Modern Dadhood

Finding Adventure In Active Duty | US ARMY Officer Kevin White on Military Fatherhood

Episode Summary

The military lifestyle can be hard. Uncertainty and risk are ever-present, and that stress can affect family members just as much as the active duty soldier... Perhaps even more. US Army Officer and dad of one daughter, Kevin White, shares openly about his family's experience navigating a challenging, rewarding, and often nomadic military lifestyle. Plus, Marc shares about a recent trip to the ER. And, in a new segment called "Confessions," Adam reveals a deep dark secret that might just make his kids lose their very minds.

Episode Notes

The military lifestyle can be hard. Uncertainty and risk are ever-present, and that stress can affect family members just as much as the active duty soldier... Perhaps even more. US Army Officer and dad of one daughter, Kevin White, shares openly about his family's experience navigating a challenging, rewarding, and often nomadic military lifestyle. Plus, Marc shares about a recent trip to the ER. And, in a new segment called "Confessions," Adam reveals a deep dark secret that might just make his kids lose their very minds.


Marc begins another remote recording session by recounting a recent (and rather traumatic) trip to the emergency room with one of his toddler twins. (Spoiler alert: everyone's okay!)

The guys discuss the phrase (and the act of) "social distancing," and decide that while it's easy to form an opinion based on one's personal situation, there are many variables which impact peoples' social distancing experience. Many don't have the luxury of collecting income from the safety of their home while spending more time than they're used to with their immediate families-- in fact, many people risk their own lives each day serving others. And in the case of our guest, US Army Officer Kevin White, sometimes you are required to put yourself at risk and physically distance from your family for weeks or months at a time.

Kevin candidly discusses his experience in the military including the challenges of being deployed with a wife and young daughter at home, and the unique opportunities that military life presents to his family. Our conversation also touches on:

•  The various types of deployments and missions
•  Making fast friends in new places
•  How to explain to a toddler that their dad will be away for an unknown length of time
•  How to communicate to your child the inherent danger in your line of work
•  Reintegrating back into civilian life as a father

Adam and Marc round out the episode by revealing their deep, dark dad secrets in a new segment aptly titled Confessions.
 

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

LINKS:
The Military Father: A Hands On Guide For Deployed Dads (book)
2017 Webinar on Resources for Military Dads
Caspar Babypants
Spencer Albee
Red Vault Audio

Episode Transcription

Marc:

And welcome back, everyone.

Adam:

Hello listeners.

Marc:

We're so bad at starting these things.

Adam:

I know it's the same every time. Never feels natural.

Marc:

Maybe someday.

Adam:

Dads, welcome to Modern Dadhood. This is an ongoing conversation about the joys, challenges and general insanity of being a dad in this moment. My name's Adam Flaherty. I'm a dad of two daughters, six and three.

Marc:

And my name is Marc Checket, and I'm a dad of twin boy toddlers. Did that sound very announcer-y?

Adam:

Yeah.

Marc:

Good.

Adam:

Want to do it again?

Marc:

No.

Adam:

So Marc ...

Marc:

That's me.

Adam:

I'm not going to bring up all of the weird stuff that's happening in the world right now, but I'm going to say…. aside from all that, what's new? We haven't chatted in a bit.

Marc:

That's true. No, we haven't chatted in a little bit and I'm excited to say I have experienced my first trip to the ER, as a dad.

Adam:

Oh, no!

Marc:

No, it was not for me, but rather for one of my kids. First trip to the ER.

Adam:

What happened?

Marc:

First of all, he's fine. We'll get that out of the way.

Adam:

Good.

Marc:

He's fine.

Adam:

Was this an allergic reaction or something?

Marc:

No, not unless he's allergic to dog bites.

Adam:

Oh shoot.

Marc:

We have a small dog and she's a little old and I think from time to time, she gets startled. She's not an aggressive dog. She's a very good dog. And she usually actually just keeps to herself, but it was one of those things. We all say it as parents, "I turned my back for two seconds and boom."

Adam:

Was he trying to get food out of the dog's bowl?

Marc:

No. Usually, he gets away with that without the dog ever knowing. He's really good at that. No, they were all out playing on the deck and I don't know, my wife was doing something in the kitchen and I was watching them and turned away for about half a second. And we heard a scuffle with a loud bark and then a high pitched scream and then some dog toenails scraping across the deck. And we went running and it was terrifying at first. I'm making light of it because he's okay. But it was terrifying at first because we ran out and he was sitting there and he had a matchbox car in each hand because those are permanent fixtures. And he was rubbing his face back and forth and just screaming, high-pitched and tears streaming down his face. And we got a couple of steps closer to him and we noticed that his lower lip was just blood everywhere.

