The Dr. John Delony Show - Should I Help My Slacker Friends Financially?

Episode Date: May 21, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU!   Show Notes for this Episode   I'm married with 3 kids and dealing with anger issues I grew up poor with a group of friends. I’ve changed my life and am doing well. Should I try to help my friends to learn or let it be? Email: How do I get my grandparents to stop enabling my mother’s bad habits? Lyrics of the Day: "Falling" - Alicia Keys   As heard on this episode:  BetterHelp Redefining Anxiety John's Free Guided Meditation     tags: anger/resentment/bitterness, parenting, kids, family, trauma/PTSD, boundaries, friendship, money   These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.`

On today's show, we're going to talk about dealing with anger issues. We're going to talk about how to influence your friends and help them make better decisions. We're going to talk about family enabling, when grandparents enable mom, enables kids, and the loop-de-loop-de-loop. Stay tuned. Hey, what's up? I'm John, and this is the Dr. John Deloney Show. I hope you're doing well. Hope your world's working out all right.

Hope your friends and family still like you. I guess they should love you. They don't have to like you today. But we'll just all get through whatever. Today's going to be together. It's a beautiful day here in Nashville, Tennessee, and I'm so glad that you've joined us. Thanks for hanging out. We're going to talk about anything and everything on today's show. So if you want to be on this show, if you want to call in with real challenges going on in your life, real celebrations going on in your life, give me a call at 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291. Or you can go to johndeloney.com

slash show, fill out the form, and it will go to Kelly. I would not do that today because she's not in a super great mood because she's been in traffic since early. And I made one little joke and I just saw her mouth through the glass. Not today, John. Not today. And usually that's when I hit the gas and I'm like, oh, definitely today. But the way she said it, I got the message loud and clear. Not today, John. Not today. And so I'm just looking at this camera because she's over to my left. Everything's in a box to the left, including my heart. But I'm looking straight ahead in the camera today because I don't want to make eye contact with her because I think it will burn my rods and cones and my eyeballs.

And listen, last night, this is super funny. It made me laugh. We had a Little League game that I went to and it was so fun. Hey, you know what? I just decided I'm going to start having fun at Little League games because I was the dad who gets all worked up how my son's doing. And then I just decided to learn all the other kids' names and just cheer rambunctiously. And it's turned into the most fun. It's cheaper than a movie.

Actually not, because Little League costs about $11 million to sign a kid up nowadays. But I was just cheering with my wife, and it was a lot of fun. But I peeled off a little bit early right when the game was over and brought my daughter home. And then I said, Hey, you got to brush your teeth and wash your hands, go to the bathroom, and then I'll tuck you in. So she yelled, Daddy, I'm ready to get tucked in. And I went in there to kiss her goodnight. We just have this, I mean, robotic nighttime routine. And as I walked in, she was swinging from her bunk bed and right when I walked in she swung out at me like this like flying karate move and she said dad when you

come in to kiss me I'm gonna kick you in the face like this and she went whoosh and I was just looking at her thinking, that was super unnecessary. Like, there's nothing, I don't know why you would do that. And then I thought, oh my gosh, yes. One day, somebody's going to have a crush on you. And they're going to walk into some room and think, I'm going to make my kiss move on Josephine. And she's already got this thing worked out. She will fly whoever you are and kick you in the face.

She's been prepping for years, hopefully lots and lots of years. But whoever tries to lean in, suckers, she will karate chop you in the face. So to all you parents out there who just want to love your child before bedtime and they decide they're going to kick you in the face the show's for you all right let's go to richard in not so normal illinois what's up richard how we doing man i'm pretty good how are you dr john good i that was about a fourth or fifth grade joke i just made on behalf of your city. Do people call it not so normal all the time or not really? There's a lot of stuff that people call normal. Not so normal. Oh my gosh, like my

work life, right? And my marriage is not normal either. We could do this all day, man. So what's up? So I am a Christian, a father of three and a husband, and I struggle with anger issues and yeah so that's my question how can how can I deal with that having two younger kids and then one almost teenager uh and if you have any questions please ask yeah man that's I love how simply you put that yet how complex all the things you just rolled out are um Who taught you to be angry? So I don't want to throw my dad under the bus, but... Hey, come on, throw him. He's not listening, Richard. Let's be real.

