Navigating the holiday hustle can test the best of us, but we kept the mood light with a share of our own festive faux pas and travel tribulations. It wasn't long before we shifted gears and rolled out the red carpet for our guest, Sir Frederick Douglas Southern, whose life journey from the speaking circuit to spiritual practitioner and life coach is nothing short of a masterclass in personal evolution.
Strap in as we peel back the layers of modern relationships, a domain where Sir Frederick offers an arsenal of wisdom. We ruminate on the changing tides of responsibility and respect between partners, challenging the age-old narrative of gender roles in love and teamwork. From the courage to redefine identity to the dance of meeting each other's needs, this episode is a trove of candor and insight for anyone invested in forging a stronger, more respectful bond with their significant other.
Keep in touch.
Email: Brm2@fatherfactorpodcast.com
Follow us on Instagram Like us on Facebook
https://www.amazon.com/Searching-Dad-Effects-Fatherless-Overcome/dp/1934812129
Navigating the holiday hustle can test the best of us, but we kept the mood light with a share of our own festive faux pas and travel tribulations. It wasn't long before we shifted gears and rolled out the red carpet for our guest, Sir Frederick Douglas Southern, whose life journey from the speaking circuit to spiritual practitioner and life coach is nothing short of a masterclass in personal evolution.
Strap in as we peel back the layers of modern relationships, a domain where Sir Frederick offers an arsenal of wisdom. We ruminate on the changing tides of responsibility and respect between partners, challenging the age-old narrative of gender roles in love and teamwork. From the courage to redefine identity to the dance of meeting each other's needs, this episode is a trove of candor and insight for anyone invested in forging a stronger, more respectful bond with their significant other.
Keep in touch.
Email: Brm2@fatherfactorpodcast.com
Follow us on Instagram Like us on Facebook
https://www.amazon.com/Searching-Dad-Effects-Fatherless-Overcome/dp/1934812129
Hello and welcome to our podcast series, the Father Factor Podcast. I'm your host, byron Ricks, and joining me is my co-host and good friend, josh Wombrock. The objective is to give a voice to fathers who are not able to be with their kids, mothers who are raising kids without fathers, and children who, unfortunately, are growing up without fathers in their lives. Alright, welcome to the Father Factor. I'm your host, byron Ricks, riding shotgun with me today as my co-host, josh Wombrock. Okay, you know, josh, we're getting closer and closer to that magical holiday in those holidays Thanksgiving right around the corner, christmas right around the corner. You're going to be in town, out of town.
Speaker 3:You know I'll probably be out of town for Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Sibling Thanksgiving, like in the whole army of them.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 3:I'm going to tradition and the kids are harassing me again, so you're going back Midwest. I'll probably drive back home.
Speaker 1:I've looked at flights and I don't know how you drive back to Midwest. Well, there's a couple factors, it's just. It can be stuck in.
Speaker 3:I don't like not having a car right. You know you can rent those right. I've been canceled on twice flying in there.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's true. And then my daughter just got canceled last night coming from Boston.
Speaker 3:I don't want to be riding with back home. You know Just, there's a risk factor associated. But no, no, we go back. I mean, I think it also gives us a little control to stay longer as we found. We always want to stay that extra day in flying If we can find tickets, all of that stuff. So yeah, go back to Ohio. I'm going to do an inject the turkey with that Cajun butter and make sure we write, make sure you write.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't need turkey myself, that's, my wife likes turkey, but I'm more of a prime rib. I know what you call it a rib roast man or Rib roast.
Speaker 3:I've never had rib roast.
Speaker 1:What you call it. Well, ham, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 3:No, I don't do ham either.
Speaker 1:Standing rib roast right.
Speaker 3:I've never, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Or duck. I love duck.
Speaker 3:I've never had a rib roast. I love me some duck, that's probably. I've never heard of rib roasts at Thanksgiving ever Well.
Speaker 1:okay, what's your point?
