Speaker 1: Hey, y'all, it's Cadine. And if there's one thing that
Speaker 1: we're known for, it's sharing a lot of our life
Speaker 1: with the world. From our social media sitcom The Elysis
Speaker 1: to our podcast that As, we're known for being as
Speaker 1: transparent as possible so that we can all learn from
Speaker 1: what we've been through. And after twelve years of marriage,
Speaker 1: twenty years together, four kids, we've been through a lot exactly,
Speaker 1: from cohabitating for the first time to being in a
Speaker 1: long distance relationship, from having a lucrative career to go
Speaker 1: and broke and building it back up again. From knowing
Speaker 1: that you're with the love of your life to not
Speaker 1: knowing who the person is at all. Hey, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: you do know you've got multiple personality I mean that
Speaker 1: is a fact to shay. After much trial and error,
Speaker 1: we've learned one essential truth. If you're looking for a
Speaker 1: healthy relationship and a fulfilling life, you have to choose
Speaker 1: service over selfishness. And we just so happened to write
Speaker 1: a book about it. That's right. We over me the
Speaker 1: counterintuitive approach to getting everything you want from your relationship,
Speaker 1: because I mean, when you could put yourself first, putting
Speaker 1: your relationship first is the act of discipline that could
Speaker 1: be the difference between one failed relationship and a legacy
Speaker 1: that spans over generations. And we over Me. We talk
Speaker 1: about family, parenting, sex and intimacy, finances and commitment with
Speaker 1: honest advice threatened through our own stories. Now listen, We'll
Speaker 1: admit we may not have all the answers, but we
Speaker 1: do know what good love takes, and its friendship, grace
Speaker 1: and service. And everyone deserves good love. That's a fact.
Speaker 1: We over Me, the counterintuitive approach to getting everything you
Speaker 1: want from your relationship, available for preorder today. Pre Orders
Speaker 1: are available now at www dot p r H dot
Speaker 1: com slash we over me. That's www dot pr H
Speaker 1: dot com slash we over me. This is gonna be
Speaker 1: a little different than what people expect. But stop putting
Speaker 1: your kids on social media. If you get upset when
Speaker 1: people have opinions about your kids, mhm, I mean, I guess,
Speaker 1: you guess, I guess, But I will say I feel
Speaker 1: fortunate to have been in the generation where social media
Speaker 1: was not even a thing and I was able to
Speaker 1: grow and thrive without unsolicited opinions. Hey, I'm Cadine and
Speaker 1: we're the Ellises. You may know us from posting funny
Speaker 1: videos without boys and reading each other publicly as a
Speaker 1: form 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 millennium married couple.
Speaker 1: That ads is the term that we say every day.
Speaker 1: So when we say dead ass, will 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 ass starts right now. Jackson comes to me and says,
Speaker 1: your pops, because now he thinks he's grown, right, I said,
Speaker 1: what's up? This was? I said last year he's nine
Speaker 1: turning ten. So a couple of year and a couple
Speaker 1: of months because dad what always says? Can I get
Speaker 1: a TikTok? And he had just gotten the phone and
Speaker 1: I said absolutely not And he was like, why can't
Speaker 1: I get a TikTok? And I was like, because you
Speaker 1: don't have the emotional maturity to deal with what comes
Speaker 1: with having a social media And he got upset and
Speaker 1: his eyes started to water and he was and I
Speaker 1: was like, what's the matter and he was just like nothing, nothing, nothing,
Speaker 1: And I said, no, no, no no, tell me it's the matter, Like,
Speaker 1: what's what's going on? There's nothing I don't talk aboutn't
Speaker 1: talk about it. I was like, you mad? He says, yes,
Speaker 1: I said exactly. He said, what you mean? I said,
Speaker 1: you're proving my point? You want social media? I tell
Speaker 1: you know, I'm telling you something you don't like, and
Speaker 1: your first thing is to get mad. And now you're
Speaker 1: about to cry and you think I'm gonna let you
Speaker 1: have access to billions of people in the world. Funk
Speaker 1: out of here, period, like like seriously, like like you're
Speaker 1: proving my point. And you know what he said, he's
Speaker 1: I promise you I won't cry. Bro, Bro, you you
Speaker 1: already failed the test, okay, but understand this, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna leave you with this before we go into karaoke.
Speaker 1: The fact that you cried and you have feelings. It's
Speaker 1: good and it's important. I just need you to understand why.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're gonna talk about today. The why,
Speaker 1: not what happened, but the why. Sometimes I feel like
Speaker 1: somebody's why me no privacy? WHOA, what is it? I
Speaker 1: don't know what the words are. Don't ask me. That's
Speaker 1: not my my forte ain't the words it was? It was.
Speaker 1: I'm like, WHOA, Sometimes I feel like somebody's watching me. Well,
Speaker 1: motherfuckernat on there, that's true, right, And that's what I
Speaker 1: want to discuss today. But before we even get into well,
Speaker 1: you know what, let's take a break. Okay, let's take
Speaker 1: a break, Let's pay some bills, and let's come back
Speaker 1: and let's discuss this crazy world called social media. Sounds like,
Speaker 1: I'm We're back. We paid some real fast. And I
Speaker 1: just want to preface this by saying that I don't
Speaker 1: believe social media is bad. I don't. I don't believe
Speaker 1: social media, But what I do believe is that social
Speaker 1: media has evolved into something that people don't understand, and
Speaker 1: because they don't understand what it is, people try to
Speaker 1: create try to make social media something that it's no
Speaker 1: longer is anymore. So, I mean, yeah, we we understand
Speaker 1: that social media can be a very weird or dangerous place,
Speaker 1: right like the world. And yeah, and we do share
Speaker 1: our children on social media. That's pretty much how we started,
Speaker 1: and I will admit in the very beginning it was
Speaker 1: something that was pretty simple for me because I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're just making little videos. Oh, you have a little
Speaker 1: three hundred followers. Then you begin you know, then you
Speaker 1: get three thousand, and then became like three hundred thousand,
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, shoot, we have three million collectively
Speaker 1: collectively three million eyes in our family and our children.
Speaker 1: And it was kind of a thing where I started
Speaker 1: to get anxiety about the fact that we were even
Speaker 1: having our children in this space. One because they didn't
Speaker 1: ask to be in that space. Um, I know you didn't.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying while you're saying, I'm just saying so
Speaker 1: that people can understand that both can exist in the
Speaker 1: same house, one can feel something in one and it
Speaker 1: still happened. We still happen, Yeah, exactly. Um. So that
Speaker 1: so I had moments where I was just like, shoot,
Speaker 1: at what point do we start pulling the children back,
Speaker 1: you know, because essentially now they are in the spotlight. Yes. Um.
Speaker 1: And although we are very transparent with our social media,
Speaker 1: the overarching topic with this today is not allowing our
Speaker 1: children to have their own right because there are two
Speaker 1: purposes for social media. One purposes to share and then
Speaker 1: one is to consume. So you're either a sharer of
Speaker 1: social media, a content creator, or you're a consumer. I
Speaker 1: mean you can be both. You can be a consumer
Speaker 1: and also you know, receive social media. But at the
Speaker 1: same time we're we're both consumers, different types of consumers,
Speaker 1: but we're mainly creators, and I think that's what's important. Um.
Speaker 1: The first part is I wanted preface this by saying
Speaker 1: I saw a social media for what it was. It
Speaker 1: was an opportunity and a lane two create my own
Speaker 1: version of what I wanted to see on television. I
Speaker 1: saw the phone as a mini television screen. And I
Speaker 1: remember on my on my profile, if anyone of the
Speaker 1: screenshot my profile when I first started it said, um,
Speaker 1: I'm devoured a boy from Brooklyn and creating my life
Speaker 1: with sixty seconds in an iPhone, creating the life I
Speaker 1: want with sixty seconds in an iPhone. So for me,
Speaker 1: I was purposeful about it, right. So when I viewed
Speaker 1: social media, I viewed social media as a medium that
Speaker 1: shared content like the theater, like TV. It wasn't real,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So when when I saw
Speaker 1: it as that and I started to create content for it.
Speaker 1: I utilized it as a form of entertainment. And when
Speaker 1: I started to use it as a form of entertainment,
Speaker 1: I realized that people have the right to have their
Speaker 1: own opinion about what you share in the realm of entertainment.
Speaker 1: We do it in everything music, TV, film, theater, arts.
Speaker 1: This is just another art form. So I started to
Speaker 1: say to myself, I can no longer feel a way
Speaker 1: when people share their comments about my content, because that's
Speaker 1: what social media is for. Right you share it, there's
Speaker 1: a comment section, there's a like button, so you're expecting
Speaker 1: to get likes and share and comments. Just because someone
Speaker 1: makes a comment you don't like doesn't mean that that
Speaker 1: person is a hater. It doesn't mean that that person
Speaker 1: is against you. That's just how they feel in a moment,
Speaker 1: and that person has a right to share that comment.
Speaker 1: So as I started to navigate the space and realize
Speaker 1: that that's how we exist, I started to make my
Speaker 1: decisions about how I wanted my children to be raised
Speaker 1: around social media. I stopped putting the onus on everybody
Speaker 1: else to be kind or say the right thing, because
Speaker 1: you can't control everybody's comments. And I started to realize
Speaker 1: if there was a comment section where we were growing
Speaker 1: up and watching The Fresh Prince or or watching Brandy
Speaker 1: and listen, if there was a comment section for music
Speaker 1: and stuff, we'd all be commented what we liked and
Speaker 1: didn't like. We just didn't have that access. So the
Speaker 1: same comments people are making about us and our children
Speaker 1: or whatever we posted, the same way they felt when
Speaker 1: they watched all least things. We just never got a
Speaker 1: chance to see it. So it's not like people are
Speaker 1: really changed that much. We just get an inside look
Speaker 1: at what their you say, Oh my god, Like for example,
Speaker 1: you know, the murder between this one and that one,
Speaker 1: a group of people is up. The rates is up.
Speaker 1: It's not that the race is necessarily up. It's just
Speaker 1: that we can see it more instantaneously. So it makes
Speaker 1: you feel as if certain things are now more prevalent.
