August 1, 2025 • 22 mins
Dr. Camden Pulliam is interviewed by Minister of Children, Abraham Leonard, on the topic of Parenting. Dr. Pulliam shares many of his educated and helpful insights with the world.
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SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
Hello,
SPEAKER_01 (00:11):
welcome to the Kearney Kids Parenting Show.
I am your host, Abraham Leonard,Minister of Children at First
Baptist Church Kearney.
I am so glad that you havejoined us.
(00:37):
Welcome to the show, Dr.
Camden Pulliam.
Could you tell us a little bitabout your family, your
ministry, and just how you'redoing?
SPEAKER_00 (00:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
My name's Camden Pulliam.
I serve as Senior Vice Presidentof Institutional Relations at
Midwestern Seminary in KansasCity, Missouri.
I'm also one of the pastors atNorthside Fellowship.
We're a Southern Baptist churchplant here in Kansas City, about
10 minutes from the seminary.
And I teach at the seminary aswell, so I'm a professor here.
(01:09):
Yeah.
So I love my life, love the workthat I get to do.
I'm married to Mallory.
We've been married 15 years.
We have three kids, Hudson,Hallie, and Brooks.
They are almost 11 years old nowin a month.
11 years old, 8 years old, and 5years old.
We are in a very fun stagebefore kids get to middle
(01:33):
school, but after diapers.
We have no diapers and none ofthe stuff that comes with middle
school either.
So it's a very fun stage withour kids.
We love life with them.
We have a brand new dog as of acouple months ago.
I'm still deciding if I likethat life being a dog owner, but
the kids love it.
So...
(01:54):
you ask me how life is going,I'm probably going to talk about
the dog and how terrible the dogis, but the kids are great.
Not sure about the dog yet.
So
SPEAKER_01 (02:04):
anyway, I remember we're having a great summer.
I remember either my mom or dadconvincing the other one that we
should get a dog so that it willeat all the crumbs off the
ground.
And then it didn't end upactually eating any of the
crumbs.
It was kind of, you know, onedge about the crumbs.
Does your dog kind of do a lotof the sweeping for
SPEAKER_00 (02:22):
you?
At least?
Yeah, she does more thansweeping.
If we catch her in the wrongmoment, she will be up on the
table eating the hamburgers thatwe forgot to put away or
something.
That's funny.
That's part of my ire, myfrustration with this dog is
that she's causing more problemsthan she's fixing.
That's funny.
SPEAKER_01 (02:43):
Well, to start off, do you have any good parenting
memories?
Maybe one or a couple of yourfavorite parenting memories?
UNKNOWN (02:51):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (02:52):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (02:53):
I have memories from my own parents, but I also have
memories of my own kids and mebeing a parent.
So, if it's okay, I'd love toshare.
Yeah, sharing both.
Yeah.
Yeah.
First off, just parenting issuch a wonderful journey, and it
really is a wonderful invitationto know God more, to know His
(03:15):
character more, because asparents...
That's what we are.
We are reflections of God theFather.
In His triune essence, He isFather, Son, Spirit.
So, there is something deeplyGod-like even about parenthood.
You are getting to enter intosomething that is quite mystical
(03:36):
and quite wonderful.
It's mysterious.
So, just as my introductorycomments about parenthood, I
would just say for any parentswho would listen to this, What
you're doing is very sober.
What you're doing is extremelyimportant, and what you're doing
is quite godlike.
To take care of anotherindividual, it runs right into
(04:02):
the heart of God.
So my own parenting journey, aswith all of us, is what our own
parents were like.
And I had two wonderful parents.
I have two wonderful parents.
My parents are both still alive,both solid believers.
My mom and my dad, justwonderful, wonderful people.
One of my favorite momentsgrowing up, I was duck hunting
(04:25):
with my dad.
It's like 5.30 in the morning.
And I'm probably seven or eightyears old.
I can't remember exactly how oldI was.
But if you've ever been duckhunting, you're out in a marsh
that's three, four feet deep.
And we're sitting there beforedaylight has broken.
And we're in a layout boat.
(04:47):
My dad and I are in a layoutboat.
And a layout boat is where youliterally lay down in the boat.
And when ducks come, you rise upand shoot.
Well, I am...
I am like laying more or less ontop of my dad.
We didn't have two boats.
We had one boat and I'm smallenough that I can kind of fit in
between his legs, his straddledlegs, and I'm laying down.
(05:09):
So, if you know duck hunting,that means anytime a duck comes,
my dad is raising that gun abovemy head and shooting it right
above my head.
That's essentially the situationwe're talking about.
But we're in this layout boatand I hear this sound, this kind
of shushing sound, like shh.
(05:30):
And I say, dad, do you hearthat?
I explained the sound to him andhe says, I don't hear it.
Give it 30 seconds.
And I say, dad, there's ashushing sound, shh.
