This was an interesting topic when Chris produced it for the panel. It seems weird to discuss parenting strategies when it comes to adult friendships, but when you listen to the discussions it starts to make sense. We compare the how the love and logic approach is good for your adult friendships. Then we review the lost decade. This covers how not having those connections with friends outside of your spouse or your children can affect your mental health and how you must be purposeful in starting and building those friendships.
Tune in to see Using Friendship with Parenting Strategies Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- Do you know what Love and Logic is?
- Do you know now what the Lost Decade is?
- How can Friendship be a part of parenting?
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Episode #250 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello, this is Through a Therapist’s Eyes. I am your host, Chris Gazdik. We get to hang out with a panel of therapists where you get information about mental health and substance abuse, personal time in your car. and or at home, but this is not the delivery of therapy services. Victoria often reminds me miss Victoria Pope hanging out with us.
Victoria Pope. Did you catch that? You’re my daughter.
John-Nelson Pope: You could be
Chris Gazdik: my daughter. Mr. John Pope. How are you, sir? I’m doing outstanding. And Victoria Pendergrass. I’m
Victoria Pendergrass: good. Merry Christmas season.
John-Nelson Pope: It’s the, oh, come on,
Victoria Pendergrass: my tree will probably go up at my office. Our
John-Nelson Pope: neighbors, our neighbors have started hanging their decoration.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay. Now I won’t hang stuff outside of my house yet. Okay.
Chris Gazdik: This is a good time to say this is November the second, not December the [00:01:00] second. So Victoria, you’re in charge of the lobby. Good Lord. That’s fine. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Yes. Do whatever you want. I think Casey did it last couple of
Victoria Pendergrass: years. We skipped last year.
We didn’t do anything last year. Yeah, we, we kind of did. Cause that was my first
Chris Gazdik: Christmas here. That’s, that’s my failure. Anyway, where am I at? Where are we at? Through a therapist’s eyes. We are going to be talking about the use of friendships with parenting strategies. So here’s some curious questions from past shows, right?
Do you know what love and logic is? as a parenting strategy. Do you know what the last decade is? I think it’s an original thought from me. And how can friendship be a part of parenting, right? So I got the marriage book coming out sometime in 2024. Early, but building excitement for it. Man, I’m working hard on that.
Dude, there’s so much that goes into that crap. I
Victoria Pendergrass: read your expert excerpt thing on it today. Which is good. Where did you see that? Oh, yes, I read it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it sounds good. Yeah. Or
John-Nelson Pope: sounded okay. You’ve been [00:02:00] so busy that you don’t
Chris Gazdik: remember. I don’t. I’m telling you that. And some other projects and things.
It’s, it’s fun. It’s good stuff that I’m trying to bring to you out there. We need the Apple iTunes. Insta comments. We need ratings. We
John-Nelson Pope: need five stars. John. It’s gotta
Chris Gazdik: be five stars. Alright. Okay. Really helps us out to click the subscribe buttons. Those types of things very much help us. Contact it through a therapist.
Eyes. com to answer questions and interact with us. We love that. This is the human emotional experience which we do endeavor to figure out together. So… John pulp you found out what we were doing today. Do you remember
John-Nelson Pope: what you said? No, I don’t remember what I said What did I say?
Chris Gazdik: Now it’s not an exact quote so don’t don’t hold me to it but it was something to the effect of Well, that’s weird.
Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s right. I said, what fresh hell is [00:03:00] this? I, part of me he
Victoria Pendergrass: told me? He told me that he said, I told Chris that I wanted to talk about free will today, but instead we’re talking about friendship and parenting.
Chris Gazdik: Wow. Free. Well, this is the first I’ve heard. Free will. What do you mean? Oh. What is that?
Free will. Well,
John-Nelson Pope: it’s the idea that there’s a a neurologist, or neuroscientist rather, that’s wanting to, that says that we don’t have any free will, that everything is predetermined, basically, and, yeah, and so our consciousness is, is basically we, are the, A neurologist
Chris Gazdik: is citing this?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, a neuroscientist, yeah.
Neuroscientist,
Chris Gazdik: oh,
John-Nelson Pope: fascinating. So I don’t, he may be a neurologist too, but it was this, and I just think it’s hokum, basically. Well,
Chris Gazdik: is this a nice topic for next week, maybe? Yeah. You want to take charge? You.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. , [00:04:00]
Chris Gazdik: he hesitated. He was like, oh, it’s a lot of work. I dunno about that. . But yeah, I’ll, alright, we’ll talk about it.
We’ll talk about it. That sounds interesting. I love neurology stuff and Uhhuh neuroscience stuff and I know nothing. Think about what we like
John-Nelson Pope: to, I, I like to think that we do have free will, but anyway. Absolutely we do. But. I mean, I love it. Love and logic. This, there you go. Logic is, is being able to make
Chris Gazdik: decisions in it.
So what was your response to the show in your, in, in more,
John-Nelson Pope: in, more in depth. I did not know how it was going to work. Right. Yeah. I like, like his approach to it. Your approach to it just seems very different to me.
Chris Gazdik: It’s. It’s a fascinating thing to me, that we have something as involved as raising kids. And I just thought, how could we build off of friendship?
Because we haven’t talked about friendship enough on this show. I said that last month, and I gave the warning. We would talk about it a little bit more, because it’s such a valuable part of life. And something such as, you’re in the middle of… Raising [00:05:00] kids, Victoria, and how early, you know, early in the middle.
I’m early. Well, you’d begun. Yeah. And, and man, friendship is just, it’s an odd combination, right? It is. Well,
Victoria Pendergrass: because my first thought is that there’s not really any friendship in parenting. I mean,
Chris Gazdik: well, I think
John-Nelson Pope: now there’s no friendship in parenting. I think a long time ago that there may have been.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh yeah.
My mom’s my best friend.
Chris Gazdik: Well, I don’t think that’s what you mean there, John. No, no,
John-Nelson Pope: no. It’s, it’s, it’s the take, it takes a village, like Hillary Clinton wrote about.
And that is, is that you used to have eyes in the streets and in the neighborhoods and that these folks were like your friend. They were your friends that you knew.
And if you’re a parent and then you would have would help you raise your kids in a sense. And
Chris Gazdik: so there is that, well, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting because there, [00:06:00] there, there are some effects. I mean I’m not going to say her name, but, but, but I have a neighbor and it was really curious. It was really funny because I had literally, and I told her this, I was like, I had the opportunity to hang out recently in the backyard and hadn’t seen her for a little while.
She, she moved out and everything. And I was like, you know. I was, I almost slipped with her name, I was like, you know, girl, I’ve been wanting to say this to you for a long time and I have not had the opportunity, but now, you know, your boyfriend’s here, it’s a perfect opportunity, he’s like, girl, I remember wiping your tush when you were a little kid, right?
