20. Help! I feel like a bad mum who is always yelling and nagging my kids!

[00:00:06] Speaker A: Hi, my name is Caddy Malone, and. [00:00:08] Speaker B: I'm Brendan the husband. [00:00:09] Speaker A: And you're listening to the little flock, the podcast that offers practical insights about living a counterculture of goodness, truth, and beauty in a world of increasingly hostile secularism and indifference. [00:00:19] Speaker B: So if you're looking to learn from two imperfect followers of Christ about how to live like the wheat amongst the darnil, this is definitely the podcast for you. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Little Flock. [00:00:35] Speaker A: Hi, everyone. [00:00:37] Speaker B: It's good to be back with you. It's always very. Yeah, I was gonna say, it's obligatory to say that, Katie, isn't it? But it is not a very good podcast. Our invisible audience, imagine a podcast where we just said, oh, it's rubbish to be back with you again. [00:00:49] Speaker A: What are we doing here again? [00:00:50] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for nothing. That would not go down well at all. Just a couple of quick admin things, and we're gonna do this in like 30 seconds. Please share and subscribe and give us a rating if you can do that. If you're not already a subscriber, subscribe to the podcast. If you can give us a rating on your platform, please do that. If you want to support our work, go to patreon.com leftfootmedia. The link is in today's show notes. Katie's laughing at my rather rudimentary speeding through the important details. If you become a five dollar monthly patron, you will get access to an exclusive daily episode of the Dispatchers podcast, which explores political commentary and other interesting stuff. Just to give you an example, at the moment we're sort of working our way through a series, and I've been giving a history of the Nazi t four euthanasia program. And so there's been like a couple of weeks ago when I went to Australia, had to pause, but basically before that there'd been a weekly episode sort of unpacking that history, so. And then sort of daily current affairs and commentary. So if you're interested in that kind of thing, patreon.com leftformedia or if you're in New Zealand, go to lifenet.org dot nz and you'll find the details for how you can become a donor. And if you're in New Zealand, you get to claim back your tax receipt each year. [00:02:01] Speaker A: Claim back? Yeah, it's a rebate on your donation. [00:02:04] Speaker B: Thank you. That's the correct terminology. Get that right. The tax man cometh. And they love it when you use the right terminology. And last but not least, if you want to send us your questions, you can do that. We like to interact with you. We've got a great question today, actually, that came in about two weeks ago, and I think it's a really important one. We sort of prioritised it ahead of the queue a little bit, but a very important one. And I know it's something that, Katie, you have grappled with in the past as well, and do still from time to time, but I won't spoil that for you just yet. But if you want to leave your questions, go to the littleflockpodcast.org or lifenet.org dot nz and the very top of either of those pages, you'll see a link for. Send us your questions. [00:02:44] Speaker A: Oh, I think your 30 seconds is different to my 30 seconds. [00:02:46] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it wasn't quite special. [00:02:48] Speaker A: Brendan Malone, 30 seconds. [00:02:49] Speaker B: That was about a minute and a half or something, wasn't it? Something silly like that. How have you been, Katie? [00:02:54] Speaker A: Not too bad, thank you, Brennan. We did live in the same house. [00:02:56] Speaker B: I know, it's funny. [00:02:57] Speaker A: It's very formal. Very formal. [00:02:59] Speaker B: It's such an obligatory question, isn't it, on a podcast? How have you been, wife? [00:03:04] Speaker A: I have been. [00:03:06] Speaker B: While we're here. While we're here, how has your husband been? How would you rate your husband's performance over the last month? [00:03:12] Speaker A: Wes? I can give you a star rating and push up your algorithm and all that. [00:03:17] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Gosh, we've had a bit of sickness in the house, haven't we? [00:03:20] Speaker A: Yeah, ongoing. [00:03:21] Speaker B: You might have to. You hear me pause every now and then and cough in the background. I turn off my mic, but you can still hear me. [00:03:26] Speaker A: You're the source of all gems. [00:03:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So anyway, we're well and truly into winter now. [00:03:32] Speaker A: Yep. [00:03:32] Speaker B: And, well, shortest day. [00:03:34] Speaker A: Shortest day was last Friday. [00:03:36] Speaker B: Been and gone. So we're climbing. We've passed hump day for winter, which means we're on the. [00:03:41] Speaker A: Oh, no, that's actually technically the meteorological beginning of winter, isn't it? Or whatever it's called. It's got a special name. [00:03:47] Speaker B: Oh, the solstice. [00:03:48] Speaker A: The shortest day is the. Yeah, the winter solstice. But it's got a special name for the type. In some countries, that's where they actually take the start of winter from, really? Or other season, depending on which part. [00:03:58] Speaker B: Of the world you. Wow, that's a bit. [00:04:00] Speaker A: So actually, we just started sweat. [00:04:02] Speaker B: So when's the end of winter, then? Spring. [00:04:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:07] Speaker B: So they've invented a whole new season, is what they're saying. Or they've extended autumn. [00:04:11] Speaker A: Well, we have a calendar beginning to winter, which is June 1 or summer, if you're overseas. [00:04:16] Speaker B: Yeah, but it actually is June 21. [00:04:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Because the days get incrementally longer from there. [00:04:24] Speaker B: So the question then is, what is this period? [00:04:28] Speaker A: Winter. [00:04:30] Speaker B: Yes, but. So when pre winter? Or is it post autumn or is. [00:04:33] Speaker A: It autumn calendar winter? Depends on how you feel about it. [00:04:38] Speaker B: Who can I write to about this? I need to lay a meteorological computer science. [00:04:41] Speaker A: Get on the phone with Neewa. [00:04:43] Speaker B: Dear technical experts, I've been told to trust the experts. My wife has just informed me that I've everything. [00:04:49] Speaker A: I believe three weeks more of winter than I. [00:04:51] Speaker B: Really? What is this heinous lie we've been talking about? [00:04:54] Speaker A: We've been told that, you know, the equivalent of spring starts mid September as opposed to 1 September. So everything's three months. [00:05:01] Speaker B: Come on now. [00:05:02] Speaker A: A different three months, if anything. [00:05:04] Speaker B: Yeah, this sounds like one of them scams to me. Trust me. Yeah. Your roof does need a new coating. [00:05:10] Speaker A: Summer doesn't actually start until late December. [00:05:12] Speaker B: Yeah, we're in the neighbourhood doing roof coatings, and we've got the special deal just for you today. So, you know, that sounds like one of them kind of scams. Anyway, we're not here to talk about meteorological scams. You didn't read it in an email from the deposed king of Nigeria, did you? Okay. Okay, good. [00:05:28] Speaker A: It was on Wikipedia. Reliable. [00:05:31] Speaker B: Do you know stuff? [00:05:32] Speaker A: It's on the Internet. Therefore it's true. It's like the children's version, the teenage version of I saw it in a book, or I read it in the newspaper from when we were kids. [00:05:41] Speaker B: Yeah, must be true. Yeah, must be true. No, when we were kids, it was. Johnny told me at school. Oh, I know it must be true. [00:05:48] Speaker A: Never had. Johnny told me. [00:05:49] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, we had that kind of thing. No, no, trust me. There was always one friend who had this false knowledge, you know, urban legend trivia. And it was like, no, no, it's got to be true, because Johnny told us it was true. You know, like. And Johnny knows everything about the urban legends. But I was going to say Wikipedia. Do you know that Star wars has got its own version called Wookiepedia? [00:06:06] Speaker A: Ah, very good. [00:06:07] Speaker B: It was a Wookie laugh. [00:06:08] Speaker A: Was it on purpose, but very good. [00:06:11] Speaker B: Yeah, that's funny. Anyway, we're not here to discuss scams. [00:06:14] Speaker A: On tangents today, guys, or Wikipedia. [00:06:17] Speaker B: We're here to discuss the business of being the little flock. And we've got a couple of interesting articles to talk about, Katie. The first one is titled valuing the craft of beautiful homemaking. [00:06:29] Speaker A: I read that title, and I instantly was, like, not qualified to talk about this. [00:06:34] Speaker B: Really? Oh, felt like. Really? You feel that way? [00:06:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I just. I don't know. Because when you read beautiful homemaking, you think it means, like, all of your furniture is really nice, and everything goes together, and you have art that, you know, works and is beautiful, and people come in and go, oh, beautiful home. [00:06:51] Speaker B: You have the beautiful people. The beautiful people. [00:06:54] Speaker A: People come into our house and go, oh, wow, you finally painted the lounge. Ten years later. Good job. [00:07:00] Speaker B: Don't look too closely. There's a couple of spots I need to actually finish. I still haven't finished tiny bits of trim work, but, yeah, it's taking those. [00:07:07] Speaker A: Bits where we, like, literally set up the Christmas tree and one of the kids put the angel on the wall or something, like, literally hours after we were finished and some paint came away, and Brendan was like, he's good. [00:07:18] Speaker B: You know, it's. It's not about that, though. It's not about having, like, um, some artisan type house, you know, home and country magazine. Yeah. Yeah. You walk in these perfectly manicured magazine photo, you know, Home and garden magazine. [00:07:34] Speaker A: But when you say homemaking, it does. [00:07:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:37] Speaker A: Or beautiful homemaking. [00:07:38] Speaker B: And that's something that I guess we should talk about really, too, isn't it? I thought, funny that you should say that. You don't feel that you're actually, I. [00:07:44] Speaker A: Just don't think I've got, like, we talked about this recently when we went shopping for new couches, which is the most home making. [00:07:50] Speaker B: First time we've done that in 16. [00:07:52] Speaker A: We've never bought new couches. So 20 years of marriage. [00:07:55] Speaker B: 20 years. [00:07:56] Speaker A: And it was just getting to that. [00:07:58] Speaker B: Point where we had went to the bargain place, and we got it on. [00:08:01] Speaker A: Sale, of course, and we'll be trashed in, like, three months. Watch this space. [00:08:06] Speaker B: But really good thing we chose a light color. [00:08:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. It's gonna be great. I always said to, you know, I'm not confident in my own abilities to choose colours, and which is crazy because. [00:08:20] Speaker B: You'Re actually pretty good at it, but also, in general, you're a phenomenal home crafts woman in the sense of what this article's talking about, which is not about seasonal decorating. Yeah. It's not about interior decorating, but it's about the craft of home life. [00:08:35] Speaker A: Making a home, making a house a home. [00:08:37] Speaker B: Let me get to the rub of matters. This is the key sentence that actually sums up the argument. To reject the importance of homemaking is to reject the importance of crafting a good family life. So that's basically the nutshell of the argument. And we just want to talk about a couple of points that this woman makes in this article that we thought would be worthy of discussion. So let me read it to you. There is, to be sure, a lot of work involved in taking care of a home and a family. That's true. Amen to that. Much of that work is repetitive, also true, and may look unsophisticated to someone unfamiliar with the mental gymnastics that go into doing it. Well. Cleaning the kitchen floor, changing diapers. Well, nappies, we would say. Yeah. Making sandwiches, often while coping with the distractions and chaos of small children and big ones. Now they got their own chaos. However, even for those we widely acknowledge as skilled craftsmen and artisans, the same is true. An excellent stone mason will spend many hours repetitively working on the same task through skill and expertise. The wall he makes will be both beautiful and useful. And that's true. Right? That's the art of virtue. The Greeks understood that that virtue is not something you were born capable of doing. It's like an artisan skill. You have to work at it and practice it, and that's how you get better at it. The same is true with home life, right? [00:09:55] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. [00:09:56] Speaker B: And it's funny, too, because I think we live in the age of technocracy and the expert and the experts on parenting are the. What do the experts tell us? And I think we're losing a lot of our confidence that in actual fact, like, remember, was it super nanny? No, that show. [00:10:11] Speaker A: Yeah, super nanny Jo Frost. [00:10:12] Speaker B: And I don't know her situation now because she's not really on the screens anymore. But she was never married. [00:10:17] Speaker A: No. [00:10:18] Speaker B: She had no kids, was never married. And here she was dishing out all this advice. And there's no doubt some of it was sort of practical advice. [00:10:25] Speaker