Evan: 1:30

All right, so for our very first episode, I wanted to start with something I keep noticing everywhere, online, at work, even in our own home people dodging responsibility. So here's my first question why does it seem like personal responsibility and accountability have become rare skills instead of basic expectations?

Melissa: 1:51

Oh, that's a big one. I think it all starts with just defining what is responsibility and what is accountability. So, when I look at that, the definition of responsibility is having some kind of duty or obligation to perform a task or fulfill a role or even meet certain expectations, and accountability is really owning the results, it's being the one that, at the end of the day, takes ownership of whatever happened, whether it was good or bad.

Evan: 2:32

Sure, and we see that concept in our work lives right, people might be responsible for something, there might be multiple people that are responsible for something, but ultimately there's one head that's accountable. For instance, in your practice, right, everybody that's here as a clinician is responsible for taking care of their patients, but ultimately, at the end of the day, I'm responsible if somebody messes up. Right, exactly Not that we've had that happen around here at all.

Melissa: 3:03

No, but it's a responsibility that I know they take seriously and it's a level of accountability that I take on, and all of that stuff intertwines with trust and having healthy relationships where you can rely on people and depend on them. Honestly, the integrity that people are going to do what they say they're going to do.

Evan: 3:35

I think here's where a lot of people get stuck. They'll just say I'm being real or I'm just telling the truth. What they're really doing is dodging responsibility. Is there a way to tell the difference between honesty and avoidance?

Melissa: 4:18

Sure, you know when somebody is truly engaged and they take accountability for some kind of wrongdoing. You see change. You really messed up there. I hurt your feelings, or I didn't communicate well enough, or I just missed the boat and forgot. I'm really sorry. How can I make this right when we dodge stuff? Well, eight things came up and I just didn't have time, or it's not my fault, I got stuck in traffic. There are so many excuses that we make up that we hear our kids make up every day, and you know, I think one of the real questions is how have we gotten here? How have we gotten to this point as a society where everyone from the top we have politicians and people in leadership roles and positions both in a home and out of a home, in companies and out of companies that won't take accountability?

Evan: 5:20

Yeah, we just talked about this. The other night we were at a Philadelphia Union soccer game and they were playing the New York Red Bulls. And congrats to the Philadelphia Union on moving forward in the Open Cup.

Melissa: 5:32

Absolutely.

Evan: 5:38

But we were just we were talking about that with with somebody else in the in the section near us that was lamenting one of the New York Red Bulls players, emil Forsberg, who left his family in Sweden apparently and just completely ghosted them His wife and kids just ghosted after 19 years of marriage.

Melissa: 5:55

And isn't he? Is he a captain on that team?

Evan: 5:59

He's the team captain for the New York Red Bulls, which doesn't surprise me, being that they're from New York.

Melissa: 6:04

Right, but you're talking about somebody who doesn't have integrity. Who doesn't have integrity? Somebody who has apparently been married for 19 years, has kids and showed a level of selfishness to walk away and pursue their own career, and I just that's not a man of integrity right there. That should be leading anything.

Evan: 6:34

No, no, I agree. And the only reason we really know anything about this situation is his wife. You know, put out on social media credit to WFAA, up, you know, in New York, um, but they, uh, they, they posted that she, she had posted on instagram that, uh, they were going to the we will part ways, uh, words I thought I would never utter after two children in 19 years. Um, I have loved you more and uh, more than anything and always supported you. But even love has its limits, uh. The greatest love is my children. I want them to know their worth just as I know mine. Being taken for granted and neglected is not love. A new start in New York was apparently a new start for you and your life. It was just that I, being a child, did not know about it beforehand, but it became painfully clear quickly. In the newspapers we have read and seen that you're doing well and are enjoying every moment. You have future plans. We didn't know about them either.

Melissa: 7:40

Wow, I give her a lot of credit for putting some of that out there, for acknowledging that she didn't know better and for saying that she wants her kids to know their value and worth.

Evan: 7:59

Yeah, I mean she says, if the reporters even knew you've been talking to them more than your family these past few months, since you haven't communicated at all. Apart from insisting that you can't explain your actions, let time tell what it was you wanted to achieve by ghosting your family. I hope that in the future you can show respect and consideration for others, despite your own needs, and have the courage and maturity to communicate. I'll continue to put the children's well-being and the need for security first For your sake. I hope you don't regret it and that your new life in New York is worth a divorce and the way you treated your children and their mother. I mean that right there.

