Full Transcript
Um we don’t have a cold open. How do we make a cold open for this? Are you recording right now? Yeah. Just say that again, please. We need a cold open. We don’t have a cold open you surprisingly made it this entire episode, but not making a mistake, so we need a cold open for this episode. And this is Gatriarchs? That’s your cold open?
unknown:
Fuck off.
David:
We are missed. We missed Father’s Day. We missed talking about it beforehand. We missed preparing anything for it. We are two father families, and we did absolutely nothing. Father’s Day was this past Sunday. Happy. But yeah, but we’re we’re recording ahead of time, but we didn’t think about it. We’re a mess over here at Gatriarchs, but we want to wish all the listener out there happy Father’s Day.
Gavin:
Yes. For those who celebrate, but then also, isn’t that sort of in uh doesn’t that indicate where we are on the celebrating Father’s Day continuum, also of being like, listen, I’ve got no time. I I don’t necessarily want another barbecue set. And whoops, it just crept up on me because that’s how June is. I feel like it’s also our brand, too.
David:
So it makes our listener feel consistent, like they’re they’re taken care of, that we prepare nothing, we do nothing, we’re really bad at we’re doing the best we can.
Gavin:
Listen, when we get massive corporate sponsorship, then we will think about things like calendars and oh in advance. But for now, we’re just doing the best we can to keep our heads above water.
David:
Um, but uh last week was the Tony Awards. And you and I, listen, we often, our poor listener, whoever listener is not a uh Broadway fan, we’re sorry, but we want to take a couple of minutes just to like talk through our thoughts because listen, it’s the gay Super Bowl. We want to talk a little bit about it. Um and uh so you watched the Tony Awards, I assume.
Gavin:
I did. And my overall takeaway was that it wasn’t a sensational show, but it was very good. And I thought Cynthia Revo stepped up for being a host. She’s great. She’s not a dancer, and that’s fine. Who can dance in those eight-inch heels she walks around in? I don’t understand how she walks in those things at all. But um, she just she sang the shit out of it, and that’s what we know her for. And you know, her opener of like sometimes you just need a song. She’s like, listen, this is what I have to give you. And she delivered. I thought she was really great. And she’s a good host too.
David:
I feel like it’s being a host is not a skill that everyone has. True. Everyone thinks, like, oh, if you’re just a really good whatever, you could host a show. No, no, you fucking can’t. Um no, she did a really good job. I I listen, I am a little bit of a theater purist, but I, as a director, get very frustrated when I see shows that just use video screens. And uh the Tony Awards have never done that. They’ve used it supplementary to video screens. This year, the entire set was video screens. And then if you noticed in scene transitions where a curtain would go up, the video screen would do a digital comma. Oh God, that kind of shit bugs the fucking life out of it.
Gavin:
That is the I mean, I’m sure they’re they in the long run, they think they’re gonna save a billion dollars on that video screen that they made. Um, and they think they’ll be able to use it for the next 20 years. But I mean, also, I don’t understand how is it that, say, Dead Outlaw had that little platform, that truck that came out and the band played on that. I was watching that thinking, did they hoist that onto a semi-truck and just drive it up from drive it across Times Square? And that’s how they did something like that, right?
David:
They don’t build a new set just for So what they do is for those kinds, like anything that’s flown, they have to have obviously pre-rigged. But like when when I did the Tonies, it was like when the when they’re doing the set before you, literally from the street, they’re loading in the next set onto the onto the deck, they lose it, and then it goes back onto the trailer and it goes back to the theater during the awards. It’s the same thing with the cast, like we would come out, we would perform, and then in costume, we would get on a fucking greyhound and they would cart us back to the theater. So it’s a wild four blocks.
Gavin:
When in reality, she should have just walked back to the theater, probably. But which, which that would have been hilarious to see the cast of Shrek in full costume, regalia, walking across Times Square. And also, nobody would even look at you sideways because they’re just like, Oh, there’s some more characters walking across Times Square.
David:
When we performed at the Macy’s um uh parade, we were supposed to get busted back, but there was this like there was some issue with the bus, it couldn’t go whatever. So a lot of us were like, we’re like 20 blocks away. So we walked back to the theater up Ninth Avenue in our costume. That was really funny. But uh, as far as like the awards, listen, we could go on a deep dive, we won’t, but I will say I something uh my something great a couple weeks ago was um maybe happy ending, and I’m so glad it swept and did as well as it did. I am not necessarily a fan of Audra in I know it’s it’s a little bit of a touchy subject. There’s a lot of variables here. I know people are like, who cares about our voice when the acting is this? It just it it’s not for me, but I’m very happy for all the winners and all the people who are nominated. It was fun to see friends. I’m sure you have friends that were nominated. So um it was a great it was a great show, and we’re always happy that theater is being is still alive, still as of Tuesday, January 10th or June 10th, when we’re recording this.
Gavin:
So um, I you know what, on the Audra Factor, I do I was pulling for her to win Best Actor because you know, well, we do say best actor, right? Do we say best actress? I’ve already think it’s actress. Yeah, and um be but I did think, oh gosh, I wonder how the rest of the world is gonna watch this because it is it was a performance that’s not showbizy polished like you expect it to be. Even that number, even when you’ve just got a big old brassy belter on it, which she is not a brassy belter. And um, but there was an I the raw emotion that that woman exudes on stage is just untouched. It is um it is remarkable. We love her.
David:
Um, so I let’s move into gay dad topics. I okay, let’s do it. I can’t believe I’m gonna suggest this, but I was thinking this the other day, and I thought this would be helpful for our listener, which is whenever you witness a parent parenting their child in real life, it is always such a great window, I feel like, into how other people do things. Because I think we assume how other people do naps or bedtimes or uh dinner time, but when you actually hear it or you get to see it, I feel like it’s really helpful, at least to orient you into what other people are doing, whether that’s to quell your fears that you’re doing it all wrong or whatever.
Gavin:
Or the Schadenfreude of being able to watch somebody else fuck it up even more than you are. And so you’re like, that’s great. I I guess I got this watching that idiot do it.
David:
That’s the best. Yeah, I was having a conversation at a birthday party with another parent. She was telling me about how they do dinner time, and I was like, this is fascinating. This is absolutely not what we do, but it is interesting to hear. So, anyway, I wanted to say, let’s talk about our bedtime routines with our kids, because that to me is one where I feel like, are we doing this right? And so I was like, why don’t you and I tell our listener how we do bedtime and see if that is helpful. Now, again, our kids are so fucking different in ages, so it’s gonna look very different. But I’ll tell you how ours we do ours. So our we have a five and a three-year-old. So our three-year-old’s bedtime is 7:30 p.m. That is when we walk up the stairs. So we walk up the stairs, usually kicking and screaming, usually mad at me. And the first thing we do is we take off our clothes and we get in our PJs. That’s our first line of attack. It’s usually followed by some crying and some kicking on the front. And then we pee. We have to make sure we pee, and then we brush our teeth. We do our flossing. We have like the little animal flossers, and then we go into her room and we sit and we read two books. That is our limit. That is all, and we let them choose the books. We read two books, and then uh as soon as it’s done, I say goodnight. I walk her to her bed. She screams that she’s not tired, she falls on the ground. Um, I turn off the light and then I walk out of there. And then she comes out a couple times and says, I need water, I need whatever. But that’s the general micro.
Gavin:
How have you not put a glass of water into the the lineup there so she doesn’t come out asking for one? Oh, babe, you’re so cute that you think that would stop it.