Marc:

Just pouring out of this, what looked like a fairly deep puncture wound. So we gathered that he was sitting down. The dog is small and is at sort of face height when she's standing and he must've startled her or something like that. And, she retaliated and bit.

Adam:

Yikes. So were there any stitches?

Marc:

No stitches. And he has since healed very well. It's almost gone completely.

Adam:

Was there a puncture on the inside and the outside of the lip?

Marc:

They were two on the outside and there was one that was big and open. And then there was another one next to it that, what we were afraid was it had gone all the way through, from one to the other, that he got like a weird frontal lip piercing or something. That's what we were nervous about. And the poor other son is sort of running around back and forth between Jamie, who is out on the phone, and me here.

Marc:

And he doesn't know what to do with himself. And he's like, "Hey, pay attention to me," but also like, "Hey, I'm a little scared. Can somebody tell me what's going on?" Which was that in and of itself was really sad because he would run into the bathroom and I would look at him and I would say, "Buddy, not right now. Go to your mom."

Adam:

Dude. Well that's some scary stuff. I'm so glad he's fine. But I got to ask, where does that leave you and the dog?

Marc:

Oh, we killed the dog.

Adam:

With your bare hands?

Marc:

Yeah, I-

Adam:

Comedian Tom Segura actually has a really funny bit about this exact thing, about how so many people consider their dog to be a member of their family and his stance is my dog is not a member of my family and here's how I can prove it to you. The second that the dog bites one of my kids, I am going to take it by the neck and drown it and then show it to my kid and say, "I did this… for you.”

Marc:

"I did this for you." That's great. I want to check that out. I mean, ultimately it was our fault. We have to take the blame for not running interference, but yeah, it's just one of those things where we're going to be a lot more cautious for a while. I've thought about opening this up by also asking you a question.

Adam:

Sure.

Marc:

Which was simply, do you remember hearing the term “social distancing” ever being said before March of this year?

Adam:

Hmmmmmmm… I don't. I can say fully confidently that I have never heard the phrase before they started using it in relation to the virus. And you?

Marc:

No, me neither. And I'm genuinely curious because we say it every day now. It's just a part of the lexicon and it sort of struck me as gosh, I spent a long time alive having never said that phrase before and now it's just so common.

Adam:

Or even considered the act of it. Right?

Marc:

Yeah.

Adam:

The idea that you might actually have to stand a certain distance apart from people that you care about.

Marc:

It truly seems like something out of a science fiction novel or something like that. I did hear a soundbite of, I think it was Obama from when he was president talking about pandemics. And he said the phrase. He was talking about the steps you take when something like a pandemic hits. And I wonder maybe we just never noticed it being said before.

Adam:

Maybe. Was it a phrase before that or was that something that he or his speech writers developed?

Marc:

I don't know.

Adam:

I mean, it is a common sense phrase. I mean, what else are you going to call it?

Marc:

Right.

Adam:

Anyway, I need to know where you were going with that. We're recording an episode a year.

Marc:

Oh wait, what? Is that what this is? I thought we were just hanging, bro. Yeah. I mean, it's just one of those things. And on one hand, society is socially distancing from one another. We're not in the same room as our colleagues, we're staying apart, even from our neighbors or extended family. The other side of that coin, I had this realization recently that we are in a lot closer proximity with our immediate family. You and I are both married. We both have kids. We've been in the same house. Not as one another. But we've been in the same house with our families for a lot longer in a lot tighter quarters than probably ever before. I mean maybe when we came home from the hospital, all four of us here were at the house together. Obviously, it was different circumstance.

Adam:

Absolutely. And it's not lost on me that you and I are privileged in some ways when it comes to this because we have a spouse and we have children and there are ways for us to entertain ourselves and still have that social component to our lives when there are a lot of people out there who are living on their own or who are in a nursing home and can't see their family.

Marc:

Or in a city with people on top and below you and onside. I used to live in New York City. We lived in a tiny apartment on the Upper East Side, surrounded by people on all sides. The entrance to get in and out was a hallway that if somebody was coming towards you, you had to each back up against the wall to get by one another. And I feel for people like that and I guess you're right. We're in this environment where we're privileged enough to be able to ... I guess here's how I think about it. I am lucky to be in a position to continue to stay at home for the foreseeable future. There are people that have to be concerned with going out and those of us that can stay home, now, this is turning into a crazy soap box thing but those of us that can stay home fucking should.

