Transcript

Girls · A Time to Sharpen

0:10
Is there anything worse than a dull blade?
0:14
Well, yeah, lots of things, I guess.
0:16
Poverty, war. You know, I come to think of it,
0:20
I got nothing. Poverty, wars, Pretty bad.
0:23
But you know what else is also bad?
0:25
A dull blade. It's unusable.
0:28
In fact, it's downright dangerous.
0:30
Knives need sharpening. From Whetstone Boys Ranch in
0:34
Mountain View, MO, comes a Time to Sharpen, a bi weekly podcast
0:39
that examines how we can all be better versions of ourselves.
0:42
Better counselors, better parents, better teachers, better
0:47
people. Running a boys ranch means we
0:59
spend a lot of time talking about manhood, but you can't
1:03
really understand boys without talking about girls.
1:07
God made us different on purpose, not to compete, but to
1:11
compliment. Because becoming a man isn't
1:13
just about how you carry yourself, it's about how you
1:16
treat the people God made different from you.
1:20
Join us this week on A Time to Sharpen as we talk about girls.
1:24
You shouldn't even be allowed to touch a baseball.
1:26
Come on, we'll take you on right here, right now.
1:30
Come on. Wait.
1:31
Good enough to lick the dirt off our cleats.
1:33
Watch it, jerk. Shut up, idiot.
1:35
Moron. You Bob rapples in the toilet.
1:38
And you like it. You play ball like a girl.
1:50
Welcome back to A Time to Sharpen.
1:51
This is Axel Imita. I'm here with Brandon Maxwell.
1:54
Hello, hello, good to be here again with.
1:57
You welcome to episode 6565 of A Time to Sharpen.
2:02
That's pretty good. I think so.
2:04
And you did a post 5000 downloads or?
2:07
Something 1000 Brandon 5000 downloads streams.
2:13
Sounds like a big number. But it is a big number.
2:15
Is it anything? You know, I think in order to
2:17
make money at this kind of thing, you have to have that
2:19
many a month, probably something in that range.
2:22
So we've done it over the course of three years.
2:26
However I am, I'm pretty proud of that.
2:29
So thank you all for for listening and tuning in and and
2:32
sharing and contributing to this podcast.
2:36
We're still here. Yeah, we are.
2:38
I did a little post on social celebrating it and offered to
2:43
send people AT shirt or a mug or something like that if they if
2:48
they tagged it and told us what their favorite episode was and
2:51
that kind of thing. Haven't had any response yet, at
2:54
least not that I can tell, but maybe people are tagging it and
2:58
I'm not aware of it. But wouldn't it show up on our
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feed if if someone tags? Yeah, I mean that's.
3:02
Hashtag Whetstone Boys Ranch or hashtag a time to sharpen
3:06
something like that so that's still available for you who are
3:10
out there who want one of those. Just go through the 65 episodes
3:14
and pick your favorite or pick this one.
3:16
This one's going to be your favorite.
3:17
I'm going to go ahead and manifest that this is going to
3:19
be your favorite episode because it's about a very interesting
3:24
topic, one that we've kind of skirted around.
3:31
No fun intended. See what I did there?
3:34
We're going to talk about girls today.
3:38
Girls, sorry. That's the Beastie Boys version.
3:41
And then there's the. There's.
3:44
The other one. Doug David Lee Roth.
3:46
There's plenty of how's that one going?
3:49
Well, there's California Girls and then there's what are the
3:54
other ones? I mean he's about half his songs
3:56
are probably. Yeah, right, right.
3:58
But the two, the actual title is called Girls.
4:02
We were singing it the other day.
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I know we can't remember. I can't remember the two.
4:04
It'll come to us. It'll come to us.
4:07
So the reason why we're talking about girls is because.
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Oh beautiful girls, all I want is.
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No, that's not it. That's another one, no?
4:16
OK, well it's you were. Singing it just the other day
4:19
when we were talking about this podcast, it like was the first
4:21
one that popped into your head. Yeah.
4:24
Well, it it'll come to, it'll come to us, and then right in
4:26
the middle of it, I'm. Really going to belt it.
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Out. You'll just belt it out.
4:30
Yeah, that's right. So early on we got a lot of
4:32
questions about why, you know, why don't you work with girls or
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before we actually started, people were like, you should
4:42
work with girls, you know? And we were pretty confident
4:46
early on that that wasn't what we were called to do.
4:50
Not because we believe that boys are better than girls,
4:52
obviously. I mean, I have two girls, you
4:54
have 3 girls. We both married girls.
