Dealing with friends who don't have kids

How do you juggle spontaneous social invitations when you're a die-hard Boston Celtics fan and a parent? It's a common struggle many of us face, and in this episode, we share our personal challenges and triumphs in balancing social life with the demands of parenthood. From the ways our social planning has evolved as more friends join the parenting club to the constant negotiation of prioritizing family time, we offer heartfelt and humorous stories that resonate with any parent trying to keep up with both their friends and their children’s schedules.

Ever thought about taking your kids to New York Comic Con or debating whether you’re the 'fun' parent or the 'responsible' one? We dive into these experiences and more, revealing the amusing dynamics of family life. We also reflect on those surprising moments when our kids suddenly show signs of growing up, from cleaning their rooms voluntarily to experiencing deeper voices. This episode is a candid and entertaining look at the joys and challenges of watching our children mature, all while balancing careers, personal hobbies, and the ever-important family time. Tune in for a relatable and lively conversation that any parent will appreciate.

Chapters

• 0:01 Balancing Social Life With Parenthood
• 8:46 Parenting, Comic Con, and Cleaning
• 22:24 Parenting and Watching Kids Grow

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Turning off normal human male mode. Switching to dad mode. Welcome in to dad mode With your hosts Bearded, Nova and Morph.

Speaker 2: 0:17

Well, nova, I'm a big basketball fan, nba fan. I love the Boston Celtics and shout out to them they just won their 18th world title, which is awesome, by Brown and Tatum, but anyway. So I've got a friend that loves the Celtics as well, and he lives a couple states away, probably an hour and a half, and he has no kids. We're about the same age, I think.

Speaker 2: 0:41

But he has no kids and every now and then he's like hey, do you want to come up and catch a game? It starts at 7.30 and it's like 4pm and I'm like dude, you're an hour and a half away, that's not the big deal, but I have kids, do you not understand? I guess you don't understand. I can't just jump and do things, abandon everyone quickly, that's not enough negotiation time.

Speaker 2: 1:07

I can't just jump and do things, abandon everyone Quickly. Yes, yeah, yes, that's not enough negotiation time with my wife or time to find coverage for the kids. I mean, I guess I didn't really realize when I was younger and didn't have kids how much things would change. But people that don't have kids, they don't get it. No, they don't they don't.

Speaker 3: 1:28

I find it's different now, over the last five, say the last six years, five, six years, it's been dramatically different because before that, especially early 30s let's say by the time we're all out there, early 30s, 30-year-olds me and my friends, it was maybe less than a hand like four, including myself, that actually had children. The majority hadn't. Nowadays we're at our 40s, I would say there's probably been another four, five, six, so I guess more over halfway now I'd say majority of us, maybe there's about six of us that don't have kids, and that's changed the outlook on how things are planned. Now, activities, I will say the spontaneous requests, they've kind of gone. Even the ones that don't have kids have finally started to realize over time that, okay, the ones that got kids, have kids, have finally started to realize over time that, okay, the ones that got kids are really not struggling to catch up to these events or come out or or do these things. And now there's more and more of us.

Speaker 3: 2:32

Everyone's kind of clued on to the fact that, oh crap, these guys actually need, all right, need a heads up. We can't, you know, okay, I'm thinking of having a barbie. I'm thinking of having, like you know, a barbecue at my. I'm going to give a month's notice, basically to everyone nowadays. But hey, this is what's happening. This is where I'm thinking of doing something, blah, blah, blah. And then people start penciling it in, I guess, making plans.

Speaker 3: 2:59

We were looking at doing an event soon, and do we do it with friends? Do we not do it with friends? And I'm looking at going. Well, this friend's traveling. He's over on your side at the moment. He's the one doing the road trip over there. These guys are away. This one's busy. No, it's not a time to do an event. We're not going to do this as an event nowadays, and even when these events do happen, the time is different.

