Latest / Dadical / Bonus Episode: Seth Stoker on the Atta-Dad Podcast
Transcript
- speaker-0: The waves of responsibility speaker-1: Responsibility will come. speaker-0: and go Okay, let's go. We're here to remind This is how the guest. Hello, listeners. Thank you so much for tuning in again. We've got a special guest here. Seth Stoker is on the podcast. Now, Seth and I met virtually in the same space, just helping dads find easy content, be encouraged with doing good dad things. He is operating the Dadical podcast. You can find them on socials. We'll probably plug that a little bit later. But this is going to be a great conversation just because there's a lot of passion here. about fatherhood. Seth, thanks for taking time out of your day to join us. speaker-1: Yeah, Aaron, thanks for having me. I'm I'm excited to chat with you as well. I I really love your podcast and some of the content you've been putting out, and I I've been looking forward to this. speaker-0: Seth we'll we'll swap podcast notes. I know that he's got his own and w I I think I'm gonna guest on there and get a switch roles. I'm excited about that. Seth, tell us a little bit about your family, you know, just a c brief history, background, how many kids you got, kinda what got you here. speaker-1: Yeah, perfect. I I've been married twenty-one years. in fact, coming up on Thanksgiving this year, I'll have known my wife for twenty two years and it's been a wild ride. So I I live in a small town in Sa called Salem, Utah, and I've got three kids. So I've got a nineteen year old son, and so I'm navigating what it's like to parent an adult child in addition to just just having children and then I've got a fifteen year old daughter. she is a dancer and she might be the funniest person I know. And then I've got a son who's fourteen years old. He just turned fourteen. We're in the in the throes of football season right now, just about to start basketball season with him and so li life's busy but it's it's a good busy. speaker-0: Isn't that weird to think about this stage of life where, you know, half your life you've been with your wife and you've got, you know, near adult children. You're not just swamped and tired and busy with diapers and, you know, requests to get the food ready. Is it kind of feel a little bit relaxing? Does it is there a little bit of crisis, you know, at that a stage of life? How how are you accepting it? speaker-1: Man, it's really interesting, Aaron, because you spend so much of fatherhood. It's so hard not to be in survival mode. You've got young kids who can't do much for themselves and you gotta run them around. You gotta change diapers and and all these things. And and and it feels like, by the way, you're also trying to figure out how to build a career and how to navigate marriage. I mean, my wife and I had children about a year and a half into our marriage. We had our first kid, and so like. Our whole marriage has been or the the majority of our marriage obviously has has been with kids. And so marriage isn't easy. Building a career isn't easy, fatherhood isn't easy, and you kind of pack all that into the the same time and it's it it's kind of a wild time. But it's funny because you feel like you're in that for so long. And then all of a sudden I wake up and I've got a 19-year-old son who is You know, not just driving, but he he's on his own, taking care of himself. He he does still live at home, but he's going to school, trade school, learning to be an electrician. I and I I all my other kids are in fact having my youngest be 14, he's gonna start driving next year. And so it's just a strange thing where you wake up all of a sudden and you're like, What happened? Where did the time go? And and I was I was in the thick of it for so long. I mean, now we're running kids around and stuff, but the flip side is is now, now we get to sit back. I in in fact I we had family dinner Sunday night and all of our family we finished dinner and we just sat there at the kitchen table for like 45 minutes, just laughing and joking and telling stories together. And man, I gotta tell you, it was one of the best moments of my life because I was just able to sit back and think. Man, look at what we've built. Like it may have been hard and we've had challenges along the way, but what a huge blessing it is now to look at this incredible family that we've built. So I'm I'm truly grateful. speaker-0: That is a different kind of rich that that, you know, take people take that for granted. speaker-1: absolutely. speaker-0: Hey, I want to get into a few more things along those lines, but before we do, t tell us about a family vacation. I I think vacations are important, whether you're camping out at the state park or you can get, you know, to Disney World or whatever it might be. ha have you guys taken a few vacations? Any fun stories that have come from it? Go go ahead and hit us with a story. speaker-1: Yeah, perfect. I might cheat and give you a a a a bonus round first and then I'll then I'll tell you about a vacation that we had because my family my wife grew up boating. In fact, the weekend that I met my wife, we went we went out on Lake Sawaro in Mesa, Arizona. And well, I guess it's in outside of Phoenix, Arizona, but w my wife grew up boating. She loves boating. somehow she still fell in love with me even after watching me try to fit into a medium wetsuit at the time. It was over Thanksgiving weekend and That that's that's how you know I had the charm back then, man. speaker-0: Mother in law just hit that hit that turn, throw you off the wake and say, like, we'll show this guy what's up. speaker-1: you know what? My my father-in-law lucky luckily is a teddy bear, so I I didn't have to worry about that. But yeah, you know, because my wife grew up boating, that's something that we've always had an interest in. And and as our kids were really young, we went to visit her uncle