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We have a deep appreciation and love for girls and the way that
5:00
God has designed women. And so we want to talk about
5:05
that today in the context of the ranch, in the context of our
5:09
history, in the context of we are where we're going.
5:12
Maybe also in terms of what the instruction that we give boys
5:17
about how to behave around girls, They have to unlearn some
5:21
things that they have learned that their culture has taught
5:23
them. And yeah, just issues that
5:26
arise, I mean, when you're living with a bunch of other
5:29
boys in a, in a pressure pressurized environment, that
5:34
topic is going to emerge, right? Because it's, it's getting kind
5:38
of like suppressed on some level because of the lack of it.
5:43
And, and it can sometimes rear its head.
5:45
Their, their awkwardness or their, their just curiosity in,
5:50
in, in girls and in sex and in sexuality and in all these, all
5:56
these issues. And so we're going to talk about
5:59
those things, Yeah. And let's start with the
6:02
historical. Piece I was going to start there
6:05
and just as far as why we just work with boys and not girls, I
6:09
think early on we had worked at a few different facilities
6:15
between Jeremy, Nathan and I as we this idea of Whetstone kind
6:19
of was kicking around and we felt God had brought us
6:23
together. Just girls, girls, girls.
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Oh, there it is. OK.
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It came to me. Thanks.
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Sorry, no, that was perfect. Yeah, we, we called it and it
6:32
manifested itself and there it is.
6:36
So there's probably more that that's, there's probably more
6:39
where that came from. But anyways, we had worked at a
6:44
few different facilities just kind of formulating our own
6:49
ideas of what we wanted, what we felt like we wanted to
6:53
incorporate with our own program, but also taking ideas
6:57
from existing programs. And one of the glaring things
7:01
from those other facilities and just working and getting
7:07
experience was that a lot of those places had boys and girls
7:11
on the same campus. And there was just, it seemed
7:14
like half of your drama and issues came because boys were
7:20
trying to get over the girls dorms or vice versa or during,
7:24
you know, lunch or mealtimes. It's like, you know, there was
7:29
just all the I I games you're playing and just the posturing.
7:33
And anyways, it was just, there was a lot of things that could
7:38
be avoided by keeping that separation in place.
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And so that was just early on with that experience.
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We just decided, you know what, we're just, we're not going to
7:47
maybe one day we'll have a dedicated facility that's just
7:51
girls that's to be determined. But right now we feel God's just
7:55
calling us to work with boys. That's what we know best, I
7:58
guess. And and so that's why it's just
8:02
a boys ranch just to there's enough things that they need to
8:06
navigate through with some of the traumas and troubles and
8:09
things like that, that, you know, it's one element that we
8:13
can remove. Yeah.
8:15
And and we're not judging other facilities that choose to to
8:18
move in that direction. You know, in fact, if you hadn't
8:20
been working in that facility, you wouldn't have met Laura,
8:23
right? Like she was working.
8:25
That's correct alongside you. And so we've talked about that
8:27
on the previous podcast. So there are real advantages to
8:30
to working in that environment and things that can be offered
8:33
that that we cannot offer here. So no shade and any other
8:37
organization, but you know, you feel called to do certain things
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and that's what, you know, Whetstone Boys Ranch from the
8:45
very beginning always had that very clear, clear vision.
8:48
So. Yeah.
8:51
I in my experience, I come from, you know, before the ranch, I
8:55
had 15 years of teaching in in private and public schools.
8:58
And there was, you know, all kinds of interaction between
9:02
girls and boys in the classroom. And, you know, I was able to
9:07
probably tamp down on it somewhat because I was just in
9:09
the classroom with them for 45 minutes an hour, you know, And
9:13
so I was able to keep things pretty, pretty focused on the
9:15
topic at hand. But it definitely did did come
9:19
up, especially in some of the classes that were a little more
9:21
unruly. And if, if a boy has an
9:24
opportunity to, to try to show off or his, his feathers, you
9:30
know, to kind of be the cock of the walk, you know, and, and,
9:34
and do that to, to attract attention and show off.
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And, and he'll, he'll do that especially if he is like
9:41
insecure with himself and that's going to come out a lot more.
9:45
You never did any of that, did you?
9:46
No, In high school I was too. Embarrassed to try to to try to
9:51
talk. I didn't have, I didn't have
9:52
game as they as they say, as we used to say.
9:55
As we used to say, nowadays it's like rizz.
9:57
The rizz, That's the term that is used.
10:01
Or what's the dumb and Dumber line?
10:04
The. Vibe throwing out the vibe.
10:05
Put out the vibe. Put out the vibe.
