By Beleaf In Fatherhood
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Recently I’ve realized that one of my kids is camera shy. At first, I thought it was just a phase, but the more I observed, the more I had to acknowledge that it may be time for a pivot away from my children as the main focus of this channel. My goal in sharing my children is never to exploit or take advantage of them, but rather to illustrate what a large part they play in my life and journey. But at some point, I have to acknowledge the hard truth that we don’t have child development studies on the children of YouTube yet. We don’t know how this affects them in five, ten, twenty years, but I do know that paying attention to your kids is the only way you learn from them. I can’t very well talk about mental health awareness across all my platforms and simultaneously ignore the ways in which my business maybe affects my children’s mental health. So get ready and hang on tight y’all, things are changing at Beleaf in Fatherhood.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:00
it looks good
00:04
[Music]
00:06
is he good can you please don’t fart on
00:09
me
00:11
hello hello hello look at me i’ve been
00:13
fresh i’ve been walking with my savior
00:15
yes i’m trying to do my best guess i’m
00:17
just a bag of bombs trying to shake up
00:18
by the flesh
00:19
when you see me never stress when you
00:21
see me see me see me you say hello
00:25
yo welcome back to belief in fatherhood
00:27
a very special episode
00:30
today you guys know i’ve been
00:33
trying to be the best father i can be in
00:34
the good father season
00:38
but some things kind of have to change
00:41
and
00:42
we’ve been like kind of holding on to
00:44
this for a little bit
00:45
but i i want to kind of be very
00:47
transparent and honest with you
00:49
um but i need your help right so we were
00:53
shooting some footage for
00:54
uh a really cool campaign we got coming
00:57
up and
00:58
um we were just celebrating being
01:01
together in like
01:03
black life you know what i mean and
01:04
really enjoying our time
01:07
but i felt like something was a little
01:10
awful
01:10
with one of the kids and i wanted to see
01:13
if you can
01:14
if you noticed it
01:18
[Music]
01:19
i don’t have any okay
01:27
[Music]
01:33
[Music]
01:38
you’re such a cheater you’re such a
01:40
cheater
01:41
no no no no stay down
01:46
you just don’t want to lose again loser
01:48
let’s go
01:50
sleep speed
02:04
it looks good
02:12
don’t fart on me
02:29
[Music]
02:34
i know i’m not in shape so this is
02:35
actually stretching out my
02:37
this is hard for me so can you back up a
02:39
little bit
02:40
my pelvis oh hold on let me do a cobra
02:47
god he’s getting oh man oh my god catch
02:51
up
02:51
look at i can squat this there’s no uh
02:55
no card in there squats ready
02:58
one two
03:05
i want a refund back rich we have been
03:08
enjoying the season but i want to show
03:09
you what happened
03:10
just a random morning while doing
03:16
homeschool
03:27
what do you think it sounds like just if
03:29
you were to guess what would you think
03:31
that
03:31
this one sounds like okay
03:36
hey where are we a
03:39
a a a can you for the chair
03:44
okay if you were to guess what this one
03:46
sounds like what do you think it would
03:47
sound like hey
03:50
you think these two sound the same yeah
03:52
why because
03:54
because what what no this is
04:06
if we were to say if we were to write
04:08
this sound
04:10
using like we now know that this says a
04:14
how would we write that on our board
04:16
using the
04:17
symbols that we know just write them
04:20
there
04:20
yeah write it down like the same
04:24
no don’t write this down but this says a
04:27
this
04:28
is a how would we communicate that on
04:31
the board
04:31
what we were just doing remember the
04:32
activity we were just doing using short
04:34
and long vowel symbols
04:35
yes can you show me how you would write
04:37
that down on the board please
04:41
can you not say words and just write
04:44
you’re giving your brother
04:52
um
04:54
yes yes the way you guys are choosing to
04:57
write your a’s are interesting but that
04:59
is exactly
05:00
right now when i look let’s start
05:04
where should we start wait is it play
05:06
english word
05:08
yes play is an english word it says
05:10
you’re wrong
05:12
you’re wrong you just made my mom heard
05:15
wait what’s joy i am so wrong
05:18
why am i wrong ryan
05:24
ryan why am i wrong tell me you do know
05:26
why using good words
05:28
[Music]
05:31
very good this is very good like
05:34
okay my chair is gonna be all jacked up
05:37
this is very good because
05:38
p.o you know makes the theophilus you’re
05:41
still here for this conversation sir
05:43
p.l makes the sound so i think it all
05:46
started when
05:48
we told theo and uriah
05:51
what it’s like to be black in america
05:53
right
05:54
right after george floyd we just told
05:56
him what it was like and
05:58
that was something that was um very
06:01
valuable
06:02
for him to know it was valuable for us
06:05
to say it
06:06