Evan: 8:38

If you think about just how he treated his family, and not just his wife but his kids as well and you know his answer is I can't explain my actions. That's just a failure or refusal to take responsibility or accountability for your actions, and this is a captain of a major sports team in the United States. It's not abnormal. Like you pointed out, we's a struggle these days to find people who actually will take responsibility and accountability.

Melissa: 9:20

You know, it strikes me because I specialize in trauma work. That is what I do and our world is so full of people that are hurt and I look at this person and it's a real generational problem. This generation didn't learn to take accountability because, quite honestly, they had parents. And the millennials get hit hard a lot of the time. And you and I are sitting here and I call us cuspers because, you know, we raise Gen X kids, I have older siblings, and yet then you have this millennial generation that gets spoken about poorly because that's the every kid deserves a trophy generation. That's. That's where there's entitlement and no need to take responsibility because our parents will make sure that we don't get in trouble. And really, there we found parents who saved their kids from everything, from feeling sad over a loss on a soccer field, or they crashed their car and mommy and daddy bailed them out of it, or they didn't have money for something and mom and dad handed it over, and it created on the early side of that, on the early side of that, a generation of of entitlement.

Melissa: 11:19

And then what we're seeing now, which is so cool, is millennials more, more so.

Melissa: 11:23

Later millennials, I guess, are going. Wait a second, this is messed up and there actually are actions and consequences and I might actually have to take responsibility and we're starting to see this age range unpack how they were parented and they're starting to set boundaries with their parents, which is something I also see frequently Grandparents upset because they're estranged from their grandchildren and they don't understand why, and helping them understand that we're not ever placing blame, but relationship is a two-way street and it takes trust and it takes communication and not just believing you're right all the time. Right so high in this generation because they weren't ever taught how to cope with their feelings or to sit in their feelings and the addictions that have come from that that, quite honestly, are destroying families and fathers who are getting up and walking away and starting new lives and, and even more so of what we see is dragging their children and ex spouses through the mud in their refusal to deal with their own trauma and take accountability for their past actions.

Evan: 13:15

Yeah, it's interesting to me. I don't know if the kids these days that are committing crimes out there that are. You know street takeovers and you know public beatdowns and all that kind of stuff that's going on. I don't know if they're Gen Alpha or if they are Gen Z or whatever they are.

Melissa: 13:35

Many of them would be Gen Z.

Evan: 13:37

But I find it really interesting that there's a movement now, a discussion, a real conversation around you know what? Let's hold those parents accountable. And it's people, I think, in our cusp or generation are kind of leading that that are saying listen, we need to take more accountability. And some of those kids might be our kids, you know, not ours, but people from our generation, and some of them might, you know, be from the next generation in. But to your point about it all being generational trauma, next generation in. But to your point about it all being generational trauma. How does it? Where's the resolution here? How do we get to a point where you know we really start to make change? Is it going to take forever? Is it something that we can, you know, not change overnight, but change quickly, like you know?

Melissa: 14:30

so you know, we're in a really divided country right now and the people who are in a lot of authoritarian positions, people like politicians, judges they come in the generation that parented millennials, that parented millennials and are still stuck in this mindset that ignores our ability to think about what creates safety for me as a human and gives me the voice to say this doesn't feel right. So the answer is no. That generation of parents believes dysfunctionally, so that you're going to do this because I'm your parent and I said so and you need to believe this because I told you to and I'm right, you're wrong, whereas I think, as cuspers, we're like wait a second, but why? And now teaching our kids ask it's okay. You have a voice, be respectful, but ask it's okay. You have a voice, be respectful, but ask. It's teaching our kids that every step you take in life is a choice. You chose to get up this morning. What would have happened if you hadn't chosen to get up and out of bed this morning?

Evan: 16:13

I probably would have lost my job.

Melissa: 16:17

Okay, if that was your choice, what would have come from that?

Evan: 16:22

I mean, there's so many consequences that come from something like that and you know, even if I didn't lose my job, I at least would have been, you know, reprimanded in some way. I would have had many other consequences. You know you don't get up, you don't get things done around the house or you don't get whatever it is that you aspire to accomplish that day done and it just piles up more things behind it. Right, even if you didn't get in trouble at work, you know the work is still there and it's still piling up. So you just create more chaos and a larger to-do list for yourself the next time you do get up.

