Death By Adulting
A podcast focused on helping you make decisions today that you won't regret tomorrow. Hosted by Dr. Steve and Megan Scheibner. The Scheibners share wisdom and advice regarding marriage, parenting, dating, communication and even sex.
Death By Adulting
Nurturing Connection the Otter Way and the Impact of Positive Language
Discover the unexpected lesson otters teach us about nurturing closeness in our relationships as Megan and I, along with our insightful guests, explore the significance of maintaining contact and the transformative power of touch. Embrace the cozy bedtime habits of these hand-holding creatures to unlock a deeper connection with your partner. This episode is a treasure trove of strategies for enhancing intimacy, from the importance of non-sexual touch and intentional communication to the art of appreciation and the joy of spiritual growth.
Dive into the art of continuous learning about each other and how it keeps the spark alive in a thriving relationship. You'll learn why differences between partners aren't just acceptable—they're essential. We discuss how a simple shift in language, from 'have to' to 'get to', can infuse your daily routine with 'betterness' and positivity. Join us as we unwrap the importance of eager participation in spiritual growth and its impact on familial dynamics, challenging the prevalent victim mentality with the power of gratitude and mindset transformation.
Wrapping up, we debate the whimsical: what we would do if crowned emperor for a day. We tackle the irritations of air travel, share anecdotes about nostalgic tunes, and revel in the simple joy of life's small wonders—like a photo of otters holding paws. Plus, Megan shares her ultimate tip for mastering adulting with intentional planning and a robust morning routine. Stay tuned for an engaging journey through the trials and triumphs of grown-up life on Death by Adulting, where humor meets wisdom and the ordinary becomes extraordinary.
on this episode of death by adulting. First up, we will discover how this amazing bedtime routine of otters can improve our intimacy and sex lives. Next, megan will show us how one simple change in our lives can help us replace bitterness with betterness. Who writes this stuff? Then Steve shares how adulting would be more enjoyable if he were emperor for a day. And, last but not least, megan's adulting boss tip of the day, plus much, much more. Roll the intro.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Death by Adulting. It's me, your host, Megan Scheibner, again with my co-host and flyboy extraordinaire, Dr Steve Scheibner. How's it going today, Dr Steve?
Speaker 1:Very doctorly today, very doctorly yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's great. Well, again, you gave us some great intros that I'm dying to hear about More trivia from the animal world.
Speaker 1:Yes, more trivia from the animal world, but this one is really. It's super cute. For one thing, how can you go wrong with otters? Okay, I mean, otters are the most adorable little creatures there are on the planet and, by the way, I have to add, isn't she adorable today? Look at her, look at me. She's just absolutely adorable. So the word for the day is adorable Okay, yeah, but you, you are. I mean, yes, it's the new do. Okay, all right, very good. So, yeah, we're going to talk about otters and some other stuff. You got a boss tip of the day.
Speaker 2:I am very bossy.
Speaker 1:All right, you are very bossy? All right. Well, let's do this. I said last episode that I just really dislike podcasts where they talk for 20 minutes after the tease and then don't get into the first point until 20 minutes into it and all of us are busy. We want to get to all this stuff, so let's jump right into, and I'm gonna. I gotta queue up a picture here first, all right. So let me just kind of talk and chat for a second, because I wasn't completely prepared for this, but I want to show you, I think, what is just absolutely the key word today adorable. Okay, all right. So let me bring. Let me bring this up for our audience. Right here we go. All right, there's picture. Isn't that just the cutest thing you ever saw?
Speaker 1:It's two little otters, and what is it that otters have to teach us about? A better sex life and better intimacy? Well, I want you to look at what they're doing. They're holding the hands. Okay, now, this isn't as simple as just holding hands. They're actually sleeping, and one of the things that otters do when they sleep is they hold hands. Why do they hold hands, you might ask. I'm asking why do they hold hands? Good question, so that they don't float away. They don't float away. I mean, is that a metaphor or what for a good relationship, right? So we talk about adulting and adult relationships and having a relationship that lasts, and all that stuff. Holding hands so we don't float away is just ripe. If I was a preacher which I was in my former life that'll really preach. That'll really preach, right? So that's some wonderful stuff. So again, otters absolutely adorable, but they teach us something from the animal world that is absolutely wonderful for all of us. And so what we want to do now is let's talk about honey, let's talk about three things that make us adorable, no, three things that we can learn from otters that will help improve intimacy, because one of the things I want to set up for right now is the idea that a lot of us get way off base with our sex lives.
