Should I Let My Unreliable Dad Around My Kids? — Transcript

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1. 0:00Hi Alex, I'm a single mom whose dad
2. 0:02wants to help, but he just can't get
3. 0:05together a job. Oh, okay, hold on.
4. 0:07I'm a single mom whose dad wants to
5. 0:09help, but he just can't hold together a
6. 0:11job. I want him to be involved in my
7. 0:12kids' lives, but I'm afraid he isn't a
8. 0:14good influence. How would you navigate a
9. 0:16relationship with someone important to
10. 0:17your life that doesn't help you grow?
11. 0:20>> [sighs]
12. 0:26>> Hmm.
13. 0:29Well,
14. 0:31I think there's levels of bad dad.
15. 0:34Um there's like abusive bad dad. There's
16. 0:37bad dad who's probably not as ambitious
17. 0:39as you want, but is super involved in
18. 0:41the kids' lives.
19. 0:42Um
20. 0:44and I think that they don't need to get
21. 0:45everything from every parent. So,
22. 0:47imagine that we flipped the roles for a
23. 0:49moment. Imagine you were, let's say, at
24. 0:52home with the kids and not ambitious
25. 0:54from maybe a career perspective, um and
26. 0:56he was. Would we say that the mom is a
27. 0:58bad influence on the kids from that
28. 1:01angle? Maybe not. And so, I do know
29. 1:04there's a tremendous amount of research
30. 1:06that having a dad present is better than
31. 1:08no dad. Um and so, there's significant
32. 1:13stats that suggest that having a whole
33. 1:15family or dad present is is good. Um and
34. 1:17so, the question is like, what is the
35. 1:19detriment or what are the things that
36. 1:20you're afraid of having happen? And
37. 1:22then, is there a way that you can model
38. 1:25the behavior that you are afraid that he
39. 1:27does not model? Now, you mentioned the
40. 1:30job,
41. 1:31and hopefully the mom-dad example flip
42. 1:33that I gave earlier kind of helps
43. 1:35attenuate that specific tension. Um
44. 1:38but if there are additional things that
45. 1:39he's doing that are not a good
46. 1:40influence, then it means that you
47. 1:41probably just need to step up more in
48. 1:42that specific setting from a modeling
49. 1:44perspective, but also, it might be
50. 1:46conditional in that if he wants to be
51. 1:48involved with the kids' lives, um and
52. 1:50they are his kids, too, um that maybe
53. 1:52you give him the opportunity to win in
54. 1:55other ways. Right? Like, the more ways
55. 1:57you have to win, the
56. 2:00more successful you will be. And so,
57. 2:01it's like if you if you want to if you
58. 2:03want to be on his side, right?
59. 2:05Ultimately, you're on your family's
60. 2:06side. And so, I think uh a good frame
61. 2:08here is like instead of saying this is a
62. 2:09kid-first family or a marriage-first
63. 2:11family, it's a family-first family. Is
64. 2:13that we're optimizing for the whole, the
65. 2:14benefit of the whole.
66. 2:16Um and so, we know that having this
67. 2:18figure is going to be important and in
68. 2:21introducing him is going to be key. So,
69. 2:22how do we just
70. 2:24uh mitigate the downside risks of him
71. 2:27coming in?
72. 2:28But, I think that by and large, it
73. 2:29probably makes sense to include him if
74. 2:30possible, assuming no abuse, etc. Um and
75. 2:33then for his deficiencies, you want to
76. 2:35model the correct behavior, and then
77. 2:37maybe put contingencies on what type of
78. 2:38behavior you would want uh him to model
79. 2:41when he is there with the kids.
80. 2:44So, um
81. 2:45this reminds me of a
82. 2:47a tweet that I like, which is uh the
83. 2:48fastest way to become the person that
84. 2:49you want to be is to put yourself in a
85. 2:51situation where you have no choice but
86. 2:53to become them.
87. 2:54Because when you make big life
88. 2:55decisions, you don't you don't want to
89. 2:57listen to the people who are closest to
90. 2:59you, but you want to listen to the
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