Today on The Breakfast Club, Montell & Kristin Jordan Talk New Children's Book, Kids Facing Their Fears, Parenting & Parental Guilt. Listen For More!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hold up. Every day I wake up. Wake your ass up.
The Breakfast Club. You all finished or you all done? Morning, everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
It's DJ Envy, Just Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha Guy. We are
The Breakfast Club. Lorna Rose is here as well. We
got some special guests in the building.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yes, indeed.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
We have Montel and his wife, Kristen Jordan.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Welcome. What's up?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Kristen Jordan.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'm sorry. Kristen Jordan. Sorry. Kristen Jordan.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
She is a Christian.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I am. How y'all feeling? We feel great.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Man, we are so good.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (00:30):
New children's book, Shiloh and the Scary Girl Above His Bed.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
And the not-so-scary girl above his bed.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yes, sir.
Speaker 5 (00:38):
You want to say on the cover, ain't no not-so?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Ain't no not-so on there? No. Maybe the printer right now.
Speaker 6 (00:43):
Maybe the printer right now.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Look at you. I'm going to give you this right there.
We're going to give you.
Speaker 5 (00:49):
The right one.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Can I get the real one? We can scare kids
all over the world right there now.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah, man.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Talk to us about this book.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Oh man how'd they just take the not so out of.
Speaker 7 (00:57):
It I know it was like they want something to
be scary so bad.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
That's how stuff get twisted up they be like Montel
and Chris is putting out horror books.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yeah this actually started with my son when he was
three years old he was afraid of the monster that
lived under his bed and the crazy part I was
like Lord we gotta fix this cause like he would
show up on my doorstep at my door every single
night I was like okay you gotta sleep in your
own bed bud but he was so afraid of this
monster and I was like okay And so one night
when I was putting him to bed, I said, baby,
(01:28):
what if the monster that's under the bed is more
afraid of you than you are of him? And what
if he wants to be your friend? And he was like, huh.
I said, I assure you that he's way more afraid
of you than you are of him. He was like, okay.
And he decided he was sleeping in his bed.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
And I was like, whew.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Okay, this is good. We can do this.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
Where did that instinct come from? Because I do that
with bugs. Like when my little girls be mad at ants,
I be like, you way bigger than them ants.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Them ants scary.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
Right.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Well, you know, the crazy thing is I think one
of the things we do as parents that is we
don't know what we're doing. But the concept of it
is that we will say, oh, that's not scary. But
the truth is when we were kids, we were afraid
of that too. But when we lean into it and say, hey,
what if? And it's the wonder, right? And to ask
them the questions and once they are able to think
(02:17):
about it and articulate how they feel, it's like, oh,
wait a minute, you're right. I'm way bigger than that bug.
I'm way bigger than whatever it is that I'm afraid of.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Yeah, it's flipping fear on its side because I think
we believe that unattended fear as a child can become.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Trauma and anxiety in human adults.
Speaker 8 (02:36):
And we see that.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Yeah, and even as marriage people that that help couples
in marriage, we found that a lot of their fears
go all the way back to their childhood, to things
about staying or fighting or being afraid of this.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Absolutely. You know, isolation, all those different things.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
It's so crazy because we literally sit across from couples
all the time and we're like, so what is going on? Well,
I'm afraid to stay. I'm afraid to go. I'm afraid
I picked the wrong one. It's like, good night. And
when we thought about that, we were like, where does
that come from? And it comes to when you have
childhood fears, us as parents saying, oh, you don't have
to be afraid of that. But the truth is unattended
(03:17):
fear becomes anxiety, becomes oppression, becomes depression, becomes not knowing
what to do next. And so we got to teach
kids how to be brave.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
I love it because it's about perspective, right?
Speaker 5 (03:27):
Because it's like, you know, it's not about removing your
child's fears, but just teaching them another way to look
at them.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
That's absolutely correct.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
I mean, I was like, first of all, if I,
my three year old at the time was a lot
smarter than me because I'm like, so you, you're actually
confirming that there is a monster indeed underneath my bed.
That's what I would be thinking. But, but no, literally
what we're doing is we're trying to take something and
flip it on its side so that when you say
this is a little monster, one, the world has got
(03:55):
a lot of scary stuff in.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
It right now.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Like, movies like everything is meant to scare everything out
of you and so to give a monster a different
face for children to be able to to be able
to gird themselves up and equip them for the monsters
that will come later in their life that are much
scarier than Shiloh but I think by flipping it on
the side and say hey Shiloh is a little monster
(04:18):
and he's scared of this little girl who lives above
his bed and like gives a whole different perspective of
his whole world you know I think to You know,
the genius of this idea to me with my wife
birthing this is literally if I think back to Charlie
Brown and the Peanuts, that whole world of characters. That's
what Shiloh is and what he's going to become, because
(04:40):
there's a whole world of characters that the world hasn't
even met yet.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
How do you know when you're not traumatizing your kid?
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Because you could have said that. Go back in your
bed and deal with it.
Speaker 6 (04:48):
And he's and he's traumatized for the left.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
I don't want to sleep on beds ever.
Speaker 6 (04:52):
That's what I get to a point where it's like
I don't want to traumatize the kids so much where
they're super duper scared, but I don't want to coddle
them too much where everything falls back and I got
a nine-year-old sleeping in between mom and dad.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
So I know when it's not going too far.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Well, the truth of the matter is, is that we
need to lean in. It's asking more questions and listening.
A lot of times we're so quick to tell them
what they're supposed to think or what they're supposed to feel.
And the truth is, is when you ask them the questions,
they'll tell you what they're really afraid of. Like for us,
we have five kids, five grandkids. We got a lot
(05:28):
of experience. So and the crazy part of that is,
is that when we lean in and ask, why are
you afraid? Because we have my youngest daughter right now
went to high school. And like three days before school,
she starts acting a fool. I'm like, what's wrong with you?
And she was like, you know what, mom? I'm afraid
to go to school. I was like, why? I was like,
(05:50):
you go to a school that you love. It's an
art school. She's like, what if I don't make friends?
In ninth grade. So what that does and what that
tells me is that every kid has fears, right? And
so rather than say, oh, you're going to make friends.
I said, you know what? What about that is scary
to you? She goes, what if they don't like me?
I said, you already know them. I said, and here's
(06:11):
the truth. You're already accepted. You're already amazing. Whoever God
has for you to be your friend, they're going to
be awesome. So lean into, I don't need a whole
bunch of friends. What if I just make one? And
so as we start to talk it out, she realizes, like,
I can relax. It's going to be all right. But
(06:33):
it's really just dialoguing with them.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Fear has an origin story. Every fear has some place
where it originated. Just like in the comics or whatever,
a villain came from somewhere.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Same thing.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
These fears, they come from somewhere. So for me, I
was afraid to swim. But I recognized my fear of
water came from stuff that happened when I was a kid.
You know, I was afraid of the the pool, throw
you in the pool. If you, if you make it out,
then you learn how to sleep.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I didn't do that to me. Like it gave me traumatic,
you know, I don't want to be anywhere near water.
Speaker 6 (07:06):
You could just stand up and you'd be all right.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
When you're six feet and he throw you in the
eight foot pool, you know, but no. So from that standpoint,
what I've learned is that now I have a, uh,
our youngest, uh, grandchild, uh, Koa, who's a little over one. Um,
she don't want to be in a pool with nobody
but me. I'm the guy that is afraid of water.
I'm teaching her how to swim.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
She's fearless.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Like she wants to stand on the side and she
just wants to jump in. And I'm the one that's like, no, no, no,
don't don't like step down first or this or that.
And I'm learning how to teach myself how to not
be afraid of water by teaching her to not be afraid.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
You know what I'm saying? Of water.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
So from that standpoint, when you say how much is,
it's not, I think you have to lean in. You
do have to ask the question and give them the
question to be able to figure it out themselves and,
Of not just telling you what not to be afraid of,
but showing you how not to be afraid. And one,
because of who we are and believers and people who
have faith, we believe that even if you are afraid,
(08:06):
that's the thing.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
We don't want to tell them, don't be afraid. Don't
be afraid. It's okay to be afraid, but do it afraid.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
That's correct.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Do it scared.
Speaker 5 (08:13):
I'm somebody who deals with anxiety. And one thing I've learned,
and I want to know what y'all think about this.
Do we actively teach children that fear is weakness when
fear is actually information?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
That's correct. That's exactly right. And I think it's the
leaning in that allows the information to inform your brain
and your heart how to react. It's not that it's
not scary. It's that if you ask the right questions,
you can proceed with the bravery and the courage. It's
so crazy. You know, we're believers. And one of the
things that always shocks me is that the scriptures is
(08:44):
a lot of times it says, be bold and courageous.
The only reason it would say that is what you're
facing is scary. Because otherwise, there's no reason to say that, right?
So like when we're dealing with giants in our lives,
whatever that may look like, we have to do it afraid.
But how do we do it afraid? We lean in
and we do hard things. It's not that we don't
(09:05):
do the things that we need to do, but it's
learning how to do it the right way and doing
it afraid and saying, guess what? It's okay to be afraid,
but I know that you'll do this and do it well.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah, I agree. And from that standpoint, when we.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
like I said, if you can catch it early, if
you can get to the kids before fear grabs a
stranglehold on them and to teach them.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
And like you said, some fear is not unfounded. Like
you need to be afraid of that.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Like I need to put fear in you in certain instances,
you know, when you want to put your fingers in the.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Socket or whatever. No, don't do that.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
I need you to be afraid of what will happen,
not only if you do that, but what I will
do to you if I catch you trying to do that. Yeah,
and so I think that it is important for us
to be able to give a healthy measure of what
fear is, but also to equip people to understand. And
I say people, even our little people, we need them
to understand that fear is not something, you know, to
(10:02):
shy away from, but to be able to face it
and recognize what it is. Because, you know, I think
the more you run from your fear or whatever, You know,
it'll chase you your entire lifetime.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Absolutely.
