Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Viral Youtuber "Dad, How Do I?" On Being A Dad and Sharing The Gospel After Negative Backlash ft. Rob Kenney

Transcript

Viral Youtuber "Dad, How Do I?" On Being A Dad and Sharing The Gospel After Negative Backlash ft. Rob Kenney · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  I was hoping that they were kind of getting the gist that there's more to me than just, you know, showing you how to fix things. But boy, I got a big backlash for it. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm excited to be joined today by Rob Kenny. Rob, thanks for jumping on the podcast today. Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me, Jeremy.
• 0:22
  Yeah. So we saw Rob kind of take off in doing these videos, these dad, how do I videos online? And man, it had such a powerful emotional resonance. And Rob, I'd love maybe you just tell the story a little bit about how that happened. And then, you know, I'd love to kind of, we'll drill into, you know, more of what's going on kind of culturally, you know, and also in the faith world. I'd love to kind of dialogue with you a little bit about, you know, fatherhood in general, but yeah, tell everyone a little bit about your background, your story and
• 0:51
  What happened there? Yeah, yeah. So if people aren't familiar with me, I started the channel Dad How Do I during the pandemic. It's something I had thought of a couple years prior. And I thought I was going to have 30 or 40 followers. And I'd kind of answer some questions about stuff that, you know, a lot of stuff I learned the hard way.
• 1:12
  I came up with the name, Dad, how do I, because I pictured one of my kids in the other room saying, Dad, how do I? And then I'd come running and supposedly fix it or at least try to figure out how to fix it, you know. And so I just, again, thought I'd have 30 or 40 followers. I'd have this tight, nice, tight knit group. And then I would be able to share my faith, too, you know, and kind of the stuff that I learned along the way.
• 1:36
  but it blew up overnight and so i uh was scrambling to try to figure out oh my goodness what happened here i just you know loaded how to tie a tie how to shave how to do some basic things that i thought might be helpful to some people and i think there was a lot of things that made it go viral i think we were dealing with the pandemic you know everybody was kind of at home looking for maybe some comfort during a very strange time and then
• 2:02
  My backstory of my dad leaving, my dad left when I was 14 and I went to live with my brother. And so that was a hard time for me. I'm good now, the Lord has been so good to me and I'm so grateful for all that he's done. But because it blew up overnight, I was like, oh, my idea of sharing my faith
• 2:23
  was tough because it's like, you know, I don't want to alienate people. I don't want to shine a light in people's eyes because I'm doing dad, how do I? Showing how to do basic things. But part of being a dad, as you know, is guiding them also in the way they should go, you know? And so I finally come back around now. Here we're six years later and I'm finally kind of, we can talk about that more. I'm jumping ahead. So anyway, I'm kind of going through a little bit of a,
• 2:51
  what would the Lord have me to do now? You know, now that I've got these people that kind of trust me. And so I don't want to overstep that bounds. And so I can't, we can talk about that a little bit. What, what I've recently done. So, yeah. Yeah. I'd love to dive into that. And I noticed you, so it was very practical. And then you started doing like wisdom Wednesdays and kind of getting a little more philosophical, a little, a little bit more on almost theological on some of those. And yeah, I'm curious as you have seen and interacted with your audience,
• 3:21
  Um, both like, what, what have you decided to do to try to, you know, serve that? What do you feel like your calling is there? And then what are you learning about the state of, of where, where they're at, where, where the kiddos who are, and the adults who are following you, um, kind of how, how they're interacting with the content.
• 3:40
  Yeah, so it was tough, because I put out some videos, and I worked with Abdu Murray, if you know him. He used to be with Ravi Zacharias, his ministry, and now he's branched off. Very kind man and very knowledgeable, and he came to our church and spoke a year ago, and I kind of hit it off with him, and I'm like, oh, would you be interested in coming on my channel, and we could just kind of talk about...
• 4:07
  Life questions. And I've always said this. There's more to life than unclogging a toilet. You know, you need to figure out, okay, why am I here? What's my purpose? Where am I going? All those things, you know. And so I started to share that. And I had to actually kind of go back and.
• 4:25
  apologize because I think I scared a lot of people. It was a bit of a jump scare. In their mind, it kind of came out of nowhere. But really, I say God bless you pretty much at the end of every one of my videos. I do quote Proverbs a lot. And so I was hoping that they were kind of getting the gist that there's more to me than just showing you how to fix things or how to bake cookies or what have you.
