Parents are teachers. Even those of us without degree in education. Our children are constantly observing us and learning from our behaviors, personalities, and how we navigate adventures, crises, relationships, and life in general. Musician, activist, and rockstar dad Ben Lee joins the conversation for a deep dive on fatherhood, leading by example, and promoting a love for lifelong learning to our children. Plus, Marc recalls a time he got the flop sweats, and Adam's children drive him to literally question his very sanity!
Parents are teachers. Even those of us without degree in education. Our children are constantly observing us and learning from our behaviors, personalities, and how we navigate adventures, crises, relationships, and life in general. Musician, activist, and rockstar dad Ben Lee joins the conversation for a deep dive on fatherhood, leading by example, and promoting a love for lifelong learning to our children. Plus, Marc recalls a time he got the flop sweats, and Adam's children drive him to literally question his very sanity!
Episode is Part 1 of a 2 Part conversation with the multi-talented artist Ben Lee.
The episode opens with a quick recap and reflection on Episode 45: Mom Takeover. The guys tee up the conversation with Australian musician, activist, and dad, Ben Lee, by discussing the unique challenge of trying to teach our children without OVER-teaching. How to impart wisdom without forcing a teachable moment into every experience. And how to allow yourself to step back and let them experience things for themselves when it’s appropriate.
The guys welcome Ben Lee into the conversation. Ben is an artist in every sense of the word, and along with his wife Ione Skye, they are parents to 19 year old Kate (a stepdaughter to Ben), and 11 year old Goldie. Ben discusses post-pandemic life in Sydney, returning to live performance, and offers a deep dive on fatherhood, sharing candidly about topics including:
• How live music has changed post-pandemic
• Meeting his future wife at 18 years old
• The beauty of "blended" family structures
• Kids and technology
• The value of expressing interest in their interests
• Giving people space to have their own experiences
• And more
The conversation with Ben will carry on in Episode 47. Adam shares about what’s “a thing now” in the Flaherty home to round out the show... a "thing" which has led him to questioning his own sanity. And the guys close with well-wishes to all the dads on this Father’s Day Weekend 2021!
Links:
Ben Lee on Instagram
Ben Lee on Twitter
Weirder Together
B is for Beer
Ben Lee in Quarantine
Author Jordan Shapiro
Colleen Ballinger
Red Vault Audio
Caspar Babypants
Spencer Albee
Stuffed Animal
Adam Flaherty
Adam: Marc! Marc. Look at you. Look at you.
Marc: Me?
Adam: Yeah! You look good.
Marc: Look at me? Look at you, man!
Adam: It feels like we haven't recorded in forever.
Marc: It's been at least forever. But at least that long.
Adam: Maybe forever and a day?
Marc: Great song.
Adam: And here we are just heading into Father's Day weekend 2021. This podcast is called Modern Dadhood, and it's an ongoing conversation about the joys, challenges and general insanity of being a dad in this moment. Your name is Marc Checket and you are a father of two sons who are three years old.
Marc: And your name is Adam Flaherty and you are a dad to two girls, seven and four.
Adam: Nailed it.
Marc: And we are both not at all experts in the realm of dadhood.
Adam: In fact, we're novices!
Marc: I wonder how long that phase lasts. Forever?
Adam: I mean, at some point you become seasoned, right?
Marc: I'd like to think so. I'd like to think you get to this sort of level of like sage.
Adam: Well, send me a text when you think you've gotten there, and I'll do the same deal. What did you think of the mom takeover?
Marc: I, I, I think I, I actually didn't listen to it.
Adam: What a dick!
Marc: I should have prepared better for this recording session. I just didn't listen to the last episode. I mean, I thought it was a great episode and I was really happy to hear them get into it. I know they were a little bit feeling out of their element at the beginning, but I feel like they got into it.
Adam: They had a little case of the giggles at the beginning.
Marc: A little bit
Adam: But we probably did before we hit record for the very first time, too.
Marc: Oh yeah. I had a case of that. I had a case of the giggles. I had a case of the nervous shits.
Adam: Really? Did you have IBS before we recorded our first Modern Dadhood?
Marc: I think I did. I had a case of the flop sweats, you know, when we were...
