Speaker 1: We got a high school of y'all, and I'm nervous
Speaker 1: as hell.
Speaker 2: I'm literally day by day fighting back tears. We're about
Speaker 2: to have. Yeah, I look at Jackson and I want
Speaker 2: to cry every day. I can't believe we're here. It's insane.
Speaker 3: It all started with real talk, unfiltered, honest and straight
Speaker 3: from the heart. Since then, we've gone on to become
Speaker 3: Webby Award winning podcasters in New York Times bestselling authors.
Speaker 2: Dead Ass was more than a podcast for us. It
Speaker 2: was about our growth, a place where we could be vulnerable, be.
Speaker 1: Wraw or but most apportly be us.
Speaker 2: But as we know, life keeps evolving and so do we,
Speaker 2: and through it all, one thing has never changed. This
Speaker 2: is because we got a lot to talk about.
Speaker 1: Story time.
Speaker 3: My oldest son is first of all, he's amazing. But
Speaker 3: I'm gonna tell you something that happened to me the
Speaker 3: other day. I'm gonna flash y'all back to yesterday because.
Speaker 1: It didn't happen that long ago.
Speaker 3: I get out the bedroom and I walk down to
Speaker 3: where you're always standing there making breakfast, and this shadowy
Speaker 3: figure comes over my shoulder while I'm hugging you, and
Speaker 3: all I hear, is your chill?
Speaker 1: Let my finish making breakfast.
Speaker 3: And I looked over and he was like looking at
Speaker 3: me eye to eye with that curly frow, and then
Speaker 3: put his hand on my shoulder and I was like, yo,
Speaker 3: you're like a little man, Like you're my size now.
Speaker 3: And it was in that moment that I realized, like,
Speaker 3: I have to start teaching my son what to be
Speaker 3: prepared for walking out in the world as a young man,
Speaker 3: because people are gonna view him as a young man
Speaker 3: now he's no longer a boy. And it hit me
Speaker 3: like yesterday, like, first of all, he's gonna be taller
Speaker 3: than me, which I'm excited about. Like the minute he's
Speaker 3: talling at me, I'm gonna jump on his back and
Speaker 3: tell him he got carry me everywhere.
Speaker 2: But that is insanity. For me, it was I don't
Speaker 2: you don't really do story time. But for me, it
Speaker 2: was taking him to get his permit. He turned fifteen,
Speaker 2: and he was like, Wow, I'm studying for my permit
Speaker 2: and I was like, permission to do? What are you crazy?
Speaker 2: And yeah. I took him to the DMV and gathered
Speaker 2: all the paperwork I had to do a slide show
Speaker 2: for his eighth grade promotion ceremony, pulling up baby pittures
Speaker 2: and that there, and I'm about to get my period,
Speaker 2: so you know, my my emotions are on like a thousand.
Speaker 3: That right there is why these conversations need to be had.
Speaker 3: That driving being in high school with other kids that
Speaker 3: are driving a lot of conversations that need to be had.
Speaker 2: All right, let me let me give me gather my
Speaker 2: thoughts and my emotions. All right, karaoke time.
Speaker 3: This was very simple. We're still in that era of MJ.
Speaker 3: I know it's a little bit later on in the year,
Speaker 3: but this is an MJ summer. So once I start
Speaker 3: this song, you already know what it's gonna be. Doom doom, doom, doom,
Speaker 3: doom doom doom, doom, doom doom doom doomdoom, damn dun damn.
Speaker 1: Pause your buddy's mine.
Speaker 3: You gotta pause that before you say that. You have
Speaker 3: to because did you hear the story about why Prince
Speaker 3: didn't do the song with Michael Jackson.
Speaker 4: I'm good.
Speaker 3: Prince said that it was presented to him that he
Speaker 3: was supposed to be in the video, right, and then
Speaker 3: he was cool with it. You know what, I'm saying
Speaker 3: even though they had their little bit of a competitive
Speaker 3: bet back in the day, but he said when he
Speaker 3: heard the song, he said, well, who's saying that to
Speaker 3: Who are you saying that to me? Because I definitely
Speaker 3: ain't saying that to you, And he backed down on it.
Speaker 3: So I knew if Prince had to pause song.
Speaker 5: Why did Prince pause?
Speaker 1: Exactly?
Speaker 3: That's why I had to preemptively positive Prince who walked
Speaker 3: around with his butt cheeks.
Speaker 1: I was gonna pause that. I know, I gotta pause it.
Speaker 2: Walked around with his budgets.
Speaker 1: He did though. That was a part of his thing,
Speaker 1: was he had the cheeks out.
Speaker 3: I love it, you know, which kills me today, how
Speaker 3: like older men will talk about this generation and be like,
Speaker 3: this generation do stuff that's questionable.
Speaker 1: Y'all all love Prince and Prince walked.
Speaker 3: Around with his cheeks out, but y'all talk about our
Speaker 3: artists is questionable.
Speaker 2: And he was getting them chicks too.
Speaker 3: Prince was getting older. She do not leave your girl around, Prince.
Speaker 3: It is no longer your girl, they said.
Speaker 1: Don't let her.
Speaker 3: Don't let him look her in the eye or say
Speaker 3: anything to her with that devoice.
Speaker 1: She's gone.
Speaker 3: You think Prince would have stolen you from me out
Speaker 3: of what Prince size don't need to answer me and Prince.
Speaker 1: The biggest la skin fight ever.
Speaker 3: Took my belt off, been like Prince man like, listen,
Speaker 3: don't be looking at I'm sure you whos king.
Speaker 1: You're the prince, but I'm the King.
Speaker 2: All right, y'all, we're gonna take a break and we'll
Speaker 2: be back with Op or no Op stick.
Speaker 1: Around all right, I got my pad already.
Speaker 5: Pads up, all right, Oper Nop.
Speaker 6: Something we have to talk about is how the Supreme
Speaker 6: Court recently made changes to the nineteen sixty five Voting Act.
Speaker 5: And we got to.
Speaker 6: Be honest that they want slavery. They want to bring
Speaker 6: back slavery.
Speaker 5: They're doing it. Little by little, they're finding way, they're
Speaker 5: finding way.
Speaker 6: So recently what has happened is they made a change
Speaker 6: to the Voting Right Act that weakens the law by
Speaker 6: restricting the use of majority minority districts, which basically makes
Speaker 6: it so that representation can actually represent like proportionately the
Speaker 6: Demographics Act, that's what it's supposed to do. So now
Speaker 6: they're calling that racial entitlement, whereas the real issue and
Speaker 6: why that even had to be presented in a Voting
Speaker 6: Rights Act. Is because districts would section off voting areas
Speaker 6: to make it so that, you know, their candidates would win,
Speaker 6: so that they could uphold Jim Crow, so that they
Speaker 6: could uphold discrimination. And this part of the Voting Right
Speaker 6: Acts makes it more fair so that voting districts reflect
Speaker 6: the actual population in that district.
Speaker 5: And now that can't be done.
Speaker 3: For example, in Louisiana, Louisiana, I think they're forty of
Speaker 3: the population is black.
Speaker 1: But now in Louisiana they have like two congressmen.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and Louisiana is who brought this case to the
Speaker 6: Supreme Court just nuts.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And they also want to make it so that private
Speaker 6: plaintiffs can't bring lawsuits, so that they cannot what do
Speaker 6: you call it, challenge laws like this.
Speaker 2: Get me out of here.
Speaker 1: This is my op. I'm gonna give you all a
Speaker 1: little brief history lesson.
Speaker 2: Oh we love a history lesson.
Speaker 3: In eighteen sixty five, they announced that all blacks were free, right,
Speaker 3: eighteen sixty five, remember that right? In eighteen sixty seven
Speaker 3: they enacted the Vagrancy Act. The Vagrancy Act meant that
Speaker 3: if you couldn't read you couldn't write, you didn't own property.
Speaker 3: You are now property of the state and considered a
Speaker 3: vagrant and were then used for convict leasing to private
Speaker 3: places for ultimately slavery. So ultimately they said, hey, we're
Speaker 3: going to free all the slaves, and then for the
Speaker 3: past three hundred plus years, we're going to tell y'all
Speaker 3: that it's illegal for you as a slave to read
Speaker 3: or write or own property. Now we're going to free
Speaker 3: you and then make it illegal that you don't know
Speaker 3: how to read, write, or own property, and then put
Speaker 3: you back into custody of the state.
Speaker 1: To where you have to work for free. This is America.
Speaker 3: The reason why I'm telling this story is because this
Speaker 3: is what America has always done.
Speaker 1: Found a way to change the rules and the law so.
Speaker 3: They can continue to disenfranchise us as black people. We
Speaker 3: saw York. It was two thousand and I believe twelve
Speaker 3: when they decided they were trying to change the We
Speaker 3: were in Crown Heights and they were rezoning everything in
Speaker 3: Crown Heights when they were going through all the different
Speaker 3: changes and how they were going to call Crown Heights
Speaker 3: was going to be Remsen Village and Clinton Hills but
Speaker 3: we started noticing, and this is when I started speaking
Speaker 3: to my aldermen, that they were rezoning everything and all
Speaker 3: of the finances were going to certain synagogues while finances
Speaker 3: were being taken away from certain public housing in certain places.
Speaker 2: That Yeah, I remember, remember we had to go to
Speaker 2: those meetings.
Speaker 1: We had to go to Yeah, that's why.
Speaker 2: It's so important to be involved in your local election
Speaker 2: in the local government because and.
Speaker 3: When you ask the questions as to why the rezoning
Speaker 3: is happening, they never give you a straightforward answer. And
Speaker 3: so we had to do this because of this, this, that,
Speaker 3: And you go back and looking and you're like, wait,
Speaker 3: y'all took four million dollars from every public school that
Speaker 3: was in that area, and now you have all of
Speaker 3: us being rezoned to have to go to that public
Speaker 3: school after you just took four million dollars annually. They've
Speaker 3: always done this. This is not a surprise to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember when we were looking for schools for
Speaker 2: Jackson when he was about to start school, and I
Speaker 2: was like, so you're telling me I'm forced to have
Speaker 2: to send my child to this school. So that's where
Speaker 2: technically zoned there. We started looking for school yeah, around
Speaker 2: twenty twelve, thirteen, because he was about two three.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's infurial. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 3: It is infuriating that this always like this is always
Speaker 3: the case and they playing our face.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And the reason why any of this has happened is
Speaker 6: because of the fear of losing white supremacy as the land,
Speaker 6: the law of the land, and that I feel like
Speaker 6: the catalyst for that, this like increased fear was Barack
Speaker 6: Obama being president for eight years because what we thought, voters,
Speaker 6: I mean personally, what I thought Barack Obama would do,
Speaker 6: and obviously what white people thought Barack Obama would do
Speaker 6: was to enact laws that help you know, black black people,
Speaker 6: and he didn't at all. He did not at all,
Speaker 6: And so then they took it upon themselves to do
Speaker 6: exactly what they thought he was gonna do for themselves.