David:
She has a water bottle in her bed, but if it’s not filled to the very top, that is a reason she comes out, right? So that’s my three-year-old. My five-year-old is similar. We walk up the stairs, we get into our PJs right away, we pee, we brush our teeth, we floss our teeth, we go into our bed. He likes to come into our bed and read two books, again, max two books, and then we turn off the light. And my five-year-old likes to cuddle. So we cuddle for five minutes, and then we walk to his room, we put him in bed, we turn the light off, we say goodnight. So that is our bedtime routines. Do you talk during cuddle time or is it like a conversation? No, it’s usually the best time. It’s the time you actually get to talk to your kid. It’s in the dark. He’s like kind of just laying there, and we’re like, what do you think about monkeys? He’s like, Yeah, monkeys. You know, it’s like all these like really great connections. So that’s right. That’s our bedtime routine. What is a bedtime routine like for preteens?
Gavin:
Well, may I may I just go back to what you were saying and not judging it all. Actually, I think that was very relatable. No, I think it was very relatable. One of the things that um one of the things that we did was um having some bedtime songs and saying prayers, not that we’re particularly religious people, but no, no, listen, I mean, it isn’t about Jesus, it’s more just like the routine of being like stopping, you know. I I would just as easily be like, tell me three things about your day that you that were good, or tell me something good, bad, and weird about your day. And having that like connection time, and then also, yes, David, thinking about gratitude and thinking about three things that you know made you happy or hell, you helped somebody. And um, and that would kind of be in our routine. And then, but then I do miss those days, singing a little song to them and the songs that we would sing. Do you always sing bedtime songs or not?
David:
No, well, so when they were younger, I had like I have a song, an original song written for every part of their day. I had like a bath song, I had a drying off song, I had a go-to-bed song. Like we we had written and sang songs, and it they’ve just since gone away, right? Like they get older. And I used to sing, I used to hold my daughter and she used to say, I have a recording of it on my phone, sing the song. And I would just sing You Are My Sunshine every single night. And then at one night, she didn’t want that anymore.
Gavin:
And you just forgot about it, and it just went away.
David:
Yeah. And that that leads me to my next thing I’ll talk about, but I know you still want to talk, is like the how things go away. But yeah, no, I don’t sing anymore.
Gavin:
Well, um, okay, so for our routine, we definitely, my son is and how old are the kids? Yeah, they are 12 and 13. So I have a sixth grader and an eighth grader, or as of now, as of the airing of this, they are now in summertime. And oh my god, I have a seventh and a ninth grader. But mainly my son is really good about being like, hey, I’m done night. I mean, mid-movie, mid-something. We don’t watch a lot of TV. That’s not to say we’re screen-free by by any stretch of the imagination, but like I was just using that as an example. Even on a Saturday night, he might hit 8:30 and be like, yo, I’m done, and he’ll just go upstairs. Um, there have been a couple of times, I’m gonna go back and forth here a little bit. There have been a couple of times that my daughter, who now tends to aim for about 9, 9.15, 9.30, and she has her whole, she’s a nighttime showerer. She finds it disgusting that we, the boys in her life, would ever go to bed without showering at night. And she looks at us with yet another reason that she looks at us with disdain and disgust. But she takes a good 45 minutes to like shower. She often is, I know that she’s not even in the shower and I can hear the water running because she’s just on her damn phone. So then I will phone bank her from downstairs and the on the seventh call, she’ll finally answer because it’s disrupting her Spotify playlist that she’s listening to. Anyway, so she’s up there. But I I definitely make her go up the stairs by 8:30. And um, I mean, she does her thing, and my son. Oh, uh my partner has been recently um sharing. Uh, what is it? I I mentioned this in an episode a couple of weeks ago. Um, has been looking at the little videos that CBS creates of on the road. Do you know what I’m talking about? They’re little happy. It was your something great. Yeah.
David:
Was your something great?
Gavin:
So Todd does that at night at bedtime with at least my son. He often forgets to do it with my daughter because frankly, it’s already so late. We’re like, just go to fuck to bed. And um, anyway, gosh, it sounds so unregulated, but I mean it’s kind of like But you’re have older sons, like you don’t have to helicopter, yeah. 8 p.m. He’s walking upstairs, brushes teeth, in bed. And um, and we, you know, we still kind of do a little bit of uh you know, gratitude at the end of the night.
David:
And and uh I mean it wouldn’t be Gabe and Squidden if there wasn’t some gratitude.
Gavin:
My daughter, she would be horrified to know that I’m sharing this, but she will still let me read to her. And I always want to get in um I want her to get in bed sooner so that we have some time to do so. Uh my son’s also because she puts her feet down and she won’t read during the day unless it’s an actual homework assignment. And so she’s like, I’ll do it tonight, I’ll do it tonight. So if she has time, she will read in bed. But we’re still, still reading that Cerulean C book that I also mentioned uh months, I don’t know, a year ago, because we have had the book out for like two years. But she will um let me read to her, which I enjoy if it’s not already nine o’clock. Because if it’s if we are past 9 15, daddy only has a solid 35 minutes of TV time in front of him, and then I will so I want my time as well. So as she gets older, our quality time uh actually um dissipates a little bit.
David:
Yeah. Well, I I think this is helpful. I uh when I was talking to this friend about their their dinner time, I was like shocked at some of the things she was saying, and that it was just like it was just great to orient, especially because what were those shocking things? Well, my it’s very it was very it’s it wasn’t important to me initially, but it was very important to my husband that everyone sat at the dinner table and ate a meal together every night. I agree with you. I I never did that. I never grew up doing that. I would eat on the couch, I would eat whenever we my husband and I would eat on the couch before we had kids. It was very important to him, so I, you know, I went along with it. I think it’s great. But this parent was like, oh yeah, like we cook four different three different meals, one for the kids, one for me, one for my husband. No, I will eat over the sink while my husband’s eating in the other room, and my kids have run and they have to have mac and cheese. I was like, oh, we are a one meal family. Yeah. And listen, I’m not being an ass, I’m not being easy to do.
Gavin:
I will, because I don’t know this person.
David:
No, but my no, but I’m saying I don’t mean I don’t mean to be like, oh, we only cook one meal. My kids don’t eat it. They’re mad that I cook them pork and broccoli or whatever. But like we we were very much in the beginning, like, we cook one meal and we all eat it. And you don’t we don’t make them eat it. Yeah, but that’s that’s dinner. And so, but anyway, it was it was shocking to be like, oh yeah, she’s like, my husband will eat on the couch by himself, I’ll eat over the sink, my kids will eat so much. So I just think it’s good to like talk this things out, not even just to be like, oh, my my routine is better. But some of us, like bedtime especially, I’m like, I don’t know what I’m doing. Is this the right time? Should I be is this how I’m supposed to be doing it? Um, one of the things uh this this actually might qualify for a moment of awe. Oh no. So you know how we talk about all the time, like the changes your kids go through are all these small ones. Yeah, and there’s never these big moments, like graduation, I guess, is one, but like you just realize, oh, I don’t sing to my kid anymore. That moment is over. One of those happened the other day, and I got to witness it in real time, which is rare. So when one of our streamers is, you know, Paramount Plus, sure, because that’s where all the Paw Patrol is, whatever. And so my son has always called it Caramel Plus because he thinks it’s called Caramel Plus, and he always has called it Caramel Plus. Well, he can now read as of like the past six months. He is a voracious reader. He’s in kindergarten, they’ve learned to read. And so it came up on the TV screen. He’s like, I want to watch Caramel Plus. And so it came on, and this the logo has the name Paramount Plus. And as it was up, he went, Caramel, and he looked at it and he went, Oh, Paramount Plus. Oh, and and just like that. And I watched it in front of me. Like I you don’t ever get to have that moment. I almost started crying, but I had to take a break because then once you make fun of me, because you made fun of me the one time I cried on this podcast, but it was wild to see those tiny changes. The the word that your kid misspells or miss says and then says right, I got to watch it change. And it was kind of devastating, but also very sweet. Uh, that is very relatable.
