Full Transcript
I’m I try to lower expectations as much as possible so I can delight and surprise with my humor. But most of the time, trust I’m just the tall one.
David:
And this is Gatriarchs.
Gavin:
So frequently I think about a really funny tweet that I read a couple years ago. And I don’t spend a lot of time on Twitter. I just feel like, well, one, it’s a time suck, obviously. And two, I um it’s a time suck. And three, it’s a time suck. But I do think that there’s an awful lot of intelligence out there. And I saw a tweet from this woman who was definitely like, I don’t know, 18, 19, 20, pre-kids. And she said, the tweet was, parenting looks so hard. It seems like you have to traumatize your kids just enough so that they end up funny. I think about that all the time because of the ways that, you know, there’s the term helicopter dad, and then there’s also the term like bulldozer dad, where we’re pushing everything out of the way to protect our kids in every single possible way so they possibly never will possibly meet any resistance, any discomfort, any challenges whatsoever. Meanwhile, at the same time, we do want them to be challenged, and we want them to be resilient. I resilience is something I think about almost as much as I think about gratitude, and you know I think about gratitude.
David:
Girl is gay for gratitude.
Gavin:
Yes, uh, yes, gay for gratitude and resilience. I am gay for resilience. And so I think about that tweet a lot. Whenever I’m whenever I am having to say to my kids, like, just buck up, kid. You just gotta deal with this a little bit. Or when we think about all the ways we’re trying to insulate our kids, like my older kid is in middle school now. They no longer have a dance because uh not because the kids were rowdy, but because they just ran around the entire time. It like literally sprinted through the hallways. So they were like, well, what’s the point of like dimming the lights and turning the music on when they just run through the hallways? They also don’t use lockers anymore. Be they have a locker that they can use in the morning and in the afternoon, but they can’t go to them in between classes because they said it was just too much friction causing. And then the uh third, they don’t have a student council anymore because it was just a popularity contest. Now, all of their logic makes perfect sense to me. Perfect sense. Especially, frankly, the student council and popularity contest, which just essentially hurts feelings, but also you gotta deal with hurt feelings in your life, right? And and you and I, I mean, I don’t know about you, I was never bullied. I wasn’t bullied in a 2023 sense of the word, I was bullied in a early 1990s sense of the word.
David:
So you were called faggot in the hallway.
Gavin:
And even though I dreaded going to school almost every single day of my probably sophomore year of high school, and seventh, seventh grade and sophomore year, I also pushed through, and every day wasn’t miserable, and I was I didn’t come home crying. I just kind of like had to take a deep breath before I went into the schools those days and be like, oh god, here we go. And not every day was terrible, but I pushed through and it made me who I am today. And I wouldn’t want to relive those years, but it made me who I am.
David:
But that’s the balance, right? That’s the balance you’re looking for, is that you wanna like, you want to give ja you want to sprinkle just enough trauma on top so they’re interesting and they’ve got a point of view and they’re funny, but not enough trauma to where they go over the edge. So it’s like it’s it’s the trauma cookie we’re trying to figure out of the balance of like how much trauma to sprinkle on top. Listen, I only attributed my funniness to being called faggot plenty in in middle school. So it’s like, how many faggots do we need to sprinkle to really create the ideal child? This is like a eugenic uh uh question. But but but that I think that’s the like the that’s the evergreen parent question, right? Is like I want my kids to fail. My kids have to fail to learn and to move forward, but like I don’t want my kid to break his arm, but I do want my kid to fall, but not to get too hurt, but to get hurt enough. I want, you know, I I struggle with this every day when like my kids like trying to get reaching for the the light and can’t get the light switch. I’m like, it would be so much easier for me to turn off the light. And I, it’s the same way like putting the the plate in the sink and all the little things that would just make my life a little bit easier. It’s just making it harder for him to learn how to do it better. But it’s annoying, it’s annoying to let your kids fail because you gotta hear them cry and whine, and that just that takes it out of me. But I get what you’re saying, which is like you gotta have a little bit of experience and failure to become a stronger person in the future, but that process fucking sucks for parents. It sucks.
Gavin:
Yeah, and if you don’t have any resilience and you have your entire life handed to you on a silver plate, you just basically end up being an asshole. Or like a basic, I don’t know, is the formula for the most popular kid on campus in high school and the the popular kid who then we like to joke will later be pumping gas because there’s nothing literally interesting about them. They haven’t had to work too hard, they haven’t had to overcome anything emotionally. So when they are challenged by something when they’re 19, 20, or 21, they literally don’t know how to deal with it.
David:
We all know the rich kids who learn that their their life lessons were very different than ours. So if those rich kids become unrich, right, shits creek, they don’t have those fucking skills to kind of manage the the stress, not only the literal financial stress of like paying rent, but like the social stress of what money means. So like it’s it’s not a defense of them, but like how could it’s like a celebrity who’s been a celebrity since they were 12? Like, how could they possibly have any idea of reality? Because they in their formative years they didn’t have any reality. And so what you’re saying, like helicopter parents or bulldozer parents or whatever, it it is a hard. I think all parents probably aim for that that perfect middle, but like we’re all just reliving our trauma from our childhoods or trying to repair that, right? We’re all trying to like be like, well, my parents did this, so I’m gonna try to do this. Yeah, but yeah, we’re all trying to find that perfect line of like, I’m gonna let you fall, but you’re not gonna die.
Gavin:
Yeah, well said.
David:
So, in way less interesting news, I I realized that it’s really important to have good parenting friends this weekend because we had friends over who were just like they brought their kids, they have two kids, we have two kids, they came over, we all go to daycare together, we live near each other, and uh we’re like, oh, let’s order pizzas, hang out, let the kids like trash the house, whatever. And uh my son doesn’t eat a ton of sugar. We try to like make him make him treats. Like, like, oh, you get a treat every other day or whatever. So he doesn’t eat a lot of sugar.
Gavin:
Not but not to the degree of his first uh birthday cake that was just a pile of shit.
