Summer Update Part I: Co-Parenting, Puberty, Snapchat, Joining and Finding Balance in Life

Herman 0:00
Keegan pulled me aside and he was like a man you gotta leave T bone alone he is getting hot.

I was like, what? I couldn’t believe it, man. A look you were hot man solid. I left you alone but it was nothing but big butt jokes. For an evening

Travis 0:17
there were females around that’s

Herman 0:18
that’s what it was paying attention to none of that.

Travis 0:22
No, you were

Herman 0:27
showing out hurting feelings my hair man. I don’t apologize, man. Sorry. My jokes were strong man.

Travis 0:34
iron sharpens iron.

Tim 0:36
That’s the point of the story. Yeah, maybe

Herman 0:38
since everybody was so normal the nitpick Enos we could easily identify and pick out those weak points

Travis 0:46
you know. Now I got 25 years of material

Herman 0:49
I know right? Oh, I think I was calling you t booty instead of t bone that evening. No, you were not I guarantee you I was well that must have been something that made you mad enough to where you would want to fight me in a hallway in a dorm. It had to be something

Travis 1:10
I don’t know what it was. I do vaguely remember that though.

Herman 1:13
You know vaguely he knows exactly he just saying that I’m being honest right now because he didn’t want to get that mad on an episode that doesn’t have to be filled with anger.

Travis 1:20

It was a growing process and maturity on the sticks and stones would hurt my dog and then I was joking about something else. And you know some JUCO cats from Mississippi they were kind of like having a little side conversation about how they didn’t like that and one of the OGS came back and was like yeah, man and I really appreciated

Herman 1:45
like well, they a they were talking too slowly. You got to be quick and you gotta keep up.

Travis 1:50
I was like respect. The respect we Ain’t that cool? Yeah, there’s like

Herman 1:54
little bro down here and do all that talk like

Travis 2:01
expect me my

Herman 2:02
gonna Jackson man joking the difference right, ready. We are back. These are your hosts Timothy Lance McCoy.

Tim 2:18
Herman Brady what

Herman 2:22
he does, man kinda like RBG. But less important.

Travis 2:29
We’re back with another episode of Black in the middle, middle class, middle of the map, a podcast by three friends who seem to always find themselves stuck in between

Tim 2:38
black culture and white America. If you’re a believer that genuine conversations can be a first step to closing a divide. And you’re in the right place the metal

Travis 2:47
with us. Let’s go

Herman 2:58
fire people himself. How many people did you fire last week out

Travis 3:03
last week? Yeah, I didn’t have to fire anybody the week before that. Well, no, I’ve actually been doing pretty good enough firing people.

Herman 3:12
I don’t fire people.

Travis 3:13
I coach them. That’s a lie. I fired one person last week. How would you what would they do? They just decided to occasionally come to work.

Herman 3:23
Schedule nom and I’ll work off of that be

Travis 3:25
brand new to a job and just occasionally come.

Herman 3:28
They’re like, all right, a man I know. It says I’m here this day. But you know, I will be there Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Travis 3:35
Yeah, you know, and the one thing I am noticing is that people will default to the reasons why they can’t come in and the rising the rising reason is mental health. Oh, yeah. That’s like shooting to the top of the list. You know, it used to be you know, your kids and people blame the kids. You know, kid said kid this kid that kid this came fine this this. Now it’s, you know, mental health and I’ll be like, as money a stressor? Yeah, we you know how we can help bringing us to work. That is the primary way we can help with this money situation. It doesn’t

Herman 4:17
though, man. There’s a threshold man between how much money what that money does when I was just talking about that just the other day. I’m like, man, we make good money now. And it just doesn’t mean anything is like there’s there’s just this whole, like, how much money we should be able to save what we should be able to do with it where it actually goes rising inflation. I’m like, at the end of the day, I look at all this time I give up to work. Is this gonna be a depressing? No, no, this is nothing. This is just me responding to pay as an incentive. When the society is like, well, you’re still only going to be a little bit better. You can get another pair of jeans or another person.

Travis 4:56
There’s no question from an economical standpoint, we’re upside down. But what kills me I guess or makes me I find humorous though is the amount of people wanting the company that they’re they want money for free, you know, or money for nothing

Tim 5:12
but the world is so upside down now that you kind of you need it. And you know, the new culture is a deserve it. Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s we talked about it. It’s a culture of entitlement talk. Right? And it’s, it’s sad because I get it. Like, yes, we grew up in a toxic environment we just talked about this iron sharpens iron, right. And now that we’re iron has already sharpened iron. Now it’s time to create maybe a less strong next generation, right? They’re more balanced, or you no more balanced to one person is weaker. So to another, I don’t

Herman 6:00
know if it’s balanced more than it’s like, is it really worth it? And I think that they can see how much it is. And we’re like, I feel like when we came up, man, my first job like the real job, got paid like 525 An hour plus commission. And the money I made was fine. But gas was also like $1 per gallon. Yeah, right. So I’m like, the shit, the everything in this is outside of inflationary stuff, just like the normal increase in costs of educational stuff.

Tim 6:25
They didn’t have the internet. They didn’t you weren’t getting attacked by memes. And I didn’t have a strong line with notifications in your pocket. I mean, I mean, it’s real talk, right? Like, it’s a totally different world. And it’s hard for our generation to put ourselves in the shoes of the new generation. And so Okay, yeah, I need to back off a little bit, as your manager or as your father, because it is different. And I know yes, this is the way I did it. And I’m not saying I’m stronger than you were harder than you are. I can put up more than what I but I you know, so take your ass to work. Be on time, and you’ll get what you deserve.

Herman 7:02
Yeah, my daughter has no idea. She thinks money is gonna come just like so easily. She like you know, wants her first job, just pay out the wazoo and I’m like, it’s not gonna be like that. But I’m like, the thing that I worry about is how the world is going to be like what that first jet not maybe not first job, but like your first job out of college? Can you take care of yourself? And the answer is probably no. whenever she’s done in four years, he went to college. If you went to college, right, got bills, so you got credit card debt out the wazoo your first job is gonna pay you shit and it’s like you’re stuck at home so I’m like, what is that there’s a there’s this threshold of how much money you need to make to be an independent person out there earning and enjoying yourself and it makes work seem worth it versus it doesn’t take much to find a job that that you have to take this job because you need the money but all your money goes to pay just to exist. You don’t get any luxuries No. So anything

Travis 7:57
this breeds this breeds a

Tim 7:58
whole we kind of got off topic

Travis 8:02
up the gates off top. So but it’s kind of Britain, you know, the shift and how we live our lives now. Right? So black in the middle, you know, we’re just the middle you know, our kids really staying at home like that when they get out of college or when they get become young adults. They’re not really living at home like they did back in the day. So now everybody’s kind of being independent

Herman 8:27
now I think that people are moving back home like that’s been the thing is like more of the millennial generation like younger millennial. We’re elder millennial millennials, but younger millennials are back home because it’s too expensive. Not too expensive. Yeah, like, especially depends, like if you live in New York and that fridge rent is like something crazy just to be there.

Tim 8:45
For 500 for Brian

Travis 8:47
Yeah, but that’s not middle level. And that’s not middle that’s as New York,

Herman 8:52
even in the middle, but like the How much did you split rent with in college?

Travis 8:58
Oh, my rent was 200 the one, the one, the one that I split, it was 250. And my roommate was never there. So then he bailed after like, he bailed probably eight months in so it was 500 but I never spent more than 500 For

Herman 9:15
me it was to 1250 and I’m like, you look at this rentals in the suburbs and lease someone I’m like average of like a two bedroom is probably $1,100 And I’m like, duck for a first job after taxes. Even if you’re making 40 You’re probably only taking home right at 11

Tim 9:32
Naira borderline. Poverty. Yeah. $40,000 you have a kid your poverty.

Herman 9:39
Yeah. And it’s just like What is exciting about working just to be able to get nothing that’s fun.

Tim 9:49
So nothing.

Herman 9:51
Yeah, so that’s, um, like, I feel like we need to just be easier when it comes to millennials or that the younger generation and I think it was we jump into this episode which really just is a list of things that I feel like people are, you know, probably going through. It’s what’s on our mind. It’s what our audience probably is going through their mind. So let’s dive in. Alright,

Tim 10:09
we have already dove in. So, well let’s talk about being on productive in this heat. It’s been two weeks since you’ve heard a new black in the middle podcast. Yes. IoT, okay, it’s hot. I’m stressed. A lot of competing.

Herman 10:28
Even cool the computer down enough to publish.

Tim 10:31
I mean, I just turned the AC up and it’s maybe later I’ll go up later. It’s not

Travis 10:37
necessarily hot. And it’s crazy all over all over not just here and the MO can region and all over down in Texas. They’re, you know, over 110 is ridiculous. I

Tim 10:48
mean, it’s normal, right? Like this is summer. Is it normal? It is like I mean, it always trends up. I think right now though. It just it feels really hot.

Herman 11:00
It’s been hotter in KC than in Louisiana for like the past week and a half. And I don’t see that.

Tim 11:04
But Jill, most of June and July though was not that bad. In Kansas City, I know this because I sit on my Oh, that’s right. My patio and I watch the sunset. And sometimes I can do it and sometimes I cannot. I cannot

Herman 11:22
bro all your work it look actually I haven’t been mad because I’m like, You know what? I’m not watering my grass die, so I don’t have to be out there. In minutes, dude, it looks like I got out of pool man.

