YoungDad Roundtable 1

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
All the animals want to fight tonight.
They're. Welcome.
They want the show to be good. Yeah, they got to add a little
bit of a little bit of a zoo, a little background.
Right behind my right behind my camera.
My cat got into a scrap with my dog.
So man. Oh, well, if things go poorly,
we could just film that. Yeah, honestly, that might that

(00:30):
might redeem whatever content wecan empty tonight.
But but no, Gentlemen, I appreciate you being here.
I appreciate you guys joining mefor the first ever Young Dad
Roundtable. I'm super excited that we're
we're doing this and I just of course, just really thank you
guys all for your time for beinghere tonight and to the guest

(00:52):
for anyone watching whatever point they TuneIn, if there's
already people watching, welcome, welcome.
Make sure you guys settle in, get comfy, because this is going
to be a great one tonight. We're flipping the script a
little bit than what we usually do on young dad podcast.
I can say I've interviewed each of you one-on-one, but I decided
what's better than bringing us all together for some, for some,

(01:17):
for some good times. So gathering of dads, men,
brothers, we're all at the tablefiguratively.
We're all in different locationsgeographically, but we're all
still at the same fatherhood table.
We're here to talk, debate, laugh, share, keep it real about
fatherhood, manhood, and everything in between.
Whatever we get into, everyone'sgot to see it at this table.
Every single listener, every single viewer.
You guys each have a seat at thetable no matter what.

(01:40):
So excited that you're here and we've all got something to
bring. So let's get into it, of course.
So first and foremost, let's go around and introduce ourselves a
little bit about what we do, platforms, things like that.
Of course, I'm Jay, I'm your host, host of the Young Dad
Podcast and of course, host of the Young Dad Roundtable.
So other than that, let's start with Eric.

(02:03):
You're top left of the screen. So go ahead and we'll go Eric,
Mike, Paul, then Casey. What's up everybody?
My name is Eric Rodriguez, but Igo by Eric the host.
I am the host of the Dope Individuals Only podcast where
we have conversations about how somebody gets to where they are
in their lives. So it's about just using our own

(02:28):
personal experience to enrich the lives of others.
I've been on Jay's podcast before and I'm happy to be here,
man, to be talking with everybody and let's have a good
conversation. Love it, Mike.
Well, thanks for putting this together since you thanked all
of us. I thought this was awesome as
soon as you pitched it. So I appreciate you, you know,

(02:48):
bringing everyone together and all that goes into that.
So thanks for the opportunity. Yeah.
My name is Mike Coyne. I am a counselor specialized in
addiction and relationships, family addiction, disorders of
compulsion in general. Been doing that for the last
seven years. Prior to that, I was a football

(03:10):
coach for 15 years. So made that major pivot.
Yeah, I guess about 7 years ago in St.
Augustine, FL is where my my practice is.
It's called Pure Vine. So it's at I'm going to remember
to do this on a podcast for one time, actually mention it that
it's at Cure Vine, just like it sounds on Instagram is basically

(03:33):
the only one I use, you know, because I have to have something
out there. But yeah, that's my private
practice. I have my wife Carrie.
We have a four month old daughter.
I have a son who's six years oldwill for my previous marriage.
And yeah, that's me. Love it.
Love it, Paul. Well, I'm Paul Granger and I am

(03:56):
in full time volunteer ministry,so I haven't gotten a
traditional paycheck in seven years.
God is good, God's provided. I've been doing ministry for 20
years and that's taken many different forms, but over the
last seven years there's been a lot of content creation.
So I've been doing the Where DidYou See God podcast for pretty

(04:17):
much that whole time. I've been writing,
self-publishing a whole lot of stuff on Amazon.
Right now I'm in the midst of a a year of books every month of
self published something. I'm crazy, I'm crazy.
And part of the reason I'm crazyis because I got three young
kids, 12:10 and 6:00. But I love them.
They're very creative, cute and sweet.

(04:40):
Amazing wife, a very loud cat that might meow at some point,
and yeah, just trying to live each day figuring out what it
means to be an ambassador of Christ, whether it's in a formal
way or sitting on the porch witha friend and everything in
between. Love it, Casey hit us.
Great. My name is Casey.
I am a father of four and I havea, let's say 9 year old

(05:05):
daughter, a six year old son, A4just turned 4 year old daughter
and a six month old. I've been a person in long term
recovery for 19 1/2 years. I've been a counselor for 13 and
I've been an international missionary.
And I'm currently in my master'sdegree at Liberty University for

(05:28):
psychology, hopefully moving on to Society for Social
Psychological research, essentially.
But that's really because I was going to leave my industry out
of Dist distaste for what was going on there, especially since
2020. And I think that God compelled

(05:49):
me to double down rather than dip out.
And quite frankly, some of it came about because I couldn't
find a job picking up trash because, and actually, sometimes
I still do look for those, but I'm trying to feed my family
until then. I'm also the founder of the
Rumble Right Dad YouTube channeland Rumble Tick Tock and

(06:13):
Instagram. I usually go more personal on
the gram because I actually havefamily who listen to me there.
So I try not to be as rude as I am on YouTube.
But really, I'm trying to defendthe integrity of fathers in
America today because they've been under assault for a long
time. And that's part of the reason

(06:34):
why men are choosing not to havechildren.
And along with a lot of other reasons, it's time to redeem
that because I've got three daughters and a son who are
going to need to grow up in a better tomorrow for America.
And it's White pill Wednesday. So I'm just going to say call
it, call my shot. It is going to be a better
tomorrow for America. But it's going to take men like

(06:55):
us to stand for our kids and defend that opportunity for
them. Absolutely.
Well, gentlemen, again, thank you so much for being here.
I'm Jay. I'm your host.
And like I said, we're all, we're all dads, we're all men,
we're all brothers, We're all just here because we we love our
kids, we love our family and we love helping others and we love

(07:15):
giving back to to everyone in between.
So we're going to jump right into it with our first first
segment of the show is going to be called Dad News of the week.
I sent this out to you guys kindof what to expect for this.
But we're going to be talking watch, there's going to be a
double dose of Dad News 1. You guys know about 1 you guys
may have heard about today. So we'll start with the the

(07:37):
Roblox one. So what is Roblox?
As you guys probably know or listeners probably know, Roblox
is a very, very popular kids game that kids love to play and
it's been under a lot of scrutiny in the last month or
so. So who is Let me go over a

(08:00):
timeline for you guys Schlip andwhat happened?
Schlep real name Michael. He's a 22 year old YouTuber
known for staging sting operations against alleged
sexual predators on Roblox. His work reportedly led to six
arrests on August 29th, 2025. Roblox Corporation Van Schlapp
OK, this was the first thing that happened here.

(08:21):
First domino to call citing violations of a new vigilante
groups on policy. So they created this policy
called vigilante groups and thenthey sent him a cease and desist
letter accusing him of unauthorized interference,
privacy violations, and risking user safety.
Long story short, he then posteda video on this on his YouTube
saying it was hilarious. He vowed to continue his efforts

(08:44):
off platform and indicated plansto counter Sue.
So there's been a lot of public,a lot of public rise up around
this, around Roblox that fans are talking to, you know,
hashtag free schlep. Because he didn't really do
anything wrong, right? He was actually helping keep our
kids safe. He was actually doing really

(09:04):
good work in my personal opinion.
You guys may differ on that opinion there.
And so US Representative Ro Khanna publicly supported Schlep
staging. A Change.org petition reached
over 100,000 signatures calling for stronger child safety
policies on roadblocks. Louisiana Attorney General Liz
Muriel filed a lawsuit accusing Roblox of prioritizing profit

(09:27):
over child safety, which I mean,is pretty obvious here, failing
to curb the predatory behavior. As a result, Roblox has now
faced multiple civil suits, including lawsuits originating
from Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina and Texas, which have
collectively spotlighted long standing grooming failures on
the platform. The stock price dipped.
So, you know, words talk, but numbers scream, as always.

(09:50):
So they're talk. Their stock dipped 7 to 10%
amongst all this and then even Chris Hansen, catcher predator
guy is producing a documentary now on Roblox child safety and
his interview slept law enforcement and whatnot.
With all this, I think it reallycomes down to a couple things
here and I'll go around. I'll get your guys's opinion.

(10:10):
It comes down to Roblox seems and I guess hold on a little bit
more here with the story is thatthere's also many TikTok
influencers, many moms, dads, things like that speaking out
against Roblox. Also, we're receiving cease and
desist letters from the platformtelling you guys, hey, we have
this, this policy, this vigilante policy, you got stop
and it's just terrible. And so overall, this is a issue

(10:35):
of big child safety gap that I think we see all across the
board in every single social media platform, YouTube,
Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, every any social media platform,
you name it. I think there's a big gap here,
improper monetization practices because there's a lot of micro
transactions that happen on Roblox.

(10:56):
And then there's also really weird things that happen on
there, some things that kids shouldn't see grooming that
happens on there as well. And then of course, the
platform's response I think is what was the most surprising is
if you have a kids game, it should be for kids about kids
made for them and stay for them.It shouldn't really be about the
predator. You should protect the kids or

(11:18):
the predator. But I think we see that a lot
when there's when there's a lot of money involved.
And so yeah, that's kind of the story.
That's kind of where it's at right now.
Love to go around and get your guys thoughts.
Whoever wants to shoot first here on their thoughts on this.
Does anybody have kids to play Roblox?
I got a brief. Season that my kid did and we

(11:38):
were very restrictive around whohe could even have his friends
just like his cousin friend fromschool because of this kind of
stuff. I'm like, I don't want you
talking to anybody that I don't know.
You don't know who they are. Yes, it could be anybody in the
world. Right.
So my, my son does play. My son, my eldest.

(11:58):
I know I didn't say it in the introduction, but I had three
children of my own. He'll be 11 next Saturday, which
is my oldest son. I have a 8 year old daughter and
then I also have a five year oldson.
So there I got a pretty good mix.
But my my eldest son plays Roblox and I know that like he

(12:20):
probably like encounters people who curse every once in a while,
but I don't think he's never come to me and reported anything
like what we're here and here. I do find it interesting that
they continue to side with predators.
And I know that like when I go through like my algorithms, I

(12:42):
see it often where people are talking about like, we need to
protect children. But I don't really see anybody
with power to that can do something about it really doing
anything about it because you hear it all the time.
I'm sorry about the birds. It's not a lot.
To say. About It's all good that bird is
opinionated about this. That bird's fired up about this.

(13:04):
Oh, he never makes this much noise, I swear.
Blame the bird. Blame the bird.
Yeah, but I'm, I, I, I I really don't understand why, why we
continue to see people openly protect perverts.
I call it, I call the spade a spade.

(13:25):
That's my personal opinion. Yeah, I hear you, Mike.
I think you were ready to shoot.Oh yeah, definitely, because I
have such a strong take. But for the sake of the
audience, let's pretend I don't know anything about this, which
I don't. How pervasive is that?

(13:45):
Or I guess the question I want to lead with is why wrote why
this game Roblox? Is it uniquely Roblox or is this
going on among other like large platform gaming?
Again, I'm not familiar with a lot of these areas.
No, that's a that's a good question.
I think I think Roblox is kind of just the the spotlight and

(14:07):
the story of the week. But I I'm pretty sure Fortnite's
had an experience, had some allegations with this as well.
And guys, please correct me if I'm wrong.
I know that even NBA, like 2K, Madden, those games, like
they're online communities also.I mean, there's a whole message
over the last few years that when you log on for the first

(14:29):
time, there's there's a whole nice long EA Sports protective
policy and all that. So it's I don't think it's not
happening everywhere. I think it happens in all these
games and all these platforms. Just Roblox is the one being
exposed for it right now. Gotcha, gotcha.
That's interesting what I find interesting and like, like I

(14:51):
said, I'm, I'm, I'm learning of this from, from you guys right
now. So what's interesting is in my
experience and obviously data would show that in most cases of
child sexual abuse, sexual assault, it's going to be with

(15:12):
committed by someone known, you know, So I find it interesting
that these platforms are being used for that.
And I'm just curious like how pervade, how pervasive is it
that it's become an issue that is impacting their stock price?
Because as you said, that means it's significant in some way,

(15:34):
whether perception or reality. In numbers, it's it's
significant. Yeah, I think it probably does
affect their numbers based on what the statistics and debt
are. I think going back to what Eric
was saying though, and by the way, my name is Chris, but I
just got in kind of late. I had to get a haircut and then
I was like over the time zone I.Look fresh for the.
Pocket. Good.

