The Rip Current

The most dangerous water at the beach is not the wave you can see coming, it is the calm channel that quietly pulls you away from shore. We kick off a new series of short reflections by reading “The Rip Current,” then we take it apart like a real-life warning label: what does it mean when the hazard is subtle, the sign is easy to ignore, and your confidence shows up right when you should be paying attention?

From there we get honest about how we react to authority. A lifeguard flag feels like useful information; a lifeguard truck barking orders can flip a switch and make you want to do the forbidden thing out of principle. That tension opens into a wider talk about boundaries, “collected wisdom,” and why some advice sounds outdated until you live the consequences. We use examples from relationships, faith, community, and the messy question of sex outside marriage to explore the difference between guidance that explains the why and rules that only demand compliance.

We close by bringing it home to parenting, morality, and responsibility. How much safety is too much? When is a red flag appropriate, and when is it enough to post a warning and teach an escape route? And when your kid ignores you and gets pulled out anyway, what do you owe them next? If this conversation sparks a story for you, share it with us, and please subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review so more people can find the series.

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https://livingoncommonground.buzzsprout.com

https://www.jeffreystreszoff.com/

jeffrey.streszoff@gmail.com

Transcript

Series Kickoff And Listener Feedback

SPEAKER_00 0:00

How you doing? You doing all right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 0:04

I'm doing great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

So last week I recorded without you. Yep. And it was probably um one of the best episodes we've ever had. That's true.

SPEAKER_05 0:13

Yeah. That's how I thought. That's what uh I think all of our audience uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

No, but I talked about you.

SPEAKER_05 0:19

Oh, good. Yeah. Good. That's good.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

So if you haven't listened to it yet, um, it was nothing but wonderful things. Sure, sure. So all right, but we are starting um this uh this new series that we've talked about doing. And um we'll see how far we get through it. But there's 10 reflections. And then just to kind of reiterate what we're planning on doing is that uh this first, so this is the first one, so we're not gonna have an opportunity to sort of share anything, any feedback we've gotten from somebody, but we will start that next week. So uh just a reminder what we'll do is if you would like to, if you're listening and you want to share your thoughts or your feedback, your comments, not just whether or not you liked the um the uh the reflection, but what it made you feel, what it made you think, um, how you've experienced that same thing. If you share that, either you can email me at Jeffrey J-E-F-F-R-E-Y.strez

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off

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s-t-r-e-s-z-o-f at gmail.com. You can email me or you can read it on Substack,

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SPEAKER_00 1:25

which

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SPEAKER_00 1:26

is the same name, Jeffrey Strezzoff. Make sure it's R-E-Y, not E-R-Y. Um, and that you can read it, you can leave comments there. Uh and and there's links in the um in the episode description connected to this podcast. But you'll share it and then we'll read that before and we'll kind of talk about those, and then we'll do the next reflection. So this week we're talking about um yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:53

If you have, I mean, seriously, if you have like positive things to say, that's fantastic. If you have negative things to say, keep it to yourself.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Especially if it's about my writing. Thank you, Lucas. I appreciate that. Uh-huh. All right.

