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Fatherhood: The Best Self-Improvement Program For Men? · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  Do most men need fatherhood to become who they are? The conversation around becoming a parent is getting framed in our culture mostly as a lifestyle choice, right? And I think that this is really a problem, that it's becoming a choice, because it's one of those things that is designed to be extraordinarily hard in order to turn you into the kind of person that God wants you to be. It's not something that you would necessarily choose.
• 0:26
  It's something that you face and you have to overcome. And so I think there are some secular podcasters who are like discovering this ancient truth about the nature of fatherhood. And so I wanted to chat with you a bit about this, Jeff, and really think through how to frame the whole conversation. We talk about this in terms of parenting. This is certainly true for mothers as well, but I really want to dial in on how important
• 0:53
  Fatherhood is for men simply to become their best version of themselves. Like they need this. And we're not telling young men this, but this is starting to crop up in a lot of these conversations. So how does Chris Williamson, who is a major influencer for a lot of men,
• 1:09
  How does he, as somebody who doesn't have kids, I don't think he's married. He's just like he's holding back on this whole thing like most male podcast influencers. He's starting to realize that, oh, I might be framing this wrong. So let me play this for you. And I want to get your take on this. A lot of the fathers that I've spoken to have told me about how their priorities were completely changed when they started a family.
• 1:32
  All of the previous status games that they played seemed petty. The games that they used to go through in an attempt to impress people in power or those with status seemed juvenile and shallow. Much of their anxiety around whether different people and groups liked them or thought that they were cool just sort of...
• 1:53
  evaporated because the only people they needed to care about impressing were asleep under their roof or in the bed next to them. Because to their kids, these dads were the coolest, richest, strongest, most heroic person on the planet. And that gave them a very powerful type of liberation.
• 2:17
  It seems to me that much of what young men get up to are surrogate activities until they finally get a family. And this isn't to say that all fathers become placid soy boy hippies or that having kids neuters your ambition. But it definitely seems to open up a new level where they care far less about the opinions of others. And ultimately, what's the point in having f*** you freedom if you never say f*** you?
• 2:47
  I really think that the aggressive business chasing capitalist meritocratic society thing, which I'm all in favor of and have benefited from obviously and love, is playing off the fact that the longer people put off having a family,
• 3:05
  the more they find activities that replace that same dynamic inside of them. It's the obsession with body or aesthetics or sport or business or wealth creation or status or travel or whatever. That's not to say that any of these things can't be good, obviously. But...
• 3:25
  If you were to have the family, I think that you would find a lot of those. It would be like going around trying to eat a ton of different foods that were all nutrient sparse when there was a nutrient dense food that you could go to that would satisfy a lot of those ambitions more quickly. Does that make sense? It's basically...
• 3:45
  The source that you could go to, like the most pure version of this, the condensed, concentrated, weapons-grade version of a lot of what you're looking for, to me seems to be on the other side of a family. All right, Jeff, what do you think? Well, first of all, I love calling fatherhood the weapons-grade version of giving a man what he needs to be compared to everything else.