Speaker 1: But this ship always been this way for years, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: So some facts for you guys, because you know, we
Speaker 1: always like to throw a little bit of statistics in there.
Speaker 1: According to the researchers at the University of Michigan, Michigan,
Speaker 1: about one third of children ages seven to nine use
Speaker 1: social media apps on their phones and tablets, which is
Speaker 1: very interesting to me because that's super super young um
Speaker 1: to have access to that in my opinion, But you know,
Speaker 1: to each their own. The researchers found that most parents
Speaker 1: said they do some sort of monitoring monitoring of their
Speaker 1: children's social media involvement, but one in six parents were
Speaker 1: found to be using no parental controls because of lack
Speaker 1: of information on how to do so, or because it
Speaker 1: would just be two time consuming. Now, before you say
Speaker 1: that seems a little young, you know, al four, you
Speaker 1: will use the social medi you right, because YouTube, YouTube
Speaker 1: and social social media, social media you can really every
Speaker 1: thinking about like Instagram and like Twitter. But YouTube is
Speaker 1: one of the first social media platforms. Is Facebook YouTube
Speaker 1: If you look at you look at Instagram. Now Instagram
Speaker 1: has evolved into what YouTube is longer videos. But on
Speaker 1: social media, you can post shorts, you can create blogs,
Speaker 1: I mean on on YouTube, promote posts blogs, You've got
Speaker 1: comments into all of the videos. It literally is a
Speaker 1: community of commentary based on your art form. So cas
Speaker 1: has been using social media for essence for Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not even thinking of YouTube as social media, but that's
Speaker 1: exactly what it is. Look at me, all, I guess
Speaker 1: some one of them people to each my own UM
Speaker 1: and thetcent of parents for twelve year old say that
Speaker 1: their channels on Facebook sent said that they helped them
Speaker 1: to gain access to Facebook. Of teens that they're that
Speaker 1: they of teens say they've witnessed someone being mean or
Speaker 1: cruel on social media. Teams have given out information to
Speaker 1: someone they don't know online. So now I'm glad you
Speaker 1: said all of these things. Remember we talked about there
Speaker 1: being two types of social media users, consumers and then creators.
Speaker 1: Our children were presented to social media as creators. They
Speaker 1: were part of a show The ellis Is on YouTube,
Speaker 1: and we put clips of that same show. Because we
Speaker 1: had our vlogs that were fifteen minute long vlogs. We
Speaker 1: put those same clips on Instagram and Facebook. So when
Speaker 1: people say, oh, your kids are on social media, they're
Speaker 1: on social media as part of the show, you know.
Speaker 1: And we supposed pictures of our life and post little
Speaker 1: like um. At the time, there was no live When
Speaker 1: we did something, we would create a video of it
Speaker 1: edited and posted, so it came across as if we
Speaker 1: were posting them every single day in real time. And
Speaker 1: when people ask me like, well, why wouldn't you let
Speaker 1: your kids get social media? But they're on social media.
Speaker 1: This is the reason why I can't control what you
Speaker 1: see about my children on social media now that they're older.
Speaker 1: The reason why you don't see them as much is
Speaker 1: because I've also given them control of whether or not
Speaker 1: they want to be on camera. So sometimes you say,
Speaker 1: then we don't see the kids no much, just because
Speaker 1: Jackson is eleven and Jackson now has his own life
Speaker 1: and his own things he wanted to create, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: your bro, you want to post this and he's like nah,
Speaker 1: So I'm like, absolutely not. Absolutely not. That's a hard
Speaker 1: note for us, and the kids don't want to do something,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to this filming recording. There maybe
Speaker 1: moments that we may think, oh, it's cute for us
Speaker 1: and people might enjoy it, and if the kids are
Speaker 1: not with it, you know, And it's not that I'm
Speaker 1: heavily posting or we're trying deciding to heavily post one
Speaker 1: child versus the other. It just depends on who's with
Speaker 1: the ships in the moment. Dakota right now, he's with
Speaker 1: all the ships because he ain't got a way to
Speaker 1: tell me that he's not you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: join the camera. But at his age, Kaz didn't enjoy
Speaker 1: the camera, and we didn't put him on as much. Right,
Speaker 1: he wasn't engaged. He wasn't at all. Kids don't be
Speaker 1: engaged with nobody know how anyways, So and he's enjoying
Speaker 1: his life, just living his best life, living his best life.
Speaker 1: But um, I feel like it's important at this age
Speaker 1: to teach children, especially young black children, how to have
Speaker 1: authority over their body, their mind, and their likeness because
Speaker 1: for a long time, in well since forever, in this world,
Speaker 1: young black bodies have been the commodity for other people
Speaker 1: to make money and be exploited. So for Codeine and
Speaker 1: I were very um deliberate about the brands we partner
Speaker 1: with Number one and also number two, what they require
Speaker 1: from us. So we'll ask the kids, Hey, we want
Speaker 1: to do partnership, they want to do all of this.
Speaker 1: If the kids are just like no, We're like no,
Speaker 1: we can't. Like they don't want to film, they don't
Speaker 1: want to do that, You're gonna either have to use
Speaker 1: codein and I or we're just not doing a partnership
Speaker 1: because I'm not willing and Codeine is not willing to
Speaker 1: force our kids to do something they don't want to do. Also,
Speaker 1: to get back to story time, emotional intelligence, it's extremely
Speaker 1: important one thing I do know. And we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about bullying um on a whole another episode. We're
Speaker 1: gonna do a whole episode about bullying. But I want
Speaker 1: to say this, parents that grew up in the eighties, nineties,
Speaker 1: even grew up in the early two thousands have never
Speaker 1: experienced what cyber bullying is like. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: of parents who are not on social media to understand.
Speaker 1: For example, when I was doing my mentorship program and prototype,
Speaker 1: it was mandatory that we did social media checks because
Speaker 1: I was helping the young men navigate what to post
Speaker 1: on their Twitter pages, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat at the time,
Speaker 1: because college coaches used to go on social media as
Speaker 1: other names to see what the people post. This is
Speaker 1: what young people need to realize. You think the coach
Speaker 1: that's recruiting you or the job that's looking to offer
Speaker 1: you an opportunity is going to go under there as
Speaker 1: head coach from Texas University. No, they're going to create
Speaker 1: a different profile with a random person. They're gonna befriends
Speaker 1: you and see what you post when you think no
Speaker 1: one important is watching, and that's how they figure out
Speaker 1: who you are. So, while I was doing this process
Speaker 1: of helping them navigate their social media as I had
Speaker 1: access to the content, and I had access and I
Speaker 1: had access to their messages and their g M, and
Speaker 1: I saw from as early as middle school twelve all
Speaker 1: the way up to eighteen, the amount of messages that
Speaker 1: a child gets. They do not have the emotional security
Speaker 1: or mental fortitude to deal with it. For example, you
Speaker 1: remember going into high school and we talked about another
Speaker 1: episode and them calling your team wolf because he was
Speaker 1: hearing them telling me that I wasn't black because I
Speaker 1: was too light and I had pink lips, and calling
Speaker 1: them the Asian and calling me Mexican. Right, I learned
Speaker 1: how to deal with that on the bus because it
Speaker 1: was one person. Everybody laughed when it was funny, so
Speaker 1: they might have been twenty to thirty people laughing. But
Speaker 1: imagine someone taking your likeness, posting a post and millions
Speaker 1: of people get to repost and comment on it, and
Speaker 1: you're twelve, and you gotta you read all of the comments,
Speaker 1: and then that comment takes you down a rabbit hole
Speaker 1: of other comments, and then you see your post, your
Speaker 1: picture is getting used in other things, and now you
Speaker 1: feel like everybody in the world doesn't like you and
Speaker 1: your twelve How are you supposed to deal with that?
Speaker 1: How are you supposed to the mental fortitude? And that's
Speaker 1: what I was trying to explain to Jackson about him
Speaker 1: not being emotionally intelligent to deal with it. When I
Speaker 1: tell you, know, as your dad, will tell you something
Speaker 1: I don't like that you're doing, or something I don't
Speaker 1: like about you, you cry and you feel and you
Speaker 1: should because you're you're learning how to deal with that.
Speaker 1: But as your father, I should be able to help
Speaker 1: you through that emotion because I'm the one telling it
Speaker 1: to you. So when when I tell Jackson about himself,
Speaker 1: I don't only tell him about itself. For example, Jackson
Speaker 1: was going through a phase where every time we questioned
Speaker 1: him about something, Hey did you brush your teeth? Hey
Speaker 1: did you finish your homework? He felt like we were
Speaker 1: undermining his ability to take care of himself, and he
Speaker 1: was taking it personal and be like, you guys, don't
Speaker 1: listen to me. And we would have hours and hours
Speaker 1: of conversation about what that feeling he's feeling, and let's
Speaker 1: talk through that. While you feel that way. Imagine if
Speaker 1: he got thousands and thousands of comments telling him something
Speaker 1: about himself that he don't like, and he doesn't have
Speaker 1: his dad there because he's in his room just reading
Speaker 1: the continents. How does he learn how to deal with that?
Speaker 1: You know what he does, he'll internalize that, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's virtually impossible to stay on top of these things. Yes,
Speaker 1: of course they have parental controls devil and I am
Speaker 1: very deliberate about making sure that if the children are
Speaker 1: on any version of social media, we have the parental controls.
Speaker 1: For example, on YouTube, we sometimes have proven to not
Speaker 1: even be as as safe or as accurate because people
Speaker 1: who are predators, who will you know, put something on
Speaker 1: the topic of coco melon, but then start putting random
Speaker 1: things inside of the videos and it's like you really
Speaker 1: have to you know, And I'm not going to profess
Speaker 1: to be this parent that is just like my you know,
Speaker 1: my children only do like, you know, twenty minutes of
Speaker 1: video time during the week, and they only do this,
Speaker 1: and we have these rigid regulations. Sometimes should be hitting
Speaker 1: a fan of we have thousand things going on it's like, yo,
Speaker 1: y'all sit down right here and put YouTube one and
Speaker 1: we're gonna watch a show together. You're gonna watch a
Speaker 1: show together. But I will say this though, our children,
Speaker 1: especially the young ones, are not allowed to be on
Speaker 1: the phones during the week. Or yeah, we do have that.
