Welcome to Episode 26 of Touched Out! A Mental Health Podcast for Parents.
Today we dive into the transformative journey of Mike from Massachusetts as he navigates the complex landscape of new fatherhood. From overcoming the challenges of a tough pregnancy to the quiet triumphs in the everyday moments with his daughter, Mike’s story offers a profound glimpse into the realities of modern fatherhood.
The Transformative Journey of Fatherhood
Mike's journey into fatherhood is filled with profound insights and personal growth. He shares how becoming a father has shifted his life priorities and taught him to appreciate the small, joyful moments that come with parenting. This section reveals the raw and often unspoken truths of fatherhood, challenging the idealized notions of parenting and offering a genuine look into the realities faced by new dads.
Balancing Personal Passions and Parental Responsibilities
One of the central themes of this episode is the delicate balance between pursuing personal passions and fulfilling parental responsibilities. Mike discusses his transition from a career in sports journalism to one that allows him more time at home, emphasizing the importance of being present for his family. This discussion highlights the diverse narratives of fatherhood and the unique ways each father navigates these challenges.
The Role of Community and Support
The conversation underscores the vital role of community and support in navigating the trials of parenting. From the sleepless nights to the trials of potty training, Mike highlights the resilience found in fathers who support one another. He also shares the importance of crafting a more validating and empathetic world for our children, emphasizing the role community plays in this mission.
Personal Growth and Breaking Generational Cycles
Fatherhood is not just about raising children; it's also about personal growth and breaking generational cycles. Mike reflects on his journey of introspection and the efforts to improve himself as a parent and partner. This section offers insights into how fatherhood can be a catalyst for personal evolution and the importance of nurturing mental well-being.
Celebrating the Diversity of Fatherhood Narratives
Throughout the episode, we celebrate the diversity of fatherhood narratives and honor the multifaceted stories of dads like Mike. This episode is a mosaic of emotions, capturing the struggles and triumphs that define the fatherhood experience. It’s an homage to the fathers who are finding their way, recalibrating their bonds, and supporting their communities while raising the next generation.
Join the Conversation
Thank you for joining us on this heartfelt exploration of fatherhood with Mike. We hope you found the discussion insightful and inspiring, offering a new perspective on the complex journey of parenting.
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We would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land. We pay our respects to the Elders past, present and emerging, for they hold the memories, the traditions and the culture of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across the nation. Warning this podcast contains explicit language and discusses sensitive topics related to mental health childhood trauma, birth trauma, abuse, miscarriage and suicide. Listener discretion is advised. If you find these subjects distressing or triggering, we recommend taking caution and considering whether to proceed with listening. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to a mental health professional or a trusted individual for support. Your well-being is our priority.
Carter:Welcome to another episode of the Touched Out podcast. Today we have Mike, a 32-year-old from Massachusetts. Mike shares his journey from pregnancy to birth and the first six months of fatherhood. He talks about his experience as a new father, the challenges his wife faced during pregnancy and the overwhelming nature of the early days. Mark reflects on his initial struggles in finding his role as a father and the guilt he felt for not being more present. Mark has since found his rhythm and is fully committed to being a good father. The conversation also touches on the importance of alone time as a new family and the disruption caused by well-intentioned family members staying over. Mark discusses how his priorities shifted as he got older and how he made the decision to prioritise his personal life over his dream job in sports.
Mike:Take some time, it's all right, you'll be fine. The Touched Alpha Cast. Take all night, you'll be fine, it's alright. The Touchdown Podcast.
Carter:Okay, so today we've got Michael, 32, from Massachusetts. Michael's married with one baby, six months old, baby Claire. Welcome to the podcast, michael, thanks for joining me.
Mike:Thanks for having me, Carter.
Carter:Sweet, why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your family and your history?
Mike:Well, I was born May 12th 1991. My parents' name? I'll cut to the chase there. All the dad jokes are strong with me. Yeah, I'm from Massachusetts my whole life.
Mike:I was born May 12th 1991, on Mother's Day. My mother always likes to tell me born may 12th 91, on mother's day. My mother always likes to tell me, yeah, grew up a pretty, you know, middle class ish life, some years better than others, growing up, but never really wanting for much. My folks divorced when I was five, which is for the better. That as, especially as I've gotten older, I've realized that the two of them being married was just not. They just weren't right for each other. But my stepfather is awesome. So he's in my life, he's great. You know I still communicate with all three of my parents. But yeah, you know, I'm sure we'll talk about my work, history and parenting in a bit. But I'm from Massachusetts. My whole life has been in and around New England. I've traveled outside of New England but in an overarching sense everything has been New England. I do love it up here, and now I have my little one who currently has a bottle of baby formula in her mouth in my left arm.
Carter:Awesome, and baby Claire is six months old.
Mike:Yep, six months old this week. She is a delight. She has the grip strength of a weightlifter and I have a lot of chest hair for her to yank at, and it is not pleasant when she does oh yeah, god, they good at grabbing hold of hair.
Carter:My mustache has copped a beating over the last four years from three different children.
Mike:Yeah, my yeah no, my, my beard just had a. Just had an incident about three hours ago where she just latched onto it like a leech. I was like I'm not getting off, you hurt me. Yeah, that's okay, I love you, they love hair.
Carter:My littlest one, salem, at the moment. She's just started crawling last month, so she is very, very much about just assaulting her older two siblings at the moment.
Mike:She'll crawl up to them and climb up on their back and just yank at their hair because both of them have long hair.
Carter:Yeah, I'm sure a lot of tears at the moment on account of my littlest one. She's an absolute terror. Well, I mean, it is fun in a way. It is. It's cool to see them interact, even though she's just just absolutely torturing them and they're and they're both. They're both at the age where they can be like go away, salem, we don't want to play with you, because they're just dirty on her all the time yeah, well, I get all this one's strength and fury, although there isn't much fury, but there is a lot of strength so tell me a little bit about your journey from from pregnancy to birth to now, at six months old well, I can only speak of pregnancy secondhand.
Mike:I cannot speak in the primary experience. But my wife and I we got married november of 2020, which was a very interesting time to get married. But we went there, we had a lovely wedding and yes, yes, I'll give you more milk, I know. And so we were living at the time in a suburb of Boston. It was about we were about a 10 minute drive from downtown, and now we live out in Worcester, which is an hour west of Boston, but the second biggest city in the state. It's about 200,000 people, so a sizable community out here. We moved out here for her job she works in hospitals. She transferred to a different hospital out here and we got our house. We got our dog, who I'm sure you'll hear barking soon enough, and then after that, you know, we had the house, we had the dog. Well, we wanted the kid.
Mike:My wife more than me, not that I didn't want to be a parent, it was just I. I would always say to her it it's okay, clyde, it's okay, don't eat your bit, don't eat your bit. Oh, here's to you. I would always say to her I'd be very content having zero to two children, and that wasn't a coy way of saying I just want one kid. It was I could live a very rich, fulfilling life with you and our series of dogs throughout our marriage and I could live a great life. Or I could have, you know, one or two kids, which is now more team one than team two for both of us, but I'm like I could have a kid and live a great life. You know, it's just. Whatever one of those paths you choose, the other door closes.
Carter:So yeah, certainly yeah, so you know. So you weren't closed off to it, but you'd be fulfilled either way.