Tim 11:34
Just to just to prepare to take out the trash. I’m in the garage cutting all these damn Amazon boxes and cargo boxes. dripping sweat to all this so quick. It’s like I hate preparing this

Travis 11:45
past week. I had to sit out and watch three hours of soccer camp every night. And it was no less than 95 degrees every day. And that I’m watching soccer. Yeah, for three hours.

Tim 12:01
Like you told him about soccer. Yeah, there, sir. Oh, I’m like you’re telling about soccer. Well, I’m watching soccer. I’m sorry. It’s not as exciting as baseball. If I was watching

Travis 12:11
baseball, it would be the same. Same energy. Even I love baseball. This is soccer. This is not fast moving. Progress. But man. I mean, just ridiculously hot. This is

Herman 12:25
Yeah, it is affecting 85 million people is what I saw. And then I was reading an article the other day talking about how prisons in America average, like 110 degrees when it’s hot like this. Damn, you got people that are already violent or servant. And then you just turn the heat up. Man, that was stress,

Tim 12:42
bro science experiment.

Herman 12:45
It’s awful.

Travis 12:46
But it’s really going on all across the world. I was on a call. I was talking to a colleague, and they were in Germany. And they were talking about how hot it was. And I was like, well, what’s the temperature in Germany right now? And they’re like, well, it’s 32. Celsius. Right? So I’m sitting there, like trying to act intelligent, quickly get to my conversion. And I’m like, oh, man, it’s like 87. They’re like, You know what I give to be 87. But they don’t have the infrastructure. Yeah, like they don’t have air conditioning. Right. So she was at work. It’s 87 degrees. And then I was like, well, at least you get to go home her. So she’s like, it’s no better there. Because they don’t have expedition to lay that. Yep. I mean, just the world is changing. I know, global warming is a whole issue and the whole conversation. But it’s definitely in full effect because things have shifted. And our climate here is generally warmer. Yeah, but I don’t think this is an anomaly of a year. I think this is more of a growing trend Trend.

Herman 13:42
Yeah. And it’s I think that that’s the problem when it comes to like the just climate change is real story. Like, it seems like whenever you read anything, it’s like the intensity is that the world is just not going to be able to exist, but I’m like, it’s a slow burn man. And like people can easily discredit like, Well, I mean, it’s not happening right away. Like it’s gonna take years. People like, well, that’s not gonna be in my lifetime. So I’m not really worried.

Travis 14:07
Well, all you can do is square up and go put Freon and air conditioner

Herman 14:13
eliquid this is the thing I worry about some like I was so my son and I did not get him involved in any sports. And so one of the things that’s been on my mind is I’m like, Man, how do I get ahead of that? And how do I get him prepared to be uncomfortable? Because a large part of this summer is him not wanting to go outside? It’s just too hard that I don’t want to do anything. And me being like, okay. You know, I’m saying like I saw, I told him I was like, you know, this is the last summer where you’re not going to have something to do. And granted, you know, the grade he’s going into is when you kind of can start sports at like the like integral school level. Yeah. But it doesn’t change the fact that I feel like I’ve done just such a disservice. But also, I’m like, Man, I don’t want to be uncomfortable. It’s like, we’ve been at home so much. So

Tim 14:57
let’s talk about sports for just a little bit. I feel like the gap is widening between not to say that Linux is going to be a normal sports a normal athlete. Between the elite athletes. Yeah. Right. And my kids are not at a sports you know, organized team level really. But, you know, I see the keygens Yeah, those types of collars competition love competitive like, I mean you eat sleep, drink football, you know, in the household, you’re going to be on every team like he was never, you know,

Herman 15:38
and they love doing that together. I was just talking to him. They love doing that together. And I’m like, not that I don’t love doing that.

Tim 15:43
Nobody don’t. I just submit to her. I know it’s too hot. You got too much other stuff to do is not a priority in your life.

Herman 15:50
Oh, and I hate that for him. Because I’m like, the thing that has had the biggest impact in my life was being able to build out our relationships, meaningful relationships, through sports stories. Yeah. And it’s like, I just don’t want him to lose that or no, you know, like, yeah, he can learn it over time. But I just feel like, you know, what he’s doing in the absence of sports is like, you build up this like, well, now you want to play games. Great.

Tim 16:12
It’s making that gap even wider. Yeah. Right?

Travis 16:16
Well, you just can’t throw them in the game late. And that’s what we’re dealing with is my son didn’t have the opportunity to play sports, due to a multitude of things, but primarily because I’m not around all the time. Right. So now I’m trying to catch up. And so he wants to play basketball. And we’re like, okay, cool. I want you to play basketball. Let’s assess the skills. individual skill development is what we need. First and foremost, we can’t just throw you out there and you don’t have the fundamentals. Yep. And so then you’re like working so hard to catch up. And that’s where he’s at is, you know, now he’s late in the game. He wants to play. He wants to do these things now. But he’s so far behind. Terrible. There are kids playing every day, ya know, and they are it’s sports is just such a booming business, that they are taking such advantage of parents. First and foremost. Oh, and they’re taking so much advantage of these different opportunities now, because we were growing up there were no indoor facilities to do anything. Like if we wanted to play back

Tim 17:22
in there was a all American indoor soccer.

Travis 17:26
Yes. Yep. There was that was about it. But if you wanted to play basketball, you either had a YMCA or you had a school is it Girls Club yet? Something like that. Now they have logistics warehouses that have been built. Just so you can go for me I was a baseball player. I could only pick up a baseball bat when the weather permitted right now you can train on that stuff indoors, and they’re gouging you every

Tim 17:50
cool. Chris had an indoor

Herman 17:52
pool, Chris and

Travis 17:54
cages. Yeah. So it’s, it’s now evolved so much where these kids are training year round. For not just one sport, but for multiple sports. Yeah. And you got

Tim 18:05
it. That’s that’s a choice for me, you gotta you got to choose to get on that train. I ran

Herman 18:10
into Keegan and his son at the gas station at like 930 at night. Coming back from plan ball, maybe it’s somewhere like, I don’t know, closer to Lawrence. I’m just like, damn,

Tim 18:22
930 Stasia. Like, my kids are 30 minutes into their REM sleep by 930. So again, I have a problem. So

Travis 18:32
you then have people who take it that seriously. And actually I love that I would love to be a part of that. But man, these people are making so much money off of these. But even these people, these people who put these events on, so turn to tournaments on the weekend, they charge you 18 bucks ahead to watch your kid play. Your kid is going to play multiple days. It’s not like you get a wristband and you good for the whole weekend. Right? It’s like a Friday, Saturday, Sunday tournament. So just imagine. Just imagine Mack hooping at a level where he’s on a competitive team. And you have to drop cheese for you, your wife and your daughter to watch her son play. You’re dropping 50 bucks. Yeah, to watch him play on

Herman 19:21
top. That was three. So there’s some families

Travis 19:25
are like, I’ll go today. We’re gonna go tomorrow, right and if they make it to the championship with Rock, Paper, Scissors, but it’s like it’s it’s such a booming industry and there’s so much that’s going on, I guess taken advantage of, but there’s also so much of a commitment being made. Because parents are you’re right you just can’t throw your kid out there and and they’ll just make it these kids are playing all the time. And that’s what I’m constantly telling my son is like, you got to work it and I apologize that I’m not there every day. But every day I’m here with you will We’ll get some work in. But you got to take that with you, Ryan, because these kids are tough. Yeah, good. The kids are doing things that we couldn’t do when we played for the Harrison reject 1617 years old. They’re doing it at 10.

Herman 20:17
So that’s just another expense. Right? When we talk about just kids and families and like younger millennials, I’m like, it’s expensive, man. Like, even if you wanted to go in and just like a basic level with the YMCA to sign up as $100 and then, you know,

Tim 20:31
I just saw my kids up for soccer at the YMCA. It was night I was a kid for six weeks. Here’s what they do. Three weeks is practice. Three weeks is game. They 30 minutes. What? Thank you, I

Herman 20:48
look but that’s again, I look that’s my other thing when it’s been a challenge, like getting my son involved in sports, because I’m like, he could do it. And I could do it. But I’m so busy that like by the time I think about it, and I’m like, let me look into some leagues, man, there are so many leagues. I don’t know what like there’s I did all that the other weekend and then it’s like, you know, I just let me go

Tim 21:07
it’s so confused and there’s no shit in the city. I know why people live in the burbs. But even

Herman 21:12
in the burbs, I’m like, Yeah, but we we practice in Lee’s Summit, but we play games as Johnny Yeah, like, oh my god, like, then you gotta be ready to change your entire weekend. Right? Like, I’m like, damn, can I get on?

Tim 21:24
That’s the only way that it works is if it’s a part of your schedule. And I keep telling wifey this, you know, she, she signed him up for swim class. Once I’m like, Alright, cool. We’ve been doing swim. But now you put it on a weeknight where we had a routine. Now the whole new got a whole new routine. Now if it’s I haven’t worked out since then. Because their previous routine was kids and daddy go to the why? That he works out for an hour. Every other day that he takes him to the to the pool, we swim, right? We had this routine and then boom, not swim class, bro. It’s like so many moving parts. And then you throw in the numbers and then you throw in the motivational factor of our my pushing my kid to do this. Is this for me? Is this for him? You know, what’s he gonna get out of this? Is it these fraternities of life? Or is it that shit, he might be able to get a deal when he graduated high school.

