Real Stuff My Dad Says – The Underwear Rule

A Christian Podcast Central Classic Podcast

Jefferson Drexler:
Hello and welcome to Real Stuff My Dad Says, the podcast. This is a podcast that has nothing to do with the Twitter feed or with the sitcom that starred Will Shatner. No, this actually is real stuff that my dad says. This is a real stuff that my dad has said over the years that actually has made a huge improvement and impact on my life, on my brother’s life, and many, many, many people who my dad has come into contact with. My name is Jefferson Drexler, here with my dad, Rod. Dad, thanks for joining me.

Rod Drexler:
Hey. Good to see you.

Jefferson Drexler:
Dad, today, we’re going to talk about something… Well, let me just start. One of my favorite TV shows of all time is Seinfeld. I think that one of the things I love about Seinfeld and you too is how they would take these different storylines that Jerry’s doing, George is doing, Kramer’s doing, had nothing to do with one another and in the last 60 seconds, they weave them all together. That’s what I’m hoping to do in today’s podcast. First of all, there’s the cartoons that my kids love and I loved as a kid, and that is whether it’s Goofy or Mickey Mouse or any cartoon character, Barney Rubble. You catch a cartoon character with their pants down, it’s funny. They could be flopping all over the place, whatever, but as soon as the suspenders come off and their pants and you see these boxer shorts, that’s funny. So there’s that story that’s out there and that every kid can identify with.

Jefferson Drexler:
Then a little bit more timely right now. Dad, you know I am a Kansas City Chiefs fan. You and I, both football fans. You’re from Pittsburgh. You love the Steelers and you don’t have this problem that I have with the Chiefs and that is, we don’t have a quarterback. Up until yesterday, we didn’t even have a coach. I guess you can say Romeo Crennel is a good guy, but I don’t think Canton is waiting to bring him in as a coach at any time soon. But there’s this coaching carousel that’s happening and it happens every year. In fact, now they’ve called the Monday after the final week of the NFL season, Black Monday, because so many coaches get fired and more times than not, those same coaches that got fired are getting hired. The Chiefs, they just picked up Andy Reid whom had huge success in Philadelphia. Before getting let go by Philadelphia, was the longest tenured coach in the NFL at the time, took the Eagles to four straight, I believe, NFC title games.

Jefferson Drexler:
This guy, some would say maybe on his way to Canton as a coach. He was amazing, had those players in the palm of his hand and could motivate them and guide those men into the battlefield of the Gridiron. That’s what you want in a coach. Yet somehow, the last season and a half, two seasons, that organization or the players in those green uniforms have stopped following his leadership. So I want to take those Mickey Mouse cartoons, Goofy in his underwear, and Andy Reid and these other coaches who have great success, but at some point, lose the impact that they once had. Dad, that all comes together in something that you’ve called over the years, your underwear principle or the underwear rule. Tell me about what you mean by that, dad.

Rod Drexler:
Well, trying to see how that all fits together, but let me. The underwear thing was that once somebody has seen you in your underwear, they no longer respect you as an authority figure. What I mean by that is that you can take a person that’s a very, very good person especially in the public eye. They see them really well. They do things that just are very kind and gracious. But what happens is that when you’re in their home and you see them get angry at their children for leaving something out on the floor that they just stepped on, that kind and nice part of them disappears. You hear a little bit different voice and some different things. So what I mean, once somebody has seen you in your underwear, they no longer respect you as an authority figure.

Rod Drexler:
People that are really, really close to you. They see who you are in the fullness of your life, not just those public points. Not to say that people that are in public are trying to deceive you by doing something, it just becomes a lot nicer or a lot easier for them to present the best side of them when you don’t have to see those things. So when you’re a child and you see your parent in public say that you need to be kind to people and then they yell at you, you’re thinking to yourself, “Well, wait a minute. Which of these things does not fit?” So that’s where they lose respect for that. But the truth of the matter is, is that all of us are sinners saved by grace.

Rod Drexler:
What happens is, is that we have good times and bad times in our lives and that we make good decisions and bad decisions and sometimes, we make those bad decisions in front of somebody like our children and then they see that… They’re questioning the other decisions. Are they good as well? So that’s probably where that line comes up. I know people have always gotten up a little bit upset about it because talking about underwear, but it’s a fact. It’s a fact to me that when you’re close to somebody, you see different sides to them than when you’re just at a distance and you see somebody and they just appear real different.

Jefferson Drexler:
The reason why I brought up those two examples is when you look at just pure comedy and it’s an old joke that every cartoon writer, it’s an easy joke to put in into your little cartoon, is you put the guy doing whatever he ends up into underwear and you’re going to make people laugh because there’s a respect value that exactly what you’re saying. Once somebody’s pants dropped down to their ankles, suddenly, the respect value is just diminished greatly, and it’s just comedy.

Rod Drexler:
Right.

Jefferson Drexler:
The reason why I bring up Andy Reid or any of these other coaches is that once upon a time, they had great impact and were held in high esteem and the people on their teams would listen to every word they say and then follow it through to the nth degree. But then there gets to be a point, maybe they spend too much time with them, maybe it’s that they see them in the locker room in their underwear, but they seem to lose the impact. I think what we’ve seen, I know I went through it as an adolescent, is that you tend to lose that credibility like with your teenage children because they’ve seen you in your underwear, whether it’s figuratively or literally, whether it’s seeing those inconsistencies that might exist at home versus public. But it truly does exist, that people, somebody, particularly your children will pick up on that stuff and your words don’t mean as much as they might have at some point.