Speaker 6: So now they're doing they're making all of these crazy
Speaker 6: changes to voting so that they can stay in power
Speaker 6: because they realized their fear, like they came up with
Speaker 6: a plan like, oh shit, if he does this, niggas, yes,
Speaker 6: but we if we do it, we can stay in power.
Speaker 6: It feels nefarious in that way, and I said this
Speaker 6: before on the podcast, and you devaluely like, no, that's
Speaker 6: not fair, and of course it's not fair. But I'm
Speaker 6: hella mad at Barack, like you could have been a
Speaker 6: black fanther in the White House and you chose to
Speaker 6: be an actual Democrat, Like where was the niggas at?
Speaker 3: You know what, I'm gonna be honest with you at
Speaker 3: when when you first said it, I did say, like,
Speaker 3: this isn't like we can't put that on him because
Speaker 3: he can't go in there and just do whatever you
Speaker 3: want to do. But to watch this guy be in
Speaker 3: there and just do whatever.
Speaker 5: You want to do, it's like he can but a question.
Speaker 1: That's what I was.
Speaker 5: Out.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. Could have he couldn't do.
Speaker 2: You wore a khaki suit and they were in an
Speaker 2: uproar that one time. He wore a tend right.
Speaker 5: But everybody's in an uproar.
Speaker 4: About doing this stuff because everybody's complicit with him.
Speaker 1: But everybody's in an uproa is complicent with him.
Speaker 6: Congress is in Congress is complicit. The powers that be
Speaker 6: you know, on your side, are but the people are not.
Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying, Most of the people don't
Speaker 6: agree with what is happening, and I feel like, I mean.
Speaker 3: Well, he disenfranchised the people too. You know, you hear
Speaker 3: them saying right now that white people are the new niggas.
Speaker 1: Look at all of the stuff that white people are
Speaker 1: upset about them. White people now.
Speaker 3: Upset a Trump for stuff that happening to black people
Speaker 3: for centuries. That's that's why when they're just like, you know,
Speaker 3: black people, you're not saying much.
Speaker 1: Well, this this.
Speaker 3: America that y'all seeing, where he promised y'all he wouldn't
Speaker 3: do things and are doing things to y'all, is something
Speaker 3: that we've had to deal with. Yeah, we've survived it forever,
Speaker 3: so this don't feel much different. That's why I'm saying,
Speaker 3: I went back to the black codes. You can go
Speaker 3: back to mass incarceration. They free once again. After the
Speaker 3: nineteen sixties, we had the civil rights movement. Oh, black people,
Speaker 3: everything's equal. Then here come the seventies and eighties and
Speaker 3: mass incarceration and the war on drugs.
Speaker 1: They always find a way after they say we gave
Speaker 1: y'all this.
Speaker 3: They always find a way to snatch it all back
Speaker 3: and say, well, what we gave y'all wasn't fair. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, Like this has always been
Speaker 3: the case. If you read w Eb the boy he
Speaker 3: says the same thing. He says, there's a history with
Speaker 3: white people and white supremacy in this country that they're
Speaker 3: there's always a black savior quote unquote, and then after
Speaker 3: the black savior comes, they punish all black people for
Speaker 3: the black savior. So you think about Malcolm and Martin
Speaker 3: and then they punish with mass incarceration. Then you have
Speaker 3: Barack Obama, then you punish us again. You think about
Speaker 3: eighteen sixty five and quote unquote Lincoln was supposed to
Speaker 3: be that and WB the Boyce was there to help
Speaker 3: usher in a new America.
Speaker 1: And then after that you get black codes and you
Speaker 1: get lynchings.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. He talked about it. This
Speaker 3: is part of white supremacy. You give them a little bit,
Speaker 3: then you take a lot. So this doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 3: We as a people just have to be prepared because
Speaker 3: we've lived through this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's a We had her on the show, Lenee Venet.
Speaker 5: Yes, she said something.
Speaker 6: I cannot remember exactly what she said, but basically it's
Speaker 6: something that I've been thinking for a long time. It's
Speaker 6: like racism is just the tool that they use in
Speaker 6: order to get people on their side to stay in power.
Speaker 6: Like these people really don't care about raised body.
Speaker 1: They don't.
Speaker 6: But if you think about it, right before Trump's election,
Speaker 6: there was the Supreme Court challenge for.
Speaker 1: It.
Speaker 5: I first came up. What is it called college admissions.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember.
Speaker 5: The girl from.
Speaker 6: Texas took her case all the way to the Supreme
Speaker 6: Court because she said she didn't get into the University
Speaker 6: of Texas because she was a white Remember, And what
Speaker 6: I learned about Clarence Thomas's career is that his career
Speaker 6: started by lobbying against seat belt laws. And he worked
Speaker 6: at the EEOC, which didn't have anything to do with
Speaker 6: seatbelt laws, but there was a Republican person in power
Speaker 6: who was trying to make it so that the seat
Speaker 6: belt laws or seatbelt bills didn't go into law because
Speaker 6: back in the day, you didn't have to wear a.
Speaker 1: Seat belt, I know.
Speaker 6: And so they got Clarence Thomas involved, and that's how
Speaker 6: he became kind of a Republican. I think all all
Speaker 6: the time before that he was kind of just nonpartisan
Speaker 6: because as a judge or as a lawyer, that's how
Speaker 6: you should be. But then he started working for the
Speaker 6: right during this time, and they made him kind of
Speaker 6: the face of this seat belt law thing. And so
Speaker 6: if you think about it, it seems, oh, it seems
Speaker 6: like innocuous that this stupid white girl went to the
Speaker 6: Supreme Court with this dumb ass case.
Speaker 5: However, it does start to spark some.
Speaker 6: Division based on race, and so I feel like that
Speaker 6: is purposefully done in all of these these cases that
Speaker 6: go to the Supreme Court. It sparks division based on
Speaker 6: some type of human difference, whether it is reproductive.
Speaker 5: Rights or gay rights or race.
Speaker 6: It's something that people with their moral high ground can
Speaker 6: get behind while they're not paying attention to what else
Speaker 6: is going on or how those things actually affect their
Speaker 6: personal life or how that's going to carry it. All
Speaker 6: they're trying to do is carry the you know, carry
Speaker 6: the play. That's what she said. She said, like racism
Speaker 6: is the tool. Something is the play.
Speaker 5: I can't remember what she said. I wish it was
Speaker 5: real good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's so smart.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So all I know is is that I'm used
Speaker 3: to this happening, Like I feel like there's always been
Speaker 3: a point in my life where we've been fighting for something.
Speaker 1: So I kind of look at it now when yawn, because.
Speaker 2: I'm like, it's so predictable.
Speaker 3: It is. It's like when you when you see all
Speaker 3: the stuff happening and you was like, Okay, theyll remember
Speaker 3: when they started rolling back affirmative action, saw that happening,
Speaker 3: when they was rolling back DEI, when twenty twenty happened
Speaker 3: and all the white guilt happened, and all of these
Speaker 3: companies want to just throw money at black content and stuff.
Speaker 3: I always remember saying to myself, how long y'all think
Speaker 3: this is going to last? Right before they just say,
Speaker 3: you know what, this is reverse racism, and now we're taking.
Speaker 1: It all back. It's I don't have I'm gonna be honest,
Speaker 1: but I don't have no hope for America.
Speaker 4: How could you?
Speaker 1: I don't have no hope for America.
Speaker 4: Zero.
Speaker 5: That's the That is the app No hope is gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the hope is gone. We've been talking about it.
Speaker 3: We can wag him out and hopefully the people who
Speaker 3: are pretty much the new niggas realize that your vote
Speaker 3: is the re and while we're all in this situation
Speaker 3: and y'all realize they take they duped y'all.
Speaker 2: Too so long to recover from the damage she's done. Yeah,
Speaker 2: probably it's gonna take forever. We're not going to see
Speaker 2: it in our lifetime.
Speaker 1: Around the world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's probably not in time at all.
Speaker 2: One person came in here and dismantled so much it's
Speaker 2: insane to watch.
Speaker 4: He didn't he didn't dismantle. He just uncovered what was
Speaker 4: laid dormant.
Speaker 2: I mean, that is true, That is true. Who who
Speaker 2: are these people in Congress too?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Are these people just sitting in there, like you know,
Speaker 2: these old folks that just sitting there that probably were
Speaker 2: descendants of owners that are just still there.
Speaker 1: Aste. That's literally what it is.
Speaker 4: Christmas?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 5: Oh snap? What movie is there from.
Speaker 4: Another?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 5: That's right, Christmas Adventures. That shit was so funny.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna point some out to.
Speaker 3: Think about all of the empires that that lasted two
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty years. Two hundred and fifty years the
Speaker 3: empires lasted, right, what year we in the matter?
Speaker 5: To babe? I wonder if they're gonna have a real
Speaker 5: big celebration on work this year.
Speaker 1: Definitely years.
Speaker 5: Gets everywhere.
Speaker 1: He's man, they're gonna do all sorts of things, those.
Speaker 5: Ram parts ramping. So I brought this up.
Speaker 6: I brought this situation up because something that we learned
Speaker 6: more in depth in high school is about civics and
Speaker 6: how the government works, and also how different tools have
Speaker 6: been used for political gain. And something that we learned
Speaker 6: about early on was during Jim Crow, how the I
Speaker 6: forget his name, dude from Mississippi youth racism. He said,
Speaker 6: segregation to day, segregation, tomorrow, segregation.
Speaker 1: Trying to remember, and I think you lost.
Speaker 5: No, I was gonna say, it's a D it's a
Speaker 5: D name. Hold on, let me look at that.
