Streaming with a Side of Parenthood Crafting Content Amidst Family Life with Guest ChillinwithDev

Striking that elusive balance between diaper changes and data streams is no small feat, and I know I'm not alone in this high-wire act. That's why Bearded Nova and I have laid bare our daily triumphs and missteps in synchronizing the rhythms of parenthood with the pulse of content creation. As the sun sets on my night owl habits, I find myself navigating the transition to daytime streaming, aligning my passion for gaming with the patter of little feet off to school and the sacred ritual of family dinners.

The ticking clock is a relentless teacher, reminding us that the sands of time wait for no parent — or streamer, for that matter. This episode is an intimate reflection on the sacrifices and shifts I've made, intertwining my child's growth with the evolution of my daily schedule. Admitting to my past rigidity, I share the journey toward a work-life symphony that resonates with the heartbeats of my loved ones. Bearded Nova and I dissect the art of putting family and work before play without losing our sense of self along the way.

With a wink and a nod, we wrap up celebrating the joyous chaos of parenting, while reaffirming our allegiance to the gaming world. It's a toast to all the parents who've somehow managed to keep their headsets on without missing a beat of their child's laughter. Join us in the candid celebration and chime in on social media; after all, it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes an extraordinary community to raise a content creator.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Stand by, stand by Switching from Human Mode to Dad Mode, initializing Sequence in 3, 2, 1. This is Dad Mode, the podcast where we navigate the chaotic realms of parenting, gaming, content creation, work and hell, just life in general. We're diving into the challenges of raising kids in the digital age, from social media madness to navigating the gaming landscape. We're talking about it all, especially from a dad's perspective. Whether it's conquering the littest game, creating content that's more than just a hobby, or just trying to keep up with the ever-changing tech landscape, we're right there with you. We want to help you navigate this wild journey of parenthood and modern life, from balancing family time to managing your career and still squeezing in some gaming and content creation. It's all about fun, some dad wisdom and a whole lot of dad mode. Now your hosts Bearded Nova and more.

Speaker 2: 1:23

Welcome back, dev. It's been a long time, mike, your sheet's gone away.

Speaker 2: 1:32

Last time we were talking a lot about parenting in general and whatnot. I want to focus a little bit more on, specifically, time management. This is something that we cover often, I think, but it's always great to hear I was telling you before we got recording that I've always enjoyed hearing different people's perspectives on how they approach it mentally, where things are at. I think all these other perspectives really help people who listen to the podcast. As we mentioned before, you have a child, you have a family, you have a lot of content creation stuff that you do and you've been doing for quite a while. From what I know of you, it has become a big part of what you do in terms of your outside of family activity, outside of work activities. How do you manage to balance all of that with all those things I mentioned?

Speaker 4: 2:32

In full transparency. I'm not great at balancing all of it and that's something I'm really working on. I'm not a huge New Year's resolution person but with the New Year here I really want to focus on balancing things out. I'm preparing to completely flip my stream schedule. Currently I've been doing a 6pm to 10pm slot. I'm in Arizona, so half the year I'm lined up with Pacific Standard Time. The other half of the year it's Mountain Standard Time, utc minus 7, or people on the other side of the world.

Speaker 4: 3:18

With that switch. My hope and I think what will come of it is that I will be at a better inner peace with myself, because I want to be a streamer, but I also want to be a mom and I want to be a good partner. When I'm streaming at night and my son is home and my partner is home, it feels like I'm taking away time that I should be spending with them. I can't always make dinner, I don't always get to eat dinner with them or at all, because 6pm is dinner time, but that's the time that worked for me, because I don't want to be up until 2 o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 4: 3:56

I don't want to be up at 2 o'clock in the morning when I have to take a kid to school at 7.

Speaker 3: 3:59

That's our mistake. That's what we do. We do the noxial too.

Speaker 4: 4:04

Yeah, so I'm working on switching my schedule to more of a morning, late morning, early afternoon. But it's also not just to do with parenting, but my personal mental health journey. When I have to wait the whole day for my main event to happen, it's really easy for me to settle into this lazy not going to get anything done. Let the house kind of become a mess, let my own self become a mess. So I think by switching my stream schedule and treating it more like a day job, a 9 to 5 of sorts, I will just be a better mom and be a better parent and I can have the energy to enjoy time with my family at the end of the day and not be streaming, in a way, from them.

