The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Raising Values: Millenial Parenting

Episode Date: June 9, 2024

https://www.facebook.com/RaisingValuesPodcast/www.pbnfamily.comhttps://www.instagram.com/raisingvaluespodcast/http://www.mofpodcast.com/www.prepperbroadcasting.comhttps://rumble.com/user/Mofpodcastwww.youtube.com/user/philrabSupport the showMerch at: https://southerngalscrafts.myshopify.com/Shop at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ora9riPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mofpodcastPhil stumbled onto a critique of Millenial parenting, and he and Gillian both belonging to that particular group they felt it their place to discuss and offer their own perspective. Spoiler alert, if you're looking for them to disagree across the board....you're in for a shock. https://www.syracuse.com/advice/2024/05/dear-annie-these-millennials-dont-understand-we-earned-our-retirement.htmlRaising Values Podcast is live-streaming our podcast on our YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Rumble. See the links above, join in the live chat, and see the faces behind the voices.family, traditional, values, christian, marriage, dating, relationship, children, growing up, peace, wisdom, self improvement, masculinity, feminity, masculine, feminine

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. Phil and Gillian are behind the mic, and we hope you enjoy the show. Welcome to Raising Values. Good morning, everybody. Happy stormy Sunday. Yeah, it's... I mean, we drove through a fair bit of it yesterday,

but it's still out there doing its best to... Yeah, so you'll probably hear some rain, wind, and thunder. It's calmed down right now, i have here heard some more thunder it got pretty bad this morning in um youngsville where phoebe lives oh well that's what's about to come through here yeah i know i looked and saw it so it's been pretty gross here in the south for weather anyway anyway old people talking about the weather we're not that old no we're not that old so but it does bear on the present conversation because i was scrolling through the internet this past week as i do when we're looking for a topic and i came across a dear annie letter from a an older couple that were in their 70s.

I think the wife was in the 70s, husband was 80 years old, and they were kind of giving a critique of their millennial children and their parenting, which I thought would be interesting because you and I are millennial parents, but we're also very critical of a lot of millennial parenting. But, okay, yes, we are technically millennials, but we're also zennials. And I think

that I do think, time out, don't laugh at me, I do think that that plays a role in how we parent Piper. I just think it's funny that you're so adamant that like, oh, no, no, no, don't lump me with those people. Not a millennial.

I'm a zennial. I will take that subgroup any day over millennials. But I do think some millennials obviously are aging and we're learning the ways of the world and things like that. We are learning the ways of the world and things like that. We are learning the ways of the world. I would hope, bearing in mind that the oldest millennials are 40 now, I would hope we've already learned the ways of the world a little bit. Well, I'm talking about the younger generation of the millennials. But what we're going to talk about today, I think we see in,

what is the group after the millennials? Gen X? No. No. That's before us. Gen X. Okay, so Gen Z. Gen Z are old enough to have children and be parents. Frighteningly enough. And I think a lot of what we see, what we're going to talk about is the younger millennials and Gen Z. I really do. So let's get into it. So today we're talking about millennial parenting.

And we've already gone over the fact that we are technically millennials, but we don't raise our child the way that this article stated. But what I see a lot of, oh my gosh, I see so much of this. So, Phil, you did some banners to help keep us on track. And these three, I only have four banners up. This is going to be a lot of just you and I talking back and forth. But the three banners are kind of bullet points from the grandparents' perspective of millennial parenting. And then the last one was Reddit's response to this, which is like two words and that's it. I thought it was pretty flippant, to be honest. Yeah. I didn't read the

Reddit responses. I did read the article. I think it is important that we talk about the article first. Yeah. So it was a grandmother who had written into Dear Abby, Dear Annie. I don't know. It was one of those Dear columns. And she was complaining about how they had reached their retirement age. And they had saved up all their money and their time. And they wanted to do things for themselves. But they were constantly being pulled into bringing their grandkids to this practice. Or bringing them to school. Or bringing them to that.

And then they had to attend all the things that the kids were doing and that they weren't getting home until 9 o'clock some nights. And then other times that they were traveling because the baseball or softball games were in other states. And so they were always somewhere, something, doing something for their children to take care of their grandchildren. And they weren't able to enjoy their retirement the way that they had planned because she felt her child, her child, her daughter or whatever, I guess it was her daughter, was not planning her grandchildren's life productively. And in so having to pull her and her husband into basically helping to raise their children because they were overextended in extracurriculars and all that other stuff. So I see it all the time, all the time at school.

Yeah. So now this is like, the one thing I couldn't be sure about because of the way this was written was I couldn't tell, I couldn't tell how much of the, because she expressed two things and she mixed them back and forth. But I couldn't tell how much of her frustration was the fact that she and her husband were being expected to bust the kids around when mom and dad were both too busy. And how much of it was just the fact that

there were so many extracurricular things going on, they felt... Compelled? They felt compelled to go to all these things. In other words, I couldn't tell how much of this was mom and dad didn't ask us to do this, but we feel compelled to because it's for our grandkids. We just wish they would tone it down a bit. And that's a different situation to me from mom and dad said,

hey, we're busy, can you go bus the kids around to this? That's a totally different thing for me, at least. Yeah, I think in the article there was two different things going on. There was the guilt of not attending their grandchildren's events and things like that. And then there was the asking and not using the complete sentence of no to tell her child, her daughter, no, I'm not going to take your kids to practice today, or no, I have this to do today, or whatever. No is a complete sentence. No is a complete sentence.

I like to tell people that. Yeah. So both of those things were there in the article. Yeah. But I wanted to tease those things apart because for me, and I think for you, those are different issues. And one's really not an issue. Like, to me, if this was your parents or my parents that came to me and said, you're involved in so many things, we feel compelled to come to all these things,

I would tell my parents to be like, you're not required to. Like, if you're busy or you just don't feel like going, you're not breaking my heart. You're not breaking my kid's heart. Just stay home for a day. It's fine. It's okay, really. Like, to me, I feel like that's grandma guilting herself, and that's not on her kids.