10:07
Over here. So all right, so that that
10:12
covers a little bit of a little bit of the history of why we do
10:16
that. I will say that we are our
10:20
always trying to and and are interested in attracting female
10:24
staff, whether they're counselors or working in school
10:28
or volunteering on the weekends or a part of a volunteer group,
10:31
work group that comes. We've had some therapists that
10:35
have been, yeah, female. And obviously we now we have a
10:39
house mom. Yeah, which is, I don't know,
10:43
that's such a key position in general.
10:47
I mean, as as you talked about from the beginning, we're going
10:50
to kind of look at some different angles of boys and
10:53
dealing with just girls their own age essentially.
10:56
But also on the the other end of the spectrum of just how to be
11:03
respectful to other women and how to treat other women,
11:09
whether it's a a peer, a girl or a lady, you know, there's I
11:14
think that's just a lost art that a lot of our boys.
11:18
It's just not. I I don't think a lot of parents
11:20
are really intentional about that.
11:23
And some of that is just a cultural, you know, with all the
11:27
kind of whenever the, I don't know, when was the main like
11:30
women's live movement was that in?
11:33
Well, there have been several, but back, back to the, the
11:36
suffrage movement, probably the late the 1900s.
11:38
But, you know, it's, yeah, grown.
11:41
But it's just gotten more and more like, yeah, it's like kind
11:45
of. It's just not a easy topic.
11:50
Sometimes it can step on it. Can be alienating and.
11:53
So it is just. I guess my point is it's not a
11:57
topic that is discussed a lot because it can be a little bit
12:01
sensitive, yeah. So yeah, even my own, my own
12:04
girls have different feelings than than my wife and I do about
12:10
whether or not a boy should open a door for a girl.
12:14
Like one of my daughter's does not like that, right?
12:17
She wants to open her own door. And it's like I don't how not
12:20
weak. You don't need to.
12:21
Help me with that. That's how she interprets it.
12:23
And so one has to be aware that some women will will feel that
12:28
way, other women love it, right? And I don't think 1 is right or
12:33
wrong. But I think because of that
12:35
ambiguity and that ambivalence, we are hesitant to instruct our
12:40
children about chivalry because we're afraid of what it could
12:44
be, what how it could come across.
12:46
And I don't think that's the right approach.
12:49
At least we haven't taken that approach here at Whetstone.
12:51
We think it's important to teach men, young men in particular, to
12:56
think about women differently, not not that they're worse or
13:02
weaker or whatever. Like God made us different, you
13:07
know, not so that we could compete, but that we could, we
13:10
could complete each other, complete each other, right?
13:14
And so those differences are something that allow us to be
13:16
better as a whole. And yeah, so we have had many
13:24
things over the years where we've been intentional in terms
13:27
of teaching chivalry. You probably on Fridays, we'll
13:30
talk about it. Why don't you maybe discuss that
13:33
a little bit? Yeah, on every other Friday I do
13:39
Chapel and we call it manhood with Maxwell.
13:42
And so it's just an opportunity to the, the whole goal is to
13:50
help boys understand a little bit more of the definition of
13:54
what we believe God's called us to be as a man and to define
13:58
that in some real terms. And those real terms we kind of,
14:02
or we use Robert Lewis's book to as an outline raising a modern
14:09
day night and kind of the four pillars of manhood that he uses
14:14
is to accept or reject passivity, accept
14:18
responsibility, lead courageously and invest
14:22
eternally. And so we talk about that at
14:26
different times through through those chapels of what I mean,
14:30
really leading courageously. I see that the topic at hand
14:35
today with girls that that is really well accepting the
14:40
responsibility that especially when we have families and how to
14:44
act and how to treat women and understanding that because it's
14:51
just thinking outside of ourselves is one thing.
14:54
When we are looking to the needs of others around us.
14:59
That goes to, you know, the needs of the women and and girls
15:04
and what are looking at at it from that perspective instead of
15:08
what can I get out of the deal. And so I think that's one thing
15:13
that we have when we work with our boys is helping to unlearn
15:16
what they have learned and what they have learned, unfortunately
15:20
these days through their their phones and, and, and start
15:22
getting addicted to pornography and just the social media, all
15:29
the stuff that is promiscuous out there.
15:33
All they're getting fed is what I get out of the deal.
15:36
You know, it's just like objectification, you know, and
15:39
Satan uses what is appealing for us from the physical standpoint.
15:44
And so we have to teach them to unlearn what they've learned is
15:47
that women are sex objects. A lot of them, a lot of these
15:51
boys come in that are just over sexualized.
15:55
And you just throw in to that that there's just, they're going
15:58
through puberty, their hormones are going crazy.
16:03
And sometimes it's a, it's a train wreck and it takes a lot
16:08
to kind of start undoing some of.
