Reflections on Friendship, Parenthood, and Life’s Changes

In this heartfelt episode of The Unhinged Father, host Robbie dives into the bittersweet evolution of friendships as we grow older. Kicking things off with a hilarious (and slightly gross) parenting story featuring his two-year-old’s sass and a surprising request, Robbie transitions into a deeper exploration of how life changes—marriage, kids, careers—make maintaining old friendships challenging.

Through candid anecdotes, including the impact of a friend’s tragic passing and the lessons learned from those connections, Robbie reflects on how friendships shape us. He shares his thoughts on navigating the complexities of building new relationships as an adult, coping with the natural fading of some bonds, and finding gratitude for the moments that once were.

If you’re a parent, someone juggling the demands of adulthood, or simply reflecting on your own friendships, this episode will resonate with you. Tune in for humor, vulnerability, and a reminder to cherish the people who’ve helped you grow.

Keywords: parenting stories, adult friendships, maintaining friendships as a parent, reflections on friendship, parenting humor, losing a friend, navigating adult relationships, parenting challenges, personal growth, gratitude.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and humorous parenting story
• 11:39 Reflections of friendship and loss
• 18:21 The importance of friendship and moving forward

Transcript

Robbie (00:01)
All right, everyone, welcome to the show. Hope you all having a fantastic day so far, great week, an amazing start to 2025. I hope that the year is treating you well and that you're just, know, 2025 and thriving. Got a good episode planned out for you today. Like I said, I wanted to start planning these out a little bit more and having a little bit more structure to them. So I tried to do that. So that way it's not an endless stream of consciousness, but this episode is going to be a little bit more of a reflective one. It's not.

anything that has to do directly with becoming a parent, but something that I've kind of noticed as I've gotten older now at the ripe old age of 37, oldest shit, it's just something that has really been front and center for my life. but because it's going to be a little bit more of a reflective episode, I wanted to start off with a little bit of a humorous story trigger warning. It does have to do with poop kids, stuff like that. So if you don't want to listen to that, just

cut the next minute, minute and a half out. But a little bit of a background for this is that my youngest son, two years old, he's really big into if he gets hurt right now, asking me to kiss it. To kiss his, know, bumps his head, can kiss it and make it feel better. You know, bumps his arm, kiss it and make it feel better. And he'll ask for that, he'll say kiss it. And so the other day, somehow, I don't know how, because the kid eats.

a shit ton of berries and applesauce and that's pretty much his entire diet is fruit, applesauce, sometimes macaroni and cheese and peanut butter and jelly. But he got a little constipated and once we were able to get past that constipation, he just let all of the, you know, a couple days of backlog he had out. And if you've got kids and you know that they, you know, they go poop.

and you don't clean it right away or if they're they sit in it for just like a little bit or if they're just constantly going poop it can get a little aggravated down there because they're in diapers. So that happened. He got pretty bad diaper rash and instead of getting it you know on his normal you know on the b-hole area he got diaper rash on his balls real bad super inflamed didn't look like it felt very good felt really bad for him so I went in there I was changing him wiping it

He's kind of whining and crying and it hurts. And so I start, getting them all squared away. Aquaphor, just a quick tip for anyone out there. I know they sell diaper cream, but the best for diaper rash, Aquaphor works all the time. It's like Sex Panther for diaper rash, basically. 60 % of the time, it works every time. Anyways, I'm getting all done with that. And I shit you not, this kid looks me square in the eyes with his, legs.

splayed out and he just says it hurts and then he says kiss it exactly like that just with all of the sass and attitude that you can possibly think of he just says kiss it and I'm like I'm sorry bud but that's where your dad draws the line no kissing not gonna kiss that boo-boo all right so it was pretty funny I told my wife that story and it was

absolutely hilarious just the amount of sass that he had in it and the way that he said it. But yeah, that's that's what you get when you're a parent. You get these kids say the darndest things type of moments and they are disgusting little poop throw up virus monsters that are constantly getting sick have boogers all the time. And yeah, they're just a lot of fun. And I absolutely love being a parent.