Speaker 2: Real quicknis young influencer.
Speaker 4: On probably David Duke George Wallace.
Speaker 1: Speech.
Speaker 6: That speech was actually written by an KKK leader.
Speaker 1: Does that surprise you?
Speaker 6: But so George Wallace, I do believe that he did
Speaker 6: not win that race, but it's important. That was one
Speaker 6: of the most important lessons that I learned in history class.
Speaker 6: That's how I realized and my actual history teacher, mister Mileternal,
Speaker 6: actually taught us how racism is used and how just
Speaker 6: moral arguments are.
Speaker 5: Used as ways to gain political power.
Speaker 6: It's not that these people really care about it, but
Speaker 6: they know that their constituents.
Speaker 1: We watched that with religion.
Speaker 3: Trump is religion countries on behalf of Christianity. Since when
Speaker 3: is Trump become this big lavish Christian out of nowhere?
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, like, and that's I.
Speaker 6: Mean Christianity was used to justify genocide of Native Americans
Speaker 6: when Europeans came here or whenever they win.
Speaker 3: Anybody use a mortal high ground to justify their wrongdoings.
Speaker 6: Exactly, and to gain political power and to be able
Speaker 6: to colonize nations. So here we are preparing Jackson to
Speaker 6: go into high school and preparing for a level of
Speaker 6: critical thinking that's going to carry him into adulthood.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm glad that you that because that is literally
Speaker 3: what I wanted to talk about today, all of those things.
Speaker 1: First thing I want to talk about being a young
Speaker 1: black man. My dad had this conversation with me getting
Speaker 1: in the car with people.
Speaker 3: Right, you have to know who you're getting in the
Speaker 3: car with people, because now your friends are driving, You're
Speaker 3: going into high school.
Speaker 1: You got friends who are eighteen nineteen years old who
Speaker 1: have their license and stuff.
Speaker 2: Yep, carpooling, going to practice, coming home from practice.
Speaker 1: One of my close friends who I grew up with
Speaker 1: playing football.
Speaker 3: I won't say his name, but was arrested because he
Speaker 3: was coming back from upstate. One of his homeboys from
Speaker 3: Flatbush picked him up to bring him back from school.
Speaker 3: While they were coming back from school, what do you
Speaker 3: think happened to them?
Speaker 2: Got pulled over in the car something transporting, Wow.
Speaker 1: Trafficking and trafficking.
Speaker 3: So he went up north to pick his homeboy up
Speaker 3: and was trafficking when they got pulled over. Everybody in
Speaker 3: the car got stuck with that time and he ended
Speaker 3: up doing three years.
Speaker 4: Damn.
Speaker 3: I got another homeboard that I played football with. He
Speaker 3: ended up playing Mike Adams. He tells the story all
Speaker 3: the time. Mike Adams was I believe, a senior in
Speaker 3: high school and he was already committed to Delaware. Homeboys
Speaker 3: came to pick him up, Mike Adams from Jersey. They
Speaker 3: had guns in the car.
Speaker 1: They get pulled over.
Speaker 3: Only thing that saved Mike Adams was that he was
Speaker 3: an athlete, and I believe the arresting officers of people
Speaker 3: knew his story, knew his family, and he was able
Speaker 3: to prove that it wasn't his guns. But sorry, but
Speaker 3: let that be someone else.
Speaker 1: They all going to jail.
Speaker 6: They're all going to jail. I don't see that all
Speaker 6: the time. On the first forty eight. Remember when I
Speaker 6: was I'm maybe a sophomore or junior. I was in
Speaker 6: this program, uh for high school girls, and there was
Speaker 6: like a boys chapter as well. But one of our leaders,
Speaker 6: her son had been murdered I think probably with people
Speaker 6: that he didn't really know what they were into.
Speaker 5: But she made us aware of the accessory law and
Speaker 5: if you.
Speaker 6: Are caught with somebody in the process of a crime,
Speaker 6: you are an accesserator will do the same time.
Speaker 5: And that scared me to goddamned death.
Speaker 2: That's actually really good because if you know like that's
Speaker 2: going to be, doesn't teach you to be mindful of
Speaker 2: the company.
Speaker 4: You can absolutely you.
Speaker 6: Know, And I've always been a scared yet I'm not
Speaker 6: getting in trouble anyway.
Speaker 5: But I'm definitely not getting in trouble now, you know,
Speaker 5: Like I.
Speaker 2: Was okay high school being with the nerds. That was
Speaker 2: me the first like two or three years of high school.
Speaker 2: Even though when I was trying to figure myself out, if.
Speaker 5: People start fighting, I go the other way. The other way.
Speaker 5: I don't want to watch it. I don't want to
Speaker 5: hear it. I don't want to see it.
Speaker 6: My cousin got stabbed death watching or trying to break
Speaker 6: up a fight.
Speaker 5: I don't give a damn. Y'all beat each other's ass.
Speaker 1: I'm leaving, yep.
Speaker 3: Because conversations with your kids. I got another one for y'all.
Speaker 3: Child pornography.
Speaker 5: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: You're fifteen years old, Surety sends you some pictures.
Speaker 3: You put it in a group chat. The group chat
Speaker 3: starts sending those pictures out. They start investigating. They find
Speaker 3: a group chat. You don't say nothing in the group chat,
Speaker 3: but your name is in the group chat. You go
Speaker 3: to jail for child pornography. That is a law.
Speaker 6: I had a friend whose brother got in trouble for
Speaker 6: that yea when he was a senior somebody. And it
Speaker 6: wasn't even a group chat. It was just a girl
Speaker 6: sent him nudes. He's saying her parents found it and
Speaker 6: they were like, you know, black boy, white girls out.
Speaker 2: It's just the fact that she sent them to history.
Speaker 4: He had them on his phones where he got in trouble.
Speaker 5: He got in trouble.
Speaker 4: That's crazy. She gets in no trouble.
Speaker 6: She gets in no trouble because she's under age and
Speaker 6: I think he might have been at least almost eighteen
Speaker 6: at the time.
Speaker 5: He was probably a senior. She's sophomore or something like that.
Speaker 6: There's a kid in Cincinnati right now who is a
Speaker 6: girl's family's pressing criminal charges because he created nudes of
Speaker 6: one of his classmates with using AI and sent them
Speaker 6: out to like that before, but the school let him
Speaker 6: come back to class.
Speaker 5: It's crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the wild Bie West. I feel like as parents
Speaker 2: now we're just contending with so many things that we
Speaker 2: did not have to contend with. Like my mom looked
Speaker 2: at me the other day and she's like, I really
Speaker 2: feel feel for you guys, because you not raising children
Speaker 2: the way I raised you. The worst we were concerned
Speaker 2: about was like, you know, what would happen if you're
Speaker 2: taking public transportation or like you know. But now it's
Speaker 2: like the social space, the digital space rather is where
Speaker 2: we're like, man, there's so much to contend with. How
Speaker 2: do you control it?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: The one thing I do the same thing with my
Speaker 3: boys that I did with my young men and women
Speaker 3: that I had in prototype. We do social media checks,
Speaker 3: need them passwords, and I need to see that phone
Speaker 3: on demand.
Speaker 1: Like when I asked you to see the phone, I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to hear.
Speaker 3: Oh Dad, I'm gonna go upstairs and get it. No no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: pass me that phone. Let me look at it right now, unprompted,
Speaker 3: because I want to see You would be surprised. And
Speaker 3: I'm saying this to all parents who are listening. All parents,
Speaker 3: listen to me. Everything you think you know about your child,
Speaker 3: boy or girl.
Speaker 1: You don't know.
Speaker 3: I had moms proclaimed to me that their children do
Speaker 3: not have social media, didn't even know they kid had
Speaker 3: a phone. These kids are taking their their friends' phones
Speaker 3: that are not active, using the Wi Fi, keeping it
Speaker 3: because it doesn't have to be attached to anything, and
Speaker 3: having their own apps on phones that their.
Speaker 1: Parents don't even know. And theyre bringing berners home. The
Speaker 1: burners stay at the school. That's how they never get caught.
Speaker 1: This is how I found out about is another story.
Speaker 1: When you're mentoring, you see it all.
Speaker 2: I've seen high schoolers, We've seen it all.
Speaker 3: I seen kids get I saw a very tragic story.
Speaker 1: A young lady had sex with two young men.
Speaker 3: They decided to share some of the pictures and video
Speaker 3: and that young lady walked off a train at the
Speaker 3: end of school.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, at the end of school.
Speaker 3: These two athletes almost missed out on playing in their
Speaker 3: senior I think they did miss out playing in their
Speaker 3: senior year because they were dealing with charges and stuff.
Speaker 1: But this was back in two thousand and twelve.
Speaker 3: I believe, and social media was just starting to buzz
Speaker 3: and people didn't know what to do then.
Speaker 1: So as a parent.
Speaker 3: Now, because I saw all of those things, I'm talking
Speaker 3: to Jack's about drugs alcohol. I'm not back in the day.
Speaker 3: Don't do no drugs, don't do no alcohol. I know
Speaker 3: that this around him. He's in eighth grade now when
Speaker 3: them eighth grade is be vapor When I pull up
Speaker 3: to the school to go to some of these things,
Speaker 3: these eighth grade is outside smoking.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I was definitely smoking weed in eighth grade.
Speaker 1: So I'm no longer going to be the whole like
Speaker 1: drugs is bad. If I now like, what are you interested?
Speaker 1: Do you know what drugs are? Do you know what
Speaker 1: alcohol is?
Speaker 3: Have you ever tasted alcohol? Do you because I want
Speaker 3: them to My parents did that with me. My uncle
Speaker 3: Kevin was just like you ever had a drink before
Speaker 3: and I was like nah. He was like, you're looking
Speaker 3: at that Hennessy and I was just like I was fifteen,
Speaker 3: give me no taste.
Speaker 1: And I was like yo.
Speaker 3: I was like, let me get it in me taste
Speaker 3: and he was like, if you taste it, you got
Speaker 3: to drink the whole cup.
Speaker 4: Oh damn.
Speaker 1: So me being an idiot and not knowing you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I had this Tennessee no ice because I'm thinking I'm
Speaker 3: tough and I'm sipping it. Boy in about an hour
Speaker 3: and a half, sweating, didn't want to know, like just sweating,
Speaker 3: looking around like yo, what.