Speaker 1:Now, you and I counsel a lot, we do a lot Right, and how many people have we counseled over the last 30 years? Hundreds, maybe, even over a thousand. It's been a lot of people over the decades, and one of the things that we're discovering with couples and it's not just older couples either, it's younger couples, almost more shockingly is couples in their mid twenties that, uh, they'll come in for counseling. They're having some difficulty in their relationship. Eventually, we will, you know, ask them a question about how is their sex life, and we'll say something like how often do you guys have sex? And you get this. There's kind of a scratching of the head like this, and then they go well, I don't, do you remember, maybe six weeks ago? I don't, they can't remember the last time, I think February, and it's just almost out of like a primal need that they have after every six weeks. And it's like you've got to be kidding me, you guys. First of all, you look like Ken and Barbie.
Speaker 2:Second of all, when I was that age, okay, let's not get into it, but you ought to be hooking up often and what we're really hearing around the counseling table, no matter what the age, but I would say, especially with younger couples, is that intimacy in the sexual relation has become a second, a selfish thing. They don't ever talk about oneness, and it's well for me right it's.
Speaker 1:It's always from a what I get out of it perspective.
Speaker 2:There's never a what I give perspective or between intimacy and sex, together feeling well, maybe we could really be great friends and we just skip that part.
Speaker 1:So over the years then we started digging into and doing our due diligence research on what was it that was causing this disconnect in younger couples, and there's a lot of reasons. There's a whole bunch of science on testosterone and how testosterone levels are plummeting, and in all ages, and they've been plummeting for the last 90 years. That's a whole nother topic, probably for for another day. We'll come back at that some other time. But they the uh. The bigger issue is there's no intimacy. The couple has already, in the first couple of years of marriage, kind of grown apart. Um, they're talking at each other, not to each other. They're not doing things.
Speaker 1:When they were dating, right, they were doing things to invest in the relationship. Now they've gotten married, they get distracted by their careers, by other things. They get tired when they come home from work. And then you throw children into the mix and, oh my word, now you're really tired, you're exhausted, and the first thing to go is any sort of intimate relationship that they have with one another, and it's, it's a shame yes, and really that's what the picture of the otters is all about, you know, if it's keeping them from drifting apart, and and it's more than just a metaphor.
Speaker 1:I mean when we get married.
Speaker 2:Scripture makes it clear we're to leave and cleave right, how does? Leave and cleave drift apart. Well, it does, and it shows up in. You know, we're sitting at opposite ends of the couch and we're on our phones, and one's going to bed at nine and one's going to bed at one, and there there is.
Speaker 1:It's just this drifting apart that shouldn't be, right, and and we've got energy for everything else except for each other, right? So one of the things you and I taught each other many years ago, and we teach a lot of couples now, is save a little energy for each other, right, and, and you know it's kind of. You know, if you're going to bring up the subject of intimacy or sexual intimacy, you know, and and with a. It's an awkward conversation. I'm even having a hard time figuring out the words to use right now, because how do you, you know, do you just go up to your spouse and say, hey, I don't want to have sex later? You know what I mean. Come on, you know, let's be a little romantical about this thing. So one of the one of the things that you and I have learned over the years is hey, are you going to save some energy for me later? Right, that's code, and it's also very helpful around the children when they're, you know, of a age that they don't smoke.
Speaker 1:Signals right yeah, what does that mean? It means, oh him, him being, he want him to have sex later. You know, geez sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry for that image, but it is so, save some energy for for each other we're not the only ones seeing this problem.
Speaker 2:You know harvard, which you know is the hotbed of studies in 2020. They have a journal called the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, and what they found was that couples that practice what the otters do, so kind of non-sexual touch hugging, holding hands, embracing as they pass one another couples that did that had a much higher level of satisfaction in their intimacy and sex life. And, and so there's this disconnect of well, everything either is sexual or non-sexual and they don't go together.
Speaker 1:But how we respond and react with one another non-sexually is what really builds our sex life right, and so the actual act, or the enjoyment of the actual act, is deepened and made far better by the things that you wouldn't think of immediately.
