Does becoming a parent condemn you to a less joyful marriage? Jesse McCarthy joins us to unravel the complexities of parental happiness and the dynamics between raising children and marital satisfaction. Our conversation moves beyond the common narrative that contentment dwindles post-children, probing into whether this decline is a parenting inevitability or a sign of unpreparedness. Along the way, we dissect perspectives on pro-natalism, the transformative potential of parenting for personal growth, and the delicate art of integrating children into the quest for a fulfilling life.
Embark on a journey of self-reflection and educational evolution with us as we sift through the Montessori method's impact on independence and family appreciation. Jesse McCarthy, with his expertise, guides us through the philosophical embrace of memento mori and its capacity to deepen familial bonds. We also consider the spectrum of personal growth that parenting initiates, the role of coaching, and the growth mindset in navigating life's undulating terrain. The episode promises not merely to navigate the challenges of parenting but to offer a lens through which we might better understand ourselves and the enduring happiness we seek.
As we wrap up this episode, we delve into strategies for cultivating positive friendships in children and the developmental advantages of experiencing different roles within a classroom setting. Our dialogue underscores the importance of modeling healthy relationships, respectful communication, and creating an environment ripe for learning—lessons aimed not only at children but at ourselves, too. We conclude with heartfelt thanks to Jesse McCarthy for enriching our discussion and invite our listeners to explore his resources for further enlightenment on the art of parenting and education.
Does becoming a parent condemn you to a less joyful marriage? Jesse McCarthy joins us to unravel the complexities of parental happiness and the dynamics between raising children and marital satisfaction. Our conversation moves beyond the common narrative that contentment dwindles post-children, probing into whether this decline is a parenting inevitability or a sign of unpreparedness. Along the way, we dissect perspectives on pro-natalism, the transformative potential of parenting for personal growth, and the delicate art of integrating children into the quest for a fulfilling life.
Embark on a journey of self-reflection and educational evolution with us as we sift through the Montessori method's impact on independence and family appreciation. Jesse McCarthy, with his expertise, guides us through the philosophical embrace of memento mori and its capacity to deepen familial bonds. We also consider the spectrum of personal growth that parenting initiates, the role of coaching, and the growth mindset in navigating life's undulating terrain. The episode promises not merely to navigate the challenges of parenting but to offer a lens through which we might better understand ourselves and the enduring happiness we seek.
As we wrap up this episode, we delve into strategies for cultivating positive friendships in children and the developmental advantages of experiencing different roles within a classroom setting. Our dialogue underscores the importance of modeling healthy relationships, respectful communication, and creating an environment ripe for learning—lessons aimed not only at children but at ourselves, too. We conclude with heartfelt thanks to Jesse McCarthy for enriching our discussion and invite our listeners to explore his resources for further enlightenment on the art of parenting and education.
Welcome everybody to another episode of Trubidor Talks. Today I have again on the show Jesse McCarthy, who is the founder of MontessoriEducationcom and he also owns a Montessori school down in South Florida with his wife, and we're going to be talking about happiness as a parent and having kids and some practical advice on kids, because I saw this article that I thought was really interesting. And I'm 38, I have no kids, but I have a lot of friends who have kids and I talk to them and someone who's considering kids. This is a very interesting topic to me about having a happy life with kids, because the narrative I hear of both married life and child life is that those are incompatible and in fact, therapists are now finding that this is true. There's a lot of at least some therapists are saying this. So there was a huff post article called this is what harms married people's happiness the most therapists say, and the number one thing having kids. Research has shown that people's marital happiness declines after having kids, especially during the first year of a child's life, so on and so forth.
Speaker 1:So I thought I would bring on Jesse. We would talk a little bit about this. I have a poem about you know, having this kind of idea. Maybe we'll read that a little bit later and I got some questions from some of the troubadour listeners who are parents and had some questions. So OK, jesse, I'm going to bring you on. Thanks for being here, hello.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks for having me Good to see you, kurt, and you know. The first, just broad question, and we'll break this down as we go. But is it necessary to lose happiness, a decline in your happiness, and however you define that, in the first year even or at all?
Speaker 2:I feel like our whole, you know, human species would have gone away by now if that was the case. You know, because if people started telling each other, hey, this is horrendous, this is horrible, that people stop having kids, and then we just would not, you know, continue living. But I think the seriousness of it is, I wonder, you know, when you have kids. Kids is kind of like you're supposed to remember that whole thing. You go to college, you get a job, you get married, you have kids. It's this, this is what you do.
Speaker 2:So I think, sometimes, marriage before kids how much thought was put into it that you jump into it? What's going on? So there's already in most marriages and challenges, that you're living with another human being who has a different personality, different things going on. Everything is not fireworks and you'll love every single moment of the day. So when trouble arises, sometimes you guys might have conflicting feelings about it, conflicting views, and then you throw in another human being that you're taking care of and you're responsible for. So there's, I think, battles might ensue, particularly if you haven't really thought through how do I want to raise a kid beforehand? What does it mean to have a kid? So there's a lot of things that come up that are going to bring about frustration, conflict, and if you're not prepared to deal with that, yeah, I can see it causing a lot of trouble and a lot of stress and a lot of unfun. So I don't think it's a necessity, but I think it could come with a lot of marriages, yeah, and having kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, we'll break this down, but I was. You know the way you brought this idea of we wouldn't be here maybe if we didn't figure this out, and it seems like one way we figured it out as a species from prehistory to today is this idea of obligation and duty, and like it's your responsibility to your parents who did this for you, to the tribe, to other people, like this seems to be one way.
Speaker 1:I hear this all the way down to today, where it's like your job is to do this, like Christianity, and Catholicism really says that and that's kind of, and now they'll often compensate it, especially in a modern world, with you know it's the greatest joy of all and it's to do this, and so it's like a now what that joy is. You know there's I think there's a lot of packaging of good things that we associate with you. You feel a kind of pride for your children and you get to see something very special when you bring into this world this new special thing. But when I think that therapists are talking about in this HuffPost article are is personal happiness, is your own individual joys and, you know, pursuit of your own deep values, which a child often will impinge on by necessity.
Speaker 1:Right, you're not going to be able to like you, if you're going to be even a decent parent, you have to give up something that would imagine in order to have time with this kid, because you have 24 hours in a day. You have only a certain amount of energy. So to me that's the question is, in the past we had this duty kind of idea of doing this. You just get it done, you sacrifice you whatever. And now we have a new model and you know just how do we, how do we navigate that in this new world where it's easy to now separate as parents. And this is a big question that people have is like, do I stick with this person? You know we've gone through the first five years, so I know that's a lot. Yeah, one question, but I guess the breakdown is the two models for parenting duty versus yes.
Speaker 2:Well, I think I should stop with what you said to begin with. I think is important and right that, like some parents might actually believe that, yes, I have to get rid of a huge portion of my happiness. They might even hear that article and go, yes, your marriage, that's the sacrifice you make, is that your marriage might be tougher, and that's life. And I can see that and I definitely disagree with that view. I think you want to figure out how you can make your life even better with a child, because if not, you don't bring something into this life, thinking it's going to make my life worse, like that's not a good decision. If that's your, if that's your thinking going in, don't have a child. You know we don't need more people miserable in the world. So I think this might come down to then even separate from children. You know, is it right to enjoy your life? Is it right to have a happy life? So I think it is and I think it's important for us to do the work to figure out how to do that, and a big part of that is handling strong emotions. And then you know, while you with yourself, like Kirk you said, you're not a parent, but you're a human being and I have to imagine, whether it's in relationships, whether it's in work, difficult emotions arise and you got to figure that out. Happiness isn't just given to you. So when you get into marriage, you've got to know again, as I said, another human being. It's very, very difficult, and then when you have a child, it's very, very difficult. So I think the morality of it, or you know, should you be happy? Yes, I think it's important to be happy Now in terms of doing it as a duty.
Speaker 2:If you have that, most likely you're going to be more and more miserable and you're going to make your child miserable because there's going to be this constant feeling that, for the child at least, my parents giving up things for me, so my parent isn't enjoying their life. I mean, how many times have you heard a parent say, oh, if I wanted to be ex, but I had to stay home with you. You know that type of thing which is not a good model for your child, like the model should be. Well, you could do so much in this world and it's a joy, this place is a joy. So I just think this comes about through lack of thinking about how do I actually lead a joyous life. And then, when you have children, how do I leave a joyous life when, as you noted, this child, having a child, is going to take away some of my, my joys, and one of them, actually, I was just talking.
