Speaker 1: Real talk. Bullies be bitches, facts. I completely agree list
Speaker 1: somebody try to bully my kids. I find mama's grandma's aunties,
Speaker 1: all of them dead ass. Hey, I'm Cadine and we're
Speaker 1: the Ellises. You may know us from posting funny videos
Speaker 1: without boys and reading each other publicly as a form
Speaker 1: of therapy. Wait, I'll make you need therapy most days. Wow.
Speaker 1: And one more important thing to mention, we're married. We are.
Speaker 1: We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of
Speaker 1: life's most taboo topics, things most folks don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about through the lens of a millennial married couple.
Speaker 1: Dead ads is the term that we say every day.
Speaker 1: So when we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts,
Speaker 1: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Speaker 1: Were about to take pillow Talk to a whole new level.
Speaker 1: Dead as starts right now. So this story takes me
Speaker 1: back to my coaching days, being in Brooklyn, coaching a
Speaker 1: lot of kids from Flatbush, East, New York, Brownsville, Carnarci.
Speaker 1: And there was a young man who, of course I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say his name because a lot of his
Speaker 1: conversations we're having in confidential, but he grew up in
Speaker 1: a home and it was just him and his mom,
Speaker 1: And I remember his mom brought him to me when
Speaker 1: he was about ten years old and said, you know, um,
Speaker 1: coach a val you know he has an issue where
Speaker 1: he's soft. He's just soft. Like I put him in
Speaker 1: football because I need him to get tough. And you know,
Speaker 1: everyone says that you can help him play football better,
Speaker 1: so I'll bring him to you. So for about two
Speaker 1: years I was working with him in in prototype and
Speaker 1: he was he was working his tail off, but he
Speaker 1: just didn't seem that interested. And then first day in
Speaker 1: middle school, he comes in and his mom is just screaming.
Speaker 1: They bring him into, his mom is just screaming like,
Speaker 1: you gotta stand up for yourself. You act like a
Speaker 1: fucking punk. If you have like a punk, that's why
Speaker 1: I think it's going there. She was just screaming at
Speaker 1: him and he was just sitting there and he was
Speaker 1: just taking it. Then I was just like, mom, can
Speaker 1: you just step out for a second, And she stepped
Speaker 1: out for a second. So I said to him, I
Speaker 1: was like, hey, what's like, what's going on? What's what's
Speaker 1: the matter, And he was just like it just doesn't stop,
Speaker 1: like it just never stops. It's like if I'm not
Speaker 1: getting it from my mom. When I go to my
Speaker 1: dad's side of the family, they all called me soft.
Speaker 1: Then when I go to school, they all called me soft.
Speaker 1: And it's like it's just everywhere I go, everybody's calling
Speaker 1: me so off and I don't know what they expect
Speaker 1: for me to do, right, So I said, well, you
Speaker 1: know you you play football, and he's that's nothing. I
Speaker 1: don't even want to play football, mm hmm. So I
Speaker 1: was like, all right, um, step outside, let me talk
Speaker 1: to your mom. So I ended up speaking to his
Speaker 1: mom and I said, mom, let me ask you a question.
Speaker 1: How often do you tell him that he's soft or
Speaker 1: that he's a punk, or that he's a pussy or
Speaker 1: any of these things? And she's like, coach a vow
Speaker 1: every day. I just don't want my son to get bullied,
Speaker 1: and I'm just trying to get him the toughen up.
Speaker 1: And I said, do you realize that the first bullies
Speaker 1: are often at home? And she's like, what you mean?
Speaker 1: I said, imagine being eight, nine and ten and every
Speaker 1: day you wake up your mom is telling you you
Speaker 1: saw don't get bullied. Right, Like, what kind of empowerment
Speaker 1: is that for a young man? Have you ever even
Speaker 1: given him the tools to fight back? Is he in
Speaker 1: any martial arts? Has anyone ever taught him out of fight?
Speaker 1: Does his dad take him to boxing? Right? All of
Speaker 1: these answers were no no one invested the time, but
Speaker 1: they were all call on telling him not to be soft,
Speaker 1: not to be a punk. So I said, just do
Speaker 1: me a favor. He said, he don't like football, Take
Speaker 1: him out of football. Let him come here and train, right.
Speaker 1: Let him just be around me and my brother and
Speaker 1: a lot of the other kids. Because in Prototype, we
Speaker 1: created a safe space. There was no bullying in Prototype,
Speaker 1: but we created a safe space for the young men
Speaker 1: to be young. Ben. They used to slap box and
Speaker 1: play fight and wrestle and do all of that stuff,
Speaker 1: and there was a place for them to just, you know,
Speaker 1: be around each other and you know, be young men.
Speaker 1: It does, you know, without feeling like someone is going
Speaker 1: to overpower him or take advantage. So for two years
Speaker 1: he was there. When he got into eighth grade, his
Speaker 1: mom came back to me and said, Coach Valen, want
Speaker 1: to thank you. And I was just like why. She
Speaker 1: was just like ever since he started to come to Prototype,
Speaker 1: he just had more confidence, and the more confidence he had,
Speaker 1: people in school like started to leave him alone. And
Speaker 1: when he ended up going into ninth grade, he said
Speaker 1: to his mom, he thinks he just wants to play
Speaker 1: football again because he enjoys the camaraderie that he had
Speaker 1: in Prototype. Went took high school to play football and
Speaker 1: ended up earning a Division three scholarship to play football.
Speaker 1: The same kid that they said was tough, I mean
Speaker 1: it was not tough, that said he was soft, said
Speaker 1: he was a punk, and he ended are earning the
Speaker 1: Division three scholarship. And he's even getting me choked up
Speaker 1: now because I look at this young man and I'm like,
Speaker 1: imagine he had no reprieve or no one to show
Speaker 1: him how to defend himself, but the people around him
Speaker 1: kept calling himself in a punk. Right, then you're creating
Speaker 1: a cycle, and it's almost like you're creating a prophecy
Speaker 1: where he is going to feel he's soft. And that's
Speaker 1: how people in these days, they just take their life
Speaker 1: because they're get no reprieve from school or home. And
Speaker 1: it's hard for these young people, especially dealing with social media,
Speaker 1: to have everybody around them call them names. And I
Speaker 1: want to employ parents now, if you really want to
Speaker 1: help your kids get through this bully thing, empower them.
Speaker 1: Don't call them names. N If you buck, why not?
Speaker 1: If you buck? If you buck, why not? If you buck?
Speaker 1: If you book, if you book, if you ready to fight? Enough? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you why. I dedicate that to my family. No, seriously.
Speaker 1: I remember when I was in third grade, third grade
Speaker 1: girl that used to like me or whatever she was,
Speaker 1: she was saying something to me. We would haven't you know,
Speaker 1: just in class. I'm third grade, right, and she ended
Speaker 1: up slapping me in my face. I didn't do anything
Speaker 1: because she was a girl, right. And this is what
Speaker 1: mother said. My mother, because I used to have a
Speaker 1: smart mouth. Everybody knows that. So we were shooting a dozen.
Speaker 1: Used to I stopped. I stopped. Since college. We'm in college.
Speaker 1: I changed. I changed a lot since college. That's a
Speaker 1: different story. But we were shooting the dozens, right, and
Speaker 1: we was talking about each other. She was talking about me,
Speaker 1: so I started talking about her braids. She ain't like that,
Speaker 1: but it's just dusty. But I didn't started she started
Speaker 1: talking about me. She talked talking about me because I
Speaker 1: had the Tommy Hill figure shirt and this is when
Speaker 1: I was going to school PS two away in Flatbush,
Speaker 1: and it was a college shirt, and nobody was really
Speaker 1: college shirts at that time. But I like to wear
Speaker 1: a college shirts because I remember watching New York Undercover
Speaker 1: and Malik Yoba used to wear college shirts use j T.
Speaker 1: You know, he was the j C, a cool detective.
Speaker 1: So she was just calling me a geek because I
Speaker 1: hadn't buttons on my shirt and I didn't have just
Speaker 1: like a regular T shirt. So I started talking about
Speaker 1: her braids. So she slapped me right and my mother said.
Speaker 1: My mother said, let me sl you something to you. Nobody,
Speaker 1: and I mean nobody's outside of an ask women, okay,
Speaker 1: somebody put their hands on you, you let the teacher
Speaker 1: know what happened, and that the next time somebody put
Speaker 1: their hands on you, you're gonna put your hands on
Speaker 1: them back right now. Of course, this changes men and
Speaker 1: women as you start to go through puberty and boys
Speaker 1: become a lot bigger than girls. But at the time
Speaker 1: that the moral of the story was never let anybody
Speaker 1: put their hands on you. And I remember my mom
Speaker 1: saying this, if you let her or anybody put their
Speaker 1: hands on you. Other people are gonna think it's okay
Speaker 1: to put their hands on you, and now you're sending
Speaker 1: a message to other people. Then my father, right the
Speaker 1: one year was just like I'm putting you in karate,
Speaker 1: took me to modern combat systems. I studied jiu jitsu
Speaker 1: and taekwondo for five years, and my brother and I
Speaker 1: used to fight competitively around the country, just like your brother,
Speaker 1: like Tristan, because your mom literally did the same thing
Speaker 1: with him. And I got in my fair share of
Speaker 1: fights when I was in junior high school, not that
Speaker 1: much in high school. My brother got into a lot
Speaker 1: more fights than I did because he was just a
Speaker 1: fight to your kid. But I remember feeling empowered by
Speaker 1: my parents because they gave me the tools to defend myself,
Speaker 1: and they gave me the okay to walk around knowing
Speaker 1: that if somebody messed with me, I can I can
Speaker 1: use my defense, my defense that I was taught and
Speaker 1: if anything went wrong, and and it was just like
Speaker 1: we're calling me, your parents to be like, call my parents,
Speaker 1: and I knew that my parents we're gonna back me up.
Speaker 1: Having that confidence walking through the streets made things easier
Speaker 1: for me, you know what I'm saying, Because bullies, they
Speaker 1: they test people and they looked for responses. And I've
Speaker 1: learned that when you walk around the world as if
Speaker 1: you're not prepared for what's going to happen, more than
Speaker 1: likely you're going to attract the bully because bullies are
Speaker 1: smart in a sense exactly. And when you give those messages,
Speaker 1: those signals, and I'm the type to be bullied, that's
Speaker 1: how you get bullied. You know. It's funny. I wonder
Speaker 1: where this like the idea not the idea, but okay,
Speaker 1: you noticed that this term soft, right, particularly with people
Speaker 1: in their sons. Before you get started, you got to
Speaker 1: pay some bills. Yeah, that's not bad. That's on me.
