EP22 – Parenting Is Simple, You Complicate It

Hello and welcome to this episode of, I don't know Jack about parenting, where I want to talk about how simple this parenting thing can be. I often say when I'm working with clients, you know, life is really simple. We just complicate it, so we'll talk about that here on this episode.

I don't want strangers that don't bring value

Hey, welcome back to this episode of I don't know Jack about parenting, where I'm going to be talking about how simple life isn't. And I'll tell you, um, how simple this is and what brought on this episode. I'm on Facebook today. Somebody who has, you know, 38 mutual friends that I have. I always vet who I am. I'm going to bring on as Facebook friend, I get a lot of requests. Any of you who are on Facebook may know that, uh, you know, all kinds of strange people try to request you sometimes. So I always look and make sure that it's somebody who is like minded to me, right? I don't want strangers that don't bring value on my friends list. I don't want it to real life and I definitely don't want it here on, on Facebook. So 38 mutual friends. The friends are solid. I go to her page, I look and I just say to her, hey, thanks for reaching out to me here on Facebook and continue to strive and crush your goals. She responds back, you know, a half hour, hour later whenever she did, she says, that just made my day. Thank you so much for that.

And her response to let me know that I just made her day, right? Positive reaction of the... know that I friended someone with mutual thoughts and want to uplift people.

I said, thank you for that. Me knowing that I just made your day just made my day. And she responds back like, isn't that great? And My response back was, you know, life is simple, right? A simple gesture. Some kind words, less than a sentence to somebody who friended me on Facebook made their day. Life is simple. We complicate it because there's so many times that maybe I friend someone, I'm like ahhh, let's see if this person even reaches out or it's just another person or our mind gets there. Right? We complicate it. Why not just welcome someone who asked to be your friend? Nobody would walk into your home, right? They asked to come into my world. They asked for whatever reason, something I said, or a post or a mutual friend said, hey, this guy over here is someone you may want to get to know or they just came across my stuff and they said, hey, I'd like to get to know you.

Well that nobody is you

If someone knocked on my door and say, Hey, I'm your new neighbor. I wouldn't sit there and not say, Hey, my name is so and so. What do we have in common? Or get to know them, right? Where'd you move from? We we'd have these pleasantries but on a platform such as social media, someone, friends you and we just kind of, and I'm guilty of this and I imagine a lot of you are guilty of this. We just, you know, just another friend, just another friend and we go about it where like, you know, I got 3000 friends and nobody engages. Well that nobody is you. It's not that they don't engage. They friended you and you didn't engage back. Or when you friend someone in a approve it, right? Do you go in and say, Hey, this is what I like about you. We have so and so in common.

We do that. We develop these relationships? So how does this pertain to, I don't know Jack about parenting, right? See, I don't know a lot about parenting, but I know a lot about people, right? And, and as parents we're people, it will raising other people.

We all crave and want and desire engagement. All we need to do is engage. This parenting thing is so simple. I'm going to go back into the previous one. I'm recording these on the same day. If you're like, hey, he's in the same shirt, he's in the same car, but my neighbors just brought a, uh, have a little one four day old baby their house and there's some real simple things that need to happen. My wife actually gave the advice to her like, hey, there are some checklists that are the must have checklists online.

Let this child know that it's loved

The essentials that you're definitely gonna need. We don't. Why do we have to go to Google, you know, 25 years ago, Google didn't even exist. Why do we have to go to google to figure out what a baby needs? Maybe going to need some diapers, maybe some cream, maybe some baby powder. I'm going to need some formula, right? She's not breastfeeding, it's not her child. We're gonna need some bottles and we're going to need a lot of love. Listen to what I just said, there was a need, a lot of love. Let this child know that it's loved and welcomed and just a lot of love is really that simple. So her response to my wife, when my wife told her this was, oh, I went to those checklists. I need a diaper genie, right? Diaper genie. That is not under... diaper genies were not around 25 years ago.

People that is complicated. You just complicated the necessities of a child. Child doesn't need a diaper genie as parents. Oh, that might know. That might make my life easier. No, really diaper genie. Genie's don't. Why? Because for whatever reason we bought one and in the second child we still had it. We put a lot of stuff in the attic as well. We'd never use the diaper genie. We actually used the diaper genie in the spare bathroom, which is close to the laundry area. And you know what I put in there. I don't put poop in there. I put lint, I put lint from the dryer into our diaper genie. I don't know why. That's just what we do with our diaper genie. The diaper genie. For people who say like, Oh my God, the poop is going to stink. Here's the deal. Learn how to wrap the diaper.

