The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Raising Values: Silence is Golden

Episode Date: October 27, 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/mofpodcastEver been asked when you're having kids/having more kids? Or why your child is an only child? Or ever felt as though someone, through malice or honest curiosity, was opening up a jar full of worms? Gillian and Phil unpack some of those questions at the table, proving that some topics really should be left in private.Raising 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, spiritual, 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. we're flirting you just give us a second good morning he said he was gonna be weird today and i was like you're never weird well that's because like right before we started you said don't be weird okay i don't know what was wrong with the camera but phil just it's not pointed right it's fine okay let's get started good morning and welcome to raising values

you know who i am i'm gillian this is phil who's not going to be weird i'm the weird one didn't you tell me the last time like why do we introduce ourselves because everybody knows who we are i know but then wait what did i say you told me i shouldn't feel like we have to introduce ourselves to the audience every time no but we should i don't know why i said that because that's really not smart to do um because you never know when we have new listeners or when somebody just stumbles across the podcast and i'm like oh who are these are these folks? Even though they're not going to stumble in right at the time we introduce ourselves. So I was right? No.

Morning, Stuart. Oh my gosh, I'm waiting. God, you're so demanding, Stuart. And he started on YouTube and then jumped over to Facebook. I know. 10 minutes, 11 minutes ago. Anyway, good morning. We have a show today, of course. We have a show. Things

to talk about. And this one kind of came from something that happened over the week with me and Piper. Something happened, not between us, but something happened to us. So I thought we would talk about that but first obviously stuff we have to get out of the way new merch obviously here it is first of all i'm a delight i am a delight i wasn't a delight yesterday i was in a really bad mood yesterday but i fed her a steak and that that that fixed i was hangry i was hangry and that i'm make no apologies you. I was hangry. I was hangry. And that, I'm, make no apologies, you know I get hangry. Sorry, not sorry.

Anyway, so, new merch. You can go, it's in the show notes, Southern... Southern Gals Crafts. Southern Gals Crafts. I always want to say Southern Crafts Gals, but that doesn't make any sense. Southern Gals Crafts, you can look up the merch and everything else um for our patrons that are listening so because we didn't go to prepper camp we didn't get to see all of our friends and we

didn't get to see um the patrons that attend and all that stuff we need to give y'all we need to get y'all your um stickers so shoot us a message or an email or whatever with your address and we can send y'all your stickers because we had we had a lot of stuff made for prepper camp we had a lot of like i made a banner that was taller than me maybe we'll use it we will we have we have some ideas coming up soon um in the next few months that we'll use the banner for but um yeah we have stickers and all that stuff we did have some giveaways that we were gonna give away at prepper camp um i guess if you're maybe the first five that send us a message we'll send something extra with your stickers how about that us a message we'll send something extra with your stickers how about that okay okay this wasn't pretty I don't know where she's going okay I'm making it weird um okay so the other things what

other things are there is that it raising values oh the signal chat for patrons which is a good way to get a hold of us if you'd like to talk to us about something. Yeah, the raising values signal chat. Stuart actually just posted in there a couple of days ago about our annual Secret Santa that we do for patrons. He does. He does that. He is the Secret Santa. He does that.

He is the Secret Santa. So if you are a patron or want to become a patron and you want to get in on the Secret Santa stuff, it's always fun to have something mailed to you from kind of a stranger. You may not have ever met these people. Stop looking at me like that. I got a buck knife and a roll of toilet paper last year. It's that kind of group. I got a buck knife and a roll of toilet paper last year. It's that kind of group. I got a chiwi. It's one of those hiking, when you're going hiking and you've got to use the bathroom

and you're a girl and you can't stand up to use the bathroom kind of thing. I don't remember who my secret Santa was. I don't remember either, but that was like a genuinely useful gift because like we've been hiking before we've been hiking before and like you know mile and a half back on the the trail somebody's got to go yeah so um anyway it's fun stuff we got we always have fun stuff going on so um again good morning to everyone Stuart we just talked there's got to be a delay because we just talked about yeah Secret Santa we're on it we got you we got you boo um so anyway so Silence is Golden that is the name of the show today um and to kind of give

a backstory of what happened because there's always a backstory, Piper and I were leaving school after Carline a couple of days ago. And a lot of things going on at school right now. We had our fall picnic. We had the book fair. We had Boosterthon. We had all sorts of things happening at school. And so I walk over because I help with the book fair and two of my co-workers are there.

They're absolutely the sweetest people and I love them to death. They have been some of the best mentors that I've had in this profession, but they are old school. And they started making comments about Piper's weight and appearance. And you could tell she was totally uncomfortable. I'm totally uncomfortable about it because it kind of triggers something in me. I hate using the word trigger, but it does trigger something in me because weight and appearance was always talked about in my house. Always. It was always commented on, oh, you're getting a little chubby. Oh, you're getting, um, a little too thin. And, I mean, my, my mom just harped on our appearances. Um, and it wasn't just her. It was just that, appearances, and it wasn't just her. It was just that that generation. I don't know. I don't know why. Maybe someone older listening to the show can help, but commenting on people's appearances

was just a thing, especially girls, I feel like, so I kind of got triggered a little bit and very uncomfortable, and I was like, God, you know, don't, don't talk about her appearance. So Piper is getting much taller. Um, she's going to be, I think she's going to be taller than me. She might be Phil's height. I don't know. She might be a little bit taller. I mean, I come from a family of six feet women, so she may have gotten that gene anyway. She's almost 13. So she's growing, things are changing. Her body's looking different. All those things that come with being a teenager. And poor thing.

