From Manager to Mentor: A Parenting Shift with Troy Fink

Keywords

parenting, adult children, family coaching, relationships, faith, mentorship, restoration, entrepreneurship


Summary

In this episode of ABC's of Parenting Adult Children, host James Moffitt speaks with family coach Troy Fink about the complexities of parenting adult children. They discuss the challenges parents face as their children transition into adulthood, the importance of shifting from a managerial role to a mentoring one, and the role of faith in navigating these changes. Troy shares personal experiences of restoring relationships with his children and emphasizes the need for parents to become the individuals God calls them to be in order to effectively guide their children. The conversation also touches on entrepreneurship and the lessons learned through parenting.


Takeaways

Adulthood is confusing and nebulous for many parents.
Transitioning from manager to mentor is crucial as children grow.
Restoration of relationships takes humility, consistency, and time.
Faith plays a significant role in parenting and personal growth.
Parents must become who God is calling them to be.
It's never too late to shift dynamics in relationships.
Entrepreneurship can be a reflection of personal growth and parenting lessons.
Children need both parents in their lives, regardless of circumstances.
The importance of intentionality in parenting and mentoring.
God's grace allows for new beginnings in parenting. 


 sound bites

"Adulthood is so nebulous."
"You can start anew right now."
"God can bring you full circle."


Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Parenting Adult Children
02:02 Troy's Journey into Family Coaching
03:07 Understanding Adulthood and Its Challenges
09:32 Transitioning from Manager to Mentor
11:24 Restoring Relationships with Adult Children
20:23 Reflections on Parenting and Personal Growth
24:45 Building a Strong Foundation in Marriage
25:59 The Power of Redemption and Restoration
27:05 Navigating Fatherhood and Mentorship
29:32 The Importance of Self-Discipline in Parenting
33:07 The Role of Fathers in a Child's Life
40:07 Overcoming Family Court Challenges
43:22 The Need for Male Role Models
46:30 Becoming Who God Calls Us to Be
49:41 Entrepreneurship and Parenting

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. 

Hello, James here !

Please click on the subscribe button to gain access to premium episodes.

Please go to parentingadultchildren.org website and sign up for the email list and leave a review for this episode. 

If you have any requests for future topics send me an email to TalkPAC@proton.me

Please share this podcast with your friends and family. Now for today's guest intervi

Transcript

James Moffitt (00:01.51)
Welcome to another episode of ABC's of Parenting Adult Children, the podcast where we explore what it really means to parent in the next chapter of life with wisdom, grace, and just a little humor. Today, I'm excited to welcome Troy Fink to the show. I hope I didn't just butcher your name. Troy is a seasoned family coach and educator with a passion for helping parents navigate the emotional ups and downs of raising and releasing adult children.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (00:21.326)
Perfect.

James Moffitt (00:30.098)
He brings decades of experience working with families and he's known for his practical, no-nonsense approach that blends empathy with the real tools at work. If you've ever found yourself wondering how much support is too much or how to rebuild connection after conflict, Troy's insights are going to speak directly to your heart. So let's dive in. Hey Troy, do want to introduce yourself to the listening audience?

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (00:54.7)
Yeah, I have, hey guys, my name is Troy and I am a husband. I'm a father of three. I have one adult child. So at the tender age of 18, my then high school sweetheart got pregnant with our first born son, Troy Jr. Troy, I love you buddy. And basically my holistic approach to parenting is rooted in loads and loads of mistakes.

lots of brokenness, tears, and humor, and as well as what God's Word says in the Bible about rearing children, bringing them up in the way that they should go. So I appreciate you having me on, James.

James Moffitt (01:35.674)
Absolutely. Love to have you. So how long have you been married?

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (01:39.63)
So I'm married to my now wife seven years, July 7th, 2018. We took the step of faith together to come in marriage. My eldest son, who I had just mentioned, I wasn't married at the time that he was born. So seven years and just a few days by the time this airs, I will be seven and a half months married, Lord willing. Yeah.

James Moffitt (02:04.606)
There you go. My wife and I just celebrated 35 years. She hasn't killed me yet or changed the locks on the house. So that's a good thing.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (02:08.908)
Wow. Congratulations.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (02:14.626)
Well done, brother.

James Moffitt (02:17.288)
So can you tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to focus on parenting and family coaching?

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (02:23.476)
Yeah, know, family coaching is, I think, it's well needed and well received in this day and age in which, you know, there's a great attack. There's an onslaught of fiery darts that come at the family, I believe. And it's my conviction that the family is God's institution in which he is.

doing tremendous work in advancing the world that he wants to make. And which is why there's an onslaught. I divorce has never been higher. Broken families have never been more common. So I like the thought of parent coaching or family coaching, but really it's just about my, it's my heart to pastor. It's what God's word says to train up a child in the way they should go.

And when they grow old, they will not depart from it. It's what God's word talks about in the book of Deuteronomy about teaching your children the statutes of the Lord as you come and as you go, as you get up and as you lay down. So more than family coaching, is it really just about pointing people to the author of families in the scripture.

James Moffitt (03:43.368)
Got you. What changes do you see parents struggling with most when their kids become adults?

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (03:51.246)
I think that adulthood is so nebulous. I think that it's so confusing. We don't know if it's when they turn 18 and they can vote or go to the military, if it's 21 when they can drink. We don't know if it is, you know, society will say to young men, it's when you had sex for the first time or young women when, you you accomplish this or when your body is developed.

Because adulthood is so nebulous, James, it has become such a confusing place for modern day families to understand when our kids are and aren't adults. So I think because the target seems to be so moving, and in everybody's opinion, it's a little bit different, we've lost all sort of true North ideology into when is my tiny little baby?

who grew up to be this little boy, who grew up to be this young man, when is he truly a man? And I would say that that's probably one of our biggest issues, not knowing when adulthood actually starts, is I think at the crux of a big part of our problem.

