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Reject Modern Parenting Trends, Accept Biblical Wisdom · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  If you guys look at those parenting books, if it's some kind of brand new trend that you never heard of before, just see it. It's just slathered with margarine. It's just seeping with seed oil. Just stick with, you know, the good full fat butter that we now know has always been good for us.
• 0:17
  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. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. So we're going to do a motherhood episode. I'm joined with Donna Chung and my wife, April. Donna, how are you doing today?
• 0:43
  Very good. I'm excited to be back. That's awesome. So Donna's up in Vancouver, Canada area. And yeah, we're constantly trying to understand the different ways that especially motherhood parenting has been framed. Like when you contrast kind of ancient ways with kind of modern ways. So I've been fascinated by trying to understand...
• 1:06
  Why is it that we have different parenting philosophies that come in and out like they're clothing trends? It's like, this is not normal. It's not normal for every generation and now almost every five to ten years for a totally new philosophy of parenting to suddenly emerge. Yeah.
• 1:24
  And so I was really fascinated by this book. I read it a couple of years ago by Micheline Duclef. She's a, I think she worked for NPR. She's a journalist and she went around the world to all these ancient cultures and just watched how they parent. And she was a mom of a young girl and she just was shocked that their parenting intuitions were almost the exact opposite. Right.
• 1:49
  of Western parenting intuitions. And this was not from a religious perspective at all, but she wrote this book called Hunt, Gather a Parent and kind of explored these different ways of thinking about parenting.
• 2:05
  I'm excited for you guys to watch this clip with me. Louise Perry, who we love, I love listening to her. She's a thought leader in England around what is happening, particularly within the feminist movement. She has a podcast called Maiden Mother Matriarch, and she wrote a book called The Case Against the Sexual Revolution. And she's another one who just took a real crack at a secular critique of feminism
• 2:32
  And now she's been exploring Christianity, I think, ever since having written that. But she always has great questions. But they dive into a topic here. I'm like, this is like kind of front and center of the way I think. And now April and I have been having this conversation a lot about parenting styles and parenting philosophy. So I'll play this for you guys and then get your take on this.
• 2:53
  What do you think is going on with this sort of parenting philosophies, fashion stuff? Like if you just look over the last hundred years, say, we have seen every flip-flop you can imagine on feeding, on sleeping, on discipline, on everything. Why do you think that modern life generates this constant flux?
• 3:13
  Well, I think there's a couple of things. I think you've already nailed one of them, and that's because we've lost the people who teach us to parent, right? So in many, many cultures, when a parent
• 3:28
  when a woman becomes a mom for the first time, she has at least one, probably two or three other people, other women that she's very close to and interacts with hours each day who have parented and parented a lot. And they're there to help her. Just the other day, we live now in Texas and we live in kind of rural Texas. And a few months ago, I visited with this family and
• 3:54
  So she's going to tell the story, but her kind of basic thesis is that there used to be this tight generational connection that when you got pregnant, you would immediately be surrounded by mother, grandmother, aunts, women in the family who have generational wisdom on how to do this, this new thing, how to have children, how to parent. And that has been disrupted.
• 4:17
  you know, maybe for the first time in history where this is not happening. People are not raising their children around extended family. And there is also a lack of trust and connection between extended family members. So she tells a great story here about like how different that is and depending on the cultures you're coming from.
• 4:36
  And this Mexican-American family and a 22-year-old woman was getting ready to have a baby. And I thought to myself, oh, my gosh, if I was 22, having a baby, it would be all right. You know, I would have no clue what to do. Right. I had no clue at 40. So like 22 would have been a hot mess. But this woman has a very strong relationship.
• 4:56
  family support system where 25 of her family members all live in the same block. And, you know, her mom, her grandmother, her aunts, her cousins are there. And these women were like, we can't wait to help her take care of this baby. They were like, they're so, they were more excited about the baby than she was. And like, and these women have raised children. And so really in many parts of the world, they, in the, and I want to say the fathers are part of this too. I always focus so much on the women because that's who I am.
• 5:24
  But, you know, fathers are the same. And many, you know, many cultures, fathers play a huge role. And it just shows that, like, this young woman who's 22 is going to have these incredible teachers to show her with confidence what works. Because they've been through it. And they've seen it. And that's what we've lost.
