Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 311 | Stage 6 of Parenting: Color Commentator

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Ep. 311 | Stage 6 of Parenting: Color Commentator · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  You should spend so much energy extracting all the advice, all the wisdom, and everything you can from your parents.
• 0:11
  What's up, guys? Welcome back to 5-Minute Fatherhood. We are now in the final episode of a six-part series on stage-based parenting. We talked about each of those previous stages, the comforter stage, the coach stage, the counselor stage, the consultant, the co-founder was what we just got done talking about. And now we want to talk to you guys about the final stage, the color commentator.
• 0:32
  And it might sound like we're trying to force the C's here, but no, this is a really important stage, and I really like this title. Because when I watch a sporting event, and there is usually a play-by-play commentator and then a color commentator, I absolutely love...
• 0:47
  to listen to great color commentary in sports. Basically, that person is there to really distill the meaning of what's happening. Even the bigger story, oftentimes they'll bring in like, oh, let me tell you where this kid started. He went to this high school and now look at him. It just makes the whole, it makes what could be just,
• 1:08
  really bland facts on the field into a really rich story. And that is your job during this stage. This is when your kids are like 45 years plus, and you might be in your 60s, 70s, 80s. Now, one of the things that blows my mind about this stage is that most of you guys listening to this right now will spend more time in this stage than in the stage of child rearing before your kids are 18. So most people, if you have three or four kids...
• 1:33
  You'll spend about 20, maybe 25 years in the child rearing stage. You will spend 20 to 25 years in this stage where you are older. Many of you are going to live into your 90s. We continue to see that the lifespans are increasing. So a lot of you guys are going to have a lot of time invested in this stage. So it's important you guys prepare for what this is and look forward to it. This is an amazing stage. The goal of this stage is to pass on wisdom and,
• 1:58
  This is when you take a step back and make sure that during family events or during conversations with your grandchildren and your children, you bring up the conversation into the bigger story, the bigger story of the family, the bigger story of the gospel.
• 2:17
  You're constantly really helping people understand the meaning, the meaning of their identities. And so you want to get good at this stage. And a big part of being good at this stage is simply by leaning into the previous stages and experiencing the depth of their meaning. And then, of course, we'll just pour out of you during this final stage. Just lots of family stories, lots of background, lots of distillation of the meaning of different events.
• 2:44
  And so this is really, really fun. We spent a lot of time in our family now really enjoying this stage. For example, on our Sabbath dinner, we had my great aunt, my parents, April's mom, and we had an incredible conversation about just back to school, what was that first week of back to school like? And so I shared some stories, and my dad shared some stories, my mom shared some stories I'd never heard before.
• 3:11
  And they were really talking. That's awesome. The meaning of like, what does this season look like for you guys? Even though I don't know if anybody's going back to school. It is crazy. You can also be, this is just a little anecdote, but I was, I was thinking that even when we had Alyssa's parents over, you know, every Friday, you can't run out of stories. It's almost impossible to run out of stories of like childhood or something that makes you think of something. And that's exactly what this stage is, right? Of like, you're trying to.
• 3:34
  you know, if you're listening and you're wanting to be one of those parents, uh, it's, you know, it's kind of like hopefully shaping your life in a way where you'll have wisdom to share then. But I think a lot of us, we can almost hear this advice and now think of our parents and just what I would say is just, you know, extract it from them. Like that's the best phrase to say, like you should spend so much energy extracting all the advice, all the wisdom and everything you can from your parents. Now, you know, me and Alyssa both, uh,
• 3:59
  have great relationships and love both sides of our, our family. But I know there's some people listening to this that maybe that's, you know, there's a lot more pain there, et cetera. The one thing that I heard some advice on a podcast the other day that I would give to people right here is there's always at least one redeemable extractable quality from your parents, whether if they were the most vile, toxic, terrible family you've grown up in there and, and, and sitting in that and holding that, uh,
• 4:21
  does something to your heart, does something to your legacy and the story of just what can I redeem from our last name and our story? And then that lets you put that into the color commentary. And so that's what this is, is when you're extracting your story from the people above you, it'll profoundly impact how you become a color commentator later, right?
• 4:40
  And so I just think coupling those, putting that together and centering on story and wisdom. Stop turning to Google for answers. Turn to grandparents. That's how it was for all of human history. And I think that's really, really helpful. That's right. So the goal of this stage, you guys, is to pass on a wisdom and identity. And the four-word sort of style of this stage is low selfishness, high nobility. Yeah.
• 5:00
  you make your family feel like it's epic and important by your very presence. We had a Sabbath dinner when my great-grandmother was present, and we realized as she was sitting there at our Sabbath table, she was the bridge between seven generations because she knew three generations previously, her generation, and then she was seeing three generations of her descendants at the same table, somebody who's spanning seven generations—
• 5:26
  Your presence, you continuing to live longer and be present for your family into this stage makes your family into something that feels really heavy, really glorious, really important to your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren. So really encourage you guys to think about this stage. Also, if you guys haven't,
• 5:47
  having crafted a family meal where these stories can be distilled. We talk about this often through the Sabbath. We have a course called The Seven Day Family, which really walks you through how to live in a rhythm of seven days. And part of that is how do you establish a day of rest? And we love to kick off our day of rest with this epic family meal. So we talk about how to craft
• 6:10
  a Sabbath, how to craft your family's meal so that there's a place for this color commentary to happen at 7 Day Families. You can check that out over at familyteams.com.