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Intentional Fatherhood Rhythms with Maury Wood · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  And you might think, well, am I going to turn my kids into nerds or wrestling fanatics? Yes, you will. And that's awesome. Like, they're going to be as weird as you are. Like, that's the, God gave them to you. And this is something that's so weird is that we want our kids to somehow form into some homogenous monoculture instead of, like, our unique family culture.
• 0:20
  Hi, welcome to the Family Teams Podcast. Our goal here is to help your family become a multi-generational team on mission by providing you with biblically rooted concepts, tools, and rhythms. Your hosts are Jeremy Pryor and Jefferson Bethke, and we can't wait to chat about all things family. Thank you.
• 0:38
  Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. I am joined today by Maury Wood. Maury, thanks for jumping on the podcast today. Thank you for having me. Yeah. So one of the things you and I both share in common is we want to see fathers become much more intentional. That is a huge problem we have. I think we've placed the bar of fatherhood so low.
• 1:01
  It's like, and we don't realize how much opportunity there is. And so, uh, Maury writes a great subset called grit, um, and wit. And, um, so there's a few insights that as he's, he's gathering that I want to just tease out in this podcast, but there's a lot more there if you want to jump on his sub stack, but yeah, Maury, tell us a little bit about your story, kind of, you know, where you're from, we'll dive into some of these insights. So I think it'd be really helpful for families to hear.
• 1:25
  Okay, thank you. I, my name is Maury Wood. I live, I grew up on a farm in southern middle Tennessee. We learning hard work and all the things that we do on the farm, you do it. We didn't get, my brothers and I always joked and said, we didn't get paid. We did it because we were part of the family.
• 1:44
  Uh, I've got, um, four children ages, uh, seven to 16. My wife and I have been married for 19 years in a couple of weeks. Actually, uh, we started dating in 2000. So we've been together for 25 years this year. We actually celebrate the dating anniversary more so than the wedding anniversary. Actually, uh, where the writing came from.
• 2:06
  I used to one of my former jobs, I was a newspaper reporter and I would handle all the civic club meetings and things like that. And one day my editor said, hey, would you like to write an editorial? So I did. And I really enjoyed it.
• 2:23
  Then I started with my faith. I felt a really, I was teaching Sunday school at the time, and I thought, well, a devotional is only really writing down a Bible story. So I started writing devotionals, and then that came to a pause because I left the newspaper and went back to school and became a teacher, ironically teaching English.
• 2:49
  Then here recently, I started writing devotionals for my church to go with sermon series. Really enjoyed that. I told my wife, I've got the bug again because I really enjoyed writing. Then with this, with the substack, I'd been praying a lot about what I needed to be doing in my church.
• 3:10
  as much spare time as I have with four kids. And God kind of led me to, instead of just sharing devotionals, why don't you share some of the things you've learned as being a dad? Cause I've always looked at myself as like, I don't know that much and I really don't have anything. I don't think I have anything to share, but God quickly reminded me,
• 3:33
  you've been married for 19 years and you've got four kids. You've got something. And I felt obedient, so I did that. And the sub stack has actually came from, I'm kind of mixing in faith with just being a dad. I mean, I came from a house of divorced parents and the fatherhood,
• 3:58
  things I've learned. And like you mentioned right now, the importance, especially being in education, seeing the difference where a father is in the picture and not in the picture. I spent a lot of my time in the classroom being a father figure. So my story basically is about trying to do the best
• 4:18
  by my kids and leaving a legacy to where when they have kids, especially my two boys, they've kind of hopefully take some of this stuff. My 16 year old has already said, there's some stuff I'm not going to do daddy. And I'm like, well, that's fine because that's exactly what I do too. So that's fine. That's awesome.
• 4:33
  Well, I'd love to dive into some of these insights as you've been kind of like thinking this through. So one of the ones we were chatting about earlier is wrestling with legacy and how you have gotten into wrestling with your brothers, I think, while you guys were kind of recovering from some stuff going on in your family of origin. So I'd love for you to tease that out a little bit and then kind of have that conversation.
