Ep.5 - We continue the discussion of biblical fatherhood!

In this episode, we discuss the differences between being a father and a dad. 

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Transcript

Brett (00:03):

Welcome to the Make A Man Podcast, where we explore what it means to be a man in today's society. Welcome your hosts, Brett, RJ and Caleb. Alright guys. Welcome to another episode of the Make A Man podcast. I am your host Brett, along with

RJ (00:22):

RJ

Brett (00:23):

And

Caleb (00:23):

Caleb.

Brett (00:24):

There we go. I actually got him to do it.

Caleb (00:25):

Here we are.

Brett (00:26):

No, we're excited to continue on with this conversation. I mean, this is a podcast. Yes. But this is still just a three country guys since you don't like boys. I mean,

RJ (00:41):

That's all the songs are country boys, country

Brett (00:42):

Boys, whatever. I'll take it. Having a conversation. That's what this is all about.

Caleb (00:49):

Dude's talking.

Brett (00:50):

Dude's talking. There you go. But we were just talking about your website. So we're going to say this episode is sponsored by, or this podcast is sponsored by, even though we don't actually have any sponsors yet, but we will count it. We'll plug your website rj. Sure. Tell us about your website real

RJ (01:12):

Quick. It is shop dot truer words.com.

Brett (01:16):

I'll put that in the description

RJ (01:17):

After he text me about that description.

Brett (01:19):

Whoa, that was a

RJ (01:20):

Thunder. It was, yeah. This was Dun Shop Out. True words.com. It's really geared towards equipping families to equip their kids. And it's hard as a homeschool parent to sometimes stay sane

Speaker 4 (01:39):

Whenever

RJ (01:39):

You're doing it. And so we want to give them tools that they maybe can't find anywhere else. Everywhere else. You can find homeschool curriculum all over the place. It's everywhere. But can you find good solid books, nonfiction and fiction that are biblically sound that aren't just anything, you get nothing against bookstores, but you go in there and they will sell anything and everything that is Christian. It may not be theologically correct. We aim to do things that are theologically correct to give people really the foundation.

Brett (02:16):

So in other words, are you saying to not go to the awesome store that is owned by, that's holo. We won't actually,

RJ (02:26):

Sometimes you go in and you're very overwhelmed. You're like, I don't know which book I can trust. That's the number one thing people say, what books can I trust?

Speaker 4 (02:34):

That's

RJ (02:34):

Fair. So I get asked that question all the time. So what we've done is we're taking that question and really answering it with, there's going to be a series of blogs that Becca does on different books or just different subjects. So that part of it will have a blog, but we also sell Bibles, commentaries, apparel, accessories, and most importantly, coffee and tea.

Brett (02:59):

Alright. For the listeners, the reason why he's saying that's important, why is that important there, rj?

RJ (03:07):

Because

Brett (03:08):

You're obsessed with coffee

RJ (03:09):

And tea. Well, I'm obsessed with coffee and tea, but man, that runs the homeschool family. Right?

Brett (03:14):

That's fair.

RJ (03:14):

You got to be caffeinated to make it through a day sometimes.

Brett (03:17):

Sometimes.

RJ (03:18):

Every time.

Brett (03:19):

All the time. We're drinking coffee right now. We

RJ (03:21):

Are. It's late. It's eight o'clock at

Brett (03:22):

Night, man. And I have to work tomorrow morning.

RJ (03:26):

Yeah,

Brett (03:26):

He'll sleep like a baby. It's okay.

RJ (03:28):

But yeah, check us out. We're doing a book a month right now, but it's going to change to a book a week where we're highlighting one book that we think is really cool. We actually found an original duplicate for a Christmas story by Charles Dickens.

Brett (03:46):

Oh, I thought you meant about Ralph.

RJ (03:48):

Not a Christmas story. I'm sorry,

Brett (03:50):

Ralphie. That was not a very Christian story,

RJ (03:52):

Nor was it a book.

