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How To Not Raise Entitled Kids (No Matter How Much you Bless Them) · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  My point is that when you're pouring all this entitlement, all these blessings on your kids, financial blessings and entertainment, all these things. And then on top of that, you say, and spend your 20s and maybe half your 30s all focused on you. You have, congratulations, created an incredibly entitled person. They're going to be so self-centered. And imagine marrying somebody like that. You know, it's like this is how you sterilize an entire generation.
• 0:27
  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. Babe, what's up? How you doing today?
• 0:49
  Hey, I'm good. Yeah? It is, yes, the height of summer. It's almost 4th of July. Very exciting. Yes. Our town does it up with the parade and fireworks and things like that. So it'll be really fun. And people are already putting their chairs out on the parade route, even though it's like on. So July 1st, this weird thing happens. Our town is so safe. You can just put all your chairs out. Apparently nobody takes them.
• 1:19
  Days and days ahead of time. So it's an epic 4th of July parade. People from all over Cincinnati come to our little town of Fort Thomas to check it out. So if you're in the area, any 4th of July, this is the place to be. So it's a fun morning. So we are going to be talking about how to end entitlement. And one of the biggest questions people have is how do I not...
• 1:49
  spoil my kids? How does our success as a generation, if you let's say financially, spiritually, in terms of just like all the blessings you wanna just pour out on your kids, how does that not create a sense of entitlement? And there's a lot of things that go into that and challenges, but there is one move that I think is really, really helpful for making sure that,
• 2:14
  In Gen 1, if you are pouring out blessings on your kids, it doesn't turn into them sort of becoming a terminal generation where they just, it's sort of like, you know, you picture the Dead Sea. We always, when we go to Israel, we always talk about this amazing, so everything about the land of Israel is designed to teach us spiritual lessons. That's our belief. And so if you look at the Jordan River represents a certain kind of like a spiritual life, the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea.
• 2:44
  the Sea of Galilee, which is full of life. You know, it's got fish. It's like, it's the place where, of course, Jesus's ministry was thriving and the Dead Sea. What's the difference, April, between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea? Why is the Dead Sea dead? Because there's so much salt in it. Okay, there's salt. There's a reason why there's so much salt in it, which is like 20% salt. It's crazy how much saline is in that one sea. Yes. Yeah, there's no outlet. Yeah.
• 3:14
  Right. So the Sea of Galilee has, you have water coming in and water coming out, but the Dead Sea, you just got water coming in. And so like the, in the ocean, the ocean is about 3% saline. The Dead Sea is like something close to 20% saline. I mean, it's unbelievable. There's nothing like it on the planet and it is dead, dead. Like nothing can live there. So I think that, um, what we're going to talk about is.
• 3:39
  how to make sure your kids are like the Sea of Galilee and not like the Dead Sea. Okay, that's it. That's what we're going to talk about today. So I'm going to read this little article and then April, get your take on this. So this is called Ending Entitlement. The one move that ensures your kids will not become entitled no matter how much you bless them. As the leader of a mastermind group for successful Christian fathers, I often hear the question, how do we ensure our financial success doesn't spoil our kids?
• 4:08
  Living in the West where most of us are in a global top 1% of wealth, this is a pressing concern for many families. So in other words, it's not just for those entrepreneurial fathers. Everyone listening to this, you are in the 1% globally. Maybe not in America, but we are exceptionally wealthy as a people. I used to view this as a complex puzzle, but I've come to see the solution as remarkably simple. You can uncover it by reflecting on two questions.
• 4:38
  Have you ever met a young mother with three or more young children and thought she was struggling with entitlement? Or a father providing for a thriving family with a growing brood and wondered if he was entitled?
• 4:48
  The answer is almost always no. Why? Raising children is hard work. No amount of financial support spares parents from sleepless nights, the physical toil of pregnancy and childbirth, or the ever-evolving challenges of meeting their children's needs. This demanding reality naturally curbs self-centeredness.
