Pat Mahommes 3

The speaker discusses the idea of taking care of parents and siblings when one becomes successful. They argue that black people are often expected to financially support their parents, while this expectation is not as prevalent in the white community. The speaker suggests that individuals are not obligated to take care of their parents and that love is conditional. They emphasize the importance of taking care of oneself first and not allowing others to use their success as a crutch. The speaker also mentions the responsibility towards siblings and argues that individuals are only responsible for themselves. They use the example of Patrick Mahomes and his family to illustrate their points. And we're back, right here on the Underplumbing line, Doc and Larry P talking about Patrick Mahomes. And what I wanted to talk about, we were talking a little bit about Pat Mahomes Sr. before we went to the break. But what is a person supposed to do? Like, let's say, and remember, we're not talking about Patrick Mahomes. We're talking about y'all. What are you supposed to do when you got it all together, you're being successful, but your parents are just out here wiling? Rather, you got the parents that are constantly in legal trouble, or you got the parents who are constantly in financial trouble, or you got the parents who are just aggravating you. Like, how do you address that with a person? And not with like a deadbeat, because I think that's easier. It's like, well, if you ain't never been in my life, I don't got to give you nothing. No, somebody who's been there, been supportive of you, but now they're wiling. I'm going to tell you something that a lot of black people don't like to hear. You ain't supposed to take care of your parents. You ain't supposed to take care of your parents. And I think we see a lot of this, what we're talking about, happening more in the black community than it happens in the white community. Like, you see more black people, oh, I'm going to bring my parents to this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to put my parents. And then like, in the white community, it's like, the parent is like, I'm coming. I'm going to come to this. For example, like, you got the Mannings, right? Like, they daddy, like, Peyton Manning probably brought his daddy there. But more people was looking at it as his daddy showed up. Versus, you can look at the Mahomes family and realize the only reason y'all there is because Pat. Maybe not Senior, because like you said, Senior had his own success. But the only, take the Kelsey brothers. You don't see the daddy Kelsey. Mama Kelsey be there. And sometimes she in Philadelphia and she in Missouri in the same day. You know, she do her thing. But black people, we don't have to take care. And I think that's where we get to a perspective of like, when I get here, I'm going to take care of the people under me and the people that came before me too. Well, so I think that's the difference between living a middle class life versus living a life where you came up in poverty. So when you look at athletes, a lot of them, Deion Sanders, for example, is a great example. He put a lot of pressure on himself to be a successful athlete because he wanted to be able to financially take care of his mama. The thing that he was most proud of, he said, was I was able to call my mama and tell her she don't have to work no more. That's the mindset of a lot of people from our community. They want to be able to get so successful that I can give back to my parents who I had to watch struggle to get me here. And that sounds good. It's a good theory. But then what do you do with that person that you're wanting to give back to is not like they take it and they just kind of run with it, like T-Moran. Now I'm just all up in the video dancing. My son, like Ja is the star, but I'm a star too. Yeah. Or if it's just like you have resources available to you and you just don't use them. If you're Pat Mahomes Sr., there's no reason, none, that you should have to drive anywhere, much less intoxicated. Right. None. You're Patrick Mahomes Sr. You're Patrick Mahomes Sr. and your son is Patrick Mahomes Jr. Where's your car service? Where is your Uber? Where's your driver? You can get a Uber because you're a Patrick Mahomes. You're not a regular person. You don't have to do this. But that's what, but you know, and I'm sure Pat said that to him. But then how does that conversation go? Hey, Pop. Hey, Pop. Hey, hey, Pop. I got to get my Patrick Mahomes. Hey, Pop. No, it's like, hey, Pop. Now I can send you a car service. Hey, man, you don't tell me what to do. If I want to drive this car, I'm going to drive this car. And you know what you do as a, and like I said, black people not going to want to hear this. You ain't got to take care of your parents. But how does that go over in the community when you don't? When you don't, I mean, it is