Speaker 3: 4:50

So, it's go ahead. I was going to say changing to a different hour I guess in your streaming time, your schedule time. When I looked at it because, as I said, I've got this bad period my real time is 9 to 2 in Australian time. In terms of that, half the year we have daylight savings, so when I start streaming, my state doesn't have daylight savings, so it's now 10, 11 o'clock, so I'm coming in when basically everyone's not around and not watching content outside of that prime time hours. And I was looking at, okay, so where is my demographic, where is the prime time hours for when I'm streaming? And to me, I looked at it, okay, that's UK. I guess that would be similar to you. Then if you start moving to daytime, you'd be looking at, you know, predominantly people.

Speaker 4: 5:42

I'm going to be looking at a lot of UK people. Yeah, their evening time it would be, because my UK following that I currently have. You know, they'll usually pop in and say it's 2 o'clock in the morning, I'm going to bed. I'm like, oh okay, bye, so it'll be a new audience. But ultimately, I've just made the choice of you know, I saw a lot of people on TikTok saying this too, which really helped. It's just stream at the time that's best for you, and we know that. We know that we should stream at the time that's best for us, because that's how we'll make better content and just be better creators, and I've been ignoring that. So I'm ready to embrace that.

Speaker 2: 6:19

Oh good, yeah. Yeah, I was going to say something. You know, something you mentioned triggered a thought for me. You know it said you want to change things up. You can allow you to treat it as a nine to five, allow you to be a better mom, all this stuff. I don't really talk much about this, but I mentioned before a couple of years ago that you know I try to keep my hobbies, as I have my kids, right, because I still have to be me when I'm not being dad. Yeah, but it doesn't stop me from feeling guilty sometimes when I'm spending time doing other things that I like, but I'm like, oh, I left them inside playing and they're fine, but I'm like, should I be in there? Should I just be at 100% of the time? Like? I have sometimes a hard time getting that out of my head and I don't know if it's right or wrong. I don't know what your thoughts are.

Speaker 4: 7:15

Now that I don't have a nine to five, it is a lot easier to dwell on that, and I've basically taken this opportunity of not having, or really necessarily needing, a full-time job right now to, you know, try to find that balance and not kind of get rid of that guilt as much as possible, because it is.

Speaker 4: 7:42

It was a Huge thing that I dealt with while I was working I felt really guilty and just really tired and in selfish ways, I just felt like I don't want to do anything for anybody right now. I'm exhausted, I don't want to stream, I don't want to be a mom, I don't want to make dinner, I just want to go to bed, and you can't do that when you're, when you're an adult and you have responsibilities and other people that you need to care for and that rely on you. You don't have that luxury. So I'm taking this opportunity to Do what's best for me and for my family and if it's, if it means that, you know, my viewership drops or my, you know, following changes and the people that I talked to have to change, it'll be rough, but ultimately it's for the better cause.

Speaker 3: 8:32

I believe you know, but I see us.

Speaker 4: 8:35

Yes. I love brice.

Speaker 3: 8:36

Yes, and lovely content going through a big change to.

Speaker 4: 8:39

I was gonna say her.

Speaker 3: 8:40

She's doing quite similar. She, you know, she's besides Hers, who I guess is a bit more crazy.

Speaker 4: 8:45

She's moving across the globe, really, you know she's she's entering my time zone almost and she has to start fresh, really to yeah, you know, because of servers and they just, they just, you know I know she was planning on doing more content creation full-time and pushing forward into that space.

Speaker 3: 9:06

And then, you know, as they go on into this move turns out twitch is like, yeah, no eyes when I longer support in that country anymore. So she needs, she's got to change whole platforms all together as well.

Speaker 4: 9:16

And yeah, it's, it's and she's also a mom. Yeah she's got yeah, she's got that balance effect that she knew, that she has to now figure out in this new not just a new place, but new time zone, new everything, new platform. So yeah, I talked to her quite a bit. I love her, she's great.

Speaker 3: 9:35

I you know that's gonna be dramatic change. When I think about coming back to content creation and doing bits of things like for her and and like we talk about balance and life balance and family balance and loved ones, that's a lot.

