0:00 - Roommates and Parenting Challenges
40:26 - Church Conflicts and Personal Beliefs
1:06:18 - The Quest for Closure and Truth
1:23:48 - Hope for Change in the Church
2:12:30 - Childhood Cruelty and Compassion
2:19:56 - A Mother's Criticism and Conflict
2:31:51 - Family Dynamics and Apologies
2:45:28 - Reflections on Relationships and Healing
In this episode, we dive into a heartfelt conversation with a caller who shares a deeply personal journey of navigating complex family dynamics, societal expectations, and the challenges of peaceful parenting. The discussion unfolds as the caller recounts her experiences with roommates who initially provided support but became a source of tension once their differences in parenting philosophies clashed. The call reveals how those tensions escalated into a profound conflict with their church community after a controversial episode revolving around breastfeeding practices.
The complexities of the caller's transition from atheism to church involvement become evident as she reflects on her motivations for initially joining the church and the lessons learned during her time there. She candidly discusses the churchs strict environment, where norms around parenting and authority often clashed head-on with her beliefs. A pivotal moment occurs when she, alongside her supportive roommates, faces expulsion after she voices concerns about the church's practices, leading to a breakdown of relationships.
As the conversation progresses, the caller navigates her relationship with her parents, particularly her mother, who struggles with her own unresolved issues stemming from an emotionally tumultuous upbringing. The challenges of upbringing, expectations, and the difference between parental love and parental practices create a narrative of disillusionment. The caller reveals how her mothers refusal to accept criticism regarding parenting, combined with her high expectations, led to a rift that echoed the tensions witnessed in the church community.
Throughout the episode, we examine the psychological and emotional toll that varying parenting styles and familial pressure exert on relationships, particularly when combined with the caller's commitment to peaceful parenting. The themes of gaslighting, familial disconnect, and the impact of trauma reveal themselves through the caller's reflections on her upbringing, vulnerability, and the struggle for reconciliation with her family's past behaviors.
Tensions mount as the caller explores her mothers inability to accept her parenting choices, leading to a cascade of thoughts around familial loyalty, innocence, and the quest for validation as a parent. The discussion serves as a broader metaphor for how individuals often grapple with expectations imposed by family and society, and how those expectations can threaten the very bonds meant to nurture and support.
As we wrap up, we consider the implications of the callers revelations on her current role as a parent and her evolving relationship with her own daughter, navigating through the complex emotions of wanting to do better while confronting the shadows of her past. This episode ultimately provides a poignant reflection on the intersection of love, struggle, and the ongoing journey of self-discovery within the realms of family and parenting.
[0:00] So I guess where I would want to start is with the roommates that we had move in with us earlier this year.
[0:08] Roommates and a baby, man, that's a brave combo.
[0:12] Well, the idea was that they were a married couple that were at the same church as us, and the woman was quite interested in helping. She was actually there when our baby was born to help.
[0:32] Okay and these are people you've known for a while or no.
[0:35] Uh we knew them for about a year okay.
[0:39] Got it and what's been going on.
[0:44] Uh the arc of them living with us they are gone now they've been gone for a month, they moved in and we were sharing chores and cooking and sharing meals and staying up together and reading books playing chess and it was very fun.
[1:09] And the guy was being a bad influence on me he was urging me to smoke cigarettes and play more video games and stay up late. Okay.
[1:25] And then we get into the time. So we were members of this particular church, and we had fell into disfavor with the church because my wife refused to let our baby cry instead of breastfeed her. and this led to a kind of big incident where the priest kicked all this out of the church and emailed the entire parish about it well what had happened was our roommates i asked the woman to come with me to be a witness when the priest wanted to talk to me about this because i thought it would be appropriate to have another woman along and our roommate recorded the conversation and this made the priest very angry because obviously the things he was recorded saying were not very flattering to him or the church gosh okay we all got kicked out of the church together and this was something of a bonding experience wow was it and we were doing church services together in the mornings and kind of operating as a extended family unit. And then as conflicts arose, it felt like they turned on us.
[2:53] Sorry, I know you have a kid there. Is this a bad time? I don't obviously want to interfere with parenting.
[3:01] This is as good as it gets.
[3:04] Okay, got it.
[3:06] It's an incredibly high needs baby, which is relevant to all this.
[3:11] Right. Okay. So do you want to give me a bit of a background with the church?
[3:17] Yeah. So when we were dating, I was an atheist and she was a sort of mixed bag religion, Protestant Christian, just kind of taking a little bit from all the religions and using what she liked. And as we kind of got closer to getting married, I wanted to do it in the context of a church. It just seemed appealing to me. And through a couple of experiences, I kind of just tossed myself into this church headfirst, and sort of just went along from there.
[3:56] Sorry, how did you go from atheism tois it Christian?
[4:00] Yeah, it is Christian.
[4:02] And I'm not arguing against the journey. I'm just wondering how that went.
[4:11] It sort of started uh all my friends were christian and always kind of giving me crap for being an atheist and i i guess i guess i kind of had like an experience on this camping trip with a bunch of my christian friends and i was i just kind of decided to start uh engaging a lot more of the practices and prayer and that sort of thing and sorry.
[4:37] What was the experience.
[4:38] Um my my phone fell down this like 20 foot chasm and we managed to cobble together, uh, jumper cables and sticks and paracord and fish it out. sorry.
[4:56] I don't follow that could you repeat that i don't i'm not sure i follow the story.
[5:00] It it's it i don't know it, we were we were camping and my phone fell down this chasm where it would be unreachable and we kind of pulled off this uh really on against the odds retrieval mission with like, jumper cables and paracord and the stick, i mean i don't think that's going to help them understand why that's left you to christianity sorry.
[5:26] You were able to retrieve your phone.
[5:29] Yes i i suppose the the part that's relevant is i was in the midst of uh a half a dozen very charismatic christians and it was a i guess a spiritual camping trip and then there's this unlikely recovery of my phone. It was emotional, I guess. You were on a camping trip with the cult members, and the atmosphere was very appealing to you, wasn't it? Yeah, but they were of a different Christian variety than the church I ended up joining, but nevertheless.
[6:08] Sorry, we have cult and Christianity, and i'm not quite sure of the relationship between them.
[6:14] Uh i don't want to name these organizations please.
[6:20] Don't name the organizations i just um most mainstream christianity would not be referred to as a cult but this i assume this is something different right.
[6:29] Yes so um at the time i was working for someone who is a member of this cult and friends with several other people that are in this cult and uh they they they're pretty um i would say tame as far as cults go but, uh their their shtick is they live on communes and very poor neighborhoods, and then i end up joining a a rather large uh church but it was not part of the cult i had no affiliation with it and why would you refer.
[7:05] To it as a cult.
[7:11] I guess it's pretty far out beliefs the fact that they have some long entrance ritual uh, I would say that the amount of in-group, out-group that they have, and also the way they raise children.
[7:37] Okay, and what is their approach to raising children?
[7:42] One of the central tenets of the cult is that open disagreement and negotiation are not permitted. And so it's lots of very strict parenting. And they also, because they live in terrible neighborhoods, their kids are in very dangerous situations if they're unattended. So they're constantly under lock and key and hardly ever get any freedom.
[8:08] And it's the bad neighborhoods, the idea is to sort of minister to the poor and the needy and so on?
[8:14] Yeah, very, very big getting off on helping people and feeling superior to them.
[8:21] All right. Okay. And how long have you been listening to what I do?
[8:29] It's before Trump, so 2015.
[8:33] Okay, so eight or nine years?
[8:36] Yeah.
[8:38] And what do you think this organization, maybe we can call it a sect, sect. But what do you think this organization provides for you that philosophy is unable to provide?
[8:53] We're referring to the cult right now? Or the sect?
[8:56] Yeah.
[8:56] So not the church I joined, but the people I was hanging out with?
[8:59] Yeah.
[9:02] Okay. Just real-life friendships, mainly.
[9:07] Okay, and the friendships, but the friendships are based upon you surrendering your reason to some degree, right?
[9:17] Some degree. In hindsight, I'm actually impressed with how much I was able to voice my opinion, because my boss, who I worked for, was kind to me and nice to me as I was an atheist and throughout my entire conversion process. s okay.
[9:37] All right um and so you joined the sect um that you refer to as a cult and then you said you went more mainstream is that right.
[9:48] Uh that is not correct i was friends with people in the sect and uh did not join them at any point just went straight for this uh more mainstream church okay Okay.
[10:00] Got it. So the sect, or as you call it, the cult, was just sort of a flyby, right?
[10:06] Yeah, yeah. I was kind of talking to them, interacting with them for about a year and a half.
[10:15] Oh, so that's more than a flyby, isn't it?
[10:18] Yeah. Yeah, and we still have, actually, friends that are part of it.
[10:25] Okay. So, to some degree, you found that philosophy was not working for you, and you decided to go towards more, I guess, out there religious practices?
[10:41] Yeah uh i'd say so we really fell hard um for the very traditional stuff, okay so so.
[10:51] We'll just i guess we'll have to skip over that stuff and go to the mainstream religious aspects.
[10:56] Right yeah okay.
[10:58] So you joined a more mainstream church is that right.
[11:01] Yeah and.
[11:03] Then what happened then.
[11:06] Uh we got baptized into that church we got married in that church um we met some friends and families there and, uh our daughter was born and baptized in that church and then i i kind of started to see the writing on the wall um they're very aggressive towards children there and.
[11:34] What do you mean.
[11:36] Uh there was one well kids kids would be uh spanked in the in the back um kind of openly, um i did not see it but i had people tell me about it and one time um i saw a dad who was just frustrating careless and grabbed his toddler and she lost balance and hit her head on a metal chair yeah.
[12:03] I mean it's fair i think it's fair to say that most religions are harsh on children to put it mildly right okay and how long ago did you join the more mainstream church.
[12:18] Oh, this would be two years ago. Yeah, two years ago.
[12:23] Okay. And when did you first notice the harsh treatment of children?
[12:30] It wasn't right away. Right away, I kind of...
[12:33] No, but they would have a philosophy about it. Maybe you hadn't talked to them about it.
[12:37] Yes. One of the things that drew us to the church was the unusually high levels of affection that these people had for their children. I would say it was better than average, especially in appearance. These people had many more children. They didn't have cry rooms. So the children are welcome to participate in the service and to join in.
[13:03] Sorry, did you say cry rooms?
[13:06] Yeah.
[13:06] What is a cry room?
[13:09] Oh, you asked the wrong person. I'm going to get fired up if I talk about cry rooms. It's a special walled-off soundproof glass room where people with babies are expected to go so that the babies don't make noise that would bother other people.
[13:25] Okay, got it.
[13:26] If you're going to do any parenting, you have to do it back there so that all the nice adults don't have to experience yucky children in their lives.
[13:35] Well, I mean, first of all, I get where you're coming from as far as the outrage goes. But, I mean, the argument could be made that if you're trying to do a sort of lecture or a sermon, it can be a little distracting, right?
[13:48] Well, it really wasn't in this church, and I saw that work well because the children participated in the service and weren't disruptive. And if they were, they could go to the back or they could step outside or something like that. But there wasn't an expectation that they were confined the whole time to that place.
[14:04] Right. Okay. Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay. I think I understand. So then after you were there for a certain amount of time, did you hear about the harsh treatment and then see it or see it and then hear about it in terms of the language?
[14:24] Language you definitely saw it it took me a lot longer because my spidey senses were not as attuned to it as you were but when you started pointing it out we started talking about it with people yeah i guess i guess i kind of started getting some some bad vibes from certain people like one family like forced their kid to wear a mask when he had the cold and i started noticing other stuff from there.
[14:50] Okay, so how long did it take for you to realize that there was a sort of lift the take the mask off harshness towards children?
[14:58] It would have been, I think, a little bit after we were married in the church, maybe around that time. So I would say maybe like a few, almost a year in.
[15:15] Okay.
[15:15] Yeah, for you.
[15:16] All right. And how long ago was this?
[15:21] How long ago is this? That would have been a year ago. A year ago?
[15:26] A year ago. Well, congratulations, of course, on the marriage of the baby. And are you still in the church?
[15:35] No. Back to atheism.
[15:37] Back to atheism. Okay. And was it mostly around the kids or were there other things as well?
[15:45] There are definitely other things. The getting kicked out contributed, for sure.
[15:50] Well, but I assume that the getting kicked out had something to do with criticizing the practices. Yes.
[15:57] I really just wanted to nurse my baby instead of having her cry yeah i i i'm not sure exactly why we get kicked kicked out but i think it was probably mainly due to our uh sticking with the woman who recorded the priest all right so can you give me i know the sorry sorry i interrupted go ahead the priest asked us to kick the roommates out of our house oh yeah he did Okay.
[16:26] So let's go a little bit more. So, if you can go over in a slightly more detail what happened with the woman and the priest and the recording.
[16:36] Well, as was largely about me, the priest called me up and said, hey, there's been some issue with you breastfeeding in the church, which I thought was curious because one of the practices in the church is to venerate an image of the Virgin Mary breastfeeding Jesus. So I said, okay. was talking with the priest about this, and it seemed to be escalating. So I asked to have a witness, and we had that meeting, and that got recorded.
[17:09] Sorry, was the complaint that you had a breast exposed, or that you were breastfeeding at all, or, I mean, did you have a cover? I'm sorry to be asking these questions, but I'm trying to follow what the church's issue was.
[17:22] To be honest, I don't know what the church's issue was. We had this priest who wouldn't say the word breast which was um very interesting to try to have these conversations and guys not.
[17:34] Going to have much fun at kfc but all right.
[17:37] Um and.
[17:38] And were you.
[17:38] Did you cover uh.
[17:39] When you were breastfeeding or how did that work in the church.
[17:42] No and um one of the things that no one ever asked me was my baby doesn't like covers so and i didn't want to anyway for various reasons but, and she's loud and social and none of this is her fault of course you know we signed up to be parents and she's the biggest joy in our lives and you get the kids you get yeah and you work with that right no the adults can grow up and handle whatever the child is right okay but you know very social and like to talk and like to be friendly with people and like to eat all the time and uh for weeks this was not an issue i mean there are pictures that the priest sent to us from when the baby was churched where she's nursing so i had no reason to think he had a problem with this sorry when the.
[18:34] Baby was churched you just mean in church.
[18:36] It's a practice of the religion it's the first time the baby goes back to church okay got it okay so the baby was.
[18:44] Welcome and then the breastfeeding and the chatting and the noise became a problem. Is that right?
[18:50] I think it's just that people started to notice that there was breastfeeding.
[18:58] I don't know. I mean, you can't be the only woman who's breastfed in the church, can you?
[19:04] Certainly I was not, and I was not the only one to nurse without a cover. And they've got Mary right up there at the front, breast exposed to feed Jesus, so I don't really know what their complaint was, but they never made it clear.
[19:19] Well, I can guess. go ahead well i mean you're peacefully parenting right.
[19:34] Oh yeah yeah well.
[19:36] Okay so you're peacefully parenting and so your child is developing in a way and you're interacting in a way with your child that causes the other parents to feel very very uncomfortable bingo.
[19:49] Nail on the head my husband is nodding vigorously across the room.