Adam: Flop sweats?? What is that?
Marc: I don't, I don't exactly know... Flop, sweat, flop sweat, meaning "nervous sweat, parentheses as of a performer and parentheses caused especially by the fear of failing."
Adam: Oh, okay. All right. So you think you're going to be a flop?
Marc: That must be where it comes from.
Adam: I was picturing... I don't know why I'm trying to figure out which part of the body flop sweat it generates underneath.
Marc: The area that sits just over your belt. You know, the part of your body that hangs out just and and just flops just over your belt.
Adam: That's where the sweetest sweat gathers.
Marc: This part, ready? That part. Did you learn anything from that episode where now previously aware of?
Adam: No. Nope.
Marc: Me neither. Me neither.
Adam: Well, we love you, moms, you're awesome!
Marc: You are great.
Marc: So I don't know about you, but my mind is still blown, after our conversation with Ben Lee.
Adam: Yeah, at this point, it was a little while back we've been sitting on this interview for a little bit, but it was one of my favorite conversations that we've had.
Marc: In preparing for this recording. We were reviewing the transcript of the conversation. And, man, did we cover a lot of ground like ultra runner marathon runners don't cover this much ground. You know?
Adam: We did a pretty deep dive with Ben Lee, and it proved to be a really challenging to pair the conversation down. So I'm going to propose, Marc, that we make it a two-parter.
Marc: You know what? I second that motion.
Adam: Cool. So then we'll play back part one of the conversation very soon! I'm going to ask you this question, and I don't really have an example from my own life right at the tip of my tongue to share with you. So I'm going to ask you this question. And if you don't have a good answer from your life, then we're going to can the question.
Marc: We will trash the whole thing.
Adam: Do you ever find yourself overexplaining things to your kids so like giving them way more information than they need simply because you have experienced the thing that they're experiencing, you have worked through it and you've learned from it. And then. And then later on, you realized it was actually something that maybe you didn't need to over explain to them, like it didn't have to be a teachable moment. And the second part is like by not explaining it to them from the context of your life experience. Could they have benefited from making sense of it, you know, in their own way? Loaded question.
Marc: Yeah, I mean, the short answer is yes.
Adam: Nice, let's move on!
Marc: No, I'd love to explore that.
Adam: Oh, sure.
Marc: Yeah. The short answer is yes. And I'm in we're in this moment, I think, now where kids are getting a few things are happening all at once right now with where our kids are at age wise, they're a little over three years old. They're learning a lot more about the world. They're observing a lot more about the world and wanting to understand the workings of all of the things that are around them. So they're a lot more inquisitive. You know, the the the sort of cartoon version of it is like the endless like, you say something and they say why, and you say another thing and they say why, it's that amplified right now. The other thing that's happening is that we're like excited that these children that we have that for what seemed like a very long time, we couldn't have conversations with .
Adam: Sure.
Adam: And they weren't asking those questions. And so the conversation, quote unquote, that we were having with them. It was one sided because you're just talking to an infant. That's what I'm saying. And so the other thing that's happening is that we want to say everything to them. We want to explain so much about the world around them.
Adam: Yeah.
Marc: And so we get into these conversations with them where they're acting particularly inquisitive, you know, and... We try to really like explain and to the point where we're overexplaining, yeah, you know, and then we get into these moments that are seemingly like really mundane and definitely not teachable moments, but like we're like so into it that we're trying to make it a teachable moment.
Adam: Do you ever find in those situations that just because of, like, the nature of our social, you know, circles and social interactions being so limited for the past year and a half, that part of it might just be like you and your wife get to like have a stimulating conversation about something that, like you both know something about, even if it's something totally mundane, even though it's framed in the way of we're trying to teach our kids something, really the enjoyment that you're getting out of it. It's like the two of you can actually speak about something other than what's happening in the four walls of your house.
Marc: Yeah, yeah. I don't know. It's an it's a very interesting question and it's something that I'm like I'm never really going to know because this is my only experience happens to be that they went from two to three largely in quarantine. Yeah. From a global pandemic. So this is what I was sort of saying a second ago about us trying to be in sync with things like we are both realizing how much we do, that we're kind of at this turning point now where we're starting to think like, do we really have to do that or will they ask us a question when they want to ask us a question, when they're feeling ready to learn something or, you know, or wanting, you know, that they want to know they're feeling ready to learn something and let them explore the world around them on their own terms, as opposed to us saying what you want to learn. What do you wanna learn about now? Want to know why the sky is blue?
