Donna Kelce on Sibling Friendships, Young Love and What Moms Really Want for Mother's Day | EP 138

0:00Mom, did you not like any of our Travis or I's girlfriends? or my girlfriend, now wife. Can you see, you really didn't bring a lot of ladies home. Yeah, no, we got it, Mom. Okay.

0:18Welcome back to New Heights, a wonder show produced by Wavesports and Entertainment and brought to you by Allstate. Yeah, buddy. You're in hands with Allstate. Don't you forget it. Make sure you check first with Allstate. That's good advice. We're your hosts. I'm Travis Kelsey. This is my big brother, Jason Kelsey out of Cleveland, Ohio. Hey, guys. Shout out to the Cavs. Shout out to the Cincinnati Bearcats. Haven't said that in a while. Love the Bearcats. What happened? No, no. Just give a shout out. Just love giving the Cavs some shout outs, man. Shout out to everybody down there at Cincy. Subscribe on YouTube, One Tree Plus, wherever you get your podcasts.

0:51And follow the show on all social media. At New Heights, show with one S. Jason, tell the people what we got coming up. We got another amazing episode for you guys. This Sunday is Mother's Day. So we've got an incredible guest with us. Yay! Donna Kelsey. That's right. Donna Kelsey's joining us. We'll talk about what Mother's Day was like in the Kelsey household. Answer some of your parenting advice from voicemails and whatever else we talk about. I forget what we do, but it's pretty good. You're going to want to listen because Donna Kelsey never disappoints. Never. But first, as always, got a little bit of that new news.

1:27New news. New news. We asked you guys which baseball movie we should watch for our next New Heights Film Club. And the winner is... That's right. It's The Sandlot. We knew it. Wow, a lot closer. When did A League of Their Own, A League of Their Own must have came in late. Because initially it was like pretty, it was like tied neck and neck major league in Sandlot. And then Sandlot just at some point took a commanding lead. Yeah, when I saw The League of Their Own was always in second. We will be reviewing the movie on an episode in the next few weeks. So if you have any, if you have to follow along, watch the movie, you know, hear what we say, offer your own opinion, make sure you give it a watch.

2:12Do we think there's anyone that listens to the show that hasn't seen The Sandlot? I sure hope not. Like if you're someone who is a full grown adult and you never watched Sandlot as a kid, it's pretty sad. Dude, it's one of my favorites. And I actually haven't watched it in a while. It's been a while, so I just know it's going to hit perfect when I watch it this time. It's going to be good, and I can't wait to look at it from a lens of judgment. That's it for new news. Yeah, let's go to our guest. Who could that be? Oh, we already told you. Yeah, okay. It's Donna Kelsey. Mama! Mom. Yes. Mom, is it weird at all that Travis still calls you mommy?

2:54It's kind of funny. I think it's hysterical. Thank you, Jason. I take it as a, you know, I get a chuckle. Okay. Because I know he's doing it to make me laugh. Of course. You know? You think that. It's all that mommy needs to know. Okay. This is between us, Jason. It's what happens when you're the first born. Oh, geez, that's funny. You're the second born, Travis. Love you both. You're so much like Ed, it's fucking disgusting. I know I'm like Ed. No. Oh, you have several redeeming qualities, Jason. Oh, my gosh, Mom. Don't go on Dad like that. He doesn't need that. I didn't say anything. He didn't.

3:35I didn't say he didn't, but I just said that you have several. Anyway. All right. Mom, do you know what you were brought here to do? Yeah, I think I've got to tell some stories and explain what it was like raising you two. So I think that's kind of what I'm here for. Does that sound correct? I think we got some, like, no-dumb questions, maybe voicemails. Oh, yeah. All right. Well, I was going to talk about how you guys both got lost all the time, but then Jason did it because he wasn't paying attention. Travis did it on purpose to escape. I was never lost, Mommy. I was always just right around the corner.

4:11You were escaping. You were lost to us. I knew exactly where you guys were. I know. And I knew. I know. But we didn't know. I knew you guys were terrified. Yeah, you were like. That's the excitement of it. Like Peter Pan's Lost Boys. Yeah. You're doing it, Peter. You're really doing it. You're doing it, Peter. Yeah. Bang-a-rang. Yeah. Okay. All right. Bang-a-rang. I will just, because I was going to tell stories about the Superman chip clip. Remember, you used to put a towel. Both of you guys would put a towel around your shoulders. You put a chip clip right here. You would cut your neck. I took you into daycare and you said that your father cut you with a knife.

