The Challenges of Modern Fatherhood (with Keith McCurdy)

[Music] Hello everyone and welcome to the Weight of Fatherhood Podcasts, this is the very first episode of this new show on the Cersei Podcast Network and I'm your host Brian Phillips. I'm delighted to be with you and excited about this new show. We're starting off with a wonderful guest, Keith McCurdy from Total Life Counseling and Richmond, Virginia. He's been on previous podcast with us but he has agreed to help us kick off this show with another great talk about the challenges of modern fatherhood. Well, Keith McCurdy, thank you for joining me again on the Weight of Fatherhood Podcast. It's great to have you with us. It's been a while and I'm happy to have you as the first interview on this new Cersei Podcasts focusing on fatherhood and how dads can grow and learn and be better equipped for the calling of fatherhood. We all need a good bit of help with this. So what better way to start off then? Let's just hit it head on, right? Yeah. Some major dad issues here. Keith, you have been a family counselor for over 30 years now. You've spoken to school groups at education conferences on podcasts. We've done a few together, as I said, in a variety of other places. This is kind of a big question, but I want to start off with the big picture. Over that span of time, how has the work of family counseling changed? That is a big question, a great question. You know, it's interesting. If I look back at education in the counseling field 30, 40 years ago and then coming into practice a little over 30 years ago, when you look at the family, the perspective used to be, families would come in and we had what was called the identified client. In other words, what's wrong with Johnny? And the broader picture is we wanted to look at the family system. What's really going on? What are the processes going on? What's happening in the family system? And the focus for a large part was, how can we help the family system to function in a healthier manner? Well, if we fast forward to now, I wish that's where we were, but we're really not. We have parents coming in and they're really looking at one of two things. And two questions, if I could put it in those terms. The first is, how can I keep Johnny happy? Because we've bought into this false logic that it's all about keeping our children happy. Or it's, how can I start a behavior I want to see or stop a behavior I don't want to see? And in essence, what both of those are is we've given into what I call, you know, gimmick therapy. You know, I want to know the gimmick. I want to know the thing that's going to keep them happy or the thing that will stop or start what I want to see and don't want to see. And I want to know it now so that we can turn it on and turn it off immediately because we're in a culture now where everything is immediate. And if it's not immediate, it's not seen to have much value. And that stands in direct opposition to the idea that a family is a growing process over time with multiple seasons of development. And so a lot of what I see coming my office stands directly opposed to building healthy families. Right. So it's gone from how do we how do we build a strong family? How do we build a, as you call it, a family system that works and is healthy and thriving to seeing, sounds like seeing the children or seeing a member of the family has a problem to be solved. Right. And we've built, you know, through the DSM, our, you know, diagnostic and statistical manual. We've we've fueled that by saying any problem we see is a condition. And then there's prescribed treatment for that condition. If you put that treatment in place, the condition goes away. And it's in it's that whole notion of if you're in pain, take a medication or remove the pain with the idea that removing pain, eliminating negative feelings is really the solution versus. And I'm giving an example of teenage girl comes to see me and she says, can you help me feel better? And I say, I have no idea. And she gets angry at me. And she says, you know, my last, my last fourth therapist told me they could help me feel better. And I point out the irony in that I say, what happened? She said it didn't work. And I said, well, I have no idea if I can help you feel better, but I bet I could help you function better. I hope you live differently. But again, the difference is give me a quick fix to remove this one thing I think is the major problem to help me learn to live better or differently. Right. And I think that's what we've lost in families is the idea that families develop. And they're a process. They're a growing thing rather than I have a flat tire. Let me take it and get the tire replaced. And we're all good again. Right. But we're in a quick fix culture right now. Well, and it's almost as if they're thinking that if you can we're not they we we all tend to look at we yeah, this is a problem for all of us at times. But the the idea that if I can get a symptom to go away. Then the problem that that symptom is pointing to doesn't exist. Right. Right. And the fallacy and all of that is the idea that you know, there are things in life and times in life when depression is appropriate. It's an appropriate thing. And if we just remove the emotion, then we're in many cases removing the opportunity to really look at what an issue may be we need to resolve. You know, there are times in life when anxiety, when grief are appropriate to the situation. Sometimes they're not and we have