CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - The Necessary Conversation: How To Talk To Family With Different Political Beliefs

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

This week, I sat down with siblings Haley and Chad from the Necessary Conversation Podcast. Each week, they sit down with their parents to talk about politics and they invite us to listen (to say their political beliefs differ would be quite the understatement). They discuss their temporary estrangement due to politics and why they continue to sit down every week to have these conversations. Join The Family Cyclebreakers Club: www.callinghome.co/join Have a question for Whitney? Call in and leave a voicemail for the show at 866-225-5466. Follow Whitney on Instagram: www.instagram.com/sitwithwhit Subscribe to Whitney's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whitneygoodmanlmft Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wait, was that the group chat? Ah, sent a text to the group that definitely wasn't for everyone. You're good. Enjoy some goldfish cheddar crackers. Goldfish have short memories. Be like goldfish. Hello and welcome back to the Calling Home podcast. I'm your host, Whitney Goodman.

I'm excited to be coming to you today with an interview. I just want to warn everyone, this conversation may not be for you, but if you are someone that has family members with very different political beliefs than you have, and you want to have conversations with them, you're wondering what this looks like or how this plays out in action, this episode is for you. I am joined today by Haley and Chad from The Necessary Conversation. And if your TikTok algorithm is anything like mine, you have probably seen the clips of their podcast of them talking to their mom and dad about politics. So Haley and Chad join their parents

every week to have a conversation about the latest news. And they feel pretty differently about what's going on in the world. And the comments on their posts are really interesting. They're ranging from people who are amazed by what they're doing, people who find it interesting, they're learning from them, and also a lot of people who are saying, you should just cut off your parents and never speak to them again. And so I have been following them. I have been commenting on their videos and someone, one of my listeners, thank you for doing this, tagged me in one of their videos and message them saying, you guys should really talk to Whitney. And they reached out and here we are. So without further ado, here is my conversation with Haley and

Chad. And I hope you learn a little bit more about why they're doing this, their thoughts around it, and how they are navigating this really difficult dynamic in their family. What was your process to making this decision to have these conversations with your parents on a podcast and online for people to see? I think it was probably me who started all this, right? Right. I don't know. It was a collective. There was 26. No, because I started the first episode with mom. And then the next one was dad. The next one was with you. I had been doing like two other podcasts at that point. I do one where I talk about The Bachelor as a professional sport. And then I did one with a friend of mine. The concept of it was it was controlled by an artificial intelligence that would tell us what to say and do in the studio. And both of those podcasts were pretty successful. I found that I really liked podcasting as kind of an art form. And I think just for me, like most of the close relationships in my life, I'm making some kind of art project with that person, writing something, making a podcast, whatever.

And Haley and I had stopped kind of really talking to our parents in any substantive way. Not kind of, motherfucker. It was full send. Okay. Like 2016 happened. Yeah. 16 happened. And like I was posting some political shit online, like on my business page.

Chad was posting like fucking Trump memes on his personal. pages and our mom called me one day and it was like, I just can't do this anymore. And I thought, can't do what? And at that point, we literally had like no contact with our parents. I didn't know if my dad was in the fucking hospital. I didn't know like what was going on with my mom. I had no idea what was going on. They just stopped talking to us. And it seemed for a while, it was kind of just no contact and a little bit peaceful. But then you start thinking, well, shit, they're getting older. they're going to get sick, we're all they've got, you know,

because our parents have kind of isolated. So I think Chad and I, you know, needed to step up and somebody had to do something and they weren't going to make any kind of a first move. So it was like breaking the ice and like this is dumb. We can't do this. We're family. And that's kind of how the pod was born.

So they initiated this like no contact between all of you because they couldn't take seeing what you were posting or you having like a different belief. Yeah. I remember on, I mean, it started during Obama's second term, really, but it really crystallized when Trump was elected in 2016. I remember making a meme that was about, it just had like some quotes of Donald Trump and pictures of him.

And that was it. Like I wasn't adding anything really other than like, hey, this guy said this. Yeah. And my mom said, you're ruining my Facebook. You have to take that down now. and hysterics and you know playing the kind of guilt weapon on us but at some point after that i mean we started doing this podcast two and a half almost three years ago so it was during biden's run there maybe during the second year and i thought just from kind of a an audience growth standpoint

to start at them then and lead it into the most recent election would be a good idea and it really became for me it was more about just like having a weekly one hour conversation with my parents which never has happened in the history of our family before up until this point. I know, Haley, you talked to mom way more than I ever have on, like, texts and stuff like that, but we've never had a whole family conversation for an hour a week, ever that I can remember. Okay, okay. And so you decided we're going to speak for an hour every week about what's going on in the world politically. Yeah, and I thought that that was, I mean, at a certain point, it's all they are capable.