David:
I’m gonna like when we have show notes, I’m gonna eventually put the photo of his first birthday party. It’s fucking fantastic. He’s sobbing because he his dad won’t let him have sugar. But no, like he gets to have sugar, but like we try to make it a treat and not like an everyday thing. So anyway, at daycare, and I don’t know if it’s our daycare if it’s all daycares, like every day is somebody’s birthday. Every day is a special day. Every day there’s fucking pudding and cakes and cookies and candies, and it is all it is nonstop. And I hate being the parent who’s like, Can we have a little less sugar? I just wanted to be a little more special. Anyway, the point is he had a ton of fucking sugar. He came home and he’s like, you know, Miss whoever gave me a bunch of this, and then I could and he goes, My tummy hurts. And I was like, Yeah, you ate too much sugar and let’s just relax. Well, that ended up being him projectile vomiting all over the kitchen rug. Um, and literally in front of these two parents while we’re eating pizza. And thank God, because we’re all in this like hyped up pandemic-y kind of fear of you know, disease and whatever. And thank God they just they were like, oh, poor baby, and do we need help? And they just kept eating their pizza and so chill. And it’s like so nice to have fellow parents who aren’t traumatized by a child throwing up brownish liquid all over the kitchen floor because they fucking get it. And if their kid had started puking on our floor, we’d be like, Oh, what do they need? Are they okay? We’re not gonna panic because we get it. Our friend Ellen also came over uh a couple weeks ago for dinner, and our daughter was just like, you could just see in her eyes, there was like that far-off look in her eyes, and you know, like, you’re gonna puke, aren’t you? And she just, while we’re all sitting at the table, she just green, like just terrible green liquid came out of her mouth, and she threw up. And it was just, she was like, Oh, do you need a tall gym? Like, it’s so nice to be in the safety net, and I hope that this podcast is for a lot of people, is like the safety net of like, we’re all in this terrible ride together. You don’t have to worry. You don’t have to worry about us. We get it. Kids puke, I’m not afraid. Hand me a slice of pepperoni.
Gavin:
But to take it to a judgmental uh realm, though, I would say anybody who thinks, oh, I can deal with my own kids’ poop, I can deal with my own kid’s vomit, but I can’t deal with yours. I want to be like, really? What made you so great? Because it’s pretty much all the same thing.
David:
I mean, I suppose germophobes out there, but Or also, I think also what comes into play is like puke is puke and shit and vomit all this stuff is not fun when it’s your own kid. It’s just not stressful, right? It’s not like, okay, well, it’s like whatever, we’re gonna clean up this whatever, but it’s not enjoyable. So when it’s another kid, I always say, like, that’s your fucking kid. Good luck with it. Yeah, like like it’s not that I’m turned off where I’m like, oh god, what’s going on, and that’s so disgusting. I’m just like, I don’t like cute cleaning puke. That’s your fucking kid. You clean it up. So anyway, RIP, the kitchen rug we had. That is that is now in the dump.
Gavin:
There was a time that I was having a uh an adult play date at the playground with a friend of mine who doesn’t have kids.
David:
Tell tell it, tell me slowly, tell me slowly.
Gavin:
There was nothing nefarious, and it was in full broad daylight.
David:
It was just like skip the story, just skip on ahead. Skip 30 seconds, everyone.
Gavin:
And he said, Um, hey, we haven’t seen each other forever. And I was like, Well, I’m just always at playground, so you can just like, do you mind coming to the playground? It’s just a couple blocks away from you. So this friend of mine who uh shows up, he is gay. He I doubt he’s listening to this, but John, this is dedicated to you. And um and he was he’s definitely like uh kids. I just don’t know what to do. I mean, oh my god, uh shit or vomited in front of him. Um, well, soon presented itself because my kid was not feeling very good. And I mean she was low key, but I didn’t think anything was happening, and then suddenly she just turned towards me looking white and barked in my lap. And my friend hopped up and hightailed it out of that playground so quickly. And it wasn’t, there was no, there was no sense of like, hey, do you need anything? Or it was very much like there was no tag, there was no, there was no nothing. It was like, I’m out of here, bye. And um, I definitely did not see him again for another couple of years.
David:
That’s my favorite part about ch children throwing up, is that not they don’t go, I think I have to throw up, and they like casually walk to the toilet and they get on their knees, like, no, no, no, no. They look towards you and they vomit in the most horrible way possible. I remember my the first time I remember my son actually throwing up, he he kept, and I felt bad. He kept wanting to like hug me, like he kept wanting to be on me, so whenever he’d feel like you throw up, he would walk towards me like this little vomity monster, and I would run away from him. And I felt horrible because I was like, I don’t want you to puke on me, but I but and he just so badly wanted to be held, and so you eventually just you just have to hold them covered in vomit. Listen, for those of you who are aspiring parents, this is it. We’re giving you the actual tea. If you can handle a child throwing up directly into your lap, you got this parenting thing.
Gavin:
And she said, I have a lot of empathy for people, and I’m like, Really? Because you’re a monster asshole to me. But I did not say that out loud. I was like, and I know that she’s an empathetic kid. And she said, you know what? I have empathy for every also I didn’t realize that she frankly knew the term uh or the definition of empathy, and frankly, it might be a little questionable still. And frankly, I think a lot of adults don’t even know what empathy means or the difference between empathy and sympathy. But anyway, I’ll get off my grammatical high horse. She uh said, I think even my stuffed animals have feelings, and so I don’t want to get rid of them because I feel bad, even if I don’t want to hold on to them. Which has forced us to have to steal away in the middle of the night or while she’s at school one toy at a time and just disappear it. And she never asks, and she she completely forgets about it, or if she does once in a while say, Hey, hey, where was that pink bear? I’ll be like, I don’t know, and then she’s on to something else anyway. But I have to admit, when I look at their little stuffed animal faces in the trash, a little part of me dies too.