to understand the difference. So just remove all of that symptom, whatever it may be does not necessarily actually I would suggest in most situations does not change the underlying functioning that created the symptom in the first place. Sure. Sure. So if we're in pain, that should be an indication that we need to find out why not. It the analogy I use on the pain. Yeah, the analogy I use a lot of patience. It's like the dashboard on your car and you've got a lot of lights. When the engine light comes on, it doesn't mean your engine just blew up, but it's an indication that there might be a problem at least check it out. Don't reach under the dash and yank the ball. But that's what we do sometimes rather than saying, hey, let me pause for a minute and just see, is there something else going on? Sometimes it is just a faulty switch. Sure. Or a gas cap. Or a gas cap. Right. Yeah. We lost the vacuum seal. Right. Right. There you go. So we're going to zero in on specifically on dads in just a moment. But in a general sense, I mean, given this, this shift that you're talking about, this desire to to deal with an issue or a symptom or feelings or you know, solve a problem and do it quickly. And then getting to the root of things, given that you're seeing all that, does that indicate that the, you know, maybe the problems of modern life are different than they were from what you saw 30 years ago. What do you think has brought about those changes? Well, I think we've been, you know, on a continuum, kind of sliding in one direction where what I see different now is we have more distractions and interruptions competing for healthy family time and functioning. Then we've ever had, you know, we, you know, I'll give you the big three truly the big two, but I'll break into three categories. One is technology and how we interface with technology. The second is extracurriculars. And the third, which is really a part of extracurriculars is athletics. You know, and really we've bought into faulty messaging and the messaging basically says for your child to be happy and successful, they need to be doing X. And so for your child to be happy and successful, this is what we have bought for your child to be happy and successful, they need to have an iPhone by the age of eight for your child to be happy and successful, they need to be playing fortnight because it's a good release of their energies, especially for boys rather than building addiction as it does. For your child to be happy and successful, they need to be involved in junior five year old Olympic travel soccer because we think it's a good idea, even though it hasn't proved to change their chances of getting into collegiate or professional soccer. But it's all these things and so and what that's led to is we've lost respite in the family. We've lost the space in the family to effectively engage our children, speak into their lives because we filled every moment with these competing things that culture has said we need. An example of that with technology and this is true story and I've heard this from a hundred probably a thousand teenagers, primarily females, you know Sally will go to school, she's 14 and she another girl or a couple girls are mad at her about something because she was talking to one of their ex-boyfriends. So they spread a rumor, they spread a rumor about something that she and this boy did that's just horrible and so it goes through the school day just tearing her up now. 50 years ago, 30 years ago actually 12 years ago, once she got home, it stopped. She had respite, she had a break, she had a sense and a period of peace. to recover to have her family speak into her life to participate as a normal valuable cared for individual today Sally gets home social media blows up and it only multiplies and it is worse after nine and ten o'clock at night that is also when young girls typically self harm more after nine or ten o'clock at night and it's amazing we've eliminated respite because we have bought into a faulty message a false message that this is what's actually good and healthy for our children and in doing so we've totally eliminated the ability to the of the family to speak into the life of our children because there's no room and it's amazing to me if we think about the pandemic that we've been you know you're on the tail end of now hopefully but if you think about this one of the things that parents have started to see is the benefit of not running their children everywhere right benefit of oh my gosh I well that's funny I had one mom that said to me you know I prayed for more time with my children I'm not sure this is what I really was looking for during the pandemic but across the board families have recovered eating dinner together families have recovered cooking together families have recovered family life that we truly we haven't just lost it we have in a sense said it isn't valuable and we kicked it out and so families have recovered some of that during the pandemic and the one caution I give parents now is as we start into the fall and into the winter and as things open back up be a little slower in how you sign your children back up for everything yeah look look at what's occurred and say what's happened it's valuable it's allowed us to function better as a family so that's why I see it's different 30 years yeah yeah I mean that's and it and it has a lot of the things have happened so quickly I mean the progress of technology in particular is this really right and