Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we take a look at the reporting that plastics are being detected in people's brains.
And later on, we react to the idea that lied to kids become lying, ill adjusted adults, as seen in some recent study.
Hello, welcome to the Call. Like I see a podcast. I'm James Keys and joining me today is a man who brings the heat to every show. Show enough.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Tunde.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Ogonlana Tunde. You ready to give us a piece of your mind?
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Of course, man. Let's do it.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: All right. All right. Now before we get started, if you enjoy the show, I ask that you subscribe and like the show on YouTube or your podcast platform, doing so really helps the show out. And we're recording on November 25, 2025, and I'm going to jump right into it. We recently saw reporting that scientists have detected microplastics, nanoplastics in people's brain. And this is like, you know, causing inflammation, you know, like as you would imagine, creating problems.
So what do you make, what's going on here? Like, why do we have plastic in our brain? And what's your reaction to seeing this?
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Well, my reaction is the same as all these headlines. It's just more anxiety and it's gonna make me do things to put more plastic in my brain.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: Oh my God.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Like, like go smoke more weed. And, and I'm sure there's plastic bits in the, in the joint paper, but.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: I doubt that that's the reason for this, you know, because what they're talking about is like what you inhale, you know, you open up a package or.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Something like that saying that, you know, I think about all of it, that, you know, it is the plastic and a lot more things than I think we realize. And.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Well, that's the. It seems to be, it's everywhere. Like that seems to be. That's my point. Yeah.
Including everywhere in us.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And so, and look, it's, it's on a serious note. I mean, we did a story, I think probably two years ago, a discussion about plastic stones and how a reality that this isn't a joke, you know, for people listening, that the Earth has already regurgitated enough plastic through the volcanic process, and especially in the oceans, that there's a new classification, a geological classification called a plastic stone, which is when plastic and the molecules that form plastic and the molecules that form rocks actually fuse together, when the Earth is regurgitating material through the volcanic process. So if the geology, excuse me, if the geology of the Earth can be changed from, because of plastic, then it shouldn't be a surprise that our own biology internally, and those with other animals too, because it's not just us will also show signs of changing along with the amount of plastic, the abundance of plastics in the world. So it's another example that we are our environment and some of us understand that and some of us don't. I mean, that's.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Well, I think even people, a lot of times people don't want to deal with it, and so they make themselves not understand it, you know, because. Because it's not a difficult concept to. To grasp. But a lot of times, remember, if you don't want to do something about something or if something feels overwhelming or too big of a problem to deal with, a lot of times the natural reaction and, you know, in your brain is to deny the existence of the problem. So we deal with that. We. There is a lot of reasons why we face a lot of resistance to the. I like those people with a profit motive that are going to resist the idea of trying to be a little bit cleaner in the environment.
Maybe not just for altruistic reasons, but because whatever's in the environment tends to make its way into us. And, you know, there's profit motive reasons. There's just psychological reasons of the enormity of the problem. So. But. And then there's plenty of people that see that and be like, hey, yeah, we got to. We should do something about it. Let's try to do something about it. To me, my reaction is like, yes, the plastic stones, as we talked about a few years back, that was, you know, we can see okay, yeah, something plastic gets. Is in a volcano or it's in, you know, it's in some place with a lot of pressure and then it gets fused into something else. You know, that's kind of a benign thing, though. It's kind of like, oh, yeah, wow, plastics everywhere kind of thing that it's being incorporated into our bodies.
I think that's. That. That's like jarring to me. And the biggest concern I have from that is that it's being incorporated into our bodies in place of actual living cel. Like, wherever that plastic is, that's not a new piece. That's not like, oh, I got an extra arm made of plastic. It's like, no, I used to have brain there.
Now I have plastic. And guess what? The plastic doesn't do the thinking. So it's like, well, we're replacing our parts of our bodies, small parts at this point. But I don't know that there's some upper limit Here, other than when it just kills us. But small parts of our body that work, that do stuff, they're being replaced with plastics by our body. Just this stuff's in there. And apparently, I guess the body's not able to push it out efficiently, or so much of it goes in that it can't push out enough of it, so it's just sticking it in places. And apparently our brain is one of these places. So I mean, to me, the bigger, the other shoe is the one that I'm looking at. Well, hold up, what about the stuff that used to be there, where the plastic is now? And what happens when enough of someone's brain gets replaced by plastic? You know, maybe they just sit around and doom scroll all the time, like. And they wouldn't be able to want to do anything else besides that.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: Well, I don't think we need plastic for that one's already. That one's already, you know, that shit.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: That was not because of the plastics. Hey, for all you know, it could be because of the plastics.