16:10
That, yeah, the devil is good at what he does, you know, He knows
16:13
just the right. I'm going to steal from the
16:14
family man here, Todd Wilson, about the the right lure.
16:18
He knows exactly what to put in front of you so that it looks
16:22
like the real thing, so much so that you're willing to just take
16:26
the risk because you want it. You want that lure.
16:31
But once once you bite into it, you realize pretty soon this is
16:34
not the real thing. But you're hooked, right?
16:37
And it takes a lot to get to get out of that entanglement once
16:40
you're in. And you know, social media is so
16:42
good at it with the algorithm and it learns your habits.
16:46
It knows how long you pause. You know, on, on a real, if
16:51
you're scrolling up, if you pause for two seconds, then the
16:55
very next thing will be different than if you hadn't
17:00
paused. And so if you pause on a picture
17:02
with a woman that has big breasts, then it, oh, it's
17:07
probably going to assess that you like to see that kind of
17:10
thing. And then it's going to slowly
17:13
increase it, you know, and it knows about dopamine levels.
17:17
It knows about how the brain works.
17:19
It's a scary. It's a.
17:21
Scary thing going to get worse with like the, I mean the
17:25
virtual reality, the VR headsets and then now like humanoid
17:30
robots and AI. And like, I mean, it's kind of
17:33
scary when you think about the that side of it, the the
17:37
pornography side of it and how Satan has already got so many
17:43
hooks in on that front. And it's just going to, you
17:45
know, the barrage of all that stuff is right.
17:49
It's going to get and, and just to be clear, we're not saying
17:51
that women are the cause of, of men's problems or the downfall
17:56
or that there's something, you know, wrong with women or
18:00
whatever. Like we're talking about the
18:02
objectification of women, of reducing them to objects of.
18:05
Yeah, we're. It's coming from where what our
18:08
boys are struggling with when they come in here and how we
18:12
what we're kind of dealing with on the cultural side of things.
18:16
And sometimes to the degrees we don't even get like it's pretty
18:19
deep. And so those are some of the
18:24
things that we just we try to get down to some foundational
18:30
levels and incorporate some biblical principles who God
18:34
calls us to be as men. And that was kind of the part of
18:38
this section or the point of this section is we, we try to
18:42
get boys a picture of that because they're just not either
18:47
aware of it. They haven't been taught that.
18:50
And we need to. It's our job to.
18:53
To show, or in a lot of cases they've been taught that it's
18:55
good. Yeah.
18:56
That you should be exploring. Right.
18:58
That's part of being a man you know is experiencing these
19:01
things. And you have to know what
19:02
you're, you know, what you like and what you don't like.
19:05
And, and the, the, the, the lie is that the world has told us
19:08
that the more you experiment with these things and the more
19:11
you kind of indulge in this, the better sexual partner you'll be,
19:15
right? Or the more satisfied you'll be
19:18
in your relationship because you'll have, you'll know all
19:21
these things because you've tried them.
19:23
You know what I mean? And such a lie, you know, I
19:26
mean, study after 70, a study shows that the people who are
19:29
the most satisfied sexually or people who are in long term
19:32
committed relationships, not people who have had all these
19:35
experiences. I mean, it's just it's a sad
19:38
fact of our society. So we have to instruct our young
19:41
men in these principles and we're very proactive about it.
19:45
As you said, on on Fridays, every other Friday, you re
19:48
rotate with Mr. Patton. We need to have him in here on
19:51
the podcast sometime. Talk about work program.
19:54
That'd be a good one. Yeah.
19:57
And so, you know, part of that. Is we don't we don't get too
20:01
much into this with our boys, but I thought it would be a good
20:03
discussion for us to have and maybe a good discussion for for
20:09
you in particular with your son and and me with my son as they
20:13
move into the the dating era. And, you know, limits and
20:20
responsibilities, obligations that we have as parents to to
20:24
give them freedoms to be their own man, but to also give them
20:28
advice about, you know, some of the some of the obstacles, some
20:33
of the the ways that things can go wrong.
20:35
And so, yeah, I want to kind of open that up for discussion in
20:39
terms of what we tell our boys. I'll go ahead and and share
20:44
something that pop pops into my head that was told me as a as a
20:48
young man was there were there were three rules for for dating.
20:54
I thought they were really good. One is nothing good happens
20:58
after midnight. The second one is don't, don't
21:08
you know, leave alone anything that's covered by underwear.
