Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Montell & Kristin Jordan Talk New Children's Book, Kids Facing Their Fears, Parenting & Parental Guilt + More

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INTERVIEW: Montell & Kristin Jordan Talk New Children's Book, Kids Facing Their Fears, Parenting & Parental Guilt + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hold up. Every day I wake up. Wake your ass up.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: The Breakfast Club. You all finished or you all done? Morning, everybody.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: It's DJ Envy, Just Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha Guy. We are
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club. Lorna Rose is here as well. We
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: got some special guests in the building.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, indeed.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: We have Montel and his wife, Kristen Jordan.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome. What's up?
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Kristen Jordan.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Kristen Jordan. Sorry. Kristen Jordan.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: She is a Christian.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I am. How y'all feeling? We feel great.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Man, we are so good.
• 0:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 0:30
  Speaker 5: New children's book, Shiloh and the Scary Girl Above His Bed.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: And the not-so-scary girl above his bed.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Yes, sir.
• 0:38
  Speaker 5: You want to say on the cover, ain't no not-so?
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Ain't no not-so on there? No. Maybe the printer right now.
• 0:43
  Speaker 6: Maybe the printer right now.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Look at you. I'm going to give you this right there.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: We're going to give you.
• 0:49
  Speaker 5: The right one.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Can I get the real one? We can scare kids
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: all over the world right there now.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Talk to us about this book.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Oh man how'd they just take the not so out of.
• 0:57
  Speaker 7: It I know it was like they want something to
• 1:00
  Speaker 7: be scary so bad.
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: That's how stuff get twisted up they be like Montel
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: and Chris is putting out horror books.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah this actually started with my son when he was
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: three years old he was afraid of the monster that
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: lived under his bed and the crazy part I was
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: like Lord we gotta fix this cause like he would
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: show up on my doorstep at my door every single
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: night I was like okay you gotta sleep in your
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: own bed bud but he was so afraid of this
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: monster and I was like okay And so one night
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: when I was putting him to bed, I said, baby,
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: what if the monster that's under the bed is more
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: afraid of you than you are of him? And what
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: if he wants to be your friend? And he was like, huh.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: I said, I assure you that he's way more afraid
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: of you than you are of him. He was like, okay.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: And he decided he was sleeping in his bed.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: And I was like, whew.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: Okay, this is good. We can do this.
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: Where did that instinct come from? Because I do that
• 1:50
  Speaker 5: with bugs. Like when my little girls be mad at ants,
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: I be like, you way bigger than them ants.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Them ants scary.
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, the crazy thing is I think one
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: of the things we do as parents that is we
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: don't know what we're doing. But the concept of it
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: is that we will say, oh, that's not scary. But
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: the truth is when we were kids, we were afraid
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: of that too. But when we lean into it and say, hey,
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: what if? And it's the wonder, right? And to ask
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: them the questions and once they are able to think
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: about it and articulate how they feel, it's like, oh,
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: wait a minute, you're right. I'm way bigger than that bug.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: I'm way bigger than whatever it is that I'm afraid of.
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's flipping fear on its side because I think
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: we believe that unattended fear as a child can become.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: Trauma and anxiety in human adults.
• 2:36
  Speaker 8: And we see that.
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and even as marriage people that that help couples
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: in marriage, we found that a lot of their fears
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: go all the way back to their childhood, to things
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: about staying or fighting or being afraid of this.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. You know, isolation, all those different things.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: It's so crazy because we literally sit across from couples
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: all the time and we're like, so what is going on? Well,
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: I'm afraid to stay. I'm afraid to go. I'm afraid
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: I picked the wrong one. It's like, good night. And
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: when we thought about that, we were like, where does
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: that come from? And it comes to when you have
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  Speaker 3: childhood fears, us as parents saying, oh, you don't have
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  Speaker 3: to be afraid of that. But the truth is unattended
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  Speaker 3: fear becomes anxiety, becomes oppression, becomes depression, becomes not knowing
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  Speaker 3: what to do next. And so we got to teach
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  Speaker 3: kids how to be brave.
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  Speaker 1: I love it because it's about perspective, right?
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  Speaker 5: Because it's like, you know, it's not about removing your
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: child's fears, but just teaching them another way to look
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: at them.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: That's absolutely correct.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, I was like, first of all, if I,
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  Speaker 4: my three year old at the time was a lot
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  Speaker 4: smarter than me because I'm like, so you, you're actually
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: confirming that there is a monster indeed underneath my bed.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: That's what I would be thinking. But, but no, literally
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: what we're doing is we're trying to take something and
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: flip it on its side so that when you say
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  Speaker 4: this is a little monster, one, the world has got
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: a lot of scary stuff in.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: It right now.
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  Speaker 4: Like, movies like everything is meant to scare everything out
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  Speaker 4: of you and so to give a monster a different
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: face for children to be able to to be able
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: to gird themselves up and equip them for the monsters
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: that will come later in their life that are much
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  Speaker 4: scarier than Shiloh but I think by flipping it on
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  Speaker 4: the side and say hey Shiloh is a little monster
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  Speaker 4: and he's scared of this little girl who lives above
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  Speaker 4: his bed and like gives a whole different perspective of
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: his whole world you know I think to You know,
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: the genius of this idea to me with my wife
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: birthing this is literally if I think back to Charlie
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  Speaker 4: Brown and the Peanuts, that whole world of characters. That's
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  Speaker 4: what Shiloh is and what he's going to become, because
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: there's a whole world of characters that the world hasn't
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  Speaker 4: even met yet.
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  Speaker 2: How do you know when you're not traumatizing your kid?
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 2: Because you could have said that. Go back in your
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: bed and deal with it.
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  Speaker 6: And he's and he's traumatized for the left.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I don't want to sleep on beds ever.