• 5:44
  And you can see this in actually the rise, historical rise of parenting books in European culture. You can see as these Aloe parents, these other parents were removed from the home, parenting books became really popular and parenting books became more common. And it's because...
• 6:04
  People don't know how to do it. And I think that this really brings these kind of flip-flops. Because we don't know how to do it, we look to these books that are often written by men, sometimes who aren't parents, that are writing from a very narrow perspective. They don't know about your child. They don't know about your situation. And so we're hungry. We're hungry for this knowledge. We also don't see children being raised as when we're little, right? So in many cultures...
• 6:34
  you know, a young person watches through this, like, network of support that we're talking about, watches like, you know, half a dozen kids grow up and learns to parent even through that. So, I think it's where we're kind of starved for knowledge and we're given this task that we're not trained to do, really.
• 6:56
  But I also think we're just so competitive. You know, it's like, I don't know why when parenting became like a competitive sport, but it's, I don't know what happened, but it's like the amount of judgment other women put on each other. It, it hurts me. My, my heart aches, you know, to see it and to feel it myself. And it's like.
• 7:18
  Give each other a break. All right, that's interesting. Kind of sidebar there. I'd love to get your take on as well. But her primary hypothesis is that this generational rift has created a lack of knowledge that has been filled. The vacuum's been filled by parenting books, by internet influencers now. I don't know if they didn't get into that, but I think that's probably now has become a major part of the way that people, women, overcome this. And I love the way that she just said,
• 7:48
  This, this, this, uh, um, woman in this Hispanic community was 22 years old and what 22 year old is going to be able to successfully have babies and raise them. Um, and she's like, I, I could never have done that, but.
• 8:05
  She was surrounded by 25 family members who were living on the block who could not wait for this child to come into the world. And so there was just this atmosphere of anticipation and preparation and generational connection that makes a lot of sense why you could have children at a really young age and be able to raise them successfully if the design is multigenerational.
• 8:25
  And that's, that's, uh, I find that of course, any time I hear, uh, this being brought up and, and just rediscovered, I think this is really important thing to look at, but yeah, April, we'll start with you. What does that stir up for you?
• 8:36
  I agree with the idea that there are these, it's almost like a fad, like different parenting fads. And there's constantly new things coming out. And I feel so bad for the young mom these days because there's so much information, so many opinions, so many different thoughts about all the stuff, like she said, like potty training and everything.
• 9:00
  feeding and even birth. There's so many different ways to approach it out there that all the, it's like,
• 9:09
  In a way, it makes it sound like they're all okay. It's just try one of them. And that's really overwhelming. And even just 25 years ago, it wasn't like that because we didn't have the internet in the way we do today. So it reminds me again that I feel like scripture is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And I...
• 9:36
  I was kind of like this from the beginning, even just like about marriage and things like that. It's like, I really want to just rely on the word of God to kind of inform me, instruct me on how to live a wise life. Like the Proverbs are filled with advice on how to live a godly, righteous life full of good sense. And...
• 10:00
  I'm desiring to live that kind of life. I don't really need to read a lot of self-help books. I can read the scripture. And so I feel the same way about parenting. But I understand that there's a void there because if you maybe you don't have a great, maybe you don't know about the Bible or if you don't have a great relationship with your mom or your grandmother, maybe that just wasn't ever part of your experience or your mom's experience growing up.
• 10:30
  that it's all makes it kind of like a foreign concept that your older generation would help you. But April, what do you do if an Ivy League college just published a study that proves that your biblical parenting method doesn't work as well as the one that they came up with five minutes ago? I just don't really pay attention to it. Okay.
• 10:55
  You don't, then how do you win in the motherhood race to make sure that you are the ultimate Uber mother and that you're not, you know, one of these, uh, because it's interesting that they tied these two things together, right? This sort of almost competitive, like there's this, and it may be competitive. I think that the word judgment, she said, like, this is really tough because you can feel like, what is it inside of, of a mother? Like, you know, Don, I'm curious what your thoughts are about this.