A: But I'm like, maybe that's what it was. That it was practical advice that people just hadn't maybe heard from their own parents or. [00:10:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:32] Speaker A: Like, every situation was like a. Well, no, duh. [00:10:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:10:37] Speaker A: If the kid's behaving badly, then should. [00:10:39] Speaker B: I, Kimmy, play with a bucket of water, a fork and an electrical socket together at the same time? What do you think, Joe? Yeah, but the thing was, she wasn't actually an expert. She'd never practiced the craft of parenting in home life. She had important theoretical things she could bring and practical behavioural stuff. But the heart of it was not. It wasn't there. [00:11:02] Speaker A: It wasn't personal experience. No. [00:11:04] Speaker B: And the reason why I picked on this paragraph. Cause I think a lot of parents are perhaps losing their edge, not because they are becoming worse as parents, but because in the age of technocracy, you're told to talk to the expert and to listen to the expert and not really trust your own instincts. Cause you, who are you, Katie? Have you written a book on parenting? Have you studied parenting? No. So why would you be an expert on this? And so I think people lose their confidence and realize it's actually, you just do it. [00:11:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:34] Speaker B: And you start to get better at it. [00:11:35] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. [00:11:36] Speaker B: As I said to poor old Lucy, I've said this to a few times, our eldest daughter, you have to forgive us because you were the guinea pig. Like, you know, you have this great burden and this great sort of beautiful gift. You were the one who made us a parent. I was, you know, ushered into fatherhood, and Katie was ushered into motherhood by you and only you, the others came after. Right. But also, you're the guinea pig. [00:11:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:58] Speaker B: So we had to learn. And that's why you look at things now with your younger siblings and go, oh, man, it's not fair. Yeah. How come they get away with stuff on your grass? We kind of are learning, but, yeah, you get better at by practice. Right. That's such an important thing. And I think that should give you hope. If you're listening and you're a parent going, oh, man, I don't know if I'm good at this. It's like, don't worry, tomorrow, next week, the year after, you will be, you know, just. Just keep at it. She then goes on to say this. I would suggest that homemaking today remains a form of skilled craft in which a woman or a man, well, I'd say woman and a man, actually, we'll talk about that point in just a second. Uses experience and intelligence to create something that is both beautiful and functional. The difference, of course, however, between the art of homemaking and other kinds of art is that homemaking's beauty is often not produced in the form of a physical object. It's kind of true, right? [00:12:54] Speaker A: I guess. Yep. [00:12:55] Speaker B: But in saying that, you, you started earlier by talking about the idea of the, you know, the perfect looking home. And I think sometimes we do use that as the yardstick. [00:13:02] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:13:03] Speaker B: Are they a good parent? How tidy is their house? [00:13:05] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. Well, not even how tidy. Like, I might. I can keep the house tidy, but I feel like we don't have those curated bedrooms. [00:13:11] Speaker B: No. [00:13:12] Speaker A: Like, I don't have all the perfect storage. [00:13:13] Speaker B: And what do they call it? The things you drape over the cheers there. [00:13:18] Speaker A: Oh, throws. [00:13:19] Speaker B: Throws, yeah. Have you got the right throws and the right pillows? [00:13:21] Speaker A: That's right. And do you change them when it's Halloween or Thanksgiving? I do not do that. [00:13:27] Speaker B: Seasonal throw. [00:13:28] Speaker A: Autumnal throw. [00:13:30] Speaker B: We should get some pillows with our faces on. That would be awesome. Just our faces on pillows. [00:13:36] Speaker A: It's a hard pass for me. [00:13:39] Speaker B: Much of the beauty of homemaking is fleeting and intangible. It might look like a mother reading a favorite book for the fifth time to a toddler who just loves every repetition of little blue truck, little red caboose. Yeah, that's not. That's right. It might also. Or what was on Harry Maclary. [00:13:55] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:13:57] Speaker B: It might also look like a dad who can take the time to listen and talk extensively to a son devastated by a heartbreaking loss in a championship sports game. A daughter might bake a special birthday cake for her mother's 70th birthday, but a few days later, that cake will probably be gone. So in other words, optimistic in this house, to be fair, if your mum's in her seventies, you know, might have to put her teeth in to eat it, so she might. It might not be as consumed as quickly. [00:14:23] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:14:24] Speaker B: You know, it's not with kids, though. It is gone. There was a cake, was there? [00:14:29] Speaker A: Sometimes there's little pieces of cake that have no icing on them left. [00:14:33] Speaker B: Yeah. The crumbs are the evidence, but, yeah, that's quite true. Eh. I thought, like, the beauty of homemaking, is it, like, in a sort of a gilded age, like you. This is where you started from the notion of the gilded age, where you have this sort of. This beautiful stuff and things and a gilded cage that we live in, like. [00:14:51] Speaker A: Libraries that children weren't allowed in. [00:14:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And we've sort of gone back to a sort of that where it's like, social media is this false gilded age. It's like, look at what we've got. Look at our home, look at our stuff. [00:15:02] Speaker A: Sometimes it's look at what we don't have. You know, like the people that have Marie Kondo'd everything. [00:15:06] Speaker B: That don't spark joy. [00:15:08] Speaker A: So having decluttering and not having as much clutter is kind of a status thing as well. [00:15:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. [00:15:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:17] Speaker B: But in actual fact, in a family, it is. It's the art of doing and being and the messiness that you. Yeah. It's not a. There's not a. The trail of evidence is not obvious. Like, in an age of. Look at my evidence of how good I am, or look at my evidence of what an amazing life I have. Cause I've got 100 selfies of me with celebrities, so I must be having a good life. That family, authentic family life, is a bit of an anathema because you don't have. And you don't. You shouldn't have the time, really, to stop and be taking photos of it either, because it should be lived, be in the moment. So kind of. It's a beautiful philosophy, I think, and a beautiful sort of paradox to. But that's so true. Right. And I think maybe that's why people struggle. They can forget. Like, you could make a beautiful birthday cake and you go, whoa, I've achieved motherhood status level nine or something. [00:16:05] Speaker A: Last year, Lucy asked me to make that. Do you remember the hedgehog fail cake? [00:16:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:09] Speaker A: If you look, google them up on the instagram, you'll find a whole lot of hedgehog fail cakes out there. And they just look atrocious. But it was awesome. [00:16:16] Speaker B: Basically, the band, the cakes are supposed to look hedgehogs for those who don't. But they look terrible. They get it wrong. [00:16:21] Speaker A: But I made a really good hedgehog foul cake. And I was like, this is a. This is kind of an oxymoron because I've succeeded in making a fail cake. Yeah. [00:16:28] Speaker B: But the thing is, it's gone. [00:16:29] Speaker A: It's gone. [00:16:30] Speaker B: It's gone. [00:16:30] Speaker A: It was enjoyed in the night. [00:16:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:16:32] Speaker A: Memory is there. [00:16:33] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. And there's not a. And, yeah, it should be lived, too. It's. It's you sort of. You look back and you realize it's as the fruit of. And I think you start to see it now. Like, Lucy, who's 17, is now starting to take on the mantle of cake maker for birthdays, right now. How did she get there? Cause you. [00:16:53] Speaker A: Cause of me. [00:16:54] Speaker B: It's absolutely cause of you. I'm not a cake maker. Not even close. You wouldn't want me even near the ingredients. But you were skilled at it, and then you passed on that skill, and that's amazing. [00:17:07] Speaker A: I'm not really skilled at it. For the record. I'm not a fancy birthday cake maker. [00:17:12] Speaker B: I doth die. [00:17:13] Speaker A: Her friend, whose husband is an architect, and she just says to him, what shape cakes do you need? And bakes the shape cakes. And then he, like, carves them into the right bits and assembles. Yeah, they have some pretty cool cakes. [00:17:25] Speaker B: Really? [00:17:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:26] Speaker B: Far out. [00:17:28] Speaker A: So marry an architect if you're not sure. [00:17:29] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. That's. That's scary, man. I'm just not even. Wow, that's. That's next level cake. [00:17:35] Speaker A: That's nice. It's nice. Um, what do you call that? Symbiosis, like the working together, you know? [00:17:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:40] Speaker A: She does the bit she needs to do. He does, but he needs to do. [00:17:43] Speaker B: I wonder how long it takes to get resource consent for that cake. He fills out all the forms six months in advance. You have to get assistant, you have to ask a year in advance your parents what cake you want for the next birthday so they can get the resource consent for them. Anyway, let's carry on. Indeed, much of the beauty of homemaking comes in tending relationships with families, friends, and communities. Thus a family can live in a small apartment with battered furniture and plates from goodwill, so from secondhand stores, but still have a beautiful home if the relationships between the family members have been carefully nurtured and grown. [00:18:17] Speaker A: Beautiful. [00:18:18] Speaker B: That's great. That's a key point. Cause I think we often think we've got to have stuff and, or we've got to have, like, our house is a constant work in progress. [00:18:28] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:18:29] Speaker B: And it will be until all of our kids are gone and we are ready to downsize, which is who knows when. But it will be a work in progress. And I know for some people that they just struggle with that. It's, you know, it's because you want. [00:18:42] Speaker A: It to be finished, you mean? [00:18:43] Speaker B: Yeah, and I think I feel the burden of that often because that's the pressure of our age. No, you've got to have a perfect looking house that you could present to not even guests. It's. You could present online now on social media, and you've got to be seen to be doing a thing. But in actual fact, the importance of that's not found there. I remember when I became really aware of this a few years back when. Remember there was the house a couple of doors down that the group home that was empty. And we thought, we wonder if the Ministry of Social Development might even sell that. And it was a bigger home and it was a bit nicer at the time. [00:19:18] Speaker A: Spa andapool. [00:19:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And we thought maybe we should find out and see if it's because we quite like where we're living. Let's see if it's available. And then we were talking about sort of just house moving in general. And one of the couple of the kids said, no, we didn't want to move. This is our home. And it was like their priority was not the house. It was what was going on inside the house that mattered to them. [00:19:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I think Eleanor in particular, would struggle. She's quite attached a, to her space here. She's a good little homemaker. Went upstairs last night, she tucked her in for the third time, and she was busy draping some pretty cloth over a basket of stuff. [00:19:50] Speaker B: She's setting up her space, and that's in the moments like that where you realize the gift that you can give to your children is actually just those sort of basic, fundamental things, like a space that feels safe and warm. We often, we're like, oh, am I doing it good enough? Am I getting it right? But that is a profound gift in and of itself, something so simple like that. But, yeah, that really, really matters. And so it is, it's relational. That's the key. It is. It's the relational home that is the, the well crafted home. And you can't see that on social media. Understanding homemaking is a craft that produces beautiful, if intangible, results. Well, I don't know if they're intangible. [00:20:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm not sure what they mean. Does she mean just because the cakes get eaten? [00:20:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I think she means it purely. The material level, like you. Yes. [00:20:36] Speaker A: And the people. The people level. The relational level is intangible. [00:20:40] Speaker B: Well, no, it's not. That's very tangible, I think. Because you can, like, look at that example. I cited it with Lucy and the cake making. That's a very tangible fruit. But there's no sort of material evidence of that, in a sense, you know, it's, yeah, it's something much more ethereal. The results should hopefully