I was like, do you hear that?
He said, I don't hear it.
And then sure enough, 20 secondslater, it's like, that is a loud
sound.
(05:50):
And he's like, I hear that.
And then all of a sudden we hitthe floor of the marsh.
Like our boat has been taking onwater this whole time.
The sound I was hearing waswater coming into our boat.
Oh, wow.
We just hit the marsh.
So it's like, you know, 38degrees.
We are soaking wet.
It's terrible.
(06:11):
So my dad starts piling up allof our gear on top of me.
UNKNOWN (06:15):
I'm
SPEAKER_00 (06:15):
eight years old can barely get my head above water.
And I've got all this gear.
And I remember my dad takingthis, this layout boat and
raising it above his head withall this water, just pouring
down on him, getting all of thewater out of this boat.
And it is like a core memory ofmine, watching my dad get all
the gear, get all the gear outof the boat, holding it all.
(06:38):
And then just watching him hoistthis boat above his head.
I don't know why it's a corememory of mine.
I don't even know what symbolicmeaning it has.
But in that moment, I saw my dadget to work immediately in the
midst of a crisis, not complain,be a man among men, do what has
to be done.
And then we just start hikingout of the marsh.
(07:01):
We're going to go get dry.
But never once did he complain.
He had a happy heart.
It's become a core memory.
And I think that just makingmemories with your kids, doing
stuff that's supposed to be funthat turns out to be a crisis,
but you make fun out of it,that's part of parenting.
Parenting is stepping up when itmatters most and sharing fun
(07:24):
memories with your kids.
So that's a fun parenting memoryI have.
It's not my own parenthood.
It's my dad's parenthood.
But in many ways, it's a littlemicrocosm of what I would hope
to be as a dad, of someone who'staking his kids to do fun
things, getting into sometrouble, dealing with the
trouble when it comes, and notcomplaining about it one bit.
(07:47):
So I love that.
It's a great memory of mine.
When I think about my ownmemories, Have you ever heard of
a welcome to the NFL moment?
Are you a football fan at all?
I'm a football fan, but I don'tknow if I've ever heard of that.
Okay.
So NFL players have theirwelcome to the NFL moment.
(08:08):
And it's the moment when theyrealize, oh boy, I'm not in
college anymore.
I'm in the NFL.
I'm in the national.
Oh, I get what you're saying.
Yeah.
Okay.
I like to think that there is awelcome to parenthood moment.
Every parent has a welcome toparenthood moment.
When you realize I'm not incollege anymore, I'm I am not a
newlywed anymore.
I am a parent.
(08:30):
I had my own welcome toparenthood moment.
My firstborn son, Hudson, was, Ithink, two weeks old.
And my wife got sick withmastitis.
So, she was in the bed, like,just felt terrible.
Had to sleep, felt terrible.
Well, my two-week-old son wakesup and he is crying.
(08:52):
He's...
You know, he's losing his mind.
He wants to eat.
He's clearly hungry.
And so I decide, you know what?
I'm not going to wake up my sickwife.
I know she's supposed to nursehim, but I'm not going to wake
up my sick wife.
She needs sleep.
I'm going to take care of thisproblem on my own.
So I rush to action and I makemy son formula for the first
(09:13):
time.
We've never fed him formulabefore.
I make him formula.
And any mom out there is...
pulling her hair out right now.
I did not know this at the time,but this is a huge no-no.
You don't just shove formuladown a kid's throat when they're
not used to it.
So I didn't realize I wasrunning afoul of some taboo
rule, but I was.
(09:34):
So I fixed the problem.
I feed my kid a bottle offormula, and he is still
chugging it down.
So I make another bottle offormula.
I feed him.
Well, just then we get anotification.
I get a notification fromWalgreens saying that my wife's
prescription medication for hermastitis is ready.
(09:55):
So I think, okay, you know what?
I'm not going to wake her up.
I'm not going to leave her withthe baby.
I'm going to take the baby.
And on the way to Walgreens, Iget to Walgreens and I look in
the rearview mirror and my sonis like just throwing up all of
the formula that I just fed him.
I'm two weeks into parenthood.
So I'm like, What in the world?
(10:16):
I actually brought a change ofclothes in the Walgreens parking
lot.
I'm sitting there in the car.
I'm changing him.
It's just disgusting.
I change his clothes.
I go into Walgreens.
We're getting the medication.
And while we're in line at thepharmacy, he just throws up more
formula.
So now we have run through thesecond pair of clothes and
(10:38):
there's nothing to do.
There's no cleaning it up.
You just, there's nothing to do.
So my welcome to parenthoodmoment was whenever I tried to
fix a problem and made it a lotworse.
And I realized this isparenthood.
I have to change clothes.
I have to go pick up medication.
I have to solve problems and inso doing probably create more
(11:01):
problems that I didn't mean to.
