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Episode 104: Helping mom out, Closing an open-loop
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good evening dr. Lyle how are you doing this fine evening good particularly with that fancy new intro that's great not now we're now we're real now were the real deal got we've got a couple of callers on hold so we're going to get to them fairly soon but I was reading an article now the LA Times is not known for their evolutionary psychology viewpoints we didn't write is implanted piece about higher education and the headline you'd be surprised was the following what students know that experts don't school is all about signaling not skill building Wow yeah the author has a professor at George Mason University yeah and he's he's actually sprinkling in quite a bit of this stuff that we've talked about that you've talked about throughout the article yeah one of the one of the points I really liked he says quote if a student wants to study at Princeton he doesn't really need to apply or even pay tuition he can just simply show up and start taking classes there's little a professor can do to stop them but at the end of the four years the student would lack one precious thing a diploma yeah dr. loudly these ideas are spreading he sprinkles this all in throughout the article really fat freely fascinating terrific one one drip at a time the truth is finding its way through the cracks that's terrific good good I all right so all right let's get to our caller our callers dialing her name is cara cara welcome to show hi mate hi Dulce now hi there good deal so Cara tell us a story so we're you calling to us from I'm calling from Las Vegas Las Vegas oh that landed the pleasure trap all right okay all right well tell us the story what's that what's going on what are we working on and what are we trying to get better I'm originally from Singapore and I'm calling because I want to make my mom's my my mom's life better but she resists my efforts okay and I just understand why okay she lives in Singapore with my sister and then they kind of form a coalition my sister is highly intelligent but she's also highly disagreeable on the fly and of the scale so um and she kind of she knows how to talk to my mom and you know get her on her side right now my husband and I we we we spend money on her house so she can rent it out to get some rental income and we also right now though she lives with my sister who my sister had never lived on her own before and she's a hoarder so we're trying to get my mom to find my sister a place kind of you know get get a little birdie off the nest run and kind of rent her a place so that and a storage place so she can move all her boxes into storage but my mom just won't do it and when my husband and I and my brother sit together with her at a restaurant to talk to her about it she will just be very quiet and she would keep her head down she would have this smirk on her face as if oh well you guys are trying to control me and and I'm not going to do what you guys could going to tell me to do then at night she would call my sister to report to her what went on during the meeting okay all right Cara let's let's just back up for a second so the the what what's your mom's age just going to be 7b this coming April okay and is she retired yes okay your mom is retired okay and and your sisters how old she's a 46 46 years old okay and then lives with your mom yes okay now has your mom ever expressed an interest in your sister moving out um yes she has talent tell me what you know what wet is what she said on those on those occasions what kinds of noises does she make um well my uh my sister is trying to apply for her own living situation but she expect my mom to to pay for the down payment although you know studio mm-hmm okay so but let me get this straight so the sister actually is looking to and wants to move out yes but it's going to be good another three more years okay I'll be three years until she can I don't know how Singapore works like you just it's three years until she could get a place is about how that works or is it three years or she would be financially able to um before the government give her name to this god that's what I understand so it's a place so it's obviously completely different than the u.s. so so your sister is on the list and three years from now if she has the money she can get herself a place that's how that works yeah okay and your sister does your sister have the money or she not have the money in and looking for your mom to help I'm just just looking for my mom to help okay cuz but does she have the money yourself for now um she she I don't think she has enough money to to pay for the down payment mm-hmm okay but all right yeah all right right so so she doesn't have enough money she's living with your mom does your sister work yes she recently got a a full-time job okay so she recently got herself a full-time job so now she's got herself a full-time job and ostensibly she is she's living with your mother - she pay any rent or anything like that no and we during several discussion we all sent my mom to collect some rent from her but my mom's tell us well if you guys are in trouble meaning me and my brother and we need a free room should gladly provide that free room to us right so she says you will never collect rent from any of our kids right okay all right that's all cool so your mom like how many children does your mom have three three and I show it to you and then your sister and then what's your other sibling and my younger brothers a younger brother and what does he do and where does he live you live in Hong Kong okay he he has his own business he has a wife and two kids okay and is he reasonably successful yes okay so he listened to me and my brother we do anything we can to provide for our mom chanita um you know we take her to restaurants and me and my husband