(15:55):
You're looking good, man. You're looking good.
Hey, welcome. But yeah, so my.
Show is all up. Yeah, it's all good.
So I got an 11 year old son and then my other son is 6, but they
play it and I asked them before like who y'all playing with?
And they from what I've seen they just play with their
friends. Now I don't know a whole lot

(16:17):
about Roblox but when I actuallyhear them sometimes and they
talking to their cousins like it's like their cousins and
friends. There's only been one instance.
Like my older son said he's got his phone taken away, he got
Snapchat taken away and I said well what happened?
He said oh I was talking to somebody online.
I didn't know him, but I said, well, was it a kid?
He said, well, yeah, that's whatI think my mom was like, no,

(16:38):
don't be talking to people. I said, oh, well that's good.
She took it away. Then same thing.
I don't know if it was it, it sounded like a kid.
I don't know. But yeah, I would just be saved
me like mindful and stuff like that.
But I've never personally had anissue with.
Roblox Sometimes I feel like these these stories also like
are are blown out of proportion for the sake of like trying to

(17:00):
protect other things actually that are I don't want to say
more important, but are definitely like should be at the
top of prior of priority list asfar as like country things and
things like that. Like we we've been seeing like
the military pop up in cities now and things like that.
And maybe they're doing something behind the scenes.

(17:22):
And this is like he, like Jay suggested, like, you know, this
could be something like that is just the cover of the week
because I actually have a son who plays it on the regular.
And like, just like Chris said, he's mainly playing it with his
friends. I do allow him to play like
Fortnite, like on the open web where he can talk to people.
But I still have like, like he knows to mute people if he hears

(17:46):
something inappropriate and things like that.
And most of the time he hears silence or he's with his friends
in a party. I think it really comes down to
us in in letting them know that there are dangers out there, but
in also taking the tools that these platforms give us as
parents and privacy rights for our children and actually use
them. We do it with their cell phones.
I do it with his Xbox. You know, there's certain games

(18:10):
he's not allowed to play withoutme being in the games, certain
things like that. I think it's like we got to be
in our kids business. That's my personal thing.
Like I'm in my kids business. I think we should all be in our
kids business, you know, and if you don't know what is going on
with your children, then I always say like you need to, you
need to be paying more attentionbecause there are a lot of

(18:32):
dangers out there and sometimes it be their friends.
Yeah, when you made a tough point about news stories, right.
And because I think we we see the gamut of it, there are real
serious like we got to pay attention to this news stories.
There are ones like you noted distraction ones like something
is elevated to get your mind on that instead of on that.

(18:53):
And then we have already talked about money.
I mean we are in the time now ofthe 24 hour news cycle where you
have to be producing something that will get the clicks And so
you will escalate something justto get I mean we all in hearing
about Cracker Barrel, Cracker Barrel is.
Huge right now, right? But like.
We're not talking about cracker.Barrel next week and so I think

(19:13):
there's that piece of it. How?
Can we might? We might though, because they
they might change their logo back.
That's. True, they might they.
Might they just announced today they're changing it back, yeah.
They go back to the original. But as parents, that that's part
of our role is like, how do we be discerning and not just
reactive? How do we be wise and not just,

(19:36):
you know, suddenly go into a rage or hide or whatever it is?
But all that being said, whetherit's Roblox or something else,
one of the hard realities is there is always been threats to
children as long as there's beenchildren I.
Mean. As we've been talking, I'm
thinking about when I was little, I'll watch the movie.
I think it was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or something where
they're like the child snatchers, right?

(19:58):
And then I was watching a show called the, I think it's called
The Parent Test. Where they get parents of
different parenting styles together.
And one of the tests they do is the parents are watching from
like a van. Their kid is in the playground
and someone walks up with a dog and it's like, hey, you want to
pet my dog? I've got more dogs around the
corner. And all the parents are like,
please don't go with the guy. Please don't go with the guy.

(20:19):
Right. Like there's always been threats
to children. And so I agree with what Eric
was saying. The other thing that we as
fathers need to do is be very aware of how not just we're
watching out for our children because the hard reality is we
can't, we can't block everythingbecause we don't even know
what's out there. But what we can do, like Eric
noted, is how do we equip our children?

(20:41):
How do we make them discerning and mindful?
How do we make them not just reactive, but wise and how
they're navigating things and todo so knowing that they're still
kids learning it, so their brains are only quarter halfway
developed and so they're going to get it wrong.
But what skills are we putting into them so that they can
recognize, oh, all my friends are doing this, but I have the

(21:03):
skill set to know that I don't necessarily need to do what
they're doing to have value. Exactly, exactly.
Casey, did you have some thoughts on this?
Yeah, I'm the big fan of the Jonathan Height.
He's got a couple books that aregood about some of the
collateral damage has come out of digital natives, including

(21:26):
like kids foregoing risk taking in real life and sort of casting
that onto the Internet instead of in person, which I in my era,
I might be close to Paul, I'm not sure.
But in my era, we used to just fight in person in the
neighborhood and, and that was better, I think in some ways

(21:49):
then being predated on by people, you know, online.
I think there's a we have built sort of a cohort of other
parents who choose not to give their kids phones so that the
amount of like fear of missing out.
Granted, all of ours are still very young, but the fear of
missing out and all those thingsis sort of like obfuscated from

(22:11):
them because their peers and generally their social group
doesn't have them. And we, we send our kids to a
private school. It makes it sound up at EI don't
have money like that, don't worry.
But it is possible for me to help them maintain their
innocence for as long as I possibly can.
And if you want your child's, you know, childhood to be over,

(22:33):
giving them an unlocked phone isan inevitable way for that to
happen eventually because they will access spicy things.
And and you know, whether it's some probably one in a million
chance on Roblox or, you know, one of the other platforms that
they can get on, that's probablymuch less risky than what they
could very intentionally do themselves.

(22:54):
So having I agree we should be in their business.
And I also think if I'm able to draw them into a period of
maturity in their life, at whichpoint they can understand some
of these complex things without having that exposure first, I'm
doing a better job as a dad. It is my job to help them engage

(23:16):
with the world successfully and if and when the fight is
necessary, that they would be prepared for that.
And unfortunately, that's cast to the Internet now.
And I say, unfortunately, because you don't have the same
social cues and other ways of resolving conflict as you would
in person, and you don't have the social consequences of
seeing when you hurt someone's feelings or seeing when they,

(23:38):
you know, are about to punch youin the nose.
All of those things, you know, it is helpful to have.
We've just evolved to respond tothese cues in person.
And now that we're doing it online, kids, I mean, this isn't
necessarily causal, but it is corollary kids, mental health is
twice as bad as it has ever beenmeasured to be.

(24:01):
And part of that is we have castall of our children online.
We told them to be careful and be safe.
My mom still does this with my kids.
She'll buy a safety equipment that I'm like, mom, that's not
coming anywhere near my house. I don't need that crab if
they're going to fall down the stairs, frankly, It'll happen.
It happens, you know? But I don't want them to.

(24:23):
Don't get me wrong, but. No, Casey doesn't endorse you
throwing your kids down there. No, I don't they're.
Gonna fall. You're going to fall down the
steps. You let them fall down the
steps. Because I'm pretty sure I told
you to stay away. That's right.
Exactly. So you know, it'll happen once
and then it won't happen again. Exactly.

(24:44):
And now we've cast all that risktaking online.
We, you know, taking snowballs away from kids in in class, in
school, we've taken all competition away and now it's
all online. And boys need competition.
They need to be able to thrive against one another.
There is a hierarchy and they derive some of their identity

(25:05):
from that hierarchy, and we've taken it all away and put it on
roadblocks. So you shouldn't be surprised
when somebody who wants to predate against your children
finds the outlet that we just put them all on, you know, and
I'm not casting dispersions on any of the men here who make
that choice. You guys are all responsible.
I'm sure you do a great job. It is just important for me to

(25:26):
preserve their innocence. And if they have fear missing
out because of it, that is a less consequence than if
something were to happen to themon one of these platforms.
Side point, I don't know the value necessarily.
Video games to me is neutral at best.
And so while I play them every once in a while, I would not, I

(25:50):
struggle because my son will, you know, he does kind of get a
kick here and there where he wants to play.
And, you know, we've let him play some of the games that were
around when I was a kid. But I see it almost.
I'm an addictive personality. Obviously.
I've been a drunk, you know, for1/3 of, well, 1/4 of my life
now, not currently, but before. So, you know, I see like he's

(26:11):
immediately just like me, you know, anything that's good, Why
not four times more of that thing if it feels good in my
brain, you know, he wants more of it.
So I'm not certain the approach to take with video games, but
I'm certain the approach to takewith the Internet, which is if
they miss out on stuff, I'm actually very exceedingly happy

(26:33):
that they did because I don't really want them to be immersed
in these circles that, you know,they hear cussing or, you know,
there's other, you know, spicy stuff that goes around.
You know, if they miss out on that good, you know, probably
not. Nothing that was memorable.
Novelty is what's memorable, right?
Nothing memorable was going to happen that night on roadblocks

(26:56):
anyway. You might talk about it for a
day, but next week you've won a football game in your backyard
with your friends. That might be noteworthy.
You might remember that until you're an adult.
But Roblox certainly isn't making that landfall in my mind.
So I'm trying my best to navigate this with the video
games and my son especially. And I'm just not certain, you

(27:19):
know, that's good. What it's good to hear from
older fathers or fathers that have that engagement to see what
might be successful there. I'm not convinced either way
yet. Well, that's the hard part,
right? It's like there is no like
guidebook that says definitivelyhere's how it works because
every parent's different, every kid is different, every context

(27:40):
is different, and the world is becoming different every year
and, and it makes it so hard. And so again, that show the
parent test, that's what was intriguing to me.
Initially, I thought I was goingto hate it because I hate
reality TVI thought it was goingto be like this cheesy thing,
but they did it really well. It wasn't like really pitting
parent types against each other.It was actually putting them in

(28:02):
in situations, but then processing it.
And for me, that was the biggesttake away from the show is there
was no parenting type that they said, oh, no, yours is the worst
one and yours is the best one. But there are plenty of moments
where like, wow, what your parenting type brings to the
table actually was uniquely valuable here.
Or man, what if you brought in this parenting type?
And so is inviting parents to understand themselves, their

(28:25):
kids in the context. And because this is the
challenging thing, right? Like, even if we could crack the
code, right, do everything perfectly, one of the big tropes
is the kids who once they have freedom, suddenly like want to
explore that freedom. That's a part of human nature.
This rebelliousness, this desireto experience what was blocked

(28:47):
from us. You know the classic story of
the prodigal son and you get theimpression that the father did
everything right and both of hissons messed up one in an overt
way, but the other one just as much.
And and man, to be a father and know that even when you do your
best, it is not going to guarantee the best happens.

(29:09):
That is that is hard. And so that's the other piece
for us, right, is like, how do we do this with intentionality
and and hold it loosely knowing our kids could get harmed even
with our best efforts like that?Is it hurts, it hurts, but there
is no way to stop that. And so then how are we then

(29:30):
making sure that we remain in a healthy place rather than one
that's just responding out of fear or control or any other
driver that's not going to sustain?
Us. That's what I was going to
comment on that. As I acknowledged in the
beginning, this was is new information to me.
And I want, you know, not that this kind of thing goes on, but
specific, this specific story that is apparently, you know,

(29:52):
made a lot of headlines this week.
My, my initial reaction. But I was asking how common is
this? Like, how much is this going on?
Because one of my concerns when I'm hearing this is that it
being a big story is like, OK, well, there's a lot of reasons
that something can be such a bigstory.

(30:12):
Like as Paul was talking about 24 hour news cycle, we are in a
culture that is more divisive than ever, pretty much over
almost any issue. Child predators is one over
which people mainly agree. I think most people are anti.
And one thing that does engage people is fear.

(30:36):
And being a parent, there's a lot of inherent fear that comes
along with that. So one of my concerns, again,
why I was asking how common thisis, because I worry if something
like this catching someone's attention and this being the
topic of conversation kind of takes people's eyes off the

(30:58):
ball, which is that the real threats specifically in this way
in terms of child sexual abuse is are are near your home,
They're closer to your orbit. I mean, statistically it's not
even close. Like it's much more likely as
I've Jay knows that that's part of my childhood tribe.

(31:21):
It's part of my history. So I'm very sensitive to this
issue. And to go back to get into
something Paul, Paul said you can't do everything perfect.
I wonder if there's a situation where perfection can become the
enemy of good, like trying to just do this perfectly and, you

(31:44):
know, which means maybe some hyper vigilance and obsessing
about a Roblox story. Again, caveat, I don't know what
about this, Yeah, particularly. But does that take away from the
core things like Eric was alwaystalking about that are just
fundamental parts of our parenting and how we're

(32:06):
preparing our kids to deal with the, the real dangers in the
world and preserve their innocence as long as possible?
Like Casey's the absolutely. And I, I think it comes down to
a couple things here, right? The three PS and the three Rs,
the three PS be proactive, be preventative, and then be
prepared. Preparation.