Mike:Yeah, and she said she had wanted to know. She knew she wanted to be a mother. So she was in, like she was like five or six years old. So also I, you know. We met when we were 24. I had a lot of growing up to do. We got married. We did all you know. We got married. We had a dog. I was like you know what? Yeah, like I felt good. I had some family issues. I was in therapy for three years at a time, which helped immensely to get my head straight, help figure things out, because without that I would not have been ready for a kid. I was like, yeah, let's do this. And so at the start of 20, we started trying to conceive.
Mike:She got pregnant in march ish, and december 29th this barrel of joy got evicted from her womb via c-section because she wasn't going to come out, she was just hanging in there. And so, yeah, you know, the pregnancy was interesting for you to watch it because the medically and you know, up until the last couple of days when my wife was showing signs of preeclampsia, up until that just showed up the day before Claire was born. So the entire pregnancy, medically she was perfectly fine. All the metrics were good. Claire was always growing at a good rate. My wife was healthy, her blood pressure was good, everything was checked off.
Mike:Am I allowed to curse on this podcast? Oh, yeah, go hard. She felt like fucking shit, man. Like she felt so bad. I remember she's, you know, it wasn't morning sickness, it was around the clock sickness. And at one point she just says anyone who says pregnancy's beautiful is fucking lying. She, she was just miserable. We were very excited, especially as Claire was, you know, showing signs of being healthy and growing and everything, but it was just, she was so sore, she was so tired. You know it was hard to see her going through that, but you know it's worth it to have this one who we love, and she said the same. However, she has gone very much from I want a second kid to yeah, no, like I don't want to be fair enough. Her exact line was well, I'd love claire to have a sibling, I do not want to experience pregnancy in the first three months ago yeah yeah, totally fair
Carter:um I don't know where. I don't know where the idea, this universal idea of pregnancy and birth being a beautiful, like little miracle, came from. I would love to try to trace the origins and punch that fucking person in the face because it's bullshit god.
Mike:I mean I, I excuse me I reckon I picture it somehow ties back into some form of religion, because so many religions of so many different backgrounds. Like you know, the woman becoming a mother is built into the doctrine or the teachings in some way. And pregnancy is such this beautiful thing. I mean, you know, the virgin birth is like one of the pillars of you know what he hates and it's like.
Carter:It's kind of like theory. I think it's theory versus prac.
Mike:You know, in theory, pregnancy and child birth is a beautiful thing, but in practice it's very, very far from the truth yeah, I remember there was one day where, because we weren't telling our folks until she was at 12 or 13 weeks to make sure there was no miscarriages or an ectopic or something, because she had friends that had miscarried and had had had a terminate birth for an ectopic pregnancy. So we waited and her mother was by to spend the night. I forget why, because again she knows she was pregnant but she was by. She spent the night. I forget why, because again she knows she was pregnant but she was by. She spent the night. And my wife had the worst bout of morning sickness ever and she was just. She texted me she's in the downstairs bath, she's an upstairs. She texts me, I'm downstairs. She says I'm super sick, just just entertain her. It's a lot like like talking to a child, like don't think about the noise upstairs, look at me, look at my toys, don't think. Don't think about your daughter upstairs, and so yeah, yeah, I remember.
Carter:I remember my parents being over for dinner one night and I'm not sure which pregnancy it was one of the three, obviously, but my wife was sitting down. I think she'd cooked like her favourite meal for dinner and she was really, really excited. My wife's an absolute gun in the kitchen Like she is such a good cook so she'd like spent all this time making everything from scratch and she'd been in the kitchen all day. She was so excited for this meal. We sit down, she has one bite and starts dry reaching and then like bolts to the toilet and then spends the rest of dinner in the bathroom. And I just remember feeling so sad for her because she was so excited for this meal and she'd been craving it for days and she wanted to impress my family. And then, yeah, she just sat there and spewed the entire time. Oh no, we all ate without her.
Mike:Oh, no, yeah, I mean whenever my wife would brush her teeth and brush like the back of her tongue.
Mike:She would vomit a little bit. So that happened for like a whole year. Uh, so that was. She loved that. She enjoyed that a lot. But yeah, I mean, you know it's like I said, I'm holding, I'm holding the little one, I'll get her on camera in a minute here for you, but you know it's, it's worth it. In the end she said she's like my god. And then, like you see people that have, you know, you see those reality shows where people have like 12 or 15 kids or something, and she's just like I don't get it. I don't understand how you do that.
Carter:Yeah, there are some people out there that have just the most breezy pregnancies and births you know like, excuse me, my sister-in-law I think her second baby was born in like within half an hour, oh wow, of going into labour and it was just a breeze for her, whereas all three of our births have just been like over a day marathons that just end super traumatically and horribly. And I mean, everyone says after our first birth, I don't know how you went back a second time, let alone a third time. Yeah, that's what happened with us. We knew we always wanted multiple kids and I guarantee you, probably in the next like 12 to 18 months, both you and your wife will start probably being like, oh, maybe we could have another one, because you start forgetting a little bit about the traumatic shit that you went through my wife is excellent at holding a grudge and she will hold a grudge against that for better or worse.
Mike:She's great at holding a grudge, um, but yeah no she went into the hospital.
Carter:There's nothing wrong with being one and done yeah, she went to the hospital.
Mike:I think 10 am on wednesday or like 9 am on wednesday, and this one was born at around it was born at 4 22 pm on thursday, so and she went in, she got a room around new and they had they tried to induce her.
Mike:I say try, because they had all these methods and nothing was working and she was in so much pain and agony and eventually, like the doctor was basically like so your options are because, well, first off, claire, not only did her did her water never break, but claire never dropped, she was just hanging out, she just would still be in there right now. And so the doctor, you know she couldn't tell us exactly what to do, but she was like well, you could plan for a c-section now. We keep going and do a C-section tomorrow, or we do this really risky thing and break your water. Your daughter might die, but we can try it. So it was stupid idea Do the thing now, do the thing. After one more day of pain. We chose to do the thing now. I told them at like one o'clock and 422. This one came out nine pounds, six ounces. Yeah, it was. It was a good time. She was a chunky girl, right, little one. She just stares at me like why, did you stop eating me Big chunk?
Carter:You're a big chunk.
Mike:But yeah, she's great.
Carter:Awesome. And how did you find the first kind of couple of days, couple of weeks of being a father and being a new family?
Mike:Well, the first few days, well, she was in the hospital for four days, so those first couple of days was a lot of, you know, dealing with nurses and all sorts of medical medical folks who were great. We had a great team. Everything was super easy. And you know, I was also having to bounce back and forth to the house a few times a day to let our dog out and deal with her. Luckily, you know, it was late December in Massachusetts.
Mike:That time of year you can get blizzards. I mean, I've had, you know, a foot of snow that time of year. Luckily it was in the. You know, it was like spring weather, it was just like it was raining, which kind of stunk, but the weather was fine. So we didn't have to deal with any snow, which was nice.
Mike:But yeah, you know, the first few days, I mean I, I could have been there more, like I was back here with the dog. I even spent a few nights here at the house and I went back in the morning. Not my, not certainly not my best moment, in fact one of my worst moments. Uh, not just being like go sleep six hours at the hospital, then come back and deal with the dog would have been fine. You know, I I do regret that. I mean, I've definitely made up for it because, like I, I love this kid so much and I want to be a good father, because my father definitely was not the best one.