Speaker 4: 9:48

That is like it's hard and it's gonna hit her it, it feels impossible, and you know the gurus and the mantras and the Buddhists and all of that. Like they'll tell you, you can find a perfect balance, and I think people these days get too hung up on that or take it too hard on themselves when they can't. I know I do, and so, just you know, if you do one act towards something that you typically neglect, you can be proud of yourself because you did something that you would normally not do like today, I played Mario Kart with my kid and I spent the entire rest of the day creating graphics and calendars and video editing On the couch in a public space with him near me, but he needs that one-on-one time. So it's it's. It doesn't have to be a perfect, even balance, as long as you're putting attention where attention needs to be had.

Speaker 2: 10:44

Yeah yeah, I bearded I talked before like what we have done is I Do everything, most everything, after my kids go to bed. Right, I try to be there. You know, between the time I get home and when they go to bed you spend some time with them and then do I sacrifice sleep to do everything else and like, yeah, doing for like four years and that that helps, but still you can't get everything done. You know just in the after-hour because, as you know, you know, there's so much to do.

Speaker 2: 11:15

There's so much to do if you do this right and I Also want to recognize that. You know you were mentioning how people say you can find that balance and you know I was pretty Adiment about the way things should be done, you know, because, yeah, that's what I worked the best and I know, I know that I negatively, negatively affected some people because I was very hardcore on the way that I said things should be done, you know. But you know there just is not a lot of time to do everything you need to do in certain hours. So you do need to find that balance with your family and in your jobs and everything that you have going on outside of your hobbies. You know, and you have to, you have to be honest with yourself when you're doing that prioritization, when you're doing that balance, because you know something we say like I think our very first episode was, you know, content creation, hobby, whatever hobbies you have, they are not as important as your family, they're not as important as your job.

Speaker 2: 12:15

The thing that, yeah, you know and and you have to put that in perspective tonight and I'm saying this probably I'm hoping that Does a time loop in older me, younger me, sees this and stops doing everything I was doing earlier. But, like you, have to realize what's really important in your life. And you know, as bearded knows and as you know dev, like that time of your kid it goes so fast. It goes so fast like I can't believe that my kid is already 12 and that he's gonna be driving off to college in a few years. You know, and then, like you know me, when I turned 1920, I was out of the house, like that was it. I was done. I've never looked back and, like I, I start to realize every now and oh shit, my kid's gonna be there and not too long, right?

Speaker 3: 13:05

Yeah, so cats and Steven's time that song for granted today.

Speaker 4: 13:09

It's gonna be gone like gone, you know yeah, and you know, with with balancing the time and knowing that time goes by so quickly, whatever time of the day you're able to get those things done.

Speaker 4: 13:26

Like you said, you know that they're not as important as family time, which is why I'm trying to take this opportunity of not having a day job and shifting my hobby to happen when my kid is in school and my partner is at work, so that way I'm not taking up their time, because that's how I really look at it is that, even though I've been so used to the nighttime hours because I had to, because I had a job it's now become their time, it's become family time, and I can't sacrifice sleep. I fall into a dark world of Alice in Wonderland if I don't get my sleep. So, yeah, it's been quite the inner turmoil, but I've come to the decision and it's you know I'm nervous about it, but ultimately, nothing's a permanent decision. Life is constantly changing and this is a small moment of time, but I don't want to sacrifice the moments that I have with my kid or the things that I would like to do. You know I have a while to do those things.

Speaker 3: 14:34

I say that because I've spent, you know, 30, let's say, 35, 38 years of my life doing the minimum sleep.

Speaker 4: 14:42

You know I'd stay in a late playing video game as a kid into my high school years.

Speaker 3: 14:46

It's an early adult, before I had children. I've always been a night owl as such, you know, the classical gamer, I guess in a way. But that's actually the reason why I haven't come back, like both knows. When I took the time off the newborn, I knew she was awake when I wanted to strain and that's when I let my wife sleep. I was trying to get you sat and I was always thinking I want she gets into a nighttime routine and she's sleeping, then I'll get back into it all. That was that. That was, you know. Two months ago she got into that. Technically I could come back to my schedule. First time in my life I've actually getting great sleep. But that's actually why I have. It is because I'm like.

Speaker 3: 15:30

I'm loving sleep more than I do content creation.