and they had a boat. And we talked to them a lot about it and experienced it. We we went out on the boat with their kids. And there's something about having your family as kind of a captive audience there on the boat. They th nobody's on their phones. Everybody's working together getting the rope and grabbing boards out and things like that. So the my wife and I ended up deciding to invest in a boat. Okay. And so so we we have done that for the past several years. And I I gotta tell ya, like having that family time out on the water, it's i it it's not necessarily a vacation, although we've taken vacations where we've gone further and and taken the boat out to Lake Powell and Bear Lake and and these are places out here in Utah but yeah. but it's an opportunity for us to just all kind of escape and be together and focus on each other and it's been awesome and also a a great way to get to know their friends, which has been really valuable. speaker-0: You want to be the spot where people are hanging out. That's great. we we were talking about that. My wife skied growing up and I I did not, and I don't like being cold and you know, if my if I watch the Covenant and my it just hurts. It's like nails on a chalkboard, just seeing that guy without gloves, hanging out in the woods. And and so we've gone skiing as a family a couple of times with my in-laws, and it is a heavy lift. To load the car up, to drive, you know, seven, eight hours to get to the mountain, to unload the car, to have all this stuff, to have the right stuff so that you're you are warm. It's expensive anymore to ski. But when you're at the top of the mountain as a family, you know, experiencing that together, that's hard to replace. And and so the, you know, having a boat is expensive, but obviously it's been worth it for you for all the reasons you mentioned. So the the heavier the lift, I mean it's it's You you gotta forge through it, but the reward is worth it. speaker-1: Yeah, and y you know what, Aaron, I think y you know, I I I wouldn't say that my wife and I have just been financial savants by any means. We it I think I could be in probably a lot better financial position if we had been willing to say no to cer certain experiences and things like that. But man, I in in fact I had a guy on my podcast who who gave us a good reminder that you got eighteen summers. Eighteen summers with these kids. And we want to make the most of it. And so that's a conscious decision that we've made is is to invest in experiences that we can have together and And if that means I gotta work a few more years before I retire or or whatever the case may be, I think that's well worth it. speaker-0: I don't even wanna put to paper how much money I spent on campers and tr trying to make the R V camper life like work. Like we we've got a lot of great memories with friends, but it it cost a lot of money to do that, you know, looking back. speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. speaker-0: okay, Seth, go ahead. Are you gonna tell about Hawaii trip or go ahead? speaker-1: Yeah, I'll t I'll I'll tell you about the trip that we went on. So so my family, we we've had some some interesting ups and downs and and one of the most difficult periods of time that we've been through is is in 2019, right around the kickoff of COVID, my wife was also diagnosed with breast cancer. And that was a really, really in in fact hardest thing we've ever been through for sure. And and so on that note, like it was a it was a challenging time and and before we had before we got that diagnosis, we had already booked a trip to Hawaii. And so my wife had gone through surgery, an initial surgery. She went through several surgeries, but she had been through a a surgery and then she was also very deep in chemotherapy. And so we were kind of on the fence like, should we cancel this trip? Should we even go and And we just kind of decided that we wanted to we wanted to keep life as normal as possible for our kids, even though we're going through this big challenge and even though my wife's going through this ch challenge. I gotta tell you, like like my wife is a trooper and I think there are a lot of people who would have gone through the same thing and really struggled with providing, you know, trying to keep life as normal as they can for their kids. But i i it's unbelievable. In fact, when I look back at it, I I I think, man, I I don't know how we got through it without it feeling it's it's almost like we were able to get through it without it even feeling you know s sad, overwhelming. Sure we had those times, but for the most part, we our life stayed pretty normal and and that was a big deal. So anyway, I'm I'm getting off track, but we we speaker-0: a choice, right? You had you you could either be really sad or be really grateful for that time, right? Like that's that probably your faith or whatever helped you kind of frame that moment up, right? speaker-1: Well, A Aaron, I gotta tell you, like the funny thing is is is my wife and I look back now and we've got amazing kids. We've been really blessed with amazing kids. And one thing that we have noticed is we've got very resilient kids. We've got kids who who don't shrink away from challenges who kind of take head on and and they don't let it overwhelm them or or, you know, d struggle struggle with the anxiety that that I think is easy to struggle with when you run into challenges with things like that. And as my wife and I look back, we look at a few of those experiences that we went through as things that really shaped the resilience of our kids. And you know what? There's no way around it. The best way to build resilience in your children is for them to go through challenges and experience them and and to recognize that life still goes on and we can be happy even when we're going through difficult things. It's not easy, but it's a choice that you speaker-0: New