But on the opposite side of things, if you and I were calling our parents up on a regular basis saying, hey, I need you to take Piper over to this or take Piper over to that. And understand, I get the whole argument of it takes a village to raise a kid we've both leaned on our parents at a time or two there have been times where i've had to wake up at five o'clock in the morning when piper was a little bitty to bring her to hammond so that grandma could watch her while i went to work in new orleans and then i'd come home and get her or wherever i was working at the time i can't remember but there

were times when we did have to lean on both of our parents. But those were extenuating circumstances, usually illness. Like we were in a situation in a lot of times, like once I got, once I had been working long enough to build up a bit of sick leave, if Piper was sick, I stayed home with her because it wasn't a big of an issue. But there was a time when I had so little sick leave. Uh, if I had to stay home with that child we were we were losing money like so there were there were moments in time where we did have to fall back on the village to help with Piper but I don't feel like that was we just overscheduled her and we we created this situation where we need somebody else's help and I feel like that's

what some of these parents are a little guilty of is like you've crammed so many things into the week, so many activities, so many obligations, so much crap. That if any one of these little cards falls out of place, you need somebody to step in and wrangle your kid now. And I just, I don't know. Like to me, that's too hectic of a lifestyle for me to want to indulge in, much less subject my kid to. I don't feel like, and maybe I don't have the memory of this, but I don't feel like we've ever overscheduled her. We never did. I feel like when we did have to fall back on our parents, it was because she was sick and I had to work or you had to work or whatever. And your mom is in my head because I did, I remember having

to take her over there a lot. Now my mom watched Piper for a while. Um, but she would come over here, but that wasn't, that was a, that was a weird issue. That was like a weird thing that happened. There was a lot of guilt thrown around and a lot of things that were said of you know there was just a lot a lot of things that that's almost a whole separate episode by itself dancing around this so that i'm not hurting anybody's feelings but there it was it what it boiled down to was me not having a backbone enough to say, Mom, I really appreciate your help, but we don't need your help anymore. Eventually my backbone was allowed to kick in, and I said,

We got it. Thanks. Get out. She's going to daycare. Anyway, so your banner says too many extracurricular activities and too little downtime. What we decided when Piper was young and starting to get into a school where there was all these extra things that she could do. Clubs and stuff like that. Yeah. We made the decision that she could only go into one extracurricular after-school activity, whether it was art or drama or whatever she wanted to do.

She hasn't really been a sports kind of girl. But she dabbled in playing the violin for a little bit. We've always encouraged her to do something other than go to school and sit on the couch and watch YouTube. Have something you can put your energy into and get a return on that investment from. But we've also been very firm about, like you said, we're not going to do like 15 different things at the same time.

And that's been for two reasons. First of all, because I don't think it's healthy for her to be, you and I are adults and we don't think it's healthy for us to have to run around that much and juggle that many balls at the same time. Like it's just, it's too much stimulation. I don't want to. It's too much stress. So if we don't think it's good for us, it's certainly not good for a 12-year-old.

Right. Well, let's not say 12-year-old yet because that's my next point, but go ahead. Okay. Young, younger kid. Young, any younger kid. Well, I guess you could say 12, but if we're talking about Piper, but I'm sorry, go ahead. Anyway. My brain's all over the place this morning.

But like for me, it's also, and this is something that was mentioned in the article, like I don't care for that because it cuts into family time. Like I place a priority on those moments we spend together, the three of us. And I am noticing that as she ages, she's slowly pulling back a little at a time and she's becoming like more independent which we knew was going to happen sooner or later yes it's it's a little odd to watch from our perspective but like a little sad yeah but again that's why for all these years i was so hell-bent on no we are going to have family time we're going to have time where it's just the three of us we're going to like go out and get ice cream we're going

to go hang out the lakefront we're to go for a ride we're going to do things just the three of us that's not you and I sitting on the bench while Piper runs around and does stuff in a group because then having to bundle everything back up so that we can get to dance or, and then bundle everything up from dance to go to art. And it's where we're literally just a taxi service, not even really knowing if that's a, does she really want to do all those things? Like, does she,

I guess that's my thing. I'm sorry. I interrupted you, but we, we made sure that she only did one thing so that she could focus on that one thing. School was top priority. School was always top priority. Anything she had to do, a lot of times, like for homework and things like that, she's been really fortunate with teachers that give her the homework on Monday, it has to be completed by Friday. So that opened up a lot of time on our schedule.

She didn't have homework every night except for second grade. She had homework every night for two hours or more. So we said one extracurricular, we're going to go do this. Maybe the extracurricular was two hours or whatever. But I didn't want to be a taxi service. And I didn't want to put her into something that she started to dread now that did start she did get into stuff especially like this year she got into art class again and about three quarters way through she didn't want to do it she didn't want

to do it anymore but we're not a quitter family so she had plus the tuition was paid for so she was going to art class whether she liked it or not um there was a couple times where we were like okay it's been a really stressful week you've had finals or you've had exams whatever skip tonight we'll eat pizza watch tv together as a family um i was actually kind of reluctant to do some of that stuff though because those three hours that she was in our class was our date night so I did I was like look I only get one week one day a week with your dad so can I please I need you to go to class anyway I didn't I I often feared if she was in all of these different extracurriculars that she

she started with a passion for it but eventually because she was so stressed and so exhausted that she would lose that passion for it. And then where would she be in a few years not having the same interests of the things that she really enjoyed because it was too much work? In a similar vein but kind of different, I was advised a very long time ago. I'd love to attribute this to your father-in-law, but it may not have come from him. But somebody gave me some really great advice a long time ago and said, never do anything you love for a living. In other words, like, I enjoy baking. I was told the exact opposite.