James Moffitt (05:09.118)
Well, I think somewhere between 18 and 30 is when our children become adults physically, Emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, the frontal cortex, when does that develop? A lot of experts say that the frontal cortex doesn't develop fully until you're 26, right? So I would say between the ages of 18 and 26 is probably when a

an adult child actually really starts to mature and get to the point where they can make good decisions. So I know that you're a pastor and I know that you're a man of faith, the faith in Jesus, and so I want to give you an opportunity to talk a little bit about how your faith in Christ works for you with regards to your personal life, your marriage life, and your parenting.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (06:09.934)
Well, hey, let's just real quick though. So 26 our prefrontal cortex is now developed and now we have a more mature physiological capacity for wisdom and reason and no doubt James I I Believe that I think that that's scientific. I don't think that that's just the matter of someone's

what we call bro science or best guess. You're absolutely right. But the fact of the matter is, is that for generations in times and places, there has been clear and identifiable rites of passage, rites of passages that move people from the designation of child to the designation of adult. And

We see it in the scripture, We see Jesus being bar mitzvah, being son of the law, being a daughter, being bat mitzvah. We see it in indigenous people groups across the world where there are a time, there's a time stamped appointment where you do this thing and you become this

you enter into this next stage of life. No doubt adulthood is iterative, but I don't think that we're adults between 18 and 30. I think that there's 60 year old little boys and 60 year old little girls out there. I think that adulthood is actually is a defined time in which a character within a person who is intentionally pursuing maturity

crosses the threshold from one place into another and you know Christianity my faith as a a as a Christian is has certainly done that for me. I mean I Was 18 when my first son was born. I was not an adult

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (08:25.226)
I was a tiny little boy. And I thought that muscles and a mustache made me a man. But I was wrong. And because I was a little boy, acting, taking the pleasures of adulthood and the privileges of adulthood and what really belonged in marriage, which was sex, my son would be

brought up in a context that he was never designed to come into. I mean, I didn't even begin to sniff manhood until 26, as you alluded to earlier, James. And no doubt God was using the maturity in my prefrontal cortex, but...

I was a little boy acting like a man having sex with a girl. Neither of us were ready and we brought a life into the world. And when we did, it got sideways. It started broken because we weren't ready because we weren't adults. And we weren't adults because we weren't 18. It's not because we weren't adults because we weren't 26 yet. It's because we weren't adults because we weren't operating in any...

We weren't building on any rock. We didn't have any character or maturity in of ourselves. And I'm I'm a, as a young adult pastor and I know a lot of fine young people that are 18, 19 and 20 years old that are more mature now and actual adults than, than I was even at 26.

James Moffitt (10:09.798)
So it's kind of a moving target and it's all dependent upon the individual and where they're at mentally, physically, spiritually, psychologically, right? So I can support that. I agree with what you're saying. No problem.

Did you see my chat message?

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (10:31.586)
Now, I think this is.

James Moffitt (10:36.158)
So sitting closer to the microphone is going to help. And don't worry about, can edit this out or I can edit this out. This conversation. Hey.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (10:42.25)
OK. Hey, can you? Yeah, can can we? Can we start at the top?

James Moffitt (10:47.582)
That's better.

James Moffitt (10:55.262)
You want to start over?

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (10:59.138)
Yeah. Do you want to?

James Moffitt (11:01.926)
It's up to you. mean, I I don't think it's gone bad thus far.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (11:08.002)
You're gracious.

James Moffitt (11:11.442)
No, this is, this is, like I said, this is two friends talking, right? And we can, we can move and it's an organic conversation that can ebb and flow. I've got some, I've got questions I can ask you, but we don't, definitely don't have to stick with those questions. You know, if we get to, if we get the flowing with the conversation, then let's run with it. But, I think, I mean, I think, yeah, yeah, I think we're fine. Like I said, when I go back to edit this, this

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (11:33.87)
Okay, brother, you're caught. You're the boss.

James Moffitt (11:41.214)
podcast episode, all this discussion of audio and all that stuff. I can edit that out real easy. All right. So,

James Moffitt (11:56.338)
Why is it so difficult for parents to shift from manager to mentor when their children grow up?

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (12:05.922)
Yeah. So.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (12:12.928)
When a child passes through the threshold from immature, from dependent, from your possession in a lot of regard to mature, though it varies in degree, to independence, and to no longer needing to be possessed by you.

I think that there is a direct conflict that happens internally for moms and for dads because we've only loved and cared and nurtured and provided and pursued this tender being for so long that now all of a sudden the sort of

the changing of relationship and the changing of needs happen faster than parents are really willing to move at. And not just that.

Not only does it happen faster than we realize, where there's a real shift in relationship dynamics, but moreover, I don't think we parent with foresight to prepare children to become adults. Because we're not parenting with the goal in mind of helping that child become an adult, we're parenting with the goal in mind to love them.

to nurture them, to protect them, to teach them. And all of those things are important and instrumental ingredients, I think, to the final product. If we lose sight of what really the intention of parenting is, then we're gonna deal with all sorts of internal conflict and conflict with our child. So because I think that we're not pursuing adulthood in children, that when they actually

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (14:22.798)
start to form into adults and become old enough to have independent thinking, we're still clinging too tightly to a role that was always meant to be transient in our lives anyway. We're trying to be there. We're trying to be there then for them and trying to to live their life for them when really I think that the aim is is to is independent and is healthy and godly living. You know, I say to Ezra all the time he's for Ezra.

I have to, I'm speaking to the man that you're becoming. I tell Ezra all the time that I'm speaking to the man that God wants him to be. And you know, those conversations are interesting, but I'm intentional about it, you know? So I'm hoping that it works out.

James Moffitt (15:07.877)
I'm sure.

James Moffitt (15:14.974)
Well, I think that parents, children and parents both are transitioning from age to age. I think that parents lose sight of the need to transition into the role of a mentor and support person versus being intimately involved in day-to-day activities like brushing your teeth, less screen time, go to bed at a certain time, wake up at a certain time.

life habits, life skills, and things like that. so yeah, parents need to figure out how to transition because sometimes parents lose sight of that or they forget that and they're like, you can't you can't parent your 20 year old like you did when they were six, right? It just doesn't work that way. But anyhow, so let me let me switch

Let me switch tracks here. Let's talk about restoring relationships. Lessons learned from reconnecting with an adult son after not being present during his early years. Let's see. How humility, consistency, and time play into rebuilding trust.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (16:26.936)
Yeah.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (16:33.932)
Yeah, so.