Adam: Right, it's like sometimes you'll think to yourself, like, I don't need to control the situation, like I don't need to explain the the ramifications of a decision that they're making. And it's it's totally safe and actually good for them to make this decision and to figure out the consequences and see consequences. Like not that they're going to do something dangerous and they got to figure it out the hard way, just whatever it is like, why do I need to insert myself into that experience and tell them what's going to happen and why there is a benefit to them figuring things out on their own and learning the sort of big picture context later on.
Marc: What we're talking about is like really is like a very big topic. This notion that, like you have kids and there's this life that's there and you have this really important job for a while as a parent, making sure that that life, like, has everything it needs. That's a gross oversimplification. But like teaching that life or the feeling of like wanting to give that that new little life like everything it needs to survive for the rest of its life past when we die. It's a really heavy thought at times. It really hits me at times the gravity of that, like what's really, truly at stake with having a child, you know, or being an. Parent to a child.
Adam: You can read all the books in the world about it, but they're still not going to fully prepare you for everything that you just described, like you have to come to terms with that in your own way and figure out how you are going to nurture that life and prepare them for their life. Obviously, we are only experiencing this and talking about it from our perspective as people who have kids who are, you know, three and four and seven. It was really interesting to talk with Ben Lee about all this. His daughter, Goldie, is 11 years old. His stepdaughter Kate is 19 years old. And so even between those two sisters, there's like a world of difference in what they have experienced. And then and then Ben and Ironi, as the parents are just experiencing this this entire conversation in a totally, really two totally different context I suppose.
Marc: There was just so much that we talked about that was thought provoking, that at points kind of blew my mind. Like I want to listen back to it as well. So let's just let's just roll tape when you say.
Adam: Most def. Dads, I hereby present to you part one of our fatherhood conversation with one of my favorite musicians, Ben Lee. So I want to welcome Ben Lee into the conversation, Ben is, of course, an accomplished songwriter and recording artist who I've had the pleasure of seeing perform a number of times over the years. But he's also an outspoken activist, a composer of musicals, a student, a dad, and just a brilliant mind. Ben, it's such an honor to have this conversation with you. Thanks for being with us.
Ben: Right on. Thank you for having me.
Adam: So you're in Sydney now, and it's been super exciting to see that you are cautiously returning to playing live music. I'd love to hear how that's going.
Ben: It's pretty it's pretty crazy. I mean, it's you know, I booked all these shows when I was still in L.A. and then in quarantine here, and it was hard to imagine, like I was just saying yes to everything because I just could not imagine being in a room with a live audience. But now that we're in it, it's like, you know, to a certain extent it's a little bit of like heads popping up out of the like in the postapocalyptic ruins of an ever just being like, how are we doing this? So we actually like we're at live music. And then another extended sort of like you get on stage and it's sort of business as usual. Like, you know, this thing I've done playing live, I've been doing it for almost 30 years. So it's just it's funny. And for the audience to its listening to music, it's something that's so innate to who we are. So it's this mixture of like new and ancient.
Marc: That is interesting, I have to say. I mean I, I, I just don't know. I just can't imagine yet going out and being at a club or at a venue surrounded by people watching the show. I hope to get there personally at some point very soon. But, man, it's just such a wild thought right now still for me.
Ben: It's a very different situation in Australia. I mean, you know, literally there's been zero community cases of covid for a while now. My cases come out of the quarantine hotels and they get jumped on pretty quickly and within, you know, every now and then there's a snap lockdown for four or five days. I mean, it's back to zero cases. I think people go into those experiences with a degree of safety. And also everywhere you go, you check in with your phones so that they can trace if there is any kind of spike, they can trace it. So, you know, part of the last four years that was so scary in America was just feeling like there were no grown ups in charge.
Adam: Tell me about it!
