This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to k I Am six forty, the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. I Am six forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. Okay, Producer Kayla, I am taking the calls. If you have a relationship question, give me a call. Remember, I'm not a therapist. I'm a psychology professor. But I've written three books on relationships and i did a dissertation on attachment theory. So I'm happy to weigh in
with my life's wisdom. Okay, Producer Kayla, Who do we have first, Laura? What's your question? Laura? Well, I just have a question as far as age disparity. So I'm happily involved with a man who's twenty four years younger than me. Fun I'm yeah, yeah, he's great. He's thirty two. I'm fifty six. We live together. We've been in a monogamous relationship for about a year, but I've known him for three years off his friends for the first two years, and then he's the one
that wanted to wanted more relationship with me. Wanted more, wanted to monogamous, and but I you know, and he sees the future with me. You know, I'm I was very clear, like I don't want just a fleeding relationship. That's I want something that's going to last. That I'm concerned about it. So because question can it work? Is that really the question? Pardon me? Can it work? Is that? Yeah? Exactly.
So you're fifty six, he's thirty two. You've been in a relationship for a year with him, you live together, you're monogamous, he's into you, and everything's going great right now. So you know, I always say anxiety is fear of the future. Depression is fear of the past. So you're sitting there fearing the future. So let me just say this. There are two considerations when we have a large age disparancy in a relationship. The first is reproduction and the second is power. So you know, he has
to be sure that he doesn't want to reproduce. You've got to be sure that maybe you don't want to adopt, you know whatever, you're fifty six years old. I assume you're not going to get pregnant. So that's really the conversation that needs to happen between the two of you is how you're going to handle reproduction. But the other is power. The older person always has
more power. And do you know why you have more power, Laura, even if you don't have more money, but usually people have accumulated some wealth by the time they're in their fifties. You have wisdom and life experience, so you do have a little more power. What I want you to consider
is whether you can be a benevolent leader. In other words, you might unconsciously be taking too much control in this relationship, and he's doing things because he doesn't want to lose you, and then eventually at some point he'll get worn down by that and leave because he doesn't have enough power. So the question two questions to ask each other are how can we have power that feels equal? And secondly, are we clear about reproduction and whether somebody is going
to want a family at some point? Excellent question, Laura, But have fun while you're there. I think that sounds like a great relationship. Okay, Producer, Kayla, who do we have next? We have Lydia with a question, Lydia, Hi, Lydia. It's doctor, Wendy, Hi, doctor. So my question has to do with my daughter in law. I babysit for for my grandkids twice a week. Uh huh, and so and so does her mother. We babysit twice a week each we take turn.
Oh isn't that great that the kids have the both grandmothers caring for them. It is great. What bothers me is that my daughter in law has a way a bad way of asking for things, for instance, and she'll do it with her mom too, which I think it's really bad. So what's her way of asking for things? Instead of saying, can you come on Wednesday from this hour to this hour, She'll say, I'm going to need you on Wednesday from this hour to these hours, so I'll see you
on this Ah. So it sounds so okay, So, Lydia, I want to get it clear. So your daughter in law, you babysit, I assume for free for her two days a week with your grandkids, because they're grandkids. It's not babysitting it, but your grands it's loving them,
right, Okay. So when she asks you if you're available to help, she doesn't ask, she tells you what she needs, right, So I think, Lydia, what you need to do is find a way, not when she's doing it, like, hey, I didn't like the way you said that, but in a time when you guys are close and happy and things are going well, say, you know, there's something I've been wanting to bring up. You know, I love my grandkids, and I love babysitting two days a week. But I find that when you need me to
babysit you, I don't feel a lot of gratitude or even asking. There's a sense of expectation, and I feel a little bit like I'm being taken for granted. Now, did you notice, Lydia, that it's all about you and your feelings sentence? Right, I'm feeling that I'm not appreciated. I'm feeling like I'm being taken for granted. Stay on those eye sentences and on your feelings and then, because she probably doesn't even realize that she's doing that, right, So I think you've got this. Just find a time
when everything is going well. Okay, So if you like to call, I am going to go to social media because I'm getting a lot of dms too, But if you would like to call in with your relationship question. The numbers one eight hundred five to zero one five three four. That's one eight hundred five two zero one k five. Okay, let me head over to Instagram and see what the dms that producer Kayla printed out for me. Okay, Dear doctor Wendy, how much of a role do I play in
my own demise? I assume you don't mean literally I keep dating cheaters. I'm not choosing to date men that cheat, but I keep getting them. These men are completely different from each other on the outside. But except for this one common denominator that they cheat an ages, race bills, why do I keep attracting cheaters? Okay, So you say you don't choose men, and I will correct you by saying you don't consciously choose men who cheat.