Because they grew up together. Huh. And we were, you know, friends, we did, I mean, you know, left them with them and they left her with us. Exactly. Yeah. That doesn’t happen as much anymore? I don’t know, I
Victoria Pendergrass: don’t think. The villages are very small. Really? Very small compared to, like, the amount of people that helped raise me and my brother, for [00:07:00] example.
Like See, this is the thing, like And if we’re considering the village to be outside of school slash daycare Yeah, I think we would. Like, if we’re not including that Right, right. Yes, the villages
Chris Gazdik: It just seems like we are so much more isolated than we ever used to be as, as communities.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, and that also, we might can talk more about this later, but I mean, I also got pregnant and 2021 so pandemic times, which means that I think that definitely affected the size village that at least I had for my kids, kid, not kids, kid, one singular.
Something else we need to know about Victoria? No but I think that COVID definitely played a part in recent. Recent times. Yeah, and kids who are, cause look, 2020, so kids that are like four and under. I would say their [00:08:00] villages are probably… Not as large, at least in my experience.
Chris Gazdik: Well, I COVID definitely, I think impacted that, but, but, but honestly, I feel like, well, we’ll, we’ll get to talking about schedules and stuff here, here after a little while, because there’s different ways that we operate.
Now we fill the schedule full. And so we’re definitely going to talk about that. Oh, yes. Yeah, you know, it’s, it’s just, it’s, it’s, I’m going to use the word terrible. It’s, it’s a bit of a terrible reality. I think that we, we struggle with nowadays, but how, how do we, okay. So how do we want to start with this?
First of all, I love talking about which we haven’t talked about parenting as much on the show, either one of the three parts of the trifecta. I love John Gottman’s stuff and emotionally focused therapy. I think Dan Ramsey’s stuff with Financial Peace University is fantastic. Avery, I still kind of have an intention to see what these three things [00:09:00] have in common.
’cause I think their philosophies do with the third. Being love and logic. Oh yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: you explained to me your triangle.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. A couple weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah, cause we’ve hit a couple of them recently with When we talked about finances, so I’m curious in all of your travels, especially you John, maybe it’s a little bit more recently Developed but have you really heard of the love and logic?
Do you know what that is? No, I have no idea zero zero Okay, Victoria. Have you come across this
Victoria Pendergrass: only? I think only what you’ve told me And just me using my logic to figure it
Chris Gazdik: out. There are a few that are out there. I was at a conference and people were talking about another one and it seemed to be pretty akin.
Victoria Pendergrass: It sounds kind of potentially like gentle parenting.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, there’s a, that’s one of them. Very similar. Yeah, that’s one of them. And
Victoria Pendergrass: that’s the big.
Chris Gazdik: Which I just don’t like [00:10:00] that. I don’t even like the title, to be honest with you, but that’s my, well, it’s
Victoria Pendergrass: really just like respecting your kids. Like they’re humans.
Sometimes
Chris Gazdik: there ain’t nothing gentle about parenting. I’m sorry. So you’re talking about,
Victoria Pendergrass: I do agree, I do agree that the term is misleading because it basically is just what I just said, like respecting your kids like they’re human beings and not. Like you’re above them, or that you’re better than them.
Like, that’s basically what it comes down to. It’s not necessarily that you’re like, Oh, let me be gentle. It’s not that. It’s usually Sorry, I just like patted your knee. But, it’s not that type of gentle. It’s more gentle in your verbiage, in your language. In not being You know, instead of saying things like, don’t do that, you said, like, don’t stand up in your chair, you know, instead of yelling it, you would say something like, Hey, can you, you know, [00:11:00] can you please sit down in your chair?
Because if you fall out of that. It’s going to hurt and, you know, things like that.
Chris Gazdik: Right. What were you thinking, John?
John-Nelson Pope: I, I was thinking about the Vulcans with the logic.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. So,
John-Nelson Pope: no, I, I have, this is evidently, I’m, I’m, I’m out of the loop on this stuff. Really? Yeah. So if you, I may be able to identify it and just, I think when you said, and you gave that explanation, that’s, you know, we.
My wife and I have tried to do that with our kids, to varying degrees, and we’ve done both, you, you know, you can’t, don’t stand up on your chair or the table or whatever, don’t throw things, or instead of, but we could have been more gentle. Yeah, well,
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah, it’s just being more, Aware. [00:12:00] Aware. Of
Chris Gazdik: how you say things.
Well, I think with these, with these philosophies or these ideologies, these, these tracks of thinking are really trying to get us into a different mindset, really, about the relationship between you and your child. That to me encompasses the, the, the main thrust of what these things I mean, that’s what gentle parenting is, yeah.
Because the love and logic stuff, so, the, the way that I understand their, their line of logic. Let’s go through it real quick to have a basis point upon what we’re talking about with this parent child relationship, right? So, it goes like this. Little Johnny, you can do whatever it is that you want to do.
If you pause there, people struggle a lot accepting that reality. Little Johnny, you can do whatever it is that you want to do. You have the freedom, you have the flexibility, you have the learn by mistakes, all that. So you can do anything that you want to do, as long as it doesn’t cause a problem for somebody else, right?
And then when it causes a problem, that needs to be dealt with. So little Johnny, you can [00:13:00] do anything that you want to do, as long as it doesn’t cause a problem for somebody else. And then the parent looks and sees, Oh, Johnny, you know, there’s a problem here. It’s causing a problem. All the times little kids like, Oh no, not a problem.
That’s not an issue. But it’s like, no, well, don’t, don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of the problem. And then you come around on the back end in your relationship with the kid to create a high structure environment with very little power struggles. That’s kind of the goal, which changes the relationship that you have with the child.
So Johnny, you could do anything you want to do as long as it doesn’t cause a problem for somebody else. I see that it’s causing a problem for somebody else. Okay. You didn’t fix it. So don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of the problem. That’s what you want to do? This is the line of logic. This is the line of That’s control
John-Nelson Pope: issues.
Huh? I mean, that’s super
Chris Gazdik: controlling. Yeah. Well, how so? What
Victoria Pendergrass: do you mean? Because you’re not giving the kid an opportunity to There’s no autonomy. Yeah, their kid’s not having an opportunity to fix it themselves.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, no, no, no. You [00:14:00] better fix the problem that you created
Victoria Pendergrass: as the No, don’t worry about it. You don’t fix the problem.
I’ll take over and fix the problem.
Chris Gazdik: That’s how I understand. I misrepresented it. There’s the whole step. I heard. So you and I both. Yeah. Wait, whoa. Are you? I definitely misrepresented it then. You can do anything you want to do as long as it doesn’t cause a problem. Oh, there’s a problem. You better fix that problem.