Speaker 1:It's not how good a lover you are or how great a performer you are in bed. It really has to do with the connection between the couple, and that would be spiritual and emotional connection, right, if you're, you know, angry with each other or upset with each other, or haven't spoken to each other, or sideways with each other, however you want to put it. Um, you know, you can go through the act and is it enjoyable? Sure, but it's not the same right as if there's the intimacy there, right, and so one of the things that we really miss out on is how to develop that, that intimacy. So let's go back to the picture, because it's so darn cute. All right, what are we going to learn from this picture? These two are looking out for each other. They've they've developed a routine that will help each other, not drift away from the other person there's intentionality in that intentionality in that.
Speaker 1:So we think we have three things that will help you be more like an otter yeah, okay, right, not only are you a happy slapper from our last episode from the from the penguin episode. So so number one, number one on our list is what you and I call talk time. Now we wrote a book called talk time and it's 60 days of devotions that that people of faith have, where they just open up their Bible and they spend 15 minutes discussing a Bible passage together Simple.
Speaker 2:Find out if you're on the same page.
Speaker 1:Right, and, by the way, if you're interested in any of our resources, megan and I have written a lot of books and studies, and you name it, it's all available at characterhealthcom. And, and you name it, it's all available at characterhealthcom, and that's above Megan's head over there.
Speaker 2:Same with our counseling. You mentioned that we counsel.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And if that's something that you're like whoa, maybe we need that.
Speaker 1:Characterhealthcom. Just click on the Contact Us tab and send us a note. It comes straight to us. There's nobody in between. It comes right to Steve and Megan. So again, those are how you get the resources.
Speaker 1:But talk time is a valuable little resource. But even if you don't get the talk time book, spend 15 minutes whoever comes home from work last. If you're a stay at home mom, great, you know. Dad comes home and then have 15 minutes. No children invited or involved in this process. Give the kids something else to do. This is a time to put them in front of the video. You do that all day anyway. All right, that's another topic for another day.
Speaker 1:But you know, have the kids go and then you two sit on the couch or sit, but don't be doing some other activity while you're trying to talk. Let's get caught up. Let's devote 15 minutes to one another and don't bring up controversial subjects to. You know, don't hand one another a list of things that the kids did wrong and they got to get disciplined for, stuff that has to get fixed in the house or things that are bills. You know, don't, don't get into any of those. Come up with some topics that help you study one another, right, and we're going to talk about that in just a minute. So again, 15 minutes. And if you would do that every single day, oh my word, the intimacy and the closeness and the, the, the females, especially the women, will feel very secure and from security, gentlemen, good things happen. Okay, you with me on that, good things happen. So you want your, your woman, to feel secure in the relationship, and that's emotionally and spiritually. 15 minutes of talk time every day, great Two thoughts on the talk time.
Speaker 2:One is you might enjoy it, right? Sometimes, when we share this with couples, they're like oh 15 minutes of talking to each other.
Speaker 2:And you know you might like it so much, you go 20. So that's number one. Number two is this you know we mentioned it, or Steve mentioned it with parents, but you would need to start this when you have no children in the house. Rather than coming in and, honestly, the wife going and getting on social media and the man going to his room playing video games no, no, spend 15 minutes together, reconnecting as a couple, ask each other good questions yeah, and put those phones away.
Speaker 1:Oh my word. Turn the tv off it's playing in the background and put those things away right there, the absolute death of everything, and maybe hold hands like the others and hold hands like the others. Okay, so that's tip number one. We got three. What's number two?
Speaker 2:Number two is date night, and this is whether you have kids or not, because, again, it's really easy as a couple to go. Well, it's just us two all the time. It's like a date every night. No, it's not, especially for the woman, right? She wants to go on a date, so go on dates with one another.
Speaker 2:The best dates are when you're married especially if you have kids, because you get to leave the house, you get to leave them behind, you don't have to tuck them in. But there are some rules for dating, because there's good dates, there's mediocre dates and there's really bad dates, and we want you to have good dates. So here are the three rules for dating that we have instituted and and I swear, we'll know if you don't do it we.
Speaker 1:We will know because we're on the internet, yes, and we watch you all the time, like google yes, rule number one is this a date is you and your spouse.
Speaker 2:If you have kids, it does not include your children. If you include your children, that's called a family outing. We're not talking about family outing, we're talking about spouse on spouse relationship. So that's rule number one. Rule number two is this it needs to be mutually enjoyable to both people. Don't look at me. I may have planned a couple of things that were not mutually enjoyable.