All right, so here's the story. 18 years old, my high school sweetheart gets pregnant, 19, Troy Jr. is born, and I'm a wet noodle.

you have more maturity in your pinky finger, James, than I did from 18 to 26. Really just floundering, living a life full of self-gratification and really aiming for what was a worldly standard of...

a worldly standard of manhood or maturity. So because my orientation was backwards and my goals were not rightly placed.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (17:37.717)
I wasn't ready and it really caused a lot of consequence. I wasn't there for formative moments in Troy Jr.'s life. I didn't tend to him and care for him and lead him in the way that he deserved. And then someone shared with me about the hope that could be found in Jesus.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (18:08.32)
I knew I wasn't the man that I was supposed to be. I knew that being a father required more intentionality.

more time, more dedication, more maturity.

And that shortfalling sort of loomed deep in my heart. And I tried to cope with it in a bunch of different ways. And I would come and I would see Troy and his mother and I would share custody and we would have time together. And I did the best that I could. But when I found that there was hope for redemption in my parenting through...

the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in my life by becoming a Christian, by asking for forgiveness, by giving my life to Jesus. I knew a good deal when I saw one and I took it. And as a new man, the Lord entered my life and He changed me. He changed my desires, He changed my convictions. He gave me a true north.

And as God's Word would talk about in Malachi, His Word says that He turns the heart of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers. He's a restorer. He's a healer of the breach.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (19:36.064)
cleans up our mess, he makes beauty from ashes, and he did that. He did that for me in my life, and now all of sudden with a passionate and furious love, a new love.

I would begin to pursue this little boy and relationship with him. And I always loved him, but I didn't love him more than I love myself.

And God took me, I was upside down and broken and he switched me right side up and he moved me from disoriented to oriented and from blind to seeing. And I began to pursue this kid and with all of myself and we had many, many good years. But he was still the product of a broken home. He was still didn't have.

a lot of the foundation that he was meant to have.

had I been in the design, had I been there for him, had I been trained, had we looked and learned to the Lord together, had I have taught him the way that I'm supposed to, I believe firmly that things would have been a lot different. So because of that deep seated brokenness, though I was pursuing and though we were restored and though we were best friends, he found himself pulled in two different directions.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (21:02.094)
pastor and as a Christian and as this sort of newfound zeal for religion and God and a value system that doesn't look like the world and didn't look like his mops. And at 14 when it came to iPhones and screen time and driving in cars and going out to parties and how to steward finances.

and what to do with his body, we found ourselves in big conflict because I was operating out of one playbook and really Troy was operating out of another. And at that point, not officially, but very much practically, Troy emancipated himself from my care.

and he would kind of, you know, put the stiff arm out. There was a couple of times, right, I went to get him to pick him up. He was a week with me and a week with his mom, and he refused to get into the car and they were, things were said and even at times police were called and he just didn't want to go. And

I had no more moves left on the board. mean, I could have had him maybe legally forced to come with me because of the court order, but I was reminded that our Heavenly Father never forces us to be in relationship with Him. He never forces us to obey Him. He just loves. He just loves and pursues and He beckons us to come.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (22:58.574)
We have a choice on what to do with that beckoning.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (23:04.834)
There's no one I want to be like more than than God the Father as a father. So I. I role modeled. What I seen our Heavenly Father doing and. Respected Troy's decision to to not come and there was a few years there where he didn't. He just did it and I would text and he would text and but.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (23:35.668)
wouldn't come. He would come around maybe for a holiday a couple times a year. And it was hard. It was hard. But God, right?

James Moffitt (23:50.558)
Co-parenting is never an easy task. went through, my first wife and I were married for, oh, I don't know, two years, three years maybe at the most. And I had a son named Jeremy that he just passed away in January, he was 38. And he...

Let's just say, I want to say that between the ages of 18 and 26, I was a raging dumpster fire.

And I had a horrible childhood. And a lot of times when we become parents, despite whatever level of maturity that we're at at that time, we're hardwired to parent the way we were parented, right? Unless we have enough introspection, which I did. My dad was very heavy handed. He was a drill sergeant for 26 years. My mother was Austrian descent. My sister and I were in an...

German orphanage and we were adopted. I'm very, very thankful that they brought us to America. I'm very thankful for the physical things that they provided for me and my sister, but they didn't know how to demonstrate love towards us as children. And so when I became a father, and when I became a father, I was already a Christian and I...

How do I say this? As a Christian, I had to get to a point where I guess I was 19. 19 or 20, I wound up in a street rescue mission called Star of Hope in downtown Houston, Texas. I'm digressing a little bit, but this is an important part of the story in that I had to admit one to Heaven Card.

James Moffitt (25:41.232)
I'd said the sinner's prayer. I asked Jesus to forgive me of my sins and enter into my heart. Right? And so I had one of those fire insurance cards in my wallet that was going let me into heaven because Jesus saved me. Well, I was a very angry young man when I left home. I was very bitter. I was very angry, very defensive. I could not wait to get out on my own and get out from underneath the authority of my parents. And I want to say that my parents

I think they really did the best they could with what they had, right? And I was raised in the 70s. I graduated high school in 1980, May of 1980. Ran away from home, you know, was working security, lost my job, lost my car, lost my apartment, wound up on the streets, and I wound up at the Star of Hope mission. And I kept asking, God, why me? Why am I at the Star of Hope mission? Because I had to listen to...

a gospel message every morning, you before each meal, you know, they had churches that would come in and lead the men in, you know, in prayer and singing and listen to the message of whatever pastor was there, youth leader, whatever. And so I kept asking God, I was like, why me? I understand all of this. I understand.

the gospel. I understand why it's important that I ask God to forgive me of my sin and enter into my life. Well, so after 45 days of being at the Star of Hope mission, listening to all of these messages, praying with people, a still small voice in my heart said, it's not what you've done, it's what you haven't done. And I was like, what? I didn't get it at first. It's not like, it's not what you've done that's caused you to

come to this point in your life, it's what you haven't done. And what I learned was that God wrote my name in the Lamb's Book of Life, and He gave me new purpose, right? And that purpose wasn't for me to be happy. That purpose wasn't for me to be sexually fulfilled. It wasn't about James. James' purpose is what God's purpose in me was.

