(techno music) – Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I’m Link. – And I’m Rhett. This week at the round table of dim lighting we’re going to be answering your questions about parenting because. – Or just parents, kids, the relationships going both ways. – It can be things that apply to kids, things that apply to parents because we’ve been both kids and parents. – And we still are, Rhett, news flash. – And again, as we have gotten in the habit of saying when we answer your questions we’re not qualified to give advice. Take our advice at your own risk. We have engineering degrees which taught us nothing about child psychology. – What about the school of hard knocks, man? We haven’t even been through that, let’s be real. – Exactly. We just have children who are relatively well adjusted? I mean I wouldn’t say particularly well adjusted I would say relatively well adjusted. – They’re well loved. – They’re very loved and I would think that this moment, everything’s okay, you know? I could go home tonight and find out they’ve broken a law. – We are potentially temporary success stories as parents. – All that to say, just take out advice with a grain of salt if you’re coming to us to actually learn how to be a parent you’ve got bigger problems. – I don’t think anybody’s coming to us that way. I don’t think you should go to anybody for complete answers. I’m gonna step out on that limb. I think that’s one of the things I try to teach my kids is that, like, don’t just be a blind follower of any one person. You know, it’s like, you gotta– – That’s a cult. – You can’t do that, definitely don’t do that with us even though we’re two people. – We’re two people so it’s okay. You can blindly follow us. – Yeah so let’s get into some questions. – Let’s jump right into the first one. – I ate a cookie, my stomach hurts a little bit I may be running out in the middle of this. – Well the funny thing is, is you told me that we had some cookies, somebody gifted us some cookies and I saw you eating a cookie and I was like I gotta get one of them cookies that’s the only way I’m gonna be able to get through this podcast. – I don’t recall you saying that. – That’s what I was thinking and then– – What you said was, where’d you get that cookie? – Yeah subtext, man. Then you said, I feel a little sick ’cause of that cookie and I’m like well, guess I’m not gonna get a cookie so here I am cookie-less. Just a man with a jar of water. This is how you expect me to make it through this? You have a cookie. – Well it’s not my role to sustain you. Yeah here I am cookie-full– – And complaining about it. – I’m kind of miserable. – I’m just hungry. – You should be grateful. – Kevin Herbon, hey fellas! “When my wife was pregnant with our first “we made a bet on the gender. “Whomever won got 10 “I’m not changing that” diapers. “10 Vetoes. “I guessed boy and won. “During the entirety of–” – No, no, no, I don’t think you read that. Whoever won got 10, I’m not changing that diaper vetoes. Not diapers. You get 10 instances of not changing a diaper even though it’s wet. – I understood that that’s what he meant and that’s exactly what I read. I read what he wrote. – You said diapers. – Yeah ’cause he said whomever won got 10 I’m not changing that– – Well let’s not argue about it. – Diapers. – We’re supposed to resolve issues not create them. – Well I’m not creating the issue, 10 vetoes. – What you said didn’t make sense. – Blame Kevin! ‘Cause that’s how he wrote it. “I guessed boy and won. “During the entirety of my son’s time in diapers “I only used one veto. “Now we have a second son, didn’t bet this time. “I feel I have nine vetoes left. “She says the expired when our first born was potty trained. “Who’s right?” – She’s right Kevin, you know why? Because. – Because she’s always right. – Yeah that’s true. But secondarily. Why didn’t you use your vetoes when you had the chance? I mean, and here’s the answer because it was the first child and you were trying to gain some brownie points and I guarantee you, that you’ve held this over your wife’s head. You know, I haven’t used all my vetoes. – They were very brown brownie points. – I’ve changed, every time the occasion has come along for me to change the diaper, I’ve done it. I’m just calling you out, Kevin. I think that you’ve gotten all the mileage out of not using the vetoes and in terms of brownie points. So you’ve used them in a different way by not using them. – I’m in agreement with Link for a different reason and that is the bet was about the first child. The bet expired when you had another one. – I’m kind of angry at you for not just using the vetoes. I’m just reading into it that again, you were trying to gain credit. Just reap the reward or don’t, you didn’t. – Yeah you can learn to love changing diapers. Make a game of it. I don’t know what the rules are and how you get points but. – I don’t remember the last diaper I changed but I should have bronzed the thing, you know? It’s like third child. How many diapers did I go through? More than you! Unless your two kids pooped at a rate that led to more diapers. – Wouldn’t you like to know that? Sometimes– – Like a counter. – I think about life in that way sometimes. An interesting Reddit thread is that data is beautiful sub-Reddit. – I haven’t seen that one. – It’s one of the ones. – I don’t like numbers. – It’s one of the ones I sub to and basically it’s people who take different you know anything in life that can be data-ized which is basically anything and can be represented as a data set and then they present it in a beautiful way ’cause it can be very beautiful in the way you can present it. – Like a chart? – But a really beautiful chart. – Okay. – Sometimes it’s just amazing data that’s not beautiful but it is beautiful, not visually. You know what I’m saying. Anyway, but I wish sometimes if I could have a superpower besides flying or being invisible or teleporting the fourth one would be to be able to create a data set of anything that anybody brought up ’cause wouldn’t that be interesting? It’d be like– – Like in this instance you would say, well Link, with three kids you’ve changed this many diapers. – No but I would wanna know specifically how many craps Lando took versus how many craps Shepherd took. It would be like mind blowing ’cause it would be like hold up, Shepherd took twice as many craps as Lando what does that mean? Is he still taking more craps? And we’d be able to snap our fingers and like, what’s the average amount of crap that comes out of your youngest son versus my youngest son and we could talk about it. – There weren’t apps. – Crap apps. – But I bet there’s a crap app now. I mean to log your BM’s. – But I don’t wanna have to log it I wanna be able to access it as a superpower. – Well you can probably get averages but that’s closest we’re gonna get. What was my point? – I think we answered. I don’t know, but we answered Kevin’s question. He’s wrong, she’s right, get with the program, Kevin. – I wish I would have bronzed that last diaper because that was one of the big milestones in parenting is when you no longer have to buy, change or dispose of diapers. But you know what? As with many things in life the most important moments are glossed over and you don’t even know they’ve happened, that’s sad, man. – Yeah I don’t remember it either and I did change, as many or nearly as many as my wife did. But I don’t remember the last one. – Let me tell ya, I would have used those vetoes in the first week! – Michelle Scott Mackes asks “Is it okay to use the steering wheel volume controls “in order to drown out the ramblings “of a six-year-old girl and tell her, “‘it isn’t me, the car just really likes this song.”” – Okay so she doesn’t see her mom yeah, reaching over and turning the volume up. I can’t hear you. – Then read this next question – That’s brilliant. – ‘Cause I think it’s very related. I think we can answer these two questions together. – Okay. – Read this question from Deidra. – Oh you want me to read it? – Yeah I don’t wanna read all the time. Look at me over here reading everything. – Okay, I’m so sorry cookie-less man. – I don’t get cookies, I gotta read everything. – I’ll go get you a cookie. – It’s tough around here. – And I’ll read this question while doing it. No-one will hear it, I’ll be in there getting a cookie so choose. – Just read the question. (Link chuckles) – I got ya, “Why do parents lie about weird things? “Like, if you’re driving at night “and you turn on the lights in the vehicle “you can get arrested. “Or swallowing gum will make your stomach “clog up and you will die. “Or sleeping with wet hair will make you sick. “Or cracking your knuckles leads to arthritis.” – I feel like the questions that Deidra or the lies that Deidra has pointed out these are just misconceptions. Misconceptions or misleading old wives tales but I think that this first question from Michelle “It isn’t me, the car just really likes this