Niko Skievaski: How My Dad Influenced The Way I Father

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Because of how we recorded this episode, the speakers are not assigned properly. Consider this a loose approximation of the audio file:

Welcome to DadPod. I'm Mike. And I'm Luke. We're friends here in Madison, and we both have kids. And at least for us, becoming a dad has been transformational. We talk to all sorts of dads in all sorts of situations to learn from their unique challenges, lessons, and evolutions. The goal is simple. Learn from each other to become better dads. If you dig it, please find us on Apple or Spotify.

click follow. That single click helps put us in front of more dads, which Luke would really appreciate.

very first DadPod episode with our phenomenal guest, Nico. Thanks for tuning in. This whole project has been a secret passion of ours for a long time. However, it wasn't until very recently that we decided to give it a try and put it in motion. The idea came during one of our many long walks that Mike and I take. We talk about a lot of things on our walks from work to Wisconsin sports to our families. And ultimately our role as dad comes up a lot.

My children Zeke and Leona are five and three and Mike's daughter Emmy is two. So we're right in the middle of this thing, along with many of our close friends. On one of those walks, we started to ask ourselves, why isn't there a place we can go to hear regular guys talk about their experiences as being a father? From our own experience and conversations with our friends, it's clear being a father is one of the most transformational, impactful roles any of us will take on in our lives.

However, we as men aren't talking about it. With that, the idea of the podcast came about. Could we create something that took regular guys and help bring to the surface the incredible thoughtfulness, intention and love they've put into their children? Could we create something that normalizes men talking to men about being dad? We've had to do this in our own way, authentically, vulnerably and with a fair amount of humor and fun. But what the hell? Let's give it a shot. We have no idea where this project could lead. We're at the very beginning.

But what I will say is that we've recorded a handful of episodes and each one has blown us away. Each dad we've talked to has brought an incredible story to share. And there's so much for us to learn from each other. We hope you enjoy listening to this as much as we enjoy creating it. And with that, here's episode one.

Welcome everybody. I want to introduce to you our first guest, Mr. Nico. Nico is father of Juniper, who I believe is, is he six or 12? 27 years old. All right. Nico and Juniper live in Boulder. Nico is a co -founder of multiple companies. He and I met working on a company called Redox. Sounds like you are now on your next.

company that you're getting off the ground, which is awesome. Mountain bike enthusiast, community building, extraordinaire, lover of life. Nico, what did I miss? What else was in your intro? I think you got it. You got it all. We'll talk about who I am as a father, I guess. That's a big part of who I am, but we'll be spending a lot of time on that. So I'm excited to be here and hang out with both of you guys. Awesome.

So today we're gonna dive into pretty, you know, I find it to be a deep area of my own inquiry, which is the question of how did my dad's influence, you know, growing up with my father, how has that impacted the way I'm a father to my own kids? And we're gonna talk about that in terms of our experience growing up. We're gonna talk about what we are keeping from that experience, what we're discarding from that experience.

how we're dealing with new problems, problems that our fathers didn't have to face, either because of our family situation or the changing world. We're gonna cover a lot of ground. And this is probably gonna be a theme that we come back to a couple different times, potentially with a couple different guests, because there's gonna be so much to explore and discover. And as a reminder, no one here is pretending to be an expert. We are not experts. We are curious. Not yet, anyway.

On the path. We'll be good right about the time it doesn't matter anymore. A long and distant path ahead. But we're here because we're curious, we're engaged, and we want to figure out how to be better dads to our kids. So I think that's what is at the core of this. So with that, let's jump into the first question with you, Nico. What was it like growing up with your dad? Yes, my dad's name was Rex and

that is my middle name. And so, I always carried kind of this identity around of being like, I'm named after my dad, kind of, as a middle name at least. But yeah, my dad, I would describe him as super chill. He was not strict by any means. He was like not strict, but he was supportive. And I don't know if he ever looked at my grades growing up.

It's not because he didn't care, but I think he just assumed I was doing well. But he was supportive of any curricular activity that I wanted to do. So I wanted to ride a BMX bike. So he got me a BMX bike for Christmas. He was all about getting me one extraordinary over the top Christmas present that most of the time didn't hit the mark, but it was always like, that's nice.

That's a nice try. But you know, like in the early days when I was a little kid, I remember getting this BMX bike and that one hit the mark and he was supportive of me learning that and like taking me to the BMX track and soccer and then eventually volleyball and music and bands and stuff. And yeah, it was kind of this laissez faire approach of like, I can do whatever I want, but whatever I did, he was supportive of it. He put this idea in my head as a little kid that

I should be a mechanical engineer and go to MIT. Which is funny because now thinking back, I remember arguing with him as a teenager about he thought that math wasn't an important thing to learn. Yet he wanted me to be an engineer. But as a kid, I remember him always having friends around, my uncle or our neighbors, and they would sit around in the back porch and drink and smoke and play guitar.

And then later on, I remember like sitting at that table, you know, as a, as a preteen, like want wanting to be there, wanting to like, hang out with these guys who were just like shooting the shit and I could see him like sweating around like, like, should I talk about this in front of my son? You know, like, as they get into the types of things that men talk about sitting around the table with their boys, but yeah, he was not career oriented. He, he never liked his job. He always complained about it.

