Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 659: Raising Kids ‘Eye to Eye' With Nature with Steve Rinella

Transcript

Ep. 659: Raising Kids ‘Eye to Eye' With Nature with Steve Rinella · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
0:04
Speaker 1: the White Tail Woods. Present it by First Light, creating
0:08
Speaker 1: proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
0:11
Speaker 1: First Light, Go farther, stay Longer, and now your host
0:16
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon.
0:17
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I am your host,
0:21
Speaker 2: Mark Kenyon, and this week on the show, I'm joined
0:23
Speaker 2: by Steve Varnella to discuss how he's used the great
0:26
Speaker 2: outdoors as a classroom for teaching his children about life
0:30
Speaker 2: and a whole lot more. All right, welcome to the
0:43
Speaker 2: Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light,
0:46
Speaker 2: and today we are wrapping up our month long series
0:50
Speaker 2: on parenting outdoor kids, and I think it is fitting
0:55
Speaker 2: to wrap it up with the one and only mister
0:58
Speaker 2: Steven Rinella, my friend, a colleague, a guy who has
1:03
Speaker 2: taught me both kind of from afar and in some
1:06
Speaker 2: more personal interactions about bringing people into the outside, sharing
1:10
Speaker 2: the outdoors with folks, teaching folks about the outdoors, and
1:14
Speaker 2: doing that not just with the random people, but also
1:16
Speaker 2: even with your own children. He is the author of
1:20
Speaker 2: a couple books on this very topic, which again makes
1:23
Speaker 2: him a perfect guest for us to help wrap a
1:26
Speaker 2: bow on this whole thing. These two books. One of
1:29
Speaker 2: them came out last year. It's titled Outdoor Kids in
1:33
Speaker 2: an Inside World, Getting your family out of the house
1:35
Speaker 2: and radically engaged with nature. It's a great book. I
1:39
Speaker 2: highly recommend it. I enjoyed it. Like I said, that
1:42
Speaker 2: one's already out there. And then in a couple of
1:44
Speaker 2: weeks from now on June thirteenth, twenty twenty three, his
1:47
Speaker 2: next book is Hitting the Shelves, and this one is
1:49
Speaker 2: titled Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars, Fun Projects, Skills
1:54
Speaker 2: and Adventures for Outdoor Kids. And this is like an
1:58
Speaker 2: activity book for younger folks to engage with the natural
2:02
Speaker 2: world and build the skills and the experiences that will
2:06
Speaker 2: make you a competent hunter, angler, or just someone who
2:10
Speaker 2: enjoys the outside. I got an early copy of it,
2:14
Speaker 2: and me and my kids have been enjoying it. It's great,
2:16
Speaker 2: it's full of fun things. My son, in particular, my
2:19
Speaker 2: oldest son, was really really excited that Steve had written
2:22
Speaker 2: a book for kids like him. So if you've got
2:25
Speaker 2: a young child, my boys are three and five and
2:27
Speaker 2: they like it. So if you've got a kid that
2:29
Speaker 2: old up to I don't know twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen,
2:32
Speaker 2: who knows what. There's a lot of stuff in there
2:34
Speaker 2: for them. Highly recommend it. You can pre order it now,
2:38
Speaker 2: and if you're listening to this after June thirteenth, just
2:40
Speaker 2: get out of there and buy it. I'm sure you
2:42
Speaker 2: can buy it from the mediator dot com at our store.
2:45
Speaker 2: So that's the plug on the book front. But most importantly,
2:49
Speaker 2: you know Steve, if you've listened to his podcast, if
2:52
Speaker 2: you've read his books, if you've watched his show, you
2:55
Speaker 2: know that he brings a thoughtful approach to everything he does.
2:58
Speaker 2: And that's the kind of lens I think that we
3:02
Speaker 2: have been trying to look at parenting through and especially
3:06
Speaker 2: parenting a child that we hope will engage in the
3:10
Speaker 2: natural world. And that's something obviously that Steve's been doing
3:13
Speaker 2: with his own three kids that I think Gosh knows.
3:16
Speaker 2: I think his oldest is maybe thirteen or almost thirteen.
3:20
Speaker 2: So he's been at this for a while. He's had
3:22
Speaker 2: some interesting experiences that have colored that. And so here's
3:25
Speaker 2: what we talk about, Steve. We talk about some of
3:27
Speaker 2: the childhood experiences that he had himself when he was
3:30
Speaker 2: a kid that have impacted his parenting. Today, we talk
3:34
Speaker 2: about a lot of different ways that he tries to
3:37
Speaker 2: balance the outdoor experiences that he cultivates for his kids,
3:41
Speaker 2: both trying to allow them to be enjoyable, but also
3:46
Speaker 2: taking advantage of them as a learning experience and a
3:50
Speaker 2: personal kind of growth opportunity. That's been a big thing.
3:53
Speaker 2: If you've listened to the past three episodes with Tony
3:56
Speaker 2: with My Dad with Clay, you'll know this has been
3:59
Speaker 2: one of my big questions, which is, how do I
4:01
Speaker 2: balance making the outdoors or making hunting, or making fishing
4:05
Speaker 2: or camping or hiking. How do you make that fun?
4:07
Speaker 2: How to keep it fun so your kid is engaged
4:09
Speaker 2: and wants to keep doing it. How do you also
4:13
Speaker 2: use these things as a learning vessel to teach toughness
4:18
Speaker 2: or how to deal with the diversity, or perseverance, or
4:22
Speaker 2: you know, a thousand different things that these outdoor experiences
4:25
Speaker 2: can provide. That's something that I asked Steve about and
4:28
Speaker 2: he has some great thoughts on. Another thing that I've
4:31
Speaker 2: wrestled with a lot and that Steve helped me bring
4:34
Speaker 2: some clarity to, was this idea of how do we
4:37
Speaker 2: teach our children about conservation? How do we instill in
4:40
Speaker 2: them an appreciation for the natural world. How do we
4:43
Speaker 2: do all those things without overwhelming them, without taking the
4:46
Speaker 2: fun out of it. That's something that I really appreciated
4:50
Speaker 2: Steve's perspective on as well. So today we're going to
4:53
Speaker 2: get a look at how Steve raised his kids to
4:56
Speaker 2: live eye to eye with nature. It is is a
5:00
Speaker 2: conversation I really enjoyed. I think you will too, And
5:04
Speaker 2: do not forget to go pick up those two books
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Speaker 2: I mentioned, because there's a whole lot more than what
5:08
Speaker 2: Steve and I can get to today, and those books
5:10
Speaker 2: cover it. I know you'll enjoy it. So without further ado,
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Speaker 2: let's get mister Stephen Ranella on the line. All right
5:20
Speaker 2: with me? Now, I've got the one and only Steve Ranella. Steve,
5:24
Speaker 2: thank you for making time for this.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, Mark Man.
5:29
Speaker 4: We haven't done anything in a long time, so this
5:31
Speaker 4: is good.
5:32
Speaker 2: I know it's been a little while, and I'm pulling
5:34
Speaker 2: in on.
5:35
Speaker 4: The since the back forty days, dude, I know.
5:38
Speaker 2: I'm pulling in for the hard hitting stuff too. We're
5:40
Speaker 2: talking parenting, So no softballs. If you're if you're okay
5:44
Speaker 2: with that.
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Speaker 4: Steve Man, you drive by the bag forty.
5:48
Speaker 2: I don't drive by often, but I have been back
5:51
Speaker 2: and forth here and there and been there volunteering and
5:53
Speaker 2: mentoring hunter. So I've been seeing it. It's looking good.
5:57
Speaker 3: Is there any are there any?
5:58
Speaker 4: Are there any toads out there right now?
6:00
Speaker 2: I don't know about right now, but last year there
6:02
Speaker 2: was because no one's sporting their sport and their official
6:06
Speaker 2: head gear yet, you know. But I was out there
6:09
Speaker 2: with one of the new hunters last year and we
6:11
Speaker 2: had a really nice buck stand up on one of
6:13
Speaker 2: those fields just out of range and had had a
6:16
Speaker 2: really close Yeah. So it's been it's been producing. I mean,
6:21
Speaker 2: almost two dozen people I think have killed their first
6:24
Speaker 2: year out there.
6:24
Speaker 3: Now that's great.
6:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's been. It's been really incredible. When we
6:32
Speaker 2: have more time, I'll have to actually give you a
6:34
Speaker 2: bunch of the details. It's been very cool to see
6:37
Speaker 2: what's happened there. And uh, I guess that ties in
6:40
Speaker 2: really well to this conversation too, because that that's been
6:43
Speaker 2: a whole mentorship kind of story over there, and and
6:46
Speaker 2: today I want to talk about mentoring kids. And I
6:53
Speaker 2: don't know how you feel about this, Steve. There's some
6:54
Speaker 2: days when I think about this whole parenting thing, and
6:58
Speaker 2: it feels like I've got it figured out, like things
7:00
Speaker 2: are working out. My boys are, you know, coming along
7:03
Speaker 2: the way I hope they would, and they're listening great,
7:05
Speaker 2: and I'm excited about their future. And then there's other
7:07
Speaker 2: days where I'm wondering, Man, how did I get here?
7:10
Speaker 2: How am I qualified to do this? What am I
7:13
Speaker 2: doing today? You've you've written now two books, the newest
7:17
Speaker 2: one coming out June thirteenth, related to this idea of parenting,
7:21
Speaker 2: And I'm wondering, do you feel like you're an expert
7:25
Speaker 2: at parenting yet? Or do you still have days like
7:27
Speaker 2: I'm describing where it's just not happening or you've got
7:31
Speaker 2: these question marks.