Gavin:
I do remember when my son used to call ketchup cup shit. And he said cup shit for quite a while, and we all laughed about it. And in fact, uh my daughter was also laughing at him about it, and finally he wisened up and was like, and was like, wait a minute, you’re all laughing at me. And he uh I I kind of feel like I remember that moment where he was like, Oh, I’m on to this now. I don’t like you laughing at me. And so he that was the only time I can remember him like making a shift from what was to what is and bye bye cup shit.
David:
Yes. Um uh we are obviously just talking out of our assholes, and we are this episode is already gonna be too long. But before we move on to our news of the week, I want to remind you guys that we have our gay dads, Gatriarch listener meetup, co-hosted with men having babies happening this Saturday or next Saturday, June 28th from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Hecksher Playground, which is the southeast side of Central Park. Please, please come if you are a listener, if you are an ally, if you are a parent, if you are a non-parent, if you’re hearing the sound of my voice and you are in the New York City area, we would love, love, love to see you. Look for we’re gonna have a bunch of rainbow balloons um and some middle-aged gay men yelling at their children. You can find us. David and I will be in our yellow Gate URX t-shirts.
Gavin:
And please come say hi to us too. By the way, don’t just show and go. Like, show up and you know, come get a water from us. We’ll have branded water, and um, one out of every 100 water bottles will be full of vodka. So just give that a try. It’s a little raffle. We can’t wait to um meet you, IRL. That will be super fun and give us hugs. It’s probably gonna be hot and sweaty, um, not just because, but yeah, yeah, just um come get a hot, sweaty hug from us, okay? Yeah.
David:
Um we there’s no good news in the week, but Gavin found the one piece of good news.
Gavin:
Very little. Yes. We as America’s finest news source um try to scour the intrawebs for something to make us feel good about our lives. And Gina Ortiz-Jones is the new mayor of San Antonio, and but she’s gay. I mean, gay. I’m sorry.
David:
She’s a mayor.
Gavin:
Oh, Eric. Congratulations, Gina Ortiz Jones. We love that we have you representing uh the San Antonio.
David:
We need them on the inside. Good lord. I mean, I I need somebody on the inside if you know what I’m talking about. Speaking of the diff of the week, uh, do you have you?
Gavin:
I know that you’re looking at the um notes uh in front of us at the same time. I mean, doesn’t that doesn’t that character immediately make you feel a little something inside?
David:
Well, you know this is an audio platform, Gabin, and people have no idea what you’re talking about, right? I think he was one of our top movie. We did a top three like cartoon characters.
Gavin:
Cartoon characters, yeah. So anyway, it’s Riley’s dad from Inside Out, which is hilarious to me that everywhere I looked, he has no name. He’s just Riley’s dad. Yeah. Which is hilarious.
David:
But he’s got that like mustache dad vibe, like young dad. Yeah.
Gavin:
But dad, hot. Dad Bod. And um, and Kyle McLachlan is the voice of Riley’s dad. And I found some footage of him basically saying, I’ve never been seen as so hot as when I was a cartoon character. Um, but it is true. I would say that Riley’s dad is our dilf of the week. Thank you, Kyle McLachlan, for giving voice to our hot dilf. Um, speaking of hot dilf?
David:
Is that the transition you want to make?
Gavin:
It’s time for our top three list.
David:
Gatriarch, top three list, three, two, one. Um, this week, it is my week. It is the top three toys you disappear. I uh uh I have young children. They are going to birthday parties non-stop. They have birthday parties themselves. We have a lot of toys in and out of this house. These are my top three toys that will not see my children’s eyes. They will not, they will not make it through the door. They will go right through the door.
Gavin:
Oh, really? These are things that never even made it through the door.
David:
These are things that I will not let my children have because it inconveniences me. Um number three for me is a toy that needs me. If this is something that you need a parent to do with you, I’m not interested. This is not for me. I don’t want this. Um can you give me an example? Um, well, it’s often like these board games that have like thousands of pieces. Well, if you get if you get a blue card, it’s these cards here. But if you have your it is like because you’re trying to navigate, because I again five and three, these kids like they’re knocking pieces over, the piles are spilling. Where do I put this card? That kind of stuff. Like, if you need me to mitigate all that stuff, it’s going right in the fucking garbage. Um, number two is anything from the dollar store. Listen, I get it it’s expensive to make these goodie bags for these kids’ birthday parties, and we all go to the dollar store, we all get the little play dohs and the little toys that are because they’re cheap and we can put them all in. They’re going right into the garbage. They are, I don’t want those little, they don’t bring me any joy. They don’t bring my child any joy. All my kids do is fight over them. So number two, dollar store anything. Number one, I don’t care what size, I don’t care what color, I don’t care who gave it to them. It could have been the prince of Egypt that gave them to this. If you bring slime into my house, a cup of slime, that is going right into the garbage. Slime, for those of you who don’t know, it’ll stain everything you have. It will stain your fingers. It’ll leave an oily residue on the floor. We had an oily part of our floor for years because somebody played with slime on the ground. So number one, slime. What about you?
Gavin:
Uh, I definitely have the crossover on the slime. That was my number three. But I do want to make the disclaimer that in this world, in this topic for me, it was things that I disappeared from underneath my kids’ vision, basically. So they did play with these things and then suddenly went, wait a minute, where was that thing? Okay, okay. So number three for me, slime. Whenever I can, I would let them play with it for a little bit, but it conveniently was disappeared quickly. Number two for me, we had this toy, I don’t know if they make it anymore, uh, for babies. And it’s this rolling monkey that the monkey’s sitting on a ball and it rolls like uh a BB8 from Star Wars where the head is always at the top. And it’s meant to be this thing that probably encourages kids theoretically to crawl. So it kind of wanted to chase the thing and it always stays upright. But it had a voice to it that would it would be like, chase me, chase me, that kind of thing. But the worst part of it was it would say, again, again, so it would sit there silently, and if you ignored it, it came to life again a minute later. So no. My kids loved that thing, and it got disappeared in the middle of the night because I didn’t need to hear again, again, it got disappeared again. And then finally, the one thing that I um that I disappeared in the middle of the night and it was very surreptitious and quite the mission impossible was we had one of those Thomas the Train tables that had the drawers underneath that you build the train on top, and it’s a nice big platform and everything. And I really did feel like I started to watch my kids be less creative because they were always stuck on that table to build their trains, as opposed to like building it over books and under the furniture and da-da-da-da-da. But yet they loved it. I mean, I always said to them, I think we should get rid of this. No, no, no, no, no. Well, I made it disappear and I completely lied to them. I looked at them and said, There was a broken wheel, so we needed to send it away to get fixed.
David:
I thought you were gonna say there was a break-in at the house and they stole just this item. That would have been way funnier. A gang of toddler thieves.
Gavin:
But I I took away their Thomas the Train table, which was very it would have been upsetting, except that I lied to them and told them it was just temporary, and conveniently it never came back with a new wheel on it.
David:
So I love lying to children.
Gavin:
Yeah.
David:
All right, what is next week’s top three list?
Gavin:
Along this, in this vein of actually um having to do things with your children um as opposed to things that you disappear on the way in. I want to know what are your top three board games for kids?
