The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Raising Values: Being Mom

Episode Date: May 19, 2024

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Welcome to the Raising Values Podcast, where the traditional family talks. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify, and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram. You can support the Raising Values Podcast through Patreon. Bill and Gillian are behind the mic, and we hope you enjoy the show. welcome back to Raising Values and happy Mother's Day everyone good morning happy Mother's Day so as I kind of front load in the comments I kind of expect this to be a short show because it's Mother's Day I'm sure everybody has you, you know, mothers to attend to. Yeah. And I'm a mom. Very obviously. And while I love the podcast, I don't want to work today. I wouldn't call this work. I was going to embarrass you with compliments, but you know. Oh, okay. Well, proceed.

bearish your compliments, but you know. Oh, okay. Well, proceed. So, like, I personally think mothers are extraordinarily important, and I would say to a degree almost undervalued in more modern society. Stop fidgeting. I'm not fidgeting. I'm adjusting. But anyway, I think moms are a little undervalued. I think that, you know, for quite a few years now, there's been this push to demean stay-at-home moms and motherhood in general. I think there's been a lot of effort paid towards encouraging women

into the workforce and out of the home and out of traditional motherhood roles. women into the workforce and out of the home and out of traditional motherhood roles. I've seen a lot of discussion around like telling women, well, you're wasting yourself if all you do is be a mom. And that's always kind of rankled me because like I think of motherhood in much the same terms of new fatherhood, where like this is like a woman's ultimate calling in a lot of respects. Not for all women. Some women choose not to be mothers.

But I think that being a mom is a freaking difficult job. I mean. I mean, being a dad can be a difficult job too. But it's Mother's Day. I'll try to accept all of these things. I'm just saying. Motherhood from the outside perspective is an incredibly difficult job

because it requires you to be selfless. It requires you to put other people in front of yourself. It requires you to sacrifice. Well, even down to the physical. Oh yeah, I wasn't even there yet. I didn't know if you had even

thought of that, but I mean, sacrifice your body to, to having children. I have to admit like that watching you go through pregnancy, I did have a flashback to the movie aliens, the, the, the, the alien that burst out of the person's chest and everything. Like I've said time and time again, like, chess and everything. Like I've said time and time again, like, you know, I don't get into the whole women are the fair sex or the weaker sex. I look at men and women as being uniquely designed for the roles that I believe they were supposed to take on. And women putting their lives on the risk, on the line, at risk. Women, in some cases, like irreparably harming their bodies to bring life into this world is incredible like the fact that y'all the fact that your bodies can do that

is amazing to me i saw something today i heard something today that said um childbirth is the second most painful thing a human can go through. The first one is being burned alive. Oh, I thought it was going to be a man catching a cold, which doesn't mean. Oh, no, I was actually thinking like real, like, I think, I don't know if that's true, but. Well, but it's also worth pointing out that prior to like the mid 20th century, or at least the early 20th century, like childbirth was the leading cause of death for women yeah the leading cause now that's twofold first of all the fact that like back in those times men traditionally took on more dangerous jobs so that women didn't have to but childbirth

was like you have to probably all ended up dying anyway because we were giving birth to your children yeah yeah yeah i guess what i'm saying is like you know it's worth pointing out that like every and you and i went through this when when a woman decides to get pregnant like there is a risk involved it's not a it's not always nine months of rainbows and unicorns and you know you're back to washing dishes the afternoon after you give birth like sometimes there's the after you give birth. Like sometimes there's the, even above and beyond the pain, sometimes there's physical damage. Sometimes there's psychological things to unwind afterwards.

It's, it's, it's a, it's not without risk. I mean, I could go into a really long story, but I've been there, done that. We have. So no, it is, it's not without not without risk um and it's not the same for every woman either like becoming a mom it's everyone has their own it's it's a scale and every you know women land on it in every place you know so yeah i don't know i don't know what to say i'm just like yeah okay i'm a mom i did that kyle tell holly we said happy mother's day happy mother's day kyle i mean

to the wilsons yeah but yeah to our tribe mom i didn't see that oh i refer to you as our i refer to you as the the matter of fact's dead mother-again mother. I love that. I can't wait to see all my kids in three weeks. Even the ones that are older than you. Even all the ones that are older than me. Oh, that's sweet. But, yeah.