The truth is our unconscious runs the show, and for some reason, your unconscious finds this familiar. Love is not about finding pleasure. Love is not about finding happiness. Love is about finding the familiar. So I would venture to guess that if you were to go to a therapist, your therapist would help you uncover what went on in your childhood to make this feeling of loss and abandonment be part of your idea for love. I personally believe when two
people meet each other, they do a little unconscious handshake. Yeah, they might be different ages, races, builds, financial status, whatever, but they do a little unconscious handshake on that first date, and unconsciously they kind of say, Hey, you promise to treat me like my abandoning daddy. Cool, you gotta treat me like my critical mom. Great, let's go. What kind of movies do you like? What do you like to eat? Right, and all of us unconsciously you're looking for social commonality, But
unconsciously, your unconsciousness unconsciousness are doing a dance together. So no, you don't consciously choose cheaters. You're not attracting them. You are attracted to them though, you're attracted to them in an unconscious way. All right, So that's what we have to understand. All right. Uh, here's another one from social If you do want to call in, I'll be taking your calls. The numbers one eight hundred and five, two zero, one, five
three four. All right, Dear doctor Wendy, there is a man at my gym that I am so smitten with. I like a DM that starts out like that. He is shy, and I don't think he will make the first move. He just compliments my hair and sometimes helps me with certain workouts. Let's kind of make in the first move. In LA, women are more forward, but I'm not from here and I'm not forward. How do I get a date? All right? So let me say this one thing I want to say. You say in LA women are more forward,
but you're from somewhere else, so you're not forward. Well, there's been research, you know, that whole thing about Oh well, I have Midwest values. I just happen to be living in New York. No, no, no. Research shows that it takes, on average about four months for people to become completely acculturated to the ways of the new city. Okay, So if you've been here more than four months, you're an LA girl.
So it's not about where you came from. Okay. So women, in my opinion, shouldn't ask men out, but they should extend an invitation for him to do it. He's already complimented you on your hair. You don't do that with people you don't like. He comes over and assists you, So why are you not reciprocating with a little flirty action, you know, flip that hair, do a little giggle, laugh at his jokes that aren't funny men, by the way, no, when their jokes aren't funny and
you're over laughing and they read that as you like them. Okay, so you're gonna extend the invitation, which means you're gonna get in his space when he's walking out of the gym. You're gonna gently, you know, laugh at his jokes and be flirty, catch his eye whatever, and eventually he's gonna say, let's go grab a coffee. Now here's the other thing.
He might be in a relationship, and he might be just keeping you there as a backup mate, because that happens sometimes, right, So you don't know fully what his situation is. And of course one way to totally flirt is it just kind of let him know that you're single, because he might not know either, right, so you might have to find a way in conversation when he's helping you lift those weights of saying, oh my god, I wish my ex boyfriend did this is probably why we're broken up. Huhuh,
Right, let them know in some subtle way. There's lots of ways that people extend information. All right, when we come back, I am going to continue to take your calls and answer your dms on social media. The number is one eight hundred five two zero one five three four. Translated, that means one eight hundred five two zero one KFI, you are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six forty. KFI AM six forty, you have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walls Show. I was just live on Instagram and people were shooting the questions at me so vast, But one of the questions came from a dating woman in her sixties who says dating in La sucks, And I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to talk
a little bit about mating marketplaces. It is true that there are some cities in America that are better if we're talking about heterosexual couples for one gender or another. For instance, the worst place to be if you are a woman in your twenties and thirties and your child bearing years and you want to find a long term mate the worst place is Manhattan in New York, because there is an oversupply of successful women. And remember women don't like to date down.