And hopefully it stops there and the kid goes back and fixes the problem, i. e. he gets out of the chair from standing because he doesn’t want to, you know, cause a problem for you taking him to the emergency room. See, what I
John-Nelson Pope: saw was this was going from being a very libertarian type of, of, of, of position to where this would be the parent as a authoritarian.
Chris Gazdik: Definitely not authoritarian at all. As a matter of fact, fact, it should be authoritative. It backs off. It allows the kid to, to, to experiment with trying things, to screw up, to make mistakes, to skin their [00:15:00] knee, to fix problems, to generate solutions, to be solution oriented. And you’d like, hopefully be able to get out of the way, because by the time you have to say, don’t worry about it, I’ll fix the problem.
The kids now like, Oh God, what’s going to happen. What are you, what are you going to do? Because that generally, as you work with this way of operating, they don’t like the solutions you come up with. It’s painful to them. And so they don’t want you to be involved and you don’t want to be as a parent
Victoria Pendergrass: involved.
Well, and part of their brain development is problem solving on their own. I mean, even mine is 19 months old today. Today? Yeah, today. Okay. And so.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, he random. Did you get a notification? Random. You know what else is now? I was looking at the date. Random, you know what else is today? What is this? The 250th episode?
Oh, I forgot to celebrate that. Neil on the front end, man. Cool. Congratulations. How about that y’all Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Know you, [00:16:00] right? Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: 250. That’s kind of an accomplishment. Yeah, it is. It’s, it’s a decent number. It’s a lot of episodes. There’s a
John-Nelson Pope: lot of other PO podcasts that haven’t gotten that
Chris Gazdik: far. Yeah. Average is like 18.
Yeah, really? Yeah, so that’s kind of cool. Yeah. Yes, right. Yeah
Victoria Pendergrass: But anyways, so like at home our kid has those wooden triangle thing with like the bars Where you can it’s like it’s a try it’s a triangle and it has wooden bars across it. He can climb over it Okay, and there’s also like a half circle one with bars across like a play set.
I’ll play say yeah, okay Yeah, and so he gets he can climb over it now, but when he was learning how to climb over it He would get stuck. Yeah, like he would fall through the bars or he would get towards the top and then he would freak out and My, if my husband ever listens to this, he’s gonna like, we just tell, we tell him all the time, we’re like, okay, problem solved, even though he has no idea what we’re saying, [00:17:00] but we’re trying to encourage that, like, okay, he might cry, but we leave him alone, we don’t say anything, and then we step in when he’s about to injure himself, like if he’s about to seriously hurt himself, but as long as he’s safe and I’m keeping, one of us are keeping an eye on him, Like we let him figure it out for himself and nine times out of ten He figures it out for himself and then he’s able to like finish climbing over it without an issue listen
Chris Gazdik: I want to speak to you directly out there as a parent the reality of it is we want that age old goal to make our Kids life better than our own life as it was and as it is and that’s a fine goal but the reality that we’ve fallen into way too much you probably end up solving problems for your kids before they even know there’s a problem there.
And it doesn’t teach them very much. We end up trying to make things too easy for them. And the struggle that you and I [00:18:00] have created are People that Google quickly, look at their phone for, for solutions and lack problem solving skills. Victoria, I think that’s, that’s a bit of a, a, a conundrum that parenting gets into.
And so I love that
Victoria Pendergrass: a kid to problem solved. And, and, and then we just back up and get out of the way. He’ll look at us like, help, and I’m just like… You got it, dude.
John-Nelson Pope: You can do it. Now, I will say that when I was a kid, I used to get into tree, up, climb up trees.
We did all sorts of stuff like that. Yeah, but I couldn’t get down. And so I had to figure it out. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. Listen, I tell my kids all the time, figure it out. You know, what can you do and, and this, this also there’s a very important part of love and logic that’s probably a part of a lot of these different philosophies that are out there, which is compassion, right?
It’s hard to figure out what you’re trying to figure out when you’re a [00:19:00] little kid in a wooden play set feeling stuck. So can you compassionately. Empathize and let the kid know, Hey, you, I just, I hope you don’t mind, Neil. I, I just heard him talking to his son. Right. And, and what did you say to your son?
Hey, you got this. You’ll figure it out. And his son, his kids are older. So you still do that when they’re teenagers and whatnot. I’ve got a 40 year old. I’m still doing that. Yeah. Well, parents have a hard time getting out of the way, John. I mean, yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: I once there’s this lady that I follow on social media, and she said that, she was talking about how, like, her goal as a parent is to be able to raise her kids so that they can go off and be, do their own thing.
I can’t remember exactly how she worded it. Independently. But, yeah, like, your goal is to raise your kids so that they can, like, go off and flourish and be their own person and… do their own thing and not have to rely on you. And sometimes by, like [00:20:00] what you’re saying, by solving those problems for your kids, or kid, like you’re not teaching them how to solve their own problems when they go off by themselves.
And so then they have this, like, attachment issue or something to their parent where they can’t figure anything out on their own. And… Either 30 or older or whatever calling their parents and they’re like, Oh my gosh, I don’t know how to do this. Instead of trying to figure out problem solve and then calling the parents as a last resort.
Chris Gazdik: Real quick, John, before you go what did we do Love and Logic on? Cause we’re going to get off of this after you’re done, John. What’s the show Neil, that we, we did this on a deeper dive on it, but go ahead. Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: Caveat to that is that just like people grow and they develop, there’s going to be stages that your young person or your child, when they become an adult, will make some mistakes and you still have to come back and to, [00:21:00] to.
To get a refresh and here’s the
Chris Gazdik: thing when they refuse to do that and they will, I have, I have several examples and you’ll hear one where my kid took over the bonus room as his bedroom. We had to work with that. Like you don’t get to make that decision. This is a high structure environment. With as little power struggle as possible.
You have to come in on the background. You have to come in on the back end because they’re not going to want to fix their problems. And, that, you have to get creative sometimes. So, we took a deep dive. What, what was the? Oh wow, all the way, all the way back to 15. We’ve done it since though, have we not? The main one was very early on because this was one of the big ones that I wanted to cover content on this show.
So episode 15, you can only get that guys on our website. So you have to go to throughatherapistsize. com to get that. Craig was freaking out. The, the old co host when, when I presented this. Was there not another one we did with our panel?
Victoria Pendergrass: I think I remember us [00:22:00] mentioning it before. I know we did. But I have no idea what episode that would have been. Yeah, not deep dive.
Chris Gazdik: Dang! Alright, we might have to redo that. Yeah, I was gonna say, we the trifecta. But let’s move on because of time. I want to get to friendship. Right? Yeah. The lost decade. What do you guys remember about that?