James Moffitt (28:04.794)
And so I had to learn a tough lesson in that, okay, I'm His. I belong to Jesus. My name's written in the Lamb's Book of Life. And now He wants me to seek Him. And He wants to fulfill His purpose through my life. Now, do I have that fully figured out? And have I fully come to the full realization of all that at the age of 63? No! No! But I'm a lot further along than I was then, right? So...

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (28:09.123)
Thank

James Moffitt (28:34.194)
When me and my first wife got married, we were both Christians. We met in a Baptist church. Both of us were way too young. We were both immature. We should have never gotten married. I had a son, Jeremy, who was a byproduct of that relationship, and he was probably the best thing that ever happened out of that relationship.

And so I say all this, said all of that to let you know that I went through that too, in my own way. You know, I had a son. I remember he was, I don't know, three, four years old. I didn't even have a car. had to drive the bus in Houston, Texas out to his mother's mom's house to pick him up. And I remember we were walking in the rain one day, going back to this room that I was renting and I heard him say, this is entirely too much walking.

I looked back at him and I said, what are you saying? He said, dad, this is entirely too much walking. And I was, I laughed and I'll, I'll always remember that as kind of a fond memory I have with him. And, uh, yeah, I remember co-parenting and I remember the, the, struggle, you know, the power struggle, the emotional anguish, the, know, the, you know, my, my, uh, mother-in-law and father-in-law worked overtime to keep me from seeing my son.

I had to get it. I had to hire an attorney just to get visit visitation. Right. And, so anyway, I, I kind of went down that rabbit hole just to let you know that.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (30:06.967)
I'm so glad you did. I'm so sorry about Jeremy's passing, James.

James Moffitt (30:12.328)
Yeah. Yeah. We, we were, we were estranged. my current wife and I who've been married 35 years and we had three children. We, actually moved from Houston, Texas to Atlanta, Georgia, because the hospital I was working at outsourced their IT department to some company called Comm Disco or something like that in New Jersey. Anyway, that's a long story, but anyway, we just packed, I packed up my family and we moved.

And in hindsight, it's always 2020. And in retrospect, I did a lot of damage to that relationship with him because he was very young. Anyway, fast forward to now, or 10 years ago, my son was, is gay. He was living a gay lifestyle.

He and I had several conversations about that and I told him that I didn't understand that lifestyle I didn't necessarily agree with it, but he was he's my son and I loved him right and I want him to be happy and and I told him that your your Your life is between you and God right you have to answer for your decisions I you're not gonna answer to me. You're gonna answer to got your creator, you know at some point and so you've got to make

The best decision is that you can with that. Well, anyway, he was very flamboyant. He liked to dress up as women and put makeup on. And we were friends on Facebook and he, he was just over the top. And so my wife and I had to unfollow him. We, we were still friends. We could still communicate, but I didn't see him on my newsfeed anymore because I just couldn't, I just couldn't deal with what he was putting out there.

And anyway, so we were estranged and when he, when I got word at the end of December that he was in the ICU at whatever the hospital is up in Michigan, Lansing, Michigan, starlight mission star, whatever it is. I forget the name of the hospital. Anyway, I was in contact with his best friend's mother and his stepfather. And he was in ICU for five weeks and we were hoping that he would.

James Moffitt (32:35.526)
survive and get out and go to long-term care. And at that point, I was hoping to come visit him and hopefully reconnect and reconcile what little connectivity or relationship was there, and hopefully get back into his life and get back on track with some things. And well, that never occurred. God had other plans.

And so anyway, it's tough. We also lost a 10 year old daughter to cancer back in 2001. So that's the second child I've lost. And parenting is tough. Life is tough, right? And I want to say that because of my Christian beliefs,

I want to say that I was better equipped to be a better father than my father was to me, my adoptive father, right? And I was better equipped to show compassion and love and kindness and gentleness to my children than I saw in my own childhood, right? So anyway.

James Moffitt (34:02.45)
That's my story.

So I said all that, all of that to let you know that you're, none of us, you know, as new fathers and even as mature fathers that are walking down the road, and I want to talk to fathers right now. It really doesn't matter where you were. What matters right now is where you're at. You can start anew right now. You can, you can, you can, you can stop making mistakes.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (34:25.312)
Amen. Right now.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (34:31.662)
That's right.

James Moffitt (34:31.846)
All of us make mistakes. I don't care how mature you are. I don't care how long you've been walking with Jesus. I don't care how long you've been a member of the Baptist Church or the Catholic Church or whatever church, right? You can become the person that God wants you to be right now, today. And you can ask God to help you and provide you with the guidance that you need to become not only a better father, but a better person.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (34:47.16)
Yes.

James Moffitt (35:00.882)
better believer. And the second episode of this podcast, had the first episode was the introduction. And I got to thinking about it. You know, I'm a parent, we've had four children. I want this podcast to bring hope and support to parents of teenagers and adult children, right? And I was like, before we get to the parent part, we need to talk about the marriage relationship. We need to get to the foundation.

We got to build the house on a solid foundation. Right? And so my second episode talked about the marriage relationship, what it meant to be a good husband, a husband of faith, a kind husband, a loving husband, a patient husband, you know, the importance of speaking love to your spouse, right? Finding out what their love language is, loving them like God loves you. Right? And the same thing with the women.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (35:33.368)
Thank

James Moffitt (35:58.75)
what it means to be a godly wife, right? How to treat your husband. And so I tried to build a foundation and talk about that marriage relationship and how important it is before you even become parents. And sometimes, guess what? We're parents before we even start working on that. But you gotta start somewhere. You look in the mirror and you go, crap, I got the cart before the horse.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (36:17.229)
Yeah.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (36:24.973)
Right.