[19:54] Okay yeah i mean that sounds like well i don't need to sell past the sale so just does that sort of fit with the evidence because because otherwise they tell you why so people are upset they don't know why they don't want to be honest they don't want to say well we hit our kids we you know a lot of people i'm not saying in this particular church but you know like a significant number of people actually hit their babies like it's really crazy stuff just evil as evil can be and so So if you guys are like peaceful and patient and not using any kinds of aggression, not yelling, not calling names, then the parents kind of have to get you out of there because their own conscience feels terrible. And also they're concerned that their kids might look at their parenting and say, you a-holes.
[20:39] Oh, that would certainly be why our roommates got kicked out with us then.
[20:43] All right. So hang on. We'll get to the roommates thing.
[20:46] Yeah.
[20:47] Okay. Okay, so you have this, and you know, when you provoke people's conscience, you get these weird, strangled, tense, strange, headachy kind of baffled fog interactions where you can't tell at the end what was up, what was down, what was, it's all just designed to create a negative experience for you without any definition whatsoever to get you out of there.
[21:12] Yep. Exactly.
[21:15] All right. Right. So how long did that process of getting you yeeted off the island, how long did that take?
[21:24] That was a few weeks, wasn't it? It was three whole weeks. Three whole weeks. Oh, horrible.
[21:30] And was it a series of bad meetings and then you decided to leave? Oh no, they said you are cordially disinvited from the fellowship of this church, right?
[21:40] They kicked the roommates out and then they kicked us out for participating in recording. and then we said we hadn't recorded and then they said well you can't live with these people.
[21:49] Okay you keep getting to these roommates but i don't know what i'm sorry if i missed something i don't know what the relationship is between you and the roommates and the church.
[21:58] We were all friends, and this woman who had attended my birth and who had been a participant in my wedding came with me as my witness when I went to talk with the priest about these things. And she made the recording that made the priest very angry.
[22:17] Oh, and she made the recording without telling the priest, right?
[22:21] Without telling anyone. I didn't even know it had been made until we got home.
[22:24] Yeah, it's so funny. People used to have to wear a wire, and now everyone's got these phones that can get things from across the room, right?
[22:31] Yeah, everybody who had said something distasteful during that meeting was very angry that it had been recording. And of course, my husband and I were very happy that it was all on record.
[22:43] And how did the priest find out that he'd been recorded?
[22:48] Oh, honey, you'd better take over on this, because that's... At this point, I... So, yeah, so our friends, we all meet up afterwards, figure out that the woman recorded the meeting, and the guy Figure out.
[23:04] You mean she told you?
[23:06] Yeah.
[23:06] Okay.
[23:07] And the man was absolutely livid about what the priest said about his wife.
[23:13] Okay, so you guys keep telling this story like I know what's going on. So who was livid about the priest said what the priest said about whose wife? The man is the roommate? Right.
[23:23] Yes. Maybe we can come up with just the names for people.
[23:29] No, no, no. I think I get it. I just wasn't sure if the man was a priest. So your roommate, your friend who was your roommate, was mad at what the priest said about his wife.
[23:38] Yeah. Male friend is upset about what the priest said about his wife.
[23:42] Okay. And since the issue was between the priest and your wife and the breastfeeding, why did your friend's wife come up?
[23:52] More of that fogging yeah she said that her friend was trying to cut through the fog to help her in the conversation and a priest accused her of, idolatry and some other stuff huh, idolatry okay yeah in a pretty traditional church so you can imagine that's a big accusation right I think some of the context here is that that roommate had become a Sunday school teacher and was peacefully Sunday schooling the kids at the church.
[24:28] Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. Right. Right. So then parents are concerned that if the kids are around somebody who's peacefully parenting or peacefully teaching, I suppose, that the kids are going to come back and look at the parents, give the parents a good old side eye, right?
[24:45] Yep. Yeah, there's definitely a lot of animosity towards her because of that.
[24:50] All right, so the priest then finds out that he was recorded and hits the roof?
[24:57] Yeah, the way that happened was the male friend hatched a plan to secretly record another meeting with them and then call them out for all their contradictions in a third meeting where he reveals that they recorded them.
[25:12] Okay, so let me make sure I understand this. So there's another meeting, but the priest at this other meeting does not yet know that he's being recorded, right?
[25:20] Yes.
[25:21] Okay. And then there's a secret recording of that meeting. And who else is in that meeting?
[25:25] It's just the male friend and the priest and one other member of the clergy.
[25:31] Okay. So he then records that meeting. And then in the third meeting, which was with who?
[25:37] With both of our friends, male friend and the female friend, and then the priest and the same member of the clergy.
[25:43] And the female friend is his wife?
[25:45] Yes.
[25:46] Okay. And it's then when he reveals that he has been recording the meetings, right?
[25:51] Yes. Yes.
[25:53] Okay. And then the priest is upset that the meeting was recorded. Now, is he upset at what he considers an invasion of privacy? Do you know what the story is? No, that was for himself.
[26:08] I heard it.
[26:09] I'm sorry. Oh, you heard it. Okay. So what was the priest upset about?
[26:12] Um uh the male friend said uh to the priest you lied to me and then the priest repeated i think like three or four times i did not lie i did not lie and.
[26:27] Sorry what was the lie.
[26:28] Um there are there are we we got like a from the recordings a bunch of contradictions but uh he accused her of idolatry in that that first meeting and then said he never did such a thing in the second meeting Thank you. So lots. Yeah, just.
[26:46] Okay. Oh, so he said in the first meeting, he accused the wife of idolatry. And then he said, I never accused the wife of idolatry. And the guy says, I have you on a recording accusing my wife of idolatry.
[26:57] Yeah. And that and that second meeting, there was a lot of like, good old boy, like, yeah, we're men, our wives are dumb, they don't know stuff, your wife is just lying to you, that sort of thing. It was really terrible.
[27:10] It seems a little impious.
[27:14] Uh more than a little.
[27:15] No i mean it seems odd to me because does he not think that god records everything that.
[27:24] Was my argument.
[27:25] I mean yeah the fact that it's on tape well god is omniscient god knows everything so if you told a lie wouldn't you be kind of like oh my gosh i honestly did not think that i lied but clearly the evidence is that i did so thank you i mean does he think that The problem is with the recording, not with the fact that he lied, and that God knows anyway, and you can't erase the recording of things that God knows.
[27:52] It was bad. No, he was not open to any wrongdoing on his part. He was very thoroughly upset.
[28:01] So he is impious, right? He's not really a believer, as far as I can tell.
[28:09] Oh, definitely not, no. No.
[28:11] Okay.
[28:11] I'm reminded of the Count Orski quote from your book, Almost. Just, it would be most grim if the Pope believed in the same way as the Polish peasants.
[28:27] Right. So, then you are of the opinion that the church may not be precisely for you, right? Oh, yeah. Okay. And then?
[28:39] And, well, then we're just kind of out in the woods, sort of still following this practice with our roommates in our house, totally ostracized from the church.
[28:51] So the priest said, get out and don't let the door hit your butt on the way out.
[28:56] Ah, yes. And I have one more fact that might be relevant here.
[29:00] Mm-hmm.
[29:00] So he sent a uh email to all the members of that church letting everybody know what great crimes we had done against the church and its organization and god um i assume that the crimes.
[29:14] Were in general statements not any specific details.
[29:18] Certainly yeah the recording the priest was a he managed he said that one straight up to them i only know because of this recording because of only one guy who decided to be friends with me after that.
[29:32] Sorry, which recording?
[29:35] Uh, he, the, the, in the email, the priest sent to everybody to, uh, defame us. He did say that we had recorded him.
[29:44] And you only know about the, sorry, you said you only know about that recording.
[29:48] And we only know about that. No, I only know about the email because only one person would talk to us after all that.
[29:55] Right. Okay. Okay. Got it. All right. So it's petty and it's catty and it's irreligious and at least as far as I can see.
[30:02] But here, here's the extra kicker. There was one parishioner there who was beating his wife and his children, and the priest knew about it for several months and ended up attempting murder on one of the fellow parishioners, and not a word was spoken.
[30:19] Wait, wait, wait, hang on, hang on, hang on. So you're mixing. So there's a guy who's beating his wife and his kids, the priest knows about it, and then the guy attempts to kill his wife?
[30:31] Attempts to kill another parishioner.
[30:33] Another parishioner, okay. And the priest didn't do anything about it ahead of time. And what happened after?
[30:43] Under the rug. No one ever knew about it. Only heard about it through back channels, other people who knew about it.
[30:50] Well, sorry, wouldn't you hear about it because the guy got arrested?
[30:54] Nope.
[30:54] Oh, he didn't get arrested?
[30:56] No, he's arrested and in jail. I'm pretty sure it's the only reason he's not in church. If he was free, I'm sure he'd welcome right back in. Right. No, of course, they had a few of the men who were detailed to keep him out. Yeah, I can't hear that.
[31:10] Sorry, she's a little far away from the mic.
[31:13] Okay. He was, we knew about it because a few of the brawnier men in the church were detailed to keep this guy out very quietly, very privately. You know, don't want to embarrass the guy or his family or anything like that.
[31:29] Oh, so you get the defamatory letter, but the guy who attempted to kill someone, they want to keep that on the down-low?
[31:37] Yes, spot on.
[31:39] Were there horns above the door? Were there pentagrams? I mean, what kind of church were you going to?
[31:47] One of the nicer ones, actually. I still haven't found a place I like better.
[31:53] Huh. Okay.
[31:54] You're welcome.
[31:56] Wow.
[31:57] I'm very disillusioned with this organized religion thing right now.
[32:02] Yes, I can see that. And of course, if it's any consolation, I think Jesus was fairly disillusioned with the organized religion of his time as well. So you're probably in fairly good company. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, to me, it's always a fascinating question, which is, do you take your beliefs seriously? Seriously.
[32:22] Yes.
[32:23] Or is it just social and a funny costume and some cool songs and, you know, some nice stained glass? Do you take things... Actually, seriously, I mean, this is funny because, I mean, I, you know, got back... I guess I got into some kind of trouble with libertarians back in the day when I said, okay, well, if you define statism as evil, then people who advocate for statism are evil. They're advocating evil, men in particular, against you, because they want you thrown in jail for disagreeing with them. and why would you want to spend time with people who want you thrown in jail where you could get murdered and raped for disagreeing with them? And people were like, what? And it's like, but that's where the ideas lead. That's where the ideas lead. Like, why are you shocked? You define something as evil and then you say, but I can't have any problem with people who support and advocate for that. It's like, you kind of have to, don't you? If you define something as evil, You can't salute and hug and break bread with people who knowingly, after you've explained it to them, knowingly still advocate for this evil. I don't know. It's just a wild thing. When you actually ask people to take ideas seriously, they completely freak out. Like, I have dedicated my life to these ideals. Maybe you should take them seriously. What?
[33:44] I don't know. It's the strangest thing. I mean, I can understand it's uncomfortable to actually live your values. I know that personally, of course, right? So I can understand that. And I've always said to people, okay, but if you don't want to live your values, that's fine. Then stop talking about them. Stop pretending. I'm not saying that people have to live their values. But if you're not going to live your values, maybe stop pretending that you are, because it kind of discredits those values in the eyes of anybody with any integrity, right? So, yeah, it is a funny thing that people have all of these moral beliefs, rules and foundational ethical approaches to life. And then when you say, yeah, this is serious stuff. We should really do this. Oh, my God. It's like people buying all these diet books. And then you say, you know, well, you are 300 pounds. Maybe you should diet. What? It's very strange to me, but that's just part of the slightly different planet that I live on, I guess. Okay, so you were booted out of this hypocrisy fest, right?
[34:47] Yes.
[34:48] Okay. And then?
[34:51] And then we were with our roommates still trying to practice this religion just with ourselves.
[35:00] Okay.
[35:03] And it was nice and fun at first, but things just continued to get, I guess, darker. one incident was after we got kicked out, we I compiled all the recordings and made transcripts of them and we printed off some of them and posted them on the doors of the church and emailed everybody and what?
[35:31] I was like why?
[35:35] Because you wanted to go on no she's gone away.
[35:38] Gotta come back.
[35:41] I can't get specific about it anyway. Just like a, you know, Martin Luther kind of thing, you know, the church.
[35:52] Sorry, you know what happened to Martin Luther, right?
[35:57] He became famous.
[35:59] Well, yes, that's certainly one thing that happened to Martin Luther, but that's not the only thing that happened to Martin Luther.
[36:06] A religion still continues to this day in his name.
[36:10] Yes. You know. And what happened before that part, though?
[36:15] We all got to die someday.
[36:17] Captured, tortured, right?
[36:20] Well, that was pretty powerful, of course, for folks in that religion anyway.
[36:24] No, no, but, I mean, your parents, right?
[36:28] He wasn't a parent he.
[36:29] Was a monk he became a parent but that was after that was later.
[36:34] So honestly the reason i wanted to do this was to warn other women especially mothers in the church the kinds of things that the clergy were saying behind their backs because i was pretty disturbed by it and if i'd known i wouldn't have gone to that church so now everybody who wants to know Oh, no.
[36:56] Okay, so you transcribed the recordings, and you then took those transcriptions, and you put them on the door of the church, and then what?
[37:15] I guess this was really enlightening to me. This event was a big insight into the character of the male friend. who the roommate was yes who was all all boisterous and and ready to go to war and ready to go to battle you know it's this is this is reputation this is enemy is and, um whenever we actually got to the mission i was uh calm collected on a purpose we're doing this thing and he was super skittish and scared didn't want to step foot on the church property and wanted to leave and got really anxious and stayed up all night wondering if he should go back to the church, take them all down.
[37:56] Right.
[37:59] And I got some cold feet.
[38:02] Which, you know, can happen. OK, I mean, that's what we need courage for, right? It's for when we get nervous, right?
[38:09] Yeah, yeah. And I suppose this is when I started to realize that all the courage they said he had, he, in fact, did not and had none.
[38:18] Well, no, hang on. Just because he's up all night and scared doesn't mean that he doesn't have courage. So what was it that made you say he had no courage?
[38:29] Mostly i guess repeated incidents um all the stories that he would tell about his his big courageous things would be when he was in power he used to be a prison guard and would talk all about how he was so strong and tough when the the story was basically the guy in charge told him to to go do something, and he did it.
[38:52] Oh, yeah, so he's got legally disarmed people he has almost total control over, and he's a big, tough guy.
[38:58] Yeah, and he's huge. He's like 300 pounds.
[39:00] Mm-hmm. So, from a philosophy show that's about skepticism, rationality, and skepticism in particular of state power, you thought you'd get involved in a hypocritical religion and with a prison guard.
[39:18] Yeah, yeah.
[39:20] I mean, it's interesting to me that you'd even call me.
[39:25] It gets worse.
[39:27] No, but you understand, right? This would be going against everything that I would have talked about forever.
[39:36] Yeah, I suppose this is why sometimes I get upset about your kindness towards Christianity, because I sort of use that as justification for, well, have all these qualms about the Christians in my environment. But, you know, Stef says they're all right, so I'll give it a go.
[39:51] No, no, no. So hang on, hang on, hang on. Kindness towards Christianity is the idea set. Right?
[40:07] What, like?
[40:08] Well, Christianity is not Christians.
[40:12] Ah.
