Latest / The Salty Pastor / Don't Co-Parent with the World [Ep. 142]

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Don't Co-Parent with the World [Ep. 142] · The Salty Pastor

• [00:00:00] I think it's really important to understand is that teachers can only function within the bureaucracy that has been established, right. And the bureaucracy is making teachers lives, uh, number one, it's more difficult. Uh, the classes are overcrowded, not because of a lack of funding. I know this controversial say, but because of the bureaucracy. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Salty Pastor Podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping you learn and grow your critical thinking skills and your faith. We want you to not only grow your faith, but understand why you believe what you believe. And you can only do that. If you're critically thinking through your beliefs through why, uh, the lens you perceive the world. Is the way it is. And we can't do that for you. We can't tell you what to believe. We can't tell you how to think, but we can be your guides along the way we are going counter-cultural and not telling [00:01:00] you that you have to live, you know, do everything we say, but instead we're offering you thoughts that you can work through and decide if those align or disaligned with what you believe. And that's going to help you further identify what you are, who you are, and why you believe what you believe? So my name is Jesse Maher. I'll be your host here on the Salty Pastor Podcast. And we can't have the Salty Pastor Podcast without the Salty Pastor himself. Dr. Douglas Peake. Wow. That was really a dramatic this morning. My introduction. It's not that we just can't tell you what to think, you know, because that's more of a pragmatic statement. It's also, we don't want to, we, we don't want to. And this week we're talking about parents and the theme is don't be that parent. And one of the things that I think is really significant in the parent child relationship is that when your child grows into an adult, Right. And I was listening to the podcast from Pastor Harvin and his wife Shadlee, and I really appreciate it. Gosh, it was awesome. You should go back and listen to it if you missed it. But I [00:02:00] was really, uh, uh, impressed when she was saying what we, our goal was we had adults that happened to be children. So she kept in mind. The end goal had a really great plan. And that's not hard to do, to have the goal in mind. With a good plan. This is not difficult. Anybody can do it, you can start it anytime. And so what I think is really fascinating about that principle is exactly what we're trying to do is that your child grows up. Right? And when they become really good adults, they make great decisions. They just bless their communities and the people around them. They have favor with God. And in favor is a, Harv pointed out, with other human beings. I think that that is like a template for the Salty Pastor. And that is our goal. We don't want to tell you what to think, because we want you to become that awesome, incredible follower of Christ. We [00:03:00] want you to have the courage. We want you to have the confidence. We want you to have the convictions, uh, things that don't bind you down, but they set you free to pursue the life. That is filled with, uh, more abundance and you have more success and you have more blessing because you are experiencing the favor of God and the favor of man in your life. So that's really the goal of the Salty Pastor is to, we don't want, we don't want to tell you what to think, because we want to help you become the person God has called you to be. Um, well, we are in the middle of our Relationship Series and this week as Pastor Harvey and Shadlee pointed out on Tuesday with me, we're talking about parents this week. Yes. So what do you want to share as far as challenges that parents should be aware of in today's times? Well, like I said, just a minute, go, go back and listen to their Bible study. It was awesome. And what they did and based on what they said, I'm going to kind of leap forward a little bit and say. The most important thing that you will do [00:04:00] as a parent is give them a frame of reference about life. What is life, what actually is living and, uh, who are you, what does it mean to be a human being? And what is the reality in which you live. What's fascinating is this occurs whether you want it to or not. It can be healthy, like in the case of a Pastor Harvey and his wife, Shadlee, the freezing clan, or it can be unhealthy, you know, like, uh, what was that a sit-com a long time that was a really toxic, married with children or something like that. So it could be extremely unhealthy. And what I think is really fascinating in this situation is. Uh, we do know that there is an epidemic of fatherlessness in our society. But even [00:05:00] when a father or a mother leaves their children, their children will grow up and build their worldview, which means their definition of self, their definition of their reality. Around this event, you see. When someone grows up and they know that their father abandoned them. You know, especially if it's a young man or a boy that imprints upon him in his life, you know, and creates all kinds of stuff that he has to work through. And, uh, even the parent who says, well, it's not my responsibility. Guess what? It is. It has an impact. No matter what, the only choice you get to make as a parent is will it be positive, healthy, inspirational, hopeful, or