Gaytriarchs: A Gay Dads Podcast
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Gaytriarchs: A Gay Dads Podcast
The one with podcast host Jameel Mayers
This week, gay men have abandoned the White House, David has parts of his son to dispose of, Gavin doesn't understand Instagram, we rank the top 3 hottest Halloween characters, and this week we are joined by podcaster, author, deep thinker, and general multi-hyphenate Jameel Mayers who talks to us about his rare adoption journey, where he gets his Dad vibes from, and what exactly are Fathernetics.
Questions? Comments? Rants? Raves? Send them to GaytriarchsPodcast@gmail.com, or you can DM us anywhere @GaytriarchsPodcast
Or you can DM us on Instagram. We are at Gatriarchs Podcast. On the internet, David is at DavidFM Bond Everywhere, and Gavin is at GavinLodge on I was reading it and I'm like, what am I gonna say?
SPEAKER_02:What am I gonna say? What am I gonna say? We didn't record the first chapter. I'm like, what am I gonna say?
David:And this is Gatriarch's.
Gavin:Right? Mm-hmm. Well, there's this douchebag out there called Prof. I don't know if you've ever heard him. He's got a massive following, massive. And he would probably call himself a douchebag as well. I think he's kind of a reformed conservative. Like he used to be just rapacious capitalist. And now he's like, well, this is bullshit. I hate Trump kind of thing, right? So he, I was listening to a podcast of his while running, because part of me during my age bracket right now is like needing to prove to myself that I won't die if I go run, right? So I'm listening to him, and I was doubled over in laughter when he he was um he and another woman do something called raging moderates, and they just bitch about politics from a leftist point of view, obviously. And uh they were talking, they were criticizing Trump for having well we rarely even say his name on here, don't we? They were criticizing Voldemort for having redone the inside interior of the White House. And uh this dude, uh definitely douchebag uh Scott Goff something is his name, prof G, says, you know, the thing that really pisses me off the most is that Trump committed the cardinal sin of interior decorating, was he didn't hire a gay man. Instead, it looks like a bunch of Karen's with spiky bleached hair think they have taste, including leopard prints and gold leaf, which is the epitome of tacky. And I just loved this guy, his whole brand is saying it like it is, and he says an awful lot of offensive, dated things that should cancel him. But I loved that he just absolutely stereotyped the hell out of that because it's true the White House does not look now like it has been decorated by a gay man, that's for sure.
David:Melania, come on, what were you thinking? Yeah, but you gotta keep in mind, like he's the age where like the early 90s were the epitome of class, and that was like leopard print gold. Like he always thinks gold is really Are you making excuses for Donald Trump's Listen? I only voted for him twice, not all three times. So I feel like I get a little bit of room for that.
Gavin:Right, right, right, right, right. Well, anyway, that was a podcasting moment that had me doubled over in stitches, and hey, one of our superpowers, right? Just knowing interior design, I suppose, I mean, don't hire me to do it.
David:Yeah, don't come to Gavin and I's house because you're gonna be very disappointed, except for the gay sex part, but then you'll be very impressed. Um, speaking of being impressed, so I have a little update from uh last episode. I was telling you about how we went to the dentist, and the dentist was like, What would you like to do, boy for Florida? And I said, I don't want to decide. So we let it fall out naturally, and it did. And fell out shark, the the baby shark tuck too. Yeah, his tooth fell out. Um, he ripped it out on camera. It was like really loose, and he just fucking yanked it, and it was like like something about watching somebody else pull their own tooth out was just so fucking gross. But the the this is his first? Wow, he's like geriatric to be just losing his teeth, right? Yeah. So this is his first tooth that he lost. And so, of course, we're like, okay, tooth fairy, like, how are we gonna do this? All that stuff like we talked about last week. So I said to him, I said, Hey, um, you know, you're gonna put it under your pillow so the tooth fairy can give you money. He goes, No, I'm gonna keep it. I make money taking the garbage out. And I was like, Okay, bitch. Well, uh, all right. Well, like, so now I'm like, what are we gonna do with this like biological material that we're gonna keep? I'm not gonna do a Gavin and keep the the circumcision in a jar like your mom did. I I so so excuse me. It was a plastic baggie from the 70s. Wow, with just this disgusting squittering, this like, huge, huge, yeah. Massive. Yeah. For a baby, you had a massive dick.
Gavin:You know, we we all think that we're gonna save these teeth, and then what the hell do we what the then you end up like Gavin cleaning out his childhood home and finding everything, including all of his teeth, and they just like they crack and fall apart, and you're just like, what is the point of this? Of your dick.
David:I want to reiterate for the listener who joined us maybe late after the story, Gavin's mom kept the part of his dick, the foreskin, that they cut off during his circumcision, and Gavin encountered it cleaning out his mom's house. So, um, what did you do with that um calamari? What did you end up doing with it?
Gavin:I now in my uh calamari-sized brain, I cannot remember. I don't think I would have gotten rid of it because by this point, this is just hilarious, and you just have to hold on to it. No, I wouldn't have thrown it away, but I could not, for the life of me, tell you where it is, which means that my children your children are gonna discover it.
David:They'll be like, what parts of dad's dick are in this house.
Gavin:So oh my god. Um okay, so anyway, are you keeping well, are you eventually gonna sneak the tooth away from him? What did you have a plan here?
David:I I don't know what we're gonna do. I think what he's eventually gonna do is say, okay, I'll put it under my pillow for for some for some money. But yeah, he's like, no, bitch, I got a job. I'm taking the trash out twice a week, getting a dollar each time. I was like, you're you're not wrong.
Gavin:That work ethic, that work ethic is definitely admirable. We have kept every single one of our kids' teeth in one of these, I don't know, just got it on Etsy, kind of like charming little you set you you feel this obligation of I need to create all these memories for myself and for my kid, and I'm gonna be nostalgic and da-da-da. And you spend$35 on some dumbass wooden contraption that holds all the teeth so you can date them and say where you lost them and everything. And then by the end, you're just like shoving them in. Oops, I dropped it, they all fell out. Now I have no idea which tooth is which. It has it's meaningless.
David:They should all just be, I don't know. Throw it in the trash. It just yeah, it just makes me feel uncomfortable. Um, but you know what else made me feel uncomfortable? Is my son came home with a fix it ticket. What on earth? What is his teacher basically sending him home with a your kid is being bad, he needs to fix this. And it was he was like talking while she was talking and not paying attention enough to where like she he got multiple warnings and got sent home with like a thing that we had to sign twice. We've gotten two fix-it tickets at home. So I'm basically raising a criminal and um he's gonna leave lead a life of crime. So um were you a chatty cathy growing up? No, I was a total like brown-nosing yes teacher, please let me please the teacher kind of um vibe. I was a total do-gooder, yeah, surprisingly.
Gavin:I was a total do-go gooder as well, but I could not keep my mouth shut. So I would get like straight A's or H's or ones or whatever for grades, but I always had bad grades for respecting the rights of others, which meant I was too talkative and um wouldn't let every other people focus. But they needed to fucking be smarter and get their shit done faster, right?
