Gentlemen, here's the thing, you're sitting down with your
wife at the dinner table and you make a noise, you go.
All of a sudden, your eyes go wide.
You look at your wife and you know what just happened?
You just became your dad. This is the All In podcast.
We are three dads trying to prevent for as long as we can
becoming our own fathers. TuneIn, join in.
You're going to want to be here. All right, so fellas, here's the
deal. We are three men in our late
20s. One of us is in our early 30s.
Wonder who it could be? Various levels of hair loss,
various levels of becoming our fathers.
And so that's what we want to talk about.
Have you guys had a moment recently where you just sat back
and you're like, Oh no, it's happening.
I am the progressive commercial, Clayton, we're tossing it to
you. Hit lead off for us.
First thing I'm thinking of, and this is something I'm profoundly
guilty of, I would like to apologize publicly to my wife
and to my children. Hopefully that will be watching
this someday. I'm profoundly guilty of rushing
out the door for no apparent reason.
Like describe. Like you just wake up and Sprint
down. Well, it's just like, you know,
for instance, Sunday morning, you know how it goes with
children. It's there.
There's there's a little bit of stress in getting out the door
to go to Mass. So we have 9:00 AM Mass.
It's an 11 minute drive to get to the church.
And I had this conversation with my wife.
She's like, it's an 11 minute drive so we can leave it at
8:48. And I was like, no, it's 2
minutes to get in the car, 2 1/2 minutes to get out of the car,
you know, and then get into the church and then get into your
Pew. And we can get there 3 minutes
early. So we need to leave at
approximately 836. You know, if we leave, if we
have the absolute latest and if we leave at 8:36, we can
leisurely, you know, go about it.
But anyways, growing up, you know, it was like if we had a, a
9:00 AM flight, we're out the door at 4 O clock in the
morning, you know, and we're, we're, we're getting to the
airport. And even if we're at the airport
multiple hours in advance, my dad is 20 yards in front of
everybody else, like sprinting. And we're like trying to catch
up with them. And so I just, I create undue
anxiety in the household with wanting to be on time or early
everywhere we go. It's like even if you leave with
plenty of time, you're still like rushing.
There's still part of me that's just like.
What could go wrong? Yeah, there's something that's
going to, there's something that's going to happen.
Tire blows out, car breaks down. It could.
Be it could be anything. 7 red lights in a row.
Sometimes my my middle child will.
He knows how to buckle himself, but then sometimes he complaints
that he can't buckle himself. So we got to pull over on the
side of the road, get back there, buckle him because he
doesn't like to be. I'm like, if you've got, you
know, the center 1, he got at least one of the bottom ones in
in the in the car seat. I'm like, you're getting fine,
you know, So we got to pull over and do that.
You just never know what's going to happen.
Yeah, our our family was was famous for never getting to eat
out like our go to restaurant as a family with super salads.
You guys remember that place, yes, Probably didn't have them
you. Know where you're from in San
Antonio didn't. Have salad or soup?
We're not a big salad family. But it was basically like an all
you can eat buffet salad place. And it was like kids, you know,
eat for 399 or whatever. And I, I honestly, I told my
parents I was like, I feel like I've been abused.
You've never taken me to Chick-fil-A once in my life.
And so now it's funny because we took our kids to Chick-fil-A
like 3 days ago and my parents were famous for, you know, water
only family, no sides. We're only getting the entrees.
We'll buy chips, we'll buy vegetables.
No soft drinks. I snuck in my own Coke 0 from
the cooler in my car, hid it in my wife's backpack, ordered a
cup of ice, and then poured my my canned Coke 0 under the
table. Then we went to the movie
theater, and our family similarly never buy popcorn,
never buy soft drinks, never get you.
Just remember when we were kids, they had, like, those amazing
kid packs at the movie theaters. It'd be like popcorn, nachos, a
candy. Yeah.
And then a soda. Yeah.
Like I dreamed about those. If only we could get one of
those. And Lean Cuisine, the Lean
Cuisine meals, Those were the two dreams at the.
Movie theater No. Just like in general.
In general. But we we snuck in popcorn in
bags, we snuck in apple slices and then we brought bottles of
water and we sat in the seats that we didn't pay for because
they were better seats. Someone came in, kicked us out
as I'm like grabbing all the bags of popcorn and apples and
shoving them in my wife's purse. So I think just like being
cheap, you know, is, is something I'm like, Oh no, I
think we're becoming my parents. Yeah, I, I mean, I feel that one
a lot. I, I a big one that I've been
laughing to myself about lately is I'll do this to my wife a
lot. So another public apology, but
also to anyone that has been affected, someone will ask me a
question about something. Hey, why?
