Touched Out Dad (ft. Carter, The Touched Out Podcast)

**Transcript Auto-Generated**

00:00:00:08 - 00:00:21:00
Matthew Krekeler
Welcome to Girl Dad Nation. In this episode, I welcome Carter from the Touched Out Podcast. Carter has three kids and he says his parenting style has evolved over the past year after he was diagnosed with ADHD and autism alongside his two year old son. His podcast focuses on men's mental health and parenting, and it's about to launch into season two.

00:00:21:13 - 00:00:28:22
Matthew Krekeler
Let's get to it.

00:00:34:01 - 00:00:36:02
Matthew Krekeler
Carter, welcome to the show. Thank you so much.

00:00:36:16 - 00:00:37:23
Carter
Thanks, mate. Thanks for having me.

00:00:38:18 - 00:01:00:05
Matthew Krekeler
It's an honor to have you. And you're in Australia, which is great. I think this might be my second international interview, so I just laid the kids down for bed. I hope that they're in bed. They should be in bed. But as of like 5 minutes before started this, I was like hearing like little voices upstairs.

00:01:00:23 - 00:01:20:04
Carter
So, yeah, as I was just saying to you, I've got my oldest Hendrix home from daycare today. She woke up this morning and she didn't want to go. She said, Ah, I feel sick. I've got the hiccups, Dad. So usually I'd be like, I'll be right, mate, and send her off. But I thought, I'll be nice dad today and let her stay home with me for the day.

00:01:21:03 - 00:01:24:20
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah, that's nice. I'm sure she prefers spending time with you, and it's like.

00:01:25:06 - 00:01:32:19
Carter
Yeah, it doesn't happen too often either. I'm sacrificing sleep today to hang out with her because I've got work tonight, but oh well, it happens.

00:01:34:10 - 00:01:48:16
Matthew Krekeler
And then you have a great podcast called the Touched Out podcast and want to just give you the floor to talk about your podcast. Even the name touched out. What does that mean to you and what was the inspiration behind that?

00:01:49:20 - 00:02:17:22
Carter
Yeah, certainly. So the touchdown podcast is my podcast. It's my creation. It's a one man show. I, I just I started releasing in, I believe February this year. So I've just wrapped up season one. I've already got season two all recorded and pretty much ready to go, which will be releasing in October. The name touched out comes from it's like an autism community kind of saying.

00:02:18:09 - 00:02:43:11
Carter
So a bit over 12 months ago, my son was diagnosed with autism Roman. He's two years old. And then shortly thereafter, after noticing a lot of the same markers in myself, I was also diagnosed with ADHD and autism at the Great age of 35 years old. So in the aftermath of that, it took me a long time to kind of reconcile those feelings that I had.

00:02:43:23 - 00:03:13:21
Carter
You know, I felt a lot of sadness and grief, like, for the life that I would have had if I had known earlier that I had these things. But then I was kind of like, you know, I can sit here and wallow or I can be positive about it and try to kind of find my community. I like learning via podcasts, but I couldn't really find many podcasts that were geared towards parents that are on the spectrum.

00:03:14:07 - 00:03:43:10
Carter
It was mainly parents who have kids that are on the spectrum, and then from there it kind of this little idea in my mind was like, Maybe I should start a podcast. Something that I had toyed with for the last decade, on and off, starting a podcast. So from that little seed grew the name and that, and I started tinkering with Canva and I came up with a logo and I was like, You know what?

00:03:43:10 - 00:04:13:23
Carter
I'm going to do it. I already had some audio equipment from a mate of mine that bought it all for me during COVID lockdown so I could record some songs and whatnot. So I was like, Well, I've got the equipment, I've got the time, I just need the guests. So I had to think about that. And my first guest was a girl named Kate, who I actually already knew, so booked her in, got the first recording out of the way, set up some socials and off to the races.

00:04:14:04 - 00:04:41:04
Carter
So basically the podcast is is my way of learning from other people. It's not specifically geared towards people who are on the spectrum, although I do have guests who have ADHD and are on the spectrum, but a lot of my guests all have preexisting mental health issues. We have, you know, a lot of depression, anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, bipolar, all of those types of things.

