Ask Your Kid The Tough Questions with Angie Martinez

The one thing that pissed me off about parenting is like when I got pregnant, nobody told me when my son was a baby, I would look at his chest to see if he was still breathing.

I'd go in the room and I would do that for weeks.

And then I said, okay, I can't sleep.

When does this part stop?

And the day that I realized, oh my gosh, this never stops.

Ever.

I was furious.

Nobody told me that.

Like, this is a big deal.

Like, forever.

I have somebody to work.

Forever and ever.

Amen.

As I say, you know,

and then they'll have grandkids, and you'll feel the same way about them.

So, it just goes on.

It's torturous, it's really torturous.

So, we got to think about this because parenting is for you know

everybody, it ain't it ain't for suckers,

it's not for suckers.

You gotta be tough, you gotta, you know, you gotta be.

And so, we have to prepare.

Jessica has to prepare her son for that life.

This episode is brought to you by Pine Salt and Chase Home Lindy.

Hey, little girl.

Craig Malcolm.

How are you?

What's going on, dude?

Oh, man.

Just enjoying sitting here next to you.

I know.

I love my time with you.

I know.

This is great.

Yeah, this is the whole reason for doing this.

I get to see you.

What you got something going on?

What's on your mind?

It's great to have so much good stuff to talk about today.

So

growing up, do you remember mom and dad ever talking about parenting?

That's a good question.

I remember them talking about their parents.

Right.

What went right in their parents' parenting and what went wrong.

I mean, if you, one of the, the beautiful things about mom and dad, and mom more so,

was that she was very upfront.

with us about

her strengths, but also her weaknesses.

And she talked to us about everything and tried to put her parenting lessons in some context for us.

You know, so that's to say that they gave us context to how they were parented,

what they thought their parents got right and wrong.

So that helped us understand their why with us, which helped us understand their...

their principles of parenting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What I remember so distinctly is mom saying on more than one occasion, hey, look, this is my first time being a parent.

And I'm not sure if I'm doing it right.

Yeah.

And that always resonated with me.

And while that wasn't them sort of talking about parenting to each other, you know, parenting us to each other, it was a look behind the curtain of,

oh, they're just regular folks too, trying to figure it out.

And I always remember mom saying that before she made any kind of decision on punishment she would count to 10.

you remember that

and i didn't get punished that much yeah well

yes neither did i but we got punished we we we got a we got a couple of spankings yeah yeah and uh

as a future parent the grace to be able to say, well, I'm not sure how this works.

And I think that makes you a better parent when you come into the game knowing that you're not an expert at this.

Well, and knowing that your kids don't need you to be an expert on it.

You know, that was some of the wisdom that they understood was that showing your flaws to your children,

that's not always a bad thing.

It's okay to say that you're afraid or that you don't know or that.

you're not sure and to make them a part of a bigger conversation.

And I think so many parents feel like they got to show up perfectly for their kids or else they won't get the respect or, you know, they won't have the authority.

I don't know what it is, but

mom and dad did a beautiful job of making themselves plain to us.

Like not just being our parents, but being, as you put, human beings.

Right.

And I think mom and dad modeled that for us in a really powerful way.

No, I absolutely agree.

But before we

bring out our guest here, I have one more question that I was thinking about when I was thinking about this episode.

Do you remember ever changing

who you were

based on what your friends were doing or wanted to do?

Look,

there were a whole bunch of versions of me when I was young.

I think.

I think there's the there was the smart version, you know, the go to school, get good grades, loving to have A's version of yourself,

the person who likes to read.

And then there's the you who has to get to school safely, who has to play in the neighborhood, who has to, you know, show up with kids.

In our neighborhood, kids were, you know, from every kind of, I shouldn't say every kind of background.

We were same race, same socioeconomic status, but not everybody didn't have the same thing and they didn't have the same ability.

And when you grow up in the hood, you know, when you grow up in the neighborhood, look, if you, if you talk a certain way, if you show off in a certain way, if you brag about yourself, if you somehow make somebody else feel intimidated or lesser than intentionally or unintentionally, you're in a fight, right?

Or you're going to have a hard time, you know, meshing with the.

with the with the folks.

So I know I went through a period where I was just cursing more, you know, and I miss being, you know, we went to day camp and that wasn't me, but it just became me outside of the home where I was just like, MF.

I mean, I really just got into just like, this is how you communicate.

And I must have been like 10 because this was like, I remember when it dawned on me how bad it had gotten because we were at Rainbow Beach Day Camp.