But that's part of parenthood.
And so that's my welcomeparenthood moment.
It's never easy.
It's never clear exactly whatyou should do, but...
you try and try your best and dowhat you can.
SPEAKER_01 (11:16):
That's awesome.
When you're talking abouthunting memories with your dad,
I could think of a lot of timesthat I would hunt with my dad,
you know, and we'd get upsomewhere story and it would be
early in the morning.
Now, my dad, it was usually deerhunting or turkey hunting or
squirrel hunting.
So he never had a hoist a boatabove his head.
But I remember some of those funtimes with my dad as well.
(11:39):
Could you tell us about Yeah,yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:48):
I'll say parenting is hard because anytime you're
raising a child out ofchildishness into maturity,
there's just a lot of growingpains.
We all are.
being raised to one degree ofmaturity to the next.
And when you're starting withraw material of a baby and
trying to raise that child intoa mature adult, you're going to
(12:10):
go through a lot of growingpains.
So parenting is never easy.
So don't hear what I'm about tosay is, you know, we've had an
easy road.
We've not had an easy road.
But compared to some of theparents that I do know that have
had really severe situations,crisis situations, We've had it
easier than others.
Our kids have just beenwonderful, sweet kids.
(12:33):
They've been wonderful.
So we have loved every bit ofparenthood, even the hard stuff.
We love it.
And one of the things I alwayssay to new dads specifically,
what new dads need to hear morethan anything else is that you
will love it.
You will love parenthood.
It is worth it.
Everyone always talks about thechallenge of parenthood.
(12:54):
Most people don't talk about thejoy of parenthood, the happiness
of parenthood, the delight thatthis little kid brings into your
life that you've neverexperienced anything like it
until they show up.
Yeah.
So I'll just say we've beenthrough a lot of challenges, but
I will say we've just had afantastic time.
experience being parents.
(13:15):
It's brought so much delight tous.
But I can say that there havebeen some challenges.
Our firstborn Hudson, he is aham.
Like he has always been one wholikes the attention.
He likes being the center ofattention.
He has pretty drastic FOMO.
(13:35):
He hates missing out on a party.
And we've always been like hostsof small group.
We've always had people to ourhouse.
So when he was little, I'msaying like a year old, 18
months old, two years old.
He hated going to bed.
He hated going to sleep becausehe knew mom and dad were out in
the living room having fun or asmall group was out in the
(13:56):
living room having fun and hehated it.
And so one of the hardest timesof parenthood was with toddlers,
just like kids.
Trying to deal with toddlers whohaven't developed their verbal
skills, haven't developed theirreasoning skills, trying to help
them submit to your leadershipand your authority is very hard
(14:17):
when you have a toddler.
And Hudson was prettyhard-headed.
He's a sweet kid now, but he waspretty hard-headed as a toddler.
He loved being where the actionis, was pretty hard-headed, did
not want to take no for ananswer.
So trying to get throughtoddlerhood with Hudson, that
was difficult.
That was very difficult.
(14:37):
And what we learned was thatpatience, consistency, and
sometimes tough love, they payoff.
It is our job as parents todiscipline those we love.
Discipline is actually an avenuefor love.
It's not something differentthan love.
Hebrews 12 talks about God'sfatherhood to us and how
(15:00):
discipline is an aspect of hislove.
If he did not love you, he wouldnot discipline you.
So, for us with toddlers,discipline was always an
expression of our love.
It's not an expression of hatredor neglect.
Or anything less than love.
It's always supposed to be doneout of love and as an expression
(15:21):
of our love.
SPEAKER_01 (15:22):
It's really interesting that you said that.
I feel like a lot of times inour human… finite minds, we see
discipline is one category, loveis one category, and a lot of
parents that don't have goodgodly biblical advice will just
kind of let their kids dowhatever they want because they
love them, but they don'tunderstand that discipline is
(15:43):
part of that.
I really like that you saidthat.
SPEAKER_00 (15:46):
Pete That's
SPEAKER_01 (15:46):
exactly
SPEAKER_00 (15:47):
right.
That's exactly right.
And the more you can seediscipline not as working
against your love for yourchildren, but working for your
love, for your children, thebetter off you'll be as a
parent.
And I think moms especially, youknow, stay-at-home moms who have
really tender hearts for theirkids, they need to hear that.
They need to hear that toughlove for your kids and
(16:08):
discipline is actually good forthem.
And one of the worst things youcan do is just cave to your
children over and over and overagain.
That's not good and that's notactually loving for them.
SPEAKER_01 (16:19):
Yeah.
If you're going to go back intime to...
Right before you had a kid andyou were going to give yourself
parenting advice now afterhaving a kid for some time, what
would that advice be?
SPEAKER_00 (16:39):
We read a book called Shepherding a Child's
Heart by Ted Tripp.
