episode3

In this podcast episode, the host talks about how parenting has changed compared to how they were raised. They discuss how kids nowadays give feedback and don't want to do things, which they find baffling because they would never have talked back to their parents like that. They also reflect on the freedom they had as kids to play outside without adult supervision, unlike today's kids who have more restrictions and fears for their safety. The host shares memories of playing outside all day with cousins and the community rule of coming home when the streetlights came on. They mention the increase in fear and dangers that have led to more cautious parenting. The host hopes that the values they instilled in their own children will stay with them as they grow older. Hello and welcome to my podcast, I Survive a Chagla, hosted by Nia Stewarty, Caramella. I hope everyone is doing well. I hope everyone is having a great week and has not had to choke any holes this week. Now, that shit can be draining. So, welcome to episode three of I Survive a Chagla. Thank you for listening to my episode, I really appreciate it. Just a few reminders, um, I will be dropping an episode every Friday, so be on the lookout for that. Every Friday on Amazon, Spotify, and soon it will be Amazon, I mean not Apple, and YouTube. I'm currently working on that now. It's a one-man show, so I gotta do everything, so it's a little bit tight. Again, you can reach me at ChaglaSurvivor on Facebook, ChaglaSurvivor on Facebook, C-H-A-M-C-L-A-Survivor. Leave me a message, you can drop me some feedback on the show, um, if there's something you can relate to, feel free to drop by and give me a message or something. Also, you can, um, send your nosy neighbor stories, um, you can send them there and I'll read them on the show. So, if you have a story about an interaction with a crazy-ass neighbor, or just a crazy-ass period, feel free to send it in and I will play it. I will put it on the show. So, this heat is disappearing. I am really grateful that it's not that hot no more, because god damn, it was too hot. Okay. At the end of my show, I will have a segment that's called Nosy Neighbor. Hi, I'm your nosy neighbor, where I will share a story about one of my neighbors. I have plenty of them, so stay tuned to the end so you can hear the stories. Oh my god, so yeah, just check it out. Have you ever thought, or have you ever noticed that the parenting has changed since back in the day? Maybe like our parents? It is so different that it still baffles me. There are times that I will tell my kids to do something, and they are literally giving me feedback. They are literally telling me they don't want to do it. But they are letting me know that they don't like it. Okay, I would have never in a million years would have thought to say something like that to my mom. No, it just didn't happen. We did not say shit like that. These kids too, they are a different breed. They are a different breed. How I was brought up? With all this freedom to roam the neighborhood and play hide and seek and play whatever game we were playing that day. It was the whole neighborhood. We would go outside in the morning all day. The only time we came in was to eat because grandma had a manguero, so we drank from there. And it was cool because it was like a tight knit of my cousins that we used to hang out and play and stuff. Now, not only because family members don't speak to each other, but these kids are not able to experience the same things that I did. And it kind of hurts me. It really does because I would want them to experience having cousins and all that stuff because I grew up with that. But unfortunately, it wasn't like that for them. And they are just like my kids. They don't have grandparents, so they didn't get to experience their grandparents. They had my mom for a little bit, but they didn't. Just a little one. They don't get to experience grandma and grandma, grandma and grandpa. They don't get to experience it. I mean, I did. I grew up with my grandma. I don't say enough for her. I'm dating. I was at her house all the time. I'd go eat, whatever it was, when I was with my grandma. Do you remember when they would let you out to play and you had to come home when the streetlights came on? That was like a community notice when the lights came on. Kids would scatter like roaches and they were gone. They were gone inside because everybody knew you headed home once the lights came on. It was just a rule that everybody knew and most of us obeyed it. There were some, you know, I'm pretty sure did not. But most of us obeyed it even though we didn't like it. My summers consisted of being outside, getting my scooter, riding my bike, going to the park, all without adult supervision. No adult supervision. My mom could not see me from her window. She could not see me, you know, through the door. I mean, by the door, I was gone, like out of sight. There wasn't so much fear in people, I guess. Like, fear of letting your kid go outside and play. Because now, if I send my kid out to go play, I'm like, you need to be where I can see you or I can hear you. That's pretty close. I just can't. I can't let my kid go, like, hey, cool. The neighbor going to ride your bike? Will not. There's so many things that could happen. I mean, it could have happened back then, too. I think now people are more ballsy. They're more ballsy. They'll kidnap kids during the day. There's online predators. There's just different ways now. It's not, like, physically getting the person or the kid or whatever. It's crazy. Like, with the school