Hello mate. Hello again I.
Felt like we should do like Welcome to the autism podcast.
Yeah, Yeah. Welcome, Welcome.
Yeah. Welcome to the Autism Podcast.
We're not that professional yet. Not at all.
Haven't a year yet? About this episode 34 So we've
had plenty of practise. Plenty.
Of practise, and we're still. Coming up to the year
anniversary, is it a couple of weeks away, something like that,
start of May, 11th of May, yeah, yeah, not far, is it?
That's 12 months. That's mental. 12 months of
boring everybody with our chit chat.
Yeah, I know. So how's your week been?
It's been, it's been good. You've been on holiday.
I've been to Cyprus, yes. Came back Wednesday so the Tan's
obviously faded. I don't know mate, still there?
Still there. Oh yeah.
Still pulling it off. That's good.
No, it was good. It was good.
Nice to get a bit of a break back to it, back to work.
So it's all a. Distant.
I saw that last photo you put up was on the beach.
It was just bye last day. Sad face.
Sad face, bye bye, goodbye. And you had a good time.
Yeah, it was lovely mate, Yeah, lovely to go out there, see the
family and yeah, just chill out for a little.
Bit yeah, of course. Keep thinking.
Your family? Yeah, got some family.
Out. I remember seeing a photo you
put up when we first started talking like a year ago and it
was, I think it was your, your brother, brother.
I think it was your brother or cousin.
Cousin any other I. Was just sinking in.
I haven't got a brother. I don't have a brother.
He was sitting outside with a with a robot.
I asked my cousin. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. In Cyprus.
Yeah, absolutely. So if it drops below 28°, the
coats and jumpers come out of your Cypriot.
So yeah, he, he was kind of in a a jumper blanket.
And I'm just an invest. Yeah.
Going. It's way too hot.
He's going way too cold. You know what we had then we had
soup. We had soup that night.
What? We had soup.
Yeah. So just to warm ourselves up.
So absolutely. I think the soup got warmer the
longer it was outside. Crazy.
But yeah, it was good. It was nice.
Nice to be there, have a little bit of a break and good.
We're back to it, aren't we? Well.
It's funny because I was just going to say, like on the on the
last one we did, we were like, oh, Andy's back.
Yeah, you're back. And then you fucked off.
Again, I fucked off again. Yeah, absolutely.
But I am back for the foreseeable future.
Oh great, that's good to know mate.
I think the public demanded it so.
I had to. They were like, where's Andy?
We need Andy. We have one person getting
Where's Andy? Has it actually been replaced by
your wife? Yeah, it's what was the
question. It wasn't even Andy.
It was. Is the other man going to be
back on the? Other man he.
Was the other man 1 episode of admission And like where's the
other man? Ant and Dec, you can't tell them
apart. But no, we had the we had an
interesting weekend. We had the Guardian come to your
house to do some photos. Yeah, by by looking, by looking
at the photos that he made us take.
I might have replaced your wife. Oh mate, honestly he was a
lovely guy on it. He was so.
Nice he he is a top top. Guy top bloke and he's got an
eye for it, you could tell. Oh my God.
When, when I saw Fabio. And what did you when you saw
Fabio in the e-mail, were you expecting him to be?
I'll be honest, I heard the word Fabio and I just had images of
like the the guy out of Benidorm.
Yeah, just like Sprink, you know, slits, back hair.
That's what I did best. And then he rang and he was
like, hello, mate, you OK? I was like, oh, I don't quite
expect it. I don't know, like an accent or
something. Because he's not Fabio.
But tell you what, what a geezer.
What a nice guy. What a nice guy.
And he came, he came to to my house and set up in the lounge
and put the backdrop up, the light in.
He had some gear, didn't he? Yeah.
And started snowing. Oh.
That was. I forgot about that.
Started snowing. So yeah, the weather was lovely
outside. He was like, Oh no, weather's
nice, we'll do some inside shots and then we'll go outside.
And then, yeah, it started snowing.
I live in an area of Shropshire which just does it's own weather
system. Yeah.
Man. It was it was something else
when it. Snowed for half an hour and then
it was just beautiful blue sky. Yeah.
Mental and we just. Stood in the middle of the road
on the mountain having a higher mistake.
Barney It was like, oh, right in the middle of the road.
I was like in the middle of the road.
Yeah, in the middle of the road. We'll just take photos here.
And I was thinking, like, cars do come up and down here, he's a
quiet place. But.
And then, lo and behold, somebody did stop.
Didn't they? A lady did stop to inform us
that this was a road. It was a road.
There could be cars on it. So thank you very much for the
tip. Thank you, we do realise it's a
road but he was great, really nice guy and the photos that he
got me need to take quite. Closely erotic, yeah.
You know what? I mean some of them.
Some quite some cuddly ones in there wasn't.
There there was some cuddle photos in there, which is, yeah,
I hope he does work for the Guardian.
He's just not some guy that's decided I've got a.
Yeah, if he doesn't like what? Message him in Fabio.
What are these? What are these photos mate?
Just no response. No response.
The e-mail bounces back. Yeah, yeah.
So I had to do you remember that that person last week, I read
that message out and it was about like using the pronoun
they. Turns out that because I wasn't
sure what it was, I was like, maybe I've misread this or
something. That turns out that's exactly
what they meant. Do not use the pronoun they when
you're speaking about your son. And I went, we weren't.
And then they said, OK, well, fine, don't use the pronoun they
at all to talk about people with autism because I'm autistic and
I find it offensive. And we had a back and forth.
We didn't agree, but to be fair in the end they sent a message
saying I wasn't being funny, didn't mean to have a fallout
with you and I was like cool we and this is a nice.
Thing, it wasn't a fallout, it was a discussion, wasn't it?
Yeah. That's, you know, that's such a
good point. Like this is thing like it's
just a normal discussion. We can, we can.
What does Nick Ferrari say? Will, will, will disagree
agreeably? Yes, like you can, we can
disagree and that's totally fine.
And they sent a lovely message and I said, mate, it's cool,
Yeah, it's cool. We just disagree.
But obviously that conversation we we we started to talk to some
of the lads and one of the lads said what?
Do we say lads we mean like dads of?
Sorry to Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, we're talking about.
The lads, we've got a we've got a small group.
What's that group of some of the dads that we've met either at
the Christmas do or that came on the podcast.
And one of them said he'd had this encounter with an old
friend of his and he was talking about his lad and, and kind of
the the struggles he has with autism And his friend was quite
surprised. And again, this is something
when he said it was like, yeah, we don't necessarily tell our
friends about our kids that much and the struggles they go
through. Like when he said it, I was
like, actually, yeah. I mean, unless they ask and they
really want to know the detail, I don't yeah, necessarily share
it. I.