Adam:

Yeah, of course. We're just going to stay home. We're not going to risk it. Why create additional risk when there's other people who are business owners, who my heart breaks for, whose businesses may not survive this, or like you said, those essential workers who are putting their lives on the line for other people. And as much as I love going to a restaurant or going to a concert, I'm not chomping at the bit to get back to it, probably primarily because I have people in my life whose immune systems are compromised and I'll be damned if I'm going to be responsible for risking their lives, because I need to do something that I would consider in some ways a luxury, even if it's something that I've taken for granted in the past.

Marc:

But that's something that a lot of people are having to adjust to. And that got me thinking and the thoughts were snowballing. And then a good friend of mine popped into my head because I had realized that I was thinking a lot about my situation. Yeah. And it's not the same for everybody. There are essential workers out there who do not have the luxury of being crammed in the same space with their family. In fact, they're distancing from their own family in some cases, and just having to distance from your own kids, it just sort of sent me down on this path of thinking about the different circumstances that people are having to deal with surrounding distancing. And this friend of mine that I mentioned, I was talking with a little while back. He's in the military. So his situation, at times, is extremely different than my own. He's married. He has a daughter who's two and a half years old. And I thought it would be super eye opening for our listeners to hear this friend of mine and talk a little bit about his family life in terms of having to deal with some pretty extreme distance from time to time. And so here's our interview with a longtime friend of mine, Kevin White.

Marc:

Kevin White, dude, I'm so happy to have you on the show. Thank you for finding time to be on Modern Dadhood.

Kevin:

Absolutely. I appreciate the invite and the opportunity to come talk with you guys.

Marc:

So let's clear the air right out of the gate. How long have you and I known each other?

Kevin:

Preschool. I think I still have the preschool picture of us somewhere. But yeah, since preschool.

Marc:

It goes all the way back.

Kevin:

Way, way back.

Marc:

Yeah. I'm slightly taller now.

Kevin:

Maybe.

Marc:

So I wanted to give listeners just a little bit of context before we get too far into the meat of this episode, but you are in the military. Can you tell everybody what branch you're in?

Kevin:

I am an army officer. I was commissioned out of Clemson University and have spent the last 16 years, almost 17 years on active duty, currently stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. And living in Kansas City, Missouri. Currently deployed, not really deployed, to San Antonio, Texas.

Marc:

You said you're currently deployed, but not really deployed. What do you mean by that?

Kevin:

I'm on, what's called, a temporary duty mission. And so for this one, it's an unknown time length. And so we just got a mission to come down here to San Antonio to help with what's going on right now. And so it's somewhat like a deployment in the way that we treat the operation here of shift work, 24 hour operations, much like what we've done in Afghanistan, Iraq, but again, your stateside. And so that's the big difference with what we have going on here. So it's hard to say you're, you're deployed when you're stateside, but with what we're doing to combat the COVID virus, it's much like an employment.

Adam:

So there's no immediate physical danger to you aside from potential exposure to the virus.

Kevin:

Correct.

Marc:

So you are married and your wife is not in the military, correct?

Kevin:

She is not. Reina is an occupational therapist by trade and by schooling. Being an OT, she's very skilled for doing stay-at-home mom and teaching Aubrielle, our daughter, all the time. And so she's coming up with stuff all the time and it's amazing. I get the videos during the day. Even when I was back at home, the things they're doing, I was like, "That's awesome. I can't wait to get home so I can be a part of this."

Adam:

And for our listeners, just some clarification. So you have one daughter and how old is she?

Kevin:

She is two and a half. Just turned two and a half in March. So she is in that stage of everywhere all the time and talking constantly. So she's a lot of fun.

Marc:

I want to rewind just a little bit, a couple of years. So let's go back. Your wife is pregnant. Reina is pregnant. You're already in the military. You've been in the military for a while. You've already moved around all over the world, but now your wife's pregnant. Can you talk to us a little bit about the conversation that you guys had to sort of prepare yourselves for leading essentially, a nomadic life? I mean, you sometimes have to pick up and move sometimes with them. In cases like right now, sometimes without them. What were those conversations like back then at that time?

