21. Building a Phone Free Future For Our Children

[00:00:06] Speaker A: Hi, my name is Caddy Malone. [00:00:07] Speaker B: And 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 along to another episode of the Little Flock podcast. [00:00:36] Speaker A: Hi, everyone. [00:00:37] Speaker B: I'm Brendan. [00:00:38] Speaker A: And I'm Katie. [00:00:39] Speaker B: We're back. Yeah, it's been fun. We're in the throes of sickness, aren't we? [00:00:44] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, winter. [00:00:45] Speaker B: Winter, yeah, everyone's got a cold and then the flu, then a cold flu and then the flu cold and then another cold. And it's just a constant cycle at the moment. All the parents out there, you know what I'm talking about. We should do the little admin stuff. Can I set a world record for this? My favorite. If you are new here, please subscribe. If you are also someone who's been listening for a while and you like the content, please give us a like and a rating. All that sort of stuff. If you're on a podcast platform that lets you do that, that really, really helps the show. And second to last but not least. I was gonna say last but not least, but there's actually two of them. Second to last but not least, if you wanna support our ministry work, you can do that two ways. One is go to lifenet.org dot Nz and you'll see there's a donate option there and it tells you how you can become a donor to support the work of Lifenet. Or you can go to patreon.com leftfootmedia. The link for both is in the show notes for this episode and become a regular five dollar monthly patron. Or any amount really, actually. But if you become a dollar five or more monthly patron, then you will get access to a daily episode of the Dispatches podcast, which is me unpacking and responding to sort of current affairs, cultural issues and also interviewing interesting people along the way. One last thing. Are you looking out the window and. [00:02:08] Speaker A: I was watching the cat crawl out from under the deck? [00:02:10] Speaker B: Yeah, he goes under there all the time. [00:02:11] Speaker A: I'm sure he's gonna hurt himself. [00:02:12] Speaker B: No, no, he's in and out. It's amazing. Trust us, folks, there is not much of a gap. [00:02:17] Speaker A: Our cat is just that we're in the office. [00:02:20] Speaker B: There's a mouse under there. Look, he's covered in tasks. Yeah. Okay. [00:02:26] Speaker A: So, yeah, slight tangent there. [00:02:27] Speaker B: That's the cat update. [00:02:28] Speaker A: Cat update for the cat. [00:02:30] Speaker B: I should also say, too that if you want to send us your questions to answer the little flockpodcast.org or lifenet.org dot nZ, at the top of the page you will see a link that you can click on and it's totally anonymous. Send us your questions, your comments or topics you'd like us to talk about. Katie. Brendan, was that a record? I don't know. [00:02:53] Speaker A: I don't know. I didn't time. It felt about the same as normal. [00:02:56] Speaker B: I thought I was achieving something special there, but maybe not. So I will say this, though. The Olympics are on and what a. [00:03:05] Speaker A: Are they? What? [00:03:07] Speaker B: It's all on. It's not like we've been huge Olympics watches, though, in our house, is it? [00:03:10] Speaker A: No, because it's the wrong time of day for watching. [00:03:14] Speaker B: Yeah. I thought we might be a bit more into it, but I think Lucy's. [00:03:18] Speaker A: Watched a wee bit. [00:03:19] Speaker B: Yeah, our eldest daughter has definitely. I'll often come and she's watching sort of interesting weird events, weird sports that she likes. Oh. Which is fine. It's great. It's all part of it. The opening ceremony. I mean, we're not going to repeat that, are we? But, man, it was madness. Imagine being a parent. I think this was the thing that probably got the least commentary but should have got a lot more, was you're a parent and you do what probably families have been doing for generations now. Tune into the Olympics and watch the Olympics opening ceremony and, oh, it's gonna be a spectacle. And you are greeted by Hades and all of its minions. You know, the gates of Hades are open. It's just madness. Poor. And I saw one or two parents saying, oh, man. It was just. We had these awkward moments with our kids when they were asking questions and then others just said we had to switch it off. [00:04:15] Speaker A: Yeah. I think Lucy and I watched it for about 20 minutes before taking off to netball that morning. