Gentle Parenting - Does it work?

Ever wondered if being too gentle with your kids is setting them up for a fall in the real world? That's the burning question Bearded Nova and I grapple with in our latest Dad Mode discussion. Together, we uncover the intricacies of gentle parenting and its potential to underprepare our children for life's not-so-gentle knocks. From temper tantrums to setting boundaries, we're serving up unfiltered opinions peppered with a healthy dose of humor, as we reflect on our experiences and the broader impacts of parenting styles on resilience.

As we navigate through the maze of modern parenting, we're confronting the bubble wrap syndrome head-on. Are we stifling our kids' social skills and world understanding by being overprotective? This episode isn't afraid to explore the pitfalls of helicopter parenting and permissive upbringings, drawing on personal childhood stories. We're all about embracing the grittier side of parenting, advocating for a balanced approach that allows for skinned knees and learned lessons, paving the way for well-adjusted little humans.

Rounding out our candid conversation, parenting isn't just about guiding - it's about stepping back when necessary. We dive into the complexities of fostering independence, the nuanced dance of discipline with the 'dad voice', and the joy of rewarding our kids in ways that strengthen our bonds. As we juggle parenthood, careers, and even our gaming hobbies, we're charting a course through the whirlwind of fatherhood. Strap in for a real talk about raising the next generation with a firm grip on love, discipline, and yes, even the gaming controller.

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: 1:22

Welcome back everybody. Welcome to Dad Mode. Today we're going to talk about something that a lot of you maybe newer parents think about what's your parenting style going to be as your kid is growing? You probably read a lot about a concept called gentle parenting. Today, Bearded and I are going to talk about what our thoughts on gentle parenting are. Bearded, what do you think about gentle parenting? Do you think it's a good tactic for new parents?

Speaker 3: 1:59

No, I fucking hate it. To be honest, I think realistically. I'm sorry it's going to hurt some people's feelings, but you're making your children soft. That's the best way I can put it. We're into that. When we talked about the early episodes, the participational, that's about gentle parenting no shame, no blame, no punishment. It's handouts, it's being soft. Sometimes you put it. Kids are dicks at times. They can be little assholes, they can do stuff. You try and tell me there's a parent out there that's not going to go, it's alright, don't worry about it, because the kids come into the lounge room and smashed up the fucking TV.

Speaker 3: 2:54

I don't see it.

Speaker 2: 3:00

One thing I want to echo what you just said is kids can be dicks. They just can be. If you're a parent that says, oh my gosh, and you're clutching your pearls right now because we're saying that, then you're not being honest. Your kids are dick. Your kids are dicks.

Speaker 3: 3:24

They might not be dicks to you, but they're dicks to someone.

Speaker 2: 3:28

They are to someone.

Speaker 3: 3:29

They could be the sweetest part of you, but they could be complete assholes out in the world.

Speaker 2: 3:38

I'm reading here because I want to make sure that I'm representing gentle parenting right. One thing I'm reading here on Google says it's an approach that encourages a partnership between you and your child to make choices based on an internal willingness instead of external pressures. It focuses on building a connection, having empathy for what children are feeling and mindful discipline. Your kids aren't mature enough to understand that and they're just going to do whatever their base instinct tells them to do. One thing that Bearded said a second ago is I agree with Bearded that it makes your kids a little soft and when they get out in the world they're going to be eaten alive. They're going to be eaten alive. They need to understand that life freaking sucks.

Speaker 3: 4:29

It's not fair.

Speaker 2: 4:31

It's not. I hear all the time. Why does my brother get this and I don't? Life isn't always fair, dude. I don't know what to tell you.

Speaker 3: 4:44

It's a realistic expectation on the world. I'm not saying just go out and belt the shit out of your child. I'm not saying that's the opposite. For you to sit there and not be upset or not point out when there is a problem, you're going to create more problems for the future. But then you are you know kids drawn on walls. You're like come on, that's not wrong. You get the shoots getting in trouble. They know they learned that that's not something to do. I'm sure we are going to cover it. Probably my wife and I will have to deal with it within the next six months.

Speaker 3: 5:27

Biting Kids bite and my tactic has always been is when a kid bit me, I bit them back, obviously not as hard as what they did, but you still pick up their hand wherever they bitch off and you give them a little bite back and they go oh shit, I don't like that. I don't like that. They might get them upset. That's what you get for biting people. None of my kids bit back after doing it once. Once I give a little bite back. It doesn't leave a bruise or anything, but that's enough, and I don't want that either.