Eventually he got laid off and we took his severance when I was 15. We took his severance and we went to Japan and Thailand for a month and blew it all. And I didn't know that's what was happening when I was 15, but that's what he wanted to spend his money on. And it was a great bonding experience for us. Yeah. And, and you know, thinking, thinking back on that, I didn't understand, like that's what we were doing. Like we were taking that and blowing it. And then he,

And then he started his multi -year journey of, I don't know how to describe it, like thinking about starting businesses, maybe is a way to talk about it. He always had a business idea in his head. And then always in my mind made poor decisions on the path to starting that business. And eventually it got to the point where he had failed in these business endeavors enough where he had to get another job and he went to become a prison guard at a jail. And I remember him going to bootcamp.

And we all, my sister and my mom and I went down to his graduation and I remember watching him graduate from bootcamp and as I like a 16, 17 year old maybe and, and being proud of him. And that's like one of the moments, like only times in my life. I remember like being proud, like, yeah, he accomplished something. He's like going to do something, but yeah, as an adult, I experienced a lot of frustration with him around these choices he made around his entrepreneurial.

endeavors and choices he made about his health and About how was that happening in real time in terms of the as an adult you were Challenged by the decisions or you were challenged by past Like looking back on on on prior stuff that he had chosen to do. Yeah, it was really both like I remember as a kid my sister eventually like got a

an MP, masters in public health and stuff. So she was always like kind of health conscious. And my dad's a smoker and drinker. And so she always had a campaign to get around, like trying to get him to stop. And so I remember that as a kid, her always being like, this is why smoking is bad for you and you should stop doing it. But then as an adult, really kind of like seeing those things take over his life. And, you know, he always had friends at the bar that he would hang out with. And so that became sort of the center of his social circles.

And then seeing his health, the way he took care of himself fail. He used to like to go out in nature and hike and go hunting and camping. And you know, as, as he drank more and as that became the center of his life, that those things started falling away. And there was always this dream he had that, you know, the business idea he was working on at the time would be enough to support him and having a life that

He didn't have to work much, but instead he just didn't work much and leaned on my mom and leaned on my sister and I to sort of make sure he was okay. There was resentment that came with that. And I remember like in my twenties, when people would ask like what my biggest fear was, it was often that I would turn out to be like him. That's a painful thing for me to say because like I loved him immensely, but

I was also, I guess in some ways motivated by his failures and motivated by this desire not to replicate that. And I think, you know, as a going into my professional world and eventually as an entrepreneur, like I realized so much of my motivation to succeed was to show myself and potentially show like the world, not that the world is evaluating me for this, but like that I'm not him.

that I can make good decisions around starting a company, for instance. And I know how to, like, I'm not lazy. I can actually like get, get stuff done and, and make moves. Cause so much of my childhood and my life as a young adult was, was seeing him not seeing him talk about things, but not actually move the ball. That was motivating in a lot of ways, but also hard to see. Just to pull on that thread.

Are you thankful then? Like, do you feel that that the life you live, even though it was, you know, in some ways to live in an opposite life of your father, have you? Have you said without without that, I wouldn't be able to do the things I do or I wouldn't have been motivated to to start these companies? Yeah, that's that's a tough question. Because in it relates so much to how I think of myself as a father, I try to think about like.

I love myself at my core. I love who I am and who I turned out to be. And when I think about how my childhood and how my relationship with my dad created who I am, there's parts of it that I enjoyed, such as that laissez -faire relaxed approach. I really enjoyed that. And I think it made me feel confident in making decisions on my own and the courage to be bold and not...

you know, not have to lean on the path that he, he or my mom encouraged me to take, but just like carve my own path. Like I think that came from a supportive, loving environment. Yeah. But, but then I also get all this motivation and energy around, because of the, the example that he set for me as doing the opposite. And so, yeah, there's, it's a complicated,

relationship with that, I think. And with my son, I similarly take a laissez -faire approach. Like I, I try to expose him. Yeah. Let's just move to that question, which is, yeah, maybe, and I think this is where you're headed, but describe the major parts of how you are trying to be a father. Yeah. So first and foremost, like I want to make a loving environment for him. And I want him to know that he is loved, that he belongs at home.

and that he's supported in anything that he wants to do. That's kind of at the core of it. And part of that is I want him to have traditions in his home. I want him to have rituals that he can think about as defining what home is. Because home's a place, but it's also just what does bedtime routine look like? He's seven, right? So he's kind of getting to a place where he sometimes pushes back on ritual, but

You can tell, I can tell that he loves it too. I also want him to be inspired by how he sees me living my life. I guess that's how that's inspired by my dad, but like, I want him to look at me and how I live and how I work and how I spend time with him and how I spend time outside of work and with him, like as an inspiration. Like I would love him to aspire to do that. And when I think about how I spend my time, especially when he's around, I

I think about that. I think about like, what example am I setting? And is it something that I think is something I want him to aspire to? What are some of the ways that that plays out? Or how does that, like that thought thread, for example, does that affect your phone usage as a modern example or anything? But like, what are ways that that goal impacts your actual activity and actions? I want him to know that I care about my work.

that I'm passionate about it and that I think it's doing something good in the world. And so I talk with him a lot about like what it means to be an entrepreneur and why I love that and sort of the philosophy around, you know, trying to find something that adds value in the world and making a business around it. And so, so I enjoy. When he becomes interested in my work or, you know, is what, like if I'm having a meeting.

on zoom and he's like sitting in the room. Like I enjoy that simultaneously. I want him to see that I have balance in it. That I, you know, I was in his class on Tuesday this week or earlier this week as a, as a guest speaker because they wanted someone to come in and talk about their job. And so like, and you know, I've, I've gone on field trips with him.