I don't know. From my perspective, the simple act of becoming a mother is terrifying and amazing enough. becoming a mother is like terrifying and amazing enough. But then having watched you be a mother for 12 years has been, it's been something to behold for me. You know, like I, when I, when I look back on like my own childhood and looking back at my mother retrospectively and my relationship with her, I look at it from a child's point of view, whereas I feel like when I watched you with our child, I can see it from that third party, you know what I'm saying? From like the 30,000 foot perspective and be like, oh, that's how it works. Like mom does get overwhelmed and mom does have worries and mom does get, you know,

overloaded sometimes, but mom is still mom even when she's overloaded like yeah i know i talked to you about this like in reference to my father but like watching him go through open heart surgery was it was world-altering for me because i had always just assumed he was he was superhuman like i never saw this man break i never saw him i never saw him lose control i never saw him i never saw him shaken until then. And then I was like, holy crap, you are human. Look, I can't cry and you cry. Well, then you have to stop crying because that's going to make me start.

Well, you have to stop saying nice things about me. But in any case. And looking at you with Piper, I now see my mom in a different light. Because I know that there are days when you talk all the time about how you can't pour from an empty cup. Can't. And yet you try to. If your daughter needs you, you will dig down in that cup for the last little drop and give it to her. Absolutely.

All day, any day. Yeah. It is the ultimate act of selflessness. Well, and there's no question, like, at least for me, and like I said, moms land on the scale in very different places all the time. Oh, I just got a happy Mother's Day from my sister. Well, my sister-in-law. I love my mother very, very, very much.

I love her very much. I learned watching her that now being a mom and seeing just how stressful it is with one child, I understand why she went crazy. With three. Especially knowing you and your sisters. Yeah, right. We gave her that gray hair.

It merged nicely with the blonde, at least. Yeah, right. I think I would hope, and I'm going to say this in the nicest way possible, what traditions they'll continue with their children and then what didn't work and what things that, you know, I guess not really traditions, but what elements worked for their mom and what elements didn't work. And you can look at that subjectively as a child and think, I don't want that for my child, or I want to continue that for my child. And so it's, you know, I was telling you this yesterday because Piper was, I, when Piper was born, I went into the hospital on Mother's Day.

When Piper was born, I went into the hospital on Mother's Day. And so I was in labor. This close to getting a Mother's Day present. I was in labor on Mother's Day. For 18 hours, wasn't it? Yes, for 18 hours. That little girl did not want to come out. But she waited. She's like, no, Mom, I'm going to let you have your day.

And ever since then, she's been slow to get out of bed. Absolutely. I don't know where i was going with that i almost got my mother's my first mother's day present with piper but um gosh dang it i can't remember where i was going with that but oh i know what it was um so yesterday we celebrated piper's birthday so she turns 12 on tuesday but you know you have to do it on a weekend because friends aren't available during the week, especially in May. I mean, May is just such a hard month for everybody. I've said that time and time again, and it's even harder when you're a teacher and a mom.

So Mays are hard, but we dedicated yesterday to Piper and her birthday. And her birthday. But before all the festivities happened, me and Phil were sitting on the back porch drinking our coffee. And, of course, I'm a blubbering mother who's just crying because she's 12, which means she only has one more year until she's a teenager, which also means she has one more year until she's in high school. And where did the time go? And I'm going to start crying again. Where did the time go? And I'm going to start crying again. Motherhood was really hard for me in the beginning.

I didn't think I was supposed to be a mom after Piper was born. I thought, I'm really sorry, y'all. I wanted four kids, and I thought I had believed the myth of motherhood being this easy, magical experience. And I didn't get that. And I was so convinced that I wasn't supposed to be a mom. And for years, I don't think I had the connection that I was led to believe that I would have with my child. And I thought that I was a failure for so long. And I unfortunately hold on to that in a lot of ways. I've always been a very harsh judger of myself. And I try my best to do my best in every situation with every relationship. But my focus has been on making sure that my husband is loved and cared for, my child is loved and cared for. And I try, I think the one thing that I

have to tell myself every day, because it's always in the back of my head, the interactions I have with her daily is don't fuck her up. Don't fuck her up. And I'm so scared. Sorry for the F word. I'm so, um, I'm so scared that I'm going to give her some complex or I'm going to tell her something that it's going to stick with her for the rest of her life. And I'm going to do something that's just, it's going to change the course of how she thinks and, you know, the direction she goes in. And I'm, I try to, there are things that I don't want to carry over from my childhood. And I'm very much aware of those things on the daily. But motherhood in the beginning was not easy for me.