Speaker 2: Like he was a cop. He was just like, let
Speaker 2: me put you through this.
Speaker 1: My uncle Kevin did not play with that stuff with
Speaker 1: me and my brothers.
Speaker 3: He was the most scared straight and I love him
Speaker 3: for that, the most scared straight type of person.
Speaker 1: Oh you want to do this, Let's go do this.
Speaker 3: You want to see what with gangs and really happens
Speaker 3: with this? Okay, let's go look at that. And it
Speaker 3: wasn't like the scared straight. It just gave me the
Speaker 3: warwellthrow to understand it.
Speaker 1: That's not a role I want to go down.
Speaker 2: It also takes the mistique away from it because so
Speaker 2: many things in high school are glorified by your little
Speaker 2: friends who don't know any better. So if you're exposing
Speaker 2: your children to this and having the conversation it doesn't
Speaker 2: seem like something that's like out of touch. Make it
Speaker 2: accessible for them in an environment that's controlled while the
Speaker 2: stakes are low facts versus waiting till they get to
Speaker 2: a high school or college or become an adult to
Speaker 2: get into trouble that when the stakes are really high
Speaker 2: and they can lose so much.
Speaker 3: You know, we talk to our boys and we're talking
Speaker 3: about high school Becausejackson's going to high school, but we
Speaker 3: talk to our boys about this stuff from young We
Speaker 3: talked to Kyro and Cash just the other day about
Speaker 3: consent nine to eight years old. I'm like, you see me,
Speaker 3: I grab on your mother, right, you see, I put
Speaker 3: on my lap. You know that we were friends first,
Speaker 3: and we had these conversations in front of them, like,
Speaker 3: you know, I asked her, you know, if it's okay.
Speaker 3: You got to remember when Jackson went over to Rob
Speaker 3: and remember Rob's daughter. I forgot Rob's daughters, Oh, Aubrey.
Speaker 3: They were eleven at the time, and no ten. They
Speaker 3: were ten because we're still living in LA and Rob
Speaker 3: called me, like, man, we got to talk, and.
Speaker 1: I was like, what's up.
Speaker 3: He was just like, Jackson put his arm around Aubrey
Speaker 3: and then he was like, what happened?
Speaker 1: Now? I was like, I was like, so what happened?
Speaker 1: He was just like nothing.
Speaker 3: I was watching him in the room and then he
Speaker 3: had his arm around her, and then after a while
Speaker 3: he didn't.
Speaker 1: So I was all right, so I'm gonna talk to
Speaker 1: Jackson see what it was about. He's like, I'm just
Speaker 1: letting you know that. You know, it seems like Jackson's
Speaker 1: interested in girls because he's a man too.
Speaker 3: He was like, yo, I have this conversation. So I said, Jackson,
Speaker 3: what happened? He was like, no, I just saw you
Speaker 3: do it because mom. You do it with mom. And
Speaker 3: I said, well, did you ask? He said yeah, I asked,
Speaker 3: and she.
Speaker 1: Said okay, and then after a while she was like
Speaker 1: she's not okay no more.
Speaker 3: So I just moved it. So I said, well, that's
Speaker 3: that's consent. You're practicing learning how to interact with a
Speaker 3: young lady. And then remember he walked her home. Remember
Speaker 3: he walked her home and made sure she got into
Speaker 3: the door and stuff, and I just want to make
Speaker 3: sure that my boys are awa that they also have
Speaker 3: rights to protect themselves exactly.
Speaker 6: Yes, Yeah, I was gonna say, there's a big thing
Speaker 6: too with boys and their hormones, and you know, just
Speaker 6: like having so much energy and testosterone and sexuality becomes
Speaker 6: a really big thing. And I think the biggest thing
Speaker 6: with girls and boys is that it's private, you know
Speaker 6: what I'm saying, Like, and that is something that should
Speaker 6: be taught early because of the phones. Back in the day,
Speaker 6: when I was in sixth grade, it used to be
Speaker 6: like a boy just showed you his dick on the
Speaker 6: bus and You're like, why would you do that?
Speaker 1: You can't prove it.
Speaker 2: You can't prove it nobody.
Speaker 6: Now the dig pics have gotten out of control, even
Speaker 6: with like adults. You know what I'm saying, This is
Speaker 6: private for you, Like it's okay, you know you your
Speaker 6: body is for your exploration. You should find out what's
Speaker 6: good and what's not. But it's private for you. I
Speaker 6: don't want to see nobody else needs to see it.
Speaker 1: One of my kids got caught in the dig pic.
Speaker 1: The reason why I was funny because we was like
Speaker 1: that ain't even your dick, he said he was. She said,
Speaker 1: she just said, YO, send me a dick pic. So
Speaker 1: he just sent a dick pic he said. I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to say was smart.
Speaker 5: I was like, bro, give him.
Speaker 2: And you like what happened. That just goes to show
Speaker 2: how innocent they are, and they're not even equipped to
Speaker 2: be engaging in that kind of activity because y'all doing
Speaker 2: dumb ship in the process saying. One thing I'm happy
Speaker 2: about is Jackson's not a kid attached to his device
Speaker 2: like there's Sometimes we'll go to call him and it
Speaker 2: may just be he's in the house and we're like
Speaker 2: somewhere upstairs and he's downstairs and he's just like, oh,
Speaker 2: I didn't have my phone with me. And in the moment,
Speaker 2: you want to be like, bro, like where's your phone?
Speaker 2: And then I'm like, you know what devil said. Sometimes
Speaker 2: he's a practice he don't answer. It's kind of good
Speaker 2: that he's not very dependent on his phone. He really isn't,
Speaker 2: and I hope he kind of stays that way.
Speaker 1: As parents, we got to be careful though.
Speaker 3: I have two kids who smoke something bad in college
Speaker 3: and the same afterwards.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, So the whole even smoking weed thing.
Speaker 3: I talked to Jackson about, Yo, if you are interested,
Speaker 3: because weed is legal and I think forty eight of
Speaker 3: the fifty states, so a lot of his friends who
Speaker 3: are older, they go out and they purchase weed, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, yo, listen, if you're interested in smoking, please
Speaker 3: come to me first and talk to me about what
Speaker 3: it is you think you might want to try. Don't
Speaker 3: go out there and ask your friends because you're afraid
Speaker 3: that your dad might be upset because the last thing
Speaker 3: I wanted you to go out there and get some
Speaker 3: bad synthetic weed.
Speaker 1: And now I'm.
Speaker 3: Wondering what happened to myself, you know, because I have
Speaker 3: two kids from Prototype who I speak to their parents,
Speaker 3: and it was like he smoked something that was never
Speaker 3: the same after that one loss of full scholarship, Yeah,
Speaker 3: because of it.
Speaker 6: The biggest part here then once my high school is dead.
Speaker 6: He died of a heroin overdose a few years back,
Speaker 6: and he was like in and out of rehabs for
Speaker 6: a long time, and it was like, of course he
Speaker 6: had other issues other than smoking weed, but you know,
Speaker 6: it does play into it. If you find a way
Speaker 6: to cope that is drugs, or alcohol or something outside
Speaker 6: of your Yeah, at least, yeah, you're gonna keep doing
Speaker 6: that and that a certain point weed is not gonna
Speaker 6: be enough, you know so, right, and we just ill
Speaker 6: not legal in Georgia, so they we here And I
Speaker 6: did hear a report about gummies that are sold in
Speaker 6: places where weed is not legal, a lot of them
Speaker 6: being laced with fentanyl.
Speaker 1: Yes, like to get people addicted.
Speaker 3: That's why it's important to have these conversations with your
Speaker 3: kids going into high school because as they legalize these things,
Speaker 3: and the only reason they're legalizing these things is to
Speaker 3: tax them so that they can make money, because they
Speaker 3: knew before they weren't making any money.
Speaker 2: Off the industry. It's the same thing industry.
Speaker 1: As alcohol was and prohibition.
Speaker 3: It's like at one point alcohol was the big bad
Speaker 3: wolf until they legalize it so that they can tax
Speaker 3: people on it. But then we watch out like alcohol
Speaker 3: has been killing people left and right. So it's not
Speaker 3: enough to just trusted the government are going to put
Speaker 3: parameters on things that are not good for kids.
Speaker 1: Because when I watch these kids even smoking cigarettes, because.
Speaker 3: You can get cigarettes at eighteen twenty one, now twenty one,
Speaker 3: Now that's how old Diane, I need so these kids
Speaker 3: be smoking cigarettes at the school.
Speaker 1: Like I go to the high.
Speaker 3: School and I'm like, first of its twenty twenty six
Speaker 3: kids smoking cigarette.
Speaker 1: Kids though, because they.
Speaker 3: Want to look older, they want to look cool, they
Speaker 3: want to feel independent.
Speaker 4: That's a crazy way to look cool. Bro, Bro, that's
Speaker 4: about to feel you must to say something crazy. The
Speaker 4: sad part is that's better than vapor.
Speaker 1: Cigarettes are better than vapor.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, it's very addicting. Nicotine is extremely addicted.
Speaker 2: Exactly, you think whokah will ever go? Or who can
Speaker 2: here to stay?
Speaker 6: Whokah's here to stay? Nobody says anything bad about who could.
Speaker 4: Ever the problem?
Speaker 1: They knew they would. Smoking hookahs horrible for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I started. We used to do it, you know,
Speaker 2: occasionally socially, but I kind of just said, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm off that.
Speaker 1: See.
Speaker 3: I knew hohoku was bad when I went to the Bronx,
Speaker 3: and that's a big thing. In the Bronx, they smoke
Speaker 3: a like hook and I seen his chick. She was
Speaker 3: like twenty two.
Speaker 1: She sounded like a grandma.
Speaker 3: She was like, I've been smoking because I was fifteen.
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, but nah, this.
Speaker 1: I do be worried about my kids.
Speaker 3: Man, and I'm not waiting unto high school to have
Speaker 3: these conversations with them.
Speaker 1: And I'm also not I want to clear it up.
Speaker 3: I'm not promoting my kid smoking or drinking alcohol because
Speaker 3: you know, you say certain clips and oh defou said
Speaker 3: this something. No, I'm not promoting that. If you ask
Speaker 3: my sons now when dad started smoking, they'll tell you.