David:Yes. And you know what else was smarter was our listener, because it was your birthday last week, and we were saying we wanted all of our listener to send in some dick pics. Uh-huh. And what was hilarious was as soon as that episode dropped, we started getting DMs from people being like, Gavin's Instagram is private. He can't even receive dick pics. And so I reached out to you, I was like, your Instagram is private. Like, and you're like, I don't know how to unprivate my Instagram. So we had this old man trying to figure out his AOL login. Yeah. And it was just uh so for those of you who ended up sending some stuff over via Gate Shrek's podcast, thank you. It was very funny. Listen, we got a lot of um, you know, Dick Van Dyks, and we got a lot of chickens, yes, we got a lot of uh those kind of dicks, but we very appreciate it. Um sorry that Gaben's DMs were lots. Oh my god.
Gavin:I know my Instagram is a joke, and you know what? I am perfectly fine with it that way, but uh, I do appreciate all the Dick Van Dykes and the chickens because that's hilarious.
David:By the way, do you uh can you all hear in Gaben's voice that he's getting sick? He said before we started recording, he was like, I think I'm getting sick. And I have heard it throughout these past seven minutes get worse and worse, like a storm cloud is rolling and sweet.
Gavin:Hurry up. I've I've been muting my yeah, we need to we do need to hurry this up. I've been muting myself real quick to sneeze and cough and uh snort, snot because I don't have any tissues next to me.
David:That's lovely, isn't it? That's so lovely for this audio platform. I'm so glad we don't charge for this because God people would be so disappointed. Um so one other thing.
Gavin:I'm gonna wait for one day to be able to charge for it.
David:Just except for you, listener, not you, not you listener. Oh, speaking of another listener, um, our other listener, Liam, uh, reached out to us. And I'm sorry, for those of you who have emailed us and DMed us like interesting stories and stuff, we're so behind on everything. But I was I wanted to remind uh myself of he sent us this email about his daycare, and his daycare was basically taken over by kind of a corporate entity, and everything basically all the prices went up, the service went down. It was crazy. And it's funny, it reminded me that happened to our daycare. Our very first daycare was like it was it was nice enough, but it was like very homemade kind of stuff, and the prices are reasonable. And then, like, this conglomerate bought it up, changed the name, all the like the letterhead was different, but the services went down and the prices went up by like 30%. It was fucking insane. Ain't that the way? It's such bullshit. And Liam basically sent us uh Liam's from the UK, said the exact same thing happened to him, and he's like, it's basically like my fucking housing payment, which is so true. And now that both of my kids are out of daycare, I can hear to tell you that money finds a new home in somebody else's pockets. Very quickly. Because what I didn't realize was that nobody goes to school. There's a thousand days off. There's half days, there's medium days, there's just so there's non-stop. And I'm like, where do these kids go? Well, maybe they do like a day camp or something.
Gavin:Well, there's so many times in the last hundred and twenty-four episodes of recording with you. You'd be on a random, I don't know, uh that we would be recording on a half day, and and I'm like, well, my kids are running around, and you're like, no, mine are take care. And I'm like, I I festered so much judgment and envy over all of that. You've had it so good for the last five years. Well, welcome to hell.
David:Speaking of hell, we're throwing a Halloween party.
SPEAKER_05:Yay!
David:Nice with our friends at the uh gate, the Queer Family podcast. Uh, we've mentioned it a couple times. We're gonna keep mentioning it until the party. Um, today is October 8th, but our party will be October 25th. We are doing a kind of a family Halloween party from 4 to 6 p.m. at Sugar Mouse in New York City. Saturday, October 25th. It's kind of like a bar, but it also has like arcade games and food and these video walls. It's like super fun. And we'll have candy for the kids. We'll do like a little, maybe like a runway for the costumes. But please, please, please come. We're gonna be there. Gavin will be there, I will be there with our kids. Gavin, you're not gonna be there? We can discuss that next time. Oh shit. Okay, there's tea to be spilled. Um, and uh, but if you are going, if this is something you could do, please, please sign up for it's free, but sign up for it on our eventbrite, which is on our um bio because we want to kind of get an idea of headcount. Uh, but please come uh visit us, say hi to us, and um, you know, maybe send Gabin a dick pic because his Instagram is now open.
Gavin:But but send it at Gate TrueRx Podcast. Yes. So there is uh obviously no good news out there whatsoever, but I have been able to do a little bit of research for us because I want to be the bearer of good news once in a while, okay? Yeah. Don't know if you know about this, but it's because it did actually happen a couple of weeks ago. But there's some douchebag dickhead guy running for governor in Wisconsin, who's of course anti-trans, anti-queer, anti, you know, all the things that make life meaningful, who had to drop out. Why? Big surprise. Because he was following, he got caught for following a whole bunch of pornographic folks on Medium, and some of them were non-binary and possibly um trans folks. Now, I have to admit, I think it's kind of bullshit that we're outing this guy and finding out what his private proclivities are, and yet at the same time, fuck that. No, he's an asshole.
David:He doesn't get privacy when he's being a hypocrite and he's trying to ruin other people's lives.
Gavin:You don't get privacy. So that is um, so that was oh, Bill Barion, that's what his name was. Bill Barrian thinking that he could just ride the wave of hatred to the governorship in Wisconsin. Fuck you, Bill. You are canceled.
SPEAKER_03:Um then did you see the picture of the South Florida football team boys hugging and almost kissing? No, but that's where I grew up. Tell me about it.
Gavin:It's not entirely clear, I don't think, in my very, very quick um research whether or not. Oh, and take this back. I've just said fuck you, Bill. Now I'm starting another section of Gatriarchs, uh, David. Are you excited to have a new um weekly series that I completely dropped the ball on? Totally. We're doing Gatriarch's sports. Okay.
David:Oh Lord, no.
Gavin:So uh just recently, I don't know if you saw the two footballers who were caught um in an embrace. Did you not know about this? I did not know about this, but tell me more. South Florida's football team, um, a kicker and a holder. I didn't even know that was a position.
David:Just two gay men trying to talk to sports. Can you know you and I trying to dance around sports when we don't know anything about it?
Gavin:How do you not know this? Okay, I'm gonna put this in the chat. First of all, I have to find the chat. Where's the chat? I want you to see this picture in real time, okay? Because you are going to love it. So this is the thing. I don't think anybody really knows. It's not clear whether or not they're a couple, but um, after his 20-yard field goal won the game for the Bulls, kicker Nico Gromat Grommatica celebrated with his teammates and coaches, but saved a special moment for Chase Leon, the team's punter. So the punter and the kicker seem to have a thing going and isn't.
David:Okay, a lot of cares, a lot of bot maws and dancing with those legs, but like that that picture is very sexy. That there's pictures. There is yeah, there's deep love.
Gavin:It speaks a lot. So we deep love. And who and you know what? If it's two bros, also, more power to that's fantastic.
David:Better. Also, I went to this school for a year, so I don't want to say that I turned yes, I went to South University of South Florida for one year, and I don't want to say that I'm the reason that everyone's gay at this school, but but follow the trails.
