The Matt Walsh Show - ＂Regretful Parents＂ Are Going VIRAL. Here's What I Think

00:00:00.000 You know, sometimes on this show, I like to read questions and quandaries from the clueless souls on the internet, especially Reddit, and try my best to provide them with a little bit of guidance.

00:00:09.260 And that was a plan, the plan that I had for this segment, but then my producer, McKenna, suggested that I go to the subreddit called Regretful Parents to find some fodder.

00:00:17.060 I did as she recommended, and I can report that it is one of the most depressing places I've ever encountered on the internet, which is obviously saying a lot.

00:00:24.320 Just post after post after post of parents who view their children as nothing but a burden.

00:00:28.100 And I thought, well, I'm not going to attempt to talk about this on the show. It's just, it's so bleak and so horrific.

00:00:35.120 But then I decided that maybe I might have a useful thing or two to say to these people.

00:00:38.880 Sadly, a sizable number of parents feel this way.

00:00:41.100 We like to think that, well, no one ever regrets having kids. Actually, they do.

00:00:44.740 And when that happens, it is a terrible thing. Terrible for the kids, most importantly.

00:00:48.780 So I'm going to start by reading a few of the posts or snippets of posts.

00:00:53.260 I hate mothering. I enjoy maybe 1% of it. It's given me misery on top of misery on top of pain every single day since she was born. 1.00

00:01:00.420 Giving birth was medieval torture. I don't like playing with her. I don't like talking to her.

00:01:04.720 I don't like taking her to the park. I can barely think about anything I enjoy with her.

00:01:09.260 Maybe cooking for her, I don't even know.

00:01:11.660 Another says,

00:01:12.100 Someone else says,

00:01:27.260 Brother Post says,

00:01:57.260 I'm tired of this life. I'm the only one with them 24-7. I'm so sick of it.

00:02:05.420 My partner is useless. All he says is they're babies and something's wrong with me. 0.99

00:02:09.380 How could I dislike my own children?

00:02:11.200 In a similar vein, someone says,

00:02:12.480 My daughter just turned five and I was already regretful about having her and having no love for her.

00:02:17.120 We treat her well and I say I love her and all that jazz.

00:02:19.740 Did not mess up her childhood.

00:02:21.300 But she has now been diagnosed with selective mutism,

00:02:23.620 which is a type of anxiety disorder where she can't speak in public or to anyone outside her immediate family.

00:02:28.820 Her teacher says she doesn't speak a word at school and her peers keep asking her why she doesn't talk.

00:02:32.740 I already hated life as a parent and now I have to deal with psychologist appointments.

00:02:36.240 What a joke of a life I've gotten myself into.

00:02:38.600 These have mostly been mothers so far with these posts,

00:02:41.440 but there are also some dads are on the forum.

00:02:44.260 I'll read one of those just, you know, to be gallantarian about it.

00:02:46.820 Just day after day after day and it never ends and it never changes. 0.98

00:02:49.480 Incessant bickering, screaming, slapping, kicking, biting, fighting over every possible tiny goddamn little thing. 0.98

00:02:56.180 When all my attempts for diplomacy fail and I finally snap and yell at them to stop, 0.98

00:02:59.700 they act absolutely shocked and hurt by how mean dad is and it works.

00:03:03.440 I end up feeling terrible and apologizing to them and on and on and on it goes.

00:03:06.360 My brain and nerves are completely shot.

00:03:07.640 I don't understand how they seem to thrive in that level of dysfunction.

00:03:10.680 I know kids are dramatic and all, but I know I was never like that as a kid.

00:03:14.560 It's bonkers.

00:03:15.680 A lot of frustration there, to put it mildly.

00:03:18.280 I understand parenting frustration.

00:03:20.060 I don't understand hating your kid or most of what we just read there.

00:03:24.040 But, you know, frustration, sure.

00:03:25.400 When you have, as we did, two sets of twins, six kids total, you experience frustration.

00:03:31.340 Our last set of twins were both colicky as infants.

00:03:34.800 If you know anything about colic in an infant,

00:03:36.960 you know that we dealt with about six months of constant crying,

00:03:40.300 morning, noon, and night from two babies while also having four other kids to take care of.

00:03:45.480 I'm not saying that that's the hardest parenting experience anyone's ever had,

00:03:48.200 but it's definitely not entry-level stuff that we were dealing with.

00:03:51.180 So I've been in the trenches and therefore I think I have some credibility

00:03:53.940 to say the things that I'm going to say to all of these people

00:03:57.480 and anyone who might find themselves relating to what I just read.

00:04:00.440 First, you know, a lot of parents who feel this level of anger and despair

00:04:05.400 to the point of actually regretting having kids,

00:04:07.440 it's at least partly because their kids are out of control and totally unruly. 0.88

00:04:11.740 The kids are running the house, bouncing off the walls, ruling the roost, and you're at wit's end.

00:04:16.040 Here's the good news about that, and it will sound like bad news, but it's actually good news,

00:04:19.160 is that it's your fault. 0.66

00:04:20.440 It's totally your fault.

00:04:21.660 You are 100% to blame.

00:04:22.980 Your kids are out of control because you are out of control.

00:04:25.800 And I don't mean that you're yelling and screaming and losing your temper,

00:04:28.180 though you might be.

00:04:29.060 But even when you have your temper in check, you're still being ruled by your emotions.

00:04:33.920 You are, I'm going to assume, angry, sullen, visibly overwhelmed, overcome by frustration.

00:04:40.660 Well, the problem is that your kids pick up on that.

00:04:42.500 They see it.

00:04:43.060 And it's not just that they're imitating your lack of emotional regulation, though they are.

00:04:47.040 More importantly, they see that you are projecting a lack of control, a loss of command,

00:04:52.000 and they lose respect for you and your rules as a result.

00:04:55.080 And that's natural.

00:04:56.020 When a leader seems flustered, his followers become disturbed.

00:04:59.480 And if this state of being flustered continues or happens over and over again,

00:05:03.220 eventually they lose faith in his ability to lead.

00:05:05.380 People listening to my show know that I'm kind of a nerd about reading stories of explorers.

00:05:09.780 Sometimes in these stories, something that happens are mutinies.

00:05:13.440 And very often a mutiny happens because you've got a ship full of men in some uncharted part of the world.

00:05:18.900 And if the men on the ship, whose lives depend on the captain,

00:05:22.160 if they perceive that the captain doesn't know what he's doing, is afraid, is frustrated, indecisive,

00:05:29.100 overwhelmed by the responsibility that he has taken on,

00:05:32.500 if the men on the ship notice that, if they perceive it, they lose faith in his leadership.

00:05:37.460 And then there's a mutiny.

00:05:38.400 So what's happening in some of these households is your kids are, it's a mutiny.

00:05:42.200 They're staging a mutiny, although their reasons behind it are mostly unconscious, for the kids anyway.

00:05:47.000 Now what makes this good news is that it's very fixable.

00:05:49.820 All you have to do is put on a convincing front, fake it till you make it.

00:05:53.840 As some very wise philosopher once said, project the appearance of being in control,

00:05:58.500 of being in command, of being unbothered, of being unflustered, happy, good humored.

00:06:03.040 You don't have to feel that way.

00:06:04.240 Just pretend that you feel that way.

00:06:05.800 And yes, it is a virtue to fake it in those cases.

00:06:08.120 This idea that we should never, you know, we need to be true to ourselves and be honest about our emotions.

00:06:12.340 Oh, you shouldn't be.

00:06:13.200 In fact, you should be, you should not be honest about your emotions most of the time.

00:06:18.420 Like most of what you're feeling should not be known to the people around you.

00:06:22.460 And especially when you're a parent.

00:06:23.940 And you combine that attitude or the appearance of that attitude with consistent guidelines,

00:06:28.660 clear rules, and clear consequences for breaking the rules,

00:06:30.840 and you'll no longer have this level of dysfunction in your home.

00:06:34.060 Your children will not be in a constant state of war with each other and you.

