Coach Doesn't Do It for the Money

Quinn: [00:00:00] There's nothing, nothing, not my children's smiles or their love or anything, sex, that is better than getting into my bed.

Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this.

Claire: We'll be talking about slash crashing out over topics like

Quinn: AI homework detection, and they just don't do their homework.

Claire: Pride flags and dirty sports uniforms And how many plastic Gatorade water bottles is it possible for one child to lose?

Quinn: It's not an advice show.

Claire: It's a you're not alone and you're also not crazy for screaming in the shower kind of show. I'm Claire Zulkey from Evil Witches.

Quinn:And I'm Quinn Emmett from Important, Not Important.

Claire: You can find details on anything we talk about in the show notes or at our website, not right now dot show

Quinn:Dot show! And if you like what you hear today, please share it with a parent who needs it or who might laugh and tell their kids to be quiet. And then drop us a nice little five star review [00:01:00]

Claire: And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to questions at not right now dot show.

Claire: The sink is full of blood right now in our bathroom because, let's see, what's the best way to tell this story? I'll just say after a lot of drama back and forth about basketball and girls basketball. Paul came out of the shower and looked at me and smiled, and then I noticed that blood was pouring out of his nose and I said, you have a bloody nose. So anyway, he went to bed. Anyway, whatever. All you need to know is that the sink is full of dried blood. And so, one of his jobs when he gets home from school is to clean the blood out of the sink. 'cause I don't think I should have to do that. Do you agree? Do think I should?

Quinn: No, I don't think you should have to do that. I told one of my kids this morning, I don't remember which one. I said, how'd you sleep? They're like fine. I was like. You should know, [00:02:00] like you shit yourself every night for the first three years of your life. And I cleaned it up every, that was the first thing I did every morning.

And then I had two other babies, shit to clean up. So one you're sleeping better than that. And two, I am just thankful that it's not my fucking job anymore, you know?

Claire: Yes, indeed. How did you sleep last night?

Quinn: Not great. Not great. Here's the thing, I've decided once a week, I'm gonna treat myself to three Advil liquid gels.

Claire: Whoa.

Quinn: I sleep so much better when I do it. I did not do that last night and I was like, this was the night I should have done it. It just, it truly, a gummy and three Advils is fucking incredible. It's incredible. So, look, I'm hoping tonight's the night. I'm pretty excited.

Claire: So when you can't sleep, do you do anything to offset that or what do you do, or you just toss and turn, and make Dana miserable?

Quinn: All the above. I actually messaged a friend the other day. I love reading, I love books. But I'm old, so I get into bed and the only way besides marijuana [00:03:00] that my brain turns off at night is I read fiction. And I only get like two pages in, right?

'cause I'm just fucking tired. It's great. Brain turns off. I'm fine with that. Do I wish I read more? Sure. I don't often account enough for is that two to 3:00 AM anxiety attack when you wake up. And then it always takes me a while to fall asleep. And the only thing that does it is reading. So the answer is, most of the time I get the bulk of my reading done from like two to 4:00 AM.

When I'm wide awake, trying to forget everything else. And it works most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time. It just takes a while. 'cause get up to pee and the second one thought gets in there, game over.

Claire: Oh yeah, no. Last night there was a combination of things that had me not sleeping and part of it was me thinking about how the term overstimulated is really in the mainstream right now in like mom social media culture. I dunno if that's in your feed a lot?

Quinn: No, tell me about it. I don't have a feed. Go ahead.

Claire: I see a lot of Instagram posts where [00:04:00] there's a mom being like, POV: you're overstimulated. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I just had noticed that's been in the mainstream more. And I don't know if that's just another word for like overwhelmed, you know, or I don't know. I think overwhelmed is another word for it, but I dunno if it's like being slightly more neurodivergent friendly. So I was overstimulated and thinking about the word overstimulated and then I was like, should I write about this? Or something like that? And then I was thinking about all the things that were overstimulating me at the same time. So it was like part of a meta, you know, insomnia. So I had, the last couple nights I was taking a sleeping pill before bed and then last night I was like, I'll just go clean. And then I also had a couple Diet Cokes at this political fundraiser I went to. 'cause like I had to have something in my hand 'cause I didn't know anyone there. So those two things. And I ate dinner late. So all those things probably didn't work. And then, there's this extra breathing exercise that always works and I never wanna do it for some reason.

'cause it's so [00:05:00] tedious. And it's so dumb because it's like, what else am I doing? Like everything, I'm already in bed. It's boring. But it's like this, you've probably heard of it. It's like the 5, 6, 7 or whatever it is. Like you breathe in for five, you hold it for six, and you breathe out for seven and it like slows down your heart rate and it gives you something to focus on. It's always like the last resort. Like I always try just being and then naturally falling asleep. And then I'm like, I guess I gotta try the fucking sleeping, like breathing technique. And without fail, it always works, but I don’t know why I put it off.

Quinn: Is it? Is it because you feel like, what is the emotion tied to it? Is it shame that it's required? Is it frustration? Is it that you don't believe it'll work this time? Because like you said, you talked about the, oh, I ate late. And it's yeah, the number of things that have to fucking go right to get like a decent night of sleep are ridiculous, impossible.

And if you told 24-year-old us, they'd be like, what? What are you talking about? So what is, what do you think is your particular like psychological holdup to I'm not fucking doing that. I'm not doing that breathing, I'm not [00:06:00] doing it.

Claire: It's so, it's just boring and 'cause it is strangely hard 'cause you have to pull in so much breath then to hold it and then to let it out. You know, slowly leak it out like a balloon. And, you know, I think my brain, my overstimulated brain is like having a temper tantrum that I had to focus on this breathing.

And so I think I just resist that. And I'm not someone who meditates. I tried that for a little bit. It's just not my thing. So I don't prefer forcing myself to slow down like that. And so yeah, it's just like a weird little temper tantrum about you know, whenever you have to do something that you know is good for you that you don't wanna do, that's it.