Ben: And it just made it it made life pretty scary. And it's just interesting here to have a degree of trust in leadership. Look, I don't the prime minister's not my favorite prime minister and some of the states I like the premier's better than others. But in general, there's a sense that leadership will deal with problems as they come up. And it's like it's yeah, it's a very it's just a very different experience.
Adam: Well, Ben, we're on a show called Modern Dadhood, so you're a dad, we would love it if you could share maybe a little bit about your family here at the top of the show.
Ben: Yeah, well, so I met my wife, We met when I was 18 and she was 26, And so at that time we were not we didn't really consider each other romantic partners, you know. And that is a big difference, especially when the guy's 18 and the woman's twenty six is like it's like another world. I was in awe of these women. Some of them were already divorced. I couldn't believe it. But anyway, by the time we got together, I was 10 years later, so I was twenty eight and she was thirty six. And she had Kate who was then, you know, four or five years old and and I've been involved in their lives since then. So now. Yeah, my stepdaughter is 19. Me and Ionis daughter Goldie is 11, turning 12 in September. And it's you know, it's we've made it work. I mean, it's a it's an interesting you meet more and more of these families that are not the way, you know, I'm trying to I think of like when I was growing up. You like middle class Jewish, you know, in Sydney, even like for families to have a divorce within them, it was almost like there was a degree to which is probably like Catholic communities. There's a degree to which there was like there was a bit like they were bit like lepers, you know. And on one side, there is a there is a downside, perhaps, to people not taking marriage as seriously maybe as I did in other generations. But on the positive, there's people recreating families and having second acts and second charities that can be really successful, and I think for Kate especially, you know, it's really different, like, yes, being brought up where your parents were sort of like. Never together in a way that you can remember. There's a there's a sadness in that, but then being able to see your mum in a very satisfying, happy marriage for the last 13 years, it gives I don't know. I think there's a lot of healing in that. So it's yeah, it's been it's just a successful family.
Marc: It's interesting. We've touched on this in episodes in the past, I think here, here and there that, you know, sometimes you hear the word divorce and it's oftentimes associated with it's like a negative thing where in some cases it might be negative, maybe for a time, but something really, truly positive could end up coming out of it. So it's not that it's always a negative situation. And to your point, it leads to some, you know, very happy and successful families down the road. And sometimes bigger families they call sometimes use the word blended families. And that can be a lot of really happy situations on the other end of a divorce sometimes. Can you talk? So Goldie, is 11 turning 12. Would you mind telling us a little bit about what she's like and the things that she's into these days?
Ben: Yeah, well, it's pretty interesting because it's at this moment, it's a bit hard to separate. What the kids are like from how they are coming out of 2020, right? So I would I don't know, like it's hard to say what's temporary and what is like like what sort of trauma that's still being processed and what is in innate to her personality. But she's, you know, in somewhere I mean, she's a mix of things like it. Sometimes I call her like a little Larry David. She's like a nervous kid on one hand. But on the other hand, like she's in trapeze class and I walk in and pick her up and I did I never seen her do it. And I literally walk in as I look at these kid launches from 20 feet up in the air by hanging by her knees on a trapeze. I'm like, so it's not right to characterize her as like a nervous person, you know? But but she's such a mix of me Ione her own kind of thing. I mean, she's very I think, you know, because she's going into year seven, seventh grade next year. And so we're making a lot of decisions in Australia. There's no middle school. It's like you go into high school at seventh. So it's like a really big it's a big decision about what type of education is going to be the right education for her. And it's time where you sort of get honest about what kind of kid you have. And she is a very creative kid that really, you know, she's been in big public schools and she's been in tiny private schools and she's had a lot of different experiences. And she's someone who seems to probably like both her parents not respond so well to the traditional get in line education. Yeah, but she you know, she makes me laugh. I don't know right now she's just on Tik Tok the time. And it's funny, like but she's not watching dances. She's literally, like, educating herself. Like, this is what's interesting about it. Where you can write off the next generation is, oh, she's just staring at her phone and she's on Tik Tok talk. But the things she's showing me, they're fascinating. Like she's essentially like watching social commentary, trivia, you know, politics at her level, like nothing crazy, you know, politics that they can fit into 30 second soundbites. But but she's essentially, like, consuming kind of intellectual content, which I think is I need to zoom out of. Because, you know, I think my friend Jordan Shapiro, I don't know if you know him, but he's written two books that I think you guys would really like. He wrote one called The New Childhood About Digital Play and Kids. And and he read another one called Father Figure How to be a Feminist Dad. Yeah, he's he's really interesting. But but the one he wrote about technology was interesting because you talked about how Socrates hated things written down. He thought that it really devalued philosophical conversation to write down ideas. And the only reason we have any of his ideas written down is because Plato, who was like the next generation, was like, oh, fuck this man, this guy is old. He's like he's he's got brilliant ideas, but he is out of touch. I'm going to write these things down in secret. And and I think what you see in there is a real generational divide over and understanding of technology. So I try, where possible, to keep myself on the open minded side of how the kids are using technology and not bringing, my sort of old world paradigms, but still bring in good values. Like like what, what she's consuming to me is of more interest than the medium with which she's consuming it.
