Modern Dadhood

It Takes A Village To Raise A Child | Seth Romano on Divorce and Single Fatherhood

Episode Summary

Single parenthood is a common phenomenon and it occurs for a number of reasons, the most common of which is divorce. In the United States alone, an estimated 2.4 million divorces take place each year, many of them involving children. Seth Romano, a Los Angeles-based musician and single father of one joins the Modern Dadhood conversation to share his personal story of realization that he wasn't happy as a married person, and how he and his daughter's mother, and their families have worked together to create a positive situation where their seven-year-old can thrive. Also, Adam and Marc own up to another batch of "Confessions!"

Episode Notes

Single parenthood is a common phenomenon and it occurs for a number of reasons, the most common of which is divorce. In the United States alone, an estimated 2.4 million divorces take place each year, many of them involving children. Seth Romano, a Los Angeles-based musician and single father of one joins the Modern Dadhood conversation to share his personal story of realization that he wasn't happy as a married person, and how he and his daughter's mother, and their families have worked together to create a positive situation where their seven-year-old can thrive. Also, Adam and Marc own up to another batch of "Confessions!"
 

Episode 31 of Modern Dadhood opens with a story of frustration, confusion, and resolution in the Checket household. Before long, Adam and Marc transition to a conversation about the amount of time parents are able to spend with their children as they grow up. Prior to Covid, many of us found ourselves in a very structured routine which awarded us little time with our kids during the week. The guys discuss feelings of guilt and a fear of missing out on important milestones in the lives of their young children.

Adam and Marc welcome Seth Romano into the conversation. Seth is a professional musician and a single father of one seven-year-old daughter. Seth shares his story of moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in music, falling in love and getting married, being amazed by the miracle of the birth of his first daughter, and realizing that being in a marriage wasn't right for him. He explains that despite the difficult and hurtful situation they found themselves in, they have landed on their feet in a situation that works. With the support of their families, their daughter Sydney is growing up in loving and nurturing environments with parents who respect and care for each other. Other topics of conversation include:

•  The idea that marriage is something you're "supposed to do."
•  There is no single definition of "family"
•  The experience of seeing your first child being born
•  How having a child changes your perspective on life
•  Managing your time as a single father


[Episode Transcript]
 

Links:
Seth Romano Livestream Concerts
The Trip
90s Rock Show
"Gonna Save You" on YouTube
Seth Romano on Instagram
Seth @ Rockstars of Tomorrow Musicians Academy
Red Vault Audio
Caspar Babypants
Spencer Albee

Episode Transcription

Marc: We should introduce the show. 

 

Adam: You want to take it? 

 

Marc: Yeah, how do we usually start it? Welcome back. Well, listeners, welcome back. This is Modern Dadhood. It's an ongoing conversation about the joys, challenges in general, insanity of being a dad in this moment. My name is Marc Checket and I am a dad to twin boy toddlers. 

 

Adam: And I'm Adam Flaherty, a dad of two daughters, six and a half and three and a half years old, who are amazing and make me crazy sometimes. 

 

Marc: Yeah. The other day, Monday, I was on a meeting early in the morning and somebody inevitably was like, "how was your weekend?" And I thought about it for a long time. And I said, "it was tumultuous."

 

Adam: Good adjective! 

 

Marc: Yeah, no, it was fitting. It's like that sometimes I think when you got the kids.

 

 Adam: Totally.

 

 Marc: Oh, where were we? We were talking about the show. 

 

Adam: Yeah, I wanted to just add beyond sort of the normal spiel that that we have a guest in every episode of Modern Dadhood and we try to select people who expand our understanding of what it means to be a dad. Give us new perspective and the guest for today's episode. His name is Seth Romano. He's a Los Angeles-based musician. He's a single father of one, and he's also a longtime personal friend of mine. I'm really excited to have him on the show. Anything going on with you, you feel like telling me about? Need some advice? Any troubles in the Checket household that you want to run by me? 

