Brothas Gon Work It Out.....with Roy Wood Jr

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Jay dot M, a production of I Heart Radio. Ladies and Gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen, you have walked in on a conversation. Okay, you walked in on the conversation with Roy Wood Jr. Okay, your lady on the stats? Would you lay down the stats? I mean, he's the ultimate black man. Y'all mad him? Y'all know it from Alabama. Y'all know every time you turn on Comedy Central, you'll be like, wait, is the man owned Comedy Central? Because he being on all contacts of the day. Uh, y'all know the man got a big stand up coming out October twenty nine. Y'all know the man is funny, but he means what he says and what he says got a lot to do with who we are. And I would say more, but I just want Roy Wood to talk. So Froy Wood Jr. Welcome to J dot M. Well, thank you all for having me. I like, and I'm gonna be honest and this isn't even like me like, shoot no bullshit at y'all. I appre create the space that you all have created where I feel like I could be a little comfortable. I can say some ignorant ship and you can talk about some real ship as well, because you know, you know, sometimes you get on these podcasts and tell us, tell us about Twitter. I love start for you. I understand you were you were a DJ. Like they picked one line from your bio. Interesting, so you started in radio right, you did radio DJ. I'm like, no, that's not what the sing I wish I could see this show. I got to add that to your intro, like Corey were the only prank call radio guy who actually made it to the limps that would listen, you know what, they'll do it. They'll be like, so, I understand you did prank phone calls from two thousand and one and now you're on the Daily Show. Bitch you talking to? Who is you talking to? Sometimes? I do wish you could say that during it in you like, who who are you talking to? Right now? It's it's so wild, but it's it is a blessing to be able to be on the Daily Show and like, I'm thankful that Trevor lets me do some stuff that like speaks to black issues, like because I'm I'm the comedian that's pro black. But you don't realize until after the show and I'd already said everything to you on some on some sneaky and ship like I don't have I don't have the the charisma of Dick Gregory, and I don't have the goal of Paul Mooney to just to just comeing upper cut the motherfucker named mouth out to gate white folks stop up, like I can't do. That's that's the nuance of Negro culture. Yeah, but it's just wilder because you know, when I started, like I was, you know, you're nineteen, you ain't talking about ship. All my els was about my roommates eating my food and all of this stuff. And then as I got into my thirties, and then when I had a child, like you start realizing, I having my son at thirty eight, that I'm forty two, he's five. Do the math, and that's when you start realizing, Okay, this world is fucked. How do I help fix it? What can I do to contribute to that? And I look back at my parents, and you know, my pops was a civil rights journalist. My dad, you know, from the fifties in South African riots and Zimbabwe and Vietnam and Chicago race rides, like all of that ship my pops was there on the front lines and doing news commentary. And it's wild because I look at my career now and it's like, oh, I'm just doing what he was doing. But I'm just trying to be funny, like I at least have the luxury of being able to laugh at some of it, because it wasn't funny to him. Right, So let me explain something. So you had Joyce the educator, and you had a father who was a civil rights and journalist. What's your dad name, roy Wood Senior Morehouse College from and my mom is Florida and m and she was amongst the first black students to integrate Delta State University in Mississippi as well, so white university black and then went to another That's why they made me go to family Like, yo, you want to know some this is some other Jedi mind tricks ship that black college parents do. My senior year in high school, they just put a list of black colleges on the fridge and it was like pick one of them. There was there was no other conversation about what you want to major in? What do you want to I don't think my parents ever really asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up. Like, there was a conversation about an astronaut and middle school that my mama saw how much space camp calls, so she taught me out of it. Everybody wanted to go to space camp after watching that eighties movie about space Kim with the black dude from the ton Yeah. So I ended up at I ended up at Florida in there. Man, that's and you know, that ended up being the right situation for me. But that's kind of where where it all started. It's just as wild because I did morning radio Ricky Smiley. What happened? Ricky Smiley left Birmingham to go to Dallas to start his syndicated joint that he's got today, and I came in behind Rick and I just started co hosting and turning, buying donuts whatever while up on the road. And so I just did that, and then I just did stand up on the road and just every year you get a chance to skip a level approve yourself. I believe pretty much in any whatever the industry is, you get two to three times a year to impress somebody that could help influence you and get you up to the next level. So all you need to do is nail one or two of those opportunities, and so you get enough TV and that grows and it grows and it grows, and then next thing you know, you've got two hour specials in the third on the way. Yeah, yeah, I did radio. Yeah, inspirations of all of us radio people just then inspiration. I love that you were talking about how you you're you're forty two were the same age just for another week though, because I'll be forty three at the end of the week. But oh so you're a little sat looking anyway you can slander us later. I know I'm married to Scorpio. I have been married to one for twenty three years, sir, So I know y Sagittarius to accept marriage? Oh my god, yes, because honey is an I'm close. But just talking about being a father to a little