If you've ever heard of PaulTripp, it's his brother.
It's my favorite parenting book.
It's phenomenal.
And I don't know if, I think hetalks about this in Shepherding
a Child's Heart, but I might beconflating what I'm about to say
(17:02):
with another book.
But I remember reading this atsome point, and I wish I would
have just had a betterunderstanding of it, that there
are different goals forparenting at different stages of
a child's life.
So, when a child is like zero tofive, the goal of your
parenthood should be submissionto your authority.
(17:24):
A two-year-old does not need tolearn how to reason with you and
talk with you through thedecision.
They don't need to be a part ofthe decision-making process
because they can't.
They don't have the rationalskills.
Your goal for them from ageszero to five is pure submission.
They need to learn how to submitto authority.
(17:44):
You're the authority and youhave to submit to God's
authority.
What you're doing there issetting up you're setting up a
system where they learn to trustthat what mom and dad say is
right.
And it's yes, sir.
No, sir.
Yes, ma'am.
No, ma'am.
That's the goal.
And of course, It's a process.
(18:05):
They are not going to come outof the womb ready to submit.
They're going to come out of thewomb ready to defy.
That's in our sinful hearts.
That's what little kids do.
But they need to learn to submitat an early age.
And then later on, ages 5 to 10,they need to start to learn how
to develop some of those skillsof wisdom, of making good
(18:28):
decisions on their own.
And then ages 10 to 18...
That's really a flowering out ofthe things that they're learning
from 5 to 10 years old.
So, it's just a progression ofwisdom.
And what a lot of parents do isthey kind of reverse that
process.
They will say, hey, I'm going totry and teach my kids a lot of
(18:50):
wisdom early on in their lives.
And then whenever they getrebellious at age 13, then I'm
going to lay down the hammer ofauthority and submission.
And that's exactly backwards.
They need to learn authority andsubmission first, and then later
on have the element of wisdombrought in where they're
learning decision-making skillslater on.
(19:10):
They don't need thedecision-making skills early.
They need them later.
They need the authority andsubmission early and the
decision skills later.
So I would just anchor that intomy mind as a young parent, like,
Know the goal for ages 0 to 5and know the goal for ages 5 to
10, 10 to 18.
There are different goals atdifferent stages.
(19:32):
And just being able to be okaythat, hey, my kid doesn't really
have decision-making skills yetbecause that's not what we're
asking them to do.
I'm making the decisions they'relearning to submit right now.
I think that's helpful for them.
SPEAKER_01 (19:45):
That's awesome.
My dad was telling me about thatbook, Shepherding a Child's
Heart, as well.
Yeah.
And he said that he reallybenefited from that process as
well as he was trying to be aparent.
So that's really neat that youmentioned that.
To end, as we kind of draw thisto a close, do you have one or a
(20:05):
couple funny parenting stories,maybe your favorites?
Because I hear that there's alot of funny parenting stories
every time I ask that question.
Oh, we've got way more funnyparenting stories than we could
share here.
But do you have one or a coupleof your favorite?
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (20:24):
I remember when my oldest son, I don't know why, it
just all seems to gravitatearound Hudson's funny moments.
He's just a lightning rod forfunny moments.
I truly do love all my kids thesame, but he's a lightning rod
for funny things, funny moments.
Yeah.
He gets talked about a littlebit more than the others because
(20:45):
he just has a couple of theseone-liners that are pretty
funny.
But I remember when he wasprobably five years old, I was
tucking him into bed one nightand I said, I said, Hudson, I'm
just so proud of the young manyou're becoming.
I see you growing.
I'm just so proud of the youngman you're becoming.
(21:06):
And he said, thanks dad.
I'm so proud of the old manyou're becoming.
Uh, that, that will always stickwith me.
He's so proud of the old manthat I've been, I'm becoming,
uh, and he meant it sosincerely.
He was not trying to be funny atall.
He was just trying toreciprocate a compliment and,
(21:28):
uh, he did it.
He did it spot on.
So
SPEAKER_01 (21:33):
that's funny.
I, uh, That's right.
(21:53):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (22:00):
We have all kinds of funny videos.
Most of our funny moments fromour kids are caught on video.
That's one of the great thingsabout being a parent during the
technology age is we can captureso many of these moments on
camera.
So we have a lot of those funnyvideos.
SPEAKER_01 (22:15):
That's awesome.
I always like watching AFV forthose funny videos.
And sometimes you get like thekid that says, you know,
something ridiculous and it justmakes me laugh.
That's right.
Well, on behalf of all thelisteners and myself, I want to
thank you for being able to beon the show today.
SPEAKER_00 (22:34):
Thank you so much.
It's an honor, and I'm sograteful for what you're doing
and for what FBC Kearney isdoing.
It's a great church.
SPEAKER_01 (22:42):
Thank you for joining me.
