Maintaining Principled Living amidst Modern Challenges with Dr Mark Teague

The episode could explore the intersections of traditional values, personal resilience, and parenting adult children. Dr. Mark L. Teague's insights on maintaining principled living amidst modern challenges could resonate deeply with your audience, providing them with strategies to support their adult children.

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Richard Jones. I am an RN with over 34 years of Nursing Experience, much of that experience working with young adults in the corrections system. 

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Transcript

James Moffitt (00:01.274)
Hello and welcome to ABC's of Parenting Adult Children. My name is James Moffitt and I'll be your host. Today we have a special guest, Mark Teague. Mark, help me out by introducing yourself to the listening audience.

Mark (00:19.192)
Thanks for having me, James. It's a pleasure to join you and I certainly look forward to adding value to your audience. That's the main goal here. My name is Dr. Mark L. Teague. I'm with a Working Man's Guide. basically, I have a book and it lays out a roadmap for the working class. That's my focus, working class families. And I look forward to the discussion here.

James Moffitt (00:45.721)
Very good. Where are you at?

Mark (00:49.748)
I'm currently sitting in Abilene, Texas, right in the middle of the state.

James Moffitt (00:54.002)
Abilene, Texas. I was raised in Quillen, Texas, which is Dallas Cowboyland, just outside of Dallas, Fort Worth, and was raised in the 70s and 80s. And my wife and I met in Houston, Texas at First Baptist Church, and she's from Corpus Christi, Texas. So we spent, I probably spent 50 % of my life in Texas, and then we moved to Atlanta, Georgia.

Mark (01:02.286)
Hmm.

James Moffitt (01:21.97)
where I worked for Delta Airlines and then I moved over to Charleston, South Carolina where we've been here for, I don't know, since 2000. We've been here 25 years.

So your profile, I'll read something from your profile. We'll just kind of start from there. Since the episode could explore the intersections of traditional values, personal resilience, and parenting adult children. Dr. Mark El-Teague's insights on maintaining principled living amidst modern challenges could resonate deeply with your audience, providing them with strategies to support their adult children. So back in 2015, we started a parenting support group.

on Facebook, it's a private support group. We had like 10 people. Back then we had two teenagers still living at the house. And so now we got like 1.3 thousand members. And so I started this podcast in 2023, May of 2023, to kind of support that in hopes to provide parents with something to listen to when they're driving back and forth to work or wherever they're going.

So you have a copy of your book you can show us?

Mark (02:41.1)
do sir right here a working man's guide if you want more information of the website is a working man's guide just drop the apostrophe keep the a working man's guide.com and you can get a lot of detail there.

James Moffitt (02:42.46)
There you go. Yeah, I'm working. There you go.

James Moffitt (02:55.814)
There you go, thank you. So tell me about the book. What caused you to write that?

Mark (03:04.184)
Yeah, that's a great question. And I want to answer that in terms of giving your listeners context so that everything I say and that we talk about, you kind of see where I'm coming from. The purpose of the book is to create a roadmap. It's specifically for the American working class. And I strongly believe when we talk working class, we should not talk in terms of income. You should not define it that way. It's a literal definition, the class that is working.

If you are a working American, you are in the working class. The principles that underpin that are all the same. And in this roadmap, basically, start with in chapter one, it's a set of principles that are non-negotiable. They're very important that we need to adopt and understand that bring success, bring strength, makes it permanent. And then I apply those to all the major areas of life that a working class family will face.

James Moffitt (03:35.058)
Here you go.

Mark (04:00.366)
I just step through them basically in time sequence, matters of faith. Why is faith a rational thing? Faith in the Almighty. Second, marriage. The concept and the institution of marriage, what it means, what makes it succeed, why does it fail, what can we do about it? And then next is the intimacy side of marriage, the relationship, the relational side of it. And then next, raising children.

Melissa and I have raised four children to adulthood. We currently have nine grandchildren. I'm 60 years of age, almost 61. My wife's almost 57. So we've seen the full cycle. And then I talk about career, how you make a living, how you can be successful there, and then public policy, how public policy affects working class families. So within that context, today, now we talk about

parenting specifically and more intentionally, parenting of adult children. I have an entire chapter on that in the book and that's the context in which I address it. What are principles that working-class families can employ to find greater success and how do you apply those to the raising kids?

James Moffitt (05:17.158)
Right, very good. Well, it's very interesting. I am very, I'm certain that many of the parents that listen to this podcast will get a lot out of that. I think that the rate, the age range of the children is between like 12 and 40, right? So it's a wide range of ages. And I think a lot of parents have teenagers, you know.

16 to 18 and then young adults 18 to 26 and then you know adult children that are beyond that and I don't care I don't care how old you are as a parent our kids are always going to be our kids no matter what age group they're in right and I I Want to provide quality resources

Mark (06:05.646)
Yes, sir.

James Moffitt (06:15.558)
good quality and quantity to the parents that are listening that may be experiencing a whole range of problems or challenges in their raising their adult children. as you know, the family dynamic can take on many shapes, forms and sizes. You've got blended families, you've got single parents, you've got all sorts of

You have same-sex marriages. You have all sorts of types of family dynamics that are in play here. And we have a lot of recurring themes in our podcast. One of them is boundaries. One of them is failure to launch, destructive behaviors, addictions, all sorts of things. We have about 30 different topics that we'll hit on.

several of those on almost on every podcast episode. And so I like the premise of your book, working class parents and you know, got white collar workers, got blue collar workers. There's several different levels, I guess you would say of workers and not that that really matters.