 

Marc: Oh, we always got troubles. We all I mean, there's always troubles. Let's see here. Our kids are getting, I think, into a more oh, what's the word... difficult phase? I don't know. You know, everybody says terrible twos, but then people who have been through the terrible twos have been like, wait till you get to threes. Yeah, They're both testing our patience with a lot with a lot of things. There was one morning where Jamie left the house early. So it was it was on me to kind of get the kids together, get them in the car and get them to school. And I was trying to keep up with them, but they were just like they were off and running like a couple of firecrackers. But, man, they were just at each other like every opportunity. And I looked around at this just see of mayhem, toys everywhere. And it was the toys that were doing it. They were. They were. I want that. OK, here you have it. And now I want it now. And it was just bickering over it. One of the kids threw a toy on purpose and the other kid, like with the intent of like, I want to hit you with this. And I and I said, that's it. And I hopped up off the couch, took him upstairs, came back downstairs, looked at the toys. And I was like I looked at my other son who was looking at me like, oh, you look mad. What are you going to do to me? Yeah. And I said, that's it. All the toys are gone. And I was angry, which is why I went to that extreme. But I also was like, I should probably follow up with that because you don't want to make empty threats. Right. But I was also really curious to see what would happen if I just took every single one of their toys. And so I systematically started to just pile up all of their there. That was other train track sets. We had some we had some blocks out. We had some stuffed animals over here, some cars over here. I took it all. Some of it went out in the back deck. Some of went into a closet. Some of it went behind like a gated part of the downstairs. And when my other son came back downstairs, he kind of looked around like, what the hell's going on? Yeah. Then lo and behold, they wanted me to read a story to them. 

 

Adam: So they made the best of it. So good. 

 

Marc: So we sat on the couch there. There were no toys. And we sat on the couch and I read a couple of books. And then I was like, "time to get your socks and shoes on and go to school!" and that was that. So did that work out perfectly or did it totally backfire? I kind of considered it a win. Like it wasn't an immediate thing. It was like I hold on, I got to connect all these dots. What happened here? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. But they've they've definitely been like at each other's throats a bunch lately, and that's that's been tough to deal with. That's our house too. Yeah. 

 

Adam: I don't have anything really different to add. It's just I would be curious to at some point, you know, maybe dove into a little bit about how the dynamics could be different, you know, with two brothers who were the same age and then two sisters who are intellectually at different levels because there's a three year age gap. But yeah, they're at each other a lot, but they're best friends too. So I know it's not the case for everybody, but in my experience, I've just sent my kids back to school and, you know, in your case, they go back to daycare full time. So we've gone from being with them almost all the time during the summer and especially being quarantined to now seeing them in the morning for a little bit. And then again at the end of the day for dinner, bath, bedtime sort of thing, pre pandemic. I know that I was having a lot of feelings of guilt around, you know, the idea. And I think we've talked about it before of their teachers spending more time with our kids than we get to. Obviously, the pandemic has shaken up our daily routines a lot and our whole lives, frankly, so much that many of us have gotten to spend a lot of extra time with our kids, which has been its own set of like feelings, you know, wonderful in a lot of ways and challenging and a lot of ways. So this year is a lot different. But now I'm excited for them to socialize and and to learn. And I'm focused a lot less on the amount of time that I don't see them each week. Is that a similar experience for you? 

 

Marc: Yeah, I definitely had some feelings of guilt, especially towards the beginning when I first went back to work. After that, you know, when they come home from the hospital, you get that little bit of time with them. And then I was back to work in what felt like the blink of an eye. And honestly, it's hard for me to really remember that period of time because I was operating on so little sleep to go from, you know, every day, every time that they're awake, they wake up, you're there, you're there feeding them and putting them to sleep to go, you know, right back into. All right, kids, you have to work. You know, if it felt really cold, you know, it felt really cold to to do that. And it was it was difficult. 