Brett (03:55):

It wasn't Christmas story wasn't a book when it started, before it became a movie.

RJ (04:00):

Yeah.

Brett (04:01):

I don't know.

RJ (04:02):

I don't think so.

Brett (04:03):

We'll have to look that up.

RJ (04:03):

I don't know

Brett (04:06):

Story. A Christmas Carol. You mean Christmas Carol?

RJ (04:08):

That's the one,

Brett (04:09):

Not a Christmas story. Those are two different things.

RJ (04:11):

We were talking about Christmas story before. That's what threw me off. Yeah, so it looks like the original, it's like a duplicate of the original. So just love that book.

Brett (04:20):

Are you talking about the look of it like cover and

RJ (04:23):

The cover? The gold inlay.

Brett (04:25):

Oh, that's cool.

RJ (04:25):

Yeah, the size of it. Everything.

Brett (04:27):

That's such a good story though. Christmas Carroll.

RJ (04:29):

Yeah.

Brett (04:29):

About redemption and hope and all that.

RJ (04:33):

What's really fun is the movie, the Man Who Invented Christmas Really good,

Brett (04:37):

The Man Who Invented Christmas.

RJ (04:39):

It's a story about Charles Dickens and how he came up with the idea and how he wrote it, and you get an insight into a writer's mind, which is pretty cool too.

Brett (04:47):

I do like Charles Dickens. He has quite a few books that are really good.

RJ (04:50):

Yeah, yeah. He was a

Brett (04:51):

Good story.

RJ (04:52):

Long enough plug.

Brett (04:53):

That was a good plug. Alright. Okay. It's Shop Truer Words. T-R-U-E-R-S. Alright. No, T ut R-U-E-R-E-R-W-O-R-D

RJ (05:05):

S.com. It's in the description guys.

Brett (05:07):

It'll be in the description. Alright, well welcome once again to the Make A Man Cut podcast. We're going to continue our conversation on biblical fatherhood and being a man and father. We're all dads. So I'm going to ask you guys a quick question.

Caleb (05:23):

Okay.

Brett (05:24):

Do you think there's a difference between being a father and being a dad?

Caleb (05:28):

Oh, a hundred percent.

Brett (05:30):

Okay. Since you spoke up Caleb, you got to tell us what's the difference for you?

Caleb (05:36):

So anyone can be a father, right?

RJ (05:43):

This is all my mind.

Caleb (05:44):

So all it takes for you to be a father is to pass your genetics onto a kid, which is really messed up when you think about it. But to be a dad, to really truly be a dad means to take responsibility for that child, to take ownership of your role in that child's life and in shaping that child into a man or woman.

Brett (06:12):

It doesn't matter if you're biologically connected to that child either way. Correct?

Caleb (06:17):

Yep.

RJ (06:17):

We take it to scripture in Romans, what does it talk about? It talks about that we were adopted, we received this inheritance, and we weren't born into it. Right? We're adopted because we're gentiles and we're considered family, and now we share that inheritance with Christ.

Brett (06:38):

I almost made a joke right there, but it's alright. It's okay. No, I guess I also grew up with this attitude a little bit differently than a lot of even guys do because of, I think my experience, I come from a mixed family. All three of my sisters were adopted in some shape or form, and then me and my brother are the only fully blood siblings. Our older sister, long story, but we don't talk to her. But she was a half-sister. So same mom, different dads, because my older sister's dad died when she was like three or something like that. So she never actually really got to know him. But yeah, so I mean, I was taught growing up that blood doesn't mean family. That's especially something like even this evening I prayed over dinner. You guys are my family.

