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Abrahamic Fatherhood · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:03
  Hi, welcome to the Family Teams podcast. Our goal here is to help your family become a multi-generational team on mission by providing you with biblically rooted concepts, tools, and rhythms. Your hosts are Jeremy Pryor and Jefferson Bethke, and we can't wait to chat about all things family. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Family Teams podcast. I'm here with my partners in crime, Tyler Graham and Chris Cirillo. Thank you guys for joining me today. Thanks for having us on, Jeremy. Yeah, it's awesome to be here.
• 0:33
  Yeah. So part of what I love to do is just, yeah, get, get really into the collision between ancient and very modern thoughts about fatherhood. By the way, I am, because this is the number one question I think we get when we start to really pump out fatherhood content. I am starting to think about how to do this for mothers, have an idea and it's brewing. So get ready. I want to keep these father conversations going, but I definitely feel like we, we, we tend to lean too heavy fatherhood.
• 1:03
  Some thoughts there we're going to move into. But what we like to do in these conversations is dive into, like I said, this collision between ancient and modern ideas. And no idea fascinates me more. No ancient idea fascinates me more than the role of Abraham in our understanding of fatherhood. So anytime I hear anybody talk about this, I get really excited. And I want to understand how people independently come to this, because this is
• 1:28
  Probably what transformed my vision of father more than any other single event was really encountering people who seem to understand the symbolic sort of religious theological implications of what the book of Genesis says about Abraham as a father. So anyway, there's a conversation that Jordan Peterson and Brett Weinstein had about this topic. And it kind of struck my interest. I want to get Tyler and Krista weigh in on this. So I'll play this and we will discuss.
• 1:58
  It would have certain advantages to be able to see certain subtleties, but it would be pretty close to useless from the point of view of operationalizing it as the basis of a society. Far better. So we'll obviously dive into the middle of the conversation, but this will all make sense here in a second.
• 2:15
  if you are going to operationalize something for society, to encode it in a narrative that is memorable and transmissible and resistant to being corrupted. Motivating, motivating and stabilizing. Comprehensible by everyone, regardless of level of abstract intellectual prowess.
• 2:37
  Okay. So they're saying, if we're going to understand anything that's culturally transmissible, we need stories. Like that is the thing we need because oftentimes what brilliant people like Brett Weinstein, one of the mistakes they make is they begin to put forward ideas and frameworks that make sense to the 0.01% of the smartest people on the planet. Okay.
• 3:00
  And that really frustrates me in these conversations. And they're about to go somewhere now. To me, that's super important. Because how do you encode deep ideas into the hearts and minds of normal people? 100%. So, you know, there's a moment during the debate you had with Sam, the two-night debate you had with Sam in Vancouver, which I had the privilege and honor of moderating.
• 3:25
  where Sam confronted you and asked if you really believed that Jesus had been resurrected. Yeah. And I remember this moment like it was yesterday. You thought, you must have thought for a few seconds, and you said, I behave as if I do. And I heard that, and I thought, that is...
• 3:53
  the slam dunk answer to this question. Sam didn't get it, right? In fact, he doesn't get it to this day. So they're referring to a debate. It was a very famous debate that Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris had several years ago. And they were trying to hash out the collision between the religious and the scientific enterprises. And Sam tried to corner Jordan Peterson with this question about the resurrection. Yeah.
• 4:16
  Now, most of us who are strong believers in the resurrection, we're not satisfied with Jordan Peterson's response. Okay. I act as if I do. But atheists like Brett Weinstein was like, that's amazing. Now, I think there's a lot to be said for that. We're not going to get into the details of that. We're going to really, this conversation is going to take a very interesting turn. But so this, one of the things I wanted to do, give you guys context in this conversation is it does start at this really high level and kind of get closer and closer to ground level where most of us live. And that's where this goes next.
• 4:47
  But what you said is the way an evolutionist would think about this, because culture is a means to an end. What is that end? It is to get your genes, unfortunately, lodged as far into the future as you can possibly arrange from your current position. And to keep them there. Okay, this is so interesting, because as an atheist, and Brett Weinstein is a famous evolutionary biologist,
• 5:17
  So in other words, he thinks that the way that human beings are hardwired is an unfortunate thing, that we basically are buggy, that we are gene replicating obsessed biological organisms. And Peterson's going to correct a lot of his, the reason for that, unfortunately, he's going to correct in the way that he's going to describe his perspective on this.
• 5:43
  You want to hand the ball off as far into the future as you can, and you want to hand off the motivation for those who receive that ball in the future to do it again. And eventually that will fail. Quick intervention there, because we should return to this, because it's equally salient. It's a point equally salient to the one that you just described in my discussion with Sam. That's what the story of Abraham represents.
• 6:10
  Because what God promises Abraham is that if he maintains a certain pattern of orientation and conduct, that not only will he have a son, which was an impossibility for him and his wife, but that he will literally be the father of nations. And so what that story is encoding is a pattern of sacrificial attitude
• 6:32
  that most optimally ensures the preservation of genetic material across the broadest range of possible situations, as indefinitely into the future as can be imagined. Okay, I'm going to pause here for a second. We're going to let Jordan finish his thought here. But you guys, so this was the epiphany I had when I was 23 years old as a single guy that completely changed my life.