• 4:52
  Speaker 6: That's what I get to a point where it's like
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  Speaker 6: I don't want to traumatize the kids so much where
• 4:57
  Speaker 6: they're super duper scared, but I don't want to coddle
• 5:00
  Speaker 6: them too much where everything falls back and I got
• 5:02
  Speaker 6: a nine-year-old sleeping in between mom and dad.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
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  Speaker 2: So I know when it's not going too far.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: Well, the truth of the matter is, is that we
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: need to lean in. It's asking more questions and listening.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: A lot of times we're so quick to tell them
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: what they're supposed to think or what they're supposed to feel.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: And the truth is, is when you ask them the questions,
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: they'll tell you what they're really afraid of. Like for us,
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: we have five kids, five grandkids. We got a lot
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: of experience. So and the crazy part of that is,
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: is that when we lean in and ask, why are
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: you afraid? Because we have my youngest daughter right now
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: went to high school. And like three days before school,
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: she starts acting a fool. I'm like, what's wrong with you?
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: And she was like, you know what, mom? I'm afraid
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  Speaker 3: to go to school. I was like, why? I was like,
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: you go to a school that you love. It's an
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: art school. She's like, what if I don't make friends?
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  Speaker 3: In ninth grade. So what that does and what that
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  Speaker 3: tells me is that every kid has fears, right? And
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: so rather than say, oh, you're going to make friends.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: I said, you know what? What about that is scary
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  Speaker 3: to you? She goes, what if they don't like me?
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: I said, you already know them. I said, and here's
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  Speaker 3: the truth. You're already accepted. You're already amazing. Whoever God
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  Speaker 3: has for you to be your friend, they're going to
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  Speaker 3: be awesome. So lean into, I don't need a whole
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  Speaker 3: bunch of friends. What if I just make one? And
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  Speaker 3: so as we start to talk it out, she realizes, like,
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  Speaker 3: I can relax. It's going to be all right. But
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  Speaker 3: it's really just dialoguing with them.
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  Speaker 4: Fear has an origin story. Every fear has some place
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  Speaker 4: where it originated. Just like in the comics or whatever,
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  Speaker 4: a villain came from somewhere.
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  Speaker 1: Same thing.
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  Speaker 4: These fears, they come from somewhere. So for me, I
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: was afraid to swim. But I recognized my fear of
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: water came from stuff that happened when I was a kid.
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  Speaker 4: You know, I was afraid of the the pool, throw
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  Speaker 4: you in the pool. If you, if you make it out,
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  Speaker 4: then you learn how to sleep.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't do that to me. Like it gave me traumatic,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to be anywhere near water.
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  Speaker 6: You could just stand up and you'd be all right.
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  Speaker 4: When you're six feet and he throw you in the
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  Speaker 4: eight foot pool, you know, but no. So from that standpoint,
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  Speaker 4: what I've learned is that now I have a, uh,
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  Speaker 4: our youngest, uh, grandchild, uh, Koa, who's a little over one. Um,
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  Speaker 4: she don't want to be in a pool with nobody
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  Speaker 4: but me. I'm the guy that is afraid of water.
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  Speaker 4: I'm teaching her how to swim.
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  Speaker 1: She's fearless.
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  Speaker 4: Like she wants to stand on the side and she
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: just wants to jump in. And I'm the one that's like, no, no, no,
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  Speaker 4: don't don't like step down first or this or that.
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  Speaker 4: And I'm learning how to teach myself how to not
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  Speaker 4: be afraid of water by teaching her to not be afraid.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying? Of water.
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: So from that standpoint, when you say how much is,
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  Speaker 4: it's not, I think you have to lean in. You
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: do have to ask the question and give them the
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: question to be able to figure it out themselves and,
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  Speaker 4: Of not just telling you what not to be afraid of,
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  Speaker 4: but showing you how not to be afraid. And one,
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  Speaker 4: because of who we are and believers and people who
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: have faith, we believe that even if you are afraid,
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  Speaker 4: that's the thing.
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  Speaker 1: We don't want to tell them, don't be afraid. Don't
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: be afraid. It's okay to be afraid, but do it afraid.
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  Speaker 3: That's correct.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Do it scared.
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  Speaker 5: I'm somebody who deals with anxiety. And one thing I've learned,
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: and I want to know what y'all think about this.
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  Speaker 5: Do we actively teach children that fear is weakness when
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: fear is actually information?
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: That's correct. That's exactly right. And I think it's the
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: leaning in that allows the information to inform your brain
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: and your heart how to react. It's not that it's
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: not scary. It's that if you ask the right questions,
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: you can proceed with the bravery and the courage. It's
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: so crazy. You know, we're believers. And one of the
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: things that always shocks me is that the scriptures is
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: a lot of times it says, be bold and courageous.
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  Speaker 3: The only reason it would say that is what you're
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: facing is scary. Because otherwise, there's no reason to say that, right?
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  Speaker 3: So like when we're dealing with giants in our lives,
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  Speaker 3: whatever that may look like, we have to do it afraid.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: But how do we do it afraid? We lean in
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: and we do hard things. It's not that we don't
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: do the things that we need to do, but it's
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: learning how to do it the right way and doing
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: it afraid and saying, guess what? It's okay to be afraid,
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: but I know that you'll do this and do it well.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. And from that standpoint, when we.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: like I said, if you can catch it early, if
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: you can get to the kids before fear grabs a
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: stranglehold on them and to teach them.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: And like you said, some fear is not unfounded. Like
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: you need to be afraid of that.
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: Like I need to put fear in you in certain instances,
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: you know, when you want to put your fingers in the.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Socket or whatever. No, don't do that.