Speaker 4 (07:40):

Yeah,

Brett (07:40):

Family. It's a new term. I hadn't heard that before, but yeah, I wanted to get into a couple other verses

Speaker 4 (07:47):

Versus

Brett (07:50):

Kind of more into the disciplinary aspect because you're going there. I'm going there because, well, it's a hot button topic right now. I mean, in this world right now we're in. I'm sure you guys did too. I grew up in a world where, I mean, I didn't get span very often. I was not a bad kid. RJ can't say that, but No, that's very true. But no, I was not that bad of a kid. I got spanked a few times growing up, but timeouts worked on me or disappointment of my parents. That was a huge thing for me. I didn't, discipline wasn't as strong on me, my little sister. However, I remember one time my mom threw a book at her, or I remember, did you guys ever get the fly swatter as spanking with a fly swatter?

RJ (08:44):

I got anything and everything that was nearby.

Brett (08:46):

Oh, there you go. But spanking's not like it's seriously frowned upon anymore. Or some people sometimes will call child abuse and I'm like,

Caleb (08:58):

I think it can be.

Brett (08:59):

Are you eyeing out the window? You're creeping me out.

Caleb (09:01):

I saw your reflection.

Brett (09:02):

Oh, you're freaking me out. The wives are doing something.

RJ (09:06):

I still got the Nutcracker guy flying back and forth.

Brett (09:09):

I'm still expecting the wives to scare us or something. It now they're going to listen to this episode and then go, that's a goods idea. That's right. That's right. But no, it's been a conversation because every kid is different on how they like to be disciplined. And I'm sure

Speaker 4 (09:28):

You

Brett (09:29):

Guys have a different perspective because you have multiple kids. I only have the one right now. What am I knocking? You're just knocking down your cable. Oh, that's not good. I shouldn't do that. So yeah,

Caleb (09:42):

Talk with your hands out here. There

Brett (09:43):

You go. I dunno. There you go. But I'm sure the audience are like, what are they doing? It's okay. You can edit it out. No, I'm going to leave it in just for

RJ (09:54):

Fun.

Brett (09:55):

But yeah, so from your perspective, because Caleb, you have six kids. You have three. I dunno if we're revealing too much to the audience about our lives, and I only have the one. We've been trying for 10 years to have another one, but

RJ (10:11):

I'm not worried about anybody coming to find me.

Brett (10:14):

No, no, not at all.

Caleb (10:16):

They got to get through your dad first. They do.

Brett (10:18):

Well, yeah.

Caleb (10:19):

It's a rather large perimeter.

Brett (10:21):

That's the thing about us country boys. We have an arsenal of what we

RJ (10:26):

Trust the government.

Brett (10:28):

Yeah. I mean, all my guns are gone and at the bottom of the lake.

RJ (10:33):

Yeah. I don't know what you're talking about,

Brett (10:34):

But anyway. Yeah,

RJ (10:36):

What guns?

Brett (10:36):

What guns? Yeah. So talk to me about what you guys have experienced with, because rj, you have two boys and a little girl and you're like half and half.

RJ (10:47):

And I know for me and him, it's different. And he'll explain why each of our kids was different. Chloe, I have to look at her wrong, and she's bursting into tears, right? She's done. I'm so sorry. I'm the most horrible person in the world. Never have to do anything. I raised my voice to her recently because what she did, I mean, it was like, dude, come on better than this. And that was it. She has not done that since Levi. I mean, he took to spanking, but it really didn't have to occur very often. Rarely. And he's the crazy kid. Most of the time he would do self punishment because he got hurt. So it was like, well, I'm not going to make it worse. Caleb did well with, he didn't do well with time out because he was fine being by himself, I guess him it was. That

Caleb (11:43):

Was me.

RJ (11:44):

Yeah.

Caleb (11:45):

I took a nap.