Quinn: But you seem to be a pretty devoted person to your cult, your Sauna Club, and other things that you do know will be better for you. Why this thing?

Claire: Why this thing? What, why do I not wanna do it?

Quinn: Yeah. Why this thing are you, do you have such a grudge against it? I mean, I know you said it's boring, but I'm not saying your cult is boring. Clearly not. Especially once you guys ascend, but you know, you take [00:07:00] care of yourself.

Claire: Well, that's different. It's pleasurable. Like it's nice to sit in the Sauna Club, like you're going to come to Chicago sometime and I'm gonna make you do it with me. Which I would never in a million years if I was like, I'm gonna make a man come and sit with me in a swimsuit, like in a hot box. It's wet. But it is pleasant. 'cause you're looking at the lake and you have control over yourself, and all you have to do for a half an hour is either be hot or be cold, and then you're done. And then, you know, you'll have endorphins afterwards. And you know, sleep is one of those things where going to sleep is not as good as like having slept, you know, it's like, have you ever noticed how, like, why is my bed never as comfy getting into it as it is, right when I've woken up?

Quinn: I gotta disagree a little bit there. There's nothing, nothing, not my children's smiles or their love or anything, sex, that is better than getting into my bed. fucking love it so much. I love it so much.

Claire: So part of, we have [00:08:00] had a good sleeping routine down for James now, and I hate to say this, like I have a lot of shame about this, but I don't read aloud to my kids anymore. It just is too, it's just like a bridge too far. But we do reading time together. So for James, he has to take a shower. He's allowed to read with me in bed, in my bed, and then he can go read some more in his bed and then its lights out. And and this is after he gets his pill that like helps him calm his thoughts. But he gets in my bed and he like throws pillows on the floor and he's biting his nails and he is picking his nose. And it is, takes a lot of heroic patience on my part, not to be mad at him for disrupting, you know, my throne, my nest.

Quinn: Would you go into a guest's home and do that? This is an invitation to a sacred place. Why do you think you can bite your nails in someone's home? Like it's, it is so upsetting. I would kick my kids out so fucking fast.

Claire: I told you, I texted you about how much I hated him. I like hated him last week 'cause he was also tired, [00:09:00] overstimulated, like in retrospect we can like, excuse this, but like Steve took them out to see the movie Goat and this is after James had gotten to have a sleepover in the hotel over President's Day weekend.

And he was kind of being a bastard the whole time. And while they were out, I cleaned up the house 'cause, not the house, just like the main living area. 'cause it was just so cluttered. And he leaves books like this all the time. Like, shit is falling out. And you know, I love that he reads, that's great, but it is a lot of clutter.

So I'm picking up the books and I'm putting 'em in a pile and putting 'em on the stairs and he gets home. Oh look, there's one of his sports cards. He goes to bed and he starts grumbling that we closed up his books without putting a bookmark in there. And I was so mad and part of the reason, like I was thinking back, I was like, the reason why we have all these books is 'cause I read an article about if your child likes these books, they might like these books.

So then I put in the library and hold like all these other books that I thought he might like, drove my ass to the library, checked out these books, brought them home so that my [00:10:00] child could read these books. And then he's mad at me for not saving his place when he leaves them scattered around the house.

So that's what I'm working with in terms of the person who is getting in my bed. You know, I am just like a disappointing robot who doesn't do a very good job all the time, you know, taking care of him.

Quinn: I remember once in high school, it was hot. It must have been either the beginning of the year or the end of the year, the school year. And I think I was skipping class or something, was with some friends and we were at this local Icy place, you know, snow cone place.

And I was like, I'm gonna get one of these and bring it to my girlfriend. And I was like, this is romantic gestures 101. And I mean, went to every, all the air conditioning vents pointed at it while we were driving all this stuff. Still excited, trying to keep it going, and walked in, handed it to her and she goes, this is melted.

Not thank you, none of that. And I was like, you know what? And I'm still scarred by that. So first of all, fuck her, she was out [00:11:00] immediately. But also I was just like, what are you doing? Like you went to go get all the books. The fact that you even read that article, like if you had stopped there, that's parenting. That's a win. Fuckers.

Claire: Because it's the, these like Raina Telgemeier graphic novels. I dunno if you are familiar with her. They're books like Smile.

Quinn: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Claire: So I love that James likes to read books with like female protagonists. So I wanna encourage that. And you know, reading, reading is good as your shirt says, but it's so funny 'cause like I've compared, this is very boy mom, but like I've compared having boys to like your first boyfriend where from this girl that you're talking about, like you're so thirsty for any sign of like that they noticed you or paid attention to you. And Paul once came home with a half melted, half eaten McDonald's ice cream cone. 'cause they'd accidentally given them two when my friend took them out, so he brought me one 'cause he knows I love McDonald's ice cream. This shit was so disgusting and melted. But I also was like, he went out and [00:12:00] he thought of me and he could have eaten and I was so pleased that he knew that he would feel ill if he'd eaten two ice creams.

So I ate that disgusting semi-melted soft serve ice cream. And I'm still like, you know, some of the nicest things he ever did for me was not eat that second ice cream cone.

Quinn: So talk to me about how James loves those books, which are great. Our, we've got 'em all folded that way throughout our house all the time and everyone reads them. But Paul by rule will not watch women's sports. Tell me about that. How did they end up so different?

Claire: Well, that's not exactly true. Okay. And there's more to, okay, there's, I know I don't want to put Paul on blast and I also wanna be delicate about this. 'cause this was a, there was like a coda to this story and I don't, I'm worried 'cause my friends sometimes let their kid listen to the podcast, so they may hear this and react.

Quinn: We’ll cut out. Great. Whatever. Just tell the story.

Claire: Yeah. No. Okay. Megan and Sunny, if you're listening, don't let the kids listen to this part. So Steve got home last night picking up [00:13:00] Paul and his friend from basketball and Steve was all heated because tonight is the last girls' basketball, eighth grade girls' basketball game.