[00:05:55] Speaker B: No, I get the feeling that it would have happened anyway.
I definitely think they're separate, but they're both problems for humanity now. So here's the interesting thing though, because there's a few other things to unpack because it's not just maybe what it's replacing, it's the fact that it is causing the same harm as other things.
But some of the other things are things that we can deal with in terms of how we eat and all that. So an example would be, you know, last year I had, I keep saying I had my first heart attack. And then I hear myself saying, I want that to be the only one.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It does imply that you'll have a second at some point, the way you talk about it. Yeah.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: And part of it is, you know, learning that I've got advanced artery disease and it's, it's hereditary. And so I have. At my age, I have way more plaques on my arteries that, than I probably should. And a lot of that is caused by my liver producing excess cholesterol. And so the.
But that's something that I can deal with by changing my diet, not drinking alcohol, you know, certain things like that, so that my, my liver behaves differently.
So what this plastic microplastics runs the risk of doing is similar to what the plaques are doing to me now, which is they can clog arteries, capillaries, sensitive areas, like how diabetics can lose vision because of the sensitive nerve endings of the eyes that can get affected by Too much sugar in the blood.
That's what could happen with plastics. Microplastics.
And so.
But that's what I'm saying is that at least with the artery disease and all that from a hereditary. Or even if someone eats their way into having plaques, that's something that we can still deal with. Like I said, I can adjust my diet, certain things.
It's hard for me in our society to deal with getting away from plastic. I mean, it's funny as I say that. I got a plastic water bottle. My phone is pretty much made of plastic. I got a microphone that I'm talking into that's got a bunch of plastic around it. The computer screen is made of plastic. Like, there's literally plastic everywhere. And then the biggest one, as you mentioned earlier, is our clothes, because most of us don't have natural fibers. 100% even.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: I'm not gonna stand by and let you disparage those clothes. Man, that's a really nice shirt you have on.
[00:08:20] Speaker B: It's got a plastic coating.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it has a plastic coating. But that plastic coating says call it like I see it for the audio audience. Yeah, that. That shirt has called, like I see it on it. Yeah. So that's kind of my point.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: James is saying that. And that's what I'm saying is that like. Like I realized with the. With the per. With the way that we can get unhealthy and have these issues, from a nutrition or a lifestyle standpoint, at least, some people don't want to adjust. But those people that do want to adjust have the ability to clean that up. And with the plastics, because it's just permeated our environment so much, we don't have choices now. We're all susceptible to damage from this. And I'll finish with this and hand it back because I just did my blood work last week. It was just interesting timing for us having this discussion. I did my annual checkup around this time every year, so they sent me to Quest Diagnostics to get my blood work done. So I had heard about this, so I asked the nurse, and she have confirmed it. And what I heard was, you can ask.
Now, these labs, they can test how many microplastics you have per whatever in your blood. Per. Per, you know, millimeter or whatever.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: Or whatever.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: Measurement and measurement. And they have. Yeah, and they have measurements already whether you have a high amount of microplastics, a middle amount, or a low amount. Like, they already have figured out what that looks like.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: So just saying that there's no zero amount Though, I guess not.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: Yeah, it's just high, medium, or low.
Yeah. Which is interesting. So I asked her, and I said, hey, can I get that test? I want to, you know, know this. And it was funny. She just goes, yeah, I can't. We can't do it on this one because your doctor only ordered this. This. So I said, I gotta go ask my GP then to put that on specifically. She goes, yeah, and then we can do it. So I go, okay. So I figure next time I go to him, I'm gonna tell him I wanna learn how many. How much microplastics I have. Can you. Can you tell Quest? And I go pay for it. So it's like, that's the thing, James, that I realize is this is so prevalent that the, like, medical community already has a way to study this in us. And to your point, there's no level zero.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: You know what I mean?
[00:10:26] Speaker A: A lot of this, though. See, now, there's a couple of things going on, you know, like, there's.
