What Are Your Family Values? Angela & Aaron Kruse | Emily & Justin Free

Welcome to the Stronger Families Podcast!

What does it actually take to build a family that thrives — not just survives? In this episode, hosts Justin and Emily Free sit down with Aaron and Angela Kruse to discuss the game-changing importance of defining and clarifying your family values.

Together, they explore what happens when we operate under unspoken, assumed expectations and how unaligned values can create hidden tension in marriage. Aaron shares a vulnerable look at the wake-up call that made him realize he knew his church and business values by heart, but couldn’t name his own family’s. From a getaway in Cancun to Sunday night dinner tables filled with beautiful chaos and kids in their underwear, the Kruses break down how to practically establish, review, and weave intentional rhythms into the messy reality of everyday family life.

This isn't about arriving or having it all figured out. It's about taking the very next step the Lord is inviting you into — and watching it bear fruit.

Weekly Challenge: Take some uninterrupted time with your spouse this week to brainstorm. Separately write down what matters most to you, then come together to begin shaping your own unique family values.

Whether you're in a season of joy or struggle, this podcast is for families who want more — more richness, more delight, more of what God designed family to be.

Let's build stronger families together.

Audio - Heartbeats by PALA Code: DRQHR7LSHIWK5KXP

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Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

Well, first and foremost, every family has values whether they're clarified or not. So it those are they're there. They're either spoken and defined or they're unspoken and assumed. And so the challenge is, is if you're not clarifying them and you're not speaking them, everyone in the family may be operating under assumed values that are all different.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Welcome to the Stronger Families Podcast. My name is Justin Free and I'm one of your hosts. We'll hear from real people with real stories and God-centered wisdom to help strengthen families. Whatever season you find yourself in, whether joy, struggle, we hope that this is encouraging and equipping for you. So let's build stronger families together. Hey, welcome back. We are on the Stronger Families Podcast. Emily and I here, back with the cruises. Hello, hello. Welcome back. Welcome back. Thanks for having me. And today I am extremely excited. Uh as we're navigating, looking at how to build strong families. Stronger families. Stronger families. How to build stronger families. Today I want to I want to look at uh the significance importance of defining and having clarity around values as a family. What happens when we don't have values? What are we missing out on? How do we create values? What does that conversation look like? Um and then what's at risk if we don't? Uh what have we seen? What have you what have we experienced? So the family values, what's significant? So um to start, what happens when you don't define values and direction as a family?

SPEAKER_05 1:33

Well, first and foremost, every family has values whether they're clarified or not. So those are they're there. They're either spoken and defined or they're unspoken and assumed. And so the challenge is if you're not clarifying them and you're not speaking them, everyone in the family may be operating under assumed values that are all different. And they actually all may be in conflict.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_05 1:55

So literally, you may have a point of tension where you both have an assumption that this is a shared value and you actually have a different value than each other because of how you were raised, because of hurts you've been through, because of your experiences. And so literally, you're like, why are we always coming up against this point of frustration in our marriage? It may just be that there's an unspoken value that you have that's different that no one's ever put words to.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Right.

SPEAKER_05 2:18

So values become values inform behavior. So whether you realize or not, the things that are important to you will inform what you say, what you do, and how you do it.

unknown 2:27

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 2:27

And so the definition and clarity of values within a family, this is just mission critical.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:32

It's it's what informs how you guys behave and what's most important to you. I mean, I I remember just probably two years ago, I looked up and I was like, man, I can tell you the values of our church by heart. Like I could go through and just spout off the values of our church. It's a big deal. I could tell you the values of a business that I was connected to. I could tell you the values of multiple things, but I I realized I could not tell you the values of our family. We had talked about them. We even wrote them down one time, which I had forgotten that we had done. I forgot that I literally forgot they existed.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 3:05

No joke.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 3:06

Because it had been like six years ago. I literally was that and Angela goes, we did this. And I was like, We did? Yeah. I had no idea.

SPEAKER_04 3:13

They were really good too. They were really good.

SPEAKER_05 3:15

We've had several children since then. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, I realized, man, that we I could not tell you one of them. Wow. And that was a vulnerable place.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Yeah. Yes, it was.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

So how did that start? Like what what did it look like when you guys because we we we were in that, we are in that boat. We haven't talked about them. We at we have uh we would probably even agree on a few. Yeah. But there are probably some that we have that maybe are not communicated, kind of what you said. They're they're uncommunicated and assumed. Maybe so maybe we have some some of those. Um, but we haven't sat down and been like, here's our four. Here's the here's the painting. So yeah. Let me write down.