little and then how how that that part of your journey was, you know, really important about how you kind of poached your art and tell us about, like I want to know a little bit more about just some of the great possibilities around being a father at this point in your life, and how that's different from if you had maybe chosen to be a Dad earlier on in the process, like, how how does that work? I think old Dad's got the wisdom. Young Dad's got the time. You know. We're like, I don't. I'm not around as much. Like it's it's high tight low tip right. We're like, if I'm prepping for an hour, there's a four there's a four month run where I'm gone consistently three to four days a week. And that ship was cute when he was two and three, and now he's five. So I'm missing ship, and I don't want to miss ship. So it's about capitalizing on the time we have together. So I try to be a lot more intentional when I'm in town, to the point where like, and it's embarrassing to say, but I have to make sure that because I'm so default me, like, you're so default selfish by the time in your late thirties you have a kid, you have to go, oh nah on me got karate on Thursday, he got tennis on Friday. I'm gonna pull up because he needs to at least see me there every now and then, because I think that helps, you know a little bit. The thing that I struggle with though, and this is kind of I guess where wisdom comes into play. And I think this is where I'm better than being at a younger as a younger father, is that you've had time to really evaluate how you were raised and what was good or bad. Because the first thing that I, at least I ain't speak everybody when I had my when I had my son, the first thing I did was audited every relationship, every interaction I had with my father, and then after my father, every interaction with grown men after that. My dad died when I was sixteen in high school, so he was one of them cats in the streets a little bit. I'll say that from a work standpoint set a great example from a father's standpoint. There a couple of holes. So you start figuring out, all right, well, how do I fix that? How do I close that hole and make sure that that that doesn't continue? You know, like it's weird when you're black and you have some level of success where you're essentially the cycle breaker and your family and that's ship with no fucking hand, But do that ship? Dog? Come on? How do you? How do you? How do you fix that? And then it also exposed traumas I didn't even know I had with my pops until I had a kid, because you don't even realize the you don't realize the holes that your parents had until you have a kid, and then you're trying to plug You're trying to do this like it's like, oh, fuck, he wasn't there. He missed that? Well fuck yeah, well wait a minute. Can't be mad at him right now? With the boy, I gotta be happy because I'm like something as simple as playing catch with my son. I took my son. I don't know if he'll stick with it. He seemed like he hate the ship, but I took him to baseball camp over the I don't think he's gonna stick with this ship. But just the act of playing catch with my son something I've never experienced conversely with my own father, and it sucked me up for a second, more real talk after the break. Have you also done into why your father wasn't that way? Did you know your grandfather and what kind of father your grandfather was? No, So let me tell you how COVID was a blessing. I did finding your roots um last year well over the old skip gates. Oh you made it, congratulations because it was COVID and most of the people he wanted was too scared to get on the plane. I was like, we gotta get some local celebrities. I know, I was far down the listen, listen, I'm aware of my star staff and I am not at the top of let's see where he's from. But it's COVID. So you gotta funk with me and the right one perfect time in a way that you don't even know. I understand you, deep deep deep down to the ball does ps Now. I will go back and watch that episode because I don't be watching. It really opened me up too, because I only have one living grandparents. I'm closer to my mom's side to my dad's side. I've only met two relatives on my dad's side outside of half siblings period, full stop. In my entire life, I never met grandparents and my aunt's cousins. None of them don't know him. I get it. I get a Facebook message from a wood about once every seven and eight years. I'll give them credit. They don't even hit me up for money, Like that's how much I don't talk. Amen, Amen. But the ones that I know, they've told me everything they could tell me. And so there was this so skip told me this thing. I don't even think he made it in the show, but this is what sucked me up, and this is what like reconstituted everything with me and my father. My father walked with a limp his whole life. He had a hit replacement when he was thirteen. So he's walking to girl home from school. This isn't funny, but it's kind. He's walking to girl home from school like his crush or whatever the fun. And let's just say he's a sophomore in high school and one of them singers with the varsity jackets comes over and pulls my father's girl just straight on some I just took your chick, nigga, What what you gonna do? Come with me, baby, get away from them, and she fucking left. She left with another man in front of my dad. My dad's crushed walked off with another dude. They go to W's the street and she dropped a book or something normalless she dropped something, and my father, being a gentleman or whatever the fun, goes out into the street to get her book to give it back to her, and he gets hit by a car shatters his hip right there. So that right there what I figure is that is what my father carried with him for the rest of his life, and that informed his relationship, perception of women, and his perception of how to treat women. Of course, that bitch. So when you start looking at unpacked trauma, I'm going, Oh, that motherfucker never went to therapy. I mean, what is therapy? Then? What is therapy to a baby boomer? Truthfully? Yeah, like what I'm saying. So when you look