will it be toxic, unhealthy, [00:06:00] disfunctional? So that's the first thing I want you to understand as a parent is that you're a part of an order that you did not create, but it has to do with the very essence of life. The second thing is that so much has caught rather than taught. And so the life you live has a huge impression on your kids. And one of the biggest things that we've talked about throughout this whole series is that the difficulty with, uh, experiencing unity in relationships, healthy relationships, vibrant, inspirational, blessing, and love the rest of your life relationships is unresolved conflict. And you actually modeled to your kids how to resolve conflict. You do, um, whether overtly or subconsciously you do. And then, um, uh, I want to tell parents that it doesn't matter where you're at in life. I mean, you could just, right now, today come out of rehab or, or out of prison, or maybe there's something else that's terrible happened in your life. You know, today you can [00:07:00] be a positive influence in the lives of your children at any given moment, you can start brand new. So those are really big things that I think that parents need to understand in order to face all the challenges that are coming against them today. Well, and I think some of this we all subconsciously know, right? Like I think that's the biggest, my, my old band director used to say, you know, I'm paid here to tell you to read what's on the page and tell you what's on the page. He's like, I'm not revealing something new. Nothing that you can't interpret from the music. I'm just, you know, nudging you in the right direction. I think inherently between our biblical education and just inherent knowledge, we kind of understand these things, but then sometimes forget them while we're in the heat. And I mean, I'm not a parent, but I can imagine, you know, you're waking up at three in the morning with a vomiting child. Yeah. You may be throw out some of the things that are inherent in your ideology and go. You know, I just don't understand anymore. And so I think these are really important things [00:08:00] to always review, you know, make a list, keep them on your fridge. Just things that you can remind yourself. Oh yeah. These are things that are important to me and important to how I'm going to raise my family. But I mean, talk to me about some things that get in the way of being healthy parents. Okay. Well, yeah, I think it's exactly, like you said, is that parents, I mean, in general, there's very few people that have kids and go, I want to be the worst parent in the world ever met. You know, so, but, uh, there's really bad parenting going around. And I think it's because of a couple of things. People are not aware of how to be good parents. It's the Lost Art of Parenting. Uh, number two, which by the way, we're starting a podcast. Yes, that podcast, convenient that you say that exact phrase, because that is the name of our new site. Awesome. Um, on parenting and that's going to be dropping in December. In December. We're going to start. You guys should keep an eye out for that. We'll make sure to let you guys know when that happens. And you might even see a bonus episode in this feed to kind of give you a preview of it [00:09:00] and let you know what that's going to be about, but it's great that we're talking about all this parenting now, because we're getting all these different perspectives. And if that's something you're wanting to improve on, then we're going to have an additional resource outside of just these two episodes on how to help you be better parents. Yeah. So yeah, we're gonna, yeah. We're gonna be doing a deep dive on parenting to help parents and be hopeful for them. So I think the Lost Art of Parenting is, is one issue. And the reason it's lost though is, is because it was intentional. That's a little scary to think about. Yeah. So, and what I'm trying to say is that, uh, I believe that when you read the philosophies and ideologies that are being seated into our culture, dating back a hundred years ago, there is an intent to undermine the role of the parent in the child's life. You see this over and over again. So our societal values, uh, people are raised. Um, in this culture and they rely [00:10:00] solely upon the culture, uh, have lost the notion of what it means to be a really good parent or what a child is. They don't have a frame of reference to understand their own humanity. Uh, the media today, you know, the media for the last 50 years has been a postmodern deconstructionist thing where. Media was basically revolved around subconsciously the ridicule of anything that was established traditional norm. We want to re ridicule it, parody it insulted, but it down. And now we have the world in which we live today. So, uh, the other thing that I think is really important to understand is our public educational system. And the public educational system in the nineties under the Clinton administration, took a very specific turn in a progressive direction. And so, uh, it's important to know that this makes [00:11:00] parenting really, really difficult, uh, even more so today. Now this doesn't mean that I don't love teachers. My wife is a teacher, I'm a teacher. We love teachers. Our church every year takes anywhere from seven to 10 schools elementary on the first couple of days of school. And we take them, treats coffee and donuts and all this stuff and say, thank you, for teaching. But I think it's really important to understand is that