We went to this

public day camp every summer.

And it was like the third year I'd always always gotten camper of the year in my age group.

And this last year, I didn't get it.

Notice she said she always got camper of the year.

Which meant that you were helpful and you were attentive, you followed the rules and got along with others.

And, you know, we prided ourselves on that.

And at the at the awards banquet where the parents came, I didn't get camper of the year.

And I had been doing all the same things.

And I went up to the, I didn't really come up and go, what, what happened, coach?

But she came up to me, our camp head, and said, you know, you would have gotten it this year, but you were just cursing so much.

And I was like, oh, wow, my cursing affected my award status.

So I, so that's the long way of saying that, yeah, I do think that I changed.

I tried to get a little more, you know, a little less good girl and a little more.

just sort of and that was outside of my character it's it's completely outside and and so much so i didn't know that you were.

Because I wasn't doing it at home.

I wasn't coming home with my potty mouth.

I was leaving that on the bus.

We weren't in the same age.

Right.

So that's right.

You know, we did.

I never heard that.

What about you?

Have you ever

changed yourself?

I remember this clearly.

I remember going to play cards.

I was in seventh, eighth grade going to play cards over Brian Williams' house.

And Brian Williams is probably out there somewhere.

And everybody was smoking cigarettes.

Everybody was smoking cigarettes.

What grade was this?

I don't remember.

This is like seventh or eighth grade.

I mean, I wasn't in high school.

And I remember

everybody smoking.

They're like, Craig, you want a cigarette?

And I was like, yeah.

And I took a lit cigarette and I held it and didn't puff it.

And I went home and I was like,

yeah, I was over at Brian's house and

dad was like, you guys smoking cigarettes, huh?

And I was like, How did he know?

It's like some jujitsu parenting stuff.

He knew because we were in a room full of cigarette smoke, so I must have smelled like cigarette smoke.

That's how that's why kids are that's why kids are dumb.

Their parents are magical.

And it's like, well, you got lie written all over you.

I know, I know, I know.

And I said, No, I wasn't smoking.

I held a cigarette, but I wasn't smoking.

And he said,

Okay.

And the fact that he just believed what I said could have worked in either, either way.

I could have said, I can bamboozle this guy, but I was so disappointed that he was disappointed

that

I, you know,

I turned into Honest John.

Yeah, that was my nickname for you, HJ, because

you would confess to stuff that no one needed to know you did.

I know.

And I just, just your guilty soul, I'd be like, what'd you tell them for?

They wouldn't know.

Yeah, I started calling you HJ from there on.

You did.

Yes, you did.

But that's good.

That's why, you know, I mean, whatever balance as a, as a, as a grown man out in the world, I can say this from the bottom of my heart, that you are one of the most decent men I know.

And I think that that, you know, a lot of that is a testament to that delicate balance that mom and dad had to strike as parents with

a black man in the world.

You know, That's a complicated business.

And that's a, well, we're going to talk about men in the world today.

Yeah, well,

that means a lot.

And before I get all choked up, I'm going to introduce our guest.

And I can't tell you how excited I am for this conversation.

She's a director, a writer, a podcast host in her own right.

a hall of famer in the broadcast world.

And I understand now that she's a pretty decent golfer.

And that's what I want to talk about.

And of course, she's a mother.

We have coming with us today, Angie Martinez.

Angie.

This is my cute.

You come on in.

I'm going down.

I'm so happy to be here.

I'm

being here.

Are you kidding?

Great to have you here.

I wouldn't use this for anything.

Good to see you.

Hey, have a seat.

Join us at the Knights of the Roundtable because we're all in blackish-ish.

This is a vibe in here.

It's a vibe.

It's vibing vibe.

Got a little, our little fireplace going.

But anyway.

Well, listen, I'm new at this game and you're a veteran.

The podcasting game?

The interviewing game.

Oh, okay.

The whole thing.

So I'm interested in hearing

the hardest, most difficult interview you've ever had.

Oh, my goodness.

That's a very hard question.

It's an abundance.

I've been doing this since I'm 18 years old.

You're only 27.

Exactly.

So for

some of those nine years, I have been, no, no, I have over 30 years.

And

when I started, you know, hip-hop was like coming of age at the same time I was.

So every artist was in New York.

I was the spot in New York to do interviews.

So I'm doing two a day.

And these are not like, this is Jay-Z and Mary J.

Blige and Nas and Wu-Tang.

This is the cream of the car.

You know, so it's every day for all those years.