Travis 22:18
So that’s a great point. And that’s what I had to come to Jesus on. Because there was a large portion of this portion. That wasn’t for him. It was for me. And I kind of realized that. So I kind of sat down with him. And I was like, hey, what do you want? Like, do you want to be great? Or do you just want to be soccer sociable. So just let me know, because I’m putting money and energy into this. And if you just want to use a

Tim 22:48
different league for that.

Travis 22:51
You just want to run around and kick it

Tim 22:54
and drop you off.

Travis 22:58
But I’m like, there’s a couple factors here. One, there’s money, right? Like we’re putting money into this and time into this, too. There’s the family reputation. As brands we don’t yeah, we dominate. Yeah, we dominate falling down, we don’t fall down. And unfortunately, son you chose a sport where brands have never dominated. So that’s we got to go to work.

Tim 23:23
I didn’t play soccer.

Travis 23:24
You know, you didn’t play soccer. That was not a big that was not big in our household. Even my brother was a was a star on baseball field to start on the football field. He was good at basketball. And then eventually you started trading time for soccer. Yeah, soccer wasn’t on the agenda. But you know, it’s like dog we dominate. So you gotta like go to work.

Herman 23:46
It is on up and up. We’re getting those big soccer complexes Casey current now they got their thing. That’s gonna be tremendous. It’s like,

Travis 23:55
yeah, man. So anyway, he’s he answered the question. And he said that he wanted to be great. And I’m like, Okay, well, then, let’s go to work, don’t complain when we go to work. So he complains when we go to work. I mean, that’s but it’s hot. And I’m putting I’m gonna have him on the track and it’s hot, and I feel bad for him.

Tim 24:15
So not to put you on the spot. Not bad enough to join him. Not to put you on the spot, but alright, so he chose to be great. So how are you going to facilitate that when he lives 50 100 miles away?

Travis 24:31
That’s a great question. One of the things is he’s got individual coaching. So that’s a commitment that his mother and I had to agree upon. So he now has his team stuff and he has an individual coach so he can develop individual skills,

Herman 24:46
co parenting agreements, and

Tim 24:48
so you pay in applaud driving, we pay and

Travis 24:55
then the other part of it is I just got to have them I gotta give him the tools. Like, there’s things that he needs that, you know, I see, the example would be like, he’s trying to learn how to play basketball at a higher level. So, a speed ladder is one of the things he trains with with his individual coach here, like, I’m gonna have to provide those resources for him.

Herman 25:17
It has a speed ladder, the ladder that you lay down flat, and then yeah,

Tim 25:21
ladder

Travis 25:22
speed ladder. Yes, gotcha. So he’s got to, you know, do those things I have to teach him. And I have to teach them how to be self sufficient on how to go do that stuff

Herman 25:30
without breaking your knees. And, yeah,

Tim 25:33
you don’t have to teach him. Like, you just give them individual coaching. Never pay for it.

Travis 25:38
I mean, I could, yeah, right. He but he’s, you got to do stuff at home. I mean, you can’t, you can’t do something when you’re just spending $50 an hour for that. He’s got to do it at home. And that’s what’s tough. See the problem. One of the other problems is is, well, he has this problem, but you and I didn’t have this problem. I don’t know about you, him. I imagine you you met probably didn’t. But if I wanted to go work on something, or go play, all I had to do was go knock on Tim’s door and ask him come out and play. Right. And he would show up probably wearing something. Hey, man, get up my like, do you want to play football? He comes out.

Herman 26:17
Yeah, you know, like, I’m good to go.

Travis 26:19
You want to play basketball. He

Tim 26:20
got on Pele shirt on

Travis 26:23
basketball, because Isaiah Thomas. But like, But literally, I could do that. And I didn’t do that. Like I didn’t go to Tim’s door and be like, you could go play. And he would sometimes

Tim 26:36
why you got a ball glove.

Travis 26:39
You know, like, but nowadays, I don’t think kids are doing that like they used to.

Tim 26:46
That’s because they weighed in on their daddy to get home. So they can jump in the minivan and make it to personal training on time or

Herman 26:53
they’re connected on their devices. So like, my son comes home and he wants to like, connect with his people and play fortnight and play whatever those interconnected things are. And they have a blast doing it. And it’s like totally doing

Tim 27:05
it at Linux his age. Yeah. Oh, yeah. With it never played online with other people. Me neither, man.

Travis 27:11
Yeah. And, of course, that wasn’t something we could do. But like my neighborhood growing up, there was always kids outside playing. So that work, you know, I was always competing anyway. And then if I, my best friend lived on Tim street, so I would go over that street. And I would play over there with those kids. Or even talking about video games. We didn’t do that online. We did. We was in somebody’s house, every Mortal

Tim 27:36
Kombat tournament.

Travis 27:37
Exactly. I mean, things are just so different. But he’s got to do stuff at home. He doesn’t have those luxury.

Tim 27:44
So so how do we evolve as a father? With the time’s right? Like, how do you justify, we’re not to push them into the old ways that we grew up. And you know, I think, you know, maybe it makes sense to kind of talk about that quote, that is been floating around, you know, about creating, successful or hardened?

Herman 28:10
Yeah, it was like the, you know, men that went through hard times, create hard men and men that, you know, then make easy times, right. And so once times are easy, you create weaker men. So it’s like the cyclical thing, and you know, not to sound sexist, or whatever. But I’m like, it’s not just men, it would just be society generally sound like, we had a pretty easy, we could go out there play ball, we weren’t worried about stuff. Today, I think that there’s a lot more anxiety, there’s a lot more worry about groups and things like that. So I’m like, it’s easy to justify backing away from society, generally, you’re not wanting to be in spaces with tons of people for COVID reasons or for safety shooter, you know, reasons, whatever it is, you can justify, well, he’s fine, he’s happy. These are all in the AC, let’s

Tim 28:54
just these are easy times that we are creating. Yeah. But

Travis 28:57
there’s an ethic that gets built, there’s a motivational piece that doesn’t get instilled. And so one thing I’ve noticed is that, you know, probably what was motivating factors for my father, or for my mother were things that they passed on to me. And because like you said, hard times create harder men was was the or people people would be the better way to say it. more inclusive way to say it, I’d say,

Tim 29:27
I shouldn’t say hard, either. Inclusive.

Travis 29:32
Pause. But I think that that gets to me and then or my generation or, and we don’t translate that we have this natural tendency to make things easier. You know, for the people who came across.

Herman 29:47
Plus, there weren’t a lot of instances where we can see everything right. So like, you think about heatstroke or two days, right? Like man, there was just a bunch of water on the field, two days, or

Travis 29:57
I haven’t seen heatstroke, of course. I’ve been close to that,

Herman 30:03
right? Yeah, but y’all were there. Yeah. But you look at parents today. And I’m like, That is a big worry. Just because I’ve seen over time, more and more kids like ending up in, you know, bad conditions playing or practicing in the heat too much. Right. Like,

Tim 30:18
you had a scare. Yeah, yes. I remember that. Yeah, that was very scary. Yes. Yeah. Holy shit.

Travis 30:25
Yeah, man, because we didn’t know about hydration. Like or excuse. Oh, we

Tim 30:30
had the little the low. Yeah, metal. Yeah. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, they would turn it. It’d be it’d be break time during today’s they turn it on. And we go to the trough. Yes. And we’d get like a sip. I mean, you had like 510 seconds, bro. Keep it at or move in? A matter of minutes. Oh, my God. Yeah. And I remember Doozer was like, just like, on the water, like, just golden. We used to be

Travis 31:00
because you only had so many minutes.

Tim 31:02
Yeah. And I think it got to like our senior year when people started falling in on like collapsing on the field. And that was that senior summer. My senior summer was when shit got started to get serious. They started taking seriously.

Travis 31:16
Yeah, yeah. And so I never forget, I had a heat related incident in the shower witness to we had just had a two day practice. And it was unbearably hot that day made it through the two day practice. But once again, you know we you only get five minutes to drink. You got five minutes to give 90 People water.

Yeah, buddy said two little Trojan horses

Tim 31:39
and shoulder pads. So y’all wider than we

Travis 31:42
made out of PVC pipe that people are drinking out of. And I remember, we were getting ready for pictures. And so I’m sitting there, and I’m putting on my putting on my pants. And I’m putting on my my game pants and I feel a cramp in my left leg. And I’m like, oh, and so then consequently, when I felt a cramp on my left leg, my right side cramped. So it’s like, oh,

Herman 32:12
my man was fighting back now. Yeah.