news flash for the listeners, I mean, everybody's kids are more resilient than they give them credit for. Like we we want our kids to have this easy, just kind of smooth upbringing. And you grow a lot from adversity. And j just like you and I have had to adapt to the situations we've been through, our our kids can do that too. And so those things start to form And I I just see a lot of parents that pr probably, you know, what are the whatever we call it, helicopter, lawnmower, snow plow, try try to make things easy. And that's just not how life actually operates. speaker-1: Yeah, don't rob your kids of challenges. They need And and that's so counterintuitive, right? Like we want to you know, we want to remove every obstacle for them so that they can have this, you know, this comfortable life. But actually a comfortable life is not the goal. Yeah. resilience and the ability to hand 'cause life's gonna throw them challenges way, way harder than probably what they went through as kids. And if you don't if you rob them of the opportunity to prepare for that, you're doing them a huge, huge disservice. So Obviously we didn't intentionally have my wife get diagnosed with cancer or anything like that. Nobody wants to at the same time. No, of course not. But but we're very grateful for the blessings that came from it, even though it was a really difficult situation. speaker-0: Seth, I mean, we've got friends that have sorted through cancer and different challenges. How did you decide with your wife, like how much do we tell the kids? How honest should we be about the situation? You know, did your kids l learn a lot about cancer? Like t talk talk the listeners through a little bit of your process in and deciding how much should the kids know about the situation? speaker-1: Yeah, good question. My wife is a nurse by trade. And so she she was pretty well educated on cancer and cancer treatment and things like that. And so I think she had a pretty good idea of what to expect, which I think was was valuable to us. But we also we didn't shield the kids from what was going on. Like it wasn't just like, hey, you know, y mom's gonna be different for a couple months and that's it. I mean, we did sit them down and and talk about the fact that she's been diagnosed with cancer. And what that means and and even the fact that there's some big risks associated with that. And we've we've been truly blessed that she was able to to get through it. She's healthy now, by the way. And and so w we're we're really grateful for that. But at the time we didn't know. We didn't know what to expect. In fact, the day that she was diagnosed, I remember calling my parents and just buy bawling my eyes out and being like I mean, I could lose my wife, you know, I could lose my partner and and that that was really, really hard. And so we When we sat down with the kids or when we went when when we had conversations with the kids, we didn't we didn't shy away from it. We didn't hide it or pretend it didn't exist. We kind of met it head on. But at the same time, we were very committed to the fact that we weren't gonna dwell on it either. Like we weren't gonna end every day and sit down and say, Mom still has cancer, you know? We were gonna go through go through our our regular lives and keep it as normal as we could. And you know what? Some days that was harder than others. Some days when she was recovering from chemo, she She could barely do the things that that that she would need to do through the day, even just to just for herself, you know. But at the same time, they also got to see us working as a team and me having to pick up a lot of the slack that she usually took care of when she was healthy. And they had to step up and take on more responsibility and and so we really worked together through that time and it was kind of like, yeah, th this sucks and this is hard, but we gotta do what we gotta do. And and and ultimately I I I do think that benefited them. speaker-0: I I that's that's a great way to frame it up because everybody's challenges and adversities, like, you know, you look back and you just say, I wouldn't have changed it because it made me who I am today. And so it it just took a lot of I just think foresight, like, you know, good faith, long game to be able to do that for your family. So good good on you, Seth, for doing that. speaker-1: Thanks. I mean a and maybe to take it back to the original question is we did end up deciding to go on this trip to we went to Maui and we had an amazing trip. And and you know what, my wife certainly wasn't able to do as much as she would normally do on a on a regular vacation. We were able to kind of space it between her chemo treatments and we were able to still go have a good time. But she had a couple of days, I think she got chemo right before we left. And so I think the first couple of days she was pretty pretty out of it. But we were still able to go go have some incredible experiences. In fact, we're huge BYU fans and and my family's a basketball family. My son grew up playing basketball. I coached him in basketball. My oldest son, I coached him in basketball all growing up and he played in high school and I'm coaching my youngest son in basketball as well. And and so That anyway, that's something that we love. My daughter loves watching basketball. She considers herself one of the coaches on on my son's teams. But but we went and watched BYU play in the Maui Invitational and we sat on the second row. We could hear like we could hear the coach coaching, we watched him beat UCLA, and the funny thing is, is at the time I I knew it would be my oldest son's highlight, but we we asked everybody their highlights after the trip, and every single person said watching that game was was the highlight of their trip. So we just we just had an awesome. speaker-0: Experiences over things. That's awesome. Seth, I I feel like your podcast, you