7:34
Speaker 3: First off, man, I would never ever ever say that
7:39
Speaker 3: I was an expert in parenting.
7:41
Speaker 4: In fact, when I hear of like a parenting.
7:46
Speaker 3: Expert, that's the quickest way to get me to tune out. Yeah,
7:51
Speaker 3: the quickest way to tune out what I'm here and
7:54
Speaker 3: because or to tune them out, because the minute I
7:58
Speaker 3: hear that, I imagine someone one who is taking a
8:03
Speaker 3: really strange, perhaps alternate path to their expertise or meaning
8:11
Speaker 3: that they're applying theory right, that they're like a parenting
8:18
Speaker 3: expert in that they're applying theory or developing theory around
8:25
Speaker 3: raising kids rather than just the nitty gritty, hands on
8:31
Speaker 3: version of it. You know, I know so many great
8:36
Speaker 3: parents that I've admired my whole life, and none of
8:39
Speaker 3: them has ever uttered parenting expert. It was one time
8:46
Speaker 3: my brother Danny was saying that when he when people
8:50
Speaker 3: came to him and said, oh, you're such a good dad,
8:53
Speaker 3: he would say he would think to himself, meaning that
8:57
Speaker 3: I'm not sociopathic, like, of course, I would hope you're
9:07
Speaker 3: trying to you know. It's like he congratulated for that
9:13
Speaker 3: holding up my end of the bargain. But I uh,
9:16
Speaker 3: that's a long winded way of saying. I know, here's
9:21
Speaker 3: what I'm an expert on. I'm an expert on after
9:25
Speaker 3: my oldest just turned thirteen. I have three kids eight, ten, thirteen.
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Speaker 3: I am an expert. Undoubtedly. I am an expert on
9:35
Speaker 3: getting your kids outside, whether that's been a success or failure.
9:40
Speaker 3: I'm an expert on what it involves to get your
9:43
Speaker 3: kids outside, introduce them to nature, and get them into
9:46
Speaker 3: hunting and fishing. Like I am an.
9:48
Speaker 4: Expert, because I mean, you know, I've been doing it
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Speaker 4: for a long time.
9:53
Speaker 3: I guess I could get better when I have grandkids,
9:55
Speaker 3: and then I did it all the way with my
9:57
Speaker 3: kids and all the way with grandkids, maybe I'd be
9:59
Speaker 3: even better than I am now. I probably wouldn't feel
10:04
Speaker 3: like talking about it anymore. So I have a I
10:06
Speaker 3: have thirteen years. I'm a thirteen year veteran of getting
10:10
Speaker 3: kids outside messing around.
10:12
Speaker 2: Okay, And I think that's that's pretty fair. But it
10:15
Speaker 2: sounds like you still have days where you lack a
10:20
Speaker 2: full expertise or confidence on the whole rest of the thing.
10:22
Speaker 2: There's still questions for her some days.
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Speaker 3: Absolutely, I like, you know, but my wife sent me
10:29
Speaker 3: the their name of my wife sent me a clip
10:34
Speaker 3: and it was from a guy. There's a clip from
10:39
Speaker 3: Joe Rogan's show. I can't remember who the hell the
10:42
Speaker 3: guest was. It was just like a little pullout clip
10:46
Speaker 3: and the guy was talking about how frustrating it is
10:48
Speaker 3: to have kids. And he was saying, in all your
10:51
Speaker 3: interactions with your kids, imagine that you're eighty years old
10:59
Speaker 3: and you're given in this moment, in this moment of
11:02
Speaker 3: intense frustration, you're given a chance to go baack in
11:07
Speaker 3: time and have this interaction at the end of your life,
11:15
Speaker 3: you had a chance to go back and have this interaction,
11:18
Speaker 3: how would you have it? Then? I don't have. All
11:23
Speaker 3: of my interactions with my kids are not how I
11:26
Speaker 3: would have them if I was eighty and got a
11:31
Speaker 3: chance to go back and do it over again. I
11:34
Speaker 3: I'm not successful in that because they're frust They're annoying
11:39
Speaker 3: and frustrating. Yeah, my annoyance. So I could say I'm
11:46
Speaker 3: getting way better at not getting so annoyed and frustrated
11:49
Speaker 3: at my kids all the time. But if you mapped
11:52
Speaker 3: my level of an annoyance and frustration on a chart
11:56
Speaker 3: and had another line on the chart be how old
11:59
Speaker 3: they were, you would find a very tight correlation, meaning
12:04
Speaker 3: it just gets it gets easier. But I got I
12:07
Speaker 3: got like my kids great, man, they're great. My annoyance
12:10
Speaker 3: and frustration was all just physical stuff, right. It was
12:16
Speaker 3: like the physical aspect of it, especially when you're outside.
12:21
Speaker 3: It's just keeping people warm, keeping people dry, keeping people fed.
12:26
Speaker 3: It it's hard, and then you run into this idea
12:33
Speaker 3: of of and it's a It plagues a lot of guys,
12:35
Speaker 3: a lot of guys, I know, and i'd be lying
12:37
Speaker 3: up I said, I didn't feel it too. You're like, man,
12:38
Speaker 3: we'd be getting a lot more stuff if these kids
12:40
Speaker 3: weren't here, right, And yes, and that war is so
12:45
Speaker 3: I recognize it as though, like it's the most valuable
12:48
Speaker 3: thing I do. Like like if I had to whittle
12:51
Speaker 3: away all aspects of if I had to pick one
12:53
Speaker 3: thing and whittle away all their aspects of my life,
12:55
Speaker 3: I would I would the one that would be standing
12:57
Speaker 3: at the end of it all after I trimmed away
12:59
Speaker 3: everything else that.
13:00
Speaker 4: Would be standing with like be being with my kids.
13:04
Speaker 3: Absolutely, But but it's hard, and I'm not interested in
13:09
Speaker 3: someone coming and telling me there's just some little trick
13:12
Speaker 3: to escape, to escape every part of it that's so hard.
13:17
Speaker 2: So speaking of this like parent child, uh, frustration or
13:22
Speaker 2: challenge when you're trying to go outside and do these
13:24
Speaker 2: kinds of things. I heard you say once that when
13:27
Speaker 2: you thought back to the way your dad introduced you
13:29
Speaker 2: and your brothers to the outside, you're shocked that it
13:32
Speaker 2: didn't backfire and push you away from honeting and fishing
13:35
Speaker 2: and make you not want to do it. What did
13:37
Speaker 2: you mean by that? Can you expand on like what
13:39
Speaker 2: that childhood, those experiences were that made you feel that way.
13:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember when I my mom still lives in
13:46
Speaker 3: the house that I was brought up. And I've mentioned
13:49
Speaker 3: this before in writing. My room was on the upstairs
13:54
Speaker 3: of the house and there's a big like oak tree
13:57
Speaker 3: out the window, and I remember waking on hunting days.
14:01
Speaker 3: I remember waking up in the dark hoping to see
14:07
Speaker 3: that tree blowing like hell and there to be to
14:12
Speaker 3: be all wet with rain, because I'd be like, that way,
14:17
Speaker 3: I don't have to go and it doesn't need to
14:19
Speaker 3: be that. I bailed, Like if the old man called
14:23
Speaker 3: it right, He's like that too windy and rainy, and
14:26
Speaker 3: we're I canna go out. You don't have to get
14:27
Speaker 3: a new tree stands. I'd have been like because the
14:30
Speaker 3: last thing I was going to do was back out right.
14:36
Speaker 3: And so it was like I felt the guilt about it,
14:41
Speaker 3: you know when I've described this before, I said a
14:44
Speaker 3: guilt about it that I imagine some people feel, like when
14:46
Speaker 3: they don't go to church on Sunday, You're like, oh,
14:50
Speaker 3: I do anything to sleep in right, just be hungover? Man?
14:54
Speaker 3: If I don't, you know, I feel so bad not
14:56
Speaker 3: going to church, I break get up, and a lot
14:58
Speaker 3: of times it was like that because there was not
15:01
Speaker 3: a lot of attention paid to There's not a lot
15:04
Speaker 3: of attention paid to comfort.
15:06
Speaker 4: He was extremely demanding.
15:09
Speaker 3: He was so uptight about gear maintenance, so uptight about
15:15
Speaker 3: the boat being clean, ran around screaming at everybody all
15:19
Speaker 3: the time. But man, you learned so much. And the
15:23
Speaker 3: other part about it is that and this is the
15:26
Speaker 3: thing that I look back like I used to most
15:27
Speaker 3: of growing up. I looked at him like, what a
15:29
Speaker 3: horrible like that? Yeah, it was horrible to be out
15:31
Speaker 3: in the woods with. But to think about it, it
15:34
Speaker 3: would have been a laughable notion. As rough as my
15:37
Speaker 3: dad was, it would have been a laughable notion that
15:41
Speaker 3: he'd be going hunting and fishing and you weren't invited
15:43
Speaker 3: to go. There is no way, you know, out of
15:47
Speaker 3: school day if you want to go, like, oh that's fine,
15:49
Speaker 3: you need to go to school. You were invited. That
15:52
Speaker 3: was a huge gift, man, And it came like that
15:55
Speaker 3: was the gift.
15:56
Speaker 4: The expense was that he was so harsh.
16:00
Speaker 3: Uh.
16:00
Speaker 4: He was a World War two veteran.
16:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, by his own definition, he had been what they
16:06
Speaker 3: called shell shocked at the time, you know, PTSD stuff.
