B.J. Foster (2:02)

I love that. That's like, he's out on the trail.

Bobby Lewis (2:04)

Yeah.

Ted Lowe (2:05)

We don't even live in Oregon.

B.J. Foster (2:06)

I know, right? I. You know, I don't know if it's look at my boy. But when my son was seven, I decided to recreate my favorite memory with my dad, which was my dad came home. I think I've told this story on another podcast, but he came home from work early and just surprised me by taking me to my first professional baseball game. And so my wife is a flight attendant. She flies for free.

Bobby Lewis (2:35)

We're.

B.J. Foster (2:36)

I'm originally from Philadelphia. We're die hard Philadelphia sports fans. And so it was like the Thursday night before, I said, hey, buddy, you and I are getting on a plane Tomorrow morning at 6am we're flying up to Philadelphia and we're gonna go to I'm taking you to Phillies game. And. And so he was so excited. And it was just the two of us flying together. We flew up there. And on top of that, I have a little Phillies jersey that I wore that I kept.

Ted Lowe (3:09)

Oh, man.

B.J. Foster (3:09)

And he was wearing that and my Phillies hat from when I was seven.

Ted Lowe (3:16)

You framed a photo with us. I hope it was the cool.

B.J. Foster (3:18)

I didn't frame one. I took, I took plenty of them. The. The really funny thing was when I went to the game and, and by the way, it was so when I went to my first game, it was like I was so enmeshed in the game, the experience, the sights, the sounds, the colors.

Bobby Lewis (3:36)

Yeah.

B.J. Foster (3:37)

And we got there and we watched about two innings and had hot dogs and whatever or, you know, and. And then he was like, can I go to the, to the playground? It was like, you know how ballparks have playgrounds in them now? And so he was in that playground for like four innings.

Bobby Lewis (3:53)

Can I go to the playground?

B.J. Foster (3:54)

You know, and so that was it. But afterwards I remember thinking it was a school night and my dad was going to take us home early. And not only did we not go home early, but we went out to a diner afterwards. And so, and so I did the same thing with my side, took him to a diner afterwards. Seven.

Ted Lowe (4:12)

He was seven.

B.J. Foster (4:13)

Seven years old.

Ted Lowe (4:14)

Nice.

B.J. Foster (4:15)

So, yeah, just one of those so cool, great moments. And when I ever, whenever I ask him, hey, what's your favorite memory from childhood? There's typically a couple, but that one always comes up.

Ted Lowe (4:26)

Yeah.

B.J. Foster (4:27)

And so it made me feel like hitting it exactly like it hit me.

Bobby Lewis (4:31)

That's so great. But after that, you got nowhere to go but down.

B.J. Foster (4:36)

This is fantastic. We will do nothing. But can we do that now, next

Ted Lowe (4:39)

week, let's do it again.

Bobby Lewis (4:40)

Yeah. Though I was. I've been excited about this episode because I've got two boys who are now 22 and 25. And when they were little and they. We have four, and they're the oldest, and it's when they were little, I wanted to start this thing that just the three of us were going to do boy stuff. So I named it Triangle because our last name is low Spanish. I thought it was super clever. They didn't know what's going on, but I thought it was cool. And so I would just intentionally, hey, Triangle, let's go. Do you know I had Honda Element? You know, those movable Toasters? And. And I was like, hey, this is the Triangle O car. And so we've been doing that kind of thing. And, you know, the Triangle O would wrestle, and Triangle O would go on camping trips, and Triangle would do all this stuff, and it would. We would wrestle all the time. Like, I knew that when I got home from work, they were going to be ready to go. And we continue to have this very physical. Just aggression towards each other, especially me towards them. I mean, like, I don't know what it is in me, but when I see them, I love them so much, I want to punch them, you know, I don't know what that is. I just. Oh, I just want punch you right now. You're so awesome. And so. And we were just on vacation, and you see this fresh scar right here? So we're on the beach and we're all. Our whole family's going down on the. On the bikes, and I'm riding my son, and I just had the thought, this is. Doesn't get any better than this, that our kids want to be with us. This is my favorite place. I love the ocean, all the things. And my other son comes up behind me and pushes me over on the beach. And I. I've wiped out before in bike, but it was a whole different level. And I got caught up on my son's bike, and somehow he ended up straight straddling both bikes with not a scratch on him. I had. I mean, like, I'm just still healing from this whole situation. But as soon as it happened, I was like, oh, man, I haven't hurt that bad a long time. But I had to jump up, like,

Ted Lowe (6:33)

pretend you didn't get it.