• 11:23
  Is there, is there a competitive, like what, what is, what are they feeling when they see maybe friends reading the same book, um, adopting maybe a parenting philosophy that's fairly recent and then assuming that everyone should do this.
• 11:37
  I think it's a bit of a mix, the whole thing for me, because I came from immigrant parents, born in Canada. And then with Asian background, there is a sense of family support. But then we've been raised in this North American culture where there's this pervasive thinking of you got to make it on your own. Or you did it by yourself, right? And so both of us have this, and we've grown up in the internet generation. So everything is like Google it, right? And so I'm in this reorientation of, okay, instead of Google it, what if I go to God instead of Google? And then also...
• 12:06
  Instead of Googling, let's ask, let's call my mother-in-law or call my mom and ask. And so I'm trying to rewire those things. But I do, I can see, I would say less competitiveness, but it's almost like the same thing as Google where, okay, am I doing this okay? Like, what is this person doing? Oh, maybe that's a good idea. And so I can see the flip-flop. It's like, you're just trying to figure it out, but it is lost because even though my parents...
• 12:31
  And now that I'm asking them for advice or what would you do with pay? I have this sickness. What would you do? And all of a sudden they have a wealth of knowledge. But even my previous generation, they've got this piece of like, oh, I don't want to intrude on your privacy or I don't want to overstep. And so they hold back their knowledge unless we come forward and ask for it.
• 12:50
  And there's that thinking where it's, oh, in your 30s and 40s, you realize how much your parents know and that you kind of go back. But did it have to be that way? I think it's part of this pervasive North American thinking that maybe I could have had that kind of thinking in my 20s where I'm looking back with my parents instead of thinking, oh, I know better. I can just Google everything, do it better and be more emotionally healthy.
• 13:11
  Yeah, it seems, yeah, as opposed to necessarily competitiveness, it's like a collapse of confidence, you know, that I think women have. April, I know you've talked to like, it seems like a mother needs to have a certain level of confidence about what she's doing. I'm putting my child to bed.
• 13:28
  Yes. Am I doing it wrong? Am I feeding my child wrong? Am I training my child wrong? Am I, it's like, it's so, it's so difficult to live within that. And you're given a job that's incredibly important. You're very passionate about, but, but, but there's a constant sort of, um, like you're, the rug's being pulled out from under you. There's a disintegration there.
• 13:53
  over time of these connections that I think we're meant to have with the older generation. And with the disintegration, it's like if you can imagine like a cloth disintegrating, it's like you're losing these connections. So it's slowly over time. So it's very subtle. Yeah.
• 14:12
  But with those loss of those connections, we're losing competence. We're losing even observation. Like, oh, yeah, I watched my aunt do this. Or I heard my grandmother tell that story. Or I listened to my mom tell my older sister how to handle this. And now it's happening to me. So now I'll know how to handle it. So there's all these connections that we could have had and has disintegrated over time. And then we're left trying to figure it all out ourselves. You know, I've heard...
• 14:39
  said myself and heard so many times, like, you know, you're leaving the hospital and they put that baby on your lap in the car seat and they're like, good luck. And you're just like, oh my gosh, wait, who's coming home with me to tell me how to do this? Like all the nurses are staying here at the hospital and it's just me and my husband and, you know, we're 25, what do we know? And all that stuff. And so I feel like we've really shot ourselves in the foot with this whole individual
• 15:09
  I think that the way it's hitting me now currently with having become a new grandparent, I've only been a grandparent for 18 months, 19 months now. But in that process,
• 15:24
  I think our daughter's done a great job of honoring me in coming and asking me how to handle something or what my opinion is or whatever. And she's very welcoming of that and has allowed me to take care of her and allowed me to be there in those intimate moments.
• 15:45
  which I'm super thankful for, super thankful for. And wasn't even necessarily expecting, but for that to be an experience I've gotten to have has been amazing. But even within that, I feel like she is constantly has that drip of social media, her friends that are saying, oh, I tried this, or oh, I'm doing this, or oh, I don't know how to like...