No, that's BS. But here's my perspective. You never work a day in your life. Yeah, that's BS. You will always work. And you will grow to it. But from my perspective, like, I enjoy baking. I enjoy baking. I enjoy the process of it. I enjoy that you bake. It's me. You will always work. And you will grow. But from my perspective, I enjoy baking. I enjoy baking.

I enjoy the process of it. I enjoy that you bake. It's fun. Y'all enjoy the process. You know, the proceeds of me baking. But if I did it for a living, it would not be fun anymore. It would be a job. It would be, I've got to hurry up and get these cookies out.

I've got to hurry up and work on those cupcakes. And I can get that bread going. It wouldn't be fun anymore. It'd take all the fun out of it if it was done $4 under a time crunch. And that's why like podcasting, this is something I enjoy doing. I, I was very intentional when I started podcasting eight years ago to never, ever, ever let this become a job. It is a hobby. I love it. If it grenaded tomorrow, my bills are still paid. I know I am very particular about not allowing things I enjoy to become for money because the minute that happens to me, you take something away from it. And that's, that's where I, that's

where I worry about Piper. If she gets, if the stress of doing the thing exceeds the enjoyment, it's not fun anymore. Yeah. And it takes it, it takes it away from her. And I worry about if she were allowed to get into too many extracurricular activities at once, all the running around and the jumping and the stress and the staying up late to get the homework done and the coming home late, you know, eating dinner late because we don't get home until whatever hour, which is the next thing we'll jump into.

All that piles up to where it's not fun anymore. And it was pointed out in the article, and I kind of have to lay this at some parents' feet, but if that sounds like a description of you and your kids where they're involved in all these different things, I'm going to ask you seriously two things. Is that what your kid wants or is that what you want? Yeah. And the other thing I'm going to ask is even if Is that what your kid wants or is that what you want? Yeah. And the other thing I'm going to ask is even if it's what your kid wants, your responsibility as a parent is not to indulge your kids. It's to put them on the right path. So if, if what we're describing

sounds like unneeded stress or sounds like maybe we need some balance between downtime and all this stuff, that's not for you to ask your kids what do you think little timmy you tell them no i'm the parent this is not healthy we're going to change things being be an adult be the parent in the room yeah yeah but the next thing that was criticized and i will go right on along criticizing this is the grandmother was very upset because because of all the running around they're resorting to basically take out and fast food constantly to keep the kids fed because nobody ever has time to cook a meal at home which you and i've talked about that i am intensely

critical of that and i can't even say it's just our generation because like we were the generation raised on mcdonald's for God's sakes. It's a miracle we don't all have a third eye. Happy Meals came out when we were babies. It's a miracle we don't all have a third eyeball at this point knowing all the junk that goes into that but you know to me it's it's more like for you and I it was always we were always very hold on I got to stop my train of thought and check the comments section. Joe said good morning. Good morning. We're a little late on that. Leadership in extracurricular activities being bad can also kill the child's interest in it too.

Yeah, pretty much what I was saying. Like, you can, they can get so engrossed in it that it's not fun anymore. It takes all that out of it. But my issue with this is really just the fact that like, first of all, to me, you know, I'm a spendthrift. I mean, I'd like to think that's partially responsible for us being in the financial state that we're in because your husband's very thrifty about a lot of things. Yes. And part of that is also eating out because every time we go eat out, it's 70, 80, 90 bucks. And that's almost a week's worth of groceries for us. So I'm always balancing this calculus of the girls want to go eat out, but that costs like almost a week's worth

of groceries. And that's like, to me, I have a hard time stomaching that thought. But then on the other side of things, I also look at it as what's more healthy? The pot roast we made the other night that was fire, by the way, and that is full of nutrition and it's very low carb. It's good food for us. It's good for us. Or stopping at Wendy's. What's better for us? So I constantly have these thoughts in my head of, like, I believe it is certainly more economically viable, and I think it's healthier for us to cook here at the house. But when I see other parents that are like,

oh, I'm tired, I'm just going to stop and get burgers. Or, oh, we're too busy, we're just going to stop and get this. And I'm like, you have to acknowledge that that's not as healthy as cooking a meal at home. You have to acknowledge that. If you think McDonald's is as healthy as something you cook in your kitchen, there's a whole other conversation we need to be having. But if you can't acknowledge that, then you have to acknowledge it's more expensive. And we're in a time period where like inflation has gone through the ceiling people are complaining on a regular basis about the economy and how tight money is and everything else but here you are spending a week's worth of

groceries to to feed your family for one meal and then i it's like that that episode of the guy used you used to watch, you probably still watch, where he takes everyone's finances and looks at what they're... Caleb, Caleb Hammer? Yeah, Caleb Hammer. And he was scrutinizing this man's credit card bills to see where he's spending all of his money

and what he's charging to his credit card. And it was like every other line was a restaurant he was he had racked up something like close to ten thousand dollars in just restaurant feet like where he brought his kids to eat because and he said because it's easier to just go out than it is to cook at home because the same thing they were so um they were just so over over tasked over tasked with their kids that that's just the thing that happened they didn't go home to to eat and i think caleb even told him well then you're doing too much you need to go home and eat you don't need to put ten thousand dollars in credit card bills um That's not what you call it, I know.

But anyway, fees or whatever, expenses, onto this credit card. Because now you've got to pay it back with interest. And I hope the food was good enough that it's worth $10,000. There is nothing that tastes good enough to justify $10,000 in interest-bearing debt at a 30% interest rate. Where are you eating? I mean, that's like breakfast, lunch, dinner. That's all I can think of. I know it was him and two children and his wife,

and they would always eat out. And I don't think that they ever cooked at home. I don't know. When you showed me that, I was just like, holy crap. Not only would my husband leave me if oh we'd fight we would have a fist fight but how are you not you know four thousand pounds and but see that and therein lies therein lies my problem with with with with the the propensity towards we're just gonna pull we're just gonna pull the chain and chain and feed the kids junk to get us fed.