shooters. We never heard of a school shooter when we went to school. Did not. Did not. Because this shit did happen. Because if you were having thoughts of doing some stupid-ass shit, man, that child thought it would have got you out. Real motherfucking quick. Somebody would have got away from what, you know, somebody had planned. We get worried about school shooting. We had drills for tornadoes. And all we had was tornadoes and fire drills. All fires. The fire drills. That's all we had. Those two drills. Periodically, there was, you know, the bell would go blazing, and we had to leave the building. Or we had to get out of our desk, whatever. Whichever one it was that day. Yeah, it's not the same anymore. And with it being, not only the times changing, but like I said, people are getting more ballsy. And they're doing shit out in the open. And we just have to hope that we did right. We lurk it. I mean, we kind of fucked around and found out, right? On that one. They didn't come with instructions. And neither did I. So I'm pretty sure it drove my motherfucking crazy, man. They literally used to call me and my brother children of the corn. That's a whole group. There's only two. Like, they don't do some badass shit. I don't know. Like, when they used to have a quarter bike. You know, now they're saying that that builds resilience. For resilience. It builds character. Now, we're lucky. We knew where the fuck we were going. Because, like, now how the cities are, the towns are, there's no way. There's no way for them to go to the store and be like, we're not. Because you gotta cross a highway or under a bridge. There's no way. There's no fucking way. And it's crazy. It's crazy. Like, there's been times that I would tell my kid to do something. And they would come and do it the lazy ass way. Just do it real quick. Be gone. And then what happens? I gotta come back. And they're gonna be like, hey, can you do this again? Because, you know, you didn't do it or whatever, you know? I hate picking up messes. There's one solution. Don't make it. Because you are literally picking up your mess. You're not picking up my mess. You're not picking up anybody else's mess. But your own. So if you don't like it, then don't do it. Simple problem with the solution. Don't do it. Don't fucking leave your shoes on the floor if you don't want to pick them up later. Put them in the right spot the first time. That way you don't have to come back. Because, and I'm pretty sure I'm saying this wrong, but y'all gonna get it. El revol, siente la época de la revolución. Or something like that. Meaning that if you do it the lazy way, you're gonna have to come back and do it again. So, in other words, you might as well do it right the first time. To save you some time. But of course, as kids, we don't say that shit. What happened there? Whatever. You know, I was trying to do it fast so I could get out of here faster. Obviously, that didn't work. So, gotta come up with another one. And I would have never liked to tell my mom, like, I don't want to do this. Or, I think one time, she sent me to do the dishes. And I asked her, I was like, why can't you do it? Like, I mean, why can't you do the dishes? Man, my mom got a real quick and said, because I told you to do it. That's why. I'm like, dang, you're so mean. Like, God, you just told me whatever you want me to do. Like, I'm not your slave. Oh, because my mom, according to my head, in my head, my mom had me and my brother because she wanted slaves. She wanted slaves to clean her house and to do her chores. So, in my mind, that was my mom. Most of the time, my mom would do it just because it would get done right the first time. It makes you feel like, fuck a woman. Come on, do this, come do this, or whatever. I hated it when she called me, oh, my God, Carmen. And I'm like, yes, mom, can you give me a cup of ice water? Yes, mother. So, I'd go get her a cup of ice water, come back, give it to her. Can you turn on the cigarette for me? Yes, mother, I can. At 10 years old, I can turn on the cigarette for you. So, I'd go to the stove, put it on there, turn it on, take a cup of heat, and then I'd give the cigarette back to mom. She would be like, oh, that's smart. Well, mom, I mean, I don't know how to turn on the cigarette. So, stuff like that. If I were to tell the kids, you know what I'm saying? It wouldn't be right today. And it's like, you know, the smoking of the cars. They smoked in the cars back in the day. They had ashtrays in the cars. They had lighters. You'd push a little button, and then it would pop out whenever it would pop. And you grabbed it, and you put your cigarette on it, and it would turn on. It would turn on. It is like the times have made this a whole different experience with things changing. This is crazy. I am so tripped out. I just hope that the, you know, the morals and the values that we instilled in our kids, you know, stay with them for when they get older. Because half the shit that we told them, they don't believe us. They do not believe us until they see it happen in front of their eyes. Then, and only then, are they going to be like, ah, damn, my mom was right. 90% of the time, my mom was right. 