Speaker 8 (10:14):
Now, the baby boy who the story is about.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yes.
Speaker 8 (10:18):
How old is he now?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Now he's 22.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
22.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yeah, he's about to turn 23.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
At Morehouse. Yes.
Speaker 7 (10:24):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Does he get his royalties in publishing?
Speaker 8 (10:26):
No, it's okay. I was about to ask that.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Listen, he's the whole franchise.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Okay. Guess what?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
At the end of the day, all of this is
going to be theirs, right? So we leave a legacy
and inheritance to our children's children's children. it's going to
be good. And it's funny because we had him at
the release party and it was so funny. The kids
were like, he's so big. I said, yes, look, and
he made it and he's brave. They're like, I can
do this.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
I was like, yes. Is he still scared under the bed?
Speaker 1 (10:56):
No, not in the bed.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
It's the linemen come across the line.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
How would his.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
Book teach a child to distinguish between fear that's protecting
them and fear that's limiting them?
Speaker 3 (11:09):
It, So the idea of it is, is that when
we are putting our kids to bed.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
So this is a story really designed to talk about
the things that they were afraid of in that day.
And so what we want to do is invite the
parents to have conversations about what the child has dealt
with during the day. And so we want them to
understand that. When we have fear, it's okay to be fearful.
But what can you do about it? We can invite
(11:35):
faith into that and say, God made you brave. You
can do hard things. You can be bold. You can
be courageous. And really, the truth is, as much of
the negative words that we've said, if we say the
positive and we show them, because they don't come with fears.
They don't. Just like we talked about our one-year-old granddaughter.
She has zero fear, zero inhibitions. She will walk right
(11:57):
off the side of the pool, right into the water.
And so... it's one of those things is that now
we're teaching them how to have conversations, to pay attention
to what's going on inside them and note that this
doesn't have to be this way.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Yeah. And the book also gives the opportunity for parents
and grandparents and their kids to actually spend time. Because
I think a lot of times fear also comes from isolation.
You got a lot of kids that put themselves to
bed or a lot of kids that's there wondering what's
in the closet. I'm afraid, but, but there's nobody there
to help them navigate, you know, that. And so, bedtime, one,
when a child is about to go to sleep. I mean,
(12:32):
think about this. People are, you know, my young person
was telling me what doom scrolling is. I never heard
what a doom scroll is. Yeah, but people doom scroll.
And I realize, oh, okay, I'm a doom scroller. Before
I go to bed, you know, and I'm looking at, oh,
so-and-so did this, so-and-so did this. Oh, this is happening now.
This is happening now.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
And now I'm going to go to bed. Like, that's
me as an adult or whatever.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
What are kids taking in, ingesting, you know, all of
this before, You know, they go to bed. And so
even smaller children that don't see.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
The world like we see it, they still can.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Feel what we feel. They can feel angst. They can
feel if there's tension. They can feel if something is
wrong in the home. And so ultimately, we're hoping that
bedtime becomes a new time for parents to be able
to to give a piece before a child goes to bed,
to be able to give them a piece that when
you sleep and when you rest, that God's got you
and mommy and daddy got you and you're going to
(13:26):
be fine.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
And there's, you know, I think.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
We can set the tone and the temperature of what's
happening in a child's life early on by giving them
these tools.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
And the book, I think does that.
Speaker 8 (13:39):
But you guys, I'm so, I'm sorry, y'all. I'm so
damn slow. I am over here reading the book.
Speaker 9 (13:44):
Okay.
Speaker 7 (13:45):
And it is told from the monster's perspective under the bed.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
That's correct.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
Why is he scared of the girl when it's her bed?
Speaker 8 (13:51):
The whole time.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 8 (13:53):
This whole time.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Wow.
Speaker 8 (13:55):
It's a flip on it.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah, it's the flip on it. And really what we
did is we wanted you to see that really whatever
you're afraid of is usually.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
More afraid of you.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Is everybody just getting me?
Speaker 8 (14:07):
No, I'm laughing because I'm like, on this page, Jess,
when she.
Speaker 9 (14:10):
Says the feet, the monster is talking about this is
the girl's feet.
Speaker 8 (14:14):
That's why I said I was slow, girl. I was
trying to be deep. And then I was like, wait
a minute, I'm reading.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
I'm like, wait a minute.
Speaker 8 (14:20):
No, I did not. No, I did not.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
No, I did not smoke nothing today.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
This is so creative.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
This is dope.
Speaker 8 (14:28):
Okay, okay.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
That's a different kind of peace.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
I love that.
Speaker 9 (14:33):
I was going to ask, you guys are really, you're faith-based, right? Yes.
What do you talk, so you have your babies in
your house with your grandkids, but then your older kids, right?
But there's a constant reminder that is needed between both
sides of it, the younger and older kids.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 9 (14:49):
How do y'all talk them through when, you know, there's, like,
that fearless, like, fight that they have, but then, like,
the world, like, kind of, like, snaps that a bit, right?
And the fearless list leaves, and they're not as, like,
green-eyed and, like, excited about things. From a faith perspective,
what do you tell them about the things that they
can't see and control?
Speaker 4 (15:07):
I think we put everything that we, you know, the
Bible tells us to train up a child in the
way they should go.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Mm-hmm. So that when they get older, they will not
depart from it. Now, we don't know what older means.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Because it doesn't define that.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
It doesn't define what older means. For some people, older
might be 40. Hopefully it doesn't take that before they
come around. But literally, we have tried to instill everything
that we know that has worked for us in our
lives to be able to give them a template of
what faith is supposed to look like and what conquering
fear and equipping is supposed to look like.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Until.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
they don't have to live off mommy and daddy's faith anymore.
Like at some point your faith has to become your own.
Your walk has to become your own. What you believe
has to become your own. God has to become real
to you because he's real to you and not just
because he was real to mom and dad. And so
I think that with our younger kids and then with
our older kids, like we raised up our, Who are
(16:01):
older kids when they were younger, we raised them in
the same way. And at some point they question and
they got to figure it out on their own and
they have to find out who God is to them
and not who it was to, you know, to mom
and dad.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
And the key is to renew your strength and renew
your mind daily.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
So each one of my kids. Now, the crazy part
is my kids range from 38 to 14. Say that again.
38 to 14. And then my grand's from 10 to 1.
And I text each one of them every single day
with a scripture and a reminder of who they are.
Because the truth of the matter is, is that I
never want you to forget whose and who you are.
(16:41):
And to me, like, so, yeah, they get older and
they get grown and it makes them no less susceptible.
They need those things because the world is quick to
tell them what they're not. So I got to be
quick to tell them who they are.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Facts.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
And you know what?
Speaker 8 (16:55):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 7 (16:55):
You do that for me as well, too, Kristen. You
are constantly uplifting and encouraging me. She'll send me something
that'll break me down and make me cry, but it's
something that I need. You've been doing it since I
met you. There is not a message that you send
me that goes unnoticed. I mean, I get to respond
to it all the time, but I appreciate that so
much about you.
Speaker 8 (17:16):
I love you.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Thank you. My honor.
Speaker 8 (17:17):
My honor.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
My honor.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
To me, the Word of God, it comes alive. And
when we are able to pray and watch and help
our kids learn how to lean into that, then they'll
know whose they are. And then they become fearless. The
crazy thing is that no matter how scary the world gets,
that's the thing that never changes.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
What's something your children taught you about God that church
never could?
Speaker 3 (17:45):
That a love of a child... is one of the
most innocent and beautiful things that you could ever steward.
I don't think we talk about that in church very much,
but it is one of the greatest gifts that you
get is to see this person that you created. Um,
(18:06):
but you get to navigate them through the good, the bad,
the ugly, whatever that is. Um, And that I get
to be a good steward over this kid, but what
I pour in, I get out. When I was a kid,
my mom used to tell me, you can't plant peas
and get corn. So you can't put the negativity and
all the stuff that we get from the world. We
(18:28):
have to start with what we put in there. It's
going to come out eventually. They go through rough patches.
They go through rough times. But the truth is they
always come back and it always comes around.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
For me, let me just jump in there real quick
that I– I learned the most valuable lesson that I've
ever learned about ministry that church could not teach me.
And this is when we had first brought our daughter
Samantha home and she was three days old and she
wasn't eating. And at the time we didn't know what
was going on. And then literally she, baby started turning
(19:00):
blue or whatever. And, and we didn't know what to do.
And so we end up, you know, rushing to the
hospital or whatever. And when we're there, this is a
three-day-old baby who hadn't eaten. We were trying to breastfeed
and everything, and she just would not eat. And so
when we get to the hospital, they basically tell us, hey,
we're going to need to do a spinal tap.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Needle this big, a baby this big.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
A newborn, a three-day-old.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
There's no truth in that, ma'am.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
And so as a father, them coming to me to say, hey,
we need to do this to your daughter for her
to live. And I'm thinking to myself, they're coming to
me for the answer. Like my wife is looking at me.
Everybody's looking to me to be like, what do you
what do you do? And I had to trust one.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
Well, God, you gave her to us. And so she
was yours before she was ours. And even I don't
want to make this decision. Um, I have to trust
that I'm going to put her in the hands of
the people that are saying they know more than, than
what I know. And so I'd, the closest I've ever
tried to imagine what it is to give up your
(20:08):
child for somebody else, what God did for us through Jesus,
that was what I felt like it gave me the
closest understanding of what it is to actually be willing
to sacrifice, you know what I mean, a life that
you love so much, but trusting God in that space.
And so I've never wanted to have to do that again,
(20:31):
but From that standpoint, just understanding I'm not God. But
if I could get a glimpse of what he felt
like to give up his child to me, that's what
I got out of that.
Speaker 8 (20:42):
So they did the spinal tap.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
On the baby girl.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
But it's crazy. So at the first hospital, they weren't
equipped to deal with little kids. So I was like,
wait a minute. So now we went to a children's hospital.