Reflection Reading The Rip Current

SPEAKER_00 2:07

So um, without any further ado, here is the first one, and it's called the Rip Current. The Rip Current. The waves have been coming in all morning, the way they always do, each one announcing itself from a hundred yards out, a low dark line rising, then pitching forward, then the white explosion at the sand's edge, and the long hiss of water pulling back through shells and grit. You hear it before you see it. You always hear it before you see it. There's nothing subtle about a wave. I was walking the water line, shoes off, letting the packed sand hold me the way wet sand does, firm and cool and indifferent to your weight. The child, twenty yards ahead of me, ran at each incoming wave and then turned and screamed and ran from it, the way children do, as if the wave were chasing her specifically. Her mother sat up on the dry sand and watched. Neither of them were afraid. Not really. The wave tells you what it is. It has always told you what it is. A boardwalk rose on posts near the access point, attached to the post, sun bleached and salt warped, a laminated card with a diagram. Red arrows showed the channels, the places where the water moves differently, quietly, where the surface looks almost calm between the churning rows of surf. The card said, If you find yourself in a rip current, do not swim against it. Swim parallel to shore. Let it carry you past its edge, then come in. I stood there for a while reading that card. The wave crashes on the shore and everyone sees it. Everyone respects it. Children run from it laughing. Lifeguards watch the water not for the waves, but for the people who stopped moving. The ones caught in the thing that doesn't announce itself. The quiet channel that looks like the easier way through. We spend considerable energy teaching each other to recognize danger that presents itself as danger. We build systems for it. We post signs. We whitewash the things that will contaminate us and say, Here, this, stay back. And most of the time, those systems work well enough. You probably learned most of them young, the way we all did. The dangers that announce themselves, the ones that wear their warning on the surface. What the systems are not built for, what the signs do not cover, is the danger that presents itself as calm, as the easier path, as a safe passage between two breaking waves. The rip current does not announce itself. It doesn't need to. It's patient. It has the whole ocean behind it. You felt this. The relationship that looked like shelter, the certainty that looked like faith, the community that looked like home. The ones that pulled hardest were never the ones that announced themselves as dangerous. They were the ones that looked like the calmer water, the easier passage, the place where the waves weren't breaking. By the time you understood the current you were already in it, already moving, the shore already distant behind you. The card said swim parallel, don't fight it directly. Let it carry you past its edge, and then come in. The wave that crashes on the shore almost never kills anyone. Alright, there you go. What

First Reactions To Hidden Dangers

SPEAKER_00 5:44

are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_05 5:47

I had ambivalent thoughts about this.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 5:51

But I'll tell you, the thing that strikes me listening to it uh just right now is that I mean, I gotta say, it seems like a uh a um real analogy for uh conservative living. Okay let me give you the other side that I was thinking first.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yeah.

Freedom, Authority And Beach Warnings

SPEAKER_05 6:22

Um we were in either Pismo or Newport um uh one time. I don't remember which one it was, but it doesn't matter. Because the the thing that happened was uh we were um my oldest and I were uh boogie boarding and um we started to catch some good waves and the we noticed that the waves were getting bigger. All the surfers, of course, were out further than we were, but we started to get some nice ones, and of course we were getting nice ones because the wind was picking up. Okay. Uh then the flags went up, okay, the lifeguard flags, yeah, right, um, saying you should stay out of the water. And then um after that, the lifeguards started driving their trucks up and down and telling everyone to get out of the water. You're not allowed to get in the water. And I will tell you, I wanted to get out of the water anyway. I thought that's a good idea. Them telling me that made me so angry. The idea that they had the authority to tell me to get out of the water made me angry, made me want to get back in the water. Um the idea of having the flags up saying you should, this is our recommendation, here's your warning, I felt like that was appropriate. The telling me I'm not allowed to, I have the general kind of uh just in terms of how I my temperament about wanting society to be a setup. Um I want individuals to be allowed to do the thing they should not do, right? To cut off their own arm if they want to, to kill themselves, to walk off a cliff, right? And I say that in an extreme way, but you know, I can I can mean it in ways that are, you know, more understandable. Like I think you should be allowed to base jump. I think you should be allowed to climb things. You should be, right? And the general um kind of underlying principle should be we will make the boundaries for what we think you should do when it comes to individual choice. And if you choose to go beyond that, you're doing so at you at your own risk, feels like a way of dealing with an adult. Okay. Right. So that was my first kind of impulse when I read it. And then as I sat thinking about it, I thought, yes, yes, and the and is um I think a wise way of like like my my the the first impulse was more about like I don't think another human has the authority to have that power over me. Okay, now that we've established that, great. Now, Lucas, what should you do to live a life? And I think the the signs posted saying be careful of thee are very analogous to the boundaries that a society builds up around behavior that then become codified and absolutely can become corrupted and um and unnecessary, maybe, but they but they grow up naturally around collected wisdom from the past. And so I think you're I think that the the analogy of the riptide being something that is that is unseen, however, it is known by those who have come before you. And as Peterson would say, the correct thing to do is what everyone has always done, unless you have a real good reason to do it otherwise. Because of these types of situations,

