From Son to Father: A Raw Conversation on Child Development

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Welcome to True Crime Authors and Extraordinary People, the podcast where we bring two passions together.

The show that gives new meaning to the old adage truth is stranger than fiction.

And reminding you that there is an extraordinary person in all of us, here is your host, David McLam.

What's going on, everybody?

Welcome to another episode of True Crime Authors and Extraordinary People.

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Okay, before we jump into what today's episode is, I want to just make a couple of comments.

First of all, if you're still with me, thank you.

I noticed that the last episode uploaded was October 13, which should have been behind the pages, the real politics of energy and Ellie Stark's winner's curse.

There has been a lot of things that has been going on which has kept me away from this particular podcast.

This is not the episode of going to that.

But I want you guys know that I am coming back with another episode and I'm going to tell you everything that happens and what we are doing with the rest of the show going forward.

I am also going to say this.

If people realize I haven't uploaded in a while, sending me nasty emails, especially if you are someone that's supposed to appear on my show is not going to help you.

I think the professional thing to say is, is there anything going on?

Or what's happening?

Are you okay?

Did you die?

Anything like that?

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YouTube creators are people too.

TikTok creators are people too.

Any creator is also just a person and we are not immune from the trials and tribulations of life.

And sometimes things happen.

So stay tuned for that episode.

Before I introduce this episode, I will tell you that you will get this episode.

That episode.

I'm going to tell you what is going on and probably in between there.

I'm going to give you Sharon Verts.

She is an author of a book that just got newly released.

Her episodes should have already dropped to you, but part of the reason why I was gone for a bit is probably the reason why hers did not automatically drop.

So I just want to let you guys know that.

So stay tuned for those so today's episode.

I am proud to be a part of this project.

I got a phone call from my middle son asking me to be a part of this.

He needed to do his final paper or exam for his college course that is coming up and it had to be done podcast style.

And he wanted to talk about child development and some other things dealing with children.

We decided that we're going to give that to you here because it's a conversation that we feel like everybody should hear.

But I think that there is some power when your child comes back and asks you to do this with him and he wants to discuss child development and raising, which means we get into topics about his upbringing in me.

I think it's powerful when your children can come to you and say be a part of this, when you know that the discussion that you're going to have can be tough but can't be fulfilling because you find yourself being honest with each other about how you were as a parent and how they were raised.

So a lot of that goes into this.

So sit back, get you a cup of coffee.

Maybe this will spark some more conversations between the orders and their children.

So without further ado, my guess is Devonte McClam, and this is the interview that I had with him around child development and upbringing.

So I hope you guys enjoy it.

Hey, devontae, welcome to the show, bro.

Hey, glad to be here finally.

I know we've been talking about it for a while, so to finally be on air on record, however, you'd say it is pretty exciting for me as well.

Well, glad to have you.

Let me be the first to say, I usually never give dates, but today is a very important day.

Happy Veterans Day to you and to all the other veterans out there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I think just as much as every other veteran out there.

I feel like I haven't done enough to deserve that, but thank you and I will enjoy my free dinner at Applebee's later.

So I think that this is a very interesting conversation that you and I are about to have because now I'm talking to you not only as my son, but I'm talking to you as my son who is Now a father.

And I think that there's so many things that you and I have been through over the course of your childhood and raising that maybe now you have a better grasp on or a different take on now that you are a dad.

So tell us now, what is it like to be a father?

It's kind of crazy.

I know it's.

It's hard to like summarize that.

That that's such a loaded question.

It's stressful.

It's.

It's rewarding.

It's me realizing the parts of myself that were absolutely treacherous to deal with as a child and dealing with it all over again.

Me witnessing my oldest son do crazy, crazy stuff like face plant off of a.

My.

Listen, my son Emmett, he got.

He was jumping onto the bed, right?

We had a mattress on the floor.

He was jumping onto his mattress as like a free like just running and jumping into it like fun.

Haha.

And at some point in this process, he decided to get onto the mattress and jump off of the mattress onto the floor and just face flat.

He just like free fell into the floor.

And so yeah, that was like seeing that kind of stuff happen.

Like I remember how I thought when I was a kid and I'm like, yeah, I definitely would have done that.

I was climbing trees and doing crazy stuff.

But yeah, it's.

It's a lot of things.

And I think most, most of all it's fashioned my mind in a way where it's like what, what I'm doing with my life needs to be something that my kids can be proud talking of or speaking about later on.

Like my did, my dad did A, my dad did B and I kind of fashioned my goals in life after that.

Well, first of all, I used to get yelled at because I used to do stupid stuff with you and your brothers.

And y was little, you know, the whole Simba thing and throwing you on the edge of my feet, you know, so you know, you get that daredevil thing, you know, Honestly, at least my grandson does.

But as you probably know, the one important thing to me as being a father was exactly what you just said.

I wanted you guys knowing that you guys have been raised in the age of technology to be able that if you ever heard my name in public or googled it, that you guys came with a lot of things that I did that was good.

I tried my best to live my life as clean as possible because I never wanted to pass on the embarrassment to you or your siblings of saying, well, my dad was a murderer or my dad went to jail for DUI or he went to jail for this.

Now that you are a dad and you did bring that up, what importance did that take on you when you had your first child?

When I.

I think having Emmett was just a.

There was a lot going on in my life personally when I had my first baby boy.

And he.

Having.

Having him made me realize a lot of difficulties from when I was younger and, like, why certain things had to happen the way that they did and so on and so forth.

And it made me.

I think I called you at some point, like, apologized, but I think the.

It just really, like, set things in line for me as to.