• 4:52
  But boy, yeah, I got a big backlash for it. People were just, you know, and I understand the gospel is offensive to people, which, you know, when I first became a believer, I was surprised. I thought, man, this is the best news you could ever hear. Everybody's going to want to hear it.
• 5:09
  It ain't like that. And I recognize that in my own life because I've dealt with it, you know, trying to share the gospel. And it's like, wait, wait, this is good news. You know, we can debate about all these other things, but this is the best news you're ever going to hear in your whole life of what Jesus did for you. And just want you to understand that.
• 5:29
  I want you to have this too. And yet, boy, such a big backlash. So I just started a new channel called Dad's Faith Channel so that I feel like I can share more of me for people that are interested or curious or what have you. Then I feel like it's fair game. It's Dad's Faith Channel. It's not, you know, because I felt, I think if my other channel was Rob Kenny, then I could just share whatever. But it is Dad, How Do I? People are coming to learn how to tie a tie,
• 5:58
  And then I feel like I, you know, maybe bait and switched. Like now I'm going to start preaching at you. And so I felt like I think there's wisdom in, because I've never, and I'm sure you can relate to this, is I never want to be somebody that drags somebody to church, you know, or I gotcha. Now I'm going to sit you down and tell you everything I know. Because that never goes well. And I don't think that that would be what Jesus would have me to do. And so I'm,
• 6:24
  I've started this new channel and we'll see how that goes. But if, you know, even if that's 30 or 40 followers, it is over a thousand followers already. So that's just, I just started a couple of days ago and yeah, I feel like it's fair game now. I can talk about it. Go for it. That's suffering. What could you, could you say the name of the channel again? The new one? Yeah. It's called dad's faith channel. Dad's faith channel. Okay. Fantastic. On YouTube. I'm strictly on YouTube right now for that. YouTube. Okay. Okay.
• 6:50
  Yeah, I, um, very much understand what you're saying, Rob. I, you know, there's, it's, it's, it's, it's really unfortunate how I feel like the enemy's really sort of poisoned, um, a lot of, uh, people's attitudes towards faith. Um, I think what's really complicated about it is there, I don't know if you're familiar with Aaron Wren, um, but, um, I just had him on a podcast a couple weeks ago on my podcast where he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was
• 7:17
  And, you know, he has this framework. There's the negative world, the neutral world and the positive world. And he said, until about the 1990s, we've lived in what he kind of called the positive world. If you heard that somebody was somebody like, you know, so they go to church, it's likely to be a positive during the during the interview process at some random job. The attitude towards kind of culturally towards towards faith was was sort of bent towards the positive.
• 7:42
  And then somewhere in the 90s to like, you know, the mid 2000s, he said we lived in a 2015. So we lived in a kind of neutral world where people are like, oh, that's kind of an interesting factoid about you. Okay, you're a Christian. You believe in Jesus. That's interesting. And he said from 2015 till now, we live in what he calls the negative world where you have the surprising negative reaction that people have when they hear that you have faith.
• 8:06
  And they see you as less moral, which is really interesting. I wrote a whole article just a couple of days ago about this on my sub stack, about how basically morality has become really the province of those who are activists for, you know, there's a whole new way of thinking about morality or a whole new framework. And Christians in particular are some of the greatest violators of that new moral framework. And so when people hear that you start to share your faith,
• 8:35
  It's not like, well, that's really, of course you're a Christian. Like, you know, you have this, you know, you have all this background. I can see why you love your kids or why you care about these things. That would have been the positive world or the neutral world, which would have been like, okay, that's interesting about you, Rob. Maybe I'll jump onto your channel and hear more about that. But, you know, that may or may not apply to me, but that doesn't change at all how I feel about you. To like, what? What are you talking about? Are you some kind of moral monster?
• 8:59
  I mean, that's like literally people have been conditioned to really say, you know, that things like, you know, because of Christians stance about, you know, sexual ethics, you know, to them, it's, it's bigotry. It's not like an interesting factoid or, oh, you're doing something that's actually a net positive for society. That's why we have such strong families because we have fathers of faith who actually are trying to hold to a high sexual ethic and raise daughters, you know, that are protected and loved and like, yeah.
• 9:29
  All of that's been poisoned by the political debates that have happened around sexual ethics, I think primarily and maybe a few other issues. But man, it's hard to live in this negative world. And so what Aaron Wren is really saying is he's like, Christians by and large are unprepared for the backlash.