we don't have kids so we'll take her with us on our vacation right okay so let me let me get get the I'm just trying to get the lay of the land here so your mom is retired and she has her own place in Singapore and she also like she has what a rental on her property or something like this yes we we fix up her house so she said she don't rent it out and that don't reason why she can retire and that's also the reason why my sister was able to get a job because my mom used the money from the rental income to pay for my sister's education right okay so you're the one who went back to school yes but so your mom was sort of intelligently frugal about this income from what does she have like essentially now a duplex um so we're not how BLAP got it a house and a flat are they on the same lot or they apart no not on this one law they're not the same life so they're a little bit different places in Hong Kong or in Singapore in Singapore yes okay so so but your sister and your mother are piled into the same house yes got it okay and how large or small is that house you have a feel for it the house that they live in or the house that she was renting out that the house they live in it's um two-bedroom flats and the situation is pretty bad because my sister put a bunch of boxes in the living room and that's really not much room to walk from the front door to my mom's bedroom right and then there's a bunch of stuff in the kitchen so what I'm trying to do is to get all the stuff out and kind of renovate her kitchen and her bathroom but my mom said that well the government's going to take that that flat in about ten years and it's not worth the trouble spending that money but I told my mom hey you know you're in your seventies and you know if you can spend another five ten years living in a nicer place you know it's worth the money spent but my father will talk her out of it because he wants to put her stuff in in the living room and one time when I went back to visit my mom I was pretty mad at my sister because she had put on her clothes on top of my mom's dead and my mom had a queen-size bed shirt and she only have enough room to sleep on one side of the bed right and the clothes what was pal like mountain high on top of my mom's bed right okay now let's just uh let's talk a little bit further so this in theory what's going to go on is that your sister is going to be moving out in three years when she gets this flat corrected what maybe I don't know because sometimes my sister would threaten to say well I'm gonna quit um in March and then she would do something like that you know it was hard to get a job so I don't know Russian it is your mom and your mom let me get this straight so your mom will only the way this works is where she lives she will only have access to it for another 10 years yes okay and then the government literally closet back and takes it from her yes does she get paid for this or is it just essentially the government's property yeah she gets paid for it okay so they but they but they insist that they take it back and then they pay her for it and then they give it to somebody else no they're just gonna read the new housing ah okay so they're gonna they're going to tear the place down and rebuild something yes okay so the she's so her her place is scheduled to be leveled by a wrecking ball and then they're going to rebuild everything new but the government is going to give them a check yes okay God that makes sense so your mom is saying why put any money into making it nice because the truth is they're going to wreck it anyway yeah right and your attitude is hey it's ten years of your life it's maybe the last ten years you've got why would you want to live decently yes okay yeah so now let's let's look at the other real estate involved which is this flat that she rents out that you you help them fix up okay so how long is your mom owned that flat um the rental the the houses rented out for about I would say about ten years now okay zone it for is I was a little kid okay although she's owned it forever and you guys helped her fix it up she gets good rent for it and that enables her to be comfortably retired the all right so that given that real estate must be what very expensive at Singapore so that that represents a pretty important network would that be correct yes got it okay so she the rent from this and that houses did you tell me that's a three-bedroom house yes yeah it's a three-bedroom house on a lot so that that represents fairly high luxury for Singapore is that correct yes okay so that's a good amount of rental money so she owns that thing outright so as a result her sister doesn't have any financial anxiety because mom's got plenty of income is that correct right okay all right I'm sorry to be chuckling but the reason I'm chuckling is is that you're we have an interesting thing I'm going to keep asking you a few more questions before I try to shed a little bit of light on this the your mother how long is your sister been living with your mother um ever since she graduated from college which is in for 2022 I guess got it so she's been with your mom 20 years uh as an adult living in your mom's living in that with were they living in the house before they living in this flat um they were living in the house before together yeah um because my sister is is very highly disagreeable so my my mom met um move out - just that - the doctor bedroom that she's living now and then got married and then she got divorce and then after she got divorce well my sister was living in the house that my mom's renting out now but and for those years my mom didn't have rental income because my sister was living there right and so when when I went back to Singapore I noticed that the houses and in a mess yeah so me my brother and my husband kind of asked my sister to move out yeah and we fixed it up that's a reason why my my mom can rent and out that house