the way it intrudes on our lives I think is is particularly frightening well we fall into the idea that if we can then we should that because it's technology because it's an advancement we bought in the idea that all advancements are good right and when in reality it all depends on how we use them and technology especially when we leave technology in the category of resource such as you know I like using a calculator on my phone it's handy and it rather than adding everything on paper we use technology as a resource you know to ease and communication I mean during this time of things being shut down we've learned the the advantage of zoom things like that it's good when it slides into categories of entertainment and filler of boredom is when it becomes problematic and typically addictive sure but we don't apply those filters very well yeah yeah it's hard to it's hard to forget where the line is and and I think we're also kind of dishonest about the addictive quality of it and we don't really like to we don't really like to admit that and and it's not just for teenagers right we always gear these these sorts of comments to teenagers but it's just as much for us adults here's the simple example for every adult if anybody listens to this podcast ask yourself this question how many times do you look at your phone open your email when it hasn't made a sale how many times do you check it just to make sure you didn't miss something how many times do you look at that phone to see if you didn't miss something yeah that is the core nature of addiction right and we all have that question yeah right um well I think that uh I think that's a whole other podcast isn't it although we could we could spend the whole episode on that but um so let's let's zero and then we're talking about change how have things changed particularly for dads and your opinion what what are the major challenges and issues fathers are facing or or need to face yeah I know I think that's great and I think if we you know put that in the shadow of what we just talked about has changed in family we've lost family time family influence things like that we actually lost fathers a little earlier you know it used to be if we go back uh you know 40 50 60 years the image our culture had of fathers and you saw this in media you know whether it was television but but the image was that of authority moral compass you know things like that well that shifted and in the 80s I think it dad was more of the boob or the butt of jokes uh didn't really know anything wasn't that connected to the events of the family and then today just think about Disney think about how we see dads portrayed if they're there at all they're a source of money or resource and that's it and so we have we have slowly pulled dads and diminished their role culturally uh and so I think we you know and I deal with a lot of dads in my office and when I'm dealing with families and difficulties with children one of the biggest hurdles it's not really struggle because many dads are eager for this um is how do we get dad back engaged and unified with mom as one in the family uh because their role has been so diminished over the years and it's crazy because if you think about it you know we hear these statistics all the time and we hear it on the negative if you don't have a father then you're so many more times likely to go to prison you're so many more times you know but let me give you some positives let me give you some positives if you have an engaged father you are more emotionally secure you are more confident to explore your surroundings you have better social connections you regulate your emotions and your behavior better you have better verbal skills you have better intellectual functioning you have a higher levels of academic achievement you know you have a more clear understanding of gender role and function that's those those are all the simple benefits we see when dads are more engaged and you know I get in those categories and think oh my gosh I want every one of those for my child absolutely yeah and a lot of folks think you know well gosh are you are you saying moms don't have a key role no actually it takes both you know if you think about it dads think about how dads function with their children a little differently dads kind of celebrate the idea of being a little more dangerous uh now I think many moms would say that's more absent-minded but in reality dads dads play a little different you know think about two key things dads do with younger children uh we're we're a little rougher but more rough and tumble and we're a little slower to respond to pain and suffering not that we don't but we're a little slower right and so what that does for children is it builds a little sense of the willingness to be a little more of a risk-taker a little more of trying things when we're not sure about them and we start processing that just because that hurt it wasn't necessarily bad you know dad's focus on challenge and a little danger and a little risk moms focus on compassion and caring you know moms help build that sense of stability dads help build that sense of capability yeah both are necessary so if we remove that if we remove dads out moms are still doing a wonderful job of building that sense of stability care and compassion but we're missing that piece that works counter to anxiety and depression in a real way in life right you know and so we've got to understand that it actually is designed to have both yeah and