And it's gotten easier. But now we're getting into a different stage of her life as a teenager. And it's getting harder again. And you become self-conscious. Where do you fit into your child's life? Do they really value you? Do they, you know, you have to now navigate teenagers and that's hard. Um, cause because I mean, I remember so many things from being a child and I always thought, I always had these moments when Piper would come up to me and she would say different things or she would ask different questions or she would do something. And I can remember myself asking those same questions and saying those same things and doing those same things and thinking,

that is so cool. Like, she's a little me. Like, I feel like she's a little me in that instance, but she's definitely a daddy's girl. And that's totally fine. That is so common with girls to, to navigate to their dad and you give her so much that I can't and so much that I've never been able to give her. Um, and it's nothing, it's nothing that she's done. It's nothing that she has said. And it's, it's, well, besides her teenage tone, the teenage tone in her voice gets to me. And, um, a lot of it is just me and my, um,

not lack of confidence. Mom guilt. I have a lot of mom guilt. I don't know if I'll ever get rid of the mom guilt. Do you think any moms? I, I'm not saying that my case was harder and different and better in a way, like it was harder than most moms. But my case was really hard.

And so I don't know if there's a huge population of women who go through what I went through. So I don't know if the mom guilt will go away. She's not affected by it. Well, at the end of the day, that's the important part, is that we put her on the path she needs to be on, regardless of what's going on with us. But, you know, the one thing I thought of, because you and I have talked before about, we have to catch up on comments.

I know, I see all that. Okay, so guide the comments. I don't know who you are, but I'm wondering, like, I'm wondering if you and I have spoken offline before. But this stands out to me. Being vulnerable not because you are, but because you and your family depend on it. You have to be. Yeah.

I mean, call it what it is. To me, I have always looked at situations as our children know, our children look to us for a lot of things. But one of those things is like reassurance. Like, is everything going to be okay? Is mom going to get better? Is dad going to get better? If somebody's going to the doctor or the hospital, if somebody's sick in bed. You know, all those things like our children depend on us to, they look to us to say, okay, as long as mom isn't freaking out, everything's going to be okay. And you can be in the middle

of a grade A, like USDA prime shit fit inside of your head. But know that I have got to hold my, I've got to hold this together. I've got to, because if I fly apart, she gets worried. I do that or you do that? Both of us. I've seen you because if I fly apart she gets worried I do that or you do that both of us I've seen you do it yeah I mean when the adrenaline pumps and you've got to act and whatever of course I know I can I've done it before many times and it's not always fun but yeah yeah. Yeah, and Kyle was just echoing Harrison is a mama's boy. I don't have any science to back this up. I can't point you to a website that gives you statistics,

but I think that is just boys go to mom and then girls go to dad. I was a daddy's girl. I still am a daddy's girl. There might be something to that i wonder if it's not more like personality aligned because like because there are aspects of pipers like you and i've talked about the soup that is our child and on the one hand there are aspects of her personality that are 110% me. Yeah.

She's hyper-rational. She's, you know, in some ways thrives on structure, in some ways extremely organized, very, very gifted intellectually, as is her mother. Did you just call me dumb? No. As is her mother. Did you just call me dumb? No. But what I was getting at is, like, she has obviously inherited, like, whatever my talent is for mathematics, she's inherited. But she's also an amazing artist, which did not come from anywhere in my genetics.