Gavin:Um, guess what? We're not done with our um Gateriarch Sports Talk. Oh, jeez. More just I think the fact that Bad Bunny was chosen as the Super Bowl halftime uh entertainment, watching that make people full of hatred. They're losing their minds down. Losing their minds. And the irony, usually them being he's not an um American citizen, and yet he is because he's from Puerto Rico, which means he is an American citizen. You've already lost them.
David:You've already lost them understanding that Puerto Rico is a part of the United States. They've already lost them.
Gavin:I am so here for Bad Bunny. I can't say that I'm the biggest fan. From a distance, I am. I think he's great, but I don't anyway. Point being, I am here for Bad Bunny, and this is going to be a fantastic Super Bowl. Entertainment, a halftime show. Who cares about the beginning?
David:You don't even know what it is. You are so far away from sports. I love basketball and bad bunny. Love them. You know what I don't love? Really? Our top three lists.
Gavin:Gatriarchs, top three list, three, two, one.
David:All right, this is your week. No, it's my week. Is it my week? Is it your week? It's my week. Okay. It's my week. So uh this is again, we're in the Halloween season. I I put out my um Halloween decorations yesterday. I'm very excited. We are ranking what are your top three hottest Halloween characters? Uh-huh. Bring it on. Bring it on. So here we go. So for me, number three, Jack Skellington. Oof. Tall, lean. From Nightmare Before Christmas. Oh!
unknown:Okay.
David:He's like long and lean. He's got those big fingers. Yep. He's just like, you know it, you know he's got a big dick. You know what I mean? Like he's one of those. Um, number two for me, Beetlejuice. I don't care what you say about him, unless I know his face is molding and he's the undead or whatever. But like that confidence, that swagger, uh, that's sexy. Okay.
Gavin:Um, I'm okay with that.
David:And number one, I I don't think you can I don't think you can argue with this. I would be shocked if he's not your number one. Norman Bates from Psycho. That is a sexy man. Oh, that is a sexy dangerous sexy. But he's like, he's like a twink all grown up with a secret. You know what I mean? Like there's something very sexy about Norman Bates. So Norman Bates from Psycho, what about you?
Gavin:Okay. I I'm okay. I'm okay with all of those. Okay, for mine that I've thought about non-stop since you gave me this assignment last week. Um, number three for me, this is a little bit of a stretch, but I when I think about the instinctual feelings of fear and being turned on at the same time, I do think about, believe it or not, the Blair Witch project. The dude of the three, it was the two guys and the girl. One dude was uh Michael Donahue, the blonde guy who just had long stringy hair. And frankly, I wanted to have the long stringy hair, or maybe I just wanted his long stringy hair on me. But the point is, it was fun to be scared with Michael Donahue in um the Blair Witch Project. Number two, American Psycho's Patrick Bateman. Oh, yeah.
David:I mean, that's a that's an easy one. Easy, like gorgeous, hot, cocky, murder.
Gavin:The cockiness factor is just such an incredibly the turn off is such a turn on that um there you go. And then number one.
SPEAKER_03:Do you remember the movie Fear from 1996? No, I was just three at that time.
Gavin:So fuck off. Well, it was Marky Mark's, I believe it was his first movie.
David:I think I think all of our young listeners only knows him as Mark Wahlberg. They don't know Marky Mark. Mark Marky Mark was early 90s.
Gavin:Mark, yeah, Mark Wahlberg, um, his first movie, and he, I just remember these scenes where he's the psycho who's chasing uh a family, and um he lifts up his shirt at one point and he has scratched, I think it's either the girl's name or like the word fear into his abs. And I just thought that is the sexiest, most dangerous thing I've ever seen. And that was long before I had come to terms with my own identity, that's for sure. But so Marky Mark in the slasher movie Fear Made Me Gay. That's what it comes down to. All right, what's next week's list that you have prepared? Because we were at we are at the height of your PSL basic bitchness, right? Um, it is cozy hugue season, and uh even we are lighting candles around the house. I want to know what are your top three favorite candle scents?
David:You know, there's huggers and there's also gezelig, which is the Dutch word for the exact same thing, that feeling of like coziness.
Gavin:But yes, did you learn that from Duolingo?
David:Yeah.
Gavin:Um that word was in Duolingo.
David:So, um, all right, so top three like fall candle scents. Got it.
Gavin:Yes. So today's guest, like so many of the gay superheroes in our hall of fame of Gatriarchs, is a multi-hyphenet. He is an author, a podcaster, an IT specialist, a super deep thinker. I mean, he's so above our brain capacity here. Gatriarchs, and an energy-focused mental healer, an I'm doing my best to break traumas of the past, and a dad, of course. Welcome to the show, the host of the Father Netics podcast, Jamil Mayers. Jamil. Good morning.
SPEAKER_01:Hyphenator.
David:Yeah. I love it. Do you know how many hyphens are in just that intro he wrote in our outline? About 40, like literal hyphens.
Gavin:But they weren't made up. I mean, you are a multi-hyphenate for sure.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I thought I thought you were going to say like multimillionaire, the way you were going. I was like, okay.
David:Well, give us your banking login information and we'll test it out. We'll see. I'll send it in the chat. Okay. Sounds good.
Gavin:Jameel, uh, I know it's super early in the morning, but here's our proverbial first question, which is how'd your kid drive you bonkers already today? Meaning, I suppose yesterday also.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it can't be today, although, you know, give it a you know a couple more minutes and it'll probably be up bouncing around the house. What I will say is yesterday was a bit of a chill day, and it's on the back of a really bonkers day. So we're we're in fall break here in Phoenix. Right. New concept for East Coasters. Fall break, what is that? Oh, well, okay, fair enough. This school district takes a lot of breaks. Okay. And I'm excited about it, and I'm not excited about it because I love having the kid home, and I also don't like having the kid home. Yeah, relatable. Catch catch 22. Right. 100%. So I try to do the nice things with all of my fellow friend families. I had their kids over for the weekend. I had them over on Tuesday over to Wednesday. They spent the night and they were rowdy as hell. And I think at 11 45, I had just had enough, and I walked in there and I was like, look, I will call your parents at 12 o'clock at night and send you home. And that's I I didn't want to be that parent. I don't want to be that parent. I don't necessarily have a drive to be the cool parent either. But it's my house. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, the furniture doesn't grow on trees. Right? But also calm down.
Gavin:But just giving simple limits uh lets them know that yeah, you can be cool, but you're not gonna be walked on either. And they need to calm it down. They're like, But at midnight? No, thank you. I'm not interested in it.
SPEAKER_01:Well, so here's what I did. Yeah, I and I never do that. I usually shut the house down at 11 because they're they're 11 and 12-year-old kids and they're full of energy until you turn the video games off and then dim the room, and then all of a sudden it's like a door cell battery that's running out of energy. Yeah, you know, they start to fold over. So I told them, hey, you can stay up as long as you want. In my head, I'm like, okay, this is five minutes. Um, as long as you don't make any noise. But if I go back down here, I'm gonna shut it down. I'm upstairs ten minutes, and I am back downstairs. Uh-huh. And they're like, okay, we know what this is about. And and it's just like, what was happening? Well, uh, I stubbed my toe and I had to yell. And it's like, okay, I don't buy it.