You know, but anyhow.

Where do we go from here? What do you want to talk about?

Mark (07:52.974)
Yeah, a couple things I would say. You mentioned a variety of structure in the family, and there's no question that's true. But I would say this, in the end, it's all family. Family is an irreplaceable building block, the basic unit of society, and there's no substitute for that. Whatever changes or challenges or failures or successes may occur, it's all family. We go back to it.

We move right back to it because there's no substitute for it. And I'll also say this, the first point I make in my book is there's a dividing line issue that we all need to face when we get up each day in life, and that is how do you view life? What's your basic view of it? And I would propose the proper view is that life is a series of problems, and it's going to come your way. And you don't have a choice in that.

That's going to be true whether you like it or not. Your choice is in how you respond to that. If you accept that, then you start building skills, building techniques, building tactics to get really good at problem solving. And I start with that in my book, Chapter One is Problem Solving. And it truly is a dividing line issue. You either accept that and get good at it and have a chance at success, or you think you're too good for that. I should be above that.

Problem should not be coming my way. I view it as a hassle. And in that regard, that second one, that's essentially a very childish attitude. And we see our kids sometimes make the wrong choice. They do not want to accept life as a series of challenges. They think that's a hassle. They're above it. That's a painful thing as an adult. But we need to be as an adult. We can't make the same mistake.

James Moffitt (09:46.482)
Thank

Mark (09:47.64)
We need to see life for what it is. It is a series of challenges coming our way. We need to resolve to that and get very good at being a problem solver. And then you have a chance to get something done.

James Moffitt (10:01.49)
So as parents, when it comes to those challenges, when it comes to challenges in our life or even challenges in our kids' lives or adult children, we can either be reactive or we can be proactive, right? And so obviously, obviously we don't want to be in a firefighting mode the whole time because that can get, that can get very painful. So...

Mark (10:19.66)
Yes.

James Moffitt (10:30.61)
So we need to have a, as a family unit, we need to have a plan, right? And.

Mark (10:37.976)
Yes,

James Moffitt (10:40.898)
nuclear family. You know, I'm 63 and so I was a child of the 70s and 80s and so I was, my generation was raised that, you know, there's a mom and a dad, man and woman, and the husband and the wife both have unique roles in the marriage and they have unique responsibilities in the marriage as well as fathers and mothers have a unique role in the, in the,

mechanics of raising a family, you know, and as I've always said in past episodes, mothers tend to be more loving and nurturing. You know, they want to...

envelop the children and their love, you know, they're more warm, warm, more fuzzy, and they're more nurturing in their love, and they tend to a lot of their emotional needs, right? And fathers tend to be fathers tend to tend to be the one who wants to prepare the children for adult life, for the real world, right? And we know, we know fathers and dads that

Mark (11:40.568)
Yes.

Mark (11:52.098)
Yes.

James Moffitt (11:55.25)
When little Johnny walked out the front door to get a school or to go to work or go to college or wherever he's headed in his journey, nobody in the world really cares about him. He's not that special someone, right? That special status that they have in our families and our hearts ends outside of that front door, right? And so dads understand that and dads want to equip

Mark (12:07.918)
Yes, that's a fact, yes sir.

Mark (12:21.389)
Yes.

James Moffitt (12:25.682)
their children with the skill sets that they need to survive and not only to survive, but to excel, right? I mean, we feed our children, we clothe them, we provide them an education, we extend to them our thought processes, our faith, our values, you know, we want, when they're outside of the home, you know, my mom and dad,

Mark (12:29.698)
Yes. Yes.

Mark (12:35.288)
Yes, sir.

James Moffitt (12:54.044)
taught me and my sister at a young age that when you're out in public, we want you to act in such a way that you're not gonna bring shame to the family name, right? We want people to look at you and you're gonna be handling yourself in such a fashion that they're gonna look at you and go, well, those parents did a wonderful job with those kids, right? I mean, that's...

Mark (13:04.814)
Yes sir, yeah.

James Moffitt (13:19.634)
That's our hope anyway, as parents, would hope that that would happen. And obviously our children are unique individuals and they are going to be who they are. you know, despite our best efforts, you know, you hear of situations where families, you look at the family from the outside looking in and you think, oh, that's a perfect family. You know, they all go to church, they're pillars of the community. You know, they're raising their children with, you know,

positive values and they're law-abiding citizens and they're bringing value to the community that they're in, right? And you and I both know, unfortunately, sometimes kids run off the rails, know, young adults run off the rails and they develop their own mindset and they develop their own principles and their own values and they don't necessarily adopt our values or our principles or our

Mark (14:04.206)
You bet.

Mark (14:09.421)
Yes.

Mark (14:17.678)
That's a fact. Yes, sir.

James Moffitt (14:18.706)
Our vision, right? So anyway, um, so yeah, I, I think my second episode on this podcast, the first episode was introducing this podcast and what is the vision and its mission statement is. And so I got to thinking about it. thought, where do we start? And I thought, we got to start with mom and dad, husband and wife.

We got to talk about the marriage relationship and what exactly is that? And why is it so important that the husband and the wife have a healthy relationship, have a healthy emotional relationship? Because kids learn, they learn from us. We are their mentors, we model life in front of them, right? And if we don't want our kids to adopt bad habits,

Mark (14:49.144)
Yes.