Speaker 2:I have this thing called the Montessori Club and one of the people in that group was raising that you know, he got frustrated because he just wanted to read a book. He just wanted to sit and just chill and read a book and then his baby was crying and he just he loves his baby to this girl, but so he's got this conflicting emotion of like damn it, I just want to like read, yeah, but I also love the heck out of this baby girl. And I threw the book down and I said you know what, I'll be able to read another time. I'm going to go deal with my baby, you know.
Speaker 2:So I think, in those moments, as small as that is, how do you, how are you going to handle those moments? How are you going to deal with the strong emotion? How are you going to think about that emotion? And then, with your wife or your husband is on you like, hey, why aren't you with the baby? Well, you know you. Why are you reading or filling the blank? How are you going to handle that? So those, those are difficult things and you need you need work to be able to do that well.
Speaker 1:So so are you. So it sounds like you're not for this whole older model of doing this because you have to, because that's miserable. Why add more misery to the world? Right? That's what you said.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I wouldn't. I don't know if actually you say this is an older model. I just, historically I haven't done enough research to know, particularly psychologically, how people approach their children. I know with older children they had this. You know, some people had a tremendous pride in where is my child going, what's he going to become Like from, let's say, zero to six, which I spend a lot of time with focused on. It's difficult to say exactly how people focused on this throughout all of history, but if you're talking about the guilt, like you need to sacrifice, to procreate, because that's what you need to do for XY religion, yeah, I'm definitely against that. I don't, I don't think that's right in any way. You know, to to further their species. It means zero to me, absolutely zero. My goal and I don't think that should be anybody's goal for any particular reason my goal is I want to enjoy my life and I want to aid this child that I brought into it to enjoy his or her life.
Speaker 1:So have you heard of the natalist movement, the pro?
Speaker 2:natalist. No, it's pre natalist, pro natalist.
Speaker 1:It's a growing movement. Elon Musk is kind of the figurehead of this in a sense. I don't know if he's actively part of it. Like, for instance, there was a conference here in Austin just recently of you know I don't know how big it was, but it was not only big, a couple hundred people or something, but they charged a good amount of money. But basically it's the idea of promoting reproduction as a necessary, important thing, and I think there's different ways. I'm not an expert on the pro natalist movement, but I think there's different arguments that they often use, one of the arguments being something like we're going to hit a population I don't remember the word they use for it, but a kind of barrier where we're going to start breaking down and not being able to grow because we're just not having enough people.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So this is this, but again, this all sounds like what I was saying about the duty premise to the species, to the tribe, and that's the reason why people are saying we should do this. That's a big reason anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and. I don't know We'll finish it. Sorry, I don't know if that was.
Speaker 1:No, that's basically it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think I recently saw as something about it was like Elon Musk and maybe Jeff Bezos so there isn't, there aren't enough people in our population. I didn't, I didn't even click into that article because I really wasn't particularly interested in that, in what was going on. But again, at anything, if you're looking at this like I'm going to have a kid so that his life will be better than mine, even that, which I think is a sacrifice because you're not having a child to do to do something bigger than yourself, like you're having a child, in my view you have a child to enjoy your life more fully and it and as doing that, a part of that is aiding this child to enjoy his or her life to the absolute fullest. But the primary again is like you should not be having a child if you don't feel prepared.
Speaker 2:If your goal is to again further the species or to further my religion or to further you know better people in the world, because we need more of the people like myself. We need better you know anything beyond. I'm trying to enjoy my life a little bit better and I think it's going to really really be a good time. I've thought about it and my wife, significant other or even somebody outside of that. We want to do this, go for it. But yeah, I'm not about sacrificing anyway, and that's just you know.
Speaker 1:Okay. So something just occurred to me this might be fun. So I've heard from these pronateless or people like this, certain arguments about you know why I should have a kid, right, and you, kirk, personally, me, kirk Barbera, yes, okay, and it's something that's been on my mind more recently in a way that it hasn't been before, for various reasons. But I wonder what? So again they're making these kinds of arguments of you know, it's a great thing. We need more people. Everyone should have, you know, at least one or two kids so we can propagate the species, stuff like that. You know it's your Christian duty. Those are what I'm hearing.
Speaker 1:And then I also hear the narratives of it's you know it's hard, it's you have to give up a lot, you won't be happy, maybe you won't be able to have a social life for 10 years, things like that, right. So that's, that's the narrative that I hear. I'd wonder, like, what would your specific pitch to me be of why I should consider, especially knowing me a little bit? We've known each other for like 10, 12 years, you know. Like if you were to just say, kirk, here's, let's have a beer, let me tell you why I love having kids and why I think you might want to have a kid yourself, and I understand, like my own, free will after she was a day.
Speaker 1:I understand that, but like, let's say, you're trying to sell me on this a little bit. Like you love it so much you want to sell me on this thing.
Speaker 2:Well, let me start by saying I listened to an interview of Elon Musk, a recent interview, and I really I really respect Elon Musk in many ways and I don't, you know, politically and all the kind of pop culture stuff that's going on with X and all that that I just don't even get involved. But just talking about Elon Musk and kind of successes that he's done, he said something like I know people would want to trade lives with me, but I don't know if you would. You wouldn't really want to. I would want to, and, but I think he and he's explicitly meaning like he works all the time and it's just, it's this sense again that he's driven to do all this stuff to better humanity.
Speaker 2:I don't think a life focused on what I can do to further something beyond myself and you're, you've just lost the sense of. Am I actually enjoying this? Am I having fun? Yeah, so with you, with you, the first thing I would say I'm telling you 100% I was like people that say, oh, I want to have a kid so badly that I'm just going to have a child and I don't have a significant other to have them with. I would highly question that. I'm not talking about psychologically.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying, yeah, I know, but I'm just putting that out there because you're talking, you know, if I was talking to you having a beer, it's like. It's not like you're saying I've been with this girl or this, whatever, whatever. So it's a lot of work and it's also like you want to. You want to have somebody by your side at least. I think it's important to have somebody by your side that you love, that you're doing this together. It's kind of like you know it's a mission, like not a mission, but like an enjoyable. We're doing this as together. It's kind of like your work there's, there's, you've got a partner. I think there's something really special to that. The second thing I would say is it's I don't like I don't want to BS Like it. Actually, I felt that this is a lot of work. It actually is a lot of work and it's a lot of work that you have to do and it's a lot of times I don't say a lot of them, it's a good amount of time. I'd rather be doing something else. I know not everybody's going to say that, but there are times that I would rather be doing something else. But I have to do this because it's just the the state of my current situation. So two things that I would say. One is I would I would give you a lot of advice around ensure that you are economically in a state that you can hire a nanny If you want to go out for five hours with your wife or a significant other or by yourself. You could just get a nanny that you trust and you've thought about it, or a family member that you trust and you care for, and they can come up. So I would just be very clear that you have support, support that can come over and age you, because that that can take a load off of those moments when you know you're like, damn, I'd rather I don't want to just go get a beer with my buddy. If you have that feeling, kirk, what are you going to do, you know? So I think that's really important.
Speaker 2:On the positive end, I think it's just that it having a child I'm already, because I've been living in a certain way where I'm trying my best to kind of look at the world and enjoy the world to the fullest. I think I'm pretty good at that. But having a child, having ragnar, my son, it's just as elevated. That to another level, because you're again you're, you're seeing the world anew through your child. So there's just such an excitement, a joy, like we go to the. We go to the zoo probably once every two weeks on average and man, it's just so cool watching this kid look at the animals and I already love animals myself, so I love looking at them. So, if there, if you can think of something that you enjoy doing, kirk, that's related to nature, because anything abstract you could throw it out the door right now. When you have a kid, those first few years he's not interested in it and it's not like oh, here, ragnar, watch me work and I'm typing away on the key. That like, that's that's not good for his age.
Speaker 2:So you have to think, you have to go back and think okay, so what are things that he can enjoy? Like, I'm out there on behind me, I've got my, we've got an acre, so these, these things called air potatoes, they fall on the ground from these trees Like they're. It's an invasive species, so I have to go out there and pick them. And I was like, do I want to bring ragnar out there with me? And it's so cool that he's like, oh, oh, there's one. And he gets pumped up and he goes and picks them. So it's just that would have been me alone out there just picking these air potatoes and maybe being like, damn it, I'd rather not be picking these or I hire somebody to pick them. Where now it's fun picking air potatoes? Yeah, Cause I've got this little guy with me and he's learning, he's growing, he's not sitting in front of a screen just watching, you know, nonsense on Netflix or whatever. So it's it's. There's a lot of joys that just would not happen, happen otherwise.