Melissa: 17:00

That is such a male perspective on it. Because, as a mom, where does my head go first If I just decide to be depressed today, don't want to get out of bed, well, my kids aren't going to get up and get on the bus and they're not going to make it to school. I can't just decide I don't feel like doing laundry or making dinner or doing the grocery shopping or any of the other things. I don't get that luxury If I choose not to do it. There's consequences within our home and it's getting our kids to understand you're not a victim of circumstances. You chose to get out of bed this morning and get ready, for you may not enjoy school, but the alternative of being in trouble at home might not seem so appealing. Right, yeah, and we're really reframing this for our kids and putting every single thing they do into this concept of choices.

Melissa: 18:21

I often use this example when I'm working with clients. I say so. I chose to put on clothing today and come into work clothed. I could have chosen to come in naked. I don't think you or I would have appreciated that. I think I may have gotten into some legal trouble.

Evan: 18:42

Right.

Melissa: 18:44

And right and it was a choice that I made, and part of this whole concept of accountability is recognizing I made this choice. Maybe it's an unintended consequence, maybe I don't like the consequence.

Evan: 19:07

I still made the choice and it's still my responsibility to take accountability. Yeah, I mean, it really reframes the conversation around why did this happen to me? And makes it, you know, what did I do, what did I choose to do that, you know, caused me to be in this situation, where this thing occurred, or this consequence has now befallen me. Right, it really changes that dynamic when you teach that way, when you think that way.

Melissa: 19:41

It sure does, and we can even bring in things like social learning theory and learned helplessness. Thinking about our kids truly are a reflection of what's been modeled for them. And when we have parents that say it's not fair, it's not fair and so things should just be different, instead of yeah, you know what, it might not seem fair, that really sucks. What are we going to do about it?

Evan: 20:16

Right.

Melissa: 20:17

It's learning to be helpless and also seeing consequences as punishment instead of viewing them as part of a restorative process. So, for example, let's say you're with one of the kids and you might not that you would ever do this, say, say something a little insensitive, and a kid gets upset because they're being sensitive. Part of that whole restoration process is, hey, you know what? I'm really sorry that what I said seemed hurtful to you, and how can I make this better? How can I take accountability, even though I didn't intend it to hurt, but how can I take accountability and restore this relationship instead of I'm right, you're wrong.

Evan: 21:20

Right, yeah, it's about. It's about taking a view of things where you just try to do the next right thing right, you try to make the next right choice and you know and frame it in that perspective. But, to your point, you have to own the things that you have done. You have to be able to be introspective, and I think that's something that a lot of people struggle with. How can they, how can they frame themselves to be a little bit more introspective without causing themselves to fall into depression or think that there are horrible people all the time? How do you, how do you help people learn to to take accountability and responsibility and and know that they can do wrong things and that doesn't mean that they're a bad person?

Melissa: 22:11

You know it's a great question and, honestly, from a very internal place, very internal place, they have to want to, and the reality of us as humans is we don't like change, and change only happens when we become so miserably uncomfortable in our current situation that we really feel like we don't have another choice.

Evan: 22:45

I think we also have a struggle with allowing ourselves to be wrong Not bad, but wrong, wrong, right. We have a really, really hard time as individuals being wrong. We always want to be good, we always want to be right, we always want to see ourselves as a little bit more angelic than we, than we maybe are, and those two things come together.

Melissa: 23:15

Absolutely and honestly. That ties right in with moral disengagement these days and that has huge ties to social media, the social media environment that I am, so even now behind a piece of paper.

Evan: 23:50

Yeah.

Melissa: 23:51

We can say anything we want, whether it's true or not, and who is going to bring the facts and evidence that shows it's not? Well, nobody.

Evan: 24:06

Right, right, I think that nails it too that nails. One of the big problems that we have in our society today is just that there's so little need requirement to take responsibility and accountability. So one of the things that I always kind of go back to is when the founding fathers wrote the Constitution, they wrote the Declaration of Independence and they had their Continental Congress and all of those things. They had to do it in person and they had to do it verbally and there was no way for them to not and there was no way for them to not be held accountable. Now I will say that when you talk about things like the Federalist Papers and you talk about the Silas Duguid letters that Benjamin Franklin wrote, those were ways that they used anonymity to get complex and maybe controversial subjects out into the public realm without being held accountable. But they used it much less frequently and with much less anonymity than what we have today. If you really wanted to find out who Silas Duguid was, you could probably have figured out that was Benjamin Franklin.

