What Are We Really Made Of?

we're married. We are. We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of life's most taboo topics, things most folks don't want to talk about through the lens of a millennial married couple. Dead adds is the term that we say every day. So when we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Were about to take Philow talk to our whole new level. Dead ass starts right now. So I'm gonna take this back to my elementary school days.

Shout out Bethlehem Baptist Academy, also known as a Trade with Phield School, East New York, across from girlsh from Park shout out Brooklyn Cozine and Van Sicklin. Um was it sty and Linden Boulevard. So I used to take the school bus when I was in elementary school. You know, um four or five, six years old, I was a bus kid and I used take the school bus from Flatbush to Brownsville or East New York. So you know what that must have been like being on the school

bus with a bunch of young kids and the cheese bus. Yes, and for people who don't know, I grew up in the Golden eras of Brooklyn the late early nineties, late eighties, early nineties, so literally it was eighty nine my first time on the cheese bus. I was five years old then two, right, so getting on this cheese bus. And Bethlehem Baptist Academy was in elementary school that transitioned all the way through junior high school, so you were there

from nursery all the way through eighth grade. So there was a huge age difference. Like I was on the bus with kids who are ten years my senior. And I remember getting on the bus and all of the older kids we kind of like choose which child, like the girls would choose which child was their son quote unquote little mother hands, you know, so they you know that I was a cute kid, and it was just like, oh my god, he's so cute. That's my son, that's my son. And I remember this girl, Kesha. She used

to like get me candy and stuff like that. And there was this one kid named round Meo. And another thing people don't understand is that you start to get like then you go through identity issues from elementary school to junior high school as your body is changed and everything's happening, and then you start to figure out who you are in the world through your peers. Your peers

kind of tell you who you are. And I remember being on the bus and I think Rommel had a crush on Keisha, so he kept like just he was always around her, and Keisha was just always paying attention to me, and I guess he was kind of just like man, kind of jealous in a way, giving him no play. So he has said to Keisha like, yeah, that can't be your son. It can't be your son.

Like you black, he not even black. And I remember I was six years old and that hit me because I'm like, why would he telling, why would he say I'm not black, and he's like, yo, look he mad light skin. He's not even black, he mad yellow. He Chinese, Mexican. So back in the day, like you know, well, colorism still exists today. But back in the day, when you was on the cheese bus going from Flatbush to Brownsville, you was on the bus with majority brown skin kids.

So it was like when you was just the light skin kid. You know, I used to get picked on. You know, he's a light skin kid, you're liking kids. So I grew up in a time where you played the dozens and you joked on people, and people joked back. I remember going home and realizing how it was affecting me, and I said to my dad, as a dad and my black some six, you know six, you're still impression with kids. And he was like, hell, yeah, you black?

Why Like why are you asking me that? And I was telling him about Ramel and everything was going on the bus and him saying I'm not black and making fun of me and that because I was like skinned. So my father used to tell me jokes to tell back on people, right, So he was just like, yo, you gotta always have a joke for everybody. When you walk in the room and have a counter joke. So he was like, what does Ramel look like? So I said, I don't know. He's a brown skinning kid, you know,

kind of bigger or whatever. So he said, this is what you tell Ramelo because my pops is big on letting me handle my own conflicts. Like he wasn't gonna get on the bus and presson. No, fourteen year old. He was like, you say to Ramel, you said, Ramel, I in black. I'm telling me I'm not black, and you would be light skinned too if you took showers. Right.

So I was practicing the joke. I was practicing the joke, practicing the joke, and finally, because he my father is all about the delivery, you got to say at the right time. You can't be stumbling and fumbling and bumbling on this joke. So I practiced it all day. So I went back and I gave him I told my father joke. He said, cool, I'm gonna give you a follow up joke, right, So I said, boom, Now I

have two jokes going into the bus. So the next day going to the bus and you know, day that goes my son, days go my son, and of course Ral comes over, Yeah, that's not your son. You're not black. He's not even black. And I said, shut up right now. Because I was six, so my voices that high. I said, shut up right now, stop telling me I'm not black. You would be light skin too if he took showers.

So since I was six, it was like cute to everybody, right like, it was like, oh, he got you right, man, we got your mouse from I was like funny and funny, but where he didn't know because I had to follow out and the one in the two. So then after everybody was laughing, I said, and why you at it? Get abroad for them titties because he was heavy sack and he had a little man boobs. At fourteen, everybody was like oh, So at that point I was like, yeah, you know what I'm saying, Like I won. I won

that battle. But you know how it affected me for a long time, especially through high school. I always wondered, like why I and my soul light skin? You know? And it did affect me because for a long time from six to seven, I was like, damn, am I really black? Because I just don't look like all the other black people that was on the bus, and even though it was all jokes and it was fine, I was able to get through it. I kind of wanted to know, like, why why am I light skin? You know?

If if I'm black and we're all black, and when you look at history of all the you know, prominent black people back in the day, they were brown skin, and it made me wonder why I look like that? And as a child, you want your parents to give you the history of who you are, absolutely and if they can't give you the history, baby, you're gonna search

for it. Now we're searching. You want to mission y'all pull up in that monster automobile gangs with a bad bitch that came from Yeah, that Sonka color, Willy Wonka. You could be the king, but watch the queen conquer. First things first, out eat your brain. I'm gonna start rock and gold teeth and things, because that's what a motherfucking monster do. Hey, dressed up a milan, that's a monster do that? Does it? Here? The monsters? You and

money is the roster and the monster crew. And in the face with the money, that money ain't I have to control my breathing. Favorite part was coming pull up all up in the bank with the funny face, and I think I noticed because your money ain't we let me get this right, shake yeah, so let me get this straight. I'm the rookie and my features in the show times you pay for no album out my money so tall that my body got a climate mentalist, the

climateanta man. She killed that. She smashed that freakingverse, y'all smashed it. Um. So yeah, I hope you were able to sing along. Nikki was good for that. That that like breathing control that you had to have on that gift, that's why. And performing that, Yes, performing that is crazy. Shoutut to Nicki Minaj. Yes, yes, all right. So yeah, we're gonna take a quick break. Let me catch my breath so I can actually finish the podcast, actually talk

to y'all. All right, so we let let's get back into the story time and how you were having somewhat of an identity crisis life because it wasn't it wasn't a midlife it wasn't even a quarter life crisis. I was six and I can't even say it's a tenth life crisis because I I hope to live way longer than sixty years old. Absolutely, you will, Yes, I will. I call it a fifth life crisis if I could be. Once I've reached my potential years, you have done everything

you're supposed to do. But UM, I remember feeling like I just wanted to know why I looked the way I look who I was. Um, I've always been big on history, even as a child, I just wanted to know. I used to ask my grandparents a lot of questions and ask my parents a lot of questions, and look at photographs of my family and you should just see a mix of people. But I just wanted to know where did they come from? You know. That's that's UM.

I can totally relate to that because growing up too, I was also kind of you know, teased in a sense, I guess, not bullied per se, but just tease. You know. Kids will always try to pick out, pick out something that they want to just kind of get on you about.

And for me, it was like, um, having really hairy arms and legs, and I mean like not just no regular hairy, like hairy hairy to the point now where it was a thing where when I used to lotion my arms and legs like before gym class because my mom would like pack my gym bag with my uniform and she'll be like, you know, make sure you're not actually and put lotion on. So I put the lotion

on my legs. I would have to like strategically like not go back and forth, but like like motion downward, so the hairs could all like la laid down in the same direction, because I look crazy as a girl with mad hairy legs and arms and the hair is going of mad different directions. And then and shout out to my father that eventually allowed me to shave my legs because he totally felt like the hair on my body was like the gift from God that all women

should have for the rest of their life. You could love that joint on your wife, but on me, No, that was a big battle. Is like Candian shaved her legs. Oh my god, let's like send out, you know, the army and the military. Because leg told me one time, please don't repeat it, please don't um but they used to be called wolverine till teen wolves things like that. So my dad and mom would just explain it like, you know, that's just your Indian side, like you know