And when he has a day off school, like I often choose to spend the day with him rather than putting him in a camp or getting a babysitter or something. And so I want him to see that I balance the professional side of work and the value that I get from that is like an intrinsic value that, that I enjoy. That's not about money. It's about like doing something good in the world. And I also have time for him and to spend time with him. Do you

feel challenged at all by... Most men don't do that. You know what I mean? Or at least it's like, do you feel like you have to work against the tide a little bit in that... You know, in that endeavor of the balance of, you know, of him having a day off and you take a day off also. You know what I mean? I think that's... You know, I see it a little bit, but I also see a lot of, you know, men in particular who...

I gotta go grind. Your kind of individual experience, does that, or are you just kind of comfortable in who you are? Well, I don't necessarily feel peer pressure around it, like with other guys. And I have a good amount of guy friends who, like I have a men's group and we talk about a lot of these sorts of pressures and stuff, but I don't feel like I have, well, I should say that

I feel a lot of privilege to be able to make these decisions. Ten years ago, or even five years ago, I wouldn't have been able to have this sort of flexibility. And he was alive five years ago. He was two years old. And so there was a large part of his childhood that I wasn't able to make these sorts of trade -off decisions.

I was working a lot more, I was traveling a lot more. A few things happened in sort of my progression as an adult is that professionally I got to a place where I didn't feel like I needed to grind every day to make ends meet or to climb some sort of corporate ladder. A lot of sacrifice went into that, but there was also a lot of right time, right place, kind of luck and privilege that afforded me that.

And now that I have that, I cherish it. And my goal, you know, Luke mentioned earlier, I'm starting a new company is like, my goal with that is to be able to start a new company and maintain that balance. And so I've been cautious about how much time I put into this new endeavor. And, you know, my goal right now is like to have no meetings in the afternoon is kind of my like, keep keeping the afternoons open.

as a, as a boundary that I've, I've set. And that boundary allows me to, to spend time with him. If I, if I choose to do that or do heads down work, which I, I found myself not having time for in, in, in prior work or exercise or spend time with friends or other loved ones. And so like, I'm willing to let the first half of my day be dictated by my professional career.

but I've held a boundary around the latter half of my day and weekends. So I don't know if it's possible, but I'm hoping that it's possible to be successful in business while having that boundary. Well, I think it's commendable that that's even the goal, right? I think that, you know, to kind of poke a little bit in Mike, and I think the, what you're, what you're getting at there is not everybody has that as the objective.

And whether you make it there flawlessly or not is kind of like, who cares? It's more the point that you're trying to achieve that, that that is the destination, which is really cool. Are there any other major parts of your kind of fathering philosophy or how you want to be a dad? I think you talked, you're very focused on in a supportive and loving environment. You're very focused on living a life.

that you want to conceive be an inspiration for Juniper. You're focused on showing balance, life of work and life outside of work. Are there any other big parts that you think about as part of your fathering? I guess the thing I've been navigating most recently is I'm getting divorced. We submitted paperwork, so we consider it divorced. But we've been living separately for about two years, maybe more than that.

The stated goal and how we want to co -parent me and his mom is that in the two homes that he now straddles, it should be that he has sort of two nexuses for the loving environment. And that it's additive and that it's not that he feels like he has to split his emotional world in half. It's more that he now has two loving environments.

And that's such a cool way to conceptualize that. Yeah. And he's not all that expressive when it, when it comes to his emotions or what's going on with him. So I try to create an environment where like, I'm actively asking him about what he's thinking about or how he's doing or these sorts of things. And so far he hasn't, it's, it's been nothing but positive in terms of like this.

the separation and I think he had a realization maybe about a year ago that his parents wouldn't live together anymore. Because when we first separated, we weren't sure if it would like we were moving into separate homes as as like the end all be all or or if we would come back together at some point. So we never talked with him about it like like that. We were like, hey, you know, there's another place for you to hang out and you got another room. But yeah, once that once it became.

once we realized that we wouldn't live together, I talked with him about that and, or he, he, he said something like, when we all live together again. And I remember like being heartbroken and sitting with him and being like, you know, that's not, that's not going to happen. So I don't know a lot of, a lot of my intentions and considerations as a father right now is really about making sure that his environment is really secure. Because, you know, when

