Tales from Opera, Fatherhood, and a kid’s journey

As I look back on my life's symphony, with its crescendos of an opera career and the adagios of fatherhood, it's clear that every note resonates with a story. This episode is a personal narrative, weaving through my transition from the opera stage to the raw authenticity of a one-man show, and the laughter that filled the air during high school talent shows. But it's the unscripted moments, like meeting my wife at a fundraiser performance, that have truly composed the soundtrack of my life.

Navigating the complex chords of marriage and parenting, I pull back the curtain on the careful balancing act of personal and professional boundaries. As a personal trainer, I make conscious choices to honor my wife, a dance of respect that sometimes comes at the cost of business growth. In the same measure, we explore the delicate yet essential conversations with our children on conflict resolution, highlighting how our own missteps and heartfelt apologies can teach them more than any punishment ever could.

Ultimately, this episode is an ensemble piece, with each story and insight adding to the rich harmony of life's experiences. I extend an invitation to you, the listeners, to join in the chorus, sharing your own tales and learning from the highs and lows of fatherhood, marriage, and the pursuit of personal growth. So lend an ear, share a laugh, and let's journey together through the melodies and harmonies that define our days.
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Dad, Bods and Dumbbells, where we're talking about fitness, fatherhood and just guy stuff in general, practical advice and thoughts that really have been a part of our lives right now, hopefully valuable to y'all listening and watching out there.

Speaker 2: 0:12

Thanks for joining us. We're glad to have you.

Speaker 1: 0:14

Let's get started.

Speaker 2: 0:14

It's so funny when you're thinking about what you're going to say rather than actually just naturally talking about it. It's so hilarious Like did you have to when you did a? When you were doing your one-man show, what was that like?

Speaker 1: 0:29

You know, you write a show, you think about okay, what's the story? Like you kind of think about the macro, like where is the hero's journey? You know from who I was before to who I become because of this story, and then you try to break it up into monologues or into, you know, moments that are going to kind of tell that story. The hardest part is that, like there's you know, in any other play you're bouncing off somebody else.

Speaker 2: 0:57

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 0:57

So you have to kind of create these moments out of nothing right, yeah. Which I think is the hardest part. But I think what really taught me is to just kind of what my acting teacher would call like jump off the cliff yeah right. You can't go into it in your head. You just have to trust that you know the words, trust that you know the blocking, trust that like it's going to go great, yeah, and just kind of let go and enjoy the ride.

Speaker 2: 1:19

So who? How did you get training for that? Did you go to to school for that?

Speaker 1: 1:22

Yeah, so I have an undergrad degree in music, like theater around music, so opera and musical theater and that kind of stuff, and then I went to New York City. Yeah, opera.

Speaker 2: 1:34

You can sing opera, I can sing opera, dude. That's hardcore, or at least I could.

Speaker 1: 1:39

It doesn't quite sound the same, but I mean, you know you get older, your voice gets deeper and more resonant and so you know I can, I can fake a pretty good opera aria from time to time, uh, but anyway, so I went to new york and I joined the maggie flanagan studio and she was a renowned meisner, uh, acting coach, yeah, and went through a two-year acting program and so in the process of doing that, really got to hone my acting skills, that related specifically to hone my acting skills that related specifically to singing or opera and that kind of thing, which is you know, of course, anyone who's been to an opera they literally just stand there with makeup and sing. Kind of oftentimes this will make it.

Speaker 2: 2:17

I've actually never been to opera. I saw it on. You know what? Was it Skyfall or Spectre? One of the 007s. That was the first time I really like oh, this is what opera is, yeah, cool so it's uh, but it's.

Speaker 1: 2:28

You know you wouldn't. You don't see a lot of acting yeah, it's true, acting in opera because it's really more, much more important that the person's sound yeah and be able to hit the high notes and and have the resonance, and so most of that is positioning the body and focusing on your breathing and really being relaxed you can't be like emotionally angry at somebody and then singing in a high c or something like that. So so yeah the um was?

Speaker 2: 2:55

did you want to do musicals? Was that kind of a?

Speaker 1: 2:57

yeah, that's what I. That's what I enjoyed first. When I, like, got into singing, it was because I, my grandma, would take me to musical theater and I saw like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor.

Speaker 2: 3:07

Dreamcoat oh great show. It was a great biblical musical of all time, oh very biblically accurate, andrew Lloyd Webber and yeah, so that was so that.

Speaker 1: 3:17

but I was like hooked, I was like oh, this is awesome and so I would start going to more musicals and I was like, well, let me start taking voice lessons. And so as you get deeper and deeper into singing, of course they want you to do classical opera and that type of stuff versus like musical theater, unless you go to like a specific theater program.