As to, like, why it was that certain things were taking place.

So not so much as a.

I think up until me having my first child, I looked back on my childhood and like, with you and.

And both my moms and, like, moving around and doing all this other stuff, I looked at it, the whole thing as, like, negative.

And then I had my child, I'm like, holy crap.

Like, this is a whole different world.

And like, these choices made sense.

And so I was able to, like, overview everything that was going on as an adult.

I was able to, like, kind of clear up.

Clear up some stories that I had about you and my mom and my situation and all that stuff and piece the.

Piece the ends together.

And having.

Having a child kind of forced me to do that.

Kind of forced me to look back and just kind of clear some of those things up and realize what was actually happening and what was going on.

And I know that that was a real Donald Trump way to answer that question, but that's it.

They kind of lean into that a little bit for the audience.

I know that you're talking about divorce, and divorce can sometimes be very ugly.

The divorce I had with your mom was not pretty because the things that she did say about me, that was not true.

And I did try my best as a dad never to speak negative about her in front of you guys when you were younger.

Sometimes that's very hard, and sometimes as parents, we can be very petty because it turns into a situation of, well, if you gonna say this to me, then I'm gonna do what I can to get to you.

And it's not the best way to handle that.

Now that you're kind of going through that yourself, what is your overall feeling and where do you feel like you need to be for the care of Emmett at this point?

It's hard.

So Emmett and Elijah are both in my now ex wife's Custody, primarily.

And it's difficult because it's very difficult for me to.

And stuff that I didn't understand when I was a kid, like, going through it.

It's very difficult for me to hold that image, like to not complain about her around them or to not call out what she's doing as what it is in front of them.

It's very important to me not to, like, tarnish their image of their mother.

And it sucks to know that it's not.

It's not her priority to do the same.

I know that they're hearing negative things about me, about my intentions, whether they be true or not.

And nine times out of 10, what I'm hearing is not true, absolutely not true.

And I can't come.

I can't combat it.

It's like they'll come over and they'll say something that I know is out of bad taste and I can't.

I can't properly defend myself.

And that's the part that hurts me the most, is that I can't explain to them because if I explain to them, it's going to bring out that negative side of me that doesn't like their mother in a lot of ways.

And I don't want them to see that because there's already so much disdain between the two of us.

And I don't want that to bleed over into their relationship as well.

So I've got to talk nice about her boyfriend, I've got to talk nice about them spending time with her boyfriend and talk nice about her and my experiences with her.

I keep all of the photos of us from when we were together so that they can see images of us when we're at.

When we were at our happiest.

And I felt like stuff like that is important to me, whereas it seemed in a lot of ways that she's trying to almost delete me from their lives.

And there's no images of me around their house.

And they don't.

Outside of me meeting up with them, they don't discuss or talk about me much at all.

And that's difficult to know, seeing as how I've shaped almost my entire life to be a good dad and do do good things as a father.

And it's kind of stinted or I'm not able to do that in some ways because of the fact that I have a mutual disagreement with another woman.

Now, I will say this.

So people say he doesn't even know the name is on grandkids.

I let you break their names because you are the Father if you feel comfortable with their names being on air.

So I do have three grand boys by devontae, Emmett, Elijah, and if he wants to name his third one, I will let him do that.

And then we have all the names broken.

So now that you have had my third grandbaby, now before we jump into some aspects of care and development for the children, how has the things you went through now with Emmett and Elijah shaped the way that you're raising him and also shaped your current relationship?

In my entire experience, having my first two boys has shaped my entire, like, life, my goals, my objectives, and what I'm like shooting for is all almost entirely chilling.

Because of the fact that I had Emmett and Elijah, I'm making sure that I'm present in or as much as I possibly can be for Sage, even though I'm trying to do, you know, grand things with my life.

And I feel guilty in some ways because I can't do that for my older two.

But I'm just holding on to hope that, you know, down the line when things, you know, level out and we both mature to a.

To a level to where we can communicate on a regular basis and work out parenting or co parenting, I'm just kind of holding on to, you know, I'll be successful at that point, hopefully and able to provide enough to where I can be present in their lives at that time as opposed to right now when I can't be.

It's, it's.

It shaped me as a parent because it's.

Let me know the things like the earlier.

For Emmett, I wasn't all able to be present a lot for his first two years of life because I was in the military and deploying.

And for Elijah, I wasn't able to be there for him at all.

I didn't even.

I saw Elijah a few hours after he was born for maybe 30 minutes.

I think it was longer than that.

But I saw him the day that he was born.

And then I saw him once before I moved when he was a few months.

And after that I didn't see him until he was 2.

So seeing the difference between Emmett's connection to me and Elijah's connection to me has made like, made it painfully obvious how detrimental those first couple of years are.

And so being here for Sage, he's almost one now.

Being here for Sage, his first couple years of life is very important to me and the rest of his life carrying forward.

But that's where that, that guilt kind of comes from, that I'm not able to do that.

For them now.

So it's kind of.

And it's not.

It's not.

I'm not able to do it for them.

And it's something that's completely within human control.

Like, we can just agree to work together for the sake of being parents, but we are unable to do that.

Whereas before with Emmett and Elijah, a lot of it was because I was deploying.

It's very interesting that your life and mine has crossed that path.

And that's the very path that I was trying to avoid for you, because I went through exactly the same thing with the fact that, okay, so you and DeAndre did get the benefit of being raised by me for.

By.

By me for a number of years, actually moved with me and lived with me in home.

But when it came to the girls, a Genevan breed, they didn't have that experience.