I'm joking, I do love being a parent. There are a lot of good things, but these are the things that you deal with as a parent. Anyways, just wanted to get that quick little story out there, because I thought it was fucking hilarious. it was, you know, one that we'll have to tell when he's getting married someday.

Anyways, this week I wanted to talk a little bit about as we get older and friendships that we develop along the way and just the struggle to maintain friendships, especially when you do have kids. Like I said, this episode is indirectly about having children. I'm not gonna give you a bunch of tips except for the Aqua 4.1 that I gave you earlier. But as you get older in life, you change. Other people change. Priorities change and...

Life gets busy. Being an adult can be difficult. It's hard. got a lot of shit that you got to take care of and being a parent as well. You have little lives that rely on you. If you have dogs or if you have pets or anything like that, you've got a job. There's so many things that come into play as you're getting older and maintaining friendships is one that typically takes a back seat, especially if you are a relatively responsible individual like I am.

It's also harder to make friends when you get older. When I was in high school, it was super easy to make friends. played football, wrestled. I was in different classes with people. Friends just kind of fell into my lap. When I was in college, same thing, you know, worked at the recreation center where I went to college and lived in a frat senior house my senior year, even though I wasn't in the fraternity. And it just seemed like it was so easy to make friends, good friends, people that I still stay in contact with to this day.

But as I've gotten older, it's been really difficult to make new friends. Part of it could be that you don't necessarily live next to everyone. When I was in college, I lived so close to all of the people that I worked with and went to school with. We were just a couple of blocks down the street. could get skateboard over to their house, play beer pong, play snappa. And it was just, it was a lot easier as I've gotten older, man, getting new friends is hard, especially now in this very polarized world.

It's almost like you have to fit into a certain box in order to be friends with people. And if you don't meet every single criteria, they're like, fuck you. I don't want to be your friend. I don't want to be friendly with you. And it's, it's difficult. It makes it hard because we are social creatures and it seems like we're getting further and further away from like real life socialization and more and more into this virtual world socialization, which I'm too old and too much of a cranky old grump to, really want to.

to dive into the metaverse and make my avatar and start hanging out in bars and go to concerts and shit like that virtually.

Anyways, these friendships that we have, as you get older, you move away, we all left college, we went to different parts of the state, some of us went to different parts of the country, and as much as we tried to keep our friendships alive and to do reunions and stuff like that, I'm now past 10 years out of college, and it's been really difficult to keep up with everyone, and I try as hard as I can.

And sometimes it makes me sad. reflect back and look at some of the friendships that I had and feel like some of those have quote unquote died or that, you know, I didn't do enough to keep them, keep them going or that we've just fallen so far apart that it's something that is like, look at it almost as a negative. And as I've getting older and moving forward within my life and having my kids, I've just been reflecting on

in all reality that friendships come and go in our lives and that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing when they go or when they fade away. The friends that I had and the friendships that I developed throughout my life were there for a reason and they were the friends that I needed in that moment. The friends that I needed to have in my life in that moment that I needed to develop the people that I needed to have around me.

They were there. They were there. They helped develop me. They helped build me. They made things great. Sometimes I made things fucking hard, but they were always there. And I'm eternally grateful to the friendships that I had during those times, during high school, during college. They helped me become the person that I am today. And even though I wish, part of me wishes that I could go back and still be as close to all of them as I was before and that we can just, know, skateboard down the street.

play some beer pong, go to Giovanni's, grab beers on Friday paydays. There's a reason why we can't do that anymore. Most of us have grown up, have gotten married, have significant others, have kids now. And that's not to say that you can't still stay close with them and have your families grow up, but it's very difficult when you live in, you know, hundreds of miles away. And so those, those friendships, it's, it's natural for them to.

not necessarily be as strong as they once were when you were younger, when you had them. And it's not something that you need to get down on yourself or get down on other people for. I'm looking at it in a little bit of a different perspective that I'm grateful for that time that I had. And I'm appreciative of that time that I had. I wouldn't trade anything for those friends that I had during my younger years. And...