Speaker 3:No, I mean, it sounds delightful. Right, it is delicious. It is delicious, it's a new thing. Okay, it's a new one. I'm going to have to look at that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, standing rib roast, you know, hey. Anyway, today we have a very special guest. His name is Frederick Douglas Southern, and I've known Frederick for oh man, many, many years he's. I met him in California when I lived in California. We were both on the speaking circuit together back in the day with Was it? Mark, victor Hansen and Fred, who else I can't even remember anymore.
Speaker 4:Well, you had Jack Slaughter. You had Jack Canfield yeah, Jack Canfield. Greg Rialonzo Greg Rialonzo and a few others. Yeah, a few others.
Speaker 1:We used to do it back in the day. We had a lot of fun. So, without further ado, fred, welcome, fred. Welcome to Frederick, welcome to the show. Okay, okay, audience, okay, audience. I just got to be transparent. When we were younger, in our 20s, late 20s, early 30s I met him as Fred or Fred or Fennie, and now we hook back up and he likes Frederick. He's made a little money now. You know how people do when they make money, they change their names. So my mind keeps wanting to say Fred or Freddie, and I do want to respect his wishes, though I don't want to be like who was that dude? Muhammad Ali, who wouldn't call him Ali? Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, was it.
Speaker 1:Cleveland, I can't think of that dude, he beat him bad. He beat him bad, he beat him bad. He beat him bad. I don't want to be beat down when I come to California. What's my name, bam? What's my name, bam? So, anyway, I'm going to let Frederick introduce himself to you and his many accomplishments, and you are listening to the father factor. Why? Because fathers count. And then we're going to get into our subject for today, brad, introduce yourself for us.
Speaker 4:Well, thank you, Byron and Josh, for having me. Frederick Douglas Southern. The stage name is Sir Frederick. Sir Frederick, sir Frederick you, sir.
Speaker 4:Frederick, sir Frederick, yeah, and the reason why I use that is because most people will cut my name in half. I'll introduce myself as Frederick and they'll cut my name in half to Fred and that's not how I introduce myself. And I think it's kind of disrespectful when people do that and some ask you prefer to be called Fred or Frederick, and I'll Frederick and I appreciate it. Take that. As Byron mentioned earlier, we were young and young speakers coming up and on the speaking circuit and the one thing I applaud Byron is that he took speaking seriously. He left California, went to Indiana. He started speaking, left there, went to Texas and he continued Myself.
Speaker 4:Life happened and I was dealing with life, dealing with divorce and all that, and I didn't take it as serious as he did. So he's my hero, byron's my hero. He's a true success story. I am a Checkers in the mail. I still speak Checkers in the mail, I still speak occasionally at churches and all that, and I am what you call a licensed spiritual practitioner. I do spiritual counseling and life coaching with the Centers for Spiritual Living and so that's what I do.
Speaker 1:OK, so I want to go back to the beginning. Let's start at the beginning, because when I met you, you were married. I believe you lived in Riverside, I don't know. Correct Was that right? Ok, correct had a beautiful wife at that time. And how many children.
Speaker 4:Three One son and two daughters.
Speaker 1:OK, and how long were you married?
Speaker 4:15 years OK.
Speaker 1:So tell us a little about that relationship. Brad, you were married, things are going well and they weren't.
Speaker 4:You know, byron, I was a young Marine station at Camp Pendleton at the time and I had a good friend, also from Chicago. Family, say hello and let them know that he's 19 at the time. He said OK, she's running around Chicago, she's not working, she's not going to school, she already has one kid and she has your child. What's going to change? Right? And I said OK, I see what you're saying. He says so are you going to marry her? I'm like I didn't plan on it.
Speaker 4:No, I wasn't thinking about that I was just saying I was supporting it, right. I said I didn't plan on it. I will send money and visit Ms that and the other. He says well, you're going to marry her? I said I still didn't plan on it.
Speaker 4:He says if her lifestyle is what it is now, it's not going to change and I don't think you want to be dirty enough to. I don't think you want to be that dirty to leave your daughter here in Chicago to be raised on welfare without a father. I don't think you're that dirty. He says you need to give that girl a fighting chance. You were raised with both parents. You give her a chance to be raised with both parents. I love that, but based on based on what she's doing now, I don't think you want to leave your daughter here in Chicago to be raised on welfare. And that's what prompted me to get married and raise my daughter. I was 19, 20 going on in time when I got 19, going on 20 at the time when I got married. And that's a hell of a responsibility for a 19, 20-year-old to have being married and two children.