teachers can only function within the bureaucracy that has been established. Right. And the bureaucracy is making teachers lives. Uh, number one, it's more difficult. Uh, the classes are overcrowded. Not because of a lack of funding. I know this controversial say, but because of the bureaucracy and it's the contracts and agreements and all of these things that nobody ever reads that are established that make it that way. And the other aspect of the bureaucracy is that it forces you away from just teaching a few basic things [00:12:00] to having to teach everything. Right. And so you have to have this EIP for all your kids. And I mean, if you're in high school and you have 200 students, I mean, just think what it would take to grade the papers of your 200 students. So what happens is that creates an incentive, to not have to do that as much. And so long and short of it is the public educational system took a turn, subconsciously it seeded these ideologies to disengage the parents from the educational system and it's been very effective. So I think that's really important to understand, um, these are big things that are happening. So I think it's important. You're not saying. Let's say we take apparent like a single parent. I'm someone who doesn't have the means to pursue maybe a private education system. Um, and public education is the only option are you saying, well, you should rip them out and they should, go live under a rock or only do homeschool, or you should [00:13:00] just save up money until they can do private or what's. What are you saying about the public education system at this point for, especially for people that can't maybe afford alternatives? Well, I think that first it's really important to note that the public education system is a structure. Um, as a structure is good for kids, you just need to be more diligent in reviewing the curriculum and various agendas that your particular school system might be employing. And second, it doesn't matter whether you it's private or public, you need to review what your kids are learning, uh, each and every day, because that's the best way to accomplish. Um, your, uh, oversight without having to, you know, sit down and spend hours and hours and hours, you know, I mean, if you tried to, let's say you had three or four kids and you wanted to read every single book that your kids are reading. I mean, I don't see how you could do that. Right. And work a full-time job. Just, I mean, you'd be reading three or four hours every night just to try to keep up [00:14:00] with them. Um, especially when they get into middle school and high school and they're reading chapter books, you know, that's a big jump. Now I think before they read chapter books, you should read to your kids every night. That's probably one of the best things. Here's a story for you is that when Zach was a little tiny guy, uh, we were struggling with a potty training, you know, and we got, so we had so much anxiety, Kim and I about it. You know, this is a funny story that you're just like, is that going to want you to be telling this story? And he was like two years old, you know, he's two years old, he didn't know anything. Yeah. And so, so we go, we actually went to see our pediatrician. About it, you know, to talk to him, he's a retired guy now, but he was just a, a real well-known pediatrician here in town, highly respected. And he goes, he tells us, he goes, he goes, look. Just read a book to your kid every night. There's not many 16 year olds who can't go to the bathroom by themselves, but I know a lot of 16 year olds who can't read a book. So that kind of took away our [00:15:00] anxiety. But my point being is that look, uh, uh, have a regular time for dinner. I think this is really important where you sit down and you actually review with your kids, what they're going over, you know, and you don't have to do deep dives, but you dont, you know, if you start this, when they're young, they're really excited about it, you know, telling you about their day. And then what happens is that sets a pattern so that when they're older and you say how's school and they go fine and you go, yeah. Okay. Uh, we need a little bit more and we're going to pester you, uh, with more and more questions so that they realize, oh, this is my time to talk about my day. And I think it's important to kids, particularly middle schoolers and high schoolers to learn, to talk about their day. Right. And not just that's it's okay. Or it was fine. Exactly. Because what, when you talk about your day, it forces evaluation and analysis. You see, you talk about it. It gives you objective perspective. Can anybody be completely objective? [00:16:00] No, but it gets you out of the emotional swirl of whatever happened or didn't happen and gives you a little bit more objective perspective. I mean, we still, we encourage our listeners these days to have discussions. And it's the same purpose is that by having a discussion by tech, talking about it allows not just, channeling it in your brain for the whole day, you are forced to evaluate the statements and the beliefs and the thoughts and the things that happened, whether it's in this podcast or a high schoolers in school to, you know, speaking that makes them real or whatever, you know what I mean? That's the process of verification and matriculation clarification is, you know, you're framing it in your head. Right. And so you're over dinner, you're talking, they're framing it. They're having to articulate it. Right. And then it's matriculation. It