When Your Kids Grow Up but the Stories Keep Coming with Jody Carroll

[00:00:00] The “sports will save them” myth

Jody Carroll: Someone told us that if you put your kids in sports, you’re gonna avoid all the drug and alcohol issues. I was like, oh, this is great news.

So I signed my mother-in-law for pee wee soccer.

It didn’t work for her either. Darn it.

Andrea Marie: We are Moms Unhinged, a nationally touring standup comedy show. Join us in our podcast as we explore everything from motherhood, midlife, crisis, marriage, divorce, online dating, menopause, and other things that irritate us.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Moms Unhinged Show. I am here with the amazing, the fabulous Jody Carroll. Welcome Jody.

Jody Carroll: Oh, thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here.

Andrea Marie: I know, I’ve literally been joking with people that my whole reason for starting this podcast is just so I get a chance to talk to you guys. ‘Cause sometimes I miss you.

Jody Carroll: I know it’s the first thing I said was like, wow, long no see.

Andrea Marie: I know, I know. It’s been so long. So Jody is one of our amazing Northwestern area comedians based outside of Seattle. She’s been on a ton of shows over the last couple years with us traveling all over and super exciting. We are headed to Anchorage. I’m not sure when this episode’s coming out.

We may have already just been in Anchorage, maybe we’re just getting there. But anyway, we’re gonna be together on a show in Anchorage coming up, amongst other shows. So, again, super excited to have you and also new grandma.

Jody Carroll: Yes.

Andrea Marie: Oh my.

Jody Carroll: Yes, new grandma. I am new grandma for the second time, so he’s just a month old. And then my other little grand baby is a year and a half.

Andrea Marie: Oh my gosh. Oh, how fun. How fun, yeah.

Jody Carroll: It’s shocking. I asked my other daughter, she’s the auntie. I said, are you shocked at how much you love them?

And she said, yeah. I’m really surprised. She’s single, doesn’t have any kids. And I said, me too. I just can’t believe how obsessed I am with these little babies. They’re just so sweet.

Andrea Marie: Oh, so great.

[00:02:26] How mom guilt turned into grandma guilt

Jody Carroll: I mean, I can tell you, can brings you back to that time that it was very difficult.

Andrea Marie: Oh gosh. It was so difficult and I imagine.

Jody Carroll: So hard.

I’m like, I told my husband, I’m like, I feel so sorry for them. And he, he said, what? And I said, I just, it’s exhausting. And he said, remember, they’re a lot younger, you know, you are right now.

Andrea Marie: Right, and they signed up for it. They signed up for this.

Jody Carroll: Yes, I can’t help but feel guilty like I brought you into the world and now you’re having a baby. It’s my fault. Okay, so you feel like you have to do everything.

Andrea Marie: But it’s funny how, it’s funny how you really can’t explain it to anyone. You cannot. There’s no way to communicate the magnitude of how difficult it is. Right. And it must be so wonderful to be a grandma where you don’t have to get up at night. You don’t. You can go home and sleep and that’s just, and hand them back when you know you need to. And you get all the good stuff.

Jody Carroll: Right. You do get all the good stuff. There’s a little bit of pressure. I mean, depending on how you kind of picture yourself as a grandma, like what you know, it’s coming.

So you’re kind of like, what kind of grandma am I gonna be? And you know, there’s a part of me that’s just like, I have to be there for them, every step of the way.

I’ve gotta do all the laundry. I just gotta support them as much as I can.

Andrea Marie: Hmm.

Jody Carroll: So, it’s a little bit, I find that to be the biggest challenge. It’s like, I remember that old saying, take pressure off yourself. You’re putting too much pressure on yourself. Kind of used to be a thing.

I don’t know what we say now, but I kind of went back to the old school like I just need to take pressure off myself, be the best grandma like I can be. Someone told me they’re gonna love you because you’re their grandma.

You don’t have to be a certain type of grandma. You know, to be loved. It’s kind of like when you love your mom, you love your mom, no matter what, you know. I think someone told me that it kind of goes the same for grandparents.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, That’s so true.