otherwise my sister will still be living in that house now without any rental income from my mom right okay and what happened I've done divorce my sister went to live with my mom in the blood because I never stood out now and so your sister all right so now and she's been living in this flat now with with your mother for how long um ten years ten years ten years okay so yeah and you're your mother interestingly enough yeah tell me tell me about her how much she has squawked to you about your sister living in that flat with her one-ways has she complained she said she's just messy and um well sometimes she would uh you know she would lift up on the floor and she might step on it at night um yes so let me let me ask you something else this your parents did your dad pass away or were they divorced my dad he left the family okay all right so now we're going to go to this second marriage of your mother's the do you do you know enough about the dynamics to know about whether did he leave her did he die or was this her instigating or what what would the dynamics that went down there um he he's a gambler God and you try to get money from my mom and my sister said that he she kind of helped my mom in some way by not paying him a huge sum of money for divorce settlement yeah and you know all this happened when I was in the United States and my brother's not there in Singapore so you know my mom kind of depends on I say emotionally sometimes you kind of get advice from her yes it sounds like your sisters disagree ability was useful in that instance yes okay all right now your mom this is uh this is interesting because with you and your brother and and your husband when you sit her down in a coffee shop and you say mom you know why don't we show your sister the door incidentally your sister with her new job how long has she been on her new job a year and a half mommy oh yeah a year and a half and did you know if she makes enough money on the new job to afford her own apartment um not not really not not not not for the town Peyman yeah yeah I'm talking I mean do you have to do a down payment to rent a place you have to do a down payment and then I guess you have to pay a monthly mortgage yeah yeah that's not what I'm asking is there such thing as renting in Singapore well we're not owning not buying renting yes okay it is your sister's job pay her enough money that she could rent her own place probably yeah probably okay so your mom how how smart is she still at 70 years old is she pretty with it um she yeah she's just pretty smart we'll just worry she's suffering from mental decline oh okay I'm hearing you that's why I'm asking the your this has been going on for ten years your sisters been parked inside your mom's tiny little flat with an enormous amount of crap and essentially they're living in this bizarre kind of life and as you're she is the only sibling that is you know within 100 miles so yes she is she is your mother's she is also intimidated a thief of a second husband and ran him off and so your mother legitimately has trust that your sister understands her own best interests well enough to protect your mom's best interest generally and as long as your mom is not screaming and throwing our stuff on to the street then your sister gets to keep all the crap and your mom adapts to it now your sister your mom should be smart enough to understand that your sister has enough money from income that she could rent okay and she could just go ahead and keep working and rent to the end of her days and then when your mom ever passes away if there's an inheritance then maybe your sister could buy something for herself then but the point is is that your mom kind of doesn't this way what I what I hear in in your estimation of how it is the one should manage these real estate issues is that nobody's thinking they should ever rent everybody's thinking they should always own and so therefore god forbid your sister can't actually move out at forty six and live like a regular working person that rents and can't afford a home in an expensive area no we're going to stay right there and and you've saved money and wait for the the three years when the government makes it possible for her to buy a place and then maybe she moves out maybe she doesn't yeah this is kind of ludicrous now your mom main while has her own interesting hoarding mentality which says hey I'm not I don't need a decent life now not when they're going to knock this place down in ten years we wouldn't want to waste any money this is like hilarious okay I've I've seen this book before I've got all kinds of older people with with plenty of Net Worth and yet they're clipping coupons and they don't want it they don't want to spend six bucks on uber they're just going to walk to the store okay across a busy street so this is who they are I assume your mom is pretty frugal yes very yeah I think I think we got this picture your your mom probably couldn't stand the idea of your sister running an apartment because that would seem like money down the drain we just seem like a catastrophic waste of resources so she's not going to allow that to happen so that's that this is your mom's frugality and unless I unless I'm getting this wrong has she ever said to you boy I wish she'd move out and just write her own place she said to me before hey I told her one time I said hey you know what I'm just going to let the Singapore government know that um there's this elderly abuse situation going on where she just put place and stuff on the floor and you might kick yourself at night and fall down and nobody would know and then she say well don't do that don't complain because if she'll complain that she'll lose a job and then she lose a job she can't move out and I don't want to take care of her for the rest of my life so that's what she told me one time interesting interesting all right so the but what I'm saying is is that that she