I, I think I've probably been conditioned over the five years
of Lydia's life to stop having that conversation with people
because I find myself having to explain, yeah, that the joy and
happiness day your child might be experiencing on a day-to-day
basis is very different. Different to the joy and
happiness that yeah, yeah. That we experience through
through Lydia. So maybe there's an element of
just not not going into too much detail because then I have to
give the full background story. And yeah, I must have to for no
reason. I shouldn't have to do this or
feel like this, but to explain, yeah.
And maybe we don't want to subconsciously, maybe there's
something that makes we just not want to go through.
All this stop interacting and yeah, and and doing that and.
Not list the stuff that we. Well, maybe if they were
neurotypical, it would then be. Yeah, my kid does that.
Yeah. You know, mine does.
You know, this. I'm just, I'm just like a yeah.
Yeah. We've got some common ground.
Yeah, that's it. And.
There's no common ground where. So he had this so he was having
this conversation and then a lady overheard over heard the
conversation. And from what you said, it
sounded like she just decided to interject into the conversation.
She heard the word autism and child.
And she was like, are you talking about autism?
Is your child autistic? And he said, yeah, you know, is
he verbal? No, he's non verbal.
You know, he struggles with this, that and the other.
And then she said, I've got an autistic child.
And he was like, oh, wow, you know, really showed an interest.
Wow, OK, great. So do you mind me asking like
kind of what what what they like and what the struggles are and
all this kind of stuff? And she said he said, is, is
your kid non verbal as well? And no, no, he's verbal.
Oh, OK. And what is he?
Is he in a mainstream school or a specialist school?
And no, he's in a specialist school.
Oh, how's he getting on? Oh, top of his class?
And he said, oh, that's great. And she just switched and was
like, yeah, she was switching it.
What do you mean? Great.
And you went oh, because you just said he's top, top of his
class. Just sounds like he's that's
really good that he's doing well.
That's that's that is objectively great.
That's great news. And she.
As opposed to not doing well. Yeah, like so, So he, he
understandably was a bit like taken aback.
Yeah, a bit like strange. And and she said.
Are you saying that your life's harder than mine?
Whoa. Hello.
And he was like, no, I'm not saying that.
I'm just saying our lives are different.
All I was saying was it's great that your kids do well at
school. Like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is the normal response.
Someone says that my kids, my kids doing well at school.
That's good. Yeah, that's the normal
response. Yeah, my kids doing well at
school. I'm so sorry to hear that.
I'm. Sorry to hear that, your life
must be extremely hard. And it just it and it kind of
got me thinking it kind of this conversation where like our kids
are all different and I think it's all relative.
But I would imagine in some cases if these parents were to
experience some other parents lives with their children where
they're non verbal and they've got loads of other struggles, I
think it's a fair thing to say that they might find that more
difficult. Now like you said, you've said
this before like it is all relative and it's not a
competition. It's, it's, it's not a
competition, is it? But it's this is feeling of it's
like they want their kid to be more difficult.
I don't know. I couldn't figure out the
response. I was like.
Is it what? What is that?
I don't know if people want their kid to be more difficult.
Is it? Is it kind of you want others to
see how difficult? You want recognition that your
life is is difficult which. Again, I understand.
Yeah. You'd want people to recognise
that, yeah, your life is, is extremely difficult.
Yeah, it's not. Again, it goes back to some of
our early conversations, isn't it?
It's, it's not the life you initially planned.
No. When you are going to have no,
this, this child join the family.
It's not the, you know all they're going to be doing XY and
Z in the future where, you know, we're going to be having these
beautiful memories here and everything's going to be a
blast. And it's not like that, is it?
So maybe it is just that. Don't say my life is good.
Do you know what it might be? It might be that when your child
necessarily doesn't have all the obvious signs and struggles of
autism that you are struggling and cognitively you're worried
that people aren't seeing that it might be difficult and people
might think your life's a breeze when it's not.
So you're almost a defensive. You're on the defensive slightly
to be like, don't assume my life is easy because my kids do mine
at school. It could be that it.
Could be, you know, if you've if you've, you've spent all that,
all those years of your child's life acting like that, you know,
you've talked about it from AX forces point of view.
You've constantly in this kind of combative state where you're
always, you know, ready to. Yeah.
So it's kind of fight or flight sort of thing.
Are you always in that kind of defend, defend, defence or if
somebody says something? But it is all relative, isn't
it? Yeah, it is relative, you know,
And again, our children are profoundly autistic.
You know, it has its drawbacks, obviously, but sometimes we go,
jeez, it might actually have benefits in the education system
or, or something like that. And then if your child is is
verbal, for instance, we just take that one example already,
you know, from our point of view, we go, oh, that's really
good for you, but you're still struggling with everything in
the sense of because they appear or come across that's closer to
neurotypical than our children would do.
Are you constantly having to justify it?
And you know, it's that classic. Someone's got a blue badge and
they park in the disabled Bay and they're quite entitled to.
But if they walk out of their car, normally everyone's like,
you shouldn't be parking. Where's Where's your missing
limb? You've got a blue.
Budget no, not yet, no. So everyone's kind of, you know,
you're already on the defensive going, no, there is a
disability, it's a disability. But for somebody like that,
maybe the disability's, you know, even more hidden or not as
unsure to say, not as obvious to outsiders.
So they feel they need to. So they feel they need to do it,
but at the same time. But they don't.
They don't need to. Or at least I don't think.
They need to in that audience, they don't need to.
No, that, that's it. In this audience, you don't need
to. I mean, we get it.
I can. I can.
And this is the when I first heard it, I was like, why?
Why? Why can't you would necessarily
accept that your life might be easier than some other parents?
I can say quite openly I'm two years ahead of you.
I can. I know categorically my life
with Thomas is easier than your life with Lydia.
It's a fact. And our kids are roughly the
same kind of level of autism. On paper, yeah.
On paper, if we look at diagnosis.
It's kind of yeah, my life is easier than your life.
So based on that, I would assume that someone else who's got
another kid could do the same. But that might be why, because
they're just in this defensive, almost like cognitive.
Disability, it's a difficult thing in it like my you know,
you said Thomas is 2, you're 2 years ahead.
So you're in a slightly better position than than what I am.
But then again, looking back for me, there could be somebody
that's two years behind me and I know where we're up to at the
moment. Here you go.
We're we're so much more good example that we were good
example. Would be Luke, Yeah.
That we met at the Christmas dude.
Yeah, obviously Lucas and LBC, he shared his story on there.
Now Luke's in a real tough spot, You know, he's got a kid that
that can't even live with him. Yeah.
And he's had to go into kind of accommodation outside that would
be very difficult. But again, in a different way.
He's not with him every day, all day, every night.