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: I need you to be afraid of what will happen,
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: not only if you do that, but what I will
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: do to you if I catch you trying to do that. Yeah,
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: and so I think that it is important for us
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: to be able to give a healthy measure of what
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: fear is, but also to equip people to understand. And
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: I say people, even our little people, we need them
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: to understand that fear is not something, you know, to
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: shy away from, but to be able to face it
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: and recognize what it is. Because, you know, I think
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: the more you run from your fear or whatever, You know,
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: it'll chase you your entire lifetime.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 10:14
  Speaker 8: Now, the baby boy who the story is about.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 10:18
  Speaker 8: How old is he now?
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: Now he's 22.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: 22.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's about to turn 23.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: At Morehouse. Yes.
• 10:24
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Does he get his royalties in publishing?
• 10:26
  Speaker 8: No, it's okay. I was about to ask that.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: Listen, he's the whole franchise.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: Okay. Guess what?
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: At the end of the day, all of this is
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: going to be theirs, right? So we leave a legacy
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: and inheritance to our children's children's children. it's going to
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: be good. And it's funny because we had him at
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: the release party and it was so funny. The kids
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: were like, he's so big. I said, yes, look, and
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: he made it and he's brave. They're like, I can
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: do this.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: I was like, yes. Is he still scared under the bed?
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: No, not in the bed.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: It's the linemen come across the line.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: How would his.
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: Book teach a child to distinguish between fear that's protecting
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: them and fear that's limiting them?
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: It, So the idea of it is, is that when
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: we are putting our kids to bed.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: So this is a story really designed to talk about
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: the things that they were afraid of in that day.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: And so what we want to do is invite the
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: parents to have conversations about what the child has dealt
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: with during the day. And so we want them to
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: understand that. When we have fear, it's okay to be fearful.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: But what can you do about it? We can invite
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: faith into that and say, God made you brave. You
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: can do hard things. You can be bold. You can
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: be courageous. And really, the truth is, as much of
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: the negative words that we've said, if we say the
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: positive and we show them, because they don't come with fears.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: They don't. Just like we talked about our one-year-old granddaughter.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: She has zero fear, zero inhibitions. She will walk right
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: off the side of the pool, right into the water.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: And so... it's one of those things is that now
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: we're teaching them how to have conversations, to pay attention
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: to what's going on inside them and note that this
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: doesn't have to be this way.
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And the book also gives the opportunity for parents
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: and grandparents and their kids to actually spend time. Because
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of times fear also comes from isolation.
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: You got a lot of kids that put themselves to
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: bed or a lot of kids that's there wondering what's
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: in the closet. I'm afraid, but, but there's nobody there
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: to help them navigate, you know, that. And so, bedtime, one,
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: when a child is about to go to sleep. I mean,
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: think about this. People are, you know, my young person
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: was telling me what doom scrolling is. I never heard
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: what a doom scroll is. Yeah, but people doom scroll.
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: And I realize, oh, okay, I'm a doom scroller. Before
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: I go to bed, you know, and I'm looking at, oh,
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: so-and-so did this, so-and-so did this. Oh, this is happening now.
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: This is happening now.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: And now I'm going to go to bed. Like, that's
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: me as an adult or whatever.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: What are kids taking in, ingesting, you know, all of
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: this before, You know, they go to bed. And so
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: even smaller children that don't see.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: The world like we see it, they still can.
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: Feel what we feel. They can feel angst. They can
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: feel if there's tension. They can feel if something is
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: wrong in the home. And so ultimately, we're hoping that
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: bedtime becomes a new time for parents to be able
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: to to give a piece before a child goes to bed,
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: to be able to give them a piece that when
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: you sleep and when you rest, that God's got you
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: and mommy and daddy got you and you're going to
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: be fine.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: And there's, you know, I think.
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: We can set the tone and the temperature of what's
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: happening in a child's life early on by giving them
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: these tools.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: And the book, I think does that.
• 13:39
  Speaker 8: But you guys, I'm so, I'm sorry, y'all. I'm so
• 13:41
  Speaker 8: damn slow. I am over here reading the book.
• 13:44
  Speaker 9: Okay.
• 13:45
  Speaker 7: And it is told from the monster's perspective under the bed.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: That's correct.
• 13:49
  Speaker 6: Why is he scared of the girl when it's her bed?
• 13:51
  Speaker 8: The whole time.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
• 13:53
  Speaker 8: This whole time.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 13:55
  Speaker 8: It's a flip on it.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the flip on it. And really what we
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: did is we wanted you to see that really whatever
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: you're afraid of is usually.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: More afraid of you.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Is everybody just getting me?
• 14:07
  Speaker 8: No, I'm laughing because I'm like, on this page, Jess,
• 14:10
  Speaker 8: when she.
• 14:10
  Speaker 9: Says the feet, the monster is talking about this is
• 14:14
  Speaker 9: the girl's feet.
• 14:14
  Speaker 8: That's why I said I was slow, girl. I was
• 14:17
  Speaker 8: trying to be deep. And then I was like, wait
• 14:19
  Speaker 8: a minute, I'm reading.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: I'm like, wait a minute.
• 14:20
  Speaker 8: No, I did not. No, I did not.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: No, I did not smoke nothing today.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: This is so creative.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: This is dope.
• 14:28
  Speaker 8: Okay, okay.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: That's a different kind of peace.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: I love that.
• 14:33
  Speaker 9: I was going to ask, you guys are really, you're faith-based, right? Yes.
• 14:37
  Speaker 9: What do you talk, so you have your babies in
• 14:40
  Speaker 9: your house with your grandkids, but then your older kids, right?
• 14:43
  Speaker 9: But there's a constant reminder that is needed between both
• 14:46
  Speaker 9: sides of it, the younger and older kids.