Speaker 1: That's not even on you. That's on me. My bad.
Speaker 1: I bullied you into the show. My bad not to
Speaker 1: pay no billis you better pay these bills will come back.
Speaker 1: We're gonna pay some bills, all right. So we're back
Speaker 1: and we're talking bullying. After the VELL gave you all
Speaker 1: a long spiel after carry about. Yeah it's all good,
Speaker 1: bab you know, you know play its suck up. But anyway, um,
Speaker 1: it makes me think about like the term soft. Right,
Speaker 1: We tend to put this label soft on children, and
Speaker 1: it's on boys, particularly when they are young. Like we
Speaker 1: all know that person that was like soft growing up,
Speaker 1: like that's always running behind their mom or like little
Speaker 1: things like that, and that in itself, I think it
Speaker 1: is just the incorrect rhetoric to just be spewing at
Speaker 1: a child off the bat, because what tends to happen
Speaker 1: the more you say something, the more you give affirmations
Speaker 1: to a person, whether they're negative or positive, because affirmations
Speaker 1: are typically positive, but there can be negative affirmations. And
Speaker 1: if you tell somebody that there's something enough, the chances
Speaker 1: are they're going to believe it and they're going to
Speaker 1: succumb to that. So it was interesting in the story
Speaker 1: that you told that the mom after you then kind
Speaker 1: of proposed the question to her like, so, have you
Speaker 1: ever done this or did you try to do that too,
Speaker 1: you know, assist your son in becoming a little tougher
Speaker 1: or being able to stay in firms, And and she
Speaker 1: said no, because and this is the truth, man, A
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of the kids that I trained
Speaker 1: during the time I said the kids I trained were
Speaker 1: from single parent homes, you know, single moms, and a
Speaker 1: lot of these women don't understand what it's like to
Speaker 1: be a young boy because they weren't young boys, you know.
Speaker 1: But what they fear, and I noticed from a lot
Speaker 1: of these women is they weren't doing these things or
Speaker 1: speaking down to them because they were trying to suppress
Speaker 1: their children. They thought they were, you know, taking the
Speaker 1: place of the father not being there and being a man,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And I noticed that it
Speaker 1: was all out of a place of love. But they
Speaker 1: just didn't know how to present the child with any
Speaker 1: opportunities to become better. What were the effective ways, right?
Speaker 1: They didn't know what the effective ways, and they didn't
Speaker 1: even realize that they were spewing that type of negativity.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Stop saying, don't be so,
Speaker 1: if don't be so, if you acting so off right now,
Speaker 1: being soft right, and and there are ways to do
Speaker 1: that right like so, for example, my my dad was
Speaker 1: big on that when we were being emotional or we
Speaker 1: were acting out of character, he would point out, but
Speaker 1: he said, you know how you're acting right now in
Speaker 1: real time? He never said you know you are, He
Speaker 1: always pointed out, And I didn't realize until I became
Speaker 1: an adult and I realized that I was making some
Speaker 1: of those same mistakes that there's power in words. So
Speaker 1: when you say to somebody you know you soft, they
Speaker 1: take that in as they're just soft in general. But
Speaker 1: when you say, you know you're acting extremely soft right now?
Speaker 1: Can we can we talk about why what is going on?
Speaker 1: Then those those words mean a lot different because like
Speaker 1: what if I'm saying if I'm if I'm acting soft
Speaker 1: right now, that means that my dad doesn't believe that
Speaker 1: I am soft? Why am I acting this way as
Speaker 1: opposed to hearing you saft? And it's like, shoot, now
Speaker 1: my father thinks I'm soft. And I was guilty of
Speaker 1: doing the same things with Jackson like im when I
Speaker 1: first became a dad. I remember when Jackson was too.
Speaker 1: He was in the gym and he was walking around
Speaker 1: the gym, walking around the gym too and just being
Speaker 1: a kid, and he fell fell, hit his knee, boom
Speaker 1: right starts crying and I'm like, man, man, so off,
Speaker 1: what are you crying? You know, it was like a reflex,
Speaker 1: like what you solve? What what is that? Though It's
Speaker 1: like the minute you see a boy child crying in softness,
Speaker 1: like before you even because because that stuff that you
Speaker 1: know a lot of the times like you, your brother,
Speaker 1: your dad. Like if one of the boys were to
Speaker 1: fall and they started crying, it's like an instantly get
Speaker 1: and I'm like, bro, you didn't even check the steef
Speaker 1: he's bleeding if he's you know, was broken. So you
Speaker 1: can explain that. My my parents, my father, my mom
Speaker 1: didn't They didn't grow up in the best neighborhoods, right.
Speaker 1: They grew up in Brooklyn. My mom grew up in
Speaker 1: the projects. My dad grew up in Flatbush and Trivenue.
Speaker 1: But your biggest fear as a parent is someone picking
Speaker 1: on your child. That's like the biggest fear. When I
Speaker 1: became an older brother, all I ever thought about was
Speaker 1: I don't want my brother to ever be bullied, right,
Speaker 1: And the way you see bullies is like bullies are
Speaker 1: gonna pick on the week. So if you're crying amongst
Speaker 1: a bunch of people you don't know, you're in the gym,
Speaker 1: and you fall and you can't control your emotions enough
Speaker 1: to pick yourself up and at least go somewhere else
Speaker 1: to cry, everyone else is going to consider you to
Speaker 1: be weak. And once they consider you to be weak.
Speaker 1: There's always the alpha or the person in that group
Speaker 1: that's going to pick on the week because that's what
Speaker 1: kids do, and then you become the soft kid. So
Speaker 1: for me saying that to Jackson and it's completely wrong,
Speaker 1: it was completely wrong. But that was my first No
Speaker 1: one taught me how to be a dad, so my
Speaker 1: first thing was just to get up some crying, don't
Speaker 1: be So you know, I'm saying don't be soft, don't
Speaker 1: be soft, because I don't want anyone else to view
Speaker 1: my son is soft. The thing you want is a dad,
Speaker 1: is your child to walk around the world and feel
Speaker 1: comfortable being himself. And what we do is create a
Speaker 1: wall up and say, don't cry in front of anybody,
Speaker 1: don't be solved, don't show no pain, don't show no weakness.
Speaker 1: This when no one else can see you as a victim.
Speaker 1: Growing up in the nineties and taking a six bust
Speaker 1: to forty one bus and being in flat Bush, I
Speaker 1: knew every time I got on that bus, I had
Speaker 1: to get on that bust with my chest up in
Speaker 1: my head up, because if I looked down or I
Speaker 1: looked like I was weak, I was going to be
Speaker 1: a victim, and I was like, I kind of teach
Speaker 1: my sons how not to be victims. But when you're
Speaker 1: trying to teach your sons, if you don't have the
Speaker 1: necessary tools and the proper language, you end up creating
Speaker 1: a victim because constantly being that person makes you a
Speaker 1: bully at home. And that was ultimately the point of
Speaker 1: the story was that most bullies are most victims are
Speaker 1: created at home first, right the same way most bullies
Speaker 1: are created at home. Most victims are created at home.
Speaker 1: And what I want to implore to parents in this
Speaker 1: day and age is I watched the um you and
Speaker 1: I were watching together. The young man was thirteen years old,
Speaker 1: first week back in school and committed suicide because he
Speaker 1: said he felt like um, well, he didn't say, but
Speaker 1: his mom said he was being bullied. And she came
Speaker 1: out and she gave a a heartfelt speech and she
Speaker 1: was like, I'm asking parents to teach your kids to
Speaker 1: be kind. And although I received her messtions and I
Speaker 1: understand where she was coming from a place of pain
Speaker 1: and hurt because he just lost her child, I felt
Speaker 1: like that was not the message. The message should have been,
Speaker 1: and I can't tell her how to feel but the
Speaker 1: message should have been like, we have to teach our
Speaker 1: kids to be strong. You know what I'm saying, because
Speaker 1: I wonder what those conversations were like for her son
Speaker 1: at home before he went to school, you know, And
Speaker 1: I wonder how much did she even know that she
Speaker 1: could help her child not be a victim at home
Speaker 1: the same way I didn't know, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: in another proactive approach versus being reactive, because you can't
Speaker 1: ask everybody else in the world teach your kids to
Speaker 1: be kind, It's impossible. But what you can do is
Speaker 1: help teach your kid how not to be a victim. Right.
Speaker 1: It's funny my mom growing growing up, my mom always, whenever,
Speaker 1: for example, i'd want to go somewhere or do something
Speaker 1: thing or something that was going to be outside of
Speaker 1: like being at home or in a space where I
Speaker 1: felt like or she felt like she could protect me,
Speaker 1: her response to me in saying no was usually I'm
Speaker 1: not worried about you, Cadine. I'm worried about the people
Speaker 1: out there, and as a kid and wanting to do
Speaker 1: whatever I wanted to do in that moment, I would
Speaker 1: just reply like Okay, well, hey, that's not real life,
Speaker 1: and that's not the real world. Like eventually I'm going
Speaker 1: to have to be out there in the real world,
Speaker 1: which is easier said than then now that I'm a parent,
Speaker 1: because in that moment, I'm just like, let me free,
Speaker 1: you know, and she's just like, it's not that easy.
Speaker 1: So now having my own children, I feel the same way. Um.
Speaker 1: But in her telling me that she's not worried about
Speaker 1: the other people, she did do a really good job,
Speaker 1: her and my dad of making sure that they spoke
Speaker 1: positivity into me, making sure that I knew what I
Speaker 1: was allowed to do, not allowed to do. Instances where
Speaker 1: she was like, girl, if you did X y Z,
Speaker 1: you on your own, because I'm not dealing with that,
Speaker 1: you know. And she said that. I think it turned
Speaker 1: to gear me in a sense, like she'd be like, listen,
Speaker 1: I ain't coming to jail to build you out, so
Speaker 1: it's not you when you do that. Um. But she
Speaker 1: ended up putting my brother, for example, in karate for
Speaker 1: the same reason she felt like he was soft. She
Speaker 1: recalled some encounter that he had with another young man
Speaker 1: and she was just like, no, I don't think defended
Speaker 1: himself in that moment. So she put him in taekwondo
Speaker 1: and was like, he's gonna learn how to fight and
Speaker 1: defend himself and all that. But then in the same
Speaker 1: breath would be like, well, and if you know somebody hits,
Speaker 1: you don't hit back because you know you don't want
Speaker 1: to get get in trouble, and you don't want to
Speaker 1: get in trouble. And I used to be so confused
Speaker 1: by that because I'm like, Okay, you're trying to empower him,
Speaker 1: but then also to you're telling him not to fight back.
