A Christmas Story: Kids & Their Parents

<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast where we watch blockbuster
<v Speaker 1>movies and psychoanalyze them. My name is Brittany Brownfield and
<v Speaker 1>I'm a child therapist and I'm joined by.
<v Speaker 2>Ben Stover, individual therapist, Hannah Espinoza, marriage and family therapists.
<v Speaker 1>We're all licensed clinical professional counselors also known as therapists,
<v Speaker 1>who practice out of Chicago. Even though we are licensed
<v Speaker 1>mental health professionals, this podcast is purely for entertainment purposes
<v Speaker 1>and to fulfill our love of dissecting pop culture and
<v Speaker 1>all forms.
<v Speaker 3>Please remember that, even though we are all licensed therapists,
<v Speaker 3>we aren't your therapist.
<v Speaker 2>If you are struggling with mental health symptoms, please find
<v Speaker 2>a local mental health provider.
<v Speaker 3>Hello everybody, and welcome to our last episode of season seven.
<v Speaker 3>We are doing a Christmas Story, the nineteen eighty three
<v Speaker 3>classic that any millennial has watched four hundred thousand times
<v Speaker 3>as it ran on TBS every single year, on every
<v Speaker 3>single hour for every single day of December four years.
<v Speaker 3>So we're going to talk about it. And in this
<v Speaker 3>episode we're going to talk about the kid dynamics we
<v Speaker 3>see parenting and especially the differences between parenting in the
<v Speaker 3>nineteen forties and now the mom and dad relationship, and
<v Speaker 3>then we will cover treatment and final thoughts. The movie
<v Speaker 3>is about an older Ralphie reminiscing about the best Christmas
<v Speaker 3>present he ever got, which is the Red Writer be Begun.
<v Speaker 1>You don't know the full?
<v Speaker 4>Do you know the full?
<v Speaker 1>No?
<v Speaker 4>I do not know the No.
<v Speaker 5>I don't. I look it up.
<v Speaker 4>If you nah, it's fine. I didn't know.
<v Speaker 1>If you could throw it off top of your head,
<v Speaker 1>I cannot.
<v Speaker 3>I don't love this movie enough to be able to
<v Speaker 3>memorize that whole thing about the two hundred rounds.
<v Speaker 1>And Zally gives.
<v Speaker 3>The whole little spiel. But I guarantee you for something
<v Speaker 3>that I love, I could.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, the movie is basically just like a bunch
<v Speaker 1>of like kind of almost little vignettes of this time
<v Speaker 1>in Americana for this kid and his family.
<v Speaker 4>So what do we see with the kid dynamics?
<v Speaker 1>Well, I think what I I will start off the
<v Speaker 1>top by what I do like about this movie and
<v Speaker 1>also have a lot for rough final thoughts. But I
<v Speaker 1>do like how accurately this movie portrays things from the
<v Speaker 1>kid perspective and what's important to a kid. It is
<v Speaker 1>a good job of showing how fantastical a kid's world
<v Speaker 1>is too like their point of view, and how daydreamy
<v Speaker 1>and kind of ridiculous it is. I think it is
<v Speaker 1>a good job of showing, like what's important to a
<v Speaker 1>kid that isn't important to us once we get older
<v Speaker 1>and our world gets bigger and we have more worries
<v Speaker 1>and anxieties of how many like social rules there are
<v Speaker 1>with kids specifically, and how that shows up in how
<v Speaker 1>they treat each other. I mean, I'm not a I
<v Speaker 1>was in boy. I know, Ben you were saying beforehand,
<v Speaker 1>this was very accurate to being a young boy.
<v Speaker 3>Absolutely yeah, never seen anything more accurate.
<v Speaker 1>So what did you? I guess what do you pick
<v Speaker 1>up on it? Specifically for you? That feels so accurate?
<v Speaker 3>About the dynamics, Everything about the dynamics is accurate to
<v Speaker 3>what it was like to be a little boy. I
<v Speaker 3>think at certain points in times and maybe still, but
<v Speaker 3>I have girls now, so unfortunately don't know what it's
<v Speaker 3>like to parent boys.
<v Speaker 4>Though.
<v Speaker 3>This movie is yet again another reminder that my father
<v Speaker 3>would always say that having a house full of three
<v Speaker 3>boys is a never ending factory of bad ideas, which
<v Speaker 3>this movie yet again displays all the bad ideas that
<v Speaker 3>they have and all the misadventure that comes from it,
<v Speaker 3>and should we go down the alley.
<v Speaker 4>Or should we take the way that's safe. Oh look, the.
<v Speaker 3>Bullies were always in the alley are there again? Surprise surprise.
<v Speaker 3>Now we have to run and dodge this empty car
<v Speaker 3>and go through this car house can do whatever weird
<v Speaker 3>stuff we do, and maybe we have to fight them,
<v Speaker 3>maybe we get in a snowball fight. Maybe we stick
<v Speaker 3>our tongue to the frozen poll. But my dad is
<v Speaker 3>clearly smarter than your dad. So whatever your dad says,
<v Speaker 3>fuck your.
<v Speaker 4>Dad, Yes, absolutely, and that won't happen.
<v Speaker 3>That's ridiculous, your tongue can't stick to it. All of
<v Speaker 3>the dynamics between the kids, of the way they dare
<v Speaker 3>each other to do things, and the like the gravitas
<v Speaker 3>that it takes to triple dog dare someone and how
<v Speaker 3>up against a wall your reputation is for the rest
<v Speaker 3>of your life if you back down, And also the
<v Speaker 3>way the kids pull each other, like down the stairs
<v Speaker 3>when they're running up and Ralphie and his brother.
<v Speaker 1>I feel like that's just siblings because me and my
<v Speaker 1>siblings definitely did that to each other.
<v Speaker 3>And you know, all I can speak to is being
<v Speaker 3>a little boy with boy siblings.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, I feel like the only reason why you
<v Speaker 1>don't experience that is because you have such a big
<v Speaker 1>age difference between your two kids. But I feel like
<v Speaker 1>if your kids were close in age, they'd also be
<v Speaker 1>doing that.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and maybe they will when they get a little
<v Speaker 3>bit older, and Mean's still the baby.
<v Speaker 1>So that's what I mean. I feel like there's two
<v Speaker 1>for anyone who doesn't know, there's like a five four
<v Speaker 1>and a half five and a half five and a
<v Speaker 1>half your age difference between your kids. So I feel
<v Speaker 1>like a lot of this stuff might not happen because
<v Speaker 1>of that. But me and my siblings we were like
<v Speaker 1>on top of each other age wise, and so we
<v Speaker 1>were like a lot of that stuff that you see
<v Speaker 1>in the movie definitely happen with us.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, what happened with me and my middle brother guaranteed
<v Speaker 3>ninety percent of this stuff of fighting over a bathroom,
<v Speaker 3>like he's really gotta go.
<v Speaker 1>I'm busy, Yes, want in privacy, But I would say,
<v Speaker 1>what I think is so interesting, Like one of the
<v Speaker 1>things that pops out for me is the whole like
<v Speaker 1>Dare scene and doing something that is potentially like high
<v Speaker 1>risk if you are believing what could happen, which does happen,
<v Speaker 1>which is getting your tongue stuck yep, maybe ripped off
<v Speaker 1>in their world. I come from obviously a child therapy background,
<v Speaker 1>obviously Fred Rogers background. He is my you know, lord
<v Speaker 1>and savior. And it makes me think of when he
<v Speaker 1>talks about how kids play is so serious and how
<v Speaker 1>you have to take kids play serious. And I think
<v Speaker 1>this is such a good example of how us as
<v Speaker 1>adults would look at something like who gives a shit
<v Speaker 1>if you get triple dog dared? It's all made up, right, right,
<v Speaker 1>And we forget that so much of the adult stuff
<v Speaker 1>that we are invested in socially is also made up.
<v Speaker 1>We've just made it make more sense to us as
<v Speaker 1>adults than kids do. But it's the same idea where
<v Speaker 1>there is like your reputations on the line, you have
<v Speaker 1>to prove something to the other people, all these kind
<v Speaker 1>of things that's so important, And a lot of ways
<v Speaker 1>what these kids are doing is they're practicing the adult
<v Speaker 1>version of this within little kid context, which is are
<v Speaker 1>you a man of your word? Prove it?
<v Speaker 4>You know?
<v Speaker 1>All this stuff they're trying to figure out in the
<v Speaker 1>world they're doing as kids, and that is serious stuff,
<v Speaker 1>even though us as adults like to poo poo it,
<v Speaker 1>make fun of it, diminish it. Yeah, because all this
<v Speaker 1>this is their whole social world is each other and
<v Speaker 1>how they treat each other, and like the bully for example,
<v Speaker 1>that is a big deal. That is like their villain
<v Speaker 1>that they have to survive on a daily basis. That
<v Speaker 1>also probably brings a little excitement to their lives, the
<v Speaker 1>same way that us as adults will still kind of
<v Speaker 1>poke at relationships or people and end up in situations
<v Speaker 1>with people that we don't necessarily like, but we still
<v Speaker 1>do it anyway.
<v Speaker 4>You know.
<v Speaker 1>It's all stuff that like we just.
<v Speaker 4>I like The Wizard of Us. I like the tin Man.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I don't understand what.
<v Speaker 5>But you're a little boy, the little boy in line.
<v Speaker 3>What the little boy with the goggles who just like
<v Speaker 3>stares at him.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, I think I was mildly zoning out on that part.
<v Speaker 1>I think something people should know off the rip is
<v Speaker 1>I don't like this movie. It's like I might not
<v Speaker 1>have retained all the stuff in it that I have,
<v Speaker 1>so I won't be good at the bits. Apologies.
<v Speaker 4>It's on me.
<v Speaker 3>So obviously kids learn a lot through play. Kid's primary
<v Speaker 3>ability to learn is through play, and they are auditioning
<v Speaker 3>adult roles, yes, And they are learning how to apply
<v Speaker 3>adult rules through play. And we see that in this
<v Speaker 3>movie all over the place, and I think that's a
<v Speaker 3>really important part of it. And the narrator adding the
<v Speaker 3>extra gravitas with the way he says.
<v Speaker 4>Saying the triple dog dear. Yeah, I think.
<v Speaker 3>All of that does capture a really important component of
<v Speaker 3>the way kids think about those things because it is
<v Speaker 3>so serious to them and they can't see beyond the
<v Speaker 3>next hour.
<v Speaker 1>Right, especially at this time in the world in which
<v Speaker 1>they don't have internet, they don't even have TV yet,
<v Speaker 1>that their world is so small and it's just the
<v Speaker 1>people around them and their school and their class and
<v Speaker 1>their family, and so how you are perceived socially is
<v Speaker 1>really important. And they are making the stakes with these things,
<v Speaker 1>and so they are deciding collectively that the stakes are
<v Speaker 1>high in these dog dare stuff, and so it is high,
<v Speaker 1>and it is important because you don't want to be ostracized,
<v Speaker 1>like they are playing out all these sort of almost
<v Speaker 1>like tribal behaviors of like who's like you're saying, like,
<v Speaker 1>whose dad is the one to be respected, right, which
<v Speaker 1>then allows that's the kid that's attached to that dad
<v Speaker 1>to then be respected. And what I do like about
<v Speaker 1>the narrator and because he's the guy who wrote the stories, right,
<v Speaker 1>mm hmm, yeah, it's about his childhood, is he does
<v Speaker 1>do a great job which not a lot of adults
<v Speaker 1>are good at of really remembering like you were saying,
<v Speaker 1>like the intensity of this time in your life and
<v Speaker 1>the ceseriousness of these things, and not really try eating
<v Speaker 1>it as silly, like even the daydreaming that he does,
<v Speaker 1>where he's daydream about saving his family from the robbers
<v Speaker 1>and then he's daydreaming about his essay in school. This, like,
<v Speaker 1>all that stuff seems really funny and silly as an
<v Speaker 1>adult's looking at it, But as a kid, like all
<v Speaker 1>this stuff is you are figuring out the world around
<v Speaker 1>you and what matters.
<v Speaker 3>And I think that stuff holds up to time. I
<v Speaker 3>think kids still play when they have the chance to play,
<v Speaker 3>largely the same way that they did in this movie
<v Speaker 3>set in the forties. I think that's part of why
<v Speaker 3>it endures, even if I don't know how much longer
<v Speaker 3>it will, because as we start to lose touch with well,
<v Speaker 3>this was what life was like when your parents grew
<v Speaker 3>up or your grandparents grew up. I don't know how
<v Speaker 3>much longer kids will care, although my daughter did watch
<v Speaker 3>it and like it.
<v Speaker 2>I do also feel like why I think any kid
<v Speaker 2>would still like this movie is because they can they
<v Speaker 2>relate to some of the silly us that we see
<v Speaker 2>and some of the silliness that these kids are experiencing.
<v Speaker 1>I think what is different nowadays, though, is not a
<v Speaker 1>lot of kids are out in the streets walk them
<v Speaker 1>to school, being just together kind of I guess free
<v Speaker 1>range would be what they would call it nowadays. No,
<v Speaker 1>and getting the opportunities to do a lot of these
<v Speaker 1>risk taking things and like social experiment stuff that is
<v Speaker 1>really important, and I do think we are kind of
<v Speaker 1>figuring out what to do with that now because we
<v Speaker 1>sort of overcorrected culturally.
<v Speaker 3>Well yeah, we overcorrected because our parents brought us up
<v Speaker 3>on a whole bunch of movies and shows about all
<v Speaker 3>the shit that can happen when you don't listen or back.
<v Speaker 1>You know where your kids are right now?
<v Speaker 4>Right?