• 9:47
  because we don't really understand what we're up against. We don't know how people are perceiving faith. And there's a lot of places in which Christians live in a negative world. We're just not used to it. We didn't grow up necessarily. Now, you and I grew up in an area that was a little bit, I think, ahead of the curve in this way, coming from the Northwest. And if you're coming from the Bible Belt or other places, you might not experience this as dramatically. But if you're online, especially on YouTube, places like that, if you're on Reddit, if you live on the West Coast
• 10:17
  in the Pacific Northwest, you're going to, you're going to face this stuff and it's challenging. Yeah, it's tough. Cause I, you know, and I, so I ended up, uh, moving this, this, my conversations with Abdu over to this other channel so that people, again, know what they're, what they're in for. And then I kind of said an apology and it wasn't, I'm not ashamed of my faith. I, you know, I'll die for my faith at this point. I, I, I know who, you know,
• 10:43
  I know who I believe in and I trust that he's able to keep what I've committed to him until that day. You know, he's he's got me. So but I also saw the wisdom and OK, I don't want to, you know, I just got.
• 10:58
  I got to thread that needle of the fact that it is dad, how do I? So anyway, all that to say, people were saying, oh, you didn't need to apologize. Well, I'm just apologizing for the jump scare is what it is. I'm not apologizing for my faith. Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to share my faith. And if people find out I'm a Christian, that's fine. I'm not going to hide from that. That would be foolish of me because it's who I am.
• 11:19
  But it was just interesting, so much of the backlash and such of the, you know, I was a skeptic. I was raised Catholic, and then I walked away from the faith and came back because I cried out to God. And all things started coming together, and I'm like, wait a second, I kind of made a bargain here. Now what? You know, it terrified me. I compare it to the...
• 11:41
  And the disciples were in there in the boat and Jesus was asleep and they woke him up and he calmed the storm. You know, they're terrified, just like me. I was terrified of what was going on around me. I woke him up and he calmed the storm. And now what? Now I'm more terrified because I'm like, I haven't lived the way I should be living. And yet you do exist, you know, because in my mind, I kind of...
• 12:07
  convinced myself that maybe he didn't exist or didn't care. And so I kind of bargained that, you know, if you were real and you, you know, help me figure all this stuff out, I'll do whatever I can to try to understand you and know more about you. And so that set me on the journey of trying to figure things out. I started listening to the Bible Answer Man back when it was,
• 12:28
  Hank Hanegraaff and Ron Rhodes back in the day. And I even thought Bible answer, man, who's this guy? I think he is, you know, who has all the answers to the Bible. And, but it was actually Walter Martin was the original guy. And so once I understood that there was so many times that I was like, ah, I can't believe this guy. But then, but the thing they always said was go look for yourself. You go look for yourself, you read this for yourself. And so that then the burden was on me. I was like, okay, I got to check this out. And so I started looking into it and,
• 12:58
  that's where I landed. But one thing I want to say, I thought that was just interesting, some of the logic and some of the stuff. So for me at this point in my life, it's the resurrection. You know, if you want to bring down Christianity, go disprove the, go disprove the resurrection. Don't mess with all this other stuff. It really is peripheral stuff. Go right after the resurrection. If it ha if it didn't happen, we're a bunch of fools as Paul says.
• 13:24
  But if it did happen, it's game over. Drop the mic, it's done. And so I go right to the heart of that. And I had one gal say to me,
• 13:34
  well, I don't believe in the resurrection, therefore, that ends it for me. I said, be careful here. You know, have you done the research? Have you looked into it? Because you will pass from this life. You can deceive yourself into thinking, you're good, you're good. Yeah, but you will pass from this life. And if what Jesus said, he said, we're going to stand, I mean, basically, we're going to stand before a holy God in your own righteousness.
• 14:00
  I hope that goes well for you, but I don't think it will. And so you're getting this free gift of you can have Jesus' righteousness or you can have your righteousness. And it's all, for me, again, it comes down to the resurrection. You can get off on all these tangents. Are you familiar with Mike Lacona? Do you know him? Yeah.
• 14:20
  That sounds familiar about it, and I'm not sure where. Yeah, he's written some books on the resurrection, and he came to our church a couple years ago. And he said that when he first started out, he said, you know, my wife told me that if the resurrection didn't happen, she said, I really like Christianity and the morals and, you know, it causes you to live a good life. So even if the resurrection didn't happen, you know, I'd still be a Christian. And Mike Lacona said, not me. He said, if it didn't happen. Validated.