 

Adam: Yeah. And I and I guess I just had that sort of fear of missing out thing. You know, I knew that they were having fun and they were they had opportunities to be social and they were learning and they were playing. And all that is important. But but where I'm going with this is that it's just really hard for me to imagine my kids not living with me under the same roof full time, which is the case with with our guest. It's this isn't a judgment, you know, whatsoever of parents who don't or can't be with their kids every day. It's just not a situation that I'm in myself. And I know it would be really tough for me if suddenly I found myself in a position where I didn't have my two daughters and my wife all sort of under the same roof. 

 

Marc: Right. Yeah, I know. I've been thinking about this a bunch. And, you know, it occurred to me that I and my wife, too, like, we joke we joke a lot about like, man, if we could just have a break for a little while, a couple of days, totally. Just no kids at all. Just to do some of the things, some you just a little day hike, you know, or like organize the closet or do the things that you just can't do when you have to devote your attention. And so we joke about like getting that that break. But the reality is sometimes is that when the kids aren't there, it's a little bit sad, maybe even more so lately. And I don't know if it's a pandemic thing or if it's that they're getting older or I'm getting older or whatever it is. You know, I think I think that I would have a really hard time if my week had to be several days with them and then several days without them. 

 

Adam: One of the many benefits of this show for me and I think for you, too, because we do talk about it periodically, is learning and gaining perspective from other dads. And like I said at the top of the show, our guest today is a single dad who has taken a situation that I think could be really tough and made it work for him both personally and professionally. And I would say like equally, if not more importantly, it works for his daughter and their family, too. So I want to welcome one of my oldest friends into the conversation. Seth Romano is an extremely talented multi instrumentalist, a powerful vocalist. He's he's a true rock star who slays in front of audiences of thousands of people. And he's also a father of a beautiful daughter named Sydney. Seth is someone that I have immense respect for. And I'm really sorry that we don't stay in touch as well as we should. But, man, I am so glad that we get to have this conversation today. So, Seth, this has been a long time coming. Welcome to the show. So glad you can be here.

 

Seth: Wow, I'm flattered. And right back at you, you're I still consider you one of my one of my close friends, even though I don't see you in person so much these days. But we do go back a long ways. Third grade. Wow. And I just want to say I am excited to be on the show. I'm a fan. I've been listening since the beginning. And I think what you guys are doing is valuable. Well, thanks. So really pleased to be here speaking with you both. 

 

Marc: That means a lot. Yeah. Thanks for saying that, Seth. Although I'm a little confused, I thought you were just going to be singing everything during this. 

 

Seth: La la la la la. How about that? That's what I do.

 

Marc: Oh, that's what I expected. Seth, could you share a little bit with the dads and moms that are out there listening about your family and how that plays into your your career and your life? 

 

Seth: I'd be glad to. So I am a single parent. I've been divorced for a few years. I have one daughter, my daughter Sydney, who is about to turn seven, and I make my living as a working musician. I sing lead vocals in a couple of reputable cover bands in Southern California. One is called 90s Rock Show. So we're all all 90s grunge and alternative tribute band. And then I'm in another band called The Trip, a trip through the decades. We call it 60s to. Now, both those bands are not currently very active because of covid, but we were doing great before covid came along. We were busy. 

 

Marc: Can you tell us a little bit about Sydney? What's she like? 

 

Seth: Yeah, she's she's the. Well, how could I not say it? She's the cutest kid I know. We know my kids are the cutest kids that I know. How can that be? OK, so Sydney is she's turning seven soon, but she's she's a happy kid. She's she's very smart. I think she's she's certainly my favorite person. 

 

Adam: So jumping back a little bit, you moved out to L.A. You were born and raised in Maine. That's where we, you know, became friends and grew up together. You moved out to L.A., which is sort of the polar opposite of where we grew up, determined to build on the natural talent and gift that you have as a musician and as a vocalist. And I always thought that this was a really brave decision. Pandemic aside, how is it working out for you? You said you've been you've been gigging a lot and regularly up until the pandemic. Talk to me about some of the projects that you've been involved in and some of the cool opportunities that have presented themselves. 