• 5:11
  Yet, we've created a culture of entitlement through modern innovations like birth control, which turned having children into an optional lifestyle choice. Imagine a world where every young couple, regardless of wealth, expected an unpredictable number of children.
• 5:28
  Those sons and daughters would need our support not to indulge a life of ease, but to carry the meaningful burden of raising a family. This, I believe, was God's design to foster selflessness, making extramarital sex immoral, encouraging early marriage, and make preventing pregnancy difficult. So character becomes others-centered through the demands of parenthood.
• 5:53
  So that's the way kind of naturally God designed it. Instead, we've used technology and shifting cultural norms to bypass this plan, resulting in some of the most entitled generations in history. But we can reverse this trend. The solution lies in cultivating a family culture where children are expected to marry early and embrace parenthood enthusiastically. As parents, we should offer our physical and financial support with one clear condition. It's to help them build a family, not avoid one.
• 6:23
  In our family, we've seen this work. Our three adult married children have embraced this culture of kids early and often. As they've leaned into this challenge of parenthood, my fears about entitlement have melted away. Yes, they wrestle with selfishness like we all do, but raising children immerses them in God's curriculum for selflessness. By fostering this mindset, we shift from worrying about raising entitled children to finding ways to support our kids in the noble, demanding work of growing our family line.
• 6:53
  In one move, the specter of entitlement fades, replaced by a legacy of purpose and sacrifice. Okay. So I wanted to kind of make that case because it's something that kind of surprised me about our family, just what I've watched. And I think through all the ways that we were pouring out blessing on our kids, as we've experienced just so much blessing from the Lord,
• 7:19
  like there's like a spiritual abundance of just incredible believers that have discipled us and discipled our kids and poured into us. You know, we've experienced just so much closeness and emotional like, like riches, just having extended family, my parents living here, you know, your parents being involved with our kids. I mean, there's so many advantages our kids grew up like experiencing and just immersed in. And then of course, like I said, in the West, we all live in this massively, uh,
• 7:48
  uh, financial blessing of just, you know, eating steak, which is crazy. Right. I mean, like having this, having, you know, air conditioning at our fingertips, like, you know, it's just entertainment, like, you know, billion, billion dollar entertainment industry, just feeding us any, anything that would cause us to like, make sure that we could avoid boredom. Right. So these are real challenges, like living in abundance is not easy and it can do enough on you and turn you into a
• 8:18
  very spoiled person. So, but I'm sort of throwing out this thesis that I don't, if you stack all of those entitlements up and then you embrace having kids, it's going to counteract that very quickly. So not that you wouldn't necessarily enter into the,
• 8:36
  motherhood or fatherhood with issues of selfishness and entitlement, but that's God's curriculum for helping you get out of that. And so we have to be aware of that so that if our kids are like, yes, give me all of this amazing abundance, but you know, I don't want to have kids and you ask them why. And they're like, because I, it's me time. It's like some kind of selfish reason. Whoa, there is a problem with that. So yeah. April, what does this start for you?
• 9:02
  Yes, I like how you called it the curriculum for selflessness, parenthood, or marriage and then parenthood. And I think that that's just so true because there is the amount of sacrifices that you make as a mom or a mother or a father. Like it is, I think, unmatched by anything. I...
• 9:28
  try to think of things that would be like comparable. And it's just so irreplaceable. You know, there's this kind of like Mother's Day, this video resurfaces every Mother's Day. And it's this mock interview where the interviewer is interviewing multiple people for a position. And the way he's describing the position, you know, he's saying things like, um...
• 9:55
  Oh, and there's no breaks. And they are like, no breaks? And he's like, no, this job is 24-7 and pretty much 365 days a year. And they say, no holidays? And he says, no. Oh, no, actually, the holidays are actually going to be a little more active and a little more stressful.
• 10:14
  Um, and then, you know, you have to sleep. There's not a lot of sleep. You might be up with the client in the night. And, you know, so it's this whole mock interview. And he's, as an adult man's talking to different adult men and adult women, like to interview them for this position. And they're like, no way.