[40:13] That's like saying a diet book is dieters, right? So if the diet book is good and people don't follow the diet, do you blame the diet book?
[40:27] I'm not really following here, but maybe I'm just being obtuse.
[40:30] No, it's fine. So if Bob writes a really good diet book, like it's really well done, well researched, and scientifically valid, and a great way to lose weight, right?
[40:41] Sure.
[40:42] And then a lot of people buy Bob's diet book because they're overweight, and they'll read it, but they don't change their diet. They just keep eating crap and not exercising and not doing any of the things that Bob recommends, right?
[40:59] Sure.
[40:59] Now, if I say, Bob wrote a good diet book, what's in Bob's diet book is very good, and then you say, but there are all these people who are 300 plus pounds who claim to be following Bob's diet. I mean, they don't actually follow Bob's diet, but they claim to, and that invalidates Bob's diet.
[41:20] Yeah. Well, if Bob's diet book is the Bible, then I'll say, yeah, the Bible's got plenty of really solid moral advice. But I think Christians generally tend to follow things outside the Bible a lot.
[41:43] If I can take the role of scolding priest just for a moment right then I would say what is the issue in your life that you keep choosing corrupt people who pretend to be religious and then damn religion because you lack judgment and discretion on picking out who's genuinely religious and who's a hypocrite or a faker yeah.
[42:15] There's a good question that's a neat way of restating the question from the email isn't it yeah why why why did i choose roommates from hell.
[42:25] Well we'll get to that right and i'm not criticizing at all but if you say the problem is with the world not my judgment then you have to to paint the world really as a dark and black place, right?
[42:41] Yeah.
[42:42] As opposed to saying, what is it about me? You know, the typical example would be the woman who keeps choosing complete a-holes as boyfriends, and then she'd say, well, men are just trash. And it's like, well, no, the men that you choose are trash. But not men as a whole.
[43:04] Yeah. Yeah.
[43:08] I mean, there are good Christians, there are bad Christians. There are good atheists, there are bad atheists. The question is, how do you find the good people? And it's not based upon the ideals they claim to hold, if that makes sense.
[43:23] Yes. Maybe we should talk about some of the green flags and good things about this couple that led us to want to live with them. Yeah, I think they were the bad stuff.
[43:38] You mean the 300-pound ex-prison guard?
[43:43] Yes. Yeah, and he absolutely adored Hegel and Kant.
[43:50] The 300-plus-pound prison guard. Mm-hmm. There were no red flags there.
[43:58] Yeah, those are pretty big red flags.
[44:03] I mean, obesity is a mark. Again, outside of medical issues, which are very rare, Obesity is a mark of gluttony, right? So there's a sin, right?
[44:16] Yeah.
[44:17] And while in a truly free society there will be prison guards, being a statist enforcer is most often, though not necessarily always, is most often a red flag, right?
[44:33] Yeah, it is.
[44:36] Secretly recording people, is often a red flag, because there's an imbalance of power there in that your friend knew that he was recording the priest the priest did not know he was being recorded so there's an imbalance of power there right mm-hmm, and saying I want to go and print out this recording and put it on the door of the church and so on is extremely provocative. I personally don't believe it. I could be wrong, obviously. I'm just telling you my experience. It doesn't mean I'm right. I don't really believe it when you say, well, it was to warn people away from a hypocritical church, right? because people liked you there and then when you were kicked out i think you said only one person stayed in contact with you yeah so they don't want to they don't want the truth otherwise they would have asked you what happened right yeah so when you have a whole group of people who don't want the truth giving them the truth is more an fu than it is trying to help people.
[46:05] Yeah, I definitely had that as a motive, but I think more of my motive was like, oh, I'm going to do something about it with my friend.
[46:18] Well, that's not a motive, though. That's just getting swept along on someone else's thing.
[46:25] Yeah. I mean, there were other incidents that ended up coming to light, mostly through the one person who stayed in touch with my husband. Where I wished that I had known and I wished that someone had told me. I will readily admit to being naive in thinking that this would have helped anyone. But given the amount of lies that were told about, I don't like being lied to. And if someone lies to me, I would certainly like someone else to come along and say, no, no, this is the truth. That would be. I really would like if someone would do that for me.
[47:03] Well, but you're not them. so you don't like being lied to this is true well this.
[47:11] Was still a nasty surprise that i got but i i had a lot to learn with this at schools.
[47:17] No no so you don't like being lied to and you want people to come and tell you the truth and boy if you'd known the truth about this church you wouldn't have joined and so on but they're not like you right well.
[47:30] I mistakenly thought that they were, and that's part of why I wanted to be a part of the church.
[47:34] No, no, no. You knew that they weren't like you after you were kicked out. Because nobody called you or emailed you to ask you your side of things or what was going on or what happened, right?
[47:48] Well, it seemed to me that the email that this priest had written would appear to cover all the bases.
[47:56] No, no, but you had tension with the priest and that you were kicked out, And then he wrote the email, right?
[48:06] Was it that one? I don't know when the timeline was because obviously we didn't receive copies of this email.
[48:11] Well, isn't that because you were already kicked out?
[48:16] Yeah. So it would be.
[48:17] Okay, so you were already kicked out and nobody asked you for your side of things or anything like that, right?
[48:29] Yeah. One?
[48:31] Well, no, one person. I mean, practically no one, right?
[48:35] Yeah, there's one family that did and then decided that they'd rather just take the blue pill and go back to where there are resources for their kid. Yeah, but I really appreciate it. They did actually come out and they came to our house and they talked with us about it.
[48:49] Okay, so of the, I assume, hundreds of people in the congregation, one person wanted to find out the truth.
[48:59] Yeah okay so they're.
[49:04] Not like you.
[49:05] Nope they're like a different kind.
[49:08] Of person right.
[49:10] Yeah a different kind of person definitely the emails we got after we sent the transcript to people proved that because it turns.
[49:18] Out that they weren't convinced by the transcript right.
[49:21] No there's lots of people are just like this is what you do you just get abused and you know you take abuse and that's good Sorry.
[49:30] I don't know what you're talking about now. Who's saying this about what?
[49:33] Just random parishioners responded to us saying that, in fact, the priest was doing his job perfectly, and you're just supposed to take abuse. Virtue is taking abuse.
[49:44] Okay, so yeah, you have, I guess, a kind of cruel priest and a bunch of masochistic parishioners, and that's their deal. That's their game, right?
[49:51] Yep.
[49:52] So you had, as your theory, right? This is why I'm going to ask you to dig a little deeper into the well of wisdom. So you had a theory that you could achieve something good by posting the transcript on the church door, right?
[50:08] Yeah.
[50:09] And did you achieve anything good?
[50:11] Yes.
[50:12] Okay. Tell me what.
[50:14] I no longer have any doubts or questions about whether or not there's somebody who's like me who's in that church who just wasn't paying attention to the email chain okay I know you didn't achieve anything good.
[50:28] For the church.
[50:30] Well no but.
[50:34] Okay, so let's back up a little here. I thought that your part of your motive, or a significant part of your motive, was to warn other parishioners about corruption in the church.
[50:45] And if my theory had been correct, if my naive belief that there was someone else like me there had been correct, then that person would have been helped. But hypothetically, we can't prove that.
[50:58] So your theory was incorrect.
[51:01] Yeah, but this is how I found out my theory was incorrect.
[51:05] Okay. So are you saying there was no way to know whether your theory was correct or incorrect without plastering the transcripts all over the church door?
[51:13] I'm saying I'm very hard-headed and it would have taken this or something of this caliber.
[51:21] Okay. So if you have to learn everything by experience, why do you want to talk to me?
[51:28] Because my husband's smarter than I am and learns things by listening to people.
[51:32] Well. Well, you understand the problem, though. Like, I have to just fall down, go boom, break a leg. I have to beat my head against the wall until I pass out. And it's like, well, I guess that's going to be your life then, isn't it?
[51:48] Well, I'm trying to grow and improve.
[51:51] Doesn't sound like it. Sounds like you're justifying everything you did, but I'm trying to point out that there was a way to know ahead of time. Like, nope, this is how I have to learn. It's like, okay, then why are we talking? I'm not criticizing. I think I'm just saying if you have to learn empirically and you can't learn theoretically, why are you talking to a theoretician?
[52:07] Well, you're asking me why I did, not what I do. I haven't learned from it. I have my theory as to, I guess, when the...
[52:15] Sorry, I'm still fighting with your wife. Hang on with your theory. I'm still fighting with your wife in hopefully a productive way. Okay? So you're saying you are justifying it though, right? You're saying this is the only way that I could learn.
[52:33] I probably did say that, yeah.
[52:35] Okay. I mean, I'm afraid this is recorded, ironically enough.
[52:38] I'll be sure to listen to it.
[52:40] Don't let me put it on your front door. Okay. You did, right? You said, like I was saying, you had a theory. Your theory turned out to be incorrect, and there was evidence ahead of time that your theory was going to be incorrect. And you're like, nope, this is how I have to learn.
[52:56] Yeah.
[52:57] You're right. My goal was to help people. And then you say, well, no, it was good because I helped myself. But that's not the same thing.
[53:06] Well, I think the good that I achieved was somewhat accidental in that respect. I'm not saying it was a good strategy.
[53:15] Okay. Do you want help with what you call your naivete?
[53:19] Sure.
[53:20] Then you have to stop saying this stuff like I have to learn things empirically.
[53:27] Says the empiricist.
[53:29] I am, I absolutely am an empiricist and you had evidence you didn't need more that's what I'm trying to say I am an empiricist, I wouldn't judge people as being corrupt prior to having any evidence but you had masses of evidence, that you refused to look at and then you say, well I was just naive and it's like, I am an empiricist and there was tons of evidence and you didn't need to put yourself at risk in this way, okay let me ask you this how long after your daughter was born did you put the pieces of paper with the transcripts on the church door.
[54:08] Six months is close enough.
[54:10] Okay were you still breastfeeding of course okay was it good for your daughter to engage in this kind of combat with a corrupt and potentially dangerous organization.
[54:29] I think that it was, I think it helped me to feel like.
[54:37] Oh, my gosh. No, no. No, no. Was I talking about you or your daughter?
[54:44] Well, you're talking about.
[54:46] I'm going to ask this question again. Was it good for your daughter for you to engage in this kind of combat with a corrupt and potentially dangerous organization? Was it good for your daughter? You say, well, it was good for me. No, no, no. Your daughter.
[54:59] We're talking about a breastfeeding diet here that hadn't separated yet, so. I don't know what that.
[55:04] What do you mean a breastfeeding diet that hadn't separated? What are you talking about? I don't know what that means.
[55:08] It has to do with the fourth trimester, the attachment of a baby and a mother and the deep process of detachment, which we were very much at that time still attached and her health is my health and my health is her health. And the stress of this stuff had been making me sick. So I think it was helpful that, you know, the men go out and they go into battle and they take this stuff to the door and, the women stay home and know that, you know, they're kind of soldiers out there. Maybe that's all a bunch of nonsense, but that was...
[55:43] It is a bunch of nonsense because you're not answering the question. And you can not answer the question. I can't compel you to answer a question, but at least do me the solid politeness of telling me you're not going to answer the question and then we can move on to something else. do you remember what the question was the.
[56:00] Question is was it good for my daughter right them to go and do this thing right, i think it was because it helped me to feel no no not you my god your daughter not you.
[56:19] Your daughter can.
[56:21] We revisit the connection and the dyad and No.
[56:25] No, I'm sorry. I don't know what you mean by the diet. Okay, let's just break it down. Is it good for your daughter when you're stressed and distracted?
[56:32] No, it is not.
[56:33] Is it good for your daughter when you're stressed and cortisol dumps are going through your breast milk into her system?
[56:39] It is not.
[56:40] Is it good for your daughter when your adrenaline is high and you're emotionally disconnected from her?
[56:45] It is not.
[56:45] Okay, is it good for your daughter when you and your husband are getting less sleep because you're engaged in this weird combat with corrupt people?
[56:52] I didn't go and do the thing. That was just the men. Is that what you're talking about?
[56:58] Were you stressed?
[57:02] I don't remember.
[57:04] Don't even try. Don't even try and tell me that this didn't upset you or cause you any stress.
[57:10] All right. So that I can answer this accurately, please give me a moment to recall. Yeah, of course.
[57:16] Well, we can ask your husband. Was what you were doing with you and the ex-prison guard, printing out and transcribing and nailing stuff up and putting the priest in humiliating positions and challenging the power of his authority. Was this stressful for you? It was stressful for you, right?
[57:35] Yeah, it was.
[57:38] And did it upset your wife at all? Was there any concern or care, or did it bother her in any way, shape, or form that you were doing this?
[57:47] I think she felt like I was taking the burden off her and it lightened her load.
[57:52] No lightning her load would be to not engage in this kind of combat with corrupt and potentially dangerous people.
[57:58] Uh yeah um i i don't quite understand um where where the disconnect is here because to me it felt like this incident was like we're going to prepare to get closure on this whole situation. And then we did that, nailing the, taping the paper to the door. And then me and my wife got closure and the roommates didn't.
[58:31] Okay. So what do you perceive the disconnect to be?
[58:36] Well, I think, okay, perhaps we're looking at, I think we're looking at the incident of taping the papers to the door is this like two hour operation that happened one evening.
[58:52] No, it's a lot of preparation, right? You have to transcribe all of the audio recordings. I assume you have to pick out the juiciest bits, you have to highlight them. I mean, there's a lot that's involved in this, and you have to make the whole decision to do that, and you could be facing potential blowback.
[59:09] Yeah, it took me, I think it took me two days and roughly three hours each day to do this. I'm good with computers and stuff.
[59:20] But even to have the idea to do it, and to decide to do it, and then to put the papers up on the wall and then to wait for the blowback, right? That's quite a substantial investment of time.
[59:36] Yeah. I don't know. I feel like that whole process was worth it for the closure, and I don't know. i i had my theories about the evidence that i had like i.
[59:56] Had why oh my gosh you guys you guys are driving me crazy here there's there's a there's a block here that i'm really trying struggling to understand which is i keep asking was it good for your daughter that you did this.
[1:00:14] I think you have the answer in mind that the answer is no this didn't help you to calm down this didn't take any of the stress off and i.
[1:00:24] Don't know it escalate making the decision making the decision to have this combat right was stressful, It was an unnecessary combat. You already had all the information you needed about corruption, right? And so you chose to enter into an absolutely unnecessary and potentially extremely risky combat, to the detriment of your daughter. And you say, well, it gave us closure, and we got this, and we got that, and I'm asking you to focus on your daughter, not what was good for you.
[1:01:04] You keep trying to separate what was good for me and what was my good for my daughter in this. And I mean, cause she's.
[1:01:15] Because she's separate. What do you mean? Because she's separate.
[1:01:18] She's not you because she wasn't yet because no.
[1:01:22] No, she was no, absolutely. She was. Yeah. She's that person. I mean, she's separate when she's a fetus.
[1:01:27] Yes. Separate person. But as you would know, when a pregnant woman is sick, her fetus is, is sick with her right.
[1:01:35] That's my entire point and when you're stressed she's stressed.
[1:01:37] Yes so how did you.
[1:01:40] Stressing her benefit her.
[1:01:45] Because i was already stressed and wondering you know because if you had decided to.
[1:01:50] Not take on this fight your stress.