They should actually change their whole idea of what dating down is. You know what I say. Sometimes your idea of a power man might just be a guy who can power a stroller. So yes, sometimes there are gender disparities. We know, if you engage in same sex relationships or polyamory or whatever, there are certain mating marketplaces that might be better for you. However,
generally it's about skills, it's not about the marketplace. In other words, even in a bad market there are people with great relationship skills who find wonderful relationships. One of the books I wrote is called The Thirty Day Love Detoks, and in it I use this metaphor. I say, even if
there's let's assume there's an oversupply of successful single women in a marketplace. So even if there's a bumper crop one year of tomatoes and the price of tomatoes drops down to one cent ahead, there is still going to be a market for an heirloom, artisan organic tomato that's a dollar ahead. So I ask you, who are you? If you believe you are worth it, not
fake compensating like I deserve the best. But you literally internally believe that you deserve love and care and commitment, and you know how, and you learn how to negotiate that. Then even in a tough mating marketplace, you will be able to find and create and keep love right. You know, I have been around this game for quite a few decades. I've written a few
books about it. I often say it's an act of Catharsis writing all my dating and relationships books, because they were like a love letter to myself. They were telling me how to behave. And I remember, you know, before I met my fiance, in the last stages of dating, I would say to myself, what what doctor Wendy Walsh say? I what should do? What would she say? And I would literally had an alter ego inside
my head. And I learned relationship skills by reading the research, by turning it into language that everybody can understand, by making it accessible in my books and my podcasts and my blogs on my radio show. And then I started walking walk, not just talking the talk. So, no matter what your mating marketplace is, if you have good relationships, So what are good relationship
skills. First of all, date within your league. You know what you are going to be rejected if you continue to date out of your leak. I'm not saying date less than but data cross right. That's the first thing. Second thing, have boundaries. Love yourself. Don't like have such low self esteem. They okay, I'll go anywhere, I'll pay anything, I'll do anything. Okay, I'll bring my own car. Whatever you need. No no, no, no no no. You know what you deserve,
and you tell the world what you deserve. In one of my books, I interviewed women who had gotten married in a time when marriage is on the decline, and I learned that they do it by negotiating it. So from the beginning they say, by the way, this is what I'm looking for, and they're not worried about being abandoned. If the person abandons them because they can't meet their needs, they do the touchdown cheer because they've been saying
from a whole bunch of months or years of dating somebody inappropriate. It's a process of elimination and a little bit of an endurance test. But at the same time, you have to have the skills to share and be vulnerable. But I digress. I wanted to go to the DMS and answer some of your questions. Okay, here we are, let me go back in. Uh Dear doctor, Wendy, the woman I am dating leaves me messages on scene then responds hours later. Oh good trick lady. Every time she does
that, I do the same. She will take four hours to respond, so I won't text back until the next day. It doesn't seem to change her response time, though, and I feel like I'm getting too old for games. How can I tell her to text back in a more respectful and timely manner? Well, first of all, our job is to assess some for mate's status, not to change them or try to get them to behave you see what you want to do it? Just give them enough rope and
if they need to hang themselves with it, great like. In other words, just be there. And what you've learned is that maybe this person isn't appropriate for you, Maybe this person doesn't give you the amount of attention and contact and frequency of texts that you like to have. So it's not your job to change them. It's either your job to accept them or move on. That's it. It's never our job to change anybody else? Uh, Dear doctor Wendy, how can I find out if my boyfriend is married?