she is not she does not raise the issue that your sister ought to be getting her own place and moving out she's in other words the scheme here as I'm hearing it is that that we're going to wait until your sister can purchase is that correct yes okay so there's no serious consideration that your sister ought to just leave and rent and that we ought to deal with the down payment situation later and worry about that financial problem later that that your mom is essentially not that desperate to get rid of your sister she's willing to be patient and wait for this three-year process yes yeah okay yeah that's because your mom if I'm not if I'm is your sister responsible enough that she would actually be saving her money as she's spending it you know spending it and hoarding more crap I think she's just just spending it on a lot of crap a lot of crap and she's not saving a nickel right no three so three years from now she's going to expect your mother or somebody else you and your brother to come up with the down payment so that you'll leave your mom's house um do we think I think wishing she she was expecting it from my mom got it so she's expecting it from your mom what what kind of down payment is this $100,000 I have no idea what these places cost it's about $80,000 got it $80,000 and if if your mom does your mom have that cash or would it would she have to mortgage your house well she should she don't have it what happened was um I actually two years ago I offered them to move into my place for six months and then they can go through their boxes slowly young man so I let them stay at my place um for six months but uh look it's been two years two years later not only did they not go through their stuff my my sister actually bought more crap so when I came back I mad at them and then I could do it kind of take my sell my house and then she went back to live with my mom yeah all right the bottom line is is that one way or the other there there's an enough net worth in this in this tree that somehow $80,000 will arrive if your sister still has a job for her to have a down payment to move into a house that your mom won't feel like she's throwing money down the drain for rent okay and that'll be the moment of truth are you still there yes good okay I just sort of click so I wasn't sure so the that'll be the moment of truth as to whether or not your sister's actually willing to continue to work for a living the fact that she's worked for a living for a year and a half there's just an outside chance that she would that she would actually be willing to continue to work for a living indefinitely and take your mom up on her offer of $80,000 to have your sister have her own place okay maybe that happens maybe it doesn't I don't see that your mom can psychologically tolerate the idea of forcing your sister out to into an apartment where she's quote throwing money away for rent I have a feeling that that's against her religion and I don't think that she can do it okay so that that's your mom's frugality and extraordinarily high conscientiousness is not going to allow that to happen so the your sister is going to sit right there and accumulate crap by the cubic foot as much as it's going to as much as she can cram into that little cube head from flat I mean it's a total fiasco but you also have to understand it's not an emergency because it's the same fee ask oh that's been going on for ten years and am I going to go on probably another three years and your mother trusts your sister as a nice disagreeable Bulldog that she is actually she's a useful person to not only defend because she's her own genetics but also that she will defend the mom against other people and threats that could possibly stand in your mom's way and so as a result or that could possibly harm or exploit your mother so in essence better the genetic devil we know then the non genetic devil that we don't know and so your your mom is pretty comfortable in that circumstances I mean it's not great but it was really lousy and she really couldn't stand that then she would be raising a bigger fuss than she's raising okay your mom has a voice and she has emotions she just doesn't have she's not looking at the situation the same way you're looking at it so this is uh let me let me this is I believe at least I believe so Cara that what I'm what I'm going to explain to you I mean it seems like I don't want to I don't mean to be patronizing but it is a very very easy mistake to make and I believe you're making it you may not be but I believe that you are so this is what we call the egocentric bias the egocentric bias is the natural human tendency to believe that other people are are thinking and feeling and having the same kind of responses to a situation than we would this this this is an interesting characteristic people because it's a it's a massive improvement over an animal that does not have an egocentric bias so an animal that is trying to understand what another animal is doing or to predict it you know can predict as best it can from the movements that the animal tips off the direction it moves where its eyes look like they're looking etc but the truth of the matter is is that a human being can place itself in another person's shoes and can actually get a guess of what that other person is thinking feeling and what they're likely to do by what it is that they would be thinking and feeling if they were in that circumstances so the egocentric bias is part of an empathic mechanism with a bunch of mirror neurons where people are trying to essentially guess what other people you know must be thinking and feeling and unfortunately they bring themselves in into the equation because they don't have a they have no way of integrating a bunch of other cues about who that person is very effectively so pretty much their nervous system says well what would we feel if we were in that circumstance okay and no the this