SPEAKER_03 3:56

Here's the mural how to do this. Yeah. But just speak to us as the you know, young beam. We're like, where do we start? What do we do?

SPEAKER_00 4:02

What questions did you ask? Like, what kind of walk us through what did that look like as a you established?

SPEAKER_05 4:07

I mean, to be honest, at first I think we were a little intimidated. Like we started to have this conversation in August of two years ago, but we didn't actually sit down to clarify until November.

SPEAKER_04 4:17

Yeah. In Cancun, we're all nice people. We're all good values conversations.

SPEAKER_05 4:23

So just so you know, we all inclusive were the most important piece is Cancun in all of this. This is a sponsor of this podcast. We're not actually sponsored.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

Sandals resort.

SPEAKER_05 4:33

Not sandals. We can't afford that. Yeah. But truly, like we started the conversation in August. But I mean, the reason it took us several months is because like we each needed to take some time, think on it, pray on it, and begin to to process and do some writing and journaling before we sat together.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Yeah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_05 4:51

Um, just to prepare our hearts because we didn't want to take it lightly. Yeah, we didn't just want to throw something on a page and we look up in two years and we're like, those aren't actually our values at all. Like we eat mac and cheese. Like we did eat mac and cheese, and now we don't. Like that's probably shouldn't have been our value. Um so but yeah, we what we did is is we actually planned a trip, just a one-on-one trip, which I wish we would have done more of in the first several years of our marriage. We just didn't know how important it was. And it's not always gonna be fancy, it's not always gonna be expensive, but just uninterrupted change of pace, change of place to get eye to eye. And so that was a super important part of this. That we didn't try to force it into the normal rhythm of life.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

Right.

SPEAKER_05 5:29

We weren't like in between like soccer and tennis, and we're like, hey, let's talk family values real quick, quick, get out a notebook, let's write these down. Like we had to change of pace, change of place, slow down and go, hey, what what are some things that need to be on here? And so what we did first is we just brainstormed.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

What was felt though? Before you get into this, what was felt that caused you to take the step to establish these values?

SPEAKER_05 5:53

I mean, I think it was the realization that our family had grown, our responsibilities had grown, and we weren't clear on exactly where we were going or how we were gonna get there. And then the other thing is we had a family scenario that prior Christmas where we had some tension at a family Christmas. Um and as the tension in that family Christmas built, the Lord hit my heart strongly that if we had shared agreed upon family values, that it would have brought an opportunity for us to have some conversations that could have brought in peace. But I realized in that that we had we did have family values and they weren't the same, and that was what was causing the tension. We each had unspoken family values, but they weren't the same values, and so it just it was like this moment where I could fast forward 20 years from now when our kids are adults, and I was like, man, if we don't help them begin to define these now, we have five of them and they're very different personalities, and if they don't have a common ground to come back to, they will fracture. So that's for me was a huge catalyst.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

So it's not only for you, no, and you that's right as you're leading your home.

SPEAKER_04 7:03

We need the kids to be able to verbalize these are our family and live out okay, and we have a specific day that we go through all of them. I mean, Obadiah could tell you all 12 of them. And he's how old? Four years old.

SPEAKER_03 7:16

And how many are there?

SPEAKER_05 7:18

I would I would never encourage anyone else to have that many. There are not 12 kids. There are five children. Here's here, and I'll go back to our process again. We we probably each spent a couple of hours on our own writing. And by the time we came together, there were 20 to 30 things we wrote down wrote down. But obviously, like you can't have 20 family values.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:42

I think for most families, four or five is great.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:46

Yes, we landed on more than most, but that's not the target. Right, right. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 7:51

We use many words, both of us.

SPEAKER_03 7:53

I just wanted to bring to the forefront how old he is. He's four, and there's 12 things, and he knows and can recite and can understand them because of the weekly rhythm that you guys have of talking about it. So good.

SPEAKER_05 8:06

And that was the second phase. So so we wrote them in November, and then we were like, now what? Cancun in Cancun. Like, sure we can put them on a wall.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:15

Uh sure we can print them off and put them in our kids' lunch boxes. But like the question we then asked is, now what?