Mark (14:54.776)
Yes.

Mark (15:02.434)
Yes. Yes.

Mark (15:13.4)
Yes, sir.

James Moffitt (15:17.586)
or habits that are going to be detrimental to their future, then we shouldn't be living those things in front of them. So, I'll quit talking now and I'll let you talk a little bit.

Mark (15:24.973)
Yes, sir.

Mark (15:31.054)
You know, one thing I would add, I think might be helpful to your audience is that in this book I did, I am an old researcher. I have a doctorate in the field of economics and I grew up in, got early training in academics doing research. So when I went into this book, I wanted to have a very strong factual base. So I put a lot of time into research and resources and current research on family, marriage, divorce causes effects, effects on children, effects on community.

So it can be a good resource for your listeners in that regard. There are lot of citations that became current on all the latest numbers, etc. So I think they would find that helpful. And there is absolutely no question that the marriage itself, that's the first step. The mom and dad making a commitment on what that means. And then how you train your kids. I know some of the framework that Melissa and I used, one was

You always have two challenges when you get your kids through all these phases into adulthood. They need to leave the house knowing how to behave and how to compete. And those things are sometimes in conflict with each other. In fact, sometimes parents will only teach one and not the other. Sometimes parents will teach their kids how to compete, but they never teach them how to behave. And sometimes they teach them how to behave. They never teach them how to compete. You need to do both.

You need to reach both so that they're adjusted adults. And Melissa and actually had lengthy conversations about this and we chose to first teach them how to behave and then teach them how to compete. And there is no question, as you said, the man and the woman take different roles in that. The man is more edgy, more about, you know, get it done, compete and win. The woman is more of the emotional, sentimental side and the softer side.

And that, in our views, God's plan. He made us that way. So those are some thoughts to consider.

James Moffitt (17:35.036)
absolutely. Let's talk about, let's talk a little bit about faith and how that, how that comes into the nuclear family and how it affects the family and talk about that a little bit.

Mark (17:50.754)
Yes, sir. Well, I'm going to go back to that research side, the numbers. think that let's make it factual first. And one thing is very clear. The numbers have formed and there's a lot of long-term research. And the best studies are cohort studies. Those that will take folks as they enter commitment at this point, meaning a relationship, marriage, et cetera, and then follow those families for a number of years, like 15, 20, 30 years over. You get a lifetime view.

And the numbers are very clear, the divorce rate lifetime, meaning if a couple marries today, what is the chance they will divorce over the lifetime of that marriage? It's in the 42 to 45 % range. And it's up around 50 % if you include separation. In other words, they stay married technically, but they're not in relationship with each other. So from that standpoint, it's about a coin toss. It's about a half and half, 50-50. If you marry today,

What's the chance that you'll stay that way the rest of your life? It's about half and half, but here's something of immense interest. When you dig into those numbers, you will find large cohorts of people for which they have much lower divorce rates than that. In fact, you can get down next to zero. If you and your spouse put your mind to it, the risk of divorce is next to nothing. And studies are done on those groups of people, you know, who falls into which camp.

the divorce, separated, or the stay married. Well, faith plays a huge role in that, huge role. So if you have any kind of seriousness about your faith and your values, your divorce rates go through the floor. They're very, very low. And the benefits thereof are also measured. The benefits to society, the benefits to children, the benefits to next generation are very high.

James Moffitt (19:17.933)
Right

Mark (19:42.904)
So the numbers have actually caught up. very clear. They affirm those traditional views that faith matters, values matter. And when you practice that through church going, through Christian discipline, et cetera, your marriage is going to stick around. You can say it like this in very clear terms. Do you want to be more healthy as you get older, get married, and stay married? Do you want to be wealthier as you get older, get married, and stay married?

James Moffitt (19:43.109)
you

Mark (20:11.544)
Do you want kids that are more well adjusted and more ready for life? Get married and stay married. Those things matter. It's very clear.

James Moffitt (20:22.374)
Yeah, and I, you'll probably agree with me on this, but church has.

and faith over the years as we move from one decade to another, it seems that, I mean, it used to be the thought process was that if you build it, they will come, right? And in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, maybe even some into the 70s, there was a lot of truth to that. And in faith, going to church,

used to be an important part of the nuclear family. because of lot of changes in our society, in our culture, especially here in America, because of a lot of those, I don't know how you want to term it, progressive changes, some of the progressive changes in our culture has eaten away at the foundation of what role faith

Mark (21:18.723)
Yes.

James Moffitt (21:29.202)
plays in the family, right? And I know, you know, I'm 63 and I know that here in the South, there's a church on every corner. But over the years, I have seen where churches have folded and they've turned into golf courses, know, or family dentists or substations for police department or whatever it is. But it's like churches are not as

Mark (21:33.059)
Yes.

Mark (21:41.272)
Yes.

Mark (21:49.144)
Yes.

Mark (21:55.651)
Yes.

James Moffitt (21:59.718)
Well, there's two things. They're not as prominent as they used to be in the role of the family. it's the, how do I say this? The definition, the actual fabric of what faith means has been distorted, right? And convoluted a little bit. my podcast in and of itself is not faith-based, right?

Mark (22:21.262)
Yes. Yes.