is this is why men for example have a horrible time seeing two good-looking men kiss heterosexual males will drive them crazy okay they never want to see it in their lifetime because they would put themselves in each of the other guys shoes and it freaks them out okay the whereas watching two good-looking women kiss it's like well that's okay I'm reprocessed at because they put themselves in each of those women's shoes kissing the other female and it's all Jake okay mm-hmm so this is the egocentric mechanism you do are not a hoarder you don't have the screwball neural circuits that are involved there and you like things I'm going to guess orderly you know a simple orderly elegant artistic and decent yeah is that a decent wild guess um kind of okay I may have overshot it but the truth is is that you're you're discussed in frustration with what your sister's done to your mom's living space trust me that you are pretty upset when you see it and and the truth of the matter is is that your mom isn't isn't is probably only about 25% as upset as you are if she was upset as you are she would have done something about it she would have circled the wagons with you and your brother and said listen I need help I got a push back okay I got to get this crap out of here it's driving me crazy okay that and that would drive me nuts to have that situation but it's not driving your mom nuts your mom adapts to it it's only it's vastly less disturbing to her than it is whew it is disturbing so she it you know she will occasionally arise a peep out of her to let you know that she doesn't like it but at the same time she's running whenever you're trying to understand why people are doing what they're doing what we must look for is we must look for cost-benefit analysis and cost-benefit analysis is effectively the top quark when it comes to understanding the nature of human beings so the your mom is running a cost-benefit analysis and she listens to you and your brother and she listens to what it is that you're saying and she smiles kind of secretly and basically says to herself it's not that bad I'm not in that bad a shape and I'm not going to raise Cain with my daughter who's perfectly decent and protects me and I'm looking out for her and we look out for each other and it's going to be okay all right it's well mobile so that's that's kind of what I'm telling you and so what I'm what I'm actually telling you is your mom's life isn't that bad when you put yourself in her shoes you feel like wow this is bad okay I just would drive me nuts I would I wouldn't tolerate this for two weeks but your mom is not having that reaction okay your mom is having a reaction that says that yeah I don't like it I'd like to stuff to be gone but it's not that bad so that's what I'm telling you so you you're the egocentric bias is absolutely fascinating you'll see it all over the place just watch the next time when when you if you watch two people and they share each other's food well particularly think about the circumstances between a mother and child and the mother puts a piece of broccoli or asparagus on that kids fork and says it's good try it and the kid tastes it and goes now I don't like it and the moms like what do you mean it's good okay it is an absolutely comical event that the mother cannot grasp the fact that the child is tasting the same thing that the kid is tasting but the kid does not I mean the same thing the mom's tasting but the kid doesn't like it but the mom does like it and the mom says dude there's nothing wrong with this it's good and the kids like yeah well I don't like it the mob just think the kids being obstinate and difficult no kids giving an honest report okay so the egocentric bias can can even though it's useful as a first path guess to understand what other people are going through and is enormous ly helpful to have an egocentric capability or I mean to have a the empathic capability of putting ourselves in their shoes but the limitations are that we bring our own personality with us and therefore we can be thinking something as an emergency and intolerable and ridiculous and exploitative and you know mentally exhausting when the truth is it isn't it's just a daughter that you love to slob and that's and she can live with it make some sense yeah all right a great call great call car thank you very much for calling and I we really appreciate you listening and giving us a good call Cara thank you very much for the call really appreciate it all the way from Singapore and Las Vegas all right we've got another caller on hold here Kathy all right nothing I'm here welcome to the show at it welcome back pink all right I'll yeah me again good all right I'll try to talk quickly so true I I wanted to thank you for for spending so much time with me last time and I wanted to say it was really refreshing to hear you call my dad at shithead narcissists and if I had heard that eight years ago from a therapist I think I would have recovered a little faster all right um but I'm still I think I'm still stuck in a a loop here and I just wanted to quickly talk a little bit more about my mom because at the end of our conversation it almost sounds like you gave her she sounded like a very sympathetic character mm-hmm and well I know she was married to a narcissist and I you know I know she sacrificed a lot and all that her behavior since my dad died has really confused me and she's actually been quite mean and cool in my my opinion and so I'm just trying to understand why and just to to see if I can let go of this horrible sense of betrayal and abandonment right got it okay so yeah I didn't hear this last time what I heard was that clearly the mom was your mom was following suit behind your sister and the brother was in line so we had a definite coalition where they had formed a guano ring around the three of them and you were on the outside of it so that that made sense to me and