I had to wait until Geneva was 18 to contact her and to have a relationship because of the way things went with her mother.

And then Bri.

Basically the same thing with Geneva, a little bit different because I had her at 19.

There's a lot of different laws back then in the 90s, her mom was 16 and her grandmother that I thought was trying to keep us apart.

And I've always had that guilt as well, because now, as you know, Jacob and Madison has lived with me their whole entire life.

They've had the benefit of me, they've had the benefit of my support.

And even though you and DeAndre had the most of that, besides those two, I still always felt guilty because I felt like there was things that I couldn't give to you because of the circumstances.

And no matter how hard I tried to make it work out, I had to come to the realization, which was very hard to do as a dad.

And I don't know if we ever had this discussion.

I already told you this.

I'll tell you this now, which was when was the appropriate time for your benefit and for your health care and well being.

For me to say, this is just not going to work out and it's going to be best for me and your mom to separate and for me to try to raise you that direction.

We know how that went.

You know, we became a tit for tat.

But know that as your dad, that's.

And I know you know this, too, that's a very hard situation.

And no matter how much we sit down and talk to you guys about it and say, this is not how it's supposed to be, I just think as a dad, that's guilt.

That we always will carry because we feel like even though we have no favorites, I feel like two of my kids is more favorited than you guys just because of their current situation in the time they've had with me.

No, that's fair.

And it makes a lot of sense, I think with the pain that I've gone through in the past with my personal situation and knowing how I came up and the difficulties and like that knowing when and where to say things has kind of kept me in, through bad times in my relationship currently.

Like me being.

Me being willing to stay through and figure things out because my partner is extremely understanding and she.

It just takes sitting down and having a conversation with her and she's willing to change whatever she needs to change as long as it's within reason.

And we have discussions and conversations about like, as soon as like major life switches come, we got a quick adjust and move on with that.

But there's been a few problems, some in which I've called and talked to you, I've called and talked to mom about where it's like, this is, you know, this might be tough to get past and a previous version of myself might have been scared or might have wanted to run away and rather than deal with the issue.

Um, but having kids and not wanting to have that conversation where I'm like, hey, you know, you're going to be without a dad for the majority of your life has made me or helped me to realize that, like, there's not a lot of problems that are worth leaving your kid for, you know.

So we're getting to a little bit of childcare because I think there's a lot of things that does go into childcare.

I think rearing the child and what you do with the child at home begins that as children.

And I know you had a lot of them.

I was probably the most hated man because of some of the things I made you do.

No child likes to clean.

No child likes to make their bed.

And your child care now, what parts of your upbringing for me have you used with your three boys?

What did you find beneficial as you became a man and a father?

I feel like with all three of my kids, I just, I don't know what, I don't really know exactly what the reason why, but I don't remember a lot of anything until after like six or eight years old.

Like, I have like touch and go memories of when I was younger, but I don't really, outside of where I was, the fact that I live there in general and like I Had to do stuff outside, like just a general, like going to do chores or the dog run or dishes or whatever.

I can't really recall specific memories with their ages.

Like, I remember the first time I had Johnny Marzetti, and I hated it.

And then a couple years later, I loved it.

I remember you cooking spaghetti and your.

Your scalloped potatoes all the time.

But I don't particularly remember, like, the ages of which I enjoyed those things.

You know what I mean?

So it's hard for me to say right now because Emmett is 5.

I don't remember much prior to me being 5.

But I can say that with Emmett.

I am.

I do the same thing as you did.

I'm very rough with him, but he's a little daredevil, and he does all kinds of crazy stuff, but he's the one that I'll, like, throw through the air and.

And do crazy stuff with.

Elijah is definitely more emotional and soft.

And that's hard for me to adjust to sometimes because it's like I go from throwing Emmett across the room and come back to Elijah, who just wants to sit and cuddle.

And Sage is going to be a little firecracker too.

But to say, like, the outside of the realizations that I've made about, like, the reasons why some choices needed to be made when I was a child as a.

As far as, like, discussions about my mom and, like, what's actually going on and me not being old enough to understand those things, I don't see.

I don't think right now there's a ton that I replicate, but I think the ages for me to be replicating parenting behavior are probably around the age of like, 10.

So how is it was gets to the part of development?

How is it that you feel that you're doing managing three different boys with three different personalities?

Because I feel like that you and Jacob has the same personality.

So all the time we run around, we say, we've already raised devonte one.

I don't need to raise devonte light.

But he has, like, the same sense of humor, the same sarcastic comebacks.

He likes to do the exact same things.

Do you feel like your boys mimic each other in any ways?

And how do you manage the three different personalities?

I don't.

I don't think any of my boys mimic each other, to be honest with you.

I think Sage and I'm sorry, Emmett and Elijah, who live with each other constantly, just piss each other off.

Like, it's hilarious.

Like, Emmett has the big brother complex where it's like, Anytime Elijah is hurt or he's in, you know, otherwise incapacitated a lot, Emmett gets, like, the caregiver or, like, the caretaker mentality where he's got to, like, figure out what's wrong and, like, comfort and hug and so on and so forth.

Elijah just lives and exists to piss Emmett off.

And that's just how it goes.

If Emmett's asleep, Elijah's wak.

If Emmett's playing a game, Elijah is taking the controller from his hand.

As long as Emmett is happy, Elijah is trying to thwart that process in some way, shape, or form.

So as of right now, I don't think they mimic each other.

As far as, like, me and Jacob being the same, I think it's interesting because I see it and I also see, like, from me, like, as a.

As an adult where I'm more developed than I was at that age.

I see the ignorance and I see the ego and I see the.