I have
Victoria Pendergrass: absolutely no idea what that is.
Chris Gazdik: I,
John-Nelson Pope: there was a lost decade in the 20s that was during That was in American history with the expatriates living in Paris.
Chris Gazdik: That’s not what I think I’m referring to.
John-Nelson Pope: Disinfec or Jack Kuriak and on the road during the beat generation in the 1950s.
Chris Gazdik: That is also not what I think I was talking about.
Any others? No,
John-Nelson Pope: that’s the only two
Chris Gazdik: I can think of. Any alien references or ?
Victoria Pendergrass: No. Are we talking about like an actual decade,
Chris Gazdik: like eighties or nineties anyway with the kids? I must, I know what I did. We, we talked about this in depth with [00:23:00] Matt Hanks. I think he was doing some co-hosting earlier on in show.
So that was probably around one 50 or so. That’s exactly what it was. So this is new to you guys. Okay. I’m gonna try to be brief ’cause I wanna get to the friendship part, but this sets up the lack of friendships. Parenting, which is I’m identifying a major problem. So this is really a personal thing that I identified.
Second. Second, more in my own experience of life. And then I wrapped around my professional understanding of what happens in the life cycle of a family. You disconnected. Okay, so here’s what happens, John. I. I have always liked video games. It’s something that’s always been a part of my life. It’s just an enjoyment part, part of my self care thing.
And so I was, you know, raising the kids, and my, my brother, you know, he, over the years, he, he was, he, classic gut on my case. He’s like, oh, you’re trying to be, you know, Mr. Best Dad or Super Dad or something. I’m like, well, you know, I don’t know. I just, I want to do right by my kids, right? So I was coaching the soft, the baseball, and I was [00:24:00] coaching the basketball.
I was doing the, the church activities. You know, I’m doing the Cub Scouts. Turned into a cub scout leader and, you know, did the baseball stuff, you know? So I, yeah, we were pretty active. We were doing a lot of things and I fell into that schedule trap that we’ll talk about here in a little while, but like, I, it was
involved, it takes a lot of energy and I remember at some certain point turn around and looking like, wait a minute, you know, what am I doing?
Like, I don’t, I’m not doing my hobbies. Like I literally realized I had not played a video game for like 10 years. Now, that’s a big deal in my self recollection. Are you saying that
Victoria Pendergrass: that’s because you were so…
Chris Gazdik: Just engaged. It was your loss. busy with your kids. It was my loss. Your loss. Your specific… It was my lost
Victoria Pendergrass: decade.
Your specific lost decade. Right?
Chris Gazdik: Not… That’s your kiddos. Yeah. And I’m wrong. We talked about this with Adam Cloninger as well on the show because he had a different time frame on when he experienced his lost decades. So there are different circumstances. [00:25:00] But I even look at this clinically with our family life cycle.
Victoria, your son is what age? 19 months. Okay. Oh my god. Today. Months. Year and a half. I can’t do that. Year and a half. Thank you. Go by years, man. Okay, age 4 to 14 of your oldest kid under typical circumstances, I suppose. You enter into this age when you get so engaged in all the playdates and sleepovers and activities.
Yeah, he can start soccer at age 2. Right! It’s crazy! It’s
Victoria Pendergrass: crazy, right? Which I mean, there’s not much
Chris Gazdik: structure in that. So when I realized I spent all that time, John, on all those activities and stuff and really kind of lost myself in that. Now I wouldn’t necessarily totally change that because it’s a great role.
It’s a great time of life. You’re raising your kids. But the whole main idea is you’ve got to still be an individual. This
John-Nelson Pope: is a question. And that is, do you think by doing this, all these things with the kids and get in, starting them with soccer and baseball and [00:26:00] things of this sort, because I think you can also start them.
with, with some sort of a baseball, even at two
Victoria Pendergrass: or three. You can start gymnastics
John-Nelson Pope: at age four. Now, the, the, the question is, is that you’re really not spending time with your own kiddo. You are basically. Yeah. Just driving them. Learning, teaching them skills. Also. And
Victoria Pendergrass: so
John-Nelson Pope: they’re going to be very athletic and very unsocialized.
Victoria Pendergrass: Or. It’s true, John. And another thing is, is, and we don’t have to talk about this if you want to, but. We, oftentimes, I think we keep our kids so busy that they don’t know how, they don’t know what to do when they become bored. So as they get older, when they are quote unquote bored, they can’t find anything to do.
It’s because they’ve always had to follow such a strict schedule and they’ve always been doing something that I think that’s why it’s important now to like give your time, kids time to, [00:27:00] Figure out how to entertain themselves and how to do things so that later on in life when they are quote unquote bored they can find something to like.
Not be
John-Nelson Pope: bored. Okay. This is the other thing that I think this was the brilliant thought that that I came from that you that you Happy to do it. One of the things about boredom is it’s a stimulus to be creative And oh, yeah, we’re not allowed to be creative If you have everything done for you or you’re doing all these prescribed things, it’s, it’s as that great rock theologians, the Pink Floyd saying another brick in the wall, right?
You know, you’re, are you going to be just such a conformist? And that you don’t have that creative thoughts. People need to be bored a little bit.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. So that you don’t just replicate over and over again [00:28:00] what you see monkey see monkey do. Right. You can get outside of the box and create solutions, create ideas.
Generate new new patterns and new culture, really, even. Yeah. You know, teenagers do this naturally. They create their own culture. They create their own words. They create their own language. So we’re not losing that totally, but we
do want to stimulate that. Groovy. As best we can. Groovy. That’s before my time.
Victoria Pendergrass: Most days when I come home with my kid, if I don’t have anything else to do, like errands, or go to the gym, or whatever, I sit on the couch and I let him play. Yeah, and if he wants to involve me in his play, I’ll, you know, I’ll participate but a lot of times I just watch him Yeah, and I let him fun in the run around the house and you know You know, what’s cool when he’s like he’s it’s it’s so awesome to like watch him play by himself and like see the things that he finds to do out of the [00:29:00] toys that he has And he doesn’t even talk like and he’s entertaining himself and he’s laughing at himself and occasionally he’ll involve me but like
Chris Gazdik: Well, what’s cool that you see with with having one child is when the kids do that together Like some of my greatest joys were just spying on them Really it’s sitting back and just watching them do their thing And it was it was really cool to see their their interactions about You know, one was four and one was seven and they’d be doing, you know, kind of creating their games, doing their thing.
It’s creativity. That’s, you know, but you only get that if you’re slowed down. We probably didn’t do that near, near enough, but let’s, so let’s look at schedules real quick was one of the types of things that we wanted to kind of look at. We’ve already talked about it, but what, what, what I think we’re really identifying, John, you’re kind of saying, you know, you’re not really hanging out with your kid value, the time, the family time and the time with family and friends.