• 10:31
  No way. Who would ever take this job? This is insane. And then at the very end, he reveals that he's describing, it's your mom. Your mom did this. And it's like, whoa. And they're all like, oh, she totally did. Oh, wow. Yeah, she was up with me at night. So it's just true. The love of a mother and a father for their children, they just are willing to do different things.
• 10:56
  think differently, plan differently, sacrifice different things for this thing in mind because of the children. And I think it is so powerful. And if you are a person who could have been at one point in your life accused of being entitled and you step into parenthood, I mean, even just one child, but especially if it's like three or more, then you are going to put yourself in a
• 11:24
  some version of the end of yourself pretty often. And that is actually such a gift. Because if we didn't have that, then we would walk around entitled and selfish. Because you're not even trying to be. You just kind of are. If you don't have anyone else to think about or put first,
• 11:42
  And you're just gonna think about yourself and how you can, like what you have next coming, how comfortable you are, like all of these things. And so to think of another person starting off with marriage first, thinking of a spouse and putting them first and how to love each other well, it requires so much sacrifice. And then you start adding children, it's a whole new ballgame. That's right.
• 12:09
  Hey, it's Jeremy. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest where having a child was treated like a lifestyle choice, kind of like getting a dog. Most families I knew didn't talk about vision or legacy or building something together. So when my theology around family changed, it hit me hard. I realized I wasn't just raising kids, I was forming a multi-generational team, but I had no idea how to do that. I needed tools, rhythms, frameworks, and I needed examples. That's why we created the Family Teams Accelerator is the kind of path I wish I had back then.
• 12:36
  Each month, we walk through one key area of family life, like Sabbath, discipline, or family mission, and give you a simple video, a playbook, and real-life tools to build it into your home. If you're trying to lead your family with intention, but feel like you're making it up as you go, you're not alone. You don't have to figure it out from scratch. Join us at familyteams.com slash accelerator.
• 13:02
  Well, I want to maybe take a step back and address what I think is probably the largest critique of what we're describing here that I imagine people have, which is, well, if this is the way that you overcome entitlement is you raise your kids to have kids, who are you?
• 13:19
  Oh, generation one to suggest that my sons or daughters should become fathers and mothers, that they should get married early and have kids right away. Like that's that's their choice. This is this is not this is not something that you can cast a vision for. This is not something you can train your kids towards. That's they become full fledged adults. And when they become adults, they get to make those choices on their own.
• 13:48
  And they will do what they want and not what you want on and on and on. Now, I think it's really important to understand why that whole line of thinking is deeply flawed from a Christian perspective.
• 14:03
  So in the Bible, we have in Genesis 1, a declaration that when God created male and female in his own image, he then says, he blesses them and says to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the creation.
• 14:20
  In other words, God created families to become fruitful and multiply. And this is not just a duty. This is not just a command. This is a blessing. And what we're encouraging you guys to do is if you create a culture, and there are lots of cultures like this out there, you guys. There are so many cultures around the world. We just don't happen to live in one of them. We live in a very unusual culture where we think about children as a lifestyle choice instead of a blessing.
• 14:45
  And that is a cultural decision that we've all made and bought into collectively, and it is totally unbiblical. The Bible could not be clear, both in Genesis 1 and Psalm 127. Children are a reward or a gift or a blessing. So imagine if your children are raised in a family.
• 15:04
  And it's saturated in a culture that believes that children are a blessing. They can't wait to become mothers and fathers. God, please, like this would be the most amazing. Now, you can't control whether or not they get married young because there could be issues that could stand in the way of that. There's a culture you can create that makes it more likely, and that's what we're encouraging you to do. Obviously, there could be challenges to that that are difficult, especially, you know, being in a Western culture. But we want to be saying this is what is going to be encouraged as normative.
• 15:32
  And what we want to discourage is the idea that when I become an adult, the whole point of my 20s is to indulge in as much self-centered, impulsive behavior that I possibly can. That's the point of my 20s.
• 15:50
  That is absolutely not healthy. It's not biblical. What is the purpose of youth? You know, it's fascinating what, you know, Psalm 127 says, which is, you know, talks about this young man and says, his quiver is full of children. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. It's talking about a young man who's blessed by the Lord. So you create a culture that expects that.