Kevin:

So it's hard. Reina is one of those people that loves being around her family and has a great family and great support back in Kentucky, where she's from, where we met. For me, I have a great family support as well, but that was never something that I was tied to, of being at home, being close to them because when I went to school, I went 10 hours South down to Clemson from my family in Pennsylvania. And so I was used to that. That was the life that I chose and have done for the past 14 years before we met. And so this was hard for her, the military lifestyle before having a child and being away from her family. And so that was something that we talked about a lot and always try to find a way to get back as much as we can, especially for her. And so having a child, bringing a daughter into this was hard as well. And you don't have the support structure. You don't have the family that's close by and say, "Hey, I got to run to the store. I needed to take a shower. Can you come over and watch her?" You rely so much more on each other and the people that are your neighbors at the time. You may not know them very well, but a lot of times you build relationships very quickly and you have to, because that's all you have a lot of times, especially when you do deployments. And so we found out we were pregnant in January and moved to D.C. in may. And for the first three months, three and a half months of that, we didn't know where we were going. We know we're moving, but we didn't know where we're going. And so you know that you've got that life in a suitcase mentality. And some of that is you embrace because you want to teach that to your kids and say, "Hey, look. There's an adventure out there. Let's go have it."

Marc:

Yeah. So that's interesting. You use the word "adventure". I wonder if you would have ever used that word before Aubrielle came into the picture, when you're sitting her down and saying, "I got to go away for a while." How do you have that conversation? What's the language that you use to talk to her?

Kevin:

So two and a half, she understands a lot and she's definitely advanced for her age. Reina has done a phenomenal job of that. Getting her ahead on things. But two and a half, still a little bit young to truly go to that language, I think. And so with this one, and this is really the first time that I've been gone for a substantial amount of time that she recognizes it. The way we explained this one is, "Hey, daddy's got to go away for work for a while and we'll still talk, but you won't see me for a while." The next move that we make will really be that first time that we can have that discussion and really frame it probably the way we want to teach her and open her up to it.

Adam:

Thinking forward, have you and your wife talked about how you might frame that for her? And I'm sure part of it depends on whether it's a deployment within the states or whether it's something where there is a threat of harm involved, but have you thought about the language that you might use or how you might frame that to her when she's older, four or five?

Kevin:

No, honestly, we've waited on that one. 17 years in now, I've watched other guys in my organization, in my unit that have gone through that. And it's never an easy discussion either way. And so you think, "Oh, as the kids get older, it gets easier." You have different needs. The kids have different needs at that point in time. And so it's never easy, no matter when it is. But no, to be honest, I don't know how we would do that yet.

Marc:

What things are you and Reina doing to deal with the distance? And is it getting harder the longer that you're gone?

Kevin:

Yeah, it is. And it doesn't get easier. And the longer you're gone, you start getting into your routine and they start getting into their routine without you. And so it's harder to integrate yourself back in without disrupting, because that's the other part you don't want to do is they've got their routine and they've got to keep going and she's by herself. And so you've got to figure out where it is you fit in and what the right mix is. As I was saying, it's a 24-hour mission here. And so my work schedule, isn't always conducive to being a part of things. And so I go in at about five in the morning and I get done late in the afternoon here. And I'll get a call once they get up, and basically finishing breakfast, we'll do a FaceTime call and I'll get to see her finish up breakfast and talk to her say good morning. But that's a quick call because that's in the middle of my day. And then before she goes down for a nap and then same thing in the evening while they're finishing up dinner. And so we try to keep those same things that we did at home or after dinner. A lot of times we do after dinner dance parties. So she'll run over and say, "Play the song. Play Fine by Me." And so then we dance in the living room and I dance in the hotel room to keep that going before she goes to bed and before I go to bed.

Marc:

Yeah, it's interesting. It sounds like you're trying as much as time will allow to just maintain some of the normalcy of what you would be doing if you weren't deployed right now.

Kevin:

Yeah. The dad things that you like to do, as you guys talked about on previous episodes, the rough housing, the playing around, the goofing around. That was the stuff that I loved to do coming home from work that you don't get to do now. You try to do that over FaceTime. I'm going to act like I'm doing it, but it's not the same.

Adam:

There's sort of this immediate nature to your line of work, meaning that when you're going to get deployed, you don't have all that much notice, right? It could be a few days or a few weeks. And I would imagine that it's probably the same coming home, right? Maybe you have some rough idea of when you'll be home, but not an exact day.

Kevin:

Yeah. That's exactly right. And it's honestly less than that. We got told plan for 90 days, but there's discussions ongoing. And so it could be tomorrow. I get told, "Hey, you're going home." Or it could be two weeks from now.