Speaker 3: My dad ain't start smoking until you retired from the NFL.
Speaker 3: My dad only smoked when he won. He smoked cigars.
Speaker 3: My dad didn't drink.
Speaker 1: I grew up all of college ever since you know me,
Speaker 1: I was never.
Speaker 3: Biggingto smoking and drinking, and it was because I was
Speaker 3: focused on what I was doing. But also, my dad
Speaker 3: never made drinking taboo and my uncle's never made any
Speaker 3: of that stuff taboo, so I never was like it.
Speaker 1: They never hid it from me.
Speaker 3: When it was around and people were doing it, they
Speaker 3: were like, yeah, that's that, but we don't do that.
Speaker 1: So for me, it was like, oh, if I see
Speaker 1: the people that I look up to not.
Speaker 3: Doing it and it's around, exactly, I didn't feel no
Speaker 3: way about telling people my age I didn't do it,
Speaker 3: and they never pressed me for it.
Speaker 1: They was like, if I don't smoke.
Speaker 2: He don't drink, your athlete, so and you can be
Speaker 2: cool doing that. You know, a lot of times kids
Speaker 2: just do it because they want affirmation from the people
Speaker 2: around them. But if no one's making it cool, it's
Speaker 2: just like, all right, no big deal.
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about preparing your kids to
Speaker 1: be independent thinkers going into high school and not seeking
Speaker 1: admiration and approval from their peers, because I knew if
Speaker 1: that was something someone would have told me in middle school,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have struggled my first two years of high school.
Speaker 1: I struggled my first two years of high school only
Speaker 1: because I was very different and I didn't understand that
Speaker 1: you don't have to be a part of all of
Speaker 1: the clicks.
Speaker 3: So I was doing stuff early, like I cut class
Speaker 3: when I first started, I was I was part of
Speaker 3: this dance group.
Speaker 1: I tried to join the gang.
Speaker 3: Told you how to join the gang. You know, it's
Speaker 3: math funny. It's math funny.
Speaker 2: It's also like a culture shock. For example, you go
Speaker 2: from a smaller you know, you know, eighth grade or whatever.
Speaker 2: Your junior high school is like mine was like a
Speaker 2: class of twenty seven, and then I graduated and went
Speaker 2: to high school and there.
Speaker 1: Were four thousand thousand people.
Speaker 2: It's a culture shock. Initially you're nervous, you can't find
Speaker 2: your way around. I wore uniform for my entire life,
Speaker 2: so I'm trying to figure out my own personal style.
Speaker 2: So I know, my freshman and sophomore year, I was
Speaker 2: dressed like, you know, somebody's Jamaican daughter, Like I know.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: Imagine going to high school like I had just got braces.
Speaker 2: My freshman year Conway for real.
Speaker 3: Though, yeah, we all were.
Speaker 2: We always wear like baggy clothes like I had no
Speaker 2: sense videos no sense of identity. I was trying to
Speaker 2: figure everything out. So it's like you're going into that
Speaker 2: half of its culture shock, you know, so you're trying
Speaker 2: to find your way through and find your confidence in it.
Speaker 2: It took me to about junior year. I need, I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna lie second half junior year then I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is this is the flex.
Speaker 1: That I'm trying to be.
Speaker 2: School uniform see going through See Jackson will have that
Speaker 2: through high school.
Speaker 1: I had to learn how not to run closed.
Speaker 3: I had to learn how not like imagine you twelve,
Speaker 3: you and seventh grade, and this is my favorite shirt.
Speaker 1: I'm with my favorite shirt every Friday till somebody said
Speaker 1: that I always wear that shirt Friday.
Speaker 3: And you're like, oh, that's the problem running that shirt.
Speaker 3: And you're like, oh, this is a day I can't,
Speaker 3: so you don't wear that shirt ever again. And now
Speaker 3: that becomes like a thing where.
Speaker 1: You know that that that like stuck with me.
Speaker 2: Oh for really, it happened to me too. I had
Speaker 2: this one outfit that I got to wear to this
Speaker 2: birthday party. It was actually Richard Dunk's birthday party in
Speaker 2: high school. I think it was like a sixteenth birthday
Speaker 2: and I got this matching guest say. It was like
Speaker 2: a capri pant with a halty top and it was
Speaker 2: so cute and I got so many kind compliments that night,
Speaker 2: so I was like, oh, people love this outfit. I
Speaker 2: love this outfit. I feel good in it. I ended
Speaker 2: up wearing it again like the next month or something else,
Speaker 2: not knowing that that was a faux pat. I just
Speaker 2: wore it again because it was my favorite moment time
Speaker 2: and people talked about me so bad. How could he
Speaker 2: wore this outfit?
Speaker 4: Like again, as kids, that's crazy. I didn't deal with
Speaker 4: teasing until I got to junior high school. Like it
Speaker 4: was me too.
Speaker 2: That was in high school for me.
Speaker 5: I want to make sure I got teased at home.
Speaker 5: I didn't get teased at school.
Speaker 2: Well, if you get teased at home, so developed, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you developed a rip skin, you know, within our families.
Speaker 5: Shoot, that's why I had to move.
Speaker 6: I had to get away from my hating as sisters, haters.
Speaker 6: Bro I was just looking at a picture of me
Speaker 6: and my dad. I think I must have been like
Speaker 6: fifteen or sixteen, and I used to wear it made
Speaker 6: me remember I used to wear my belts with the
Speaker 6: buckle off to the side because I like, I just
Speaker 6: liked how it looked with you know, the they were,
Speaker 6: you know, the little meta. I just wanted it all
Speaker 6: to be like that in the front. I ain't want
Speaker 6: the buckle to be in a way. And I was like, damn,
Speaker 6: I was really a mother fucking individual. I went on nobody. No,
Speaker 6: I wasn't getting teased that school once again. But by
Speaker 6: this time I was living with my dad, like as
Speaker 6: an only child, so I wasn't getting at home either.
Speaker 2: But I'm sure you wore that belt, bucal to the
Speaker 2: sideway confidence, so nobody could tell you shit. That's what
Speaker 2: I love about Jackson. For example, he just went to
Speaker 2: his eighth grade dance and the dress code was to
Speaker 2: wear you know, like you know, tie shirt, jacket, whatever
Speaker 2: sports code, and coming off of the Michael Jackson movie,
Speaker 2: he was so inspired to say he he hit us
Speaker 2: in the group chat Me, Devo and Kwame because you know,
Speaker 2: Kwame is like and love is Michael Jackson like obsessed.
Speaker 2: So he's like, I want to wear an outfit for
Speaker 2: my spring dance, but I don't want it to be
Speaker 2: like a costume. I want to pay homage to MJ.
Speaker 2: So it was like, I got you. So he put
Speaker 2: together this fly jacket. It was like a leather jacket
Speaker 2: of course, with like the Rangates design in the front,
Speaker 2: with a bow tie dress shirt, slacks that were a
Speaker 2: little high with video yes.
Speaker 5: Oh cool.
Speaker 2: Yes, you guys don't see the picture in the light
Speaker 2: of day because he told us we cannot post it
Speaker 2: and we're fine with that. Okay, so we'll show y'all.
Speaker 1: But he showed.
Speaker 3: I was just about to say I was about to
Speaker 3: show it, but I realized that he did tell us
Speaker 3: he ain't want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he looked so fly. He looks so fly,
Speaker 2: and he walked into that dance with such confidence. He
Speaker 2: was a little fifteen minutes past the start time because
Speaker 2: he was like, I got to get there. My friends
Speaker 2: are there before six o'clock. I said, the party started six,
Speaker 2: walking there six five, so you can make a statements.
Speaker 2: But I was just so proud of him in that
Speaker 2: moment because he was not letting anybody to turn him
Speaker 2: for what he saw as his look for this dance.
Speaker 2: You know, so while everybody was in their suits and
Speaker 2: ties and looking great, he was in there making his
Speaker 2: own statement and confidently walking in that. And I, as
Speaker 2: he's getting older, I love that he feels equipped to
Speaker 2: know that I'm confident with who I am, how I
Speaker 2: look what I want to do. I'm not seeking affirmation
Speaker 2: and from everybody else. They had an after party after
Speaker 2: the spring dance, and I was like, yo, I didn't
Speaker 2: know that such and such was having an after party.
Speaker 2: Did everyone go or what happened? He was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I thought about it, but I know I had a
Speaker 2: game early the next morning, so I said, let me
Speaker 2: just come straight home against some rest.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Man, So I was like, man, does that at fifteen boy.
Speaker 6: When I was fifteen, I joined this group Zinos, and
Speaker 6: we had an initiation. We had done it all summer,
Speaker 6: like it was kind of like a sorority. So we
Speaker 6: had been like pledging all summer, and then we had
Speaker 6: our initiation ceremony on a Sunday. First of all, my dad,
Speaker 6: you said, do everything last minute. My dad would be
Speaker 6: late to everything. So of course that Sunday I had
Speaker 6: to go find a white dress for this initiation ceremony.
Speaker 6: So the night before this, I had went out with
Speaker 6: some of my white friends. Somebody gave me some alcohol.
Speaker 6: It was like Bacardi won fifty one and they were
Speaker 6: like take a shot. I'm like okay, and then I
Speaker 6: was like whoa instant regret.
Speaker 5: So me and my dad.
Speaker 6: So then me and my dad, it's the middle it's
Speaker 6: the middle of summer too, so it's hot as hell.
Speaker 6: Me and my dad gotta go to the mall. We
Speaker 6: go to this outdoor shopping center and I'm like, oh
Speaker 6: my god, I can't even look for a white dress
Speaker 6: because I'm so hungover.
Speaker 5: I'm like, help me please.
Speaker 6: So finally were about to leave and I just puked
Speaker 6: all over my dad's car and he was like, what
Speaker 6: the hell did you have at that party last night?
Speaker 6: I couldn't think of anything. I just said Caybody's birth.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah yeah.
Speaker 6: But my point is not once did I think to
Speaker 6: myself before going to that party I got something.
Speaker 2: To do with tomorrow? Yeah? Yeah, I know even now.