David:
It’s very Toy Story, and it reminds me of like, you know, like you’re you’re you’re basically becoming like the Greek mafia, just like disappearing people at night. And I say Greek mafia not to be offensive because I used to live in a I used to live in Astoria Queens, which is very, very Greek at the time, and now it’s just like young actors. But at the time it was very Greek, and I was at this cafe, and at the cafe, there was this, I’m gonna say, gentleman experiencing homelessness person who kept coming into the cafe and was like, you know, yelling whatever. And this like older Greek woman who was running the front counter was not having any of it. She would come out, she’d scream at him, she would push him out the door, she like had a broom, she would like shove him out the door. It’s fantastic. So he did this two times. He did it a third time, he comes back in, she starts yelling at him, she pushes him out the door, and I’m ready to help, but this bitch has it together. She is uh fearless. Well, she gets on the phone and I’m like, oh shit, she’s calling the cops or whatever. Gavin, four minutes later, a black SUV pulls up and like four, I swear to god, I’m not, I’m not lying, four guys in like suits come out of the car calmly, they walk around the corner where the guy was standing, they put their arm around him, and they walked around the corner. That man was always in our neighborhood. I never saw him again. Now I’m not saying that they they disappeared him like your your your daughter’s toys, but I’m not I’m saying I never saw this guy again. And she made one phone call and an SUV pulled up. Holy shit. But so the thing that I maybe drives me the most insane about my kids’ toys, and then maybe you can understand this, are the kids’ toys where they make a lot of noise, right? And you’re like, that’s annoying in general. So you’re like, great, I’m gonna turn it off. I’m gonna switch that that switch to the dog guitar, I’m gonna turn it off so it doesn’t do anything anymore. But what does it do? It goes, dee dee dee dee dee, bye-bye, come play with us again sometime. It has a whole fucking parting message. No way. And I’m like, no, no, no, because what happens is usually somebody’s sleeping. I’m trying to sneak the toy away. So when I turn off, I just want you to stop talking. I don’t want any more conversation. But so many of these toys have like an off message to be like, oh, I guess we’ll have to play another time. Remember, I’m like, this is a monologue I don’t need to hear. We got it. So that makes me crazy because it’s usually me trying to sneak away and make a toy disappear, and then immediately I’m caught.
Gavin:
Not to mention the fact that that is utter and complete mind manipulation with the kids because you know that’s a sense of I’m leaving, I’m abandoning you now. And no kids wants to be abandoned. And so whether or not they’re asleep or awake, they think, oh, wait a minute, no, no, no, don’t get rid of that. Even though they haven’t touched it in three days and you’ve been tripping over it. That infuriates me as well. And also, it’s just we don’t need the goodbye. And you are not a sentient being, you don’t even know what goodbye means. Not turning the fuck off.
David:
Not yet. True. So, Gavin, let’s talk about our top three list. You chose this week’s list. What is our list this week?
Gavin:
Uh, we are thinking about three movies that actually teach you something about parenting. Maybe it’s the right thing, maybe it’s the wrong thing, but three things that teach you about parenting. Have you thought about this?
David:
I I have, and I I don’t know if I did this list correctly, but I there is no there is no right or wrong, my friend.
Gavin:
Okay, there is no right or wrong.
David:
So um, I’ll go first. So uh in in third for me is finding Nemo. Now, what I feel like I learned in finding Nemo was what we were just talking about earlier, which is like you have to let your kids fail, and you have to let them try something that could likely end up in failure. Now, obviously, you don’t want them to be to be killed or to be taken by some crazy girl for her fish tank, but finding Nemo is letting your children make their own mistakes. You know, the turtles, as silly as it sounds, are kind of the inverse of what Nemo’s dad does, right? The turtles are like, You got it, dude. You go for it. I believe in you, right? Um, number three, finding Nemo. Number two, big fish.
Gavin:
Oh, you’re gonna have to remind me.
David:
Well, big fish reminded uh is I feel like a lesson in the other way around is about learning that your parents are real people. They’re fallible people, they have their own lives, they have their own reasons for lying and making things up. So I feel like Big Fish was very influential in kind of learning, you know, that point we all get to, I feel like in our late 20s, early 30s, where we see our parents suddenly as people who had kids and not parents. Um and number one, and this is a little I didn’t really learn about parenting, it more is the absolute perfect representation of what I am as a parent. Christmas vacation. Oh now, Christmas vacation I choose because I am Clark Griswold. I have this romantic ideal of the perfect Christmas, the perfect family Christmas, sitting around the campfire, singing songs, drinking hot chocolate, and it’s never the case. It always ends in chaos, but that hope, that dream of the perfect romantic family kind of vision of Christmas, I am so connected with. And to me, that is like the most it’s it’s it’s so me on screen. So number one, Christmas vacation. What about you?
Gavin:
I took my own tack on this as well, and sometimes it’s about the experience of watching something together as a family and something I learn and take a lesson with me. Number three, a dog’s purpose. My kids love the movie. I have watched it multiple times with them. I cry every single time.
David:
I’ve never seen it. I gotta assume that like somebody takes a shotgun to this poor dog.
Gavin:
To multiple dogs. Wow. Multiple dogs get basically shotgunned. Kevin, you showed your children this? And well, you know what? You’ve got to learn some sad realities about life, dude. Just the right amount of trauma. So they’ll end up funny, remember?
David:
Bringing it back.
Gavin:
So in a dog’s purpose, I cried, they cried. I think them seeing my emotion is helpful. I think uh learning lessons about disappointment and that dogs do die, and being able to reference that when they’re sad is an important parenting tool. So it’s a also it’s a really good movie. Number two, I jealous of grandparents who get to just throw off all caution to the wind and just be the ones to say, go follow your passion, go chase the rainbows, go do this, that, and the other. Meanwhile, the parents have to be in reality and get the divers changed and food fet food on the table and make sure the kids don’t, you know, stab themselves with pencils when they’re running downstairs. But I really love the grandfather in Little Miss Sunshine, who encourages the girl to just be her fabulous self in the beauty pageant, and she and he tells the uh teenage boy, have lots of sex. And I think that’s an okay thing to say, um, I suppose from a grandparent, maybe from a parent at the age appropriate time. But that movie teaches me about how often I get stuck in the and mired in the just like the day to day technicalities of parenting. And I would love to throw a little more caution to the wind, and we all need to let our kids jump in rain puddles more often.