James Moffitt (22:29.906)
And I like to be inclusive and I like to practice as much diversity as possible. But I also don't hide from it. I don't hide my faith under a basket, right? It's not that I don't refuse to talk about it. I just don't want to be in your face about it. don't want to, in my messaging to my audience, I don't want to be in their face about it. I don't want to...

Mark (22:44.654)
Yes, sir.

Mark (22:53.068)
Yes.

James Moffitt (22:59.632)
I don't want to brow-beating about it. Personally, my wife and I are Christians, and we're Christ followers, and we have been Christ followers for many, many years. We've been married almost 35 years. That's another thing you don't hear a lot of anymore. You don't hear lot of stories where... I met a couple the other day at the Publix pharmacy.

Mark (23:03.971)
You bet.

James Moffitt (23:27.73)
They were their nineties, eighties and nineties, and they've been married 66 years. Now, I've met couples who've been married 50, 55, 60, 66, a lot of years, you know, and in this culture today, that's unheard of, you know, and it seems as if when families, especially like moms and dads, you know, the marriage relationship,

Mark (23:46.734)
Yes.

James Moffitt (23:58.45)
when they are faced with devastating changes or transitions. For instance, my wife and I lost a child to cancer back in 2001. And the funeral home director told me in front of my pastor that, I don't know, a certain percentage, like a high percentage, 70 or 80 % of couples lose a child whatever way it is, cancer, accidents, know, whatever. They wind up in divorce.

Mark (24:29.23)
Yes.

James Moffitt (24:30.109)
And I looked at the funeral home director and I said, I don't agree with that. I said, that may happen in a lot of relationships. But I said, Jesus is the center of this relationship. And while this sucks, while it hurts, and we're going through, you know, a horrible transition, no, our faith in who God is in our relationship and who God is in the world is not going to change. And am I going to sit here and say that my faith wasn't challenged?

Mark (24:41.602)
You bet.

James Moffitt (24:58.406)
Yes, it was challenged. I have lot of questions. I had lot of conversations with God. I was upset. I got angry. I went through a plea bargaining moments with God going, hey, take me instead. I'm a worthless worm next to my daughter. know, she deserves to, know, she deserves to choose 10 years old. You know, like take me, you know. You know, anyway, so there are a lot of...

Mark (25:04.514)
Yeah, you bet.

Mark (25:16.91)
boy. Yeah.

Mark (25:24.014)
Yeah. No, boy. That's tough.

James Moffitt (25:28.498)
there are a lot of challenges that parents are faced with. know, parents have autistic children, they have special needs children, they have neurodivergent children, they have, like I said, have blended families, you have single parent families, there's parents out there that are dealing with a lot of challenges. And so, you know, I would tend to agree with you that having faith of some sort

Mark (25:35.511)
Yes.

You bet.

James Moffitt (25:58.108)
will help to bring some foundation to your relationship, to your relationship between you and God, your relationship between you and your wife, or you and your husband. You know, if you're woman listening to this. I think faith is a very important ingredient.

Mark (26:05.88)
Yes.

Mark (26:19.604)
it is. A couple points there, James. One, there is definitely a great sifting going on in our country, and that in terms of the Christian culture aspect of it is no longer popular. And it hasn't been for a while, and I don't see that changing. And that is a difficult thing. It's a challenging thing, but I don't see it as a bad thing, because Christianity was never meant to be a club.

It was never meant to be a social phenomenon. It's a very deep personal thing. That's what it was always meant to be and that's what it should be. And so we need to take that to heart and declare that I'm not a Christian, I'm a follower of Christ. And that's how I define my life. And the second point on the problem-solving aspect of things, here's something that comes up front and center in all the problems you face in life and all the things you're going to have to address that are going to come your way.

Many of them, a host of them, I would say a super majority of them have a moral component. They may be completely moral. And what you realize is that you need a foundation. You need a North Star. You need a guidepost. You need a bedrock. You need something bigger than yourself to address those things. Because many problems in life are caused by us. We are the problem.

Well, how do you solve a problem caused by you when you are the problem? That's self-referential. You're caught in a downward spiral. You need to look outside yourself. And I would say with great boldness and clarity, whomever you are out there, you need to choose a foundation. I would say clearly mine is the God of the Hebrews, the God of the Bible, the Scriptures, and what they teach. That's the foundation I've chosen. I will speak to that clearly.

James Moffitt (27:53.362)
you

Mark (28:10.806)
I find that it works. gives you deep principle. If you want to be a problem solver in life, you must be a person of principle. Principles are like a toolbox. When you're facing a problem, you need to reach into that toolbox and pull out those tools so that you can address it. Well, if you have no principles, you have an empty toolbox. You have nothing to reach to. You just have yourself. Good luck. I find that completely inadequate.

not in any way up to the problem. So I would encourage your listeners in that regard. Principles are that important and faith becomes your bedrock, it becomes your North Star. Life goes much better if you have.

James Moffitt (28:38.837)
yeah.

James Moffitt (28:52.582)
One of the things that we talk about on this podcast is self-care, right? And one of the tools of self-care is getting centered, getting away from, backing up away from the battle, and prayer is a good thing, meditation is a good thing, and we encourage parents to...

Mark (28:57.816)
Yes, sir.

James Moffitt (29:22.39)
explore the possibility of going to church and reaching out to churches in their area. Because a lot of churches have pastors, they have pastoral care, they have counseling facilities, they have the ability to talk to those people and those parents and help them to come to grips with whatever.

Mark (29:28.046)
Yes.