at that, it re it reconstituted a lot of everything. Also from finding your roots, I learned that my father lost his father when he was four years old. To this day, nobody knows how he left and never came home. In Georgia, we already know that's a legion and this is this is um nineteen, late twenties, early thirties, Georgia. And then they moved to Chicago. So it was never discussed in our family. How he died was never discussed, who he was was never discussed. And so and then I started thinking, on the fucking show, I go, well, who the fund did his mama date after him? Who were his role models, who were his examples? Who and I had and I to this day and I will die never knowing the answer to that question. So when you find out that type of ship, you got a grade a little bit of it on the curve, And it made it easier for me to go into fatherhood without a chip on my shoulder. Yes, because everybody, because at first you one had a chip. And and how do you deal with being mad at of motherfucker has been dead since? Ain't nothing you can do right there, you know what I mean? So you just gotta go your father. Some people can do that. I love how you discussed this in terms of the generational trauma aspect, and would really stick out to me is when you talked about how sharing a beautiful moment with your child actually is a trigger for you. So I think that's a real important peace for parents and just for people in general. How a joyous occasion if it was absent somehow in your life, that even though you're in the moment, that you can actually be experiencing joy and deep pain at the same time. Jealousy, listen, and easy, very easy to self sabotage because you're not accustomed to the joy. It's like, how how dare I be heavy? My daddy wasn't happy? You know, but or or my child or how is it fair that my child gets something that I didn't I didn't get. Oh, I bet myself. Where people deliberately deny their kids stuff because they didn't get it and they think they turned out fine. It's like, now, you turned out okay in spite of it, but maybe don't give him a hug like the thing. My advice to anybody though, that's like dealing with that type of ship. The what I found most that I enjoy find if you got a parent that you got head beef with or still have beef with, figure out the one thing that you enjoyed with them and do that with your child, and then you'll feel connected to your parents in a positive way. So the best experiences I ever had with my father were traveling. I cannot tell you where we were going. I cannot tell you that that's none of that ship, but in the car, on the train, and the plane, just being in that space, because that's when he was the most normal and the most base level, and I got the most regular interaction out of him that wasn't like tense. I remember the year before he died, I got my learners permit at fifteen and my pops was doing his jazz show on commentary show. But at this point the cancer was kind of starting to creep up on him. So he's he's losing strength, but still strong enough to do radio. He was doing a morning news show at Alabama State. So every Saturday morning I would drive him to Montgomery because for me it was oh, I get to drive on the freeway, and for him it was oh, I gotta show for It was perfect. So every Saturday, for you know, our up our back, we was in the car and I just remember, I just remember fifteen hour car rides to Chicago, like I just those things. Like my dad. Before we moved to Birmingham, my mom and I was still living in Memphis. It's like second grade, and my dad was coming back and forth like every weekend to see us. And he had a fucking CB radio in his car, and he taught me how to talk to truckers and we would just ride down how are we seventy eight? Back to Birmingham and just talk to strangers on a fucking radio. And I thought it was the coolest, wildest sucking thing. And that's that's low kis prank call one point oh, because you're just working, talking to strangers and ship. So so with my boy. You know, this is a stupid thing to brag about, but I am very proud of it. My son is a gold status flyer with Delta Wow. He has his own You're traveling dog train. We're getting on this train. We're ridding all over New York City. We're gonna take this ferry and just do loops back and forth to Staten Island with no destination. Like we're taking the amtrack down south twenty eight hours in a sleep pecar. Because to me here some of that ship he'll remember. You might not remember playing catch, but you're gonna remember twenty eight hours on a shaky ass and track. You ain't gonna forget that. So those moments and it's gonna balance out those things that see every child, I don't care how intentional the parrot, every child gonna have a great and that eight hours that's gonna balance out the great. Feel me, I was thinking the same thing's gonna be a barely traveler to everybody. Forgive me. I don't mean the mama talk to you, but I got a whole two year old so baby. When he pulled out the conversation on the ship. I didn't do right as I don't talk to Who are you talking to? You're not talking to me? Is this some mother broad in the room. That's your mother? I don't. I don't know who you're talking to, but I love. What's wild is that I've gotten um. So we don't whip my child. I got whipped until the grade when my mom figured out that psychological punishment is better than physical. And so when like I don't know, my son was three or something, and my mom was telling him like, don't don't do that. Don't do that, boy, and she was like faking like she was gonna hit im, like a mama, we don't even raise hands. We can't even I don't do that, and start walking through why we thought that and all of that ship, and it was fine. And then one day out the blue, like years later, like like two three years later, my mama just came up to me, one day, you okay, inspite of what happened up the boy. She thought I wasn't whipping the boy because of some ship that happened to me. And I'm like, no, Mama, mask wasn't was justified. We almost got a victor. Because I almost burned down the comp up that justified as Oh, she probably