 

Seth: Well, the last four or five years have been quite a happy time for me. I finally feel like I achieved some level of success and I say success in the fact that I'm able to pay my bills. I've been in California for 12 years and there were a lot of bumps in the road. I struggled for a long time financially. As soon as I got out here, I started gigging, but I wasn't, you know, I had to pay my dues in a way. I was in my 20s and I still had a lot to learn, still do have a lot to learn. But there were there were times when I questioned, should I be doing this, maybe I should just move back to Maine and, I don't know, harvest maple syrup or something. I don't know something else other than this. 

 

Seth: That's all we do out in parts... why is it a Southern accent? 

 

Marc: Yeah, well, you can't even while you're in Southern Maine. 

 

Seth: I mean, we could always use we could always use more maple syrup. Yes. You guys finally get running water out there. I haven't heard lately. 

 

Adam: Oh, we pull up our fresh water from the well just fine. Thanks for asking. Good. 

 

Seth: I'm glad you have fresh drinking water. What was I... Talking about oh, yeah, yeah, so there were a couple of times where I had some pretty serious sort of breakdowns in the process of trying to get to a point where I could earn a living. But I just thought to myself, well, you know, not to sound overly dignified because I don't think of it that way, but I just thought, well, it's true. Music kind of chooses you. I didn't choose this. This is who I am. This is what I got to do. So I just kept plugging along. So anyway, I know it's been great the last few years have been great to be a real working professional musician. 

 

Adam: And we indicated earlier that you are a single dad now. So I'd love to hear about how this has changed your relationship with Sydney. 

 

Seth: So here's a situation. Several years ago, I got married to a lady named Fallon who is, I can say nothing but good things about her. We're actually divorced now. We divorced about four years ago. And what happened in that situation was I I went into that marriage with good intentions, but not knowing what the hell I was doing, I really didn't know. And everybody in my family did it. So I expected I would do that someday. So right around the time I turned 30, I thought, well, I've got this girlfriend in my life. She's wonderful. She makes my life better. It just makes sense. A little bit of pressure on myself, I suppose, thinking this is the right thing to do. So we got married and unfortunately, after we got married, I realized how unhappy I am as a married person, not because I'm out, you know, with a bunch of women or something all the time. It's just that for my lifestyle, I like to have that little bit of freedom. I think a lot of musicians and creative people are that way. When I come home at night, I would rather spend my time listening to albums or practicing my instruments or just indulging in my passion, which is career and hobby of music rather than compromise and spend my time doing something else with another person. Perhaps I'm a little bit selfish, but that's what makes me happy. I enjoy that sort of independence. And unfortunately, it it was a painful situation for a while. But let me tell you, the situation that my ex-wife and I are in now couldn't be better. Not only are we friends and we have respect for each other, we get along, but we consider each other family. In fact, my mom and Fallon are like best. Fallon is happily remarried to a great guy on holidays. We all get together Thanksgiving, Christmas. We have little gatherings. They have a little baby girl now. So my daughter has a younger sister, which is cool. And on top of that, Fallon's mom lives with me. But because she watches my daughter when Fallon and I are working, well, it's it sounds very strange, but I'm telling you, it is totally functional and a good situation for everybody. It's crazy, but it isn't crazy because it's it just works. 

 

Marc: Well, it's I mean, you say it's strange, but I do have to say that what you just described is foreign to me. But if there's one thing that I've been learning and having these conversations about being dads and about being parts of families is that there just is no one definition of what a family is. There are all types of families out there. And so I think the important thing that you've been saying, as you're telling that your story is that everyone is happy. I mean, that's priceless. You know, having a situation where you've got kids that have siblings and parents and grandparents and happy individuals around them, I mean, what more could you ask for? 

 

Seth: You know, yes, that's that's exactly right. It is a happy situation. And fortunately for me, you know, you never get married thinking this is going to end in divorce. Right. You know, when in with the best of intentions didn't work out. Fortunately, Fallon is a very clear headed, good hearted person, is hurt as she was, because I just realized I'm not in love and I'm not happy to be married. It was a terrible thing to become conscious of because I didn't really fully understand it for a while when I became aware of the fact that this was not a good situation, not a healthy situation for either of us, I felt a tremendous amount of guilt and she was terribly hurt. So it just was clear to me that it was so important to maintain a functional, healthy relationship with my daughter's mother. I guess it's not uncommon, but if anybody can take something away from my story, it's maybe that divorces don't have to be as ugly and dysfunctional as sometimes they are. 