• 4:06
  I think I totally agree. One of my favorite things is watching men specifically come in real time to an epiphany that is like a God-ordained truth. I saw this all the time researching and studying and writing about Sabbath for 10, 15 years, and then obviously our stuff and family teams on Sabbath, where it's one of those things where, like, guys, this has been around for 3,000 years, and there's a few people nowadays going like—
• 4:25
  huh, I don't think we should work seven days a week. And it's a little bit similarly, where you reach the logical conclusion of some of these pursuits sooner or later. And I think he nailed it, that a lot of times men's activities, pursuits, and desires are them actually rerouting and rechanneling and trying to get things that fatherhood would actually give them in a better way. Even if they're already a father. Some people, I think, reroute that outside of their fatherhood. But I say actually, for the most part,
• 4:55
  That thing you are looking for can actually be found in the most nutrient-dense way, as he said, in fatherhood. And I would also say in husbandry, like in marriage. And in the context of a family, not all of them, but a lot of them. And so it's why would we not go for the weapons-grade solution and kind of pick up the Nerf gun instead? And I think that is a very interesting way to think about it, about manhood, about masculinity, about fatherhood. And I completely and totally agree because what you do when you create marriage and family—
• 5:23
  and step into that bucket is you kind of created, in the best sense, a siloed ecosystem for your family to push out from. And so now this unit has interpersonal relationships and identity dynamics and things that kind of fill your gaps because you have deficiencies, but yet God blessed you with a wife and kids that might actually fill those deficiencies and vice versa. You have the things that that kid and your wife might need. And so I find it a fascinating perspective. I
• 5:51
  And I think it was funny how he was kind of coming to it live. I probably wouldn't call it FU family money, but I do think that is, you know, someone who's chronically online like I am, have certainly come across that phrase a million times. I wouldn't use that phrase, but he has hit the nail on the head of how that phrase gets used. And what it means is full liberation and freedom. It's like when you have a family and when you have stepped into a true identity of fatherhood, it actually unlocks.
• 6:15
  a level of liberation and freedom where the external realities no longer hurt you as much, are as desirable, or can kind of woo you as much. And that is kind of the tongue-in-cheek phrase he was using for that. But I loved it. What did you think?
• 6:30
  Yeah, he's saying, once you become a father, you've won the status game. Game over, you won. I don't think people realize that. Now, I know that you can still compete. You can still think, oh, no. But his point is that you've got people in your house who think you're the best. You're the strongest. You're the wisest. This is one of the reasons, by the way, the New Testament is so adamant that wives need to respect their husbands personally.
• 6:54
  So that the husband does not go out and compete in these status games to try to get that respect from other women, other teams, other places outside the home. You want your husband to feel like, wow, I'm a really big deal here. And so when I'm in the world, I'm not trying to gain status because...
• 7:16
  there's people asleep upstairs who think I'm amazing. And I noticed that this was sort of the mentality of a lot of the fathers I was interacting with in the Middle East, and it kind of blew my mind. I was like, this is what really initially captured me. A lot of these Jewish and Arab dads, I could tell
• 7:32
  they had this calmness about their identity because in their family, in that family arena, they were getting so much of that affirmation. Like so much of what I think oftentimes men do need to feel strong. They do need to feel powerful. They do need to feel valuable. Like that's not evil. That's a basic part of masculine life that I think God designed into men. And so we get so much of that by having children,
• 8:01
  and being a father, and it's granted to us. And now when I interact with the world, I can serve, I can love, I can be outwardly focused because I'm not trying to fill some weird part in my heart that says maybe I'm not really a valuable person, maybe I don't matter to anybody. That is a tragic, horrible thing to feel as a man and to think that, wow, I can get married, have this amazing wife who loves me and who has given her entire life in covenant to me.
• 8:29
  We together make children. Those children think we're amazing, right? And we can raise this family and serve them fully, and they fully respect our authority and our position, and they are sort of biologically unwell
• 8:45
  wanting to be close to us, like that they see us as super valuable. I think that's just like the baseline of civilization. It creates like a incredibly powerful foundation stone on which to build everything else. But again, this has been like somehow reframed as a lifestyle choice. And we've done weird things, I think, to turn children against their fathers. And so this is being disrupted in our culture. But I think he's getting close to its sort of original design. Absolutely.
• 9:14
  Absolutely. And that's what I think he was coming to is kind of relaying like, hold on, this is hidden in plain sight. And that's what was so interesting. Yeah. I remember I first was kind of realizing this biblically when I was reading Psalm 127. It's a very famous passage about how children are a gift from the Lord, their reward is.
• 9:31
  You know, how blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them? And I just was like, I don't feel that way at all. I don't I don't look at a young man with lots of kids and think think how blessed that guy is. That wasn't where I started. And part of what I began to realize is the Bible is making an assumption that used to be true for everyone. There was a wisdom that everybody thought that having children was a blessing to the man.