00:06:37.560 And you may be able to enjoy their company and your own life as a consequence.

00:06:41.900 Like many of you this summer, I intend to spend more time with my family,

00:06:44.520 getting outside, traveling, letting go of some of my routine.

00:06:46.980 But one routine I won't be letting go of is my prayer routine.

00:06:50.080 I'll continue my daily habit of prayer with Hallow, the number one prayer app in the world.

00:06:54.500 For the third year in a row, Hallow is having their wildly popular Saints in Seven Days Prayer Challenge,

00:06:59.300 where over the course of four weeks, you'll journey through the life of an incredible saint,

00:07:03.380 learning more about their faith, their story, and ultimately their surrender to the will of God in their life.

00:07:08.060 The challenge kicked off August 5th with Joe Mazzula, the coach of Celtics,

00:07:11.620 and Saint Sebastian, the patron saint of athletes.

00:07:14.480 Then Rhea Wahlberg will lead meditations on the life of Saint Elizabeth Seton,

00:07:18.220 followed by Jonathan Rumi walking through the powerful story of Saint Maximilian Kolbe,

00:07:22.960 who sacrificed his own life for the life of another at Auschwitz.

00:07:25.480 Closing the series with Father David Michael Moses and blessed Pierre Giorgio Frassati,

00:07:30.720 Saints in Seven Days goes deep into the lesser-known parts of a saint's life

00:07:34.620 to show that while their journey to sainthood were filled with God's grace and glory,

00:07:39.040 they also included human struggle, great suffering, mistakes, and a profound need for God's mercy.

00:07:44.160 Hallow is truly transformative, and it will help you connect with your faith on a deeper level.

00:07:47.760 So what are you waiting for?

00:07:48.760 Download the Hallow app today at hallow.com slash mattwalsh.

00:07:51.540 hallow.com slash mattwalsh for an exclusive three-month free trial of all 10,000 prayers and meditations.

00:07:58.280 Second, happiness is a matter of focus.

00:08:01.380 Happy people focus on the aspects of things that make them happy.

00:08:04.620 Unhappy people focus on the aspects that make them unhappy.

00:08:07.280 That seems so basic that it doesn't even need to be said,

00:08:09.800 but it's a basic thing that we often lose sight of, and this especially applies to parenting.

00:08:13.620 If you're an unhappy parent, it's because you're choosing to focus on all of the things

00:08:17.780 that you want to do but can't because you have kids,

00:08:21.200 and the things that you have to do but don't want to do.

00:08:23.440 For the people who wrote these laments that I just read,

00:08:25.980 this focus for them has become obsessive.

00:08:29.000 All they can think about is the stuff they don't want to have to do but they have to do,

00:08:33.800 and the stuff that they would prefer to do but they can't do.

00:08:36.720 And so they're just whining all the time in their heads and now on Reddit,

00:08:41.100 you don't want to do this.

00:08:42.140 I don't want to do it anymore.

00:08:43.320 This is hard.

00:08:44.100 I don't want to have to do these things.

00:08:45.300 I want to travel.

00:08:46.300 Look, it's a choice that you have made to focus your attention on those things.

00:08:50.180 There are so many things in life you could focus on,

00:08:52.220 and you decided to focus on the fact that you can't travel to Europe or whatever.

00:08:56.040 So your unhappiness is a choice. 0.89

00:08:57.940 You've decided to be miserable and wallow in your misery. 0.96

00:09:00.540 And you could stay there forever, wallowing in it if you want. 0.99

00:09:03.820 And then you'll be unhappy and miserable your whole life.

00:09:06.380 In the process, you'll alienate everybody around you.

00:09:08.800 Your kids will grow to resent you and want nothing to do with you.

00:09:11.840 And then they'll get older and they'll be adults and they won't be as difficult anymore.

00:09:15.400 And you're going to want to have a relationship with them at that point

00:09:18.020 because it's easy now because they're out of the house.

00:09:20.220 And they're going to have grandkids.

00:09:21.360 And you're going to want to see the grandkids because grandkids are easy.