starts to seep in a little bit. So parents can at least make an effort to review and evaluate their children's learning at school, you know, reviewing what they're, what they're being taught, but how can a parent be aware of [00:17:00] all the things that children have access today to today through technology? I mean, I was kind of on the, you know, I was probably, my generation was probably one of the last ones to have kind of pre computer. And then also in kind of the bridge, I was in the bridge thing where it's like, I remember a time before there was computers in every household before I had a smartphone before I even had like a cell phone, but I also. Oh, very aware of a time when they basically came into our schools. And then that has been our lives ever since. So it's like, I have a very unique perspective at my specific age, but these days it's like, you know, I see two year olds walking through the church, holding tablets running around. So it's like, what should parents be looking for? I mean, there's so many new technologies. My job is to be in technology and there's new technologies that I'm just barely learning about that have been out forever. Well, it's a tsunami that comes over you and I'm not so sure that you can avoid getting wet by [00:18:00] it. You know, I'm just going to wash over you at some level. So this is a really great question. Um, uh, I think it's really important to understand that with kids, you should limit screen time, especially when they're little. Okay. Because you want their brains to form. And you want their sensory perceptions to form properly. And if all they form all sensory perception through a screen, then they're not going to look up and smell the roses, so to speak. So that's important, you know, uh, we, I think as a parent, one of the things to help overcome this is, you know, kids should have quiet times without screens and like go in your room play. Well, I'm bored. You know, figure it out, figure it out. Yeah. Read a book, do this, do that. And you know, sometimes it's just like a play build stuff, make a tent, you know, I mean, whatever may be the case. Um, specifically though, as your kids get older, this becomes really tough because, uh, I want to go back to kind of how education works. Education had this big [00:19:00] move in the nineties to technology, right? There's a big thing. We want a computer in every room, a tablet in every kid's hand and all this kind of stuff. And now 30 years later, you know, people are like, wait a second. You know, we went from computers and then the two thousands, we went to, you know, notebooks. And then, and then we went to tablets and smartphones and we want to deliver as much of all this stuff in that educationally. But what you didn't realize is that, well, on the one hand, you're putting this tool on the kid's hand that gives them access to what, you know, education and stuff like that. But it's also opened the doors wide open to all kinds of dark web stuff, you know, I mean, all kinds of crazy things that are on there. You know, it's a problem when it doesn't matter what filter you put on it, middle school, the, the number one game, all middle school boys plays how to fool the Google filter, you know, and see what you can get to come up on your images. And so it's just constant nonstop. It's happening. The first exposure to pornography for [00:20:00] boys is in the seventh, sixth, and seventh grade. So that's pretty young. When you think about that six and seventh grade, you're, you're really talking about 11 and 12 year olds. Mm. This, this isn't healthy. And then add to that. This bureaucracy of the public education system, which has been taken over is influencing and putting things in front of your kids that you shouldn't be aware of. I want to tell us a little story here about the challenge that that's happening even here in the state of Idaho in the Boise school district. And there is a law in Idaho that was passed by our legislature that says, anytime, uh, sexual discussions or sexual education, anything to do with sexuality happens in the public education system. The parents have to be notified. So they're supposed to send you a little email out that just says, Hey, we're going to be teaching on, you know, human health and sexuality this week and biology class, boom. They just, you know, they send you a little blurb. It's real easy. It's right there. And then you can say, well, [00:21:00] what's a curriculum and then they'll send it to you, you know? And that's that's cause there's an Idaho law that requires that. Right. Okay. Now what's really interesting is that, uh, my third child, uh, uh, has gone through the system and we had a habit. Of going over what's being taught at school. And sharing our values usually during dinner time with our children. So my last child, he was at middle school and he was, their class was sent to the library and asked to take a mandatory survey on a computer. Okay. And on this computer, they S survey, they started asking them, what gender do you identify with? And then they listed options. What sexuality orientation do you have? Now? There's a couple things that are really important to understand about this. These are seventh graders. Okay. Now, number [00:22:00] one is you're not allowed to do that in the state of Idaho, unless you notify the parents first. Hey, we're going to come and survey your kids, sexual preferences, their gender identity and all that kind of stuff without your knowledge. That's illegal. That happened to me, my