(32:26):
So proactiveness, prevention andpreparation, I think that helps
us do all those things, right? Like we're talking about being
proactive, being involved with your kids, playing with them on
these platforms, knowing who they're talking to, setting
those rules, those ground rules ahead of time.
Like we talked about knowing, hey, if you hear this, you shut
it off. If you do this, you do this, you
do this, you do this, putting those parental controls in,

(32:48):
putting all the safeguards in place that you can because you
can't protect them from everything.
And you know, sometimes they do.Got to learn.
You can put a baby gate at the top of the stairs.
Your kid can still fall down thestairs.
That's not going to matter, right?
But you at least try to put the prevention in the in that place,
right? Some, some lessons have to be
learned the hard ways, but you can still be proactive.

(33:08):
You can still take prevention and you can still prepare them
for these things, right? And it's better.
The three PS are much better than the three Rs I have here.
Then reacting when something already happens, right?
When they're already caught, when they're already talking to
someone, when they're already Snapchatting somebody and gave
them their address, right, because you didn't prepare them,
you didn't let them know, Hey, if someone's asking for your

(33:29):
address, trying to meet up with you, you know, you know, shut
that down. That's a no, that's a no go.
You talk to me, we report it kind of thing and whatnot.
Now you're reacting and then you're repairing, then you're
repairing a relationship, you'rerepairing hurt, you're repairing
now you're repairing possible trauma.
Maybe you're repairing somethingelse, right?
And then ultimately what that comes to is repentance in, in a

(33:51):
form as well, right, where you're having to make amends
with, with yourself, with your child, possibly with God for
whatever happened, right? Because you didn't, you weren't
proactive, you weren't preventative and you weren't
prepared, All in all. So I think that's really what it
comes down to. But All in all, you know, we
have to be in their business. We have to be a part of their

(34:12):
world. We have to play with them, we
have to engage with them. We have to know what they're
doing. We have to make sure they're
prepared. We have to be having this
conversation, right? Because we might think, OK,
yeah, my 8 year old, I'm going to put them, let them be on
roadblocks and, you know, hang out.
But, you know, if we don't prepare them for what could be
on there, even at an age appropriate level, they're
susceptible to danger. It's the same idea of something

(34:33):
happening close to home as well,right?
If they don't know what signs tolook for, if they don't know
what to, to be aware of, then they can't, you know, be
prepared. They, you can't prevent it.
You can't, you know, be proactive, right?
Then you're reacting. Oh my gosh, you know, I let him
go over to the neighbor's house because I thought the neighbor
was fine. But lo and behold, you know,
last three months I've been going over there, something's

(34:54):
been happening kind of thing. And you know, it's it's one of
those things that we have to have to be prepared and we have
to do everything we can put the safeguards in place and we have
to be proactive about it, right?At every age we can talk about
it. At every single age we can
talked about it. Every single age we can increase
that conversation, go deeper into the conversation, add new
layers to it. There's nothing that we can't

(35:15):
talk about with our kids. We want them to talk about
everything with us, but we also have to be willing to talk about
everything with them and and ageappropriate level.
And if you don't know how to do that, that's OK.
Call your dad, call your mom, call your brother, call your
sister, call me. I don't care.
Message, message, message us, us6 or whatever, right?

(35:37):
If you don't know what to do, message someone, Talk to someone
where they're at church. And maybe it's another dad, you
know, maybe it's a coach, maybe it was your childhood coach,
someone right along the way possibly might have an answer
for you on how to do that. And if you don't know and you're
out of things, you know, go to agood men's group, dad's group
something, find something, you know, that's part of being

(35:59):
proactive is getting out there and finding it, making it
happen. So those are my thoughts on
this. Any any other closing thoughts
before we we take this to the next?
Yeah, I wanted to piggyback off what you just said because I
think it's worth naming broaching this topic,
particularly things dealing withsexual things, let's just say

(36:19):
that is hard, that is uncomfortable.
I think all of us have had moments where we're like, ah,
man, what age and how? And because the moment you bring
that topic up, you have introduced that topic.
But if you wait to introduce that topic, then someone else
might introduce that topic. And so I think you're right,
there are age appropriate ways. I'll give an example.

(36:41):
I love our pediatrician. He's a good friend of ours.
He's part of our church family, was an elder for a while, and
part of a doctor's job is to check a kids private areas to
make sure that they look OK. One thing he does every single
time is he asks their permissionand then he communicates with
them. Now look, this is I'm asking the

(37:03):
permission, but nobody else except for me and your parents
should be right? Like he does this with every kid
that he works with. And I appreciate it so much
because that's a rarity because it is uncomfortable and awkward.
But like it, it brought it into our kids at their youngest age.
And then I got a shout at my wife who she created this thing

(37:24):
with our oldest kids called RealTalk, where once a week we sit
with them and we start off at age 7 or 8 with some age
appropriate books that talk about the human body and talk
about sexuality and talk all these things.
And like you noted, Jay, we can build up.
So there's another book that's kind of the next level.
And now that our oldest is entering puberty, like we're,

(37:48):
we're preparing ourselves to be able to the real talk to be also
sharing some of our stories and opening up.
And so I, I want people that arelistening to know, like you
said, Jay, it's OK if you feel uncomfortable, but I want to
know like all of us here, like we, we have navigated that like
not knowing exactly how to do it.
It's still figuring out how to do it.

(38:08):
And it's OK to to feel uncomfortable about it, but know
that discomfort doesn't have to be a disqualifier.
And I think it's so important aswell what you said, Paul there,
you know, make sure that you're talking about it with them
before someone else does, which also includes their school,
which why it's important to be proactive.

(38:30):
Go to your school district's website.
If you don't know what school district your kids in, that's a
you should figure that out first.
But go to your school district. Yeah, go.
Yeah, that's like, go to your school district website, look up
the curriculum. That's usually broken down by
subject. Science, math, ELA, reading,
yadda, yadda yadda. Even sex Ed and sexual health or

(38:52):
health or whatever. It could be named different
things depending on your state. Some states try to mix it in
here and there. Some states try to are more
transparent with it. So you, sometimes you have to
dig for it. That's just how it is in
Washington state. I had to dig for it a little
bit, click, click around a few times.
I finally find the, the slideshow that would be seen and

(39:15):
whatnot to make sure that I'm reading the curriculum right.
And I, I want to make sure that,OK, if they're going into first
grade, what are they probably going to be talking about in
first grade? OK, this is what they'll be
talking about. This is a curriculum that's
shown. This is when they do it kind of
thing. Great.
It's all information is all there.
Now I know as a dad what they'regoing to be talking about.
I can get ahead of this conversation as well to let them
know whether that's right or wrong in according to our family

(39:37):
values and whatnot. So I encourage every, it's a
little dad hack here, a little dad tip to make sure you're.
I didn't know that. Was a thing.
Yep, Yep. Go to your school district's
website. Go to your the school's website
itself. All the curriculum should be
public knowledge and public information.
And if it's not, then you shouldprobably be calling the school
board or Superintendent and saying where the heck is the

(40:00):
curriculum for this? Because it should be out there.
You know, out in Washington state, they have it.
Over here in this neighboring state, they have it.
This neighboring district has iteven.
So making sure, because I will tell you a lot of states are
starting as early as like first,second grade, even some as early
as kindergarten. So it's so important to be
getting after it. Take be paying attention and be

(40:21):
on the ball. And that's kind of my last
thought here. Any other last thoughts on this
topic before we we move on? Yeah, I do have someone to say
because what you saying, right. A lot of that stuff, some of the
stuff I learned from church. But yeah, because I remember
when I went to a church camp, I was like, I guess you call it
chaperone. But what they do is they they
show the videos before and they actually, yeah, most of the

(40:43):
people that's like touching kidsand with us.
And there's always like actuallya family member.
And then so I'm gonna lead into that.
And then there's another time. I was just curious.
So one time I was curious about my apartments and I was like, he
almost checked the sex offender list thing.
I'm just going to see what's on man, man.
So I checked on the list. I was in one apartment and I saw

(41:06):
this guy and literally I see this guy like every morning and
I didn't know. He stayed like literally like an
apartment above me. And then he had kids, but it
looked like I don't know if he like what the deal was.
It's probably like some young girl, and I think he was a
little bit older. It looked like that, but I was
like, damn, I can't believe thisdude is really on.

(41:27):
I never asked him or anything like that.
And shortly after that, I don't know what happened, but he moved
out and I was like, OK, I don't know what the deal was.
But yeah, I think you should always just be mindful and stuff
like that because even like teaching, like talking to my
kids about like sex Ed and stuff.
Like it was actually kind of funny when I had to talk to my
kids because my older son, I talked to him, but my younger

(41:49):
son, I hadn't because he's 6. But what happened was I was
actually out of town. And then they're like, hey,
we're going to show this video. I was like, oh damn.
I was like, I'm out of town right now.
So then I was like, OK, go aheadand show the video.
I talked to him real quick, likebriefly.
I was like, OK, I'm going to call him up, talk to him.
Daddy ain't going to be back in town for another couple of
weeks. And then I would say probably
maybe like 6 months after that, I said, look, man, I'm going to

(42:10):
tell you the religious way. Wait till you get married and
then I'm gonna tell you the other way too.
You know, you go out there, get the itchy scratchy or something
like that. I can't help you, but you need
to wait till you get married. But I know you probably ain't
gonna do that. So I'm gonna tell you like this.
But you come over there, somebody you got bumps and
scratching, I'm gonna be like daddy so, so don't know what to

(42:30):
tell you. So you got to keep it real with
them. But yeah, that's not too saying.
I love it, I love it. Any other?
Any other closing thoughts or amI good to move us on?
I can't say. But last thing really quickly is
I would encourage if anybody anyparents are are listening to
this that do not let fear or awkwardness keep you from having

(42:53):
these conversations. It's just in human behavior.
That's generally why people avoid this is too important to
allow that to happen. If you do feel unprepared for
it, there are resources out there and like Jay said, you
could probably e-mail any one ofus and certainly me like can

(43:14):
point you to solid basic age appropriate resources that are
very actionable for any parent. Love it.
I love it. Well, guys, and now that the
opening dad news of the week warmed us up a little bit, I, I
didn't think we were going to gofor 40 minutes on that topic.
Hey 3. Minute.
Warm up, I was a little warm up there.

(43:34):
Just get you guys going a littlebit.
What? Happens when you put a bunch of
talkers in the same room. I know I literally put 6-6
people who who do podcast or podcast guests or social media
all together on one thing. So I it's OK, We're learning,
right? We're learning and I think it's
good though this discussion is fantastic.
We went deep into it. A lot of similar thoughts,
different thoughts, you know, things like that.

(43:56):
I think it's great. So now that we're warmed up,
let's get into why we're here. Everyone brought something to
the table. Could be a story, a question,
hot take, a struggle. We'll go around.
Each one of us is going to bringit up.
We'll chop it up together. No wrong answers, no filters,
just real conversation. So that's the preferences for
the listeners. So we're going to go down and

(44:16):
we're going to have our round table discussion.
Now what? Not the itchy Scratchy, Demetria
said in the chat. That's that was the first time
I've ever heard that I was. I was over here cracking up bro.
Title, title. Not the itchy scratchy, not the
itchy or got the itchy scratchy.Title, title, title suggestion

(44:37):
right there. Or the damn bird.
Or the damn bird could be another one here.
Don't mind the bird. Anyways.
OK, I'm just gonna start. I don't have these in any
particular order, so does anyonewant to shoot their shot first
with their topic that they brought to the table today?
Or I can volunteer somebody volunteer.

(44:58):
Not everyone at not everyone at once.
Now come on now. I'll always go first if nobody
goes so. Like, yeah, just pick Eric.
You were you were first on the list, though.
So Erica. Oh, I see.
It's. Meant to be Eric.
It was meant to be that you saidthat, so make.
Sure, your bird can chime in along the way.
And it must have got the itchy scratchy.

(45:18):
No, I've never had no issue. It's craziness.
Anyways, Eric, go ahead and shoot us with your topic what
you want to bring to the table today.
So I don't have it right in front of me.
My wife is currently using my phone.
So. Oh, thank you.
I appreciate that. All right, so here we go.
Producer teamwork. Right there, producer.

(45:40):
So what I wanted to bring to thetable was how the relationship
between the parents impact our children.
This is one that's very like near and dear to my heart,
especially because the environment that I grew up in, I
didn't have. I only grew up with my mom and
my mom always had different boyfriends.