and I think that's probably one of the challenges that I'm sure I mean I see it uh but I know in your in your work in your experience you see this too is it that's part of the problem right is when that that tension rather than seeing it as a compliment that mom typically brings this to the table dad brings this to the table and both they're absolutely necessary right mom and dad are not in competition they are they're as a blessing you know as a way of completing their family and their children you need both in raising children but yeah I think in so dads need to be engaged of course and that of course the danger of listing off problems like this you know highlighting right you know what's going wrong and how is it going wrong and you know what are dads facing and dads need to be engaged and so on as it can feel like it piles up you know and becomes a bit overwhelming so what advice do you have for fathers in combating or addressing the the issues that they um might run into today or or how they can be more engaged with their families yeah let me give you three different age groups and one simple way in each one where dads if they choose to step and engage in this way it automatically helps them function better as a dad and and gives value to the kids younger children whether we are talking about you know younger children up through you know probably most of grammar school we need to play and we need to play physically with our children you know we we have the last 15 20 years there's been a lot of you know we're weird psychology out there that's hard to track down where they're getting this information that says we need not be rough with our children, we need not to play physical with them, we need to not chase them around somehow we're damaging them. It's actually the opposite. Our children need to learn and they learn it really well for dads that we can play really hard, we can get frustrated with one another in the process, we can be physical, we can experience a little bit of pain and it's okay. We will get through it. It begins to connect children in a real way with the physical world of God's creation. I joke with moms all the time that your job, it moms will often say, "I'm always putting band-aids on my children." I say to moms, "Yeah, but that's a good thing because that means dad has always getting them scuffed up." That's part of the mix. One is more care and compassion and the other is more challenge and danger in a sense. When we begin doing that with our children when they're younger, our children are less fearful, less anxious about the world around them at younger ages. At the younger ages, dads need to be engaged physically. We need to on a regular basis play with our kids, engage them physically. Now we get up to, let's say, middle school years. This is where we need to engage and provide a moral compass. Not that moms are not also doing it. This is a realm where many dads, even if they engage when children are younger, seem to fade a little bit during middle school. It's a weird phenomenon. It ends up that moms are often more the transportation than dad. Dad is a little less involved with all of the activities, unless the dad might be a coach or something. Sometimes that occurs. But it's almost as if they look at their children and think, "Well, they're pretty independent now." My job is to leave them alone. That's not really the case. This is where we want to operate more as a mentor. By the time our children are 12 and 13 years of age, right in the smack dab middle of middle school, we need to be helping them in moral development by helping them problem solve. The way we do that is by paying attention and being empathetic to our children. This is where the role of seeing when our children are struggling or knowing when they're emotional and just saying, "Hey, I can tell you're upset. Tell me what's going on." We ask the question to get the information to then be able to reflect moral decision-making. I think about with children, the ability to say with a child, to hear a frustration, to hear a conflict ahead with a friend, and then just be able to ask the question, "What do you think the right thing to do is?" Rather than telling them the right thing, "What do you think the right thing to do is?" I think of sibling conflict even. You've got a daughter and a son that are at each other in middle school, getting them apart and talking to each other and saying, "Hey, what do you think the right thing to do is?" You're brother with a brick. I know that. You've tried because it happens. But what do you think the right thing to do is? Help them process not only moral decision-making, but also then the application of that. What would that then look like? In my experience, when dads engage in that with moms, it's amazing how children see it as more value, take it more to heart, and begin to operate on it more. Again, it's now a unified front. The flip side of that is, if mom is trying to have that message, and dad is uninvolved, well, that sends a confusing message to kids about, "Is this really the thing to do? Is this really. " If this was really the right thing to do, why am I saying anything? It does happen to a smaller degree when you have a dad engaged in a mom not. That's not typically the mix we see in middle school. The other thing in middle school is this. It is important for dads, just as it is with moms, to carve out novel time with their kids, middle school and upper school. Have a regularity of saying, "Hey, once