Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Motherhood, Joy, and the Preschool Debate

Transcript

Motherhood, Joy, and the Preschool Debate · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  And by the way, we are definitely wading into more controversial waters. I'm always trying to understand how to make our community really think deeply and not just go about thinking about family the way the culture assumes. And so I think people are surprised sometimes we have a counterintuitive take on things. Please get used to that. There's something desperately wrong with the way that our culture is doing family and
• 0:27
  Hi, welcome to the Family Teams podcast. Our goal here is to help your family become a multi-generational team on mission by providing you with biblically rooted concepts, tools, and rhythms. Your hosts are Jeremy Pryor and Jefferson Bethke, and we can't wait to chat about all things family.
• 0:47
  Hey everybody, welcome back to the Family Team's podcast, motherhood edition. We have today, of course, my lovely wife, April, who is in a very unusual spot. Are those audio books behind you, April? Where are you at? They are, yes. I'm in the audio book section of the library.
• 1:04
  Okay. That must be like the most archaic, like those, those like CDs or. Yeah, they are. I remember I used to live in the audio section of the library. That was like my favorite section. I had the entire thing memorized. One of the places we lived because I, every time I walked, I was in, then of course, audible came out and I never looked back. Of course there is Libby. You guys know about Libby? It's like the, uh,
• 1:30
  I guess you can download books for free from the library as audio. Anyway. So, but there still is an audio, you know, a hundred years from now, that'll probably still be there. CDs. It'll be like a relic. Um, yeah. Awesome. So we're celebrating Kyra's birthday today. So April is on the other side of town. Um, and was the mom who brought the brownies and the pizza to the classroom, the little homeschool club that Kyra goes to. So she turned 16, which is ridiculous. Um,
• 2:00
  Our baby. What is going on with our family? And so we're also joined by Miranda and Annalisa today. Now, Miranda lives across the street from us. And she actually, along with her family, I guess, serenaded Kyra this morning when she was coming out of the house for...
• 2:22
  Could you imagine having a neighbor who they just all serenade your child in the early morning hours on their way to school? Because everybody, of course, knows it's Kyra's birthday today. So Miranda, that's awesome. Yeah. World's best neighbors ever. So we love getting to hang out with Leiden Miranda. Leiden, Miranda's husband is also part of Integrated. And so we got to hang out with them in Colorado, not just on Bluegrass Avenue. So...
• 2:48
  Yeah, and you can see there's a banjo back there because Leiden plays the banjo on Bluegrass Avenue, which is awesome.
• 2:55
  And then we're joined by Annalisa from the great state of Georgia. Yeah. Still in Savannah. Chilling there. So Annalisa, some of you guys might know Annalisa. She actually helps us with operations at family teams. Has for a long time. And she is just a newly minted publisher of a book called, let's see if I can grab this title again. Just came out. You are because he is. Congratulations, Annalisa. Woohoo! Woohoo!
• 3:25
  Absolutely awesome. Man, so it's about all things motherhood. And I actually wrote a little, some thoughts about motherhood this week, a week or so ago, that I thought were really profound and wanted her to,
• 3:40
  read and then we can unpack those together as the beginning of our podcast here today. So I'm super excited to do that. So Annalisa, yeah, I'd love for you to take it away. What are, if you could read this to us, you can give it any context you want and then we will dive in. Yeah, I'll go ahead and I'll just read it straight as is. But I was having a conversation at the hair salon of all places and this is what came of it.
• 4:06
  Absolutely.
• 4:28
  The normal response is not that. The expected response is chaotic or crazy or exhausting. And while at some point that all may be true, the reality is that mothering these four girls is one of the greatest joys of my life. What I said to her was true. I meant it.
• 4:46
  Regardless of the hard in here and now, does not compare to the joy that is experienced. It's why kingdom mindset is needed in motherhood. I have vision for the here and now in the context of the greater vision. That matters. It allows for joy in the midst of struggle, in the midst of hard.
• 5:03
  Motherhood is hard. Sometimes we're tired. Sometimes we feel things getting out of control. But I am not the victim of something that brings me great joy. I'm not a victim to these beautiful gifts, no matter how difficult it may be at times. At the end of my days, when all else begins to fade, the gift of motherhood will still be one of the greatest joys of my life here on earth.