Indian people in superheroes. So and I'd be like, oh, I didn't knowing. Okay, Yeah, you're Indian and you're black. I'm like, okay, cool. That was enough for me. Um. But now we have resources out there like twenty three and me okay, and they're able to give us a report on where you really come from, which is pretty

fascinating to me. Part of the reason why we chose to work with twenty three because it's not only about where you come from, why you look the way you look, but they also give you a report for um, some health risks that may be a product of your ancestry, so you can find out. It's not a diagnosis, it's

not a cure. It's not going to tell you how to fix anything, but it will tell you because of where you've come from and what you are, these are the risk the associated risk that could be a problem for you based on your blood oh for sure, not blessing based on your genetics. Absolutely, And I feel like you know, as a parent of four boys, it's really important for us to, you know, not only model what it means to be healthy and productive, but to also use the knowledge that we have to teach them how

to best take care of themselves. So in this episode, we're going to talk through the genetic risks and some strengths found in the twenty three and me profiles that

we were able to get through our reports. And also too, I don't know if you guys listen back to a a couple episodes maybe last season, when we spoke to Dr Brown about health risk that black males face even and how to consider you know, what's the best guy that we can give our boys to live happier, long, longer, healthier lives um than we could have imagined or then

our that our parents could have imagined. And a lot of it, I think too, is just feeling like we're predisposed to certain illnesses or predisposed to certain health risks because it runs in the family. That's always the thing, Oh you know, doing that that report when you get to the doctor's office and they want to know the history not just of your health but of your parents and your grandparents. Going down that entire gamut could be very exhausting for some of us because there's so many

things that you hear about running in the family. But it makes me really wonder, and I've wondered this for years now, does it really run in the family or are we just products of our environment and the things that we had to endure for years. That's a good point. I mean when we talk about my family, for example, I'll just give you one brief aspect of my report that I found out. But I'm Alzheimer's. You know, I have a genetic trait that makes me at higher risk

for dementia. And I look at my grandmother who end up developing dementia and currently now she has to be an assist living home Della Della may She dropped the periause Della may ellis. I love my grandma. She watched me every summer from as young as I can remember until I was about fourteen and started playing organized sports. And then my uncle Charles, who um. But Uncle Charles was like one of the most vibrant men I ever met in my life. Like he just every time you

see him, you would say with something. With Charles, you say something. He had a song related to him, always singing, and he was singing, and he was just always smiling and always in a good mood. And he developed early on set Alheimer's in his late fifties, which is a shock to all of us because that's young. That's extremely wrong. But when you think about what you're predisposed to or have a higher risk got genetically, um, you can adjust

your lifestyle. And I was speaking to my cousin Kimberly, who was now like his caretaker and helps take care of him a lot. UM. She was saying, had they known, you know all of these things, Um, he could have changed things in his life to either prolong his ability to have a normal life or prevented it altogether from happening. Because he developed legions in his brain and those legions

came from stress, lack of sleep, also diet. Right. And the reason why this is important is because we're so used to um teaching our kids traditions and conditioning them to be a certain way, especially our our black man and I say that because we have young we have sons. So when we talked to our boys, like be tough, you know, team, no sleep, you work hard, you do this, you do that, and you really don't take care of yourself.

But we spoke to Dr Brown, I remember him saying that one night of bad sleep can be the equivalent of a month of poor diet three months. That's what was most mind blowing like three months of eating bad, which is crazy because I think about how many people. For example, my uncle Charles worked two or three jobs, you know, because he was consistently trying to make ends meet, and he was trying to not only help his family,

but he helped so many other people. So when he was a deacon in the church shout out seele the Missionary Baptist Church, and he had any extra time, he was also doing his deacon duties. He was also also a boy Scout leader, so he was always investing his time in his community and trying to take care of his family, and he really didn't take care of himself.

And the reason why that is important is because you and I talk about using this opportunity as young parents with young kids to teach our kids how to take care of themselves from young not only in getting enough sleep, but also what you eat. You know, and mental health is important. Physical health is important, and the best way to go about creating a plan for both is knowing where you come from. Like I said in my sound bite, you can't know where you're going unless you know where

you're being. You know, what's something you said? It was pretty interesting and it triggered in me the idea when you said that our parents generation, for example, like Uncle Charles generation, they worked so hard, even Nana so hard to ensure that their children were okay and their children's children because you and I were both pretty much raised by parents, but grandparents as well, which is even more special that we have the opportunity to have our parents

around for our children now. But we a lot of times put the onus on our parents to say they didn't do this for us, they didn't equipped us to be like this. They dropped the ball with that. We tend to be kind of hard on our parents, but we don't realize that they were really doing everything within their power to make sure that we would be okay, to provide for us, and that in turn created environments for lack of sleep, um for stress. They were under a lot of stress just trying to be able to

make things work for us. I think about my parents who came from Jamaica and St. Vincent at young ages with just a suitcase and a dream, you know. So the lack of sleep, for example, that I saw my mother have to endure because she was just trying to give us everything. We kind of have to give them a little bit of grace in that situation. Give them a little bit of grace, then all the graces. Honestly feel like millennials and gen z uh, it's a gen

z Ears because we're millennials. Millennials and gen z Ears. We we do a great job of pointing out all of our parents flaws, right, Like, I think that's all the trauma. Everything is generation trauma. And even we've talked about generational trauma. But what you don't realize is that you don't know what you don't know. There was no

twenty three and me back then. Technology didn't exist back then, the science wasn't as good back then, so our parents weren't given the tools we have to be parents now. And a lot of times we always talked down about what our parents did wrong, as opposed to saying, well, you know what I survived, I'm here. They had to be doing something right. You know, it's not about what you did wrong. But it's like, now that we know better,

let's do better. And I agree with you on that, like our parents did not, like, for example, my father when it comes to history, Yeah, he spoke to his mom and his dad and he spoke his grandmother and his grandfather. But now I'm able to get extensive history. For example, on the report, I found out that this helped me with my um my identity crisis. But um, I found out that I'm eighty I think sub Saharan African.

And so first thing I did when I found this out, and I think I'm of that eight percent, I'm sixty percent Nigerian. So I called my brother and I said, guess what, man, I'm not Gian too. And the first thing you said was all my brother, we're doing this for the green anyway. But it was like to find out to find out that, Um, I'm eighty percent Subsaharan African.

Plus knowing my family's history right then I found out I'm seventeen percent or eighteen percent European, and I think two percent or less than two percentum indigenous, which is kind of maybe a flip for what you thought. You probably thought you were more and I thought I was more indigenous because of my family's history. My family's history, um, from my mom's side came from reservations and they walked the trail of tears from Virginia all the way when

Western experiension happened after Africa. So we found out going back, going back and doing history. Me and my sister started to put things together and we did it only three and me, but we also just spoke to a lot of people in the family to find out who was who.

And because of our complexion, we thought that we were more Indigenous than African, and we found out that we're more African and more white, which means our ancestors were part of the enslaved people that walk the trailer tears as a part of the cargo that the indigenous people received when they were forced to move out of the reservations in Virginia. So you know, it helps you not only history, so it also helps you find out not not who you are, but exactly the place you played

in that social structure that walked. So, yes, we walked the trailer tears, but my family walked the trailer tears as enslaved people. They didn't walk the trailer tears as indigenous people. That you know that that went out west so and went down south. But that also made me feel super proud. Right, and this is a different take than other people take on slavery, but this is to

take I take on it. Right, If my family was able as enslaved people to exist and walk thousands of miles and survive and be able to create family structure that is able to create my grandparents and then my parents and then me, that has had to be some strong people, and that has to be something you have to be proud of what I'm doing it. I mean, exactly, when did you say there's something that you can't do. It's just like bro right, My people were equipped to

do this year. Absolutely absolutely. But it also explains my complexion. Right, Why do I look fairer skinned because I'm closer to European and African And I thought I was more fair skinned because I was more indigenous because my families walked. My family walked the Tale of Tears and Trailer of Tears, No excuse me. My sister went as far back is to research names associated with my family, and what we found out was we thought the Jackson's that's my which

is funny because my son's name is Jackson. But we thought that Jackson's were the indigenous people who took the land, took the name, and continued to grow westward with that name Jackson. But after doing research, we found out that Jackson was the name given to the enslaved people when they were distributed to the indigenous people. M So we really found out the details that were associated with our family and was able to say, ah, so these this is where we stood in that that is so interesting.

