Navigate Podcast
Welcome to Navigate, we are two long term friends doing life and ministry together. I got tired of the same ole answers when I started looking for help when it came to my walk with God. So together we go deeper than most would on topics that most people have heard or were taught but never fully understood. It is our way of simplifying concepts that we may have over complicated throughout our lives. Bringing theology and life experience into each episode. It is our hope and desire to help Navigate your Christian walk with you
Navigate Podcast
Navigating Fatherhood: Aligning Values, Marriage Roles, and Faith-Based Parenting
TJBHpodcast@gmail.com
Is it possible to navigate the stormy seas of fatherhood and marriage when your core values and beliefs diverge from your spouse's? Join us as we explore the critical importance of premarital counseling to align parenting methods and underscore the father’s spiritual leadership in the family. From managing finances to overseeing screen time and dating rules, we emphasize the necessity of compromise while upholding Christian principles. This episode isn’t about winning arguments but winning hearts, leading by example through patience, and consistent practice of faith-based values.
Hey guys, welcome back to navigate. I'm with Justin what's?
Speaker 2:up buddy. How are you doing? You stole my line. I jumped in. I jumped in. You stole my line. Listen, I'm just. I'm just here for the podcast, All right.
Speaker 1:That's true, it's not personal. You don't have much value about it, I guess.
Speaker 2:That's it, this is this, is it for me?
Speaker 1:too. This is your life. I'm so sorry for you. All right, Pray for Justin guys.
Speaker 2:Yes, pray for me, Dude. We got some good feedback about just this last podcast. We did about families and dads a little bit, so I'm excited to jump in today. I really did. I spent some time getting after it.
Speaker 1:For those who listened to, the last week Justin did kind of this overview umbrella type style, and that's mostly my fault because I wasn't specific enough.
Speaker 2:No, no, we were just helping it up.
Speaker 1:I found it was still very helpful though. Good, but now I kind of want to tackle some. A lot of the points you actually brought up last week's episode we'll kind of dive into a little bit more. Yeah, let's do it, Put it on our magnifying glass. Maybe let's do it. One of the things you brought up was how do you be a father alongside your wife?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it turns out, the whole one flesh thing is a little bit rough when you add kids into the equation.
Speaker 1:First thing that came trying to process through that man was what happens if your wife has just different values or beliefs or was raised a different way. So she believes she's correct in certain things and obviously you are too right, coming together and okay. Now how do we raise our kids with these different belief systems almost?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean. This is what. This is the importance of doing premarital counseling. For the record, just for anybody sitting here, that is like no, we'll live on love, it'll be perfect.
Speaker 1:We won't have any problems.
Speaker 2:You will absolutely have problems and I would just highly encourage you. The longer you wait to have kids, the more differences you tend to have as well with regards to how you're going to raise them. It's a weird deal, because if you're both figuring out each other, then figuring out kids is not as difficult. Once you start to nail down each other a little bit, then you add more complexity. We tend to be more rigid and less willing to flex with each other. But, yeah, premarital counseling, god willing, helps. Talk through some of these issues about how you think you're going to parent and what your functional home is going to look like, before you get into the situations that oftentimes you find yourself in. But let's say that, hey, I'm in a marriage right now and we're not exactly lined up on all this stuff.
Speaker 2:I would tell you, when it comes to your kids, we're talking about fatherhood right now, so fatherhood at some level. This means that, look, you are responsible for your family before God and listen, eve may be sitting and talking to the devil himself, but that doesn't mean you have to punt on your kids or that you should stop fighting for your kids. If your wife struggles with one particular aspect, I mean talk through it. You should try to compromise where it makes sense or where it's helpful. But if the example is like, hey, my wife doesn't want to raise our kids like Christians, I don't know what to tell you. That's happening and you're responsible for making sure that happens. I mean, the Bible tells you that is actually your role. You're supposed to be a covering for your family, you're supposed to be the covenant head of your family and if you are punting on that because your wife doesn't like it, you're already failing. You're going to have conflict. I would anticipate that. I would say the goal is not to win an argument, but win people. Right, always, right, always. But I have found in my own life that oftentimes stuff that my wife thought was stupid or didn't make sense or wasn't helpful or why do we do this, over time she begins to actually see the fruit of it and understands why and is actually oftentimes gone along with me later on and said, yeah, no, actually that was a good idea or that was helpful, or we're glad. You know, I'm glad we did it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I mean from finances to where your kids attend school, to you know the time that you spend what they should be watching in the home. What they shouldn't be watching in the home the language that's being used around your kids, the people that your kids are spending time with. Are they allowed to date, you know at all? Are they dating believers non-believers? Are they allowed to date at all? Are they dating believers non-believers? Are they allowed to have a phone? Not have a phone? Look as a father in your home, the buck stops with you and you need to know that you're going to be emotionally sabotaged a lot if you are making the right decisions.
Speaker 2:Um, people who want to do things their own way. When they run into a barrier, uh, or a you know a point that they're not able to move past, man, they work really hard to find ways to either get that thing to move or to move around it. And, um, the goal is not for you to be, um, let's say, let's say, aggressive or rude or a jerk. You should be immovable and we serve an immovable God when it comes to his standards and what he's called us to and what, how he's told us to live, and so the goal is that, um, you are leaning on the immovable God to be immovable yourself and things that really matter and are really important. And, um, man, it's. I mean, it's real. We, you know real.