James Moffitt (29:51.172)
it may be. And that's also, know, therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, you know, all the different family therapy. You know, I'm not, I am not a family therapist. I'm not any of those things. I'm not licensed to. This is not legal advice right now. so, but, when you, when you think about self care and you're going through a battle, it's

Mark (30:10.35)
You bet. Yep.

James Moffitt (30:20.728)
it's wise to reach out to somebody that is older and wiser than you, that's been around the block. You know, and that's why in the family you have, mom and dad, have grandparents, you have uncles, you have aunts, you have hopefully a support system around you where you can turn to somebody outside of yourself, God, whatever, right? And look to those sources for the

Mark (30:30.37)
Yes, sir.

James Moffitt (30:50.352)
the information and support that you need.

Mark (30:54.254)
Yes, Yes, very much so. I'd like to share something with your listening audience related to that that I've learned. I've learned it from my daughter-in-law, my youngest son. He's in the Air Force and he was stationed at Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa. And he met and dated and married a native Okinawan. She's born and raised Japanese in the island of Okinawa. And she's one of the very rare individuals native to Japan who was raised in a Christian home.

There aren't very many of them. It's pretty rare. In fact, it was state policy in Japan for many decades to execute Christians. They were hunted and persecuted in a brutal way in the late 1800s. the church community, the Christian community is fairly small. And she was one of those raised that way. So the experience I had with her was we'd sit and talk. And I asked her once about denominations, et cetera, the typical American view. And she looked at me strangely.

That's how I don't know what you're talking about. They're just Christians. They follow Christ and they believe the Bible. That's it. Nothing else. That defines their faith. And it made me realize how frivolous and wasteful we've become over here. And what you're referring to, James, is when you get into trouble, you fall back to those simple, pure things. You need sound counsel. You need sound wisdom. You need something that is bedrocked.

and having that network of people that are not caught up in church things or social things, they have a simple, pure, well-developed faith. Find those people and talk to them. They've been through trouble. Just the simplicity of it all becomes clear when you face trouble. I learned a deep lesson around that regard with my daughter-in-law. She just has a very simple, pure faith, uncluttered. It's just very direct, very sincere.

And I'd love talking to her about things of faith. Here you get all these divisions that distract us and divide us. They don't have that because they were killed for their faith. It made it very clear, very pure.

James Moffitt (33:08.508)
Well, one of the...

of the pitfalls or the dangers of getting wrapped up into denominationalism is that in a lot of our, and I have to speak towards the Protestant side of things.

Mark (33:21.358)
Yes.

James Moffitt (33:29.919)
And I don't want to get too far into the rabbit hole with this, but...

James Moffitt (33:37.066)
There are things in church that happen that has nothing to do with your relationship with Christ, has nothing to do with your faith. It has everything to do with what man has determined or decided is what people are supposed to do. Their traditions. You see man's traditions in all these different denominations. you know, guess what? We're a sinner saved by grace. None of us are perfect, right?

Mark (33:45.4)
Yes. Yes.

Mark (33:55.838)
Absolutely. Yes.

Mark (34:02.679)
Yes.

James Moffitt (34:06.706)
So when you step into the church, it's not full of perfect people. It's full of sick people that need Jesus, right? That's why we turn to Christ, because we're straight up. We're sinners. We got problems, right? I don't care how old you are, how young you are, what your station in life is. Jesus died on the cross because we needed the Savior, right? And in the Old Testament, we saw the Old Testament law, right? And we saw...

Mark (34:07.766)
Amen.

Mark (34:14.466)
You bet. Yes,

Yes,

Yes.

James Moffitt (34:34.45)
religious leaders back then that were doing everything they could to become holy enough and perfect enough for God for him to accept them. And they fell flat on their face numerous times, right? And that's why we have the gospel. That's why we have grace because Jesus came to the earth in human form as God Himself to provide that perfect sacrifice so that our sins can be forgiven, right?

Mark (34:49.944)
Yes.

James Moffitt (35:05.174)
And I don't want to start preaching here, but you know, I just want the listening audience to be aware of...

Mark (35:05.409)
soon.

James Moffitt (35:21.36)
worshipping a denomination or falling into the trap of idolizing all of these different televangelists. There are some good televangelists and then there are some televangelists that have no clue what the Bible even says, right? And so your faith has to be centered around what God's Word says. You know, I don't know if you... I don't care if you look at King James, I don't care if you look at NIV.

Mark (35:24.888)
Yes, sir.

Mark (35:35.042)
Yes, Yes,

James Moffitt (35:50.738)
whatever, there's many different interpretations or versions of the Bible that written in different languages. I cut my teeth on King James English, right? So to me, these endowments and all the stuff in the King James English, I read that just like I'm reading a novel, right? But I understand that not everybody was raised in that and didn't learn about the Bible in that language. And so they...

Mark (35:51.65)
Yes.

Mark (36:08.695)
Yeah, beautiful process.

James Moffitt (36:19.026)
That's where the new international version and NASB and all these different versions came out, you know, and when I used to teach about the Bible, I always used NIV because I felt like people were able to consume that easier and they could understand language easier, right? All the principles were the same. It just wasn't in a language that they could understand. So anyway, yeah, it's...

Mark (36:45.56)
Yes.

James Moffitt (36:49.808)
without faith, without a relationship with God, and without having Him at the center of your life, you're fighting an uphill battle, you're fighting an almost insurmountable battle that you are not going to necessarily win, right? And it's not about winning, it's about finding the right solution. It's about hope and redemption and grace, right?