Who knows, there might be a time in my life where I'm able to rekindle those friendships, where maybe I live a little bit closer to them or they live closer to me or even if they don't, that we make an effort together to get our families together and to hang out and to have a reunion. That's all within the realm of possibilities. But even if it doesn't happen, even if that doesn't happen and I'm never as close to some of my best friends, people that I would have called my best friends at that time.

even if that never happens, I'm still appreciative for them and for what they were to me and hopefully for what I was to them during our formative years as we were growing up.

And this isn't to say that you should just completely give up on having friends or give up on staying in contact with your friends. If you're able to do it, that's awesome. That's great. You should do that. I still have friends that I call and text and do all that stuff, but it's really, it's not what it used to be. And that's okay. Life changes. And I guess why I'm having this episode is because you shouldn't feel guilty if...

you're unable to keep friendships going the way that they were when you were younger. You should try as hard as you can because those people can be a real benefit to you and those people can be there for you when you're sad, if you don't have anyone else to talk to or you just wanna go out and have fun. There's so many things that friends can do for you and I have done a piss poor job in certain areas of my life keeping those friendships going but at the same time it's

It's difficult. It's hard to do that when you live so far away from all of the people that were that were that close to you. I'm saying all of this to be appreciative of the friends that I had of the friendships that I had of the way that they helped me grow and help become the person that I am become the husband that I am become the father that I am become the hopefully a friend to other people that I am right now.

they helped develop me into that. And I'm thankful for them. I'm thankful that I had all of those people in my lives. And I'm hopeful that in the future when things are a little bit less chaotic and we're all done having newborns and toddlers and five and six year olds that think that they're 13, once that time is done, hopefully we can reconnect that we can have those reunions that I can get some of those aspects of that.

those friendships back.

And some of this came up because I recently was thinking about a friend of mine that unfortunately passed away shortly after college. He was one of my best friends and it was a difficult time for me. And this came up the other day because I heard his name. My son is now going to school and has friends that, know, a bunch of different kids that are in his class and

He's getting new friends and different names and all that stuff and making friends with different parents, but I lost a friend. It's been, what?

over 13, 14 years now since he's passed away.

And our story was funny. He really did help. He really, in particular, helped me become the person that I am today. We started off working for the Recsen. Shout out Recsen friends, if any of you are listening to this.

But we started working there together and me and him both had wrestling bitch face and people thought we were related because we always looked so angry and had a little bit of a reddish tint to our skin and.

We moved past that. And once we were able to get past our egos and our bravado and our macho selves, it was great. He was a great friend. And we were friends for his entire time in school with me. He was a year older than me, so he graduated one year early.

And then he moved up to Northern California, which I ended up moving up here as well. And so we were able to see each other after college. And, you know, one of the things that he did was he helped me propose to my wife. He helped set up the wine tour, bike tour that I did. And he got it all squared away. He was the first, he was the first person to know that I was going to propose to my wife, actually the only person that knew I was going to propose to my wife prior to me actually doing it.

And then he was the first person that we saw once she said yes, which of course she said yes. How could you not say yes to this?

And I just realized that the light behind me fucking went out. So should have done a better job of charging that, but that's what you get with a low budget production like I've got. I will go ahead and fire that person on my team. I'll make a note to fire the imaginary stage prop person.

And then of course there's gonna be some gardeners doing some work now outside my window. But that's just another day here on the tough set. Anyhoo, he was the first person that knew that we got proposed, that I was gonna propose to my wife. First person that we saw after I proposed her and he was gonna be one of my groomsmen. And unfortunately there was an accident and he passed away.