So they're saying, oh, mama, look at her. She's getting so skinny. She's losing all that baby weight. Look at her face. I mean, they just kept going and going and going. And I look at Piper, and one of them said something to her. And she looks at me, and she goes, I'm ready to go home. And I was like, I know, like, come on, let's go. Like, we're out of here. Like, so we're walking out and because I am who I am. And I

always feel like I have to say something. I kind of pull her to the side a little bit. And I was like, I'm very sorry that happened. I'm very pulled her to the side a little bit and I was like, I'm very sorry that happened. I'm very sorry that they commented on your weight and commented on your body. And it couldn't have happened at a worse time too, because right now in science, they're calculating body mass and she's just in that weird spot where she's starting to become, I wouldn't say self-conscious, but she's starting to realize the changes that are happening. You know, we've all been there. And then all of a sudden these two women start talking about her appearance

and all that stuff. But in the last two weeks, three weeks, she has been very conscious about what she's eating she's been very conscious about what me and phil buy food wise she's downloaded this app where it gives us the food a rating um zero to 100 and um she's actually been really good at holding us accountable for this and she's she's made rules. So anything 30 to 50 that rates a 30 to a 50, we can have occasionally, but if it's not 50 or above, we can't bring it into the house. Um, and so here I am in the grocery store, scanning everything, scanning

everything because I, I know what it's like. I know what it's like to be self-conscious. I know what it's like to be self-conscious of my body and my weight and everything, my hair color, my, you know, the zit on my face or whatever. I know what it's like to be a teenage girl. And if I can help her through that by doing some of these things, then absolutely. Because that wasn't an option for me. First of all, we didn't have cell phones with apps that you could scan barcodes and see how healthy it was. And second of all, you ate what you ate. And I grew up in the, well, I grew up in the kind of tail end of the TV dinner generation.

So, you know, you were... Before we realized the USDA food pyramid was completely full of it. Right. And so we would eat TV dinners at night or, you know, sometimes mom or dad would cook. And we didn't ever go out to eat. First of all, we lived in such a small town. There wasn't any restaurants to go out to eat. And second, there was no money. There't any restaurants to go out to eat. And second, there was no money.

There was no money to go out to eat. We went out to eat occasionally. But now it's just everything is packaged. Everything is, anyway, I'm not going to go down that road because I think that's a whole other show. But our food is not healthy. So what she's asked us to do is to really start to become an ingredient household where we buy the ingredients to make the food all for that. I think that's great. I mean, that just further, further puts us down the road of what Phil and I started over a year ago now of being health conscious and what are we putting into our bodies and you know all that stuff and

so I don't care if I'm in the grocery store scanning barcodes to see what it scores on this app and it does this app I'm not going to tell you what the name is if you want the name I'll you can message me or email me or whatever but I'm not going to promote the app. Anyway, it doesn't just give you a score. It tells you why it gets the score. So it's telling you things like it has too much sodium or this one has artificial dyes and color or this one has blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, too much sugar, too much, you know, it has corn syrup in it, whatever. It tells you all those things. And one of the things that we have impressed upon her is this is great. This is a great guiding tool, but it's not the be all end all because when you scan hamburger meat or you

scan a steak, it's going to come back with a low score and butter, all those fatty things, it's going to come back with a low score and you need those things. Your body has to have those things. it's going to come back with a low score and you need those things. Your body has to have those things. So anyway, back to what this show is about. Silence is golden. When I texted Phil, I said, Hey, I have a show idea. Cause like Stuart said, mama bear kind of came out in me. And like I said, these, these women are mentors to me I love them they were they were the first women that I ever came in contact with when I went to work at this school and they've been there for over 20 years so um I'm not going to say anything bad about them I think it's just their their upbringing I think it's just their generational generation they

and I do think there is something to that. I think that the generation ahead of us did place more priority on appearance rather than things that we prioritize, which, like I've told you for years, I didn't participate in us making these big dietary changes because of vanity. Like, I don't care if I care to a small degree whether or not I have a beer belly. I don't want to look like I'm in my third trimester. But the whole point of doing this wasn't to lose weight. The point was to get healthier, to get my blood sugar under control, to have, you know, to, to like, to improve my actual physical health so that I can be as physically active as I want to be. And that, that was the goal. So whatever furthers that goal is what I'm going to do. And I feel like the generation ahead of us

was much more concerned about, well, is it going to make me skinny? And my point of view is, is I'm like, who cares if you're skinny, if you can't, if you can't lift a bag, if I can't lift a bag of concrete, I don't care how skinny I am. You I can't go in the front yard and rip the brakes off the front of that truck or rip the brakes off of your Jeep and do man stuff, forgive me for being misogynistic for just a second or sexist. Oh, stop. But if I can't go do those things, then I don't care how I look in my clothes. I don't care how thin I am or how cut my body, how cut my, my body is. I don't care

how much muscle I have if I can't do anything with it. The point, the point is to get to the end result, not to be decorative, I guess is my point. But I do, I do, I sense that from, and I can't say if it's like a whole generation thing or if it was just more prevalent in the generations ahead of us. But I feel a certain amount of that. I had this experience, not that it affects me to the degree it does. I feel like it does you and Piper or women in general. But like the first year I was working on my current job, we do this big potluck. We would do this big potluck for Thanksgiving and for Christmas.