David:You know that TikTok sound that is uh that old woman goes, it is three o'clock in the fucking morning. That's how I feel every time it's like 9 15. My kids are not. I was gonna say I'm like, because I'm like, I'm going to sleep right now.
SPEAKER_01:I thought you were gonna give the uh what is that Nancy Reagan um commercial? Do you know where your kids are? Where your kids are, or is that is that Nancy Reagan, or was that just like 10 o'clock?
David:I think that was just like a TV thing. It would just play on the TV. Like we'll take it as a Nancy Reagan thing. I was a kid. But what a window into the different generations of parenting. Like when our parents had to be reminded by the television to find their children. Go find your kids. Versus we have all of our kids stabbed with NFC tags and we're tracking their locations at all times. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We do Apple Air tags.
Gavin:Well, um, so I'm glad that uh well, how ultimately, how did the uh sleepover go? Did they calm down and were you up making pancakes?
SPEAKER_01:They did, and I knew they would because I turned the TV off and I told them to go to their corners. So I it's so random. We go camping all the time and we have this little uh cushiony little top topper we put on an air mattress. We're we're that type of campers. Um so I rolled that out and I put that in the middle of the floor, and they all jumped on it and they were all fighting about it. That was the ruckus. Who's gonna sleep on it? So I rolled that back up. Now nobody, now nobody sleeps on it.
David:Nobody sleeps on it.
SPEAKER_01:Now who's gonna chop the baby up and who who's gonna keep it whole, right? Um, so I put them all on different sides of the couch, and that was it. After five minutes, they were all asleep.
Gavin:Well, so how did you take it back a little bit, tell us um, because this is I think a big topic for you in all the realms, how did you become a dad?
SPEAKER_01:Um we had thought about it for a while, myself and my husband Nicholas, and you know, one day we woke up and we were like, hey, we're in a comfortable spot. Why not you know revisit that conversation? And then we got the green flag from ourselves to say, yes, let's do that. So we decided to go the route of um what is it called? Um adopt, foster to adopt is the is the title here in in Arizona. So because when you go foster to adopt through the state, everything's covered. And while we didn't want to think of what how to afford doing it any other way, that was just it just it just sounded right. So we decided to go down that path. It took us a whole, you know, I think it was like three months of of training and testing and all this other stuff and background screens and all the stuff our our straight counterparts don't have to do. Do not, you know. They, you know, one one little shot of tequila and they've got five kids. And we it's classier there in Arizona, David, not just a Miller Light.
David:I usually say Miller Light in a Carrie Underwood concert.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Oh I I will tell you, I saw Jessica Simpson uh yesterday on TV. She looks phenomenal.
David:Wait, let's but she's a she's a she's an actual billionaire, so she's like, I can afford all the like peptides I can inject. Jessica Simpson is a billionaire? Yes, but why?
SPEAKER_01:She has uh she has a cloth is a clothing clothing line at Walmart.
David:She was one of those early adopters in the early 2000s who who wasn't afraid to be like, no, I'm gonna come out with a line of moo moos for for women who want to look younger. And then everyone bought that shit, and she's a bill, she's like literally one of the first things.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah, you know, we all thought she was ditzy when she had that TV show. We're like, this girl off her, and she surprised us all.
Gavin:Okay, so angling back. Wait, first of all, why did you see her yesterday? Was that just on TV or in person?
SPEAKER_01:I didn't not see her personally, she was on TV.
Gavin:Got it, and then bringing it back to parenting. Yes, thank you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so um, after Jessica Simpson gave us our background screens, um, we finished that process. Uh so for a couple of months, we didn't hear anything and we were thinking, man, this is kind of weird. Like, uh, is it because we're gay? Or so we we had no idea. We were grasping at straws. So we decided to do respite. And if you're unfamiliar with West Bit, is where uh an existing uh foster family reaches out and says, Hey, I need a break. Can someone else who's licensed come watch these kids? And we're like, sure, let's do it. We didn't want to do it because initially it's like we're gonna fall in love with some random kid for a weekend and then have to give him back. No, we were like, hey, you know, we're not doing anything, let's do it. That's how we met Jacob, my son. And ever since we've had him uh the very next weekend, he was reassigned to us. Wow. And we've had him for the last eight years.
Gavin:What was the secret sauce for you guys? Do you think that it just all clicked?
SPEAKER_01:I think it was happenstance, to be quite honest, because we were waiting and we didn't hear anything. And so we were thinking, okay, there are what 13,000 kids in the system here in Arizona. It's like, what's the problem? Yeah. Um, and you know, I could speculate left and right, I will never know. Sure. But that connection that we made when we went to see him and he came to the door and he's like, hey, was he waiting for us? He was excited for the weekend. He was gonna go away with these two guys that came to visit him. He was gonna have ice cream at McDonald's and pizza. He was like, Let's go. That energy that he still has today is is what really uh got us connected.
David:And it's just been I I want to say heaven, it's been a journey, is what I'm gonna say ever since I'm curious because I I I don't know much about foster to adopt, but I'm curious about the process. So you you you had him for that weekend and miss respite. So theoretically, he would go back to his foster family after that. And what what is the what was like the just like the the the nuts and bolts of like, okay, in the next weekend, and then how did it spill over into actual like this is my son now?
SPEAKER_01:So the current foster mom at the time did not want to adopt, so she was not a forever home. Uh, she was more of a professional transition home, which is which is fantastic. You want people who are really into wanting to be fosters um in the meantime. So when we made a connection, we made a reference that we had a fantastic time. She was like, Hey, are you looking for a forever home type situation? Jacob is in that row. So if you're interested, I will make some calls and see what I can do. Well, she's somehow of a powerhouse because like two days later, she was like, Come get him this weekend, he's yours. Wow, that's easy. And how old was he? At the time he was four. Okay. He was our foster kid for about a year and a half. It took a year and a half to get all the way to the end of all of that for us to be able to adopt him. He has two sisters, which we don't have, but they all got adopted at the same time, same courthouse, same judge. I mean, so it was like a family event. It was pretty cool. Wow. And you stay in touch with the sisters' families as well? We try our best. Um, you know, they've got their own lives. Some of them have moved, I say some of them, there's only two of them. One of them has moved out of state. Uh-huh. So that connection isn't really there. Right. He's young enough to where, you know, us calling and doing video isn't really going to fit the bill. Uh the other one kind of lives a little a bit away, still here in in in Phoenix, but it's it's become more of a one-way trip, me reaching out and and then maybe I hear back. So yeah, I sometimes don't have the patience for that. So I understood. And I don't want it to be a traffic stop for him either.