Speaker 1:So so the the question, I guess, is, in this happiness context because that seems to be what we're thought to that even you're saying you're giving things up, so it's a big challenge to like find happiness. Now you're also saying you're arguing that there's a sense where you that doesn't have to be the state where you're you're losing happiness. But the way to do that, if I understand you and if you could expand on this, is having the proper mentality ahead of time. Right, it is part of with the right person, with the right mentality, the right finances. So that's is do you think that is essential to not losing happiness prior to having a child? And therefore, do you have to wait till your thirties? Is what?
Speaker 2:I think, some of that sounds like I would say to the extent you can plan ahead. But like, if you know, if you're 25, you've got enough cash, your wife or husband has enough cash, you feel financially stable, you like your career, whatever's going on in your own life where you feel good in yourself to a certain extent, like you're, we're all constantly growing. So you at somewhere you got to hop into the fire and go listen, how can you ever truly be prepared for bringing a child into the world that you've never had? You've had zero experience bringing your own childhood to this world. Like, to some extent you're always going to.
Speaker 2:You're a novice from day one, Like, so I'm not saying wait until you're 40 and you're kind of. You know you've reached your Socrates level of wisdom and insight. That's impossible. I am saying you want to think ahead. What type taught? Like you, you talked to a bunch of parents and asked them questions for this. If you're thinking even considering having a baby, talk to at least 10 people that you care about, who have children, and just ask them insight, what's? What are the good times? What are the bad times? What should I be looking out for? Maybe write some of that stuff down and then think am I ready for this, like, am I ready for that? It's possible my child could be waking up in the middle of the night for six months straight. Am I ready for that, like so just, you want to ask those things before.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that is the key to having sustained marriage and happy marriage with kids, or something like that. I'm not an expert in marriages across America, across the world, and how to sustain them, but I'm saying being thoughtful about any decision you're going to jump into, especially one that you are with for the rest of your life, as long, hopefully, your child. You know nothing tragic happened, but you need to do that. And then the second Kirk is when you're in the situation. My view is almost there's some pretty, there's some practical things you can do with children. That would that really age your life. But I would say 75 plus percent of problems Adults have with children is problems with themselves.
Speaker 2:So my number one thing is you really need to know, get better at knowing yourself and observing your child. Observing yourself how do I react when my child reacts one way, what I think is going to be the key towards happiness and joy long range with your child. You can get upset in the moment, I can be sad in the moment, I can be angry in the moment, but we're talking about happiness long range. We're not talking about, oh, I'm always like, hey, let's have you know, pina Colada is. We're always happy, like that's not the happiness I'm talking about. So observation is huge, like just being able to observe your child and then being able to observe yourself. How am I responding? What are? What am I feeling right now? Am I acting on those feelings without thinking about it? Those are huge, huge things as parents.
Speaker 1:So the first, so the most important thing, it sounds like, is you have to be able to work on yourself.
Speaker 2:And that's the beginning.
Speaker 1:And to develop yourself, to do the right kinds of observations internally, introspection, to kind of see what's important to you, why you act and behave in certain ways. Now the question I get. So so then it sounds almost like parenting requires a desire for self help, self development. So is that a necessary thing, or do you think every human should do that when you?
Speaker 2:say a desire. I think if you think about that article that you started with, you might call it a desire, like I had an interest. But a lot of times these things come because you're on fire, like not literally on fire, but you are losing your shit and you don't know what to do and at some point you might lose it so much. When these marriages break up, people go through you know anxiety, taxes, the classic, you know midlife crisis, all that type of stuff. It's because you really haven't handled stuff. So I think if we had a proper development as children, we'd be thinking about these issues much earlier.
Speaker 2:But a lot of times they come up because chaos ensues or like I don't know what to do with my child. My child won't eat anything, my child won't sleep, my child's hitting me, my child hits his brother and you just lose it. So I can't tell you how many parents which is like I just I yell at my child and I hate myself for it. So there comes a moment when they're seeking out aid. This is a lot of times it happens with me because people will call or write me and they want to do some kind of consulting because I don't know what to do. So I think I don't know what to do. If you're at that stage, it's not just. Oh well, here's some tips on how to get your child to eat healthier food which I can go for. We could go through that all day, kurt, but if you're flipping because your child won't eat food, it's bigger than the food it's not about, I like to say, it's not about the chicken wings or chicken fingers. You know what I'm saying yeah.
Speaker 1:So I mean, like I've heard this idea of like we download our problems onto our kids in a sense, and you're saying it's kind of it really is us and how we deal with stuff. So I guess I'm trying to move in a direction of this conversation of like well, what are you know if, if self development is not the only thing or the only way to look at this, how do we go into these parenting situations and parenting life change, of being a parent by I don't know, without fixing ourselves completely? And does this make sense?
Speaker 1:I'm trying to get at like, yeah, it seems like a chicken or egg type type scenario where it's like, oh, I have to become better and then have a kid or do it. You know what I'm saying. Like how do you deal with this is?
Speaker 2:that's what I was trying to get at. This is a I think this is a theory, practice dichotomy, and I think there is no such thing as fixing myself completely. Whatever that would would mean there is no such thing. There is no such thing as just like you can't write a book by sitting in your room and thinking about it all day. So I'm not talking about introspection, you know, like you sit on a couch and talk with a therapist and that that is your work. No, that's not your work. The work is, let's say, you come home one day and you just work the whole day. You get home and you're supposed to now be.
Speaker 2:This is not my life, but this is very regularism. You come home, you're supposed to be with the child. First thing you walk the door, child throws something in your face. Right, you could, you could have. You could feel so good about yourself before that. You feel good in your business. You've got a lot of self confidence, but this just sets you off for some reason.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying you should have been able. You should have fixed yourself before you had a kid to handle such a situation like you can't. So the situation happens. You might even lose your crap in the moment and yell at your child. The question is after that in my mind Now you want to. You do want to get to the point where you're not yelling at your child, but I don't want to guilt everybody and be like don't yell at your child. Let's say you yelled at your child. You should later that night or if the weekend you don't have time immediately, you should jot down I yelled at my child. This is how I felt in the moment. I just want to chill, just write that down, get the emotion out and once you've got that emotion out, go. I just want to chill.
Speaker 2:But you have a child and let's say your wife was at home or your husband was at home and they were with the child the whole day and now you're angry at them for no reason. They didn't do anything wrong and now the marriage is getting frustrated. So try to figure out how much of this is your responsibility. Maybe you need to talk with your wife about it, but this is an ongoing thing. There is no overnight solution. You don't call me, hey, let me call Jesse and get the overnight solution, and tomorrow everything's going to be grand.
Speaker 2:That's not how it works, but I think that again, keeping in mind this happiness perspective, perspective is man. There are going to be days that are kind of crappy, but overall I can work on it to the point where it gets better and better. I'd rather not deal with this right now, but you know what, I'm going to handle it. And then all of a sudden you changed your mindset and you're having this joyous experience with your child because you're like, oh, let's clean this stuff up. And you're sitting on the floor cleaning this stuff up and you haven't cleaned anything in 20 years because you've been having a maid do it and it's kind of nice to be cleaning with this year and a half year old. So you have a mindset shift.
Speaker 1:Well, okay, so that last part, I was going to say something, but that last part you have a mindset shift. How do you get parents there? Because that mindset shift is difficult to have right. So I know you coach Montessori educators and Montessorieducationcom, but you also do some parenting coaches to coaching, I believe.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, a lot, and so people literally come to you, they pay into this model to have you as a coach to help them, and you coach them through it. So yeah, I mean. So it sounds like having a mindset shift for some people may be the important thing, or maybe everybody. How do you activate that?
Speaker 2:I have to say that when I say a mindset shift again, I don't think this is even those people that say like, oh, I had an accident and made a near death experience and now I love life. I don't like those talks because I know they're BS. Now they're true in one sense they're true that they had a mindset shift like I'm talking about. It's like, oh my God, whatever. But it's not like two weeks later, when they'd rather be doing something or their boss gets angry at them, they're just like, oh, I love life. That's not the way our actual humaneness works, Like we have to deal with these emotions. So I think that mindset shift, what I love about those near life experiences and what I try my best to do, is like if we can get more near life experiences, but not what near death experiences are without almost dying I think that'd be very good because they really do shake you. That's the mindset shift that will shake you.