There’s a, there’s a funny. example of that. Have y’all, y’all watch the Ozark? You know that show? My husband did, but I didn’t. Oh, it’s a great show.
Victoria Pendergrass: I love [00:30:00] it. I couldn’t make it through the first episode. Really? Because it’s
Chris Gazdik: terribly violent. But I like shows like that. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: It wasn’t
Chris Gazdik: for me. So, so the, the, the main, I don’t watch TV.
The main plot, the main, the main plot, John, Is this guy decides to move his family after the, he identifies an affair and they go to this place called the
Ozarks. It’s wilderness. It’s out there somewhere and they leave Chicago and go to Missouri and he is,
I don’t remember, but he’s, he’s a, he’s laundering money.
And, and he gets into the drug cartel and you get into the, the heroin trade and all this kind of stuff. So they have these wicked, crazy family dynamics. It’s just, it’s over the top. It’s pretty violent, but it, but they, but, but one of the things they do all throughout is they have this special designated and specific time for family meals.
Whatever crazy thing is going on, they sit down at the table, and they have their meal. I mean, somebody may have just gotten killed a half [00:31:00] hour ago, or they’ve got, you know, they’ve got to go down to Mexico for their drug cartel, but they will sit down, have like a salad, a plate, and drink and food. That used to be called Sunday dinner.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but it’s, but, it’s, it’s just valuing that. And so even in the crazy mists of the Ozarks, if you know the show, there’s a value that they put there that I thought was the craziest way to demonstrate that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Family game nights. Family game nights. And things
Chris Gazdik: like that. Birthday celebrations.
Family culture. We’re coming up on the holidays. There’s a lot of things that you can do to value that. Like my
Victoria Pendergrass: husband’s family. His aunt and uncle’s house. Every Sunday, Sunday dinner, and we try to make it down when we can, but it’s like an open invitation. They do it every Sunday, and there’s some crazy, like
Chris Gazdik: there’s some crazy fact when you’re raising kids.
If you sit down at the table at least once a week, they’re something like 70 percent more likely to stay out of jail, or be successful kids, or something like that. I’m totally butchering [00:32:00] the, the fact, but, but it is
Victoria Pendergrass: fact. But also, I mean, with schedules, how even as your kids get older, and then they start to drive and stuff, and Our schedules get so busy, crazy, you find that when you don’t do things like that, you don’t know what’s going on and Your family’s lives.
Because you’re not sitting down to actually, whether it’s dinner, whether it’s hanging out around the TV, or in the living room, or a family game night. It allows you to still have that connection as like a family.
Chris Gazdik: Agreed. Yeah, no, there’s a lot to it. You know, defeating the keeping up with the Joneses.
If you settle the schedule down and just have this Sunday meals and stuff you’re talking about there, Victoria, and, and, and, and also defeating parent guilt, you know, so if you, if you whittle that schedule down and, and, and change the priority sets, you really have multiple benefits of, of, of getting at what you really want to do, which John, you highlighted hanging out with your little kiddo.
Just [00:33:00] being in relationship with them back and forth, and you have to slow down to allow that to happen, and we, we suck at that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, and I think that even in today’s world, that also means, like, putting down your phone. Oh,
Chris Gazdik: there it is. And
Victoria Pendergrass: I We all got it. I mean And I mean, I’m not gonna admit that I don’t do it because I, I definitely find myself doing or like scrolling while my kid plays and they notice that.
John-Nelson Pope: One of the things that that I did with my kids was I was robot man. And a robot man would come when they least expected it and would wrestle and play in the grass and on the ground. And I had three little kids hanging on me. One was and one, my daughter, Bethany, who is 40 years old now. Would grab me by the neck from the back and my son day would take [00:34:00] his little wooden sword and he would beat me on the leg and Katie would go around my other leg and just hold onto my
Chris Gazdik: foot.
Well, you know what’s funny? Robot Man! Robot Man! I love that, you’re, you’re taking me back to, I’ll give a compliment to my wife, she, she created this awesome game, the kids loved it. Can we play Shark Mom? Mom, can we play Shark? So she would, she would sit on the love seat there, kind of where you’re at, and the kids would be out in the…
In the pool or whatever. And the shark was contained to like the, the, the, the couch area. And whenever they got close, they were grabbed and gotten and pulled and wrestled and, you know, they just, they just loved it. It was it was, it was endearing for them to, you know, and so every night it’s like, can we play shark, can we play shark, you know, so robot man, robot man, I love it.
When you liseast expect it you know, these are, these are endearing, indelible, relationship oriented memories that we [00:35:00] lose in busy schedules and things like love and logic with developing the relationship with you and your kid is, is important. So this is all a little bit about parenting. Listen, let’s take a quick break because I have a call to action.
If you like what you’re hearing and you, and you support the show, we’re 250 episodes in hit the like button. Right now on your phone so that you have that it helps us be found helps us be seen helps you to know when we’re on and I just want to, I want to honor a listener right here, Cass, she said, congratulations on 250 podcast.
Think of all the people what does it say who tuned in and got some great ideas, some ways to do further research on their own or to seek some, some counseling if needed. We need, we need her on. Yeah, we ought to get her, get her to come on. We ought to have a listener participation thing in, in live and in the person.
I mean, listen, it’s, it’s pretty cool. You know, 250 episodes. We have a sponsor to the show [00:36:00] called First Horizon Bank. We appreciate them having joined with us to help us grow the show and to be a part of supporting us and sponsoring and sponsorship. They’re a great organization. Neighborhood Bank across the nation.
Horizon Bank. Where are they sponsored or headquartered? Do you know yet?
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh, you just let her in. It’s it’s in Tennessee. Memphis. He just said it.
Chris Gazdik: See, she doesn’t listen to me. No, she listens to you, John. She just. I tuned out for a minute, but if she were banking first horizon, she wouldn’t be tuned out.
They would teach her about financial responsibility and financial tools. And what’s the term Neil that he talked about when they were literacy. Thank you. God, my brain was financial literacy, financial literacy. That’s first horizon. Yes.
So let’s get back to what we’re talking about and really transition us to the part of the topic that is just not talked about with parenting. [00:37:00] And I think that’s what led to your Your thought, John. Like, how’s that gonna work together? Friendship and parenting.
Victoria Pendergrass: Let’s clarify. Do we mean friendship as, like, me being a friend towards my child?
No! Or are we talking about including my friends as quote unquote village?
Neil Robinson: It’s so funny that you’re even
Chris Gazdik: asking that clarification.
Victoria Pendergrass: When I know, right? When you first told me this topic, I assumed that you were talking about me being a friend to my kid and I was like, yep, no, you
John-Nelson Pope: assumed you make an ass of you and
Chris Gazdik: me.