I could see how that would all that would all play out the way that it would the but what you didn't say last time is what you're saying now about the mom being quote mean and cruel now that's a different part of the story so Frank tell me because your mom in some ways from where I left I left it was that I was sympathetic towards her situation that she was essentially a as described and as I was understanding it that she was effectively being pulled into an in-group out-group situation okay that there that there wasn't really an easy escape because your sister was definitely going to take the lead and this was this was an opportunity and there was there was finding potentially both financial and and social psychological chips on the table for kicking you out of the guano ring and in having their own little triumvirate so and I and I considered that your mother some of the behavior that you described in the aftermath under some of these conflicts indicated that your mother was having cognitive dissonance about it but would it would definitely ultimately always wind up in your sisters coalition okay okay so that that's what I had heard now-now-now tell me a little differently about what you when you say cruel behavior or mean behavior out of your mother I sim towards you tell me what you mean describe some of the circumstances where where that has happened that trouble yes well I think the the problem for me was it growing up she was a really good mother and although I was lumped in with this group of you know that my siblings and I were kind of kept as a group and I wasn't really ever I never felt like I bonded with my mother individually much I was always with my sister doing the girl things with my mom but in general she was a very loving mother and I felt loved after I got married well that she made it very hard for me to date my husband she there was a lot of resistance there finally got married everything kind of changed when I got married which kind of makes sense but um you know it was still cordial and I felt like we had a decent relationship after my dad died I felt like she took her personality either change or it became unmasked because my dad was no longer there dominating her right when I had I'll just try to give you some quick examples when I got pregnant she was happy but not thrilled you didn't really care she was in New Mexico I was in Texas we invited her to our one and only baby shower my mother-in-law hosted it in Texas my mom told me that it was too expensive to come this is a woman who had just inherited the entire state is so expensive to come and the month later went to Europe with his mom came to meet my son when he was born told me that she only came out of obligation because she was still upset about Easter well when my yeah things like that she doesn't ask for pictures of my children doesn't show much interest in them if I send a picture it's not put up in the house my relatives that told me she doesn't display pictures of my children just things like that really not not kind you know it's been very hard to feel like I lost my whole family in one swoop my dad died and then and then the three z'n felt like they all turned on me so it's been a really traumatic life change interesting the all right so now I want to go back to something that you said that was curious so you're you said she made it hard to date your husband how old were you when you began dating your husband 21 okay so you are you're still in this Christian college at that point okay so what do you were like a junior or a senior I was a senior okay so your senior in college and he is what is he at the college too now he was in I was in Indiana he was in Texas okay was a long-distance relationship he was finishing up college got it okay and and so you so he what was the circumstances how did you guys ever meet I was an RA okay in my dorm and his sister was a freshman she wanted to set us up so she had him come out for a weekend incredible that is an unbelievable story okay so some freshman has enough has enough insight and somehow masterfully you know bowls are strike that's it that's an extraordinary story okay so this guy comes up and meets you and you can kind of you kind of feel like this is a screaming match even from the jump with my mom no I I knew I honestly knew when I met my husband that he was it I had that boggling and I even remember telling my mom over the phone if this guy isn't the one I don't know who is and she was delighted over the phone hadn't met him yet um she met him within a couple of months and I think she thought always really nice it comes from a nice family but then there started to be pushback when I was getting serious with him and you know we dated off and on for about four years I kept breaking up with him because of the pressure she put on me what tell me about my dad tell me about tell me about the nature of that pressure because it's interesting because now you're like 22 23 24 are you going in grad school or what are you doing at that during those years um we were we were serious when I graduated from college but not so serious that I wanted to get married I wanted to wait a few years I was just wanting to we were pretty committed to each other um but I think you know I don't remember her saying anything specific that she didn't like about him she just always said don't get too serious so quickly there are other guys out there you know I got the feeling okay you don't like this one enough or no one's ever going to be enough yeah I'm low down for just a second what I said was what were you doing between 2195 what were you actually doing okay well I graduated from college and did a semester in law school got a scholarship to law school did a semester knew for sure that that was not the right fit for me okay left law school and moved to DC and worked in accounting got myself a job in accounting got it okay so what I'm getting at