(46:02):
And my mom isn't a person that is a good communicator almost at
all, at least when I was a kid. She's a lot better now, so I'll
give her some kudos for that. But they used to have these
really, really nasty fights all the time.
I used to watch my mom get beat on.
We, my sister and I, were the two older siblings, and then I

(46:24):
have a younger brother. But we, my sister and I, used to
get into fights with her boyfriends and things of that
nature, whether it was to stop them from beating on her or
beating on us, that kind of thing.
But I never noticed how that affected me until I became an
adult. And the first time I ever

(46:46):
noticed it was I got into a really, really bad argument with
my girlfriend at the time, but she is now my wife.
And I got I just, I all I could see was red and I, I didn't put
my hands on her, but the way that I talked to her, I crossed
the line and ultimately I tried to leave.

(47:11):
Well, I after I crossed the line, I got shoved into the wall
and she put me through the wall like the outline of my ass had
bust through the wall 'cause shepushed me so hard.
And this is where like, like I had realized that like I, I was
having an issue dealing with just my anger and, and my anger

(47:34):
within having conflict. And later on in life, we had
another big argument and this time my children, I have
multiple children now. I have all of them now, at the
time, my son was only a couple months old, so he doesn't
remember this. But now we're talking about 3
years ago. So all of my children were here.

(47:55):
And I got into this one really, really bad argument with my wife
and I. I ripped the banister off the
wall. I broke our vacuum cleaner from
kicking it. And I also broke like like an
electric like heater, electric space heater in the process of

(48:16):
leaving the house and storming out because I was so frustrated.
And my wife told me that my son said something to her after I
had left and she was crying. And, and essentially I realized
in that moment that I had left my my child's son to console my
wife in a time of emotional need.

(48:38):
And it took for me to get to that point to realize that my
behavior in our relationship wasaffecting my children.
And not only my children, but the way that they see us see me
and are going to think this is what a relationship looks like,

(48:59):
much like how it turned out for me and I had to do.
I went to therapy for two years to start working through being
able to process my anger and being a better communicator so
that way I wouldn't continue thecycle that I had to endure as a
child and then ultimately into my young adulthood.

(49:24):
So I say all that to say, you know, I'm not sure if anybody's
had like conflict with their significant other, but our
children are always watching andthey're always listening.
And we have to be mindful of that in moments where we're,
we're having our normal human emotions, even if they're big

(49:45):
emotions, but they're always watching and they're always
listening. I really wanted to bring that to
the table. Maybe you guys have some stuff
that you'd like to add on a you know, good communication,
healthy communication amongst the parents in the household.
Well, I think it's worth naming just out the gate that what we
don't want to do is overcorrect in the opposite direction and

(50:07):
just in front of our kids, put on this facade and always
pretend like everything is fine.And that's what a lot of parents
will do is they will put on the face and like everything.
But then like behind there is the tension and it creates this
inauthenticity. And what it also does is it

(50:27):
creates this false understandingof reality for the child that
when they start to feel big emotions, but they never saw big
emotions navigated in a healthy way, they're going to think
something's wrong with them or they're going to be ill equipped
to navigate it. And so I think it's worth naming
out the gate that we're not saying just off the leash.

(50:50):
And we're also saying, not saying hide it all away.
Like how? Do we find?
This healthy in between space. That, that's always, that's
always the tough part because now, now my wife and I are at a
point in our lives where it's like we might have
disagreements, but we don't havefights.
And even if the, the disagreement gets a little loud,

(51:12):
you know, we, we still know thatwe love each other first and
foremost, so that we're not going to let this one battle,
you know, derail everything. That's first and foremost.
At that time in our lives, that was a big thing where it's like
it always felt like a make or break kind of thing.
And then the second thing is you're right, because seeing

(51:32):
conflict is also a healthy thingbecause if they've never seen it
and they've never seen it process and work through, then
they don't know what that looks like for themselves either.
So I'm, I'm glad you brought up that point.
Yeah. How's it going, Jay?
I mean, I hope you're prepared to go for like 2 hours.
This is this. I'm so glad I'm ready.

(51:54):
I, I think this, this topic is so important, right?
I, I, I think this topic that, that Eric brought up is, is so
important, right? Because I, I think it's, it's
really overlooked in a lot of situations, a lot of
relationships, this is highly overlooked to where we, we get,

(52:15):
we get complacent, right? We get comfortable, we get busy,
we get, you know, we just get, we just get, I think complacency
is the best way to say it. And we just, you know, kind of
forget how we're, how we're supposed to interact and things
get LAX or we forget that, Oh, shoot, like I forget who I'm
talking to because I'm talking to so many people all day that

(52:38):
oh, I, I forgot that this you, you're this person, you're,
you're up here. Everyone else is kind of down
here. You should be like way up here,
but I'm talking to you like you're down here.
And we we get that mixed up. And so I think that's where we
we forget that. And then when our kids, like you
mentioned, our kids see us, you know, interacting a certain way
all the time together, that's what they're then going to

(53:00):
mimic. That's what they're going to
learn from. That's how they're going to
treat their mother, or that's how they're going to treat the
women in life or the men in their lives for our daughters
and what not, right? And for our sons, how they treat
the women in their lives. And so it's it all, it all flows
from us, right? It all comes from where the
waterfall that's going down downthe Ridge into their river,

(53:20):
right. Whatever our waterfalls pouring
down is what they're going to pick up and what how their river
is going to flow. And I so I think that's really
important to remember. But no, it's such a great topic.
Mike, go ahead. Yeah, it's a thanks.
It's an awesome topic. I he got with so many directions
with this. But for I wants to air.
Good on you man, for bringing upsomething vulnerable and you're

(53:44):
taking ownership, you know, to give us an example of a
situation from which you learn that we can then use as a
platform to talk about somethingthat is extremely important and,
and, and a huge part of my worldand my work.
So something about which I'm very, very passionate and it
takes vulnerability to do that. So I just respect that from you.

(54:08):
Thank you A. Lot of thoughts come up for me.
One is that obviously, like it has been said, kids notice
everything. And I think even some very
educated parents overlook how young that starts because they

(54:30):
are not just learning behaviors from us.
You know, they're not just like watching how mom and dad
interact and deciphering, OK, this is how male, female inter,
you know, interactions go and marriages work and that kind of
thing. They are learning how to feel.
Their neurobiology is literally,I mean, it's very, very much

(54:52):
still forming, you know, in young children.
I consider our number one job asparents to be providing, you
know, the basic human needs for our children.
And as children safety and security is one that they cannot

(55:12):
provide for themselves. So that's our job to provide
that safety and security until they can provide for themselves.
Things like explosive fighting around your children is more
than them just seeing bad behavior model.
It's creating fear. You know, and I know some, this

(55:37):
is a a buzzword for some people in the way or another, but it is
absolutely a trauma in, in that it is impactful on their
developing neurobiology and the way that their brain will
process fear for the rest of their lives.

(55:59):
That's a pretty huge impact. It's that's a lot of
responsibility, you know, that we can have.
Yeah. I think really by just utilizing
our keeping ourselves healthy and keeping our communication,
you know, at a standard with which we're comfortable.

(56:22):
So, you know, living by our values basically like as much as
we can all the time is the easiest way to ensure that bad
things don't bleed into or, you know, our marriage or our
relationships or that we get complacent, like Jason.
So keeping ourselves well, you know, and being intentional in

(56:47):
the way that we communicate withother people, I think
immediately will translate and pay dividends in terms of what
our children pick up from us. I I don't want to dominate the
conversation because I really could talk about this forever,
but you're good. Mike Casey, what you got?
I think one of the things through couples therapy that
I've, my clients have found mosthelpful that I actually didn't

(57:11):
come up with myself, but I wish I would have because it's
brilliant, is having like a 30 minute to an hour business
meeting with our spouse every every week, which can kind of
like encapsulate all the negative emotion that comes
along with having a roommate. All the conversations about
schedules and, you know, child care and the household and all

(57:34):
those things can be sort of like, well, I can defer this
argument or in some cases nagging, depending on who you're
talking about, to that Sunday meeting.
And it's like a date on the calendar that you keep every
week. And if I can sort of defer to
that time, that opens up my ability to communicate with not

(57:56):
only even like the thought process of that deflection gives
us some physiological reaction. Like I did something about it,
even if I just told myself like I'm going to do this later or
I'm going to talk about this later.
That even does something in hardwiring us to like re engage
the executive instead of the threat.

(58:18):
You know how security guards arelike they look inept at every
store that you go into. You are deferring all of your
your knowledge and skills onto the security department instead
of the executives in the in the upper offices.
If we just respond with that amygdala instantaneous impulse,

(58:39):
but when we can defer to the Sunday meeting or whatever day
it happens to be, then we can sort of encapsulate that
negative emotion logically. Think about like, what is
actually valuable here? What is meaningful?
What is purposeful? What do I need to bring up?
And then the rest of it, you know, pretty much washes out
because you don't bring up the nitpicky stuff, the naggy stuff.

(59:00):
You know, usually by Sunday or whatever day, you're like, this
isn't that important. So it is.
I wish I had been that smart. I could tell you who I stole it
from, but it has been really helpful for my clients and they
have found they're like, that was genius.
And I I again wish I could be like, yeah, I really came up

(59:21):
with that. But it it is very helpful.
And then of course having a datebecause I have clientele that
come in that are so enraptured in negative emotion in their in
their environments and in the relationships.
I'm like why would you even keepthis?
If my life was like yours I would leave too.
And I am the most pro marriage counselor you will ever find.

(59:43):
I literally think it is not goodfor anyone to get divorced.
Almost anyone almost so. But if you don't begin to
generate that positive emotion, if you don't have any reason to
fight, then we're not resilient.We don't have that dopamine that
is necessary in goal directed activities and being it

(01:00:03):
resilient against stress when the fights come.
So if it's all been negative andI feel like I've been nagged at,
and then there's like, you know,four other things that we just
talked about that only roommatestalk about because we
cohabitate. And now at the end of the day,
you know, maybe spiciness in thebedroom is off the table and I
feel rejected. Well, I don't have any safeguard

(01:00:24):
against coming out firing about that because it ultimately, you
know, I just didn't have the positive emotion in that
relationship. So date your wife or your spouse
and have a business meeting every week.
Treat it like a like a communist.
We all pitch in based on our on our abilities.
Treat it like a communist household.

(01:00:45):
In that way, this is the only promotion of communism we'll
ever give. And then and then the rest.
Of it. That's a fat guy.
That's an absolute fact. He won't get any other.
No, I will not. But the one, the one and only
thing. My house runs like a communist
camp because people have different skills, whatever, but
treat the rest of it like a romance and and really treat her

(01:01:09):
like, you know, novelty, newnessthat hits the long term memory
better. So I can say I love you every
day, but if I show her I love her in unique ways, that tends
to do better. So maybe we can dodge those
fights in the 1st place if we just treat our households a
little differently. I mean, we're talking about
intentionality here, right? And it goes back to what Jay

(01:01:31):
said earlier to the three PS or the three Rs.
Are we being proactive or are webeing reactionary?
And, and I think it plays out on2 levels and we've heard both
play out. So what Casey just brought up is
intentionality as a couple, as one unit, as a, as a team.
But I, I like that idea of oneness because that goes a
whole other level because you could be a team, but then like

(01:01:53):
get rid of players. But if you're like you said,
Casey, you are. Pro you are.
Pro marriage, not divorce, whichmeans there is this commitment
to staying bound, right? And so we can be intentional as
one unit who are we are on the same team.
We are working together even when it seems like we're against
each other. We are putting things in place
to intentionally function as 1 unit and that can have powerful

(01:02:18):
immediate impacts. Right within the other part is
what Eric brought up is intentionality within ourselves,
because if we're honest, the waywe normally perceive conflict
is. It's.
Largely the other person's prop like they, they're, if they just
stopped looking at me this way or talking to me this way or

(01:02:40):
doing this thing. Like if they I know I'm not
perfect, but if they stop doing that, things would be better
like that. As humans, we tend to put the
most burden on the other person and what we tend to forget is
this really, really hard realitythat we can't control or change
people. We think we can, but who we can

(01:03:02):
really have a large impact on isourselves.
And so Eric was talking about when he started to realize these
things, starting to do some selfwork, right?
Starting to figure out. Let me look back at my.
Past Let me look at my present, Let me figure out my future,
right like we can. Do work to try to understand how
is it I respond in conflict? What are my triggers?