 

Adam: So when she was born in the end of 2013, how did your view of your career and your goals in your lifestyle change? 

 

Seth: Well, as you guys know, becoming a parent is realistically it's certainly a it's a compromise to your lifestyle or what was your lifestyle. I even when I was still married, you know, I'd have friends ask, are you gonna have another baby? And I say, No one and done one and done I'm good. I'm happy with what I have. I, I still feel the need to be able to pursue my my work and my hobby and my passion on music. And, you know, I'm sure you guys have heard the expression it takes a village to raise a child. And I found that that that's very true. I mean, I'm fortunate in that Sydney has her mom and her dad. She has her older sister, who's a teenager helping out. She has her two grandmothers here who help out immensely. They spend more time with her than I do. And when I don't see her, I may go three or four days without seeing her. I mean, that's that's the truth. And when that happens, even though I know that she is the most important person in my life and her well-being is my greatest responsibility, I do get caught up in the day to day stuff. I'm I'm working or I'm doing stuff around my apartment or whatever you do from day to day that occupies your thinking. And when I do see her and we do fun things together, I'm reminded of how much I love that kid. And I I realized recently that because I have that experience of going little bursts of not seeing her, that I guess this is maybe irrelevant to what you guys were just asking me. But I did want to mention this because to me it's it was a bit of a aha moment. You know, there's all those men out there who are biological fathers, but they're not real dads because they don't take an active role in their child's life, which is terribly unfortunate for the kids, I suppose. And, you know, I used to think, oh, deadbeat dads, I'd look at these guys in disgust. But now, you know, one thing I think about is in a way, I kind of feel sorry for them because they don't know what they're missing. And I realize that because I might go three or four days without seeing my daughter. And then when I do see her, I'm reminded again, it slaps me in the face. Then I remember it's like, oh, yeah, this this is the greatest thing, man, being a parent. But I guess to answer your question, I guess I never really worried about it. I just thought this is this is such a happy blessing. I mean, to have to see a baby born. You don't know you don't know what a miracle it is until you see it. I mean, there are seven billion people on the earth. I mean, what's what's the big deal is lots of us. But when you see that one enter the world, it's boy. Yeah, miracle is a word I like to use. 

 

Marc: It's it's quite amazing when I was in the room and so my kids were born via caesarean section. So there's all these doctors and it's you're just like, holy hell, what is going on? Like the whole time I'm just like, what? I'm I'm trying to soak it in, but I'm also trying to stay really keyed in to Jamie and locked into my wife's eyes and keep her. But man, they take that goopy baby out and slap it up against there was a clear curtain. They slapped this goopy baby up there. And I was like I just felt this pang like deep inside that I and it was really only for an instant because it was so it was so crazy in that room. And in the moment I was like, that's what they mean when they say, you don't know until, you know, it's so true. 

 

Seth: And when my daughter was born, I think kind of like what you were saying, Marc, like, I was still married at the time. So I was right next to my wife. And she had this like almost like a like a tarp or something like like a wall, you know, over her. So she couldn't see what was happening. And I was next door, so I couldn't either. So I was the first one to see the baby when the doctor held her up. But the split second before I saw her, I heard her cry. And that moment might have been the most surreal moment of my life, because in that moment, again, you don't know what it feels like until you you experienced something like this. But I thought to myself, that scream, that cry. That's half me. What a surreal, strange and cool feeling that was. Man. I'll never forget the first time I heard that baby cry. And it was like, that's that's half me. Weird is awesome. I felt like that experience of becoming a parent and taking care of a baby, it was like looking out of a window that I didn't know existed before. It happened into a new world that I wasn't aware of or I just didn't even see. Would you guys agree? Do you feel like when your kids were born, you just became aware of this whole new view of life? Hmm. 