Speaker 4: 15:32

Who would have thought you mean, I don't have to go to bed at three o'clock in the morning, exactly, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:41

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 15:42

And the late night hours. It's weird I can be a night owl or I can be the person who's up at 6 am. It just depends on what pattern I develop. So if I have a really good routine of waking up at 7 am and then I stay up till 3 am One night, I'm screwed up for at least two weeks and it frustrates me because I can't you know, I can't afford to do that with the time that you have. And so, yeah, I'm excited to change my schedule and find this better balance between my hobbies and being a mother and a partner. Yeah, I really don't see any negative to it, other than it's something new and that can be kind of scary.

Speaker 2: 16:29

But yeah, yeah. And for people wondering, you know, because we're talking about, you know this as a hobby and you know, but obviously Dev is concerned with it. It's because, like when you, when you're doing this for a certain period of time and you're putting as much effort into it as I know Dev does, yes, it's a hobby, but it's more, it's so much more than a hobby. It's your baby, it's it's, it's trying to be fast, you know.

Speaker 4: 16:55

Yeah, and whether whether you're a perfectionist or not I definitely am. I was actually just talking about this with my community last night. I said I'm a perfectionist, a procrastinator and a people pleaser, and the three of those together don't always allow you to accomplish much, and so it's a. It's a mess of a cocktail, and I'm trying my best to work with those qualities in a way that works for everyone around me, as well as myself. So it's kind of like common denominators. You know, even though I might not want to do this or this might not be what I'm used to, it's what feels like the best choice, it's the best piece that fits into the puzzle. So sometimes you just have to do that.

Speaker 2: 17:40

So I'm going to ask you a future looking question here. So your son is almost eight, let's say in eight years. He says hey, I want to become a content creator, I want to become a streamer or gamer First of all, I guess, would you, would you let them, and what kind of advice would you give them, knowing that still in high school at that point?

Speaker 4: 18:00

Yeah, I think I have a very young spirit. I would say, and there's not a day that goes by, that I don't wish I had discovered YouTube and content creation while I was in high school. So if, if, eight years from now it looks anything like it does today, even in retrospect, I would let him do it. I would set some boundaries on how to be safe on the internet. We do that now. He has a headset now with a mic. We say you don't say what state you live in, you don't say what city, you don't say your name, how old you are, you don't even say the animals names, like nothing.

Speaker 3: 18:43

My kids. It's my son. He talked to his friends, basically he's just got his friend circle being outside of that. No.

Speaker 4: 18:51

Yeah, so I would. I would let him. I would let him, I would offer my knowledge and I would teach him how to edit videos and things. I had a father who was really big on. You can learn anything you want to do on YouTube. Go for it. And so I think I would let him. I would set some boundaries as to how you can be safe, how you can still respect the privacy of other people. Like you don't have to go do stupid stuff in public, but I think I would be open to it. I think it would be exciting. And if he miraculously blows up and becomes the next, you know whoever, maybe he can buy me a nice car.

Speaker 2: 19:32

I don't know and you can tell me. Put in a good word and get me partnered.

Speaker 4: 19:36

finally, yeah, right, right yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:41

So I agree, I wouldn't ever tell him no, no, anything of this unless, like like you were kind of in Once anyway, like unless it changed dramatically or something like that. And I think one thing I've said for a long time too is, despite how difficult this can be, especially to make money or to get a lot of recognition, you learn a lot. You learn a lot of skills that you down the road editing and social media management and all the stuff that I've said at times time.

Speaker 4: 20:09

Time management yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:11

Right, exactly, I think that all those those skills and learn how to talk to people, talk in public Like those are just a public speaking aspect alone can help you the rest of your life, you know. So I think there's a lot of valuable skills here that you can learn and I definitely think that it is important for people to get into if that's what they're interested in doing. Yeah, so I agree.

Speaker 2: 20:38

Yeah, so I think it'd be really good. Now, I guess. On a similar note, I don't have a problem with them streaming Right now, at my oldest being 12,. I don't want him to go on to Twitch though. Right, yeah, he could have created a kind of a, but I don't want him to go on to Twitch. I don't want him to go on to kick. I don't want him to go on to. Well, maybe live spaces isn't as bad, but Twitch and kick the two big ones, right. I am uncomfortable with some of the content on there. Yeah, more for my YouTube.

Speaker 4: 21:13

Oh for sure, Even YouTube even edited and you know well, produced gaming content on YouTube. I mean, my kid loves Minecraft. We don't let him play among us at my house, but I'm pretty sure he does at his dad's house and the reason being for some of the censoring on what he can and can't play is because he has a TV that can access YouTube and things like that. And he started. I got a call from his daycare and he was five, I think at the time and he told the kid that he was going to harm their mother with a sharp object.