of or all they want to talk about is politics. And so I was like, all right, if this is where we have to kind of meet them just to interact with them, so be it. And now it's kind of shifting a little bit. My dad seems to be like checking out of it completely. He'll storm off the podcast from time to time or give us the silent treatment. And my mom is like more and more hesitant to talk about politics and wants to talk about other things, which I actually think is to some degree a good sign. Interesting. Yeah, I always see, you know, the comments on your your videos are very interesting. I don't know if you guys read the comments, but I do, yeah. Something that always jumps out at me is how shocked people are that you're having

these conversations. And I see so many people writing like, oh, just cut them off. Just stop having the conversations. And so I'd love if you can speak to like why you think this is important and why you decide to do it every week. Haley, you want to do this? Yeah, for me, it's like I said, my parents have kind of isolated themselves. They don't have a lot of friends or people they communicate with and they are getting older. They're also my fucking parents. You know, people, they see the pod and they hear. And that is authentically who they are.

Like, that is my dad. He is fucking wild. You know, but we grew up with them. I'm 44 years old. They've been in my life, my whole life, to end that over something like Donald Trump just seems foolish. there's good to my parents that people don't understand you know it's not articulated on the pod

but you know there are good things that my parents have done so it would be hard to just walk away from that I don't know they're my family yeah I get that I also just like flatly disagree with the idea that you should cut somebody out because you disagree with them about anything

to me that is a huge part of why the country is the way it is right now the division between the perceived sides, and by the way, those aren't real. But that ideological kind of divide is what is causing now exactly the situation we have in this country. If everybody would talk to each other, especially people who have opposing views ideologically, politically, spiritually, philosophically, whatever you want to say, it would be much harder for the people in control to keep us in this position. I just, it's strange to me that that's lost on so many people. Yeah. You know, I think, you know, I come from a family where there's a lot of different beliefs across the spectrum. I have a very large extended family and I've talked about this on my episode about like the political climate that I feel like sometimes my stress gets so activated by these conversations that I don't enjoy having them because I'm just like, oh, I had to come down after. And like what I have to deal with that, When I see, I mean, really, I was mostly in all when I started seeing the videos because I'm like, oh my gosh, they're scheduling this. They're showing up. They're doing it. And not only you all, but your parents are doing it.

And people are, like, do they understand that people are watching them have this conversation? Do they really, like, get what their, okay. How do they feel about that? It's give and take. Like my mom mentions, my mom mentions her patriots, you know, her three patriots. So, like, they have friends that watch and shit. Okay. As you have read, there's people wishing death and harm on my mom and dad.

So I don't know, in my business, I am attacked daily. So if it's old, it doesn't matter. Like, I know, you know, you don't read anything into it. But our parents, you know, they read that shit and it really hits. So it definitely affects them. Totally. I think dad likes it. Like, our dad doesn't go on social media of any kind, doesn't care about this.

but our mom does she reads those comments and I'll get a text from her every once in while like did you see this person said they want your dad dead no no no and I have to always be like it's the internet none of this means anything yeah but our dad she'll tell him you know somebody said they want you dead and then she'll reply in the in our family text thread what my dad's response was invariably it's calling that person some kind of name saying he could kick their ass things in this nature this is by the way it's 73 year old man who just had a hip replacement. He's kicking no asses. I think like my parents have kind of fostered a very adversarial worldview their entire lives really. It's gotten worse the older they've

gotten. But my dad holds on to that as like a key component of his identity. And so anytime anybody comes to him with like, you shouldn't be saying this or I want you to die, whatever it may be, it's a big fuck you, I'll kick your ass. I'll see the streets. Right. Yeah, I can sort of fuel that identity for sure. I mean, Haley, something you said about, like, they're my parents, they have good parts to them, really stuck out to me in the work that I've done that I noticed a lot around the election, people were saying things like, if your parents make this vote, they don't love you, they don't care about you. And I don't know if you all heard that type of rhetoric a lot, but it's something that was coming up in therapy and in the groups that I run. And I found that that was

a really difficult thing for people to wrestle with. I don't know if you have heard that thought or if you've wrestled that with your own parents. Yeah, for sure. I understand. I understand when people say that, you know, because I have queer friends. I have queer kids. And so knowing that their grandparents, you know, voted for someone who wants to take away civil liberties from the LGBTQ plus community, that's hard. That's a hard thing to swallow. But like, Like I said, I know my parents. I think push comes to shove. They're going to be on my kid's side.