• 16:11
  And my point is that when you're pouring all this entitlement, all these blessings on your kids, financial blessings and entertainment, all these things. And then on top of that, you say, and spend your 20s and maybe half your 30s all focused on you. You have, congratulations, created an incredibly entitled person. Yes.
• 16:29
  There's no other, they're going to be so self-centered. And imagine marrying somebody like that, you know? It's like, this is how you sterilize an entire generation. And I know this is hard to hear because we believe that adults primarily are, the most sacred thing about in our culture is our definition of freedom, which is individual self-expression. And for any adult to create a culture in their home
• 16:59
  That would violate their child's individual self-expression. Like they don't want to be a mother. They want to be an astronaut. You know, like, like that's the way we think. Like we need to make sure that that child has zero expectations placed on them culturally, placed on them familially for what their life as an adult could look like.
• 17:21
  There's never in the history of the world been a culture that thought that. That's a terrible idea. And this is leading to the most depressed, most lonely, and most anxious generation in human history. This is a terrible idea. And I know all of your intuitions, if you're a hyper Western person that is obsessed with individualism, all of your intuitions are screaming out, no, you cannot create a culture that directs your children towards family. That's a violation of their individual freedom.
• 17:51
  And I'm telling you guys, if you do not create a culture in your home that points your kids towards family as being a normative part of what it looks like to be an adult, you are leading them down a path that is not going to be good for them. And it's certainly going to be
• 18:06
  potentially very damaging to your family line. It's just not aligned with what the scriptures say we are about as believers. And yeah, in the New Testament, there is a pathway towards singleness, but that pathway of singleness
• 18:22
  is towards radical discipleship to Jesus, not an indulgence of self-centered pleasure. So if one of my kids said, hey, I think I have the gift of singleness that describes 1 Corinthians 7, I would say, amazing. Like, spend the rest of your life as a single person making disciples. In other words, multiply spiritual descendants.
• 18:38
  And what it says in Isaiah 54 is that there is a single lifestyle that creates even more children, more spiritual children than somebody who has a husband is creating physical children. But none of us, none of us should be raised to not become fathers and mothers.
• 18:56
  Like 95% of us are going to be physical fathers and mothers. If we're raised in a home that, that values this and maybe 5% of us will become spiritual fathers and mothers. And in the sense that that that's our only way of reproducing because we were called to a lifestyle singleness for the kingdom of God to be wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord, as Paul says in first Corinthians seven, but nobody is given a pass on, on the command to reproduce because this is, um,
• 19:21
  the basic reason why God created humanity. We know that from Genesis one. So yeah. What else does that start for you, April? Well, I just agree. I really agree with it because I, I know it's just in my own life. I, there are so many times when I'm like, oh, wow. Thank you Lord for the gift of motherhood. Cause I never would have chosen to like be challenged myself in that way or to, um, you know,
• 19:47
  deal with that sin in my life. But like this, this one child is like a mirror of like there are there. What I see of myself in them is sometimes not good. And what I need to do in this moment is repent of this thing that I am, that this is bringing out of me. And I never would have seen that if I didn't have this person I love so much that I'm negatively affecting by my own sinful actions.
• 20:14
  to bring me out. It's such a motivator for me to be a better person, for me to like repent more, for me to walk with the Lord and like cling to Him. I need Him. That old hymn that says, I need thee every hour. It's like, I say that all the time. I need thee every hour because what I'm doing is so hard. When they're little, it's hard physically.
• 20:36
  And like my own body and their little bodies need so much physical work. And as they get older, it's hard work emotionally and spiritually to walk them through things and to help them understand things and then to start to back off and then and to like just pray more and all of these things with all the stages. And then, you know, I think.
• 20:58
  to get to the place where you're like, okay, now they're adults and how can we bless them? Like, do you want to bless them with our time or like helping them out or helping them out financially or, you know, like thinking of this idea that would include them or how much to do that? And if it's...