song.” This is a category. – That’s just a lie. That is a lie. – This is basically what my entire parenting philosophy has been built on for years is lying to my children. (Link chuckles) You know this, I’ve talked about it many times. Okay, it’s not really my philosophy but I love screwing around with my kids I love basically making them think things. – Fibbing to get a reaction. – Yeah. – But you do tell them. – Yeah. – Or do you? – Well almost always. There’s a few rare exceptions where I’ve let something slide for a long time because it was funny but it’s always inconsequential. If I ever think that it could be consequential then I clear it up on the spot. The most recent example of this was we were riding along did you notice there on the main road that kind of connects our homes that they were doing the fumigation of the apartment building? – Yes! – So they had covered up the whole building with striped stuff. – We pulled up and it was in the distance we didn’t drive past it and Lincoln was like look, it’s the circus! – Well you’re kind of setting all over my lie but. Well it’s funny ’cause your kid told himself a lie and believed it. – Well he just saw it, it looked like a big top. – Yeah well so we drove by it and I told Shepherd I said Shepherd, did you hear there’s a new circus building? There’s a new circus building in town and that’s it. (Link laughs) He looked, his eyes lit up for a second then he looked at it and he was like dad I’m not stupid. – But he did look at it, he was there. – I wanted my kid to think that a fumigated house or a fumigated apartment complex was the circus coming to town. – When Lincoln said, look it’s the circus. I was just like no it’s a– – So it was a complete opposite conversation. – Yeah. – Lincoln deceived himself and you cleared it up. I deceived my own son and then he cleared it up himself. – Teach a man to fish or give him a fish I think is the situation there. – But I did this to Locke all the time and Shepherd had the advantage of observing me say all this stuff. – From a younger age. – And so now they’re just like, mom is that true? If Jessie’s there, it’s mom is that true? It doesn’t matter what I say now. (Link laughs) – See what you’ve done? – Mom is that true? It’s worth it, man. – Worth it? – All the memories they’re gonna have of all the lies that I’ve told them. (Link laughs) – I mean, I do that sometimes too. I do get a kick out of it but I don’t have the cutthroat instinct that you have to pull one over on my kids. – But I will say that I also spend quite a bit of time just telling them things that are true. Like if we, I mix in some things that are true. – Yeah just really confuse them. – But like if we’re going on a hike or whatever we like, talk about the rocks and history of the earth and all this stuff, I love doing that kind of thing. But I think a lot of times, you can become a little bit like dad is the school teacher and we’re on a field trip so I try to keep that to a minimum. So Michelle I think it’s totally okay. And Deidra the reason we lie about weird things is because it’s fun and you’ve gotta do something to survive this parenting thing. – By the way, I would have loved to have seen a time lapse of them wrap that apartment, this is not a house. This thing is like five stories tall it’s like a whole apartment complex coated in a circus tent. For fumigation. – I also love the fact that. – It’s amazingly huge. – They made it look so fun with all the colors but there’s these insects just dying inside. – Well yeah they made that choice, I wonder why they made that choice, I think it’s– – ‘Cause it’s fun to kill insects. – Well I think they’re repurposing circus tents. – You think they’ve had a lot of circus tent material and the circus isn’t popular anymore? – Well I think it– – I doubt that. – Well then what’s the reason? – I think it’s because somebody was like – Let’s make this fun. – At one point somebody was like, we gotta wrap this whole house we’re doing kind of a, I mean if you really think about it it’s a little bit morbid like if a person is in there they’re definitely dying and if an insect’s in there, they’re definitely dying. Let’s spruce it up a little bit, let’s make it seem fun. I mean, people do that all the time. – Marketing, it’s marketing. – People do that all the time. – It’s putting icing on it. – We’re talking about it right now. You wanna wrap your house up and you probably don’t even have a bug problem. – But you’re saying that Michelle is it’s not a big deal that she does that. Basically, I just feel for her. I don’t think it’s the best thing to do but parenting lots of times is just desperation and survival. – Yeah, exactly. – You know, you do what you gotta do. – Yeah, I’m a huge proponent of truth but I also like to tell a little fib here and there. Okay. – Turning on the lights in the vehicle, I never told my kids that could get you arrested but I do tell them to turn it off because it can lead to a crash. – Right, it’s not smart. – So I give them the real reason whenever possible so I don’t make up the wives tales. – Now we’ve got a lot more questions to go but we are going to take a short break and let you know about these shirts that Link has on you can’t get the one that I’m wearing because I’m just wearing one that I bought on the internet somewhere else other than Mythical.store not an advertisement for this shirt why am I even talking about it? Talk about your shirt, Link. – You ever seen the show Friends? – Yeah, yeah big hit back in the day. – How’s the theme song go? ♪ I’ll be there for you ♪ ♪ When the rain starts to fall ♪ ♪ I’ll be there for you ♪ ♪ Just get the shirt at Mythical.store ♪ ♪ I’ll be there for you ♪ – So if you’re a fan of this shirt or what it represents. If you don’t know what it represents and you just like the shirt, just buy it. If you do know what it represents or what it’s an homage to then also buy it. Lots of other good shirts over there too. – Yeah we’ve gotten some feedback from a few of you guys that love to give us feedback on things. People have commented on some of the shirts that we’re releasing that are obvious parodies of existing things. I think they’ve said things like guys why are you doing this? That’s not very original. Well because it’s a parody, I mean. – It’s fun. – That is a fun thing to do is to take a very established thing and to Mythicalise it as just an exercise in fun. – But there’s other shirts that aren’t like that. – Just like lying to you kids guys, come on. Get with the program, buy the T-shirt Mythical.store. – Thank you for supporting internet-tainment. All right we’re back with another question from Caitlyn Cunningham. “Kids do tons of art projects during their time in school. “What do you do with all of them? “How many of them end up in the trash?” This is my rule. If it’s flat, keep it. If it’s 3D, chuck it. – Space saver. – I stack a bunch of flatness. But I take a picture of the 3D stuff, which– – You make the 3D stuff flat. Interesting, without crushing it. Without crushing the hearts of your children. – ‘Cause it goes into the Cloud which we’ve talked about in a rabbit hole episode. – But do you take a video of it that goes a 360 around it? – No. – ‘Cause if you did that you could one day re-engineer it with 3D. – No. Lando is very artistically inclined, you know. Every time there’s trash, like cardboard, specifically he wants to keep all of that and he always sees something in it and he’s making something. So I always wanna encourage that but I’m very clear with him that, you know after you make it 48 hours later, it’s gone, you know? I also think that’s helpful ’cause it’s not like oh this has gotta be perfect, this has gotta be here forever it’s just like, you know I’m painting on this canvas many of the greats would paint over their own thing three or four times. – Many of the greats. – You know? ‘Cause there’s always another one. – And they didn’t even take pictures of it. – If you’re an artistic genius people gonna be going through recycling decades from now and finding Lando’s creations. I don’t think that’s how recycling works but if it’s flat, I stack it somewhere. – Okay, that’s a good system. We McLaughlin’s are, we don’t have a lot of systems. So it’s kind of like some things are kept, some things are thrown away. There’s a couple of times where Jessie and I will kind of look at each other and you kind of give each other a guilty look and you just throw it in the trash. There’s no real consistency, you’re just hoping that the kid doesn’t know. – Right. – But I will say, and also– – Putting it in the trash and then seal it up. – My kids are not, they’re not prone to be attached to things like that. Every once in a while Shepherd Locke wasn’t like this at all but Shepherd will create something and he’s kind of attached to it. But I don’t deal with that very much. – Well when you’re constantly lied to you tend to be a free spirit. – Exactly, now