• 5:23
  It will still be one of the things that I've seen Jesus come alive, show up continuously. It will always be, above all, a gift beyond measure. And as long as the Lord has me here, I'll treasure his sweet gift to me.
• 5:36
  Maybe today you need the reminder that the gifts you have and get to experience are gifts. But despite how hard it may be at times, it is ultimately meant to bring greater joy in the bigger picture. Maybe placing it back in the perspective of a bigger vision is needed. There's joy to be had here in the midst of it all. Thanks be to God. Amazing. I love that. Yeah. I'm curious, April, how did that strike you?
• 6:01
  So good. Well, let me like dry my eyes first. I feel like it's so powerful when you give an unexpected answer to someone. Everything from like the grocery store person to the – that says like, are these all yours? Or the hair salon person who says, so what's that like? Yeah.
• 6:21
  And when they're kind of assuming a different response and then you give that to them, like, what a – I feel like it could be a breath of fresh air to them or like a light just got turned on or something that is – when you receive an unexpected response like that. So I feel like it's very encouraging to the world to have a mom who –
• 6:50
  you know, enjoys her life. I think that something when I reflect on when our kids were younger and that time of life, I feel like this is something the Lord's really been like putting a spotlight on for me. That desire to...
• 7:09
  say the negative things. Like sometimes I wanted, I would find myself wanting to be like, oh, I had to do this and then I had to do that. Today was like this and that and then I got this done and then, and there was just this need to kind of justify myself or a desire to like, for someone to pat me on the back for the hard, like how many poopy diapers I changed that day or the hard things I had done. And it's, it's like, if I didn't get that, then
• 7:39
  It felt, I don't know, I felt like a martyr or, you know, I really struggled with that martyr feeling of like, oh, well, someone has to do it, you know.
• 7:50
  And I hope I fought back on that a lot, but I know that in my flesh that's kind of where I go to first is like I want the attention for the hard parts of it or the – I want someone to – wow, that sounds so hard or so amazing. And wow, you're so great that you did that thing.
• 8:10
  Which is obviously like not great. It doesn't highlight Jesus at all and is just like really feeds my flesh, you know, at the end of the day. And so I think the more I've come to embrace the gospel and believe that it's true for my own heart, it's allowed me to have that perspective of motherhood where it's like no one needs to know.
• 8:35
  You know, I don't need to give the tally. I don't need to say how hard. I don't need to. It's just this. It just is. And I was reading a passage this morning with a little Bible study group of mine. And the passage was in Luke 8. And I'm trying to, Miranda, help me. It was like talking about what needs to be remembered will be or something like that. Oh, you just want me to look it up? Yeah, that'd be great.
• 9:04
  But the idea that, like, God has perspective on time and he knows what, like, really matters and what needs to be remembered. And just trusting him and releasing those, like, things that I feel like I want to tally up in motherhood. I cooked this many meals. I cleaned this hard. I trained this many people how to drive. You know, the things I want to, like…
• 9:28
  impress myself or someone else with, just letting the Lord have those things and being able to honestly, truly say when someone says something like, wow, what's that like? I think it's okay to say it's hard at times, but like being able to mostly let my joy come through.
• 9:46
  Did you find that verse, Miranda? The one we read this morning? Yeah. Yeah. Just Luke 8, 16 through 18? Yeah, I think it was the 17, maybe. Verse 17, "...for there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open."
• 10:07
  Yeah. So it kind of gives you this idea, like in motherhood, there's so many hidden things that just happen behind closed doors because that's our life. And just to trust the Lord with those things coming, if they need to come to light, they will, and in his time. Yeah. Annalisa, how's that tracking you?
• 10:24
  It reminds me, because our oldest is 10, so there's only so much vision I have, right, like in the future. But there's a lot of mothers with kids, like younger kids our age, that do the immediate response is the flesh. Like, I do want...
• 10:41
  the reward. I want to be told that it's hard and it's difficult and it's okay to whine. You know, I want to be told, like my flesh wants to be told that. And then someone who's been through it comes in and says that phrase, you're going to miss this. And usually that's kind of, that's typically brings a response of like frustration or anger. Like I'm not going to miss it right now, you know, but yeah.
• 11:05
  I, I look at that and I'm like, I think they're trying to tell us something that maybe we don't see right now. And it directly fights that flash response that we want to do in the immediate that we want to, we want to say like, I deserve to whine right now. And it can be hard, but I also don't have to complain and whine about it. Very good. Miranda, how about you? What did, what starts you in that?