a month, I'm going to take my daughter out for dinner, just two of us, just to let her know. I care about you where you are in life. I'm not just having dinner because the family has to go have dinner." Carving out time with your son and saying, "Hey, what would you like for us to do together or so often?" And creating space for unpressured relationship. And that's kind of that third piece. So, early ages, you're not going to break them for the most part. Get engaged physically. Play with your kids. Expose them to that rough and tumble life. Middle school begin to be that moral compass not by being a dictator, but by showing empathy. When you know they're having a tough time saying, "I see it. What's going on?" And then, in essence, asking good questions to help them process through moral decision-making and then help them with the application. And then through middle and upper school, carving out niches with them that say, "This relationship is so important. You are so valuable that we're carving out this time just to spend together." And so those are three key categories in different age groups. Just to give, I mean, there are 50 things I could say, but to give kind of just a few key ideas for dads to reflect on, "Gosh, am I doing even those basic things?" But then I'll tell you, there's another category that I think dads need to think about. The most important relationship in the home is the marriage. It's the first relationship that our children get a front row seat to. And when we decide that it's valuable, it shapes how our children pursue and build relationships for the future. And so if we reflect on that for a minute, and for dads and husbands to think about, the best gift I can give my kid is loving their mother. And how do we do that? I think it's in Ephesians that basically we're instructed. Love our wives as Christ loved the church. And that's a great passage, but what on earth does it mean? And so there are four terms that I would throw out for dads to think about, husbands to think about. The first is selfless. One way Christ loved the church is he was selfless, meaning he put the needs of the church above his own needs. So it's considering your wife's needs ahead of your own. The second is self-giving. A bouquet of roses, a box of chocolates is nice, but actually giving of your own time and energy, actually showing up physically and in person and engaging your wife. The third is being self-sacrificial, being willing to go without for your wife. And then the fourth is self-humiliating. And it's kind of a funny term. It doesn't mean go around making a full of yourself, although most dads were pretty good at that. It is purposely humbling ourselves, not tooting our own horn, but focusing on affirming and building those up around us. And it's amazing to me that when I see a dad that is first a husband who lives in that way and targets those things, it demonstrates to children what cherishing another person looks like. And so what it does for a boy, for a son, it teaches a son, this is how valuable a woman is. And this is how to love a woman in a godly way. That begins to build the foundation of how he will treat girls in his life, later young women, and then how he will pursue a wife. For a young girl, it sends the message that says very similar, "This is how valuable you are as a young woman. This is how valuable a woman is." And that sets the foundation for how a young girl begins to view men. How a young girl begins to realize what I should put up with and what I should never put up with. Right, and when we do that, when dads talk to me sometimes about how can I be a better father, one of the first areas I talk about is first their marriage. Because it's amazing to me when we get that in the right realm, these other things we talked about happen a whole lot easier. But again, that takes us away from that model of gimmick. What's the one thing I can do to be a better dad? First is moving to, it's a process. It's a process of building your marriage, honoring your wife, loving your wife in these way, selfless, self-giving, self-sacrificial, self-humiliating. And it's amazing how your kids have a front row seat to that. And it begins to shape what they look for, what they expect, what they value and how to value it. So I would add that in as well besides those age bracket categories. Yeah. And all of that is all very helpful and it highlights what you mentioned at the beginning that that shift from seeing needing a healthy family system to just how do I make everyone happier? How do I solve this problem? And it reminds us that we are not problems to be solved. Well, I'm not a problem to be solved. My wife's not a problem to be solved. My children are not problems to be solved. We're dealing with real growing human relationships. And there's not necessarily a quick fix. It's about our lives together. It's all incarnational, right? Yeah. Now my wife would probably say, I am a problem sometimes. I just did a side. Oh, don't get me wrong. We all have our moments, definitely. No, it's like when folks come to see me and they want to know how soon will this be over at this problem. I say it's a process. And it's a process of getting on the right path. and then learning to walk it well. - Yeah. - And when that becomes our focus, two things happened. One is, we start seeing resolution, usually a reasonable pace, but two is, we stop worrying about when it's gonna be over because now we're in a healthy process. - Yeah. - And we realize that's more of the goal anyway. - Absolutely, absolutely. Well, let's focus in even a little more in case any of our listeners have been living in caves for the last six to nine months. 