(01:03:24):
Are there any past traumas that existed?
Are there any stressors in my life now?
And how could that influence howI respond to react?
So that's a big piece of it. But then the other goes back to
that oneness. How can I function me myself in
such a way that I am promoting that oneness rather than

(01:03:46):
expecting my spouse to function a certain way so that oneness
can exist? And that's hard because that's
going to take some sacrifice. Sometimes that's going to mean
dying to yourself. Sometimes that's going to mean
some long-suffering, especially if there is trauma at the table,
especially if there are mental health struggles, especially if
there is stress in the home, a job loss, a new child, all these

(01:04:10):
things like if we can grow and being able to say, all right, no
matter what's going on, I-1 havechosen to commit to this person,
period. And two, I'm going to try to
live that out right now. And every day like that in and
of itself can change things. And for me being, being a Christ

(01:04:36):
follower, I believe that there is this thing that can be
outside of myself that can play into it.
You know, Jesus talks about, I'msending the helper who can teach
you all things because I'll be honest with you, there's plenty
of times where I'm like, I don'thave the strength anymore.
I don't have the desire anymore.I am livid at this situation,
right? And sometimes God sneaks in and

(01:04:57):
whispers something that I look back and I'm like, that had to
be him because I, that was not me.
I, I had no love left for my wife and somehow is able to love
my wife. That had to be God.
And then learning, OK, well thenhow can I lean into that as well
instead of relying just on my own strength?
Because I know for a fact my strength is limited.

(01:05:17):
My understanding is limited. And so that that's the other
piece is an intentionality to something beyond just my own
capacity. And that's hard as well, because
us humans. We don't like to be dependent or
out of control, yeah. I think I wanted to say
something now. I just lost thought.
Oh, Casey, you're right. What you talked about the idea

(01:05:38):
of that weekly meeting, the business meeting prompted
thought for me. I just wanted to mention that I
think it's important to recognize it's not just fighting
that can impact our children, right?
Like they're receiving messagingfrom us in everything we do.

(01:06:01):
So for example, by my parents should not.
Well, there's a fair amount of fighting too.
But aside from that, the conversations about money I can
remember from a young age instilling a lot of fear in me
because it was just something I didn't understand.
And it's not like we were in, I don't think, a terrible
position. But again, we're creating their

(01:06:24):
perception of safety and security.
So even if they weren't fightingabout it, our perception of what
is a safe topic is different than that of a three-year old
and a six year old and a nine year old and etcetera.
So this wouldn't make that. And then Chris, did you have
anything you want to add on this?
No, I don't really particular bring necessarily anything to
the to talk about as far as that.

(01:06:45):
I was just going to try to focuson the main type of course is
roadblocks and then just how kids are interacting and what
they're doing with adults. And I think it's the first time
too. So I was like, you know what,
I'm just going to come in here hot and just go now.
I. Can roll with it.
I love it, you know that that. Brings up something interesting
though, Chris, because coming back to the Roblox piece, what

(01:07:08):
what if there's a scenario in which the dad's very much into
video games gaming, grew up gaming and all that and is like,
I, I see no problem with Roblox and the moms like I hate video
games. I don't think it should exist at
all. And you 2 are having to make a
big decision on this thing in which you are on opposite end of

(01:07:29):
the spectrum. So I think that's another pieces
of this as well as when it's notjust conflict between the
spouses, but the the actual things impacting the kids.
Are the parents on the same teamor are they button heads?
It's OK. So they're going back to what
she's saying. Paul, that's a So first of all,
I'm not even married. I'm divorced so that's a good

(01:07:51):
part but I'm glad you mentioned that.
So that actually brings it up because actually so when we were
married I think we agreed on some things but actually when it
comes to Co parenting I just tell her we just doing business
as usual. That's how it always gets like I
don't even pay for a phones or nothing like that.
Both of my kids got phones but she pays for the phone.
I thought the grandma's paying but apparently I was talking to
her yesterday. She's sucking.

(01:08:13):
My ex-wife was somehow buying mea chair because the soccer games
I don't have a chair so she can give me a chair.
But when we Co parent, it's whenwe talk about certain things and
stuff like that. I think because my son got
grounded the other day, I don't know what type of argument they
got into an argument about something.
She took his phone away. First it was six weeks, then it
went down to a week and then they wanted me to talk.
Then they try to get me involvedand I'm like y'all need to work

(01:08:34):
that out. So like when we talk a lot of
times I just like yo look, y'allneed to just get along.
I keep telling y'all that I saidwe talk, we just talk about
things. But yeah, I would say as far as
Roblox, she's never mentioned nothing to me.
She's with the Snapchat thing because I didn't even know I
know my someone to get on Snapchat.

(01:08:54):
And then he asked her, his mom, and then after that there's some
type of cold she put on the phone and like man, she got like
a tracker on him and everything.I was like, OK, 'cause when I
don't know if you ever seen this, it's like a, it's like a
Apple Air tracker type of thing.So I don't know how this thing's
necessarily works all the way, but I was on my phone one day

(01:09:16):
and I was like, what's this thing over here?
We got a tracker in the house. So what's going on?
What's this tractor thing going on?
So I had to ask him. Come to find out, she got a
tracker and she tried. I said, oh, well, actually I
like that. I was like, OK, because I knew
about it, but I never bought 1. So a lot of times I know about
what's going on, but I mean, forme, I never really like just as

(01:09:36):
far as parenting and stuff like that.
I can't really remember a time when, like I really had a major
issue. It said like the other day,
we're talking about paying for soccer and stuff.
And then I told her, hey, look, just hold on a second.
You know, we're gonna go half and half.
Like you want to just give me a couple months, We're gonna go
ahead and work our way. And she's like, yeah, don't
worry about it. I was like, OK, cool, we're
good. Yeah, alright, cool.

(01:09:57):
So, I mean, that's all my two cents, 'cause I know we some of
my parents stuff, but yeah, Paul, I like that question.
That's good. I appreciate that.
Yeah, I think, I think it all comes back to to a couple things
here, right? Like our relationship that we
have with the other, the other parents of our children or
whether that's in the home, whether that's a Co parenting
relationship or whatever that relationship looks like for your

(01:10:18):
children, whether that's with a step parent that's also
involved. It's it's so important to make
sure that's a a healthy relationship.
I love what Casey said, you know, have those business
meetings continue to date, continue to make it romantic,
continue to, you know, put do dothe things you can for each
other. Don't fall into a place of
complacency. I think is the biggest part

(01:10:39):
here, right? Because complacency is the,
what's the saying, like complainC is the breeding ground for or
bad, there's something bad. I don't remember how the saying
goes, but that's, that's a gist of it.
Like when you're complacent, that's when bad things happen,
right? Because you're not caring as
much, you're not paying as much attention, you're not as
proactive, you're not as prepared, you're not as
preventative. That's when you fall into bad

(01:11:00):
habits. That's when you fall into a
really rough time. And that's when things go to the
wayside. That's when relationships ends,
marriages end and whatnot. So it's important to nurture
that relationship, take good care of that relationship
because I think like we several of us mentioned, you know what

(01:11:20):
we do, you know, we're laying that foundation for how their
future relationships with the opposite sex is going to be
right. So mom, how you moms, if there's
any moms listening to this, how you treat your husband is
important for your daughters. That's how you treat your your
wives is important for your sonsand your daughters and vice
versa, right? Like it's all important, right,

(01:11:41):
because importance for our sons to know how women should treat
them. It's important for our daughters
to know how men should treat them and vice versa, how women
should treat women, how men should treat men.
And it's important for them to see those things, important for
them to pick up on those things,be around those things.
And just to, you know, to shout out what Demetrius said here in
the comments, He said working through the conflict, yes, needs

(01:12:03):
to be seen. Nothing is perfect.
I think that's super important, right?
To make sure that yes, our, our kids are going to see us fire,
right? They're unfortunately that it's
going to happen. We can try our best to make it
so they won't, but the day's going to come.
It's going to happen. We can try our best, but it's
going to happen. What we can do is try, right?
We're not perfect. We're not meant to be perfect.

(01:12:24):
We're not created to be perfect.But it's important for them to
see that repair just as equally as important it is to make sure
that we repair with them as welland go and talk to them as well
to see them working through the conflict, to see, have them have
those conversations with them and say, hey, I know mom and
daddy got into it earlier. I could tell you were a little

(01:12:45):
scared, you got upset, you were really quiet.
And then just giving them that reassurance as well and give
them that space I think is superimportant as well, just to make
them feel again, like Mike said,we're laying the foundation for
their safety and their security.So making sure that you know,
they, they know that they're still safe, things are still
good. They got nothing to worry about,

(01:13:06):
you guys work through it, they saw you work through it and then
they got the reassurance in the end as well.
I think is a really important step here towards the end of it.
Any other thoughts on this or I'm going to voluntell the next
person to go with their topic. Do it, man.
Good, good, good, good. All right, let's go to Paul.
You're next. Actually, I think this this one
works kind of a flow. Paul, go ahead and tell us what

(01:13:27):
you brought to the table and then we'll we'll jump into it.
Yeah. So we've talked about how we
kind of invest ourselves as fathers into making sure our
kids are safe. And we were just talking about
how we invest ourselves and to our wives to make sure that
relationship is healthy. And so the, the prompt that I

(01:13:48):
put out there was, you know, finding that healthy tension
between a dad pouring himself out for his family and making
sure that he's filled up. And I think it's tricky because,
you know, different dads, different fathers, different
husbands, it's going to play outdifferently.
There's that classic 90s sitcom troupe of the father who's just

(01:14:12):
every night he's out with the guys, right?
And, you know, getting, you know, that's how he's getting
his poured into probably not focusing, like Casey said, on
prioritizing the date nights andand all that.
Then you get the other end of the spectrum of the man who's
feeling very isolated because he's not being able to get, he's

(01:14:33):
not getting out with the guys for whatever reason.
There's a struggle. And, and you know, I, for me,
one of the things that I've beennavigating is, you know, 3 kids.
So that demands a lot of time. Our kids over the years we've
been navigating various struggles, mental health things,
things like that. I mentioned I'm seven years full

(01:14:55):
time volunteer ministry, everything that comes with that,
but had a really rough toxic ministry environment before
that. So there was some hard seasons.
We navigated miscarriages. Like there's all these things
that can be drained for me. And then one thing that my
wife's been navigating as long as I've known her is just a

(01:15:15):
really intense mental health spiritual situation that
happened nearly two decades ago that impacts her sometimes daily
to this day, right? So I find myself in this place
as someone who is constantly having to pour himself out for
his kids, for his wife, for his community and ministry, and

(01:15:36):
often not being poured into. In fact, a lot of those spaces,
sometimes it's not reciprocal, right?
And I have been thinking a lot about what does self-care is a
buzzword and a lot of spaces andit can feel like a selfish thing
in Christian and ministry spaces.
But there is something to a mindfulness of, you know, not

(01:16:00):
neglecting oneself. And so for me, what it's look
like as I've thought through what are some of the life, life
giving things that I can do. I'm frugal.
And also, you know, volunteer ministry doesn't pay a whole
bunch. So I got to navigate that.
And a year ago my wife for Father's Day got me a couple of

(01:16:24):
months of movie pass and then, you know, MoviePass was back.
It's I won't get into the weeds.It's, it's fine.
It's not the greatest deal, but what it has done and I've
continued to keep it is I'm keeping the $10 a month plan
because I'm like, that at least is forcing me to make sure that
I try to go to at least 2 moviesa month because movies I love

(01:16:44):
going to the movie theater. I rarely went before because I
can't justify being out of the house for that long or I can't
justify the spending when we don't have the disposable income
like that, right. So, so I'm trying to find these
ways for me to be poured into when being poured into isn't
happening naturally and organically.

(01:17:05):
And I'll, I'll, I'll close with this before the other fellas
jump in. There are, there's a lot of
research now about loneliness among men.
Men struggling to feel like theyhave strong, lasting
relationships. And the older you get, the
harder it gets. The more kids you have, the less

(01:17:26):
time you have, you know, all these things.
And so I think this is an important topic of how can
fathers ensure that they're not just prioritizing and being
intentional about pouring into their family, but also not
neglecting themselves. Yeah.
This is a a great topic, Paul. I think it's something that we

(01:17:47):
we've each struggled with. I know I can speak for myself.
And I think a lot of men struggle with this as well, you
know, feeling that feeling of man, how do I get time for me or
how can I justify being away forthis long?
How do I make this happen? And I think, you know, we're all
pouring into ourselves right nowby being here, all six of us,

(01:18:09):
you know, and I think that's fantastic that we're we're doing
this. But I think it's also something
that's so important to make surethat we're filled in some way,
shape or form and that it's OK to get away from the hustle
culture for a little bit and it's OK for us to just slow down
and relax and do something for ourselves.

(01:18:30):
We give, give, give all day. I know myself, Mike Casey, we
work in mental health field. And so we are literally giving
all day long to others. And so it can be really
difficult. And whether you're, you know,
whatever job you're in, you're probably giving all day as long

(01:18:50):
as well and some capacity, your energy, your time, your just
everything that you can conversations probably with Co
workers and people you don't like or want to be around and
whatnot. And so this is such a important
topic and I, I want to hear fromyou guys.
So who wants to shoot? Yeah, we're being too polite.
We're all too polite at this point.