Speaker 2:We talked about Genesis 3 a little bit before, but the picture in Genesis 3 is God says, hey, you're supposed to rule your household and your wife's desire is actually going to be to rule over you. Her desire is going to be to change things. And here's what I would say Women are just better at manipulation than men. Guys can manipulate, not like girls can manipulate. You want to talk about something we don't talk about often, tim, if you can't bring up the specific sins of women, right, and you can only talk about them in light of men as well, something's probably wrong. This is an area where women are just better than guys. They're better at manipulating in general than guys are. And I would say as a husband, as a father, sometimes your wife may not even realize what she's doing to try to get her way in this particular area, and your goal is not to crush your wife or to be aggressive in unhealthy ways.
Speaker 2:Your goal is to know why you're standing for what you're standing for. Make sure you're backing up what you're trying to stand on with biblical reason and you're doing the float like a butterfly, sting like a bee thing. You got to be soft in your approach, but you also got to be immovable. Be a velvet revolver, you know. Be a velvet brick. You should be the kind of person where it's like I'm getting hit with this, but it doesn't feel as coarse or as rough as it should. Like I, I'm getting hit with this, but it doesn't feel as coarse or as rough as it should Like. I know I don't like what you're saying, but I like the way that you're saying it. That's the kind of in-between way that you want to tackle a lot of these difficulties, but the buck really does stop with you.
Speaker 2:If you're standing on a hill and trying to fight for things that matter, you're probably going to have to deal with some emotional manipulation and you need to know that's coming. You will not always be your, your kid's friend. Sometimes you have to be dad. I would say. Most of the time you can get away with hanging out and talking and laughing with your kids and it should be super chill, but there's probably 30% of the time you're going to have to come in and you're going to. You're going to need to tell them hey, I really need to be dad right now because you're not doing what you need to be doing. You need to shift and make that happen. If you're always in I'm pulling the dad you know the dad card you're probably not doing a great job, but there's probably 30% of the time that they're really going to dislike you and that usually means you're doing something right.
Speaker 2:So when we're talking about parenting together and you were like what if we don't agree is kind of how you started. What if we're not lining up on this stuff? As a father, you are responsible for God to God with what happens in and to your family, and so I would say you ultimately are calling the shots. You ultimately are responsible for what's going on in your family, and if there's people who are trying to do things that are unbiblical or wrong or messy, you're the one who's actually supposed to put a stop to that. And every guy in here wants to grunt and breathe out and whether they're going to say it out loud or not, is saying I don't want to do that. It's a lot of pressure. I don't want to do that. I don't want to. I don't want to have to.
Speaker 2:You know, create conflict. It's so much easier to do nothing. It's so much easier to let your wife run the house. It's so much easier to let other people do what they want to do. And then you'll actually start to find reasons too. Well, I'm not even good at this in the first place. And who am I? Because of my past and what I've done and you know, I can't really set these standards because I'm not achieving my own standards and all this crap we can start to reinforce reasons for why we shouldn't do what we know God has called us to do. And I would say I don't care, and God doesn't care what reasons you're coming up with for being disobedient. It's still being disobedient if you're not holding the line and doing what God has called you to do.
Speaker 2:Men aren't supposed to be the people that get along with everyone all the time. Men are supposed to be the people that hold the line when everybody else is going to cave because they don't want that spot. It's hard, it's really hard to do. Now that's when you hit conflict and difficulty. And I would say look, if you're constantly in that mode where you're always having to say, I have to die on this hill man, find a pastor, find a counselor, meet with somebody to help you resolve some of that conflict, because it could be that there's just years and years of stuff that's coming up and you're going to need to dig through some of that stuff to get to a healthy place. So, again, everyone's situation is going to be a little bit different and you might be in this place or that place, but in general, as a man, you're to call the shots with regards to how our family is living in a godly way. You're to hold the responsibility over your family for the outcomes and what's happening.
Speaker 2:And I will say this one of my favorite quotes from a pastor that I love. He says everything that you're doing is a strategy. Everything that you're doing is a system by which you're trying to achieve an outcome, and the outcomes that you're getting, the systems that you're using, are perfectly designed to get the outcomes that you're getting. So if you think about your family life, the outcomes that you have in your family right now, whatever you're doing is perfectly designed to produce that outcome. It just is.
Speaker 2:So if you're saying, well, this problem is going on and this is happening, and this is happening, right, it's part of your system, you need to ask the question what am I doing? Or what's going on or what's part of our process that is producing this particular type of outcome. All of us are living a particular way and working a particular way, and it's producing particular types of outcomes. You should be analyzing what those outcomes are and then reassessing what your strategy is that's actually producing those outcomes, and change it if you want to see different things happen. Yeah, many people want change in their life, but they don't want to actually have to change anything, right? Yeah, I want the thing, but I don't want to do it. Yeah, and it's sad.