Bobby Lewis (6:35)

Couldn't help but laugh. But that's. That's kind of who we are. And I still love that that's who we are, is that I want to punch them I'm not sure. It's great that every time they walk by me, they flinch, but it's who we are. So let me ask you a question. What is the best part about being a boy dad of fathers or sons? In no particular order? Here's some good things. Number one is passing down dad stuff. You get to pass down dad stuff. You know, my dad can do anything. And so growing up, my brother and I would go with him to do things, but we were like the go get guys. Go get me this wrench. And I would, you know, couldn't find it. And I saw this meme the other day. It said, he goes, you can't hurt my feelings. I used to bring my dad the wrong tools. And so I feel like I fully understood that in that moment. But I thought, if I ever have kids, you know, I'm going to let them do stuff. Because you can imagine telling an ADHD boy kid to just watch somebody else do something. It was torture. And so I've just let them as much as I can. I mean, we've got a deck that's just got. You can see the hammer marks in it. I gave my son once, I gave him a. A toilet seat and said, go change it. Because we needed. He wanted to go change it. I thought, this is a low risk proposition. And he went and he did it. And I've never seen him more proud of himself than we had installed that thing and goes, should I put up flyers and put them around the neighborhood that I can do your toilet seat. That's a great idea. But it's just, it's so fun when you can pass down dad stuff.

B.J. Foster (8:01)

I think, you know, when I think about that, the things that I've taught my son I would like. Sports are kind of big to us. It's been big for my son and I. And so I've gotten to coach him over the years. I mean, when, when I think about him throwing a baseball, football, a Frisbee or whatever, those are all the things that I taught him how to do. I taught him how to skate for the first time. I remember even just telling him, even just on rollerblades, how to push off and, and to watch him now, like, you know, I got a chance a couple months ago to kind of watch him put some ice skates on and to watch him fly around both forwards, backwards. I mean, he. Ultimately, he ended up playing hockey for a while, so he surpassed even me in terms of ability. And I'm someone who grew up pond skating in New Hampshire. And so like, but to see him kind of surpass me in all of

Bobby Lewis (9:02)

those things, passing it down, it's, it's

B.J. Foster (9:05)

just, it's been a really fun thing.

Ted Lowe (9:07)

Well, I told you the breakfast story. Him is a pretty low risk food. It's already basically cooked. You could eat it, you know, right out of the fridge. So I was worried about that. But I've been trying to teach my son about grilling. So we had chicken on the grill the other day and I was like, come on over here, let me show you this. And it's got to be cooked to this temperature or you'll poison the family, all that sort of stuff. So he got to do a little bit of grilling the other day. And then, you know, one of the cool things that we've been able to share lately, and it sounds really weird, is Pressure Washington. I know that doesn't sound like that exciting, but I was pressure washing the back porch and he's like, whoa, that looks kind of cool. Can I do it? And I showed him how to do it and now he wants to do it just to kind of help his family. He's like, oh, mom will think this is really cool. And I was like, yeah, buddy, give it a shot. Do this and you know, take care of this task. And it's just, it's a little thing, but man, it's cool when you get to share little things like that, you know, passing down those dad duties.

B.J. Foster (9:59)

Hey, I can watch pressure washing videos.

Ted Lowe (10:02)

It's so satisfying.

B.J. Foster (10:03)

Oh, I love them, man.

Bobby Lewis (10:05)

Barn finds. Forget it, I'm out. Like when they find the old cars.

B.J. Foster (10:09)

Absolutely.

Bobby Lewis (10:10)

Back to the game. One of the other things that's great about being a dad, I've already talked enough about this is we get to be rough. We get to, we get to be rough with our kids. It's just, it's just so fun. And then.