Speaker 1: I am. I am very rigid with that. When you
Speaker 1: come when Monday starts and Cas knows even he's yeah,
Speaker 1: I see him with Mimi's phone because he doesn't have
Speaker 1: his own phone. Cairo doesn't have his own phone. Jackson
Speaker 1: got his own phone because he started traveling to school
Speaker 1: by himself. He got his own phone when he was
Speaker 1: not Yes, so when it comes to Kyra and cash
Speaker 1: they have to ask for devices, they know not to
Speaker 1: ask me for any devices during the week, so that
Speaker 1: immediately I know where you're going with this. I know
Speaker 1: where you're going with this. Cass, that little one right
Speaker 1: there is one day, real quick story. I was coming
Speaker 1: in from running errands or whatever. So I went through
Speaker 1: the side door of the house and um, I don't
Speaker 1: think he heard in yeah in the door, you know
Speaker 1: when the door chime and stuff went off. And I
Speaker 1: came around the corner into the kitchen and he's standing
Speaker 1: there like at attention, and he's like mommy. He's like, mommy, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's just you. And I'm like, what do you mean
Speaker 1: it's just but yes, it's just me, and and I'm
Speaker 1: not picking up yet on what's happening. He's like, it's
Speaker 1: just you, and he's just like peeking around the corner.
Speaker 1: He was dead Daddy night with you. I was like, no,
Speaker 1: And then I see his one little hand on top
Speaker 1: of the countertop and what's his hand on top of
Speaker 1: Mimi's iPad? So that's that, Cassie. Were you just watching
Speaker 1: the iPad? Yes? I said what days today? And he
Speaker 1: gave me the date actually because he came up from school,
Speaker 1: so he said today. It was like, for example, Monday, September.
Speaker 1: And I was like, and it's a school day, right,
Speaker 1: and he said yes. I said, are you supposed to
Speaker 1: be watching the iPad during the week? No? I said,
Speaker 1: why you're being sneaky. You're being sneaky because Addy gave
Speaker 1: a specific instructions not to watch that. I said, should
Speaker 1: I tell Daddy that you're not listening? No? I said,
Speaker 1: then you're gonna Are you going to tell Daddy that
Speaker 1: you weren't listening. No, I said, all right, well, let
Speaker 1: this be a lesson. I'm not gonna give you up
Speaker 1: this time. It's between you and I. I said, but
Speaker 1: when Daddy said that there's no iPad during the week,
Speaker 1: you have to listen or else it'll be no iPad
Speaker 1: ever again in life. Then he said, okay, mommy, But
Speaker 1: he sneaky is out of just like he's very intellectual. Um,
Speaker 1: I always know because he's sneaky, but he's not the
Speaker 1: smartest because he's only four or four years of life.
Speaker 1: But I know when I come in the house, the
Speaker 1: first head that pops out the side of the world
Speaker 1: typically is cast and then he'll his head'll pop out.
Speaker 1: He'll see me in. Then he's running, right, So then
Speaker 1: I come in and he's like, I'm running from you,
Speaker 1: And I said, what are you running too? And he's
Speaker 1: like running from He's not running from me, he's running
Speaker 1: to what he was just doing. To try to put
Speaker 1: it back, but that also gives me insight into who
Speaker 1: my child is, which means when he gets to that
Speaker 1: age and when he gets his cell phone, he's definitely
Speaker 1: going to be the type of child to have a
Speaker 1: profile on the side that no one ever knows about
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And I'm not foolish enough
Speaker 1: to believe that all of my children are angels because
Speaker 1: I wasn't an angel. You were an angel. You were
Speaker 1: doing a wild freaky ship to me when your parents
Speaker 1: didn't know. And I take that into account. But realistically,
Speaker 1: it's like emotional maturity and emotional intelligence is something that
Speaker 1: we don't spend enough time with our children, and it's
Speaker 1: difficult in this world. Right, I'm going to give this example, right,
Speaker 1: and we're going to talk more about this example in
Speaker 1: another episode, But learning how to have empathy for people
Speaker 1: who are not willfully ignorant, but who are taught ignorance.
Speaker 1: For example, UM, someone like Dylan ruth Right. He's he
Speaker 1: was a child, I think when he was nineteen nineteen
Speaker 1: when he walked into the children's ath Carolina and killed
Speaker 1: those people. But he did it because he said that
Speaker 1: he to start a race war, which means he was
Speaker 1: taught the things he was saying by people who who
Speaker 1: we trusted because they were older than his family. He
Speaker 1: was taught these things. Right also said he had a
Speaker 1: manifested and he did a lot of stuff on social
Speaker 1: media that right there, was a trigger for me because
Speaker 1: I said, wait a minute, what are we really doing
Speaker 1: or allowing from our children. When you have a social
Speaker 1: media profile, you get to pick who you follow. Since
Speaker 1: you get to pick who you follow, you you are
Speaker 1: literally curating your world because most people spend more time
Speaker 1: on social media than they actually spend in the real world.
Speaker 1: So if you get to choose who you follow, and
Speaker 1: then the algorithm gets to give you people who are
Speaker 1: similar to the people you following, you're now following thousands
Speaker 1: of people who are only like the people you want
Speaker 1: to see. And if that person has one message, now
Speaker 1: your whole world revolves around that one message. And they
Speaker 1: took it a step further. I feel like there was
Speaker 1: always the explore page, but then there's a function where
Speaker 1: within your feed there's um suggested follows that. So I
Speaker 1: remember scrolling one day and I was just like, why
Speaker 1: is it giving me all this page that I don't follow?
Speaker 1: But I'm just and there's an option for you to
Speaker 1: opt out of that, So I think I asked it
Speaker 1: out of it for like thirty days, but then it
Speaker 1: comes back and it's just like, you're really pushing this
Speaker 1: stuff on me. But so imagine being a young child
Speaker 1: and you follow so for example, some right wing profile,
Speaker 1: or they're just spewing hatred and misogyny and and racism
Speaker 1: and sexism and and you know, just really violent, angry messages.
Speaker 1: And because you click this message, now they're giving you
Speaker 1: suggestions of other people with the same message. So if
Speaker 1: you're young, in your mind, you think all of this
Speaker 1: is what the world is. You don't realize that it's
Speaker 1: an algorithm that's pushing forth a message and that becomes
Speaker 1: your reality. And then be upset at that child whose
Speaker 1: reality becomes something that they didn't even realize. So when
Speaker 1: I think about my children, I'm like, I'm not saving
Speaker 1: Mike or not. I'm not keeping my kids from social
Speaker 1: media because I'm worried about them getting marketed some blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. I'm worried about the world curating an
Speaker 1: idea in their mind that I can't control when I'm
Speaker 1: not around. And if you get that message enough, easily
Speaker 1: persuaded in that. And that's the reality of it. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And think about this. Imagine if we talked about the
Speaker 1: cyber bullying. Now you have all your friends in school
Speaker 1: who are saying something about you. They share stuff and
Speaker 1: it gets out. This is what our generation never experienced
Speaker 1: having to deal with because because bullying was a big
Speaker 1: deal when we were growing Remember it was no bullying,
Speaker 1: no bully when we were growing up, but it was
Speaker 1: only kids in school. Imagine you have to deal with
Speaker 1: a whole generation of people who speak different languages sharing
Speaker 1: your picture and making funny comments and stuff. How does
Speaker 1: the child deal with that? No, I totally understand, and
Speaker 1: I totally get it, and I, like I said before,
Speaker 1: being a mother unlocks this constant state of worry that
Speaker 1: you tend to have when it comes to your children.
Speaker 1: And we had a conversation recently where you were just like, hey,
Speaker 1: I need you to stop existing in a space of
Speaker 1: always thinking of the worst that may happen, or you know,
Speaker 1: something negative might go wrong, or but I just feel
Speaker 1: like I can no longer exist in this almost utopia
Speaker 1: that I existed in when we were kids, or just
Speaker 1: even dating or in our twenties, where I'm just like, oh,
Speaker 1: we'll just do whatever and we'll be careless and we'll
Speaker 1: be reckless, because Okay, I feel like I have such
Speaker 1: a soul responsibility to care for and nurtured these children.
Speaker 1: So I worry about what could potentially go wrong. But
Speaker 1: I have to learn how to not let that completely
Speaker 1: engulf my being, you know. Um. So I think a
Speaker 1: way that I am able to kind of help to
Speaker 1: lessen this worry a bit is by being very active
Speaker 1: in and present in whatever they're consuming. So Jackson's text
Speaker 1: messages between his friends, Yes, um, there was a group
Speaker 1: text that was with him amongst some other children in
Speaker 1: his grade. And you know, there was some stuff going
Speaker 1: on in that group chat where I was like, bro,
Speaker 1: get out at that group chat, like, you don't even
Speaker 1: know who some of these kids are. You're the due
Speaker 1: to association. But I want to talk. I want to
Speaker 1: talk about that because we live in a time now
Speaker 1: where and I remember it started we we started family living.
Speaker 1: When I was in fourth grade. We had a family
Speaker 1: living teacher who came and told us that we are humans.
Speaker 1: We have the right to our own opinion, We have
Speaker 1: the right to our own space, and our parents don't
Speaker 1: have right to come into our space without asking for
Speaker 1: permission and stuff like that. I don't agree with that.
Speaker 1: I don't agree with that at all. And I'm explaining
Speaker 1: to you why the law now will give children all
Speaker 1: of this leeway to do whatever they want to do,
Speaker 1: but you know who the law blames when your children
Speaker 1: does something sucked up you as a parent. If your
Speaker 1: children damage property, you are responsible for it. Or if
Speaker 1: your child is within a certain age range, they are
Speaker 1: not responsible for it. So as a teen, for example,
Speaker 1: they do some thing wrong and they're at that age
Speaker 1: where they are now technically almost kind of adult or
Speaker 1: can be charged in an adult, then you, as a
Speaker 1: parent can't even intervene and do anything for your child.