I hope this was an encouragementto you.
Please follow the show, leave areview, and share it with the
people around you.
Hello,
SPEAKER_01 (00:11):
welcome to the Kearney Kids Parenting Show.
I am your host, Abraham Leonard,Minister of Children at First
Baptist Church Kearney.
I am so glad that you havejoined us.
(00:37):
Welcome to the show, Dr.
Camden Pulliam.
Could you tell us a little bitabout your family, your
ministry, and just how you'redoing?
SPEAKER_00 (00:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
My name's Camden Pulliam.
I serve as Senior Vice Presidentof Institutional Relations at
Midwestern Seminary in KansasCity, Missouri.
I'm also one of the pastors atNorthside Fellowship.
We're a Southern Baptist churchplant here in Kansas City, about
10 minutes from the seminary.
And I teach at the seminary aswell, so I'm a professor here.
(01:09):
Yeah.
So I love my life, love the workthat I get to do.
I'm married to Mallory.
We've been married 15 years.
We have three kids, Hudson,Hallie, and Brooks.
They are almost 11 years old nowin a month.
11 years old, 8 years old, and 5years old.
We are in a very fun stagebefore kids get to middle
(01:33):
school, but after diapers.
We have no diapers and none ofthe stuff that comes with middle
school either.
So it's a very fun stage withour kids.
We love life with them.
We have a brand new dog as of acouple months ago.
I'm still deciding if I likethat life being a dog owner, but
the kids love it.
So...
(01:54):
you ask me how life is going,I'm probably going to talk about
the dog and how terrible the dogis, but the kids are great.
Not sure about the dog yet.
So
SPEAKER_01 (02:04):
anyway, I remember we're having a great summer.
I remember either my mom or dadconvincing the other one that we
should get a dog so that it willeat all the crumbs off the
ground.
And then it didn't end upactually eating any of the
crumbs.
It was kind of, you know, onedge about the crumbs.
Does your dog kind of do a lotof the sweeping for
SPEAKER_00 (02:22):
you?
At least?
Yeah, she does more thansweeping.
If we catch her in the wrongmoment, she will be up on the
table eating the hamburgers thatwe forgot to put away or
something.
That's funny.
That's part of my ire, myfrustration with this dog is
that she's causing more problemsthan she's fixing.
That's funny.
SPEAKER_01 (02:43):
Well, to start off, do you have any good parenting
memories?
Maybe one or a couple of yourfavorite parenting memories?
UNKNOWN (02:51):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (02:52):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (02:53):
I have memories from my own parents, but I also have
memories of my own kids and mebeing a parent.
So, if it's okay, I'd love toshare.
Yeah, sharing both.
Yeah.
Yeah.
First off, just parenting issuch a wonderful journey, and it
really is a wonderful invitationto know God more, to know His
(03:15):
character more, because asparents...
That's what we are.
We are reflections of God theFather.
In His triune essence, He isFather, Son, Spirit.
So, there is something deeplyGod-like even about parenthood.
You are getting to enter intosomething that is quite mystical
(03:36):
and quite wonderful.
It's mysterious.
So, just as my introductorycomments about parenthood, I
would just say for any parentswho would listen to this, What
you're doing is very sober.
What you're doing is extremelyimportant, and what you're doing
is quite godlike.
To take care of anotherindividual, it runs right into
(04:02):
the heart of God.
So my own parenting journey, aswith all of us, is what our own
parents were like.
And I had two wonderful parents.
I have two wonderful parents.
My parents are both still alive,both solid believers.
My mom and my dad, justwonderful, wonderful people.
One of my favorite momentsgrowing up, I was duck hunting
(04:25):
with my dad.
It's like 5.30 in the morning.
And I'm probably seven or eightyears old.
I can't remember exactly how oldI was.
But if you've ever been duckhunting, you're out in a marsh
that's three, four feet deep.
And we're sitting there beforedaylight has broken.
And we're in a layout boat.
(04:47):
My dad and I are in a layoutboat.
And a layout boat is where youliterally lay down in the boat.
And when ducks come, you rise upand shoot.
Well, I am...
I am like laying more or less ontop of my dad.
We didn't have two boats.
We had one boat and I'm smallenough that I can kind of fit in
between his legs, his straddledlegs, and I'm laying down.
(05:09):
So, if you know duck hunting,that means anytime a duck comes,
my dad is raising that gun abovemy head and shooting it right
above my head.
That's essentially the situationwe're talking about.
But we're in this layout boatand I hear this sound, this kind
of shushing sound, like shh.
(05:30):
And I say, dad, do you hearthat?
I explained the sound to him andhe says, I don't hear it.
Give it 30 seconds.
And I say, dad, there's ashushing sound, shh.
I was like, do you hear that?
He said, I don't hear it.