Travis 32:16
I turned and looked at one of my teammates. And I’m like, Hey, man, I need you to help me pull my pants. And they’re like, hell no, I don’t. Oh, my God, I’m cramping. Please, you have to help me pull my pants up. And then my hell no, I’m not doing that. And so my temps backup quarterback, Justin Taylor, you know, he, he was like, okay, and he helped me pull my pants up. And I’m like, I’ve got to get to the trainer. So then like, you start to wobble to the trainer. Because every step you take, I’m cramping. And they have me in a me Get undressed and get into a cold tub and try to cool my body down and they’re feed me water. And this is just like the scariest thing I’ve ever been through. And meanwhile, it’s picture day. So everybody’s sitting there. You know, they’re tired, but they’re not that tired. And they’re sitting there waiting for pictures. Like why? Why are you sitting like that? Yeah. So then everyone’s like, well, what’s the holdup? We want to go and they’re like, well, Travis is in the Kennedy room. Damn, they’re dying. So eventually, I get wheeled out to pictures. And I never forget. I come out and I got a water bottle. They got me cooled down. Come on, I got a water bottle. And as soon as I pull up, Desmond the timber like and let me get a drink

I’ll never forget Desmond, he grabbed the bottle. mess

Tim 33:43
that by drink.

Herman 33:47
Let me get a sip. I’m not trying to be like You Give me that one.

Travis 33:50
I’m not telling him no. But yeah, I mean, that round that time people started actually falling. Falling. Yeah. And yeah, it was a bad deal.

Herman 34:01
Yeah, people have ended up dead. I mean, heatstroke is a real that didn’t Marion Arbor who was at the plate the he just died. But I think that they said that it was from heatstroke. Like

Travis 34:11
he had died from his drop. There was a guy named Corey Stringer, who played for the Minnesota Vikings. And I think I was in college then. But I had another cramping episode in college. And it happened like right after that. And so everybody was like really scared. Like, yeah, we need to make some significant changes because he actually did pass, but

Herman 34:31
somewhat gets when it comes to being or not being a helicopter parent, even choosing the league that you want to put your kid into. You have to make sure that you are putting them into a league with adults that care about that. Right? Because if you don’t know if you’re not paying attention if you’re dropping off and going, man, you don’t know right, you

Tim 34:48
do not know and

Travis 34:50
absolutely the world is a different place. Now they’d like I mean, in the camp that we was in, they took water breaks every 1015 minutes like they just made sure there was no Nobody trying to prove they thought water was weakness, right? You know, kind of like in the movie, Remember the Titans when he’s like, I need some water and he’s like waters for getting blood off my uniform water, you know. And like that was just the mentality. And now it’s a little bit better. But that heat though, the heat is just a different animal that you add to the element because like my son this week, he was like, basically acting like I had never been in the heat and played before. He made a comment to me like, Have you ever been in the heat and blade and 100 degree heat? I said yes. And I did it with pads on and a helmet and he goes fairpoint?

Tim 35:43
Well, good luck, as you know, try to get out, get him in there. And

Travis 35:49
get back to your question, though, like, how do you facilitate these things, you really kind of have to find out what the kid wants. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time.

Tim 35:56
That’s, that’s kind of where I was gonna go was you know, if you’re, it’s tough as a parent, because you, you do your best not to fuck them up. Right? It’s my number one goal is just not to fuck my kids up. Do I need to be a tough dad? Am I the bad cop? Do I need to be loving and get down to his level and, you know, acknowledge his emotions? Like, it is really hard to be a parent these days. Especially when you got everybody trying to teach you real parenting on Instagram. But it’s just like, Okay, how much do I make him be like me? Or do I really focus on giving him everything that I didn’t have? Or is there a mixture in between? Or, you know, like, how, how aware Am I that my toxic masculinity traits are not going to be on him or not, you know, I’m not gonna pass those down. Because I’m seeing it. I got a five year old and a four year old and I’m already seeing them take some of these traits. And, you know, and I don’t know if it’s coming from me or coming from, you know, other people, or if it’s just an age thing, or, you know, they’ll grow out of it. Like this hole, they’ll grow out of it, maybe they never will grow out of this. Or maybe they will and I don’t have to, like, you know, make a big deal out of putting them in sports right now. He’s just not ready right now. He’s a kid, you know, he’ll be out when he’s six or eight or 12. Like, it’s such a hard fucking job. Yeah,

Travis 37:25
I think at some point, you have to start out by making them uncomfortable. Right? Like you put them along really good at that you put them in these positions, and they have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. But then there becomes a point where you realize whether or not it’s excessive or not like, Okay, this is they are not adapting to the situation.

Tim 37:45
That’s a really good method. And I do practice that method. And I get yelled at every time. I put them in the deep end, you know, quote, unquote, like, that’s just like, they they’re not going to do that. Okay, just stop. Like, alright, I see that now. Thank you. We tried an experiment, he almost drowned. And I’m, I’m using that metaphorically. Like, whatever the uncomfortable situation is, yeah. I mean, they just they push back and it’s like, alright, I’ll try it again next year.

Herman 38:11
So like, that goes into the other part of like, you know, maybe it’s like the risks that we take when it comes to being a parent. Right? So another thing on here that I had written out was I think all the time am I doing the right thing investing so much in my kids, now I invest in my kids school. You do too, you know, I’m saying like, but I, you know, with the overturning of Roe versus Wade now with my daughter, I’m like, oh my god, what if she gets pregnant, that she’s gonna have this huge hurdle she had to try to, you know, live out her life? Or with everything that I’ve sacrificed, how mad would I be? I spent all my money, right, hundreds of 1000s

Tim 38:49
of the best thing, right? And now all the top of the line and boom,

Herman 38:53
you got to do or you you got to pull out of school for a little bit. And so I’m like, that’s kind of goes to the sports thing of like, Man, I worry about that so much more now than I ever had before. And I think about that when like thinking about all the kids and like, you validate, right? It’s like, man, whatever, you’re investing in your kid now we live in this world where it’s like, at a moment’s time, a crazy person can just go man, like nothing it’s sad, but I’m like it is a risk but isn’t

Travis 39:18
that it’s a very interesting comparison you just made we just talked about our sons and sports and the investment there and you talked about your investment with your daughter and it’s if she’s gonna get pregnant or not like our lens on our sons and daughters is different little bit

Herman 39:35
different and maybe that but I mean, it just it just I’ve always

Tim 39:38
had the boys being moms with the girls. Yes, put them in their binary.

Herman 39:44
But it’s less about the construct more than about, you know, like, Yeah, I mean, it’s a reality that like,

Tim 39:50
I mean, boy, you’re still getting my pregnant.

Travis 39:52
Exactly. Same thing, but But it’s don’t hit the same.

Herman 39:55
It just hit the same Well, you know, no mo But the point is, whether you’re investing a ton in your kids, sports or athletics and they get hurt, because they’ve been doing it hard for so long to an hour for so long pause, because they’ve been learning for so long. Same way with education. Yeah. Like it could all be gone in a moment’s time. And I’m like, I don’t know what the alternative is.

Travis 40:21
I think that’s just the risk you play. And that’s you, you can’t pull back from that. I don’t think he you can live your life, you know, worried about the negative consequences when the positives outweigh it so heavily?

Herman 40:35
Do they just feel like they’re way more negatives that have jumped into this space than the positive outcomes that I only foresaw like, I’ve only ever saw the the good that could come from investing in something like your kids education, whatever, she’s almost fluid. And

Tim 40:51
I think is, I think is just I think that’s just life. Right? Like, she just came to that age where you start to think about these things, right? Yes, I don’t think it necessarily has to do with the difference in the world that we live in, versus the one that we grew up in. It’s just time for, for daddy to make some hard choices, bro.

Travis 41:12
I think you’re projecting your fears onto your daughter.

Herman 41:15
Probably

Tim 41:16
we’re definitely talking about

Herman 41:17
those. But I think that that’s I mean, social media is a fear if man soon that lives on for Forever, forever, ever, ever. Doubt,

Tim 41:26
I mean, or the lack of things like the relationships that they build, like we talked about sports, right in the fraternities of life. And if I don’t put my kids in sports and where does he get that camaraderie in that family involvement in that those friends that will he will have for life? Like you said, Nola off, you know, to give her time with their moms and summers, she does her thing and like, alright, well, opportunity cost. Yes, you’re building a relationship with your mom’s but you know, when you get older, you you know, you forget childish ways. You’re you gotta go be an adult and draw relationships, right. So

Herman 41:57
I wonder if more people go through that some like coming from a I don’t want to say a broken home, but like co parenting, right? Like whether you’re in different states with certain limitations. Or even if you’re in the same city with certain limitations, co-parent

Tim 42:08
the PC way of saying broken Oh.

Herman 42:12
I mean, I feel like a broken home is like y’all are married, like I was not married. Yeah, maybe

Tim 42:18
anyway, there was a point where the home was intact, and it became broken, right. But

Herman 42:22
like, when kids are young, like he can get through it, like she could spend summers in New Orleans, and guess you didn’t know anybody down there. But they can do stuff, you’re closer to your parents anyway. But now we’ve reached the age from like high school, you’re gonna want to build that relationship, you’re gonna want to build and deepen those connections and right, like your whole thing. And I’m like, you have to leave that. And so my fear is that you’re going to just, you’re just not going to be able to have the sense of Texas and the depth in your network that you need for people to care about you and have your back and start

Tim 42:55
building that in New Orleans. There. So I live maybe that’s the maybe that is the small pivot.