Speaker 1: If you were to get into a fight, he should
Speaker 1: be able to defend himself in a fight. But I
Speaker 1: will say this, though your brother has never been in
Speaker 1: a fight. You know why because he knew he knew
Speaker 1: how to fight, so he walked around with a different confidence.
Speaker 1: When you walk around with a different confidence, bullies can
Speaker 1: tell and be like, no, that's not a guy that
Speaker 1: I want because most billies, bullies don't want to fight.
Speaker 1: The reason why the bullies they want to pick on
Speaker 1: people who will never fight back so they can continue
Speaker 1: to bully. So if you look like a kid that
Speaker 1: will fight back, most bullies like, I'm turning the other way,
Speaker 1: which I understand. Where your mom was coming from, which
Speaker 1: is actually extremely smart. Also with you and your sister
Speaker 1: r y'all did pageants, pageants talk you guys were confidence.
Speaker 1: Not even young ladies get bullied. Young ladies get beat on,
Speaker 1: young ladies get jumped grow up growing up in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: and there was there was no out, there was no off.
Speaker 1: You're the pretty girl. You're not getting picked on. No,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen pretty girls get beat one jumped exactly.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen awkward looking girls get picked on and
Speaker 1: jumped onn't seen big girls get picked out, haven't seen
Speaker 1: skinny girls. No one is outside that bully aspect because
Speaker 1: it's all about confidence. Because even the quote unquote pretty girl,
Speaker 1: it's cool, somebody either gonna be hating on her or
Speaker 1: feel like, Okay, she's pretty, but pretty for no reason.
Speaker 1: So it's like she's pretty much not confident. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make this point to show people that she
Speaker 1: doesn't deserve whatever at tension she's getting. And that's what
Speaker 1: I'll say. Um, let's let's read a couple of these
Speaker 1: facts and staffs before we get into this. O. Okay, cool,
Speaker 1: let's do that. So these facts and stats are from
Speaker 1: Stop Bullying dot gov. So this is a government issue website.
Speaker 1: UM in the CDC and Department of Educations. Federal Definition
Speaker 1: of bullying because that's important to see what exactly is
Speaker 1: in the scope of bullying includes three core elements. Okay,
Speaker 1: so number one is unwanted aggressive behavior, Number two observed
Speaker 1: or perceived power imbalance, and then three repetition or high
Speaker 1: likelihood of repetition of bullying behavior. Bullying affects all youth,
Speaker 1: including those who are bullied, those who bully others, and
Speaker 1: those who witnessed the bullying. The effects of bullying can
Speaker 1: continue on into Adulthood's I want to talk about that too,
Speaker 1: because this is only about children being bullied, it's about adults.
Speaker 1: Because I also had clients member when I used to
Speaker 1: do married to the gym, I had a grown adult
Speaker 1: clients who said they started coming to training because they
Speaker 1: were being bullied. And I was like, like, I couldn't
Speaker 1: even fathom but adults being bullied. But I'll let you
Speaker 1: finish this and I'll go into that story. But go ahead, okay,
Speaker 1: cool um. Kids who are bullied can experience negative physical, social, emotional, academic,
Speaker 1: and mental health issues. Kids who are bullied are more
Speaker 1: likely to experience the following mental health issues like depression
Speaker 1: and anxiety, health complaints, decreased academic achievement g p A
Speaker 1: and standardized test scores for example, and school participation, and
Speaker 1: they are more likely to miss, skip or drop out
Speaker 1: of school. Kids who who bully others UM also engage
Speaker 1: in violent and other risky behaviors into adulthood. Very true.
Speaker 1: Kids who are bullied are more likely to experience alcohol
Speaker 1: and drug abuse as adults, get into fights, vandalized property,
Speaker 1: or drop out of school, engage in early sexual activity,
Speaker 1: have criminal convictions and traffic sightings. As adults. You a
Speaker 1: bully mann, get mad, talking tickets, do not use your
Speaker 1: turn signal, and don't indicate problem like yeah, like you
Speaker 1: don't care about you don't hear about speed limits, none
Speaker 1: of that, um, And then they can be abusive towards
Speaker 1: the romantic partners, spouses and children as adults right Right,
Speaker 1: Kids who witnessed bullying are more likely to have increased
Speaker 1: use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs, They have increased
Speaker 1: mental health problems, including depression and anxiety, and then MS
Speaker 1: or skipping school. Now, there's no stereotypical bullying, right, so
Speaker 1: we don't really know. This is like an umbrella term,
Speaker 1: but there's so many different layers to it. Youth who
Speaker 1: bully can be different socially, socio economically, and bullies can
Speaker 1: be kids who are also bullied and vice versa. So
Speaker 1: that's when the bully starts the bullying because they all
Speaker 1: they see is bullying behavior at home if they get
Speaker 1: bullied a lot, some of those kids turned out to
Speaker 1: be the exact carbon copies of the bullies in their house,
Speaker 1: so then they take on whatever whatever happens to them.
Speaker 1: All those projections they then projected on people at school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: smaller than me to bully because I get bullied at home.
Speaker 1: There you go about students who age range between twelve
Speaker 1: and eighteen experienced bullying nationwide, and students ages twelve to
Speaker 1: eighteen who reported being bullied said that they thought that
Speaker 1: those those who bullied them one had the ability to
Speaker 1: influence other students perception of them, which is crazy because
Speaker 1: it's like you think about the people who are not
Speaker 1: witnessing the bullying, then it's like a pylon technique. What
Speaker 1: that tends to happen, um have more social influence, were
Speaker 1: physically stronger or larger and also had more money than them.
Speaker 1: The relationship between bully and suicide is complex. It's not
Speaker 1: accurate to present bullying as the cause or reason for suicide,
Speaker 1: and it's dangerous to suggest that suicide is a natural
Speaker 1: response to bullying. Extremely extremely right. Um and research indicates
Speaker 1: that persistent bullying can lead to or worsen the feelings
Speaker 1: of isolation, rejection, exclusion, and despair, as well as depression
Speaker 1: and its siety, which then, of course contribute to suicidal behavior.
Speaker 1: And then the vast majority of young people who are
Speaker 1: bullied do not become suicidal. Most young people who die
Speaker 1: by suicide have multiple, multiple risk factors yep. So bullying
Speaker 1: maybe something that puts them over the edge, but it
Speaker 1: may not be the sole reason. So let me, let
Speaker 1: me get to this story about a young lady who
Speaker 1: was trying out for not trying out for She was
Speaker 1: working out with me because she wanted to be She
Speaker 1: had just passed the physical let me the written test
Speaker 1: to be a what is it called school safety? Just
Speaker 1: passed the written test to be school safety. And I
Speaker 1: knew her because she was a football mom and she
Speaker 1: was about twenties six years old, very very slim, girl,
Speaker 1: you know, very slim girl. Her son was also very
Speaker 1: very slim, meek. She was very meek person. But she
Speaker 1: was trying to do her best to you know, get
Speaker 1: into a place financially to be able to do better
Speaker 1: for her her son and her son. So she passed
Speaker 1: the test for school safety. So she's going through all
Speaker 1: the workouts and going through those things, and then she
Speaker 1: starts to talk to me about like people in her
Speaker 1: friend group, right, and she was just like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put some weight on you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: this bitch, just keep working with me. And then I
Speaker 1: was like like like she was like laughing a little bit,
Speaker 1: and then there was busy working with you. But then
Speaker 1: she started to tell me like some of the stuff
Speaker 1: they're doing, and she started to like well up, and
Speaker 1: I was just like wait, hold on, this is this
Speaker 1: ain't this ain't funny? Like are you okay? And she's
Speaker 1: just like no, and she just broke down or just
Speaker 1: like I'm just tired of being the butt of everybody's jokes.
Speaker 1: I'm just tired of And I was just like are
Speaker 1: you sure these are your friends? Like are you sure?
Speaker 1: And she's just like yeah, But it's just like I
Speaker 1: don't never know what to say back. I don't you know,
Speaker 1: I don't have anything to say back. For example, but
Speaker 1: she's the one in the friend gupool was struggling financially,
Speaker 1: needed to find a job. So it really resonated with
Speaker 1: me because I'm like, think, I feel like I'm speaking
Speaker 1: to someone like I was speaking to that junior high
Speaker 1: school kid, and this is a grown don't with a child.
Speaker 1: And it's funny, you read all of these things right,
Speaker 1: UM may have more social influence. Um, maybe larger may
Speaker 1: make more money because she was small because all of
Speaker 1: her friends were quote unquote the cool people in the
Speaker 1: friend group, and because she was struggling financially, she felt
Speaker 1: like she couldn't defend herself in any facet and she
Speaker 1: allowed herself to be bullied. So I said that, I said,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't have to take people's ship just
Speaker 1: because you're not working. You don't got to take people
Speaker 1: ship because they're bigger than you, Like you really just
Speaker 1: don't need the friends are. But I'm like, you don't,
Speaker 1: you don't have to take right and she just like
Speaker 1: I just you know, I just know that you know,
Speaker 1: if I if I get a little muth with. So
Speaker 1: I realized, like, so she was preparing to fight these outs.
Speaker 1: She she literally said she just would feel better for
Speaker 1: herself if she just felt better. So she came to
Speaker 1: work out so that she could pass the test. Say
Speaker 1: she has a job, fear know better, feel stronger, And
Speaker 1: we worked for six months. Right, She ended up passing
Speaker 1: the test, and then um, she ended up not becoming
Speaker 1: a school safe. School safe that she passed the test,
Speaker 1: didn't want to do it anymore, ended up going back
Speaker 1: to school, right, and she wanted I think she wanted
Speaker 1: to be a nurse's aid or something like that. But
Speaker 1: if you would have saw her change and how she
Speaker 1: walked around just in passing the tests, and she gained
Speaker 1: about fifteen pounds a muscle, you know, we wanted to
Speaker 1: lift more weights because it was more about her being physical.