Speaker 1:Hold on, what are you going to say?
Speaker 2:A couple of things I've planned that were not mutually enjoyable to both of us. So like, such as uh, like going to a tea room. Perhaps steve didn't enjoy that as much as I did why don't you explain about the tea room, honey? It was lovely. It had little hard chairs and little doilies and little cups and and then we tried to eat food there and it was what?
Speaker 1:Little like munchkin food on a little thing with toothpicks. It was the atmosphere.
Speaker 2:It was the atmosphere, so find something that you both like to do.
Speaker 1:But why is it that women like uncomfortable things? Right?
Speaker 2:Little tiny chairs are perfect for women, right. Find things you enjoy doing together, and you know what that might be different than when you were first dating. It may have changed for Steve and I. Often at sporting events, we both we both love baseball. Find what it is that you enjoy and go do it together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, can I tell the story? I love, I love this woman. I absolutely love this woman, and when we were um, it was our 30th anniversary, right?
Speaker 1:I wonder what story it was no, no, it was our 30th anniversary and, uh, I had saved up a bunch of money. Uh, not a lot. No-transcript. Yeah, I guess we could do that. You know, it was like a tepid response to the cruise, and partly because we've never been, so we don't know what it's like. But the other part was she loves the Boston Red Sox and so do I. All right, this is a great woman, oh my God, right. So I said, or we could spend the equivalent amount of money and we could go to Fenway Park for an entire week. And she was like Fenway, here we come. Yes, all right.
Speaker 1:And so we went five nights in a row and we, we sat in all the good seats and I went next to the dugout, another one up in the emperor section, where they fight. We saw a fight one night. That's my favorite player, oh, my word, that's the best. When, when, you know, and what's a baseball fight, right, you know, everybody runs out and they shove each other a little bit and there's a little bit of slapping and some name calling, and and then somebody holds somebody back and they're like, don't he better not let me go, because I'm gonna come and get you, you know? You know I loved it all right. So, yeah, what was the point? So?
Speaker 1:five things that you both love to do point number two uh, oh, no one more.
Speaker 2:One more for dates, right?
Speaker 2:one more rule for dates, and that's this. A date needs to be a minimum of three hours. Now for the you firstborns out there. It can be longer than three hours, that's fine, but not less than three hours. And here's why, gentlemen, if it's less than three hours, that first hour and a half especially those of you with children your wife is still a mom and she's thinking. You know, did the babysitter feed the kids? Did everyone eat? Does she know where everyone is? Did she give them a bath? I hope no one drowned. Did I leave my curling iron on Right? Her brain is back in mom mode and take care of the house mode. But at the hour and a half point it's kind of magical. Almost You'll watch your wife turn the corner and she goes from being a mom and a home keeper to being a wife. And when she becomes a wife, good things happen.
Speaker 1:Good things happen. Are you with me on this? Okay, you want this to happen. That's why they're three hours. They otter happen. Oh, they otter happen. Wow, all right, that was very punny, thank you, very punny. You get the. You get score one. We're going to keep a score on the back wall of the best puns that Megan has shared. All right, so those are the three things that go into date night. What's the final? The third thing that is going to help with the intimacy that's going to lead to the better sex.
Speaker 2:Well, this seems like really obvious, but it's an intentional thing. We have to study our spouse right. What's enjoyable for me might not be enjoyable for someone else. What's enjoyable for you might not be enjoyable for someone else. What's enjoyable for you might not be enjoyable for another husband. It isn't that we read books and we go oh, every husband would love this. It's we've got to study our spouse, the one God gave us, to figure out kind of what floats their boat.
Speaker 1:So elaborate on that a little bit. What do you mean by study?
Speaker 2:Ask good questions. Observe what brings joy to your spouse's life. Observe what gets them excited, right? Like you know, things that get me excited uh, organizing things gets me excited, right? So every once in a while Steve will just say to me hey, we're going to be in the area. Do you want to go by the container store?
Speaker 1:And right, so let's, let me just play devil's advocate for a minute, instead of teasing you and deriding you and being sarcastic about the things that you like that I don't share. Right, and I could. If, if, if the world, if the world were, were led by men and only men cannibals megan thinks we would be cannibalistic.