• 4:54
  how that kind of came into it. And I'd love for us to talk about like the impact of these kinds of unique cultural, like fun elements you could bring into a family, how that worked for you guys.
• 5:05
  Okay. We, our parents, I have two younger brothers. Our parents got divorced when I was, I think I was like 19. So I didn't have to deal with the ramifications of it as much as my younger brothers, who my middle is three years younger than me, and my youngest brother is seven years younger than me. But on Monday nights...
• 5:31
  We would sit in the floor of our living room in front of our console TV and watch wrestling. That was a time where we just kind of forgot about everything going on because –
• 5:45
  We were brothers and we were, my mom did a really good job of raising us to quote unquote, get along. Like when we'd get toys for Christmas, it was always play sets, but it was different pieces of the play set. So if you wanted to play GI Joe and you wanted an airplane, well, Sean was going to have to play because he had the airplane. That is a great tactic. I think it's way better than giving everybody the same thing, which is kind of like we do give everybody a different piece of that. They can have fun alone, but a lot more fun together.
• 6:15
  That's awesome. Well, like the perfect example of it is one year we got the Ghostbusters and my young, my middle brother got, well, he got the firehouse and I had Ecto-1, but my mama separated all Ray, Egon, Winston and Peter.
• 6:31
  No one kid owned those toys. So if we were going to play with all four Ghostbusters, we had to do it. So we grew up. We were, I don't want to say made to be close, but we were close. So with the wrestling, that just became a time to where we knew, and our parents kind of knew too,
• 6:51
  we were available, but we were having brother time and we, we, and that was back in the day when you got to run up during the bathroom, um, bathroom breaks during commercials and all that. Cause we weren't recording. So that was just a time to where we got close or even, and kind of forgot about the divorce.
• 7:10
  And then later on, when I got my own place, my youngest brother moved in with me for a little while because it was closer for him for college and he was commuting. And then he moved in and a couple of days he was like, we're still going to watch wrestling on Monday nights, aren't we? And I went, yeah, yeah, yeah, we can. And it just became a joke like my brother.
• 7:32
  I was dating my wife at the time and she would come over while we were watching wrestling and we'd be sitting on the couch with a medium pizza in our laps. And, uh, I hate to say it, but like a two liter in between us that we were sharing and she'd come in and go, y'all are crazy. And I'd go, we're, this is brother time. Like in my youngest brother, he would joke and go, yeah, this is brother time. And then we'd offer her pizza.
• 7:54
  So it just, it was good because yes, it was funny. Yes, we knew it was fake, but it was a time for us just to focus on that and not about the divorce, which sometimes led to talks about divorce. But now that's something me and my brothers, we are at a constant like against what we can speak from a place of we know what divorce can do now. So it's led to a lot of good conversations.
• 8:23
  That's so good. And has the rhythm, the tradition of Monday wrestling, has that continued or did that kind of peter out at some point?
• 8:32
  Uh, we, my brothers and I talk about it a little bit. I'm still watching it simply because, uh, my kids, I watched, I did, it did peter out. Like I wasn't watching that much. And then something happened and, uh, my 16 year old and I started watching it. Well, then once we were watching it, then my seven year old boy came in.
• 8:54
  And then my two daughters, so much to my wife's chagrin, usually on Monday nights, not as much Monday nights now, but on Friday nights, we, it's hilarious because we'll be eating supper and the kids will be watching the clock and they'll say, look, we got 10 minutes, we got to get upstairs. And my wife will say, I cannot believe you've got them watching it. But I love it because as a dad, I'm sitting in the middle of a couch with...