Speaker 1: I think that would be the most heartbreaking thing for
Speaker 1: me to know that God forbid, one of my children
Speaker 1: were in trouble and I was not able to come
Speaker 1: up with a solution. And it's not a matter of
Speaker 1: just bailing them out, because you want to, of course,
Speaker 1: make sure that they're taking responsibility for their actions and
Speaker 1: there will be life lessons that they have to learn
Speaker 1: without our intervening. But it's like, imagine being in a
Speaker 1: situation where it's just like damn, I can't even got
Speaker 1: to imagine that. You want to know why if I
Speaker 1: am responsible for you, there's a certain level of control
Speaker 1: I have to have to protect you, period, And that's
Speaker 1: what that's where I stand with children, Right, this is
Speaker 1: my child. I am responsible from my child, which means
Speaker 1: I am responsible to control the environment around my child
Speaker 1: to make sure that they are available, able enough mentally
Speaker 1: and emotionally to take care and handle everything that goes
Speaker 1: on in their life, which means while they grow up
Speaker 1: in my house. No, you don't have privacy to keep
Speaker 1: do is closed. No you don't know your phone is
Speaker 1: not gonna be locked and I'm not gonna happen. Know
Speaker 1: you ain't going to such a such house because I
Speaker 1: don't want my parents like And that's not just a
Speaker 1: social media thing. That's just controlling your child's environment so
Speaker 1: that you can curate what the world looks like for them,
Speaker 1: rather than letting a bot or letting an algorithm curated
Speaker 1: for them. And I feel like if more people were
Speaker 1: responsible enough like that, we wouldn't have the cyber bullying
Speaker 1: issues that we have. But since we do have the
Speaker 1: cyber bullying issues that we have. I want to be
Speaker 1: clear to parents when you or your child because Kadina
Speaker 1: and I have struggled with this as well. Right, when
Speaker 1: you or your child post something on social media has
Speaker 1: a comment section if you don't want to hear any
Speaker 1: comments about it. Turn the comments off, period. But if
Speaker 1: you left the comments open, that means you left the
Speaker 1: comments open for people to give their opinion about what
Speaker 1: they saw or what they watched. Now, if that's what
Speaker 1: you left it open for, you have to receive whatever
Speaker 1: people say. We all know everybody in the world is
Speaker 1: not kind hearted. Some people are mean spirited for whatever reasons,
Speaker 1: whatever they've gone through in their life. They want to
Speaker 1: project whatever issues they have on other people. People like
Speaker 1: that exist. Since we know that, we can't be surprised
Speaker 1: when every single comment isn't kind and it's unfair to
Speaker 1: your children when you post them. It's unfair to yourself,
Speaker 1: and it's also unfair to the other people who post
Speaker 1: when you post something that you get upset every single
Speaker 1: time someone says something you don't like. If you really
Speaker 1: want to be that uh, I don't want to say juvenile,
Speaker 1: but that guarded about what people say about what you post.
Speaker 1: Take the comments off, that's an option, or don't post
Speaker 1: them right. Well, I know that, Like I've spoken before
Speaker 1: about someone making a comment about Jackson and made feeling
Speaker 1: like I wanted to like rip the bit head off, right,
Speaker 1: and that's happened recently. To where people particularly want to
Speaker 1: comment on this, and I get what you're saying, but
Speaker 1: in my feeling that way, I feel like, Okay, the
Speaker 1: context of the video was about, for example, us making
Speaker 1: a joke about, say, something that happened on a family trip.
Speaker 1: But then people will tend to, nowitpick about something in
Speaker 1: the video which has nothing to do with the context
Speaker 1: of it, or the context of the photo right, or
Speaker 1: the context of whatever the caption was. But then they'll
Speaker 1: choose to pick out something to talk about, whether it
Speaker 1: be with our children or with us. Now, yes, you're
Speaker 1: entitled to your opinion, and I think some people are
Speaker 1: just genuinely mean. But we know that, and we know that,
Speaker 1: so if we know that, we have to make a
Speaker 1: choice prior to posting if we want to post it,
Speaker 1: and we have to examine, well, what maybe picked a
Speaker 1: part in these videos. Now I am of the mindset
Speaker 1: and you and I disagree sometimes in this. I don't
Speaker 1: mind posting flaws. I don't mind posting myself with flaws.
Speaker 1: You were flaws. I mean, people have made comments all
Speaker 1: the time about my hair thinning. My hair has been
Speaker 1: thinning since I was in my late twenties. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. People have made comment about Jackson's teeth,
Speaker 1: they made comment about Cairo not speaking proper English when
Speaker 1: he is too. All of these things I've learned to
Speaker 1: not let bother me because these are flaws that my
Speaker 1: children are going to have to learn how to deal
Speaker 1: with anyway, and you and I are going to have
Speaker 1: to learn how to deal with personally. So I let
Speaker 1: them help us, help them navigate it, so I don't
Speaker 1: mind it. And if we're being honest, we may get
Speaker 1: maybe four or five thousand comments per pose it, maybe
Speaker 1: twenty comments that may be best. May someone sends to
Speaker 1: us and be like, oh, this person said x y Z,
Speaker 1: because we know we do have a very strong support
Speaker 1: system for sure. But I do have to say, like
Speaker 1: if how you how people respond to what you post
Speaker 1: makes you feel a way you, then you then need
Speaker 1: to do more soul soarcing about whether or not you
Speaker 1: want to post or not. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Because if you're expecting to have a hundred percent acceptance
Speaker 1: on all of your arts, all of your posts, on
Speaker 1: all of your blogs, you're gonna fail because nothing in
Speaker 1: life is a certain all the time. Like that doesn't
Speaker 1: happen to greatest shooter in the world. Stuff Curry still
Speaker 1: misses more than half the time. You know, the greatest
Speaker 1: baseball players that hit still hit between two hundred three
Speaker 1: you know, two hundred three hundred, which is about and
Speaker 1: that means they miss and those are greats. So you
Speaker 1: have to understand that people are entitled to their own opinion.
Speaker 1: And once you come to that rationale, and if you
Speaker 1: teach your children to come to that rationale, they are
Speaker 1: more equipped to deal with what social media is. Right.
Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying. Na see, I see what
Speaker 1: you're saying for sure, because I mean they will come
Speaker 1: a point when they are going to be within their
Speaker 1: right to get their own social media right. UM. A
Speaker 1: common conversation between myself and some of my mom friends
Speaker 1: are but what is that age that you are going
Speaker 1: to allow your kid potentially to have access to social media?
Speaker 1: There's no age. I don't feel like you have to
Speaker 1: know as a parent what your child can and can't handle,
Speaker 1: and you cannot allow for a particular age to dictate that,
Speaker 1: nor can you allowed for other parents to One child
Speaker 1: may be equipped for, another child may not be equipped for. UM.
Speaker 1: So I think there's an age, you have to be
Speaker 1: equipped to have that conversation with your child. Like I
Speaker 1: explained to Jackson, it was I'm not the type of
Speaker 1: parent that's gonna be like, just listen to me, because
Speaker 1: I said so, I explained it. I explained it, and
Speaker 1: we talked about emotional maturity, and we had a very
Speaker 1: in depth conversation about and we even had a conversation
Speaker 1: about his teeth. Right, And I'm open to share this um.
Speaker 1: Codein's Codein war braces. Codeine's sister, her brother war braces.
Speaker 1: So in her family, they just have narrower but You're family,
Speaker 1: in particular, have a narrower palette and it has to
Speaker 1: get adjusted, which means the front two teeth typically protrude.
Speaker 1: And we've known this since Codeine and I have met
Speaker 1: each other. She was wearing a retainer when I met her.
Speaker 1: So I remember one of the things that Codeine says
Speaker 1: when Um, when we met together, just like, man, I
Speaker 1: hope you're children to get your teeth because you have
Speaker 1: a wider palette and they won't have to deal with
Speaker 1: the teeth protrusion. So all these people keep saying that
Speaker 1: you'll need to get them children's teeth fixed we are
Speaker 1: aware of that. But what I what I don't do
Speaker 1: is I don't let people's comments about my son's teeth
Speaker 1: or Jackson affect me, and I'm teaching him how to
Speaker 1: not let it affect him. So rather than saying no,
Speaker 1: you can't get a social media and in not giving
Speaker 1: him a reason why, I'm explaining to him for sure,
Speaker 1: we're not telling Jackson that people are making these comments
Speaker 1: about him either. I am no, no, no no, this is
Speaker 1: what I told Jackson. I said, listen um because he
Speaker 1: had so on YouTube one time, like what what what?
Speaker 1: It was wrong with my teeth? Right, And now that
Speaker 1: he's going through the process of getting braces, it's an
Speaker 1: easier conversation to have because he's going through the process
Speaker 1: of getting it fixed in real time, in real time.
Speaker 1: So I didn't tell him earlier because then it's like
Speaker 1: he was going to be worried about his teeth and
Speaker 1: walking around with a subconscious condition of everyone's looking at
Speaker 1: my teeth. So when you started taking him to the
Speaker 1: endodontist and he was just like orthodont orthodontists, it was
Speaker 1: like that he asked me that why do I why
Speaker 1: I don't want to get braceist? I'm worried. So then
Speaker 1: I explained to myself, look at your mom's teth, look
Speaker 1: at your uncle Seth, look at your honestly, look at that.
Speaker 1: No no, no no, no, no no. And I was like,
Speaker 1: this will also help you with your bite. It will
Speaker 1: help you with your hygiene because if your your teeth
Speaker 1: aren't in alignment. And this is how I explained. I
Speaker 1: didn't even use other people as a reason why he
Speaker 1: has to give his teeth fix. What I explained to
Speaker 1: him is if your teeth are in a line, it
Speaker 1: can cause migraines because your bite can be off. If
Speaker 1: you don't chew properly, you can have issues swallowing. So
Speaker 1: I gave him, I gave him reasons as to why
Speaker 1: his teeth needed to get fixed. But then I also said,
Speaker 1: when your teeth look different than everyone else's teeth, people
Speaker 1: tend to poke fund at people who are different. You
Speaker 1: have to learn how to realize what's different about yourself,
Speaker 1: walk in it, on it, and don't let people define
Speaker 1: you by what's different in yourself. And then having those conversations,
Speaker 1: I'm helping him get tools to defend himself and be
Speaker 1: empowered even if something happens and I can't control it,
Speaker 1: because let's be honest, we can't control all the comments.