16:10
Speaker 3: He had been he he he had a very he
16:13
Speaker 3: wasn't raised his parents didn't raised me. He was raised
16:16
Speaker 3: by his grandparents. He had a all these reasons why.
16:21
Speaker 4: He was the way it was. But yeah, he was
16:24
Speaker 4: just very, very hard.
16:29
Speaker 3: And and I and and and uh it's I look
16:34
Speaker 3: back and it's funny that I wouldn't have just been well,
16:37
Speaker 3: never mind, man, this isn't my lifestyle. But somehow the
16:40
Speaker 3: quality of the experience overcame that. And I've tried to
16:48
Speaker 3: really learn a lot from that. Like I I I
16:52
Speaker 3: in the category of how I relate to my kids
16:55
Speaker 3: and the friendships I have with my kids, Uh is
16:58
Speaker 3: nowhere is so much better than what I got growing up.
17:01
Speaker 3: And in fact, my dad would say, like, I'm not
17:03
Speaker 3: here to be your friend.
17:17
Speaker 2: How did you translate that experience then into the future
17:19
Speaker 2: for yourself? Because I feel like I look back on
17:21
Speaker 2: this kind of thing with my own childhood, and I
17:23
Speaker 2: think back on all the things I would like to
17:25
Speaker 2: do different. But then I also think to myself, well,
17:28
Speaker 2: if he hadn't done this, then I wouldn't be like
17:30
Speaker 2: I am today, or I wouldn't have developed this you know,
17:33
Speaker 2: love for this thing the same way, or the importance
17:38
Speaker 2: I place on certain aspects if it weren't for this
17:40
Speaker 2: tough thing or this tough thing or this thing that
17:41
Speaker 2: I didn't like so much back then. How have you
17:44
Speaker 2: tried to balance taking the good from what your dad
17:46
Speaker 2: brought to the table versus somehow realizing how to temper
17:51
Speaker 2: some of the other edges or soften the edges or
17:53
Speaker 2: maybe not.
17:56
Speaker 3: I think it's a degree, and it's a point at
17:59
Speaker 3: which you pay attention to something. I I this is
18:08
Speaker 3: not a handful of times. I many times when I
18:12
Speaker 3: was a little kid literally froze my fingertips with my dad. Okay,
18:21
Speaker 3: I just don't like, I don't understand how I mean
18:24
Speaker 3: coming back with hard tipped white fingertips.
18:30
Speaker 4: Jeez, I don't let it like I would never let that.
18:33
Speaker 4: I just don't let it.
18:33
Speaker 3: Go that far, right, But I still push it, like
18:38
Speaker 3: I want them to be uncomfortable. But the point at
18:41
Speaker 3: which I'm like willing to sort of look at them
18:43
Speaker 3: and express like a level of tenderness and concern for
18:46
Speaker 3: how they're doing, it's just it's sooner. I'm just I'm
18:50
Speaker 3: more empathetic, h I'm more empathetic than he was. There's
18:56
Speaker 3: another thing at play, and just in the spirit of
19:00
Speaker 3: like full honesty, there is a in getting your kids
19:07
Speaker 3: into the outdoors. I'm not going to sit here and
19:10
Speaker 3: tell you that it's l that it's not ell, it's
19:12
Speaker 3: not entirely altruistic. Uh it. There are massive benefits of
19:23
Speaker 3: the kids, and we can get into that. There's also
19:25
Speaker 3: a massive benefit to the parent if the parent wants
19:27
Speaker 3: to be outside right right now. I could have things
19:31
Speaker 3: in my life that I'm into that don't believe are
19:34
Speaker 3: good for me. I don't believe they're good for me. Like,
19:36
Speaker 3: let's say, you know, I used to I used to
19:40
Speaker 3: drink a fair a bit and like whoop it up
19:42
Speaker 3: my buddies back in college and grad school. Right, Uh,
19:45
Speaker 3: I had a hell of a good time doing that.
19:46
Speaker 3: Did I ever think that that was like good? Was ever?
19:48
Speaker 2: Like?
19:49
Speaker 3: Man, I can't wait to introduce my kids binge drinking. No,
19:53
Speaker 3: but I was like pretty invested in binge drinking once
19:56
Speaker 3: upon a time. At the moment, it just happened all
19:58
Speaker 3: the time, laugh our asses off all and have like
20:01
Speaker 3: a great time and be stupid. But I don't, like,
20:06
Speaker 3: I didn't think, boy, when I can do this with
20:08
Speaker 3: my children, That'll be phenomenal. Right. I recognize that's a thing,
20:13
Speaker 3: it's overwhelmingly negative, but it's the thing I engage in
20:17
Speaker 3: with the outdoors. I love it way more than I
20:21
Speaker 3: ever loved that, and I want to be out there
20:26
Speaker 3: and I think that it's great for the kids. But
20:30
Speaker 3: in getting the kids into it, I am servicing my
20:35
Speaker 3: own desires as well. I just I think it's really
20:38
Speaker 3: important to point out that there's a big selfish part
20:41
Speaker 3: of it because that's where I want to be. And
20:44
Speaker 3: I could rationalize this in a hundred ways. I could say,
20:48
Speaker 3: I want it's important for my kids to see passion,
20:55
Speaker 3: to see commitment, to see expertise. Right, it's important for
20:59
Speaker 3: me for it's important to me that they witness that,
21:03
Speaker 3: and that they witness a role.
21:05
Speaker 4: Model of theirs, their dad a role model of theirs.
21:08
Speaker 3: Being very engaged, being an advocate for what he loves, right,
21:15
Speaker 3: rather than them witnessing a household full of apathy. I
21:19
Speaker 3: kind of watch TV, But do I really care about TV? No,
21:22
Speaker 3: I'm just watching it, right, Like I sort of begrudgingly
21:28
Speaker 3: clean the house, and they get to watch me begrudgingly
21:31
Speaker 3: clean the house. I don't know how you're what you're
21:36
Speaker 3: teaching them about how to live a passionate, engaged life
21:39
Speaker 3: if you're not showing them what it looks like. But
21:44
Speaker 3: that's all very logical, and it rationalizes the fact that
21:49
Speaker 3: that's where I want to be too.
21:50
Speaker 4: So I'm servicing them an it.
21:52
Speaker 3: And I'm sure that my dad had that element of dedication.
21:58
Speaker 3: I know he did. He had a dedication to fans,
22:00
Speaker 3: and he had a dedication to the outdoors. He wanted
22:04
Speaker 3: to be outside. He knew his role to his kids,
22:07
Speaker 3: and so the thing he had to do is He's like,
22:09
Speaker 3: I gotta do that. I got to bring the kids
22:12
Speaker 3: with me. And I don't mind showing them now and
22:15
Speaker 3: then that that I'm.
22:18
Speaker 4: Not entirely happy about their presence here.
22:20
Speaker 3: And and I've really tried to switch that around and
22:25
Speaker 3: be more aware of being more aware of that that
22:31
Speaker 3: I am asking something of them, right, I'm they're accompanying
22:37
Speaker 3: me to do a thing I love.
22:39
Speaker 4: I hope that they love it too.
22:41
Speaker 3: But they're in some way doing me, They're in some
22:46
Speaker 3: way indulging me, They're in some way doing me a
22:49
Speaker 3: favor to engage in the thing that I love. I
22:52
Speaker 3: hope it becomes infectious. But it's a give and take.
22:55
Speaker 3: You're giving them parenting, you're giving them fathering. They're giving
23:01
Speaker 3: you their days, right, and I think trying to be
23:06
Speaker 3: aware of that is really helpful. I don't think these
23:08
Speaker 3: are things that occurred to my dad.
23:10
Speaker 2: Yeah. So so along those lines, you want this for them,
23:14
Speaker 2: You want them to enjoy that, enjoy this. You want
23:16
Speaker 2: them to join you out there, you want to be
23:18
Speaker 2: out there. I think there's this risk sometimes, or I
23:21
Speaker 2: wonder about this risk of wanting it all too bad.
23:24
Speaker 2: You want them to feel the same way you feel.
23:26
Speaker 2: You want them to have the same experience as you had.
23:28
Speaker 2: You want them to get the turkey so damn bad.
23:31
Speaker 2: Do you ever worry about that kind of sports dad
23:33
Speaker 2: thing happening where you know, the dad wants his son
23:37
Speaker 2: to be so good, or he wants his son to
23:39
Speaker 2: get the thing you know just right, that you end
23:41
Speaker 2: up pushing them away from it, or because you're so
23:44
Speaker 2: into it, it drives them away and they want something
23:46
Speaker 2: different than what their dad wants for them. Has that
23:48
Speaker 2: been something you've you've thought about? Have you seen that
23:51
Speaker 2: at all? How do you deal with that?
23:53
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think about all the time, and here's where
23:58
Speaker 3: I here's where I kind of here's where I land
24:02
Speaker 3: on it.
24:05
Speaker 4: I push them pretty hard, and I push him for.
24:10
Speaker 3: Success. We have a little fishing me and some family
24:17
Speaker 3: members on a fish and shack in Alaska, and I
24:20
Speaker 3: take my kids up there for a couple of weeks
24:22
Speaker 3: in summer. If it was up to if they ran
24:26
Speaker 3: the program, we would never leave the beach because they
24:32
Speaker 3: would just be like messing around with clams and stuff
24:36
Speaker 3: and messing around on a rope swing and we'd never
24:38
Speaker 3: leave the beach.
24:40
Speaker 4: They'd never be in a boat.