SPEAKER_04 8:23

Because it would be a repeat of what we'd done.

SPEAKER_05 8:25

Yeah, we'd already done this once before, and I forgot we'd even done it. And so as we begin to talk, we were like, hey, we need anything worth doing is worth doing in a weekly rhythm. Some things are more frequent, but I'm telling you the path got God's design in doing things in a weekly rhythm, you just I care I just grow more and more convinced that it's his way.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_05 8:46

And so for us on Sunday evenings, it's just something we've decided to do. Um at dinner on Sunday nights, we talk about our family values.

SPEAKER_04 8:53

And if we sit down without the paper, they'll say, Family values! We need to get our family values. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:58

Yeah. Because they just know what do we do at dinner on Sunday night.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

What does that look like? Do you guys just go around popcorn like, hey, which one are we on? Yeah, do you want to talk through it? The rhythm?

SPEAKER_04 9:06

Yeah, we pick one to focus on for each week. And then throughout the week, we're, you know, if it's um, you know, we care for our bodies well, then you know, we went to the gym this week and we were eating well, and we did a special way of eating in January. So we're talking through that. Um, so we'll focus on one each week, and then we do go go back through and review all of them, and then yeah, each of us takes turns, you know, and then sometimes promptings of, you know, some of them are lengthy again. Aaron and I both love the words, and so we'll go through and each of us will get a chance to say them. And so it's just that, yeah, reiteration.

SPEAKER_05 9:46

It's the rhythms. Yep. Yeah. So basically each week we'll highlight the one from last week and talk about is there any stories from this week where we got to live out that value? Did you did you see a sibling honor that value this week? And Malachi might say, Man, I really saw Augustine. Man, we walk passionately with Jesus as one of our core values. Well, I saw Augustine consistently getting up and spending time with Jesus this week. Man, I just love the way he was reading his Bible. So I get to even honor each other a little bit. So yeah, you said that moment, and then we go through all of them, and then we focus on one for the next week and we talk about it. So either Angela or myself, or we may have one of the kids. So this week it's hey, we have fun and laugh often. Like that's our family value for this week. So, like, what are some ways this week as a family we can be intentional to have fun and laugh often?

SPEAKER_03 10:26

Okay, break this, break it down for it. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I thought your music. Okay, so we have four, a four-year-old, a two-year-old, and double zero has just some. Double zero. Double zero, the twins, the twinsies. How do we do this? Do we do this with it uh can they, you know, participate? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_04 10:53

I say for sure. Yeah, I think even a lot of our rhythms, like you know, we may get into what we do for Shabbat and that sort of thing. It it's not like we all sit down and they're just quietly like it's chaos. Please present what you have for us, mom and dad. They're not even holding their hands and they're uh it's wild. It's wild. And your kid may be in their underwear and 100% laughing and making jokes and standing on the chair, and but it's getting in them. Yeah. And I think, I mean, you have a kid watch a movie a couple times, and the things that we notice very early on with Malachi, he's coming out, he's quoting like half movies. Yeah, and we're like Which is kind of terrifying is in them. Yes, it is, they can have other things in them. Yeah, more than that. And so we start, even the questions, the kids are in and around our catechism questions at two years old. Two and three, yeah. And they start being able to say these things. And so just knowing it's gonna be wild. You can't like drop the expectations. This isn't going to be picture perfect and everyone's gonna be calm and quiet. It'll be wild, but the things that they will get inside of them from the consistency, it's gonna happen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:11

Oh, yeah. I mean, we'll be going around hitting all the family values, and Oliver's just shouting. He's like, I guess this is what we're doing. And so he'll just like yell from the corner. Like he's just like, I guess we're yelling.

SPEAKER_04 12:21

Like and he knows some of the words, so he'll shout some of the words. We do hard things. He's like yelling.

SPEAKER_05 12:27

Yes. It's very yeah, it's chaos. And that's why pandemonium. The lovingly, just being lovingly relentless. Like you just, we're gonna do this, and it's not gonna be perfect, and it's gonna be messy. And there's gonna be weeks you get done and you're like, that was pointless. Like that was the worst.

SPEAKER_04 12:45

I'll make eye contact with Aaron and I'll go, is that the answer you were looking for? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:49

And and then there's times like we get like three.