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Overcoming Fatherhood Confusion · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:03
  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. Podcast. Hey, everybody. Hey, we're here with the Kramers, Justin and Rebecca Kramer. Thank you guys for coming on that podcast today.
• 0:29
  Yeah, thanks for having us. Yeah. So Justin and I are part of a group called Integrated. It's a mastermind that we do through family teams about how to be dads and business owners and pursue the kingdom, how to integrate all those things. And I've really enjoyed getting to know Justin. Excited to meet Rebecca. And we wanted to talk about fatherhood. One of the conversations we're constantly stirring up in that group is.
• 0:51
  What is happening with this concept of being a father? And so I wanted to kind of dive into that with you guys today, discuss this a bit, and get Rebecca and Justin's thoughts on this. So I'm going to read this. This is called Fatherhood No Longer Exists. Rather dismal title. I might have to work on that one, but anyway. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
• 1:09
  Let's take a minute and consider this strange thought experiment. Imagine if a man was locked into the role of a head coach of a college football team for 20 years. But after year one, the team decided to stop competing for the championship. So let's say the president comes in and says, we're not doing that anymore. That's kind of a bummer. Let's say a few years later, the league announces they are no longer going to keep score at games.
• 1:30
  So now he's trying to coach a team. There's no championship. They're still playing games, but they're not keeping any score. And then a few years later, the league decides to stop having games altogether, but they want each team to continue to host practices. And then after years of stopping the practices, the players still have to show up during each of those times. What would happen over the year? So when the players meet,
• 1:53
  They're going to be bored. They're going to be confused. They're not going to know why they're there. And even you as a head coach are going to struggle to be present, constantly feeling the urge to just ignore the players, waste time on your phone. You've also started a few side hobbies where you get to enjoy being on a team or cheering on other teams. As weird as this thought experiment might probably sound, as hard as this is to imagine, I can't think of a better way to explain what's happened to fatherhood.
• 2:17
  I hear all of these calls for fathers to be more present, calls for fathers to not neglect or abandon their children, as if men have this strange, unexplainable tendency to not care for their own flesh and blood. Thankfully, this is not the problem. However, the problem is 10 times worse. Fathers don't have a problem with focus. They have a problem with fatherhood. They don't know what fatherhood is. They don't even know what family is.
• 2:41
  We redefined family from a team to a group of individuals and as a consequence, defined the concept of fatherhood out of existence. Fathers are designed to build and lead teams. Mothers are designed to nurture individuals. So what do you think would happen if we redefine family from building a team that accomplishes difficult and meaningful things together to just being a group where individuals come together to have their individual's needs met? In other words, what would happen if you no longer needed fatherhood to accomplish the purpose of the family?
• 3:10
  This is what has happened. That's why fathers are bored, confused, and looking for something else to do. With one major exception, some men have decided to overcome this confusion by becoming a second mother. We've told men that the family is not a team, it's a nest, and so some men with a more nurturing temperament have joined their wives in mothering their children.
• 3:29
  And even if they were unaware of gender confusion, they're experiencing their body notices. One data point is how a recent study has found that when a mother out-earns a father, the man is twice as likely to, than average, to struggle with erectile dysfunction. It turns out when men become mothers, they don't need much testosterone. That's why we're in the process of replacing fatherhood and motherhood with the gender-neutral verb parenting.
• 3:52
  And then we've made parenting synonymous with mothering. But here's another idea. What if we address the root of the problem and return to the idea that has worked for families for thousands of years? Families are teams. Teams need a coach. Teams need a mission. Teams need to practice because teams compete. Men don't need to be told to put their phones down and focus on their kids. Men need to be told by other men that their team is losing every game, every season, and they alone have what it takes to turn their team around. Okay.
• 4:19
  Build a team to win games, coach your team to win the championship, and turn your winning team into a dynasty. Yes, a team that becomes a dynasty is the greatest thing a sports coach can ever achieve. Wait, I wonder where that word came from. Right, that's not a sports word. That's a word that describes a winning family.