Speaker 1:Well, it's the worst validation in their life not to do anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But so as a father in your home, you are responsible for whatever happens in your house. So let's just make that clear. You have a strategy that you are employing, whether you realize it or not, and it is achieving the outcomes that are happening in your house. So you should analyze that. Those are two important things. Outside of that and I brought this up last week you have to work at oneness with your spouse. You should be appealing to the Bible. You should be talking together about the things that you're working on and how you're doing it, what this, you know. Why are we trying to achieve what we're trying to achieve? Are you, as a husband and I'm going to say this washing your wife in the pure water of the word? And that doesn't just mean telling your wife what the Bible says. It also means modeling for your wife what the Bible means and how it changes lives. And if your life looks like absolute dog crap and you're trying to tell her why this is going to work, she's going to smell right away that this is not exactly what you're saying and what I'm saying seem to be two different things right now and again. That doesn't disqualify you from holding that line, but it does mean that you're going to have to do a better job of modeling that so that she can see the truth and the outcome for what that's actually supposed to look like.
Speaker 2:Highly recommend and have for a long time, a family mission statement. Come together with your spouse and talk through what's your statement. What does our family actually exist for? What are we trying to accomplish so that, when conflict or difficulty come up, you actually have something that you're able to read and say no, no, no. This is what we said our life was about. This is what we said we were actually trying to accomplish. It's not even about me at this point and it's not about you. It's about the standard that we said was more important than both of us, right? So, tim, I'm going to do something real quick. I don't think I've done this on our podcast. I'm going to actually read our family mission statement.
Speaker 2:It's super short, it's not crazy, but if you're at home right now and you're like, okay, I like that idea, justin, how do I actually do that? We have three parts of this. It's our mission, it's our vision and it's our values. The first part is this Our family exists to glorify God and find our fullness of joy in our pursuit of him, which, by the way, is Westminster confession stuff. Our family is an extension of the kingdom of light and is responsible for exercising dominion, creating life and growing in sanctification under the covenant promises of God. That's our mission, our vision. We do this by making God's kingdom manifest on earth as it is in heaven, with our time, our talent and our treasures. And our values are loving God, loving our family, loving our God given living, our God given purpose and letting others be a part of it. That that's what we do.
Speaker 2:So we walk through kind of those three stages and the whole goal of that is to set up what are we trying to accomplish while we're here, what's the big picture of how we're going to do that?
Speaker 2:And then what are the values that we have along the way to make sure that we do it in a way that's above approach? And I would say, if you have something on your wall, if you have a whiteboard, if you have a blackboard, if you want to type something up and print it and put it on your wall, but especially, I would say, early on, as you guys are figuring out what is the purpose of our life and what direction are we trying to go? What are we actually trying to achieve? You guys should be in a place where you're agreed on that, so that you can actually communicate to your kids and to each other why you're doing the things that you're doing, because if you don't, you're always going to be in the default of what feels like makes the most sense in the moment and, let's be honest, that strategy sucks. That's not going to go well for you.
Speaker 1:That's hard, Just thinking. Hearing that was like what would be mine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, I think most people get married and they don't realize that marriage actually has a purpose. The purpose of marriage is to extend the image of God. Yeah Right, it's to extend the Imago Dei to creation, and through creation by that I mean like children. And so if you don't know what my marriage is for and you think it's for happiness, you're getting divorced, pal.
Speaker 1:You haven't been married yet.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm talking about Like it's not going to last because you think marriage is about happiness. Man, it's hard. Now here's the deal. It is about happiness in the sense that God has called it to produce joy and produce life and produce good things. It to produce joy and produce life and produce good things.
Speaker 2:But I would say this happiness can't be the ultimate reason for it, because you can ultimately find happiness in a lot of places without having to go through that struggle. It just won't be lasting and it won't be impactful. So people say marriage is for holiness, not happiness. I get what you're saying. God actually made it for happiness, like he made at least part of what you're doing. He's like it sucks for you to be alone.
Speaker 2:He makes this girl and Adam is singing at the top of his lungs like this is the greatest day of my life. This is bone in my bone, flesh in my flesh. They're getting to come together and have sex, which is a wonderful thing in marriage. That's supposed to happen. That's glorious. Of course there should be happiness and there should be joy in that. But it cannot be the reason that you're married to somebody is for happiness. It has to be deeper than that. And so when a husband and wife come together. It's supposed to be again, like I said, to reproduce the image of God, and I don't just mean in children, I mean beauty and order and structure and taking dominion of everything that he's placed, you know, around you in your life. You're creating life where there was difficulty with two people perfectly mirroring, or imperfectly mirroring, the image of God together and then reproducing that image of God in future generations. So if you don't know that, there's going to be a problem, and I would say, tim, our generation doesn't know that at all.
Speaker 2:So if happiness is you know what I mean is the point of marriage, then unhappiness becomes grounds for divorce, right? And then it's not just unhappiness that it's grounds for divorce, but it's also the potential for a greater happiness, or more happiness with somebody else. So then it's just, you know, well, I might be happier somewhere else. That then produces grounds for divorce. And then you have well, this isn't doing it for me in this particular way. So now we're twisting it. So it's not just men and women now. Now it's oh, it's this sexual fantasy or this kink that I need to follow after, because actually, happiness alone isn't doing it for me. It has to be some kind of hedonistic, visceral thing. I mean, it gets really messy really fast.
