Speaker 1: Welcome to the Parenting Roundabout podcast. I'm Terry Morrow.
Speaker 2: And I'm Catherine Hileco.
Speaker 1: Every Thursday, we're bringing you a library find, a pick
Speaker 1: from our archives, and a parenting or pop culture tidbit
Speaker 1: or two. Let's start with Catherine's library find of the week.
Speaker 3: So recently I found myself without an audio book, and
Speaker 3: yes I was. I had several things on hold that
Speaker 3: didn't come in and I waited around for a couple
Speaker 3: of days because you know, usually I have them kind
Speaker 3: of cascaded so that when I finish one, there's another one,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Uh huh. And I have like twenty waiting for me
Speaker 1: in my audible now if you ever need me to
Speaker 1: loan new one.
Speaker 2: So I have them.
Speaker 3: I have, you know, these holes, and I'm like, when
Speaker 3: I finish something, if I don't have the next one
Speaker 3: right on tap, I try to wait it out because
Speaker 3: as soon as I you know, download something else than
Speaker 3: the one that I was waiting for will show up.
Speaker 3: But anyway, so I waited a couple of days and
Speaker 3: I still didn't have anything. So I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: I gotta I gotta do something. So I went on
Speaker 3: the on the app and looked at just like what
Speaker 3: can I get right now? Yeah, and I ended up
Speaker 3: with the Louise Penny. It's called Still Life, which is
Speaker 3: the first of the famous armand Gamache series.
Speaker 1: All right, so these are like famous that I know
Speaker 1: who it is.
Speaker 2: But yeah, well.
Speaker 3: Gomash is a you know, inspector detective whatever in Montreal.
Speaker 3: But this is the first of a series that's basically
Speaker 3: set in this little village called Three Pines outside of Montreal,
Speaker 3: and it's it's very famous as like a cozy mystery.
Speaker 2: Kind of deal.
Speaker 3: So I was like, I know, people are really people
Speaker 3: really love these, so let me let me check this out.
Speaker 2: And I loved it. You know, I'm not a thriller person.
Speaker 2: I get too.
Speaker 3: Upset, and this this one is definitely like I mean,
Speaker 3: there is a murder and there's a bad guy, and
Speaker 3: you know, there's lots of secrets and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: But I still I enjoyed it quite a bit. And
Speaker 3: it's you know, set in Quebec, so there's French and
Speaker 3: it's just it's a fun, you know, introduction to this series.
Speaker 3: I think that if you like the Mazy Dabbs miss
Speaker 3: then you would probably keep me enjoy this. It's it
Speaker 3: definitely has a lot of those those type of vibes.
Speaker 2: So, and there's I.
Speaker 1: Believe the audiobook readers have delightful accents.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean he he definitely could speak French, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean he could he could pronounce the French in
Speaker 3: a way that sounded no founded good to.
Speaker 1: The mazy dabs has. They have good stories and no
Speaker 1: no aspersions cast on the writer whatsoever. But my favorite
Speaker 1: part of the audiobooks was listening to the reader do
Speaker 1: a variety of different British accents of people of different
Speaker 1: classes and ages and a chur de force I think,
Speaker 1: right of British accents, which I am partial to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one is not that.
Speaker 3: You know, he's not doing a lot of variety of voices,
Speaker 3: but he is. He is giving you the nice French pronunciations,
Speaker 3: which I enjoy hearing. So and like I said, there's
Speaker 3: twenty of them. I believe twenty of Wow these and
Speaker 3: the it's it's like a murder she wrote type of
Speaker 3: thing where somehow this small village is constantly involved.
Speaker 1: In death in capital Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, but I found it.
Speaker 3: It was one of those cases of I hear about
Speaker 3: this all the time, Like I know, people really love
Speaker 3: these and also what is available on levy right now right?
Speaker 2: So it worked? I think it worked out quite well.
Speaker 1: So nice.
Speaker 2: Yes, that is a fun way to put a cozy
Speaker 2: mystery the.
Speaker 1: Desperation Fine, I recommend yes, yeah, And what do you.
Speaker 2: Have for us?
Speaker 1: Well? For my random recommendation of the week, I have
Speaker 1: yet another game for your time wasting needs, okay, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't take too long to do, and it's just
Speaker 1: another one to add to your cue along with your
Speaker 1: wordle and other things. It's called Waffle and I don't
Speaker 1: know where I heard about it. I think maybe a
Speaker 1: Facebook reel or something, or just a random ad somewhere
Speaker 1: that I shouldn't have clicked on, but I did, and
Speaker 1: it's legit and it's every day they come up with
Speaker 1: a new one, and then you can also go back
Speaker 1: and play old ones that you have not played yet.