Speaker 4: 21:52

Oh Okay, and it's because he was watching someone play among us and he showed me the video and he repeated exactly what that creator had said. And then, like a month ago, I was in the kitchen doing dishes and he said you know a profanity and it's not something that we ever say in our home and he got it from a friend who plays games or whatnot, and so I don't want my kid on those websites as someone who absorbs the content. I have passwords on all of those apps now, on all the TV. I've been saying for a couple of years, really since I got onto Twitch, that 13 is too young, that it should be 16 and up. And if they want something for 10 to 13, they need to make like a kid's junior Twitch, you know like how they do with Disney and Disney Junior and stuff, and they've done it for YouTube.

Speaker 4: 22:48

Youtube kids, yeah, and so, yeah, no ads. That's a cute, true, true. So, yeah, I don't want my kid on the platforms either as a viewer. I really try to monitor what games he plays, who he plays games with, like you said, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:08

So, like my kids, my oldest son plays among us and my wife was like, whatever, it's a game. I'm like, no, no, no, you don't know. There's a chat room. She's like, yeah, it's monitored, it's not like it's in, it's not, it's not monitored. And you know one thing I like about one thing I do every now and then and here bearded, and I both do in here is we like to let people know, because it's parents listening who are always gamers, but they're game and we like to let about what's going on in that world that they may not even realize, like, how toxic some of these games are, like my son's.

Speaker 2: 23:40

like oh, can I play Call of Duty? Like, absolutely not, you're not. You can play it, but you can't. Like you can play Fortnite, but you can't have a mic. You know what I mean. Like I don't care if you play the game, it's the people. Right, yeah, it's the people. But there's also, especially for my son, like you know, it's it's the sexuality on a Twitch that I am most uncomfortable with nowadays.

Speaker 2: 24:07

You know in my wife someone who is more of of a feminist. You know I completely agree with her. I don't want my son at his age to think of women and those terms like it's not the great place to start from as you're getting older.

Speaker 4: 24:28

Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 3: 24:30

That's, that's that's hard to you know, even if they find a great content creator, that's, you know, perfect for them to watch. And I guess this is why Twitch didn't get into the whole merging of chats figs. When they made it open, you got no control over what happens in that chat.

Speaker 4: 24:50

But yeah, you can pick your terms. You can pick your boundaries and hope that the bots catch them or that the mods catch them.

Speaker 3: 24:57

There's always a chance.

Speaker 4: 24:59

It's like. The way I would look at it Is would you bring your kid into an adult restaurant, like an adult only restaurant, or a 15 years old and up restaurant where parents, where there are no rules? Basically, would you really want your eight year old, your 10 year old, to walk in there without you? No, you wouldn't let your kid walk into a bar without you, you know. Besides, they're not really. I mean, there are physical Scares to having a scenario like that, but online there's still those scares, like if I, if my kids playing he's been really into human fall flat. I have the speaker volume up just loud enough so I'm not totally irritated by the shrieking of children, but the second I hear a grown adult in the mic chat, I ask him to leave and go into a different one, just because I don't. Personally I would not want to play a game with a bunch of kids screaming yeah, and I can't see why another adult would want to do that.

Speaker 3: 26:07

Don't get into VR then yeah. That's all I say. Yeah, VR is horrible. I mean, there's a lot of kids. We don't have one of those things A lot of kids a lot of kids play VR but surprisingly the amount of kids play VR games. You know we call them squealers in the VR space because it's just so loud.

Speaker 3: 26:30

That being said, I do want to play among us in VR because I've been seeing a few clips of because one it seems like it'd be it just be chaos, but the other one is, and it cracks me up and it shouldn't be. But there's adults that are like jumping out of the corner and scaring children in the game and then chasing them, for you know we get to have our fun.

Speaker 4: 26:55

It's a little bit of fun. The kids are going to play with the grown ups. They get.

Speaker 3: 26:59

You know that kind of cracks me up. I'm like I kind of want to do that, Like it's not me normally. I want to be like that, but at the same time, like that's kind of funny. I really want to yell at you know, chase kids around and among us and laugh One of it. Just slight change gives a little bit. What's your feeling? I guess we talked about this the other day with Nerdstorm was your legacy, I guess, Because nowadays we've got the internet, we're content creators, we're putting all this content out on the internet and it's something that's you know. Once you put on the internet, it's there forever. Basically that in theory, it's there forever. How do you feel about your content and for your son seeing it when he gets older? Because realistically, it's a legacy. You know what I brought up to nerd you could.