Speaker 1: We can't control we can once he gets thirteen and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, he's probably gonna have a little secret
Speaker 1: profile and doing all this stuff because kids do stuff
Speaker 1: like that. We snuck out our parents house, we went
Speaker 1: to parties we weren't supposed to. But rather than just
Speaker 1: tell him, no, you can't have social media, I'm choosing
Speaker 1: to arm him with the emotional security to be able
Speaker 1: to feel strong enough to say, this is who I am.
Speaker 1: This is Jackson, regardless of what people say. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: walk proudly in who I am. I love that you've
Speaker 1: done that with him. And we've also taken the approach
Speaker 1: like even just with simple things like for example, I'm
Speaker 1: sure other boy moms and dads can relate, but it's
Speaker 1: trying to instill proper hygiene, taking pride in oneself, how
Speaker 1: you look when you leave the house, maintaining just yourself overall.
Speaker 1: And instead of taking the approach like, well, Jackson, you
Speaker 1: got to make sure that you, like, you know, brush
Speaker 1: your hair, because girls ain't gonna like you if you're
Speaker 1: hearing brushed like you don't got nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the girls. We want you to be able to make
Speaker 1: sure that you know you need to walk out of
Speaker 1: this house, door, house, this front door, looking your best,
Speaker 1: feeling your best, because that's something you need to do
Speaker 1: for yourself. You don't have nothing to do with nobody else.
Speaker 1: So I've been that approach. Also with social media. I
Speaker 1: think has been great too, because now Jackson doesn't look
Speaker 1: at him getting braces as something that's so daunting and
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm gonna have this for two years.
Speaker 1: He has now an excitement around it because he's just
Speaker 1: like it's progressing. You know, his expanders in now, so
Speaker 1: he's like, mom, like it's expanding. Can you see can
Speaker 1: you tell you know? I got him his little water pick,
Speaker 1: he got his little system with how he can practice
Speaker 1: proper hygiene, and then I can speak to him from
Speaker 1: a place of Mommy has been here before, so here
Speaker 1: are the things that I did to help. I can
Speaker 1: now know certain foods to give him and not give him,
Speaker 1: because it can help to just make the process that
Speaker 1: much easier. He even called my sister who had to
Speaker 1: deal with the same thing he hasn't now and yeah,
Speaker 1: she had the same issue with the narrow palace, you know,
Speaker 1: having to expand it, and you know, technology has advanced
Speaker 1: so much, even between her and I having braces. So
Speaker 1: she spoke to him one day. He was a little
Speaker 1: apprehensive and you know, scared about what was happening in
Speaker 1: the process, and she was like, buddy, like, YO, call
Speaker 1: me if you need me. Like, that's great to have
Speaker 1: that support system as well too. So but that's but
Speaker 1: I think that's what people need to do more focusing
Speaker 1: on because you can't prevent your child from being on
Speaker 1: social media, but you can also give them proper social
Speaker 1: media etiquette. Right. So for example, when you used to
Speaker 1: walk out of the house before school, your parents used
Speaker 1: to say, sticking stones may break my bones, but names
Speaker 1: will never hurt me. And also tell you if you
Speaker 1: have nothing kind to say, don't say anything at all, right,
Speaker 1: So they your parents also teach you how to treat
Speaker 1: people in person. We would hope that more parents would
Speaker 1: teach their children how to act on social media, but
Speaker 1: if we're being honest, there's a lot of parents in
Speaker 1: this generation that never used social media. So when you
Speaker 1: speak to parents and they're like, you get your sons
Speaker 1: doing on social media, they're looking like well, I don't
Speaker 1: even know what this is, so they don't even know
Speaker 1: how to equip their children with how to be kind
Speaker 1: to other people. You understand what I'm saying. Not so
Speaker 1: for me, it's not only so much about protecting my child,
Speaker 1: but it's also helping society and protecting other people's children. Right,
Speaker 1: don't allow your children to become part of the virtual
Speaker 1: lynch mob. Right. The virtual lynch mob is the same
Speaker 1: group of bad girls or bad guys in elementary school,
Speaker 1: junior high school, high school who find the weak person
Speaker 1: and they all gang up on the person. For us
Speaker 1: in high school, it was called a what was that
Speaker 1: book they had? It was a composition book And people
Speaker 1: would would find a person and they would have a
Speaker 1: composition book and they would draw pictures of this person
Speaker 1: and might write bad things, and they would pass it
Speaker 1: around the school and then eventually the person would find out,
Speaker 1: like there's a book going on. It wasn't that a
Speaker 1: show that we were watching? Yeah? Why, But those things
Speaker 1: like that happened actually before social media was a big thing.
Speaker 1: There was a big one in Madison. I mean when
Speaker 1: I was graduating, there was a young lady and there
Speaker 1: was a bunch of Um, a young lady was talking
Speaker 1: to this guy and all of his friends created a book.
Speaker 1: They drew pictures of her, you know, doing you know,
Speaker 1: scantily clad thing, drawing stuff with her with a penis
Speaker 1: in her mouth and saying things like that, and it
Speaker 1: was just guys being bullies, right, and it was a book,
Speaker 1: but you had all of these guys doing it. So
Speaker 1: when she finally showed the book, it hurt her, you know.
Speaker 1: But now there's no book, there's social media. And when
Speaker 1: I think about it now, it was like, I never
Speaker 1: participated in things like that because my mom and my
Speaker 1: dad made sure that growing up, I always took care
Speaker 1: of the little person, you know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 1: the person that everyone else seems to be going at.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like, wait, why can I just understand?
Speaker 1: Why are we all ganging up on this person who
Speaker 1: seems to not know how to protect themselves? Like what
Speaker 1: is the fund in this? Like my parents used to
Speaker 1: my father, he's you're the oldest, you gotta protect your brother,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, don't ever let nobody done that.
Speaker 1: And he used to tell me in the world, they're
Speaker 1: going to be people who can't protect themselves, like you can't.
Speaker 1: It is your responsibility to protect them if you can't,
Speaker 1: even if you don't know them. That was a teacher
Speaker 1: from my father. I teach Jackson the same thing. Jackson
Speaker 1: is such a pathetic child, he really really is. Like
Speaker 1: it's amazing to see how he's able to have such
Speaker 1: empathy for people, regardless of who it is, and he
Speaker 1: wears his emotion on his sleeve. Um, and it's a
Speaker 1: beautiful thing to see that. I think the teachings from
Speaker 1: your dad has manifested itself into him and his spirit
Speaker 1: reminds me of my grandmother and my father. Yeah, who
Speaker 1: is the same way. She just like everybody just loved
Speaker 1: her and um adored her and revered her because she
Speaker 1: just cared genuinely for people. And that's like the person
Speaker 1: at the very bottom of the bottom of the totem polls,
Speaker 1: you know, important to society standards, and then it could
Speaker 1: be the king, you know what I mean. Um, it's
Speaker 1: regardless of who the person is having that. So that's
Speaker 1: pretty dope. There are some parental parental control softwares out
Speaker 1: there that can be used. One that I'm particularly familiar
Speaker 1: with more recently. Um, now that Jackson has a new
Speaker 1: phone and trying to install certain things. UM. This one
Speaker 1: called Bark and Bark is a really good one UM
Speaker 1: that gives parents more control over their child's Internet devices.
Speaker 1: And it also gives you the ability and to monitor
Speaker 1: like their social media, text messages, other activity UM to
Speaker 1: alert you when there are signs of possible cyber bullying, depression,
Speaker 1: or inappropriate content. So I think UM any parents should
Speaker 1: be invested in making sure that they're finding some sort
Speaker 1: of software that they can then use, even if they're
Speaker 1: just doing random checks, but it can kind of lets
Speaker 1: you know in real time if something that's for example,
Speaker 1: search on their phone that's inappropriate, or they're receiving something
Speaker 1: inappropriate on their phone UM, or even if you're watching
Speaker 1: they're playing the game and sometimes those ads come in
Speaker 1: and I've seen some ads pop up that looks kind
Speaker 1: of like sexual ba yeah, sexual base or something, and
Speaker 1: I'm just like, you know, scroll past that. But you know,
Speaker 1: do your due diligence with that. Even with all of
Speaker 1: these things, you still have to have these conversations with
Speaker 1: your children because all of these all of these like
Speaker 1: Bark and Stop and these things that these prevention and
Speaker 1: all this other stuff. My parents put all these things
Speaker 1: in place to prevent me from doing stuff, and I
Speaker 1: had access to everything. You know what I'm saying, because
Speaker 1: you had the code for the box on cables and
Speaker 1: Spice plain something to you guys, right, alright, Spice Shandol
Speaker 1: channel sixty nine, great number, the channel on cable vision, right,
Speaker 1: and there was a little red dot in the back
Speaker 1: of the cable box, right. And I knew that if
Speaker 1: you hold the cable box and you hold the enter
Speaker 1: and the power at the same time you hold a
Speaker 1: little red button, the scrambled Spice Shandel will become clear band.
Speaker 1: So I used to be watching all that stuff in
Speaker 1: middle school, right, And this is what my parents putting
Speaker 1: up the parental guarden. Everything I'm scrambling the house unscrambled
Speaker 1: all of that. So I was watching these chicks, right,
Speaker 1: But I know that our children are gonna find ways
Speaker 1: around it. The greater assets is to helping, is to
Speaker 1: making sure that they are empowered with the ability to
Speaker 1: handle the things they see, not just prevent them from
Speaker 1: seeing things, because you can't prevent them from seeing. That
Speaker 1: is very what I'm saying. That's a very good point
Speaker 1: because if they're not finding on their phone. They're talking
Speaker 1: to their little friends. And I first learned about the
Speaker 1: Spice channel at a dude named Ian's house who we moved.