Maybe people might not be aware of this, but there's something that our body has called the blood brain barrier. And only certain things can. Like, so everything that's circulating in your blood can't get to the brain. There's a barrier there that your body, like, for good reason, because the brain is a very important part of our body, obviously. And so your body's very careful about what it lets in there. So not just this observation, this detection of plastics in the brain actually exceeds the warning level of just it in your blood or in parts of your body, because that means not only are they getting in, but they're getting through this blood brain barrier as well, which is a higher level of alarm, particularly because, as you pointed out, like, the plastics aren't getting there. Now I'm worried about the functionality that you may be losing. But in addition to that, what it also does is creates inflammation. It creates this inflammation. We've learned a lot in society over the past couple decades as far as how inflammation, particularly chronic inflammation, not inflammation, because I got hit in the arm and then I have some inflammation in my arm that's localized and temporary, and then that heal. That inflammation helps with the healing process. And then I'm good, you know, in a day or two. But in chronic inflammation, where you're just. Your body just stays inflamed. And that could be because of diet, that could be because of a lot of different things that you're doing that is keeping your body in this higher inflammation state, which causes a lot of Chronic disease, you know, ultimately. But what this plastic is doing is also creating chronic inflammation. And the biggest issue I see with that is the plastic doesn't like. The plastic lives longer than us, so to speak. Like, plastic's gonna be around millions of years.
We won't. So this plastics that's going in there, unless there's some countermeasure that's. That's determined to get your body to be able to excrete it, then to get it out, then it's just whatever comes in is staying in. Like, it's just if it gets. If it's getting acclimated into your brain, which is the one I'm concerned about the most. But if it's getting acclimated into other things, then it's gonna be there for the rest of your life and it's just gonna continue to accumulate more and more and more. So, I mean, we're entering a new kind of phase in this humanity thing. Like, everybody was like, oh, yeah, we're going to have bionic this and bionic that. Like, man, your body's replacing stuff on the inside already. And, you know, you have a bionic brain. It doesn't work. You know, it'd be my concern.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: Well, it's sobering too, because they find plastics and placentas.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: You know, like, that's what I'm saying.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: Like, this is another very sensitive area that your body tries to keep, you know, tries to keep very, very clean. You know, does the extra.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's what I'm saying is that it's, it's, it's. I was gonna think, I'm saying as a joke as you're talking, but it's not really funny. Like, I was thinking, like, I'm glad I'm gonna die in like 30 years.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: Seriously. Like, geez, man.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: Because this, this. No, it's kind of a joke, but it's not.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: Yeah, but I got a good joke.
[00:13:17] Speaker B: On a serious note.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: Because I'm not one of these people that's trying to live for 500 years. Right. I'm 47, so I figure by the time I get to around 80, I'm good. And so that's. That's 33 years from now. So my point is, is just saying that. That's what I'm saying is, honestly, it's sad, but I think about my kids, future grandkids. Like, and you think about, okay, in future generations, they're going to look back at us and our parents and our grandparents. Let's say the people starting from let's say the middle of the 20th century. And think what the hell was wrong with you guys? Because this topic as we're talking reminds me a bit of the climate change conversation. Even though I know it's different.
But what I mean the similarity is that this is something that's slow, that's not easy to see and it requires a little bit of additional knowledge about things like science. Right. Like how you know from molecules to things like, like you're saying about being able to permeate the, the brain, casing the membrane around the brain. Or like you said that the placenta also the body has a very, has much more protection in those parts of the body because of the sensitivity of it to reproduction, all that.
Well, you're a well educated guy that has gotten that knowledge over years. A lot of people, you know, people don't know this stuff. It's hard to tell them and get them to understand the risks of microplastics. Just like if people don't understand the idea of like a greenhouse and greenhouse gas effect and all that and the idea of warming, they can easily be led to believe that. Yeah, well, we had an ice age. The climate changes all the time. What does it matter now? And not understand the input of fossil fuels and trapping heat inside the atmosphere.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: And also we didn't have 8 million people in the last ice age either, you know, like that.
[00:14:56] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: Again, the Earth is going to get lost. We're saying that we are going to lose our habitat.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: Yeah, but that's my point, James, is that that takes a little bit more nuance and people having coming to the table with already a set of information that, that they can build on and.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: I think, or, but that's why this.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: Reminds me of it.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: Well, hold on, it takes that or it takes a level of trust, you know, or people who are willing to, to, to build trust and other people who aren't trying to undermine that trust for profit reasons and so forth because everybody's not going to understand all that stuff. But there's a lot of things that people don't understand that they then go along. Like the, the medical community does a lot with birth, you know, with, with, with birthing kids and people don't understand all the stuff that the doctor's telling them and helping them out with this and that. And we don't need doctors to give birth. You know, like people survived before there were doctors. You know, like granted we had much higher mortality, you know, with birth, but.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: Eight kids to have three survive back then.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, but there. But there was a lot that happened beforehand. But there's a lot of trust involved with people talking to doctors as far as the birthing process. So there needs to be. You don't have to understand it all, but there has to be a level of trust. We just don't have that right now. Trust is hard to come by, you know, in a society with as much information coming from in places. But I know we want to wrap.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: Yeah, let me finish on this. As you relate to trust, that's very interesting. I had. This is another thing that just happened recently, which this is good, timely conversation for. I had a lunch at a restaurant just like two weeks ago, and they had a paper straw. And it was the first time I've been to a place with a paper straw in a very long time. And it. And I just started thinking, look at how this one little issue, the paper straw, made its way all the way up to a legislation in Congress right this year. And it shows how, like you said about trust, that's the issue I think we have here too, is that there's a lack of trust in messengers and we have a fractured information system. And so I'll finish with this. The ability for us to deal with this, I think, is just not. We're not going to deal with it as a society.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: It's been compromised. It's been compromised.
