Rob 0:01
Hello and welcome to the new rad dad’s podcast. It is a podcast by dads for dads. today’s podcast we will be talking about the do’s and don’ts of dating. Is that even a word? I really don’t care. This is your host Rob Schilt joined with my co host Salvatore Minervini.
Sal 0:15
What’s up everyone?
Rob 0:16
After a long hiatus, we’re coming back with a vengeance. Sal all five fans know me, but they really don’t know you. So why don’t you introduce yourself age before beauty and all that?
Sal 0:26
What’s up everybody?
Just so everybody knows Rob pay me to be his co host because he asked all five of his fans and they all declined. I’m a dad, a husband, son and brother born and raised in Jersey. Pretty handy. I learned from watching my dad. I typically do all my work around the house unless calls for major stuff. During high school I managed Italian deli, worked in construction after high school, went to college got my civil engineering degree. And
I also like bourbon and cigars.
Rob 1:01
So now that we have Sal’s resume, that was great. So for a reintroduction on Rob born and raised in Jersey, I live in the same town I grew up in. I don’t know how that happened. It just happened. I guess call me a townie. I guess you say I’m hanging like salad. But that would be a lie. You know, I have degrees and stuff. But they’re really irrelevant for this podcast. But I mean, Sal, you can give us your resume again. So Sal came up with his idea to talk about the do’s and don’ts of dating. And before I get into it, I want to open the floor to him. So Sal, why don’t you give us the definition of dating or what your definition is?
Sal 1:35
Well, just before this podcast, I googled the word daddy. And it’s actually a word I had no idea was just off the top of my head, you blurted it out. And if you it’s listed in the urban dictionary,
Rob 1:46
well, that’s not Webster’s is it.
Sal 1:49
The definition for dating as found in the urban dictionary is care for offspring in a very male way. A woman must have wrote that often, but not always accomplished with beer, TV and half truths. They forgot, they forgot about the bourbon. Successful betting involves the child being whole and unmarked, clean, fed in diapers and or PJs. And napping asleep by the time the partner returns from whatever they’re doing. I totally agree with urban dictionary definition, it’s
Rob 2:22
good thing your wife’s not here to hear this. She won’t hear it, don’t worry, so.
Sal 2:27
But I’d like to add a little sensitivity to it. Dadding to me, is being there for your child, good times and bad. Talking to your child, when they’re upset, taking your child to school on the first day and last day of school. And, you know, sometime in between attending all of their school and team functions, being them for when they fall off their bikes and scrape their knee, tell them to get up, shake it off, it’ll be fine. Or we’ll have to go buy a new appendage from the store. Teach them how to ride a bike, teach them that teach them the games you played as a kid, teach them that it’s okay to take the hard path in life. Not everything is always easy. It only makes them stronger, teach them manners and to stand up for themselves. Rob, I’m sure you will agree with me. When I say school today is a lot different than when we went to school in the 90s in 2000. If you had a beef with someone or someone had a beef with you was handled after school and that was it. It was over done. You know, you beat the crap out of him or he beat the crap out of you. The next day you guys are buds with social media shit chick continues. And we’re trying not to curse. Sorry,
Rob 3:36
we didn’t even make it through your first solo.
Sal 3:43
We were trying to keep it clean. I swear. What does dadding mean to you?
Rob 3:47
I think it’s I think it aligns with it with everything you just said. I think you know, I have two boys. My experiences are much different than yours. As Sal has three girls, but in the long short of its being there for your kids, right? So a lot of a lot of boys my son’s age, which is you know, the preteen age for the older one and you know, kindergarten ish, the younger one. They have, they play a lot of fortnight they play a lot of sports, they go outside and dig holes and think they’re digging to the other side of the world. And they enjoy that until the lawnmower hits the hole and dad gets real pissed off. But they in all honesty, it’s always to be there right my son for him to ride his bike took two years, three years. And that’s not because it’s not because of persistence is because we went out only three times in those three years, right? It took him It took him falling off a couple of times being a little bit scared overcoming that. And then when he was ready he did it. It’s not always when the parents ready. Right. And I think that’s, that’s important for dads new dads old that whoever try to understand is it’s not your life. It’s not you trying to try and try out for the all star team. It’s not you Trying to make, you know, the travel soccer team. It’s the kid’s life. So one approach for me that that I focus on is asking my kids their thoughts like, I’m not going to I will send them to summer camps Not right now because of this whole COVID crap. But I send them summer camp to dinner and sports to have fun to do whatever they want to do. They’re not sitting at home, playing video games all day. But at the same point, you reward them to let them play video games. It’s even now it’s much different. He talked about school being different look at everything. You look at video games when we played video games.