Adam: Sure. That makes sense. Yeah, but it must be hard to not feel like you need to look over her shoulder all the time. My my two daughters, one is seven and one is four. And my seven year old, she's brilliant. She's just started asking me at what age do kids get phones? Because obviously she's aware of the technology. You know, we try to keep devices out of her hands at this point to the extent that we can. But my answer to her is, I don't know. I'm not sure because that wasn't something that we dealt with when I was seven years old. You know, I didn't get a phone until I was seventeen or eighteen years old. And it certainly wasn't a tool for learning. It was a tool for if I needed to make an emergency phone call.
Marc: It was a phone.
Adam: So, yeah, exactly. It was a phone. We've had a lot of conversations where this topic has come up about the use of things like social media. And of course, there's such great opportunities for that education. But I mean, there's so much scary stuff out there that I just want to protect her from, you know?
Ben: Yeah. I mean, that's one of the benefits of have a nervous kid because she doesn't want to be freaked out. So like she generally she's not yet in danger of being overexposed. The thing that she brings up with us are not scary that conversations that she should be asking about, you know, so but yeah, I think if you had a kid who was just like disappearing and you didn't know what they were consuming, like like, I think a big part of it is just like staying connected to your kids. Like, it's so interesting how many parents like like, you know, my daughter, like every other kid got really into Among Us last year. So we started playing Among Us. And I was shocked at how unusual that was when I talked to other parents, like how few of them even understood what the game was or how it worked. And I actually don't understand what that's about. Like, it almost seems like parents resist as an act of defiance and having their own boundaries. They're like, oh, don't bother me with what you're into. I've got. And I get that because we want to consume our own information. We want to watch things we like. We want to read books. We want to listen to music. We like our podcasts, but, you know, if there's when my kids got into Animal Crossing, I got into it with them and I got into a more than them, actually. But but the point is kind of like they will invite you in if you show up with an open mind and not judgmental. But I think that's really key. Like like just play with them. You don't need to be as into it as they are, but that's the way of figuring it out of like like I now know, you know, there's half a dozen YouTube as my daughter watches. I don't watch all the videos she watches, but I know what Colleen Ballinger's up to. I know what you know. It's like I like I like I do. I have a sense of who these people are and I know what their values are and where I disagree. I voice that. I'm like, I don't know what but I and I applaud them when they like me. I don't know if you know who that is. That Colleen Ballenger, you know, she doesn't. And Miranda sings. You know. So, you know, she has a massive platform and she's really spoken up about Black Lives Matter. And she doesn't need to do that. You know, and I I really voiced to my daughter, I found it very moving and I voiced that to Goldie. And I am I just try and, like, talk to her in a language that she actually understands respectfully.
Adam: That's a really great segue into a question that I wanted to ask you, which is one of the things that that I've always admired about you and, you know, through your music, certainly. But just in the way that you present yourself online and so forth is you seem to be a lifelong learner, but you always seem to be like actively learning. And when I say actively learning, I mean, you you dove deeply into the things that you're curious about to learn about them firsthand and then just develop your own personal understanding of them. And I wonder, how would you say that your and Ionian love for learning influences your daughters?