Travis 43:02
But that is quite a cover. So so that I mean, I live the exact inverse of what you have. Right? So you know, my son gets to come to Kansas City for the summers, and some breaks. And I’ve been thinking about this heavily is I just know that I’m on the clock. Because there’s, there’s only so much time he’s going to be able to spin here if he does all the things that he wants to do. If life doesn’t go how he wants to do then Yeah, he’ll be able to spend summer summers left. Yeah, Mad Max. But if his summers go anything, like how are summers with, went, he spends his summer working on what’s best for him for the upcoming season or upcoming year. And so he’s going to be at a point when he’s gonna be in high school very shortly. And he’s gonna have to work on getting himself prepared for his year, his giving assistant my two or three months of the summer, it can compromise his nine weeks.

Tim 44:03
Yeah, yeah, no, it’s got to change and

Travis 44:06
there’s no longer can you be away from teams or be away from groups are be away from clubs, and expect to come right back in and have your spotty, especially intact,

Herman 44:19
dude. So that’s,

Tim 44:21
do you think that is so I get it from the camaraderie team were collaborative, like, culture, sort of speak but but with everything being so connected digitally? Is it easier to do that now than it was when we were gone? Because if, you know, if I went away to my dad’s for the summer, like I was going, right, and we might be back for a holiday or something, but like, I’m out, you got, I might read a letter. Right? Or basketball. So

Herman 44:51
I think, I think that kids need the tangible, the tangible physical use together.

Tim 44:58
I mean, like whatever He’s getting so hold on.

Herman 45:00
So like one of the things that you build when it comes to these fraternities through sports is you go through tough times you lose together, right there in the moment where it whether somebody is crying about it, whether somebody is just like, super pissed about it, you’re there to come to that game. Versus if you are connected to eight friends, and you’re playing as a team on some game, and you win together, right? Like, that’s not that meaning like how? Sure it is,

Travis 45:27
I think we’re, we’re, you’re forgetting the grind, right? Like, let’s just take our journey, let’s take, right but

Tim 45:33
we keep but that’s our that’s our problem, though. We keep putting our journey we keep trying to map their journey with ours, but it’s you guys, it’s all been

Travis 45:41
done nothing but good. Worse, like, so. You specifically High School, right? If you weren’t, you could not just unplug your experience and go with your dad, either you were with your dad, and you still had to get back to Lee’s Summit to do things, or you just didn’t go because you had conditioning. And if you didn’t have conditioning, you had seven on seven, because you had to be there to do those things. So imagine, and my example would be soccer. If he’s not there for the conditioning portion, to have that exposure to the coach making the team he’s not making the

Tim 46:23
two mile to 12 minute mat

Herman 46:24
at Leonard Fournette right now, because he told him to training camp like 260 Yeah,

Travis 46:28
you just can’t, you know, I’m saying. So either A, he can come with me, and I have to the pressure is on to make sure that he is in set, he comes back not only the same, but better. Uh, he has to be better rep in order to have the respect from the process from the coach, because the coach is thinking that because they’ve invested their time and energy that they know what they got. Otherwise they’ll he’ll come back and they’ll spend time learning what he can do. And then they have to make a decision on if they want to do that or not.

Herman 47:03
Allah knows that I might have been too late because I should have done things before the summer started because now my daughter has missed all the camps. She didn’t do any camps in New Orleans for volleyball and volleyball is her thing. And now for the first time she’s like, I don’t know if I want to play volleyball when I go into high school, which breaks my heart. Yeah. And I’m like, damn, like so then what are you going to do? Like,

Tim 47:24
what are you gonna do? Yeah,

Herman 47:25
like you already did basketball. You didn’t like that your digit cross country didn’t really like that. What you

Tim 47:29
gonna do, man? Hey, you got to get back into volleyball. What’s up, bro? She dropped the momentum. Now her her motivation is low?

Herman 47:38
Well, I don’t think it’s the motivation more than it’s the confidence, right? Like when you hear so like she’s still connected to her friends. So they’re like, man, these girls at camp are like getting good. Blah, blah, blah. You’re sitting there with nobody. You don’t have anybody to go play with or practice with.

Tim 47:53
You put it on a plane with the volleyball and you bet not dropped.

Travis 47:58
And that’s the other hard part. Right? Is that? Like, my son doesn’t have any friends? Like really? Here? He has a couple. You know who are my friends? Kids? Right? But they’re honestly a couple years younger. Yeah. And we don’t have the time to go chase.

Tim 48:12
And nobody he can just go you know, make friends on the cul de sac? No. Well, plus his stuff like this. Oh, shoot some hoops.

Travis 48:19
If he wants to shoot hoops. Guess who’s up? It’s me. Luckily, I love to do that.

Herman 48:22
So my daughter did volleyball camp last summer. And obviously this is like at one of the schools in New Orleans, which had a good turnout. She didn’t know a single person there. And I just I still feel bad to this day. But she did when she left though. Yep. But that’s exactly.

Tim 48:38
That’s an uncomfortable position that

Travis 48:39
you got to put her in. But that’s just as sweet

Tim 48:43
as she she gonna run into as you go to college.

Travis 48:45
I put her I put my son in Sporting Kansas City soccer camp. You know, he goes there. He knows not one single soul. But you know, like the challenge was for me, like I tell him like did you learn anybody’s name today? No, I mean, there’s just one kid. I can’t remember his name now. And like when he would leave, I’d be like learning the boy’s name. So you can at least say his name. Yeah, you know, like you’re never gonna see him again. Probably was

Tim 49:13
dismissed myself. Those. Those tips. Take time to learn is dude’s name for

Herman 49:17
the introverts out here.

Travis 49:20
But hey, I just know that the clock is ticking because pretty soon, he’s going to be I mean, he could have a job. You know that he doesn’t want to give up it can be as funny as it does not even have to be sports. Yeah,

Tim 49:35
it could be sports, it be d&d, it could be a job you write it. Arts,

Travis 49:43
if he’s here every summer for the whole time. It means that his life is very, very generic. And that would be

Herman 49:53
kind of devastating. It’s like It’s like it’d be tough. It’s hard because it’s like you can see the foundation that you’re setting by

Tim 50:00
But maybe this is just how it was always supposed to shake out fellas,

Herman 50:04
maybe. But if right like

Tim 50:09
that, that these cards in front of you, they fell down the way they were supposed to fall? Because, you know,

Herman 50:18
I mean, at the end of the day, to your point, yes, kids are resilient, and they will overcome whatever the obstacle is like they’re going to turn into great people, and they’re going to go on and do great things. It is just hard, I think from a parent perspective to know the trajectory that you are missing to

Tim 50:33
not know. Yeah, basically, right. Like you, we literally don’t know shit, there’s gonna

Herman 50:39
be an outcome, but you can see the outcome. Not might not be what you want to envision just based off of something that’s like,

Tim 50:47
Yeah, I think it’s safe to say that anything that we envision will not happen.

Travis 50:50
Yeah. And then there’s a part of you that sees, like something in your kids, and you want to be there for every step of the process. And you want to help drive and push that out of them too. Because I know, I see some talent there in various respects. And I’m like, man, if you would just, if I could just

Tim 51:07
be there, how many dads have said that process? If you could, if I could, if we

Travis 51:13
just What does if you just buy into what I’m selling, you know, like, you just want to do

Tim 51:18
one hour a day over your left hand. So

Travis 51:21
it’s, it’s the complete opposite for Herman Herman see something, he wants his kid to be able to have that experience, but he’s got to let go for you know, for summer, me, I got my hands on, I’m molding this clay, I’m seeing exponential growth. And then I just got to take my I got to just send it back, and have somebody not listen to my input and go ahead and, and, and take it

Tim 51:46
like I had it built. You didn’t put it in the kiln? Now it’s not? Yeah.

Travis 51:51
It’s just tough. But I think at the end of the day, it’s really about there’s no right way to Albuquerque, you have to figure out exactly what is going to work. And if it’s, your kid wants to be great at this, that whatever else, then you’ve got a search and put them in programs and that conversation has to be had inside the household, or if it’s an opportunity where people are in a co parenting relationship, you know, you got to just work hard at it.

Herman 52:19
Yeah, I guess we’ll see what to follow up with how this co parenting conversation goes when I look at next summer, and I’m like, Hey, we have to come up with some way.

Tim 52:28
You can just start to have less time y’all need to start doing that. Now.

Herman 52:31
I know, I didn’t put together a full strategy. Campaign put together a full campaign

Tim 52:39
supported with paid strategy as well.

Travis 52:42
Yeah, I think next year, I’m already kind of thinking in my head, like he’s gonna have a full time soccer we’ll be Ephesus border choice. He’s gonna be fully dedicated. He’s gonna be practicing that. Either me of my parents or somebody in the house was going to be one of the one of the qualified drivers is going to be getting him there. Because he’s going to be missing the time. So he’s got to develop the skill.

Tim 53:02
Well, if he’s going to be in KC, it’s a great place to learn soccer.

