Modern Dadhood | Unpacking Fatherhood + Parenting for Dads (and Moms!)

Bedtime Stories I Tell My Kids, But Maybe Shouldn't | Author Michael Addis on Honesty and Fatherhood

Episode Summary

Take a moment to think back across your life. Do you have certain experiences that have always resonated with you, whether significant or unremarkable? Commercial director, editor, show runner, and author Michael Addis has spent years documenting his favorite life stories, and he joins the Modern Dadhood conversation to share about his new book Who’s Your Daddy?: Bedtime Stories I Tell My Kids, But Maybe Shouldn’t. Mike shares some wisdom about honesty and the value of being open and direct with our kids about complex issues, dealing with life’s pitfalls, and questioning the narrative. Also, the the long-awaited return of the super smash hit segment Confessions.

Episode Notes

Take a moment to think back across your life. Do you have certain experiences that have always resonated with you, whether significant or unremarkable? Commercial director, editor, show runner, and author Michael Addis has spent years documenting his favorite life stories, and he joins the Modern Dadhood conversation to share about his new book Who’s Your Daddy?: Bedtime Stories I Tell My Kids, But Maybe Shouldn’t. Mike shares some wisdom about honesty and the value of being open and direct with our kids about complex issues, dealing with life’s pitfalls, and questioning the narrative. Also, the the long-awaited return of the super smash hit segment Confessions.
 

Modern Dadhood Episode 21 opens with a few shout-outs to some listeners we love, before Marc and Adam swap humorous stories about their kids’ bedtime routines which sometimes include baths, books, and inventing songs on the spot. Adam introduces a routine called “Switcheroo,” and promptly fails to  explain what it actually means. The guys introduce guest Michael Addis, father of two sons, a commercial director, editor, and showrunner, by day, and an author by night. Michael’s new book, “Who’s Your Daddy?: Bedtime Stories I Tell My Kids, But Maybe Shouldn’t,” documents many stories from his life which he has shared with his two sons, in hopes that they would find valuable and applicable lessons from his experiences. The conversation centers around the value of being honest  with your children and yourself, and not being afraid to share your life’s adventures (and misadventures) with them. Topics include:

•  Using your experiences to make your kids better people
•  Teaching your children to question the narrative and to lack certainty
•  Demonstrating that dad is capable of making mistakes (and being an idiot!)
•  The value of honesty
•  The danger of dishonesty


The guys close out the episode with another round of “Confessions” where Adam reveals a secret celebrity crush, and Marc brags about another podcast that he was invited onto.

[Episode Transcript]
 

Links:
Who's Your Daddy?: Bedtime Stories I Tell My Kids, But Maybe Shouldn't
Michael Addis: Showrunner & Director
Chukka Talk (ft. Marc Checket)
Rick's Big Heart - GoFundMe
Cosmic Kids Yoga
Caspar Babypants
Spencer Albee
Red Vault Audio

Episode Transcription

Adam:

Well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well.

Marc:

If it isn't Adam.

Adam:

And Marc.

Marc:

That's me. Another episode of Modern Dadhood, which is an ongoing conversation about the joys, challenges, and general insanity of being a dad in this moment. And I, Marc Checket, stole your line. So go for it, Adam, introduce yourself.

Adam:

Oh, you can have it.

Marc:

I took it.

Adam:

My name's Adam Flaherty, I'm a dad of two daughters, six and three.

Marc:

And my name is Marc Checket, and I am a dad of twin boy toddlers.

Adam:

Let's give a couple shout outs.

Marc:

I think we're on the same wavelength, because I feel the same.

Adam:

I want to say hello and recover fast to our friend Rick Gauthier, who actually gets quite a few shout outs on this show, strangely. I think he got a shout out on the last episode, too.

Marc:

Yeah, definitely the most shout outs have gone towards him.

Adam:

Rick has been in the hospital with something a little bit scary, and he's home now with his kids and his wife, and we love you, buddy, and we're wishing you a fast recovery.