David:
I I also wish grandparents would have a little dose of reality about the hell like, can we have chocolate anytime? Let them let them let them jump or whatever. But I want to say here and now, when I’m a grandparent, I’m not doing that. I’m not changing the the way this works. I’m gonna be the grandparent who gives g tells the kid to have sex and to give him candy. Yeah, I’m that I’m saying I am not going to improve this whatsoever. And then number one, guess what?
unknown:
Mark Griswold.
David:
Crossover! Yes.
Gavin:
I I I admit, you know, he’s a punchline, he’s a joke, but you love him and he loves his kids and he creates magic for his kids all the time.
David:
He just wants the perfect family experience. He just and he tries so hard and he fails all the time. And if that’s not parenting, what is?
Gavin:
But he creates memories along the path, and you know, by the end they’re all happy and they love each other. And yes, that is the you gotta put some effort into stuff. And I uh I think Clark I admire the effort that Clark Griswold puts into creating magic for his family. We are so lucky to be joined by our friend in yours, Jamie Grayson, who is sometimes better known as uh baby guy, NYC. And he came to New York City as an actor, much like David and I did um just a few years ago. And then he found his niche in a lot of different other areas, and he is proving time and again in the baby industrial complex that who does it better, who’s more tenacious or creative or determined or entertaining than a good ol’ actor. Jamie, thank you for joining us.
David:
Howdy. Wait, you’d oh, why didn’t you mention that he was the toilet paper refill boy at Chelsea Studios? Because I think that should go at the top of the resume.
Gavin:
It’s in my bio on TikTok. Toilet paper boy at Chelsea.
Gavin:
Well, thank goodness. I mean, that that that um you know, when you have those nerves going in an audition situation, you do need uh toilet paper right there.
Gavin:
In high school, we used to call it dramaria. Whenever we had a tournament or you had uh a show, we’re like, is everybody has everybody’s dramaria? Because it’s real.
Gavin:
It’s so true. It’s so true. It’s not just gasous, it is uh it is sometimes well more solid than that.
David:
But uh I want you to know that I’m gonna take Dramaria and I’m gonna keep that right here for the rest of my life.
Gavin:
It’s it’s a nugget of wisdom I like to pass on to the people.
Gavin:
So So, Jamie, you have so many different perspectives and so much experience, but I I think it probably is a good idea to just say, um, what do you do and how do you explain it to folks?
Gavin:
Ha ha. Um, that’s not easy. Uh, but the the short and sweet of it is 18 years ago I took a survival job at Bye Bye Baby when I got off tour. And that morphed. I was there four and a half years, worked at a birth education center for a year, quit my job there. The day after I quit, I was in New York magazine as the best baby gear expert in the city. And then that led to a lot of TV and stuff like that, but I was broke and had no job. So I slowly figured out how to make a living, and that was working privately as a consultant with brands, and I would fly to like Bugaboo’s headquarters in Amsterdam and train them on their competitors. Um, and then I started doing speaking engagements um with several different organizations. Uh obviously, COVID had its plans with that, and they slowly started picking up again last year. Um, but I I have about a million followers across all my channels, and it’s just a lot of a lot of social media um and the public stuff. But I work in baby gear, I’m a child passenger safety technician, um, and sassy southern homosexual.
David:
Yes, that’s I mean, that you should always lead with that, honestly. I’m also a sassy southern individual. Where in the South did you grow up?
Gavin:
Well, I grew up in the magical land of Little Rock, Arkansas. What about you?
David:
Ooh, honey, that’s that’s the real rural south. Now, I come from a different kind of south. I came from rural Florida, which is a little yours is a little more like banjo by the river, and mine’s a little more like meth lab by the orange groove. Yeah. But it’s this, but what but we’re still Ken.
Gavin:
We are we are.
David:
I went to church with Bill Clinton growing up, so it was very I would say like you nobody ever understands I’m from the South until like either I’m drinking or I’m talking on the phone with one of my relatives who’s still there, and all of a sudden I’m like, y’all go in the store now? And they’re like, who are you talking? What is that voice? Yeah.
Gavin:
So um you said that it’s a lot of social media. I’m curious, how many days a year do you spend on the road? And then also, maybe more interesting, how many minutes a day do you spend on your phone?
Gavin:
Uh in the height of my speaking gigs back before I was like monetizing social, I the most speaking I ever did in one year, I had 49 speaking events, um, which was nuts. And that’s not a healthy or um maintainable lifestyle, as it turns out. You can’t sustain that. Um so now I do uh around 20 speaking gigs a year is my average. Um, even for this year coming up. Like I have 12 with one event, and I have trade show stuff. Um, but that means, you know, probably I spent about a month and a half, two months on the road just for work purposes. Uh in terms of my screen time. It’s bad. That weekly report is not cute. It’s not cute. The limit does not exist. It um it is it’s hideous, actually, and also gross. But you enjoy it? I do. I do. Um the the hard thing about social media, I think, is it it creates it’s made my anxiety so much worse. Because you always it’s like you have to be on and you have to get this kind of engagement and you have to get this, and like this is how you make your money, and blah, blah, blah. And I just stopped caring, to be honest. It really helps if I’m like, all I can do is put my work out there into the ether. I can do my best to help it reach people, whatever. If people engage with it, great, but it’s out of my hands at that point. And you know, I’ve turned my notifications off on my phone. I don’t, there’s I have a little list of rules about what I will respond to and what I won’t, but it’s a you spend a lot of time online.
David:
You’re in an interesting industry because I feel like your industry is very much like the wedding industry, where there is a need for what you do, there is a need for your products, but it’s surrounded by garbage. It’s surrounded by people preying on the kind of emotional, right? Like uh uh funeral homes are the same way where like there is a strong emotion when you were having a kid. So we all think we have to buy all the things, and companies know that, right? But it is not inherently a bad, you know, you’re not in a bad industry. It’s just you’re in an industry that’s also full of people preying on that stuff. Is there how do you kind of cut through some of the noise with like the the fact that there is need for what you do and the stuff that you create?
Gavin:
Um, you know, it as much as I’m into like the the noise of all the products and like the products are for the most part all fun and the people are fine, you really don’t need that much stuff with a baby. Because in the beginning, in theory, all they’re gonna be doing is sleeping and eating and pooping, and literally that that’s it.
David:
That’s all they do.