felt so much. Said, I just say, we read some ship and we just want to try something differently. Because the thing about whipping your child, you can always start it, like if he's fifteen, I can just swing on him. Let's see, let's see what happens without the whippings, and let's see how far we can go with this. And if he's still wilding, then I'll beat your glass because you're still a black man. Yes, I do, because that's the beauty of being forty to having a child. See you got the wisdom, you know. I have to say that the conversations before the spankings were much worse than the actual spankings. The conversations like please beat me, because you made me feel like I know I was wrong. Please beat me? Only got a couple. I got about four good ones. And then after that I was remember mom, and she was two feet shorter, just swinging up. My mom was as cold with it. My mom would take my Nintendo tapes but leave the Nintendo in my room, so I just stare at it. Yeah, yeah, that's educator for a mother, right there. Is She would take my baseball glove. And she knew that I had the type of coaches where if you show up without your glove, you run the entire practice. You don't get to You did not bring stuff to play baseball, so you don't get to play baseball. So you're gonna run. And so my mama knew if if she took my glove, I just had to run. Other people do to work. Yeah, So for two hours every day in the Alabama heat from three thirty pm, Tom, I'm running. We love your mom that you won't do that again. She wouldn't give it, and she wouldn't give it to me. That's a wonderful choice she hit with that. I know what to do with you, sir. Yo. With black kids, man, you can't you threaten to tell their coach. That's worse than telling their dad. I had no want your suicides and whatnot. I understand. Now we're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be right back. We all know there's a whole lot of implications around black children and discipline, and I think everybody on this call is aware of the ways that we are as a community trying to really work through how that looks now I know I had to do it. But the point is we know that we're having different conversations with ourselves about these kinds of things. But it doesn't mean that everything we learned was wrong. It just means that we're doing what we're doing with a consideration around things that our parents didn't consider and we're geting space. Yeah, we're giving space for things that they didn't give space for or that they didn't know to give space for. So that's and didn't have time. They not have the time to give space for. Everybody write that down so you don't keep offending your parents because they're like, so everything I taught you that ain't no good in the mother I was, I baby. My mom never spake to me. I I received maybe one physical interaction with my mother when I was fourteen, and I did deserve it. But how how did discipline happened in the house? Because I'm sure that wasn't the only Oh no, that wasn't It wasn't the only whipple bull offence. But truthfully, my mom literally just talked to me a lot. She had a relationship with us that she was actually be rated for. We we really did have a friendship. She just talked to us a lot, and it wasn't even like a situation where she had to say anything particular to us other than that these are my expectations, and like this is how things are going to work around here. Like if you don't do this, it's not gonna work for you, it's not gonna work for me. And let me just say this. I tried this with I have six children. I tried this with my children. It worked with three out of six numbers. It worked with bad at all. I had to shift it adjust with the other three. So, like I say this again, our parents be onto something. It's just a matter of us kind of figure out what works for our children and giving ourselves, let's say, like a nice little shark cutie plate of things to choose from in order, what right, in order for what we're gonna do to to help them learn and understand consequences. Man, I thought it with Chakudi Chicuni plate. I love it. Chacudi so good. My girl though, and watching how she interacts with that child, she has far more compassion than me. And I know, like that's something that I just generally did not receive growing up. And I know, hang on because I know one of you folks in Birmingham is listening right now, and you're gonna take this clip and send it to my mom and snitch and say that I said that my mama didn't love me. And that's not what I'm sucking saying, right Yo. When I start talking about family on these podcasts, it gets back to my mom. I'm just telling you right now. So I have to be very specific about my mom showed love through action and providing me because she was always working, and she was always in grad school or law school or a master's degree, something that kept her out until eight pm, and I was a latch key. I never felt unloved with my son. What I noticed in watching his interactions with his mama, I see my girl walking to room with him and hold him, and that you a different child to her than he is to me. So on the nights where I am stern with her, stern with him, I have to do what she does after the fact and kind of come back in, all right, you won't, you won't watch something you know you're not a black black mama beach and then go you want send me. I have to do the equivalent, which for me at our house. After I've been stern with him and put him in time out and he's cried, I have to come back in this room. Uh, you want to watch munster truck racing in the count to make sure that he feels like physical love, like an embrace of a man. I didn't wonder that, So I don't even know how to do it. But all right, I've watched enough episodes of black Woke, the shows US whatever. Yes, yes, I support black creators. Black crea. Meant to say wrong and feel it in Sorry, y'all, I didn't mean to say that. But so it's things like that where I'm trying to do things that I never got and you're trying to almost in a way, you're doing your impersonation of what you think a good parent is because it's not your default, you