• 6:57
  I spent this entire semester studying Abraham with a very famous Abrahamic scholar, Dr. Sailhammer, in a seminary in Portland. And then I went from there to Jerusalem. And one of the things that happened was we were studying Abraham and looking at him for a semester, looking at how to interpret the Bible, particularly the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, the law of Moses.
• 7:22
  through the lens of the character of Abraham. And that was Sailhammer's kind of unique contribution to the sort of Torahic scholarship was that Abraham was designed to be a biography through which we read the Torah. In other words, oftentimes when people think about the Torah, the law, they think it's really referring to the individual 613 laws that are in the Torah. But what Sailhammer said is no, it starts with the book of Genesis and we're introduced to a character named Abraham.
• 7:51
  And Abraham is this man of faith and that we're supposed to understand the symbolic story contrast between Abraham and Moses. I was just fascinated by this. I spent a whole semester doing incredible deep dive on this topic. But we never once in an entire semester described why somebody in the modern world might actually take on Abraham.
• 8:13
  Abraham's vision of life. Like that never even came up besides sort of maybe the new covenant implications of being a person who, who has faith first, you know, which is certainly significant. And the apostles talk about in the new Testament, but.
• 8:29
  Then I was all of a sudden introduced to a culture in which the people saw Abraham as sort of the story through which they were actually trying to live their lives. They were embodying Abraham's vision of fatherhood and family. And, and, and it creates a culture. If suddenly you could wave, wave a magic wand and have an entire culture of people who are just like, ah.
• 8:50
  I want to build a multi-generational family. That's what made Abraham so unique was that he wanted to not only get his genetic material in the next generation, but to encode it in such a way that it would be, it would exist for hundreds of years, thousands of years. And now you can, you know, turn on any news website and see conflicts that are happening between people with Abrahamic visions of family, because Abraham's vision of family is so powerful. Yeah.
• 9:18
  that it encodes identity for a thousand generations. It has that level of power to it. It's in our Bible and we need to understand this topic because this is why the family breaks down in the West. We don't understand how Abraham saw family. We don't understand the role of this story and how it can transform, not just like a hyper-intellectual, right? But it's a story powerful enough to transform everyday people like me and you guys and anyone listening to this right now. So we'll let him finish and I'm gonna get you guys' thoughts on this.
• 9:48
  And that's what it means mythologically to act in the light of eternity. Right? It's that you're not... And this is also, I think, where people like Dawkins go seriously wrong, and the evolutionary biologists in general, people like Sigmund Freud even, is that reproduction is not sex. Sex is a fragment of reproduction. Like, reproduction is sex for mosquitoes. Reproduction is sex for psychopaths. But it's not...
• 10:17
  Reproduction. Sex is not reproduction for people who are engaged in this higher order process of maximally inclusive reciprocal altruism. Okay, so anyway, it took me a long time to understand this about the story of Abraham in particular, right? Is that now I got to add one more thing to that because I think this is equally revolutionary. So...
• 10:40
  Abraham's behavior is characterized by a particular sacrificial attitude. And that's famously, obviously. And that...
• 10:50
  That's a form of work. Sacrifice is a form of work. You're sacrificing the hedonic delights of the present and perhaps even your orientation towards immediate power for something approximating a long-term gain and maybe a joint psychological and communal long-term gain. That's sacrifice. Now, human sacrifice. We work. And once we know that, and that's established in the story of Cain and Abel, by the way,
• 11:16
  It's like it starts with Adam and Eve because they're doomed to work after the fall. Cain and Abel established two patterns of sacrificial behavior. Abraham is a manifestation of one of those patterns of sacrifice. The idea of the sacrifice of that which you love best to facilitate further adaptation is developed extensively in the story of Abraham with this manifestation.
• 11:42
  story of the potential necessity of the sacrifice of Isaiah. And that's played out in its full manifestation in the gospel stories. And the culmination of this, and I can't see how it can be any other way, frankly, is that
• 11:58
  The most appropriate form of sacrifice that guarantees the best possible outcome, all things considered, is the full and radical voluntary sacrifice of the self in relationship to the highest possible good. And I think that's what's encoded in the Christian narrative.
• 12:16
  All right, that's Peterson's really deep idea and interpretation of, I would say, the entire story of the Bible, which is that why was Abraham such a great father? Why was he Avram, the exalted father? Why was he Avraham? Why did he become Avraham, the father of many nations? That's what that word actually literally means. And Peterson's description of that is because he led a family to make the maximal sacrifices for God.
• 12:44
  So basically what, so he's, he's, he's really saying that as scientists and as psychologists and as theologians, we're all trying to answer a question. And that is, what is the most adaptive like species on the planet? What's, what, what are, what's the meaning of life? What causes the,
• 13:03
  what causes one group of people to, to flourish and to exist in, in perpetuity for, you know, hundreds or thousands of years and what, what kinds of things die off. And so we're, we're in this, in this constant laboratory watching these things happen. And what Peterson believes is that Abraham was designed as a character to essentially disciple the followers of Christianity, Judaism, anybody who follows Abraham.
• 13:32
  into a story that will encode into their brains and into their hearts, the best possible way of living in the world to maximize your flourishing and perpetuity. That's the role of Abraham in the Bible.
• 13:48
  And that Abraham was not a perfect man, but he was constantly, God was interacting with him because he was a model of how to do this. He was this meta father, this exalted father, this father of many nations. And that when you adopt in faith the values of Abraham and you believe the story of Abraham and you're shaped by it, then you become one of the nations. Your family becomes one of the nations.