21:12
So very clear. I think that's pretty clear,
21:14
right? I mean, some people are like,
21:16
oh, what, what can we do? What heavy panic, all this
21:19
stuff, right? All these debates, if it's
21:20
covered by underwear traditionally, don't just don't
21:23
just leave it alone, OK? You'll, you'll stay out of a lot
21:25
of trouble. And then the third thing is, the
21:28
more prone you are, the more prone you are, if you know what
21:34
I'm saying. Alright, Fred Leimer, I don't.
21:38
Think that was my dad. It very well could have been,
21:40
but I think it was some other wise man who spoke into my life.
21:45
Interesting. And I've tried to pass that
21:46
along and it's been, I think it's pretty good, good stuff.
21:50
Yeah, it's. Worth the price of admission.
21:52
Unforgettable. Yeah, for sure.
21:55
That's my dating. Advice.
21:55
Yeah, that's your dating advice. Well, obviously when you throw
22:01
in mind altering substances, that does not bode well either
22:07
for making proper decisions. So all of those things you said
22:13
and don't partake in mind altering just.
22:17
But you got to say it in a funny way.
22:19
You got to add add a fourth one that's kind of in the same the
22:22
same vein of the the first 3. Yeah.
22:26
That's a good one. For ChatGPT, I type in the three
22:29
things. Liquid courage makes a walk of
22:34
shame. You write a fourth one that's in
22:35
the same style, but that talks about how you need to avoid mind
22:39
altering substances. Yeah.
22:40
It'll give me like 10 different possibilities.
22:44
All right. Yeah.
22:45
So, yeah. Other things like if you, I'm
22:48
sure you've thought some about this and you've had to give some
22:50
advice, or if you had to talk to any young men who were kind of
22:54
talking to Evelyn or, or if you told her, like if, if someone is
23:00
interested in dating you, I want to know who this young man is
23:03
and we need to schedule a conference or like what's your,
23:06
what's your approach? At this point, it's with Evelyn,
23:10
it's just been more kind of we haven't had any serious
23:16
inquiries at this point. And just because she's really
23:19
not interested still, I'm just like, you know, you're not
23:23
getting you're not going to get until 30 anyway.
23:28
So so it's just that's kind of been the the banter back and
23:32
forth. But it's I guess, you know, you
23:38
never that was a good you asked him, Am I sure?
23:43
Probably not 100%. I mean, she's not going to
23:46
confide in me as much as Laura. In my experience, yes.
23:52
So. On On Will's side, yeah, I guess
23:59
I would say so. There's been definitely some
24:04
girls interested in Will and to my knowledge and have talked to
24:10
him, he hasn't said that he is really well.
24:13
He's just said he's not really interested in in dating at this
24:16
point. He just has other things he
24:18
wants to do and just doesn't feel like it's funny.
24:22
It's more of just like he doesn't want to spend his money
24:25
because he's like he's always heard, you know, if you go out
24:27
on the day, you got to buy their dinner and you got to this and
24:30
that. And so he's although in this new
24:34
era, he's too cheap in the new era.
24:36
That's right. You know it's some women would
24:38
prefer to pay for themselves. You could tell him that I.
24:41
Know. Yeah, so, but at the same time,
24:44
don't even let, I guess a word to a word of wisdom for parents
24:50
is just continue to investigate, to know your kids and not
24:53
necessarily pry and Snoop, but to really drill down because
25:00
they could just be saying I'm just not really interested in
25:03
that when there's something going on that they're just maybe
25:08
not trying to hide a whole lot, but they're not really coming
25:11
out and being truthful with it either.
25:13
Or they're hanging out with somebody.
25:15
You know, now that Will's driving, there's just more
25:19
opportunity maybe to if he doesn't, if he's not honest with
25:22
where he's telling us he's going, right.
25:25
You know, I know there's apps and stuff these days for all
25:28
that we're really just trying to starting to get into.
25:31
He just started driving last month, you know.
25:33
So anyway. Yeah, yeah, it's a tough it's a
25:37
pretty a pretty Gray area because you don't want to come
25:42
on too strong and and scare kids away from from dating and and
25:48
talking to the opposite sex like it's that's in a skill.
25:51
You have to learn how to do that.
25:54
And I think that's one thing that we try to to be proactive
25:58
with the boys here is to when we're when we're sitting around
26:01
the table at lunch and the topic of girls come out and, and, and
26:05
kind of veers towards. Thompson's favorite?
26:08
Yeah, I just gave that talk the other day.
26:10
I heard him Imagine there's a pretty lady sitting at the table
26:13
across from you. All right, Is that, is that what
26:15
you're going to say? You know, but it is a good, it
26:19
is a good gauge, I think, because women do give us a
26:23
glimpse into ourselves and force us to show some self-control
26:28
that we would not otherwise show.