[00:17:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:00] Speaker A: But trust can be rebuilt, you know, trust can be rebuilt because, I mean.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: I think it'll be too late. That's my glass half 50. Oh, no, no, that's what I'm saying.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: Just.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: But that's what I'm saying. Just having this plastic straw and it got a little bit wet. And I thought to myself, think about how angry people got about justice, the symbolism. And it's just like that was just trying to do one little thing just to say, make things a little better.
Yeah. And so that's all that's. I just wanted to share that. That it just was kind of so good.
[00:17:27] Speaker A: Some of that goes into the idea that's fostered that we're not all in this together, you know, and so that.
That's something that perhaps, as you've talked about on past shows, you know, when you get to a certain point in Maslov's hierarchy and you don't really recognize it, that something like the straw becomes something that's animating to you. And it's like, oh, I'm so angry about this straw. And it's like, yes, because all this other stuff that is much more important than that. Has been taken care of for you. Not really much effort on your part, you know, but you feel like, you know, you feel like you hit a triple, but you've just been born in the society that has you on third base.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: Yeah. So maybe if we had mortality rates at birth like we used to have a thousand years ago, then people would.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: Appreciate things a little bit more. I mean, and I'm not saying we need to go back to that, but what I'm saying is that some of that may just be because of all the successes people had a lot more trust in science. You know, you go back 70 years, you know, so forth. So 70, 60, 80, you know, whatever. Like in that time period, a lot more trust that's been deteriorating as you know, you can say it's an inverse relationship to how many sources of information that people are consuming, which, you know. And I'm not again saying you need to restrict sources of information. I'm just observing that that's what's happening. But to me, whether this can get better, it's a question of. It is a question of timing, as you pointed out, Whether this can improve in a certain amount of time. But also it's just going to be.
I don't think we should look at this and say, okay, we got to be back to where we were then or at a certain time, because that's just not the way things work. It's going to be different in the future. And so all we can try to do, we can't try to change like, oh, okay, look back. Past few generations have really just dropped the ball, became so selfish, so greedy that could not do anything from a collective standpoint, from a human collective standpoint. You know, like you go back to the 80s, they got rid of the CFCs, and they're able to close the hole in the ozone after that. We've been very scammed. It's been very scant on what we've been able to do collectively to help the world out.
But, you know, these generations are going to be around forever. And so maybe the next generations may be a little bit more in tune with being able to work together to address problems. Maybe not. But the past.
The future is not going to be the past. The question is the decisions that are made today and in the future, how they direct the future. And I'm not pessimistic. I'm not optimistic. I just. I do. I'm hopeful, though. I'm hopeful that the people that would observe how the genera past few generations have gone astray down greed down selfishness can learn from that and then do better basically would be my hope. So we're gonna wrap this, this part.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Nice. I'll finish and say I'm pessimistic and I think the system's gonna collapse.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: No, no, you made that very clear, sir.
[00:20:09] Speaker B: And we're gonna be, and we're gonna be hunter gatherers in about 500 years or less. That'll be it.
[00:20:15] Speaker A: So I'm glad.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: That's why I said I'm glad I'm dying in roughly 30.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: So, so yeah, I'm going to wrap this, this, this section. We'll have a part two of this as well. Also talking about something that is, you know, along these lines as far as our health and our bodies and so forth and our minds. So, but, so join us for that and we'll talk to you soon.