24:41
Speaker 3: To see, you know, a seventy pound halb that come
24:44
Speaker 3: out of the water and harpooning it and drag it
24:47
Speaker 3: up in the boat. They wouldn't see it if someone
24:49
Speaker 3: wasn't leaning on them heavy. So in pushing them, I'm
24:56
Speaker 3: pushing them because I part of it. And again, just
25:00
Speaker 3: I want to be I want to maintain. I want
25:03
Speaker 3: to say one more time that I'm gonna stop saying it.
25:05
Speaker 3: I want to catch fish. Okay, I personally need want
25:08
Speaker 3: to catch fish. So I'm just let's not forget that detail.
25:11
Speaker 3: That's what I like, right, Why do I think it's
25:14
Speaker 3: great for the kids? Because I think that for them
25:16
Speaker 3: to see this thing playout of having a goal, making
25:25
Speaker 3: a plan about how you're going to do it, executing
25:28
Speaker 3: on the plan, overcoming hardship, sticking with it, and then
25:33
Speaker 3: out of like this murky depth comes this insane fish
25:40
Speaker 3: you know, that you drag up into a boat and
25:45
Speaker 3: then eat halibut nuggets off of for the next year
25:50
Speaker 3: is like a huge payoff. And if I got to
25:52
Speaker 3: pull them by the ear figuratively, if I need to
25:56
Speaker 3: drag them by the ear into that discovery, I think
25:59
Speaker 3: it's worth it because that is so cool to witness.
26:05
Speaker 3: The reason there's the reason I know that that I
26:08
Speaker 3: have an like a somewhat imperfect approach to it is
26:13
Speaker 3: I catch myself being much more severe with my older
26:17
Speaker 3: boy than I am with my daughter, but I get
26:23
Speaker 3: the same end result, right, so where they're really both
26:27
Speaker 3: like really excited about being outdoors.
26:29
Speaker 4: They love hunting and fishing.
26:31
Speaker 3: So I have a severe version with my son, and
26:37
Speaker 3: it comes from just how I picture father son relationships
26:40
Speaker 3: to be and things that were adopted by me subconsciously perhaps,
26:46
Speaker 3: And I'm much kinder and gentler with my daughter, but
26:51
Speaker 3: she's got an equal drive to be successful. So I
26:55
Speaker 3: think that maybe I don't have the perfect way to
26:59
Speaker 3: do it, but I'm not shy about I'm not shy
27:04
Speaker 3: about leaning on them real heavy.
27:07
Speaker 4: Gun safety is one thing.
27:11
Speaker 3: I overreact around issues of gun safety because they got
27:16
Speaker 3: to know it right. And on issues of technique, yeah,
27:22
Speaker 3: like I push really hard. There's right ways and wrong
27:25
Speaker 3: ways to do stuff, and they'll say like, well, let
27:31
Speaker 3: me see the turkey call. I'm like, not here, you
27:33
Speaker 3: practice you anytime you want, We'll practice at home. You're
27:36
Speaker 3: not touching it right now.
27:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been there. I've seen this.
27:41
Speaker 3: Right. And you're like, why am I That's like not cool?
27:44
Speaker 3: You think, like, if you're the coolest dad in the world,
27:46
Speaker 3: would you just hand it to him and let him
27:48
Speaker 3: wail away. I'm like, well no, because when I'm really
27:51
Speaker 3: trying to show him is how awesome it is to
27:54
Speaker 3: having yeah strutter standing twenty yards away. That's cool. They
27:58
Speaker 3: think mess them with the turkey calls. They don't even
28:01
Speaker 3: know cool until this turkey shows up. So you're like,
28:07
Speaker 3: you're denying.
28:09
Speaker 4: I don't want to call them impulses.
28:10
Speaker 3: You're stealing from them little moments that they'd like to
28:15
Speaker 3: have in service of like the real crazy moments, they're
28:19
Speaker 3: going to change their lives.
28:20
Speaker 2: Yeah. So many people talk about how you got to
28:23
Speaker 2: keep it fun, you got to keep it light, You've
28:25
Speaker 2: got to stay on their schedule with their priorities first.
28:28
Speaker 2: And I think what I'm hearing from you is that
28:32
Speaker 2: sometimes we as the parent, know that the tougher path,
28:39
Speaker 2: if we were to follow it, will lead to a
28:41
Speaker 2: longer term win. It'll lead to a longer term satisfaction.
28:44
Speaker 2: If they can push through this, if they can listen
28:46
Speaker 2: to me on this, if they can get to the
28:47
Speaker 2: point where the strutter shows up, or if they can
28:49
Speaker 2: make it through the shitty cold or any day and
28:51
Speaker 2: see you know, the results of it, that will actually
28:55
Speaker 2: be more valuable in the long run than having three
28:58
Speaker 2: outings where they had suckers and andy bars and came
29:01
Speaker 2: home after fifty minutes.
29:03
Speaker 3: Yeah.
29:03
Speaker 4: And we're talking about evolving organisms here, right.
29:06
Speaker 3: I mean, these things they get older, so you're you're
29:10
Speaker 3: you're fine tuning it to what they're capable of early on,
29:14
Speaker 3: early on, getting your kids involved in nature and getting
29:17
Speaker 3: them into hunting and fishing early on when they're two,
29:21
Speaker 3: is going out and rolling rotten logs out of the ground.
29:25
Speaker 3: Ye right, yep, that's it. It's like lesson number one,
29:31
Speaker 3: and you can't pound it into them. You can't yell
29:33
Speaker 3: at them about technique. It's like you go out, take
29:36
Speaker 3: a rotten log, roll it out and pick up the
29:38
Speaker 3: stuff underneath it.
29:39
Speaker 4: Less number one.
29:40
Speaker 3: Don't be afraid of anything, Yeah, unless it really warrants
29:44
Speaker 3: being afraid of. Guarter snake, pick it up, bull snake,
29:50
Speaker 3: pick it up, rattlesnake. Don't touch it sending a piece.
29:54
Speaker 3: Let them wash. Watch across your hand, beehives, watch out,
29:57
Speaker 3: ants pick them up. You know.
29:59
Speaker 4: It's like worms. Every worm possible goes in your hand.
30:04
Speaker 3: And that's just there's no there's no like bullying, dragging
30:08
Speaker 3: by the ear, conjoling.
30:11
Speaker 4: It's just presenting. It's just presenting experience.
30:15
Speaker 2: And what age shift for you? With the boy with
30:18
Speaker 2: the kids start to interrupt? But at what point did
30:21
Speaker 2: it shift from that to the next phase?
30:27
Speaker 3: I started getting My eight year old, he's just about
30:34
Speaker 3: to get into uh, he's just about to get into
30:38
Speaker 3: where he's gonna get leaned down a lot more heavy.
30:42
Speaker 3: My thirteen year old.
30:44
Speaker 4: It's no holds barred.
30:47
Speaker 2: Yep, he's just another one of the guys.
30:49
Speaker 3: Right he at his age right now, the expectation is
30:55
Speaker 3: that it's like, the expectation is high that get a
31:00
Speaker 3: string it. If you have a problem with the not
31:03
Speaker 3: let me know, but like, I'm gonna look at you
31:05
Speaker 3: in an annoyed way if you come to me to
31:07
Speaker 3: tie that thing on again. Yeah, if you're gonna tell
31:10
Speaker 3: me you need help taking that fish off the hook,
31:12
Speaker 3: I'm gonna really look at you, like really, Yeah, it's
31:18
Speaker 3: high expectations right now, my eight year old, I'm still
31:23
Speaker 3: really willing to indulge and do some hand holding. But
31:26
Speaker 3: where I'm not willing to indulge is I'm not gonna
31:28
Speaker 3: go out there and come back home in thirty minutes.
31:30
Speaker 2: Yeah.
31:33
Speaker 3: And he came out turkey hunting with us this year.
31:39
Speaker 4: He wasn't first up, but he was. He was there
31:43
Speaker 4: all morning.
31:43
Speaker 3: He kept telling me he was gonna throw up, and
31:46
Speaker 3: I finally started taking him serious when he got real pale.
31:50
Speaker 3: And then he threw up before we could get back
31:51
Speaker 3: to my buddy's house, and I was like, wow, he
31:53
Speaker 3: really he really didn't He really didn't feel good. Well
32:00
Speaker 3: I felt a little bit about that, But you know
32:02
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, I'm like, like I I I they're not.
32:04
Speaker 3: I don't. At eight, they're definitely not running the show.
32:08
Speaker 3: But but and this is very you know, this is
32:12
Speaker 3: as you know, this is highly variable. Like one, you
32:14
Speaker 3: know one kid from the next I was just I
32:17
Speaker 3: have a friend of mine I just spend some time with.
32:20
Speaker 3: And he's a spearfishing guide, fishing guide.
32:23
Speaker 4: He's got a nine year old boy, and in certain areas,
32:31
Speaker 4: I was, I wash he's very diract, very diract, and
32:38
Speaker 4: his kid is incredibly competent.
32:40
Speaker 3: And his kid is eat and breathe like fishing all
32:44
Speaker 3: that kid wants to do. Okay, So this guy, his
32:48
Speaker 3: name's Cam. He he recognizes that there's no ruin it
32:54
Speaker 3: with this kid.
32:54
Speaker 4: You're not going to push him too hard because he's
32:56
Speaker 4: all in.
32:57
Speaker 3: This is he this is his life, this will be
32:59
Speaker 3: his life. And he's very competent. And at that age
33:05
Speaker 3: nine years old, his dad talks to him like a peer.
33:10
Speaker 3: Get this, get that, get down off that thing, put
33:13
Speaker 3: your son's screen on. There's like zero assistance. It's so funny.