Now I'm a little more particular.

I feel like I want to talk to people that I have either something to offer them or they have something to offer me or our audience.

And also just, you know, I try to balance my life a little different now.

But there's just so many is the point.

Some of them are hard.

Yeah.

Some of them are sad.

Some of them are disappointing.

You know, I just try to see truth in people.

Yeah.

And sometimes it's some little artist that I was like, who, what, who, and then they surprise me with some beautiful story about their childhood or or some level of insight that they have that you wouldn't have imagined.

You wouldn't really know.

So it's really hard to say hardest.

That's why I like podcasting to me, because it feels a little looser.

It feels like a real discussion.

I'm having a blast.

This has opened a new chapter for me.

So I'm having an absolute blast.

Anytime you open up a new skill set, too.

It's a good thing.

There's like so much wonder.

Well, it's like picking up golf.

It's the same though.

Yeah, it's like it's a new muscle.

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and you know speaking of you know um new stories and new chapters not new but you know everybody talks to you about the work you do but you got a life too um how is how is life how is life how is family how are your how are your people um My people are good.

I think I have turned the corner where life is really important to me.

Yeah.

Whereas work used to be so important.

I always loved my family.

I have the same best friends from since third grade.

I have, I would cherish friendships and those things, but I don't know that I

put so much time or effort into them as I would work.

My youngest is 18, getting ready to leave.

My oldest is 21, who's like finding his way.

And so it gives me permission to kind of like, well, what do you want now?

Isn't that permission amazing?

At least I'm sorry, as a woman, as a mother?

Yes.

I mean, and nobody could give it to you.

You have to give it to yourself.

That's right.

That's right.

They've been launched.

I really feel like at 60, this is the first time that all my decisions are for me.

I don't think that, you know, there's been a point in life, my life, where, at least after being married and having kids, that.

my choices were always somehow wrapped up in what they needed.

Yeah.

Or family.

Yeah.

And this is a period of freedom.

Yeah.

I'm sure you're.

I think I'm getting to that too.

Yeah.

I'm getting to that too.

And um, and I'm just appreciative of like, I've had some friends recently with some health issues and some loss.

And you know, you, whenever you're like confronted with mortality, you kind of like you're forced to say, Well, what do I really what's important to me?

I don't want, you know, like, I don't want to waste any time doing something that doesn't bring me joy.

That's right.

I mean, not to say I sometimes you have to work, you have to work to get to the thing that you want to accomplish, but um, I want less of that, yeah, and I want more of the joy part.

um and i like to work so that's fine yeah but you you you know that and you and you've developed that muscle i have i have the muscle the joy muscle it's amazing when you've exercised the work muscle sometimes you forget that the joy piece you got to learn that too i know you got to learn how to sit in the the the accomplishment and look at it and go wow you know this is a good thing but you also have to

there has to be intention in it otherwise you can let it you could use old habits and fall into like oh my god yeah the old habits and so i'm in trying to be conscious of that so that's kind of like where my life is now it's like and then also the fine line of having adult children is like

how much do you

how much do you get in and how much do you get out and how much do you stay up i'm still in the stay up late like if my kids are home i can't go to sleep if they're out i'm do you do that like can you you know it's interesting because both of the girls are off they live they're on their own they're on their own stay at your house that's what i was gonna say if they are i don't know where they are all for you know 200 days of the year but they're in my house i'm just all of a sudden well where are you you were exactly you know that's not a crazy person yeah no no that's why i'm you know i was never one of those mothers who like i just want you to be with me i mean i'm happy that i love every i i've loved every phase of parenting i loved them when they were little babies i loved them when they were walking and starting to talk the teenagers were interesting interesting in the white house um but i've loved every time this and watching them become their own people and make their own choices and figure stuff out and call me after they figured it out.

You know, that's nice.

That's, it's a, it's a good thing.

And I think that I wouldn't, I wouldn't let them do that if they were right under me.

Now that we're talking a little bit about parenting, this is a good time to bring in our question.

Well, Natalie, let's hear the question.

Hi, Michelle and Craig.

I'm Jessica and the mother of a 17-year-old boy.

My son plays football.

All of his friends do.

And while I'm proud of his athletic achievements, go Saints, I sometimes worry the environment around him pushes toxic forms of masculinity.

His friends are over all the time, and although I know and love them all, I can't help but overhear some of the stuff they talk about.

Girls being either hot or ugly.

Which guys are the best and worst at football.

It seems like a verbal competition for who can be the toughest and most callous in the group.