Ben: That's a good question. I don't know. I view myself as someone who yeah, I'm like constantly curious and wanting to and wanting to learn. I think sometimes sometimes that appetite, because I'm a bit of a I'm like a you know, like I'm I'm the person who will, like, sit down with you and play you like five Jonathan Richman albums in a row to convince you, like, how amazing is Odyssey's? I mean, you've got to read this book and then let's talk about it. And sometimes that can be a bit like a lot of pressure on people. Sure. Because I you've got to give people space and time to have their own have their own experiences, you know, but I think in general, openness and enthusiasm and discernment are things that we've tried to instill in the kids, like both. I guess, like just honestly believing that what other people are saying around you is of value. And that listening to ideas and consuming art and I suppose in the in the broader sense, being part of a cultural conversation, if you're a performer or a I mean, nowadays, I guess you'd call it a content creator, but if you are someone who creates and shares, you're also someone who listens. You know, if you're in a growth mindset, it doesn't really matter what you personally think about where culture's going. I mean, everyone's obsessed with this is what I think about it. This is right is wrong. It's like, who cares what you think about it, actually learn about what's happening. And to me, what's exciting is like there's a lot to learn about, like and I have no problem saying, look, Goldie will ask me certain things about pronouns and this and I will say, look, I didn't grow up with that. So it's new to me. But I'd bet you by the time you're an adult and you have kids, it'll be just second nature. Like you will just be like, OK, what pronouns does that person want? And you and you use it and it's like but it's there's nothing wrong with what you've known being outdated. There's nothing wrong with it. That's evolution. And in the same way that it's funny that Sonic Youth, who are like the cutting edge of culture and now sort of like dad music, that's okay, too, because the cutting edge has to keep being cutting and has to keep being edgy, and that's to keep moving forward. And if you're so attached to you needing to be the one who knows about what's happening in the most progressive corners of culture, I'm sorry, but at a certain age, that's not going to be your viewpoint. That's the most cutting edge anymore. And that's OK. You know, if you actually love life and love people and love learning about where we're going, then it should be a still it could be a fun adventure. Sorry, can you hold on one second? Of course, my stepdaughter's is asking me something she said she's actually trying to apply for socialized medicine for Medicare here, and she can't find the she can't find the place. And it's just it's so important. I'm sure it's one of the great the great things about being here, but it's also like she's got to be on top of it.
Adam: Of course. Please.
Ben: OK, sorry. So, yeah, it's just like realizing that you're part of a conversation and that you don't have all the answers and that. Yeah, that we're listening and learning like it's funny. I think with culture, I've always been interested in where it's going. In some ways I can be like reactive against like for instance, like the acoustic guitar has gone through many phases of sort of like almost like redundancy culturally in the sense that like it's not necessarily the esthetic that young people are... Sorry, hang on one second. Hang on one second.
Marc: He's actually getting a phone call from his kid in distress about the car. I don't I don't think there's a more apropos way of being interrupted in the midst of giving an interview about being a dad.
Adam: This feels like an appropriate time to take a break and we'll pick up with part two of our conversation with Ben Lee in our next episode.
Marc: Just over here checking my watch, and would you look at that, it's it's time for a recurring segment. What do you what do you say to a so that's a thing now.
Adam: I like it. I've got one. And I'm going to dove right into it because we're running long.
Marc: Hit me.
Adam: This is what is a thing now in the Flaherty household. Selective listening.
Marc: Yeah, sounds frustrating.
Adam: Oh, my God, I have no idea, maybe you have an idea, we probably have no idea.
Marc: I might have an inkling of an idea.
Adam: Lately we have to ask our girls. Probably no fewer than 10 or even 12 times to do something. It can be like whatever it is, eat your dinner, put your clothes on, get in the shower or whatever it is...
Marc: Stop shaving the cat.
Adam: And it is making us totally crazy. I feel like I'm losing my mind from the outside. I feel like someone would say, well, why don't you just get down to their level, make sure that they have your attention and say, I need you to do this, I need you to be listen. But the thing is, we do that and they look us right in the eye and still it's like it goes directly out the other ear. It's crazy making.
Marc: Is this the thing that makes it the most crazy that you find yourself just repeating and repeating and repeating to no avail?
Adam: Yes, it makes yes, exactly. My wife and I look at each other and we're like, do they not, like, understand the English language?