Now when you're telling me.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Children's Hospital of Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Now when you're telling me, I believe you. But when
the first doctor was telling me, she was saying all
kind of crazy. Because I was like, okay, you have
to stop talking, lady.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
When she was in utero, whatever the.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
The, what do they call it?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Marconium.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Marconium was in, she had had it so much that
she wasn't eating because she had that in her. So
they had to basically extract the Marconium in her so
that she'd be hungry.
Speaker 6 (21:28):
I always tell parents to double check and make sure,
triple check. So something similar happened last year, Christmas time.
They told me my daughter would need brain surgery. Something
didn't sit right with me.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
And we took her out of New Jersey and I
took her to a hospital in New York.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 6 (21:45):
And when the doctors seen her in New York, he came,
he looked at the charts, he started laughing, right? So
I didn't find it funny. I'm like, what the fuck
is so funny?
Speaker 2 (21:53):
And I'm serious. What the fuck is so funny?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Stop cursing in front of the church people.
Speaker 6 (21:56):
I'm telling you exactly what's happening. So we were sitting there,
me and my wife's in, the baby's in, the baby
is wrapped up, and he was like, those doctors told
you in Jersey that she needed brain surgery.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I'm like, yeah, he starts laughing. I'm like, what's so funny?
He was like, she doesn't need brain surgery.
Speaker 6 (22:12):
It was like, there's nothing on this chart that tells
me she needs brain surgery. What she does need is
that she needs to clean out her, you know, everything
that's in her nose.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
Leaves up to it, her sinuses. But she has a
sinus infection, no brain surgery.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Wow. Brain surgery is crazy. That's crazy.
Speaker 6 (22:27):
So if we would have left her there, they probably
would have started with the brain surgery.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
I messed her up.
Speaker 6 (22:32):
And I still didn't believe the doctors. I'm like, two
doctors told me she needed this.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (22:37):
They did the sinus thing. And within hours, Face cleared up.
Speaker 7 (22:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (22:43):
It was the craziest thing. And it just made me think, like,
when it comes to that, you got to ask. You
got to double check. You got to triple check.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Ask all the questions.
Speaker 6 (22:50):
I mean, I called Charlemagne because they told me the
best children's hospital was in South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Remember I called you?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
I'm like, give me that number.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Can you get this? Like, it was that type of thing.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Because you're so scared. But I know you guys have
to go.
Speaker 6 (23:00):
And before you go, I want to talk about September
is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. I want to talk about
that before you go and why it's so important and
why people should get checked and how they should get checked.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
You beat it twice. So break it down to the
brothers out there listening.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
All right.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Two-time cancer survivor. Last time I was here last year
was Prostate Cancer Awareness Month and I was headed into
a treatment. I had my prostate removed in November of
2024 and then cancer came back in 2025. And so
at that time, I then went from not having a
prostate to now having proton therapy, which was 37 rounds
(23:36):
of this radiation treatment or whatever. And I can say
several different things. One, I am, my PSA, which is
prostate specific antigen level, which is characterized by a blood
test now. You don't have to do the finger checks anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
It's all blood tests. He still won't go there. Even
after last year?
Speaker 8 (23:53):
Yeah, he still won it. First of all, I've only had.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
One prostate check. Two fingers. I haven't been back. But
I need to go back.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
It's just a blood test now.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
It's a blood test. Very, very advanced now. Blood test.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
But from that standpoint, my PSA is sub 0.01, which
is undetectable, meaning I'm cancer-free. So thank God for that.
One in every eight men will be diagnosed with prostate
cancer in their lifetime. One in every six will be
African American and less likely to survive it because of.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Late diagnosis.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Late diagnosis.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
They usually don't get diagnosed until stage four.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
And so then now you have less choices.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
How often do you get checked for prostate?
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Is it yearly when you do your checkup? No, I
don't get checked for prostate anymore because I don't have
a prostate.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
How often should somebody get checked?
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Well, right now, how often should somebody get checked is
normally once a year. When your physicals, once you reach
a certain age for African-American, then you want to start
going probably a little earlier. They say as early as
35 to 40.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
It's in blood. It's just in your blood now. You
just have to ask for the test.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
But you have to ask for the test because when
you go just for a regular physical, they're not going
to check your PSA.
Speaker 8 (25:02):
That's correct.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
They're not. which is crazy. That's crazy.
Speaker 6 (25:05):
Cause a lot of people assume though, that when you
go to the doctor and they give blood, they'd be like,
everything's clear.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
You automatically think that.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
They checked everything.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
No, you have to ask.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
You have to ask for it.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
You have to ask. And it's super important because the
thing is, is the insurance companies, it costs like 70, $ 75, right.
For them to do. So that's why they don't want
everybody doing it.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Right.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
But the truth is, is it, Pills in comparison.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
They're trying to pass legislation now and do some different
things to get it like mandatory. Like when a woman
that they want you to have mammograms or X, Y,
and Z, they are starting to want men to have PSA,
but they haven't passed that legislation yet. Hopefully we're somewhere
at the forefront of that. But ultimately the goal is
now I go every four months to go back and
(25:48):
just have blood checked or whatever. And then at some point,
When I'm clear, you know, it'll be six months and
then a year. And then I think after like 10
years or whatever, then you don't have to do that anymore.
Speaker 7 (25:58):
I love the fact that it is just a blood
test now for the mammograms. I know, like, did they...
Can you detect that through blood? Because I heard that
they have to slam something down on your breast.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
They do.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
But here's the truth. So the irony of this is,
is that while he's battling prostate cancer, one of my
dearest friends was also battling breast cancer. And so at
the same time, like I would go to his treatment
in the morning and hers in the afternoon. And yes,
it is a mammogram like that. But the truth is,
is you would rather know. And because she knew and
(26:32):
she found out early, she lives. And the crazy part
is she had to go back and do it a
second time, too. So I was dealing with both of
these at the same time. But 100%, if you catch
it earlier, for women, the most detectable and fixable cancer
is breast cancer when you get an early detection. And
the same thing for men.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
It's survivable.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
And that's the key. We need, especially as African-Americans, we
have to get things done early. And we can't be
afraid of going to the doctor and those kind of things.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
I want to say this, too, just real quick. My
wife has been an incredible caregiver. And so I want
to shout out to all the people out there. that
are caregivers for someone. I mean, last time we were here,
you were talking about your dad offline.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
I would like to know how he's doing.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
But when you share what's going on with you, you
technically start to become a caregiver for the person that
you're navigating. So although I battled cancer two times and
beat cancer two times, she also has been caring for
me and for her friends and for her dad before
he passed away. And so the way that a caregiver,
you know, people will look at me and be, oh, Montel,
(27:40):
two-time cancer, but they don't get to see that I
can do hard things, but I cannot do hard things alone.
I said that last time I was here. And so
from that standpoint, I just want to honor you publicly
to the world for being there, you know what I'm saying,
for us to be able to battle this and to
beat it and then to be given birth, you know
what I'm saying, to this little dude, Shiloh, is pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
No place I'd rather be.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Congratulations. Y'all have to leave?
Speaker 6 (28:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Oh, I just want to ask a couple questions. Y'all
been talking about being grandparents, right?
Speaker 9 (28:12):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
You got five children, five grandchildren.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
What did you believe about parenting with your first child
that you completely disagree with now?
Speaker 2 (28:21):
I know you probably popped the first one.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Well, we were music industry people when we had our
first kids.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Those are old covenant kids.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Literally, you know, the quickest story of that is right
after we had our baby, Right.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
So right after we had our first child or whatever,
two weeks afterwards, we was on a bus that Biggie
Smalls used to have.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Called Big Shirley.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Called a Big Shirley. Yeah, man. It had a pink carpet.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Because it smelled like weed and butt cheeks. Because I
was managing.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
It was in the carpet. It was in the carpet.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Weed and butt cheeks.
Speaker 5 (28:55):
Not lies.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
It was in the carpet. We called it Big Shirley
or whatever.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
And I can remember being on the road with a
two-week-old baby. The heater didn't work. And so I had them.
We was in the back of the bus. It wrapped
up in blankets, you know. And so now that little
girl has three kids.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yep. You know, but she started out on the back
of Big Shirley.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
So from that standpoint, we had kids that were our
BC days, our before BCs.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
You know, before Christ days and ministry days. And then our.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Young kids got Pastor Montel and Pastor Kristen.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
They don't know.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
They don't know the big Shirley days. They don't know
the same. And and the crazy thing is is that
like um they don't they don't have that same perspective
right so the older ones you know they get into
they got into a little bit more mess because we
were messy but we're different now right so um i
think the the thing is is that now with grandkids
(29:53):
um it's such a rewarding thing. It's so much different
because we're different too, right? So, like, you have the
patience and the kindness for things. As parents, you're just like,
come on, let's go. Let's get it. As opposed to
when you're dealing with your grandkids, like my grandson is...
I really miss you. Why do you miss me? Oh,
(30:14):
because you're my favorite person, Mimi. You're the most amazing
and you tell me how much you love me and
you tell me I'm brave and I'm strong and I'm courageous.
So it's the words that I'm spilling over him, right?
And so he's longing for that affirmation. And what he's
telling me in his four-year-old way is I need all
the words, right? I need all the things to build
me up. The crazy thing is that he is that.
(30:38):
He's bold. He's one of those kids. And he's got
a thousand questions. And the funny thing is, my daughter
was the same way. Now, we used to answer those questions,
but I used to get annoyed by those questions. Now
I completely entertain them and say, tell me why you
think that. Tell me what's going on in there. And
when you ask those questions, man, he's so far beyond
(31:03):
what we could think or imagine. I'm like, four years old.
That's amazing.
Speaker 9 (31:07):
Was it hard for your older kids as y'all changed?
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Very much so. In fact, it's pretty funny because sometimes
with our new Kevin and kids, they be like, y'all
had it easy.
