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Mojo on the morning show. So what kind of a grade would your kids give you as a parent? Kev from our show, Kevin, the new guy here on the Mojo in the Morning show, who has a son, Josiah. How old is Josiah?

B-I-G is 10 years old.

10 years old. And explain where this came about of you asking what kind of a grade you would get.

Yeah, yeah. So just to give a little context, because I am new to the show. people may not know you know me or my voice yet or my background or my family so just for context um because we've been celebrating a lot talking about the uh the new baby that we have but yeah josiah is 10 years old he is everything to me and more and i had josiah when i was young and i had to learn how to be a father and trial and error there are no books we all know the cliches but it's true and i made a lot of mistakes and i guess my frame of reference was my own father and the mistakes that he made and i didn't want to you know make the same mistakes and also my dad was incarcerated between the time i was in third grade to the time i was in eighth grade which is exactly the age that josiah is now wow so that plays a lot also it can i ask you before

you get to this which by the way in just a second josiah is going to give you a grade on a number of different things how is that for you looking at josiah in what you are doing with him as a dad which you're a fabulous dad how is that for you knowing that your dad was in jail at the same time

that your son is now alive yeah i um it's interesting because it's something i think about and when i had my son the first thing i thought about was one i'm never going to be a dad that's not in his life i'm never going to jail and we're breaking the generational curses and cycles at this very moment and i want josiah to know that his dad loves him and that he can always count on his dad to be there no matter what so one of the things obviously as parents we want our children to have a better life than we had not only like financially but mentally just all around And I started this a few years ago I was asking Josiah How am I doing as a father? What is this experience like for you? And not just treating him like he's a child Stay in your place, do what I told you to do No, why? Because I said so I want him to have a voice And feel as though this is a partnership And this parenting and not just a dictatorship So I asked him yesterday, I haven't done it in a while Especially with this new job, I haven't been spending As much time with him, I can't take him to school In the morning, when I get home I'm a little tired So I wanted to check in, and I recorded it.

All right, here we go. This is Josiah, who, by the way, is such a smart kid. All right, what did you say?

I'd say a three. Give me a parenting grade from zero to 10, 10 being the highest. What would you give me?

A three.

A three?

Yes.

Why am I a three?

Because he gave me a lot of Robux. And the reason I gave him a three is because he got me Robux today.

can we be serious be serious out of 10 what's what's my overall grade eight eight yes okay what what are the areas that you enjoy and then what can i improve on i'm just gonna say whichever

can you come over here i'm just gonna say what you can improve on i just say spending more time on me giving me more attention okay you know what would you like to do like probably play some games When I want to, we need Sonic Superstars. We need three controllers. Because they're not going to play us all four. But, yes, for Sonic Superstars, $60, please. $60? Yes, please.

That would make me a better father?

No. I mean, I'm just asking you. Yeah. I just thought it out.

You want a better grade?

when i say that i mean like like maybe spending more time like maybe make it buy more games that we can enjoy together you want to play something right now buy the game so we can do it together like listen sonic superstars as a four-player game it has sonic he's selling you he's selling

so great and knuckles okay so spending more time with each other yes okay yeah you know what i love

that i even even the little bargaining you know hey buy this thing for me but i love that he says

i want to spend more time with yeah yeah and immediately my mind just you know full transparency and honestly i'm like cool we'll do something tomorrow yeah and then i was like you know what no no no no no no like let's what do you want to do right now and like he said sonic he loves to draw so we had a drawing contest and then we hopped on this game called among us and you can like make levels and we had that moment right then and then today we'll go see elemental but i just think it's important that's amazing to uh to check in with our kids what that's something my therapist always

taught me especially as my kids are you know going through a ton of changes in their life right now is to to constantly check in and ask what are some things that you think i could do to be a better mommy to you but you have to ask each child separately because it's gonna be different

right i love that i love it especially with this week being father's day and you're thinking to yourself well it's the day that I get to kind of hang back and I get to do you know whatever I want and I you know what I was talking about but truly the only reason you're a father is because of Josiah and the thing that you want to know is how am I doing how how am I doing and there are times where I think there's a lot of people that think that they're great parents oh we're doing we're great parents because I am doing this or I am buying them this thing or I'm doing all the stuff or I provide for them whatever the deal is but truly you realize when your kids get an opportunity to just spend time with you or do something that is out of the norm there were so many times I thought I was a great dad and I'm thinking wow how great of a dad I lay on the couch and I fall asleep and don't go out and throw a ball or you know do something and I thought I was the greatest dad in the world and I realized man I am really not not even present you know you know

what though and i agree we we could all be more present as parents but i think that we're also very very hard on ourselves and i think we need to be a little bit gentler with ourselves because to our kids a lot of times like when even when we think we're being the worst parent in the whole entire world like have you ever sat down and asked your kids at the end of the day like what were your favorite parts of the day and it's usually it's usually the stuff where i'm like I feel like I failed there. And to them, like that was the greatest part of their day.

Yeah.

So.

I ask you this question knowing that you've had to go through a lot of pain with your dad. But if you were Josiah and your dad asked you that question, obviously he's not there at that moment at this time, but now as an adult, what kind of grade would you have given him?

Then at that age, you know, it's crazy because I don't really have that many memories of my dad at that age.

Because he was away?

Yeah. And even before then, I look back at pictures. And from the pictures, it looked like it was great. We ran around on bases at the old Tiger Stadium. We were on the front page of the Detroit News. He ran his own business. It was a real estate business. We're traveling insurance with his dad and his brother. I used to go to the office all the time. But outside of that, I really don't have real memories. I loved him for sure. The memory that I have the most is The morning that he was Being taken away and going to jail The night before we all went to go see Godzilla The movie that came out like in 2000 We all went as a family to go And I remember hugging him and telling him I love him I have more memories of visiting him in jail Than I do like you know outside

You know what's amazing You You as a dad because I see how you are As a father You almost gotta sit there and go You know what dad I wish that my life

Life wasn't like it was, but you got to thank him for now what you're doing with your son.

Yeah, and it took me a while to get there.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And Leah's on with us. Hi, Leah.

Hey. Good morning, Mojo.

What's going on?

You know, not a whole lot. Me and my son, we listen to you every morning. Also, welcome, Kevin. Love to hear you on the radio every morning. You're doing great.

Thanks, Leah. Appreciate it.

But yeah, we listened to you on the way to school. He just jumped out of the car, so I asked him, what would you give me? If you could rate me 1 through 10, my grade, what would you give me? And he said, a decent 9. Oh, that's great. Hey, I would take that in running. That's incredible. He's 7, too, so I didn't – his dad, he didn't – he gave his dad, like, a negative 1. He's being a little – his dad's the enforcer. So he didn't get a – he didn't get a decent grade as me, but, yeah, I thought that was funny.

Yeah, that's awesome. You know what? That's really kind of cool for a dad also to be the enforcer. It's tough in relationships where one parent has to be the enforcer and the other parent gets to be the fun parent. And that's kind of how it is in my relationship because Chelsea for always has always been the enforcer, and I feel bad because I know that she doesn't want to always have to be the enforcer. It's because I'm an idiot and doesn't own stuff up. Thank you for the call. I appreciate it.

Yeah, thanks, guys. Have a good one.

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