I feel like I'm seeing early stages of boys getting caught up in unhealthy ideas of what it means to be a man.

The version of my son that I see with his friends is a lot different than the version I see without them.

He's sweet.

He likes reading.

He's kind to his younger sister.

I'm really not sure how to reconcile this.

It's hard to find a balance between encouraging him to be strong and competitive while also making sure he stays grounded and emotionally open.

How do you think we can change the conversation around masculinity so that boys learn that being a good man is about so much more than toughness or success?

What are the values you've worked to instill in your own sons to help them navigate all of this?

Thanks, Jessica.

I love this question.

It's a good question.

All right.

Well,

also, it's like, I have daughters,

and my daughters are encountering men and boys.

And, you know, I'm, I started to talk to Craig, but I try to probe.

It's like, how, how are we feeling about where our men and boys are these days?

Because, you know, there's, there's a part of me, you know, you're reading in studies that more young men feel isolated.

They feel, they're feeling alone.

Some of that is because of the pandemic.

Some of it is because they feel left out.

I just, I'm curious for you two who are sunraisers.

Yeah.

You know, what, what are you, what are you seeing out there in our young men?

That's interesting because I did hear that too recently, that this generation is like the loneliest generation.

And I think pandemic, but also I think everything's inside.

You know, it's like social media and online and AI and all the things that are inside versus outside and having to force interaction and learn how to.

hurt somebody's feelings and feel bad about it and apologize and learn how to apologize you know it's like you can only learn how to be a good human by actually being a a human with other humans you know and a lot of our kids are are stuck in this like inside world so i i see that but i think for me it's like a push and pull of like

you know she mentions hearing him talk to his friends and part of that is like they have to find their way they're not going to get it right all

the time.

And like you, like you were talking about peer pressure and all that stuff being around.

I think you wait for the moments.

You wait for when they do something that

they did well and you praise that and you let them know how important that part of their personality is, as opposed to hovering and like, why did you say that to your friend?

Like, I think it's a, it's really a push and pull because you also can lose them by pushing too hard.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or they hide or they hide things from you because they already know what you're going to say about everything.

So for me, I try to walk that fine line of letting them become, showing by example, and then also encouraging when I see something that I'm proud of so that they know that those.

I mean, obviously, if they did something that was completely wrong or out of line, then we're going to address that.

But, you know, talking loose with their friend, I'm not going to jump in the room and be like, hey, I heard what you said.

You know, give a lecture on

it's like, mom, get out of here.

You know, sometimes it takes them a little, they got to go on a little path.

Unless you're seeing something that's super disturbing, it's just kind of, you got to kind of watch and hop in where you,

it's a slow mold.

Yeah.

slow constant molding and i think your strategy is terrific because

um you just can't jump at everything they say and nor should you be helicoptering in when you hear stuff and my two youngest are still young enough where and misha and i talked about this

it gets back to the the isolation they don't communicate with their friends as much as we did when we were younger.

And part of that has to do with technology, but part of it has to do with parents who are trying to curate their upbringing instead of just letting them be outside, play,

say the wrong thing, get into a fight with your boys, have to make up, and then

start playing again.

Because that's what boys used to be known for because you talked, we talked about this all the time, how boys can get into an absolute fist fight.

Oh, yes, my boys have done that.

And then they're outside playing basketball 30 minutes later playing basketball

like nothing ever happened.

And it is a boy thing.

And it used to be intentional sometimes.

They used to, they used to say, let's go shoot a fair one.

And then they go, go fight it out.

And then, not my boys.

I'm just saying boys in general.

That was a thing.

Like, we're going to go fight it out, which I don't necessarily love that as a mom either.

But, but I think this whole phenomenon is a part of just where we are in society.

I think there is

an industry in sort of toxicity.

There's a marketplace for it.

There is an absolutely different.

There are people who are making money off of.

100%.

Yeah.

But until we can get these young men to sort of get away from their devices and start interacting from a

communication standpoint.

Um, I think in any relationship, child, husband, wife, it's communication is key.

It's like, why did you say I heard you say that?

Why did you say that?

Do you think that?

Is that what you really think?

It's like, really, communication is a thing.

And so, sometimes I say I don't hover and I wait.

Sometimes they'll come to me with something, and I love that.

That makes me like,

I'm doing something good when they can come and say, This happened.

But you're creating a space where your kids don't feel always beat up by you.

Like you're helicoptering all the time.

And you can have open communication, dialogue.

Like, your friend did that.

Why did that?