encourage young men and women who are thinking about caring for home and or children. Oh, sorry. Understanding homemaking is a craft that produces beautiful results should hopefully encourage young men and women who are thinking about caring for a home and or children. For the young mother or father overwhelmed by all there is to do, and feeling incompetent in the face of the multiple, often conflicting demands of house. And I know you feel that. [00:21:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, well, I don't so much anymore now. The kids are a bit older, I think. But I know when the kids were little, certainly there were times where I felt, like, overwhelmed. I probably felt overwhelmed more now by, like, how much meat do we actually need? [00:21:33] Speaker B: Yeah, we're at that stage trying to keep on top of the groceries, economic pressure, and children coming up from the bottom who are bit older and eat. [00:21:40] Speaker A: A bit more to eat. Yeah, yeah. It's that kind of making meals. Everybody will eat and. [00:21:45] Speaker B: And trying to find meat that is not absurdly overpriced. It's just, man, it's mental right now out there, eh? Yeah. And they say here, it may help to know that homemaking is a skill to be developed over time. That's what we're talking about earlier. [00:21:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:21:59] Speaker B: But here's the thing I was thinking about. This is like, the reminder here is that first statement she makes about understanding homemaking as a craft that produces beautiful results. Well, I would say fruit rather than results, because I think results based language implies, like a project, it implies utilitarianism, whereas this is a relational exercise and that produces fruit. But that's just a monocle. [00:22:24] Speaker A: Well, you want your kids to grow up and know what a good home feels like so they can kind of recreate it in their own way with their own skills and talents. And I'm for sure, you know, I can say already Evie and Eleanor are going to have slightly more aesthetically pleasing houses, but I would like them all to leave home knowing these are the things that made our house a home and also to have an understanding of what goes into that. Like, I think kids deserve to live in a house that's tidy, relatively clean and ordered most of the time. You know, like, you'll come home on a Saturday afternoon after we've all been out at multiple netball games and there'll be paint everywhere and not so much playdoh anymore. We've kind of moved on from that. But, you know, the little two might have made a hut in the lounge or whatever. Like, it's gonna be chaos. [00:23:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:11] Speaker A: But at its base level, we know where those things go back. [00:23:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:15] Speaker A: We know how to keep it clean. [00:23:17] Speaker B: Well, it's an opportunity. [00:23:18] Speaker A: It's a virtue of actually learning to actually maintain a home. [00:23:22] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's an opportunity for them to learn the virtue of cleaning up after themselves and all those other things. [00:23:26] Speaker A: They don't just watch mum do it every day and go, oh, I never have to do that. They actually contribute to. [00:23:30] Speaker B: No, because we don't want our kids to have sterile lives, but in order to have non sterile lives, I would. [00:23:34] Speaker A: Hate to put up with a bit of mess, you know, while everybody. You'd love to have a clean, kind of clinical house that looks beautiful. Yeah, but I don't want to be that mum. That's like, don't sit on any of the furniture. I mean, I am starting to prepare them for the new couches. I'm like, you know, when we have new couches, you won't be eating that on there, you know that. [00:23:51] Speaker B: Well, then that's fair enough. I'll be the same. [00:23:54] Speaker A: But, um, yeah, at the end of the day, you still want to be able to live. And my mum was really good at that. She always said, you've got to be able to live in your home, you know, like, that's where life happens. [00:24:03] Speaker B: Well, and this is the point. Like, this is that point she made. This is the last thing I wanted us to talk about, was that this should hopefully encourage young men and women who are thinking about caring for home and or children. And I think there's an interesting shift that has to happen in society, basically at the moment. The idea of having a home and family and all that sort of stuff, it's presented as a choice rather than an aspiration. So once upon a time it would have been, yeah, that's. I'm either called to that or back in the day, you'd say to maybe some sort of celibate vocation, like being single for Christ in some way, maybe as a minister, as a religious sister or brother, or in some other single vocation as a mission, whatever it was, right? But generally, most people, it was. The aspiration was family life. Now it's like, I think, one of two things. It's just a choice. And when it's reduced to a choice, that's not good for society, that's not good for individuals. Cause family life is so essential. Or it's just presented constantly as a burden, even by people who try not to, like, oh, we know homemaking can feel like a burden. Oh, we know parenting's a burden, but here's how to get the most out of it. And they're trying not to, and they're trying to be real about the struggle. But the problem is they often end up just presenting it as if, like, it's a burdensome choice. But, hey, there might be some good fruit if you put up with the bad stuff. It's like, well, no, you're supposed to. That's what life is, you know what I mean? You're supposed to actually have. [00:25:26] Speaker A: Supposed to have the tedium of work. [00:25:29] Speaker B: Yeah. And the thing that I worry about is, like, I'm not worried about our kids, because already they're talking about family life for themselves and what they want to be as a mum or a dad or whatever, you know what I mean? Like, they're already talking out loud like that. But probably a lot of young people aren't really that. It's just like, oh, yeah, that's a choice you could make to me or Tammy if you want to, but, you know, you could make another choice, not have family or delay family until you're 45. And sadly, a lot of people have been wounded and have lost now as a result, I think particularly woman, because of that myth, but men also. And so, yeah, in order to restore that, I think we've gotta, like, I don't know, you bring kids into it, right? Yeah, they've got to be part of that project, quote, unquote, agreed with you. So, yeah, I guess the question is, how do you do that? How do you. And one way is, like, Lucy and the cake baking. [00:26:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's also like, and I'm really conscious of this with myself because I know it's somewhere I often fail, but not constantly giving them a negative, oh, I've got to do all this, or I've got to do that, or there's so much laundry to do or whatever. And I'm obviously always saying that because there is almost so much laundry to do to actually give them the joy. And that's a real challenge, because when you are in that chaos and when you are in that, just that daily grind of, like, make the food, clean up after the food, hang out some laundry, make some more food, more food. And it's different for us now because the kids are older and able to contribute more. And we can say, as we should be saying all the time, your own plate. You know, look around, see what you can do to help. Yeah. I think one thing that's also really helped me was some wisdom I had quite a long time ago when the girls were little, reading a book by Kimberly Hahn about homemaking, and she talked about how there was this one t shirt that you would always see in the laundry, constantly popping up and gone through all eight of their children. And she got sort of angry about this t shirt, how many times she had to wash it and fold it. And she said in the end, she had to kind of retrain herself to. To pray and to thank God for that t shirt. That had been obviously a good investment because it had lasted that long. And that's really helped me in the days where I'm really finding, like, oh, here I go again with the laundry, hanging it out and actually saying, this is a blessing to my family. [00:27:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:52] Speaker A: You know, like, and I'm. Look, I'm not always the only person hanging out laundry now, which is great, but actually being able to say it's a blessing that I can give my kids clean clothes. It's a blessing. I can fold this for them and praying for that person and for whatever's going on in their life and in their heart. [00:28:06] Speaker B: It's a great insight. [00:28:07] Speaker A: I don't do it all the time. I'm not. [00:28:09] Speaker B: Look, I think this is the channel. I'm grappling and learning this a bit at the moment, actually. Been going through a few things lately. And one of the things I'm realizing is just how the trap of utilitarianism and functionalism and that gilded home type idea is a real trap, because it makes you think that you've got to get to a certain stage, you've got to build a certain thing, and then you've achieved it. And the problem is, what that does is you then put all this pressure on yourself, because that's not what family life is. And you then feel, oh, I'm failing because I'm never at. I've never arrived. And it's. You are. You have arrived. You're doing it. It's a constant arrival every day. And that's all of a sudden it takes the pressure off. It's not like I've got to get to this next thing. Oh, come on, kids. Just, you know, you're annoying me because I've got to get to this next thing. [00:28:56] Speaker A: You're not having me achieve my goal. [00:28:57] Speaker B: I'm trying to achieve this goal of perfect home life or whatever it is. And this thing you want me to do with you right now. No, come on. And you get angry. The problem is that thing that your kids want you to do with them right now, that is the girl. That is the end arrival point. And, you know, it's not this gilded thing. It's not this perfectly manicured and presented project version of it. It's the living. And, yeah, that's how you sort of, I think, break that shackle. I've been grating with that a lot lately and just realizing how important, even something as little as, like, at the moment we're in winter. And so I try and set the fire or clean the fire each morning for you, and so it's ready to go even if you don't light it straight away. Like, that little act takes a solid, probably half an hour. But that time, like, it's not just another thing I've got to get done. It's a way I can give to my family. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It's starting to reorder my priorities, I think is actually a good thing. It's taken too long, but. Right. So moving right along. We've got one other I thought was a very important article to talk about because we've been discussing this kind of issue a bit on and off on episodes, and it was this article by a lady called Kimberly Els. Three painfully obvious suggestions to reduce your child's screen time. And we'll just have a quick look because she basically says, a major concern of paediatricians today is excessive screen time in children. Well, not just paediatricians. Here are three painfully obvious suggestions for avoiding and reducing screen time. Unfortunately, these are increasingly becoming viewed as unnecessary or unreasonable by some parents. So she starts with age demographics, and so I thought we'd just read through them. Babies and toddlers, if you have a young child with you in the cart at the store, don't hand them a phone to shut them up or keep them entertained. This is pretty much an epidemic. Every time I go to the store, talk to your child instead. [00:30:49] Speaker A: That made me laugh. Do you wanna know why? [00:30:51] Speaker B: Why? [00:30:51] Speaker A: Because when Eleanor was little and I'd take her to the supermarket, she was old enough to sit in the seat, you know, she wasn't like a baby baby. And as a treat, I'd buy her one of those squeezy yogurt sachet things. She would take it and I'd say, you're not allowed it til you're not allowed to open it till we've paid for it to wait till we go through a checkout. So she'd have to hold her yogurt the whole way around the supermarket. And do you know what she'd do with it? Put it out to her ear and she'd go, phone. [00:31:17] Speaker B: Interesting. Who was it? We had one who used to just put. Or did they all do this? Would put items off the shelf into the. Would help. [00:31:26] Speaker A: Oh, we didn't terminate doing that. [00:31:28] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure. [00:31:29] Speaker A: Maybe when you were pushing the trolley, there would be. [00:31:31] Speaker B: You turn around and there'd be extra items. Yeah. They're just helping, you know, but that is important. Right. And it's a time for the interaction. Yeah. The store is a place where a child can learn a lot about the world by simply watching things and having you narrate the world for them. So talk, mums. I know constant narration gets exhausting, but keep it up. Yeah. I don't know. [00:31:51] Speaker A: I think it sort of comes as second nature, really? [00:31:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:54] Speaker A: I did used to park the trolley and walk just a little bit further away when Nathaniel was going through her screeching phase. [00:31:59] Speaker B: Yep. [00:32:00] Speaker A: Whose baby is that? [00:32:02] Speaker B: Yeah. What a weird. [00:32:03] Speaker A: Whose child is that? [00:32:06] Speaker B: Someone deal with that kid. A book is a shared activity that brings parent and baby together. Opt for human connective activities. Most of the time, a