Speaker 1: Justin Warsht was joined us, so we talked about parenting
Speaker 1: with Justin when it comes in. I saw the article
Speaker 1: yesterday morning, and I actually we got a couple of
Speaker 1: talkbacks from people yesterday.
Speaker 2: Just as an example. Here's one.
Speaker 1: The study was about whether drinking as a teenager with
Speaker 1: permission from your parents.
Speaker 2: They give you little bit of leeway or a lot
Speaker 2: of leeway, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: But drinking before you're legally allowed to, does that have
Speaker 1: an impact on when you drink when you's legal as
Speaker 1: a young adult?
Speaker 3: Hi, Gary, My parents would have a cocktail when my
Speaker 3: dad got home from work. He drank Martiniz. My mom
Speaker 3: drank Dubinet, which is a sweet sherry. We always got
Speaker 3: to taste it. We thought my dad's drink tasted like
Speaker 3: rocket fuel. My mom's drink was very sweet and we
Speaker 3: loved it. But I grew up alcohol just wasn't a
Speaker 3: big deal until I started partying in my twenties. Then
Speaker 3: it was more of a big deal. But now at
Speaker 3: this point in my life, I hardly drink it all.
Speaker 3: Maybe when I ought with friends.
Speaker 1: So the study actually showed that the younger you start
Speaker 1: for one thing, the younger you start your first taste
Speaker 1: of alcoholic's. We had one person say seven, A couple
Speaker 1: of them said nine. The more common was somewhere around eleven, twelve, thirteen, yeah,
Speaker 1: twelve was yeah, and not a regular drink, but just
Speaker 1: the taste.
Speaker 4: The sixth of the like the trying in the worship household.
Speaker 4: It's toddlerdom because of my Portuguese stepmom.
Speaker 2: There you go, yes, there, as.
Speaker 4: Soon as you can walk, you dip your pacifier in
Speaker 4: a vase of wine.
Speaker 1: But they said they found an eighty percent increase of
Speaker 1: the sorry, eighty percent of the adolescents responded they had
Speaker 1: drunk alcohol with parental permission, and that those were more
Speaker 1: likely to drink more as young adults.
Speaker 4: And the theory is like, and this is what I
Speaker 4: looked at it. These are surveys taken from two thousand
Speaker 4: and nine to twenty eighteen from people with children ages
Speaker 4: five to seventeen. And I wonder if there is like
Speaker 4: an generational aspect to this, because I feel like what
Speaker 4: she's talking about, like she sounds like she's at least
Speaker 4: close to our age. And my parents let me try
Speaker 4: anything I wanted. And my dad's whole philosophy was if
Speaker 4: you remove the taboo.
Speaker 2: Then it would be less likely that I would drink
Speaker 2: in high school.
Speaker 4: And this could just be circumstantial, but like, I didn't
Speaker 4: like I had one drink my entire the entire time
Speaker 4: I was in high school. I don't think I was
Speaker 4: actually drunk until I graduated high school. I was still
Speaker 4: under twenty one the first time I got drunk. But
Speaker 4: it wasn't like I don't know, I was always very
Speaker 4: responsive about It was never a thing that was like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is exciting. So there's also an element to me
Speaker 4: that my mom always had a glass of wine as
Speaker 4: soon as she came home from work, and I always
Speaker 4: thought it was because she was Portuguese.
Speaker 2: And that was the way she was. Maybe that makes me.
Speaker 4: Racist, probably so Probably so I just saw it like, oh,
Speaker 4: but my dad never drank. My dad was probably drunk
Speaker 4: five times my entire childhood, and I never saw them
Speaker 4: any Like, at no point in my life did I
Speaker 4: ever see my dad's saw ever.
Speaker 2: Never happened. So, but it's so, I don't know, it
Speaker 2: was never important to me.
Speaker 1: I remember my parents not big drinkers, but they had
Speaker 1: a massive, at least my memory of it, a massive
Speaker 1: liquor cabinet right.