• 11:31
  So one of the things that we've added to Shabbat is singing Proverbs 31 over me. Me. And it kind of fills that spot in my heart of like...
• 11:50
  you know, please, please look at all the work I've done, but in like a positive way, in like a way that my little toddlers stop and they say, you're blessed, mommy, and they stand up. And it's, I think that's like the...
• 12:09
  God's little blessing of filling that space in a right way of like, yes, it is hard work. We acknowledged it. Head into rest after Shabbat and gear back up.
• 12:23
  to do that work, that good and faithful work again. Um, but that's something that I think it really helps my heart. Um, because it is to motherhoods 24 seven, there's not, it's not a nine to five. Um, and instead of complaining about it, being honored in it is really helpful.
• 12:50
  The Family Plan Calendar is the new way to keep your family team organized. Plan your rhythms, menu, household chores, and notes for the family all in one place. Visit FamilyTeams.com to purchase. That's so awesome.
• 13:12
  Yeah, I love in Jewish households, no mother is ever more than six days away from having a celebration ceremony around all of her effort for that week. It's like that's going to be declared over her by her husband with her children. If you think about the whole way that when you go to work, there's this constant...
• 13:31
  feedback, positive reinforcement, you're getting a paycheck every two weeks. People are like, wow, that was amazing what you did. And so more than ever, I think people have learned the power of encouragement and positive reinforcement. And even when I was like studying, when I was CEO and we were studying a lot of HR tactics, they would say,
• 13:50
  you know, people actually don't care as much about what they're paid. If you just give them lots and lots and lots of, you know, prizes and like promotions and titles and, and, and you say nice things and like you have a whole culture, like, you know, people really want that more than anything else. They want recognition, you know, and we do, we live on encouragement. We
• 14:10
  You know, of course, you don't want to do that in any kind of exploitative way, but it's really unfortunate. Like your point, Miranda, that moms, there's not, this needs to be rhythmic. And I think that's so wise to have rhythms of praise for the mother in the home. That's beautiful. But one is, I'm curious, Annalisa, so in your essay, you know, you kind of were weaving together, it felt like.
• 14:36
  two or three different perspectives to cause you to be able to say, oh, it's wonderful. I love it. There was sort of like the immediate reality of this is turning me more into a follower of Jesus. You know, the challenges are blessings because of what they're doing moment to moment, even the hard moments.
• 14:56
  And then there's you enjoy your kids. Like you kind of talked about that. You're like, I really like these. I really like my daughters. Like they're awesome. And then you kind of made reference multiple times to this bigger picture, right? This thing that you're building. And I was just listening to somebody say recently, you know,
• 15:12
  You know, hey, imagine if you told somebody there is going to be this kind of annoying, monotonous 40 hour week job. You're not going to get anything out of it. It's going to be boring. And at the end of the year, we're going to pay you twenty thousand dollars. And you told the exact person the exact same thing. So at the end of the year, you're going to be paid twenty million dollars.
• 15:32
  If somebody walked up to the guy who's not making very much for the tedious job they're doing and saying, wow, what's it like doing that? Like annoying job. They probably would complain. But imagine walking up to the guy who's going to get paid $20 million and saying, okay, let's have a pity party about all that you're enduring with this kind of annoying job that you have to do. He's going to be like, what are you talking about? This is amazing.
• 15:54
  Like, I can't believe I, I, you know, I just calculated how much I just made and just the one day I just, I mean, I'm, I, he's going to be whistling his way to work and, you know, and so, so there's that perspective as well. It's just like so much of what's occurred in the, in sort of the modern family is the big picture of.
• 16:12
  payoff of building family has been robbed from fathers and mothers. And we're surprised that the thing that we have to commiserate about is the difficulty. And it's always important to understand that difficulty is really tied to the payoffs, right? Um,
• 16:29
  So it's, you have to connect the two. And I think Annalisa, you did such a good job. And I'm curious, just like day to day for you. I don't know. There's more than those three perspectives that, that have been motivating you, but how does that actually work on you, especially in those really tough weeks or hard moments or like, yeah, how do you, how do you maintain that perspective? Yeah. One of the things that we say frequently in our house for a lot of things, and I think that it, it.