RJ (11:46):

We take things from him because his things were important to him, and it was probably, maybe it's autism. He's attached to his stuff and to movies and things like that. And so we would say, Hey, if you continue doing this, you're not going to be able to do this thing. He'd be like, oh. And he'd straighten right up. So spanking was always there was always on the table, and it was reserved for one time. I had to have Caleb go pick out a switch. I told him to pick out a switch. We were in the shed, and that's when I had my wood shop in there. I was like, you pick one because he cursed. I mean, he was cursing his mom and I was like, Uhuh, that's not going to get tolerated. And he had to go out into the woodshed and it was cold. He picked one and that's the one he got quacked with. So on his bottom, not hard not to feel it. You got enough just to know that we're serious. It was never to make marks, nothing like that. Even when I was a kid, I was not spanked to make marks. My worst spanking, believe it or not, was not for my parents. It was sixth grade. Okay, deep

Speaker 4 (12:58):

Dive here.

RJ (12:58):

All right. Deep dive, real quick. Assistant principal was a World War II vet. Mr. Holquist was his name. Probably Long Dead, but this guy gave you an option. This is south Texas. Okay. He said, we can call your parents or you can get a spanking. I was like, I'll take the spanking man. I know at home it's probably going to be a lot worse. And sure enough, I leaned over his desk and I got one good whack with the paddle in his office, and I was like,

Brett (13:27):

Was it one of those wood paddles with the holes

RJ (13:29):

In it? It was, dude, he was serious about it. It was like scarred with the blood of his enemy. I don't know what it was, but in my mind that's what I remember. But it worked. It worked. So any corporal punishment is not like, I don't know. That was sixth grade. That was 90, 90 something. I don't remember. They didn't do spankings in school, but this guy did. Of course. It was south Texas. So did things

Brett (13:56):

Different. Yeah. Well, I remember when I was a kid in fourth grade, we were looking at being, this was right when we tried to be a homeschool. My parents transitioned us out of public school and my dad was raised Lutheran. My mom was raised Adventist, and we found a Lutheran school, and their punishment was super old school Catholic rulers

RJ (14:30):

Smacking.

Brett (14:30):

Yeah. We're like, we're going to smack you with a ruler over your hands if you do something wrong. And my parents were like, Nope. We're not allowed to touch our kids. So we homeschooled. So what about you, Caleb?

Caleb (14:46):

I kind of like what RJ was saying. Different kids have different things at work. For some, it has to really hurt based on what they did. Not necessarily physically hurt, but it has to hurt somehow. Make an

Brett (15:02):

Impact

RJ (15:02):

On

Caleb (15:02):

Some, make an impact. That's a good way to put it.

Brett (15:07):

Not necessarily physically.

Caleb (15:08):

No.

Brett (15:09):

Just even

Caleb (15:10):

Mentally even. It's like

Brett (15:11):

I got to really realize it.

Caleb (15:13):

Yes. What we do with our oldest a lot of times is he's autistic, like R j's oldest. But what works with him is to give him something that refocused his thinking and it has to be something he doesn't want to do. And it has to be something physical and it has to take him a long time.

Brett (15:34):

Then he has time to think about it.

Caleb (15:35):

That's right. Yep, that's right. If it cuts into his free time, then that is a punishment that works. Whereas her oldest daughter, what works for her is the consequence has to affect her social life.

Brett (15:52):

Yeah,

Caleb (15:52):

Because well,

Brett (15:53):

She's a girl.

RJ (15:54):

She's a

Caleb (15:55):

Teenage girl. Percent. A hundred percent.

RJ (15:57):

That's what it is right now. Shelby too. Shelby

Brett (15:59):

Too.

Caleb (16:00):

Well, and we've even had to tie responsibilities to it. If you are going to go and hang out with your friends, your chores have to be finished first. If they're not, guess what's not happening? And that's not necessarily consequence, that's disciplined life.

RJ (16:19):

Well, you look at any job, if you don't do the job, you don't get paid

Caleb (16:24):

Or you don't have the job

RJ (16:25):

Or you don't have the job. And so it seems reasonable to me. And some people call it abuse, and I'm like, well, then your kid's never going to learn work ethic at all.

Caleb (16:34):

Well, the way I look at it is I do much more than all of my kids put together. I

Brett (16:41):

Well, and we all grew up without social media.

Caleb (16:46):

That's true.