He's not listening. I mean, I remember him being quite angry a lot of times and having a short fuse. And I feel like I'm the same way. And my son's five and I just see that in him too. And my wife can get angry sometimes too. And we're just kind of navigating this giant ocean we call life as best we can. Okay. So you picked it, you, you, your dad loved you, probably a good human being. And he was an angry guy and those aren't all mutually exclusive. We like to just dump people

in these buckets, like terrible or awesome, and almost everybody is more complex than that, right? So it's okay to call out your dad and still love him, right? And he doesn't need you to defend him. He's a grown man. So you learned a model of dealing with challenges and frustrations that, as you mentioned, that we just call life, and you learned to be angry. Paint me a picture of what anger looks like for you. So, I mean, so I've been working a lot in my church with my small group leader and my church

friends on why I get angry about things or how it goes, But usually it's like, I guess I don't get my way and I watch my kids make mistakes that I've made in the past. And anger for me is getting frustrated, getting agitated very easily. And then if people raise their voice at me, I tend to raise my voice back. And that's anger for me. So take us all back to when you were seven or maybe 10 and your dad lost his mind once, just got raged out. Do you have an incident that you remember? Uh, yeah. Okay. Pretty, pretty vividly too. Um,

paint that picture for us when you were a little one. Well, when I was younger, I remember my mom and my dad fighting one time, and my dad picked up a chair and hit the wall. Okay. And my mom went upstairs and cried, and I didn't understand, and I went to be with her, and she was just sad, and I didn't understand what was going on. Okay, so take us back, transport us into that little boy. You saw that chair or heard that chair smash against the wall. What's in that little boy? What's that little boy feeling? I was pretty scared.

I kind of went into a different room and kind of hid. Okay. Show us. Where are you hiding? So I hid in the living room kind of behind the table and then after my mom went upstairs i quietly went upstairs after my dad left the house because he left the house after that okay so if if we were just to like distill everything down between a fight and a flight and freeze you went somewhere and got real still right right? Yeah. You were a, if you've seen like the National Geographic documentaries or whatever, you

were the baby deer that curls up real tight and just gets real still. My mom is dealing with whatever threat, right? Yep. Now, when you think back on that, are you happy that you're doing that to your kid? Not at all, man. Because getting mad's okay. Getting frustrated, if you're not frustrated as a parent of a teen and young kids, then you've got some screws loose.

You probably should go see a psychiatrist, right? That's a frustrating enterprise. And then once you feel that frustration, once you feel that even getting mad, everything after that's a decision. And I hate to simplify it so much because I know people talk about being trapped by it or controlled by it. And at this point in my life, I don't buy that anymore. Especially somebody who knows enough to know that they're reaching out to people in accountability groups and are trying and trying and trying. So the question most of us don't ever ask is, why are you choosing to repeat this cycle so that your kid has to experience that moment of frozen terror in a side room because they're scared of dad what is what is choosing that that that outcome what does that get you just more pain it doesn't help i know it doesn't help

i just but you keep doing it so you're getting something from it what are you getting from it i feel i feel like it's control. I feel like I want to control things really bad. I want things to go my way, and I become a child that's angry when I don't get my way. There you go, man. And so sometimes we don't care enough about ourselves when we're first entering into, I want to change my behavior, I want to change my life. We don't care enough about ourselves. And we don't have a model of people who cared about us, right?

The story you just told, you were hiding in terror from your dad, and then your job was to go make sure mom was okay. And that's not a seven-year-old's job on either account, right? Yeah. That's not your job as a seven-year-old, man on either account. Right? Yeah. That's not your job as a seven-year-old, man. Do you know what I did this morning? And I'm not making this up for theater. I'm just talking to my friend Richard. This morning, I wrote a letter.

I'm working with a counselor. I'm writing letters to my old selves. And I wrote a letter to Teenage John and it ended with, go laugh and do stupid teenage things. You're going to be all right. And I love you. And I'm letting these kids off the hook

that have been protecting me for so long, man. And until you let that seven-year-old be a seven-year-old and not crouch in terror in your living room and then have to go take care of mom because she's broken up until you can let that kid go he's going to continue to run your life for you and he's going to continue to respond like a seven-year-old does which is throwing things and pouting and you're going to pass this along because your kids are learning this model too

that's the thing i don't want to happen i know i know you don't and that's why you got to let that little kid go, man. You got to let that seven-year-old cope you a seven-year-old. And here's how that starts. Tonight, you write that little kid a letter. How old are your kids again? My daughter's one, my son's five, and my other daughter's 11. Okay. So you're in it, right? You're exhausted, and you're going to all the events in the evenings, and you've got a five-year-old who's just running amok, right? So you're – and then you have a one-year-old that just screams all the time.