I know they love my kids. So it's something that you have to wrestle with. But ultimately, I think that I think that they would be okay with, you know, my kids' decisions and things like that. I think my mom especially, we can get through to her. Like when my dad is absentee, we can, like there's a, there's moments of clarity where she's like, oh, well, maybe that is bad, you know? So it's like when you live with somebody who's just fucking Myers, he's a miser. He just sits around like, you know, Fox News and News, you know, like when you live with that fucking hatred in your ear 24-7, it's hard to break free.

And he's all she's ever known. They've been together since they're teenagers. Yeah. So when you isolate her and like he's not in her ear, you can see moments of like clarity and reason. Mm-hmm. I would say for me too, it's like, I don't. I view my parents as victims of a system that is driven by corporate greed, and that's it.

That system has figured out a way to leverage new technology, or new technology, at least to my parents, like social media, for-profit cable news, to just streamline a laser beam right into their brains that's like, this is who you are now, and it worked on them because they're too old to understand any of it. Well, both sides, you know, if you go far right or if you go far left, and it's the equivalent of someone saying, I'm never talking to my parents because they voted for, you know, a president who wants to take away all these rights that we have. Like, it's the same concept. So you really have to pay attention to what you're consuming. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, does seeing them through that lens of like, I feel like they have been victims of a system, you think, help you have these conversations? Yeah. yeah to some degree I mean I go ahead a you have to understand the way that

people are raised the way that they grow up the generation they came from and it certainly explains so much it doesn't excuse the behaviors but it helps you understand you know like why they are this way so for me just kind of like seeing where they came from

helps me get over the bullshit that I hear from them every day like oh I mean you know like I knew my grandparents And I know what they had to say about things, their ideologies, their political outlooks, just that time in general. So, I mean, it helps to explain why my parents are the way they are. Yeah, absolutely. I think the context is very important. And also the, like, how they are treating you, I guess, in your day-to-day life.

And I'm wondering, like, how do you guys feel about that? Like, how do you reconcile that? I mean, I can see in your faces. Yeah, a lot of people think they're like doing a bit on the show or that it's an exaggerated version. I don't think your dad's doing a bit. It seems very genuine. Yeah. I mean, they treat us like that in our actual lives too. How many little weird feuds have either one of us been in with them where they say they're not ever going to talk to us again. And then one of us has to give some, you know, grandiose apology to get them back in speaking terms. It's they've just kind of always been like that. And I feel like. The kind of current political climate, current being the last 10 years almost, 12 years, I guess, has really just poured gas on the fire. Yeah, I don't know. It's pretty wild, like how they treat us in real life, even in childhood.

Like, dad was a pretty hard dad. We'll leave it at that, you know. But they don't, I don't think that they have an easy time accepting that Haley and I are adults at this point, which is insane. because I'll be 50 in a year. Haley is 44. It's like, that ship sailed. Sorry, it ain't going to reverse. We're never going to be your little kids again.

Huge part of their identity because they had us very young when they were in their early 20s or me anyway and then Haley came four years later. But a huge part of their identity is being parents. And so once their kids become parents of their own in Haley's case or at the very least adults living out in the world, completely independent from anything that we might need

from them. I think they have never dealt with that on any level, my dad especially. And so they can't view us as anything other than these kids that they used to have complete control over. And my dad still is like grasping for that with every straw. But it's clear at this point that like there's, he has no control over any of us. Yeah. He still makes Chad get haircuts when he comes home or he used to. Like now I have no hair. He'd come. I mean, you were what in your 40s, late 30s? 30s at least. Yeah. Yeah, we got to get you a hair kid. Like, just insane shit. And now they try to kind of like roll that onto my children, which is not okay.

So I've had to kind of like put my foot down where that is concerned. But they have always seen us as children. I own a business. I have kids. I've been married for 20 plus years. All of these things that I've set up, it's like an adult life, but they still perceive me as like 12 years old. The way they talk to us, like all of it. And I think the.

you know, voting in opposition to their wishes is kind of symbolically maybe the worst transgression we can do as adults to prove that like all the teaching you did to us as children irrelevant. It did not work. It did not stick. We have become independent thinking people outside of what you tried to do. And so maybe there's some, you know, lack of admission that they feel they failed as parents or something in that regard. I don't know if that's part of it. But I do know that, you know, us leading lives that are ideologically opposed to them, I think is very difficult for them to deal with on that level of being no longer in control of our lives. Yeah. I think you're so right. I was telling you guys at the beginning, I work a lot with

family estrangement. And it's funny because a lot of parents will say, my kids don't talk to me because of politics. And it's rarely that that's the actual reason that I get. In fact, most adults tell me, like, no, it's not because of politics. It's because of how they talk about politics. So that it's, you guys said, that's really all they'll talk about or the way that they talk about it or this idea that like, you should think exactly like me because you are an extension of me and you're my child and you're not your own person, even when you're in your 40s and 50s. That's like the actual problem, not the fact that it's, and I see this on both sides of the spectrum. You know, obviously there's people. who are hyper-conservative and very liberal that are all estranged and can have this type of issue that is exactly what you're speaking to. Yeah. It's been an interesting 10 years or whatever I was saying. Yeah. Yeah. Haley, you mentioned that you have queer children, but they have a relationship with your parents. How do you think they reconcile that? They've never brought anyone home yet. Okay.

