#113 - Healthy Masculinity with John Ripley

John Ripley joins me to discuss his mission to help men of faith live up to their full potential. Our discussion focuses mostly on healthy masculinity, the obstacles men face in developing it, and how woman can help their husband's and son's embrace it.


Podcast Abraham's Sons 52
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Transcript

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I'm jamielynn Stephan and this is what to wanted. Episode number 113 healthy masculinity with John Ripley. Welcome to want to want it a podcast for women of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints who are ready to ignite not only their sexual desire, but all of their desires to create a more fulfilling life and marriage. I'm jamielynn Stephan. I'm a certified life coach, a wife, and a mother of seven children. I'm excited to share my personal journey to desire with you and teach you how to desire more as well hello everybody. Welcome to the podcast today. I am actually really excited because Not very often do I have a male guest on my show. And so today I have John Ripley joining me to talk about men and masculinity, healthy masculinity, and some things that he feels really called to do in the world of men. So John, can you just give us kind of an introduction about yourself? Tell us a little about you. Sure. I'm first of all, thank you so much. You know, I'm just getting started in the podcast world and this is a huge benefit to me and I really appreciate, you helping me along here. So the other thing I just kind of wanted to say before we started is I'm a little worried today we'll come off is that I think that, You know, because of the nature of this interview where you're the podcast host and you're asking about what women need to understand about men, that this might come off as me thinking that it's women's responsibility. And that's the exact opposite of my message. I think the, the real important thing or what I'm really trying to get out is for men to start to take more control of their lives and their relationship with God and their relationship with the world around them. sO just about me, I, I'm I'm getting older, I'm nearing 50 years old and I am no expert in things by any means, but I've made a lot of mistakes and I kind of hope to help people along to understand so, so I can help people avoid the mistakes I've made. Right. Okay. Okay. Thank you. We talked a little bit before we, you know, last time about when we thought we'd talk about doing a podcast. I really feel called to this. I started, I, my daughter was on a mission. She was struggling with you know, just struggling with their mission in general, like commissions are right. And so our mission president kept telling her You know, if you keep working hard, your family back home will be blessed and, and, you know, the best thing you can do for your family is just do a good job of your mission. And, and so she kept writing home and saying you know, can you guys see the blessings in your lives? And, and we kind of ignored it for the first few times or I definitely ignored the first few times because we were just really struggling. We were having some financial problems. You know, we're having, you know, just just a lot of different problems, right? Not hard problems, but just, just life wasn't, definitely was not running smooth. And so finally I, you know, she kept asking, I thought, well, okay, I can't ignore it anymore. And so I wrote a letter or an email saying how we don't get blessed necessarily the way the Lord or the way we would like to get blessed. We get blessed in the way that the Lord wants us to progress, right? Sometimes our trials are, you know, our biggest trials turn out to be our best, our biggest blessings because that's what the Lord wants us to do. So I wrote that and it helped my daughter. It was great, but then I just couldn't leave it alone. And I, I just kept fiddling with it. And I, I kind of copied and pasted what I. I sent my daughter into a word document and I just expanded on it pretty soon. I had 000 words. And so at that time I thought, well, let's kind of round this out. And I got an editor and we kind of rounded it out into a little bit of a book. And that's, that's the first few episodes of my podcast. It's called grace to grace. It's, um, kind of talking about how we progress line upon line and our trials kind of help us. Become who, who the Lord wants us to become, not necessarily who we think we should become, but who the Lord wants us to become. And that's kind of been my journey. And I, I, I've struggled with trying to figure out how to get the message out. I still don't know where this is all going to go. I, I just feel like it's something that the Lord has asked me to do. And, and I'm just kind of, Feeling it out as I go, I guess. Right, right. So what's the name of your podcast then? So my, my podcast is actually called Abraham Sons 52. So the Abraham Sons is a reference to our covenants. anD it, it, it's not geared just towards people who are of the Church of Jesus Christ ability. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. It's geared towards men of all faiths. And it's basically a reference to, you know, figuring out how to keep our covenants within the world, the modern world we live in. And then the 52 is a reference. That's the year my father was born. And so that's in my life, I feel like he, my dad's a convert. And so I feel like he is the generational link. Between, um, the, the priesthood link, right? So before him had the priesthood but those of us after do, and he is now on the other side working with those who were previously, you know we're unable to, to gain some of those blessings here on earth. Yeah. So when we first talked, you kind of said to me, I feel called, I feel like I have this mission to help men of faith. Live up to their full potential. Is that right? It is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so for you, what does that mean? Like what, when you say that, what, what does that mean for you that they're living up to their full potential? So, you know, and it's a tough question, right? Because it's a little different for