And so you are struggling. Your marriage is probably strained right now. You're exhausted. And you're trying to wrap all this up into a pretty little Christian dad. And brother, you're tired. Okay? So here's what I want you to do. Number one, I want you to prioritize sleep.

You've got to, for the sake of your family, you have to set a nighttime alarm and start going to bed. Okay? Number two, I want you to get some time and I want you to write that kid a letter, the one you just told us about. And I want you to write it from the perspective of you as though you were writing to your seven-year-old self and let that kid know, no kid should have to hide in the living room because their dad is such a child that he's smashing furniture against a wall. No kid should be that scared of his dad.

And no kid's job is to go make sure mom is okay. Because she's an adult. She's a grown-up. And grown-ups should be able to work together to solve problems and not smash things and scare each other and hide from one another. And then at the end of that letter, I want you to process all of the way that kid's feeling, and I want you to re-feel that in your body, and then I want you to let that seven-year-old go play. And then from that moment, I want you to sit down with your wife.

It may not be tonight. It may be tomorrow or the next day. And I want you to tell her, I'm done being angry. Not done being mad, not done being frustrated, right? But I'm done being angry and I'm done responding like a child. And I want you to give her permission to talk into your life. And then I want you to bring your five and your 11-year-old in and let them know that you've been scary and that you've been sad and that you're not going to be scary and sad anymore. Right? And from that moment forward, you're going to start working on little tiny things like

when you feel yourself get angry you're going to stop and say i'm going to step outside and in your head you're going to think because i'm a grown-up i'm not going to pass this on i'm going to stare down this forest fire of child of family trauma and child trauma it stops with me and it's going to be slow and it's going to be frustrating, and you're going to have idiots in your life giving you all kinds of stupid advice like, you just got to get that anger out, bro. If you try to get the anger out, it's going to re-groove your brain deeper and become more and more and more of a default setting.

So you got to build new pathways, and it sucks building new pathways. But you have to because you got an 11-year-old and a 5-year-old and a 1-year-old and they can't carry this on for you anymore. Right? Yeah. Okay.

Do you have somebody in your life you trust that's not a moron that will walk along with you? Yeah, I've got two people for sure. And you trust them? Yeah, absolutely.

And they don't give you stupid advice? Nope. Like, yeah, bro, you should be pissed they give you actual like hey chill out calm down no they tell me that anger is sinning and that i need to be careful because i'll pass it on generationally okay so anger is not a sin anger is not bad what you do with it is a sin yeah acting like an idiot is acting like an idiot

right that's lame yeah being angry is a part if you try to stamp out anger, dude, you're trying to stamp out. All anger means is that you care about something. It points you in the direction of something you care about. And so when you see your kid making a mistake, you care that he's not going to hurt like you hurt. And then your reaction makes sure that he hurts like you hurt, right? So all anger is is pointing you in the direction of something you care about. It's a good thing. It's wired into us, right? It's like you just mentioned, it's our default setting. It's what we do afterwards. And that, my friend, is a choice. And it's going to be hard to change. But your kids are worth it and you are worth it.

They are worth it. Yeah. Hey, hey, hey, you, Richard, are worth it. Okay? You're worth being able to breathe. You're worth being able to sleep. You're worth not feeling the shame all the time because you lost your temper on an 11-year-old or you're rage angry. Tell me if I'm wrong. You're able to control it sometimes, but you double down and you compress it in your chest like a nuclear reactor. So everybody around you feels it, but you can walk through your house with a little bit high and mighty because you're not yelling or hitting anything. Is that fair? Yeah.

Yeah. Dude, listen. That's almost worse. Not quite as bad as smashing a chair, but it's almost as worse because your kids feel that tension and they backfill it with, it must be their fault. And you know what they do? They spend the rest of their life trying to take care of mom. Trying the rest of their life, trying not to make dad angry. And that's not their job, right?