And I've been talking with friends who whose parents separated when they were about his age to kind of get that perspective of what that's like as a little kid. And the thing that struck me most was, you know, your stability and security as a, as a child can crumble. Like that's the foundation. Your parents are the foundation of, of your being, especially when you're little, that's all, you know, they're your best friends and they're your guardians and everything. And, and if they're not together like that,

that can be a really traumatic part of a childhood. And so as I've talked with adults who have gone through that, hearing that security aspect as the seemingly the most important part of it, that's become like the number one priority is like making sure he feels like he has a loving home, that his parents aren't talking shit about each other. I heard a study mentioned on some podcast saying that having one parent

to speak badly about another parent can be more traumatic and more destabilizing for a child than actual physical abuse. And I was like, mind blown. And as I thought about it, it made sense because you have these people you trust with your whole heart. And if one speaks badly about the other, you're like, wait, who do I trust now? Do I believe you and therefore think badly about the other parent?

do I not believe you and therefore lose trust in my parent? And I'm fortunate in my separation that my ex and I, we still have a lot of respect for each other. And we, like, I don't have crap to talk about her. Like, so it's not like I'm even holding back in front of him. It's that I just don't feel that. And I feel really fortunate that that's how this went down because when I hear the horror stories of divorce and how it's affected

my adult friends who went through it as a child. I see like that was some of the most challenging parts of it is when their parents weren't getting along. Yeah. I mean, my partner, she, you know, her parents went through a divorce and her and her siblings still have behavior patterns today that are a direct result of what it was like to try and manage parents who weren't just not together, but were antagonistic.

and they're in their 40s, 30s and 40s. So again, those are some deep waters and it's really incredible to hear you putting that kind of thought and effort into it on behalf of your son. Yeah. And, you know, my parents were together until just about a year ago, they separated. And when my mom told me that they decided to separate,

It was almost the sigh of relief I felt. I was like, gosh, like I'm so I'm glad that like, because they struggled for the longest time. I thought these people don't like each other. Why are they together? and I think they stayed together for, for us. And it's kind of a, yeah, I, I don't know how to, how to think about that because it's like, is that a sacrifice that I benefited from?

I'm not sure. Yeah. And it's not a sacrifice that I chose to make with my ex. We chose to separate and yeah. And I think about it as like, it's going to be a big event in his childhood. At some point he's going to look back and realize that his parents got divorced and separated. Right now it, I don't know if that's, if that's clicked for him. He's kind of like, I have two great homes and two loving environments and all of that.

But at some point that's going to click and hopefully he'll be like, wow, that was actually, that was, that was a courageous decision they made and they handled it well. That's how I want him to be affected by it. As he's talking to his therapist. Exactly. Yeah. You mentioned talking to friends who had been through, you know, something similar as a

as a child and getting their perspective, was there other stuff that you found useful resources or whatever to help you navigate this situation? Or have you just been following your own intuition? I've definitely been… Pretty much all of last year, I felt like, was a year of working on myself, of healing, of rebuilding, of making space in my life to work through

these types of transitions, in a positive way. And so, you know, working, working with coaches and other guides of that sort was super helpful. I think in, in a lot of, a lot of divorces, there's, there can be a lot of resentment and that resentment can turn into negative behaviors. And that was a path I really didn't want to go down. And so I found myself leaning hard on different resources that

helped me process that feelings of sadness, of anger, of resentment, of regret, because I didn't want it to turn into proverbial weapons that I pulled out against my ex that would damage our relationship. I spent a lot of time on that. And my relationship with my dad became, and what was going on with my parents became a big part of that journey in

May or April, I found out, my dad found out that he had cancer. And as I was approaching all of this sort of work on myself, I knew that my relationship with my dad was sort of a stop on the journey I had to make. And when I found out he had cancer, I was like, well, I guess that's the universe telling me it's time to make that stop.

time to go and try to repair and try to address the feelings of resentment that I had towards him because I realized I was carrying them, but I kind of just put it on the back burner and being like, you know, I'm transitioning in my career. I'm transitioning in my, in my partnership with my ex. I don't need to worry about that now, but the universe had other plans and they were like, Nope, you do. You have a short timeline to worry about that. Yeah. So I, I

geared up for it. And there was one, there was a book that I read that was really important along that journey. And it has, it has this title that if this book will resonate with you, this title is gonna, will, will, will sink in and it's called adult children of emotionally immature parents. And it's a psychology book about, about the effects of emotionally immature parents on, on their adult children.

And so it's the, it's, you know, Luke made the joke earlier about like, what do you talk about with your therapist from your 30 and often stems from the impact your parents may have had on you as a child. And essentially the bottom line in the book, the spoiler of the book is that, is that, yeah, if your, if your parents are emotionally mature, you have probably spent a good amount of your life trying to, trying to change them.

And there's a fantasy that you've built up in your head around what you can do to, if only you could be a certain way, if only you can argue a certain point, then you can change them. And the point of the book is you're not going to change them. You need to let go of that, of that fantasy, that, that healing fantasy, they call it, and start to see them as, as human beings, as, as people trying their best. And I think as a father,

it started to help me see my dad as just a guy trying his best to get through the world, trying to have fun while doing it, trying to be chill and have friends. Yeah. And it allowed me to, you know, he was living in the Philippines and I flew there and spent time with him. And before I had this agenda of like, okay, I need to help, you know, he drinks a lot, he smokes a lot.