Jody Carroll: I’m just, don’t know. I love being around the babies. I love ’em so much, but I really think ththeardest part is putting pressure on yourself to help out.

Andrea Marie: Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure.

Jody Carroll: You know what the biggest help is? Taking their dogs.

Andrea Marie: Oh.

Jody Carroll: So it’s like you’ll be around your kids’ dogs more than ever before. Welcome to Grandparenting. Take the dogs. We now have eight dogs.

Andrea Marie: The dogs that we used to love.

Jody Carroll: The dogs we used to run, we used take them for one. Yeah, we have they’ve our house all the time.

Andrea Marie: They got the downgrade.

Jody Carroll: Yeah.

[00:05:34] Becoming a foster mom after raising kids

Andrea Marie: Oh, that’s so funny. Now, so now tell us about, tell us about your kids. Like how many kids, and I know that you’ve fostered kids, so I wanna get into that as well and talk about like, what that was like to have, you had your own kids and then you had foster kids. Talk about that journey a little bit.

Jody Carroll: Okay. We did. We had three kids. And you know, first two were two years apart, then three years apart. And when our last child, our daughter, she, I think she was about, I knew Empty Nest was coming.

It was four years away or so, and I thought, I’m not done. I’m just not done being a mom. You know, so and I have two adopted brothers.

I have two adopted brothers. And my husband and I kind of always thought that was in our life that would be in our story at some point somehow. And so our church has a really great foster slash adoption program. And we loved our church.

Still do, but we don’t go as often. And so we got involved with that and did a mountain of paperwork.

Andrea Marie: Oh yeah.

Jody Carroll: Just started down the road. We weren’t sure, maybe this is not our story, maybe this is not for us, not a good fit. But let’s just go down the road and see if things start falling into place.

Then we’ll know that it’s right. You know? So things started falling into place and we got our first placement and it was a little girl and she’s still in our life.

She actually went back to her mom after two years. We got her at two. Two and a half, and then she went almost to the day, went back to her mom two years later.

And her mom’s grade, her mom’s super healthy. She got married to a wonderful man and they have two more kids. They’ve got a great family.

So kind of a very, very happy ending story. So that was so fun. And then after that…

Andrea Marie: So when your kids were like, like what? 12 and up at that point?

Jody Carroll: So my kids were, I think like 14, 17, and then Casey was in college. I remember getting a call from him from college, you know.

Andrea Marie: Oh.

Jody Carroll: I’m like, she’s in the car right now. And he was so excited, you know?

Andrea Marie: Oh, that’s so great.

[00:08:07] The unexpected ripple effect of opening your home

Jody Carroll: But yeah, that is the best part of fostering when your kids are a little older because it’s such a gift to your kids.

They see the world through completely different eyes. And that trickles out into their friend groups, and those friends see something happening special and they see the positive sides of bringing other people into your house. And that was really something that I hadn’t thought about much when we were getting ready to foster is how big of an impact it would have on just your whole family.

Andrea Marie: Oh, that’s so nice.

Jody Carroll: I mean, I thought about, you know, what, what impact it would have on my husband, but the positive impact it has on your kids. It’s just like, wow.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Jody Carroll: Really, really cool.

Andrea Marie: Oh, that’s so great. So then, did you have multiple foster kids? Or was it just the one?

Jody Carroll: She was the longest placement and we had, we call ’em triplets because two were, they were twins and then the other child was just a year older, so they ran in a pack. So we had the triplets and we had them kind of off and on for a year and then we had twins. We did have twin girls.

The triplets were nine years old and then a 10-year-old. And then the twins we had for almost exactly 10 months. And the triplets went back with their grandma, and then the twins went back to their mom.

Andrea Marie: Okay.

Jody Carroll: And that’s not as happy of a story and they ended up getting adopted by some godparents.

So they’re fine, but the mom is not as happy as the story is.

Andrea Marie: Mm, yeah.