00:04:41:04 - 00:05:03:11
Carter
So it's just basically a little village where we can talk about the things that aren't talked about enough in society to try to make a little bit of a ripple and make some change. Try to destigmatize mental health issues, especially as parents. You know, we have some pretty heavy conversations. We talk about the early days of parenting where we're just absolute sleep deprived zombies.

00:05:03:11 - 00:05:25:20
Carter
And we think, you know, we love our kids, but we hate being parents. And there's so many people that are scared to say those things for fear of like what other people will think of them. But what they don't realize is anyone who's been a parent is likely had those feelings where they're just like, Yeah, she just I love you to death, but just fuck off and leave me alone for a bit.

00:05:27:12 - 00:05:42:19
Carter
So, yeah, it's, it's pretty cool. There's 13 episodes in the first season. There'll be more than that in the second season. I'm not too sure how many yet, but it's good fun. I really enjoy it. I'm learning a lot about myself and a lot about other people.

00:05:42:19 - 00:06:02:01
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah, well, it seems like your podcast has really taken off and I love the logo. I just wanted to comment on that, so go check it out. Yeah, it's like a pacifier there with like, flames. I think it's awesome. And then. Yeah, what do you call that? Do you call it a pacifier or Becky or something like what's your in Australia.

00:06:02:01 - 00:06:03:04
Carter
They're called dummy.

00:06:04:00 - 00:06:05:10
Matthew Krekeler
Dummies. Okay. Yeah.

00:06:05:19 - 00:06:29:08
Carter
Yeah. So I was I was trying to think of some sort of good imagery that would translate to, you know, what the podcast was about. So I've got that. That's the main logo. But for season two, I'm going to run with our other logo, which I have named the Death Rattle logo. So it's like a skull and crossbones, but the crossbones are like baby rattles.

00:06:30:02 - 00:06:31:16
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah, I love that one too. Yeah.

00:06:32:08 - 00:06:35:04
Carter
Yeah, I love it too.

00:06:35:05 - 00:06:45:21
Matthew Krekeler
Just your branding and yeah, being real about being parents, being a dad. What was that like just when you first found out you were going to be a father?

00:06:47:01 - 00:07:11:00
Carter
God, I was scared. I was I was absolutely terrified, but I took it all in stride. I was super excited in the journey of a pregnancy with my wife was awesome. It was good fun. I was very, very lucky in that my wife wasn't one of those super hormonal, pregnant women who were just angry at the drop of a hat.

00:07:11:00 - 00:07:34:01
Carter
She was just fun and loving and we had a great time together and we both got fatter together by just eating all of our pregnancy foods. Yeah, it was a really good time. I, you know, I've bought some of the parenting books to try to, you know, learn as much as I could about being a dad. And I didn't really read them.

00:07:34:01 - 00:07:51:23
Carter
In the end, if I had to read them, I don't think I would have known anything more than I already knew. Because as a father yourself, I'm sure you can attest to the fact that once you become a father, those books don't matter at all, and you just go blind and there's no manual, and everyone's journey is different.

00:07:52:17 - 00:08:07:13
Carter
And it's literally a day by day thing. Everything's dynamic and ever, ever changing, and that's part of the fun of it, though, is just you never know what to expect, nor should you expect anything. You just need to hold on and enjoy the ride.

00:08:07:13 - 00:08:27:14
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah, I had some guys on my podcast from boot camp for New Dads and I remember one of them saying like, they even do this boot camp, but you're still going to wing it. Like just kind of the nature of being a parent is there's so much that you have to learn on the job training, so to speak.

00:08:28:03 - 00:08:28:19
Carter
Yeah, yeah.

00:08:29:09 - 00:08:50:06
Matthew Krekeler
And everyone kind of has to adapt their own style and everyone's kids are different. So you have to even like you and I both have three. So even like the way that I parent like with each one of them could vary depending on like each of their individual personalities and needs. And yeah, it's the way that you relate to them.

00:08:50:06 - 00:09:11:02
Carter
But yeah, 100% I think, you know, the things that can be taught and the things that are important to be told to just like frameworks, you know, don't hate your kids, don't scream at your kids. And if you're going to scream at your kids, maybe apologize afterwards and tell them why you are upset and kind of try to grow their resilience and their emotional intelligence.

00:09:11:06 - 00:09:20:09
Carter
All of that. That's that's big themes in my podcast is kind of healing it out in a child so we can best parent our own kids.