Now he has esophageal cancer, which is undoubtedly related to drinking and smoking. And if he wants to fight this, then he needs to stop drinking, stop smoking, get surgery, go through chemo. And I was like, wait, all of that is part of my fantasy of how I want to change him. And I need to go in and be curious about what he wants.

Because of course, as his son, I'm like, I want him to fight this. And realizing that he probably wasn't emotionally mature enough to actually say what he wanted around his treatment. How did you switch from, like on paper, that sounds great. I need to go in and be curious. But how did you actually do that? Like, how did you get curious? You have to make what I think is a massive emotional shift from

Give like basically giving up a lifetime of emotion of you know what you're talking about with like it's really a real shift of your relationship to your to your dad and to then say hey you're a dude a separate person you've got your challenges i've got mine and to just you know to you're shifting the standing between you two and in a way like how like how did you do

Do it. There were a few tools that I used. Some were light, helpful tools, and others were very invasive tools.

So on the lighter end, I talked to my support system around it, my friends, my partners, my therapists of sorts in my life. I journaled about it. But I think the things that gave me the biggest realizations and the courage to actually approach it in this manner were the more invasive tools I use, which were namely psychedelics.

I took these mind -altering drugs that opened me up to things bigger than myself and that allowed me to start to see things differently. And I think of psychedelics as a shortcut to being very thoughtful and I used that shortcut and it gives you a glimpse into, it gave me a glimpse into another way of seeing things.

most sort of big changes in growth in my life, I can attribute to a combination of understanding that there's something I want to change, thinking about how I'd like to be, and then smacking myself in the face with a dose of psychedelics that allowed me to have the courage to actually make that change. And so I don't want to say that it's, it's the sort of like magic solution, but I know it was a big part in my journey.

of essentially priming myself with the direction I want to go. And like reading that book was a really great primer in that understanding it logically. But it's a, there's a big difference between understanding something from a logical perspective and then actually internalizing it and feeling it and behaving in that way. And I think bridging that gap is where I found my work with psychedelics to be most, most impactful. Well,

I think to your previous point, as you said, the universe kind of puts you on the clock. You didn't have a ton of time. So I think your choices were in some ways limited in terms of how you, you know, your tool set and how you wanted to show up when you literally went to visit your dad. Yeah. Expanding on that particular visit a little bit touches on something that I wanted to ask. And, you know, I think it's common to say, to look at your

You know, if you grew up with a dad or whatever, there's stuff you want to replicate. There's stuff you want to do the opposite of. But was there, and you mentioned, you know, needing to resolve some resentment and some stuff like that. But was there other, I think of stuff in the in -between that you were still grappling with? Like, do I want to, you know, maybe, you know, do I want to replicate that? Do I want to do the opposite? I don't know yet. I'm still, I'm still processing. Was there other?

Or today, you know, was there stuff that you still were grappling with, you know, thus far or at that point? Yeah, so I went in to that visit wanting to... having an intention of being curious and seeing him as a person, not necessarily as my dad, but as just a guy trying to do his best in the world. That was the intention.

And then I saw that I went to the bar with him and drank beers with his friends and tried to really look at him as his friends look at him or as his community, you know, perceives him and not with all the baggage that I carry having grown up with him. And that was, it brought so much empathy, I guess, to the situation. It brought empathy to why he is the way he is, to why he made

decisions. He's a rebel and like he hates authority and he loves talking crap about authority. And like I didn't even, I didn't actually even like notice that about him until I started seeing him as his own person. And so he loves conspiracy theories and like that's definitely a part of me that I, like I'm not good at following rules or procedures. I can never read like a legal document. I just, my eyes go cross -eyed immediately and I'm like,

I know I should read it, but I just really can't. And I get that from him. And I also think it's a skill. It's a trait of mine that is good, that in its lightest form is a version of being bold. And so I started seeing that in him and appreciating that. And the last night I spent with him, we actually did mushrooms together. We...

Listened to Pink Floyd, we talked and I felt like he opened up to me like a friend and he shared things with me that I think were inappropriate to share with your son. But I was like, like this is, this is who he is. And he, and he told me about, about his dad, my grandfather who died when my dad was in his early twenties. As my dad was just becoming an adult, his dad died and he lost that example in his life.

And this is like the late 60s where my dad was a little young to be a hippie, I think, but he... So, you know, he was probably like 14, 15 when the hippie sort of anti -establishment movement was happening. And I started to see how his childhood sort of created this man who aspired to be anti -establishment, but was kind of too young to participate in it fully. But that's also an age where that stuff can get totally locked in.

you know, setting up who you are and your views of the world. Especially that getting locked in and then him losing his sort of fatherly figure example of how to evolve from there. And my aunt said something, my dad's sister, she said that he kind of stopped maturing after his dad died. And when I saw that, when I was hanging out, you know,

at the bar on the beach with him and his friends. I was like, he's in his 60s, but it's like he's a 20 year old. And his ideas around the way the world works, his fascination with these Fox News theories that were being put up, those used to infuriate me. And now I looked at them as like, it's precious in a lot of ways.