baby watching a device is a non human connective activity. Minimize this as much as possible. Bring a bag, box or backpack of books everywhere you go to the doctor's office, in the car, your box of books. I don't know if I take a box, but, yeah, you take a couple of small books in your handbag, probably. Right. [00:32:32] Speaker A: It's a bit of a shame, actually. That's one of the things I think we've kind of lost since COVID is that like doctors offices and stuff, they don't have books anymore because of the whole jammy thing. [00:32:39] Speaker B: Oh, that's right. [00:32:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So there's like. Because my kids would go to the doctor's office and just pick up probably the toys that were there, to be fair. But they would often pick up a book. [00:32:46] Speaker B: And then we got into paranoid. Yeah, yeah, that was crazy. But having a couple of books in your handbag is key. Yeah, that's true, isn't it? [00:32:57] Speaker A: You keep a couple of books in your handbag at all times, don't you, babe? [00:33:02] Speaker B: But I think even just connecting with them, and I think part of that then is the challenge is for us and our screen time. So it's like, well, my kids not on a device, but I'm sitting there with my kids at my feet and I'm on a device. So they're still being robbed of that time. And I think also the science has indicated for a while that the nature of the constantly flickering screens and the amount of sort of visual stimulation is not good, even if it's just sort of a basic kid's game or something. Yeah. That's all that young children, she says, resist setting quotas for how much time your child must read. And not that we did, did we? I guess some people do, you know, forcing kids to read as if it's a punishment or a chore crushes the joy out of it. Them. And you, though, well intentioned reading minute quotas tend to orientate children away from. Oh, sorry, reading minute quotas. So how many minutes? I guess this would be situation where you say if you read for ten minutes, then you'll get an hour of screen time or something like that. [00:33:57] Speaker A: Oh, maybe, yeah. [00:33:58] Speaker B: Reading minute quotas tend to orientate children away from the love of reading. Read for the joy of reading and let your kids do the same. So I guess the key thing there, too, is to find stuff that they will enjoy reading. So even if it's just hunting magazines, like, Nathaniel went through a phase like that. You just read these catalogues before that. Yeah, yeah. And now he's moved on to books. But, you know, different kids will have different things. Reading invitations, challenges, or binges are different to reading quotas. It's all about the approach when heading off somewhere in the car, a parent or grandparent can say something like, hey, let's bring ten books with us today. Go grab the ones that you want. Yeah, ten books is a lot, but. [00:34:36] Speaker A: I was gonna say you wouldn't like that. Imagine Eleanor coming. [00:34:39] Speaker B: Honestly, man, they already. They already come with box. Or they could say, hey, this Friday, let's have a book binge. Let's see if we can read and eat popcorn for a whole hour. I thought about that when I thought probably most kids would just eat popcorn for an hour. [00:34:54] Speaker A: Ellen would be like, I've run out of popcorn again. [00:34:55] Speaker B: Have you ready? Totally. You know, like, yeah, totally. Or maybe we can read a whole book out loud together this week. Want to try? Which one should we choose? That's kind of a cool thing to do because, you know, used to be. [00:35:06] Speaker A: She does say it's painfully obvious, but for me it's very painfully obvious. [00:35:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:35:11] Speaker A: But I think it comes from a young age. Like, it's good that she talks about reading to babies because, you know, you read to babies. [00:35:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:19] Speaker A: It doesn't stop there. Yeah, toddlers love books. You just keep. Take advantage of your library story times, that kind of thing, you know? [00:35:26] Speaker B: Well, that's what she says next. When your child begins to read independently, don't stop reading to him or her. Keep reading together and independently. Wear out your library card. Finding beautiful books to read together, and you still do that. This is something I'm in awe of with you is that you regularly take them to the library for, like, book halls. Like, I used to have to do that on my own. I'd go to the library, I'd bike. [00:35:46] Speaker A: To the library, come back with, tap themselves more. [00:35:49] Speaker B: But that I know, and I've seen this, like, in some families, that's becoming a non thing, the idea of the public library. And to be fair. Yeah. [00:36:00] Speaker A: Well, to be fair, Nathaniel pretty much wants to go on the computer when he's there. [00:36:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:03] Speaker A: And that's not what we're here for today. [00:36:05] Speaker B: So public libraries and computers. When I was a kid, the computer was there for you to look up books. You look up books and it was. They always never, they never seemed to work right. Either you'd be like this, I'm pretty sure. Cause you go to the shelf and you find the book, and the computer site's not there and things like that. But the other thing, too, is that libraries now, thankfully, I think there's a bit of a course correction starting to happen. But they were, like, as of late, the last five years, they were becoming, like, ideological sort of stuff. Yes. Okay. Oak spots. And then it's sort of like political ideology, and, like, it's pride month, and it's. It's like. And so for parents, you're like, well, I don't want to take my kids in there to be bombarded with a whole. Look, it's a whole room full of LGBTQIA plus ideologically motivated books. [00:36:48] Speaker A: It is that, anyway. But you really had to filter through to find the ones that aren't. [00:36:52] Speaker B: Yeah, but it's like, okay, but let's not. Yeah, that's weird. And so libraries were sort of. I imagine for some parents, it was like, just don't go there. But in actual fact, the library is a good thing to, you know, to stay connected with. If you didn't have a mum and dad who read to you, be that mum and dad now. I think that's. That's. That can. That can be hard. I've realized this as I've got older, that I'm looking at my life in the last year or two, and I'm realizing, gosh, I've picked up a lot of my parents habits, even though I never intended to. [00:37:19] Speaker A: Isn't that always the way? [00:37:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's like. But also, I've realized that's the hardest stuff to break. [00:37:25] Speaker A: Yep. [00:37:25] Speaker B: Because you just want to fall back into pattern. If you don't have time to read regularly with your child, it may be time to rethink your priorities and make some adjustments. Ooh. Challenging, but true. [00:37:38] Speaker A: Yep. [00:37:38] Speaker B: I've discovered that once you take certain. I realized I had this idea of leisure time that I must have this time to myself, where I sit down and watch a couple of hours of tv each night, like, so I'm free to do that. And. But in actual fact, when you realize I don't need to do that, and that takes the pressure off, and it's not like I don't need to rush now through the bedtime routine or anything or whatever it might be, you can actually. You can do that other stuff without. Oh, no. I've got to read a book. I haven't got time. But why haven't we got time? [00:38:06] Speaker A: How many pages of doctor seuss. Can I skip without them noticing? [00:38:09] Speaker B: Well, we live in the age of what? Being time poor binge watchers. [00:38:14] Speaker A: Yeah, true. [00:38:15] Speaker B: So maybe we do. [00:38:17] Speaker A: We don't have any time. But I did watch a whole season on Netflix. [00:38:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. [00:38:23] Speaker A: When people talk about that on the radio, I'm like, how are you doing this? [00:38:26] Speaker B: I know. [00:38:26] Speaker A: Like, where did you get 8 hours? Well, it's on a Saturday. Do you not do anything else? [00:38:32] Speaker B: I know, I guess. And I guess that's the thing I like, and that's the tragedy of a life that's lived constantly at work all week. [00:38:40] Speaker A: Yeah. And then the weekends, just literally doing nothing. [00:38:42] Speaker B: Yeah. And then you sit down and watch a binge, watch a show. [00:38:45] Speaker A: Baby reindeer. Or reindeer baby or whatever it's called. [00:38:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Gosh. Anyway, those are the days. Lastly, she says, tweens and teens, if you keep the house stocked with books throughout your child's young life and continue to read with them throughout their foundational years, your child is most likely to enjoy reading. That's been our experience. [00:39:02] Speaker A: It comes back to the homemaking because those pictures on the Internet never have any books on the bookshelves. Or maybe like one or two pretty ones. And they're all, like, organized by colour. [00:39:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:13] Speaker A: This is kind of spewing. Books everywhere. [00:39:17] Speaker B: Support this trend by keeping them well stocked with books you trust. [00:39:21] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a hard one. [00:39:22] Speaker B: That's the challenge, right? [00:39:23] Speaker A: That's a hard one. [00:39:24] Speaker B: We almost need to do an episode on, you know, trustworthy books. Cause, holy moly. And you're right. Young adult fiction seems to me to be the place now where you have two things. [00:39:33] Speaker A: It's political. [00:39:33] Speaker B: Yep. It's political ideology. And it is people who cannot write proper fiction, so they seem to go there because it's easy. [00:39:41] Speaker A: It's driven by political ideology. So there's not much plot. [00:39:45] Speaker B: No. [00:39:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember once when Lucy was maybe 14, she came home with two books in the library. And at this point, I was still checking, you know, pretty much what she checking what she read before she read it. And one book was a space adventure. [00:39:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:00] Speaker A: Which basically seemed to be space was just the setting for a lesbian love fest. And I found this out literally by skimming, you know, like, I read a couple pages and then, you know, and I do google them up. Got some websites I use, but the other one was about Nazi Germany teen fiction set during World War Two. Some pretty intense, like, depictions of concentration camps, but like an actual story and an actual noble heroism and I said to her, you're not reading the space trilogy. Whatever. Nice space. Whatever it was. You can read this one about Nazi Germany if you think you'll enjoy it, because this actually happened, and it's important that you know about it and it's not propaganda. [00:40:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's important, eh. And that's. That's really hard, that. That space seems to me very difficult. You're right. It is where hacks go to do political propaganda. [00:40:52] Speaker A: Teen, as my very, very good friend says, teen fiction is not a genre. No, it's not a genre of fiction. And your kids are just as well off reading from the junior fiction until they are in their teens. [00:41:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:03] Speaker A: And then going to good adult fiction. There's still good modern adult fiction out there. There's really good classics, but teen fiction you need to be on top of. You need to check. They can get 200 pages into a book. Bang. [00:41:18] Speaker B: Yeah. The problem is that the authors of that garbage, they're rewarded for it. [00:41:24] Speaker A: Yeah. They get published for diversity. [00:41:25] Speaker B: That's the problem. You get rewarded for producing the crap, and that's not good. But they say here, unfortunately, you absolutely cannot just go browsing in the teen section. That's what we're talking about the library these days, and expect to find suitable material. Stick to the classics she loved as a kid and take recommendations from trusted sources. And she gives a few recommendations as well. And we might post those links. It's fine to watch a movie or play a digital game once in a while. Well, you know, that happens in our house now a bit more. It's interesting. Digital games are fine, by the way. I think it's just the nature of what they're playing. So we've got a Nintendo wii in our house, and, like, one thing we've got is Mario supercarts, and it's at least two people racing each other. There's a bit more of a sort of interaction aspect to it. [00:42:11] Speaker A: Nathaniel had hilarious arguments yesterday when we got home from church because we'd gone to separate churches yesterday. And he said, can I go on the way? And I was like, well, you know, I don't know when the other's gonna be home. We've got to have lunch. And then there's this and that. And then he made this amazing argument where. But it's better than YouTube because I'm not just sitting there watching it and my thumbs are moving and all these great points. And he did wear me down. He won me over. I was like, okay. [00:42:35] Speaker B: And he's playing. He's playing army game at the moment, which basically requires him to. [00:42:40] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, there was something about strategy in his argument. [00:42:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Achieve objectives. And it does. He's got, it's like it's solving puzzles basically and achieving objectives. Now sure he's shooting at things, but there's something more, you know, going on there. I