Speaker 2: Cabinet is not the right word. A collection of liquor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was always in the garage, and you know,
Speaker 1: he touched it, opened the garage door and it would
Speaker 1: be behind it. There was a set of shelves back there,
Speaker 1: and I remember looking at it and think of what
Speaker 1: is all that stuff for?
Speaker 2: What? You don't drink it, what do you use it for?
Speaker 2: Maybe they were drinking it and I didn't know it.
Speaker 4: My father used gin as a trap, like he would
Speaker 4: put because he got tired of me sneaking your mom,
Speaker 4: you're right. He got tired of me stealing his coke
Speaker 4: whenever he so he would lay out a coke and
Speaker 4: he would pour gin in it, like half gin, so
Speaker 4: I'd take a hit and lah, and when I was
Speaker 4: like less than five, like.
Speaker 2: That, And that was just his way.
Speaker 4: When with his grandkids he would put kayenn pepper on
Speaker 4: popcorn for the first few times, just so they wouldn't
Speaker 4: steal his popcorn.
Speaker 1: My uncle used to put out his cigarettes in the
Speaker 1: old pepsi battas and that's all.
Speaker 2: So that's at the turret for that and hee spit.
Speaker 2: If you take a sway of that.
Speaker 4: I think there's also got to be an element kind
Speaker 4: of like what but even the talkback person said, like,
Speaker 4: I think is contradictor to this in that I think
Speaker 4: if you're parent like my siblings, my stepbrother and sister
Speaker 4: in law, they threw parties and they had their kids,
Speaker 4: had teenage friends and I'm talking at like sixteen years old.
Speaker 4: They would have ragers at their house where everybody would
Speaker 4: spend the night and everybody was hammered, and both my
Speaker 4: dad and I were really afraid for them because if
Speaker 4: something really bad goes wrong and one of those other parents,
Speaker 4: supposedly all the parents knew.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but if one of.
Speaker 4: Those parents decides to file press charges, they could lose
Speaker 4: their house, they could lose their kids. Like There's a
Speaker 4: lot that could come from that, and I think they
Speaker 4: just everybody does it under the thing, Well, I just
Speaker 4: want them to be safe.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 1: I went to one party like that, and I think
Speaker 1: it was a junior. I had to be a senior
Speaker 1: in high school, and the expectation was nobody leaves, nobody
Speaker 1: leaves until the morning. Yeah, and I there were probably
Speaker 1: ten of us, and the it was my girlfriend's mom.
Speaker 1: She bought a twelve pack of beer for like ten
Speaker 1: of us, and I remember thinking, well, this is not
Speaker 1: going to be fun. Yeah, and I had, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'd never experienced it before. But even then I was like,
Speaker 1: this is not How are we going to decide who
Speaker 1: gets to drink the extra two beer?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: It didn't make any sense. I cannot imagine doing that.
Speaker 1: I mean now, but freshman year in college, my daughter
Speaker 1: came home and she brought a bunch of friends with
Speaker 1: her roommates and things like that, and I said to them, hey,
Speaker 1: I don't mind. You guys want to hang out and
Speaker 1: have a crush, a couple of Seltzers or whatever. You
Speaker 1: guys want, whatever's cool amongst your group, but nobody leaves.
Speaker 2: Nobody leaves this place. You can't get no windows and
Speaker 2: no doors.
Speaker 1: But there were there were other times as well when
Speaker 1: it was just the four of us, my wife and
Speaker 1: I and then our son and daughter, and I would say,
Speaker 1: you want a glass of wine with dinner? And I
Speaker 1: mean this is late in their teen years, late in
Speaker 1: high school kind of thing, because I wanted them to
Speaker 1: know what it felt like, especially before my daughter went
Speaker 1: off and you know, got to go to the bars
Speaker 1: that in college town. You got to know what two
Speaker 1: drinks does to you. Yeah, compared to four drinks, compared
Speaker 1: to six drinks. Now, I wasn't going to give her
Speaker 1: six drinks, but I just was going to get them
Speaker 1: to the point where they go, oh, this does change
Speaker 1: the way I feel.