You know, like give them the opportunity to explain and learn their own values from their own experiences and kind of help lead them that way.

So I try that.

There is, there's more helicoptering going on in parenting.

I know when we were growing up,

I, you know, Craig played a lot of sports.

We did activities.

We had parents that supported us, but they were never at every game.

Yeah, of course not.

They would never go to a practice.

They were working, right?

I mean, you had to figure out how to get to practice.

And it wasn't an expectation.

You didn't feel unloved because, and my father tried to go to as many games as he could, but that was never the expectation.

You know, our parents never interfered in school, you know.

But you knew the expectations.

You knew the expectation, but it would, my, my, our parents would never intervene.

And I know just from my experience raising my kids in communities of, and you've talked about seeing this as a coach, parents are really heavy, like you said, they're heavily curating their kids' experiences rather than advising on the sideline.

Yeah.

You know, they're trying to stop bad things from happening or having any bad feelings happen to their kids.

And Craig, you've seen this in coaching.

I've seen it in coaching and I've seen it in parenting.

And I just can't figure it out because it comes from a place of love.

It comes from a place of love sometimes.

Oh, well.

Other times it comes from a place of ego because as I'm sure you've seen with you, you know, you've got sons who've played sports at a

high level.

For some parents, that's not just the kids'

attribution.

That's theirs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because they weren't that athlete, but their son is and now they're living through their son.

And I just, just,

I think you do your kids a disservice when you're

letting their way.

They've got to have their own experience.

For sure.

I mean, hopefully there's some listeners who see themselves in these kind of descriptions.

And I tend to agree with Craig that, you know,

I don't think we do our kids

justice by not letting them learn how to, you know, take their own lumps and recover from it.

Yeah.

Like you don't want the first bump to be at 30 or it's 27.

You want to get, you want to let them get those bumps at 10 and get the seven-year-old bumps and learn how to deal with those so you can handle the 10-year-old bumps and then the 15-year-old bumps.

And then by the time you're out on your own, you, you've learned as a child that you're capable.

of solving your own problems, you know, but the alternative is trouble.

And then when a parent intervenes, you're also subconsciously telling them, I don't think you can handle this.

Yeah, that's true.

Right.

And so now you got that message in their head that my mother doesn't even think I can figure this grade situation out.

So let me call her now because I don't think I can do it.

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How many times a day do you compare yourself to others or wish your life looked like someone else's?

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You know, you're making me think of something.

When my son, my oldest, first went to high school, I made a decision that I was not going to set his alarm clock.

If I heard his alarm clock going off or his snooze, I was not going to go in the room and wake him up.

I was not going to make him breakfast.

And, you know, I did a lot of that in junior high school.

And

I made a hard decision, but that's why I say sometimes it's from love.

Your instinct instinct is: I don't want you to be late.

Let me go make sure.

And then I said, if I start doing this now,

his whole high school experience, I'm going to have to do this.

And I don't want to do that.

I'd rather him have a few latenesses this week, have the teacher say something to him, and let's get this over with so we can get you in a routine so that I do not have to do this for the next four years.

So I made a conscious decision at the beginning of high school that I was not going to wake him up.

I was not going to make him breakfast.

He's going to get himself up, get a shower, make his breakfast, and get on the bus.

See, now I want my daughters with that young man.

Oh, yeah.

You know,

the one who had to get up on his own and figure that out.

And I do agree.

This all comes from love, you know, for sure.

I mean, it's the love of not wanting.

Look, you have these kids.

You don't, you don't want a hair out of place.

You don't want them to feel

of the make those negatives.

I get it, but that's the hard part of parenting is like, you got to let them oversleep.

Mom gave us, our mom gave us alarm clocks in kindergarten.

Oh, your mother was ahead of the curve.

Yeah, because she, but she grew up with a sister that was a grown woman who had to be awakened by her father.

And my mother is a middle child watching that said that that's the most ridiculous thing that there's a grown woman who's going to work who can't get up on her own.

And she just said, that's because my father keeps, has kept, has enabled her her entire life.

My mother had a big family, so we won't even name which aunt this was.

And by the way, they know who they are.

They know what they are.

And she just said, that's not going to be you all

because you were capable, even at five.

She showed us how to work the alarms and said, You're now in school.

This is your education.

It's not mine.

So you have to want this more than I want it.

And I tried to carry that on, especially with the girls in the White House when there's so much.

They could have grown up for eight years in some cater

false environment and then they'd be turned out into the streets, right?

Because it was going to be over, right?