do a great job. Well tell tell us a little bit about your podcast. what what is what is your heart behind it? Kind of what what are you hoping to achieve? I mean, I think you have some nice long form conversations on your podcast, but go ahead and tell us a little bit about it. speaker-1: Yeah, thanks, Aaron. You know, there there's a few things that have kind of influenced me starting this podcast. And number one is is is I've got a nineteen year old son who's kind of entering that stage of of growing from a young man to adulthood. And there's a lot of things that I hope he understands about the blessings of of fatherhood and this this really tough but really amazing responsibility that we choose to take on. And as I as I thought about that, I think there's I think there's a lot of young men. Who who may not have a lot of sources to learn from. And and you think about us as fathers. Like we, we see what our dad did and we can learn from the experiences that we had with our father. And then maybe on the periphery, we we see a few other dads and kind of how they operate. But outside of that, like fatherhood is trial and error. Like you just you're dumped into it. You just have to figure it out. And and I thought, you know, there's a lot of amazing people who have been through some really incredible experiences. who have been through this and I see dads all the time and and see some of the things that they're doing with their family that's really intentional. I'm like, dang, I wish I would have known about that when my kids were young. Like I I wish I could have adopted that. And so my my thought was is hey, let's interview dads. Let's have conversations with them, whether it's about their father and what they learned from their father, or about you know, their experiences as as fathers and and let's see if we can learn from each other's stories. like you know, if I'm a if I'm a young dad, for example, who didn't have a dad around, where can I turn to learn from some of the challenges that I'm gonna be facing? And I just wanted to create a a space or an opportunity where those stories can be shared and and so that we all have something that we can go pull from and learn from. Because every single dad that you know is doing something that you could implement right now and help your kids. speaker-0: Well, you you've got some nice long form conversations too. And and I think just understanding that other people have been there is is helpful, it's encouraging. My my goal has always been to just put some practical tips in people's in people's hands. And so if Seth could, you know, either either rewind the clock fifteen years and you've got young kids, is is there either one thing you've done or one thing you would start doing to implement and and to just help build That family culture, I call it legacy building. Is there is there any good practical ideas that have you've seen work or you'd like wish you would have tried? speaker-1: Yeah, maybe I'll give you one of each if that works. So so one thing that I wish I could have back is my wife and I, it it's always been important to us to have the kids you know, take on responsibility and have them do chores and things like that. And and they do an okay job. And I'm sure most parents probably feel the way that way too. But one thing that I have learned is that when you go with them and you sit with them and and rather than saying, Hey, clean your room. going in there and saying, hey, we're gonna clean your room. And the first thing that we're gonna do is we're gonna pick up all the clothes off the floor and we're gonna put the and and and you walk them through step by step. And and we're doing it with them rather than just saying, go do this thing. Because I think one thing that we underestimate is that things that are common sense to us are not common sense to a kid who's who's just learning these things. And and and I really wish that I had maybe done a better job of being shoulder to shoulder with my kids. in some of the some of the things that that I eventually would expect them to do on their own, because kids ultimately don't do what you tell them, they do what you model for them. And I I there are times where I wish I would have invested more time early in in doing things like that, rather than just saying, hey, I want you to go do this, you go do this. and the times when we've worked together as a family or or the times when when I've gone and done stuff with them. It's been so much more effective. And I wish I would have learned that earlier. So that's probably one I w I wish I could have back. speaker-0: There there was, I can't remember where I saw it, but you just frame it up in a way that's easy for the kids to understand, where it's like, hey, I'm gonna do this and you're gonna watch, and then I'm gonna do this and you're gonna help, and then we're gonna do it together, and then you're gonna do it and I'm gonna help, and then you're gonna do it and I'm gonna watch. And you just kind of progress through this like stage so the kids could feel like, yeah, I got to the point where now I can do it by myself. speaker-1: Well the challenges, Aaron, is we talked about survival mode a little bit when your your kids are younger, right? And sometimes it's like I just gotta get this done. And you fall into the trap of it is easier for me to do it by myself than to have them do it and help me. Yeah. And man, I if I could go back, I'd have them help me every time. In fact, young dads, like just hear me out on this, it's gonna be a pain, but do it with them. Whatever it is, do it with them because it will help them learn so much more than just telling them to do it. speaker-0: That's great. I mean, it's it's even easier to just let my kids play video games than to, you know, take it take it away. Like it's all all all of that is true. But man, I love that. Just do it with them or make them do it with