Mark (36:58.775)
Yes, sir.

Mark (37:06.37)
That's a fact. That is a fact.

Mark (37:16.098)
Yes. Yes. Yes, sir.

James Moffitt (37:18.738)
We want our families to be whole. We want our families to be healthy. We want our adult children to be able to go out into the world, get past the failure to launch, make the correct decisions. And when they, when we're faced with a problem, we want them to be able to have a tool chest that they can reach into or have a support system that can reach back to like their parents and grandparents or whoever the support system is and find the answers that they need to make the right decision.

And one of the things that my parents used to always tell us is think before you act. know, think before you act because if you don't think before you make a decision and act on something, it can follow you for the rest of your natural life. You can make really bad decisions, right? And so anyway, let me ask you a couple of questions here.

Mark (37:49.742)
Thank

Mark (37:55.736)
Yes,

Mark (38:05.026)
Yes,

Mark (38:08.78)
Yes, sir, that's fact.

James Moffitt (38:14.492)
How have traditional values shaped your journey from farmhand to executive?

Mark (38:14.84)
Mm-hmm.

Mark (38:21.73)
Boy, they take a long time to answer that. I'm gonna try to bull it down to key ones. First of all, I give credit to my parents. Both my wife and I were raised in Christian homes. They taught us faith early and we accepted it early. I had the experience of salvation when I was seven years old. Very real, very visceral to me. And it was brought about because of my parents and how they lived and taught us. So I give credit to them. I would say there were three main.

values that they taught. There were a bunch of them actually, but there were three right at the top. One was be honest. Second was be respectful. And third was work hard. And they hit those over and over again in every context imaginable. And they stuck. I accepted those. I adopted those as my own. And I've built those out as an adult. And it makes a huge difference. That's what you stand on. You stand on those values.

And one of the key items to me, in this journey that we've been on, there's a unique aspect to it, James, that let me take a moment to describe. and grew up in that farm and ranching background, very old America, rural America, the incentive of if you don't work, you don't eat, just very simple, straightforward, making your living off the land. Old schools, like America in 1750, you know, it was very, very traditional. And then we left the farm.

In 1990, we were married in 1986, had two kids. We left the farm, decided to change our livelihood, went to graduate school, earned a doctorate in economics, and then we joined the banking and finance industry, and that was about a 30-year venture there. We traveled around the country, lived different places, and we had the experience of going from the old America, very rooted and steeped in tradition, to the modern workplace, modern America, corporate lifestyle, et cetera.

You see the contrast. You see the distinction. You see that shift in values that's right in front of you. And so as I made my way through management ranks, started entry-level jobs in banks, and then I wound up in the C-suite ranks to end the career, you have the challenge of implementing a business plan that requires the old-fashioned values, the old-fashioned approach to work. But you're in a modern setting, very different mindset.

Mark (40:45.326)
very different views. And so in meeting that challenge, I was responsible for developing and implementing those business plans. I needed a way to address a team environment such that you could get it done. You could reach back and grab those old-fashioned values and apply it in today's world. And I detail in the book how we did that, how I went about that. I have some management techniques I developed. But the whole thing is premised on

James Moffitt (41:05.33)
you

you

Mark (41:13.644)
the old fashioned values in today's world. I would say it like this, you can have roots and wings both, and you should. We're not married to tradition where it limits us and it binds us, but we're rooted in principles that are ancient, eternal, and they work. They have no beginning, they have no end. And you can apply those in a modern setting. That's the key to success to me, in my mind. I would encourage your listeners with that concept, you look for foundational bedrock things,

James Moffitt (41:34.066)
you

Mark (41:42.848)
and you learn how to apply them in today's world, you will do quite well in all aspects, in family, in relationships, in your career. And I think we need to take that to the public policy realm as well. That's what I would say.

James Moffitt (41:58.737)
Amen to that.

So how can parents instill resilience in their adult children?

Mark (42:07.608)
Man, great question. When I get to have a dedicated chapter on raising kids, it's chapter five in my book, and I describe, so I take this problem-solving approach and then apply that to first-fall marriage and then to kids. And let me just describe for a moment how Melissa and I did it. We create, you know, have this in general problem-solving. Problems come at you like a blob. It's like a threatening, amorphous, shifting,

event or issue that you have a hard time getting your hands around. It's a threat. It comes at you as a threat. Well, here's the key. Here's a key in life. Don't work against the blob. Work against the frame. So you can take that set of circumstance, that problem that dumps itself in your your lap, and you can either see that as a threat or you can put a frame around that.

a logical, rational frame, and then work against that frame. Now you have a chance to solve that and make a solution, an overcoming event out of that rather than something that buries you and consumes all your time and energy and you get nothing good out of it. That's the key in getting something done in life and always being a victim, always being under the boot heel of a circumstance.

If you apply that to raising kids, let me describe the frame that we use. It goes like this. There two components. One is there are key developmental stages that all children go through. And I would exempt the special needs. There will be other components. Everything I say here is true, but there are other pieces as well. I want to talk about your neurotypical, rambunctious

Hot-blooded kids, your typical American family. In that phase, you have basically five phases. You've got this phase of infancy up to about 18 months, 24 months, and you've got the toddler years, two, three, and four. Then you've got what I call the golden years, age four to about age 12, roughly in there, 13. Then you've got the teen years, 13 to about 18, and then the adult phase, 18 plus.