You know, we weren't going to live there.

Right.

That was my whole thing.

And I think that's what parents have to think is the, and then what?

Yeah.

What happens when they aren't in your home?

And then what?

Have you prepared them?

Have you prepared them?

And that's, I think that's the greatest gift.

That's the love we give them is to do the hard thing for us early so that when they're out there,

they can really function.

And I'll tell you something, nothing feels better than being a parent and maybe not even being sure.

Oh my God, can they handle this?

Or he's going to hold it.

Let me just wait.

And then they actually, they come to you.

Oh, no, I did it.

There's nothing more fulfilling as a parent than watching your child.

be able to do something on their own and handle a situation.

So Angie, let's help Jessica get to that point because you said something earlier that really struck me when you said that

your

sons will come to you and ask you, what should I do in this situation?

And if your son comes and says, Hey, look,

I'm around these

toxic guys.

I don't know if those

would come out, but some version, some teenage version.

He's tripping.

Yeah.

And I want to fit in with them, but

I want to do the right thing.

Yes.

What can we tell Jessica some tools to help her with her son?

Um, in terms of how to answer that question,

like I said, it goes, you have to feed them, you answer it in a way where they're forced to answer the questions.

Don't give them all the answers.

Present them with situations where they have to figure out the answer and you guide them through it.

Like,

gosh, it's tricky because, you know, you don't want to tell other people's business.

But one of my friends had a problem with one of one of his friends got into a situation.

and my son said well do you think he did that he was accused of something and he said well do you think he did that i said well honestly you spent way more time with him than than i have do you think he's capable of that um what has your experience been why do you like him

like it just gave me an opportunity to get to understand how what he values in friendship, what he values in other people.

And I was really pleased with the way he answered those questions for me.

And it was honest.

And instead of saying, well, you shouldn't hang out with them, because they probably did.

And I, you know, all my stuff, it was an opportunity for me to

have him think about what he values in friendships and human beings and people.

You know, I'm smiling because

Malia taught me that.

parenting principle very early, three years old.

She had a friend in nursery school who was just kind of not a nice girl and was always, I'd go pick her up from nursery school and there was always some story about Anna Maria or what she did, and she was mean, but they were friends and buddies.

And so she's in the car seat, and I'm driving.

And I'm just like, Oh, your teacher just said Anna Maria did.

And I was like, Why are you?

I just laid in Anna Maria.

I was like, Why are you friends with her?

You know, I mean, you should, she just doesn't seem nice.

Aren't you tired of that?

And that

you knew what you would say.

I knew

I was telling her my feelings about her friend.

And this little kid said to me, she said, I said, well, why are you friends with her?

And she says, well, you remember when I was little?

I was like, yeah.

It's like when I first went to kindergarten, nursery school and I didn't have any friends.

She said, I said, yeah.

She said, and Anna Marie was my friend.

And she was my first friend.

I was like, yeah,

the wind is blowing out of my sail.

And she said, well.

You know, I can't just stop being her friend just because she doesn't do everything right.

I was like, oh, you're right.

You know, and by that, she, she, she explained to me, as you did, why she was friends with Anna Marie.

And I couldn't take issue with her assessment of it.

She understood it through the situation.

And it wasn't about my feelings about her.

And I should not have intervened.

And she went on, I mean, they weren't friends forever.

But that is a difficult thing because out of love, you don't want anybody messing with your three-year-old.

You know, where are you with the three-year-old?

They're not worthy of your friend.

They are worthy, you know.

But I learned that the lesson that you talked about is like, don't always interject.

You know, some of the best things you can do is ask the question and

show them that you trust their judgment about how they see the world.

It also helps you to know them.

That's for sure.

Because you're so busy putting ourselves and

our view of the world and our stuff on them that sometimes you have to like peel back and get to know, well, who are you?

Well, what does make you how, what does, you know, move you and, and inspire you.

I talked to Barack about that too, because, as we, our two girls are very different,

you know,

and as all are all kids, it's like you have the first child and, you know, they're easy and talkative and all that.

You think you're a great parent.

And then you have the second one who is just the opposite, you know, but both my girls, I love them to death, but they are clear personalities.

And parenting through that is really getting to know them, you know, because they tell you, they tell you from the time they're two, three, who they are, how they think, what their temperaments are, but you've got to be a listening parent and then you've got to accommodate to how they hear things, how they see the world.

I say parenting is like fly fishing.

Never been fly fishing, but from what I've seen about it, it's all in the wrist.