Speaker 2: 6:00

Yeah, I have. The way I look at it is always like you know. I'm like they might do this once, because I will make sure that every nice mistakes. Yeah, it's not happening again and it is interesting seeing that that evolution and, like you know, trying to just brush by things or explain things in a way that really isn't going to sink into them in the way that they understand things that are growing, yeah, simply is not going to, in my opinion, get that job done.

Speaker 3: 6:36

No, no, yeah, it's an example, my one of the middle middle child's. A week ago, two weeks ago, I had a friend over wife's got a migraine. So I said, you know, she went up to a room to lay down and one of the ones, the oldest, went outside to play with the basketball hoop, netball hoop. I said, hey, the dogs will go a little bit crazy. If that's the case, don't yell at them, Just say no, this is how to handle it. Your mum's got a migraine and she was all good. The other one comes out with her friend and it's. I said the same thing, but it's on, it's loud, it's banging. You know the basketball who's right near our bedroom. So I'm like, look guys, don't do it. I don't care if you guys want to go to the park because there's a park not far from me with basketball hoop, but I all means go for it. I don't, you know. You know, I have no problem with my kids going to the park. I've allowed them to do that multiple times.

Speaker 3: 7:38

She took it upon herself to then message her mum. There's a lot of little things, other things involved, but it's not worth it. But the main one is she messaged her mum, knowing her mum wouldn't respond, saying how can I please, can we please go? I shouldn't say please. I'm going to McDonald's with my friend. So instead of being around the corner, that's five minutes down the road, walk, you know, 30 second drive. If that, they walked, which I worked out to be 25, 30 minutes the opposite direction. And then when they came back, I didn't know that my wife had woken up and said hey, did you know they went to McDonald's. I'm like no, no, one talked to me about this, like if I knew that it would have been a no, we know that it was a purpose. She purposely did it that way so she wouldn't get a no, you know she got away with it and it was bringing up to the tension like this isn't on, we're not standing for it. That was the conversation and reasoning behind it.

Speaker 3: 8:42

The orders could see that we're pissed off. We could see that that's not on, it's not going to happen again. That this is the reason why because if something happens to you, we don't know where you are. We don't we. As far as we're concerned, you're at the park and if you go that way, something happens, we're not going to know you to go up that way and look for you. We don't know anything and, besides, the journey itself is just that. It's a big. It's a big trip and I don't trust their road safety, to be honest. But it's explaining that Like she still needs to have trouble. There's no gentle way about it. You could see it was stern voice, it was pissed off. This isn't on. We're not doing this. If you're going to continue this way, then it's going to be consequences for it.

Speaker 2: 9:26

Yeah, and there have to be consequences. And I think that too many people when they start trying to employ gentle parenting, they think it's you just never discipline your kid or you just kind of let them do what they're going to do. Oh, they're just kids are going to do things. And I think that if you read about gentle parenting it's not literally about not disciplineing, but I think too many people take it that way. You have to set those boundaries and sometimes gentle parenting might work for a better for one type of kid, based on what they're, how they process things and how they communicate. But my opinion is it's not going to work for a lot of kids because, like, they're going to take a sandwich or they're going to take something out of someone's hand or whatever, and you can be like, oh well, you know, they're just learning to bond socially or whatever. Like no, they're just being an asshole and you need to tell them that you can't. You can't do that. You need to explain why you can't do that Like.

Speaker 3: 10:32

By the way, the opposite of gentle parenting doesn't mean like you're abusive to your kid, it just means you're really right, that's right, that's that's a really either. We're not going to be abusive, you know full punishment Ever.

Speaker 2: 10:45

Yeah again.

Speaker 3: 10:46

I mean yeah we're notint just going to be abusive now.

Speaker 2: 10:52

And so, like my opinion, it's important to let your kids know when they do something that's just not cool, you know, and your reaction to it should be, should match the severity of what it is they're trying to do. Like if my one of my sons is teasing another one at their table and I don't appreciate that, like I'll, without making a big deal, say, hey, you know, be nice, be nice to your brother. Or the other day my older son picked up my younger son because he's way bigger than him and he, from about five feet away, tossed him onto the couch and I'm like, no, no, we don't do that here, because the dude's going to hurt himself.

Speaker 3: 11:38

Yeah, you know I don't want to deal with it the thing that I respond to.