Jody Carroll: Yeah, the twins were 10 and we had them for a school year and that was really fun.

‘Cause then our lunches again and taking ’em to the bus stop and it was so fulfilling. I really needed that. I really needed some extra mom time. You know?

Andrea Marie: So then when you had those series of foster kids, then you also had your kids, you had two of your kids still in the house or were at that time, were they kind of moving out?

Jody Carroll: Our first little foster child came, I think, I actually think my oldest daughter was a senior, so I mean, yeah, my oldest daughter was a senior.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Jody Carroll: And it could have been close to the end of her senior year, but she went to University of Washington at, which is in our area where we live. And she was in, they were in each other’s lives quite a bit.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, that’s great.

Jody Carroll: She came home a lot. You know.

Andrea Marie: Yeah. Right, that’s so great . Like, it’s so funny, my brain automatically jumps to like, oh my God, the logistics of it. How did you like a car? And the how? You know, I’m like thinking of all the stuff, but I’m sure you just had a big car and we’re like, hey let’s pile all in, you know?

Jody Carroll: I mean, you see foster parents doing it with way more.

Andrea Marie: Oh wow.

Jody Carroll: They’ve got eight kids and this one’s coming in, this one’s going out. It’s a little more crazy. I am a little more controlling, a little, a little more OCD.

So I had to have, you know, some control around it. And I mean, the help you get from your older kids is awesome. You have built in baby babysitters.

Andrea Marie: Right.

Jody Carroll: Like, oh, sorry. You can’t go, you have to babysit Nire.

And then her friends would come to our house and hang out. She had to babysit, you know?

And which was such a cool experience, you know, it’s very interesting how it impacts your older kids.

My neighborhood was so cool ’cause they saw what we were doing and they felt like they could have a hand in that special experience by helping. By babysitting, you know, “I’ll take her this afternoon,” or you know, that’s so great.

I mean it was really, it was really life giving and it’s ended up being just such great, great memories.

But we are not doing it anymore. We are not doing it anymore, ’cause we now we have these grand babies.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Jody Carroll: And yeah, we’ve always had, we’ve always had kind of a in and out. I would say that we had Nire, that was the biggest one. And then the triplets, then the twins, and then we had a couple others that were just quick ones,

Andrea Marie: Quick, yeah.

Jody Carroll: Uh huh.

Andrea Marie: Yeah. And how does that work? You just get a call and you might need to kind of act pretty quickly?

Jody Carroll: Right, yeah. We get a call and then they either bring the child or you go pick them up and you know, they check your car seat and then they’re like, you’re on your way. And then every single week. Every week, this is shocking. We went through our church, so there’s a social worker through the church assigned to you.

There’s also a social worker from the state assigned to you. So every single week we had two social workers visiting our house. I mean, that is unbelievable to me, looking back on it, like, wow, there are people in our house asking us questions, asking us how it’s going every single week for, you know, five years in and out for five years.

Andrea Marie: I almost feel like regular parents need that too.

Jody Carroll: Honestly, I looked forward to it. It’s like, well, we’re having trouble with this. Yes, I honestly looked forward to it.

Andrea Marie: I am not doing that well, to be honest. You know?

Jody Carroll: Social workers are cool people. So cool. I mean, what does it take in your heart, in your brain to say, I’m gonna be a social worker? Like that is a cool person. So to have those people walking in your house and having really cool discussions around. Around your situation, right. Around your place, about your kids. But also on, on bigger pictures.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Jody Carroll: The foster care, you know, system.

[00:14:27] How a nurse showed Jody real support

Jody Carroll: It is upon when having people having feeling like you have support. I remember when Casey, I’m switching topics, but I remember when my oldest child was born, he was born low. He was born low birth weight, I think like six. Not too low, you know, six pounds, nine ounce. But anyway, he had jaundice and today I don’t think they worry about it too much.

But back then it was a huge concern.

Andrea Marie: They had the lights.

Jody Carroll: So, yes. So they sent, did you have a jaundice baby?