Brett (16:47):

I mean, I remember college and MySpace being still a thing at that

RJ (16:52):

Point. I had a MySpace page. I wasn't allowed to have a MySpace. It's okay. You didn't miss anything. No,

Brett (16:56):

You didn't. All we did all day was change our song as it popped up and change your order of who was your top 10 friends or eight friends or something like that. So you didn't miss much. You tried to make it look as cool as you could though. It was like your

RJ (17:14):

Space.

Brett (17:14):

It was your space. It's my space. I heard it's still actually active.

RJ (17:19):

Is it really?

Brett (17:19):

Yeah. I heard

RJ (17:20):

It's, I hate to see what my page looks like. It's

Brett (17:22):

Probably, well, I don't know if I could find that page anymore, but apparently myspace.com though is still a thing. But I'm like,

Caleb (17:29):

Eh.

Brett (17:30):

But yeah. So you didn't miss anything, Caleb. It's okay.

Caleb (17:33):

I didn't think I did.

Brett (17:34):

Yeah. Well, so that leads me to though, so Proverbs 1324 is he who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him, disciplines him promptly. Do you want to talk? Oh, you look like you're going to talk about that, Caleb.

Caleb (17:55):

Yeah. Hit it buddy. I think I'll take it. A lot of people kind of misconstrue the verse in my opinion. So they think you must whack your kids.

(18:10):

That's what people take it as. How I take it as is, you cannot abdicate your responsibility in raising your kids in a disciplined manner. And if they are out of line, you have to take steps to show them that and to teach them. And sometimes that's through consequence. So we see this in society all the time. The person who is never told no grows up expecting that they can do whatever they want and get away with it. Well, first time you rob a convenience store, what happens, right? Right. You go to jail. There's consequences based on your actions. And if we raise our kids with there are consequences. And consequences doesn't necessarily mean bad. There are good consequences to your choices. Also, everything you do matters. And how you do that matters.

Brett (19:10):

Right. Well, and I think the difference, so one thing that Megan and I have tried to do is Shelby, she's been, she's super smart. Does she do dumb things sometimes? Yes. But she's super smart.

Caleb (19:26):

Welcome to being a person.

Brett (19:27):

Well,

(19:31):

I remember, so we used to go to, for Thanksgiving, that was just literally yesterday when we were recording this. And we used to go to her Megan's California family out there in Orange County. And Megan has an little bit older brother. I think he's two years older. But anyway, Shelby was the first time, one of the times we went out there for Thanksgiving. Shelby was saying full sentences when she was two years old. And that's because, I mean, Megan and I, when we were raising her at that age, we were like, we want to let her grunt, use your words, use your words. And she figured it out over time. Okay, I got to actually say stuff and try stuff. And so when she went up to Ross, Megan's brother, we went over for Thanksgiving at their, or Megan's dad's house. She started talking to Ross. And Ross was like, she's like a little person. And so actually with Shelby though, we kind of always put her and treated her because how smart she is, we have a higher expectation of her and we explain that to her. So anytime we've disciplined her, we explain why.

(20:53):

Whereas my parents growing up, it felt more like, well, you're getting a spanking or you're getting a timeout. But we had to think about why we didn't get told. Why We knew we did something wrong, but it wasn't explained. Why did we do this? Or why was it wrong that we did this?

Caleb (21:14):

Well? And from my perspective, I think that question of why you're being disciplined should always be answered. Even if the kid is too young to really understand it, it sets a precedent

Speaker 4 (21:26):

That

Caleb (21:26):

You're not just arbitrarily doing things, that it's not arbitrarily earned, that they know exactly why. Even if it's not at that moment with our oldest, we'll wait to talk until he's cooled off. You can't do it right then and there because he's full on in reaction mode. But there has to be a cause and effect and a why or else I think you're actually, you are doing your children a disservice.

Brett (22:00):

Well, in quick disclaimer, we're not experts in any of this. We're just going off of our experience.