know. But I'm happy to do it like you just you have to put a hat on like it's a job. This is the job requirement if I don't want him going around hidden, And I also want him to know that it's okay to be in his feelings and feel a certain way, like that's the one thing. Oh my god, my girl's great at that ship. Sure, it's okay to feel that way, and when you feel better, come back in the room and let us and when you're ready to be around people, get like it's that ship where I'm like, if you don't requine and doing out of here, but they're doing it. That's my default. My default is get the funk on out of here with that wine. But she goes go away and feel that it's okay, and you can return when you don't feel that way. There's two ways. If they had the combination in the parent unit. I'm so glad that the gag is the approaches. One thing. Ship still could go left, like right, like Angel was saying earlier, all the things that we're attempting to do with our children and trying to be better people, you know, being wokeity, you know, or attempting to be you know, like, the ship can still go left. It's like everybody's gonna need therapy. Period. It could. But at the same time, because you life, life goes left, right you therapy, Yeah, you can't. You're still a good daughter. But you're still a good daughter. Sometimes that's okay. Sometimes you know, I still you know, I still struggle with some things, you know, like I told you guys like my mom really stopped working it when I was fourteen, and it forced need to be an adult. It forced me to go to work and pay bills and figure stuff out. And that I that's probably why I work so much, probably why I have so many jobs. But what I the difference I'll say with my kid is that I realized how important our quality time is and how is the little stuff is the walks, it's the you know, it's playing records in the library and you know, talking about music because that's what he loves to do, you know, so going places that he wants to go. That that's you know, a soul of balancing act. Really really, So let me ask you a question since you're further down the parenting assembly lined in me. I have a similar outlook on work so my father. In times where my parents were arguing about money, I chose to work because I didn't want to be the child to bug them for ten dollars for the field trip or the thirty dollars for the Nintendo tape or whatever. So so I started working at fourteen. I would rake yards around the neighborhood ten dollars front yard, fifteen front and back. And that rolled into selling sodas at at Alabama games and basking Robbins and Subway, and I worked at like just always two jobs while still going to class and to the point where my mom would kind of give me a little bit of ease on being a C student. Then when my pop stopped my seeing my dad was one of them. My my daddy was so black. He didn't pay taxes because the black man didn't have a right to vote. That was going to expire whatever whatever. So my daddy said and tell us a law, I'm not paying taxes. So when my daddy died, the I R S said, we're gonna need his house. We're gonna need to get all them cars, right, give them cars about it. So I had to work to help my mom the lights on my senior year. So when I started doing stand up, I knew what it was like like. Being broke didn't scare me anymore because I had been without and I knew how to hustle. So that was always the constant thing, like even now to this day, when the pandemic hit. Yeah, I'm on the Daily Show, but oh ship, you're telling me there's a world out there where comedy clubs could be no longer exist. I bet I'm gonna get this our special together. I'm gonna start to fucking podcasts. I'm gonna sucking sell two shows. I'm a right like, my brain just started fucking going dog. And now I have this child, and I have to decide how do you teach it? Because the thing that you can't teach my I got to give credit to my homie Tommy John again for this. How do you teach poverty to a child that doesn't grow up in it? How do you give them that hunger? Because I don't know if I want my kids to work, but I know that part of my values and part of my character came from working. It's also the only time you get to be around adults who don't have governance over you, So you get to interact with with grown folks and really see how the world. Like I really think everybody should work in a restaurant. At some point you seventeen, you're working with thirty eight year old men and veterans and old pie It's just every possible type of person you'll meet in this world comes through a restaurant. And so I don't know how to put that in my boy without it being something that feels forced or whatever. Like, you know, how do you teach them the value of work but not want them to become a workaholic. I can give you this one perspective. I'm sure Asia has six. Uh, I can give you this one. I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned this on the podcast at least once before, but I think it's a really good choice to use your fuse box. That's exactly what it is. To use that. When you're going to leave, and you're son knows that you're gonna leave, and he doesn't want you to, You're gonna have to make a hard choice and don't leave. I know, don't leave or turn that fuse box off everything except your refrigerator because you don't want your food to go bad and spend the day with no electricity whatsoever. And when it's time to eat, you eat cold sandwiches. When it's time to watch a movie, you get already for it, but the TV doesn't work. If he wants to play a video game or something, so get all ready for it, but the t but it doesn't come on. By the time the end of the night was up, and it was candles everywhere. My son, you know, he said, Mommy, we can't the pool is cold, the TV doesn't work. We we ate sandwiches for dinner. You know why why can't we do the stuff that we like to do. I said, well, mommy doesn't work, I can't pay for electricity. I like that when you make it tangible for them, they can understand that one thing begat to another. And when I work, I can buy you clothes. I can buy your shoes. I could take you to