just don't think that that's too much of an issue as long as he's not constantly on it. [00:42:56] Speaker A: On it all the time. [00:42:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's the key. Just find the sweet spot, you know. [00:43:01] Speaker A: Constantly asking for it but not constantly on it. [00:43:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's what she says here. If your default activity has become joint media consumption or independently scrolling on your phones, it may be time to change things up. [00:43:11] Speaker A: And that's trying. [00:43:13] Speaker B: And that's something that worries me. This is why I want us. I want us to try like a communal board game, like risk. I know you as much as you loathe that, that's Katie dying on the floor. [00:43:25] Speaker A: I hate ball games. [00:43:28] Speaker B: I know you do, but, but like risk or settlers of catan or hey, you liked rummy cub for a little bit and the kids have started to sort of get a little bit of a thing for that. But just trying to say, hey guys, let's sit down on a Sunday afternoon. Let's play rummy cub together or whatever that. Okay, I'm getting the death stare. [00:43:47] Speaker A: I might be busy on Sunday afternoons from now on. [00:43:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll be washing a lot of laundry to fold. What date is that again? Yeah, I'm busy. Yeah. Yeah. And that was the last episode of the little fog board games. Oh, look. Are a great alternative. [00:44:01] Speaker A: I knew you'd bring that up and I knew that I would do that. [00:44:04] Speaker B: Reaction as is anything outside. Like you can go outside picnicking, tossing a frisbee, hiking. [00:44:11] Speaker A: This is clearly written for the american summer. [00:44:13] Speaker B: Throwing rocks. [00:44:15] Speaker A: Nathaniel will be up for that. Our kids have been painting rocks lately. [00:44:18] Speaker B: They have. That is amazing. We're gonna end up. All of our rock bed that I laid is gonna be painted and taken. [00:44:23] Speaker A: To school for Eleanor's trip. [00:44:24] Speaker B: Looking at the stars, lying on a blanket, walking, etcetera. I like to lie on a blanket in the morning, but unfortunately the kids keep coming in, get out of bed. The point of all of this is to talk about life, reflect and connect. So let's keep reading, talking and resisting the urge to default to media. Yeah, I think that's key. And I think what you've got to do is you've just got to get on top of it. Right. [00:44:43] Speaker A: Yes. And I was going to say, I think if you're at, you know, if you're at. We're constantly on our phones or we're all watching different things, like. Or I notice that I'm always giving my kid my phone to entertain them while I'm trying to do anything. Yeah, you need to start small. And my recommendation would be family dinner. No phones at the table. No phones between five or whenever dinner starts getting cooked and bedtime. [00:45:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:10] Speaker A: Especially if you're in a family with lots of teenagers. I've seen this a few times and it's not good. Not a good dynamic. No, your teenagers are on their phones and you're basically saying, put your phone down and come to the table. [00:45:19] Speaker B: Yeah, you've got, you've got a. Yeah, you gotta set clear expectations and then enforce them. And I think you've also. Yeah, you're right. Start small, make small changes. If you're thinking, oh, I don't know how to tackle this, just pick one thing and change it and keep changing it for two months. [00:45:36] Speaker A: And I had a question with a friend recently about this, and she said they were having some struggles with one of their daughters. And I think one of the, you know, just your basic rules. You just need to have a family device contract. You know, the obvious ones. No devices in bedrooms. Yeah, yeah. That kind of thing. You know, kids go, it's not there, but too bad. Yeah, that's it. [00:45:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think really it comes down to clear rules and enforcing them. And be aware devices before the age of 16 are not the greatest thing for your children at all, and especially not a smartphone. So just, I mean, like, it's not 2000 anymore. We were like. Or 2005, whatever, when these things really started to sort of kick off and we were like, oh, it's amazing. The space age technology is going to make our kids smarter, brainia and we know a lot more now, so we just gotta be more careful about this kind of stuff. So. Yeah, but, but you're right, that's, that had the clear boundaries and, and be consistent and don't be afraid to be the traffic cop because you just gotta, you know, like, the kids won't always like it, but they'll thank you later in life, that's for sure. Alrighty. Katie, that music means it's time for our moment of goodness, truth or beauty, and for our scriptural reflection. Katie, what's your. You want me to go first, do you? [00:47:05] Speaker A: You always make me go first. [00:47:07] Speaker B: Well, okay, I was trying to be a gentleman, but, you know, if you insist. In the age of equality. For me, my moment of goodness, truth or beauty was actually a film that I watched. And I was completely blown away by this movie because I was not expecting this at all. But it was the new film or recently released film called Godzilla Minus one. It is about Godzilla, as in the japanese monster movie. And unlike previous versions of this, which have not been that great, even the newer ones, this one is phenomenal filmmaking. It's a japanese film made by japanese filmmakers, and it's set in Japan in the immediate aftermath of World War Two. So literally, the plot starts with our main character. He was supposed to be a kamikaze pilot, but he pretended his engine was faulty and returned back to home base on one of the islands. And then the war ends and he comes home. And so he's got this great shame. And the reason he came home and faked an engine failure was because he actually promised his mum and dad that he would come home alive to them. And they were killed in a bombing. His older parents. And so this is where the film starts. He literally comes back into the ruin of Japan in the immediate days after the end of the war. And then it sort of unfolds from there. Now, the monster in this Godzilla is actually a metaphor for basically the PTSD. It's the monster that they brought home with them, that these men brought home with them. But it's not dark. And like, you imagine a film about PTSD after the war would be like, not happy viewing, but it's not like that. But it's handled really well. But it's about these men rediscovering an authentic virtue, not violence, and not a call to needless self sacrifice and, you know, suicide bombs or anything but genuine loving sacrifice for a higher, noble cause, like saving the people of Japan from this monster. And they have this cool little plan they come up with. They execute it. The main message of this film, really, is that men discover themselves when they give themselves to noble causes. It's about finding authentic, self sacrificial love. It's about virtue. And one of the most beautiful things was it was a group of men. They weren't presented in a cynical way. They weren't presented as predators like you'd often get in a lot of western cinema now. They weren't presented as bigots or not politically correct enough or any of that sort of stuff. They were just men doing a noble thing that men must do. And it was celebrated. It was beautiful. And it wasn't absurdly Hollywood type, you know, popcorn, blockbuster Arnold Schwarzenegger, quote unquote manhood. It's not that kind of a thing. It was just beautiful. And it was such a well crafted film. I mean, I was in tears and places watching this movie because it actually is really, really well made. There's this one beautiful scene just to finish with that. I can think of where these men are in like an. It's kind of like an outdoor cafe. Well, not quite outdoor, but a small japanese cafe. And there's been sort of a lot of bombing damage still around on the streets. They're not quite fully rebuilt, but it's this beautiful. It's almost like a painting where there's this one light source, this beautiful golden light is around this group of men talking about how they have to. They have to take this risk to save the nation. And they're just sitting there. I think they're having sushi. They're having a meal or something together and they're just talking. This light is above them and it's the light around them. And then the camera pulls back and everything else is kind of dark because the sun's setting. And on these streets, everything else around them is dark. But there's this one source of light. It's like, you know, it's really. It's a beautiful metaphor for what brotherhood and stuff is. Look, I can't recommend it enough. Phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal film. And as I said, I was in tears. The thing was beautifully made. It was goodness, it was truth. And I was like, holy moly. Like, I never thought I would see a film made like that again called Godzilla minus one. And I didn't expect it from a Godzilla movie. And I definitely didn't expect it to be made in the current era where it's just all political crap. Excuse my french, but it just is. And you've got a wade through all the garbage to try and pick out the nuggets. And there are films that are a bit less garbagey, but they, most of them still have a certain amount of garbage. This one had none. Absolutely none. Nothing gratuitous, no obscenities, nothing. Yeah, no political. It was just. Man, it was amazing. It was like. Yeah, it was like, what the heck? It was like sort of shock therapy. What the heck, you know? Because here's something beautiful and well crafted and. Yeah, not all that usual stuff. So Godzilla minus one. [00:51:46] Speaker A: Very good. [00:51:47] Speaker B: So, yeah, that's my mom. [00:51:48] Speaker A: Very good. [00:51:49] Speaker B: What about you? [00:51:50] Speaker A: I've been reading, was sort of working our way through the CS Lewis Narnia books with Eleanor and she's been. She's right into it, although sometimes she seems like she's not right into it because she's too cool for school. [00:52:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:52:05] Speaker A: But we've just finished Madritan's nephew. [00:52:08] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:52:09] Speaker A: Last night she was upset because it was the last chapter, and she's like, can we read the first chapter of a horse and his boy? [00:52:13] Speaker B: Can we? [00:52:13] Speaker A: Can we? No, it's tomorrow night, but it's just really nice to read them again. I think. I think you bought them for me, the whole set. Maybe I did. The first year or two we were. [00:52:22] Speaker B: Married in a box. Yeah, boxing. [00:52:25] Speaker A: So they're, you know, some of them more worn out than others now, but, yeah, it's quite a few. I haven't read more than a couple of times, so it's really nice to be reintroduced to the story and see how he's cry, how he crafts that world and for her to kind of see little bits coming together. [00:52:41] Speaker B: Yeah, it's quite cool. [00:52:42] Speaker A: Even though we've read them, like, completely out of order, if you want to call it that, because, you know, there's no real order. That's right. Yeah. She's just putting things together herself and seeing all the little bits of symbolism. [00:52:53] Speaker B: She's really got into it, huh? [00:52:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, she's loving it. So it's nice. I'm like, yes, another Cs Lewis. [00:52:58] Speaker B: That's beautiful. And it relates to what we're talking about before, about reading. Yeah, it's true. A, they can. [00:53:03] Speaker A: Every now and then I go. And I say, we're up to this chapter. And she goes, oh, well, I read half of that last night. [00:53:08] Speaker B: Stop reading your head. What about your scripture reflection for the month? [00:53:12] Speaker A: Mine is from psalms. [00:53:14] Speaker B: Yep. It's a good, safe book to go to, isn't it? [00:53:16] Speaker A: That's always good. [00:53:17] Speaker B: Give us your favorite scripture. Psalm 23. [00:53:20] Speaker A: Google up a different translation. [00:53:21] Speaker B: Oh, did you? [00:53:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, no, it's gone. [00:53:24] Speaker B: Oh, no. Okay, so. Well, I'll start with mine. Mine is Galatians 522 to 23. Do you know what that is? Don't look. [00:53:31] Speaker A: I'm not. I'm looking at my one. [00:53:32] Speaker B: It's the fruits of the spirit. So the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. There is no law against such things. I love that statement. There is no law like you can. You can break that rule as much as you want to. You can be as loving and as joyful and as peaceful and as patient. There's no law against these things. And that's really beautiful. It's obviously the life of virtue. And what I love about this, though, I've been contemplating this a lot lately, is this is such an important measure for us as christians both. We should be striving to live this out. And we were talking about this earlier in family life. This is how you do family life. Well, is the fruits of the spirit, and it's also a really good discernment measure. You know, is this thing. Is this film a good thing for me to be watching? Is this book a good thing for my kids? Is this thing a good thing that I should be, you know, on social media, whatever? Well, look at the fruits of the spirit. Does it measure up or not? And you'll know. Yeah, you know. Cause sometimes you don't necessarily feel peaceful about a thing that God is doing in your life that has. Is hard. You want it to be easy, but there will be a sort of. I think there will be other fruits of the spirit that make it clear that, you know, there's