Speaker 3: 3:21

Yeah, the catch-ups, it's no longer this. You know, show up at 5, 6 o'clock, 7 o'clock. We'll keep drinking and having fun. You know, we might have dinner, we might have something cooked by 9 o'clock, type of thing. By then, you know, we've got half a dozen drinks into us, et cetera. It's a mess. Instead, it's okay, cool, be over by 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I'll have food ready by four or five o'clock. People start leaving, you know, by eight o'clock, going home, if that, or or if they're not leaving half of that after the, the couple's left either one half of the couple's like all right, I'm taking the kids home, he's staying here, don't stay out too late, etc I remember when my night out didn't start till 9 or 10.

Speaker 2: 4:05

Yes, now, I swear, if somebody, if I had a friend who called and said at like 10, hey, let's go to a bar. They're no longer my friend, it's just not happening. No, I'm somebody that likes to stay up late, right, yeah, but I'm not heading out to do something new. No, no.

Speaker 3: 4:24

I like this. A football club down the road from us, like a local football club, not a professional league. My name's more you know, and I'm a member. I have another friend who lives literally eight minutes drive from my house. It's one road. I open the main road, drive to the other end of the main road. That's his house. We rarely catch up One. One road up on the main road drives to the other end of the main road. That's his house. We rarely catch up One.

Speaker 3: 4:46

He doesn't have kids I do have kids and he still does goes out to the football. He's a member of the football club as well. He likes to go there have drinks. I'd love to do it, but I just really struggle at planning. And then a couple of times I have I know I could just drive over there, if he's home, grab a beer out of the fridge. We could have a beer, hang out for 10-15 minutes and like, like, do it. You know social check-in type of thing. I have tried that though recently when I'm free, actually, because he doesn't have kids, he has an active social life. You know what I mean. Oh, sorry, I'm out of the car club I've gone to you know convention or something you know and he's. He's hardly home either.

Speaker 2: 5:22

I'm not familiar with this active social life. I think you called it. I know.

Speaker 3: 5:26

Actually I've had the ability to, with work, go to a football match recently I think it was meant to be last week, last weekend gone, but I only got told a week before that. I was like, oh crap, okay, let's try and scramble, get a couple of clients together, ones I know I can usually call on at last minute. I'm like, hey, can you come? First guy you know all three guys Great, I've been to football many times with them. That's why I picked them three, because they usually come together even though they're all different businesses.

Speaker 3: 5:57

And first thing, you know, I get one of all said yes, obviously, yeah, cool, it'd be great, great, catch up. Then, oh, no, I can't make it. My wife's got to work next morning, so I've got to be home for the kids. Okay, all right, that's cool. That's one out, you know. And then the next one I've got a thing with kids, but then I've also got to be even further away from there mid-morning. I don't think I'm going to be able to make it. Okay. And then the third one was like, look, my wife's going away. I think I've got stuff on, even though he's got an older child. You know, I've got stuff on for her. I'm not going to make it Like even a week. A week wasn't enough to and it's not like. You know it's a corporate event. So we're in a box foods, provided, drinks. You know it's a good event. It's not like just going to a game. In general, it's a yeah, you know, a step up from that, and a week wasn't enough notice for people with children.

Speaker 2: 6:53

So let me ask you this do you, do you actually remember all the things that are planned, or are you like me, where my wife could probably tell me a good dozen times and I'm going to forget? Still, google Calendar, see, but now I have to remember to put it in there.

Speaker 3: 7:10

Yeah, I'm terrible at putting things in there. I don't mind it. When people like Facebook I'm going to oh man, back a couple of weeks ago generation boomer will say Facebook, I love Facebook events because it gets put to my calendar. I really love it when my friends are planning something and they do a Facebook event. That is the greatest thing because I know it's on my calendar then that I can remind myself of it. I'm getting better at adding things to the calendar that I think of, but I do suggest to people theion is to just set up a Google. Everyone's got a Google account, Thanks. Set up a Google calendar, add your partner and yourself to it and just put everything on there. Just everything. I've got doctor's appointments, kid stuff Everything is on our Google calendar, and I've got the fridge with the screen on it, so it's kind of like an extra bonus at the Google Calendar. Oh, that's cool. The Google Calendar's on that as well. So when I go to the fridge, I can actively see what's on the calendar every day.

Speaker 2: 8:14

So, honey, if you're listening, I want to get a fridge with a screen on it. You want to get Samson Smart Fridge? Yes, that is exactly what I want. I don't know what it is, but I won't remember what we need to do. I went to pick my kid up from school and they're like well, what was his classroom teacher, homeroom teacher? I'm like I don't know.