And at Christmas, I brought, I don't remember what. this big potluck we would do this big potluck for thanksgiving and for christmas and at christmas i brought i don't remember what i made a plate came back and visited the dessert table and these two old women were like you're hitting the dessert table a little hard there aren't you wow that's awful god why did he silence golden. Just keep your mouth shut. Oh, well, but call it what it is. At this point in my life... Wifey bear wants to come out now. But at this point in my life, I'm 31 years old.

I am by far in the best shape of everybody in this entire work unit. I'm the youngest, the most physically able, the strongest, the thinnest. And I'm still getting this from these two chubby old women that are in their 50s and 60s and i i just kind of laughed it off and said well you know got a sweet tooth and went back to my desk and my supervisor who had heard it came in like just to check and see because she she could hear it in my voice that i was a little miffed and she came and asked me and i was just like it doesn't bother me that bad the part of this that pisses me off is if i said that to the two of them i'd have been drugged down to human resources for a sexual harassment claim yeah that's that's the part of this that aggravates me it's because it

was two older women that did it it's just i'm expected as a man to just suck it up and deal with it but it wouldn't be okay in reverse and that's the that's the part of that whole dynamic that aggravated me but at the same time like you know we went we went to see your sister and my brother-in-law a couple years ago and andrew he looked down at my belly and said damn you put on a couple of pounds huh and you and you can't wait huh phil you and phoebe were just mortified i thought y'all were about i'm still mortified i still hold that over andrew's head but but again here's the thing of it though if he were a random stranger on the street it wouldn't be acceptable but two men that know each other the way me and andrew are i feel like we can call each other out you know i'm saying

like dude you you need to tighten it up a little bit. It would be, if your sister felt like you were looking a little ratchet, wouldn't you hope she would gently pull you aside and call you out and be like, Gillian, come on. So, okay, good example. My sister did text me last night. She sent me a picture of me and you at my my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary party this was maybe seven years ago i was about to say this feels like this was about 10 years ago um so why did i say seven eight it was about eight eight eight years ago. And I don't look like that person anymore.

Like, I don't look like that person. You're 40. Well, I understand. I understand. Why does my age matter? Because it's been eight years. I need to show you the picture. My age doesn't matter.

The fact that I took my health back. I have worked on my health. Um, but she wasn't like, she didn't text me in the picture and be like, um, damn girl, you were fat. You've put on a few pounds or whatever. She texted me and said, look at how far you've come. Look at how much hard work you've done. And, um, um anyway we kind of got into a whole conversation about that but it wasn't a well you know now that i'm sitting here saying that it was kind of the same way that these two women were commenting because that is the same that is the same um uh message that they were sending was look look at how much... Different context though, because this,

first of all, this was being done by your sister, not by peers at work. Right. And second of all, in private versus semi-public. Yeah, we were in the gym when they said all this to Piper, poor thing. God, I was just mortified for her. And my heart just sank. It just broke because I, like I said, I've been there. I've had my mother scrutinize my body, and she still does. And then there was one time when we were at my parents' house, and my mom made a comment about Piper's weight. And not five minutes later, we were leaving because—

I was ready to snatch the lungs out of her chest over the— Yeah, and that's when— She didn't hear it, thankfully, but I was ready to snatch the lungs out of her chest over that. Yeah. She didn't hear it, thankfully, but I was. Oh, I saw your face and I was like, oh, we better get out of here before my husband goes to jail because Mama Bear is not going to be nice, but Daddy Bear, Papa Bear is about to rip your trachea out of your throat. I mean, sometimes people just need to have an example made of them. That's all. Anyway, so that was my first thing was we, as a culture, as a society, as just human beings, have to stop discussing other people's appearances.

Like, we have to stop bringing... Nine times out of ten, 99 out of 100, that's the same ratio, 99.9. I'm trying. It's a subject boring math story. 99.9 times out of 100, that person is aware of what their body looks like. They've already scrutinized themselves for 30 minutes in the mirror that morning. They certainly don't need someone else to come in and say, oh, you're hitting the dessert table a little much today.

Or they don't need you to come in and say, look at how skinny you're getting, which implies you were fat or implies that you were overweight or implies you were chubby or whatever. And even if the person didn't mean that inference, to me the whole point of a lot of this is to consider the fact that you when you say these things you might have totally innocent altruistic you know feelings but we've been on the other side of some of this and you don't know what's going on inside that person's head that colors that to make it feel like a backhand yeah how hard the struggle has been yeah or how much like because you you it's not uncommon at any age for women to like they could be absolutely drop dead 10 out of 10 beautiful and still all they see is their flaws. Yeah. Oh, I guarantee you that most women,

majority of women are looking in the mirror and they're not seeing how beautiful they are. It doesn't matter how many times you tell me how beautiful I am. It's frustrating. I'm still, I'm sorry. Um, I'm still going to look in the mirror and go, oh, well this is a little too bulgy over here or whatever. I'm just going to pick myself apart. And I would say that this applies to men to a lesser degree as far as appearance, because like most of us growing up have had that experience of having to compare ourselves to our peers. And if you are the chubby kid, the skinny kid, the short kid, the kid that's like way taller than everybody else, like we notice those things.