• 14:48
  I'm partying, I'm doing whatever, I'm living however I want because it's all based on that. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And I think that it's interesting. Every generation has their particular hangups. I do think the moral argument for God is a powerful one for this generation. The moral argument that says you feel this deep sense of injustice.
• 15:18
  attack you for your faith. Um, that, that there's something behind that, that says that they believe in something being good, something being bad, something being like that there's, they're motivated and they're not just, you know, being completely self-absorbed. They actually are act like they're activists for something. They're coming online. They're, they're, they're making comments and you know, a lot of them have never really considered, um,
• 15:42
  Why do you have such an incredibly strong belief that you think is universal and objective? So you can come on here and argue with me about my beliefs, my faith, my moral framework. Because within a world where there is no God, everything is permitted, right? Dostoevsky said that this is like...
• 16:01
  Um, and a lot of people aren't doing the, the work of rooting back. Like a lot of the, the, to me, the, the, the most thoughtful atheist right now, guys like Alex O'Connor, he is overtly said, look, as an atheist, you cannot believe in objective morality. He doesn't believe in objective morality. It does not exist in his world. He says, I'm an emotivist. I know that if, if we all just evolved and there is no God. Yeah.
• 16:24
  There is no objective morality. Like who's to say we should enslave other people or like, like there is no, he's like, I just, I emotionally recoil from that, but it doesn't give me any objective place from which to stand to say it's evil. It's wrong for everyone.
• 16:40
  Um, and, but so many of the people haven't done that, that actual work. They haven't actually realized that they're, they're real, uh, moral objections. They indicate, uh, uh, some kind of, uh, objective law giver, um, and to bring them to God and to say, well, where did this come from? So that's, that I think is a, an argument I always think is important to have with people that are clearly very exercised, you know, in themselves about like what's right and wrong, what's good and evil. Yeah.
• 17:10
  Yeah, it's fascinating because I thought I had kind of built up enough goodwill.
• 17:17
  Over six years that you and I say. Six years of giving free advice, connecting with your audience. Boy, that all went out the window with a lot of people. Some people, you know, were very kind, of course, but there was definitely, man, there was like, oh my, I had no idea there was so much venom out there. Yes. And I said, I like that saying that people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And it's like, hopefully by now when I introduce. I care. Yeah. I mean, you got to know I care by now.
• 17:47
  Well, it reminds me of a JK Rowling. Have you followed much of the backlash on her?
• 17:54
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• 18:23
  A little bit, yeah, with the whole trans thing. Yeah, her story is one of the most shocking to me. Like, she's not a Christian. She's not coming at this from any kind of even objective moral ideas. She simply is saying, look, I was an abused woman, and I think there should be female-only spaces. And as somebody who really cares about women, I'm going to stand up for what I needed as a woman who was running away from an incredibly abusive situation.
• 18:53
  And, and I mean, the level of attack just, it's been the most brutal. It's hard to even imagine how much attack she, for, for taking that stand because, you know, it might marginalize somebody from the trans community. But it was like one of those situations where you see how aggressive this spirit is. And what I was saying to you is like, we're all walking into a sort of a well that's been poisoned by an ideology that,
• 19:19
  that is going to turn on any of us the second, like there is no amount of goodwill. I mean, there are so many of these kids who grew up with Harry Potter. It's their favorite thing in the world. They felt like it just, it's, you know, it completely rescued them, brought them into a world that they really enjoyed and made sense of even things like being different. And she's even affirming of all kinds of things that we as believers wouldn't affirm. And,
• 19:42
  None of that was enough goodwill to shield her from being the most hated enemy because she wasn't towing the line in this, this one very specific area for reasons that are so understandable. And, and, and it's not like we've, you know, even as a culture, we've, we've somehow figured out the perfect answer to how to think about, uh, trans.
• 20:04
  Um, and all of the ideologies that are around that so much of the moral panic that erupted around that issue has subsided in so many of these different, the medical community is, is backing away. I mean, there's so much that we didn't know, but none of that had the ability to shield even somebody as famous and has, who has stockpiled as much goodwill as JK Rowling. Um, and wow, I just watched that situation. Yeah.
• 20:32
  Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah, because I mean, that's been years because my kids grew up on Harry Potter too, you know, and we were always, you know, they went to Christian school and there were, there was warnings about, oh, she's going to go darker and stuff. And so we were trying to manage, oh my goodness, what is going to happen with this? And we're, you know, I've read them and they're like, yeah, okay, it's. Yeah.