everybody. Right. But in a broader sense, it's We, first of all, one of the biggest problem, we talked a little bit about this when we talked about the podcast idea is that, you know, our world is really emasculating men. You know, and we've, we've lost the touch between healthy masculinity, right? So we, you know, everybody understands toxic masculinity and we, we talk about that a lot, but we don't talk about healthy masculinity and what that means. And there's been some online stuff, some online discussion, but a lot of that is missing the covenants with our, with God part. I think that's really where, you know, I fit in, right? Okay. Is that, you know, figuring out, you know, first of all, the healthy masculinity part, but also adding in part of that is our relationship with God and keeping those covenants. That we all make, regardless of what religion we we adhere to, we all have you know, covenants or a relationship with, with our father in heaven, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So just for my listeners, what, what do you define as toxic masculinity? Like, what do you feel like that means? So, you know, and a lot of people say there's no such thing as toxic masculinity, and I don't subscribe to that, because you see it play out a lot you know, and, and a lot of times it comes through in, well, so, so the biggest issue, like you're seeing all the school shootings. Right? So that's men they're young men not understanding how to express themselves, right? They're getting frustrated in life and they come out and, you know, at some point this becomes a realistic manifestation of their masculinity, right? So one of the interesting things is the vast majority of school shooters, Grow up in fatherless homes, you know, they have a lack of example of healthy masculinity, right? And so the, so we talked a little bit about fight club, the movie fight club, right? Yes. Yeah. Go ahead. So I actually sat down and like, when I was driving. And I spent a lot of time thinking about that movie, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought that should be required viewing for every parent, like when you have a son in the hospital, they should just put it on the screen and force you to watch it before they allow you to take your child home, right? And, and so what that movie is all about, and I'm going to ruin the movie, so if you haven't seen it, maybe you want to shut this part off, but it's a 20 year old movie, so I don't. I feel like I'm, I'm wrecking it for anybody. That's okay. I've never seen it and go ahead, wreck it for me. Yeah, wreck it for you. So the, the whole movie is about a man who is trapped. So he works in a cubicle and the cubicle represents the box that the world has put him in and More specifically, the women in his life has put him in one of the best lines in the movie is about like we're a generation of men raised by women. So the rest of the movie or the entirety of the movie is the unhealthy manifestation of his repressed masculinity. Right. And so, so I think that's what we're seeing so much in the world is because men have masculinity has been so repressed that it's coming out in very unhealthy ways. And that's the whole fight club. These, this guy basically completely destroys his entire life because he's trying to find ways to express his masculinity. He starts a fight club. He travels. He gets. In all kinds of trouble, loses his house. He moves into this house with a bunch of, you know, alcoholics and drug addicts and whatever. And and so that's the, that's the unhealthy masculinity. And we're seeing that even in the online world a little bit, right? Where some of these guys, some of them have, you know, Like even, even the guys who are very masculine and have some unhealthy views, you know, there, there's a big draw to them because there is such a lack of, you know, healthy masculinity stereotypes or healthy masculinity examples. Yeah. Okay. So you're just saying like toxic masculinity is kind of like this losing of your temper. Like out of control, anger, maybe the, what people would say was this, you know, dominating of women kind of idea. That's the toxic side. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But then, so you have this kind of idea of like, there is healthy masculinity and it doesn't have to be like, you need to feel shame about being a man now. It can actually be embracing being a man. So when you, when you think about what that would actually mean. And again, of course, everyone is different, but in general, what would kind of be your definition or idea of like, this would be a healthy. A man who had healthy masculinity, he would be like this or have these kind of characteristics. What would that be? I actually this morning had a great thought and I wrote it down a little bit. So if you read in Matthew 5, Matthew chapter 5 verse 5, that's the Beatitudes and it talks about how the meat shall inherit the earth. If you actually do a study of the word meek, it comes from the Greek word and I'm going to butcher the pronunciation here, but it's perus, and, and it's not an incorrect interpretation when we say meek or mild or, but the, just like we use the word cool in different contexts. The word perus was actually mostly used in connection with Greek warhorses. Okay. And so the, the idea being that these, they had these great, magnificent, strong, capable horses, but they were under control. Okay. And so when, when Christ says the meek shall inherit the earth, we're not, what he's basically saying is the powerful, the dangerous, That are able to keep that under control will inherit the earth. I do remember hearing a talk on meekness from Elder Bednar and he talked about how he's like meekness is not weakness like there is a strength, like the meek have strength and so okay so that's part of it you're saying it's You have power, but you're in control. Yes. Okay. And I think that's the, probably the, the you know, if you wanted to take it and kind of coin the healthy masculinity, that would be the definition, right? It's dangerous, but under control. Dangerous, but under control. When violence is the answer, they'll use violence, but until then, no. Yeah. And, and