Gavin:
And as long as they have a place to sleep, something to poop in, a way to get food in their body, and like you have a car seat, you’re you’re pretty good. Um, and it’s all the other stuff, like all the clothing, all the stupid baby toys that they don’t really need in the beginning. Um you know, there there is a lot of stuff. And I will gladly talk to people about it. But I’m like, even though I have a bunch of crap in my apartment, I am very much a minimalist. Like, I don’t buy things. Um, so it’s just about kind of navigating like what it what is your lifestyle doing and what you know, how much space do you have?
David:
That’s what I love. That was my favorite part about ha not my favorite part, forgive me, but one of my favorite things about having a second kid was I got to do I did the thing that every single first parent uh time parent does is right right before the kid is born, they do two things. They say, I’m not gonna be one of those families with a bunch of shit in their house, and then they buy all the shit, right? They realize, well, we need the bottle warmer, and we need the upstairs bottle warmer, and we need the downstairs, which you know, so I we were gonna be like not that, and then we were that, right? And then when we had the experience and we realized what you just said, which is we’re like, they just literally need a safe place to sleep, and they need this a bottle, and they need uh you you to wipe their butt. Yep. End of list, no more. Um, I got to do that with the second one, and I got to live what I wish I had done with the first time, but I just physically couldn’t because I didn’t know and I wasn’t there. And we were in a hotel when our daughter was born, um, and we had to stay a night with her before our flight the next day, and um she slept in the fucking drawer.
unknown:
Yeah.
David:
She slept in the drawer. Did I buy a bassinet for the one night? No, she’s I opened a chest drawer, I put it on the ground, I put blankets in it, and she fucking slept. I have a great picture on my Instagram about it, but like I would never have ever in a million years done that with a first kid. Never. I but one thing we was somebody had told us, and thank god I listened, was they were like, do not do a bottle warmer and do not do a wipes warmer. Let them get used to it cold from day one. Cold refrigerator milk and cold wipes on their ass. Because yeah, they’ll it’ll be a little annoying for a couple days, but then they’re used to it. It’s invigorating. And you’re at the mall. It’s invigorating. So good. But it’s so true. Like, I know some people are slave to the perfect temperature of that milk and a warm wipe, and I’m like, no, thanks. My kids have had ice cold wipes on their ass since day one, and they’re used to it.
Gavin:
Yep. My kid actually had ice cubes in her milk one time, and I was like, whoops, and her eyes got real big. But Jamie, are you able to tell people that or steer?
Gavin:
Oh, absolutely I am. But do people listen to you? Oh, yeah, they do. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. I mean, I I do polls. I’m like, what is the one baby product that you bought that you wish you never had or wish you could return? And with without fail, it’s always warmers of all kinds. Because even if you feel you need to warm something up, we have these things in our houses called stoves. And you can warm up a little bit of water and just put the bottle in to warm it up a little bit, and you don’t have to deal with it. Like, you just can’t.
David:
For those of you out there who don’t have stoves, please don’t take offense to Jamie. He means no harm.
Gavin:
No, you can get a you can get a hot plate. Um, but no, there’s no need. And like the wipe warmers, like if your wipes are super cold and your baby is shaking a fist, you put them in your hands and you just warm them up with your hand temperature a little bit. Like, they’re stupid.
Gavin:
You just saved everybody’s$52 and 99 cents. Um, would you rather work with well it’s kind of like the wedding industry, like um David was just asking, you would you’re also dealing with people who care very deeply and are very anxious because they’re going into a world that they don’t understand, they’re scared of, et cetera, et cetera. There must be an awful lot of therapy you do to calm people down.
Gavin:
I I noticed back when I was still working at Bye Bye Baby, the women cry a lot. And they would you walk down the stairs in that store, and you’re just hit in the face with like a wall of car seats and stuff, and you don’t know what you’re looking at, and the women would completely break down. And I realized there was something about what I did that was like I was like the little southern gay best friend that all these women wanted and didn’t have. And I was like, oh, I can kind of work this angle and not really like milk it, but kind of milk it at the same time. Totally. So I was I was like, oh, I’m just like your little gay. Like, let’s have a conversation. And I mean, this was, you know, almost 20 years ago. So I think I would definitely handle it a little differently now. But it’s just about like listening to people. And if they gotta they, if they have to rant, like so be it. Uh, I have been cried on many times.
David:
I mean, probably at Chelsea Studios as well. You’ve been cried on.
Gavin:
You know what? There’s a reason they need that extra toilet paper in the bathroom. Lots of times. Lots of broken dreams in those hallways. Broken dreams and broken capezios. Um split soul, kitten heel.
David:
Yes. So with with that, so I I have my we all as parents, I think, like to, when somebody is kind of behind us, you know, they have a kid a year younger or they have a kid coming. We all like to be the you know, the gurus and like, here’s what you really need to know. And one of the things I do is like I I love to give as a gift like the one or two things that are the only things that ever work for me. And the rule I always say is that there you’re gonna have a bunch of shit, and really only one thing is gonna work for you, and you’re gonna give that to your net friend, and it’s not gonna work for them. Yeah. So do you have a I know for me it’s the um it’s a nail trimmer, it’s like a little nail file that just spins.
Gavin:
The Buzzby Bizoli.
David:
It’s it’s it’s a different brand. I think it’s an A, but it’s exactly that. It’s right, it’s that’s the that that’s my gift that I give to people. But is there a thing like that where you like this is one item that I always recommend to people? What is it?
Gavin:
If I’m going to a baby shower, I will always buy a specific baby bathtub that’s made by Stoker, the flexi bath, and I use it to hold stuff. And I will do a couple love to dream swaddle-ups, I do um Uncle Goose wooden blocks and a couple books. Like, I’m not into like it’s simple stuff. Yeah, and I love a wooden block. I love a wooden block, I love a book. The kids need to learn to read.
Gavin:
Some of the best um parenting advice I ever got from somebody was to make sure that there was a drawer in my kitchen um that was accessible for the kids and put Tupperware in it. Lids. Yeah. And the Tupperware acts as blocks that they can stack, and they love the lids.
David:
That has saved my life so many times.