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 14:49
  Speaker 9: How do y'all talk them through when, you know, there's, like,
• 14:52
  Speaker 9: that fearless, like, fight that they have, but then, like,
• 14:54
  Speaker 9: the world, like, kind of, like, snaps that a bit, right?
• 14:57
  Speaker 9: And the fearless list leaves, and they're not as, like,
• 15:00
  Speaker 9: green-eyed and, like, excited about things. From a faith perspective,
• 15:04
  Speaker 9: what do you tell them about the things that they
• 15:06
  Speaker 9: can't see and control?
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: I think we put everything that we, you know, the
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: Bible tells us to train up a child in the
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: way they should go.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. So that when they get older, they will not
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: depart from it. Now, we don't know what older means.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: Because it doesn't define that.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: It doesn't define what older means. For some people, older
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: might be 40. Hopefully it doesn't take that before they
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: come around. But literally, we have tried to instill everything
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: that we know that has worked for us in our
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: lives to be able to give them a template of
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: what faith is supposed to look like and what conquering
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: fear and equipping is supposed to look like.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Until.
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: they don't have to live off mommy and daddy's faith anymore.
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: Like at some point your faith has to become your own.
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: Your walk has to become your own. What you believe
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: has to become your own. God has to become real
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: to you because he's real to you and not just
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: because he was real to mom and dad. And so
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: I think that with our younger kids and then with
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: our older kids, like we raised up our, Who are
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: older kids when they were younger, we raised them in
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: the same way. And at some point they question and
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: they got to figure it out on their own and
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: they have to find out who God is to them
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: and not who it was to, you know, to mom
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: and dad.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: And the key is to renew your strength and renew
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: your mind daily.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: So each one of my kids. Now, the crazy part
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: is my kids range from 38 to 14. Say that again.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: 38 to 14. And then my grand's from 10 to 1.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: And I text each one of them every single day
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: with a scripture and a reminder of who they are.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Because the truth of the matter is, is that I
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: never want you to forget whose and who you are.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: And to me, like, so, yeah, they get older and
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: they get grown and it makes them no less susceptible.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: They need those things because the world is quick to
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: tell them what they're not. So I got to be
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: quick to tell them who they are.
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: Facts.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: And you know what?
• 16:55
  Speaker 8: I'm sorry.
• 16:55
  Speaker 7: You do that for me as well, too, Kristen. You
• 16:58
  Speaker 7: are constantly uplifting and encouraging me. She'll send me something
• 17:03
  Speaker 7: that'll break me down and make me cry, but it's
• 17:04
  Speaker 7: something that I need. You've been doing it since I
• 17:08
  Speaker 7: met you. There is not a message that you send
• 17:10
  Speaker 7: me that goes unnoticed. I mean, I get to respond
• 17:12
  Speaker 7: to it all the time, but I appreciate that so
• 17:15
  Speaker 7: much about you.
• 17:16
  Speaker 8: I love you.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: Thank you. My honor.
• 17:17
  Speaker 8: My honor.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: My honor.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: To me, the Word of God, it comes alive. And
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: when we are able to pray and watch and help
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: our kids learn how to lean into that, then they'll
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: know whose they are. And then they become fearless. The
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: crazy thing is that no matter how scary the world gets,
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: that's the thing that never changes.
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: What's something your children taught you about God that church
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: never could?
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: That a love of a child... is one of the
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: most innocent and beautiful things that you could ever steward.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: I don't think we talk about that in church very much,
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: but it is one of the greatest gifts that you
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: get is to see this person that you created. Um,
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: but you get to navigate them through the good, the bad,
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: the ugly, whatever that is. Um, And that I get
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: to be a good steward over this kid, but what
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: I pour in, I get out. When I was a kid,
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: my mom used to tell me, you can't plant peas
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: and get corn. So you can't put the negativity and
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: all the stuff that we get from the world. We
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: have to start with what we put in there. It's
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: going to come out eventually. They go through rough patches.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: They go through rough times. But the truth is they
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: always come back and it always comes around.
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: For me, let me just jump in there real quick
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: that I– I learned the most valuable lesson that I've
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: ever learned about ministry that church could not teach me.
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: And this is when we had first brought our daughter
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: Samantha home and she was three days old and she
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: wasn't eating. And at the time we didn't know what
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: was going on. And then literally she, baby started turning
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: blue or whatever. And, and we didn't know what to do.
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: And so we end up, you know, rushing to the
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: hospital or whatever. And when we're there, this is a
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: three-day-old baby who hadn't eaten. We were trying to breastfeed
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: and everything, and she just would not eat. And so
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: when we get to the hospital, they basically tell us, hey,
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: we're going to need to do a spinal tap.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: Needle this big, a baby this big.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: A newborn, a three-day-old.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: There's no truth in that, ma'am.
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: And so as a father, them coming to me to say, hey,
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: we need to do this to your daughter for her
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: to live. And I'm thinking to myself, they're coming to
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: me for the answer. Like my wife is looking at me.
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: Everybody's looking to me to be like, what do you
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: what do you do? And I had to trust one.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: Well, God, you gave her to us. And so she
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: was yours before she was ours. And even I don't
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: want to make this decision. Um, I have to trust
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: that I'm going to put her in the hands of
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: the people that are saying they know more than, than
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: what I know. And so I'd, the closest I've ever
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: tried to imagine what it is to give up your
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: child for somebody else, what God did for us through Jesus,
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: that was what I felt like it gave me the
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: closest understanding of what it is to actually be willing
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: to sacrifice, you know what I mean, a life that
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: you love so much, but trusting God in that space.
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: And so I've never wanted to have to do that again,
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: but From that standpoint, just understanding I'm not God. But
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: if I could get a glimpse of what he felt
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: like to give up his child to me, that's what
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: I got out of that.