You know, it's a very delicate balance of lure and wind and, you know, the flow of the stream.

It's like nothing works the same way every time.

It's elegance, right?

It's not dunk and drop and grab.

We should go fly fishing.

We should go fly fishing.

Better than golfing.

No, it's so good.

But parenting.

Which is the life is the dance between making it happen and letting it happen.

Yeah.

And it's really the same thing with parenting.

Parenting.

It's like you want to protect them, you want to give them, you want to nurture them, but also you have to let them show, show you things, show you who they are, and let them come to you and, and all those things because they amaze you too.

Yes,

I learn from my boys all the time.

Yeah, yeah, they will amaze you if you give them the space.

If you allow them to, if you allow them to.

Now, I want to hone in on some tools for Jessica.

And what I'm hearing from the two of you is empathy.

I'm nervous.

Bring it back.

Bring it back.

I love this stream.

It's like, now we're fly fishing.

it's like oh good poor jessica she won't know what to do it's like okay jessica craig gets focused i'm i'm i'm just i want to make sure the good thing about jessica is you clearly love your child you took the time to write that eloquent beautiful thoughtful note which means that you spend a lot of time yeah thinking about and and loving on your kid yeah and so chances are

He's going to be okay.

My mother always said, like, when my mother became a grandmother, she was like, I heard this thing about kids and I believe it.

You just got to

love them.

Yeah, you just love them till they're juicy with love.

And the rest of that, everything you can't control, but you can't just love them.

And so, clearly, she does.

But I think something that I found hard to do with my two older kids, but easier to do with the two younger, is what both of you talk about that we almost gloss over, but it's a big part of this is being empathetic,

seeing life through your kids' eyes and not overreacting.

And both of you have talked about it.

And especially the point about

sort of the

counseling judo of asking your son the question, well, what would you do in this situation?

That is so simple.

But it's hard for people to do because some parents don't want to know the answer.

If it's not the right thing.

Or they're trying to guide the answer.

Control it.

They're trying to control the answer.

If I tell you the answer,

let me give you a leading question.

Let me tell you.

And it's like, you know, what I would say to Jessica is

mirroring what Angie said is, you know, first you got to do the work early on to set the values, right?

And you've got to, you've got to be modeling and make sure that in your household, the adults that he's seeing, the conversations that you're in.

So you've got to also look at the household you run and you know the conversations how you carry yourself and um because that's going to be the first lessons as the first and most important lessons are the lessons he's seeing jessica live out um and coming from people with older kids i'm i'm surprised at how much is baked in.

You don't know it while you're cooking up the cake.

Yeah.

But as they get older, they, they show you, oh, you were listening.

Oh, isn't that?

Oh, I love that.

It's my favorite.

You did pick that up.

You were watching.

You saw me add in the buttermilk and the, you were watching the recipe happen, right?

But they've got to have good things to watch.

And then you've got to trust them and put them in situations where they can be human, they can practice their humanity with people.

Get them off the phone.

You know, make sure the fact that he's in a room with friends and not on a phone and that they're having, if they're having a in real person conversation with a bunch of boys that's a good thing also the you know there is the this sad truth is that you could do everything right

that's that's for sure life

just lives your kids make mistakes your kids have troubles they have hard times and it's not something that you did you can't control the outcome of every situation that's the hard part of parenting that's like the the the heartbreaking part of parenting you got to think about that before you even have the baby nobody tells you everybody

I've been trying.

I've been trying to tell people.

I always say I tell people too because I say the one thing that pissed me off about parenting is like when I got pregnant, nobody told me when my son was a baby, I would look at his chest to see if he was still breathing.

I'd go in the room and I would do that for weeks.

And then I said, okay, I can't sleep.

When does this part stop?

And the day that I realized, oh my gosh, this never stops.

Ever.

I was furious.

Nobody told me that.

Like, this is a big deal.

It's like forever.

I have somebody to work.

Forever and ever.

Amen.

As I say, you know,

and then they'll have grandkids, and you'll feel the same way about them.

So it just goes on.

It's torturous.

It's really torturous.

So we got to think about this because parenting is for, you know,

everybody.

It ain't for suckers.

It's not for suckers.

You got to be tough.

You got to, you know, you got to be.

And so we have to prepare.

Jessica has to prepare her son for that life

because life ain't for suckers, right?

So he's got to be ready because life will have challenges.

And so parenting with that in mind, preparing kids for the world that they will enter, not the world that mom hopes they will have or the ones that she can manipulate to make it feel okay, because it will never be like that.