• 14:14
  that is blessed by Abraham, right? That essentially he was told that he would bless, that his family would bless. First of all, it said in Genesis 12, that his family would bless all the families of the earth, will be blessed through you.
• 14:30
  And then a few chapters later, all the nations of the earth. These are, these are basically the same concepts. Nations are massive families in the, in the, in this time in history. So, so Peterson's idea is that, that, that what Jesus does on the cross, which is take on the most, the highest sacrifice.
• 14:48
  for poor people, that he took our sin upon himself and then died on our behalf. This is really the culmination of sort of the Abrahamic pattern that started
• 15:04
  He said all the way back with Cain and Abel, but was also typified in the sacrifice of Isaac when Abraham had decided that he'd be willing. So this is so important, you guys. This is the essence of what we're trying to understand as fathers. What are we actually doing as fathers? And it is really tricky. One of the things I find most difficult to work out with fathers that are very devout Christians is,
• 15:26
  is the tension between the narrative of Jesus and Abraham. So Jesus, who, am I supposed to die at 33 years old if I've got four little kids? Am I supposed to be like Abraham and be willing to sacrifice anything for my family? There's a huge tension between the example of Jesus and Abraham. And I have some thoughts about that, but there's so much that's in here
• 15:48
  What I really want to celebrate is Peterson is aiming at exactly the right spot for us to disciple fathers. And almost no one I've ever met in the church knows this. They don't seem to understand that this is how you disciple fathers. You must help them become Abrahamic first.
• 16:08
  If you don't do that, they will endlessly be confused about the nature of fatherhood. And we have divine revelation to help us overcome that confusion. And it's in the book of Genesis in the character of Abraham. So yeah, I'm curious for you guys. What is that? Need a blueprint to revise your family to be a multi-generational team on mission? The book Family Revision by Jeremy Pryor is the book that summarizes all the big picture ideas you hear on this podcast. Available on Amazon or familyteams.com.
• 16:39
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• 16:47
  Yeah, this was... At first, as I was listening through it the first time, it was a bit confusing to figure out exactly where Brett was coming from. And then actually, I caught something on this next one that I had missed on the first one. He was describing getting your genes into the furthest generation or whatever. And then he...
• 17:09
  This little throwaway point that I missed was at some point that will fail is what he said. And I was like, oh, it actually is because of like which story, which vision is subservient to the other. Yeah.
• 17:24
  And I think what Abraham had going for him and what Jordan Peterson seems to be describing is that his receipt of the blessing, the multi-generational blessing, he was actually making that his family blessing subservient to obedience to God. Yes.
• 17:44
  And that's the only way that these work is if they're in proper order. And that was really interesting to me is like, it was actually through the obedience that the other thing comes to pass. And if you're not, if you're not putting things in that particular order, then yeah, absolutely. The experience that we've seen in the world where some of this stuff really fails and falls through is because people are doing it for themselves unto their own agendas or whatever.
• 18:12
  whatever that might be. So that was one of the first things that, that really jumped out. Yeah. Like anytime you hear somebody talk about the patriarchy or a patriarchal vision,
• 18:23
  I think in our culture, we are conditioned to hear that as self-centeredness, even in the church, you know, like, oh, that's a man who's so narcissistic that he wants to bend his entire family, maybe even his entire family line around his personal preferences. Like that's how we code the word patriarch in the current world. And this is why, like to have a brand like the word patriarch get that damaged, it's
• 18:52
  so that we can't even look to Abraham anymore, as an example, is to leave completely helpless families in the 21st century, Christian and Jewish families alike, anybody who's adopted that ideology. But to your point, Chris, what they're pointing out is the patriarchal vision that actually succeeds is the man who's willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, right? And yeah, he's leading his family towards making an ultimate sacrifice. But man, he is willing to sacrifice
• 19:21
  himself in every way for the future. He's willing to, and Peterson sort of even compares this to work, like a father who goes off to work a really difficult job. And he's making an enormous sacrifice for the future. And this is one of the reasons why it's so important that fathers work hard.
• 19:39
  And sometimes they work in ways that cause them to have to make heavy personal sacrifices and that their family actually sees that what they're doing is not an attempt to build some kind of personal career-based identity, which destroys the entire idea that we're describing. As soon as you suggest that a father's work
• 19:58
  is a self-centered pursuit to establish his own personal identity apart from his family, you've destroyed the entire idea of fatherhood in that one idea. Because the whole point of work is to make sacrifices on behalf of your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren. That's the whole point. So you have these immigrant families coming to America and they understand that. And they're certainly doing that. They're not like trying to create some new career-based identity. You know, they're out there slaving away, trying to, you know, imagining that maybe my grandchildren will have a better life.
• 20:26
  And, and what is incredibly ironic and so infuriating is that their children and grandchildren then assume that, well, that's what you wanted, dad, grandpa. But what I want is, and so you were just doing that for yourself, because of course, that's what we're all taught in our culture is that all work is done as a pursuit of building up some kind of personal identity. What do you want to be when you grow up?
• 20:47
  Like that whole idea is absolutely destructive, the idea of fatherhood. What you want to be is the kind of person who maximally sacrifices for your grandchildren. That's who I want to be when I grow up. And so I'm not trying to build some career-based identity that's going to just annihilate my family's ability to understand that we exist to make sacrifices for the world.