• 20:42
  Speaker 8: So they did the spinal tap.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: On the baby girl.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: But it's crazy. So at the first hospital, they weren't
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: equipped to deal with little kids. So I was like,
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: wait a minute. So now we went to a children's hospital.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: Now when you're telling me.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Children's Hospital of Atlanta.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: Now when you're telling me, I believe you. But when
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: the first doctor was telling me, she was saying all
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: kind of crazy. Because I was like, okay, you have
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: to stop talking, lady.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: When she was in utero, whatever the.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: The, what do they call it?
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Marconium.
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: Marconium was in, she had had it so much that
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: she wasn't eating because she had that in her. So
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: they had to basically extract the Marconium in her so
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: that she'd be hungry.
• 21:28
  Speaker 6: I always tell parents to double check and make sure,
• 21:31
  Speaker 6: triple check. So something similar happened last year, Christmas time.
• 21:34
  Speaker 6: They told me my daughter would need brain surgery. Something
• 21:38
  Speaker 6: didn't sit right with me.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: And we took her out of New Jersey and I
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: took her to a hospital in New York.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
• 21:45
  Speaker 6: And when the doctors seen her in New York, he came,
• 21:48
  Speaker 6: he looked at the charts, he started laughing, right? So
• 21:50
  Speaker 6: I didn't find it funny. I'm like, what the fuck
• 21:52
  Speaker 6: is so funny?
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: And I'm serious. What the fuck is so funny?
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Stop cursing in front of the church people.
• 21:56
  Speaker 6: I'm telling you exactly what's happening. So we were sitting there,
• 22:01
  Speaker 6: me and my wife's in, the baby's in, the baby
• 22:03
  Speaker 6: is wrapped up, and he was like, those doctors told
• 22:06
  Speaker 6: you in Jersey that she needed brain surgery.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, he starts laughing. I'm like, what's so funny?
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: He was like, she doesn't need brain surgery.
• 22:12
  Speaker 6: It was like, there's nothing on this chart that tells
• 22:14
  Speaker 6: me she needs brain surgery. What she does need is
• 22:17
  Speaker 6: that she needs to clean out her, you know, everything
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: that's in her nose.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 22:21
  Speaker 6: Leaves up to it, her sinuses. But she has a
• 22:23
  Speaker 6: sinus infection, no brain surgery.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Wow. Brain surgery is crazy. That's crazy.
• 22:27
  Speaker 6: So if we would have left her there, they probably
• 22:29
  Speaker 6: would have started with the brain surgery.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: I messed her up.
• 22:32
  Speaker 6: And I still didn't believe the doctors. I'm like, two
• 22:35
  Speaker 6: doctors told me she needed this.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:37
  Speaker 6: They did the sinus thing. And within hours, Face cleared up.
• 22:42
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 22:43
  Speaker 6: It was the craziest thing. And it just made me think, like,
• 22:46
  Speaker 6: when it comes to that, you got to ask. You
• 22:47
  Speaker 6: got to double check. You got to triple check.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: Ask all the questions.
• 22:50
  Speaker 6: I mean, I called Charlemagne because they told me the
• 22:52
  Speaker 6: best children's hospital was in South Carolina.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Remember I called you?
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: I'm like, give me that number.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Can you get this? Like, it was that type of thing.
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: I get it.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Because you're so scared. But I know you guys have
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: to go.
• 23:00
  Speaker 6: And before you go, I want to talk about September
• 23:03
  Speaker 6: is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. I want to talk about
• 23:06
  Speaker 6: that before you go and why it's so important and
• 23:07
  Speaker 6: why people should get checked and how they should get checked.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: You beat it twice. So break it down to the
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: brothers out there listening.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: Two-time cancer survivor. Last time I was here last year
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: was Prostate Cancer Awareness Month and I was headed into
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: a treatment. I had my prostate removed in November of
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: 2024 and then cancer came back in 2025. And so
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: at that time, I then went from not having a
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: prostate to now having proton therapy, which was 37 rounds
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: of this radiation treatment or whatever. And I can say
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: several different things. One, I am, my PSA, which is
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: prostate specific antigen level, which is characterized by a blood
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: test now. You don't have to do the finger checks anymore.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: It's all blood tests. He still won't go there. Even
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: after last year?
• 23:53
  Speaker 8: Yeah, he still won it. First of all, I've only had.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: One prostate check. Two fingers. I haven't been back. But
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: I need to go back.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: It's just a blood test now.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: It's a blood test. Very, very advanced now. Blood test.
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: But from that standpoint, my PSA is sub 0.01, which
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: is undetectable, meaning I'm cancer-free. So thank God for that.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: One in every eight men will be diagnosed with prostate
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: cancer in their lifetime. One in every six will be
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: African American and less likely to survive it because of.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: Late diagnosis.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Late diagnosis.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: They usually don't get diagnosed until stage four.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: And so then now you have less choices.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: How often do you get checked for prostate?
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Is it yearly when you do your checkup? No, I
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: don't get checked for prostate anymore because I don't have
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: a prostate.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: How often should somebody get checked?
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: Well, right now, how often should somebody get checked is
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: normally once a year. When your physicals, once you reach
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: a certain age for African-American, then you want to start
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: going probably a little earlier. They say as early as
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: 35 to 40.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: It's in blood. It's just in your blood now. You
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: just have to ask for the test.
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: But you have to ask for the test because when
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: you go just for a regular physical, they're not going
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: to check your PSA.
• 25:02
  Speaker 8: That's correct.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: They're not. which is crazy. That's crazy.