• 16:55
  it sits here well as well, is that you can feel the things that you feel and that's okay, but you're not allowed to stay there. So what do we need to do to get from point A to point B? And so that frequently, I say that to myself a lot. Like I'm okay to feel, it's okay to feel overwhelmed right now, but God doesn't leave me here.
• 17:16
  So how am I going to get from there, like from here to there? And the big picture vision matters because it's in those moments where I have to remind myself like this is for the greater glory. Like this is for the greater glory of God. And I have to keep that front and center. And so I think it's important, like you, like we use the word rhythmic very frequently.
• 17:39
  But even in your every day, and I'm sure April, Miranda, you guys can probably attest to that, that there I've had to be very intentional about moments in my day where I stop and I say, OK, let me just take a quick recap of where I'm at right now, what we have the rest of the day, even if it's just one minute so that I can regroup, ask Holy Spirit to just really pull me through and keep moving forward. I think those are really important.
• 18:06
  to etch inside of our day as mothers with a lot of intention.
• 18:13
  So good. Yeah. And I'm curious too, um, for any of you, I'd love to look at the big picture and this question. So what's it like being a mom of four or, you know, how do you do it? Um, what would a conversation between like matriarch sound like, like what would a conversation between women who love motherhood, who all collectively see what they're doing as a blessing, who would all respond to a question like that? It's great. You know, I love it.
• 18:41
  Like what, what kinds of questions or what would that conversation sound like? Because, um, you know, uh, I'm curious. Yeah. How, how would you guys respond to that? What, what, what conversations should we be having? Or do you, would you encourage mothers to have what kinds of questions or. Yeah. Um, because it's so easy, like you were saying, April, to just default to the, the complaining. It's like, that's the universal sign. Fathers do the same thing. You know, I had a dad once walk into my office. He was a lawyer.
• 19:07
  And his first statement to me, he didn't know anything about me other than when I was leading this business. He just said, you know, first thing he said was, you know, kids, I told my wife, you want to have them, they're yours. I don't, you know, this is not, he was trying to, and the whole reason we started there was he wanted to connect with me, right? He wanted to, he wanted to establish, hey, we're on the same page. We all kind of know the secret thing, which is we're both sort of ambitious business guys. And that one thing that we all have in common is we can care less about our kids.
• 19:37
  And that's a woman thing. And I was like, of course, my response was a little different than that. But what would that look like? What is the conversation we should be having? I'm curious. Any of you guys jump in. I was thinking about the verse and tidings about how to train and love our children and husbands. Because...
• 20:02
  Sometimes we come to a place where we meet a difficulty in either a child or a situation. And, like, we do need to be trained how to love them. And maybe that's, like, maybe that's a rhythm issue. Maybe it's a training issue. Or maybe it's, like, something going on in college.
• 20:22
  my heart as a mom that needs convicted or changed and i think those are the conversations we need to be having with matriarchs or just simple like okay this seems like a tough part of the day are there any like tricks or am i proceeding with the day wrong should i do it this at a different time like um how to enjoy and love our kids better that's good yeah what else yeah
• 20:51
  I think that for me, when I hear those questions like Annalisa referenced, I feel like people are coming from the mindset of that motherhood is like an interruption. It's like an interruption to something that's already happening. So like you have a kid, you want to get back to normal. You have another kid, you want to get back to normal. And it's like we're always trying to get back.
• 21:15
  to something or get on with something. And then motherhood is just like this interruption that keeps like throwing us off our game. And I feel like the idea of embracing motherhood is –
• 21:30
  something that does take time, I think, to pass and for even if your heart is toward that for you to understand what that was going to look like. So as you're, you know, down the motherhood path into the matriarch path, it's like you didn't need that time and perspective. But I think a lot of the conversation would revolve around how
• 21:54
  you know, people will say things like, you want to be careful you don't lose your stuff in motherhood. Like you still need to make sure there's you and you time, like me time and all this stuff. And I agree that there is something there. Like you don't want to run yourself ragged and make yourself sick because you never take care of yourself. But I think it's very quickly the world just loves that and latches onto it and wants to like, you know, really run with it. So just how to find that balance of like,
• 22:23
  letting the Lord fill you up and be a plate. Like he is the source. He's where we go as the source to drink from. And once we've drunk, drinked from him, then we're able to, you know, we're full enough that we can like pour out onto our children and our husbands and our families and all the things we're managing and stewarding. And just that is a ton of conversation in the,
• 22:49
  In the making, you know, talking about how to do that, what that looks like. But if you're constantly like feeling like motherhood is interrupting you, then I feel like all you would have to say is kind of annoyed, negative, irritated frustrations about trying to get back.