Inherited Wisdom And Sexual Boundaries

SPEAKER_05 11:04

right? I think um you go, well, I'll just the first thing that came to mind is like you shouldn't have sex unless you're married. Okay. It's 2026. I grew up in the 90s and the early 2000s came of age, and you know, 90s and early 2000s. As an as a young adult, I quote unquote knew that's silly, right? That's just religious nonsense. It's silly. You can look out, I can't see any waves coming crashing down, right? And then, you know, you get into a situation, you get pregnant, or what whatever, you have chaos in your life. And someone might go, well, you know what would help that? Get married to a person and don't have sex outside of that. It it's it's constricting, yeah, it's restrictive, it seems unnecessary. The water's calm. There's nothing there. Right. And you got a grandparent saying, I've seen people die in that rip current. And I know you can't tell. Right. Of course, you know. So again, I'm not, and again, I it's it's a it's a it's kind of a um, you know, I don't know how people would respond to me saying that type of thing, but it's the that's the type of thing that seems unnecessary, but it seems to me to be analogous to the sign you're talking about. And then when the sign that says, if you find yourself in the rip current, this is how you're gonna get out of it. You're not gonna get out of it by coming up with your own way of doing it again. Here's some collected wisdom that's not going to seem like it's correct or related. You're gonna have to let it take you. You're gonna have to swim parallel. That doesn't it doesn't seem to make sense.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:18

But I'm telling you, I've seen people go down, you know. Well, I'm different. Okay. Do what you if you've got ears to hear, yeah, then hear. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Yeah, no, I that that that second the part you're talking about um was what was running through my mind as I was I was thinking about that, right? And you said it it's more conservative. And I think that that's I mean, I'm a moderate, let's be honest. We we talk about Jeff's, you know, I'm the conservative, I'm the progressive Christian. And to some, definitely. Um, but to some others, I'm very conservative, and uh, which is probably why I I think I'm more moderate. But I do, I I firmly believe in the idea that uh we should learn from um other people's mistakes, if especially if they've lived to tell us about them, um, that there's wisdom that can come um and that we do not grow up in a vacuum and that um we should we should uh value other people's experiences. I also was thinking about the idea that as I was writing it, you know, we look at the wave and it's crashing, and our experience with that has been that it's fun. You know, it it is it's a lot like you know, I um there was a period in my life where I surfed, and I went not well, but I surfed, and I talk about that in another reflection. Um but uh that's a great time, but it also has its inherent dangers, like I talk about again, which is also very interesting to me because not only as I was thinking about all the different reflections, you have the riptide signs, you also have the the red life uh the the red life rings, and you also have the red flags, and those are all in there to tell you, but they're it's all pointing to danger, but different types of danger. Um and which ones are you willing to listen to? But I don't want to get into the other ones yet because we hopefully we'll get to talk about those. Um, but yeah, it's this idea that um sometimes the thing that looks like it would be the safe way to go isn't. And sometimes the thing that looks like it might be dangerous um actually isn't.

SPEAKER_05 15:32

That's yeah, that's interesting. Going back to the original, um, the initial topic, one of the things that I try to think about, and I will say this is something that I try to talk to my kids about, even though it is not something that I am somehow perfect in. It's some it's a thing that I think is a good lesson for myself. Um

Cliffs, Risk And Safety Obsession

SPEAKER_05 15:56

and that is, I think about it as uh walking next to a cliff. Like the cliff is there, and you can walk next to it and you haven't done anything wrong. You didn't throw yourself off the cliff, you walked next to it. And then when the gust of wind comes up or the gravel shifts under your feet, those are accidents. It's not your fault. You didn't ask for the wind to push you off the cliff, but you fell off the cliff nonetheless because you were next to it. And I think about it in terms of like super silly example, but um, you know, I need to get to work and it should take me 10 minutes to drive to work. So I give myself 10 minutes, and then there's traffic that I didn't know. And it's true that the traffic's not my fault, and it's true that I'm late because of the traffic, because of the accident. However, however, I played next to the cliff, and we have a choice to not play next to the cliff. That's the thing, right? And so, um, so yeah, I mean, I I and again, I'm not trying to say that is I have had I've had many examples where I should have fallen off the cliff and I didn't. I've had many examples where I pulled myself back from a cliff. Um, and there's plenty of examples where I fell off a cliff also. Um, I'm not trying to say like I have it, but it is something that I think about the whole um things that seem like it's gonna be the easier way um and then it's not. I mean, that is straight out of you know the gospel, right? The the wide path and the narrow path.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 17:46

Um, and I think about um I read Little Pilgrim's Progress. I didn't read the original one, I read the one that was redone for kids. Um, but that's the imagery that I have in my head.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

You know, I think the other thing too is with a rip current sign, it doesn't mean that the rip current is currently there. That's right. Right. It it's and so That's right. You might get lucky. Unlike the red flags. The red flags mean that we have observed now is not a good time for you to be in the water. Sure. Rip current is a is a constant. Yeah. This is a this is a potential problem. That's right. So the question becomes for us in our lives. We we should be at least aware that the things that we are doing, even if they look like the safe choice, there still might be potential problems. But it doesn't mean that you don't move forward, which I think is also one of the great things about the sign, is so go ahead and play. Go into the water. And if that is happening at this moment, this will be the best way for you to survive that.

SPEAKER_05 19:03

Yeah, it does make me think about um, you know, I'm kind of espouse uh well, that that you can get too focused on safety. It and you're what you're talking about is um in any given moment, what are you optimizing for? Yeah, um, and and of course you're not gonna do this consciously, right? You all the time. I mean, even the majority of the time, I think you're not gonna do it consciously. But if you're if you're always trying to optimize, we we all know the caricature of the person who is always optimizing for safety. And um, even that can seem like the safe route and ends up being horrible. It will, you're putting yourself in a prison and it's not safe. It's not, you know, you optimize for health at all times, and it turns out that ends up being unhealthy.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

I had to have knee surgery because I was working out in the gym. That's why I don't work out anymore.

SPEAKER_05 19:59

That's a good danger. That's exactly what I meant.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:02

Well done. But well, okay. So another thing, and sorry, I keep going back to Peterson, but one of the things that um he talks about.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

I like Peterson.

SPEAKER_05 20:11

Is um I wasn't saying sorry to you, I was saying sorry to some of our listeners. Um uh uh that what you have to do for children is to allow them to um uh to be dangerous in a in as in kind of a controlled way, right? You you don't just neglect them, right? But you have to allow them to do the dangerous thing. Because again, if you're optimizing for what seems like safety at all times, you will not allow them to do the thing that could possibly get them hurt, which then cripples them. And so then it is actually, to your point, it's the less safe route. Going the route that seems less safe now ends up being the safer route long term because you're playing a larger metagame as an individual. Um, and and that has to do with learning from the you know, from the failures and the and the pain.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Well, and the other thing too, um, and I was having a conversation with uh a good friend, she's closer to you than she is to me, but a good friend of mine this morning. And um, and we were talking about other stuff, but um we she she was talking about how quickly a uh we can lose um wisdom. Like just takes one generation, wisdom's gone, right? If we don't learn how to communicate it. But I think there's also, though, as I was thinking about that in terms of this conversation, this reflection, is even the generation that we're trying to share the wisdom with, if they themselves don't experience that as true, then the wisdom's gone. They have to believe it. Right. They have to have some reason to believe it. They have to have to have some reason to believe it in order for them to be able to go ahead and share it. So if I think I think with the sign, with the with the riptide sign, you see it, you understand that it's a warning to make you aware that even though it looks like it might be safe, there might be some things that you can't see that are underneath, right? Um, and so you go out and you enjoy it. And then if it comes up, then you have an idea of how to get out of it safely. But now you still have to listen to that. But the only way that the next generation believes that sign is if the generation just pre previous to them experience the truth of it. And so the only way that we can actually the we we have to we have to we have to have our own experiences. We can't just simply take it at face value that that is the truth.