James Moffitt (36:25.544)
But that's okay because you can unhook the cart and can put it behind the horse, hook it back up and start going down the road correctly. Right? And so, so today is a new day, you know, and I don't care, I don't care how badly you've screwed up. I don't care how bad of a husband you've been. I don't care how bad of a person you've been. I don't care how bad of a father you've been. God can bring you full circle and he can restore you right where you're at and he can give you a new path. Right?

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (36:28.878)
That's right.

Yes.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (36:37.614)
That's right.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (36:54.738)
That's Right. Yes. Second Corinthians 517. who is in Christ is a new creation. Behold, all things have passed. All things have passed away. All things have become new. And the Lord truly does reach down and is willing to reach down here and now and redeem your brokenness and past. You know, what a a powerful.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (37:23.884)
Would it awful?

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (37:28.574)
loss in which you've known, James, and I appreciate your transparency and I appreciate God's sustaining power to uphold you and not just uphold you, but, you're really ministering. You're really talking and you're dealing hope is what you're doing because as you've already shared, like

Yeah, there's brokenness. Yeah, all sorts of things are disordered and upside down in our lives as parents on the full spectrum, both in the lives of those who are devout and walking with the Lord and those who, you know, weren't like me. And the fact of the matter is, is that no one is too far gone, nor is it, if you have breath, is it too late for God to work and change your life? And where I've found

hope in my experience is that.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (38:35.554)
that the Lord heard my cry. The Lord changed me and I was able to, and the way that you were able to with Jeremy.

for the seasons that you guys did have together. Share with him the love in which you've received from God. it's like, so in Troy Jr.'s case, years are gone by and I did my best like the father in Luke chapter 15, when his son left him, to not send him out of the door with.

boot marks on his back. To let him know that ultimately, yes, he had been bar mitzvahed. He had walked through the door of manhood. I'm a Jewish Christian and I wasn't religious in my Judaism, but my dad taught me enough to instill some cultural Judaism in me. And as the Lord moved in my life to...

to develop my Christian faith, I started to see the connection between Judaism and Christianity and the general application as it relates to manhood. So when Troy was 13, about two years before we would have our season of separation, I would put him through a bar mitzvah. And it was just a, it wasn't a Jewish bar mitzvah, but it was a ceremony. It was a symbol.

where the preeminent men in our lives would gather around the fire and would talk to them about what manhood really meant. And we ate steak and we played paintball and we wrestled in the volleyball court. And he wrestled, you know, there was 10 guys there and friends were there. He wrestled and I gave him a Maasai spear from the real African Maasai tribe because they would go through a process where...

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (40:39.554)
their young men would like go out and like hunt the lion. I'm not so familiar with all the culture, but I wanted to give him something symbolic. I wanted to charge him and say, son, on this day, no longer am I your covering. I'm your dad and I'll be there for you with every breath of my life for the rest of my life. I'm here for you and I love you and I'm broken and you're broken and we both need God.

but you have to stand before God yourself. I'm not gonna be there. I'm gonna teach you and I've taught you and I love you and I failed you and I'm sorry for the way I failed you. But ultimately there's no grandkids in heaven. We're all his children, we all have to stand before our maker and you've been instructed in the way that you should go. I've taught you about the word of God. I've told you.

about the goodness of God. I've shared with you about the instructions with God and I can't make you to do it. So this day, son, I charge you, be the man that God has called you to be. Be a man, be better than your dad. And I'm so proud to say that my son now coming on 19 in just a couple of months, I was already a felon by the time that Troy was born. By this age that Troy is right now, my son, I was already a felon and a father.

And the kid is, he's got a good head on his shoulders. He really is growing. And when he took that time away to go and figure it out, to go and look, to go and explore, to go see what the world had to offer him without his dad, without his dad's opinion, because I didn't move, James, from that earlier. Like I didn't move to that mentor stage. I was still trying to really, he was only 14, 15 years old.

So of course I was still trying to really parent him and really help shape his decisions, but I was forced to withdraw. Troy wouldn't want, he didn't want to come anymore. The life that I lived, the standard was too high. It was too rigid. It was too holy. It was too boring. He didn't want to live at the church. I lived at the church. I lived at the parsonage. So that's kind of lame when you're 14 and 15, when you go to mom's house and you can do, you have a lot more freedom.

James Moffitt (42:54.939)
Okay.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (43:05.112)
So he wants hands off, so he got hands off and we sent him out the door without boot marks on his backside. We sent him out the door with weeping. We sent him out the door with tears. We sent him out the door affirming love for him, not agreeing with decisions that he was making that we thought weren't the right ones for him or nor were they God's will for his life. He got kind of started fast and...

more mature activity and lifestyle. But I wouldn't endorse that, but I would affirm love for him. And now these years later, I have seen him turn back. He messaged me the other day and he said, dad, I use the wisdom that you taught me every day of my life. He sent me a video of fathers coming alongside their young sons.

And at the end of the video, you know, it's on Instagram. It just says, I love you, dad. And I wrote him a message, I'm not crying, you're crying. Because it was so touching. And the Lord now, all these years later, it's about four years later where we've had a really delineated separate relationship where my little boy stopped being my little boy and he started being his own man. And I had to move from daddy and father to mentor.

and friend. And I can say now that that God is blessing and honoring those prayers, that I have a relationship with my son, that he does seek wisdom and counsel and I'm back to having a voice in his life and I lost it.

James Moffitt (44:52.206)
Well, as fathers, we can't pour into the lives of our children when our lives are a train wreck or a raging dumpster fire, right? And so sometimes it's important to, and sometimes you have to do this in parallel, and that's a very difficult thing to do, to let God pour Himself into you and to mold you and shape you into the image that He wants you to be.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (45:00.909)
Right.