• 4:37
  Okay. So try and be a little provocative, just kind of get into this topic because it's something really, really dramatic, I think has occurred to confuse fathers and men in general about what, what this is all about. So yeah, I'm curious, Justin, Rebecca, what does that stir up for you guys? Anything that you're kind of get your first reaction to that? Unfortunately, it stirs up a lot for me. I think, you know, I think at first glance,
• 5:14
  assertive, disciplined. And in many seasons of my life, I feel like I've been some or all of that. But yet, and Jeremy, you and I have had this conversation, but yet I go back to a similar place where I struggle with my identity as a person, as a father. And so I think when I, the Lord, the last couple of weeks has had me digging into, and this concept of my father,
• 5:44
  of what it means to be a father is based on my reception of how I've been father. And I guess what I mean by that is, yes, my earthly dad, no doubt, but spiritual fathers, but also like vertically, like have I allowed my heavenly father? Like have I stood and been his son and all that that means? And I have found in my life, I reached for identity.
• 6:11
  And then honestly, I'm rewarded for that financially from a validation and identity point, like, you know, growing a business is way more attractive than like changing a poopy diaper for the third time in an hour, like for real. And it's like, I've really wrestled with this. And I think one of the conclusions, the Holy Spirit started to,
• 6:37
  Until I receive all that my heavenly father has for me as his son, I will be limited and mostly incomplete in what I can offer to my children as their father. And I'm like, I'm wrestling that out in real time. So I don't think I have any conclusions necessarily other than like, it feels raw for me. I don't know if that makes any sense, but I feel like that's something I've been wrestling with the last couple of weeks, just personally.
• 7:03
  Yeah. Well, I think when you say there's no way to enter into an identity without at least having had experienced it somewhere. And we don't, these things are not just things that we can just decide what they are out of...
• 7:20
  our brains, that there are things that we've experienced. And so to having never been fathered well, and to have never experienced, or like your point to never have received that fathering from the, from God and just like get into that mode, it becomes very difficult to enter in this identity properly. Like, how do you know what this feels like? How do you know how, because I think most identities are supposed to be really lived out.
• 7:44
  a highly intuitive level, right? They're not necessarily things that are, you know, you're, you're just, you're sort of looking at to-do list and checking out tasks. They're who you are by definition, right? They come from someplace deep inside. And because, because of that, something has to go deep inside of you. So it sounds like you're saying, Justin, that's kind of the process that, that you've been really going through in order to go deeper in this identity. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. I think when I've read scripture recently, like the Lord brought me to pass.
• 8:13
  around adoption. So we think about like, what's the other side of adoption? It's being orphaned. And I really do believe that is like one of the themes of the age is like we live
• 8:49
  And, you know, I mean, I had a dad. I had a dad who had a dad who loved Jesus. I have brothers. I've like been discipled by men in the faith. I have operated as an orphan for all of my life. And so what that's led me to do is to lean into things that make me feel less like that. High performance on the athletic field as a college athlete. High validation in work. I mean, you name it. Like all of these things.
• 9:27
  father to buy the heavenly father and then the downstream effects that exist like when you operate from that love as a dad in your like outpost you know like that like that that changes the ethos and we've been using the word lately a lot i mean obviously you guys it's shalom right like like like that is what brings shalom is a father's father's father's father's father
• 9:59
  from that place of reception at least that's my that's my you might think something differently than that but no I think that's right I don't I think too what you do is survive like you have to you an orphan learns to survive it's pretty spectacular how that happens and how we do like how we were raised and we lived our life and we are where we are we learn to survive
• 10:25
  And I think it's this rewiring of your brain of going back to the places where we were harmed or where there was trauma or significant pain. And we face it and we stop fleeing and running from it. But you go back to those places and where you learn to function as an orphan and take the Heavenly Father back there and he brings you by a new name and.
• 10:53
  I think that's where change starts happening. But I think we can all be lulled to sleep by surviving. You just keep doing the same thing. Like you mentioned, you check the phone, you do this, you do this. But then it reaches a point where the power of the Holy Spirit, we need to be like, our eyes need to be open. We need to be awake. Yeah. At least for us recently, because he's been opening our eyes.
• 11:15
  the ways that we've just been surviving. So that trying to overcome that, that orphan spirit, that just, and experience the love of the father. And then through that, allowing that identity that is love to just permeate, penetrate, transform those parts of us that are, that are afraid. Yeah. Those, that, that kind of formula you were describing, Justin, that kind of orphan as yeah. What does that serve for you? April. Well, I think it takes like a certain amount of humility.