2020 has been one of the strangest, most challenging years in human history, at least in our lives, I think. And these times call for strong fathers, right? So what can dads do to guide and help their families during these crisis times? Because this is really, you know, you've talked a lot about building sturdy kids, and you've talked a little bit about even just the role of rough housing and teaching kids to be resilient and mouse back. And this is a man, what a time for it, right? - Absolutely, what difficulty. - Yeah. - Yeah, I've been speaking a lot in the last several weeks as many schools around the nation or, well, many, not all, many or not, are going back and doing in-person classes. I've been doing a bunch of webinars about, how do we deal with our kids, kind of going back to school during the pandemic? And it's really about, how are we gonna engage them? And what are we modeling for them? And when I think of dads, that's really what we're looking at with this. You know, what is it that dads, how can dads engage this? And what is it that dads want to model for our children during this time? A time of height and anxiety, height and uncertainty, you know, that's the reality. And I think there are probably three key things for dads. You know, the one is we want to demonstrate very clearly that we're critical thinkers and not run just by the emotion or panic in the moment. You know, an example of that is, and it's good to have discussions with our children like this 'cause we want our children at these times, you know, to be cautious, but to really be critical thinkers. And the analogy I will give is according to the CDC, if we, you know, if we trust statistics, that our children are more likely to die by getting hit by lightning than coronavirus, that our college students are more likely to die by falling down the steps than coronavirus, we are more likely to die higher rate of death from a car accident than coronavirus. And yet we let our kids play outside. My college student goes up and down steps all the time and I drive everywhere. Why do I do that? Because my critical thinking had a time not filled with panic has figured out that those things are reasonable risks. And so part of this is dads is we need to make sure we are being critical thinkers because that then sets the tone for these other two things that we'll talk about. You know, are we running on our emotions that are driven by panic, especially media, social media, news media, or are we really being critical thinkers? 'Cause if we haven't figured that out, then we cannot guide our families through this. So that's kind of number one. I think we've gotta ask ourselves, am I really being a critical thinker and am I approaching things in a good way? Now the second category is really this. What do we do? How do we engage our families and our children? And we mentioned this word earlier, empathy, but I'm gonna give you a model. It's kind of a three step model. And there are letters that go with it's ET and K. And the first, think of it this way, when a child expresses anxiety about this moment, let's just use that as the example. So my daughter is anxious about returning to school. My daughter is anxious about going places. So empathy. And empathy is a middle ground, rather than taking one extreme of dismissing our children's concerns. Saying, "I don't worry about it, suck it up," or being too sympathetic, which is playing into that emotion and almost affirming, "Oh yeah, you really need to be scared. This is horrible." Empathy basically says, "God, Starlin, I hear you. I can tell your concern about this." So it's just acknowledging I see where you are. It's not that I agree, it's not that I even fully understand. But I'm acknowledging I see where you are and the fact that you're there has value because you're important to me. When we do that very interestingly, and adults know this, when someone shows empathy to us, our ears open up a little bit. We usually pay attention to the next thing they say. And the next category, T, is truth. This is where we share truth. So the way it looks is this, "Darlin, I can tell you're stressed about this. I hear you. Truth. Here's what we're doing about it. Here's what we know. Here's how we're handling it. Just the basics. This is what we're going to do to walk through it. Again, because we've already established for critical thinkers in this. And if we're not exactly sure, we'll figure it out. Third category, K, is kindness. And in these situations, the best demonstration of kindness is encouragement. And so it looks like this. And it goes, "Starlin, I can tell you're upset about this. Tell me what's going on. Here's what we're going to do. Here's what we know. Here's what we're doing it." And then the kindness-beast encouragement is, "And we're going to get through this." And if something changes, we're going to walk through this again. And it's amazing how that very simple process takes us out of being driven by emotion. And it allows us to engage our children in a meaningful way that gives them a path, gives them direction. But it also says something else. When we engage our children in that way, it sends a very strong message. It says, "We know you're capable. We know you're capable of functioning in this. We know you are built capable. We're