26:31
And so they sharpen us. And so we do, we do like that
26:36
here at the ranch with their inability to interact with with
26:40
girls. But like you said, we do, you
26:43
know, we do want them to have these interactions with house
26:47
moms and with other staff, other female staff and, and begin to
26:51
appreciate the different ways that, the different things that
26:54
they bring and, and different ways that you might have to act
26:56
when, when you're around them. You know, we didn't really talk
27:00
about this pre show, but one of the things that the boys
27:05
struggle with a lot is their their relationship with their
27:09
mom. You know, it could be, you know,
27:12
an overbearing mom or whatever the situation is that they just
27:17
they really struggle with that relationship and then that can
27:22
transfer to a house mom or other females.
27:25
And so that's something that we need to work through as well
27:32
during their time here. So it's and what we've talked
27:37
about as far as modeling, I think what we do fairly well
27:42
here is we've talked about, you know, boys just being able to
27:45
earn dinners at staff houses and being able to model for them to
27:50
come home and into our house, eat around our table, be around
27:54
our kids and see how staff treats and interacts with our
28:02
own daughters, our wives. And we try to model that as best
28:07
we can. You know, obviously nobody's got
28:09
a perfect family, but we I think that's something that boys get
28:15
while they're here. That is a positive that we
28:17
always say, you know, more is caught than taught.
28:20
So if we can show them those different relationships, a house
28:24
mom and any other female staff that we have here, we have one
28:30
of our neighbors, our Our Lady neighbors comes in and helps
28:33
with the school Miss Anne. So there's more interactions and
28:37
that would be more of like a grandma figure.
28:39
So just all of all of those different interactions from
28:44
peers to moms to house moms to potential, you know, grandmas
28:48
and volunteers and it's all healthy stuff that we can be
28:53
intentional with our boys. About Yeah, those are two really
28:55
good points. Miss Anne, She's she, she's not
28:57
afraid to tell a boy if he crosses a line, right, She'll
29:01
she'll be very, very blunt with him, which is great.
29:04
And I have found that when boys do come over, because I usually
29:07
have a boy, you know, with two to three boys come over once a
29:11
month, they purchase, purchase it in the merit store Lima to
29:15
lodge. And I found boys to be very
29:18
polite and aware of how they should behave, which is, you
29:22
know, credit to the our parents who send boys here.
29:25
Like, I don't want people to get the impression that our boys are
29:29
feral savages. You know, we don't know how to
29:31
act. I mean, they know how to act
29:33
most of the boys that we have. And so they have just gotten in
29:37
the habit around their peers and on social media where you can
29:41
say whatever you want with impunity.
29:42
You can look at whatever you want and not have to think about
29:46
of, you know, bouncing your eyes or, you know, how other people
29:49
might feel if they're being treated in this way.
29:52
It's so easy to objectify people.
29:55
And so I've been, I've been real impressed with the way the boys
29:59
behave. So they are getting some, some
30:01
really quality interaction with women and girls.
30:05
In my case, it was interesting because when we started the
30:07
ranch, my girls were, were pretty young.
30:11
You know, your girls weren't even born yet.
30:16
Mine were, mine were like one of them was, you know, 8, let's
30:21
see, 2000 to like 9, you know, and, and six, you know, 5 or 6.
30:28
And so I, I joke that, you know, they, they grow up and then all
30:33
of a sudden they're women, right?
30:35
And just just like that. But it was kind of funny with
30:37
the boys, the way that they behave towards my girls because
30:40
they went from being like not on the boys radar to being out of
30:44
the boys league like immediately, like over
30:47
overnight. It was like, OK then, now I have
30:50
to think about like how the boys are buying Lima tolage just so
30:56
they can come over my house and see my daughter.
30:58
Right. Yeah, which?
31:00
Which is kind of like flattering, you know, in some
31:03
ways They weren't, they weren't rude about it, but they would,
31:05
they would make comments every once in a while and be like, is
31:08
your daughter going to be there tonight?
31:10
You know, or one of my daughter's has red hair.
31:13
She's a ginger. So they that kind of stuck in a
31:16
couple couple boys minds. I remember them saying something
31:18
about that. And so now you do have to be on
31:22
guard, you know, with your children working around because
31:25
of our boys have some some traumatic histories and they've
31:28
acted out. And and so I don't, I don't mean
31:33
to make light of any of that, but I will say that that was an
31:36
interesting kind of evolution over the years of working at the
31:40
ranch with with my kids. OK, boys, girls, let's see what
31:53
did. Do you have anything else to get
31:54
to Brandon? I have one.
31:59
I have one. I.