But the emotional toil that must come with not only not living
with your kid, but that initial having to let your kid go to
live somewhere else. Can't even fathom that, can't
fathom it. So I think just the point is
like, we've all just got very different lives.
And again, the differences and we, we've talked about it ad
nauseam. But these these kids that are
more high functioning and maybe they kind of it's less obvious
their day-to-day, I can imagine is is very difficult, very
difficult because they're still fighting a system.
It's not, it's not just that they're dealing with the stuff
that their kids going through. They're still trying to fight
for what the kid needs, which like, I got it easy.
So I can't even I can't, I can't imagine what it's like having to
constantly fight and fight and fight and fight.
We got it a piece of piss because of the profundity of his
autism. But this is, this is, but I'm
not trying to upset anyone here, but there are people with more
high functioning children who are less likely to need the
support that I know Thomas is going to need and Lydia's going
to need when they're adults because they are likely to, if
not, have us have a carer with them at all times.
Hopefully some of these more high functioning kids will be
able to function in society, get jobs and have relationships,
still be autistic, still have their struggles.
Absolutely. But.
And and the thing that me and you have both talked about is,
is obviously when, when, when we pop our clogs.
Yeah, and we 100% isn't it? It's yeah, it's it's, it's the
hard 1, isn't it? It's, it's the the thing at the
back of your mind 24/7, isn't it?
Yeah, it has to be. In the back of your mind.
Because it's not the. You can't.
All the time.
No it wouldn't. You wouldn't live your life.
No, you wouldn't. And it, it, it's one of those
things just you keep trying to push down, isn't it?
Yeah, you push it down because you don't want to keep having
that, that thought process of, you know, again, we've said it
many times, but what happens when I die?
Is it better that I die before my child dies?
One thing to think. But that's that's a constant
thing that will keep popping up in your head.
Yeah. Especially social media that
shares all the horror stories. I just can't imagine even as an
adult like. The alternatives are shit,
aren't they? The alternatives are.
You want your child to die before you?
Yeah, that's not great. No, in in what world is that
great? No, in our world.
Part of you thinks that might be.
Especially when you're like our age, I mean 44 Thomas is 6 for
him to go at the same time as meal before me means he's dying
way too young. But like what it it's weird.
It's it's not something you want to happen.
Of course not. But the idea of them being there
without you, and you said before like no one's going to love your
kid. Like, like you love your kid.
No, nobody. And, and there are outstanding
people, I'll make this clear. There are outstanding people
that work in the care system that will do their absolute
best. Yeah.
For for for I guess when our children become adults even with
even looked after. Even with the best level of
care, yeah, I still can't imagine being him.
Him being with a male, male, male.
You keep thinking about it too much and the thought process is
their comprehension that they understand that I'm I've
actually. That's the big one.
And I've not just left them or. Abandoned them.
That's the that's that's massive this.
Is why you, if you think about it too much, yeah.
That that's really. Yourself up in like, are they
genuinely going to think that I've just abandoned?
That really. Bothers me or will they know
that I've got? Will they know that I've will
they think that I've just left? Yeah, I I think I'd need some.
I think I'd need. Oh, I've never thought of this
before. I think I'd have to have
something written down to make sure he sees my, my dead body.
He'd need to see I'm. I haven't left him.
Oh. My God, do you do a pre?
Oh Jesus, do you do a pre recorded message?
I'll play this when I'm dead. I think so.
Hi Lydia, it's your dad here. I won't be.
I think so. I think that's a really.
Yeah, I think that's, I was going to say a good idea.
Yeah, I do think it's a good idea.
I think that's a really. Well what a shit perspective
that we have to have on growing old.
Yeah, I watched them. What is it called?
Not the Undateables because I hated that name.
What's it called? Love on the spectrum.
It's funny, you know, like undateables.
I used to love the Undateables till I had an autistic kid.
Then I hated the name. Yeah, strange, isn't it?
I thought. I thought, oh, Undateables.
Oh, this is great. And I I didn't think anything
negative about the programme itself.
No, but the the name flew straight over me.
But name. Now, now you know why we need to
change the name of the book. Yes, yes.
Yeah, words mean different things when you're affected by
Yeah. So yeah, like leaving a note.
That's an interesting note, yeah.
Leaving a pre recorded video, yeah.
Yeah, sorry. That that was it.
What was I saying? Love on the spectrum, the the
parents. There's something about the
parents consistently, unless they're just picking these
parents out, there's something about the parents where these
kids almost keep them young. Yeah, I can see that.
Have you noticed that they like, even when the one lad, he's got
parents that are maybe, I don't know, 75, maybe maybe pushing
80? Yeah.
And they are like, they're still young at heart because they
think they've had to be. I was going to say, you're not
allowed to grow old gracefully, are you?
No. You're not allowed to just
suddenly become a pensioner. No.
And and go, oh, I need to act in this manner anymore.
No. Yeah.
You still have to have the same vigour.
Yeah. And then, then this is God.
We are going down a rabbit hole here, aren't we?
Yeah. Then you've got to worry about
and we're, we're saying, you know, if we get to like 80 years
old, that means Lydia would be in her 40s, still relatively
young, but again, no idea what her comprehension will be.
And that's, that's us talking about.
We get to our 80s with our mind still intact and we just go like
that one, one day, you know, massive heart attack or you
know, you go in your sleep, wherever the case may be, and
you're gone. What's the average age in the
UK? Probably a year younger than
what the pension age is now, if the government have anything to
do. With age.
But then we're, we're talking about getting to now God, we're
talking about dying, but not having a long illness
beforehand. Oh, exactly.
You know what happens? We get dementia, Alzheimer's.
78.88 years. Old.
So we get to 80. But once if we get Alzheimer's
dementia, that's if you're lucky.
Yeah, that's if you're lucky. If we get Alzheimer's dementia,
you know, something like this. And we can't then look after our
child or we start to forget we've had a child.
Yeah, and. We don't recognise, you know
this. And by the time and that's
potentially let's say that you get to 80.
Yeah. Well, how long have they got
left without you? It's not like the 10 years
behind you. No.
Or the five years behind you. No, they could make it, you
know, equally as long it's a it's.
A. And This is why we don't think
about. It This is why we don't think
about it, because already I've got more and more.
Things while we've sat here, we think about it all the time.
We've just in this bit, we've just thought of more things.
More things to now which I can't.
Push. I've never thought, oh,
someone's going to have to show Thomas my dead body so he knows
I haven't left him. Or like you've just said there,
I'm going to have to leave a Death Note saying, by the way, I
didn't leave. I love you.
I'm sorry this has happened. Can you play this for them
please? Yeah, and such and such is going
to look after you from that from now on.
