Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 162 | Uncles and Aunts in the Family Team Picture

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Ep. 162 | Uncles and Aunts in the Family Team Picture · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  But they're just different than you. They think differently than you do. They have different perspectives than you do. They love your kids and they care about your family, but they don't think the way you do.
• 0:12
  Hey guys, welcome to the 5-Minute Fatherhood Podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeff Bethke, 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.
• 0:34
  All right, what's up guys? Welcome to another five minute fatherhood. So one of the questions that we're constantly wrestling with as we are building these multi-generational family teams is to try to understand and recapture the extended sort of family roles. And so we've talked about grandparents a lot on this podcast, but one of the roles we haven't talked as much about is uncles and aunts.
• 0:55
  your siblings, your spouse's siblings, and how they're supposed to operate in a family team. Now, if you go back in history and look at, read a lot of stories from ancient cultures, or even 100 years ago's Go Plus, and see the role of aunts and uncles in the context of family,
• 1:13
  One of the roles that they tend to play in a family is they're kind of the disruptor, right? Everyone's got those crazy aunts or uncles, and they're not too impressed by you and your amazing family team or your amazing parenting. They're going to ask hard questions, and that can be really tough. And so a lot of people find this collision happening with their siblings or their parents.
• 1:36
  spouses, siblings, around how do we deal with the aunts and uncles. And I would encourage you guys that if it's not a real toxic situation, sometimes there's danger involved, there's real problems, and there needs to be distance. But any time that there's a reasonable amount of health there, but they're just different than you, they think differently than you do, they have different perspectives than you do, they love your kids and they care about your family, but they don't think the way you do.
• 2:04
  to at some level embrace that as part of what's important, as an extended family role. This happens also, you guys, in the church, where we're all called to be brothers and sisters, but people that are my brothers that I'm hanging out with that are believers, they're kind of like uncles to my son or my daughters or aunts, so to speak.
• 2:24
  I think it's important to understand that you and your wife only bring so many perspectives into the family. And you've got blind spots. And there's also just a host of perspectives that you may not agree with, but your kids are going to run into over time as they're out in the world. That's kind of the role of the uncle and the aunt. Sometimes it will be around the Shabbat table, and a particular sibling of mine or April's might say something to my kids that I don't agree with. And I'm always kind of like—
• 2:52
  That's kind of cool. I kind of like that my kids are being challenged with other perspectives by people I know love them. I know, understand, and love us. They just don't see things perfectly the way I do. And so if that's the only issue, I think that's actually kind of important to have in the family. And sometimes when people are really getting intentional about family, they want to like –
• 3:11
  create all kinds of boundaries against anyone that might have a different perspective. I'm not sure that's healthy. I don't think historically that's what was going on. I think we need to have a lot of sort of tolerance for our kids hearing those perspectives and give the aunts and uncles a little bit of space. Again, there are huge exceptions to this. Don't put your kids in a dangerous or super toxic situation. But in general, this can be really healthy. But Jeff, what are your thoughts about this?
• 3:34
  Yeah. And one thing I would add, too, that I was thinking when you were talking is, you know, I think aunts and uncles have some of the best stories, too, right? They have such a cool perspective on stories as siblings, you know, with you. Or, yeah, there's just a perspective that aunts and uncles have. I feel like sometimes they can almost be just really, really good storytellers and pull out really unique ones and different ones and kind of the unflattering ones. And I think they kind of equalize you, which is another thing I think you were kind of
• 4:00
  saying too, which is really interesting. So I would say, yeah, just lean into it. I think it's actually a huge part of the fun, multi-generational part of family and what God's kind of intention was, like I said, with exceptions. But it's definitely a blessing.
• 4:12
  Hey guys, we know it's really challenging to try to build your family team when all the tools you've grown up with or seen essentially are aimed at only helping develop family members as a collection of individuals. That's why we launched familyteams.com, where you can find all the tools we've developed with tons of resources at different price points, free courses, videos, writings, etc. that help you build up and transform you and your family into a multi-generational team on mission. Check out all the resources we have over at familyteams.com.