• 9:55
  Today, we actually believe the opposite, that that man is somehow not being blessed by having a bunch of kids at a young age. He is being strapped with all of this heavy responsibility. And in this sort of framing, it is devastating to children. It's causing men to try to flee their families. And I think that what Chris is saying here, and he's trying to frame it this way, like we desperately need to understand that children are a blessing always to the father.
• 10:24
  because they are doing something that is aligned with what God, his actual purpose in life is to grow into the kind of man God wants him to be. And therefore, 95% of men, there is just no replacement for having children and bearing the responsibility of providing and loving and raising a family.
• 10:42
  There is just no replacement for that for most men. And so the idea that we are turning this into a lifestyle choice that so many of these online men have not chosen because it might get in the way of their ability to do whatever they want spontaneously, sleep with whoever they want, eat whatever they want, go wherever they want.
• 10:58
  Man, we don't realize that we're violating one of the kind of the basic reason for why God created us. And so, yeah, going deeper into this, I think it's really important. Like, it's almost like, like, how do we get this message out to more men? As you think about the culture, how did this get so distorted? Like, why is this news? What are we infected with that's causing this to become such a surprise to so many people?
• 11:22
  Yeah, well, I think it's kind of like the earth where there's layers of crust on layers of crust of layers of crust. Where, I mean, I think enlightenment is the biggest macro one, right? When we start going to very hyper individualized culture and kind of pursuit of optimization around what we believe and what we think individually and how the family is a hindrance.
• 11:40
  Then I think modernity is certainly around that optimization idol where it's, you know, hey, somehow we have bought the lie that the hard things and the most difficult paths are almost always a signal that that's the wrong path. And that's literally the opposite.
• 11:56
  And so I'm not sure quite, but I would say those things jump into my mind as starters for sure. Yeah, run from what's hard. Like that adage that men won't do anything until they have to, and then they can do anything. Like that is such a basic understanding of the way men work. Like we want to avoid responsibility, but if you corner us, like something comes out of us that we didn't even know was there. And fatherhood was designed to corner you.
• 12:23
  Yeah. You know, in such a way so that what comes out of you is the best version of you. Like if we set this up properly with a wife who loves and respects you, with kids who are constantly there and you're building deep relationships with, with an economy where you feel like you can provide for your family. When these things are all working and working in the right direction, man, so good for men.
• 12:46
  Well, another major author, Richard Reeves, he pointed this out in a viral clip that I thought, wow, this is getting a little bit closer to even, I think, the gospel understanding of why fatherhood is so important for so many men. So let me play this for you. One of the things we do know about men...
• 13:02
  is that becoming a father actually does significantly change their behavior in the world. I'm a dad and there is just this imperceptible feeling of this kind of cog inside you just going click. And you become a different kind of creature. Suddenly, it's just existentially obvious to you that there are lives, there is a life or lives in the world that are just unambiguously more important than your own and for whom you would do anything. You would give your life.
• 13:32
  Yeah, that moment when you hold your first child, like he's describing something happens to you. Like, how would you describe that, Jeff? Yeah, I find it so fascinating. It's like it's, you know, praise God for his design. In his design, there's like an unlocking of the love feature or that it comes on board in a 2.0 or a 3.0 way that you have not experienced until you become a parent.
• 13:57
  And so there's something that unlocks in your heart when you have literally partially reproduced yourself. I know that's a weird way to think about it, but that you have created a little image, which is one of our God level mandates, right? Is that we are created in his image and then we are to continually create image bearers from there.
• 14:16
  And so to kind of create these little images, you get slapped in the face with the good and the bad and the fear and the pressure and the excitement and the happiness all at once. It washes over you, usually in that hospital room. And as every single day as they need you and in their phases, like if they popped out a teenager, it would be a very interesting, different relationship. But again, even in God's design of this enormously needy creature.
