Gramnesia, Shaved Beards & Back Pain! Older Dads on Gen X Dad Life & Parenting Comedy: S02E03 Part 1

0:00 I do think it is this is one of the first time where my age as a dad clearly is showing I'm I could feel it but I mean you got it's coming around when a machine was doing all the heavy lifting literally I was when I should have had children I would have been dragging my shoulder you got hurt driving a machine that does all the work yes that's how old we got yeah that's it see the videos of these guys like it'll be like on a farm and a guy will jump out of the cab of a big tractor and the caption I'll be like we all compare doing this at 50 compared to when I was 30 and the guy jumps out and he thinks he walks away and then he gets confused he turns around and looks and his body is dead his body is like crumpled up on the ground this is the gray hair and daycare podcast with a combined age of 111 years and a combined IQ right in that same range your hosts Frank Syrio and Carlo Russo welcome back here we are in season 2 episode 3 it was only I'm very proud to say it was only three weeks in between recording so we're much more up-to-date

1:33 I didn't have to look at my calendar to figure out what happened this is nice I could remember most of it yeah that far back yeah I wasn't going that far back I have to say you look like a new man yeah I love it this is very different yeah it does it's nice I mean in the summer a beard is not fun in the summer and I let it get like big and bushy in the in the wintertime because it's nice with the wind it keeps you warm but in the summer so I've been going shorter and shorter and shorter and also I've been thinking about with the baby I keep seeing these videos online I don't know where the like the father walking and the little the girls like seven years old and they have a like a seizure and they run away because they've never seen their father so I'm like I don't want that to happen so but this but even with this she's young but how was it what I did was I had Kelly come with her and we shaved while you're doing little by little and I took like I did a little bit she saw transition and by the end she was like yep that's now for the next day she was every once in a while she'd give me she's completely I enjoyed but no she yeah she's completely like it's gone now and doesn't care I've been watching those videos it's funny that you say that and about the the men that have

3:04 beards and they got into relationships with the beards oh yeah or they've been you know 20 years married and they shave it and the wife is like oh no so if you go why oh yeah another people oh my god you look so young but it's so funny how how real that is because you haven't seen somebody's face well I will say very honestly with Kelly there's a little bit of that because she met me I had a full I've had a full beard for the better part of 12 years and we met right after like I I did a no shave November and then I think I met her the following February so I've had a full beard like I like you guys have always seen me the whole time she's known me she's very supportive of what I don't know if you want to go ahead but I can also tell my she preferred she would prefer she prefers me with the beard I think she's used to me with the beard and that's where I mean but it's not like I'm gonna be you look younger it's funny because it brought me right back to those early days telling father site that I was pregnant and every time I'm saying your first your first like I've like for the first four times yeah and and we were leaving mass last Sunday and he's like you look you look 20 years now you look like a man who I walked I love I'm like that's all he's saying it was you really looked old and now you next next episode he'll have black hair that's it I used to hang out with we

4:38 both know the person and he was he was older than us but not that old we were in our 20s he was in his early 30s but he had gray hair yeah and he kept on hanging out with us and he goes I gotta do something everybody thinks I'm like your your father or something so we made this man we got made him we suggested your hair and for many years you know I'm talking about for many years he had black jet black hair oh yeah that's right okay I wasn't making the connection for a day that happened so when I was first starting to go gray my sister Paula who we have talked about ran a number of salons she ran hair salon yeah and I would go to one of them to get my hair cut all the time one time I think they were having a short month and she's like you know what you could do a temporary color like basically like to kind of goose their revenue she got me to do that and immediately after I ended up meeting someone who ended up being right and then got serious with this person and I told them no and then I told when I told them that I had done that and I wasn't going to continue right they were like oh no no you have to keep oh you're keeping so then for the seven or so years we were together I continued so I and I wanted to stop but she did not want me to stop cuz you were young I was you know in my I was in my 30s yeah that's young to be great it was just get a little girl but it was just