Speaker 3: 8:35

I checked my emails.

Speaker 2: 8:38

It's September, something they're like. Oh, you're just a dumb dad, here's your kid.

Speaker 3: 8:46

I use emails to track my kids' teacher's names. Teachers actively email parents here like a lot, yeah, so I think I at least get weekly emails from teachers, either it's just a classroom update or just a reminder or something that's coming up high school kind of similar, but primary school especially, because in primary school I don't know if it's there, but it's the same teacher the whole year. Is that right with your education? Do they keep the same teacher? Basically? Yeah, so primary school way more easy to remember a teacher because I'm getting the same email from the same teacher. Basically, yeah, so primary school way more easy to remember a teacher because I'm getting the same email from the same teacher. If you ask me what room that is in the school, though, uh, where that's located, thanks thanks, okay, you know all right.

Speaker 2: 9:31

so yeah, I thought this would be a fun topic where we could bond over forgetting things, but it turns out I'm just bad at being a parent and a father I used to be. Well, let's change topics.

Speaker 3: 9:45

Let's talk about how our friends are useless at not knowing that we have kids and responsibilities. Yeah, there's that.

Speaker 2: 9:51

Unrelated. So I've talked before how I go to the New York Comic Con just about every year. Last year was the first year. I brought my kids and it was just me and the two boys. Like you know a guy's thing, right. We I rented a hotel two days and it was. It was, we had a blast. My, I couldn't feel my legs when I got done, but you know we had a blast.

Speaker 2: 10:16

Yeah, now this year, my, my wife said, hey, what if I started talking about playing, what if I came down with you guys? And I'm like I don't know, we had fun with the guys thing and I offered doing a couple months. And then, when it got time to actually buy the tickets, I'm like, you know what, let's, let's, let's make it a whole family thing. And so I got tickets. So today I picked my kids up from camp yep and I go to my oldest son. I'm like, hey, I got tickets for comic-con. He's like, oh, that's awesome. And I'm like, yeah, it's our sunday, so we're gonna go down on saturday and go around the city, have fun. He's like, so, just like last time. I'm like, not just like last time, mom's coming. His response, response was really, and I decided to tell her and she didn't appreciate that. I think she doesn't like that. I'm the fun one because I think she gets frustrated because I'm the irresponsible one too, and I think it bugs her that I'm quote-unquote the fun one.

Speaker 3: 11:17

Well, last time last year, you came back with an elevated status in the house, didn't you? You went up a few points. They graded you after the last year. Yes, so I can understand her fear coming into this shit. Yeah, right, but now it's her time to shine. It's her time to step it up. She's going to outshow you on this trip, basically, yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:43

Maybe I can just be really not fun on the trip and kind of set her up to be the fun one. Sometimes you get there.

Speaker 3: 11:49

The last couple of days, the last two weeks, my wife has somehow been elevated in our daughter's eyes, dakota's eyes. I've always been the big everything in this house. And then the last couple of days, actually, it's been my eyes. I've always been the big, you know everything in this house, and then the last couple of days, actually, it's been my wife. I've been knocked down a peg, and it does. It knocks you down a peg, like I felt. I felt defeated. I wasn't as cool as I thought I was anymore to everyone.

Speaker 3: 12:13

But it helps, like I could see it on my wife's face being deemed the favorite for four or five days, whatever it was, it made her world. She was so excited that she was the favorite for a little bit.

Speaker 2: 12:29

She got a little taste of what you get every day.

Speaker 3: 12:33

But now that it's kind of like going back the opposite way, where I'm being chosen as the favorite, she is enjoying it, losing the title again, like it's just a little bit. She loved it, but now that she's losing it she's happy because she goes. I can actually do things. I can walk in a room and not be stopped and have to play or do something. I can actually go get something to drink or do something like, or if I want to clean something, because my wife loves cleaning, really they're cleaning To the point that I said that's a problem.