is that you were self-sufficient for the most part yeah okay for the most part you're self-sufficient the if your things get a little tight or something happens or you need a tooth fixed you call home but basically you're self-sufficient right okay and so you know tell me how it is the quote your mom is making it hard to date your husband because you're you're on your own you're in DC you're thousands of miles away just give me a little feel for I'm not trying to hold you to that statement I'm just trying to understand you know why that how it is that you were seeing it she she would bristle when she was around him I think she just didn't I remember going to the city where I was going to attend law school and he met us there when I was looking for apartment and he had his hand on my back at one point and she blamed me later that he was practically giving you an erotic massage and he wasn't got it okay so I'm just basically she's just basically got this attitude that this guy is not good enough right yeah that's it that this is a this is sort of standard operating procedure now for parents by the way so the this is a parents or your mom is thinking she can't help herself she's basically thinking that you can get 10% fancier jeans so don't do it okay so she can't she can't help herself so she's being an irritable pain in the ass about this but this is not this is this is uh not exactly huge roadblocks these are these are you know frustrating and a little bit intimidating signals that to be getting from a parent what about your dad at this point what how's he act towards the whole thing you know he never confronted me about it at all well he let my mom do all the communicating got it okay but he so he you would have picked up signals from your dad had he been real bent out of shape about it oh yeah no he's noisy enough so he he this was not his you didn't have a big dog in this fight whereas that your mother for some reason this was a much bigger issue for her okay so let's let's keep going so now now the your did your dad died before you had any kids or did did you have kids first he died before he died okay so then we I just had a parent right before he died okay so we have this we have this issue so the big big fallout happens the it turns out that things have not been cool with your mom and your in your husband so she you know but before you get married even when you're married now we have the big thing the big shindig in in at Easter and now when you have a child she's like not wanting to go and giving you sort of BS explanations and essentially she is she is she could have easily had she been suits significantly ambivalent about her relationship whew relative to relationship with your brother and sister she certainly could have used the birth of your child as a as an excuse to tell the other kids too bad yes I'm on your side but the truth is your sisters having a baby and oh my god I'm having a grandkid and I'm going to Texas okay she didn't do it okay right so now we're seeing that she's really not ambivalent in fact as a member of the triumvirate okay yeah and she's actually a perfectly comfortable member of the triumvirate so it's it's an us-against-them situation you are kicked out of the guano ring for whatever reasons those are and that's that okay yeah now now that is that's kind of what it looks like yeah it's a it's a let's back up for just one second as we talk about this and that is that family members are people in this um there tends to be the case that family members 10 have a strong possibility to be much closer than friends and even romantic partners and the reason why that's true is because of the shared genes so the in fact the shared genes and the possibility for humans and other animals that can compute this that that they can understand that essentially if that's a sibling or that's a child of mine then half of my genes are located inside that individual and so therefore if I if it costs me ten units of pain and it aids my sibling twenty five units of a reduced pain then it's worth me taking on ten units of pain to save them twenty five and that's because the cutting score would be twenty okay if it's got to cost me ten units a pain I saved them 20 and it's a pen then then you know what it's barely worth doing because only half of my genes are in there but if it's going to save them 25 units of pain then I'm going to do it okay this is the nature let's forget pain because that'll weird out people's heads this is possibility of survival and it could be driven through for example the hunger Drive so as you as you look at your own hunger and you're looking at your own food supply and you're looking at your brother or your sister or your child okay child's a little bit different because the truth of the matter is those are the vectors that go into the future and a brother and sister are are essentially you know age conspecifics they're they're right there with you so it's a little bit different the and actually at different times in your life your children are worth more and less so they're not worth as much when they're two years old as they are when they're 12 because a 12 year old they've actually come through an awful lot of potential risk and they have a highly great great likelihood of being a genetic success whereas a two year olds got a lot of Hoops to jump before they get to 18 okay so there's a complex calculus but the calculus that drives family bonding in our species is going to be Hamiltonian logic which is straight Hamilton's rule but this is all you know I've covered I covered this in other broadcast but this is this is C is less than B times R that the genetic cost of a behavior must be less than the genetic benefit times the degree of relationship between the actor and the recipient this explains why you will do that the cost of the behavior ie 10 units of pain has to be less than the benefit I II 25 units a share