So your job is to step outside on the front porch and breathe real deep. Your job is to get a night's sleep. Your job is to start every morning with what you're grateful for. Your job is to feel that anger and know it's there and know, I love my kids. Bring it in, guys. Right? Your job is to not be immature and to learn new tactics, right? So don't let people tell you that feeling angry is wrong. It's not. Smashing stuff in front of your kids is. Right? Yeah.

Listen, you're a brave guy, Richard, and I'm really, really grateful for your call. Really grateful for your call. And if you can't tell, this is the pot talking to the kettle here, and I've worked a long, long time on being angry. And I'm going to tell you right now, there is healing on the other side of that. I laugh a lot more than I used to, man. And I fall asleep most nights.

Not every night, but most nights. And now I love going to Little League games and I used to not be able to go because I would get all right. And your family generationally, right? We talk here at Ramsey solutions about, you know, change your family tree when it comes to money, you're going to change your family tree when it comes to relationships and anger and peace.

But I want to circle all the way back getting mad. That's not always your choice. Getting that lightning bolt of anger, that's rarely your choice. Everything after that is a decision, a choice. And you, my brother, are worth it. Your wife is worth it. And your three kids are worth it. Thank you so much for that call.

Let's go to Nicholas in Lansing, Michigan. What's up, Nicholas? Hey, John. How's it going? Good. What's up, Nicholas? Hey, John. How's it going? Good. What's going on, man? Hey, man. I'm looking for some advice stemming from the peer group I grew up with.

Yes. Growing up, all my friends and I, we all grew up pretty poor. I think the richest of us now as an adult looking back was maybe lower middle class. I'm still friends with almost all my friends from middle school. I just kind of went down a different path in the military. I started learning about finance, economics, and politics and dropped out or finished the degree I was working on, went right back into school for a completely separate IT degree. And now I'm a little after 30 and I'm obsessed with finance. I'm obsessed with investing.

I work in IT and I make good money. I still got all the same friends and not a single one of them has made a progressive move in their life in the last 10 years. And I've been harping on them and harping on them and trying everything I could to get them with some sort of vision, goal, some sort of progress, five-year plan, one-year plan, anything. And I can't get a single one of them to care about anything more than how to maximize their time playing video games. You love those guys, huh? Yeah. Frustrating, huh?

Same four or five guys since middle school. Dude, I'm in the exact same boat, man. Exact same boat. I've got some of my friends are as old as I am. Like our parents knew each other when they were pregnant. Right? Yeah, dude. And you love, love, love those guys.

And you've been able to turn a corner in your life that they haven't. Man, did y'all have some hilarious stories growing up? Just straight hijinks i mean not that i'm gonna talk about on air i don't know what the statute of limitations are yes yes all right here's the here's the good of it and the heart of it okay those guys love you they don't give a crap about your job they love love you. You're just one of the guys. And can I tell you this? And I've learned this.

You're just over 30? Yeah. I was about 38 or maybe 39 even. When it finally started leaking out a little bit, dude, your friends are so proud of you. You're the dude that made it. Like you got out. And when you hear something like that, you look back at the people that you love and you're like, what are you doing? It's not hard. You can just take this trip. Some of them

aren't going to because they choose not to. Some of them aren't going to because their experiences plus their genetics plus their decisions plus their brain chemistry plus, plus, plus.'s just not gonna make they're not gonna make it and they are so proud of you dude and they love you and your job is not to make them have a five-year plan or to make sure that they're not smoking whatever they're smoking or going to whatever your job is just to love them and to make sure y'all are still laughing and telling those old jokes. Make sure they know you're available

if they need something. And it was a hard conversation with me, with my buddies, when I was like, hey guys, why don't you guys, why don't you guys? And they were like, dude, we don't care.

One of my old gang, their dad died, went back, we all hung out, we all told stories, we all laughed. We all drank some and we laughed some more. And I got to see their parents who are now old. And it was a beautiful time. And dude, they were just proud of me and they just loved me.

They're not going to change their life. And I know that's hard and frustrating. You may need even more than that. But at the end of the day, your job is just to be their friend. And if they ever do call, awesome. And if they don't, awesome. Right? Could I ask you a follow-up question? You can ask me anything, man. So currently, I'm spending, you know, through various means, um, I'm spending hundreds of dollars a month,

um, trying to help them out. Um, don't do that. Yeah. The biggest thing I'm doing right now is, uh, I, my, I bought a, a large house, which was renovated into a triplex and I'm renting out two of the units to two of my friends for after utilities, a couple hundred dollars a month. And I was hoping that they would take, you know, the extra hundreds of dollars a month that they would be saving to do something intelligent with it. And, you know, for the first couple of months it worked. And now that it's been near a year, they're doing stuff like getting elaborate tattoos that they can't afford instead of paying down their car that they couldn't afford. And they're buying new gaming, video gaming equipment that they can't afford instead of getting their child into the extracurricular activities that they can't afford.