• 16:10
  The temptation is to ask more people or ask more friends or, you know, you know, Google it. Like you said, Donna, it's so true. But saying like, when I find myself saying to my daughter, oh man, that sounds really hard. What have you and your husband talked about with this? Or like, you know, I remember this verse helped me so much during when I was having that same struggle. So being able to like kind of,
• 16:39
  push her back towards her most intimate relationship with her husband, but then also like scripture, let's, let's dive into that. And this is, you know, when you're talking about disciplining children or all this stuff, there's so much wealth of wisdom and wisdom.
• 16:55
  good ideas in the Bible and encouraging young women to go towards scripture and their relationship with their husband. Because I think in that context, it really helps the husband go like, oh, wow, we have to figure this out.
• 17:12
  we have to figure out how to discipline our child. So much of it, I think, it seems like the women are the ones, the moms are the ones who are doing a lot of the research and, you know, they feel the need of like having to figure this out and making sure that the husband is a big part of that and maybe even the one running the show on that is something that we kind of like snatch from them and try to like do the research to figure stuff out. So I think it's, I think it's a...
• 17:42
  kind of a whole ball of wax, but the idea of being separate from the generations before you is a big deal. I was in Seattle when I had my first and my mom was in Ohio. Like that's a huge distance. And Boston, when we had our second and they were in Ohio and then she did come visit and help, but it was like,
• 18:01
  That was totally normal. Totally. Like, of course, your kid is going to go and, you know, move across the country and establish themselves and know what to do and have all that. Now, luckily, I was blessed with a mom who had a multigenerational kind of
• 18:18
  growing up herself. And so she was able to like speak wisdom into my, I could call her, I could ask her questions, but it is just so quickly, like the last 25 years, so quickly things have kind of like, I feel like it's spiraling or like a snowball effect. When she said like the increase of the parenting books, it's like, I can't even keep up with all the stuff that you hear people. How do you have heard of this? Have you heard of that? Have you heard of this? There's so much.
• 18:48
  It is a foreign language. I mean, these moms are saying things to me, you know, different phrases. And I'm like, what? And like, well, you know, sleep regression. And I'm like, that's a new phrase, just so you know. I mean, as you were talking about like scripture and then mapping it to parenting, I was like, is there a book on that that maps that for me? It automatically goes there. Google it. You'll find the connection. Google will know.
• 19:19
  Yes. Oh, man. Are you following us on Facebook and Instagram yet? Look up at Family Teams to get even more free content and never miss out on event announcements.
• 19:34
  Yeah. I love what you're saying about, um, it does feel like we almost need like a waiting system in our own heart. Like if you, I think, I think that part of what happens is if you wait, um, the same, a Google search and a, um, you know, comment from a friend or something on social media, um, at the same level as scripture or, um, something that was passed down to you generationally.
• 20:02
  then it seems like as these things collide, you're going to be endlessly confused because they do contradict each other constantly. There was one of my favorite examples of this. Michael Pollan, who wrote his nutrition book, kind of was one of the early writers who really was exposing the fallacy behind the food pyramid that's
• 20:24
  We spent the last, you know, 30 years preaching was healthy and now nobody believes is healthy. Anyway, he, he, in the dedication of that book, he says, you know, to my mother who always knew that butter was better than margarine, right? Margarine's made from seed oil.
• 20:39
  And there was when I was growing up, everyone used margarine and they did it because they thought it was healthy for the heart. Now, nobody says that. Nobody thinks that, you know, putting gobs of seed oil on your food is the right way to care for your heart. But, you know, we spent 30 years saying that. And his point was that there was an ancient wisdom that even though all the studies were saying,
• 20:59
  eat margarine, his mother never, ever bought into it. And this is really disorienting. To think that there could be study after study, that there could be a scientific consensus within the culture that the next generation gets completely overturned. This is really frustrating for people to have to live in this world. And I think that part of what is, I guess, good about that, maybe the silver lining, is that now that we know that there are so many incentives behind a lot of these studies,
• 21:27
  For example, you know, studies about how to discipline children are just notoriously wrought where they combine, you know, you can study a hundred families that do discipline in a terribly dysfunctional way. And call it the same word, whether it's like spanking or corporal discipline or whatever, and say, oh, we've gotten to the bottom of how destructive this is. Of course it's destructive. If, you know, the people you're studying are people who are...