(01:19:11):
I think we're all like, we're all, I think we're all going to
be talking over each other. I know we're all, we're all
hosts at the same time. So we all know like, OK, wait
for the other person. We're all trying to be
respectful. Eric, go ahead and shoot.
Came off mute. I think the the big thing is
recognizing that you need that you need that time because we

(01:19:32):
get at least I do get so used tojust filling up other people's
cups and, and, and sometimes youknow, it, it, it comes to a
point where you don't want to even get out of bed.
I know I have those days where the alarm goes off and and I
hate that I hate to hear it go off instead of being grateful

(01:19:53):
that, you know, God allowed me to open my eyes on that morning.
I'm just dreading the fact that I can hear this beeping is so
in. And it's those moments like when
I have that feeling of like, it's tough to even just start
the day that it's that time again where I need to, I need to
do the things that are true to me to recuperate and to be able

(01:20:16):
to have something to pour again.Because if I pour anything else.
I'm not going to have anything and I'm not going to be the
person that I should show up as won't be out for the people that
I love. So it's it's about I think the
most important thing is recognizing even before the cup
starts to get too low, you know,realizing like, oh, this might

(01:20:36):
be a good time to just take a couple hours for myself.
It doesn't have to be, I realized it doesn't have to be a
day, It doesn't have to be a weekend.
It could be just a couple hours.It could be you showing up for
yourself and saying, you know, tomorrow morning I'm going to
just treat myself to some ice cream after work and actually
going to do it. Even though as soon as you got
in your car, your wife calls andsays, Hey, I really need you to

(01:20:57):
do this. Just knowing that yo, I really
need to get some ice cream. This is this is what I promised
myself. And then show up for yourself as
as you would for the people thatyou know you're pouring into.
I love the hike. So that's always my thing.
Getting back into nature is my way to reconnect and ground

(01:21:17):
myself. So I'll go on a four or five
mile hike by myself, you know, sit in the woods, enjoy some
lunch by a river by myself. And and it just just being in
nature where it's just me and I just get to hear the quiet and
tranquility and the beauty of nature.

(01:21:38):
You know, you make a good point there about knowing the things
and, and particularly like, if nature is your thing, it can be,
you know, a few hours hiking or just getting like a few minutes,
right. And that's something that in one
of my harder seasons, I felt like I was really pushing me on
because I, I was well aware of how limited time I had to do it.

(01:22:02):
And I'm like, I'd love to do this, that I'd love to get away
for a weekend, but there's just no way, no way, no way.
And I felt like I was nudging, but just gonna sit on the porch
for 5 minutes. And what he did with that 5
minutes watching the sunset, like it hit me.
Because we think it's got to be all this.
But sometimes the tiniest littlesteps can have the biggest
impact. Yeah, I think silence is when I

(01:22:24):
remember to pray the most, whichseems like ridiculous.
I mean, you know, brush your teeth.
There are habits that I pray youknow when I do those things
naturally. But when I'm unplugged,
ironically, I'm gonna be on whatever streaming service this
is on right now, telling everybody you need to disconnect

(01:22:44):
from your freaking phone and not.
Right now, guys, don't do it right now.
Do it another day, another time.But we're not talking about
right now. Right now you're.
Not right now, not on Jay. Don't hang up on him.
But if you're watching my stuff on YouTube, you certainly should
unplug and go take a breather. And those are the times when,

(01:23:05):
like was said, I mean, you know,we read the Bible, but even that
habitually, you know, at the same time every day when we open
up those extra spaces just for silence.
And it can literally, I know this is how it goes in my house
anyway. It can be in the bathroom, the
only time that you have 45 seconds or for some of us it

(01:23:28):
might be 45 minutes. But if you can catch that
without your phone, you're beingalone in your thoughts is an
amazing thing. And most of the time, it's like
a breath of fresh air. But we feel like we're missing
something if we don't or if we're not.
You know, taking something in atall times and nature is a really
compelling way to realize that the world doesn't require your

(01:23:51):
effort to spin. You know, there's like birds
that fly around and trees that grow and all this stuff happens
around us without any of our input.
And it really is a refreshment. I loved what Eric had to say
about that. I relate to that so much too,
because that that's that's a bigthing for me.
IA theme. I'm recognizing among all these

(01:24:14):
topics, the word intentionality keeps coming up, right?
And and knowing ourselves in this case, I think is is what
gives us the ability to be intentional about it.
So like what does fill your cup?Like Eric said, for him, it is,
you know, it's nature. I also think there, as you

(01:24:37):
initially spoke to Paul, there is not a selfish thing about
self-care. Not a single thing about it.
And I have that. I believe that to my core.
And I think that it is. It's something that's not

(01:24:59):
really, I think there are a lot of things in our culture that
work against it. You know, there's almost like
some that selflessness is a virtue and that has some truth
to it, but it's almost like extremism in that way is
sometimes worn as a badge of honor.
I know I did that as a huge workaholic, as a football coach.
You know, I thought that was a virtuous thing that I was doing,

(01:25:23):
was just giving all my time to this one area of my life, even,
you know, that was benefiting myfamily and it was benefiting
young men and, you know, the program and everything.
But what I learned as time went on, and maybe Casey can relate
to this, is what happens when you neglect yourself for an

(01:25:45):
extended period of time. That's usually outcomes not
great. And that may manifest
differently for for for different people.
But I know for me personally that it is for me to be the
father, I need to be the husband, I need to be the
friend, I need to be the therapist, I need to be do all

(01:26:07):
of those things. I have to take care of myself.
I have to or I won't be able to do those things.
And many of those things that I value so much of my life will be
gone. So again, intentionality taking,
it's crazy to me sometimes talking to people like how that
others don't necessarily have a really clear picture of what

(01:26:31):
their values are. I've got a literal list and it's
dynamic and it's been evolving and you know, kind of changes
over five years. But like my values, I need to
know what they are because that informs my actions.
So for me, I know life balance is a is a value of mine.

(01:26:52):
And because it's, it's so essential to being able to
function and show up for people in the way that I want to.
Therefore, I am intentional in building structure into my life
to have that in place. Eric's out there hiking.
I'm kayaking my ass off. I aim for about like 40

(01:27:12):
kilometers a week out on the, the Intracoastal of of Saint
Augustine Beach. If anybody knows that area and
it's killing multiple birds withone stone, like I said, I would
say it's it's, it's a very efficient use of self-care for
me because I'm communing with nature.
It has a very spiritual element to me.

(01:27:33):
It has a very meditative elementfor me.
I'm getting workout. You're working.
I mean, I'm, yeah. And I'm a psycho.
So I'm killing myself out there physically.
Why do you think you look so good?
Guys, Come on now. And there's also a bit of a bit
of danger in it, which is also alittle fun, you know, where it's
calculated risk, you know, so. Absolutely.

(01:27:57):
You know, you, there's somethinginteresting that we should name
in this off of what you're saying is, you know, what you
just described is something you intentionally chose, you thought
through and you know what impactit will have and why and how
it's valuable, right? And I think it's worth naming
that there's a difference between self-care and self

(01:28:18):
medication because sometimes we can go that latter route.
And really it's not about filling ourselves up.
It's about disconnecting or avoiding or, and that can be
really health unhealthy. And so I think there is, we need
to have a mindfulness around that.
And one of the best ways it goesback to something Casey said
earlier is this can be a part ofthat business meeting, right?

(01:28:42):
Like we shouldn't just try to navigate this in isolation
because that's probably not going to go for many reasons.
But if you bring it to the conversation and say to your
spouse, hey, I'm just, I'm feeling like utterly sapped,
like I am beyond drained and I Ineed to carve out.

(01:29:02):
I mean, this is something that IA conversation I had to have
with my wife and I'm like, I'm I'm having to pour myself out in
these various ways. And I think these I prayed
through it. I believe these are good,
important ways, but I'm not being poured into.
I have to have to have to createspaces in my life for that.
And I didn't know how she would respond right, But she responded

(01:29:23):
well. Because she loves me and so.
She's like, yes, OK, what do youneed?
How can we make this happen? And so make that a collaborative
thing, like work together in that.
And suddenly now it's bringing you this other element because
indirectly now your spouse is pouring into you without
realizing it, right? Or maybe realizing it, maybe
you're right. Your wife suddenly says, oh,

(01:29:45):
this is an easy way for me. Or I didn't know that he needed
more care. I thought I was caring for him
well, but I'm hearing this now. And so, man, make it
collaborative. Bring the intentionality into
that. Piece as well.
That's great. Yeah.
That's awesome. Yeah.
You're having a partner in that.I mean, absolutely just
emboldens your efforts, helps you support each other.

(01:30:08):
It helps you have even more clarity talking through those
things, naming it like you said,with your partner.
Yeah, I think that's that's a great, great, great idea.
Yeah, 100%. And let's be real, guys,
sometimes our wives, they don't mind us leaving them alone for a
couple hours every every week. They don't mind it so much.

(01:30:29):
OK, let's remember that they don't mind it too much, too much
now they might miss us and stuff, but overall they'll it
helps them too sometimes, sometimes, but I would also say.
You know about your wife? My wife would clone me and or
stuff me if she could. Yeah, I was going to say you got
to take the kids with you. That's that's part of it, you

(01:30:52):
know, sometimes. Yeah, that would.
Have to be the recipe. But yeah, I agree.
I was talking to my best friend and we have like a Friday night.
Our families get together, the kids, you know, go have a rave
in the other room and we all play Settlers of Catan, which is
really sounds really boring and dull, but we've done it for like

(01:31:13):
10 years now and it's. A great game.
We have every week. It's the best game on earth.
But whatever, that's just my belief over here in my communist
household. But if you can set up like a
weekly thing, and even if it's with them and it's quality time
with them, you still get that refreshment.
And, you know, ultimately our kids will remember those years

(01:31:38):
forever that they played with, you know, our best friends.
Yeah. And it shows them that having
friendships is important, thingslike that.
But I was talking to my best friend.
That wasn't even the point. And we haven't had a poker night
in like 6 years. And I was like, man, you know,
things get hectic when you have kids and when you have a

(01:31:59):
multitude of kids, it's even worse.
I want to serve. My capacity to serve is reduced
if I'm angry and grumpy. And as I get older too, the
amount and I work more physical side work and stuff like this
too. So I just, I'm not as capable as

(01:32:19):
I used to be. And it's good to know that like,
my wife has my back and my kids are they love me?
Absolutely. But my capacity is running
short. And as the Stoics would say, you
know, memento Mori, death is ever present.
So doing those things while you have the opportunity is so
important. So sometimes we'll just bust and

(01:32:42):
go down to where you live, Mike,or near there and just, you
know, break the bank and be like, who gives a crap?
You know, honestly, this year it's just going to be tight.
But those things, you know, you can do with the family too,
because I would rather there's nowhere I'd rather be than with
my kids or the gym probably. But that that's it.

(01:33:03):
So if I'm not doing one of thosetwo things, I'm not caring for
myself. Truthfully, I'm not, so, you
know, maybe a friend's night would be nice every once in a
while. But also being with my children,
I've, I shouldn't, you know, recovery is funny.
I know I shouldn't be here. So my children are like the the
incarnation of God's Providence in my life that I shouldn't be

(01:33:27):
here. They're they're here.
Why on God's earth would I like,be like, I need, I feel so weak
doing it. It's like I need, I need to go
take three hours and I would, you know, I would probably just
prefer to take them with me. I don't know, even if it's just
one of them, you know, maybe oneof them.

(01:33:48):
That way the parental talks can be a little bit more meaningful
for them because they are, they're not triangulating
between all of them. But, you know, self-care can
include your children, too, or your spouse, you know, but maybe
a little less than the whole family unit if it's possible
that that makes it special for everybody, I think.

(01:34:09):
I was gonna say, though, the whole family unit might not be
self-care anymore. It might be a normal day.
Yeah, that's just a message Saturday.
Running errands at that point. Yeah.
But no, I, I love what you're saying here.
I, I, I think it's important, right?
We, we have to take care of ourselves.
We have to make sure that we are, that we're filled up in

(01:34:30):
essence, because we are, if we're, if we're tired, we'll be,
we're beat down. We're, we're running on fumes.
We try to have those one-on-one talks with our kids.
We're going to miss the mark, right?
Yeah, It's about doing it. If we can do all the little
things right, right. Then they're going to trust us
with the big stuff. But if we're so tired and
exhausted that we're missing allthe little things, we're never

(01:34:53):
going to get to experience the big things with them when they
need, when they need us because we're too tired, we're too beat
down. We're unable to answer the call
when we're needed if we're not, if we're not filled up ourselves
and doing those things. And plus, if they see us doing
those things that are important to us, you know, pursuing our
hobbies, pursuing our passions, going out on the Saturday with
the with the boys to go play some pickleball or something.

