Van Lathan (74:02)
Hmm. I think lots of things here. The first is a lesson that I got from my mom, just about people's individual humanity. My mother, I was talking about, I think I've told you guys this before, to the UNC age when I'm repeating stories. I was talking about how I felt that my father died. And my mom goes, well, first thing, your father didn't die. What are you talking about? Jedi mind trip, Black lady? She goes, van Lathan Sr. Died. That's who died. If you relate, if you contextualize his life as your father, as that being, his entire being, it deepens the disappointments that you have for him, because you don't look at him as a person that has any type of motivation or any type of behavior that's not related to being your dad. So if he does something and that entire thing is not circled around being your father, you think, how could you? But for 25 years before you got here, this was a person that built up trauma, that built up habits, that built up worldview, that built up all kinds of different ways of existing and being that had nothing to do with you. Maybe he thought about how he would act and react when he became a dad, and maybe he filters some of his behavior through that. But there is going to be a point where just Van Lathan Sr. Is going to be there, and hopefully he remember, he would react in a way to where he says, look, this is how your daddy is and this is how I don't want you to be. And I had a lot of those conversations with him. But it's hard not to do when Someone's identity is father, it's hard not to do. When somebody's identity is mother, it's hard not to do. It's hard not to say, this is how you're supposed to be talking as a mother, this is how you're supposed to be talking as a wife. But if you just looked at her not as a mother, not as a wife, not as something that you have all of these standards for that you've been taught that may be good or bad. If you just looked at her as Aisha Curry, how would you feel about what she was saying? If you just looked at her as the person that she is, what would you think then? How would you feel about the fact that when she was a kid, before she had children, before she knew Steph, she had all of these things that she had wanted to do and accomplish, and she is young enough to accomplish those things, even still, right? But now she is in a traditional and societal box to where her reaching out for those things is perceived a certain way, and she has such a large family that she doesn't want to shirk her responsibilities there. It's something to at least have a conversation about, right? When you're talking about people's individual want to continue to grow and the dreams and the versions of themselves that they thought that they would be, that's for everyone. This is what I would say. If we're going to have holistic conversations about things, then we need to try to extend grace and compassion to everyone. We aware of having a man that was in that same situation, that was married to a powerful woman, saying, this would be eviscerated. He would be eviscerated. He would be eviscerated. If this was a man that was married to a powerful woman and he was saying, you know, she's super powerful. I love her, she's amazing. But what about me? He would be eviscerated. And the reason why he would be eviscerated is because we would look at him as someone who wasn't capable of being in that relationship with that powerful woman without making it about himself. Now, there are certain things that have happened that have eaten around the edges of that. When Jonathan Owens was on the pivot with Simone Biles and Jonathan Owens was saying, hey, just to let you know, he's talking about his shit and his relationship, hey, she was on me. I was the catch in that situation. Whether that's true or not, like, whether that's true or not. The way it was looked at was, you are lucky to be Married to one of the greatest athletes of all time, a beautiful, accomplished, amazing woman. N who are you to talk about the fact that she was on you? And what I'm saying is this. The framework that this. Of misogyny and patriarchy and what we are focused on when we are having conversations about women and the things that they want to do in the lives that they want to lead and how far outside of those lives we let them travel, is a fair, appropriate, and a necessary conversation to have. But I would say overall here, people inside of relationships, be they women or be they men, talking about the fact, whatever, that there are things that they want individual, be this men, be this women, that there are things that they want for themselves. Mothers talking about the fact that. That it ain't all cracked up. What is cracked up to be all the time? I am exhausted. I am worked to the bone. Fathers going, you know what? Sometimes I just want to be just people being themselves. Human beings having human conversations about what their existence in the moment is, whether it aligns with your perception of how they should look at things or whether it doesn't line with your perception of how that's something that we should encourage and allow a safe space for. But a lot of times, even in these conversations, we're looking for safety. We're looking for people to, in my opinion, reinforce or endorse how we think they should be acting like. There are a lot of people right now, a lot of men going, that are thinking, if I'm a millionaire, damn near a billionaire, if I am the greatest of all time, if I am a great father, a family man, if I put my family first. We're not talking about, like, one of the bad ones here. We're not talking about, quote, unquote, quote unquote. We're not talking about future. We're not talking about somebody with kids everywhere. We're talking about somebody that has a family brand that is a good, clean cut. We don't know what's going on. All of this. A lot of guys are saying if I do all of that, I can still be in a situation where my wife is talking on an interview to a person saying that she's not happy enough. And whereas that is doing exactly what I said before, it's a lot of men who can't come to terms with the fact. A lot of people who can't come to terms with the fact that. That there are some aspects of life with a person that you cannot control. There are certain aspects. There are certain things that people want and need that exist outside of you, of course. And so that. That there's no, there's no consummate mother whore that is going to be in a situation where you completely make them 1000% happy and they never want anything for themselves. And also on the flip side, that when you are a tremendously successful woman and your man is there in tow, he certainly is going to think about himself. And he certainly, in a world where that dynamic really isn't supposed to exist, is going to at some point say, well, this is why she wants me.