Gavin:
I told somebody at the when they came to the first our first birthday party, um, because of course we made that a blowout affair, as we all do, and it’s so fucking stupid. But um, and I told some friends, just bring some Tupperware, and they were like, I’m not buying Tupperware for your kid. And I’m like, well, I mean, honestly, you could save a lot of money and do that. But so, Jamie, would you what is the difference working with gay dads to be?
Gavin:
I don’t know if there really is a huge difference. Um I mean, this is a whole other discussion that I could go on a rant on for hours. Rant, you got the thing. I do think there is something, and not not to sound stereotypical, but I will. Do it.
David:
Oh, please generalize We love generalizations and stereotypes here.
Gavin:
The the gay dad community is more, in my experience, in my opinion. I M H O um more inclined to use their children as content online. And there are lots of, you know, dual mom ac dual mom accounts, like all kinds of things. And some will they’ll they’re typically pretty, just chill with like, these are our kids, they’re beautiful, we love them. But there’s something, and this is not like they’re having babies to be performative and like whatever, but there’s something about the a lot of gay dads on Instagram, and when they finally have kids, they start doing like too many TikTok dances with their children and all this stuff. And I just have a problem in general with children being used as content, like they didn’t agree to this. Uh, and it’s something I learned over the years with my own nieces and nephews, because I have seven of them that are 13 and under. And, you know, as part of my job, I would use children to be like, they fit in this car seat. Well, like it’s how I test stuff, it’s very different. But when you’re using kids to get views and monetize that, I I have a serious problem.
David:
I wonder if some of that is like we had we talked a little bit last week about how my perception of gay parents is generally they are more affluent than straight parents. And I’m like, why? And I think it’s become I imagine it’s because that there’s a gatekeeping quality to like for gay men to have a child is usually it’s a it’s a very expensive. Yes. So if they’ve had a child, there’s maybe more money there. So I wonder if that plays into that a little bit too, where like they have the time. Because I think about those, I see that I know exactly the accounts you’re talking about, and I think about those dads, and I think that took hours for you to conceive to to build the props, to light, to have so who is what who is taking the kids who are sobbing, who is maybe when are you parenting? When are you parenting? So I’m wondering if like part of that is because like they have a staff, they have nannies or or or families or or or night nurses and those kind of things. That’s being a little shitty to them, but I I do wonder about that because I always come back to money in my head for because it’s such a insanely expensive process that you either dead broke afterwards or that’s just a dip in, you know, that’s nothing, right? Yeah. Um, so I I wonder if that plays into that at all.
Gavin:
Before they become parents, when um are do you I mean, as you chatted about often having people cry on your shoulder, what is it the the the preparation factor for gay dads versus moms or straight dads? Or is it kind of the same, like I don’t know what I’m doing, just tell me what to do.
Gavin:
Most of the time people just don’t know what they’re doing, period. I I really don’t think in terms of the prep work for product in like car seats and stuff like that, there’s no real difference. Um, I do think, you know, and this is also a different discussion, when people start feeling like they have to spend a thousand dollars on this roller or two thousand dollars on this, and they’re buying, you know, these crazy handbags and stuff, like it’s not you’re it’s almost like you’re you’re keeping up, you know, you know what I mean. But it’s like yeah, the it’s the keeping up with uh the the Joneses kind of approach to product. And you you don’t need to always buy product that is a status symbol.
David:
Yeah, your stuff just has to work. But I think that because that plays into a little bit like who’s doing the parenting, right? For for me and my husband, we we uh unfortunately we don’t have family near. So like we’re it, like we have babysitters, which is lovely, but like we’re we’re it. So like we are in the trenches and we’re the ones who are having to deal with all that stuff. So we learn that lesson very quickly. But I wonder if I had a full-time nanny or if I had something like that, if I wouldn’t that’s the bag being functional first wouldn’t matter as much to me. Yeah, you know, because right now I’m like it it has to have a side pocket that I can quickly throw a bottle in. I don’t I cannot unzip something. I I don’t have a hand to unzip. Can it just pop into the little thing? Um, but I wonder if like if I’m not doing that every day, maybe it doesn’t matter as much to me.
Gavin:
When I when I when I first started at Buy By Baby, this is this is one of the infamous stories I have in my life. I did not know anything. And this woman came up and it was like eight o’clock at night, and the store closes at nine, and I was getting off the clock, and she’s like, I need help. And I was like, What? And she’s like, I’m having a C-section at 6 30 in the morning and I haven’t bought anything yet. And I was like, Excuse me? Uh she’s like, I guess I need like diapers and stuff like this, and she was pretty rude. And I also, you know, that’s amazing, trying to lead with empathy and holding space and all of that. I’m like, you know, maybe she was just really stressed out and she put a wall up, but that’s also her fault because she didn’t plan. So I walked her around the store for like an hour and was trying to be very chill and walk her through everything. And she’s like, I don’t even, I don’t even know how to use this stuff. It’s all gonna be delivered to my house in the Hamptons. I have a nurse. And I was like, You’re you’re giving birth to a handbag. Yeah, totally because all your friends are having babies. And it and it happened, it happened a lot in New York. And I it always kind of blew my mind like people would spend more time planning for their vacations than like really doing research into what they needed in terms of baby products and even just like taking childbirth classes and breastfeeding classes, and like but you’ll spend like six or seven months like planning a trip to Turks and Caicos school, like yikes.
David:
So that is not us or this podcast. We are talking we we were just before you joined talking about puke and and vomit. So it’s cool.
Gavin:
Also, I wish I had the money to just uh fly up to Turks and Caicos tomorrow, but at the same time, I would have I would. Change anything about my parenting journey, Frank. Oh, I would in a second.
David:
If I was rich enough to ignore my kids, bye. See you later. Good luck. See you when you’re 18. Yeah. Oh, that’s a dream. Dream.