<v Speaker 1>They just have to put ads on TV to make
<v Speaker 1>sure that you knew where your kids were at ten pm.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, because they tell you come back when the street
<v Speaker 3>lights are on.
<v Speaker 1>I would say what I'm more see now, unfortunately, is
<v Speaker 1>parents getting involved a lot more when kids are having skirmishes.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I would definitely still understand like a parent
<v Speaker 1>getting involved when Ralphie goes off and beats the shit
<v Speaker 1>of that kid the bully, right farcas. Yeah, but I
<v Speaker 1>do feel like what I see more nowadays, unfortunately, is
<v Speaker 1>parents getting involved as soon as, like someone gets upset
<v Speaker 1>or as soon as there is a negative interaction between kids,
<v Speaker 1>instead of letting kids like work it out between them
<v Speaker 1>and letting kids kind of take not dangerous risks, you know,
<v Speaker 1>like appropriately dangerous risks, And so there are a lot
<v Speaker 1>of life skills that can be learned through this. I
<v Speaker 1>guess free range play that I don't know if kids
<v Speaker 1>are getting as much as they should because of, like
<v Speaker 1>not to sound like a boomer, video games and online
<v Speaker 1>stuff that just lets them stay at home really like
<v Speaker 1>wiling out with other kids on the street and in
<v Speaker 1>the playgrounds and stuff.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think kids have a lot less time where
<v Speaker 2>they're just together and don't have to be doing anything.
<v Speaker 1>Oh that's such a good point, because what we do
<v Speaker 1>see a lot with these kids is they just have
<v Speaker 1>a lot of time, like free time where they're in
<v Speaker 1>and out, they're walking back and forth from school, they're
<v Speaker 1>at recess just dicking around, and yeah, kids are so
<v Speaker 1>scheduled nowadays.
<v Speaker 5>So that there's not a lot of I would even say, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>There's not a lot of time for kids to just
<v Speaker 1>like dick around with their friends after school, which is
<v Speaker 1>important to their development, and I would argue maybe more
<v Speaker 1>important than the twenty hundred extracurriculars you've signed them up for. Yeah, exactly,
<v Speaker 1>because you're robbing them of a chance to develop social
<v Speaker 1>skills that will help them throughout their entire life, and
<v Speaker 1>ones that are that are incorporate like improving, not like
<v Speaker 1>doing this structured activity with these other kids. So there's
<v Speaker 1>always like an adult there and a script in a
<v Speaker 1>very specific way, whereas back when we were kids, it
<v Speaker 1>would be like, hey, does someone want to play kickball?
<v Speaker 1>And then the kids would organize kickball and do it
<v Speaker 1>in the street or at the school, and it was
<v Speaker 1>much more like kids having to figure out all these
<v Speaker 1>like leadership as qualities and working together qualities and organizational
<v Speaker 1>qualities that they don't develop unless an adult in one
<v Speaker 1>of these extracurricular activities is like making sure they develop
<v Speaker 1>it through how they engage the kids.
<v Speaker 4>I agree.
<v Speaker 3>I think when I see parents that have kids that
<v Speaker 3>have gotten into hockey or soccer or volleyball in particular,
<v Speaker 3>that these kids get so pulled into this universe of
<v Speaker 3>being a professional athlete at ten, and parents are spending
<v Speaker 3>their entire life at these practices and games at four am.
<v Speaker 3>It is absurd, and the kids really don't always have
<v Speaker 3>the chance. And I've had these kids come in too.
<v Speaker 3>They don't always have that chance to sit and just play.
<v Speaker 3>Whether it's the just.
<v Speaker 2>Be bored, which I know Brittany has brought up before
<v Speaker 2>on the podcast, but of just the just being bored
<v Speaker 2>and having to come up with something and having to
<v Speaker 2>learn how to past time and be a little bit uncomfortable.
<v Speaker 4>Yes, my daughter hates hates that.
<v Speaker 3>In the car, she calls YouTube Ducky songs and in
<v Speaker 3>the car she's like, can I watch Ducky songs? Because
<v Speaker 3>when the pandemic was going on, she started that with
<v Speaker 3>there was nothing to do.
<v Speaker 4>So sometimes you're like, sure.
<v Speaker 1>You're like indulging her a bit, which I would Understan
<v Speaker 1>at that time.
<v Speaker 3>Right, But she cannot tolerate being in the car sometimes,
<v Speaker 3>like can I watch Ducky songs like no, you cannot.
<v Speaker 3>You need to learn to be bored and how to
<v Speaker 3>amuse yourself, and she hates it. So, just like you said,
<v Speaker 3>right there, she's like, I'm bored. And we have probably
<v Speaker 3>like the parents in this movie did.
<v Speaker 4>At some point in time.
<v Speaker 3>We read her a book called Dear Girl, and one
<v Speaker 3>of the things in it says, dear girl, do you
<v Speaker 3>know what's really boring? When people tell you how bored
<v Speaker 3>they are?
<v Speaker 1>Read her down.
<v Speaker 4>She hates stacks.
<v Speaker 1>Well, you can throw at her what I always say,
<v Speaker 1>which is, Hannah, what do I say about being bored?
<v Speaker 5>If you're bored, you're boring, You're.
<v Speaker 1>Boring, because what it is is that also, other than
<v Speaker 1>all these other skills we've talked about, kids develop imagination,
<v Speaker 1>problem solving, like you were saying, Hannah, distress, tolerance, frustration, tolerance,
<v Speaker 1>not beating, instant gratification, impulse control, all these things that
<v Speaker 1>unstructured free time allows kids to develop. Now, is there
<v Speaker 1>a line to this?
<v Speaker 4>Yes?
<v Speaker 1>Is that line a kid like farcas?
<v Speaker 4>Yes?
<v Speaker 1>Yes, absolutely, Because there are bullies and I get why,
<v Speaker 1>especially I'm sure parents who experience bullies. Maybe that's part of,
<v Speaker 1>you know, why we've kind of locked down on kids
<v Speaker 1>more is not wanting our kids to be bullied, which
<v Speaker 1>I understand, and I don't know if this has helped
<v Speaker 1>the bullying problem. I feel like bullying, unfortunately, just adapts
<v Speaker 1>to the culture.
<v Speaker 3>It does, and it becomes pretty prevalent through social media
<v Speaker 3>and social apps with kids nowadays, so they just find
<v Speaker 3>other ways to do it. And then one kid bullies
<v Speaker 3>another kid on Insta and shares it to all everyone.
<v Speaker 3>It's the same effect. Yeah, and there's things that tend
<v Speaker 3>to happen over time with what's the next focus? Because
<v Speaker 3>social emotional learning that's pretty big now is really trying
<v Speaker 3>to combat the bullying. But parents are also spending four
<v Speaker 3>times more time with their kids than our parents spent
<v Speaker 3>with us, and the bullying I think is part of it.
<v Speaker 3>The other thing is they showed us a bunch of
<v Speaker 3>movies and things. Like I said before, but like Bridge
<v Speaker 3>to Terabithia, My Girl, Oh yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my Girl. That movie upset the hell out of
<v Speaker 1>me when I was a kid, Yeah, upset the hell
<v Speaker 1>out of me. I remember when they do the Blood
<v Speaker 1>Oath in that movie. My mom looked at me and
<v Speaker 1>she went, don't.
<v Speaker 4>You ever do that anybody? Brothers.
<v Speaker 1>That's how you get right, because well you hit on
<v Speaker 1>what you just said there, which is like, what did
<v Speaker 1>you say emotional social emotional learning, social emotional learning. Because
<v Speaker 1>here's the thing. The reason why bullies persist isn't because
<v Speaker 1>kids were just running around and then a farcas just
<v Speaker 1>was like, had no one there to like rain him in.
<v Speaker 1>A kid like farcas exists because farcus is probably either
<v Speaker 1>has like raging ADHD and or a parent or parent
<v Speaker 1>in the home who treat them like shit. You know,
<v Speaker 1>as long as there are kids that are being traumatized unfortunately,
<v Speaker 1>there's going to be bullies there will, yep. And as
<v Speaker 1>long as there are kids that aren't being taken care
<v Speaker 1>of by their family, either because they're not getting their
<v Speaker 1>needs met if they have something on ADHD, or they're
<v Speaker 1>being neglected in some way or abused in some way,
<v Speaker 1>there's going to be bullies. So if we really want
<v Speaker 1>to tackle bullies, we have to tackle the way that
<v Speaker 1>kids are treated in their homes. And that's with mental
<v Speaker 1>health stuff too. So all that shit is generational trauma usually.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, which sounds like it's kind of leading us into parenting.
<v Speaker 3>So do we have anything else we want to say
<v Speaker 3>more on kid dynamics or should we take a break here?
<v Speaker 4>Let's take a break.
<v Speaker 3>So coming out of this break, let's talk about the
<v Speaker 3>parenting styles we see in this film. I think we've
<v Speaker 3>started to kind of hint on it in our last
<v Speaker 3>section there, but clearly parenting in the forties and parenting
<v Speaker 3>in the mid twenty twenties are very different things. And
<v Speaker 3>even the way we were parented in the eighties and
<v Speaker 3>nineties is a very different thing than what's happening now.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, I mean this is just like the old school
<v Speaker 1>punitive parenting. You get in trouble, you get punished in
<v Speaker 1>some way, and then we keep it moving and there's
<v Speaker 1>no real discussions about anything. And also, one thing I
<v Speaker 1>want to point out is a lot of times like hard,
<v Speaker 1>like these more specifically punitive methods like putting a bar
<v Speaker 1>soap in your mouth, it doesn't really have like a
<v Speaker 1>lasting impact. What kids learn how to do is they
<v Speaker 1>just learn to deal with your punishment. Because he mentions
<v Speaker 1>when he has the bars ope in his mouth, all
<v Speaker 1>he's become like a bar of soap connoisseur. He knows
<v Speaker 1>exactly what every bar type tastes like, what every brand
<v Speaker 1>tastes like, which once tastes better or worse, which means
<v Speaker 1>that he's had to do this many times. You know,
<v Speaker 1>he's probably five times he's had a bar soap in
<v Speaker 1>his mouth, oh at least so and he's only nine.
<v Speaker 1>So what does that tell you?
<v Speaker 3>That his dad swears up a storm and so do
<v Speaker 3>the other kids, and all he's doing is emulating the
<v Speaker 3>adults and other people in his life, just like every
<v Speaker 3>other kid. And I love how that keeps getting brought
<v Speaker 3>up throughout the film by the adult version of the
<v Speaker 3>narrator going throwing gentle shade it dad for whatever streams
<v Speaker 3>of obscenities would come out of his mouth, And then
<v Speaker 3>how everyone including his mom just ignored that and punished Ralphie.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, well because yeah, because well one when there's this
<v Speaker 1>pinitive thing, like the bar of soap thing, and like
<v Speaker 1>getting lectured, which was another part of the movie I
<v Speaker 1>can't quite remember. I think the teacher was lecturing them,
<v Speaker 1>is that he also mentions there that you just kind
<v Speaker 1>of have to grin and bear it, and that's what
<v Speaker 1>kids learn how to do once they get smart enough
<v Speaker 1>to think more sophisticated than like a kindergartener is I
<v Speaker 1>just have to deal with this short moment of discomfort
<v Speaker 1>and then I'll just go about my day. So kids
<v Speaker 1>don't really learn anything like when they get whooped or
<v Speaker 1>smacked on the bottom or anything like that. Once they
<v Speaker 1>get older, then like I said, three five years old
<v Speaker 1>and they have long term memory, they learn that Okay,
<v Speaker 1>I just have to deal with this moment and then
<v Speaker 1>I'll move on, and maybe it will be bad enough
<v Speaker 1>that they will try not to do it again in
<v Speaker 1>the future. But a lot of times kids will just
<v Speaker 1>learn how to deal with their parents, like glimpses of
<v Speaker 1>punishments at them.
<v Speaker 4>Well, yeah, and Ralfie is nine. Nine to ten is when.
<v Speaker 3>The prefronts of cortex really starts turning on.
<v Speaker 4>So kids are.
<v Speaker 1>Capable like abstract thinking and stuff.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and having logical advanced planning you really turn on,
<v Speaker 3>they're going to have the you know, adult brainstar to develop.
<v Speaker 3>At that point, it's not developed, but it's starting much
<v Speaker 3>more than a younger kid. And he was smart enough
<v Speaker 3>to know that the only thing that's going to happen
<v Speaker 3>if I answer dad. When Mom asks where did you
<v Speaker 3>hear this word? When he drops the big kahuna, yes,
<v Speaker 3>oh fudge, yes, that he blames his friend. Then hear
<v Speaker 3>his friend getting his ass whooped on the line. But
<v Speaker 3>he knew that was better than saying dad, because he
<v Speaker 3>would start a war in the house even though everybody
<v Speaker 3>knew it was dad.
<v Speaker 1>Which is also the part of it that's so irritating,
<v Speaker 1>almost like enraging about this style of parenting is this
<v Speaker 1>unwillingness sometimes of parents or whoever the charagivers are to
<v Speaker 1>recognize how they are doing the behaviors that then they're
<v Speaker 1>punishing their kids for doing. It's like this blissful ignorance
<v Speaker 1>that mom wants to live in that like, of course,
<v Speaker 1>where the fuck do you think you learned that word from?
<v Speaker 1>Like are you stupid?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? I mean me and my friends swore as much
<v Speaker 2>as the boys, and this swear. When I was at age,
<v Speaker 2>I said fucking all kinds of stuff when I was
<v Speaker 2>in second grade.
<v Speaker 5>Never got caught though.
<v Speaker 2>To the surprise of no one, but also because I
<v Speaker 2>had a parent who used that language on a regular basis,
<v Speaker 2>So that was a part of why it was naturalized.