what it is. And I think society makes it look like, oh, well, you know, he ain't taking care of his parents. Like, he's a sleazeball. I know, man. You never know. Like, we all got dysfunctional families. And you never know. Like, if we stop seeing Jackson Mahomes at the games, we stop seeing Patrick Sear at the games, the community will be like, oh, well, it's because that white girl, he breaking off ties with all his family. Or, or he tired of his family embarrassing him. So he'll rather the people that is in his corner that mean good for him be there. And like, I'm not saying that Patrick Mahomes should do any of this. Like we say, this ain't about Patrick Mahomes. It's about y'all. Stop. Stop supporting the foolishness. Well, then that goes to the next question, though. Like, you said, like, hey, you don't have to take care of your parents. What is the level of responsibility to your siblings? Like, if you got a sibling that stays locked up or they done get put in the clink long term, like, what is your level of responsibility to go visit or put money on their books? I'm going to tell you this right now. The only person that you should be responsible for is yourself. Mm. That's the easiest way I can say it. I was trying to find the perfect, like, you know, analogy or something to give y'all. But the only person you've got to be responsible for is yourself. You can't choose the family you are biologically given. But you can choose the family that means the best for you. The way you just described that would imply that love is conditional. Oh, love is 100% conditional. Because what you just said would also apply to your own children, your own spouse, your own parents, your own siblings. It's like, yeah. Now, if you have your wife, and this makes it even a bigger, like, to your question, a bigger answer, of you take care of your house. And that's your responsibility. Like, if I'm married, and I got kids, if my brother getting locked up, he getting locked up. If my sister out there, and she struggling to survive out there, and she's struggling to survive. Because at the same path, especially if we came from the same bloodline, I took my opportunities, and I made the best of them, while y'all took your opportunities. Because it ain't like, because then you have to think about, oh, well, you know, he always in jail because of where he came from. Or she always in this situation because of her background and stuff. But if I am the successful person that made it out of all of this, then why couldn't y'all do the same? Well, well, I think that's a little bit unfair. Because you've got to look at what you're born with. Like, look at Patrick Mahomes and Jackson Mahomes. Patrick Mahomes was, yeah, he had to grind. He had to work hard. But he got all daddy athletic ability. And Jackson was over there wanting to do TikTok dances and do double dutch. And he could do TikTok dances and double dutch, but that doesn't mean that that's Patrick Mahomes' responsibility. That's all I'm saying. Don't put that on Patrick to be like, hey, you got to take care of your brother. Look, he can do whatever he wants to do. That's not Patrick Mahomes' responsibility. And I think that's where a lot of people have to realize, yeah, you may be your brother's keeper, but you ain't your brother's caretaker. Mm. That's a bar right there, you know what I mean? Ooh, yeah, I like that. You ain't got to take care of him, big dog. And I do think there's the old philosophy of if you're on an airplane and the mask drop, you put the mask on yourself first. You definitely don't make the sacrifices for somebody else and sacrifice of yourself. Right. And I do think, and I feel like in observing Patrick Mahomes, I feel like he has not let that occur, where he is allowing the antics of the people around him to impact him. But I do see that with other people, where they're just getting so stressed out trying to take care of their parents or their siblings or their kids. And the most important thing is, it sounds selfish, but you got to take care of you first. You are no good to anybody else if you cannot take care of yourself. Because what it also boils down to as well, it becomes a crutch. Your success becomes a crutch for everybody else. Like, it becomes a point of like, oh, I'm a drive. I'm Patrick Mahomes Sr., and I'm going to drive this car, and if I get a DUI, my son will take care of it. I'm Jackson Mahomes, I'm going to do this rape allegation, and if I get in trouble, my brother will take care of it. You know, it's one of those things where your success begins to become a crutch for everybody else's failures. And everybody else has a safety net to fail, because they're like, you'll take care of it. And like I said, Patrick Mahomes is at a place where he's a multimillionaire, and he can maybe hire the best lawyers for his brother. Or maybe get a lawyer that can get his dad out without having an actual