She's, she grasps science and biology in a way that I see mirroring you. Emotionally, I think she's much closer to the way you operate than I do. That just is because she has a uterus and an ovaries. Yeah. I can't help that. But I guess my point of view is, it's like, I wonder if the reason why she's, quote unquote, a daddy's girl is because her personality is closer to you so then why wouldn't because i mean obviously you like having me around i hope so why wouldn't she if y'all's personalities are kind of similarly aligned you know i'm saying it's the old opposite

it's a track thing but at the same time like there are times when she absolutely will not go to me with certain things. Yeah. A lot of times it's like, you know, 12-year-old girl type of stuff. But there, I mean, sometimes it's stuff like, you know, talking about friends at school or fights she's been in. There's just, there's times she'd rather talk to you. And I think that is because she, whether instinctively or intellectually,

understands I can get what I need from mom or I can get what I need from dad. Those are different things, and they always will be. I mean, this is not to get really biblical, but, like, I think there's a reason why, biologically, man and woman are designed to come together and create a child. It's supposed to take two of us. create a child. It's supposed to take two of us. You know, I, I'm all, I, Gillian always tries to help me be careful, like about getting too hard on like single mothers. Cause there are quite a few out there, but like, I just, I've, I've, I've seen, I see people out there trying to raise children by themselves as being at a, at a serious deficit because you don't have that other side. I agree with you with that. And we won't go down that road, but yeah, they are at a deficit,

which means they have to work harder. Yeah. But I guess what I'm saying is like, from my perspective, mothers give children something that fathers, I don't think can. Mothers give children something that fathers, I don't think, can. Like fathers, again, on the averages on the whole, are usually very important for things like structure and discipline. And, you know, like the fathers are the ones that are like, bit more, you know, nurturing and understand your feelings and your emotions. And you have to have both those components for children. But I know, and this could just be you and me individually, but I feel like the averages apply. But, like, I know where I struggle and you don't struggle in those areas. I, um, I heard another thing

because it's mother's day. So there's a lot of doctors who come out and psychologists or whatever, and they're on their Tik TOKs or Instagrams or whatever. And I don't, so again, I don't know how true this is and I don't have any websites to back up with statistics or scientific data, but she said, um, she said a child's adult mental health. So as this child is growing up and becomes an adult, their mental health is established. And that's probably not the word, but it is determined by the mental health of their mother growing up. So if mom is, I probably shouldn't read too far into that. Cuckoo bananas. If mom is cuckoo bananas, their mental health will not be intact as an adult.

That will continue on with them. And in some cases I've seen that, and then in others, like myself, that will continue on with them. And in some cases I've seen that, and then in others, like myself, I've worked to, I am not, I have to say this, I'm not trying to talk negatively about my mother. She was a great mom. She made a lot of sacrifices and did a lot of things trying to talk negatively about my mother. She's, she was a great mom. She, she did, she made a lot of sacrifices and did a lot of things and made, um, made our childhood the best that it could be for what my parents were able to do emotionally, physically, and so forth, monetarily, all that stuff. Um, but I can see that. I can see a daughter following in mom's footsteps I could see a son

being emotionally unhinged because that's all he's ever known as his mom was socially I mean emotionally unhinged and so that's just that's just the norm that's how you act. And that's why it's so important. And the two of us, before we even had children, agreed that we are the example set for her. She has to be able to look to us even when we're not performing. And performing is not the word I want to use. But what I'm saying is like when we're. Even when we're down, she's still looking to us for the example. Exactly. And not even down is the right word that I'm trying to say.

It's when we're not thinking about it, when we're not in the moment of this is a teaching moment or whatever, when it's just an everyday, we're in our own element, we're thinking of our own things. It's still a teaching moment for her. She's still watching and seeing how we react to different things. I don't know. I mean, like I said earlier, like I'm constantly thinking of those things. I'm even thinking of those things when I'm teaching her class, you know, because I do have to wear two hats with her. And it's unfortunate sometimes that teacher hat has to

outrule mom hat. But I think about me being in front of my class teaching and how I'm treating other children and what I'm saying to her because I don't want her ostracized because I am her daughter, but I can't kowtow to her too much because I am her teacher. So I don't know. You're best a child's or a young adult's best example of what a relationship should be and how or maybe not even example, but they're going to look to their mothers. Their model. Yes. Thank you.

But they're going to look to their mothers and say to themselves, I'm either going to continue this trend, good or bad, or I'm going to go my own way and do things my own way because that's just how I want to break away from that. And I have definitely broken away from. and it's not just my mom. It was, it's generational, you know, it's just, it's just generational. Yeah. I mean, I know generational trauma is a phrase that's thrown around a lot, a lot in modern times. But, you know, I've, I've long said that, you know, even though I'm notorious for quoting your father-in-law on many things, because I think he was right about a lot. I mean, he was certainly a lot of my model for how to be a dad and a husband. But there are still things that he and I do differently because I looked at the way he did things and I was like, it worked for you.

