My Mother’s Story of Restoration and Reconciliation with Alice Beam!

Join Kimberly Beam Holmes for a heartwarming conversation with her amazing mother, Alice Beam!

Alice is the heart and soul behind Marriage Helper, but her journey to becoming a pillar of support for countless couples wasn't always easy. In this candid interview, Alice opens up about the challenges of raising three very different daughters, but brings a completion to their family dynamic.
But life threw Alice a curveball when her seemingly perfect marriage fell apart with Dr. Joe Beam. We'll hear about the devastating impact it had on her and her daughters, and the immense strength it took to rebuild her life.

This episode explores:
The joys and difficulties of raising daughters with unique personalities
How to navigate divorce and rebuild your life after divorce
The difficult decision to reconcile and the power of forgiveness
The journey of marital restoration within their marriage with Dr. Joe Beam
The importance of family traditions and legacy
Alice's story is one of resilience, faith, and the unwavering love of a mother. 

It's a reminder that even in the face of heartbreak, there's always hope for marital restoration and reconciliation, and that love can endure even the most difficult challenges.

Don't miss this inspiring episode!

Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and Relationships


Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and following reach over 500,000 people a month who are making changes and becoming the best they can be.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Were you ever mad at God?

Speaker 2: 0:02

Oh yeah, I mean I was. I mean I'm not going to sugarcoat it I started thinking what I did in the marriage that made it fall apart. My part in it Not that I was the reason he did. He had the affair, I was not. That was no excuse for him having the affair, but I did have a lot of faults in our marriage. I knew that if I told him no the rest of my life I would wonder what if I had said yes.

Speaker 1: 0:41

In today's episode I have one of my favorite guests Actually, it is my favorite guest that I have ever had on the podcast and it is my mom. Today, I'm joined by Alice Beam and we talk about a lot of things about parenting, about what it's like to parent different types of children, as she has parented a very strong-willed child I'll let you guess who that is. She's parented a special needs child, and she's parented a very strong-willed child. I'll let you guess who that is. She's parented a special needs child, and she's parented a child who's more like her, more of a hospitable servant type, which is not me, but she's done a lot. She also went through a divorce and a remarriage to the same person, which is my dad, and we talk about what that was like for her.

Speaker 1: 1:27

We also talk about some of the fun stories of me as a kid, which I'm sure you'll get a great laugh of. I hope you enjoy today's episode as much as I enjoyed having this great conversation with my mom. Let's dive in. Well, mom, I think the question that's on everyone's mind is what has it been like to be a parent of me? Oh, wow.

Speaker 2: 1:50

That is a great question. It has been an interesting journey.

Speaker 1: 1:57

That's the adjective interesting.

Speaker 2: 1:59

Interesting. It has been wonderful. It has absolutely been a delight. Kimberly was very strong-willed as a child. You were so strong-willed, oh boy. But you were such a blessing to us and to me. I almost feel guilty about the other two, you know, about Joanna and Angela, because I was so relaxed when I had you and we treated you differently in that we gave you more freedom and more responsibility than we did the other two. But you, even when you were young, you just showed so much responsibility and really so much maturity, you know. So it was kind of easy for us to do that for you, yeah, but you were very active and very strong-willed.

Speaker 1: 3:06

I was a brat.

Speaker 2: 3:08

I still remember when we had a parent-teacher meeting with a fourth-grade teacher and you absolutely loved him.

Speaker 1: 3:16

I cannot remember his name, mr Davis. Mr Davis, he was my third-grade teacher.

Speaker 2: 3:20

Third grade Loved him. You loved him. So you knew we were going in and meet him that night and talk with him. And you came to us and you said, please, please, don't tell him how I really am.

Speaker 1: 3:38

I was such a straight-A student in school. Yes you were, but at home I would throw temper tantrums. Oh you were.

Speaker 2: 3:46

You did, you threw temper tantrums and you would scream and yell and we'd send you to your room and you would scream and yell.

Speaker 1: 3:54

And you would threaten to tape record me.

Speaker 2: 3:57

I did, didn't I? Yes, I did, and then play it for my teachers. Yeah, I remember that now and that's what put me back in line.

Speaker 1: 4:04

Like you can't tell them how I really am.

Speaker 2: 4:06

You cannot tell them how I really am. It's so funny, but you know I think back on it and just such a delightful time. We did a lot of traveling as a family, you know.