Adam:

it must be hard to not get their hopes up that you're going to be home at a certain time when it actually could be two weeks or two months later than you originally thought.

Kevin:

Yeah, absolutely. And as much as it goes for the kids, it goes for your wife at home too. She is ready in this case, especially she's ready to get me home, but it's the same thing, is you don't want to tell too much, you don't want to tell too little. And so this was one that we, for our daughter in this instance, I didn't tell her till the morning I was leaving, that I was going to be gone for a while because one, it was changing. This was a developing situation that we were trying to still figure out how we were getting here, what we were doing when we were leaving and the date had shifted from Friday to Saturday, to Sunday, to possibly Monday. And so we didn't say anything until bags were basically packed in the car. She came up for breakfast and I sat and had breakfast with them and said, "Okay, dad's got to go for a while. I'll see you soon."

Marc:

One of the things we talked about a lot on the podcast is-

Kevin:

I'm sorry--

Marc:

Yeah, sure. I see.

Kevin:

Reina is trying to FaceTime. I'm sure that the ... Hey, I'm on a Zoom call with Marc for the podcast.

Marc:

Hi, Reina.

Kevin:

Marc said hi.

Marc:

Can she hear me? This is great. This is the first in Modern Dadhood history.

Kevin:

She's gone. Had to fix the printer.

Adam:

That's real life.

Marc:

That's that normalcy we're talking.

Kevin:

Yeah. So again, going back to that neighbor thing, we had one of our neighbors came over and replaced the safety valve and fixed it for us, cleaned it out and fixed it. Put a new one back on for us.

Marc:

One of the things that we talk about sometimes on this podcast is that we tend to, whether it's happening subconsciously or not, sort of shape the types of dads that we are a little bit in the image of our own upbringing. And neither of your parents were in the military. Your mom wasn't a sniper or anything that I don't know about, right?

Kevin:

We can't talk about that.

Marc:

Oh man.

Kevin:

Yeah. Rita and her cookies. She was not. My dad was though.

Marc:

Okay. I never knew him as being in the military. So it must have happened a long time ago?

Kevin:

So what's funny is I, I knew my dad was in, but I never knew any details, anything until after I had already decided I was joining in and really had signed my contract is the first time he really talked about it. But yeah, he was in during Vietnam. Never talked about it. Was never a thing that he pushed on me or as I said, talked about at all until I had already made my decision that that's what I was going to do.

Marc:

When you think about the military, there's often a lot of very young people involved in the military and oftentimes a lot of young families that gets sort of thrust into these types of situations that we've been talking about. Since you've gone through it a little bit, what's one piece of advice you would give to a new young father who hasn't gone away yet, but sort of needs to prepare themselves for that time when it comes?

Kevin:

So that's a great question, Marc. The deployments are hard. And it's harder for the family at home than it is for the service member that is deployed. It is much harder for the family at home. And I used the perspective of deployed soldier to Afghanistan or Iraq. Some are overseas versus what I'm doing currently, but it would still hold true essentially here, I think a little bit as well. I think Reina would probably tell you it's the same now, but it's harder for them because there's the unknown. They don't know what you're doing. They don't know if you're safe, if you're not, what job it is you're truly doing, especially again in Iraq, you're outside of the wire. There's that threat of being hurt, being injured by an enemy force. They don't know you know and you have confidence in what you're doing and your abilities in the job that you're doing. And you know that you know how well you're doing it and how much risk you truly are in. But they don't. And so until you call and say, "I'm okay." They don't know. And so it's much harder being on that side. And so the advice is to put yourself in that position and think about it that way, that it's much harder for them than it is for you. And so the more you can communicate, the more you can make the effort and it is hard because you're there to do a job. You absolutely are. And it is hard to step away from that. And it's very easy to get sucked in completely where you've got to focus on the mission and the job that you're doing, but you got to take the time to make the effort and makes the call home, write the email, do the call when you can to make sure that the family knows that you're okay because it is that much harder for them than it is for you.

Adam:

So your daughter has never known you to be in combat?

Kevin:

Correct.

Adam:

Do you have conversations about that side of serving in the military, violence, weapons, guns, that sort of thing?

Kevin:

No, we haven't. I'm sure that will come up eventually. She sees me come home every day in my uniform. There are guns in the house. They're in the safe. And so that is part of my lifestyle, part of what we do. And that discussion would come up. She sees my flight helmet up on the shelf. She sees that stuff and she knows that is in the army. And she knows that I fly helicopter, but she's not there yet, but like I said, I expect the next couple of years, we'll definitely be having those conversations.