4:55I almost got taken down to the. Sounds like a Travis story. Yeah, that was definitely me for sure. Dad was out of the country. He was in Mexico, so he couldn't have done it. It's because dad never showed me enough attention. He only cared about Jason. Dad was in Mexico because he had just slit Travis's throat. He's like, I'm going to get the fuck out of Dodge.

5:15The one thing I know we're going to get to is we're going to run back that question that we did in a bonus episode with Ed. what do you do if your child calls CPS on you? Oh. Nice. Well, that's how it happened with Travis. Yeah, okay. Well, yeah. This is going to be great. Guys, skip ahead just to Donna's intro right here. I am looking for Donna's intro and I do not see it. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Mother's Day episode. Got it? All right. Joining us today is now a three-time guest. Maybe it's the most. I think that might be more than Kai. You know it. Three times guest, so she needs no introduction.

5:52That's right, 92 %ers. Give a warm welcome to our mother, Donna Kelsey. Mama Donna. Mom, how's the off-season been? What you been up to? You know, it's been kind of slow. I've been taking it a little easy, but going on a few trips here and there, so that's kind of fun. We live vicariously through you. You travel more than anyone we know, Mommy. No, no, I think you guys beat me by a mile. But Bahamas, I've been. I've been to Dominican Republic, although that was it was interesting. Then we went to we were supposed to go to Haiti, but they had to redirect us because they were having some civil strife.

6:30So we ended up in St. Martin. St. Thomas. St. Thomas. Yeah, they were. They we couldn't get off the ship. We had to we had to bail and go to St. Thomas. But I'm much rather. Sometimes you just got to get off the ship. Wait until the lights are out. We kept going, like, who's on first? Where are we going? You know, what island are we at? We didn't know. Civil strife sounds exciting. What is civil strife for me? What was going on there in Haiti? Jason, this is irrelevant. Yeah, no, Jason, this isn't that show. I think those are called malicious. Those are called malicious. No, these were actual.

7:09Anyway, it doesn't matter. Well, mommy, we have some fun parenting advice voicemails for you that our 92 %ers sent in and so much more. But Jason, I think we got to get to a little.

7:25New news. Oh, no, this. No, I did this. I did this all wrong. Yep. Yeah, he's incorrect. Yeah, that was on me. I was a little higher up. Sorry about that. Mom, isn't it impressive how much better we've gotten at this show? i enjoy it yeah i get to see you every week why don't we do this why don't we do this call this new news yeah i knew i was right you were i mean sure we'll call it that travis he crush it crush it travis you look a little dark travert you have a tan i know no it's just i'm i'm in my cubicle um i'm everywhere okay got it got it looks like Thank you guys for having fun. Yeah, and we're about to have even more of a blast with you in this segment called New News.

8:17New News. New News. Mom, what's your new news? Nice. There it is. There it is. All right. This weekend is Mother's Day. And is this a real holiday, Jason? Are we considering this one a real holiday? Fuck yes. What are you talking about as a made-up holiday? You always got to ask. You always got to ask. The holiday bearer over here. No, it's just it's a recognized national holiday by pretty much every country in the world has their own version of Mother's Day because there's nobody more important in this world than mothers. Nobody would be here without one. This is true. Well, we'll see how much longer it's true.

8:51It probably isn't that too like far down the road to their having kids born out of some of these like synthetic wombs. You seen that, mom? What do you think of synthetic wombs? Yeah. Well, would you ever do it? Stuff happens. Would you ever do it? Would I ever do it? No, probably not. it. No. How do you think there's got to be something wrong with those people that come out of them, right? No. You're going to have something wrong with them. No. I mean, it all has to do with, you know, your family's makeup and DNA and everything like that. So it is what it is. Yeah. No matter where you're born or how you're born, it's just going to be a basis of your ancestry, basically.