Speaker 2: If that was me, i'd have been outside. And it's
Speaker 2: a part two because my parents had such a like
Speaker 2: tight hold on me that I would have wanted to
Speaker 2: be outside. We don't do that with Jackson. He does
Speaker 2: everything he's supposed to do. That we have to almost
Speaker 2: encourage him to go to things like you want to
Speaker 2: chill with your friends, y'all want to do something cool,
Speaker 2: Let's do that. It's cool, like having the latitude to
Speaker 2: do it doesn't make it a mistique.
Speaker 3: The thing is, we made a choice years ago that
Speaker 3: we were no longer going to raise our boys through
Speaker 3: anyone else's lens. For example, remember I said to help
Speaker 3: him with confidence, I'm not gonna tell him, yoll go
Speaker 3: brush your teeth because girls are going to say your breasting,
Speaker 3: brush your teeth because if you don't, you get ginger
Speaker 3: vitis and your teeth can fall out. We really started
Speaker 3: doing that, and when it's time for him to make decisions.
Speaker 3: For example, with his hair, he was like, Dad, should
Speaker 3: I twist my hair like this?
Speaker 1: Or twist it back? I said, why are you asking me?
Speaker 1: How I feel about your hair? Doesn't matter. Do you
Speaker 1: like it like this? He's like, yeah, I do, so
Speaker 1: then do it. And I always support him in whatever.
Speaker 3: The decision is, even if the decision doesn't work out
Speaker 3: the way he wanted it to. I said, Bro, you
Speaker 3: made a decision.
Speaker 1: You got to pivot. Pivot, I got you.
Speaker 3: I think doing that more with our kids is allowing
Speaker 3: them to feel comfortable being free thinkers and being free
Speaker 3: in their skins, so they don't feel like I gotta
Speaker 3: be how everybody else is, because that's the heart sting
Speaker 3: in high school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you get to high school.
Speaker 3: It's like if you don't fit in early and you
Speaker 3: become the outcast, Now you got to spend four years
Speaker 3: of people just shitting on you because it's fun for
Speaker 3: them because they all feel the same way.
Speaker 1: But you're the only one that stands out is the outcast.
Speaker 4: Right, And that's the thing I think individualism is not.
Speaker 4: We're not preaching that individualism is something that you can
Speaker 4: aspire to be right, I remember myself like I wanted to.
Speaker 4: I went to high school more timid than anything else.
Speaker 4: I spent all these years in private school, and then
Speaker 4: I went to junior high school, where I just felt
Speaker 4: like an outcast. I was younger, and then when I
Speaker 4: went to high school again, I'm younger than everybody else. Yep,
Speaker 4: so I wasn't I wasn't groomed or prepped to be
Speaker 4: like a leader. Right, I'm literally in there following everybody
Speaker 4: else because I'm the youngest kid there and I'm just
Speaker 4: trying to fit in. And I think that I had
Speaker 4: funny enough. I had a conversation with my mother about
Speaker 4: it the other day. I think it's a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 4: Thankfully everything worked out, but I think it's a recipe
Speaker 4: for disaster to send kids that are younger than their
Speaker 4: environment in any space, because you're dealing with first off,
Speaker 4: you don't know nothing. You don't know anything, and you
Speaker 4: could be a smart kid, but you're still stupid, like
Speaker 4: you just the kids don't. You can't rush maturity exactly.
Speaker 4: And I think, yeah, it's lack of knowledge. And I
Speaker 4: think for me, dealing with not knowing like how the
Speaker 4: world works. And then on top of that, trying to
Speaker 4: fit in, trying to make friends, trying to be a
Speaker 4: guy that girls like, like, you're just you're doing so
Speaker 4: many things and every single thing feels like a mistake.
Speaker 4: You don't feel like you're doing anything because you're doing
Speaker 4: it for the sake of, you know, this solid decision
Speaker 4: that I'm making, Like Jackson, I'm not going to do
Speaker 4: this because or or trouble. I'm not going to do
Speaker 4: this because I got something important tomorrow. It's more or
Speaker 4: less like, let me just do it just just because
Speaker 4: I want to fit in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, it's funny you talk about that.
Speaker 3: When I was at poly Prep and I worked at
Speaker 3: Polyprep for two years, and I noticed a lot of
Speaker 3: the wealthier parents, their kids were older in middle school
Speaker 3: in high school, and I was just like, like, you
Speaker 3: held your something back and they was just like, yeah,
Speaker 3: what's the rush?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And I was like, I was like, well, him get
Speaker 3: out and be able to earn and he was. And
Speaker 3: they always just say to me, once again, what's the rush.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to pay for him to go to
Speaker 3: college at seventeen and him tell me at twenty one
Speaker 3: that he had no clue what he was doing and
Speaker 3: he was just following everybody.
Speaker 1: So I'm not doing that. When he's mature enough to
Speaker 1: move to the next step, he'll move.
Speaker 3: So in elementary school, when they noticed their kids are
Speaker 3: still like very immature, they hold them back to elementary school.
Speaker 1: Like what's the rush? And I started realizing, like there
Speaker 1: is something to maturity in academia.
Speaker 3: And so you said socially, when you go into a
Speaker 3: place and say, for example, like Tori and Sakari, they
Speaker 3: both started school early because they were the third child,
Speaker 3: and since they were the third child, they got things quick,
Speaker 3: so our parents put them in school.
Speaker 1: You three go to school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's also a flex too. It's just like, oh
Speaker 2: my child is advanced. My child is and it's just
Speaker 2: like okay, Like you go to.
Speaker 3: Sixteen and a senior in high school, and we watched
Speaker 3: it in college. There were seventeen and sixteen year old
Speaker 3: girls in college. All them girls were acting wild because
Speaker 3: they were trying to fit in to the older girls
Speaker 3: who had already developed, you know, emotionally. Now these younger
Speaker 3: girls are doing anything to just fit in, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I would never send my sixteen year old child.
Speaker 4: It's a detriment because It's the same thing.
Speaker 3: The young dudes that came into play sports. They all
Speaker 3: struggled with alcoholism because they were trying to be so grown.
Speaker 3: And you're seventeen and now you're in college and you're
Speaker 3: trying to fit in with the twenty one year olds.
Speaker 3: It's like you're not mature enough to understand what's going on.
Speaker 4: The difference like a year can make, yes, right, if
Speaker 4: you've only lived in this earth for fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years,
Speaker 4: the difference one year can make on your maturity. I
Speaker 4: didn't know at that head at that age, but now
Speaker 4: looking back at it, and even having my own child,
Speaker 4: like she's eleven, she's way smarter than she is now,
Speaker 4: and that when she was ten, and that same thing
Speaker 4: for five and six and you know, six or seven
Speaker 4: and all that.
Speaker 3: So imagine this, though you're a young child and you
Speaker 3: in a group, you eleven, but everybody else in that
Speaker 3: group is twelve. You don't feel like doing whatever they're doing,
Speaker 3: but you're the young one. It's way easier for the
Speaker 3: people to be like, yo, do this.
Speaker 1: But imagine you are older.
Speaker 3: Twelve and there's some younger twelves and hey, we're all
Speaker 3: doing this, and you could be like, I'm not doing that,
Speaker 3: I'm not listening to y'all.
Speaker 1: That maturity, that one year difference.
Speaker 3: Makes that child feel more confident in who they are
Speaker 3: to say I'm not following the group just because y'all
Speaker 3: a group.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and having older siblings definitely helps with that.
Speaker 6: I've always I have a summer birthday, so I usually
Speaker 6: turned the age everybody else was after the school year
Speaker 6: was over, exact. Yeah, So but I never felt pressure
Speaker 6: because I got older sisters at home. That was hey
Speaker 6: s as I previously stated, so I had.
Speaker 5: To stand up to them.
Speaker 6: Plus seventh my high school started in seventh grade, so
Speaker 6: I went to the same school from seventh grade until
Speaker 6: I graduated.
Speaker 5: And seventh grade it's.
Speaker 6: Almost like they kind of trick you, you know, so
Speaker 6: they're like, we my high school is very academic, so
Speaker 6: they're like, you're gonna have a lot of textbooks.
Speaker 5: You got to take them home because you have a
Speaker 5: lot of homework.
Speaker 6: So we all like, let's get rolling book bagh grade.
Speaker 6: You take your rolling book back to school and between
Speaker 6: you know, classes, the hallways pack. I don't want to
Speaker 6: walk behind your fucking rolling book bag. So people would
Speaker 6: like kitkick it book bag over and now you carrying
Speaker 6: your heavy ass rolling book bag, because not only do
Speaker 6: you have all these books in it, it has wheels
Speaker 6: on that.
Speaker 5: So then you have to you have to learn how
Speaker 5: to use your locker. You know what I'm saying. You
Speaker 5: got to learn how to prioritize. And you kind of
Speaker 5: you kind of.
Speaker 4: You know, I didn't know why I was not allowed
Speaker 4: in fifth grade my mother rolling book back and my
Speaker 4: older brother and his friends.
Speaker 1: That's what happened. They're gonna kick them.
Speaker 2: Rolling should be like I'm preparing for all the flights
Speaker 2: I'm about to take. As I'm sitting in first class,
Speaker 2: I'll watch you walk to the economy. Don't do that.
Speaker 1: Don't do that.
Speaker 4: You either a jazz sport or north face or something.
Speaker 4: But you was not. You would just go with it
Speaker 4: to me.
Speaker 6: And a rolling book bag. It costs a pretty penny,
Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying. So I'm like, we're balling
Speaker 6: out on a rolling book bag. I stopped carrying that
Speaker 6: thing about halfway through the school. Everything that happened to you,
Speaker 6: but it like accelerates your growth, you know, you learn
Speaker 6: how to navigate the spaces a little bit better, a
Speaker 6: little bit faster because the older upper classmen are not
Speaker 6: showing you no mercy.
Speaker 5: We used to have a system.
Speaker 6: You know, you walk down a certain side of the stairwheel,
Speaker 6: you walk through a certain door when we're changing classes.
Speaker 6: If you walking through the wrong door, you're getting knocked over.
Speaker 6: Nobody cares. So that it like accelerated your growth, and
Speaker 6: it didn't make you want to be like them, because
Speaker 6: you know, we were separated enough that like we didn't
Speaker 6: have the same lunch period as ten to eleven twelfth graders.
Speaker 6: We didn't have the same classes unless you're like in
Speaker 6: senior orchestra as the seventh grader.
Speaker 1: How big was your school?