Mike:Yes, flair, I'm trying to feed you and then I try to hurt you and then I just changed your diaper, but you're probably sleeping right. You're probably sleeping right, you're probably sleeping. But so, yeah, those first few days were super chaotic and then we had, you know, I was bouncing around, like you know, do I? Where do I go? And Christina, that's my wife's name, christina she had a real tearful exchange. She was very sad, she felt alone, which is the last thing you want to feel when you have a two-day-old baby next to you. And you know, it was a lot of new things and I mean that's always going to be my bird and the bear that you know I should have been there more. I'm definitely here now.
Carter:You know we have a lot of people come through. Do you feel like you weren't around because you were having trouble kind of knowing what role you needed to play, or did you just kind of confused and a bit overwhelmed? So?
Mike:you kind of took a step. Yeah, I think it was a bit of both, because, like I know, for me it's been just through my life it's like I need an objective somewhere or else I can kind of. I can kind of just kind of float away and just kind of be like whatever, and so you know, all I could do was sit there. But what she wanted was just you know me there, to know that you know she's not alone here. And because you know that first day we went in I was in the hut, we had someone come and sleep over and watch the dog. It's OK. It's OK, you're just over time.
Speaker 4:Turn the light.
Mike:And so, yeah, I think it's okay, you're just over time, turn the light and so, yeah, I think there was also confusion as well, because you know everything is so new and yeah, so you know, that's I and I think that is. You know, there was some of that, you know. And then, you know, towards the end of her stay I was staying the nights we had a lot of people come through too, not spending nights, but we had parents, you know, our parents, my grandmother, some friends, my brother, one of her sisters, and so there was just so much happening and, looking back, I just wish I probably I wish I had known how, how easy it really was, you know, looking back on it from from sitting here with a six-month-old on my leg, but I fumbled that ball. But since we've been home, I'm up with her.
Mike:I love handling her in the evenings. She's just dancing on my leg right now. She's great enough. And we always make sure to thank each other, tell each other how much we appreciate each other. We've talked about it. There's no ill will held because I I, with my actions, I've shown I actually am going to be here, you know, through these last six months and for the next many decades of having this one hopefully so you know definitely stumbled out of the blocks, but I've definitely got up to speed and I feel pretty good where I'm at right now yeah.
Carter:So I don't think it's something that you should hold against yourself.
Carter:I think it's probably a pretty common thing in those early, early days of being a first-time father to kind of take a step back and more wait for some commands or some input from wife or partner or whatever have you?
Carter:I know I definitely did and I know I definitely could have been at the hospital a little bit more with my wife and my kid. But I genuinely was kind of just on autopilot, just a mixture of just being so exhausted, so overwhelmed and just kind of not knowing what to do, how much I need to be involved, because in my mind I was like, well, I'm just letting mom and baby bond, because that's really, really important, yeah, um, and then, yeah, I went through that guilt as well of being like, well, you know, I didn't bond. Well, I mean I did bond with with my babies in the first few days, but not as much as I could have or should have, or you know everything like that. But I think, yeah, I think just because, uh, you know the old caveman brain a little bit, we go into autopilot a bit and it's kind of deer in headlights and not too sure on what to do or how to act with something so new and overwhelming.
Mike:Yeah, you know, and you know, hey, claire, go watch your video that you wrote somewhere Because you can relax. You have these videos you put on called Haybear, these sensory videos.
Carter:Oh yeah, yeah, Haybear is absolutely amazing, oh yeah. She adores it. They've been invaluable for when my little girl has to go in the car. She hates car rides so I put like a clear plastic bag over the back seat and put my old phone in it with hay bear videos on so she can watch not a bad. Not a bad, take um but yeah, perfectly, yeah, no, she's killing.
Mike:Watch one of those. She'll probably fall asleep soon. Oh yeah, you know. Now that you know, we found a more of a rhythm. The first, the, the first week, especially the first few days after we got home, were real, especially the first day, because her mom and sister were here and so lovely people. However, her sister has an allergy to our dog's dander, so that was difficult, and her mother is a super sweet woman. She's just very anxious and wants to make sure everyone and everything is right all the time. She was just on top of everything all the time. So, yeah, it was hard. It was hard for a few days. Now she's coming again.
Carter:The whole, you know family. Staying with each other in the first few days is a blessing and a curse, really, isn't it? Because you've got all the help that you need and some, but what you really need is just alone time with you and your new family and just to kind of find your own rhythm. It's good intentions, but it's disruptive at the same time.
Mike:Yeah, that's exactly what we said. We just needed to find a rhythm that works for us. And my dog is coming in and I'll have both my kittens, you know. Yeah, we just needed to find a rhythm that worked, you know, for us. You know, with the sleep and everything I remember we're just like taking like shifts and sleeping three or four hours upstairs in bed. That was a big thing to just deal to have the bed, because we just weren't staying downstairs in our living room with the baths and that because our house is quite small. So. But then we got a nice small bass and that we could have upstairs with her. So we're upstairs more, she's sleeping better.
Carter:But yeah, those first, you know, few months are certainly certainly interesting yeah very good, so we'll talk a little bit about what you do for a living and your hobbies and everything like that. You're a very, very big sports guy and you are a creative writer for a lot of different sports. Why don't you tell me a little bit about that and how that all came about? You've been in local sports media since you were 16 years old.
Mike:Yeah Well, first off, can you see me right now?
Carter:I cannot.
Mike:Okay, because I don't know what the heck happened there. I just had the app. I don't know.
Carter:I guess we're an audio podcast today. Yeah, that's okay, I'm not stressed.
Mike:All right. Yeah, something happened when I switched my phone over. But yeah, I was holding the baby. Yeah, no, I've always wanted to work in sports. I reached out to my local newspaper when I was 16. They brought me in as an intern and I stayed for a couple years. Then I went to college and I just kind of bounced around places throughout New England and New Hampshire.
Mike:It's been great. It's a fun life when you're really young and don't mind working for pennies and can live at home with your folks. I loved it. It's just that I got older and got a significant other and moved in with her and you know you have to decide. You know where do your priorities lie.
Mike:And while sports are a big, big part of my life, I didn't want them to be a big part of my professional life anymore. And that was a bit hard, because that's been my dream since I was like nine years old and now I'm 24, 25, realizing I have to change. But it's been so much for the better. I enjoy it what I do now, I enjoy more and I'm home at night. You know I'm not. I mean there were some days, you know, when the high schools had their state tournaments and the colleges had their tournaments. You know, in the month of March especially, I'd be out 15, 16 straight nights at games, and all those games starting at six, seven o'clock at night, and if there's a double header, the second one's starting at eight. So now I'm not getting home till 11 or 11, 30, wash, rinse, repeat, do it tomorrow, and so you know it's. You know it is a bit difficult. A lot of the older relatives in my family didn't understand why, because they just look at it as oh, but it's your dream job. And I'm like, yeah, making 60 bucks, $70 a night, is not my dream job. That's not what I want to do.