And there is a bit of insecurity amongst, I would say probably mostly amongst like pubescent boys. By the time most of us get to full-blown adulthood, I feel like most of us get past that. But not in all cases. There's a lot of men out there that either they do it to themselves or it's constantly pointed out to them how they don't measure up compared to others. Yeah. And, again, from my perspective, men are very competitive by our nature. So having it constantly thrown back in our faces that we're not, we don't measure up, that's painful. Mm-hmm. it's painful. I kind of go, I, you know, I'm always thinking like, cause I, I, you know,

whenever you're on YouTube or you're on social media or whatever, and you're, you're sometimes these videos pop up of different people. And a lot of times those videos are taken by someone else to make fun of that person. Like there there what i'm i guess what i'm trying to say is like there's this one show um my 600 pound life or something like that and um i won't even go into why i think tlc does that show but other people take snippets of the episodes and then they replay them and they do all sorts of like editing to them or whatever just to put these people in worse bad light i'm not talking so much about that show but what i'm trying to say is you don't know what that person's struggle is you don't know there are so many like health conditions and medications that people have to take.

For instance, sometimes a woman who has PCOS, they will gain weight. They will have facial hair. They will have crazy body hair and things like that. It's a medical condition that doctors just, first of all, doctors don't know how to treat women's bodies anyway, but it's almost like we don't know what to do with PCOS kind of thing. And I know that people are ugly to them. You know, I know that people look at those videos or they look at someone that walks in and she's overweight and she's got facial hair and she's got whatever.

She's not your standard magazine model, and they're automatically judged. But I can tell you that not only do they see it in the mirror, but they're constantly thinking about it throughout the day. So just keep your mouth shut. Everyone is aware of what their appearance looks like. That being said, I do want to give one alibi for that okay you mentioned 600 pound life those people are getting paid money to parade around in front of cameras yes so well that's why i'm saying like i don't want to go into that hole what

what i'm saying is that there is a there is a cross-section of people who, I agree, we should probably all be a little kind to each other and not make people feel awful about their physical appearance, comma, however, comma. There is that cross-section of people who throw it in everyone's face to the degree that you're almost like you're almost daring the devil asking for a comment yeah like like the girl who's where the girl we've all heard the joke and most of us have said it about how they shouldn't make certain things in certain sizes well if you are five six hundred pounds and wearing you know yoga pants or leggings designed for a 150-pound woman and all of your stuff is spilling out of them, there is a point at which you are literally asking for somebody to say something. And if that sounds like big people should dress like big people, I don't care. I'm just saying there has to be some give and take

because I'm not going to allow you to... I'm not going to sign off on, I'm not going to, I'm not going to sign off on a person behaving like a butthead to get attention and then complaining when they get the attention. Okay. But since we're on the topic of appearance and, and weight and that what we're at, yeah. Appearance and weight. Would you walk up to that person and say, you really should have informed that to Walmart today today i wouldn't but this has come up a lot recently they've had they've had plus size very generously proportioned people who are outwardly complaining that like they should they should make seats on airplanes bigger

so they can have more room and i'm like the minute you make a public statement like that i am a-okay with anybody shaming you for your body size because you made it a public issue. Okay. I see where you're going with this. Again, it's like the 600-pound life as the great example of this. The moment somebody makes a meme or makes a mockery or whatever of those people and their size, they already did it to themselves by parading around in front of cameras for money. So if anybody comes downstream of that and makes a meme out of it, I don't care. You already crossed the Rubicon on that.

Yeah, I understand. I get what you're saying. I think what I'm trying to focus on, though, is in your everyday life. I'm playing devil's advocate. I i know you're playing devil's advocate just i guess and this is going to kind of go for the whole show is just keep your mouth shut it's like thumper if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all especially a teenage girl like keep your mouth shut what what are you looking at we have other things to talk about besides appearance and weight oh i know i know oh god and we talked about this for 30 minutes okay sorry mama bear was on it though i was mad i was that's why we put this one first for my

hurt for my kid who's going through something that i've been through my whole life but let's get to this because when are you getting married is probably the thing that unmarried couples who are together hate hearing worse than everything. Yes, absolutely. Because that was you and me for two and a half years. That was our friends going, God, you've been engaged for three years. Yes, we were engaged for three years because an engagement wasn't necessarily, it wasn't that giant jump that we weren't ready for. We knew we wanted to be committed, but we weren't ready for the marriage part yet.

I don't even know for me, because to me what comes with marriage is that I expected the two of us to be somewhat financially stable, to be financially independent. I didn't want the two of us have to have to depend on our parents to subsidize our living you were still in college i was still in college like we we were we when i proposed to you i knew that i wanted to be married to you but i didn't feel like we were at we were in a position yet to be able to like you know go be a married couple and live on our own and take care of ourselves. So yeah, we were engaged for quite a few years. And for me, it didn't bother me that bad to hear somebody say, when are you getting married?