• 25:05
  Speaker 6: Cause a lot of people assume though, that when you
• 25:07
  Speaker 6: go to the doctor and they give blood, they'd be like,
• 25:09
  Speaker 6: everything's clear.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: You automatically think that.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: They checked everything.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: No, you have to ask.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: You have to ask for it.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: You have to ask. And it's super important because the
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: thing is, is the insurance companies, it costs like 70, $ 75, right.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: For them to do. So that's why they don't want
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: everybody doing it.
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: But the truth is, is it, Pills in comparison.
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: They're trying to pass legislation now and do some different
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: things to get it like mandatory. Like when a woman
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: that they want you to have mammograms or X, Y,
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: and Z, they are starting to want men to have PSA,
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: but they haven't passed that legislation yet. Hopefully we're somewhere
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: at the forefront of that. But ultimately the goal is
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: now I go every four months to go back and
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: just have blood checked or whatever. And then at some point,
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: When I'm clear, you know, it'll be six months and
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: then a year. And then I think after like 10
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: years or whatever, then you don't have to do that anymore.
• 25:58
  Speaker 7: I love the fact that it is just a blood
• 26:02
  Speaker 7: test now for the mammograms. I know, like, did they...
• 26:07
  Speaker 7: Can you detect that through blood? Because I heard that
• 26:09
  Speaker 7: they have to slam something down on your breast.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: They do.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: But here's the truth. So the irony of this is,
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: is that while he's battling prostate cancer, one of my
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: dearest friends was also battling breast cancer. And so at
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: the same time, like I would go to his treatment
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: in the morning and hers in the afternoon. And yes,
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: it is a mammogram like that. But the truth is,
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: is you would rather know. And because she knew and
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: she found out early, she lives. And the crazy part
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: is she had to go back and do it a
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: second time, too. So I was dealing with both of
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: these at the same time. But 100%, if you catch
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: it earlier, for women, the most detectable and fixable cancer
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: is breast cancer when you get an early detection. And
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: the same thing for men.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: It's survivable.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: And that's the key. We need, especially as African-Americans, we
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: have to get things done early. And we can't be
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: afraid of going to the doctor and those kind of things.
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: I want to say this, too, just real quick. My
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: wife has been an incredible caregiver. And so I want
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: to shout out to all the people out there. that
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: are caregivers for someone. I mean, last time we were here,
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: you were talking about your dad offline.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: I would like to know how he's doing.
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: But when you share what's going on with you, you
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: technically start to become a caregiver for the person that
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: you're navigating. So although I battled cancer two times and
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: beat cancer two times, she also has been caring for
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: me and for her friends and for her dad before
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: he passed away. And so the way that a caregiver,
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: you know, people will look at me and be, oh, Montel,
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: two-time cancer, but they don't get to see that I
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: can do hard things, but I cannot do hard things alone.
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: I said that last time I was here. And so
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: from that standpoint, I just want to honor you publicly
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: to the world for being there, you know what I'm saying,
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: for us to be able to battle this and to
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: beat it and then to be given birth, you know
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: what I'm saying, to this little dude, Shiloh, is pretty cool.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: No place I'd rather be.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Congratulations. Y'all have to leave?
• 28:06
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Oh, I just want to ask a couple questions. Y'all
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: been talking about being grandparents, right?
• 28:12
  Speaker 9: Yes.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: You got five children, five grandchildren.
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: What did you believe about parenting with your first child
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: that you completely disagree with now?
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: I know you probably popped the first one.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Well, we were music industry people when we had our
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: first kids.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: Those are old covenant kids.
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: Literally, you know, the quickest story of that is right
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: after we had our baby, Right.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: So right after we had our first child or whatever,
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: two weeks afterwards, we was on a bus that Biggie
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: Smalls used to have.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: Called Big Shirley.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Called a Big Shirley. Yeah, man. It had a pink carpet.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: Because it smelled like weed and butt cheeks. Because I
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: was managing.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: It was in the carpet. It was in the carpet.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: Weed and butt cheeks.
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: Not lies.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: It was in the carpet. We called it Big Shirley
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: or whatever.
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: And I can remember being on the road with a
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: two-week-old baby. The heater didn't work. And so I had them.
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: We was in the back of the bus. It wrapped
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: up in blankets, you know. And so now that little
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: girl has three kids.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Yep. You know, but she started out on the back
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: of Big Shirley.
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: So from that standpoint, we had kids that were our
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: BC days, our before BCs.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: You know, before Christ days and ministry days. And then our.
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: Young kids got Pastor Montel and Pastor Kristen.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: They don't know.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: They don't know the big Shirley days. They don't know
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: the same. And and the crazy thing is is that
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: like um they don't they don't have that same perspective
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: right so the older ones you know they get into
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: they got into a little bit more mess because we
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: were messy but we're different now right so um i
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: think the the thing is is that now with grandkids
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: um it's such a rewarding thing. It's so much different
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: because we're different too, right? So, like, you have the
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: patience and the kindness for things. As parents, you're just like,
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: come on, let's go. Let's get it. As opposed to
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: when you're dealing with your grandkids, like my grandson is...
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: I really miss you. Why do you miss me? Oh,
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: because you're my favorite person, Mimi. You're the most amazing
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: and you tell me how much you love me and
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: you tell me I'm brave and I'm strong and I'm courageous.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: So it's the words that I'm spilling over him, right?
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: And so he's longing for that affirmation. And what he's
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: telling me in his four-year-old way is I need all
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: the words, right? I need all the things to build
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: me up. The crazy thing is that he is that.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: He's bold. He's one of those kids. And he's got
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: a thousand questions. And the funny thing is, my daughter
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: was the same way. Now, we used to answer those questions,
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: but I used to get annoyed by those questions. Now
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: I completely entertain them and say, tell me why you
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: think that. Tell me what's going on in there. And
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: when you ask those questions, man, he's so far beyond
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: what we could think or imagine. I'm like, four years old.