WHOA? He blocked this woman from my social media and when I unblocked her, I saw that she has me blocked. Um, I think he blocked me from her page too. Is there a way to see if he's married? But? Okay, first of all, have you asked him? Okay? If you are sleeping with somebody, if you are spending time sharing emotional
intimacies and you do not trust him, why are you there? You see when people say how long should wait before you start having sex with somebody until your stomach says it's okay, until you really trust somebody and you put them to the test and they've sacrificed for you. Now, I do have a little issue here. He blocked this woman from my social media? How is he into your social media? What kind of boundaries do you have? Just
chicken right? He should not have access to your social media or your passwords or be able to block anybody. So already I'm not loving this relationship. But ask him too. Dear doctor Wendy, how do you avoid being bitter? After so many heartbreaks? I am starting to lose my confidence. Okay, I've been through lots of heartbreaks in my life. You grow a little bit of alligator skin. You remember after each breakup to surround yourself with people
who love you. Your friends and family who love you unconditionally, and with those people around you bolster your self confidence. I also believe that a breakup and the grieving that comes after it is a unique opportunity to go see a licensed therapist. This is your time and your sadness to figure out what it's really about, because it's probably not about the person you were dating. It was probably something that happened way earlier. Ah yeah, ye I Love hurts.
Sometimes it's wonderful, but it can also hurt. All right, when we come back, I think I have a very special guest speaking of love that hurts. My next guest after the break is someone who suffered one of the biggest tragedies in love that you could ever imagine. Her own son died after an episode of sexploitation. If you're a parent, you do not want to miss my interview with my next guest. You are listening to the Doctor
Wendy Wall's show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six forty. Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You know, I have been talking about the science of love for many, many decades. And while you think, if you're new to the show, that when you talk about love,
it's all about good feeling and sunshine and flowers. But I've also talked about things like love is a drug and we're less able to discern when we are falling in love we put on rose colored glasses. I've also talked about how unnatural the Internet and dating apps are for finding mates because they make it even harder for us to discern as people are hiding behind screens. In addition, men tend to over report a partner's interest in them. Sadly, this has
led to accusations of sexual harassment in the workplace. But there's something else. Developmental psychologists know that teenagers have an imaginary audience. They think everybody's looking. They are far more vulnerable to shame than the average person. And finally, we know that shame hurts the brain exactly like a physical pain, and maybe
worse. Why am I giving you these random statistics because my guest today is a woman who experienced probably one of the worst pains and losses that a mother can ever ex experience, and it's partly because of all these psychological phenomenon. Mary Rodie, thank you so much for being with us. Hi, doctor Wendy, thank you for having me so that people can know a little bit
about who you are. You are a school teacher and you have made it your mission to help keep children safer online and to try to educate parents about the potential harms of social media. Your own son, Riley Basford, died by suicide at the age of fifteen after becoming a victim of an online sextortion scam that began on Facebook. Mary, my heart goes out to you. First of all, My deepest condolence is I can't even imagine the pain that
you've been experiencing. Can you tell us a little bit about what happened? Sure, thank you, it's I think it is the worst pain that you can feel, and it's also the deepest love too, the love of your child. So Riley was almost sixteen when he was contacted by a criminal posing as a beautiful young woman on Facebook, and that person sent him a friend request along with a group of his same friends. That's what catfishing is.