David:
Okay, Gavin, I may sound like a broken record, but our next guest is yet another trick I met off the internet. Oh, come on. She is a Jacqueline of all trades, an entrepreneur, a software designer, an advocate, a strategist, a business coach, a relocation consultant, a TikTok influencer, and most importantly, a mom of three. When she started her TikTok account, Darien Goes Dutch, following her journey moving from Colorado to the Netherlands. She also got the attention of a very prominent David F. M. Vaughn, who then lived out his transatlantic fantasies through her entertaining yet practical vlog of what it was like making that huge transition. Welcome by the show, my new friend and at Echt 11, Darien Wilson.
SPEAKER_00:
Welcome, Darien. It’s nice to be here.
Gavin:
It is a total delight. And I can’t please translate whatever nonsense David just spewed at you in some made-up language.
SPEAKER_00:
Well, I moved from Colorado to the Netherlands in 2021. So it’s been almost four years, David. Wow. Um, and uh I shared my journey right as I was leaving Colorado, um, really thinking it was just gonna be for friends. And then as I flew across the country and dropped one of my children off at college, it went viral. And I was like, you know, kept checking my phone, you know, for the target shopping list. And I was like, what? You know, what’s happening here? Um, so I’m an accidental TikToks.
David:
But those are always the best accounts where like you weren’t aiming for. Um also Gaiman is very nervous that we’re speaking in Dutch. Moten van Nederlandspraten?
SPEAKER_00:
Orns van Dach of Lieft.
David:
Okay. Um no, we’re we’re just like I it’s funny. I started learning Dutch 112 days ago, according to my Duolingo. But but what Duolingo does is they don’t teach you in a this is the most helpful right away. They don’t say like asking directions right away or hello, how are you? or I don’t speak Dutch. It’s like I know how to say I don’t own six pink elephants. That’s not gonna help me right now. I know lots about animals and colors, and but like I don’t know some basic stuff. So I feel like I’m pretty far away. But we’re just saying, I just said, you know, welcome to the show, my new friend. And I also said, should we speak in Dutch? And she said no. So we’re not talking about you, Gavin. Don’t worry about it. Um, but before we begin, Darien, tell us, how did your kids drive you bananas today?
SPEAKER_00:
Okay, so I can’t talk about my kids on because um they’re old enough to tell me not to. Um two fully grown kids and one 14-year-old who is especially sensitive.
SPEAKER_01:
Yes.
SPEAKER_00:
Um, but I did clear the fact with my four with my 25-year-old that I could discuss the thing that adult kids that live with you do that drives you crazy is take your stuff and not return it. Or like, like, for example, my Dyson hairdryer, uh-huh, it’s always like at the bottom of the stairs and not back where it was when it was taken out of my dressing room. You know, so that’s that’s the thing that older kids do is you know, you go to get your whatever favorite lipstick or whatever it is, and like oh, I know that was here and it’s gone. And that’s what older that’s one of the things that I’m allowed to say.
David:
That you’re allowed to say that you’ve been approved. Yeah.
Gavin:
So as you were seeking approval for that, did that also then engender a little conversation of, so by the way, just don’t do this anymore, please?
SPEAKER_00:
No, what I heard was you can say that because that’s not that bad of a thing. That’s why I do it, because it’s not that bad.
David:
You can’t talk about all their upcoming criminal trials against all the felonies that they’ve been racking up. But it’s funny because like we the three of us have kind of a nice wide range of kids. Like you have kind of adults in the house, Gavin has like early teens. I have still like kind of young kids, five and three. But what I’m learning is like art, my stuff goes away all the time. Nothing changes. The other day, like the little top part of the flag pole, we were gonna hang out our flag for pride, and I couldn’t find this like little clip. And I was like, where did it go? And he was like, I put it in the trash yesterday. I was like, Why the fuck did you do it? Like, so my stuff is disappearing too, but it’s not for the same reason. Your kids are just borrowing from the library. So I have met you in real life. We have been we’ve been talking for years.
SPEAKER_01:
He brought me Fritos, thank you. I did.
David:
I brought you Fritos when I visited you in the Netherlands. But one of the reasons why I thought you would be such a great guest, A, you’re a lovely person, you are a mom, you get it, you know what I mean? You’re an ally, you’re a gay ally, you’re you’re all the great things that we love at Gate Sharks. But your journey going from the United States to the Netherlands, it caught my attention in the way that I think a lot of our listeners will enjoy, which is like this, and I want to dive into why, but this desire to like, I can’t be in this country anymore. Where do I go? And we all fantasize, oh, I’m gonna move to this place and this place to start a new life. But you fucking did it. Like you did it. You did it. And so I I would love, I just want to talk all about the things, but let’s go to the beginning. What was the inspiration for you leaving the States in the first place?
SPEAKER_00:
So we looked at leaving in um 2017. We’ve been small business owners. Well, I started my first business in 2001 when my oldest was a year and a half old. Um, I started a baby wearing company. I manufactured baby slings. Um, and that business took it from my kitchen table to an international brand. It was also kind of a right place, right time, accidental thing. Um, I did costume work when I was in theater in college. And so after I had my first baby, I really hated the slings you could buy. And so I just sewed one that I thought was more was prettier. Um, because everything you could buy back then was like teddy bears. And I was like, I don’t wear teddy bears, you know, I’m not a baby. So so I made, I just had this faux Burberry fabric that I’d bought off like the clearance rack at Joanne’s, and I just whipped up a sling. It looked like a Burberry sling. And like I wore it around Austin where I lived at the time, and everyone was like, Where can I get one of those? And I was like, said to my husband, I think, I think I have a business on my hands here, you know, and he was a software developer, so he built the website, and this was still early days of the internet, and it just took off. And um, so we sold that business in 2009 and moved to Colorado. But um sorry, I lost my train of thought. What were we talking about?
David:
We were talking about what was the what was the reason you even thought to move in 2017. So so we made small business centers.
SPEAKER_00:
So then, so then in 2009, in 2009, we sold my baby carrier business. Well, we sold it in yeah, 2009. We couldn’t sell our house that year, recession, yeah, but we sold a business, yeah. And my husband quit his job, and and within two weeks, we sold a business. My husband quit his job, my sister got married, and we moved across the country from Texas to Colorado. And we actually were inspired to move to Colorado when we went to London. So we were doing home exchanging because um it was really important to me to travel, even though we had young kids. And I was like, Well, I can’t really afford to get like a hotel and flights and all this stuff, but like, what if we just swapped houses? Because we had this nice house in central Austin. And so this family in London wanted to be in Austin for her mom’s birthday, and I was like in London in August, and I was like, I love not being hot, like this is the best. Um, I was like, why do I live in Texas? I hate it, you know. And so, I mean, there are a lot of things I do love about my home state, but especially Austin. Especially Austin, but the heat was I couldn’t take it. And so we decided then to move to Colorado. So we lived there from 2009 to 2021, and um honestly, the gun violence for me was the thing that was just Colorado’s got a serious problem, as you know, you’re from there. Um, we lived 20 minutes from Columbine, 20 minutes from the Aurora Theater shooting. Um, and there were two school shootings in our community within three miles of our house within eight years. Um and the last one was at the school next to my child’s school.
Gavin:
Wow.
SPEAKER_00:
And, you know, it was traumatic. I knew kids who were there who stepped over their classmates’ blood. You know, I my kids went to swim lessons with their kids. Like there, I knew them when they were little, you know, and they were high schoolers. And um what I learned about gun violence from living in a community where there was a lot of it, and and this was a beautiful place to live.
Gavin:
This was like also well educated and liberal. Like this is not necessarily everybody is rootin’ tootin’ with guns in the well.
SPEAKER_00:
It was our county was a more it was a more conservative, it’s a red county, but we were in like a purple area. But um, but it was an affluent, educated area and you know, very safe. Like you could forget your garage door open and your bike wouldn’t get stolen out of it, you know, kind of thing.