Well listen, y'all, Usually we do an explanation of karaoke, you know, so you understand why the song had anything to do with the episode. Right, So we're talking twenty three and me wereports, we're talking about health. What does monster have to even do with this? Huh? So let me give you all a little insight. So after teaming up with twenty three and me and we were able to not only pinpoint the location of our and Stress and Street, but we're able to see all the genetics

and stuff. The location was interesting for me because, like I said earlier, I was just always told, oh, you know, you're Jamaican and Indian, you're black and Indian. You look at my mom and dad's a black woman, he looks like he could be Indian. Great, So I guess we weren't too far off because according to my reports, let me pull it up, drumroll please, but that's my drum because if I clap, trouble was gonna be mad. She always tell me, don't clap into MinC. So I'm not

it's gonna be my druma already. So it says that I am fifty point seven Central and South Asian, which could be Indian, however it is split between Southern Indian and Sri Lankan and Northern Indian and Pakistani. So I'm with it that came from Sri Lanka. Yeah, that's me. Nicky was talking about me, y'all end this episode? Oh no, no, no, no, no, no no, because there's another part too. It tells you where your family were unlikely during the slave trade landed.

Oh absolutely, So let me give you all the rest of the tea. First about who I am. Allowed me to reintroduce you, y'all to be um. Yeah, so that's um, Southern and Northern Indian and Sri Lankan in Pakistani. So that's the region. And then I am forty one point seven percent sub Saharan African, particularly West African, with majority of that being Ganaian Liberian or Sierra Leonian Sierra Leonion. So isn't that pretty cool? Yes, my old manager at Max. She's from Sierra Leone, so I want to call her

up and be like girl girl. He's also so yeah, so forty one percent or at forty one point seven percent, and then the remainder, which is another um seven percent is European, so it's actually a very small percentage of British and Irish as the majority under the European scope for me, so now the China who I really am? Yeah, it was really interesting for me to see. So just going under the umbrella of saying, oh, hey, I'm Indian, um not quite, I mean, it gives me a little

bit more specific. And then, like you said, the great thing about this twenty three and report is that it also gives you the region that your family was most likely dropped off at, and very very very accurate. It told me Jamaica, particularly Clarinet. Part of me was like, have y'all been like being through my window? Have y'all been going through my stuff? You know, people get skeptical

about these things. I might listening. If you have an iPhone, they have all your joint already anyway, so you don't have that um. But but yeah, so it made me think like, wow, you know they're very specific about where we ended up. They put Jamaica down um St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which is where my dad is from. And then um as well, we saw a little bit of Trinidad and your dad said, you have family and Trinidad, NICKI minaj just my family and trinking at she wrote

a look about me like maybe she knew. That's why she kid said with a bad bitch. They came from she Lanka. Maybe she knew too. Listen, Okay, maybe her that's that is a fact, Nikki. Let me know because we can do let's let's cross let's cross reference these results, you know. Um. But it's very interesting too because when I think about it, there's so many different like, for example, in St. Vincent alone, if you go to the island, there are a ton of different people in St. Vincent.

It's not just people who are from as we know now South Asia, but there are blacks, they're whites there. Same is to be said for Jamaica. Jamaica has a lot of Asian people, not just Indian Asian, but also Asian as in maybe from China. Um. So it's very very interesting to see where exactly you might have landed in this world. It makes you feel like, wow, you may potentially have a greater connection to a certain area and it explains why. So um yeah, pretty pretty cool

results here. Um let's dive into more of the health now, because in the report they give you an extensive health report to let you kind of know what you may be predisposed to because of genetics. It can also be I'm thinking because of geographic location. Okay, what were the available resources to you? What was the the nurture nature side of things? And then it also makes me think

about having to survive by any means necessary. So it required that our family, our ancestors be able to care for themselves or feed their families by eating certain things that then induce certain illnesses and mailments. That's more of the nurture side, right, So let's dive in. You spoke about Alzheimer's already, um from your parents uh and your grandparents sides. And then it looks like both of us after comparing the results, have hypertension that runs on on

both sides. So we both have the genetic trait that makes us at higher risk for high pertension, and black people already in general have a higher risk for that UM compared to white counterparts for high blood pressure, and there it's likely to have it under control, so we can talk about they're less likely to have it under control.

And this this goes to what we also spoke spoke about with Dr Brown was African Americans and Caribbean Americans disapproval and distrust in the medical system and the health care system now because of things like the Tuskegee experiment. There's been and that's not the only one, but there's

been that's the most popular one that people talk about. UM. There has been a huge distrust that has grown between the Black community and the health care community because of false tests and think they were we were given UM diseases like syphilis to figure out if they can find cures and see what the long term effects would be. So for a long time, black people never felt comfortable going to their healthcare providers. So and as a Black man, I know, you know, I lost I have a buddy

who lost his dad. We're at that age now where our dadifties sixty years old with him seven years old, like your dad just recently turned seventy, and my buddy lost his dad. And I was just like, man, you know, how did you lose your dad? They always have blood pressure issues and I was like, oh, it was it was issues. Said no, it wasn't really an issue. He just didn't want to take his medication. And I was

just like why why wouldn't he take his medication? And he was like, well, the blood pressure medication UM gave him erectile dysfunction because the blood. You know, the penis is a muscle, but it requires blood to become erect and when the blood flow becomes an issue, it causes an issue with erectile dysfunction. And he didn't want to have that issue. So he's just like, oh, I can I can manage this on my own. Went to sleep one night and just never woke up in the morning.

Because blood pressure is like a silent killer. You feel like you're fine and then boom, you know, something happens. And there are always socio economic reasons why when you reason like that, it's just like black you know, African Americans are are believed to be at a higher risk and less likely to have it under control. They say it as if we just don't have stuff under control.

They don't speak about the unmitigating factors like UM, the fact that we have healthcare issues, the fact that we can't afford healthcare at a higher rate than our white counterparts, because socio economically, we majority of black people in America live below the poverty law. For sure. None of that is really unpacked. It's just kind of an umbrella term that we use for black just at a higher risk. But how do I high risk? Watch? Why? And is

it nature verse nurture? Absolutely no, one of these things will help us make better decisions for our children and our future. That's why I keep saying you can't know where you're going to, you know where you've been. Think about diet when you say um. African Americans, for example, are believed to carry a gene that makes us more salt sensitive. If that's true or not, we don't know.

But what tends to happen. For example, way way back in the day, during the enslaved times, Right, you're given the scraps to eat, right, they'll take they'll they'll be the pig, but they'll give you. They'll take the pork shoulders, they'll take the pork roast to take the healthier health. Meteor meets yeah, and it gave me defeat the tail the tail, what else the tongue, the tongue the intestines, which chitterlings. And it's a delicacy, a very expensive delicacy.

Now listen, you know, I remember the first time tricked me into trying chitterlings. Okay, I'm walking into your house and I was like, yo, I was like, what is this like hot arm pitt in here? I'm like, what is happening? So I was like, all right, it did smell like hot arm? What is going on in here? So your father was over there, you know, making this pot of something. He didn't tell me what it was, and me being of cribbing descent, I don't think I've

ever had chilings like we've had tripe. I've never actually had it, but my family will carry some tripe whenever they're ready, you know. So I remember, tripe is the intestine of the cow. So it's the same as exactly exactly like least smelled like ass too when my grandmother was making the tripe. But I definitely felt like I walked in the house and it smelled like hot ass and armpit. So I was like, damn. So your father was just like, oh man, try this, like you know,

he was excited about. You know, your father get excited about and if he saying it tastes good, I'm gonna trust that it tastes good because he is definitely a good judge of food. Right, So I remember that. And he took out the hot so seeing the fre okay, so that's like the staple in your household. So he's lathering on the hot So he's like, you're like hot souce,

You're like spice, right. I'm like yeah, So he's lading on that hot sauce and I'm like it, give me more hot sauce, because you know I love hot you love spicy food. Man. When I took a bite of that me trying to be polite, you ain't you ain't this This is interesting taste, the texture is quite you know, it's lot gummy. What exactly is this? And he was like, man, this is I was like, oh, I gotta can't believe it does a said. First of all, my adventist family

barely eats pork. Okay, my mom was at all. My my dad, you know, he'll he'll dip in, dab in a little pork. But curry, I love a jump. You got someone that juke pool, So you know, definitely says like, oh my god, I'm like what if I what if it was against my religion to eat these shipless? It

should be against anybody's religion to eat them chitless. So in that moment, I'm just saying that to say, you get the pig intestines, you put everything you need to put in it, whether it's the salt, where there's the sugar, whether it's the butter. You have to make it taste good. And if you're feeding your family the scraps, you had to find a way to make a taste of slipment. Excess salt, excess sugar, butter, blard, gravy, all of those things.