Speaker 8 (31:18):
This is ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
They feel like the newer kids get the better versions
of us. But I think our first kids got the
grimy street.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Yeah, for sure. Def Jam-y. 160 Barrick.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Like, they got it. You're still outside. You're just a
version of how they were built. Yeah, y'all still outside.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Oh, we were way outside.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
There's Jesus. Oh, Lord. And I'll just say this as well.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
I'm grateful that I didn't, and that we didn't abort
family legacy.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
Like, literally, when I look at the business and divorces
and how people, you know, do things to have fame
and fortune and the business and this and that, we
had a crossroads where.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Basically we could have divorced. We could have.
Split up the family and done all of that. And
for us now.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
To be married 32 years in this business.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Yeah, I mean, in this business, it's like 178, like
dog years, right?
Speaker 4 (32:15):
So for us to be here and for us to
be alive and to be healthy and still reinventing ourselves,
not just as artists and managers and not just as
pastors and not just as marriage people, but now as authors,
all of this and to be surrounded by With Family Legacy,
it's like, man, I can't imagine. It's rich people that
(32:40):
ain't wealthy. You know what I'm saying? And I feel
like we are wealthy because we have legacy that doesn't
have anything to do with monetary value.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Absolutely. Love that.
Speaker 7 (32:52):
Did y'all at some point ever have, just to piggyback
off of what Lauren asked y'all, did y'all have parental
guilt that y'all could not or wasn't able to give
y'all current selves to y'all first children.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
And you know, what's funny is that we had to
come back and double back and say, you know what?
I did the best I could with what I had
when I had it. And you, you repent and you
ask for forgiveness. And the truth is, is that they
turned out all right. And, and, and now you get
the better version of us to teach it truthfully. Okay.
So let me keep it a thousand percent.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Please.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Parenting adult children is hella harder. Because here's the truth.
When they're kids, you can tell, no, this is what
we're doing. They got to do it, right? But in
your adult kids, you got to be like, man, so
let me suggest that this is where I think you
should go. I mean, you could do your own way.
(33:48):
You can try and invent the wheel, but it's not necessary.
But you have to suggest as opposed to what I say.
It is what it is. Let's go. But the truth is,
you can you can help them teach. You can teach
them how to make good decisions. I think that's one
of the regrets I had when I with my older
kids is that I didn't I didn't give them the
(34:11):
opportunity to learn at home to make good decisions. If
you can't make a decision, I'll just make it for you.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
It's OK. Right.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
But the truth is they need to practice. So with
our new covenant kids, the new ones, we are like, OK,
so how would that go? You get to make the
decision and let the chips fall where they may. So
if they make a bad decision. OK, so now you
got to live out that consequence. And I let it
rock as opposed to before.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
I'd like it.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
That's a dumb decision. Don't do that.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
We were more controlling early on.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
I was dismissive. Yeah.
Speaker 7 (34:44):
See, I asked that question because my son is 14.
Speaker 8 (34:47):
My daughter's 2.
Speaker 7 (34:47):
And so the mommy that Marley, my daughter, gets is
not the mom.
Speaker 8 (34:54):
That young Ashton got when he was 2.
Speaker 7 (34:56):
And I find myself trying to navigate this parental guilt
all the time that.
Speaker 8 (35:02):
It's like, dang, I wish I was this for you.
Speaker 7 (35:04):
I wish I, you know, when he makes a mistake
or when he's, lashing out on what he's doing I'm
like I wish I was who I am now then
I put it all on myself and you know my
husband he he has a way of like yo look
no exactly what you just said no you did your best.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
When you was outside but you was outside it.
Speaker 8 (35:20):
Was different I'm talking about outside I had him outside
with me yes absolutely it was a lot you know
and I wish it wasn't like that but that's.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
What it was but they got built different too though
yeah because you're 14 years probably different from your from
your two-year-old.
Speaker 8 (35:35):
Definitely.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
And probably the.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Street smarts, the savvy, all the different things he had
to navigate was what he needed to survive those 14
years for that. Whereas now we've kind of insulated our
kids a little differently now, you know, and they don't
necessarily have to navigate in that. The world that our
kids are navigating now is what they're scrolling and what
they're seeing and cyber and all of those different things.
(35:58):
It's just different AI. It is a lot of different
things that, you know, actually live.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Yeah, man.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Well, we had to learn how to interact with people.
And we had to figure out.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Human contact.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Human contact.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
How to have conversations.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Man, that's the thing I think is probably the thing
that you have to force now is to make your
kids be able to.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Like, it.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
One of the things that drives me absolutely crazy, you're
sitting right next to me and you're texting me. Hey, yo.
I'm right here. Talk to me. Give it to me.
If you text me and we're in the same house,
I'm coming for you. I'm coming for you.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
I know that's right.
Speaker 5 (36:38):
What have your grandchildren revealed about you that your children couldn't?
Speaker 1 (36:44):
What have they revealed that our children couldn't?
Speaker 4 (36:47):
I would say they have They have been showing me
that our presence matters more than probably what our own.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Kids were able to articulate.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
So, I mean, you know, when I was a kid
growing up, I remember, you know, I just wanted to
go to my cousin's house.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
I wanted to go here. I want to sleep over.
I want to stay.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
I want to, you know, our grandkids. they're like, they
come over to our house, but they're like, I want
to go home, you know? So, so they love being
with us, but they, they like home. And so I
love the fact that we have kids that, that love
their homes. They love being around at home and our
grandkids are, They miss us like greatly.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
They do. But you know what? Now that you said
that and the question you asked is very insightful. But
I think one of the things that's interesting is in
our older kids, what they did with our absence is
they absolutely have instilled their presence so that their kids
do want to go home. Because they enjoy being home.
(37:52):
They enjoy being with their parents as opposed to, you know,
I mean, when we were traveling, it was it was
rough for them. They were either with us or we
weren't at home. So I think what they did with
that is they translated into the well, I tell you what,
I won't be. And so I think especially our oldest daughter,
like her whole thing is like, yeah, could I have
all the money in the world? Yeah, for sure. She's
(38:13):
so smart. It's crazy. But the truth is, she's like,
I will be present. for my kids and they will
never not know me to be here and she does
that well.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
Routine is interesting now because like okay so we're here
but it'll be like taco tuesday like our grandkids.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Are like undone where y'all undone.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
I put my grandson.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Man i put my grandson in the car on sunday
night and i said now i need to warn you
that mimi's not going to be here for taco tuesday.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Shut his world down. Why? What will you be doing?
Speaker 3 (38:49):
And I was like, well, Mimi's going to go talk
about Shiloh and I'm going to try and introduce him
to the world. It makes me so sad when you're
not here, Mimi. Why are you doing this? And I
was like.
Speaker 8 (39:03):
You made it out of that. And wait till he
turn on Netflix and see who you can sit down.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
And talk to. Blame Charlemagne. Blame Charlemagne.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
This is the monster under the bed.
Speaker 7 (39:11):
That's the one you need to be afraid of.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Jesus.
Speaker 5 (39:15):
Speaking of, if Shiloh ultimately becomes bigger than the book, right? Yes.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
We hope it does. Cartoon, TV, toys, whatever.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Your mouth to God's ears.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
What do you want a child to feel when they
see that character 20 years from now?
Speaker 3 (39:28):
I want them to feel like Shiloh taught me how
to be brave. Shiloh taught me to do hard things.
And I navigated my childhood differently and I became a
braver adult. And I know how to navigate my life
and my emotions differently. but what I learned as a kid.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
We did a, we did a reading of the book
on last week in Atlanta and brought a bunch of
little kids in. And one, I mean, it just speaks
not just to the kids.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
But to the parents.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
And it's, it was super, super dope because the next day,
all the kids that got books literally, and this was
not a, Hey, y'all do this. It was just like
kids woke up and they were like, I want to
see Shiloh. I want to read Shiloh because they associate
this character with bravery and And I think if you
could give bravery a face, you know, as opposed to
(40:24):
fear a face, they actually have somebody that they can
look to when it's time to be brave. You know,
when Shiloh was brave, then I can be brave too.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
We did this thing at the party. We did an
affirmation station. So we put up a mirror and all
around the mirror it says, I'm bold, I'm courageous, I'm strong,
I can do hard things. And the little kids standing
in the mirror going, I'm bold, I'm brave, I'm courageous.
It was so life-giving. And so it was so cool.
We had a little girl. Her name was Eden. And
(40:53):
she was three and she said she stood up on
the counter and said, I'm bold, I'm brave, I'm courageous.
And I was like, oh, nothing could be better because
these are things she's it's words that are washing over
her so that when she goes out and deals with
the world, it is not trying to tell her that
she'll remember those things and they'll come as replay for her.
Speaker 4 (41:13):
There's a kid who showed up to the event and
she was afraid, like on the way there, she's afraid
of the dark. And the parents are having that conversation.
Our kid is afraid of the dark. And we get
there to the part and they're like, yeah, this is
our little girl. And, you know, she's afraid of the dark.
And I said, well, we're going to help Shiloh. You know,
Shiloh is going to help her to navigate that. And
surely enough or whatever. I mean, I would follow back
up to find out if she's still afraid of the dark.
(41:34):
But I know that that day she got equipped with
the tools and other kids in the surrounding community to
be able to know, oh, I can be brave even
if I'm afraid of the dark. I can still be
brave and I can take the next brave step and
do something courageous to make sure that I'm working towards
conquering that fear.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
And I think when kids know that they're not the
only one, then they realize, okay, I'm all right. I'm
not crazy.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
I'm all right.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
And that's what we're looking for.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
I love that. Well, how can they get the book?
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Anywhere you can possibly buy a book, you can get it.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Amazon, Books A Million, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Wherever you can get a book.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 8 (42:13):
Both of my kids got memberships at Books of Mill Yang.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yay!
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Or pick it up if you're out and about.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Thank you for joining us so much.
Speaker 5 (42:21):
Shiloh and the Not-So-Scary Girl above his bed.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
That's right. Kristen and Martel Jordan.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Thank y'all for having us.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
It's The Breakfast Club. Good morning.