But on the one hand, Jesus Christ, is that unhealthy as hell. And on the other hand, Jesus Christ, is that expensive as hell. I know. It's the two things I don't like. If we went out every night, that's $700 for a week. $700. Because it does. It's between $80 and $100 depending on where we go.

We usually go out to eat once a week. And that includes like Raising Cane's, Kyle. Raising Cane's is Fried Perfection, but Fried Perfection can only be had in limited quantities. There are times where we eat out more than once a week. There are times where we eat out more than once a week, but it's usually extenuating circumstances where maybe we're out of town or whatever. Well, like last night. We drove out of town to go see some family, and we were on the road literally half a day.

The opportunity to come home and cook a home-cooked meal wasn't there, unless we were going to pack sandwiches from the house. Right. And it is nice to just go out to eat. It is nice to not have to worry about, you know, I feel like adulthood is constantly asking the same question of what's for dinner? What's for dinner? That's because I live with people who are picky and I am not. I live with people who are picky and I am not. Because if I had a promissory note that everyone in this house would eat whatever I cooked without complaint, then picking dinner would be really easy.

Because I'd be like, okay, we're going to pick this, this, this, or this, and everyone's going to eat it. It'll be good. But then I get the, I don't want that. I don't feel like that. Well, that's because you always resort to chili. Which is always good. Red beans and rice.

Which is always good. And what else? There's something else you're always like, we could make this, this, or this. Breakfast for dinner. Well, that's always good. But that's not always your choice. But anyway. The point is, you are pickier than I am.

Therefore, you have to pick what we eat for dinner. Because the most picky person has to be satisfied. I'm the least picky person. I'll eat pretty much whatever. Thank the Army. Joe said, he asked the question before I answered this. He said, what was the restaurant we took them to when they came down? It was $90, but it was well worth the treat.

And that's Lalu. It's down on the lakefront it's creole it was a creole restaurant and it's amazing yeah it's our favorite and we never get to go but when we do want to have like a breakfast date or whatever we always go to lalu yeah and unfortunately like side note at least around here there there's a lot of overlap between expensive and very good yeah i mean unfortunately worth it for 90 and lalu is always worth 90 and unfortunately like we live in a very high cost living area relative to our surroundings so like you could get you could drive an hour in any direction and probably get i wouldn't say as good you get similar cuisine much cheaper going an hour in any direction but

we live in the place where if you want to eat decent food it's going to cost 70 to 100 bucks i think saint tammany parish has the highest um highest cost of living yeah the highest cost of living. Yeah, the highest cost of living. Highest property taxes, highest property values, highest insurance, everything highest. So when are we getting out of here? About 10 years. You said that 10 years ago. No, I'm joking. No, 10 years ago. I said in 20.

I said in 18 years when Piper got out of high school. Well, anyway. So, yeah. So, yeah. yeah to me like i'm not saying never eat never eat junk food never order pizza never go out to eat oh that was the other thing we did order pizza this week and we did go eat mexican last night with our family but i'm not saying never do those things i'm just saying that like, if the answer is we're always too busy, so we're always going to feed our kids junk food, then you're too busy is the problem. Yeah.

And you can't even hang the I never learned how to cook excuse over me because there's the Internet. And, like, millennials, y'all know this. Y'all grew up the same time I did. There is more information available on the Internet than scholars of 100 years ago had access to. And here it is. It's on a smartphone. Just Google how to cook something.

You'll figure it out. It's not that hard. I used to have a friend who, when I would get into her car, I had to move over stale chicken fingers or chicken nuggets. And I'm not talking like goldfish or anything like that. I'm talking like whole half-eaten sausage biscuits that had been in there for weeks. It's called laziness. Or chicken nuggets or whatever. I mean, they were like opened ketchup packets.

And it never got thrown away first of all and oh and then there was like there was a restaurant represented by every cup and every cup holder it was just like first how do you live like this with your car second do you ever cook no do you ever feed your children something other than fast food it was just it made me just go first i cringed and then second i was just like i just can't i we're gonna take my car we're taking my car wherever we're going we're taking my car and i feel like we already kind of inadvertently talked about this when we were talking about too many extracurricular activities. But it's like, I feel like there is an unfair expectation placed upon, you know, boomer grandparents at this point that they make themselves available for this busy of a schedule.

Because, you know, call it what it is. for this busy of a schedule. Because, you know, call it what it is. We're talking about people that are well into their 70s in a lot of cases, may not be in the greatest of physical health. Traveling to other states is going to become more of an issue the older they get. I don't know. You changed the banner, but you didn't read it. Oh, sorry.

Stuart's going to get on you. Stuart will. But Gillian's here to save me. Expecting the village, in quotes, to keep up with your busy schedule. And this is, I just, I personally, I feel like if you're going to take everything we've said here and pitch it into the wind and ignore it, like, you're going to have your kids involved in that much stuff. They're going to be that busy.

They're going to eat junk food, whatever, have a party. That's you and your kids and their health and their sanity. You have to contend with, but I don't feel like it's fair to, to put all that on grandma and grandpa. You know what I'm saying?