It just doesn't work for me. It's not the way I want to do things. But even I am forced to admit much more often that I prefer he was right about a lot of things. I didn't take the entire Pops Rabelais manual and throw the whole thing in the trash. I just yanked a couple of pages out and said,

those pages go over here. This book can stay put. Yeah. But I do want to catch on a couple of these. Joe said, morning, happy Mother's Day from Joe and Jen. Happy Mother's Day, Jen. Kyle said, I get called mother every day at work,

but knowing where you work, I don't think it's in quite the same context. Yeah, that one needs a little bit more explanation, Kyle, and it might not be, you might just need to text us. Yeah, I don't think it's quite the same context but you know and i do want to throw this up because i agree with joe that's too much weight on just mom both parents mental position affects the child parents not parent i and and i agree joe and that's why i said said I shouldn't read too much into this or think too much into this because then the mom guilt will just shoot back up and then the mom guilt cup will be filled again. And I agree, but yes. I do wonder, though, if the reason that is still the preconception at this point, though, is because traditionally mothers do spend more time with the child and fathers are out doing other things so the child again like when you're talking about psychology especially child psychology you're

looking backwards so i wonder if they're looking at like our generation that was largely raised raised homes by stay-at-home moms yeah largely not exclusively unfortunately but largely like i was raised by a stay-at-home mom. So, yeah, my mom's mental health was absolutely going to impact me as a child because I spent much, much, much more of my time with her than I did my father. My dad worked. Mom stayed home. So, until I started, like, kindergarten, I was with my mother every hour I wasn't asleep. Yeah. But on that same line though, I do believe that it is,

it is the mother's responsibility and even the father's. It falls to both the parents that if something is wrong with your mental health, it's not just affecting you. It is affecting your husband or your spouse or your significant other, and it's definitely affecting your children. And you owe it to yourself and all of those people that you care for to get help and get through that. There was a point in those horrible years after Piper was born that I had to say to myself, I'm not just killing myself. I'm killing them. Like they need me.

They, my husband needs a wife and my daughter needs a mother. I'm not just killing myself. I'm killing them. They need me. My husband needs a wife and my daughter needs a mother. And so it wasn't so much a hard decision because I knew it needed to happen, but it was finding the strength to just call and make an appointment to talk to a psychiatrist to figure out was there medication that needed to be taken or was there a holistic way to get through this maybe it was just through counseling but there was absolutely not there was so many hormonal imbalances that happened after piper was born that i was just a can of soup that made no sense. You know what I'm saying?

Like the hormones were just so badly out of whack. But so many people depend on your mental health. And if you're not going to do it for just yourself, then you really need to consider who else it's affecting, especially if it's affecting your children. That may sound really harsh and not the most politically correct thing to say about mental health and may sound selfish or not whatever. I don't think it sounds selfish at all I think that by it's very definition being a mother means you're responsible

for other people besides yourself yeah it's go ahead but again parallels here and I know you and I have talked about this every time I get philosophical and you bear with me while I'm letting it out but like I draw

a lot of parallels between motherhood father fatherhood, and being a spouse. Like, being a spouse means I have to, like, in my pyramid of things I care about, Phil is no longer at the top. Phil has to go down a couple of notches, and I need to install wife and then child above me. That's the way it's supposed to work. And being mom means, yeah, you're still a spouse and you should care about your husband, but that child has to come ahead of you. And I have repeatedly and firmly said, regardless of what other people believe, that's their own business. But I personally believe that in order to be a mother or a father, you have to be selfless.