Speaker 1:Like I might show a video on a show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's some. I mean, there's a few things like you could even watch my intro what is Montessori? On YouTube? It's a really popular YouTube video and you just there might be a couple of examples that really hit you in an emotional way, that are like damn, I need to rethink how I'm doing things. Or one of my best ways to do this is, I would say, for the parent go observe in a very, very good Montessori classroom and just sit there for an hour, and I have a feeling most people that went to traditional school or most people that remember their childhoods that were not like everything was amazing. It's going to be emotional because it's like this is a peaceful play, this is the way the world should be, and it really hits you.
Speaker 2:But that mindset shift just means that, oh, I'm seeing children in a different way. I might be seeing myself in a different way, and now I have to do a ton of work and it's ongoing in those different situations. You know again, sleep, I'm sleep deprived. I wake up in the morning and my child wants to be in my arms all the time. What do you do? I've had a mindset shift that should be just like oh, it's fine. No, so you have to start acknowledging your emotions.
Speaker 2:I actually say I don't really want to do this right now. I'd rather my child be independent than step aside and we would walk through. What does it mean for your child to be independent? Allow yourself to feel that you know what. I don't really want my child in my arms right now. Or the opposite, kirk, which happens a lot is I want my child in the arms. I'm dropping my five year old off at school, oh, and I want to carry him to the door. We're talking about a five year old that can walk. So you might be taking away your child's sense of independence. So we go into these very concrete things and then draw out bigger, you know notions for your own self and then for how to better your child's life.
Speaker 1:Well, do you have advice? Because not everybody can have you as a coach. You're busy, limited time, what should people do? Or what is some practical advice for people to try to improve in the mindset shift on their own, like, do you have resources? Yeah, so I mean watching your videos or go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just started a thing called the Montessori Club a couple months back. It's $9 a month. I highly recommend parents jump in, even if you don't get involved in the community, which I think is my favorite part personally. But it's, it's. It's not a Montessori in the diving deep. There is an area of it that's called the classroom that has videos, that has recommended books, and I'll just tell you a couple of the recommended books. I think it's they're huge. But there's one, maria Montessori, speaks to parents. I think it's a huge book that kind of gets at the essence of Montessori for parents very simple books, so that's why I recommend it.
Speaker 2:There's a man named Chaim Ganat who who has a book called Between Parent and Child that I think is very insightful about how to deal with strong emotions. You know when your child's flipping out on you and you can think. You can expand on that for yourself to think about how do I deal with my own strong emotions. And there's a couple of other books that dive a little deeper. But I think starting out with a couple of books that I think really aided me in my development is helpful.
Speaker 2:But there is no. Here is the answer outside of doing the work. So, yes, you, if you have the money and you have the resources, you can reach out to me and I can aid you one on one or even a small group. If not, my second thing would say go to Montessori education dot com, get into the Montessori club, and there's some resources there that you can look at, including, you know, these book recommendations, but more. That would be a good start. And then if, after that start, you're like, well, this isn't enough, I don't know what to do, again, reach out and maybe I can give you some other resources beyond that. But the point is you have to start somewhere and starting somewhere in my view, at least the resources that I have you can go to this club, you can go to Montessori education dot com, which is completely free and there's a lot of resources there as well.
Speaker 1:I wanted to stick on one thing with the mindset shift, because this is actually important to me and what I think is one of the roles of literature and art in general of giving you new perspectives and things like that. But have you ever heard of the practice? Not just you probably have heard the term memento mori, right, remember you will die. Essentially, remember you are mortal, and I have heard of this in these new Stoics today as a kind of practical meditation, meditating on death.
Speaker 1:There is this businessman, gary Vaynerchuk, who has this whole shtick where he has talked about the way he appreciates and has gratitude for his family every single day, intense gratitude that he claims he has, which I believe him is that he actually meditates on them potentially dying, like he envisions a cop coming to his house and telling him that your kids and family are dead. And the reason he does that is because when you have that feeling that he is able to manifest in himself, he, like when he sees his kids, he squeezes the hell out of him. Right, because it is that memory of like oh my gosh, this might end. What do you think about that as a practice? Do you have any thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:I would say definitely send me what you saw. I am curious how he is wording it Just to squeeze my child like hell. It is a very classic, like when I saw my child for the first time my life changed and so forth. And I think I did not have that experience because I think I have been working with kids for 20 years and I just love it. But I think I am unique in that sense that I do not relate to that. But with the near death experience it is kind of like that. But you are expanding it to your family. So I think there is probably something to that. I mean, the moments when I have had that, even with my own wife, alessandra, it really does put things in perspective. The idea of potentially losing her is like, oh my God, well, you know. It is like, oh, you know, you want to love her so much more because of that. So I think there is something there.
Speaker 2:I do not think that is probably the healthiest thing to be constantly reminding yourself that your loved ones are going to die. I think there is probably better ways to go about that. But as a quick jolt of like, stop being an asshole to your family. I would say, yeah, that might be a good one, because I can imagine. I mean, this is a horrific kind of analogy. But imagine your friend plays a prank on you because everybody is doing these pranks on YouTube that are crazy in my mind. But like, oh, you know, you are calling the hospital. Where is your wife? Something like that. That would probably shake a jerk up, you know. But again, is that really the way that you want to go about this? You know, it is kind of like. Another example is I bet you become in a drug addict and then getting past it have a very positive impact on your life, but they are getting past it. They are getting past it, yeah, because now you have this contrast. So I think what he is hit on is that contrasts are very, very helpful.
Speaker 2:Lorenzo de' Medici, I think he said you know, enjoy the present, because tomorrow may never come. I think it is Medici, but it is something similar and I think that is a good way. There is a good element, and Steve Jobs said this. He said every day, you know, I look in the mirror and say you know, if this were to be my last day, would I want to be doing what I am doing and when the answer is no too many times he does not say when the answer is no, because that is problematic. He is just going off the mark and the answer is no too many times that I need to do something about that. So again, I think there is something practically probably helpful about thinking about mortality and knowing that you are going to die and you have a limited time here. But I don't think it is a daily practice that I would want to constantly be remembering death all the time. And I wonder, if he is doing, is he picturing how people would die, or just that they are not here? Like how vivid is this?
Speaker 1:It's a pretty long it's been years ago since I've seen him talk about this, but I remember he talked about like a car crash or something like that, like he pictured a car crash with his family in it or something of that nature. And you know, to me, the value of these kinds of things. I agree there's probably problematic to do this too much, but the value is that it's in the imagination and as long as you understand the distinction between imaginative and reality in terms of you know you can separate reality in your mind. To me, there is a value in meditation on the fact that we're mortal, which means that we're limited and that there's something, because I think in our day and age we don't have that reminder like in olden times where people the reality of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, reality of death is all to the side. We don't think about death, you know, put people in hospice and then, you know, then they pass. We go to a funeral once every once in a while and that's it. And like the reality of is very distant from us on a modern sense. So I think it's, you know, which is a good thing, but I think there's. We just have to remind ourselves that, that things don't last forever. Forever, including the fact that your kid's not going to be five years old forever. They're going to be a teenager that's going to probably hate you for a little bit, and so appreciating that time and really relishing it as a deep value in and of itself. And the question is, how do you remind yourself, as you're talking about, in those moments when you're you just want a beer and to watch a TV show at the end of the day and you have someone who's yelling at you or something like that, or screaming for you, right, yeah?
Speaker 2:And what I would say? Two, two things that jump jump at. What you're saying is one is this reminder that we are going to die? I do think there's a detachment from reality in our educational system. So nothing in traditional education today reminds children that they're actually living a life. So you're sitting in a room learning about subjects that are detached. You're not doing anything, almost anything physical besides maybe pee and running out. So your whole life is detached from actual living. So they're so separate from death. So I agree with that.
Speaker 2:I'm a college professor who he said he gave us the experiment. He said, okay, I want you guys to go to the biggest hill. We were in California clearly the Florida. You're not going to any hills, so I don't know where people have gone, but in California we had these big hills. So and he said, I want you to go to the biggest hill and just stand at the cliff and just look down and then come back to class. And what do you think? Most people that were standing on the cliff he said, you know, bring your feet all the way to the edge. So they looked down and you know, one of your big thoughts is oh crap, I could fall off and die, and he was just awakening to the reminder that, yeah, we're dead, we could die, but I would frame it as like a reminder of life.