Marc:

I also would like to give a quick shout out, a few episodes back we recorded an interview with a very good and very long time friend of mine named Kevin White. And he's in the military, and at the time of the recording was deployed state side for several weeks helping to battle and deal with some of the COVID-19 crisis that's out there. Soon after that recording he was actually sent home, which was really nice, but then soon after that he got word that he was going to be shipped off, this time overseas. And this time for nine months.

Adam:

Ugh.

Marc:

I just want to wish him best of luck, and his family as well. He's going to be leaving behind his daughter and his wife to fend for themselves for about nine months, which is going to be pretty hard. But I know that I will be thinking about them, and I wish everybody the best of luck and a quick and safe return.

Adam:

Yeah, that's a tough blow. But yeah, we'll be sending good vibes to Kevin and his family.

Marc:

Yes.

Adam:

I also want to say a quick hello to Dave Zamansky and his kid Jake. Hi, you guys, thanks for listening.

Marc:

Hi Dave and Jake.

Adam:

I feel like I'm always posing a question to you.

Marc:

Adam? You don't happen to have a question for me at all do you?

Adam:

I do have one actually.

Marc:

Do you?

Adam:

What's your bedtime routine with the boys? What does it look like? Any weird traditions, anything that has to happen in a certain order or it throws off the whole evening?

Marc:

Yeah, I think there are a few things like that. They kind of go through phases of things in certain orders, if that makes sense. One day they might decide during our little story time they want to put their pillows on the floor, one on either side of me and they're going to sit on that. And it just has to be like that for like two weeks. And then all of a sudden they'll decide it's got to be something else, but then it'll be that for two weeks.

Adam:

Always phases. Everything's a phase.

Marc:

Yeah. Most nights go pretty much like this. Bath time, and then we run from the bathroom into the bedroom naked, and we scream, "We are naked!" Which is so much fun. And then we get dressed, and then we go to story time. And it's usually about two books.

Adam:

Is it usually the same group of books? Or is it the same book every night for a period of time?

Marc:

It's not the same book every night. There are a handful of favorites though. Although often if I feel like it's been like okay, we've read this book every night for the past week, I'll just make an executive decision and, "Oh, sorry, that books downstairs."

Adam:

You've got to do that sometimes.

Marc:

Yeah. I mean, some of it's for my sanity, but some of it's also like I want you to hear different words tonight.

Adam:

Right, right.

Marc:

Think about something different. But two books. And then we get in our cribs and sing some songs. The songs are often renditions of classic songs like Are You Sleeping? But we have to incorporate things that they know and love into the songs. So instead of Are You Sleeping, Brother John, it would be Are You Sleeping, Monster Truck? And there's probably a hundred of these variations now, and it's getting very hard to keep them all straight.

Adam:

They must love that, do you find that that keeps them awake because they're always listening for the next thing and anticipating what it's going to be?

Marc:

Yes. Yeah, and just recently, like I would say within the past two weeks, I had to institute sort of a new rule, which is I don't sing unless you are laying down. You have to be laying down and as quiet as you can manage-

Adam:

Yeah.

Marc:

While I'm singing.

Adam:

Yeah.

Marc:

Because otherwise it was getting ... it was just like a raucous singalong. It's like okay, this is having the opposite effect.

Adam:

Yeah.

Marc:

What about you? Do you have a routine? I'm sure you have a routine.

Adam:

Yeah, yeah, we've got a routine. I mean, normally it's ... I'll kind of move through it fast, but after teeth are brushed and everybody's clean the girls want to do switcheroo. So Sarah and I will each-

Marc:

Switcheroo?

Adam:

Go into one of the girl's rooms, they have separate rooms, and read a book, and they each have a bookshelf that's just overflowing with stuff, and some if it's like really good, great stories, and some of the books are just absolutely thoughtless just garbage.

Marc:

Like Danielle Steele novels?

Adam:

Yeah, Danielle Steele, yes, yes. My six year old's at an age luckily where she's like getting interested in chapter books and some of those can be ... she can follow along with a longer plot line-

Marc:

That's fun.

Adam:

So that's fun, but we have some Disney books and of course they're really into Disney movies and we actually some older ones our friends Jamie and Tom gave us some of Jamie's Disney books from when she was a kid, a Little Mermaid book is one of them that my girls love. And they're really great books, the art is good, they're well written, they follow the movie's story lines. And they do a nice job of condensing the movies into book format.