David:You know, here you're talking to somebody and then you're not, and then three months later, and then yeah, and like forcing a relationship onto him that's just merely biological and not, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And we know it's gonna happen, right? So at some point he's gonna turn 16 and go, hey, uh, let's go hang cool. We're ready for that, let's do it. You know, it's not a surprise, we're not hiding anything. So yeah.
Gavin:And so what's Jacob into?
SPEAKER_01:What is he not into? Uh he's into basketball, which um he doesn't play well.
David:It's almost cuter when they're not good at it because the pressure's off. There's just there's no championship you're working towards. We're good.
SPEAKER_01:Well, well, here's the thing when you're young enough, when you're like five or six, you're dribbling the ball, it's cute, right? They're not really ball handling, they're just getting across, and you know, they try to shoot the ball and it goes off into the stands, and it's like, oh, that's cute. That's my kid. Yeah. Um, playing at 12 and seeing other kids like zip up and down and like three pointers from how are you doing that? Um this sport for him is I'm trying it. Uh-huh. So I'm okay with him not being a professional basketball player. Uh, he gets the ball and dribbles once and then passes it because he's not confident about dribbling. Okay. So looking at him playing, it's like, okay, what's going on? What are we practicing? But you know what?
David:He's a piece of the puzzle. He's a pe he's a part of the team. He's gonna be mad at he's like the lower left corner that's not the edge part of the puzzle, but he's still part of the puzzle. He's showing up. He's showing up.
Gavin:That's all that's that's all that matters. And I have to say, the trauma I feel at just the idea of having a basketball tossed to me and I'm supposed to dribble more than one time, that is some serious deep PTSD. I mean, I've never been a basketball player at all because everybody took I everybody told me I was tall, so I must be good at it, and I was actually terrible at it.
David:But he's great at taking balls to the face. It's just not the basket.
SPEAKER_01:Have you tried tennis?
David:Oh Gaven's more like a pickleball age. Do you know what I mean? Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_01:He told on you. Wow. He just put hard. We're half a century. We're half a century.
Gavin:Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_01:There's gonna be over 26.
Gavin:There's gonna be a statute of limitations on that, Joe. 26 BC, Jamil. Okay. I'll take it. So, but Jamil, will you also tell us about there's you have an interesting dynamic, I I think, um, that you are black and your husband is white and Jamil and um Jacob is uh redheaded, right? Is that yes, he is. So he's a mix of the two of us.
SPEAKER_01:He's like black and he's yes, like a real ginger is often what I say, because a lot of some kids they'll grow up with red hair and then grow out of it, turns blonde, and then you don't see the red anymore. He is like bottle red. I was telling Gavin, it it it's almost like I go to the store and get like bottle 58 of red, and that's his hair color. He's giving you Ronald McDonald, number 15. Yeah, exactly. It's like bright red, especially in the sun. But he is he's the cutest little thing. His eyebrows are his is, you know, his his uh little whiskers on his eyes are are red as well. And a lot of the ladies notice it. They're like, Oh, where'd you get your hair color? And they're asking me where I bought his hair color. I'm like, first of all, that's a wirst of all, that's a wig.
David:Thank you. Wouldn't that be something? Can you imagine? And like eyelash injections, like yeah.
SPEAKER_01:No, but I I I am sometimes offended that they even ask the questions like why would I spend the amount of money and time dyeing his hair every week for him to go to school with red hair?
David:And also a regular color. It's not like it's blue or something fun for like a like a thing. It's like, no, this is a regular color of hair.
SPEAKER_01:Well, because he's red hair, he's asking, can I dye my hair black? Oh. And I'm like, black? That's such a boring color. I have black hair, so it's a boring color for me. It's like, why are we on black? But let me count my blessings because eventually I'm sure maybe he'll ask for blue or something like that. Yeah. Oh, that'll happen sooner than later.
Gavin:He's 12. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet, but assuming you aren't making smartless levels of podcasting money, you do have a day job that keeps the uh podcasting addiction going, right? I know. I'm offended on your behalf, Jamil. Like I'm not even. You should be. Awesome for you for making smartless levels of money. I think you might have a uh a side gig just for the hell of it, huh?
SPEAKER_01:Have you not seen this photo behind this? Actually, money. No. It's original from IKEA. Hand painted. Technically. Actually, uh, funny story, it's it's actually a towel that I bought and stretched out the butt is I'm from Panama. So the print from the well, so that people who who are from Latin America can go, yeah, you're from yesterday.
David:I went to La Paz, Bolivia, and um I Okay, look at you.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, this could get awkward. Wait, you're from Panama? I've I'm from Panama, yes. Born and raised. Hablo España? Hablo bastante.
David:Oh, podemos hablar en frente de él. Okay, see, okay. All right. Okay, okay. All right, now we gotta switch it up. We just opened up a whole new level of listener. Um, all right, sorry, I interrupted you. You're from Panama.
SPEAKER_01:No, so okay, so how I fund my podcast, uh, just in general, it's my day job, right? I I work in the IT industry for a very, very large company. But I mean, not that they pay me 50% of their earnings, but that's that's what keeps me employed. I work from home. Nicholas as well works in the same industry. Uh, he works from home. So there we've got this really cool balance of where we're both at home. So Jacob leaves for school with us being here, comes back, and we're still here, which I think is a very unique thing in today's day and age where he never really sees us go to work. He just knows we make money. He's like, Hey, I want that thing. Can you just use that card that you always use to let me tell you how that works?
Gavin:It's because don't you, dads, don't you just lay on the couch all day long watching TV and eating popcorn and get money? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:He does he ask Nick that question all the time because he takes breaks. So he just walks out of his office into the living room and like sits on the couch for like five minutes, and that's what he sees. He's like, I'm always on the couch. It's like, first of all, I've been up since six. Where are you been? Yeah. So no, that well, that's what I do to fund it. I mean, I yeah, I put as little as I can into it. This we'll get into it when I talk about that. But the season one has been very no frills, because I I need to know what I'm doing, and now that I I kind of almost pretend like I know what I'm doing, now now the cost is going up ever so slightly.
Gavin:So we we are in the same boat. But wait a minute, you didn't finish talking about the towel behind you, right?
SPEAKER_01:From oh, I want to hear about you guys. No, not from Panama, from Panama. Thank you. Panama, Panama, Panama. It's it's behind me, it's my background. Um, so this towel is from the um Native Americans, if you will. I guess Panama is still Central America, so Native Americans in Panama. So they make this design, it's very unique to Panama. Uh-huh. So I just I ordered one instead of actually ordering a photo, which would have been like 600 bucks. Sure. So smart.
SPEAKER_05:So I ordered a towel.
SPEAKER_01:And you're giving me texture, you're giving me all kinds of things. I love that. Listen, love that. Yes.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's discount art. Yes. Discount native art. Love it. That's that that is I am a dad and I need a background.
Gavin:Yeah. Yeah, but it's a cool background for sure. Um do you do anything interesting in the IT world to tell us about? And can you give us hints on dealing with, I don't know, everything from AI to why won't my Wi-Fi work better when I'm recording podcasts? Also, Gavin needs help with his AOL password, if you could.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So uh, first of all, is in what is it? Uh info, what was the other word? I've had so many emails. I think I've had all the emails that came out back then, including AOL. Jesus. I just I just made somebody laugh about that yesterday.