Do we not think that that's eventually going to affect that becomes a culturing like a blood pressure. Yes, yes, eating all of that salt and sugar and then coupling it with rice, Oh my god, because running onto diabetes right, my perfect, perfect perfect se to diabetes and give them a little factor pick if you don't mind, and then

you can elaborate on it. But type two diabetes has a stronger link to family history and lineage than type one, and studies of twins shown that the genetics play a very strong role in the development of type two diabetes, and race can also play a role in this as well. Absolutely, but type two diabetes is completely preventable through your lifestyle choices. So that's why I'm glad. I'm actually happy you read that first, because if you think about lifestyle choices, think

about our cultures. You were both people of color, but we both have mixes of different colors in there, right, But one thing is consistent. All of those different colors have gone through hardships because of colonialism, and part of colonialism meant that their people were marginalized. And when you're marginalized, you have to find ways to survive. So you just talked about all the scribe she were given, right given the pigs out, the pigtail, the pig hoofs um, the

stomach lining, and the intestines. That's not a lot of the pig. But you still have to feed a family. So how do you make this meal good enough for the family. You take all that stuff up, you make a gravy and you sprinkle it over large tubs of rice so that these people can still work and and and that becomes the culture. For example, think about the movie soul food. Think about how how ironic soul food is.

Every Sunday, this family got together to fix this food that was filled with saturated facts and sugars and butters and oils and salts and starts. Big Mama, who was the epicenter of the family, ends up dying from diabetes caused by eating this food. And you know how they celebrated her death getting together to eat more food. Because that's the culture. Right. So when you say African Americans and race or Caribbean Americans are more susceptible to type

two diabet these because of culture, that's true. Because we make lifestyle choices based on tradition, absolutely, and if tradition means that you're slowly killing yourself, some of us are not aware enough to realize that that's exactly what we're existing in. We're existing in a tradition that's slowly killing us. And that seguates us to talking into children and how using this twenty three and me report helped us make greater lifestyle choices for our sons. For example, telling the

story about the porridge. Oh yeah, right, right right, So I actually have two stories related to like diabetes. If you want to say, it could be a segue to it. The porridge with some well, porridge is something that is very big in a Criman household. You can use different types of porrighes, planting porridges, cormeal, powrishes, how many corn porridge um And that's something that my grandmother gave us as babies. My mom and her siblings had that as

they were growing up, and it's a staple. You go to any Caremian restaurant, you're gonna definitely find cornmeal, powdge of some sort of porridge as a breakfast item. But when you really dissect what it is, it's corn, which is a starch. Okay, which I learned later on in life. I always thought corner was a vegetable and it was my favorite. It ain't a vegetable. It's a starch. So you're having corn that's dried up and mild, and then you proceed to boil it in water with milk, and

then you have you know, you're cinnamon. You're not saying things to make it taste good, and then you have to add the sugar, of course, and you're just adding a regular sugar. It is the condensed milk, right, You have to say it like that, the condensed right, the condensed milk or condensed milk, and that is just even more so thick sugar. It's just all sugar. It's literally all sugar between the condensed milk and the corn. You're

eating sugar for breakfast. And I remember as a kid smelling it in the air when my mom would be making it, and I would start to instantly like cry because I hated parridge. It was a texture thing for me. But when it came to my children, even my grandmother, you know, bless her heart, love where she comes and stays with us, you know, pre covid like every you know, holiday season, and she would just recently here with us for a month and she was like, wait, you don't

start the baby pant calm in porridge yet. And I was kind of like, well, yeah, Grandma, you know, I just you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna just give it to him in moderation because I just don't want because even when I gave it to the kids growing up, like I never put too much sugar in it, but it really is just a filler. So when I said to her, you know, Grandma, nowadays we don't really give too much porridge and cereal and all that in the milk.

So you know, her and my mom look at each other and yeah, when no young people, then you like to reinvent the wheel, you know, like after after after your rears pan calm in porridge or you mean or you mean And I'm just like, well, Grandma, you know it's just a filler now, so why not give the baby like actual like protein or like vegetables for breakfast versus just giving filler stuff. And she said, and that's

why the baby not sleep at night. You must put look a porridgeing in battle and then we'll drink it and sleep on a tired look Pine, you look ponder out and I'm like, I know, Grandma, I know we're tired, but we're just not going to give him like a filler just to make him sleep longer, you know what I'm saying. So that and then think about this. You go to your favorite Caribbean restaurant right look forward to going home so we can go Yard Style or any

other restaurant that we enjoyed. Yeah, Golden Crusts flat Lands between A hundred and hundred for please go support yard still in Brooklyn. They make the best, the best oxtail and some really good steed chicken and some the chicken soup slap. But anyway, when you go there, my only gripe with with them. In any restaurants of Caribbean flavor, you're gonna ask for a large oxtail, for example, what

kind of rice? Rice and peace. Well, first before you even get there, you have to ask do you have oxtail? Because you're liable to order it? And them said what, right, So if them you already arrest and peas and your oxtail, and you literally get rice and peace with a side of oxtail and maybe either a steam vege or a salad. Right, and then you be piste because you just paid almost thirty dollars for a large oxtail and there's about four pieces in it. But right, there's two things. Number one,

it's not just the business structure. When your mom makes my play or when she used to make my place, she used to pound my plate up with rice too, and then put like a small piece of chicken. And I used to be like, yo, this is not gonna work for me. It's not that's just the culture is just rice, rice, rice, mad rice on it. And but what happened though, the rice slap right, because we're not just making any regular old rice is rice with the

coconut milk. Coconut milk. You know, you put a piece of skelton in it, you put some time, you put some season, and put some piece and that in itself is in me. Like I've had moments where I'm like, just give me the rice and pieces with some gravy and I'm going to go, you know, extra graper pond the rice. So all of that essentially turns into sugar. It's the starch, and that is in turn why I feel like a lot of people of Caribbean descent have sugar as the same thing down. So, yeah, we have,

and that's why you have diabetes because of that. And that's just the thing that we've learned over the years. If it's not going to be rising ps, its ground provision. Yeah, I mean those things, those are all starch rooted and they all convert to sugar. And that's what what Canina and I talked about, the nature versus nurture. That's more of nurture. Now, the next thing I want to talk about is a little bit more nature sickle cell um.

Codeine has the sickle cell trade, so we necessarily didn't need the twenty three and Me report to tell us this. But with the reason why we bring this up is because in the twenty three and me report, you'll find out about that because of your genetics. And it was interesting enough for us because when Codeine got pregnant with Jackson, she was running through the full gamut of everything she needed to prepare for the pregnancy, and that's when we

found out that Codeine has the sickle cell trade. So then they asked me immediately, Devout, do you have the sickle cell trade? And I had never asked my entire life. At this point, I'm twenty about to be seven years old. I've never asked my physician if I had the sickle cell trade even a thing to hear even like, of course you hear of the disease sickle cell anemia, but you never even I never even heard of the trade

or potentially caring. My mom knew. My mom knew because the minute I asked, she said, no, you don't have the trade. And I said, and I guess you know now now when I think about the reason why she never told me I had the trades because since I didn't have the trade, I didn't have anything to worry about. But if I did have the trade, I would have

had to say to you, I have the trade. Because if I have the sickle cell trade and Gadeen has the sickle cell trade, it's more than likely that one of our children, all of our children could be born with sickle cell anemia right blown. And it's important for you to know these I don't want to call them health risk, but these genetic traits because when you're dating someone, you wouldn't want to know, Hey, if we decided to have children, our children could be born with an immune

deficiency because we both have the trade. And we found out that three of our four boys have the trade. Jackson is the only one who doesn't have the trade, but Cairo, kaz In, Dakota all have the ciicle trade. Exactly's something we have to make sure that they know. Um, when you think about it, When you think about it too, when you are pregnant, it's like your body goes under this mini stress test. So they want to test everything.

So anything that potentially may show up in your life or in your history is going to show up while you're pregnant. So in that I was able to find out I had the sickle cell trade. And it was the thing where I even called my brother and my sister was like, hey, y'all, I had the trade. Turns out my mom had it as well or has it as well too, so she's the one who passed it on to me, and then in turn I passed it

on to my children. So when you're looking at certain things like that, that's, you know, part of history or part of your genetics. Um. Not only is it important for you to know for yourself, but you need to know for your children. Like we said, we're gonna say something else after after that, I was saying, um, as it pertains to having children when you got the COVID.