SPEAKER_05 22:59

I think I think that's probably true. I'm trying to think. I don't want to just I think you're right. I believe that the earth is round. I believe that because I have been told that by people that by individuals. I believe that for a number of reasons, because I've been told that by individuals I trust in other things, books that I trust from other things. It's the overwhelming assumption by my society. Well, there's that, but what I'm saying is every person that I talk to around me has this assumption, and that is a deep primal, you just believe what 90% of your of your community believes. Um I'm trying to think, but I've so is that relatable to uh having to like wit uh the to bring to taking on wisdom? I because I don't have any experience of it, right? Um okay, what if what if we took it and we said in terms of like um and I do, I I yeah I subscribe to I I um take as a as an assumption um the evolutionary process through natural selection, the general, generally speaking, the the age of the universe and and the earth that is held by most of our society. Um I take the they and I know that I that I take them as true because they seem true to me. I recognize that I have no, I don't, I don't do the math on it. I don't um I don't do the physics on it to determine this. My sense making really is and but one might say that it's because I'm it's an appeal to authority, an appeal to the experts. I kind of in a way I guess, but I kind of reject that because there are um I don't want to get too far down the road, but I I understand how expert opinion many times can follow kind of a mob mentality as well. And so um but these seem compelling to me. Um it seems compelling to stay out of the water in a riptide area, but that seems compelling. I don't I've is it because I've had an experience of it.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

I don't know. Imagine if you if you can, let's just say that everyone on the earth decided to completely believe that the riptide signs are 100% always accurate. And so we stopped going in the ocean as people.

SPEAKER_06 26:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Okay. And then this entire generation that has never gone in the water dies out. The next generation coming along, are they gonna believe the signs? Uh because there's never been a generation to challenge it.

SPEAKER_05 26:45

I think in that situation, they might make it religious.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Interesting.

SPEAKER_05 26:50

They might make it a religious dogma. Um, because you're kind of you're kind of um tiptoeing on the edge of Kantian um uh ethics there, right? If you if you can take it to the extreme of the entire society, does it break down society or does it make society strong? So, like if everyone followed it, obviously it would not harm society in terms of, you know, if nobody followed it.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

So then the question becomes is it I think this goes back to then the idea of the sign, right? I want to I want to kind of keep us without getting too like universal with this.

SPEAKER_05 27:27

A little too expansive here.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

Um the idea that understanding that it is not a law, it's a suggestion and a warning. It doesn't say you can't go in the water, it just says when you go into the water, just be prepared for this. And I think that that's more of life life lessons that we teach each other. Right? So more on I think it, I think to understand the reflection, it helps to keep it more on a personal level. Yeah. In that um we trust the writer of that sign. Some of us do. Some of us think it's just BS. Those of us that think it's true, either we or someone we know has been caught in a riptide.

SPEAKER_05 28:10

You know, what you're saying right now is interesting.

When Warnings Become Hard Rules

SPEAKER_05 28:12

I think that we every individual comes to that sign with so many different aspects uh in their psyche. Because when you're talking about that, people who like disregard it, I can imagine, for instance, somebody who comes with a cynicism about liability. I I come from California, uh, the land of liability. I know how this works. I know how you put up a little sign and now you're okay and you can't and the city can't be sued, right? Or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Right ever. Yeah. We put the purple flags on the trees so people don't ride their bikes, no motorized vehicles on our property.

SPEAKER_05 28:49

Sure. Or you just you you and you just like you go, well, I told them, wipe my hands, you know. Um, and so someone might disregard because of that. Um, there's a there's an enormous number of things. It might be um, well, just like I said, I mean, it might be uh uh my temperament makes me not want to do what mom and dad tell me. I was mad at mom and dad, and so I'm not gonna listen to the sign, right? Um yeah, there's a there's a lot of different ways that you might approach that sign um to uh to make you disregard it or take it seriously, or um uh you know, or make it so that you feel like you have to be the uh the arbiter for somebody else as well.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Um which I think is a if it's if it's you and your child, if you like when you were talking about you and your oldest out bodyboarding, um, if you see the sign as the parent, you're going to have implications for that sign that your son would not.

SPEAKER_05 30:00

That's absolutely true. And um, that to me seems appropriate. He's my child. I'm responsible.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

There's a responsibility level to it.