So I'm, I guess I'm waiting for that to see how that works out. So now it's just an idea. But when it becomes real, I guess we'll see what happens. Okay. There's already some, some conflict happening there. Do you remember when Harper made that TikTok? Yeah, when my littlest was quite young, he was on TikTok, like making, you know, she was doing like anime shit and like dressing up and cosplaying.

And then one day, my mom sends me a text message. Do you know what the fuck your kid's doing on TikTok? And I said, yeah. She goes, do you see the one from today? So I go watch it. And it was, Harper was upset about something that my mom had said. Oh. And went to TikTok and said that my parents were a little homophobic.

It was, I remember this TikTok very well. Specifically, she was like, just got back from my racist homophobic grandma's house. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I, listen, I won't apologize. I've raised my children to speak their mind to be our are. We have these social media outlets. I do the same shit on my business page. I'm just an adult.

Right. So for me, it's kind of like, I don't know if I would encourage her to do that because I want to keep some kind of relationship with my parents, you know? So obviously that strained it. Mm-hmm. But I'm proud of the fact that my. kids don't give a fuck you know they are who they are and they say what they say and so for me that was kind of like oh okay all right harper's with it all right it's how you feel yeah yeah i mean she's not wrong you know but it sounds like that's how the two of you are as well like you you believe

what you believe you're willing to share it and put it out there that how do you think you became this way despite what you grew up with i don't know uh I mean, I think we always probably knew the shit that our dad was saying was not okay. I think you know, like, I don't know. We just knew that. Like, that's not okay. I don't know. But it must have been inherent because obviously we grew up in a household under my dad.

Strict racist ideologies. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I guess for me, my parents or my dad specifically almost likes to say that our kind of radicalization into the left-leaning ideology. came about when we went to these liberal colleges, which, by the way, Haley went to the same college that both of our parents did. I went to a different one on the West Coast, and maybe there's some truth to what they're saying. I don't know. But yeah, it just always seemed wrong to me, almost everything that my dad was saying with regard to those things, you know, like he would

say some kind of racist thing. But then, like, I'd be on a, I played a lot of group sports when I was a kid per my dad's dictation. And there were kids of all races on all these teams. And I was friends with them. And like, I just saw real evidence in the actual world that was contrary to anything my dad was saying. And I was just like, this, whatever he's saying doesn't make sense. And then you start slowly kind of hearing from, you'd be spending the night in a friend's house or something. And that dad treats you completely differently than your own dad. And you're just like, what the hell? This is a way to live. And you just kind of see other examples of it, the older you get, you know. And it just seemed to me all the evidence was leaning toward my dad is wrong.

in all cases. Yeah, yeah. My life experience. Yeah. Paying attention to your own experiences instead of just being forced-fed and believing, I guess. Yeah. Do you think your dad hasn't had a lot of experiences that have contradicted his beliefs? Yeah.

I mean, it's hard to say. He has woven this kind of tapestry of an origin story of his own racism that I don't even know if it's true. Yeah. But it, you know, he seems to say. say that there are experiences in his life that corroborate or justify his extreme attitudes where any of this is concerned. You know, is there anything that is like contradicting him or pushing back in his life? Probably not. Most of his career has been with other old white guys in kind of financial institution type shit. And I don't think those guys are probably as racist as

he is, but I don't think they're necessarily not or they don't care if he is. That's kind of what has seemed like to me, but also I think in kind of more public settings, at least in career settings for him, I think he's also able to button it down a little bit. I mean, definitely. Is he still working now? No, he retired four years ago. Maybe five. Four or five years ago, yeah.

Okay. So I want to talk a little bit more about like how you actually do the show and how you have these conversations. Are you the ones decided? what you're going to talk about that day. That's all, Chad. Chad's the mastermind. I produced the whole show.

Okay. So everything's me. I'm cutting all the clips that show up on TikTok. I'm recording it. I'm editing it. I'm writing the topic kind of outline the night before, sending that to Haley, sending it to my mom. My mom wins it.

I don't know if Haley does. And my dad definitely does not. Your dad does no prep. He just shows up ready to go. Okay. Shows up ready to yell at us and storm off. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

How do you choose what you're going to do? to talk about with them? I just look for, I mean, I have some different ideas about it because like ultimately this, I know we've been doing this for two and a half years, but I do think like change of this kind of magnitude, what we're the real goal of the podcast I know is going to take a long time. So what I try to do is put the political things, now we're doing the big six kind of political things that have happened that week. Okay.

I use that, or at least this is how I see it, I use that as the kind of framework over which I lay what I'm actually trying to do with the show, which is get my mom back, bring her back from brainwashing. So that's your main goal here. That's my ulterior motive that she does not necessarily know. And I think that's possible. Yeah. So I try to keep it to the political framework, and then I'll lay in one or two little

questions throughout the entire hour that are more about, like, our personal relationship or a memory from when we were kids or something like that, just to try and jar. her back to the person she was before Donald Trump, before all of this shit with my dad, before their radicalization, really. And so there's always a question in the middle of every show that I called The Simmer Down, where it's a non-political question about, like I said, some fun memory or something funny. I had one where I got us to all try and do an impersonation of a celebrity. I thought that was kind of funny. You know, just something to lighten the mood and be like, look, we're still your fun kids. You're still like parents. Yeah. Whether that's like, I do

think it's working? I'm seeing glimmers from my mom. Tell me about those. What are you seeing that you notice? There was last week or the week before she disagreed with Donald Trump on something. And it was after my dad left. He stormed off. And then I was talking to just my mom. Do you remember this? We were talking about habeas corpus or something. Haley, do you remember what I'm talking about? God, what was it? I don't remember what it was. But it was some, you know, horrible thing. Like due process or something. Yeah. Something like this. And she said that she disagreed. with Trump. And I was like, okay, how does that feel? Like, it's okay. You can disagree with him. And she kind of returned back to the mom. I remember when I was a kid for a moment. I could like

see it, you know? It was like the weight of all this bullshit, this political kind of weird world we're living in, just dissipated for like five seconds maybe. And I was like, there she is. Holy shit. And so I'm just like, can I keep teasing that out a little bit? And that's really the goal of it. And the goal doesn't include your father? I think he's gone. Okay. He's gone. Yeah. He's gone. Yeah. How do you guys feel about that? Like, I don't know. I, we grew up with him. So, I don't know. Like, the shit that he says says, it doesn't hurt anymore. I think we kind of recognized he was gone a long time ago. Maybe even more kids. Like, he's, he's always been just. like wild, fucking wild.

Mm-hmm. Shit that he thinks, shit that he does, just wild. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't know if I never thought that he was going to, you know, come back. But I don't think our mom ever really fully, you know, she's not fully committed to Maja, I don't think.

There's large pieces of her that are like ultra-liberal and like kind of hippie. And, you know, she'll talk about being like spiritual. they claim their Christians. It's not true. My mom is like spiritual. I do think she believes in like reincarnation and shit like that. I do too. Yeah, I know. So like when we get to, you know, at her very fucking root, her core, I feel like she's, she's there, you know. Yeah, I don't think she's so far gone. That's, I mean, ultimately the thing that, this is like how I deal with the entire world, not just my parents. I don't really actually think any of this is real. And so for me, I can kind of look at our situation, me and Haley with our parents, it's almost like a sitcom to me. I view us all

as characters in this weird little play. And so my dad just happens to be like the overbearing asshole character. And it's like, I don't know what happens when we die. And I used to be very materialistic and think, you know, once you're dead, you're dead. There is no, your conscience doesn't go anywhere. There's no heaven, no hell, any of that shit. In the last maybe 10 years, there's been a lot of scientific development around the idea of consciousness as a fundamental part of reality, perhaps even the thing that generates it.

And it seems to me that that's like, we're on the horizon of a big scientific discovery akin to like the earth not being the center of the universe, I feel like. And so for me, it's like, I view it that way. I think my dad when he dies, whatever's in there is going to go somewhere else. We will probably get to see it or interact with it again.

And I think it'll be a happier version, of that guy, you know, hopefully. So for me, it's just kind of like, it's that. I'm watching this weird TV show that will eventually end, and I try to find the humor in all of it, or like the absurdity in it, I guess. Yeah. Well, I think that's one of the, like, coping skills of living with a parent that is a little bit, like, brash or critical and stuff, right?

It's like, I am going to, well, to find a way to be an observer, right? rather than someone that's being constantly impacted by them and just like what I really get out of what you guys are doing here. And I don't think it's, I don't think everybody can handle what you're doing. I don't think it's for everyone, but I think it's an amazing thing to really approach this with a level of like curiosity and observation from some degree of like, let's talk about these things. And you're sometimes, I mean, I don't know if you know that you're doing this, but you're like gentle parenting, your parents a little bit. That's sometimes the way that you're doing it, that I'm like, oh, I can tell the way you're asking questions of like, is this what you mean?