Why do you like to put on the parking brake on your car?
You put on the parking. Brake.
I do. The short answer is I grew up on
a hill, but my natural inclination is to give him like
a 20 minute oral history of parking brakes, how they came to
be, why they're so important. So here's the thing, before I
even get into why I like to answering their question.
And I used to get so annoyed at my dad.
I used to like get mad at him. I used to start fights with him
because he would do that. And it's like, man, I'm becoming
him, the other one. And I don't know, this is as
much becoming my dad specifically, just like becoming
a dad. Any time I travel, no matter how
long my trip is, usually my, my work trips are two nights, three
nights, maybe I'll bring 17 pairs of underwear.
You know, like no matter what, you just never know.
And it's like I convinced myself that like all these things could
happen. I don't know if that's, I just
feel like that's a very dad thing.
Someone's like leaving 6 hours before your flight with all the
kids. But it's like 17 pairs of
underwear and then you pack 1 polo like that is my dad in a
nutshell. Always over packed on socks.
One pair of shorts for the vacation.
Another one that I always thought was funny with my dad is
I feel like every single night when I go say goodnight to my
parents, my mom was in bed and my dad was reading a sports
article. Yes.
And you know, when I was big into soccer, Formula One, a lot
of European sports, and he just knew everything about every
single team player. He knew where they were from,
where they grew up, right, how big their family was.
But then he'd always forget, like.
A birthday or always? Forget like anniversary or like
that I have a football game this weekend and I would always be
like that. Why are you like that?
You know, and it's all of a sudden, it's like I'm always
rattling, rattling off stats about random things, but I'll
forget the most basic things in my life.
Like, Oh yeah, my wife asked me to do this this morning.
I don't remember that, but I do remember the Johnny Football was
born at this time on December 6th, you know, And it's like,
why do I know that? I.
I feel like budgeting is something that comes up for me
like I remember. Also my parents are listeners to
the podcast so shout out Mom dad I love you guys.
All good. Thanks.
Glad glad that I am the way I am.
Just want to make that clear before we dive into this, but
just budgeting. So like, I don't my parents
weren't like stressed about money, but I just think like
normal, maybe normal parents, they were, you know, we.
Usually go to private school well.
Right. And, and you know, thermostat,
yeah, we, we were able to go 1° cooler, Wow than most families,
right. But just like conversations like
that, you know, my dad, the word, the thermostat, my dad
always wanted it at 70. My mom always wanted it at 68
and my dad just be like, wait, you know, what do you think
we're going to? Going to heat air.
Condition the whole neighborhood, you know, like
things like that. Our conversations that me and my
wife have every winter my wife and I have the annual argument
about how long can we wait to turn the heat on and it's a
competition every year to see how long I can make it in
convincing her. So it's like, hey, just wear a
jacket the next, like, hey, just wear a pair of socks to bed.
Just wear a pair pair of pants to bed.
Just like grab your winter parka, go ahead and wrap that
around you, grab a beanie. You know, but we are not going
to turn on the heat until the absolute last second when the
water pipes are about frozen. That's when we'll click it on.
So it's just little things like that.
And so it kind of makes you wonder, like, are these things
that we joke about, laugh about, are these healthy habits, or are
these just things that we've kind of convinced ourselves that
are normal? Or if you actually look under
the hood, maybe there's something deeper going on there.
Well, I think there's a distinction between perhaps the
vices and virtues that we've picked up from our our parents
or our siblings or the people that we've spent, you know, the
majority of our our time with in our life.
There's a difference between the vices and the virtues that we
have picked up on. And then just the the isms that
we picked up on at the at the same time.
So for instance, Shawn Michael, we were roommates in college and
people have said for the last 12 plus years of our life that we
sound. Exactly alike.
Yes, yeah, exactly. And so that's not necessarily
something that's that's wrong. When I think about the getting
out the the door example, there was just, yeah, that was
something that was ingrained in me as a child is that, hey, you
should be anxious about getting places on on time.
So there's definitely a distinction between, you know,
me the way that I when I see my children, I say, hey, bud, you
know, or, you know, Joseph will do something great.