Ted Lowe (10:22)

Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm nervous about that though, cuz. You got scars. I can see your scars on your arm.

Bobby Lewis (10:27)

My son's 10. He's in the legs.

Ted Lowe (10:29)

He's not scarring me yet, but he does like to push and shove and rough house a little bit. I can handle a 10 year old. I don't know about a 25 year old. We'll see.

Bobby Lewis (10:38)

He don't want none.

B.J. Foster (10:39)

Even from, even from the days that my kid, my son was a baby like I used to. He would be. You know when you have a baby and you put the blanket on the floor and then you lay them down there. I'd be laying with him. And I would. I would have to, like, put my arm across him, and I would lift his leg up like I was pinning him in professional wrestling. And I'd be like, 1, 2, 3. And I'd bang the ground and go, he's out. And he would giggle and giggle and giggle. I mean, so good. Oh, it's super fun.

Ted Lowe (11:11)

Love it.

Bobby Lewis (11:12)

Love it.

B.J. Foster (11:13)

Yeah.

Ted Lowe (11:13)

I think wrestling with your kids is a special thing, and it's wild. I would never do that with my daughter because on the off chance that I might hurt her, I wouldn't even risk it with my son. I'm like, if you get hurt, it'll be a cool story. Let's. Let's go for it. You know, just a little different thing between, you know, girls and boys.

B.J. Foster (11:32)

I was thinking the other day, too, like, this. This occurred to me, okay, so my son, again, he's in a couple. He's actually. But I'm sorry to say, by the time this airs, he'll be 17. But I used to just kind of grab him and throw him around the pool and all this stuff, and he used to jump on me and I, you know, throw him, you know, not, you know, a little bit too much. But we've had these pool parties lately, and here he is out there in the middle, and there are all these little guys, and they're all jumping on his.

Bobby Lewis (12:04)

So great.

B.J. Foster (12:05)

And, you know, he's throwing them right and left and. And hangs in there. He's physically stronger than I. He hangs in there longer than I did. After a while, I was like, all right, that's enough.

Ted Lowe (12:15)

Yeah.

B.J. Foster (12:16)

And he just kind of keeps going and going, and it's kind of fun to see it continue on.

Ted Lowe (12:21)

There's actually some, like, scientific backing to what we're talking about. Mothers, they bond in a hormonal level with their children because they carry them for nine months in their body. Like, they're sharing everything. The mom is giving all the nutrients to the child and back and forth, and they're sharing these hormones. We don't do that, obviously. And so one of the ways that dads bond with their kids on a chemical level is by physical play. When you're wrestling, or you're kind of arm wrestling, pushing, shoving, playing, whatever you're doing, you're actually sharing these chemical balance. You're getting these mixes of different hormones that actually create memories. And so you got scars to remind you of the moment. But you also have a little seared memory in your brain that says, we had fun, and it makes you tighter, which is really cool. So I like that I've been able to do that with my son because, you know, we have these really neat physical, like, shoving matches, but we're really just shoving memories into our brain at the same time.

Bobby Lewis (13:17)

I like that. That's good.

Ted Lowe (13:20)

A third thing I think that's really special for dads with sons is that we get a chance to be real. We get a chance to look at them in the eye and say, all right, man, here's how it is. This is just. This is how dudes do things. And I think that's a really neat thing. You know, bluntness works better with boys. At least in my experience, it works better with boys than girls. With my daughters, I've to be a little more nuanced with some of my words with my son, I'll say, listen, this is just not how you do it. This is just not an appropriate way to behave, or this is something that I think you would be good at. Go for it. Stop delaying. I can be a little more blunt with my son. I don't know if you guys have had that experience, but I think that's a cool thing that dads and sons get to share because we kind of have a similar thinking.

B.J. Foster (13:58)

So you want to talk about blood? So I work. My son finishes up soccer practice one day. This is. This is like a year ago. And. And my wife said, you need to talk to our son about masturbation.