• 11:45
  to enter into that process, especially as an adult. But to be able to, even just as a kid or a teenager, the idea of letting your dad speak into your life and you have to kind of like humble yourself or come under him and say,
• 12:02
  I'm giving you this position of care or authority or provider over me. And, and that's vulnerable and that's scary. And, you know, to whatever degree our dad, our physical dads were able to do that for us. But then even just with our heavenly dad, to be able to allow him into those places, it, I feel like it takes humility to kind of come to a place where you can say, I need you. I, I,
• 12:30
  Like I need to cry before you or I need to be on my face before you. And that's like scary and like vulnerable feeling. And then also just like really humbling because that it's like we're admitting I can't do this on my own. I need you to provide for me. I need you to look out for me. I need you to see what's coming down the road. I need you to prepare me for this thing. Seeking our reliance off of ourself onto him. Yeah. That's hard.
• 13:00
  I had a pastor, a good buddy of mine, he's in Birmingham. We're having a discussion and he told me this was like a week or two ago. He said, a lot of Christians are comfortable with Jesus being prominent in their lives, but few Christians will let him be preeminent or all, all reigning, all covering all in all that they do. And I think that has sat on me like from a conviction standpoint. In fact,
• 13:31
  April when you said as a child even the humility so we've had a moment we I don't even know if he says we have four kids eight months to seven years old hey wow yeah okay I tell people they're they're like a bunch of Corvettes I mean it's like they don't go slow like you know like swerving I mean so it you know anyway our seven-year-old and even as I'm telling you this is to be honest with you like my heart's racing like it feels really vulnerable it's just so fresh our seven
• 14:01
  And so the Lord opened up an opportunity. All the other kids were in bed. This was several nights ago. And Becca could sense something. And she said, Eli, that's our oldest daughter's name, Eli. Is there something that you want to talk with us about? And it starts coming out that in my grasp as a young father to figure out what to do or how to do it or how to discipline, how to love, how to talk. Like I would get angry.
• 14:28
  And my anger had wounded her. And like, we had a moment there where like, she's telling me like, she's remembering like three, four years ago when she was little, like moments. And so I was like, it was difficult in one sense, but it was so redemptive in the other. And so like, I just repented to her. Like we asked, you know, the Lord to come and like restore whatever was broken by like the way I mishandled it.
• 14:58
  those moments. And about five minutes later, she looks at me and she smiled and she goes, daddy, now I can look in your eyes again. And it just was like this piercing, like, but I feel like that those are the things that keep me from going back to the heavenly father too. Like I take these horizontal relationships in the ways that I have felt extended and vulnerable and wounded. And I put those on him when his hands are safe, you know, like his hands are kind and sure.
• 15:39
  like we don't know how to we don't know how to we don't know what fatherhood is so he said but we can right like if we will allow ourselves to be fathered like we can know what that is and i mean i'm like building the plane as i'm flying it kind of like real-time stuff at least in our house around around this that came after the day before i'm just this surrender before the lord
• 16:08
  Like this laying down, like literally came to me. And we were just talking about like all these ways of things that we've like held on to. Like, and, and then when you surrender and you lay it all down and you just, your hands are up. I think that like you said, there's this like point where you're like, we can't do this. Like we literally can't do this. And I think surrender. And then we got to see you.
• 16:37
  this beautiful display of his redemption, restoration of, but after years and years and years of us both functioning in these ways of being orphaned, but also like all these masks you put on, like that's why you're doing it. You know, like you have all these masks on because you're trying to hide behind pain most of the time or like you just can't face things. And so you're just grasping for control.
• 17:05
  You're just trying to like, if I could just get this kid to do what he's supposed to do, then blank. Or if I could just get this job or whatever it is. And you're grasping for control. And then it leads to anger whenever you don't get the control that you're seeking. And so, I don't know. I think it's just like that we just, we're just doing this to me if we're surrendering our lives. We're like, man, we just, we don't know.
• 17:31
  Need a blueprint to revise your family to be a multi-generational team on mission? The book Family Revision by Jeremy Pryor is the book that summarizes all the big picture ideas you hear on this podcast. Available on Amazon or familyteams.com. Like what you hear? Be sure to leave a rating and review for this podcast wherever you use streaming.
• 17:56
  can do this. Yeah. So I'm curious. Go ahead, Justin. No, no, go ahead. I was, yeah, I wanted to hear too, you know, because you've done a lot of probably, you know, these kind of more high intensity, high performance sports and competitive situations. What, what have you, what have you learned? What have you seen in those situations from coaches that have like pushed that too far or have allowed like.