And then sure enough, 20 secondslater, it's like, that is a loud
sound.
(05:50):
And he's like, I hear that.
And then all of a sudden we hitthe floor of the marsh.
Like our boat has been taking onwater this whole time.
The sound I was hearing waswater coming into our boat.
Oh, wow.
We just hit the marsh.
So it's like, you know, 38degrees.
We are soaking wet.
It's terrible.
(06:11):
So my dad starts piling up allof our gear on top of me.
UNKNOWN (06:15):
I'm
SPEAKER_00 (06:15):
eight years old can barely get my head above water.
And I've got all this gear.
And I remember my dad takingthis, this layout boat and
raising it above his head withall this water, just pouring
down on him, getting all of thewater out of this boat.
And it is like a core memory ofmine, watching my dad get all
the gear, get all the gear outof the boat, holding it all.
(06:38):
And then just watching him hoistthis boat above his head.
I don't know why it's a corememory of mine.
I don't even know what symbolicmeaning it has.
But in that moment, I saw my dadget to work immediately in the
midst of a crisis, not complain,be a man among men, do what has
to be done.
And then we just start hikingout of the marsh.
(07:01):
We're going to go get dry.
But never once did he complain.
He had a happy heart.
It's become a core memory.
And I think that just makingmemories with your kids, doing
stuff that's supposed to be funthat turns out to be a crisis,
but you make fun out of it,that's part of parenting.
Parenting is stepping up when itmatters most and sharing fun
(07:24):
memories with your kids.
So that's a fun parenting memoryI have.
It's not my own parenthood.
It's my dad's parenthood.
But in many ways, it's a littlemicrocosm of what I would hope
to be as a dad, of someone who'staking his kids to do fun
things, getting into sometrouble, dealing with the
trouble when it comes, and notcomplaining about it one bit.
(07:47):
So I love that.
It's a great memory of mine.
When I think about my ownmemories, Have you ever heard of
a welcome to the NFL moment?
Are you a football fan at all?
I'm a football fan, but I don'tknow if I've ever heard of that.
Okay.
So NFL players have theirwelcome to the NFL moment.
(08:08):
And it's the moment when theyrealize, oh boy, I'm not in
college anymore.
I'm in the NFL.
I'm in the national.
Oh, I get what you're saying.
Yeah.
Okay.
I like to think that there is awelcome to parenthood moment.
Every parent has a welcome toparenthood moment.
When you realize I'm not incollege anymore, I'm I am not a
newlywed anymore.
I am a parent.
(08:30):
I had my own welcome toparenthood moment.
My firstborn son, Hudson, was, Ithink, two weeks old.
And my wife got sick withmastitis.
So, she was in the bed, like,just felt terrible.
Had to sleep, felt terrible.
Well, my two-week-old son wakesup and he is crying.
(08:52):
He's...
You know, he's losing his mind.
He wants to eat.
He's clearly hungry.
And so I decide, you know what?
I'm not going to wake up my sickwife.
I know she's supposed to nursehim, but I'm not going to wake
up my sick wife.
She needs sleep.
I'm going to take care of thisproblem on my own.
So I rush to action and I makemy son formula for the first
(09:13):
time.
We've never fed him formulabefore.
I make him formula.
And any mom out there is...
pulling her hair out right now.
I did not know this at the time,but this is a huge no-no.
You don't just shove formuladown a kid's throat when they're
not used to it.
So I didn't realize I wasrunning afoul of some taboo
rule, but I was.
(09:34):
So I fixed the problem.
I feed my kid a bottle offormula, and he is still
chugging it down.
So I make another bottle offormula.
I feed him.
Well, just then we get anotification.
I get a notification fromWalgreens saying that my wife's
prescription medication for hermastitis is ready.
(09:55):
So I think, okay, you know what?
I'm not going to wake her up.
I'm not going to leave her withthe baby.
I'm going to take the baby.
And on the way to Walgreens, Iget to Walgreens and I look in
the rearview mirror and my sonis like just throwing up all of
the formula that I just fed him.
I'm two weeks into parenthood.
So I'm like, What in the world?
(10:16):
I actually brought a change ofclothes in the Walgreens parking
lot.
I'm sitting there in the car.
I'm changing him.
It's just disgusting.
I change his clothes.
I go into Walgreens.
We're getting the medication.
And while we're in line at thepharmacy, he just throws up more
formula.
So now we have run through thesecond pair of clothes and
(10:38):
there's nothing to do.
There's no cleaning it up.
You just, there's nothing to do.
So my welcome to parenthoodmoment was whenever I tried to
fix a problem and made it a lotworse.
And I realized this isparenthood.
I have to change clothes.
I have to go pick up medication.
I have to solve problems and inso doing probably create more
(11:01):
problems that I didn't mean to.
But that's part of parenthood.
And so that's my welcomeparenthood moment.