00:09:20:09 - 00:09:27:06
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah. Along those lines, what have you learned from your kids and and how old are they now?

00:09:28:07 - 00:10:04:11
Carter
So Henry works here. Hendrix is for my first born. She's a girl. My second is a son, Roman, and my third is a little girl, Salem. She's just one, just turned one. Sorry. So what I've learned from them, I mean, I learned that I've got ADHD and autism. It's not something that I knew before. I had kids and because of, you know, having three kids in the house and only having a limited, limited amount of time and resources at my disposal, I quickly learned that I've got a lot of sensory issues, so I like being touched out.

00:10:04:11 - 00:10:23:12
Carter
And sorry, I didn't think I ended up explaining what that meant. Being touched out is when you just like these constantly being touched and jumped on and held on to when needed and needed and needed. And you just get to this point where you like, I can't handle being touched anymore. I don't want to hear any noises, I don't want to talk.

00:10:23:17 - 00:10:49:01
Carter
I just need to be alone and I like. It's just full on emotional burnout and sensory burnout. So I mean, that's where I got to. And I was just I was diagnosed with postpartum depression for my first two and then the third kind of went down the same path, but then I got my diagnosis as well. So that had a little bit more made a little bit more sense to me.

00:10:49:01 - 00:11:10:21
Carter
So yeah, I mean, I've learned that I've got hard limits. I've learned that it's important for me to set boundaries with my kids and stick to them. And that in turn is teaching them those types of things as well. So even though they might get upset with me for saying no to some things, it's a lot better than me saying yes, getting a little bit too worked up and having a little bit of a meltdown.

00:11:10:21 - 00:11:36:00
Carter
And they cop it a little bit, which none of us want. Unfortunately, it happens. And by cop it, I don't mean physically. I don't hate my kids. That's that's a pretty big boundary. But yeah, like, if my biggest thing is I don't treat them like children used to be treated, it's not a like a kids are meant to be seen and not heard type of deal.

00:11:36:00 - 00:11:56:17
Carter
They are very much equal as far as our emotions go. If I get upset or angry, I'll end up apologizing to them. We'll sit down and we'll talk it out and tell them why that happened. Just like if they do that with me or their mum, we expect the same. They'll sit down, apologize and we'll talk it out.

00:11:58:14 - 00:12:35:18
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah, I think that's great communication and yeah, really great approach to just building that mutual respect between kids and parents that it's not like, yeah, as parents we have like a certain responsibility and authority, but at the same time it shouldn't be like abused in that kind of power. And the more that we're able to relate to our kids, the more that we're able to empower them to grow up to be adults and handle conflicts and everything appropriately and yeah, just kind of be the best versions of themselves too.

00:12:36:22 - 00:12:37:06
Carter
Yeah.

00:12:39:01 - 00:13:16:14
Matthew Krekeler
You mentioned just that, like stimulation to the ADHD and just like feeling touched out. Yeah, I, I totally relate to that in certain senses. Like there's definitely times where like when either one of us, my wife or I are with the kids and we like have all three of them by ourselves, for one for any amount of time and like I get back from the grocery store as she gets back from the grocery store and it's just like, okay, like, I'm overstimulated, I just need some time and trying to, like, get back to that sort of self-regulation.

00:13:16:20 - 00:13:47:07
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah. Feeling some sense of normalcy when you're, like, feel like kids are constantly climbing all over you or like asking for a cheesesteak for the hundredth time or whatever. But what would you what kind of advice would you give for people that they have felt that like either feeling touched out as parents or if they have a child that has those kinds of like ADHD, overstimulation kind of things as well.

00:13:48:23 - 00:14:13:13
Carter
A couple of things come to mind. Don't beat yourself up. Everyone goes through it to to some extent, you know, some more than others, depending on their personal needs, be true to yourself. Take care of yourself. You need to be number one if you're putting yourself last and it's just going to cause more burden and you'll be far more burnt out in the end.

00:14:15:01 - 00:14:42:09
Carter
So don't feel ashamed or embarrassed that you need to take those moments to yourself, take those moments to step outside, have a breath, have a cigaret. If you smoke, have a vape. If you vape, have a drink. If you drink, any of those things don't abuse those powers, but you need to keep up with you. Yeah, that's. That's the main thing.