And a lot of the girls came to the boys' game and cheered Paul on. And so we were saying we should go to the girls game, and Paul and his friend were saying, absolutely not, hard no, we're not gonna go watch the girls play because they're probably gonna see us there and say hi, which is you know, in their minds the worst thing that could possibly happen. So Steve, I think remembers almost like too well and identifies too much with being an awkward teenager and being scared of girls, was like going hard. We're going harder now. We're going to both games. Like we're, you know, we're all gonna go. And Paul and his friend were like, no. And he got more.

And so Steve came home like all heated and he is like, Paul's all upset about how bad he doesn't wanna go to this game. And I feel like when Steve is really pushing on that I pull back more. 'cause I'm like, he doesn't need two parents, like mortifying him. I'll just, you know, and I remember acutely what it's like to be both like [00:14:00] interested in boys and terrified of them at the same time.

I wanna respect the terror. If anything, like I think the terror is healthy and normal and sweet and it's okay. So anyway, cut to Paul coming outta the shower and smiling at me and then blood pouring out of his nose. So I texted his friend's mom about this whole exchange and she said, oh, and the car ride home yesterday from school, Paul told my son, his friend, I think someone likes me, and I'll talk to you about it at the playground.

Quinn: Oh, all right. Some context. I got it.

Claire: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I was thinking, I was like, I'm not going to 'cause I'm such a good mom, but I was like, I could prod and poke or I could go through his backpack or have Steve look at his phone or ask James what he thinks. I have a slight, notion, but like also at the same time, you know, if he is not interested in that, that's fine and I'm not gonna torture him and make him talk about it. But I just was like, okay, that's context.

Quinn: Yeah, sure. There's some context, that seems like a very [00:15:00] strong reaction without, you know, the context and you're like, oh, I got it.

Claire: Yeah, and I mean this age, so we went on this overnight with Paul's friend over the weekend and Paul's friend Christopher, same age as him, has a girlfriend. And what I've learned is that these two kids see each other at school and text and don't do anything else. To the point where they went to a school dance together with a group of kids and to Christopher's mortification, his friends were all trying to get him to kiss and or dance with his girlfriend.

Two things he had never done. So, you know, like that is where things are, which I think is all very age appropriate. So, you know, I know some kids have, I know your kid has like more going on with his girlfriend, or at least sees her outside of school or buys her stuff, right.

Quinn: Kind of, I mean, there's very little like going on from everything, every time I have like gently broached a subject, it's like, oh, absolutely not under any condition. But I dunno. I [00:16:00] did wanna mention, you mentioned a dance and things, and it reminded me. Like I've looked at this like the Zapruder film.

So they had a seventh grade, it was sixth and seventh graders, so middle school, they're public, middle school, sixth, seventh, eighth. But they had a sixth and seventh grade Valentine stance and it was at the gym as you do. And they all got dressed up, which is cute. I don't remember us doing that, but I don't recall having them around holidays of any kind.

Someone, they all have their phones there of course, and they don't usually get to have them at school. And someone had a picture and it was like him and his girlfriend. And I looked at it and I was like, that's so weird. Like all the lights are on in the gym. And I thought, oh, it must have been at the end of the night someone took a picture.

'cause he looked all sweaty and stuff. I looked at the timestamp and it's 40 minutes into this two hour thing, all the lights are on. And I was like. That's interesting. Do you remember all the lights being on for yours or, I mean, we grew up obviously in you know, the dark ages, but quite literally, but ours were not on.

Claire: No, well, we didn't have those kind of parties, like at the gym. We had a [00:17:00] cool friend whose mom would like, kind of old fashioned, like roll up the rugs and push back the couches and we would have like boy, girl sort of dance parties.

Quinn: But this was like a school sponsored thing.

Claire: Oh no, we didn't have school sponsored dances, I don't think we did that.

Quinn: I didn't assume, I didn't ever assume there would be any dancing, much less, like any sort of commiserating.

Claire: Oh we did slow dancing. Yeah. And in fact, I remember at my friend Dwayne Lewis' birthday party, this is before we started mixing, but all the boys were upstairs watching NBA highlight videos, and the girls were in the basement dancing to Millie Vanilli. And we were slow dancing like this. Literally, I'm not, with our hands on the neck of an invisible boy going like that, practicing.

Quinn: Leave some room for Jesus.

Claire: Exactly. All the room. Yeah I mean, and they have dances at the school and the boy, you know, and the kids are like mortified and aren't around each other.

I remember like what was the most you know, interaction you'd had with the girl up to ninth grade? Like [00:18:00] how experienced were you? If you feel comfortable saying.

Quinn: Not much. I mean, I had a couple girlfriends, again, let's use the operative word. You know, there's a label and then there's the mechanics of the whole thing. There were not a lot of mechanics to it, you know?

Claire: Had you kissed or gone on a date or anything like that?

Quinn: Not at, where was I gonna go? Walk down the street. I mean, oh, I think I did. There was a boy and a girl on my swim team who liked each other and wanted to go to a movie and they each needed per their parents to bring someone else with them. And so, my date was now one of my best friend's wives. And I tell him, I remind him all of the time that his wife's first date was me. So Drew, if you're listening don't forget, never forget, pretty great. And we went and saw, oh, you know what? I think I might be wrong. I think we went and saw Selena. Do you remember that?

Claire: Of course, Jennifer Lopez.

Quinn: Oh, so good.[00:19:00] So good. Heartbreaking. I didn't know the story at all. Heartbreaking. Oh no, it was Men In Black. It was Men In Black. Selena was another time.

Claire: Wow, okay. That's funny. My first date movies were The Pelican Brief with John Seyfried at a movie theater that's now closed and John is out and has been for a long time. And Ben McCann and I saw The Nightmare Before Christmas in the theater.

Quinn: So great. Still holds up.