Gavin:
But at school, you might not get shot.
SPEAKER_00:
And every day I dropped my kids off at school, and every day I thought, I hope I’m picking them up at the end of the day today.
Gavin:
Jesus, that’s awful. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:
And it was like it wasn’t theoretical because I knew people, you know, like it wasn’t you start to think at first you think like statistically, that’s not gonna happen to me. And then it like gets closer and closer and closer, and you’re just like, actually, that could happen to my child. We had two different incidents within like a couple months where they said, come get your kid from school due to gun violence. The other one was this this woman flew from Florida to Colorado because she had was obsessed with Columbine. And anyway, that was, and I to be fair, I worked to change gun violence in Colorado. Like I lobbied for the red flag bill, you know, I was there when it was passed in the Senate, in the state senate. Like I did things to try to improve where I lived. I tried to bloom where I was planted. And after a point, I was like, really, it was after like all the COVID stuff and the crazy anti-mask stuff and all that that I was like, you know, I think let’s I’m ready to pick up on that idea that we were exploring back in 2017. Yeah. Um, but getting back to the small business ownership thing, we were looking at countries where we could still work for ourselves because we had been doing it, we had started our own software company in 2009 and we just wanted to stay self-employed. So back in 2017, we had looked at Costa Rica and the Netherlands. My husband’s a big, you know, software developer. He’s a big spreadsheet guy. You know, there was this big complex spreadsheet with like all the different things about where do you want to live.
David:
That’s just love language as XLS. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:
Exactly. Yeah. And and so, you know, we looked at Costa Rica and then we looked at the Netherlands, and then Costa Rica, it’s great. Um, we looked at some places there that are not super hot because they’re nice elevation and all this stuff.
Gavin:
Also hot, but okay, great.
SPEAKER_00:
But there are some higher elevation cities that I was like, so I don’t think I can imagine the rest of my life without pad high. Like, I don’t, I want to be someone that’s more international, you know.
David:
Maybe baby wants noodles, and that’s important. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, I mean, like an international community, not just kind of this one thing, expat tourists.
David:
And I imagine also the accessibility of moving, because this is something because the daft visa obviously makes it a lot easier, but the but I have discovered in my own thing is like, oh, I’m I want to move here and over here. No, you can’t. No, you just can’t move to count. You think you could just like I’m just gonna I’m just gonna live in Italy. No, you’re not, and that’s what I learned is that Costa Rica, Netherlands, Portugal, there’s some of these like easier to immigrate for Americans based off of various things. But um, I I’ve always wanted to live in in Scotland, and they’re like, Yeah, no, you’re we’re good. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:
And you get hired by a company and move to Ireland, man, that would be great because English is really nice, and the people there are really friendly, and the weather isn’t any worse than it is here where it rains all the time and it’s you know it’s very dark in the winter. It’s not hot, exactly. I I landed on not hot. Yeah. So the visa that we are on is the Dutch American Friendship Treaty, which is a visa for entrepreneurs or self-employed people, and that’s why we chose the Netherlands.
David:
Yeah, yeah. And so curious, how did you tell your kids that this was happening? Because your kids were older but still in school, right?
SPEAKER_00:
Um, well, actually, one was already at college and the other one was had already made the decision before we made this decision to go to college a year early. So they were, we thought we’ve only got one child left in the nest, and then, you know, it’s kind of like not up to you. It’s well, this is we’ve been decided, you know, this is what we’re doing. Um, but that child was like, yeah, I’m up for an adventure and has really, really thrived here. Um, so yeah, it I think they knew that we they knew they knew our frustration, you know, they knew how much we had worked to improve things. And um I think you know, they understood us to be, we had already moved a we had already made a big move once, you know. So I think once you’ve done that, you’re sort of like, okay, I have it in me. I don’t think I I still would say I didn’t know how hard it was gonna be. Um, it was very difficult when they actually did it. I I won’t lie. It was really challenging.
Gavin:
And by difficult, meaning like reams and reams and reams of papers that you had to fill out or time waiting, or or did you have to go through a physical fitness test that would uh make you climb walls?
David:
You have to swim 500 meters in this amount of time, or you cannot go to the Netherlands. Well, speed skating. Speed skating. Yes, I know. Just to jump in before you answer, Darian. This is partially why I followed your account because it wasn’t this glossy, like, I’m buying stroop waffles in The Hague. Like it wasn’t this like picture perfect vision of it. It was like this like grind. Like, I remember a video you talking about getting a bank account and how frustrated you were and how hard it was. And I was like, that’s the kind of shit I want to see. I want to see like the boots on the ground, real, realistic way. But yes, please.
SPEAKER_00:
And I actually do temper what I say on this. Because I get so much hate from Dutch people anytime that I say anything the least bit critical. Like I’ve literally said something as minor as like, I miss wearing athleisure wear in public. And I’ve just gotten like, then go back to your country, you know?
Gavin:
Dutch hate. Wow. Okay. Right.
SPEAKER_00:
Oh, yeah. And I figured out that like part of the reason my account went so viral is that people loved telling me I was wrong. I was like doing it wrong. Whatever it was, opening the window. Like, like I made one about like, why don’t the windows here have screens? Because y’all, they don’t. You know, if you’re from America, especially the South, you know that windows just they all just have built-in screens.
SPEAKER_01:
Screens for bugs.
SPEAKER_00:
They don’t hear. And they have flies and they don’t have air conditioning. They just open the window.
SPEAKER_01:
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:
But it when I said this, they’re like, of course we have screens. And I’m like, okay, but you don’t understand. They’re not, they’re not everywhere, and they’re not like built into the window where it’s just part of the window the way they are in the US.
David:
Right. And that, and that’s something I feel like you’ve touched on quite a bit in your videos, is like your experience now as the immigrant, as the the scary immigrant that we uh weirdly fetishize in the United States on the right, is like, oh, this boogeyman who’s coming to do whatever. And you’ve said in some of your videos, you’re like, I’m now the immigrant here. And there are people who love to embrace me and whatever. But like also there are people who look at me cross-eyed because I’m the immigrant. And you’ve never really felt that before. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:
You feel like you have to be a hundred percent perfect all the time because 350 million people are standing behind you. And if you say something rude, then people are like, that American said blah, blah, blah. It’s this weight, you know, of being representative of whatever group you’re part of. That I know lots of other groups, lots of other people have that experience throughout their lives. And for me, it was less, it was a news experience at 50.
David:
Gay people very much have that experience. And I think it gave and tell me if you agree, gay parents. I am constantly feel like I have to have the best kid, I have to be the most on time. I have to be the the I have to have the bet I I do. I have the bet I have the best kid. Because we’re ambassadors. Yes, but we are ambassadors, but we’re also trying to like, we’re trying to like play in your league. We’re so we’re we’re asking if we can play on the team, so we have to prove our worth, which shouldn’t be. I should be allowed to be just as shitty as a parent as a straight person. Which you are. I which I be honorable, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gavin:
But we aspire, aspire to be the best we possibly can for that very reason. I think you’re exactly right about that.
SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, and that’s the feeling is like the just as an example, another person on the DAFT visa was asking, um, will I be allowed to stay here because I got a ticket for having my dog off the leash? You know, like like you have the smallest infraction, and you think, is that mark against me going to make them lose my file when I apply for, you know, and and I’ve had Dutch people say, like, that would never happen here. But it’s like you don’t want to take a chance, you know.