Speaker 5 (42:30):
Hold up.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
Every day I wake up.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Wake your ass up. The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Y'all finished or y'all done?
Hold up. Every day I wake up. Wake your ass up.
The Breakfast Club. You all finished or you all done? Morning, everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
It's DJ Envy, Just Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha Guy. We are
The Breakfast Club. Lorna Rose is here as well. We
got some special guests in the building.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yes, indeed.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
We have Montel and his wife, Kristen Jordan.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Welcome. What's up?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Kristen Jordan.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'm sorry. Kristen Jordan. Sorry. Kristen Jordan.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
She is a Christian.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I am. How y'all feeling? We feel great.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Man, we are so good.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (00:30):
New children's book, Shiloh and the Scary Girl Above His Bed.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
And the not-so-scary girl above his bed.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yes, sir.
Speaker 5 (00:38):
You want to say on the cover, ain't no not-so?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Ain't no not-so on there? No. Maybe the printer right now.
Speaker 6 (00:43):
Maybe the printer right now.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Look at you. I'm going to give you this right there.
We're going to give you.
Speaker 5 (00:49):
The right one.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Can I get the real one? We can scare kids
all over the world right there now.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah, man.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Talk to us about this book.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Oh man how'd they just take the not so out of.
Speaker 7 (00:57):
It I know it was like they want something to
be scary so bad.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
That's how stuff get twisted up they be like Montel
and Chris is putting out horror books.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yeah this actually started with my son when he was
three years old he was afraid of the monster that
lived under his bed and the crazy part I was
like Lord we gotta fix this cause like he would
show up on my doorstep at my door every single
night I was like okay you gotta sleep in your
own bed bud but he was so afraid of this
monster and I was like okay And so one night
when I was putting him to bed, I said, baby,
(01:28):
what if the monster that's under the bed is more
afraid of you than you are of him? And what
if he wants to be your friend? And he was like, huh.
I said, I assure you that he's way more afraid
of you than you are of him. He was like, okay.
And he decided he was sleeping in his bed.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
And I was like, whew.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Okay, this is good. We can do this.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
Where did that instinct come from? Because I do that
with bugs. Like when my little girls be mad at ants,
I be like, you way bigger than them ants.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Them ants scary.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
Right.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Well, you know, the crazy thing is I think one
of the things we do as parents that is we
don't know what we're doing. But the concept of it
is that we will say, oh, that's not scary. But
the truth is when we were kids, we were afraid
of that too. But when we lean into it and say, hey,
what if? And it's the wonder, right? And to ask
them the questions and once they are able to think
(02:17):
about it and articulate how they feel, it's like, oh,
wait a minute, you're right. I'm way bigger than that bug.
I'm way bigger than whatever it is that I'm afraid of.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Yeah, it's flipping fear on its side because I think
we believe that unattended fear as a child can become.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Trauma and anxiety in human adults.
Speaker 8 (02:36):
And we see that.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Yeah, and even as marriage people that that help couples
in marriage, we found that a lot of their fears
go all the way back to their childhood, to things
about staying or fighting or being afraid of this.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Absolutely. You know, isolation, all those different things.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
It's so crazy because we literally sit across from couples
all the time and we're like, so what is going on? Well,
I'm afraid to stay. I'm afraid to go. I'm afraid
I picked the wrong one. It's like, good night. And
when we thought about that, we were like, where does
that come from? And it comes to when you have
childhood fears, us as parents saying, oh, you don't have
to be afraid of that. But the truth is unattended
(03:17):
fear becomes anxiety, becomes oppression, becomes depression, becomes not knowing
what to do next. And so we got to teach
kids how to be brave.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
I love it because it's about perspective, right?
Speaker 5 (03:27):
Because it's like, you know, it's not about removing your
child's fears, but just teaching them another way to look
at them.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
That's absolutely correct.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
I mean, I was like, first of all, if I,
my three year old at the time was a lot
smarter than me because I'm like, so you, you're actually
confirming that there is a monster indeed underneath my bed.
That's what I would be thinking. But, but no, literally
what we're doing is we're trying to take something and
flip it on its side so that when you say
this is a little monster, one, the world has got
(03:55):
a lot of scary stuff in.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
It right now.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Like, movies like everything is meant to scare everything out
of you and so to give a monster a different
face for children to be able to to be able
to gird themselves up and equip them for the monsters
that will come later in their life that are much
scarier than Shiloh but I think by flipping it on
the side and say hey Shiloh is a little monster
(04:18):
and he's scared of this little girl who lives above
his bed and like gives a whole different perspective of
his whole world you know I think to You know,
the genius of this idea to me with my wife
birthing this is literally if I think back to Charlie
Brown and the Peanuts, that whole world of characters. That's
what Shiloh is and what he's going to become, because
(04:40):
there's a whole world of characters that the world hasn't
even met yet.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
How do you know when you're not traumatizing your kid?
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Because you could have said that. Go back in your
bed and deal with it.
Speaker 6 (04:48):
And he's and he's traumatized for the left.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
I don't want to sleep on beds ever.
Speaker 6 (04:52):
That's what I get to a point where it's like
I don't want to traumatize the kids so much where
they're super duper scared, but I don't want to coddle
them too much where everything falls back and I got
a nine-year-old sleeping in between mom and dad.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
So I know when it's not going too far.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Well, the truth of the matter is, is that we
need to lean in. It's asking more questions and listening.
A lot of times we're so quick to tell them
what they're supposed to think or what they're supposed to feel.
And the truth is, is when you ask them the questions,
they'll tell you what they're really afraid of. Like for us,
we have five kids, five grandkids. We got a lot
(05:28):
of experience. So and the crazy part of that is,
is that when we lean in and ask, why are
you afraid? Because we have my youngest daughter right now
went to high school. And like three days before school,
she starts acting a fool. I'm like, what's wrong with you?
And she was like, you know what, mom? I'm afraid
to go to school. I was like, why? I was like,
(05:50):
you go to a school that you love. It's an
art school. She's like, what if I don't make friends?
In ninth grade. So what that does and what that
tells me is that every kid has fears, right? And
so rather than say, oh, you're going to make friends.
I said, you know what? What about that is scary
to you? She goes, what if they don't like me?
I said, you already know them. I said, and here's
(06:11):
the truth. You're already accepted. You're already amazing. Whoever God
has for you to be your friend, they're going to
be awesome. So lean into, I don't need a whole
bunch of friends. What if I just make one? And
so as we start to talk it out, she realizes, like,
I can relax. It's going to be all right. But
(06:33):
it's really just dialoguing with them.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Fear has an origin story. Every fear has some place
where it originated. Just like in the comics or whatever,
a villain came from somewhere.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Same thing.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
These fears, they come from somewhere. So for me, I
was afraid to swim. But I recognized my fear of
water came from stuff that happened when I was a kid.
You know, I was afraid of the the pool, throw
you in the pool. If you, if you make it out,
then you learn how to sleep.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I didn't do that to me. Like it gave me traumatic,
you know, I don't want to be anywhere near water.
Speaker 6 (07:06):
You could just stand up and you'd be all right.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
When you're six feet and he throw you in the
eight foot pool, you know, but no. So from that standpoint,
what I've learned is that now I have a, uh,
our youngest, uh, grandchild, uh, Koa, who's a little over one. Um,
she don't want to be in a pool with nobody
but me. I'm the guy that is afraid of water.
I'm teaching her how to swim.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
She's fearless.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Like she wants to stand on the side and she
just wants to jump in. And I'm the one that's like, no, no, no,
don't don't like step down first or this or that.
And I'm learning how to teach myself how to not
be afraid of water by teaching her to not be afraid.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
You know what I'm saying? Of water.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
So from that standpoint, when you say how much is,
it's not, I think you have to lean in. You
do have to ask the question and give them the
question to be able to figure it out themselves and,
Of not just telling you what not to be afraid of,
but showing you how not to be afraid. And one,
because of who we are and believers and people who
have faith, we believe that even if you are afraid,
(08:06):
that's the thing.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
We don't want to tell them, don't be afraid. Don't
be afraid. It's okay to be afraid, but do it afraid.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
That's correct.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Do it scared.
Speaker 5 (08:13):
I'm somebody who deals with anxiety. And one thing I've learned,
and I want to know what y'all think about this.
Do we actively teach children that fear is weakness when
fear is actually information?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
That's correct. That's exactly right. And I think it's the
leaning in that allows the information to inform your brain
and your heart how to react. It's not that it's
not scary. It's that if you ask the right questions,
you can proceed with the bravery and the courage. It's
so crazy. You know, we're believers. And one of the
things that always shocks me is that the scriptures is
(08:44):
a lot of times it says, be bold and courageous.
The only reason it would say that is what you're
facing is scary. Because otherwise, there's no reason to say that, right?
So like when we're dealing with giants in our lives,
whatever that may look like, we have to do it afraid.
But how do we do it afraid? We lean in
and we do hard things. It's not that we don't
(09:05):
do the things that we need to do, but it's
learning how to do it the right way and doing
it afraid and saying, guess what? It's okay to be afraid,
but I know that you'll do this and do it well.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah, I agree. And from that standpoint, when we.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
like I said, if you can catch it early, if
you can get to the kids before fear grabs a
stranglehold on them and to teach them.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
And like you said, some fear is not unfounded. Like
you need to be afraid of that.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Like I need to put fear in you in certain instances,
you know, when you want to put your fingers in the.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Socket or whatever. No, don't do that.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
I need you to be afraid of what will happen,
not only if you do that, but what I will
do to you if I catch you trying to do that. Yeah,
and so I think that it is important for us
to be able to give a healthy measure of what
fear is, but also to equip people to understand. And
I say people, even our little people, we need them
to understand that fear is not something, you know, to
(10:02):
shy away from, but to be able to face it
and recognize what it is. Because, you know, I think
the more you run from your fear or whatever, You know,
it'll chase you your entire lifetime.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Absolutely.
Speaker 8 (10:14):
Now, the baby boy who the story is about.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yes.
