Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 127 | Becoming a Never Empty Nester

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Ep. 127 | Becoming a Never Empty Nester · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  What's up, 5-Minute Fatherhood listeners? Have you guys seen that Family Team's Weekend Live is officially open? You can register. You can claim your spot. A two-day event, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 18th and 19th this year. We're going to pack 250 couples in a Memorial Hall historic theater downtown where we're going to lean in, roll up our sleeves, and we're going to be able to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a chance to get a
• 0:20
  and have a workshop about building a multi-generational family team on mission. You're going to get practical tips. You're going to get practical tools. You're going to leave with a family blueprint and manual. And officially, you're also going to be not alone and realize there's other people who want to do the same thing as you. We want you guys there. It's selling out fast. So make sure to go to familyteams.com slash weekend to register and claim your spot. And there's also a special little discount code. If you're part of our Facebook group, which you can find a link to that.
• 0:48
  in the info section on audio or the info section on the YouTube channel. So again, familyteams.com slash weekend. It's selling out fast. Claim your spot. We'd love to see you there. You know, I think it's funny that we want to empty the house and be empty nesters right when we got decently good at it.
• 1:11
  Hey guys, welcome to the 5-Minute Fatherhood Podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeff Bethke, along with my friend and mentor, Jeremy Pryor. Join us Monday through Friday as we chat about quick tips, skills, and ways to help equip you on your journey as a father to build your multi-generational family team on mission. Stay tuned.
• 1:32
  What's up, guys? Jeff and Jeremy here. Another episode of Five Minute Fatherhood, a fun topic for today, and that is becoming a never empty nester. I told Jeremy this should actually be a hashtag, never empty nesting. And the problem or the question that I think is so good, I want to hear Jeremy talk about this, is do you imagine, and this is why this is so important, because in America, I think we do imagine this. Do you imagine managing a household and kind of raising a family, building a family is a task to complete?
• 1:58
  Do you believe there's a finish line to that? Most of us might not say like, oh, yes, exactly. But in our mind, in our hearts, we know there we think there is. We envision this day. We see this day. We dream about this day when that is telling about what we believe about the future, what we believe about the now and what we believe about what we're even building. So, yeah, Jeremy, what would you say to this?
• 2:18
  Yeah. So we're very story-formed creatures, and we imagine retirement, right? We imagine this day where the kids are all gone, and when we think about that, this helps us oftentimes get through those hard seasons with our kids. But that story is a story that personally I don't like, and I just want you guys to consider that does not have to be the story. Your story doesn't have to be, I can't wait for the day when I'm alone in my house with my wife. And then
• 2:47
  then one of us dies and then we're alone in our house for years potentially after that. Like, that doesn't sound like a dream to me at all. And it's not one that is normal in the Bible. The idea of having, like, you see stories like the prodigal son story, stories about Abraham, stories that parables Jesus would tell all the time about, you know, a father with sons and, you know, how they would work in the vineyard, things like that. This idea is really foreign to the Middle East when we take people to Israel and,
• 3:16
  We show them what Middle Eastern houses look like, and they're all multigenerational. There is no such thing as an empty nest in those cultures or as a rule in those cultures. And you might ask, well, how does this even happen? And we're going to talk, by the way, about this metaphor of a nest a lot at the Family Teams Weekend in October. It's how we sort of kick off Friday as we talk about it. So there's a totally different way to think about family. But just going to give you guys a little bit of an idea here. If you can think about life as a...
• 3:45
  in a household as being something that you build and then pass on generationally, as opposed to a nest that sort of gets empty and then sort of slowly disintegrates. How does that happen? One way is having kids older in your life, right? So a lot of times the reason why when people are dreaming about the empty nest, they stop having children at an earlier age in order for them to get to that season more quickly. And so that can really have an impact on the way that you think about your family. Right.
• 4:13
  Another way that you can have children persist later into your life and continue to cultivate a household is by adopting or fostering kids, sort of when you're at your peak of experience. A lot of times, and we've seen a lot of families do this, you may have spent 20 years.
• 4:31
  really crafting your household and your skills as a mother and as a father, only to, at your peak of skill, stop using those skills. And it's been amazing for me to watch families foster and adopt children at that stage. And that would create a scenario where you're not dreaming about the day where you're having an empty nest.
• 4:56
  Inviting aging parents to live with you is another way to not have an empty nest. Having those you're discipling potentially move in during a season so they can have an immersive experience of discipleship, which we've done a lot of that. So the big picture here, you guys, is that if you are dreaming about the day when you will finally be done having children in the house and having the complexity of managing a household—
• 5:20
  then you're really living into this American story of the nest. But we just want you guys to be aware that there is another story or other stories besides that one. And if you want to be a never-empty nester, you can live into a story where your goal is to cultivate and create the strongest household that you can and then to have that household bless as many people as it possibly can for as long as you live.
• 5:46
  That's another story. And that's not about keeping your own children in your house for longer than they should be there. It's just that there is almost nothing more powerful or more beautiful than the experience of living in a multi-generational household. And you can give that gift to so many more people if you are cultivating that as your goal. But you'll never do that if you hold on to this dream of an empty nest. And so just something to consider.
• 6:16
  Yeah. Well, I mean, what you just ended on, I think is what I was thinking about the whole time of like, you know, I think it's funny that we want to empty the house and be empty nesters right when we got decently good at it. Did I mean like right when we got decently good at a home and hospitality and people in our home and taking care of them and
• 6:33
  I'm like, I love hospitality and me and Alyssa love taking care of people and practicing and working on it, but I know we're still very young in it. And so to me, I'm like, man, I'll be probably really awesome at it when I'm 50, you know, and that, so why would I, hopefully I can use it by then. Hopefully I can really, you know, point it towards something. And I just think, yeah, bless as many people as possible for as long as possible with the gift of the household, because that's what it is, especially the more we go forward in our culture.
• 6:57
  homes that are sacred, homes that are full of shalom, homes that are full of peace and love, man, that is actually, I think, one of the most powerful things we can give people. And so to close that off is actually, I think, a egregious sin at some levels, almost, right? When so many people and so many places and so many people in our city and our neighborhood could use that or could be blessed by our table, our hospitality, our bedrooms, our love, our whatever. And so I think, yeah, I think that's huge. And I think to think about it like that
• 7:27
  story
• 7:30
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