Claire: I didn't, I mean my school was so small, so it was like we were such a small grade that I don't even remember. I think there were a couple people who saw each other, but was a lot of cache for me that at summer camp we had a dance and I slow danced with the boy who did not go to the grade, not go to our school. And I was fizzing about it on the way home. And my friend Paula, who just texted me, like before we got on the call, she said, put a sock in it, Claire. 'cause I wouldn't stop talking about it. So, that was like the most, I didn't have a real kiss, I don't think until high school. Maybe, you know, I mean it's such a cringe time of life, you know.

Quinn: Oh, [00:20:00] it's awful. But let me ask this. 'cause I think the dynamics do matter because again, it can seem almost incestuous. Like how small was your school?

Claire: Our class is 40 kids, I think max.

Quinn: Your total grade was 40 kids. Oh, well that's a completely different fucking story. I feel like each of our classes, like our classrooms was 23 kids and we probably had 10 of those, you know?

Claire: No. And then I went to a high school where my grade was 600 kids, so, it was like quite a.

Quinn: A world opens up.

Claire: Well, and it was funny 'cause like I went to Catholic school and I mean there were some differences but the kids were sort of all liked the same things and sort of were all, I don't know, we all knew each other extremely well.

And then the summer before freshman year of high school, I was at camp and there was a boy who I was so surprised to have a crush on. 'cause he had long, greasy hair and he wore a fedora and he wrote [00:21:00] poetry and he wore combat boots. And I was like, he's so like dark and mysterious and like no one understands.

And I remember like walking, oh God, I can't believe I'm saying this. I walked up to him at night at one of our like hangouts and I said, I think I like you. And he said that's cool. And I found out later on he was like finger banging one of the other girls at camp but I thought I was like the only one who saw this in him.

And then of course years later it was like all the girls. Yeah, exactly. Like absolute, just drowning in it. And so, and it made you feel like, I made me feel so basic, like I really thought I like was onto something there. So, yeah. Anyway, but what's funny is that this guy is like a dad. He is like all the other dads in the world.

And a friend and I from high school were like, how did he turn out so boring and so basic and so disappointing, but. You know, I guess he still doesn't wear like a fedora with playing card in the band that indicates his mood. That was something he did.

Quinn: Yeah. No, man. [00:22:00] Setting the tone, that's incredible. That's amazing.

Claire: Yeah. There was not a lot of that at the height at the Catholic school, believe it or not.

Quinn: But it's impossible if it's the same 20, 30 people every day, like there's nowhere to hide.

Claire: No. And that was such a mainstream time of life. You know, we all kinda liked Michael Jordan. We all liked Bel biv Devoux, like we all went to the mall. This is pre-internet. You know, some kids had TV or cable, you know, or you know, some kids were different races or different socioeconomical.

We all kind of went to the same church, same, you know, same jokes, knew each other like a little bit too well. So I always tell Paul, high school is gonna open up so much for him. 'cause he is gonna see so many different kinds of people, which can be exciting and scary and you never know.

But I don't blame him for being terrified or overwhelmed by the prospect. 'cause like it's not only when you go to such a small school like that, like if someone likes you, everyone knows about it then and everyone's talking about it and they're all saying, you [00:23:00] should ask so and so out or whatever.

So, I'm gonna let Steve be the one. Well, I might tell Steve to leave him alone also. We'll see how it goes. He's a nice kid despite the nosebleeds.

Quinn: The sink full of blood. Let me ask you this. You had it in the notes, does Catholic school require you to give something up for Lent?

Claire: No, you do have to get ashes, which the kids got yesterday and I think must have wiped them off by the time they got home. And I was surprised because James, Steve took James out for dinner last night, and James to his chagrin, realized that you were supposed to fast on the first day of Lent, And he had a hamburger at dinner and then he also remembered that he had a hamburger at lunch that day as well. And I was kinda surprised that the Catholic school gave them meat. I don't care. I don't believe in the meat thing, I think it is a scam. But yeah, they were like, what are we giving up for Lent?

And I'm not giving up anything this year. Last year I gave up social media and I was like, I need it to promote the podcast. So [00:24:00] obviously I can't. And also life is hard enough. But I said, why don't you try giving up eating candy on weekdays? And I got a hard no with that one.

Quinn: Wow.

Claire: So my perfect angels are not giving anything up. I suggested maybe you can do something like pick something, you know, add something to your life, but they're not going to. And I don't know I can't enforce all this stuff. We got enough going on.

Quinn: You asked, in the outline, what would I give up? And I thought back to this week, a couple childhood friends and I were chitchatting on our app and apropos of nothing except for just life. I said to them last week on the show, Claire asked me what I used to do for fun that I can't do anymore. And I didn't even have an answer.

And I was like, what would I give up? There's nothing to give up. There's nothing left to give up. Claire. Like my fucking water bottle I take everywhere?

Claire: Your gummies, would you give up your gummies?

Quinn: Would my family want me to give up my [00:25:00] gummies? Are you kidding me? They would give me up the next day. No, I can't. Those aren't for pleasure.

Claire: Freebasing life.

Quinn: Why would I ever do that? No. What I mean, what would I give up?

Claire: Ask your family. Ask your family what they would pick for you because they're, I bet they have something.

Quinn: Oh, I'm sure they do.

Claire: Yeah, I would give up maybe ordering in food, although I'm not really that bad about it. Currently, we'll see, that's something that could be like, I feel like life has given me enough to work with, like the last couple months, so I'm not gonna worry about it too much.

And I also just, you know, put all these apps on my phone to keep me from being online and wasting time and whatever.

Quinn: Yeah. No, I'm good. I'm good. They can have it. Alright, so, one of my kids unexpectedly had baseball tryouts one second after a three week ice storm. And in the middle of February and then to his credit, he made the team. And all of a sudden, my other two are, you know, seasonal, but he's got a thousand, he's the older one, so he's got piano. And he's in a brass band and he's in jazz [00:26:00] band and school. But also swim season's got a couple weeks left, which is kind of why I thought baseball wasn't here yet. And then they're like, practice is starting. It's every day after school for a couple hours, this and that. I was like, fuck. Okay. And you know, coaches, he doesn't know. I haven't even met this and this, and I thought about that all happened while you were furious at your children because they didn't understand why you were collecting cash for their coaches. And so I wanted to just talk about coaches and what they do and the good ones and how they don't get anything out of it except for parents yelling at them, except for you who go above and beyond.