Speaker 1: She never got into any altercations with these women, she
Speaker 1: never they still her friends. But what she said to
Speaker 1: me was she noticed that when she felt better about herself,
Speaker 1: she felt better in the friends group, and she didn't
Speaker 1: allow certain things to happen, and it ultimately stopped. So
Speaker 1: it wasn't even about fighting. But then I realized it
Speaker 1: really had nothing to do with her friends, everything to
Speaker 1: do with her. When you feel better about yourself, you
Speaker 1: are less likely to get bullied. So then I started
Speaker 1: talking to her about her son. I said, did your
Speaker 1: son get bullied in school? And she was just like, no,
Speaker 1: my son don't get And I was like, why don't
Speaker 1: your son get bullied in school? She said, because I'll
Speaker 1: never let my son be me. She empowered her son,
Speaker 1: like she's like her son. She had a son, her
Speaker 1: son was a meek kid, but she never talked down
Speaker 1: to her son ever because she But I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is a person who was aware and was able to
Speaker 1: change the trajectory of her son's life because she was
Speaker 1: aware but didn't realize how she wasn't changing her own
Speaker 1: trajectory because a lot of times, as parents, we put
Speaker 1: everything into our children and don't realize that the things
Speaker 1: that we don't want to have happened to our children
Speaker 1: are happening to us at work with our friends are neighbors,
Speaker 1: you know. And I want to empower anybody, not just kids,
Speaker 1: anybody who feels like they're dealing with a bully, because
Speaker 1: bullying doesn't always have to do with physical people. Think
Speaker 1: if you get punched, and then you can bully. Know
Speaker 1: if someone is constantly on your ass, like saying things
Speaker 1: to you and and just being negative about you, I
Speaker 1: want you at first before you say what's wrong with
Speaker 1: that person? Ask yourself what's wrong with that someone feels like?
Speaker 1: Or why am I accepting this? It was other people?
Speaker 1: I mean sometimes do when you think about it, for example,
Speaker 1: what does building look like? Per se? Because that's also
Speaker 1: another question you can think about. For example, when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, people used to tease me in elementary school. Right,
Speaker 1: it would tease me because I was super hairy, Like
Speaker 1: I had hairy arms, hairy legs, I had a mustache
Speaker 1: at like eight. You know what I'm saying. But that's
Speaker 1: just because genetically, you know, that's my makeup. You know,
Speaker 1: that's how my people, my Sri Lankan side, all right,
Speaker 1: it's covered through. Um. So when people were teasing me
Speaker 1: about that, I guess I did have the confidence to
Speaker 1: be like, oh whatever, it would roll off my back.
Speaker 1: It could have probably taken a turn where I was
Speaker 1: just I was already super conscious of it. So it
Speaker 1: was something that I knew eventually, like I have to
Speaker 1: find a way to get rid of this hair. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't necessarily because I was being teased about it.
Speaker 1: It was because I know that I didn't feel as
Speaker 1: confident with it. So at what point do we decide
Speaker 1: what exactly is bullying and watch just kids being kids
Speaker 1: quote unquote teasing? You know, because I think it's it's
Speaker 1: it's hard to really decipher what bullying is and what
Speaker 1: is a kid's just being kids kind of thing, because
Speaker 1: you can't expect for all kids to just be kind
Speaker 1: and just you know, never joke on somebody. So is
Speaker 1: it in that instance that you say, you know what,
Speaker 1: you empower your child to be able to kind of
Speaker 1: shoot the dozens with somebody and just you know, do
Speaker 1: the your mama jokes and things like that before it
Speaker 1: becomes an actual physical thing. Potentially, Yes, I feel like
Speaker 1: as adults, if you have children, right, you have a
Speaker 1: responsibility to equip your children with ways to defend themselves physically, mentally,
Speaker 1: and emotionally. Right. My father put us in taekwondo, in
Speaker 1: jiu jitsu. We had to compete competitively for five years.
Speaker 1: I competed up until I started playing organized sports at fifteen. Right,
Speaker 1: that was the physical part. When it came to mentally,
Speaker 1: I told everyone the story about me getting picked on
Speaker 1: about not being black on the school, but us my
Speaker 1: dad gave me jokes to say in return, like it
Speaker 1: was never and my father and my mother both and
Speaker 1: my mother says all the time, sticks and stones may
Speaker 1: break my bones, but names will never harm me. That
Speaker 1: was my mother things, let people be who they want
Speaker 1: to be. My father's like, yeah, they could be who
Speaker 1: they want to be, but always have something to say back,
Speaker 1: because you don't want people to feel like they can
Speaker 1: pile on. Right. And then emotionally it was my mother.
Speaker 1: My father made up this rap. Right, my name is
Speaker 1: de Val. I drive the girls well all the fly
Speaker 1: guy shouted to bike my style right, And this is
Speaker 1: when I was five years old. But I felt confident
Speaker 1: because I was like, man, I'm a cool kid. You know,
Speaker 1: Like my parents empowered me to love myself. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying that they empowered me to love myself
Speaker 1: and appreciate who I was. They taught me how to
Speaker 1: defend myself on all fronts. So I walked through I
Speaker 1: walked through the world differently, and I also walked through
Speaker 1: the world knowing that there may be challenges, right, just
Speaker 1: because you have all this powered on me. You the
Speaker 1: baddest motherfucker walking around. At some point someone may test
Speaker 1: you be prepared to handle that test and deal with
Speaker 1: whatever consequences come with that. But I always knew I
Speaker 1: had someone to have my back. So even when I
Speaker 1: got into my fights, I wasn't concerned about getting in
Speaker 1: trouble because I never start fights my parents. Man. As
Speaker 1: much as my parents talking to me about defending, they
Speaker 1: talk to me about being an anti bully. Right. I
Speaker 1: was going to say that, because you think about it,
Speaker 1: If you empower someone so much to be so confident
Speaker 1: and to just walk around like they have this air
Speaker 1: of like nobody could sork with me kind of thing,
Speaker 1: what is preventing that person from them being the bully.
Speaker 1: It's your dad telling you you have a responsibility to
Speaker 1: protect the weak. That's what my father told me. He's like,
Speaker 1: you have a younger brother, and he he always said it,
Speaker 1: you gotta protect your brother. Same way I tell Jackson, right,
Speaker 1: who you gotta protect? He said, Kyra Cash the code.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Cairo, who you gotta take cas d Coda? Cash?
Speaker 1: You gotta take da Coda? You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Who's going to protect you Jackson. He's like your mommy,
Speaker 1: you know. I just taught him and when my father
Speaker 1: you have to protect the younger person in your family, right.
Speaker 1: He also told me, when you're out there in the world,
Speaker 1: if there's a weaker person that needs protection and you
Speaker 1: can protect him, you have a responsibility to do that.
Speaker 1: And he and they just there were certain things that
Speaker 1: they told me, like you just you're not cool for
Speaker 1: going with all of the cool kids and picking on
Speaker 1: a younger, weaker person. That's there's nothing cool about that.
Speaker 1: But that's also starts from home. And that's what the
Speaker 1: young lady whose son was the young lady whose son
Speaker 1: had passed away, that's what she was saying to the
Speaker 1: world was teach your kids to be kind, which I got.
Speaker 1: But there's also a part of that where it's like
Speaker 1: you have to teach your kids how to love themselves,
Speaker 1: and we as parents have to do a better job
Speaker 1: of loving our kids without creating victims. Um. I all
Speaker 1: of that I think is spot on, and I was
Speaker 1: thinking of because one of the questions here is like,
Speaker 1: do you think any of your children have experienced or
Speaker 1: witnessed bullying? And it brings me to a story with
Speaker 1: Jackson when he was in I think it was the
Speaker 1: first or second grade, and there was a student in
Speaker 1: the class who I think had an accident, you know,
Speaker 1: bathroom related accident, and the teacher at the time, they
Speaker 1: had a buddy system, so usually go to bathroom at
Speaker 1: least with a partner, and the teacher kind of whispered
Speaker 1: to the kid like, you know, is there somebody that
Speaker 1: you would want to go with you to, you know,
Speaker 1: help you out, And the kid said, I want Jackson
Speaker 1: to go, and Jackson, you know, went with him to
Speaker 1: the bathroom to make sure that he was okay. And
Speaker 1: the little boy's mom reached out to me after she
Speaker 1: got and I guess my number from the teacher and
Speaker 1: was just like, you know, hey, I just wanted to
Speaker 1: thank you for raising such a empathetic child, because I
Speaker 1: asked my son, you know, in the midst of his
Speaker 1: little you know, accident, him feeling bad, him crying about it,
Speaker 1: um feeling embarrassed. She asked him, why did you pick
Speaker 1: Jackson of all your other classmates? And he said to
Speaker 1: her because he just knew that Jackson was not going
Speaker 1: to make fun of him, and Jackson would be a
Speaker 1: helper and that made me feel good in that moment
Speaker 1: because I'm like, Wow, at least we know that the
Speaker 1: things that some things are I think innate with children,
Speaker 1: they just have that innate responsibility to want to care
Speaker 1: for others who may be in a weak moment. And
Speaker 1: I think Jackson definitely has that trade. Um. But knowing
Speaker 1: too that we have always um poured into him and
Speaker 1: spewed to him the importance of being kind to other people.
Speaker 1: And you know, this kid wasn't the most popular kid,
Speaker 1: and I think he was a little awkward to you know.
Speaker 1: And they ended up becoming great friends after that UM
Speaker 1: for years, and we still keep in touch with his
Speaker 1: mom to this day. But it is so important for
Speaker 1: us to just as parents, teach our children about not
Speaker 1: just emotional awareness and how to control their emotions, but
Speaker 1: how to then be empathetic towards others who may be
Speaker 1: in a less fortunate situation. UM. And that's super important
Speaker 1: for us because you teach these things to your children
Speaker 1: and you can only hope and pray that it will
Speaker 1: be reciprocated, because I do believe that a lot of
Speaker 1: this energy does become reciprocated after a while, you know. UM,
Speaker 1: So in the wake of him, you know, witnessing what
Speaker 1: would have been bullying for this kid. It was nice
Speaker 1: to see Jackson, you know, just be nice. It's funny
Speaker 1: how you said. Um. First of all, that story always
Speaker 1: warms my heart because I feel like we are doing
Speaker 1: a great job with our boys, you know. Um. The
Speaker 1: last thing, you what's even worse than for me than
Speaker 1: hearing that your child is being bullied, is that your
Speaker 1: child is a bully for sure, you know, like absolutely
Speaker 1: to to hear, you know later on in life that
Speaker 1: you know, not lading on life, but you have someone
Speaker 1: come home and say, you know your son was doing
Speaker 1: X y Z blah blah blah. And I don't think
Speaker 1: children know sometimes when they are being bullied. Oh no,
Speaker 1: when they are bullying, you know, especially in that middle school.
Speaker 1: Because I remember, Um, I got a Facebook message from
Speaker 1: a young lady. I'm not going to her name, but
Speaker 1: we went to junior high school together, and she said
Speaker 1: the value you know, I felt like I felt like
Speaker 1: you bullied me in junior high school. And I was
Speaker 1: just like, what do you mean, Like, like, what do
Speaker 1: you like? What how could you feel l She's like, oh,
Speaker 1: just you know, you and another friend and another friend
Speaker 1: I used to just you know, say stuthing about me,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, young lady, I wants to
Speaker 1: her name. I said, it's funny you say that we
Speaker 1: all liked you. You know, a boy, No one explains
Speaker 1: to you as a young man, like what are these emotions?