Speaker 8 (10:18):
How old is he now?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Now he's 22.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
22.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yeah, he's about to turn 23.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
At Morehouse. Yes.
Speaker 7 (10:24):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Does he get his royalties in publishing?
Speaker 8 (10:26):
No, it's okay. I was about to ask that.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Listen, he's the whole franchise.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Okay. Guess what?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
At the end of the day, all of this is
going to be theirs, right? So we leave a legacy
and inheritance to our children's children's children. it's going to
be good. And it's funny because we had him at
the release party and it was so funny. The kids
were like, he's so big. I said, yes, look, and
he made it and he's brave. They're like, I can
do this.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
I was like, yes. Is he still scared under the bed?
Speaker 1 (10:56):
No, not in the bed.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
It's the linemen come across the line.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
How would his.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
Book teach a child to distinguish between fear that's protecting
them and fear that's limiting them?
Speaker 3 (11:09):
It, So the idea of it is, is that when
we are putting our kids to bed.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
So this is a story really designed to talk about
the things that they were afraid of in that day.
And so what we want to do is invite the
parents to have conversations about what the child has dealt
with during the day. And so we want them to
understand that. When we have fear, it's okay to be fearful.
But what can you do about it? We can invite
(11:35):
faith into that and say, God made you brave. You
can do hard things. You can be bold. You can
be courageous. And really, the truth is, as much of
the negative words that we've said, if we say the
positive and we show them, because they don't come with fears.
They don't. Just like we talked about our one-year-old granddaughter.
She has zero fear, zero inhibitions. She will walk right
(11:57):
off the side of the pool, right into the water.
And so... it's one of those things is that now
we're teaching them how to have conversations, to pay attention
to what's going on inside them and note that this
doesn't have to be this way.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Yeah. And the book also gives the opportunity for parents
and grandparents and their kids to actually spend time. Because
I think a lot of times fear also comes from isolation.
You got a lot of kids that put themselves to
bed or a lot of kids that's there wondering what's
in the closet. I'm afraid, but, but there's nobody there
to help them navigate, you know, that. And so, bedtime, one,
when a child is about to go to sleep. I mean,
(12:32):
think about this. People are, you know, my young person
was telling me what doom scrolling is. I never heard
what a doom scroll is. Yeah, but people doom scroll.
And I realize, oh, okay, I'm a doom scroller. Before
I go to bed, you know, and I'm looking at, oh,
so-and-so did this, so-and-so did this. Oh, this is happening now.
This is happening now.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
And now I'm going to go to bed. Like, that's
me as an adult or whatever.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
What are kids taking in, ingesting, you know, all of
this before, You know, they go to bed. And so
even smaller children that don't see.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
The world like we see it, they still can.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Feel what we feel. They can feel angst. They can
feel if there's tension. They can feel if something is
wrong in the home. And so ultimately, we're hoping that
bedtime becomes a new time for parents to be able
to to give a piece before a child goes to bed,
to be able to give them a piece that when
you sleep and when you rest, that God's got you
and mommy and daddy got you and you're going to
(13:26):
be fine.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
And there's, you know, I think.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
We can set the tone and the temperature of what's
happening in a child's life early on by giving them
these tools.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
And the book, I think does that.
Speaker 8 (13:39):
But you guys, I'm so, I'm sorry, y'all. I'm so
damn slow. I am over here reading the book.
Speaker 9 (13:44):
Okay.
Speaker 7 (13:45):
And it is told from the monster's perspective under the bed.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
That's correct.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
Why is he scared of the girl when it's her bed?
Speaker 8 (13:51):
The whole time.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 8 (13:53):
This whole time.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Wow.
Speaker 8 (13:55):
It's a flip on it.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah, it's the flip on it. And really what we
did is we wanted you to see that really whatever
you're afraid of is usually.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
More afraid of you.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Is everybody just getting me?
Speaker 8 (14:07):
No, I'm laughing because I'm like, on this page, Jess,
when she.
Speaker 9 (14:10):
Says the feet, the monster is talking about this is
the girl's feet.
Speaker 8 (14:14):
That's why I said I was slow, girl. I was
trying to be deep. And then I was like, wait
a minute, I'm reading.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
I'm like, wait a minute.
Speaker 8 (14:20):
No, I did not. No, I did not.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
No, I did not smoke nothing today.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
This is so creative.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
This is dope.
Speaker 8 (14:28):
Okay, okay.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
That's a different kind of peace.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
I love that.
Speaker 9 (14:33):
I was going to ask, you guys are really, you're faith-based, right? Yes.
What do you talk, so you have your babies in
your house with your grandkids, but then your older kids, right?
But there's a constant reminder that is needed between both
sides of it, the younger and older kids.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 9 (14:49):
How do y'all talk them through when, you know, there's, like,
that fearless, like, fight that they have, but then, like,
the world, like, kind of, like, snaps that a bit, right?
And the fearless list leaves, and they're not as, like,
green-eyed and, like, excited about things. From a faith perspective,
what do you tell them about the things that they
can't see and control?
Speaker 4 (15:07):
I think we put everything that we, you know, the
Bible tells us to train up a child in the
way they should go.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Mm-hmm. So that when they get older, they will not
depart from it. Now, we don't know what older means.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Because it doesn't define that.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
It doesn't define what older means. For some people, older
might be 40. Hopefully it doesn't take that before they
come around. But literally, we have tried to instill everything
that we know that has worked for us in our
lives to be able to give them a template of
what faith is supposed to look like and what conquering
fear and equipping is supposed to look like.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Until.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
they don't have to live off mommy and daddy's faith anymore.
Like at some point your faith has to become your own.
Your walk has to become your own. What you believe
has to become your own. God has to become real
to you because he's real to you and not just
because he was real to mom and dad. And so
I think that with our younger kids and then with
our older kids, like we raised up our, Who are
(16:01):
older kids when they were younger, we raised them in
the same way. And at some point they question and
they got to figure it out on their own and
they have to find out who God is to them
and not who it was to, you know, to mom
and dad.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
And the key is to renew your strength and renew
your mind daily.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
So each one of my kids. Now, the crazy part
is my kids range from 38 to 14. Say that again.
38 to 14. And then my grand's from 10 to 1.
And I text each one of them every single day
with a scripture and a reminder of who they are.
Because the truth of the matter is, is that I
never want you to forget whose and who you are.
(16:41):
And to me, like, so, yeah, they get older and
they get grown and it makes them no less susceptible.
They need those things because the world is quick to
tell them what they're not. So I got to be
quick to tell them who they are.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Facts.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
And you know what?
Speaker 8 (16:55):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 7 (16:55):
You do that for me as well, too, Kristen. You
are constantly uplifting and encouraging me. She'll send me something
that'll break me down and make me cry, but it's
something that I need. You've been doing it since I
met you. There is not a message that you send
me that goes unnoticed. I mean, I get to respond
to it all the time, but I appreciate that so
much about you.
Speaker 8 (17:16):
I love you.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Thank you. My honor.
Speaker 8 (17:17):
My honor.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
My honor.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
To me, the Word of God, it comes alive. And
when we are able to pray and watch and help
our kids learn how to lean into that, then they'll
know whose they are. And then they become fearless. The
crazy thing is that no matter how scary the world gets,
that's the thing that never changes.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
What's something your children taught you about God that church
never could?
Speaker 3 (17:45):
That a love of a child... is one of the
most innocent and beautiful things that you could ever steward.
I don't think we talk about that in church very much,
but it is one of the greatest gifts that you
get is to see this person that you created. Um,
(18:06):
but you get to navigate them through the good, the bad,
the ugly, whatever that is. Um, And that I get
to be a good steward over this kid, but what
I pour in, I get out. When I was a kid,
my mom used to tell me, you can't plant peas
and get corn. So you can't put the negativity and
all the stuff that we get from the world. We
(18:28):
have to start with what we put in there. It's
going to come out eventually. They go through rough patches.
They go through rough times. But the truth is they
always come back and it always comes around.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
For me, let me just jump in there real quick
that I– I learned the most valuable lesson that I've
ever learned about ministry that church could not teach me.
And this is when we had first brought our daughter
Samantha home and she was three days old and she
wasn't eating. And at the time we didn't know what
was going on. And then literally she, baby started turning
(19:00):
blue or whatever. And, and we didn't know what to do.
And so we end up, you know, rushing to the
hospital or whatever. And when we're there, this is a
three-day-old baby who hadn't eaten. We were trying to breastfeed
and everything, and she just would not eat. And so
when we get to the hospital, they basically tell us, hey,
we're going to need to do a spinal tap.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Needle this big, a baby this big.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
A newborn, a three-day-old.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
There's no truth in that, ma'am.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
And so as a father, them coming to me to say, hey,
we need to do this to your daughter for her
to live. And I'm thinking to myself, they're coming to
me for the answer. Like my wife is looking at me.
Everybody's looking to me to be like, what do you
what do you do? And I had to trust one.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
Well, God, you gave her to us. And so she
was yours before she was ours. And even I don't
want to make this decision. Um, I have to trust
that I'm going to put her in the hands of
the people that are saying they know more than, than
what I know. And so I'd, the closest I've ever
tried to imagine what it is to give up your
(20:08):
child for somebody else, what God did for us through Jesus,
that was what I felt like it gave me the
closest understanding of what it is to actually be willing
to sacrifice, you know what I mean, a life that
you love so much, but trusting God in that space.
And so I've never wanted to have to do that again,
(20:31):
but From that standpoint, just understanding I'm not God. But
if I could get a glimpse of what he felt
like to give up his child to me, that's what
I got out of that.
Speaker 8 (20:42):
So they did the spinal tap.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
On the baby girl.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
But it's crazy. So at the first hospital, they weren't
equipped to deal with little kids. So I was like,
wait a minute. So now we went to a children's hospital.