But I do know that for other couples, especially couples who maybe have a very nontraditional view of marriage and feel like we're living together, we're committed, we don't need to get married in a church, we don't need the piece of paper, it means nothing to us. At that point, it's one thing to ask, when are you getting married? It's another thing to infer, why haven't you gotten married yet? Yeah. Or why aren't you getting married? That's a requirement. Right.

And I think that's kind of where I wanted to go with some of these topics is, like, there is, Plaindale was the advocate, there is that group of people who are asking this totally honest, but you don't know the baggage that person is bringing where they've been grilled by their mom for, you know, every time they talk to them for the last six months about why hasn't he proposed yet. Yeah. You know, every time they talk to him for the last six months about why hasn't he proposed yet. Yeah. And then when you say, so when are y'all going to get married, the reaction you get might be that six months of baggage that you didn't know anything about, that you didn't participate in, but it's there. Yeah. Yeah.

And it kind of makes me think, though, so, again, another generational thing. Again, another generational thing. Like, I grew up in a household where boys couldn't spend the night. Or if you had your boyfriend over, we couldn't go in our bedrooms. And that's totally fine. It's probably going to be the same way with our child. But, crap, where was I going with this? I have no earthly idea. Because my brain went back to the house that I grew up in.

And I was thinking of different rooms in the house. But, hmm, it's a generational thing where, oh, I know. If you're living with your significant other already, because we were kind of quasi living together you were in and out for work and school and when you had drill and all that stuff yeah i mean i crashed i crashed at you and your you and your cousin's place quite a bit but it all it wasn't as if i was there i was there very often when i had like a whole day off because Because usually I was. You'd come in at night, spend the night, and you'd have to go in the next morning. And usually we didn't see each other again for a couple of days. We certainly didn't see each other every day.

Quite frankly, back then I was a full-time college student finishing out the last year and a half of my National Guard obligation. And I had a full-time job. Anywhere from a part-time to a full-time job anywhere from part-time to a full-time job depending on when so like I was and it wasn't just you my parents said the same thing like we have a we have a room with a bed in it and he's here occasionally but like I was I was always going to do the next thing because that's how busy my life was right then trying to get myself established yeah but I think too going back to that whole generational thing is if you weren't married you were not to be together

alone you should not be together in the bedroom you should not be together you know just whatever it was that that's kind of that's what I feel like and so if that was happening if you were living together or you were quasi living together or whatever, that's when you got the questions of, okay, well, you're not married. Why aren't you married? You need to be married if you're going to do this. That's the kind of impression that I got from my parents is if you're going to do this, you better be married kind of thing. And oops, it never happened for any of us. Both of my sisters came home pregnant.

Of course, their life ended up the way that it should. That's a whole other conversation, I feel like. And then you and I, for three years, were back and forth living together. In some capacity, we were living together. But again, to me, the thing of it is that there are those people who the commitment between them is not dependent upon a ceremony and a piece of paper issued by the state. But what I'm saying is the people who were not, and we didn't get it a whole lot, but the people who were saying things were not from our generation. They weren't our friends going, dude, you really need to, you know, like marry her before you go spend the night at her house. Our friends weren't saying that. It was grandparents and parents. Love you, mom and dad.

But my mom and dad were the same way. And actually i'm i'm lying they were not they were so at that point they checked out they had checked out they they were like whatever gillian's the last one we're doing dealing with all of this stuff i they really didn't care what i did so anyway moving on moving on moving on when are you having kids okay we did get this one we because we waited three years to have piper there's something about their rule threes that i see developing well and then we're a party of three too ah yeah three's a good number for us anyway we waited three years to have piper. Which was because when we got married, I had a year left in college. And then, frankly, you know, we wanted, like, a couple of years where it was just you and me to, like, stabilize our lives before we brought a tiny, beautiful, screaming human being into it.

beautiful screaming human being into it the the conversation that phil and i had and one that i hope more couples have and how we stumbled across this i don't know the me and phil's relationship i feel like has been guided by some outside force no matter what but we were always having a conversation of forethought we were always thinking ahead we of forethought. We were always thinking ahead. We knew eventually we wanted to have children, but we also knew that we had to have a secure foundation in our relationship before we brought a child into this world. And so we watched friends, we watched families who either got pregnant then got married and the struggle that they had or we watched people you know in our lives that had a baby before the the relationship was totally solidified and things like and then the relationship fell apart and whatever

to each their own but we knew from the very beginning that we wanted to work on our relationship first, create a strong enough foundation that we could say what we said to each other and what we still say to each other, because it's becoming more and more evident as our child gets older, is she's going to leave and you're going to have me. And then I hope you're happy with me because that's what you're going to be left with. Because eventually it will just be the two of us again. But I think because we worked so hard in those three years after we got married and before Piper was born

to really establish and work on our relationship as a married couple, I really believe that that is what created all of this for us. It created the relationship that you and I have and how strong we are together. And it also created a safe place to have a child. I feel like, and you said that you felt like our relationship is always guided by this outside force from my perspective you know you and i did things very intentionally throughout like even even in the earliest phases of us dating even though there was lots of hormones and puppy love

and all that but like i was very explicit with you about these are the things i want i want marriage i want i want children i want these are the things I want. I want marriage. I want children. These are the things I want. These are the things that are important to me. And if they're not important to you, we just need to quit wasting our time and part ways. So we were always very forthright with each other. We were very intentional about how we did things. It was never a, we're just going to leave this to chance.