The, like, him being bombastic and, like, thinking he's smarter than he is.

Because that's all I did when I was a kid.

And I'm not a dumb person by any means, but I don't know everything.

And I think I just.

As a child, I heard.

I would hear.

I would hear, like.

I don't know how to explain this.

I would hear, like, things that were more adult from friends or out in the.

Out in the world or whatever the case is, whether that be, like, the birds and the bees or that be, like, how females looked or, like, underneath their clothes or, like, stuff that would be considered inappropriate.

Right?

And I would hear those things, and I would develop an opinion myself based on the facts that I heard from these other people.

And I would, like, keep that secret to myself.

And I would just feel smarter because I know it, you know, and then when it comes up in an argument or a conversation, I could just, like, slap that on and be like, well, I know this.

And it would surprise people.

And I acted off of their.

Their surprise nature.

Like, they, like.

I wasn't.

I don't particularly think that I was very smart as a child, comparatively to other children.

I think I was very socially aware and I could play off of people's emotions.

And that is not intelligence.

I think that intelligence is the ability to adapt to any environment.

And the way that I thought when I was a child kept me in an environment.

And I think that's kind of what Jacob's doing right now.

And when he came out and visited me, that was kind of what I was trying to.

I was seeing.

But I couldn't get.

I.

I was so, like, hyper aggressive about him changing the way that he was thinking.

And, like, this is wrong.

Like, this is not how you should be moving forward.

But it's a process.

You know, it took me 10 years to figure out that I'm not special, essentially.

Like, I.

I have.

I have traits that are more defined than other people, and I take advantage of those traits.

And, you know, hopefully that leads me to a good career and, you know, making some money that I can support a family with or support my family with later on in life.

But I'm not.

I'm not Einstein.

You know, when I was a kid, I operated like I was king shit.

Excuse me.

But I think a lot of that too is that you and Jacob is very smart, especially intellectually.

You know, I mean, if we look at it, we got calls from schools that says, I can't teach devonte because he's already three steps ahead of what his class is.

Jacob is in the same boat.

He walked into kindergarten putting words and sentences that he should have never know where it went to.

And I think instead of school nurturing that, it takes two people to do that.

It takes us as the parents and it takes the schools because we're trying to humble you by saying, okay, yeah, you got all this smarts, you know what you're talking about, but you don't know everything.

And don't make the next kid feel like he or she's underneath you because of that.

Where the school is like, oh, no, you're like the smartest kid in the class and everybody should look at you.

And I think that that kind of hurt too, especially when they start doing things like, we're going to pull you, we're going to send you to college courses.

And then when the behavior problems start because you're not nurturing, you're nurturing the child on the intellectual side, but you're not showing that child how to handle that on the behavioral side.

We were doing that at home, but it wasn't happening at school.

And then when the problems came, nobody knew how to handle that.

So I think that's part of what happened there.

My question to you, based on that, with school and everything, what is development for your three sons like, to you?

What kind of things are you implementing and you would like to see in that.

I think it's.

It's.

It's difficult to hear or to.

To hear your side of where I was coming or like, what my teachers were saying to you when I was a kid, because I'M thinking back on those times.

Like, I remember the day that the teacher.

I took some sort of test, like reading comprehension test, and the teacher called you and then came back to me to let me know that they called you.

And then later on we had a conversation about them saying that I can't be taught and so on and so forth.

I think it's so dangerous.

It's so dangerous because you put me and not you, but I'm put as a child in a predicament where I'm special and I'm outcasted from the people that I am in class with or I am equal to age wise.

And then you put me in these programs that accelerate me, that put me into another group of people who are older than me and I not like them.

Like, they, they are more developed than I am, they're bigger than I am.

And so now I spend, you know, I'm a runt and I'm like, I'm not seeing.

I'm just some nerd.

And I know that, like, I know that schooling and society is different nowadays.

So it's not quite the same as it was back then, before technology, before COVID so on and so forth.

But for me, that was really hard because now not only did I feel unwelcome in the space or in the classes where I'm supposed to feel welcome because all these teachers are saying I'm on te teachable, but now I feel unwelcome to the classes where I'm advanced and I'm.

I'm supposed to be quote unquote, because that's where I'm.

My, like, mental level is.

And they're all, you know, you know, two or three years older than I am.

So there's no one that I feel connected to.

I don't feel like I can look at somebody as a peer.

I'm either above or below somebody.

And that leads to situations where I get bullied for being a nerd or I get beat up for so on and so forth or whatever the case is.

Like, I know that so on and so forth and whatever the case is are words that I say a lot.

And I need to move away from that.

But anyway.

But yeah, so reflecting on that, I think that was difficult in the early stages because I think that started hurt.

That started happening around the time I was in like fifth or sixth grade.

And you're.

I'm coming into probably one of the most developmentally important stages of my life, which is middle school.

And I don't feel like I belong anywhere.

And so that kind of directly contributed to me being deviant, me going out and, you know, causing chaos and getting into fights, and 90% of the time losing them and getting in trouble and getting expelled.

I was.

I don't remember how many schools I've been expelled and suspended for from just because the second I tried to apply myself, as soon as I tried to be smart and, like, do the things that you were telling me at home that I needed to do, which is get good grades and.

And focus in school, as soon as I applied myself and did that, I became different.

So the only way for me to be the same was to be included with a group of people.

And the easiest group of people to be included with were the misfits.

And so I go and I do something crazy, and then I can go back and I can talk about it with my buddies or like when I.

There was a.

Not guidance, but when I.

Los Angeles, Henry Clay Middle School, there was a scenario.