90% of the time. So I would just be like, mom, you don't even know what you're talking about. Or you don't really know, mom, like, you think you know everything. She doesn't know everything. She knew when I would skip school, even when the school did not call her. Like, how the hell did you know? She'd be asking me, so how was school today? I'm like, it was good. So what did you learn? And the second question, I'm like, what the hell does she know? She knows something because she's crying. And I'm like, mom, it was fine, okay? And then she would be all quiet. I'm like, ah, she knows. She was like, so what are you going to tell me that you skipped today? Like, how did you skip? I don't know what you're talking about. I went to school on the bus. She was like, I went. I don't know what you're talking about. She was like, no, you didn't. I said I couldn't tell you anything else. And you paid me in roaches. The whole experience of living with so much freedom as a kid, it also made me realize that there is bad, that there are bad people out there. And it's just like when you associate a bad memory with a good memory, you don't want to, like, think about that good memory. All you can think about is a bad memory. But it's your childhood. Like, you want to remember your childhood. You want to remember some of the experience that you experienced. But you can't when it's tied to a bad memory, you know, a bad situation, a bad experience. And so you don't want to, like, really think about it because you don't want to think about it. But you want to be able to, like, talk about your, you know, just about your childhood. But you can't without that coming up. That's what I'm working on right now. Because I have so many bad-ass childhood memories. But also the bad shit that happened kind of overtakes it. And I've let it overtake it, overtake me, I guess. And so now is when I'm going to make these changes. Because, you know, I'm not perfect by any means. I'm not trying to play perfect at all. I do believe that I have made mistakes in the parenting department. I can only go from here forward. I can't go back and change the past. I know I did some fucked-up shit. You know, I wasn't in my right mind. I was in a bad place, you know. So I made poor choices, poor choices. I didn't have my priorities straight. And so now, now that I do my, the parenting, it's so, like, I guess I do gentle parenting. Like, I don't like to say it like that, but, like, bubble parenting. Bubble parenting or whatever. Like, now it's all about feelings. How do you feel? Are your feelings should be validated? You know, are your needs met? When the fuck did they ever ask us that? Nobody ever asked me, are your needs being met? Mm-mm. They didn't give a shit. But it was, you know, I believe that a lot of the arguments that I had with my mom about going to bed could have been easily resolved if I would have known now. If I would have known back then what I know now about Freddy Krueger, Chuck, Jason. When I would watch the movies, I was scared to shit. I thought Freddy Krueger was under the fucking couch, under my bed. I thought he was in my room, in my closet. Jason was there with him, too. Like, in my mind, Jason scared the shit out of me. So did Freddy Krueger. So when my mom would make me go to bed, she would make me go to bed and she would say, go to the room and lay down now. She had the door closed and the light off. And I would go in there and I was just laying down. There was like a sheet, like, dividing the room. And I remember I looked over there and I saw Freddy Krueger. I saw fucking Freddy Krueger on my brother's bed, laying, like, he was going to get my ass. Like, Freddy Krueger was there. I saw him. So, yeah, I went back out and I told my mom, yeah, this isn't going to work. I'm not going to be able to go to sleep in there because Freddy Krueger's in there and we're just not, mm-mm. And she was like, go lay down now. I wouldn't go back to the room. I was like, oh, my God, she is such a horrible mother. She's making me go sleep with Freddy Krueger. Like, I saw him on the bed. She was the worst mother ever. Like, in my mind, she could have never done anything worse. So she made me go to sleep in the room with Freddy Krueger and I cried my ass to sleep. I think she might have whooped my ass too one time because I kept going out there. And her famous saying is, can you hold me, calientita? Oh, you want to sleep? Oh, you want to go to sleep, calientita? Come here, mi hijita. And whooped my ass to the point where I was like, mm-mm, mm-mm. Remember those cries? Mm-mm, mm-mm, mm-mm. Catch your breath. I remember those. Anyway, so, yeah, I would end up having to go to bed in the room with Freddy Krueger. How dare she? If I went to those beds, what I do now, that whole ordeal did not have to happen. I did not have to get my acne. I did not have to, you know, cry at the store because Freddy Krueger was there. But I didn't. And Chucky, when we got there, man, I would not go to the fucking restroom without, like, all the lights in the house on on my way to the restroom. Every single light would be on. That was chicken shit, man. That was chicken shit. Fucking chicken shit. I was scared of everything. I was scared of my own fucking shadows. Literally, my own shadows. So I see my kids, you know, their interests are different. Obviously, than mine were. The kids, they have internet and all that shit. We didn't have no fucking internet. We had those highlight magazines. Remember those highlight ones? The ones where you find the missing picture and, you know, those shit, you know, were like $1.18 for 40 times that they were going to send it to you. I told you I didn't have that highlight. I know you did. You're sitting at the doctor's office doing it later. Like, okay, I've noticed. Now, you hear more about it. It's partly because there's more platforms for the news other than the 6 o'clock and 10 o'clock news, but you hear about these parents, like, really harming these kids, doing crazy