You have to care about your child more than you do yourself. It gets a lot more sticky when you start talking about, do you put the child above the spouse? Because I don't think that's appropriate either. But I don't think there's a debate about, like, at least the way that I am as a father. My child comes ahead of me. If there's two meals left in this house, I'm going hungry or I'm going to go kill something in the woods and eat it. I'm not taking from you and Piper because my responsibility is to take care of both of y'all. And in much the same way, when we get past the physical realm,

you're talking about like the emotional, psychological realm. past the physical realm, you're talking about like the emotional psychological realm. Your responsibility is to make sure that she feels loved and heard and respected and cared for, even if it comes at a contemporary cost to you. But like you just said, when you're talking about, when you're talking about like the situation you were in after birth, where you you weren't there but you knew you had to be so you made a very difficult decision to go get counseling to go get treatment and to do whatever it took to get yourself back on the path you felt like you need to be on and i feel like yeah you're right if a person won't do for themselves and if they won't do for their spouse damn much better gonna do for you, kid.

And I just, I will always upset people when I tell them I don't accept excuses for that. Like, you and I came in to being parents different from other people's experience. We intentionally had Piper. We wanted to be a mother and father. Like, this wasn't an oops. And this wasn't a, well, if it happens, it happens. It was like a, it was a very, it was a very concerted, directed, we want to be parents. And we actually even put that off for a while to make sure that when we became parents, we kind of had things, we had the groundwork laid. You know, we weren't living with roommates. We weren't living at home with mom and dad know we weren't living with roommates we weren't living

at home with mom and dad we weren't living in a slum we both had jobs we were both working our butts off to get ourselves established we were saving money we did every we did every bit of this in a very directed manner and i feel like as a result of that, we understood the weight of what we were taking on. Or we thought we did. Thought we did. I thought I knew what it was going to be like to be a mom and to go through the physical and the mental parts of being a mom. I was broad-sighted. Yeah, I will point this out.

The guy that commented said, no risk, no reward. This is why I adopted the always risk, always reward mindset. And I will just say this much from my own experience, because I am adopted. If there's anybody in here that's really close to me that's watching, they know that about me.

It's not something I'm secretive about, but for a lot of listeners, like I am adopted. So I've been with my parents, the Raveleys since I was, I think like three, four days old and they are the parents I've always known. And if they had never told me I was adopted,

I would have no earth. Well, I would have probably figured out eventually cause I don't look anything like either one of them. But like in terms of the way they treated me, you wouldn't know. You couldn't because they treated me like no less than their own flesh and blood. And so even for those mothers out there that become mothers via adoption, like one of the families that's on right now, like even though you may not put your body at risk there's still a lot i mean all the same responsibilities and all the same adjustments that come with how to

be a mom i think women who adopt have it harder and i don't know i need to talk to my mother-in-law about that but that it when you're, you have nine months to go through. You're growing and you, you know, you're going through this whole, you have something growing inside of you. And it makes itself known. Well, yes, it makes itself known, but you're going through those changes just as much as the child is going through those changes. But when you adopt, that woman is most likely not pregnant. And then there's a baby placed in her arms. And then now what are you supposed to do kind of thing? But I mean, your mom knew what she was doing. So I don't know what I'm trying to say here. What I'm trying to say is I don't believe that it's easier to adopt than it is to have your own child.

I think in a lot of ways it's harder and those moms should be, whew, those are some superheroes that don't wear capes, those moms that adopt. Well, Mia, that was kind of the whole point of me wanting to do the show with you this morning is because I think all moms are superheroes and again like i i you know like when we in the past when we've talked about like fathers and the masculine role in raising children everything like i'm very i'm i pulled no punches i think there's been a lot of effort placed upon like get dad out of the picture we don't need men to raise children and toxic masculinity is an entire term I wish would just disappear off the face of the earth. It aggravates the

hell out of me. But I also feel like there's been a minimizing of the role of motherhood and a minimizing of like the incredible sacrifice and the incredible challenge it is to be a mother. Like there are people in society that would tell you the best thing you could have done instead of arranging your career around having work-life balance, you should have stayed in the career you were in before, gone up the corporate ladder and so on and so forth. And like that was a pursuit worthy of you, but taking a step down, downshifting to have more time at home with your daughter to be a mom, that wasn't, that's beneath you. And I cast that aside. I think that's an incredibly boneheaded thing

to say to a mother. I think for the women who decide to take that challenge on, I think it is incredibly humbling to watch. I think it's incredibly difficult. And, you know, quite frankly, I hate to use the old trope of without mothers, none of us would be here. But it's the truth, you know? Yes, it is. I mean, yes. It is. you know yes it is i mean yes it is yeah so is there anything else we want to talk about in relation to motherhood like i i think all moms are mothers that don't i think all mothers are superheroes that don't wear capes

i agree like i've i have watched you over the past 12 years, and you have 100% convinced, you know, not like I ever doubted it, but like you firmly convinced me that I think all mothers are unsung heroes. Don't make me cry again. But there's also one other thing. And I guess this little bit of advice is almost more for the men out there. And I guess this little bit of advice is almost more for the men out there. This is Phoebe. This is her sister. She is one of the best mothers I know.