• 21:52
  you know, angry at their children and hitting them in all kinds of abusive and inappropriate ways and just lumping that in with this one tactic. You know, it's just, these studies are so difficult to take seriously. And, but you will, whole books and whole movements will be based on what they're saying, where there's no nuance between the ways that this is being delivered in a family. And it's really eroding
• 22:21
  a whole generation's confidence that scripture actually can be trusted in this area. No, I'm not going to trust scripture because this study came out that I can't trust. So, Donna, what else is that? Can I start for you? I wonder, because I'm a younger mom, eight and three-year-old boys, she wondered if there's a hierarchy of like, because it's not just like the scripture, but some things, it doesn't talk about like specific things.
• 22:49
  the nuanced things over here, right? But there could be like a baseline of scripture. And then it's like, maybe there's, you know, family wisdom or like multi-generational wisdom. And then there could be component appears or like a study or whatever, but then you have, and then wrapped in all of that is like the ability to discern based on that hierarchy. And then also the emotional health, like, you know,
• 23:10
  If a lot of times I think the separation with the individualism is, okay, my parents were unhealthy in these ways. And then, but we ourselves need to gain that health to be able to sit through and be able to just take the good and also not be codependent with that. And so I think there's this trifecta here of, in today's time, it's not just, there's a bit of a spread of harder. How do you go about tackling that? Yeah. Yeah. You're going to have these voices. Maybe I'll be in your book, a hierarchy. Yeah.
• 23:37
  Yes, we will have a food pyramid for how to listen to parenting advice.
• 23:43
  Yeah, not the seed oil kind. Yeah, it's difficult because you have, yeah, there's, we're all going to, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. There's going to be a lot of voices hitting people when it comes to these topics. And we're going to have to pre-decide. And this is something that this generation is going to have to do that, you know, I'm sure in past times this was unnecessary. And that is to decide what voices to listen to. It reminds me so much, I just keep thinking about Eve in the Garden of Eden.
• 24:13
  you know, the biggest challenge that this, the first woman, first mother had was to try to figure out what voice to dial into. Right. And so she's being, um, she's had these different voices. She's got God's voice. She's got her husband's voice. She's got the serpent's voice. And that the real challenge is that it's all kind of getting confused in her head. And now it's like, um, and as the Bible says, she was deceived and, um,
• 24:36
  And Adam, who was not deceived, made sort of a volitional decision to just fall into this sin. But for her, it was trying to figure out what voice do I hear? And then all of a sudden God's voice comes and speaks to both the man and to the woman. Yeah.
• 24:56
  We have to admit, and this is something that I think Christians need to become extremely aware of. We are, according to the Bible, we are revelation-dependent creatures. In other words, there are things that through science and through culture, we were never designed to understand without the assistance of divine revelation. We are people of the book.
• 25:20
  And one of the things the Bible is constantly saying, both overtly and implicitly by the fact that it exists and that it's been delivered to us, is that we cannot figure out the true voice without having a book written.
• 25:39
  That is divinely inspired to help us sift through the noise. And if you decide to get rid of that, you might feel like you're free and I can just listen to any voice. You don't suddenly become more wise. And this is what we're seeing in our culture. People that there's like, we got to unhitch ourselves from this Iron Age, you know, and then all of a sudden they fall into...
• 26:00
  you know, errors that have been overcome for centuries, because they refuse to understand that we are built with this vulnerability, where we need divine revelation to discern right and wrong, to discern wisdom and foolishness. Like you were saying, April, one of the tricky things, I think, that a lot of Christians struggle with is,
• 26:22
  The book of Proverbs exists because there's a difference between right and wrong and wisdom and foolishness. Right and wrong is a moral category. Wisdom and foolishness is not necessarily moral. It's really what works and what doesn't work. And what Solomon is saying is, that's foolish. Now, foolishness can become sinful. But...