Speaker 1:That might be true or not, but there would be piles of everything all over the place and nothing would be organized and we would know where 20 to 30 percent of everything is at most times and almost everything would smell bad and I I can't argue with her about that. But but having said that, um, it's not ruled by men and it's not run by men, and that's a good thing. And so the idea that I might not share an interest or a like in you, but I've got to study that because I can be a blessing to you if I embrace it, even if I don't like it or share it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and even beyond that. You kind of touched on this. Maybe it's not like a hobby I like or something like that, but things that are important to me. You know, we have really tried to live by the axiom of if it's important to you, now it's important to me and vice versa, and some of those things are quirky right. And we have a choice. We can belittle and make fun of or we can say you know what this is important to my spouse.
Speaker 1:So that's a key takeaway from this episode is what's important to you needs to be important to me, and vice versa. So we need to be a student of what's important to the other person, and if you work at enriching and adding to and allowing the other person to enjoy the thing that they enjoy, then that's going to enrich both of you. It's a, it's an others oriented approach, instead of a me, me, me. It's a you, you, you approach and that. And when you talk about intimacy and a sex life, it really ought to be about you, you, you, not me, me, me. Right, we're in this world that sells us a bill of goods that is destructive.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so many of those things that we would choose to kind of mock with one another. I'll give you an example I can't sleep with any light in the room, including the smoke detector lights from a phone. We travel a lot.
Speaker 2:Every hotel has microwaves and in the beginning Steve was like like it's not that big a deal and I was like it is. I think I have thin eyelids, I don't know, but I can't sleep with that kind of light. And now he goes into the hotel room and he puts towels over the microwave, covers the lights where he could mock me and tell me to get over it. One of the key things in a marriage relationship and when we remember this, it helps with closeness, unity, intimacy is different Isn't wrong, different is just different. So just because something that bothers him doesn't bother me Doesn't mean that he's wrong. Just because something that is important to me isn important to him doesn't mean I'm wrong. It's just different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great takeaway. Different isn't wrong, it's just different, all right. And so you know, maturity, I think, in a little bit of wisdom and age, will help you with that. But a lot of our younger couples that we counsel, they, they don't help one another with that, it's always what's in it for me and, and they don't help one another with that. It's always what's in it for me and uh, and they don't become students of each other, which is a shame because, uh, they were students of each other when they were dating or courting or what we call dording.
Speaker 1:You know, we call it, we actually call it the advertising phase, right, when, uh, the, the well, the women had long hair and the guys were on their best behavior and they, you held the door open for her and all that kind of stuff, right and. But you were asking you guys, right, I know what you're doing You're asking other guys and you were asking their, your wife's, future wife's girlfriends about her. What does she like, what doesn't she like? Is she into me, does you of stuff? You were doing all of your study and research on who she was and what she thought and what she liked, and then you were making a course change to fill all those needs, right.
Speaker 1:And then what happened? After you got married, you stopped doing all that right, because the challenge is over. It's a challenge is over. And then you sit there on your phone all day long. You sit there zipping through the channels, guys, you got to continue to date that woman. You got to woo her for the rest of your life. And if you do, if you do, good things will happen. Are you with me?
Speaker 2:Okay, and I think maybe especially as Christians, we have to be careful because it's easy, like I said, to kind of study the wife or the husband, and if you look on any social media platform, you're gonna see lots of advice for what men like and, and men can go and look at sites and the ten things that are great for a woman. That's a generic person. You're responsible for your person and so you have to study your person, not a you don't. You know, ladies, don't read a book and go. Well, it said, every husband wants this. Maybe not so much. So right, find out what's important to your husband. Husbands. Find out what's important to your wife.
Speaker 1:Okay. So we had talk time 15 minutes when you come home from work yeah, no, kids, we had date night and the three things that go into date night Right. And then we had um study your spouse, yeah right. Or your significant other, and all that works. It's to your benefit and you're good. All right, that's good, that's a. That's a good first point, all right now, uh, megan, in the teas, uh, I, I said you were going to help us replace bitterness with betterness. Yeah, okay, okay. And who writes this stuff? She does, all right, but bitterness with betterness what?
Speaker 2:So in our last episode you were talking about the, the really kind of key adulting point, which is you don't have to like it, you just have to do it. So. So we've got that foundation. We have to do things correct. But there's a difference in how we do things. When we can change our attitude from I have to to I get to Just even say something out loud. I have to pick up the kids from school today, I get to pick up the kids from school today.