the places. I could do the things when I don't, I can't. It made it really tangible for him. And he asked me to go to work tomorrow. Can you go to work tomorrow, Maria, Yes, I can, Yes, I can. So do you what you want him to work? If he came home and said I had a job, yes, well that's a whole conversation because we we talked about poop putts and that is that is like a great fear for I think for a lot of black women, black man. If you do not want your shall your your son to grow up to be a pool putt leaving on the you know, sleeping in the basement, talking about kennis girl, spending night you know, come on, I borrow the car all that ship? Do? You don't want that? You want someone to who you know, supposed to raise these people so they could fly, you know, and be self sufficient and have a desire for some thing that can afford them the kind of lifestyle that they want to have to wait and most most of us want electricity. Yeah, I mean so a j k. You answered, I'm curious because there's a part of the Roy's question about not becoming a workaholic. So how do you because because jil you got the beginning of the question, but then the other part, like the workaholic part, how do you do that? Well, I mean, if you really want me to be honest, I mean my kids, my kids experienced that light situation and it wasn't a joke, so, you know, not not specifically the lights, but like when certain things couldn't happen because because there was a big recession that happened before before right before Obama came into office, we did not work for four months and I was pregnant at the time, so there was a lot of we can't do that, this can't happen because mom and dad would typically be on the road and we are not so certain things that would happen, those things couldn't happen. So my older children experience that in real time what it's like to have parents in the entertainment industry, but also understand that that's a real job, and that that job is not just because you see your parents on TV or you see X, Y and Z doesn't mean that they don't have bills or they don't have like a real life that's supported by real, actual action work work. And so they experienced that early on. It. So you see the difference in my younger children as opposed to my older children. All my older children worked in high school. All of them worked. They all had jobs. I have a senior right now who who works. Um, they all understand this because they wanted to get jobs for the very reason you wanted to get a job. It's like, my parents have six kids, they have multiple businesses. I don't want to have to come to my parents every time I want to go hang out with my friends, or every time I want a pair of sneakers, or every time I want something to X, Y and Z. But what that, what what happens is why communicateation is so important, is that you don't want them deciding the reason in their mind based on your circumstances that you haven't communicated, because what that causes is that then they start to believe something that might not really be true. I don't want to bother my parents because they can't afford it. Well, how the funk you know I can't afford it. I can. I might be able to, but you're you're you're creating a pathology and your probably you know, you're creating something in yourself that's not necessary. So that's why the communication between parent and child is so important, and the way that you talk about your professional life and the way you talk about adulting even with your young children, so that their perception is not always the perception of a child. So let's keep it real. Things you perceived as a child, you take them into your adulthood, and those are the way you perceive them as an adult. You carry a child's perception into your adulthood, and then it then dictates how you adult. Jesus. So I want my children to understand how to take their child perspective and the reality and create something that they can then use to anchor how they live their lives. Well, I have to say that. You know, we talk about this to it. You know, my kid and I we grew up in total different ways, so it's important for me. Like I grew up in a row home with one bathroom and Jed has never had a house or lived in the house with one bathroom. So I feel like we don't we can't relate in these areas like you had to, you know, go after Uncle Dave. You know, if he doesn't smell to join up. You know, you had to. You had to deal with people and and live with people and be patient and figure out other ways. You know, Grandma had the pea bucket. You know, you gotta make it work. And he doesn't. He doesn't relate to me in that way. So it's important for me to say no sometimes. You know, I figure out when you know, when's the right time to say. But I have to say no sometimes, not because because I can't do it. Because if you can't have everything, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That's this real life. You can't have everything all the time. Dog, And I love you enough to try to prepare you for the nose. What you're gonna do. You're gonna have a tantrum. You're gonna fall out, You're gonna be mad. How are you gonna deal with nor something else? Homi? I love you, don't be corny and don't be no damn, but I can't. Let's figure we have to serious for me, Like I have to figure out another way. If you want the thing, then here's the job that you have to do in order to get the thing. I'm required to take care of your needs. I'm not required to get it all you want? Nice? Love you, legal with him. We'll be back after the break. Is this the first time we did What's on your heart? And we don't even Nope, not at all. We just pulled down at all. This this damno episode is a what's on your heart? Right now? Since we are here and we've been having this awesome conversation, Roy Wood Jr. What's on your heart? I would say the importance of going to therapy. I have enjoyed it. Uh, how do you know when you have anxiety or you just don't like being around my fus no more? What's the difference the difference in that? Because I'm starting there and I don't know if it's COVID paranoia or if it's or if just being