00:14:42:09 - 00:14:47:21
Carter
Keep up with yourself and take care of yourself first so you can be the best person and the best parent.

00:14:49:09 - 00:15:16:14
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah. I also just want to add to like in a relationship when you're co-parenting, like it's so important to you to like keep the other person in mind as well. So like actually just this past weekend, my wife and I had a really nice time up in the mountains, just the two of us for a night. And that was the first time we had done something like that away from the girls since our third daughter was born.

00:15:17:09 - 00:15:35:02
Matthew Krekeler
And it was nice as a way of just kind of like going on a little retreat, reconnecting, just spending time, just the two of us, since everything kind of revolves around the kids. But it's nice to just, like, strengthen that relationship. And then it helps us become better parents, too.

00:15:35:08 - 00:16:03:07
Carter
Yeah, yeah, of course. Of course. You know, that's that's your that's your wife, your partner, your husband. You know, that that's the person that you've chosen to go through these journey with. So if you're not keeping up with with that relationship, then what was the point to begin with? You know, I think a lot of people kind of come into parenting and then they feel very, very alone because they forget that they need to continue to communicate with their their partner.

00:16:03:21 - 00:16:24:10
Carter
And then it all just kind of goes out the window, doesn't it? You know, like very, very much the same. My wife and I, we went on a little trip a few weeks back and that's where we recorded the season finale for the podcast. We just spent two days up in the up in the mountains and it was beautiful.

00:16:24:19 - 00:16:41:15
Carter
We had a great time. We came back refreshed and rejuvenated and a little bit more in love, which is awesome. And then we walked back into an absolute shit show with it. The kids are just melting down because they've gone without us for a couple of days. But yeah, it definitely was worth it.

00:16:42:19 - 00:17:09:06
Matthew Krekeler
That's great. Yeah. And I wanted to mention that episode against us. I love that season finale where you and your wife talk about your journey. You get real about just different issues that you had and you also shared your labor and delivery story, which is great. I won't get too into that since I want to encourage people to check out that episode where you and your wife talk about it in detail.

00:17:09:09 - 00:17:55:21
Matthew Krekeler
And my wife and I have a similar episode where we kind of share our journey. What that was like, at least I think for the first two daughters, my hope is eventually you will share a story about Maggie's delivery, but that was great. I really appreciate you being open about that. And yeah, just for the listeners here, can you kind of just recap a little bit about what you went through with delivery just for dads who maybe are preparing for delivery or I just think that each delivery is different, even if you kind of go into it expecting something that can change very quickly.

00:17:56:19 - 00:18:19:02
Matthew Krekeler
So I think it's encouraging to hear other people's stories sometimes to know that like, you know, there's all these different circumstances to at least be aware of it and learn from people who have gone before you. So that's maybe not as frightening, but you can kind of give words and context to what's going to happen or like or even just processing it after the fact.

00:18:19:15 - 00:18:33:04
Carter
Yeah, definitely. I'll give you a recap of the positives for all three births. All three births. We ended up with happy, healthy children. That's the positive. And the rest.

00:18:33:04 - 00:18:33:09
Matthew Krekeler
Was.

00:18:33:16 - 00:19:15:16
Carter
Pretty overwhelmingly negative. Yeah, we had three very, very different, but equally traumatic births, unfortunately. Our first just for a real quick recap, our first Hendrix was born nonresponsive. She had the cord wrapped around her neck, so they had to work on her whilst they were working on her. And my wife also hemorrhaged, ended up all being fine later on after everything had settled and I'd gone home, my daughter because she she was a shoulder dystocia, which means that she got stuck half way up at the shoulder, which meant that the oxygen wasn't getting to her.

00:19:15:16 - 00:19:53:04
Carter
And all of these types of things. So after the fact, she had swallowed a lot of amniotic fluid, which got caught in her lungs, and she had what's called dusky episodes. So they had to stick some tubes down her throat to suction it all out to let her breathe properly. Our second born, he was born via an emergency C-section after he failed to drop and at, I believe, eight or 9 hours old, he vomited up a green substance, which later turned out to be poo.

00:19:54:11 - 00:20:26:08
Carter
So Roman had a mid bowel mal rotation, which means that his bell was twisted and he required emergency surgery at 16 hours old. The doctors told us that there was quite a chance that he wouldn't survive, depending on how long the twist was in the bell. So they opened him up and they were essentially expecting to find that his bell had died due to like no blood flow.