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: That's amazing.
• 31:07
  Speaker 9: Was it hard for your older kids as y'all changed?
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: Very much so. In fact, it's pretty funny because sometimes
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: with our new Kevin and kids, they be like, y'all
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: had it easy.
• 31:18
  Speaker 8: This is ridiculous.
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: They feel like the newer kids get the better versions
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: of us. But I think our first kids got the
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: grimy street.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. Def Jam-y. 160 Barrick.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Like, they got it. You're still outside. You're just a
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: version of how they were built. Yeah, y'all still outside.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: Oh, we were way outside.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: There's Jesus. Oh, Lord. And I'll just say this as well.
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: I'm grateful that I didn't, and that we didn't abort
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: family legacy.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: Like, literally, when I look at the business and divorces
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: and how people, you know, do things to have fame
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: and fortune and the business and this and that, we
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: had a crossroads where.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Basically we could have divorced. We could have.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Split up the family and done all of that. And
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: for us now.
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: To be married 32 years in this business.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, in this business, it's like 178, like
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: dog years, right?
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: So for us to be here and for us to
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: be alive and to be healthy and still reinventing ourselves,
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: not just as artists and managers and not just as
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: pastors and not just as marriage people, but now as authors,
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: all of this and to be surrounded by With Family Legacy,
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: it's like, man, I can't imagine. It's rich people that
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: ain't wealthy. You know what I'm saying? And I feel
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: like we are wealthy because we have legacy that doesn't
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: have anything to do with monetary value.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Love that.
• 32:52
  Speaker 7: Did y'all at some point ever have, just to piggyback
• 32:55
  Speaker 7: off of what Lauren asked y'all, did y'all have parental
• 32:57
  Speaker 7: guilt that y'all could not or wasn't able to give
• 33:00
  Speaker 7: y'all current selves to y'all first children.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: And you know, what's funny is that we had to
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: come back and double back and say, you know what?
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: I did the best I could with what I had
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: when I had it. And you, you repent and you
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: ask for forgiveness. And the truth is, is that they
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: turned out all right. And, and, and now you get
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: the better version of us to teach it truthfully. Okay.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: So let me keep it a thousand percent.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Please.
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: Parenting adult children is hella harder. Because here's the truth.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: When they're kids, you can tell, no, this is what
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: we're doing. They got to do it, right? But in
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: your adult kids, you got to be like, man, so
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: let me suggest that this is where I think you
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: should go. I mean, you could do your own way.
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: You can try and invent the wheel, but it's not necessary.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: But you have to suggest as opposed to what I say.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: It is what it is. Let's go. But the truth is,
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: you can you can help them teach. You can teach
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: them how to make good decisions. I think that's one
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: of the regrets I had when I with my older
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: kids is that I didn't I didn't give them the
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: opportunity to learn at home to make good decisions. If
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: you can't make a decision, I'll just make it for you.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: It's OK. Right.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: But the truth is they need to practice. So with
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: our new covenant kids, the new ones, we are like, OK,
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: so how would that go? You get to make the
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: decision and let the chips fall where they may. So
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: if they make a bad decision. OK, so now you
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: got to live out that consequence. And I let it
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: rock as opposed to before.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: I'd like it.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: That's a dumb decision. Don't do that.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: We were more controlling early on.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: I was dismissive. Yeah.
• 34:44
  Speaker 7: See, I asked that question because my son is 14.
• 34:47
  Speaker 8: My daughter's 2.
• 34:47
  Speaker 7: And so the mommy that Marley, my daughter, gets is
• 34:53
  Speaker 7: not the mom.
• 34:54
  Speaker 8: That young Ashton got when he was 2.
• 34:56
  Speaker 7: And I find myself trying to navigate this parental guilt
• 35:01
  Speaker 7: all the time that.
• 35:02
  Speaker 8: It's like, dang, I wish I was this for you.
• 35:04
  Speaker 7: I wish I, you know, when he makes a mistake
• 35:06
  Speaker 7: or when he's, lashing out on what he's doing I'm
• 35:08
  Speaker 7: like I wish I was who I am now then
• 35:11
  Speaker 7: I put it all on myself and you know my
• 35:13
  Speaker 7: husband he he has a way of like yo look
• 35:16
  Speaker 7: no exactly what you just said no you did your best.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: When you was outside but you was outside it.
• 35:20
  Speaker 8: Was different I'm talking about outside I had him outside
• 35:22
  Speaker 8: with me yes absolutely it was a lot you know
• 35:26
  Speaker 8: and I wish it wasn't like that but that's.
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: What it was but they got built different too though
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: yeah because you're 14 years probably different from your from
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: your two-year-old.
• 35:35
  Speaker 8: Definitely.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: And probably the.
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: Street smarts, the savvy, all the different things he had
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: to navigate was what he needed to survive those 14
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: years for that. Whereas now we've kind of insulated our
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: kids a little differently now, you know, and they don't
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: necessarily have to navigate in that. The world that our
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: kids are navigating now is what they're scrolling and what
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: they're seeing and cyber and all of those different things.
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: It's just different AI. It is a lot of different
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: things that, you know, actually live.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man.
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: Well, we had to learn how to interact with people.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: And we had to figure out.
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: Human contact.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Human contact.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: How to have conversations.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: Man, that's the thing I think is probably the thing
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: that you have to force now is to make your
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: kids be able to.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: Like, it.
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: One of the things that drives me absolutely crazy, you're
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: sitting right next to me and you're texting me. Hey, yo.
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: I'm right here. Talk to me. Give it to me.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: If you text me and we're in the same house,
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: I'm coming for you. I'm coming for you.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: I know that's right.