David:My first was at Juno.com. Do you remember Juno? See, look at Juno. This is agent. This is like count the rings on my tree, Juno.com. And then it was AOL, and then Hotmail, I think. And now G.
SPEAKER_01:I think we've all, everybody here has lived up to dial up, right?
David:For sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I don't know that my kid would be why would you do that? Why do you have to dial up? I don't understand.
David:Also, 56k. Can you imagine them trying to do anything on 56k?
SPEAKER_01:Back then that was super fast.
David:That was that was the top of the line, baby. Yeah, that was top of the line. You could you could download an image line by line of a man in his speedo. And then you save it to your desktop, and your mom would be like, What is this picture of this man in a speedo? And you'd be like, I don't know. I think I was hacked. And it worked back then. That excuse was back then. Why did we have a speedo on? You clicked on it. You know exactly why, because I wanted to see the outline.
Gavin:Also, the dial-up always makes me think of the Janet album that I don't remember which song it was, but one of the songs on Janet Period had dial-up sounds, and it was so cutting edge that she was like, Oh, she's bringing in internet. I know that that is. I was a mere child when that CD came out, but I do remember that. Oh, she's doing that internet thingy. I probably didn't even know what the word internet was, but anyway, that thing.
SPEAKER_01:Today, the word still exists. So you still have a chance to. Wow, our guest is coming for Gavin.
David:He's taking my spot.
Gavin:Okay, so uh so Father Netx, tell us about the podcast.
SPEAKER_01:So the podcast focuses on the before, the now, and the later. So I I tend to go into you know, what who were you before you were a dad, which a lot of people have. Quickly forgotten because you know being a dad takes over really quickly and it's unforgiving, right? But we're all people before we were dads, we were interested in things, we went out and did things. We either were party animals or very studious or very aloof. And it's very different than how we are today as dads, and really trying to understand where we get that dad magic from, right? Fathernetics, that fatherhood energy. Where did we get that from? Because it's really shaped us today. We behave the way we are behaving today. We, you know, resent the people that we do because of it today. And lots of baggage. Of course. And then we bring that into our own existence. And it's really in the today that we make the decision on whether we're going to keep that stuff it down and pass it on to our kids. And that's what Father NetX is really about. Tell me where you come from, tell me who you are, and tell me how you will pass that down to the next generation. And God knows we need a different generation than we have today in many circles. So I think a lot of the kids that we are intentionally bringing up are going to be gangbusters when they grow up.
David:Yeah, I think I think the different uh one of the big differences in our like parenting generational styles is like that we our generation, I feel like, tries to do things deliberately, where I feel like previous generations just kind of like fell in line with whatever the thing was. This is gonna sound so trite, but like one of the most inspiring things I saw about parenting before I became a parent was an episode of Roseanne where she's talking about like her and Dan, they decided their parenting um point of view was gonna be we're gonna try to improve the lives of our children by 50% over our own. And I just like loved that line, which is like, I'm trying, I'm trying to do better. I'm not trying to make you live the life I did so it was somehow equal. You know, I had to walk to school, you have to walk to school, kind of a thing.
SPEAKER_01:Um, but yeah, just I don't know that that was hard to do with Roseanne, if I remember the show. What, walk to school? What get 50% better? Not very hard. No, no, of course not.
Gavin:But being married with children, Roseanne chapter one or two?
David:I always say that. Whenever I'm starting, like, what's one of your favorite shows and like Roseanne? But like old Roseanne before she became a fucking psychopath.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, chapter two is uh wow.
David:They tried, they tried, and I I wanted to I had so many notes for them. I was like, this could have worked. It it didn't, but it could have worked anyway.
Gavin:So when did you get the idea and where did the inspiration come from?
SPEAKER_01:I feel like it's always kind of been in the back of my head. Uh, I've always wanted to do a podcast, but I've I've before this, I was like, man, it needs to be something that I want to do on a regular basis, something that I want to put all my energy and time into. Uh, Nicholas and I had played with an idea of like an ADHD podcast where you have your um neurotypical husband and your you know not so neurotypical other husband trying to understand why things happen and why things don't happen. So if you guys haven't gone down the route of ADHD, it uh it may explain a lot of what you see in the world. Um, and you go, why is that person doing that? Well, ADHD is not just kids bouncing off the wall, there is so much more to it. Sure. And and you know, adults have it as well. Nonetheless, this one just came up. I started this in May, so it's only been a few years.
Gavin:Oh wow, look at you.
SPEAKER_01:You're a podcasting ground running.
David:Yeah, she's got a network, honey. She's got a whole network, listen, a collage.
SPEAKER_01:You gotta start somewhere. And I just said start here. Yeah, I don't know what here is. Half the time, I don't even know where I am. But um maybe in Panama. Who knows? You know what I mean? Man, so I'm going back to Panama in November. I'm excited about that. Okay.
Gavin:Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_01:Do you still have family there? Uh my grandmother, she is 97. Yes, she better be 97. So when I get to be 97, I'm gonna look this fabulous. So that's for sure. Black don't crack. And Panama don't I don't know what the word that was in Panama. We'll put a pin in that one.
Gavin:How does how does your grandmother influence your fathernetics, would you say? Oh, good question, Cayman.
SPEAKER_01:So wow. Okay. Coming in with the with the sidewinders. Um I would say my grandmother, I grew up with my grandmother in Panama. So it was my grandmother and my grandfather. They were the ones that were present, omnipresent, for the first 10 years of my life. We lived in a very small community in Panama. It's called the Canal Zone. So it's right next to the canal. Our backyard was literally the canal zone. So you can see. You could have fallen in.
Gavin:Did you lose baseballs and soccer balls and dolls? Have you really?
SPEAKER_01:My God, you fell into the Panama community. I didn't thought you were being funny. I actually did.
David:No, Kavan never thinks he's being funny. Trust me. He's he's very well aware of his position.
SPEAKER_01:So, and this is in my book. Um, if you if you guys ever get to it, it's um the um paper cradles. But okay, I was walking home from school, and in Panama, you wear uh uniforms. I had a white shirt, bright white, and navy blue uh slacks and we're all walking home, and I see this uh rain gutter. It kind of takes the water from the mountains and dumps it out into the canal. It's all fenced off. You know, you don't want people like strangely climbing over these things. Well, that's me. So I climbed over and walking around. We saw all these baby alligators walking around. First of all, this is how crazy I am as a kid, right? Not realizing baby alligators have parents. Uh-huh. Yeah. I think that's logical, though.
Gavin:I would absolutely want to reach out and try to touch a baby.
SPEAKER_01:I did not think about that at the time. So and thank God we didn't see the parents wherever they were, they weren't there. So we followed them and they went to the very edge, and I slipped.
David:They were luring you to your death. They absolutely did. They were the sirens of the Panama Canal.