Sal 5:34
Mario Brother Donkey Kong
Rob 5:37
Mario brothers, Donkey Kong, whenever we were playing Madden, it wasn’t a social it was social when you were in that person’s house. But it wasn’t social activity for the whole grade to be on playing fortnight talking about skins talking about pickaxes, I don’t even know what else. So I do play the fortnite the fornite because the monitor what’s going on actually learn that from another father and my son’s great is he kind of played just to see what they were doing. Understanding who he was talking to, not really to play the game, but more to, you know, he enjoyed the game too. And, and I enjoy the game. It’s it’s entertaining. I don’t the attraction like my son and his friends have, I don’t have it, I go and play with them to hang out with them. I do what they want to do.
Sal 6:22
That’s great. That’s, that’s good. Father and Son alone time.
Rob 6:26
Yeah. So I mean, so we, you know, even dragging your kid out to go hiking, you know, sometimes that doesn’t really, sometimes they don’t want to do that. But but at the same point, you want to make sure to get them to do things even challenge them on things they want to do. But if you bring a friend or you bring two friends, my two boys don’t love hiking, but now they will shut up about it since we went out what to other families and hike a mountain. And they didn’t complain the whole time. And, you know, it’s incredible that, that the difference the dynamics, the, you know, the the energy, and, you know, it was something stupid as Gatorade, someone, the parents bar gatorades for the kids, and, you know, we had such a good time they got walkingstick. So
Sal 7:08
it’s all about making memories. Yeah, you take them to something different, or try something different. And if it’s a great experience, then it’s something that they’re, you know, they they file that right in the back of their memory, that’s something that they’ll never forget, you know, and years to come, they’ll be telling that story at dinnertime, or you know, dollardays they’re retelling the story how dad, it was awesome, you took us hiking, and we had Gatorade with, you know, with these other families whose It was a fun time.
Rob 7:34
Yeah. And I apologize for us, we’re trying to keep it as independent from our families and dropping names of our friends, because they’re not the ones entertaining in this and we’re going to do the same, we’ll keep you know, our family’s kind of private, will eventually slip, I have no doubt about that. But as of right now, trying to keep it at a higher level, we’ll dive in and understand that. But from that perspective, I think over the life of this podcast and what we’re we’re really bringing to you, we’ll dive into all these different topics, all these different things we want to dive into. And they one of the biggest things like dadding is all about creating memories and supporting your children, rights and wrongs. No matter if it’s good, bad and different. We might my son is chatty Cathy and you have to kind of educate them that hey, everything you say in the house, you can go and tell everybody with that we’re talking about something. So something that’s as sensitive as money or something that’s as inset as sensitive as family dynamics, which are always entertaining for, you know, broken families, which, you know, I’m from Sal is not. That always comes into play and and you have to educate your children that, Hey, everyone knows your six or nine year old and they understand you’re going to be very blunt and tell the truth. And that’s the innocence of childhood. But at the same point, you try to educate them for them to be aware enough to say Dad, you know, I didn’t say this, but I was thinking this thanks for telling me and consulting them and really being their support structure right their consigliere
Sal 9:05
let them know that it’s okay to come home and tell you things. You know, you don’t have to be a closed book. They don’t have to be afraid to to, you know, be be forthright about something something that they may have done in school. But I it’s it The hardest part, my opinion is trying to get information out of your child when you know that a rough day at school or something happened during the day. You can tell just by looking at them that something ain’t right. But trying to get close and trying to figure out what it is is my biggest challenge group with my kids.