• 20:54
  It's fantasy, you know, and you got to be careful with, you know, what's reality and what's make believe or what have you. So, yeah, no, that's that's interesting. And so here's another thing with my channel. You know, I I was having people come on and sobbing because they've never felt the love of a father before and that sort of stuff. I thought I was just showing people how to tie a tie, but it became so much more than that. And so.
• 21:19
  And I have a lot of trans followers, honestly, because of, you know, they don't know how to shave and their parents have disowned them and they need to shave. And so they're watching my videos, learning how to shave. And so I didn't want to alienate them, too. I didn't want it. So I'm like, what do I do with this? I, you know, I'm not here. I want to handle this the most loving way that I possibly can and not. Yeah.
• 21:46
  you know, want to be faithful to what the Lord would have me to do. So trying to be gentle. But also, you know, I shared this in my introductory video too, about that I was going to start sharing more, which again, I've changed. But it was, you know...
• 22:03
  Again, it's the best news ever. I believe the gospel is the best news ever because you can know that you have eternal life. Not because I'm so great, not because Jeremy's so great, because Jesus is so great. That's right. It's all about him. I can know that when I die, which we are all gonna die. You can kid yourself and think you're gonna be the one that isn't gonna die, but you're gonna die because you're here for a temporary time.
• 22:29
  And so you can know that. So it changes how you live because you, I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but that, you know, it's like, that's such good news. And so I shared that, you know, I hope that when people do understand what I was trying to share,
• 22:46
  They'll go, you knew this and you didn't tell me, you know, what were you thinking that you wouldn't tell me that you told me all this other stuff? You didn't tell me that. Yeah. Give me the, give me the actual back. I mean, it reminds me too of, you know, Solomon saying to his son, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And it's like, you know, like you said, you're trying to share Proverbs, but if they, if the foundational proverb of all the Proverbs is fear of the Lord.
• 23:10
  which is to say, and I, I really believe that, that, that, that without that, uh, that one move, you can't get to wisdom. And I think that so many people, you know, it sounds like, you know, there's, it's interesting when you try to like think about these different audiences, like you have people that are following you because they are missing a real clear father figure in their life. Somebody who's really loved them, who demonstrated affection for them. And they're going on YouTube looking for that. And,
• 23:39
  Part of what, like, I think there's just been this wholesale rejection of fatherhood and people have this incredibly deep father hunger and, but they don't really know what it is because, because, because fatherhood isn't just, um, grandfatherly. Like what you're doing is sometimes fathers are responsible for.
• 24:00
  for providing difficult truths to their children, saying the hard things, saying the truth in love, saying, guys, part of what you need, you have to, like, I am not, this is a part of fatherhood. There are two edges to fatherhood. There's this very warm, affectionate, loving, somebody who knows you and loves you, but somebody who's not afraid of you, who's not, who's really, you know,
• 24:24
  And we call it patronizing, which is the word potter, which is like fatherizing somebody is sort of considered to be a negative thing now in our culture. But people need to be fathered. And so I think that, yeah, they're like, please, I only want this one side of you, Rob. Don't give me the other side. Don't give me the fatherly hard love. Don't don't give me the fear of the Lord. Yeah.
• 24:46
  Don't give me the source of wisdom. Don't give me the source, because that can interfere with my life. That can interfere with my freedom, my individuality, my identity. And that's part of what's happened is basically this generation has created incredibly fragile identities. They're not based on their family of origin. They're not based on their faith. They're based on a feeling they have inside. And because their identity is so incredibly fragile, they have to cut themselves off from
• 25:13
  from anyone who would possibly threaten that identity. That is somebody who's a Christian or a Trump voter. And like the list is enormous. Like 80, 90% of the people on the planet, if you heard what they believed about everything, they would say something that would threaten your identity. You got to cut those people off. You cannot, zero contact with those people because I need my identity preserved. They need that other side of you. They need kind of that father, like that hard truth.
• 25:43
  in a package of love and affection, but it's still not easy to hear. And they're being trained, cut those people off, cut those people out of your life. And that's, wow, so fragile this generation with that.
• 25:53
  Yeah, I think that's very well said, Jeremy. I think, and I did a video on this because I talked about Charlie Kirk when Charlie Kirk got shot. And boy, I got a lot of backlash for that. Oh, you're a mad guy. You're, you know, I'm like, why do you, you're just labeling me just so you can knock over a straw man or what? I'm just saying I saw a man get shot on TV. Yeah.