Like, like I, I always felt guilt when I called your mom and said, Hey, usually it was the night before. Are you busy tomorrow? Can you please watch Piper or whatever? Like it's something in me. It was just, it grinded me. It's like, I don't want to depend on other people to have to take care of my child. And a lot of times the guilt came from things that were said to me when Piper was first born, not by your mother,

but, um, by my mother. But anyway, um, I, I, I hated doing that because now I've taken her day away from her because I can't take off work or you can't take off work, but somebody has to watch the child and blah, blah, blah. I don't know. I just, so that spurred the whole one extracurricular activity. We're not going to overburden ourselves with everything because I did not want your parents or my parents raising our child. It wasn't fair to them. And, you know, one of the things that was said to me did make sense, even though it was very harsh in the way it was said. You know, why did you have a kid if you thought other people were going to raise your child? And that's not at all what was happening because I had to work in order to provide for my family. But it does make sense. In the fact that. I'm not going to do anything extra.

That I need to. Or don't need to do. In order. Or not in order. But to make other people have to step in. And take care of Piper. That was just not going to happen. No.

Like any time we've ever. And this isn't just with regards to Piper. But this is in regards to you and me too. Like we're very, we are very focused on being self-sufficient as a family. And anytime we've had to fall back on somebody else or like ask for help, it's never been because, oh, I screwed myself over. It's always been because, you know, like to quote your father-in-law, it's always been because you know like to quote to quote your father-in-law it's always been because we did i know just no i was gonna say one day we need to have your dad on the show i know you're watching pops but i mean i'm sure we can find interesting things to talk about

i'm sure we could but to me it is all you know you know, like he pointed out years ago, he said, you know, you've done everything you can to prevent this situation from occurring. You've done everything you can to dig yourself out of this hole. You did everything before it happened to be able to weather the storm. You did everything right. And life giggled and threw you a curveball. And he told me, he said, that's not your fault. That's not, you should be ashamed because you fell short. You did everything you could have

and now I get to step in and help. So that's always been my point of view is, it's like, if you're doing everything you can to take care of things by yourself and you just fall short, you can't be upset with that. And I wouldn't expect your family to hold it over your head later. You know, like that's what family is for. But on the flip side of things, it would be akin to like you and I blowing through all of our money, screwing our monthly budget up.

And it comes the end of the month, we can't pay the mortgage and we're broke and we're having to go to my dad for help or somebody else. end of the month we can't pay the mortgage and we're broke and we're having to go to my dad for help or somebody else you better believe that pops would have something to say about why can't you pay your mortgage because y'all went and blew like two grand on silly shit you made out seven days this week and seven hundred dollars is charged to your credit cards it not doesn't happen and he would rightfully cock an eyebrow and be like well he would have every right to cock an eyebrow at that point if he's coming in to save us because of our stupid decisions i would i would like to think in the 19 years that we've been together that yeah we've made some stupid decisions but none that i feel like he's had to come in and save us from because you know I think a lot of most of the

things that he's had to come in and help us with were not anything that we had no it was kind of kind of falls under the catastrophic yeah yeah you know heading but a lot of it was just because you know like you and I were young we were figuring stuff out we were we were growing up but at the same time like even though we may have made a couple mistakes here and there, I still feel like we didn't make near the mistakes we were watching a lot of our peers and a lot of our friends make around us. Like, and again, for me, that was always motivated by this idea that, like, you know, I always knew that my family was there if I needed them. But I also knew that, like, my goal as an adult was to not need them very often. Yeah. Because again, goes back to what I was told as a child, like, you know,

dad's job is to prepare his son or daughter to not need him anymore. It was something that was told to me a long time ago. And I was told like, it is, it is the most ironic part of being a parent is that your job is to make your kid not need you anymore. Right. And you don't want them. You want to always be there for them and be there with them.

And you will always be there for them. But your job is to make sure that the day you check out to go meet your maker, they're fine. They're going to be upset. They're going to have some stuff to deal with, but they're fine. Their bills be upset they're gonna have some stuff to deal with but they're fine their bills are gonna be paid they're gonna feed themselves they're gonna make it yeah so like that was always my perspective like okay as the child in this relationship my job is to not need my dad to bail me out of problems it's to dig myself out of problems. It's to dig myself out of holes. It's to dig my family out of holes. It's to not put ourselves in the hole.

What does Kyle say? Kyle, you're so funny. He said that the Raising Values cookbook is going to be $27.95. Honestly? I can't get a newsletter together, Kyle. I'm not getting a cookbook together. Although, like, I mean, I can honestly publish a blog article of all my recipes so they all came from the internet anyway anyway sorry wait what'd you say i said i could publish a blog article of all my of my recipe

book because it all came from the internet anyway oh just links to yeah look that's how i that's how i find most of my recipes i I'm like, how do you bake this? And then I look at like 13 different recipes. I'm like, let's try this one. I do want to read Kyle's last comment though. He said that I think the village

idea comes and goes. Work just sucks right now. And I do feel guilty about it. And I feel like we do this on the podcast a lot. We talk about, it's almost like we put ourselves, me and you, in this holier-than-thou, we haven't screwed up parenting, we haven't screwed up marriage, we haven't screwed up any of these things.

We're so much better than all of those things. I'm the perfect spouse though anyway um but see our season of work sucks right now has passed and that's not to say that work in life isn't going to suck for us in the future i I mean, right now, I think we have one more year before, um, Piper goes to high school. Well, yeah, when Piper goes to high school, I think our life is again, going to flip and change and schedules are going to have to change. Maybe jobs are going to have to change. A lot of things are going to change for us. But for right now, in this little time period that we're in in our life, it's easily managed and we can do that. But we have been in a position in our life that lasted for years where I feel like we were in a lot of turmoil and a lot of reaching out to family and a lot of reaching out to friends of, you know, can you help us with this?