33:20
Speaker 3: It's like direct orders. But this kid's bought in, dude.
33:25
Speaker 3: So he's not in a state of kind of being
33:29
Speaker 3: like he's not in a state where he might be like,
33:31
Speaker 3: We're like, man, I can't tell him, I am I
33:34
Speaker 3: not doing this right? Am I ruining something? You know?
33:38
Speaker 3: Maybe I should adjust my approach, Like if you get
33:42
Speaker 3: where I haven't had this problem yet, but if I had,
33:45
Speaker 3: if one of my children just got to where they
33:48
Speaker 3: didn't they didn't have fun, they weren't liking it, they
33:52
Speaker 3: were trying to they were avoiding it. You know, by
33:55
Speaker 3: the time they got to be ten years old, twelve
33:57
Speaker 3: years old and they weren't into it, I would probably
34:00
Speaker 3: at that point, honestly, I would really probably reconsider my
34:05
Speaker 3: approach a six year old I'm not interested in what
34:09
Speaker 3: they want to do. Yeah, yeah, Well, when we make
34:14
Speaker 3: plans even now, if we're gonna go camp for the weekend,
34:18
Speaker 3: even at our kids ages eight, ten, thirteen, if we're
34:21
Speaker 3: going camp for the weekend, the last thing I'm gonna
34:23
Speaker 3: do is ask them, you know, say, hey, this is
34:29
Speaker 3: what's happening this weekend. Now, I'll give you a ton
34:31
Speaker 3: of latitude within that to do what you'd like to do.
34:34
Speaker 3: But that's what's happening this weekend. If you want to go,
34:37
Speaker 3: bring your friend, that's fine. If you want to bring
34:40
Speaker 3: your hammock or bring whatever or card games whatever.
34:43
Speaker 4: That's great, But the basics are we're going camping.
34:46
Speaker 3: Within that, I'm gonna give you as much room to
34:48
Speaker 3: customize the situation as you'd like. But that's happening.
34:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, Yeah, that that framework.
34:55
Speaker 3: People yep, And I see people give that up, and yeah,
35:02
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't. I don't ever want to criticize
35:05
Speaker 3: other families. I got families that I got. I know
35:08
Speaker 3: families that raise kids and skyrise apartments in big cities
35:13
Speaker 3: and they have just absolutely fantastic, wonderful, loving, kind, curious kids.
35:20
Speaker 3: There's a lot of ways to skin a cat. Uh.
35:23
Speaker 3: I would never say there's not, but uh, that's those parents.
35:32
Speaker 3: That's not their life, right the way it's my life.
35:36
Speaker 3: And so since this is my life, I I need
35:41
Speaker 3: to I want to manipulate the situation to create a
35:47
Speaker 3: livable experience for everybody.
35:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, so much of what I've you know,
35:55
Speaker 2: read from you or heard from you talk about when
35:57
Speaker 2: it comes to your kids and the outdoors, is you
36:00
Speaker 2: using these outdoor experiences as a classroom for teaching many
36:04
Speaker 2: different kinds of life lessons. Absolutely, And one of the
36:10
Speaker 2: things that I think you've approached in some of your
36:16
Speaker 2: you know, in the book Outdoor Kids, Inside World and
36:19
Speaker 2: some of the other podcasts. I've heard things you've talked
36:21
Speaker 2: about risk and the outside, hunting, fishing, whatever it might
36:27
Speaker 2: be as as an opportunity to teach kids about how
36:31
Speaker 2: to assess risk. But I'm also curious about how you,
36:35
Speaker 2: as the parent, assess risk when adventuring outside with your kids,
36:40
Speaker 2: because that's something I've started thinking a lot about too.
36:42
Speaker 2: It's like, Okay, I want to plan a backpacking trip
36:43
Speaker 2: with my boys, or I'm going to do a float
36:46
Speaker 2: trip with the boys, And how do I think about
36:48
Speaker 2: the risk of taking them on this adventure while also
36:50
Speaker 2: teaching them about how to assess risk themselves. How have
36:54
Speaker 2: you thought about that yourself with your kids and how
36:57
Speaker 2: has that evolved over time.
37:01
Speaker 3: I want to start out by answering this question by
37:04
Speaker 3: saying this, you want to know what's landed our kids
37:09
Speaker 3: in emergency rooms? Uh uh? Swing sets, scooters, legos Okay, yeah, uh.
37:23
Speaker 3: As much as it's perceived and my wife and I
37:26
Speaker 3: laugh about this, as much as it's perceived by her
37:30
Speaker 3: that we're engaged in all these dangerous activities, there's no
37:37
Speaker 3: to date, there's no evidence to back this up.
37:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, not gonna would, right.
37:43
Speaker 3: She bought, she bought the kids of swing set. Dude, wasn't.
37:47
Speaker 3: Twenty four hours later we got a broken arm. I'm
37:49
Speaker 3: not kidding you, just like that. Yeah, so so uh
38:01
Speaker 3: I am more. If you were to go and take
38:06
Speaker 3: out of the man, let's say you're gonna go randomly
38:08
Speaker 3: pull a hundred You're gonna go randomly pull a hundred
38:11
Speaker 3: parents off the street, one hundred American parents off the street,
38:18
Speaker 3: and rank us in terms of risk tolerance outdoor risk tolerance.
38:26
Speaker 3: I would probably sit with the least risk tolerant at
38:31
Speaker 3: one and the most risk tolerant at one hundred, meaning
38:37
Speaker 3: one can't go outside because you're gonna get bit by
38:40
Speaker 3: a tick or mosquitos to stand inside all day every day.
38:43
Speaker 3: One hundred being hey kids, we're gonna climb K two.
38:48
Speaker 3: I'm in the nineties, low nineties. You're up there, I'm
38:56
Speaker 3: up there. What I have? This is gonna sound I
39:03
Speaker 3: don't want to sound. I hope this doesn't sound arrogant
39:06
Speaker 3: in some way. But I just have a like for
39:12
Speaker 3: a long time, just because I was dedicated to it,
39:14
Speaker 3: and now because of just a lot of professional experience
39:18
Speaker 3: I have. I just have enjoyed in existence of having
39:22
Speaker 3: a lot of exposure to stuff. So I have developed
39:27
Speaker 3: a really good understanding of what actually matters and what
39:35
Speaker 3: doesn't actually matter. Meaning I don't think this is to
39:39
Speaker 3: take an example that people would be able to relate
39:42
Speaker 3: to Mountain lions don't matter. They don't warrant any consideration.
39:48
Speaker 3: Black bears don't matter. They don't warrant any consideration. Tics. Okay,
39:59
Speaker 3: stick cary pathogens warrant considerations. Ticks that don't carry pathogens
40:05
Speaker 3: don't really warrant considerations, right, Like, I have a really
40:09
Speaker 3: detailed sense from exposure and from being able to hang
40:13
Speaker 3: out a lot, I have a detailed sense of like
40:17
Speaker 3: what matters and what doesn't matter. Yep, being in being
40:24
Speaker 3: in small boats at certain water temperatures matters a lot
40:28
Speaker 3: more than other water temperatures. Right. So, so so someone
40:34
Speaker 3: looking might be like, oh my god, that seems like
40:37
Speaker 3: dangerous or I can't you know, And I'm like, explain
40:40
Speaker 3: how you explain why you think that? Because I, like,
40:44
Speaker 3: I don't agree. I don't agree. I don't think it's dangerous.
40:47
Speaker 3: I think that factors could be a little different and
40:50
Speaker 3: it can be real dangerous. But I don't agree that
40:52
Speaker 3: this is dangerous because you can't point to me what is.
40:56
Speaker 3: You can't point to me the high probability of something
40:59
Speaker 3: that's gonna happen.
41:04
Speaker 2: So much of it comes down to your, like you said,
41:07
Speaker 2: your level of competence and context, right, I mean if
41:11
Speaker 2: you if someone took you off the mountain in Montana
41:14
Speaker 2: and sends you, I don't know, downtown Paris or something
41:16
Speaker 2: and said, all right, teach your kids how to I
41:19
Speaker 2: don't know, ride a unicycle down this busy street. Well,
41:22
Speaker 2: that'd be pretty risky for you. But maybe there's this
41:25
Speaker 2: is a horrible example, but maybe there's a circus worker
41:27
Speaker 2: in Paris who does that every day, and he'd be like, Nope,
41:29
Speaker 2: this is easy for me. This is something I understand.
41:31
Speaker 2: This is the world I live in. And in that case,
41:34
Speaker 2: you know, it varies depending on where you come from,
41:36
Speaker 2: what your skill set is, what your competence is in
41:39
Speaker 2: that situation, and so so I understand your point.
41:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, we we hang out a lot, like we spend
41:46
Speaker 3: a lot of time in Grizzly Country, and there are
41:49
Speaker 3: times in grizzly Country. There are times when I'm on
41:55
Speaker 3: high alert. There are times when someone will be like,
41:58
Speaker 3: think that you had your guard down. Is it we're
42:01
Speaker 3: just getting up in the morning and they're coming out
42:04
Speaker 3: of their camp, out of the camp or in the
42:06
Speaker 3: early morning. That matters to me? Is it that it's
42:12
Speaker 3: the afternoon and their dog is out playing with them
42:15
Speaker 3: and we've all been out making tons of racket and
42:17
Speaker 3: the dog is like very tuned into stuff like that,
42:19
Speaker 3: and the dog has covered every square inch of ground
42:22
Speaker 3: within three hundred yards. My attitude is different because I'm
42:28
Speaker 3: just like weighing all the stuff that's going on. Also,
42:31
Speaker 3: I'm looking at like, look what kind of injury? You know.