Speaker 1:There's a lightness that goes with get and there's a heaviness that goes with have heaviness that goes with have talk about and you don't talk about it right this minute. But let's not get off this subject and we talk until we talk about this movement now about default parenting. All right, let me just plant that seed and you keep, you keep going all right, I'll have to not be angry while I'm talking about it, right?
Speaker 2:um, so one of the things that, uh, honestly it was one of your sermons years and years ago, but that we have lived out as much as we can is that we're to be eager participants in our own spiritual growth. And so, if you think about it, the difference between get to and have to is the difference between eagerness and willingness, or even sometimes unwillingly, being dragged to what you have to do. And, as believers, everything we do we're going to do excellently is unto the Lord. And so are you eager about the things you get to do, because when you do things with a get attitude, there's joy. Right, I get to do this, and joy comes from serving others, and a lack of joy comes from feeling like we're forced to serve others, and so it really is just a shift in mindset.
Speaker 2:And, steve, you mentioned this whole thing with default parenting. And, steve, you know, as parenting teachers we travel the country teaching parenting. I have done a lot of study on all the different parenting paradigms they're called. You know whether it's the permissive parent, or the snowplow parent, or the resume parent, who's just making sure their kids can get into a good college, the hover parent who's like following them around making sure they don't get hurt, and most of those paradigms I honestly have been kind of just bemused by, like that's a. That's not a good paradigm, but I think kids are resilient enough to overcome their parents' foolish choices. This one I'm not so sure.
Speaker 2:This whole default parenting culture that is being promoted on social media and in books is devastating to children. And the default parenting culture is this it's that there's one spouse who's stuck doing the majority of the home things. So whether it's picking up kids from soccer practice or paying the bills because the other spouse is gone at work more, or they have to be the ones who do the doctor appointments or who order the groceries or whatever it is, there's's this attitude of well, because they're off doing something else by default, I'm stuck here being the primary parent, and that is absolutely devastating to children. Because, steve, if you're a child and the attitude in your home and you even hear your mom say it maybe's making a tiktok video about it, about you know, as the default parent, no one notices I do this. What does that say to a child?
Speaker 1:well, it sends a horrible message. It to me it's the equivalent of, uh, getting picked last at a game, okay, so you're out with your, your little friends, and they pick captains, right, and then they pick everybody and you're sitting there going oh, please don't make me last, please don't make me last. And it sends a message to your children that they're a nuisance, they're an afterthought, they're the default.
Speaker 1:Instead of I get to do this, I have to do this and I sure don't do it excellently, and I don't want to do this, and I and you know what a terrible message to communicate to your children. It on the, on the, the lowest level it communicates.
Speaker 2:I don't really want, I'm sorry, I had you yeah and this is the, this is the um, the perversion of our minds. Because I, you know, I honestly I know a lot of the young moms that are posting these videos, and there are young moms that we prayed for for years that they could have children, they struggled to have children, they finally have a child and now they're declaring themselves a default parent and and shame on us.
Speaker 1:Well, I think. I think one of the things that drives us is the victim culture that we live in. Right'm going to write a book on that someday, about the victim culture and how it's just destroying us. Because Romans 12, 2, great Bible versus the New Testament. It says don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And that's an ongoing, day by day, minute by minute, hour by hour thing. We're to be growing and changing and becoming better people.
Speaker 1:Okay, but the world is trying to conform us and squeeze us into a mold. What's that mold? It's trying to squeeze us into the mold of a victim. We stumble over each other these days, creating new victim statuses. All you got to do is watch cable TV at night and every program is about you know how. Everybody is a victim and we ought to reach out to the government to help us, because we're all victims and it's just sickening and we buy into it and it's the most debilitating thing and it ends up in stuff like default parenting yeah, and really the the antidote to it is gratitude.