Yeah, sorry, your dad couldn't save any money.
Fuel prices are too much and he couldn't put any money on it
for. You yeah, this is it.
Yeah, absolutely. So it's just it's just so many
so many things. But again, going back to that
that lady's point, we all start from kind of one point, don't
we? And if you have a high
functioning, an autistic child, you're a diverse child, your
life is still not where you planned it to be.
It's still going to be kind of that element of extra care and
that you're fighting for for your child.
But it seems to be sometimes maybe competition is not the
right word to use, but there seems to be kind of a top
Trump's on who's got it hardest in the community, which, yeah, I
understand because you're so invested.
You don't want anybody to say you haven't.
You haven't had it hard or tried.
No, but. I don't think anybody is within
the community, not only the community is saying shut up, my
life's harder than yours, stop moaning, my life's harder than
yours. I think we're all very much and
and we've, we've met a lot of people with very different needs
and I've not seen anybody. I'd fucking block him if I did.
Who said anything negative as far as another parent's
struggles, Everyone just tries to help, even if it's blatantly
obvious that like you wouldn't say it, but you're like, OK,
that's a that's a struggle for you.
Fuck, you know, you want to live my life.
Like you might think it, you might think it, but you don't
because you realise, like you just said there, it's all
relative. Like everyone struggles are
their struggles and it is hard for them because they don't know
any different. I've talked about that before,
you know, like those those days when we were first struggling
and we spoke to other parents and they explained their
struggle. And so we were like, oh, OK, I'm
going to shut up. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Stop moaning now because holy shit.
But yeah, it's and, and again, the people that are most vocal
are usually autistic. And I again, I think they're
trying to, they want to be seen. Yeah.
They want to be seen. And they feel like they're not.
Yeah. And but in our community, you
are like you are seen. Yeah, 100 percent, 100% you are
seen. Yeah, it's true though.
I mean and, and say if you're high functioning, we've we've
had this before where we've had a bit of interaction with adults
that are high functioning autistic and they'll they'll
kind of put their their point across.
And I totally, I totally get it and why they want to put their
point across, but they're often want to be the spokespeople.
Oh yeah. But then again, I think about
it. But but then Lydia and Thomas
can't be spokespeople for the community because no, they may
never, no, no be able to communicate effectively.
So there's only one group of people that aren't.
Going to be no, that's actually really nice.
It's quite, it's quite nice that you've got people that are
actually autistic because as parents, if we're not autistic,
we don't know which like to be autistic.
So we could speak for our kids, but what better than an autistic
adult, especially sometimes if it's been like even if a child's
been non verbal, but then they became verbal as an adult.
The amount of times that you go, my kids doing this and they go,
I used to do that, it's because of this, this, this and this and
you go, thank you, that's brilliant.
My issue is only when these people speak for the whole
community and it's in a negative, it's not being
helpful. It's just don't do this because
it's offensive to this, this, this, this and this.
And you're like, is it? Or is it just offensive to you?
Because you're now saying that everybody's offended by the
thing you're offended by. And they might be, but it's not
necessarily the case. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's.
But then again, yeah, I, I, I we've seen, we've seen the
interactions. We know.
Yeah. But again, it's it's we need,
you know, high functioning autistic people to kind of relay
information because if it wasn't that prime example you gave
there was like, we know adults who are autistic that were non
verbal maybe up to the age of eight or something like that.
And those are the ones that came out and goes.
Do you know what guys? I might have been non verbal to
the age of 8. I heard everything you were
saying. Yeah.
You know, from from the age of age of three, you know, you
know, I, you know, I was, I thought I was trying to
communicate with you. I couldn't get it through.
But I heard everything you were saying.
And, you know, that's the moment we go, holy shit.
Don't speak about them in front of them, you know, as if they're
not there because they're clearly kind of taking it all
in. But yeah, it's it's it's kind of
wanting to speak on behalf of the entire community.
And sometimes there's, I can see why because this is kind of
element of who's got it hardest. Are you trying to downplay the
struggles that I've gone through?
Absolutely not. Even high functioning, you
wonder, is high functioning something to say?
Look, who am I to say? Yeah, you're high functioning.
And then we're talking about profound on the other end and
they're going well, it's your struggles hard.
You know, it's no, we're not taken away.
Absolutely no one deserves to have their struggles taken away.
No, absolutely not. No.
But don't assume that's what we're doing.
I think that's the problem. If there's like this assumption
that we are trying to do that and we're not, most people
aren't. But the other thing as well is,
I suppose a lot of these autistic adults, they've grown
up as children where there was even less support, believe it or
not, than there is now. Yeah.
So they've grown up through a system that was even worse than
this. Yeah, and that's saying
something. Yeah, exactly.
So you can understand they might have a lot of frustrations
because they they haven't had the support, especially the high
functioning because if the kids that are in the grey zone now
the the send between us, whatever you want to call them
now imagine what it was like for a send between 20-30 years ago.
Wasn't even on the radar. Well, I think, I think we could
probably imagine some people that we knew at school that now
we go, oh shit, yeah, yeah, 100%, you know, 100%.
They were never considered Inbetweeners then.
No, but they, but we did see the struggles.
Yeah, absolutely. And even now I'm thinking, I
wonder what they're doing. I wonder if they're doing
anything. Are they still alive?
Because you kind of go, oh, that would have been rough.
Yeah, we've, we've all kind of heard stories of not necessary
people that we went to school with, maybe similar year groups
that around the town in different schools who
unfortunately are no longer with us because they've taken extreme
action. We had a couple of suicides at
school back in the 90s. In hindsight, you think I
wonder. Yeah, the struggles are real.
Yeah, yeah. And a lot of the behaviours just
seemed like they were naughty kids from maybe from a rough
well. Even even us as children, we, we
were conditioned just to believe they were naughty children.
Yeah, that's it. Yeah.
Because it wasn't it. Wasn't a thing.
It's. Very black and white.
Wasn't a thing Rain Man, that was autism.
ADHD was too many E numbers. Do you remember?
That Oh yeah, yeah. Sunny delight.
ADHD. Yeah, exactly.
ADHD was you've had too many E numbers was.
It the smarties different colour smarties What the?
Fucking E number is yeah, but like that, that was ADHD.
Don't give them sweets because it'll give them ADHD.
Too many aspirin? Yeah.
Oh yeah, so aspirin is autism, Skittles is ADHD.
Yeah, absolutely. So it's a, it's a but yeah, it's
a crazy one. And you know, we're talking
about what's happened in the last 30 years.
You know, we Fast forward another 30 years, Is it going to
be better? Fucking hope so.
Who knows? We'll.
Be more autistic people. That's for.
Sure, there'll be more prisons as well.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's just, yeah, it's a difficult one to to look at, but
I think the key thing is everyone struggles is relative.
Yeah, it's it's completely relative.
You're not. You're not leading the life that
you thought you were going to have when your child was born.
No. And nobody can say.
I mean this is like I mean mesh talk about it is quite a lot.
But you, you cannot say how you would handle a situation without
being. So I think Thomas's life is hard
now and we've had our struggles and he is super duper autistic
and our life is completely ruled by him, as yours will be with
Lydia. Like every.
You didn't even realise it. Everything you do in your life
is, is to do with your kid. And you don't even realise until
somebody goes, sorry. You're doing what?
Yeah. And they're like, that's crazy.
And you're like, oh, yeah, it isn't it?
However, if I was in, if I was in the shoes of a parent with a
high functioning child with an ADHD and they're fighting the
system, I don't know if I'd cope.
No, I really don't. I have no idea.
Constant battle with your local authority?
No. I mean, I know what it's like
when I'm having a constant battle with Amazon doing work
and I'm asking pretty straightforward questions and
they give me copy pasted responses and that's just Amazon
and I'm working for a client. Now imagine something similar
about your child who's disabled and you're getting kind of copy
and pasted bullshit responses back or they're lying to you
about something they say you're like you did say such and such.
No I didn't. And you didn't have the phone
recording them during the meeting because you didn't think
you'd need to because you trusted them.
Like dealing with all that shit. I don't know if I cope.
No. I really don't.
But you can't prepare for it, can you?
Like you, you, you can't get the heads up going or your child's
gonna be autistic and then spend the next couple of years before
they're even conceived going. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna become an
expert in this. Field before you're even
pregnant. Yeah, I'm gonna become an expert
in this field. And no, it's it's literally the
shittest apprenticeship out there, isn't it?
You're just learning on the job. Proper shit.
And you, you have to make mistake after mistake after
mistake, yeah. And then that you start to
become wise or you, you, you bump into another parent.
It's like you know it's ahead of the on the journey.
Then you are and they just go. Try this instead or don't forget
to go down this route and get this application.
That's the real value of the community, isn't?
That that is because that's the only way you really start to get
to grips with it. You know if you isolated and you
you don't reach out, it's going to be 1 awful.
Yeah, that, that's. Awful.
That is the value in the community side of it is, is
essentially it's the same with anything work or hobbies or
anything like that. You make so many mistakes that
hopefully other people don't have to.
You know, you learn through fucking up constantly.
And then when somebody sends a message in the group or or drops
it in our in our community on Discord or you know, the the
stem and whistle, somebody asks a question, somebody can very
often go, yeah, yeah, skip all of that bullshit.
Don't do that because this will happen.
Don't do that. Go straight to this.
And it's kind of just kind of save a lot of people from pain
and anguish that they don't need to go through.
Yeah. And I think the good thing is
that everybody in this community wants to help everybody else.
No one's like they do. Yeah.
No one's like Rd blocking stuff or holding stuff back.
They're like, no, do this, do this.
I was going to say like what everybody wants to help, but but
there's like a real, but we all appreciate the pain that you can
potentially be going through. It's like everybody is like
super just they really want to help.
And it's not their case. And that goes back to the first
point, is that 99.9% of the time everyone does that because they
see the struggle the person's going through in themselves.
Yeah, that's what they've been. They've been there.
They know how hard it is. The sleepless nights, the tears,
the frustration, the anger. Yeah, they've seen it all.
That's why that's why I, like Mitch likes helping with the
communication cards or like I like trying to help people with
sleep stuff or whatever it is. If something you've been through
and it was an absolutely fucking nightmare and you managed to
nail it, you want to share that because you can really
appreciate how absolutely mind numbing it is and and how much
it puts strain on relationships. And I mean, that's like a
massive 1. But yeah, it's God, it's hard in
it. Yeah.
And so many people are going through it.
It's amazing still. You know how many pluck up the
Facebook, for example? Like people still find us on
Facebook and they send and and they still haven't found a
community. Yeah.
And I think part of that is that you don't necessarily want the
community early on. Early on, I think you just kind
of want to shut yourself down and.
I think earlier on you're still getting your head around it.
Yeah. And so then reach out to lots of
different people is like accepting it maybe before you're
ready to accept. It it's a bit like agreeing to
send your kid to a specialist school.
Oh man. When yeah, you really don't want
to because you've. Once.
Yeah, I've. I went through that.
You probably went through this. Maybe not the same.
Maybe. I did do this going to a
specialist school. I wanted a specialist school.
And I walked around. I was like, but these kids are
like super disabled. They're like these kids who are
Down syndrome and these kids are in wheelchairs.
I was like, Thomas doesn't need to go.
Yeah, I mean, he did. And he's but it's, it's jarring.
Yeah, we did all the mainstream schools.
Yeah. Went around those and, and met
various people and I went around a couple of specialist schools.
And deep down I knew she needed to go into a specialist setting.
I knew, I knew that was going to be the decision because I'd, I'd
accepted the autism earlier on. I spotted it, you know, very,
very early. But there was something, it just
felt final. Something very, very.
This is it by saying, right, she has to go to a specialist
school. It's like, right, That's it.
There's no coming back from this.
No. I mean, I even had stories in my
head like, you know, if she gets to a certain age and she's in a
specialist school and she's overachieving, what would you go
into? And, you know, you kind of put
these little scenarios in your head like, oh, she might
overachieve and then she'll be in the mainstream school and
then all this will be a distant memory and we can laugh about
it. Do you?
Remember when she went to that special school with all the
disabled kids? Yeah.
But yeah, this, I don't know, it's very, it's a defining
moment when you go right, It has to be a specialist school.
It can't be mainstream. This this is the route we must
go down for them to again achieve their potential,
whatever that looks like. So yeah, I absolutely get that.
Yeah, yeah. And maybe it's the same we'd
like you say with with kind of reaching out to people in the
community as we as we now a couple of years in, we're not
exactly veterans, but we're you know, we're a few years in.
But yeah, we earlier on, you know, we've.
Got a lot of people through it. Yeah, because you, I, I at the
start, all your, most of your friends, you know, if they've
got children, you know, 9 times out of 10 they're probably going
to be neurotypical or family. You've got children then they're
all, it's all going well. Will your mates stand in a pub
or your friends at work or colleagues?
Everything's kind of a normal. Shall I put inverted commas?
Normal. Yeah, absolutely neurotypical
life. And then you're starting to pull
back a bit because your life's different.
It's very hard then just to because you're so used to kind
of becoming more and more insular, closing yourself off.
Before you know it, you're in this kind of weird bubble.
But then just kind of burst out with that and reach out to
somebody who's a stranger and just go, I'm going to talk to
you about the, the thing that upsets me the most and keeps me
up at night and it's got all my fears and worries in it.