32:00
Think we? The the back to the idea of
32:03
like, why boys ranch? Why girls ranch?
32:06
Yeah, I think that boys and girls, we've talked about how
32:10
they are different, but I think that they they struggle with
32:14
different things or or to put it another way, they they break
32:19
differently. That's not original to me.
32:22
I type, I type my notes in but and ChatGPT before I do this and
32:25
just get a little feedback about what we could and actually came
32:28
up with that phrase. So I'm going to give credit to
32:31
myself through a large base language model that helped me to
32:36
better articulate what I was trying to say instead of like
32:40
crediting AI. But it said the boys and girls
32:42
like break differently. I thought that was really
32:44
poetic. Actually, I did set my you know,
32:46
you can set your change your settings on ChatGPT to give you
32:50
practical advice or to give you to be humorous with you or to be
32:54
poetic or whatever. I checked the poetic one.
32:56
I wanted I wanted it to speak back to me in poetry.
32:59
So it's give me some cool stuff. So specifically though, like
33:04
boys are susceptible to issues related to self-control.
33:09
And these are generalizations. OK, Just keep that in mind.
33:12
They're generalizations. And boy and girls are
33:14
susceptible to issues that involve like self esteem.
33:17
Yeah. And they both struggle with both
33:19
of them. Not saying that they don't, but
33:22
I thought that that that gives us some focus to the therapy.
33:26
We have a consistency of care. We have certain routines and
33:29
procedures. We have things that we do over
33:31
and over again and we have to get good at doing it one kind of
33:35
way. So it helps us to kind of stay
33:38
in our lane to know that these are the types of issues that
33:41
boys struggle with primarily, you know, and they struggle with
33:44
them differently than girls. So I thought that that was.
33:47
Yeah, that's a big thing that, you know, initially we didn't
33:51
talk about when I was mentioning that, but that's, yeah, it's
33:54
really how you, how girls are motivated versus boys versus how
34:00
you, you know, struggle or how you kind of come up with a
34:04
therapeutic plan based on their needs.
34:07
All that stuff is really so different.
34:10
So it's like you got to have two different teams and two
34:13
different programs to really do that efficiently like you're
34:16
talking about. And so it would take another you
34:20
just setting up a whole nother campus that was is geared
34:23
towards that is what we believe is the right way to do that.
34:26
And God may call us to that at some point, right?
34:28
He may not. But we're for now staying in our
34:34
lane with teenage boys and that keeps us busy enough, I would
34:39
say. Sure it does.
34:41
So, yeah, while we're on that topic of motivation, I want to
34:46
talk about that briefly because there are things that motivate
34:51
my girls that don't motivate my boys and vice versa.
34:54
Right. And you haven't you, you have a
34:57
unique glimpse into that as a volleyball coach at OCA.
35:00
Yeah. Like, have you found things that
35:02
that surprised you, that were motivating to your girls, that
35:07
coming from your background as a male athlete, we're like, oh,
35:12
wow, I didn't realize this was so important to the girls.
35:15
I'm going to make sure that I that I do the more of this in
35:18
order to incentivize or motivate them.
35:21
Or have you found this more similar that maybe than you
35:24
realize? Well, one thing that I guess
35:29
that was a little surprising to me, it wasn't.
35:32
It was I guess kind of the cliquish behavior that was
35:37
happening that I really didn't wasn't aware of.
35:41
I'm usually pretty astute with some of that, but and I don't
35:45
see it's not like I see these girls at school in in their
35:48
environment all the time. It's just really at that
35:50
practice. But there was just over the
35:55
years, there's been, you know, certain pockets of girls that
35:59
just kind of can be pretty cliquish and not so nice and it
36:05
creates division in the team. And so it's just kind of like,
36:11
so I just noticed early on, I need to try to do more things to
36:15
create some cohesion and try to break some of that, even though
36:18
I don't really, it's really taken some other moms at
36:22
different times to help me be aware of that.
36:26
And I didn't know if you knew about this, but these two girls
36:29
are really kind of struggling because they're, and it could,
36:32
because they're competing for a boy that you don't, you know,
36:35
And, and as we're talking about boys and girls and all the
36:38
hormones and, and the emotions, and, you know, some girls are
36:43
competitive and you can talk to them more sternly.
36:47
But some girls, if you look at them wrong and just then they
36:50
feel any kind of disappointment because of a mistake they made,
36:53
then they just like I've had to be careful with how I talk to
36:58
some of the girls or just the way I show my emotions on the
37:01
court, just being a competitor. Sometimes it comes across as I'm
37:06
disappointed in them as a person.