• 9:20
  three kids laying on me or laying in my lap or something like that, watching wrestling. And even my 16 year old, who's too big to be laying on me, he'll come in and sit with us. And we still have those same conversations and it's just a fun, fun bonding time. Yeah. Well, this is one thing that I feel we're talking about intentional fatherhood. And I think the easiest thing that any dad could do is,
• 9:45
  is get his kids into a hobby or into something that he enjoys on some kind of rhythmic basis. It's so easy. What would you like to do? What would you like to do every week? Would you like to do that? Just involve your kids. And the younger your kids are, the more they're going to be brainwashed and thinking it's the coolest thing in the world, especially if you have pizza and whatever, you know, pop there or whatever. So I'm a huge fan of this. This is like, I really like, in my weekly rhythm, I sort of have two kinds of evenings. I have evenings where, you know, I'm...
• 10:15
  really trying to recover and relax. And I have evenings where, you know, we're trying to be productive and often expand the kingdom, leave this Bible study or whatever things going on. And so one of the basic things I've learned is that some people feel like having anything scheduled, anything intentional, um,
• 10:34
  takes away from relaxation. And therefore their goal is to have four or five, six, maybe even seven nights a week where they have nothing scheduled. They have no idea what's going to happen. And they just kind of, ah, just let my impulses, you know, take over. Um, that's not actually that relaxing. What's really relaxing is,
• 10:51
  is to actually know what you're going to do in that evening and do something that you really find fun, relaxing. But the added bonus, and this is like, of course, 10 times more valuable than even relaxing, is as soon as you start doing a rhythm like that, you can invite your kids in, you can invite others in. You can, you know, again, design it around what actually is relaxing. If you find that like having, okay, when my mother-in-law comes over every Tuesday night, I'm not relaxed. Okay, fine. You know, don't invite her or whatever. But it's like, whatever does work for you, do it. Like,
• 11:18
  And if it's wrestling, like create a, create a unique family culture. So I'm a huge fan of this move of just finding something that was nostalgic part of your childhood, something that really blessed you as a kid and, you know, bringing that into your family. And sometimes your wife won't understand it, but believe me, your kids will, you can get them young enough.
• 11:34
  They'll get it. Hey, it's Jeremy. Over the years, I've learned that building a business can be isolating, especially if you're also trying to raise a strong family and walk with God through it all. That's why we started Integrated. It's a mastermind for men who are doing all three, running a business, leading a family, and seeking the kingdom. We meet twice a year, once in Franklin, Tennessee, once in Estes Park, Colorado, and we walk with each other between the meetups.
• 11:56
  What happens in this room is hard to describe. Men bring their hardest problems, their biggest decisions, and their most honest questions. They don't leave alone. If that sounds like the kind of circle you've been looking for, you can apply now at familyteams.com slash integrated.
• 12:15
  Well, we like one of the other rhythm things we do. We and this was this was my wife. After dinner, we take a lap around the block. At the beginning, she was doing it to keep it to keep us all healthy. And she always makes the joke. I'm supposed to outlive her. And we and we didn't like it. As a group, but.
• 12:38
  My wife and I had a talk and she said, look, so goes the dad. So goes the household. You need to get on board with this walking so they'll do it. And I went, OK, you're right. So then the next time I said, y'all, we need to walk. And I painted it in two different pictures. I said, one, we can get some air to this is important to your mama. So it's important to us.
• 13:01
  And now there's no arguing. The only arguments we have now is, are we going to turn right when we leave our driveway or are we going to turn left? I mean, because the kids always want to do that. But the kids like it. They get to walk. They take turns walking the dog. It's a chance for kind of what you said. It's being intentional. Like they know. I love it. My 12-year-old.
• 13:27
  Has we, me and her are a lot alike personality wise. So we butt heads. But last night we were walking and my 12 year old came up beside me and she grabbed my hand. Didn't say anything. Yeah.
• 13:38
  We just walked for a few houses, and then she let go, and she went and talked to my wife for a little bit. But it's being, like you said, we've created a routine in this house. They know after we eat, we're going to go take a walk. And a lot of times, too, it leads into some good conversations, too. And the siblings, going back to the wrestling, it's a bonding time for them to...
• 14:01
  Because they're getting closer and they're aggravating each other and picking and stuff. So, I mean, yeah, I completely agree with you. Scheduling sometimes seems like, well, you're doing it on purpose. Well, of course you're doing it on purpose because you're being intentional and you want to show importance of that in your household. Yeah, so good.