And I say excellent, excellent. You know, I'm like that.
When I hear myself say those things, I'm like, Oh my gosh,
without even thinking those things, those things come out,
you know? Yeah.
All right. The the whole time you you're
talking, I'm also thinking of like the opposite side of that
coin of what are the things we picked up in opposition over
parents. Like I'm not going to do that,
so. I'm going to do this and I was
thinking about that because of your example.
And then this is shout out to Hispanics in Hispanic homes.
I don't know why I don't want to say all, but most Hispanic
homes, for whatever reason, it's always really hot.
That's so true. We we went to visit my parents
over Christmas break and I I've known this for the long time.
I'm always come prepared as you bring a fan, but they keep our
house at 757677 and so in my house now.
Is that a money thing or or or a comfort thing?
I think it's a comfort. Thing it's a comfort thing
that's. Just I keep, I keep them all.
Mimi and I keep our house at 7069.
Yeah. And any time my parents come
over, I mean my mom just came to visit us and and she brought
like 3 coats she brought us. She like her luggage was
blankets for which you go to make.
She's like this is unlivable. I guess do this.
It's like you keep that you're out at 80°.
You know. Yeah.
So I, I was just thinking, I'm laughing about like, what are
also some of the things that we picked up?
Yeah, a lot of the isms are really fun and funny to kind of
laugh about. As we look towards, you know,
things that we swore that we'd never do to build off that
point, are there are there habits that your parents did
where you're like, I will never do that?
And, and maybe there are things you've actually held on to now,
things maybe ways you were raised.
Also, you know, with all due respect to our parents, who we
all, you know, we, we, we have great respect for, but just
things that happen in the home that you're just like I, I
don't, I don't want that. I'd like to avoid that.
I'm trying to think back to my own experience.
Honestly, that's not really quite.
It's not something that really thought much about about things
that I necessarily wanted to do differently from my parents.
One thing that I have thought about a lot though, is I'm so
curious about what my what the conversations between my parents
looked like when when I was growing up.
Like all these conversations that I have with my wife about
parenting and school and, you know, rhythm of life and what
they eat and how they spend their time and, oh, he's got
this behavior, you know, coming up.
And so for me, you know, I feel like there's still somewhat of
a, of a mystery of just, you know, what did they, you know,
what did they, you know, my kids, maybe they'll know.
I'll share that with them when they become parents one day of
like, yeah, here's how we kind of like worked out some of these
things. These are the things that we
talked through. I don't necessarily know what
those conversations looked like with my parents.
I don't know if I can name besides just the, you know, the,
I would say, you know, I used the example of getting out of
the house on time. But I, I, I think that, you
know, my dad was, was very disciplined, very intentional
with a very forward thinking, which are all things that I've,
you know, I've taken on from him.
But then with that, there's the tendency to become, you guys can
attest this uptight and anxious about things at the same time
that apply not just to getting out the door, but finances when
you don't necessarily need to be anxious about finances or, you
know, whatever else that that it is.
And so that's something that I'm really aware of in myself that's
kind of broad, not specific, you know, not anyone specific thing,
but knowing that's something that I carry in myself that
comes with both good and bad. Does that make sense?
I think being a parent has certainly humbled me to maybe
many of the frustrations I had with my own parents.
So things. I felt like always my parents
were the most strict of all my friends, whether it was
sleepovers, movies, you know, spending the night, lake houses.
Like I, I remember there was, you know, fun lake house trips
that all the boys were getting to go, but I wasn't able to go
or the amount of activities that we participated in.
You know, they always kept those two to a minimum to prioritize
family time, family dinners, you know, that was big for our
family. And I was always frustrated
because I'm like, why can't we just watch the cowboy game
together and we don't have to sit down and eat together?
And so I think there was kind of a lot of commitments I made as a
genius 141516 year old kid. I'm like, I'm not going to be,
I'm not going to be a strict like I would, I would 100% let
my kid do that. But now I look back on, I'm
like, thank the Lord that my parents did that.
And, and I think my parents were, I felt like they were
tough on me, but I, I look back and realize that many of the
ways that they stepped in were super necessary.
My, my oldest daughter, she has a temperament similar to me in
that she has what my parents used to call in me, a steel trap
mind. So once I get an idea in here,
I, I can't focus on anything else until that thing gets done.