Speaker 2:So if you don't have a bedrock of this is why we're doing what we're doing, this is what we're here for then it's going to crumble. And I would say, if the Bible isn't at the bedrock of that, there's no way you're coming up with a foundation for your family that isn't flimsy and going to break when the weight of the world hits your marriage, because it will Like, at some point crap is going to hit your marriage. Ask Will Smith. You know things happen and that's going to go down. But if you know, god created marriage for the flourishing of mankind and he made it to extend his image through the flourishing of mankind, then I know that marriage is supposed to be this wonderful combination of man, hope and joy and beauty and love and all these good things, but also order and structure and purpose that reproduces itself. That's wonderful, that's what it's supposed to look like. And then you've got to raise your kids in that environment and they're little sinlings that you gave birth to and then you've got to teach them why we're here.
Speaker 2:What are we doing here? What's the purpose of that?
Speaker 1:and that's just started at a young age what about again we kind of talked about this last time but the discipline aspect too, of your kids. What is a biblical stance on discipline? Because nowadays it's like gentle parenting and it's like tell me how you're feeling, give me your emotions, and you have people who spank and it's like, no, you can't do that I'll tell you right now the bible tells you to spank your kids.
Speaker 2:It does. I mean. It's pretty clear that the bible's like uh, you spare the rod spoil the child.
Speaker 1:I mean, it really is like can't you take that as just discipline, not necessarily that kind of form?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah. So you could say, oh, I'm not using a rod, I'm using a ruler. Okay, you could say, I'm not using a ruler, I'm going to use a twig or whatever, I don't care. The point is that the Bible actually tells you that physical punishment is actually the biblical mode. That's what it's telling you to do. Now we've done things like timeouts and things.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying you can't use other modes of discipline, but I will tell you this, tim there's a physiological response in your child when you punish them physically right for doing something wrong. Your brain creates neurological pathways, your brain creates blockers. Your brain starts to tell your child what is safe and good and what is not safe and good through a series of difficulties. Think about your own life for a second. You learn from pain, do you not? The struggle and frustrations that you go to tell you in the future what you should do and what you should not do. Now, imagine removing all of the small things that are supposed to help guide you in the future with the big things, and how is your life going to go Right? Yeah, so like if pain is what taught me in the past and I could have avoided greater pain by getting smaller pain up front. Wouldn't that be wise? Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So, because there is a chemical response in your brain to pain. The Bible is telling you that is a good thing to employ if you're teaching your child to walk in righteousness instead of worldliness. And if you think, oh no, it's not because they're doing something wicked. This is a natural response because they just don't understand or this or that. Look, there might be circumstances where that's the case.
Speaker 2:I'm not calling people to beat their children in some aggressive or abusive way. I am saying this was the standard and is the standard in about 90 percent of the world for rearing children, and here in the United States or in the Western world we're like no kids should raise themselves. Don't do anything. Don't do anything that might mess with them psychologically. It's like they're going to be messed with psychologically by the world. Really bad if I don't create clarity for them on what's really going to hurt them later by creating thoughtful responses now to right and wrong and good and bad, and helpful and not helpful, and safe and not safe. You're responsible as a parent to teach them up front what is it's probably going to be. I want to be careful how I say this. Sometimes. This is going to be more on you than on your wife. Now your wife and you should be in agreement in what you're doing, how you're doing it. The younger the kid probably, the easier it is. For look my son right now. He'll take a swing at my wife. He gets a slap on the hand. That's just good common sense. Why? Because I'm teaching him not to swing at my wife, right. But you do that later. You know they're a little older. You're like, oh my gosh, why would you do that? So they don't do the thing Right, like, oh, we age, but not that. No, it's the same thing.
Speaker 2:As a father, you might be a little bit more responsible for towing the line and making sure standards are upheld in your house. Only because women, I would say this tend to be more nurturing as well. There might be some guys who are just super nurturers praise the Lord, glad for that, happy for that. There might be some women that are a little bit better at towing the line and just their general disposition, totally fine. It does seem to me that mostly across the board, men are called to uphold a standard, and I would say this God, the Father, is the one who sets the standard and he also happens to be the one that upholds it. So if God the Father is our example for what we should be doing, then we should be taking cues as a father for how we're upholding those standards in our own home. And so it might be that your wife is doing some of that.
Speaker 2:But I would say you, as a father, might be carrying a lot of that load for making sure you're teaching your kids what right is, what wrong is, what's going to hurt later, what's going to be safe later, and taking that responsibility on yourself. Because if you don't up front, I'm telling you look, they steal a candy bar now and you don't punish them for it. It's going to be a car later and they're going to prison. Yeah, uh, they, you know they're. They're lying to somebody now in a small way.
Speaker 2:It's going to be a really big problem later on in their life when they're chronic at this and whose fault is that? It's their sin. But let's be honest, you created the perfect environment for it to happen, right, yeah? So as far as punishment goes, man, I mean you'll have to think through what that looks like, and I would. Obviously you have a brain. You shouldn't be punishing your kid for spilling milk on the table. That's a mistake. Kids make mistakes and I've seen a lot of dads explode in mistakes that were not sin. Yeah, and if you're blowing up at your kids because they did something that was an accident and not something that was a problem with their heart, then you have the problem, not your kid.
Speaker 1:I think that's a good distinction there, cause I know, like with my daughter, she's two, so she gets to say everything now, dude, yeah, she got into like some baby powder and we didn't notice and she dumped it all over the couch. Like the thing, some baby powder and we didn't notice and she dumped it all over the couch. The thing was just coated, it sucks. Yeah, it was cute. I laughed. Yeah, I told her never do that again, but it was cute and I kind of punish her for that. Yeah, she didn't get it Right, she doesn't get it.