Claire: Well also yesterday I got a text from the track coach, 'cause Paul is doing track and I'm pretty sure he's doing it because the track kids get a hoodie with their last name on the back, and that's very like, yeah, has a lot of cachet and Paul has no hoodies whatsoever. So, you know, it's imperative that he has one.

Quinn: Deprived. Sure.

Claire: Yeah. And his coach is supposed to be great [00:27:00] and it's kind of funny, Paul was worried about being the slowest and I was like, who's the slowest kid in the school? And he couldn't name it. And I was like, see, so if you're the slowest, no one will know. And then just as context, on the way to school today, I was driving and as you can imagine, like signing the kids up for sports is like this intense weave of planning and hoping and just giving up, you know, and so for the spring, Paul's gonna do track and volleyball, and James is gonna do tennis and volleyball. And then on the way to school, their friends were saying, they were saying things like I wish I had maybe done golf or I wish I wasn't doing volleyball and like summer baseball is so fun. And then that led into like memories of like their best plays or like their worst plays. Just like the most shooting the shit guy like, you know, the good old days of sports where I was like, you all are idiots. And also fuck you for like you wanted to do golf? Like you've never, ever, like I asked you [00:28:00] a million times what you would've wanted to do, and you've never mentioned that.

And also they said that spring baseball is too cold. I'm like, so if spring baseball is too cold, what do you think golf is? What do you, where do you, that is also like three hours of standing outside, anyway. All that aside, basketball is allegedly ending this week. As long as they don't go in the playoffs and their coach does not work for the school.

He's not a parent. I don't know where he comes from or how the school gets him. That's none of my business. But he works with the boys and he also has a job at Jimmy John's. I know. And I think, and Paul says he might be a parent, might have kids. And I know this coach makes the boys run all the time, which I love.

Like Paul come home, will come home really mad 'cause they had to run suicides. And I'm like, good. And also I'm like, it's basketball. Like you have to, like running is a pretty big part of it. Anyway I asked the moms like an idiot. I was like, is anyone coach, like collecting a gift from the coach to say thank you?

And everyone was like, no, but I would like chip in if someone [00:29:00] did. And I was like, all right. It's my turn. So, and it's not that big a deal, like you just give 'em people your Venmo and you add the money and go to Target. But like, you know, sometimes just like having that responsibility weighs on you.

So anyway. I told Paul, I was like, I'm going to get a a gift for Coach. What do you think he would like? He is like, you're gonna, what? I was like, get, you know, a thank you gift for Coach. He's like, for Coach? And I said, yeah. I said, you know, parents do this for a lot of the teachers, I would help run the parent teacher gift fund, which is a whole other shit show going on right now. You would think I just. I don't know, revealed like a whole other room in the house that he'd never discovered before. Like he seemed like he had never heard of this in his entire life, that people would collect money to say thank you, you know, with a gift card.

Quinn: Was he surprised or was he aghast?

Claire: Both and I felt the same way. Like I was so upset 'cause I also was like unloading the dishwasher at the moment and [00:30:00] unpacking from like the hotel trip I'd taken him on that I had to go lay down. 'cause all of this at once was just like made me so exhausted. And then the internet went out, which was like. That is always just like the turd on the shit sundae. But yeah, I was like, how did, this must have been a blind spot in our parenting that we didn't tell them about this, like extra part of it all. That these, you know, they're herding you assholes. Like the practices go until 10 o'clock at night, you know, and they're going to the suburbs and all this crap. And, I mean, I guess it's not a kid's responsibility to know like what parents do to thank their coaches and stuff, but I just couldn't, I was just blown away that he somehow had missed all this. And by the way, he gave me no advice. So I went to Target and I know we're boycotting Target, but I was like, the coach can buy anything he wants there. So there's that.

Quinn: I tried to think back if I recalled being aware of that, because we totally, we all do that here too, of course. Right? It's the right thing to [00:31:00] do obviously and it's the right thing to do one, like you said, these are people who are making our kids tired. I'll give you any amount of money for that, right.

Two, and this is the part, you know, again the line of like when and where do you, and how early do you let the kids understand? Coach also works at Jimmy John's, Coach is either a parent who is doing this for nothing. A lot of times they're a teacher, and I don't know how this works at your guys’ schools, who's doing it because it's like an extra 20 fucking dollars, right?

That's a lot of the public school, like the after school activities. You go, oh, Mrs. Whatsherfuss, that's the coach. That's great. I'm like, yeah, someone else has to watch her kid 'cause her kid's now home from school an hour earlier because she's trying to make 40 extra bucks for your fucking run club that you, where you do not run.

You signed up for. You had a choice of all the different fucking things. You sign up, you don't run, you're mad about it. And yeah, she puts up with it. Like when and where do you yell at them about that? It's getting earlier and earlier for me, [00:32:00] I feel like for those sort of things where I just do, I don't know if it's, is it the opposite of a Claire drive by where I kind of go stop.

Here's the deal. I'm gonna break some shit to you real quick, which is your coach makes $20,000 a year, and they're like, oh, what is that? I'm like, let me fucking break that down to you. Now, let me tell you how much shit costs, and I'm doing all this on the way home again, from whatever, because I'm like, I'm done with you not comprehending the world.

I need you to have a fucking understanding whether you're like, dad's being a dick right now. Yeah, I don't care. Yeah, we're doing it. And now I'm gonna take five bucks outta your fucking dummy bank and it's gonna go in the coach's fund too, so you can say a proper thank you. You dickhead. I don't know. I just see it all, like, all these parents do everything for nothing. Or again, it's like a third party. Like your coach who, like you said's coming into the suburbs to do this shit.