Herman 53:06
pro soccer is about to be so huge here. Yes, sir. I don’t know if it’s going to be so much bigger than elsewhere. But I’m like, I mean,

Tim 53:12
it’s always been big here. Just I mean, not always big. It’s always been important to Kansas City. Yeah, yeah. Some people can say it’s always I grew up in the soccer town in the soccer culture. Yeah, here in KC, and it’s always been serious. But now we’ve got the notoriety. We’ve got the wins. We’ve got the infrastructure or teams more motivation, the money. Yeah. Anyway, so Alright, so number one down in New Orleans and other ones in Ella for the summer as she does, she’s not building these relationships. But we kind of touched on you know, they can still do that digitally. Nola is a 14 year old girl. Uh huh. I was managing her digital media presence of a teenage girl. Bro, how’s that

Herman 54:08
going? It’s fine. It’s painful, right? It’s painful. I think that everybody I tried to tell her all of the lingering things and the effects and impacts of social media if you are left to your own devices, and you just do or say what you want. And I’m like, it’s so much more than that. The consequences can mean no college, they can mean job loss like that. It means something different today than we experienced. And she’s like, but all my friends, right? And it’s really hard when it’s like the but all my friends and then you talk to some parents like Yeah, our kids have Snapchat, it’s fine. That’s how they communicate. And I’m like, I just don’t like that. I just I can’t get on board with it. And I’m like, so we had the TIC tock conversation. So we let her get Tik Tok and the content is not the content. It See your baby. Right? You know, I’m saying some like now that he Tom Herman so working through it, man, it’s it’s never gonna be okay bro, but it’s like, I don’t know. So I guess I’m my turmoil is I know the worst case. But I also know that you’re at a disadvantage if you don’t know how to use technology in a certain capacity and I don’t want to limit you and that way. I also don’t want you to lie or like, do hidden stuff behind my back, which is just gonna piss me off. So like, there’s some balance of, okay, you can do it and we’re gonna monitor but then it’s like, then you find out they have 10 accounts, right? It’s like, I don’t have the time to manage that, depending on the first child is gonna be so I’m like, man, it’s hard. So I’m like we’ve said no to Snapchat. But I’m like,

Tim 55:49
I you know, she gonna figure out a way. Yeah, I’m like, well, we figured out a way. Yeah. When our parents said no, we still figured out a way to do whatever we wanted to do.

Herman 55:58
Exactly. And so that’s where I’m like, Man, I just so I tried to keep I try to keep our conversations based around like, let’s just talk through the worst case. So let’s talk through man, and it’s not

Tim 56:10
about the finances how I pay. I base every conversation about the worst

Travis 56:15
case. Such a pessimistic

Tim 56:19
Snapchat. We’ve been trying to get raped and die by Tuesday.

Herman 56:24
web of lies on Discovery. I see what happened to that girl on Snapchat. What Mandy’s? That’s my default. You

Tim 56:34
know, somebody’s got cable when they carry it. Yeah,

Herman 56:37
they posted that video and got found and murdered. So I mean, no, man. Hey, look, I want I don’t know, man. It’s weird. So like, a lot of times you got to think back to when you were 14. I’m like, I think when I was just a 14 year old

Tim 56:49
you had a pager, bro they’re like their wager with this as you slide it out,

Herman 56:55
right like there just wasn’t that much.

Travis 56:57
I haven’t home phone. And that was what a separate special ring. Nah, Nah, man.

Tim 57:02
I was it was just for the fancy,

Herman 57:05
bro there’s no idiotic online only. There’s that was the worst idiotic decision you could week made at 14 that was going to lay have a lingering impact. Right.

Tim 57:14
Other than having unprotected sex.

Herman 57:18
unprotected sex and 14. Tim, do you want to unpack? Yeah,

Tim 57:21
there were plenty of people have an unprotected

Herman 57:24
Justin.

Travis 57:25
Yeah. Notice how he made a generic.

Tim 57:29
I’m just saying you just said there’s nothing that you could do that would have lasting

Herman 57:33
obviously sex but I will be the first to say I was not out here doing anything.

Tim 57:40
Like friends and cousins

Travis 57:43
looking between the Blurred Lines on Cinemax? Because we didn’t have a man.

Herman 57:51
far as we could go on.

Tim 57:53
I think that’s a nipple guys. slipped out. Yeah, okay. Well, good luck with that. I mean, we had the same situation with the kids YouTube. Oh, not the same situation. But just, you know, going back to mode, not trying to fuck our kids up. That’s my number one goal is I just don’t want them to be toxic, or weak. Or, you know, whatever, all the bad things. But we took YouTube kids away YouTube kids, we took it away because the videos the content of these little toddlers are consuming these days, is just outlandish. It’s a bunch of rich kids doing outlandish things, treating their parents like crap being funny, quote, unquote, or opening a bunch of toys. None of that shit is anything I want my kids to watch over and over and teach them to make sure that they Oh, Daddy wet you know, why can I get anything at the store? We’re at the store. Why can I get it because we’re not here for you. Right son? Like just stay by my side so I get my prescription don’t we not here for a toy or a snack every time? Pro I anyway, so we took away YouTube’s kit kids YouTube and saw a little bit of improvement in their behavior just because they weren’t mimicking shit. Then we put them to summer camp. And we had them in science summer camp and then that’s a whole different thing. And then we had them in karate camp as a whole different thing. And it’s just like, bro, the influences that these kids like they you know, consume and and then regurgitate and their behavior.

Travis 59:42
Just proper talking as quick as

Tim 59:45
you stop it. Like you can only hope to contain it. Yeah, right. And so I think that’s kind of where you are with Snapchat. Yeah. 14 year old

Herman 59:54
Yeah. Or you know so one of the things I’m like I’ll sometimes this is such a me thing. I will make your call come up with, like, a full on like, Alright man, you’re gonna have to build out you got to do it. Yeah, you have to do it, you’re gonna have to report on how we’re going to be able to trust you how we’re going to be able to monitor you who’s going to have access, how we’re going to track the things that we’re not going to know. You build that out and make me feel comfortable. And then we can have a conversation and she’ll do it right. Like that’s how she got that Nola

Tim 1:00:19
doing pitch decks. Yes. Since age eight,

Herman 1:00:22
and then I’m like, Oh, shit. If she does that well, and she maps this whole thing out, then she’ll also be able to pinpoint exactly where she can lie.

Tim 1:00:32
But you are teaching her a life skill, right? Hey, no, no, that’s

Herman 1:00:37
the known unknowns and unknown unknowns. Map a map.

Tim 1:00:43
Okay, well, good luck with that. I’m sure the listeners will be eager to

Herman 1:00:46
Well, I think that the listener right, I think our listeners should just also think about their approaches, right? And like, there’s no right way. There’s just your way. And that’s a lot based on who your child is. And as they’re coming into their own. Just knowing who they are becoming Right. Like, are they becoming somebody that’s hiding stuff? And maybe it’s because you’re too, you know, over the top, or they’re too fearful. I’m like, kids should have a healthy amount of fear. You know, but then there’s also the like, are you to Lex, right? Like, do you have no clue what’s going on? Because I’m like, some of the kids in our daughter’s class, like, the parents are older, so they don’t know all of the bad things about and they’ve led kids that kids in our class have discord and all this other shit. I’m like, Whoa, like, these are platforms where I’m like, there’s some shit out there that like, what would

Travis 1:01:29
you say? Like, exactly as Discord is?

Herman 1:01:33
Yeah, Discord.

Tim 1:01:34
Yeah. It’s like a comment and chatting platform for gamers. And

Herman 1:01:39
yeah, but there’s like, by then when you look at other people that end up in the news for certain things. I’m like, they usually are talking to people on Discord as a channel. Um, like

Tim 1:01:49
he said, he wanted to blow the place on Discord. You guys didn’t see that? Right?

Herman 1:01:53
So I’m like, man, it’s just it’s it’s a different world. So just, I don’t know, a healthy amount of independence. And I don’t know, maybe wanting I don’t know. Like, I feel like my kids like talking to me. So I’m like, I know that there’s probably shit. They’re leaving out. But as long as your kid

Tim 1:02:08
famous last word, Father, right. My kids love me.

Herman 1:02:12
Well, but I know it’s about to change.

Tim 1:02:15
Yeah. I mean, it’s just tough, right? Like, we have so much shit going on. And we have, you know, I think growing up in the middle, is like, you’ve always been, I mean, you’ve been stuck in between, like, if I fuck up? I’m gonna be like that. Yeah, if I follow the blueprint that was set before me, whether verbally or physically, or I could see it or you know, from a mentorship or send example wise. And I could be like that. Okay, that’s, that’s, that’s where I need to be right. But we can see. It’s like, we can see where they might turn out to be. Yeah, both ways, positive and negative. And again, my whole goal is just not to fuck up my kids. But I don’t know what it looks like. Like when I paint when I try to see this picture of like a successful Mac, and it’s successful and nice. Like, I don’t know what that looks like. It’s

Herman 1:03:15
weird, because sometimes it’s going through hard times that builds out this character attribute that they dig into that, you know, then you become something successful because of something you overcame. And it’s like, are we setting our kids up not to overcome shit? But great,

Tim 1:03:27
because we talked about I know we started a podcast about all these things that we learned, you know, through the school of hard knocks. And now they’re going to you know, the school have catered lunch, there will

Herman 1:03:39
be no hard you will have no roadblocks cleared the way.

Tim 1:03:47
But that’s our job, right?