Just a few months before I got married and it was it was devastating. It was one of the hardest times in my life I went through some real dark shitty times and I look back I look back now And can think about the person I used to be and now the person that I am now especially with like my wife and taking responsibilities for things and just being a more mindful person and

I went through a difficult time when he passed away and that forced me to become the type of person that I am now. And you know, I still miss my friend. I wish I could say that I miss my friend every day, but I've gotten so busy and it's been so long that unfortunately I don't think about him every day anymore. There was a time years, years I would think about him every day. And now, you know, I'll think about him.

and not like occasionally he comes across my mind still pretty regularly but I'm just grateful for the time that I had with him with my friend Jack and

I'm glad that he was a part of my life and that I got to call him my friend and that he helped me in so many different ways and helped me propose my wife, helped me get married to her basically. He helped make me the person that I am today and I'm very appreciative of that. And that's just more of a, I don't know, a personal story about friendship, loss and

really kind of wrapping all of this stuff up is that...

even though I don't have my friend Jack around anymore and that that friendship isn't here anymore. He shaped who I am and my friends from college, they shaped who I am too. I'm still deeply appreciative of all of them and like I said, I hope that in the future

I can get to hang out with them again, that we can recapture some of the old times that we had, or even if we're not recapturing some of the old times, that we're able to build new memories, new relationships, and kind of forge forward with new friendships, with the same people. A new type of friendship as opposed to what we had before. It's hard to let go of what was in the past.

We're all different people now. Some of us think different ideologically. We don't see eye to eye on everything. And like I said before, this new world where everything is so polarized and everyone's got such a fucking big opinion on everything, myself included, I've got obviously big opinions and I've got a lot of thoughts and feelings. But that being said, I don't wanna get to a point where I hold that against the people that meant so much to me.

things will have to change. We'll never be the same as we were in the past. Our friendships will never be the same. They're still evolving. But I'm hopeful that

I can rekindle some of those friendships and develop them into a new type of friendship moving forward. And that being said too, I need to start branching out and try and make friends other places. I'm a relatively friendly guy and somewhat fun to be around, I guess, once in a while. So I do think that I've almost become, if you're a family person like me or if you've got a family,

I can sometimes use that as an excuse to not branch out and to not go meet other people, to not go do things. And yeah, that's just something that I need to focus on. I don't know if there's like a true message to this or if this was just me hashing out some thoughts I had about friendships and developing friendships and past friendships and just all of that stuff. As much as I said that I...

I'm trying to plan out these episodes more. It sounds like this one was probably just more so me rambling more than anything else. And that's okay. I think that eventually I'll be able to hash some of this stuff out more. But if I were to have a message in this, it's that friendship is important. Even as you get older, it's important to try and...

develop friendships and to still have them there, but to also give yourself some grace that friendships are going to come and go in your life. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Those people are there for the time that they are. And they're there for a reason. They're, they're exactly what you need them to be in that moment. And they help you develop into the person that you're going to be. I need to focus a little bit more on allowing myself to have friends and to contact, you know, get in contact with them, to allow myself to go and hang out with them.

not feel like I always have to just be tied to my family, doing everything for them, which I'm at a point in my life where I have to do that a lot of the time. My family relies on me a lot and I'm responsible for that. So eventually, hopefully that loosens up a little bit. My kids will get older. They can do stuff on their own and they won't always rely on me to wipe their ass and make sure that they've got food on the table and stuff like that. But I'm just appreciative of everyone.

that was my friend as I grew up through high school, through college, rec then frat that I wasn't in college and even the people that I've met outside of college. There hasn't been a ton of people that have gotten really close to me, but anyone that I've had as a friend along the way, I'm very appreciative of you and the impact you've had on my life. And I'm hoping that I can make this a little bit more of a focus in 2025.

of trying to develop friendships, be appreciative of them, and try to push them forward. But I think that that's gonna be, that's gonna be it for this week's episode. My mouth is really dry. Like I said, the light went out behind me, it was blue. Now it's not blue anymore. I'm just gonna have to go and fire my production crew, because they are absolutely terrible. Let me just write that down. Robbie, you are fired from production. That's gonna be it, though.

I hope everyone has a fantastic rest of the day, fantastic rest of the week. Thanks for listening and yeah, we'll see y'all next week.