• 14:39
  Yes. Right. That kind of slowly but surely comes online in certain ways, goes offline in certain ways as they grow. And it's it's the most interesting, unique design that I think sometimes we don't give God enough credit for. That I think is meant to, in its holy design, attach us to one another in love. So if you think about that in God's design, every single person should have multiple people that they are in a holy way attached to in love in a deep way.
• 15:08
  Yeah. Right. And of course, because of sin, because of the fall, because of all the things, because of divorces and adultery and sin and our flesh and all these things, that's not always true. But I think it is clear to look at the design and say, oh, God wanted us all to be born into a community of love, which is the family. And also, by the way, a reflection of the Trinity being a true triune, one God community of love. And so I think all of that, I think, kind of hits you when you first have a kid.
• 15:35
  Yeah, man, their helplessness. I love that quote that everyone is born into the world whose eyes are looking for someone who's looking for them. Yeah, I think you have the Holheiser. Yeah, that's like such a powerful image because that infant's like scared, I think. That's part of the crying.
• 15:52
  And they're coming out and you're the father and your wife is incredibly vulnerable. She's exhausted. But you're strong. You're at your strongest. Like it's such an interesting moment to come into the world and be embraced by a father. And one of the things that oftentimes dads will say to me is, man, I don't know what to do with this little kid. You know, he's like pooping and he's, you know, eating and, you know, I can't really feed him. He's, you know, breastfeeding or whatever. And I'm just waiting for him to grow up where he can like kick a ball back or interact with me. I'm like, hey, dude, like slow down.
• 16:22
  The most important transformation is not what's going on inside that child, but what's going on inside of you. You need to hold that child. You need to experience their helplessness. You need to let them experience your strength, your peace, because you're becoming a father. And I think that a lot of people actually in their heart are resisting this. And so what Reeves is talking about here is like that click that happens.
• 16:44
  man, that can misfire also. And I think it's really important for fathers to experience that. And I'm curious for you, Jeff, like, you know, from, you know, a kins all the way down to Jaden. I don't, I wonder what that last experience, like, especially, I don't know, like your first or your fourth experience of holding that baby, especially since I guess you basically delivered your fourth. Yeah, like totally.
• 17:09
  Yeah. How have you experienced it? Very different in all the regards. But I think, yeah, that's a really good reflection question. I think it's, you know, when you look back on the first kid, you have a level of helplessness that is also really way more jarring than the later ones. So there is that, like for most people's circumstances, it's that first kid is, you know, maybe young 20s. You don't know what you're doing. You've never experienced this before. So there's a lot of fear during you. There's a lot of anxiety in you. And you have and I think that's God's design again to slap you in the face with fatherhood to work through those things to become a better man.
• 17:36
  But then as you go down the line, you're like, you know, by the fourth kid or any kid when you've done it before, there is a more of a level of, hey, I know what to expect. I know how this goes. And I can slow down and be present for what I think this moment needs for me and wants to give me. Yeah. And I think that probably, I mean, is even true in the most dramatic way in grandparenthood.
• 17:54
  You're like, you know, because I think that you when you get to that stage, you're just like, man, this is I know how to be here and be present. And just like you said, just soak in those early years and not just have kind of the cocktail of all the mixed emotions, which it actually can tend to be in the early side.
• 18:09
  Yeah, it's like the meaning compounds. So there's an initial thing. When I was holding my first Kelsey, something very new was erupting. I mean, it was weird. I literally had this feeling holding her that I was, I'm like, I'm going to go out and change the world so that the world is worthy of her.
• 18:29
  Yeah, I didn't even know what to do with this feeling. And again, you have to open your heart to it because I think that can misfire. I think a lot of men try to guard their hearts instead of completely experience that. But every child that came, I felt like it got deeper and deeper and definitely in my grandkids. It's just the compounding effect. Well, what's the cost to society if we don't go this direction? Andrew Bagley has some thoughts. I want to get your thoughts to kind of wrap up with this clip because I was really struck by how he describes that.