• 21:09
  And I will lead in that charge by sacrificing for all of you. And you will see me do it. And that is that reciprocal relationship that fathers have with their families that then causes the family's heart to turn towards the father. And that's when things really get going as a family team. So Tyler, anything that this is a startup for you?
• 21:29
  Yeah. So I think, Jeremy, as I think about what this this picture of Abrahamic fatherhood and family, and I don't just say this because this is your podcast, but I think you and your family have modeled this better than anybody that I've ever seen outside of perhaps Abraham himself. And so this conversation made me think of a tweet that I'd seen from you.
• 21:53
  I'm just going to read it so I don't botch the paraphrase, but it says, whatever you can do to make it healthy for your adult children to have their kids earlier and more often will have a dramatic impact on the strength and stability of your multi-generational family.
• 22:08
  And so I think about this in light of Brett's comments about handing the ball off as far as you can in the future and making sure the people who receive it are motivated to continue. And then, you know, to your point, Chris, at some point that's going to fail and die out. Like, you know, and he's talking about like this genetic handing off. But I think about the way that you have done that, Jeremy, the way you've taught other dads to do that is through this type of sacrifice. And, you know, just just off the top of my head as I think about.
• 22:36
  the stories that I've heard you share, and maybe you'll be able to elaborate on some of this more, but I think about the sacrifices that you've talked about of where you chose to live, like where you chose to settle down roots in a place that was going to lend itself to multi-generational family.
• 22:53
  I think about the way that you started and sold businesses so that you can buy back your time so you can be present with your family, the way that you get to invest in your kids and other businesses and people within your community, the way that you've even modeled the way you've built your house, your physical house, and the way that it's laid out to be generous, the way that it's laid out to host, the way that it's laid out to have multiple generations living in one place.
• 23:20
  I think about the sacrifice that that is required of you, this in the vision that you've had, the sacrifices, you know, allowed you to bring that vision into reality. You know, I think that's what I that's the thing that comes to mind as I listen to that conversation is I think about what it means to build this Abrahamic.
• 23:39
  family, right? It's like you said, that strong transformational identity that encode or the strong transformational vision that encodes identity. And then being able to make the sacrifices that are going to bring that vision into reality. Not like you said, not just for you, but for your entire family, that your vision is large enough.
• 24:01
  that your entire family fits within it, right? I think about all the different things that your kids are involved in, that your kids have done, whether it be businesses or interests. As I hear them talk about it, as I hear you talk about it, there's room within the prior family vision for all of that. And I think that's why your family remains so tight knit, why it remains so unified in this, that it's not just, oh, this is just dad or grandpa's thing. And we're just kind of going along to appease him. It's,
• 24:28
  No, we're a part of this and we get to play a role in carrying this forward. And you're getting to do that with your kids and now your grandkids, your grandkids as your kids are becoming parents, right? And they're getting to carry that forward as well because of the sacrifices you've made.
• 24:45
  Yeah. Yeah. That's, you know, it's, and I appreciate what you're saying, Tyler. I mean, I know that on one hand we use this word sacrifice and I think that maybe part of what we hear in that is suffering. It does bring with it the possibility of suffering and you have to be willing to suffer to make sacrifices.
• 25:02
  But I think sacrificing for the future oftentimes brings into the present incredible blessings, right? So I think that I feel like, yeah, there have been times we have suffered or I have suffered losses from maybe personal preferences.
• 25:19
  You know, but in general, I think it's really important just to say, man, I feel like I just can't wait to make more sacrifices. It's just like, this is working out, you know, so well for everybody, but somebody does have to lead the charge and saying, okay, you know, my preferences are not that precious and, and what we need. And I think to the extent that my children believe.
• 25:37
  that what we're all doing is not sort of sacrificing so that dad's individual identity and preferences are maximally experienced. No kid's gonna wanna sign up for that. But when they see their dad saying, I'm gonna sacrifice for your children and I want you to join me. That's really what I've been calling my kids too. Like I, you know, we call everything third generation. This was the insight that I feel like Abraham, I got from Abraham a hundred percent.
• 26:04
  was that he really aimed at a future generation. And then if he's making sacrifices for that, then it's easy to call your kids to sacrifice for that. And what destroys the whole thing is either a father or mother or a son or daughter who says, I want to receive all the sacrifices that all the generations have made for me. And then I'm going to enjoy those for myself personally and spend those on my own happiness and preferences. Next generation, be damned.
• 26:32
  That that's what destroys the entire, this whole durable project that can go and pierce into the generations. And that's what Abraham, and that's what the story of Abraham, that's why it's so important that Genesis be a multi-generational story. You know, we spent a lot of time as fathers in our community, mid-rashing through Genesis on a regular basis.
• 26:50
  And what I'm constantly trying to understand is this infinitely deep book is really describing the interrelationship between three generations, really, at least four generations. You include Jacob's 12 sons. And so you're constantly looking at these four generations, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Esau, and Jacob's 12 sons, and looking at the interconnection between all of these things. And what this is attempting to do is unveil a hidden understanding of how God designed the world.