[1:01:54] Would have gone down i think i know where the uh i guess disconnect here is is that to us um we did not recognize that as a choice we were i guess kind of immediately in the mindset of oh we're going to fight this okay but but why well first of all because we were still part of this religion and we still thought that it was very important hang on.
[1:02:17] Part of the religion is different from the church.
[1:02:22] Yes, but because of the particulars of this religion, we were put in a difficult spot, you know, because we're supposed to have sacraments, and this puts us away from the sacraments, and it's not clear what church we can go to, because there's not another one nearby.
[1:02:38] Sorry, but didn't you return to atheism?
[1:02:41] No, not for a while longer. It took many more months of suffering to decide to be done with this.
[1:02:47] Okay so to be done with this was this church or religion as a whole how did that happen.
[1:02:55] Uh it took many months to be done with religion and believing and uh stuff being real without having any matter associated with it.
[1:03:06] Okay and how how long did it take how many how many weeks or whatever it was of suffering did it take to get closure with the church This particular church?
[1:03:18] I think it was within a week. This parish versus this religion versus organized religion.
[1:03:25] Are you saying that the whole thing from soup to nuts, from the start of any problems, to you getting complete closure with this church was one week?
[1:03:34] From getting kicked out?
[1:03:36] No, no, no. That's not what I asked. I asked how many weeks of suffering did it take for you to end your relationship with this church, and you said one week.
[1:03:47] Okay, no, I didn't understand your question.
[1:03:49] That's fine. My hypothesis. No problem. So from things first beginning to go amiss to you getting, ah, complete emotional closure, what was that time frame?
[1:04:05] Really long time.
[1:04:06] It was a long time, right?
[1:04:07] Very long, Next call and I'll talk to you about my dad. Sheesh.
[1:04:15] Oh, I know we're basically talking about your family, but we're not there yet. I got to understand the present first.
[1:04:25] Well, I'm suitably embarrassed.
[1:04:29] And why is that?
[1:04:32] Oh, just the bittersweet experience of having obvious truths revealed to me.
[1:04:43] And what are the obvious truths?
[1:04:45] That it took way too long to be sitting around suffering before we just... The only thing that's different right now in the amount of suffering that we're having is how much we're choosing to be a part of that church, which is now zero, and now the suffering that that could have just caused zero. And we could have done this all along. So I feel a bit something to do better next time.
[1:05:08] Well, I mean, I'm not criticizing at all, right? I'm just, you know, if you're asking me for help, I'm a prevention guy. I'm not a cure guy, right?
[1:05:19] Yes.
[1:05:20] Right. And so what my first thing would be is to say, what is best for my daughter, right? And you guys obviously are committed to this. So it's just a nudge, which we all need as parents, right? Everybody needs this as parents, right? I mean, you know, there was a time where I was a little bit too glued to my electronics because, you know, I was running this world's biggest philosophy show. And, you know, I was like, but this is for my daughter. It's like, yeah, but, you know, you still need your reminder to actually really focus on your daughter, right? So these are just reminders, which is when you get involved in this kind of stuff, you say, what is the very best for my daughter?
[1:05:59] And you say, well.
[1:06:00] No, but my responsibility is to all of these other women in the church who might be like, that's not your responsibility. Your responsibility is to your child.
[1:06:19] She's agreeing with me.
[1:06:21] I can hear it. I really can.
[1:06:23] She really is. She's tired of this getting into danger and not having actual solid friendships crap.
[1:06:31] Right. Right. Right. So, because this waiting until the shark is clamped on your leg to get out of the water stuff is no good, right?
[1:06:45] No, it's not good. Right.
[1:06:48] So that's what I'm trying to, I'm trying to move your sense of danger and certainty further back, because things could have gotten very bad with this church.
[1:06:58] Certainly.
[1:06:59] Right? I mean, there could have been legal action. There could have been, I don't know if you're in a two-party state for consent for recording. There could have been defamation. There could have been, like, there could have been any number. I don't know if you talked to lawyers or not. Like, that's a big move you're making there, right?
[1:07:17] I had an issue with connection. Are we good?
[1:07:20] Are we back?
[1:07:22] Yes, I think so.
[1:07:23] Yeah, I was just saying that there could have been legal blowback. There could have been defamation. There could have been no consent for the recording. There could have been, like, I don't know. And I don't know if you talked to lawyers or whatever, but it could have gone really badly.
[1:07:36] Well, you know, the guy being a cop, you know, he had a pretty good understanding of the law.
[1:07:40] Okay. All right. But there's, you know, there are such things as nuisance lawsuits, and Lord knows the church got some pockets, right?
[1:07:49] I think this one's pretty poor. She might have left out, but I understand what you're saying. Right.
[1:07:54] And there's lots of ways for people to get back at you.
[1:07:58] Oh, certainly.
[1:07:59] Right? I mean, people can call you a place of employment and try to get you fired. People can spread lies about you. They can, right, do any number of things that, I mean, when you tangle with people who are pretty corrupt, the blowback usually comes in a direction you don't expect. Right.
[1:08:16] Yeah.
[1:08:17] And so, and entangling without any particular power or authority is tough, right? And so, I guess I'd have some skepticism about, well, we just wanted to warn the other people. And I don't think that was true, because your primary responsibility is what is best for your child. Because your child is the only person who can't make any decisions. And so, you have to be the very strongest advocate for that which is the best for your child. Does that make sense?
[1:08:48] Yes. I think I did get carried away with this social justice kind of idea.
[1:08:53] Sorry, could you just repeat? I talked off at the beginning of your statement. Sorry.
[1:08:58] I think I did get carried away with this idea of, you know, this parenting is going to change the world and one family at a time. And we're going to start right here in this church and be the leaders here. And it just, none of it was true.
[1:09:12] Well, and then the question is, you're obviously very intelligent people. right so and listen lord knows i've gotten things wrong too so i say this with great humility but and and continually wrong too but why right this is the question this goes back to the family of origin stuff right which is why were you this wrong at at the expense to some degree of your child i.
[1:09:43] I feel like we made a compromise to get resources um my wife's friend that the female friend here was very uh helpful with our daughter especially as a newborn yeah.
[1:10:01] Okay but why was the why was the price of getting help with your newborn putting yourself into this stressful and risky situation?
[1:10:21] I don't know.
[1:10:22] Whose idea was it to post on the door?
[1:10:27] It was the male friend's.
[1:10:29] Okay. So it's his axe to grind, right? And if you'd have said, I don't want to do that, I mean, I don't have any authority, the place is obviously fairly corrupt, nobody reached out to help us, the priest is not telling the truth and is lying about us, this is just a walk-away situation.
[1:10:52] Yep.
[1:10:52] And if you had said that, what would he have done, do you think?
[1:10:58] Um agreed yeah yeah he would have he would have agreed he would have been mopey about it but he certainly would have wouldn't have done anything okay.
[1:11:07] So what was the motive for going ahead.
[1:11:14] Uh i suppose i was just trying to i i wanted to fix that guy i wanted to make him the male friend you.
[1:11:24] Wanted to fix him.
[1:11:25] Yeah i wanted to fix how would.
[1:11:27] How does nailing transcripts of the door fix your friend.
[1:11:30] Uh it's it's it's action it's um i'm showing him uh decisiveness and it was i don't know i'm trying to get behind okay so why don't i don't know what.
[1:11:44] Action okay so what was what's broken about him that needs to be fixed.
[1:11:51] Uh he's fat he's a galleon um he is really lazy um yeah okay.
[1:12:02] So why is it your job to fix him and this is where we go to your childhood what broken person in your childhood could you spend the rest of your life trying to fix and fail.
[1:12:12] Oh yeah that'd be i mean that'd be everybody but my mom.
[1:12:19] Okay. And so you tried for, and as did I, right? And it's an okay thing to do. I guess it's important to clear your conscience. But so you tried to fix your mom for many years?
[1:12:31] It was kind of off and on. It was, she would like complain or be like super verbally aggressive. And then I would try and spend time with her and talk to her and make her, make her stable.
[1:12:47] Okay, so you were like the sanity valve, in a sense, or trying to bring oxygen into your mom's lungs and just trying to keep her sane, is that right?
[1:12:57] Yes.
[1:12:58] Okay. And how did that project play out?
[1:13:02] Um well and she got no better over the years um, eventually when when my wife was pregnant i i decided that enough was enough, and i i started the conversations about my childhood and and the last one uh she she She called me a retard, laughed my face, and said, there's no way this conversation's real.
[1:13:32] I'm so sorry to hear that. I really am. Okay. And that's when your wife was pregnant?
[1:13:38] Yep.
[1:13:38] Okay. And why do you think you didn't have those conversations before, having listened to me for a long time?
[1:13:50] Um that marked basically a year since i was free of their financial uh, resources.
[1:14:00] Okay so you needed money for them and therefore you didn't want to uh tell.
[1:14:05] Yeah i mean we're pretty you've been living yeah we were pretty young i just a year ago i was still living with them and there i don't know there there's some conflict and i I was basically like, I need to get out of this house at all costs. And I had another friend that helped me achieve that.
[1:14:26] Okay. I'm glad to hear that for sure. Okay. And are you guys in your 20s?
[1:14:32] Yes.
[1:14:33] Mid-20s?
[1:14:33] Early 20s.
[1:14:34] Early 20s.
[1:14:35] Okay.
[1:14:36] Got it. Got it. All right. So, the priest bothered you a lot, and you've talked about your mother, and what were your frustrations or disappointments, if any, I assume some, with your father?
[1:14:54] My father's just really, I don't know, ineffective and disorganized.
[1:15:02] Okay. And was he part of the conversation you had about your childhood?
[1:15:07] Yes.
[1:15:08] And how did he react?
[1:15:12] He was trying to be reasonable, just basically just playing defense for my mom, like all the aggressive stuff she did that I brought up. he he he likes to brag um he said that there is an early conversation he had with her when they're having kids that they weren't going to teach their kids fear and he genuinely believed that but they failed so hard dad also got angry yes very rare for him at you yeah right.
[1:15:44] For upsetting his wife and making his life more difficult you get to.
[1:15:47] Go home.
[1:15:48] He's got to keep living with her right.
[1:15:50] Yeah they don't have a good marriage they don't have a good marriage but you already knew that right.
[1:15:56] Right okay, so you wanted to fix your fat friend right mhm and is he older.
[1:16:14] He was a couple years older than me yeah Okay.
[1:16:19] And so you have a theory that if you act decisively, then you can fix his lethargy, right?
[1:16:29] Yeah, I'll get rapport and then he'll believe more of my arguments as well.
[1:16:33] Oh, he'll keep up the hegalianism and stuff. I'm so sorry. Go ahead.
[1:16:37] That worked well when we got our house. This couple helped us to remodel it in a span of weeks. And when my husband had the house and was making the decisions and was being a leader, this friend of ours was quite industrious. Yeah. It was lovely to see, actually. And they volunteered quite a lot of time to help us with this.
[1:17:09] Sorry, you've cut out again. You'll need to get a little closer.
[1:17:12] My apologies. jesus when it basically it had worked in the past when we were getting to know each other, and this friend was helping my husband to remodel the house make it habitable he was very industrious sorry you're.
[1:17:29] Still uh very tinny.
[1:17:31] That might be connection okay that's better Oh, there we go.
[1:17:39] So the obese friend was helpful in remodeling the house, right?
[1:17:45] Very, yes.
[1:17:46] And why did he want to do this labor?
[1:17:50] Oh, yeah. Well, we thought it was because they liked us.
[1:17:55] Well, but what would he get in return?
[1:17:59] Our current theory is that they are pursuing church status by helping us because they thought we would be a high-status family in the church in the future. Or that we were the platonic ideal of a needy family and they were getting spiritual benefit from helping us.
[1:18:15] So it was a kind of charity.
[1:18:18] Yeah, yeah.
[1:18:22] Interesting. And how long had this guy been part of the church?
[1:18:28] He was a member up for the longest, a few years, maybe like three or four at that point.
[1:18:36] Sorry, you said he was a member up for the longest? I'm sure I misheard that, but I'm not sure what you meant.
[1:18:41] Yes. So in the group of us four, three of us were members for less than a year, and he had been in the church for, I think, about three or four years. But he had moved and was somewhat new to this particular parish.
[1:18:59] Sorry, so this particular parish he was new?
[1:19:03] Yes, but had been practicing the religion for longer than all the rest of us.
[1:19:09] And did he ever explain to you why he was unable to see the corruption in the church, in this parish?
[1:19:20] This guy is an absolute fog machine when I talk to him I don't know a single thing that he's communicated to me that I can trust.
[1:19:32] Okay so you accepted the wife's help with the baby and the husband's help with the house right yeah and then you felt obligated.
[1:19:47] Yeah i suppose well.
[1:19:49] Sorry i don't want to put words in your mouth if that's not correct i won't i won't.
[1:19:52] Say it yeah give me a moment i yeah i i thought i thought we had maybe this like sort of friendship going on there'd be this bond and that they they would have this uh change, trajectory or arc in their life where they would uh fix the the problems they had well they were They were making good progress, especially the wife, who was my friend in particular, had changed quite a bit from the time that I met her and was in many ways more confident, more certain about what she wanted to do. She was taking lots of actions to pursue, I guess, her goal of assisting women and children as much as possible.
[1:20:53] Assisting women and children? Her husband's 300 pounds.
[1:21:00] Yeah.
[1:21:02] And lazy.
[1:21:04] Yeah.
[1:21:05] I mean, you know the old thing, forget about the dust in your brother's eye, how about the big splinter in yours, right? Doesn't charity begin at home?
[1:21:19] He was losing weight. Yeah, for a time he was. But when he got married, he started losing the weight, he started doing a lot better. I mean the so he sorry my understanding was.
[1:21:30] That he was 300 pounds and and lazy and a hegelian.
[1:21:34] Yes correct but uh what I was trying to say is that there is this particular stretch of time maybe six months to a year where both of them were showing a lot of positive trajectory and and making changes and getting happier so.
[1:21:52] What values did you guys share I mean outside of the abstract religious values, what values did you guys share that...
[1:22:00] Peaceful parenting?
[1:22:01] I'm sorry?
[1:22:02] Peaceful parenting?
[1:22:06] Well, yes, but peaceful parenting is also about keeping your kids' lives peaceful, which was not going to happen when you're taking on the church.
[1:22:15] These two people, they were against punishing children.
[1:22:22] Okay. And did they ever say this fight is going to be negative for your daughter?
[1:22:29] No, they did not. I think part of the idea was, on their end, was we're fighting for this baby. We're going to defend her from this church that's trying to kick her out when she can't. I'm not saying if that was right or not, but there was a question at the time of the child.
[1:22:50] Let's play that out. So what was the fantasy scenario, or I wouldn't say fantasy, sorry, that's kind of disrespectful. What was the ideal scenario about putting the transcripts on the door? What were you hoping to happen? to happen?
[1:23:05] Everybody was going to read it. They were all going to join with us in lobbying the higher-ups of the religion, and the priest was going to be removed, and a good priest was going to be instated, and everything was going to be sunshine and roses, and peaceful parenting would reign supreme in the church for some reason.
[1:23:27] Okay, so you felt that the priest being Being hypocritical would be more of a propulsion to peaceful parenting than, say, a kid getting his head smacked on a chair by accident or getting hit by a parent.