And then, long story short, Riley didn't go to school that day because he got braces on his teeth, so it was kind of more available to be on his phone. He'd only recently gotten Facebook because he wanted Facebook Marketplace, and that led to him he wasn't allowed to use marketplace because he wasn't eighteen. But then this criminal could contact him and pose as a girl in
lou him and send him child sexual abuse material. And then he returned with his own self generated content and they immediately began extorting him and full of shame and guilt and impulsivity as he was. Yeah, he died by suicide. The whole thing only took six hours. What six hours? I thought you were going to tell me a story of grooming that went on for months that he Oh, my goodness, nop six hours, even if I did check
his phone every night. I said goodbye to him at ten thirty in the morning with his new silver smile, these braces he'd just gotten on he had just had a milkshake. I dropped him off at his dad's which it was his dad's day. That was our typical routine, with plans to see him at an event that night. He was so excited about the upcoming spring break. He couldn't wait for lacrosse to start. He had no mental health issues, he had no addiction to social media. If anything, he gained a
lot. That's kind of what he and his friends did during COVID. That's when I thought. That's where I really thought a predator might get him in his gaming and this all, this whole thing segobite him at ten thirty. I have a live picture of him at two thirty. He's in a body bag. Oh Mary, Mary, I'm so sorry this happened. You know I mentioned when I introduced you, I happen to be a professor of developmental
psychology, and developmental psychologists know that the teenage brain is very unique. It's starting to separate a little bit from its family of origin and find new safe attachments, and it is very vulnerable to shame and the thought that other people could see them doing something. As teenagers say, awkward, right, But they it's really an imaginary audience. Unfortunately, what online and social media has done is it's made they're a teenager's worse fears, their imaginary audience real because
someone could threaten to post something. So I'm reading between the lines of what you said, but it sounds like he self generated something that was embarrassing and that this person, this criminal, threatened to post it on his social media. Am I correct? Unless he sent him money or something. Is that
what the extortion was about? It was we found out of maybe twenty four to forty eight hours into it, that that person posing as the young girl had sent a picture of Riley's face to everybody with the same last name as Riley. So I didn't get it because we don't have the same last name. And then in the middle of the night, you know, of course
we're not sleeping. It's like I can't even really take you back to it because like it's not even real still, but one of my other children said, mom, look at this, and so at that point we thought, oh, if we find Megan Miller, we'll be able to know what happened to him. But then it was like another twenty four hours when a state trooper's like I got to tell you about something that you've never even heard of, and you know, at that point he was the terminology was very unclear.
At that point, we were using catfishing. It's taken time to really call it exploitation and put the proper definitions on what happened. Mary. Again, I just my stomach is a not listening to you talk, and I just want to thank you so much for being so strong. We're going to take a break. Will you stay with us because when we come back, I want to talk about what you learned. The fact that you're a member of the Commons Media group and you're helping past the New York Child Data Protection
Act. I want to hear about that, and I want to hear what parents can do to keep their kids and teenagers safe. Mary Rode, the mother of a son who died by suicide after being catfished and exploited online. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy wall Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Right now, let's go to the twenty four hour KFI Newsroom. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from
KFI AM six forty. Thanks Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. My guest, Mary Rod is a very brave woman lost a son by suicide, a teenager fifteen years old with braces, who in only six hours was catflip fished, exploited online and sadly took his own life. Mary, what is the Common Sense Media Group and what is the Child Data Protection Act? Okay, so the
Common Sense Media Group really it's they have a great name. Summarizes that they're really looking further to be proper protections for social media users. No acknowledgement that of these this is uncharted territory. You know, we really can't reen in all of the possibilities of all of the things that can happen on the Internet. We know that technology is advancing very rapidly, but all of us are living a life where our phone is, you know, an extension of our
being. I realize now we're not going to be able to really prevent this from being, and we're not going to be able to prevent this from being in the live of every child, and so we at least need to get some guardrails and parameters on it. And that's what common sense media is really trying to do, just get people to recognize the addictive algorithms that these things that are happening in the home of pretty much any family raising a teenager who
has a phone, and there's these power struggles and it's tough, and they are addicted because social media is trying to addict to them and is making billions of dollars doing it, and it's really impossible as parents to monitor this, to control this. These are really super intelligent and smart technologists and people who know exactly how to do it, and they're doing a great job at it. And you've been working to pass the New York Child Data Protection Act.