Speaker 1: 3:38

So anyway. So that's where I kind of got into the opera. But when I went to New York City it was like I want to really learn the craft of acting that's cool. So in the process of being in new york, I wrote and performed a one-man show about my time in the peace corps, yeah, which uh kind of was a great way to kind of cathartically kind of process that experience.

Speaker 2: 3:58

That's cool. Did people show?

Speaker 1: 3:59

up to see it. Oh, absolutely, yeah, was it pretty popular? Well, so I it. I did it as a kind of as a fundraiser, yeah, um, for Africa. No, uh, not specifically. It was actually to. Yeah, it was the reason I came here to Austin. I I fundraised some money. I wanted to do a workshop here in Austin. When I flew to Austin, I met my wife.

Speaker 2: 4:22

Oh sick. So there's that kind of Fundraising. We can call it fundraising.

Speaker 1: 4:26

It's not really fundraising, raising money for myself.

Speaker 2: 4:30

We can call it however man, but I mean I sold TIG.

Speaker 1: 4:34

So I worked at a high-end lounge restaurant and I asked the managers if I could do my show there and they said absolutely.

Speaker 2: 4:49

So we did it on aay night, when it was closed.

Speaker 1: 4:51

Yeah and oh sick, it was awesome I I had like you know 100 people show up. Whoa, that's awesome, it was epic, it was epic, so it really turned out great. Great response from it. I did a couple of rewrites on it just to just to kind of clean it up, and then I performed it, you know, off broadway, for for a bit I had a smaller black box theater and then when I moved to Austin I connected with a local director. We did another rewrite and then performed it down at the Hideout Theater downtown.

Speaker 2: 5:14

Oh yeah, On Congress. That's sick.

Speaker 1: 5:16

For a two-week run. That's cool and that was kind of the culmination of the experience.

Speaker 2: 5:21

That's fun man.

Speaker 1: 5:22

I felt like I truly kind of lived out that the story and and and been able and took it to the like, the level, yeah, I thought like this is this is quite good I wish I would have gotten into theater.

Speaker 2: 5:32

Uh, I just, you know I was because I was homeschooled early on and then I went to a christian middle school, I went to public high school and I was fully unprepared for sports and for like education, all that stuff. But one thing that I did that really kind of I wish in the, I wish in the 90s, early 2000s that, uh, there would have been the opportunities there are now like jobs in the sense of like who would have ever thought you could be a comedian and make a ton of money?

Speaker 2: 5:59

like who, who would ever thought you could do these things and be a lot of money, like a lot of money doing it. It was never a career. Career, like I told my dad. He's like what do you want to do? I had no purpose. Like I was truly without. Like I don't. My brother was a doctor. I didn't want to do any. Like I don't want to be a doctor. I couldn't be a doctor but, I also was like I.

Speaker 2: 6:17

It was like I want to be famous. Was it like my answer, which seems so cheesy and stupid now, like I feel like an idiot saying it, but what I think it summarizes for me was I wanted freedom, I wanted to be able to do what I wanted to do and do what I love. But I didn't really know that until I got a little bit older. But in our senior year we had this talent show and it was a big deal. And so the seniors run it, you host it, you emcee it and then everybody you know does their talents and it's a packed house, I mean typically.

Speaker 2: 6:50

And I auditioned to be the emcee and what basically we did was I created a sketch it was called the Dating Show and it was with all my friends and we did this sketch and it crushed, and so we got the deal and then we sat around in this room for we had like a couple weeks to prepare for this thing, because you have to do like sketches to kill time, as they're saying, it depends on the length of the sketch or whatever. And so you know, I'm sitting there, nobody has any ideas, and I start kind of formulating some things like wouldn't it be funny Because I started thinking about the old days Like wouldn't it be cool, like don't girls ever want to know what guys do at sleepovers? Because we always like think about girls' sleepovers when we were in high school, at least the pillow fights and it's like this really kind of. Maybe you did it, bart, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 7:39

But, that's what we thought. It was like this it was this, like you imagine, like the girls running around their pajamas, yeah, and it's like oh, they're talking about us and how much they love us and how hot we are, yeah, exactly, yeah. So I I came up with this idea that, uh, there would be this fake door and there would be the group of girls that was with us and they'd be like have you ever wondered what guys do at sleepovers?

Speaker 2: 7:59

and there's three chairs and it's me and my two buddies and we do a choreographed dance to dirty pop in sync like perfect, it crushed and uh, and so I just started creating sketches, you know, for each of the transitions and I I wrote it completely myself. Of course I had help with them and they, you know, pay off of each other, but the basic ideas were on me. Mitch's school of dance was one of them. I did uh, I did a can uh. You know the telephone with the string through the cans yeah I put it?