Speaker 4:Because she had a son. Yeah, Wow, right. Well, she had a son before we met and he was five, maybe six, and I raised him from that age for 15 years and I wasn't prepared, right. But what really helped me out is that I was raised with both parents and my father was a man's man. He was a hell of a man.
Speaker 4:And my mother was a great mother and submissive and she supported my father. So I had that role model. I had that impression for me what a marriage looks like, what a father looks like, the duties, the responsibilities and all that, and he was great. I wanted to emulate my father.
Speaker 1:So your father was a positive role model for you.
Speaker 4:He was a very positive role model. I mean he took care of everything. You know my parents had eight children five boys, three girls and as the boys got older he made sure that we took care of our mother and our sisters. Right, let me explain. As we got older in Chicago we would get up at 5 o'clock in the morning, go out to the garage, start the car up, warm it up, bring it around to the front of the house. So when my mother came out to go to work, her car's already warmed up the snowy shovel. She can just get in her car and go. She doesn't have to do any of that warming up.
Speaker 1:A lot of times when our sisters do you can tell he grew up middle class Josh?
Speaker 3:You got to bring the car around. No, no he had a car. And a garage and a garage. Ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha ha ha ha.
Speaker 1:I had no garage, we had no car. We had the CTA baby. Yeah, you know Right.
Speaker 4:CTA. Go ahead, go ahead. Chicago Transit Authority. There you go. And he would have us to either walk our sisters to the bus stop or from the bus stop if they're getting home.
Speaker 4:At a certain time, we'd have to walk up to the bus stop, 79th Street, that's what I'm talking about and kind of walk home with them because it got dark so soon in the wintertime, and so that model was made for us to take care of the women in our lives. And that's where that comes from for me. Yeah, I've taken good care of all the women in my life, so my father made that example for us and it just it stuck with me.
Speaker 1:Now you said something. You said a dirty word earlier, so I wanna bring that, bring you back to that. And you said I know which one it is, which one you think it is? Submissive, there you go. Submissive, there you go.
Speaker 4:That's a dirty word for a lot of women.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and you said that earlier.
Speaker 3:It was accountability yeah.
Speaker 1:So you said your mother was submissive to your father and she was a good wife and a good mother being submissive. So let's unpack that word from your error and what you saw as it relates to submissive, because we know today obviously is received differently and it's received differently and it's perceived differently right Today, so yesterday, how did you see that?
Speaker 4:Submissive at that is letting the man be the man and not challenging him on every turn. Submissive also means letting the woman operate in her femininity. We can't do it all. Women own the sex, men own the relationship, but we can't do both. That's real. So you let the woman operate in her femininity. Take care of the kids, the family, the this, the that, the household, the nurturer. You let her operate in her femininity. The man Let him operate in his masculinity. We're there to provide, protect, figure stuff out, strategize, solve problems. That's our natural DNA that never, never, turns off. We're operating in our natural DNA 24-7. Provide, protect, figure things out, change tires, change light bulbs, find a solution, solve problems. Even when the lady comes to us, no matter who she is and she's got a problem, and she just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the first thing we wanted to do? We wanna fix it Right. Right, two things you said we wanna fix it.
Speaker 4:Let me complete that thought, please. We wanna fix it, we wanna find a solution, we wanna find an answer. And then she'll say no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I just need you to listen, I just don't wanna vent. They don't wanna answer, they just wanna vent. So we operate in our DNA 24 hours. It never shuts down.
Speaker 1:Okay, I can get into that, but you said a couple things that I want to unpack as well. You said the woman controls the sex and the man controls the relationship. So Correct, the woman controls the sex in that if she doesn't wanna do it, then she doesn't have to, and if he does, she still doesn't have to. I mean, what does that mean?
Speaker 4:That means she owns the sex. Simple as that. And if she doesn't wanna have sex, that's that.