Speaker 2:you know, I one of the things that comes up often in the default parenting is just because he makes more money, he's out of the house more. Well, there's a different way to look at that, which is wow, I'm so grateful I get to be home because my husband works so hard and gets so much money. Right, we have to transform our minds. We have to take them and abandon the cultural norms to embrace the biblical norms.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and in all disclosure, we had the blessing and the privilege of me being able to be the primary breadwinner and you got to stay home with the kids, yeah, which I thought was wonderful, but it was a mutually agreed to thing, it was, and I would never. I would never change places with her. Her job was a thousand times harder than mine. A couple of times you went away for like two or three days. Oh my word, right, I'm not wired for that. It was the hardest three days of my entire life. They didn't have enough duct tape to fix everything that I could have fixed with the duct tape. Just joking, but you know what? I was not wired for that, and I was so glad to see her come home. So anybody that goes oh, you're just a stay-at-home mom. Oh, my word, don't try to change places with a stay-at-home mom. If you do it right, it's a lot of work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm sure we'll get to this on another episode, but it's okay to embrace the role you're in, it's okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's okay If both of you have jobs, that's okay too. But don't do this default thing where you know your kids get picked last.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you're going to do permanent damage you are absolutely going to do permanent damage. So the takeaway from this is then get out of the have to mentality and get into the get to mentality. I get to serve you. I get to be the dad in this family. I get to do some hard things at times that are very rewarding, and be eager about it, and but I you know what. I signed up for this right. I asked you to marry me. We decided to have children. Nobody nobody signed me up for this. I signed myself up for it, so I embrace it.
Speaker 2:Can I define eager and willing a little bit Because, I sure Because.
Speaker 2:I'm using that term and you may be thinking well, what's the difference between eager and willing? Right In our kids it's really hard to see the difference between eager and willing. Let me give you an example. Say, for example, you're nine months pregnant and you trip over air and break your ankle. I might know someone personally who did that and her name is Megan right. And so that happened.
Speaker 2:Two weeks before I delivered I was laid up on the couch with my leg in the air, broken leg and hugely pregnant. I had willing friends who called me and said if you need anything, let me know. And I never called them because the onus was on me and you don't want to be the person who's always asking for help. That's unnatural and none of us want to be that really needy person. But then I had other friends who called me and said I'm bringing a meal for tonight. I've got a couple to put in your freezer. I'm planning on scrubbing your toilets. If there's anything else, please have it written down when I get there. That's an eager friend and that's who we ought to be with everything that we do. It's that eager participants in our own spiritual growth. No one can make you be joyful about the things you get to do, but you can choose to be joyful about them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's that. That's absolutely right and that's a good assessment of all of that, all right, well, you want to move on to my soapbox. No, it's a good soapbox. I mean, that's why we're doing this, and I think a big part of what we're doing is trying to share wisdom, maturity and experience, and you can't just manufacture that.
Speaker 2:It takes time to get that, but you can also instill it or offer it up to a younger generation, and one of our biggest goals is to help you make decisions today that you won't regret tomorrow, and these default decisions you'll regret tomorrow.
Speaker 1:I promise. Yeah, absolutely, that's well said. Okay, now, the world would be a better place if Steve were emperor for a day. Okay, and there's a lot of things that I would change. But I think there's so many different topics on what I could talk about if I were to change the world. And we're not just talking about negative things, like things that you would do away with, but things that would be positive changes and, in the comments section below, share with us, be decent about it, don't be. You know, I wish you guys weren't on the air. If I was emperor for a day, I'd get rid of you two. All right, no negativity here, please. Yes, just be kind and share in the comments. If you were emperor for a day, what would you change? Right, that's a good one. If you were emperor for a day, what would you change? And so let me start with you. I'm gonna put you on the spot. If you were empress for a day, what would you change?
Speaker 2:All grocery stores would be warm all grocery stores would be warm.
Speaker 1:There you have it, ladies, yep From the woman who has a sweatshirt that says always cold 24-7. Yes, all right, and many of you identify with that, am I right?
Speaker 2:Yes, I dread grocery shopping because once you get past the vegetables, you turn toward the cold.
Speaker 1:So you would require at least an 80-degree thermostat every time you went. I might like it better then. All right, if I were emperor for a day. You've heard me do this rant before, so, as you know, in my other job I'm an airline pilot, right I?
Speaker 2:wasn't sure which emperor you were going to be today?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I'm going to be this one. And I'm a captain for the biggest airline in the world. I fly the biggest airplane at the biggest airline in the world. I fly the biggest airplane at the biggest airline in the world, and you can figure that out on your own. But I travel on airplanes a lot, and not always as the guy who's flying the airplane, but many times I'm deadheading someplace in the back or I'm commuting back and forth from work and so I'm sitting in the back, I'm tired and maybe I get an aisle seat.