James Moffitt (45:21.842)
and then at the same time be able to plant those seeds of faith and seeds of wisdom into your children, right? Even as abusive as my earthly father was to me and my sister, I have to say that once I... I thought my parents were blithering idiots. I thought they were out of touch. I thought they had no clue what the reality of life or any of that stuff. And I remember picking up a...

Payphone. You remember what a payphone used to look like? remember picking up a payphone, shoving quarters into it calling back home and talking to my dad and going, wow, this is a huge piece of humble pie that I'm choking on, but you're not as much of an idiot as I thought you were. And some of the, some of the tough lessons that he taught me, some of the, so the discipline, especially the discipline that he instilled in me helped me to survive. you know, between.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (46:06.87)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (46:19.07)
18 and 26, because being homeless was difficult. Living under a bridge with three plastic bags was difficult. losing my job and losing my home and losing my car and living at the star of it mission for 45 days and all of the mental and emotional anguish that I experienced, the loneliness and the anger and all the emotions. I was able to survive a lot of that because of the self-discipline that he instilled in my life. Right.

And so that's what you're talking about with your son, your 19 year old son is that, yeah, y'all had to go on parallel tracks there for a little while. And while you, while you did that, God was pouring himself into you and he was making you into the man that he wanted you to be, the father that he wanted you to be. And, and you were still able to love your son. You were able to share God's wisdom with him.

James Moffitt (47:45.566)
You know, and so the father said, fine here and blessed him, let him go out the door out into the world to do God knows what. And he knew that that you surely that father didn't want to do that, but he had the wisdom to let him go. And, and, you know, the word talks about how the son gets to the end of himself. You know, he squanders all of his riches, all of his inheritance, and he's walking back home and he wants to be.

He wants to allow his father to allow him to be a servant. He says,

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (48:19.49)
Can I just say, I just have a job. Just give me a job.

James Moffitt (48:22.546)
Yeah, I'll, I'll eat with the pigs, you know, and what did the father do when the father found out he was on his way back home? He ran to him, right? He put shoes on his feet, clothes on his pack. And he said, my son is, you know, I, you know, I just, I'm just kind of paraphrasing the story here, but, but, know, he ran to his son, just like God runs to us. You know, he leaves the 99 sheep and goes and looks for the one that's a stray. Right. And so.

And so, you know, that's what God wants us to do as fathers is to leave the 99 sheep and go find the one that's a stray and love them, you know, love them back into the fold. Right.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (49:04.152)
But we have seen, but James, you're so spot on because, but to ever do that, we need to do it his way and we need to do it in his strength. Like for example, more of me in Troy Jr's life would have, I'm telling you, would have produced the opposite effect, the opposite desire of my heart.

which was communion and intimacy and friendship and relationship and a voice in my son's life. What do I want for my son but just welfare? What do I want? I want well, I want good, I want better. I want him to climb on my shoulders and be 10 times the man that I was. So I want no evil for him. I only want good for him. I want the desires of his heart to be met. I want the joys.

James Moffitt (49:45.948)
Right? Right. Absolutely.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (49:58.346)
of life and all that God has for him and all that this world has to offer, I want him to live the richest and fullest life that's ever been lived if I can have my heart's desire. I have no agenda for this guy. But the point that you're making earlier is I think what's key here is that we can't give anybody what we don't have. So if I were to hit you up at the Starlight Mission and say, dude,

I need some wisdom. You're like, dude, I don't have any wisdom. Hey, James, I need some money. You're like, I don't have any money. How can you give me what you don't have? And I deal with people all the time in pastoral ministry. I come out of life dominating sin and addiction. I got clean in 2012. The Lord delivered me from the whole spectrum of drugs, alcohol. Years later, he would get me out of different.

struggles that I had with porn and lust. And the Lord has just been so faithful to work in my life to find victory. And now I share that victory. I share the availability of that victory through the person of Jesus Christ. I share the replicable, virtuous, and victorious Christian life that Christ wants us to live.

with others all the time and parents come and they weep over their prodigals and they weep over their brokenness and they weep over their mistakes. But they want something to do that is different than what God's word would prescribe. And what God's word would prescribe would be to pursue Christ. It would be to become the person that Christ wants you to be.

You're in a broken relationship with your son, your daughter. You're in a broken marriage. You're in a broken job situation. Your life is broken and a wreck. You have a wayward person in your family that you love. The best thing that you can do for any of those people, the best thing that you could do for this broken world is to grab hold of all that God has for you, is to dwell richly.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (52:26.002)
in the person and work of Jesus Christ is to study the scripture, is to become the person that God has called you to be. So when that prodigal comes to his senses and returns, so you're able to lavish them with the love that your heavenly father lavishes you when you would agree with God and turn back towards your creator to learn what it is that he has for you, to commune with him, to have fellowship with him. So it's like the blessing, I think, of

of our helplessness when we find ourselves in these situations is that if we become who God has made us to be, then when that opportunity comes, that you will have something to share with Troy Jr., that you will have something to share with Jeremy. Because tomorrow is not promised. We have today. And we have two different people on the spectrum here.

of different experiences, and yet the testimony remains the same. You must become who God is calling you to be. That's the best chance for your kid. That's the best chance. You want a parent, your adult child, your teenage child, your infant child. You want to be the best husband. You want to be the best father. You want to be the best wife. Become who God has called you to be. Take the time and the energy to grow in Him. The same way that you take time and energy to grow in anything else.

on this green planet. It all takes work and energy. But when comes to spiritual things, we think that somehow that just happens by osmosis.