• 26:40
  But ultimately, you know, just being lacking wisdom or doing things that are, you know, just ill-advised because they just don't work, that doesn't necessarily make them morally wrong. It just means that you're going to, you know, inadvertently hurt yourself and others because you lack wisdom. And so part of what we were, the revelation of scripture is not just to reveal the nature of good and evil, but it's also to reveal the nature of wisdom and folly. And it says, you know, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
• 27:10
  And so I think that part of receiving all of this wisdom from the world is oftentimes when I'm reading a parenting book. One of the realities is this person who wrote this book did not fear the Lord. And the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And so they have no real concern for God. They've not taken seriously divine revelation. And so they dip into all kinds of, and they're susceptible to all kinds of foolishness.
• 27:35
  that is exposed by scripture and would have corrected these ideas, but because they don't fear the Lord and they don't trust his revelation, they're, they're able to be taken in by these, these ideas. Like GK Chesterton says, you know, if you do not trust in scripture, it's not that you, it's not that you fall for nothing, but you'll fall for anything. And that's what's happening. People are falling for anything, any new fad or trend in parenting. And,
• 28:01
  one of the problems is we only get like one shot at this, you know, this is one of the things that I find really challenging about being a parent is that, um, you know, it's a long shot and we've got lots of years and, but it's not like we're going to raise four or five families and get it right the fifth time. Um, we need to like, we really need to ground ourselves in this proper way of understanding how to get access to truth, um, in a way that will help the families that we're raising today.
• 28:29
  Yeah, I totally agree on the being deceived thing. I think the, I mean, Scripture is clear on that, that Eve was deceived and fell into sin through being deceived. And so I think that I'm very prone to being deceived and I could go way down some rabbit holes with all the information out there. And it could be a very subtle deception, but I could end up in a really weird place.
• 28:57
  And so I think that I know that about myself. I know that about the way my mind works and my heart is deceit. My heart itself is something that I can't totally trust, you know? And so figuring out how to, like, well, then where do I go? So I need to have the foundation of scripture to really stand firm on when I'm, you know,
• 29:23
  wavering in how to handle something or trying to figure out what to do about this or that. And I think that there can be camaraderie in, you know, your peers and there can be like great conversation and pinging things back and forth with each other. But I think the foundation really needs to be, well, let's compare whatever it is that we're hearing in this modern wisdom to scripture and see if it lines up or if it's,
• 29:49
  you know, going to take me off on a path that's not of the Lord. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, I resonate with that. I think you're saying divine revelation, I think.
• 30:00
  There's the foundation of the word and then there's different voices. But then really, ultimately, I think what's been helpful for me is taking a moment to pause and actually relying on the Holy Spirit as well. And just even when I'm like, okay, decisions can be made, even people as a woman, they pause and go, okay, God, what are you saying in this moment? And kind of growing in the listening of that still small voice. Yeah.
• 30:21
  And I remember in an earlier podcast, you had said that faith and foolishness is like a fine line. I think what's foolishness to the world and what is wisdom and all the other voices. It's like, what's that plumb line through line? Because that's what's going to guide you, right? And then you can stick to that and not flip-flop. Yes. Yeah.
• 30:45
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• 31:05
  Well, we want to tell you guys that are listening to this. God has a very unique calling on your family. He's created you to be a team. And that team, you're not going to be able to read a book and understand exactly what values God has given you. And so what you're saying, Donna, and this is really a big part of, I think, what makes family so amazing is that,
• 31:27
  They need to be led by their own authority. So you're under the authority of scripture, first and foremost. And so that really becomes the way that you can judge and evaluate different voices. So you're not being completely led astray.
• 31:42
  And then the family itself has an authority structure and it's multi-generational in nature, right? You have the unique branch of the family, but there's also honor for the upstream generations. And then you have the husband and the wife and the husband who's saying, okay, the Lord is speaking to us. And, you know, I'm really believing the Holy Spirit is leading us this direction. And so that's going to require the family to take risks and to go in directions that maybe the other families aren't going to go in.
• 32:08
  And then I love what you're saying, Donna, that the mother is listening to the Holy Spirit and trying to understand what it means to follow the unique guidance that God's giving her under her husband in this larger multigenerational family and underneath scripture. This allows, these layers really allow us to have, you know, a realm of freedom in which we can explore all the things that God's speaking to us without...