Like, I was in my first week at Henry Clay.

I walked in to my class, sat down at the desk right inside the door, and a kid came by with the teacher in the classroom.

Kid came by, looked directly at me and slapped me in the face.

And I just, like, I was like, shook.

And I didn't do anything because I was a small kid.

I didn't.

Contrary to what, you know, how heavy and, like, large I am now, I wasn't like that back then.

And so he slapped me in the face, just trying to get, like, a rise out of me.

And I didn't do anything.

And he sat there, stared at me for like three minutes.

And he's like, you must.

You must take anger management, huh?

I was like, no.

And he moved on.

And I like, that was my first day in middle school.

And I just got like, made to be somebody's, like, lesser immediately.

So how do I combat that?

I go and get straight A's, like, how.

How am I socially going to recover from that?

So that.

That was a difficult period of time because it's like what I was supposed to do was going to make me unpopular, was going to get me beat up.

And what I wasn't supposed to do was going to get me in trouble at home, is going to get me kicked out of school.

So it didn't feel like there were a lot of options.

But anyway, to answer your second question, how that shapes my children, like, the lessons that I'm trying to put onto them is that I don't really.

There's structure.

So there's.

You Cross a line and you're going to know that you cross the line.

Like, if you talk back, if you disrespect, if you do something like that.

Like, I'm, like, you're going to know and I'm going to sit down with you and I talk to you and I.

And I like, if he cries, I give.

Or I'm talking about Emmett, primarily because he's the most developed of the three of them.

But Emmett has situations where he doesn't.

He gets locked up, he doesn't know what to do, and he just freezes.

And he'll cry because he's overwhelmed with thought of, like, what to do.

And I'll sit down with them.

And I say, like, so do you.

I say, do you want to cry for a little bit or do you want to get better?

And he like, I.

He did this at Jiu Jitsu one.

One week.

And I said, area.

He said that he wanted to cry.

I said, okay, sit on the bench and I'll be right here.

And I just sat on the mat waiting for him.

I'll be right here when you're ready to get better.

And two minutes goes by and he's like, okay, I'm ready.

And we sit down.

I'm like, all right.

Do you understand why this was frustrating?

Or like, I don't, like, put.

I don't point blame.

I also tell them that they can do whatever they want.

Like, something that bothers me is that in the school system, he came.

He came home to me one day and he said, my teacher said that I can't tell her no.

And I said, you can.

You can do whatever you want.

You can say whatever you want to these teachers.

You just have to be willing to accept the consequences.

If you tell your teacher no, you're probably going to get kicked out of class.

Do you want to get kicked out of class?

No.

Okay, then you probably should make the decision to not tell your teacher no.

And that's how I, like, usher them.

I usher them to make their own decisions.

And I think that is largely a result of my childhood and me feeling that way in school is that I didn't feel like I had choices.

I didn't feel like I had decisions.

But for them to know that every decision is.

Or, I'm sorry, that at every point in their schooling or being at home, whatever, at every point in life, they have a decision and they have full power to make it on their own.

They just have to be willing to accept the consequences.

And it hasn't gotten major yet where I'm like, if you want to.

If you want to go and rob a gas station, go rob a gas station.

You've got to be willing to accept that you're probably going to jail.

Like you.

You know what I mean?

And that's a lot of people.

I haven't talked to many people about the way that I parent, but I can imagine a lot of people would have a problem with that because they would see that it's acceptable.

Like, they would say, like they would consider it and potentially do it.

But there's a lot of trouble I got into when I was a kid.

And it wasn't about making a choice.

It was about.

I wanted to get away from one aspect of things.

So I threw myself into a life of being a misfit.

And I felt like I had to meet the requirements of being a misfit.

And I didn't really feel like I had a choice.

I either got straight A's and got beat up, or I was a misfit and I was accepted.

And that was how it kind of worked out for me.

The thing is that I will say too, about that piece is it wasn't that we didn't try.

So there's a lot of things going in the background, you know, that I'm pretty much what I call the door kicker.

If you messing with my kids or anybody else, I'm coming.

And when we got that notice from the teacher, and she's like, look, this is, you know, ninth grade math, and this is college math.

And my number one question was, okay, what's your next step?

Because you're telling me you can't teach him, but you were the teacher.

Is it that you're unwilling to teach him because of the level he's at or that you can't reach him?

And she says, well, I think he needs to be in higher classes.

And then the question was, what does that do to him?

Right?

If you take a fifth or sixth grader and you put him with the seventh and eighth grader, he's already the smaller kid.

He's already supposed to be the kid that doesn't know as much.

But now you isolate him into that.

And then that's when they came with the bright idea of, oh, no, all of our gifted kids, they go off and they tutor other kids, and then they just go on field trips all day to colleges and whatever.

And I'm like, okay, so what is he learning?

That.

That he knows what college he wants to go to in the next five years.

That's Doing him no good.

But back then, California school system hasn't gotten any better.

It's more of, we don't, we'll listen to the parent, but we won't do what the parents say we're gonna do.

We think is better, but when chaos ensues, it's the parents fault.

And that's exactly what happened with you.

And now with Jacob.

It's.

He, now that he's in high school, has found a teacher like Madison did, like John Crocker, that actually cares about his development.

And he sits down and talks to us and say, I don't think it's a good idea to move him this way.

You never had that.

Because I was too busy battling the school systems.

And like every school you went to, there was a problem.

And then as far as saying started saying every problem couldn't be my kid, which it wasn't.

As you know the story, I've sat outside fences and the whole nine.