When we all got COVID the same time around my birthday last year, that's when we started to see some differences in how people with sickle cell anemia or the trade respond to COVID because their blood coagulates differently and people will get developing blood clots and some developing strokes.

And the reason why this is important is because if you have a young child, male or female who's an athlete and they have sickle cell anemia, or they may have the sickle cell anemia trade and may have suffered from COVID. That could be a reason why they may have difficulty breathing or working out after they are done with COVID. For example, So the young man from Florida, I can't remember his name who passed out. I think

it was two weeks after being done with COVID. He went through COVID protocols, everything was good, and this was he went out on his senior year first game, was walking out in the court after the time out and just passed out And they didn't know what was happening until they took all the blood tests. Now they didn't reveal because it's his family. What did the blood tests reveal? But over time we found out that people with sickle cell anemia or the trade are hospitalized two to one

after having COVID than people who don't. So when you have children, it really makes you wonder. The more I know about my family, can I protect my children even with sports, even if it doesn't have anything to do with COVID. I should make sure they eat differently if their bodies require something different. Remember um David Price's dad, God rest his soul. He passed away from cancer. But David Price's dad used to tell David all the time, man, you guys, he's Jamaican to you guys, used to eat

right for your blood type. And we used to be like, what does that even meant? Right for your blood type? But then this book came out and it was time we got the book and it was talking about eating right for your blood type and how we all have different genetic traits that require us, because of different blood types, to eat certain foods. You know what blew my mind

when I read that book was that. So I don't know if I've ever shared on the podcast before, but my mother had a heart attack at Okay, and that is a large part of the reason why, aside from her helping to be a part of our village to help with our children, and you know, Develot and I have some reprieve whenever we need that. My mother worked a very stressful job. She was a director of nursing

for years at a nursing home. Prior to that, worked in home care, long term care, all that, and she was under a lot of stress, a lot of stress, and in reading about our particular blood type because we have the same blood type. It showed that stress stress alone was a huge cause of potential heart attack and heart disease, heart disease because of our actual blood type

over any other blood type. And that was just mind blowing to me because when my mother had the heart attack at fift, we could not figure out how you have this woman who is vibrant, she's working a lot. Granted she may not be eating the best in terms of like at all the heart attack, she hadn't eaten for thirty six hours. She had a half a bottle. Yeah. Yeah, she had like a yogurt thing. And my mother has never had a big appetite. Like we put a big plate of food in front of her, she's like, oh

my god, food, you know. So she she for the most part, didn't eat frequently, but she didn't eat poorly. You know. She wasn't eating like the things that you say would probably need. Yeah, and she don't have a lot of Salt is a silent killer, but salt is really a silent killer. Guy. She was eating some, she wasn't the tetos, not sleeping, not drinking enough water, and she was working out and stressed and stress yea. So my mother was under just overall, her body was over

and she wasn't sleeping. You know, even to this day now she'll be like, oh, I can't sleep like I can. I only need a couple of hours sleep and she doesn't have attack take the subject. But this is part of the reason why I worked so hard to take care of you, the way awake, I worked to take care of you. Right. I look at the way our parents, both of them, your parents and my parents just worked like they just worked so hard, and I admire they're ability to just work and they only worked to create

a legacy for us. We we both have to We both have a brother and sister. Um they're both the leaders and their families. So they both helped them their families as well as helping their kids. But I look at your mom, I look at my mom. My mom still works, right, And I want to be able as just a man, to be able to say, you know what, I made my wife's life as stress free as possible. You know what I'm saying, because if we have to

look out for each other. And I noticed a little bit off topic, but just listening to you speak about it and thinking about how because this is a podcast where we talk about being of service to each other. When you know your partners um deficiencies, health deficiencies, you know they have issues, potential risk it is, it would be in your best interests if you want your partner to be there for the long haul to make sure you do everything in your power to make sure they're good.

I know you need sleep all the time. I'm asked you because you remind me and your mom constantly going, going, going, going going. Did you eat yesterday? God's mind you. We went to bed late last couple of nights. The whole podcast crew is here and shout out trouble, Matt, Dave, Josh, they all here and k went to bed early last night. But before she went to bed, I think it was my twelve thirty, she said, Oh, I didn't eat today.

And you see how we always talk about our parents and how our parents didn't do things the right way. Here we are doing the same ship that they did, talking about my parents should have did better for themselves. And you don't realize that. You're like, what were you doing? Why didn't you eat? And it's like, well, ship, I had to work out because you came in and we all we both hold each other accountable with working out, and that's one thing that that would be on my

back about. And it's not about just me having whatever he deems a perfect figure. He wants my internal body to be okay after the postpartum Reclampson, I'm on you about trying to get sleep and working and working out, for sure, But I was like shout. I was like getting the kids, you know, kath ned his school uniform. I was taken clothes for the morning this time, and there's so many things that had to be done by the end of the night once the kids are asleep.

But I didn't realize that I did even bring it eat all day, you know. So it's just we have that accountability system with each other. And I mean, let me tell you all days it ain't roses because he'd be like, did you work out to day? You come to work out now, and I'm like, attitude, I don't

feel like working out. That's just tired. But then trying to say, you know what, at the very least, like we've discovered you told me recently that everybody should be trying to walk at least twenty minutes a day, that's bare minimum minimum. And here I'm gonna tell you this. People. People listen to me right now because everybody got excuses and I have time. I had so much. There's nobody in the world, no matter how busy you are, don't

have twenty minutes to walk straight. Just twenty minutes straight consistently every single day. Nobody get up and just walk twenty minutes straight. And I'm not talking about a stroll, a brisk walk that develops a sweat, because when you take a stress test, the first thing they do is put you on a treadmill and make you walk for twenty minutes to see if you can sustain it. You have to be able to do that. Just good for heart health. Now, there are some physical benefits you'll gain

from walking, but heart health is important. Circulation is important. We're talking about mental health, the ability for your brain to relax while you just you know, now, don't even put on music, get some meditation music, and just walk and don't think about anything else except just going twenty minutes straight at the bricks vers. Wish I was doing that for me. Sometimes I'm like, shoot, I have to

check these emails, and then I'm like damn. I how to walk though, So sometimes I can't even have the opportunity to turn my mental health. But it's like, yo, if I can get on this treadmill, do a consistent walk and just like breathe through, delete emails whatever whatever, like do some housekeeping stuff, you know, little things like that, do some touch bases, jump on the phone with some money and be like, hey, and A, I'm supposed to call you back. Like, use those opportunities to be able

to at least get that twenty minutes in. So that's super super important. Um, and then I'm going to divolt something that I probably never divulged. I don't think, do anyone really well? You do know because alright, prior to having Dakota and I and re gonna start something when they when you say that go ahead, either of us our something. I know because I know the Internet, I know Beyonce's Internet, and I know the minute you say this is people gonna be saying, go hey, go go ahead. No, okay,

so what we're gonna out? So our preface it by saying we're not gonna go ahead, and I'll tell you why we're gonna go ahead. So this was something that was thought out. It's not something that we just arrived at all willy nilly, and was just like, I will see how it goes. So prior to even get it pregnant with the Coda, Devin and I want defense about four or five kids. Do we have one more or

do we have two more? I will say that even while I was pregnant with Dakoda, through my pregnancy, I was kind of warming up to the idea of potentially having one more and hitting y'all with a back to back like like how kyro On Cass came back to that. I was like, you know what, if I'm if this is gonna be the end, I might as well have this fourth baby who's the coda and then just do

it one more time and get it over with. And it didn't matter, and it didn't matter to us if it was a boy or a girl, because we had this conversation before and it was just like, if we have four, we have four boys. If we try for the fifth and we have five boys, we have a full basketball team, that's the fact. But if we have four and the girl, right, and we finally got our girls. So from the very beginning when we were deciding this.