I'm just going to go out to a stranger and just say, what
about this? And even though the person
you're speaking to go, I've been there.
I've done it. Yeah.
Come along, you know, let's let's have a chat or I'll tell
you about it. If you want any questions, you
can, you can ask. But it's that kind of humans
have to go inwards before you're ready to go back outwards.
Yeah. And speak to people.
We have people in the in the discord that are a bit like that
where they join because they want to be there for the
conversations, but they don't want to participate in the
conversations, which is totally fine.
Just just be there and read stuff.
And but that again, that's just not that acceptance yet to step
in. I'm just going to watch from the
out skirts and just see what you're all talking about.
And I think as situations happen and like the one channel we did
called, what did we call it? We got one for wins and then we
got epic fails. And the, the great thing about
the epic fails is anybody can see us all having dark humour,
talking about all the horrendous shit that's going on.
And people can see, OK, these guys are having a laugh about
that thing that ain't funny. And I think that's when people
start going, hey, I'm going to share my story now.
Because I mean, even when people message and they ask questions,
sometimes the only way I get them into the Discord, which
again is a free community, I'm not, I'm not getting them in
there because they've got to pay anything.
The way I get them in is they ask a question and I'm like,
they're not saying they want, they don't want to share a
story. They've just got a problem.
And then when I had to fix it and they couldn't find any other
way. And you can even tell even them
asking the question, it's like, shit, I'm going to have to ask
these guys for help because they don't really want to in that
group. Like you don't want your kid in
especially school. It's like once I participate in
this group, I'm now admitting I'm part of this group and I get
them and say, listen, I can answer your question.
I'll answer it. By the way, if you've got any
other questions, we've got this Discord group and there's
parents in there that know way more than me and Andy and that
then they go in and that's when they just kind of sit there and
go, oh, these guys are just chatting shit.
This is fun. Yeah, the Discord group, man,
it's, it's great because you can just, it's free.
The links in the bio somewhere, the link tree bio, Yeah.
And just go in there, join it. It's free.
But yeah, there's, there's people that are joined and
they'll just sit on the periphery.
Yeah, just watching, like reading the conversation.
Oh my God, I recognise that. Yeah.
Oh, that's a decent bit of advice about potty training or
something like that, or sleep. And then, you know, we might
give it a couple of months and you just slightly see them
going. Well, they responded to
someone's question, now they're offering advice.
So yeah, it's it's like good and you.
Don't make a thing, you go. I see you.
I see you now. Yeah, you are.
You're in. Yeah.
You're in, you're saying stuff. You've been indoctrinated into
the autism world, Got ya, yes. Got ya.
But it's nice because like, it's exactly like that.
It's just they they've sat on the 8th scares and then they've
suddenly felt like, oh, actually I can really help with that.
Yeah. And then they and then they help
and they realised the person's appreciated it.
And that then makes you. Oh, this feels good.
Yeah, Yeah, this is, this is a good thing to be a part of,
especially when they could genuinely help people.
Yeah, absolutely. And you don't need to leave your
house to do it. You could just be sat on the
sofa, sat on your arse, sat on the toilet.
That's anywhere you want to be actually.
Yeah, probably sat on the toilet if you want to try and get 10
minutes peace and quiet. Yeah, absolutely.
But it is, it is, it is good and it's but everything is relative.
It's it's, it's literally, you know, high functioning, low
functioning profound, you know, it really, it really doesn't
matter from a parent's point of view.
You're in the same boat, are you?
Yeah. You know, the struggles that we
go through are different to somebody that, you know, has
potentially got a kid that's ascend between and that can go
to a mainstream school. Yet again.
The educational struggles they might be going through in terms
of getting the the right sort of education package for their
child is completely different to how easy and averted of commerce
it was for us because of the profound, you know, how profound
are children's autism was. So there's, you know, one hand
it gives the other hand it takes.
So the struggle is extremely relative and real to that
parent. Yeah.
You're still not going through the journey that you
anticipated, No at the start. That, that Discord, I mean,
we've got a Facebook group as well, which obviously is a bit
more accessible because Facebook in it.
That Discord is, it's just like a bunch of mates now.
It's like it's stir and whistle. Same people are always in there
at the weekend and you know, people are dropping message in,
in, in the bar. Anyone in the stir and whistle
tonight? Yeah, yeah, I'll be in there at
9:00. And and it's just, it's just
nice like, and we're getting to know, we're getting to know
people's kids as well, you know, via their parents as a proxy.
We're kind of getting to know, you know, like, you know Mick,
she's got twins and you know, Rebecca's boys and you know,
it's. No.
One of the guys in there, he's like making apps.
Oh. Really.
Yeah, he's making, he's making, he's making.
Oh, this app. Sorry, if you don't want, I'm
not going to share it in case there's like giving away ideas.
But it's a really cool app. I'll tell you about it later.
But he's like creating apps for for kids with, you know, autism
and stuff. And it's just like, this is cool
and he's kind of sharing it in the group for people to test 8
we need to get. We do need to.
By the way guys, we've been useless the last couple of
weeks. Just work and and life and
stuff. Sorry.
Please hold caller. Is this our friend from
Australia? Yeah, yeah, May time.
Thursday that yes, yeah, we can do that.
Can't. We yeah, of course we can.
Yeah, I'm excited about this one.
This we. Won't say too much about it now,
but when when this does land in the UK.
Yeah, this is an app, guys. Yeah, it's for parents are going
to see this as a game changer. Yeah, a real game changer
because you know how difficult it is to manage appointments,
letters. Yeah, communications with all
the various different bodies won't say too much, but he's
going to come on the on the podcast and take.
Everyone through it. And he will explain it like he
explained it to us, yeah. And we were just like, holy
shit, because. We get contacted quite a lot
about can you do this or would you mind pushing this product?
And you know, we can't say yes to everything and it has to be
exceptional. So we thought, well, we'll jump
on the. Yeah, because ultimately, yeah,
it's, they're going to be trying to sell stuff to our, our, our
listeners, you know, our community.
Absolutely. No, unless it's worth.
It unless it's, you know, worth it just simply because as
parents we were burnt very early on yeah, just chucking money in
desperation at anything that we thought made.
Hills and potions. Just everything.
Yeah. You know, it's like being a
florist and someone mentions weddings and then you can go,
yeah, or Valentine's Day and you can go.
Exactly. There's like any product.
And you mention autism, they go, yes, here's an extra naughty on
the end of it. Please buy it.
And you do. And you do?
Yeah. Because you're desperate and
you'll throw any amount of money.
Yeah, this scent trampoline. This this send trampoline must
get rid of autism. Yeah.
Cool. I'm buying it.