Mark (44:29.014)
And those boundaries on age are going to vary some, but there's a clear developmental marker in those basic phases. And what helped us a great deal was in each of those phases, have an objective, have something that you're working toward as parents. You lock into that, you get that done. And there's a formula. We use the formula at all stages geared toward being age appropriate, but it's basically this.

James Moffitt (44:34.352)
Right. Right.

Mark (44:57.548)
It's two parts love, one part discipline. Part one of love, your parents love you. We love you as a kid, we're unconditionally, we're always there for you, and we want you to be successful. The second part love, God loves you. God formed you, He made you, He has a plan for your life, you're made unique as a unique expression of His grace. And discipline, no means no. There's right and wrong. So you've got two parts love, one part discipline. We found that to be about right.

You know, that's about the right balance in terms of love and discipline. Mom and dad love you. God loves you. Understand right and wrong. Take that formula and we would apply that in all of our actions at every phase. Now, you get to the last one, the adult phase. I have to be honest, there's something happened that I did not expect and the fact is that we have found to be that's the most difficult phase of all five of them.

James Moffitt (45:38.834)
Thanks for

James Moffitt (45:53.97)
Right.

Mark (45:55.618)
because you're no longer in charge. As mom and dad, you're used to being in charge. They're free moral aides. They're going to do whatever they want to do. They're going to make their own choices. You now take on a different role. It's a support role. It's no longer a direct authoritative role. But you still have the same formula. You still have two parts love, unconditional love. Mom and dad love you. God loves you. And there's right and wrong.

And that piece can get dicey with adult kids because that's usually the very thing they're rebelling against. They no longer want to honor that and recognize it. But that's where we need to get very simple, very pure in our faith. James, as you expounded on earlier, we stand on what we know to be true. We look to things that are bigger than us, things that are started long before us and will be around long after us, and we hold to those. And that is important.

and particularly with adult children.

James Moffitt (46:57.254)
Right. And there's failure to launch where the adult children.

Mark (47:04.098)
Yes.

James Moffitt (47:06.994)
struggle with leaving the nest and taking on the adult role and making the decisions that they need to make. then there are parents who struggle with that transition because there's a grieving period. And there's like you said, we used to have a parent-child relationship where we were in position of authority and we instructed them on how to get their life and day-to-day.

Mark (47:11.437)
Yes.

Mark (47:17.571)
Yes.

Mark (47:24.568)
Yes.

James Moffitt (47:36.402)
stuff and planning for the future and all that. And then all of sudden they're adults. Well, like you said, you take on a support role or I like to call being a mentor. Parents are now mentors to their children and they are there for, you would hope that the children would come back to you as a support person and go, hey, this is what I'm facing. This is what happened today at work or this is what happened in college. This is how I viewed it. And this is how I approached it. This is the decisions I made.

Mark (47:48.088)
Yes.

James Moffitt (48:06.446)
It either turned out well or it didn't turn out well. What do you think? You know, and that's where the parent can dig into their past and be transparent to the children and go, well, I had a similar situation back in whatever year it was or however old you were at the time. And this is what happened to me. This is how I, this is how the decision making process I went through and either I made a bad decision and I had a horrible consequence and then I had to learn from those consequences, right?

or I made the right decision and I had positive outcome, right? And so, you know, that's a key part of parenting, especially adult children, in that you can reach into your past. You can mirror your past and you can be transparent and you can say, and I did this with my kids back in 2015 when they were teenagers.

Mark (48:48.024)
Yes.

James Moffitt (49:07.154)
We're not perfect. Parents are not perfect. Right. And when you you when you leave the hospital, they don't give you a manual and say, OK, you know, this is what's going to happen. Here are the chapters you're going to go to for the solution. Right. I mean, the Bible does talk about about, you know, raising a family and how that's supposed to work. But but you really don't have a you don't have an instruction manual. A lot of times we we fall into we want it.

Mark (49:15.817)
No.

That's effective.

James Moffitt (49:35.09)
parenting our children like our parents parented us, right? And I had a horrible childhood. And so I had to break a generational curse of garbage that my parents, they knew how to provide for me and my sister physically, but they were emotionally absent. They were emotionally crippled. They didn't know how to demonstrate love to us as children. And so when I became a father, I knew that I couldn't do that. I knew it couldn't be heavy handed.

Mark (49:39.032)
Yes, yes.

James Moffitt (50:04.72)
You know, couldn't be a raging alcoholic. I couldn't do things that my dad did with me. And despite my best efforts, there were days that I reverted back to what he did, right? Even though I knew I shouldn't, even though I knew I didn't want to, we're not perfect. You we make mistakes. And I think it's very important for parents to be willing to...

Mark (50:26.542)
us.

James Moffitt (50:32.754)
to be transparent and honest about our lives and the decisions that we've made and why and all that kind of, and it's, you know, like I've said in the past, sometimes you just need to say you're sorry. You know, when you make a mistake with your adult child, say, Hey, I blew it. You came to me, you told me something that blew up my little train and threw it off the tracks. And I reacted emotionally and said things I shouldn't have said.

Well, now we're all calmer and cooler and, you know, here's what I said, it was wrong and I'm sorry and I want to make it right, you know? And that's all part of teaching our adult children how to react to problems and how to interface with other human beings and relationships are complicated, right? And so it requires a lot of thought and a lot of prayer and planning.