Speaker 2: 8:27

I put it the length of the stage on each side, like we were talking to each other, except I was the person, and so I would talk into the telephone and then I'd sprint to the other side and I'd listen and then talk back and then I'd sprint to the other side and and the whole time was to introduce the next artist and we needed to do it over the course of like it needed two minutes to set up, and so I did the whole thing back and forth. I just did sprints back and forth talking to the can until they were ready to go, and it was probably one of the funniest things I've ever done. I hated it because I didn't think I executed it well. But all that to say, there's no proof.

Speaker 2: 9:00

I had a vhs test of it, like one of those old rca cameras, and uh and there's no proof I had a VHS test of it, like one of those old RCA cameras and uh, and there's no proof that I ever did. But if I could have found like that's a career, I would have been like a hundred percent in right, I wanted to be in sketch comedy. Probably is what it comes down to. So anyway, that was the highlight of my high school year.

Speaker 2: 9:17

I asked the girl out that was uh on our group that we were kind of connecting with and she said yes, but then I never followed up because we had spring break, we didn't have cell phones back then and she moved on. I did not she was like maybe if I just ignore him it was always like man, I should have just said let's go out now like it was you know it was late, we just finished the sketch and was like hey, would you go out with me?

Speaker 2: 9:40

she's like yeah, absolutely I'd love to. Yeah, I was like just be like well, let's go to steak and shake man, it's open 24 seven. Instead I just said okay, cool, talk later. And then I took off.

Speaker 1: 9:50

I love that.

Speaker 2: 9:51

Anyway.

Speaker 1: 9:51

I remember thinking. I remember in fifth grade I asked out Nancy Hornbeak and I said hey, do you want to go either with me? Like go outside, but I think the idea was like are you asking me out on a date or are you asking me to be go steady, like oh, so that because girls in fifth grade.

Speaker 1: 10:20

Girls are, I'm sure, have thought about this type of stuff much more like guys are just figuring, starting to. You know, come out of our shell and be like oh, girls are cute, what do I do? Hey, I want to be popular. Nancy's cute, Maybe I'll ask her out and that'll make like that'll get some. I was, I had no idea what I was doing. I, I had no, no plan.

Speaker 2: 10:38

Fifth grade relationship. My son has this little girlfriend. Uh, we don't let him have girlfriends. So he calls it like just, you know, like we have crushes on each other, yeah, but they've been going steady in third grade for like the entire year. Well, he stopped talking about her for a little bit and we're like, hey, whatever happened to the girl, and he goes. Well, you know, she was telling me she wanted to spend more time at the playground together Because I was playing soccer with my buddies, with my boys, and uh, I just didn't like that. I want to do what I want to do in the playground. I was like good for you, buddy. But he's like, yeah, but we're back together and you know, she, you'll tell me sometimes she used to tell me to like go talk to guys if they were like being mean to her or something.

Speaker 1: 11:18

I was like so you're like her enforcer and so we're gonna make making understand like she might be useful to him.

Speaker 2: 11:24

Yeah, and I was like we need to figure out how to break this girl, like break them up, and I go, well, what we do is he had a little girlfriend in second grade and it's just basically the distance to the sun, right, right, that is uh, she just not, as she wasn't in his class the next year, right and so they forget about each other.

Speaker 2: 11:42

So the plan is in fourth grade, this girl's gonna be gone. She's not gonna be in this class. I'm gonna request it. Yeah, I, I'm definitely in. That's hilarious. So there's this.

Speaker 1: 11:50

There's this theory you're like uh, principal edwards, uh, my son is a stalker.

Speaker 2: 11:55

Oh really, she's a bully, she's been bullying him for a Becky what a funny name, anyway. All that to say, I came up with this theory. Yeah, this theory is uh, what attractiveness level for men to women. Okay, because remember when the whole like Tiger Woods thing happened, how could you forget in 2009, when he has this model wife and then he just basically goes on this rampage of all these different women going on?

Speaker 2: 12:25

yes, for years, didn't just start, it was like you start seeing these people coming forward and you're like there's like these girls are not attractive compared to his beautiful wife. Yeah, and I said so. You know, I was with my wife. She's like why, why do you guys do that? I tried to give her a good guy's perspective and I said you know how they measure the uh, like the brightness of a star? She's like how it is based on distant, dense, uh, distance, yeah, from the object and the brightness of the star. So if we see it bigger than all the other stars around us, we say that's the biggest star in our galaxy, right, rather than going, well, the big dipper, all those stars would have to be extremely far because we can see them from millions of galaxy. Whatever, you know, you know you're smarter than me. Yeah, light years, that's what it is. It's the distance to the sun, so I call it the distance of the sun.

Speaker 2: 13:15

Theory is that if a guy has a girl and she is close and easy to get with, she's the sun, she is the sun, she's the brightest star. Doesn't matter attractiveness, really. I mean it does a little bit, but at the same time, it's like it does it, and so that's how you measure the attractiveness of a like, the effectiveness of a man to a woman. So that's why rock stars have such problems. Staying married is because it's the distance to the sun.