child, Boise school district. It happened violation of the law. Second of all, is that when you do that, you intentionally are constructing questions, putting them front of kids with impressionable minds in order to dictate how they view. So, uh, when, when your kids are young, right, you want them to have choices. And so you say, Hey, what would you like tonight? Peas or carrots with your chicken? So you, but you're you limit the choices. So they go and they sit there and they go. Oh, you mean I have all these choices of different things I can be. Maybe that's why I'm struggling at middle school and people don't like me. You see, and so it's intentional indoctrination of your child into this ideology. Well, [00:23:00] what my son did, which I thought was hilarious is he says, well, what gender do you identify with? It says, male, female, non-binary, transgendered, uh, queer. It had this list of all of these different things. And then at the bottom it says other with a line. So my son took a, pulled out his phone and took a picture of the screen. So I had proof. Right. And then you send it to me and he said, dad, check this out. Now, how would my son know to do that? Unless I had had conversations with him and just say, you know, be careful, watch out, you know, we're not over the top about it, but we kind of brought it to his attention. So he takes a picture of it. And then in the line where it says other, he clicked on that one. And then in the line he wrote attack helicopter. I identify as an attack helicopter. He thought that was the worst things to be, I guess. So I gave him a high five for that one. Um, I think it's really important to understand that [00:24:00] this is why you have to monitor your child's, uh, life, you know, and you just gotta be involved. And I love what Pastor Harv said, isn't that is it. You have to communicate to the kids that we're interested in your life now, and that is important. What's going on? How are you getting, I don't want to, I'm just not interested when there's a problem. I want to be interested in everything so that when there is a problem, they're much more willing to go to you and discuss it with you. And I think the public education system has some issues that really needs to deal with. And, uh, I know that there's a couple of different philosophies out there today about if you're Christian parents and you're raising your kids. And I want to go back to your question earlier. What if you don't have the option to homeschool or you don't have the option for private, which are great choices, but you just don't have that. Let's say you're, uh, you're a single. Uh, you, you grew up without God in your life. You didn't know you needed it, you got married or you got hooked up with somebody and then you have a child or [00:25:00] two children, and then that just devastated your life. When you realize you had to do it by yourself. And so you find God, you become a Christian. So now you're a single. Right. Trying to raise these kids and you don't want to go somewhere where someone says, well, you know, too bad, you weren't raised in a Christian home. You know, it's like, well, nobody in my family was a Christian and now I've turned to God. I found God, what do I do? And we have to remember that God is a God of redemption. That's what this is all about. It's all about redemption. So God redeemed people, right? Primarily, but he can also redeem nations and countries and systems. And I think it's really important to understand is that the public educational system was started by Christians in England. And it was started in order to give low income people the opportunity to break the cycle of low wage [00:26:00] oppressing. And that is, is that these families, without any education, these immigrants would move during the industrial revelation revolution to industrial centers. Then what they would do is they would work primarily in textiles and their kids. They would bring their kids to work with them. And so you'd hire somebody, they bring their kids in, they use kids all the time and the textile industry, because they had these massive looms. And so there were all these small spaces that you had to get in and clean out and get them on gummed. And kids could do that real easy cause they were small. Right. And so what happened is the first public educational system. Uh, it was started in churches and it was called Sunday school. And what it was is that what we're gonna do is we're going to have church. And then right after church, we're going to teach your kids on Sunday, how to read and write. Um, because if you, if you could read, then that was a massive step forward. And that made education now accessible to everybody, not just the wealthier, the aristocracy class. And so [00:27:00] this is where public education and the notion for public education originated from it. Rigerous from Christian. In their desire to educate everybody and open it up so that anybody could have access to it. So in the formation of America, the notion of educating your children of the children of any community, regardless of their socioeconomic status, became a core value because it was a Christian core value. And so that expanded to everybody. So the issue then is for me, is, the public education system today is simply a tool. And what has happened with that tool is it's been come infected with a cancer. Okay. Now we can do one of two things is we can say, well, we, you know, we don't have the time or the inclination, right. To deal with that cancer. So. Private