Speaker 1: 4:21

So the thing that I want the audience members to get from our conversation together because you have three kids that are all very different, very different. So I want to ask you and well, before we get into that, and you are the best mother, everyone knows you're the best mother. Even people who work at Marriage Helper are like your mom is the best, everyone knows it. And you are the person where anyone, if you were to call anyone who knew you and said I need your kidney, they would give it to you in a heartbeat, like they wouldn't even ask questions, they would just do it. You got me tearing up here, well I know, but it's true, so I admit it. You got me tearing up here, well I know but it's true.

Speaker 2: 5:04

Wait a minute, even though I'm the one that sent the trash for your lunch and not your lunch.

Speaker 1: 5:14

Yes, Because it goes with your lovable nature. Like clearly you didn't mean to send the bag of trash. That was in high school.

Speaker 2: 5:27

Yeah, I'm trying to distract you so I won't cry. Oh, that's it.

Speaker 1: 5:30

Yeah, so I want to ask you about what it was like to parent three very different kids. For the listeners who may not know, my oldest sister, your youngest or your oldest daughter, angela, is mentally handicapped and has been for 50. How old is she? Now years 53 she'll be 53 or she is 53 she's 53.

Speaker 1: 5:54

She'll be 54 this year okay, yeah, so for 54 years. So what was it like when you realized and you were young then when you had her. So how was it realizing you were going to have a special needs child and how did you handle that?

Speaker 2: 6:12

It was absolutely devastating to begin with. We knew that she was slower than others and it took us accepting it. It probably took us about four years to really accept and wrap our head around, our mind around. You know, she's our special needs child. How are we going to deal? How are we going to accept this? How are we going to deal? How are we going to accept this? So it probably took a good five or six years to really get comfortable with the fact that, okay, this is her life, this is our life with her. But finally, when we both accepted it and started reframing the fact that what the special needs meant to us, we can be devastated by this or we can be blessed by this. So we flipped it and we think of her and she is a total blessing to us and the family, the grandkids, they love her, y'all love her.

Speaker 2: 7:33

Everybody loves Angel and like Joe's always told her Angel, if the world were like you, it'd be a better place. And Angel will tell people that my dad says if the world were like me, it'd be a better place. And Angel will tell people that my dad says if the world were like me, it'd be a better place and it's just a delight to have her and accepting her, accepting what her life is to her, what she wants to do every day. Instead of me trying to micromanage her, it's like I let her be her. I let her do what she wants to do.

Speaker 2: 8:13

When she was younger she did have a lot of you know. She would unload the dishes and vacuum and things like that, until one day she was vacuuming and something got caught in the vacuum cleaner and it caught it on fire and she was absolutely terrified after that to vacuum. So nothing like that. I don't make her do anything like that anymore. But you know she'll unlove the dishwasher, she'll fold the clothes and you know things like that. But the older she gets, she more wants to be at home, wants to be in her room listening to her music, and I respect that about her. I mean, you know I let her do that.

Speaker 1: 8:52

So what were some of the? What do you feel are some of the lessons about yourself or the joys that you've learned in life from parenting a special needs child, that you've learned in life from parenting a special needs child?

Speaker 2: 9:12

I think what I have learned from is patience, is acceptance, is not letting the view from the world looking at a special needs person when we're out in public affect me. You know. It's accepting her, loving her and, just you know, giving her what she needs, you know, and not worrying about what the world thinks about it. Yeah, because it really doesn't matter what the world thinks about it. Yeah, because it really doesn't matter what the world thinks about it. She's our daughter, she's our family and we love her and we are blessed to have her. I've even had people ask me well, don't you want to put her in a home? And I said, why would I want to put her in a home? Yeah, when we love her and she gives so much joy to our family? Right, and she's hilarious? Oh, yeah, she really is. She can. You know, she can say the funniest things. Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:15

You know, she'll I mean, she's always done her dirty dance. Yeah. Yeah, so she'll like walk through a room just shaking her butt as she walks yeah. And then she'll look at you and point and do, and she's like I'm doing my dirty dance, dirty dance.

Speaker 2: 10:30

Yeah, and that's what her Aunt Dale taught her. Oh boy, she's not. Oh, my goodness yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:39

So then there's Joanna. There's Joanna, and what is her for the listeners? What is her personality like?