Can you say that again? And like they, I think your mom sees herself getting backed into a corner. Sometimes she's like, oh, maybe I don't think that. And so I totally relate to like those glimmers that you're seeing. I think they're there. But I'm wondering if like a key component of having these conversations, if you guys agree with this, is like the ability. to question things and to like disagree with certain things within your own party, within the

people around you that is fundamentally, I think, missing maybe from your dad. Like, he can't deviate from the rhetoric. With Amex platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot track side. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at mx.ca. Slashirembkin is here at Starbucks, and we're making it just the way you like. Handcrafted with real ingredients like our real pumpkin sauce and rich espresso out, sprinkled with pumpkin spice.

It's full of real flavors you'll keep coming back for. Made just for you at Starbucks. 100%. I try to, I mean, I think it was last week's episode. I even opened it by saying Trump said something this week that I 100% agree. I've never seen this yet. his tweet and I was like, I'm down with this. So I tried to show that as like, look, here's an example of me agreeing with your dear leader. Maybe that can somewhere deep in the brain, dislodge

something, some inability that they have to like do the same, but they don't have it. I don't even think my mom has it. She can disagree with Trump, but I don't think she would ever agree with whoever the kind of perceived leader of the Democratic Party would be. Yeah, yeah. Do you think that's generational, like that more of that allegiance to a party is like more common in older generations? No. Do you think it's across the board? Because I find myself feeling like I can, I would question them all in a way. Like when someone's doing something wrong, I want to declare it across the board, not just them, whoever they are.

I, I, 100% agree. I, to me, politics is like, it's a scam. It always hasn't been. It always will be. These are on both sides of the aisle. People lie to you constantly, to get reelected, to get money for their causes and for themselves, whatever. That's what politics is.

That's what it has always been. People trying to convince you to give them your money, period. So I'm very skeptical of all of it always. That said, I think to your question, I don't think it's generational. I think people currently have more party allegiance than they ever have in my life, regardless of age or anything like that. It's on both sides. I definitely, like I live in L.A., working in the entertainment industry.

Some of my friends are, like, beyond where my dad is for the right, but for the left. Yeah. And that will never change. Interesting. It's like if Trump does anything, it's the end of the world, even if it's something that, like, if you look at it objectively, maybe beneficial to you or to people that you care about or whatever. It's like, if Trump did it, that's the devil's work. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, that's true. I think definitely see that like tribalism element across the board in that. That is like the key piece I think that you have to have in order to have these conversations is the ability to like look at things across party lines. So I guess, you know, for the last part of this interview, I'm wondering if you guys can give any advice to people who want to start having these conversations with their family members. What should they do? What did they look out for anything? What do you say, Kylie? Like, we basically hit rock bottom. Yeah, with our parents. Like, it was, we weren't speaking. Yeah. Okay?

We didn't even know it was going on in each other's lives for months. So for us, it was kind of do or die. Like, fuck it, you can't, nothing to lose, you know? So I guess if you're in that scenario, like, you literally have nothing to lose. Why not just fucking do it? But I don't know. It's a gentle approach when you're speaking to your parents about something like this. It's gentle. You can't just come in, you know, full steam ahead because it's always met with resistance. So I guess little by little, you can't just, you know, in your face 24-7. And our parents, you know, like you were talking about, it's adversarial, like left, the right. I never fucking liked Joe Biden. I didn't even like Kamala Harris. But the policies that we were voting, for i thought well maybe there's a chance i can keep my civil liberties with this president so we were

always treated as though like well that's your side this is my side i don't i don't like any of them you know so i think maybe even approaching it like that i'm not on a fucking side you know i just want to talk to you as a parent help me understand and i'll help you understand right right i agree i think that's kind of like a line of reasoning that i'm always trying to weave through there kind of when they least expect it is like what relationship is more important to you, your relationship with your kids or with Donald Trump. And when you position it like that, it kind of can like jar them a little bit, like, wait a minute, why do I care about Donald Trump more than my own, my child? But in terms of advice, I would say like the things

that have really helped us, I mean, strangely, it's the podcast format. It's because we have a weekly time where every Sunday at 10 a.m. for me, 12 for you guys, we are on that Zoom and we talk for one hour. We are interacting for one hour. And it's almost like it doesn't matter what you're interacting about. It happens to be in this case politics because that's like what has consumed their minds. Yeah. And so that's what it will have to be. But just having that weekly sitting down, sometimes my parents concentrate on what we're talking about. Sometimes they're watching TV. But to have that interaction has been incredibly helpful. And Haley and I have found now when we go back to visit them, we've almost, it's kind of like we've gotten the political animosity