[1:23:49] I don't think I quite understand.
[1:23:50] Well, so some of the instances, you said that there was the baby room, I can't remember what it was called, the breastfeeding room that was silent so they don't want kids around.
[1:24:00] No, there was one. There was not one in this church, which is part of what grew.
[1:24:04] Sorry, sorry, my apologies. So was it in this church that you saw a father smack a child and then another child being treated roughly and banging his head on a chair?
[1:24:15] Correct. Okay.
[1:24:16] Okay, so there is some cruelty and coldness towards children, and then, of course, the attack upon you for breastfeeding and so on, where everybody sided with the priest, right? So they're cruel towards children, and then when you're not cruel towards children, everybody works to get you out, right? So this is what I'm trying to get to with regards to the naivete. Okay, who was a better judge of the congregation, the priest or you?
[1:24:44] Priest.
[1:24:44] Right. So, people in power do what they can get away with. So, the priest, who's a lot of experience, it sounds like being hypocritical and manipulating people, right? So, people of quality won't be in that church because they'll smell the corruption coming off the priest like manure. So, the priest knows that he can treat you this way and everyone's going to side with him. so the priest you need to take your assessment of the congregation from the priest, because he kicked you out and everyone if he'd have thought man if I kick these people out they're going to get me booted out of the church he wouldn't have done it, he knew for absolute certain that the congregation was going to side with him, and you putting a transcript on the door won't change that at all, So this is what I'm trying to get you with the sort of naivety stuff and the, I need closure. The priest gave you all the closure you needed.
[1:25:50] Yeah.
[1:25:51] I mean, sorry, like, I'll give you sort of two examples, like why I sort of understand this. Number one, you know, my mother hit me a lot when I was a kid, and she knew that nobody was going to call the cops. She accurately assessed the society in three different continents. She accurately assessed the motives of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people to not lift a finger. She knew that she would be able to get away with it. And she taught me a lot about the world that way. I didn't listen for a long time, but she did. And when I was deplatformed, everybody, like the people who deplatformed me knew that most of my audience would not follow me.
[1:26:29] May I just interject with a question?
[1:26:31] Yes.
[1:26:35] What could, if some stranger could have encountered you and your mother in a restaurant when you were a child, what would you want that person to do?
[1:26:47] Well, I'm not sure what you mean.
[1:26:50] Or a family member, or the help that you didn't get, that none of us got, what could someone do?
[1:27:06] I'm still not sure what you mean. Nobody did do things like nobody ever did.
[1:27:13] Yeah.
[1:27:13] So that's the reality. I mean, if pigs could fly kind of thing, I mean, that is the reality. Oh, I see what you mean. So if I'd have said somebody should have done X, Y, and Z, then it's incumbent upon me to do X, Y, and Z?
[1:27:34] Or, well, I say somebody should have helped, so how can I help is my real question, I guess.
[1:27:41] Well, charity begins at home. The first person you are responsible for helping is who?
[1:27:47] Is my daughter.
[1:27:48] Right. Did this help your daughter? This is my fundamental question.
[1:27:55] Okay. I mean, if you, we can just drop that topic.
[1:28:00] No, no, but I mean, it's an important question that you're asking. What would I have wanted people to do? Well, I mean, I would have liked to have gotten some comfort. I would like somebody to have tried to give me some comfort, some sympathy. I wouldn't have minded if my mother had been instructed to take some kind of parenting program. um i would as an adult i would very much like to have received sympathy from anyone who knew about it like i'm 58 this month and i've yet to receive any sympathy from anyone even though i've been very public all the people i grew up with nobody's ever given me any sympathy although i've been very public about it so there's something over the last 58 years i don't know exactly what and i understand that there are risks in all these kinds of things and maybe people couldn't have helped me that much i don't know but the point is the point is that this was a corrupt situation yeah.
[1:29:00] And there's actually another incident that really demonstrates this and perhaps should have been the waking up moment so after that father carelessly knocked his kid into to the metal chair and the kid was crying for a long time I think within a week I pulled him aside and I said it's kind of bothersome how violent you are with your kids, and you should be doing better or something like that I said to him and then he just walked away but, afterwards the couple that we ended up being roommates with scolded us for saying that.
[1:29:44] And was this this incident happened before movements about breastfeeding started to get you kicked out of the church yep.
[1:29:52] Well before that.
[1:29:53] Right i mean he could have been somebody who was upset and gathering evidence and enemies against you right oh certainly yeah right i.
[1:30:04] I suppose it was at that moment that i i kind of woke up and i didn't do anything about it Well, that was after you had already started telling me that we weren't going to be at that church much longer because it was going to upset our child once they were born to see the violence against children.
[1:30:28] Sorry, I'm not sure if you guys are talking to each other or you're waiting for a response from me.
[1:30:33] It's your go.
[1:30:34] Okay, so you knew that the church was corrupt and violent against children, and that the priest was doing nothing about it, right?
[1:30:43] Yep.
[1:30:44] And when did you find out about the attempted murder of the other person?
[1:30:50] A little bit before the kicking out incident happened.
[1:30:54] Okay, so this was a church that openly condoned aggression against children, sometimes violence against children, and also covered up an attempted murder of a parishioner.
[1:31:03] Right?
[1:31:06] So I'm sorry I don't mean to laugh but what is a piece of paper on the door going to do to change that.
[1:31:15] I think laughing is appropriate.
[1:31:16] No listen so here's what you need to do I mean obviously I'm tongue in cheek don't do any of this stuff but you need to go down to some local drug gang and make sure that they're aware of the laws.
[1:31:29] I think we should go email the higher ups and the clergy harder.
[1:31:35] Send a letter to the Federal Reserve saying that counterfeiting money is actually not super moral laughter, Send a letter to the military industrial complex saying that disassembling human beings for fun and profit is not particularly virtuous. It'll resolve everything.
[1:31:52] If anybody sent me a letter that was like, hey, I saw you doing something very immoral, and I don't think you should do that, I would go and track that person down so I could thank them personally, not...
[1:32:04] Well, you have a slightly inflated view of your own ability to accept criticism, my friend, because it took me about 45 minutes to get you to stop talking about yourself and talk about your daughter.
[1:32:19] I still think you're just incorrect about some of that.
[1:32:24] Okay, so if somebody says you're doing something suboptimal, you'll totally listen, except me, who you've been listening to for years.
[1:32:31] I'm talking to people right now, and your thanks is coming at the end of the call. Be patient.
[1:32:34] I'm sorry?
[1:32:36] I said I'm listening to you right now, and your thanks is coming at the end of the call.
[1:32:38] You said I would go and thank that person for saying I was doing something suboptimal, and you are fighting me tooth and nail.
[1:32:47] Yes.
[1:32:47] So you understand there's a bit of a disparity there.
[1:32:50] Did you notice the part where it was a letter, and I would have had lots and lots of time to absorb it?
[1:32:54] Right. Okay. Okay. I got it. I got it. Look, I think it's funny. I'm not taking offense or anything like that, so it's fairly lighthearted. I appreciate that.
[1:33:05] Thank you.
[1:33:06] Yeah, yeah. Okay. So what I'm trying to get across is that, there was more than enough evidence that this place was not for you.
[1:33:21] Yeah. There was.
[1:33:23] Okay, so let's go back in time, to the earliest instance where you could conceivably have said, this place is not for us.
[1:33:39] That's a bit tricky, man. Wouldn't it let us get married without going through the government? Okay. That's a bit... I don't know what you'd say. Good enough for me. I agree with that.
[1:33:56] Okay, and what about your roommates? So you said the roommates from hell, and what's the issue now? Oh, sorry, I don't mean now. What are the issues that have been coming up with that?
[1:34:08] Like, what was so bad about their stay?
[1:34:11] Yeah. Are they still with you?
[1:34:13] No. No, we got rid of them a month ago, but they still have our house keys and left a bunch of their stuff, including used motor oil. That's just.
[1:34:22] Wow. So they were very good at social lubrication. Okay, got it. And so what happened with the roommate situation?
[1:34:33] The silent treatment was a big one. Yeah, they just like treated us like we were their abusive parents and were. It was so bad. I did not realize just how much aggression could just be exuded with the glances and spare comments.
[1:34:52] And what happened that they went from super helpful charity merchants to, you know, icebergs with legs.
[1:35:03] There's like, there's a couple of stepping stones. The last big one was when I had kind of sat back and relaxed one day and And realized that I didn't believe any of this religious stuff. And it had been a massive issue with my life and dragged my wife and daughter through tons of unnecessary pain and suffering. And I rounded up all the paraphernalia associated with that religion and shoved it in a cardboard box and got rid of it. Well, not all of it, just ours. We left theirs. Yep, theirs. Which is relevant. Yes, yes.
[1:35:35] Sorry, did you lose your cell phone and couldn't retrieve it this time? Or what was the epiphany that had you go in that journey?
[1:35:42] I don't know. What was the epiphany that made me realize this? Nothing in particular. I just sat back and listened to my conscience that had been bugging me for Brian's entire time.
[1:35:56] Sorry, your audio's getting tinny again?
[1:36:02] It's better.
[1:36:03] No, not yet? That's better. That's good? Okay, go ahead.
[1:36:12] I just listened to my conscience that had been bugging me for a long time. I guess I just sat back and relaxed and listened to it and realized all this stuff I already know.
[1:36:26] So, if you had gotten what you wanted with the church, it could have delayed that epiphany for years.
[1:36:33] Yeah. That'd be terrible.
[1:36:38] So, the congregation and the priest were doing you a solid.
[1:36:43] Yes as were lots of other people in my life who were highly aggressive towards me.
[1:36:47] Okay so it's just listening right so the optimism of change and again i look you you guys are like brilliant and doing fantastically for your early 20s so so please understand this i had i was nowhere near where you guys are with with much less excuse in some way so i say this with all deep humility, but it is very easy because we are susceptible to reason and evidence to think that that's true of people as a whole when you were shocked by the priest's hypocrisy and you're like well this is no good this has got to change and you're like well i'm sure all people have to do is see this and they'll agree but.
[1:37:27] Stuff my parents told me adults don't lie and i believe them.
[1:37:35] Yeah okay uh do we want to talk about your parents and their credibility in this call or is that another call um.
[1:37:42] I don't know up to you i think we're ready to keep going.
[1:37:45] Uh well let's just keep it brief here so uh tell me why your parents would have such credibility with you uh.
[1:37:53] Because they didn't lie to me about stuff that they actually knew.
[1:37:57] In terms of you Oh my gosh, you are some work, my friend. You are a little bit of work. My parents lied to me. Why did they have credibility? They never lied to me.
[1:38:08] Because stuff I could verify as a child, they did not lie. So, growing up this whole time, I just thought that they just hadn't ever lied.
[1:38:19] So, are you telling me your parents, listen, I'm a pretty honest parent. I've lied to my daughter. I mean, what do you mean your parents have never lied to you? You say the stuff that you could verify. What do you mean?
[1:38:32] Well, I mean, they wouldn't. So, they did Santa Claus in our house.
[1:38:37] Okay, that's a lie.
[1:38:38] But they never said Santa Claus is real. They used the social norm of Santa Claus and encouraged it by saying things like, yes, an old fat guy is going to bring you presents, which was my dad's self-deprecating joke, and so on and so forth. And yes, this sounds crazy, and I have some beef with them about it, but in terms of facts, if they knew a fact, they would not tell me something that was contrary to that fact, unless it was a big idea like adults don't lie that was going to help make me tell the truth more or something.
[1:39:19] So they told you that adults never lie?
[1:39:22] No, they said adults don't lie.
[1:39:24] Well no come on that's if i say uh i i don't sleep at night then i don't sleep at night.
[1:39:33] Well this was the kind of.
[1:39:34] No no no there's no no so they say said adults don't lie, yes but that's a lie yeah i mean because you would have friends whose parents would say santa claus is real right yeah okay so their parents are telling them santa claus is real and you figure out pretty early that Santa Claus is not real and therefore you know that your parents are lying about adults not lying.
[1:40:01] No, I didn't put those things together. It took me a very long time before I put things together. I was probably 19 before I ever put two and two together and got four.
[1:40:10] Okay. So why, I mean, you're obviously very intelligent, so why would you not put these things together? It's not for lack of intelligence. It's got to be for some other reason.
[1:40:20] I don't, I don't know. My childhood is a very confusing thing to remember because I didn't form opinions about people. I didn't know how to tell people apart from each other. If they had the same hair color, I wouldn't know that there were two blondes in my class. I thought it was one person. I don't know. I left my parents' house. I went away to college very briefly, and I started to notice that some people are jerks. This is how they interact in the world. This is the way other people navigate around people who are jerks. And it was like a cloud had been lifted from in front of my eyes that I'm sure most people come to this point.
[1:41:09] Hang on, hang on. This is the sweat of narrative all over it. Are you saying that you didn't meet any kids who were jerks when you were growing up?
[1:41:20] I did.
[1:41:21] So why, what do you mean? In college, I finally realized that people could be jerks. I don't understand that. You would have met jerks like all of us did when we were kids?
[1:41:30] I needed my parents or a teacher or somebody to tell me that kid's a jerk.
[1:41:35] So you didn't have any negative experiences of anyone until you went to college?
[1:41:39] I did, but I didn't understand them.
[1:41:43] I don't know what that means.
[1:41:45] It's puzzling to me as well. But let's say some kid at preschool...
[1:41:53] No, no, let's say. Give me a negative experience you had with a kid when you were a kid.
[1:41:58] Oh, gosh. A child bit my little brother.
[1:42:04] No, no, you. You had.
[1:42:06] I was upset at him because I loved my brother I understand but given.
[1:42:11] That things are confusing for you I don't want to put an additional layer in called your brother.
[1:42:17] Oh goodness this is going to be extremely difficult for me no you said you.
[1:42:22] Had negative experiences so I'm just asking you just one of those.
[1:42:27] Uh huh, um It didn't stick in my brain well. Um, yeah, I know when you told me. Was it a kid being mean to me or an adult? Oh, yeah. A kid? Oh. This is what I mean. It didn't go in my brain. I'm certain it happened because I went through life. What? that wasn't i don't know i don't i don't have any i'm i'm very sorry that's.
[1:43:24] Fine we can go to the adults being a jerk to you or being mean to you as a child does that what.
[1:43:30] What your.
[1:43:30] Husband can remember.
[1:43:33] Is she's told me a couple times where someone was mean to her in her childhood but do you remember a time an adult was mean to you off the top of your head right now oh yeah lots of times okay, My brain's going to melt. Can you just take over for a second? Okay. Ow. Oh, geez. She's trying to remember too hard. Don't get concussion. Oh, okay. Okay. So someone in, um, someone in, I ended up skipping a grade. I skipped fourth grade. So a fifth grader in the new grade that I was in came up to me and told me, Oh, you're, you're just a stupid little third grader. You don't belong here. And, uh, what I did was I went home and I told my mom about it. And my mom told me that that person wasn't very nice.
[1:44:44] And so you didn't have a negative experience of being told you were a stupid little third grader?
[1:44:50] I had the experience, but I took it as an isolated event. I didn't really connect it with the person.
[1:44:58] I don't know what that means. I mean, it was the person saying it to you.