It was never about a certain sex or gender. It was just about having four or five kids, right because I felt like we were in a space where initially I was like, man, I only want like two or three kids, because I was thinking about our circumstances. We were in Brooklyn, we were still busting our ass day in and day, and we still bust our ass to this day on a different level, and we had the

space here. So in my bliss being here in our new home and being pregnant with our fourth child, I'm like, oh, we do have extra rooms. So if we did have a fifth child, no problem with five is my favorite number. So people don't know that, yes, that's like do we do the even thing or do we do the odd thing? So UM, I was warming up to the idea of it. I will admit that the thing that put the kabash in it for me, And it's one of those things where you pray for UM a sign, you pray for

some direction. You're like, God, you know, if this is for me, let me know if it ain't for me. Removing from my life. After having CODA at home, pristine pregnancy, pristine labor, and also talking about UM the way blood coagulates.

They had me on blood thinner, so like a baby, I should say, not blood thinner, but a baby aspirin um every day of my pregnancy with CODA because they were concerned potentially about that being an issue for me because of the protein ski after having COVID, because I had COVID at the very beginning before I even knew I was pregnant with CODA. In retrospect now I'm like, wow, it's about five weeks pregnant and I had COVID and it was pregnant with CODA. So that was alarming in

itself for me. But pristine pregnancy, pristine home birth, had CODA. Nine days later, ends up with skyrocketing blood pressure, insane headache that would not go away, swelling in my my hands,

at my feet. I had to go to the emergency room immediately because my midwife was concerned, and when I got there was met with a triage nurse who tried to maintain her cool, but I can also see the concern in her face when she told me that I would have to be admitted immediately because my blood pressure at that point was like over likelous, ridiculous and I'm a normal seventy kind of person. She came into me and she said, um, hey, Mr Bellis, we have we

have your wife. We're gonna admit her now. It says everything okay. And she said, we're going to admit her now, right now. We have to get her started on magnesium, we have to get that blood pressure down. And it's a good thing you brought her in. And I said that she going to be okay. She was just like, it's a good thing that you brought her in. And I was just like, man, is my wife gonna be okay? She said, your wife could have went to sleep and not woke up. And she said this happens more often

than not. Two people they feel like they have a headache, that something's not right, and they think it's oh, I'm not sleeping. And then he said, you know how many people coming here and they were seconds away from having an aneurysm or having a stroke or going into some sort of of cardiac arrest because something didn't feel right and they were just going to sleep it off. And

that reminds me of your mom. Your mom left the gym that day, said she didn't feel well and said I'm just gonna go upstairs, and your brother said, mom, let me check your vitals and said, this don't feel right. We're going into the hospital. Imagine if your brother and if if Takia or I didn't take you, or your mom's in the hospital. It's crazy how God works. Because my brother wasn't even supposed to be home that day, but you see how and he was home close that

is the home. Like you see how we could have been talking about your mom not being here, and we could have talked about you not being here. And these are just regular days. It was nothing catastrophic that happened, right, This is a regular day that we made a choice. And you know why we didn't go that day was because the val had to leave for the Soul trayin awards and she was here doing his fitting and I had the baby, and I was just like, man, my

head doesn't fear right. But to me in my moment, in that moment, I was like, I want to make sure you're good, like we always wanted to make sure everybody else is good, and then in turn not taking care of ourselves. So and get into the hospital and realizing that wow, I was diagnosed with postpartum preclampsha, which normally you hear about preclamption while pregnant, so that's having high blood pressure issues during the pregnancy. Never had any

sign of that. So what I learned is, like I said earlier, when your body is under this mini stress tests as a pregnant woman, it kind of gives you a little bit of inclination or a little triggers to let you know, hey, having high blood pressure while pregnant means that there's a very great possibility that you will

have blood pressure hypertension issues in the future. And that's something that I don't even want to speak over my life because y'all can have y'all little triggers and y'all a little you know, pregnancy signs, But I'm not going to speak high pretension over my life. However, I do know that it runs in my family. So whatever I can do now to help to prevent that, whatever lifestyle

changes I need to prevent now. I mean when devoun I sometimes meal prep now that I'm trying to get myself back in shape after the baby and just try to be healthier and live healthier. We'll cook meal prep stuff and we'll eat that and then we'll go maybe to a restaurant or eat you out somewhere else, and we would like, damn, wasn't that fool really salty? Or like, damn, that was really sweet. So it's almost as if you're pale, your palette changes and it shifts. Sometimes your body requires

a detox, but to kind of start over. If you can change your palette as an adult, you can curate a palette for a child. For example, our children eat sugar free ices. They don't taste any different to them because they're not even used to just eating the regular We grew up on the Italian ices with magic. I

still eat them. But what we're trying to do with all this information is curate a lifestyle for our children where they can live healthier and not have to worry about those extended pre existing conditions because we didn't add to it with our traditional family things. And it's not that we're trying to take these things away from our kids, because we're still going to explain to them who they

are and why we do things a certain way. But it's just making choices, you know, make sure you guys are active all the time, make sure you eat things the right way. Don't put because our kids. Yes, everything has to be done in moderation, you know. So because what's gonna happen is like, you're not gonna tell me

I'm not gonna eat these candy ams on on things. Okay, but you're not gonna tell me you're gonna take that, you know, pork, what is it, the turkey, nick or whatever out of the colleague gonna have the heavy cream in the mac and cheese. That's what we're gonna have. But we're not eating that every day, So I said, I say, we're not doing it every day, but as well Thanksgiving, I'll be eating it for a couple of days after because that's what it soaked in, really really

really nicely. Um. So, yeah, there's ways to even just detox the body and kind of start over and kind of refresh. I think that's needed every now and again too. If you ask my grandmother, she'd be likely to give them then wash out before school starts, you know, like the end of the summer. It's like you gotta reset the body. You got to get that laxative, that wash out to kind of make sure that you're getting rid of the things that actually your body. Yeah, so um. Well,

shout out to Shaniqua um the homie on Instagram. She's high frequency tea and I did her the biddest Um detox when I first moved here, and um, yeah, that was an interesting detox because it tasted like all hell. But I felt amazingly light after that. Like she was, you don't always taste good, That's true, That's just what it is. That's how I knew it was. Vegetables are what's the real deal when you eat during something that

tastes nasty. Yes, so we should have around here to talk about some natural ways and then in turn take care of the body versus having to potentially maybe get on medication later, starting that before being proactive versus reactive. Al Right, guys, So, as you guys know, twenty three and Me has given us um some health tips of what we pre disposed to genetically. But they've also given us some fun facts like carrier status and wellness and

traits that can affect us on our everyday life. And I think this would be fun to go through so we can see how accurate this is based on how we interact on the daily. When Devout calls me crazy or delusional, on a random day. It may not be just crazy and delusion. It may be genetics. I wonder if you're pre disposed to d opping it because you like dropping it a lot like catching it, probably you predisposed to it and I'm predisposed to catching them. It's

the perfect marriage. Let's dive in, Shelly, all right. So when we look at some of my health predispositions, I guess that we have, according to my twenty three and me report, a slightly increased risk of age related macular D generation. So that's a m D loss of eyesight that usually begins to show up in your sixties and seventies. Smoking highly increases this risk. Oh mg, am I have to put down to hookah. I don't know hooka Mommy, damn ain nobody trying to lose this eyes side. Baby.

I want to see you. I want to see you well into my hundreds. I think I think you'd be. And then oh, it actually picked up that I'm a carrier status UM for not necessarily the sickle cell anemia variant, but one was detected for the beta the last mia. Lord, I'm gonna give me all these big words to talk about. I thought me you know, we always see them commercials on TV. Who got Mezzo? Like, what does anybody know? What? Me?