<v Speaker 2>Naturalized the experience of using that language, and so it's
<v Speaker 2>so shitty when the mom calls the other mom and
<v Speaker 2>gets that other kid in trouble, like she doesn't know
<v Speaker 2>what she's putting that kid through just because she's.
<v Speaker 1>Pissed at her kid said it's weear word. And also,
<v Speaker 1>just like I said, the wilful ignorance of where did
<v Speaker 1>you learn that word? Like that question pisses me off
<v Speaker 1>about this mom. I'm on this mom's side a lot
<v Speaker 1>in this movie because I feel bad for her because
<v Speaker 1>her life sucks, which I'll talk about later, But I
<v Speaker 1>would say with this it is this farce that everyone
<v Speaker 1>is playing of like we're just ignoring the shit that
<v Speaker 1>dad does on a regular basis, like living in this
<v Speaker 1>fantasy that not only is your kid not really being
<v Speaker 1>exposed to this shit that your spouse does, but also
<v Speaker 1>that they should know better. Like we're hitting on a
<v Speaker 1>real pet peeve with me, which is when adults asks
<v Speaker 1>the kids expect the kids to behave better than the
<v Speaker 1>adults around them, which I would also say with that
<v Speaker 1>kid he snitches on because his mom kind of makes
<v Speaker 1>him snitch, and then that kids get the shit kicked
<v Speaker 1>out of him, I'm sure that kid also beats people
<v Speaker 1>up or whatever, and their mom's like probably beating him
<v Speaker 1>to be like stop hitting kids, and it's like, what
<v Speaker 1>the fuck are you doing. It's just such a shitty
<v Speaker 1>thing that parents will do or adults will do to kids,
<v Speaker 1>which is, don't do the thing I'm literally doing. How
<v Speaker 1>dare you? And you should know better than what I'm
<v Speaker 1>literally doing, even though I'm the persons was to be
<v Speaker 1>showing you how to be in the world.
<v Speaker 2>And we wonder where kids are confused about how they're
<v Speaker 2>supposed to behave Yes, yep.
<v Speaker 3>It's not hard to see. And they would tell you
<v Speaker 3>that when you take any child psychology class or any
<v Speaker 3>family therapy classes, that if you want to see the
<v Speaker 3>root cause of a child's behavior, look at what's going
<v Speaker 3>on with the parents.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and that's something I would when I used to
<v Speaker 1>do family therapy with kids that had sniffing at behavioral issues,
<v Speaker 1>I would ask like, well, how do you guys talk
<v Speaker 1>at home? The amount of times that a parent would
<v Speaker 1>start telling me the story is if they're kid's the
<v Speaker 1>biggest asshole that has ever been created, And the kids
<v Speaker 1>were usually like seven, eight, nine, and then they would
<v Speaker 1>tell on themselves in the story like, well, I was
<v Speaker 1>yelling at them to stop doing that. Da da da
<v Speaker 1>da da, And then I have to be the bad
<v Speaker 1>guy that jumps in and is like, rewind, what did
<v Speaker 1>you just say? And so if like I almost said
<v Speaker 1>Kevin's mom because we just said home alone, Ralphie's mom
<v Speaker 1>was in my office complaining to me about Ralphie swearing
<v Speaker 1>and stuff, I would say, well, what do you and
<v Speaker 1>your husband say around him? I would be interested if
<v Speaker 1>the mom would tell the truth. I feel like she
<v Speaker 1>want it. I'm not in the way that I think
<v Speaker 1>she'd be like intentionally manipulatively lying to me, but I
<v Speaker 1>think that she wants to pretend that that doesn't happen
<v Speaker 1>at our house.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>I think she does want to pretend that because that
<v Speaker 3>would not be socially acceptable and so for everyone, and
<v Speaker 3>Ralphie knows it too. So despite everyone knows who his
<v Speaker 3>dad is and how his dad is and can probably
<v Speaker 3>hear him, they all ignore that and act like the
<v Speaker 3>kids universe is separate than the adults universe, and children's
<v Speaker 3>rules are separate from adults rules, which is consistent with
<v Speaker 3>that old school parenting that would have come down on
<v Speaker 3>us and did not as hard as maybe in the forties,
<v Speaker 3>but certainly the remnants of that were still there. And
<v Speaker 3>how we were parented and speak when spoken to are
<v Speaker 3>things all of us probably heard at least once.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I would say where I can give my parents
<v Speaker 1>credit is that I think they were definitely in that
<v Speaker 1>transitionary period of parenting where my parents did try to
<v Speaker 1>do more like modeling. Like when my mom would swear
<v Speaker 1>in front of us on accident, she would like apologize
<v Speaker 1>and she would kind of like name what was happening.
<v Speaker 1>And my parents actually did a good job and like
<v Speaker 1>not yelling at us and not speaking us. But I
<v Speaker 1>was aware that a lot of the choices she made
<v Speaker 1>as our parent was because of how much she obviously
<v Speaker 1>didn't enjoy the way that she was parented, So she
<v Speaker 1>had more of the you want something to cry about
<v Speaker 1>punitive kind of stuff like getting hit the belt and
<v Speaker 1>things like.
<v Speaker 4>That major pain as a parent.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Well, and definitely this kind of stuff where she
<v Speaker 1>would probably get in trouble for something she was literally
<v Speaker 1>repeating her dad say yeah, and then getting no credit
<v Speaker 1>for the fact that she's, like kid, just repeating what
<v Speaker 1>the adults are saying around her. And so I think
<v Speaker 1>my parents were kind of that sweet spot in the
<v Speaker 1>nineties when they were making like a conscious effort to
<v Speaker 1>do things differently.
<v Speaker 3>Your parents are than me and Hannah's Yeah, which may
<v Speaker 3>create because this movie would have been my grandparents and
<v Speaker 3>my parents.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, this movie would have been my grandparents and their.
<v Speaker 3>Parents, right, which gives a one generation up. Yeah, one
<v Speaker 3>generation up. And they would have been part of the thing,
<v Speaker 3>which is good that they get credit for that, But
<v Speaker 3>and not that things were always you know, speak when
<v Speaker 3>spoken to, is just sometimes there was those moments in
<v Speaker 3>parental frustration where things went to a little older school.
<v Speaker 1>Which I do think where I want to give the
<v Speaker 1>mom credit, especially for the time period this takes place
<v Speaker 1>in she does do things here and there that do
<v Speaker 1>speak of her potential for increased emotional awareness and intelligence.
<v Speaker 1>Like when the younger son, what's his name, he's like
<v Speaker 1>five or six, Ralphie's little brother. Do we know his name? Randy? Randy?
<v Speaker 5>I knew, I can think of it.
<v Speaker 1>I knew it was similar to Ralfie, like they have
<v Speaker 1>that matchy names thing. Yeah, And when Randy won't eat
<v Speaker 1>and you can tell that Dad is getting impatient with
<v Speaker 1>him not eating, and Dad's trying to do that thing,
<v Speaker 1>which is old school and dumb, which is just like
<v Speaker 1>telling a kid to snap out of it, especially a
<v Speaker 1>kid that little. He's probably kindergarten age, maybe fush greg kindergarten,
<v Speaker 1>and he's obviously distressed something's going on. And so the
<v Speaker 1>mom does something which is really great and something I
<v Speaker 1>used to do when my work with little kids his age,
<v Speaker 1>which is use play to sort of snap kids out
<v Speaker 1>of their mood. So when she does, like show me
<v Speaker 1>what a piggy would do, it's disgusting what he does.
<v Speaker 1>I can't stand it, but it is a good intervention
<v Speaker 1>for get a kid to snap out of whatever feelings
<v Speaker 1>they're stuck in and to get them more buy in
<v Speaker 1>to actually go closer to the thing you're wanting them
<v Speaker 1>to do, which win the situation was eating. So like
<v Speaker 1>that was a really good parenting choice there.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and then what Hannah instead of struggling with the
<v Speaker 2>power dynamic, Yes, with a child, power dynamic, with a
<v Speaker 2>power struggle exactly.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>She does have really great moments of parenting, and that
<v Speaker 3>is one of them. My wife is a daycare director,
<v Speaker 3>so I definitely learn a lot from some of her strategies,
<v Speaker 3>and she would use something like this of distracting them,
<v Speaker 3>getting them back into play and trying to move them
<v Speaker 3>off of that emotion.
<v Speaker 4>Because it won't last long. Yeah, And if you can get.
<v Speaker 3>Them through that, they will rebound and get kind of
<v Speaker 3>themselves reregulated and go back to taking care of their needs.
<v Speaker 3>But if you get into the power dynamic and continue
<v Speaker 3>to up the stress level of the situation, you will
<v Speaker 3>get more.
<v Speaker 4>And more ancient behavior moments.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, well, because you're right on it, which is that
<v Speaker 1>kids feed off the energy of the adults around them.
<v Speaker 1>So when you do a power struggle thing like dad
<v Speaker 1>was going to the kids responding to his stress and
<v Speaker 1>anger and irritability ratching it up. So the kids just
<v Speaker 1>matching your energy. And so when you do what more
<v Speaker 1>the mom did, you're subverting it and you're making more
<v Speaker 1>playful and so the kid's going to match that energy.
<v Speaker 1>Like I used to do a ton of that stuff
<v Speaker 1>when kids riving our time, and I would use like
<v Speaker 1>a silly voice or do something in a sing song nyway,
<v Speaker 1>which is actually a coping intervention, a coping skill. It's
<v Speaker 1>a way to do thought diffusion, Like when you're struggling
<v Speaker 1>with a circular thought, you can make it silly and
<v Speaker 1>that kind of snaps you out of it a little bit.
<v Speaker 1>And so she is doing a version of that with him.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, does she also have other stakes in it,
<v Speaker 1>which is I have to calm Randy down before my
<v Speaker 1>husband gets too upset. For sure, yeah she does.
<v Speaker 3>She also has the if this kid does not eat
<v Speaker 3>now when we're all eating, then what's going to happen
<v Speaker 3>when it's bedtime is he's not going to sleep because
<v Speaker 3>he's going to be hungry and he's going to want
<v Speaker 3>food and now I'm going to have to feed him
<v Speaker 3>or going to be doing all of this shit all
<v Speaker 3>over again. And if you think you're gonna be like
<v Speaker 3>the tough parent that's gonna send a kid to bed hungry,
<v Speaker 3>you're reading a book and have never been a parent. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>not gonna happen. You're gonna have to feed them. So
<v Speaker 3>it's gonna delay bed time, it's gonna delay teeth brushing,
<v Speaker 3>it's gonna get him off their routine, it's gonna get
<v Speaker 3>him off their sleep schedule, and then everybody's fucking life
<v Speaker 3>is going to be miserable. And whatever you're trying to
<v Speaker 3>manage Dad from not doing is going to blow up
<v Speaker 3>times ten mm hmmm. So everybody's gonna be deregulated if
<v Speaker 3>we can't reregulate and get back in control of this
<v Speaker 3>situation right now.
<v Speaker 1>And then I think another thing that she does well
<v Speaker 1>is when she pulls Ralphie off of Farcas and he's
<v Speaker 1>losing it and he's clearly we would say he's in
<v Speaker 1>his emotion mind. He is not an a rational place.
<v Speaker 1>He has snapped.
<v Speaker 4>He snapped.
<v Speaker 3>You see that look on someone's face. That is a
<v Speaker 3>good clue that you better stop, yeah, or you will
<v Speaker 3>meet their fight.
<v Speaker 1>Part. Oh, I saw a kid. There was a kid
<v Speaker 1>in my six strade class used to get bullied a
<v Speaker 1>lot by this other kid who was an infamous bully.
<v Speaker 1>And one day when we had to sub that kid
<v Speaker 1>snapped and stabbed at other kid in the arm with
<v Speaker 1>a pencil. It was nuts. I was like right next
<v Speaker 1>to them when it happened, and the kid had this
<v Speaker 1>pencil sticking out of his arm. Anyway, sidebar. But what
<v Speaker 1>the mom does well is she also actually unknowingly unintentionally
<v Speaker 1>does another coping strategy, which is like temperature change, where
<v Speaker 1>he's so in his head. When someone's that escalated emotionally,
<v Speaker 1>all you can do is try to regulate their immediate
<v Speaker 1>crisis body self. And so what she does is she
<v Speaker 1>put so it's like I assume cold water on his
<v Speaker 1>face and on his neck, which is actually the exact
<v Speaker 1>right thing to do. It was when a kids that
<v Speaker 1>worked up is you don't get into it, you're She
<v Speaker 1>does keep saying you need to calm down, which I
<v Speaker 1>don't think she could have not said at this time
<v Speaker 1>because people would just say that even though it doesn't
<v Speaker 1>do anything. But she was like speaking in like a
<v Speaker 1>calmer tone of voice and really just focusing on de
<v Speaker 1>escalating him is almost like his nervous system, which is
<v Speaker 1>what you're supposed to do. It's like sometimes called like
<v Speaker 1>shock to your system, where you will hold ice or
<v Speaker 1>splash your face with cold water, take a cold shower,
<v Speaker 1>put your face in the freezer, something that like shocks
<v Speaker 1>you sensationally and hopefully like brings you out of whatever
<v Speaker 1>headspace you're stuck in.
<v Speaker 3>It's an immediate grounding to the immediate moment because there
<v Speaker 3>is drastic stimuli changing where your focus is.
<v Speaker 1>It just distracts your body pretty much.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, because it has to deal with that is so
<v Speaker 3>cold that you need to pay attention to it, because
<v Speaker 3>there's only so long you can tolerate it, So whatever
<v Speaker 3>else is going on you need to back off from.