DUI charge or having that on his record. A lot of other people don't have that privilege. Like, you may be successful with a $90,000 job, but your family still will use you as a crutch. Like, OK, cool. I can go spend this $1,000, my rent money, on this Beyonce ticket, because I know my brother will bail me out if I need it. You know, so like a lot of times, you can't, that's why I say you got to take care of yourself. You can't allow other people to use you as a crutch, because they'll be like, you got it, and you still trying to take care of your own life. You know what I mean? I got my own. Now, I may be making good money. I may be, you know, financially stable. I may be good, but that don't mean that I don't have the same type of problems that you have, granted. You know what I'm saying? Maybe I'm not worried about getting evicted, but at the same time, I got bills to pay, too. We got the same 24 hours in each day. And if I'm hustling to get mine, why can't you hustle to get yours? Everything you say is valid. But everything you say is valid from the lens of the theoretical versus the actual application of it. When you look at it, and you remove emotion from it altogether, and I think there's no coincidence that it's two men talking about this, it's a lot easier to just be like, hey, man, I gave you the parameters. Like, I said, listen, you can borrow $500, and you ain't getting no more. So don't come back and ask for another $100. I already gave you $500. Like, we can say that. But what I have seen is with people who are a little more emotionally attached to things, with family in particular, they don't know how to cut off that level of responsibility. When they mama or daddy call them and say, hey, I need a couple hundred dollars here, they don't give it to them every time. When their brothers call them and be like, hey, can I crash on your couch for a few months, they're going to let them do it every time. And I think they are willing to do it at the sacrifice of themselves, because they view family as that important. And I get that. But like you say, sometimes you've got to take the emotion out of it. Because as I tell people all the time, the trait that you just explained, like you always going, I'm going to give my couch to you. I'm going to get $100 of you. I'll give you my last $10. That is a very, very valuable trait to have in life. Like, it's very, very valuable, especially if you look at the backgrounds of religion, if you're Christian or whatever. It's a very, very admirable trait to have. However, what I also tell people, mostly people with that trait, you got to start protecting yourself from yourself. You got to learn how to protect you from you. Because it's OK for you to get the last $10 off your back, the last $10 to your name to somebody that you know need it. But at the same time, if you giving that $10 to somebody that's using you as a crutch, and you putting yourself in a bind for somebody that won't do the same for you, you got to learn how to take care of yourself. That's why I say, you are your own responsibility. Now, if I got $100 to give to a family, or if I got $100 to give to a friend or something like that, and I give it to you. But at the end of the day, if I know if I'm going to give you this $100 and I know I'm not going to get it back, or I know I could give you my couch, but if I call you up and need a couch to sleep on and you ain't got one to give me, it boils down to a point of like, all right, it comes a point where we got to pull the rug off from under you, and you're going to have to figure it out. And I think you have to do that before you get to that point. I think sometimes, like whether it's a parent or a sibling or a spouse, sometimes you got to let them figure it out on their own without you rescuing them. And I think that is how you don't end up in a cycle where you're constantly being this person's support system, is you have to make the decision of, listen, I could bail them out. They need to figure this out. Yeah, so that's what you got to learn. You got to learn that lesson. I am a firm believer, and I stand by it all the time, that I'd be like, look, the human race is resilient. We're resilient. How many times you ever heard somebody say they're about to get evicted, or their life's about to get cut off, or this is about to happen? And you don't really, honestly, you may not even have it to give to them. So you just let them know, I ain't got it. Hey, I was just about to say, the one thing I want y'all to work into y'all vocabulary, just from time to time, when it comes to people who ask you for stuff all the time, the next time, if it's a person who you know you've given before and given again, next time they ask, just say, I ain't got it. And you'll realize after that, the next month, go back on what you said you ain't got it, and guess what? They still doing all right. It's the unemployment line.