Speaker 2:So I think what happens in a lot of marriages and I can even see this at times again, I'm not immune to this is that you get so wrapped up in the day to day that this is just, oh, you're just doing. You know you change your child, then he does this, then you go to sleep Like you forget that this is all we have. This is it this moment. So I think it's a reminder of life. Like, if I'm changing Ragnar, it's not like, oh man, I gotta get through this poop again, or something like that. It's like, oh, I'm interacting with my son here, he's learning these things. So all of a sudden, you start to look at it from a different perspective.
Speaker 2:So in the moment, I think it's very important to allow yourself the emotion that like, oh my God, I don't want to deal with a diaper and then go, okay, but I have to. So am I going to waste portions of my life by being frustrated or am I going to try to look at this from a different perspective and enjoy more of my life, because this is all I got. You know, if I, you know, if I don't know, somebody breaks in my house and robs me a minute later. This is my last experience here. This is it. So do I want to be complaining and bitching about changing the diaper, or do I want to be, like you know, giggling around with my son going oh yeah, you've got quite a big poop today. Let's check it out. You know, let's have some fun with it.
Speaker 2:You know sometimes, but he's getting, so he, he's potty trained now, so he's, he's, he's kind of getting to a better state. I shouldn't say a better state, developmental state, that I think is it's, it's more exciting for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's better for me that I wouldn't have to change that as much. But again, I'm saying like we, to the extent that we can get ourselves in the minds that have, enjoying the life to the fullest. And if you really hate changing diapers, then figure out a way for somebody else to do it or get a better sense of OK. When I'm in that moment, how can I get myself to a place where it's not that so?
Speaker 1:that was a core thing to me is, like you're saying, if you really hate it, find ways around it, while still getting the job done essentially. And but the core thing to me is being honest with yourself and that that you are recognizing that. That's a you know, something you really don't like To do is the changing of the diapers. Now, of course, you still probably have to do it occasionally, unless you're never going to be with your kid until he's of a certain age. But I think, like here's one concern I have. I'm going to be honest. So you're one of the more happy go lucky people by nature. I've known you since 2011,. 12, right, and you know, I remember when we were at La Porte once, like me and this other teacher were just walking around with you and you were just like jumping onto things and you really just play.
Speaker 2:You're just like how high.
Speaker 1:Can I jump on?
Speaker 2:And I get in trouble for that or something.
Speaker 1:I think so. Yeah, one of the schools like why are you jumping on that bookcase?
Speaker 2:Like you're an adult.
Speaker 1:And you know like, and you know you and I have done certain activities together and I think I'm pretty happy, joyous person in general, but I think you're even on a higher level in a sense. So but most people are not like that, like most people are not that, you know, don't find the joy in every little thing. So what do they do?
Speaker 2:They're not you, yeah, but I. But that's what I'm trying. I want to get across that I, I these some of these examples are coming from me Like I'm not going. Oh, I can't wait to change the 10th diaper today. I'm just so excited, like 10 in a day, I'm just kidding, I'm 10. Yeah, but that's something I'm just saying. I was a year in parent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but it's in the early months. I mean, you're, you're changing. I don't know if 10 diapers a day, but it's a lot of diapers a day. So, and again, I don't want to put this across when we were together, there were, there were moments, I don't know what year we stopped, you know, at the port when you left or I left, I don't know what the like 13 was only a couple of years, but yeah, okay, but whatever.
Speaker 2:34 to 14. I'm a happy, go lucky guy, but I had challenges, like. I had emotional challenges that I had to deal with, even being happy, go lucky, like. So I think, whatever your natural state is, if you are, quote, happy, go lucky and nothing gets to you, which was definitely not my case, but I'm I agree with you I'm somewhat of a generally happier person. You still got to deal with issues that arise and and if you're upset, like if you caught me in a bad mood, I don't think I would have ripped your head off. It's just not my nature, as you said, but I've worked on not being defensive around people. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:So that's the core of it is working on you, conscientiously worked on yourself to get there.
Speaker 2:I didn't. This is, I think, you're. There is some element of truth to. We might have natural predispositions to certain certain traits. I think that's that that might be the case.
Speaker 2:But the amount of work that goes into I want to be more of this or less of that it's very, very important. So I take myself I'm a happy, go lucky guy, but I remember at one point being like actually feeling jealousy of somebody who had a career as a lawyer, because they were, they were doing something important and they were making a lot of money. Yeah, I had to reckon, I had to. I remember the feeling of like, damn, like, what am I doing? I don't even know this person, I don't know if they're happy, miserable, but all of a sudden like something's wrong with me and they're great for this. So that's the type of stuff I'm saying. You have to stop and sit on. Don't let that, that feeling pass.
Speaker 2:Now I'm I definitely did a lot of introspection so I could see it, but don't let that pass and then don't dwell on it. Don't be like, oh, what's wrong with me that I'm jealous? What kind of person it's? Just like you really got to acknowledge that emotion, be okay with it and then just go. Okay, let me dig into it. But again, I don't want to, I don't want to make this stuff seem low. This is a lot of work. But if you, if you approach it in my view, if you approach it with that, yeah, but even finding stuff that I don't like about myself, now I got to be straight with it. It's wild, but I like it. I mean there's a split second where I don't like. There's a split second where, like, if I have an experience like oh man, like I don't know what these days, but there's split, and then I'm like, oh, that's cool, I just found something new. It's almost like a discovery. If you're a scientist, you know it's something new, which again is a mindset.
Speaker 2:That's definitely a mindset that you have to have. That's what I'm saying. The shift yeah.
Speaker 1:So there's part of it is thinking about parenting and really any new large endeavor as an opportunity to try to find different ways to understand yourself. You know your, what you want out of life and your relationship in the to the universe, in a sense, like like I need to figure out. You know, like I haven't been doing a lot of introspection I haven't been thinking about. Now I'm in this moment where introspection is more important than ever, using this as a chance to try to actually do that, because I don't think most people do that. I think it's pretty rare. Real introspection. I mean, everybody has thoughts in their head, but that's different than introspection.
Speaker 1:Like introspection is real kind of observation of like why I behave like this a lot, right, this hat, like people point this out to me, and that's that much. It's overflowing. So what is this? Why do I feel in those moments and how do I get out of that mode for the future? And I mean I'll just say that I think one barrier to this is that on some level, people don't really believe that you can change your character. They don't put it that way, maybe, but I think they think we are who, we are Right, I am who I am, you know, and that's just it. And so that seems to be a really critical mindset, you know, really critical idea people need to have in order to get through this, because some parents I mean, I've heard this all the time it's like, you know, my parents were overweight.
Speaker 1:That's why I'm overweight, that's why my kids are overweight, like that kind of genealogical, you know issue. And you know, I think having a coach is a good way out of that, in a sense of like having somebody who can help. You see, okay, like, if you do this kind of pattern just today for five minutes when your kid is eating, do this Right, because I know eating is a big problem for little kids Right? So like that kind of thing you can, you're having external help. That's helping what you do. It's just like if you're a fitness trainer, like, and you've never worked out well, if you can afford a fitness trainer that can come and you know, either work with you or you go to them three times a week, that can help move you into now you're going to have better you know habits in the future. Even if they're not as great as they should be, it's going to be better than they were, right? Does that sound good synopsis?
Speaker 2:What you're saying Most definitely. So, to start, I definitely agree that having a coach whether you're doing physical therapy, mental therapy, parenting coaching, like if you can have a coach that knows what they're doing, that has experience and some wisdom, it can be instrumental in your growth. If you don't have it, it's going to be more challenging. But I think it's possible. And what you're I think you're talking about is just having a growth mindset or you know a sense that and I can do this si se puede, en español, you know there's like you can do it. But even that is, I mean, there's a philosophical thing there of do I have free will? Can I actually change myself? And then there's the you know the emotional. Have you grown up with a feeling that you can change? Because people yell this at you like? You know, si se puede, you can do it. You know, whatever, whatever the new slang is around, you can. That's not enough.