not treating you as if you are fragile and that this situation is going to overwhelm you. We don't believe that." And so our engagement of you is empathy, truth, and kindness. And we're moving. It gives a direction. The third thing. So the first is really, we have to be critical thinkers, not run by our emotions. The second is, how to engage our children and/or our spouses in this time with empathy, truth, and kindness. And then the third category is, in general, how do we instruct our families to engage the world around us during this as one kid told me the other day? This is a really crazy time. (laughs) How do we instruct them? And I tell folks, we really need to instruct two things. One is grace and the second is understanding. And grace is, look, we may think, we're wearing a mask as hot and annoying. We may think staying six feet apart is the most ridiculous thing in the world. You know, and maybe we're even right. We could be questioning all that. Because again, we're in a new realm of still figuring all this out. But if we're gracious and we have a gracious response, then we're gonna say, you know, this is a season we're in. And if this is what we need to do to function well in this season as a community, focus on others first, then we can do it. We can put up with it. It's a season. And understanding is taking the approach of having discussions with our children, especially, that let's say you're at school and you need to wear a mask, you're not wearing it out of fear. We're not asking you to wear a mask because we're scared to have to death of what's gonna happen 'cause again, we'll go back to critical thinking. You know, again, more likely to die from a lightning strike. We don't want you to wear a mask for that reason. We want you to wear a mask if that's what's required because that's part of being selfless. That's part of saying we're doing this for the concerns of those around us. We're doing this for the concern of the community. Maybe part of the community is anxious. So we're showing concern to help that. Maybe it's just we wanna keep the community open and functioning. We wanna be able to go to school. And if this is what we have to do to do it, we can do this for a season. And so it gives our children not just direction, but also gives them a little information as to why we do it this way. And dance can take a wonderful role because in my experience right now, in the last few months, many dads are the first ones to say, "This is ridiculous." I think this is nonsense. Ah, you know, yeah. And I'm not saying they're right or wrong, but I hear that more from dads than I do from moms. And I'm telling dads, don't go there. You know, you don't have to believe that this is necessary, but you have to have a healthy response because our children all through life at different times will be faced with things. They don't fully agree with sometimes. And I'm not talking about moral conflicts. I'm just talking about rigors of life. They're gonna be faced with things that are uncomfortable that they don't really care for. Our job is to let them know that they can handle it and there's a graceful way to go through it. So that's, I think the way dads can really model healthy functioning right now for their families. - Yeah. And I think that maybe the underlying principle behind all of this is that as dads, we need to remember that our families will take cues from us, right? If we approach these difficult times with confidence, with a plan, we're communicating well, we're modeling what it looks like to be calm and have faith in times of difficulty, then those are things that our children are gonna learn from. And even our wives are gonna benefit from as well. - Right. - And, yeah, and I think that really helps give them a model. They can look back on 2020 and think, my dad was really a rock during that time. He really helped us sort through all of this. I think that's very important. Well, let's end with one backup again, kind of bird's eye view here. I wanna highlight something that you and I've talked about in podcast before and and sort of leave this episode, wrap up this episode. Sure on that note. You've always talked to a good bit about building sturdy kids, and that's been really helpful to me and a lot of our listeners. And so in case our current listeners haven't had the opportunity to hear those thoughts from you and given how important sturdyness is for all of us right now, can you describe that idea for us? What do you mean by building sturdy kids and what can we do to work towards that? Yeah, what I go speak sometimes with large parent groups and things. I often ask the question at the beginning, raise your hand, how many of you would like to raise children that are happy and successful? And they all raise their hands. And then I say, how many of you would like to raise children that are capable and sturdy? And they look confused, but then all raise their hands again. And I say, well, the two are not the same. And that's the key. Are we gonna be focused on children that always feel good which is impossible to achieve? Or are we gonna focus on children that develop into people that can withstand the bad weather of life? We want to raise children that are not thrown off by the rigors of life, that understand how I feel about something is not nearly as important as how I choose to respond to it. We have a current, the last two generations right now, last generation and a half, we have the highest levels of anxiety. Well, when