6:12 it was like a tiny bit a tiny bit and we started but then I couldn't so then over that whole time I got more and more gray and had no idea how great so when you want yeah so then when we split up I transitioned back to quite not as gray as I am now but to quite gray so I was trapped into that for years years of dying my hair I am I am a lifetime coloring my hair I remember by blinds and I mean I didn't I don't give a shit about coloring hair I don't care you know luckily I my side my sideburns go white my beards probably white over some reason my hair does not go as white as everything else yeah so I look foolish I look like I have white sideburns yeah and then black like my father my father is now 88 years old I think the last maybe 15 years he's I've seen gray hair my brother Mike you know Mike is 52 yeah jet black hair and Pete it is early 60s is now getting gray hair so we've been lucky yeah but I do color my side I just don't like how it looks yeah I don't like it yeah no I think you go I go back and forth honestly what I just didn't like because once you start doing it and you're doing the whole thing no yeah then it's you get regrowth and then it doesn't like you then you can see it right and it's just a giant I don't I

7:42 don't mind the what I'm more worried about is that I'm losing here yes I am I have noticed in the last year it's not like it was not your it's not like it was on top anymore which is okay that's all right we're in our we're in our late 50s I'd like I said I always use my brother as a barometer because he's 19 years older and he's still got a little bit up there he's doing okay I haven't gotten the year yet where I've gotten I'll have I'll be sad the first year that I get the sunburn on the top of the head then you know things are happening but I'm still I'm hanging in there but the thing that we can say is the years where hair was important we had it 20s 30s for you right right yeah there's people like my brother-in-law he went bald in his 20s our good friend Lou and you know start losing it in his late 20s early 20s so we had we had a perfect if we're gonna bald at 60 we're good that's okay we're good I'll live with that I've never done the the shaved head so eventually my back is flat and I can't do it I'm one of those guys if I ever have to shave it you look like an eraser yeah I'm gonna have it what one of my good friends in high school I never knew this at the time one day I show up to the bus stop was it to go to high school it was not it was my friend Steve Steve shows up to the bus stop with purple hair and I'm like what are you I just decided I was gonna do that no no no decades

9:14 later I see him and he is white before so maybe you know maybe now early 30s I run it I ran to him at the airport white Steve Martin and I'm like wow like it look good he had a beautiful head because his father when we were kids beautiful head full head of white okay and I was like wow you know your hair's just like your dad he's like my he's like I went gray at 18 and I'm like so he was 17 I'm like what really he's like yeah remember the time I had purple hair I'm like yes I screwed up he made a mistake and ended up purple but he was dying his he was dying his hair in high school because he was going gray in high school yeah that's crazy yeah I remember we'll get back to the we're really gonna confuse people because the name of the podcast we could people could be watching this for the first time thinking it's all about hair care it's not about a child what are you talking about but I do remember in my in my 20s and in my teens to always a bleaching my hair but at one time at one time they used to have and they still do they used to have like purple and violet yeah and I would put it with my black hair it inside it looks normal but you go outside with the Sun and people like do you have purple hair yep now there's the now it's the purple shampoo do you ever seen that there's the shampoo for people with gray hair to make the gray pop make it white what it's purple and it helps make it brighter it brightens the gray well ladies and gentlemen if you needed

10:49 some hair information you can't hear it is you know the switch because how old are you now I am 56 years old and my daughter is almost 16 months old don't miss any of the fun make sure you subscribe to this podcast and give us a five-star review wherever you listen it has been lots of fun progress lately lots of more questioning of okay well her her not hurt her question about us questioning who she looks like oh really yeah I'm starting to think I found a picture the other day and I was like wow is in the switcheroo it's a picture of my father holding me and I'm clearly I'm probably more like two two and a half full beard full beard right uh-huh in a cigar but he's holding me and I'm there and it really she really right now resembles like I'll show you the picture later like it's it's a Polaroid that my sister took they do change because yeah it goes back and forth Nicholas my youngest who looks exactly like me when we were when I was a child and when he was a child but now no everybody's like oh you look just like your mother so they do change yeah a lot so that could go back and forth a couple of times yeah well I'm sure but yeah so no but lots of lots of fun stuff and we've been enjoying the little tastes of summer