Speaker 1:And here they come All right, the guy with the huge backpack, and it's almost invariably a gigantic human being with everything they own on their back. All right, and with everything they own on their back, they have this incredible lack of self-spatial awareness. They have no idea what's going on around them and they're turning like this and they're turning like that. And then this five-foot backpack that they've got every zipper undone so they can get it out. You can almost hear it. It's like like that, it's about to explode. It's so full of stuff they're smacking you in the head with it, and then they try to put it in the overhead and it won't fit. Then they try to stick it in the seat down below. It won't fit you on the head with it. Again, there would be an immediate life sentence if I was emperor for a day. For anybody that bought, brought any sort of overstuffed backpack on an airplane, that's. There would be no due process, no court, just it would be an immediate life sentence. And it would be upgraded to an immediate death sentence if they attached their emotional support. Show them honey, if they attach their emotional support water bottle that they have to have with them at all times, because heaven forbid that they should go three minutes without a sip of water or whatever beverage is in it. And so they've got it carabiner to their oversized, stuffed backpack. In fact, they've got five of those little lethal weapons attached to it. And now they're turning back and forth and they're smacking you in the head with this thing.
Speaker 1:If I was emperor for a day, I'd get rid of that. I would get rid of that. And the second thing I would get rid of this is a bonus, this is an extra nope, this is a bonus. I would get rid of mondays. Amen, all right, everybody with me on that. I would get rid of mondays, and it would, monday would still have to be there because the earth spinning and all of that stuff. I can't do anything about that. But we wouldn't refer to mondays, monday, monday would just be right. So we'd have friday, saturday, sunday and then tuesday and you could do whatever you want on a day. Right, you don't have to go to work, you could stay home, you could sleep in, you could work in your shop, you could whatever you want to do on day. But we're not. It would be illegal to refer to day by monday, the day formerly known as we. Some people might refer to that day as the day formerly known as monday. Yes, right that that would be legal, I suppose.
Speaker 2:One comment for your emperor of the day is, hydration is life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, okay, let me speak to our audience now. At this point, I am living proof that you don't have to drink eight times your body weight in water every day. You do not. All right, now this is going to shock you. I'm probably going to get a lot of nasty comments in the thing. I don't care. I've lived my adult life up to this point. Here's my next adult rant. Are you ready? I drink a glass of water a year. If that, if that I drink a glass of water a year. I'm living proof that you don't have to drink eight times your body weight in water there. And you know what? Send me your comments, tell me how awful I am. I don't care. You say you're just going to drop dead. All right, I've done everything I came here to do and I didn't have to drink water and do it.
Speaker 2:Don't wear your fingers out. It's a lost cause. I've tried.
Speaker 1:You have to live with your spouse in an understanding way. I have water with me at all moments of every day and so, hun, you do you and I'll do me. Different isn't wrong, isn't that fun? Different, all right. I think, before we get off of all of this, that we ought to, just because I'm on a rant, go back to the picture of these two. Isn't that wonderful. There they are. Look at the little paws. Okay, I have to tell you Right here they're just holding hands.
Speaker 2:That's so cute so we're really old so many won't understand this, but there used to be a band called the Captain and Tennille, and if I didn't know better I would think that was Muskrat Sus suzy and muskrat sam oh, you gotta look it up from the early 80s.
Speaker 1:Oh, my word, yeah, you can hear it. Yeah, muskrat suzy and muskrat sam. Okay, there you go. There's my rant for emperor for a day. All right, honey, it's time for the adulting boss. Tip of the day, meg all right.
Speaker 2:Here is your boss tip to win at adulting. So if you have something that you want to do when you wake up in the morning, maybe it's exercise, maybe it's spend time in the word of God, whatever it is, set it out the night before. Plan for success. Being a successful adult is all about being intentional. Successful adulting never happens by accident. So set it out right. Uh, put out your bible, a pen, get your coffee in the coffee pot, whatever it is. You can just push the button, but be ready to start the morning and then get up and do it. It'll help you. It'll help you be successful in those things that you've been wanting to get done.
Speaker 1:Excellent, excellent. Okay Next time, why pink flamingos aren't really pink and what our diet says about us. Okay, next time when we come together on death by adulting. I can hardly wait for that one. Yes, you want to give me a fist bump after this one. It's a good episode.
Speaker 2:It's almost like we're ordering. There we go. So this has been Death by Adulting. We're really glad you were with us. I'm your host, megan Scheibner, with my co-host, dr Steve, and remember, when it comes to adulting, what doesn't kill you just makes you tired.
Speaker 1:We'll see you next time.