Yeah. £600 Wait a minute, it's the same one in Argos.
Must which quid? Yeah, but it's got send in.
Front of them. Oh, there you go.
Spend the extra money. But this will be it's gonna be
so good when we do this episode. It's fantastic.
Yeah, it genuinely is fantastic. And I am geared up.
I really want to use. It.
Yeah, absolutely. So I think.
We are going to be Guinea pigs, aren't?
We. I hope so.
Yeah, I hope so. Yeah, absolutely.
Just give us 5% equity in the business.
It's going to take off. You can tell us stuff.
I think he will. Yeah, I don't blame him either,
because. Absolutely not it.
Is awesome and it's going to and.
The story behind it is superb. Yeah, it's it's.
Very good. So he'll be on in May, which is
a couple of weeks after the marathon.
Yeah, if you didn't know, guys, we're doing the London Marathon.
Yes. We're asking for money.
We're just moaning that. Yeah, just listen to his bitch
and moaning you. Do want to donate to the London
Marathon? For us, we're raising money for
Ambitious about autism. As we've mentioned many, many
times before, we're proud to say we've achieved the target that
we were. Proud to say we've been training
art, no? No, at least at least we've
raised some money. Sean's been training for art.
Sean's been training for both of us, but no, I mean it.
Any, any, anything you can spare would be greatly appreciated.
It's two weeks under 2 weeks now until we run.
Yep, Yep. Happy days.
I'm not looking forward to it at all.
I said to you off air before we started.
I. Am Well, yes, like thinking
about the marathon. I'm thinking about my future
with Thomas. Jesus, I honestly don't know.
I'm hoping I can make it round. God, that'd be horrible.
Wouldn't. It is there a cut off time where
they're just like, look guys. I think at some point the roads
open, yeah. So we're just going to be
dodging fucking taxi. I'll tell you what, if I'm, if
I'm still, I'll say I was just say running.
If I'm still walking around that track when the roads open, I'll
fucking catch a bus. What's a good marathon time?
What's a shit marathon time? So I know I'm at least.
I don't know. Man, it's going to be So what we
did the the half I did in two hours 8.
I think mine was 2 1/2. Double that is going to be
nowhere. I'm trying to keep that pace up.
You said something good though, like running for 9 minutes and
then walking for. A minute, No, I think, yeah,
something similar I think. I think it was like run for 4
minutes, walk for one and just do that from the off apparently.
And it said, you know, that may help.
And the risk is a lot of people get giddy at the start.
They caught up with the adrenaline, the emotion and go
off. I'm going to go.
Off now I did on the off man, I was like I'm going to run my
Vandy and then the go went and I was like boy, Andy and.
Then and then people feel so good because they they're
feeling amazing. And then they get to a certain
point and then reality hits them and goes, Nah, yeah.
So it's just like if you do this, you know, a lot of people
hit this certain wall. I think we'll hit this wall.
But some people go, you know, reach halfway around the
marathon and start really feeling it.
Whereas if you set yourself off like this from literally from
the start, so he was like, yeah, all right, 4 minutes walk one
and just do that throughout then you know, it should help.
It might be utter bullshit, but we're about to find out.
Might. Be utter bollocks.
Sure, he did a half marathon yesterday.
Didn't. He he did just for fun.
We we said in the last podcast that he was just doing it for
fun. He's still doing it for fun.
I don't. Know how he's doing?
It half marathon yesterday. I don't know how he's and he's
like running around with his camera smiling.
What's his, what's his channel? Is it runner Sean?
Something like that? If, if, if, if the guy has
become a machine and he's just going to carry on doing these
charity runs. So if you get the chance, do
follow his account but. He's just absolute, absolute
legend runner, underscore, Sean, give him a follow.
He's his plan and I think it's a fucking good plan.
It's just to do loads of runs for charity, yeah.
Just. Raise money for Children.
I think the other one he did was it for cancer.
Cancer. Yeah.
So give him a follow guy. He's just a lovely guy.
He was on the Christmas special. And episode before then as well,
yeah. Yes, he was, because he was
here. He was that here.
But yeah, lovely. But.
Either way, the only thing that's keeping me going is
obviously raising money, but it doesn't matter what time I
finish because it'll still be a personal best because I've never
done 1. Before.
That's such a good way of thinking.
So even if it is 12 hours PB, they've sent a search party out
for me, it's still a personal best.
Yeah, hitting a PB. Really.
Yeah. What was your last one?
It wasn't. This is just.
Well, that's the that I won't mention times, I'll just say I
did my PB. It's my PB.
Just leave it at that. Leave it as my PB and ambition
about autism. They again talking about, you
know, arcades when they're, when they're adults, they've got
loads of support for autistic adults.
Haven't they so superb? And they're growing.
Massively. So who's the other big one?
What's the other big charity? Is it the Autistic Society?
I don't think so. National Autistic Society, Yeah.
Just on my head, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I know.
So we're doing it for ambitious. That's how we did the Paris
Paris one for we need to get the money, actually.
We do. I don't know if we've got enough
time. We've been, oh mate, we've been
so useless. We've got so many people.
We're supposed to get on here. I know.
You're trying to fit it all in, isn't?
It yeah, yeah, we've got a few like.
Nice names as well. Nice names.
Yeah. And they're like, just want me
to come on And we're like, yeah, sorry.
We're just fucking idiots. Yeah, they are so odd.
Yeah, it's so odd. Like even tonight coming in.
Sorry, this is probably shit for not on the podcast.
You know, this is shall be. I should be texting you this.
Yeah. Like doing your day job and then
stuff at home and then doing this podcast.
It's a slog, man. Like getting home and then I
really should be doing this on the podcast.
Oh well. I should just say this is a
voicemail. Maybe this is really hard.
This is so hard. These are our voice notes to
each other. Hi, Andy.
But I'd come in here setting this up and then getting home
and then editing it and then you post in the clips responding to
messages and getting shouted out for using pronames that we were
supposed to. Use it's, it's a learning curve,
isn't it? It's a learning curve.
It is. But yeah, yeah.
Well we we do need to get that's better organised.
Yeah, we do. If anyone wants to like beer,
yeah, free because we make no money.
Sorry, give us a shake. You guys are just using your
kids to make money. Seriously, if anybody does want
to be APA because they've got nothing better to do, we could.
We could. I don't know.
Oh, yeah. Buy your coffees and stuff,
Yeah. Buy your own coffee or.
That's what we need, man. We need someone.
To We also need somebody, so you'd have to edit it.
Somebody that is a awesome editor that can take you to the
next level. Yeah, that'd be good.
Someone could do like some nice little videos at the beginning,
like an intro video, you know, all these professional podcasts
tab. Do you know what it was?