00:09:24.000 But your kids are not going to want to have that relationship.

00:09:26.520 And you're going to spend the rest of your life feeling victimized.

00:09:28.260 Oh, my kids ignore me.

00:09:29.200 They don't come over.

00:09:29.760 They don't bring the grandkids over.

00:09:30.900 Why should they?

00:09:31.660 You were awful to them.

00:09:33.380 You did the bare minimum their whole childhood.

00:09:35.660 You put no effort in.

00:09:36.940 Like you fed them and clothed them.

00:09:38.200 You have to do that.

00:09:39.200 But you had a bad attitude about it the entire time.

00:09:41.760 You made the home just an excruciating environment for them to live in.

00:09:46.100 You spent the whole time whining.

00:09:47.540 Why the hell would they want a relationship with you?

00:09:49.340 A relationship with who?

00:09:50.780 There's no relationship here.

00:09:51.840 So that's how it can go if you choose that.

00:09:54.180 The only person who can choose otherwise is you.

00:09:56.220 The only person who can fix the problem is you.

00:09:59.040 Nobody else can.

00:10:00.740 Your kids certainly can't.

00:10:02.600 Now, I've never felt like I regretted being a parent, nor have I ever had feelings of hatred

00:10:07.820 towards my children, for God's sake.

00:10:09.280 But I have experienced anger, frustration, sadness as a parent.

00:10:13.700 I have thrown plenty of pity parties for myself, like any parent does, because my parenting

00:10:18.840 duties require me to do stuff I don't want to do and don't allow me to do the stuff that

00:10:23.060 I do want to do.

00:10:24.520 So I get that.

00:10:25.720 Like, I've been there.

00:10:26.780 And I found that the way out of it is pretty simple.

00:10:29.660 It's just about redirecting my attention.

00:10:31.620 I can choose to redirect it or not.

00:10:33.680 It really is up to me.

00:10:35.340 So here's a relatable example, one that is, you know, millions of parents encounter something

00:10:40.120 like this every day.

00:10:40.800 So I get home from work most days, around 5.30 or 6.

00:10:44.380 Contrary to popular opinion, I actually work long days.

00:10:47.880 And I work hard, believe it or not.

00:10:50.020 Media is a stressful gig.

00:10:52.000 And then I sit in traffic for 45 minutes.

00:10:54.620 You know, it's not that bad.

00:10:55.700 A lot of people sit in traffic for longer, but still, 45 minutes in traffic.

00:10:58.640 And then I come home to a house full of kids who are talkative and needy and wanting

00:11:02.360 my attention.

00:11:03.420 So every time I walk in the door every day, I have a choice to make.

00:11:08.120 And it's a very distinct choice.

00:11:10.400 It's so distinct that it may as well be two different doors I'm walking.

00:11:14.400 There's the happy door or the annoyed, overwhelmed, sad door.

00:11:19.120 I'm either a stressed out, sad sack forced to come home to a noisy house with a bunch of 0.98

00:11:23.700 needy kids who won't give me a chance to decompress, damn it. 0.97

00:11:26.840 Or I'm an incredibly blessed man, privileged to come home each night to a lively, 0.99

00:11:32.360 home full of fun, rambunctious children and a wife who loves me.

00:11:35.840 I could be either one of those.

00:11:37.300 It's completely up to me.

00:11:39.240 And the thing is, when I walk in the door, the environment, what I'm walking into is the

00:11:42.720 same.

00:11:43.600 It is entirely up to me how I choose to perceive it.

00:11:47.340 And if I choose the sad, miserable door, I have no one to blame but myself.

00:11:51.220 My third point, and this goes to really, this is advice, universal advice for everybody.

00:11:57.760 Stop venting.

00:11:59.220 Okay?

00:11:59.480 You've done enough venting.

00:12:01.300 And I know everybody says that we have to vent.

00:12:03.900 We have to release our tension in the form of these self-pitying, overly dramatic big

00:12:08.480 sessions.

00:12:09.320 And if we don't, we'll explode or something.