9:30I don't know if you're sometimes if you're born next to a power plant, you can become a superhero. Yeah. OJ. water yeah well that might be true because we were born in north ridgeville and there were a lot of cornfields so there's a lot of pesticides going on there oh nice that's why you're mutants cool that's why jason's arms look like that mom what do what what do moms really want on mother's day they want to be with their children which doesn't happen often but um when they're older but uh yeah that's basically it is time that's it you like uh flowers always always make you happy right yeah yeah basically yeah flowers are nice and you know and uh pistachios yeah i like pistachios i do i like macaroons or macarons whatever they call them french you like those sandwiches Oh, that?

10:26Oh, yeah. Yes. I thought you were a big fan of, like, the little turtles. I love those, too. I love caramel and chocolate, too. That's always good. Oh, can't ever go wrong with chocolate. Can't play with that. That's what you think about. But basically, I think moms just want to be around their families. So sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. So it is what it is. All right. Well, there you go. Do you have any fun trips coming up anytime soon, Mommy? I do. I'm headed to Mexico. So might try. Oh! Yes. Going in July and maybe some other trips. I'm not quite sure yet, but we'll let you know later on.

11:06Yeah, let me know. It might just magically appear. I don't like to tell everybody where I'm going, but I do like to just pop up on people. Oh, cool. Nice. Keep me in the loop. Yep. It's not super warm yet. But as soon as May happens, it starts getting a little toasty down here. So I understand not wanting to come. So it's a little warm. Might need to get you out of the toast and up to the fun parts of the spring and summer. I would like that. Up north. You know it. Where are you going to Mexico? I'm going with Shannon, her best friend, and I'm going with Lisa. So we're going to do a trip to Mexico.

11:48Go up. I think it's Chichen Itza and Tulum. We're going to go visit the ruins. Oh, Tulum. Going to see some cenotes? I don't know. That's a good question. You should go and see some cenotes. I liked it when we got to go to Mexico when the Chiefs played there because we got to see Teotihuacan. So that was fun. That was wonderful. It's another place. Pyramids. of the Mayans and it's massive. Jason, did you know that there were pyramids in Mexico too? I knew they were down there. Yeah, the Aztecs. Yeah, they had them down there, right? Yep. Didn't know their names though. Teotihuacan? Yeah, Teotihuacan is one of the places.

12:35In fact, some of their pyramids are even bigger than the ones in Egypt. It's kind of interesting. They don't teach us that. You think aliens built them? Be honest, you're under oath. I don't know. You know, I just think it's too hard to make sure that everything fits so well. They either had to have technology that was, you know, passed down through the generations or somebody came and helped them. So who knows? And that does it for new news.

13:11Jason, why don't we get some parenting advice voicemails? Yeah. I mean, Brandon, can we, which one, should we pick some of these or should we just start rolling through them? What do you think? Wait, were you asking, was I supposed to answer? Oh, shit. I mean, I said Brandon. Do you want to roll through them? Hey, Brandon. How you been? I've been good. Always, always happy to have you. All right. One through five. Let me talk to your mom for a second. Go ahead. All right. First voicemail. Hi. Hi. My name is Stephanie. I am a mom of two boys. And I was just going to see what words of encouragement would you give an 11-year-old and a 7-year-old boy to encourage them to try another sport?

13:58Besides, my kids love contact sports. They love lacrosse. They love tackle football. They like to wrestle. They like to box. Good sports. We want them to try baseball, to try basketball. ball, but they're kind of like tunnel vision with contact sports. They love it. They can't get enough of it. So what are some more? I like these guys a lot. I like these guys. They're our kind of guys. And seven-year-old boys to encourage them to try other sports. Great question. Mom, you want to take that one? Yeah, Mom, you got it. How did you get us into all of them? You know, your dad was a big part of finding, you know, different teams and things like that.

14:38But we always wanted you to just have a great time. Have fun. Keep busy. when you're moving you're not getting in any trouble whatever sport you like if you like you know contact sports and do that if you like sports that are you know playing badminton or whatever do that it's like you have to love what you're doing otherwise you're not going to want to play mommy growing up what was your what was the favorite what was the one sport you loved watching us play the most though like what was the most exciting one well for you as a parent Yeah. Obviously, the most exciting was team sports, you know, where hockey was a blast because it was constantly moving.