<v Speaker 3>It's very important. And it goes back to that same
<v Speaker 3>thing again of remembering calm body, calm mind. It does
<v Speaker 3>not ever work the other way.
<v Speaker 1>And then she tells him to go lie down, which
<v Speaker 1>is also good. She's just like, go nap, which is
<v Speaker 1>exactly right. Like he's probably going to be exhausted after this,
<v Speaker 1>and so instead of getting in his face about what
<v Speaker 1>she saw, I appreciate that she just tried to really
<v Speaker 1>calm him down. And then she didn't have any expectations
<v Speaker 1>of him. She was like, just go chill out in
<v Speaker 1>your room by yourself. And I bet you she tried
<v Speaker 1>to make sure that Randy didn't go in there. I
<v Speaker 1>can throw her that bone. Yeah, she probably tried to
<v Speaker 1>Keeprandy busy. Yeah, Ralphie had timed himself in his bedroom.
<v Speaker 3>Which he needed because once you go into a hyper
<v Speaker 3>arousal state, you're going to go into hypo to recover
<v Speaker 3>period all of us, and it's going to look a
<v Speaker 3>little different. But for a kid in particular, they're you're
<v Speaker 3>not gonna be able to explain that to them, he
<v Speaker 3>had a full on hyper arousal burst fight mode and
<v Speaker 3>he's gonna need to shut down in order to recover.
<v Speaker 3>And had she tried to talk to him about what happened,
<v Speaker 3>or think about consequences or get into any of that,
<v Speaker 3>all that would have happened is he would have sparked
<v Speaker 3>right back up into that hyper aroused state and been
<v Speaker 3>absolutely inconsolable and afraid and terrified, and all his nervous,
<v Speaker 3>little nervous system would have been completely overridden.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, she's able to clock that. You can't talk to
<v Speaker 1>a kid who's hysterically crying like that. I've watched parents
<v Speaker 1>try to rationally engage with their kids who are that upset,
<v Speaker 1>and it's just like we're all wasting our times and
<v Speaker 1>probably ratching it up. And what I also appreciate is
<v Speaker 1>that she doesn't really hold a grudge with him about it.
<v Speaker 1>She doesn't know his dad, which might be for other reasons,
<v Speaker 1>you know, But she does a thing which I also
<v Speaker 1>really appreciate if parents can do this, which is, if
<v Speaker 1>your kid does something this out of character, then something's happening,
<v Speaker 1>Like something's wrong. It's not just that they've decided this
<v Speaker 1>day to be like a huge asshole that hopefully with
<v Speaker 1>a situation like this, and maybe like modern day parenting,
<v Speaker 1>you're asking your kid, you're like debriefing afterwards, like can
<v Speaker 1>you help me understand what happened there? Because that's so
<v Speaker 1>different than how you usually engage with your friends or
<v Speaker 1>when you're walking from school. And I think that's really
<v Speaker 1>important for parents to have more curiosity when your kid
<v Speaker 1>out out of character yep, than to just like punish
<v Speaker 1>them because you're so shocked that they would do this,
<v Speaker 1>that and the other.
<v Speaker 4>I agree.
<v Speaker 3>I think the importance of that debrief is really important
<v Speaker 3>because people still keep a lot of emotion stuck under
<v Speaker 3>a bubble at that point because whatever burst out of
<v Speaker 3>them to survive that situation they got in. Once that
<v Speaker 3>is resolved, then the shame, the guilt, the fear of
<v Speaker 3>what they just did as they regain the ability to
<v Speaker 3>cognitively process it, once they settle down enough kicks in.
<v Speaker 3>That's going to go under a bubble to try to
<v Speaker 3>keep themselves protected, and they won't talk about it. But
<v Speaker 3>if you can create a self or a safe environment
<v Speaker 3>for it, you can pop that bubble and allow whatever
<v Speaker 3>emotions are still stuck to come out and digest and
<v Speaker 3>find out what's really going on. My mom may not
<v Speaker 3>know that Scott Farcas and whatever, the other little fucker.
<v Speaker 1>It's little sidekick toad No, they call him a toady.
<v Speaker 5>They call him a toady. That's all they refer to him.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, he had a name.
<v Speaker 3>Like if what's his name talks to you, you're like,
<v Speaker 3>you're not getting punched in the face.
<v Speaker 1>It's like a little newsboy from a cartoon. I know.
<v Speaker 5>It's so weird that he's one of the bullies.
<v Speaker 1>How'd you get here from New York?
<v Speaker 5>Lackey? They call him a lackey, call.
<v Speaker 3>Him right, But looking at you know, you can find
<v Speaker 3>out Mom may not have known the bullying was that bad.
<v Speaker 3>Ralphi may not have said anything. Yeah, but if you
<v Speaker 3>can get him to talk about it, then we can
<v Speaker 3>get you know, a more adaptive response programmed in for
<v Speaker 3>next time. Yeah, instead of bursting into a survival rage monster.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, because they're going to see Farcas again. They are,
<v Speaker 1>you know, and so this is gonna be a regular situation.
<v Speaker 1>So you're right. Part of the debrief is so when
<v Speaker 1>you come across Farcas again, if he antagonizes you, you
<v Speaker 1>will what are you gonna do different? And something you
<v Speaker 1>also just brought up was another point I wanted to
<v Speaker 1>make too, which is when you said, like does mom
<v Speaker 1>even know about farcus and the bullying, which is that
<v Speaker 1>when you decide to be a very punitive more like aora,
<v Speaker 1>what's authoritarian? Yeah, there's authoritative and authoritarian. I always get the.
<v Speaker 4>Most authoritarian would be more tyrannical.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, So when you're more of authoritarian parent, what your
<v Speaker 1>kids learn to do is just not tell you shit, yep,
<v Speaker 1>And then you just don't know things that are going on,
<v Speaker 1>because what you've established with your kid is that if
<v Speaker 1>I tell you about something and you disagree with part
<v Speaker 1>of it, or even if maybe I did something wrong,
<v Speaker 1>I'm just gonna get punished and nothing's going to be better.
<v Speaker 4>Correct.
<v Speaker 1>So why the fuck would I tell you shit?
<v Speaker 4>You wouldn't.
<v Speaker 1>So kids just learn how to be more secretive with
<v Speaker 1>their parents, and then the parents are like, what, how
<v Speaker 1>did this house is happening?
<v Speaker 4>Correct?
<v Speaker 3>And that's why it's important to kind of pop that bubble.
<v Speaker 3>And we see a little bit of that, not with Ralphie,
<v Speaker 3>but we do see that in her dynamic with Randy
<v Speaker 3>when he's under the sink when Randy's under there kind
<v Speaker 3>of crying. She does has another really great moment of
<v Speaker 3>parenting where she kind of talks with him and asks
<v Speaker 3>him what's going on, what he's saying, and then he's
<v Speaker 3>having that secondary reaction that Daddy's gonna kill Ralphie.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, which again, I mean that's very telling.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's very telling that he's actually like his little
<v Speaker 2>brain in his little body is really worried about that.
<v Speaker 5>He's upset. He's crying in the he's crying in the.
<v Speaker 4>Cupboard, and it's real to him.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, exactly.
<v Speaker 3>And people, she doesn't dismiss that outright. She's telling me,
<v Speaker 3>Daddy's not going to kill Ralphie. Can I get you
<v Speaker 3>some milk? Do you need anything? And then she just like,
<v Speaker 3>do you want to come out? And he says no,
<v Speaker 3>and she gets him the milk and lets him kind
<v Speaker 3>of close the door and go back in there and
<v Speaker 3>have his space. I thought she did awesome there.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, itys a lot about how she probably does have
<v Speaker 1>a lot of good innate natural empathy and emotional intelligence.
<v Speaker 1>She's just in a time period where that's not really
<v Speaker 1>how you go about doing stuff.
<v Speaker 3>No, they didn't have most of the words that we're using.
<v Speaker 3>Oh yeah, you know, to even developed yet and looking
<v Speaker 3>at how much more or we will.
<v Speaker 4>Talk to kids and encourage that. Now.
<v Speaker 3>I would have loved for their if this were in
<v Speaker 3>modern times, to be a conversation with the brother a
<v Speaker 3>little bit more about what makes you think Daddy would
<v Speaker 3>kill Ralphie or what did you think happen today and
<v Speaker 3>how are you feeling about it, and letting him if
<v Speaker 3>Randy was in a space he was ready to talk
<v Speaker 3>about it yet, but explore that a little bit more.
<v Speaker 4>But for nineteen forty she did awesome.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
<v Speaker 2>I think the other thing that I wanted to bring
<v Speaker 2>up while we're talking about parenting is when you teach
<v Speaker 2>your children to be afraid of you, that is how
<v Speaker 2>they identify other relationships that they should feel afraid and
<v Speaker 2>that that's a normal and natural experience to have. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>So when you raise your voice or talk loudly, or
<v Speaker 2>punish your child in that way, you are teaching them
<v Speaker 2>that being fearful of someone who's supposed to take care
<v Speaker 2>of them is a natural experience.
<v Speaker 1>It's a part of love. Yes, Then kids will grow
<v Speaker 1>up and they'll tolerate a lot of not great stuff
<v Speaker 1>from other relationships, friends, partners, YadA, YadA, which is the
<v Speaker 1>generational part of this we've been talking about.
<v Speaker 3>All right, let's take a break here and we'll pick
<v Speaker 3>back up with parenting A and we're back, and so
<v Speaker 3>let's talk about the relationship between mom and dad. While
<v Speaker 3>not a major component of this movie is it's largely
<v Speaker 3>about kids, the dynamic is definitely present and impacts this family.
<v Speaker 4>What do we see?
<v Speaker 1>I remember I was gonna say yes, so let's just
<v Speaker 1>lead into this, So this is a good segue. Territory
<v Speaker 1>is that we see, obviously because of the time period,
<v Speaker 1>a very traditional gender role dynamic between Mom and dad. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>And a part of that is this like submissive nature
<v Speaker 1>in mom where Dad is in charge, right, and Mom
<v Speaker 1>has this like meekness about her, where there are certain
<v Speaker 1>things she won't touch that Dad says and does right.
<v Speaker 1>And I think that's where it bleeds into the parenting,
<v Speaker 1>is that they can't actually address problems with their mutual
<v Speaker 1>parenting and how it's showing up in Ralphie and maybe
<v Speaker 1>Randy's behavior because we can't acknowledge and she can't challenge Dad.
<v Speaker 1>So when the fuck thing happens when the bar soap
<v Speaker 1>swearing situation happens. I think in a more modern relationship,
<v Speaker 1>she would just maybe they would like do a little
<v Speaker 1>somewhat punishmenty consequency thing with Ralphie, you know. But I
<v Speaker 1>also think or I would hope that the mom would
<v Speaker 1>go to dad and be like, you know, where he's
<v Speaker 1>learning that word? You know, we need to watch our mouths.
<v Speaker 1>You need to watch your mouth. Like there are moments
<v Speaker 1>in which she could challenge what they're doing and what
<v Speaker 1>Dad is modeling for the kids. But in this dynamic
<v Speaker 1>where you can't challenge the patriarch like that she has
<v Speaker 1>her own sort of like fearish thing with him, you
<v Speaker 1>can't go there. And so then these things just go
<v Speaker 1>unsolved and go unfixed because we can't talk about what's
<v Speaker 1>really not working or what's really causing some of these issues,
<v Speaker 1>which is dad.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, in the nineteen forties etiquette and relationship, it
<v Speaker 3>probably wouldn't have been a thing, at least not an
<v Speaker 3>encouraged thing. And I'm sure that had consequences that weren't okay,
<v Speaker 3>And it certainly doesn't represent how relationships are now in
<v Speaker 3>many places, but in some others they still are very
<v Speaker 3>much stuck in that old space, and people think that
<v Speaker 3>one partner deserves more power over another, which leads to
<v Speaker 3>some of the problems you're describing.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, because then how do you address stuff like this?
<v Speaker 1>You can't. Can't, You truly can't, especially in this time
<v Speaker 1>period where the woman is entirely depending didn't on the
<v Speaker 1>man for their livelihood, for their security and safety and
<v Speaker 1>all this stuff. So to upset the dad at worst,
<v Speaker 1>I mean, at best, you're like a stereotypical nag, which
<v Speaker 1>doesn't feel good, and at worst he will take it
<v Speaker 1>out on you in a way that could be genuinely scary.
<v Speaker 1>What it ties into here is that it I think
<v Speaker 1>I see a lot of moments in this movie where
<v Speaker 1>I would interpret them both as pretty lonely. But I
<v Speaker 1>guess before I kind of go into it, because I've
<v Speaker 1>been talking a lot of this episode, how would you
<v Speaker 1>both Maybe I'll throw it to you, Hannah, because you're
<v Speaker 1>the marriage and family therapist. How would you evaluate or
<v Speaker 1>assess their relationship with each other?
<v Speaker 2>Oh, I think that they are. I think that they're
<v Speaker 2>both completely disengaged from the romantic relationship. I think that
<v Speaker 2>she is largely leaning into the mother role which I
<v Speaker 2>think again, because of the power dynamic between her and
<v Speaker 2>her husband, is her only option in a lot of ways,
<v Speaker 2>I think that I also agree that they're both lonely.
<v Speaker 2>I think they're both lonely. I don't think they're getting
<v Speaker 2>any kind of connection. I think even when we see
<v Speaker 2>some of their small even romantic moments, that those are
<v Speaker 2>happening only when the kids are not around. They're not
<v Speaker 2>able to not that they're miserable fucks in front of
<v Speaker 2>the kids all the time, but just like most of
<v Speaker 2>the time that they seem to be close is when
<v Speaker 2>the kids aren't necessarily around, and so you're also so
<v Speaker 2>what that also shows is in terms of the kids,
<v Speaker 2>is that then we also have these kids who are
<v Speaker 2>seeing this relationship with these two people who seem to
<v Speaker 2>be miserable, and that's the and that becomes the status quo.