• 21:14
  If it's any help at all, it will be a drop in the bucket. It will not replace. I think some people out there might be like, oh, you got to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And you have to learn things the hard way like I did. And you need to start from scratch like I did. I know that's a big problem.
• 21:30
  potential mentality out there and i think to be able to say like our ceiling is your floor right and even if we are able to help you in the tiniest bit by like you know watching the kids so you can go to the dentist for an hour or you know uh picking you up if your car breaks down or like these little things that's like you could be worried that um maybe it's gonna spoil them somehow right well we
• 21:58
  I was going to say what you just said there. I think this is, this is, this is the thing that I feel like is so surprising that April, I feel like we're discovering, which is that, um, gen two is very different than gen one. Like, and many of you guys listening to this are gen one. In other words, you're the first generation that is trying to build a multi-generational family line. Um, and being a gen two child, um, um,
• 22:25
  Part of what we've done is we've got all these resources and we just want to pour them out on our children. And I feel like, you know, we want to support them. We want to like, we've created this, this house to, to be a place for them. And I think that.
• 22:40
  If our kids were playing video games in their basement or pursuing how to get a nicer car or how to go on nicer vacations as single people, and we're pouring out everything we can on them, I think that would be very conflicting for me. I think for both of us, what are we doing? But I don't know. It's been a very different experience.
• 23:05
  watching our kids all embrace having kids right away. Like they, they, as soon as they got married, they're like almost a countdown of how many months before we get pregnant. Like they were so excited to have kids. And again, that's, that's not, you know, culturally that's even odd within marriage, within Christian circles. You know, most of the couples that we knew when we first got married, we're going on birth control for years in order to experience a gap of time. Yeah. Yeah.
• 23:34
  Using a technology in order to, like, and this was really, like, pitched as the right way to found a family is to spend time as a couple, like, bonding before the kids come. Like, kids are always framed as this optional lifestyle thing that you bring into the family by design, by choice, planned parenthood. And you're ready to...
• 23:58
  Yes. And this is a very strange way to think about family historically, but we have the technology to do this. And I don't think we realize all of the implications of that. We can go into many other implications, but the one we really want to focus on here is it creates a separation between Gen 1 and Gen 2.
• 24:19
  Because as soon as your kids take everything you poured out on them and then say, okay, I'm going to use this for myself. Thank you very much. And then end the family line or throttle the family line. That's a new and difficult experience for us to have. And that is the level. But I'm curious, April, for you, watching your daughter's.
• 24:41
  uh, embrace motherhood right away. What is that like? Like, what is it like to see them, you know, immediately go into all of the difficulties of pregnancy and, and, uh, obviously they're all at the very beginning stages of this, but yeah, what, what does, what does that do like for, for you in this area of like entitlement versus, uh, pouring out more blessing?
• 25:07
  Yeah. Well, I, I do find myself wanting to relieve their pain as much as I can, whatever the pain point is at the moment. If it's like, oh, my back hurts. I'm pregnant, you know, pregnant with my first and my back. Oh, let me give you a back rub or like, oh, let me like, I think this position, this position helped me. Let's, let's try this. And so like, I, I still want to, um, like take care of them in some way. And, um,
• 25:31
  pay attention to ways that it would be appropriate for me to alleviate their, you know, help owies. And so I remember when Kelsey had her first and she was ready to try going to the grocery store. And so the first few times we went, we arranged it so that I could go at the same time as her. And so we would do it together.
• 25:54
  So that she could kind of gain confidence and like, okay, this is where I would put the car seat and this is how I would get the groceries. And this is how she did. She did, you know, some from time to time, we'll do like the click list order ahead thing, too. But, you know, she wanted to be able to gain confidence in going into the store. And so I wanted to help her gain that confidence. Everything from like how you should eat when you're pregnant. And like, I want to.
• 26:17
  I'm kind of I almost want to say like I want to spoil them in that way, but it's not really spoiling. It's like I'm taking care of them and continuing to be a mother because of what they're bearing because they know that you know that they're bearing a enormous burden. I know exactly what it's like to be pregnant. I know exactly what it's like to wait for nine months, like nine and a half months.