Speaker 2: 13:42

There's these groupies, there's these girls, and the access and the ease of that is just so much easier than being married or dealing with a wife at home. Right? So that's what my theory is so and I think it's probably universal. I, that's what my theory is so and I think it's probably universal. I'm doing probably a terrible job of explaining it, but that's what I think I'll do to my, my son and all of his girlfriends leading out of elementary school, because that's the only time I can really control it, because once we get to middle school it's going to be a freaking shit show man, yeah, there anyway well, I'm down with it.

Speaker 1: 14:11

You know, I think, I think the idea is. Idea is for most people that are not famous or do not have a career, that brings women to them. The woman you chose to marry, or the partner, is the brightest star and they're the closest star. But when other stars start to come into your orbit and put themselves in your space.

Speaker 1: 14:36

That makes it harder for the man to like be able to yeah and I think also you gotta understand like that with someone like tiger, I mean oh, by the way, I heard that he might be the next like roasted oh boy, there was some sort of like a man there's no amount of money you can pay me to go through that, oh man but anyway, maybe background topic is just that, like you know, there's, you know, dopamine is a pretty strong drug right and if you're, if you're somebody who's super driven achiever men to my mindset like Enneagram three or or you know, and you're just chasing dopamine and you're good at it.

Speaker 1: 15:13

Yeah Right, like dopamine is drugs, do you have dopamine is sports achievement.

Speaker 2: 15:17

Dopamine is money, dopamine is women Right, and and so you know that that becomes a challenging thing for for guys in that situation to to deal with yeah, I mean I, I get that totally, um, but I mean you're in a field you don't just train dudes Like how do you do it, especially being married as long as you have, how do you protect against that stuff?

Speaker 1: 15:40

Well, I think you, first of all, you wear a wedding ring and you know it's funny, it's like you laugh about it. But you know, with sports and working out like if you wear a regular wedding ring, like you're wearing, you got to take that off.

Speaker 2: 15:55

Yeah, I can't or or just you.

Speaker 1: 15:57

You end up developing like blisters, or or or like, yeah, mine swells up. That's why I don't wear it during marathons but you know, like a silicone Kalo ring, like I've got like I never have to. Ever I might take it off as I go into salt water, because salt water makes it slippery.

Speaker 2: 16:13

And I've actually lost a ring in the ocean.

Speaker 1: 16:18

It just slipped completely off my finger without me noticing. So it was actually in Maui on my 10th anniversary. Oh, dude, and she's like where's your ring? I'm like I'm glad it was 30 bucks. Yeah, that's all. But I think it's just setting boundaries and just, you know, open communication. I don't usually train single women either.

Speaker 2: 16:39

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:40

I don't think I have that. In fact, I know I don't have a client who is a single woman. That's also a part of it. Like you know, you set some clear expectations on. You know what the relationship is.

Speaker 2: 16:51

You mention your wife a lot. Yeah, they have. I think the one thing that I noticed was at camp gladiator there were a lot of single women and it was mainly women. So, like when I was training with you at camp gladiator, I was like the only dude, yeah, and that that seemed to be a little cumbersome, I think yeah, it was like I it because you do.

Speaker 2: 17:09

When you do that together, there's some kind of camaraderie and you build this thing. And it's never been an issue for me because I'm not very attractive number one.

Speaker 1: 17:21

Number two I have this really distinct fear of disrespect.

Speaker 2: 17:26

I never want to disrespect my spouse in any way.

Speaker 2: 17:29

And so I've always kept very strict boundaries and maybe it's a lot of the church background too where at church you couldn't like you couldn't be in a meeting one-on-one with a woman without the door fully open, or I mean you could break those rules, but I never did. It was like these are the rules, can't drive in a car by yourself with them. Just wanted to be above board. I'd never wanted to have the appearance of anything other than just of you know, hey, we're, we're doing things the right way. That's how I've always done it. But the the hard thing was when I moved to the secular world. There aren't the same rules. It's actually quite scary because I'm like man, how do people do this without a set of standard rules? And so for me I've just kind of kept it that way. I probably lost out on business, I probably lost some of those things.

Speaker 2: 18:15

But there's this giant fear in my heart that, like I never want my wife to ever have a situation where she goes, would he do that?

Speaker 2: 18:24

Or like ever put that doubt in her mind Always want to be very so I've made it almost my duty to say, even to the over, like even people who are not interested at all like to say, even to the over, like even people who are not interested at all, like even show amounts of, like it'd be the last thing you'd ever do. But I always go out of my way to make it very clear that I have a spouse and that my wife is important to me and we've been together a long time and, uh, it probably is overkill, but it also I would much rather be like the guy that's, like he talks about his wife way too much than it would be this guy's a. This guy's a little sleazy, right, cause I never want to have those things. Even telling somebody, even telling a woman hey, you look good today. Like that bothers me. I can't do it. That's not my spouse. Or like Texas, everybody hugs Absolutely Hate touch, yeah, like I hate touch of other people.