Mike:So you know I pulled back. I went more into marketing, writing more creative stuff, and you know I've been able to build a nice little career for myself. And you know I'm home. I'm home for this one. I get to hold this one right now, here at you know, here in the evening. You know I don't have to worry about. Oh, I have a deadline, I have to write this right now. Oh, I have to do this. Oh, my God, what about that? You know, you know I'm, I can, I can exist. I can exist. I can be a husband, I could be a dad, I can be with my friends and you know it doesn't mean I'm just not a sports fan anymore. You know, hell, I know you're the australian here, but later this week I'll be the one waking up early to watch the ashes with some friends on discord, yeah. And so, yeah, you know, one of my thing, one of you know, one of my main creative outlets, is that I have a blog where I'm going to a from this like travel blog to this like personal memoir, with basketball kind of as the connecting thread through it, and I enjoy it.
Mike:I get to be goofy, I get to. I've written about spoons, I've written about my love of french fries, or you know some cookie I had at a bakery. You know I don't need to be serious, but it's important to me. And, oh god, Claire, she just head-butted me. Oh, my goodness, baby skulls are so damn hard. So damn hard. Oh, they dance, aren't they?
Mike:But yeah.
Carter:So your blog will plug it for you. It's throughthecurtainblog Yep, and you are on a quest to see a basketball game at 133 colleges in New England. At the time of you submitting your form, you were 43 in. Yes, is that the same number? Yeah?
Mike:So I told my wife I wasn't going to do the community colleges and there was only going to be 114. But I've decided I'm going to add them, so now it's going to be 133. I also haven't told her that me and my friend Sean are probably going to be 114, but I've decided I'm going to add them, so now it's gonna be 133. I also haven't told her that me and us, my friend sean, are probably going to do one where we go to every college hockey rink, so that's over 61. I haven't told her I will. Maybe, probably, but like also, this isn't something where I need to get it done in the next three or four years, like I'm going to be doing this in my 50s and 60s. Just you, just you know as a still a fun thing to do and, to you know, maintain relationships with friends and places and stuff. So I don't really have a bucket list thing.
Mike:Yeah, you know it's. It's a bucket list thing, you know, and it's funny because the first one I did was in Fort Kent, maine, which is literally across the river from New Brunswick, canada, like as north as it gets in the United States, but not counting Alaska and so I started there and I've been. I've been to big arenas and big cities. I've been to tiny little colleges that'll probably be closed in 10 years, but it's been really fun. I've gotten to go to some of my friends.
Mike:It's just, I don't know, like at some point we're all just going to be dust. You know when the sun's going to engulf the earth. We're going to be dust at some point. So I'm here, I won this weird lottery that's called life, so I might as well do things that I enjoy instead of, you know, hustle culture 24 7, grind, set nonsense. Like I'm going to do stuff that I enjoy and hopefully do it with friends and loved ones, and hopefully I it with friends and loved ones. Hopefully I'll take this little one with me. Well, she's gonna come with me this season to a few, whether she knows it or not, but she will be there.
Carter:Oh, yeah, yeah I think that's something that could really really grow into some beautiful daddy daughter time oh, I'd love that.
Mike:Because also, after my, my folks got divorced. When I would see my father, I'd see him on the weekends and the thing that stuck with us was sports. So we do a bunch of sports all over, you know, northern Massachusetts and Boston. And this is me kind of taking that ethos that was my childhood and just dialing it up to this maximum insane amount, driving around all over the place. Because because, also, I don't even write about this, but my stepfather and I are big car racing fans and now in the summers we are trying to go to all the racetracks in in new england. That'll probably be done in a couple of years, but that's our own thing, that we did and it's just, that's our time, just me and him.
Mike:Um, yeah, yeah, because it's like I want to, you know, do things with the people I care about. You know, I'm not, I'm not trying to get rich off this. I don't monetize the blog. You know, if someone came to me and was like I'll pay a hundred grand a year to do it, yeah, I'll say yes. But if someone's like I'm gonna pay some sponsorship and I want, you know, for some, for, you know, pennies or whatever and I want creative, say, well, you can get the hell out of here. Oh, I don't care about the money yeah, that's, that's really good.
Carter:So that kind of ties into you, you know, maintaining your own personal identity, keeping your interests alive and your friendships alive and how do you think that plays a part in your mental health journey as a new parent?
Mike:yeah, you know, excuse me, you know I've I've even talked with my wife about this and some friends is that you know maintaining my relationships, especially with my friends that don't have kids, is very important. You know, with respect to everyone know, some of you are just going to kind of fade away. I'm sorry, it's just how it is.
Mike:Oh no, no, no heart here. But, like you know, there's one set of siblings I basically grew up with. We went to grade school together. I'm very close with that whole family and you know, right now none of them are married, None of them have kids. One of them's talked about having kids that I know of, so, but that would still be in the future. But even right now, you know, especially as Claire starts growing up and having friends in school, then their parents come into the picture and everything. You know these people that I've been with. You know one of those friends, one of the siblings. He was the officiant of our wedding. So you know these are people I'm very close with. And you know these are people I'm very close with.
Mike:And you know, even if it's the type of thing where you know my, you know we just chat on the phone a few times a year something to maintain. That is very important, because I remember my stepfather, whose name is Bob. He had a friend from school who was also named Bob and they wouldn't see each other much but they would call each other every year on each other's birthday and it was very important. They loved it. And then Bob the other Bob passed away and it really affected my stepfather because that anchor point in his life wasn't there anymore. And he's of my three parents I think Bob's the youngest, he's like 65, 66. So they're getting older, they're going to start. He just had a barrier close friend of his two days ago who died from kidney failure and so you know, maintaining those friendships is super important because they're not forever and I want to make them as close to forever as I can be and not lose myself in being a parent.
Carter:Yeah.
Mike:You know. And parent, yeah, you know. And because you know, the thing that I always talk about with people is I have this wonderful life and now I get to add this fantastic little addition to it. You know, because I remember my mother would always say, oh, when you have a kid, your life's never your own anymore, and I'd always be like, fuck out of here, man. Like I've lived for 30, you know, 32 years, 31 I was 31. So like I lived for 31 years before this one came into my life. Like that's a lot of me being me. Yeah, things are going to change. You know things will be amending and all that, but you know, I've never felt like I've had to sacrifice anything because these things that I'm doing are things that I want to do, so to spend more time with my wife or my daughter, yeah, what's up? I do this for you. I do this for you. Please be quiet.
Carter:I do this for you, I love it I love you, little one and how about your wife does she maintain a pretty pretty good friendship group and and social life I mean she, she definitely so.
Mike:I mean I, I'm a a writer who works from home so I can be very flexible. She's a physical therapist who works in a hospital and works a second shift and long hours, so she doesn't get to do that as much as she would like, but she definitely does, you know, and yeah you know there's okay, more feeding for the little.
Mike:And yeah, you know that's another thing. You know she, you know she's in a a friend's wedding. She goes spends a weekend for the bachelorette party. Okay, like, go be with the girls, like, don't worry about us, we'll be fine. You know, go have. You know, spend a day with mom. To go spend a day with some friends it's the same thing with me. Hey, go get out of here, go to the race with ball. And yeah, you know it's.
Mike:You know we're not keeping score of. Well, you saw friends three times this month. I've only seen them two times this month. That's. That's a that's a real bad way to build a relationship. But you know, we do our best with what we can to, you know, maintain a social life. And we've been together now. We've been married two and a half years. We've been together almost eight.
Mike:So a lot of people who are her friends are my friends and people who are my friends are our friends. You know, we're all just kind of. You get married, you build a life with someone and you start to intertwine and mesh yourself with them as it goes, as it should. We're seeing some friends next week who just gave birth to her son in May, first time seeing their new boy. Some other friends in August on a of my fraternity brothers his wife in August, who they just had their son in October.