37:09
And so there's definitely been some some teaching and some
37:13
learning that way that they've they've sharpened me on that.
37:17
You know, you can't you can do with boys.
37:20
And yeah, the golf team with the boys is.
37:25
But anyway, that's. Yeah, I, I coached girls golf
37:28
for three years. Yeah.
37:29
And it was a really good experience.
37:32
I enjoyed it a whole lot. But yeah, there was a learning
37:34
curve for me to know how to how to talk about things, how to,
37:38
you know, and, and every group of girls different and
37:40
everything like that. But like making for my girls.
37:45
And we weren't like state competitors, you know, competing
37:47
for the trophies. There would be different of
37:48
those with that kind of a group of girls, but these girls and,
37:51
and most of the teams that we competed with, like it was about
37:54
like having it was very relational.
37:57
Everyone wanted to feel like it was a fun experience and they
38:00
walked away with it with feeling like a part of togetherness and
38:06
family and and men need this too.
38:08
But but like when I was on the baseball team, I liked hanging
38:12
out with guys from the team or whatever, but it was really more
38:15
more about the competitive nature of it and so.
38:22
But yeah, the girls definitely, like I said, there's some that
38:26
are more competitive and some that just like they are there
38:30
for the social element. It's not that they don't like to
38:34
win and don't compete, but it's just the they I think appreciate
38:39
that camaraderie maybe a little bit more just the the need to
38:45
connect with other. Yeah.
38:49
Yeah, I think it's a, it's a different set of like
38:51
priorities. Yeah.
38:52
Like we all have the same values.
38:54
I think we just give maybe a slightly different order to them
38:57
at times. And there are times in men's
38:59
lives when those priorities get need to get shuffled and need to
39:03
get moved around as well. You know, my wife says I have
39:10
Well, this is a joke. This isn't actually my wife.
39:11
I'm gonna, I'm gonna transition into a joke.
39:13
OK, You ready? I.
39:15
Was born ready. My wife says I have two
39:18
problems. The 1st is that I don't listen
39:20
to her and the second I can't I can't recall.
39:24
I can't remember. Remember what the second one is.
39:28
Well, if I think of it, Axel, yeah, I'll blurt it out like you
39:30
did the girls. What's?
39:32
The second What's the second? Problem that I have, you know I
39:33
can't remember. Either I told that one to my dad
39:35
and he's been like telling that joke non-stop.
39:38
So if you know Fred Limida, I you're either welcome or I
39:42
apologize. I don't know one or the other
39:46
because he can, he can kind of get into where he tells that the
39:50
same joke. The thing that surprises me,
39:52
I'll. Switch on to another one.
39:53
Yeah. The thing that surprises me
39:54
about that is that he wasn't using that joke back in the 70s
39:59
or whatever like that. Seems like a like me, he may
40:02
have come up with that joke and he'd already forgot about it.
40:04
He. Might have.
40:04
Because like, that's, that's right up his alley.
40:08
So yeah. Anyway, all right, well, this
40:12
has been good. What else we got?
40:14
You know, I think, yeah, that would be pretty much exhausting.
40:16
I got to my joke at the end. That was the big thing, that
40:19
that was the priority to make sure I got to that.
40:23
So. All right.
40:25
Well, that sounds good. Yeah, I think we've given.
40:27
Congratulations #60. 565. Now we can hand it off to Thomas
40:31
Brown talking work his magic. Do what he does so.
40:35
Thank you again, Thomas, for working with us and correcting
40:38
our mistakes when we make them and making us sound good.
40:42
Yeah, and. Should we tell him not to play
40:44
any David Lee Roth or what? You just let him use his own
40:48
creation, I think, his own imagination.
40:51
We'll let him use his creative license.
40:54
Just do what he does, yeah. Just do what he does.
41:01
Sounds good. All right.
41:02
Well. Thank you all for listening.
41:05
Please like share, subscribe. Comment T-shirt.
41:08
Get AT shirt, get some gloves. Tell us what your favorite
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41:12
Maybe like I said. And again, we appreciate you for
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listening and listening and we'll catch you next time on a
41:19
Time to Sharp. See ya.
41:28
Whetstone Boys Ranch. Is a therapeutic?
41:30
Boarding school located in the scenic Ozarks of southern
41:33
Missouri. It was founded in 2011 to serve
41:37
families from around the country who are struggling with
41:39
challenging behaviors from their 12 to 16 year old sons.
41:43
Our mission is to sharpen the character of young men.
41:47
Please visit whetstoneboysranch.com if you
41:49
want to learn more about our program or about how to contact
41:52
us for help. Thanks for listening and we hope
41:55
to catch you next time on A Time to Sharpen.