the thing that the really interesting thing that happened very recently is a science project, I don’t know how– – That’s happened in your house? – I don’t know how Locke got through without having to do I guess he was homeschooled through all this. That’s probably what happened. I think they did do a science project at some point somehow I wasn’t involved. – Being a homeschooler is in and of itself. – A science project? – A science project. – Yeah the results are still out what is the TBD? So Shepherd’s in third grade and they had the option of doing a science project and for some reason. – Or what? – I don’t know, it was optional. I think it was if you did the science project you didn’t have to do homework for the month or something like that. – Oh you better jump on that, Shep. – But Shepherd exercised his option to do a science project. – Good on him. – But it was a group project with two other kids. So he’s like dad I’m doing a science project. I’m like, well what is it? He says tornadoes. – Tornadoes. – So I goes, well what is the experiment? He said making tornadoes. – Can he do it? – So you know. – Hypothesis. I can make a tornado, exhibit. – One of the other kids’ dads kind of helped them we all kind of had different roles and I’ll tell you what my role was in a second where I failed as a father. But one of the dads was in charge of coming up with what the experiments were going to be and it basically was one of these things you know when you take like a bottle like a plastic bottle. – Two liter bottle. – Yeah and for some reason we did one liter bottles. But you can do it with two liters and you basically fix them together and put like a little washer in the middle. Then you fill it with liquids and you kind of start a tornado and it starts this amazing looking tornado that then empties itself into the other thing and turn it over and keep doing this. Well this experiment was the question that was being explored was does adding different things to the water change the characteristics of the tornado? – Okay. – So they added glitter. – Some other dad came up with that? – Yeah. He did the hard part. They added glitter to the water, they added oil to the water and they added sugar to the water. Basically created a simple syrup by, you know boiling the sugar into the water and of course there was regular water. For some reason this dad made it through three of the bottles he created three of the bottles and the Jessie comes home, she says when we get back actually the night we got back from Palm Springs she says when we get back from Palm Springs you’ve got to do the experiments with Shepherd. So you’ve got to time him doing all the you’ve got to do the experiment and log the results. So I created a Google spreadsheet. That like, averaged out six rounds or whatever but I also had to make the fourth bottle. Following the instructions that the dad had provided. And Jessie was making the simple syrup by boiling the water with the sugar. Basically what happened was is trying to make the first time, we made this bottle, tornado machine. – It’s a machine? – I didn’t get it quite together, didn’t get it quite together. The very first time that Shepherd begins to do the thing to get the tornado going, the whole thing comes apart and sugar water goes all over the kitchen. – Okay, that’s called a failed experiment. – I did not do well with that, I did not respond well and the next thing that happened was we got it back together and as we were getting ready to seal it Shepherd is like playing around with another one, knocks it over and then sugar water goes all over the ground again. – Oh gosh. – I’m not proud of how I yelled at that moment. – Oh. – We finally get– – Was it like, Eureka! – Yeah exactly. So then we finally get it together but the sugar water is so hot that for some reason it’s not cooling down so I’m like we’re gonna have to put it in here and wait ’till the morning, then we’ll do the experiments in the morning but because I put hot sugar water in there and when it cooled, we wake up and the top bottle is like, compressed in. – Oh wow. – So no tornadoes could be made. So I was like, we gotta do this again. Jessie was like, let’s just say the results of the sugar water were inconclusive. It’s third grade, right? So I got great stats for the first three bottles. – Again with the lying. The McLaughlin family is– – Well actually we- – Let’s just fudge the results – No we conferred with the other dad and I was like, I feel like we need to do this again he was like ah don’t worry about it we’ve got three, there’s still an experiment they’ve learned, whatever, who cares. – They’ve learned, learned not to get certain dads involved in the tornado experiment. – You know, I just wish I had more patience. When I get involved in those situations and I have to start contributing to it in a meaningful way and then things start falling apart I’m not good at just patiently just getting my way through that. – It’s really tough to work on something that’s not something that you’re personally passionate about. – I’m personally passionate about water tornadoes. And once they get going. – I know. I feel like I’m that way too, I mean, it’s like. We’re so spoiled. I think because so much of what we do is our creative vision and to step into our kids world and to parent them is a selfless act and I mean, when you don’t experience having a boss, employee relationship that often and we really don’t. I think that ironically between us and our kids we’re the spoiled ones, especially in that sense and I think it’s harder, you know we’ve trained ourselves to be so engaged in what it is we want to do that I feel like, as a parent, I’m constantly fighting this instinct of being spoiled with my own prerogatives. I spent the majority of my and Christy and I talk about this because she spends a lot of time with our kids and a lot more than I do. I feel for her, you know? (chuckling) It’s so tough being a great parent because I’m having a tough time just being an average one. So the way that I deal with that is at least with honesty like I try to be honest, you know I try to apologize or just be real with the kids. I’m not answering the question anymore. But in side note, before we move on to another question do I have a zit bandaid on my face? – Oh yeah you do but I’m sure they can’t see it. – ‘Cause I meant to take that off. – No don’t take it off, no, no, now you’re committed. Just leave it on, man. – You see it right there? – Yeah but there’s no way you can see that in the dim lighting, man you shouldn’t even have mentioned it. – I know but there was a moment maybe when I had the Link face in the middle of you talking about the tornado. – You were just thinking about your own zit? – I realized that I had a zit, ’cause Anna put I have a zit there and she put the thing on. – Oh I love those things, she introduced those to me. – The zit heals up underneath it. – I’ve worn them to many, I’ve worn them to public events. – Really? – Like, yeah. – ‘Cause you forget that they’re there? – No she puts it on and I’m like I gotta go do this thing. Nothing like special, nothing like public appearances. – Okay. – Tiffany McGowan’s got a question. – Fire away, Tiffany. – “So I’m 26 and while I love children “I firmly know that I don’t want to be a parent. “Pretty much everyone in my life thinks I’m just young “and I’ll change my mind when I meet the right guy. “My question is, did you always know you wanted “to be parents or did meeting your wives “actually change your minds? “Also, how can I get everyone to back off “on the whole having kids business?” – Everybody, you know. Everybody doesn’t need to have kids everybody shouldn’t have kids. First of all, that’s an easy thing. – We’ve talked about this a little bit. – It’s total prerogative. – We talked about this a little bit in a previous podcast so you can go, I don’t know which episode it was but we had friends who were asking us so if you wanna hear our perspective on that you can go listen. But I do think this is an interesting question because based on where we grew up and kind of the culture that we were in, specifically I think that it never, ever crossed our minds that we would not be fathers. It was just if you weren’t a father there was something wrong with you. You were supposed to do two things you were supposed to get married. – I’d say three. – You’re supposed to get a job. When you graduate from college, ’cause you know we started thinking about that stuff when we were in college. – Right. – You get a job. – Yeah you get a job right after you graduate. – You get a life partner, get married. – You do that as quickly as possible basically. Then relatively quickly, maybe a few years maybe a few years of kidless-ness. But then you gotta start having children and again, neither of us have any regrets. – ‘Cause what else are you gonna do? – Right, we don’t have any regrets about that. But I think that, you