is tapped out. We've drained it from the relationship in the podcast. Like, that's kind of where it lives now. And so when we hang out with them, it's much more regular. There is very little talk about politics. Yeah, you've created a container for it. It kind of reminds me, like, when I used to do couples therapy, like you would tell the couple's like, this is where you fight. You're not going to fight outside of here because you're not ready to. fight on your own. And it would cut down on the fighting because everyone was like, oh, I get to fight about this when I get the couple's therapy. So I'm going to wait and like store it up. It's actually, it's a great idea to like have that container for it. Yeah. I would say to everybody

stores podcast with your parents. You never know what it could become. Yeah. Yeah. Like I'm able to call my mom, you know, we'll do the pod and then we all kind of break. And I definitely don't call them that day. And then I'll let, you know, like 24 hours pass. I talk to my mom probably three or four days a week. Wow. And we just use the shit. We shoot the shit about like whatever, you know, like dad's hip or their horse. How are the kids doing? I talked to mom three to four days a week. For how long? I don't know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. Jesus. Whatever. Wow. Well, that was going to be my question, like, out of curiosity, do you think you could have a relationship with your parents that did not include politics? Like,

I find some people are doing that where they're just saying this is off the table we're not talking about it. No. Yeah, it's a, no. Especially not with our dad. Okay.

I also feel like it's hard to do that because there's so much like it's politics is politics, I guess, but like so much of especially our dad's identity is wrapped in this kind of horrible ideology that like we're saying is built on

racism, discrimination, misogyny, all these things. So it's not just like talking about Donald Trump, it's like what comes with that or like why he's into Donald Trump that's a part of his persona that is, you can't have any relationship with him without at least accepting that these are pieces of him. And maybe you're trying to tiptoe around it or navigate a conversation so that type of shit doesn't come up, but that's almost impossible to do. And then I have children, you know, so when you throw that into the mix, when we know we're

going to their house, for the last 20 years, I've had to preface every encounter. or with like, so they might say this, so they might say this shit. You know, not to believe that, right? Yeah. So it's, it's like an every day. Like, I have to prep my kids, you know? Yeah. When your kids were little, too, they had, like, loaded guns in their bedside drawers and all that shit.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's scary, for sure. Haley, you don't have to answer this if you don't feel comfortable. But I'm wondering, like, have you had conversations with your kids? have you thought about when they get to an age and they say they don't want to be around your parents. Yeah, we have conversations now.

Yeah. Both sets of in-laws and parents. Yeah. Yeah. There are times, you know, where they don't want to go to either place. They really like my mom. I think they understand. They're older, 2018 and 16.

Okay. And, you know, they've been through it for the last 20 years. you know, so I think they understand, they get it, they don't like all of it, but they really like my mom. So I think that she's kind of special to my kids. Yeah. So they don't mind going back most of the time, but my dad is a lot to handle. He's a lot.

So, yeah, there are definitely conversations that are had. Yeah, I can imagine. That's definitely something that we talk about a lot of calling home, you know, it's like kids either wanting to have relationships with grandparents when the parents are estranged or the kids when they get older not wanting to go around even after you have like kept this relationship going they decide I don't know if I want to maintain it and I think that can be tricky as well but it sounds like you're open with them about like allowing them to kind of come to their own conclusions yeah I don't I mean I've never believed in forcing them to do

shit they don't want to do. And that idea, you know, like I have when graduating high school in the next two weeks and all she can talk about is, like, is our mom going to be there? Like, is grandma going to be there? So, yeah, she kind of plays an integral part of their lives. Yeah, yeah. Dad, on the other hand, are like, is monkey coming? Is that what they call it monkey?

That's so funny. It's interesting that you say that, too, Haley, about how you, like, don't try to force your kids to do anything because our entire. lives we were forced to do. Right. Literally everything that we did was forced upon us. Yeah. Playing sports, making straight A's, blah, blah, blah.

The kind of perfectionist ideal. Right. Well, you know, you either follow suit and continue to do the shit that your parents did to you or you just fucking break ties with it. And I knew immediately when Roman was born. Fucking done. No. None of that.

I'm never going to spank. I'm never going to fucking make you play sports if you don't want to play sports. all the shit, you know. And now I have like emotionally intelligent children who are out in this world doing what they love to do. And they talk to me. You know, that's all you can ask for. They're happy. They're open. I didn't force them to do weird shit that they didn't want to do. So I think that's all you can really ask for. But you learn really quickly. I think in the moment that your first child is born, who you're going to be as a parent. Are you going to be your parents or someone else. Yeah. Yeah. And I think getting comfortable with them possibly disapproving of you.

