Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 29 | Managing A Work and Family Balance As a Dad

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Ep. 29 | Managing A Work and Family Balance As a Dad · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:06
  Hey guys, welcome to the 5-Minute Fatherhood Podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeff Beth Key, along with my friend and mentor, Jeremy Pryor. Join us Monday through Friday as we chat about quick tips, skills, and ways to help equip you on your journey as a father to build your multi-generational family team on mission. Stay tuned.
• 0:27
  Hey guys, Jeff and Jeremy here at the 5-Minute Fatherhood Podcast. And one of the questions that we wrestle with as dads all the time is, man, it's tough to, when you're working and you have to spend many, many, many hours of work, when your work oftentimes demands extra hours, extra effort, extra time.
• 0:44
  inconvenient times, how do we handle that? Is that being a bad father? Man, this is a real serious tension. And in the Facebook group for the Five Minute Fatherhood, Daniel asks us this question. He's a firefighter. He said, so I guess my question is, do any other dads out there feel a sense of guilt when we choose to spend more time away from our teams at home to bring home more money that I feel providing for us to keep us afloat?
• 1:13
  And this could be small things in other job fields as well, even the corporate world, maybe working extra hours, projects, not coming home for lunch to work instead, to get paid for that. Is it normal? Or should I even feel this sense of guilt of choosing to work more than I already do? Oh, this is such a real, raw, common tension. Yeah, Jeff, what are your thoughts?
• 1:36
  Yeah, well, first of all, Daniel, I love your mustache. We know you on Facebook. I know who I'm talking to right now. You're the best. And thanks for serving as a firefighter. I'm jealous of your mustache, but you also – I feel like firefighters have to have a mustache like that. If you don't know, guys, get in on our Facebook group. Link is in the YouTube description. Link is in the iTunes description. It's all down there. We'd love to have you in there. You can also search 5-Minute Fatherhood. But Daniel, what I would say, and I think I mentioned in the comments when you asked this, but we can elaborate more, is –
• 2:00
  We have to, first of all, if you're asking that question, you're probably already in a good spot. That means your heart's sensitive. That means your heart is open. That means you are aware and you're trying. Like that's 99% of the work of a dad that's just, his heart is on. It's not off. It's on. It's sensitive. It's thinking. It's there. So that's really 99% of the work. The second thing I would then say is.
• 2:22
  You have to be able to distinguish between mission and just kind of American dream. You have to be able to distinguish between those two. And what I mean by that is...
• 2:32
  you can feel good about work because work is a blessing and work is the vocation in the garden. And that's actually like family and work go hand in hand. Like the, the God says work. That's the first command in scripture. It's the first command. He doesn't say pray and sit in the closet and listen to Chris Tomlin. And he doesn't say that. He says work. That's the first command. Then he says, actually do that through family. So it's like work and family are married forever. And that's how it's going to be. Yeah. So work's a blessing and work we need to do. And it's actually holy and sacred. But,
• 2:58
  in that you have to understand, like, are you actually doing the work God has for you? And again, most people are, they're, they're, they're living in their vocation. They're living in what they're supposed to be doing. Some, some aren't, and that might mean a job change, but in general they are. And so then you, and so you're on mission, you're on mission. You have to, then you have to realize that and then say, okay, I'm on mission on behalf of my family. Like my work is not tearing me away from my family. I'm working for my family on behalf of my family, sent out by my family. And,
• 3:26
  And again, that lets everything kind of click of like, okay, I'm doing this as the family, like the family sending me out to be a firefighter on mission. Right. And that's the vocation that we have distilled for me to do and live in obedience. So if you can, if you can live well, um,
• 3:41
  Or if it sits well in you for your job to feel like you're on mission. Now, again, that doesn't mean people need to get saved every single day and you need to go translate the Bible. Some people, that is your mission. But if you can live well and say, yeah, this is where God's called me and I'm going to be faithful in it, then that's good. But if that doesn't sit well with you, meaning like if you feel like a certain amount of hours feels like, oh, this is not good.
• 4:04
  the mission that God has for my family or for me on behalf of my family. And if that doesn't sit well, then that's probably the red flag of overworking, of too much hours, of maybe too much of work idolatry, of workaholic-ness. So I think that to me mission seems to be the good framework that helps you really distinguish between, no, yeah, of course I got to go work and of course I got to go do this and that's the mission –
• 4:28
  Or, but if you feel like there's parts of your work where like, oh, that just can't, that doesn't sit right of like me saying this part is, you know, 90 hours a week is me on mission. No, probably not. And that shouldn't sit well. So I don't know. To me, it's not like clear cut black and white, but the mission framework on behalf of the family seems to, for me to be able to understand it well. And for me to be able to sense in my own heart when that's a good and a bad thing or when that's working and not working. But Jeremy, what would you say that?
• 4:52
  Yeah, one last thought, just real practically. I would say, particularly for you as a firefighter, you need to be constantly telling your kids stories about this connection. So you guys sent me out. This is what I did. Talk about the work and how the work is accomplishing a mission. Talk about the good things that are happening at work. Talk about the things that you're doing as a firefighter.
• 5:15
  Also talk about the money you're bringing home and what that means to the family mission. Again, like the world has set up all of this as a big individual pursuit game, right, where dad is going after his individual pursuits. But don't worry about it, kids. You can go after your individual pursuits, whether those are sports or something at school or this instrument. And so framing everything as individual pursuits really makes this very difficult to get your family and your kids and everyone to understand why you would leave on Christmas Eve to
• 5:44
  to man the fire station. And man, they need to feel and understand, guys, I'm doing this because I love you and I love our family. I'm doing this because I'm on mission. I'm being sent out. And so it's a lot about telling stories and also talking about the money. And again, that's something that you can do in different age-appropriate ways, but in ways that don't create a lot of fear, but create a lot of security. Like, whoa, it's so cool. Dad goes off and he's
• 6:07
  He is really bringing home what we – because so much of what happens in our culture, it's just not transparent, especially to children. It's all very mystifying, right? We're not bringing home actual like more camels or sheep. It's like somebody wired money into our bank account, and you're like, cool, we could live again. It's very hard to compute.
• 6:27
  Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's just invisible. And, and that's terrible for children because they don't see any of that invisible stuff. And so we have to find ways to make what Jeff is describing, um, that we're actually on mission for the family visible and clear, uh, through telling stories, through drawing connections. And, and then that'll help, uh, really create that sense of shared mission. And then of course, any way you can integrate your kids and help them see what you're doing.
• 6:52
  and demystify your work for them, whether that's bring your kid to work day or anything like that is really going to help them get why you're working so hard and why it matters and why it's connected to the family.
• 7:04
  Hey guys, one of our favorite places to hang out on is the family teams, Instagram. That is where you will find tips, quotes, tricks, and a bunch of other conversational things to help you build your family team on mission. If you're on Instagram and you want to get encouragement as you do this and build your family team, just head over to Instagram and follow us at family teams.