• 14:24
  Yeah. And you might think, well, am I going to turn my kids into nerds or wrestling fanatics? Yes, you will. And that's awesome. Like, they're going to be the weird, they're going to be as weird as you are. Like, that's, that's the, that's, God gave them to you. And this is something that's so, so weird is, I think, really weird. And that is that we want our kids to be a nerd.
• 14:39
  to somehow form into some homogenous, you know, monoculture that's instead of like our unique family culture. And so like allowing that to bubble up, this is something we do. I love going for like a walk every night. That's going to really stick with your kids. I'm sure it provides really awesome opportunities to have a conversation. It's really healthy. All right. So that's those are some rhythms that you guys are working on. Now, one of the things, Mario, that you wrote is that you've been practicing something called no consequence questions.
• 15:08
  So I'd love to dive into that. Describe what that's all about. It came from when Brighton, my 16-year-old, when he was in first or second grade, I think, he came home and...
• 15:26
  You know when something's wrong with your kid, something's up. He came home. He wasn't really talking to my wife. This, at the time, I was not – I'm blessed enough to work from home now, but I was a teacher then, and Karen called me on the way home and said, something's up with Bright. I'm not sure. So I got home and did what –
• 15:49
  We always called Brighton the practice kid because he's the oldest. So we kind of throw whatever, throw it at the wall and see what sticks. The seven-year-old's feral by now. I mean, he's just, he's living. But Brighton, I told Brighton, say, hey, you want to go for a walk? And we were going for a walk. And I said, hey, what's up? And he said, nothing. And I could tell. So I said, I don't know where, I mean, God probably did it. I said, what if I give you a no consequence question?
• 16:16
  And he said, what's the no consequence question? And I said, you can ask me or tell me anything and you cannot be punished. And as soon as I said it, I was like, oh, I don't know. But he said, really? And I went, yep. I said, no, I said, no, no trouble. And he said, okay. And I said, do you want to do that? And he said, yeah. And then he said, I said the S word at school today.
• 16:42
  So I was like, okay, we don't need to talk like that. It's okay. We need to use good words and the whole spiel. And then...
• 16:55
  He was fine. And then... He was guilty. Yeah. Yeah. And then I said, okay. And we were getting closer to home, and it just... Something was telling me what does he think the S word is? Because, I mean, as an adult, we know words. Right. So...
• 17:14
  We almost were home, and I said, what S word did you say? And he said, no. And I said, no, we're still under no consequence. I said, what? I said, I just want to know so we can't say it again. And he said, I told someone to S-H-U-T up. And I said, you told someone to shut is the S word. And he went, yes. And I went, yes.
• 17:37
  Okay. I said, let's just not do that. And he went, okay, well, I'm walking back to the house and he's happy and I'm trying not to laugh because I don't want to demoralize the kid but like, dude, that's nothing. But...
• 17:50
  With that being said, I went home, told my wife, of course, and it's like he told somebody to shut up. But it's been used on several other occasions because the younger siblings have heard that. So I've had no consequence conversations with my 12-year-old girl, my 16-year-old boy. I asked him before coming on your podcast, I said, no.
• 18:15
  can I mention some of the stuff that we've talked about? And he was like, yeah, we've had sex conversations. When, and of course, when he broached that topic, he said, I have, and he was like 14 or 13. And he said, I have a no consequence. And I said, okay. And he said, I got, I have a sex question. And I was like, oh man. And, but we, my wife and I have joked that,
• 18:37
  those conversations I handled the boys and she's going to handle and we, we tag team, but, but I was glad that he was vulnerable enough to come to me and know that, okay, daddy, the rules are you cannot punish me and you cannot judge. And we've had those conversations. Now they know it's going to come with a father, uh, advice or lecture, but,
• 19:05
  I'd rather answer those questions than, because Lord knows when I was in school, all the stuff I heard and everything else, I would rather, because those no consequence questions have actually been worded in, a friend of mine said this, what about that? Or we've had faith conversations, like why does God allow this, that, or the other questions?