Rob 9:48
Yeah, my my son’s had he stands up for himself to say the least. And he’s had a couple run ins where he he did things he should have done. But he also understood that he had to go and apologize. He also later on realize that he was in a situation where he could have done something hidden in a kid, which would have been friggin great rain would have been a trip to the principal’s office. But he decided not to walk away from the situation and came home and told us about it. And I appreciated the fact that he knew enough that he got the kids fake, confronted him didn’t do anything about it other than confront him and walked away.
Sal 10:30
And that’s what you want.
Rob 10:32
I there’s very few even adults who have that self control to understand that that’s wrong. And it’s really incredible that you know me why I say it all the time is like, we’re doing something right. Like it’s, you know, it’s a learning it’s a it’s a it’s always learning, you’re always learning. You’re always you’re malleable because you have to change to your children’s personalities. Both my kids have much different personalities. I’m sure yours day. Oh, yeah, they do. Have you ever had this happen to you?
Sal 10:59
Well, it’s my kids are very different in our house, when we’re together than they are at people’s houses. I mean, at least that’s what I’m being told. So my kids are at each other’s necks here at the house. But if they go to your friend’s house together I we were told that all your kids are so sweet. They’re so nice. They’re not they played together and please this thank you that and me that’s that’s that’s great. You know, that’s that’s your shows that what we’re teaching at home works. I just wish that they continued.
Rob 11:35
I think it’s because not that it’s an act, but I think it’s more that they feel comfortable when they’re home. Yeah. And they’ll open up and be aggressive at home and have confrontations with their siblings. But at the same point when they’re out they know they have to be on their best behavior. Pretty much every time we got I don’t know of your parents this to you. No matter whatever grandparents house aunts, uncles, it was to talk in the car was best behavior. You’re not talking about anything that’s inappropriate. No, whatever inappropriate jokes No, like, especially when you get the preteen is a whole nother conversation. But like, it was always that conversation. And my son’s realized that and I think my younger one doesn’t fully understand it yet. But my older one definitely does. And you see it’s the same thing, home much different person than when they’re out. And we’ve had parents say the same thing. Like, all your kids are Angel. Um, they are fooling you I’m like,
Sal 12:29
I know growing up, my parents told me if you ever go into a friend’s house, don’t ask them for anything. Don’t tell them you’re hungry. Don’t tell them you’re thirsty. Don’t Don’t, don’t touch the refrigerator. Don’t even look at the refrigerator. That you know. And of course now I tell my kids, if you’re at a friend’s house, and you’re thirsty, you ask the mom Hey, can I have some water? Water? That’s it? No. Do you have iced tea? Do you? There’s none of that. The only time soda and iced tea is in my house is on a special occasion.
Rob 12:59
Yeah, my kids aren’t allowed to have soda. So I mean, we could talk about the different intricacies over you know, in another episode, but I would say for me, it’s very important that in my kid, so there’s two things in my house that I drink every day water and coffee. That’s it. Now if I have a soda, it’s a treat, or if it’s like, right now if you know the heat wave that’s kind of going going through is is crazy right now. So sometimes instead of like an afternoon coffee, I’ll opt for like a Diet Coke or something like that. But the kids, it’s water, we have a water cooler. And really, it’s more chocolate milk or an apple juice, like my wife buys like Capri Sun, but like it’s a special occasion when they get that or like the honest juice boxes, and we have those but
Sal 13:43
are they really honest? labels?
I wanna I wanna I want to jump back to something you said before. When you said, you know, when when something is private happening in the house conversation that we’re having with our kids, or just the adults and the kids are listening. We made the mistake to not tell our kids, hey, when we talk about in the house stays in the house. It’s not for anyone else to hear or understand or you don’t repeat it. So there was that one time That awkward moment when one of my kids say Hey, Dad, didn’t you say this about that person?