Marc:

That's cool.

Adam:

But then we have newer Disney books, like my girls are very into Frozen because who isn't? And it's like ... they are atrocious. The writing is careless, the stories are like fluff.

Marc:

What the hell?

Adam:

The things that the characters say and do are uncharacteristic of the characters, it's like they just had to fulfill some kind of like contractual obligation.

Marc:

Yeah.

Adam:

And just put out a number of books and so they like threw it to an intern and said, "Hey, write a book about Olaf seeing a ghost."

Marc:

So it's not even the condensed version of the movie, it's like-

Adam:

No.

Marc:

Some random offshoot story.

Adam:

It's like new adventures, but the adventures are just like absolute horse shit. Frankly, it's unacceptable and I think Walt Disney is rolling over in his frozen capsule.

Marc:

In his unmarked frozen capsule.

Adam:

Just waiting to be reanimated in 2050.

Marc:

Yeah, just wait until he gets reanimated, people. Let that be a lesson to all you people writing schlocky stories, he's coming back.

Adam:

But where I was kind of heading with that is you and I are both reading stories to our kids before bed, which I think is a great thing-

Marc:

Love it.

Adam:

It's good for their brains, it's good for learning, it's good to calm them down, get them ready for sleep. Those habits are important and anything that kind of throws off the routine can kind of make for a tough night. But do you ever make up stories? Create bedtime stories?

Marc:

I haven't yet, actually. I can't honestly say that I've actually made any stories up yet.

Adam:

Well, my older daughter whose six, for the last year, couple years maybe, as an alternative to reading a book or even when we're finished reading a book but before she falls asleep, she loves to make up stories, or to have me make up stories. And what I started doing so that the weight wasn't all on my shoulders was I came up with this thing where I will say a line, or create a concept, a log line or whatever, and after every line we switch.

Marc:

Oh.

Adam:

And so we create a story together, which is kind of fun.

Marc:

That's awesome.

Adam:

Usually these stories start with like some kind of animal or bug who is happy and living in nature, and then some kind of problem or catastrophe happens and then a resolution, and then happily ever after.

Marc:

Yeah.

Adam:

But I'm thinking about this because the guest for this episode, Michael Addis, wrote a book all about the bedtime stories that he tells his kids. And they are based on real life experiences. But I find that if I were to do that, I'm usually so exhausted at my daughter's bedtime that the idea of telling them any sort of detailed story that has a moral to take away, it's a daunting task.

Marc:

Mm-hmm. So I read his book, and I was trying to put myself in that position of recounting details of times from my past. And I mean, there are definitely ... there are stories that I do tell, and I guess I remember the details probably because I've told the story over and over again. I never told them with the intentions of someday telling my kids, you know what I'm saying?

Adam:

Right, right.

Marc:

I mean, and he ... the title of his book is Who's Your Daddy?: Bedtime Stories I Tell My Kids, But Maybe Shouldn't. Which is very intriguing, and I guess most of my stories are in the “But Maybe I Shouldn't” category.

Adam:

Right, right. It's a super cool idea and a great concept and an awesome book. Do you think we should go ahead and admit him into the Zoom and conduct our conversation?

Marc:

Let's have a conversation with Michael Addis, I'm excited about it.

Marc:

Mike, so glad to have you on the show. Among many other things, you're a director, showrunner, editor… You're also a writer and a dad.

Michael:

Yes.

Marc:

So I have a two part question out of the gate for you. Number one, how do you find the time? And number two, what made you decide to write this book?