12:20 that we've had but for now for right now we are going to dive into our book report so this book report is not a book it is not a book I read this term and I found this article okay the article is not from an outlet that I usually refer to it's from the Huffington Post for most folks okay but the name of the article is your parents may have a case of gramnesia your parents may have a case of gram here's what the viral term means so there apparently is a term called gramnesia okay bring it and what it talks about you have not heard this I would imagine no gramnesia refers to parents of people who now have children so grandparents having conversations with their children who are now parents oh and talking about their parenting in a way that is idealized it's it's basically when they ask them well you know they're basically asking their parents do you remember what like was I like this when I was little did I not sleep through the night and and the parents always like no you slept through the night from six weeks on you were perfect you never had tantrums like this we would never have let you and I think it's funny because from for I don't like on my side of the

13:53 family I don't have to worry about that because my parents are gone right it is kind of an interesting thing and what they liken it to is all these young people who are having you know having kids now so in their latter 20s and early 30s typically see this as gaslighting they're like they're lying there's there's no way it could have been like that and and I think the writer rightfully so who it's kind of taken the tack that this is not them gaslighting them they really don't first of all they their memory might not be good right that they don't right they don't remember asking them is and 40 years later and they're remembering all the good and none of the bad and and I do I thought it was in her but yeah gramnesia is a thing and I wonder I wonder how much of it is real where no parenting something was different then right and and kids kids I think there was a different set of standards and it was easier in many ways I think for a lot of parents but I think there is also that piece of that that these older folks that are remembering as they see their grandchildren and remembering their children are remembering an idealized version of what it was like yeah but you but we are doing we live this every week that we record on the podcast because you're remembering your kids right right at a time when you never know it might not be long and you're gonna have a little grandbaby right right and and you remember it I think fairly although you have occasionally get corrected by Trina I think now I

15:30 don't know if my parents at 50 right or saying crazy stuff compare when they turned 75 yeah like you guys were the best part of what my mom used to do I think is it was kind of like a backhanded slap was it was a call back it's kind of like saying I did it so much better than how you're handling it my baby's never cried right baby's always a what is what are you so you experience this oh my god my mother used to say it all the time like yeah like and we were lucky and Trina might correct me on that we didn't have crying babies at night we right we didn't have all that it's kind of like a relationship when you talk about in the middle of the relationship you're like I am I got to get out of this relationship this is the worst thing for me then you break up you know you can remember is all the fun stuff you did with her or him you just remember all the good stuff like what I think that's what the grandparents did they forget all the bad stuff all the nightless I think I think that that's true like it's a fact that our brains are set up to to block out trauma right so when it's really hard we're our brains work to not remember we don't want to remember that but the other thing too is I said all the time you know when you remember stuff from long ago you don't you're not remembering the thing that happened you're remembering the last time you remembered it right that's how things get right that's why by the time my dad was like in his 80s he was remembering things that were actually in the godfather and not part of his life

17:02 not you muscles yeah so no yeah so you're remembering you know so there and you don't remember the bad stuff but you recall you think about all the wonderful stuff think about it I when I think about my my growing up unless someone says do you have a moment that was scary you go yeah but when I think about grump it's always like we were outside we were playing my cousins were coming over we all ate it's always great things even though we had horrible moments probably had more of a horrible moments but I don't even remember that yeah because you think of what you think about the good stuff they talked about yeah they talked about the gramnesia now we don't get a lot of that from people yeah because there's not a lot although I guess we get a little bit of that from like my sit my one sister Lucille has two children so she's been a parent he's like she's been real transparent about how hard it was yeah yeah and I think you know rightfully so she's a grandmother now right yeah she has two grandchildren one that just graduated from like grad school and the other that is now just came in like third place and Nationals in volleyball does she talk about your mom giving her advice or not talking to that not really because my like my sister was was out of state when she had her when she had her kids she didn't have the that's one of the things I always say like she didn't