Speaker 2:Right, but if you see, if you your responsibility to you know, make sense of those things for them or help them understand some of that stuff. But the heart understands, even if it can't put words to exactly what it was doing, oftentimes. Until I've said this a million times on this podcast, I'm going to keep saying it Tell your kids good stories.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can teach a lot about right and a lot about wrong and a lot about the patterns of the heart. If you have the right stories that you're telling your kids, it will reinforce. Who do you want to be, how do you want to live? And what happens when you touch a dragon's treasure? Right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Honestly, because of what you said, that a few months ago I started that with my daughter routine like before bed to go pick out a book and she'll go and grab a book and she gets at first she's like, ah, but now she's like, okay, you know, it's super fun. Yeah, it's very adorable.
Speaker 2:We make up stories in my house all the time too. We have my daughter gets stories about Princess Felicitas all the time. Yeah, we just tell different stories and it's fantastic. She loves it, dude. She loves it because she knows we're telling stories about her heart. I'm telling stories about things that she understands and that she knows. I'm teaching her theology through stories that I know she already has in her, but it's going to help her to think about these things and put them front and center more often, nice. I do want to say something else I think on this area of we're talking about punishment for your kids, something that can be just as impactful as you know, spanking their butt, If if they're doing something stupid is when they know they've done something absolutely stupid, they're expecting you to spank them and instead you give them grace and you take them out for ice cream and talk to them.
Speaker 1:You see, that's an option. Here's what I would say. Here's what I would say.
Speaker 2:If you've been doing a great job of towing the line and they already are repentant and they already know they've made a mistake. Sometimes a good thing to do is remind them that a repentant heart that acknowledges the sin and knows it was wrong. Sometimes it's a good thing to reward that too, because our Father in heaven also loves to show mercy and remind us that when our heart posture is in a good place, there's grace. And if you are always toeing the line so that your kids are like man, no matter what, this is coming my way you're probably not displaying the whole heart of the father there either. So just keep that in mind. Nice, yeah, nice.
Speaker 1:I was trying to figure out how to bring that up, man, because I was spanked a lot as a kid. Yeah, the problem I, because I don't spank my daughter, but I'll do the hand smack or the tap on the nose sometimes just to get the attention. I remember being spanked a lot but I never remember the reason and you don't know why.
Speaker 1:I didn't know why I was doing that. Yeah, I'm sure there was. I love my dad he's not a crazy person but without knowing the why, after all these years I'm like I don't want to do that. I just remember my dad being used as a tool for my mom to be like Dad's coming home, you just wait. She didn't say it that way, but that's how it felt. It's like great.
Speaker 2:Half of the punishment is just waiting to find out what the punishment is Run away. I feel like, yeah, your kids need to know, I want my kids to be afraid I'm coming home. Yeah your kids need to know what's going on. They need to know what they did and why. There needs to be at least clear communication there. But I do think hands down, there's memes about this, right, there's all these memes. I've seen where it's like you weren't spanked as a kid and it shows.
Speaker 1:You know what I?
Speaker 2:mean All these where people are like, yeah, this is what happens when you haven't had discipline in your life or you haven't learned how to be a decent human being, and I would say, hey, yeah, your parents probably didn't nail it, you probably won't nail it either. But really, the question isn't comparison with your parents or other people around you. The comparison is how am I doing with what God has called me to do? How are my kids lining up and walking in a manner worthy of the calling that they've received in Christ? How are they? How am I doing the Deuteronomy six things, where I'm teaching my children this when they lie down and the way they rise up, and when we walk along the way.
Speaker 2:How am I teaching them to be like Jesus? You're responsible for that, and if you are saying, well, I don't do this thing in my house because my parents did this to me, cool. Well, then fix how they did it, but do it in a way that honors God and is consistent with scripture, because your parents will not be an excuse for your disobedience to God. Yeah, and your neighbors doing a bad job won't be an excuse for your disobedience to God. Ultimately, it's about honoring him.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, there's a concept. I was just mostly just curious about it. You know, like the good cop, bad cop, parenting yeah yeah, I don't think it's called that, that's just what it reminds me of. But I feel like there's always that one person Dad's always the bad guy, dad's always the bad guy. Or mom's always the bad guy, there's always the bad guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, is that a good thing? Here's what sense, in which a father is supposed to be the provider and protector, and sometimes with protector comes enforcer, you know what I mean. So, like, if you are responsible for holding the line, protecting the family, handling the standards and what we're trying to do, there can be a sense in which part of your job is to make sure that that's happening. However, it should not exclusively be you and it shouldn't be that you're. However, it should not exclusively be you and it shouldn't be that you're. Oh honey, I'm so sorry. I would never punish you, but your dad is going to have to punish you.
Speaker 1:And that kind of goes back to what I was talking about.
Speaker 2:Like. That's not helpful, that's not good, that's not. We're together in this, that's that's. I'm going to make sure that I'm perceived in this way by my kids and I'm going to leverage that to make you look bad. That's not good parenting at all. That's terrible parenting, and that is the same kind of manipulation I was talking about before, where I'm willing to get this thing done, but I'm going to act as though it's something else. That's just lying.