• 27:20
  all the way back to what Genesis 1, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue, and rule. How does that work? Like, what are you talking about? Fruitful, multiply, fill, subdue, and rule. Let me tell you a story about a man named Abraham and his family. And then, of course, it pierces into, you know, the rest of the Old Testament, the book of Exodus, et cetera. Chris, go ahead.
• 27:37
  Yeah. One last thought here just is practical. Like I think about dads who might be listening to this and thinking about, okay, maybe I want to build a business and maybe that looks like adding some hours into the week where, you know, I think there's two key elements. One of which was actually, I think both of which were mentioned. But the first is the story. So are you communicating a story to your children that helps them actually understand what's happening as dad is making
• 28:06
  And then the other piece is actually just this idea that more is caught than taught. So if I'm...
• 28:13
  increasing my work hours to try to create space to build a business or to, to, you know, change our asset allocation, set up all of that stuff, whatever. But then I go play golf on the weekends rather than do one-on-one dates with my kids or like other things like that. I'm actually tell, I'm telling a competitive story against the one that I've already cast. And so I think, you know, even on a very practical level, it's like maybe for a year you're giving up golf or you're,
• 28:43
  for yourself and it pays off for generations. Yeah, there's a basic rule that has helped me make those kinds of decisions. And that is this rule of integration. Like I will prioritize hobbies directly to the extent that they integrate my family and benefit my family.
• 29:03
  Because that tells the right story, you know? And so if I tell a different story, like I'm going to really indulge in a immersive hobby on a regular basis that costs my family a great deal, but doesn't integrate them at all. It's just like, yeah, that's a great point practically, Chris. Like that just tells a competing story to your family. And that doesn't mean that that should never be done, but you certainly have to calculate the cost that that is, your family's incurring. And if they begin to say, well,
• 29:33
  Dad does this. I mean, anytime I'm in a conversation with a couple and I hear them begin, you know, tip for tat kind of, oh, they got to do this, we're doing that. I'm just like, it's, I mean, I can't tell you the alarm bells that go off in my head. I'm like, that is so dangerous because there's so much scarcity. We only have so much time, so much money. We're all building families. We're doing, you know, it's very complex what we're trying to lead.
• 29:58
  And so if we're all sort of negotiating to get as much as we can get, we can extract from the family as individuals, then this is not going to work. Like we're going to run out of resources really fast. And so fathers have to take the lead and making that sacrifice.
• 30:15
  And I think when they do, their family sees that. And we all say, okay, yeah, let's. And so if there are nutrients that you desperately need as a family, man, I just, I get so much out of camping. I get so much out of, you know, physical activity. Hey, the answer isn't to dial that stuff down to a zero. The answer is...
• 30:32
  get really creative about integrating your family into that and make sure that you're, you see, you're getting the win, win, win of I'm getting to have this experience. My, my wife is thriving. My kids are thriving, you know, that and I, and they can see me sacrificing. Yeah. My, my favorite hobby, I had to give up my second favorite hobby. I had to give up this third hobby, which integrates everything I'm going to crank to the top because it tells the right story. That's really good.
• 30:56
  Right. And so with that, Jeremy, like, would you say, I think about, as you mentioned earlier, the power of a compelling vision, like it makes that sacrifice so much easier to me. Like when you see, when you have this kind of point in the future that you're aiming at saying, this is where we want to go. This is what it's going to take to get there. I am willing to sacrifice this thing because I know it's going to result in me getting where I want to go rather than saying, well, I'm going to do that.
• 31:26
  It's what they meant when they said, you know, you lose all your free time. We start having kids. You know, it's like this purposeful sacrifice to actually move you somewhere, not just sacrifice for the sake of, you know, our schedule is busy and we got to do other stuff. Yes. And you guys have to understand because what is coming is you're going to call your family.
• 31:45
  to make real sacrifices and suffer for the kingdom of God. That is coming, right? Like I've, I mean, I'm, I'm looking at my family now. And I really think that we could be going into places and seasons where we're going to take major hits like that. It's not all fun and games. And is my family prepared for that? And, you know, this, we need to be prepared for that.
• 32:10
  And they need to see me being prepared for that. I need to take those hits. I need to be out front of my family in that effort to be able to take serious hits for the sake of the kingdom of God. And so if I'm trying to design the perfect lifestyle
• 32:25
  You know, or I want this kind of food and this kind of like, you know, experience. I mean, like that cannot be the, it's like, that is not the goal. And I, I, I love, I mean, we feast as a family. We have festivals. We have peak family experiences. We had one last night. It was amazing. We went to a baseball game last night with my, my dad, my mom were there. You know, we, we, we bought 10 tickets. It was amazing. I was just like.
• 32:47
  I was talking to April about it, but that was just so perfect. I mean, that was so fun. And to get to do that as a family was just ridiculous. Okay. But, but yeah, I mean, I, all of these amazing memories and all of this richness to me, it has to be aimed at like, we are going after the enemy and we're taking down his kingdom. And we're going to take major hits as a family because we're doing that. And those hits are coming.
• 33:11
  We need to be prepared for that. And so, but that, that, that is part of this whole process. This is our life here on earth. Okay. So speaking of taking hits, I wanted to bring up another topic to you guys. This one has been, I think, a really interesting kind of to work through. This is, so the Jonathan Haidt is making huge rounds right now because of his book, The Anxious Generation.