something else going on here that's deeper. But if there's a whole lot of them that are quite obviously missing all this dysfunction, it's a really good discernment tool. And I think if we want to navigate the culture. Well, I've been saying this to groups I've been speaking to in public a lot lately. The fruits of the spirit are just a fundamental strategy in the current age, because you think about social media now in particular, and is it love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control? No way. It's the exact opposite. And that toxic way of relating and that politicized way of relating. Are you in my tribe or not? If not, I hate you. That has now morphed offline as well. And so this. The fruits of the spirit are so desperately needed, and we can start it in our own heart and mind and then in our own sort of family life. And for me, I found it's been a good thing to sort of measure myself each day and just say, okay, how am I doing? Or each moment. What's going on here? Kids, family life, work, whatever it is I'm struggling with are the fruits of the spirit here. What am I going to do to bring them into the situation? [00:55:47] Speaker A: Very good. [00:55:48] Speaker B: Well, I'm not perfect at it by any stretch of the imagination, and you know that. But, yeah, it's been a helpful little tool to get started with. [00:55:55] Speaker A: Very good. Mine was psalm 37 four. [00:55:59] Speaker B: Oh, I love psalm one. [00:55:59] Speaker A: Delight yourself also in the Lord, and he shall give you the desires of your heart. I just heard it one day a few weeks ago and it really made me think about, like, if you are delighting in the Lord, you know, you focus on that getting your desires of your heart, and everybody goes, well, I know what those are. But if you're genuinely delighting in the Lord, if he's your first point of view, joy, the desires of your heart will be oriented towards that as well. [00:56:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:22] Speaker A: They become, you know, he becomes the desires of your heart. Really? He should, hopefully. [00:56:27] Speaker B: Yeah. That's beautiful, isn't it? Alrighty, Katie. So that was our moment of goodness, truth and beauty, and our scriptural reflections for the month. Let's look at our listening questions. We've actually got two questions, but there's a third one that someone has sent in in the last couple of days, which I'm pretty sure is someone. It's meant to be a nice, sort of kind hearted, gentle bit of fun. [00:56:58] Speaker A: Talking about that one. [00:56:59] Speaker B: Yeah. So question number one. [00:57:00] Speaker A: I was like, Nana? Is Nana? Is Nana sending us questions? [00:57:02] Speaker B: So unless it is someone who really is who wants to know, I'm assuming it's not. I'll tell you why I think it is. So the question is, why are your children so amazing and well raised? And I. And why I think this is someone having a bit of a gentle fun is because regularly, when I go and speak in public about one of the traps of social media, which is show the best, hide the rest. One of the examples I consistently use is that we are encouraged to take these amazing photos and selfies. And often I have people say to me, wow, your family is just so well behaved and so well raised. And then I say to them, you want to come to our house at bedtime? And I've got this little funny bit. I do. [00:57:38] Speaker A: I want to have breakfast time. [00:57:39] Speaker B: Well, yeah. And the example I give is, I say, look, it's like a reverse exorcism. We're standing there screaming, the power of Christ compels you. Stay in there, not come out. And it stay in your bedroom. And so, yeah, I've been speaking a bit lately about this, and so I think someone, and I have a feeling I even know who it might be. But so I thought we'd start with that because, yeah, it was a bit of fun, but, yeah, the truth is, our children are not the most well raised, but they're pretty well raised. [00:58:07] Speaker A: They are amazing because they are gifts from God. [00:58:09] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:58:10] Speaker A: And we are working on raising. [00:58:11] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. [00:58:12] Speaker A: What's that catholic answer? Are you saved. I am saved. I have been saved and I will hope to be saved. [00:58:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I am saved. I'm being saved and I hope to. [00:58:19] Speaker A: Be saved applies here, too. [00:58:20] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. [00:58:22] Speaker A: We've done our best. We're going to keep doing our best. [00:58:24] Speaker B: I am a parent. Hopefully I am parenting and hopefully my parenting will be good. And if you can keep that in mind, you'll be fine. So, yeah, so our children are amazing because they're a gift from God, but, yeah, they're all. So they got their struggles and. Yeah, the reason I want. And that's it. That's exactly it. The reason I wanted to say this, because it can be very tempting. I know, folks, you listen to your favorite podcasters and you know, we're on that list now. We are your favorites, aren't we? Come on now. Yeah, come on, say it. No, no. But what happens is you think to yourself, are they gurus? We are not. And anybody who presents themselves as a guru run 100 miles an hour, because they're either being dishonest and not really telling you the truth about it, or they're trying to set up a cult. And so just, you know, we're not that, we're just doing our best. So, yeah, we're all on a journey. [00:59:12] Speaker A: Together, stumbling through each day. [00:59:13] Speaker B: That's right. We're all learning together. Learning is a shared experience. I did my Trump hands first attempt in learning. Yeah, yeah, my Trump hands. He does this with his hands. You can't see this, folks. Unfortunately, he brings his two hands together like he's holding the world. Great parents. Anyway, so here's the two questions, and these are quite serious. So this is one that came in recently and I thought, Katie, you'd have some wisdom to share because I know you've struggled with this one as well. I'm looking for help with raising two boys relatively close in age six and four and a half. I feel like I'm always nagging and yelling. I'm so impatient. I feel like I can't see the good things that they do. They never listen to me and I just feel like a nasty and not fun. Sorry, mum. And I know you've struggled with that. Do you have any resources of your own that you could share with me to help me out during this time? I also have a one year old princess. I hope I'm not going to be the mean mum if I love to have relationship and trust with. Yeah, I hope I'm not going to be the men and I'd love to. Oh, see, I'd love to have a relationship and trust with all my children. I feel stuck in a rut. Yeah. So you know what it's like to feel like the sort of. I know we've had the conversation about the. The mean parent, so. Yeah. [01:00:27] Speaker A: How would you respond to that? [01:00:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:00:32] Speaker A: The bit that sticks out to me is that they never listen to me. [01:00:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:34] Speaker A: I think that's just universal children behavior. And I often say to you, especially with Nathaniel, I've just gone into Charlie Brown teacher mode where I feel all he hears is that. Yeah, he doesn't even. It's just background noise. So that is really hard. One of the things I found when my kids were little and did 100% have done my share of yelling is if you get really quiet, they tend to listen more. If you sit down like, you're really quiet and you're like, now, Johnny, today, this is what's going to happen. And for some reason that does sort of, I don't know, put the woolies up. What's happened? Quiet. Mom's here. [01:01:19] Speaker B: Oh, no. [01:01:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:01:21] Speaker B: So what you're saying there, it seems, is break the monotony of what they used to. Yeah. [01:01:25] Speaker A: They're used to you yelling, break it. Yeah. [01:01:28] Speaker B: All of a sudden something. [01:01:29] Speaker A: And I think, give yourself a bit of grace because you've got a one year old as well and. Yeah, 4.5 and six boys. That's. It's a lot. It's tiring. And we've only got one boy and he's enough for me. Yeah. Don't be so hard on yourself. Because if you feel like you're kind of. If you're kind of always having that negative self talk, that's going to come out in how you treat them as. Well, not intentionally, not maliciously, just that you feel bad about yourself and the way you might be behaving and so that kind of can come out, sort of sneak through in your mannerisms and the way you talk to them. One of the pieces of wisdom my mum gave me was that if you're really feeling wound up and you're really. Things are just awful, it's actually okay to put yourself in timeout. Yeah, sometimes mums need time out. [01:02:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. [01:02:21] Speaker A: Just give yourself a break. Step away. Step away. And I know they'll all follow you and then little fingers will come under the door and whatever, but actually just try and give yourself that time. I've had mums text me from their wardrobes. [01:02:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:32] Speaker A: I'm hiding in my wardrobe. I just can't cope. That's okay. [01:02:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:35] Speaker A: Like take a few minutes to calm down so that you don't yell or slam a door or punch a wall or throw something. [01:02:41] Speaker B: You know, I would want to ask some obvious questions. So is dad available to help? And I guess you might say your dad's on the scene. Cool. But have you had the conversation. [01:02:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:55] Speaker B: Where you've talked to your husband or to dad and said, look, hey, I'm really struggling with this. You need to, like, that's how I figured out for Katie, where some of, well, that's consistently how I know where Katie's. [01:03:07] Speaker A: Katie tells you. [01:03:08] Speaker B: Pressure pointing. Yeah. Cause Katie will say, I'm struggling with this. Or, I remember the first time you told me. I feel like the mean parent. That was a bit of a revelation to me. Cause it just didn't sort of register with me in that way. And so, you know, dad needs to be aware, like, if you're struggling, have the conversation and say, look, and here's the thing, don't be afraid to have that conversation. This goes right back to where we started today's episode. The pressure is to have the perfect home. And there's so much pressure, I think, particularly in christian circles, where people are trying to live a more authentic family life. And what tends to happen is this pressure goes on the mum to be, quote unquote, the homemaker. You know, dad's job is to get out there. But in actual fact, traditionally that wasn't how christian families operated anyway. Everyone worked, everyone contributed, everyone was part of it. That's a post industrial revolution phenomena where we took dads out of the home for 12 hours a day or whatever it was, to go and work in the factory. And then this idea began to spring up that mum's job was to raise the kids in virtue and to be the homemaker. And dad was supposed to be out working. That was not the traditional model at all. Now, unfortunately, sometimes in christian circles where people are trying to live a more authentic family life where, you know, at least mum is present. And so dad goes out to work and they try and do their best to make sure mum's around the kids. There's often a pressure that goes on mums to be the perfect christian mum and to measure up to that standard. And it's really not helpful. And so people are often afraid to say, I'm not getting this right. So you need to. I think you need to have the conversation and just sit down and say, look, I'm struggling with this, and be honest about what it is that you're struggling with. So that's number one, right? That would be. [01:04:49] Speaker A: Yep. [01:04:50] Speaker B: That's. And you. And that's one of the great things that you're not afraid to. I think you're getting better at that now. [01:04:55] Speaker A: Not afraid. [01:04:56] Speaker B: Well, no, you used to. I used to blow my top and. [01:04:58] Speaker A: Then you're like, oh, what's happened? [01:04:59] Speaker B: No, that's what I think. I've seen a change. You used to white knuckle it. You would try and just, no, I've got to be the mom. I've got to be the mom. And then. But now. And then you blow up. But now before that, you're just like, well, I'm not coping, or I'm not this, or I'm not that, or, you know. So have that conversation. Let dad know. And why I think this is particularly important is because you've got two boys here and this is key. Yeah. Katie alluded to this. Boys are just. They can be little rat bags. They really can, as much as they're great and all the rest of it. And our son Nathaniel's a good boy, but I tell you what, he's like, oh, yeah, that's just mum, that is just a boy thing. It's always been. I remember when I was a kid and I had four brothers and one sister. So there's like six of us at home, but only one girl. And I remember we would do awful things. Like mum would say, you know, I'm gonna discipline you. And we'd laugh about it. Cause we'd be like, yeah, big deal. But then she said, right, well, I'm telling dad when he gets home. And we'd freak out. Cause we knew dad was the long arm of the law. I remember once that my mum, I had corduroy pants on, these really thick cord pants. Do you remember when you were a kid, like the old school corduroy? And we got the jam spoon on the bottom when we were naughty. And with mum, like, she would let us get away with probably a lot. And then if you were really bad, you got