Speaker 1: 19:15

The art of the side hug, yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:18

I mean, you had to get that. So like for me, I think probably guarding the marriage has been a lot of my focus because of those things. I was like I don't want to ever think that I'm the exception to the rule, Like always being very cautious of what situations I put myself in, Because I used to travel a lot too, so I was gone all the time Really with, I mean, she. There was really not. She trusts me fully, so it's not like there's a huge amount of like. Sometimes I'll be on the flight and she'll be like where are you even going? Can you send me your flight information? So that's a really interesting thing and that's taken years to build right. But if I at any point would have had a situation where I put myself in a bad scenario, there wouldn't be that trust or you'd have to build it back and there'd always be that thing in the back of her mind. So I've just made it very important to do that. I don't know that thing in the back of her mind, so I've just made it very important to do that. I don't know, in the application of that is more like that selfless piece too. I don't know how you deal with fights or issues with your marriage. But I think for me I've just tried to do my best to go.

Speaker 2: 20:21

Whenever I have that accusation of you know you go through those waves where you're like she's just not doing enough.

Speaker 2: 20:27

You know she's she's not enough, she's not, she's makes me, she, I'm lonely, I'm this, I'm not like I get very much in, like internally, I go in and I eats away at me and what I I've started to realize is if I say you a lot like you make me feel this way, you make me feel this way, Then what I'm doing is obviously accusing her, but also I'm not even reflecting internally, I'm not even saying like I might be projecting all these feelings, Cause usually I am, Usually it's not like hey, I feel these things because you did this and I couldn't logically do it, and so I started changing.

Speaker 2: 21:04

Anytime I have those conversations I say I'm going to go through an exercise, I've done this. Where we're like really fighting, where I'm like I am going to do this because I think it might be projection, so I'm going to change all this you stuff to I, I feel worthless, I and you start saying it out loud and you're like this is insane, Like why would you feel that way and then get that perspective. It has changed the way that I fight with my wife. That's awesome, because it's less of a fight and more of like hey, this is what I'm battling with right now, and it may sound illogical and then it just you're taking the attack out of it yes and so she's able to deal with what you're saying with an element of kind of like perspective.

Speaker 1: 21:47

Yeah, if you say I feel this way or this is this is you know, and then turn it on yourself, yeah, she can there be, she can stay loving. Yeah, because she's not feeling attacked. Yeah, yeah, I think where my wife and I get into trouble is we, we, we, we can blame each other, especially with like when my kid is yeah out of control and we're trying to like and and just nothing's nothing's working and we're just like it's.

Speaker 1: 22:09

We're at our wits end or we're super tired or something like that, and so it's it's finding ways to a take breaks. Yeah, it's fun Like I'm going to take a break, I'm going to go out back, I'm just going to chill, I'm going to collect my head, get my Does that usually take like just stepping away.

Speaker 2: 22:25

Does that usually calm it pretty easily?

Speaker 1: 22:27

You know, as long as I want it to calm.

Speaker 2: 22:30

Yeah, that's different, right.

Speaker 1: 22:31

That's always the hard part too, it's like you have to want to change your mood or your behavior. But anyway, I think all those things are just ways that you know that the worst case scenario is just leaning into the anger and the resentment and the all that kind of stuff and just going all out with it, Cause you know that just, especially with kids, the collateral damage and all that, even if they're just listening.

Speaker 2: 22:55

Yeah, that's a tough one. You know we've had a couple of times where you know we try to do it where it's not a kids. The kids won't hear it, yeah, um, but sometimes they walk in and they could tell where it's tense or something. I mean not that it happens every day or anything like that, but um and I'll. Actually I was like man. I wish my parents would have done this.

Speaker 2: 23:14

Is um pulled me aside after and said, hey, you know, we were having mommy and daddy were fighting, um, but we love each other and this is why we we had this conversation and just know that we're good. And you know, do you have any questions? Like? That's been, because my daughter's in sixth grade and so she's seeing this and I want them to understand what healthy relationships should look like. Right, you know, at least close to that. Like, yeah, you, you don't need to be screaming at each other. We don't do that, but not always. But the other side is like man. If somebody would explain that to me about hey, this is the process of how we deal with it and you know a lot of it was on me. I should have been more reflective and I think that it's helped me a lot to go Cause in the pastor world I did a lot of counseling yeah, so dealing with but I was doing a lot of like dealing with a lot of guys because their marriages were X, y and Z Right and what I started realizing was, every time I talk to him I typically find that they're the problem, like they're putting too much on the spouse, like why don't you worry about you first and figure out why you feel the way you feel?