Speaker 1:But if I do, if she doesn't, we don't do it.
Speaker 4:We don't do it. It doesn't happen because she owns the sex. So what about making the sex?
Speaker 1:good, she owns making the sex good, or if it's not good, it's on her.
Speaker 4:Making it available.
Speaker 1:Oh, so making it available does that make it good, though I mean cause she owns the sex.
Speaker 4:She owns the sex, but men. That's our release. We have to. We have to have that release. It's important for us to have that release.
Speaker 1:I wish I had a female on this show right now, cause I think it's important for them to have that release also, but I can't speak to that. So, ladies, ladies, I'd love for you to speak to that. Go ahead.
Speaker 4:We own the relationship. We own the relationship. How so? Again, we're in charge, we're the provider, we're the protector, we're solution oriented, we find outcomes. We do all of that. That's our natural DNA, which never shuts off.
Speaker 1:Okay, Now we're in 2023 and a lot of women make more money than their husbands and their boyfriends, so they are the providers. I guess they perceive themselves to be the providers. They perceive themselves to be the providers. So how do you respond to that I?
Speaker 4:want to hear what Joss has to say. It's in response to that right.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:The provider doesn't own the relationship. I think what he's saying is, let's use the word access the woman gives us access to sex, right, a lot of men just want sex. They don't want the relationship. So we, right, we can get sex, but may not give them the relationship. And we may give them the relationship and they may not give us sex. But you can't force a woman to have sex with you. I mean, I guess you could, you shouldn't. But just like a woman really can't force a man to be in a relationship with her Because a man want to be in a relationship with you or he don't, the man's going to shovel that driveway and pull around the car, or he's not.
Speaker 3:Right, and let's take some sort of level of love, passion, commitment, of wanting to provide, wanting to. He said it's DNA, that's how we are. But if we don't have that feeling-prompting desire for this woman, then she's not going to, it's not going to work in the relationship because we own that. She has to. In my opinion, she has to be worth that right. So when you choose to marry someone, you choose to be with somebody as a man. We're choosing to say you are worthy of the benefits of the relationship right, and that's that's my perspective on it. So it's not about provision, it's about a man wants sex. He's going to lie and tell the woman whatever she wants to hear and she's going to get it and he goes to her. And that's why a lot of reason why women hate men oh, he used me, he this, he that, but we, they can't get the relationship without us. We're the good, we're the gatekeeper for a relationship, romantic relationship. They're the gatekeeper for a sexual relationship. It's kind of what I'm I'm gathering from Frederick.
Speaker 4:Okay, I totally agree with you. I couldn't have said it better.
Speaker 1:I don't know that I agree with with you all Totally. I do agree with certain aspects of that, but somehow, in my, my small world, I think that the relationship and I talked about this in other podcasts and I talk about relationships a lot, actually that's one of my favorite topics is relationships and how they impact us, whether that relationship be with my, my wife, my daughter, my son, josh Frederick, anybody we all have relationships right. And in how I see a relationship is, we both have to own it, and I think the wife is indeed responsible for taking part in ownership of the relationship as the man, as the husband. Now, the the sexual piece of it. Yeah, I get that to a degree as it relates to, if you know she wants to be involved in that, then she sort of controls that. Yet does she have an obligation to her husband at some point to say, hey, I may not want to do this right now, but I understand he has needs too. I think she has that responsibility as well.
Speaker 3:I don't, I don't think it's a Well I told Now go ahead, frederick.
Speaker 4:No, no, no, go ahead, go right ahead.
Speaker 3:Now I just can say I don't think it's. When we say ownership, I mean, I think that it's a matter of she's got to help. You know, if you own a home, both of you have your part right. So owning the relationship, you know, from my perspective, we've been raised on how to treat women and they benefit from a lot of what we do and we benefit from them too. I'm not saying that, I'm not trying to make it us versus them, but what I am saying is we have to be willing to die for them, we have to be willing to just put it all on the line. So the call of duty for us, you know, is life and death. The scripture says husbands, love your wife, like Christ loved the church, willing to lay your lives down for them. So we're called to be willing to die for our spouse. So for us to take that level of ownership, you know we got to own that, we got to take that on and be willing to do that.