Oh did I want to crawl under a rock? So that’s trying to backpedal from that. Yeah, wasn’t fun
Rob 14:33
that’s a I we haven’t had that happen, which is good. What we have happened is more of stuff that they’ve said to relatives or something like that, where it’s just very inappropriate. And I didn’t know it was inappropriate. It was just a very innocent comment. And they didn’t even they don’t even understand it was wrong. And that’s how innocent it was. Sure. And the person who was said to didn’t even tell me, someone else told me and said, Hey, listen, your son said, That’s not, don’t get mad at me Don’t get mad. And like, you know, I’m just telling you and I was like, thank you. I was like, I will talk to him about it, because he didn’t know he has no idea. Yeah. So, you know, from from that perspective, it was it was a good learning experience. Because thank God, because to that point, like, holy crap, I think God knows what we could have said that, you know, that that they would repeat. I mean, all in all, a lot of times they things that they overhear or think they overhear, you know, they don’t even don’t even fully grasp the full conversation. And they pick up a piece and they’re like, Oh, yeah, let me repeat that.
Sal 15:42
It is funny, grabbing a conversation, me, my wife and the kids. And my oldest daughter in the background, she yells out that we know more than you adults think. And I was like, what, what does that even mean? I said, Well, how do you how do you know what do you know? She is like my BFFs I guess there’s a lot of talking. And then I know,
Rob 16:11
I know, when they’re on fortnight they’re like chitchat and like, I mean, so my son really predominantly only hangs out with with boys. They’re chit chat. And like, any gossip group, any, like, incredible. I don’t want to bring like gender specifications into it. So I mean, any gossip group I think is, is pretty generic. And they’re, I mean, they’re, they’re just talk about everything, everything in anything. I mean, and the group of kids that he talks to is such a dynamic group so different, you know, that there’s some jocks. There’s some non jocks. There’s some kids who are really big video gamers. Does he play?
Sal 16:48
Does he talk to only people that are like that he knows?
Rob 16:52
No, there’s only kids. So what we do, which is a good point, right,
Sal 16:56
because I’m not I’m not a gamer. I’m not familiar. I mean, I’ve heard a fortnight I you know, I but there’s no gate. There’s no ps4 or Xbox in this house. We
Rob 17:06
have two Xbox. We have a switch. Oh, wow. have iPads. So I mean, I listen, I, I grew up on Xbox, right. So ever since I was in college, I had an Xbox. And my son got an Xbox. And honestly, up until about a week ago, he really didn’t play it. He more played on a switch. But the only game he plays he doesn’t play Madden, he doesn’t play FIFA, he doesn’t he plays fortnight and that’s really a Minecraft a little bit. For the building piece, which I think is really cool for a kid. They’re building things building houses building like he’s like, Dad, check out my house. It’s really cool as this trip goes, like so it’s almost like a engineering architecture. So I’m like, Alright, I encourage that more than four night but he enjoys fortnight it’s hand eye coordination. There’s good things about it. There’s a huge social aspect about it for these boys his age, but we do monitor who he friends so his account is linked so and I’ll put out a guide to this on the site in in the upcoming weeks but there’s a there’s a way to link your account your child’s account to your main Microsoft account to make it within with within Microsoft owns Xbox for those who don’t know and those who do know or we need the guy who would already know that but you can link it and see exactly what they’re doing you can monitor what they’re doing you can put caps on what they’re doing. So there’s a lot of good things about it. I enjoy Xbox more in the switch more predominantly because I understand Xbox really don’t understand the appeal for switch my son uses it I know gamers who use it but it’s just not really for me
Sal 18:44
I mean the closest thing my kids got to gaming one of her friends was talking about Roblox so we we gave you said okay download Roblox but was on my wife’s iPhone. And my daughter was playing one day and she goes Oh, I just got a friend request I said hold on a second Let me see some strange person I said I have to sit delete the app no more Roblox crap on the news that you know these these pedophiles are friending young kids I was like you know what? I don’t want to take any chances. Done. No Roblox in this house.