Michael:

Good questions. So how do I find the time, I think that is part of the book, is that you ... a lot of times, a lot of days you'll get maybe a couple of hours with your kids at night. So you come home, you're tired, and they want you to read a story if they're of that age. And on the drive home I would think, what kind of story am I going to tell them? Because I found that they would ... they're three years apart, they would argue constantly about which book I'd read them at night. I don't know why a three year difference is so massive that it would cause a big fight. I mean, I don't know how old you guys are, but if there's a three year difference from 41 to 44 you don't scream at your friends like, "I don't want to do what you want to do!" So I decided to just come up with stories. Like little life lessons, or things that involve emotions I've dealt with, fear, or anxiety, or boredom, or curiosity, or jealousy, or frustration, anything. And fashion a story about that around that and come up with a life lesson. And tell them stories. So what made me want to do this is because I did have lunch with a friend who's like, "Oh, that sounds great, you do that with your kids, that's ... you should write a book on that." And I wasn't really motivated to write the book until I thought well, other fathers might draw inspiration from this. So the value of the book is that if a father is thinking how do I be a better father, which I think we all are, it's possible that trying this out and telling your kids stories that may get them to question the reality, or the truth of the world. I think it's very valuable. So I hope every father does this.

Adam:

You're a father of two boys, what can you tell us about your sons?

Michael:

Oh, well they're great kids, they're older now, they're 12 and 16. But I used to read to them like a few years ago. We stopped reading or telling stories to kids at bed time probably around 11 or 12, right? And so, but they're really ... they're polite, well behaved, well rounded, inquisitive kids that I'm very proud of. And a lot of people compliment me on them. I have one father who was like, "Hey, I'm having a lot of problems with my son, so I really want your son to come over and hang out, kind of just to help make my son better." And I'm like, "Wait, then your son may be making my son worse." I don't know if I want to hang out with your terrible ...

Marc:

All right, so the title of your book is Who's Your Daddy, Bedtime Stories I Tell My Kids But Maybe Shouldn't. So where does the maybe shouldn't part come from? Are those your words? Or are you ... are those words of somebody hearing maybe some of these stories out of context a little bit?

Michael:

Well, I think a lot of the things I say and do maybe I shouldn't. I think that the question of are you playing it safe, are you sure that everything you're telling your kids is going to make them better people? I don't know. Maybe not. Certainly I'm telling them stories that are kind of on the edge of what might be appropriate. And so I think that's fun, I don't ... I don't keep anything off limits. I mean, kids don't want to hear about your stock portfolio and the women you date, there's a lot of things they don't care to hear about. But in my case, I do think bringing up issues of police brutality, Black Lives Matter, rape, even. I mean, all the things we're talking about nowadays, I'll bring it up to the kids in some way.

Adam:

Yeah.

Michael:

I had one circumstance where James was like nine, and we're driving through downtown and he said, "Hey dad, look at that guy's haircut, it's so gay." And I was like, "Oh ... " pull the car over, we've got to talk about this. And so I tell the story about that, but it's ... we had to talk about what is a gay haircut? Because haircuts can't be gay, and certainly it doesn't help you to look at those areas of sexuality and not be open. You know what I mean?

Adam:

And even if it doesn't have a single thing to do with sexuality and he's just using the word gay because ... as a synonym for ridiculous or something that he doesn't like, and it's just because he heard somebody at school say that, it's still worth having that conversation and teaching him that lesson.

Michael:

Right. Well, this is where the “shoulds and the shouldn'ts” become an issue. Where do you want to tell your kid ... I'm asking, I have a lot more questions than answers, so should you tell your kids you shouldn't say the word gay, or something is gay? I would just say, "Look, here are the possible repercussions." And so if your kid was to say, "That haircut is gay,” Adam, like what would you say? How would you treat that?

Adam:

Well, so we have conversations with our daughters about alternative family structures to our own, and so my daughters know that families can have two mommies, or two daddies, or a father who was born female and identifies as male. And-

Michael:

Right.

Adam:

It's like nothing to them, I don't think that my six year old daughter knows what the word gay means, but she certainly knows that she has a friend who has two mommies.

Michael:

Right.

Adam:

So I think it's just a matter of connecting that language, but also letting her know that the choice of words, depending on how you say it, can be perceived different ways and can hurt people's feelings. And to not equate a word that represents this type of alternative family or someone's lifestyle with something that you think is a bad style choice.

Michael:

What I try to teach my kids is a lack of certainty. And to question everything. And I don't think you have much to worry about as long as you're teaching your kids to question the narrative.