• 33:36
  And he says something in this interview and I'm just like, I got, I mean, it is a head scratcher for me. I'm like, I've not been able to puzzle out this. You guys have a little bit younger kids. I'm really curious what your thoughts are. It really has to do with how do we think about safety with our children, physical safety? And I, that's a, that's a difficult, difficult issue. So let me, let me play this and let you guys help me think through this.
• 33:58
  Depression, anxiety, and suicide among young people have risen dramatically in the last decade. A much-buzzed-about book out this week tracks the possible causes and potential solutions for what author Jonathan Haidt calls the anxious generation. Brooke Silva Braga met the NYU sociologist as he made his case for four dramatic changes in the way America raises its children. This has to stop.
• 34:24
  Using little more than a whisper quiet voice in a PowerPoint presentation, Jonathan Haidt is attempting a kind of revolution. We have overprotected our children in the real world and underprotected them online. He wants us to totally rethink what truly endangers our kids. So for a whole variety of reasons, parenting changed in the English-speaking world in the 1990s. It became paranoid.
• 34:49
  So I wanted to dramatize just how quick and extreme this change was. First, Haidt asks his middle-aged audience how old they were when they could first venture away from home on their own. Yell out your age, okay? Eight, six, six. So that's what I always find, six to eight. That was the norm. Then he asks them to shout out the age they've given their own kids that same freedom. And all you hear is double-digit numbers.
• 35:15
  Almost perfect uniformity, 10 to 12. And that's insane. The crime rate is way down. Everything is so much safer. But we're afraid, we're paranoid about our kids' safety. And why is that a bad thing? Because the way that a human being becomes a self-governing, autonomous adult is by practicing being a self-governing, autonomous child and adolescent. We've set up a cycle of incompetence.
• 35:42
  Haidt is a business school professor at NYU. Okay, so yeah, I'm curious what you guys, so it really struck me when he did that thought experiment or just that quick poll of his audience, because, so I don't know, I'm very curious to hear from you guys when you were allowed to play outside by yourself. So I would say, like, we lived in a cul-de-sac mostly when I was growing up, at least at that age range. And I think about six or seven years old, I was out all day long with no supervision.
• 36:11
  And I have so many memories of all of the conversations and all the weird situations that I got into. There was woods and I was just playing and my parents had no idea where I was. And my parents were very diligent parents and they were, but everyone did that. Everyone just let their kids out, played. And I remember it was like, when it gets really dark out, come home. And my parents didn't know where I was for hours and hours and hours. I just picture like letting a seven-year-old.
• 36:35
  you know, six-year-old out today and say, Hey, be back when it's dark. It's like 10 AM. I'll see you when it's, you know, like, I'll see it. I can't even picture a parent doing, I mean, when they get arrested, what happened? Like, he's just like, he put his finger on it. And so part of what I'm trying to understand is, you know, he's, he's saying, he's saying, okay, yeah, this is, this is really creating this cycle of incompetence. Now we are kids can't figure out how to become, you know, full functioning human beings because of this heightened level of protection. Yeah.
• 37:04
  Is it justified? So you guys tell me a little bit about your story, what worked for you? What didn't work when you were a kid? And then what, what's, what do you think about with your kids? Cause it's, cause I still think my, my intuition is still, this is still feels dangerous to me. Like letting a six year old out for 10 hours every summer day. Am I wrong?
• 37:22
  Yeah, I think it's, I think it might be in his first book, Haidt's first book, Calling of the American Mind. He talks about America's worst mom. I don't know if you've heard that story before where she was a columnist and she wrote about letting her nine-year-old son, she like took him to a park in New York City and then let him take the subway home. And she got bombarded with all of these messages calling, you know, saying she was, it was child abuse. And, you know, comparing that again to like you said, the generation before, even when I was a kid, same thing where, you know, our neighborhood had a,
• 37:52
  river in the back and we would in elementary school, right? We would just go down there to play in the river on summer days for hours and hours without ever having any ability to check in. And it was just come home, like you said, when it gets dark. And so we have definitely with our family. So I've got my wife and I, we've got six young kids. My oldest is 10. My
• 38:17
  subscribe to, I think, the model of parenting where we want them to have the ability to play freely outside with minimal supervision. We have a luxury of doing that. We live on a residential dead-end road on a couple of acres, so our kids have space to do that. But I do think that it creates this opportunity for our kids to really, like,
• 38:42
  learn things about themselves, right. To, to be able to explore, to be creative, the, the amount of like imaginative play that happens because they can wander off into the woods and create forts and, you know, make up scenarios. My kids love reading the boxcar children books. And so they like to go out and pretend they're orphans in the woods, you know, so it's like having the freedom and the
• 39:06
  led to a lot of benefits and it carries down, right? Like my two-year-old will wander outside to the backyard and play unsupervised for shorter periods of time. Obviously, we don't want to be negligent, but it definitely creates an opportunity for them to explore, to be creative, to learn things about themselves, to form bonds with one another. That's why the thing I remember most when I would go...
• 39:31
  out and play in my own neighborhood was the, like the unity with the kids in my neighborhood. My kids are getting to experience that with each other in really sweet ways because they have the opportunity to go out and do that. Very cool. Yeah. Chris, what about your situation? How does it strike you?
• 39:45
  Yeah, this is a tough topic for me to navigate through. So similar to you, Tyler, you know, I grew up on five acres and, you know, my parents would kick us outside and we would go out for hours into the woods. And we always had camo on and painted our face and, you know, played army, which is probably no surprise to either of you guys. And that was really formative for me. And...