know. Almost 20 years passing since we got married kind of looking back on it, you’re like oh that was the cultural expectation of where we were who we were at the time. – Yeah the negotiation wasn’t if we’re gonna have kids the conversations were. – [All] When. – Exactly, you know. We were three years into marriage when we started trying. – Right. – That seems really early to me. But you change so much over, you know 18 years of marriage anyway. It does introduce a next phase. – Yeah. – If you don’t have kids and then you get married, well that certainly introducing kids at that point really changes the dynamic for everybody. Along with many other things that happen in life but for us because it seems like such a huge decision, well it is ’cause it changes your entire life. The decision became easier for us because we were friends with other families who had kids, like we would Christy would babysit, in our first few years of marriage she would babysit for other people’s kids like they would hang out with us a little bit so you start to see okay these little people here sometimes babies, sometimes grade-school kids we started to see, okay look at these families we’re getting to know these families they’re good friends of ours they have not just babies but kids in grade school, middle school even, it’s like wow this is something that it’s really working for them and you see it up close and personal. – But you never, I mean I never processed it in that way. – I think we did. I do remember Christy and I talking about it. – As if the other option was not having children? – No. It was just growing comfortable with– – The idea. – Starting to try to have kids ourselves because even though it was a foregone conclusion we were gonna do it it was still a very daunting decision to say okay we’re actually going through with this. – Yeah it’s interesting. – We’re actually gonna try to make a baby. So I do remember that making us feel much more comfortable and like, being up close and personal with parents and kids that loved each other and that it was working. I mean ’cause, I came from a broken home, you know? It was a scary thing for me because I always felt like I didn’t do it right. I subconsciously, you know? I had a step-dad and then at third grade it was just me and my mom from thereon out and it was like, well, we didn’t do it right. It was okay, it was great even. My childhood was great but I didn’t want to I mean it had its challenges because of that. – You had more trepidation. – Yeah, ’cause I didn’t know if there was something about, say something in my genes that I was gonna repeat that cycle. – Something in your genes is what causes the whole problem. – J-E-A-N? – J-E-A-N-S. – Okay. – It’s funny ’cause I think. – I’m not currently wearing jeans. – The way that I’ve always approached these kinds of things is like, you know, there are a lot of people who are fearful about things like I’m afraid to drive car like you might be about to get your license or I’m afraid to fly on a plane ’cause I’ve never done that before. I’m afraid to have a child. I think the way I’ve always processed those things is like, well I’m afraid to like, climb a mountain, right? Because that’s something that a very small percentage of the population does. I’m afraid to– – Swim with a shark. – Give somebody a trake on the spot because there’s very few people who can do that, right? But there’s millions of people who have been parents. There’s billions of people who’ve been parents. So I kind of go into those situations that everyone. – Statistically. – It can’t be I mean, I’m not ready for this, but who is? Let’s just do it, I think that’s how I’ve approached and I think I approached kids that way. Honestly, I kind of think that that was my experience once we had kids. It was like this is really difficult and hard but this is exactly what everyone said it was going to be. Everyone was like it’s the greatest thing and the most difficult thing you’ll ever go through and it’s like, okay, you know what? Turns out that’s true. But I think to answer Tiffany’s question. So we answered your question, no we never considered it. But I think that it’s totally okay especially if you’re like I know I don’t wanna be a parent well this is not the kind of thing you should be talked into or forced into or pressured into. Trust me. Then how do you get everyone to back off on the whole having kids business? I don’t know the dynamic of where you’re at but it sounds like everyone is expecting you to do it so you might just have to firmly just tell people stop talking about that. Quit asking me about that, I’ll let you know. I’ll tell you when I’m pregnant, probably never. – I think a lot of people, like the parents, grandparents situation, like oh I want a grandkid I want a great-grandkid. They think it’s an innocuous ribbing. I think that if you just have a moment of hey I just wanna let you know for a second that it does start to hurt and I know you don’t mean it maybe if you level with them, that will help. Good luck with that. Samantha asks. – We end most of our answers with. – [All] Good luck with that. (Link laughs) – We’re gonna move on! – Like all great advice givers good luck with that! – What are you gonna do? Dear Abby had a lot of success with ending all her responses like that. – Samantha D asks. “Why do different siblings get different treatment? “As the oldest, I felt as though my parents were very strict “but were way more laid back with my other younger siblings. “Was I just the guinea pig of three children?” – [All] Yes. – Definitely. I mean I’m an only child, you’re the youngest of two. – Two. – So I don’t have too much to go on from my childhood experience but as a parent yeah you just, your will to impose your will on another person it just degrades over time. I mean, I can’t imagine being a king. (Rhett chuckles) You know, it’s like, it’s just tough to try to get people to do what you want them to do. I mean that’s not, that’s the trap of parenting, right? I feel like when you go on autopilot, it’s just I don’t want to hear you talking now so I’m gonna turn up the volume. You’re surviving, right? But shifting to a, I’m trying to foster a growing budding human being to be an independent positive force on planet earth that is not under my control much less is not there for my happiness and my comfort. – Well I think this is just, this is human nature is true and I would say it’s true in almost every family it just makes sense, right? So if I’m moving fragile sculptures into a home I’m gonna be more careful with the first one ’cause I don’t know, I just don’t know the dynamics of the situation, right? It’s like, the first time you do something there’s all these considerations. You’re learning all these lessons and you’re being overprotective and then the second sculpture you bring in it isn’t like I actually transport fragile sculptures into my home all the time. – It’s a good analogy. – I don’t even have a fragile sculpture in my home. But you can imagine that. The second thing you do, you take a few more risks. – Well you grow comfortable with a level of risk that’s reasonable, I think if you’re following that analogy. I’m gonna hold this with two hands but I’m not gonna put it in a satchel inside of my T-shirt. – Then maybe on the fourth trip you’ve got three sculptures. You’ve got one in each hand and one on each arm. You know what I’m saying? This is good and if one of these breaks I’ve already got two in the house. – No but, that’s not true. (Rhett laughing) – But subconsciously, that is true though. – I don’t think you love– – I don’t think you value them any less. – The third sculpture is not any less valuable to you but there’s a certain reasonable amount of effort an unreasonable amount of effort that’s not worth expending based on experience. – Yeah. – It’s just not, you learn what’s worth it and what’s not worth it. I wonder if it ever goes the opposite direction. I mean certainly if a tragedy befalls a family. I mean, that goes without saying even though I just said it. But like in a normal situation of health and hashtag blessing. I don’t think it ever goes the other way where it’s like– – You get more strict? – But if something, if you go through something you’re gonna tighten the reigns with the subsequent child. But in my case, here’s what I tell. I mean, Lili and Lincoln get so frustrated with Lando because he’s still at an age where he can’t express his frustration logically sometimes so it just comes out in like taddling or a form of tantrum. – But it’s also, he is a special personality compared to your other kids. In the same way that Shepherd is very different than Locke. – Oh yeah they’re all different. – I don’t think it’s just an age thing. – No that’s not what I was getting at. What I was getting at was because he’s the youngest I find myself saying to Lili and Lincoln yes, I think Lando is wrong here Lando needs to have more