Well, there you go. That was, that was kind of a dad joke statement. I haven’t
Victoria Pendergrass: heard that one in a while. And that’s where my brain went when you first said that.
Chris Gazdik: That’s what I saw on the show prep. That’s And that’s what people talk about when you mix the idea of parenting and friend. You go to the criticism of [00:38:00] parents of trying to be your kid’s friend, and we don’t want that.
But what’s interesting to me is it’s not even a blip on the screen. It’s not even a part of the conversation. Having your own friends still be in your life is a complete… afterthought. And that’s a part of the lost decade. It drives me nuts because it’s so isolating and unhelpful people. We need to make a change.
John-Nelson Pope: Back in the day when women did not work outside the home or if they were forced to, as due to a death or something of that sort. Yeah. They had a hard time. integrating or reintegrating into the workforce, or having friends, they were very isolated. And so feminism, I think, was very good in this area, and that is just that it would encourage people to, to develop those friendships
Deep and abiding friendships outside of, of [00:39:00] of just being with their kids and start, and can’t even, they did baby talk sometimes and weren’t able to get out of it, get out of it and make conversations. That’s the
Victoria Pendergrass: thing. Yeah. But I also think it has to do with at what stage in life your friends are. I
Chris Gazdik: disagree.
For example, let’s go. Okay. Let’s go.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay. So let’s give, we’ll use my own personal life. That’s fine. For example, I have two best friends who one is technically single. She’s not married. She’s dating someone, but she’s not married, has no kids. Right. And my other best friend is not married, but has triplets.
Okay. And they’re about to turn three. Okay. So three, okay. Little girls running around that’s a lot that all look the same and so I would say that like yes We definitely try to be there for each [00:40:00] other But we don’t live one of them lives in Gastonia with me. The other lives in Charlotte and The one that lives in Charlotte.
I have not I talked to her but I haven’t seen her Maybe like two plus months. Yeah, so like that’s someone who’s and that’s because she has a full time job She lives in Charlotte She can’t get here that easily to like and I’ve texted her and asked her to like babysit a couple times While my husband and I like made plans To go somewhere and she wasn’t able to do that and which is fine But I mean she like so I think that sometimes it like there’s not always like yes I consider them a part of my village, but they’re not like regular every other day Frequently like
Chris Gazdik: once a week.
Life gets in the way Victoria. Life absolutely gets in the way and there’s a lot of life That we live with our [00:41:00] kids in the home, that’s, there’s no doubt about that. But at different stages of the family together, when the kids are toddlers or babies, when the kids are in elementary school, when the kids are preteens and then teenagers, and then when they’re launching.
At all of those different stages, I’m going to maintain strongly that we need friendships in our own lives to sustain and support our energies so that we have more to give to
Victoria Pendergrass: the kids. Now, when you say that, yes, I agree with that. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: And that’s so missed though, you know, and I, and I’m glad that we’re having this conversation.
It’d be cool to have this conversation again a year from now or so to see how you track with it because you’re just in the beginning stages and you just kind of described it. It
Victoria Pendergrass: is. Does take a lot of effort for me to, yeah, it’s purposeful. I text my friends and be like, oh my gosh, I miss y’all’s faces.
Can I see you in person? Yes, not virtually, but can I see you in person? Intentional. Intentional. It has to be purposeful like purpose within the next [00:42:00] week or so, because purpose and intentional,
Chris Gazdik: I miss y’all. Otherwise, it gets lost and then when it starts to set into getting lost, you really do enter into what I call at least the lost decade.
And then when you start coming out of that, you’re like, what have I been doing this whole time? I haven’t had, you know, I haven’t had a golf outing. I haven’t played a video game. I haven’t been to, I’ll throw one at you, Victoria. I haven’t been to listen. I haven’t been to a concert, because I know you love concerts.
Yeah,
Neil Robinson: I haven’t been to a… Jonas Brothers, I’m wearing my
Victoria Pendergrass: Jonas Brothers shirt. Oh my goodness. But I can imagine… It was the years. I don’t want that to
Chris Gazdik: happen to you. Yeah. You’ve gotta hit a concert within the next five years at least two or three times. I hope so. Right? I could see her going on a mosh pit.
Yeah. Well,
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, I do think, [00:43:00] yes, we need those friendships to help sustain. And how many times have we had clients who come in and their kids are grown and moved out and they’re like, I have no friends. Nobody’s here. Like because my kids 18 and in college now and now I’m sitting at home empty nester empty nester or
Chris Gazdik: With somebody that you haven’t really hung out with either because we could do the same kind of conversation your spouse We miss dating our spouse and engaging our life Yeah I gotta tell you
John-Nelson Pope: that the relationship between my wife and myself now is so much better now that the kiddos are out of the Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: yeah, but
Victoria Pendergrass: that’s not does it happen forever.
Sometimes people have to work back up to that because yeah, well you drift apart. You become like roommates
John-Nelson Pope: now. We definitely aren’t roommates.
Chris Gazdik: Go a little further with that, john, because I think you do offer an interesting perspective with your kids being now well grown and you went through these stages.
I [00:44:00] mean, do you remember back in the early stages with teenagers?
John-Nelson Pope: Yes. And I remember driving everywhere. With them and taking them to places, but we had made a decision and this is not to say I’m better or anything like that. It was just, I think the nature of the fact that I was a pastor of a church is that I got to be with my kids.
Personally, on a one to or a small group level or one, one group or working into Boy Scouts, that sort of thing, got our Girl Scouts was able to do that. And also my wife was able to participate in that. And so we didn’t have two cars going to do two different places all
Chris Gazdik: the time. Well, and yeah, and you know, we, we have individual factors for families and there’s lots of little intricacies like that.
Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: and then I said later after the kids were grown is that we did have to get to know each other a little bit more. Yeah. A [00:45:00] lot more. I think there’s also the, the issue of my wife having some chronic illness. Mm hmm. That. Plays a part, plays a part in that, but we were able to start going on dates.
We started going to concerts we would go to the symphony and that was a kind of a, that was our concert.
Chris Gazdik: Well, and I think the thing that needs to be mentioned is there, there’s, there’s a uh, a reality in a, in a mix in here that’s unavoidable. You really do have a crucial. Lack of energy and time kids require a lot they they they do take you know a certain amount of spirit out of your out of your system energy out of your body and There there’s that’s part of being a parent But at the same time, you can with purposefulness, even if it’s not the weekly get [00:46:00] up at the, you know, the, the, the bar or the, the, the, the play in and getting out all the time, life’s going to be different, man.
I mean, you’re not going to have the same life when they leave the home. John, you can recover that. While they’re still there, though, there needs to be some.