• 18:25
  I don't know that that anytime that you find these coaches, there's like, there's always this tension that, that they're, they're trying, some really can connect with the heart of their players. And some are just like, they seem like very aloof. Um, I'm curious what, where have you seen fatherhood either well represented in those relationships you've had and yeah, or, or not like what, what, what did you learn in those environments about the nature of fatherhood?
• 18:52
  Yeah. I think that the word, the word that comes to my mind is performance. And I knew no matter how good of a relationship I had with my coach, my job was to perform. And if I didn't perform, I did not have his approval or love. And I think, is the internet breaking up a little bit? Are we coming through? Okay. Yeah. You guys are fine. Yeah. On our side. Okay. Anyway.
• 19:17
  What I was saying was my relationship with every coach I've had at every level at its core, no matter what else was on top, was always about performance. And I find that interesting because when you read something like the prodigal son, like the prodigal son's performance was not in question. Like he underperformed, you know, he didn't perform. And yet he was invited back.
• 19:42
  immediately into the shalom of the home. Like you are part of, like you are on our team. You are part of who we are. Like we are incomplete without you.
• 19:56
  I mean, that's, that's the kind of invitation that that father gives. So I don't know. I've often thought about, like, I really don't know as a coach, because I've thought about coaching, especially as my kids be older, you know, like how do I model that differently? You know, like part of, like part of the thing is you're not trying to lose the game. Like you want to win the game. Like, like,
• 20:14
  excellence and looking to win is important so how do you do that without like putting the performance requirement as a prerequisite to approval in play yeah i haven't quite like wrapped my mind around like how i would do that the phrase just came to mind is like i got you like to hear a coach say i got you and like you go out there do the best you can you like you want
• 20:43
  I was an athlete too. So you like want to like perform to win. But I think that the question is like, but, but how, like, you know, and I think it's that like thinking about our kids and like, I got you like go do, but I got you. And.
• 20:59
  I think we both long to hear that. It's kind of like in a family team, your identity like precedes your performance, right? So it's like you, you're safe and you're a part of this team regardless. And so now let's do this together, which is really the gospel. To your point, what you guys are saying is that there can be another message that's sent, which is your performance determines your identity, right?
• 21:29
  in a non-family environment. And so, yeah, that, what are your thoughts about that? Well, I think one thing that I love about the idea of a family team where the dad is the coach is that you can, he can decide what scoring is like, what, what is a point that,
• 21:49
  For our family. And that's given us so much freedom to back off or, you know, like when you're saying like you still want to win. So we still want to. So what is the thing? What is the point? How are we going to score? And so we had to learn how to like really break down our win into very attainable points. You know, like how can we make it through a dinner time without hating our lives at the end of it or something like that?
• 22:18
  That would be, we would have won a game if we did that. So there's these little scoring points of like getting everyone to sit on their bottoms. Okay, now we're getting everyone to...
• 22:28
  take turns talking or we're getting them to eat the food on their plate or whatever the thing is. We had to really learn how to like break the scoring down because it kind of felt a little overwhelming with like everything feeling like a failure or something like that. And then the frustration that comes from that. So I have really enjoyed watching Jeremy grow in his fatherhood as he has figured out how to break
• 22:52
  those things down for us, like as, you know, assistant coach and kit and team players, like how to like, well, what does this mean? What does it mean to have a successful outing to a park or whatever the thing is, how to get in the car well, how to get everyone buckled without losing our minds.
• 23:12
  Like all of those things that are, can feel so simple, but they're like, those are wins and they're wins that help you be able to increase the goal of your, like, okay, that means this time next year, our, our goals are going to be so much bigger. Like our game, we can play a, like a harder game.
• 23:28
  if we can get this game under control or like have some wins. So that was helpful for us to kind of be able to decide what the, what a win looks like. Yeah. The whole, what is the scoring? And so much of it is very relational. Like it's, it's how we're treating each other. It's what people are experiencing when they come into this house. You know, do they feel the presence of the kingdom? Are we exhibiting these values of the kingdom, you know, to one another, first of all,
• 23:55
  amongst us, like, you know, with within the sibling group. And that kind of stuff is just so challenging and takes so much coaching. And I think that you want to have that very strong bedrock of belonging like we you are in.
• 24:12
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