So yeah, it made me grow appreciation for who he was. Yeah, we did mushrooms, we went to bed and then he sent me off on a boat the next day to go to fly back to the States. Then he died a week later and I, through that visit, I think I learned to accept who he is. I learned to, I think I would have had a lot of resentment about him not fighting.

his diagnosis if I didn't go through that. But truly in our last days together, I was like, he's never going to say that he's not going to fight. You know, he's like, and then I'll go to the doctor and I'll get chemo and all these things. And like those words were coming out of his mouth, but I know that he was not capable of not being who he was and who he was.

was someone who like he had never been to the doctor in his entire adult adult life. He had never been to the dentist. Like he and for me to ask now for him to to do that, you know, he had never been until it got bad enough where he had to go in the last few months of his life. He wasn't wired to fight it. And in a lot of ways, he had a more beautiful last

year of his life because he didn't. He died the same way he lived. There's an interesting, kind of thread that I've noticed almost going from that you've talked about from early on in your childhood. And I'm, I'm curious how you think about it, which is your father being a dad and a friend. And there's some dads who are all dad and not friends. There's some dads who are just your friend and they're don't father you at all.

I'm interested in how you think about that with your son and your place in that relationship. Yeah. It's actually the thing I struggle with most about being a father. And I didn't, I didn't realize that until you put it in those terms of being a friend versus being a dad. One thing I've been, I've been working on just personally lately is I have a desire for people to like me.

I have a people pleaser in me that wants to be liked. I get my charmingness from it. But I've noticed that that was coming up with my son in that I wasn't holding onto my desires and my preferences. And I was catering to what he wanted because I wanted him to like me, to be a friend. And in doing so, I could feel resentment building.

Resentment for me is this trigger, is that when I feel it, I'm like, shoot, I have to journal. I have to figure out why it's there because there's probably something underneath that some behavior or something I didn't communicate to someone that I need to figure out. Because resentment itself isn't useful to tell someone about because they're like, okay, well, you have resentment towards me, that sucks. But if I'm like, I noticed I'm feeling resentment and it's because

In my son's case, like for instance, I might let him have more screen time than we agreed upon. He has a rule of a half hour a day and it gets, you know, his timer goes off at a half hour and I'm like, okay, screen time's over. And he's like, just one more game. And I'm like, it's not the end of the world. Like he can play another game. Like I'm not strict. I don't like authority.

I watched a lot of TV when I was a kid and I'm fine. So I start justifying in my head all these reasons why I should not be strict, not be the father that holds the structure and the boundaries that can create discipline. So I start to justify that and I let it slide because I want him to like me. I want to be friends.

And then later on, I feel that resentment coming up towards him. And I'm like, he's he manipulated me into like into, you know, getting around these rules and stuff. And then I come and then I come back superstrict and he's like, what? This isn't the this isn't what I'm used to. Right. And so it's probably that you are the cool dad. Exactly. I am the cool dad. Yeah. You don't like me. No.

So so that that is a balance that I struggle with because because I do want him to like me and and honestly like I for a lot of these like rules that we have I Can easily justify why those rules aren't you know? Like all that important Yeah Individually, yeah. Yeah individually, but but then but then I'll put together right is like I want him to Be disciplined. I want him to be rigorous. I want him to get stuff done. I don't want him to get

addicted to high dopamine activities that I think as parents were all terrified of. You know, just some of the videos I see him watching on YouTube, where it's just like quick hit after hit of like, like exciting things. And I'm like, my gosh. You're like, I've been here for 30 minutes. What happened? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I like I struggle with that. Yeah. So to put.

Pull on this a little bit. The other kind of other question I was interested in or the adjacent question is what are some of the problems? Cause you're starting to talk about some of them, but what are some of the problems you're dealing with today that your dad didn't have to deal with? And what are your strategies for dealing with those? So you started to talk about screen time. So maybe what are some of the other big ones? And I think where this question comes from is, you know, some of us have intuition either to do what

we saw or maybe to do the opposite of what we saw. But then there's these other problems that have come across the bow where we really don't have intuition and we kind of have to really figure it out. So maybe pick a couple of those. Like what are some of these big problems or questions that you're dealing with and how are you figuring out what are your strategies? Yeah, I feel like, you know, the, the ubiquitous one is like the screen time, the, the high dopamine. I worry about that. Like.

creating a lazy person. Someone who, and I feel like probably all parents have it like back in my day, I used to have to do X, Y, and Z. You had to change the cartridge in the Nintendo. I know, yeah. I couldn't just like, yeah. When he's an adult, he'll be like, back in my day, we used to have to watch ads between our sessions. the ads drive me crazy. I'm like, they're selling kids.

They're selling to kids. Like this is, I'm terrified of that stuff. I don't know. My, my strategies around that have been to try to just put some more, put up some more guard rails around it and not, and not do a, I think that the totally blocking these types of activities is a, is a recipe for failure. And that like, if I say no screens in the house, like as soon as he gets access to a screen when he's older, I think it might go overboard. So I'm almost trying to like desensitize it.

and create other like we've been getting into board games lately as he's as he's gotten older and can read and have more logic like board games have been getting more fun. So we, we play chess and checkers and, and battleship and you know, other, other board games. And that's been really fun. So I try to do, I try to, you know, make sure we have a good balance of these things. Yeah. And I've actually been talking with his, he has a few, a few good buddies at school. And so

We all talk about like, let's try to get on the same page with this stuff as a community of parents, because like they learn from each other, right? Like my son learned about Pokemon from his friends. He learned about this terrible book called Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I don't know if you guys, my gosh, I feel like this kid is such a bad example for his readers. And it's in the title, a wimpy kid. And he's like bullying.