Speaker 3: 13:05

You know, like I think I had the conversation with her last night around the lines of you know, when you sweep the floor, because our daughter, our daughter now yesterday was caught with like a tissue wiping down surfaces and then she goes maybe I cleaned too much, that she's starting to do that and, as she said that she's, then dakota's sitting at the fridge trying to get the dustpan and broom to start sweeping the floor. And I said you think and that was the conversation of, hey, if you need to clean or you need to to, you know, the kitchen floor is a little bit dirty, sure, sweep the kitchen floor, but it doesn't mean you have to sweep the entire house. You know what I mean. It's okay to leave the floor alone for a day or two. You don't have to do it. Obviously, spot cleaning don't leave the field. But spot cleaning is fine and the rest of it, but she does kind of like OCD clean. Yeah, a little bit too far.

Speaker 2: 14:03

Yeah, that's, that's another topic. That's another topic. That's another topic. My kids they pick up a lot of my habits leaving stuff everywhere, playing games non-stop, being sarcastic, yeah, that's so. They picked up my habits on cleaning, though. This one, you know what. You know what I'm I'm gonna. I'm gonna save that. That was a little teaser for everybody. We're gonna have an episode where we talk about some of that household stuff, but yeah, so they pick up my habits and I wish I would pick up my wife's, because she's very organized and she just gets shit done. Yeah, you know what I mean. And she, like she's on top of you, like we're gonna go on vacation or go out to for a day trip or something, and I like wake up, whatever, and she's already packed everything and yeah, there's food and snacks and bottles and drinks, and you know, as far as I know, we could be three hours from the house and I go, hey, do you guys got a hat?

Speaker 3: 14:56

to let know. I'm like, oh, that's your problem, you know I mean, whereas the wife has got all that sorted. I know we could be three hours from the house and then I go, hey, do you guys got a hat? They're like, no, I'm like, oh, that's your problem, you know what I mean Whereas the wife has got all that sorted.

Speaker 2: 15:05

Yeah, I don't. Sometimes I wonder like what would happen if she went away for like a week business trip. You're like I'm pretty sure that we wouldn't starve to death or freeze to death, I'm pretty sure. Or freeze to death, I'm pretty sure, you know, as long as my credit card works, I can call Uber Eats.

Speaker 3: 15:23

We should have food. My wife likes to make that comment a lot like about what would happen. Or, you know, you're watching TV and see something and it's like that would be you if I wasn't around. Yeah, I mean, she sees someone like this, how they're living in a life, especially like you know, probably something like this on tv, but they'd actually never leave. And then I I showed her asmongold. Yeah, you know, for those that don't know, asmongold's a big streamer, master streamer.

Speaker 3: 15:54

I would say neurodivergent in a way. But does it, you know, doesn't? You know, doesn't clean A very simple life of living lives like a slob. The desk has got shit everywhere, you know, food, wrappers, drinks. When I introduced that to my wife, she made a great point of pointing out that that's probably what I would look like if I didn't have children or a wife or anything. And you know, I, I mean I argue sometimes that I would clean, you know, watching tv and see someone to like go, wouldn't you? Because you wouldn't clean if that was the case. But no, I think if someone was coming over with tv and a camera to talk to me, I'm pretty sure I'd clean the kitchen to a degree. But yeah, I get it. I get it like I am someone who cleans. But yeah, like, yeah, I wouldn't be a slob, I'd be a little swift out.

Speaker 2: 16:42

So I went to Toronto for a work trip last week or two ago and where I stayed was basically a condo. I was by myself. Well, I was in that place by myself. It was a hotel, but it was like condominiums, you know. And I brought my Xbox because I knew I was going on a business trip. I'd nothing to do, so I packed it and I brought my xbox. I got a taste of what it would be like and it's a lot like you described, like I didn't want to go. If I didn't want to go anywhere, I just order food and walk down and get it. I played xbox for five, six hours after I got done with all the work stuff. Um, there was food boxes everywhere, there was soda bottles, you know, but it got cleaned up.

Speaker 3: 17:24

It gets cleaned up. It does get cleaned up, don't get me wrong. It gets cleaned up, but there's no urgency to it, right?

Speaker 2: 17:34

Like you know she'll be, like can I take the trash out? And you know I'm like okay, and I have every intention on doing it In an hour or two.