I noticed it on the 20% hidden, 20% hidden 20% podcast, the
intro, and that was like, yeah, bastard.
That's good. Ours is very much like, hey,
welcome to the next episode. Yeah, our intro is all right,
mate. Yeah, that's our intro.
Episode 34. Yeah, we need like we just need
to and if there's any investors out there who want to invest in
this, this, whatever this is, yeah.
Do you want to because Jake, 30. WWW dot.
Yeah, or just. Do.com is it dot?
Co.uk. Ohits.com, isn't it?
We're international, we're all over the place worldwide #1
Zimbabwe. Dot com number one is Zimbabwe.
Yeah, I think we hit #3 in South.
Korea, Malta was another. One, I think Malta, yeah, big
players in Malta, looking forward to the World Tour.
Not idea I just I just I love it mate I just.
Enjoyed it? No, it's.
Good. I just wish it wasn't such a
fucking slog. And I'm sorry that we didn't go
back to everyone in the messages.
I mean, I'm going to, I'm going to go in here now, right?
I'm going to go in and look at messages and yeah, fuck.
Honestly. There's so many messages.
Oh. No.
And do you know what's really sad?
Like a lot of these. People say nice things.
People say nice things, some people it's opportunity.
So many messages and and on here.
I don't want to be like a like a name dropper, but like there's
some big names here and I need to.
Get back to them. Yeah, because.
It's just so nice that they've reached out.
Yeah, honestly. But it's just time.
Yeah, it's literally it's just time.
Like like if a year ago, let's say when we first started, if I
knew we were going to get this many messages, I'd be like, oh,
amazing. Or we're going to reply to all
of those. I fucking.
Can't do you remember? We remember we were replying to
every single message. It'd be like every evening, like
a three hour slog each just trying to get through messages.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's it's hard, Yeah, but it's good.
Oh. Great, I love it.
Yeah. If anybody does want to be APA
for us for free, let us know. Yeah.
I mean, if we do ever make money, yeah, Joe, I'd love to do
this. I said the other day in the in
the chat is like give a bit of equity in the podcast to people.
Yeah. Instead of being paid a wage,
they get paid like in dividends so as as it grows they can make
some money in quarterly dividends.
Yeah, that'd be cool. That'd.
Be meant because then you've got like a team of people that are
all invested. It's all.
Got shit like when Facebook started, wasn't it that story
that went round where they got their first major HQ head office
sorted out and then what was some art doing on the walls?
And I think they've got this, I can't remember if it's like a
street artist or something in there.
He came in like. A Banksy type.
Yeah. Or just somebody just like,
yeah, can you jazz up our offices and make them look like
Facebook ish? And then he came in and did it.
And I think they even he either asked or they gave him the
option like, do you want us to pay you or just give you a bit
of equity and. Or just take equity.
And he was like, ah, yeah, I just take the equity.
And now he's like a multi millionaire just loving life.
So, so yeah. And when we.
So to Andy's point, if you would like to be APA or you're a video
editor and you just want to work for free for a while and we give
you some equity, and then when we're millionaires, you'll be
one too, let us know. Let us.
Know. But yeah, we've got some
exciting stuff coming up this year.
Yeah, it's just been a very hectic first few months of.
The year and this marathon's just and we've got another thing
going on. We just won't talk about it.
We've got another thing we're doing, which is which is a big
deal to us and we've got that and we've got the marathon and
we've got something else coming up later in the year with some
other people who are awesome on kind of in the autism space.
So there's there's things we're doing, there's people we need on
the podcast that we need to get messages back to 1 today.
Need to message him back in a minute.
Absolute legend. Fucking hilarious as well.
So we need to just get a grip. But it is just, it's just, it's
hard. Yeah, because we're so fucking
busy. Sorry, I'll stop fucking moaning
there. But again, if you want to wait
for free, let's know. Oh.
You're trying to say your life is harder than mine.
No, that's not because it's not a competition.
It's not a competition, but if it was, I'd win.
Absolutely. OK mate I enjoyed that, that was
good. That was good guys.
Join the discord, join the Facebook group, join the
stemming whistle for £4 a month if you want to just start video
chats with us every weekend. It's good fun and everyone in
there is just a legend. Please follow us on YouTube.
Don't know if we've mentioned that before.
Yes. Please, please follow us on
YouTube. Give it.
Just go and subscribe on YouTube, subscribe on Spotify.
Like turn the notifications off if you want, but just please
give us a follow. It would mean the world.
And again, if there's any investors out there that want to
give us money, that would be great, Yeah.
Absolutely. Or if you want to buy us a
coffee. If you just want to buy us
coffee, there's a link. There is a link.
You just want to buy us a brew. I did notice somebody did go to
buy me a coffee and they put 3 pint in there, which is great,
but it's only going to get one of us coffee.
So just saying like, you know. Cool if you're.
Going to buy a coffee. Buy us both 1.
Thank you very much. Yeah.
Thank you very. Much OK.
All right, thank you, mate. Absolute pleasure.
And you know, going back to start a conversation, we're all,
you know, as parents, we're all doing a great job, aren't we?
So just don't beat yourselves up.
Keep going, everyone. 'S doing ground and if we say
anything that triggers you, I always say this like intent
matters 100% a. 100%. If you hear something get said
and you before you get in the comments because it's hard
enough to read all the comments and the messages anyway.
So please comment if it's only worth commenting if you think
we've said something and our intent.
Is to, is to. Cause any kind of hurt or harm,
then drop us a message and a comment.
But if you think there was no malice or malintent at all, then
don't bother, because I guarantee you we do not want to
hurt anyone's feelings. 100% is not why we started this at.
All not at all. We just want to have fun, kind
of have a laugh at our own expense and hopefully make
everybody feel a little bit better about the shit time that
they might be having. Yeah, that's it.
It's, it's here to help people really, isn't it?
That's literally here to kind of that's.
Actually, the only reason I enjoy it, we really enjoy it.
The. Reason we enjoy it the reason we
started this was to help dads because we're pretty shit at
this sort of stuff and just yeah, just explain that you're
not alone. Basically we're going to break
it down into, you know, very, very simple terms.
It's like you're a dad, It's really difficult.
Your mates probably don't get it, your family probably don't
get it. We understand, Don't beat
yourself up. Life's going to carry on.
You're going to get through this.
That is literally very, very simple terms what this is about
and the fact that we've got, you know, mums on board, we've got
grandparents, carers, people that work, you know,
specialists, it's just the icing on the cake.
Yep. So there's nothing here that is
said deliberately with malice or anything.
Else, like all love, baby, it's. All.
Love all love. OK, mate.
Thank you very much. Absolute pleasure all.
Right, thank you mate. See you later guys.
Love you all. Bye.
Bye.