Rod Drexler:
I understand what you’re saying. If I’m going on the football side of things, one of the things I saw last year going to a game… I normally always watch football on TV and it’s probably one of the best sports there are to watch on TV. It’s got a lot of really good angles for that. But when I watched the game live, I could see how small the windows were. I was amazed by that because they looked much bigger on TV. So when I saw where a quarterback is throwing that ball and how much room you have between a great, an unbelievable catch, and a interception, and six points going the other way, it is very, very small, and that’s what these coaches face, that they have a time that they can come up and make a change in a particular club and get people to buy into what their philosophy and hopefully, that they respect that person.

Rod Drexler:
So that’s one of the things that they’re looking, recycling a lot of these coaches because some of them have good reputations and they want to take that good side of it and motivate those people to buy into what they have. Maybe when somebody is there for a long, long time, I’ve heard this in the coaching ranks before, that coaches should be changed every five years or so because they’re just recycling the same information over and over. But I think that what happens is, is that it’s a respect thing that you need to have and I think that that’s where they’re going. The good news for you is that Andy Reid had his choice of a number of teams, but he chose Kansas City because he thinks that they’re just a short way away from getting someplace. So that’s-

Jefferson Drexler:
Yeah, but Romeo thought that and so did Todd Haley. Sorry if I sound defeatist when it comes to my team, but show me the money, I guess, is what I’m waiting to see. Dad, now, I guess the question then begs itself, especially somebody like you who’s gone through it twice with me and my brother, where you had to face that underwear principle, where you were the one who we weren’t giving you all the respect, all the credibility that you truly deserve. When that happens, for a parent who’s going through it now and they’re realizing, “My goodness. I’m saying some really good nuggets that if my son would just listen to me, if he’d just pay attention to what I’m saying, he could avoid this heartache. He could avoid this pitfall that he’s headed for and yet my words just seem to be just fallen dead as soon as they leave my lips. They’re not even going into his ears. What do you tell somebody like that?

Rod Drexler:
It’s so funny to watch because I’ve seen a teacher, for example, make a statement. It’s the same statement you made three months earlier. It didn’t mean anything when you said it, but now that this other teacher has said it, somebody of authority, somebody that they respect, now, it’s the greatest concept in the world. What happens is, what made it the greatest concept in the world or a stupid statement, it was the respect and authority of that statement and looking through something, believing that the person that’s telling you that idea is respectable and has the ability to really understand it and that they’ve lived through it and they really know it. That’s one of the struggles that children have with parents giving them updates on what they should do, is that they’re thinking that they have a better understanding of life than the parent had. Though this world has changed so much since they were a child, they certainly do not understand the things that I’m going through today. But it’s a lot recycled over and over.

Jefferson Drexler:
The key then is, as a parent, to make sure that you have somebody who can say those words when you realize that your arsenal isn’t making the impact that you are hoping that it would. But I guess the key is to make sure that there is another figure in your kids’ lives that can speak those truths into them, right?

Rod Drexler:
Sure, sure. Today’s video age, there is so much information and you can get it just absolutely everywhere. That’s really great, but what happens is how do you filter in good stuff from bad stuff? So you try to put people in the position of hearing the best information that you can give them. But again, if they listen to that information, it would be very good for them. If they don’t listen to it, they’re just going to do it on their own. They may get there eventually, but it’s, in fact, it gets comical when they come down to doing the things you told them originally to do.

Jefferson Drexler:
Now, I’ve seen it also played out with multiple friends of ours, where the dad says something. “Son, I really think you ought to look at this opportunity.” Son blows them off. Then, as you said, whether it’s a teacher, a leader at church, a friend of the family, somebody else comes in and says, “Hey, dude, have you thought about this?” “That’s amazing.” Then the dad has a choice. How does the dad react to that? Does he pull his hair out and say, “Doggone it. I’m the one who said that first. Why aren’t you listening to me…” or does he take a supportive position? That really takes a lot of humility for the dad hearing his own words come out of somebody else’s mouth and making that impact on his child, right?

Rod Drexler:
You’re talking to a bald man, so… What happens is, is that you’re right. The older I’ve got, the less that I want to go back and say, “I did tell you that.” But what is your goal? Is your goal for them to have the information or is your goal for you to be the one that’s right? That’s a big, big question in life. When the Bible talks about going to older men for advice, and young people have a lot of trouble with this because they just don’t think that older people really have an understanding of life. There’s computers and everything has changed so much that they just can’t keep up with everything, but the truth of the matter is, is that there are certain amount of principles that they have.

Rod Drexler:
If you can get that information across to them, it will not matter in what format that they use that information. This information has quality. You just got to get it across to them. Sometimes, you want to save them from going through a lot of the problems, but sometimes, you can’t. They have to go through those struggles so that they understand the value of what you’ve been trying to tell them.

Jefferson Drexler:
Great, dad. Thank you so much. Again, if you’re listening to this and you like what you hear, if you’re listening to this and you’ve got other questions or you have other input that you’d like to tack on, please get in touch with us. We’re at realstuffmydadsays.com. You can also reach us at the E squared Podcast Network, that’s at [e2network.net 00:14:27]. Really look forward to hearing some feedback from you. We’ll be back next week with more real stuff my dad says. Remember, you got to look at that, you got to look at your life situation, you got to look at your parenting technique, and think, as my dad said, what is your goal? Is your goal to make sure that your kids become better people or is it so that you are right? When you take that a consideration, I’m sure that the underwear rule will be much more overcome as far as getting that information to the kids and being a better parent. My name’s Jefferson Drexler here with my dad, Rod. Hey, thanks a lot for listening. Look forward to talking to you next week. Bye.