Adam:

Kevin. So fast forward, try to put yourself in the position of 15 or 16 years from now. If you're two and a half year old daughter is now 17, 18, and expresses interest in serving in the military in some capacity, what do you think your reaction will be to that?

Kevin:

I hope that much like my dad did for me is step aside, put my feelings aside. And so she makes that decision on her own, well, I don't think ... Looking again, I've had a good experience. It's done a lot of great things for me. So as a female, that's a different dynamic as well for her. I would definitely have a discussion with her of some things to consider some things to think about. It's not something I would stop her from doing or necessarily advocate for. If that's where she wants to go, then by all means I'll support her if that's what she wants to do. And who knows where we are in 15 years?

Marc:

There's a lot of time between now and when she's 17, 18 years old. Is there a certain comraderie that exists among the other army dads?

Kevin:

I think your question quota was up, Marc.

Marc:

Oh no, did I just trip over into uncomfortable territory?

Kevin:

Yes. And you see it, especially on things like this, where in the middle of the day, I'll sit at my computer now or I'll step onto the hallway and take a FaceTime call. So you see that and you're talking about, "Hey, what are your kids up to today? What's life doing with the kids today?" So yeah. There absolutely is that comradery with it. There's that connection.

Marc:

Kevin, first and foremost, thank you for all that you've done for this country in your career. It's been a long one and you're a good guy and I'm very proud to call you-

Kevin:

Now you're just lying.

Marc:

This is the only time I'm going to say it. So you better let me get through it.

Adam:

Don't cry!

Marc:

I'm very proud to call you my friend. And I know you are a good person. I know you're a great dad. And thanks for being on this show. It means a lot to me.

Adam:

This is the part of the show where we generally like to do a fun segment.

Marc:

Correct.

Adam:

I understand that you have an idea for a new segment.

Marc:

That's right, Adam. Thanks for that introduction. This new segment is called Confessions.

Adam:

Were your levels peaking on that?

Marc:

Probably. Want me to do it again?

Adam:

Yeah. Just because I want to put some echo on it.

Marc:

This new segment is called Confessions.

Adam:

And it's self explanatory.

Marc:

It is.

Adam:

Begin.

Marc:

Okay.

Marc:

Last night I stood inside the pantry and ate handful after handful of chips so the kids wouldn't see me and ask to have some chips.

Adam:

Nearly every night after the girls go to bed, my wife and I sit on the couch and watch a show. If they ever found out that we were watching TV without them, they'd lose their minds.

Marc:

Confessions was great. It's going to be a hit. Great idea. It's going to be a hit.

Marc:

I hate to say it, Adam, but I think this is the end of our time together.

Adam:

It always comes so fast.

Marc:

It does.

Adam:

So damn fast.

Marc:

This one flew by in a matter of minutes.

Adam:

Dads and moms who are listening, find us at ModernDadhood.com or listen to us on iTunes and Apple podcasts on Stitcher, Spotify, TuneIn Radio, iHeartRadio, Google podcasts. But wherever you happen to listen, please subscribe, rate and review us. It means so much.

Marc:

And please tell your friends. If you're digging the show, word of mouth really helps us a ton.

Adam:

You can drop us a line anytime at Hey, H-E-Y, @moderndadhood.com. Tell us what's up with you. If you need us to give your friend a little nudge to get them to listen, if the word of mouth thing just isn't working and they need that extra little motivation, we'll call them. We'll text them. We'll do whatever it takes.

Marc:

Thank you to Caspar Babypants, Spencer Albee, and Bubby Lewis for our amazing music and to Pete Morse at Red Vault Audio for pressing all of those EQ buttons.

Adam:

Check them out at http://redvaultaudio.com. And most importantly ... is it most importantly? We always say that. Is it most importantly?

Marc:

How important are the listeners, really?

Adam:

We've talked about it before, but would we be doing this if people weren't listening?

Marc:

Yes.

Adam:

In some ways this is like therapy for us.

Marc:

It is a little bit, but you know what, here's the thing. It brings a little bit of joy into my life, knowing that there's someone out there listening.

Adam:

Knowing the Keith Belanger is out there wearing a Modern Dadhood t-shirt.

Marc:

And Rick Gauthier Jr. is out there, just taken in our stupid recurring segments and tolerating it. Thanks, Rick.

Adam:

Thanks, Ricky. We love you all. Thanks for listening to Modern Dadhood.