Speaker 1: That are feelings that I'm having? But we all liked her, right,
Speaker 1: so we used to pick on her right like you know,
Speaker 1: you just see how you call her names. You know what.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing probably with you and in elementary school,
Speaker 1: call you teen wolf because the boys like to you.
Speaker 1: They don't know how to you know this butterflies, somebody
Speaker 1: really like these hairy legs. No, seriously like you. You
Speaker 1: don't know, like a lot of these young young men
Speaker 1: or even young women. Because it was the same thing
Speaker 1: I used to when I was in junior high school.
Speaker 1: Girls used to make fun of my ears because I
Speaker 1: had pink lips. And girls were different back in the day.
Speaker 1: They used to act like dudes. Especially girls will give
Speaker 1: you gills in the back of the neck, and it's
Speaker 1: like they noticed you can't hit them back, so they
Speaker 1: would do stuff to you and you'd be like, why
Speaker 1: does she why does she keep you know, now you
Speaker 1: realize like, oh, she probably had a crush on me.
Speaker 1: So as a boy, we don't realize we're doing the
Speaker 1: same thing to these girls and don't realize that they
Speaker 1: may take it as bullying. Right, And when she gave
Speaker 1: me that message, and I was grown at this point,
Speaker 1: This is when Facebook, so this was I was a
Speaker 1: full adult and she sent me the message just like
Speaker 1: I felt like I was being bullied. I apologized and
Speaker 1: I said I'm sorry, like I never that was never
Speaker 1: my intent. But I do think that that's in part
Speaker 1: why more parents have to have these conversations with their
Speaker 1: children to know what it looks like. You know, any
Speaker 1: repetitive behavior that a person doesn't respond well to can
Speaker 1: be considered bullying, whether it's just name calling or if
Speaker 1: it's physical. It doesn't have to get to physical to
Speaker 1: be bullying. But I will say this, though you're gonna
Speaker 1: say something, yeah, I was. You're you're telling that story
Speaker 1: made me think when you mentioned into adulthood, when do
Speaker 1: you draw the line between joking and just joking, just
Speaker 1: a joke, and then it being bullying. Because you have
Speaker 1: a scenario with a former teammate who after years of
Speaker 1: y'all just like back and forth or you just getting
Speaker 1: on him. Because one thing with Devout if you engage
Speaker 1: in jokes, yeah, I'm not going to stop with him.
Speaker 1: He's not going to stop and be He's going to
Speaker 1: have a comeback every single time. So don't engage. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying everybody knows, don't engage in any kind of
Speaker 1: doesn't shooting with this one because he's gonna win. Chances
Speaker 1: are he loves that kind of It's like improv class
Speaker 1: for him. Right. So there's a teammate of yours that
Speaker 1: you didn't realize until years later when you heard through
Speaker 1: other friends that this person no funk with you with
Speaker 1: me and Devot was so confused and bewildered, and I
Speaker 1: think Molly kind of hurt, like wow, like I was
Speaker 1: really hurt. I know, I want to put you out
Speaker 1: there like that, but you were hurt because you felt
Speaker 1: like this was somebody that was a friend and he
Speaker 1: was just like, no, I don't funk with Divot like that,
Speaker 1: because if I don't know when to stop and what
Speaker 1: what made you in that moment just feel like damn,
Speaker 1: I might have gone too far or I didn't even
Speaker 1: know I was going too far, because I know that
Speaker 1: I can be a very um assertive person. I have
Speaker 1: a law personality. I understand that, and I have a
Speaker 1: slick mouth. I get that, right, That's what I was saying.
Speaker 1: Remember when I said ship changed after college, it was
Speaker 1: because of this scenario. Um, people think bullying started in
Speaker 1: social media and two thousand's that's what people think, right,
Speaker 1: But they would stop the bullying campaigns when we were
Speaker 1: growing up. And I remember a lot of the TV
Speaker 1: shows that we used to watch all revolved around bullying,
Speaker 1: you know, Saved by the Bell. I think always it
Speaker 1: was bullies, right. I never want to be bullied. So
Speaker 1: now I'll get to college. And I get to college
Speaker 1: on five nine at the time a hundred and forty
Speaker 1: eight pounds. The first thing I said was, ain't nobody
Speaker 1: in this locker room bullying me? I was a walk on.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. Upper classmate at that time
Speaker 1: tend to bully freshman. So my thing is I always
Speaker 1: had to protect my space and my piece. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to walk into this locker room and I'm going
Speaker 1: to find the person that everybody seems to revolve around
Speaker 1: and may be scared of and We're gonna go back
Speaker 1: and forth because I want them to know, like, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna be the one. So and my way of
Speaker 1: doing that was with jokes, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So I'm never afraid to go back and forth with people.
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to I wanted to assert my
Speaker 1: space in the locker room. That's what it was. Now,
Speaker 1: the locker room etiquette is very different than the real world.
Speaker 1: There are things that happened in the locker room that
Speaker 1: you can't take out in the real world and just
Speaker 1: be like, oh, that's just how people are, because the
Speaker 1: locker room is a different space. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's it's almost like your your friend group. Right, you
Speaker 1: got a friend group. You can call them to other
Speaker 1: bitch bitch, bitch, whate bitch bitch. But you go out
Speaker 1: in the real world somebody call you a bit, You'll
Speaker 1: be like, who are you talking? Right, there's a permission
Speaker 1: that you have permission in certain arenas that that's okay,
Speaker 1: there's certain things okay. So in this space I thought
Speaker 1: we were all safe and everybody was okay. You also
Speaker 1: find out that, um, it doesn't matter how big a
Speaker 1: person is, how much muscle they got, how much strong
Speaker 1: they act. They can feel bullied as well and not
Speaker 1: saying anything, And in this case, that person felt like
Speaker 1: I was bullying them. Unbeknownst to me, they were still
Speaker 1: smiling with me and laughed with me and make can
Speaker 1: me feel like everything was cool. So I kept the
Speaker 1: jokes coming and we kept joking on each other. But
Speaker 1: in the whole time, that person didn't think it was cool. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest, I don't think that that's bullying.
Speaker 1: You can't let me feel like things are okay and
Speaker 1: then later on and say you don't sunk with me.
Speaker 1: I think that's corny. If you just said to me like, yo,
Speaker 1: you know, like why you're doing too much, I probably
Speaker 1: would have stopped in that moment. But I thought we
Speaker 1: were both enjoying it. So I don't think that's bullying.
Speaker 1: But I do think someone with that type of personality
Speaker 1: like mine, and if I choose to continue to tell
Speaker 1: jokes on you when I know that it's not funny
Speaker 1: to you around and you're always the butt of the
Speaker 1: joke to everybody else, that's bullying got you. So there's
Speaker 1: an awareness that the person who is potentially bullying or
Speaker 1: like spewing the jobs and awareness you have to have.
Speaker 1: Had you been aware that I've been aware of feel good,
Speaker 1: then you would have been like now right. And to
Speaker 1: be honest, my guard was down because I'm dealing with
Speaker 1: football players, So I'm like, I'm not expecting any other
Speaker 1: football players to be upset because with making jokes like,
Speaker 1: that's just never what I was expecting. But just because
Speaker 1: you don't expect it doesn't mean and that's a whole
Speaker 1: another another podcast we wanna talk about get out of
Speaker 1: my feelings, Like you can't tell someone how to respond
Speaker 1: to what you say, and I learned in that case,
Speaker 1: and that's why I've kind of dialed back how I
Speaker 1: approach and how I go back and forth with people,
Speaker 1: because I've learned that people are not always honest about
Speaker 1: what affects them because, like what we talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: you don't want to be seeing it soft, so you
Speaker 1: let things happen to you because you don't want to
Speaker 1: say anything publicly, so you just let it happen me
Speaker 1: while you're developing resentment towards the person that's doing it.
Speaker 1: So I've learned to just be like, you know what
Speaker 1: I don't want to have that problem. So when it
Speaker 1: comes to that back and forth, I just don't engage
Speaker 1: as much because I do go for the gust though.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Like, that's the way I
Speaker 1: was taught. You want to make a joke about me,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make a joke about your mother. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. You want to make a joke about
Speaker 1: my mother, might a joke about your life, and then
Speaker 1: people like, damn, you got personal. I like, the purpose
Speaker 1: of a joke is to win, Like you know, that's
Speaker 1: the purpose, But people don't play that way. In the
Speaker 1: nineties in Brooklyn, that's we used to play baby with
Speaker 1: the heightened sensitivity. You can't joke about nothing. Think about
Speaker 1: even some of the shows and movies that we watched
Speaker 1: scenes they were just like, damn, you can't even say
Speaker 1: that that's picking on a particular group of people. Or
Speaker 1: it's just like you know, you know what I talking to.
Speaker 1: Kids who have fights end up becoming best friends. Give
Speaker 1: you an example. Kendell Ali was my best friend since
Speaker 1: I think eleven, all the way through high school. This
Speaker 1: was my guy, Like he's my guy, you know how
Speaker 1: Me and Kendell met when I was nine. I stayed
Speaker 1: home from I stayed home from Tennessee and um the summer,
Speaker 1: and I went to Glenwood Projects Community summer program, right
Speaker 1: And I was one of the only kids from Carnarcia
Speaker 1: that went to that program. Everybody else there was from Flatbush,
Speaker 1: so I was the odd man out, and and I
Speaker 1: didn't know anybody. So I'm walking into this arena with nobody,
Speaker 1: and we're at glen War Projects Community Center. Everybody in
Speaker 1: the is from the fifties, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: from the area of Flatbush, the forties. And here comes
Speaker 1: his kid from a hundred and first Street, and I
Speaker 1: was remember me and Kendell, it was always the you
Speaker 1: know who, who runs the fastest, who jumps the highest,
Speaker 1: who's the best basketball players, the best football player? And
Speaker 1: it always came down from shoot, this kid from Cannazi
Speaker 1: pretty fast, and Kendell was known at that time as
Speaker 1: the fastest kid in the program. So every they kind
Speaker 1: of pinned us against each other. It was fast de
Speaker 1: vali Can Dell de val can Dell blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: Plus there was a couple of girls that he liked
Speaker 1: that I liked, and you know, it was like one
Speaker 1: of those things. So I'm going to get water from
Speaker 1: the waterfowling and he had his group of friends. I
Speaker 1: was by myself and it was him and his group
Speaker 1: of friends and I'm waiting in line for the water
Speaker 1: and I'm watching them and they're laughing into whatever, and
Speaker 1: I'm just like they're gonna try something this or whatever
Speaker 1: whatever they try, so it's about to be on. It
Speaker 1: was only me and my little brother Brian. Brian was
Speaker 1: seven every time, so I got to get some o
Speaker 1: my brother, don't play no good. I go to get
Speaker 1: some water and drinking the water and I feel in
Speaker 1: hand push my head in the water and then the
Speaker 1: water went up my nose. So I look back and
Speaker 1: it's Kendell right, so I go, yo, chill right, he goes.