Herman 1:03:49
I mean, you think but I’m like now I’m like, as we’re having this conversation, like, oh, do I proactively put you know strategic

Tim 1:03:56
changes in roadblocks? That’s good. You forgot my apple sauce. Did I? Oh my god, what you’re gonna do about

Travis 1:04:03
it? You have to figure out how to go

Tim 1:04:06
here’s a tree outside

Travis 1:04:11
you’re gonna bust your gun to get it

Herman 1:04:12
I know. It sounds stupid. But I’m like at the same time I mean, I mean, if

Tim 1:04:17
I now try to think do I do that subconsciously? Like yeah, I could. I could go all the way and pick them up. I do do that shit. I mean, yeah, you read I do like it won’t be it that would be a McDonald’s right? Eaten eaten breakfast and killed me like I need some jelly. Like go get your damn self. Daddy I’m too you know how to say you asked me for jelly. Yeah, go ask that man for jelly. It’ll take an hour. Yeah, I don’t need that get up that good. I’m done eating but you know as like me teaching lessons. Yeah, it’s actually going to stay longer. I

Travis 1:04:52
get the worse I just said example that example. He couldn’t open a ketchup package. Right raising hands

Tim 1:05:05
ain’t no way I’m open every room. Yeah, you better figure it out

Travis 1:05:09
because I pick up the same ketchup packet. Barely open and shut myself. Okay, so it’s a little hard to

Tim 1:05:16
let this slide like this.

Travis 1:05:22
Older I get man, the more them the more I’m like that like yeah, so

Tim 1:05:27
I’m out here putting out these tests and trying to challenge them. And while my wife was like, Hey, I’m just I’m like, No, you need to learn nothing. Oh shit, who do I sound like? Yep.

Herman 1:05:38
Hey, man, I gotta tell y’all just listen to this and maybe think about so, too. Last week, I get a call six in the morning from my daughter. She’s crying, Honey, what’s going on? Like, real early, she’s never been six. And so we get to talk in in she is like apologizing for whatever this past year and she was like, I just really wish I could have done more like, I know you needed to help you do so much in the morning for us do all this stuff. And it made me feel good. And I’m like, Honey, like, leave that alone. Like I bitched and complain and stuff, but like, I just got to get stuff done. I’m not holding it. She was like, but you said that up with all that you do you feel like you’re gonna die young. I know. Right? You know, every but every parent has those days. Like that came out. And it took her a few money did me for you to hear. It must have hit her different but it did. Like in the morning from New Orleans crying. She was like, I just I could do more. And she had this whole thing of like, how she’s going to help more when we get back. And, you know, it made me feel good. But

Tim 1:06:42
at the same time I was listening and really happened. No, no.

Travis 1:06:45
Here’s the moral to the story. She missed her daddy.

Herman 1:06:49
And but we talked about it right like it opened up a good conversation like you don’t have to do this. Like my only acid

Tim 1:06:55
waking up every morning. I’m not even doing shit for she’s like, damn,

Travis 1:07:00
I had a good I had a good

Tim 1:07:05
show, show the value add that Mr. Watson brings

Herman 1:07:10
make his parenthood. Maybe I made life too easy mess. You don’t have enough chores. So I’m like, but it’s what

Tim 1:07:15
the fact that she appreciates it and understands it do. That’s a W.

Herman 1:07:19
Huge W right. So I’m like, you know, when it comes to come on, which is the other

Travis 1:07:27
thing. She’s becoming a woman. You know why? She’s recognizing the good man. Later, Hey,

Herman 1:07:35
man, trying to set the fun day. That’s a good that actually is probably a really good point. Well,

Tim 1:07:41
when we talked about raising kids, and you know, my own, my wife talks about raising our kids. That’s the number one thing is making sure that and Nisa knows what a good man and a good father and a good husband is. And then Matt knows how to be a good man, a good father and a good husband. She talks about it all the time. And, you know, obviously, it puts all the pressure on me. But it’s, it’s it’s a valid point where I don’t know how

Travis 1:08:13
she’s conveying this message. After you screwed up by all the

Herman 1:08:17
Well, I think

Tim 1:08:20
it’s always a good example of what not to do.

Herman 1:08:23
It’s also weird how hard that can make it’s like a take my sister so like my sister when she was dating and I can’t remember the conversation, but I just remember a conversation with I don’t know if it was with her specifically, but basically talking about not being impressed by certain shit because my dad, right, like, she’s not impressed with the Mercedes, because my dad had a couple exact got impressed with all this other stuff on like, exactly the gift and curse because then it’s like, well, no man can then impress you even if they have achieved certain things. If it’s materialistic, that’s one thing, or it pushes you to look for those other things real shit,

Tim 1:08:59
that is impressive. It could be fantastic. So like showing up every day for your kids soccer, whatever. Yeah, exactly.

Herman 1:09:05
So I’m like, man, it’s weird, because I’m like, It’s the thing that we have to do. We have to consciously go above and beyond and be there and try to do those things with these unforeseen outcomes. But I think at the end of the day, comes like the risk that we put in and like, yeah, when you start getting stuff like that, it does make it worth that. I just hope it transcends into better and better behavior or better decision making,

Tim 1:09:24
you know, and not growing up but re raising kids in a is a two parent household. Traditional. Yes. Yeah, would be considered traditional. Yes. So I think that we, we feel a sense of security and confidence in the way our kids will become is because we have a two parent household, right? It’s not a broken home as we talked about earlier or It’s, it’s not a non traditional, right? Like your sister’s raising her daughter in a non traditional way, right? Like how she had her kids. And so it in like my even came up that way, right? Like her dad’s not in her life single mom, two kids 18 months apart, moved from their home country at five, like, it was a grind, it was very non traditional. And so it’s like, when you come out of that upbringing, you are a success story. You know, because you don’t have the framework that a lot of people are have come to know. But now, it’s not enough to just rest on like, yes, you have a mom and a dad and a household. And yes, they’re gonna see both sides, and you’re gonna always be on the same accord, blah, blah, blah. But that’s not enough. Like it helps us with the confidence and reassuring. But it’s not enough, because there are so many, I feel like there are so many more issues and influences now than there ever was when you know us?

Herman 1:11:12
Well, I think that if you’re by yourself, and you put in the hard work, like, obviously, you can have fantastic outcomes for your kids, right? Like, it’s just hard. And it’s like the kids see you overcoming obstacles, which then prompts them to know they can do it, do the same. Which is like, I don’t want to say it’s a messed up and like, it’s, it’s probably

Tim 1:11:32
as good as you can do.

Herman 1:11:34
As opposed to growing up with two parents. I’m like, I think the thing that I took away most from growing up in a two parent household was you just watch that teamwork. You watch how two people can come together and this, whatever, whether it’s argument, you can get through every argument, right? Like to stay together, you can get past everything, or you can accomplish things jointly. And you see that and I’m like, oh, so then you have this idea for how to be a better team player

Tim 1:11:58
Exactly. During absolutely how to, you know, give and take to negotiate. Yeah,

Travis 1:12:03
I should have learned those lessons. I’m not sure it did.

Herman 1:12:06
Well, and that would be the other thing I’m like, or do to parents raise kids that end up being a little more individualistic, because you have that security and because you have so much independence to a certain extent. And if you’re like, Well, I don’t have to give up a lot to be me. I’m just gonna be me. My parents said it was fine. I’m super confident. And I don’t now know how to give up enough to somebody else. Yeah. Just because you had a lot of things provided for a lot of space to be independent.

Tim 1:12:33
There’s no fucking answer. No answer. I’m

Herman 1:12:36
like, it could go so many different ways, man, right. I

Tim 1:12:38
mean, you just, but when you break it down, so they could go a different way with the same setup. Right?

Travis 1:12:43
Yep. 100% parents, two parent household? Neither kid living traditionally? Yeah. Both up and thriving. Neither one of them traditional, though.

Herman 1:12:56
And that’s family. Traditions. Like,

Tim 1:12:59
right? What is that? Yeah. Like,

Travis 1:13:01
what is that? Like? Yeah,

Tim 1:13:05
it’s like social norm, socially, normally, you know, normally accepted socially. Yeah.

Travis 1:13:11
I mean, I can’t tell you that. I definitely felt like a failure was soon as my relationship became non traditional, when things didn’t go according to plan because I thought that that was the standard. Right. And the standard was the standard. So it did take a couple of years of, of learning how to deal with that failure and manage through that failure. But But yeah, like, I mean, I think I learned I there’s I’ve been very vocal about the parenting lessons I think I’ve learned or my parenting when the parenting wins I think my parents had. But I just wonder why I didn’t go towards that traditional lifestyle. Interesting.

Tim 1:13:59
Well, and

Herman 1:14:02
Navy, you know what it is? And I, I’m just gonna answer depending on when you’re looking at in your life, you also built this pathway of, of an extreme amount of stability. You got into a career path that like, bro, everything is gonna be okay. Like, you’re gonna always be the last man standing in any organization. Right. And so, yeah, both out early. Yeah. So like you didn’t have to. So way certain risks. So it’s like, there’s stability, or independence, and I’m like, we’re, you know, certain certain things that I have gone

Tim 1:14:37
through, but always with IO. It’s like,

Herman 1:14:42
a partner might have helped curb some of the challenging times in life and getting, it’s a lot easier to overcome certain setbacks with somebody that cares about you than by yourself unless you built out a just most stability run most stable runway possible,

Travis 1:15:03
just a cruise ship over.

Herman 1:15:04
Not a biggest problem. That is my advice for 300 breaches

Travis 1:15:07
cruising?