Speaker 3: 27:46

He could show that to his grandkids. Technically, if it was still on the internet, you could still be showing off what some relative of you was many years down the track it's wild to think of that.

Speaker 4: 27:59

Yeah, and I think a lot of that comes with the way I present myself on stream with what I choose to wear. I do do cosplays occasionally but I try not to step too far over any kind of boundary. I wouldn't. I wouldn't want to embarrass my kid in any way, but also I kind of like my. My boundary is what would I be okay with my grandparents hearing or seeing, and you know, raunchy comments or euphemisms or things like that are all fun and games, but I try not to ever let it get too far out of hand. So, as far as legacy goes, I think I'm doing okay. I've had a few moments where I wouldn't want my kid to repeat what I said, or I maybe wouldn't want my kid to see what I did, but I think overall I'm doing okay. I'm doing okay. I'm not too worried about it.

Speaker 3: 28:56

I'm so worried about it.

Speaker 2: 28:59

The only thing I worry about is the times that I've maybe purposely embarrassed my kids or told embarrassing stories about them, or feel free to do that to your own kids when you have them.

Speaker 3: 29:14

I'm I'm committed to it. Now I'm just head first into this path of shame.

Speaker 4: 29:20

Yeah, you're that, dad, I'm that dad.

Speaker 3: 29:22

I'm the embarrassing dad on the internet. I'm embarrassing children. I've just I've accepted my fate. I've accepted that too. I am and I'm just going to commit to it now, as you should All, or nothing.

Speaker 2: 29:33

Yeah, we had Smash on a while ago and he was joking around that he points to bearded Nova as a reason for his kids not to go on the internet. That's what's out there, but no, it's. It is interesting, like the fact that everything lives forever. Now, right, yeah, Everything lives forever. So I'm just going to point blank. He goes dad, what's your YouTube channel name? I'm like I don't remember. It's like you don't remember. I don't remember Wink, you get the hint. I don't remember what my YouTube channel name is. Yeah, Cause I don't know about what I've said about them in all the videos that I've made. I don't, I don't know.

Speaker 4: 30:07

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 30:08

Bseat pink Joe, there you go, yeah, and in that sense I don't talk about my kid too much on the internet like they've never. They don't know what he looks like, he's not allowed to come into stream. And sometimes I think, oh well, because I see other moms do it and I'm like, oh well, that would be kind of cool, maybe my community would like that. And then it's like you know what? I don't know where these people are, I don't want them, especially with the way my kids school is run. You know, I just don't want anybody.

Speaker 3: 30:34

They don't need to know you gotta, do you feel comfortable with?

Speaker 4: 30:37

Exactly, and so I don't talk too much about him. I'll tell funny stories like oh, I like I have a couple tick tocks or YouTube shorts of the stories of things that he said as a kid or things that he's done, and, yeah, I don't think I'd ever regret those. I don't think I'd ever regret those. Those are priceless. They're gonna happen either way, right. Yeah, yeah family dinner on the internet, it's all the same.

Speaker 2: 31:02

Yep, and the one thing that we were mentioning with with nerdstorm and that you know I like about this podcast is, I Think for the most part, it's pretty positive. You know, we're just talking honestly about things and the struggles and in fact, I wouldn't mind if I could heard this in here. You know they learned how difficult it is being a parent and trying to do everything right, but still being a person and and living your life too is. You know, they get to hear this stuff forever and hopefully it helps them be a better parent. Maybe, yeah, and maybe you know, if they see stuff that I used to do on Twitch or I mean I'm still on Twitch, stuff that I do on Twitch, or you know my YouTube videos or anything like that, I like that, like they can still see things and hear things from my perspective in ways that I've probably never have talked to them. Just see me as like a person and not just dad. You know, I think that's cool.

Speaker 4: 32:03

I know, as a parent, I I would love to have some kind of archive of inner thoughts or just pure Transparent, like no, no filter for my dad or no filter for my mom. Yeah or, like I said to you, morph before, before we started the podcast I. I just learned that my mom played D&D in high school and I'm currently doing my first D&D session.

Speaker 3: 32:31

That's my mom.