James Moffitt (54:07.09)
Well, and one of the other things I would like to highlight is that for parents that are going through a separation or a divorce, you're co-parenting, the family justice or the family courts, I don't care what state you're in, the family courts are not interested in your children. not, all they're interested in is money, how much money you can give your attorneys and how much money the judges can make. The family court system is screwed up.

horribly. And so what has the world been preaching to fathers for all these years? What has the family court system been telling fathers all these years? We're gonna give your children to the mother because you're an unfit father. Whether you're an addict, whether you're a felon, whether you're in jail, whether you're homeless, whether you're jobless, no matter what your story is, no matter how unsuccessful or how successful you are,

The world is going to tell you, Dad, you just don't cut it. And you're not worthy of having your children. Right? And so, I want to tell dads, without any hesitation, your children need you in their lives. Without a doubt. They need their mothers, and they need their fathers. They need their fathers. And I'm not slamming, I'm not dissing or taking value away from mothers that are single parents that are

are having to fulfill the role of the mom and dad in the family dynamic, because maybe dad is a deadbeat. Maybe he is in prison. Maybe he's an addict. Maybe he's not in a place in his life to where he can be the type of father that you desperately need your children to have. Right. But there are fathers out there that desperately want to be the father to those children. And no matter, no matter

how inadequate you may think that they are, those children desperately need that male role model in their lives. And I had a gentleman that's in prison ministry, Mr. Richard O'Keefe, his episode is actually breaking on July the 4th. He works with incarcerated men, and he deals with gang members, and he deals with all manner of brokenness.

James Moffitt (56:32.354)
And one of the primary reasons for those men being where they are, being incarcerated and in prison because of the crimes that they have committed, is they didn't have a father figure. They didn't have love, they didn't have acceptance, they didn't have forgiveness, they didn't have gentleness, they didn't have kindness, they didn't have a role model, a male role model in their lives that was there for them when they...

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (56:44.962)
Father.

James Moffitt (57:01.8)
Desperately needed it. And so what are those young men do they turn to gangs? They turn to gang life and criminal lifestyle to to get the things that they were desperately looking for and what it what happened they became broken not beyond repair, but they became broken in society and now they're now they're incarcerated, you know and and Thanks be unto God. There are people like Richard O'Keefe that are there

that's a believer and he can help those men, those young men that are broken, he can bring redemption to them. He can bring restoration, a measure of restoration through Christ into their lives and they can start down the path of restoration and healing that they so desperately need so that when they are let go, when they fulfill their sentences and get back out into the world, they're going to be better equipped to be a better man.

better individual, a better believer in Christ, and ultimately a better father to the children that need them.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (58:09.474)
Someone is going to disciple our children. Going to be the TV, it's going to be the culture, it's going to be social media, it's going to be someone from the gang, it's going to be a teacher. God's word says that the glory of a child is his father. There's plain language in scripture that talks about the importance of the man in the household.

to set the standard to priest, to provide and to protect. Sisters, if you do not have that man because of sin, because of brokenness, because of his sin, because of your sin, because we live in a sin-struck world and because guys suck, people stink, that's the problem with people. One of the very first things that I would say to my wife is, her name's Denuki, would be Denu, I'm going to fail you. And can I tell you something?

I have failed her, I've kept true to that promise. I have failed her every single day of the years in which we've been married. I fail my children. I fail myself. I fail my God. But the fact of the matter is, is that there's one who doesn't fail, and it's Jesus. There's a Father in heaven who is willing to step down and interface.

with you and your life to get down into the nitty gritty. And the best thing that you could do is to fellowship with him, to learn his wisdom, to learn his perspective, to seek his guidance and his counsel so you can figure it out. If dad isn't in the scene, we need to get a man who loves the Lord in your child's life. Now, we're talking about, we're talking, obviously we're talking in a mixed bag here because

It's almost for sure, it seems like this problem is addressing people with younger children, right? But the fact of the matter is that

James Moffitt (01:00:02.129)
a role model.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (01:00:16.077)
The Lord is able to reach down like He did in my life at the age of 26 and take a little boy and bring him into the door of manhood to push him through the threshold and to lock arms with me every day since and to becoming that man in which God has called me to be. you know, we talked about earlier, like, what is the best thing that we could do as parents of adult children?

And the answer, which I take heart in because the answer and what my best next move is, my best next move is the same for my 18 year old and my four year old and my one year old. And that's cool because I'm not a bright guy. It's helpful to have one step and one thing that I need to do, one thing to wrap my head around and one thing to pursue. And it's simply Christ.

And more importantly than it's just Christ and becoming more Christ, it's about recognizing that I'm insufficient to be that I don't have it within myself, within my mental faculties, within my financial capacity, within my ability to reach. You know, I'm in Los Angeles right now. Troy Jr. is in New Jersey. If he were to get sick right now, if he were to have some tragedy, befall him.

James Moffitt (01:01:35.362)
well.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (01:01:41.844)
I would be hours at best, but likely days away from being able to reach him. Meaning my strength, my capacity and yours too, parents of adult children, parents of children and actually parents. And how about this? All people everywhere, your capacity is little. Your strength is small.

So what do I do? I take all of that weakness, I take all of my shortcomings, I take all of my failures, in all of that wreckage, in all of that wretchedness, I bring it before the Lord. And I say, Jesus, if you can make something out of this, I give it to you. And an acts of constant and continual and daily submission be set.

Ultimately, in total weakness, I go before my Maker who can touch Troy in New Jersey right now. And I lift him up to him and I say, God, you know I can't. Please, protect my boy. Because though he's a young man, and he's a better young man than I was at his age, he's still my little boy. And that's why it's so weird. That's why it's such a tension. It's why it's so confusing. But I can't.

can't be all that I ought to be. What is is not what ought. But what I can do, what remains in my power is to be able to get on my knees with my wife this morning and ask for God's hand to be on my son in New Jersey and my son at daycare right now. I can't even protect my son in daycare.

I can't even protect my son in my family room. I can't even protect him in my arms. There's a real insufficiency here. I mean, I am a weak man. He got COVID in 2020.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (01:03:41.442)
You know, he's fine, praise the Lord, thank God, but like I couldn't keep him from that.

There was nothing that I could do. My daughter was born, they told me, you know, her gestational age, gestational is her biomarkers as she was coming in, being knitted together in his mother's womb. Her head, four weeks before she was born, her head, James, was sub one percentile in diameter. Meaning if you take a ruler from ear to ear,

and put it across her little head. It was less than 1 % of all children that are born in the distance. I mean, I didn't know if she was gonna be born with some...

some deformity or some brokenness, she came out perfect. And thank God for that. But my point is that we're so limited in what we can do. Our only hope is to rely on Him who's not limited by anything. We have to become who God has called us to be if we want to rightly parent our adult children.

James Moffitt (01:05:06.586)
Amen. All right. Let's take a few minutes to talk about your entrepreneurship and parenting.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (01:05:07.639)
Amen.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (01:05:14.894)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so okay, so picture this. I'm not there for Troy Jr. I'm not brushing his teeth in the morning. I'm out. I'm at the bar. I'm doing my thing. I'm caught up in this other lifestyle. And I'm really like neglecting my duties as a father. God gets a hold of my heart. He brings out Gal into my life.

We date and then we court, we get engaged, we get married. I'm the first one in my family to have babies in marriage. I'm the first one in my family to go through college. my wife, the Lord is really doing a lot of work in my life, like for the first time in our family. And it's a big deal. And now He gives me my son, my son Ezra. And I am on fire.

to do it differently. I'm like, I got a new lease on life. I got a new make. I got a new metric of success. I want to be there for Ezra, for all of his important milestones. And thanks be to God, I've been able to do that. So we come across a season in Ezra's life where I was absent for Troy potty training. Ezra is on occasion going potty on.

The single use potty chairs are like, you've seen them James, they're the little toilets. And you gotta kind of dump it and clean it, rinse it out and kind of get back to work. Well, I'm with Troy, we're skiing in the Adirondacks up in Mount Killington in Vermont. And it's one of our first times together since he's kind of went into that prodigal and wayward season.

James Moffitt (01:06:42.261)
yeah.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (01:07:05.806)
God really orchestrates it. We're together. We're driving home and it is a nor'easter. I mean, I can't see five minutes, five feet in front of my face. We're driving home. I got the windshield wipers on full blast and I have to use the bathroom so bad. I pull into the rest stop. I've been holding it for like 70 miles and I release myself here and I get this idea in this blizzard.

They're driving down from Vermont back to Philadelphia where me and my son are at the time to develop this potty training product called the Louvy. And what it is James is a small device. Here's one of the prototypes here. It's this small device. fits into the palm of your hand. It attaches directly to the toilet that you and I use every day as we were starting to get potty trained on it.

And what it does is it creates this immersive reward experience for the child if they properly go into the adult toilet. So whether you're a boy or a girl, you stand or you're sick, the Louvy attaches to your toilet. It senses if the child is rightly using it. So, you know, number one or number two, and then it gives them this really cool light and sound show. And we started this company and patented this technology. And here I am.

James Moffitt (01:08:30.317)
well.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (01:08:31.052)
Yeah, you know, here I am on this like recovering. I was this deadbeat. I got this criminal record on this recovering from addiction. I wasn't there for my first son. Then God changes my life. I'm in my son's life. I'm in my daughter's life. I'm becoming the man that God has called me to be. My son and I, my oldest son and I are restored in our relationship. And I'm going to I'm going to keep pressing forward anyway.

This was our first prototype. have my, I had my friend who was an engineer attached this to the toilet. I was like, Hey, he's like, I think this will work, man. And we potty trained Ezra in just over a week on it. yeah, about 18 months ago and he he's been, he's yeah, he's been having fun. We took it off after three days off the toilet. Cause we wanted to miss, make sure that he wasn't going to get like dependent on it or, not use it. it.

James Moffitt (01:09:03.346)
Okay.

James Moffitt (01:09:13.863)
Okay.

Cool.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (01:09:29.962)
It does totally works. Gamification is a tried and true learning mechanism. All this is kind of new to me, but I've been pursuing it for the past couple of years, so I've been a little bit more learned than when I first started. But kids love to learn through game. I mean, there's a reason why I can name the Pokemon, but I can't name the elements on the periodic table.

James Moffitt (01:09:42.558)
Yeah.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (01:09:55.864)
Cause one was cool and one was fun and one was not, right? It's why I know my AP, but I don't know my, why I'm not good at algebra. So, in short, man, we're, launching our product by the time the podcast is, is aired. It'll, it'll God willing be on market. And, yeah, right now we're just, we're beta testing. So we're deploying 15 units in this coming, in these coming weeks to people who are like.

James Moffitt (01:09:59.646)
That's right.

James Moffitt (01:10:15.656)
Good.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (01:10:25.506)
They're gonna give us feedback, the good, bad and the ugly. And we're, yeah.

James Moffitt (01:10:29.662)
There you go. Well, that's exciting. Congratulations to you on that. And I want to say thank you for being on the podcast episode. think we had a wonderful conversation. And that brings us to the end of another episode of ABC's of Parenting Adult Children. A big thank you to Troy Fink for sharing his experiences, wisdom and heart with us today. His insights remind us that parenting doesn't stop when our kids grow up, it simply changes shape.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (01:10:35.352)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (01:10:58.278)
If something I or Troy said spoke to you, take a moment to reflect on how you're showing up in your relationship with your adult child. Are you leading with connection or trying to stay in control? It's never too late to shift that dynamic. If today's episode resonated with you, be sure to follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you know someone navigating the challenges of parenting adult children, share this episode with them. It might be just what they need to hear.

You can find more resources, past episodes and ways to connect with us at my website, parentingadultchildren.org. Follow us on Instagram at parentingadultchildren125. And if you have a story or question you'd like to share, send us an email at parentingadultchildren.com. Also, if you're on Apple or Spotify or any of the places where you get your podcast episodes, you can actually text me.

beginning of the description there's a little thing that says text me and you can actually send it me an SMS message and I'll get it in my email and I can respond to you. That would be kind of cool to do that. To the listening audience I want to say thank you for the privilege of your time and have a blessed day and Troy thank you for being here.

Troy Fink | Gammit Tech (01:12:12.642)
God bless you, brother. Thank you.