Speaker 4: I know what it feels like, it's being prepared, and
Speaker 4: the fact that like there's this where you feel it,
Speaker 4: and so maybe if you have one more drink after
Speaker 4: you start to feel it, there's more that's coming. Yeah, right,
Speaker 4: and you don't alay that, so you try again. There
Speaker 4: was one other thing I want to is it this
Speaker 4: right here? Even just actually increases rather than no, oh,
Speaker 4: we already covered it.
Speaker 2: Never mind.
Speaker 4: Thirty to forty percent of children under the age of
Speaker 4: thirteen try alcohol with parental permission in the United States.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that, I that's kind of a wide range.
Speaker 1: But I think it just means hey, can I Yes,
Speaker 1: that's said, And here's the question, do you ask?
Speaker 2: That's the other thing about it.
Speaker 1: I don't remember asking for a taste of it until
Speaker 1: I was, you know, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, Oh.
Speaker 2: My kids asked even yet.
Speaker 1: But I remember my dad handing me a beer when
Speaker 1: I was nine or ten and saying, try that both.
Speaker 2: Of my kids said can I try it?
Speaker 4: And we've decided for maybe maybe this is how we're
Speaker 4: ruining and making our children alcoholics. Probably like we they
Speaker 4: said can I try, and we just said yes, like
Speaker 4: we would just give it to them. Especially cocktails at
Speaker 4: a restaurant. That's the one where I really break the law.
Speaker 4: Like I've had a couple of times where when they
Speaker 4: know they have to wait till the server leaves and
Speaker 4: then they can have a hit off a Dad's Old
Speaker 4: Fashion or a margarita or something, and to me, it
Speaker 4: takes the taboo. My son has been to multiple parties.
Speaker 4: What's interesting too, the thing that they kids do now
Speaker 4: at parties. They drink, sure, but not as much they
Speaker 4: do CBD gummies. That's like the new thing. I think
Speaker 4: it's because it's easier to get CBD gummies than it
Speaker 4: is ones with THHC in it. And but that's what
Speaker 4: I'm hearing that a lot of the kids do at parties.
Speaker 4: They're not really drinking. Nobody smokes cigarettes anymore. That's like,
Speaker 4: what are you crazy? I told my kid, I'm like,
Speaker 4: you inviuty some cigarettes so you could take to the party. Cool.
Speaker 4: He's like, you know, what That's the one thing you
Speaker 4: would buy that people would be mad at me. You'd
Speaker 4: be like, why what are you doing? If it was
Speaker 4: a vape man, they would be all over it. But
Speaker 4: everybody's vaping or they like the CBD gummies.
Speaker 1: Today we've talked about the well, Shannon and I have
Speaker 1: talked about the Sean Diddy Comb's trial that's on right now.
Speaker 1: Cassie Ventura, his ex girlfriend, was the star witness. Cassie's
Speaker 1: mom actually testified as well about the abuse that she
Speaker 1: saw in her daughter and led to this question, Hey, good.