You will probably not have a stench

You got wrap the diaper with the tape and seal all that stink inside and if you take your garbage out daily or bi-daily, every other day you will probably not have a stench and if there's a really bad stench buy a box of Ziploc bags and put the diapers in zip locks so that the smell can't come out, but at the end of the day there are so few of those explosions that we need to take care of and put it outside or use those grocery bags, right? Those plastic bags that you get from your local grocery store, have some of those that you could tie and seal that thing. You do not need a freaking diaper genie.

It's just not a necessity. That's a complicated thing to a very simple thing, and I always go with this, right? Life is simple. If you didn't have an abundance of money and we didn't have Amazon and we had to go out and attain these things, what would the child need? Look, if we didn't have a car to go to and from what would the child need and let's have those necessities and did, did whatever we think we need didn't exist 100 years ago and if the answer is no, guess what? Children survived way before then, but this was simple 100 years ago. You know what a child got, a child got fed, a child got changed, child got loved, and that's as simple as it is to raise a child, so if, but the key one and should be in a different order as I put it there, right? Love is first and foremost. So if you're stressing about diaper genies or bottle warmers or uh, if the wipes are warm and what temperature they need to be. And Oh my God, do I need toys? An infant doesn't need toys. I tell you what, an infant does not need a pair of shoes. You know what an infant needs. An infant needs a onesy.

And that's it! And a patient loving set of parents. And if there's only one parent, a patient loving parent.

Who lets them know that they are safe, that is as simple as it gets. After that, all the add ons, all the college funds, all the a designer clothes, all the extra toys, all that stuff right, is complicating a very simple process here. I don't know a lot about parenting, right? But life and relationships are the key to a happy life. How do I know? Because there was a time in my life I didn't focus on relationships. There was a time of my life where sharing this knowledge with perfect strangers. If you're listening to this to me, chances are right now, chances are you are a perfect stranger to me. I don't really know you, but I'm sharing so that you could have a better relationship with your child. There's a long time ago. I'd be like, they could figure it out on their own.

I was there to serve

They can go screw up their kids on their own. But I've learned that relationship is the key to life. The more relationships that are healthy, that are uplifting. I said to somebody, just today, somebody else put a beautiful thing on my page on Facebook, saying that how I helped them a couple years ago. Um, and that's it. It's a relationship. I started a relationship. I didn't want anything in return. I was there to serve and what my response to her was as a coach is my passion to help people. As a father. It's my passion to empower my children to be independent, loving, productive members of society. Um, it's a passion of mine to do that for other people. And as I share these messages, right? I, I'm, I'm, I beg you almost just keep it simple. Don't complicate it. We don't need a whole bunch of stuff and I find that parents are buying the best crib and the best stroller in the thousand dollars stroller and a $2,000 crib.

And then I was like, man, that's awesome. What about the college fund? I'll worry about that later on, man. Your crib and your stroller. If you put it into an investment, like we're worried about their comfort. Uh Oh. Here's another thing, right? Simple. Do you really think a baby that seven pounds that was curled up in a fetal position in a ball for the last nine months as they grew? Is worried about comfort like that. Like I say, comfort. They want to be comforted by their parents. Number One, right? They want to hear the heartbeat of a mom and touch the skin, the skin. However, I can't tell you how many parent forums I see, right that people complicate. Thus, the bassinet we have is uncomfortable. How do, how do, how do you know what uncomfortable is to a baby, uncomfortable to a baby, is mom and dad arguing about how much they're gonna spend on a damn bassinet that's uncomfortable to a baby, but comfortable is all relevant in a child like, I need better for my kid.

Don't go and buy that $3,000 bassinet

You want better for your kid? You want to send your kid off to college. Maybe you had to pay. Maybe you're in student loan debt. Don't go and buy that $3,000 bassinet or crib or go put that into a college fund today and when you can contribute. Not even a college fund, right? If you put it in the stock market, if you put it in Facebook or Amazon, if you opened an account with three grand in it today, by the time that kid is going off to college, there'll be enough money there to support that college, but everybody's worried about the comfort of the child. How cute the onesy he is, no a cute onesy by the time you were able to put on because you're exhausted. That cute outfit that you got, like it's going to outgrow that outfit. So don't buy those out outfits buy them, uh, uh, two dozen onesies, some diapers and bottles and love on that child and you're good to go. That's my opinion. But everybody wants to complicate it with stuff. Stuff isn't serving your kids. That's complicated. Key parenting, simple. See you in the next episode.