[1:45:04] Right.
[1:45:04] It was like a note you found that you didn't know who wrote it. I mean, the person literally said it to your face right.
[1:45:09] Yeah she said it to me and i was kind of like huh she is trying to be mean to me in this moment okay and, that was as far as it went i didn't adjust my perception of her to think wow she's not a very nice person well.
[1:45:30] It could have been an isolated incident.
[1:45:34] It could, but she really wasn't a very nice person.
[1:45:37] And how did you know that?
[1:45:39] Well, because later on, as I would have been a teenager, she bullied someone who was a friend of mine. And that upset me.
[1:45:50] Okay. So then you know that people are jerks, or can be, as a kid.
[1:45:57] To other people.
[1:45:59] Okay.
[1:46:02] But not... Not to me, unless somebody pointed it out to me.
[1:46:07] No, it was to you, because it bothered you that this girl was bullying your friend, just as it bothered you when the kid hit your brother.
[1:46:15] Yes.
[1:46:15] So it did bother you. That bothered me, yeah. It was a negative experience you had of people being jerks. Now, the fact that it was directed at you immediately, well, that's, you know, the thing they always have in these stupid movies where someone always ends up being tied to a chair under a swinging light bulb is to say, we've kidnapped your family and we're going to hurt them. And it's like, that's how they hurt them, right? That's how they hurt the guys. They kidnap his, you know, I mean, John Wick's dog or whatever, right? So the fact that you're upset because people are being jerks to your friends and your brother, that's having a negative experience of people, right? That's knowing that people are jerks.
[1:46:53] Yeah. And so there was kind of this idea of, I need to protect my friend from this person, or I need to protect my brother from this person.
[1:47:01] Right. So then you didn't have to wait to college to know that people could be jerks.
[1:47:06] But in college was the time that I started to notice somebody's actions as being a pattern. Does that make any sense?
[1:47:17] No, it doesn't make any sense based on what you just told me. You said, I have to work to protect my friends and family. Your friend and your brother, you had to work to protect them, which means that you knew there was a pattern of bullying. Right.
[1:47:31] Yeah.
[1:47:33] Because it had happened in the past and the person was mean, it was going to happen in the future, so you had to work to protect that person, so you already knew there was a pattern.
[1:47:44] Kind of, yeah.
[1:47:46] I don't know what you mean by kind of. I'm just going off what you said, right?
[1:47:50] Yeah, no, I understand that it doesn't make a lot of sense what I'm saying, but there was definitely something different when I got to college and noticed when I wasn't living with my parents anymore, I very much began to see people and make judgments about them for myself in different ways.
[1:48:07] Okay, so how did your parents handle that kids were mean to your friend or or your brother?
[1:48:16] I think my mom.
[1:48:20] Sorry, what do you mean you think? Do you not remember?
[1:48:24] I was very, very young. My brother was only a baby.
[1:48:29] Sorry, a kid hit your brother when he was a baby?
[1:48:33] The babies bit each other.
[1:48:36] Okay. There's another baby around, he bites your brother?
[1:48:40] Yes.
[1:48:41] Okay, that's not a kid being a jerk. because I said kids, not babies, right? Babies can't be jerks.
[1:48:47] Oh, yeah. You're completely right. I had always remembered this through the mind of my very young self who just saw someone hurt my brother and got angry. You're right. That kid was not to blame and I should not blame the baby at all.
[1:49:01] But the older girl who bullied your friend.
[1:49:06] Right. With that, I... That would have been high school.
[1:49:16] Okay. And you said to your mother, there's somebody bullying my friend, there's a kid bullying my friend or something like that. And what did she do or say?
[1:49:23] No, fifth grade, I would have said there's someone who said something mean to me.
[1:49:26] You went through that story and your mom said.
[1:49:32] So, by high school, I didn't really feel that this person had already been established as not nice. Does that make any sense?
[1:49:41] Sure. Yeah. You've got a pattern. Yeah.
[1:49:42] So I didn't feel the need to go and make the report to headquarters.
[1:49:46] I don't know what that means.
[1:49:48] I didn't go home and tell my parents about this.
[1:49:51] Oh, okay. Got it. So you didn't tell your parents that anyone was being mean to your friend?
[1:49:56] No.
[1:49:57] Okay. Got it.
[1:49:58] No, I didn't need.
[1:49:59] And so you've got two incidents, but I guess three, right? Baby bit your brother doesn't count. Girl says you're just a stupid third grader. You tell your mother. And what did your mother say? That she's mean? That's not very nice?
[1:50:11] Yeah. Okay.
[1:50:12] And then uh you see your.
[1:50:15] Uh your friend.
[1:50:15] Get bullied by the same girl and you.
[1:50:17] Don't tell.
[1:50:18] Your family right.
[1:50:19] Right the girl was saying mean things so i just i said something to her i don't remember exactly what it was but it was like well at least she's a lot nicer than you are you know right and were you disciplined.
[1:50:33] Or punished by your parents when you were a child.
[1:50:35] Yep how did How.
[1:50:38] Did they do that?
[1:50:41] Mostly spanking, especially when I was very young. Obviously, considerably more than they would tell you. And then we did timeout corner, taking away toys. Sometimes something I liked would get destroyed or some outing.
[1:50:58] What do you mean destroyed?
[1:51:01] There was a shirt that I liked that my dad ripped up in front of me to punish me for something.
[1:51:10] That's quite violent, right?
[1:51:14] My husband is nodding, so I'm going to go with yes.
[1:51:17] No, no, don't take the cues from your husband.
[1:51:20] But I always take cues from my husband because he's the best. Moving on. I had cut the shirt a little bit with scissors. So they were like, all right, if you want it cut, we'll cut it. And we tore it up.
[1:51:37] Okay. And how often were you, you said that they spanked you more often than they would admit when you were little. and how often would they spank you, roughly?
[1:51:47] I don't know, but I would guess at least every few months, probably more than that, just based on what I know about recollections of these things.
[1:51:57] Okay, and so you were spanked, there were timeouts, sometimes your property would get harmed or destroyed. Was there anything else?
[1:52:06] Sometimes something I wanted to do would get canceled, like they were going to go on a vacation and uh they wanted me to i i don't remember exactly they wanted me to write a letter to somebody apologizing for being rude for not having fun at their party that was it and they said that if you don't write this letter you won't get to go on the vacation, you'll have to stay home and so you then stayed home no no oh you did.
[1:52:40] Write the letter i.
[1:52:41] Sat myself down and wrote that letter because i wanted to go to the happy amusement park with my family and.
[1:52:46] When you were a teenager did you date at all.
[1:52:50] Uh not in school not when i was a child not until i was an adult no okay.
[1:52:56] And um so you did have negative negative experiences with adults which would be the punishments from your family right.
[1:53:07] Yes and from teachers and.
[1:53:10] How would the teachers punish you like lines and detentions and stuff or.
[1:53:14] Yeah that sort of thing and nobody ever hit me in school did.
[1:53:18] You ever experience any sexual misconduct when you were a child i.
[1:53:24] Don't think so but nothing that i remember.
[1:53:30] Okay all right and.
[1:53:33] How's your relationship i'm.
[1:53:34] Sorry go ahead.
[1:53:34] Sorry for that odd answer no.
[1:53:37] That's fine how uh how is your relationship with your parents now.
[1:53:39] Uh my mom hasn't spoken to me in quite some time i talked to both of them about this and sorry about what uh how i was disciplined as a child okay and many of the things that they did very well i will say um in many ways i had exceptionally good parents, which made things confusing. And so I talked to them about this.
[1:54:05] Sorry, what did it make confusing?
[1:54:09] Somebody who loves me so much and is such a good parent in many ways, choosing to hurt me.
[1:54:19] Okay, so you talked to your parents about things you had issues with when they were raising you, and what happened there?
[1:54:26] We had a fairly good conversation the first time while I was pregnant. They both came out after the birth of our daughter to help out. and after that i think when it became clear that i was dead serious about raising my daughter peacefully uh right from the get-go they became increasingly distant and upset with me they started to lie to me about the punishments um they started to accuse me of wanting to cut them off and my mom hasn't talked to me in months my dad uh he's agreed to go and get some therapy and to pay for some therapy for me because my husband pulled some strings i guess, he he talked to my dad and said you know if you think your daughter's crazy you should get her some therapy sorry.
[1:55:25] He thinks you're crazy.
[1:55:26] Yeah that's been part of the lying to me about punishment is i'm making this up i don't have a good grip on reality i've never had a good grip on reality oh so you're getting seriously gaslit well yeah okay sorry about.
[1:55:40] That i really am.
[1:55:41] Thank you it it does a number on them, so and that's why i'm sorry this.
[1:55:50] Was while you were pregnant and this did this sort of you said that they came out when when your daughter was born is that right.
[1:55:56] Yes.
[1:55:57] And your mother came too. So this was after your daughter was born, you had more of these conversations, and then your mother cut you off and your father says you're crazy.
[1:56:06] Yeah, there was some rather contrived incident where a distant family member I don't like sent me a blanket and I didn't write a card to them. Something about writing cards, I don't know what it is. And my mom basically cut me off over that.
[1:56:23] So your mom cut you off because you didn't send a thank you card to somebody who sent you a blanket yes okay, Did you text the person to say thanks or just nothing?
[1:56:35] I actually, I texted him when the first gifts came and then something happened where they kept, I didn't want to have any contact with this person. And so.
[1:56:49] Sorry, I'm not disagreeing with you, but why not?
[1:56:52] No, I'm just thinking. oh because he and his wife are jerks to me and my mom and my grandma which i guess none of that matters except being jerks to me now but okay they were just, a lot of it was disagreements about covid stuff and then i just didn't i didn't want, to have them in my life anymore i was never close with them i hadn't given them my address or told them I got married or anything like that, but my parents gave them this stuff, so they had my address.
[1:57:29] You said you had good parents, really good parents in a lot of ways, and you're not close to them. And why do you think you're not close to them? Again, I'm not criticizing or disagreeing. I'm just genuinely curious.
[1:57:44] Close to whom?
[1:57:46] Your parents.
[1:57:47] A distant relative?
[1:57:48] No, sorry. Do you mean your parents? You weren't close to your parents or just this distant relative?
[1:57:52] I was very close to my parents growing up.
[1:57:53] You were very close to your parents, okay. So, and the falling away from your parents happened when you started talking about the punishments you received as a child?
[1:58:01] In large part, and also because of this absence of a thank you card. I texted the guy.
[1:58:06] Okay, come on, come on. No, no, listen, listen. Come on.
[1:58:10] That was the...
[1:58:10] No, no, no. Hang on, hang on, hang on. I've done a lot of listening, right?
[1:58:15] Yes. Okay.
[1:58:16] The idea, the notion that your mother would cut you off because you didn't send a thank you card is absolutely incomprehensible.
[1:58:30] Yes.
[1:58:31] It's absolutely, completely, and totally inexcusable. Obviously, it has nothing to do with the cart.
[1:58:37] These events coincided. I think she wanted a reason to be able to stop talking to me. I don't know exactly why.
[1:58:47] Okay, do you know approximately why?
[1:58:50] Because the way I was treating my own daughter makes her feel horrible about the way she treated her children.
[1:58:58] Well if they and and i'm not obviously excusing this with regards to your parents but you understand that as a guy who's been having these conversations for close to 20 years i've heard some pretty ugly dark stuff now saying parents don't saying adults don't lie it's not ideal and it's going to give you some naivety and it's going to leave you a little bit unprotected when you get older but that's not the worst thing i've ever heard far from it you know a spanking every couple of months when you're young followed by timeouts you know i think it was It was pretty excessive to cut up the shirt, but, you know, they weren't torturing you. I've had, you know, people talk about being choked out by their parents, arms broken by their parents. I've had people, parents put out cigarettes on their arms, like there's been incest and like all kinds of crazy, ugly, evil stuff. And your parents... were not bad they were not terribly bad for the time no.
[1:59:57] Not at all.
[1:59:58] So what is going like why do you think they i mean if you say i wish you hadn't spanked me right i mean if you're getting spanked it happened when you were quite young right because then they moved to timeouts and stuff right there.
[2:00:13] Was both for a while.
[2:00:14] Okay and when did they last lay hands on you in anger or how old were you?
[2:00:20] I have no idea.
[2:00:23] You have some idea. It wasn't 18 and it wasn't one, right? Yes, in some places, single digits.
[2:00:29] That's true. If I had to guess, I'd say I would have been eight.
[2:00:43] Eight, okay. And did they ever call you names or put you down verbally?
[2:00:49] They didn't call me names they wouldn't swear at me uh sometimes my mom would say like this is so like you when i had done something she didn't like or i mean yeah that's a fairly.
[2:01:02] Mild reproof right so.
[2:01:04] Yeah okay everything it was like me okay.
[2:01:07] So where did they take great pleasure in your company did they look forward to you being home did they uh.
[2:01:13] Look forward.
[2:01:14] To spending time with you.
[2:01:16] Yes.
[2:01:18] So you were very close and tight with your parents. You started to talk to them about the spanking stuff and the timeouts and so on.
[2:01:26] Yep.
[2:01:28] And they spiraled off and your mother hasn't talked to you for months.
[2:01:32] Yep.
[2:01:35] Does this strike you as odd?
[2:01:37] Very.
[2:01:38] Why?
[2:01:39] I didn't see it coming.
[2:01:40] Why do you think it's happening? I'm not blaming you, of course. I'm just curious. This is something I've never really heard of before.
[2:01:47] I keep saying this. If there are parents who could recover from spanking their children and have a good relationship, It's my parents. I've tried to get my dad to call in with me to talk to you, and he wouldn't do it.
[2:02:06] Well, the other thing, too, is why isn't your father healing the rift between you and your mother?
[2:02:11] I don't know.
[2:02:12] And saying, come on, guys, let's sit down and talk about this. We're now grandparents. We love our daughter. And my gosh, this is literally one of the saddest things I've heard of in my life.
[2:02:26] I'm sorry. It is awful. because because there.
[2:02:32] This is like.
[2:02:33] A bridge that you think is very solid just.
[2:02:36] Disappearing when you're walking on it.
[2:02:37] Yes and after after all of this my dad i'll just tell you the whole story about my dad he came out for my daughter's baptism and there was other family here and relatives who had said some concerning things to me about wanting to steal my daughter and you know i just didn't want them holding my newborn when i'm sorry what what.
[2:03:10] Do you mean steal your daughter.
[2:03:11] Grandma joke senile old person oh i eat.
[2:03:16] Her up i could just take her with me and run away? Like, jokes, right?
[2:03:19] Yeah. Well, mostly, but it was a bit much for me, and I just didn't want them to hold my daughter when I wasn't there. So I had to go do some laundry, so I handed my daughter to my dad, and I said, can you hold her for me? And I came back, and he was still holding her, but I felt weird, And I saw there were pictures that they had taken of the other relatives holding my daughter. And I was, she also, she looked distraught in the picture. She was gray in the face and afraid. So I was upset about that. And so I said to my dad, I didn't want you to do that. And then he just kind of, it was fine. And then he left. And I called him again about it. I was like, this is really bothering me that you did that. And he brushed it off again and deflected and was like, they weren't going to hurt you, daughter. You know, everything was fine. And then after I had talked to him about these things, he called me.