So here you go, Nicholas. You can love them, but you can't save them. You can love them, but you can't save them. And, and, and, and, there's a tendency to feel guilty because you got out. Because you made some different life choices. Don't feel guilty about who you've become of the hard work you've worked through, the hard work you've got to come. At some point, you're going to have to be less obsessed with accomplishment and achievement and finance and job and, and, and, and. At some point, you're

going to have to reckon with Nicholas because here's the worst part, dude. However successful you become, old Nicholas is going to follow you around with you until you deal with him. But that's not for today. That's not for this call. But yeah, you can love your friends, man, but you can't save them. If you've got the disposable income just to let them live, you can do that. I don't mix that kind of stuff. I don't loan my friends money.

I don't give them money they don't call me for it either um if they want to talk through any situation in their life if they wanted to call you for some help with i.t i'll be there any anytime and they know that and they call right when they're dealing with challenges with their kids or their family or whatever um i don't send them a bill. These are my brothers for years and years and years and years. But I don't send them money, and I don't hire them, right? I wouldn't hire them.

I love them. I wouldn't hire them. And they don't hire me, right? But you can't save them. And this is going to be an awkward unwinding of this, right? How you're going to get them out of this house it's going to be hard huh well i mean sometimes they make it feel like it can be very easy like because like i've made it clear to them you know when, when they moved in, like, I'm trying to help you out. And then,

you know, when, for example, one of them blows, like, I think he blew like $400 on his new girlfriend's kids Christmas presents, and then was late on my rent. I know Nicholas down and I was like, dude, you're, you're spending my money I'm giving to you as charity. Listen, that's the problem. That's the problem. That's the problem. They're not. They're spending their money. They're spending their money.

They are taking your hookup because brothers hook up brothers, but they're spending their money. And that's the problem with cutting deals, with giving money, loaning money to friends and family is it creates a wedge in the relationship. If they were just being idiots, getting tattoos, you would sit by them while they're playing video games and you'd be like, you're an idiot. Or when y'all are grabbing something to eat, you'd be like, that is the stupidest thing. But since you are now in a financial business relationship with these guys, now you are starting to get into, why are you spending? That's mine. That's, as you just said, that's my money.

Here's the deal, Nicholas. It's not. It's their money. You gave them a good deal on rent. So my recommendation is to go back to just being friends with these guys. Get out of doing business. Get out of interfering in their life. Get out of thinking that their decisions are your decisions.

Their bank accounts are your bank accounts. Their money is your money. And this is hard because you love them. Let them know how you guys got a few months and then I got to rent this out because I got to make some money. Oh, bro, it's bullcrap, dude. Yep, it is.

You can even buy drinks. You can do it. You can take them all out to dinner or something. But at the end of the day, it is. You can even buy drinks. You can do it. You can take them out to dinner or something. But at the end of the day, love them. You can love them all day long, but you can't save them. You can't save them. One of the most common questions folks ask me is what they should do when anxiety or panic strikes like a lightning bolt. I've been helping folks one-on-one for years, but I wanted to create something that everyone could use anywhere at any time. So I created a free guided meditation.

It's not really a meditation, but really me just walking with you through your anxiety alarms from start to finish. I'll guide you through a breathing exercise and show you how to lean in, listen, and head towards healing. It is free, and it's for everyone. You can download this guided meditation today for free at johndeloney.com. For this next call,

we weren't able to connect with the caller, but I really loved the email and I wanted to spend a few minutes talking about this. And so the email came in to Kelly through johndeloney.com slash show. This is one of the ones she didn't automatically just hit delete on which she does all of the time because she's angry.