00:20:27:02 - 00:20:58:04
Carter
We were very, very lucky in that he had no no dead bowel, let alone any type of damage to his organs. So they fixed the issue, stitched him back up, and he spent his first two weeks outside in Mcue during Melbourne's lockdown for COVID, which was the strictest and longest lockdown in the world. So for the first two weeks of Roman's life, my wife and I didn't get to spend any time with him.

00:20:58:04 - 00:21:26:10
Carter
I felt like together it was only my wife allowed in or me allowed in. And because my wife was also recuperating from the emergency C-section, she had to wait in the car while I went and saw my son, which was really hard for her. So, yeah, it was a it was a rough couple of weeks. Roman is now two and just the coolest little dude.

00:21:26:11 - 00:21:51:23
Carter
He's got a cool scar to show for himself. And no, no lifelong issues, which we're very lucky about Salem much. The same was an emergency C-section. However, after five or six attempts at a spinal block that did not work. My wife was dubbed a medical marvel and she had to be put to sleep to deliver the baby. Wow.

00:21:52:10 - 00:22:23:23
Carter
So they cut her open to get Salem out of the sunroof. And while Salem was being pulled out, she tore my wife's uterus, which severed a artery, and my wife lost a very, very significant amount of blood, a little over three liters, I believe she lost, which I think during pregnancy I've only got around for her memory. So she was pretty close to to not not having any blood left.

00:22:24:07 - 00:22:41:10
Carter
She ended up with two transfusions. But yeah, that that's pretty much the gist of it. There's a lot more stuff to go into, but we did go into that when we talk about it. My wife and I, on the season finale of my podcast.

00:22:41:10 - 00:23:02:17
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah, well, thank you for sharing it. I think like any time, like there's like new life, it's a miracle. But then like hearing some of these stories and just like all of the things that, like, you know, as a parent, sometimes you like fear the worst and you think of like the worst possible scenarios and all the different things.

00:23:02:17 - 00:23:43:06
Matthew Krekeler
And like especially living through all these very traumatic experiences, it's, it's so amazing. A miracle, like, yeah, that, like, your family's here, that they're healthy and yeah. Amazing it truly blessed so and my my daughter to my first daughter like similarly she had a soldier shoulder to soldier and like I didn't know really like what that was. It wasn't like I had prepared for that and it was just all of a sudden everything went from 0 to 100 in the hospital.

00:23:43:07 - 00:24:17:22
Matthew Krekeler
Like we're just waiting and stuff. And then like pretty soon the room was filled with doctors and nurses and, and I remember like one of the nurses was saying, like, prep the O.R. and it was the craziest, scariest thing that I had witnessed and stuff. And as my daughter was like coming down, she got stuck. And one of the nurses, I think it was the midwife actually, she was actually like calm, which was good, that she was just very deliberate.

00:24:18:01 - 00:24:42:08
Matthew Krekeler
But she jumped on the bed and like just had to push basically like on my wife's stomach to like get her like to push the baby and like twist the shoulder and stuff and like, but it got very real, very quick because as they're in a position to lose oxygen and stuff like, yeah, that needs to be acted upon very quickly.

00:24:42:11 - 00:25:04:19
Matthew Krekeler
And fortunately the midwife was amazing. She knew exactly what to do and my daughter was safe, healthy and yeah, it was like that was the moment like when we welcomed our daughter and it was like everything was just so heightened, but we were just so thankful in that moment.

00:25:06:15 - 00:25:27:00
Carter
Yeah, yeah, definitely. You got to tip your hat to the medical staff who are really, really on the ball and when it comes to that type of thing, because, you know, an extra 30 seconds to a minute and we may not have been coming home with our firstborn, you know, but they got her out and got air breathing.

00:25:27:00 - 00:25:38:16
Matthew Krekeler
So now with life as a dad of three, how has that changed? Like, what are your tips or what have you learned so far? Parenting three.

00:25:39:22 - 00:26:03:11
Carter
Oh, it's a hard one. It's it's very much still a very different day to day thing. You know, my daughter's just turned four in April, and her attitude and personality is still emerging every day and changing. And we have days where it's full on meltdowns and you find yourself thinking like, why the hell did I get myself into this?