self-control. The right thing to do in this instance is something different but what he’s doing is annoying the crap out of you and me. But there’s only so much I can do. Yes he’s in his room right now and he’s screaming and throwing a tantrum but what I’m asking for you is even though you may have been more in the right you’re also older and you’ve got to do something to make peace. – I make this argument all the time. – With more age comes more responsibility and let’s just hold this together. Let’s plug the gaps in this ship. – It doesn’t always work though. – And that’s frustrating, that’s frustrating for a 13-year-old or a 15-year-old or a 39-year-old, me. – The thing that Locke points out, specifically. He points this out all the time. He says dad you would never have let me do that. You would never have let me watch that. – Oh, oh. – You would never have let me be on screens that much or you know. – And it’s true, right? – Yeah, but the funny thing is just the other day this is actually, this is another story from our trip in Palm Springs. – Oh I thought you were gonna say another lie. – We were sitting there, the three of us Jessie was shopping and we were waiting to get into a restaurant. I had the little buzzy thing that was gonna ring and we were gonna go to this restaurant. We were sitting at this table together outside. – Quality time. With dad. – I gotta say, I was on my phone at the time. Checking something important, you know probably related to either @rhettmc on Twitter or @rhettmc on Instagram, shout out to both. You know just keeping up with the social media streams. And not fathering my children. So my kids were talking to each other. – You know I just want, if it defeats them to a fraction of the level that it defeats me every time you bring it up. – I don’t shout out my Twitter and my Instagram in front of my children, I just go on it. – To passers by. – Yeah, yeah. I just ignore my children and go on social media from time to time. But what I was doing was not currently engaging in fatherhood. My kids were talking to each other and Shepherd was saying a series of things to Locke they get into these fights and they’re both boys and they were completely joking with each other but Shepherd was saying things like I’m gonna kill you I’m gonna bite your face off I’m gonna put your head into a blender. A series of things and it was just like I mean, you may think that’s crazy. – I’m gonna torture and mutilate you in these very specific ways. What’s your retort? – He said a series of things and I didn’t hear any of them. Then Locke says, Shepherd I’m gonna kill you. And I was like Locke, don’t talk to your brother like that. He was like dad that was a test. We were testing you because I knew you wouldn’t say anything when Shepherd said all that and as soon as I said something you would say Locke and you did it! (Link laughs) – He got ya! – I was like I’m sorry man. – Would you mind if I tweeted about it? – I told him, I said I did not hear. Honestly, nothing that Shepherd said could compute. – Ever, I hear. – It just went, I didn’t hear it at all I didn’t process it but when you said that and so he was making the point that you have a different standard for me and I was like you’re right, I do and that’s wrong and I will continue to work on that. – But you could have said, well at least I hear you. I don’t hear the younger one. (Rhett laughs) – So they weren’t even serious. But you know, that’s kind of related it’s just you do approach things differently with a second child and I’m sure it screws them up a little bit. It screws up the older kid and it screw up the younger kid. But you know what? They just get older and they say things like I’m a younger child. They just tell people that when they go on dates and everything is all right. That’s my theory. – Good luck with that. (Rhett laughs) Amber H asks, “I have three boys “Who are similar in age to your kids “11, 14 and 15 and a half,” Okay. “I constantly think about their future “and how I will have to adjust to life without them at home “as much as I worry about whether “they are gonna be ready to go off to college “and do it on their own. “My husband doesn’t seem to give it a second thought “and is just enjoying the time with them now. “Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy them now too “but differently than he does. “How are the two of you coping with your kids growing up “and how do you think it differs “from the way it affects your wives?” – Well I think I just demonstrated it a second ago. – I don’t wanna generalize between– – But you’re about to. – Like, moms and dads. But I mean, from my experience I will say that we definitely share your experience in our house that Christy, I mean she seems to have this instinctual connection with the worst case scenario. Now that’s part of her personality profile, in general so I don’t think it’s all about being a mom ’cause she has that gift to like see the worst future and therefore and thereby avoid it to the benefit of our entire family. – Right. – But maybe there’s a mom component to it too that it would make me feel better if I knew that biologically there was a mom thing that as a dad, I’m just not capable of worrying about it that much. But I do find that to be true just in practice that you know, she’s thinking I have to decide to think about the future. Now so I am curious about you because you’re more you’re very future minded and I’m very like not that. So between me and Christy, she does question don’t question whether I love the kids just because I don’t worry about them nearly as much as you do ’cause I believe that I do. But how do you think that is for you? What’s the dynamic with you and Jessie in this way? – Well this is a complex question and I’m not interested in digging any holes for us by saying the wrong thing. Because you do get in trouble when you start making generalizations about men and women and how they relate to kids. – [Link] Right. – There are exceptions to everything. I do think that there are some very significant cultural components that contributed to the way that we see our roles as fathers and our wives see their role as mothers. – [Link] Yeah. – That contributed to kind of the way that we’ve gone about our family business. I also think there’s probably some biological factors that are real and I think that I’m not an expert on that and I’m not trying to, you know come to any conclusions about that. But what I will say is that in our two families I think both our wives tend to be more anxious about things related to the kids. So if you look at, especially I don’t think this is as common as it was say, you know, five years ago, 10 years ago with our wives but if you were to just look at my wife’s bedside table and all the books that she’s reading. Nine out of 10, 10 years ago nine out of 10 of those books would have been solely related to child rearing. – And parenting. – Parenting and everything related to their kids. You know, I probably read half of one book about parenting. – Me too. – I think some of it can be related to, you know me and you probably have a tendency to just be like we’ll figure it out as we go. What is that book really gonna teach us or whatever? But at the same time I was reading books about a lot of other things. So I think part of it was just pure selfishness of just wanting to be into the things that I was into. – And a comfort level that she was taking care of it and we would certainly talk about it. – Because our primary job was to go and be internet-tainers and our wives primary job has been to raise our kids. Which is not– – Well to teach the kids ’cause we were doing the homeschool thing for years. So it was literally, that was their occupation. – Right. – Up until a year and a half ago. – Right. – So whenever I would say things like well we’re doing the right things and you’re doing an amazing job don’t worry, I’m trying to reassure her it’s like well yeah but. If there’s something, an indication that something they didn’t make the right decision or they don’t know something that maybe there’s an indication they should have known or made another decision, it’s like well it was hard for Christy not to take that personally because she was their teacher, she was their primary teacher you know, so it was an extremely challenging position to be in for them. – Well I would say that, and even if there are significant biological factors that contribute to this different perspective. That doesn’t excuse our behavior in the way that we did it. You know ’cause first of all we have a tendency to want to eat very sugary fatty things because many, many years ago when we didn’t have processed foods if you found something that had a lot of fat or had a lot of sugar– – Gobble it up. – You had every incentive to eat it based on survival. So just because something has a biological component doesn’t mean that it should dictate your behavior. It