18:36 have the supports that like we don't have a support system of lots of relatives around just because of geography and and and my age right but right she was in Texas nobody like so and it was it was her and she had to make her own support us find it her own she was and she was a single mom for a lot of it so it was like I said I don't know how she did we have every conceivable advantage and help and and and it's still hard so that's that's one thing I am glad that an advantage of having children not in a normal age that we did my parents were around hurt my wife's parents were around it's still around my older brother having him having kids I can ask questions yeah it was always there and I had a big network a robust huge and and I was you know younger and I was kind of you know I was scared you know for the first time so I'm glad I had that support of my mom I could call up and go can I come over I get the baby by myself today you know so it is tough but yeah it's funny that they have a name for that Grammysia that was it so I thought I thought that was interesting yeah and now we're gonna move right into what just happened part of the working out thing that I was talking about is shortly after we

20:08 recorded last time okay so you know one of the things with with baby Josie is whenever I've got her and and we're doing stuff I have a tendency to hold her in my left hand yeah because I need the right hand to do other stuff right so I think that may have set me a little bit off balance with my back right all right just carrying her around a lot you used to it you're just you know you're doing stuff so I was on I was on my little tractor and trying to move a log now I'm not moving the tractor so I get under the log I try to pick it up and the tractor tilts so I have to lean quickly to not fall off of the tractor and I lean quickly and immediately it was like getting a telegraph your back just decided to betray you be prepared I could just felt it I'm like oh now I've had off and on since we were at Leachmere since we were in our 20s one time I was moving I think we were moving lawnmowers or something something and I tested the wrong way and I have screwed up my back now it doesn't bother me maybe once every three four years it remind I'll tweak it and I get like a

21:38 shooting pain like a sciatica pinched nerve shooting pain down my left leg usually I can put some heat on it and stretch and then I know how to I went to a chiropractor back then and saw how he would crack my back and I could kind of do it myself okay and I would be okay so this time I'm like okay but this time it felt a little it started differently it was felt muscular at first like the small of my back on the law soar and then it kind of moved and then it was in my hip and then it started with down the leg and I try it was it's been a challenge I'm just now weeks later at the point where I'm not taking stuff like I'm not taking a leave or anything but it was bad bad enough that I went to urgent care really they gave me a course of prednisone which usually that stuff it's a steroid oh but it's a basically a very very strong anti-inflammatory it's funny I was talking to my boss mad about it he's like anytime anybody get I've ever had prednisone I feel like Superman it's true you do really because it just like nothing hurts it's just it's an anti-inflammatory is very very strong so felt better for a few days and as soon as that wore off yeah it was back so I went to my my general practitioner they gave me some muscle relaxers those were fun yeah the bottle says take up to three a day as needed no I took one

23:15 you're loopy at night that first night and I was I was obvious it was like I was intoxicated I never had I'd never taken how do you feel like just I felt like I'd had two double scotches oh it was a great I was in a great mood for you a cigar it was just just like that like just not not where you're like really drunk but just a nice buzz like nice everybody wants to be when they're drinking you're just joking around being goofy you can see what's addictive oh yeah no that's it's a dangerous thing like because it is it's just like you take one and like like yeah just everything it really did so but that I'll put a little by little I have I've improved but I do think it is this is one of the first time where my age as a dad clearly is showing I'm I could feel it I mean you got it's coming around when a machine was doing all the heavy lifting literally I would have been dragging my shoulder you got hurt driving a machine that does all the work yes that's how old we got yeah that's it that's that's a great that's a great way of thinking about what happened to you how it works now it's like oh no you get you get hurt you see writing the videos of these videos of these guys like it'll be like on a farm and a guy will jump out of the cab of a big tractor and the caption I'll be like