SPEAKER_05 30:08

Yeah. You know people, I'm sure you could think of someone right now who would be really excited to tell a stranger that they can't get into the water they shouldn't, because of this sign.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:21

Right. That that who feel compelled to to uh be the regulator of uh of um of those around them. Um yeah, so there's a and I guess the point is in all of this is that it it is a really great analogy to these the customs um that a culture erects around the boundaries of what they what's considered acceptable behavior, it usually comes from some sort of inherited wisdom.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Right. We always talk about laws, laws are created because someone did something that made us feel we needed to create that law. Right. Mm-hmm. And this is again, this isn't even a law. This is a this is a recommendation, and I do really like the thing about how, and it still provides you a way out. Right? There's so to me when I think about the riptide sign, it's it's really about it's really about handing wisdom down, um, showing warnings, like this is this is what can happen if you choose to do this. I'm not telling you don't do this, but know that if you choose to do this, and I think it's a better way, and I think that this goes along the lines of what you were talking about with sex before marriage as an example, right? That that could be an example of it. Starts out with it's one of those things where there's some wisdom in it, but the problem that we have is instead of saying this is a recommendation for you because there is some danger to it, if you find yourself in this situation, here's some ways that you could survive that, right? Um, but what we do is we turn it into a law. Same thing you're talking about. The the the flags maybe go up, and I would say the flags are slightly different than the sign. Um the flags mean that there is a that there is a danger inherent and we have seen it, and you need to listen. Um, but it's different than when the person drives down the beach yelling at you to get out, right? There's a difference between look, here's here's a uh a strongly encouraged warning that you that you observe this warning, but it's not a law. And I think that we make the mistake when we then take those and turn them into laws.

SPEAKER_05 32:42

Well, when you're saying law are you using that as up.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

I'm going back to the idea of I'm I'm thinking in terms of the idea of um sex before marriage. Right. Instead of just tell talking to our young people about look, here's the issue. Here's the warning with that. We say just don't do it.

SPEAKER_05 33:02

Okay, so you're you're when you say law, you're using it euphemistically. Yes. You're not saying like an actual law. Right. You're saying when we make it a hard and fast rule. Yes. So I I do understand what you're saying. My hesitancy is that I think that there's something, there's something that gets uh that's a trade-off when um I think this is a an entire college site class, actually. Um but I I think you can absolutely see the problems with the parent who simply says, who's who says, don't have sex. Um and usually when we're describing this and we're trying to describe it um pejoratively, we'll we'll make that character into kind of a caricature. They only say don't have sex and they don't talk about anything else or whatever. But let's just say they they they're really connected with their kid, right? They're really trying, they they they explain what sex is and all of these things and they and and they say, and no, you cannot have sex outside of marriage, right? Like they have that hard and fast rule. You can still imagine negative consequences of that, right? You can imagine a scenario. This is what you're saying. You can imagine a scenario where the kid, you know, has sex anyway, feels like they can't talk to mom and dad because they're gonna be so disappointed, blah, blah, blah. And when we tell that story, I feel like we're implying, well, if mom and dad had just done X instead, then kid would be able to talk to them and it would all work out, or it would have worked out better, whatever. I don't know if that's always the case. I can see the problem for sure. I can see the problem. Um, but I also can see the problem when there's a non-developmentally appropriate instruction given. And and maybe you can argue about what's what's developmentally appropriate. I I just I can see the trade-offs, and I wonder sometimes this is my concern with honestly, this is my concern. I'm getting a little off topic here, but my concern with with religion and why I don't know if you've noticed, but my rhetoric's changed quite a bit over the last year or so. Um because I'm very concerned that it's possible that you that I lose something by trying to have this kind of holistic perspective that I can't that I can't have unless I have the true believer position. And I've I don't have the true believer position. I can't do that. I can't have, you know, I can't do what I can't do. But I get concerned, and especially not for me, but for my kids, I get concerned that I'm not that I can't give them something that I don't even know that they need, and that it'll be too late, they'll be in the riptide before I realize oh, that's why grandma and grandpa said you know, yeah, just teach them Jesus died for your sins or whatever, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Okay, so here's the thing. Let's uh I'm gonna stick with the sex one. Yeah. Um let's say that we we t we say, don't have sex. Yeah. And then we leave it right there. Yeah. Right. And we don't explain the why. Yeah. Um, why we think that this is a good thing, why this has sort of become a thing, right? Um and and they, because you have such a great relationship, they listen. Yeah. And they don't.