 

Marc: I think it's a great I think you phrased the question so well, because I feel like I was gearing up to answer like this: Here's here's what I was going to answer before before you had phrased it that way. I think that I used to look at the world from my viewpoint, which is a dumb sentence. But what I what I mean is I looked at the world around me and how and where I was in the world, even being married. And I was married for 10 years, more than 10 years before we had kids. And even with Jamie in the picture, I still really looked at the world like from my like where I am in the world, how what I do affect the affect of the world and how the world affects me. And suddenly I found myself not putting me at the center of it anymore. Oh, wow. The world just became a lot bigger of a place sometimes in some respects a lot scarier in other respects, a lot more beautiful. And this is where I'll end. But, you know, I started noticing things again, simple things like do covered spiderwebs in the morning, you know what I mean? Like the stuff that you don't take the time to observe and enjoy anymore, because normally I'm rushing out the door to get in my car, go to work. My toddlers don't rush. They stop and they stare down at the ground at a pebble, and they fall in love with it for a couple of minutes. And that's that's really a gift to to have my view no longer just be my own. 

 

Adam: I absolutely agree with starting to notice a new level of detail and things, you know, I drive my girls to school in the morning and almost every morning I'm just at this time of year in the fall, I'm like pointing out all of the colors that we see in the trees. You know, I'm like, check out those trees. Like, look at this beautiful place that we live. And I don't mean to rub it in. 

 

Seth: Yeah, thanks a lot. 

 

Adam: Because I know that part of you longs to live in the woods in Maine. But I'm like, look at look at this beautiful place that we live. Look at these colors, you know? And I've always been aware of fall foliage, but it's always just been there. You know, maybe, you know, it's hard to say if I didn't have kids, it may still be it may just be a function of getting older. 

 

Seth: See, that's that's why I was asking because I wanted to see your answer was different from mine. Your experience is different from mine. And yet I can relate to that as a as a fellow parent. Super cool. 

 

Adam: Dads check the show notes for links to Seth's projects, The Trip and 90s Rock Show, which are both badass. And Seth, I know you're doing a lot of live streams during the pandemic. Where can people find those? What do you have coming up? How can we support you? 

 

Seth: Yeah, my next solo live stream gig, because the bands are not currently active. At some point in December, I'm going to do a holiday live stream. It'll just be me and my guitar doing holiday songs. And back in April, I wrote a song about the times we're living in the coronavirus. It's called Gonna Save You. And there's a video for it on YouTube. 

 

Marc: Seth, it was awesome talking with you and I appreciate you coming on the show and spending all this time with us telling us about your life. 

 

Seth: It's been a pleasure. And like I said, I I've been excited. I've been waiting for the day to be able to speak with you guys because I enjoy the show so much. 

 

Adam: Well, thanks, man. It's been it's been a fun journey so far. And it's opened up some some really great conversations. And it has been super fun catching up with you. And I'm really proud of everything that you've done and and hope we can stay in better touch than we have in the last 10 years or more. And good luck. We'll get through this whole thing and you'll get back to playing rock music in front of thousands of people doing what you were built to do. 

 

Seth: Thanks. See you later. 

 

Adam: Marc, before we go into our recurring segment, which is one of my favorites that we do, I want to ask you, Seth mentioned more than once in that conversation that perhaps he is selfish in some ways for appreciating the the time he has to himself. And he made it clear it's not to say that he doesn't love the shit out of his kid and he doesn't love being a dad and he doesn't take that job very seriously. But he's able to take that time when he does not have direct custody of his daughter and be productive with it. And he's able to not have that sort of fear of missing out that we were talking about earlier. He's able to focus on other things like his career and his passions. Do you think that that's selfishness? 