Mike:So you know, we're definitely not party people, we're definitely not going to the club and the bar. We didn't do that before. So but you know, if sometimes, as I say, you know, you toss her in the car and go somewhere, that's what we do, you know. Say you know you toss her in the car and go somewhere, that's what we do, you know. Oh, you know we have an off day and Christine is like you know, we need to get some errands done. We're going to go have lunch with someone. Okay, well, claire will come with us and if we have to change her or something, it's fine. It's not a big deal.
Carter:It's always fun to hear like kind of those processes with other parents, because my wife and I we're neurodivergent, so being social and kind of going out and doing errands and all of that sort of thing, it's like big deals to us.
Carter:It takes some like mental preparation, and then we know that afterwards we're going to be pretty depleted as far as, like our social battery goes. So this podcast in itself is like my biggest kind of social outlet. I mean, I have like one best friend who lives in a different state. He works in movies, so I see him maybe twice a year. We talk online a lot and we'll like play some video games online together every now and then, but apart from that it's pretty much like my wife's, my best friend and our three kids. So hearing about parents that have the get up and go to go out and be as social as you and your wife is like it exhausts me hearing about it.
Mike:Well, really it's me and I'm not speaking out of turn because my wife would just sit on the couch and watch every episode of RuPaul's Drag Race at every cooking show in the world and just stay there. She has flat said that to me. So I get her out more and I especially like going to all these games for work and stuff. Like I'm just like I have that get up and go. I remember, you know that first month or two I would constantly say, hey, let's just go for a drive, let's just go to the mall or something. She would just say you can't go to the mall or something. She would just say you can't because I know you need to get out, I'm fine. Like don't say we, I'm fine and she's right, you know.
Mike:I mean, there was one day she was working, last month she was working and I just tossed claire in the car. I just wanted to get out of the house. We went to a lacrosse game together and yeah, people are like staring at me like you came with an infant. I'm like, yeah, I'm here for an hour and a half. It's not that big of a commitment, like it's not like a you know this whole big road trip and then I'm at the thing for five hours like a wedding or something. I'm just going to a game and then I'm gonna stop and get a drink and a drive-thru and go home yeah but yeah, but yeah, you know it's-.
Carter:I would love to be more like that. I would love to just like, if my kids say let's go to the park, I have to kind of be like we'll go to the park like next weekend, Okay, and then I have like a good couple of days to mentally prepare myself To go to the park and talk to other families and you know, watch my kid eating dirt and watch my other kid falling off a swing and like that.
Carter:That takes time for me to mentally prepare for that, just because of how neurodivergent I am yeah, I mean I have.
Mike:I was diagnosed adhd when I was like seven, six, seven, I don't know. Yeah, oh, but like I understand, because there's there are some days where it's like I'll be out with people and then instantly I'm like I cannot be around anyone right now. I need to leave now. I am going to have a panic attack right now? I don't. It doesn't happen often, but it's happened enough where I don't can, because sometimes you, just you, just you're just done like I like, I like all, I like all of you. I just don't want to see you right now. It's nothing personal, just don't want to see you right now. It's nothing personal. I just don't want to see you right now.
Carter:Yeah, it's all about that social battery and you know, even with this podcast and how much this is in my control and I can kind of schedule people when I want and kind of end the episodes when I want, and it's very much, I'm the master of my own, I'm like the puppet master of the podcast. You know. Yeah, even then I I find myself, just like in the hour leading up to starting a recording, my mind's like, oh my god, like you have to talk and be social when all you want to do is sleep.
Carter:yeah, so it's very much like me like mental preparing myself and it's like my social anxiety kicks in and it's very fight or flight for me yeah, I mean also, it is something that I absolutely love.
Mike:Yeah, you know, I mean for me, like I've done tv broadcasting very low level with sports, so it's like I have that and I call it my pro wrestling character. I'm a big wrestler, so I call it my pro wrestling character and I can just kind of turn that switch on and then the game ends and it's like okay, I'm going home, I'm saying I love you to my wife and then we're just gonna watch drag race. Oh, that's all we're doing. Oh, you know, it's you know. I also think it's also.
Mike:There's this weird thing, just kind of, especially in western culture, where it's like it kind of goes back to that hustle and grind mindset, where it's like you have to always be on, you need to be doing every job, you need to be, you have a building, every connection, you need to be networking every single day. If you're not on a work phone call for 23 hours a day, what are you even doing? And it's like I don't know. Playing playstation like like I just I just want to play some games by myself, like I'm staring. I have my old Super Nintendo staring at me. I haven't used it. In a few months Maybe I'll play some.
Mike:But yeah, like I think, and then also with parents, I think, especially with moms. Especially with moms, it's like there's this pressure to be like, oh, everything is so great and magical and amazing and it's like, yeah, it's really nice, but some sometimes it sucks. You know, like you know, when your dog, like last night, when your dog keeps you up till 3, 15 in the morning and I finally get into bed and wakes up and starts crying because he's hungry 10 minutes later, like you know, that's not fun, but it's just a part of it.
Mike:Yeah, those nights are tough.
Carter:Yeah, you know, in the trenches nights I always say in the trenches.
Carter:You know, like last week we started my four-year-old girl is mostly potty trained Like she still has to wear nighttime nappies though. So we started trying to do the nighttime nappy free. So we started trying to do the nighttime nappy free and you know, I'd set an alarm for like 10 pm to get her up and go to the toilet and then, like 2 am to go to the toilet. And you know, last week we had a night where she'd wet the bed at around 2 am and then I hear her brother coughing down the hallway and I go in to check on him and he's spewed in the bed and then, because he's spewed in the bed, I'm like changing his bed and changing her bed and then through all of that, they both were crying because they were tired and that woke up the 10 month old and I have all three kids up at 3am now and I'm just exhausted and it's really like these in the trenches moments where you just feel so so sad and so tired and you're just like, oh, what is my life?
Carter:But then they wake up the next morning and they're like asking for breakfast and being all cute and asking for cuddles on the couch and you're like, yeah, this is good, yeah, this is what's up?
Mike:Well, claire just fell asleep in my arm, so I'm feeling pretty nice right now.
Carter:Yeah.
Mike:Yeah, but so, yeah, yeah, but so you know, like, but you know there's that pressure to always talk about how wonderful and you know, overall, like you know, it's like one of those do you know those graphs you know showing, like you know, the stock price of something? Like it may trend up overall, but there are some days where, oh, the stock lost 30 percent in value and a week later it was back up 50 percent. So like, yeah, overall it goes up, but there were some of those huge spikes down, like you had last last week, like I had last night, like those days just happen. It's not. I'm not saying, oh my god, I hate my kid, I'm gonna go leave them at an orphanage. Just, shit happens.
Mike:You know we're pretty lucky that especially my wife has a lot of her two of her childhood friends. Both of them have a kid and both have a second on the way. One of her very good friends is getting married this fall and is going to be trying for kids immediately. You know there's, so she has you know peers, people that she's known for a long time, who you know have kids and she can, you know, talk with and everything so and they're very welcoming and there's they're not judgmental about. Oh well, a real mom does this nonsense, whatever that bs is. You know for me with.