Claire: Did you, when you were a kid I mean, I hate to do this, but did [00:33:00] your parents like do that kind of stuff for the school and did you appreciate it?

Quinn: That's what I mean. I don't really know. I need to ask them that. I should ask them that. I suspect that they did. Like you said, it's easier now. 'cause here's the thing, all the parents are on a group chat or emails. We have Venmo. It's like you said, it's a burden to be the one who's Ugh, okay, I'll do it.

But I imagine easier than 1987. Right. Like how would you get all of the parents and how would you alert them all to everything in one place? You're gonna print up pamphlets?

Claire: Well, you would have no job. I mean, that was my mom.

Quinn: Right.

Claire: She like helped put together, my kids' former school was like these two churches, like these two schools kind of blended together and she was a big part of like the school board. And she would do these fundraisers that were like very legendary at the time. There was a one called Record A Hit, which is an earlier version of karaoke. But like people, parents would sing a song. They'd get drunk and they'd sing a song and they'd get a tape afterwards. We have a, I should find this somewhere. We have a version of my dad singing Mac the Knife [00:34:00] somewhere. That was like legendarily bad. And there was a silent auction. So I would go in the basement and I would look at the stuff. I remember seeing like a big pair of gym shoes by, I think signed by Craig Robinson, who played for the Bulls at the time. I used to just, I guess just assume it was those like things you just absorbed as a mom, you know, and then you get older and you're like, fuck, this takes a lot of time and energy and what we call like organization, transformational, organizational change and management skills. And, you know, you start to appreciate more this isn't just happen out of a whole cloth.

It's not just something you don't just like, you know, do it on the way to whatever it is and at the time actually, the kids used to go to the same school that I went to, that my mom helped work with and that gave me a lot of extra pressure in terms of feeling like I had to do the same amount of stuff for the school.

We had, James had his ADHD issues, so I felt this like level of shame that I was like, he causes some trouble [00:35:00] that, you know, like I feel like we have a responsibility not to, so now we go to this other school where I did not, well, not a part of it, but the irony, like the kick in the head is that the parents are way more involved than at my old school and way more not involved, there's just more shit, constant parties and fundraisers and you know, let's stock the teacher's lounge and twice a year let's all raise money for the teachers to have an extra cash bonus, which is great and important, but like you just realize you're like, this isn't just some little extra bullshit, you know, that I'll do while I'm, do, you know, like while I'm sleeping or something like that.

So will kids ever appreciate that? Like when I was screaming at James about him taking me for granted and all the work that I do, I could tell how, I don't know what the word is, how like pointless it was.

'cause I started going on a rant about like how I used to be somebody, like how I am someone, you know? And I was like, what am I, what's the fucking point? No kid has ever been like, wow, I really respect my mom as a human being and I'm sorry for wasting her time. [00:36:00] And what a special thing it is that she got me books from the library. You know, kids don't think like that.

Quinn: No, but that doesn't mean you don't need to get it out, right?

Claire: I mean, does Dana do that or you do that for Dana? If your kids treat Dana like a doormat, or you're like, she is an Oscar nominated screenwriter.

Quinn: I don't deal with it well, I don't deal with it well, they've I think learned that a little bit that is like yeah, it's not, it wouldn't go great. It has happened and it wouldn't go great should it happen again. I would so much rather you fucking I don't know, do something else you're not allowed to do. I mean here's the thing, like youth sports in the US are in such a downward spiral for a lot of reasons. One, most parents and teachers and people who would be involved in coaching already have either one job in a family or two jobs in a family.

They do not have time to volunteer. Two, we have basically professionalized most of the youth[00:37:00] sports, and they all cost $5,000 a year, right? A season. So immediately you're cutting out most of the kids, right? And then they'll say, well, it's a hundred percent attendance required, and you're like, they're nine.

Those coaches might be making some more. But in between it's like the middle class thing. There's not a lot left. I mean, last year I had to volunteer to coach Henry's baseball team, which I only did, I coached swimming when the kids were little. I taught swim lessons my whole life.

I coached base love all that. I didn't wanna do it with my kids 'cause I didn't wanna ruin it for 'em 'cause I'm self-aware that I'm a fucking dickhead. But they were like, we will not be able to have a league unless three more dads sign up or parents, whatever. So I did. And you realize yeah, this is entirely volunteer run.

Like there's nothing happening. And this is like the last version of essentially rec sports for these things. And so when you do that math where you go if they're able to volunteer, it's for the love of the game, the love of their kid, or because they are somehow economically able to do it, right.

Because otherwise [00:38:00] they're not making anything. So when I do look at like my kids' swim team, like you said, same team I swam for. In fact, you know, for however much longer their head coach is my old head coach, I discovered recently, and this is like their job. This is not associated with the school.

This is not rec, this is like kind of all year stuff and it's not, in a positive way, it's not the most like cutthroat team, you know, if your kid's oh, I also wanna play volleyball in the fall, they're like, great, have fun. You know, go get 'em, when you're here take it seriously. But totally get it.

I found out how much they make. My buddy was on the board. And it's so upsetting because here's the thing, when you're at, when you're doing that is your job and you actually don't have time to do anything else. But you're making so little that, like we were saying, it's so much easier now to just, again, email and Venmo or text or fucking whatever, or to just literally drive into CVS and be like, here's a rack of gift [00:39:00] cards.

It's stuff that didn't exist when we were growing up. That if you have the means to be able to just get one again, Target, I, who fucking cares? You know, Jimmy, John, whatever. It will be helpful. Because they will take anything. Because when you do the math on how much they make to spend that time with your kids, who, by the way, it's the end of the school day, they're pieces of shit.

They're not paying attention. Right. They're making them tired and they're trying to do something for, I always tell my kids, if you have, your teacher is there because they want to do it. They're not there for the money. Your coach is there 'cause they want to do this. They're not there for the money because I know how much they make and it's not feasible anymore.