Speaker 1: But it's a let's see a one, two, three, four,
Speaker 1: five by five letter grid with four blank squares in
Speaker 1: the middle or in the corners of the inner square
Speaker 1: are blank, and so it's like a little grid of
Speaker 1: words and you have to figure out what each word is.
Speaker 1: If it is a green square, then that letter is
Speaker 1: in the correct place. There's a yellow square that letter
Speaker 1: is in one of the words, either across or down,
Speaker 1: but it is not in the correct place. And if
Speaker 1: it is a gray square, that means it's just completely
Speaker 1: in the wrong place. And you swap letters to eventually
Speaker 1: make make all these words one, two, three, six words,
Speaker 1: and you have fifteen swaps to do it. If you
Speaker 1: go past fifteen swaps, goes wah wah, and you're done.
Speaker 1: Doesn't make that noise just in my head. But you can't,
Speaker 1: you can't finish. So it's you know, it doesn't take
Speaker 1: long to do, whether you're successful or not, at the
Speaker 1: same amount of time as a whordle, maybe maybe a
Speaker 1: little less. So it's just a little something like in
Speaker 1: the middle of the day when you need a break,
Speaker 1: just just click on over there, see if you can
Speaker 1: solve this thing, and then you're done. So, you know,
Speaker 1: if you just need just a little bit of time wasting, right,
Speaker 1: not a crossword puzzle's length of time wasting, not even
Speaker 1: a wordle's length of time wasting, not a pseudoko's length
Speaker 1: of time wasting. Just still just a couple of minutes.
Speaker 1: It's very fun. I don't know who does it, who
Speaker 1: puts it there what their nefarious purposes are, right, but
Speaker 1: I have enjoyed doing them, So give it a shot.
Speaker 1: Will not take you long, and the more you do it,
Speaker 1: you sort of understand the tricks and stuff, but there
Speaker 1: are few. Go into the little there's a little menu
Speaker 1: in the upper left corner and you can get help
Speaker 1: and instructions and such should you need them, but you
Speaker 1: could also just start doing it because it's pretty self explanatory. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: if you'll excuse me, I will be finishing today's Well.
Speaker 1: Catherine announces our what's in our archives this week?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so our archive episode comes from twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: It is called we should have known better and prompt
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 3: Prompted, I believe by Nicole. I think it was Nichole's
Speaker 3: daughter said that she was going to paint her bedroom.
Speaker 4: And she would do it oh by herself, and that
Speaker 4: did not help what could possibly go wrong? And Nicole
Speaker 4: was lamenting her own you know, she should have known
Speaker 4: that this wouldn't this wouldn't work out the way that
Speaker 4: her daughter thought it would, and she should have stepped
Speaker 4: in and you know, intervened at some point in this process,
Speaker 4: and she didn't. And then it became her problem. So, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: we're quite familiar with this.
Speaker 1: We are. Yes, it's never ending. It's happens when you.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think back on things when my kids
Speaker 1: were young, and I knew I shouldn't insert myself sort
Speaker 1: of the opposite, I knew I shouldn't have inserted myself
Speaker 1: and stuff, and I did right, and then then it
Speaker 1: was all my fault, right, and certainly situations where I
Speaker 1: should have maybe said or done something, but I was like,
Speaker 1: let's just see how this works out. So either way, really,
Speaker 1: if she had inserted herself immediately, that would have been
Speaker 1: all I'm wrong to right.
Speaker 3: Because then it would be like, why aren't you letting
Speaker 3: your kid figure things out for her?
Speaker 1: And as we've talked we've talked about I think recently,
Speaker 1: it's like, if they do what you say, then you're
Speaker 1: gonna worry that it was wrong, and then if they
Speaker 1: don't do what you say, you're gonna know that it
Speaker 1: was right. So either way, you're gonna be swimming in
Speaker 1: a sea of worry and regret. Or maybe that's just me.
Speaker 1: I can definitely think of things where I thought, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna let my child do this, or my young
Speaker 1: person do this and have the experience of doing it,
Speaker 1: or really more like thought, well, this goes wrong. It
Speaker 1: was my idea, it's right idea, but then it goes wrong,
Speaker 1: and then you feel like you should have done you
Speaker 1: could have prevented this, right. So I don't know what
Speaker 1: the solution is to that, though I think there's no
Speaker 1: good way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because that's that's where I struggle, is like when
Speaker 3: at one point do you do you intervene? You know,
Speaker 3: because yes, you know, my kid, one of them cannot
Speaker 3: be told like this is this is what you need
Speaker 3: to do, this is how you need to do it.