locked up for a year just made me not like anything more than thirty people. I just get and you've been talking a lot, Like how about this, You've been talking a lot this year. Sometimes you just don't feel like talking on your regular time, Like I'm like talking to podcasts. That's a lot staying in those days with a microphone, comedy show talking commentary. Um, yeah, that's that's been on my heart. I mean, definitely figuring out how to fucking raise this child, Like I get something I'm trying to do, Like I'm trying to prepare them for the police conduct conversation. You know, he's five, he's five. I think I saw seven year old arrested and a six year old was handcuffed in the last year, so I know that that is inevitable fing But for now, what I tried to do is teach him. Dogs are like people in the sense that they are unpredictable and many are friendly, but if you do it right, you can guess which way their emotions are going. So in teaching him how to read dogs, I'm hopefully teaching him how to move around people that he's unsure of, you know what I mean? And that goes you know, it's bigger than the police, but it starts with the police as far as I'm concerned. But just in terms of hey, man, move slow, no crazy movements, no loud noises, you know, like just anytime, like I haven't been in some weird situations, you know, when when with a gun, sometimes poliee, sometimes not police, but they had a gun and that was enough for you. You have my undivided attention and figuring out how to move safely through those spaces. So that's probably the biggest thing that's on my mind. And if there's anything that detaches me from moments with him that are pure and in the present, it's knowing how finite they are, and just you know, well, this ship is gonna be over not too three y. Nobody's gonna see him as this young cute kid any more. They're gonna see him as a young shoplifter. So let me going in and preprell don't don't touch stuff in the store. Dog. And it's like giving him the confidence of a king, but also knowing how to move around people who don't see him as such and not losing his confidence. You know, I don't want him to think he's a poop put but you need to know how to move around my fucker's I think you are right that that that storm constantly festers off the coast of my consciousness. It hasn't reached shore yet, but mhm, we do best we can about it. Well. As a as a black woman who has had this conversation with both her sons, her twenty two year old son and I have an eleven year old who just crossed over from that cute being like a fourth thread right from qute to threat. I will say this that the conversation that I had with my eleven year old is very different from the one I had with his brother. My experience with his brother was Tradmon Martin, but my experience with my eleven year old was Tummy and Rice. And so the level of fear and what it is that fueled the conversation with him was just from different circumstances. So with my little one, what I try to explain to him was this, there are just ways of you just being. You exist and you're and you're okay to exist in whatever way you feel that you want to exist, or what you have to understand is that just existing normal things that you would do normal things, cry, get upset, misunderstand do anything that those things can be misconstrued because of the way other people are taught. So you have to understand there's no way you cannot exist, there's no way. You just have to be aware of the way your existence is viewed by other people and how they do things and how they decide to do things. And it's just it's a very unfair, horrible conversation that we should never have to have with our sons, or our daughters for that matter, because I had the same versation with my daughters. I want to make that clear that girls get attacked by police too, but that the thing is that helping them to understand that balance is really damn near impossible because this is a toxic situation. Your child should not be able to manage it. That's the fact. That's the fact. Your child should not be able to have to manage this. And so the more that they understand it it's outside of them, I think, the better they can handle it, the more that they understand that, yes, there's some things that you could do that might make the situation turn a certain way, but you need to understand this is way outside of you. It's so way outside of you that really you could act a hundred percent perfect and this could still happen. Yep, you h h. In the meantime, we get to play catch straight and you get to tickle and giggle and have and be silly and make real cheese sandwiches and because they're funds. Miss it. I miss him, He's I missed him. He's like, I really I really funk with Jet, Like I really fun with him, Like I like that kid. I love him absolutely, but I like him. He's cool, he's dope. Yeah. I think that's that's one of the goals too, to have a kid that you actually like. Yeah, yeah, that other people that you love like too, you know. Yeah, he got a good village Roy's he's very considerate. Yeah yeah, you know. And that's that's the other thing that I think that he has that I didn't have growing upside, you know, my girl side, her whole family, these new girls zoom call every Sunday like this love. Yeah, people on a call, all but four people in each twenty boxes for three people in each box. They were you want to give him some of his love coming off the side, Like he gets a level of joy and togetherness that I never experienced just because you know, my mom's side, we were all close, but everybody was just just do another ship and you didn't have the gifted technology either to bring it together every way. You know that we three way just got invented in the eighties. Like he was doing good to get four people on a call. So yeah, he he has a good village. He definitely has a good village. And I'm just I'm blessed that there's enough people around when I'm not around, because because the challenge as a parent is how how do you remain present and also provide, you know, and COVID gave us, you know, the gifts to be at home over but you