Melissa: 25:20

Sure, and even if you look at the social construct back then, they didn't have everybody showing their best moments, the things that they've done great. We live in a society of comparison now and there's this perception that if anybody sees something I do wrong, I'm going to be condemned for the one wrong thing and nobody will care about the 18 good things that I did before that. And it's really, it's so true these days how that that funnel just kind of collapses on top of the one negative.

Evan: 26:04

Yeah, and we're broadcasting to your point. With social media and the internet, we're broadcasting to a world. We're broadcasting to a world of people where the founding fathers were broadcasting to their neighbors.

Melissa: 26:17

Right, right.

Evan: 26:18

It was.

Evan: 26:18

Everybody in town knew everybody else's business, and everybody in town knew what was going on, and so you were accountable by default, because you didn't have, you know, other people to really, you know, to really be accountable to or to not be accountable to Right, you had everybody was around you and it was visual. We could all see what was going on. It was visual, we could all see what was going on. Now, these Instagram creators and social media, tiktokers and all these people they can post what they want to their viewers and nobody has the ability to really figure out, okay, who really is that person. Is what they're telling us true? Are they showing us all the you know? And so it gives them a level of anonymity and I think to your point as well, like Twitter and some of these other ones, where you don't have to put a face right, it's a little different when you're vlogging or you're doing something with video, where-.

Melissa: 27:16

Influencers are a great example.

Evan: 27:18

Yeah, right, but if you think about these people on Twitter and Facebook with these fake accounts or fake names, and they're hiding behind that extra level of anonymity and just saying some of the most vile, horrible things and taking no accountability for it whatsoever, it's a real problem in our society. You know, it's a real problem in our society. But it sounds like you are optimistic about the future and I'm interested to wonder why.

Melissa: 27:54

I think my optimism comes from quite honestly working with millennials and working who came after the millennials. It's uh, is it gen z, I guess?

Melissa: 28:11

y z y it's gen y um and so what I'm really talking about here is, um, people from in this age range of about 30 to 35 actually stopped and took the time. They got married. Later they're having maybe one child, but they're in longer relationships. They're doing the work on themselves to figure out what are my issues that I need to work through. How can I be a better partner? Overall, their ability to communicate with each other is stronger. They're building stronger marriages. They're dedicated to family.

Melissa: 29:00

We're seeing this huge shift on the conservative side of saying we don't want to have two parents working. We want to be the influence for our children. And people are starting to stay home. We're seeing kids between probably 25 and 30 that again might be in those long-term relationships, but they're here and they're saying I don't want to blame anybody, I just want to do better. And you're seeing our generation say enough. You know I've stood in the gap for my kids and said no longer will these intergenerational patterns continue because I'm not going to lay the weight of the poor choices of the people long before them, not going to let that burden fall on them. Know better, do better and that's what we're seeing in the parents in our generation. They're starting to understand. I have my own sandbox now, and if you want to play in my sandbox, you have to follow the rules that help me feel safe, and if you can't do that, then you can't be in my sandbox.

Evan: 30:35

Yeah.

Melissa: 30:36

Yeah, go play in your own. And I see our generation, because we were taught family is family, it's blood. And what we learned was family can treat you however they want, they can use you, they can abuse you, they can lie to you, they can disrespect you, but they're family.

Evan: 31:03

You don't have a choice. It's so interesting that you brought that up too, because earlier today I was listening to a radio show podcast and the host was talking about the Scott Peterson trial reason and rationality, to the point where his sister changed his, her plans and ended up going to uh law school so that she could become a lawyer to fight on his behalf to get him out of prison. Despite all the overwhelming evidence and you know all the things that that we know, that that were presented to prove his, his guilt, guilt. You know his family, his mother, his father, his sister, that none of them you know they couldn't admit it. It's a, it's a, it's really a state of denial.

Melissa: 31:55

Do you know where that? Do you know what would happen, right, if? If they admitted that their son or brother committed this heinous crime? What would it say about them as parents?

Evan: 32:14

Yeah.