can be something to overcome which I think that ’cause you know one of the things we talk about this with our wives quite a bit it’s like, they made some big sacrifices. They both got college degrees and then put the bulk of their twenties and thirties into teaching our children and it was incredibly it’s been incredible for our family but they had to put, we get to come in here and you know, do all the stuff that we do and have all the fun that we do and pursue these dreams while they’re doing that. – Yeah and I think at one point it may have been referred to in a heated argument as the Mythical Castle. You get to go to your Mythical Castle. – Oh she called it the castle? – She did, yeah. – Wow. – You get to go off to your Mythical Castle. – She’s never said that to me. Your wife or my wife. (chuckles) – You know what, she was making a good point. – Yeah. – You know I’ve already eluded to this at the beginning of the podcast how spoiled we are. – The good news is even just in, well first of all one of the cool things that’s happening with the kids being as cool is that our wives are now able to ask those questions and have that time and as they begin to figure out how they’re gonna be investing their time in their dreams it is going to impact us and the amount of time that we have to worry about the kids. – Well hopefully not. (laughs) Just kidding. – But we did kind of dodge a bullet in a sense because it won’t be long and our kids are gonna be out of the house. It’s gonna be like that and they’re gonna be out of the house. But I think that this is a question that especially if you are, I mean for Amber she’s got kids that are about our age so she’s kind of in the same boat it’s like, well in a lot of ways that dynamic is probably not gonna change significantly but I think that if you’re young, you’re just getting married, you’re thinking about having kids I do think that if I could go back I would think about these things differently and not just fall into this well I’m gonna just go do this. I think I could have been more considerate and more involved and more attentive to these things even if nothing changed about the dynamics of how much time I was gonna be there I think I did say, look at all these books she’s doing all this thinking about this I’m just gonna support her by continuing to go over here and make money. I think there’s a better way to do that which is now let’s go over here and make money for the family but let’s also find ways to be personally involved in this process too. I can read another book, it’s not that hard to do, you know? – Well and we may be projecting a little bit of both of our experiences on Amber’s situation which was it could be different, just because he doesn’t worry as much as she does again, worry is a big component of personality type. – Could be personality. – So I think it’s less of I mean if you have the gift of not being burdened by worrying about a certain thing that’s a totally different variable than how much do you love it. You know, if you gotta look at an investment of time, an investment of energy and thought, effort. It’s a different thing, you know? – I think ultimately what we’re saying Amber is good luck with that. Liz Akam. “What was the best trip your parents took you on as a kid? “And do you want to take your kids back to that place? “My parents took me and my sisters to museums all the time “and I’m glad for it. “I would definitely take my kids to museums all the time “if my husband and I had kids.” – I didn’t go to a lot of places as a kid. I remember that my mom took well, when she and Jimmy were still married we went to Disney World when I was very young I don’t remember it, I was like four and there’s pictures of me crying. (Rhett chuckles) But when I was older we went to Bush Gardens. We have pictures of that. – Pictures of you crying there, or are you happy there? – I was kind of happy. – Kind of happy. – But then, I remember later mom took me and you to Kings Dominion. There’s a picture of us standing in front of her car in the Book of Mythicality. In front of the hotel we stayed at. – Yeah, on the car. – Yeah we’re leaning against the car. – Cool guys! – Cool guys. – That’s what I think of when I think about those guys. Cool guys, short shorts, long socks, cool guys. – Haven’t taken my kids back to Kings Dominion. But we have been to like, Disney Land. – This is a great question because I’ve never thought about this before. But I tend to think of my childhood as a series of tent-pole events, right? I think that you typically you have very specific memories about the environment that you were in most so you can kind of picture your childhood home. But when you think about your parents and the experiences with them, at least for me personally a lot of times it’s things like I remember my dad taking me and my brother to Raven Rock. You know, west of Lillington, North Carolina there’s a state park, Raven Rock state park that the Cape Fear goes through, the Cape Fear River. – It’s a huge rock that the Native Americans would they would camp underneath the ledge. Only like 100 feet. – It’s amazing. It’s super cool and I recently thought to myself I wonder how many times we actually went there. I bet you we went there so fewer times than I actually think because it stands so big in my memory as something that we would do. I also remember even earlier than that when we lived in Thousand Oaks, California not too far from here. My dad would take us hiking on Tarantula Hill. I remember this Tarantula Hill. Never saw a tarantula there, don’t know why it was called that and it really was just a hill. It was just a big mound of you know, earth that you kind of walked up and it definitely wasn’t a mile of just kind of walking around and getting to the top and coming back down. I have just a butt load of those kinds of memories that are very much like taking me out of my normal environment and taking me to a place and doing something with me. Some of it was vacations, going to the beach or going to the Grand Canyon, whatever. But I feel like that’s what kind of makes a child’s memories so the way that I’ve sort of processed that and applied it to my kids is I’ve tried to do that. I try to do these trips, you know we try to take our kids places, we try to travel with our kids. Locke got to go to Africa with Jessie last year I wasn’t able to go but that’s something he’ll never forget that ’cause it was so outside of the box of normal life. – Sure. – But specifically in answer to this question. I drove to Thousand Oaks less than a year ago with Jessie and Shepherd. Oh no what it was, was we dropped Locke off at a basketball camp out there and then I was like, let’s go by the old house. The old house I grew up in. If you’ve watched our videos for a long time you’ll know that Link and I actually went to my old house one time in Thousand Oaks and the man did not want to speak with us. We went by the old house. – But the neighbor did and your neighbor was still there. – Yeah and this time I did not speak to the neighbor or the current resident. But I was like, I did some things like how far were we from school because we used to walk to school when I was like five years old and I’d walk with my brother. – Kindergarten, yeah. – It was one mile from the Weathersfield School, you know? Then I was like oh Tarantula Hill I remember Tarantula Hill, this place. It was like a mile away from the house and we drove– – Oh you went there? – We didn’t get out and walk around I wasn’t that cruel of a dad ’cause we needed to be somewhere but I just like saw this mound of dirt I mean, it’s just a grassy hill but there’s nothing to it. I was like, that meant so much to me because my dad would just take us up there and we’d just walk around and them come back down. But just doing that kind of thing that’s what my childhood is made of. – If you had screens back then. – You’re not gonna make those kinds of memories. – You’ll end up in on the hill, huh? – You’re not gonna make those kinds of memories by being Zelda, I’m trying to tell Shepherd that but it’s not having much of an effect. Any way so yes I have taken the kids to some of those places but yeah I think that creating those kinds of experiences because my parents did that with me is something that I’ve tried to then do with the kids and you know, create the memories. – Yeah, every weekend you try to do something I mean, we like to– – That’s why you got the RV man. – We like to see a good movie but that’s why I’m like, yeah this RV. – [All] They’re not gonna forget that RV. – Even if you never do it again. That RV trip to the Grand Canyon is going to be this huge tent pole memory. Like when they’re like, what’s some of the stuff you did with your dad growing up? Well one time he got this RV, we went to the Grand Canyon he couldn’t even get out of the driveway. – Yeah, right. – And we had to build a land bridge. – Exactly. Yeah, we try to make