Seeing y'all's daughter and the way she navigates through life, it shows how good y'all are as parents. Thanks, sister. Why do you have to make me cry, Phoebe? I mean, isn't that what she's been doing since y'all were kids? You're a good mom, too. You've had your struggles. And if anyone can say mom who doesn't wear a cape, I think Piper. God, I will always do that. Bailey is pretty lucky to have you, too.

I'm super proud of you you haven't always been in the best spot to be a mom and you've come such a long way as a person and now she's a pretty cool grandma and now you're a grandmother of six

and but I'm really really proud of you, Phoebe. Anyway, this is not our normal podcast. We don't ever do a normal podcast. I guess that's why people tune in, maybe. That's why you listen. But what I was going to say, yes, Phoebe, y'all are both crying.

Sorry, not sorry. But what I was going to say, yes, y'all, Phoebe, y'all are both crying. Sorry, not sorry. But I was just going to, and this last little bit is really like for me to the men out there. And this might sound a little bit crazy, but it's me. Y'all have to give me that. But like I told Gillian a while ago that whether she realized it or not, the time we were dating, she was auditioning to be my wife and the mother of my children. Like I, I am probably, I probably came around to this thought of like so-called intentional dating much younger than most, most men do. But then again,

I've always been an old man at heart. So, but like, I came around to this thought process a long time ago that like, if dating isn't leading to marriage and a family, then what's the point? It's, it's, it's aggravation. I don't need, it's a drain on my money and time. I could be, I'd be better off pursuing my own things. So when I was dating you, like whether you realize it or not, you were auditioning to be Mrs. Ravele from me standing on that sidewalk and you standing on the sidewalk with your hands covering your mouth because, oh, damn, he's home a day early. Literally from that moment, you were auditioning to be who you are now in my eyes. and without ever saying it, I was looking for things in you that I knew I had to have as a spouse, but also things I wanted as the mother of my child. I wanted a person who could nurture, because I know that's something I fall short on sometimes. I don't fall short of nurturing. I don't think I'm a very good nurturer.

You do better. You're better with her than you are with me, at least. With me, you're very much... Suck it up, buttercup. Suck it up, buttercup. It's cold. Get your butt out there. Life sucks. Get a helmet.

But to be fair, I was looking for someone that can nurture. I was looking for someone who was more emotionally intelligent than I was because I've always struggled with that. for someone who was more emotionally intelligent than I was because I've always struggled with that. I was looking for the woman who could complement everywhere I fell short so that together the two of us could pursue parenthood. See, I was not thinking those things at all. Cute, big muscles, military uniform, rock on. He's really cute in those BDUs.

Let's see what will happen from here 20 years later. 20 years later, here you are next to your knucklehead husband, you know, podcasting with a child. With almost a teenager. Almost a teenager. Why do you have to say that? I guess I have one more year. Make the year count. Excuse me.

Yeah. But like I said, I mean, that's my message to men out there, even though it's Mother's Day. Is if you are dating, if you're at the age where you're not married yet, start asking yourself right now, is this woman going to be the mother of my children? Because if she's not, she might be a fine lady, but you need to pump the brakes and consider where you're going. Because if your ultimate goal is to have children and establish a family, this isn't so much an amorous thing as it is a, it's a, it's a, it's a job interview. You know, like you need to ask yourself, is this, does this woman have the qualities of being a mom? And I don't, I don't fall into, there's two things I don't fall into.