Speaker 1: So I go to get some more water, right, and
Speaker 1: he pushes my head in the water. So you know
Speaker 1: what I do. I take all the water in my mouth,
Speaker 1: fill it up like a chipmunk in my cheeks, turnaround
Speaker 1: and spit all that water in his face. What do
Speaker 1: you think happen? After that? We start fighting. We're throwing punches,
Speaker 1: we slamming each other on the ground, we get broken up,
Speaker 1: and you know what happened after that, we became best friends.
Speaker 1: This is and and this is the truth. Though kids
Speaker 1: don't fight no more, right, kids don't fight no more
Speaker 1: like um, the times have changed. Kids often just resorting
Speaker 1: the violence too quickly. But you know what happens when
Speaker 1: those things to happen in nine years old? You fight,
Speaker 1: You fight, You realize I'm not afraid of you, You're
Speaker 1: not afraid of me. We have a lot more in
Speaker 1: common than we have again see each other. We might
Speaker 1: as well be territorial thing like I feel like people
Speaker 1: trying to be territorial with like someone coming into the
Speaker 1: new neighborhood or freshman coming into it, and then the
Speaker 1: seniors and juniors are like the new. It's almost like
Speaker 1: an initiation process that has to happen, right, and it's
Speaker 1: just see worthy of being a part of And he
Speaker 1: walked in our crew. And to be honest, it kind
Speaker 1: of was that because me and I grew up on
Speaker 1: fifty third Street in the Avenue D and then we
Speaker 1: moved to the hundreds. At the time there was only
Speaker 1: white people in Canarsi. We were the third black family
Speaker 1: in Canarsi. So when They looked at me and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: where you live And I'm not gonna live in Canarsi.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the flossy as it was now. This was
Speaker 1: so like you live in canars you live with the
Speaker 1: white people like you saw. So it was like they
Speaker 1: were going to test me to see but little then
Speaker 1: they knew I grew up in Flatbush my whole life.
Speaker 1: So I was with whatever. And that's and that And
Speaker 1: I think sometimes you're gonna get tested in life, and
Speaker 1: how you respond to the test is going to determine
Speaker 1: how the trajectory of your life goes. And I want
Speaker 1: to empower not only parents with their kids, but parents
Speaker 1: with themselves. Right, learn how to speak power into your spouse,
Speaker 1: into the your significant other, because you don't know what
Speaker 1: your significant other, your spouse goes through when they're at work.
Speaker 1: You don't know if they're being bullied at work. You
Speaker 1: don't know if they're you know if their boss is
Speaker 1: overstepping boundaries. So when you can empower your spouse or
Speaker 1: your significant other to feel confident and breathe confidence into
Speaker 1: them when they walk out into the world, you're helping
Speaker 1: them not be a victim. And that's the most important
Speaker 1: part is like, what are we doing to help the
Speaker 1: people we love? Rather than pointing the finger that everyone
Speaker 1: else in society and saying, y'all need to teach y'all people.
Speaker 1: What are we doing right? Gentlemen, what are you doing
Speaker 1: to speak power into your women and your wife so
Speaker 1: they can go out in the world and feel confident? Ladies,
Speaker 1: what kind of power are you speaking into your men
Speaker 1: so when they go out in the world they don't
Speaker 1: feel like they're being bullied by everyone else, and then
Speaker 1: coming home and then once again being bullied because they
Speaker 1: ain't nothing like coming home after hard day's work and
Speaker 1: having your significant other or your mom, or your dad
Speaker 1: or your older brother say to you, you ain't ship,
Speaker 1: you ain't gonna be shipped, You ain't never gonna be shipped.
Speaker 1: Now you're getting bullied at home, and now the victim
Speaker 1: victimizing of yourself starts in the very beginning of your day.
Speaker 1: So I just want to empower people to you know,
Speaker 1: when you look at the person across me that you love,
Speaker 1: take the time to just speak some words of power
Speaker 1: and make them feel confident. And also choose the time
Speaker 1: that's good because Conine will tell you to. Since she
Speaker 1: was in college, I've been teaching her techniques to defend herself.
Speaker 1: You know, we've talked about self defense. Can you talk
Speaker 1: about boxing. I've talked about taking her to the range.
Speaker 1: We haven't gone to the gun range yet, but I'm
Speaker 1: taking her. But it's also a responsible thing to make
Speaker 1: sure that you give them the necessary tools to not
Speaker 1: be a victim. And it's like a worst case scenario.
Speaker 1: If you need to defend, then you can call on
Speaker 1: the things that you were taught, whether it's defense or
Speaker 1: you knowekwondo or martial arts or whatever. So it's all
Speaker 1: about giving them the tools, but also giving them the
Speaker 1: emotional tools to feel okay with who they are. I love.
Speaker 1: That's how we can prevent bullying the best. All the
Speaker 1: other things will help, but that empowerment helps the most,
Speaker 1: and it starts at home. Awesome. All right, now, that's
Speaker 1: a good point. I think that we should take another
Speaker 1: quick break and then move into some listener letters. But
Speaker 1: let's get into these ads first. Okay, we'll be back.
Speaker 1: All right, now, we're back with some listener letters. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna dive into the first one first. I just want
Speaker 1: to say, Katina, thank you are my kindred spirit. Oh seriously,
Speaker 1: My parents are from Jamaica, but I was born in Florida.
Speaker 1: My boyfriend is American and was born and raised in
Speaker 1: New York. I love listening to you both. Thank you sis.
Speaker 1: So you know Caribbean households do not discuss taboo topics,
Speaker 1: So I've learned so much from this podcast. My boyfriend
Speaker 1: and I have been together for a year now, but
Speaker 1: previously had a friends with benefits relationship. Due to the
Speaker 1: way the relationships started and both of us becoming more
Speaker 1: spiritual in the last year, I proposed celibacy. My boyfriend
Speaker 1: thought it was a good idea, but struggles a lot
Speaker 1: with it, and we have. We have caved a couple
Speaker 1: of times, but also remain adamant about trying again. We've
Speaker 1: talked about marriage and see it as see it in
Speaker 1: the plans for us within the next two years. What
Speaker 1: do you both think Is it worth it to take
Speaker 1: a break from sex sex to strength in our relationship
Speaker 1: in other ways? Is that something you wish you all
Speaker 1: would have done or do you think that it just
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, or do you think that it would have
Speaker 1: made a difference. I really want him to be my
Speaker 1: husband and just want to set us up for success.
Speaker 1: I would love to know your thoughts. Why do you laugh? No,
Speaker 1: I just I just okay what I was thinking. Okay,
Speaker 1: Actually she kind of proved right, Okay, right, I was
Speaker 1: thinking she proposed celibacy because she's just like, I want
Speaker 1: to get married, and if I say, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be selling. So you look at the last sentence, it
Speaker 1: says I really want him to be my husband, and
Speaker 1: I just want to set usself for success. I personally
Speaker 1: feel like it's like that's her pressure on him. Yes,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's like, even having sex all this time,
Speaker 1: let's practice celibacy until we get married. And then it's like,
Speaker 1: I'm just that's just my thoughts. I could be wrong,
Speaker 1: but I just see that. But my thing when I
Speaker 1: first read this was like, since is it really that
Speaker 1: big of a deal to stop now, like y'all already started.
Speaker 1: It's different if you went into it with that mantra
Speaker 1: and you were like, listen, I'm saving myself for marriage,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. But it's like, you know, bringing the
Speaker 1: horse to the water in the heat of the desert
Speaker 1: and he gets to drink in and then you take
Speaker 1: him away and be like, no, you're just gonna stay
Speaker 1: here and just burn because then you tried, remember when
Speaker 1: we were engaged, When we were engaged, and then after
Speaker 1: we were engaged, you were just like, how about how
Speaker 1: about we practice sales until we get married right after
Speaker 1: the month before the month before that before you know,
Speaker 1: I remember, but do you remember that you couldn't take
Speaker 1: you guys, listen to me, guys. I wanted to do
Speaker 1: it because I'm all about tests. I'm all about testing
Speaker 1: the wheel. So I was like, I'm about to do this. Right,
Speaker 1: we were still living in right and who was pulling
Speaker 1: on me? And nights just who was it? It was me? Yes,
Speaker 1: it was me. So my thing was it was twofold
Speaker 1: right after we got engaged and all that stuff. Of
Speaker 1: course we were clearly sexually active consistently forever before that. Um,
Speaker 1: but there's two things for me. It was one kind
Speaker 1: of feeling like all right, like I want our wedding
Speaker 1: night to be a special, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe if we like stopped for the month before then
Speaker 1: it would be like, who like this build up to this,
Speaker 1: you know, phenomenal night that we would have our wedding night,
Speaker 1: and then the second was I had gotten off of
Speaker 1: birth control that May, and I was like, man, I
Speaker 1: was just like, I don't really want to get pregnant,
Speaker 1: like now, oh, like okay, believe you had all of
Speaker 1: these philosophical reasons and the only reason why you didn't
Speaker 1: want to do it because you ain't yeh. And I
Speaker 1: was just like nervous. I was just like, I really
Speaker 1: want to just get pregnant, like right after the wedding,
Speaker 1: not beforehand. So if I run the risk of that,
Speaker 1: then you know. So yeah, I thought you you were
Speaker 1: talking about our spirits. He was worried about your going. No,
Speaker 1: it wasn't even just a spirious. I just wanted there
Speaker 1: to be an excitement that was something different because it
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, now I'm finally having sex
Speaker 1: or making love to my husband that night. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't really like a huge like you know, I'm doing
Speaker 1: this for my soul. And my master was worried she
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna fit in that address if she got pregnant.
Speaker 1: That's what it was. A month before, a month before
Speaker 1: because very control because I was like, you know, we
Speaker 1: knew that we wanted to have children right away. And
Speaker 1: then SO said so done honeymoon baby with Jackson. So
Speaker 1: but yeah, girl, I mean unless you felt like there
Speaker 1: was something specific that you guys had to work on,
Speaker 1: Like I understand the whole spirituality thing and you guys
Speaker 1: working on that. Um. But to me, as you know,
Speaker 1: as a jamaking, we say, what do is done. He
Speaker 1: did it already, you know. So Look, I can see
Speaker 1: why it's difficult for homeboy. I do believe too, though,
Speaker 1: that not having sex in a relationship does allow some
Speaker 1: room for clarity for sure, you know, because you know
Speaker 1: if you're here for the right reasons or right so
Speaker 1: are you here just because we get to have sex?