David:
Especially as the world changes, and you know, right? How many times have we said that would never happen here? That would never happen. He, he would, he, I’m not gonna say his name, he would never do that. And then he does. So, like, yes, I think you’re right to like, especially because you know, like, I am not like owed anything being here, so I’m trying to do all the right things. Yeah. Even people here who are here legally are struggling because they’re getting sent to random fucking countries. So I get it, I get that weird pressure.
Gavin:
In your effort to be the model citizen, in your um the the stepfordization of your Dutch life, does the good outweigh the bad?
SPEAKER_00:
Yeah. Now that I’ve been here almost four years, I’m really happy here. And we recently went back to the US, as I mentioned, the tick capital of the world that we were in visiting. Um, and uh, and I had a nice visit, but I was I came back and and I was like, I’m happy here. This is my home now. Um, I have friends here, my neighbors are wonderful. Um, it’s just a comfortable pace of life for me. Um but I am in a new job and I’m still I keep the thing that’s been a real challenge for me as an immigrant is making being comfortable with making mistakes all the time. Being comfortable, but just getting used to like, yep, I screwed that up. I’m gonna screw up again, you know, with the language, with the culture. Just I’m always putting my foot in my mouth, I feel like, with just doing something wrong that I don’t know any better until I say something. It’s like, oh, you know. So um, so now I have a new job and and it’s uh it’s been a bit of a learning curve, but um, it’s good.
David:
But because I think we all assume when you move to a country where the the language spoken is not your language, that that is going to be the hardest thing. But you realize that, like, like you’re saying, these like weird cultural things that you just don’t know. Like, no, people do this, and when you don’t do that, um, I follow a couple of different Dutch uh accounts that are geared, I think, towards Americans looking at, and one of them talks a lot about that. Be like, and the Netherlands, we would never blank, we always blank, and you’re like, fuck, what I how did I know? I didn’t know that. And like you’re saying, like the more those build up, you feel like, oh, all I do is screw up. Does everybody hate me?
SPEAKER_00:
And then sometimes when you encounter like something, you’re like, is that a cultural difference? Or is that just this person or this family or this entity that’s doing this thing that I’m so unaccustomed to? Like, you know, um, sadly, my neighbor passed away and we went to the funeral and they said, Bring a candle and a or a rock. And I was like, is this like a Dutch thing to bring a rock?
Gavin:
Like, break windows with this? What are we doing? Like a cinder block or like a perfectly round, smooth one?
SPEAKER_00:
What kind of candle?
David:
Like, like, are we talking bed bath and beyond? Yankee candle. Are we talking about our Yankee linen? Like, where are we going to spice? And then it was like if I was in Texas, I would get one of those like no.
SPEAKER_00:
In Texas, I would know where to buy one of those, like, you know, can’t tall skinny candles with you know, uh Maria on it or whatever, you know, but the tallest store, like halfway candles, yeah. They have them in the grocery store, you know, or you could either Ginsburg, preferably.
Gavin:
Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:
Those, yeah. I would know where to get that in the US, but here I don’t know where where do you buy those? You know, you can just see them at the grocery store in Texas, but um, I don’t know the religious candle store location.
David:
And I asked multiple Dutch people and they were like, so then you’re like, is this just a weird fucking person who wanted a a linen candle from Yankee Candle, or is this like a Dutch thing I’m missing?
Gavin:
And also, wait a minute, you were able to find a Yankee candle in the Netherlands?
SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, that’s the other reason I got it, because I found one and I was like, Well, I know that smells nice, so I’m getting that one.
Gavin:
And so did you screw up? Did you show up at the funeral and everybody?
SPEAKER_00:
I was the only one.
Gavin:
Really?
SPEAKER_00:
And I was like, just like put it over there, like everyone else is holding cinder blocks.
David:
And they look at you like you’re the fucking idiot.
SPEAKER_00:
No, other people brought candles, but they had the the kind that I in my mind I was like, I know what I it should look like, but I have no idea where I would get that here.
Gavin:
Oh, they brought like St. Teresa candles.
SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, yeah. Well, they were just plain.
David:
Not the peppermint schnapps like swirl three-wick. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:
Okay. But there’s just so many cultural things. And then you in that case, according to my Dutch friends, that was just like those people. That wasn’t a Dutch thing at all.
Gavin:
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:
Yeah.
Gavin:
I was lucky enough to spend a semester in college studying in Paris, and I was studying it at the time in the 19 before World War I.
SPEAKER_01:
Yeah.
Gavin:
Um, when the European Union was just a glint in people’s eyes. And I, but I was literally studying the formation of the European European Union, and my favorite book was this book with nuances about the different countries that were originally part of the EU. And um, that there were chapters about how the Dutch are so different from the Belgians, or so different from the Germans. And I would read this and be like, I would screw all of this up. It was like those who leave their window, their, their can’t um, their curtains open, and those who like one culture keeps their curtains open and one culture keeps them closed, and they each think they vilify the others for being satanic worshippers for doing it the opposite. It’s uh yeah.
David:
I feel like I just saw a video on that in on TikTok about the the Dutch government situation that’s got the the collapse, as they’re calling it. Um they were talking of there was like a funny video where at the maybe did you share it? You might have shared it. Where like he was talking about don’t don’t compare us to the the Belgians. Um exactly.
SPEAKER_00:
I was gonna say the Belgians, when you compare the Dutch to the Belgians, it’s like University of Texas and AM, it’s like they you just cannot. If you said, like, you know, they’re both Texas teams, people that like knives out, you know, we can’t have that.
Gavin:
Which is how the French shit on the Belgians too.
David:
Like poor Belgians, oh the poor Belgians, they have what they have their waffles, they’re good. Do you know what I mean? They’re not our waffles. We are totally, we’re totally happy.
SPEAKER_00:
They have the best chocolate around.
Gavin:
They they have the yeah, they have bad karma now for like destroying all of Africa, frankly. So, anyway, what made you decide to put your kids in a Dutch school versus an international school?
SPEAKER_00:
You know, at 10 years old, you have the opportunity to learn another language. Yeah, and when else are you gonna have that experience? And there’s so many benefits to being bilingual beyond just the practical aspect of it. Like it’s just really good for your brain to know more than one language. Um, and it’s been really incredible to watch, especially as I’ve struggled so mightily.
Gavin:
You’re learning alongside your kid, and your kid undoubtedly is rolling their eyes at you constantly. It’s et, not duh, mom.
David:
God.
SPEAKER_00:
Yeah. Well, we moved at the beginning of the school year, so like August, and by like January, February, my child was reading almost on grade level in Dutch.
SPEAKER_01:
Wow.
SPEAKER_00:
Was reading so was in fourth or fifth grade, fifth grade, and was reading Diary of the Wimpy Kid Books by like January, February in Dutch. And it is so fluent now that Dutch people say there’s like no accent.
SPEAKER_01:
That’s awesome.
SPEAKER_00:
So and of course, Dutch is not the most practical second language to know, but like I said, there are many benefits to being bilingual. And in this case, we live here, so it’s good. But um, I think the knowledge that you can learn another language and that you can do it so quickly is one that you don’t lose. That if you want to learn another language later, you’re like, I mean, how hard can it be? I’ve already learned a second one, you know.