<v Speaker 4>Yep.
<v Speaker 3>I think they only find some small moments of joy,
<v Speaker 3>But the moments of joy they seem to find with
<v Speaker 3>each other, we don't see happening with each other.
<v Speaker 4>It's about the kids.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Like it's never focused on the relationship. That's what
<v Speaker 2>I was trying to get at. It's never focused on
<v Speaker 2>them being connected to each other, them feeling like they're
<v Speaker 2>on the same team, them feeling like they are creating
<v Speaker 2>a loving, open household for their children, like there is
<v Speaker 2>there's no connection there.
<v Speaker 1>So I would really put.
<v Speaker 2>Them as people who are pretty unhappy in their relationship,
<v Speaker 2>pretty unhappy in their marriage, and are maybe having a
<v Speaker 2>neutral experience as parents, because when you're still in this
<v Speaker 2>dynamic where you're not allowed to go above the gender
<v Speaker 2>role in any kind of way, then you get really
<v Speaker 2>stuck in the kinds of things that you can talk
<v Speaker 2>about kind of what you were saying, kind of what
<v Speaker 2>we were all talking about, that there's no room for
<v Speaker 2>growth or questioning or curiosity in this relationship.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, because I think what I noticed this time around
<v Speaker 1>watching it with my therapist eyes and ears is in
<v Speaker 1>the I think it's the opening scene of them when
<v Speaker 1>it's I think it's I don't know if it's dinner
<v Speaker 1>or breakfast, but Dad's reading the paper at the table,
<v Speaker 1>Mom's doing a bunch of like harried multitasking to get
<v Speaker 1>the meal on the table, and he is trying to
<v Speaker 1>engage with her. They actually kind of introduced them, like
<v Speaker 1>if I just saw that scene and wasn't thinking about
<v Speaker 1>all the labor she's doing. Yeah, I would probably judge
<v Speaker 1>her harder that, Like he's trying to make a few
<v Speaker 1>bids of connection with her, Like he's trying to bring
<v Speaker 1>up what he's reading in the paper, this thing he's doing,
<v Speaker 1>like he's a few times in that opening exchange, he
<v Speaker 1>is trying to get her attention and pull her into
<v Speaker 1>a conversation. Yes, and he's getting disappointed because she's giving
<v Speaker 1>him these non aisuse she's not paying attention, and you
<v Speaker 1>can see it's bumming him out. I think that was
<v Speaker 1>really telling to me in a way I hadn't thought
<v Speaker 1>about before that he is trying to find a connection
<v Speaker 1>with her, and maybe he even thinks in his worldview,
<v Speaker 1>why doesn't my wife pay more attention to me? Why
<v Speaker 1>doesn't she talk to me about the things I care about?
<v Speaker 1>He seems like the kind of guy who had come
<v Speaker 1>in a couple's therapy and be like, I am trying
<v Speaker 1>really hard to connect. I bring up stuff that I'm reading,
<v Speaker 1>like I'm trying to have a conversation with you, and
<v Speaker 1>you're the one that blows me off. And he might
<v Speaker 1>come in feeling like he is the lonely one and
<v Speaker 1>that she's not doing enough and not understanding that she's
<v Speaker 1>doing all this stuff all the time, so she's distracted.
<v Speaker 1>He's trying to engage her in moments when she is
<v Speaker 1>not able to be engaged with, and he's not.
<v Speaker 3>Doing anything to take the workload off the Yes, late
<v Speaker 3>because you know, he goes to work, so his life's
<v Speaker 3>really hard.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, his eight hour shift is so much harder than
<v Speaker 1>her twenty four hour shifts every day.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, he probably isn't working eight hour shifts. He's
<v Speaker 3>probably working ten twelve. But it still doesn't justify not
<v Speaker 3>taking the load off her plate while you're raising children
<v Speaker 3>you helped create.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Like he's got his weekends off and his evenings off.
<v Speaker 1>She doesn't have any time off exactly exactly. And so
<v Speaker 1>you wonder why a partner doesn't want to engage with you,
<v Speaker 1>it's because they're exhausted. They're exhausted from carrying the load
<v Speaker 1>by themselves. It continues to create a narrative in which
<v Speaker 1>I have to do this by myself and you can
<v Speaker 1>just do whatever you want. I guess because that's the
<v Speaker 1>way that this dynamic is working out for us. It
<v Speaker 1>just creates so many barriers to connection and to being
<v Speaker 1>on the same team. That's one of the things I
<v Speaker 1>have to remind couples about the most, that you're on
<v Speaker 1>the same team. This is supposed to be your favorite
<v Speaker 1>person in the world. What the fuck is going on
<v Speaker 1>that we can't even have a conversation about how much
<v Speaker 1>you fucking swear well? And also I think we're projecting
<v Speaker 1>also like a modern view of relationship down to them,
<v Speaker 1>because what I do think is interesting about them, it
<v Speaker 1>makes me curious about the genesis of their relationship. Is
<v Speaker 1>they have a substantial age gap, which isn't the most
<v Speaker 1>bonkers thing, especially true back then, I assume, But he's
<v Speaker 1>like must be like twenty years older than her or
<v Speaker 1>around that fifteen to twenty years older than her, And
<v Speaker 1>their kids are fairly young for the fact that they're
<v Speaker 1>in there clearly in their like early forties and then
<v Speaker 1>like late fifties. Yeah, for them to have like a
<v Speaker 1>nine and a probably six year old, maybe even five
<v Speaker 1>year old is fairly young. So it makes me curious
<v Speaker 1>about all that, like the choices to have made them
<v Speaker 1>that old and that kind of thing, and how that
<v Speaker 1>might have a different color to their dynamic. But like,
<v Speaker 1>did they even get married because they like each other?
<v Speaker 1>Did they get married because they're both older and you know,
<v Speaker 1>maybe it was just time to get married and he
<v Speaker 1>was the guy that asked her and she was older.
<v Speaker 1>You know, like we don't know any of these parts
<v Speaker 1>of it. But I think that is also something to
<v Speaker 1>consider in terms of what they expected out of a
<v Speaker 1>marriage and what they thought it would look like in
<v Speaker 1>terms of feeling lonely or not lonely with each other,
<v Speaker 1>because they're not on the same team, like as we're
<v Speaker 1>talking about, like this time period, a marriage wasn't equitable, no,
<v Speaker 1>and so they aren't on the same team. So I
<v Speaker 1>really don't even know if I would understand like the
<v Speaker 1>head like the headspace of a man or a woman
<v Speaker 1>at that time.
<v Speaker 4>We wouldn't because we didn't live it, you know.
<v Speaker 1>And what's acceptable and what's not.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, And you know, taking the actors that they chose
<v Speaker 3>to portray the characters that face value too, you know,
<v Speaker 3>we don't know if I haven't read the books, no,
<v Speaker 3>so I don't know, you know, how the author would
<v Speaker 3>have presented it. Taking just the actors that they pick
<v Speaker 3>doesn't necessarily mean that in the story the parents weren't
<v Speaker 3>closer in age, but the actors clearly are would you
<v Speaker 3>say they're like twenty years apart the actors?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I looked it up because I was curious because
<v Speaker 1>my second note no offense to this actor, was why
<v Speaker 1>is this dad so old? Because he is especially for
<v Speaker 1>this time when people were having kids, getting married and
<v Speaker 1>having kids, like you'd marry your high school sweetheart. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>and I was very normal, like you were having your
<v Speaker 1>first kids at like twenty twenty one, twenty two.
<v Speaker 4>Oh yeah.
<v Speaker 1>So for them to be older and have had kids
<v Speaker 1>so much older, I don't know it just I mean,
<v Speaker 1>I know we're reading into it the way we like
<v Speaker 1>to do with movies. It just makes me curious about
<v Speaker 1>the dynamic as well. In that I also wonder if
<v Speaker 1>they even have this, like I said, expectation that once
<v Speaker 1>I'm married, I will have a friend in my part
<v Speaker 1>partner that I won't be lonely. That doesn't mean that
<v Speaker 1>these people won't experience profound loneliness and maybe not even
<v Speaker 1>understand how to fix it or if that's possible to
<v Speaker 1>fix it. There might have been a lot of accepted
<v Speaker 1>loneliness their adulthood.
<v Speaker 3>I think with this time period to what we don't
<v Speaker 3>see because it's from the standpoint of a nine year
<v Speaker 3>old is whatever social interactions they may.
<v Speaker 1>Have had, Yeah, we don't see any friends because we're
<v Speaker 1>not following them.
<v Speaker 3>Or you know, moms would have been involved with groups
<v Speaker 3>of other moms in the community and they would have
<v Speaker 3>been doing things, and we don't see any of that
<v Speaker 3>because it's not as pertinent to the story. But it's
<v Speaker 3>fair to look at these two and see from their
<v Speaker 3>behavior with each other that there's not a lot going
<v Speaker 3>on there.
<v Speaker 1>No, they don't have chemistry, I'll tell you that much.
<v Speaker 3>Only in a few moments do they have like interaction.
<v Speaker 3>But there seems to be some pretty hardcore like resentment
<v Speaker 3>when mom likes saunters over while vacuuming and accidentally breaks
<v Speaker 3>that lamp. Yeah, and she's sitting there laughing her ass off,
<v Speaker 3>watching him try to glue this thing together and trying
<v Speaker 3>not to get caught laughing her ass off and look
<v Speaker 3>very sad and shameful and like sorry, But you can
<v Speaker 3>see her loving every second of the collapse of that
<v Speaker 3>lamp and her just like.
<v Speaker 4>Walking in there.
<v Speaker 3>The look on that actress's face was fucking brilliant. Everyone
<v Speaker 3>knew it was gonna happen, that that lamp.
<v Speaker 4>Ain't gonna survive.
<v Speaker 3>And yes, Dad is inappropriately attaching to it. And is
<v Speaker 3>he doing that because he's lonely and there's no spark
<v Speaker 3>between them, and that's igniting some feelings in him that
<v Speaker 3>maybe have been a little dormant.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Probably, Yeah, his preoccupation with the lamp feels just indicative
<v Speaker 1>of how many needs he's not getting met, and not
<v Speaker 1>because Mom's fault, I think just the dynamic that they're in. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>because she's also not getting those needs met. Because this
<v Speaker 1>goes back to what we were saying earlier. She doesn't feel
<v Speaker 1>like she can go to her husband and be like,
<v Speaker 1>get that goddamn, fucking this weird like perverted lamp out
<v Speaker 1>of our front goddamn window. Were all our neighbors can see,
<v Speaker 1>we're looking like we have the pervert house. Now we
<v Speaker 1>have like you're making our house look like a whorehouse.
<v Speaker 4>Like that's what I feel like.
<v Speaker 3>People are gonna come here and proposition me for money.
<v Speaker 3>Get that ship out of my window.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, because that's like an outrageously sexually especially for them,
<v Speaker 1>and the fact that she doesn't feel like she has
<v Speaker 1>any say in her house.
<v Speaker 4>Is a major award.
<v Speaker 1>Brittany Oh my god, what did he win it for?
<v Speaker 1>They don't tell us, do they not tell it? Like
<v Speaker 1>a sweepstakes probably, or something stupid like crossword puzzle or
<v Speaker 1>the crossword puzzle. I thought it was from the Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>he does do the crossword puzzle?
<v Speaker 4>Is that what it's from?
<v Speaker 5>Yeah?
<v Speaker 1>They make my brain does want to say that's true
<v Speaker 1>because he was talking about the cross from the beginning,
<v Speaker 1>but who knows. Yeah, but it is kind of interesting,
<v Speaker 1>like even because the house is her domain and she
<v Speaker 1>can't even feel like she's allowed to say, get that
<v Speaker 1>lamp out of the window, that she has to go
<v Speaker 1>about this sneaky accidentally breaking the lamp thing to get
<v Speaker 1>that need met because she cannot suck to her husband
<v Speaker 1>and then he's surprised he's lonely. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Uh, he solved a series of newspaper puzzles by a
<v Speaker 3>pop company.
<v Speaker 4>They don't cover this in the movie, but they must
<v Speaker 4>do it in the book.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, which makes sense because knee high grape was a
<v Speaker 3>popular brand back then. So when he gets a knee
<v Speaker 3>high leg lamp, oh, wearing knee highs Oh?
<v Speaker 1>Is it like remember those types of a COmON shut
<v Speaker 1>like eggs? Yes, that's what it is making to think
<v Speaker 1>of Yes, legs and eggs.
<v Speaker 5>Legs and eggs.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and I'll even but even then, now I'm getting
<v Speaker 1>more mad for the mom. Even then, this motherfucker has
<v Speaker 1>enough time to play so many games that he can
<v Speaker 1>win a prize for them.
<v Speaker 3>Yep.
<v Speaker 1>And I could see her being resentful of the lamp
<v Speaker 1>just because of what it means. Because of that, I'd
<v Speaker 1>be like, fuck you in your lamp that you have
<v Speaker 1>time to do these little games where I'm running around
<v Speaker 1>this house to carry your kids, you know, not being
<v Speaker 1>stimulated anyway, probably, Yeah, and then you get to play
<v Speaker 1>your puzzles and then whatever.
<v Speaker 3>And we wonder why Ralphie is thinking it's okay to
<v Speaker 3>occupy the bathroom even though Randy clearly is about to
<v Speaker 3>pee his pants so he can solve a puzzle that
<v Speaker 3>was on the radio.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's just like his dad, look at that. Yeah, priorities.