All right, Tunde. For our, our next part of today's discussion, I wanted to take us to. We, we both saw, we saw this recent study that, that follow. Now it wasn't some, this is hundreds of people that were studied. This isn't some huge, huge study, but it's statistically significant. And what it did is it with through questionnaires it asked a bunch of people their recollections of being lied to when they, by their parents when they were young. And then also kind of you know, personality and you know, like how they act and interact as adults. You know. So it's taking both this information, self reported information from their past and, and then self reported information about how they, how they navigate through the world now. And the, the correlation that was made that the, the more the kids were lied to or at least being, recall being lied to as kids. And this is about like oh okay, well why can't I have this toy or why can't we go here for dinner or you know, just kind of the, the, the, the lies of that parents may tell a kid just to not have to give a full answer to something or a complicated answer or anything like that. But kids that recall being lied to more when they were kids or people who recall being lied to more when they were kids tend to lie more as adults and have difficulties in terms of, you know, the term they used was ill adjusted, you know. So Tunde, what do you make of this study? And I want to ask you both generally, but then also from your own life experience. You've been a kid and you've also been a parent and then you have children who, you have some grown children and you have kid that's Still a teenager. So you have a wide spectrum of experience here, so both generally and in your own. And we'll get through this over the course of the show. But your reaction to this.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: Thanks for acknowledging that I was once a child myself.
[00:22:26] Speaker A: Yes, yes. Just to make it clear. Just to make it clear.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: My kids seem to think that I just showed up like this on the.
[00:22:32] Speaker A: Earth that I was. Kids tend to do.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I know they looked at my mom and said grandma, he just had him like this.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: So.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: No, it's, it's, it's a very interesting topic because it makes me realize that this is I think part of the foundation of what makes a lot of us in society and humanity just different types of people and why we probably project on how we are in these ways onto others and we don't understand sometimes how other people aren't like us.
[00:23:03] Speaker A: So.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: And what I mean by that is because you make a good point, I think it's important to distinct. We're not talking about lies because obviously the term lies just saying telling an untruth.
So you know, telling a lie to your 5 year old that you know there's a monster under the bed if they don't go to sleep or something. I'm just making something up here. I mean I think that's a different type of thing than what we're talking about like chronically lying and, and maybe presenting one face as a parent and then it took in one way in public and then your child is watching you act a totally different way in private. Or, or that's part of it though.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: But remember there were, they were talking about how threats to like hey, if you don't listen to me and come now, I'm gonna leave you here. Those type of threats that are based on. Now maybe the parent wasn't lying, but yes, your behavior, what they observe you in your behavior, but then also lying to the child, not just how they interact with you in general. So the study did.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: That's important, James, because that's how kids learn how to interact with other people. Right. Like, so it's an interesting point you make. What if the parents said I'm gonna leave you here and there's. There's two things. Like I'm the type of parent that if I say that I'm leaving my kids because of that.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: Right.
[00:24:16] Speaker B: Like on a serious note.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You don't want realize that like my.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: Kid has to trust that I'm serious. Like and, and that's why also I didn't make threats like that on A consistent basis because I didn't want to have a punitive relationship at all times with my kids. And, and, but there's other people whose parents will make all these threats and all this. If the parents don't carry through the threat, then that person grows up with a different way of, of thinking about, you know, I guess, how do you.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: Get somebody to do what you want them to do? You threaten them.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: Correct?
[00:24:48] Speaker A: Yeah, with something and then that's how. Then. Which. So you raise, Teach them to be more manipulative.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: Yeah, because my, and that's a good point. Maybe that's the type of thing I was looking for. So I'm not a manipulative person. And I think one of the reasons is because of how I was raised. It's kind of the way I just said I raised my kids is, is, is, you know, my mom didn't, you know, my mom said something, she carried it through and if she didn't want to threaten me or anything, she didn't say it. So, so it's, it's, it's. I didn't, I didn't come into this manipulative environment and have to learn how to navigate that as a child for my own survival. And some people do grow up in those kind of environments. And that's what I meant earlier by saying, as I read this and really got into the psychology and think about my own childhood, that's when I realized, yeah, I just can't, I couldn't relate to someone that grew up different than me in that way. And that's not to say I'm better or worse than them. It just made me realize this is where as adults we can come into conflict with other adults because of upbringing, you know, childhood experiences like this.
[00:25:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think that what stood out to me in this was that it's a lot of times things that feel harmless in the moment, but your kids always watch, you know, so like, like the example that they gave, like, hey, I'm gonna. If you don't come on now. Hey, we're trying to leave the mall right now. If you don't leave, if we don't come with me now, you know, I'm leaving you here. And you think that, hey, I'm, I'm just showing them that I'm serious about this and that. But they know, either they know I won't leave them or, you know, like, that's like, I can't leave a five year old at the mall, so to speak, or something. But as the parent, you rationalize it in various ways by saying something like that, but the kid is observing that as again, the kid understands that, hey, they're trying to get me to do something that they want me to do that I don't want to do. And so this is the way, this is how you do this. So the kid can learn how to therefore how to interact with other people with that. So I think that part makes a lot of sense to me.