And when we have kids, we have kids. It was like, no, no, no. We're both going to get our butts out of college. We're going to be married first. We're going to have a place of our own. That place of our own wound up being, you know, we want to be in a house before we have a child. But it was always a function of like, we're going to do things in a rational, orderly way to the degree we're capable of doing that. And it was never left to chance.

It was never random. We've always planned our lives. And then we've always been willing to change plans when things blow up. But we at least had a plan. And I feel like that's what separated us from a lot of the couples that we knew back then was a lot of them didn't have a plan. It was just kind of make it up as they go. Right. And I was never willing to surrender to that because I remember you and I having a conversation one time where you commented to me, you know, no one's ever ready to have children.

And I'm like, you're right. No one is ever ready to have children. And I'm like, you're right. No one is ever ready to have children. But there is a difference between knowing I'm not ready and thinking I am, but knowing I'll probably have to make it. I'll probably have to figure it out as I go. So you and I, we laid every brick in this foundation that we could. And then we went into this with a firm foundation. And then we had to turn the foundation up as we went but there's a difference between that and people who have no firm foundation the bricks are just lying in a pile and then they're like oh well here comes the baby it's time to figure it out so that's that's why i i always look to things like that but for for the person that's receiving this question like sometimes it's because they were doing things like gillian and i were where it was we it's not the right time right now it will be the right time once we get a couple things taken care of first but for some people they can't have kids yeah and then this becomes like the most gut-wrenching heart tear your heart out of your chest question to get

because a lot of those people desperately want to be parents. And IVF is insanely expensive. Adoption is insanely expensive. And unlike for a person without upper middle class means, those things are just largely out of your grasp financially. So you're asking a person who wants one thing more than anything in the world already is killing themselves that they can't have it. If they are the party who cannot have children, they're already taking that as a gut punch and they're dealing with the guilt because my wife or my husband can't be a parent because of me. And then you hit them with this. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know know there's nothing else to say after that we thought we were gonna have that problem um really the next one is

well i gotta throw this comment in stewart said each banner so far has been a good example of never miss a good opportunity to shut up that's true and steward shared this while i've been shared he said we wanted kids still hurts we never could every damn day it hurts yeah that one yeah that one is a hard one when are you having kids um and then when when i told phil about this, it was more on the mama bear side of stop saying things to teenage girls about their weight and appearances. And then he came and told me about the banners that he added. And it made me think of the time where we, again, we got this question a lot. And it wasn't because we couldn't have kids. It was because it was an intentional, we were intentionally waiting to have kids. Um, and then we got pregnant and I lost the

first pregnancy. Wow. That one hit hard to say that. Um, and so I was scared after that. Like, I didn't know, should we be doing this? Should we try again? I don't want to go through this again. I don't want to lose another child. I don't want to go through the pain of a miscarriage. I don't want to do all that again. But I was so damn determined because I wanted kids.

I wanted to have children with you. She wanted four. I did. I wanted four. Which kind of brings me to the next banner of when are you having more kids. And people would tell me this all the time. And this is. We got this a ton from a lot of people.

A lot. And every time I got it, I was more and more mad. Because we lost our first one. The second pregnancy with Piper, I was high risk the entire time, the entire time. Um, I almost died giving birth to her. I was almost institutionalized after I gave birth to her. My postpartum lasted for three fucking years. Excuse my language. I might have to beat that out it lasted for three years um three and a half if you want to think about all the things that kind of dwindled out over the last year and when I say I almost died giving birth the doctor I we should have sued the doctor for malpractice.

Because when I went in for my, I don't remember, two week, three week, I don't remember what it was. Right after I gave birth. 40 stitches later, 30 to 40 stitches later. I won't go into detail. But it was not pretty. And she told me, sure, you can, um, you can have sex again, but you may not be able to have children. Um, even a C-section was, uh, not on the table. So that was crushing. And so when you have all those things, and after that, after being so mangled from the doctor not doing an ultrasound and seeing that my child was, she wasn't breech.

She came out with both fists next to her head, her temple, like this. And if you know anything about female anatomy, this doesn't fit in a birth canal. And if you know anything about female anatomy, this doesn't fit in a birth canal. So when she came out blue and not breathing, it was because she had been in the birth canal for too long. But my doctor never did an ultrasound and never thought to say, hey, we probably should have a C-section. Because not only is your child dying, but now you're bleeding to death. Anyway, different day, different subject. I would have people tell me that I, one, was a horrible mother for not giving her more siblings. Literally said that to

me. You are a horrible mom. Why wouldn't you give her more, more, why wouldn't you give her siblings? She's going to grow up alone. She's going to grow up sad. She's not going to have anybody when you die. She's not going to have any siblings to help her through the process when you get old. And you're going to leave her to do all of that by herself. And I mean, just y'all, when I tell you, I was berated by so many people about how awful of a mother I was because I am having an only child. I was because I am having an only child. I, at one point, one of my cousins said that he older, he was, he's my dad's cousin. So he's my second cousin. He didn't mean anything by it. He, he said, but he got it. He got the, he got the floodgates open. Um, he asked me, he said,