Can anybody who's actually had that? Right in for a listener letter because we see it all the time, and I just get to meet somebody who's had that. So yeah, but pretty much, it's a genetic disorder characterized by anemia and fatigue UM, as well as bone deformities and organ problems. Yikes. So a person must have two variants in the HBB gene in order to have this condition. So let's hope

I an't got none of that. Well know. The reason why that's good, though, is because now you know if the kids have it and they gave someone who has the same variants or similar variant or two variants, then they are more likely to have it. So it's important to know. It's definitely important to know. And then under the wellness category, my report says that I'm like likely to drink slightly less caffeine than the average based on my gematics. Have yet to see that yet. Day Baby

Air Day, which is funny, Bill. When I was pregnant, I did not like coffee at all, actually gave me more heightened morning sickness UM. But yeah, I mean, I can't go a date without coffee or two if I chose to. My thing is I love a warm beverage in the morning. So if it's not coffee, it's a cup of tea, I'm gonna have something. And then also recording to my report, my genetic muscle composition is common

in power elite elite. You know what they're talking about, right That bum, that bubble, that's that's where the power comes from. But the hamstrings, the whole glued hamstring, posterior chain area like a track athlete volleyball. If you get that from your mother, love that was playing netball in Jamaica, running track, and then you got that the glutes. Okay, that's all genetic, baby, yes, make sure you think my mother to day. All right, all right. And I'm more

likely to be a deep sleeper. Absolutely on the rare occasion that I can't actually get into a deep sleep, I'm going to sleep rare occasion though, rare occasion. And then last traits okay, okay, okay, So for my wellness, it says that my body composition is common in elite power athletes. Make sense because I've been elite power athlete. My whole life playing football, playing basketball. You're not together making little power leap athletes. That's why the Jackson cairo

kas at the quarter. They're gonna be out here, run it all over everybody. Absolutely, it says I'm less likely to be a deep sleeper. That makes sense, it does, yes, because I to be honest, I don't think my eyes ever closed. I feel like I'll be sleeping like this the whole night and time to get up. Or you're thinking too much, you don't know, want to turn your brain off. I'm always thinking. Plus also being the man

of the house, I never want to hear someone. I always want to be aware of someone's entering or exiting the house. And it's been that way since the apartment. Like I just want to know. So I don't feel like sleep heavy at all. Absolutely, all right, let's go with some traits. So do you and nine boats? It looks like have a chance of being able to match a musical pitch. So, because I think the record has shown based on karaoke, we're in season nine. That's not

a talent I have. I ain't even want wow, look at this one. This is actually so spot on, slightly higher odds of disliking cilantro. Oh wow, guys, I hate cilantro. Cilantro can go somewhere and die, like literally like I have no use for it, but barely Mexican food because it's cilantro. According to the report, you are not likely to have early hair lows cat cat, right, what's so somewhat a cat? Because my hair lows is more stress based your counterparts. And when I'm when I'm resting and

not filming, my hair is fuller. Whenever I get into that season of filming months and months at the time, my hair definitely things out. So that's true. But here this one, here I noticed his cat likely prefer salty over sweet. Cat. I love sugar. Less likely to have a fear of public speaking for me. Hello, that makes sense. Look at your last one. But average odds of hating chewing sounds you kiss yo. Y'all know how condemia is about people who made this. I literally want to hug you.

It's so true. More than average to be afraid of heights, Yes, I'm afraid of heights. Yes, I can't smell. I can't stand the smell of asparagus. I mean, I'm indifferent to that. Wow, I prefer vanilla over chocolate ice cream. I do less likely to dislike chewing sounds. I could care less about chewing sounds. You want to know why I'd be focused on my food, not other people, unlike my wife here, who will stop eating her food just to see if she can hear if somebody's chewing. You're a lunatic, and

now we know it's genetically. You're a genetic lunatic. That's the reason why you are the way you are. So you're calling me a lunatic all these years? Are you just calling me? As you see me? You can't help you. I love that I can't help myself, y'all. Now we know I'm crazy and he's crazier for being in this world with me. You love it here, baby, period. All right, that was a pretty cool discussion twenty three and me thank you all for that report, Like no, no, my

bad bits from Street Vodka. Ya can't y'all can't tell me that's it. But what I am going to tell you that is that we need to break um so we can go into listener letters because we do still have that as a portion of the show. On season nine of Listener Letters, I'm excited to dive in, So let's take a break and we'll be right back. We are back with listener letters. I will go ahead and read this first one. All right, So this one seems very ambig uous. A man has been with a woman.

He has three kids. By youngest it's eleven, and has recently moved them into a new house. Reason for moving is because he says that his kids had outgrown the house they were previously living in and his youngest daughter didn't have her own room. I've been dealing with this man for the last twenty four years, and I also

have his first child, aged two. He tells me that we're going to be together and has also told me that he's going to marry me one day, but he has to make sure that they're good before he leaves so he won't have to so they won't need him or be in poverty. My question to you, does this sound like a situation I should wait for or should I hit the hills running. I'll be listening faithfully to hear your response. Okay, so this is this is a very um loaded question and there is no right or

wrong answer. But I will say this in situations like these you have to look at two perspectives, right. I understand her perspective as a woman. Right. It says that they've been together for twenty four years, which means even if they were together from fifteen, they're still thirty nine, right,

which means that's time. Time is of the essence. They have children together, the first and the third child of both theirs, and in the middle is not hers, So we don't know if there was a break there or not. But she says she's like, yo, he bought a house we all live in together, but she wants to get married. She wants the title. Right. I understand where she's coming from, because as a woman in society, when you live with a guy for a long time and you're not married,

people look down on you. They don't look down on him, you know what I'm saying. They're just like, oh, she's sticking around and he's playing house and he doesn't have to commit to her. So I understand where she's coming from. So the title means a lot to her. Similar to when we got married, you you would like, I'm not going to be your living girlfriend, and I was just like, okay, I want to get married. But I'm not ready to get married yet. This is where I talk about where

I understand his perspective. Right when Codein and I were getting married, and I'm going to use us as an example because a lot of women have agreed with you in the terms, and a lot of men have agreed with me. When we were getting married, Codine's focus was on the wedding. My focus was on the marriage and my line. You know, because you wanted to have the perfect wedding, that's that you dreamed about. I wanted to have the perfect marriage in part because I felt like

the pressure would be on me the same way. If you're living together with me for years and we're not married, everyone looks at you. If we go into a financial hardship and we're married, everyone's gonna look at me. So as a man, it's a little bit more difficult to make that decision to say, I want to ask this this woman to be my wife, but I'm not in a place financially where I want to be so that I can take care of anything, if everything, if something happens.

I know what that feels like as a man, but I also have empathy enough to understand when a woman feels like when she feels like she's being dragged along. The way these two can come to amicable decision is by constantly having communication. She probably doesn't feel comfortable being honest with him in real time, and he probably doesn't feel comfortable being honest with her in real time. It's almost like I don't know exactly how to say what

it is I want to say. But if they learn how to communicate and express what they need in order to move forward, they'll be able to do it collectively. And I think that's what the problem is, because even her asking the questions do I wait, but do I run for the hills, It's like, what are you waiting for? Be open and say what you need. You were open and said what you needed, and at the time I felt like it was pressure. But I was open and said how I felt. But it's pressure, and I told

you what I needed. Where I failed in that moment was my dad always told me, when it comes to finances, you take the stress off of your wife. That's your responsibility. I know it may seem old school, but my father said, when you ask a woman to be your wife, it is your fiduciary responsibility to take care of her and the children that you had her you had asked her

to have for you. So for me, I felt a different level of responsibility being a man, because I felt like it's my responsibility to take care of all of y'all, whereas you probably felt like we can do this together. We never had that conversation of what my mindset was and getting married. All I said was I wasn't ready in a moment. And when you hear I'm not ready, you think what, You're not ready to get married? And I'm like, no, it's not that I'm not ready to

get married. I just don't think I'm financially prepared to go through the entire marriage right now. And you know, the expect the expectation for me was never for you to take care of me, which was I think ultimately was where we kind of like different on opinions. You according to like your dad, which shout out to Scoop again for being like a stand up dude to say, hey, bro, like you need to be able to take care of your family, where I'm just like, Bro, you and I

together can do anything. Like I was excited just about the vigor you had for life, and I had the same vigor. So it's like we can do this together. Like I'm not depending on you, but I know, as a man, you have your own particular set of you know, I guess your checklist of things where we're checking off certain things like I want to be married by this time or have children by this time. You have your checklist. If I want to be able to do this, I want to be able to pay off my house, I'd

get my wife this. I completely understand it. And I also understand that when things go wrong, people generally, when you're looking at a married couple, tend to blame the husband if they're having issues. You know, I know a particular situation where that's exactly what happened. The why it was just at fault for not working and taking care of her, and neither one of them work and he wasn't, so neither of them were working, and it's just like y'all you were in the situation, and it's not just

him and it's not just her. Ever, everyone blame him and then and the thing is they will talk about double standards in the world and it's not fair. We get it's not fair, right, but they are what they are, right, the double standard. A man can live with a wife, will live with a woman for years and nobody will say anything to him, but they'll judge her. They can go through financial hardships, they won't say anything about her,

but they'll judge him. That's the double standards, and I think a lot of people get caught up and trying not to be a part of those narratives that for women it's like, I need to get married so I don't want to be a stay at home And for a man, he's like, I don't want to seem like a dead beat husband. I gotta make sure my finances are straight. If those two people just speak and be honest about the plan and what they want to do, they'll be fine, period. So I wouldn't say run for

the hills. I would say begin that dialogue about what your life is looking like and what you want to do, because you never know. And I know if it's some people that say what they've been together twenty four years, that's a long time. Listen. There's no age that you can look at someone and count their pockets and say they're prepared for life. Because I know people older than me who still need help financially and still need hope

emotionally and just still need help. So it's difficult for you to look at someone forty years or he should have had his life together. There's plenty of people our age who don't have their life together, people older than us who don't. So we have to also stop doing that to people and tell them they should have their life together by their mid twenties or they've a failure. You know, things take time for different people. Absolutely, so good Luxus, thank you for being a faithful listener, and