What this is, is really a call for discipline amongst the parents. Because in my own experience, what I know with my kids is that a lot of times for me, it's the things I don't say that where I either catch myself or I just know I don't want to go there. And it's along the lines you said, I, I don't want to throw out things that I'm not willing to follow through on. You know, it's not flipping. It's not like, hey, I'm good if you do this, I'm not, I'm going to do this. Or like, I'm careful with that. If there's not going to be a big consequence, then I work on something else. Maybe I don't use a stick, maybe I use a carrot, you know, like. But I'm careful about the ways I try to compel them to do stuff, which is not easy because when you're a parent, if your kids are young, if your kids are old, it can grade on you. The young kids have ways to grade on you, the older kids have ways to grade on you. But, but dealing with being the authority figure is difficult. It's just difficult. It's not something that's easy. You're stressed about your life in general also. And so there's a discipline that's involved that if you want to take the shortcut with a lot of these things as far as how to get your kids to do stuff or what, you know, and then you talked about the other thing, what your kids, how your kids see you navigating through. If you want to take those shortcuts in front of your kids, then you are teaching them at all times. You know, and so that to me is, is really the takeaway is that you have to be cognizant to the best of your ability in the moment, cognizant of the fact that you're teaching them at all times. And those shortcuts, if you show them to use those shortcuts, then they're going to end up, they're going to be more inclined to use those shortcuts. Understanding that that's the way to be.
The real tricky part here is that that may be the way you learned from the way you were raised, you know, and so if, but if you were raised in a way that was more conscious, then maybe you have a leg up in that. But hey, even if you weren't, you just, it's something that you have to keep in mind at all times is really just the takeaway I have from this.
Yeah.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: And I think, you know, that's a good example because what did I say earlier, right. I was raised a certain way in my household that I trusted my mom to be serious when she was, you know, gonna, like you said, if she was gonna leave me at the mall, she said that that's why I would, I would run and chase her, like, okay, I know my mom's gonna leave me this mall, you know, and look, maybe the reality was, and that's why I behaved this way, right? Maybe she really wouldn't leave me in the mall, just like I wouldn't leave a 5 year old kid in the mall. But what I do is I go around the corner, make them think I left. You know what I mean? Like, I'll play that game and say, look, all right, you're gonna stay here and have a tantrum, I'll see you later.
And yeah, I might go around the corner, be able to look and make sure the kid's okay. Right.
But the kid will eventually start coming the direction that I went, right.
And what it is, is really just teaching the child to trust that the authority when, when the word is given, that it's going to be delivered. And I think if, if you create a different environment, then a child will grow up like you said, either thinking that this is how you deal with people through manipulation and, and you know, this kind of give and take. I think another example though, which is interesting, James, and, and I think I'll, I'll start finishing my thoughts on this here is we have the direct thing, like the parents in our relationship with kids, but then you also have the outside world. And as a parent, sometimes you can't control directly certain things in the environment, but you can also control how you teach your kids about it. And I'm thinking about things like religion, and it's not to pick on any religion. It could be a church, mosque, synagogue.
But a lot of times the person or there's a very hierarchical environment in there and there's sometimes things that go on where people either can take things as a lie or misdirection Right. Like a kid could say, okay, well, the religious, you know, the person on the stage keeps telling us that we got to help poor people, but then when we always drive by these poor people, we never help them.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: Right.
[00:30:38] Speaker B: So there's a contradiction there. And how the parent responds to that is very important.
[00:30:42] Speaker A: The religion piece is.
But the religion piece is interesting to me. And again, not to pick on religions, but in a sense, I wonder sometimes if religions kind of train people to lie to their kids about certain things or to kind of be disingenuous sometimes. You know, like you said, the. There are holidays that may involve deceptions that you grow up. And is that really serving the kid or is that not. I don't. I'm not saying it's bad or I'm not saying it's good. I'm just. I just, I take note of that. It's like, well, hold up. What benefit are you providing the kid with really by that? And are you harming them at all? I know for me, for example, one of the things. And I don't know if this was good or bad, but for me, what I would always do anytime, and my daughter actually picked up on it later, but whenever they would ask me questions that I did not want to tell them the answer to, I would start asking questions back to them. And so I would. Maybe I'm a lawyer. So this is just kind of. So I would just start saying, oh, well, why do you ask that? What makes you think that? You know, So I, I would never answer the question. So I would never say something, but I would just kind of play it off that that'd be my. Me. Me being a parent. And so I was like. So I would always. And then, like I said, my daughter at one point realized, like, you know, you never answered that question. You would always just. I'm like, yes, that is correct.
That.