danger doesn't necessarily mean violent danger. Okay. Okay. I mean, there's definitely different ways. So in my world, I'm in the construction world, right? And you see all kinds of unhealthy situations. Like, I'm currently in a situation where a guy's trying to, like, I've got a contract for a job. A guy, the general contractor and I have had a falling out and he's trying to take advantage of me and trying to do different things. And so, you know, dangerous in that sense is that I know the laws, I know my rights, I know the, also the, the great areas of the world where I can defend my position. In order to provide for me and my family in order to control the situation. So I could also use those that knowledge. Like, I've been in the construction industry for a long time. I could also use that knowledge for evil. Where I want to take advantage of people on construction in the construction world as well, right? So it's so that Capability that we learn in life can be used for good or it can be used for for evil, right? and so the the idea of being masculine or Meek is the idea that we we develop those capabilities, but we they're under control We're not just Running around as a loose can and trying to, you know, disrupt the whole world, right? Right. Right. Yeah. A bridled, a bridled horse. Yeah. Okay. So show up a lot in the scriptures, don't we? Oh yeah. So much. So much. Right. It's like, yeah. When, when we are meant to be in control all right. Yeah. For sure. So what do you feel like are some of the obstacles? In the way of men really kind of developing healthy masculinity, like what, what things are they doing to themselves? And what do you see outside in the outside world that impacts this? So, I mean, let's, first of all, I, one of the things that I'm passionate about, one of the conversations I want to have as many times to as many people as I can is, is this idea of what we're doing to young men. This is where, where I think the problems in our, our, I mean, we've got a lot of problems on our side, but this particular problem starts at a very young age. anD it's, so. Young men are raised mostly by mom. So, after World War II, right, most, we kind of got away from the agricultural society, right, men go off to work during the day, boys are raised by their mothers up through till they're five or six, they go off to school, they're raised by you know, they, they spend a large portion of their time with female teachers at school. And then they, that kind of follows them through. And so, one of the biggest problems with our school system for young men is. When you're in grade 1, 2, and 3, young boys have a lot tougher time sitting still than young girls. So what happens is, teacher says, you know, Tommy, why can't you sit nice like Sally? And pretty soon, boys learn that it's not cool to do well in school. It's not, right? None of the boys are doing well in school. It's the boys who are always getting in trouble, and it's the girls. We're sitting over here that the teacher those are the, I wouldn't even say they're easier students to teach. They're more what the female teacher understands, right? She relates more to, you know, the girls than she does boys, which is just natural, right? And so pretty soon the boys just, just start running out of outlets. More there for their masculine energy. So they start to act out, right. They act out in school, they act out at home, they act out wherever. So I think that's a real problem in society and you're seeing more and more of it, the whole idea of, you know, no awards, right? Everybody gets an award. There's no, no reward for winning, no reward for doing well. You know, we don't score. We don't. Right. And those, those aren't masculine. Ideals, right? Like no dad is taking their kid to soccer and being like, yeah, we're not going to keep score. Right. Like dads are all about, Hey, like we're keeping score and my kid's gonna, gonna whoop your kid. Right. Like, and there's a lot of good life lessons in those, you know, whether you win or lose, there's good life lessons. Right. I think that's one of the obstacles and or probably one of the biggest things that we're seeing the results of now. Right. Right. It's just kind of, there's no space for this building up and encouraging some good positive masculine behavior or energy or right. It's like, just fall in line here. Keep this easy. Like sports are a great way for, for boys to learn. Like when we talk about that definition of masculinity, powerful, but under control or dangerous, but under control. Right. I guess. As a athlete, you compete for all your worth, and then the whistle blows, and you stop. Right? Like, that's control. Like, you, you're developing a skill to be dangerous. Like, or powerful. But then when the whistle blows, you stop, you're friends again, you, you move on, right? And so if we take away the competitiveness of that, then all of a sudden we're starting to to remove a lot of those healthy masculine outlets. Right. Yeah. So I guess there's this kind of question in my mind a little bit about, you know, This is what I see and this could totally be wrong. This is just something that I've seen when I look around the world and maybe part of it has been as more women have gone into the workforce. It's almost like there, there does seem to be, even though I think on the one hand, men are like, I feel kind of emasculated. On the other hand, there's like this relief. Because no, no longer are they kind of like, Oh, I meant to provide for my family by myself. That's like, I expect my wife to contribute to that. And, and again, not because I think it's bad if a man and a woman are sharing that responsibility, but in some ways, I almost feel like men have, have been almost like, I kind of love that there's a lot less pressure on me than there was generations before to kind of step into these roles of providing, leading really taking, like, like you talked about, right. It used to be boys were going to the farm with their dad or onto the ranch or whatever, right. Learning the trade and having that. And now it's almost like, there's a lot of men who are just like, great. Take care of the kids. I I'm happy. I'm going to work my long