Speaker 2:If most of your life you've believed that you're incapable or I'm going to, I'm going to end up like my mom. Or when I yell at my mom, yell at my child, it's just like my mom and I hate myself for because I told myself I would never be like that, but now I am. Well, I almost want to say, no shit, you are, because you were raised by her for 18 years. Yeah, so it's not surprising that you're doing the same things. That doesn't mean you have to, but it would be weird if somehow you came out of a childhood where, for the first five years, where you're basically not self conscious, you're absorbing what your mom is doing to you, as this is what we do as human beings.
Speaker 2:Then it's, you know, free will. We all have free will, but you, you lived five years of your life without being able to look into your own thoughts. That's a lot of time, man. Yeah. So so I, my whole thing is that you've got to put in the work. But the work is real, and I think the point that you're talking about introspection again, it's not just, oh, I thought about how I felt today. No, it's work. I sat down and I sit down and I write these things out. A quick way to think about it. I don't know if you ever saw the show. I think it's called Friday Night Lights. It was like a football, it's all the movie.
Speaker 2:Okay, the movie, I don't know. I don't know, that might be very different, I'm not sure. But anyways, the show itself is not important, but the saying the football team I think it was a high school football team would come out and every day they would hit this thing. And there was a saying that was clear eyes, full heart, can't lose, and I think that's a good. I mean thinking about this. I think it's a good way to look at being a parent is that if you have clear eyes, you're actually observing, trying to get rid of the prejudice that you're coming in with, and you just you think through things. You're clear, so it's clarity, it's kind of like the reasoning one. And then, full heart, you're experiencing your emotions. You're not pushing them away, you're not. You're just going to like okay, I'm angry right now. You're really experiencing it.
Speaker 2:If you do both of those things clear eyes, full heart and then you know there's a lot of work, but you can't lose and I don't mean it in like you literally can't lose, like your, your child's going to do everything you want. You're always going to win the game. It's no, even when you lose a game, even when your child yells at you, even when you feel like crap at work, you can't lose because you're going in it thinking, okay, I'm going to observe, I'm going to think about how I was, I'm going to allow myself to feel it, even if I don't like the feeling that I have, and you think it through, so you can't lose. So I think the being able to think through things conceptually, like the introspection, and really feeling things so clear eyes, full you know, full heart, can't lose. You know so if you really go in it with that and you do the work, things can be a lot of fun. Things can be a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:But again I want to make I want to make it clear I might be jumping on furniture and so forth, having fun, but it is not all the time. This is. Happiness does not mean you are happy every single second, every moment. You know I can get angry with Alessandro. Anger is not my big thing. I can get frustrated, but you know it's like this is life you know, yeah, I know I get it.
Speaker 1:I mean, what I'm trying to get at is that you have a now you know you've worked at it, but you've had. You have a positive temperament. You have an upbeat, benevolent temperament that not everybody has, and therefore the barrier might be, or the path might be longer, darker, harder to get there, and so what?
Speaker 2:do they do Right, and that's and what I and what I want to get at it. I think of this as kind of like. You know, those people that say, well, impoverished children, the people that are children that are poor, have a harder life than rich kids. I don't think that's true. So if I think about myself, you see me as having a happy demeanor, but then the error could be. Well, I don't want to show these children that I'm working with as a teacher in my early days, kirk, right, I don't want to show them any weakness.
Speaker 2:You know, I remember a girl coming up to me at this eighth grader and she was just like you. I think of you as like Superman. You know, you just can't get anything wrong. And I remember having this sense of like, yeah, and it's like, is that what I want to get across? That I can never get anything wrong, because I know in myself that's what I was shooting for and that's not healthy, that's unhealthy to think you will never get it. I like that she looked up to me because I think that was, that was very good, but the fact that I was like somehow proud that this, this girl, thought I could never get anything wrong Dude. That's not, that's unhealthy.
Speaker 1:One of the things I like. There's certain literature professors that I like listen to on different areas for courses I'm working on or whatever, and the ones that I like the most are the ones that as they interact they with the audience or they're or they're interacting with the text you can tell that they're working through and they don't have a final conclusion and they're always and they're willing to admit that in public Like I. There's, there's certain intellectuals who it seems like they can never. They always have to be right and have all the answers before they get on stage or something, and I think that's a problematic viewpoint, even if they do have certain good final conclusions, because it, you know, like you're saying, like it projects the wrong kind of mentality, because the way the mind actually works is you're constantly trying to figure out new and better ways of doing things and thinking about things. And I like to see that in practice with good teachers where it's like oh, you know, I didn't, maybe I had that information a little bit not precise and I can work on that a little bit, that's good. And for students to see that like, oh, okay, so that's okay to do that. I don't have to have it all put together when I get out there. I can. I can do this too and make it, so I think that's a good model as a separate thing.
Speaker 1:Now before Jesse, do you have time for a quick poem and maybe a couple questions still? But you got to get going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go for it, okay, until my wife and child come home and ruin everything I'm talking about it.
Speaker 1:This is all a facade. You know it's funny, this is this is such a great.
Speaker 2:this is a great example, just as a concrete example of like my wife and I plan these type of things. So when I'm doing, you know, I'm on your podcast, you know chatting, but if I'm doing a video or a zoom call or a meeting with a you know client, we plan these things so that she has her free time, I have my free time, you know. So we've planned these things ahead of time, but in the beginning maybe we didn't plan. I'm like, oh, angry. I was like, well then, plan better, dude.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, just a very concrete example I have to say, like I've been.
Speaker 1:I always talked to people about like their COVID experience and it's come as a shock, but I guess I get it now a little bit. I get it where the ones who say actually wasn't that bad to me were kid people who had very young kids, and I've heard this a couple of times because it's like there's this guy just met the other day in Palo Alto and he was talking about like yeah, we got lucky and we actually had our daughter like a month before the lockdowns in California and so they avoided it. But so, in other words, they were able to they work from home. They normally both were they're very busy people working, but they got to work from home and they got to like actually be with their child all the time and they actually saw it as like that was really cool and me I was like jumping off a bridge type.
Speaker 1:That was miserable. It was the most miserable experience of my life, but it was just interesting because I was like, oh yeah, that's a good mentality. I'm like, yeah, you get to be with your kid. Now, that does not pro COVID lockdowns, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just saying you know like let me.
Speaker 2:Let me just say the majority of parents I talked to after a certain time were like I don't care what school I'm sending this kid to, aware he needs to get out of the house. So they're, they're, they're reached a moment where people are like because they don't know what they're doing. You know, at a certain point you're teaching your child like they're they're that's another thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this was like first born. Yeah, I think just an infant. Oh yeah, first year, it's perfection, it's good to be out that much yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good. Okay, let me. This is a short poem called Mother to Sun by Langston Hughes, and I'll just read it real quick. I think it's a very simple idea. Well, son, I'll tell you, life for me ain't been no crystal stare. Eyes had tax in it and splinters and boards torn up and places with no carpet on the floor, bear. But all the time I has been a climbing on and reach in landings and turn in corners and sometimes going in the dark where there ain't been no light. So, boy, don't you turn back, don't you set down on the steps because you find it's kinder hard, don't you fall now, for eyes still going, honey, eyes still climbing, and life for me ain't been no crystal stare.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the thing I like about this, this is Langston Hughes, so he's capturing a certain linguistic you know from, I think, his, probably his mother. But the idea is that this, this is a mother whose life isn't easy and her son is going through a problem. I think her life isn't a crystal stare like in a fancy house or something like that. There's tax in it, splinters, boards torn up and things like that, places with no carpet, but that it's worth. You know, I like that the idea of it's worth moving on, it's worth continuing, and she is providing the model to her son of continuing to move up and to continue to try harder and harder and not give up, even when things aren't crystal stairs, even when you're jumping on things and happy to look you, but there's hard things going on in your life. So just a simple poem about that. I don't know if you had any thoughts on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's. It got me a little bit emotional because I don't think of my own mom. My parents divorced at four and my mom went to California. My dad stayed in New York and my mom I mean I love them both, but my mom really she just kicked ass and she kept pushing and pushing herself and she climbed business wise and I mean I can imagine now now I've been having a job being a single mom it's huge.
Speaker 2:So I think it's really important, as you were noting, it's important for us to share challenges we have or uncertainties that we have. That doesn't mean that we've got to be like on Facebook going, oh the time when we got divorced was miserable and I had to live on this and you just go through this, you know, just pour everything out on random people that didn't even ask for. I mean that's not good. But just to again, I don't want to say be human in the sense that, oh, everybody's got vulnerability, so, but be human in the sense that challenges like life hits you with challenges. So I like this that the mom is kind of sharing that.