Speaker 1: We moved my back in. If I'm blowing you up,
Speaker 1: but I think you're good eno you probably I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're good now your parents will be fine. But
Speaker 1: I went to his house, right, and it's the first
Speaker 1: time we moved to Canarsi, and this is when I started.
Speaker 1: This is the first time I ever lived around white people.
Speaker 1: This is the true story, true true story. We moved
Speaker 1: from Flatbush to Canarsi and I had a boy named Mark,
Speaker 1: and I never forget going by marks house. And Mark
Speaker 1: was in his room and I went by mark room.
Speaker 1: He's a little older than me, and his mother came
Speaker 1: in the room. It was just like, Mark, you gotta
Speaker 1: clean this goddamn room. And he said, close my goddamn door, right,
Speaker 1: and she slammed the door, and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: what's happening here, Like he just said goddamn to his
Speaker 1: mother's about to be crazy. She's about to come back
Speaker 1: in here with a knife, right. So he's like he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's get out of here. Let's get out of here, right.
Speaker 1: So he walks out of the house, leaves the door open,
Speaker 1: and he's like, Mom, close my damn door. Don't go
Speaker 1: on my room, right, And then she was just like Mark,
Speaker 1: shut the funk up, like it was like communicated. So
Speaker 1: I was just like, man, this, yeah, this don't seem
Speaker 1: like this is gonna work in my house. I'm an
Speaker 1: refrain from doing that. But then we went by in
Speaker 1: so house, went by in his house and was like, hey,
Speaker 1: you want to see something cool? And I was nine,
Speaker 1: and he was just like he was like he's something cool,
Speaker 1: and I was like, yeah, let me sound cool. So
Speaker 1: he went in the back of the cable box and
Speaker 1: he hit the thing. He did the thing with the
Speaker 1: internal power and held the button right and when in
Speaker 1: the beginning, all I saw was like scrambled gray lines,
Speaker 1: but I did see some titties, so it was like scrambles,
Speaker 1: gray lines, some titties, and then wants the thing cleared up.
Speaker 1: All I've seen was like titty and the lady she
Speaker 1: had on like a little plumber thing and she came
Speaker 1: in and she was just like hey, and it was
Speaker 1: like she was just like, my pipes are clogged. I
Speaker 1: need someone to clean my pipes, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I was nine. I was like, what is this? So
Speaker 1: then he his dad comes in there. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: what I tell you about watching this ship? And then
Speaker 1: he like turned the TV off and told us to
Speaker 1: go outside, right, So I was like, wait, his father
Speaker 1: know he'd be watching this. Did his ass whooped and
Speaker 1: then he made us turn off and go outside. But
Speaker 1: at the time, I didn't, like, I didn't understand what
Speaker 1: was going on, and my father never spoke to me
Speaker 1: about sex because my father was like the parent controls
Speaker 1: are my kids ain't watching? I'm good right right? Right?
Speaker 1: Then we get then we get older and little di
Speaker 1: he know we've been watching it all through high school
Speaker 1: and middle school. Then my brother ends up having a
Speaker 1: baby at seventeen. You know what I'm saying, because no, yeah,
Speaker 1: no one ever prepared us for what we were going
Speaker 1: to see. Right, So I'm learning now that you know,
Speaker 1: not to say that my parents were bad parents, but
Speaker 1: rather than saying, don't do this, abstinence, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of like the black the Black Church, abstinence, don't have sex.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about these things and let's discuss how to
Speaker 1: navigate them. Properly. So let's say all we talk about
Speaker 1: communication all the time, and the show we talk about transparency,
Speaker 1: and it's not just between the val and I. We
Speaker 1: exhibit these same practices with our children. And it doesn't
Speaker 1: start when they're old enough to comprehend whatever we think
Speaker 1: it may be. Naturally we have age appropriate discussions depending
Speaker 1: on what they can absorb and understand at that moment.
Speaker 1: But these conversations continue to happen as they grow, and
Speaker 1: you divulge a little bit more and a little bit
Speaker 1: more detail as they get older, because in turn, you're
Speaker 1: able to then equip them with at least the knowledge
Speaker 1: to that now know how to make a decision, because
Speaker 1: we're not gonna be there to be able to make them.
Speaker 1: As much as I want to be able to hand
Speaker 1: hold them through this life, I have realized the value
Speaker 1: in making sure that my children I'm hands off with
Speaker 1: sometimes because you're gonna have to learn Jackson being late
Speaker 1: to school in the morning, I'm not gonna be like Jackson,
Speaker 1: is this time? Jackson? Is this time? Jackson? You're Jackson?
Speaker 1: You know your ride is about to be outside. No,
Speaker 1: you missed, You miss your ride to school? Bro, how
Speaker 1: are you gonna get there. Let me figure it out.
Speaker 1: You have to figure it out. Let me talked about
Speaker 1: figuring stuff out. This is how smart these kids our
Speaker 1: parents point For you to know, one of my kids
Speaker 1: I was mentoring got in trouble for content that he
Speaker 1: has shared on social media. His mom says, y'all got
Speaker 1: the wrong child, because my son doesn't even have a phone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: doesn't even have a phone phone. His cousin got an
Speaker 1: upgrade on his iPhone and still kept the old iPhone.
Speaker 1: Gave it to him and she said the line doesn't work.
Speaker 1: He used the WiFi, created a profile and a password,
Speaker 1: and had a whole another separate social media life. His
Speaker 1: mom swore up and down that he didn't have so
Speaker 1: he was out there just stugging it. He never even
Speaker 1: took the phone home. You want to know why because
Speaker 1: his mom used to check his bag and check his room.
Speaker 1: Guess where he kept the phone? School in his locker.
Speaker 1: And I'm telling you this story because as much as
Speaker 1: you think you can prevent your children from seeing things
Speaker 1: or doing things, you can't. And all you can really
Speaker 1: do is prepare them with the emotional intelligence to handle
Speaker 1: what they see accordingly. So yes, I'm not putting my
Speaker 1: kids on social media. I'm not letting them get up
Speaker 1: social media page. But on top of that, I'm preparing them.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that. All right, y'all, this
Speaker 1: is a good segue to take a little bit of break,
Speaker 1: all right, and then we're going to get back to
Speaker 1: some listener letters after pay some bills. All right, see
Speaker 1: you soon. All right, we're back. Let's dive into listener
Speaker 1: letters now we have to today we normally always have
Speaker 1: to that to one development. Let you read that because
Speaker 1: all right, hi guys, I hope you all are doing well.
Speaker 1: Thank you. A little tired, but you know, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: tired and pro Perpetuity already told you that. I often
Speaker 1: listened to your podcast and I've heard you guys speak
Speaker 1: a few times about taking breaks in your relationship. What
Speaker 1: is your opinion on taking breaks and when you guys
Speaker 1: were in college, what led to those decisions of taking
Speaker 1: the time apart? Do you guys feel like those times
Speaker 1: benefited relationship? Absolutely? I think they did benefit our relationship
Speaker 1: a lot um develop I yes, we've spoken about at
Speaker 1: certain points in our relationship, particularly in the beginning, having
Speaker 1: to take those breaks. Some of them were forced in
Speaker 1: that develot was you know, for example, in the NFL
Speaker 1: had to leave and go to Detroit and that's where
Speaker 1: he was then stationed, and I was still back in
Speaker 1: New York at Hofstra finishing grad school. So that was
Speaker 1: kind of like a forced break in a sense, although
Speaker 1: we were together break yeah, um, but I think those
Speaker 1: moments definitely kind of helped us to decide whether or
Speaker 1: not this was a space that we wanted to be in. Um.
Speaker 1: It was very healthy for us to have these breaks. Um.
Speaker 1: And though at the time certain times that we had
Speaker 1: to take these breaks and they weren't frequent, they were
Speaker 1: maybe like two or three times over the course of
Speaker 1: our relationship. We got on a break twice in college, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that one time when I got back from the NFL.
Speaker 1: About three times, and sometimes, you know, either of us
Speaker 1: were the ones to initiate it. So where one person
Speaker 1: kind of wants to have the break and the other
Speaker 1: doesn't want to have the break, I think it tends
Speaker 1: to complicate things, um in a sense. But they definitely
Speaker 1: were beneficial because it gave each of us the choice
Speaker 1: to decide if this is somewhere that we wanted to
Speaker 1: be and rather than trying to hold things together by
Speaker 1: force or trying to hold things together because of the
Speaker 1: time that was already invested. Um giving the person the
Speaker 1: opportunity to go out there and just kind of not
Speaker 1: necessarily even be with someone else, but giving them the
Speaker 1: space to just kind of either clear their head or
Speaker 1: decide like what it is they really want out of
Speaker 1: life in general, and to see how you even fit
Speaker 1: into that equation. If you do, I think it's necessary
Speaker 1: to have those moments. Um Mine is really short for this.
Speaker 1: Having those brakes every time made me realize that I
Speaker 1: wanted to be here because here I get an opportunity
Speaker 1: two as they say, a young man sold my wild olds.
Speaker 1: And when I had the opportunity to go and do that,
Speaker 1: something in me was just like I want to be
Speaker 1: with Cadino, Like I'd rather be here. But having that option,
Speaker 1: in that choice to make that decision embowered me and
Speaker 1: made me realize, like, yo, I just want to be
Speaker 1: because I don't need to be there, But I'm still
Speaker 1: going over to her apartment, like I'm still going to
Speaker 1: her room. We used to fight it, man, I told
Speaker 1: you about That's how Develt left my apartment with all
Speaker 1: his stuff. Like the suitcase. It was winter time, it
Speaker 1: was cold, it was it was windy, and he threw
Speaker 1: his scarf around his head like Mary J. Blige and
Speaker 1: not try video. It was one of the wool joints
Speaker 1: that looked like Burdberry, but it wasn't really burberry. It
Speaker 1: was furberry. It was the story did that has evolved
Speaker 1: into the person you see here today? He was not
Speaker 1: always like this okay, and I evolved to like what
Speaker 1: you're You're that. We weren't always the one to wear
Speaker 1: a fake Burberry scarf and throw it around your neck
Speaker 1: like Mary J. Blosh all you were missing with the glasses?