00:12:12.000 But that's bull.

00:12:13.120 Forums like this Reddit forum, they should not exist.

00:12:15.740 These are awful places.

00:12:17.040 Having a place to anonymously voice your darkest and most unspeakable emotions and thoughts

00:12:21.860 in order to then be assured by other anonymous people that it's totally normal to feel that

00:12:26.680 way and to be encouraged in your basest impulses and most dysfunctional modes of thought is

00:12:31.600 bad.

00:12:32.300 The advice is terrible.

00:12:33.860 I mean, it's just awful.

00:12:34.840 There was one post, her young son is about to be his birthday, and she's not happy about

00:12:39.220 his birthday and not excited about it.

00:12:41.140 Which again, it's like, okay, so you're not excited about his birthday.

00:12:44.140 Deal with it.

00:12:44.980 Like, it's his birthday.

00:12:45.960 It's not yours. 0.78

00:12:46.480 Pretend you're excited. 1.00

00:12:47.440 Damn it. 1.00

00:12:47.740 Stop being selfish. 0.99

00:12:48.380 But one of the pieces of advice was, well, on the day of his birthday party, just leave

00:12:55.680 the house and have some time to yourself.

00:12:57.260 Don't tell anyone.

00:12:57.840 Just leave and come back at night.

00:13:00.260 Like, this is your advice?

00:13:03.660 It's the worst possible thing.

00:13:05.540 Abandon your child on their birthday because you're sad?

00:13:08.580 This is what you get from these forums.

00:13:10.340 And the reason that you get it is because the people that are there leaving comments,

00:13:13.560 they are not encouraging you or trying to reassure you.

00:13:17.680 They're trying to reassure themselves.

00:13:19.840 They have these awful thoughts and feelings about their own family and their children,

00:13:24.180 and they're trying to find a place where other people are saying the same things so

00:13:28.140 that they can tell themselves it's not so terrible to feel this way.

00:13:31.040 You shouldn't hate your children.

00:13:32.780 It is wrong to have that emotion.

00:13:36.160 It's possible to have wrong emotions.

00:13:38.640 Like, it's bad to have that.

00:13:39.440 You shouldn't feel that way.

00:13:40.340 There's something wrong with you morally.

00:13:42.020 It is morally wrong to have that feeling.

00:13:44.540 The level of anger expressed by most of these people is wrong.

00:13:48.920 Having this kind of disdain for your family is wrong.

00:13:52.440 Venting this kind of stuff doesn't get it off your chest.

00:13:55.340 You know, it's not like opening a window in the bathroom to air out the smell.

00:13:58.740 It's more like a gust of wind on a campfire.

00:14:01.780 All it does is make the flame grow and spread until it's completely out of control.

00:14:06.820 And next thing, your whole life is set on fire.

00:14:09.720 And that's what these Reddit forums do.

00:14:11.240 You should realize that this feeling is wrong.

00:14:13.180 It's not normal.

00:14:14.360 It's not okay to feel that way about your children.

00:14:17.640 The problem is you.

00:14:18.780 It's not your child. 0.52

00:14:19.700 It's you.

00:14:20.720 Your children didn't do anything wrong.

00:14:22.400 You are doing the wrong thing.

00:14:24.220 And you need to fix it.

00:14:25.760 So sure, go talk to a therapist if you can find a good one.

00:14:28.860 Big if there, but if you can find a good one.

00:14:31.580 Talk to a spiritual advisor, even better.

00:14:34.720 Talk to a priest.

00:14:35.660 Talk to a pastor.

00:14:36.320 But after all the talking, it comes back to you.

00:14:40.160 You owe it to your child to give him your love.

00:14:43.700 In fact, you owe it to your family to be happy.

00:14:47.520 Happiness is a responsibility.

00:14:49.640 And it is a choice.

00:14:51.740 And right now, you're making a choice that is destroying you and your family.

00:14:54.780 And it will continue to until you stop making it.

The Matt Walsh Show - August 17, 2024

＂Regretful Parents＂ Are Going VIRAL. Here's What I Think

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