15:22So you could watch things. There was no stopping. It was, you know, jumping off over the, what do you call it, the boards. You just were going all the time. So you were out there a lot. You always had to keep an eye on us, too, in case we were going to throw our cups at you. Yeah. But it was just, you know, I love doing that because I paid attention to you and I got to watch you grow and blossom in hockey. But I also liked baseball because in baseball, you would be up to bat maybe once, maybe twice, and you would catch the ball maybe once or twice, unless you were the pitcher or the catcher, which Jason was.

16:04So he was constantly out there because he was catching and throwing pitching. They only put me on the mound when we hated the other team, and they wanted to see me just strike fear into kids. Yeah, and throw the ball like this close to their nose, yeah. But I enjoyed the parents at those sports, baseball. The parents were just awesome, and we laughed a lot. Mom was always in the right field in the baseball games, having a comedy hour with all the other mothers on the team. We were always telling jokes and laughing. It was great. And then they're like, wait a minute, my son's up to bed. Yeah. Mom, what do you think is the key to getting kids to enjoy sports?

16:49What did you used to do to try and get us to have fun or get us into new activities? You were the ones that drove it. It wasn't us. You drove it. You said what you liked, what you wanted to do. If you wanted to be in a play, you were in a play. If you wanted to do swim cadets, you did swim cadets. You know, it's like we just went along for the ride. You guys drove everything, and that's the way it should be. Parents should stay out of it. They shouldn't push their kids into things they don't want to do. They're going to have a wonderful childhood. If they love what they do, they're going to get good at it.

17:24So that's as simple as that. You guys did a great job of introducing sports. Like I remember Jason started playing football in middle school and I was I was always two steps behind. So I was in fifth grade while he was in seventh grade and he was starting to play football. And I was like, man, I want to play football. I remember dad took me down to Heights Tigers tryouts. And I saw how many kids were trying out for the football team at that age. And I was just overwhelmed with like not knowing anybody and understanding like you're as a kid. you kind of want to play sports with your friends or people that you know and things like that.

18:01And you guys always found teams where we knew the kids on the team. Well, definitely we would check out, you know, who the coaches were, what the parents, you know, what parents were there, who was involved. You know, if there were a bunch of parents that were involved or a bunch of parents that weren't involved. You know, it's really important because as children grow up, they're not going to tell you anything. They're going to tell their friends stuff and they're going to get to their friends' parents and talk to them. So I think you just want to surround your children with a huge group of individuals that are of like minds.

18:40I remember I was in middle school and I was playing for a new baseball team called CBA, Cleveland Baseball Academy. Yeah. And the academy was very they were very like respectable in the baseball community in Cleveland. And I thought that my talent was there, but it also said that I had to maintain a GPA of three point oh to stay on the team. And I looked at my dad after the tryouts. I was like, Dad, I think I could play on this team, but I don't know if I could. I don't know if I can keep up this old three point oh GPA. yeah and um and yeah so i ended up just cheating the system because when you're good at sports they want you on the team mom what do uh if there's if there was a kid you had let's say we had a third brother if we had a third brother oh my you have a third brother third brother named dale yeah dale didn't like sports and he didn't want to do anything but sit in the house all day would you just let dale sit in the house all day and not play sports or do anything extracurricular?

19:44You know, I would try to find something that they like to do, you know, anything to get them out of the house. You know, whether it was, maybe they wanted to be a long distance runner. Maybe they were just like, this kid wants to do nothing. He's got no motivation, no friends. Hypothetical. Oh, wow. That's a rough one. Cause you have to, you have to take a look at personalities too. I mean, you can't force somebody to do something. You have to find something they're going to like. Why not? Your parents, of course you can. You're a mom. You can force them to do whatever you want. All you can do is give them opportunity to find things that they like to do.

20:26So keep trying. You can lead them to water. Keep trying. You can lead them. They're not just at the house doing anything, Jason. They're into something. It's important. If it's video games, take them down to the arcade. See if they got what it takes. It's important socially because that's how everything is run in this world is on teams. You know, it's like. Right now. Yeah. Yeah, true. Wait till AI takes over. Yeah, I know. We're even going to have surgeries. I think you can find, you know, what your kid likes to do. I think parents know what they like. So you just have to direct them in that way.