Caleb (22:04):

Yep. Child psychologist would look at us and go, man, what the heck are you doing?

Brett (22:09):

Oh yeah. Well, I mean, one thing I've noticed with both of your guys' kids is, and I'm working on it, but getting more active outside, especially your kids, Caleb, trying to get them more to understand and be part of the homestead. Because all three of us were on small homesteads.

RJ (22:31):

I can't say I do anymore. My goats left my house for somebody else.

Caleb (22:35):

You were such a bad homesteader that your goats, goat goats even left.

RJ (22:39):

Hey, I'm learning that I got a green thumb a little bit. Really? It's not black. Becca's is, so you do chicken? Well, not literally, but yes, my wife is half black, but she literally a, she cannot grow anything. So that was a little racist.

Brett (22:56):

We love you, Becca. Well, you guys both need to teach me next year so I don't have a green thumb. Hey, I

Caleb (23:06):

Learned incorporated into the church.

Brett (23:07):

There you go. Oh,

RJ (23:09):

There

Brett (23:09):

You go. Hey,

RJ (23:11):

Service, service project. We do a service project every Sunday. And that can be something like an outside thing. Help Brett put together his garden. Mean, gosh, we can incorporate with the community. I don't know how, but I'm sure there's some way to do it.

Brett (23:24):

Yep. I've got a greenhouse out there with no cover.

RJ (23:26):

But you talking about kids outside, my boys love video games. Okay,

Brett (23:32):

Well, my daughter loves her iPad.

RJ (23:33):

Yep. And that's the thing that drives me nuts the most. Screens. Screens. If anything I could change in society, it'd be that, let's go back to no screens. Not saying that it was necessarily better because I know, and I know that you guys know some of my childhood, I got into a lot of trouble. And because my mom told me to go outside and I wasn't allowed to go inside. And so I did anything and everything that I could to keep myself entertained. Not all of it was legal. And my parents find out years later and they're like, man, I guess I should have kept a better eye on you. I'm like, I don't think it would've mattered. But you're going to act out. You want to act out one way or another,

Caleb (24:21):

Figure out how to do it.

RJ (24:22):

I am grateful though that my kids are not, they're not my son's 16 years old, man. If I could, I don't know what I'm trying to say. The dude is way better off than I was, so Oh yeah. So excited for that. But yet to get him outside, sometimes it's a chore. But what's great is my dad lives on our property, so I say, Hey, go help papa. Go help Papa. And because my dad will do something he's not supposed to because he's got a lot of injuries and a lot of physical limitations.

Brett (24:55):

Yeah, I've seen your dad on a roof and

RJ (24:57):

He, and he can stand up straight, Lord bless him. But he loves to do stuff, but he's got, we love you, Ralph. It's really, we use it as an opportunity to train them. Like, okay, if I'm going to get them outside, I got to have a purpose, not just to say, go outside.

(25:12):

Because I had friends that were close and I could go outside and I could go hang out with my friends. We'd go in the woods and we'd do dumb stuff or go to the creek, but they don't have that. Their friends are really far apart. So I got to have a purpose for them to go outside. So not just a task, but I want them to love it the same that I do. And so one night I decided I'm going to have a fire outside, so I didn't say anything. I made a fire and I sat by it, and then Caleb comes walking out and just sits down and that's it. I had Caleb out. That was the start. And then Levi, he's a space cadet, so he didn't even know that we were even outside. So he's like, you guys had a foer? I'm like, yeah, man, you should have come out. So it was something just simple like that just to get him outside. It worked. Fair enough.

Caleb (26:01):

Oh, and that's where you as the father set the example.

Brett (26:04):

Exactly. I could go on. Well, we're going to go on, but on the next episode,

RJ (26:10):

Hey, that sounds great.

Brett (26:12):

Alright guys, we're going to wrap it up on this one. Thank you guys so much for listening to the Make A Man Podcast. So check out shop dot true awards.com. There you go. But we'll see you guys on the next episode.