you even more. What what is what is another thing you were gonna say? speaker-1: Yeah, I'll give you this. So this is one thing that that I feel like has been really valuable for our family. And it it's something it's something small, you know. we so we say prayer together as a family each night before the kids go to bed. And and that's been that's been a real blessing for us. But one thing that we do as part of that is we we take turns, you know, it's somebody else's turn each night to say the prayer with the family. And and we take turns with that, and whoever's turn it is. Every single person in the family says one thing that they love about that person. and then and then they say something that they love about themselves, and then they say the prayer, and then we go to bed. and we've done that for years. And it it's kind of funny because I guess I I I didn't necessarily know what an impact it was having on our family until there there was a point, I can't remember, it was it was a few years ago, we kind of decided, maybe we've graduated from that. Our kids are old enough, maybe we don't need to do it anymore. And so we stopped doing it. And one thing that I noticed, it was actually crazy to me how easy it was to see the difference in the contention that we had in our home when we were doing this as opposed to when when we weren't. And I just think there's something about requiring everybody to think about what they love. I mean, there's times when everybody's pissed at each other. Like like everybody's or or or somebody's got their feelings hurt or whatever. But no matter what, during that time, we're gonna stop, we're gonna say we what we love about that person and they're gonna say the prayer. And that has been something that's invited like peace into our home. It's also something that I think have helped my kids to learn to to be comfortable complimenting other people, be comfortable receiving you know, compliments and and things like that. And so it it it's a s it's a small thing, or maybe something that on on the surface seems small, but it's been huge for our family. speaker-0: Well, we're hoping our kids experience grace and forgiveness in the home first so that they learn how to extend that to others, right? Like having that modeled and built built into a way that modeled it. That that is a great example. Seth, this is good stuff, man. The the doing chores shoulder to shoulder, the family prayer at night, those are good practical tips. I I was I'm Kind closing this up, is there anything else you would tell a new dad, any any any sort of wisdom or you know, just experiences from your dad that you wish would get passed down? speaker-1: Man, a c a couple things come to mind. But here's the biggest thing that I think comes to mind is is I you know, obviously I talked about you saying prayer together as a family and so and so obviously we have we have faith in our home, but I don't care what religion you are or or or what you believe or anything like that. But as a dad, I do feel like one of the most important roles that you have, if not the most important role that you have, is to teach your kids purpose. Help them to have a purpose because That will drive where they set their priorities. That'll drive the choices that they make. That'll drive what they do when you're not there and you can't keep them from getting themselves into trouble and things like that. Like we have to help them understand why they're here and we have to help them understand what they can become. And that is like that is something that you have to be deliberate about. They don't just wake up 18 years later and suddenly have a purpose in life. That's something that you have to be very intentional about teaching them along the way. And that's something that we've always tried really, really hard to do. speaker-0: that's that's another banger, Seth. Man, just d dropping some nice nuggets. you know, when you're you're gonna help shape their purpose or c culture out there is gonna is gonna have a big influence on it. And so when you get eighteen years under your house, it's just nice to have some vision for your life. speaker-1: Well and and Aaron, maybe I'll I'll I'll give you one more because I I I've been kind of reading about this and and listening to some some podcasts about this this week. But one thing that really stands out is what and I I kind of mentioned this before, but what is modeled for the kids is what they learn from the most, not necessarily what you tell them. And so if you aren't sure what your purpose is, yeah, if you're taking on that responsibility of becoming a father, you better figure it out. Like it's time to figure it out. That's that that's part of taking on this responsibility. And and y i if you're not sure, it it's time to get sure so that you can pass that along to your kids. Because if you're lost, how are they going to be f nowhere to go? speaker-0: Yeah, I th hopefully that's encouraging. I mean, I'm assuming that anybody who's clicked on the dad podcast to kind of listen in and get some tips h hopefully has started to shape their purpose as a father. And it doesn't matter what religion you are, that's a great responsibility that's just kind of ordered into the world. And Yeah. Yeah, I bet our listeners are on the right track. We need to get the word out to the people who aren't s scrolling around on dad podcasts, but speaker-1: That's right. speaker-0: Seth, we're gonna get each other's podcast out there. We'll link to Dadical down below. thanks again for taking time out of your day. We're wishing you the best and I'll be joining you here in the coming weeks too. speaker-1: Looking forward to it. Aaron, thanks so much for having me c having me. Keep doing what you're doing. speaker-0: Yeah, same to you. Good job. These are good interviews, good good good advice. Have a good day. speaker-1: Alrighty, sir. Thanks. speaker-0: Good.