Rob 19:21
Yeah, and they do they my younger son plays a lot of Roblox he plays with one of his relatives one of his cousins. And they he does he gets a ton of friend requests and we just delete them. He knows he’s good about it. He goes that someone friend requests to me, we go through we delete it out I also keep track of it. So I go through and monitor and monitor his also for night friends and make sure that any of his porn friends are his brother’s friends because that’s traditionally who he plays with. He’s actually better than mostly like he’s good at it which is even scarier so you know if they maybe he found his like little hidden hidden talent. Everyone has one So, I don’t know, I just know that eventually, at least with boys, you’re going to come up as, because that’s what I’ve experienced with, they’re eventually going to come up and, and plays video games. And if they are you have to instill not the fear of God because I don’t think that’s, I don’t think that’s needed necessarily anymore. But you have to educate them even now is more more important than ever, with social media with all this stuff going on, like, social media terrifies me, having two boys. Social media terrifies me, I don’t even know how you’re feeling. But I’ll tell you like, I’m trying to avoid
Sal 20:37
that, like the play. I mean, my daughter, my daughter is going into sixth grade eldest daughter, and she’s already asked for a phone. And some of her friends they got from graduating from fifth grade going into middle school, some of her friends got phones, another one of her friends had a phone and she’s already started. Their cousin in Florida. She’s nine years old, her parents gave her a phone. So now my oldest once it’s I, I’m not looking forward to that conversation. It’s it scares the living daylights out of me, especially because once once they start with the phone, will that my friends have this messenger account, I want to talk chat with my friends, and then my friends does and it’s like, it’s just such a big snowball effect.
Rob 21:22
It’s non stop. Right? So even though it’s a snowball effect, I think the the application that really bothers me is Tick tock, because I really don’t understand it.
Sal 21:34
I mean, I think it’s geared more towards kids. It’s grabbing kids attention. And I haven’t seen a lot of things on the news about Tick Tock either spying on people’s phones who have the app on their phone. So I tend to stay away from any of that. I keep hearing my kids about Tick Tock this and tick tock that and I keep joking with them. Are you talking about a clock?
Rob 21:57
I mean, this whole podcast is littered with dad jokes. It’s pretty I I would love for any of the listeners tell us how many dad jokes are in here. We’ll keep count. I think I’m not exactly sure we’re pressing five at least maybe maybe seven. But definitely, you’ll see them come out. Right. We’re dads where we have dad jokes, we embarrass our children. it’s all part of dadding
Sal 22:19
and some of the stuff we say made May we may show our age.
Rob 22:22
That’s That’s true, too. I’m surprised that I didn’t talk about Atari when we brought up
Sal 22:28
I remember Atari when I was a kid. My father loved it. Oh my god, Atari is rubber joysticks. Oh, yeah.
Rob 22:37
I never had one when the first thing we had was Sega. So that was that was a bit and it was big. It was it was a gift for me and my brother.
Sal 22:46
So how did you pronounce that?
Rob 22:48
What Sega
Sal 22:49
what actually we call it Sega.
Rob 22:51
The same thing Sega
but you saying Sega?
Oh Alright
Sal 22:52
is a Sega
Rob 22:54
Sega
Sal 22:55
Sega like I S-A-Y-G-A
Rob 22:59
Oh, there is Sal’s phone
Sal 23:01
Great
Rob 23:01
nice, nice professional podcast here. Don’t worry about it. It’s okay. Don’t mind the phone in the background. That’s just telling us we have to wind down shortly.
Sal 23:12
That’s that’s we’re not in a soundboard.
Rob 23:14
We’re not in a studio, we’ve muted all our cell phones can’t do anything about who still has a house line. Like seriously,
You know, many times I considered cutting out my house line. But I still got the freakin phone on the wall.
I know. It’s amazing. We also has an intercom system, which is priceless.
Sal 23:35
My do my phone on the wall has a 30 foot cord. Remember the 30 foot cord when we were kids?
Rob 23:40
you die you almost got strangled by your parents on it.
My wife wants a house line too, because it makes sense for the kids so that the kids can give out a number because we don’t want to give them phones yet. Our kids are still young. I think I give you credit. You’ve held out some middle school. I think that’s gonna be the breaking point for us because they start going out and start riding their bikes with their friends, rather than having a phone to call us. But guaranteed the first like phone we give them is going to break so
Sal 24:09
what I got my daughter, it’s called the gizmo hub. It’s by Verizon. It’s a watch.
Rob 24:15
Yep.