Speaker 2:So with your kids, you need to be united front. You need to make sure you're on the same page. And I would say this you and your spouse may not always totally agree on what the punishment should be. You know you may have some disagreements there and it's not your job to you know, sit there and argue about exactly what this should be or what, exactly what that should be, and as a man, I would say, hey, seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly before your God. But ultimately, again, as a father, your job is to be thinking through how am I honoring God with how we raise our kids? That's not your wife's decision, although she should definitely speak into that. You should be listening for what she has to say. But the reality is again, your family. Family, at the end of the day, is is your responsibility and you need to do everything that you can to honor God through that process. So if you're thinking, well, I'll figure this one out, you figure that one out.
Speaker 2:Look, sometimes I'll talk to my wife and I'm like hey, can you handle this one? Like what she's going through? I know you've walked through that. I have not walked through that. I would love for you to help me think through how do I handle that best, because I just don't totally get it, especially with my daughters.
Speaker 2:I'm like I really want to be cautious here, and what's funny to me is I feel like she's harder on my daughters than I am, like I'm harder on the boys. She's harder on the girls, you know, because I'm like, well, I don't totally know them. She's like I know them, I am them, you know. And I'm harder on the boys because I'm like, no, they're fine. And she's like, but they're just a little bit. I'm like, no, no, no. This is why it's good and we should use each other's strengths and each other's information to help think through what needs to happen. But again, as a father, ultimately you got to make those decisions and realize that your wife is an invaluable resource to you in understanding, knowing your kids and thinking through what would be helpful. Just, you may not always 100% agree. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Interesting. What about older kids? Well, Adolescent youths of teenage mind.
Speaker 2:So here is the. I think I brought this up on the podcast potentially before, but probably most people wouldn't know because I don't know how many odd episodes we've done. At this point there's a spectrum I want to like. Maybe I can draw this up and then we could actually put it like up on the, you know, in the show notes or something like that Just put it up here, but there's a graph.
Speaker 2:You want to think influence and you want to think authority. Okay, from roughly one to 10 years old, okay, uh, from roughly one to ten years old, you're moving from authority to influence. All right, like you're starting out when it's a baby, baby tim, it's all authority. I'm not influencing my child, I'm not. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm. I'm teaching them, I'm loving them, they're learning, they're growing for me, but I'm not sitting there trying to win their heart over to do the right thing. No, it's. This is good, this is bad. You stick your finger in there. It will not go well for you, right? Like it's authority. And then you're moving, as they're growing, to an inserting more and more influence, where you're trying to help speak to their hearts and win them over, not just by saying because I said so, but by actually communicating truth to them, because you've already laid the foundation of authority, which should again help them think through right, wrong, good, bad, safe, unsafe. God willing, you've already set that up, so that by the time you get to about 10 years old, you should be about 50% authority, 50% influence, and moving towards influence all the time until they're about 18 years old. Ok, so we're starting with authority and we're moving on this you know this axis all the way up to influence as much as we can over the years. So you're starting with authority, moving towards influence and about 10 years old you should be at about a 50-50. So if we're talking about teenagers, once you get to teenagers you're really thinking through how am I primarily using influence to help them get where they need to go, because this whole because I said so thing isn't going to work. I'm going to have to appeal to their heart, I'm going to have to appeal to the standards and the foundations we've already laid and I'm going to have to help win them over with the gospel of Jesus Christ and the truth of what he's actually accomplished and the way that it is better to live your life this way.
Speaker 2:And if you don't lay down a good foundation and a good structure at the beginning of this, like we, we got to teach them right and wrong, good and bad. If you don't haven't set that dude influences, a nightmare later, because then you're trying to exercise authority with your teenager that you no longer have, because by the time they're 10, you start losing authority. And if you're not gaining influence. At the same time, you're losing authority and there's no foundation there.
Speaker 2:You're kind of screwed because then they're going to have to learn good and bad from the world, from the things around them, and all that you can do is say I told you this would happen and honestly, that's probably going to reinforce frustration and make them double down oftentimes on that stupid crap.
Speaker 2:So you don't want to again manage behaviors, want to shepherd hearts, and if you try to do authority while your kids are teenagers worst case scenario they 100% rebel, they go the opposite direction. Or let's say, other worst case scenario they do this thing where they do everything that you've asked them to do, but their hearts are totally not aligned and they're going to get out of the house and they're going to go do all the stuff. Here's what I would say. You're creating proficient liars is what you're doing. You're making kids who are doing the right things in front of you and are a totally different person in front of other people, because they've learned that this is a way that I can survive and do what I want. You're not influencing them, you're over-exercising authority and that's a problem as well.
Speaker 1:So what's the best way to influence somebody then?
Speaker 2:Well, influence happens through time man Conversation relationships. Yeah, I mean, influence really is a matter of you pouring relational equity into their bank account so that you can cash some checks that you're going to need to later in their life.
Speaker 1:I mean, this is like hey, how was school today? Type stuff, or is this dinner table talk, or Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm always a fan of good rhythms in your household for doing those things. But like we in our home right now, we do date nights like a lot. Like we, I'm going to pick one of my kids and we're going to go out and we're going to do something fun. Right now there's a, there's a a Boba place pretty close to our house with a bunch of little claw machines, and it's like the best day ever. We go, we get tokens, we drink a Boba, they jump on the claw machines and get after it and then we spent some time talking.
