean I'm sure when your dad was sick, you were helping out as best you could.
	Yeah.
	Um I tried my best to show up.
	I went to the hospital to see him.
	Neither one of my brothers was willing to do that because they both decided that they just said, Well, we we just don't really want to see him like that.
	He'd rather not.
	Right.
	Right.
	So unfortunately, and and that's sort of that's reaping what you sow, right?
	As far as I would imagine some of your parents' habits go.
	But for you, it's like, but you should care about me.
	I mean, I'm family.
	And that's it's incomprehensible that they don't, right?
	Like when I was attacked in the media when I got really, really sick, uh, it wasn't just my family of origin, but like friends.
	You know, I'm not gonna say they all knew about it.
	It wasn't like they were all reading the newspaper every day.
	But I was in the news a lot, you know, for quite from like 2008 to like 2017 or whatever, like it was nine years.
	I was in the media uh quite a bit.
	And uh, you know, the idea that I'm sorry.
	Was there any acknowledgement on their part?
	Did they even bring it up?
	Nope.
	Well, no, I I really wasn't much in touch with people.
	I didn't have any big breaks with people.
	I didn't like, oh, I'm never gonna see you again, you jerk.
	But you know, things just kind of faded out, but uh nobody was like didn't even drop me an email saying, Oh, I'm sorry, or this since this doesn't seem like you, or how's it going, or are you okay, or any anything like that, even after like, you know, friendships of like 30 years or 25 years or something like that.
	Nothing.
	Um so that's uh that's just the way a lot a lot of people are.
	Now, of course you have people in your life who you're close to and care about and all of that's uh great.
	But you can't remake the minds of other people.
	And if other people are out of directed, you know.
	What can I uh what can I tell you?
	They're not gonna change.
	And they're they're fundamentally different types of people.
	Fundamentally different types of people.
	And nobody knows how to close this gap, and I wouldn't be the first to try.
	It's fairly disorienting being raised by people that are outer directive, as you say.
	Yet I mean, I didn't turn out that way, clearly.
	Yeah, that's that's just the joys of you know, whatever.
	X mystery dust factor could be some genetics, could be some early environmental uh stuff or whatever, right?
	But I mean, if you've ever had uh I mean they've talked about this, so I'll keep it brief, but you know, my mother would be like, you know, yelling and top of the lungs with me, there'd be uh, you know, knock at the door, and she'd be sweet as sugar, right?
	Oh, that has to answer the phone.
	Why it's a good thing.
	Yeah, yeah, the answer to the phone, hey, how you doing?
	So good to hear from you.
	And it's like a complete switch, right?
	Well, that's out of directed.
	That's I can treat the people close to me like crap, but I have to see treat strangers really well.
	Uh whereas for me, you know, I don't particularly care about the opinions of strangers.
	I I do care about the opinions of people who are who are close to me who I love and who love me, I care about.
	I I care about your level of satisfaction in in this call, because you know, you've got a six kids and and you've got a kid who's still recovering from a dire illness and you know, you're taking time out, so I'm I'm really concerned about you know the listenership and I'm concerned about your experience of the call.
	I'm concerned about my family, my friends, my you know, but but strangers.
	Ooh, they're typing, you know, whatever, right?
	Uh and so on, right?
	So uh I I can't I can't really understand what it's like to have that completely reversed and to not care about the people close to me, but to be obsessed with the good opinion of people elsewhere.
	I I I can't fathom that.
	I I don't understand it.
	I know it's a real thing because it's been studied quite extensively, and I certainly experienced it quite extensively.
	But yeah, it's uh it's wild.
	But you can't fix it.
	Nope.
	Nope.
	And I don't think that I mean there's really anything to be said as far as like there there's no magic words that'll change their opinion.
	Um just fun little thing for more context, I'll tell you.
	I found out several years ago just through public records, doing some just research on like ancestry, that my mom had been married previously when she was 19.
	And this is something she never told me about.
	I had to ask my uncle about it in order to get some clarity.
	And he told me that she ended up leaving this guy because he beat her, and she was only married to him for you know a short amount of time and then had to struggle to get a divorce.
	I think it was the late 70s.
	And I kind of thought to myself, okay, so it was acceptable to leave and get divorced with your husband beat you, and then the next guy you marry beat your kids, and you were fine with that.
	And that was fine.
	Like so that the standard cannot be applied.
	Like it's okay if your kids are getting hit, not okay if you're getting hit, that's worth leaving.
	Right.
	Right.
	And I thought, God, it's it's not like if I presented that to her, she'd be like, oh yeah, great argument.
	No, guaranteed.
	Guaranteed that would not happen.
	All right.
	Is there anything else that you wanted to uh mention?
	I uh we've been chatting for a good old while, and I hope that's been helpful to you.
	And and uh I really just want to express my immense admiration for what you're doing with your husband and your kids and also uh my intense sympathy for you know the the livid terror that happened with your youngest uh that that just went on and on and your fingers crossed and and uh and all of that.
	Uh it's it's brutal, and I just you know give you a big virtual hug for all of that.
	Well, thank you.
	And uh, you know, I really appreciate your time um chatting with me and just I feel like I've definitely been able to get some clarity for you know where I'm at, what I should do about it.
	I've listened to dozens and dozens of these call in shows, and they've all been so helpful for me.
	And so I just want to thank you for doing what you're doing.
	I appreciate that, and I hope you'll let me know how things are going moving forward.
	Yeah, I'll I'll let you know once we decide uh what we're gonna do about the situation.
	All right for some.
	All right, thank you so much.
	Bye.

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