(01:35:15):
I don't know. Whatever it is right and going
and doing those things that we love and care about they see us
being active, going to the gym regularly, eating healthy meal
prep, whatever it is right they're going to pick up on
those habits as well because they.
See that behavior is the best the best teacher.
No doubt. Yep.
And they're going to pick up on all those things, so it's so

(01:35:36):
important. Any other thoughts on this I?
Do want to say this is getting kind of close to my bedtime.
As you guys may have seen, I'm acouple hours ahead of you guys.
So for me it's about to be 11:00and I got to be up at 6:00.
So I'm going to participate in part of this, but then I'm going

(01:35:56):
to jump off somewhere around 11.All right, guys.
All right, let's do. Let's get to 1 more topic and
then we'll we'll hit some some closing thoughts and we'll wrap
this thing up here in the next like 25 minutes or so.
So we'll go pretty quick. Casey, I want to hit your topic.
No offense to anyone, anyone else.
You know, we're hitting three topics tonight just for the sake

(01:36:17):
of everything, but that's OK. We're having a lot of great
conversations. No offense taken.
I've been in this chair doing appointments for the last 7
hours. I'm fidgeting and moving so.
Much a. Little offense taken, my man
you. Guys didn't see me biting my
cookie. It's OK, I have this little, I
have this little thing right here.

(01:36:37):
It's a little like essential oils, like inhaler kind of thing
where like give me a little jolt, stick it up the nose.
It's real good. I love these things.
But anyways, Casey, we're going to hit yours.
Go ahead and tell us your topic,what you brought to the table,
and then we'll hit it real quickand then close up.
OK, so thank you so much basically.

(01:36:58):
Oh gosh, let me just read. I wrote a little bit of it.
The contrast between fake freedom that's sold by people
who are like in the relationships and women are
trash and they're, you know, allhypergamous and it's up to us to
like just get ours. That sort of fake freedom that's

(01:37:19):
sold by one end of the of my space of the Internet anyway.
And then the opposite end, whichis the the fact that being
unified in a relationship with apartner who balances you out is
what it is to be able to accomplish true freedom.
And it's essentially the war formanhood and masculinity is real.

(01:37:44):
And whether we like it or not, it's taking place online.
And, you know, we have people who are foregoing meaning and
purpose in order to have basically as much multiple
partners and novelty as they want, as well as money, you
know, over pursuit of money. And it's basically the revolt

(01:38:06):
against feminism, the pendulum swinging back on on certain
fronts of of the Internet. And I've also been Privy to, as
I work with men over the last 13years, a great many men who've
had their children not having had access to their children
based on divorces, not having had access to part of their

(01:38:29):
fortunes. Or, you know, other ways that
men have been disabused when they do get into relationships
with women that, you know, may have had I'll intention or maybe
they just, you know, are responding to the times and left
them. So basically the war for
masculinity is being waged whether we like it or not.

(01:38:51):
And I think all the men here have been a good representation
of what it looks like to have the type of masculinity that's
servant oriented, but also desire to be wise about our
decisions. But I'll be frank, guys, we're
losing. We are losing the battle for
what the next generations see masculinity as and what they're

(01:39:14):
going to take on. And I'll be frank again, the
birth rate is a direct reflection of that.
The lack of marriages. There was a survey that said 51%
of men between 18 and 31 reported having had no sex
within the last year. That's devastating and I don't

(01:39:37):
want men to have sex out of wedlock.
I would love it if they all werereligious all of a sudden and
that's the reason why they're not having sex.
It's not. There is a war for what
masculinity looks like and what relationships look like.
And I find that in my space I am.
I'm willing to call out feminismwhen it's wrong, and I'm willing

(01:40:00):
to call out, you know, masculinity when it's wrong.
However, I'm one of very few. Men on my corners of the
Internet that are willing to represent women as being an
absolute abundant good in your life.
And that is the battle for the future.
Whether we like it or not, it's here.

(01:40:22):
And I'm I don't know who else has Gen.
Z clients that you see the in cell thing, you know, that's
probably overused, but it's real.
You know, men are checking out at a vast, vast majority.
It's statistics. It's a statistical majority of
men have not pursued relationships.

(01:40:43):
A vast many of them have never asked a girl out in person.
And some of these things are because they're afraid of being
recorded when they ask your girlout.
They're afraid that if they do end up in a relationship that
they'll be taken. They're afraid that if there's
pregnancies, that that will be something that will subject them
to vulnerabilities. But the Andrew Tates of the

(01:41:06):
world sell a tempting bill of goods.
And while he might identify someof the problems correctly, his
solutions are far off base. But marriage and relationships
have provided balance, purpose, meaning and children to me.
And being a father was somethingthat when I was using, I had no,

(01:41:30):
I usually don't even talk about my recovery.
Whatever we started with that, it's been a, it's been a while.
Whatever. The same space man.
Yeah, yeah. So in any case, I didn't even
plan to have children, but afterI began being a father, I can
see God's design and how this iswhat I was always intended to

(01:41:52):
be. And that's part of the reason I
started my channel was to begin to defend the integrity of
fatherhood, the meaning and purpose that's embedded in
fatherhood, and the ways that mywife and those children have
balanced my wild ass out to the point where my survival, and
I'll be real again, I had a complete and total loss of

(01:42:16):
status, lost a job because of anInternet affair that I had with
a woman about five years ago. I lost my job, lost my
reputation, lost the nonprofit Iwas on, lost the boards that I
was on, lost all status. And had it not been for my wife
and children, her loyalty for one thing, and my children's, my

(01:42:37):
devotion to them above all, above all else, and if I was a
single man at that time, I wouldnot be here, I guarantee it.
And, and had she left me, you know, I might not be here.
Had I not had those children, I definitely would not be here.
Those are the ways that men are checking out with substance use

(01:43:00):
overuse. You know what I mean?
Some of these things, you know, we can't say on certain
platforms. But when you use too many drugs,
what happens to you when you self delete or decide to take
your way out? What, what you know, all of
those things are the result of not having meaning and purpose
embedded in the lives of men along with employment.

(01:43:20):
And the reason why, you know, I'm trying to fight to protect
this relationship, marriage, fatherhood, integrity triad is
because I wouldn't be here without it.
And I want that for other men. And I work with men every day
that are devoid of purpose and apart from God's direct

(01:43:41):
intervention in their life. You know, they may not get to
the place where they get to see and enjoy the steak and the
sunset and the putting your kidsto bed and being able to hold
your wife at the end of all of it.
Hard as it is, men are leaving it behind and they're leaving it
behind at rates higher than we've ever measured.

(01:44:03):
And I'm seriously concerned thatthere won't be anybody in the
nursing home to wipe my ass in 40 years because there won't be
any kids left. And, and I do think that part of
how we participate online has made a difference.
Now, first of all, though, my kids will be wiping my ass
because I've got four of them. One of them will, one of them

(01:44:25):
will be there, but someone's going to wipe this ass.
What are you? Kids, if you're watching this
later, I love you guys, you knownothing too harsh was that, but
I I want this for men because I love men and I love them.
I want them to succeed. I want them to thrive.

(01:44:46):
And I just think that it's God'sdesign that this was the way it
was supposed to be in monogamousrelationships with somebody who
can balance your wildness and risk taking.
And then having eventually, if God wills it, having children
that can also give you that whenall else fails that that one

(01:45:06):
last vestige, that silo meaning that will help you carry on.
Oh, no, but you guys, but I don't got anything to add to
that. I think that was that was.
Very beautiful. It was, it was very eloquent,
but it was very layered. There's a couple things I wanted
to speak to, but yeah, it was, it was so layered.
I'm not necessarily sure we're under attack.

(01:45:28):
I think that I'd like, I'll speak to like the, the falling
birth rates and, and men not wanting to get involved and, and
things like that. Like, I think it's because over
the past 40 years, we've been watching the man be devalued
across the board. You know what I'm saying?
70% of marriage, nearly half of all marriages end in divorce.

(01:45:51):
And 70% of the time it's the woman who's who's thrown in the
towel a lot of time. I don't know, 8070, OK, so even
higher. So I got AI got a 20% chance of
success, 20 to 30% chance of success.
And, and then you and then you, you tie into social media and,
and the Internet and them constantly showing that you can

(01:46:15):
have better than what you have and constantly thinking that the
grass is greener on the other side.
Even myself have fallen victim to it and in in my younger adult
years and teenage years and things of that nature.
And I've been with the same person since I was 16 years old.
We've we just made 14 years together last week on the 22nd

(01:46:37):
and six years of marriage this past July.
Thank you. But it is hard and there's it
goes back to all the things thatwe spoke about I think over the
past hour and 47 minutes. Whether it is communication,
whether it is finding that time to reground yourself, whether it

(01:46:57):
is people in the household not seeing value in what a man
provides, even if it is just a sense of security or a paycheck,
I don't, I don't know. Like I said, it was, it was very
layered. It was very eloquent.
And I do think that men have been under attack for some time.
I do think that where I disagreewith you is that there is a new

(01:47:20):
generation of man here. I know that from when I was a
kid, I'm only 30 years old, but I knew one person would have
father and he didn't have a mother.
So we all grew up with moms and he was the only one with a dad,
but he was the only parent thereas well.
So now I'm 30 years old with my own children.

(01:47:41):
Many of the people I grew up with, graduated high school with
met in my young adulthood that Iconsider friends.
We're all fathers. I walk around to basketball
courts and they got their kids down there, you know, and I'm
not just sure if it's in the area that I would grew up in and
I live in that I'm seeing the change.
But there went from a time whereyou'd be lucky to see one to you

(01:48:04):
see them all, everywhere, all the time now.
And for me that is that is very encouraging, not only because
I'm living it as well and I didn't have one, but also
because I know these people didn't have one either.
And they're still and they're doing, they're showing up just
as we are. And then I also think the other
biggest thing is I do think people are coming, coming back
to God. I know what the like, not that

(01:48:28):
media version of God where you want to use it to use it to your
benefit, but like actually growing their relationships with
God. And I, I see it every week when
I go to church. I see it all the time on my
social media platforms where people that have walked all
types of crazy lives have have changed themselves, have legit

(01:48:49):
went through a transformation and you know, and have the
testimony to prove that you know, they have been touched by
something higher than themselves.
So I agree with you on a lot of it.
I do think that the man is the man is back.
I don't think he's coming back. I think the man is back.
I think it just looks different from the traditional idea of

(01:49:10):
what a man is and what a man wasat one time or another.
Yeah, I think that's absolutely true.
There's a great book by a gentleman named Brad Wilcox who
the book is titled Get Married. He says that and his point was
that men who invest in like parent Co parenting really,
which is excellent. I love to hear that.

(01:49:32):
You know, you go to the basketball game and you see all
the dads there. That's so important, and that
is. Different because they'd.
Be cooking out on the town, doing something else 30 years
ago probably. And that may be the reason why
so many of these marriages weren't successful.
Boomers couldn't show us a successful marriage no matter
how hard they tried, right. So I do think that men, men have

(01:49:54):
changed. And even the men that I meet
with in counseling have changed.They're better at being dads.
They're better at like social emotional stuff, which even
drives me crazy sometimes because I'm like, dude, grow a
sack and and go chop some wood and this would be better.
But in any case, I do think thatwe're different.
But his, his basic premise is that if you are a striver,

(01:50:17):
meaning you're like educated or business oriented and that type
of stuff, you're culturally conservative and you go to
church, then your marriages havemuch greater rates of reported
satisfaction. So like much higher, like
double. And even if you have one of
those, because it could be any faith orientation or it could

(01:50:37):
be, you know, you're just associated with the
conservating, conserving your own culture and people, you
know, it doesn't have to be likeleft wing, right wing
conservatism, then you have a much greater chance of expecting
to have a happy marriage. And I do think that that was if
one good thing, maybe more than one good thing came out of this.

(01:50:58):
But one of the good things, veryfew that came out of feminism
was men are more active in the their roles in the household.
And it's not just like I work and I, I'm expected to do
nothing after that. You know, I mean, and I do
appreciate that so much out of out of what's come out of the
last 50 years. And now I think we're trying to

(01:51:20):
find our new, how do we fit intothis?
And you're right, we have been attacked in media.
My other topic was how men are misrepresented in media, because
I just did a video on this abouta month ago.
Over the last 50 years, I went from Andy Griffith and Dick Van
Dyke to Homer Simpson and like, you know, some other nonsensical

(01:51:43):
Yeah, I don't even watch modern TV.
Modern Family, Dude Who? Phil Duffy or Phil Dunphy.
That guy's a rube, dude. If that's a representation of a
man, get me. The hell?
No wonder people don't want to sign up for that.
You know, nobody wants to be like that.
A real man wants to be masculineand protect his family.
The culture has shifted and it has it has attacked us.