SPEAKER_06 36:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

And then they have kids, yeah, and they tell their kids, don't have sex. And let's just say that their kids have they have such a great relationship. They're like, Yeah, absolutely. All right. Then the next generation comes along, don't have sex. Why? Well, because I told you to. And so I think that, I think that to just always make like it's important to understand the why and understand the potential dangers in it. Right. Because the other thing too is let's be honest, with don't have sex before marriage, sometimes you do, and it actually just works out fine.

SPEAKER_05 37:30

There's no rip current.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

There isn't any. Right? Yeah. You you end up marrying that person, maybe, right? Or whatever. Yeah. Um, and so maybe the qu maybe it is, well, you know what? Um, if you're too young, there's gonna be there's gonna be some emotional baggage that's gonna come along with this that you're not gonna be prepared to handle. Right. Um, again, or unwanted pregnancies, or whatever the case may be. Explain it. And then if they do it, you already kind of laid it on the groundwork, and now we can deal with that particular issue of it. Um, and then maybe they've learned, and then the next time they tell their kids, look, you don't want to do this, and here's why. Right. Um, and unfortunately, when we becomes like this hard, fast, and then when we now just another thing, layer to it, but when we start attaching a morality to it, that becomes even more a problem. Because then when I do break that law that you have given me and you've attached a morality to it, now there's no way I can tell you because now it's not only did I break the law, but I'm an example of a moral failure.

SPEAKER_05 38:34

I that that one I doesn't resonate with me.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Okay. I'm just well, probably maybe not.

SPEAKER_05 38:39

I I don't know that I feel like it. I that's any problem with attaching morality to it.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

But I think that it just adds another layer of guilt when the law then is broken. Of of course it does. And that might be a good thing, is what you're saying.

SPEAKER_05 38:53

Yeah, and we're we have morals. There are morals. It's just that this one is not one that I think um you have a you feel compelled to.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

I'm not arguing about morals.

SPEAKER_05 39:06

I but what I'm saying is I I know that this okay. So funny we got done this. I know that this is one that we have all decided as a culture we're not supposed to care about, right? It's only supposed to be about effectiveness in life. It's only supposed to be about pregnancy reduction and STD reduction and all, you know what I mean? All that kind of stuff. Um I I just I I don't know. I again, I think that it's a trade-off. And I think that you you find trade-offs, and I can definitely obviously, I can I'm not saying that you're wrong about that it will cause it will make it more difficult for that child to um to communicate than with the with the parent because they will have this weight, right?

SPEAKER_00 40:05

It's an additional weight to it, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:08

But I also wonder if that's necessarily a bad thing all the time, or if it's sure there's a lot of things that I get that I would be concerned about my kids not telling me about if they did, that I have said you can don't do this, that I would be concerned if they but that I still want them to feel that weight. But I I want to stay connected with them. Do you know what I mean? Like it's it's it's I guess it's ambivalent.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

I

Parenting, Connection And Responsibility

SPEAKER_00 40:41

guess what I'm saying is it it can't solely be based on the morality of it.

SPEAKER_05 40:46

It's okay I completely agree, and this is where I'm hearing Krista scream into my ears saying it's always, always about connection, which you could call love. It is always about when it comes to the parent-child relationship and probably with everyone else too, it's always about take a breath. Do you still want to be connected with them? Try to get that connection again. We're never going to let anything break the connection no matter what. And and when the child doesn't believe that, it's my job to show them again over and over again. When I am 83 years old and my child is in his 60s, it is still incumbent on me. That is, I am still a parent. It is still my responsibility to make sure that they know they are a part of me. I am part of them. We are still connected. Nothing breaks that. So I completely agree with you on that. I think maybe that's the the thing that you can do. I just, I always get into this, I always sit here and I wonder, like, when we're talking about, well, if you do this, then the kid's gonna do this. I, you know, I know about this parent who did this, and then the kid turned out to be a perfectionist or I, you know, whatever. And the implication is always if the parent had just done X, then that wouldn't have happened. And I just don't know. That's such a moving target.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