Gavin:But I mean, does that mean you fell? I'm imagining a 35-foot cliff. It is not a cliff.
SPEAKER_01:No, it was it was more like a ditch. There was like a shelving. Now, um, I would say when my legs went in, there was no bottom that I could feel, so I don't know what was underneath there. But I didn't like I could swim at the time. It wasn't like I was swept away, it wasn't a running current. Right. I mean, this was really like seconds. Now, the difference is I come out of there and I'm red clay down, right? White shirts, red clay, slacks.
Gavin:And you know, clay grandma is going to be pissed.
SPEAKER_01:I got my ass whooped twice.
Gavin:Yeah, yeah. You well, you deserved it because A, don't chase don't A, don't chase crocodiles, and B, do not fall into the Panama canal.
David:And you caused a delay for my Timu order, which was clearly on one of those ships. So I would appreciate you get the fuck out of that canal so I can get my cheap shelves.
SPEAKER_01:You did not need that Timu order.
David:Just a never wrapped package, just thrown against my front door.
Gavin:Like he is just a pumpkin spice latte basic bitch, and he needs his Timu.
David:I literally have the Timu shelves that I have to hang in my bedroom after this recording. But good luck with that. Good luck.
SPEAKER_01:Wait, there's a what's the percentage? What's the percentage of Timu stuff that you order that shows up that does not look like you expected it?
David:I would say it's it's not as much as I thought. I'd say about 15% of the stuff that I order goes right to the garbage. Like, like directly to the garbage.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, it's not even worth sending back, right?
David:No, well, no, because like what generally, if you're gonna like, because I feel like there's like an agreement with me and Timu, it's like, hey, listen, we might send you some garbage, but we're we're doing it at a really low price. So just don't don't try to return anything. And I feel like there's this un there's you know what I mean? There's this like a gentleman's agreement. And so most of the time I won't even try to return it unless it's like expensive, which is$15 or more. But you don't return it.
Gavin:We won't tell that you are absolutely undermining all of capitalism and everything.
David:That I bought a dildo on on Timu. On Timu.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah. Why would you do that? First of all, the region it's coming from may not be the adequate size that you're looking for. So listen, you don't know what size I'm looking for for this. Very bad of me. Oh you don't know what size I'm looking for. There's so many assumptions.
David:There's so many sizes I need. But but when I have tried tried to return something, they usually just say, just throw in the garbage and they just give me a credit. Because they're like, okay, shipping back is is not worth the dollar you paid for this. The one dollar you paid for this.
Gavin:Absolutely not. Okay, so this conversation went from how did Chamil's grandmother raise him and influence his parenting and his fathernetics to the Panama Canal? To gray market dildos.
David:Yeah, yeah.
Gavin:To gray market dildos in the Panama Canal. So can we bring it back to the day you were walking home after you fell in? But how did grandma put you on the path that uh you are self-reflective enough to break cycles of trauma?
SPEAKER_01:So I would think maybe grandma added to the trauma, which allows for me to maybe speak about it, because uh you have to pass grandma's house before you can get to my house. We all lived in the same little um city. So passing her, you can't get past her. She's sitting outside waiting for you every day as you walk by from school because that's what grandmas do, right? Hey, you know, and she's like, wait a minute, what is this? And you know, when you tell the story, she's like, Okay, this is the chancleta story, if you're if you're familiar with that term. From yeah, so we got whooped with the chancleta, it's a flip-flop. Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pop, pop, yeah, yeah. Exactly. So I got that from grandma, and then I went home and got it from my parents because uh these shirts are not cheap, no doubt. And we had she had three kids. I have a brother and a sister, and we all dress the same. Yeah, so what are you doing?
David:Now I have to buy a new shirt. Listen, if that was a if that was a Timu chanclet, it would just it would have just disintegrated upon impact. So that might have been that might have been a pro. You wouldn't have been beaten so hard.
Gavin:Well, tell us, has there been a particularly mind-blowing conversation you've had in your podcast that made you say, put all the pieces together for, I don't know, how to solve all of the problems of society?
SPEAKER_01:Uh no. No. Society is, as you know, so complex and oftentimes so dumb is the word I'm gonna use that it really requires talking to a million people to really have any clear direction. I think what dads are doing today is their very best, and that's what I expect from people. Just do your very best. You know, sometimes that's that's not good today, sometimes it's awesome tomorrow. And what kids remember are the awesome parts, as long as you show up and you're present and you're you're doing your very best. Now, when you give up and you lay down on the job, those are the kind of kids that you know end up in Congress today, and that's what we're trying to avoid. We're trying to avoid that.
Gavin:And we are trying to avoid exactly that.
SPEAKER_01:No, so that's what I've really learned. What I've taken away is this adoption journey can go in so many different directions. Everybody's story is different, and the price tag is ridiculous. Yeah. Um, when you're talking about surrogacy and adoption, private adoption. And I don't know. I mean, we've got some people that are really invested in extending their family to the you know, the tune of you know, five five digits. So it's like I don't know if I would have gone down that path. So my I take my hats off to everybody that that that does it, whichever way they do it.
David:Have you checked Timu for babies? They might have do you know what I mean? Like, you don't know. You don't really have to get full circle. How did you become a dad? Well, I went to Walmart. Have you heard of Timu? Have you heard of Shine? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Walmart sent me to Timu.
David:Fulfilled by Timu.
Gavin:You are um an author, and you have written a couple of books, Paper Cradles, and Elysium, right? Did I pronounce that correctly?
SPEAKER_01:You did, you did. So Elysium, we went to um St. Thomas, the island of Virgin Islands. We went to St. Thomas for about a week and a half. And when I got back, I had such an amazing experience there as far as the island, the culture, just hanging out, doing nothing, uh, that I decided to write a book. And the backdrop, the actual location for the book, even though it's sci-fi, is St. Thomas. And right on the premise of the book is really trying to understand how this kid who's gone through some loss in his family is really connecting the dots into some sort of a royal lineage that's from a different dimension. So it's really sci-fi-oriented. The character is a gay care, a gay character. But the book is not about being gay, it's just the character happens to be gay. And I wanted to impress that in my writing because what we see a lot of out there is a lot of novels that are romance-driven, which is fine. We need a lot of that, but it's all like romance. And I saw this guy in high school, and I high school was years ago for me, and I I loved reading those books, but I'm not there. So sci-fi is a good thing. You want gays in space, that's what you want.
David:Okay, let's do that.
Gavin:Who just happened to be gay? The fact that they all hook up just in high school who are going into arenas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they just happen to hook up, uh, not because they're gay, but just because they're they gotta do it. All right, so we can find your books at jameelmayers.com, is that right?
SPEAKER_01:And uh you can also Amazon Barnes and Nobles on on my Instagram at FatherNetX. It's it's everywhere. You can go get it. Go pick up 10,000 copies just to get you started.
Gavin:Well, all right, Mr. Multi Hyphenet, share with us um I love it those shit stories from the bad past that have seen you uh getting your parenting merit badge and that you will never ever ever forget.