decisions. I mean I was joking last week that you know it’s great to know that even if it goes sideways that I can make it entertainment and talk about it with you guys. But I mean, I hope you knew and I was definitely thinking I was creating this as a family experience that then, added benefit is it gives us something to talk about here but. – Turn a mistake into a story. – Let’s end on this doozy of a question. Harriet asks. “I’m not a parent but this is a question “coming from the lack of discussion on this topic “in my household from my parents. “How do you talk to your children “about the birds and the bees?” – What does that mean? – Well first of all. My approach was informed by my experience as a child. When I was, I don’t know, 12 or 13 I guess my mom who worked at the Harnett County Health Department I think I’ve told this story before. But it always is worth telling again so that anyone can learn from it. At the front of the Harnett County Health Department there were all types of brochures about all types of health things that you would need to learn about. – Every STD you can imagine. – And so one day my mom comes home with a brochure and she hands it to me and she says here’s a brochure. – I know how much you love them. (chuckles) – I just want you to look through it and if you have any questions you know you can ask me anything. I took the brochure. – Now when she said that, did you have any idea did you know it was gonna be like a Visit Montana like what kind of brochure, did you think it was medical? Did you know, were you familiar with the brochures in general? – Well the picture on the front was very graphic. – Oh, describe it. – No I’m joking. – Sorry I wanted a mental picture. – No I don’t recall. I do have to imagine, knowing myself at the time that the moment I was handed the brochure I was just seized with fear and awkwardness. – Deep embarrassment. – Not embarrassment really as much, well maybe. And then I was like okay, and then I took it back to my room and then I walked in my room and then I walked into my closet I grabbed a flashlight. – Wow, we’re very, very private. – I sat down in the closet with the door closed with a flashlight. – Like you’re hiding from a home intruder. – I’m like a 12-year-old kid, I mean, it’s like– – You’re in the safe room. – And I’m like reading this thing and even if somebody comes in they won’t see me, just like why are you in the closet? – And somebody being your mom? – Yeah, I guess. – Yeah, even though she told you to read the brochure. – Right. – What are you doing in there? I’m reading the brochure you just asked me to, I’m sorry. – I’m pretty sure I never had any follow-up questions for my mom. – Yeah and she knew that when she gave you the brochure that you were not going to come to her with questions. – Maybe I would call it more of a pamphlet or even a booklet. – How many pages? – It had leafs in it. – How many pages? Was it for someone of your age? – I mean it was like this big. It was like, so what’s that? Seven inches by five inches. – Yeah don’t start giving seven inch measurements in this context. – So it wasn’t like a tourism brochure. Visit sex! (laughing) – Sex Town USA! Strap in. No I’m sorry. Did you learn anything? – Oh yeah, it wasn’t too late for me. I hadn’t already learned it. – You’re not real good with numbers so you really think you were 12, 13? Is that how old you think you were? And was this new information to you? Was this all new? – I can’t imagine that I was 11. – Okay and was it all new? Did you have any idea about the tools involved? – I mean I had an idea, you know. – But it was a misinformed idea. – But the specific mechanics of it was eye opening. So it was line drawing, it was sketches. – Well so I mean, I remember one of the differences between me and you is that I was thinking about these things earlier than you were but I did not have any clear picture of them literally I didn’t have picture I didn’t get a brochure from my parents. So I was kind of– – But you had an older brother. I think that’s the cliche. – We didn’t talk about it. I think we were maybe a little too close I don’t know, maybe three years apart? I don’t know exactly why but he didn’t talk to me about it. It was more picking things up from other kids our age. – But you were interested, you were looking for clues? – Oh yeah. – You were sleuthing. – I remember piecing things together in middle school and kind of putting it all together and understanding exactly what was involved. But it was more of just an occasional, casual reconnaissance mission. Just gathering, you know, intel from different people and putting it together. But I did not, I could be wrong about this but I do not remember having a specific there may have been like a very early talk at some point before I was really processing and understanding all the things involved, from my parents. But I do not remember that. I also think it was very much a generational thing. Everybody I know who’s my age when I ask them did you get a talk from your parents? It’s either yes it was very brief or no I didn’t get one. But it wasn’t this like– – It was over before I knew it, much like the act itself. – It was passive in some manner. Here’s a brochure, go in the closet and read it. Again, who knows what we’re doing to screw up the next generation up right now. But that was kind of what our parents did you just didn’t talk about those things typically. – But you don’t recall any sort of pamphlet? – No pamphlets. – Or a book? – We didn’t really believe in pamphlets in general in my family. Never saw one in the house. – So you don’t recall the talk either? – No I do not. – Have you asked them about it? Do they recall? – No ’cause I understand it now. (laughing) I don’t go to my parents to get this kind of information now. – But you haven’t asked them? – We’ve never talked about it. – Hey mom, tell me about the time you told me about sex ’cause I can’t remember it. (laughing) – Yeah that’s how I’d bring it up. But let’s talk about how we have been well you were about to explain how you’ve done it based on your experience. – For me ’cause you know, I like to just I’ve always made it a point because to counteract my experience with my mom we didn’t talk through a lot of things I mean, it’s just that’s just how it was. I wanted to do something different I wanted to be more open and have more honest conversations from an earlier age– – I think that’s also generational. – There wouldn’t be an instinctive I just didn’t want to give my kids an instinctive an instinct when they got some sort of information like I did, that they had to go hide. That just doesn’t strike me as a healthy response. A healthy way to view sex is that it’s something that it’s clandestine, you know? Or automatically dirty or something to be ashamed of or something to be secretive about, I mean it’s the proper understanding, it’s totally normal. I mean and it’s important. And it’s important to gain a proper understanding of sex in the context in conversations with people that you trust and that you love and that it can be a safe place to understand over time because it’s not just one talk. – yeah and I don’t think that it’s just I think a lot of people may put this off on you know, a teacher or a professional that’s teaching sex ed or whatever and that’s fine and potentially great and I do think that sex education at school is something I believe in, I think it’s important because not all parents are going to do this. – It’s extremely difficult to do. – But I think that, at least in the circles that we run in now and again I think this is slightly cultural but also generational it’s like, there’s nobody that we hang out with who was kids who hasn’t had it’s like, we talk to other parents about the talk. We’ve all talked about the talk that we had. – Right we compare notes. – It’s like when did you talk about it, what did you say? – Right. – I also think it depends on the kid because I’m not gonna name my kids names at this point ’cause, you know, I’ve only got two so I’m not trying to embarrass them. But one of my kids was much more inquisitive about it, was asking a lot of very pointed questions about the process and not accepting pat answers that tried to oversimplify things. – You got Pat involved? – No, no Pat was not involved. – You can pay a person named Pat to come in and give your kids the sex talk. – But that is not what I did and then my other kid was not so inquisitive and asking all these questions. But for the kid who was asking the questions I sat down and had a talk where I explained everything basically everything in very technical details and continued to confirm. It was almost like when you were explaining the stuff about the RV, I was like got it? I kept saying got it and then I would ask questions to make sure that he understood. – And it’s really, I think a good practice the thing that I did was you wanna see where their minds are