And I do think in a lot of ways, because sometimes Beth and I would sit down and look back over how you kids was raised and we were like, if you look at the way the school system is now and the way it was with Devonte, it's gotten slightly worse now, but we have a few more teachers that give a damn where he was just thrown into the wolves.

And nothing that we did other than going to pick him up and keeping them at home worked.

I mean, like the one thing that worked for Jacob that I thought would have worked for you, they wouldn't let me do that back then, which is I snatched him out of the school system for a whole year and reformed him.

And I looked at the school board and I said, I'm going to give you back a different son.

Because Jacob was very aggressive.

He wanted to fight everybody.

He was getting beat up at school and I was getting the calls.

Your son's beating everybody up.

I said, I'm going to take him out of the school.

I'm a homeschooling for one year.

I'm going to give you back a different child with a different mindset.

If he comes back the same way and screws and you screw him up, that's your fault.

Well, that's exactly what happened.

We sent Jacob back a different person.

He didn't want to fight anymore.

He wanted to better himself.

He just wanted to go to school.

And he became very optimistic.

I'm like, I don't want to send you back to Palm Tree, but I don't have a choice.

He goes, well, dad, we think let's, let's see what happens.

And then they messed him up.

So in child development, school is very important because it helps us as parents to get you educated.

And I hope you never felt like I was telling you, get straight A's.

I've never wanted you guys to get straight A's, just to apply yourself.

And yes, I got angry sometimes because I'm like, man, you got this.

I know you can do better.

But now, as we talked about this, as you being an adult, I could understand and see the things that I couldn't see before then.

It's a tough situation because even now, I don't know, like, thinking back on, like, scenarios that I was in when I was a kid, there's no way for you to understand the full story.

And then you've gotta.

You're taking two different sides.

Like, you want to understand.

You also don't want me to be lying to you.

You also don't want me to, like, be, like, trying to manipulate you into doing something or something that's not allowed or whatever the case is.

And it's like, you've got to.

You've got to be able to make the right decision in within minutes of hearing the situation, and it's damn near impossible.

You can.

You.

There's no way that you can have all of the details in that short a period of time.

The.

As far as, like, education goes, and this is funny because this, this whole podcast is for, for a class that I'm taking in school right now.

But as far as education goes, I think it's the biggest scam in the world.

Certain professions that require educations, but I think colleges should be disbanded and there should only be trade schools.

There should be a law.

Like, I'm.

I'm pursuing a law degree.

I think there should be a law track.

Like, once you decide that you're interested in law, you should go to law trade school.

And law trade school is going to cost a certain amount of money.

And if you want to be a doctor, you're going to go to Dr.

Trade School.

You know what I'm saying?

And it wouldn't be.

And that's essentially what college is.

It's just a big generalized trade school, like, event.

You go through college and you end up in one field.

And that's essentially like, what the education system is supposed to be doing.

But ultimately, speaking over the course of a child's life, the education system gives you friends and takes away friends, allows you the opportunity to communicate, which is now very necessary because with the way the world is post Covid.

People aren't playing anymore.

We saw a kid, me and my fiance.

I say, when, I say we.

We saw a child riding a bike in a community, like in a strip mall the other day.

And our first reaction was where his parents.

What's going on?

Like, why is this kid out?

Like, I used to do that all the time.

I was out for hours and hours and hours riding my bike, doing crazy stuff.

And now it's like, whoa, there's reason for concern, you know?

So nowadays school is necessary for that aspect.

Otherwise we're just going to end up with a bunch of Call of duty Black Ops 6 players who.

But outside of that, where, like, the need to be able to be social with somebody, I don't think school is really necessary until, like middle school, where you just learn how to be a business person like you.

You learn how to interact with the world around you in a corporate sense.

But I lost track of what I was talking about.

But that's how I feel about school.

So I know we ain't supposed to make this like three years long for your project for school here, but I do think this is an important question since this is something that your class or your teacher or both may hear.

What do you want to say to them about you being a father and what you take away from childcare and child development?

I think we put a lot of rules and structure around childcare and child development, and there's too much information.

Like, we do a lot.

We do a lot in the space of research and developing or in research and development.

Sorry.

We do a lot to learn as much as we possibly can as a society, as people.

And we've gotten all the way down to like, understanding what this specific session of DNA does in a brain.

So this is how we need to counteract it and so on and so forth.

There's a lot of medications to fix kids and stuff now, and I think that's stupid.

There's so much information that it's hard to be a parent and it's hard to know when you're doing something right.

It's hard to know when you're doing something wrong.

And no matter what you do, you're going to look up something afterwards after you do it.

And you're going to see both sides of the spectrum.

You're going to see articles about kids that develop into murderers because you took away their applesauce too early or.

And you're going to see articles about kids that became geniuses because you took away applesauce too early.

Like, there's.

There's two sides to every single situation, and it's up to you to decide whether you're a terrible person or not.

And the fact of the matter is, you're just.

You're not a terrible person.

You're going through life just like everybody else is.

And back in the day before there was Internet, kids were like, There weren't car seats.

Kids were in baskets on the front of vehicles.

You know, like this.

People were figuring it out just like us.

And the guy that invented the basket in front of vehicles didn't go to jail.

Like, he was just trying to help out, you know?

So as we.

As we go through life and as we have children and.

And experience adulthood in that fashion, I think it's just about, like, not.

Not making sure you're doing everything perfect.

Just experience what's happening.

Like, see.

See the development in your children.

See the development that's taking place.

Decide whether or not you agree with it.

And if you don't agree with it, you got to change you.

You don't got to change your kids.

You got to change your actions.

What you're portraying.

Like, you don't want your kids.