 

Marc: No, no. I think that it's really important to take care of yourself. If you don't take care of yourself, then you run the risk of not being able to take care of other people in the best way that you can. It happens when you get married. Sometimes some marriages don't work out because you lose a little bit of who you are. And you're trying to balance that with understanding how the person that you're now married to works. And and when you bring kids into the picture, it gets increasingly difficult because you're giving everything that you have over to these little new beings and they're taking everything for just taking it all from you. You know, they're taking your sleep. You know, they're taking everything from you. And it's really easy to say I'm not going to take care of myself. I'm just going to defer this selfish ones. And so I don't I don't think the fact that Seth gets time, I say gets his situation is one in which there are days of the week that he doesn't have his daughter during those those days he puts himself first. I think it's great. 

 

Adam: I tend to agree with you. I don't think that there's anything selfish at all there. I think that just like you said, he finds himself in this situation and their family, their unit, the the village that he describes, you know, that it's all working together and contributing to raise his daughter. They work together to to make this happen. If that unit is succeeding and everybody in it can find, you know, can find peace and make their individual lives like work to their advantage, then that seems like a win all around. Yeah. Remember Confessions

 

Marc: How could I forget? 

 

Adam: Is that your first confession? I haven't forgotten Confessions

 

Marc: I've completely forgotten about this sketch. Confession number one. 

 

Adam: All right. Well, I think it's self-explanatory. Let's jump right in. 

 

Marc: Fire up the all-male Gregorian Chant group. 

 

Adam: Sometimes we give the girls spaghetti squash and tell them that it's pasta because it's the only way that we can get them to eat vegetables. 

 

Marc: Tonight, my son lost his bouncy ball and was very sad about it. I held him close and said I'm sad too. But I wasn't. I hate that ball, I'm glad it's lost. 

 

Adam: Though outwardly, I may appear to my kids to be a cheerleader for baby carrots, I don't really like them either. 

 

Marc: Over the several days following Halloween, I slowly folded all the candy that my kids collected into my own personal collection of candy. They hadn't noticed and I was proud of my deception. 

 

Adam: At the time of this recording, it's November 15th and I hung up my exterior Christmas lights today. 

 

Marc: Sometimes when I'm about to call for one of my children, it takes me many seconds to remember their name. 

 

Adam: Oh, boy, coming off, coming off Confessions is always a little bit of a I don't know, it's a little bit of an emotional experience.

 

Marc: It's like a weight off, you know. 

 

Adam: Dads, you can find information about Modern Dadhood, including all of the episodes, photos of Marc and myself and lots more at ModernDadhood.com. You can find the podcast on Apple, Podcasts on Stitcher, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Google, which has been threatening to disappear for a long time. Amazon Podcasts. Really, wherever you listen, if you're the type of person to subscribe to a podcast, please do hit the subscribe button. And we would appreciate it if you'd tell all of your friends and family to subscribe too. 

 

Marc: Yeah. If you're the type of person who would use your mouth to say words, we would appreciate it if some of the words you said were, "hey, you should check out Modern Dadhood. It's a great podcast!"

 

Adam: You can reach out to us any time at Hey, H-E-Y @moderndadhood.com. We've been getting some really, really nice emails. It's not just like, "hey, digging the show." It's we've been getting some people who've really engaged with us on email lately, and it's it's been really cool. 

 

Marc: Yeah. So thank you to all of the folks that actually took time to fire up their email and shoot off a note to us, because we really appreciate it. We've we've read every single one of them. And some folks out there have had some really nice things to say and some great suggestions for for some topics in some upcoming episodes. So keep them coming.

 

Marc: Also, hey, while I'm on the thank you train *choo choo*. Thank you. 

 

Adam: That that was embarrassing. I can't stand behind that. 

 

Marc: Hold on. Well, well, well. I'm on the thank you airplane *fasten your seat belts everyone!* Thank you to Caspar Babypants and Spencer Albee for the modern Dadhood music to Pete Morse at Red Vault Audio for bringing forth all the right frequencies that make us sound similar, even though we're in different places. And the penultimate thank you goes to our intern, young man by the name of Miles Crusberg-Roseen.

 

Adam: Well, the final thank you, of course, goes to all of you. 

 

Marc: We appreciate you listening. 

 

Adam: Stay safe.