Victoria Pendergrass: That’s why. So, are you saying, it almost sounds like you’re saying you could almost apply the 2 Two. Two. Two. No, two Friendships. Do you know about the two two
Chris Gazdik: two rule?
What is the two two
Victoria Pendergrass: two rule? Okay, the two two two rule is used a lot in marriages that says every two weeks you go on a date night. Every two months you go on a overnight date. Trip like a weekend trip. Every two years you go on a week long trip vacation. Okay So that’s the two to two rule with marriages But it almost sounds like you’re saying that you maybe not follow that exact thing time wise but to almost do the same thing But [00:47:00] with friendship that way, you know, you’re keeping that connection there You’re keeping the emotional support that whatever they provide for you.
I
Chris Gazdik: admire I admire mostly clients when I, that I’ve heard this honestly, and I, I admire. Mostly clients that I’ve heard that continue to designate a priority. Hey, this is my once a once a year golf outing. Us guys get together, we go to Myrtle beach. It’s what we do. That’s invaluable. And if that’s. All you get set up with your friends, I’m happy with
John-Nelson Pope: that.
Now I, I agree. I agree. I think you should do that. And I, that’s one thing that I’ve tried to do in my life, although often unsuccessful. And, but part of it… is that there’s, and I see this more with men, is that they [00:48:00] like to go on the golf outings all the time. And so they don’t spend time with their kiddos or their spouse.
Victoria Pendergrass: They also don’t give their wives time to go do their own thing.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. This needs to be a balanced reality where girls, long weekend, guys, long weekend, about once, maybe twice a year. That’s not a lot. No, it isn’t. It’s
John-Nelson Pope: not a lot. And it’s reasonable.
Chris Gazdik: But it’s so valuable. Because you have that regular connection.
And then you’re on the phone and doing FaceTime and texting and, It’s also
Victoria Pendergrass: extremely difficult, though, sometimes. It really is. When, when you’re matching up schedules. It really is. When you’re talking about matching up schedules and finances. Okay, well, I don’t get paid until the end of the month. But then you get paid, you don’t get paid, da da da da da.
Chris Gazdik: And
John-Nelson Pope: then it’s… [00:49:00] They need to do Dave Ramsey.
Chris Gazdik: Now I’m, I’m… One of the trifecta.
Victoria Pendergrass: But, I think that… And that’s what, okay, and I think I’ve said this before, but all my three, not the three of us, my best friends and I, we all turned 30 this year. Yeah. All of us turned 30 this year and we were gonna, we had originally at the end of last year, we had originally talked about like, Hey, since we’re all turning 30, like let’s go on a trip together and we’ll just go on a trip and we’ll celebrate all three of our birthdays together.
It’s lost. We, it’s. November 2nd. And do you think we’ve gone on a trip and have we planned one? It’s ending. Absolutely not. Right. And so it’ll probably be next year. And if not, and that’s the thing is like, it’s pushed, it just gets pushed and it’s pushed. And then it’s now almost the end of the year and we haven’t even celebrated our birthdays together.
Have you
John-Nelson Pope: been able to have, to get their kids to have grandparents take the kids? [00:50:00] Would they be?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, but then sometimes that doesn’t match up. Like my parents, my parents might be able to watch my kid, but my parents can’t watch my kid and triplets. So then it’s like, then it’s like, like, and then her mom may not be able to do it.
And then it’s like, it’s just this whole, and sometimes it’s not for lack of trying.
Chris Gazdik: And you know what’s sad, Victoria? It begins, listen, because I can hear your tone. I can hear you go through this and you’re experiencing this. Do that for a few years. John, you correct me if I’m wrong. Does it not begin to feel like, you know what, this would be nice, but it’s just not worth it.
Victoria Pendergrass: That’s what I’m saying is I don’t want, like, then you don’t want it to get to that point. Right. Like, oh, I haven’t seen this person in two years. I really hung out with them, but they’re my best friend, you know? And it’s different, like, I have a lifelong best friend that lives in Georgia. So, like, naturally, because [00:51:00] she lives in Georgia, I don’t see her, but really, whenever she comes up here to visit family.
And so, and, but then we’re de we definitely, like, make sure to see each other when she’s up here, kind of thing. And so, it’s just
Chris Gazdik: So,
John-Nelson Pope: I’m hearing There, there’s a sense with you of feeling harried, just harried and hurried, and there’s a little bit of weariness thrown in, in the mix as well, because how are you going to do this and to do this with your homies?
I mean,
Victoria Pendergrass: you’re three. Right, and then plus as my kid gets older and our schedule gets busier. Being more intentional about setting that time for so maybe we’re in the
John-Nelson Pope: friendship to simplify our lives a little bit
Chris Gazdik: Oh, that’d be nice. I think it is simplification John, but I think really more so honestly, it really is about prioritizing intentionality Let’s get a little excited about why we want to do this.[00:52:00]
Think about what friendship while you being a parent With each other only one can be a parent or both can be a parent you have both Victoria Yeah, you know the emotional support that you get is necessary. I mentioned that
Victoria Pendergrass: earlier too. You
Chris Gazdik: have got to have Emotional support look when you become a new parent and I know women get blamed more for being like the paranoid parent listen I was paranoid just as much wondering if we’re doing this or do that, or what’s the right thing that I should provide?
Should I get this baby seat? You know, there’s about 10 different baby seats you can get in the store now, John. Oh, there’s
Neil Robinson: more than
Victoria Pendergrass: that. Oh, talking about car seats. Yeah. Oh yeah. There’s like. Like 20 plus, you know,
Chris Gazdik: you need a friend to give you support. It’s like, look, Vic, stop. It’s just, you know, it’s fine to reassure too.
Victoria Pendergrass: Do you know how many times I’ve texted my friend with triplets? And I was like, Hey, which one did you buy? Okay, great. That sounds wonderful. I’ll get that. [00:53:00]
Chris Gazdik: You’ve you’ve, you have so many fears developmentally, you know, should I do a basketball? You know, should I, should I get a batting coach? You know, should, should I, should I sign him up for the team?
Should I, should I have him complete the season? He wants to quit. Should, should I, how do I? Piano lessons. It’s, it’s on and on and on.
John-Nelson Pope: But there, Miss Childhood. Right! And again. they need to be bored a little bit. Yeah. You know, and maybe parents need to be a little bored. And so, okay. Yeah. Veg out a little bit and enjoy the, you know,
Chris Gazdik: and get off my lawn.
You know, it’s true. And we, and, and And look, people look as an outsider at what it is that you’re dealing with. And all of these activities look, they’re great. Cub Scouts was, was transformational in my kids [00:54:00] youth, although they totally resented the Boy Scouts and you know, and whatnot, didn’t want to do it.