• 26:16
  Right in front of me. Are we okay with that? And what was his crime? Because he had a different opinion than you? I'm like, you know, whether you believe with Charlie Kirk or not, I wouldn't want anybody to get shot just because they had a different opinion than me. And how can we live our lives like that? You know, this whole AI generation where people are marrying a fake, you know, whatever. I don't know where this is going, but it's crazy because...
• 26:43
  You know, my wife and I have disagreements, but that's part of life. You work through the things and stuff. You know, if I married somebody that just was a robot that just said yes to everything I ever said, I'd go off the rails. I'd be doing things that I shouldn't be doing, right? And so it's a little bonkers how we've gotten to this point. So after that video of Charlie Kirk, I came on and I said, what makes a good dad? What is a good dad? Somebody that just says, oh, everything you do is amazing.
• 27:11
  Oh, yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No. Yeah. Good for you. It's going to be great. Yeah. I mean, it's just but to your point, I think you brought it that they're kind of almost being trained that way that you just live in your own little bubble. And I would also.
• 27:30
  say that social media is doing this to us with the whole algorithm thing that this dang algorithm i've got over five million subscribers but youtube chooses not to show my videos to my subscribers they only will if there's some interaction you know if there's uh if people are showing interest in it oh then they'll show it to a wider audience well
• 27:51
  Why aren't you showing it to all my subscribers? Right. They asked for it. You know, they asked for it with the subscription. I'm assuming they want to see it, but you're keeping it from them. And then people are like, so just recently I kind of ran a test. I'm like, how do I, what is going on? I'm not seeing these people. I'm like, oh, I'm seeing you for the first time in years. I didn't even know you were still posting. Wow.
• 28:12
  Because, and so this algorithm is generating these bubbles where you're getting fed, you know, I'm not saying, telling you anything you don't know, but it's like, how's that going to end? You know, where people are just being fed what they want to hear. That's a pretty scary tool for the enemy to be able to just manipulate people into their own little world and they don't even realize it. Yes. Yes.
• 28:35
  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That, that, that has been really unfortunate. Whatever is causing the most like division, the most emotion, I'd say like, like it's anger, frustration that agrees with you. Like that, that is the echo chamber. So many people are caught in. And so.
• 28:54
  It's just causing us to really distrust each other. And I think you're, you're really cutting through that by saying guys, and, and, and part of what I think really goes viral. My theory for what goes viral on, on YouTube is when somebody nails an archetype. So people have, you know, these, these things that are already in their heart.
• 29:13
  And fatherhood, motherhood, these are archetypes that actually every person carries with them. I know that like when they first were doing like psychology, Carl Jung, and when they found these like really, really horrible cases where somebody was like locked in a closet since they were born, they would still dream about fathers and mothers. They would still dream like they knew this is what caused Jung, for example, to believe in.
• 29:36
  the collective unconscious and he turned him into a theist ultimately um and part of that was because he he saw that that these things are god's like wove into us like the need for these things we we can't avoid these things and so i think part of what's happening is is rob i feel like you just
• 29:52
  really embody this well. Like, I think, I think that people, people need to see you do this. One of these, I wish, and I'm curious how this happened in your own heart. I see a lot of young fathers maybe struggle with, um, fully entering into the identity of father, like saying, you know, I want to be, I want to be my kid's friend. I want to be like, I want to, like, I can understand brotherhood.
• 30:15
  But there's something in this generation, I feel personally, just like resistance around just fully saying, like, I'm a dad. I'm a father. Those are good words that, like, I want to feel it in my bones. I want to hold my child. I'm like, I'm not just your friend. I'm your father. And so when I first started watching your content, I was like, this guy has absorbed me.
• 30:38
  that identity as father, he's comfortable in his skin. And I think you reflected it back, you know, in this very natural way. And people were just like, oh my gosh, like that, I need that. Like, I don't know if I've ever seen that. Um, I'm curious how, like in your own story, how did you, yeah. How did, how did that happen for you? How did you really accept that identity? Anything you would say to like a young father who might be trying to just brother his kids, friend, his kids, like we need dads, right? Yeah.
• 31:07
  I loved being a dad. You know, my, our kids are now, you know, I'm married well, thankfully we've been married for 35 years. My daughter is 33, she'll be 34 and our son is 30. He'll be 31. And he just got married. She's been married for about 12 years. I loved that window of time so much. It was, and I still, you know, I talked, my daughter calls me every morning and we chat about whatever she's got going on.