Yeah, I don't know. He's cheating on tests. Like, and he's talking about it from his perspective, which is like, he's not, it's not self -deprecating at all. I don't know. But, yeah. So I try to talk to my, my, my son's parents, my son's friends, parents about their strategies. And so we've all been like, okay, let's not like, let's hold a line. I'm getting these kids cell phones. Or if we do like, let's make sure they're dumb phones and not smartphones.

And let's talk about it together because as soon as one kid gets it, he's seven. Like this is such a young age to be thinking about that. But the freedom that a cell phone can afford us would all be great. But the risk involved is terrifying. One thing I did is I got walkie talkies like, you know, two way walkie talkies. brilliant. And he can run around the neighborhood and I'm like, Jennifer, where are you today? And I was like.

Dad, quick, seven plus six, seven plus six. He was at the park, which is like a five minute walk, and a parent chimes in on his walkie talkie and he's like, your son is at the park. And I'm like, yeah, yeah he is. Sounds like you are too. And I'm like, is he alright? And he's like, yeah, yeah he's playing. And I'm like, cool.

So that's interesting. I do. So maybe to zoom out a little bit on that, you're in the context of this question, what you're really saying is you're deploying what you kind of call is like a community level solution for some of these bigger novel questions. Yeah. And that sounds more organized than it is. It's more like, you know, the kid's birthday party and I'm like,

Are you kids talking about phones? Like, let's not do that. What's going on with this diary of a wimpy kid? Can we just cut that? Yeah. Yeah. But I, I actually think, especially as they get older, it would be great to more formalize that approach. That's because we've had, you know, I've had one one -off conversations with, with each of the parents and they've had conversations with each other. Yeah. I think it'd be great. You know, do a, do a nine PM.

they're thinking the same thing. They're like, yeah, let's talk about that. Let's make sure we're on the same page with this. You know, I live in Boulder, there's a bunch of woke parents here. And these are like - How much sugar do you allow when your child's diet? You have one grams or two. Yeah. And so I saw a plastic water bottle connected to Juniper's backpack. Well, it was funny. One of the kids in this group got a watch.

like a little Casio watch. And I was like, that's a great idea. Like let's teach these kids how to tell time and how to show up on time and stuff like that. So I got, I got my son to watch and now they all have watches and they all love them to like, they all beep on the hour. So if you, if you're like with these kids at the hour, they tell like beep, beep, beep, beep. Yeah. And I, yeah. So you don't raise your child in isolation, right? You raise it in community.

If you're, if your kids in school, you raise it in community. And I think leaning into that community is really important. And so forming relationships with, with the other parents has been, has been huge for me. In my, in my experience, both growing up as well as, as a parent, a lot of this discussion across families or between parents, I've actually witnessed being a mom driven activity. So

In your example, obviously you're Juniper's dad. Are you talking to other dads? You talking to other moms? Yeah, both. How is it? How is it playing out? Yeah, I've been, I've been talking to both moms and dads. Yeah. I don't know if it's just the, the bubble I live in, but I feel like the traditional, you know, mom is the, is the head of the, you know, family household and child life, doesn't seem to be as prevalent.

Well, your child's also at a Waldorf school. Or was. I don't know. No, he's in public school now. cool. That's super interesting that that's, yeah, that's cool. Yeah, yeah. And it's like the IB school, the International Baccalaureate Public School. But yeah, it was funny in kindergarten, we were having the conversation of like, should he continue with Waldorf? And we did all the pros and cons. And then we got down to the bottom of the pros and cons list. And I was like, well, how much does the IB school cost?

And it was like thirty five grand a year versus three. One pretty nice Tesla. Why are we having this conversation? Next time, could that be at the top of the list? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's great. I think another the other thing as I thought about this question of like what I'm dealing with that my dad didn't have to do is I worry a lot about spoiling my son.

I didn't feel spoiled at all when I was a kid. I felt like I was always wanting like what I saw other kids having. And I remember going to the grocery store with my dad and it happened to be my birthday. And we were in line at the grocery store and they had the chocolate bars in the line. And I was like, can I have one of these? And I had never asked that before or I had been conditioned to not ask that because the answer was obviously no, but it was my birthday and my dad's like,

Sure, it's your birthday. And I was like, and I literally, that's one of the core memories of my childhood is like getting a candy bar at the grocery store in line, like an impromptu surprise candy bar. And when I go to the grocery store with my son, I convince him that he should go to the store with me because he gets to pick out something. And I'm like, shit, am I spoiling him? Like literally every time we go to the grocery store, he gets to

pick out one thing and sometimes he picks out a candy bar. Sometimes he picks out like he picked out a pineapple once I was like that's a good it's an expensive thing to pick but it's a good thing like I'd rather buy him that than a candy bar but like he picks out one thing and that's like I don't know I'm picking out a hundred things and putting him in the cart it seems reasonable but also that's not how I was raised. Yeah. So I worry about that. He's like dad we have enough organic avocados. Good. Yeah.