So, so angry. Not really. She's kind and beautiful and all the things. So Kelly, tell us about this email. Alright, so this was Anne from Fresno was emailing in about her mom's habits and her grandparents keep bailing her out so mom has

is running a business a bar and restaurant continually running it into the ground uh grandma's paying about five thousand a month to keep that afloat and then she likes to gamble the dog and thinks that she's doing some drugs she married a guy that then stole some money and put a bunch of money on a credit card. Our pet's heads are falling off. All of it, man. Yeah, so she's continually making these bad choices and the grandparents are continuing to bail her out. And she wants to know how can she talk to her grandparents

and tell them to stop enabling her. How old is this daughter, does it say? No, but it sounds like she is grown okay wow so what do you think i think that i mean should should they stop enabling her yes but they the granddaughter can't make them do that no she can state her case and she can say here's what i think i think you're enabling mom but that's their decision that's their daughter yeah that's their decision to make yeah that's my recommendation there when whenever an adult has a relationship with another adult and they have this burning desire to have a conversation the two things that guide me number one is that person

able to hear me is this, do I need to say something because I just got to say it? Or can they actually hear this conversation? So that's number one. Would your grandparents actually sit down and entertain this, right? The second thing would be go ahead and have the conversation. Why are you not just going? So when anyone asks me, hey, how do I have this conversation? My answer is always just to have the conversation. Map out what you're going to say, write down some bullet points so it doesn't get all chaotic and weird and your head just starts swirling, your heart's racing, and sometimes people cry, sometimes people get fired up and angry. Write down what your thoughts are,

let your grandparents know, hey, I want to have a conversation, and then let them know. I think your monthly cash infusion of up to $5,000 is contributing to my mom making some really bad life choices. And then here's the thing. There's a period at the end of that sentence, at the end of that conversation, and then it's over. You can't hold the outcome. You can't be mad at your grandparents because that is their daughter. Some of this behavior is probably long time coming, right? It's been happening for a long time. And you as daughter have to have a now what conversation with yourself.

You have it, you put it out there, and you got to move on. And you got to be ready for mom to call you and say, how dare you? How dare you take away my livelihood? How dare you go around my back and talk to my parents? How dare you fill in the blank? All kinds of nonsense that how dare you people away my livelihood? How dare you go around my back and talk to my parents? How dare you fill in the blank? All kinds of nonsense that how dare you people say, right? But you got to be ready to burn that bridge with mom. You got to be ready to burn that bridge with grandparents.

And you got to make sure that they can hear this conversation. All of that means it's probably the right thing to do. You probably need to have a hard conversation, and maybe your grandparents just need permission. Probably not. They're probably just going to keep on doing what they're doing. But at least you can sleep well knowing I kept a cool head. I let people know what was on my heart. I spoke honestly and openly.

I put all my cards on the table. I love my mom, and I don't want to see her drink or die young because she's making bad decisions. She can't run a business clearly. She needs to get a regular job. And I don't want my grandparents to end up destitute because they were supporting their daughter. I think that conversation is noble and good. You just got to do it the right way. And again, if your grandparents can't hear it, they can't hear it. They can't hear it. So thanks so much for that note in there, Ann, and thanks, Kelly. I was going to make a joke about Kelly, but this doesn't feel like a funny place to make a joke. So listen, everybody, this is me getting mature on the spot, like live in action.

I just hate when kids feel like they are forced into a parenting role for their parents. I can't stand that. It drives me bananas. And almost every kid I know, adult kid, child kid, feels some sort of responsibility to make sure, quote-unquote, their parents are okay. And I just wish parents were in a situation where they could make better choices. They could let their kids be loved and not force their kids to have to parent them. That's the world we're in. To the moms out there, if your

parents, your elderly parents are having to infuse $5,000 into your failing business, stop. Stop doing that to your parents. Stop doing that to your kids. Just quit. Oh, man. All right, let's wrap up today's show. Let's get out of here. Let's do... Oh, this one's so good. Off the 2001 Expanded Edition. Songs in A minor. They're beautiful and talented and so brilliant.

Alicia Keys. Every song she writes is incredible. But this song, Fallen, goes like this. I keep on falling in and out of love with you. Sometimes I love you. Sometimes you make me blue. If this wasn't romantic, it might be talking about me and Kelly. Sometimes I feel good.

At times I feel used. Loving you, darling, makes me so confused. I keep on falling in and out of love with you. I never loved someone the way that I love you. I never felt this way. How do you give me so much pleasure and cause me so much pain? Just when I think I've taken more than would a fool, golly, I start falling back in love with you.

Alicia, every one of us, this song is for every one of us. I keep falling in love with you. This has been the Dr. John Deloney Show. Thank you.