First word.

To be the F bomb, then stop saying the F bomb.

You know, like, just make decisions yourself about how you want to rep how you want your kids to be one day, and then represent yourself that way.

I think what I would like your class and teacher to know is this parenting is very hard, and we never get everything right.

I've made a ton of mistakes when I was raising you and your brother, and I'm sure I'm making a ton of mistakes now with the two that's here.

I will say to the class, give your parents grace.

We come from a whole different time.

You know, I was.

I was raised in the 70s and 80s.

We went outside and made dirt pies.

We didn't have the Internet like we have now.

And outside was everything.

And there was a different rule.

I feel of respect from parent to child back then than there is now.

I watch a lot of kids that will fight their parents literally fists, you know, in the store or cuss them out.

And then I would sit there and say, man, I would never do that to my mom.

My mom would probably throw me across the room if I did something like that.

And our children, I believe, raise their children based on things sometimes that they see that they liked and they see that they didn't like.

And the one thing that I wish would happen is that more conversations between father Son, father, daughter, daughter, mother would be what happened more.

I think it's healing.

I think it shows us, not only as a child, but as a parent, how far we've come and we've grown by taking what we've learned from raising you and being able to apply that to the child that we currently have schools north.

Anybody who's listening is jokes now because we have teachers that are either too young to teach or they're too old to teach, or teachers just in between that they just don't want to teach.

They're there because they have a guaranteed paycheck and tenure and that makes the child suffer even more.

So I just want to say there's no rule book for being a parent.

No matter how many videos, no matter how many lectures, no matter how many classes you go to, you're writing the book as you go.

And I feel like with each child I have six of them, that when dealing with each of you, I rewritten the book of raising or talking to you guys every chapter.

Because I can't use the same book that I raised you with and use it to raise Jacob.

Even though you guys personalities are the same, you guys are still vastly different in the way that I have to handle things.

I have to talk to you a certain way, that doesn't trigger you.

And I have to talk to him a certain way.

It doesn't trigger him.

So no matter what class you take, no matter if you have multiple kids, you're always writing that book.

So give your parents some grace and learn what you can from them and go back to your dad or your mom sometime and have these kind of conversations.

Because I do think that they're, they're healing in the end.

Yeah, definitely.

There's definitely healing for me.

I think a few months ago, I don't remember exactly how long ago it was, but we had.

I.

Jacob came to visit and that was eye opening for me because it's like, it takes me out of this position where I am in currently to where I'm raising five year olds and I have a five year old, a two year old and a almost one year old, you know, and it's not, it's.

I went from their, their parenting styles for them and went on to trying to jump 10 years into the future and raise a 13, 14 year old and it's like, whoa, trying to get him to listen, not possible.

Like getting him to break away from his own interests, not possible.

Like you.

And we don't have the history of me coming down on you when you did something wrong when you were 3 and 4 and 5 years old for you to have that respect.

For me, I didn't have that with him because I didn't raise him.

So me asking him to do things was like talking to a brick wall and stuff like that.

And it's like, hey, we gotta, like, develop.

You're here for a new experience, and you're not even willing to have that.

He just saw this as a huge vacation where he could come and play games whenever you wanted and get away from structure.

So that's definitely, like, extremely difficult.

And putting myself into that scenario really kind of opened my eyes to how difficult I made things for you when I was a child, Even though I was a child, like, I, you know, I'm hindsight 2020 type thing, but that, you know, urged me to call you and be like, yo, you know, I'm sorry.

I was definitely a lot.

But in hindsight, looking.

Looking back on all those experiences that we had, I appreciate the experiences that I had when I was a child because I got so bold and so ridiculous and so into my own head thinking that I was a genius, that I put myself in a situation where I was in the foster system now because I turned the world on its head.

And, like, I wanted control over my own life, and I finally got it.

Yes.

And I ended up in a foster system where I was getting beat up every day, and I was like, whoa.

Like.

And then I.

I entered into this world of politics inside of the foster home with these eight other grown boys, all bigger than me, where I'm like.

Like, I'm in over my head.

I can't walk out of my bedroom without being assaulted.

I can't.

I can't ask for food without asking the other boys in the house permission.

I didn't look cool unless I, like.

I tried to, like, match the way that they looked so that I would fit in.

So I, like, pierced my own ears and, like, did weird stuff to try to fit in.

Changed my whole lookup.

And that was, like, the big.

That was the big realization for me where it's like, I am not special.

I am not.

There's.

I.

I have to be able to adapt to this environment.

I have to be able to regulate my emotions to fit this scenario.

And the scenario was created by myself.

I did it to my.

I did it to myself.

I didn't realize that there were worse places in the world than my comfortable bedroom where I was eating four meals a day and snacks whenever I decided to steal them.

You know, the environment was very different.

And I forced myself into a position where I had to grow up really quick or die, to be quite frank with you.

My foster.

My foster home was in the middle of Los Angeles.

I was surrounded by several gangs.

I was getting beat up a lot.

There was a kid in my group home who you did not mess with, and I stole stuff from him all the time.

Just trying to.

Trying to, like, be the kid that had the balls to go and take.

Take from this guy that everybody was afraid of.

And I learned a lot of lessons really quick in the time that I was there, and I think that shaped my development a lot.

And I did it to myself, you know, so.

And that was a very difficult time.

Just to give some quick context of that, you know, you went to school, some kids said, if you don't like what your parents is doing, just tell them this and they'll take you and give you all this stuff.

So, of course, they did remove you and they gave you all of this.

These clothings like that.