• 18:58
  Most people aren't avoiding kids because they hate the idea of family. They're avoiding them because they're optimizing for the wrong version of happiness. A recent survey by OnePulse showed that only 55% of Gen Z planned to have kids, and 25% had ruled it out entirely.
• 19:13
  The number one reason cited was more time to focus on myself. Raising children is hard. So people conclude why sign up for something that difficult. But behavioral science tells us a very different story. Counterintuitively, happiness and fulfillment don't come from ease. They come from meaning and meaning almost always comes from sacrifice. So we avoid discomfort in the short term and create regret in the long term. I didn't have to ask myself, what am I doing here? How can I be meaningful today? I knew what I was doing when I had kids growing up.
• 19:43
  It's like the hardest thing ever, it's the scariest thing ever, it's also the deepest, most illuminating joy you'll ever feel. Professor Dan Gilbert put his finger on this when he asks, why do we make decisions our future self will regret? All of us are walking around with an illusion, an illusion that history, our personal history, has just come to an end. That we have just recently become the people that we were always meant to be and will be for the rest of our lives.
• 20:08
  We all know we've changed a lot in the past, but we believe wrongly that who we are now is who we will always be. So what we're seeing is Gen Z optimizing for the present comfort of a child-free life and assuming their future selves will agree with them. One of the best ways to glimpse your future preferences is to talk to a proxy of your future self. Ask an older adult a simple question. Do you wish you hadn't had kids? Not...
• 20:32
  was it hard, but was it worth it? The answer is remarkably consistent. Yes, children are hard, and that's not a flaw, it's the feature. There's also a deeper historical blind spot. The second most common reason to not have kids relates to finances. But what if we've misappropriated money as a proxy for wealth? As Dr. Will Bolshevich reminds us, for most of human history, there was no money. The real currency was relationships.
• 20:55
  Your family was like basically the measure of wealth. The bigger the family, the more wealthy you were because you would work together to support one another and take care of each other. Today, new technologies may create unprecedented material abundance, but they can't manufacture meaning. And as we solve more practical problems, we may rediscover an old truth. The things that demand the most from us are often the things that give the most back. Not immediately, but eventually.
• 21:21
  Wow. Ask any older person if they regret having kids. Man. Yeah, that is such a great point. Why are Gen Z trying to optimize for these other things and missing out on meaning as he's describing here?
• 21:36
  I think my main thought is pursuing the wrong type of happiness will destroy your life. We do not realize the weight of that. Pursuing the wrong type of happiness will destroy your life. I heard it this way, which I thought was really simple the other day, where there's two types of fun. There's type one fun and type two fun. And type one fun is kind of the roller coaster fun, going to the movie fun, eating a really, you know, amazing meal fun.
• 21:58
  Where when you do it in the moment, it just simply feels good. But when you're done with the moment, the dopamine is worn off and you don't really remember. You don't care about it and you don't look back on it with any level of meaning or reflection. Type two fun is usually the opposite where while it's happening, you actually don't love it.
• 22:13
  This is the 17-mile hike with your buddies. And then while you're doing that hike, then it starts raining sideways. And then you were actually meant to camp, but then you forgot the poles. So now you're sleeping. You might even actually die that night with the conditions. But yet when you get back to the car later that night or the next morning, you look at each other and you go, oh, my freaking goodness, that was a blast. Yes.
• 22:31
  You go, that was the most fun I've had in my life. And when you start saying a phrase, which is really interesting with type two fun, whenever you finish type two fun, you start saying this phrase, hey, remember when? Hey, remember when? So two years later, five years later, 10 years later, hey, remember that time we almost died doing that 17-mile hike? That was insane, right? And I think that is the perfect overlay metaphor for guys should be wanting to choose fatherhood more, meaning fatherhood is type two fun.
• 22:55
  It is type two fun, not type one fun. And a lot of men pursue type one fun metaphorically, morally, philosophically in their lives when we are meant to pursue type two fun, which is building a family. Building a family is the hardest thing you will ever do. Parenting is one of the hardest things you will ever do. Being married is one of the hardest things you will ever do. But...