[00:32:00] Speaker B: That your profession is one of two things. You're either a rabbi or a lawyer when you start asking some questions back to somebody. And so for you, sir, I'll say you're an attorney, but.
[00:32:10] Speaker A: But, no, but my point, though is just that kind of the positions that we. We either have in life or that we find her in a lot of times can influence how we deal with this type of stuff. Like, for. And again, just if you're in a position where things are very black and white, like, okay, law, you know, law, law enforcement, hey, this is either somebody broke the law or they didn't, then that may be how you want to convey things. And so then a Child may grow up thinking that things are very black and white and not very nuanced. And, and again, I'm not, again, not saying this in any way as a judgment. It's just kind of, sometimes we bring our own kind of way that we order the world into these interactions with our kids. And so to me, it's interesting to see this because it's like, okay, you're forming someone else's impression, you know, I think of a Simpsons joke, you know, where Homer talks about how, you know, it's great to have kids, you get to give them all your prejudices.
But it was like, yeah, but, so, but I know we want to wrap up, man. I'll go ahead and give you something.
[00:33:07] Speaker B: Else before we get out of here, my man. That's it.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: Oh yeah, I'm just going to keep.
[00:33:12] Speaker B: I'm just going to keep being honest with my kids where appropriate.
[00:33:15] Speaker A: Well, now my question was going to be, so after seeing this, would you do anything different? You know, you still got, you still got to take one more through high school.
[00:33:21] Speaker B: I mean, that's why I said for me, no, because I grew up. I mean, look, there's obviously, I mean, on a serious note, right?
There's different layers and levels when kids are ready for things, right? We're not going to talk to five year old kids about sex or certain things.
And, and those conversations, by the time a kid's 15, you might be engaging in something.
[00:33:43] Speaker A: But hold on, hold on, you raise a good point there. Because it's like, okay, so therefore then if they ask you where kids come from, where babies come from, then that creates this kind of dilemma, so to speak, you know, like, yeah, but you.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: Can, you can, you know, you can say mommy and daddy or you can say the stork, right? Like there's ways to.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: But that's the decision.
[00:34:01] Speaker B: Yeah, no, you're right.
[00:34:02] Speaker A: And well, for example, let me, let me give you another example because in that scenario for me, what I did was I would always draw the analogy of like, hey, we're animals, we're mammals, you know, so I like all like, you know, like with dogs or with whatever. So I would use animals as an example. Like, oh, it's the same kind. We're the same kind of like, that's how we do it versus like plants, you know, like, oh, plants, you know, they, they seed.
[00:34:23] Speaker B: Or go ahead when your kid grows up to be a furry.
[00:34:27] Speaker A: Then.
[00:34:27] Speaker B: Now I, now I got it on fucking recording why this happened.
[00:34:31] Speaker A: Hey man, that's a concept here.
[00:34:36] Speaker B: We're Talking conceptual Department of children of families. That's what it is.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: Hey mister. Hey, you talking about me? Mr. I'm gonna tip around the corner.
Tip around the corner with my kid at the mall.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: No. So that's what I was gonna joke and say. So no, but let's finish on. This is a funny joke. That is true.
Doing things like drink. Doing things like drinking and drugs. How do you deal with that when you're a parent? Right now, drinking is easy because there's a law. And so you can be sitting there, I'll be drinking bourbon in front of my 10 year old kid. You can't do this because the law says you can't and I can't.
But I'll tell you, the best thing that ever happened to me was when they legalized marijuana in the state for medical purposes. And I got a card because, you know, then I didn't have to go sneak out back. I sat my youngest kid at the time was 12 and I, and I. Because with my older two kids that was a bit of an issue. Like, okay, what do I say, you know, one day when they were young and they were going into, let's say, high school, I knew in my head one day this kid's gonna smell some weed at some house party.
[00:35:35] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. The smell is they're gonna know like being able to not be in the presence won't work anymore.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: Yeah. And so, and so. But then once the medical card was there, I remember I just sat my 12 year, my son was I think 12 or 11 at the time. I just sat him down and showed him the card and I just said, look man, here, this is what I do. The doctor prescribed it, I didn't have to go into big explanation. And I just told him, I said, just like the whiskey under the cupboard, you can't touch it. You can't do this until you're older. And as a doctor prescribed you and that's it. And it made my life easy. I don't lie to him, nothing. I go out back and smoke when I want and he doesn't care. So in a sense that's an example, I think for a lot of parents as it relates to those kind of substances because most people do drink a little bit, some people do smoke weed and all that. I'm going to talk about legal stuff.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: Obviously, but, but, but as you recorded. You mean as you're being recorded.