Speaker 3: 17:44

There's a time frame put on it, though you know what I mean. You don't put.

Speaker 3: 17:47

You say yes, that means it's going to be done. Doesn't mean it's going to be done now, but I think that's the expectation. I think that's the expectation of all wives. I've said that to my wife multiple times that if you want me to do something and I say yes, don't get upset that I haven't done it straight away, because it means I'm going to do it. You didn't tell me when to do it, so I'm putting it into a category of where I think I'm going to do it. It doesn't mean, you know, if you go, hey, can you go do this now or can you get this done in 20? I need this done by a certain time frame, it'll be done. It'll be done. Yeah, I will do that thing, but just don't be upset if you don't put a time frame on it and I haven't done it to your time frame what if every time she said, she added now, that would be frustrating yeah, I haven't told her this.

Speaker 3: 18:39

Like we were talking before, I've been playing Star Citizen a bit, yeah, and that's online. You know it's like WoW, you know it's an MMO and it costs money. Or I'm in the middle of doing something. She doesn't quite understand when she's asking me to do something all the time. Or can you come here? Can you come here and I said I'm playing this game or something that I don't show it 100%, but she can pick up a little bit, that I'm a little bit frustrated at times, but I still come.

Speaker 3: 19:10

Every time I still come. I still do that, even though that means I come back and I've lost a ship full of cargo, I've lost a million dollars of in-game currency or something, because I've had to walk away knowing, oh fuck, something could go wrong here. Hopefully nothing goes wrong. I'll come back. Hopefully in time he doesn't get that sometimes like and then some of the now stuff doesn't really need to be now you know what I mean?

Speaker 2: 19:33

I I don't, I wouldn't have left. I'd be like, yeah, as soon as I'm done with this match. Is would be typical response. Most of the time I'm like hold on, give me a minute Because both my boys play games online games like Fortnite and whatever so she understands that there's some games you can pause and some games you can't.

Speaker 3: 19:54

My wife doesn't. My wife doesn't understand that. Yet I'll probably say that the onus is on me. I don't think I have actually spent the time to explain that to her either. You know what I mean. I don't think I've sat down and explained hey, some games you can't pause, some games you can't pause. I mean, it frustrates me, but at the same time it's a game. It's not the end of the world for me it's not the end of the world.

Speaker 2: 20:19

For me it's not the end of the world, but I get. I definitely get tunnel vision sometimes when I'm playing games, like the world just sort of fades away. And actually that's not a bad thing, because sometimes I need that escape. But yeah, I'll be able to realize. You know, you've been playing for like 4 hours. Really really yeah.

Speaker 3: 20:42

Yeah, I get that I'll be in the middle of something down here. I'll be doing something. She's like you've been there an hour. I'm like, nah, it's been like 10 minutes. Oh, you said you were going down there to do one thing and now you're playing games. I did say that I was just doing this one thing and I've got distracted and gone sideways here on myself.

Speaker 2: 21:01

Yeah, it happens, yeah, it happens. I just say that's part of what makes me the fun one, because my boys want to do that. You know, I'm not going to sit there and complain because I want to do the same thing. I get it. I absolutely get it.

Speaker 3: 21:17

I will say children change, though. Children change over time. A lot of our kids are not the oldest, the other she's, you know, the 11-year-old, 12-year-old. She used to be a clean freak, like very organized, loved those shows on Netflix where you know they organized cupboards and, you know, really loved they were doing that stuff. She's a slob now, like I walked in there today because she was. I don't know what's happened. I think we talked about her a couple episodes ago where I was like hey, here, anyway, I act like she was a stoner. But she's not a stoner. She, all of a sudden, the last week in a bit, has been spending majority of her time outside the room. Thanks, with us outside the room, like coming in to sit down, watching TV and interacting with us parents, Right, I don't know, it's just weird.

Speaker 3: 22:12

You know what I mean. It's just really weird that all of a sudden this has changed and she's happy, like really happy, doing stuff. I'll help do this, I'll do that. It's been nice. It's been really nice. Some days it's school holidays here as well and with my wife's not working, she goes. Oh, she might be out here for the day. We've watched three movies today, or something like that. I'm like what? Where before you could only watch like 20 minutes of a movie and she'd get up and go. I'm going and walk off. So now it's different.