• 19:30
  And we've had talks about that because, like I said, I just I want them to be able. I was scared to death to ask my daddy anything. Yeah. Mom, my mama, we had a really, really good relationship. I'm still a mama's boy to this day, but I was so afraid to disappoint her. There was a lot of things I didn't ask her about.
• 19:53
  But my wife and I have talked enough to where we're like, we've got to have an environment where our kids can come to us and know that, okay, we're not mad. We still love you, but we need to talk about this. And then hopefully it's over. Yeah. A lot of this has to do with, there's a transition that happens in parenting that, of course, kids don't see coming and oftentimes parents don't, which is.
• 20:18
  Oftentimes it's called like you go from the cop phase to more of the coaching phase of parenting in terms of like, you know, when they're really young, you spend a lot of time correcting their behavior. And this is why I think my favorite parenting verse in the Bible is in John 1, where it says that the law came through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. And it's really there's there's these stages where, yeah, your kids do need to get a strong intuition of right and wrong.
• 20:43
  I think discipline is really important, especially in the early phase. That cop phase is actually important. Don't skip it. Don't just say, oh, no, the kids just need grace or everything should be no consequence. No. Once you create a foundation of clear right and wrong, good consequences, good training, good discipline, from that perspective, when they start to transition into this more mature phase where they're asking really deep questions…
• 21:04
  And you need to be able to have open conversations where grace and truth need to be really woven in at a much deeper level right at the beginning of the conversation. Then you have to transition your kids out of that, out of that cop phase into much more of like, hey, it doesn't mean that there aren't any more consequences for bad behavior or we're not still training you to do certain things. But the relationship does take on much more of that kind of coaching demeanor where, look, we're looking, we're trying to do the same thing here.
• 21:30
  Like you're already on the team. We're all headed the same direction. And God, you know, willingness is what's happening in your family. But I think, yeah, that's a great way to transition your kids. Hey, like go for a walk and around 10, 11, 12, start the practice of like, hey, do you need, and I love the idea that when you kind of sense they're holding back, right? You just had this real detailed discussion as a family over our Sabbath dinner last week.
• 21:57
  we were studying John 21 and it's very bizarre, um, you know, a couple of verses where Jesus breathes on the disciples and tells them, receive the Holy spirit. Anyone that you forgive, you know, their sins are forgiven. Anyone that you, you know, don't forgive their sins are retained. And we debated forever on that passage. Um, but I think one of the things that oftentimes we can, um, um,
• 22:20
  really be unaware of is our kids need us to tell them they're forgiven. Like that's really important. And if, and so, you know, it's like within the Catholic church, people go to confession because the Catholics still remember how critical it is for us to experience that absolution. And that Jesus wants it to come through a human mediator, not the forgiveness, not the payment, the payment comes through Jesus Christ alone, but the experience of forgiveness as mediated by somebody who can tell us, Hey, just so you know, like, like,
• 22:50
  You are forgiven. The gospel, you know, now that, and this is, of course, Jesus said this after the cross, after the resurrection, once he had already, you know, mediated for all of us, that are forgiveness, now we have this sort of priestly responsibility. And so being a priest in your own home, as a father or as a mother, like this is really important work. Is that, that's like, that walk was like the priestly, the priestly walk.
• 23:14
  Hey, son, you want a no consequence question? So yeah, I love what you're doing there. Any other last thoughts on that before we, I want to hit one more before we're done here. I will say one thing, like we, and you said it, like knowing your kids, my one happened two days ago. My daughter was sick and she took a test at school and did not do well on it at all. And she emailed me this long time
• 23:42
  I'm so sorry. It was all in caps. I'm so sorry. I'm so, and it was everything. And I was reading it and I was like, okay, she's devastated. And then I looked at, I looked up what she made and she made a 25 and I was like, oh, and I, and I just, I emailed her back and I said, it's okay. We'll talk about it when you get home. Well, when she came home, she did not come upstairs because that's where I work.