Speaker 2: 24:24

Because you're projecting all of those feelings and knowing that perspective in the you know, basically like pulling the entire world that's what it is is typically I'm the projector that's projecting how I inadequately feel. That's where it goes back to cheating. Or like finding your dopamine rush from the love of someone else. It's like we are desperately men.

Speaker 2: 24:45

Men desperately need affection and attention and to feel like they're the man and they're awesome. At least I do. I should say I men and most men want to be like hey, you are awesome, yeah, I can't believe how great you are. And so when there's somebody that shows some type of attention, then we draw near to that and go oh well, they think I'm cool, but my wife thinks I'm this and instead of going. Well, you know they don't, they're not going to. But my wife thinks I'm this and instead of going well, you know they don't, they're not going to treat me. My wife knows me better than anybody, so the fact that she's still here and she still loves me, obviously there's, there's some good to that. So it's, it's an interesting journey, man. You've been together 17 years, right?

Speaker 1: 25:23

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 25:23

Yeah, we just celebrate it. We'll celebrate 17 years of marriage in June.

Speaker 1: 25:27

Yeah, we'll be 17 years in October. Dude, that's crazy.

Speaker 2: 25:32

There's a different kind of love when it comes to that too.

Speaker 1: 25:34

I mean, it's just the timing and all that.

Speaker 2: 25:37

I mean I know a lot of people that are married 20 years that hate each other. I mean it's not always just time, but I think you really do have to work at it. But, man, I can't imagine doing it again like the, the amount of energy and effort that we've put into developing who we are together because we got married so young.

Speaker 1: 25:55

Yeah, well, I think what I love that you said was kind of the modeling of like this is how you work through arguments, stuff like that, and I, I, we. I specifically try to do that with jack because he is my son and I have kind of a similar overreaction yeah, you know, like he overreacts and I overreact to that.

Speaker 1: 26:11

And then it's like and so it can escalate, you know, and and then, so what I? What I try to say is, you know, once everything's calmed down, I say, hey, you know, here's where I feel like I could have done better. This is where I think I escalated and I could have.

Speaker 2: 26:25

I could have like taken a break you, you do this with Jack, and you guys argue, and so I try to explain where I think I could have done better.

Speaker 1: 26:33

And then I go hey Jack, where do you feel like you could?

Speaker 2: 26:36

have gone.

Speaker 1: 26:37

And sometimes it'll give me the canned response.

Speaker 2: 26:39

I could have gone to my room and taken a break.

Speaker 1: 26:41

I'm like okay, um. But I also want him to know that, like you know, I think oftentimes the bad behavior is seen by the parents. The parents deal with the bad behavior as opposed to like, but what that tells the kids sometimes is that you know the behavior is not appropriate, the feeling was not appropriate. You know you were being a bad kid versus like you know let's go to the root of it Like you were. You were being a bad kid versus like. You know.

Speaker 1: 27:08

Let's go to the root of it like you were frustrated, like you weren't what, what did you not get that you wanted? And then like what, what, what are some other solutions to that? Versus you know and I don't do it every time and but like when, when we know, it's like hey, this is a important moment to reflect on and not just like gloss over or give them a consequence and move on, because it's easy to be like you've lost TV.

Speaker 2: 27:32

I think that's so cool, though you can't hang out with your friend this weekend or whatever.

Speaker 1: 27:36

It's easy to pull something that they want as a consequence but A they don't learn much from that.

Speaker 2: 27:53

And B, especially kids younger kids.

Speaker 1: 27:53

Sometimes you can pull something's like so far away that they're not even really capable of understanding the cause and effect. Yeah, until it, you know. Like they wake up sunday morning, they're like, oh, I'm gonna watch tv.

Speaker 2: 27:58

No, you lost it and they have no idea why. Yeah, they don't remember, and it actually affects the parents more than it affects the kids.

Speaker 1: 28:04

I'm like, please, don't take that stuff away, stacy. I'm please don't take that stuff away, stacy. I'm like please don't make that a punishment.

Speaker 2: 28:09

So one time we were. I love that because so also my. I never as a kid ever really felt validated or even apologized to. As a kid, you never get the apology, and one thing that Stacy has really equipped me well in is, when I overreact is going back to the kids and saying hey, I overreacted here, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have spoken to you that way, you didn't deserve that. And it's a huge like healing process. It becomes less of like if I do this, I get this bad thing, but then also a father that can be able to apologize not only to his spouse but also his kids.

Speaker 1: 28:49

I think it's really cool and you're showing them that you're a work in progress too.

Speaker 2: 28:54

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:54

Because I think the more successful the father is, the more likely the kid feels like they don't measure up to the father's. You know like expectation.