Speaker 3: Like you they just will never ever ever listen. So
Speaker 3: they need to find things out the hard way.
Speaker 2: Basically right, and that is so hard to up.
Speaker 1: It is very difficult, yes, and it's it's hard to
Speaker 1: come to grips for them and for you. Also that
Speaker 1: oftentimes there is no right way to do it. There
Speaker 1: is no right answer. It's not like there's the shining
Speaker 1: path and the path of darkness and you just want
Speaker 1: to nudge them over to the shining one. It's like
Speaker 1: there's two paths that go into the jungle, and who
Speaker 1: the bleep knows, And so if you facilitate, you know,
Speaker 1: if they do their own thing and go into the
Speaker 1: wrong way, and you can sort of feel like, well,
Speaker 1: at least it wasn't me that sent them there. That
Speaker 1: was their thing. But you're still going to have to
Speaker 1: clean up the mess. And then if you push them
Speaker 1: and then it turns out to not be right, is
Speaker 1: it because you pushed? Is it because it was always
Speaker 1: going to be wrong. It's fraught, man, It's fraught. It's
Speaker 1: like I I should have known better, but it's just
Speaker 1: like I really don't know. I don't know what better
Speaker 1: is anymore. Maybe this is because I'm parenting older adults
Speaker 1: and I look back at the path and think, nah,
Speaker 1: I'm right, At.
Speaker 2: What point did I?
Speaker 1: I could have not done that thing that everybody told
Speaker 1: me not to do, but I don't know that the
Speaker 1: outcome would have been better. It would have been different,
Speaker 1: but it would not necessarily have been better. You know.
Speaker 1: I had lots of people telling me what the right
Speaker 1: thing to do was, and I didn't believe it. So
Speaker 1: I did what I was going to do. And it's
Speaker 1: like should I have known better? Or should they have
Speaker 1: known better? Or I mean, is it like nobody knows anything?
Speaker 1: I think it's nobody knows anything except for Desmond. Desmond's
Speaker 1: got over here. Can you look gun to the future
Speaker 1: please and tell me and put a lightning rod up
Speaker 1: for me? Thanks, yes, thank you. Listen to our last episode.
Speaker 1: But you know, absent having been had a like an
Speaker 1: anomaly throw you into seeing the future. How do you know?
Speaker 1: You never know? I mean my daughter from high school time.
Speaker 1: Our high school is very college oriented. They do not
Speaker 1: want to acknowledge that anybody would not go to college.
Speaker 1: And in fact, at one point they just eliminated all
Speaker 1: these sub college prep classes because apparently we were living
Speaker 1: in Lake Wobegon and everybody was above average. So she
Speaker 1: got the message right away that you got to go
Speaker 1: to college. Now, I would not have chosen that for her.
Speaker 1: I didn't think that was necessarily the most productive thing
Speaker 1: for her to be doing. But what the heck? It
Speaker 1: worked out. Okay, she wanted to go, not me, not
Speaker 1: me pushing she wanted to And then she got an
Speaker 1: idea that you have a certain job she wanted and
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know, that seems kind of ambitious,
Speaker 1: but you know what it was hers, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: encourage it. Good for you. Go to college for that,
Speaker 1: learn how to do that, go get a job doing that.
Speaker 1: And then it was a kind of a spectacular disaster.
Speaker 1: And should I have known better? Should I have looked
Speaker 1: at this and said, oh, honey, not for you, right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, how do you? How could you possibly do that?
Speaker 1: It seemed like I felt at the time like at
Speaker 1: least it not being me would be a benefit, because
Speaker 1: if it was me, everybody would blame me. Everybody's don't
Speaker 1: blame me no matter what. So this way I could say, well,
Speaker 1: it was her, I just let her choose what. Don't
Speaker 1: look at me, don't look at me. But now, looking back,
Speaker 1: I kind of wished I had just taken one for
Speaker 1: the team and said, sweetie, no, let's do something different.
Speaker 1: But what would it have been. I have no idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not like I had an alternative. I knew from
Speaker 1: what one hundred percent certain would be good, and I
Speaker 1: just let her wander off in her own tangled way. Man,
Speaker 1: life is so hard to ten down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, this is this is the way of
Speaker 3: you know, oh, your child's studying theater and coge Like,
Speaker 3: how's that going to work out?
Speaker 2: Well? You know what?