the jam spoon on the bum and my corduroy pants were so thick that I didn't feel the jam spoon. And my mum's just not really that sort of person anyway, so it was probably pretty light. Little whack on the bum. I was being really, really naughty and I turned around and said, ha ha. I don't feel anything. Like, imagine that you're trying to discipline your son and you've got to that point. They go, oh, I don't feel anything, mum. In other words, you're useless. And so. And that was foolish because she said, all right, I'm telling dad. And I knew about it that night when dad got home. And I learned a very valuable lesson there. Don't admit that. Always wear your corduroy pants and, yeah, always wear corduroy. [01:06:56] Speaker A: Don't look like you're toughing it out. [01:06:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And make. [01:06:59] Speaker A: And pick up some tears. [01:07:00] Speaker B: Overly exaggerate what's going on. Oh, this is awful. Worst punishment ever. Cause it could be worse. But, yeah, that's what boys are. They just. They do. They really. They're rambunctious. They push the boundaries. Generally there are exceptions, but they tend to prove the rule. So don't beat yourself up over that particularly. And you've got two boys who are so close in age, man, they'd be almost like twins. There's only a year and a half separating those two boys. That's a gang. [01:07:31] Speaker A: And if you've got the six year old going to school as well, like, four and a half year old's not quite there yet. [01:07:38] Speaker B: So you just got to realize that there's a dynamic between those two lads that's going to be. So four and a half year old is going, whoa, big bro, he's awesome. He's at school. They sort of play off each other. Big bro is looking down at little bro going, yeah, he's my minion, you know, and I'll teach him the ways. And then little bros going, I want to be like, big bro, you've got a. It's not just two individual kids, it's two children. [01:08:03] Speaker A: They're a team. [01:08:03] Speaker B: They're a team. [01:08:04] Speaker A: They're a team in there. [01:08:05] Speaker B: So you've got a real team, not on your team. And so maybe one strategy is to figure out, hmm, how can I find particular ways to maybe create separation key times? Maybe it's around dinner time. That might be your pressure point. And here's what I'd recommend that you do. If you're not sure, get a little notebook or do it on your phone or something, but keep a diary for a month and just write down every time and, like, what was going on, what time of the day is it, and what was happening. Every time you have a struggle moment where you feel, oh, my gosh, I'm being overwhelmed by my kids. [01:08:36] Speaker A: I was going to say that, too. What are your crunch times? If it's getting out the door in the morning or if it's when you're trying to cook dinner and then have that conversation with dad about. These are the times where I actually really need. [01:08:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:47] Speaker A: Now possible some extra help. [01:08:49] Speaker B: That might mean that dad's already gone to work and he's loving you by going to work and making money in this difficult economic situation. But what the key thing is if, you know, look back after a couple of weeks or a month of doing this and you'll start to see a pattern and recognize, okay, these are my trigger points where things tend to go wrong. Figure out a strategy for that moment. Okay, so I know between four and six is a real deadly. [01:09:14] Speaker A: Everybody hates between four and six. [01:09:15] Speaker B: That's the deadly. [01:09:16] Speaker A: For the record, we all hate it. [01:09:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's the really hard. Okay, what strategies am I going to have in place to maybe that period I need to figure out. We either get out of home, but that might not be possible. Cause you gotta cook dinner. Maybe it's ways to separate the two of them. Or maybe it's things for them to do, you know? So figure out the strategy. Work with your husband on it. If I'm assuming dad's on the scene, obviously, all that sort of stuff. So have that conversation and recognize, you know, you are dealing with too. I would say try and make time for other stuff as well. Like it might feel I'm constantly having to discipline because maybe part of the problem is that's all you're doing. So try and carve out some space where. Cause here's the reality of it. You have to be a police officer for a big chunk of that child's life. When the younger. As much as there's this modern fantasy that we can be friends and buddies, the truth is, if you try and do that, that will be a disaster for both you and your child. And the parenting at the other side of it will not be good. So they will be your friend, but that will come later in life. Your job right now is you do have to play the police officer. Unfortunately, that's just the nature of it. You're helping them to grow and you have to put the boundaries and then manage the boundaries. So maybe part of it is it's not so much that you have to be the police officer, but that's. That's all it feels like you're doing. Because there's no time for the other stuff. So what you've got to do is accept that you are going to have to be a police officer, but then make time for the other stuff as well. So that's not all just traffic cop duties. It's also so it's when the moment comes, like with my son Nathaniel, there's moments where it's like, okay, I'm the long arm of the law, but then there's other moments where we're just together as father and son. And it's not that. And so I think that tends to balance out. That's my experience anyway. Right. You know, that that sort of, I. [01:11:06] Speaker A: Think routine is key. So if you say, okay, after a week, I've noticed, yeah, breakfast. To leaving the house in the morning or whatever it is you do in the morning is always chaos and horrible and I'm always yelling and nagging, saying, put your shoes on, do your teeth. Look, we all do that in the mornings. I still have to do it now for my teenagers. But a list of expectations like your six year old is old enough to read basic words to recognise a picture. So even if you had a list of the things, these are the things I have to do. I get up, I have breakfast, I clean my plate, I get dressed, I do my teeth, I put my shoes on, I get my jacket, I'm ready to go. Nathaniel has resisted this for a long time. But the other day I was so frustrated with him, I wrote him a list and it actually worked really well. I was like, maybe we need to keep doing this. And then your six year old could also help your four and a half year old do those things. They're old enough to help. Hey, Tommy, let's go brush our teeth now. Let's find your shoes. So that he's actually taking away some of the stress from you. Because dealing with a one year old, you're probably trying to feed her. You have to do everything for her, right? She can't do any of that stuff for herself yet, so she might better go find her shoes, but that's about it. But actually, kids of that age love to help. Trust me, you'll appreciate it when they're older. They don't love to help so much, but they do love to be helpful and to actually get them involved in those activities, putting away groceries, that kind of thing. And if dinner time is a crunch point, I would recommend. I know people hate it because that might be when the baby's napping and they want to just have a rest themselves. But if you can make it earlier, have the bulk of it ready to go so that you can feed them at five, they're done. And you're not trying to make it when you've just done school, pack up or you're doing homework or the house needs tidying up or whatever else. You could actually maybe even go to the park in the afternoon, break up that afternoon, that really awful witching hour, actually, just to change that dynamic. Yeah. Sometimes it's just about rejigging your day. [01:12:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:00] Speaker A: To make it work, to make that time of the day easier. And I know in the moment sometimes you just feel like, I would rather just lie down and read my book. And that's fine, but you won't regret it later when dinner's already done, you know? [01:13:10] Speaker B: No. [01:13:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:13:11] Speaker B: I'd say too, a couple little things is maybe like you've mentioned lists. Maybe try and with the boys in particular, maybe there's ways of making certain things into games or incentivizing it. So instead of it being a punitive relationship, it's like, do that now or a bad thing will happen. And you do have to have those moments. I'm sorry. Particularly with boys, they just have to have the long arm movement. [01:13:31] Speaker A: Make sure it's a bad thing that will actually happen. [01:13:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:13:33] Speaker A: If you don't get your shoes and I'm leaving without you. Because every kid knows that's not gonna happen. [01:13:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And check. And if also, this is where consistency matters. Cause if particularly boys, if they know. Well, yeah, mum says that, but she's not going to. Then they'll just ignore, but maybe try and incentivize. And so you do things like you say, okay, if you do x, y and z, then we'll have five minutes of reading time before we go to school, you know, so it might not be that, it might be something else, but you give them a reason to do the thing rather than just what will happen if you don't do the thing. So sometimes you need the consequence, other times you need to incentivize. And as I said, maybe you can turn it into a game, a sticker chart, whatever it is. Give them reasons to actually cooperate with your schedule. And maybe part of it too is helping them to just understand. They're not old enough to really fully grasp it, but they can understand the basics of what our morning schedule needs to be. Give them a sense of why, you know, we need to do this and sort of bring them in with you on the plan. Cause maybe part of it is they don't quite realize yet. Now they're not. They're too young to really grasp the fullness of that. As they get older, that gets better. And that's my third thing I'd say here. It will pass. Don't panic. And I would say to you just, it might feel hard right now, but six months, a year's time, you might think, oh, okay, I'm through that stage with one of them. And that changes the whole dynamic. The thing I'd say too is that I think we're terrible at doing this just as human beings. But probably, particularly in the parenting situation, is we. Well, probably a lot of things, actually, but we tend to remember the most recent bad experience. That's the thing. And we think, oh, that's all of my parenting. In actual fact, it will be so much more that you don't see all the other good stuff you're doing. You don't see all the successes. You just remember yesterday and last Monday and whatever, I had this bad experience. And then two weeks ago and you just, it feels like I'm failing. But this is why I think keeping a diary is important. Cause you might discover, like, if you keep a diary of when things start to break down and you go, I nagged or I got angry or whatever, you might actually discover, oh, it's actually only happening every third day, as opposed to, it feels like to me it's happening all the time. But it might not be, it might just be a perspective thing because you remember the most recent negative experience, you know? So that, that diary, I'd suggest, is a really helpful way of sort of trying to get on top of stuff and figure out, because you can't fix a problem until you first diagnose the actual problem. So you got to figure out what the actual problem is and have the conversation with dad. You just got to have that last. [01:16:07] Speaker A: Thing I would say would be something that's really helped me, although it's sort of changing at the moment because my children decided they need to get up early. Very early, is getting up before the kids, if you can. And I know that's hard when you've got a baby that may still be up in the night for whatever reason, but if you can even get up 15 minutes before them and just start your day with a little bit of prayer and a bit of quiet and just really give yourself that time and ask the Lord for the grace to, to be the best mum you can be, that actually makes a huge difference. [01:16:37] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think on top of that too, is find a schedule and a routine that works for you and your family. I think too many people feel the, I guess, what would you call it? The performance orientated nature of being a super mum or a super dad or a super whatever. You gotta get up, work out for an hour, then have your prayers for half an hour. And then it's like, okay, real intense, hyper bloomin type a personality, type a, hyperactive people. That might be their bag, baby, but it's not supposed to be everybody's. And you are not a formula. You are a human being. And each human being is going to be unique. And obviously, you shouldn't be lazy and go, oh, this is just my way of being. I don't get up at all. No, no, that's not it. But it might be. I do work better at a different time of the day. It's okay not to get up early and pray in the morning if you are totally distracted and doesn't work for you. And it'd be better if you prayed midday or in the evening. You know, it's just important that you've got prayer and God present. It might not be in your best interest to get up and work out for an hour or to get up early, figure out what your family's best schedule is. There is no perfect family schedule. The only perfect family schedule is the one where it actually works. Everyone's flourishing, everyone's surviving, everyone's growing. Relationships of love are