Speaker 5: Morning, Gary, maybe this could be for you and justin
Speaker 5: today on the parenting episode. Okay, so Cassie Ventura's mom
Speaker 5: was in court and she showed pictures of her daughter,
Speaker 5: you know, lifting up her top and have bruises and
Speaker 5: blood and all kinds of damage on her body. And
Speaker 5: her mom was aware of it, but she didn't do
Speaker 5: anything to get her out of there from what I
Speaker 5: could tell, So, what kind of parent is that? That's
Speaker 5: not the kind of parent I am, And I don't
Speaker 5: think people listening want to be that type either.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. If I I wouldn't go so
Speaker 2: far as to say she didn't do anything. We don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I was too. But she's also
Speaker 1: an adult. She's an adult. Mom can't force her out
Speaker 1: of a relationship. And mom was the one apparently who
Speaker 1: took the picture, so there was some amount of documentation
Speaker 1: that she knew needed to take place. I just think
Speaker 1: about Listen, there's a the whole thing about that, that
Speaker 1: trial or trials like that. If let's assume, for the
Speaker 1: purpose of argument, that he's guilty of sexually assaulting his
Speaker 1: ex girlfriend, which he's accused of, but let's just assume
Speaker 1: that he that he's that it happened. As a father
Speaker 1: or as a parent, doesn't have to be a father,
Speaker 1: but as a parent of somebody who had gone through that,
Speaker 1: I would do everything I could to make sure that
Speaker 1: that guy never saw the light of day again, as
Speaker 1: uncomfortable as it would be, as potentially embarrassing as it
Speaker 1: would be. I mean, the things that Cassie Ventura was
Speaker 1: testifying to are gut wrenching, gut wrenchingly embarrassing for her,
Speaker 1: and that she survived it and is willing to you
Speaker 1: put herself out there to put this guy away, says
Speaker 1: something about her character. I mean that she's a very
Speaker 1: very strong person. We also mentioned that her husband was
Speaker 1: in the courtroom many times for many of the hours
Speaker 1: of her testimony, not all of it, but for many
Speaker 1: of the hours of it, which has got to be
Speaker 1: gut wrenching, and that her parent, her mom, knows these
Speaker 1: stories about what has gone on.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a kind of a question that comes up.
Speaker 1: I would hate it if a parent was ever in
Speaker 1: that position. But I completely understand the idea that she's there,
Speaker 1: She's going to do everything she can to protect her girl, and.
Speaker 4: I think like her. My two cents on that is
Speaker 4: that like Shannon makes fun of me and the comforter right,
Speaker 4: like when my son was had his previous girlfriend and
Speaker 4: then they would cuddle and while we were all watching
Speaker 4: a movie, and she's like, oh, things are happening under
Speaker 4: that comforter, and and even my brother in law gave
Speaker 4: me a hard time and said, I think they're doing
Speaker 4: more than kiss and and I just, deep down in
Speaker 4: my heart and soul, I know differently, But again, like
Speaker 4: you're talking in a hypothetical, hypothetically, what if I'm wrong?
Speaker 2: And I think that's that's how this stuff happens.
Speaker 4: Is that we all as parents make assumptions about what
Speaker 4: our kids are feeling, especially as they get older. Once
Speaker 4: they get into those teenage years, you don't really have
Speaker 4: a lot of say. And it's hard because if you
Speaker 4: try to hold on too tight and keep them close
Speaker 4: to you, there's a little bit of like you hard,
Speaker 4: You're you're infringing on their development, like you're slowing it down,
Speaker 4: you're stunting it. But also they pull away, like it
Speaker 4: makes them pull away from you more, so you have
Speaker 4: to kind of pick your shots, like it almost seems
Speaker 4: like they're in an orbit, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: And then there's moments where they seem to want to
Speaker 4: talk to you, and that's when they're close in orbit.
Speaker 4: You're like, oh great, and you get in while you
Speaker 4: can and see how it goes.
Speaker 2: From the elliptical orbit like a comet. Yes, yeah, like
Speaker 2: and you don't.
Speaker 4: But and so all I'm saying is is that I
Speaker 4: think it's very easy on the outside to and I'm
Speaker 4: not judging this person. I think he's just saying, like,
Speaker 4: this might be interesting to talk about, and I agree.