21:04Try to get them help. Let's say they're a musician. Get them some music lessons. You know, just, you know, try to find out what they're, what they really, really like. Passion is? Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. It's feed, feed that, feed that passion. Can we get to, let's get to the next question. Yeah, let's get to another question here. I feel like this would be a better question for Donna, Kelsey. Lucky for you. But as a mom of two boys, age four and one, what are some ways that I can cultivate their relationship so they grow up to be close brothers like jason and travis oh man two years apart is different than three years apart it is it is yeah that's a rough one i don't think you cultivate anything i think the dynamic of the family is the dynamic of the family you know i didn't try to force anything i didn't try to steer it in any way i think kids are born with certain characteristics.

22:09I think some parents take too much credit for their children's success and for their failures. I don't. It's all on you. It's all on you. If you've got a shithead kid, it's on the parents. You've got two Hall of Fame NFL playing kids. It's all on the parents. No, no. You got to have it both ways, mom. You know what, mom? I think it's on the older sibling. I think eventually you got to let the older sibling know. I think that's what you and dad did a great job of, is that you forced Jason to be my friend. And by doing this, Jason would then just torture me. He would find fun ways to say we're playing together.

22:54But in reality, like playing together with Jason was, hey, Travis, you want to go be the goalie outside so I could just rip slap shots at you in the driveway. Like, yeah, of course I want to play with you. Oh, man, our garage door was like pockmarked. Family activities always wins. I truly believe that children, no matter who the parent is, if they want something bad enough, it's going to happen. They just have to have a drive. Some kids are born with that are driven. Some kids aren't. You know, all we gave you was opportunity. You guys ran with it. We followed what you wanted, what you thought was good.

23:33Unless it was against the law, we let you do pretty much whatever you thought would be fun. You guys help motivate it as well by having good family values. Don't question me. I'm going to disagree heavily with what my mother is saying right now. I think that if you want two brothers to love each other, as parents, you need to go above and beyond to make sure that both kids feel like they're getting loved and attention in the same amounts. and encourage the brothers when they celebrate each other. I think that like for me, I think a lot of the siblings that I know that aren't close or the ones that feel like they have like fractured relationships, a lot of those feel like there's like a competitiveness to the relationship with their siblings that quite frankly, Travis and I just have never felt.

24:22And I think you and dad both did a great job our entire lives of like taking me to Travis's games to watch him play having trav come to my games and watch me play like there was a concerted effort by both of you to not only celebrate both of us but to have each of us celebrate our brother right and i think that that's i think that's the answer personally and you have to okay that's a good point it's going to be competitive naturally you want to be competitive then you have to have dad tell the older one that or mom tell the older one to lose sometimes to make the younger one feel better? Sometimes it's got to happen.

24:57It's going to have to bite your tongue, you know? No, that never happened. Can't fool me. I just learned how to flank. Can't fool me. He got better because you wouldn't let him win. That's what I tell myself. Travis is so much better than me because I beat the shit out of him all the time. But then you also reveled in each other's wins. I mean, you were happy when Travis won. You know, you were there rooting him on. Still am. You know, it is, it was, went both ways, you know? So, for sure. I was so happy when I lost, too. It was crazy. No, I mean, sometimes when I knew you needed it. Alright, here we go, Brandon.

25:40What's the next one? That was gold. And you have to have a good sense of humor, too. What's the next one? Hi, Jason. Hi, Travis. My name is Eileen. I am from Orlando, Florida. And here's some parenting advice. Now, Jason, I know you have really small children, but you're going to play and they will be teenagers. So I've got a 17-year-old son who's a senior in high school. He's trying to make a college decision, and he currently wants to change all of his plans to follow his girlfriend to where she's going to college. Should I let him? Give me your best advice. Oh, man, that happens a lot. I don't know if I should let him make a life-changing decision to follow her, but should I also follow or stop young love?

26:24Let me know what to think. I don't know. Should we let mom take this one first or do we take a stab at it first? I wouldn't even know where to go with that. It's hard. I know several of my friends allowed their kid to go where their boyfriend was going, vice versa. Did it work out? Never. Not once. No, not once. But you know, sometimes except, well, one of my friends got married right out of high school and they're still married. So you never know. There you go. You never know. Sometimes it's your, you know, it's your person. Did they go to college though? No, they never did. See, that's a sheltered individual getting married out of college school and just staying that way.