SPEAKER_01:You know, a lot of the Jacob's a pretty good kid when he's compared to other kids. But when he's isolated and by himself, it's like, what I you know, what what exactly did we do? What do we sign up for? Uh-huh. Um, so what we struggle with him a lot is honesty. Okay. And I struggle with that also because I'm an honest person by default. So I I sometimes get taken for a ride. So what we struggle with is, did you do A, B, C, and D? And he'll look at you dead in your face and go, Yes, I did. And you're like, Are you sure? Absolutely, I did. And then Nicholas, my husband, will come in and hear the story. Did you? And he's like, He's lying.
Gavin:I'm like, what do you mean? Look at his face. He's not lying. Look at his hair. He couldn't be lying.
SPEAKER_01:Redheads don't lie. They don't. Never. Oh, never. It makes sense. Ah, okay, okay. And uh, so I don't know. I one of my stories, I guess, would be um when we go camping, we usually do it a little bit different. It's it's kind of half glamp, half not. Nicholas lights to to really do special things. Like we have carpets and we have air mattresses, and we have you know pillows, and we bring our generator. We we have string lights and you guys move. You guys move temporarily, is what you do. Why don't you have an RV? Or do you have an RV that with the light? No, Nick Nicholas loves uh on-the-ground camping, so it's like tents and and you know, fire, and he loves to cook. He's got the cast iron and whatnot. Wow. But the problem is Jacob is afraid of bugs. Oh, yeah. Okay. So the two kind of don't go together sometimes. So when he goes out there, he's very like isolated. Like I am in the tent, and everybody else is outside. So we're always like encouraging, like, come on out, like the fire's going, there are no bugs. And he's like, uh so it's that to me for for Nicholas and I took a bit of like frustrated, internalized talking to ourselves anger. Like, what's wrong with this kid? Like, why is he over there? Like, we spent all this money coming. Why? So we just have to make peace with it. Some kids are scared of bugs. He may be awkwardly afraid of bugs. Maybe he'll grow out of it. Maybe he won't. Maybe he can take that to college with him one day, which by the way is paid for since he's a foster of the foster of this gate.
David:What about like exposure? What about like exposure therapy? Remember Fear Factor where they would like bury you in a like a box with covered in tarantulas? What if you like what if you did a couple of those?
SPEAKER_01:Do you think that would be so so here's the psyche of a kid? Okay. We when his friend came out with us, he got he went out in the forest and like disappeared. No problem. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh, you didn't mean like actual. Okay, I was like, Lord, okay, all right. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no. Not lost, but you know, you you look, you can't see him for the trees.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Whereas alone, he's like, he won't leave the tent. Uh-huh. What well, what sense does that make?
Gavin:Even though it often increases the budget and might make you feel like you're not having quality time with your kid. Man, having a friend along on a vacation actually makes everybody eat happier and better. Well keeps him occupied, which is why his friends are over here all the time. Great. Well, that I think them out of my hair. That that is uh definitely a key to good father net father netixing, I would say, is uh look at you. Transformation lose losing the trauma so that they are just able to have fun and get out of your hair.
SPEAKER_01:That's that's a good well, that's kids too. You kind of have to you have to meet them where they are. And I think any parent that can do the simple thing of getting at eye level is doing more than they should already. Because kids are humans, and we talk to them like people and not like kids, and that's how they grow.
Gavin:Jamil, uh, we can find Father NetX at all of the places that you can find Gatriarchs, right? Or Michelle Obama's podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, now see, nice. Yeah, right under Michelle Obama's podcast is where you can find us. Uh-huh.
Gavin:We are so glad that you have demeaned yourself by coming on our stupid little podcast. Thank you, Jamil, for making the world a better place. This was fantastic, guys.
SPEAKER_01:No, I appreciate it. Thank you for the Timu plug, too. I appreciate it.
Gavin:So something great in my household just today, David, is that Taylor Swift came out with a new album last night, and my daughter was like, Okay. And I was stunned that I'd be like, oh, we have moved from the I don't, I'm not gonna like the girl that I liked when I was eight years old, you know, as a pop singer. But there was a whole journey of m maturation for her because at first she was like, uh, I don't really like her. And I say to my partner, um, he's like, wait, she doesn't even care that the Taylor Swift album is out. I'm like, no, she's into girls who are women who are shaking their booties a little more flagrantly, frankly, than Taylor Swift is. Although in this album, Taylor Swift is definitely talking about her thighs uh spreading and whatnot. So she isn't just a little girl anymore, because I because I read the I read the New York Times um review of the album, which is the nerdiest thing you possibly could do. But then she did end up listening to it while she was getting ready, and she came down like a little kid again, and she's like, Oh, I really like this song. I this one's a bop. And I was like, I was glad that she just wasn't a reflexive Taylor Swifty. But then I was glad that she came back to it, and she's like, back to her roots, my daughter being back to her roots of being like, No, I I do like Taylor because you know what? Taylor's pretty lovely. So it isn't just the album that came out. My something great is, I don't know, just watching my kid on her roller coaster of maturity and simplicity, also at the same time. And so thank you, Taylor, for making something great for me this morning with my daughter.
David:My something great is our previous guest, like a couple episodes ago, uh Brian Reese. Remember him uh and absolutely, yeah. So Brian literally who share uh the the the parents.
Gavin:I I can't even get into it right now. I can't remember how it works.
David:It's a very confusing uh family tree. But um, so when we finished recording, I was like, oh, you live very close to me. And he's like, we should hang out. And then we just texted each other that day, and then the next day we hung out. We went to their house, it was so fun. We met the husband and the kids. First of all, the husband has been a fan of Gate Sharks since day one. He's listener, he's our listener. We we discovered him. How did how did he they not realize? Did he even know that Brian was on the show? He evidently Brian said to him, Hey, I'm gonna be interviewed by this show called Gate Sharks. And he was like, Oh my god, I love Gate Sharks. I listen to it every week. And he's like, Okay, I don't even know what the stupid show is. And then he's like us on our show. But I'm gonna be a guest on it. But it was so fun. They had us over, we brought our stupid kids and they played with their stupid kids, and we basically ignored our kids while we drank wine. And ate a bunch of food. It was so fun. And it was so such a great way to sort of like kind of connect these communities because it is so easy for us as parents to just live in our four walls. And I am a social person, but if unless somebody says come here now, it's so hard. And it was so great just to be like, come over tomorrow. And I said, Yep. Like you know, you broke the cycle of just endless calendar staring.
Gavin:Totally.
David:It was so fun. So if any of you listener out there wants to um ignore your kids with us, I love co-ignoring our kids. Um and I will hang out with you. Um and that is our show. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or general compliments for David, you can email us at gaterearxpodcast at gmail.com.
Gavin:Or you can DM us on Instagram. We are at Gatriarchspodcast. On the internet, David is at DavidFMVon everywhere, and Gavin is at GavinLodge, dropping at midnight.
David:Please leave us a glowing five star review wherever you get your podcasts.
Gavin:Thanks, and we'll say some stupid fucking thing next time on another episode of Gatriarchs.