00:26:03:13 - 00:26:26:22
Carter
You know, if I didn't have kids, I could be traveling around Australia and all of these things. But look, at the end of the day, the love that they bring and the things that we can share and them talking about their days is, is so worth it for me. Like, as I said, I left, I broke. I've got my daughter home today and she should have gone to day care, but I chopped her out and let her stay home.

00:26:27:03 - 00:26:41:15
Carter
And we were watching some movies earlier and she was snuggled into me and she was like stroking my arm. And she looked up at me and she said, I love you, Daddy. And that shit's just the best. Beats any drug in the world.

00:26:42:16 - 00:26:48:15
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah, absolutely. Does she have a favorite movie?

00:26:48:15 - 00:26:53:23
Carter
Uh, at the moment, I want to say Super Mario Brothers.

00:26:54:17 - 00:26:58:07
Matthew Krekeler
Oh, wow, that's great. We just watched that as a family. I loved it.

00:26:58:07 - 00:27:14:13
Carter
Yeah, because she's she's pretty into it at the moment. All of them are actually apart from him, so she too young. But she likes me. Rachel. But yeah, I'd say at the moment is Super Mario Brothers, but overall, it's probably frozen. Frozen, no more like.

00:27:15:14 - 00:27:20:17
Matthew Krekeler
Okay, great. Yeah. And my family is Big Bluey fans which.

00:27:20:23 - 00:27:23:22
Carter
She's watching Blue Australia she's watching.

00:27:23:22 - 00:27:25:01
Matthew Krekeler
Australian produced.

00:27:25:10 - 00:27:28:17
Carter
It is. Yeah it's basically in Queensland I think. Yeah.

00:27:30:02 - 00:27:40:15
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah they absolutely love it and my wife and I also love it. Like sometimes the kids will like get disinterested. They'll go play with their toys and we're like still watching episodes.

00:27:41:02 - 00:27:58:13
Carter
Yeah, yeah. There's definitely nights where my wife and I have watched a couple of episodes after the kids have gone to bed. It's a great show, absolutely great show. And it really delves into a lot of kind of adult topics as well, miscarriage and not feeling like you're a good parent and you know, a lot of other things.

00:27:59:21 - 00:28:25:03
Matthew Krekeler
I think it's inspiring to just to see the way Bandit, who's like the dad in the show, like the way that he interacts with his kids and comes up with games. And since, as you mentioned, just sometimes you feel touched out and you're just like overwhelmed by it, but it's encouraging to you to find those moments where you can just, like, dove in 100% and look silly and be goofy with your kids.

00:28:25:03 - 00:28:29:21
Matthew Krekeler
And yeah, just find ways to make life special for them.

00:28:30:00 - 00:28:50:14
Carter
So yeah, yeah, definitely. He's a he's a great character. But I think a lot of dads need to try to remember that he is just a cartoon after all, and trying to live up to the expectation of being a band. It's pretty, pretty difficult. Yeah, a baby kind of do yourselves.

00:28:50:14 - 00:29:17:03
Matthew Krekeler
That's true. So, yeah, we're coming up to Almost Out of time. But I wanted to ask just in the realm of mental health, what resources would you point people to or. Yeah, topics of discussion that you've had on your podcast, like bits of advice or anything like that that stuck out to you that you want to share?

00:29:18:23 - 00:30:00:05
Carter
Yeah, definitely. I'm not too sure on resources as far as like your listener base would go, I'm guessing that they're probably majority in America, but for any Australians listening, I can discuss Panda, which is perinatal anxiety and Depression Australia. I'm actually a spokesperson for Panda due to sharing my story through the podcast. So Panda offer support for the first 12 months after you become parents and any kids after that in which you know they have SMS services for dads to talk about their mental health or they have online counseling, they have phone counseling, things like that.

00:30:01:05 - 00:30:22:07
Carter
So if you're in Australia and you're listening, get on to Panda. If you're struggling otherwise, come listen to my podcast. We talk about anything and everything. If you ever need to talk to anyone and you don't feel like you have anyone, drop me a message, I'll always respond. But yeah, like the podcast itself, it really is just a safe haven.

00:30:22:07 - 00:30:42:20
Carter
It's a safe space for parents to discuss just the hard shit in life that you can't really discuss. Well, a lot of people don't feel like they can discuss with loved ones or with friends or anything like that for fear of judgment. There are things that we go through day to day, and they're things that, excuse me, a lot of people have lived experience from.