[00:36:32] Speaker B: Amen. I'll do a blood test right now.
[00:36:36] Speaker A: And hey man, I have no accusations.
I just, that was quite inconvenience.
[00:36:43] Speaker B: Yeah, so. So, no. Well, we are on a recorded line, so I want to make sure I'm very clear about not trying to introduce.
[00:36:48] Speaker A: Illegal things to children. Right, well, but your overriding point is very interesting, that when society created this prohibition, this. Because this goes in kind of like a prohibition mindset. When you create a prohibition which criminalizes everything, then that discussion is much harder than. It's like, okay, no, no, a responsible adult can do this versus a kid. You know, like, if someone's 16, and it's like, well, if you're not allowed. If you're not allowed to do this either, then why am I not allowed to do this? You know, you can't create that kind of time distinction, like, hey, yo. Where your brain is still developing. Like, it's like, no, no, the law. The change in law actually allowed you to be a better parent in that sense, where you can explain and give reasons why, hey, yeah, you can't do this. You know, people that are young, it's worse for them or whatever.
[00:37:34] Speaker B: I want to send this now to the state legislature.
Let's legalize everything. Listen to this. It's made it. Make it. Make us all better parents.
[00:37:43] Speaker A: As we say this on the recorded line. But go ahead.
[00:37:47] Speaker B: As I said, I'll send it to the state legislature. Let's see how they do. It's the speaker of the House, But. But just to finish up. This is interesting, James, because we did a show just recently on the American Revolution. And on a serious note, one of the discussion and questions was about, how do you look at me? You know, historical figures, and if they're 100% pure or not, and if, like a hero and if they got these flaws, can they still be a hero? And I think this conversation is interesting because it's talking about, like, our parents.
You know, we all, as kids, look at our parents like they're our heroes. And then as we get older, sometimes we get disappointed that they're actually not. They're human beings that just trying, just like we are. And sometimes.
[00:38:28] Speaker A: How do we deal with that? Basically, once we understand that our parents weren't perfect and weren't. Can they still be our heroes if we see their.
And that's probably part of the job when you're raising the kid, if you can do it, is to make sure that they understand that you're not perfect. But being perfect isn't what the standard is, so to speak. You know, like, you can still be aspirational and not be perfect. You know, find something else to be. I always try Hard. I never give up. You know, like, there's other things that you can kind of hang your hat on as opposed to, I'm the monotheistic God of your life and you. I'm. I'm perfect and you do. Exactly.
[00:39:04] Speaker B: That's not the right way to be a parent. I got to do this all over.
And then the last thing I'll say is. And it's interesting too, honestly, because as human beings, as parents, we evolve as we age as well. So I see that.
[00:39:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, you're talking about that.
[00:39:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I've got an interesting thing where, you know, between my oldest and youngest kid is 17 years. And so like I was a kid in the first go around. I'm in my 20s and here I am now in my. I'm 47 with the. The youngest kid's 14. So like, I've had this conversation with my 27 year old son about how different I am as a human being when his little brother's 14 than when he was 14. Yeah, I was in my early 30s when he was in my orb.
[00:39:45] Speaker A: Yeah, you've talked about this a lot. You're talking about.
[00:39:47] Speaker B: Yeah, and yeah, so I'm just, I'm way more calm. I've already been a parent already. Like, I don't, you know, now I'm older too. I got lower t. Seriously, like, you know what I mean? Like when I'm in my 20s or 30s, man, I was trying to come in here, you know, like raising hell. When I come home, if I had a bad day at work or something now I would come home and like.
[00:40:03] Speaker A: Yeah, whatever, you know, so the kids.
[00:40:06] Speaker B: Also are gonna respond to that differently and grow up different because of that. And I'm the same guy. You see what I'm saying?
[00:40:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's interesting. So, yeah, I mean, just as you, you know, the stage in life that you are as a parent is going to influence a lot of these things as well. So. Yeah, man, it's. I mean, but luckily for all of us, you know, raising kids is not a exercise in perfection or else human beings have been gone a long time ago, you know, so it's really. I think for me what this is about is just making sure there's some level of intentionality about this and knowledge, you know, just kind of what you say, what you do, you know, they're always watching, so to speak, but then just being intentional about.
You're not gonna get everything. But if there's certain things, certain values, certain mindsets, you do want to instill. You have to be intentional about how you interact with them and then how you interact around them or how you act around them as well. So to me, that, that really is the big takeaway here. So. But I think we can wrap from there. We appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call Like I see it, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think, send it to a friend. Till next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:41:09] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Lamar.
[00:41:11] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk.
I.