Speaker 2:I feel like the car ride is almost more important than the date, cause that's when we talk a little bit more about different stuff and things that are going on and you know, hey, how's this going? How's your heart? What did you notice at church lately? You know what's going on with so-and-so. You need those moments where you're pouring into them, acknowledging them and drawing out their heart in conversation, so that when you get to difficult moments, you're more aware of what's going on and how you need to handle it. But if you're not spending time A creating those environments for your family to do that together and B creating individual time where you're working on that, you're not going to have the weight or the ability later on in difficult moments, to be able to help them make the right decisions, because the world's going to pull a lot harder than uh, than you are, because you haven't put enough weight in that, you know, in that area Interesting. So it's. It's hard, but it's a lot like with your spouse. You got to date your spouse. You got to talk to your kids. You need to show up for the stuff that they care about, not just what you care about. You need to watch movies that they care about, not just the ones that you care about. You need to give them wins here and there to help them get their feet under them. And I would say the more you say yes, you're saying it's a stronger no, and the more you say no, it's a stronger yes. Right, we brought that up before. And I would say, the more you can say yes to things, you should, so the no is stronger when the opportunity comes, you should. So that the no is stronger when the opportunity comes, you want to be able to say I don't say no very often. This one is not a good idea. That's influence. That's trying to say I want to exercise authority, but I'm cashing in to exercise that authority with all my influence chips.
Speaker 2:Now look, teenagers are wild cards and there's a lot going on and the world's a crazy place and public school is a crazy place and public school is a crazy place. And again, if you're in a blended family, this gets even more complicated because there was a different foundation laid potentially than the one that you have currently. There's a dynamic where a lot of moms of those kids want you to be her husband but don't want you to be their father. That's not going to work. If you are considering marrying a girl who has kids already, I would say you're definitely going to want to talk through that and make sure it's clear that if you're marrying into this relationship, you're going to be their dad at some level. You're going to have to.
Speaker 2:Why? Because you're responsible for the household. You're responsible for what comes out of your household. You're responsible for the standards and the fruit that is coming out of the home and the relationship that God has given to you. You cannot separate the two.
Speaker 2:Now there can be other people involved and it really complicates itself. They got another dad that they're spending time with on the weekends man I get it, it's hard another dad that they're spending time with on the weekends. Man, I get it, it's hard. But I would say this they're going to learn that the way that you're doing things in your house and the way that things are is better than what's going on over there. It is and I've seen this happen in a lot of people's relationships where oh, I moved into, you know, 16 year old moves into dad's house because dad's so much more fun and he lets me go to parties and he lets me drink and he's fine if I watch porn or whatever.
Speaker 2:Young men I've seen this with young ladies too. But later on they usually end up being drawn back to the more consistent, solid household, because that's the one that actually lasts. And you find out oh, those people cared about me. That's why they actually gave me standards. This other person doesn't care. They just wanted to be seen as cool, fun dad who's a friend. It's not the same thing. They're not going to see you as a father and they're not going to take that person seriously long term. Because care is actually discipline, care is exercising authority, care is practicing influence in healthy ways. And if your goal is, I'll win my kid's heart over by promising them all the things that are actually not great for them. It's not a long-term solution and usually you're going to see them end up coming back.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, that's a hard one to do, especially that foundation part when it comes to blended families.
Speaker 2:And it's more and more and more normal. Yeah, um, like I mean, you know we've talked about kind of our environment. It's pretty crazy, man. It's pretty crazy out there how everybody's having kids out of wedlock. There's no dads, and I was thinking about this today, tim. I was thinking about how many you know when I worked in kitchens, like everybody there didn't have a dad or had a horrible dad, right, I just remember talking to so many people and I remember being like, oh, my job is to almost be a father as much as it is to be a boss.
Speaker 2:Like a lot of these kids never manage their money, ever never been in a functional relationship, have no idea how to practice responsibility. They know they have to provide and protect, but it comes out in all these awful ways if nobody modeled it for you well. So you're angry and you explode easy and you're emotional and all these different things can happen. And I was realizing this. It's like, man, it used to be that if you didn't have a father in your family, you could at least go to the church and there would be pastors and leaders there who would help lead you and teach you to be a father. But because of the feminization of the pulpit, not just with women teaching, but men acting like. Being more like a woman is a better way to be a pastor. No wonder we have a mass exodus of men leaving churches. It's become an environment where they can't have a father anymore, so it might as well just be an extension of another place for women to continue to grow up, because there are no dads there anymore. Helping the men who actually need someone, giving them someone to look up to, to help teach them and show them. This is the way. This is actually how you're supposed to live, and so I think there's, you know and you see, guys like Jordan Peterson, the Joe Rogans of the world and all these people that are proverbial internet fathers now, that are helping raise men because they're willing to talk about men's issues, they're willing to deal with the stuff that men are actually dealing with and they're willing to go out of their way to try to raise men at some level, which sucks, because a lot of them are not good guides, a lot of them are terrible guides. But if at least they can find a man who sees what's going on in their life, is trying to speak to them if it's not in the church, they'll take that every time if the church is only telling them how to be more like a woman.