<v Speaker 3>So does there anything else we didn't cover with their
<v Speaker 3>relationship and our wild speculation ride here based on the
<v Speaker 3>actors ages presentations.
<v Speaker 1>I have some stuff more that I could say, but
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna save it for treatment about their dynamic. And
<v Speaker 1>I guess what I want to say to all those
<v Speaker 1>people that are like waxing poetic about the good old
<v Speaker 1>days with like trad wives and shit and when men
<v Speaker 1>were men. And I don't think a lot of them
<v Speaker 1>are probably listening to our podcast, probably, but in case
<v Speaker 1>they are, if they're in the car with someone time,
<v Speaker 1>these people weren't happy. This is what this is more
<v Speaker 1>accurate of what it probably was like for a lot
<v Speaker 1>of people, which is that you were very lucky if
<v Speaker 1>you ended up in a relationship with someone that you
<v Speaker 1>genuinely liked mm hmm and got your needs met from.
<v Speaker 1>And it was more just these two people orbiting each other,
<v Speaker 1>probably both resentful, both feeling lonely, both not sure how
<v Speaker 1>to stop the cycle of being resentful and lonely, not
<v Speaker 1>feeling like they can talk to each other like. That's
<v Speaker 1>what it means when you have this dynamic.
<v Speaker 3>So before we start treatment here, I'd just like to
<v Speaker 3>remind everybody that take a second and look back at
<v Speaker 3>the cast of Cheers. Oh, I know what you're gonna say,
<v Speaker 3>and look at the ages of those actors in the eighties.
<v Speaker 1>We're all older than all the characters and Cheers.
<v Speaker 4>Currently currently right now.
<v Speaker 1>Norm and was the other guy's name, The mailman Cliff Cliff.
<v Speaker 1>They were like thirty four when that show started.
<v Speaker 5>Wow, they look like they're in their fifties.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so let's talk about that too, when we can
<v Speaker 1>talk about the good old days age? Do you like
<v Speaker 1>a motherfucker?
<v Speaker 4>Right?
<v Speaker 3>So, just as a caveat that, we do know we're
<v Speaker 3>speculating wildly. So when you leave us comments, we know
<v Speaker 3>we kids, we know we're speculating. We know the actors
<v Speaker 3>may have been chosen because they better represented the way
<v Speaker 3>people may have looked back then, and the dad being
<v Speaker 3>sixty may have been the way it was artistically displayed
<v Speaker 3>to the child. We know, for God's sake, we.
<v Speaker 5>Know we do.
<v Speaker 1>This is the fun of the pod.
<v Speaker 3>We're just speculation to me because that's our emotional reaction
<v Speaker 3>to it as what we saw.
<v Speaker 4>Yes, so treatment who wants to go first?
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I guess I can go since I'm gonna
<v Speaker 1>roof off of what we're just talking about anyway. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>so what comes up for me? And thinking about the
<v Speaker 1>loneliness of both feeling like I said, reminds me of
<v Speaker 1>one I work with couples sometimes and one partner will
<v Speaker 1>complain of loneliness understandably, So like I'm not invalidating that.
<v Speaker 1>And we'll say like, I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm doing this,
<v Speaker 1>I'm doing that, and the other and then the other
<v Speaker 1>partner and I'm gonna be real when I do this.
<v Speaker 1>And it's heterosexual relationships, usually the guy is the one
<v Speaker 1>who's like, I am trying, I'm doing this, I'm doing that,
<v Speaker 1>and the wife is the female partners usually yeah, and
<v Speaker 1>I'm doing all this shit. You know, I'm busy. I'm
<v Speaker 1>not trying to ignore you or not be available to you.
<v Speaker 1>I'm I got a million things happening in my head.
<v Speaker 1>So your attempts to reach out to me are not
<v Speaker 1>working because either you're trying at wrong time or I am,
<v Speaker 1>like you said earlier, Hannah, I'm exhausted. I'm mentally exhausted,
<v Speaker 1>physically exhausted, both whatever. So when you are gonna approach
<v Speaker 1>this kind of dynamic with a couple, you have to
<v Speaker 1>focus on division of labor and equity of labor, which
<v Speaker 1>is a conversation they could not have had. So when
<v Speaker 1>I'm talking about treatment, I wouldn't do this with this
<v Speaker 1>actual mom and dad. But if they were, like if
<v Speaker 1>someone liked them were to come into my office nowadays,
<v Speaker 1>and they were like, I'm feeling lonely. I'm also feeling lonely.
<v Speaker 1>Usually what they say is I want to work on
<v Speaker 1>our intimacy intimacy, but they usually have different examples of
<v Speaker 1>what intimacy means. But I could see this dad saying
<v Speaker 1>in this movie, like I'm trying to have conversations with
<v Speaker 1>you in the morning. You don't care. You don't care
<v Speaker 1>about what I like, You don't care. I'm trying. I'm trying.
<v Speaker 1>I'm trying. And what he's missing is that she's doing
<v Speaker 1>all this other stuff all the time while he's trying
<v Speaker 1>to engage with her. Like Ralphie does have that very
<v Speaker 1>insightful quote from probably more of his adult perception, which
<v Speaker 1>is my mom hadn't had a hot meal in fifteen years,
<v Speaker 1>that she is constantly thinking about what everyone else needs
<v Speaker 1>working on that doing that, she's like got a she's project,
<v Speaker 1>managing their household and so, and if you want to
<v Speaker 1>have your partner be more available to you mentally, you
<v Speaker 1>have to create a system in the household in which
<v Speaker 1>they can be So what that looks like is you
<v Speaker 1>have to actually sit down and realize, like who is
<v Speaker 1>doing what and how much of especially and nowadays when
<v Speaker 1>most couples both are usually working. But even then, you know,
<v Speaker 1>if we're going to think about her work as work,
<v Speaker 1>which was all, would be another whole discussion with this couple. Like,
<v Speaker 1>first we'd have to get the dad to acknowledge what
<v Speaker 1>the mom is doing is also work. Yes, she is
<v Speaker 1>managing your household, it's work, and that her shifts never stipd.
<v Speaker 1>She's working around the clock seven days a week. And
<v Speaker 1>so I'd first have to get him bored on board
<v Speaker 1>for that. And then a book that I was actually
<v Speaker 1>recommended to me by a couple I worked with, so
<v Speaker 1>shout out to them. And then I read because I
<v Speaker 1>like to read things that my clients are reading so
<v Speaker 1>that I can know what they're talking about and if
<v Speaker 1>I need to fact check it to be honest, because
<v Speaker 1>some of the self help stuff is bonkers why written?
<v Speaker 5>So I have no background in mental health, so I
<v Speaker 5>have to read a.
<v Speaker 3>Teen year old and I am a relationship coach and
<v Speaker 3>I printed a book, so obviously it is full of facts.
<v Speaker 1>Well, usually it's more like I'm a person with a
<v Speaker 1>ton of privilege, and I don't recognize that privilege at all,
<v Speaker 1>But I think you could live a life like me
<v Speaker 1>if you do these twelve things I do every day.
<v Speaker 4>Yep.
<v Speaker 1>And it's like, well, okay, you're starting at the third
<v Speaker 1>base and not understanding that. But AnyWho, So the book
<v Speaker 1>place that dead is not getting anytime soon. Yeah, exactly.
<v Speaker 1>So that book is called fair play. Whenever I and
<v Speaker 1>I did read it, and when I recommend it to couples,
<v Speaker 1>I do give them a huge caveat that. It is
<v Speaker 1>a very headonormative book. That's why if you look at
<v Speaker 1>reviews for it, the reviews are kind of all over
<v Speaker 1>the place, like a lot of one stars as much
<v Speaker 1>there are five stars, because it's extraordinarily hedonormative. And it's
<v Speaker 1>also written in a way that I don't know how
<v Speaker 1>it couldn't be really off putting to men. It's written
<v Speaker 1>as if every couple is like kind of like this
<v Speaker 1>one actually, or every couple is sort of like a
<v Speaker 1>sitcom couple where your husband is just a giant meatball
<v Speaker 1>that you have to figure out how to trick and
<v Speaker 1>to help them out around the house. What a dummy
<v Speaker 1>like that is like? To me? When I read it,
<v Speaker 1>I was like, I can't imagine asking a male partner
<v Speaker 1>to read this, I feel like I would be like
<v Speaker 1>it'd be insulting them. And it's a lot of like
<v Speaker 1>corny stuff like are you the she felt parent?
<v Speaker 4>Are you a she ro?
<v Speaker 1>Like a lot of cornball stuff like that. My hope
<v Speaker 1>is that if she hasn't already, then maybe there's gonna
<v Speaker 1>be like an updated version that addresses some of this
<v Speaker 1>the critiques of it. But what I do like about it,
<v Speaker 1>and I think, Hannah, you've had couples use this book
<v Speaker 1>too fair, Yes I have. Yeah, her name's Eve something
<v Speaker 1>I cannot think of her last name. Apologies. And it
<v Speaker 1>really does a good job though of explaining what mental
<v Speaker 1>load is and that like specifically, if if no one
<v Speaker 1>takes anything from this, it's this idea of like CPE,
<v Speaker 1>which is conception, planning and execution, and that whenever there's
<v Speaker 1>any sort of task in the house, that usually includes
<v Speaker 1>CP and E, and that a lot of times when,
<v Speaker 1>in her examples, your husband will volunteer to take something
<v Speaker 1>off your shoulders, they actually are usually only volunteering for
<v Speaker 1>the E part. Like the example she gives in the
<v Speaker 1>book is if your husband's like, Okay, I get it,
<v Speaker 1>you're really burnt out. You know what I'll take Cindy
<v Speaker 1>to soccer practice from here on out. But they're only
<v Speaker 1>he's only acknowledging an understanding the E part of it.
<v Speaker 1>He's an understanding the C and the P, which is, uh,
<v Speaker 1>are is her uniform clean? Does she have snacks? Are
<v Speaker 1>we on the schedule to bring snacks for practice that day?
<v Speaker 1>You know? Do we have to make sure like are
<v Speaker 1>they going right from is she going right from school
<v Speaker 1>to practice? So we need to make sure that her
<v Speaker 1>uniform and her snack and every of that stuff is
<v Speaker 1>either like we're gonna bring it with us when we
<v Speaker 1>pick her up from school, or that we're gonna give
<v Speaker 1>it to her, like all the mental stuff that you
<v Speaker 1>have to think about to make sure the engine's running
<v Speaker 1>smoothly in the household, and how even though in her examples,
<v Speaker 1>the male partner might take on that task and then
<v Speaker 1>feel like I'm doing my job, Like fuck you. If
<v Speaker 1>you're saying I'm not helping out I'm taking Cindy to
<v Speaker 1>soccer practice, it's because there might not be an awareness
<v Speaker 1>of the C and the P that's going on that
<v Speaker 1>the wife is still taken care of, So you're only
<v Speaker 1>really actually taking over the easiest part in some ways
<v Speaker 1>of the task, but thinking that you've taken over the task.
<v Speaker 1>So when I explain this to a couple, it does
<v Speaker 1>really help them understand, like, oh, I'm actually not taking
<v Speaker 1>that task off my partner's plate. I'm taking like a
<v Speaker 1>third of it, maybe even like twenty percent of it,
<v Speaker 1>and that's not the part that's making them tired, yep,
<v Speaker 1>And so I like that part of it. They also
<v Speaker 1>talk about bare minimum, so like what's the bare minimum
<v Speaker 1>to like do a task where it's acceptably done, so
<v Speaker 1>don't get caught up, and like, if it's not done
<v Speaker 1>the way I like to do it, then I'll just
<v Speaker 1>do it myself. Like if you're gonna let your partner
<v Speaker 1>take something over, it's okay if they do it their
<v Speaker 1>way as long as it's done adequately.
<v Speaker 4>So struggle so hard with that, yes, yes.
<v Speaker 1>And so basically along on the short of it is
<v Speaker 1>within these kind of dynamics, you can't really address the
<v Speaker 1>connection and the loneliness part until this part has been addressed,
<v Speaker 1>because I can't ask the burdened parent to extend more
<v Speaker 1>of themselves when they don't literally have more of it available.
<v Speaker 1>And that also helps to take on some of the
<v Speaker 1>resentment piece, like because also so I don't want to
<v Speaker 1>be closer. I don't want to make out with someone
<v Speaker 1>that I'm resenting, like because they're not out. And so
<v Speaker 1>if you want your partner to be more into you,
<v Speaker 1>even form like purely selfish reasons or like purely superficial reasons,
<v Speaker 1>they have to feel available and they have to want
<v Speaker 1>to be available to you. So all this stuff kind
<v Speaker 1>of goes into the pot of like, how do we
<v Speaker 1>build up that closeness is you have to get these
<v Speaker 1>barriers out of the way. So if I were to
<v Speaker 1>work with someone like them, and I have worked with
<v Speaker 1>people sort of like them, you have to address the
<v Speaker 1>equity of labor first and the acknowledgment with that, and
<v Speaker 1>then you can build up more of the relational stuff.
<v Speaker 1>So that's what I would do with treatment.
<v Speaker 3>All right, Hannah, you want to go next to you
<v Speaker 3>on me too?
<v Speaker 5>Sure I'll go next.