So that's kind of my answer to I don't know if my parents did. I don't know. I know it's pretty common here, but that is when I would do a, I guess an anti Claire drive by and just stop my kids and be like, lemme tell you what's up. Lemme tell you like what they make for every minute you and your friends won’t stop dicking around while they're trying to teach you something. So that's kind of my [00:40:00] rant on it, which is just I don't know how else you save youth sports or theater, fucking whatever. No one's doing it because they're making a bunch of fucking money.

Claire: Yeah, no, I do the school newspaper club, although I make Steve do it actually a lot of times. 'cause I don't wanna take my kids to school at seven 30 in the morning. And you know, it's a lot of it is, it's like picking up trash, you know, or like intercepting the kids when they're like fourth in line to ask the teacher something. I'm like, what can I help you with? And it's like how do you spell Autumn? You know, or something like that. Or can I go to the bathroom? Yes. I don't know why you're asking me, but sure. Go for it. Did you when you were coaching baseball, did you get any parents, you know, who were, or other coaches who were assholes that you had to deal with or, you know, who were heated?

Quinn: In the old days or last year?

Claire: Either way.

Quinn: Old days for sure. I didn't care 'cause I was 17, like I just didn't listen to anybody. Last year there were some, but I will say, and maybe I'll put this in a Google sheet or something and we can share it. I wrote a fucking letter to start the season to all the parents.

[00:41:00] Never met any of 'em, never met their kids or anything. And it was like, Hey, here's who I am. Here's my like, quote unquote qualifications. Here's how it's gonna go. And I was very clear about it. The point being these are children who are nine. And it turns out by the way, half my team was like eight. I had them raise their hands. I was like, Jesus. I was like, this is not about you.

Your child is to be on time, and if they're late, I'm gonna assume it's your fault because you're a fucking adult who can drive. And if not, you need to communicate. Here's the little app we're all using. I am responsible, communication above everything else.

And I said, if you coach from the sideline, I will ask you to go sit farther away. If you criticize them during a practice or game from the sideline, I will stop it. The whole thing. I will just ask you to leave. I was like, I just want everyone to understand how the fuck this is gonna go. And they were pretty good.

I showed up at the first practice one minute late, of course, 'cause my kids and [00:42:00] everyone was there ready to go. They had a water bottle. They had all this shit. And I was like, yeah, we're not fucking around. That's what I'm taking seriously, so that it can be youth sports, because I'm just not, I'm not doing it guys. We're here to have fun. Kids are like, who's winning this or this? I was like, who cares? You made a great play. We're having a great time. Not perfect about it, but I've learned enough from it that I'm like, we're doing this, and they gave me a couple little gift cards at the end. I'm very lucky. I don't need those, but I was like, you know, thank you.

I'm spending the time with your kids. It's great, but like I do feel like you have to protect it because I think parents are like, well, we've been told we have to take this shit more and more seriously. Or as we've talked about, someone is living, attempting to live through their child, which is always the worst version of the whole thing.

Claire: My cousin's husband coaches baseball and it's like, I think it's a pretty good league. They take it pretty seriously. And the son, a friend of mine's son is in the league or is on his team, and I said, oh, you know Jacob? And he said, oh yeah. Jacob's a good, a really good pitcher.

And he is but don't tell him [00:43:00] I said that because he doesn't want Jacob to know how good he is, I guess. So I was like, okay, that sounds like a coach thing. But one of my favorite moments from last season. James is very competitive and self-centered and I think has had to learn how to be a team player, literally. And last year his pediatrician was his team's coach, which I thought was funny 'cause I was like, how many of these kids' penises has this coach seen? Like, probably more than most. Yeah. But the coach would give the kid, like a kid a game ball at the end and give them all a speech about why this kid deserved the game ball.

And James had some kind of good game, but the ball went to some other kid for whatever reason. And James was so mad. He was so salty about it. And he's like I deserve that game ball. And I was like, don't you? It's not, I'm like, it's your team. Like you should be happy. Do you think like Scotty Pippen was mad that he played with Michael Jordan?

Like it's, you are, you should be glad that there's more than one good player on the team. And I, James [00:44:00] eventually got a game ball for whatever reason, but I was like, that's good coaching. 'cause my, that coach knew how much James wanted that and thought he deserved it and like absolutely iced him out.

Quinn: And just said for that reason.

Claire: Yeah, exactly. I mean, we had to teach him things like how to ask if someone's okay when they got hurt, 'cause he wouldn't do that. You know, like just things like where you're ashamed as a parent and then, you know, but you're like, this is all part of it.

Quinn: But that's the beauty of, again, like it doesn't have to be sports, but I do think sports teaches a lot, but so does theater and playing part of a band, like a concert band, whatever the fuck it is, you're part of a unit and you gotta both carry your weight, but also like care about the other participants. You know? Otherwise no one wants you to be there and you're gonna learn that shit. 'cause guess what? That's fucking life is you gotta be able to be a human being.

Claire: Yeah. Oh man. My friend's kid is right now on three different basketball leagues. I think one of them is ending, one or two of them is ending, but one of them, one of the feeder teams, if they can't make a game for like very legitimate reasons, like [00:45:00] school or another game. Like they have to send a text with I think two written out sentences explaining why they're missing the game, which is like, these kids are 13.

You know, but I'm grateful to have kids who like to do sports and I'm also grateful that we are, we know our limits time-wise and like we're not getting sucked into the whole machine of it all. The travel baseball thing just drives me crazy 'cause it's like the coach coincidentally runs a camp, you know, that kind of whole thing.

And you know, I'm glad we have a park nearby that the kids just wanna go shoot. Like the best thing Steve bought the kids was, I'm looking at it right now. Basketball hoop in the driveway. That is really all you need, you know.

Quinn: Yeah, there's some great like youth sports accounts out there. Just parents and coaches who are really trying to like fight back and preserve it for what it should be. Understand that obviously, you know, everything is imperfect, but the, you know, at one point, you know, Charlotte played volleyball.