Tim 1:15:09
Well in a to point b, and make a couple of stops on the way up

Travis 1:15:13
my stop at Island, which is our cruise? Well,

Tim 1:15:17
you know, so I think as kind of we transition this conversation from, like parenting to just kind of, like living out our own legacy. You know, one thing we’ve talked about is, like the need to be balanced while being imbalanced or to be productive while feeling so unproductive, like living up to these expectations, whether set by ourselves or by others. Like, this is something that has been on my mind, or we’ve talked about it several mornings, by the water cooler her but like, in conversations with Wi Fi. Just like what, you know, how do you how do we how do we create the future that we want? You know, and it sounds like, oh, I don’t know, like, I don’t want to get all metaphysical and you know, fufu with it, but like, what are we here to do? Like, how do we get there? What’s the life that we’re supposed to build? What is this path we’re trying to create for ourselves, for our businesses, for our loved ones? Like? Like, how do we know when to stop pushing for something or to switch gears? Like this need to find balance has really been challenging me lately. Because like in high school, it was it was easy, right? Like we knew the path. Go to school, get good grades, play sports. When you go to college, get a degree. You go into the workforce, you get a job, you make some money, you travel, you find a significant other. You love them, you treat them with respect. You impregnate them, you have a healthy baby, right? No concerns there. You have a baby, you have two you have three you get married, you find a house white picket fence, you get a dog, you get some cars, you pay some bills and taxes. Like that is that was the blueprint for us. Maybe there was some fame, maybe at one point, you thought you were gonna go the NBA, you thought you were gonna be Michael Johnson on the track team winning the gold medal, maybe you did, maybe you thought some of these things. But you know, those little spin offs didn’t pan out, you didn’t walk on, you know, freshman year, or you, you know, stop reading track senior year, or you didn’t make it to the combine, you know, whatever, like we had these little goals that are kind of offshoots of this main roadmap that has been set that has been socialized has been acceptable, right? through media, through people through neighbors through communities, everything. Is that the way? Is that still the path that we need to follow?

Herman 1:18:28
Is that still the path? I’m gonna say? I’m going to say no, that we don’t need to follow that path. Because I think we’re, we’re going through a transition. And it’s weird going through this this different century, right? Like, it’s funny, because if you looked at whatever the world was, like in America from 1890, or 1880, to 1922, right, like, that is crazy. If you think same thing, what was traditional back then or what the standard would have been, which would have been achieving a set white picket fence or you know, like, obviously be different for black folks back then. But fast forward to today. And I’m like, the traditional that’s not the path like kids are cool kids. Millennials are I think it’s it’s been known that it’s all about experiences. Now. It’s less about the tangible it’s less about the consumerism, it’s less about buying stuff when acquiring stuff and impressing others through acquisition. Yes. And so I’m like, That’s okay.

Tim 1:19:29
It’s fantastic. Actually, we’re at in Tality that we have like a consumer and I know we’ve we’ve talked about talking about this, but this consumerism that we have, just become one with is what is killing us. But also creating joy and you know, comfortability, right and convenience. But, you know, like, I don’t know. And I’m kind of preface it prefacing. This is like All right, this is the antithesis of another episode because we’re at like an hour. But like, just this path that we all have envisioned for ourselves, which is probably not dissimilar from each others maybe little offshoots.

Travis 1:20:14
That’s an outdated path. And the reason why it’s outdated, is because in today’s society, there’s a huge component that is left out of that equation. And that is finding yourself being able to experience everything that you want to everything that you need to and everything that prepares you to actually be a good partner. Because that path that you laid out kind of had some some underlying connotations to it. And one of those is like, you go to college and find your wife. Right. And so you can do those things, or you

Tim 1:20:53
find her in the club after you graduate.

Travis 1:20:55
That works to shout out to Tao. Zen Zen was called at that time, yeah. Okay. So but you know, that kind of like, that’s kind of like what some of those underlying connotations are there right after, but I think that’s one of the reasons why we saw divorce rates so high is because people did not truly get a good sense of self before they became we

Herman 1:21:24
1000 a hold up, though, this is just another interesting thing about it. So I also think that what’s interesting today is that you can actually test different versions of your identity before deciding who

Tim 1:21:39
just went create a new

Herman 1:21:42
a new profile of right, like you could be, I don’t know, like, if I guarantee if you looked at people’s social media profiles, like there’s the mom that you are on social and then there’s the mom that you are in real life, and those can be two completely separate people. So if you’re a teenager right now, you could be angsty, right, you could be falling into some group that you know, isn’t or whatever. But like, you can test those things out before finding who you are, and finding whatever community before you go into your pathway. You didn’t have that. Like, that’s not

Travis 1:22:11
No, yeah, so

Tim 1:22:12
that’s Yeah, exactly. I agree. We just didn’t have a way to digitally portray it. But we went through those same. We went through those, you know, I went through, you know, like this soccer phase, I went through like this. I have my phases

Travis 1:22:27
I went through, I went through seeing people’s families, you know, out in public, at a games or, you know, school events or whatever, and then going into these people’s houses and seeing how I really got down. I don’t think that’s a really that’s a new concept, per se. But yes, well, you can see, but you can put it out there and see how the public

Herman 1:22:50
right, you can test and get feedback on different identities before so

Tim 1:22:55
what I think what, okay, I mean, this is not going where I thought it was. But what you’re saying. So what you’re saying though, like, I was like I had different clicks, or right, like I had my sports clicker, I have my kradic Like, I have my, my other side of the family on the side of state line, click right, I had my DND like, alternative people that you know, click right. And these are different brands of Tim McCoy. But they didn’t manifest anywhere because we didn’t have digital presences. But they only manifested when I was with said, clicks. Right? You know what I’m saying? So I was these, these other Tim’s? But I wasn’t trying to build a brand you weren’t trying to build, right? Right. Or portray or, like, try to figure out like, how people should see me because we didn’t have and maybe that stayed like that part of our brain was not unlocked. You know, I’m saying, Have

Travis 1:23:49
you ever been in a position when those worlds collide?

Tim 1:23:51
Yeah, I’m gonna include her too. So yeah, so there’s, you know, aren’t always great many, many birthday parties thrown in my basement where I had two or more of those said cliques together, like, Okay, this is not really working out.

Herman 1:24:05
I don’t even think they’re Christian.

Tim 1:24:10
Yeah, so but I think to your point, though, you can be intentional about it. Right? So,

Herman 1:24:16
yes, so I think that what I’m trying to say is like, well, also, when you’re testing, there was no way to see certain outcomes in certain I’ll just say identity verticals, where today you actually can see successful outcomes being whatever you are, right. If I wanted

Tim 1:24:32
to be this comic book nerd, I could go and see a bunch of comic book nerds for success in the game.

Herman 1:24:37
But when we were coming up, we knew that if you just love comic books, and you weren’t going to draw or write, then that’s probably not going to be a path whether it’s going to be fruitful. But now it’s like you can test different things, see successful people in it, like right away and buy a big amount and it’s like, Man, that is going to be way more impactful in that trajectory. You could see that this person travels all the time. They’re never they never settle down. On, right, like, you can see that in social media today, we couldn’t see people who can

Tim 1:25:04
be who ever you truly want to be. Right. It’s like that saying, which, you know, is not really true. But we could talk about that another day, right? But it’s making it more realistic. It’s making it feel like it’s you

Herman 1:25:19
do. Nobody wants to work for everybody, because everybody’s like, kind of, I’m gonna say a little bit younger, unless they saw people becoming millionaires sitting in coffee shops behind a computer screen, building shit, that was changing the internet, or, I mean, that just, I can do that too. I don’t have to work for you. I can be independent. I just, I know a computer and I’m going to make something that’s also

Tim 1:25:37
why don’t have to go to college and learn how to do that. We didn’t see that shit at all

Herman 1:25:40
right? Now. All we knew is you get the job. Hopefully it pays enough. If you stay in there long enough, you’ll be able to provide

Tim 1:25:46
that maybe you can open up your own version of that later.

Herman 1:25:50
Right. Exactly. And I’m like now, man, it’s like, Hey, man, if you can tell a story good enough on any subject, right and get millions of followers and that can be your whole situation. Yeah.

Travis 1:26:02
Yeah, just random life stuff. Dude. We’ll get you a million likes. Yes.

Tim 1:26:07
Likes equates to 45 Depending on

Herman 1:26:11
the platform, man, when you look at like numbers on like, I’m gonna say only fans or whatever it is, like some of that’s not sexual, I guess. Whatever. Right. I’m like, they’re making just millions per month, right? Because people subscribe to it. I’m like, damn

Tim 1:26:28
it celebrity can be on and gotta show a Teddy and yeah, make another another million a month.

Herman 1:26:34
Crazy, man. So amazing. Yeah. I’m like,

Tim 1:26:38
way out here struggling just just to not be in poverty. Right, man. All right. Well, this has been the summer update. You know what’s on our mind this summer? Part one. There’s definitely a part two coming because we have about 13 more items that we didn’t get to. But we think this is a good segue to table this and keep you wanting more. Stay tuned.

Herman 1:27:08
Thanks for your Listen, don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast. Just start with don’t forget to subscribe. Right. Ready? Are you ready for me to go? Go now. Don’t forget to don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast on Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or whatever random app or website you’re listening on. Also, be sure to follow us on Instagram. Underscore black in the middle