<v Speaker 2>So when I was thinking about doing treatment, I was
<v Speaker 2>thinking about the mom and thinking about how being in
<v Speaker 2>a different place in terms of emotional intelligence, in terms
<v Speaker 2>of maybe like having self awareness, and also somebody who's
<v Speaker 2>unhappy in their marriage, And so when I was thinking
<v Speaker 2>about that, it brought up a couple of different clients
<v Speaker 2>that I've worked with where a part of helping them
<v Speaker 2>trust themselves more in a dynamic that doesn't work is
<v Speaker 2>helping really helping them see their strengths and helping them
<v Speaker 2>focus more on themselves in terms of getting their own
<v Speaker 2>needs met instead of relying solely on a partner. Now
<v Speaker 2>that might sound like a lot, but the idea is
<v Speaker 2>for me, when I work with somebody, especially especially I
<v Speaker 2>would say in this instance, where the chances of her
<v Speaker 2>partner wanting or wanting to do therapy. And again, this
<v Speaker 2>doesn't even apply to this couple because that was not
<v Speaker 2>even a possibility at that time, but let's say that
<v Speaker 2>they were here during this time. Having a partner who
<v Speaker 2>has no interest in changing and no interest in growing,
<v Speaker 2>no interest in understanding you in a better way can
<v Speaker 2>make it really hard to find happiness and joy in
<v Speaker 2>a relationship can make it really tricky. And sometimes when
<v Speaker 2>we're in that position, I see the client who is
<v Speaker 2>having the hardest time. I see the person who's having
<v Speaker 2>the hardest time in the relationship, and a part of
<v Speaker 2>what I try to do to help support them is
<v Speaker 2>helping them so like I would want to help the mom,
<v Speaker 2>find things that she likes to do, find other women
<v Speaker 2>to spend time with, find other ways to get her
<v Speaker 2>needs met for herself so that she can continue to
<v Speaker 2>build up her confidence in herself, that she can make
<v Speaker 2>decisions so that she can then press against her husband
<v Speaker 2>in a way that is appropriate to see if he
<v Speaker 2>is willing to open her change or grow or whatever.
<v Speaker 2>And sometimes when I work with people, when I work
<v Speaker 2>with these other halves of the relationship, helping them strengthen
<v Speaker 2>their own individuality and their own comfort with themselves can
<v Speaker 2>really help them have a better understanding of their relationship
<v Speaker 2>and have a better understanding of what they're not getting.
<v Speaker 2>And also I help them ask how to ask for it.
<v Speaker 2>I offer them how to communicate different things with a
<v Speaker 2>partner who's really rigid or has a really hard time.
<v Speaker 2>And that's what I would want to do with this mom.
<v Speaker 2>I would really want to help her have more awareness
<v Speaker 2>of what she's contributing to the household, also of her
<v Speaker 2>finding other ways to get her needs met, that she
<v Speaker 2>can't get mad with her husband who is not interested
<v Speaker 2>in making any changes or being flexible in any way.
<v Speaker 2>It doesn't even wonder if she Because you were saying
<v Speaker 2>like she does seem like she needs help with the
<v Speaker 2>confidence of communicating.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, maybe even how to communicate. I wonder if she
<v Speaker 1>is just repeating what was modeled for her, but by
<v Speaker 1>like her mom for example, like all the women in
<v Speaker 1>her life, where you don't talk to the husband about that.
<v Speaker 1>So it does make me wonder if she was able
<v Speaker 1>to communicate more assertively with him. I don't know, maybe
<v Speaker 1>he would welcome it. It makes me wonder if they've
<v Speaker 1>ever even tried. Yeah, my guess would be no, And
<v Speaker 1>so has she given him the opportunity to maybe be
<v Speaker 1>more interested.
<v Speaker 2>Right, But in order for her to be comfortable enough
<v Speaker 2>to bring that up, she has to feel more confident
<v Speaker 2>in herself.
<v Speaker 1>Which I would imagine back then, they probably didn't encourage women.
<v Speaker 2>Oh definitely, that was definitely not this This scenario of
<v Speaker 2>tribute that I'm giving only works in this setting that
<v Speaker 2>we're currently in.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it does not work.
<v Speaker 5>Back then.
<v Speaker 3>Not till after late World War Two, where women started
<v Speaker 3>working in the factories did this really start to change.
<v Speaker 3>So we're sitting a couple years before.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, women were like, holy shit, I can do more.
<v Speaker 3>Stuff, right, the suffrage movement had happened, but there was
<v Speaker 3>some backlash to that, and you don't see another women's
<v Speaker 3>rights burst until after the Rosie the Riveter face.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, well think about you weren't here for this one,
<v Speaker 1>but like Fried Green Tomatoes. Yeah, even then in the nineties,
<v Speaker 1>a big part of Kathy Bates's character is her realizing, oh,
<v Speaker 1>I can be an individual mm hmm, and I don't
<v Speaker 1>have to just like be like a stagnant, boored, lonely
<v Speaker 1>wife and mother.
<v Speaker 5>Yep, exactly.
<v Speaker 4>And that was very similar the one. I know, I
<v Speaker 4>watched it.
<v Speaker 1>You weren't here for that one. It was it was
<v Speaker 1>the ladies only.
<v Speaker 4>Did I get sick with that one?
<v Speaker 1>Probably?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I watched that.
<v Speaker 1>It was our Rachel stand in.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I know we had Rachel with it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you weren't there, brother.
<v Speaker 2>But I would say the couple in Fried Green Tomatoes
<v Speaker 2>this very simil Yeah to the couple that we to
<v Speaker 2>these parents in this film, very similar where ed in
<v Speaker 2>that marriage is not interested and is not willing to
<v Speaker 2>do anything different, and she just has to fulfill her
<v Speaker 2>own life in her own ways in order to be
<v Speaker 2>in a comfortable enough place to push against the dynamic
<v Speaker 2>that she's experiencing. To Wanda Bitches, to Wanda exactly. So again,
<v Speaker 2>so like that's something that I would do. That's something
<v Speaker 2>that I would want to do with this mom again
<v Speaker 2>to help her feel more confident in herself, to help
<v Speaker 2>her be in a space where she can push back
<v Speaker 2>against her partner a little bit and say, hey, I
<v Speaker 2>am also doing all of these other things. Yeah, and
<v Speaker 2>I need more than you asking me how my day
<v Speaker 2>is while you're sitting on your ass reading the paper.
<v Speaker 1>And she's not fine because she does a lot of
<v Speaker 1>mumbling under her breath, like specifically when they're doing the
<v Speaker 1>tree she's like, I'm not colorblind either, So she has
<v Speaker 1>stuff that she wants to say absolutely.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, because he was wrong. He was trying to say
<v Speaker 3>that a green or blue light was green.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, he was just wrong.
<v Speaker 4>Yep, he was just wrong.
<v Speaker 1>All right.
<v Speaker 3>Then, So I think I think I would pick the
<v Speaker 3>Dad as a client of all these because I think
<v Speaker 3>Dad probably is going to need a space if he's
<v Speaker 3>going to make any of these changes that we're talking
<v Speaker 3>about that probably need to be made. Dad probably needs
<v Speaker 3>some space to talk about what's upsetting to him and
<v Speaker 3>if he's not getting his needs met and not feeling it.
<v Speaker 3>Even if he's the cause of it. If he's not
<v Speaker 3>having a place where he can talk about what it
<v Speaker 3>feels like to him and have his perspective validated and
<v Speaker 3>have a space to talk it out, he's not going
<v Speaker 3>to move. And people miss that all the time. It
<v Speaker 3>doesn't matter how right or wrong someone is, or how
<v Speaker 3>correct or incorrect there.
<v Speaker 2>It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter one fucking bets, not
<v Speaker 2>at all.
<v Speaker 3>And the same thing is true in therapy. When you're
<v Speaker 3>working the client, they need to have space to have
<v Speaker 3>the feeling they're having. So I think working with Dad
<v Speaker 3>on really sitting with a supportive method of just letting
<v Speaker 3>him kind of have a space to talk and to
<v Speaker 3>complain about what he's feeling and what he's not getting
<v Speaker 3>met and how the idea of having a lamp with
<v Speaker 3>knee highs on a leg when the last time he
<v Speaker 3>saw anything like that out of his wife was ten
<v Speaker 3>years ago, is probably some feelings he's gonna have Later
<v Speaker 3>there will be some discussions on why do we think
<v Speaker 3>that's not happening that need to happen, But you won't
<v Speaker 3>get there without validating where people are at. And it's
<v Speaker 3>a thing that I think I have to work on
<v Speaker 3>with new therapists all the time when I'm supervising them,
<v Speaker 3>and they get mad at me about sometimes and you
<v Speaker 3>guys have set in on those meetings where I'll do it,
<v Speaker 3>but some of those that they're like, all behavior has
<v Speaker 3>a purpose.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, everyone's trying to get a need met always.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, every behavior, So why is this behavior happening? And
<v Speaker 3>my newer clinicians get mad at me with that. Sometimes
<v Speaker 3>they're like, no, he just needs to do this, and
<v Speaker 3>he needs to get better, and he needs to do
<v Speaker 3>the things that you two are talking about and recognize
<v Speaker 3>that his wife and da da, I'm you're yes, doesn't correct.
<v Speaker 3>But if we don't get past the feelings and the
<v Speaker 3>behaviors we're seeing present and validate and d prime those,
<v Speaker 3>we're going to get nowhere.
<v Speaker 1>Especially with someone like him, where you can almost think
<v Speaker 1>of it like we've got to open up the closet door,
<v Speaker 1>the junk closet. We gotta let everything come out and
<v Speaker 1>then we can start sorting through it. But you have
<v Speaker 1>to do that part first, like the letting out and
<v Speaker 1>the inventory.
<v Speaker 3>You're gonna have to do that, and if we're gonna
<v Speaker 3>see change in his family unit, that is what I
<v Speaker 3>think would need to happen is for dad to have
<v Speaker 3>a space where.
<v Speaker 4>He can be.
<v Speaker 3>Feeling all the things that he's feeling. Somebody's gonna need
<v Speaker 3>to tell him that, hey, it is pretty fucking hard
<v Speaker 3>to work. You're probably doing his twelve hour shifts at
<v Speaker 3>a factory that sucks, and to be busting your ass
<v Speaker 3>and then coming home, Yeah, I get it, that's hard.
<v Speaker 3>He's gonna need to have his reality validated because no
<v Speaker 3>matter what opinions we offer, or what he's not seen
<v Speaker 3>going on with his wife or his kids or any
<v Speaker 3>of that is, if we can't acknowledge that his world
<v Speaker 3>is hard too, we're missing the fucking point.
<v Speaker 4>And it is hard.
<v Speaker 3>Does that excuse his behavior for not picking up shit
<v Speaker 3>or not taking care of stuff in the house and
<v Speaker 3>not recognizing him working twelve hours doesn't mean that his
<v Speaker 3>wife working eighteen hours a day with these kids is
<v Speaker 3>somehow equivalent, because it's not. And in his mind, he's
<v Speaker 3>probably like, I work so hard, I deserve a break,
<v Speaker 3>which is.
<v Speaker 1>Probably at home all day, sitting on the couch watch
<v Speaker 1>and listening to her stories, and say, watching her stories,
<v Speaker 1>but it was listening.
<v Speaker 4>To her story.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, right, these kids are at school while she's for
<v Speaker 3>part of her day she could be doing other.
<v Speaker 4>Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, you know we've seen that shit before, all of us.
<v Speaker 3>Even with all that, you still have to meet people
<v Speaker 3>where they are wherever that is to be a good therapist,
<v Speaker 3>and you don't get to have an opinion on that.
<v Speaker 3>You got to work with the clay you have and
<v Speaker 3>mold it into where you and the client want it
<v Speaker 3>to go. But more importantly than where you wanted to go,
<v Speaker 3>where the client wants to go.
<v Speaker 1>Well, yeah, because you also have to have enough of
<v Speaker 1>like a rapport buy in for when you do have
<v Speaker 1>to start the challenging phase, which is he is a
<v Speaker 1>lot he's going to have to unlearn to figure out
<v Speaker 1>like why he's also not getting what he needs, like
<v Speaker 1>like the wiliness thing, right, And also he probably would
<v Speaker 1>need a male therapist with someone who has these like
<v Speaker 1>strong more traditional views.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I could see if he saw like a female therapist
<v Speaker 1>just feeling like we don't get it. Oh yeah, and
<v Speaker 1>he probably more receptive to a man telling him these
<v Speaker 1>things or challenging.
<v Speaker 3>Him probably and probably would see it as more as
<v Speaker 3>someone that's likely to understand. I mean I get that
<v Speaker 3>all the time when I male clients. There aren't as
<v Speaker 3>many male therapists as there are a female, like by
<v Speaker 3>a wide margin. I think my grad school classes were
<v Speaker 3>ninety three percent female. There's not as many male therapists
<v Speaker 3>out there to offer services. And sometimes men don't want
<v Speaker 3>to talk to another man and would prefer to talk
<v Speaker 3>to a woman, and other times it's the opposite. And
<v Speaker 3>to have that resource available where somebody can talk to
<v Speaker 3>somebody whoever it is, for whatever reason they feel connected
<v Speaker 3>is a huge component of rapport building, because yes, that
<v Speaker 3>challenging phase requires challenging and busting someone out of their
<v Speaker 3>shit and going, hey, you're kind of on bullshit here,
<v Speaker 3>and we need to get you off bullshit, but saying
<v Speaker 3>it in a therapeutically appropriate way, which maybe you have
<v Speaker 3>the report to tell someone bro, you're on bullshit, and
<v Speaker 3>maybe it has to be I hear what you're saying,
<v Speaker 3>and that feeling is very real, but also it sounds
<v Speaker 3>like your wife might be having a feeling too, and
<v Speaker 3>perhaps both of your feelings are valid in this case
<v Speaker 3>instead of one or the other, or.
<v Speaker 1>Even just why do you do you have any theories
<v Speaker 1>about why people in your house don't tell you what's
<v Speaker 1>going on, why things are kept from you.