Speaker 3: 22:48

But I walked into her room this morning and said oh, go, fire up your computer, because she's the one that I built the little cheap gaming PC for Fortnite and I'd never told her about how Epic has free games. I'm like, oh, I should show you that Epic has free games. You should claim them, even if you don't intend on playing it. I'll show you how to do it. Go, turn on your computer. So she's gone and done that and then I've walked into the room to show her the room was clean. I'm like what the hell is going on with this child? She's hanging outside the room and the room is clean again, confused. That's suspicious. I honestly can say that just looking at her, she looks like she's matured.

Speaker 3: 23:21

I don't know. You know how your kids. Just sometimes you look at your kids and you realize they're not the kid that you were looking at, they're. They're already look older in a sense that they've. She's dramatically done that in a like a in a week or so went from that child to teenager.

Speaker 2: 23:39

As such, it's like oh wow my oldest is 12, turned 13 later this year and I was just talking with my wife a week or so ago how he had over like the last couple months. He's actually just instantly like matured. It's weird, like he's still. He still barricades himself in his room and he's still. He's. Sometimes he's just a kid, but he does. He has some very mature moments and I I'm like what, when did that come from? And now I can kind of see him as an adult sometimes, whereas a year ago I'm like I don't think he could ever be a functioning person in society. But now I'm like, oh wait, there's the person inside of him.

Speaker 3: 24:22

Even my 13-year-old, I swear. Just overnight he's balls dropped and he's just got this deeper voice all of a sudden, just came out of nowhere. I don't know where this came from. I hold on. Who are you when you talk to him on the phone and that he's got a totally different tone and I'm like where did this come from? Thanks, phone.

Speaker 2: 24:42

Yes, like he sounds like he's normal, but on the phone he's like hey, what's going on? Like, yeah, why is there another man in my house like where did you come from? That's exactly right.

Speaker 3: 24:54

I don't know if it's. I don't know if it's me looking at it when I'm hearing the older voice, but when I'm on the phone I'm not hearing that same. I'm not seeing that person anymore hearing that person. It's it that?

Speaker 2: 25:06

person. It's weird To tie this to what we were saying earlier. It's weird, but it's exciting to watch your kids go through these stages and becoming adults. If you don't have kids, you don't get to experience any of that. There's definitely positives and negatives to having kids, but it's kind of cool watching them grow.

Speaker 3: 25:28

Yeah, I've had a couple of friends that have all had their first children, thanks, yeah, actually so far it's been out of my friends, one, two, two have given birth already and then there's another two. One's going to be his second child at the end of the year. No two others that both have their second child at the end of the year and they're opposite sex of what they've had the first time. So you know, it's an opportunity, it's an experience that's not easily replicated in any other way. I guess you don't. You know, and I know some people can't have children, but you know you've got dog mums or cat mums, et cetera. It's the same with dads. There is that period, but it's not exactly the same either. You go from puppy to a dog, kitten to a cat. The children experience is very much a unique one and it does very much change from child to child. It's not the same. It's the same experience for each kid.

Speaker 2: 26:28

I used to think that the boys would have the same exact personalities, but they do not, and so that's been interesting as well. But I would say one thing that I like about. There's a lot of things I like about being a parent. A lot of things I don't like about it too. But I've learned a lot about myself as I've raised them, you know, because you can see habits that they have that they probably got from you and maybe like oh, I need to change this or I need to stop doing that, or, you know, you see them making some of the same silly observations they're doing with things when you're a kid and it's like, oh, it makes sense now. It's pretty cool, it's eye-opening.

Speaker 3: 27:12

Absolutely. Just to put it out there, my friends that hear this if you don't have children and you have friends with children, give them notice. Give us notice on an event that's all Wrapping this back up. Give us notice and we'll be able to make it happen.

Speaker 2: 27:28

Thanks, Thanks, and I'm going to give everybody listening a notice and we'll be back next week. Thanks, thanks.

Speaker 1: 27:37

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, tiktok and YouTube at DadModePodcast and we can be found on every podcast site at DadModePodcast. Y'all be cool. See you next time.