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: What have your grandchildren revealed about you that your children couldn't?
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: What have they revealed that our children couldn't?
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: I would say they have They have been showing me
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: that our presence matters more than probably what our own.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Kids were able to articulate.
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: So, I mean, you know, when I was a kid
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: growing up, I remember, you know, I just wanted to
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: go to my cousin's house.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: I wanted to go here. I want to sleep over.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: I want to stay.
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: I want to, you know, our grandkids. they're like, they
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: come over to our house, but they're like, I want
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: to go home, you know? So, so they love being
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: with us, but they, they like home. And so I
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: love the fact that we have kids that, that love
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: their homes. They love being around at home and our
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: grandkids are, They miss us like greatly.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: They do. But you know what? Now that you said
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: that and the question you asked is very insightful. But
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: I think one of the things that's interesting is in
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: our older kids, what they did with our absence is
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: they absolutely have instilled their presence so that their kids
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: do want to go home. Because they enjoy being home.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: They enjoy being with their parents as opposed to, you know,
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, when we were traveling, it was it was
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: rough for them. They were either with us or we
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: weren't at home. So I think what they did with
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: that is they translated into the well, I tell you what,
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: I won't be. And so I think especially our oldest daughter,
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: like her whole thing is like, yeah, could I have
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: all the money in the world? Yeah, for sure. She's
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: so smart. It's crazy. But the truth is, she's like,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: I will be present. for my kids and they will
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: never not know me to be here and she does
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: that well.
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: Routine is interesting now because like okay so we're here
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: but it'll be like taco tuesday like our grandkids.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: Are like undone where y'all undone.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: I put my grandson.
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: Man i put my grandson in the car on sunday
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: night and i said now i need to warn you
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: that mimi's not going to be here for taco tuesday.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Shut his world down. Why? What will you be doing?
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: And I was like, well, Mimi's going to go talk
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: about Shiloh and I'm going to try and introduce him
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: to the world. It makes me so sad when you're
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: not here, Mimi. Why are you doing this? And I
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: was like.
• 39:03
  Speaker 8: You made it out of that. And wait till he
• 39:04
  Speaker 8: turn on Netflix and see who you can sit down.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: And talk to. Blame Charlemagne. Blame Charlemagne.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: This is the monster under the bed.
• 39:11
  Speaker 7: That's the one you need to be afraid of.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Jesus.
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: Speaking of, if Shiloh ultimately becomes bigger than the book, right? Yes.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: We hope it does. Cartoon, TV, toys, whatever.
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: Your mouth to God's ears.
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: What do you want a child to feel when they
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: see that character 20 years from now?
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: I want them to feel like Shiloh taught me how
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: to be brave. Shiloh taught me to do hard things.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: And I navigated my childhood differently and I became a
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: braver adult. And I know how to navigate my life
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: and my emotions differently. but what I learned as a kid.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: We did a, we did a reading of the book
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: on last week in Atlanta and brought a bunch of
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: little kids in. And one, I mean, it just speaks
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: not just to the kids.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: But to the parents.
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: And it's, it was super, super dope because the next day,
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: all the kids that got books literally, and this was
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: not a, Hey, y'all do this. It was just like
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: kids woke up and they were like, I want to
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: see Shiloh. I want to read Shiloh because they associate
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: this character with bravery and And I think if you
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: could give bravery a face, you know, as opposed to
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: fear a face, they actually have somebody that they can
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: look to when it's time to be brave. You know,
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: when Shiloh was brave, then I can be brave too.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: We did this thing at the party. We did an
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: affirmation station. So we put up a mirror and all
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: around the mirror it says, I'm bold, I'm courageous, I'm strong,
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: I can do hard things. And the little kids standing
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: in the mirror going, I'm bold, I'm brave, I'm courageous.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: It was so life-giving. And so it was so cool.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: We had a little girl. Her name was Eden. And
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: she was three and she said she stood up on
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: the counter and said, I'm bold, I'm brave, I'm courageous.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, nothing could be better because
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: these are things she's it's words that are washing over
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: her so that when she goes out and deals with
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: the world, it is not trying to tell her that
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: she'll remember those things and they'll come as replay for her.
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: There's a kid who showed up to the event and
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: she was afraid, like on the way there, she's afraid
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: of the dark. And the parents are having that conversation.
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: Our kid is afraid of the dark. And we get
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: there to the part and they're like, yeah, this is
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: our little girl. And, you know, she's afraid of the dark.
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: And I said, well, we're going to help Shiloh. You know,
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: Shiloh is going to help her to navigate that. And
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: surely enough or whatever. I mean, I would follow back
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: up to find out if she's still afraid of the dark.
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: But I know that that day she got equipped with
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: the tools and other kids in the surrounding community to
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: be able to know, oh, I can be brave even
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: if I'm afraid of the dark. I can still be
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: brave and I can take the next brave step and
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: do something courageous to make sure that I'm working towards
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: conquering that fear.
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: And I think when kids know that they're not the
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: only one, then they realize, okay, I'm all right. I'm
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: not crazy.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: I'm all right.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: And that's what we're looking for.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: I love that. Well, how can they get the book?
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: Anywhere you can possibly buy a book, you can get it.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: Amazon, Books A Million, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million.
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: Wherever you can get a book.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
• 42:13
  Speaker 8: Both of my kids got memberships at Books of Mill Yang.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Yay!
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: Or pick it up if you're out and about.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us so much.
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: Shiloh and the Not-So-Scary Girl above his bed.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: That's right. Kristen and Martel Jordan.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: Thank y'all for having us.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: It's The Breakfast Club. Good morning.
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: Hold up.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: Every day I wake up.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Wake your ass up. The Breakfast Club.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: Y'all finished or y'all done?