Speaker 2: 11:42

it has to be has to match the potential severity of the situation.

Speaker 3: 11:48

Yeah, I lost, you know, last night. It was simple. I could say some of the stupidest, stupidest shit, and one of them was about racists being racist. Oh yeah, this is the time to be racist. They're always instant. No, we don't fucking joke about racism, it's not, that's not on in this house. And then what? What they were going on about really wasn't racist at all. We had nothing to do with it, but it's what they were calling something else. I'm like no, just, it's just one of those words that we just don't you know, we're not joking with that Like sorry, no, because outside of the world, outside of the world's not going to understand what they're doing as a joke or whatever. And they're using the word racist because someone picked a different fucking pencil or something like that in the house, like you know, something stupid like that, and then throwing out this word racist, and then that's not the opinion in general, probably it's going to have. So it's teaching them these things like what's actually acceptable, what's not.

Speaker 2: 12:49

Yeah, yeah, because you know the thing is like you're going to try to handle your kid with no pun and 10, like kid gloves, right, but the rest of the world isn't. The rest of the world isn't. Like, if they do something and it's behavior that, like, you understand that whatever reason, like you're not going to discipline it because it's them growing and expressing themselves or whatever you know, when they do this in a store, you know the people are like why is your kid being an asshole? Like stop, you know. Like, like the world, like you can't keep your kids in this bubble that you create, because their entire world is not that bubble that they're living in in your house. Like they have to go to school, they have friends, they're out in public doing stuff. They're not always around you where you can cover for them. They need to understand the boundaries in the social world and these relationships and how the world is going to perceive and treat them based on what they're doing, and you're not necessarily doing them favors by trying to protect them from all this shit.

Speaker 3: 13:56

Nah and like, yeah, we've got all these kids with bubbles. There's no, you know, everyone's in a bubble, there's no distance and no one's getting close to each other. So everyone ends up being in this weird, segregated, self-opinionated high horse, if you will, version and no one's going to get each other. The social, social dynamics change and it's like I talk about just before, my daughter. I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't let her walk that fast. I literally had this conversation with my mother last week about when I was in primary school, so younger than her, that I actually walked. You know, I could walk half an hour, an hour out of a direction.

Speaker 3: 14:43

It's fine, I'm finishing primary school and I'm going to walk two suburbs over to get home. That's not something I would do today and it sounds like I'm being a helicopter parent. You know it's a different. You know a different, different upbringing, I guess. But we're going to go play in floodwater, floodwater. You know it's not something, not something you should play around with. You can drown, you can do lots of different things. Me, floodwater as a child. Quick, go get the bodyboards. We got to get into the creek. We're riding this thing down, you know right.

Speaker 3: 15:17

It's not something I would teach my children because the kind of girls grew up and understand like oh shit, shit could get really bad here, like there has been, I guess, a little bit sheltering Everyone does it of their child and does raise them slightly different to how they were treated as well. But it's finding that lovely little balance of not going too far. The opposite way, I think. If you've been raised right and you feel like you were happy with how you grew up, you know things went as a parent, you see, you see things from your parents' perspective, I guess, and you can see what's right or wrong, you can make your own choices from that, I guess.

Speaker 2: 16:01

Absolutely. I think a lot of people try to course correct in their own as a parent from how they were raised right, because no one was raised perfect. There are things that you recognize as an adult that were wrong on your perspective about how you were raised and you try to correct that in your kid. Now, quite often people overcorrect. In my life. I feel that I was my mom was way too permissive. I could apparently do no wrong and I could do whatever I wanted to do, which I loved growing up. But as an adult I realized that was wrong because I didn't learn any boundaries. I didn't learn, you know, that the world doesn't revolve around me and all that stuff, and so, as I had kids, I'm like, well, I'm not going to let that happen. So now I'm kind of maybe going too far, the other direction, but I recognize it and I try to pull back a little bit and not try to be too much of an overbearing jerk.

Speaker 3: 17:06

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:06

But, like you know, you have to. So I need you guys to be cognizant of that. You know, when you look at how, look, try to step back and look at how you're raising your kids and seeing if you're just overcorrecting. And if you were raised with harsh parents, maybe that's why you said I'm going to be a gentle parent you don't necessarily need to go that route, because often kids with gentle care, gentle gentle, who are raised with gentle parenting, they don't get boundaries set and the parents are too permissive. So try to try to, like you know, ease back off that. Are you going to get kids that are like me and you don't want that? That was an asshole.