Speaker 5: Three thousand students?
Speaker 3: I still think this is you can't put seventh graders
Speaker 3: in the school with twelfth grader.
Speaker 1: Y yeah, eighteen ninety years old. Them kids are twelve.
Speaker 6: The other the other the other thing about it is
Speaker 6: that you can fail out in seventh and eighth grade.
Speaker 6: If you get three f's, you can't go to the
Speaker 6: school anymore. So it's like you have to be focused.
Speaker 6: You can be running behind people. Upperclassmen are meant to
Speaker 6: you anyway. You got to develop your own, you know,
Speaker 6: sense of confidence and by eighth grade. You have so
Speaker 6: much confidence that that you you you've learned how to
Speaker 6: navigate the space, that it even creates more of an
Speaker 6: acceleration for you.
Speaker 5: But it was hard.
Speaker 1: We used to torture the summer.
Speaker 3: The sum readers didn't have roly book bags, but they
Speaker 3: used to have all their textbooks. So what you Yeah,
Speaker 3: if they booked bag while they're walking and then you
Speaker 3: let it go and it would drop.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I guess that's that goes back to
Speaker 2: saying we just be laughing this ship, you know what
Speaker 2: about what's funny?
Speaker 1: That's another thing I do.
Speaker 3: I teach my kids how to fight because my father
Speaker 3: was big on that. My father put us in mixed
Speaker 3: martial arts taekwon doing jiu jitsu for five.
Speaker 1: Years and we competed nationally. Jack I bought them bags downstairs.
Speaker 4: Stuff was up. You call I seen Caro in that.
Speaker 1: That's not go fight Caro.
Speaker 4: I won't go fight that is.
Speaker 1: That's the point. I don't want you dancing around people.
Speaker 1: If you get into a fight ended and early.
Speaker 3: That's my dad, because if you get in a fight
Speaker 3: with somebody, you fall back and hit your head.
Speaker 1: Now you incapacitated.
Speaker 3: No we're not bullies. I don't want no issues with you, sir,
Speaker 3: Please get out of my space. But if you and
Speaker 3: if they in your space, learn how to handle that.
Speaker 1: Put them down and say excuse me, miss, he touched me.
Speaker 4: First.
Speaker 3: I teach my boys that because one thing I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna deal with is you being bullied. Do not come
Speaker 3: in his house talking about some so.
Speaker 1: And so is calling me names or bullying me on social.
Speaker 3: Unfollowing them whoever's social unfollowing them like, we're not doing this,
Speaker 3: block like I need that confidence.
Speaker 4: For real.
Speaker 3: Did you hear about the Division one athlete who ended
Speaker 3: up killing himself because of his follower count?
Speaker 1: No young man out here.
Speaker 3: In Georgia, I think three star, four star and baseball
Speaker 3: and football was having some mental issues. His parents admitted
Speaker 3: he ended up killing himself, and they said that one
Speaker 3: of his biggest things he kept talking about is he
Speaker 3: doesn't get the buzz on social media.
Speaker 2: Like for information on social media.
Speaker 3: And then they're asking the parents and he was one
Speaker 3: of those kids who was work hard, go to his room,
Speaker 3: work hard, go to his room. The parents said they
Speaker 3: didn't realize at any point that there was anything wrong
Speaker 3: with their son. They just felt like he was a
Speaker 3: normal fifteen year old kid that just went to his
Speaker 3: room until they went to his room one morning.
Speaker 1: He wasn't down for school in time, and they opened
Speaker 1: that door and he was.
Speaker 4: Gone, Damn, these devices are not normal.
Speaker 3: Wow, bro, No, we got to make sure that our
Speaker 3: kids are confident, confident fact.
Speaker 2: All right, let's go confidently play these bills and we'll
Speaker 2: be back with your listing letter of the day. All right,
Speaker 2: Dear Devalcadein and the Ellis ever After crew. After listening
Speaker 2: to the Beyond the Class episode, I'm writing to seek
Speaker 2: your advice regarding my nearly three year old godson and cousin.
Speaker 2: I want the best for him, but I'm increasingly concerned
Speaker 2: about his current environment and developmental progress. His mother is
Speaker 2: a single parent who works long hours, so he primarily
Speaker 2: stays with his elderly grandparents, who have limited literacy. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: there is very little structure in either household. For example,
Speaker 2: he often stays up till two am because he naps
Speaker 2: late in the evening. Additionally, his father cannot read or
Speaker 2: write and has another son with cognitive disabilities. I'm concerned
Speaker 2: that he's not meeting typical developmental milestones. For his age,
Speaker 2: His vocabulary is very limited and he still communicates primarily
Speaker 2: through babbling and pointing. We have also found potty training
Speaker 2: to be exceptionally difficult. When I spend time with him,
Speaker 2: I noticed he has very short attention spans and struggles
Speaker 2: to engage even with educational content such as videos on YouTube,
Speaker 2: for more than two to three minutes at a time.
Speaker 2: Given the lack of structure and his limited progress, what
Speaker 2: steps would you recommend to help support his development? How
Speaker 2: do I express my concerns his mother without overstepping Any
Speaker 2: guidance or resources you could share would be greatly appreciated.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening.
Speaker 3: The first thing is that mom has to be willing
Speaker 3: to accept help. I've realized this with my prototype kids.
Speaker 3: You can recognize something's wrong with a child and have
Speaker 3: all good intent, but if that parent is not willing
Speaker 3: to accept it, don't even waste your breath.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and parents curse.
Speaker 3: Me out, get easily offended, and later come back and
Speaker 3: be like, ah, he was right, coachabal and I don't
Speaker 3: take I don't take it personal. Yeah, but people's kids
Speaker 3: are very personal to them, and when you point out
Speaker 3: to someone that their child may be behind people sometimes
Speaker 3: take it as an attack, like you're saying I'm a
Speaker 3: bad parent.
Speaker 1: So I would say be very careful with how you
Speaker 1: approach it. But I do think the things that she
Speaker 1: recognizes are spot on.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure, children at that age, especially three year
Speaker 2: old there, they're like sponges.
Speaker 1: They need structure.
Speaker 2: They need structure. So essentially whatever they're exposed to is
Speaker 2: what they're going to absorb. And with them, consistency and
Speaker 2: repetitive things are really essentially what will help them reach
Speaker 2: those milestones.
Speaker 3: But this is the problem note especially for this demographic
Speaker 3: of kids at this age. When we were growing up,
Speaker 3: if you left us with our parents, right and we played,
Speaker 3: for example, a video game, you play a video game
Speaker 3: that required you to focus on that video game, there
Speaker 3: were consequences, right, you die in a video game, you
Speaker 3: start over. These new games they have you pay to
Speaker 3: keep playing, so there's no consequence, or you keep scrolling
Speaker 3: and there's no end, so they have no attention span
Speaker 3: because they just keep moving.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they even such short from content is really bad
Speaker 2: because you get what you got to get out of
Speaker 2: the fifteen to twenty second video and you scroll to
Speaker 2: the next thing. So attention spans have become that much shorter.
Speaker 3: This is why structure is more important. I do like
Speaker 3: the Monassori method for certain things, but I think kids
Speaker 3: who need structure don't work well in the Montessori because.
Speaker 2: It's too free.
Speaker 3: Yes, and for example, for like our sons, I know
Speaker 3: Cairo and Dakota are the type of kids if you
Speaker 3: put them in a Montsory setting, they gonna play the
Speaker 3: game and they're gonna be like, Yo, I just want
Speaker 3: to do blocks and I want to go outside. You
Speaker 3: need to tell them naw, you got to do forty
Speaker 3: five minutes of arithmetic in order for them to learn that.
Speaker 3: In life, sometimes you gotta do things that you don't
Speaker 3: want to to get places you want to. So I
Speaker 3: think with young kids like that, the more discipline you
Speaker 3: can give them, the better. Take the electronics away, let
Speaker 3: them work outside. But also, if the parents and the
Speaker 3: adults around them have literacy issues, you gotta expect that
Speaker 3: the child will have literacy issues as well.
Speaker 2: Right, But I mean the elderly grandparents who have limited
Speaker 2: literacy and a three year old, at the very minimum,
Speaker 2: you should be able to read books that are on
Speaker 2: his level, you know what I'm saying. So if it
Speaker 2: means turning off the TV and engaging having conversation. We
Speaker 2: realized with Dakota because he stayed with my dad a
Speaker 2: lot during the day. My dad is just a man
Speaker 2: of little words, so there was no reason for them
Speaker 2: to talk and engage and have conversations, you know. So
Speaker 2: the child's environment is very important. I don't know what
Speaker 2: the mother's financial situation is like, but maybe if the
Speaker 2: child can be put even in some sort of like
Speaker 2: part time daycare program where he's around other children his age,
Speaker 2: in a teaching environment where that's the structure, that may
Speaker 2: be some of what he needs. Wear him out during
Speaker 2: the day, so he's going to bed at seven eight
Speaker 2: o'clock in the evening and getting twelve hours of sleep,
Speaker 2: so he's not taking late naps, you know. To say
Speaker 2: that people do it out of convenience, and I understand,
Speaker 2: and financially you may not be in a position to
Speaker 2: do it. But they do have programs depending on what
Speaker 2: city you live in, where you can apply for, for example,
Speaker 2: universal pre K and that's funded by the state or
Speaker 2: by the government, so there's no need to be ashamed.
Speaker 3: We were looking to go to Brooklyn Friends, which was
Speaker 3: three thousand dollars a month, and me and K was like,
Speaker 3: what this is?
Speaker 1: This is honest. We were sitting in this thing. E
Speaker 1: and K comes back.
Speaker 3: It's like they sent back the tuition what it would
Speaker 3: be and I was like three thousand dollars. I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: we could divide that by ten. It's like he's three
Speaker 3: hundred a month. And she's like no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: it's three thousand a month. And I asked the lady,
Speaker 3: I said, what can you promise me? My four year
Speaker 3: old is going to learn here for three thousand dollars
Speaker 3: a month. Her response was, well, every child gets an iPad.
Speaker 3: I said, I can buy him his own iPad. Thirty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars UPK it is Me and Kay walked up
Speaker 3: out of it at me and we really thank you
Speaker 3: for your time, so much for you.