Speaker 4: 32:33

My mom is watching the same anime as me and she's actually ahead of me and she finished them and I'm just like, who is this woman? Because that's not the mother that raised me, but it's the mom that was. It was the person that was there all along. And so I'm trying to Be a mom but also be myself for my kid, without being a friend, because we can't be parents and friends. People try, it doesn't work, that's a thing.

Speaker 4: 33:01

But I would like for my kid to Grow up feeling like, when he's an adult, that we're on the same playing field as far as hobbies likes. You know he can come to me for things and not feel like, oh, but that's my mom. He probably still will, but I know now, as an almost 30 year old, that I have more in common with my mom than I ever thought and it has created a better relationship. And it almost makes me feel bad for the. You know the last 10 years where I felt like my mom didn't know who I was. So I think it's really. I think it's better to be your full self and have some kind of archive for your kids to See and hold on to for when we are gone and whatnot.

Speaker 2: 33:46

Yeah, yeah, I, I've come to that same realization over the last few years where, at work, you know, I used to like keep this line between myself and my employees and try to give us certain Present, a certain portion of myself that was very professional or whatever, right, yeah, I realize that's not being Totally truthful and I feel like relating to them and telling people that I'm I make mistakes too, I fuck up too, and you know, I don't know everything.

Speaker 2: 34:17

It's really helped me bond with my employees better. And I feel the same way about my kids, like, yeah, I, there's still a little bit of a line that I don't cross, but I tell them. You know, a lot of times, like the thoughts that are going through my head, like why this is hard, I'm like you guys know it's not easy being a dad because I have to do this or this for you guys. Then you know I have other things going on and my oldest son is specifically like he seems he's starting to understand that and realizes that oh, you're not just the dad, you're just another guy who's just trying to figure out how to navigate. Yeah, what's going on? And I know that there's some people I've talked to said oh, you really need to try to, like you know, keep that separation between yourself and your kid. But I'm like I don't mind if they know who I am as a human being, you know yeah, I would want them to.

Speaker 4: 35:05

Yeah, absolutely, because, whether it's you know, I kind of have, I would say, both sides of the coin, because my dad passed when I was still a teenager. But I have my mom and now that I'm finally getting to learn who my mom is Like, oh well, would I have had that chance if my dad was still around. So I would rather Get to know. I would rather a lot want my kid to know who I am as a human being and have that human relation and connection and Something that they can kind of think on as they get older and be like oh, mom's not perfect, mom doesn't know everything, mom isn't someone I should be afraid of all the time. Mom is a person you know and I'm a person, and maybe I should help mom be a person and mom can help me be a person. You know things like that.

Speaker 2: 35:57

So yeah, right, right, yeah, absolutely, Um Bearded. Yeah, I think we're gonna about wrap it up. Yeah, that's fine. Anything you wanted to add? No, no, you're on deaf Fun, despite technical issues here. It has been a blast having you on and I thank you. Spending with us.

Speaker 4: 36:22

Yes, thank you Of course, yes, thank you so much for reaching out, and If you guys ever have another discussion topic and you want to bring me back, I'd love to come back. It was really nice. I haven't I haven't done an interview or a podcast that are in a while, so it was very refreshing.

Speaker 2: 36:39

I appreciate you guys, before we let you go watch, tell folks where they can find you.

Speaker 4: 36:44

Chillin with dev on twitch, youtube, twitter and tick tock. Just Twitter, tick tock and Instagram is a slight variation. There might be a TTV on the end or an underscore somewhere, but yeah, I'm on all of those things. Streaming schedule for 2024 is gonna be Afternoon, shoot for the afternoon and you'll most likely find me.

Speaker 2: 37:07

Cool and we'll try to throw that in the description of this episode and as well, so that, once again, thank you so much for for coming on and if everybody listening at home, go follow her on those platforms, go check her out. She is an awesome person, as you now know, and We'll be next week with some more just stuff.

Speaker 1: 37:28

You've been listening to dad mode. Our passion is navigating this wild journey of parenthood and modern life, from balancing family time to managing your career and Still squeezing in some gaming and content creation. And no matter what the women say, they will never be able to pry the controller out of our cold dead hands. Anyway, we hope you enjoyed the show. If you did find us on Twitter, tick tock and YouTube at dad mode Podcast, and we can be found on every podcast site at dad mode podcast. Y'all be cool. See you next time.