• 23:07
  to my old body, get back to my old work, get back to something instead of like, this is my new life now. I'm embracing it. This is what it is. This is who God gave me, God gave us.
• 23:21
  Yeah, that's such a powerful perspective. I first realized that I was reading a book about, I can't remember what it was, what book it was, but he was using the illustration that he had a neighbor who was always working on his car and was able to fix anything that went wrong with his car. And he walked over to his neighbor one day and just said, you know, he was like, you know, changing the brakes or something. He's like, I could never do that. And the guy looked up and said, of course you could. You just aren't willing to take the time.
• 23:51
  Um, and he realized that the reason why he hated working on cars and always said he's bad at it was because he didn't see it was worthy of his time. And if you do that, it creates a perspective, you know, people that love to work on cars. So there's some people who's, when their car starts having a problem, they get excited because they, they, they really enjoy the hobby of working on cars. And he realized, oh, I'm not willing to take the time. Like if I just knew that.
• 24:17
  I got, this is my job. I'm going to spend the next two hours figuring this out. I probably could enjoy it. And I would watch the videos and I would fix the thing. And I totally think, yeah, what you're saying, April is, um, because there's sort of been a message that was, has been told to both men and women, fathers and mothers, um,
• 24:34
  your children and your family is not really worthy of your time. Every time a conflict comes up, something you have to deal with, something to train your kids, it's an interruption to what the better things you have to do with your time. And you will never stop thinking about your kids as frustrating or your family as somehow getting in your way if that's your general perspective.
• 24:59
  But if you love it, like, and I think this is where so much of what you're describing, Annalisa, it starts with this heart posture towards your family. I love my family. I love my kids. I love spending time with them. I love who we're becoming. Man, such a powerful, yeah, different perspective. Yeah, Annalisa, what else? Oh, did you have that final word on this one? And then I'm going to bring up another topic here in a second.
• 25:21
  Yeah, April, as you were talking, I feel like it ties into something, too, that family teams talks about often. But the fact that a lot of the world views motherhood and parenthood in general as it ends at 18 or it ends when they leave the house. And I think that changes the way that we see.
• 25:43
  our kids now because it does it adds on to that oh they're just a step into the rest of my life right like there's something after them too whereas i view motherhood and you guys view motherhood as this is for the rest of my life and this is one of the greatest joys of my life and so i think that changes too in the christian community if you look at it as i these are the
• 26:13
  Yeah. I would say that, and that my experience of fatherhood right now is, is better than it's ever been. I have four adult kids, you know, and it's getting better. I feel like every year, every, every week, it's like amazing. April and I were just in the parking lot after Kyra's, you know, after we, you know, did the pizza party thing. And yeah, it's just like,
• 26:35
  Wow. We have like a full life, like from one thing, like we get to go around and just be with our kids. Um, our five kids in various capacities, you know, our two daughters are in South Korea right now, but they're coming back on Saturday and we just all cannot wait to see them. But, um, what happened April this morning, you had all the siblings, uh,
• 26:54
  Yeah, we do breakfast in bed as a, as like a tradition when it's your birthday. So I get like a junk cereal and they get to have chocolate milk or something, which isn't normal at our house. And so poor Kyra, being the youngest, it's like, who's left to bring her breakfast in bed? So Kelsey is living with us right now. She and her husband and baby. And so she woke up.
• 27:20
  even though she's exhausted and 38 weeks pregnant, she woke up in time. And then I called Jackson, who lives like 10 minutes from us, and then the two girls in South Korea, we called them. So they were all on different phones with us as we walked in. And then we all sang happy birthday to her. And the thing is always, oh, who's going to stay with the birthday person and eat the rest of their breakfast? So they all like sat there on the phone with her while she ate her breakfast.