42:36
Speaker 3: I encourage my kids to climb trees because I don't
42:39
Speaker 3: think they're gonna They're not gonna, I mean they could,
42:41
Speaker 3: They're not gonna fall out a tree and die. Probably
42:45
Speaker 3: they might fall out a tree and break your arm,
42:46
Speaker 3: but they break you. Already broke his arm out of
42:48
Speaker 3: swing set, so like, I'm not I can live with
42:53
Speaker 3: a broken arm. My kid had lime disease. I couldn't
42:59
Speaker 3: live with that. That was hard. That caused a lot
43:03
Speaker 3: of guilt, and it caused a lot of concern for
43:06
Speaker 3: his well being, and it was some of the worst
43:09
Speaker 3: weeks of my life. Okay, So I just have a
43:16
Speaker 3: I feel that it's important for people to develop a calibrated,
43:22
Speaker 3: a finely calibrated sense of risk. I talk a lot
43:26
Speaker 3: about this in Outdoor Kids in an inside world is
43:29
Speaker 3: just getting educated enough to understand what matters and what
43:32
Speaker 3: doesn't matter.
43:34
Speaker 2: So, speaking of some of these things in Outdoor Kids
43:37
Speaker 2: and inside world, there's another, I guess another one of
43:41
Speaker 2: these lessons that stood out to me, and this you
43:45
Speaker 2: wrote about kind of this relationship to nature that we
43:49
Speaker 2: are trying to help foster with our children, and that
43:52
Speaker 2: can come from hunting or fishing or many different things.
43:55
Speaker 2: But you talked about this really interesting concept of looking
43:58
Speaker 2: down at nature versus looking up at nature, and it
44:02
Speaker 2: seemed to me that that your belief is that we
44:05
Speaker 2: ought to try to help our children understand to live
44:07
Speaker 2: somewhere in between. Can you can you span on that?
44:10
Speaker 2: Can you explain what you mean by that and why
44:13
Speaker 2: that matters as we are trying to introduce our kids
44:16
Speaker 2: to these things.
44:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, looking down at nature, I talk about looking down
44:23
Speaker 3: at it, looking up at it, and be an eye level.
44:26
Speaker 3: Looking down at nature is very easy to explain it's
44:28
Speaker 3: it's the idea that everything's gross and dangerous. Okay, you
44:33
Speaker 3: are in outside of something like maybe like some kind
44:38
Speaker 3: of like a cute iraq and aphobia or things like that.
44:43
Speaker 3: You're in the driver's seat on whether your kids think
44:46
Speaker 3: that everything's gross and dangerous, they're just they're absorbing it
44:51
Speaker 3: from you. There's individual personality at play, but by and large,
44:58
Speaker 3: your kids if you think nature is gross and and
45:00
Speaker 3: they're gonna absorb that, you don't need to even say it.
45:04
Speaker 3: Your body landlang, which tells them being dirty is bad.
45:09
Speaker 3: Looking up at nature is something much more modern. The
45:12
Speaker 3: peril of looking down at nature is that you disregard
45:15
Speaker 3: it and disrespect it, and would just as soon do
45:17
Speaker 3: away with it. I'm thinking of a common practice where
45:22
Speaker 3: I grew up, of going down to the beach and
45:25
Speaker 3: buying a bunch of sand, trucking a bunch of sand,
45:27
Speaker 3: and taking around up and killing off every bit of
45:30
Speaker 3: vegetation along the beach, dumping a bunch of sand down,
45:33
Speaker 3: and then knowing you've vanquished everything slimy or crawley, you
45:38
Speaker 3: can finally sit down in your chair and enjoy your day. Right,
45:40
Speaker 3: It's like looking down at it, looking up at it,
45:43
Speaker 3: like I said, is newer. And this is this idea
45:46
Speaker 3: that nature is so pure and pristine that human presence
45:50
Speaker 3: spoils it. That you know, I live not far from
45:56
Speaker 3: Yellowstone Park. Could be that you'd go to Yellowstone and
45:59
Speaker 3: anything beyond looking out your window is spoiling the landscape.
46:03
Speaker 4: Humans are bad. Were the ones that are gross, Were
46:07
Speaker 4: the ones that are dirty? Were the ones that foul everything?
46:12
Speaker 4: And it can create a where nature has an otherness
46:15
Speaker 4: and it lacks relevance in one's life. Where you imagine
46:20
Speaker 4: there's nature that sits separately from human existence and that
46:26
Speaker 4: the two are incompatible, and that creates a sensibility that
46:32
Speaker 4: that in and around us, in our living spaces and
46:34
Speaker 4: our yards and things, that we're not regarding these as a.
46:38
Speaker 3: Compromise between us and nature. I would much rather have
46:43
Speaker 3: my kids understand that there is a way to engage
46:48
Speaker 3: explit like, explicitly engage with nature in a hands on
46:51
Speaker 3: way that is productive for them and is productive for
46:56
Speaker 3: the natural world, because any other perspective is ridiculous. In
47:02
Speaker 3: this world today, there is no putting the genie back
47:06
Speaker 3: into the bottle. This is a human We live in
47:11
Speaker 3: a human engineered human manipulated ecosystem We live in human engineered,
47:17
Speaker 3: human manipulated ecosystems. There is no having a world in
47:21
Speaker 3: which nature sits outside of us. Most landscapes that we
47:27
Speaker 3: live on are already massively impacted by humans. It will
47:34
Speaker 3: take it's human impact that will restore them and make
47:39
Speaker 3: them better. In our yard, in our yard, in the
47:43
Speaker 3: areas around our yard. It's like improvements to nature inviting nature.
47:51
Speaker 3: Interactions come from hand on, hands on involvement. Yeah, And
47:58
Speaker 3: so I want them to under stand that their actions
48:02
Speaker 3: have impact. Right that you can make a brush pile,
48:08
Speaker 3: And we did this last fall. I was like, I
48:10
Speaker 3: bet you if we made a brush power right here,
48:12
Speaker 3: rabbits can move in and live in this brush pile.
48:13
Speaker 3: We made a brush pile. A rabbit moved in and
48:16
Speaker 3: lived in that brush pile.
48:17
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
48:20
Speaker 3: They couldn't believe it. They ate all all the sticks
48:23
Speaker 3: we put ate, all the bark all year off the
48:25
Speaker 3: sticks we put down in there. And and that is
48:29
Speaker 3: hands on relationship to nature, right, Like they have power
48:34
Speaker 3: to do good and they have power to do bad.
48:38
Speaker 3: And that I think is like trying to demonstrate that
48:41
Speaker 3: like nature at eye level.
48:56
Speaker 2: So kind of taking that next step. You you also
48:58
Speaker 2: talk about the idea of thinking native and helping your
49:00
Speaker 2: kids understand that, as you just said, that we are
49:02
Speaker 2: a part of this natural world, not outside of it,
49:06
Speaker 2: and the next step. In my mind, a lot of
49:09
Speaker 2: times when I'm thinking about out there doing stuff with
49:11
Speaker 2: my kids, right shoot a buck and the kids come
49:14
Speaker 2: help me track it down and they're seeing it, I
49:17
Speaker 2: constantly am thinking about how do I, or should I,
49:20
Speaker 2: or when should I be connecting the dots between just
49:23
Speaker 2: the hunting or fishing activity and then the conservation context.
49:30
Speaker 2: You know, when I grew up, When I grew up,
49:32
Speaker 2: I just did the things. We just did it. We hunted,
49:34
Speaker 2: we fished. I was taught to love it, I was
49:37
Speaker 2: taught to respect it. But I never once heard about
49:41
Speaker 2: public land or how we got it. I never once
49:44
Speaker 2: heard about the Pittman Robertson that. I never once heard
49:46
Speaker 2: about the fact that we need to advocate for these things.
49:49
Speaker 2: That wasn't something I learned about till I was an adult.
49:51
Speaker 2: And so I wonder, now, you know, when should I
49:54
Speaker 2: start introducing those things, or if I do it too early,
49:57
Speaker 2: am I going to overwhelm them or stamp out the
49:59
Speaker 2: fun of it because I'm trying to teach too much.
50:02
Speaker 2: How have you thought about that, Steve, as far as
50:05
Speaker 2: taking that next step and understanding how we have these
50:07
Speaker 2: things and how we keep them around.
50:11
Speaker 3: I was brought up the same way. Uh we lived
50:14
Speaker 3: by and uh we live by and use the national
50:17
Speaker 3: forest that that that you ask anybody that lived in
50:20
Speaker 3: that area, the best explanation they could give you is
50:24
Speaker 3: that it fell from the sky. I was raised hunting ducks.
50:28
Speaker 3: I was never told that ducks were nearly wiped out.
50:33
Speaker 3: I was raised hunting deer. I was never told the
50:35
Speaker 3: stories about when you couldn't find a deer track in
50:37
Speaker 3: that area. Uh. I don't know why. There's they're extremely important.
50:46
Speaker 3: I think that that stuff that's where. That's where the
50:51
Speaker 3: dinner table, that's where being in the car driving down
50:53
Speaker 3: the road. That's where the books that you leave out
50:56
Speaker 3: for them, the books you read for them at night,
51:00
Speaker 3: that's where that stuff plays in. It plays out in
51:02
Speaker 3: the field too, But that's just baked into everyday life.
51:08
Speaker 3: My kids are not gonna remember, like they probably still
51:09
Speaker 3: couldn't tell it to you since the day they've been born.