• 40:10
  It was obviously in a time where pre-tech phones, screens, that kind of stuff. And so we really were forced, I think, to describe what you're talking about, Tyler, is to get creative and to dream, to come up with ideas. And I think it...
• 40:30
  It shaped my imagination in a really healthy way. The challenge that I have with my kids is like twofold. Number one is my wife makes fun of me because I do have a tendency to be the helicopter parent from a safety standpoint.
• 40:46
  because in the military, my mind was rewired basically to look at what could go wrong, to figure out where all the potential pitfalls are and then to mitigate against them. And so that sneaks up on me like...
• 41:01
  You know, when they're climbing trees and doing that kind of stuff. And I've tried to pull back from that. I think the second piece, especially with playing with kids or playing in the neighborhood or things like that, is actually the concept of spiritual formation or like counter formation.
• 41:16
  I feel like we've done so much work and continue to do so much work with our kids to shape a story, to shape a set of values. And those can very quickly disappear from looking back at my own experience when they're with other children whose parents and families have parents.
• 41:33
  potentially different stories that they're telling or different values or even just rules might be different. And so I think that's probably my greatest concern at this stage is, and that's a big part of why we homeschool, is like we really want to, during some of the most...
• 41:51
  critical years of their life be very guarded about what is being created as a foundation in them, worldview, all of that kind of stuff. And so I have not figured out how to navigate that well.
• 42:05
  Yeah, that tension of, I think that historically, I feel that a lot of times most cultures would have been able to make the assumption, Chris, that if I let my kids out, other parents are going to have similar values. They're going to be raising their kids in similar ways.
• 42:24
  Back 50 years ago, people were very comfortable with the neighbors physically disciplining their kids because the assumption is their entire pattern of life is the same as ours. And so, of course, they're going to do that appropriately the same way I would do it. And I'm going to discipline their kids like that. Yeah.
• 42:46
  we can't make that assumption anymore. Like you send your kids out and, and it's like this kid's, you know, run around with this eight year olds run around with a self, like a smartphone and has been, you know, playing on their iPad since they were two years old and had free range of the internet. And
• 43:03
  who knows what's going to happen, right? In that, in terms of like what your kid's gonna be exposed to. And so I think Jonathan Haidt, I feel like, I don't know, this doesn't feel like he's getting at the crux of what happened by simply saying that there were some stories told in the 90s about kids getting abducted
• 43:22
  And, and that really created a paranoia. And all of a sudden people, it does feel like if I were to think about, you know, my, my parents had a certain experience growing up that was actually quite different than mine. I don't think they were fully aware of how different it was. They grew up in the Midwest. Yeah.
• 43:39
  I grew up in the Seattle area. I think what I was getting exposed to was probably, you know, a couple of magnitudes beyond what they were exposed to at the same age. And my kids, if I let my kids out at that very young age, what they're going to be exposed to is a couple of magnitudes beyond what I, and so the ability for,
• 43:59
  the rogue kid on the street to do something that, that really implicates, you know, one of your kids or your family for the rest of their lives. I think we're a little bit more sensitive to that. Number one, that, that kids could be really damaged in ways that are, that are lasting. And to the likelihood of that, hasn't it gone up? Yeah.
• 44:23
  Are we wrong? Like, it feels like it has. I just, I, cause, cause part of what I want to do is as we're just talking about this as fathers, I don't know what advice to give to a young father. I do sense like, I'll tell you one, one, one piece of advice that really struck me was that I had a very different relationship with my kids going outside and playing and,
• 44:48
  when there were kids that were older than them on the street. So if my kid's seven and there are nine-year-olds out there and I'm sort of like, go play with the kids. That's very different to me than if my kid's nine and there's eight and seven-year-olds out there like that. Like I was, I remember both of them were really hyper aware of because there is such at that age, such a pecking order. That's so powerful. And the amount of influence that,
• 45:16
  a nine or 10 year old is going to have on your six or seven year old is immense. Right. And so to say, Hey, all summer long, just spend six, seven hours a day with these kids. And who knows there is something that feels like the age is a really big deal. Like in terms of like where the safety and where the risk is really coming into play.
• 45:40
  Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that. I mean, we've definitely dealt with the age gap thing and even noticed how influential a little bit of time with an older child is. Way more so than with like-aged cousins or other people at a church gathering or whatever. It is like...
• 46:01
  If they're four years older, it's very significant that like 30 minutes outside with another child can can actually drastically change that kid's behavior for the rest of the day. And that to me is those are alarm bells that go off that.
• 46:18
  really get me asking, okay, how do I, how do I navigate this? And is there some level of that that should be allowed? And then to be incredibly intentional, you know, with the conversations that surround. And it starts, I think, first with creating a space where your kids are comfortable coming back to you and sharing with you the experience that they had or the conversations that were taking place or anything like that, because
• 46:44
  then you can actually have honest discussion and reframe things for your kids. But there's so much work that I think even goes into that. There's an element of like, you taste this experience with an older kid. And it's almost like this excitement, this new experience. And you don't necessarily want to come back and share all of those things. Sometimes I think as a kid and have that be undone and how, you know, I don't know. It's true. It's really difficult. Yeah.