Speaker 2: We got accepted, but he won't be going here because
Speaker 2: what I know, it just simply requires basics, consistency and
Speaker 2: structure and structure. So hopefully you can have the conversation
Speaker 2: with your mom. I think if she entrusted you to
Speaker 2: be his godmother and your cousin and your family, I
Speaker 2: think the tact and the approach is all ways going
Speaker 2: to be at the forefront of things on how you
Speaker 2: approach her with just offering suggestions, maybe giving her this
Speaker 2: is advice, like hey, would you ever think about putting
Speaker 2: him in? And if you have the latitude, be like, hey,
Speaker 2: I don't mind picking up some days or drop some morings.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, being that village for her,
Speaker 2: if that's your genuine concern, because you know.
Speaker 1: What's worse as a parent than trying to do your
Speaker 1: best in someone.
Speaker 3: The worst thing in trying to do your best and
Speaker 3: failing is someone pointing out that you're not doing it well,
Speaker 3: but also not offering any.
Speaker 2: Any right, So if you really want to help or you.
Speaker 1: Value and come prepared with the plan and say hey,
Speaker 1: I see you doing everything. Can I add something?
Speaker 3: And maybe that's the way where it don't get put
Speaker 3: on the mom so she won't be offensive. You already
Speaker 3: acknowledge that she's doing everything she can, so you, as
Speaker 3: a godmother tried.
Speaker 2: She might even be aware that there's a deficittion. She
Speaker 2: might you know, and she might be like, damn, I
Speaker 2: I'm in this by myself, and now she knows she
Speaker 2: has something I think she.
Speaker 4: Has to not lead with everything that she she she
Speaker 4: outlined for us everything she she saw what's wrong wrong, right,
Speaker 4: don't lead with that.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 4: She has to position herself as like a free resource,
Speaker 4: like she is the next step to help, even though
Speaker 4: she's taking him to free programs at the library, intervention
Speaker 4: thing or anything else like that. Whatever she can do that.
Speaker 4: It doesn't require a legal guardian.
Speaker 1: Or something like that for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't think about that. They do have like
Speaker 2: things that museums, free programs, the library. You can bring
Speaker 2: the kids.
Speaker 4: It probably just needs to interact with more kids his age. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: so that he really start talking more. Yes, because the
Speaker 4: grandparents thing is not helpful whatsoever. That is actually like
Speaker 4: a net negative when you think about it being grandparents
Speaker 4: realize that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the dad is also sounds like that is a
Speaker 1: little said. The dad can't doesn't read and write as well.
Speaker 1: So it's just like the child's home environment isn't big
Speaker 1: with literacy. Yeah, put him. Put that child in a
Speaker 1: program where there's other people around, watch that child flow flourish.
Speaker 3: That's a prototype was remember all of the kids that came,
Speaker 3: we had an eighty average minimum.
Speaker 1: You had to have an eighty average on to be
Speaker 1: a part of prototype all of the parents. Yeah, my son,
Speaker 1: I was sixty seven. I said, listen, you put him
Speaker 1: amongst these kids where it's cool to be small. Watch
Speaker 1: your son.
Speaker 3: And we always did report card checks and them grades
Speaker 3: always meet the standard because you'll be surprised how people
Speaker 3: just they're in an environment where it's.
Speaker 1: Cool to be stupid.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be stupid, but wait, it's cool to be smart.
Speaker 3: I'm doing my homework because you don't want to be
Speaker 3: the only one that don't.
Speaker 4: Got an eighty average. That's a difference between all public schools.
Speaker 4: Like you got an environment where the teachers don't care,
Speaker 4: the students don't care, No one cares. Everyone's failing that
Speaker 4: environment where teacher's care, the principal cares.
Speaker 1: That is a fact.
Speaker 4: Everyone cares.
Speaker 1: So that's a fact. Good. I'm glad you point out
Speaker 1: good public school start with principles.
Speaker 3: Like shout out to Cody Keys visionaries in the sense
Speaker 3: for sure, because the saw what that school needed at
Speaker 3: a time where the graduation rate was low, and she
Speaker 3: brought in all of those mentors to change it. Brought
Speaker 3: in people and they went from having a D and
Speaker 3: graduation rate to an a plus the morale.
Speaker 5: It's small crack no.
Speaker 1: No, shout out Dakota Keys.
Speaker 2: If you say we love you, come Dakota. Dakota's son
Speaker 2: and I went to nursery school together. That's how far
Speaker 2: back we go.
Speaker 1: Shout out Mateo Matteo, Dakota. Shout out the mentorship program
Speaker 1: we did there.
Speaker 5: To receive you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: All right, y'all. If you want to be featured as
Speaker 2: a listener letter this season, email us at the Ellis
Speaker 2: Advice at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: That's t H E E L L I S A
Speaker 1: d V I C E at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: All right, moment of truth time. We're talking about prepping
Speaker 2: for high school and all that good stuff. I know
Speaker 2: mine is super easy. I'm going to need the support
Speaker 2: group of a lifetime as I do this with Jackson,
Speaker 2: four more years in this household. I look at the
Speaker 2: lifespan of your average human and I'm realizing more and
Speaker 2: more now that the time that each child has at
Speaker 2: home with their parents before they move on to college
Speaker 2: is a short part of life. Life, and as rich
Speaker 2: as you can make the experience for them at home,
Speaker 2: just I'm looking forward to spending more time with him,
Speaker 2: you know, in these next four years doing more things
Speaker 2: as a family together. Y'all are gonna have to pick
Speaker 2: us all up off the floor when Jackson goes to college.
Speaker 2: Cairo Caz, I don't know what that's gonna look like.
Speaker 2: So so yeah, yeah, that's my thing, just prepping for
Speaker 2: high school. We're gonna be a mess. Gonna be a mess.
Speaker 2: Did I tell y'all real quick that When we were
Speaker 2: in Mexico we talked about that. I mentioned it one day, like, damn, like,
Speaker 2: we have like five more years until Jackson goes to college,
Speaker 2: and that's gonna be so weird not having jacksone in
Speaker 2: the house. And then literally, one by one, everybody, I
Speaker 2: think Cairo started crying, cast started crying. We were at
Speaker 2: Nickelodeon resort in Mexico, and it was so just like casual,
Speaker 2: Like damn, I didn't It's gonna be so weird when
Speaker 2: Jackson's not here in the household. And then I realized
Speaker 2: what I was saying in Cairo's face, just instantly, just
Speaker 2: and then one by one, so there were six of
Speaker 2: us crying. The colder decides crying cause everybody crying, and
Speaker 2: then the waiter comes back over and he was like
Speaker 2: everything's okay. You don't like you know, like the pizza.
Speaker 6: Fine, Yes, imagine if everybody started crying because the pizza
Speaker 6: was discussed.
Speaker 2: I knew we should have went to Italy. This is
Speaker 2: American cheese. I know where you got this from? America?
Speaker 2: What's yours?
Speaker 1: Baby?
Speaker 2: Got one?
Speaker 3: Make sure you instill your child with the amount of
Speaker 3: confidence that makes them unyielding when it comes to pressure.
Speaker 4: They say it again.
Speaker 3: I want instill your child with the type of confidence
Speaker 3: that makes them unyielding when it comes to pressure. Yes,
Speaker 3: because peer pressure is the biggest thing in high school,
Speaker 3: whether it's drugs, sex, alcohol, driving, sports. Make sure that
Speaker 3: your child is so confident that they can stand ten
Speaker 3: toes down and say I'm not really rocking with them,
Speaker 3: and they will never let them morals be in question
Speaker 3: because they want to fit in that.
Speaker 1: That's my biggest thing.
Speaker 4: One after that that, that's it right there, that's great. Yeah,
Speaker 4: Mine is make sure your kids stay ten toes down
Speaker 4: to let people know they ain't rocking with them and
Speaker 4: their leaders in their little community. Now, this this, this
Speaker 4: topic was great as we discussed. Now we're preparing Victoria
Speaker 4: for uh junior high school. She's answering in September, and
Speaker 4: I think everything that we just discussed is applical for
Speaker 4: for that as well. It doesn't change a single thing.
Speaker 4: If anything, it's a head start, you know.
Speaker 2: Being an active parent.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm I'm super nervous about her going to junior
Speaker 4: high school like I thought she was eight.
Speaker 1: Nah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So even like discussing you know, peer pressure and
Speaker 4: friends and drugs and sex and other outside influences scare
Speaker 4: the living mess out of me. But what one thing
Speaker 4: this conversation did let me know is that we're doing
Speaker 4: what we need to do to make sure that she's prepared,
Speaker 4: and also preparing ourselves for what may come, because there's
Speaker 4: never really any anything that you can over prepare for.
Speaker 4: Life comes at you, and it comes at you fast.
Speaker 4: But yeah, just making sure that your kid stands ten
Speaker 4: toes down, it's probably my moment of truth trips.
Speaker 6: I would say freshman year is the foundational time for
Speaker 6: high school. The most important thing that I learned in
Speaker 6: high school is that colleges start to count your academics
Speaker 6: and your after school stuff in your sophomore year. That's
Speaker 6: when your grades start to count towards your GPA for college.
Speaker 5: So freshman year, you learn.
Speaker 6: How to get the work done, you learn how to schedule,
Speaker 6: you learn how to navigate high school.
Speaker 5: So let that be let freshman year be your foundation's
Speaker 5: I like that.
Speaker 2: Ease them into it, all right, y'all. If you have
Speaker 2: not been following us yet on Patreon, be sure to
Speaker 2: find us, subscribe and join the party. That's the after party,
Speaker 2: as well as exclusive Ellis family content. You can find
Speaker 2: us on social media across the board at ellsver After,
Speaker 2: and you can find me at Kadeen I am, and.
Speaker 4: I am Davao ellisphoto dot com, and I'm Joshua Underscore Dwayne, and.
Speaker 6: I'm at Tribs The Cool Tribbz the Cool on Everything.
Speaker 3: And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, be sure to
Speaker 3: rate reviews, subscribe and download.
Speaker 2: That's right, baby, dead ass.
Speaker 6: Got ellsver After is an iHeartMedia podcast. It's hosted by
Speaker 6: Kadeen and Deval Ellis. It's produced by Triple Video, production
Speaker 6: by Joshua Dwaane and Matthew Ellis, video editing by Lashan Rothe.
Speaker 1: In its