Speaker 2: 29:04

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:04

Like and that's projected but, still like you know.

Speaker 1: 29:09

I mean, I think, think it's especially if you have like a famous father oh yeah, lord, you know, like, if it's somebody who's like super well known or like seems to have everything they get, has everything they want, or whatever, she's at a high level, you know the kid, you know it's just, those are big shoes to fill right, just from the idea of, like that's what dad, dad is, and I'm nowhere close. And so any opportunity to let the kid in on him, like, hey, this is what I'm struggling with, or this is what I could have done better at Is giving them a little look into the world of like oh, he's more like me than I expected.

Speaker 2: 29:43

I said the F word in the car the other day no, this was maybe a year or two ago, because I'm pretty good about it but this lady was like losing her mind behind me and I was not in the wrong. She was definitely in the wrong, yeah, but I try not to react. I'm not a road rage guy, but anyway, I was like what the is going on and I I look back and mcdealy's in the car. He's like, oh, he got a guy covers.

Speaker 2: 30:03

And I was like buddy, I'm so sorry, like I should never say that Like you, and he goes especially not around you guys Like no, just know, that's not an appropriate word to say. He's like I know, dad, and then he gets in, we get done. I was like please forgive me, buddy, and uh, I forget about it.

Speaker 1: 30:19

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:19

I can't take him home. He comes home.

Speaker 1: 30:29

Says dad said the F word in the car mom. And I'm like, come on, bro, I thought we had a pack that loyalty. Yeah, it's that loyalty piece. So this is, this is crazy. Like um, it's similar things. Sometimes I'll be driving around with my kid and he'll say something like uh, you know, like oh, somebody used the uh d word today. I'm like I'm like what's the d word? It's like, oh, it was accidental, like he. He, like you know somebody in class like fell and scraped his knee, and I was like what's the d word? He's like, oh, it was accidental. He, like you know somebody in class like fell and scraped his knee and I was like what's the D word? And he, I think it's darn or damn.

Speaker 2: 30:55

Not like so funny, but I'm like okay, I'm like what?

Speaker 1: 30:59

other words, what are the other? Like, bad words, word, and then there's the like, and I'm like, okay, like, and then he's like and he's like hey, my friend, um, my friend john told me that there's a, there's the n word. Oh, he said, you never say it and I'm like okay, I'm like oh boy, I'm like yeah, and so I'm like so, because I always want to like dig deeper, like yeah um, and then I said so.

Speaker 1: 31:27

I said okay, did you know why it's a bad word? He's like, yeah, it's like, I just know you're not supposed to say it.

Speaker 1: 31:33

It like hurts, uh, certain certain people's feelings and I'm like yeah, and so I was, like I tried to go like, without ever saying the word yeah, and also without, like I said, but you'll notice, sometimes you may hear this on tv or that, that somebody who's african-american might say that just to somebody else who's you know, and that's okay, because they're using it as like a friendly yeah, or like a way to kind of like create closeness.

Speaker 1: 32:00

Yeah, because to, because it doesn't have the same meaning when it's coming from, versus somebody because it relates to, like, slavery and racism and things like that, and and so I did my best to explain it and he's like I get it dad, so we don't say it, but but like somebody who's african-american can say it, I said generally yes that's how old was he when you were talking about this?

Speaker 2: 32:22

he's 10.

Speaker 1: 32:23

Oh, this recently, literally less, oh my goodness, never like two weeks ago talking about like how twitter is bad because there's bullying on it. And now it's like the n-word is being like talked about and never say it, and it was his friend john, who's uh, who's chinese, um, and you know, they were just I guess they were just having a conversation about, about, you know, like, and I, john, said it in a very like thoughtful way, like to him, like, hey, there's a John said it in a very like thoughtful way, like to him, like, hey, there's a word you never say.

Speaker 2: 32:51

Yeah, not like.

Speaker 1: 32:52

Yeah, you know cause sometimes friends are kind of like yeah they're all about being naughty and they want to like yeah, and like they want to one up, you like oh, I know a bad, I know even worse, john was like giving him the like skinny on how bad this word was, that you never say it, which I thought was so cool.

Speaker 2: 33:07

That's interesting. Yeah, my, uh, that same thing is like my kids, you know, we start having those conversations like oh, you know, so-and-so said the S word, and I was like well, what's the S word? Like sucks. And I was like oh yeah, we don't. And she goes. And I heard the SH word too. I was like oh really, who said it? She said our teacher. I was like what? She goes? Yeah, she said shut up.

Speaker 2: 33:33

I was like okay, yeah, and I go. There's another word that starts with SH. Do you know what it is? She's like no, and I'm like it's this. And we don't say it typically. Daddy sometimes says it on accident and it's an interesting process because I don't think parents always maybe it's just these years are just so exhausting because you're dealing with all the transition in age, you're dealing with all the new grades, like everything's busy, and taking the time to explain that stuff to your kids as a they're not, they're bad words, but they're made bad because of how we use them. Those are some really good conversations to have and it just takes time. It takes energy and effort and I think that's probably the conclusion to it.