know now it's trying to get back out on this road. That's why I'm trying to write more so I don't have to like go out like that and I don't want to be on the road forty weeks a year. I say it again, it's coming back to you, Roy, but I'm gonna tell you because you're here, so I gotta share it with you. This is my belief. I could be wrong, but this is what I truly, truly believe about life. The twenties are for working hard, the thirties are for working smart, the forties are for working how you want to, The fifties are for working when you want to, and the sixties are for working if you want to. I think it's a it's a good manual for exist like that. I like that. Yeah, well, well I'm definitely getting into how I'm definitely I'm gonna say, what's your ultimate? Roy Like, what you what do you? What do you wanted? What do you want? What's your ultimate? I don't know. Man, I'm driving in Fall. I've been driving in Fall since now. It just seemed like whatever you want thing. It just you know, it just seems like I never had plans beyond two to three years strategic, you know where, Like I'm just to a point where I feel like I have like a five year Like, Okay, if I can get this show in this show greenlit, then I can turn into a studio deal and then I can create more content and get these other people on. But like ideally to build a production house and get more content started. The pipe Dream. Pipe Dream is a film and television production studio in Birmingham, maybe Huntsville, but there's so many hurdles. There's a lot of political hurdles to getting film and television advanced in the state of Alabama. But the only way that's going to happen is if you have good content to be created in that region. And the only people that are going to create content in that region are people that are of that region. And there ain't many people of Alabama that have enough power to get anything greenlit. So whether I want to or not, it's on me because nobody else is gonna fucking do it. And like there's a couple of people, like when I Comedy Central gave me a pilot in Jefferson County Probation, where I played a probation officer, which is loosely based on my situation when I was nineteen, I got popped for stealing some credit cards and so I had a probation officer that was Hella, just Hella nice and letting me travel and still do stand up during that time. And that's not the norm. In fact, it's not even it's against the rules truth be told. So it was just a show reimagining, like like when you look at the way crime is portrayed in television, right to catch the criminal. It's a courtroom show to send the criminal jail, or it's the criminal in jail, like those are the three those are the three aspects of crime. There's never any discussion or exploration on restorative justice or what restitution looks like and what that journey is back into society for said criminal. So it's it's a show that's got some some layers of you know, my own woke it he woke if you will. But to be able to a shot that in Alabama was a blessing, Like that's a fucking hell, Mary from your own ten yard line, and we got that bitch green lit and we got it shot and we hired again. It showed me what's possible in the state Alabama. And so that's that hasn't left my mind. Wood Jr. I like to save people whole man, friend, I know we just met, but to run try to me for yeah, man, from from from my perspective, peers that one thing begets another in your life pretty obviously from your parenting, from your parents and who they were to who you are now, how you're trying to raise your son. Um, you're the jobs that you've created at the jobs that you've had the fact that you still have this deep appreciation and respect for where you come from. All of those things. You have to just start seeing it. Go take little trips, look on Zello all the time, you know, and look at buildings that are available or land that's available. Uh, start talking about it more and more. Draw you all your ideas out, and truly, sincerely, it will come into fruition. That's not a myth. That's not you know. I'm not trying to sell your pipe dream. I know I'm smiling, but I smile alt. I'm just saying. I'm just saying I will be very very happy to visit your studio and hopefully you will give me a job. As a job, I also use a job as well. I have six children. Yeah, and I'll just tell you somebody shows I created to them a production. Let's just go. I'm like, we all look and Danzler is an excellent writer as well as St. Clair. No. I was gonna say, bring them kids on set. We'll put them in work. They will take you up on that. They will take you up on that job. They like jobs. That's what I'm trying to tell you. That's what I'm trying to told you gotta show them better than that. But yeah, man, I've really enjoyed this conversation. Sorry, as we appreciate this was this was dope, man. This is this y'all. Y'all all right man, it's a good time see friends and family out here in this world. Thank you so much for listening to Jay dot Il the Podcast. Definitely appreciate you and the opportunity to share stories. That's our conversation as well as inspiration. That's our should. Love you so much. Talk to you later. Hi, if you have comments on something we said in this episode called eight six six, Hey, Jill, if you want to add to this conversation that's eight six six nine five four five five, don't forget to tell us your name and the episode you're referring to. You might just hear your message on a future episode. Thank you for listening to Jill Scott Presents Jay dot Il the Podcast. This podcast is hosted by Jill Scott, Laya st Clair, and Age grad and Danceller. It's executive producers are Jill Scott, Shawn g and Brian Calhoun's produced by Lawya st Clair and me Eves, Jeff Coke, the editing and sound design for this episode we're done by Christina Larenger. I also notified Roy that he has to be a special type of man to be invited to this podcast, Black women and respect black women and Black women women. As a man that was birthed by black women, do y'all holds that voice? I love it. J dot Ill is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.