Mike:You know my friends with, like you know the guys I grew up with as friends, like in one of my fraternity brothers from college. He, he's a dad from you know, he's the one I'm up with as friends, like in one of my fraternity brothers from college. He, he's a dad from you know, he's the one I'm seeing later this this summer but for probably like a 10 month old at the time. But like the people I went to like high school with and stuff till I was friendly with his kids, none of them have kids.
Mike:So I'm kind of, you know, in that regard, like, yeah, I have peers in other places, but you know it's like you know I I'm the first, so people will ask me a lot of stuff. And the weirdest thing that's happened especially happened the first few months where, like, I was talking with someone and they would always be like just in the flow of conversation yeah, you know my work is crazy. Like you know how awful my manager is and everything. It's just I'm just so tired and so exhausted with this. Well, not as tired as you, I mean I'm nowhere near as tired as you and I'd have to be like it's okay, like work's hard, society's hard, like you could be tired, it's okay.
Carter:Like it's not a contest. Everyone has that mental load. Yeah, everyone has that mental load, and it's funny to kind of see people think differently of you because you're a dad.
Mike:So they think you know you're worse off because of fatherhood or motherhood or just, you know, being a parent. Yeah, I mean I think, like I said, it's, it's great, you know, I love it. I'm sure you know you talk about how much you love it, talk about get those little cuddles, even after a night sick, and you know, but like I'm still me, you know, I I've never had this moment of, you know, wow, look at you know, I mean, I've had moments that I can't believe I, I I made this kid. I've had moments of just this deep, deep love, like what you call sleep on my chest. You know, at the same time, like I've never had this, everything's different for me. It is, you know, a big addition, a little more responsibility. But you know, I think for us, I think I think because we just have the one kid, even though our dog just turned two a week ago. She is 65 pounds, she's a sweetheart, but, boy, howdy she could be a nightmare, like last night.
Mike:But there's times where, like right now, the dog's sleeping upstairs, so there could just be days where it's like I'll just look at my wife, I'm like you go upstairs to sleep, don't worry about an alarm, I can take care of her. And then it goes the other way. I know with three kids it's a bit more herding sheep sometimes from what I've seen with people with multiple kids. But either way, the only way out is through. We're not better people for doing it. You know like and any guy can be a dad. Give him about 15 minutes or less. They could very easily start the path of becoming a dad, a father. But to be a good dad. So being a father, that's easy, being a good dad, that's hard and that takes time and mistakes and learning from your mistakes, and so you know I was talking about. I made one right out the gate on the night. If she was born, and you know, you just try and learn and grow from it.
Carter:But I'm not better or worse than anybody, it's definitely a big difference between being a father and being a dad.
Mike:I think yeah yeah, I mean the thing that also I've gotten lit up on online a few times for saying this is that in the big scheme of things, I don't think being a good dad is that hard, but the things you need to do to be a good dad. If you break those rules, you can never fix it. You know once you break like you have to, you know build trust and maintain trust with your child. I've seen this like my own father broke my trust. It's never been the same and it never will be the same. Same way you have to validate your kid. You need to actively listen, you need to be there, not just physically be there, but be there, be there and you need to try.
Mike:I talked about my father a second ago. I didn't see him for two years, a couple years back, because a lot of oppressed anger and memories came out and I came back to being invalidated and having my trust broken time and time again In a lot of small ways, but they keep doing it, small ways a lot of the time. A lot of times it adds up and so you know those things. It's not a long list, but if you break one of those rules, you can try and glue that, pull and glue it back together. You know, repair it. Maybe it could be kind of like what it was. It'll never be as strong as it was, so yeah, there's always going to be that crack there underneath the repairing.
Carter:It's always going to be that crack. Yeah, I think I think, as far as you know, being a parent goes, just being emotionally available and showing up is the most important part.
Carter:Yeah, you know that was. You just have to try to remember that their world experience may be different to yours, but they're kids, you know they're seeing the world through an entirely different lens to you, so you need to try to understand that and try to be there for that. To understand that and try to be there for that while they ask a thousand questions a day and you have, you know, been at your customer service job for 12 hours talking to people all fucking day, and then you've got a thousand questions coming home and you're just so mentally drained that you want to tell them to shut up. But that's not the way to do it. You know that they're just trying to converse with you.
Carter:Who's? You know, the most important thing in their life is their parents. Yeah, and for you to kind of be like, oh, you know, I'm really, really tired, I'm at my wits end, I don't want to have to deal with this and then you silence them by, like, placing them down in front of a screen or something like they pick up on that, but that makes them feel unwanted and that makes that invalidates their experience as a new human, and that's, that's pretty sucky. Yeah, I'm, I'm guilty of it. You know everyone has their threshold and I'm not shaming a parent in any way, shape or form, because I think it is important for kids to learn and understand that they aren't always going to be the main character. But at the same time, you know you need to find some form of balance where it maybe favors them a little bit more than you yeah, you know, because, like and like you talk about validating, that was like such a big thing that led to the fallout with my father.
Mike:You know, I've just recently reconciled to a point in the last year when this one came into the picture because and the reason I did that was because I wasn't going to ask my mom who, while my folks are divorced, they still keep in contact. They folks are divorced, they still keep in contact. They're on, you know, they're on cordial terms. I wasn't going to want, I wasn't going to, it wasn't fair to ask them to lie about the existence of my daughter and I wasn't going to ask them to do that. And also, like, I had to just forgive myself for being so angry, because having a kid takes up a lot of emotional and mental bandwidth and all this anger I was holding on to was taking up a lot of emotional and mental bandwidth. Something had to give and claire won very easily. But, yeah, like, so much of my father was just invalidating. You know, like, you're like, like, and again it would manifest in small ways, but I'm a big believer in you. You learn everything you need to know about someone on the fringes, you know when they're at a big event and they're at their, at their best. They know people are watching. You learn nothing about someone, but when they're in private, that's when you see everything better for good or good or for bad, and so like, like an example to that to show like what happened with my father and also what I plan to not do with this one.
Mike:So in massachusetts every february there's a hockey tournament called the Bean Pop, which is the four big colleges in Boston have this tournament. It's very. They've been doing it for like 70 years. It's a huge deal in the city. It's one of my favorite local sporting events and as a kid I always wanted to go but I never could because they play it on the first two Mondays in February and he would always say we can't because it's a school night, which, as a child, felt like a fair answer. So then I went to college, which was I went to college in Rhode Island, but I was still close enough where I could get to Boston, you know, for an event like that. And so I would ask him again, and now it was. Well, you know, there's a lot of distance, you know. Know, I don't want you driving home so late at night.
Mike:And I'm like, I'm 21, 22 years old, I can handle a one hour drive at night and so then I graduate college and I asked again well, now he can't do it because it's a work night and the line just can't move. So eventually I said, fuck this. I asked my stepfather and he's like, okay, okay, what went with him? Yeah, yeah, and so it was like it was those little things that built up over 25 odd years. It led to be exploded at my father years ago, I mean, among other things, you know, among him being a very loud supporter of donald trump. Along with him, just he went into my like find my student loan information, my financial information, behind my back. That was breaking trust and it was all these things that piled up and you know. So then he's all sad I haven't seen him in two years.