Speaker 2:Hey, I've had some tough times, I know you're going through some tough times. I'm still kicking ass, I'm still. I'm still out there, fighting, getting things done. Keep at it. I don't know what everything Langston Hughes does, but there's a I don't want it to be that sense that life is a battle, so that that can be something where you know I can start moving a different direction, because I don't want to be. Life is a battle. Life has challenges that that's, that's the nature of things. Uncertainties, but it's not like life is kind of miserable and you're going to get kicked down and somebody's going to step on you and then you just got to keep pushing through it. So I don't like that, just got to tingle that. But I take it more in the positive realm of like hey man, I thought it tough to you. Know, we're like each other, let's keep going. That type of thing I like that. So I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's definitely a sense in the center of the poem, that's you know. But all the time I's been acclimatizing and reaching landings and turning corners and sometimes going in the dark where there ain't no like, but I keep going, essentially, and so I understand what you're saying. This is a longer conversation for you know, but then life is not a battle, so maybe some other time, because I agree that it's not the perfect analogy, but it definitely captures something very important about life, I think. Okay, so how about a couple maybe rapid fire questions, depending on how much time you have from?
Speaker 2:Troubadour.
Speaker 1:Troubadour nation. Just a couple, just a couple of questions. So a couple of these are I think we've kind of covered them because I'd be curious how you would even answer this question, but it sounds like it comes out of frustration. This quite this first question. So the first question is why do kids never listen?
Speaker 2:You know it's what's wild as a. I did have a parenting course called Montessori Discipline and the subtitle is get your child to listen by choice there you go. Yeah. So I think the answer is you want them to listen and you're trying to get them to listen. And if you had a boss, if you had a wife, if you had a husband, if you had any other person that's telling you listen to me, why won't you listen to me? Yeah, exactly, guess what the last thing they're going to do.
Speaker 1:Listen to you yeah exactly so.
Speaker 2:so anyways, the course is in. The course actually is free. In this Montessori club I was like I don't want to be charged. It's like $300 course and so many people couldn't get it. It basically goes through. Okay, how do you, how do you help your child to want to do the things that you think are important? And then along that journey, you might find that maybe they shouldn't be listening to you. Yeah, maybe there's a good reason they're not listening to you in this moment.
Speaker 1:So anyways, yeah, so I think. So the answer is get this course.
Speaker 2:I know that I feel like it's feeling weird because it's like oh the answers are go to my site or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But there isn't one answer. But again what I think by my subtitle saying get your child to listen by choice.
Speaker 1:Give us an example, though, of like. What's one thing like my kid isn't listening to me about, you know, eating the broccoli. What's a concrete example?
Speaker 2:Put away these toys so that we can go have dinner.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, okay. So there's arguing going on. How about, you know, you go in there and go? Hey, we're going to about to have dinner, we got to put these toys away. And he keeps playing with the toys. Why don't you say like, if your goal is for him or her, I'm just gonna say him to put away the toys. Why don't you go?
Speaker 2:I look at a lot of toys out. Let me, let me crawl down with you. I'll start putting some toys away with you and you start putting some toys away and then let's say, some parents are going to go. I've done that. That doesn't work.
Speaker 2:Then go oh man, you'd love to keep playing with the toys. Huh, acknowledge the emotion that, dude, I want to keep playing here, like this kid wants to keep. He doesn't care what you've got out there Food wise, I want to keep playing. You have to not let him experience it in his mind that, oh you, you know what I'm feeling. Yeah, I want to keep playing. And you just acknowledge those emotions. That goes a long way. So, man, you'd really love to keep playing, but we can't because we got to go out there and eat. Let me I'll help you clean up some stuff. Just try that, because most parents are get so worked up that the kid is not putting the stuff away that it becomes a battle, and they never actually acknowledge that if this child had his way, his choice, he would actually stay in there for another hour possibly. So you're trying to get him to do something he doesn't want to do. So the first step is to acknowledge that he really, really wants to do it and that's okay, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's, one.
Speaker 1:I think that's a great example, and I think the second question is the same thing. But why do you have to repeat yourself 100 times to your kids? And that's the same kind of thing, I think. And again.
Speaker 2:If I bring this, I like bringing it to an adult. So if somebody is talking at me because I want to say talking at me and they're repeating the same thing, you're not, you're, you're yelling at me or you're repeating some of your nagging. Nobody likes a nag. So if you're repeating things, that relationship is going to be conflicted. And I got to tell you, most of the time we are repeating things, these children, children are bright man. If you said it one time to them and you really looked them in the eyes and you said it with you know like a care, they got it. So they got the first time. So what I think of is how can we get children to do things that are good and that we think are right, without so much to word, without so many?
Speaker 1:words. Well, can it? Says a nonparent. Can I put it this way? Like I'm just out of curious, if this makes sense is like when you're trying, if you're trying to like get an action out of, like you put it in adult terms like I want to someone who works for me or with me or something, to do something. Often, like just saying it isn't enough. You have to help guide them through the action. Sometimes, depending on what the action is Right, like if you is that makes, is that part of it? Cause, like words, you know, like if you tell like someone to do something, like in the future, for instance, they're going to forget. Like this happens to me all the time. Like someone tells me my boss tells me to do something, and it's like I forgot, oh man. And so it's really about building the right kind of system to make that happen. And, of course, a kid has going to have a different and more basic system that they're going to be operating. Yeah, versus.
Speaker 2:I have like.
Speaker 1:AI. You know schedulers and things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the adult analogy definitely Breaks down at times, particularly in jobs, because I used to say that this we're not raising children, we're not raising our kids, our teachers, the teachers were hired to teach. So if we have to like, develop up, you know, you have to just be careful about the analogy. But I agree that there's guidance. But when a parent says to me that, why am I repeating myself? If you were to say, hey, I got a chocolate bar in the kitchen, you can go ahead and eat it.
Speaker 1:How many times have you said that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Because you see. So usually it's something that they don't want to do Again and you have to figure out okay, my child doesn't want to do this. One quick thing is that let's say a child's doing something you really don't like. Don't go over there and go. I told you not to do this, Go do something else. Just go grab the hand and go. Oh, I got something really cool to show you and then all of a sudden, like they're not doing the thing that you didn't want them to do. It's a good transition. It's a positive transition. You're having more positive interactions with your child or your student and that maybe, as a teacher, You're not having battles and nagging. There's so much that goes into it, but again, like fewer words, more positivity, trying to focus in a positive element, those are a couple of things that can work, but there's a lot that a lot to go in. There's not just like a quick hey, here's the solution to that.
Speaker 1:Okay, how to help encourage the right friends in their life as they grow.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's interesting so I remember this one.
Speaker 1:I'll just tell you a story. Like I had some bad friends for sure, like friends whose, you know, uncles were in jail, their mother was doing bad things and I was friends with these kids and my dad at one point like forbid me from seeing one of these kids in particular, and guess, and this was at like seven or eight, so it was a little bit older than two, three, four, five, six and maybe even nine, 10, 11 year old, but anyway so. But guess what? Guess what I did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you want to see him more.
Speaker 1:No, I still saw him. I snuck out and went out with my friend.
Speaker 2:You want to see him more, so you acted on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly so I was like, how do you? But I think it was good. You know, my dad's instincts were probably correct, but yeah, that's, I think that's a good question. How do you encourage the right friends?
Speaker 2:So this is a challenging question because, first of all, it's going to be very context dependent on the age of the child. It's going to be you know the relationship beforehand, because my view is if you had a healthy relationship beforehand this would be a much easier situation to deal with and your child probably would not be getting into it. But say they do get into it. If you are trying to forbid an older child from doing something, forbidding them to do it, like that will almost surely will not work or backfire. So I think it's hard to. I don't know what age the person asked at, actually like six year old, a six year old, I think.
Speaker 1:A six year old, yeah, okay. Like I think the question is, as they grow like, encouraging them to find better friend or find good friends as they get older and older and get into more social situations with older kids?