Adam:

So I'd love to chat about your process a little bit, I know for me personally, I'm certain that I have a huge library of life experiences and lessons that I've learned along the way, which would make for really rich stories to share with my girls. But if I just sit down and try to think of them, I come up short. Do you like keep a notebook with you all the time and when something triggers a particular memory do you make a note of it and then flesh it out later?

Michael:

More or less, yeah. I have this thing called Evernote, and so I'm constantly just putting notes in Evernote and then trying to organize them, and if I have a funny thought or something I just ... if I put in a notebook I'll lose it. So I do that. And it becomes a chronicle of your life that the kid could then read later in life. So I think it'd be a fun exercise, like can you think of a story that you thought would make a good story for your kids, and maybe we'll see if there's something kind of a little more meaty in there to teach them.

Adam:

Are you asking me to think of a story on the spot?

Marc:

On the spot? Oh my god.

Michael:

This is where it gets ugly.

Adam:

It's really hard, like-

Michael:

I mean, have you been driving home from work and thought, "Oh, this happened to me, this was significant," and then you think, "Well, what questions does it bring up and what lessons might be learned from that?"

Marc:

Yeah, it's interesting, I'm sitting here just thinking and actually since I started reading your book I've been thinking about this question. What would I talk about? And it's funny because I too struggle a little bit on the onset of that idea, of being honest, direct, telling real life stories, seeing what the kids just get out of those stories without handing a moral on a silver platter. And I too struggle a little bit with oh my gosh, I don't ... I'll give you a quick example. And I'll give you a really quick example, and it's funny because I just told this story to Adam, not on the podcast, we were just chatting and I told you this story, but years back I was probably 12 or 13, and my friends and I ... friends, I'm going to put air quotes around it, my friends and I were playing a game. I'm going to put air quotes around a game, too, because we were playing a game with BB guns. And the point of the game ... it was essentially tag, and the point of the game was to tag each other with a shot.

Michael:

Shoot each other, your game was let's shoot each other.

Marc:

Yeah, the game was let's shoot each other. But we called it tag. And there were rules, right. We said ... these are the old school pump action BB guns where you've got to pump up the pressure or whatever. And one of the rules was obviously it's like central body mass hits only, one pump, stay a certain number of yards away, those were the rules. And so like most kids, we immediately broke our own rules, and I'll leave his name out of the podcast, one of my friends shot me right in the face. Hit me right in the lip, went through the lip, shattered a tooth, and got stuck in my lip. And this is the story that I've been thinking ... so my dad was a dentist, and so I just went home and was like, "I have a problem, Dad," and he took me to the office and he cut the BB out and it was this whole thing. It was terrible. And now I have a fake tooth. That's the story that came to mind when I started thinking like what stories. And man, I like telling that story, but I am a little afraid to tell that story to my own kids when they're old enough to hear it.

Michael:

It's tough to say, I think that's a good cautionary tale. I think you're saying we were idiots and we made a game out of shooting each other. And eventually we grew out of that. But knowing that dad is capable of a dumb idea like playing a shooting game, I think there's a lesson in there, I think there's something fun in there.

Marc:

Right. It's funny, when I was reading your book I always wanted to go back and look at those titles again. It's sort of broken up, you sort of have a story title, but then you also have sort of a moral title. Do you have a sense of what you want the lesson portion of that to be? Or is it more like here's the story, I've told it now to my kids, and I'll wait for them to see what lesson they choose to take out of it?

Michael:

What I did is I made a list of all the things I want to talk to my kids about. So I don't know about you guys, but like confidence I think is an interesting subject. I can make a list of all the things you should know about confidence, but really it's like, I don't know. Like I could just tell them what I've experienced. And so I ran a marathon one year, and I went with my dad, I invited my dad just to kind of make sure I would run it. So it's like, "Hey dad, come see me run the marathon," and then if I fail I'll fail in front of my dad, so it was like an extra thing to make sure I did it. And just watching him be so surprised that I was actually doing what I said I was going to do was illuminating, and that showed me like maybe any struggle I have with confidence is in part because other people don't always believe in me. And that's the case, is that there will be people who don't believe you could do something. And don't weight that too heavily. So I made a list and in the book it says like "On Confidence", or "On New Beginnings," or, "On the Search For Love," or, "On Being the Other," that story about I was in a lesbian band. I was the drummer of a lesbian band, and we played gay events and I was just like wow, I'm the odd person out. And then when you jump into that world you get a chance to sort of see what it looks like from that end. So I invite my kids, I tell that story and then I invite them, please don't shy away from any circumstance where you're not ... where you're the only one of something. I used to go to rap concerts a lot, and when I was young it was like I was the only white guy there. But you're like oh, wow, look at this. But then you realize, you get more comfortable being the other, which I think is part of the lesson of that story, is don't be afraid of that. And I really hope every dad does this, I know it's a tall order, but like write a book, it sounds daunting, but it's not as bad as you might think. But that's the long winded answer to say yes, I do go how did dad deal with gratitude, and frustration, and curiosity, and confidence, etc.