Speaker 2: 10:45

Her personality is. Well, I guess her personality is somewhat like mine. She's more like me in that she's a completer and a family. Of course you are too, but you're more controlling or a more commander. I did erase that. You are more how do I say this? Kimberly You're more confident with yourself.

Speaker 1: 11:20

I'm more probably driven assertive, outgoing Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 11:25

Conflict approaching. Yes, Joanna and I will go to the end of the earth not to face conflict. We want everything to go smoothly. We don't want any rifts. We want everybody to be happy, nobody to be mad. Does that count? I mean, that's the way it is really.

Speaker 1: 11:50

Yeah, but Joanna's nosy too.

Speaker 2: 11:52

She is nosy. She's very nosy. I don't think I'm as nosy as she is. I am a little bit, but not as much as Joanna. She wants to know everything that's going on within everybody's life. She won't stop until you tell her Right. So yeah, but as a child she was so different than you in that she was real quiet, very easy to manage, Did she?

Speaker 1: 12:26

ever throw a temper tantrum.

Speaker 2: 12:28

I don't ever remember her throwing a temper tantrum. She may have, but I don't remember it. We could take her places and I would say you can, you can't touch anything. And she would, yeah. And then uh, as where you would be, standing up in the cart, jumping up and down, running through the store doing your flip. She was just real, real quiet. Yeah, so obedient, obedient. Well, you were well, yeah. A little bit more than her. No, not quite, you were a challenge to me.

Speaker 2: 13:07

Yeah, I remember one time I spanked you and you would not stop and you were telling me it wouldn't hurt. So I called your dad, I called Joe and he said you better stop, because the cops are going to come over and arrest us by the time. She says it hurts by the time she says it hurts by the time she says it hurts.

Speaker 1: 13:26

So yeah, that was me. I remember I would pad my underwear with socks. Yes, when I knew I was going to get a spanking, yeah, and run and hide under your bed.

Speaker 2: 13:38

Yes, you would do that. Yep, yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:40

So what a lot of the listeners, because several of them are going to know who you are from Marriage Helper and the fact that you are the reason Marriage Helper even exists and they're going to want to know how you handled being a parent through a divorce.

Speaker 2: 14:00

Very. That was extremely difficult. I was blessed in that I had my family within 20 miles of me. Some of them lived in the same town, but my parents were absolutely my salvation. When it came to Joanna, oh, y'all lived in Montgomery, we lived in Montgomery, yeah, and so they would stay in Tallahassee because I had work and they were wonderful and all my brothers and sisters were wonderful and they really just loved them, you know. But when it was just the three of us together, it was very sad. You know, joanna would cry a lot. Of course, angel would cry. She missed her dad, but she didn't really understand, you know, because he would come see them every other weekend but he would always leave too. So it was hard. It was really a sad time that three years you know how long did the divorce process take.

Speaker 2: 15:14

Like what about a year? I?

Speaker 1: 15:15

think so. What happened, like what was the breaking point in your marriage where y'all decided to separate or to divorce? How did it unfold? He was caught. He was caught in an affair. Yes, how was he caught? Did you catch him?

Speaker 2: 15:31

I knew it, but I didn't know it. I'm not sure.

Speaker 1: 15:40

That I know. No, no, do you know? That's why I'm asking the question. I don't know.

Speaker 2: 15:45

You know, it's been so many years ago.

Speaker 1: 15:48

Was he caught by a person? I think he was.

Speaker 2: 15:52

You know, I have actually never. Really I don't know why I don't remember that. Maybe that's something I have blocked out of my memory, yeah, but I just know he was caught. And then you were told yeah, I mean, because I really knew it.

Speaker 1: 16:13

Yeah, you sensed it.

Speaker 2: 16:15

I sensed it for several months and you knew the woman. I figured out who it was, but I didn't have proof. That's something I really need to clear up with him.

Speaker 1: 16:30

So when he was caught, was he immediately fired Because, for people who may not know, he was a preacher at a church?

Speaker 2: 16:37

Yes, I think he was.

Speaker 1: 16:39

And then, what did you do? Did you move out? Did?

Speaker 2: 16:42

he move out, he moved out Immediately.

Speaker 1: 16:44

It was like right then.

