My Kid and Me

[Music] trains are probably my favorite form of transportation when I was a kid I always wanted to get on a train by myself have it take me somewhere great hey buddy how's your train ride that kid there in the red shirt that's my kid [Music] Owen is his name he's a good kid he's a great kid in fact when I was a kid I wasn't a great kid I wasn't even a good kid I was bad I ran away from home when I was 15 years old and got my girlfriend pregnant and then I had a kid [Music] being a parent was much easier for me than being a kid especially when he was little he needed me for everything and when someone needs you it's easy to be there for them though yeah my camo it gets harder as they grow up and become more self-sufficient they need you less [Music] [Music] see a kid is closest to a parent at birth it's this tiny little person that needs you for everything but with age comes independence and that distance starts to peak when the kid turns into a teenager it's weird that little kid you knew so well you wake up one day and you don't I didn't want to drift apart like I did meet my parents Oscar Wilde said the best way to make children good is to make them happy Owens first word is hot pink the dance school I just thought like we didn't understand each other [Music] I wanted to remove all these factors I wanted us to be in a place where we'd have to depend on each other [Music] we put on vacations before but I wanted it adventure a little uncertainty so I got us tickets to Peru but we go find the lost city of Machu Picchu [Music] [Music] [Music] one hour layover at my one hour yeah [Music] we're not there yet the travel was endless after Miami we flew to Lima where we waited for another five hours how was your breakfast but this is our third and final flight it was a day and a half of travel and the kid was beat [Music] [Music] I'm making Yellen fill out his own liability waiver we signed our lives away and got into a station wagon with five Peruvian guys [Music] from there was a four-hour drive into the mountains [Music] we've taken three flights 5360 three miles then we drove another hundred miles those is far from home as Owens ever been yeah what do you want to be when you grow up on fireman I hold an astronaut know what else the kids want to be you want to work in an office the plan was we didn't have much of a plan we hired a guy named Roger who would lead us through the mountains and valleys and whatever and eventually we'd get to Machu Picchu this was how I understood it there was a five-day trek day one up the mountain day two over the mountain day three down the mountain then some more hiking to a town where we'd sleep in a dirt bag hotel before climbing up Machu Picchu all in it's about 50 miles of trekking none of this worried me with the exception of the altitude fourteen thousand seven hundred feet is higher than anywhere and that contiguous United States and certainly higher than anywhere this thirteen-year-old from Connecticut had ever been Bowens not feeling well so we're giving them some altitude sickness medicine it'll help funny [Music] he was struggling but he kept pushing through [Music] [Music] Cullen is not going to be thrilled with these bathroom facilities boy I gotta warn you these aren't the kind of toilets you used to I got you some toilet paper [Music] stop it's dark out and we're going to bed how was that do you hear that yes it didn't sound like any sort of an one we're going to bed now it's it's 6:45 p.m. any thoughts of the day on [Music] it's warning time in the tent I'm so sleep [Music] the kid just puked I gave him some Peruvian alka-seltzer forced down some food but he's just a kid and he's hurt climbing another 2,500 vertical feet just wouldn't have been fun at all and that was when we found the horses would you prefer hiking or horseback riding this feels particularly unsafe this is the highest point in our Trek about 15,000 feet right now you know feeling so well I can't believe how tough own is being right now just handling it like a boss yeah this seemingly arbitrary moment here it was huge for me as a father this was the moment when I learned the first of three virtues of Owen nice that it was his unwillingness to be discouraged his ability to persist his tenacity he just pushed God [Music] Owens hitting on these girls he met on the trail as we hiked down Owen came back to life no more being sipped we eventually made it to a little village I love arriving in a new place when it's dark out then wake me up to find something amazing [Music] this thing was the longest part of our trekked mileage wise but also the easiest made easier when we hitched a ride for a few miles the guy that's driving this bin looks a few years younger than Owen we got kicked out of the minivan a few miles down the road and this was when I learned the second of the three virtues of oh and I stopped there's a fine line separating bravery from stupidity okay see this table here in these remote villages there are these cables that cross over the valleys locals use them to transport fruit and vegetables in these steel baskets and from what I understood occasionally people will also ride in the steel baskets that's what we sit in yeah all right so whatever you do don't rock this okay ready [Applause] it wasn't that he did it that made him brave it was that doing it was his idea it wasn't scary was it the next 10 miles were spent following the train tracks it was very stand by me hey we're back here with boss man Bob Cormier from the racks and stacks it's the best dog wax it's the cornets [Laughter] [Music] [Music] even when he was little I never babied Hoenn instead I tried to teach him critical thinking skills then let him make his own decisions oh if you get sucked in don't panic and your feet beneath you and stand up he wanted to get to the other side of the river this water was freezing cold glacier runoff and it was flowing pretty fast in my best judgment I just didn't think either of us could make it across that's ten feet deep I know it looked like you can't hear but there's nowhere but there's enough of a gap Owen didn't share that same judgment he thought he could make it across [Music] and just like that he was in the water you did it you laid it across I've never been more proud of my boy [Music] oh look you can see Machu Picchu [Music] [Music] [Applause] time to wake up when else Deus for I am relieving aquas Caliente on our way up to Machu Picchu it's about 5:15 now we're almost at Machu Picchu hey doing on they say how many a kid changes here I don't know anything about that I've been a parent my entire adult life before Owen I was just a kid myself [Music] I've had a lot of experiences in life but if I had to pick the greatest [Music]

Channel: CaseyNeistat

Views: 6,522,039

Rating: 4.970047 out of 5

Keywords: parenthood, parenting, neistat, brothers, peru, Machu, Picchu, (Protected, Site), Aguascalientes, (City/Town/Village), Salcantay, (Mountain)

Id: L13644A5z2w

Length: 19min 48sec (1188 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 10 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/UArmagan]

I love Casey. The guy is a real inspiration when you look into his story.