I hope you got your answer all right. Number two, what are your thoughts on supporting your partner as they build a business that but you aren't married? Wow? This is actually a perfect second question. By support, I mean doing the admin side or groundwork for free. Should this be reserved for married couples since there is more security in marriage. Girls ain't security and nothing period, first and foremost, um or as just a girl or guy. I don't know who wrote it, as it was a man or

a woman. Um there ain't no security and nothing. So just feeling like, oh, because I'm married now, their security absolutely not because things fall apart. Okay, um I guess they're more at stake in terms of like how things will be divided if you're married and then you end up divorcing, and like what does that business look like and what does the revenue look like? How it's going

to be split. That's different. But I supported Devout for free when he had just a dream, absolutely, and I worked as your I guess, your administrative assistant when you were starting, for example, your prototype business with the kids and training. Um, I would work in the right We were engaged at the time, and yeah, I mean at that time it was just an idea for Devout, like, oh, you know, I want to be able to do this, And I'm like, all right, cool. I was always down

for the cause, even from day one. When Devout told me about all his hopes and dreams, I'm like, awesome, how are we gonna make this happen? But that's but I think that's the question though. It's like, and I just I'm asking you personally because I don't want to know to like, because I know what my answer is to this question for you, I don't hear you. What was it about me that you said I feel safe helping this person even without any commitment when I think

about you helping me read my dog. You know what I'm saying. And it went both ways because I remember when you were an audio video class and you needed someone to hold the camera and you know, hold the white paper to be your your white balance. You were actor in a music video I had to do in class. You remember, listen, you're acting day started. You're the first person to cast me in my first Make sure you're give me my credits when you get your ascar. Okay,

so they always ask this is why? So now I'm gonna ask the question. This answer the question. This is why you don't help people when you're not married, because they come back later on when she gave them. But we've always been supportive of each other. And I know why I was supportive you, But why um de value? From day one have exhibited such a charisma and such unyielding work ethic for anything that you want. That seeing that early on was enough for me to be brought

into your dreams as well. You always worked hard. You had all these ideas in your mind, and you may not be the the best that like administrative follow up or just things like that, because you're you're you're creative to the max. So but you do know how to delegate responsibility, and you do know how to empower people around you to be at their best potential in whatever

facet they're working at. Because if there's a collective goal, a collective dream, a collective business, you're really great about mapping that out. And I saw that early on UM and it was starting from even just your NFL days. You know, you were trying to just you know, start that nest day, and you say, if I get to the NFL, this would be a great way for me to have that nest day to start my life for my family, so then I can in turn not be

a starving actor. You put the wheels in ocean, and that was enough for me to be brought into your dream because I said, this man is motivated, so we can do this together. So what you're saying was it wasn't the talking, it was you watching me work. So we're on the same page. Because when now this is this is actually a great topic because I just had a conversation with a bunch of dudes, my young boys

who are graduating in college now. They's like, yo, coach devout, Like, how much time should I put into a chick that I'm not that's not going to be my wife or whatever, because the city girls out here trying to get paid and I ain't trying to get got And now the city boys is like these bitches, I'm going out for me, and it is, yes, the thing, that's the full thing. Everybody's out for self, or at least on social media.

I mean, shoot, if you're not on TikTok, you oh, and I'm not on TikTok, I own that I had you hurt and looking at TikTok. But I've started to realize even listening to people's comments or commentary on social media, their example of why, for example, niggas ain't ship or bitches ain't ship always goes back to their choices. I was dealing with this nigga and and I was dealing with this bit and she la. So maybe you should

check your choices. Rather than rather than passing a wide net over all of the people in the world, you should be more have more discernment with who you choose to give your time to. So, for example, if you notice that a dude or a girl is always talking about what they're gonna do and not do it, and you feel like you're going to be the person to push them, and you realize that you're doing all the work. You should have noticed that before they started working and

they was just talking. But I see people do this all the time. They hear someone talk about their dreams and they're like, I'll help them do their dreams. And even sometimes you help that person do their dream, they take the dream and they move on. It's like they never asked you to help them with the dream. You chose to step in and do it. You gotta start looking at people and letting them tell you who they

are and believing them. The first time, Yeah, with you, I was like, she actually working, She actually doing all the stuff. Are a A D R D one r A A D and R D of the year every single year? When you started at MAC, you went from a third key, I mean you were from part time to a third key to a manager. All of this was quick. So I was like that she works hard. So I felt like if I could help her, I could give her autonomy to move in the world that's

always marginalizes women. You know what I'm saying, We still exist in the patriarchy. So for me, because we don't know if there's a man or a woman I look at I look at my girl at the time, because you weren't my wife, my girl, and I was just like, I want her to be able to feel comfortable making moves and know when somebody got her. So for me,

that's what it was. It wasn't it wasn't even. It was just about being present so that you felt comfortable that if you fell, I was there, or if you need somebody to step in and be a bull going into these things, you had somebody with you. So for me, it wasn't so much about what I could gain, but it was about seeing you actually put in the working and me wanting to be a part of seeing you do your dreams. So I think that's really what it

should be. And I don't think it should just be reserved for couples once they get married, because how do you know you're building a foundation with someone before marriage unless you start working before them before then exactly. That's a good point. That's a really good point. I hope that helped you out, y'all. Really good listener letters for today. A nice way to round out this twenty three and Me Report episode. Um, let's give him a moment of truth.

But before we do that, make sure if you are trying to be considered as a listener letter email us at dead as Advice at gmail dot com. That's right, that's d E A D A S S A D V I C E at gmail dot com. All right, and moment of truth time. I guess my moment of truth is actually what my initial karaoke song was. I was gonna go do going into this until I found out I was a bad bit from Sri Lankan that

changed it. Um. But thinking about Diana Ross and mahogany Um, do you know we're going to do you know the things that life are showing you? Do you know? Do you know? And if you don't know, now you know perfect segue um. But there are resources, there are ways out there for you to find out who you really are, being able to date it back to location, um, dating

back to health um. Knowing more and having the tools and the opportunity to be able to advance your knowledge on history, your own history, I mean, even if you're not interested in all the other histories that are happening at least no yours at least nor yours and and and tap into resources that will allow you to do so so you can make the changes you need to make to make this life the best and the healthiest and the longest you can facts. My moment of truth

is extremely simple. Shout out to twenty three and me for these beautiful reports. It helped me dive even deeper into the role my ancestors played in what is America? Number one and number two the role they played in

who I am today? Both physically knowing why I look the way I look, mentally why um I have the type of fortitude I have also emotionally why I feel so strongly about the things I feel about that going on in the world, but also helping me figure out how I'm going to create a plan to have my children exists in a space that's more um beneficial for them health wise, physically, mentally, and emotionally by understanding what's nature versus nurture and using what I can nurture to

make the nature less prominent. Oh that was a word. That was That was a word A little fine as look at you sitting over there, stop playing all right, y'all, just saying okay, this as holding this way together today, baby, Because one thing we are is type. Be sure to follow us on social media you'll if you have not been already, We have the podcast page which is pretty straightforward dead As the Podcast, and then of course you can give me a little follow you know, if you

ain't yet. Um cadean I am is my handle on all the social media, that's right, and I m devo on all the social media. And if you're listening on Apple podcasts, be sure to rate, review and subscribe Dead as y'all season nine season dead Ass is a production of I Heart Media podcast Network and is produced by the Noorapinia and Triple Follow the podcast on social media at dead as the Podcast and never miss a Thing