Speaker 2: 16:46

I went on a trip with mother and daddy and my sister and her husband and Joanna and Angela, and I knew he left when I was gone and then when I got back he wasn't there. It's the way I remember it.

Speaker 2: 17:08

That was just. I cannot tell you, I cannot even explain how absolutely devastating that week or two was, because I had not told my parents. They did not know anything and they had loved him. But my brother was a deacon in the church where we were, oh wow. So I'm thinking maybe James Earl told them or me, but mother and daddy knew it, they knew something in Dale and Houston. Because I was absolutely a zombie on that trip. You know I was. I couldn't even hardly function.

Speaker 1: 17:55

We went to the mountains and yeah, how did you handle all of it, the emotions, the pain, the hurt? How did you get back to where you could function again?

Speaker 2: 18:08

It took me, I would say, three or four or five months. I mean, I didn't want to get out of bed. I would send the kids to school and then I'd go back to bed. I was just in the darkest place and mother and them would come down, you know, and they'd try to, but I wouldn't talk, I wouldn't do anything. I just I handled everything terribly. Everything that I did was the wrong thing, you know, I know. I think I remember begging him not to leave and crying, and then every time I would see him I would cry and you know just, I was so terribly unattractive at that time because I was so depressed and so devastated. And so then I realized, you know, I got to get up and do something. I don't have a job, never had work, never had to. So I pulled myself up and one of the elders at the church owned a. His son-in-law owned a fireplace shop and he told me to go over there and they hired me and I was a salesperson, believe it or not. It was just kind of crazy.

Speaker 1: 19:27

And you were a pretty good salesperson, I ended up being a very good salesperson.

Speaker 2: 19:33

But that's really when I started kind of putting my life somewhat back together, pulling myself up, because I didn't have any self-confidence. I had zero self-confidence really even in our first marriage, because I saw myself as Mrs Joe Beam and not Alice Beam, Mrs Jo. Beam I would introduce my. Can you imagine this, knowing me now, that I would tell people when I would introduce myself, I would say I'm Mrs Jo Beam, and it was like my whole identity was in Jo.

Speaker 1: 20:14

Well, he was, I mean, before the affair, he was very successful. Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2: 20:19

Everybody wanted him. Yeah, he traveled 52 weeks. He traveled 52 speaking engagements a year. That's one a week, yeah, you know, and some of them were several days a week, you know, and I mean to audiences that were 10,000, 20,000 people. Yeah, so really, I began to see myself hey, I'm valuable, I can do this, I can really do this. And I think, over time, he began to see how I was changing.

Speaker 1: 20:59

And I think over time he began to see how I was changing. So you're the original working on your pies person.

Speaker 2: 21:06

I really am and didn't know what I was doing. Yeah, I had not a clue what I was doing, but yeah, people ask me questions sometimes in the workshop and I said I was working on pies. They asked me how I got through it and all that. I said I actually began to work on my pies when I didn't even know what working on pies was all about. Yeah, but yeah.

Speaker 1: 21:32

So how did you find the time, as a single mom, to focus on yourself as well? I would.

Speaker 2: 21:43

I would focus on myself. Really, my focus was my on myself, was at work.

Speaker 2: 21:51

Really because I really I had friends. But I I did have one friend and I would go see her a lot and she was a young mother, you know. So I would help, you know, rock the baby and all that kind of stuff, and we would go out to eat together because she had another child and then I had the two and she had the baby. So I would go out with her a lot. But I just didn't want to develop friendships, I mean other than just the one with her, and I would go every weekend when I didn't work, because I told them that I would not be able to work on the weekends because that had to be with my children.

Speaker 2: 22:39

And they totally understood that, because I told them that I would not be able to work on the weekends because that had to be with my children and they totally understood that and they really were really good to me at my work because they knew my situation, so I would stay on the weekends at my mom and dad's and they would help with the kids too.

Speaker 1: 22:59

They would help with the kids, you know, yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:02

And they lived on a farm, so there was a lot to do.

Speaker 1: 23:11

Did you feel like there was a stigma at church that you were divorced, that you were divorced.

Speaker 2: 23:19

Well, I still attended the congregation for a while. Where we were and where she was, did she stay? Yeah, I would pass her in the halls and a couple of times she would kind of like bump into me, bump into me. The reason I stayed is because Joanna liked her class and Angela even was in a Bible class that she liked. But that didn't last because I just couldn't be there.