Sal 24:15
But it’s got cellular capabilities. For contacts. That’s the only people that are in the phone that call my daughter but you can’t call the number direct so if I gave you the number and you try dialing the number you can’t get through. You got to go through the you got to be invited by one of the parents my wife, my wife and myself. And that’s you. You download the app and you install install Gizmo hub and that’s the only way you can contact there’s you know there’s there’s messaging but it’s it’s very minimal. But why we got it was because we move to the other side of town and we wanted my oldest daughter to finish up in the school that she started and my to my middle my youngest They switch schools. So when my mother in law picked up my my, to my middle, my youngest, she would call my oldest and say, Hey, this is where you’re gonna meet me so she can reach out to her on the watch. And there’s no phone. There’s no games, you know, there’s no social media, but I like the gizmo hub, I think it’s a better alternative.
Rob 25:20
So if I had Verizon, I’d go with that. I think that’s a good option. And I think that’s actually something we should talk about in a future episode of what the options are across the multiple the various cell providers. So you have at&t, Verizon, Sprint, and T Mobile.
Sal 25:36
So any of you dads out there who are looking for an alternative to a cell phone for your child, check out the gizmo hub by Verizon, I think it was a $10 activation line charge, and it’s only five bucks a month.
Rob 25:51
That’s that’s a steal.
Sal 25:52
Thats five dollars a month
Rob 25:53
I think we’ll have to put that in the liner notes. I’ll throw in a link I’ll find it and throw it in there so that it’s easily accessible.
Sal 25:59
But it’s not only for when my daughters are at school, if one of my kids goes to a friend’s house, she gets to watch. Hey, you know, and you know, it’s got GPS, too. It’s actually pretty cool. So my oldest daughter was going to a I don’t know some people call it goosey night some people call a cabbage night mischief night, whatever part of the world you’re on, let us know what what you call it. But I, I gave her the watch. I set a perimeter on the watch and the GPS, it that I got a notification on my phone that she arrived at her destination. And the and I would get a notification if she went beyond that perimeter. Nice. So it’s actually spot on. It’s actually really good. I like it.
Rob 26:43
But that’s pretty cool. I like that. Also look into that though. Funny enough we don’t have we don’t have Verizon. So we’d have to come up with a with another option. Because sprint doesn’t have really anything I don’t think. Alright, so for for our last bit. I think we’re going to institute a dad lesson. And we’re trying to clean up this clean. But since we already screwed it up at the beginning Sal dropped, dropped whatever curse he did drop the F bomb Sal, you can have the honor of sharing our first dad lesson.
Sal 27:19
So the first dad lesson for the first episode of our podcast is don’t shave your scrotum with a straight razor.
Rob 27:28
And that goes for you Little Timmy out there.
Sal 27:32
Now, if you have to ask us what we really mean by that, don’t even consider a straight razor.
Rob 27:40
So I think that’s pretty much a wrap from our from our standpoint, I do want to thank our sponsor, Bergen Brick Oven Bar and Grill. The first 10 listeners who go to Bergen Brick Oven and will receive a $5 discount if you say if you give them the discount code rad dads but you have to be in person. So unfortunately, right now, in in the state we’re in. There’s no inside dining. It’s only outdoor dining. So those of you who are listening to it who want to go out to our dining, and most of you are going to be family and friends. And know Bergen and brick oven already. Just tell the owner of rad dads and he’s gonna keep track first. 10 $5 off
Sal 28:23
Ask for the owner, Nick.
Rob 28:25
Yeah, that’s for the owner. Yes.
Sal 28:26
And tell him rad dads.
Rob 28:28
Yeah, tell him rad dad sent you.
Sal 28:32
Thank you everyone for listening. Be sure to tune in to our next episode that we talked about COVID-19 what we love and hate about it. If you like what you heard, please smash that follow or subscribe button. If you have any questions, comments, or want to give us some feedback. Hit us up at the theraddadsshow@gmail.com. That’s t-h-e-r-a-d d-a-d-s-s-h-o-w theraddadsshow@gmail.com
Rob 29:02
Thank you. And that’s a wrap.
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