(01:52:07):
You can't say men's rights this or men's issues that and get not
get, trust me, you can't say anyof that and not just get
lambasted on the Internet. It's they they believe they have
won. What we truthfully need is
balance. There are good things my wife
brings that I need. There's good things that I

(01:52:30):
bring. But men, if you stifle men and
you become a feminist culture, we're reaping the rewards of
that in some ways, and it's not good.
Yeah. Most divorces are initiated by
women. All that.
Yeah, 7080%. That's rotten, you know.
And 30% by women. And the, and the expectation is
that they get the kids. You know, to be honest, if I was

(01:52:51):
a family court judge, I'd be like, mom, you get 8020 custody
until age 9, Dad gets 8020 from 9 to 18 because that's where the
training ground is for fathers. You nurture, they train, you
know, like there you go. If you really want a 5050,
that's how it's going to be. Psychologically, that's more
relevant than just going into like, Oh well, mom gets them,

(01:53:13):
you know, mom got them, and thenyou get the checks and all that
stuff too. That's rotten.
The system is rotten. So one piece in all this then
that I'm hearing is there's there's this nuance element.
So like, if you gathered 1000 people, over 1000 generations
had them define what masculinityis, what manhood is.

(01:53:35):
We're going to find that different in different cultures,
different spaces and media and so forth.
And that's where it can get really tricky because I was, as
you were talking to Eric, it wasgetting me thinking about my own
experience around, you know, typically in church, if you have
a men's retreat, there's going to be guns, there's going to be
sports, there's going to be all these things.

(01:53:56):
Well, my dad passed away when I was 5 and I found that I, who I
was, looked different than kids who had their dads.
Because where do many people develop their level of sports
through that male figure who's watching sports?
You know, for me, I never got into hunting because a suit not

(01:54:18):
long after my dad passed, I got a stepfather and he's not my
dad. And so I wasn't overtly thinking
this, but internally there is this resistance to him.
So the things he likes, sports, NASCAR, I wasn't going to like,
right? And that led me to a place where
by the time I got into adulthood, I didn't fit the
traditional masculine thing because in conversation, like,

(01:54:41):
I'd be around a bunch of guys, they're all talking about the
sports team they like. And I'm like, I got nothing for
you. To this day.
I just, I'm just not a sports guy, right?
And so when it is broad swept what a man is, people who fall
into these nuanced faces like I am can end up being harmed.
Now, fortunately, you know, I feel like God has been guiding
me through life of what it means.

(01:55:03):
To. Be who he's created me to be,
what it means to love my wife, what it means to all they care
for my kids. And but there are people that
I've known who didn't have a healthy relationship with God
and didn't have other healthy relationships and just found
themselves in this space of not knowing, well, who am I supposed
to be? How am I supposed to function?
What is my identity? And so I think that's one.

(01:55:26):
Piece where I see the power of relationship where.
It's not just like yelling at each other on the Internet, but
people actually getting to know each other and walking with each
other and understanding each other and hearing each other's
stories. That's why, you know, several of
you mentioned you're in roles where that's your job is to give
someone a space to process all this stuff.

(01:55:47):
And so I think that's a big partof it is we do not have a
collective understanding of whatmanhood is, what masculinity is,
but we do have a whole lot of division and anger and fear that
can lead to us to be reactionary, right?
I think the other piece of this then is what's driving us.
You started off Casey talking about this idea of freedom.

(01:56:08):
We don't even have a holistic understanding of what freedom is
because for most of us, what freedom is, is I can do what I
want to do. Nobody's controlling me.
And I think we're all old enoughto know that there are so many
things in life that have more control over us than we have
over them. Right.
And so I, while you were talking, Casey, I, I looked up

(01:56:29):
the classic freedom verse, Galatians 51.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by
a yoke of slavery. And then if you bounce back to
chapter 4 says formerly when youdid not know God, you were
slaves to those who by nature are not gods.
But now that you know God, or rather are known by God, how is

(01:56:50):
it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces?
And and all I could think of was, you know, we want freedom
to be nothing is controlling us.But you know, I believe we live
in this reality where a God exists, which means there's a
God of the universe that controls all things.
And if I'm striving to to break from that and I'm trying to

(01:57:11):
break from anything else, it's going to lead me to live in a
very fearful way or a very controlling way.
But what we've described is there is this freedom that can
come by choosing to be in a reality where our.
Kids. Dictate a lot of our time.
We have given up freedom over our schedules because of

(01:57:31):
something, because of this love for these children being in a
space where we can't just have our own home, where we had this
lifelong roommate who maybe is the complete opposite of us a
lot of ways or has, you know, things ways they function well.
We choose to give up that freedom because we see there is
something greater right. And so that's the hard part, is

(01:57:53):
there is a misunderstanding of what true freedom is.
And the more we mature, and particularly those who are
Christ followers, the more we mature in understanding who we
actually are and who God actually is, it shifts what we
think life has to be in order for us to be free.
And then suddenly we can get to this place where from the

(01:58:14):
outside, it can look like everything's out of our control.
But we have this peace, you know, the peace that defies
understanding. And when we bring that into our
fatherhood, into our marriage, where we're no longer driven by
our emotions or our fear or desires, but we're driven by
this love that is greater than ourselves, we can find some

(01:58:35):
freedom even as our kids still make bad choices.
As her wife still does. Something that.
Frustrates us even when everything falls apart.
We're not crushed, you know. Persecuted, but not abandoned.
And so, yeah, I think we, we love broad sweeps because it's
so much easier. But we live in a reality of
nuances and we are nuanced people.

(01:58:57):
And if we can be humbly honest, do some introspection, and bring
it back again, be intentional, we can find a way to keep
stepping forward in this crazy, crazy thing we call life.
Yeah, absolutely, old gentleman.Let's let's wrap this thing up.
I think this beautiful what you guys said on that topic.

(01:59:18):
We went deep. This has been a lot of fun.
I do just want to give you guys each one minute here to close
this out for our closing hot mic.
A one minute question on what's on your heart this week.
I'm going to give you guys each 60 seconds.
What's on your heart this week? What's on your heart today?
60 seconds before we wrap up, we're going to go around one

(01:59:38):
more time. What's one thing on your heart
right now? Could be advice, encouragement,
or just something you want to leave the listeners with.
And I do want to shout out Robert from Texas in the
comments of the live stream. He said totally enjoying your
podcast from Texas. Thank you so much.
I love when you guys engage withthe with us in the within the

(01:59:58):
chat and stuff. It really makes me happy as the
host. We love seeing that we all do
social media, so when you guys engage with us, it means the
absolute world to us. So I'll give you guys 10 seconds
to think about what's on your heart this week.
Actually, I'll give you guys a minute and 10 seconds because
I'm going to go first because I'm the host and I can.
So we need to listen. Yeah, so you guys get to listen

(02:00:19):
for a minute. So what some I heard this week
is a couple things. So I'm going to tie myself so I
don't go over here. Hold on, because I will go over.
Yeah. So I was I was at my daughter's
school this morning and it was her first day of school.
And I was just walking around and I was just looking around,

(02:00:41):
observing, seeing all these dads.
And I saw so many dads just wiping their eyes as their kids
walked into school, wiping, wiping their faces, kind of
doing one of these, a couple that were trying to, to hide it
like this and like scratch your face.
And I just thought, wow, this is, this is what fatherhood's
about, right? Like we have these moments, we

(02:01:02):
get them off to school and we'rejust, we're just so grateful and
we're just so thankful and we'rejust so proud of them, right?
It's just this overwhelming sense of pride.
And it's such a beautiful thing.And I love it so much.
I love seeing the involvement. I love seeing the, the
encouragement of dads and everyone.
And I do another thing just on my heart here in my last 15

(02:01:22):
seconds. I do just want to put out a
special thoughts and prayers. And we didn't get into it.
Maybe next time we'll get into it.
Just for those that were at school today, the first week of
school that were impacted in Minneapolis today by the the
school shooting at that Catholicschool.
It's sad, it's discouraging. Like our babies just went back

(02:01:44):
to school this week. First day of school for some of
these kids, second, third day. And it's already happening.
It's the country we live in. It's the reality of the times.
And again, it comes back to three piece.
Prepare, prevent and be proactive with them.
So that's my minute and 1/2. So I'm going to let I'm going to
shoot it to Eric. I'll let you go.

(02:02:06):
Let's go. Eric, Chris, Mike, Paul, Casey.
Do what's on my To Do List. So, so often I set A to do list
so that way I'm structured throughout my day or my days of
the weekend. And then I'll, I'll do one
thing. And then I realized, oh, I
don't, this is on my To Do List.I really don't feel like doing

(02:02:26):
this. And so I try to find something
else that is important to me butis not on the To Do List.
So for this week, it's being disciplined and sticking to
what's on my To Do List. And because I know at the end of
the week I'll feel a lot more accomplished about it.
Love it. And that was only 30 seconds.
Good job, Chris. Shoot.
Minute starts now I. Don't have anything in

(02:02:50):
particular. I just been working on stuff as
far as like helping fathers fromdifferent programs and stuff on
my website. So just been focusing on that
and just been working on it and praying about it and just
working on different things and just looking at things from a
different angle from different layers.
So that's what that's what's on my heart.
I love it. I love it Mike, the mic is

(02:03:13):
yours. I guess I would say at this
moment I'm feeling some gratitude just I have someone
who I never had social media. Facebook came out when I was in
college and I never had it, never had any social media until
I created an Instagram account couple years ago when I went
private. Practice was something I just
needed to do. And if at every turn been so

(02:03:38):
rewarded for that decision and surprised continuously that I've
gotten just what I thought was the opposite and why I avoided
it, which is genuine connection.I've actually just have
connected and met with people that I never would have had the
opportunity to before. And tonight's a perfect example.

(02:04:00):
So I'm really grateful for that.Love it, Paul.
Yeah, I just want to encourage anybody who's listening, who's
thinking, man. I mean, thanks for the advice.
That sounds great. But I've been trying.
I've been trying, and it's just too much.
And I bet I'm at the end of myself.
Like, we live in a culture wherethe idea is if you just know
what to do, if you just figure it out, if you just work hard,

(02:04:22):
then you'll make it. That's what's driven into us.
And when we hit those moments where it's like, I've got
nothing left, but there must be something wrong with me,
something wrong with God. I don't know.
But I don't know how to move forward.
The past couple years and definitely the past couple of
months, I have been to the end of myself.
Like just there's been things going on that I had no more
strength, desire. I didn't know what to do.

(02:04:44):
And yet I've been able to see the faithfulness of God, the
moments when I shouldn't have been able to keep on going.
The next day, I'm like, oh, how did I get through that?
And so that's what I want to encourage people, is we are
limited as human beings, even the best of us, and God is
limitless. And inviting Him into your
situations, learning how to trust Him can open up,

(02:05:08):
especially through the Spirit, things that are immeasurably
more than you could ask or imagine.
So I want to encourage the person who feels hopeless
because it is not the end. Amen.
And then Casey, bring us home. Thanks for the chance to be
here, Jay. And it was nice to meet
everybody. I really appreciated everyone's
candidness and conversation. I wanted to say fatherhood is

(02:05:31):
hard. And I think that we can often
times in, in our social media experience, try to advertise the
best moments and and make it seem like it's more romanticized
than possibly potentially shouldbe.
But know that you're getting a window and a picture into what
the best moments are like. And those are valuable and we're

(02:05:52):
sharing we lost our fourth childbefore we actually our fifth is
our is our youngest now. And God has redeemed that in
every step of the way. But we had the worst possible
outcome happened to us when you're trying to have kids and
ultimately the journey and the way that God has fulfilled our

(02:06:16):
hearts through our communities and through us.
Having our youngest now daughtercould not have been more
redemptive and more beautiful and worth every bit of the
effort that that we have put into it and so much more.
And then not only will I have legacy building opportunities
with her, but I'll get to see myson and it again someday.

(02:06:39):
My second son who we lost. And that is the ultimate and
best thing that I'll have waiting for me apart from Christ
himself at the end of this road.So don't, don't go into it
thinking that it's going to be easy, but I can tell you from
having had the one of the worst things happen in our family, it

(02:07:02):
has still been worth the fight. Amen.
Well, that's the table boys. First ever Young Dad roundtable
complete. Thank you guys for pulling up.
Thanks for keeping it real. To our listeners, make sure you
subscribe, follow us on YouTube.Follow this podcast at young dad
pod on YouTube. You can follow Chris at Kingdom
fathers world on Instagram, Ericat dope individuals pod.

(02:07:24):
I get at Kirvine Paul at where did you see God?
Casey at rumble dot right dot dad and of course, myself at
young dad pod where you're listening to this.
If your dad listening to this and you want to see it at this
table one day, hit me up. We'd love to have everyone and
anyone at this table. There's room for everybody, and
until next time, cheers and keepshowing up.

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