Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 91 | How to Craft a Simple, Meaningful Birthday Tradition

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Ep. 91 | How to Craft a Simple, Meaningful Birthday Tradition · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  And I don't know what present or sugar is going to compete with that. 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.
• 0:30
  What's up guys, Jeff and Jeremy here, another episode of Five Minute Fatherhood. Today we are talking about tools and tips and stuff like that, and we are gonna lean into how to craft a simple, meaningful birthday tradition. If you live in the West, if you live in America, if you live in year 2019, you know
• 0:45
  But birthdays have become almost the peak consumeristic day. We are a consumer culture. So then what we put on our birthday is let's consume 10 times more. Maybe that'll make us happier. Maybe we'll feel more celebrated. And with kids, that means sugar and candy and cakes and presents and presents and presents until they start crying because they're overwhelmed. And that's either birthday or Christmas. You only got about two options, right? That's
• 1:08
  But we just resist that mentality strongly. We don't believe that's what it should be like. We don't believe that's how you should celebrate life and births and families. But Jeremy and their family have been doing this a lot longer. So I'd love to hear how you guys do that because you guys have kind of some fun, cool, creative ideas.
• 1:24
  Yeah, so one way to think about what is a birthday for? And like Jeff just said, it's just like we go into this huge sort of almost consumer, like sugar-filled chaos, and it's like if you aren't feeding the flesh of your child, then they're not having a great birthday. But I think that the best way to think about a birthday is it's an opportunity to honor that teammate for what they are contributing to the team.
• 1:52
  And everyone gets around them and really speaks over them and honors them in that way. And so that's a different way to think about it. And so a lot of times you need a tool for this. And so there's a couple of tools we're going to throw out there, one that our family uses, one that Jess's family uses. What our family likes to do is during our weekly family meal, every time there's a birthday, we make sure that that particular family meal is really focusing on that teammate and what they're contributing to the family team and how we can honor them. We do this through birthday toast. And so what we'll do is...
• 2:21
  is in the middle of a meal, I'll just say, you know, or at the beginning of the meal, I'll just say, guys, we're celebrating, you know, Jackson today. It's his birthday this week. And so whenever you want to honor him, just go ahead and, you know, ding your glass and then share with us what is meaningful to you about Jackson. And so these are such epic things.
• 2:42
  dinners because usually we have 15 to 20 people at this dinner. Oftentimes we'll invite maybe another family over that is close to Jackson. Anyone who we think can really honor him if it's his birthday, plus all of our family and the extended family that comes to our
• 2:57
  Sabbath dinners. And so all during the meal, people are digging their glass, saying things to Jackson, and then we usually toast to him in some way. Like, you know, if he's doing an amazing job of being responsible with his time, we say to being responsible with your time. And then we all kind of like, and so it's just like, you know, an hour straight of just fun and laughter and stories and honoring. And I don't know what present or sugar is going to compete with that.
• 3:24
  And that's why I feel like maybe what we need is really good traditions that help us figure out how to honor people. And it doesn't mean we don't give them presents or figure out other special ways to honor him in those ways, too. It's just, man, this is really what I think is most valuable. But, yeah, Jeff, what are you guys doing here?
• 3:41
  Yeah, I think that's great. And I love that. And I think the word that's key to what you said, too, is tradition, meaning like one of the special things about birthdays is they should compound over the years. And I don't think you should switch it up every year. You want it to hold baggage. You want it to kind of hold weight and kind of just become this thing that gets filled more and more with every kid and with every parent as the family progresses, because then it just becomes so, so rich the more you add on to that. So we do kind of two quick things with our birthdays. We have toddlers, but...
• 4:09
  Um, one, we're just kind of starting now that they're probably just at the right age this last year or two, at least Kinsley as we do. Um, and we've actually done this longer with like adults. We've kind of, we do it in our community and, uh, started in our community and we do it with me and Alyssa on our birthdays. We do, it's called the birthday hot seat where basically the person that gets basically exactly what you said, very similar to the toast where you just get put on the hot seat and basically we then have to all go around and just kind of share things we appreciate about that person. Things we're thankful for, for that person, maybe a quick story, um, that reminds us of how. Um,
• 4:37
  Brave they are, courageous they are, kind they are, and just really share. I don't think we do – we're not very good in our culture of being a culture of honor. We're not very good in our culture of being a culture of knowing how to just speak, looking in someone's eyes like an actual good compliment without that person saying, oh, no, thanks, or no, whatever. Also, like it's very – where both people get it right, where someone just says it seriously and the other person receives it in love is a dynamic that doesn't happen very often. And so we really leaned into that on –
• 5:03
  Birthdays. And another one we do too is we do get gifts, of course, and there is special things here and there, but we very much tip the scales towards experiences over gifts because I think an experience can be enjoyed by the whole family celebrating the teammate, the one individual, when a gift is usually just for the individual. So this last example we just did with Cannon a couple weeks ago is he loves cars. He loves cars.
• 5:25
  So I hit up my buddy who lives, who works at a car dealership and he's the man and he's, you know, high up so he can do whatever he wants. And he basically loaned us a Jeep, really nice lifted, all super crazy, awesome one that Canon thought was like the best thing in the world because it looked kind of like a big version of a Hot Wheel.
• 5:41
  And we just drove around Maui for a whole day, right? And so we just, it was kind of this fun thing of like, Cannon got this special Jeep that he really likes that he always points out and talks about. We got that for him and we drove around all day in it. So there was really like, no, get was the gift, right? Was for us to hang out as a family and just have fun and maybe stop at some ice cream places and stop at the beach and stuff like that. So that's just some ideas. And what I think that comes down to, by the way, too, is then leaning into kind of the, for lack of a better term, the cliche term, the love language of your kid. I think leaning into how do they actually feel and ask them,
• 6:10
  I think a lot of times too, when we do traditions and stuff, we don't ask like, what do you love? What would you like to do? What makes you feel appreciated? If you can have a day that you get to pick where we all hang out, but you get to pick what we do, what would that look like? So I think leaning into all of that can create a really, really beautiful experience. And then yeah, already in our house with toddlers, birthdays have kind of become a really big deal
• 6:29
  not even because of us, but because they enjoy it so much now where they love it. They look forward to it. They talk about it for months and it's not usually about what present they're going to get. And I think that's really cool and really special. And you do see the difference and how that resists the consumeristic ideal and mentality. So that's what we would encourage you with guys today is what would it look like to just kind of turn our culture's view of birthdays on its head, be a culture of honor, be a culture of celebrating your kids, celebrating each other and living in love with that.
• 6:56
  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.