What Kids Can Teach Us About the World Now | Chuck Klosterman

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Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Dad Podcast, where on the weekends,

we do a deeper dive in how to get better at our most important job being a parent.

Sometimes in these episodes I talk to best-selling authors and elite performers and other guests,

but lately I've also been having conversations with my wife Samantha, the co-parent of my two boys.

We do it over in the Daily Stoke Studio here in Bastard, Texas.

She and I talk about things that we're working on as parents, things that we're working on as people

and how we are supporting each other, challenging each other, and like I said,

trying to get better at what we do. Guests or not, I hope you hear some ideas here that will

help make you a better parent. I was better for having the conversation. I hope you enjoy.

There's this age where your kids are suddenly like aware of what's happening in the world.

They have their own sense of what's cool or not. I don't know when I thought this age would be,

but it is real fast. I six-year-olds telling me stuff that he thinks is cool. He's telling me

stuff he thinks is not cool. My nine-year-old is talking about memes and jokes. If you've got a young

kid, you know all about six, seven and all this ridiculous stuff. They're plugged into culture now

in a way that I don't think I was when I was six or seven. A couple of months ago I had a

Chuck Costerman on the podcast. One of my favorite writers writes about so many different topics,

but sports, I think, sports and music are his specialties. I don't know how, but we had this

weird tangent where we were talking about how being a parent, it reshapes your relationship to

music, to trends, and what's cool. I thought I'd bring you a chunk of that for today's episode,

because I think it's relevant. However, old your kids are. You can check out the full episode

with Chuck Costerman in the show notes. If you haven't read his books, you should. My favorite

is his book, The 90s, which is when I was a kid, but what if we're wrong is also good. I wear the

black hat. He was one of the founding editors and creators of the Grandlanders from my favorite

sports sites. He writes to the New York Times, Washington Post, GQ, Esquire, ESPN, football, and more.

I don't know if you can hear my kids running around like maniacs upstairs, but sorry if you're

wondering what all that stomping is. In any case, you can follow Chuck on Twitter at sea. Oh my god,

how are they making so much noise? You can follow him on Instagram at seaCosterman and do check out

his new book, Football, which I thought was really, really good. Anyways, I'll let him do the talking.

Here we go.

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It's just real interesting because you know, they always say as a parent, you can't be a friend.

You need to be a parent. But the way modern parenting works, it's very difficult not to be friends

with them because you're sharing all these things. My kids like to listen to the top 40 station.

So I know all those songs. That wasn't how it was for me or anyone I knew growing up. I didn't

know one person who was like, oh yeah, I'm going to go see Dockin with my mom. But they would never

happen. That would have never happened. Yeah. Yeah. It's weird. It's also weird. Like I wouldn't like

when I was a kid, Pokemon was not cool. Right. And it's weird that it's not just it wasn't

cool. It was for losers. And now it's for everyone. It's weird. Like it's weird that it's still

around let alone. It doesn't have any uncool or cool fact. It's just a thing because you're not

a loser for liking Pokemon. Lots of people like Pokemon. But it's weird for me when my kids are

taught, I have to remember like, oh, I don't need to remember what I used to think about Pokemon.

We can just talk about Pokemon. I mean, Dungeons and Dragons is a great example of this.

The fact that like, so when my kid got into Dungeons and Dragons, I was like, well, this is kind

of interesting. He must be sort of in that part of the, yes, part of the social group. That's not

what it is. It's like it doesn't seem to have even a relationship to gender anymore or the idea

that if you play sports, you wouldn't play Dungeons and Dragons, that is gone. In a weird small,

like this happens in a big way in like the world we live in, but also in a small world, I guess,

with children, which is that inevitably the counter culture always becomes the culture. In a weird

way for you growing up, Pokemon was your kid version of the counter culture. It was for people

who did not like the other things kids liked who felt alienated by the normal things, right?

So they got into that that happens in music. This happens in film. This happens in literature.

It's always this way that the thing that is marginalized, if it touches people in a deep way,

those are the people seemingly who enforce the ideas about culture later because it means

something different to them. They're getting involved in something like this is why like the vast

majority in the 90s and early 2000s of music critics and rock critics had all come from a

punk background. I was completely out like seen as very odd that I did not, that all the people

I worked with that spin and knew with the other magazines at the village voice, they were all

fundamentally people who had been into punk rock. So they were the underground culture and now they

dominate sort of the over culture. That's just how it seems to work. And it does in some ways

sort of detract from the meaning of anything that's commercially successful because in all likelihood

like the idea of like what Taylor Swift right now sort of creates musically, it is so popular,

if nothing has really been that popular since Michael Jackson, it may not though have sort of

the influence that logic would dictate. Logically that should be by far the most influential

music of the future and it probably will not be in the same way that Michael Jackson's thriller

while having influence is not as influential as some of the things around it that seemed

significantly less significant at the time. I actually thought of you the other day. Did you

have you seen this documentary? It's on YouTube. It's like a 20-minute thing. It's by that

that comedian Rob Sheer. I think that's who did it. I'm embarrassed if I'm saying his name wrong.

Anyways, it's called Taylor Swift Dads and he just interviews different dads that are waiting

in the parking lot and so if I stayed him while their daughters are inside watching Taylor Swift

and it's a very lovely sweet little like 20-minute YouTube video and it talks about a lot of the

things that we're talking about. Like some of the dads are like I have no idea what's happening.

I don't even know why I'm here and then other ones they know all of it and they're really supportive

and then there's some dads. It's like they couldn't afford tickets so they're just sitting outside

listening with their daughters in the parking lot. What mostly struck me about it having watched a

bunch of sort of documentaries about music from the 60s and 70s and 80s is like there used to be

a lot of that. There were lots of bands doing stadium tours. There were lots of bands. Obviously,

Taylor Swift is singular but there would have been lots of things that people used to line up for

when they would come out at the record store at midnight or whatever and that's gone.

Well, here's what this might not be totally true. I know it feels that way for sure but I am

consistently surprised to find to hear about some artist and I'm like they play two nights at

Madison Square Garden. They played the Hollywood Bowl. It's like you know but the thing is because

we have stripped away that record store part and there's no longer MTV and radio doesn't exist

in the same way and everything is you don't see sort of the the outsize part of it that leads you

to believe will of course when they tour it's going to be a big deal. What has happened now in

music is that the only way to make money is touring. So like you know a band like you know Geese or

something. I remember a couple months ago I can't remember what the name of the band is now but

they had sold out them like four nights at the ballroom in New York and they have no record. Yeah

like there's already this following of it that's sort of I think built online or whatever and so it

is it feels it definitely feels like we have lost that the idea of like oh you know bluish or cult

is playing you know in Anaheim or whatever and it's a sold you know they're they're tourist sold

out and even though bluish or cult of a time is maybe the 14th most popular hard rock band or

whatever they're still that big right that that it doesn't feel like that happens now not

what everything is like a mystery to anybody who's outside of the world yeah like you know the thing

you say about Taylor Swift is it is what I have found with my kids is that they love it if I have

knowledge about what they're into what they dislike it if I have opinions like they like that I

know like who Chapel Rowan is and I know her backstory and I know her songs but if I was like

in a way you know if I any time I start actually giving you an opinion about what I think about

this it's like that's when they start using the cringe now is the word they use it's like they

appreciate viability to keep up and be informed about this they do not appreciate any actual idea

about it well I think that's because knowledge signifies interest in something that they're

interested in yes and opinions implies judgment and so they want the first part and not the last

part even if the opinion is positive they're like no no no no no I just want I just want you to

recognize this is important to me I don't actually care what it means to you yes yeah

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