David:
It is so true. I learned Spanish in middle and high school, but like in two years I was fluent. I went from Spanish one to AP Spanish language because I skipped literally three or four years of Spanish because I was like, I get this. Like, I my my brain, it’s I think it’s when you’re like a musician too. Like your brain understands just like the mechanics of it, even though maybe you don’t learn every single word that exists. You just go, oh, I see how this works. And I I feel that way learning Dutch now. Like I I speak Spanish, and when I was in Colombia a couple months ago, day one and day two, I was like, fuck, I know these words, but just my mouth, I’ve just it’s just not connecting. But then the last day I was there, everything locked in. And I was like, oh yeah. And I stopped thinking about it, and like my and the mouth, like it all just came. And so I’m feeling finding that with Dutch now where I’m I’m struggling with God, how to how to talk about pink elephants, how to talk about pink elephants and uh rosa elephant. Um, but I but but also the accents and like I want to make sure that like I I don’t say hein as a hein, you know what I mean? Like get trying to get those words out, but then after a while, when I do like let’s say five lessons in a row, my brain starts to turn a different way where I’m not like intellectualizing it, where it’s starting to understand the patterns and stuff. Now, listen, I still feel fucking crazy about the order of words sometimes and also the et and duh. But like I feel like, yeah, like you said, once you get it, and that’s something that when we consider our international move, our kids are so young that I I think, you know, five and three, I think they would do what your kids did, which is like within a couple of months, they’re good. And they’re gonna be the ones translating for us when we’re at the store trying to speak Dutch.
SPEAKER_00:
Well, no, that’s funny that you mentioned that because actually my child cannot translate. It’s like two tracks. It’s like we’re on this, we’re on the English track or we’re on the Dutch track. And when I say what does this mean, it’s like, uh how do you say it in your language, mom? Um Yeah, no, for real. It doesn’t like there’s like so I think like there’s an actual thinking in the other language, and they’re kind of like not, there’s not a bridge between yet. Whereas I’m always translating in my mind. And so, which means I’m not as fluent.
SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00:
But but I can easily translate lots and lots and lots of things.
Gavin:
Um in terms of translating, then I’m dying to know what it has parenting culture been like in a translation for you. Have you what do you realize you and your kids missed out on for you know, not growing up there? But what is how is the parenting culture different?
SPEAKER_00:
I love the parenting culture here because so I grew up in the 70s and 80s in the US, where like Gen X, our parents had no idea where we were. We were out on our bikes, we were like those kids in ET, you know, like just mom, we don’t know where mom is. Hopefully. Yeah, yeah. We were just out on our bikes and nobody knew where we were. And that’s what it’s like for kids here. And I just think that gives you such an internal sense of um confidence to know that you can handle things when you’ve been independent and been able to go out on your own. And because it’s so safe here and the bike paths are so safe, the kids here just have much more independence at a much younger age. And um, I really wanted that in the US. And in the kind of suburban community where I lived in particular, that couldn’t exist because you’re the your kid would get the cops called on them if they were riding their bike to the store at 10. You know, the c the cops would be called, what is happening? There’s a child alone, right? You know, and they just had to be just watched at all times. And I think that also gives them a sense of paranoia, you know, of like I should be afraid all the time, you know, versus just this, you’ll handle it. If you’re if you get a flat tire, you’ll figure it out. And of course, now they have the benefit that we didn’t have back in the 70s and 80s of having a cell phone to call mom when they get a flat tire or their bicycle chain breaks.
Gavin:
And you want to say, just figure it out. No, don’t call me, just figure it out.
SPEAKER_00:
No, I’ll come get you if your bicycle chain breaks.
David:
But we say we’ve said this before on the show, which is where and and other people people way smarter than us have said it, which is like we tend to overprotect our kids in real life and under-protect our kids online. And that is I think a good example of like we all did. I mean, being Gen X, like what I was the same way. Like I grew up, like the you know, the the front porch lights when they flash, that means it’s time to come in. We would like I remember we would like we snuck out to like lakes and swim. Like we did, we used to climb in Florida, by the way. Florida, we would climb into the sewers, we’d go on our stomachs, we would slide into the sewer system and we would walk, we would walk around the tunnels that connected lakes in Florida, which means alligators. And amazing. My parents had no idea, which isn’t now I’m not saying go play in the sewers, but there is this like freedom we wish we could give our kids, and it sounds like you found that there.
SPEAKER_00:
So you know exactly, yeah. Yeah, so the parenting culture, the other thing is so I had some friends from the US visit recently, and um from my area in Colorado, it was lovely to see my friends, but some of the things they said kind of brought me back to something that I’d kind of like I’m a little bit out of that way of thinking, which is just like the the competitiveness and the way that the kids are just pushed so hard as teenagers in high school and stuff to get perfect grades and have all the activities and start a nonprofit before you’re 18. And you know, that that pressure cooker that my two older kids sadly weren’t went to high school in that environment. And um, and I did I wouldn’t say we left to avoid that, and that’s not the case, but I I just feel like it’s so much healthier to not have that or to have just a less like just take it back a notch, you know, like that’s it’s too much for these kids, they’re just getting too much pressure, and I really appreciate just as an example. So we met with my uh 14-year-old’s um teacher. Well, this was actually a year ago, but um, and the teacher said, Um, doing great, passing all the classes. And I was like, passing? Um, that’s a low bar, you know. Like, but that’s all they expect.
Gavin:
Yeah. So that takes a lot of pressure off.
SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, I think that’s maybe a little too much pressure off, in my opinion.
Gavin:
But can we have some medium pressure?
SPEAKER_00:
Just like a little, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. They put their they put pressure on themselves, so that’s enough.
Gavin:
But are there plenty of lazy Dutch teenagers out there just on their phones, just watching other people live their lives elsewhere?
David:
She’s like, I’m not sure.
SPEAKER_00:
I will say that I’m shocked at the tolerance for like kids blowing up trash cans at the park. Like, when it happens night after night during so New Year’s Eve here, so this is like a very orderly society, very organized, very like calm. And then New Year’s Eve is like the purge. So it’s I cannot describe to you if you haven’t been here for it, how insane New Year’s Eve is.
David:
It’s like it’s the same way in Iceland. We went to New Year’s Eve in Iceland, and Iceland is the same way where everyone just goes fucking insane on New Year’s Eve. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:
You know, in Colorado, there’s always every neighborhood has that one dad that like goes to Wyoming and buys like a million dollars worth of fireworks and like blows up the garage. That’s every dad here. It’s like it’s just and so and literally like kids are blowing their fingers off, they’re getting blinded, like it’s terrible. But they for a month before New Year’s, they they’re blowing stuff up in the park. There it’s it’s like small explosives, and it’s just kind of tolerated. Yeah, and when I said like it’s tolerated somewhere online, I think it was on threads, people were like, No, it’s not tolerated. And I’m like, Well, effectively it is because nobody stops it. Like, yeah, like if it keeps happening, if they want to catch them, all they have to do is camp out at the park and they’ll they’ll bust somebody, you know, because it’s every night. Woo! You know, yeah, my poor dog, it’s awful.
David:
So I so wrapping up, I I before I ask you our final question, I wanted to ask. I know this is literally your entire life and your entire account and everything. So I’m gonna ask you to boil it down to something small. But like for those people in the US, gay or straight alike, who are parents and who are uh have an eye out the door. Um I’m not saying it’s me, but it’s me. Um, what is like some some some like what’s the first piece of advice you would give somebody like that who are like, I either don’t feel safe here or I don’t want to be here or I want to be there, wherever that is. What would be kind of like one piece of advice you would tell them?
SPEAKER_00:
The one piece of information I would share is the thing that I noticed is that it’s not Not perfect anywhere, that there’s no utopia. Everywhere has problems, and a lot of the same problems the US has are problems other places. Um but for me, the difference is so I had a pride flag in my yard and it was vandalized in the Netherlands, and that never happened in my more conservative community in Colorado. But the difference here is that there aren’t guns to go along with that hatred. And that to me makes me feel a lot safer. So that’s what I’ll say about for me, the lack of guns, even though there are a lot of the same problems, there’s a lot of divisiveness. As you mentioned, the government just fell because there’s a lot of divisiveness here. Um, just like in the US, just like in many other places, Poland just had an election and it was nearly 50-50. Also, you know, we keep seeing these very razor-thin margins in a lot of these elections. Um so it’s a worldwide issue.