Ted Lowe (14:13)

Whoa. And, yeah, out of the blue, right,

B.J. Foster (14:15)

you need to talk to him about that. And I'm like, okay, well, we'll talk about it. And so we're coming back from soccer practice, and I'm driving, and. And I said, all right, we're gonna have a awkward conversation right now about masturbation. And he goes, okay. And I go, and you don't even need to say anything. I'm just going to tell you how it went down with my dad and. And how I want it to be different with us. I said, so When I was 13, I came home from school, and there was a book on my night table that it was about sex. And so I opened it up, and I read the chapter about masturbation. That was it. And went downstairs, and my dad said, hey, I left you a book on your night table. And I said, yeah, I saw it. And he goes, okay, glad we have this. Do you have any. He goes. He said, have you read any of it yet? And he goes, do you have any questions? I said, nope. And he goes, did you read any of it? And I said, I Read the chapter about masturbation. And he goes, okay, did you do that yet? And so, you know, I'm like, so we talked about it a little bit, but kind of. Stop. I felt very alone in that. And I said, I don't want you to ever feel alone in this. So I want you to feel like you can talk to me about any of this stuff and you don't need to feel weird. You can ask me any question.

Ted Lowe (15:33)

But that, to the point, messaging worked with your teenager.

B.J. Foster (15:38)

It worked. Yeah. Getting right after it. Yeah. I mean, there's like just jumping right in and just being bluntly kind of vulnerable.

Ted Lowe (15:49)

Yeah.

B.J. Foster (15:50)

Like, okay, here's. Here's the truth. Here's what it is.

Ted Lowe (15:53)

Relatable.

B.J. Foster (15:54)

Relatable. I'm just going to lay out myself and I'm going to lay out the situation, the truth of it, and we're not going to be afraid of it. We're just going to dive right in.

Ted Lowe (16:06)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

B.J. Foster (16:07)

Of course. I don't know. I. I would do. Probably do the same thing with my daughter. I would probably just dive right in with her, too. Poor girl. Like, she's like, I guarantee you, she's going to watch this and be like, you do that with me all the time. It's not just with dad.

Bobby Lewis (16:24)

You are blunt on the podcast and as a dad.

B.J. Foster (16:27)

Right. But you can do it. I. You can definitely do it with boys, I think a lot easier than you can.

Bobby Lewis (16:33)

Yep.

B.J. Foster (16:33)

Yeah.

Bobby Lewis (16:34)

Another great thing about being a boy dad is you got built in buddies, you know, is being buddies is, you know, research shows that guys get along better with guys. And that's not. That shouldn't be a shocker, but it's just leveraging that to connect with your kids. And shared interest can make us connect. Right. Like, we can, you know, like you said, go to the baseball. Go to the baseball game, you know, throw the football. It's those things that you naturally love to do anyway and just leverage that to connect with your kids. So powerful.

Ted Lowe (17:06)

Yeah. A Gallup survey said that boys are more likely than girls to report having strong, loving relationships with their parents. So 77% versus 61%. This suggests that you might have potentially stronger bonds with boys and fathers. So work on it. Now, you want to be friends with your adult kids, be friends with them when they're 10. And that doesn't mean you can't discipline them or be the authority in the life you should be. But prioritize that you want to be buddies 20 years from now, be buddies today, be close with Them, you know, Absolutely.

B.J. Foster (17:38)

I think another thing is just being a mentor, an example. I mean, you want to live the life that your son is trying to figure out. Like, he doesn't know, and so he's looking for something. So I. I think kind of a part of this was, you know, with my son trying to teach him kind of about money. And so we would go on vacation, and anytime we go on vacation, we give our kids, like, 30 to $50 and say, this is yours to spend. If we stop off someplace, gift shops, that kind of thing. And. And it's yours to spend. You can spend it on whatever you want, but when it's gone, it's gone. You can't ask us, you know, to buy you something. And so everywhere we would go, he would just always be like, okay, do you think this is a good purchase? I mean, I, you know, I'm like, seems like you really think this thing is cool, buddy. Like, so, yeah, you might buy this and down the road might see something cool. But the question is, do you feel like you're going to use this? Do you feel like it's something that's cool? Do you feel like it's, you know, are you going to get a lot of fun out of it? And. And so it's really kind of funny to sort of see that. And kind of the way that I approach money and all that kind of thing, he takes on the same thing. It's like he'll even look at other people and be like, gosh, what a waste. Look what they're buying.