<v Speaker 4>Right, But I think you know.
<v Speaker 3>For me, that's what I would focus on as a
<v Speaker 3>supportive approach, and then build that into a CBT or
<v Speaker 3>act based approach, So working on connecting thoughts and behaviors
<v Speaker 3>or really generating an acceptance for the way things are
<v Speaker 3>and what can't be changed, but some commitment to making
<v Speaker 3>serious and significant changes to what can be to get
<v Speaker 3>unstuck and have more of those moments like he had
<v Speaker 3>where he loosened up, where he laughed and smiled and
<v Speaker 3>even almost cried giving Ralphie that red Ryder be begun,
<v Speaker 3>because nobody knew about that but him. He'd been listening,
<v Speaker 3>he heard, he knew what Ralphie wanted. He is a
<v Speaker 3>good dad under there somewhere, but it's going to take
<v Speaker 3>more than just a present to make that an actual reality,
<v Speaker 3>and I think that would be my focus with him.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and also too, I think why it would be
<v Speaker 1>good for someone like him to have a male therapist
<v Speaker 1>is having another man model emotional vulnerability and emotional expression.
<v Speaker 1>Because where I can also throw a guy like him
<v Speaker 1>a bone, especially of this time, is that he probably
<v Speaker 1>feels lonely, but doesn't know how to even acknowledge that
<v Speaker 1>and how to go about it other than like sex
<v Speaker 1>and stuff like that. You know, with the partner.
<v Speaker 3>Man, his therapy is fixing that furnace and swearing at it.
<v Speaker 3>What do you talk about, sexy, It's fixing the furnace
<v Speaker 3>and swearing at it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and that's where all his feelings are going. So
<v Speaker 1>it also is good for where I just got off
<v Speaker 1>of writing a chapter about toxic masculinity and feelings and stuff.
<v Speaker 1>So this is why I was fresh in my brain.
<v Speaker 1>But just how like being raised in that additional environment?
<v Speaker 1>What it really one of the many things that robs
<v Speaker 1>for men is knowing even what their feelings are and
<v Speaker 1>how to talk about them. And if you can't talk
<v Speaker 1>about something, you can't ask for something, you can't if
<v Speaker 1>you can't name a problem, you ain't gonna solve the problem.
<v Speaker 3>Nope, you'll just be in a space where you expect
<v Speaker 3>people to sing a song about your feats, where they
<v Speaker 3>talk about all the things that no one does quite
<v Speaker 3>like you.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, I guess, which is also in that chapter
<v Speaker 1>I'm writing AnyWho anything else?
<v Speaker 3>Nope, it seems like a good spot to take our
<v Speaker 3>last break and move into the final thoughts for season seven.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, I should probably go first, because I'm a hater.
<v Speaker 1>I freaking hate this movie, y'all. I fregna hate this
<v Speaker 1>movie is goods and I've watched it about a bajillion
<v Speaker 1>times because part of growing up in the Midwest is
<v Speaker 1>being subjected to this movie twenty four hour movie style,
<v Speaker 1>like Bena was referencing up the top of this episode
<v Speaker 1>where you can't escape this movie. This movie is inescapable,
<v Speaker 1>So I know this movie probably backwards and forwards against
<v Speaker 1>my will. Why don't I like this movie? I find
<v Speaker 1>the look of it off putting, the very like seventies is,
<v Speaker 1>even though it's in the early eighties, like kind of
<v Speaker 1>like how Carrie looks, like how seventies movies kind of
<v Speaker 1>have this like film meaness to them. I don't like that.
<v Speaker 1>The sound of this movie. I feel like every one
<v Speaker 1>of my notes was this movie is grating my nerves
<v Speaker 1>all the I wanted to put my fingers in my
<v Speaker 1>ears multiple times in this movie. Every noise that that
<v Speaker 1>little brother Randy makes makes me feel crazy. So much
<v Speaker 1>of this movie makes me. I hate that. I hate
<v Speaker 1>that I can't watch the scene with with him eating
<v Speaker 1>the fucking food like I can't. I think when he cries,
<v Speaker 1>I'm annoyed every noise he makes. It makes me feel
<v Speaker 1>like a kid hater though I'm not obviously because of
<v Speaker 1>my job. He is such a pain in me, which
<v Speaker 1>I know he's a child, and he's such a pain
<v Speaker 1>in the ass. And all so many parts of this movie,
<v Speaker 1>like even when they go to like when they go
<v Speaker 1>when they go to Santa's, and like the kids are
<v Speaker 1>being dragged this souls crying happening, and like this movie
<v Speaker 1>is very tense, and I don't like its vibes, and
<v Speaker 1>I feel like I just would just stressed out. I
<v Speaker 1>got stressed out when he swears outside. I would get
<v Speaker 1>stressed out with all the trouble he would get into.
<v Speaker 1>I would get stressed out with the Santa stuff. I
<v Speaker 1>just everything about this movie makes me cringe. And it
<v Speaker 1>doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy at all. It
<v Speaker 1>assaults my senses and I don't like it, and I
<v Speaker 1>hope I never have to watch it again after this,
<v Speaker 1>but I agree to watch it for this because I
<v Speaker 1>do know that as a staple of our culture. Unfortunately,
<v Speaker 1>and it gives me the ugs. I don't like that lamp.
<v Speaker 1>I don't like how the dad is with the lamp,
<v Speaker 1>which is everything about this movie gives me like the heaves,
<v Speaker 1>and I don't like it.
<v Speaker 4>And of opinion.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, to be concise, they're Brittany, I.
<v Speaker 1>Hate this movie. I hate it.
<v Speaker 5>I'll go next.
<v Speaker 2>So I've seen this movie a thousand times. Like Brittany
<v Speaker 2>already stated, I've seen this movie a lot. It's a
<v Speaker 2>movie that I grew up watching with my family, and
<v Speaker 2>so in a lot of ways, this movie is just nostalgic.
<v Speaker 2>For that reason, I don't know that I particularly like
<v Speaker 2>this movie as much as I've just seen it so
<v Speaker 2>many times that worn you down. It's worn me down
<v Speaker 2>in some ways. I do feel a little different after
<v Speaker 2>watching it as a therapist. I do have to say,
<v Speaker 2>and feel very angry with the dad. So we'll see
<v Speaker 2>if that colors my future watches. But to be honest,
<v Speaker 2>I'm sure I'll watch it once a year like I
<v Speaker 2>always have.
<v Speaker 1>I don't even bring up the tongue part. I hate
<v Speaker 1>that part too, when his tongue gets stuck the thing
<v Speaker 1>and they yank it off. Your turn is over, Brittany,
<v Speaker 1>I don't care. I'll allow you to now speak, Ben, Yeah, go.
<v Speaker 4>Ahead, good.
<v Speaker 3>I usually love that attitude in my house anyway, the
<v Speaker 3>king of this castle, in my pretend mind anyway.
<v Speaker 4>I don't know.
<v Speaker 3>I feel it's probably the first time I ever said
<v Speaker 3>I feel like neutral.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah this movie just like exists in the vapors kind
<v Speaker 1>of yeah.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>I mean I have seen it a billion times, and
<v Speaker 3>I think rather than like me being worn down, I'm
<v Speaker 3>like or by the movie, I'm worn down with it,
<v Speaker 3>like the same way that in guitar stories in the
<v Speaker 3>nineties they would literally post, if you play Enter Sandman
<v Speaker 3>on a guitar, we are throwing you out. Do not
<v Speaker 3>play that song. And in the seventies they did the
<v Speaker 3>same thing with Stairway to Heaven, like, do not play
<v Speaker 3>that song just if you start playing those notes, we
<v Speaker 3>are throwing out because some everybody would pick up a
<v Speaker 3>guitar and play that song. And that's what this movie is.
<v Speaker 3>The thing that's always on. It's always, always always on.
<v Speaker 3>But though it's nostalgic and it carries in air that
<v Speaker 3>I think is relevant for us, I don't think it's
<v Speaker 3>that relevant ongoing. I don't think it's that relevant in
<v Speaker 3>twenty twenty four. I think in the nineties it was relevant.
<v Speaker 3>I think in the eighties it was relevant. It's sat
<v Speaker 3>in a particular niche that this was Americana.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, this maybe is like a time capsule.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, absolutely, But like other things in time capsules, people
<v Speaker 3>that didn't put the shit in it don't give a fuck.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, and I think.
<v Speaker 3>That's where this is going to get. Like, my daughter
<v Speaker 3>watched it and kind of laughed at some points, but
<v Speaker 3>you know what, you know what, the part that she
<v Speaker 3>really laughed at that she liked the most was we
<v Speaker 3>didn't even talk about yet. Is the bunny suit.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, that's also something I was gonna bring up
<v Speaker 1>with the parenting. I don't think parents do that kind
<v Speaker 1>of stuff anymore, like almost like do these like humiliationy
<v Speaker 1>things with their kids. Yeah, of like put that on
<v Speaker 1>because I want to see it, no matter how much
<v Speaker 1>it bums you out.
<v Speaker 4>Not as much. Yeah, she liked that.
<v Speaker 3>She thought that was really funny, and she was like,
<v Speaker 3>oh my god, the way the kid goes through his
<v Speaker 3>fantasies and like the tension you mentioned of the film
<v Speaker 3>does make it interesting because you wonder the whole time
<v Speaker 3>is he going to get the Red Rider be begun.
<v Speaker 3>Did Mom's like a secret plan to subvert him at
<v Speaker 3>every possible moment work, and then Dad gives him the gun.
<v Speaker 3>I think it does create like a heartwarming thing of
<v Speaker 3>like the one person you thought was not paying attention
<v Speaker 3>to you really was and gives you the thing you
<v Speaker 3>really wanted. And I think that tells a Christmas story
<v Speaker 3>that connects to people, because a lot of people have
<v Speaker 3>gone through that moment where somebody thinks it's like it'll
<v Speaker 3>be more meaningful and special to let someone wait it
<v Speaker 3>out and squat it out and feel anxious they got
<v Speaker 3>almost everything they wanted except this one thing, and then
<v Speaker 3>give it to them and then how like life, the
<v Speaker 3>one thing everybody fucking warned you would happen.
<v Speaker 4>Happens happens and they weren't wrong.
<v Speaker 3>And I do love that this movie ties that in
<v Speaker 3>that the wisdom of the adult version of him remembering
<v Speaker 3>that goes like I did almost shoot my eye out
<v Speaker 3>with that damn thing within thirty seconds of having it,
<v Speaker 3>and everyone was right. And I feel like that was
<v Speaker 3>some like nod to his parents of going like, all right,
<v Speaker 3>all right, I get it. I never told you so
<v Speaker 3>I wrote this whole last story to tell you the
<v Speaker 3>thing that I never told you, that I lied to
<v Speaker 3>youpot and ice to g head. I mean, I absolutely
<v Speaker 3>almost shot my eye out. I think I do enjoy
<v Speaker 3>that because sometimes those are the way children, adult children
<v Speaker 3>tell their parents that they were right thirty years ago
<v Speaker 3>is through little stories like this. So the moments like
<v Speaker 3>that that happened, where you wait something out and then
<v Speaker 3>finally get it, and then also the way adult children finally,
<v Speaker 3>eventually some way get around to telling the truth an
<v Speaker 3>hour and a half later.
<v Speaker 1>M hm.
<v Speaker 3>So I like it. I don't know that I'll seek
<v Speaker 3>it out. I don't know that I'll still watch it
<v Speaker 3>when it's on. If I get a hankering, I'll probably
<v Speaker 3>watch it. But beyond that, this one might fade the time.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, I could see that.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I think probably a lot of the engine behind it,
<v Speaker 1>like you're saying, is people who feel nostalgic to their childhood, right,
<v Speaker 1>And that's not really anymore, Like people don't watch The
<v Speaker 1>Little House in the Prayer anymore, you know?
<v Speaker 5>Yeah?
<v Speaker 3>Right?
<v Speaker 4>Unlike Batman, who will be with us forever.
<v Speaker 1>I wish she'd shoot his eye with a B B gun.
<v Speaker 4>Agreed, he's too smart for that, he's the world's smartest detective.
<v Speaker 1>You'd never Yeah, have you seen him propose to women?
<v Speaker 5>It's terrible at it.
<v Speaker 4>We didn't cover that.
<v Speaker 1>Mean he's wearing his version of a rabbit suit.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, for the record, doing karate with her out
<v Speaker 3>in the yard worked, so you know, anyway, horrible. For
<v Speaker 3>the record, that's probably a Bengo mentioned Batman, and we
<v Speaker 3>reference the past episode that's probably about Batman, So check
<v Speaker 3>off those Bengo squares, guys.
<v Speaker 4>AnyWho.
<v Speaker 3>I think that about wraps our episode here on a
<v Speaker 3>Christmas story and close out season seven of our show,
<v Speaker 3>which is crazy to realize we are about to start
<v Speaker 3>season eight. Yeah, and we've been doing this for eight years,
<v Speaker 3>and I want to take a second for me to
<v Speaker 3>thank all of you for listening to us. When we
<v Speaker 3>started this, we thought we'd get maybe twelve listeners ever,
<v Speaker 3>and we are over seven hundred and fifty thousand now.
<v Speaker 4>It's just unreal.
<v Speaker 3>And I'm ecstatic that you guys like listening to this
<v Speaker 3>show so much that you're sharing it with people, You're
<v Speaker 3>telling us what you like about it. And look forward
<v Speaker 3>to seeing you guys in season eight.
<v Speaker 4>So thank you all.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and if you are one of those many listeners
<v Speaker 1>and you haven't yet left us a rating and review,
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