00:30:44:02 - 00:30:56:00
Carter
So it really is just creating a community through shared experiences and three lived experiences that aren't quite seen as a good thing in today's society.

00:30:57:07 - 00:31:23:09
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah. And then I'm just curious, being in Australia, you may have an answer, you may not, but is there anything you're like uniquely cultural that you can point to that would be like a fun fact about like parenting? From your perspective as an Aussie dad, is there any like uniquely Australian phrase that you tell your kids or. Oh, I don't I.

00:31:24:10 - 00:31:55:01
Carter
I always say she'll be right a lot. Sure I if my daughter said essentially what I try not to say it too much because, you know, I don't want to take away from her experience and her pain is real and needs to be honored. I don't know, like culturally parenting, I think because we're a Western culture, white Australians that is it's probably quite the same as is you guys in America.

00:31:55:02 - 00:32:20:01
Carter
You know, I can lend some some knowledge on indigenous parenting culture because I have I have quite, quite a bit of knowledge on that. But in Aboriginal culture, parenting is very, very much seen as it takes a village. So aunties and uncles and cousins and all of that, if they're older, they generally will also take on parenting responsibilities.

00:32:20:01 - 00:32:48:06
Carter
If you've got family, sorry, if you've got friends that have been a part of your friendship circle from a young age, they will be seen as aunties and uncles by your kids. And it isn't it isn't strange for, say, my kids if if I was a if I identified as Aboriginal, it wouldn't be strange for them to go to their aunties or uncles or cousin's house and just like hang out there for days and days on end.

00:32:48:06 - 00:33:01:00
Carter
It's very much like you've got multiple houses, you've got multiple families. It's all very, very much just a community spirit to raise a kid. And I think that is. Yeah, so cool.

00:33:01:00 - 00:33:15:05
Matthew Krekeler
Very cool. And then is there any like fun story that that you can think of just, you know, in the past four years as a dad?

00:33:15:05 - 00:33:48:13
Carter
Oh, fun story. Fun story. Oh, it's all, it all just melds together really, doesn't it? You know, you have your fundraising, your hard day's bit. Both my oldest kids are really, really into dinosaurs at the moment. Very cool. Super into dinosaurs. But I think actually I'll change I'll change the story. It was probably Christmas time last year or the year before we just after Christmas before New Year's, we went on a little holiday to a place called Healesville.

00:33:49:02 - 00:34:15:21
Carter
And Healesville have like an animal sanctuary there. It's awesome. It's just a bunch of native animals and whatnot. But the place we stayed at had a lot of native birds and parrots and ibis and cockatoos, and what's the other ones? Kookaburras. And because they were used to being around a lot of people, they would come and fly on to you and like let you feed them and stuff like that.

00:34:16:13 - 00:34:35:23
Carter
So I was feeding some parrots and my kids were just absolutely in adoration. Oh, like, oh my God, dad's got birds on him. This is the coolest thing ever. And I was holding out some food and a parrot comes and has a little nibble and flies off. And I was holding holding some food out and out of nowhere.

00:34:35:23 - 00:35:04:21
Carter
These Kookaburras flew in and snatched it and took a chunk of my finger with him. Wow. Vicious little bastard, sighs Kookaburras and my kids just thought that was the funniest thing that has ever happened. And still to this day, they're like, Dad, when can we go back to the place with the birds? Wow. So I think we're really going to go back there at the end of this year because they just yeah, they want to see that kookaburra that finger again.

00:35:05:22 - 00:35:11:20
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah. And they weren't afraid of them like the birds didn't make them scared.

00:35:11:20 - 00:35:36:07
Carter
No not they were fine with birds. They're currently pretty scared of dogs. Um, because last week. So my son's in animal therapy to help him with, with his autism. And so we've been getting him used to patting dogs. They've got a couple of different dogs. They're differing sizes and whatnot. But we were walking down the street the other day and there was a dog behind a fence.

00:35:36:23 - 00:35:56:22
Carter
And because the work that my son's been doing with dogs, he doesn't realize that not all dogs are friendly. So he, like, walked up to the fences like dogs and he was ready to, like, pet these dogs, a rottweiler. Not saying that that's a bad thing, you know, but this dog started barking and he cracked himself and like fell back.