• 47:13
  Yeah. And I think even having being as a dad, helping your kids to be grounded in truth at a young age is so helpful. Like when you come to those moments, like you said, Chris, like creating that culture where not only are they able to recognize when something feels off that they've, they heard from somebody on the playground or something like that. But then being able to come back to like the truth, right? Like we had a scenario just last week where, um,
• 47:41
  My eight-year-old son had interacted with an older kid on a playground, you know, pretty innocent thing, but the kid ended up saying something very unkind to my son. And he came back to the breakfast benediction that we do that I think the Bethkes came up with, right? And he's like, but I just remember that I'm not what people say about me. And, you know, we were able to like process through that and talk through that. And it created that opportunity for.
• 48:05
  Two, as I said in the video, right, you have this like this self, it's it gives him the opportunity to practice what is going to continue coming his way for the rest of his life. He gets to do that within the safety of our home, within within like our relationship as dad and son, knowing that one day like he's going to face that when I'm not there. And so it does create those opportunities, I think, when when you allow your kid to like explore or kind of go out on their own at times.
• 48:35
  Yeah, I think that one of the sort of transitions that is happening, because Haidt says this thing that we overprotect physically, but underprotect online. And one of the things that I feel like, I mean, he teases this out, but the problem I have is that those worlds are merging. Like as soon as a kid goes outside, the underprotected online is coming with some of these kids, right? In the form of these cell phones, their smartphones or their iPads or whatever.
• 49:04
  I would say too, the other thing that, you know, so Hayata is saying that kids need this kind of socialization and that part of it I completely agree with. And I think this is another argument why I think it's so important to have, why there's such an advantage to large families. Because when there's lots of sibling relationships, you are getting this experience.
• 49:23
  When there's lots of cousins that live close by with sort of aligned parents, you are having this experience. And there's other believers that you've built community with that have kids at similar kids age, and you can sync up as parents on some of these things. And then allow this arena for your children to be able to have this free play with other kids. So it's not like this is not possible.
• 49:44
  But I think that in a world in which people are having one or two kids and having them later and later in life and become obsessively concerned about their safety and everyone's kind of in that kind of a culture, this is sort of inevitable. But I think a lot of people listening to this, that having larger families or really trying to live in community with either extended family or other believers, you can find ways to counterbalance this, I think, in a way that is safe.
• 50:14
  Yeah. So one of the thoughts that I had on this that I think is applicable here, because like you said, it's merging the physical safety with the online social safety. And I've posted about this a few times. It always generates some interesting responses and engagement from people when I talk about not using the phrase, be careful to my son when he's climbing a tree. And there's this element of physical safety that's at risk, right? When he's climbing up a tree, he could fall, he could break his arm.
• 50:44
  And I'm certainly fearful of that, but I'm more fearful that he would grow to be a man that doesn't know how to take risks, who doesn't know how to take new ground, who doesn't know how to go to claim that vision that we talked about in the first part of the conversation here.
• 51:01
  And so it makes me think of this. It's a formula that Chip and Dan Heath talk about in a book called The Power of Moments. And they're talking about mentorship and leadership, but I think it's applicable for fatherhood as well. And they talk about how increased self-insight comes from a combination of high standards, assurance, direction, and support. And I think we've touched on probably all four of those within this particular conversation here and how it's a father's response.
• 51:30
  kids, both when it comes to like the physical safety. So when you think about my son climbing a tree, being able to, you know, assure him that he can do it to provide direction, help him see which branch to grab, you know, it's letting him know I'm there to help him if he needs it. And in the same way, with perhaps even the greater risk of, you know, the the online stuff.
• 51:50
  you know, being able to provide that assurance of what is true, being able to provide the direction of, hey, if somebody does or says these types of things that, you know, you need to let dad know or providing support on how to manage those, you know, conflicts or things like that on the playground. I think all kind of, like you said, is coming together in a very similar way. And so it makes me think, you know, just how we can play a role in that with our kids. Excellent.
• 52:20
  Yeah, I completely agree. And this is one of the things I was processing through and actually writing down today is this idea of premeditation. And I think what I learned in the military was this idea of training scenarios over and over and over again, so that when you're in the real thing, you don't freeze. And I think that same concept can go into fatherhood and actually into our own lives in so many different ways. But
• 52:46
  I think when dealing with other kids, when dealing with physical danger, when dealing with online, it's like, let's be rehearsing and training in the home consistently about like, what is the appropriate response? How do we think about this? And that way, when the time comes, our kids are going to be more likely to respond in an appropriate manner or maybe even say, actually, no kid, that's not right. This is what's true. Yeah.
• 53:10
  And so I think we get a chance to live that out as we train our kids to do it. And I think that anytime you premeditate how you're going to respond to something, you're 10x more likely to respond appropriately.
• 53:24
  That is so good. Well, guys, thank you so much for teasing us out. I know that because technology is changing so quickly, generations are living in such different environments than the previous generation. This stuff gets confusing. And when we have these cross-generational conversations about things that used to be normative and that aren't, man, we got to get into the details. And thank you guys so much for doing that with me. It's been really great having you on today and hope this was really helpful for those of you guys listening. Thanks, Jeremy.
• 53:55
  Thank you for listening to the Family Teams podcast. If you're enjoying this content or have learned something new, please make sure to leave a rating and review and share with a friend. To stay up to date with our events, new content, and products, you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Family Teams.