Now when you're telling me.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Children's Hospital of Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Now when you're telling me, I believe you. But when
the first doctor was telling me, she was saying all
kind of crazy. Because I was like, okay, you have
to stop talking, lady.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
When she was in utero, whatever the.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
The, what do they call it?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Marconium.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Marconium was in, she had had it so much that
she wasn't eating because she had that in her. So
they had to basically extract the Marconium in her so
that she'd be hungry.
Speaker 6 (21:28):
I always tell parents to double check and make sure,
triple check. So something similar happened last year, Christmas time.
They told me my daughter would need brain surgery. Something
didn't sit right with me.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
And we took her out of New Jersey and I
took her to a hospital in New York.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 6 (21:45):
And when the doctors seen her in New York, he came,
he looked at the charts, he started laughing, right? So
I didn't find it funny. I'm like, what the fuck
is so funny?
Speaker 2 (21:53):
And I'm serious. What the fuck is so funny?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Stop cursing in front of the church people.
Speaker 6 (21:56):
I'm telling you exactly what's happening. So we were sitting there,
me and my wife's in, the baby's in, the baby
is wrapped up, and he was like, those doctors told
you in Jersey that she needed brain surgery.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I'm like, yeah, he starts laughing. I'm like, what's so funny?
He was like, she doesn't need brain surgery.
Speaker 6 (22:12):
It was like, there's nothing on this chart that tells
me she needs brain surgery. What she does need is
that she needs to clean out her, you know, everything
that's in her nose.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
Leaves up to it, her sinuses. But she has a
sinus infection, no brain surgery.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Wow. Brain surgery is crazy. That's crazy.
Speaker 6 (22:27):
So if we would have left her there, they probably
would have started with the brain surgery.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
I messed her up.
Speaker 6 (22:32):
And I still didn't believe the doctors. I'm like, two
doctors told me she needed this.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (22:37):
They did the sinus thing. And within hours, Face cleared up.
Speaker 7 (22:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (22:43):
It was the craziest thing. And it just made me think, like,
when it comes to that, you got to ask. You
got to double check. You got to triple check.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Ask all the questions.
Speaker 6 (22:50):
I mean, I called Charlemagne because they told me the
best children's hospital was in South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Remember I called you?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
I'm like, give me that number.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Can you get this? Like, it was that type of thing.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Because you're so scared. But I know you guys have
to go.
Speaker 6 (23:00):
And before you go, I want to talk about September
is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. I want to talk about
that before you go and why it's so important and
why people should get checked and how they should get checked.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
You beat it twice. So break it down to the
brothers out there listening.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
All right.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Two-time cancer survivor. Last time I was here last year
was Prostate Cancer Awareness Month and I was headed into
a treatment. I had my prostate removed in November of
2024 and then cancer came back in 2025. And so
at that time, I then went from not having a
prostate to now having proton therapy, which was 37 rounds
(23:36):
of this radiation treatment or whatever. And I can say
several different things. One, I am, my PSA, which is
prostate specific antigen level, which is characterized by a blood
test now. You don't have to do the finger checks anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
It's all blood tests. He still won't go there. Even
after last year?
Speaker 8 (23:53):
Yeah, he still won it. First of all, I've only had.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
One prostate check. Two fingers. I haven't been back. But
I need to go back.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
It's just a blood test now.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
It's a blood test. Very, very advanced now. Blood test.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
But from that standpoint, my PSA is sub 0.01, which
is undetectable, meaning I'm cancer-free. So thank God for that.
One in every eight men will be diagnosed with prostate
cancer in their lifetime. One in every six will be
African American and less likely to survive it because of.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Late diagnosis.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Late diagnosis.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
They usually don't get diagnosed until stage four.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
And so then now you have less choices.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
How often do you get checked for prostate?
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Is it yearly when you do your checkup? No, I
don't get checked for prostate anymore because I don't have
a prostate.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
How often should somebody get checked?
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Well, right now, how often should somebody get checked is
normally once a year. When your physicals, once you reach
a certain age for African-American, then you want to start
going probably a little earlier. They say as early as
35 to 40.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
It's in blood. It's just in your blood now. You
just have to ask for the test.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
But you have to ask for the test because when
you go just for a regular physical, they're not going
to check your PSA.
Speaker 8 (25:02):
That's correct.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
They're not. which is crazy. That's crazy.
Speaker 6 (25:05):
Cause a lot of people assume though, that when you
go to the doctor and they give blood, they'd be like,
everything's clear.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
You automatically think that.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
They checked everything.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
No, you have to ask.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
You have to ask for it.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
You have to ask. And it's super important because the
thing is, is the insurance companies, it costs like 70, $ 75, right.
For them to do. So that's why they don't want
everybody doing it.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Right.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
But the truth is, is it, Pills in comparison.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
They're trying to pass legislation now and do some different
things to get it like mandatory. Like when a woman
that they want you to have mammograms or X, Y,
and Z, they are starting to want men to have PSA,
but they haven't passed that legislation yet. Hopefully we're somewhere
at the forefront of that. But ultimately the goal is
now I go every four months to go back and
(25:48):
just have blood checked or whatever. And then at some point,
When I'm clear, you know, it'll be six months and
then a year. And then I think after like 10
years or whatever, then you don't have to do that anymore.
Speaker 7 (25:58):
I love the fact that it is just a blood
test now for the mammograms. I know, like, did they...
Can you detect that through blood? Because I heard that
they have to slam something down on your breast.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
They do.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
But here's the truth. So the irony of this is,
is that while he's battling prostate cancer, one of my
dearest friends was also battling breast cancer. And so at
the same time, like I would go to his treatment
in the morning and hers in the afternoon. And yes,
it is a mammogram like that. But the truth is,
is you would rather know. And because she knew and
(26:32):
she found out early, she lives. And the crazy part
is she had to go back and do it a
second time, too. So I was dealing with both of
these at the same time. But 100%, if you catch
it earlier, for women, the most detectable and fixable cancer
is breast cancer when you get an early detection. And
the same thing for men.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
It's survivable.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
And that's the key. We need, especially as African-Americans, we
have to get things done early. And we can't be
afraid of going to the doctor and those kind of things.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
I want to say this, too, just real quick. My
wife has been an incredible caregiver. And so I want
to shout out to all the people out there. that
are caregivers for someone. I mean, last time we were here,
you were talking about your dad offline.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
I would like to know how he's doing.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
But when you share what's going on with you, you
technically start to become a caregiver for the person that
you're navigating. So although I battled cancer two times and
beat cancer two times, she also has been caring for
me and for her friends and for her dad before
he passed away. And so the way that a caregiver,
you know, people will look at me and be, oh, Montel,
(27:40):
two-time cancer, but they don't get to see that I
can do hard things, but I cannot do hard things alone.
I said that last time I was here. And so
from that standpoint, I just want to honor you publicly
to the world for being there, you know what I'm saying,
for us to be able to battle this and to
beat it and then to be given birth, you know
what I'm saying, to this little dude, Shiloh, is pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
No place I'd rather be.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Congratulations. Y'all have to leave?
Speaker 6 (28:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Oh, I just want to ask a couple questions. Y'all
been talking about being grandparents, right?
Speaker 9 (28:12):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
You got five children, five grandchildren.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
What did you believe about parenting with your first child
that you completely disagree with now?
Speaker 2 (28:21):
I know you probably popped the first one.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Well, we were music industry people when we had our
first kids.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Those are old covenant kids.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Literally, you know, the quickest story of that is right
after we had our baby, Right.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
So right after we had our first child or whatever,
two weeks afterwards, we was on a bus that Biggie
Smalls used to have.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Called Big Shirley.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Called a Big Shirley. Yeah, man. It had a pink carpet.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Because it smelled like weed and butt cheeks. Because I
was managing.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
It was in the carpet. It was in the carpet.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Weed and butt cheeks.
Speaker 5 (28:55):
Not lies.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
It was in the carpet. We called it Big Shirley
or whatever.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
And I can remember being on the road with a
two-week-old baby. The heater didn't work. And so I had them.
We was in the back of the bus. It wrapped
up in blankets, you know. And so now that little
girl has three kids.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yep. You know, but she started out on the back
of Big Shirley.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
So from that standpoint, we had kids that were our
BC days, our before BCs.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
You know, before Christ days and ministry days. And then our.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Young kids got Pastor Montel and Pastor Kristen.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
They don't know.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
They don't know the big Shirley days. They don't know
the same. And and the crazy thing is is that
like um they don't they don't have that same perspective
right so the older ones you know they get into
they got into a little bit more mess because we
were messy but we're different now right so um i
think the the thing is is that now with grandkids
(29:53):
um it's such a rewarding thing. It's so much different
because we're different too, right? So, like, you have the
patience and the kindness for things. As parents, you're just like,
come on, let's go. Let's get it. As opposed to
when you're dealing with your grandkids, like my grandson is...
I really miss you. Why do you miss me? Oh,
(30:14):
because you're my favorite person, Mimi. You're the most amazing
and you tell me how much you love me and
you tell me I'm brave and I'm strong and I'm courageous.
So it's the words that I'm spilling over him, right?
And so he's longing for that affirmation. And what he's
telling me in his four-year-old way is I need all
the words, right? I need all the things to build
me up. The crazy thing is that he is that.
(30:38):
He's bold. He's one of those kids. And he's got
a thousand questions. And the funny thing is, my daughter
was the same way. Now, we used to answer those questions,
but I used to get annoyed by those questions. Now
I completely entertain them and say, tell me why you
think that. Tell me what's going on in there. And
when you ask those questions, man, he's so far beyond
(31:03):
what we could think or imagine. I'm like, four years old.
That's amazing.
Speaker 9 (31:07):
Was it hard for your older kids as y'all changed?
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Very much so. In fact, it's pretty funny because sometimes
with our new Kevin and kids, they be like, y'all
had it easy.