of reduced pain times the degree of relationship between the actor and the recipient ie if it's a if it's a 50% shared genes then we multiply the 25 by 0.5 and we get the total benefit on that side of the equation to me to be willing to take on that pain for my brother the benefit is 12 and a half units of pain law reduced for my genes versus ten cost that I'm going to have to experience by putting my hand in the fire to save his hide okay if it turns out the cost at ten units is less than the benefit of twelve and a half then that behavior will be selected that tendency will be selected in evolution this is why mothers are typically very altruistic towards their children okay but you can see where family dynamics get real dicey in other words that cakes were twice as much to me if I eat it all than it is to me sharing it with my brother and it's going to turn out that in the blue-footed booby bird which the mom sprays guano in a ring and the kids that are inside the ring get protected and anything else tries to come inside the ring and get those kids mom will try to kill it but it turns out that if one of those little chicks gets outside the guano ring it's too bad for them and mom won't let them back in and what's worse is guess what some of the chicks inside the ring will try to push their siblings outside the ring yeah okay that happens and so if you happen to be weaker in some way or you unlucky and some siblings gang up or a bigger sibling chucks you out of the guano ring and mom sees you outside the ring it's too bad for you okay so it's going to turn out that it's cooperative as relationships often are and altruistic and warm because the altruism is not driven by some bizarre thing it's driven by connection and warmth and what we call love that that can happen between unrelated individuals and does but it can easily happen within related individuals and more often does but it is not the case that in every case when you share genes with people that you ever even like them much less love them okay it just so happens that you happen to be in the same clutch with your sister and you even are a twin to your brother and it turns out guess what these people the three of you you on one side and them on the other they don't qualify to be your friends okay and you don't seemingly qualify to be your mother's friend and you may not qualify to be your siblings friend it's like holy smokes we don't even qualify to be friends and even with the tremendous added benefit of shared genes you people can't scratch up positive feelings and allow me in the coalition and apparently the answer is no yeah it's like wow okay right yeah this is uh hey you know this is of course you got some open-loop about this and as you look this whole thing over yeah it you were right to catch me and say wait a second my mom's not so sympathetic here okay and I got some other things racing around my head I'm not comfortable and the reason is is that your mom from the behavior that you're describing your mom actually looks like not particularly your friend and when you're a little kid you you who you were was not evident yeah you know you are you you're in emerging little personality and she's your mom and you know she's got tremendous maternal instincts obviously and and so she was cheerfully self-sacrificing little behaviors that made sense to you and you didn't feel like it was cold and shitty okay but when you got older and you were no longer needing you know support to survive and now it's like well now wait a second we're going to now reevaluate these relationships and see whether or not this is a 50/50 reciprocity situation where we like each other and up and are connected enough to make this fly and it turns out your mom says I don't even want to see your damn child yeah it's like wow yeah that's the shot my quote yeah yeah and I was like I just I know we have one minute but my question is what do I do do I keep in touch with a person who clearly does not have an interest in me or my family or do I just make it cordial for the sake of keeping it cordial yeah I think that I think that what you do is you you don't have to bet and gamble on the right answer you can expire at a--to dweeby you know what I sure as hell wouldn't wear myself out hoping to get any positive feedback I would this is the disagreeable distance that you know this relationship between a couple of family members their lives might overlap 17% right but the truth is is that it's not comfortable and people aren't happy but you know what the right amount might be 4% and as we move it down to 4% we get to tickle our instincts that we've still got a little connection there a little bit of an insurance policy you know I mean if it was you lay on the street bleeding and somebody else that she didn't know your mom would pick you and help you but otherwise you come in a distant third but time between behind your two siblings ad fair enough okay and so yeah my attitude is if you if you don't if you don't quality a lot of times parents siblings you know children they literally don't qualify to be your friends and qualifying be your friend is no easy task it just so happens that often it's easy in families because of Hamilton's rule but sometimes when they're if you are genetically enough different than your parents which you can be and there is just natural conflicts of how does that you see the world how it is that you experience life and you really can't see eye to eye on things then maybe you can't and the right way to overlap your lives is four percent not seventeen so we can experiment with that and this is what I call fade to black we actually push away gently and we swim a distance away and we just keep it right there and we see if our life is better okay okay and that's how we we run little experiments and see if those experiments take us in the right direction
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