• 27:49
  So yeah, it doesn't end at 18. No, not even. Oh my gosh. But to your point on Elisa, I think, you know, the analogy I was using about, are you being paid like $20,000 for putting up with all this or $20 million? The $20 million is the family that gets better after 18. Like, and I agree with you. If we don't, if we don't see that and we aren't creating a kind of family that's
• 28:15
  that that actually gets better with with age then it starts to become under more understandable why people complain and feel like you know maybe is this is this is all this work isn't worth it or something um so yeah wow the payoff but we want you guys to experience that that's why we got design family um so yeah like what you hear be sure to leave a rating and review for this podcast wherever you use streaming
• 28:45
  So speaking of after 18, we're going to go to the other end of the spectrum to preschoolers because Miranda's got some preschoolers and Annalisa as well, and we've got preschoolers on the way and our grandkids. So I got a little clip I want to play for you guys. And by the way, you guys know, we're definitely wading into more, you know, somewhat controversial waters. I'm always trying to understand how to make –
• 29:15
  you know, our community really think deeply and not just go about thinking about family the way the culture assumes. And so I think people are surprised sometimes we have a counterintuitive take on things. Please get used to that. There's something desperately wrong with the way that our culture is doing family.
• 29:34
  And so, uh, we're really looking for answers that, um, are being underreported. And so, um, here's one that I think was framed in a, in a pretty interesting way by a guy I really respect a lot in this space. Um, yeah.
• 29:49
  And I wanted to get your guys' reaction to this. So this is like, should we be sending our kids to preschool? How to think or frame what preschool really is. So I'll play this and then get your guys' thoughts on this. I have an attachment to you. You can start seeing it very early on. Kind of a hot take. Go for it. I think preschool hurts children, doesn't help children. What do you think? Preschool is just an excuse to offload your kids into the system.
• 30:16
  There we go. There is no basis for real, real preschool. I'm very anti-preschool. What are they teaching you that you can't teach them at home? That's what I think. We talked about this in my Erica Comazar episode, but this idea that a child that young needs socialization. What's your thoughts on that? No.
• 30:32
  Why? Why do they need to socialize with a bunch of random strangers? Why aren't you as a family building a connection with other families? Why aren't you taking them to church? Why aren't you taking them to social events? Why aren't you socializing them that way? Why do you have to send them to a facility where they socialize with key people that you have no idea what their values are and those kids are all broken? And now those kids are spreading broken behaviors to your children. Why would you do that? What are the top three lies feminism has told women?
• 31:01
  He gets more spicy from here. But anyway, I, uh, he, he was playing it. Keep praying it. I know what's coming. That's the ultimate teaser guys. You guys want to find out like what the lies feminists are saying. What's going to happen next. That's right.
• 31:18
  Oh, man. But yeah, so that's Adam Lane Smith on The Spillover with Alex Clark. So having a pretty intense take on preschool and how to think about it. So yeah, I'll start April with you. And then I'd love to go around to Miranda and Annalisa on this. Yeah. What are your thoughts about his take and what Alex Clark also said about that?
• 31:42
  Well, I definitely have a different perspective on it now than I did. Several of our kids did preschool. What? I'm not supposed to tell people that. You remember? Yes.
• 31:55
  And it was right around the time when I feel like preschool stopped being an educational couple hours in the morning for kids, like two mornings a week. And it was transitioning into like a daycare auction that people called preschool to make themselves feel better kind of thing. Because I remember I was looking for somewhere for my oldest two to go while I was doing work for our business. Yeah.
• 32:25
  And, um, we've, and I was really picky about it. So I felt really good about it. Um, but it was like one of the last places that was like, you could go Tuesday and Thursday morning and these were like retired teachers and they were, you know, it was this preschool and a church and they were actually teaching them, you know, ABCs and, and colors and things like that. This is way before I was even, I didn't even know about homeschooling. So, um, yeah.
• 32:52
  That was great. And it was like a win-win. But – and then we did it with our third child for like a couple months. And that's kind of when I started to have this mental change of like, why am I doing this? Because by then I wasn't working as much in the business. And I was like that – I was doing it kind of for childcare and kind of picky about where they were going for childcare. But now I don't necessarily need the childcare. And I kind of want her – I want to be with her.
• 33:19
  So that's when I started kind of, like, fighting for, like, that whole thing of, like, you know, I actually want to be with my kids. She's hilarious. She's so funny. She's three. She's got these little glasses. And she says the funniest thing. Like, I want to be with her. And so –
• 33:34
  That did not last long. We took her out. And so that's when I was kind of developing my philosophy about it. Our son was in a preschool where we got the call one day that he was in trouble because he was using the kitchen utensils as a sword. And...