Speaker 3: The alternative was nothing like the alternative was I can't
Speaker 3: even like possibly not even graduating from high school, Like that's.
Speaker 2: How right it was?
Speaker 1: So yeah, well this gave me he wanted to do that,
Speaker 1: he needed to pass for Yeah, and that's you don't
Speaker 1: throw that away.
Speaker 3: Right, And that was the option, So like, yeah, I
Speaker 3: don't want to hear you should have done no, you
Speaker 3: should have known better, Like well, okay.
Speaker 1: Well when he's a big star, you'll laugh and laugh.
Speaker 1: I hope that day comes for you because it didn't
Speaker 1: come for me. But yeah, it's just especially raising kids
Speaker 1: with special needs, you get a lot of you should
Speaker 1: have known betters right all along the way.
Speaker 2: And why didn't you?
Speaker 1: Yes, and we know better. A lot of we know betters,
Speaker 1: a lot of we know everything. You know nothing, so
Speaker 1: do what we say and then you do something else
Speaker 1: and it's like, well you should listen. You should listen
Speaker 1: to the people who know things. And I didn't. And
Speaker 1: you know, my kids are in their mid thirties now
Speaker 1: I'm looking. I am not yet at a point where
Speaker 1: I could say, in your face, look how great things
Speaker 1: start out. I mean, could be different, could be better,
Speaker 1: could be worse. I don't know, it's just life. It
Speaker 1: just I mean, I look back at my life and think,
Speaker 1: should I have done things differently? Maybe I went you
Speaker 1: we are you know, nobody ever knows better. It's the
Speaker 1: takeaway here, you should have, but you didn't you have
Speaker 1: at the time we do exactly yes, And you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting that this comes in the same week
Speaker 1: where we talked about this lost episode where somebody can
Speaker 1: see into the future and then fix it, right which, man,
Speaker 1: is there a match here somewhere I can turn a
Speaker 1: key and get thrown so to be loose in time
Speaker 1: and know what you know? And you don't have that?
Speaker 1: But you know, flashbacks and flash forwards. I have flashbacks
Speaker 1: all the time. I have flash forwards all the time.
Speaker 1: Whereas it's gonna lead you know, that's kind of a
Speaker 1: potent metaphor all that most stuff for what parents go
Speaker 1: through is a constant state of did I do the
Speaker 1: right thing? And how is this going to turn out?
Speaker 1: And what is going to happen in the future? And
Speaker 1: would you want to know? I would want to know
Speaker 1: if it's good. I would not want to know if
Speaker 1: it's bad unless there's something I could do about it. Hey, buddy,
Speaker 1: can I borrow your golf club. So it's it's it's fraught,
Speaker 1: and I mean talk about parenting like this and then
Speaker 1: you feel on my discouraging people from being parents. I
Speaker 1: mean it's like you're just in a soap opera for
Speaker 1: the rest of your life, and it's a you never
Speaker 1: know what's going to be the next thing. It's kind
Speaker 1: of exciting. Sometimes it's a comedy, sometimes it's a drama,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, moment by moment you love it.
Speaker 1: It's just these step backs to say, hmm, right, yep,
Speaker 1: try to avoid those whenever possible. That would be our
Speaker 1: Nothing good comes of those. You did what you did,
Speaker 1: Own it and move.
Speaker 3: On, Yes, you know, until such time as you get
Speaker 3: hit in the head and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ye in the yeah, until we see see into
Speaker 1: the future. Yeah. I often think about if I could
Speaker 1: see into the future, would you want that or do
Speaker 1: you want to just just plod along putting one foot
Speaker 1: in front of the other and owning your choices? Right,
Speaker 1: that's an important thing for parents. Own your choices. Unless
Speaker 1: you were acting with malice, you did the best you
Speaker 1: could and you don't know what would have happened if
Speaker 1: you've done it differently. So the kind of I should
Speaker 1: have known better. Regret is really useless, other than to
Speaker 1: make you lie awake at night and be crabby in
Speaker 1: the morning. Thank you for listening. You can find all
Speaker 1: our episodes on spreaker, app podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. You can find recaps, links, and
Speaker 1: an opportunity to comment on our website at parentingroundabout dot com.
Speaker 3: You can also talk to us on our Facebook page,
Speaker 3: on Instagram or on Twitter, where you'll find us at
Speaker 3: roundabout Chat. And please visit our Amazon shop at Amazon
Speaker 3: dot com, slash Shop slash Mamitude, where you can find
Speaker 3: links to a lot of the things we've talked about
Speaker 3: over the years.