And, you know, we really did rely on our village a lot of times. That's just not where we are right now. So I agree with you. I think the village idea comes and goes. And that's not to say that, well, it does. It is to say you won't always be stuck in this position. You won't always, this isn't the rest of your life. And that's what, when I was in therapy after I gave birth to Piper and had such horrible postpartum depression and anxiety,

I was having these horrible panic attacks. And I was talking to my therapist about it. I was talking to my therapist about it, and she gave me the one phrase that I always repeat to myself, especially when I'm having an anxiety attack, of this isn't the rest of my life. This is not, I am not going to feel this. Dread and everything? Yeah, this dread and this fear and all these things that happen during anxiety attacks and things like that, that's not going to be the rest of my life. Will I feel them a couple of times during the day or even more than that? Yes. And when it was really, really bad, when I was like in the really, really bad part of it, I was having probably six or seven panic attacks a day, which is crippling.

But when she told me that, was like okay i can focus on this it's not the rest of my life this is not the rest of my life and lo and behold she was right and it's not the rest of my life so just like the song and just like you said kyle you know to everything turn turn that's actually a bible verse but um think the key, though, is that it's one thing, because I know Kyle's situation specifically. We both do. And I think it's one thing if we find ourselves down and out or we put ourselves down and out. To me, that's always going to be the difference. That's true.

If life whacks you right between the eyes i mean life is pretty much like sucker punched but here's the thing but it does every but it does everybody at one point or another so i guess that's my point is you guys if you if you need help because if you need help because you know life has punched you in the gut there's no shame in that that's what the tribe that's what shame in that. That's what the tribe, that's what the village is for. That's what the tribe is for. But it's a whole different thing when you say, I know I can't sustain this. Therefore, I'm going to engage all these extra people.

It's like, is there a difference between life sucker punched me and I took the stick and stuffed it in the spokes of the bike wheels. You know what I'm saying? Right. I did this to myself. Exactly. Kind of thing. And that's always going to be where I draw that line between the two.

That's true. That is very true. And in response to what your dad and Kyle both kind of said at the same time, your dad said sometimes the village relies on you. And Kyle said we will always need our tribe parents. How we got that. You are the den mother. I'm the den mother of all of you people.

Well, one of our dear friends does refer to you unironically as mom. Mom. So weird. Anyway. Considering he's only like, I think he's 33, 33 34 he's in his mid-30s like i still couldn't be his mom i know you couldn't that would be really weird um anyway i what i was going to say to those two comments was that's just because our season has changed to a position of where we feel like we had enough content enough things that we have gone through individually

and together as a couple and as parents that we felt like we were in a really good position to lend some help to people and to talk about all of those things. I mean, we've put our entire life out on the internet at this point of the things that we've gone through by ourselves or whatever. And together. And together.

And so will that change? I guarantee you that in the next year, life is going to flip upside down and our village is going to start getting a lot more phone calls. And, you know, we're going to do what we can to not have to do all that stuff. But I just see life changing in a year. We'll figure it out. But that's very sweet of y'all to say. But now we have to get to the response to the article. So Reddit is a cesspool of human villainy and scum.

But I surf it every now and then because there's a couple of groups on there, like the GMRS group and a couple of user groups that I fumble around with, Night Vision and things like that. But, yeah, this was Reddit's response to this article. You do have to read it. Don't forget. Okay, Boomer. Okay, Boomer.

Yeah. Well, a timeout because her response to the Dear Annie article, Annie or Abby or whoever she was, was basically, okay, Boomer. And when I read it, I got pissed off at her response. I was like, wait, time out a second. I agree that the grandparents could be saying, no, we're not coming. We're not going to do this. We can't bring them, blah, blah, blah. I agree with that. But when she got to the end and she was like,

maybe you should stop focusing on the negative part of their parenting and focus on the, um, the positives that they're doing and, you know, keeping their children active and doing all these things. Um, and know that it is, it is a different time period in that people don't sit down at six o'clock to eat dinner together anymore. You know, maybe you should focus on that and just be happy that they're inviting you to be a part of their life. And it was just like, you totally didn't even, you didn't even read her complaint. You didn't even, it was an okay boomer. The only thing in that entire response, and this was also in a lot of the Redditor's responses,

the only thing I agree with is, why are you writing this article instead of talking to your child? True. And I do agree with that because I feel like if my mother and father had a really significant issue with some way I was handling my response place as a husband and father, above and beyond, okay, that's not the way I would have done it, but, like, I think Phil is screwing up and causing harm. I have full faith one or both of them would come to me and be like,

listen. Oh, I know they would. Yeah. But at the same time, they're also very good about drawing that line of, like, it's not how I would have done it, but it's working, and, and you know the mortgage is paid the you know everybody's fed everything's fine it's it's not they're they're very good about like i'm not going to meddle i'm only going to insert myself if it's a real serious problem

and i appreciate that i appreciate that respect they show you and I as like, you know, this household. I appreciate, at the time, I don't want to say I didn't appreciate it, but at the time it kind of put me in a bind. But there were times when I called up your mom and said, hey, can you watch Piper tomorrow? And she said no. And, you know, now hindsight's 20-20. I'm glad she did that. I'm glad she didn't cancel her doctor's appointments to watch Piper. I'm glad she decided to go do whatever she had planned that day and said no.

Because I don't think I would have been the person to take advantage of her because that's just not, I'm just not that person. But I can see other people doing that to their parents saying, oh, well, you canceled your doctor's appointment before. Can't you just reschedule this time? I wouldn't have done that. But I am glad that she told me no a couple of times. And that was also a lot of the response I kept seeing over and over and over was, what else do you have to do? You're retired.

It was this feeling I kept getting of like, I am entitled to your time and attention. Yeah. To do what I want done. And that grinds my freaking gears so badly. Not even because this is being directed at the parent slash grandparent of this child slash grandchild. But just, like, entitlement as a general rule drives me up the freaking walls like you you are you are entitled to the air you pump in and out of your lungs and whatever you can produce with your own hands and everything else you're not entitled to yeah

so like entitlement as a general rule drives me up the freaking walls entitlement to other generation that's what I'm saying. I think it's like the younger millennials and then the Gen Zers. They have grown up having that entitlement. They were children with entitlement issues. And they became adults with entitlement issues. And the parents were probably walked all over as when they were children and, you know, just saw it as, you know, oh, Timmy's upset today. Let's go get him a hamburger or let's go get him some ice cream or whatever.