Marc: Like the have of a sudden not understand words anymore?
Adam: And when we stop and say, like, what is going on here, like and actually get to the point where we're frustrated and really expressing frustration to them, we try not to like yell, but we get pretty frustrated with them. And we say, like, can you not hear? We're saying they're like, I didn't oh, I didn't know you said that. I didn't hear that. Honestly, it's not like we were calling it from across the room ten times in a row and you were distracted. It's like I literally was down two feet from you. We were looking at each other in the eye and I said, I need you to focus on what I'm saying right now. Like, can you hear me? It's time to get in the shower. You need to get in the shower.
Marc: Do you think they're really not hearing you or they're choosing to not hear they totally hear you, but they're choosing to ignore. And then when you call them on it, the excuses I didn't hear. Yeah, yeah. They're just sort of using that as an excuse.
Adam: I don't know. That's maybe there's an expert out there who does who would have thought who would be able to teach me something about this or a technique to actually get them to comply with what we're asking them to do. Like a lot of times it's like we need to leave for school in twenty minutes. And so we have this amount of time to get these things done and I need them to be working with me.
Marc: What's interesting to me about my kids and the age that they're at is that I do think that they're hearing yeah, what I'm saying and what my wife is saying, but they're just not giving us any cues at all that they're hearing.
Adam: Well, that's part of it, too. That's part of it, too. We get no response a lot of the time.
Marc: And that that I mean, that's frustrating.
Adam: It's so frustrating.
Marc: And I feel like the thing that proves that they are hearing is that that one moment that you take to have an adult, a two second adult conversation...
Adam: That's when they need your attention.
Marc: And and then you say something and then they hear that and they were in the next room,
Adam: You and your wife whisper, should I go pick up some ice cream after the kids?
Marc: Exactly. And they're and they're a mile away in the other room and engaged in something. And they're like, we get an ice cream?
Adam: Yeah, exactly. Did somebody say ice cream?
Marc: I mean, but I don't I don't know, you know, develop mentally what happens between three year olds and seven year olds.
Adam: And I think really it's it's where our seven year old is currently at. And I think our four year old has just learned that behavior from her big sister and just goes along with it. But it is absolutely crazy making and can be straight up like make you feel like you're losing your mind, you know. So that's the thing now, selective listening, I think that they think that they filter out the frequency of my voice, their brains, filter it out.
Marc: Try an accent next time!
Adam: Hmm. Interesting idea.
Marc: Oh, that was a great. So that's the thing now, anyway. All right, guys.
Adam: You're pulling my leg. That was fake.
Marc: Yeah, it was very.
Adam: I'd like you to be authentic with me!
Marc: That was my like YouTuber impression.
Adam: Sell me these end credits.
Marc: Well, friends, you can find us at ModernDadhood.com, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts. Wherever you listen to your podcasts, all we ask is that you please subscribe. Leave us a quick rating, maybe review big one here, tell a friend.
Adam: Tell a friend, word of mouth.
Marc: Also where can the folks follow us?
Adam: Oh they can follow us on Instagram, on Facebook or subscribe to us on YouTube. Just search Modern Dadhood. You will find us if you're a mom listening and you're looking for a great Father's Day gift for a dad in your life, go to ModernDadhood.com and buy him a dad hoodie or a T-shirt.
Marc: They're very comfortable. I sleep in the T-shirt nearly every night night.
Adam: Did you get one of the 2XL ones and you just wear it like a night shirt, tuck those knees right up into it?
Marc: I like a shirt that just dangles and sort of just tickles the kneecaps, you know, just like something that just sort of plays down around my knees.
Adam: Plays down there...
Marc: That got terrible. Sorry about that, folks. Anyway, drop us a line at Hey@moderndadhood.com if you would like to ask me to never talk about my knees again.
Adam: A huge thank you to our friend Caspar Babypants to Spencer Albee. We want to thank them for the music in their podcast to Pete Morse at Red Vault Audio for constantly putting up with our poor recording practices because the incredible and generous and talented Ben Lee for making time to talk with us about fatherhood. And I'm going to throw it to you, Marc, for the last one.
Marc: I'm going to go ahead and say and thank you for listening.
Adam: Happy Father's Day!