• 31:31
  My son, now that he's got married, we kind of let them, they're kind of creating their own life. He got married in October. And so we were talking to him, you know, every couple of days. He's out in Virginia and my daughter's close by. But, you know, that window is just so short. It goes, man, it goes by so quick. And you'll hear that again and again. Everybody's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, meanwhile, you're doing the best you can, you know.
• 31:54
  with all the responsibilities that you're dealing with. But boy, it goes by so fast. And when it was gone, it was a little bit sad because I, so go back to my history. I think we were talking before, before you started recording. When my dad, my dad left when I was 14 and that was really hard. I ended up, my mom couldn't take care of me. My dad got custody of us, but I didn't want to have the responsibility anymore of having kids. I'm one of eight.
• 32:23
  I was number seven. And so by that time he'd kind of got burned out. They had a tough situation. And so I share about it in my book, but it's always hard because I kind of got caught up in that.
• 32:37
  unfortunate, you know, ripple effect of his decisions. And so I went to live with my brother and there was a time my self-esteem was so low. I've shared this before with other people that I didn't even like to say my own name. I was so fragile, so to speak, and felt so low of myself saying Rob Kenny when, you know, somebody asked me my name, I'm kind of embarrassed to say it, you know. And so I.
• 33:02
  coming out of that and trying to figure out who I was and all that. And, you know, but the temporary window of, I was 14, but then I was 18 and then I was 25 and still trying to figure out, oh no, who am I? And all that. And then the Lord got ahold of me right before my daughter was born. So thankfully that all kind of shifted for me. And then, you know, I was able to
• 33:25
  still dealing with trauma as I'm working through parenthood and wanting to be the best dad I could and vowing back when I was 14, when my dad did that, like, boy, if I ever get the opportunity, I'm going to be the best dad, most present dad that I can possibly be because I know how
• 33:42
  how that felt and how hurtful that was. And so it all kind of stemmed from that. And that's where it all came for me. And I loved being a dad. It was just amazing. You know, it's not you, you know, and you're not going to be perfect. Nobody's going to be perfect.
• 33:58
  You go off to work and you have a bad day and you're in the commute and commute there, commute home. For me, it was about 45 minutes to an hour. And you're dealing with people in traffic, seeing how selfish people are. If you're ever curious whether people are selfish, just go for a drive. And you realize, oh, that person's out for themselves. Everybody's kind of cutting in front of everybody or whatever. So dealing with all that. And then you come home and then your kid's...
• 34:24
  You know, very loving and looking forward to seeing you, but you're kind of crabby and got to kind of, you know, I need a little bit of space so I can kind of get back into the fact that that's right. This is what's important. This is why I'm even doing all this stuff. It's this is that was so that was my goal was to.
• 34:44
  Raise good adults, not to raise good kids, but to raise good adults through it all. And I think we did that. My wife and I together did a good job of raising good adults. And part of what comes with that is you have to then say, let them go.
• 35:01
  My daughter got married and then she ended up moving to Tennessee because we equipped them, you know, to be able to do these type of things. But it made it hard, you know, ripped my heart out seeing her move to Tennessee. You know, we were crying and okay, but this is what's best for you guys. You guys need to go do this. Go ahead. And then when our son moved to Virginia, I wish you were closer, but this is good, you know, instead of, you know, raising good kids and then they live in your basement. Yeah.
• 35:30
  People wonder why, oh, you know, the kids in my basement. Well, did you teach them? Did you train them so that they could go do, you know, so did you give them the tools to be able to do this stuff?
• 35:44
  Yeah, anyway, I think we did a good job. You'll always have regrets. I think in anything you do, you always go, ah, I could have handled that better. I think one of the things that I always tried to stress was if I did do something wrong, to go back and ask my kids for forgiveness, which is kind of against what the world would tell you. No, you gotta be this man's man that you, you know, your way or the highway kind of thing. It's like, ah, I think...
• 36:11
  I don't think there's wisdom in that. I think when your kids get to be junior high, but when they transition out of thinking everything you do is amazing, and they realize, wait, dad, he maybe don't...
• 36:25
  And I think they'll rebel if you start to pretend you have it all together. And I think, thankfully for our faith, you know, you can say, so we would pray together. And I would admit to the Lord in front of them that, you know, I didn't handle that well, you know, help me to be a better dad. And so they'd get to hear that.
• 36:43
  And we kind of would stay close. You know, I don't want you, don't want you getting too far away from me. If, if we, you know, if there's a division, I'm sensing a division. Hey, let's figure this out. We don't want division. We want to stay together as long as, you know, as long as we can. So.