I go speak to students, I often go speak to upper school students and we run through the statistics and here's what it looks like. I say, we have the highest levels of anxiety we've ever had on record for your age, highest levels of depression we've ever had on record for your age, high as suicide rates, we've ever had on record for your age. This is all pre-pandemic. And I challenge high school students, upper school students, I say is this who you wanna be? How many of you wanna be this? And the funny thing is when I say, how many of you agree this describes your peer group? They all raise their hands. They own it, they know it. And I say, how many of you want to be this? None of them wanna be that. And so we then have a conversation about what does that mean? Then we need to learn to embrace challenge. We need to learn that being uncomfortable and not always being happy is okay. And actually it's pretty normal because we're broken people in a broken world. And so what that then looks like is how do we buy into what we see in Genesis? The idea that we are called to, two people are called to become one. God gives them all of creation and essence says, this is yours to enjoy, to take care of. And then to turn over to the next generation in essence. Go multiply. And so we need to go back and say, wait a minute, this is all about giving ownership of life to our children rather than keeping them comfortable. And the most simple way I know to do that is begin requiring more of our children at earlier ages and giving them less. You know, we required more and gave less. Now we give more and require less and we create, we fuel entitlement and victimhood in that manner. We need to instead build self-reliance and self-determination. So hopefully that's a simple outline. - Yeah, it is, it is. And I think that that even helps us begin to ask the right questions about, well, how do I get there? Right? - There you go. - Yeah, that's good. That's good. - Right. - Well, Keith, thank you so much for joining me again. It's been wonderful talking to you again, having you on the podcast. And I appreciate you helping me kick off this new podcast show. - It's a privilege. I'm glad you had me back. Thank you very much. Well, thank you for joining me again for this first episode of the Way to Fotherhood Podcast. Hope has been beneficial for you. Hope you enjoyed listening into the conversation that Keith and I were able to have. And as we conclude this episode, I just want to sort of drive home some of the major points that perhaps we can take with us and think more about over the coming days and weeks that'll help us as fathers and as men to grow to be what God would have us to be. Remember, as Keith said, some of the changes he's seen in family counseling over the years have gone from really wanting a healthy family system, a healthy family to dealing with individual problems and wanting to deal with things quickly. So I'd say that's probably the first takeaway for us is remember that our children are not problems to be solved. Our marriages are not problems to be solved. They're a life together, their relationships. And so we need to look more at the lives that we're living and the way that we're modeling and the way that we are interacting with one another rather than just individual isolated problems. It's a life together. So it's helpful to start thinking of our families in those terms and our marriages in those terms. Remember also dad's number two that our families will take cues from us. And so as we're living through difficult times, particularly right now, and even when we're not in day to day life, the regular seasons and the ebb and flow of life, remember to model faith, model calm, model availability. And the kind of model the traits that we really want our children to take on and learn from. And when it comes to our children, number three, I guess, is listen, don't just lecture, particularly the older our kids get. Yes, there will be times when we have to get very clear, very direct, very pointed moral direction, maybe even moral correction. But make sure that we're listening as well. And that we're understanding the questions that our children are asking. It's the sign of a bad teacher to answer a question that's not being asked. And that applies in teaching as a father too, not just in a classroom setting. And ask. Ask how your children are doing. How your wife is doing. Open lines of communication. Don't just tell, but ask. And then finally, a key issue that Keith hit upon that, I think, probably resonated with all of us, is our role as a husband in how that is connected. It's not just, if you want to be a great dad, you have to be a good husband too. And that's where it starts. And we want our children to learn what it looks like to be a good husband so that our sons can learn that. And our daughters can see what they need to be looking for. But it also-- because of what Paul says in Ephesians is modeling the gospel and it's modeling Christ, the relationship between Christ and his church for our families. And so be selfless, be self giving, be self sacrificial, and be self humbling. So I think those are a lot of wonderful things we can take with us. A lot of good questions to begin asking ourselves, a lot of great thoughts to ponder. So I hope you've enjoyed this first episode. So for Keith McCurdy, I'm your host, Brian Phillips, signing off now. Thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you again soon. [MUSIC PLAYING]