One is thinking that all women are supposed to be mothers. Some are not, some don't want to be, no, no fault, no, no anger at them. I know women who are like dead set. I don't want to have kids. And I'm like, good, you shouldn't have kids. Like if you don't want to, if you're not prepared to put your life on hold, if you don't want that, don't do it. Don't go down that road. It's fulfilling. It's a wonderful experience, but it's fricking hard. And it requires you sacrifice something to do it properly, in my opinion. But the other thing I'm going to say is that I don't believe, I know that when you first had Piper, you expressed to me that you'd always been told, well, when the child is born, they're placed in your arms. You have this like this motherhood moment and like, oh, I'm a mom now. And all that just comes to you.

And I don't buy that. I think it is an intentional decision you have to make. I think that if you have a person who's not displaying the qualities of being a mom before they get pregnant, they're not likely to suddenly start finding it afterwards. Okay, but did I before? Yes. But I didn't when I had her. You had a couple of complications along the way that caused you to stumble out of the box. But once you got your funeral, you started running.

I'm just saying, to use the track and field analogy. Like from my perspective, yes, I absolutely saw in you. I saw in the way you dealt with other small children in your profession before Piper was born. I knew you had it in you to be that nurturer, to be that gentle person who could act as a mother. I knew you could. I'd seen you do it. Just seeing you with your nieces and nephews who were babies when we first got together. Like there are people who you hand them a small screaming child in a diaper and they

just immediately fly apart and you were not that person. I became that person. You became and then you you went and got help and fixed it no i can't even walk over to the preschool you might have a little bit of trauma i can't hear a baby cry i don't i just can't do it i didn't even hold my great nephew um Bailey's baby, Jackson. I wouldn't even hold him until he was months old. I don't know.

I don't know how I'll be with Dante either. He and Gigi will love you from afar, my sweet boy. Baby see me with the big beard and the resting, the RBF. And they're just like, nope, nope. I don't want anything to do with that man. Give me back the mom. She sweats with Jackson. I did.

I kept going, what do I do? He's crying. What do I do with this child? Pat him on the back and love on him, but he'll chill out eventually. Anyway. Anyway. That was a sweet episode. You made me cry.

I haven't cried on the podcast in a very long time. In like what, two months? No, I don't know. Probably. I just, I want to take the opportunity because like the title of the episode is being mom. And I just, I think that, I think that moms go without recognition a lot. And I think some of that is because of the selfless aspect of it. They kind of fall into being like the unsung hero.

I'm not doing anything standout to deserve praise. I'm being mom. That's what I'm supposed to be. It's kind of like all the time when you tell me some things you compliment me on. And I'm's, that's what I'm supposed to be. It's kind of like all the time when you tell me some, some, some things you compliment me on and I'm like, that's what I'm supposed to do. I'm your husband. I'm Piper's dad. I'm supposed to do those things. You don't, at least in my, where I come from, like, you know, men don't get participation trophies for being men. You're supposed to do that. Women don't either. But again, this is why I wanted to take 48 minutes and, you know, just give you a little bit of praise because I see what you do

as a mom and I see how difficult it is. And I just wanted all the other mothers out there to know that, you know, even if we're not the greatest at saying it out loud, like those efforts are definitely noticed. And even if you think they're not, they reflect in your children. If you have a happy, well-adjusted child that's not like a stuttering, blubbery mess hiding in the corner, you've done something right as a mom. Well, you can't say that. You can't say that because there could be some hidden problems with the child gillian never just lets me have like a literary moment like the whole point of say of using flowery speech is

that it doesn't have to be a hundred percent keep you truthful and honest you she's gonna eat these words later when she says something that's not exactly pinpoint perfectly true, but it's meant to illustrate a point. And I say that's not perfectly true. That's only 99.9% true. Well, there are children like that, and they're not like that because of the failure of their mother. Moms, 99.9% of the time, if your kid is halfway well-adjusted, you've done an okay job. Still too much of a percentage. Oh, good God.

Okay. It's Mother's Day. i can say what i want to say we're gonna kick this out of the door you're gonna go get your nails done and i'm gonna go run some errands with the child and what are we eating for dinner we need to figure that out i love food if i get back quick enough we might be able to do some pot roast if you feel like it again or if you're not over it you're over it you're over it for now anyway y'all have a great Sunday we'll figure out dinner on our own

and happy Mother's Day to everybody who watched I love you all thank you and have a great day bye I love you all. Thank you.