It's never easy.
It's never clear exactly whatyou should do, but...
you try and try your best and dowhat you can.
SPEAKER_01 (11:16):
That's awesome.
When you're talking abouthunting memories with your dad,
I could think of a lot of timesthat I would hunt with my dad,
you know, and we'd get upsomewhere story and it would be
early in the morning.
Now, my dad, it was usually deerhunting or turkey hunting or
squirrel hunting.
So he never had a hoist a boatabove his head.
But I remember some of those funtimes with my dad as well.
(11:39):
Could you tell us about Yeah,yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:48):
I'll say parenting is hard because anytime you're
raising a child out ofchildishness into maturity,
there's just a lot of growingpains.
We all are.
being raised to one degree ofmaturity to the next.
And when you're starting withraw material of a baby and
trying to raise that child intoa mature adult, you're going to
(12:10):
go through a lot of growingpains.
So parenting is never easy.
So don't hear what I'm about tosay is, you know, we've had an
easy road.
We've not had an easy road.
But compared to some of theparents that I do know that have
had really severe situations,crisis situations, We've had it
easier than others.
Our kids have just beenwonderful, sweet kids.
(12:33):
They've been wonderful.
So we have loved every bit ofparenthood, even the hard stuff.
We love it.
And one of the things I alwayssay to new dads specifically,
what new dads need to hear morethan anything else is that you
will love it.
You will love parenthood.
It is worth it.
Everyone always talks about thechallenge of parenthood.
(12:54):
Most people don't talk about thejoy of parenthood, the happiness
of parenthood, the delight thatthis little kid brings into your
life that you've neverexperienced anything like it
until they show up.
Yeah.
So I'll just say we've beenthrough a lot of challenges, but
I will say we've just had afantastic time.
experience being parents.
(13:15):
It's brought so much delight tous.
But I can say that there havebeen some challenges.
Our firstborn Hudson, he is aham.
Like he has always been one wholikes the attention.
He likes being the center ofattention.
He has pretty drastic FOMO.
(13:35):
He hates missing out on a party.
And we've always been like hostsof small group.
We've always had people to ourhouse.
So when he was little, I'msaying like a year old, 18
months old, two years old.
He hated going to bed.
He hated going to sleep becausehe knew mom and dad were out in
the living room having fun or asmall group was out in the
(13:56):
living room having fun and hehated it.
And so one of the hardest timesof parenthood was with toddlers,
just like kids.
Trying to deal with toddlers whohaven't developed their verbal
skills, haven't developed theirreasoning skills, trying to help
them submit to your leadershipand your authority is very hard
(14:17):
when you have a toddler.
And Hudson was prettyhard-headed.
He's a sweet kid now, but he waspretty hard-headed as a toddler.
He loved being where the actionis, was pretty hard-headed, did
not want to take no for ananswer.
So trying to get throughtoddlerhood with Hudson, that
was difficult.
That was very difficult.
(14:37):
And what we learned was thatpatience, consistency, and
sometimes tough love, they payoff.
It is our job as parents todiscipline those we love.
Discipline is actually an avenuefor love.
It's not something differentthan love.
Hebrews 12 talks about God'sfatherhood to us and how
(15:00):
discipline is an aspect of hislove.
If he did not love you, he wouldnot discipline you.
So, for us with toddlers,discipline was always an
expression of our love.
It's not an expression of hatredor neglect.
Or anything less than love.
It's always supposed to be doneout of love and as an expression
(15:21):
of our love.
SPEAKER_01 (15:22):
It's really interesting that you said that.
I feel like a lot of times inour human… finite minds, we see
discipline is one category, loveis one category, and a lot of
parents that don't have goodgodly biblical advice will just
kind of let their kids dowhatever they want because they
love them, but they don'tunderstand that discipline is
(15:43):
part of that.
I really like that you saidthat.
SPEAKER_00 (15:46):
Pete That's
SPEAKER_01 (15:46):
exactly
SPEAKER_00 (15:47):
right.
That's exactly right.
And the more you can seediscipline not as working
against your love for yourchildren, but working for your
love, for your children, thebetter off you'll be as a
parent.
And I think moms especially, youknow, stay-at-home moms who have
really tender hearts for theirkids, they need to hear that.
They need to hear that toughlove for your kids and
(16:08):
discipline is actually good forthem.
And one of the worst things youcan do is just cave to your
children over and over and overagain.
That's not good and that's notactually loving for them.
SPEAKER_01 (16:19):
Yeah.
If you're going to go back intime to...
Right before you had a kid andyou were going to give yourself
parenting advice now afterhaving a kid for some time, what
would that advice be?
SPEAKER_00 (16:39):
We read a book called Shepherding a Child's
Heart by Ted Tripp.
If you've ever heard of PaulTripp, it's his brother.
It's my favorite parenting book.
It's phenomenal.