Andrea Marie: But I remember seeing the babies baking, you know, they were.

Jody Carroll: We call him the light bright baby because he had this thing around his torso and it was looked like light bright, all these little lights, and we had to plug ’em into the wall at night. Sitting by the window in the morning, you know, in the sunlight. And every day I had a nurse come by and prick his little toe to see how jaundice just was doing.

Yeah to check his and I mean, I would be looking out the window waiting for that nurse.

Andrea Marie: Where is she?

Jody Carroll: It was awesome.

Andrea Marie: I remember.

Jody Carroll: She helped me with breastfeeding and everything else. I had questions.

Andrea Marie: Yeah. I remember when they gave me the baby to take home and I was like, what are you talking about? I take this home now. I need help. I don’t know what I’m doing. I have no idea.

Jody Carroll: It’s so true. It’s so scary. I was out of my mind scared.

Andrea Marie: I know, I know. That’s funny, waiting at the window. Where’s the nurse?

Jody Carroll: I know she’s. Oh, this big lady, she was big and she was yummy and delicious, and she’d walk through my door and I’d never see, and she’d hold my little baby, you know, with, with her big, strong, healthy, rested body. And I was, oh, he does. He’s never looked so comfortable.

Andrea Marie: She was, and she is being paid to care about everything. You know, like that’s how.

Jody Carroll: Own paid for grandma coming into my house. That’s why it was her. It’s her fault that she put the pressure on me to be a good grandma.

Andrea Marie: That’s right.

Jody Carroll: She set the standard way too high.

[00:16:45] No one prepares you for the empty nest

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah. I also wanna find out about how? So you, when did you, you’ve got all these children, so many children at your house, in and out. When did you get into comedy and how did that happen?

Jody Carroll: I think was a little nervous about empty nesting. Are you an empty? You’re an empty nester.

Andrea Marie: I’m an empty nester now. Yeah, it’s like quiet. It is so quiet. It is freaky.

Jody Carroll: Yeah, aren’t you glad you have something? To fill that space.

Andrea Marie: I would be like, what do I do at night? I don’t know.

Jody Carroll: Yeah. And now you do have, I mean, no one. It’s like you say, no one can prepare you for when you’re gonna have kids. No one can prepare you for that feeling of empty nest.

It is a very nuanced kind of very, you hard to grasp what that feeling is going to be.

Andrea Marie: Right. Yeah ’cause you, you see all the people. And yes, of course, everyone’s like, woo-hoo, empty nest. And we have a little joke about that we do on the shows, you know? Oh yeah. That’s what we’re working towards. But at the same time, I’m like, I’m uh! Uh, you know, it’s also just heartbreaking, you know, that it’s never gonna be the same, you know?

Jody Carroll: It’s really heartbreaking. It really is, and I think I was a little nervous about it.

Andrea Marie: Right.

Jody Carroll: And I thought, well, let me ask myself this question. If I could wake up in the morning and do anything, what would it be? And I thought, I’d love to just be in a room full of funny people working on a project. And so I thought, well, maybe I can. You know, be a comedy writer and write for some commercials or advertising, stuff like that. Maybe a show, you know, your mind goes crazy.

I don’t know anything about the business at all. And then you start looking into it and you realize all those people are it, back in the day, they were plucked from the comedy clubs. These people that were hiring comedy writers would go into the clubs.

And grab, we all know this now and this doesn’t happen anymore.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah.

Jody Carroll: Social media, they just take ’em off social media and they can do it different ways now. So I thought, okay, well if I wanna be a comedy writer, I guess I have to do standup comedy.

Andrea Marie: How it started. And did?

Jody Carroll: Once you get on the stage and you do it the first time, you’re hooked.

Right? Oh man. That is.

So weird.

Andrea Marie: I always hate to say everything is like, oh, that’s like crack. ‘Cause like, I’ve never done crack, but it seems like what it would be. It’s not like I’m out there doing comedy for a hit, but I mean, it sort of is. You know, you’re, it’s such good drug. Making people laugh is such a high, it really is. It feels so good and it feels productive.