Melissa: 32:16

Is it possible they weren't perfect? Is it possible that they missed something? And that is such a threatening concept to take accountability for where we might have gone wrong and so many people in our society. If they would admit that, their entire world would fall apart.

Evan: 32:50

So it's really a protection of their world and their worldview is to bury their head in the sand and deny themselves taking accountability and taking responsibility.

Melissa: 33:03

You know we see this a lot. And taking responsibility. You know we see this a lot. I'm a certified provider for narcissistic abuse and the treatment that comes along with that, because that is the word is very overused, it's used haphazardly, and there's a big difference between having narcissistic traits, for example, versus actually being diagnosed with a narcissistic personality disorder. And really what we see in our generation is a high prevalence of narcissistic traits, like, for example, with Fassberg selfishness.

Melissa: 33:47

My needs are more important than those of my wife and children. That, by the way, I chose to marry. I chose to have kids, and those things come with a commitment. So now we've disregarded the commitment and I guarantee you he's not sitting in New York thinking, wow, I really messed up. He is probably struggling with any number of addictions in order to soothe his own conscience for the decisions that he's made. Either that or he has no moral compass at all, and that's a whole separate avenue. But what we see in this population of people is, while they appear charming and charismatic and self-assured to everyone else, these are the most insecure toddlers you will ever meet in your life, and any time their sense of security false security is threatened, they lash out. They can't be wrong, they can't do wrong and everything is in the past, even if the past is two minutes ago.

Evan: 35:13

You know you said earlier know better, do better. And I think that's really poignant here as we think about things. Because if we look at Shanga Forsberg and the way she talks about knowing her worth and the worth of her kids and wanting them to understand their value, she's taken the steps to dissolve that marriage and she's outwardly taking responsibility and accountability for that choice. Is this the kind of thing that really makes you hopeful and, you know, look forward to the future?

Melissa: 35:44

It absolutely is. You know, something that she also said in her statement was being taken for granted and neglected is not love. And she didn't just take accountability for ending that divorce. She took accountability for saying I let my children believe that neglect is love, and she, I'm sure, does not want her children to either become their father or marry someone like their father. She wants better for them and that's that is how we're raising our children is.

Melissa: 36:34

You know we've made mistakes as parents. I know I've taken accountability for so many things that came as a result of my own trauma, many things that came as a result of my own trauma. And my kids are learning what love actually is, what it looks like to give love and receive love. And we're huge in our home on accountability, absolutely. And I'm seeing that, you know, not just in our home, we're seeing this across our nation. You know we're seeing pastors in California say take your children and run, take accountability for the welfare of your children and go where you can exert that. We have people now saying that. We have people now saying take accountability for your choices and the environment that you're in and if it's not healthy, find a different sandbox.

Evan: 37:36

Yeah, yeah, look, I think you know overall, listen, there's a lot that you can point to that says this is good, this is bad. There's always horrible stories in the news. That keeps us eyes glued to the news. It also keeps us constantly thinking that our world is an amazing perspective that you bring to the table is that there's change happening and you're seeing it in the work that you do and I know you're seeing it in all of the things that you study and as you look at the world. And we should be able to look at stories like this and not see this is a divorce happening. But we should be able to look at this and saying this is a woman who is taking accountability, she's taking responsibility and she's trying to end those generational traumatic experiences and she's trying to put her kids in a better place. She's really trying to know better and do better.

Melissa: 38:49

She sure is, and and we should be empowering both women and men. We should be empowering our children to say this doesn't feel right, let's look at how to be better. And you know our society. The great thing about electronic devices is the access we have to information and research and studies and, honestly, knowing better and doing better If we're open to looking at ourselves and doing that deep dive and recognizing that we can do better.

Evan: 39:33

All right, I think we covered a lot today, from why personal responsibility feels like it's in short supply to how we can actually bring it back.

Melissa: 39:42

And remember accountability isn't about being perfect. It's about being willing to own. When you've missed the mark, learn from it and try again.

Evan: 39:51

In other words, know better, do better.

Melissa: 39:53

Exactly, and if you're still listening to this, you're already choosing to engage in the conversation and maybe you're even willing to self-reflect, and those are the first steps.

Evan: 40:04

We'll be back next week with another boldly unfiltered topic and trust me, you're not gonna wanna miss it.

Melissa: 40:10

Until then, keep asking the hard questions.

Evan: 40:13

And we'll keep giving you the unmentionable answers.