• 23:14
  As you live that life, you will start saying this phrase, hey, remember when? Hey, remember when? Hey, remember when? You know, two years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, or 30 years from now, you're looking back on this moment right now and say, hey, remember when the house was chaotic and the house was overwhelming and we didn't have any money and we couldn't pay the bills, but we're giggling and laughing at the dinner table?
• 23:33
  That is the type of fun, but also meaning we were meant to have. And I think that's the point of that research on type one and type two fun is no meaning is created through type one fun and all meaning is created through type two fun or even behavior activity. So I don't know what you'd say to that.
• 23:50
  Oh, yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. I think about this as the difference between cotton candy, happiness and grandfather around a table happiness. I mean, we use the same word. This is like an impoverishment of our language, but it's like, it's crazy to use a word that, that is, is referring to each of those things in the same way. It's the same.
• 24:08
  Yeah, I agree. I think we have to separate this into two very different types. And the reality is the grandfather around the table with your children and your grandchildren, that level of meaning, that level of happiness, that kind of experience requires you, Gen Z, young father listening to this, to make really difficult decisions to value long-term meaning over short-term pleasure. And we need to be really signaling this to this generation.
• 24:38
  Now, one of the reasons isn't because Gen Z is uniquely selfish. One of the really difficult realities is that generations in the past didn't have to pick. You know, they would get married, have sex, and kids would be a natural result, and they couldn't stop them from coming. But right now, people have to make a proactive decision, and so it requires young people today to have more wisdom. Yeah.
• 25:01
  than people in the past because you now have to choose meaning over these short-term versions of happiness, which means that a lot of older people need to be mentoring younger people and letting them know, look, your future self will love you. In your 60s, when you're at a table surrounded by your children and grandchildren, you will love your life. If you are all alone at that moment, you will feel so betrayed by...
• 25:27
  by the wise elders in your life if nobody told you that this is coming for you. And so this is why this podcast exists. We are signaling to you guys, please don't make those short-term decisions. Now, the other thing that he was pointing out that I thought was really interesting was this redefinition of wealth as relationships instead of money. And the number two reason why people aren't having kids is because they're optimizing for wealth.
• 25:49
  or financial security. This is a real problem. I mean, we are facing a generation that has less financial resources than their parents. And so they are looking at trying to maintain the lifestyle that they're used to and saying, having kids is going to be a violation of that. What do you think of this idea that reframing wealth as relationships
• 26:10
  Is this an answer to that question? Because I don't think we're going to find a way to, unfortunately, make this next generation more wealthy than their parents. That ship has sailed. What do we do about this problem?
• 26:22
  Yeah, well, I think relational wealth equals more opportunity of dependence and like the spider web of connection and health. And so I think it makes not only sense. I'm not saying, oh, you need a bunch of relationships just so that you can need people and they can serve you. But actually, to some degree, that is actually the underlying fundamental dynamic of how community works, as there is an interchange of relationships.
• 26:42
  serving one another, giving to one another, receiving from one another and living in a dynamic that is really powerful. And I would say even people with a lot of money today, we are certainly in a relationally impoverished world. There's people that are relationally, I would say most of the nation is relationally below the poverty line is a way to think about it. And I think that is detrimental to having a family, having kids and living in a way that's really powerful for family.
• 27:06
  Man, yeah. Well, if you guys are looking for, like, especially I want to speak to the dads, we really need each other. We need to be elevating this value. Jeff and I lead a group called Integrated, which is a group of business-owning Christian fathers. We're trying to figure out how do you integrate faith and our fatherhood and our work in such a way that will actually bless future generations. This is not easy to figure out.
• 27:31
  And so we get together twice a year to do that. If you guys are interested to go to family teams, you can click on integrated. That's a like, it's a tribe that Jeff and I love and we get to be a part of. And so if you guys are interested and you think that's something like, man, I need more of this conversation and it needs to get really practical. That's where we get to do that.