• 32:32
  leaving ourselves wide open to either deception or just these crazy, large, massive swings that happen when culture just comes in, all of a sudden values this thing, you know, this week, and this becomes really popular. Now we're all going to adopt and begin to bend all of our ideas around that latest trend. When I'm thinking through the Proverbs that are really important, I think a lot of what we're describing here
• 33:00
  The Proverbs say there's a way that seems right to a person, but in the end it leads to death. And the Proverbs say, discipline your son while he is young. Do not be a willing party to his own destruction. Like these are such powerful, wise ideas. And I think that there's some kind of balance. And April, I'm curious how you think about this balance between God.
• 33:24
  a way that seems right to you and in the end leads to death. So I don't want to just ask the question, and this is almost exclusively the way our culture, like if you, like, if you can't trust an authority, just go within, right? How do we make sure that we don't fall prey, you know, as fathers and mothers to the way that seems right to us? Like a lot of times an example of this is a parenting philosophy, right?
• 33:53
  I want to be very agreeable to my children. I have so much compassion for them. And all of a sudden, the parenting philosophy comes out that just says that's all that matters. Just be completely compassionate. In fact, if you just give into that intuition at a 10 and dial everything out to a zero, you're an amazing mom. Well, that to me feels like a very classic description of there's a way that seems right to a person, but it doesn't. It's not wise.
• 34:19
  Well, it makes me think of the idea of counterfeit money. And if you've ever heard that kind of analogy of they never really train a bank teller what counterfeit money feels like. They just are so used to feeling the real thing that when they are handed a counterfeit bill, they instantly know like, oh, this doesn't feel right.
• 34:40
  And I feel like that. I feel like we're supposed to be exposing ourselves to Scripture. We're supposed to be honing our discerning skills to hear the Holy Spirit and to understand what He's asking of us or what He may be communicating about our children or things like that. That as we become more and more familiar with the truth—
• 35:00
  that when we experience this thing that sounds intriguing at first, or like, huh, I hadn't thought about it that way. Let me kind of go down that path that we maybe don't have to go so far before we realize like, oh, actually, this is kind of a counterfeit, or this is a little bit opposite of what I think I believe to be true. And to be brave and courageous and say, well, look, I believe in a truth. I'm standing on the Word of God, and this just feels like
• 35:29
  something that would be contrary to that truth. So I think the more exposure we can get to Scripture, and I'm not just talking about the proverbs, it's all through. We need to understand the God we serve. We'll never fully understand Him, of course, but understand the kind of God we serve. What's He like? How does He handle situations? Understanding Jesus in the Gospels and how He views...
• 35:52
  how he treats people, how he handles situations. All of these things will help us understand when these new parenting philosophies come around to know whether or not we're being taken down a way that seems good to us. And a lot of times when things seem good to us, it's because...
• 36:13
  they feel easy. I think a lot of times the thing is easy in the present. Like, sure, it's so much easier just to go ahead and give the kid candy. Just they're asking for it. They're begging for it. They want it. And you're just tired and you're just like, fine, here, take it. But in the long run, what is the consequence going to be of that? They're going to be
• 36:32
  you know, jumping all over the place and totally crazy. And if it goes on for too long, they're going to get cavities in their teeth. And if it goes on for too long, they're going to, you know, maybe they'll end up with diabetes or something crazy, you know. So we have to kind of like rein it in and sacrifice for the short term and sacrifice.
• 36:50
  And for the sake of the long term, we oftentimes have to sacrifice the short term thing that's easier and go ahead and do the hard thing so that we have that long term fruit. Yeah.
• 37:04
  Cool. Well, if you guys look at those parenting books, if it's some kind of brand new trend that you never heard of before, just see it. It's just slathered with margarine. It's just seeping with seed oil. And what we really need is like, just stick with, you know, the good, full fat butter that we now know has always been good for us compared to all those other options.
• 37:26
  There is an ancient way that, and we talk about this, you know, as it says in Jeremiah, you know, when you're really off in some kind of strange cul-de-sac, ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it and you will find rest for your souls. It's at Jeremiah 6, right? Where's that? 6.30? Yeah, 6.16, I think. Yeah. 6.16? Awesome. Cool. Well, Donna, April, thanks for jumping on here today. Absolutely. Thank you.
• 37:57
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