What is that You're based in New York. I am based in New so the Child Data Protection Act pretty much says that you shouldn't access the data of minors. I'm all for it. I'm all for any laws. I think some of these laws are going to get into age verification issues, and I have no expert on any of that. I think the reality is that I constantly am hearing about how many points of data they're collecting on children before they
even have social media. The reality is they actually know the day you gave birth to that child because you posted it everywhere. So acting like age verification is crazy is not really acknowledging how much information they've already collected on all of us exactly. So what can parents do? What are your best advice to
parents to prevent something like this from happening? I think, you know, the communication and conversation is a really big deal, especially centered around just what I talked about, that they are trying to addict your child, that it is designed that way, that it's whatever it might be, whether it be pro anarexia content to your twelve year old daughter or besides, yeah, all
of it. Yeah, it doesn't matter, they choose whatever. It is like acknowledge that your child's brain is being preyed on, and as much as you're like, oh my gosh, put it down, it is really really hard for them, and it's really really hard for the adults too, So trying to set up clear boundaries for yourself and your entire family, the acknowledgement that we're all being tracked and addicted, really really talking to your kids that
over and over about who they are communicating with online, because these people are so good they do. They're so savvy, they know exactly how to manipulate people, especially kids, right, and they're very good at driving that wedge. You know, it's already hard to raise our kids. And then they're also like, yeah, I know your mom's not listening. I'm here for
you. Those types of things, and so I think acknowledging those types of predatory behaviors, and it's it's tough because you don't want to scare them, but the reality is that someone they think is their friend online is probably not in all of the cases of so many children. So then our listeners can understand what happened. As a way to see these signs, I want to think that I want to make sure that I'm clear on what you told us. So, after spending a number of hours online, this criminal posing to
be a young beautiful woman asked your son to generate some content. And the first thing was innocent. It was a picture of his face. And so you're telling me that hours after he passed away, this picture of his face went to any follower that your son had who had the same last name, assuming that they would be a family member. Was that set up as a threat to say Hey, if you don't pay me the money, I'm going to send you the I'm going to send all your family members the more embarrassing
content. Precisely. Yeah, that was to say, see what I can do in just a quick note that the origin of the pictures started with the criminal the criminal scent child sexual abuse content. Oh yeah, Riley, they have to model it first. Yeah, that in itself is illegal and running rampant on big tech. Right, none of that that's not happening on anybody else's media. Now, was this criminal ever found or arrested? No, no, no justice at all. Do you think this person was not in
America? Like one of the syndicates we hear about, the person was definitely not in America, and they were able to track their location on the West coast of Africa. But then from that point, Homeland Security, the FBI, anybody working on it just says they don't have a trade relationship with that country, so there's no extradition of criminals. Oh yeah, real justice. And this criminal may not even know that this happened to Riley. I would love to know. I don't I don't know, and I think in my
grief and healing, I'm becoming different too. I think there are potentially things that I was told by law enforcement that I could process at the time. So some of that because I've been working a bit with Nick Mick and NICKMK. This is the one thing I really want to throw out in their to parents is really really useful. Nick Mick has Take It Down and their Nick Mick is National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and they are really trying
to change the dialogue from don't do it, don't do it. I mean we need to say don't do it, don't buy the drugs, like don't send the pictures, right, but if you do, I am here to help you. It's not the end of the world. And Nick Mick has a really good program online take it Down dot org, where you can get help if you think that your child's picture or kids themselves can get help in getting that type of content removed. Take it Down dot Org. Mary Rode,
thank you so much for joining us today. I am so sorry you've gone through this tragedy, but I want you to know that your bravery in becoming a voice on this issue may save the lives of many, many, many children. I hope that Riley did not die in vain. Thank you, Mary. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. Were live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm here every Sunday from seven to nine pm. It is always my honor to weigh in on
your most intimate lives. Thanks for listening. You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app