SPEAKER_01:
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:
But when you take the guns out of the equation, it’s just not as scary. So, as you know, just this week, Jonathan Joss was murdered. Um, he was on King of the Hill and Parks and Wreck, and he was murdered in in front of his home in San Antonio in a hate crime. And my understanding is that it was an act of gun violence, and you know, he was trying to save his partner. Um and and it’s not that there aren’t hate crimes here, it’s not that there isn’t bias against people who are different in various ways. In fact, there is a lot of bias against that. There’s this saying in the Netherlands that the tall grass gets cut, you stand out, you know, and I think that goes back to like making all the the the dikes to hold the water back, you know. Um sorry to bring the word dyes into it right now, but that’s we need more dikes in the world.
David:
We love dikes in our lives. No, it’s funny. That that that is a like I I follow uh this account of this guy on YouTube who is an immigrant to the Netherlands and he talks about that all the time. Like there’s this culture of like you don’t stand out versus in the US, it’s like who can stand out the loudest and the best?
SPEAKER_00:
Right. So I kind of don’t like the don’t stand out culture. Um, but at the same time, you know, it’s just kind of part of a lot of the things that I do like, you know.
David:
So it’s absolutely the the the gun violence thing is like for sure will outweigh any of that shit. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:
And it’s not that they don’t have any guns here. You know, people do hunt, people have farm animals, you know, there are guns here. I even talked to an American who commute uh who immigrated here um and brought guns. Um so it’s not that they don’t exist at all. There’s just much, much more regulation on them.
David:
So before we let you go, I want to ask you one last question, which is when did you earn that parenting merit badge? When did everything go wrong with you as a parent? And you just thought, oh God, okay, I’m a mom now.
SPEAKER_00:
Okay, so I had to go way back. So I’ve been momming for 25 years now, but love it. Uh, I did remember an incident where um I was very lucky. My oldest didn’t get sick very often. So her first stomach bug was she was like three, and she was, you know, vomiting for several days, but it had been like 12 hours, and she had held food down, and I was like, I think we’re out of the woods, but I was not super I know better now. Um, my in-laws were in town and they wanted to take us out to dinner, and I was like, ooh, yay, we’re gonna go to Chewy’s, my favorite Mexican restaurant.
SPEAKER_01:
Love it.
SPEAKER_00:
So we go to Chewy’s.
SPEAKER_01:
Oh no.
SPEAKER_00:
And we’re sitting there, we’ve we’ve got our menus, and we’re about to order, we’ve got our water and ice tea and whatever. And the table next to us is singing happy birthday. And right as they finish, do you, my daughter, projectile vomits, the drinkable yogurt that she finished.
SPEAKER_01:
Oh no.
SPEAKER_00:
Oh, not the yogurt, like the pink, drinkable yogurt spews all over the floor, and like it was just like the cherry on top of their happy birthday song.
David:
We’re like, happy birthday, man.
SPEAKER_01:
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:
And my dear late father-in-law dropped like a large bill on the table as a tip, and just like we skedaddled out of there.
David:
I’m so sorry, but yeah, this is a good one.
SPEAKER_00:
So sorry now.
David:
It reminds me of us on here on the East Coast where we have that first warm day after the winter, and it’s 70 degrees, and everyone’s like, oh, we’re done. This is amazing. Everyone’s in shorts, everyone’s eating al fresco, and then it snows the next day. It’s the same thing. It’s like, no, we’re not quite out of the woods yet. Let’s not bring our daughter to the Mexican restaurant. Well, thank you so much for demeaning yourself by being on our stupid little podcast. I have been a fan of yours for years. I’ve been lucky enough to meet you in real life, and maybe one day we’ll be neighbors. But thank you so much for joining us.
SPEAKER_00:
Cool. Well, let me know if I can help you find a house.
Gavin:
Thanks so much, Darien.
SPEAKER_00:
Okay, of course.
Gavin:
I’m so proud of myself that I’m one, prepared with something great.
David:
Wow.
Gavin:
And two, it’s not just me being schmaltzy about my kids.
David:
Wow, okay.
Gavin:
There is an Instagram profile out there that in a world that is dark and sad, you just need oh in a world that is dark and sad, you just need some uh escapism of just sheer unbridled joy, right? Well, Daniel Middel, I believe he’s French because I’ve heard him speak a little bit and he definitely has a French accent. Um so it’s Daniel underscore Middel, M-I-D-D-E-L, is a man who hula hoops thrillingly to music and dresses up in not drag, but like gorilla drag. Gorilla drag gorilla drag. And all he does is hula hoop for an entire song. It’s not I mean, hey, anybody who can hula hoop for like three minutes straight, that is impressive. I can’t hula hoop for more than 15 seconds. So it’s not that it’s flashy or fancy, it’s just a man embracing unbridled joy of hula hoop and music and frivolity. And my something great is at Daniel underscore Middel. Um just check him out for just sheer um whimsy.
David:
Yeah, yeah. Um My Something Great this week is, you know, it is Pride Month. Um I’m sure a lot of you out there have been to many, many, many Pride activities and we’ll be going to many, many, many more. Um, we have local prides, we have state prides, we have national prides.
Gavin:
Well, I went not according to the president right now, actually. Um June was declared Title IX month. But anyway, I digress.
David:
Um so this past week we went to North Jersey Pride, which I know sounds like a very like narrow lane, but it is my favorite pride I’ve ever been to. Listen, there are bigger prides, there are smaller prides or whatever. What I love about North Jersey Pride, it’s in this big park that has a kind of a natural amphitheater. It’s like this big grass hill where everybody puts blankets down or whatever, and then they have a big stage where they do the normal things. But it is very family focused and not it, it’s just like there are, there’s like a, there’s obviously bounce houses and food trucks and stuff like that for kids. There’s like these kid art areas where you can paint rocks and all this stuff. They also have a kids’ foam party where they have this like foam cannon and the kids just fucking eat this shit up. They have, they have this, you know, I’m sure you’ve seen this in a national organization, but they have like mom hugs where they have these like tents or these women who say, like, I’ll be your mom, I’ll give you a mom hug, which is just like so devastatingly beautiful or whatever. Yeah. But I said to my husband, and I actually said to him, I was like, do not let Gavin hear me say this. And I said, There is something so beautiful about this space because it is, it sounds cliche to say, but it is so inclusive, this space. Like I look around and I see fucking beautiful, young, fit people, and then I see monsters, I see children, I see older people, I see clearly straight people who are dragged here by their straight girlfriends. Like I see everybody, and everybody naturally fits in. And that is, there’s just not a lot of places like that where you look at all of the sea of diversity and you’re like, yeah, everyone, everyone belongs here. And so I just, I just fucking love North Jersey Pride. The people who put it on do a really good job. And we always have a great time. We put a big blanket out, we get a bunch of trashy food, we listen to drag queens sing wicked. It’s it was just it was a great, great event. So North Jersey Pride, that is my something great. And that is our show. If you have any comment, suggestions, or general compliments, you can email us at Gatrearchspodcast at gmail.com.
Gavin:
Or you can DM us on Instagram. We are at Gatriarchspodcast. On the internet, David is at DavidFM VaughnEverywhere, and Gavin is at GavinLodge at Hexer Playground on Saturday between 9 and 12. Please leave us a glowing five-star review wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks, and we’ll disappear your toys next time on another episode of Gatriarchs.