Speaker 8 (31:18):
This is ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
They feel like the newer kids get the better versions
of us. But I think our first kids got the
grimy street.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Yeah, for sure. Def Jam-y. 160 Barrick.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Like, they got it. You're still outside. You're just a
version of how they were built. Yeah, y'all still outside.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Oh, we were way outside.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
There's Jesus. Oh, Lord. And I'll just say this as well.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
I'm grateful that I didn't, and that we didn't abort
family legacy.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
Like, literally, when I look at the business and divorces
and how people, you know, do things to have fame
and fortune and the business and this and that, we
had a crossroads where.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Basically we could have divorced. We could have.
Split up the family and done all of that. And
for us now.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
To be married 32 years in this business.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Yeah, I mean, in this business, it's like 178, like
dog years, right?
Speaker 4 (32:15):
So for us to be here and for us to
be alive and to be healthy and still reinventing ourselves,
not just as artists and managers and not just as
pastors and not just as marriage people, but now as authors,
all of this and to be surrounded by With Family Legacy,
it's like, man, I can't imagine. It's rich people that
(32:40):
ain't wealthy. You know what I'm saying? And I feel
like we are wealthy because we have legacy that doesn't
have anything to do with monetary value.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Absolutely. Love that.
Speaker 7 (32:52):
Did y'all at some point ever have, just to piggyback
off of what Lauren asked y'all, did y'all have parental
guilt that y'all could not or wasn't able to give
y'all current selves to y'all first children.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
And you know, what's funny is that we had to
come back and double back and say, you know what?
I did the best I could with what I had
when I had it. And you, you repent and you
ask for forgiveness. And the truth is, is that they
turned out all right. And, and, and now you get
the better version of us to teach it truthfully. Okay.
So let me keep it a thousand percent.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Please.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Parenting adult children is hella harder. Because here's the truth.
When they're kids, you can tell, no, this is what
we're doing. They got to do it, right? But in
your adult kids, you got to be like, man, so
let me suggest that this is where I think you
should go. I mean, you could do your own way.
(33:48):
You can try and invent the wheel, but it's not necessary.
But you have to suggest as opposed to what I say.
It is what it is. Let's go. But the truth is,
you can you can help them teach. You can teach
them how to make good decisions. I think that's one
of the regrets I had when I with my older
kids is that I didn't I didn't give them the
(34:11):
opportunity to learn at home to make good decisions. If
you can't make a decision, I'll just make it for you.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
It's OK. Right.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
But the truth is they need to practice. So with
our new covenant kids, the new ones, we are like, OK,
so how would that go? You get to make the
decision and let the chips fall where they may. So
if they make a bad decision. OK, so now you
got to live out that consequence. And I let it
rock as opposed to before.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
I'd like it.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
That's a dumb decision. Don't do that.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
We were more controlling early on.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
I was dismissive. Yeah.
Speaker 7 (34:44):
See, I asked that question because my son is 14.
Speaker 8 (34:47):
My daughter's 2.
Speaker 7 (34:47):
And so the mommy that Marley, my daughter, gets is
not the mom.
Speaker 8 (34:54):
That young Ashton got when he was 2.
Speaker 7 (34:56):
And I find myself trying to navigate this parental guilt
all the time that.
Speaker 8 (35:02):
It's like, dang, I wish I was this for you.
Speaker 7 (35:04):
I wish I, you know, when he makes a mistake
or when he's, lashing out on what he's doing I'm
like I wish I was who I am now then
I put it all on myself and you know my
husband he he has a way of like yo look
no exactly what you just said no you did your best.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
When you was outside but you was outside it.
Speaker 8 (35:20):
Was different I'm talking about outside I had him outside
with me yes absolutely it was a lot you know
and I wish it wasn't like that but that's.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
What it was but they got built different too though
yeah because you're 14 years probably different from your from
your two-year-old.
Speaker 8 (35:35):
Definitely.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
And probably the.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Street smarts, the savvy, all the different things he had
to navigate was what he needed to survive those 14
years for that. Whereas now we've kind of insulated our
kids a little differently now, you know, and they don't
necessarily have to navigate in that. The world that our
kids are navigating now is what they're scrolling and what
they're seeing and cyber and all of those different things.
(35:58):
It's just different AI. It is a lot of different
things that, you know, actually live.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Yeah, man.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Well, we had to learn how to interact with people.
And we had to figure out.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Human contact.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Human contact.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
How to have conversations.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Man, that's the thing I think is probably the thing
that you have to force now is to make your
kids be able to.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Like, it.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
One of the things that drives me absolutely crazy, you're
sitting right next to me and you're texting me. Hey, yo.
I'm right here. Talk to me. Give it to me.
If you text me and we're in the same house,
I'm coming for you. I'm coming for you.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
I know that's right.
Speaker 5 (36:38):
What have your grandchildren revealed about you that your children couldn't?
Speaker 1 (36:44):
What have they revealed that our children couldn't?
Speaker 4 (36:47):
I would say they have They have been showing me
that our presence matters more than probably what our own.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Kids were able to articulate.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
So, I mean, you know, when I was a kid
growing up, I remember, you know, I just wanted to
go to my cousin's house.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
I wanted to go here. I want to sleep over.
I want to stay.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
I want to, you know, our grandkids. they're like, they
come over to our house, but they're like, I want
to go home, you know? So, so they love being
with us, but they, they like home. And so I
love the fact that we have kids that, that love
their homes. They love being around at home and our
grandkids are, They miss us like greatly.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
They do. But you know what? Now that you said
that and the question you asked is very insightful. But
I think one of the things that's interesting is in
our older kids, what they did with our absence is
they absolutely have instilled their presence so that their kids
do want to go home. Because they enjoy being home.
(37:52):
They enjoy being with their parents as opposed to, you know,
I mean, when we were traveling, it was it was
rough for them. They were either with us or we
weren't at home. So I think what they did with
that is they translated into the well, I tell you what,
I won't be. And so I think especially our oldest daughter,
like her whole thing is like, yeah, could I have
all the money in the world? Yeah, for sure. She's
(38:13):
so smart. It's crazy. But the truth is, she's like,
I will be present. for my kids and they will
never not know me to be here and she does
that well.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
Routine is interesting now because like okay so we're here
but it'll be like taco tuesday like our grandkids.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Are like undone where y'all undone.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
I put my grandson.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Man i put my grandson in the car on sunday
night and i said now i need to warn you
that mimi's not going to be here for taco tuesday.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Shut his world down. Why? What will you be doing?
Speaker 3 (38:49):
And I was like, well, Mimi's going to go talk
about Shiloh and I'm going to try and introduce him
to the world. It makes me so sad when you're
not here, Mimi. Why are you doing this? And I
was like.
Speaker 8 (39:03):
You made it out of that. And wait till he
turn on Netflix and see who you can sit down.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
And talk to. Blame Charlemagne. Blame Charlemagne.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
This is the monster under the bed.
Speaker 7 (39:11):
That's the one you need to be afraid of.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Jesus.
Speaker 5 (39:15):
Speaking of, if Shiloh ultimately becomes bigger than the book, right? Yes.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
We hope it does. Cartoon, TV, toys, whatever.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Your mouth to God's ears.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
What do you want a child to feel when they
see that character 20 years from now?
Speaker 3 (39:28):
I want them to feel like Shiloh taught me how
to be brave. Shiloh taught me to do hard things.
And I navigated my childhood differently and I became a
braver adult. And I know how to navigate my life
and my emotions differently. but what I learned as a kid.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
We did a, we did a reading of the book
on last week in Atlanta and brought a bunch of
little kids in. And one, I mean, it just speaks
not just to the kids.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
But to the parents.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
And it's, it was super, super dope because the next day,
all the kids that got books literally, and this was
not a, Hey, y'all do this. It was just like
kids woke up and they were like, I want to
see Shiloh. I want to read Shiloh because they associate
this character with bravery and And I think if you
could give bravery a face, you know, as opposed to
(40:24):
fear a face, they actually have somebody that they can
look to when it's time to be brave. You know,
when Shiloh was brave, then I can be brave too.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
We did this thing at the party. We did an
affirmation station. So we put up a mirror and all
around the mirror it says, I'm bold, I'm courageous, I'm strong,
I can do hard things. And the little kids standing
in the mirror going, I'm bold, I'm brave, I'm courageous.
It was so life-giving. And so it was so cool.
We had a little girl. Her name was Eden. And
(40:53):
she was three and she said she stood up on
the counter and said, I'm bold, I'm brave, I'm courageous.
And I was like, oh, nothing could be better because
these are things she's it's words that are washing over
her so that when she goes out and deals with
the world, it is not trying to tell her that
she'll remember those things and they'll come as replay for her.
Speaker 4 (41:13):
There's a kid who showed up to the event and
she was afraid, like on the way there, she's afraid
of the dark. And the parents are having that conversation.
Our kid is afraid of the dark. And we get
there to the part and they're like, yeah, this is
our little girl. And, you know, she's afraid of the dark.
And I said, well, we're going to help Shiloh. You know,
Shiloh is going to help her to navigate that. And
surely enough or whatever. I mean, I would follow back
up to find out if she's still afraid of the dark.
(41:34):
But I know that that day she got equipped with
the tools and other kids in the surrounding community to
be able to know, oh, I can be brave even
if I'm afraid of the dark. I can still be
brave and I can take the next brave step and
do something courageous to make sure that I'm working towards
conquering that fear.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
And I think when kids know that they're not the
only one, then they realize, okay, I'm all right. I'm
not crazy.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
I'm all right.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
And that's what we're looking for.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
I love that. Well, how can they get the book?
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Anywhere you can possibly buy a book, you can get it.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Amazon, Books A Million, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Wherever you can get a book.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 8 (42:13):
Both of my kids got memberships at Books of Mill Yang.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yay!
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Or pick it up if you're out and about.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Thank you for joining us so much.
Speaker 5 (42:21):
Shiloh and the Not-So-Scary Girl above his bed.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
That's right. Kristen and Martel Jordan.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Thank y'all for having us.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
It's The Breakfast Club. Good morning.
Speaker 5 (42:30):
Hold up.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
Every day I wake up.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Wake your ass up. The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Y'all finished or y'all done?
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