Speaker 3: 17:48

I still am.

Speaker 2: 17:50

I'm a bigger asshole now.

Speaker 3: 17:52

I just grew up in the asshole state but yeah, like why? But you say, in using our own offerings and the rest of it. I still try to pair it very close to how I was operating, but it's more the things that I knew I got away with, that my parents didn't pick up on, and I think that's a part of gentle parenting in a way that's not gentle. But there's parents that I guess that would be the helicopter parents. They go to you know, over the top, dictating everything they do. Because you got away with some things as a job, people got to make mistakes. Let them, let them fail, let them fall, let them hurt themselves.

Speaker 3: 18:34

You know, we see it with a younger one. She's, she's afraid. One of our young is is afraid of everything really quickly. But there's no reason to be afraid. But we can't, we can't fix that Now, and that was purely because her father at the time would helicopter in a way. I know she can't do this by herself, I know she can't do that, can't do that. Let's go into a head, even though you know as a preteen now that I can't do these things or something bad is going to happen. You can't correct it. But you know think about. Yeah, it's a sign of overparenting. We're going too far in what it can lead to down the track.

Speaker 2: 19:14

Yeah, I think that Common sense parenting like makes makes the most sense to me. Like I don't necessarily prescribe to any particular style, right, there's no. When you leave the hospital with your kid there's no handbook they give you Not. You just know how you were raised, how your friends are raised, how your brother and sister are raised, and you know your situation is different. You know the partner you're with is not the same as your parents, right? So in the world that you're raising your kids in, it's certainly not the same as the world you were raised in. So, like, you have to just do what you think is right, that you think is going to turn out the best, most productive people out of out of your, out of your household as you could possibly get. And there's no one right way to do it, but there are probably a lot of wrong ways to do it.

Speaker 3: 20:10

Did you have those friends I was thinking about? Gentle parenting, it now definitely didn't exist, yeah, the 40 odd years ago, but in a way it did. In a way it did when I had friends. You know you go stay at a friend's house or something and they're like no mom, I don't like the sandwich, sandwich shit. And I'll be like, oh fuck, look, you just talk to your mom like that, fuck me. And then she's you know the mom's like, oh, that's okay, I'll go get you another one. What the fuck? My mom wouldn't. You know there's no way, fucking, how I would have been able to do that. She would have walked me on you. I knew you were my grand that's. Think about those friends Like. You might not notice it, but think about some of those friends you had growing up in high school that just got away with everything and how they treated their parents. Did you want, do you want, to be treated like that while you're in children?

Speaker 2: 21:09

Right, no, you don't. You know. I think there's another aspect, too, that you touched on at the very beginning of this episode, and it revolves around, like participation, trophies. Now, that might be a generational thing, but I also think that it's part of how some parents do gentle parenting, which I, like I said before, I think a lot of parents who do gentle parenting do it wrong, but it's it's. It's basically saying your kid has no, they don't do anything wrong. Right, everything is, everything is good. So they get a pat on the back, no matter what happens. You know, I accidentally shot the dog. Well, that's okay. Well, you know what, good for you for hitting the dog. I didn't miss him.

Speaker 3: 21:48

So, like I don't believe in any animal cruelty or anything here.

Speaker 2: 21:54

It's just an example. So I think that if they do something good, great. If they do something bad, I'm not saying you, you crap all over them. I'm saying you show them where they could have gone, done things slightly differently to get a better outcome, right, yeah, but you know. Just to say that everything they do is good, is it helpful? And this is coming from someone who's parents, whose mom also told him everything I did was good, no matter what, and that led me as an adult, to think I can do no fucking wrong. And then the world said, yes, the hell, you can. And I had a lot of lessons to learn as as an adult. It would have been better if I knew, and I had this, and I was taught the self-awareness to know what I do something right or wrong as a as when I was younger, so I could learn myself how to correct it and be better positioned to become an adult. Do I get frustrated when I hear parents?

Speaker 3: 22:52

at school complain about things to the teachers, about something's not being fair. It's not right for this child. It just irritates me. This, ah, I don't know Right for this child. That just irritates me. This absolutely irritates it. Shit out of me when I hear a parent complaining for their child Because that child, if you're right, they don't speak up and bring up. It's. A lot of times the children don't have an issue. It's the parents that's got the issue and it's it's pushing that image out into their own child. Irritates me. Irritates me.