[2:04:24] Sorry, he called you?
[2:04:26] Yeah, he called me and he told me that he was sorry and that he understood where I was coming from. and he told me a story about someone who had put him and his sister in danger and what that had been like for his own dad to witness and how frightening it was and he'd never want to make me feel like that and he wanted to do better and it was a very wonderful apology and if he ever hears this, it meant the world to me, and I give him all credit for that. And from that back into you're crazy, you've always been crazy, you don't have empathy for people, you don't have a grasp on things, you...
[2:05:15] You have full-on assault on your sanity.
[2:05:18] Yeah.
[2:05:20] All right, need to get back to the grandmothers. Your daughter is in danger because the grandmothers might hold her.
[2:05:27] She wasn't in danger.
[2:05:30] No, that's what your father said, right? I also was in danger or something happened where I was in danger, right?
[2:05:36] Yeah, it was something where his own dad felt very uncomfortable and didn't want his kid in that situation.
[2:05:42] Mm-hmm.
[2:05:45] And so, yeah.
[2:05:47] Okay. And just please, please help me understand why grandmother's holding the baby puts the baby in danger. I'm not disagreeing with you again. I just really try to understand your thinking here.
[2:06:01] I didn't think that it was a physical risk to her, but I wasn't comfortable with it. And I was going to come back and be there. There was also the element of grandmother's great-granddaughter, this wonderful lineage. I wanted to be there the first time she held her great-granddaughter, and I didn't get to be.
[2:06:20] Oh, so it wasn't exactly that you didn't want them to hold, you just wanted to be there.
[2:06:24] Yeah, I wanted to be there, and I wanted, especially this very, very sensitive baby, who did not readily like being held by just anyone. one so i wanted oh yeah no.
[2:06:37] I i had one of those two i had one of those two okay all right.
[2:06:41] And goes oh give me my granddaughter and granddaughter starts crying her eyes out and right and so so.
[2:06:48] You had a preference that your grandmother your grandmothers and your father did not listen to you right.
[2:06:56] Well it was just it wasn't that he did anything that bad uh he just I just didn't have the same social expectation that I did. Maybe there's a generation gap here where, you know, if somebody hands you their baby, that's not a license to just go give this to whoever you like.
[2:07:17] Well, it's not whoever you like, they're grandparents.
[2:07:20] Yeah, but I wasn't there. I didn't know this was happening. I said, you know, please hold my child, not pass her around the room.
[2:07:28] Right, right. I get it.
[2:07:29] It was a simple misunderstanding. understanding and when i called up i was trying to resolve this and it just got fogged and, just i don't i don't know where things fell apart from there.
[2:07:48] And how are things with your brother.
[2:07:54] Pretty good. He's, he sounds a little bit like my dad these days. He's still living with them, but when he goes away to college, he gets a very good head on his shoulders. He's a fine young man and, uh, I trust him. Talk to him about things. He's really on board with the way we're raising our daughter. Uh, but he can't come out and visit cause he doesn't have the means of transportation.
[2:08:25] And what advice or set of advice or series of advices did your parents give you when you were a child that you still find of help and value to this day?
[2:08:38] I'll give you one that stands out. My dad told me, when you're trying to get somewhere or figure something out, it's like giving directions. you always want to know what's it going to look like if i'm right and what's it going to look like if i'm wrong like um you know you're going to go go past the purple house and make a turn but if you see the green house you've gone too far so if you've got an idea about the world, that you're testing out you have an idea of you know what's going to happen if i'm right and you're looking for that and you've got this confirmation bias going on, So you should also ask yourself, but if I'm wrong, if the thing I don't think is true is true, what might that look like? And be on the lookout for that so that you don't just go around turning into a big confirmation bias machine.
[2:09:34] It doesn't sound like advice that he's following at the moment.
[2:09:38] Oh, it's not. He's giving me lots of good advice he doesn't follow.
[2:09:43] Oh, spoiler. Adults do lie. Okay.
[2:09:47] Yeah.
[2:09:48] And do you know much about your mother's childhood?
[2:09:54] Not a lot. I know her siblings, there was a lot of rivalry, and I don't think she had a very good relationship with them. And I know she was as good as abandoned as a baby. My grandmother really had no interest in mothering. She wanted to go and do her career.
[2:10:20] Was she put into daycare or something?
[2:10:24] I think it must have been a daycare. I don't know. My grandmother would tell me about how when her first son was born, it was so nice because the neighbor liked him. So the neighbor just took him and raised him as a baby while my grandma went and did her job that she liked.
[2:10:40] Oh, that's why you're scared about the grandmother.
[2:10:45] Oh, probably.
[2:10:47] Pass him along, right? No bond.
[2:10:51] Something was off. And when I saw the pictures, the baby was not happy and did not feel safe, so... Yeah, just something I would prefer to have supervised. Obviously nothing dreadful happened. I didn't think anything dreadful would happen, but...
[2:11:19] What indication would you say that you have about the degree of your mother's bond with you when you were younger?
[2:11:30] Can you rephrase that for me? I don't really understand.
[2:11:34] Well, your mother was raised by a mother who did not bond with her, right?
[2:11:39] Right.
[2:11:40] And now she's broken her bond with you.
[2:11:43] Yes.
[2:11:45] So, I mean, that's a pattern, right?
[2:11:47] Right.
[2:11:48] So when you were younger, so she was not raised to have a strong pair bond with her daughter because her mother didn't have a strong pair bond with her, right?
[2:11:58] That's right.
[2:11:59] So how did she overcome that? How did she manage to have what you felt of as a good pair bond when she didn't learn that from her own mother?
[2:12:10] The first thing she did was breastfeed us. I thank her for that. That was very important. She waited. She put us in daycare. Me and my brother. Did she put my brother in daycare? I don't remember.
[2:12:29] Well, let's talk about you.
[2:12:30] Yeah, she put me in daycare, but she waited quite a while. Her career has always been very, very important to her. And what did she do? For the life of me, I couldn't tell you. It's got something to do with bookkeeping and finances.
[2:12:49] So bookkeeping bookkeeping is very important to her.
[2:12:51] Yeah she really likes having a job and she got something that she loves now she stayed home with us for quite some time yeah so when my brother was born i would have been four after that she was a stay-at-home mom, and then she got a small job working at the school where we were going to be to keep herself busy and to be close to us. I ended up being in one of her classes. It was a lot of fun.
[2:13:22] So, sorry, she was a stay-at-home mom after you were four?
[2:13:27] Yes.
[2:13:28] And you don't know exactly how old you were or approximately how old you were when you were put in daycare?
[2:13:34] No, I don't know. I know I would have been, I'm pretty sure I would have been less than a year based on other things that they've told me.
[2:13:44] And how long were you in the daycare for?
[2:13:48] I guess it would have been until preschool started. So three or four.
[2:13:54] Oh, so you were in daycare for a couple of years from one until three or four, right?
[2:14:00] Yeah.
[2:14:01] Have you ever talked about that with your mom?
[2:14:05] A little bit. I got to talk to her a little bit about that. She said she regrets it. You know, if she could do it again, she would stay home with me. But that's, I didn't, I didn't think much of it until I had met my husband who talked to me about all this peaceful parenting stuff. I was definitely on team. I got hit as a child and I can't wait to grow up and pick kids of my own. So shame on me for that. But.
[2:14:40] Well, not shame on you. I mean, we don't know till we know, right?
[2:14:45] Yeah, but I was an adult. i could have figured out that hitting kids is wrong definitely would that.
[2:14:52] It would be so easy.
[2:14:53] Yes indeed right but i'm allowed to hold myself to a high standard sometimes yes but we don't want to.
[2:15:02] Be um unrealistic right.
[2:15:05] That's true i mean you're in your early.
[2:15:08] 20s and the whole culture is still pretty pro-spanking right so.
[2:15:11] Yeah it's pretty hard to invent the.
[2:15:14] Wheel right so.
[2:15:16] So really the only time i got to talk to my mom about this was the one time i saw her when i was pregnant and.
[2:15:23] So go on.
[2:15:24] And so she just said you know i'm kind of regret that putting me in daycare, and that's we just kind of moved on to other things we had a lot of parenting to discuss, talked about school but i'm a little.
[2:15:40] Confused and i'm sorry if i've missed something but But if your mother put you in daycare because she was super keen on her career, but she didn't become a bookkeeper until later because she was a teacher, right? So did she put you in daycare in order to teach other kids, like to be a teacher?
[2:16:00] No, she was doing her career. She was very good at it. I think it was underwriting or something. That's where she met my dad and... yeah she's always happiest when she's got a really solid nine to five and clock in and do your excel spreadsheets magic and she finds a lot of fulfillment in it i'm nothing like her in that respect she.
[2:16:26] Was happier at work than with you.
[2:16:27] Well she had me as a baby and then she chose to go to work so that's i i think so what.
[2:16:41] Did she most delight in doing with you as a kid when you were a kid when.
[2:16:49] I was very very young i remember she would play lots of like tactile games you know those ones that are very good for babies like the itsy bitsy spider and lots of tickling and touch and affection. I remember being very small and having a grand old time with my mom. And as you got older? We'd read books together. She had a tradition. She would get me a new Harry Potter book every Christmas and then she would read it out loud to me. And we would do that before bed every night. That was lots of fun. Lots of reading. We'd go to the library. She taught me a lot. I remember her teaching me math and things like that. We had a lot of fun with education in our home. I probably learned a lot more at home than in school.
[2:17:50] And how emotional would you say your mother is?
[2:17:55] Very high strung. She can get overwhelmed by her emotions quickly, but I don't see her experience lots of joy, for instance. It's mostly neurosis.
[2:18:15] And what do you mean by neurosis?
[2:18:19] Anxiety the money's going to run out you're going to get sick um something dreadful is going to happen very soon if i don't warn everybody.
[2:18:30] So yeah i.
[2:18:31] Guess that's.
[2:18:31] What you mean by anxious and and so on right.
[2:18:33] To the point where it makes her sick uh sick how, oh just one of those the doctors can't figure it out you're just in pain all the time and stressed out and what stress does to bodies wow.
[2:18:53] Okay yeah and her relationship with her father how's that i'm sorry with your father my father sorry i'm being confusing now your father.
[2:19:04] They have a very sweet marriage um i never really saw them be affectionate with each other my dad almost died from some like appendix problem and then after that they went on walks holding hands for a bit but but they, they work together very well i never saw them fight as a child, my dad is always my mom's number one cheerleader there, I had a really good family growing up I don't know what happened to it.
[2:19:56] How is your mother with criticism or mistakes or failure?
[2:20:12] She does all right at work if it's in a professional context. It's like you need to do this differently. Usually she has some good reason for doing it the way she did. uh i don't know that i've, really seen her fail that much.
[2:20:35] Okay i mean all parents do things that are wrong and and even by our.
[2:20:39] Own standards.
[2:20:40] And values how did she handle correction within the family.
[2:20:56] Like if she did something that someone else in the family didn't like yeah.
[2:21:00] Or something that was you know wrong or not ideal or you know it happens right.
[2:21:04] Um i think if if my brother or i said we didn't like something she'd go oh well i'm your mom and just kind of brush it off.
[2:21:24] Can you think of a time when she took a feedback from you and said, you know, you're right, I'm sorry, right?
[2:21:35] I can't think of a particular one, but that sounds familiar.
[2:21:39] Okay.
[2:21:40] Like it's something that could very plausibly have happened.
[2:21:43] Did you ever see your parents, if your dad said something like, oh, you didn't pick up the milk or you didn't get the kombucha or I don't know, whatever, like you forgot to pay this bill or something. Oh, so sorry, I forgot. Like in terms of just accepting some responsibility, making an apology and so on.
[2:22:05] I don't i don't think my dad would have really criticized her in front of us.
[2:22:12] Criticism he's not saying you're a bad person he's just saying you forgot to fill the car up with gas or you forgot to pay this bill or like whatever i i mean could be anything right okay not a criticism and then she would say oh you're right i'm so sorry right whatever right yeah.
[2:22:26] She's the kind of person who He doesn't ever forget those things to the point where it stresses her out terribly. But, you know, if my dad were to say, you know, I don't think you're handling this too well. When I was older and they would have those kinds of conversations, they wouldn't just go somewhere else. She'd get aggressive in her body language. And I think she would just emotionally escalate until it was dropped. But, you know, that was only later on. So I don't know if she was always like that or not.
[2:23:01] Well, I mean, people rarely develop new habits later in life, right? I mean, 60-year-old people don't say, hey, I think I'll start smoking, right? So what do you mean? So your father would have some, you know, you're taking this too hard or you're too stressed about this or it's, you know, my daughter's favorite new phrase. It's literally not that serious. curious um and and so if your father would have some you know mild concern or maybe some mild reproof about how your mother was handling things what do you mean in terms of this escalation what would happen.
[2:23:31] Well it would turn into um i'm stressed out about this i feel like you're not listening to me i have this it would become about how you know she doesn't need this right now basically i think i.
[2:23:53] Don't need you piling on me when i'm already distressed and you need to be supportive and right a.
[2:23:59] Lot of missing memories from a traumatic brain injury in my teens so.
[2:24:03] Uh yeah you mentioned earlier concussion i'm sorry i forgot to follow up on that what happened.
[2:24:09] I fell and I hit my head I really didn't have the motivation to catch myself I was really worn out by school.
[2:24:18] I'm sorry that's a lot of information to process what do you mean how did you fall.
[2:24:25] I was overtired. School was really stressful. I was getting out of the car. I just sort of bonked my head on the top of the car and then I just kind of went limp. My dad was there. He told me to don't fall over backwards. And so I fell over forwards into the car. Had a serious IQ drop for quite a while.
[2:24:52] You fell into the car and I.
[2:24:55] Just hit my head on the center console of the car, just bonk.
[2:24:59] So, I mean, it's a fairly automatic reflex to hold your hands out and brace yourself, right?
[2:25:07] Yeah, if I had had any self-preservation instincts, it would have, yeah.
[2:25:12] But why do you think, you said you were tired from school?
[2:25:15] Yeah, I was just, I was falling and I was thinking like, oh, this is going to hurt and maybe I'll get to stay home from school today. and.
[2:25:22] Then you got a serious concussion and.
[2:25:25] Yeah i couldn't count my twos for quite some time and that compounded with some of the medication that people i don't remember so this is you're not going to get a straight story here there were also hormone altering medications there was also an ungodly amount of stress from school sorry hormonally altering.
[2:25:48] Medications what do you what What are those?
[2:25:51] I remember I got put on birth control and something else.
[2:25:57] Sorry, what age were you put on birth control?
[2:26:01] See, this is what I mean. Somewhere around 15 or 16.
[2:26:10] Okay. For some sort of menstrual irregularity? Well, you may remember, you may not. Okay.
[2:26:18] Yeah, that was it. I don't know why they didn't just tell me to drink some raspberry leaf tea and relax, rest, take some rest for yourself.
[2:26:27] Right, right. So do you think you've inherited some of your mother's worrying?
[2:26:34] Somewhat but uh you were hugely.
[2:26:37] Stressed by school right.
[2:26:38] Yeah but the school people's students hair was falling out from the stress that wasn't just me why why.
[2:26:46] Was the why was the school so stressful again not.