Speaker 3:And that's, I think, kind of the danger of what happens when a man is doing all of the things and not saying he's perfect, but you're being a provider, you're being a protector, you're loving her, you're shoveling the driveway warming up the car, but she is non-submissive and we'll use that word because that's what we've been using or she's quarrelsome, she's difficult whatever the correct terminology is and she's not offering sex, right?
Speaker 3:At what point Does a man say, oh well, I guess it's just what I signed up for and I'm just gonna have to keep doing this? Or Does he look at it as, oh man, when is she gonna take her ownership and her portion of this team dynamic? Because that's kind of what I'm getting from him is we own the relationship, but there's still teamwork involved. Like you said, sex. If she own sex, as she made this she owns is good. I think that's our part, part of our part. Right, she has to give us access, but we still have to perform Once given access, the same way that we give them access to our vulnerability, hearts and all that, and they may need to perform.
Speaker 1:Maybe performs not the right word, but you give them saying yeah, I Believe that relationship Takes two people to have a relationship, a good, fruitful relationship, and I think it takes two people to work on that relationship. Sex is one of those that that's a part of that relationship and we can talk about that really independently of the relationship. But if we have a good, fruitful, loving relationship that we are both committed to and we're both committed to in both Putting forth effort For an end, then the byproduct of sex, if you will, happens and it's good because the relationship is good.
Speaker 3:Right, no, I get that, but I want to hear from Frederick because he's, you know, we've kind of dominated.
Speaker 1:No, frederick cannot be dominated. Okay, frederick is sitting back listening getting ammo, trust me.
Speaker 4:Okay, so where do we go from here? What's the what's the question? Or?
Speaker 3:Well, basically what we're? I think what we're, as Byron is saying that he believes that it's a mutual ownership of the relationship, and I guess sex too is that correct?
Speaker 4:Or just the right. Well, it's knowing your place, is knowing your part and doing your part. You know, the relationship is the business and you're both equal partners in this business. And, and again, the relationship is the business. What's going to work best for the relationship? Because the relationship is the business, and Go ahead.
Speaker 1:No, no, good Okay. I think I'm done.
Speaker 1:I think the the only Difference I have in the statement you made earlier about the man owning the relationship. I think the man and the woman both own the relationship. But I fully understand, appreciate what you're saying as it relates to the duties, the responsibilities, the caring, the things that the man has to do within the relationship, because, you know, I've been married a long time myself, you know, and I Do things for my wife. I prepare breakfast. She loves my cooking and I think now she just says that because I can cook and she wants me to cook because he used to cook back in the day. All of a sudden she don't know we have a kitchen anymore, but that's sad. I know that my cooking pleases her, I know that my cooking puts her in a good mood. Josh, I'm gonna borrow something you said One of our other shows when you got this other little dog that don't bite anything and Trudel break in, he gonna run under bed. But you guys got that. But. But one thing you said, josh, was if my wife is not in a good mood, I Will take that dog and send it in there to her and that dog soothes her. So you know what it takes to nurture that relationship and that's what we do as men and supposed to do as men. I get that. But what I'm also saying is a Relationship there is is no such thing as 50 50 Right. It is. It is both of us equally wanting to Contribute to the relationship to keep it whole, wholesome and happy.
Speaker 1:And sometimes what tends to happen in relationships, one person gets a little lax and the other one that starts working harder and harder and harder, and then that puts a strain on that relationship. Because you do so much into some point you're gonna wait a minute. I'm not getting any nurturing back, I'm not getting any love back, while we always watching this kind of TV showgram I'll come, you know. You begin to now do something else, but we begin to keep score In relationships. We begin to keep score what he's done, what she's done, what he didn't do, what they didn't do, and then that becomes a very Dangerous proposition when we do that. So, last but not least, to keep this, to move this along, I just believe that a relationship is the responsibility of both parties and both parties need to be equally invested in it. That doesn't mean they do the exact same things for each other.