Or let's get him four and a half fingers across the butt and tell him to knock it off. Well. Just a thought. Yeah. Okay. But that's, yes, I know. That's what I'm trying to point out is that parenting right now with the generation that's, you know, coming up with all these kids is totally different than how we were raised, how our parents were raised. And it is that world doesn't exist.

She did state that in her response. And I do agree with that. I don't think the world that our parents were raised in exists response. And I do agree with that. I don't think the world that our parents were raised in exists anymore because there's so much technology and interference with family. And also the family is not a thing. Like there are so many cases where the father is not in the home or the mother is drugged out or whatever. There's just so many things now that interfere with the family unit. Do we sit down at the table at 6 o'clock every night and eat dinner? No, we usually sit in the living room and pick a movie together,

which I find is, you know, I do remember having to sit at the table a lot of times for dinner. But then I also feel like that's good family time because we're not on our phones. We're watching a movie together. We're trying to plan our evening and things like that. But what I'm trying to say is the people who are getting married and having children right now grew up in a household where their entitlement was met. Those parents made them an entitled child. They grew up to be entitled adults. That's why we've seen such a shift in the workplace and all those things that are now being affected

by how children were raised after the Zennials. Yeah. Well, but the one thing I'd respond to it is, like, I agree, yes. The world that our parents, the boomers, grew up in, that world is gone. But the world that I feel like a lot of these millennial parents live in today doesn't exist either. If that makes any sense. I mean, so these constant comments I kept seeing really all seem to revolve around the fact that boomers have all the money. Boomers are retired. They have all the time in the world.

We're entitled to their wealth and we're entitled to their time and this and the other. And I don't think that world exists either. Because, like, I know and you know that generation is dealing with health problems. They are going to the doctor very often. Their mobility is limited. This idea that, like, the boomers as this enormous, like, monotheistic generation are all just billionaires is just asinine. There are some out there that are phenomenally wealthy, and there's also a lot out there that are house poor. They live in a house that's paid off.

That's their only asset. They have no other retirement. There's a lot that are living on Social Security. I cringe at this idea that, to me, a lot of the response I kept seeing to this article really boiled down to a certain amount of greed that was motivating disdain for that generation. Basically saying, shut up and do what I told you because the economy is your fault. And the reason I can't afford a house is your fault. And the reason my kids won't be able to afford college is your fault. So you should repay me by doing what I ask you to do.

You should repay me by doing what I ask you to do, which runs totally counter to the way I was raised as an idea of like, you know, sometimes it's the idea that like we're all trying to get to a finish line. Some people start 100 yards away from the finish line. Some people start 1,000 yards away from the finish line. But you complaining about being 1,000 yards from the finish line doesn't make it get any closer. You just have further to walk. And it's this idea that like some people are born with a leg up. Some people are born, you know, rich, good looking and talented. And obviously I wasn't.

I just had to work hard. But the point remains, some people are born with a leg up. Some people are born closer to the finish line. And some of us aren't. But you don't sit there and piss and moan and whine about it. You just have to walk further. You have to work harder. You have to overcome whatever this perceived slight was

and just put the work in. But a lot of people our generation never got that speech and they were told, oh, it's's okay it's not your fault oh that person cheated or oh that person cheated you and all these excuses were built in for why my life didn't turn out the way i wanted it to and no one was ever told the reason your life didn't turn out the way you wanted to is because you effed it up yeah or you just you you didn't put in the work you didn't put in the work is is yeah't put in the work is, is yeah. And I know that sounds really harsh for people who feel like, well, the world screwed me or the world failed me. And you know, for some of y'all, I probably did, but I've also seen just as many

people overcome incredible adversity to do something phenomenal with their lives. So I just, I cannot accept that we live in a world where a person is born without a chance. I feel like that's just, that's what we see now. You know, it's everyone, it's always someone else's fault. Those people will never self-reflect and see that, no, they put themselves here by decisions that they've made. Or, and I also want to say this, no one is ever entitled to anyone else's time and energy. No. Anyone.

It's not even just your boomer parents or whatever. You are not entitled to anyone's time and energy. You don't get to make that decision for anyone else there's a word for that what slavery oh i mean it's literally the definition of it when you're somebody else's labor i'm talking about i'm not well yes i know we're talking about running grandparents i mean grandparents running grandkids all over the place but i'm talking about like if i'm emotionally drained at the end of the day and someone calls me and says, well, I need to talk to you. You owe me this or whatever.

They don't get to tell me that I have to now drain my cup even more because they have a problem. You know what I'm saying? Does that make sense what I'm saying? Okay. Sometimes I wonder if I'm saying? Does that make sense what I'm saying? Okay. Sometimes I wonder if I'm making any sense. I mean, it makes sense to me, but that could be because I'm becoming as crazy as you are. Well, I think you've just learned my language. That could be it, too.

But like I said, I think that's where a lot of this comes from. I think that there's a certain amount of... I think that this grandmother is suffering from a certain from. I think that there's a certain amount of, I think that this grandmother is suffering from a certain amount of just guilt that she and her husband couldn't keep up with the busy schedule, and that's on them. I feel like if they would have had this conversation with that family and said, listen, we just can't do this. If the family responded with, well, we don't expect you to, then, okay, do what you can and don't do what you can't.

And if the family said, okay, boomer, then, you know, might be time to shorten those apron strings up a little bit and take care of yourself. But on the flip side of things, I also look at, I look at like my generation and the way my generation is parenting. And again, this is like not an individual indictment this is just broad trends i see because i know just as many people none of this applies to but i see a generation that is i see a generation that is indulging in things i don't consider to be healthy for the family or for the children whether it's emotionally psychologically psychologically, just physically, health-wise. And I came into parenting, you came into parenting the same way.