Ted Lowe (19:00)

Yeah. So the way I look at this with my son, and I think this about my daughters, too, but specifically with my son, because he's looking to me as the chief male authority or, you know, mentor in his life, that he can either try to be like me or try to be totally opposite of me when he becomes an adult. The way I look at it is I get to mentor him, I get to teach him, I get to coach him, I get to help mold him into a strong young man who will eventually grow up to be a strong young adult, hopefully a strong husband, hopefully a strong dad. I get to do that. And so when you're talking about dads and the fun bond they get to have with their sons, you get to create not a little mini you, but a best version of them. And it's such a privilege to do that. And I'm sure we'll have influence over our daughters. Good dads always do when they're engaged. But I don't think it's exactly the same as your sons. There's just something a little different there. You get to mold a great husband, you get to mold a great dad or at least have a hand in it. That's a big responsibility. We shouldn't shy away from that. We should say, I get to do those things.

Bobby Lewis (20:07)

Yeah, we've got those built in things that we have in common. And I think we need to make sure that we're leveraging that. Teachable moments. Bj, perfect example. When you say, I'm going to give you this amount of money and he's leaning in going, what do you think? That's just so powerful. And Bobby, you've already said this, but I think we've got to say it again. Another great thing about being a boy dad is you get a future best friend. And I am telling you, I am living it right now. And they love each other and they let me come along sometimes. I mean, you know, and they know, like Father's Day, they. I know what dad's going to want to do. Topgolf. You know, they know that's like taking a little kid to the park. And they called their, they called their mom. And my old one said, dad was such a rascal today. I was like, what are you, 80? You're a rascal. But it was just this fun. And there's a, there's a, there's just less pressure with boys to me, like, just hanging out, there's less pressure. And I just, I love it, man. It's great.

Ted Lowe (21:11)

You know, I, I went golfing with my dad when I was like 10 or 11. I got to go golfing with him because that was the only way he got to go golfing. My mom's like, hey, if you're gonna go golfing, take that kid with you. So I did. I went with him and my brother went too. And so he play. He taught us which club to hit when and all that sort of stuff. And when we were little, he did it because he wanted to play golf. But what ended up happening was I had so much fun with my dad that eventually I called him as like, hey, can we go play golf? I'm 26 now. Can we play golf? What a cool thing. And so I think about that now because I just went golfing with my son the other day, just little topgolf like you were talking about. But maybe that implanted a memory in him that he'll recall 10, 15 years from now and say, hey, dad, can we go play again? Man, what a gift. That would be.

Bobby Lewis (21:59)

This is great.

B.J. Foster (22:00)

I love this.

Bobby Lewis (22:00)

This is a fun one.

Ted Lowe (22:01)

Yeah.

Bobby Lewis (22:01)

I was excited about this one. So this gets us right into our pro move, which is to set aside one on one time with each of your sons, let them set the agenda and just enjoy being with your boy. Right. Usually they pick things way smaller than we think, like cooking ham in the backyard.

Ted Lowe (22:18)

Man, it was so good.

B.J. Foster (22:19)

Yeah.

Bobby Lewis (22:19)

Thank you, guys. This was fun. This was fun. And thank you. If you want more great content, you can sign up for a thing that BJ is a huge part of that overseas called the Play of the Day. It's a two minute read. Hit your inbox every day. You're going to get great nuggets. Going to take you two minutes to read. It's going to give you a great question. We talk about questions a lot. Some great questions. So make sure you check that out. But most of all, we want to say thanks. Thanks for hanging out with us. We know you and your boys will be glad that you did.

Podcast Host/Announcer (22:51)

Thanks again for listening to the All Pro dad podcast. Behind every episode is our amazing team producer, Haley Moat, audio and video editor Buck Buchanan, and production coordinator Corey Walliffe. Allprodad is the fatherhood program of the nonprofit Family first, along with our motherhood program imom. We exist to help you love your family well. So remember, if you have more questions than answers, then you're probably in the right place. See you next.