• 24:04
  But I could hear her in the dining room crying, talking to my wife. And I could hear her. And I don't want to I'm almost tearing up. She she said, I just don't want to disappoint him.
• 24:17
  And I heard her say that. So I immediately stopped, came downstairs and she was like, I'm so sorry. And I hugged her and I said, it's okay. I said, this is a grade. I said, this is, and I jokingly, I said, this is middle school. I said, we're not, remember what me and mama say. I said, GPAs don't really, I said, this is getting you ready for high school.
• 24:38
  I said, but you're okay. And I said, I'm going to go upstairs and I'm going to email your teacher and I'm going to see if you can retake it or do something because you were absent. And she said, okay, okay. And the next day I didn't get a response from the teacher, but I got an email from Chloe and Chloe said, I made a 95 on the retake. Thank you for emailing her. That's awesome. So we have to...
• 25:04
  We do need, like you said, we need to be the cop sometimes. But I think as a dad, going back to the Christ comparison, we have to be their savior sometime and be like, look, I'm going to step in and I'm going to try to fix this as much as I can. And then they feel seen. They feel valued. Plus it builds trust for God.
• 25:25
  We've had a later conversation saying, okay, look, this wasn't a great situation, but we calmly discussed it. We got a resolution and we're fine. And like you said, being able to tell your kid, I forgive you or you're okay. I'm not mad. You can just see them like dropping off. Okay, I feel better now.
• 25:48
  So good. Yeah, man. Well, that's, I, that's so important, you know? So we're, we're trying to practice as a family, what the gospel, like giving our kids an experience of the gospel. I think I have one, one of my friends at their Sabbath dinner, I think every week they, they really try to practice like kind of repentance and forgiveness and just start the whole idea of rest and the feeling of total justification, total justification in the gospel.
• 26:12
  not based on your merit, but based on Christ's merit. That's the real rhythmically experiencing what it's like just to be totally free and basking in the freedom that it's finished. Jesus did the hardest work that I'll ever have to do, and now I can enter into real soul rest to be able to provide that as a priest to your home, to your family, speaking that over your kids, not in instances and in time.
• 26:35
  like specific times of the week or year. I think it's so beautiful. Hey, it's Jeremy. Over the years, I've learned that building a business can be isolating, especially if you're also trying to raise a strong family and walk with God through it all. That's why we started Integrated. It's a mastermind for men who are doing all three, running a business, leading a family, and seeking the kingdom. We meet twice a year, once in Franklin, Tennessee, once in Estes Park, Colorado, and we walk with each other between the meetups.
• 27:00
  What happens in this room is hard to describe. Men bring their hardest problems, their biggest decisions, and their most honest questions. They don't leave alone. If that sounds like the kind of circle you've been looking for, you can apply now at familyteams.com slash integrated. Thank you.
• 27:18
  So, all right. Now, one of the things I love, and the last thing I wanted to hit with you, Mari, is that I really liked was, okay, so all my sons are in construction. I make my living and always have through sitting behind a computer or something. And so I always feel like I live in a world of abstraction and there's so many...
• 27:35
  incredible elements of what I call Sam Gamgee wisdom, wisdom, like the Lord of the Rings. I think he's like just doing real stuff in the real world and having a real world bite you. Like you have to get wise. Some people live in a world that is just basically an abstract world and in knowledge work and, and,
• 27:53
  They kind of aren't really coming into direct contact with base reality. And so they're not really growing in wisdom. And so this is where you have professors coming up with the dumbest ideas I've ever heard in my life. You know, just if they were a plumber, they never would have come up with that idea. So you have this this statement. I think it's measure twice, learn once. Tell me a little bit where that came from.