• 33:54
  you know, doing, and I asked if he was hitting people with it. No, he wasn't, but he was pretending that it was a sword instead of a spatula. And so, um, that's when I was like, okay, we're going to actually probably not bring him back like ever. So, um, I started developing my- They were socializing him, April. Geez, Louise. Yeah. You can have a kid who's-
• 34:14
  That socialization thing is just such an empty argument. It's really – I don't know if they think that we lock our kids in closets and don't talk to them or what they think is happening. That if there's even one sibling at home or a neighbor or an aunt or a cousin or a mom or a – you know, like –
• 34:33
  There are people around them. If I'm at the grocery store, they're learning how to wave hi to people. And that's my job. I am teaching them how to interact with other humans in a way that makes them pleasant, that people want to be.
• 34:49
  around them. So like he said, like, why would you do that with, uh, you don't know these other kids, they're going to influence your kids. I definitely felt like I had to learn that like, Oh, these other kids are going to influence my kids. I actually don't know how I feel about that. Um, so yeah,
• 35:07
  There's an interesting kind of, I guess, meme going around the internet right now about this word socialization in regards to schooling. And it kind of goes, they will, I know when I was a kid, homeschool was super rare. It was mostly done by very, very religious communities. And so you could kind of pick the homeschool kids out. They were socially awkward and had just such a different way of interacting than homeschooling.
• 35:34
  than your normal public school kids. And I was a normal public school kid. And now the meme now is that it's inverted. It hurts flipped. You've got the public school kid who's, who's completely depressed and like experimenting with all these identities and has no idea how to interact with an adult or a younger child is incredibly socially awkward. And you have these homeschool kids who were like, you know, very comfortable, like, you know, with adults and, you know, building things. And it's always just like, I think this, this, it's like the, I think it's really important for us to catch up with reality. Yeah.
• 36:04
  Um, and to your point, yeah, I think something has drastically shifted in, uh, in this conversation. Miranda, what did that start for you? Um, so I'm thinking about toddlers and what they actually need and, um,
• 36:19
  I personally believe that they need their mom more than socialization, even if that's an argument. Because socialization, I mean, I have a two-year-old and he kind of socializes, but he basically plays in tandem. And so I don't even know if like preschool, you're even at the age yet where socialization is even a question. Right.
• 36:45
  Or an argument. You're just like playing next to one another and trying not to hurt one another. You're not having like... I don't even know if you're having deep conversations yet or learning, you know, learning how to have those. And I believe it can be...
• 37:05
  enjoy it at home. And especially with siblings, like I think about, um, you have a two-year-old and a four-year-old and they go to daycare or school and like they're separated. Yeah. That's very strange. Yeah. It's very strange. And I think about my daughter and my son and my new daughter and they like know the needs of one another. They care for one another. And they're
• 37:31
  they wouldn't even know each other except for the evenings and weekends. Right. And so I think for like sibling relationship, it's, it's, uh, if you can preschool at home. Right.
• 37:45
  That's better. So much, I think, sibling rivalry and sibling conflict comes from your kids being in same age groups all the time, forming alliances with friends. And part of the dynamic there is we look down on the younger kids or we don't trust the older kids, you know, any kind of school setting. We had so much fun as seniors making fun of the freshmen or whatever. Right.
• 38:08
  So that's that's the culture that they're in all the time. And then they come home and what do they see? You know, this little kid who's annoying. And they have these friends who are their exact age in the exact stage. And again, what's so bizarre is to call that socialization because you spend after you graduate from high school or college, you spend the rest of your life.
• 38:29
  in intergenerational groups everywhere, right? At work, it's not just one age group. It's certainly at home. And most people are completely ill-equipped because of this same age group cohorting they've been a part of their entire childhood to be able to interact intergenerationally. And so, yeah, that's another element, I think, of the socialization. I love what you're saying, Miranda, about like, yes, you want your siblings to have a very unique bond, but that bond can be easily broken
• 38:58
  by a culture that somehow dismisses any kind of interact intergenerational interaction, which I think is sort of a natural part of what most schools or same age group kind of cohorting tends to do. Alisa, what does it serve for you?
• 39:15
  I have like two kind of brains going on right now because I taught kindergarten for three years in the public school setting. And so one of the things that we always said during that time was you can always tell the kids who went to preschool. And I would think about that now as a homeschool mom. I look back and I'm like, man, the reason we could tell if they went to preschool is because the ones who went to preschool could walk in a line.