Speaker 2: 23:32

Yeah, Um, I, I agree. Uh, let your kids talk, you know you're not. They're not going to learn how to speak for themselves or speak up for themselves if you're always stepping in for them.

Speaker 3: 23:43

I do it for my own kids, even my kids. You know some of the kids talk for the other kids no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, they want to. You know one is not really bad, but one of the ones is one will come out from their room, hasn't seen any of the other children and it goes. Oh, can we all have this? Why are you fucking asking for everyone to have it? You want it? Don't speak for everyone else, just just just say you want it. You don't have to offer it to anyone else. You don't need to go. I'm getting a drink. Everyone can we all have soft, you know? Uh, coke, we all have a glass of Coke. No, you want a glass of Coke. They're going to have a glass of Coke. Because you've now said we're having glass of Coke, do you want one? Have your own opinion.

Speaker 2: 24:26

Yes, I have my older son. I think he believes he owns his younger brother because he tries to make all of his decisions and speak for him, manipulates him constantly about what he's going to do and whatever, and so I have slowly been teaching the younger kid to stand up for himself, and my older son hates it.

Speaker 2: 24:53

As I get older, it's more and more of a voice he looks to me with like anger because he knows I taught him to stand up for himself, to stand up to his older brother when he doesn't like what he's trying to be being told he needs to do. But I'm like it's good for both, for two reasons One, the younger boy is learning to stand up for himself so he won't be hopefully pushed around as much as he goes older. And two, my older son is learning you can't manipulate people. You can't do that and think that you're going to have a wonderful life.

Speaker 3: 25:22

You can't speak to people in a particular way and think it's always going to be cozy. Obviously, the kids get older, the younger ones get older and they start realizing what the older ones had done to them. And then it's a revolt. Get out of my room where before they used to, the oldest would just walk into the room unannounced. It's like I'm coming in here, I'm going to take this, I'm going to do that. Nowadays it doesn't happen like that. There's a screaming match, there's a fight, there's an argument. You know my kids don't hit each other. It's really good on that. But it's definitely argumentative now Definitely a lot more individual boundaries. They have their own personal boundaries that they have that they're setting out to other people as well.

Speaker 2: 26:13

Yeah, I think some people underestimate how little time you have to teach your kids to be adults, to be good people that are productive and can be self-sufficient. Doing everything for your kid is not healthy. Telling your kid they can do no wrong is not healthy. Letting them get away with everything is not healthy, because the world will eat them alive when they get out from your house, and this could be as soon as 18, 17, 18 years old. If they go to college and they're away like they're not living at home, they're going to be in public and having to deal with people without you around. So either A the kid won't know what to do and they're going to struggle, or, b you're going to be so used to having done everything for them and made every decision for them and covering for them at every possible moment that you're not going to be able to live with yourself because you won't be able to be there, and you're going to feel like, oh my God, they're going to be struggling without me, and that's not healthy either.

Speaker 3: 27:25

I find that saying how long you keep it up, for People think you know a child. They might be in your home for 18 years or whatever, until they move out. You've got all this time to help set these things and raise them right. I have gotten into a different opinion now as my children have gotten older. It's the first half of their life where you're setting this foundation and you're building all the blocks that they need for the things that they will eventually face as a teenager, free to an adolescent. And then, once they do get to that age, you're not really right or wrong. You're more helping them understand the consequences for their decision. Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 3: 28:10

My teenager could do something fucking horrible and still get in trouble, grounded, et cetera, but how that is nowadays is nothing to what it used to be. It's more her handling life and understanding, you know, using all those tools and resting on the foundation that she has from us to take on everything else in the world. And when something happens, it's you know. Do you think it could have been done differently? Oh yeah, now think about it. You know I probably should have done it this way or no. I don't think that. You know, you do get that occasionally. No, I've done everything right. Well, maybe not. Like you know, here's my point of view. What do you think about that?

Speaker 2: 28:54

Yeah, yeah, it's. Look, parenting is not easy, you know. Nobody has any experience doing it when you first get into it and it's you know. It's easy to screw your kids up. I'm going to be honest with you. It's easy to screw them up. But if you pay attention and you treat them like people and not try to coddle them and give them everything and don't discipline them and tell them everything is always going to be amazing, then you're going to be putting yourself on a much better path to have kids that can can live for themselves without having you as the crutch for them forever and not understanding how to do anything without mom and your daddy around.