Speaker 1: Who were you dating all this time? Because it was
Speaker 1: you took that you strowing out of my apartment with
Speaker 1: your suitcase, like this is it, I'm out of here,
Speaker 1: and then you turned around and came back within thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: like because yeah, I went back to my room and
Speaker 1: my dumbass took you back. Yes, that went to my
Speaker 1: room when it was nothing in there. It was just
Speaker 1: Aloud and maybe some couple of noodles. It was bloud,
Speaker 1: sprites and old. It can make nuggets. But even even that,
Speaker 1: that was the time that I stormed out but that
Speaker 1: wasn't a break though. We actually did go on a
Speaker 1: break after that, and even in that break, I'm still
Speaker 1: at your apartment every day, and it was just like,
Speaker 1: didout go away? You wanted this break, right? She was like,
Speaker 1: please stop stop, please stop waving me to come back,
Speaker 1: but um no, going on breaks actually just gives you
Speaker 1: an open choice. And when you have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: make an open choice and YouTube both collectively still want
Speaker 1: to be there, that it doesn't do. So I do
Speaker 1: think breaks are healthy, especially and in those times where
Speaker 1: you know change happens, and then in a break, you
Speaker 1: have to be also willing and able and knowledgeable up
Speaker 1: to know that somebody may not come back after that break,
Speaker 1: that breaks might then make them decide, you know what,
Speaker 1: this might not be for me. Take that ship as
Speaker 1: a blessing. Don't hold me here hostage just to hold
Speaker 1: me here hostage, because if you decide that this is
Speaker 1: not where you want to be, I'd rather you go
Speaker 1: find your happiness else, or actually find you're happy within
Speaker 1: you and then see how you can share that with
Speaker 1: somebody else. She didn't say that to me when I
Speaker 1: was in my break, but sure, that's growth, Like I
Speaker 1: said he wasn't the same person. I ain't the same person.
Speaker 1: In that moment, I had his ass in a choke hold.
Speaker 1: I will say this. Never come back from a break
Speaker 1: and say I'm gonna be with that person because I
Speaker 1: don't want her to be with someone else. The reason
Speaker 1: for coming back to the break should be because you
Speaker 1: want to be there, not because you just don't want
Speaker 1: them to be with someone else. That's just selfish, because
Speaker 1: what typically happens is you didn't have resentment because you
Speaker 1: don't want that person to be with anybody else. But
Speaker 1: you still don't want to be there. And now you
Speaker 1: say the only reason why I'm here is because of you,
Speaker 1: and that's not good. So make sure you're there because
Speaker 1: you want to be the right reasons, y'all, always the
Speaker 1: right reasons. All right on to number two, devote ahead.
Speaker 1: I mean we could break this up to I can
Speaker 1: rehaf and half because this pretty, this is a novel.
Speaker 1: This is we over me. Hey, guys, peace and prosperity
Speaker 1: to you and your family. I know you can hundreds
Speaker 1: of letters daily, but if this happens to catch your attention,
Speaker 1: please help assister out. I seven year old female. I
Speaker 1: am terrified of marriage. I've been with my boyfriend year
Speaker 1: old for eight years. We have two bail for children,
Speaker 1: and he proposed to me years ago, but I keep
Speaker 1: pushing the wedding back. Although I love this man with
Speaker 1: everything in me, and every obstacle we've ever encountered, we've
Speaker 1: conquered and pushed through, the thought of marriage scares me.
Speaker 1: I want to marry him, I really do. The problem
Speaker 1: is it's never something I've seen successfully accomplished. That's most people.
Speaker 1: Just to be clear, more than fifty percent of people
Speaker 1: that get married get divorced, So most marriages you see,
Speaker 1: don't end well. Every married person I know talks negatively,
Speaker 1: negatively about marriage, not us, like they never bring up
Speaker 1: a positive moment, not us. His mother divorced her husband
Speaker 1: and all she talks about is how it's a negative experience.
Speaker 1: My mother has been married to my stepfather for over
Speaker 1: ten years and I've never witnessed a loving moment between them.
Speaker 1: You know, both of I have expressed, both of us
Speaker 1: have expressed that in our families we've watched marriages and
Speaker 1: felt like the marriages just never seemed to be super positive. Ye,
Speaker 1: we can definitely relate to that. My grandparents still lived together,
Speaker 1: but they've never been married and seemed to be more
Speaker 1: of roommates than a couple of My biological dad. Ever
Speaker 1: since I told him I was pregnant with our first
Speaker 1: child when I was twenty, has repeatedly stated that my
Speaker 1: fiance would leave me alone as a single mother. Once
Speaker 1: my fiance proved that he's in this for the long one,
Speaker 1: he still enforces his belief that once we get married,
Speaker 1: he will leave me and the children. And I am
Speaker 1: stupid for doing this to myself. Wow, you don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of You don't have a strong support systems.
Speaker 1: All of our friends hate that we don't talk about
Speaker 1: any issues with them about our relationship, and they say
Speaker 1: we think we're too good and they stay Yo. She
Speaker 1: has no support system. I feel so bad for this
Speaker 1: person that if we get married, our relationship will crumble.
Speaker 1: He's willing, I mean, people told me and K the
Speaker 1: entire way willing to wait on marriage, but has expressed
Speaker 1: that he's not really happy that we're going to be
Speaker 1: into ours ninth year and I keep pushing things back.
Speaker 1: I guess my question is, do you believe that a
Speaker 1: successful marriage can be accomplished? Do you listen to that
Speaker 1: as podcasts, even when neither of us have seen a
Speaker 1: successful marriage. Is my fear justified? Girl? Yes you can
Speaker 1: period like this is a short answer. That's a short answer, devil,
Speaker 1: and I literally and I mean, y'all. We divulge more
Speaker 1: about this in our book, UM that will be in
Speaker 1: hand February seve But you can pre order now, you
Speaker 1: can definitely pre order, please do UM. So we divulge
Speaker 1: more about this in detail. But you just have to
Speaker 1: curate the life and the marriage and the relationship that
Speaker 1: you want. You cannot lean on other people for their opinions.
Speaker 1: And I had come to the revelation because initially I
Speaker 1: was putting the onus on, for example, my mother or
Speaker 1: my aunt's or my grandmother or just women who were
Speaker 1: in my household or outside of my household but had
Speaker 1: a hand in raising me. I was putting the responsibility
Speaker 1: on them to be the ones you give me. You
Speaker 1: know all the tea about marriage, Let me know the
Speaker 1: pros and the cons, Let me know what I should
Speaker 1: and shouldn't do, Like you feel like these women should
Speaker 1: then kind of lift you up and prepare you for
Speaker 1: this marriage. And the more I think about it, the more,
Speaker 1: I realized maybe the blessing and not having that and
Speaker 1: then having to figure things out on my own because
Speaker 1: I was coming to my relationship with you kind of
Speaker 1: green and figuring things out along the way. Now, was
Speaker 1: it easy? Hell No, it wasn't. We're still twenty years
Speaker 1: in trying to figure out things as we continue to
Speaker 1: grow and change. So I think about how much more
Speaker 1: jaded I might have been by hearing these instances from
Speaker 1: these women in my life and knowing, like, shoot, so
Speaker 1: many of them are living in a state of unhappiness
Speaker 1: within their relationships. Is that something that I necessarily want
Speaker 1: as just an energy around this space with me because
Speaker 1: I'm very protective of the energy that I have around me.
Speaker 1: So there was a blessing in disguise for that, And
Speaker 1: I can't particularly blame them for not do that. I
Speaker 1: guess I have to see that this is something we
Speaker 1: curated on our own. Well, here's my thing. People seem
Speaker 1: to think that their unhappiness comes from marriage. I see
Speaker 1: unhappy single people. So you have to start asking you
Speaker 1: a question of the people you're speaking to, unhappy because
Speaker 1: they're married, or are they unhappy and happy to be married.
Speaker 1: There's a big difference. There's a huge difference. It's because
Speaker 1: we've we've talked about this before the world's wealth is
Speaker 1: controlled by one percent of the population, which means most
Speaker 1: of the people in the world are not happy with
Speaker 1: their place in life financially right. Most people have stated
Speaker 1: that they don't know what their purpose is, so unhappiness
Speaker 1: just lives in them not understanding what their purposes. Then
Speaker 1: they seek happiness through these fleeting things, getting married, getting
Speaker 1: a job, having kids, and then when they're still unhappy
Speaker 1: because they can't find their purpose, they blame their marriage,
Speaker 1: they blame their job, they blame their kids. It's like
Speaker 1: people always look to blame all the other fact there's
Speaker 1: in their life other than the fact that they haven't
Speaker 1: put the working on themselves to be better. And I
Speaker 1: think marriage gets a bad rap right With that being said,
Speaker 1: if you want to be married right you, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're in a relationship, you have to decide first
Speaker 1: if you want to be married right now. We don't
Speaker 1: sound like you want to be married, And you asked,
Speaker 1: is my fear justified? We're gonna do a whole another podcast.
Speaker 1: It's going to be entitled stay Out of My Feelings.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you if your fear is justified because
Speaker 1: you woke up being afraid. You never woke up saying
Speaker 1: I want to be afraid of marriage. It just is so. So, yes,
Speaker 1: your fear is justified because you've seen um the negative
Speaker 1: aspects of marriage pretty much projected on you by your
Speaker 1: friends and family. So yes, it's justified. But does their
Speaker 1: projection have to be your reality? No it doesn't. Because
Speaker 1: when I said I was getting married to k and
Speaker 1: I told my dad I wanted to get married, I
Speaker 1: was eighteen when the manage girt love for and he
Speaker 1: was just like, yeah, okay, you say that now, but
Speaker 1: wait when you get older. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Both of my moms told us we need to slow
Speaker 1: down the people when we were in college, or y'all
Speaker 1: y'all together, now, y'all freshmen, wait till senior year. Then
Speaker 1: when I got to the league. Or you you you're
Speaker 1: real rookie, now, wait till you get in the league,
Speaker 1: you know, or you and TV Now it's like every
Speaker 1: aspect of my life. People have said watching the more
Speaker 1: famous Kadina and I get, people keep saying we'll see
Speaker 1: if their marriage last after all of this we never
Speaker 1: let anyone else's projection become our reality. We continue to
Speaker 1: nurture the relationship we want, the way we want, on
Speaker 1: the timeline we want to have it. And as long
Speaker 1: as we continue to do that, baby girl, I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: our sex life is bomb. We enjoy being parents, we
Speaker 1: enjoy building an empire that we can afford to not
Speaker 1: only help our children and ourselves, but the people around us.