Speaker 1: 23:53

I'm surprised you didn't punch her in the face.

Speaker 2: 23:56

I wanted to. Yeah, I really did. But it just hurts so much and I think people I don't think they knew what to say to me or how to treat me. I don't think I think they felt sorry for me. And the more I felt, the more I realized I don't want people to feel sorry for me. Yeah, you know, I really didn't want that Right, so I didn't go to church there long and at that time my father was preaching for a little bitty church about 60 miles from Tallas, so we would go with him sometime on Sundays.

Speaker 1: 24:40

Were you ever mad at God?

Speaker 2: 24:42

Oh yeah, I mean I was. I mean I'm not going to sugarcoat it it was like why me? You know I have a special needs daughter, I have a six-year-old. You know, I've never worked. What am I going to do, god? Why did you do this? Why, why, why, why, why, why.

Speaker 2: 25:04

And those days that I was, you know, my darkest, in those first few months that's what I would think every day, you know and I was so depressed, it's like, lord, why did you do this to me? And I was just like, ah, really mad. And then it just hit me one day, actually after I started working and working on myself, you know well, why not me? I mean literally, why not me?

Speaker 2: 25:33

And then about, I guess about a year or so into the separation, and it took about a year before he started proceedings with the divorce. It didn't take that long, probably about six months before it was final. But I started thinking what I did in the marriage that made it fall apart, my part in it. Not that I was the reason he had the affair, I was not. That was no excuse for him having the affair, but I did have a lot of faults in our marriage. I was not there for him when he needed it, when we were going through some religious beliefs that he had, that the brotherhood that we were in our congregation or our Denomination.

Speaker 2: 26:31

Yeah, it's hard for me to say that, because we were taught that our church was not a denomination, but it is Okay. It is that our denomination did not hold, that he held grace of all things. You know, he believed in grace, that everybody had grace. That it's real. It is real and it's crazy that people and I agreed with him, but because the people of our denomination did not believe that.

Speaker 1: 27:02

And because you're a conflict avoidant.

Speaker 2: 27:05

Absolutely. Why don't you just not believe this? Why don't you just not say this? Because we're going to end up without a job. So you know and there were other things, you know, I was just. You know, it was always what other people thought and not what necessarily was the right thing. What are people going to say about this? How are people going to look at this? What are we going to do? How did how? Are people going to look at this? What are we going to do?

Speaker 1: 27:36

How did you get over caring about what people thought?

Speaker 2: 27:40

Hard, just life, just going through and just it wasn't until we reconciled that I started not caring about what people thought and what was the right thing to do and I really began to realize that when Joe asked me to come back, I told him I had to take a couple of weeks to think about it and I went to the elders of the church. They told me not to. How are you going to trust him? You know, you've been three years, you're moving on. You know I thought, well, that's odd, you know. And then of course, my parents. But they had loved Joe, but they were very fearful about us getting back together because they didn't know, and I didn't know, I did not know, I did not have a clue if this was going to work or not.

Speaker 2: 28:43

But what I knew is that he asked me to do this, I had two children with him, that they loved him and actually I had just started seeing someone about three or four months before he asked me this to come back.

Speaker 2: 29:04

And I was thinking during that time okay, I can move forward with another person, but there's no guarantees in any relationship and everybody has baggage, and I knew that with my core values, that's what it came down to with me deciding what I was going to do is my core values and the fact that he had asked me.

Speaker 2: 29:36

And if I said no, I knew that if I told him no, the rest of my life I would wonder what if I had said yes. I wonder what would have happened. So I decided, yes, I'm going to say yes, that I'm coming back, not knowing if it's going to work or not, but I knew in my mind that I was going to do everything in my power to make it work and I knew to do that. I could not listen to these negative people that were telling me not to that. You know that it was my decision and I was going to try it. If it didn't work well, at least I could look back and say I gave it a try, yeah, and I would not have to go through my life saying what if I hadn't tried it? Does that make any sense?

Speaker 1: 30:33

Yeah, I just think it's crazy to think, I mean, look at what's happened because you tried, so you know with that answer or with that thought that you had of if I say no, what if I had said yes? Well, now you know what's happened because you said yes.