And I've watched my daughter have that same habit with
certain things and it is very frustrating for me as a dad to
watch that because she is extremely stubborn until she
completes that thing she wants to get done.
And there's been so many times I, I told my parents last week,
I feel like raising my daughter is penance for what I did to my
parents and my stubbornness and argumentative nature and need to
be right all the time. When your 6 year old daughter's
correcting you, you're just like, Oh my gosh, that's
probably how I was. Yeah.
Mom and dad, I'm so sorry. Like I must have been such an
annoying little kid to have to parent.
So I as you make these commitments in life and then you
become a parent, there's, there's a beautiful humility of
maybe they actually didn't know what they were doing.
Have you guys seen that? Yeah, I think, you know, my, my
family's in a maybe different stage, right?
We only have one kid and I don't know, is he still a newborn?
He's five months, whatever that means, right?
He's he's out of alien stage and he's in cute.
Baby stage Oh he yeah I mean I'm biased, but he's been he's been
cute for a while so it's a little different, right, because
I'm not necessarily talking to him and seeing.
No spanking, no spankings. No, nothing like that.
But I think something that I've kind of been thinking about a
lot too is just I, I'm looking up to my parents a lot more now
that I'm going through this through the early stages of
parenting, right? I'm also like, like just to even
the little things of just like changing diapers, waking up in
the middle of the night to like shush them and they don't want
to go back to sleep. So you kind of hold them.
And I'm just like, man, my parents did that for me, you
know, like, how could I, I, my mom and I joke because
apparently when I was like 3 or 4 years old, the biggest thing
that I would do is I would just go to him.
Like you don't love me and I would just tell her that and
like walk away. How do I, I have no memory of
this, you know, but I'm just like even things like that.
But she she told me like the first time you said that, like
it hurt a lot when you were a three-year old.
But I'm just thinking like, man, like my parents love me so much
and like, it's, it's helping you realize those things of like
even the frustrating things, like they did so much for me.
That's a lot of what I've been realizing, even just as little
as like, you know, I'll stare at John Henry and I'm like, man, I
like I'll. I will move heaven and earth for
you. And I started thinking like my
parents took three kids under the age of 10, moved to a
different country of a language that didn't speak, you know,
just kind of put everything on the line to take a job that
maybe will work out just like did did all these things that
are like, so scary. I don't know if I like right
now, I'm like, I wouldn't want to move to a country that's
different from where I've everything I've known to a
language that I don't really speak to all these things.
Yeah, it's just making me appreciate my parents a lot
more. I.
Think when you have kids, there's two things that happen.
There's greater recognition of their strengths from when you
were a child that perhaps frustrated you, and also greater
empathy for their their weaknesses as well.
So one example that I'm, I'm thinking of in, in my head is I,
I, you know, by no means was I always afraid.
You know, there's moments when you're afraid of your dad, you
know, and where he, he gets angry about something, you know,
and you're kind of scared, you know, you're scared of what he's
going to say. And you knew, you knew you
messed up or, you know, whatever it is, and you're, and you're
kind of afraid of your dad. And I remember feeling that way
as a kid in certain scenarios, you know, whether, you know, it
was like, you know, cleaning, like I would need to clean the
house when I came home from school and like, help, you know,
put things away. But, you know, I'd be lazy and
like, would be watching TV. But then as soon as you hear the
garage door opening, you're like, oh, my gosh.
And you get up and you start frantically cleaning because
Dad's about to walk in the door. And you want to make it seem
like, you know, I've been working this whole time, you
know, or, or maybe when I've done something wrong, you know,
I'm like, oh, my gosh. And and mom says, you know,
Dad's going to talk to you when he gets home.
And you're just like. Between your.
Legs, my gosh, this is going to be so scary.
You know, and there's been little moments that I've
recognized with my five 5 1/2 year old where, you know, he's
maybe not being as responsive to his mother in in certain things.
And, you know, then dad, you know, I come in and I kind of,
you know, I'm not, I'm not yelling at him, but I'm speaking
firmly and trying to tell him like, Hey, this behavior is not
acceptable. And he'll respond.
He'll kind of like look down at the ground and he'll go, yes,
dad, you know, and then and then, you know, the behavior
will change. And the thought has come up in
my mind of just. What is going through his mind
right now as a 5 year old? Does he respect me or is he
scared of me? And I don't want him to be
scared of me, you know, I want, I want him to respect my, my
authority, you know, and that's, I think that's something that
kind of scares me a little bit. And so there one thing I've
become more cognizant of recently is whenever I have to
be firm like that, making sure that at the end of the
conversation, I lower my voice a little bit and I speak more
gently. And I say, you know, son, like
dad loves you. You know, I, I love you even if
you, you know, you do something wrong.
You know, I need to speak firmly to you right now, but I just
need you to know that that behavior is not OK.
You're not, you're not bad. You know, you're not in a whole
lot of trouble right now. I just need you.
I want to be clear with you and just having that, you know, get
on his level moment because I, you know, again, I don't, I
don't want him to be afraid of me in the same way that, you
know, I had experienced that as a child.
And again, it wasn't that I was afraid of my dad the whole time,
but it was just that, you know, I don't know if he if he got on
my same level like that after, you know, a behavior.
Change 100%. I think a lot of men say things
like, oh, I just want to be a better dad than my dad was.
Yeah, I hear that as a, as a pithy one liner for many men.
And it's, it's always struck me as somewhat odd because the goal
should never be, I'll just be a better dad than my dad was.
Because one, I think it it shows a lack of gratitude for maybe
many of the hidden sacrifices that your dad probably did.
And yeah, maybe he wasn't perfect, maybe he was messed up.
Maybe he did some things that were were hurtful or, you know,
left left some marks that you had to deal with a little bit
later in life. But if the goal is just to be a
a better version of someone who was, you know, that you don't
have that you don't want to emulate, then you still don't
have anything to go off of. Like what's your model?
Your model can't be not being this person.
Your model has to be. I want to be something and it a
lack of something doesn't create what you should be.
And so I'm wondering as we look at our parents, you know, it's
that there should be both the gratitude of becoming like your
parents and then also a filtering out of things that
you're just like, yeah, I, I don't want to do that.
That's OK. You know, it's not a attack on
my own parents, but it's an inventory of what are some
really awesome things that they did.
And I want to show gratitude to them for that.
And then what are some things that I don't want to carry over
into my family, not as an attack or a accusation of my parents,
but things that just for our family would like to do a little
bit differently. And so for for people who are
listening, it could be a interesting exercise to just
kind of think about that. And what are some of the things
that you want to pull away? I think one, one thing just
naturally is like my family growing up, extended family was
a huge part of our life. So we were always spending time
with grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, weekly, sometimes
more than weekly. That had a huge precedent in our
home and was very important for our family.
It's not that it's unimportant, it's just that logistically, we
live 13 hours from them. And so our kids are not going to
have that same upbringing where they're hanging out with their
cousins every weekend. And part of that I think is, is
somewhat healthy because we can control a little bit more who
they're around. But another part of that is sad
for me because I, I want my kids to be around their grandparents,
aunts and uncles, cousins, 2nd cousins, so on and so forth.
So other things as you guys step into your fatherhood, your
family that you're looking back at and you're like leave that,
take some of this, move forward. I think one of the big things
that I want to take at least from from my dad and my mom as
well. But my dad is a very generous
man. Like he just his way of showing
love to people's by like giving them things.
And one of the things that he would always try to give us just
experiences. He was big on giving us
experiences, whatever that was, whether it was going to a show,
going to a concert, going to a game, more than it was like
buying us anything. And then sometimes he did buy us
anything because we were brats and we would, you know, bug him
about it. But that I think that's
something that so I look back, I'm like that.
That was great. Like he was always down to take
us on a trip before he was down to bias the next like the new
PS2 game. And that's something that I that
I want to take away. It's something so little right.
But I think shaped me a lot into like, yeah, just being a lot
more aware of my surroundings of different cultures, of different
things like that. That was great.
I think keeping on the silly level for now before I I, I
bring it up. Another one thing that I don't
want to emulate is my dad cannot resist the sale or, you know,
and that's something I definitely don't want to
emulate. I mean, you go in our garage.
Just piled high. Just so many things and hey,
sometimes it works out of my favorite right?
Like he just gifted my wife and IA new Blackstone which is great
and it that. That was from a sale.
And it's awesome. Well, it was it was from like a
sale bulk by the he bought 3 and then he was like, oh, that's
great. I'll give one to me, one to my
brother, and then one for himself. 3 Blackstones.
Yeah, it's, it's just like, again, like it's generous.
It comes from a good place, but it's like, I don't want to just
like always be spending money on things.
I think on a deeper level, something that I'm very
cognizant of is, and I don't think this was on purpose by any
means. I think it was just like a lot
of things going on and no one really knows how to parent right
until your parenting. They never asked us about like
what we were feeling. That's something that that I've
made very clear of like we, we always want to like, and we, I
always told Mimi, if like we need to be aware of how we talk
about our feelings and we need to make sure we're talking about
them in front of our kids, right?
And, and talking about what we're doing and how we're
processing emotions. Because my parents never talked
about emotions in front of us, never asked us about our
emotions. And again, I don't think you
came from a bad place. If they care.
They just didn't know, right? Growing up in Mexico, the
culture might have been different where it like that
just wasn't a thing. Maybe it was a thing of the 60s
and 70s where no one talked about emotions, but things like
that that I'm like, I want to make sure I do that.
Yeah. Because I I see little things
that I maybe like blame my parents about that could have
been fixed if my dad or my mom would have just like asked me
like, well, how does this make you feel and why does it make
you feel that way? Well, here's how you can process
that and just would have taught me those things.
I think that would have been really helpful.
Again, not from a not only came from a bad place, it was just
from like a there's also figuring things out and this guy
kind of left on the wayside. We'll reclaim.
There's two things I was thinking of 1 something that you
brought up, John Michael decision that that we made in
the last few years is to move back closer to family.
And, you know, being close to family has been a huge, huge
that, you know, I would say I'm, I'm, you know, we're ultimately,
you know, trying to move close to my, my in laws.
So my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, and then three of
my wife's brothers, you know, live in area, are about to live
in the area as well. And they're surrounded by, you
know, the parents on my mother in They have a much larger
community that they're a part of, but something that was
really normalized at my house was like my, my aunt was over
all the time, my uncle's over all the time.
My grandparents were coming over for dinner, you know, multiple
times, you know, per per week. They live just down the street
in, in an apartment, you know, and, and so that, that was just
part of family life was that, you know, every weekend, you
know, we were having some sort of a family dinner.
And I want to give my children that that same experience of
being raised by family and, and, and with family.
The other one that I was kind of thinking about.
That's that I think is is somewhat funny.
And I'm totally going to be this way when you know, my my sons
are, you know, more competitive in athletics.
I remember my dad, you know, in middle school basketball, he had
this little, I don't even know what it's called.
It's so old school. You probably just do this on
your iPhone now. But it was this, this little
gadget where it had a, it was digital.
It had a layout of the basketball court on it.
And he would track all of my statistics throughout the game.
Tell, tell, tell Jose about the book that he made.
Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, he's got the, you
know, he would always different experiences in my life, like,
you know, my sophomore year, College in the summer, I went on
a pilgrimage to Krakow, Poland for World Youth Day.
And so he made a book with, you know, all, all of the pictures
that I took, which are some of them are just random iPhone
pictures of like something random, you know, But then he
also made a, a middle school basketball book for me.
So he would. With all of Clayton's stats.
With all of my per. Game from 5th grade to 8th
grade. The thing on this like little
tracker that he had was like, it would show me, you know, how
many shots I took, how many made, how many I missed, where I
made them and where I missed them so that I would know, you
know, where on the court I need to practice my shot a little bit
more. It was.
Literally. And, and it was kind of a
ritual, you know, he was at every single one of my games.
And after the game, he'd hand me the tracker and I would look at
it and we would talk through my statistics together, you know,
and that's just kind of the, the way that his mind works.
And that's the way that my mind works too.
And honestly, that's the way that my eldest son's mind works
as well. He's going to be totally into
every statistic. And granted, you know, we all
know I'm a, I'm a average to slightly above average athlete,
You know, in middle school, I had a slightly better, slightly
better jump shot. I was the best player in on my
D2 basketball team. So not quite great, but better
than most is is how I put it in. Middle school D2.
Middle, middle school detail. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. I was on the freshman year
basketball team until football got out and all the real
athletes joined the team and then I got cut.
So if that tells you anything. So I would say living my family
kind of that that was something that we shared together.
Was this like honestly like love of statistics and and sports and
kind of like overanalyzing things that don't need to be?
Overanalyzed doing doing their wins above replacement for fifth
grade basketball in the savor metrics of it all.
Defensive win shares of Clayton. 2/2 negative ones, one light
hearted one a little bit more serious going back to buying
stuff and being anxious about money.