shit, putting them in the oven, burning them, starving them to death. It's like if you don't love them, give them to somebody who will. So who does? I guarantee you there's people out there that cannot have babies that will easily take another one until the kid is. You know? It's sad that a kid has to pasar por eso. You know? It's sad. Just because the parent, you know, the parenting is like it's not solid like it used to be. You got these babies that are having babies. They don't know what they're doing. They don't even have a job. Some of them are not even with their significant others. So they're starting out as a single mom already. I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with the single mom. That's me all the way. But it's going to be hard. It's not easy. You know, because you're taking on two jobs. So, yeah, it's just like we grew up different. So everything is different. I just am still tripped out. You know, the people leaving their kids alone in their house. I found a video. They were like a 1-year-old and like a 3-year-old. And they were screaming, screaming. Somebody heard them. They were walking by. And the kid was inside. And they looked like they were moving. And it was just like the kids there. That was so crazy. I still don't understand how people can hurt kids, you know. It's like if you don't want to be a parent, then do something about it, you know. Protect yourself. I became a mom at a young age. I was 18. And even then, I can tell you that I was too young. Too young. Because I didn't have no foundation. And on top of that, I had, like, childhood trouble that wasn't, like, resolved or taken care of. So I had that on top of that. And so it didn't turn out too well. It took me down a dark road. And, you know, I believe that my choices made me a bad mom. I've apologized to my kids. I've done everything I can to make it right. I don't agree with the choices that I made back then. I don't agree with them. You know, like, I am the one that will take my responsibility. I will take it. Hey, I fucked up. Okay, whatever, you know. And I will talk to the people that it pertains to. You know, being a mom is not the easiest job in the world. Not anybody can do it. Or being a mom or a dad, it's easy, especially the single one. Because when you have a partner, it's so easy. Because if you can't do something, they can do it. You know, you bring them in, you make a plan or whatever, you know. And I believe that it's easier, smoother, and just easier when there's somebody else. My mom did the best that she could with what she had. She tried to give us stuff, you know, whenever she could. My mother struggled a lot. So, her parenting was kind of physical. Parenting was kind of limited. She still woke my ass up with the checkup. But because of her weight, she wasn't able to chase me down. So, she'd have my brother go chase me down. And she would tell him, if you whoop her ass, I'm going to whoop your ass. So, my brother would chase me down. And whenever he did, he would be like, I thought you're crazy. I thought you're crazy. So, I'd be like, no, no, no, no. He didn't. So, he wouldn't hit me. He would just say, I thought you're crazy. She wouldn't go too much to schools. To schools or like when I was in soccer, she wouldn't really. Because she didn't like to be around people. So, I grew up with not having a parent-teacher conference, school events. And all of a sudden, I noticed, that's me. I hate going to the school. I hate going to the school for whatever fucking reason. It's like, you have a kid, say, in first grade. And they're going to have first, second, and third grade seeing different kids. First, second, and then third. So, mind you, I don't even have a first grader. I don't have a second grader or a third grader. So, why do I have to stay until the end? Until the other two grades play? I don't get it. Like, I have to sit there and watch other kids that I don't know sing a song. Or whatever. Do play. Why? I don't want to. I have shit to do. Like, I have shit to do. That time, I had actually, we had a game. We had a game after it. I was a coach. So, I went and got my kid. I told the teacher that was in the hallway. I said, hey, this is my kid. He's in first grade. He just finished. I was like, we need to go. She was like, oh, no, ma'am. You can't take him. I was like, okay. I've got a team that's waiting for me. A community waiting for me. So, we can start the game. And if I'm not able to take my son right now, I said, y'all are going to have to find a ride. Y'all are going to have to find a way to take him home. Because I am a coach. I also have another responsibility. Not just a mom. So, she got all bad. She got all bad. And then, it's not the principal. Did I say to the principal, I'm like, hey, I have a soccer game that we have to go to late. I can't stay. I wish I could. But I can't. And I know I probably will. Parents. I don't care. I just don't want to watch other kids perform. Like, I don't. I'm not trying to demean or anything, but I don't care. I mean, I'll go watch my kids. Don't get me wrong. You don't root them and everything. But I don't even know anybody in those other grades. So, yeah. I wasn't too crazy about that. But. So, moral of the story is, I was brought up on some different shit. I was built different. I was made different. So, how I wanted my parenting techniques, my parenting techniques, to get from my mom to go on to my kids. There's some things that I feel that, you know, my mom would do and that I have carried on. But there's some other stuff that I wouldn't. For example, like hitting with the