Adam:

Mike, has there been a moment where you've kind of given yourself a little high five because the lesson or moral has just sort of been right on the nose? Like they understood it immediately, or it was perfectly relevant to something that they were experiencing at that moment

Michael:

Yes, but I don't ... I'll get very specific, I don't expect them to necessarily get the lesson right away. And there's a lot of examples in the book how the discussion afterwards just kind of goes off the rails. Like I'll tell them a life lesson and maybe the next few days they'll think about it more, or you'll see the effects. But like James, I'll tell him a story about something and I'll think, oh, I hope he got this and then he'll say ... I'll end the story and he'll go, "Hey dad, do brown eggs come out of a chicken's butt and white eggs come out of their vagina?" It's like, what? That had nothing to do with what I just said.

Marc:

There's a great example in the book, you were told a story about the divorce that you went through.

Michael:

Yeah, that's tough to talk about, yeah.

Marc:

I can't even imagine something like that, but you tell this story and the question that you get at the end of it from one of your kids was like, "How do you go about splitting your stuff up?" And all of a sudden they're concerned about your socks and your Chapstick. And I thought that was ... I thought it was really funny, and really my question to you is how do you deal with something like in the moment, but I just felt like this was ... kids are so damn pragmatic sometimes.

Michael:

Yeah.

Marc:

The real concern that they had at that moment was did you get all your stuff? Did you get your socks? What about the food in the fridge? I mean, it was just such an interesting, sincere ... but in a moment like that, what do you do? Do you just kind of shake your head, kind of like just take the questions as they come, or ... ?

Michael:

No, it doesn't bother, like I want them to think of those things and to think ... constantly be thinking out of the box and be curious did I take my socks. But also I think part of the joke there is that kids are always kind of catching you in your bullshit, right? And so like the idea that I'm like, "Look, when I left I wanted to have you guys, and I didn't care about the stuff, I just wanted my piano and my favorite chair, and I'll start over again, and that's life, and that's okay. It's fine." So they catch me in that, which yes, did I only take my favorite chair and piano, no, I took my socks. And I took my underwear. So they're like kind of going, "Wait a second, are you sure that's exactly what happened?"

Adam:

Well, I commend you for being honest and straightforward with your kids and sort of telling it like it is and like we said, not sugar coating. Can you leave us with any final thoughts on why being direct with our kids is so important?

Michael:

One of my kids had had an issue with dishonesty, and would tell me things that he didn't know to be true. We don't always know the truth, but we know what is not true, oftentimes. You tell people things that you know to be true to you. And so almost more important than honesty to others is just self-honesty. And so I look at the boys, and my son who had an issue with honesty, and I said, "Look, you will ... I would lie to the Nazis to save you," like I'm not always going to be honest. And there is a value to lies, but there's also ... you want to be able to look at yourself and say, "Are you honest with yourself about yourself?" So just exploring self-deception I think is critical. So I think that if I left you with anything, it's just ... as a father, it's critical you explore what you think, believe, feel is your own truth and be honest, as honest as you can with your children. Because they're going to catch it, and if you lose integrity with your kids it's hard to get it back.

Marc:

The book is called Who's Your Daddy?: Bedtime Stories I Tell My Kids, But Maybe Shouldn't. It's a wonderful, sincere, heartfelt and at times very funny book. Michael, thank you so much for being on Modern Dadhood, we really appreciate it.