51:12
Speaker 3: I don't care where we're at and we've lived in
51:14
Speaker 3: a handful of places. I always will say, if you
51:18
Speaker 3: pour a cup of water out in your yard, you
51:22
Speaker 3: take a leak in the yard, here's the path by
51:26
Speaker 3: which that water would go to the ocean. Right, it
51:30
Speaker 3: would go into like this creek, and it would flow
51:34
Speaker 3: into that creek, and it'd flow into that river, and
51:36
Speaker 3: that river had flown into that river, and that river
51:38
Speaker 3: would pick that river up and that's where that would
51:40
Speaker 3: wind up. And we were one time on vacation, right,
51:44
Speaker 3: Like I'm always pounding that stuff into them, but I
51:49
Speaker 3: just it's it's it's infused everywhere. It's like I and
51:53
Speaker 3: I talked about well with our activity book Catch a Crayfish,
51:56
Speaker 3: Count Stars, the one of that that's coming out as soon.
51:58
Speaker 3: It's meant like more four kids. It's not about kids,
52:01
Speaker 3: but it's four kids. We have a lot of stuff
52:03
Speaker 3: about in the home, right and how to like bring
52:06
Speaker 3: nature in the home. I talk about the same thing
52:08
Speaker 3: and outdoor kids in an inside the world is this
52:11
Speaker 3: how do you create a home environment where these kind
52:13
Speaker 3: of things are.
52:15
Speaker 4: Are are are part of.
52:16
Speaker 3: It, And it's the books you read, the conversations you have.
52:23
Speaker 3: One of the beauties of hunting and fishing for your food.
52:26
Speaker 3: Is that that's what we eat. We eat wild game
52:28
Speaker 3: at our house when we're at home. You know, we
52:30
Speaker 3: go to restaurants, right and don't. But when we're home,
52:32
Speaker 3: we're really strict about it. And when we're eating something,
52:35
Speaker 3: we're talking about it, right, We're not, we're not. We're
52:39
Speaker 3: probably not talking about how you get it. We're not
52:42
Speaker 3: talking about how you get a deer. We're probably talking
52:45
Speaker 3: about deer, the history of deer, yea, how people utilize
52:50
Speaker 3: deer historically, just all those narratives, right, And it's and
52:56
Speaker 3: again it's it's it's the stuff I like to learn about,
52:59
Speaker 3: and it's the stuff I like to talk about it.
53:01
Speaker 4: But they're they're all of their world is framed to
53:06
Speaker 4: include all of that information, all of the context. I
53:14
Speaker 4: didn't start personally finding out about this stuff untils in
53:16
Speaker 4: my twenties.
53:21
Speaker 3: I'm not making that mistake of my kids. And I
53:23
Speaker 3: don't want to say my dad made a mistake. This
53:25
Speaker 3: wasn't on his radar. But conservation history and natural history
53:31
Speaker 3: and that the moon does this and the sun does that,
53:35
Speaker 3: that's just baked in. That's every day. Yeah, a little
53:37
Speaker 3: snippet every day.
53:39
Speaker 2: Yep, So you mentioned Ketch a Crayfish new book coming
53:43
Speaker 2: out June thirteenth. You mentioned it's it's four kids, not
53:47
Speaker 2: about kids, But can you elaborate a little bit, you know,
53:50
Speaker 2: why this book?
53:51
Speaker 3: Now?
53:52
Speaker 2: Why did you decide that this was the next thing?
53:55
Speaker 2: And what age do you feel like this is kind
53:57
Speaker 2: of geared towards what do you hope comes out of someone,
54:01
Speaker 2: some kids, some boy or girl getting this book for
54:03
Speaker 2: their birthday and opening up the pages.
54:10
Speaker 4: We started to conceive of it.
54:15
Speaker 3: We started to conceive of the kids Activity book while
54:18
Speaker 3: I was working on Outdoor Kids in the Inside World,
54:22
Speaker 3: where Outdoor Kids in the Inside World was sort of
54:24
Speaker 3: like a parent you know, it's me. It's it's largely essayistic,
54:29
Speaker 3: but it's structured around themes about experiences and experiences and
54:36
Speaker 3: advice and other things about how to get your kids outdoors.
54:41
Speaker 3: And the book is also like a sympathetic ear to
54:44
Speaker 3: the struggles that people encounter how to overcome those struggles.
54:49
Speaker 3: While we're doing it, we thought like it would be
54:51
Speaker 3: really cool to do a book that made.
54:55
Speaker 4: Some of those same learnings real meaning.
54:57
Speaker 3: And Outdoor Kids and Inside World there's a chat after
55:00
Speaker 3: on how to approach having a garden and catch a
55:04
Speaker 3: carry fish, count stars, which is the So let's let's
55:07
Speaker 3: imagine it as the kid's hands on version of this.
55:09
Speaker 4: There's a lot of projects around gardening, okay.
55:16
Speaker 3: The the Kid's Activity Book. I think that if you know,
55:21
Speaker 3: someone might look at that book and think that it
55:24
Speaker 3: was seemed to have a lot of like, uh, seemed
55:28
Speaker 3: to have a lot of different kind of weapons and
55:31
Speaker 3: dangerous stuff in it, you know, and it really does,
55:33
Speaker 3: like how to make a bow, how to make a
55:35
Speaker 3: blow gun, how to how to sneak up on stuff
55:39
Speaker 3: and build blinds and and all this kind of stuff.
55:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, my five year old picked up on that blowgun
55:44
Speaker 2: picture real quick. Oh he saw that immediately said we
55:50
Speaker 2: need to make one of those dead.
55:52
Speaker 3: Oh. Yeah, and I learned that, I say, I think
55:55
Speaker 3: I mentioned in there that I learned later or while working,
55:58
Speaker 3: uh that there's states where it's actually illegal to make
56:03
Speaker 3: a book, and they don't define it very clearly either.
56:08
Speaker 3: So it's funny, but.
56:10
Speaker 4: Uh, it's like.
56:13
Speaker 3: It's hands on stuff that you need to dig in
56:17
Speaker 3: and you need to get into it and find out
56:19
Speaker 3: what your kids are going to need help with and
56:21
Speaker 3: what your kids are going to be able to safely
56:24
Speaker 3: do on their own. But it's it's meant for projects
56:30
Speaker 3: that are going to increase competency, build risk assessment capabilities, dexterity,
56:42
Speaker 3: environmental awareness. Okay, so things around basics, around celestial navigation,
56:51
Speaker 3: basics around little survival skills that are built into projects
56:56
Speaker 3: kids can do, based around uh, outdoor ingenuity. Okay. So
57:05
Speaker 3: it's like when I looked at it, I was looking
57:08
Speaker 3: at if you let's say you're someone like you and me, Mark,
57:12
Speaker 3: and you know that you're going to put a high
57:15
Speaker 3: priority on being outdoors with your kids. It's a lot
57:20
Speaker 3: of the stuff that that you want to get around,
57:24
Speaker 3: you want to get around to teaching them and they'd
57:26
Speaker 3: be great if they knew, and it puts in the
57:28
Speaker 3: way that they can just tackle it and do a
57:30
Speaker 3: thing a day, a thing a week, spend their summer
57:32
Speaker 3: working on it. Some of it's and all of it's
57:36
Speaker 3: like pretty rewarding and pretty fun. And there's those things
57:41
Speaker 3: in there like, uh, you know, there's there's tool use
57:44
Speaker 3: where you're gonna need to get involved. There's things where
57:46
Speaker 3: you you know, a machete or a hatchet would be helpful,
57:50
Speaker 3: or you're gonna need your parents to help you drill
57:51
Speaker 3: some holes and stuff, or you're going to make a
57:53
Speaker 3: blowgun and need to set up a target and talk
57:55
Speaker 3: real seriously about what that blowgun should be used for
57:58
Speaker 3: not used for, And and and also understanding like issues
58:04
Speaker 3: around risk assessment, understanding how to like produce your own food,
58:08
Speaker 3: how to produce food and cook something for your for
58:12
Speaker 3: your siblings and your parent. Right so sell things that
58:16
Speaker 3: generate self sufficiency, situational awareness, outdoor expertise.
58:22
Speaker 4: And even though you might look and be like, oh, it.
58:25
Speaker 3: Seems that some of this stuff is dangerous, I would
58:28
Speaker 3: look at it too like a lot of this stuff
58:29
Speaker 3: drives ultimately safety because it creates expertise and a skill
58:36
Speaker 3: set where you're learning with guidance how to do stuff right,
58:43
Speaker 3: how to whittle, how to drill holes, how to be
58:45
Speaker 3: around a campfire, so that in a supervised sense, a
58:49
Speaker 3: kid can pick up some good know how. And then
58:53
Speaker 3: if you see, like if I do, if I tell
58:55
Speaker 3: my kids to go out and make a fire in
58:57
Speaker 3: the fire pit at all of their ages, I know
59:03
Speaker 3: that they can go out and do that mat and
59:07
Speaker 3: they know the rules, because at some point they're gonna
59:10
Speaker 3: want to do it, and you could have taken that
59:12
Speaker 3: chance when they were young to teach them like how
59:14
Speaker 3: to do it?
59:15
Speaker 4: What are the risks? How do you mitigate for those risks?
59:17
Speaker 4: How do you do it properly?
59:19
Speaker 3: Or you just leave it hanging h right until they're
59:22
Speaker 3: all enough to be out on their own doing stupid stuff.
59:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I think I think it makes a lot
59:27
Speaker 2: of sense getting mad. I've always thought, with so many things,
59:30
Speaker 2: the earlier the better to establish those foundations and to
59:34
Speaker 2: get that experience, and to build up to the point
59:36
Speaker 2: where they can you know, I'd much rather than figure
59:38
Speaker 2: this stuff out now while I'm here with them than
59:41
Speaker 2: when they're sixteen on their own with their buddies. Another thing,
59:46
Speaker 2: another thing I noticed when I was just looking through
59:48
Speaker 2: the book and looking through it with my kids was
59:51
Speaker 2: just how many things as as as someone whose life
59:55
Speaker 2: is outside right, I mean, we're constantly doing these outdoor things.
59:58
Speaker 2: There's so many different little projects that I just take
1:00:02
Speaker 2: for granted now that I just never even think about.
1:00:05
Speaker 2: But actually, if I were to take the time and
1:00:08
Speaker 2: slow down and talk about this with one of my sons,
1:00:11
Speaker 2: there would be real value, Like walking in a straight
1:00:13
Speaker 2: line through the woods, like something as simple as that
1:00:16
Speaker 2: we just do all the time. But actually, you know,
1:00:19
Speaker 2: calling out in the book here like you did, and
1:00:21
Speaker 2: talking about well, how do you do that? How do
1:00:22
Speaker 2: you use landmarks? How do you navigate? You know, there's
1:00:25
Speaker 2: there's real value in or just little things that you know.
1:00:29
Speaker 2: One of the things we did just the other day
1:00:31
Speaker 2: after taking a look of the book, was we found
1:00:33
Speaker 2: an alpellet and dissected it and it was just a
1:00:36
Speaker 2: great reminder like, oh yeah, these things are sitting around
1:00:38
Speaker 2: and they are pretty darn cool if you take some time,
1:00:40
Speaker 2: oh yeah, to do it with your cast and so
1:00:43
Speaker 2: and so. Yeah, me and the two boys, the three
1:00:45
Speaker 2: year old in the five are were picking apart regurgitated
1:00:48
Speaker 2: mouse and had a blast with it.
1:00:52
Speaker 3: You know, my kids every year spent a couple few
1:00:55
Speaker 3: days my friend dog at his farm.
1:00:58
Speaker 5: And dog likes to say that's life and death on
1:01:02
Speaker 5: the fire, you know, I think the looking at owl palaces,
1:01:07
Speaker 5: like that's life and death in the woods.
1:01:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good lesson to learn. So, uh, do
1:01:12
Speaker 2: do you or your kids have a favorite from the book?
1:01:16
Speaker 2: Favorite activity? Is there anything that stands out to you
1:01:18
Speaker 2: or that your that your family has particularly enjoyed you
1:01:21
Speaker 2: can think of.
1:01:23
Speaker 6: Man, Yeah, they like, uh, they like it's so funny.
1:01:34
Speaker 3: Man. They like anything involves fire, like stuff with projectiles.
1:01:42
Speaker 2: Yes, I guess that's pretty coming.
1:01:45
Speaker 4: Pretty you know, it's pretty understandable.
1:01:47
Speaker 3: Area where the day they're gonna run toward that. Right,
1:01:52
Speaker 3: anything on fire in their mind is like good, So
1:01:57
Speaker 3: that needs to be directed, harness educated, you know, projectile.
1:02:05
Speaker 3: Same way. And area where they really like the results
1:02:09
Speaker 3: but they just don't connect the labor with the results
1:02:12
Speaker 3: is gardening. They love planting seeds, they love picking stuff.
1:02:21
Speaker 3: All the stuff in the middle is without you leaning
1:02:25
Speaker 3: on them heavy, it's just you're not gonna get it
1:02:27
Speaker 3: out of them. And I think that helping them understand
1:02:31
Speaker 3: that that middle stuff is real important to the later
1:02:33
Speaker 3: stuff is great. One of the best things I st
1:02:37
Speaker 3: of growing was I tailored my garden to what's gonna
1:02:41
Speaker 3: catch their eye.
1:02:42
Speaker 4: Carrots and strawberries.
1:02:44
Speaker 3: Man, right, they can't.
1:02:46
Speaker 4: They don't stay away.
1:02:47
Speaker 3: From either of them. They're always out there messing around.
1:02:51
Speaker 3: And they like the fruits of the labor, but they
1:02:53
Speaker 3: they dislike the labor. But if I say, hey, go
1:02:58
Speaker 3: out and build a fire, you know we're gonna go
1:02:59
Speaker 3: out sit by the fire. Gonna make a fire, dude,
1:03:01
Speaker 3: They're going to fight over it. So, uh, it's just little.
1:03:10
Speaker 3: It's a little you know, looking at what they love
1:03:13
Speaker 3: and helping them figure out and help them learn how
1:03:15
Speaker 3: to do it right. And then and then some coersion
1:03:18
Speaker 3: on other stuff, and and and and and understanding that
1:03:21
Speaker 3: processes are long. Sometimes processes are long, and you got
1:03:27
Speaker 3: to stay you gotta stay with it. One of the
1:03:29
Speaker 3: projects we have is just how to start measuring rainfall. Right,
1:03:33
Speaker 3: you do the project is pretty quick, but then you
1:03:35
Speaker 3: know what you gotta do, wait for the rain. It's
1:03:41
Speaker 3: like a thing. Right, They're like, okay, You're like, well, ain.
1:03:44
Speaker 4: And rain for a week, stay tuned.
1:03:48
Speaker 2: A lot a lot of important lessons there. There's a
1:03:51
Speaker 2: lot of good stuff in both of these books, Steve,
1:03:53
Speaker 2: but uh the Catch a cray Fish in particular, my
1:03:55
Speaker 2: son Everett, who's five now, when I told him this
1:03:58
Speaker 2: was a kid's book, and he said, you, I mean
1:04:00
Speaker 2: Steve wrote this for me? Well, and I said, well,
1:04:02
Speaker 2: I guess. So he's obsessive that he just likes to
1:04:06
Speaker 2: page through it now and look at the pictures and say,
1:04:07
Speaker 2: can we do this one?
1:04:08
Speaker 3: Now?
1:04:08
Speaker 2: Can we do this one?
1:04:09
Speaker 3: So? So good. There's a lot of there's a lot
1:04:13
Speaker 3: of good fun stuff in there, and they call you
1:04:15
Speaker 3: asked about age.
1:04:16
Speaker 4: You know, the way it works, the books that you
1:04:18
Speaker 4: have to kind of like picking you know, I.
1:04:19
Speaker 3: Can't remember, you know that the way they's there's a
1:04:24
Speaker 3: whole system to it. But I think our recommendation is
1:04:28
Speaker 3: I think it was the one up being eight and up.
1:04:31
Speaker 3: I think at you know, at fifteen sixteen, you're probably
1:04:35
Speaker 3: getting a bit for the book. I think that at
1:04:38
Speaker 3: eight you a lot of kids have been ready, are
1:04:41
Speaker 3: already ready for it. At eight, I imagine the real
1:04:46
Speaker 3: you know, ten even twelve being just you know, nine, ten, eleven,
1:04:50
Speaker 3: twelve being great, great years for just most kids. I
1:04:55
Speaker 3: think in that in that handful of years is when
1:04:57
Speaker 3: it would be most applicable. But there's enough in there
1:05:00
Speaker 3: where you can really shop around in there, right.
1:05:02
Speaker 2: Sure makes for great I mean for the younger kids too,
1:05:06
Speaker 2: Like with my three and five year old, even just
1:05:08
Speaker 2: it's an opportunity for me to read them something interesting
1:05:10
Speaker 2: I can pick and shoes in there. You've got some
1:05:12
Speaker 2: great little sidebars talking about different conservationists or impactful people.
1:05:19
Speaker 2: So I think there's some cool little bedtime story opportunities
1:05:22
Speaker 2: and then a teaching activity that you know I can
1:05:25
Speaker 2: guide as a parent. So I've enjoyed that so far too.
1:05:27
Speaker 2: And man, it's good stuff, Steve. I appreciate it. And
1:05:31
Speaker 2: I know you got to run, So I just want
1:05:33
Speaker 2: to thank you for carving out the time to talk
1:05:36
Speaker 2: about this stuff.
1:05:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm manning slot Mark. I really appreciate it.
1:05:40
Speaker 2: This is gonna be a book I'm sure will be
1:05:43
Speaker 2: following me around for many years to come as my
1:05:45
Speaker 2: boys continue to work their way through it. All right,
1:05:47
Speaker 2: And that is a wrap. Thank you for tuning in,
1:05:50
Speaker 2: Thanks for being with me this whole month, as we
1:05:52
Speaker 2: have taken kind of a left turn off of the
1:05:55
Speaker 2: usual path of talking deer hunting, and instead we have
1:05:59
Speaker 2: maybe zoom out to some of these bigger picture topics
1:06:02
Speaker 2: that a lot of us are experiencing. Maybe we experienced
1:06:04
Speaker 2: them in the past, maybe we're in the throes of
1:06:07
Speaker 2: it right now, living the parenting life every single day,
1:06:10
Speaker 2: or maybe you are listening and contemplating do I want kids?
1:06:14
Speaker 2: Is this something I can do? I hope to each
1:06:16
Speaker 2: and every one of you in any one of those phases,
1:06:18
Speaker 2: I hope there's been something here useful, beneficial, beneficial, insightful
1:06:24
Speaker 2: and enjoyable. So thanks for being on this ride with me,
1:06:27
Speaker 2: thank you for being a part of this community, and
1:06:30
Speaker 2: until next time, stay wired to Hunt.