24:49 we all compare doing this at 50 compared to when I was 30 and the guy jumps out he thinks he walks away and then he gets confused he turns around and looks and his body is dead his body is like crumpled up on the ground there's so many videos like that yeah and then guy looking at the ghost goes oh really no that's the way it is we had there's one video the guy literally skipped a curb I mean it was like not even that's it that's us so yeah that is us now I am I am better I think I'm gonna stop I had to yeah so but I have I just made an appointment to go I got a prescription for physical therapy so I'm gonna go I want to do so I excite it is it is muscular okay I think it's an imbalance and I think if I get some good exercises straighten it to balance myself out I will have less of a problem with it so that's what I'm gonna go for yeah so we did that so that was right away then as I mentioned at the end of the last episode we were headed to Buffalo yes for a family party yes to visit with some of Kelly's family that are all out there and and it was also the first time we weren't sure but there was the possibility that I would get to interact with Kelly's mom sure so we we took a nice try it was a beautiful day nice drive out it was what I think is interesting is it's so different that

26:24 now this side the this side of her family they're all really nice right it is the mother's side of the family okay they're all great and I get along very well with with all of them very nice people and very warm but like imagine you're at a party and you know your mom's gonna be your mom arrives what's the first thing that happens you're like you're talking to your one of your aunts and your mother arrives to a party I get up and I agree to her yeah I go no I go to my mom none of that always and I just when I see this stuff happening for me it's like what's going on like cuz that's my the first thing I would do is go say hi absolutely no and and then and also if you didn't let's say you were really tied up with something your mom would probably have come straight to you or you should remind me that she's there no no there's not that continue but I have to say you know we interacted a little bit and it was she was she was pleasant she said hello we said hello talked a little bit she was she was getting attention I have to admit she was getting some very positive attention from little baby Jonesy oh and I was surprised and a little bit hurt come on if you're gonna if you're gonna like okay you'd like do what you do with

27:57 Carlo don't start crying and the one that loves you you cry yeah no I didn't get that today she didn't you know she's doing better but no she was she was playing you know you know paying her attention and and she warmed up to her pretty good it was nice to see absolutely it was interesting because they had this was a party like an 80th birthday party okay with somebody on that side of the family gotcha but they had a reptile guy excuse me so apparently for one of the kids in the family for a birthday party they had this guy apparently he's like famous I don't remember his name Carson no he's been on Jimmy Fallon all these TV shows and he has all these it sounds like he has like a resume yeah yeah big thing and he had some fun you know he had a big snake and he had so like a lemur really yeah and it was like I mean that's different I think it'd be something definitely something more that you would expect at a kid's birthday but because they had just had it and it was fun they decided to do it for those two that's funny and there were a lot of kids because it was kind of almost like a family reunion very cool very different it was very neat and got to got to visit a little bit got to see uncle David and auntie Gabe and and got to see Kelly's mom so this was nice it was a nice trip and you know baby Josie had a great time that's awesome had a nice drive home so so that was that was a good thing is that gonna lead to something I'm gonna

29:30 see I've tried since uh-huh so I thought okay look now we've had that interaction it was pleasant so we were out on the boat which we will talk about a little bit okay and I took a picture of Kelly and baby Josie and I think it's the picture I said I think I had that right I sent it to you and I said I because until everything kind of went heady wampus with when when Kelly went back to work with the mother check season one if you want to know what the whole thing I was sending pictures of the baby yeah you're so I thought okay I'll try that again and and so I've done that a little bit okay and but we'll see hopefully you know there's no reason why look all I all I want out of the deal is to not have her be mean to my wife all I was about was respecting your wife yeah don't make my wife cry right yeah we've covered a lot of ground and we have even more to tell you about baby Josie's adventures but we're gonna close for now but don't forget to subscribe to us on YouTube and follow us on Facebook Instagram and tick-tock thanks for sticking with us and we'll see you next time well folks that's another episode of the gray hair and daycare podcast in the books thanks very much for tuning in and spending this time with us we hope it was fun if you enjoyed this week's descent into the madness of dadness be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss any of our future adventures while you're at it give us a like and share the cast

31:01 with your friends on Facebook Instagram Twitter carrier pigeon whatever you crazy kids are using have any hilarious parenting stories of your own questions about navigating fatherhood later in life or even when normal people do it email us at ghdc.podcast at gmail.com we'd love to hear from you and now if you'll excuse me I'm going to bed