Like, I feel like that's something that the two of you are really modeling very well for anyone listening to like watch this is that you, you are confident in what you believe. You're still having the conversations. And it's like if you disappoint your parents, it seems like you've gotten very good at tolerating that. It's an important life lesson. Some people never learn that. We are, I am, this is 44 years of disappointment right here, so. Same. Yeah, I fact ties in giving a shit a long time ago. Yeah.

I was a teenager. It's a teenager because your parents, you know, growing up, that's all you want is their acceptance. Mm-hmm. I want my parents to love me, accept me, what they think matters. Yep. I never cared about anybody else, my peers, like none of that shit, just mom and dad. Mm-hmm. And specifically, dad.

At some point, you just realize, like, it's never going to be enough. Yeah. Like, it's never going to be enough. So then you chase your fucking dreams and so be it. You know, like they, I think my dad literally, he says he's proud of us and shit, but it. I don't think so. I don't know if he is, right? I don't think he is.

Chad is super successful in this arena that not many people are successful in, you know, movies, books, television, podcast, like all of this shit in L.A., like the percentage of people that make it is so low and he made it and my dad still i don't even know if he doesn't he doesn't understand i'll tell you a quick antidote that will i think very clearly crystallize this this i wrote a book god this has got to be a little over 10 years ago i think and it got turned into a movie okay that had like adam sandler in it and some jennifer garner like big actors they were shooting a few scenes in this mall in austin at the time our parents lived in houston or maybe dallas they were in texas at the time So I was like, I'm going to be there for a couple of weeks on set. You guys should come down.

You can come on the set, see the movie getting made, whatever it would be. Yeah. And so my mom is enamored with this because she's always wanted to be famous. And she thinks she's going to show up and be doing a scene with Jennifer Garner, which did not happen. But she's an extra in the movie. But they walk onto the set. And the first thing my dad says, my mom's like, oh, my God, I can't believe they see it's so amazing. And my dad looks me dead in the eye.

This is in front of the director of the movie, some producers, whatever, and goes, I need to make a phone call. where the fuck can I do it? Business don't stop for this bullshit. And it was like, nice to see you, dad. But that's like one of those moments where you're like, he's completely threatened by his son having success in a field that he knows nothing about because he comes from like a very business, finance kind of world.

And he had to kind of, in his own mind, I think, exert some kind of dominance or control over that situation that he clearly had no control in. Yeah. Yeah. It's so, it's strange. I don't know. You know, like both of us.

I own a successful bakery. You know, I've been married for 20 plus years. I have awesome kids. Like, I have a successful life. I think it's that they always, they've always wanted us to depend on them, always. Yeah. And the fact that I, you know, we don't have to ask for money or we don't have to ask for favors and like all this shit, it really kind of irks them. Yeah.

Wanted us to depend on them. Or, you know, be a professional baseball player for Chad and Katz's pay. Yeah. And I don't... Meanwhile, our dad is 5-7 or mom is 5-2, 5-3. It's like, you didn't give me the tools, guys. I could have done it if you would have been different. I think that was Dad's goal for me.

He wanted me to play softball in the Olympics. Wow, that's specific. I mean, that was like as far as you could go. A woman was... Right. Yeah, yeah. We were supposed to be professional athletes. Okay. Yeah.

Well, I think that what you all are doing... doing is very impressive and cool. And I think for anyone that's interested in like, what does this look like when people on totally different ends of the spectrum or, you know, are having these conversations, your podcast is a great place to go and watch that in action. I especially like these little like moments of humanity that you've inserted of just like being a family. I think that's really important. My last question for you guys, how long do you plan on doing this for? until your mom sees the light I mean I'll do it until we're all dead

honestly like yeah I think for me like discovering podcasting whenever that was I guess six is years ago I started my own I was on a friend's podcast for a minute but I would just show up and talk then a friend of mine and I started this one where we talk about The Bachelor as a professional sport and it kind of blew up

and I really like learned how to make a podcast in that podcast and I just love it I think it's one of those fun art forms that exists. I will do some podcasts probably until I'm dead. This one seems like a good one to me because it also has, like all the other podcasts are fun. It's fun to entertain people and talk about whatever I'm talking about. But this one is obviously very personal and it is affecting our relationship with our family. I mean, I think I'll do it forever. Totally. Or whatever until I'm dead. Well, perfect segue then to tell people where they can find your podcast. Anywhere that you

listen to a podcast. It's on YouTube. It's called The Necessary Conversation. Perfect. Just Google that. That's it. Sounds good. I will definitely link to it as well in this episode. Well, Chad and Haley, thank you so much for doing this with me. I really appreciate it. And I think our audience is really going to benefit from what you all have been doing. Thanks for having us. Thank you again. advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist patient or other treatment relationship between you and Colin Colm or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Collingholm's terms of service linked in the show notes below.