Speaker 2: 30:51

Well, yeah, that's absolutely right. But on the flip side of that, it took Joe, coming to the point in his life, to ask me to come back if I would come back, but yeah, I could not help. And look, you wouldn't be here. Oh my gosh, you, you know, you would not even be here. Yeah. And marriage helper wouldn't exist. No, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1: 31:24

Because you said yes, yeah, marriage helper exists. I mean I exist, marriage helper exists, eliana, my kids exist, right, there's so many effects of one person's decision.

Speaker 2: 31:40

Yeah, it really is. It really is, and it has been so worth every bit of it. You know, yeah, of course, my parents. They just needed to see that he had changed and they saw that within a year, I mean, they were loving him again, going hunting with him, daddy was taking him hunting, my brothers, so all of it. You know, we've been very blessed.

Speaker 1: 32:06

Did his parents ever say anything to him?

Speaker 2: 32:09

I don't know, you don't know. They loved me. I know that.

Speaker 1: 32:13

Oh yeah, I know they loved you.

Speaker 2: 32:15

They did, they didn't.

Speaker 1: 32:16

But what was it like going back and seeing them for the first time after y'all reconciled?

Speaker 2: 32:23

Well, I had gone back a couple of times after he asked me, you know, if I would take. So I had gone back that first time and it was like there's nothing that. But it was weird in a way, you know. It was like. It was like we had just picked up, like when we were back off. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:44

Yeah, and how did you handle it with the, the kids with Joanna and Angel, with the reconciliation Was that easy for them?

Speaker 2: 32:55

It was exciting for them. I let Joe talk to him.

Speaker 2: 33:00

You know he talked to him when he left and he told him that he was coming back. We both did. We both sat down and told him we were going to be a family again and they were involved in the you know they had their little dresses and they stood up with us and you know the little flowers and stuff. So they were part of it and we talked about we're all getting married, we're all becoming a family again. So they were real excited about that. That was a real special day.

Speaker 1: 33:33

Yeah, yeah. How did they feel when you got pregnant again?

Speaker 2: 33:38

They were excited. They were. Of course, angela didn't really understand it until my tummy started getting really big. Yeah, and I think Joanna kind of had mixed emotions about it to begin with, because you know she'd been the baby, but she was excited to know she was going to have a little baby, you know, and then we found out you were a girl pretty quickly because I had a test to see about that.

Speaker 1: 34:09

But yeah, because there's a large age difference for the listeners. So me and my oldest sister is 19 years and me and Joanna is 12. So we have a big age gap. So was there ever a part of you that felt like, well, I guess you were never going to be empty nesters, because you were always going to have Angel? Yeah, but you didn't feel like you were starting back at square one. You know not really, how did you have the energy? You were 41.

Speaker 1: 34:40

I don't even have the energy at 34 to think about a baby.

Speaker 2: 34:45

I did. I mean, you know it was. People thought we were your grandparents. I know it's more common now, though it is so common now. Well, even when you were in kindergarten, when we took you to kindergarten the first day, we saw this couple, and Joe and I both said well, that must be the grandparents, because they were older than us. You remember, lauren's parents were?

Speaker 1: 35:12

older than you. I think her mom was like 45 or 46 when she had Lauren.

Speaker 2: 35:16

I think she was four or five years older than me, yeah.

Speaker 1: 35:20

So in kindergarten she was already 50-something.

Speaker 2: 35:22

Yeah, yeah, so you know, so we bonded with you know it was like yay, we're not the oldest parents here, but then there were parents that were in their 20s, not even 30. So it was very strange because even through high school, you know I was one of the oldest parents, but yeah.

Speaker 1: 35:52

You wouldn't do it any different.

Speaker 2: 35:54

I wouldn't, I really wouldn't, do it any different.

Speaker 1: 35:55

I wouldn't, I really wouldn't, I mean what advice would you want to leave to the parents out there listening, oh my goodness, just enjoy your children and listen to them.

Speaker 2: 36:12

Listen to your children, to them, listen to your children, and you know I mean they need to be disciplined, but you need to listen to what they're saying.

Speaker 1: 36:30

That's not common. I mean, I don't feel like that's a common parenting tip that you hear. You'll hear your kids need to listen to you but you don't really ever hear.

Speaker 2: 36:41

That is true. But I think we need to listen to our children more, you know, because that gives an insight to me. What it gives an insight to is how we're parenting.