Speaker 2:The number one thing I think to do is to model yourself with good friendships based on meaningful things. So if your friends are, when they come over, all you guys are doing is drinking together and getting drunk, that's going to be a problem because you're modeling bad behavior and and and it's not. That's not positive. If all you're doing, all you're doing is watching a football game and screaming out the television about a football game, that's not going to encourage good relationships based on, like, real values. So if you have different friends that are doing different things like, oh, you go out and you go to the beach with one friend and enjoy the beach together, or one person's a pilot and you go out and is in his, you know is playing. Or you know you go to the mall together and you enjoy, you know, chatting with each other and not negativity, you know, all the time. So you've got a model good relationships across the board.
Speaker 2:I think that's the number one thing. And then the second thing I think is what we've been talking about with ourselves being observant and looking within. When a child reaches a certain age, if they come home and they're upset about something, you can just start asking questions oh, what made you upset or tell me, tell me more about that. So the more a child is observant of the world and thinking about his own feelings and emotions, I think the less they're going to get caught up with bad relationships where they're where they're really after something that's not healthy, you know we don't, we don't know what that thing is sometimes yeah, and you're not even aware.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and a young age. You as the child sometimes can't be aware, and then you as an adult you're not a therapist, you're not a psychologist, maybe you're not even aware. But the more that we focus and this is the point of the more that we focus on life, affirming like exciting things, like oh, you hang out with the scientists, friends, who's super into trees, or something like that, it's it's life focused versus you know, trying to show how cool I am to somebody else, or trying to be in it, or you know I need to escape the world and do drugs, like it's, it's a, it's a departure from the world. So the more that we're in the world, the more that we're enjoying the world, the more that we're having healthy friendships as adults, I think, the less we'll have this issue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it reminds me of autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, where he talks about his parents and parenting where they would and he tried to model this where he would they would bring the most prominent people in the town over for dinner as much as they could to have conversations on important topics and important things, and he, as a young kid, sat at the table and listened right and that was and that was part of it. And so he you know, he always remembered that that you know type of idea, and I think you know we as adults can try to have more of that in our lives of trying to be surrounded by people who the only thing you know like, if the only thing you talk about are sports around the table, well, you shouldn't be surprised when that's all your kid is capable of talking about sports. Negative, Right, and there's something wrong with sports. Sports is great, but I love other things. Yeah, I love sports, but you know just a variety of topics and expand your ability to converse with them Also, as one example. And then also the science.
Speaker 2:No, I think that's a great example. I'm happy you raised that, kirk, because even in the political realm so what's happening today is people are getting into their bubbles and then you sit around the table with friends that only share the exact same ideas and there's no honest, open dialogue or conflict. So a child is not observing people disagreeing with each other and that is really problematic because they don't get to absorb them. I'm sure Benjamin Franklin, his dad, is having these different people. They're having some rowdy discussions.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, and that's a lot.
Speaker 2:It's respectful, but you're disagreeing. So I think children really need to be exposed to. Even if you have people that have a basic, found, fundamental agreement that you're, you're seeing differences in opinion and I don't think that's happening quite enough. I mean, how many families are even having meals regularly with other people invited over and allowing the children to sit at the table? I don't know Not a lot.
Speaker 1:OK, wait two more. See, I'm just one. All right, let's see what we got. I always get some modest resistance to our kids doing homework Was the whole question. How can a parent of young kids aged five or six get them self motivated to do well academically? Ok, so I know I said that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, OK.
Speaker 2:So I mean this is I think it just happened to be wearing a Montessori education shirt on your child at five or six should not be getting homework. So I would say I would be skeptical of the school. That's. That's saying your child at five or six needs to go home and do homework. Now the excitement of children at that age four or five, six to actually learn about the world is through the roof.
Speaker 2:So if, if there's anything that they're pushing back, that they don't want to learn this, then something's wrong in the approach in the education, not in your child. So I would, I would almost assuredly look to a deeper cause in the schooling. Or, if you're being a homeschool parent, you just have to be real with yourself and go, because this happens to me. I was a teacher. You know the child doesn't want to learn this. Why am I trying to force something down their head? That's not the way people learn. So I think that I just I want to get into a big, you know long thing of this, but just look into the education at that point if it's going well or maybe not so well.
Speaker 1:Okay, last one real quick. Is it better to have your kid be the youngest in the class to learn from his peers, or is it better for him to be the oldest in the class to take more of a leadership?
Speaker 2:role. Look, did you set this question up? Because this is like a perfect Montessori question.
Speaker 1:I love it. This is from a Montessori person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, it's wonderfully both, because when you're the youngest you have all these people to look up to. Montessori talks about these little looking up to these older children. So they want to be like them. So you might have a three-year-old that wants to do like complex six-year-old math because they've seen the six-year-old doing it. So this is no matter how good we are as adults, as parents, as teachers, we are so bad in comparison to an older child that helps a younger child Like we're just so bad because they just connect. So you want your child to be the younger one and then you also want your child that's saying that three to six class to be the five or six-year-old so they can get to practice teaching what they know to the younger children. Because in most classrooms you never get experience. Really Do I really know what I know Because I have to try to explain it to somebody else and I got to help this other child to learn how to not spill all this water when he's trying to bring this cup over. So I'm going to aid him. You don't get that experience. So I would say ideally you would have both and I think ideally in the real world you want both of those.
Speaker 2:If you miss one or the other, which traditional school? You miss it for 12 years of your life. You are not the youngest or the oldest, maybe you're oh, I'm three months younger than all the other students. That's not enough. Yeah, couple years. You need both of those skills. You need to be the one who's like man. I really want to be like that guy I'm going to At your job. Maybe there's somebody you're really working to like. That guy's so good, I want to learn from him. Or that girl. And you also want to be having a lot of practice. Do I really know what I'm doing? Because I got to explain this to a whole world out there and I don't even like getting up on the stage. I don't know how to put together a presentation, to even show people anything. You need skills. You need both of those. So I would say both. There isn't one does not trump the other one.
Speaker 1:In Brazil they have plus minus equal as a model, where it's like you're supposed to train with someone who's at above you in the belt, someone who's below you in the belt and someone who is equal to you in the belt. I think that's the same kind of idea. That was like you learn different things from different names. I do have to make a plug for Austin Shakespeare. So I've seen this. So Austin Shakespeare, in terms of the kids that you're talking about, and this blew my mind, even though I worked at a school before and I've seen this a little bit.
Speaker 1:But I just saw like seven, eight, nine year old kids six, seven, eight, nine year old kids going to a Shakespeare play because it was young Shakespeare's kid. Those kids like 13 to 19. And the kids watching the ones on stage, the children watching the kids on stage, the 13 to 19 year old kids acting in Shakespeare, the audience, they were enraptured of Shakespeare. It was Shakespeare's language, but it was because it was kids. So I was like I just remember watching this little girl, like I brought together this group and there's like this little girl and she was maybe eight or nine and she sat through the whole performance and she like watch and I was like what the hell? I can't even get adults to do this with Shakespeare Like I had a guy who was with me he's like you know and this girl was like you know I've seen.
Speaker 2:They idolize. Yeah, it's idolize.
Speaker 1:It's a very powerful thing for sure. And then when, when they were asking questions to kids on stage, they were asking questions afterwards, the kids on stage loved giving answers and talk. Oh man, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's it, the young love Austin.
Speaker 1:Shakespeare Go check them out, yeah All right, I'll check them out.
Speaker 2:I'll watch.
Speaker 1:Well, you got an acre.
Speaker 2:I'm not moving out. Definitely check out a play when I visit one.
Speaker 1:Well come, come visit man All right. Any last thoughts and we'll sign off Any last words of it.
Speaker 2:I really do think, if you can, if you can get better and better just observing your child, chilling out, like just giving yourself a moment, like, let's say, the wife or the husband if they're with the child, so you can just literally like I'm sitting in this chair half an hour, you just observe. You gain so much from not always having to be I gotta be doing things you know and then allow yourself to feel the emotion. Like a lot of people push away feelings that they don't want. They don't want to feel like that. I don't want. I don't want this feeling of jealousy, I don't want this feeling of rage. No, feel it fully and then then do the work of understanding. Well, why did I feel it and do I want to be feeling in the future and all of that. So those two things I think are observation and feeling it fully.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, thank you, jesse, and thank you everybody for watching Troubadour or listening to Troubadour talks. Make sure to reach out to Jesse at MontessoriEducationcom and you can watch his videos on YouTube. Join his Montessori School Club if you're interested, or just get involved with. You know more of the events and things going on in that world. So thank you very much and I'll see everybody next time. Thanks for having me. Kirk Howdy, us highlights.