with their follow-up questions so that you can answer those as opposed to just giving an information dump and overwhelming them and then it’s like it may be too much too soon. So again, it’s more– – It’s the beginning of a conversation. – It’s multiple conversations and it comes in installments. – And it still happens right? That’s the other thing and again kids get to a certain age when they start when it becomes real, so like before they go through puberty this is all very theoretical but as they begin to go through puberty and as they pass through puberty it becomes very real to them and they’re like oh all that stuff that dad and mom told me is now I understand it because it’s happening to me and my body. At that point– – And that’s a good point is that you’re talking about those things too. You’re talking about puberty, you’re talking about your body change you’re having a lot of potentially awkward conversations and it’s not just all about sex and reproduction. – Exactly but what I’m saying is that once it becomes personal to them most kids then have a tendency to withdraw a little bit like I think this conversation needs to stop because this is no longer theoretical, this is personal and so I think at that point, you kind of have to keep going back there and I mean sometimes this isn’t just limited to talking about sex anything that’s potentially uncomfortable or not cool to talk to your parents about. I just say listen, that’s not gonna be a dynamic in our family, you’re not gonna be too cool or too awkward to talk to me about that. I’ve only got you for a few years and we’re going to talk about anything and everything and we’re gonna break right through the awkwardness. I have to say that sometimes so that we can then have the conversation. But as much as from earlier you know I like to fib a little bit when it comes to this stuff, I don’t joke around. I mean I joke around, I make jokes but all the information that I give is intended to be as helpful and as true as possible. But that first conversation was so funny that I recorded the entire thing. – Now I know that you did that but even when you tell it to me again I still feel a wave of shock come over me that you bugged your sex talk. – Actually what happened is I said one thing– – ‘Cause you know his response was so funny. – I was like I gotta record this. – So you pulled your phone out. – I pulled out the memo recorder, the voice recorder on the iPhone and then just turned it on. Then proceeded to have the talk. – But did you say, this conversation is being recorded for quality assurance purposes? – I think at one point he said dad are you recording this? I was like maybe, you know, don’t worry about it. We’ll play it at your rehearsal dinner. You know, that kind of thing. – Where do you have it now? – Well you know. I released it as an album. – Have you saved it? – Yeah. – You sure you got it? – It’s in voice memos. – Are you gonna play it at the rehearsal dinner or right now? – I’m gonna play it for him again and be like hey, you want me to edit this thing into something funny and we’ll play it at your rehearsal dinner? I mean, ’cause I got it. I think it’d be hilarious I think it’d be the best wedding ever. I might play it at the ceremony. Again, but it would all be with permission, I’m not gonna. – I mean I know a channel you can upload it to and I wouldn’t be opposed to it being there. – What are you talking about? – With a pre-roll ad. – Channel? This channel? – A YouTube channel with a pre-roll ad. – Yeah that’s not gonna happen. So at times, I mean I’m sure people are like why did you do that? Well, it’s private, no-one has ever listened to it in fact, I’ve never listened back to it. It’s just I have it. But yeah, it’s something that we continue to talk about. – It is interesting, it’s almost. This is a reminder to me that you kind of have to have a discipline to continue to talk about it I mean, because like you said there’s a tendency to withdraw at a certain age and it’s our role to say hey this is an important and normal conversation. I mean the first conversation that we had it was a general one with the two older kids so like, Lincoln was younger and it was just like I don’t know if he’s a little too young but we were having a very general version of the conversation. So we didn’t get into that many specifics. Just to kind of break the ice about it. But it ended up being, you know trying to find the right words and keep your face in a way that seems like hey this is a normal conversation. This is what my face looks like when we’re talking about anything at the dinner table ’cause we were at the dinner table. – This is not my sex face. (laughing) This is not my sex talk face. Definitely not my sex face. (laughing) You knew what I meant, my sex discussion face. Sorry I should have clarified. – And so we had this, you know, we were like Christy and I, we were talking about it and we were trying to keep our cool and trying to be matter of fact about it in order to send the right signal that hey this is normal or whatever and we did a great job, felt really good about it. But there wasn’t much. – Reciprocation. – Retort. – Engagement. – So the first follow-up and again I won’t say who it was it was just like, there was a moment of silence it was like okay we’re gonna let you process then it was first thing that was said was, awkward. (Rhett laughs) – Oh wow. – Pretty awesome. – But that’s great, being able to. – And you know what, that’s fine. – Vocalize that awkwardness is great. – It does feel a little awkward and you know what that is fine. – But think about. But think about if you hadn’t have said it and the awkwardness that could result from it. Again I’m not, and listen I don’t know if we’re doing a good job at it. But because there are certain things that begin to happen at certain ages and I mean the way you interact with your kid the way you show affection to your kid changes the way I show affection to Shepherd is different than the way I show affection to Locke because it’s a nine-year-old and a 14-year-old. You know what I’m saying? – [Link] Yeah. – I remember that with my parents at some point it was like I remember like, four or five years old I would go up to my mom, my dad then my grandma and like kiss everybody on the lips before I went to bed. I think that’s kind of a southern thing to do that. – Yep. – Just like, peck everybody on the lips. (Link laughing) And then at some point, well at some point you should probably stop doing that, right? And I did. – Yeah. – But it’s funny because once something stops it’s really difficult to get it back. So once you no longer say a certain thing or once you no longer say I love you which we still say I love you quite a bit in my family but you know, you might stop saying that at some point and it’s very difficult to get it back. Once you quit talking about sex it’s very difficult to start talking about sex again then you’re just kind of like maybe it’ll just work itself out, they’ll figure it out, they got friends, trust me, their friends have no clue. – Well as humans we do have a way of figuring it out. It does kind of– – Yep. – You know, you don’t have to be told but that could lead to negative repercussions. – It could come with certain consequences. There’s no guarantee that our kids, your kids will escape those consequences regardless of how much you talk about it. I was remarkably lucky even though I didn’t have a candid conversation with my parents. All that to say to Harriet yeah, we’re trying to talk about it very intentionally and not have it just be one conversation but have it be an ongoing conversation and we’ll report back. – Which brings us to next weeks conversation when we talk at you again will be exclusively about how babies are made. – Yeah. We’ll have our sex faces on the whole time. – And I will bring my pamphlet. – You still got it probably? – I have it on me yeah. It’s in my back pocket. – Keep it in your wallet? – You never know when you need it for reference. Just to, you know, what’s step one? I get confused. – What is step one? (laughs) – Next week, Rhett, I’ll let you know, what’s step one. So you can count on us to be here. Thanks for listening. Always we value your #EarBiscuits feedback and conversation as well as an iTunes review. I mean, who are we kidding here? – Yeah do that too. – I would love to see you do that. – Yeah. Send us pictures of you doing that. – Good luck with that. – [Rhett] To hear this EarBiscuit in its entirety and make sure you don’t miss an episode follow the links in the description to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else podcasts are available. – [Link] To watch more Ear Biscuits click on the playlist on the right. – [Rhett] To watch more of our daily show Good Mythical Morning, click the playlist on the left. – [Link] And don’t forget to click the circular icon to subscribe. – [Rhett] Thanks for being your mythical best