Yeah.

[00:19:50] Why laughter helps you heal

Jody Carroll: Yeah, I know I go through phases of like, what am I doing? This is ridiculous. And then, and then you realize that someone will say something like really profound things and you know, I lost a family member two weeks ago. This is the first time I’ve laughed in two weeks. I know that happens to us a lot on Moms Unhinged.

Andrea Marie: It does. It’s wild.

Jody Carroll: Mom shows, especially. Have that quality about where people will say, I just saw a friend through breast cancer and you guys, this is the first time I’ve laughed in a month, or whatever it is. So then you start to feel like you’re doing something really productive.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah. Right.

Jody Carroll: So all that to say is when you first start, it does feel, for some reason, when you first start, it doesn’t feel frivolous. It feels important, even though there’s moments after that that it feels frivolous. But when you first start, and then when you get to those big shows where you’re getting feedback like that, it feels really important.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Jody Carroll: Saying that you’re not, you know, you’re not wasting, you’re not wasting time and you’re not getting into trouble. Like I could be at the mall shopping, I could be.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Jody Carroll: New furniture. Comedy has turned to be a little expensive, but at least I’m not, you know, I don’t know. It felt like a kind of a good creative outlet.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, it’s a good creative. It’s better than just sitting, scrolling on your phone or doing something that’s like, yeah, not like whatever.

Jody Carroll: Or gardening or hiking. I mean, who needs it?

Andrea Marie: No offense to any gardeners or hikers out there.

Jody Carroll: I can’t do it, I can’t do it. You guys are my heroes.

Andrea Marie: You’re not a hiker.

Jody Carroll: No I’ll do it, but it’s not like if I could wake up in the morning, there’s some people that say, I would want to play tennis. I want to play tennis. If I could do anything, you know.

I’m like, I don’t wanna go hiking. I don’t wanna garden, I don’t wanna play tennis, I don’t wanna watch a movie. What would I wanna do? I wanna be in a room with funny people and write something funny.

So fun to be collaborative and stuff. And then standup gets a little isolating.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, it’s definitely.

Jody Carroll: This is a lone wolf sport.

Andrea Marie: It is, yeah. It can definitely be, there’s community, but then also sometimes you are adrift on your own out there. Yeah, for sure. That is, I know.

Jody Carroll: And there’s some pros and cons to that too, but yeah.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, not as many. Not as many. I mean there’s definitely like tennis clubs and stuff, I guess. Whatever.

[00:22:34] Moms Unhinged road trip therapy sessions

Jody Carroll: It’s not as social, but those road trips, I’m telling you, the road trips with the Moms Unhinged people, those are core memories for me now. Like those, a lot of stuff gets, you know, gets talked about, gets hashed out in those roads and it’s so fun.

Andrea Marie: It is so funny ’cause I remember one time I was on a road trip and one of the, we were, it was a long road trip. It was like a three or four hour drive we had to take and we were getting into some deep spiritual things and someone was like, let’s share our core wounds, or something like that.

And I’m like, are the guy comedians who are on road trips doing this? I don’t think they are.

Jody Carroll: I bet you anything you are not. Yeah, it is. It is funny to see the, our age women who, you know, mom aged and above women, having these discussions in this, well, in this little isolated moment in time, on a road trip. The road trips is so bonding.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, it is true. It is true.

Jody Carroll: I love Moms Unhinged for that.

They’ve provided so many special times like that, like just driving from show to show and kind of navigating your way through uncharted territory in all sorts of ways. Like even geographically, like I don’t know where we’re going, you know.

And then we don’t really know each other all that well. We don’t know where this discussion is going.

Andrea Marie: I know, I know. It is funny ’cause sometimes, yeah, the three people or four people in the car don’t have, don’t know each other at all. It’s like, not like a regular road trip where it’s like old friends.

Jody Carroll: Mm-hmm.