it was scary uh you know and i’m not
06:09
even talking about like
06:10
filming it like filming it felt
06:12
uncomfortable um
06:14
putting it out felt uncomfortable the
06:16
reception was positive
06:18
but the response from theo was not
06:22
now i know or we know what happens to
06:26
uh young celebrities who grow up and get
06:29
famous right kids of disney right they
06:30
grow up
06:31
some of them have depression some of
06:33
them have um
06:35
you know issues with substance or
06:37
whatever i’m not putting everybody in a
06:38
pile
06:38
but we don’t know what happens to the
06:40
kids of youtube yet
06:42
um and one thing that i started doing
06:44
was asking the kids for consent
06:46
before filming uh that’s something i
06:48
implemented this last year because i
06:49
just was filming and just like yeah man
06:51
this black life is all good
06:52
we doing our thing and this is love but
06:55
i think it’s starting to impact theo
06:57
negatively
06:57
and even when i’m asking him for consent
07:01
he’s still responding kind of
07:03
reluctantly
07:04
uh and at least that’s how he shows up
07:07
on camera
07:07
and so i can’t afford to like risk that
07:11
so um we’re gonna actually um
07:15
you know kind of dial him back off the
07:18
channel
07:20
uh theo is a very special kid because he
07:23
was the only one
07:25
that got to experience yvette and i as
07:27
an only child
07:29
his nourishment in like feeling
07:32
and desire um you know like that desire
07:36
to be wanted like
07:37
you know like i think we’re kind of
07:38
missing the mark there
07:40
so one of the things we did was for his
07:41
birthday we just hung out with them
07:44
you know no cameras we took them out
07:46
bike ride got some lunch
07:48
um took them to the store let them buy
07:50
something
07:51
it was just like a really good time with
07:53
just me
07:55
yvette and him and i want to make sure
07:58
i’m intentional about those things more
08:00
often
08:01
so i have to take my son
08:04
theo at least off the channel and even
08:07
kind of consider like wow like
08:10
you know what happens to the other kids
08:12
you know saying well i see the signs or
08:13
will it show up differently
08:14
and so i don’t know how other youtubers
08:16
do it i don’t know how you guys
08:18
you know move forward and like progress
08:21
um
08:22
especially as a family knowing that it
08:24
could be potentially harming to one of
08:26
the kids you know
08:27
but i am aware of you know the
08:30
possibility
08:31
and so yeah i just wanted to let you
08:34
guys know
08:35
uh but to kind of celebrate black
08:38
history
08:39
black life um
08:41
[Music]
08:42
a year ago the kids were learning about
08:45
basquiat for black history and so i felt
08:47
like as a way to kind of
08:48
bring everything back around uh
08:52
i would share this piece with you
08:54
colorful
08:55
and so today guess what we’re going to
08:57
do paint paint we are going to create
09:00
our own piece of artwork inspired by
09:04
basquiat i already knew a day like this
09:08
was coming
09:09
i just didn’t know when a lot of times
09:11
during interviews
09:13
people would ask me what happens when
09:15
your kid no longer wants to do youtube
09:17
i told them i’d give the kid an option
09:20
i’m sure you’ll see theo in videos but
09:21
he won’t be the main focus
09:23
and i know you guys want what’s best for
09:25
us and i know as a parent you make the
09:27
same decision
09:27
i just want to reiterate that theo never
09:29
told me that he doesn’t want to be on
09:31
camera
09:31
but every parent knows their child i’m
09:33
actually excited because maybe theo
09:35
wants to help
09:36
shoot the videos instead of being a part
09:37
of it or maybe he just wants to go read
09:39
a book while we all shoot
09:41
it’s up to him on this journey to
09:43
becoming a good father
09:44
it may not always be straight lines you
09:47
might have to pivot
09:48
but i’m glad i have the support from my
09:49
spouse my team
09:51
our brand partners and you to help us
09:53
along the journey but i am gonna say
09:55
that there are older videos that i might
09:57
bring back
09:58
that you’ve never seen of theo if it
10:00
makes sense
10:01
but that’s not out of the necessity to
10:03
create it’s about telling the story well
10:06
if you want behind the scene footage
10:08
make sure that you sign up for our
10:09
patreon or join our youtube membership
10:11
which is only 4.99 on this channel there
10:14
we give away all
10:15
insights and behind the scenes footage
10:16
of what’s going on
10:18
and how to run a youtube channel at
10:19
least how we do it
10:22
thank you guys so much for watching
10:23
particularly keep your network popping
10:25
if you’re fortunate enough to be doing
10:26
life with someone else
10:27
make sure you watch this video with them
10:29
and if they’re not around
10:30
share with them i’ll see you guys next
10:32
time peace
10:34
[Music]
10:38
okay ready actually yeah i actually
10:40
gotta do it okay listen
10:41
i’m gonna say something come here
10:47
[Music]
—
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video