He's like, can I get an organic pineapple from Hawaii in December in Colorado? Yeah, you can have that. Did you make him slice it? No, no, sliced it for him, delivered it to him on a dish. See, that's where he got spoiled. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, yeah. So it's this balance because I, I don't want to spoil him. I want to be more rigorous. And then at the end of a day,

When I'm tired and I don't have the emotional capacity left to fight with him, I often let things slip where I'm like, this is going to be way easier for me to cook dinner if he had some screen time right now. And for me to just cook it and put it in front of him while he's not paying attention, then for me to engage him in the process. And we love cooking together or I love cooking with him and he sometimes joins me. And it's like...

getting him to do that is more difficult a lot of times than just plopping food in front of him and hoping that he doesn't realize that there's broccoli in it, which he doesn't like because his mind is somewhere else. But what I've tried to do is sort of hold certain spaces sacred. And so the dinner table has been a thing that I've recently reclaimed as like, okay, having a meal together is going to be a sacred time. And so,

Let's make sure we do that. We sit in our places. I made this little jar that has these little question prompts in it that he pulls one at dinner and it'll be like, what are three things you're grateful for? Or what's something you're struggling with right now that you need support on? Or what are five things you notice right now?

just like about yourself or your surroundings. And everyone goes around the table and does these things. And for me, that's like turned into this little ritual that I love, but I love it because it's a ritual, but I also love it because it forces us to have a conversation beyond how was your day and the one word answers I was seeing us get around them. It's amazing how a seven -year -old can sound like a 14 -year -old.

Yeah, well, he'll be a 14 year old just in seven years, I guess. So, yeah. Couple more questions as we start to wrap up. What do you appreciate about your father today that you didn't before you had kids? And I would, I would, you know, we talked a lot about your relationship with your dad towards the end of your dad's life. And I know that's obviously a profound shift.

So maybe this would be an opportunity to talk about it before that. Yeah. Right. When you first were coming into your own fatherhood. Yeah. And I mentioned it earlier, but just to underscore it, that his anti -establishment streak and like, as, as, as I saw that in the later years of his life, it made me think back to my childhood because

For the most of my childhood, maybe from when I was four until 15 when he got laid off, like so the formative years of my childhood, he had a steady job. He worked at a bank. He, and I remember him not liking his job and I went with him to like bring your kid to work day. And he was like goofing off with his colleagues most of the time and thinking back now, knowing who he was as a person, like I, so I appreciated his.

like what I got from him and his like rebellious nature. And then now I look back and appreciate how hard that must have been for him to hold that job working in a very boring environment for all that time. I've never had a job as long as he had that job. And I don't think I ever will. That's a crazy thought. Yeah. He was there, I guess, 11, 12 years. The longest job I had was like nine, I guess. You've had some sweet jobs.

Yeah, yeah, and jobs I created. So the establishment is myself. I can be. Yeah, it becomes very circular. Well, and also his drive, like I can see why he wanted to be an entrepreneur now so badly because he didn't want a boss. He didn't want to to to. You know, work work by someone else's rules. And I appreciate that. I get that. As I as I transition careers, I thought about applying for a job.

And after seriously thinking about it, I was like, nah, I couldn't do that.

I think all three of us on this might have a similar affliction. Yeah, you should try to find a guest who is just like works a nine to five to get that perspective. Yeah. So I appreciated that about him and also now understand the sacrifices that he made for his family because that was him having that job. And my mom had a job at the same bank. They commuted in together every day.

That stability, like they didn't make that much money, but the stability that that afforded us in those young years of my childhood was, yeah, I didn't appreciate that as a kid. I always thought, you know, yeah, my parents have jobs. I didn't understand what they did, but you know, it gave us a consistent house, consistent meals, and he must've been struggling so hard to be happy in that world. So then to wrap up, if you had one piece of advice for first time dad,

or folks on their way to fatherhood, what would it be? Along the lines of what we've been talking about here, I guess that advice would be to let your children see you as people. And what I mean by that is like, see all of you, like be vulnerable with them, let them know when you're afraid or when you don't know, let them see you cry. I think that if you can do that, then your kids will have a lot more empathy.

for you and respect for you. And it took me a long time and a lot of work to be able to see my dad like that. But I think once I did, it changed everything in how I relate to him. And yeah, I wish I had done that work sooner because I think we could have had a different relationship. I think if he was still alive, we would have a different relationship now.

Well, thank you, Nico. Thank you for, for this, this entire discussion for coming in open heart, open mind. You've set a high bar. Good luck future guests. But yeah. And as a reminder for everybody, you know, this is a podcast where we're looking to have discussions for anybody who is a dad, has been a dad is considering considering being a dad.

anyone who's interested in learning what it's like to be a dad, and finally, anybody who's interested in supporting someone who's a dad. So we're looking to have more conversations about this. Nico, thank you so much. This was beautiful. You're wonderful. You're doing a great job. It's amazing. Thanks, guys. Before you bounce, I have a quick favor. Please subscribe to the pod.

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