Andrea Marie: Let’s all stick four comedians in a car and send them off somewhere, you know?

Jody Carroll: We can navigate this whole situation. Hopefully they’ll show up to the show on time.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, that it’s always, I’ve definitely had some moments where I’m like, oh, where are you?

Jody Carroll: Really?

[00:24:40] Her two most unhinged moments

Andrea Marie: So I wanna hear about, you know, speaking of crazy moments, crazy times. You know, I’m sure you’ve had, one of the things I like to ask is like about an unhinged moment that you’ve had either like, you know, with your kids or you know, with you as a kid.

I think it all helps us all to know like, oh my gosh, I’m not alone things, you know, I thought this was bad, but we all have some crazy times.

Jody Carroll: Yeah, we do all get unhinged. We do get unhinged. I like asking that at the beginning of the show. Like, are you unhinged?

Andrea Marie: I know.

Jody Carroll: And then people clap. And I’m like, if you’re not clapping and you’re hinged, we’re not happy with you. We don’t like you got your shit together. Yeah. But yeah, I definitely got unhinged as a young mom. There was one I am. Okay, there’s two, two times we never spanked our kids.

That was just not what we were gonna do.

And, so when my son, that lasted for about two years. My son was two and we didn’t spank him. This is, and this is why. This is why we did not spank our kids. My son was two and he, we were coming outta a little gym.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Jody Carroll: And he started running and went toward a busy street.

Andrea Marie: Oh gosh.

Jody Carroll: I know it’s giving me shivers right now. And so I said, you know, I was yelling, “Casey, stop, stop, stop, stop.” And he didn’t stop.

And he didn’t stop.

And so somehow, you know, the Lord saved him. And he did not, nothing happened to him. Thank God. And when I got to him, I was so unhinged.

I was, I didn’t know what to do. I was like, how am I gonna get it through his head that he needs to stop so I spanked him on his little diaper.

Andrea Marie: Yeah. Yeah.

Jody Carroll: You need to stop when I say stop. Or I said something, swat. And he turned to me and he goes, “Mama, no hit Casey.” And he hit me right here. That didn’t work. Now it’s my issue, not him running. It’s me. It, he turned it on me. Now I’ve got a problem.

Andrea Marie: I know.

Jody Carroll: My problem. I’m the hitter. You’re not the runner. No, that’s not what we’re talking anymore. I’m the hitter and then another time.

Andrea Marie: It’s just like, why do they have no self-preservation? They just run towards the traffic. Like you’re just.

Jody Carroll: So scary.

Andrea Marie: It’s amazing to me that so many kids survive.

Jody Carroll: Yeah.

Andrea Marie: They’re like, we have these prairie dogs out here in Colorado, and they just like will run in the middle of the road.

Like they have no, they’re just standing out there in the middle of the road looking, you know, we’re like that’s like a toddler.

Jody Carroll: Right. Preserve yourself. Do you wanna? Do you wanna see tomorrow? Yes. Yeah, it is scary how they survive, how they get themselves into.

Andrea Marie: Towards danger, yeah.

Jody Carroll: And another time, and I don’t drink anymore, but I used to drink and this is a day that I was not drinking. Okay? So I know I was legit unhinged. I had no alcohol in my system at all. I hadn’t even drank the day before.

Not drink, just hadn’t drink. And so I’m like, okay, this was legit because I was not drinking. And so they’re playing Monopoly and all three of ’em, they’re at this age where there’s this magic time where the three of ’em, get along. They’re gelling. Yeah, they’re gelling and, exactly, so I don’t know what it is, eight, 10.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Jody Carroll: 11 and 13th, something in there. They played Monopoly all the time. And they fought all the time when they played Monopoly. And so they were fighting and I just.

I came downstairs and I started jumping, physically, jumping with my feet on the Monopoly board. And all the pieces are going, woo. Jumping, jumping, jumping.

I’m like, I can’t take it anymore. Picked up the board, ripped it, ripped it, ripped. It ripped the board in half, and then I got a big garbage bag in the middle of the game. We have not had Monopoly game in our house since.