She really liked it. She was really into it, rec and then the season ended as it does. And of [00:46:00] course she said no to everything else we suggested. And there is a year round volleyball team club here and, again, like I'm aware of how it all goes. And in LA it's a nightmare. And everywhere has their own shit, you know?

But I looked it up and again, it was $5,000 a season, a hundred percent mandatory for ages 10 years old. And I just, I told her, I said. We're not doing this for a host of reasons. One, you will never make a hundred percent attendance. Two, I don't want you doing it every day 'cause I want you to have free time to fucking read a book or do something else or hang with a friend or with me or play a game or whatever.

I was like, and two, I'm not paying that. And three on fucking principle, I think that sucks. There's no reason for it. It's fucking volleyball.

Claire: How far are you gonna go with that? Like I, you know, I was shocked. I spoke with an Evil Witch. I'm doing a, it's taken me months to work on this, but I'm doing a Witches on moms who lift heavy weights. And there's one [00:47:00] lady I spoke with who was a pro volleyball player, which I thought was fascinating, but like, that's not, you know, you don't know a of those, but yeah, I was mad at Paul because I convinced James to try volleyball, and Paul was in the car saying how much he wishes he wasn't playing volleyball. And I was like, PS you're one of the better players on the team. Like for some reason he's kind of good at volleyball. And he is like, and it hurts. I was like, can you not like, serve no pun intended, serve this up for him, like a shitty negative thing to like not be excited about. Thank you. Spike.

Quinn: Ride that all day.

Claire: Yeah, do you wanna know a drive by, like a sports related, semi sports related drive by I gave to James the other day?

Quinn: Oh, please. I love them, they bring me such joy.

Claire: I had a People magazine. He, this one was not that unrelated, but I had a People magazine out and they had an article about Tim, you know, Timothy Busfield, the guy from the, the dickhead brother-in-law from Field of Dreams?

Quinn: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Claire: Are you familiar with what he's been up to lately?

Quinn: No.[00:48:00]

Claire: Molesting little boys, literally. So, yeah. Yeah. That tracks. Anyway, so there's an article about him. So James was like, who's this guy? He was like, doing what with little boys? And I was like, yeah. And I was like, and if anyone ever touches you or asks you to see your penis, like whether it's an old man or a young kid, you tell me and you won't get in trouble. Then he was like, okay. And then I went about whatever it is that I do the rest of the time.

Quinn: But that's a semi appropriate one. You've got an in, right? I think that's fair. He wasn't like playing Legos and you told him, you know, don't touch your dick in public.

Claire: Yeah. Not quite a drive by. There was a, yeah, a transition kind of phase.

Quinn: But that also, one thing that I bet has fundamentally changed since you and I were kids is now, I mean, to coach in most places for youth or whatever, 50 forms and background checks to do the things like they really don't fuck around with this, which is great. That doesn't like, again, like you're getting people who, if they wanna go [00:49:00] through that, it's great. And more power to them and they should get a fucking Target gift card.

Claire: We had to go sit in person for like an anti molestation training to volunteer in the Catholic schools. And it's pretty insulting. Like especially when we just got an email a couple weeks ago, like one got by. Like they let one by the, this one guy, I don't mean to laugh. It's not funny at all.

But you need the gallows humor. But this guy was found in the archdiocese and he had been kicked out and he got back in like changing his name and I was like, gotta give it to him. He really wanted he knew what he wanted and nothing was gonna stop him from getting in there and like molesting some kids. Yeah. But I was like, why are we the ones who have to like, take these seminars that are like, don't ever, you know, it's appropriate to touch a child on his shoulder or his head, you know, and things like that where you're like, why would I wanna touch a kid? Like, why do I wanna touch my own kids?

Quinn: I don't want to touch my own kids. Mm-hmm.

Claire: No, I don't need anything like [00:50:00] that. But yeah. Anyway, yeah, a couple bad apples ruin it for everyone who's just begrudgingly trying to help and you're like, now I have to show, you know, do a multiple choice like the Catholic church is so, on the one hand, they don't know, all I know is that they somehow have the technology to make videos that you cannot speed through. You can't scrub, like you have to watch this whole video and then take a quiz at the end, and you're like, how can they do this? And they still don't know how to, I don't know, all the other things.

Quinn: Keep the diddlers out.

Claire: Yeah exactly how about put more effort into screening the bad guys and like less into making sure that I watch this video.

Quinn: Anyways, buy gift cards for the coaches that don't diddle your kids.

Claire: Yes indeed. And make your boys go to the girls games, especially if the girls go to the boys games.

Quinn: Get comfortable being uncomfortable. You don't have to fucking talk to them. Just be there.

Claire: Yeah. It's funny, when we were at the hotel Paul and his friend were throwing a football around in the pool and they were [00:51:00] feeling pretty good about themselves. 'Cause there were some younger kids there that they were also throwing the ball to, which, you know, just makes 'em feel like as Paul would go like this and, there were two, there was three girls there about Paul and Christopher's age. I kept calling them the Hotties like, but these hotties were playing sports with them too. And so we were asking the boys like, oh, what are the girls like, you know, and Christopher's yeah, they were pretty chill. And I just was what else? What could be better than being chill? A chill girl? Which I'm not, I don't think I ever have been, but you know.

Quinn: It's amazing, isn't it? It's like watching the Nature Channel, these idiots.

Claire: Yeah, I mean, I'm happy if it's true. I hope a girl likes Paul, like just 'cause it's a relief that if you raise a boy who is acceptable to another human being, you're like, what a relief. You know? But also, I feel for him if this is true and like he feels in that pressure and like he doesn't, he is not ready for it. I don't like, you know, it's not for us to be like, no. Get into it.

Quinn: Go, mate. Yes. Go. You're a man, [00:52:00] now.

Claire: Go kiss her in front of everyone and write her a note and you know, show up at her house with a rose.

Quinn: Right. Hold a boom box over your head in the rain.

Claire: Yeah. Oh God. He'd be like, what's a boombox?