Mike:It's like, you know, I tried my best. It's like you didn't try at all, like well, what did you want me to do? I was telling you like very, in very simple language, what I wanted you to do. This wasn't, you know, this wasn't a math test. And so you know he, you know it's about making the time, you know, did he have to go every single year that I wanted to go? No, but if you just gone once, just once, it would have been completely different. So you know, with this one my goal is to just you know, maybe we can't go all the time, but especially that first time they ask you go, because if they're asking that matters yes, I think it's really, really there's like this recurring theme, especially with all of the men that I've had on the podcast, all of the dads.
Carter:It seems that their parenting styles have formed in spite of the way that they were parented by their fathers Excuse me and I think that that's really, really like a massive, massive turning point in society.
Carter:You know, I myself became a father, scared that I was going to make the same mistakes that my father did. And you know, while I'm not going to sit here and, you know, bash on my father, he definitely has admitted himself that he wasn't a great father, he wasn't there for us enough and he had some issues within himself that he projected onto, you know, his wife, my mother and us kids. But I think, you know, going into me becoming a father, I was very much like I'm going to parent in the style that's opposite to my father, to make sure that my kids kind of grow up the way I wish I grew up. And I feel that that's a really, really common theme in the dads that I have interviewed for the podcast. So it seems like it's a universal language of you know, if you've got a father that wasn't emotionally available and you yourself become a father. It creates a little bit of anxiety and a little bit of trepidation when it comes to becoming a father yourself and the style in which you're going to parent.
Mike:Yeah for sure, because also, like going back another generation, like my father's father, my grandfather just a. You know, I will never say that my father was. My dad was a horrible man, because he isn't. He's just emotionally unavailable. You know he's not. I'm not going to call him a good person, but he's certainly not an evil, malicious person. My grandfather was. He's still alive, and I say regrettably, still alive, and I have no shame in saying that. You know he threw my father down flights of stairs when he was a kid.
Mike:I remember I went, we went to go visit my grandfather when I was in Florida when I was 14 or 15. I've always been overweight, I'm a big dude. He lived in Florida when I was like 14 or 15. I've always been overweight, I'm a big dude. And he had a scale in the kitchen and he was always twisting my arm about my weight. Why don't you step on the scale and things like that.
Mike:But so like I feel like for my father being better than my grandfather, so for my dad to be better than my grandfather. It was like don't physically abuse your kid. And my father never did, you know. You know that was never. That was never a thing I mean he used to. Honestly he didn't. He rarely raised his voice. You know so. But you know, like you know it comes down to you don't know what you don't know. But also you know when I was just you know, because it's like if it's one of those things where he would have, you know, just act like I said, if he had gone to that hockey tournament one time, if he had made an attempt to apologize for that when I was, very in simple language, telling him he had invalidated one time, it would have gone so far. So when he apologizes for something now, my thought process goes okay, yeah, but what is this? This? Because I've just been beaten down by all of his half measures throughout the years. But again, yeah, he was better than his father. So you know, I'm trying to be better than him.
Mike:You know he loves his little granddaughter, love his little granddaughter. So you know, you know is. Am I going to have claire around her regularly? Probably not, because, like I still, I still don't trust him in a lot of ways. You know he's he has a long history of making some very casual sexist remarks. He just made one a few days ago and I just hung up the phone. Yeah, when he was playing rape apologist for conor mcgreg, a UFC fighter, and I was like, would you say that? I said why don't you come here and say that in front of your granddaughter? He said well, I would never say that in front of her. Oh, so you're not going to stand up for what you're saying here? I said okay, we're done. He did send it that locker room talk pisses me off doesn't it?
Carter:Yeah, like the whole. Yeah, I mean even just casually saying sexist or racist things. You know, I grew up in a household around my father who was quite casually racist and, you know, would always tell racist jokes and never still to this day, doesn't find anything wrong with them. Yeah, grew up with a best friend who was like an active skinhead and he was like my brother. We were best friends for over a decade. I was the best man at his wedding, I was godfather to his child and it took me a long time to realize just how toxic and bad all of that stuff was.
Carter:You know, I always kind of came at it from an angle of like, you know, if it's a joke it shouldn't matter and that's such a wrong way of seeing the world, like you need to step outside of that and realize you know, I'm a white person and I can sit there and be like, well, they could say that about my race and that's totally fine, I wouldn't be offended. But then when you kind of look into it in the history and how bloody privileged it is to just say those types of things, you realize how toxic it is and how offensive it could be. And you know some people just don't have that empathy and never will. And you know, for me being like that for so many years, even though it was a learned behavior and there was a certain level of indoctrination to it, I'll always hold just such a massive amount of guilt for the things that I said, even in a joking manner, and there was never any maliciousness behind it, and I'm not a racist person and it's just yucky, it's just really yucky.
Mike:I remember on on a discord I'm with we were talking about that I said I'm I'm not a bigot, but I've definitely said things and propagated up bigoted beliefs at institutions when I was younger. 100%, I know that I did, especially when I was a kid in school. When someone thought something was dumb, it was oh, that's gay. That was just what it was 20 years ago, 15 years ago.
Carter:Gay or retarded sorry to say the hard R word.
Mike:Those are the two we no longer use in our lives, but we definitely used them growing up. Oh yeah, there to say the hard R word.
Carter:Those are the two we no longer use in our lives, but we definitely used them growing up. Oh yeah, there was nothing wrong with them then 100%.
Mike:You know, and you know I talk a lot about my father here, but I've gotten stuff like that from my mother and even my stepfather too. You know, like it's just like okay, but why Like? Why to any of this? It's not you know. And I have to check myself Because, like I mean, yes, anyone looks at me, they see a white person. I'm Jewish. There's a hell of a lot of people in this world that would not call me a white person, so I call myself a white, passing Jew, because there's just so much history behind all of that, especially specifically here in the Northeast United States where I live, and that old history, you know, never really goes away. But so you know, I know that in one aspect I am privileged, another aspect I'm not. And so it's like you know, I always need to be checking myself and also for me, if someone says something that makes them, if I say something or do something that makes someone feel uncomfortable.
Mike:You know, when someone comes at me with, hey, this kind of makes me uncomfortable, this or that I'm a defensive person, like I will get defensive at first pretty much every time. That's going to be my default, every time I that I just like my mother in that regard. I will be like like wait a minute. But then eventually I say, well, now hold on, let me. I kind of I try to externalize it and say, if I'm in their shoes, to hear me say that that's not right. And it's not hard for me to, for me to not say this word or to change this behavior, it's not difficult. So if it makes the people around me more comfortable, why wouldn't I do it like that's the thing for me is like it's not hard.
Mike:You know. Like you know I'm, I'm not a trans person. I trans rights are human rights. I'm still not a trans person. However, their lives and their need to affirm their gender me personally, in my small slice of the world it doesn't affect me good, bad or anything but it's very important for someone who's transitioning. Okay, so I'm not going to. It's not hard for me to just let them live their life. So many people like politicians and whatnot, won't let them live their lives. I'm like they ain't. If they're a shitty person and harassing me and my daughter, well, okay, they're a shitty person. I'm going to deal with a shitty motherfucker how I have to, no matter who they are. But if someone's just living their life loving who they love, there's no issue. And where it's people searching for a problem. And so you know, if I can, in any small way, create a safe space or be a good example for someone you know, then I'm going to do it. I don't think it's that difficult, yeah.