Gavin:
Thank you for keeping it real, David. Thank you for keeping it real. So, Jamie, a slight change back to social media in a way. One of the things I admire so much about you is you have never compromised your principles, values, or beliefs because somebody clapped at you, either in person or online. And I think that you have probably had to deal with a lot of homophobia and mocking, and how how on earth do you know how to take care of kids? You’re a single gay man. What would you know? And to your credit, and also may I say, please back me up, or don’t, or uh um uh contradict me on this if if it’s not true. I feel like the companies have stayed by you as well, it seems to me, as you’re like, oh no, don’t come after me. I will cut a bitch, and also I do know what I’m talking about. And I mean, part I would love to hear you just monologue about this, but also I want to hear some of the most ridiculous homophobic bullshit that you’ve had to um to slap down.
Gavin:
Let me let me time travel backward. Take us back, Sophia. It’s a couple years now, and it I was brought to my attention that a certain sleep expert in my industry had donated to Trump. So I looked up, and I never followed her anyway because she gave me bad energy. I was just like, something’s not quite right here. And that’s what I looked her up. She and her pediatrician husband donated to Trump even after he lost the election. And so I took screenshots off the FEC website, which are free to the people, and put them on the internet. This grew up. I got covered in Breitbart, I got covered Newsmax, OAN, I got covered in. Oh, it was Bart. Oh, it came for you to do it. This I think this is a really, it’s an interesting situation because all I did was say she, I never said anything about her character, even though it’s just repurposed fervor and she’s preying on tired parents. You could get this information for free. I said nothing about her. And then for probably two and a half months, I did not check my messages. Lainey, my coworker and like sister and dear friend, was in charge of going through my messages because every single social platform I had, every single email I had was nothing but people calling me a pedophile because I’m gay. And it was it was thousands and thousands and thousands of messages. And I said, I said nothing about her. I wasn’t like, well, she’s a bitch and she’s doing all this. I was like, she donated money to Trump. And I believe as a consumer, we need to know where our money is going and who we’re supporting. And I I still have no qualms in calling people out. I’m still very vocal. And I think what people don’t understand is like parenting is political. And it’s how you raise your parent, your kids, like what um values you instill in them. And it it trickles down. And if you’re not raising smart, you know, thoughtful children with a critical lens, like we’re screwed.
David:
Well, I think that the problem is that people think that people like to peep privileged people like to like laugh and be like, oh, it’s just politics, as if it doesn’t affect them, because it kind of doesn’t. But for us as gay parents, we had this conversation a couple weeks ago with an attorney. We have to think differently than straight people when it comes to creating our families. We can’t just get pregnant in a Chick-fil-A parking lot and then we have a kid and it’s fine legally. We have we have to do so many fucking hoops and all of that with this like weird social thing that you were just talking about, where like there’s this like, are you pedophile? Are you a pedophile because you just want to have kids kind of vibe to it? There’s so many other pressures on us as gay men that are political, that involve laws and congress people, and and it it is so easy. I’ve had so many people tell me, like, oh, just ignore the haters. I can’t, for the safety of my family, I cannot ignore the haters. Those haters vote and they have money and they can affect laws which can affect my family and my life.
Gavin:
And it’s it is it does definitely come from a place of privilege, and it’s one of the reasons that you know you’re both gay white guys like I am, and it’s this strange place to be in. And you ride this place of privilege, but it’s also you’re also a minority. And it’s like the intersectionality of that, and like how do we how do we navigate this and use it, which is why I use my platform like I do. You know, it’s I will always lift up minorities. I always call companies out. And like, you know, one of the things I try to do whenever I’m meeting with brands and talking about how we’re gonna work together, we we dig pretty deep into how companies operate. Because for me to work with a company, their product has to be good, but they also have to have good corporate culture and you know, representation and a varied workplace. And if they don’t have that, it kind of I don’t really have an interest in working with them. Um, and I I go so far as to look up, because one of the things on the FEC website you can do is look up donations by who their employer is.
Gavin:
Oh, yes, you can.
Gavin:
So I can look up companies and be like, oh, you’re president, you’re head of sales, you’re head of marketing, you’re head of this, all donated to the orange Cheeto. And it is, it’s one of these things, like, even though it’s not an official corporate donation, it tells me who I’m working with, and I don’t necessarily want to.
David:
Do you prioritize um diversity and age for some to represent Gavin um to make sure that older people are represented? Um I appreciate that.
Gavin:
It’s very important. It’s important to respect our elders.
David:
Yes, yeah. You know, you’d be poor Gavin. He’s like five years older than me, and I just shit all over him.
Gavin:
Gavin Gavin was there at Stonewall, and we don’t talk about this enough.
David:
We don’t talk about the stonewall. He didn’t him and his ancestors built that stone wall. No.
Gavin:
Don’t you uh am I not the grand the guilt that you all aspire to be someday? You’re well for setting a very high bar. Very high bar. Have any of the um companies ever tried to censor you at all?
Gavin:
Absolutely, yes. Absolutely. And if they do, I won’t work with them. It it is it is a hard and fast line. It’s on our website, it is in all of our contracts, like it’s in my media kit as like these are our ethics and our standards as to how we operate. If we’re not in alignment, you can go work with someone else. We we have a line in the sand.
Gavin:
So you see a lot of uh terrible behavior and a lot of great inspiring behavior. Does your job make you um optimistic about humanity or disgusted by humanity?
Gavin:
Um both. There’s honestly, there’s there’s no easy answer to that because there’s such, you know, there are wonderful things about you know being involved with people and it’s nuts. I had a I had a woman now that my TikTok is starting to pick up, I had a woman write me and she’s like, You were so instrumental to me as a new mother. And now, like, I love this younger generation is on TikTok and they’re gonna have access to your information. And I think about like, you know, you will affect our grandchildren. And when it goes into that kind of like generational stuff, and I think about all the families that I’ve been involved with, either in person or virtual, it’s abs it’s mind-blowing to me. Um, but then you also see a lot of chaos. You see a lot of chaos on the internet because I can never turn it off. And it’s it’s whether people are doing it because they think it’s like a cool thing or it’s just gonna get them a lot of clicks on the internet. Like there’s a there’s the internet is chaos.
Gavin:
Um, Jamie, is your job a dude repellent or a dude magnet?
Gavin:
What do you think?
Gavin:
I’m not really sure.