Speaker 2:If you're a man, so fathering is unique in that your position really cannot be replaced by a woman. You can't. You're invaluable to that process and I brought this up before, but it's like Adam spends time naming things in the garden. He even names Eve, and that's because men are meant to instill identity. Women can nurture, women can care, women can foster an amazing environment, but God has laid it on the man to help instill identity. And if you have a bunch of men punting on their responsibility to instill that identity by showing right, wrong, good, bad, this is what you should be, this is what you shouldn't be. You're going to have a bunch of people damaged coming up that are looking for that because they know I'm supposed to know this and I don't have it yet and they'll find it in the wrong places if they can't find it in the right places.
Speaker 2:A pastor and you're raising older kids, or you're a student pastor, or you're just you're around young kids at your work or whatever. As a man, you need to know that you're instilling identity everywhere you go. It's unavoidable and it's a terrifying thing to realize that who you are is going to be reproduced, because you teach what you know, but you reproduce the person that you are, and so be thinking clearly about how am I doing this? Well, am I holding myself to the same standards that I'm calling them to? Am I managing behaviors, or am I actually shepherding these hearts? Am I using God, the Father, as my model for what I'm supposed to be doing? Am I using the Bible in this? Am I inviting my wife into this process to learn and figure out how to do this with me? Am I, am I actually going to war for this stuff, or am I going on to autopilot because it's easier and I'm using my family to gratify what I want instead of helping build up and give them what they need to go past me.
Speaker 2:Word of the wise to for men don't use your wife as a as a as a therapist for all of your problems.
Speaker 2:I've joked on here before about my wife being my therapist.
Speaker 2:I mean, I love talking to my wife, but I will tell you right now what I do not do is go to my wife with all my insecurities and issues and problems and talk to her about those things all the time and expect her to carry them for me. Do not do that. Find a pastor, find some other guys to walk with. If you can't find that I don't know who you are, man reach out. We'll get you connected with somebody. But you're going to need some other guys to walk with and just share some of these burdens with, because, as a man, there's some stuff that's unique to you that you're going to need other guys to help you walk through, and your wife isn't supposed to do that for you. And I will tell you right now if you do that, you, right now, if you do that, you will turn her into your mother instead of your wife, and that's a great way to display something unhealthy to your kids and to set yourself up in the future for being in an unhealthy relationship with them and with your spouse.
Speaker 1:Nice Cool man.
Speaker 2:Thanks, dude. Well, I hope it helped to at least think through just some basics for raising kiddos and what it's supposed to look like in your house. Man, if you don't have a family mission statement, write a family mission statement. You may be a single dad, you may be a single mom. I would highly recommend having a mission statement for your family, your kids, what it is that you're trying to accomplish, the mission, the vision for what you want to see done and the values. How are we actually accomplishing? That could go a long way for you. Tell your kids good stories, enforce the things that you're saying, or else they're going to think that all of those rules are recommendations and they're going to treat them that way in the future, in a really negative way. Make sure you're walking with grace and humility, especially when your kids are showing real repentance. Do a good job, reward them for those things. Make sure you laugh a lot and you're putting a lot of equity into the relationships with your kids. Have good rhythms with your family, whether that's the dinner table or just you know movie night that you have in your home time at church. Man, be there on Sundays. Show them how to do that. Make it a priority to worship together, be in your Bible together, do things that matter.
Speaker 2:Most families that have real issues, tim, like real issues with their kids, have horrible rhythms at home, have horrible rhythms with church and they wonder why it feels so chaotic in their life. And it's because they're the ones right now that need parented. Their life isn't under control and it's showing up in their kids. And then you have anger, outburstburst and all the stuff that comes with it. Last thing I want to say most fathers I know struggle with anger. I don't know a single dad that doesn't struggle with anger, and part of this is what I was saying earlier don't bear everything to your wife. I think you need to find a guy who you can talk to, who's going to hold you accountable in some of that. Talk through some of that stuff with them. Find another guy to find a guy who you can talk to, who's going to hold you accountable in some of that. Talk through some of that stuff with them. Find another guy, find a pastor to talk through some of the stuff that you're going on with anger.
Speaker 2:Sort through your heart one to find out is there a reason for my past that's making this worse than it is and figure out is there a good reason that I'm angry? Because there might be, and then think through how to express that in a healthy way. Because it's okay to be angry. It's not okay to sin in your anger, and I would just tell you, if you're if you're struggling with anger, if that's something that you're really dealing with, you need to be in an ongoing conversation with some other guys about how to how to make sure that whatever's going on inside of you isn't coming out in unhealthy ways and isn't turning you into something that you don't want to become. So you got to get that under control. And the other side of that is hey, maybe you're eating like crap, not exercising and watching a ton of TV and the reason you're pissed off and angry is because you're not doing anything to benefit yourself. So throwing that out there as well might be wise.
Speaker 1:But hope this helps. I know I had to make eye contact when you said that to me. You absolutely do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Listen.
Speaker 1:I'm not talking to you, but I'm talking to you.
Speaker 2:Well, same as last time, guys, I think, just sending questions. Yeah, I know every family is different. We're not going to nail everything, but I hope there's some good stuff here that you guys can take and begin to run with, to start thinking about the responsibility you have as a father, what that should look like in your family and some things that maybe you could put into practice to help you do a better job at that. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:All right guys. Hey, catch you all next time. Have a good week.