You know, we are, we our family was was fine with with money,
but and you know, but things would feel tight or anxious and
I could even like pick up on that as a, you know, 7th, 8th
grader, high schooler, tight, tight, tight, But then all of a
sudden blow money on something that that you don't need.
It was like we're tight, tight, tight and then we just explode
with like a, a huge purchase on something, you know, and I.
Do that frequently, yeah. It's something that I feel
guilty of because I'm like, you know, my wife and I are living
on a budget. I'm like, hey, watch me or spend
in, you know, and then all of a sudden I go buy something.
She's like, I thought we were on a budget.
Well, you know, we needed this, you know, and I.
Can blow money on I can. Blow, you can't.
But I think 11 serious, one serious thing is just that, you
know, all of us are going to bring weaknesses into our
family. We're all going to hurt our
wives and we're going to hurt our children.
And I think one thing that I wish my dad would have done a
little bit better is owning up to that and apologizing like he
would, you know, it would. It would kind of be one of those
things where like, maybe he knew he messed up, you know, and so
he'd be, I don't know, extra nice afterwards, you know, or
we'd go do something, you know, but never just like.
Just say hey. I'm sorry.
Yeah, You know, And so that's something that I've tried to be
aware of in the raising of my children is like, yeah, I'm, I'm
going to hurt them. I'm going to maybe scare them at
times. But how do I make sure that they
know always that Dad has weaknesses, that I'm not
perfect, you know, and that, you know, when I do hurt them,
that's not who I want to be. And I'm, I'm sorry for that, so.
Yeah, it's cool. My, my, my daughter started
telling me to apologize because I think she's heard it from us,
right? You need to apologize to your
brother. And then when I do something
wrong, now she's the one to say, dad, you need to apologize, you
know, apologize to me for the way you just spoke to me.
And I'm like. I love this.
But I also hate it, so you're. Like Dang it.
My just thinking back on my relationship with my dad, one of
the things we shared in common was baseball.
So my dad played college baseball.
He's a great athlete and one thing I'm super grateful for is
you just never pushed it on us. So he was always like, if you
want to do theater, if you want to play piano, like if you want
to play basketball, baseball, whatever you want to do, you do
it. I'm with you.
Luckily I chose baseball and as I went through my career, you
know, as a middle school baseball player.
As a high school baseball. Player.
My senior year I, I had a moment where I, I wanted to go to A&M,
but I had a few interests starting to come in from really
small colleges. I'm talking like thousand person
universities, you know, D3 NAI. Like multi directional?
Is that interest or just marketing emails that you're
getting? Look there, academic advisor
promised me I had a spot on the baseball team.
It's an all women's school, but, but I was, and I considered it
for, for a second and one of their coaches came out and
talked to my coach and I sat down with my dad in like April,
my Senior High School. And it was kind of one of the
first serious conversations you have with your dad.
And I was like, dad, like, you know, should I go down this
route? Should I not, should I go to
A&M? Should I try to go down this,
this small school baseball route?
And my dad just looked at me in the eyes and he was like, at
some point everyone's going to hang it up.
And it was like out of like a, a PG movie where it's like slow
music. And he's like, everyone's going
to hang it up. You can either quit now or you
can quit after college. Maybe you do really well and
maybe you play in the professionals, but you're going
to have to quit at some point. And life moves on.
And it's just like the first kind of powerful dad son moment.
And looking back on it, it, it does seem a little funny, but I,
I think back and I'm like, if, if my dad wanted to have given
me that advice and said, no, I played college baseball, you
need to play college baseball, I wouldn't have met you guys.
I wanted to have met my wife, wouldn't have had my life
transformed by Christ. And so as we sit back and, and
look at our dads and, and look at our families, that becoming
our parents isn't necessarily a failure.
It's actually a sign that they had a deep impact on us.
That formation works whether we one at 2 or not.
Our kids are going to become like us.
That's a scary thought. It's also a beautiful thought.
Speaking of beautiful thoughts, this is the All In podcast.
We have a lot of those here. Please make sure to like,
subscribe and make sure that share this episode with one of
your boys who is slowly but surely turning into a boomer.
Maybe he's losing hair, maybe he's grunting all the time.
Maybe he use a budget, two or three budgeting apps.
Whatever he's doing, make sure to share this episode with him.
This is the All In podcast. We are John, Michael, Jose and
Clayton. I'm glad you're here.
We'll see you in the next one.