It will, at some point,

her son will hit a roadblock, will have a stumble, will have a bad interaction.

And so he has to be ready to handle that, which means that she's got to let him practice making mistakes and having friendships that go awry and learning how to

correct that.

She's got to coach and advise.

She can't live his life for him.

And if she's thinking all along, I'm creating an adult,

a full-blown adult in the world that's going to.

drive a car and have other kids and work a job and be somebody's neighbor.

And he's going to be a man.

And he's going to be a man in this world.

And I'm just like, please, mothers, please make these men ready.

Get them ready for hurt and disappointment and make them resilient.

And you can't do that if you're monitoring his friends and, you know, trying to interfere and make life easy for him at a young age because.

he won't be ready for what is inevitably out there.

I don't care what race he is,

you know, he's going to be a man in the world and there will be hardships and disappointments and he's got to be ready.

I know I do that with my girls.

And people say mothers, mothers raise their girls and love their sons.

And I'd say, love your son, but raise him too.

Raise him to be as strong as you know he's going to have to be.

You know, teach him about how to deal with a traffic stop, but also teach him how to communicate in a marriage and be a listening father and to, you know, be a compassionate neighbor and to be a voting citizen, you know, somebody who's going to pay attention and care about something outside of himself, you know.

And

if you're thinking about that human, then all these choices become a little more clear.

It's about what he needs as a grown man in the world.

That would be.

You should have threw a boy in the mix.

I would.

I'm so glad I didn't have a boy.

You ever threw a boy?

Because he would have been a Barack Obama.

Oh, it was like.

Would he be Barack?

It would have been amazing.

No, I would have felt for him.

She just borrowed our boys.

I got many.

She always borrowed ours.

I got plenty.

That's fine.

Well, what do you do?

Do you think we gave enough?

No, I think I think we gave too much.

I think we went to

you on a whole roller coaster ride.

Jessica was a little bit more than that.

This was really good.

I'm so sorry.

This is what I will say.

And we don't know if Jessica's married or not.

It's true.

We didn't hear that part about it.

But

that's why we have wives because you all know what you're talking about.

Yeah, but y'all got to know something too.

You got to contribute.

Come on, dude.

See, here's what happens.

That was uncalled for.

That was uncomfortable.

Double teamed.

I'm sorry.

You struck a nerve with both of us.

All the guys in here like that.

I love it.

We both got like, well,

it's like, yeah, don't put it on.

Look what happens.

It's like, that's why you have to know.

You watch yourself.

Jessica, I hope this was helpful.

I hope so.

I love it.

I love it.

And you threw something else in there at the end.

It says, after empathy and after asking the questions, you have to trust.

You have to trust the process and trust your son.

So, no, I think

there you go.

And that's another thing.

Prayer don't hurt.

Little prayer.

Like, Jesus, please, help them.

Please.

Help them.

Protect them.

Well, Angie, I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed this.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks for having me.

This is good.

Thank you for coming.

You are

a legend.

And thanks so much.

Thank you.

Sorry, we ganged up on you in that one little moment.

I don't apologize.

That was perfect.

I'm fine with it.

I'm fine with it.

That's perfect.

Because I saw my brethren out there.

We are.

I saw my brethren out there.

They like you fell for the trap.

You fell right into the trap.

Thank you for having me, guys.

Hopefully, we'll do this again.

We will.

Bye, Jessica.

Jessica.

Wherever you are, Godspeed.

Hey there, it's Michelle and Craig.

On our IMO podcast, we've brought in some incredible guests to to answer your burning questions and share our opinions about the things that matter to all of us.

Like what success looks like in different families with Glenn and Doyle, why we all need to learn how to say no with Taraji P.

Henson, and how failure can actually make you better in your career with our friend Kiki Palmer.

We hope you'll all listen in every week.

And did you know that you can hear the show on Amazon Music?

Just open the Amazon Music app and search for IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson today.

Are you single and ready to mingle?

Do you need to DTR with your FWB?

Whatever you're looking for, I can help you find it.

I'm Demona Hoffman, host of the Dates and Mates podcast.

I'm also the official love expert of the Drew Barrymore Show and Access Daily with Mario Lopez.

So join me each week as I cover topics from dating with anxiety to Google sleuthing to couples communication with guests like Dr.

Drew Pinski, Laverne Cox, and Rachel Lindsay.

That's Dates and Mates with me, Demona Hoffman.

Listen to season 12, wherever you get your podcasts.