Michael:

Oh, thank you so much, Marc. Really appreciate it, and Adam, thank you so much, it was a lot of fun.

Adam:

You know what was a great segment that actually I got a lot of comments from people that they really enjoyed a couple weeks ago?

Marc:

Which one?

Adam:

Confessions.

Marc:

Confessions. Yeah. Let's do it again, I have some confessions.

Adam:

Let me just queue up our Gregorian Monks here.

Marc:

Get me into the mood. During dinner one night, one of my kids took mac and cheese directly out of his mouth and handed it to me saying, "Here you go, Daddy. Eat." I fake ate the food, said, "Yum!" And then secretly threw it into the sink.

Adam:

Despite what I tell my daughters multiple times every day, I actually think fart jokes are pretty damn hilarious.

Marc:

Recently we were loading the kids into the minivan for a car ride. And one of my children began crying and said, "I want to ride in the other car." I looked him dead in the eyes and told him the other car was broken. It wasn't broken.

Adam:

I will literally never say no when my kids want to do Cosmic Kids Yoga on YouTube, because I have a small celebrity crush on Jamie, the instructor.

Adam:

It's just a small, wee celebrity crush and I would like to say publicly, I am a very faithful and committed husband.

Marc:

Oh, man.

Adam:

Ah, are we at the end?

Marc:

Yeah. I guess. Oh, hey.

Adam:

What?

Marc:

I did want to tell you about this other podcast I was on.

Adam:

Oh, we don't have time for it, we've got to wrap this up.

Marc:

Does it make you sad to hear that I was on another podcast?

Adam:

No. I was already aware of it, even though you didn't tell me, I saw it posted and I listened to it, okay? We're going to go right into our wrap up banter.

Marc:

Do you need to take a minute to dab your eyes?

Adam:

Dads, you can find Modern-

Marc:

I can see the tears from here, it's okay if you cry.

Adam:

Fine, go. Go.

Marc:

I was a special guest host on another podcast. My very good friend, Ryan Murphy, he has a podcast called Chukka Talk, you'll never guess what that's about.

Adam:

Let me guess: Polocrosse.

Marc:

Polocrosse.

Adam:

So what is polocrosse? I know what polo is, I know what lacrosse is, is it just ... it's just the combination, right?

Marc:

Just put a bunch of lacrosse players on horseback. He'll probably hate me for saying it, for describing it like that. But as you'll find in the episode that I co-hosted, I am very much an outsider in that world and that was the whole idea behind the episode. But he's been a player, or a coach, or involved in the polocrosse community for pretty much his entire life. And that's what the podcast is all about, it's about his experiences. He interviews all sorts of people from all over the world, he's got listeners in Australia, and in Africa, and in England and all over the states. So if you're into sports on horseback, I suggest you chuck out ... chuck out, look what I did.

Adam:

You fuckin' did it on purpose.

Marc:

I didn't even do it on purpose.

Adam:

Don't even.

Marc:

No, I swear it.

Adam:

I know you did that.

Marc:

If you're into sports on horseback, check out Chukka Talk on Apple Podcasts.

Adam:

And Dads, you can find us at ModernDadhood.com, on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google, wherever you listen. Like we always say, we so appreciate when you give us a rating and review wherever you like to listen.

Marc:

And friends, would you be willing to tell one dad or mom friend about Modern Dadhood? Would you?

Adam:

Would you?

Marc:

Would you?

Adam:

You can drop us a line any time at Hey, H-E-Y, at ModernDadhood.com, tell us what you're liking about the show, what you hate about the show, if you have any great ideas for us. And also a couple thank yous.

Marc:

Thank you to Caspar Babypants, Spencer Albee, and Bubby Lewis for our Modern Dadhood music. And to the amazing, talented Pete Morse at Red Vault Audio, for his impeccable mixing skills. Boy, does he know how to polish a turd.

Adam:

This is true. We are still recording at home during this quarantine, we hope to be back together recording in person with guests in person very soon. And Pete does an awesome job of taking our remote recordings and making us sound as best we possibly can. Check him out at redvaultaudio.com. Any other thank yous?

Marc:

Oh, I would love to thank you for listening.