• 39:40
  They knew how to sit at a desk. They knew how to transition from the carpet to the desk. Like they knew the systems of school. It wasn't necessarily that they were brighter or they knew more ABCs or colors and the other kids around them. It was because they knew the systems of the school. And so really when I now on the other side of it, I look at it and like, well, really preschool is to prepare them for public school, the systems of public school.
• 40:07
  Not necessarily the education of public school, it's just the systems, how you walk in a line, how you talk to people, the kids your age, your peers, how to do certain things that are necessary to make a public school successful in any sense. So that's immediately what I think of is that I don't see the necessity for preschool education.
• 40:30
  Unless you're planning to send your kids to kindergarten where they do need to know how to where that does benefit them to walk in a line. But that's not my priority as a mother. I don't want my kids to learn how to walk in the line at the age of three or four. I want them to learn how to be like attached to their mom and really decide, like be able to come and say, I need help or work, talk to their siblings and work through those initial things.
• 40:56
  stages that set the foundation to be able to do deeper things relationally.
• 41:01
  Yeah. Yep. Yeah. This is, and this is really what Adam Lane Smith, this is a little conversation. If you guys, I think we might've covered another one of the clips from this interview. His whole, his whole expertise is really in childhood attachment. And man, it's so important. I think this, this has got to be the, when you're asking what's best for a child, that's gotta be one of the first things that, you know,
• 41:28
  And I think that often, you know, what we're doing and what you're describing on Alisa is it's possible that part of what preschool is designed to do is help children deal with the lack of attachment to their mother. Like they have to learn because they're going to experience this disattachment, you know, their rest of their childhood. They've got to be trained how to exist within that world. And we've sort of stamped normal, healthy over that whole thing. And I think that it's difficult not to...
• 41:57
  Yeah, not to question that. All right, before we go, do you guys want to hear what the three lies of feminism? I have no idea what he's about to say, but I don't want to leave everybody hanging here. So we'll listen to this as we finish our conversation. That are creating attachment issues for women. Number one, that you don't need men.
• 42:17
  that men have no role in your life. Men are safety and security. They are supposed to be. Masculinity is about setting structures that create safety so that women can then thrive within them. That's what the man's role is. And feminism says, no, you be the man and the woman at the same time. And that's just not how it works. The next lie that feminism has told us that there are no ethical men in this world, that every man is just looking for an excuse to exploit women.
• 42:41
  If we look back through history, we don't see that every man on earth was a violent sociopath. When we look now, we don't see every man on earth as a violent sociopath. We see men who care about their daughters. I see on Twitter men like, I'm a girl dad. I love my daughters, right? They brag about them. They care about them. But we are supposed to believe every man throughout history hated all of the women in his family and wanted to hurt them. The third lie that feminism has told women is that marriage has no value for women. It is purely for men. And the research shows that married men do live longer.
• 43:11
  Right. And that's fantastic. But with 84% of women wishing they could drop out of the workforce to stay at home and build a family with 90% of women who are childless saying it's not that I wanted to be childless. It just never happened. And now I regret it. Right. With the amount of childlessness happening and women who say, I am so alone and what am I going to do with the rest of my life? I'm 60. What am I going to do with the next 30 years of my life?
• 43:40
  Marriage has enormous purpose for men and women and feminism has robbed that. Ooh. All right. We'll leave it there.
• 43:50
  Wow, that's mean. Yeah, sorry. I'm sure you guys want to just talk about that. That guy is purely, clearly very sexist. I mean, he seems to think that women need men. I think I've never heard anything like that in my life. Craziness. Just insanity. So we'll not need to talk about that. We just dismiss that as just rank sexism and just move on. Right, guys? All right. So thank you guys so much for joining me today. Annalisa, thanks for sharing your writing with us. Miranda, thanks for hanging. And I can't believe Violet is still sleeping through all of that.
• 44:20
  You did such a good job. Wow. What an amazing little baby. Oh my gosh. She's amazing. Awesome. All right. And I'll see you, babe. Don't check out any audio books from behind you. We don't need them. All right. Okay. All right. See you guys. Bye-bye. Bye.
• 44:38
  Thank you for listening to the Family Teams podcast. If you're enjoying this content or have learned something new, please make sure to leave a rating and review and share with a friend. To stay up to date with our events, new content, and products, you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram at FamilyTeams.