• 36:59
  Yeah, absolutely. It's so important for us to model that humility. And I think that's what a lot of people are reacting against. Their picture of fatherhood can sometimes be so harsh. And we are the first example to our kids of what God is like as a father, since that's his identity he's giving us. So important that we do that in that humble heart. Part of what I was really struck with
• 37:29
  In your description there, Rob was, you know, trying to understand, okay, for, for a dad, who's like, if you really want to like reach your child's heart in that place that only a dad can, I love it. You said, you said over and over again, I love being a dad.
• 37:44
  And, um, and that, that was actually really hard for me personally. Like I, I, I resisted being a dad initially and have had to really work through that because I realized that my son and my daughters can only experience their sonship and their daughterhood to the extent that I experienced my fatherhood identity. Like I embrace that.
• 38:06
  or my wife embraces her identity as a mother. And we've done a lot as a culture to make, to really attack the brand of dad, dadness or motherhood. Right. And this has been a, it's a very short sighted foolish thing culturally to do because the people who end up being the most impacted when we turn every person,
• 38:31
  dad, you know, in movies and in TV shows into an idiot are children. Because what you're really doing by attacking fatherhood is you're causing young men to desire to not identify as a dad. And when people go on YouTube and watch, you know, you, Rob, they're seeing something that they are desperately needing. And what they're feeling or sensing is they're feeling fatherhood.
• 38:56
  And, and I think that the way that you are embodying that and part of the reason why they can sense it from you is because you love being a dad and you, you, you didn't give into that propaganda that said fatherhood is, you know, is some, some kind of lesser position. You embraced it and you fully lived into that identity. And in a world where people are desperately searching for an identity. Yeah.
• 39:16
  Man, lean into your family identity, son, daughter, father, mother, brother, sister. These are incredibly rich identities. You don't need to go find some other identity. These are powerful, but we are attacking each of those brands.
• 39:35
  in turn, to destroy them to be able to create these individual consumers. And it's not good. It's not good for the next generation. So thank you for fully embracing that identity in your own life because I sense it every time I watch your videos.
• 39:51
  Well, thanks. Thanks. Yeah, I love it. And you hit on something that I've always shared in other interviews is, you know, Homer Simpson and Al Bundy and stuff. You know, we can laugh at it. It's fairly funny, but what is it doing? It's down, you know, it's making dads look like a bunch of buffoons, you know, it's like, ah.
• 40:10
  Let's not do that. Being a dad is a great honor and take it seriously because, man, again, the window is so short. You get to pour into this captive audience anything, any wisdom that you can pass along. And it goes by so quick and you get that opportunity. Take advantage of it.
• 40:33
  So good. Thank you so much, Rob. I just want to, first of all, thank you for what you're doing on the internet. Thank you for hanging in there on YouTube. Thank you for standing in the fire. I know that's no fun. We need you there. I think you're having an enormous impact on people. I just really am glad you're starting another channel as well and being explicit about your faith there.
• 40:51
  I'm trying to serve each audience that, you know, God's entrusted to you. And I have tons of respect for what you're doing. So tell me and tell everybody here. Yeah. Any way that they can, they can follow you. Yeah. Give the handles to your YouTube channel and any other place that you think would be helpful.
• 41:07
  Yeah, yeah. I'm on YouTube at DadHowDoI, and then I'm on Instagram, DadHowDoI, Facebook, DadHowDoI, and then on TikTok on the real DadHowDoI. Because when I first went viral, I held back from going on TikTok because I still stand by this. And I think TikTok doesn't like that I say this, but I think they were kind of the big people that were shortening our attention spans, you know, down to these short little videos. And now we all, people can't watch it.
• 41:35
  a 40 minute video. Cause that's just way too long, way too much. And so, um, so I, anyway, so I held off and I thought, well, I got to get there too so that people can maybe find me there and then want to know more about me. Yeah. Excellent. So I encourage you guys like, definitely follow Rob. Um, and again, I think part of what I love, part of what I really want to see people, especially the dads, um, is just how you model embracing fatherhood, um,
• 42:03
  Um, man, I just found it so encouraging. Both Jeff and I, my partner and family teams, we were like, once you started, we were like both like sharing your videos and like so encouraged. And I've been, you know, following ever since and love the short form content as well. So thanks, Rob. And appreciate you jumping on the podcast today. Well, thanks to God be the glory. Absolutely.
• 42:23
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