Gavin:
As I sit here with a giant picture of a cat on my wall. Um I the the dating side of this is problematic for multiple reasons. Um I it’s very hard to explain what I do just in general. And normally when I go on dates, I don’t tell guys what I do for the first three or four because it’s very easy to look me up. Like I’m very Googleable or whatever the word is. But it’s it is a deterrent for a lot of people because people just they don’t get they can’t wrap their head around it. And there was actually a book that I have assigned a copy of, thank you, uh, of this guy in New York who you might know. He wrote a book about guys he’d been intimate with, let’s just say. And in this book, he might talk about, and then there was the guy uptown who reviewed a baby gear for a living, and he met me at the door. We had mint juleps, and I’d never wanted to be carried around in a baby bjorn more in my life. And I I don’t even know how I found out about it, but friends, mutual friends, started writing, and they were like, Is this you that he’s talking about? I was like, What other homosexual do you know that has an apartment full of strollers?
David:
But also uh the angle I can’t get over is the mint julep part of it. Why did you skip right over to the phone? I love mint juleps. I that is that is that says honestly everything I need to know, honestly. That you need a you need a nice mint julep before a little romantic. But wait, are you so do you are kids something that you want in your future, or are you you don’t want kids?
Gavin:
I I go back and forth. I always wanted kids, and I, you know, I have a lot of nieces and nephews. Um but as I get older, and I know it’s still very possible for me to have children, uh, with my work schedule and what I have to do, I don’t know, I don’t know anymore. And, you know, it’s if my role is to be the gunkle of the internet and just like a very good uncle to my nieces and nephews and my friends’ kids, great. Um, but I personally don’t know if I can maintain the work that I do at the level I do with having an infinite 50.
David:
I was thinking about you as like dating, and I was like, I bet the one guy that probably is turned on by your job is the person who wants to be a dad someday. And he’s like, Oh, this guy has like an inside track. And there’s probably lots of those.
Gavin:
Yeah, but they’re but I’m also just the travel makes dating very difficult anyway. And you know, even right now, I’m like, oh, I just got back home. I was gone for a month, and I’m like, I could like try to go on a date or two, but then it’s like I mean, starting mid-March, I’m basically traveling non-stop until October. And I’m just like, well, here we go, another year, single, thriving, you know. Um, but it it’s that that’s the that’s the part that kind of sucks.
David:
Yeah, I mean, you just you just gotta have you gotta up your mint juleup stock, honestly, because that’s that is the key to finding.
Gavin:
It is the secret. Always have the simple syrup on hand.
Gavin:
And always muddle your mint, I imagine. No, no, no.
Gavin:
I do it very different. I do it very different. Whenever I make the simple syrup, I put the mint leaves in that so the oils like diffuse into the simple syrup, and then you strain the leaves out. So then you have a jar of simple syrup in your fridge, and you can just and it’s mint, and you can use that as needed.
David:
And this poor trait is just standing at your door being like, Are we gonna fuck or not? And you’re like, I’m sorry, I’m I’m just I’m still straining the mint from the floor.
Gavin:
Just like I’m busy, I’m busy.
David:
And that trait is just like, all right, I guess I’ll wait.
Gavin:
Jamie, thank you so much for entertaining us. And also, may I say, and you touched upon this, um, you are helping make the world a better place for our kids and for all of our society, and you’re doing a tremendous job of doing so. And please keep never shut up.
Gavin:
I never will. Don’t worry about that.
Gavin:
So, what’s something great that’s just happened to you recently?
David:
So, this is super cheesy, but um so my my husband uh reading is very important to him. His his mom is was a reading teacher, so like my kids have loved books since they were little. I guess they’re still little. Anyway, at some point you you put them in your lap enough and you open a book enough, they start to kind of connect the two, and when they want to read a book, they start to crawl on your lap with a book. And holy shit, is that one of those like parenting feelings that I didn’t expect to be so wonderful? And so my son does that, and now he’s a little older, so it’s it’s less whatever. But now my daughter, my one-year-old, just started grabbing a book, walking up to you, and just turning right around and plopping right in your lap. And that is just fucking great. It’s not something great, it’s fucking great.
Gavin:
Um, something great about me also is you just jogged my memory about something great that happened recently, which was so I my son, who is nine years old, is starting to get out of being read to phase, but I but if I offer to do it, he’ll be like, okay, I’ll sit and listen to you. And I feel like my mom can read to me after I was four, because I mean, I don’t know. It was it was the 1940s and they didn’t believe in reading, right? So I think you were just reading smoke signals anyway. So in my Clark Griswoldness, I wanted to expose them to some classics, and so I was trying to read Tom Sawyer. Have you read Tom Sawyer in the last year?
David:
No, but I I pr I’m pretty sure it’s pretty problematic at this point.
Gavin:
Well, I didn’t even get to problematic moments in it. Um, but what I did what I had completely forgotten about, and I read it I think in middle school, and I don’t remember it particularly well. I remember the themes, I know Tom Sawyer. It is really difficult to read for an adult. It is the language is so flowery, it’s so 1860s, there’s these obscure references he makes, yada yada yada. I’ve been pushing through for a couple of weeks with him, and each time I close the book, I’m like, did that make sense? And he’s like, no. But it’s okay if you read. And um, so last night, two nights ago, I’m like, no more, we’re done with it. And I said, Can we go back to Harry Potter? And he has not been a Harry Potter freak like my daughter has. He fucked up. We started with the second book last night because he’s read we’ve heard the first probably three or four times. And I read the first chapter and it ends on a cliffhanger of, and then Harry got back into his room, but he wasn’t alone. And I turned to him and I said, Do you remember who this is? He goes, Dobbby. And I could just see the look on his face, like, oh, this is fun. And it felt great to be back in, like, okay, I’m not gonna force me this Tom Sawyer bullshit. Let’s get back to something that’s relatable and easy. So that was something great.
David:
And that’s our show. If you have any comments, suggestions, or general compliments, you can email us at gatriarchspodcast at gmail.com.
Gavin:
Or you can DM us on Instagram. We are at Gatriarchspodcast on the internet. David is at DavidFM Bond everywhere, and Gavin is at GavinLodge, but not very active.
David:
Please leave us a glowing five-star review wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks.
Gavin:
And we’ll see you next time on another episode of Gatriarchs.