• 26:39
  I know exactly what it's like to be overdue. I know exactly what it's like to give birth and try to recover and to learn how to nurse a baby and all of those things. I know what it's like. And so the fact that I get to come alongside them and hopefully I've gained some wisdom from my own experience and to be able to
• 26:57
  you know, um, pass that on. They, we just have had that culture of me passing things onto them already. And so it's not like a new thing. It's like, why would I stop? Why would I stop helping them? Why would I stop, um, passing on things I think might help like tips and tricks and things like that. So I think we've all, another, another, um,
• 27:19
  way that we have made up for the breakdown of family is this information age with the internet where everyone goes to the internet first to find out how to do things or to what the latest this and that is. And so I think that, um, you know, one beauty of what I, my experience has been my girls coming to me and of course they, they are also doing stuff online and things like that too, but they will come to me a lot with like, okay,
• 27:41
  So what was it like for you? And how did you handle this? And like, I have a new thing. I'm wondering if I should handle it this way. And so we're able to have those conversations where they are curious and are interested in wisdom and understanding.
• 27:56
  Maybe in my own experience. And so that's very sweet. And I really am thankful that that is my experience because we worked really hard in our relationships and to be able to be at the place where as they, on their own, with their husbands, decided that this is something they value. Right.
• 28:17
  that I get to be alongside them right away. And I will say, like, and I'm on the younger end of being a grandma because my kids are not waiting for five years. You know, they're such a predominant thing for years and years and years, like probably 30 years of the Christian mindset is telling young people to get married and wait five years before they have kids.
• 28:44
  that is across, I have many, many, many, many, many examples of people that have done that and like kind of were lied to or like, I don't know, convinced of something else. And many people I talk to now are like, oh, I'm so sad that we waited five years. Or now we tell people all the time not to do that. And, you know, so I don't know why the Christian world bought into that. It's like,
• 29:08
  You're more responsible if you have this much money in the bank. It's only the Protestant world got into that. The Catholics rejected it. The Orthodox rejected it. The Protestants fell for it. And the Protestants continue to fall for these cultural technologies. They don't realize that oftentimes these technologies carry with them ideologies. And we swallowed that one whole.
• 29:28
  Whereas the other branches of the church, the more historic branches, they all were able to fully resist it, at least at the theological leadership level. I know a lot of Catholics and Orthodox still take birth control, do all the things, but it is roundly condemned by those churches. But the Protestants, I don't know what, like, yeah, we bought for that. We swallowed that one whole and we're paying an enormous price for it. Yes, absolutely.
• 29:53
  Our families are in the Protestant world are usually five to 10 year lagging indicators of whatever's happening to families and marriages in the culture. And we keep doing it. We keep. So a lot of you guys listen to this year. There's intuitions in you that are rising up, but it's really important for you to stop and say, okay.
• 30:11
  How's it, how's that working out for us? Like, why are we so confident that ideas that are 50 or a hundred years old technologies that are 50 years old? Why are we so confident that we've somehow re-engineered a better life than the one that God designed for us?
• 30:27
  Is it because it's working so well, because our divorce rates are so low, because our families are thriving so much, because our fertility rate is so high? No, none of that is every indication has gone negative. And so this is why we need to be very humble in the face of the data, which is to say that there's something happened around especially the 1960s that has destroyed families in ways we've never seen in human history.
• 30:52
  And so we need to go back to those decades and say, what do we do? And do we need to rethink this? And we're encouraging you guys. And that's kind of the negative case. But April, you were making the positive case. And this is mostly what this whole podcast is about as a positive case, which is you can pour blessings on Gen 2, on your children. Like...