when are you going to give her a brother or sister? And I think she was either three or four at the time. And, again, floodgates opened, and I looked at him, and I said, you know, the reason why I'm not giving her more, and everything I just told you came out. I was like, I can't have any more children. Thank you for asking. Thank you for wondering when she's going to have, she's not going to have more children. I mean more, she's not going to have a sibling. I can't have any more kids. I felt about this tall. He did. And I apologize. And I, you know, it wasn't right for him to get the, he did. It wasn't right for

him to get that. But I told him, I said, don't ask those questions. You don't know what I've been through. Like we, I didn't go public with everything that happened. Um, not until the show started and I started to, I think Piper was probably four or five years old when I was like thinking to myself, women are not told this in the doctor's office. We're not told about postpartum. We're not told about postpartum psychosis. We're not told about that you might hear voices and see things and the lack of sleep may actually send you into like a manic cycle or what you're not told about those things. You're told about rainbows and unicorns and puppy dogs and being one with your child, but you're not told about those things. You're told about rainbows and unicorns and puppy dogs

and being one with your child, but you're not told about the horrors that women go through when they have children. Sometimes. Sometimes. And sometimes there's women who have 16 children and they're fine every time, whatever. I was not one of those people. I did not want to go through those things again. When I tell you it was the scariest time of my life, I will have my foot ripped off again in a car wreck, then go through postpartum and have a child again. She will be an only child. I am forced to remind you of the time that you came to me and asked me,

like that one last ask about, are you sure we're not having any more kids i asked you yes and i i i put my foot down hard i know i came to you and i said what if we tried one more time what if we had one more kid what would you think and you were like absolutely not you didn't want to go through it again well but here's the thing about my my i i did a very simple rational calculus in my head of i almost lost you last time and we did lose the first pregnancy could have lost her when we were pregnant with her so i all i was seeing was i'm like okay there's all these things that have to be risked to do this again and i didn't honestly my greatest fear at that point was i was gonna have

to raise her by myself you almost did but therein lies my point i that's why i just put my foot down and said no like when when you and i were trying to be children were trying to be parents the first time i had this thing deep inside of me that was pushing me saying you need to be a parent the two of you need to be parents but i didn't feel that afterwards so i've like you and i've had this conversation about our things i've always said before like you know call it gut feeling intuition clairvoyance or you know whatever but like whatever you believe in, I get those things deep inside of me that tell me, do this or don't do this. And when something says, do not do this, you know, you're going to, you are, you are, you are going to do it by

yourself against me, or you're going to have to accept it because i've something in me is not allowing me to move forward and with regards to that yeah i dug in real hard said no this is this is not everything that we've built everything we've overcome is at risk again if we do this and it's not a risk i'm willing to take but again the same reason why when are you having kids is such a gut punch. People that can't have kids, people that can't have more kids, this is a gut punch to them. Because I wanted two, Gillian wanted four. We never planned to be one and done. But, you know, the best laid plans sometimes blow up in your face and you're forced to change plans. And honestly, it's not as unusual as you think.

There's a lot of women who, whatever happens in that first birth, that's it. They are told, they are medically advised not to have more children. Some do, and some, you know, roll the dice and get away with it but it's it's more common than i initially realized that so many women after they have that first child that's it their their body will not do and like you said some sometimes they'll have three four five ten twenty and it's just 20 but again why would you do that? Well, consider, consider, consider for a moment that historically,

like the, it wasn't a real question. Okay. Sorry. No, but what I'm saying was historically, like the, the greatest,

the greatest risk of death to women was always childbirth until more recent times. So like there's a risk. Yeah. yeah i mean i know if we were in back in the old ages or whatever house on the prairie even yeah even at that level i wouldn't have made it out of childbirth i would have bled to death yeah so anyway so yeah, there's reasons. There's probably plenty of reasons why people aren't having more kids. And I know you want to move on and we're almost at an hour, but I, again, silence is golden. Keep your mouth shut. You don't know what they've been through.

they've been through. But I also, I also want to say to, you know, people, what am I trying to say here? Sorry, I'm kind of, I'm struggling with this one. Tell them, maybe not in the way that I told my cousin, but tell them I can't have any more children. And maybe because what I think happened in that whole conversation is my cousin will never ask another woman, when are they having more kids? I don't think he'll ever ask again because now it's like, oh, you can't. Got it. I probably should. That's like you don't walk up to an overweight woman and go, oh, when's the baby due? you don't say things like that because, you know, you just don't ask them, when are you having more? Because maybe they can't, maybe they don't want to, maybe it's none of your business. Maybe it's a tumor. It's not a tumor. Maybe we're happy being

one and done. Maybe the, the, the flow in this house and the energy in this house was only meant to be three of us. And I'm really glad that you said no, we're not having any more. Because I get to focus my whole attention on my one child. And she gets all of her mom. She doesn't have to split it. Not that people who have siblings or multiple kids are doing anything wrong. You're certainly not. But for us us this is what worked so don't question it because we've thought about it again it's usually on people's minds all

the time they don't need your help pointing it out true so what's your last one are we going to talk about the last one yeah last one is comments about possessions home cars and i feel like this is i i would hope this is the thing that's discussed the least it's a slight departure from the rest of the list yeah when you said comments about possessions i was like i don't really get that question but okay but so has anybody has anybody ever commented on like the size of our home or the cleanliness of it, the repair of the furniture? Other than my mother? Well, I was going to say, other than your sister grilling you about not cleaning the baseboards.