Speaker 1: 34:24

And dressing them in the moment when the kid is actually engaged in it. Versus like sit down, son, and we're going to talk about the S-H word.

Speaker 2: 34:32

Yeah, right, like the birds and the bees. I remember my dad told me the birds and the bees thing way too early because I asked him. We were watching some movie and there was African women that didn't have tops on. So you see all these boobies and you're nine years old, like dad, there's a lot of boobies in here Like, is this okay to look at? And he's like well, you know we try not to, but like it's. You know it's, it's their culture. You know he's trying to explain to me. And he pulled me aside before church one day and he's like hey, son, you know you mentioned this and I just want to give you all the information. And I remember getting done with it and it was basically like nine-year-old speak, I guess. And I asked him can you wear underwear?

Speaker 1: 35:18

still, he's like no son. You won't want to, though, when you get that age.

Speaker 2: 35:20

And I was like I burned in my memory. Dude, I could not believe it. I still think about that moment going. This is terrifying, and I was nine years old. Going there is no way that my dad is talking like this. I can't imagine having that conversation with my son now. So I'm going to do a lot of research and figure out what's the best way to do it with the least amount of trauma you can put on your kid.

Speaker 1: 35:39

Maybe it's just impossible. Well, it's the thing about. It is like the closer the kid gets to middle school, the more they're going to hear all this crazy stuff. That's like half truths and like crazy rumors from people that have no business teaching your kid anything.

Speaker 2: 35:55

I mean we talked about cell phones, though, right Like these kids have access to computers.

Speaker 1: 36:01

If they have cell phones. Our kids don't. Yeah, our kids don't, but they're like. Even I remember the first time my son has a computer from school which is kind of guarded.

Speaker 2: 36:09

Yeah, yeah, they have those things they can't do, do a lot. But also, at the same time, it's like kids are getting exposed to this stuff so much earlier and younger, and it's like a lot of my friends well, my son's friends have phones. It's like I remember fifth grade seeing my first you know nudie mag on accident and going this is crazy world and just oh, it's like the innocence goes almost immediately and so I'm afraid that those things will happen a lot sooner. You know, um, but I guess not nudie mag. Yeah, not nudie bag. It was like finding them on the side of the road.

Speaker 1: 36:41

I remember being at an elementary school and like somebody brought like a folded up picture of like a naked woman from like a nudie bag. They probably got it from their younger brother and it was being passed around. Oh my goodness, but it was like. I mean, I literally can remember the exact spot on the like on the playground, right next to the like the you know the wall where you play like handball on.

Speaker 2: 37:06

I remember like being right there kind of hiding from the teacher opening it up and just like, like my mind it's so funny now to think about, like the first time now knowing what we know, but also like the just, I think, that feeling of like shame and guilt almost instantly of like this. I knew this was bad yeah but I still did it. It was like that was the first time. I was like, oh, this is like. This world is not right. This fifth grade, like fairy tale that I know, but I was a little sheltered too.

Speaker 2: 37:35

I mean, I went to Christian school until I was in eighth grade.

Speaker 2: 37:39

Homeschooled, yeah, I remember in high school the first time I heard that people had sex. I mean that sounds weird, but it's like you're in ninth grade. I was like people are having sex. This is the weirdest thing ever. Like just so bizarre to me. But I went to a public high school so I was kind of thrown in the deep end pretty quickly. So I just I just decided just to remain quiet and you know, just try to stay in my lane. That was the goal. It's just stay in your lane. And I was on the wrestling team too, and those guys are a whole other other part. Man, yeah, those guys are wild. It's just trying to maintain my purity that's all I was trying to do just trying to not have sex before I was married.

Speaker 1: 38:18

That was the goal well, this, this has been, uh, all over the place episode, but very good, I think you know a lot on fatherhood.

Speaker 2: 38:24

Yeah, it seems like it seems like it kind of all connects. I mean I think the, the talking about marriage and how we stay love, you know, loving to our spouses, and how do we talk to our kids about the hard things. I think those are always relevant. Yeah, um, but yeah, I'm glad we did it. Thanks for your, thanks for being a part of it with me.

Speaker 1: 38:42

Yeah, Dad bods and dumbbells.

Speaker 2: 38:44

Thanks for listening. Make sure you like and subscribe.

Speaker 1: 38:46

Yeah, and leave comments and.

Speaker 2: 38:48

Share it with your buddies. If you hate it, please don't tell us. No, we want to know.

Speaker 1: 38:55

No, don't have a great day, guys.

Speaker 2: 38:57

See you next time.