• 28:15
  uh, my stepdad once, once again, God works in mysterious ways. Uh, my, my mom, after she and my dad got divorced, she met my stepdad. And to give you a little background on my stepdad, he was actually agnostic when they got married, which my brothers and I kind of didn't warn our mom, but we were like, we, we believe in God and we follow after God. And, uh,
• 28:44
  Tom at one point called me brainwashed because I just followed God. And me being a smart aleck with my grit and wit, I would always say stuff like, well, when you get up to heaven, you can ask him or things like that. Well, then he came to know God soon after they got married through some different situations. And, oh, my gosh, now to hear him pray –
• 29:12
  And I always take a step back and go, God is great because for him to be, I mean, and it's just, it's an amazing, it's redemptive power. And that's a whole nother article. But my stepdad is probably one of the smartest people I know as far as building and construction. And Tom is the guy that walks into your house and sees everything.
• 29:36
  a crack somewhere and goes, uh, your foundation is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, and I'm just like, I've said he's doomed me because when we were looking for our current house, we would go look at houses. And I was always looking for what's wrong, not what's right. So anyway, few summers ago, uh,
• 29:54
  And he's taught me so much, but we were, he had a summer job and we were hanging siding on a house. I had never hung siding. He told me it was easy, but to Tom, everything is easy. And no. So I was hanging siding on a wall about 10 foot long.
• 30:12
  and you put a strip at the bottom, and you've got to make sure that's level, so as you build the siding up the wall, it stays level, and then it also stays level when you get to the corner. Well, I had measured it a few times, and it looked good, and Tom would come by and go, does that look good to you? And I would go, and when Tom asks, it usually doesn't, but I was like, yeah, I think. And he said, you think? And I said, yeah.
• 30:42
  I think it looks good. And he'd go, okay. And he'd walk off and I would keep doing it. It looked great. Uh, I don't know about an hour later, I got to the corner and it was not level. And, uh, Tom came by and said, what's wrong? And I went, it's not level. And he said, well, what are you going to do? And I said, uh,
• 31:08
  I guess I'm taking this wall down. And he went, okay. And he walked away. Didn't fuss. Didn't make me feel stupid. I was doing that by myself. But afterwards, I fixed it. I got it right. He later told my mom about it and told me how proud he was of me, that I didn't get rattled. I didn't get mad. I just took it down and fixed it. And the measure twice, learn once,
• 31:38
  mentality that Tom has taught me before I hammer that last nail before I you brought up plumbing I've done some plumbing work I've done uh I've installed a hot water heater and that things I would have never thought Tom has always taught me measuring measure the mistake that could happen
• 32:01
  and stop it from happening before it does. And the joke, when we're working together now, I'll go to do something, and before I go cut something, he'll say, remember, measure twice, cut once. And then I've kind of adapted that to measure twice, learn once, because now I'm trying to teach my 16-year-old things like that, like just simple home repair, because in the space of, number one,
• 32:30
  I'm saving our family a ton of money because I can hang a ceiling fan. But also it's, I don't know, like being fast is fragile. Like if you rush through something, but if you're going slow and taking your time, usually it's going to work out better. But as far as parenting with that, what Tom has taught me,
• 32:53
  Uh, Tom is always there. If I need him, I call him. I think one of my, a blog post I'm doing a little bit later is called a better call Tom. And it's essentially if something messes up in our house, my first thing is I got to go call Tom and I'll put him on speaker phone and I'll say, I'm looking at this and this. And he'll say, well, have you checked? And he'll say, have you checked such and such? And I'm like, well, no. And then it's always that. And it's the simple thing, but, uh,
• 33:22
  with our kids being patient when they're trying to learn something new because it, my grandparents were married for 50 years and my granddaddy, I interviewed them for the newspaper when I was working there because they got, they were married for 50 years. And my granddaddy and grandmama both said the problem with a lot of marriages is
• 33:47
  People get married and think they can live like mama and daddy the first few months. And they don't realize it took mama and daddy some time to get to where they are.
• 34:00
  And they talked about they lived in a one-bedroom apartment. I mean, things like that. And I'm like, man. But I've been trying to teach my 16-year-old, we have a lot of as-you-become-a-man conversation. And him and my wife will sometimes have difficulties in communication. And I'll tell my wife, you've got to start talking to him. I said, he's not a little boy anymore. I said, he's growing. He's thinking like a man. And I will tell him,
• 34:29
  look, when your mama asks you questions, she wants answers. Like she doesn't want, yeah, or fine or something. I said, she wants details. I said, you've got to learn that.