And I don't know if, I think hetalks about this in Shepherding
a Child's Heart, but I might beconflating what I'm about to say
(17:02):
with another book.
But I remember reading this atsome point, and I wish I would
have just had a betterunderstanding of it, that there
are different goals forparenting at different stages of
a child's life.
So, when a child is like zero tofive, the goal of your
parenthood should be submissionto your authority.
(17:24):
A two-year-old does not need tolearn how to reason with you and
talk with you through thedecision.
They don't need to be a part ofthe decision-making process
because they can't.
They don't have the rationalskills.
Your goal for them from ageszero to five is pure submission.
They need to learn how to submitto authority.
(17:44):
You're the authority and youhave to submit to God's
authority.
What you're doing there issetting up you're setting up a
system where they learn to trustthat what mom and dad say is
right.
And it's yes, sir.
No, sir.
Yes, ma'am.
No, ma'am.
That's the goal.
And of course, It's a process.
(18:05):
They are not going to come outof the womb ready to submit.
They're going to come out of thewomb ready to defy.
That's in our sinful hearts.
That's what little kids do.
But they need to learn to submitat an early age.
And then later on, ages 5 to 10,they need to start to learn how
to develop some of those skillsof wisdom, of making good
(18:28):
decisions on their own.
And then ages 10 to 18...
That's really a flowering out ofthe things that they're learning
from 5 to 10 years old.
So, it's just a progression ofwisdom.
And what a lot of parents do isthey kind of reverse that
process.
They will say, hey, I'm going totry and teach my kids a lot of
(18:50):
wisdom early on in their lives.
And then whenever they getrebellious at age 13, then I'm
going to lay down the hammer ofauthority and submission.
And that's exactly backwards.
They need to learn authority andsubmission first, and then later
on have the element of wisdombrought in where they're
learning decision-making skillslater on.
(19:10):
They don't need thedecision-making skills early.
They need them later.
They need the authority andsubmission early and the
decision skills later.
So I would just anchor that intomy mind as a young parent, like,
Know the goal for ages 0 to 5and know the goal for ages 5 to
10, 10 to 18.
There are different goals atdifferent stages.
(19:32):
And just being able to be okaythat, hey, my kid doesn't really
have decision-making skills yetbecause that's not what we're
asking them to do.
I'm making the decisions they'relearning to submit right now.
I think that's helpful for them.
SPEAKER_01 (19:45):
That's awesome.
My dad was telling me about thatbook, Shepherding a Child's
Heart, as well.
Yeah.
And he said that he reallybenefited from that process as
well as he was trying to be aparent.
So that's really neat that youmentioned that.
To end, as we kind of draw thisto a close, do you have one or a
(20:05):
couple funny parenting stories,maybe your favorites?
Because I hear that there's alot of funny parenting stories
every time I ask that question.
Oh, we've got way more funnyparenting stories than we could
share here.
But do you have one or a coupleof your favorite?
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (20:24):
I remember when my oldest son, I don't know why, it
just all seems to gravitatearound Hudson's funny moments.
He's just a lightning rod forfunny moments.
I truly do love all my kids thesame, but he's a lightning rod
for funny things, funny moments.
Yeah.
He gets talked about a littlebit more than the others because
(20:45):
he just has a couple of theseone-liners that are pretty
funny.
But I remember when he wasprobably five years old, I was
tucking him into bed one nightand I said, I said, Hudson, I'm
just so proud of the young manyou're becoming.
I see you growing.
I'm just so proud of the youngman you're becoming.
(21:06):
And he said, thanks dad.
I'm so proud of the old manyou're becoming.
Uh, that, that will always stickwith me.
He's so proud of the old manthat I've been, I'm becoming,
uh, and he meant it sosincerely.
He was not trying to be funny atall.
He was just trying toreciprocate a compliment and,
(21:28):
uh, he did it.
He did it spot on.
So
SPEAKER_01 (21:33):
that's funny.
I, uh, That's right.
(21:53):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (22:00):
We have all kinds of funny videos.
Most of our funny moments fromour kids are caught on video.
That's one of the great thingsabout being a parent during the
technology age is we can captureso many of these moments on
camera.
So we have a lot of those funnyvideos.
SPEAKER_01 (22:15):
That's awesome.
I always like watching AFV forthose funny videos.
And sometimes you get like thekid that says, you know,
something ridiculous and it justmakes me laugh.
That's right.
Well, on behalf of all thelisteners and myself, I want to
thank you for being able to beon the show today.
SPEAKER_00 (22:34):
Thank you so much.
It's an honor, and I'm sograteful for what you're doing
and for what FBC Kearney isdoing.
It's a great church.
SPEAKER_01 (22:42):
Thank you for joining me.
I hope this was an encouragementto you.
Please follow the show, leave areview, and share it with the
people around you.
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