Speaker 3:No, I know for sure, roles can shift. You know, there's it, just it's. It's all Encompassing, right, but one thing, just the point I want to make about this is let's take the word ownership off the table. Let's say gatekeep, she can. Let's say you meet the young lady, she gatekeep sex, you gatekeep relationship until y'all come together. But what if one of you had a healthy view of marriage and all that and the other one didn't? And one person is pouring more out because of their experience and the other one isn't healed enough to receive the love because you met when you're 19, 20 years old or whatever. You get married and you're young. So that's kind of the part is how much this was important.
Speaker 1:So you're circling back to Frederick now. Yes, yes.
Speaker 4:Okay, so I can address that. Here's the thing. It's a fight, it's a fight. It's a struggle, excuse me, and you'll experience. I experienced resistance. I grew up with both parents. My father made a good example for me. I married someone who I married someone who didn't have a father. So now I'm doing exactly what was done for me the example that was made for me when I was a youngster, coming up to emulate that into this relationship. How are we on time, byron?
Speaker 1:We got five.
Speaker 4:Okay, so I'll just bring this to a point, one of the examples at four or five o'clock in the afternoon evening, we all sat down together as a family. We had dinner all eight of us around the kitchen table and we talked and squawked and fight and fought and this and that what went on in school. And we did that as a family. When I got married, I wanted to do the exact same thing. And then she says well, we don't have to sit down and eat as a family, they can just eat what they want. I'm like no, no, no, no, no, no, you're not gonna have the children coming in here with dirty hands, messing around with the pots and pans and eating when they want to, and all that or not. And then the kitchen is open until 9 pm because they eat what they want.
Speaker 4:No, no, no, no, we're gonna eat all together as a family. It bothered me so bad. I called her grandmother and I said hey, this is what I wanna do, this is what we're. I'm accustomed to sit down and eat it Four o'clock as a family and talk about what went on with the day and all that. And then she says well, you know, I ain't gotta eat together, they can just eat when they want to. And I see where she got that from because she didn't have a man in her life. So you know, woman, grandmother, mother, this daughter, you know there's no man in the picture. So now I have a fight. I have a fight on my hands trying to bring out the mother.
Speaker 1:But I wanna say Frederick that, no, she didn't have a father in her life, but she also didn't have that particular discipline in her life, because, you know, I didn't have a father in my life either. But we sit down together, my mom and I, and we ate together every night, and I know others that did that. So, but you're right, she didn't have that experience.
Speaker 1:And she probably was they're disciplining that in that experience and she may have resented it actually coming from you. Because, if you know, people always ask me about not having a father. And how did I know how to be the good father and this and that and the other? And I always said I didn't know how to be a good father, but I knew how not to be a bad father, if you will. In other words, I knew what I didn't like and so I strive not to do those things and you know, hopefully in based, my children have confirmed to some degree that I was a decent father, you know. So that's it, frederick. We were gonna have you come back here because there's more to this story that we wanna unpack and you are a single man now. So we wanna talk.
Speaker 4:Sound like you happy. You know what I'm saying I got, I don't know, don't knock it till you try 20 to say about that. Okay, 20 to say about that.
Speaker 1:So if you come back in the next week when we tape again. We're gonna unpack this with Frederick Douglas Southern, our guests for today. You have been listening to the Father Factor. I'm your host, byron Ricks, the Father Factor. Why? Because fathers count, remember dads? All your kids are equally yours. I'd like to thank again my guests, frederick Douglas Southern, josh, any last words?
Speaker 3:No, the website is up official. Go check it out. It's because of the support that you all have offered we're able to continue to grow. Continue to grow. The following the listeners. So go on there, take a look, learn more about the side effects us. Take a look at the shop and we'll see you next time. And what's the address? It is fatherfactorpodcastcom.
Speaker 1:Again. Fatherfactorpodcastcom. Check us out. Hey, thank you. This is Byron, the Father Factor podcast. Thank you for listening. If you like what you heard, subscribe and share and tell us your thoughts. We'd like to hear from you. Perhaps you can be on our show. And to the fathers out there, remember all your children are equally yours.