Speaker 4: I think it's easy when we're all looking at the
Speaker 4: outside to say it's the mom's fault, like, why would
Speaker 4: she continue to allow this to happen? Because I think,
Speaker 4: like you said when we started, it's assuming that she
Speaker 4: was what we don't know, and what I'm like, this
Speaker 4: is me doing the same kind of speculation. I was
Speaker 4: a big fan of Loveline when I was in like
Speaker 4: middle school, and it informed a lot about how I
Speaker 4: perceived relationships. And regardless of your upbringing, they what they
Speaker 4: identified to me as a young kid is that everybody
Speaker 4: has these kind of patterns, and what we don't know
Speaker 4: is that maybe this poor young lady has just had
Speaker 4: a pattern of being attracted to the wrong guy in
Speaker 4: her youth, like a lot of us do.
Speaker 2: I was way into crazy chicks when I was younger,
Speaker 2: and now I just like a good old, boring lady.
Speaker 2: That's my wife, and she's awesome, I do. She's gonna
Speaker 2: love this right, so you know what I mean. I
Speaker 2: just don't want any drama in my life.
Speaker 1: Well, and I think the one aspect of this specific
Speaker 1: case also is the power imbalance that existed between did
Speaker 1: he anyone else?
Speaker 2: Anybody?
Speaker 1: If he's threatening to again, One of the reasons that
Speaker 1: Kid Cutty was supposed to testify is Kid Cutty's car
Speaker 1: blew up in his driveway. Not too long after Sean
Speaker 1: did he Combs threatened to blow up his car in
Speaker 1: the driveway. Clearly, clearly this guy, or at least the
Speaker 1: impression was that this guy had the ability to take
Speaker 1: you out if he needed to. And that's, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why Mom, you could. There are
Speaker 1: other things you can do, but the power dynamic is
Speaker 1: not is not irrelevant in that case.
Speaker 4: And if if like what if, Like I know, Mom,
Speaker 4: I don't know when Mom found out about this stuff.
Speaker 4: But I also think it's very easy, like in these
Speaker 4: situations where your kids are hurting, that's one of the
Speaker 4: scary things as a parent is that you have this
Speaker 4: perception and if the kid is just really good at
Speaker 4: covering it up and hiding it, then there's really no
Speaker 4: real way for you to know, because why would you know.
Speaker 4: I've had like my solution has been, if I have
Speaker 4: an inkling something isn't right, I get and I start
Speaker 4: looking at their texts down on it. No, no, it's horrible,
Speaker 4: but I violate their privacy and I look at their
Speaker 4: text messages that they have with their friend. I look
Speaker 4: at their search history on their computer or on their phone,
Speaker 4: and I do it without them knowing it, so because
Speaker 4: I don't want them to know that I can look
Speaker 4: at that because I feel like then they're going to
Speaker 4: learn how to hide it even better. And so I
Speaker 4: found out there was a time where my younger son
Speaker 4: was struggling, and I know that this wasn't the case.
Speaker 4: And I know people are listening who maybe have experienced
Speaker 4: this are going to go, you're wrong. But in this case,
Speaker 4: so far, everything's fine. But my son was googling like
Speaker 4: depression and anxiety and not suicidal, but definitely depression. And
Speaker 4: so when my wife, when I told her about that,
Speaker 4: she's like, oh, she's like starting to get nervous. I
Speaker 4: was like, no, he's curious. He also has a friend
Speaker 4: group that a lot of the kids struggle with depression
Speaker 4: like at that time. So I said, if it's what
Speaker 4: you're hanging around, because we remember, I learn your social
Speaker 4: circle at his age thirteen to fifteen becomes more influential
Speaker 4: than the parents. So I think it goes back to
Speaker 4: the same thing. If she's traveling around with a group
Speaker 4: of people, people that are being this abusive tour, it's
Speaker 4: hard for anybody to get out of it. Keep snooping right,
Speaker 4: stay connected, keep asking questions, and always just remind like,
Speaker 4: if you ever need anything, I'm here. As sappy after
Speaker 4: school specials as that sounds, I really think it makes
Speaker 4: a difference.
Speaker 2: I really do such a fancy I am. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go cry.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Gary Shannon will continue right after this