being built and where your kids are getting older safely and they're not going unfed. If that's happening, that's success. It is not a pattern that you have to conform to. So just be aware of that. Maybe you feel, oh, other mums do this, so I should do that, or, no, don't, don't fall into that trap. Figure out what works best for your family and that might help things. The second question we've got today is how can we disagree? Well, in a marriage or any other relationship, for that matter. And I guess that could, could extend to anything like workplace or one off disagreements. What would you say, Katie? [01:18:26] Speaker A: I disagree. Well, I think we've talked about this recently where we've lost the, as a society, what did you say? We've lost the ability to disagree. Well, we've lost the idea that it's okay to disagree with you. [01:18:38] Speaker B: Yeah, we don't debate. [01:18:39] Speaker A: Yeah, we don't debate well. [01:18:40] Speaker B: And we don't, we don't have polarization. We think polarization is evil, so we avoid it. And the problem is that just creates even all sorts of toxic forms of polarization, you know. [01:18:50] Speaker A: How do you disagree well in a marriage? [01:18:52] Speaker B: Well, I think first thing I'd say is you've got to. One rule that I think is helpful is I think I heard Jordan Peterson say this, that if you put off a smaller disagreement, it will absolutely come around and it will be a much bigger and worse one. So it's better just to, if you got a small thing that needs to be conversed about, have the conversation. But also check yourself as well that you're not. [01:19:16] Speaker A: Just before you wreck yourself. Sorry. [01:19:18] Speaker B: Check yourself before you wreck. But you do need to check. Okay, maybe am I just nagging and I'm talking about me as a husband here? Am I just nitpicking here? Could I let some of this go? Because that could be a factor. But if you do have to have the conversation, don't think, oh, no, it's too hard. Just put it off because it will come back in months time or two months time. [01:19:38] Speaker A: Run away. Yeah. That's interesting. You say, like, I think sometimes it's a perspective thing. [01:19:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:46] Speaker A: Like is this little annoying habit they have. Like, oh, he always leaves his plates on the bench and doesn't rinse them, put them in the dishwasher. And I'm not pointing fingers because I know that I am a dishwasher Nazi and so people are scared of loading my dishwasher. [01:19:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:58] Speaker A: And I have brought this upon myself. [01:20:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:20:00] Speaker A: What is it? A swedish architect of dishwasher stacking. [01:20:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:20:03] Speaker A: You are my hands up. Because I don't like any wild. [01:20:05] Speaker B: It is verboten supporting the dishes on. [01:20:09] Speaker A: The wrong side, but actually saying to myself, well, I appreciate that he's at least put them on the bench and not just left them lying around the lounge. Yeah. [01:20:18] Speaker B: I actually do load up the dishwasher. [01:20:20] Speaker A: You do? And then I just move it all around. [01:20:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And you move it all around. And sometimes I'm like, I've just. I've got to accept this now, too. I know she's going to move this around. [01:20:26] Speaker A: I don't always. It's only when we need to fit more. [01:20:29] Speaker B: But our children, our children don't. [01:20:32] Speaker A: Our children are getting there. [01:20:33] Speaker B: So I'm having sessions, group therapy sessions with an outside. Right, everyone come out here right now and you're not leaving this mess for mum. Do this thing. You know? [01:20:41] Speaker A: But I think it's. Yeah. Changing your perspective from. Oh, that's so annoying that he never does that to gratitude of what are the things he does do that. And also I'm a human being, too. Guarantee you there's something that I do that annoys him as much as my dishwasher. Silly behavior. And he hasn't made a big deal about that. [01:21:01] Speaker B: No. [01:21:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:21:02] Speaker B: No. And I think so. Yeah. So do have. So discern. Well, is it a disagreement? Should it be a disagreement or is this a me problem? I think too many people, I've seen this on both sides, male and female, where you get this sort of parenting or not parenting. Sorry. Relational help gurus who tend to either lionize one wives are amazing, and us men, we're all bums or the other way around. Us women are terrible and men are amazing. And, you know, and what you just do is you're enabling bad behavior. So, yeah, both men and women, they can do amazingly virtuous things and they bring these amazing gifts to marriage. They can also be really snotty at times and just accept that. So just discern, is it a disagreement? And if it is a conversation, you need to have, have the conversation and. [01:21:49] Speaker A: Have that conversation privately. Like, children do not need to be involved or in the process speaking as people. You know, everybody's done that. When you lose your rag in front of the kids, you know, you try. We try as much as we can to never, ever do that. [01:22:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:22:06] Speaker A: And one thing I'm particular, I try to work on is not making, like, little snarky comments. [01:22:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:22:11] Speaker A: You know, in front of the kids, so they know mum's a bit annoyed at dad, you know, trying to build each other up. Yeah. [01:22:17] Speaker B: And I'm. [01:22:18] Speaker A: Our kids should hear us building each. [01:22:19] Speaker B: Other up because I'll say, I'll say, look, yeah, I agree with you, but I didn't need the finger pointing or something like that because, you know, in front of the kids, I'm like, well, you know, so, yeah, things like that. But you've got to be aware of that and appropriately. Like, here's a tip for a woman. Never ever do it in front of your mother or father. Never. Like, for a man that really feels. Cause what they want to do is they want to feel like they're earning the trust of your parents. Even years into marriage, they still want that. And if they. Cause that feels like they're being ganged up on. Have the conversation and appropriate places. Like, you know, like, if you're both really tired, that's not the time to sit down and have a, you know, let's talk about our. Some issues in our marriage. Okay. How's this going to go? It's going to explode probably into. So pick a time of the day if you have to make time for it. [01:23:13] Speaker A: Try and an appointment to have an argument. [01:23:15] Speaker B: Well, try and have time together when you can have the convos, right? [01:23:18] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. [01:23:20] Speaker B: And I think that's the same in any other relationship in other relationships outside of marriage. And same is true in marriage. Don't ever text or email or anything like that. So. Oh, is it work? And I thought of a problem. I'll email my wife. Don't talk to them face to face. Have the conversation. Cause that will just. People will read into text based communication. [01:23:41] Speaker A: I think there's a place in marriage, not that we've ever done it, but for letter writing. I do know couples that have used that quite successfully, too, if it's a really hard topic. [01:23:50] Speaker B: Dear sir or madam, I find myself increasingly disconcerted by the lack of dishes in the dishwasher. [01:23:56] Speaker A: That's good enough for Jane Austen. [01:23:59] Speaker B: Mister husband looked grey. So, yes, I feel that there is something wrong. Here's a place for that. Yeah. I think also, too, is part of it is we often focus on, well, how do we argue? Well, yeah, great. But how do you build each other up? Well, as well. So that when you do need to have a disagreement, do you know what. [01:24:17] Speaker A: A good disagreement in marriage sounds like? Like, I'm sorry, I was wrong. [01:24:22] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's. [01:24:23] Speaker A: And then I forgive you. And I am also sorry and was also wrong because that's how marriage works. [01:24:29] Speaker B: I too, was an idiot. [01:24:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:24:31] Speaker B: Yeah. I think so much of that today. People say, oh, we just don't get on. It's like, yeah, possibly. [01:24:36] Speaker A: When was the last time you apologized to your spouse? [01:24:38] Speaker B: Yeah, go away and think about it. Or possibly you've just got two people who are trying to hold ground and not be one. Yeah, that's the hard bit of marriage. I mean. Yeah, I think part of it, too, is if you realize, I'm not going anywhere. Now, obviously, some relationships are very transactional. So if you're going to have a disagreement with a store clerk over an item you've just purchased that you need to return or something, that's not a long term relationship. Right. [01:25:03] Speaker A: You don't have to go back to that shop ever again. [01:25:05] Speaker B: Yeah. But in a workplace or in a youth group, let's say you're disagreeing with a young person, youth group, you're a youth leader or someone in your church or husband or wife. Like, these are more than just transactional, transitional relationships. They have a sense of commitment to them and particularly a marriage. And so if you get that in your mind, I'm not going anywhere. So that, I think what that does is two things. It gives you a perspective where you can go, okay, what can I let go of? That's just small stuff. [01:25:31] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. [01:25:31] Speaker B: Because we're going to be together forever. So I can't reset the small stuff all the time. And secondly, I'm not going anywhere and neither are you. So let's just have a very charitable conversation. Let's not be afraid to have the conversation. And we tend to be a bit kinder with each other. I think maybe if we realize that there's a bit more permanence to it and same in a workplace relationship. Well, I'm not going to quit. And I don't want to have however long I'm here unless it's something toxic and I'm being bullied or something awful is going on. It's abusive. And so I don't want to be in a toxic workplace relationship with my coworkers. And I'm not planning to quit. So what can I do to actually do this. This well? And how do we try? And so maybe I need to sort of. Yeah. Okay. Look, Jim, I'm really frustrated by what you're doing, but at the same time, what can I do to help you? Yeah, same in marriage, you know? So, yeah, that's us. [01:26:22] Speaker A: It's our wisdom. [01:26:24] Speaker B: My wisdom. Part of my brain is, yeah, I. [01:26:26] Speaker A: Reckon this is all the wisdom for the week. Sorry, kids, got none left. [01:26:30] Speaker B: There'll be no dinner tonight because we've forgotten how to cook. [01:26:32] Speaker A: We've already started the dinner. Actually, I had wisdom until now. [01:26:37] Speaker B: Well, Katie, I guess we should wrap this up just again, folks, if you want to send us your questions, that's the little flockpodcast.org or lifenet.org dot nz. Even joyfully jibing questions that we had earlier on. We'll answer your questions. If you want to support our work, that would be really great. A huge thank you to everyone who does support our ministry. Everyone who's a patron. You guys are amazing. It's thanks to you that we can keep doing this. And I should say little teaser here, there's a brand new monthly live stream coming. Ooh, a live stream video show. [01:27:12] Speaker A: Some Trump hands. [01:27:15] Speaker B: It's going to be the best livestream you've ever seen. So, yeah, there's a new live stream show coming. I won't say anything more. It's going to be great. And that was trauma. It's gonna be great. I didn't intend to do that, but, yeah. Thank you, patrons. Thank you, donors. You're amazing. And if you want to support our work, we're also gonna have some new ways coming for how you can support our work. Some ways that you might go, oh, that's kind of cool. A little bit of merch. So yeah, I can actually get on board with that. So we'll let you know about that. But patreon.com left foot media become a five dollar monthly patron if you want regular daily podcast commentary from me every single day. And also lifenet.org dot nz if you want to just become a donor that way and you don't mind about podcasts or anything else, you just want to say, look, I want to support this missionary work that these guys are doing, trying to be cultural missionaries and engaging with the culture and trying to bring a culture of christian goodness, truth and beauty to the world. Left life, gosh, confusing everything too much. Left net I was going to say life net.org dot nz last but not least, Katie, is there anything else that you want to say? [01:28:26] Speaker A: There's never anything else, but you know that, Katie. [01:28:29] Speaker B: Just like. Look, I'll leave it to you. [01:28:31] Speaker A: I told you, the wisdom is gone. It's out there now. It's in the Internet. [01:28:35] Speaker B: I have to restore my storehouse of wisdom. Okay, folks, thanks so much for tuning in. Don't forget, live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies. And we'll see you next month on the little flock. [01:28:46] Speaker A: See you then. The little flock is a joint production of the Lifenet charitable trust and leftfoot media. [01:29:00] Speaker B: If you enjoyed this show, then please help us to ensure that more of this great content keeps getting made by becoming a patron of the [email protected]. leftfootmedia thanks for listening. [01:29:12] Speaker A: See you next time on the little flock.