hours and I'm going to come home and sit here and, you know, and, and almost like they kind of love it now, maybe I'm wrong about that, but there, I think it would take a lot of courage to maybe step into that. Into more of the responsibility around, I agree. And that, so, I mean, I also love to sit at home, eat cake and watch movies all day. But that's not good for me. It doesn't make me happy and it doesn't help me progress. Right. And so that's a lot of my message too. Right. Is that. You know, if men want to be happier, they do have to start to take control, right? Like you can, like we can talk about all they want, the problems with the school system or the problems, you know, way young men are being raised. If you're all of a sudden, now you're 30, you can look back and say, yeah, this was a problem, but you can't go back and change it, right? The reality, this is where we are now. If I want to have a better life, And I want to be happy, then I need to start to take control of that. And so if I don't, then, you know, the, I'm not, first of all, I'm not living up to my potential, but I'm not living up to the covenants and my relationship with God, right? Then we're supposed to be the spiritual leaders of our household. We're supposed to take control of our life. We're supposed to provide for our families. We're supposed to, you know, raise our Children, right? And be a part of their lives, right? So is that easy? And if somebody else will do it, then great. Like that's one of my biggest frustrations in Like I, my wife and I have owned a construction company for a long time, right? And my biggest frustration when we hire, whether it's foreman or superintendents or whatever, superintendents, because they're good at what they do, will often step in and take over for whoever's underneath them. Well, as soon as they do that a couple times, that person just quits doing it. Right. Like, so you go and you'll set up, well, this is your responsibility. This is your responsibility. This is your responsibility. And you'll come back a month later and now this person isn't, isn't doing it anymore. And they're like, well, yeah, but you know, the boss always does it for me. So I just stopped doing it. Right. And you're like, but still your responsibility, like it's easier for him to not do it. Cause somebody to take over for them, but still. It needs to, he needs to learn that that's his responsibility. Yeah, and do it. Yeah, I recently heard someone just talking about, you know, it's so important to make choices that accrue to your self respect. It's like, so when, what you're doing, even if it's feels kind of the easy thing to do, do you respect yourself at the end of it? And, and so I think I think there is kind of this disrespect for men. I really do genuinely feel like there's a lot of disrespect towards men in the world and a lot of diminishing of them and putting them down. And I, again, not because there hasn't been things that have happened in the past that. And, men aren't awesome, but it's like, these are, these are human beings. These are people and the way that they're treated can be so disrespectful. And that at the same time we see so many young men and men also acting in ways that do not show that they have self respect. And again, that's something you have to build and work on, but may be very hard to develop in a world that is so disrespectful of you. It is and if one of the problems like if you look at popular culture You know, how many sitcoms or movies portray men as So you either get two extremes, right? So you either get the incompetent man that the wife, you know, taking, you know, just raising as another child in the family, more or less, or you get the ultra masculine man, who's saving the world, right? I think there's very little in between portrayed in our. popular culture. Like, you know, there's no, hey, this guy's just a good man, a good dad, and good provider. And right, like you don't see that portrayed anymore, right? Yes. And I think a lot of people don't even understand that that's the goal anymore, right? That's right. And so you're right. It is. It is. Difficult for, you know, men, young men to, to even figure out what they should be doing, what, what the role model is, what the goal is. And, and that's a lot of the problems and that's a lot of my message. That's really what I want to be trying to do is explain to men that, Hey, this, this is me. This is bad for society, but it's bad for you too. Right. Thank you for listening. Totally, totally. Okay. So we're, we're trying to be more of this healthy, masculine person. Where does vulnerability fit into this? Because on the one hand, right, I think kind of that toxic masculinity, that, that short temper is a lot of trying to protect vulnerabilities. There's there, even though I think we're in a world that is trying to be better, there is still kind of messaging, like don't cry. Do you don't have a hard day, right? And so like, what, what is, what's your opinion on men and just being vulnerable, being showing weakness is, do you feel like that is important? What's your, what's your thought on that? Yeah. And I think in short, it kind of goes back to the same message we had before is that yes, but under control, right? Like you, as, as a leader, You can't, there's times you just can't be vulnerable, right? Whether you're the leader of your family or the leader of a company or the leader of any organization, there's times when the people that you're in charge of need to see you as the, you know, the strong, competent leader. That doesn't mean that there is also times that they don't need to see that, Hey, you're, you're vulnerable, that you have struggles just like the rest of us. And Hey, you know what? I'm struggling today. Can you help me? Right? Or, um, you know, and I think there's a lot more room for vulnerability within a healthy relationship, right? So whether that's with your spouse, with your kids, with, you know. With your friends, whatever, right? I, I do think one of the big problems we have in culture now is we expect our spouses to be everything for us, right? We, right? Because our world's got busy and we don't have as many outlets, we expect our spouse you know, to be our best friend, to be our outlet for everything that we have, to be our sexual partner, to be whatever. And sometimes your spouse just isn't capable of some of those roles, right? Like they, they're just people too. Just, and you're not that person. That your spouse needs in every situation either, right? It kind of goes both ways. So, trying to find other healthy outlets for some of these issues. Because sometimes, you know, I think, I think it was you that talked about it last time, that there's situations where you, you know, you say, said to your husband, well, hey, I'd like to talk about this. And he's like, not now. Right. And he just couldn't deal with it. And, and I think, you know, that happens in our relationship too, but you still have to have somewhere to go. Right. You still have to have somewhere to have an outlet. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that is true. I think there is a lot of pressure sometimes to, to be, to feel like, no, but you have to be everything for me. And that is, that is a lot. It is a lot, but on the other hand, I also see the value in stepping into the discomfort. Of the things that are uncomfortable to do in your marriage. Right. Like when it is, I mean, you and I discussed this before of this idea of like feeling like, you know, men are on this white horse and they can't fall off the horse, right? Yeah. It's like, actually it would be really good for more women to get more comfortable with their husband falling off the horse. Right? And yeah, so I, I think the re the way we got on that topic last time was and I wish I, I could find it, but there was, just a tick tock or a reel of a lady who wrote a book about this you know, for women being vulnerable and women kind of accepting that. And the guy kind of, he brought his wife and daughter to the book signing. And he asked the lady, you know, do you ever interview men? And she says, no, I don't, I don't really work with men. And he says, well, that's convenient. And then he says, says the lady, you see my wife and daughter, who you just signed a book for, they would rather see me die on my white horse than ever fall off. And I think we talked a little bit about how You know, our spouse or dad or whoever sometimes is that wall between us and the scary chaos that is the rest of the world. And so, yeah, it's terrifying to see that person fall off there or get off voluntarily get off their white horse, right? Like you, you expect them to be there your knight in shining armor and going. And be that wall between you and the rest of the world. Right. And so, um, you know, and that's kind of a little bit about this, where's room for vulnerability. Sometimes there, there isn't as much room as we would like as men, because we, we do need to be that wall between. The chaos of the world and our families, right? Yeah, but even sometimes maybe, and I don't know, but like, is it possible that just more honest conversation, like, I don't know what the white horse necessarily represents to everybody, but even being able to say, like, This is hard today. I'm gonna do it. Like, I'm getting up. I'm going to work. I'm going out there. I'm slaying the dragon. But I like, I feel blue today. I feel intimidated. I, whatever, like being able to, even, even though it's not going to change your action, it's like, can I tell my wife what is real for me? And even if that shakes her a little bit, that's okay, because it helps her actually learn to take care of herself a little more, maybe step up in a different way, and if nothing else, creates a little more intimacy in your marriage. I agree with that. I think that's a, a temptation we all fall prey to at times where we're like, you know what, like my wife's struggling or she's having a bad day. So I'm just gonna pretend everything's great. Right. And then you kind of get stuck in that where you, you know, you're not happy. You're, you know, and this goes back to, well, like one of the, one of the things I see happening so much with, with modern feminism is women are always clamoring for it. We want the right to work. We want the right. And men are sitting here on the other side. This sucks. That's why they gotta pay me to go to work.'cause I hate it. Right? And so you're thinking that this is some reward that I get, that I'm excited to get out, roll out of bed at 6:00 AM and, and you know, put on my work boots and go to this miserable job that I hate. I, you know. Mm-Hmm. And so for Ben to say, I don't like this, right? This isn't what I want to be doing. I'm doing this for you and the family, this is a sacrifice. I'm making like you say, it would bring the closer, the wives would understand a lot more. You know why he comes home at the end of the day and he doesn't want to do X or Y because like he's, he just had a long day doing stuff he doesn't want to do because, and he does it for you and the kids. And so when, when the wife says, Hey, you know, I really want to go on vacation. And he's like, well, I can't afford vacation. He's not, you know, he might act out, but it's because he's frustrated because of the fact that I'm doing the best I can. I'm sorry, I can't Also do do this, right? Yeah. So like you say expressing that a little bit Yeah, I'm gonna get up and go to work today, even though I really don't want to helps To help for the families to try and figure out and the relationship what each other is giving, right? Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I just think maybe a little more honesty is actually okay. I, I think in our minds, we're like, this is how I protect people. But I think we're actually really good at, at seeing what's happening for people. And so I think sometimes for a wife, you're watching and you know, like something's like not right here, but you can't pinpoint it because nothing's being said. And so I think sometimes just speaking the words, even though it does feel scary and vulnerable and maybe your wife is going to have a little freak out, right? And it's like, can I hold myself together while she kind of has a little freak out here because this is good for us to actually be in an honest relationship where, you know, it's not about. It's like me clinging to this white horse, even though I'm dying on top of it, right? It's like, I do think, you know, and that's something, you know, the, the white lies we tell all the time are a lot more detrimental than people realize. Right. And, and we tell white lies all the time because we think we're being kind, right? Like if your wife comes to you and says, Hey, do I look fat in this? I mean, you know, Yeah, it's a trap run. Right. But, but when you tell her that, yes, you look great, that's, that's to make your life easier. Because if you tell her, yeah, that, that dress doesn't fit you like it did last year, that's going to be an uncomfortable conversation. But I, but they do a lot more damage than we realize. A hundred percent. I agree. And I, I think we need to be, you know, that would be one of the things I would tell everybody. Stop telling white lies, right? Like I've seen, seen it go both ways, right? Like you see a lot of women who like, especially within our culture in the church They think that if they don't love raising little kids, that they're terrible people, right? And a lot of women don't, you know, it's not that they don't love their kids, but they don't particularly like little kids. And when they're stuck at home for, you know, 60, 70 hours a week with little kids, they're, they're miserable. And, but they don't ever feel like. They can say, Hey, this makes me miserable because that would say like to them, that would be like, well, I'm not a good mom. I'm not a good person. I'm, I'm a terrible Latter day Saint. If I don't love raising kids. Right. And on the flip side of that, like, this is the other thing is that. So for men, I remember this as a, when my kids were little I would love. Nice. My wife is amazing with little kids. Like, she loves little kids. She's the best mom ever. And I'm not. I'm not very patient. Although I love kids, I'm not particularly good with them. Right? So the, so the role of me going to work and providing for the family and her staying home with the kids is definitely what's best for the family. But I hated it. Right? Right? Like so, you know, when I was off working and I'm missing first steps, or I'm missing, you know, I remember missing Halloweens, missing birthdays, missing whatever, because I'm off trying to provide for my family. Like that's brutal, right? Like it kind of goes both ways. And if you're not having honest conversations about both sides of that, then no one, neither side realizes what the other is struggling with. Yes. A hundred percent. And I think we get competitive almost, right? Like whose life is harder. Right? And I, I've been in my own marriage for sure. And I see it in so many marriages where, you know, they, they are having these conversations and it's just this, like, who is suffering more right now? Because whoever that is, is the, is the best. They're the winner. Instead of just being like, Hey, What both of us are doing here is hard work and it's requiring a lot of us. And, but as a team, look what we're creating because we're both willing to sacrifice. Just like you were saying, right? Like we're creating something fantastic here. And I miss birthdays and my wife never gets a break from the kids. And These are, these are the sacrifices that we make to create this family that we want. And I just think if we could eliminate some of the competitiveness, but just like the, this feminist movement that I feel like has gone beyond feminism, right. It's created so much more competition. Yeah, it's kind of trained us to compete with men instead of looking and saying, how do we actually work well together and collaborate well by playing to our strengths to create something really amazing here. Well, the other big problem with the feminist movement is the lies it tells. Well, both sides, right? Women and men, right. But it's telling women that they're, you know, that their careers are going to bring them more joy. And it's, and it's also by enlarging men, that that's what you should be focusing on is that your careers are more important here. But, you know, we, We should be working to live, not living to work. Right. I mean, when you're 70 or 80, like my both my parents have passed away in the last couple of years. Right. And, you know, when we're and I was with both of my parents at the time of their passing, and neither one of them cared about work, right? Or what they'd accomplish in their career. My dad was a farmer and I spent the last, I don't know, probably four or five nights of his life, I spent in the hotel my mom would go, or in the hospital my mom would go go home and sleep and I would stay, stay the night with my dad. And I told him one morning, I said, Dad, like, I mean, you're going to die anyways. Like, if you want to go back to the farm, I'll figure out how to get you out of here, right? Like, I'll, I'll break you out, we'll go back to the farm and like you know, you can spend some of your last minutes there. And he said, you know, even though I love the farm, that's where I spent my whole life. He, he, he lived on the farm, the same farm as a kid that he had as an adult. Like he, you know, he loved it. He said, that's not what's important. Right. Like what's important is the people that are around, you know, me and my sister, brother and my mom. And I just found that really interesting that how little he cared about those worldly things at the, you know, at the end of his life. Right. It's a lesson, right? Like we can listen to the lesson or we can just wait and learn it ourselves when we're older and say, Oh, they were right. We get to say they're, they're probably right. Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, we've talked about some things, but what do you feel like when you look around, what are some ways that women can help men step more into. Healthy masculinity without saying to them, Hey, you need to be more masculine. Or this is, this is the part that I worry about, right. Coming off as this is the women's responsibility because it absolutely is not. But that's not what I'm saying either. I'm just saying that, like, I do feel like we impact each other. And so are there ways that we could at least make it easier? There you go. Exactly. Yeah. And so and I, I had this conversation a couple of times with my wife over the last week or two, and you know, I think the biggest thing that wives can do to help their husband, it comes, kind of comes down to any of the leadership principles, right? Is, is give them opportunity, back off, give them enough space and opportunity to make mistakes. And then, and then praise them when they do well, right? So, it's just like our kids, right? Like, if you, if you take your kid and you just say, you know, do this, this, this, and this, they don't really ever learn anything, right? You say, hey, like, go, I need you to go take care of the yard, they're going to make mistakes. Like, the first few times they mow the lawn, it's going to look terrible, right? But, but the failure is part of the process. Okay. Yeah. And then when they do a good job, you're like, wow, that was fantastic. Great. And then they start to learn. I don't think we realize, and maybe, you know, I've never been a woman, so I don't know what feelings are, but I know as a man. I get almost no, in my life, I, I get almost no positive feedback, right? I get a lot of negative feedback, but I, you know, like when, when I get positive feedback, like I'll write it in, like, I'll make a note of it. Like it just doesn't happen, right? Like it's, you get, you know, in work you get, well, and I'm probably a little different cause I've never had a boss. I've always worked for myself. So I've never had, you're not patting yourself on the back, are you? Yeah. There's no way to pat me on the back and say, Hey, job today. But, but as men, we get very little positive feedback. So I, I mean, I think a little bit you know, give your husband's room to make mistakes. And then when they. Do what? What works for you then? Then let'em know. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. I love that. Okay, so a little more praise now. Like we've talked about women being a lot in their children's lives, which I don't think is bad because I'm like, this is how this is. You know, moms have these little kids. Dads are off at work often. Not all the time. But certainly, you know, are there things you feel like as mothers, we can help our sons? kind of develop into, you know, just kind of embracing their, their masculine energy, their masculinity in a way that is good instead of maybe hindering some of that. Yeah, I, I definitely do. This is something I'm, I'm actually quite passionate about you know, helping people understand, you know, men and women. I mean, more, my world is a little bit more helping the men, but you know, when, when kids are little, I mean, they need their mom, right? Like they're solely independent, they're dependent on their, on somebody around them. They can't do anything for themselves, right? As they get older they need You know, they need more responsibility. Right. So and some of that is, is really easy. Right. You know, if you want to encourage your, your son to be more masculine, Hey, help me with the groceries. They're heavy. Right. And then all of a sudden he, like, he's proud of that. Hey, you know what? Like I stepped up, I helped mom. Like my oldest boy, like he was a huge kid. I don't know where to get my wife. Well, you're You live just down the street from my sister in law. So, you know, how small their family is. Yes My wife's tiny and i'm not a huge guy either But my oldest son like he's a monster like and so even as a kid And so my wife would get him all the time. Hey, come help me lift this come help Even when he was like seven or eight he was out and you know that for him was a really good. Hey, like i'm You You know, I'm manly. I'm, I'm strong. I'm, I'm, I'm actually of use to the world. Right. Yeah. The other thing is not like, if you criticize, like we talked about before. So like boys in school, right. They don't learn like girls. So if your son, if you're trying to, so the story I always tell is we were, I remember doing family home evening one time. And this is when we only had three kids. We had my daughter, my oldest is a girl, and then we had two boys, and then we've got two girls at the end, almost like, almost like a second family. They're quite, the girls at the end are quite a bit younger. Yeah. So we had, just had the oldest three, and like, especially my younger son, like, he was jumping off the couches, and he's running around, and I'm like, Like, I remember thinking, what, like, why am I doing this? This is nonsense. Like they're getting zero out of this. What a waste of time. And then at the end, my wife asked a question and my son knew every answer. He, he got everything. He knew everything that had been going on. Right. But he, like I say, I don't think he sat down the entire time we talked about it. And so, you know, realizing that, you know, let your boys Learn how they learn. Don't don't think that they need to learn. The way that everybody else learned. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So good. Yeah. I think that is so, so good. So I love those suggestions. I know we also had talked about kind of protecting our, our Maybe doing too much for our boys. I mean, I think we do do much for our girls. My daughter, my daughter has a two year old and when she finally gave her a spoon to feed herself her own cereal, my daughter was like, oh my goodness, this is terrible. I was like, listen, you're just uncomfortable with a mess. But the more you help her, the longer this is going to take her to do. So if you'll just let her feed herself, no matter the mess this is going to make, right, the better off you're both going to be in the long run, because you don't want to be spoon feeding this girl forever. And oh, yeah, but it's so, so much of what we try and control with our kids is because we're uncomfortable. I don't want to watch them do it this way. Exactly. And women, for whatever reason, their makeup is a little, they're a little less comfortable with that than dads, right? Like moms generally, like dads have a little easier time letting their kids make mistakes and figure things out, right? I don't know why that is, but moms generally have more of a tendency to be like, no, I'm just going to take