Oh, that's just a thing between me and Phoebe is, why haven't you cleaned the baseboards? And then with Andrew, why haven't you cut the lawn? But yeah, that's, but therein lies a thing. Like, you know, from years of living with me, I'm very particular about taking care of our stuff. You know what I'm saying? I want our stuff to be in good repair. I want the lawn done. The lawn needs to be done.

Can I comment on that? Comments about possessions in your home hey when are you gonna cut the lawn i'll do it after work one day this week one last time before winter yeah the blackberry bushes are growing into the yard yes i know but anyway but i'm very particular about like the cars clean, keeping the outside of the house up. And I'm very particular about that because I've always said... No comment. Keep going. There's a comment in there.

Keep going. But I've always... Go ahead. You've always... I'm going to turn the camera off for just a second. No, you're good. I'm going to turn the camera off for just a second. No, you're good. I've always noticed when I was growing up that people that took care of their stuff,

it looked nicer than a person that had nice stuff but treated it like trash. But I've also heard people comment on people's vehicles and people's houses and you know like why haven't you gone on on a vacation this year and like all all these the question that's being asked even though they're work i say comments about possessions is people are trying to figure out do you have more money than i do okay which is a very sensitive subject especially for men because like i don't know we're kind of like pre-programmed and raised to be the providers so if someone calls into question like the lifestyle we're providing for our family that that cuts pretty deep very quickly you know i'm saying yeah is that it i'm just gonna let this one go, you can talk about this one. I'm trying to follow what you're saying.

But it does fit and it makes sense. Like, you don't... Perfect example. Tell me. Remember the other day when you brought up vacation and I got a little irritated? I did. I'm always bringing up vacations. Yes, because some people were talking about their vacation to Ireland.

Oh, yeah. You did. You took that way, way further than it needed to go because that was not the intention of the comment. What have we been talking about this whole time? Well. We've been talking about how it comes across to the other person, maybe not how you intended it. Okay. Sorry. But again, to me, what I hear when I hear that is, is why aren't you working harder to provide more for us?

And that cuts really, really deep. Because from my perspective, it's like, sure, I mean, I could yank several thousand dollars out of the 401k and we could go to ireland for a week or do whatever but i'm i have this long-term outlook on we need to be able to retire one day we have these dreams of building our own home and i have to i have to put effort towards that or we're not we're never going to get there and we're going to wipe in the situation some other people are in where they're living on social security and you know dead broke i know i got it i got it that night i understood i knew i had crossed a line and i'm sorry about that but my little wanderer heart you know people talk about all their magnificent vacations overseas and into all of

these beautiful places in the earth and i have a jealous streak and i wish that we could do things like that and i think there are times where we could do things like that if we plan for it and um actually like budgeted it in of having these wonderful vacations and it wasn't delivered the way that it should have. I already apologized for it. What else do you want? Just to have the conversation. Sacrifice? Sure.

Which guy? No, I'm joking. I'm joking. Yeah, so Joe just threw this up. What? All the time you spend too much on that old truck, your house is cluttered. And he said, I like the truck and we live in it. Yeah, I used to have a sign, you know, when signs were the thing to, you know, all the word things in your house.

And it said, sorry for the mess, we live here. And yet every time someone's coming over, you still do the flight of the bumblebee routine. I do. And then I tell you and Piper, it has to look like nobody lives here. We don't live here. It has to be clean. We don't live here when people come over. Unless it's your father and he comes over and looking for cobwebs.

And then he sees cobwebs somewhere. And he's like, oh, you still have your Halloween decorations up. And I'm like, oh, I never take those down. They're up all year. That's another thing. Don't comment on my cobwebs. We like the spiders. I'm joking.

It doesn't bother me. It is what it is. So I guess the whole wrap up for this is just very simply like think like thumper i was well or like stewart never miss an opportunity to shut up right but like you know wait time out coming from stewart and you never miss an opportunity to shut up i don't know if you two could shut up i love love you, Stuart. And you podcast. That's why you podcast now. I'm going to shut up. I'm joking. Okay. Somebody commented. It's probably Stuart and he's probably mad at me. No. Okay, good. Anyway. Yeah. So I guess the whole point of this is really just like, you know,

consider for a moment that the question you're asking with no malice in your heart might be carrying a fair amount of additional baggage for the person you're asking. And just, you know, be considerate of that. Be considerate of the way you're asking, the place you're asking, and all that. But, yes. There is love, Dad. What are you talking about? Your dad said, I'm feeling the love.

There's love. There's love. Anyway, is that all? That's all. Okay. See, I made it weird again again i have to start the show weird and then i have to end the show making it weird that's just a thing because it's weird i'm weird i'm awkward anyway all right so let's go ahead and wrap this up so you can finish the rest of your day being weird.

I make no apologies. Well, thank you all for joining us today. And if you're listening, thanks for listening. And we'll see you next week. Bye, everybody. Bye, y'all. Thank you.