[2:26:49] Disagreeing i just want to know why headmaster um i'm pretty sure his goal was to have a student commit suicide from overwork so.
[2:26:59] Why didn't your parents get you out.
[2:27:00] I've asked them i haven't gotten any good answers.
[2:27:05] Well i mean your mother would understand stress right i mean she stressed herself so she would know how dangerous and damaging it can be right.
[2:27:11] Apparently not the really important thing after i got that concussion was to get me back into school so my grades wouldn't go down right and of course i was too much of a drooling idiot to speak up for myself at that point.
[2:27:26] Well i i would be careful about that kind of language which you.
[2:27:31] Try not to.
[2:27:32] Refer to yourself as a drooling idiot. I know it's half in jest, but I mean, serious injury.
[2:27:37] Right? I was incredibly stupid.
[2:27:38] I'm sorry?
[2:27:39] I was incredibly stupid.
[2:27:41] No, you weren't. You were wounded. No, that's like saying that somebody with a broken leg is lazy because they're not running. You weren't stupid.
[2:27:47] You were wounded. Someone with a broken leg is slow and has a limp.
[2:27:53] No, slow is not the same as stupid. Slow is not a value judgment. Stupid is.
[2:28:00] I wouldn't think of it that way, but yeah, my IQ was...
[2:28:03] Come on, if you say somebody's a drooling idiot, do you not think there's negative connotations to that? If somebody said your daughter is a drooling idiot, you wouldn't feel that that's negative?
[2:28:19] If it were true, it would be cause for concern. I don't consider it any sort of a moral indictment, but...
[2:28:27] Alright.
[2:28:29] I had a very low IQ. My brain did not function well.
[2:28:34] Let me just switch to your husband for a sec here, if that's all right.
[2:28:38] Sure.
[2:28:38] So why haven't you fixed things with your wife and your mother-in-law?
[2:28:43] Why haven't I fixed things? Yeah. When I tried, her mother yelled at me, and I told her I wasn't going to accept that. And then she yelled at me five minutes later and hung up.
[2:28:56] So you said something like, we've got to try and figure out what's going on between you and my wife, and then what did she do?
[2:29:05] I mentioned, actually, yes, I remember this conversation very well.
[2:29:10] I'm sorry, I apologize for saying why haven't you fixed things. My apologies, because it sounds like you did, and I apologize, even the mild accusation and withdrawal. But sorry, go ahead.
[2:29:24] Ahead yeah i don't know i'm so used to it and you noticed it made us a problem um so the conversation, was she was saying oh i never i never inter and potentially hurt my wife and i said okay so you spanked her as punishment right and she was like yes and i was like okay so you're inflicting a negative to discourage your behavior so the spanking only works to hurt so you did intentionally hurt my wife and then she yelled at me.
[2:29:53] Yeah i mean her argument would be but you know that's like if if a baby is uncomfortable in a seat belt you're you know but you you have to put the baby in the seat belt otherwise gonna fly all over the car if you hit the brakes right so although there's discomfort it's a lesser uh discomfort than what i mean there's an argument about that i'm not saying it's the best argument in the world but there is an argument with saying you know i was i was spanking her so that she wouldn't run into traffic and get killed right so the spanking was the lesser uh i was preventing it's like going to the dentist you get your teeth scraped kids don't like it but it's better than you know receding gums and losing teeth right yeah.
[2:30:30] You made far better arguments than she tried to make so um it just turned into screaming and telling him to shut up yeah she my wife could hear from the other room i was on the phone the other room with her.
[2:30:41] So she's a screamer uh.
[2:30:46] Yeah um uh if you.
[2:30:47] Well that's kind of psycho isn't it.
[2:30:49] Um it's the only time i've ever seen her do it.
[2:30:52] Well how many times do you challenge her uh.
[2:30:57] That was the first time.
[2:30:58] Right so that's why yeah that's fairly easy to uh not provoke people's anger if all you do is appease them and i'm not saying that you guys are appeasers but so she's a screamer okay.
[2:31:10] This was very weird unprecedented behavior on her part i did not remember her doing things like that i stood up to her as a teen and she went you know okay and that's a reasonable boundary and our relationship got better.
[2:31:22] Right well i mean everybody can behave badly everyone and that's not the end of the world it's not great of course if it turns out that there's no apology forthcoming, Did she ever call you back? This is to your husband, or I guess to both of you. Did she ever call back and apologize?
[2:31:52] She apologized. I said, you know, when I can do the screaming, she's like, okay, sorry, we'll move on. And then the conversation continued. She screamed at me again. I just hung up the phone.
[2:32:03] Oh, so she apologized and then just repeated the behavior?
[2:32:06] Yeah. Okay.
[2:32:09] And was that sort of the last time that you've heard from her? me yes but not your wife uh.
[2:32:16] Is it no that wouldn't be the last time the last time would have been i don't know.
[2:32:25] But sometime after that something.
[2:32:27] Silly about a scrabble game.
[2:32:28] Okay i'm sorry.
[2:32:31] She texted me something silly about a scrabble game it.
[2:32:34] Okay so nothing nothing of any import right just a distraction text okay, well okay so things are getting a little clearer so she's a bully when crossed.
[2:32:54] I see it that way.
[2:32:55] Yeah it's not just I mean if she screamed at you when you had some criticisms, or you were correcting her on something she said that was wrong and yeah so she's a bully when crossed and she escalates when crossed, and so this is why it's hard for when I say was confronting the church good for your daughter it's hard for you to get into the mindset this is to your wife it's hard for you to get into the mindset because, it's clearly bad for you to have your mother not talk to you in particular after you yourself become a mother and you're kind of in need of her wisdom and counsel right.
[2:33:37] I I would really love to have her here helping out.
[2:33:42] Yes. So this is brutal. It's staggeringly cruel.
[2:33:48] We cannot little house on the prairie this thing. It does not work. This baby has too many needs that are too intense for a couple to be raising her alone.
[2:33:58] Right. Right. Right. Right. So she knows that you need her, and she's screaming at your husband and cutting you off, which is vicious.
[2:34:09] Well, she did tell me that I needed to call more often and don't cut her off.
[2:34:17] Well, who was the last one to communicate?
[2:34:21] She sent me the text about the Scrabble game.
[2:34:24] No, no, but that's not addressing the elephant in the room, so that's more of a gaslight than anything else. Well, I'm fine, right?
[2:34:33] Yeah, well, that's been the attitude this whole time.
[2:34:36] I'm so sorry. It's shocking sometimes just how fragile families can be. Sorry, go ahead.
[2:34:47] I'm just emoting i wouldn't have guessed it with my family.
[2:34:51] We were.
[2:34:52] All really close.
[2:34:53] Right right and that turns out to have been a bit of like the closeness matters not when everyone's getting along right the closest matters when there's tough times we've.
[2:35:06] Been through amazing things together.
[2:35:08] Right i.
[2:35:10] Mean since it's all anonymous she doesn't like people to talk about it but my.
[2:35:17] Mom has here's this is my this is my guess i don't know obviously right i mean and i'm just trying to piece this is a really fascinating puzzle sorry to sound kind of autistic but it is a wild puzzle because normally the cause and effect is pretty clear so if i had to guess it would go something like this that your mother much like the people in your church because there's these two things that are happening right as you are peacefully parenting your daughter you are are turned on by your parents to your wife, right? You're turned on by your parents and you're turned on by the people in church, right? And that's because peaceful parenting is very triggering for people because it evokes all of the things that were missing for them and that were very tough for them. So your mother was put in daycare, right? Or raised by strangers too, obviously not exclusively, but to a large degree, right?
[2:36:12] I think so. It's possible her mom was home at that time, but no.
[2:36:17] No, but there was not a strong bond because the mother was like, oh yeah, people took her and the neighbor took her and right?
[2:36:23] Yeah that was the attitude.
[2:36:24] Right definitely so when she sees you nestled with your daughter and cuddling with your daughter and close to your daughter and she sees your commitment to stay home, she is filled with like secondhand postpartum depression almost if that makes i mean just using this in an amateur sense right if that makes any sense like she's like triggered because, she realizes deep down what was done to her and it destabilizes her and then she also realizes is what she did to you by putting you into daycare at a year. And it's deeply upsetting to her. And she's already stressed and kind of neurotic, right? These two things are probably related. And she doesn't have the ability to handle those kinds of negative emotions, so she's just running away from the situation.
[2:37:08] I wonder why she wouldn't have already processed those feelings during my early infancy when she was very bonded with me. I mean, both my husband and I know what it's like to be triggered by the experience of being gentle with your child in a situation where your parents were not gentle with you.
[2:37:27] Well, how do you know that she was very bonded with you as a baby you wouldn't remember?
[2:37:35] Like I said, the games that I do remember that were, you know, infancy games.
[2:37:42] If you were bonded as a baby, she couldn't cut you off now.
[2:37:49] Well, maybe that's why it hurts me so much. I don't know. I couldn't do this to my daughter.
[2:37:56] No, I mean, can you imagine? Your daughter has a criticism of some means, some method in which you raised her. Your daughter has some criticisms. And listen, peacefully parented kids have criticisms of their parents that are perfectly fair, which is, how am I supposed to fit in?
[2:38:15] Yeah. I couldn't teach you that if I did hit her.
[2:38:19] No i mean i i like and i i think that's that's a tough thing and it's a it's a reasonable criticism like i'm so different from everyone else i was raised so differently from everyone else you basically took me to japan and never spoke never taught me japanese.
[2:38:32] I think that was part of what made my childhood confusing was the peaceful aspects i never have fit in.
[2:38:38] Right and.
[2:38:40] I don't i'm happy to work through that Sorry.
[2:38:47] The audio just got to tinny again.
[2:38:53] Are we still?
[2:38:57] Yeah, that's fine. And this is why I would say it's important not to get into conflicts with people in the church at the same time as you're going through significant conflicts with your parents. It's too much of a repetition. It's too much of, I'm going to make the world better, and I have all of this power and this control and authority, which you don't. I don't. right? And it's a way maybe of, and also with your friend, right? You think that there's this bond, but there is not, right?
[2:39:31] What?
[2:39:32] With your friends you think, oh, they helped us with the house, and they, you know, we have these great conversations, they helped me with the baby, so you think there's this bond, and when there's a difference of opinion, there is not. And with the church, well, we're together in Christ, we believe in the Eucharist and the Holy Trinity, and And we have the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not bear false witness. So we're all together, but then when there's a disagreement, it all falls apart. And it's the same thing with your parents. You think there's a bond, but the relationship cannot handle disagreement in any fundamental way. The values are not shared. The love is not enough to overcome the difference of opinion. And love must be enough to overcome differences of opinion and criticisms. Otherwise, it's totalitarianism, it's censorship, it's self-silencing. This thread of deplatforming, even of the family itself, based upon a criticism, a difference of opinion.
[2:40:42] Well, that's my mom's terror, is that the rest of her family isn't going to like her and isn't going to be kind to her if she doesn't make me shape up and send thank you cards.
[2:40:52] Well, I have no sympathy with your mother's terror, since she's doing that to her own flesh and blood.
[2:40:58] That's what I've told her. Right.
[2:41:05] So, I am very sorry. I'm very sorry. It's really heartbreaking. It really is just, it's so sad that you have a pretend love from your parents, that you have a pretend intimacy, a pretend bond. And then if you say something that they don't like, your mother screams, screams, apologizes, screams again, runs away, texts you about Scrabble, which is completely bewildering and off-putting and bizarre. Although not if you're just gaslighting. Your father gaslights you, calls you crazy. And the only way that they would, it sounds like the only way your mother would be back in your life is if you pretended nothing happened.
[2:41:54] Which I'm genuinely not capable of doing.
[2:41:57] Well, I mean, that would be bizarre. That would be an invitation to a almost supernatural level of unreality. So apparently, like, it's really terrible if you don't write a thank you card, but she can scream at your husband. I mean, that's a level of ethical madness that's almost impossible to comprehend.
[2:42:22] Well, it's always been other people have been held to a much higher standard, or I've been held to the high standard, and other people are given endless...
[2:42:31] No, but it's her. It's not other people. It's her. She holds you to a high standard and self-indulges in being a bully when she's crossed. and this is why your father can't fix it because she'll just escalate with him and your father is looking at the smoking crater of her relationship with you and saying damn she'll do that to me like that yep.
[2:42:54] That fits the evidence like glove.
[2:42:56] I whenever.
[2:42:57] Her uh mom did that whole big deal over the thank you card i talked to her father and i said come on it's not over the thank you card. We need to get this resolved. And he said, no way, not going to happen. Send a thank you card.
[2:43:14] So she bullies him, too. And he's frightened of her.
[2:43:17] Yeah. Anybody would be frightened of her.
[2:43:22] Right. And I'm just, I'm really sorry. This is a, I mean, it's the saddest thing. To have relationships of such essence and import vaporize. I mean, obviously, it's not about the car to the guy who sent the blanket. it it's it's a it's a deeply triggering improvement of morality you know the the only precedent i think really the only precedent to peaceful parenting is the end of slavery and only a few percentage of people in america for instance own slaves but you know if your dad was a slave owner and you're like well slavery was evil dad you know i'm treating my slaves well i'm i'm freeing them they're not slaves anymore right and treat them with respect i mean that's going to be deeply triggering and that is a whole different planet even from infancy and toddlerhood the stuff that goes wrong in infancy and toddlerhood can absolutely destabilize the entire personality, absolutely and that's the that's the struggle that we face and i'm it really is honestly this story is just hitting me sideways and normally i'm fairly robust with this stuff but it's just it's just so sad. It's just so sad because of all the stuff that came before that was good.
[2:44:45] Yeah, well, maybe I'll keep pestering my dad to call you in splits.
[2:44:51] Hell, I'd talk to your mom in a split second.
[2:44:58] I just, I mean.
[2:44:59] I just this is so, so hard to fathom.
[2:45:04] Yeah, well, I just try to take it as they gave me the, The push to get to safety. I guide others to a treasure they cannot possess.
[2:45:21] Right, right, right. You know, X marks the treasure I will never gather, right?
[2:45:29] All right. Well, look, I mean, I know we've chatted for a good old long time, and I appreciate you guys' time and attention. I know we didn't even get to the dream, but that'll have to be for another time, I think. It'll be almost three hours. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, listen, guys. Guys, thank you so much. Massive sympathies for what is going on. I obviously cross my fingers and absolutely hope that your parents in particular will find some compassion, some reason, some, you know, get her head out of the spreadsheets and back in the game of family, which is what really matters. And, you know, I hope you'll keep me posted about how it's going and how did you find the conversation for you?
[2:46:16] It's sad but helpful i think she's happy with her spreadsheet so i'd rather leave her in peace there.
[2:46:20] Right she excels at excel but not family all right keep me posted about how things are going and if i have any thoughts about the dream which i did print out but which we didn't get to i will certainly let you know and i appreciate your time tonight and big hugs to to everyone there.
[2:46:35] All right thank you thanks oh and uh your big thank you for pointing out the things I'm doing wrong.
[2:46:41] Oh, yeah, no problem. Just focus on the kids and everything works out well. All right, take care, guys. Have a good night.
[2:46:46] All right, bye.
Support the show, using a variety of donation methods
Support the show