Speaker 1: Are you here for other things? Do I offer anything more?
Speaker 1: So I do understand it, and if it works for y'all,
Speaker 1: the works for y'all. Like I don't ever say this,
Speaker 1: don't this won't work, or that won't work. Because our
Speaker 1: whole marriage, people have been telling us of what we've
Speaker 1: been doing is not gonna work. So I'm never gonna
Speaker 1: say what's not gonna work. I'm just making sure that
Speaker 1: you are deliberate about why you're doing it and often
Speaker 1: communicating through the process, because most people just do stuff
Speaker 1: and don't have a reason or won't communicate with their
Speaker 1: partner why they're doing it. Just make sure that y'all
Speaker 1: are constantly communicating and working together, and it could be fun,
Speaker 1: you know, like um, those those that month, those two
Speaker 1: weeks because being caved right, not knowing when I was
Speaker 1: going to have sex, not in seeing case, she was
Speaker 1: looking real good and I was, you know, flirting with her,
Speaker 1: feeling on, doing all the things that you do when
Speaker 1: you first start dating someone. And it was refreshing to
Speaker 1: get back to not knowing if you're gonna crack the code,
Speaker 1: because that's what gentlemen, we wanted. We want to crack
Speaker 1: the code. We want to see if that pad lock
Speaker 1: on that pos, the padlock on that pols, then if
Speaker 1: I could cracked the cord and that pause. So it
Speaker 1: was fun. It was um, already cracked the cold on
Speaker 1: the parsley. I got four gifts from the parsley, so
Speaker 1: I would just keep taking the pause. Okay, period, that helps, alright.
Speaker 1: Two number two, I've been with my partner now since
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen. We went on and off until
Speaker 1: September of two thousand nineteen, and then began or then
Speaker 1: we've been together. I made it very clear to my
Speaker 1: partner when we got together that my end goal was
Speaker 1: married and my plan was to still go to law school.
Speaker 1: Where now almost eight years and then in no proposal engagement.
Speaker 1: He doesn't even know what ring size I had I
Speaker 1: wear and or has attempts to ask me what kind
Speaker 1: of ring style I like. He will tell you that
Speaker 1: this this is funny, right, this is what's funny to me.
Speaker 1: When I said the thing about pressure and everybody was
Speaker 1: coming at me, and all these women were saying like,
Speaker 1: we don't be pressure with y'all two back to back
Speaker 1: talk about what this? I WoT that. But when I
Speaker 1: said that there was pressure, Niggas was mad. He will
Speaker 1: tell you that his finances for him, he probably listened
Speaker 1: to podcast and let me use this. However, I've been
Speaker 1: there through all of his financial struggles and even helped
Speaker 1: him out a few of his bonds before. I've been
Speaker 1: patiently waiting for him to pursue his dreams. Now he's
Speaker 1: living in and more financially stable as a content creator.
Speaker 1: Mind you, when we lived in our one betterroom apartment
Speaker 1: in he wanted a kid, I was not comfortable with
Speaker 1: having a kid in the one betterom apartment. Sounds like us.
Speaker 1: We wasn't a one better apartment, but we didn't want
Speaker 1: to have as many kids we had in that apartment
Speaker 1: and no real financial plan. We survived the pandemic, bought
Speaker 1: our first condo, and three months later I got pregnant.
Speaker 1: I had her and still planned to start law school.
Speaker 1: I know, um, he knows. I wanted to have our
Speaker 1: union finalized prior to him, prior to me doing going
Speaker 1: to law school, so I don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: doing a name change and I can build my reputation
Speaker 1: in the legal community with my new last name. That's
Speaker 1: what it is. The new lad his name because she
Speaker 1: won't be able to build a career without the new
Speaker 1: last name. Here cracking the code cold Bush, I am
Speaker 1: now to the point where I'm not even excited about
Speaker 1: the thought of us becoming one and feel that I
Speaker 1: am slowly mentally leaving the relationship due to all the
Speaker 1: false promises of him saying to me he's going to
Speaker 1: be with me regardless of kid or no kid. He
Speaker 1: said he has a plan for the whole thing, but
Speaker 1: it's hard for me to believe at this point, considering
Speaker 1: I am always the one that brings up marriage. I
Speaker 1: refused to be thirty and a living girlfriend. As K
Speaker 1: would say, after eight years, I'm ready to get K.
Speaker 1: You also lied, it was not eight years. What do
Speaker 1: you mean it's not eight years? You keep telling people?
Speaker 1: Oh no, no no, no, but she said as K would
Speaker 1: say after eight years. Remember us said that we were
Speaker 1: together for eight years before I proposed. Yeah, we started
Speaker 1: eighteen and none. I proposed to you in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight. We got together two thousand too. How many
Speaker 1: years is Dona six six eight? Same ship? Oh no,
Speaker 1: it's not, it's not. It was a two year difference.
Speaker 1: It's a whole seven hundred and twelve days difference and
Speaker 1: the same thing a long time. Yo, Yo, it ain't
Speaker 1: a long time regardless some two years. The two years
Speaker 1: difference doesn't matter, not much, all right. So next time
Speaker 1: you ask me for someone, make you wait two years
Speaker 1: and you're telling me you tell me that two years
Speaker 1: past difference? All right? I'm ready to give an ultimatum,
Speaker 1: pressure or just leave. At this point, am I being unreasonable?
Speaker 1: Please help well? Ship? Since you got only answer to
Speaker 1: answer her, so does you okay? Answer her? Because you
Speaker 1: you're speaking. She's asking about this from a man who
Speaker 1: now she's thinking to give some sort of ultimatum to
Speaker 1: which is like I gave you because I've answered this
Speaker 1: question so many times. Answer Listen. They have a plan, right,
Speaker 1: His plan may not be moving fast enough for her,
Speaker 1: but clearly they have a plan. They have a baby.
Speaker 1: He bought a condo. They bought a condo together. He's
Speaker 1: like doing this, this is something I bought a house, right,
Speaker 1: I bought a house together for us. We both lived
Speaker 1: in the house. But even with that, you still thought
Speaker 1: that we had to get married because it would be
Speaker 1: better for your timeline. There's nothing wrong with that. But
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is just because a man is not
Speaker 1: moving on your timeline doesn't mean that he doesn't have
Speaker 1: a plan. Like like, we don't know what his his
Speaker 1: financial plan looks like for when he feels he's going
Speaker 1: to be ready. For example, when you plan a wedding,
Speaker 1: you have to have money to get a ring. There's
Speaker 1: none of this falls on the woman, which is what
Speaker 1: to me, I want to make clear, we have to
Speaker 1: buy a ring, we have to pay for and uh,
Speaker 1: it's not an engagement. What is it called the proposal party?
Speaker 1: Because at that joint next level now can't roll over
Speaker 1: in the bed and proposes somebody. But we have to
Speaker 1: play the proposal plan a proposal party. There's no longer
Speaker 1: time where it's like her parents are gonna pay for
Speaker 1: the wedding. He also has to save money to pay
Speaker 1: help pay for the wedding, and then they have to
Speaker 1: exist as a couple after that. There's a lot. You
Speaker 1: don't just make a couple of thousand dollars and say
Speaker 1: I'm ready for all of that, Like there's a plan
Speaker 1: that is needed, and I don't think women are understanding
Speaker 1: that there is a plan like that. I have to
Speaker 1: have a certain amount of finances to be able to
Speaker 1: make that jump and then have a nest day to
Speaker 1: survive that jump once we get married, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: since I wouldn't say jumps ships so soon too. Because
Speaker 1: what you want to ask yourself to which is something
Speaker 1: that you kind of proved in your piece here, has
Speaker 1: he been a man of his words? So far? Has
Speaker 1: he been somebody that has a plan is putting wheels
Speaker 1: in motions to be able to afford you guys the
Speaker 1: lifestyle to live more comfortably. So it seems like getting
Speaker 1: this condo, even during the pandemic and all that was
Speaker 1: something of paramount importance to him. Um, maybe she felt
Speaker 1: like she compromised by getting pregnant because he wanted to
Speaker 1: have a child, house or not, and she went ahead
Speaker 1: and did that. So now she feels like, all right, well,
Speaker 1: we got the house, we have the baby, and now
Speaker 1: I'm ready to move on to what the next phase
Speaker 1: of life is. I know what that feels like because
Speaker 1: I felt the same way too. Did I ever really
Speaker 1: feel like you weren't serious about me, or that you
Speaker 1: weren't serious about our relationship? That wasn't it. But again,
Speaker 1: I was succumbing to this you know, timeline of my
Speaker 1: life and where I should be at certain phases. And
Speaker 1: I've said before that you know now you realize that
Speaker 1: that timeline is not necessarily um, something that's true based
Speaker 1: on social you know, norm. I just want to put
Speaker 1: this out there. I played in the National Football League
Speaker 1: for three years, made close to a million dollars right
Speaker 1: in those three years, to see sixty five and then
Speaker 1: four it was four fifty five, right even still when
Speaker 1: I bought that house, and were we prepared financially for
Speaker 1: the next step of our life even with all that
Speaker 1: money that I made, were we prepared? No? And I'm
Speaker 1: saying that because I'm like, here's a guy who's making
Speaker 1: in the top one percent of the country making that
Speaker 1: type of money. I wasn't spending it frivously. I did
Speaker 1: buy some property to help with investments. We did buy
Speaker 1: a home for us to live in, and even still
Speaker 1: after the recession, because we're currently in a recession and
Speaker 1: had to go through the pandemic, which means there's still
Speaker 1: probably are some financial hardships. I still wasn't prepared for
Speaker 1: the type of wedding you want and to live the
Speaker 1: type of life we wanted after the wedding. And I
Speaker 1: say that because a lot of these women are saying, well,
Speaker 1: he needs to figure this out. It's not easy. Stuff
Speaker 1: is expensive, getting a ring, planning, planning the proper proposal,
Speaker 1: having a wedding, and then having the finances to raise
Speaker 1: a family is no small order for somebody, Isn't it
Speaker 1: isn't I have to agree like this nowadays, And I mean,
Speaker 1: and this was our struggle years ago. Yeah, I'm the
Speaker 1: way things have evolved. It's like people look at you
Speaker 1: sideways when you have a corny quote unquote proposal, or
Speaker 1: if it's not a moment that can be shared on
Speaker 1: social media. They get all that. Let's let's let's break
Speaker 1: down the numbers. Right, Let's break down the numbers because
Speaker 1: I've been helping my boys proposed for the last four years.