over and get through it. Right. Yeah. So the other thing, and it goes really in close with this, is this idea of repression, right? So. We so like I call it the the gateway fallacy Like you've all heard of gateway drugs. Yeah, like yeah, you know, so everybody the idea And it's a terrible like it and actually it's a it's a really logical Concept it just happens to be completely true right the idea that if you take Caffeine or cannabis that, you know, that's the gateway to being on heroin or crack, right? And in entire countries, most of the Western world has built their entire drug policy around this this gateway fallacy and it just proves not to be true, right? And so we tend to, and for whatever reason, it's a little more, the idea is stuck around longer through religious groups than it has through the rest of the society. But so when you talk about your, your sons repressing their aggression or their anger or whatever is actually going to be, is going to cause it to come out in more unhealthy ways. Oh, okay. Right? So, if you give your kids healthy outlets, and, and whether this is boys or girls, right? Like, if your, if your kid is competitive, if your kid's aggressive, if your kid's you know, whatever and you try and repress that they're going to like, it's going to find unhealthy ways to man itself. Manifest itself, right? Like, that's the whole idea behind the movie fight club, right? Is he was so repressed over so many years that. He goes into a disassociated state and then ruins his whole life, right? Right. That's, that's an extreme example, right? But I think that's one of the things that we, as parents, that's one of our biggest jobs is helping our children find healthy ways to excel healthy outlets for their skills or their, right. Whether that's sports, whether that's, you know, outdoorsmanship, whether that's you know, some kids are really into art and math, right? Like, like the best artists in the world are like a little bit of their art is quite disturbing, right? The best musicians in the world, like you listen to the lyric, like I, I really got into this. sO there's a theory that music has gotten more unhealthy. So, so the, the, your favorite songs will tell you what your attachment style is. And so if you listen to the songs, they, and listen to the lyrics. And so I went back and listened to songs that I you know, liked throughout my entire life and started listening to the message. And I was like, wow, yeah, that's, I have an unhealthy attachment style. And the, and songs was an unhealthy attachment style of actually increased over the last. X number of years, right? And we were having more and more troubles, right? And so these, this idea that we, we need to give people outlets for those, they don't come out in unhealthy ways and helping our kids, I think is probably one of our most important jobs as parents, right? Helping them develop their skills. Right. Yeah. So really it sounds like. If we want them to be dangerous, but under control, we have to like be teaching that as, as they're little of how to like. Like, how can you express this without hitting your sister over the head or whatever, right? Like, how, how can we kind of channel this in a way? Because obviously there is meant to be self control. There is meant to be lessons learned. But yeah, I kind of, I like what you're saying of just, you know, really, If we want them to grow up to have, to be healthy men with healthy masculinity, it's something that we need to start in our homes, kind of helping them develop this like control, but not repressed. Yes. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So good. So good. I cannot thank you enough for coming on today and sharing. All of this just because I just think it's good for most of my listeners are women, not all of them, but just to be able to hear a little bit of a man's perspective, even just you saying like, I just get such little praise was so impactful for me to hear I was like, Oh, Yeah. Like, because I have talked recently on my podcast about cherishing and the idea of really cherishing your spouse and what that feels like to be cherished. And when you were talking, I was like, yeah, there just needs to be more like praise and love and just, you know, love. outward vocalizing of, of how good your husband is to him and the impact of that. So is there one, any one last thing you want to share before we kind of end here? yeah, I mean, the biggest thing I would say is, you know, like you say, most of your listeners are women, right? And so Just that idea of encouragement to men, right? Like, like just what you were sharing before, that that was impactful, that encouraging your husbands, your sons rather than discouraging them, you know I think is probably the, the biggest difference that women can make in the life of men, right? There's such a culture. aRound this toxic masculinity that we need to tell men all the things they're doing wrong, but we very rarely tell them what they're doing well, or what we appreciate about them. Yeah, so so good. I thank you so much for coming on today. If people want to reach out to you or they want to listen to your podcast, what are the best ways for people to really hear more of what you have to say? Is the podcast the best way? Do you have other means? Yeah, so my podcast is Abraham's Son's 52. Yeah, it's on most of the major platforms. I haven't figured out how to get it up on Apple Music yet, but all all the other major platforms it's on. Okay. And I'm on Twitter. Okay. I'm on Facebook through, same thing. Abraham's Son's 52. Okay. So you can reach out through those platforms or, you know, you can email me at john at ripleyconstruction, full word, dot ca. Okay. I will link all of that in the show notes so that everyone can find that if they want to. John, thank you so, so much for coming on. I so appreciate this conversation and hopefully we'll talk again. Yeah, no, that's exciting. Thank you very much for having me. Thanks. Thanks for listening today. If you like what you hear on the podcast, and you'd like to learn more, feel free to head over to my website. Jamilin Stephan coaching.com or find me on Instagram or Facebook at Jamileh. step in coaching.