It it, I mean, there's so there's always unique cases. There's always, you know, and it's like the whole thing about two two kids brought up in the same house and they completely are different kids. And and I mean, I don't know, I can't figure it out. And I do think the difference between or again, I'm gonna go back and I think we're about to ready to wrap this up, but yeah, the difference between the red flag and the um and the riptide sign is that it's a warning. It it's it's like uh this is possible, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it is. Yeah. Um be ready for it just in case. But there's also there are also times when it's appropriate for the red flag to go up. Yeah. And I think that's kind of where we're talking about too, is that there are times when it's like, don't do it. Just there it is dangerous, don't. And there's other times we're like, it looks like it might be calm, it looks like it might be okay, and it actually might be. But just know that there is some potential problems with this. There's a potential dangers with this. And if you if you find your, I mean, that's the difference between a red flag and a sign that just says riptide. If it just says if you walk up to a section of beach and it just says riptide on a red sign, don't go in the water. Right. Because that means all the time this water is not something you want to be swimming in.

SPEAKER_05 43:47

Well, and here is where I think the analogy maybe stops a little. It stops. We're talking about analogy, sure. But I'm just saying, like when it comes to our kids, going back to this conversation we we ended on. If the if I've put up the red flag and I've said, do not get in, it is dangerous. And my kid still gets in and still gets into trouble. Um and and we could argue about, you know, let them feel their consequences or whatever. That's still my responsibility to determine to make a judgment call on what consequences they can feel.

SPEAKER_00 44:24

You better be real careful with a riptide.

SPEAKER_05 44:26

What consequences they can feel, what consequences they can't, let them sit in jail overnight, don't let, you know, whatever, these types of things, right? If they're caught in the riptide, my job as the parent is to die for them, right? Metaphorically, literally, whatever. If there's any reason that I exist, any reason, that has to be it in my estimation. So going back to what we were talking about, and it's not, and it's not the lifeguard's responsibility to die instead of you. It's it's the lifeguard's responsibility to still try to save you within a particular reason, but we but that is a third-party, uh, you know, state run type of, you know, whatever. But going back to the um, you know, sex issue, I say, these are the reasons. This is why you shouldn't do it. Don't do it. Maybe I even create a morality around it, right? Sure. And then they do. And now they're in it. That is the moment because we only live now, right? We never live in the past or in the future. That is the moment where my wife would say, Okay, now, now we're living here, Lucas. So now what are you gonna do? And now the responsibility is go in and get them out of the riptide. That's your responsibility. Yeah, they did exactly the thing that you told them not to do, and the exact consequence happened that you told them would happen, and they're still in the consequence. Welcome to parenthood. That's the whole point. Go in and get them. And I think maybe this is where our common ground is, that I can I absolutely know in my personal life. I know the experience of I told you not to do that, you did it. Well, you're on your own then, and you've floated off. And I have no moral responsibility because I told you not to, right? Um, and I I I do think that that is where, you know, I don't resonate with that at all. You gotta go in and and grab them at that point.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

That's an interesting point. And I will end here is that when you instead of always worrying about what the moral responsibility is for the other person, when they find themselves in that situation where they where they did something, the question is what's my moral responsibility?

SPEAKER_06 46:59

Right now.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 47:00

Yeah.

Next Reflection And How To Respond

SPEAKER_00 47:02

All right. I enjoyed that. So just as a heads up for everybody that's listening, um, that was uh the one that you're if you want to go read it, it's on um my Substack account, Jeffrey Strezzoff. The next one we're gonna talk about is called The Sand. But um it's probably gonna be a couple weeks, it seems like, because um it is summer and which means it's travel season for some of us. And so to be able to get the two of us, our schedules together again. We'll do our best. We'll do our best, but um, it gives you a little bit more time to read, to listen, to reflect, and then to email us and share with us your thoughts. All right, thanks.