Speaker 1: Right now, if you want to get a decent sized
Speaker 1: ring for your girlfriend, right, it's about ten tho dollars
Speaker 1: per carrot considering just the solid solitary stone. Right, that's
Speaker 1: if you want to get a nice joint. If you
Speaker 1: want to get a nice joint, it's just just like
Speaker 1: a single solitary stone, not not what they call it
Speaker 1: when they invisible an You can get an invisible set ring.
Speaker 1: And this is no shade on anybody. You can get
Speaker 1: an invisible set ring for hundred dollars. It could be big,
Speaker 1: it'll be shiny, it'll have a bunch of small diamonds
Speaker 1: over it. But the problem is a lot of women
Speaker 1: are saying, I want two carrots, I want three carrots.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. Even if you buy a
Speaker 1: one carrot solitaire diamond ring with a good setting, that's
Speaker 1: gonna cost you about dollars. The stone itself at one
Speaker 1: carrot is going to be t thousand plus. The diamonds
Speaker 1: around they're gonna coach additional five thousand four or one carriage,
Speaker 1: two carriage, looking at three carriage, you're looking at over
Speaker 1: thirty dollars. Right, I'm just saying, this is what men
Speaker 1: are going through right now. I have to get a venue.
Speaker 1: I have to hire a videographer, I have to hire
Speaker 1: a photographer. I have to invite all of your friends
Speaker 1: and my friends and create this experience. Right, We've seen
Speaker 1: people get engaged in the last two years. Those things
Speaker 1: for us anywhere between between ten and twenty dollars for
Speaker 1: just the proposal. Right, That's that's money. Like, I just
Speaker 1: hear so many women saying, like, there's no financial plan.
Speaker 1: I want to get engaged, I want to get proposed.
Speaker 1: It's like, yo, I don't think women understand how much
Speaker 1: goes into trying to create this perfect moment for you guys,
Speaker 1: and to constantly here it's like Tom's ticking and you're
Speaker 1: not doing it. That's hard for a lot of dudes, bro,
Speaker 1: because my boys were stressed. Bro. And I'm talking about
Speaker 1: good guys who wanted to get married, who had good
Speaker 1: jobs but also had bills. And we're also thinking, like him,
Speaker 1: I can't spend fifty dollars on the ring and this
Speaker 1: right now, because then I won't have the money to
Speaker 1: plan the wedding, and then I'll be I'll be I'll
Speaker 1: be freaking engaged for four to five years. You don't
Speaker 1: saying to build it up, and then once I have
Speaker 1: the wedding, I'll be back in financial hardship after we
Speaker 1: get married. You understand what I'm saying. I just I
Speaker 1: just I really need I really, because we talked about this,
Speaker 1: I really need people to understand. Number One, you don't
Speaker 1: need that much to get engaged, right, you don't need
Speaker 1: that much. But I understand after you're engaged and there's
Speaker 1: a talk of when's the wedding, and then the wedding
Speaker 1: plans get powered on, and you can see why so
Speaker 1: many men are just hate the entire process of I'm
Speaker 1: just being honest because also asked I have a question
Speaker 1: for you, right, what do women think about They just
Speaker 1: sit back and wait to get proposed to. They're not
Speaker 1: saving no money to say I'm gonna put it on
Speaker 1: my own ring, right, Yeah, I mean I wouldn't. I
Speaker 1: definitely didn't put it in my own ran, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure people would be looking at people sideways when you
Speaker 1: say she's she's helping to buy her own. Also, we
Speaker 1: have people who got engaged in their significant others spend
Speaker 1: money on the engagements events. Right, did the woman bring
Speaker 1: anything to that or did they just show up? The
Speaker 1: show up? So so we have to have an understanding.
Speaker 1: You're showing up with ultimatums and times saying this has
Speaker 1: to happen, and this man is supposed to make all
Speaker 1: of this beauty happen for you. What are you bringing
Speaker 1: when you come to the proposal right now? You're absolutely right,
Speaker 1: I can't even and I got four birds, So this
Speaker 1: is gonna be the conversation I have. That is absolutely effect,
Speaker 1: That's absolutely a fact. I mean me now that I'm older, clearly,
Speaker 1: you know, at least ten years since you've proposed and
Speaker 1: we've planned a wedding and everything, my mindset has significantly changed.
Speaker 1: But I can see how girls in their twenties feel
Speaker 1: that way, especially when you have this like roadmap for
Speaker 1: your life that you're attempting to follow and attempting to fulfill. Um,
Speaker 1: it's difficult. It's difficult out here and couples, couples be
Speaker 1: contending with a lot. Oh man, how appropriate was that
Speaker 1: the bullying episode in here we have to bullies trying
Speaker 1: to get married bullies and again to getting married, and
Speaker 1: and the thing is moment for the episode. I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to discredit the fact that the biological clock and
Speaker 1: timeline for women aren't completely different for man. I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to discredit that at all. That is a very well,
Speaker 1: it's true because once the women hits thirty, there now
Speaker 1: becomes harder. But even so she becomes like a damaged
Speaker 1: good like guys you know, in their prime or women
Speaker 1: in their prime. People want to say that women in
Speaker 1: their thirties and men feeling like they don't want to
Speaker 1: deal with women in their thirst because they already come
Speaker 1: with baggage and they've already been jaded blah blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. So you don't want to then fall into
Speaker 1: that category just by default because homeboys over here quote
Speaker 1: unquote dragging his feet or making a plan. But I
Speaker 1: wasn't I wasn't talking about I was talking about as
Speaker 1: far as like the biological clock is very really, when
Speaker 1: you got into your thirties, pregnancy became harder. Once you
Speaker 1: got into your mid thirties, pregnancy became harder, child birth
Speaker 1: became harder, and then the after pregnancy became harder. So
Speaker 1: it's very real, like we're not going to discredit the
Speaker 1: fact that women are dealing with a lot of different
Speaker 1: clock which is why that type of pressure comes. But
Speaker 1: there has to be some empathy on both sides, Like
Speaker 1: you can't just tell a man like will we adam
Speaker 1: giving your ultimatum? Mom out you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: it's oh, stuff is expensive. When I was watching I
Speaker 1: was watching people go through planning, I was like, what
Speaker 1: are my boys gonna have to pay to get to
Speaker 1: get engaged? If it's ten dollars per carrot? Now if
Speaker 1: they marry somebody who's like their mom, Because I'm you,
Speaker 1: you sitting on some rockets right now, you sitting on
Speaker 1: some rockets. And I was able to upgrade it every year.
Speaker 1: But if I would have brought the same ring that
Speaker 1: I bought the first time now, because you've upgraded my
Speaker 1: ring twice. And that's a realistic thing too. I think
Speaker 1: some people, too off the bat, wanted to be this
Speaker 1: like you know, you know, this grand thing, but also
Speaker 1: too like we didn't start there, like this was like
Speaker 1: and I was playing ball, I was playing ball, and
Speaker 1: Cadeen's rock was carrot in a quarter, carrot in the quarter.
Speaker 1: Because I was it was beautiful, but it was also
Speaker 1: like I was not going to put myself on the
Speaker 1: financial hardship to live up to what all of my
Speaker 1: counterparts at the time, you know, there were. I had roommates,
Speaker 1: number rooms. I had teammates who four or five carrot
Speaker 1: rings off the bat because use the first round pick.
Speaker 1: I couldn't compete with that. Nope, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So listen, don't be competing with people around you either.
Speaker 1: That's a sure fire way to be disappointed. All right,
Speaker 1: I hope we helped you out out today. Um, if
Speaker 1: you like to be featured as one of our listener letters,
Speaker 1: make sure you email us at dead as Advice at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. That's D E A D A S
Speaker 1: S A D V I C E at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: All right, we're talking bullying today and the moment of truth,
Speaker 1: I think for me is pretty simple. One thing that
Speaker 1: stands out in my mind is that whatever you speak into,
Speaker 1: whether it's your children, your spouse, partner, your coworker, your employee,
Speaker 1: whatever the case may be, speaking negativity into someone will
Speaker 1: manifest them to feel negatively about themselves. And I think
Speaker 1: if more of us try to empower people and try
Speaker 1: to harp on their strengths, you know, and then aid
Speaker 1: them in their weaknesses, then we'd be a lot further along,
Speaker 1: and bullying would probably be happening at a lesser rate.
Speaker 1: Control which you can control in your household. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: speak from a man standpoint. Give the people around you
Speaker 1: the tools to not be victims. Let that be your wife,
Speaker 1: significant other, baby, mother, kids, younger siblings. As the leader,
Speaker 1: the man of the house, you have a responsibility to
Speaker 1: make sure that they have the tools to defend themselves
Speaker 1: and not be victims, which means you speak power into
Speaker 1: them constantly, let them understood that they are backed up
Speaker 1: by someone at all times. But then you also teach
Speaker 1: them to defend themselves mentally by giving them words. You know,
Speaker 1: have a strong command of the human of the English
Speaker 1: language or or Spanish or whatever language you speak, to
Speaker 1: be able to defend themselves verbally right, give them the
Speaker 1: tool to defend themselves physically. I taught case some judo,
Speaker 1: some jiu jitsu, some taekwondo. All my sons, all my sons, box,
Speaker 1: all my sons will be taking jiu jitsu as well
Speaker 1: when they become of age, because I don't I don't
Speaker 1: play with that. Also, I will be taking my wife
Speaker 1: to the gun range so she can defend herself when
Speaker 1: she's out here in the streets, and my sons will
Speaker 1: be going to the gun range as well. I know
Speaker 1: the gun violence is a very important thing in this country,
Speaker 1: and I think it's important that we, as the black community,
Speaker 1: because I am a black dad who has a Black
Speaker 1: wife with black children, also understand that we have the
Speaker 1: right to arm ourselves and know how to use guns responsibly. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I feel like you have to arm the people
Speaker 1: around you and defend the people and teach the people
Speaker 1: around you to defend themselves so they don't become victims.
Speaker 1: And that's how we can help with this bullying epidemic.
Speaker 1: All right, sounds good? Love that love that love that
Speaker 1: be short, and I'm gonna be y'all real quick into
Speaker 1: following on some social media. If you don't already pull
Speaker 1: out your phone, go to Instagram or where we at
Speaker 1: and type in dead as the podcast, and of course
Speaker 1: Kadina I am and I am devouted, And if you're
Speaker 1: listening on Apple Podcasts, be sure to rate, review and
Speaker 1: subscribe fun Bullies. Dead Ass is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Media podcast Network and is produced by The Noorrapinia
Speaker 1: and Triple Follow the podcast on social media at dead
Speaker 1: as the podcasts and Never miss a Thing