Speaker 3: 29:43

Yeah, that's a. I was thinking like, when was the last time I Got really angry at a kid oh yeah, and probably my son was very young age done something horrible? He got one smack on the butt, that was it. And I've never really faced anything like that. It was only one time. One time that was it, and Was it when he broke his TV, or you know there was. It was something he done. I can't remember what, but it was. It was a part where I did get that. You know, I understood now I don't want to be that parent, that's not what I'm gonna do.

Speaker 3: 30:21

Yeah, by then my voice had settled in the look of fatherhood, had settled in a lot more where you could just go Mm-hmm, and you know, that's it, they don't do it anything. Or you know right, you know they can hear you coming from a mile away and they know that's done something wrong. That's not saying you're, you know you're a dictatorship or anything like that. It just means you know they, they, they can notice the differences between right and wrong and they go ooh, dad's not gonna be happy with this, you've done it right.

Speaker 3: 30:52

You don't blame yourself if they end up doing it wrong, if they know that they've done it wrong and they know that you're gonna be pissed. That's okay Like that. You know you've done a good job because they've realized the acts of their consequence. They can understand what they're doing and you know, as we said, you can give them all these foundations, you can teach them how to do these things. But if they don't choose to do it, that they'll see that consequence and see how. You know how it came up to them. You know whether they made the right choice or not.

Speaker 2: 31:18

Yeah, I will say this, though. Is there anything better than the dad voice?

Speaker 3: 31:24

Oh, it's so good, it's magic. Have you? Do you casually just like, close the door a bit louder behind you, like you coming through the front door? You know shit's gone wrong at the house and she's like. You know. I need to really make sure that everyone knows that I'm I'm home and that I know about it. She's just. You know, I hear that little door a little bit of extra force when you're closing it behind you, coming through the garage or something Like shit, dad's home. You know that's the. They might not heard you, but they heard that doorbanging. Fuck, I know what we've done. We've done wrong. Oh crap, he's gonna come talk to me.

Speaker 2: 31:55

There's that and like, let's say that I'm in, I'm hanging out in the bedroom and living, or whatever. My wife I can hear her, like going back and forth with the kids. Yeah, you know, when I get up is a my make sure my foot stomp is a little louder as soon as I stand up.

Speaker 1: 32:08

There's white.

Speaker 2: 32:10

Magically Quiet down. Yeah, quiet stuff. Oh shit, dad's coming. And now, like I said, I don't lay a hand on my kids, but if you, if you teach them, right or wrong, they're gonna know. Oh well, this means I did something wrong. One thing I will say is, moms are generally smart. Actually, speaking for my wife, she's a Little jealous that I have a dad. Does the dad voice like? Why is there a mom voice? I don't know why I have the dad voice, though, but I'm saying some.

Speaker 3: 32:43

I also hate being being the one that has the voice to, because it feels like I'm always. I'm always the one that said, in this boundary, I've done that to my wife. I'm like, hey, can you, can you be the villain for once here? Um, yeah, yeah, you get you. Mums are like the codler that you know. It's alright, that's dick, it's okay. They support what you're doing. They support what you've done. You know they're grateful. You know I know my wife's grateful for a lot of the things I say.

Speaker 3: 33:13

Or when I, when I come in as a stronger Borr authority, figure into it, at the time you're looking at it and she has she's reacting like you know, you, bitch, you're not on my side, but I know in her head she's like, at the same time I'm going Thank you, that was the right thing to do, but you know she's, she's playing the card of I'm the cool one, come to me when you yeah, I'm not gonna get in trouble for you this thing, but I'm. What I'll do is you come. You come and tell me what you did wrong. Then I'll send the SMS to your dad and then he's gonna come, roar it in and fix this shit up.

Speaker 2: 33:46

What's the funniest thing in my house? Funny to me Is that I have the dad voice and all that stuff. You said, yeah, but I'm also the one, the cooler one. For some reason I'm still the one that they go, they want to go do for fun, and I'm not gonna go any further to that, because if my wife listens to this, you know I'll just get yelled at. But yeah, we had an episode where we talked about what we rated, ranked. Yeah, right now I, I come out, I come out higher, even though I'm the one that is a little bit more authority Figure.