We both came into parenting like we didn't do this naively and it wasn't an accident. We wanted to be parents. And we both understood from the word go that this was an incredible responsibility. And I don't like to use the word burden, but I mean, it's a burden. But it's something we took on willingly and we wanted this. And as a result, I feel like we've both committed to being parents, much like we committed to being spouses. And we take it very seriously. And I don't see a lot of our generation taking it that seriously. I see a lot of them prioritizing fun and easy and leisure and things like that over doing things in the way that's, in my opinion, the best. But at the end of the day, I'm going

to go back to what my father told me about parenting. Your job is to prepare your kids to not need you anymore. So if you are overtasking these children to the point where they're running from one thing to another constantly, they never have time to decompress. They never have time to just be kids. They never have time to, you don't ever get to spend time with them as parents. And by the way, when they become teenagers, that's going to come back to haunt you because that's going to be a time period when again when we get to the point where we're at with our little chick and she starts pulling those apron strings back just a little bit trying to establish her own identity her own independence but if if the point you start at is we basically never talked to our kid already then you don't know what's going on in their lives.

I feel like with us, we've worked really hard to plant those seeds with our daughter that I fully expect that there are going to be things that she wants to try to work out on her own. But I also feel like she knows mom and dad are here if you want to talk to us. Yeah. But again, I look at a lot of her peers. if you want to talk to us. But again, I look at a lot of her peers, and I see kids who are very entitled, very spoiled, do not know how to interact with adults.

If they talk to their parents the way they talk to you and some of your teachers, and those parents aren't putting a stop to it, that's disgusting. I ask that question of some of my kids. Do you talk to your mom and dad like this? Do you talk to your parents like this? Probably. Sometimes they say, yeah. A lot of times they'll say, no.

And it's like, well, then you don't get to talk to me like that. You don't get to use that tone or whatever. But that's disgusting that a teacher has to be more of a parent than the parents are well that's the generation we are in right now because the parents aren't being parents no they're being a taxi service and a buddy taxi service and the kids are being raised by coaches and teachers and everything else and the internet and And grandparents. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I guess. That really want to just be retired. Because they've raised their kids. You know, there is an old axiom that I quote every now and then,

carefully, because it really offends some people, and I really don't care most of the time. If you do a really crappy job at raising your kids, you get to raise your grandkids, too. Mm-hmm. Food for thought, guys. Why are you telling me? You're looking at me like... One eye glance at the screen.

Are you raising our child properly? Because you're going to be raising your grandchildren. No, I'm not. I'm going to teach my kid to raise her kids. That's the way this is supposed to work. But yeah. She wants kids. I think we're going to wind up with grandpups

personally i need to or grand cats i have to do i have to do one thing before we end the show and they were on the table but i don't know where they are now so hang on a second i gotta find them well everything on the table had to go to the floor so we could uh okay so i told my friend that i would i would plug their business because they are really good. She kind of made the comment, this is my hairdresser, but her husband owns a company of, it's called Royally Roasted Nuts. It's delicious. I don't know if you can see it. Anyway, it's called Royally Roasted Nuts.

And she made the comment, I was getting my hair done and she said i don't know or like nuts good for prepper food or can you can you put nuts away as you know in your food for as a prepper and um i was like yeah you know if you bag them the right way i mean whatever hypoxic environment no uv and if there's nothing on them except just nuts yeah well okay so there is stuff on them there's always things on these things but for you know how we always talk about how um i came in and i was like look dude if we're gonna hit the post-apocalyptic time in our life, then you better have everything to make brownies. And that's why I have a brownie bucket now. Okay, so I figured, well, why not these things as emotional support candy?

All right, so they make a whole bunch of different things. These are the cinnamon roasted pecans. My favorite. I love cinnamon roasted pecans. Every time we pass a Buc-ee's, I have to stop in and get cinnamon roasted pecans. My favorite. I love cinnamon roasted pecans. Every time we pass a Bucky's, I have to stop in and get cinnamon roasted pecans. It's a thing. But now I have them local. So anyway, I told her I would help their business. They are just now getting started and they do a lot of fairs and things like that. And so royally roasted nuts, you can Google them. You can find them on Instagram and Facebook.

So there you go, my friend. They're delicious. I had to stop eating them so that I could do the plug today. Anyway, so go get your nuts. They're not just, they don't have just this one. They have like sweet and sour and everything bagel, cashews. I don't know. They have all sorts of stuff. But you can order online or you can find some of their vendors and things like that.

This wasn't on my bingo card today. I told you I was going to do it. That's why I had to stop eating. I forgot. Okay. Well, anyway. So anyway, like, you know, don't take this episode as an invitation to beat yourself up about your, about your parenting and having to, having to fall back on other people more.

Take this as just like a moment to think about, am I doing anything? Am I doing, am I doing anything that is suboptimal, which is a really clinical way of saying, you know, quit being a lazy parent, but just saying like, I see a lot of our generation making some pretty obvious mistakes in parenting.

And all I can tell you is, like, you know, I know where Kyle works, and he's seen the result of really bad parenting. Right? Absolutely. You can attest to that. If you work in law enforcement enforcement you get to see the results of poor parenting all the time so if you don't want your kids to be in that boat or homeless or dope heads or anything else you know maybe maybe don't give them a cheeseburger when they're misbehaving and you know install some consequences instead but, don't expect other people to dig you out of a hole you've dug for yourself.

Anything else? Nope. Just that we need to go swim to the grocery store. Yeah. Y'all have a great rest of your weekend and your Sunday, and thank y'all for joining us today. Bye, everybody. Bye, y'all. 🎵 Thank you.