Speaker 1: And we've done all of this while being a married
Speaker 1: couple and being happy like we enjoy being married. If
Speaker 1: you don't, you can't say you've never seen a married
Speaker 1: couple that enjoy being married, because you have Kadina and I.
Speaker 1: As much as we may complain about aspects of marriage,
Speaker 1: because we do. I complain and I'm I'm right now,
Speaker 1: Davis in the room, Matt is in the room, Josh
Speaker 1: is in the room, triple. I have complained about the
Speaker 1: aspects of my marriage. I have, but I've been happily married.
Speaker 1: You understand what I'm saying, Like you don't wake up
Speaker 1: every morning and being like I enjoy every aspect of
Speaker 1: being a man. Sometimes you be complaining, like I don't
Speaker 1: want to be a man. For this reason, I'm saying
Speaker 1: women go through that all the time. Just because you
Speaker 1: don't enjoy every aspect of being a woman don't mean
Speaker 1: you don't want to be a woman. It's just this
Speaker 1: part of being a woman is fucked up. It's the
Speaker 1: same parenting too, and you feel guilty for feeling bad
Speaker 1: because it's like, damn, I brought these kids, and now
Speaker 1: I would be mad at them because they're here over
Speaker 1: here tearing it up. Bro Yo, I picked we decided
Speaker 1: to have four kids, we didn't tired, and then wakes
Speaker 1: up in the morning to be pissed that we're tired,
Speaker 1: but then still be seeing our kids and picked them up.
Speaker 1: And I always tell them I seething. I tell you
Speaker 1: I love you today because I love them. I love
Speaker 1: being a parents. But waking up at six in the
Speaker 1: morning to take somebody in school going and standing outside
Speaker 1: for football practice for two hours one of his rain
Speaker 1: and it's hot, and you still got to do content
Speaker 1: for for work and you haven't seen your wife in
Speaker 1: a couple of months. That should be annoying. But do
Speaker 1: I love it? Yes? Yes, So let that be a
Speaker 1: message to you. It can exist. It's not a utopia.
Speaker 1: Every day is not going to be rainbows and sun
Speaker 1: kids and diamonds and every No, some days it's gonna
Speaker 1: be gonna be annoyed with that motherfucker facts. But if
Speaker 1: you want to be married, make that marriage the best
Speaker 1: marriage you can ye. Like I said, find your happiness
Speaker 1: with you and then go share that ship. I the
Speaker 1: world will be a better place, all right, y'all if
Speaker 1: you want to be a part of listening letters, make
Speaker 1: make our world a better place, you know. And you
Speaker 1: know what I just thought about two? She probably didn't
Speaker 1: even She doesn't know us personally, so she can't say.
Speaker 1: So we can't say to her, girl, you know what
Speaker 1: a happily married couple, it's us because some people still
Speaker 1: do this. They think they were facade, right, they think
Speaker 1: that all is. They ain't really they ain't really happy.
Speaker 1: They're just doing this for cloud, they're doing it for
Speaker 1: social media, and they're doing it like so I can't
Speaker 1: even blame her for feeling like she doesn't see that
Speaker 1: because she doesn't personally know anybody. And we can say
Speaker 1: how happy we are, and people really just be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's cap because you got to maintain this really not
Speaker 1: in the airport, there's plenty of seats We're in the airport.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting down. Cadine Goals gets coffee, comes down, she
Speaker 1: sits on my lap. And why she's sitting on my lap,
Speaker 1: I'm just squeezing on her, but you know, doing what
Speaker 1: I do, I'm giggling. She's giggling and stuff in. A
Speaker 1: woman comes over and says, you know, I follow y'all
Speaker 1: on social media, and I'm not gonna lie. You know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'll be like, oh, this is fake, there's no
Speaker 1: way to do this, but I'm watching y'all right now,
Speaker 1: there's nobody here, and she chose to sit on your lap.
Speaker 1: She's like, that was the sweetest thing. And I don't
Speaker 1: think people realize you can argue with somebody and still
Speaker 1: be madly in love with that. You know, you can
Speaker 1: differ you you can have different ideals and still if
Speaker 1: you ask, ask our camera crew, ask trouble. When you
Speaker 1: see trouble, what the ellises are like? Nigga's being here
Speaker 1: arguing mad at each other, but Becaudean will walk by
Speaker 1: me with some tight soon and I'll squeeze that. But
Speaker 1: I come here. I did. I'll tell you I love
Speaker 1: you today that that's not going to change you know,
Speaker 1: so don't better not change or I'll be what it
Speaker 1: won't change shook in my little boots. But don't don't
Speaker 1: feel like if everything isn't perfect, that your your marriage
Speaker 1: or your relationship isn't worth going to that next step
Speaker 1: in being a married couple, because I freaking love being married.
Speaker 1: I do. I love it. I love it same, bro,
Speaker 1: you make it. You make it fairly easy, not completely easy,
Speaker 1: but fairly. That's being fair. I receive that. All right, good,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you can say the same. Be sure to
Speaker 1: write to us on social media. Well, no, that's that's
Speaker 1: a lie, because that's not the point in the show.
Speaker 1: If you want to be featured as a listener letter.
Speaker 1: There we go back on track. Now, I just lovely
Speaker 1: that we should be having me at my mind or
Speaker 1: crazy since thence be sure to email us at dead
Speaker 1: s Advice at gmail dot com. That's d E A
Speaker 1: D A S S A d V I C E
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. All right now, moment of truth time.
Speaker 1: We had a lot of little like tidbits in this show, um,
Speaker 1: but ultimately what we were talking about because initially I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh shoot, we just had these really great listen letters
Speaker 1: that's my moment of truth. But no, going back to
Speaker 1: what the show topic is about, and it's about social
Speaker 1: media and our children and them having their own what's
Speaker 1: your moment of truth? Baby, it's my moment of truth, right, people,
Speaker 1: social media is entertainment. It is no longer what it
Speaker 1: was originally created for. Our generation thinks about black Planet.
Speaker 1: You know, um, you have friends, so you can curate
Speaker 1: who is going to be on your page. It's now
Speaker 1: a public forum since it's no longer a place where
Speaker 1: you only have the people that you're close to looking
Speaker 1: at your picture and video. People who are watching it
Speaker 1: are watching it for entertainment. So the things they say
Speaker 1: they're saying for entertainment. If you entertain the things they
Speaker 1: say and take it personal, you're doing yourself a disservice.
Speaker 1: Teach your children that social media's entertainment. The things they
Speaker 1: see on social media are not real. Give them the
Speaker 1: emotional intelligence to deal with the things people say if
Speaker 1: they choose to keep their comments up, and also teach
Speaker 1: them how to be good, have good social media etiquette
Speaker 1: and not be a part of the virtual lynch mob.
Speaker 1: Be an individual while on social media, and have emotional
Speaker 1: intelligence that is a word and a mouthful, and it
Speaker 1: actually was a portion of what I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: which was just making sure that you're equipping your children
Speaker 1: at home to just understand what social media is and
Speaker 1: what they may be embarking on if they choose to
Speaker 1: then be involved in social media, because like we said,
Speaker 1: they may be unbeknownst to us as parents, but not
Speaker 1: having to micromanage their phone or their iPads, any devices
Speaker 1: micro managing their social media. The best way to kind
Speaker 1: of counteract that is making sure we're equipping them with
Speaker 1: the like you said, emotional intelligence and just the acknowledge
Speaker 1: to decipher what's different. Um. But also if you think
Speaker 1: that your child is not on social media, you are
Speaker 1: damn ful, because these kids clever. That's how I t
Speaker 1: I was gonna say. Um. One thing that I've been
Speaker 1: doing is trying to stay in in order to stay
Speaker 1: up to breast with what's happening in the young people's forums.
Speaker 1: Is having young people around us who may be a
Speaker 1: little bit older than Jackson, but younger than us. So
Speaker 1: it's like our nieces and our nephews, and you know,
Speaker 1: my younger sister who's just like, hey, what's coming on
Speaker 1: with this? Yeah, let me keep me in the loop
Speaker 1: of what's happening here, so I at least can know,
Speaker 1: maybe not all the lingo, but I can at least
Speaker 1: know that there's like this new platform or there's this
Speaker 1: new you know, way that people are interacting that we
Speaker 1: may have to be mindful of. So as a parent,
Speaker 1: is your responsibility to make sure that you're doing that,
Speaker 1: that you're staying on top of things and not just saying, oh,
Speaker 1: this is not my generation, so therefore I'm just going
Speaker 1: to be dumb to what's happening, all right, y'all, So
Speaker 1: don't be dumb to what's happening, and be sure to
Speaker 1: follow us on social media. And then when I was like,
Speaker 1: don't be a fool, don't be a fool, follow us
Speaker 1: on social media, dead As the podcast because we always
Speaker 1: post like cute little clips and you know, all that
Speaker 1: good stuff there, and be sure to follow me on
Speaker 1: social media. And I'm gonna share with y'all what I
Speaker 1: feel to share because you know, we have a relationship.
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 subscribe.
Speaker 1: Dead Ass will see you next time. Dead Ass is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Media podcast Network and is
Speaker 1: produced by the Nora, Opinia and Triple Follow the podcast
Speaker 1: on social media at dead as the Podcasts and Never
Speaker 1: miss a Thing