• 31:14
  pour blessings on them without worrying about entitlement if they decide to embrace having kids early and often, right? So it's like everything we have, we tell our kids, can we help you get a house? Can we help you get a car? Can we help you start a business? Can you come over and we'll feed you really good food and we'll help you recover from that really hard day? Like
• 31:36
  I don't have any hesitation to give my kids every blessing that I possibly can give them because they're embracing fatherhood and motherhood. But if they were not, every one of those decisions would be something I would be kind of conflicted about. Like, am I helping them or hurting them? Am I helping them or hurting them? Right. But that just was, that evaporated.
• 31:58
  When they decided to have kids right away. And I, this is a really a discovery. We're just kind of like reporting to you guys. This is a, this is a field report from, from a aspiring multi-generational family. Hey guys, one of the benefits of this that we didn't realize was that if your kids decide to embrace having kids early and often, then you don't have to worry about the entitlement problem. Oh my gosh.
• 32:21
  Like, I did not see that coming. But that's a report we want to give you guys. That's our experience. Because, you know, people that have kids early and often, they're already embracing God's curriculum. I don't have to train them to become selfless.
• 32:38
  Like that baby will do it. And especially if they keep coming. Yeah. Hey, it's Jeremy. About 20 years ago, I stepped away from my job as a youth pastor because I wanted something different for our family. I didn't know exactly what it would look like, but I knew I wanted to build something with my family, not just for them. So we started a business.
• 32:54
  Yeah, it was messy at times. We made a lot of mistakes. What came out of that season was clarity, connection, and eventually a lifestyle we wouldn't trade for anything. That journey is what shaped Family Inc. It's an accelerator for families who want to launch or grow a business together. Whether you have an idea or not, we help you align as a team, choose the right path, and build something that fits your values and serves your family. If that sounds like the kind of future you've been imagining, you can start the journey at familyteams.com slash familyinc.com.
• 33:25
  And I mean, it is as it should be. Like that's, I feel like that's the phrase that has gone through my head a lot in these years of watching our kids get married and have babies. It is as it should be. There are things to mourn like, oh, you know,
• 33:41
  the passing of time and them aging and then them not living with you anymore. And now, like there are things about it that you have to kind of work through, but really it is as it should be. And it's really beautiful. And it's God's design and there's so much joy in it. And life is hard enough. Life is very hard. There are things that come at us. There's the fall, there's rust and moths that destroy things. And
• 34:05
  there are thieves that break in and steal. So there are some things that happen that are out of your control and you just have to deal with it. And to not be left alone when you're going through those things, to know that someone has your back, that there is a safety net, that there is a way to work through things. It is unbelievably settling and allows God's design of family to help people.
• 34:30
  And to be, you can see how this can like gain momentum and to continue to, you know, subdue and fill, subdue and roll. Yeah. Awesome. Well, hopefully that was helpful to you guys. If one of the questions you have is, well, how in the world do you raise your sons and daughters to want to be fathers and mothers? We did a whole podcast on that about a month or two ago. So you can go back and look at that. But yeah, this is like...
• 34:56
  this plan, God's vision for how to bring us into, out of selfishness and into a community of love where we are learning to love one another well. His curriculum for that is family, right? And so embrace it. It's beautiful. It's hard. But man, if you are immersed in a multigenerational family, and I know many of you guys listening to this aren't in that state as Gen 1. And so there's been lots of decisions you've had to make that are hard.
• 35:26
  that your kids may not have to make. And so we want to encourage you guys to really create that culture in your home. And if your kids embrace that as part of the family mission, they look at that Genesis 128 mandate, they're like, I can't wait to have children. As soon as God were to bless me with a husband or wife, like I would love to start right away. Man, your kids will come out of selfishness and grow in wisdom, maturity so fast in their 20s.
• 35:55
  We worship adolescence as a culture. If we could somehow wave a magic wand and make adolescence permanent, we would do it. And this is terrible. God is trying to raise sons and daughters to become fathers and mothers, and our entire culture is conspiring to turn...
• 36:15
  men and women into boys and girls for life. And so we want to reject that and we want to accept God's curriculum, which is have kids and you'll become a mother and father and it's not going to be easy and there's going to be risks and challenges, but man, it's worth it. God's ways are good. So thanks so much, April, for jumping on here today. You bet.
• 36:34
  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.