or homeschool. I don't have any problem with those [00:28:00] decisions. Right. But for those who don't have that option, right. They don't have that option. I want to, I personally want to advocate for those people. And so what I want to do is I want to say that we can redeem it. And we have to redeem it in a way that heals the patient and kills the cancer. So we have to know what is the cancer. That's infecting it and turning it into what it is today. And what we see over time is when. Uh, the proficiency scores and our public educational system, they keep dropping and dropping nationally and they are dropping even more, um, more so in Idaho. So the highest proficiency in reading we have is in the 60%, 60%. So that means only six out of 10 kids are reading at level. And the only thing we hear from various, uh, organizations. Uh, [00:29:00] the reason why is because Idaho doesn't spend the same amount of money, but that's simply not true. There's there's a study out of Stanford. There's other studies have shown that there is zero correlation between how much money you spend per pupil and educational outcome. Right. Is a matter of fact, there's, uh, there's a website that tracks educational outcomes here in Idaho. And it's really kind of fascinating to me because, uh, uh, let me see. I think I have it down here. It's called Idaho ed trends and they actually track, um, all the different, uh, school districts and proficiencies and all that kind of stuff. And they, they have this chart and right now, uh, they have in the, Katooni district right now, they spend on average of $16,700 per pupil. So, I mean, that is massively high. They have a 67% proficiency on ISAT, ELS. Yeah, they're at 67%, you [00:30:00] know, here's, here's, what's really fascinating up north in the, uh, uh, the Mullen school district, which is just due east of Cor d'Alene. Do you know what they spend per student $25,000 per student? You know what their proficiency is on the ISAT testing 51%. Isn't that amazing. That's amazing. So, so you, what you do is you can go on this thing and you can poke on all these things and here's, what's really fascinating. It, it, there's a, uh, some charter schools, here's a charter school that spends $6,000 per pupil, which is one of the lowest out there, right there. You know what their proficiency on the ISAT testing is 85%. So there's no correlation. Yeah. I mean, you see it right here in Idaho, uh, at the Northern Idaho Stem Charter Academy district, you know, up there north, they spend $6,900 per student. They have a 90% proficiency on ISAT testing. So [00:31:00] I think it's really important to understand is that like the IEA is this, uh, Organization that advocates and their whole thing is this is that we rank lowest on spending per pupil. And of course that's a false use of statistics. What that is is they've just taking an average, right. And they're just comparing it to every other state. And the second thing that they do is their advocacy is basically because it's an arm of the unions. And that is what we want to do is we want to influence education in a way that benefits the union. So the system becomes more important than the students. And so I think what's really critical is that I personally want to advocate to redeem all education, make it available to all kids, regardless of their social economic status and I want to do so in a way, using research databased, [00:32:00] uh, tested techniques that produce the highest proficiency levels because you know, there's no way that the future of America is going to survive by allowing these ideological progressive things to control the education of our kids, because those kids are gonna grow up dependent. They're not going to grow up independent critical thinkers, innovators change agents in a world that can face all the challenges that we have to face. I'll tell you what, when the COVID pandemic came out, the entire world shut down. Right. And the thing that has helped get the world going again is the vaccine. Where did the vaccine come from? America, it came from America. Right? And so this is important is that I'm not ready to give up on it. I want to see it redeemed. And I think one of the things that we can do as a faith community, as well as anybody else who listens to this is start to pool our ideas, our [00:33:00] resources, and get focused on upstream ideas that change the downstream proficiency rate. Of our children. Well, thank you so much for sharing those ideas with us, Pastor Doug, we really appreciate your insight on all things parenting. Um, we're really excited for that new podcast. That's going to be coming out and obviously Pastor Harv and Shadlee shared some great thoughts with us as well. So, um, for those of you who are parents are looking to become parents in the future. Um, I hope you're being blessed by these thoughts and things you should be aware of. This is not an attempt to make you fearful of the world, but in fact, just make you aware of what's going on so that you can be, um, as proactive in your kids' lives as you possibly can. So thank you guys so much for joining us. Uh, Please tune in on Sunday for Pastor Harv's message on parenting. I think it's going to be really great if Tuesday's up podcast was any indicator and then we'll be back next week. We're not skipping Thanksgiving. We'll have a podcast for you. So we're excited a special we're very excited. [00:34:00] So thank you guys so much for joining us and we'll see you on Sunday here at Foothills Christian Church. Blessings.