And we stopped. But we’re not saying no activities, we’re saying slow down, get emotional support, understand prioritize, prioritize when you have these fears about the developmental stages all the way through launching out of the home, friends can normalize your anxieties about it, but I also think
Victoria Pendergrass: it means correct me if you disagree because my kid again is only 19 months, but I think it also means listening to your kid when they, you know, Vocalize their opinion about the activities that you signed them up for.
Well, for example, okay, if I sign my kid up for soccer, when he’s two, or three, or whatever. And after a season of it, he’s like, hates it. Right? Every game he hates, every practice he hates, and yeah, necessarily I don’t want him to like, be [00:55:00] a quitter, quote unquote, but I feel like it also is part of respecting like, I don’t want to force him to continue to do something that he obviously doesn’t want to do.
And maybe we could instead spend that time at home together. Okay, we’re
Chris Gazdik: going to get off of schedules and such because we’ve hit that pretty good. And I want to highlight a lot of the friendship stuff, but we got Mr. Neal with a microphone. He’s burning over there. What you got, Mr. Robinson? I would agree with Victoria.
With both of our kids, we put
Neil Robinson: them in sports. It stuck with one, didn’t stick with the other. We put them both in piano. It stuck with one, but not the other. I think it’s very important to expose our kids. See what they like or don’t like. Cause if you don’t expose them to it, they won’t know, but you have to listen and you have to say, what do they like or don’t like with Mason?
Our oldest who’s in the marching band just got grand champion. There’s
Chris Gazdik: awesome.
Neil Robinson: There’s a day of whatever they did some proclamation and grammar, which was cool, but. He, he hated [00:56:00] practicing, but when we said, Hey, we’re going to take you out of piano lessons, he was like, Oh no, I need to practice. So they still hated practice because he’s a kid, but he still had the love and desire to do music.
And so you have to take that time to understand the difference between a kid, just not wanting to do it because they’re a kid, even adults don’t like to practice. And. As you pointed out, it’s not their thing, right? So I wholeheartedly agree. And I think there’s a lot of parents who just kind of go through that process and just shove it down their kid’s throat and you just have to do it.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I would agree with you because my son, John Daniel or day learned how to play the violin. And he, he had somebody that said, you’ve got to practice, practice, practice. She was Russian. And so she, he started to resent it. And so we had to back off. but he’s still musical.
Chris Gazdik: That’s funny. I gotta, I gotta point out.
We got a cast out there. She’s like, yeah, I was bored at my job. She’s like, I was bored at my job, became an artist and a cartoonist. And [00:57:00] I’d never thought of either of those towns if I wasn’t bored. So we all agree. I mean, there’s, there’s no doubt about that, but But let’s, let’s finish up on some of these things to get your, get you excited about having the friendships.
Yes. Thank you for that, Neil. You know, socialization for parents is a big factor as well. Like you said, you literally get into baby talk when you’re alone at home. I took a parent leave and was home for a month and I loved it. It’s one of the best things I ever was able to do. It was so awesome. First of all, after your, sorry.
And, and go ahead. I
John-Nelson Pope: was, I was, I was in the Navy and my. My son was born and, oh no. Had three days of labor from my, my, my wife c-section. And I had, I, I didn’t get to see him for a full week afterwards. Oh. ’cause I was on duty. Oh
Chris Gazdik: my goodness. And so that sucks. I, I was telling you how hard life was apparently for a back in the day, whole month.
Yeah, I wasn’t quite back. I was teasing. [00:58:00] Well, and I appreciate your service, John. If I have told you before, but, but you get, you get advice, you get shared experiences, you literally combine efforts together and you share
childcare. We had a friend that. That that stayed with us and, and it was super patient, like, cause we were probably so consumed with our activities and she, she engaged, engaged, engaged.
She ended up keeping the kids a time for, for a whole week, allowing us to take a trip. You know, the, the, the, the finding like minded and values and supporting your, your, your challenges to, to maintain those valuables values in the home that you get so much pressure from society. Friends prevent, create and prevent so much, create so much benefit the balance that you, that you get in life.
I mean, I, I could just go on, but
Victoria Pendergrass: I think ProScript also provides validation in a sense, especially when Encouragement. Especially when you’re friends with Other parents, [00:59:00] which I mean, non parents can give you some validation, but they can’t, but right. It’s
Chris Gazdik: there’s a, but yeah, there’s a big qualifier and you see it on the bottom of our show prep.
There is a reality that parents do need to know and non parents listen, love your friends that have. Kids and help them support them. I hope that this show gives you a little bit of insight because if you’re not a parent, you really can’t understand those pressures and
Victoria Pendergrass: stresses. But it is nice to have validation from fellow parents when you’re going through struggles of parenting and when you’re having some, whether it’s a crisis or whatever.
Yeah. Then you can go to your. Like I can go to my friend and I’ll, I’ve talked to her multiple times. Like, I feel like I’m crazy doing set this or that or whatever. And she’s, and she’ll say, you know, I felt the same way when I was, when, when my, when my kids were that age or I, you know, you’re not alone.
And that’s very
Chris Gazdik: nice. It’s so [01:00:00] powerful.
John-Nelson Pope: People are so I mean, they can do great things. They can be politicians, multibillionaires, and have all these talents and be the best surgeon in the world or th
primary and greatest task, I think, is if you get that opportunity to be a parent and to raise a child, I think that’s the, that’s your most important job.
Because if you bring a life into, into a person, into into being. That’s a wonderful and holy thing. You know,
Chris Gazdik: John, I can’t, I can’t think of, I can’t think of a better way to sum us up and, and to take us out, John, I appreciate those thoughts. I think that is absolutely on point. Listen. Let your friends be your friends.
Reach [01:01:00] out to your friends. And make new friends. As you go through this awesome responsibility. And experience, John, that you just,
Victoria Pendergrass: you just put words to. Becoming a parent also gives you greater opportunity to make more friends.
Chris Gazdik: If we do it. I referenced our show last time. Friends, do we miss them? Do we miss the opportunities to do that?
Because there are far and wide opportunities. If you reach out. So this is a good combination of last show and this show. Also, I remember
Victoria Pendergrass: what I was going to say earlier when I interrupted you.
Chris Gazdik: Okay, gotcha. Go. Just real quick.
Victoria Pendergrass: Please stop talking to your baby in baby talk after they are an infant. There’s, after your child is older than an infant, there’s no need to talk in baby talk.
It hinders their language development.
Chris Gazdik: Okay, there’s my spiel. Victoria with a pet peeve working with an infant child. All right, listen. I hope that we’ve gotten you some things to think about. Things to reach out [01:02:00] for, things to be purposeful with, so that you really are less alone in the awesome experience of raising the kids.
Take care, be well, and we’ll see
Neil Robinson: you