00:35:56:22 - 00:36:01:14
Carter
And I think that was a healthy lesson for him that not all dogs are the same.

00:36:02:22 - 00:36:04:01
Matthew Krekeler
Do you have any pets?

00:36:04:19 - 00:36:22:10
Carter
No, no. We had a mexican walking fish or an axolotl when our kids. Oh, when Hendriks was first born. But since then, we haven't had any more pets. We want to get a dog, but we also don't want the responsibility of another thing to feed and clean up after.

00:36:23:09 - 00:36:24:13
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah, I understand that.

00:36:24:18 - 00:36:30:12
Carter
I think we'll probably wait until Hendrix is a little older and we'll get her a cat.

00:36:30:12 - 00:37:04:03
Matthew Krekeler
That's cool. Yeah, yeah, we have a dog, and we got our dog, like, years before having kids and probably would reconsider getting a pet now like sense having kids since it's just like one more thing. But but I think it's been great for my kids at least, like since they've grown up with the dog, they've, they love the dog and the dog is like very used to them and lets them pet them and they'll throw things at the dog sometimes just playing, you know.

00:37:04:19 - 00:37:10:11
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah, but the dog's very forgiving and yeah, very protective of them and stuff. So yeah.

00:37:10:13 - 00:37:22:05
Carter
Yeah we do. We definitely would love an animal for those, for those types of memories to be created. And you know, it would be fun for the kids to have a pet to mark around with and whatnot. But yeah, I think we're just kind of that at capacity.

00:37:22:15 - 00:37:42:23
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah. Oh, sure. I totally get that. So yeah, to wrap up the interview, I wanted to ask my final question and this is a bit open ended. So however you want to take this, but I want to give you the opportunity to speak directly to your kids and just anything that you want to leave them. A special message.

00:37:43:03 - 00:38:18:21
Carter
A special message to my kids. It's a great question. It's a great end. Well done with that one. Just just keep on being here authentically. Unapologetically. You you guys are already well on your way to being awesome people and always set your own boundaries and stick to them. Never let anyone make you feel uncomfortable. Stick up for yourself, advocate for yourself, and just keep on loving life like you already are.

00:38:19:10 - 00:38:23:12
Carter
And I'm super proud of you guys.

00:38:23:12 - 00:38:25:01
Matthew Krekeler
I love it. Thank you so much.

00:38:25:22 - 00:38:27:00
Carter
No worries me.

00:38:27:21 - 00:38:34:07
Matthew Krekeler
Tara, it's been a pleasure having you on the podcast. And yeah, just tell people where to find you.

00:38:35:12 - 00:39:02:00
Carter
Yeah. So we've got our main social media pages, Instagram, so it's Touched Out podcast I've actually just posted today. We're just about to start running or we're running a giveaway for the season to premiere. So winners will be announced on the first episode of season two. So yeah, follow along and yeah, listen to the podcast. It's good fun.

00:39:02:10 - 00:39:27:10
Carter
If you have any stories that you want to share yourself, you can hit the link in our Instagram bio and fill out a guest form and I'll be in touch with you all. Yeah, I'm happy.

00:39:27:10 - 00:39:45:15
Matthew Krekeler
Thank you to Carter for sharing his journey and being part of Girl Dad Nation. Check out the link in the description to learn more about The Touched Out Podcast and I encourage all of us dads to check in on our mental health and each other. You never know what internal battles someone is going through, but there are resources and community out there.

00:39:45:22 - 00:40:06:10
Matthew Krekeler
So speak up share your story and keep showing up for your kids. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please let me know by leaving a review. I've made it even easier. Just go to my new website: girldadnation.org That's dot O R G and click on the reviews tab. I hope to feature some more great reviews like this one.

00:40:06:20 - 00:40:30:00
Matthew Krekeler
This one's from ludicrspeed. They say "Awesome stuff. Matthew interviews some great dads and the content is always relevant and insightful. As a dad of two, would recommend." Thank you so much ludicrspeed. I really appreciate that. Girl Dad Nation as on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. You can also email me directly at girldadnationpodcast@gmail.com

00:40:30:10 - 00:40:34:13
Matthew Krekeler
Thank you for joining with me. There is no greater joy than being a dad.