Speaker 2: 36:54

Yeah insight, too, is how we're parenting. If they disagree with us about something, we need to listen to why they disagree with us, just like they need to listen to us while we're telling them what they need to do. I think it's the reciprocal thing. We need to listen to each other. I think it's the reciprocal thing. Yeah, we need to listen to each other.

Speaker 1: 37:15

What were some of your favorite, like family rituals.

Speaker 2: 37:21

Oh well, christmas of course, of course you know I'm all about Christmas, yes, and all about, you know, the Santa Claus thing and the big family meals and all of that. The other thing is our family trips together. Mm-hmm. You know that was. You know, we have tons of wonderful memories from all those trips that we took and pizza night, which seemed to be several times a week. I tell you when we left Augusta and they sent us they all cried.

Speaker 1: 38:00

The Papa John's workers literally cried yes, because every year we ordered so much pizza, they would give us a poinsettia every Christmas and a Christmas card and a Christmas card and when you say you love Christmas. So context for the listeners is you have how many full Christmas trees? When they're all up, like when they've all been up, you have at least three, if not five.

Speaker 2: 38:25

Oh, you mean, uh, yeah, big Christmas trees. Christmas trees. I have three, three or four.

Speaker 1: 38:32

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:32

But the the ceramic you have about 120 ceramic christmas trees.

Speaker 1: 38:36

Well, not quite, but I counted them once are you serious? You won a contest one year and you didn't even know there was a contest I didn't for the best, that is for the best dressed yard and house for christmas I didn't even know it was a contest.

Speaker 2: 38:53

No, no, I didn't.

Speaker 1: 38:55

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:56

Oh gosh.

Speaker 1: 38:56

Always. You're like Ms Claus, always it's dressed to the, it's dressed to the nines. And yes, with all the travel, that was one of the things. That y'all's 50th wedding anniversary, every table had a theme of a place that we had traveled to and we had the pictures of that from the years.

Speaker 2: 39:14

Yes, so those rituals have always been important. Yeah, and just I don't know, just all the family reunion, you know, the family times that we've traveled to different family, you know functions, yeah, you know. And just being with your cousins and the brothers and brother-in-laws and sister-in-laws, yeah, what final word of encouragement would you want to leave to the listeners? About parenting.

Speaker 1: 39:42

Parenting family pies.

Speaker 2: 39:46

You know, I guess what I think about most is family, just the whole family unit. Most is family, just the whole family unit the husband, wife, children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, grandparents just the whole family unit. Just to keep that intact in your family. Keep those traditions going, talk about the things from the past, from the grandparents to the parents, to the great-grandparents. Just give them their legacy, let them know what their legacy was and is. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 40:29

Thank you for joining me today. You're welcome. It's a great episode. People are going to love it. Love you, love you. Here are my.

Speaker 1: 40:34

It's a great episode and people are going to love it. Love you, love you. Here are my key takeaways from today's episode. I know this is my mom and so I'm a bit biased, but she's so full of joy and light and wisdom and she has one of the best laughs in the entire world. My key takeaways from this episode aren't just necessarily about some of the things that she's talked about, but what I want to leave with you is that my mother and what I have learned from my mother throughout my life has made a lasting impact on me, and perhaps my encouragement to you as a mom or as a dad, or even as someone who doesn't yet have children, is to really think about what is the legacy that you are leaving on the people in your life that you love. How are you showing up for them on a daily basis?

Speaker 1: 41:26

My mother, as you can see, has been the pinnacle of emotional attraction. She evokes emotions within other people that they enjoy feeling pretty much with every person she encounters. The only time you're going to experience emotions from her that don't evoke positive emotions in you is if you've gotten on her bad side, and the way you get on her bad side is by doing something to threaten her family. She is insanely loyal, very committed and treats everyone that she encounters with love and with respect. She's the kind of person that I want to be more of, and I know that you probably have a strong woman in your life as this is releasing around Mother's Day that you want to emulate as well. Maybe today is the day that you reach out to that person and thank them for the influence that they've been in your life, while also taking some time to think about how are you influencing those that you love in your life?

Speaker 1: 42:25

I hope you enjoyed this episode. Share it with someone who you think could benefit. Follow us on podcast, subscribe on YouTube and, as always, until next week, stay strong.