• 34:41
  Yeah, that's so good. Yeah. Yeah. That's a really good observation that your grandparents gave you. I've had to have that conversation with my kids as well, where it's like, look, yeah, they're you guys are way ahead of where we were when we were first married, but you're not comparing yourself to where we were. You're comparing yourself to where we are, you know,
• 35:01
  We've been married, you know, 27 years. And so it's really important for you to learn and go through the process, like trust the process, embrace the process. And I think one of the other things that I think measure twice, learn once to me really helps me like encapsulate is.
• 35:17
  Oftentimes you have, you know, kids, you kind of watch one of your kids really is learning from reality and the other one is or learning from lessons. And the other is learning from they have to like basically slam into the brick wall 50 times to learn something. And so you want to create some kind of.
• 35:34
  uh, culture in your family where wisdom is prized and that your kids can find wisdom. This is really what Proverbs is all about. The whole, the whole book of Proverbs, basically a father telling his son, Hey son, this is how you figure out things without having to learn the hard way, without having to actually destroy your life. Um, and, um,
• 35:51
  The problem, of course, with learning the hard way, going through all the hard things and not learning from lessons, not learning from other people's mistakes, not learning from one mistake to not make that mistake again, is that you can ruin your life. I mean, there are mistakes that you can make that really have dire consequences. And that's why it's really awesome to have kids when they're little,
• 36:09
  And they're short and they, their little actions aren't creating massive consequences. And so you can kind of like, but you know, you're always teaching them two things. You're teaching them, you know, the particular lesson that you're maybe trying to impart to them, but you're also kind of above that. You're trying to teach them how to learn wisdom. Like, and, and like, look at that. Look at how that, look at how that turned out for that person. Now you can, and this is why sometimes younger kids do a really good job, right?
• 36:34
  of being wise because oftentimes they'll just watch their older siblings slam up against a brick wall 20 times. You're like, well, I'm not going down that path, you know, but you got to like, make sure that that kid, I mean, man, that's tough. You want your older kids and the younger kids are a little harder, you know, a little bit harder headed to, to love wisdom and to say, look, like this is, this is like you, you can accumulate wisdom. I mean, that's what the Proverbs are. It's like, you can accumulate these skills to actually see patterns.
• 37:01
  and to avoid mistakes. And it's not just for your benefit, but someday you're going to be responsible for lots of people, and your mistakes are going to be multiplied, and they're going to create tremendous suffering for others. And so I want you, as your father, for you to learn these lessons. This is how you learn. So I love that, man.
• 37:18
  This has been really cool. I love meeting you, Maury. I, I, I wanted to, yeah, just for people who want to follow your, that you're taking these insights that you've been like sharing with me and you're writing articles. Where can people find those and how can, yeah. How can people kind of follow what you're doing there? If you go to sub stack right now, that's, that's where I'm at. It's a grit and wit dot sub stack.com. I do a weekly, uh,
• 37:43
  I do a weekly article every Thursday morning. Awesome. And this goes back to being faithful to God. I prayed about what to do and things like that. And I'm talking to my youngest brother also writes. So it's, once again, bonding, getting to bond again. I'm trying to be faithful enough to once a week. I'm not doing... The person in me talking about measuring twice and going slow, I've got...
• 38:13
  I've got a lot of articles already written and it's taking a lot for me not to just release them and things, but God has told me, Maury, slow down once a week. That's enough. And so it's, it's helping that. And I'm on social media. If you, uh, at the Maury Wood, I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook. I do some, some Twitter, but
• 38:39
  I try to stay awake. That's a tough place. Awesome. Well, Mari, thanks so much for jumping on here. So good to meet you and thanks for sharing with us today. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Family Teams podcast. If you're enjoying this content or have learned something new, please make sure to leave a rating and review and share with a friend. To stay up to date with our events, new content, and products, you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Family Teams.