chalk dot. I really, man, I've used the chalk dot when I had to use it. And it's to get their attention. And they stopped doing what they were doing. So, I do believe it's an effective form of punishment. And, according to the internet, Mexicans, we tend to stick to a parenting style. Yeah. We tend to stick to a certain parenting style. More like tough love. Like, yeah, tough love. Like, you're going to learn today. Like, jump off that couch, and if you fall, that you won't get up there no more. That kind of shit. We didn't even think about, hey, this kid could hurt his, you know, they could break a bowl jumping or nothing. No. Do it again. See what happens. Do it again. See what happens. You know, and we learned. You learn from that shit. You fall first time, you ain't coming back. You ain't coming back to do it. But it was that type of parenting that made me who I guess, not made me who I am, but that made me realize that, okay, something needs to be changed at this moment. You know, because I loved the way I grew up. You know, no phones. No, there's no pictures of me fucking doing my dumb shit. None of that shit. No video, no nada. All we had was those damn voicemails that, I don't know how we got, but we would get in there, put your code in there, and then we would be leaving messages. Hey, this is so-and-so. Drop me your digits. I'll call you back whenever I can, or whatever. I don't know. And then you have the other one. They're like, hello? Hello? I can't hear you. Hello? I can't hear you. And then they have the phone. Hello? Hello? Hello? You can't hear me? Yeah. We used to do that kind of shit. So whenever you gave out your phone number, you gave out this voicemail number. Actually, that's how I met one of my baby daddy's. I'm putting such a step. I don't even think they exist anymore. Well, well, well. So now we know that parenting is not the same. And we have to handle it as such. Good luck with kids. And that's the end of my episode. Now it's time for Know the Neighbor. My story for my neighbor is going to be short and sweet. I ended up helping a neighbor that was fighting with his wife. And I knew the wife and the husband. Well, one night when I was laying down on my couch, all I heard was boom, boom, boom, boom. I go to the door and it's the guy. And he was like, hey, my wife, can I come in and just try to find a ride, get my shit together. And I was like, yeah, go ahead. So he went in. I went back on the couch and I laid down. Five minutes later, here comes the fucking police department. Boom, boom, boom. Open the door. Open the door. And I was like, no. And he was like, you don't have to open the door. You don't have to open the door. And the cops were like, open the door. We're going to have the manager, you know, come with a key or whatever. And I was like, that scared me. So I was like, no, I have to open the door. But when I opened the door, they, like, grabbed me and, like, pulled me out. And they took me downstairs and left me right there. And then they went into my house, guns drawn, everything. I was there by myself. Guns drawn and everything. I was like, what the fuck? And they're like, do you have a gun? Where's the gun? I was like, I don't have a gun. I didn't see a gun. And he was like, did he force himself into your house? Did he show you a gun when he was coming in? I was like, no. I didn't see a gun. There was no gun. I don't know what you're talking about. Well, they ransacked my house. Look at that fucking gun. And there was no gun. There was not a gun. Well, the wife lied about it. So, that's why they came in over here in my house. Well, they ended up taking me to jail for fucking tow-way tickets. For helping out a fucking neighbor. I went to jail for a tow-way ticket and a fucking son. So, they took me and him to jail. I'm not sure why they took him. But they took both of us to jail. I hear him in the jail. He's over there in the old cell. And he got yelling, crazy motherfucker, you gotta have the right to do that. I could have buried this fool under the fucking jail. They would have shut the hell up. Well, I had to be transferred to a different county. Because the tow-way tickets were in a different county. So, I got sent over there. And then it took like a day for people to realize that I was not around. And then, so they tried to get me out of jail. And they were like, she's just going to get out for a couple hours. She's like, no, you won't spend your money. So, those two days that I spent in jail took care of my tow-way tickets. But, yeah, so, by helping somebody, I put myself in a situation that caused me to go to jail. For someone else who was totally with my shit. But still, I wasn't ready to pay. But I had to pay. So, yeah, moral of the story is, be careful who you help. Because in the middle of helping them, you can really get yourself fucked. Just like I did. So, that is the story of my nosy neighbor. I am the nosy neighbor. The nosy neighbor. Don't forget, you can send me the story if you have an interaction with a nosy neighbor. Feel free to send me that. And I will definitely put her on the show. So, thank you for staying to the end. I really appreciate it. Again, this was Episode 3 of I Survived at Chun-Kwa. Don't forget, you can hit me up on Facebook, Chun-Kwa Survivor, on Facebook. Leave me a comment, some feedback. Let me know what you thought about the show. Anything you can relate to. Feel free to drop me something. Or just let me know where you're from. So, this is the end. Again, like I said, mucho thank you. Have a good week. And, pizza. Te vayas, te payas, y te tomas la agua. Peace.