And like I tell your brother and sister now, I'm like, one day you're going to go somewhere and you're going to figure out that the best place that you ever could be was at home.

Because things not going to be like home anymore.

And of course, we went through the whole DCFS thing with that, where they tried to say I was putting words in your mouth, because I think at one point you said that I have held you on the ground and beat you MMA style.

And I said, have you seen him?

And you see me?

And then I think you said the same thing.

But the important lesson from that was it killed us.

And Beth and I sat down and says, what do we think is the best?

And if you remember, you had a judge that just was taking nothing, right?

Because at this point, you had been accused of theft and a whole bunch of other things.

And she was like, he's going to this home.

And if he even breathes wrong, if you get an F, I'm gonna lock you up in juvenile jail, and you'll be there till you're 18.

And so then the conversation started coming, because we started getting calls in the group problem saying the same.

Some of the same behaviors you was exhibiting there.

After they told us that we were lying, and we got called in and said, what do you want to do?

And I called your mom and I said, if he's going to get the help in which he needs, can we send him back to Minnesota?

Because the option we had was either that or because you had Violated this judge, who was a female, was like, he done.

He was going to throw grand theft on you.

And I said, can we try this first?

Can we just send him to his mom's?

I don't think at his age, jail is what he needs.

And she agreed with me and she transferred her case to.

Back to Minnesota.

And she did look at you and say, I'm going to be governing this for the next year.

If you do anything you shouldn't do, I'm going to make sure the judge there throw you in.

And if you remember, I sat down with you because I had to come pick you up.

I had to go.

We had to go get some paper from court and then I had to take you to the airport.

And I looked at you and I said, I don't hate you.

I said, I love you.

Nothing you could ever do would ever make me hate you.

But I want you to go to Minnesota.

I want you to use this new gift that you have, this new life that's been given to you, and I want you to make something of yourself.

Don't listen to what anybody else says.

Learn from the mistakes you lived here.

And one day, when you figure out for yourself what you have done on your own, then you'll grow from that.

And now I have the young man that is sitting looking at me through a screen right now.

And I couldn't be more proud of you as my son.

I'm grateful that I do have a grown son like you that I can come to and have these kind of conversations with and pass this on to the rest of the world, because maybe there's somebody out there right now that has a problem with their son or the son with their dad, and it can be fixed.

And in these times, I think kids, especially sons with fathers, need them more today than they did any other time.

So thank you for making me a part of your project.

And you'll be back because we have a lot more to talk about here in the future.

So I thank you for this.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm sure there's a lot.

I feel like we've entered into, like, a lot of.

We, like, started a bunch of, like, side quest stories where it's like, there's way more to this that we need to figure out.

People will probably respond to and be like, yo, wait, we need to know.

What the hell's going on.

But yeah, it was definite.

The.

My childhood years were definitely very complex and complicated.

But it does, like, simple, simple humans don't do great things.

So it takes.

It takes Deviation from the normal in order to be able to settle or to be able to be confident enough to be able to settle.

Because it's not.

What I'm discovering now is that it's not about being Elon Musk.

It's not about going on and like making Amazon.

It's just about finding peace and filling your own cup of happiness and contributing to the world in a way that you find as valuable and you don't got to be a millionaire, you know, but it takes a.

It takes a lot of self confidence and a lot of.

It takes the.

The ability, which I feel like a lot of people don't have, to self reflect and see the errors in your own decision making and make the decision to change on your own, to be able to get to that point to where you can just settle back and like.

And realize what it is that's important for you specifically and not what's important to the rest of the world.

And my childhood and the difficulties that I went through growing up in general led to me being the person that I am.

And I think that's demonstrated, or, I'm sorry, that's proven by the difference between me and all my siblings, the difference between me and my cousins, the difference between the environment that I put myself in and a lot of the other people that had similar opportunities is just I went through hardship at an age that was beneficial to me.

And I learned from.

I learned some big lessons when I was 14 and 15 that people don't learn until they're 30 and 35.

So I think the willingness to be able to go through hard times and get through them is important.

But no, I appreciate it.

I thank you for everything that you did with me when I was a child, even though it was probably pulling teeth to get through.

I've vastly benefited from it as an adult.

Well, I'm happy to hear that, son.

And I couldn't ask for a better child of all six of you guys.

You know that.

So thank you for including me in this.

It's been fun.

It's a conversation I think we needed to have, and I look forward to many more conversations going down the line.

Love you.

Love you, too.

All right.

That was the interview for his school project with my son, devonte.

There were a lot of things that we did touch on that we did not go in depth into.

That's going to be coming.

I'm working with him now, and we're going to do something.

I don't know if it'd be another podcast or project, but I think some of these conversations are important for us to have as adults.

And there's a lot of cliffhanger in there that you guys are probably wondering what they meant or how he got to a certain spot.

Especially we talked about being in a group home in Los Angeles.

How did he get there?

All of that I promise you, down the line.

In later episodes we will talk about those things because the things that we went through with him especially I think can help other parents.

Even if you haven't gotten to the stage of raising a teenage child yet or having your kid being flown by school, I think this is a way to help you avoid some pitfalls before you get there.

So stay tuned for that.

I won't hold you guys too much longer.

Thank you for being here.

Like I said, we're gonna come back with another couple episodes.

Sharon Vertz, you can look forward to that one coming out real soon.

And then I'll be back with another episode that is going to tell you guys what happened while I was gone for so long and what's going to happen with the podcast for the remaining of the year.

Once again, thank you for joining us today.

I know you have many choices in True Crime Interview podcast and I am grateful that for the last almost three years you have chose me.

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Be good to your self and each other.

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