Andrea Marie: That is hilarious.

Jody Carroll: Every once in a while I have lost my mind. I lost my mind.

Andrea Marie: Just go ballistic Hulk rage on the Monopoly board.

Jody Carroll: Rage.

Andrea Marie: God.

But

Jody Carroll: Because I couldn’t spank them. Casey had already put that away, couldn’t spank them. So I spanked the Monopoly in, its in my own way. And they from time to time will say, it’s like, you like the Walgreens? Oh, she doesn’t like the two from one.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jody Carroll: The inside joke you have about Walgreens. Listener, if you don’t know, Andrea’s had her unhinged moment in Walgreens.

Andrea Marie: I know.

Jody Carroll: An inside joke about Walgreens. So now they have an inside joke about should we play Monopoly?

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Jody Carroll: Every once in a while. Like, it’s an old joke now, so they don’t bring it, you know, but it’s out. Pardon the fun.

Andrea Marie: My gosh. I know, and I’m sure at the time you just probably felt like such, you know, it’s so hard when you get so mad. The fighting is what always got me when they were fighting and bickering. I’m like, stop it. You know? And you just want it to stop because it can be constant. And especially like if they are, if like Monopoly always triggers them, they’re like, then why are we playing? Let’s play a different game.

Jody Carroll: Right. Like, what are you doing to yourselves?

You’re right. I hadn’t thought about that for a while. But fighting with each other, the kids fighting with each other was a big deal.

And my mom used to get mad at us fighting. And I remember in my head thinking, why? Why does she care? She’s not in the fight.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah.

Jody Carroll: Right. We’re fighting.

She’s not. But then as mom, you understand, oh wow, that’s really stressful.

Andrea Marie: Really annoying. Yeah.

Jody Carroll: Why don’t we just let him fight?

Like why do we care?

Andrea Marie: I always, I think I always felt like a little bit protective of, especially the younger kids. ‘Cause I always felt the, like my older son was just a little more, you know, he knew a little bit more how to bully, you know? ‘Cause you, you know, as you grow up, you use your words a little bit more in a different way.

And like, I always felt like coming in and wanting to rescue the underdog or whatever. So I don’t know what.

Jody Carroll: That’s a really good reason.

Andrea Marie: But I mean, to be fair.

Jody Carroll: Whatever situation.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, to be fair, my younger son could like needle the older one too, you know?

Jody Carroll: Then you’d wanna come in and say the other one. So whoever the underdog was, you’re being mama bear. yeah, that could. That could be it. Yeah all your young moms out there, just

let ’em fight it out.

Unless its physical.

Andrea Marie: Get some popcorn, right?

Jody Carroll: That’s good.

Andrea Marie: Take bets. See who’s gonna win over under, you know? Oh my goodness. Well, Jody, this has been just so much fun. Thank you so much. That made me laugh so hard. And why don’t you let people know where

they can find you? To. get in touch with you and follow you.

Jody Carroll: Thank you. That would be great. I’m @jodycarrollcomedy on everything except for X, which I just got on. And on X it’s @gramsplainit. So I have a new thing on all my socials. So go to @JodyCarrollComedy, go to on Instagram. TikTok. I have a whole new series gramsplaining.

Andrea Marie: Ah, nice.

Jody Carroll: I talk about being a grandma.

‘Cause I have so much experience. 18 and a half months of experience, not a year and a half, you’re supposed to say by months. 19 months. 18 and a half months. And it’s been really fun to do some funny stuff about it.

Andrea Marie: I love it. Yeah ’cause I’m sure it’s so fresh, it’s so new. You’ve got lots of things to talk about, I’m sure. Oh, great. Well, thank you so much again, and can’t wait to see.

Jody Carroll: Thank you. Yes, thanks for everything, Andrea.

Andrea Marie: Thanks for listening and make sure you subscribe, share, and follow us on the socials to get more comedy clips.