Carter:And those love lessons translate to being a parent as well. I think the biggest, the most important things is being a parent. Not only being a parent, but being just a decent human being is 100% validating other people's experiences, being emotionally present, advocating for the downtrodden. You know everyone talks about freedom of speech and how important freedom of speech is, and to an extent, I believe that freedom of speech is such an important, incredible thing. But when you are using freedom of speech to push people down instead of bring people up, it's not freedom of speech anymore, it's just you being a cunt. Yeah, I don't, and we need to fight against that yeah, I guess it's not.
Mike:I don't, like I said, I don't think it's that difficult.
Carter:You know, like my wife and I even had the conversation, you know, if claire wants to transition when she's older, we both just said okay like we support our job, like whatever, whatever this one does, like we have, oh yep, my four-year-old girl comes home, tells me that she's got a girlfriend or a boyfriend, or she loves both girls and boys, and like I don't act any way about it, I don't make a big deal of it, I'm like that's cool you know, whatever like, whatever you want, whatever makes you happy and like we have talked to her about.
Carter:You know, know, trans and gay and lesbian and pansexual and asexual and everything like that. You know my wife, her name's Georgia, she goes by George, she goes by she, her or they, them, whichever. She's not stressed about it. But you know she doesn't see herself as a female. She's feminine presenting but not feminine in soul. So she doesn't put like a hard and fast label on it, she's just more comfortable being called George. But you know she's not rejecting her femininity in any way.
Mike:Yeah, I mean I'm pansexual and it's like I'm he, him and it's like but I, I mean call me whenever you want. I mean there's been times where in conversation my wife has even started calling me like girl you know that's how it is, or something like that, and she was like why did I do that? I'm like it's okay. Like you know, sometimes I want to get my girl out, it's fine yeah you know, like you know, I'm.
Mike:You know, I just use this as one example, but I'm the one who pushes to go get manicures and pedicures, not her.
Carter:Oh man, I love a good mani-pedi. It's one of my favorite things to do with my wife.
Mike:It's so nice. My toenails are currently like a deep, rich purple. I paint the toenails in the summer, I do the fingers in the winter. But yeah, like you know, my pronouns are go and say that, but it's not for, for me it's not, it's not, it's not something that defines. I know for some people it's a very important thing and if that is like, I want to make sure I get it right. You know I don't want to, you know, dead name you or misgender you, because I've decided that I'm not going to listen to anyone and me being me is more important than you in any way. No, dick move, I try to not do dick. Yeah, so you know, I just want to show by example. You know how to be a good person to my daughter here. That's not to say that I don't have a mean street gig, because my wife definitely knows that I do and I've worked on it a lot in therapy.
Carter:So you actively go to therapy.
Mike:Yeah, I mean I haven't gone in a few months, but yeah, I went to the therapist. I'm trying to get back with them now. With them they they're transitioning, change the pronouns, see, it's all tying together right now and I'm trying to get back to see them. Sent them an email a few days ago. So so good, so great to help get my mind right. Yeah, you know, I'm on lexapro. That's definitely helped help have the good brain meds.
Mike:But yeah, like you know, I need to make sure you know, like I tell people, you know well, your kids you're high, your top priority, and I'm like not even close, no way, I am my top priority. Always in the ground cut if I am not at my best, if my head's not right, if my mind and my spirit and my body isn't right, that my marriage isn't right, my marriage isn't right, my parenting isn't right. Now the whole house of cards is falling down. So you know, it's super important to me to make sure I'm at my best, because this one who's totally asleep in my arm needs me to be at my best.
Carter:Yeah, yeah. So you know that life balance is just paramount. And it, yeah, yeah. So you know life, that life balance is just as paramount. And it's so easy to put yourself in your own needs by the wayside for other people. But you know your, your focus and and kind of those life goals start to wane when one of those buckets starts to deplete and be empty.
Mike:Yeah, you know, my wife even noticed a few days ago she was, she was home from work or it was a weekend or something. I had a few short nights sleep and I was, I kept pushing, I was keep pushing and I woke up one day at like it was like a weekend. I woke up at like 6 30 to let the dog out and she just looks at me and just says, just go upstairs, said I'm sorry about it's, fine, I'm okay, go upstairs. And then I didn't realize that I woke up at like 11, like five hours straight straight sleep. You know, after you know an up and down night of sleep and I just felt so good.
Mike:So you know it's, I look out for her, she looks out for me, we both look out for those little bundle of joy. You know, like we're not keeping score. That's another thing. Don't keep score. Try, listen, and those fall into place and you can do the fun stuff. Like you know, I took her to go see pro wrestling with me a few weeks ago. Yeah, so you know I have these little headphones I put on her ears. It's great, but yeah, like maybe it's gonna live our lives awesome.
Carter:I think that's probably a good point to wrap up. Is there anything further you want to add before we, before we end the call, or anything you want to throw out into the world? You can definitely plug your blog again, or anything that you're doing creatively.
Mike:Yeah, well, first off, thank you for having me on. I'd love to be back on in the future, of course. Yeah, you know. Yes, please read through the curtainblog. Please read my journeys through New England college basketball. It's so much fun. If you're from New England, you can contact me through the website. Maybe we can go to a game together. If you're cool pretty much everyone. If you want to go see low-level college basketball, you're going to be cool in my book. And that just leads to a point. Whenever I do a podcast, I always say support your local, whether it's your local independent wrestling promotion, that local coffee or sandwich shop that you love, that little local rock and roll club, that music club that always has the cool fun underground shows. Always support your local, especially in a world where just so much of everything keeps consolidating until fewer and fewer companies, until Disney owns everything. Support your local as long as you can, as strongly as you can, so that the whole world isn't just Starbucks, walmart and McDonald's Awesome.
Carter:All right, well, and McDonald's Awesome All right, Well. Thank you so much for joining me today, Michael. It's been great talking to you, Thank you. I think you're the first parent I've had on. That's got an incredibly kind of different life to me as far as like being social and keeping your passions alive and things like that. I very much made parenting my passion and it's awesome to hear how our lives intersect and how we've got similarities even though we're from two completely different worlds. I think that's one of the most magic parts of this podcast.
Mike:Yeah, Like you know, there's no wrong or right way to be a dad. Well, there's a wrong way. There is a wrong way. There is definitely a wrong way.
Carter:It's as long as it works for you and your family.
Mike:Yeah, you know there's. You know, like, one of my friends lives in Manhattan. He has a new, you know, has a new bit in Manhattan. I can't imagine having to hair into New York City and what that's like.
Carter:Yeah, definitely.
Mike:Yeah, you know it's. There's no, you know one correct way to pair it, and as long as it works for you, it works for you, and right now I must be doing something good because she's still asleep.
Carter:Awesome. Well, thank you for joining me and thank Baby Claire for joining me and making minimal noise and allowing Daddy to do the podcast.
Mike:I really appreciate it mate.
Carter:Thanks so much, carter. No worries, bye-bye, take care.
Speaker 4:I wake up it's another day. I try and find a way To make it so my life's a better place. If there's one thing I see, then your only thing is me. Just knowing that I'm trying to make a change. Can I put it all on me, responsibilities and all the other nonsense coming by repeatedly? There's one thing I know it's knowing to let go. Just knowing that I'm trying to make a change. Does it seem too much Just to ask for love? Cause there's many things that I do over, and I've got a lot, but I won't give up On those many things that I do over.