Speaker 3: 34:22

But you know I put it down to, I do a lot of. I do a lot of stupid things, I guess with With art school. But as much as I'm hard and I bring up things that are wrong and stuff unlike my wife, I, you know, I go do the school run, I'll pick up a child from school and then we've got to go to the grocery store. I Guarantee you, every time I go to anywhere, if the children I'm like, hey, we should get chocolate, we should get a drink, we should get a treat, we're gonna do this. I do my own fun thing. It's something that my wife doesn't do, but that's, that's my way of balancing out, even though I'm hard on some things and I say it's wrong, in that they know they're gonna have fun when we go out.

Speaker 3: 35:07

I cool, we know. You know I dad's gonna buy. You know, no matter what, when we go to the grocery store I'll end up walking out with a lollipop or a chocolate. But my wife's afraid of when now Dakota gets older, you know how she gonna be with me Because you still are gonna be horrible with how much you buy. But like, that's my thing, that's that's how I handle things. So I'm much of them harder up. I do. I do fun rewards on the side and it's not Not much. You know, I'm not spending toys and Extravagant gifts. It's more of like hey, there's a bakery, do you want to? Don't get yourself a cake from there? Or something like that.

Speaker 2: 35:46

So so I do that too, like the kids know, if they go out with me there's, and then like I'm gonna go run an errand, you guys want to come with me or I need some help, they know. Or even if I go to the gas station and they they pump the gas, I might go in the store and buy a little bag of candy or something like that. Right, they're a little something, or, or whatever. Or if you know mom's working late, there's a better chance they're gonna get takeout than if if mom was home. Right, it's little things, there's nothing too expensive, it's nothing too crazy, it's just like the little things like that, and I think that's what kind of gives me, like you know, the kind of Different sort of view than my wife gets from them. It's just these little little things.

Speaker 3: 36:32

I see it on my wife's face every time we go for a big drive, right, I usually like she knows it's coming but I'll say let's get a coffee or something along the way and we're gonna swing past. Yeah, mcdonald's. If we go through McDonald's the kids know that they're all getting frozen cooked. If we're going anywhere on a drive Usually any drive they always end up with either a frozen coke or a slurpee. The same same thing down here, coach, it's just McDonald's. But the kids know you know it's a dollar, dollar fifty, I think nowadays for you know the big tub of. But that's what you get with dad. When dad's driving the car and we're going somewhere that's not down the road, or we're going half an hour, an hour, or gone to the grandparents, etc. Dad's going to buy us a frozen coke one way on this trip, either there or on the way back, like we're getting.

Speaker 3: 37:18

We're getting this and it's a me, as I said, my wife she hates it. Sugar, stupid, you give them too much sugar, that's. That's. That's my parenting style, sugar, diabetes basically. But I tell my wife it's. It sounds corny, but to me I wanted to be something that they remember. You know I'll get my car pass on you know it's, you know 30, 40 years time. And I pass on my kids who got kids, etc. They could turn around and go To their own kids. Your grandfather every time we went somewhere he'd get a string, or they could get a string, or they do it to their own kids. You know, I mean it's just something. I know it's little, it doesn't mean much, but it's something that they will remember.

Speaker 2: 38:04

It's it it is.

Speaker 2: 38:06

It's those little things like.

Speaker 2: 38:09

I'm not trying to replicate how I was raised because I think there were a lot of issues with it.

Speaker 2: 38:16

So a lot of the times I'm trying to just make up the path that I think I Would want to be raised the way that I would want to be treated if, when I was growing up, the things that I would want to learn, whether I always like it or I don't, the things that I think are important and you know like I don't follow anything specific, I Just try to raise, teach my kids the things that I think they're gonna need to know To be successful in life and and to not get, you know, pushed, pushed over from people and Just treat people with kindness and respect and and work hard. Right, that's really all I'm trying to teach them. And so, letting them know when they mess up, letting them know when they do a good job, and and trying to tell them that we work hard, we put you know, we work hard, we have fun, and that hopefully will will instill that sense of Responsibility and how to be an adult in the world as they continue to grow older.

Speaker 3: 39:24

I think you know, wrapping up just now, that they like that's it's something I show is it's not exactly how I was growing up. It's different. There is more control, there's more strains, I guess, and my children compared to what I had, but at the same time, I feel like I'm teaching them and giving them all the tools and things they need to succeed in life, and it's things that I didn't have. It's things that I know if I had, that would probably make me a better person. Then I am now and that's what my parents, my parents, saw. Strategy is that it's. It's there to try and Make them a better person than what I am myself, and if we all do that as parents, we're gonna we're gonna raise an amazing generation.

Speaker 2: 40:10

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 40:15

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, tiktok 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.