Mark (51:17.912)
Yes.

Mark (51:22.776)
Yes.

James Moffitt (51:29.79)
which is what your book talks about. So let me ask one last question before we wrap this up. How do you balance legacy building with a changing economic landscape?

Mark (51:33.379)
Yes.

Mark (51:46.04)
Man, that's a great question. On the economic side of it, in making a living that often provides the pressure that makes major changes in our life. And I would say one thing to all of your listeners, here's a key component that many people miss. And that is as you're setting and deciding what you want to do to make a living, to have an income, to provide for yourself and your family, how you want to produce and contribute, you need to keep in mind.

that in this, as a citizen of the United States, as an American citizen, there are roughly 260 million consumers in this country. They have a say. They have a vote. You don't get to make that decision all by yourself. The consumer is the one that determines the value of a particular action and an event and an effort. So you have to accept that.

The burden, there's a burden of capitalism, there's a burden of freedom and prosperity that we all have to bear and that is we have to be willing to change. You have to be willing to change what you're doing. Listen, I made major changes. It was all to the better. But the thing is, you have to have that level of humility and see the world around you so that that's how you blend. That's how you get involved in something that's actually profitable. And your value system,

has to be deeper than that. There is nothing, I'm a trained economist, I have a very high level of training there I can say this clearly. There is only one value that is inherent in economic activity and that is gain, seeking gain on both the production and the consumption side. The other values that are important, and there are many of them, they happen because you bring them to the game. You intentionally choose to be honest.

You choose to have integrity. You choose to treat other people as you want to be treated, et cetera, et It's an all down the list on value. So those two things I would emphasize to your audience. Consumers have the final say on value. You have to recognize that. And you will frequently have to change because of that. Now, the values that you adopt, the values that you demonstrate, they must be bigger than you. They must be outside of you.

Mark (54:08.662)
You have to choose a foundation. You have to choose a North Star. And then you bring that to the mix. You bring it intentionally to the mix. That framework will create both a legacy and make you modern, make you relevant in today's world, both of those things. If you get stubborn and think you don't have to change, well, you're about to learn some hard lessons. And if you think you don't need values in this world, you're going to get run over by problems. You will be clueless.

Life will beat you about and turn you upside down and you will have no idea where you're going. There's a set of values that are deeper than that. You need to grab onto those, hold onto those, intentionally bring those to this competitive game.

James Moffitt (54:52.658)
It's good stuff. So if you were to have four minutes, five minutes, what would you say to my parents of adult children?

Mark (55:04.258)
Here's a frame for all of you listeners out there to Mr. Moffitt and his tremendous effort to help us all out. Here's a framework between parents and adult children. Parents, you owe your kids two things. One, unconditional love. Two, your unvarnished opinion, your honest view of how you see things. And on unconditional love, don't confuse that with unconditional support. Those are two different things.

Unconditional love does not mean I always support everything a child does. It cannot mean that. Support is something that's conditioned upon the quality of the choice, the quality of the activity. You may or may not support. The good Lord treats me that way. He always loves me. If I do something stupid or immoral, He lets me fail. He does not bail me out. He's hoping I'll learn something out of that. So parents, you owe your kids unconditional love.

not to be confused with unconditional support and you owe them your unvarnished view. You know things that they don't know. You've been through things that they have not seen. You need to speak honestly about your viewpoint. And children, adult children, you owe your parents two things, gratitude and respect. You know, the fifth commandment is very clear, honor your father and mother. Well, as you know, you're an adolescent, that usually means obey, you know, while you're at home.

But as an adult child, it can't mean that because you have your own life. You have to build your own habits and your own livelihood, your own values, et cetera. But you don't always have to do what mom and dad say as an adult child, but you owe them gratitude for what they did for you and respect for the status that they hold. And that will be a very healthy, positive relationship. As that breaks down, I would say if it does break down, hopefully it won't, but if it does,

Engage in problem solving, engage in reaching into those eternal principles that never move and hold fast, hold firm.

James Moffitt (57:08.038)
Mark, I really appreciate what you've had to say today and I think it's gonna bring a lot of quality to the listening audience that's gonna listen to this podcast episode. So I'm gonna wrap it up and say thank you Mark for being on this podcast episode. I really appreciate what you brought to the table. You can listen to this podcast on Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and Public Radio. On Spotify, you can actually see the video.

Mark (57:19.15)
I hope so.

James Moffitt (57:35.698)
video version of this episode. On the other other hosting providers all you get is audio. I don't know why. It's just the way it is. You can go to parentingadultchildren.org. That's parentingadultchildren.org to go to our website and on the website you'll see contact information. You can leave me an email. You can leave me a voicemail and I'll respond. Upcoming show schedule is there.

place to leave a review for this podcast episode. you listen to this podcast episode, go to the website parentingadultchildren.org and go to the review tab and leave a review. Let us know what you thought about the episode. How did it resonate with you? How did it help you? Because the whole point of having this podcast episode and having the the the parenting support group on Facebook is to help you and to bring you hope and to bring you resources that you need.

to be successful, right? That's the whole point of doing it. I'm not doing this to hear myself rattle. I'm doing this to help you. That's what I'm hoping, right? I release a new episode every Friday morning at 8 a.m. And I want to thank you for the privilege of your time. And I'll tell you how, I want to tell you to have a blessed day. Thanks a lot.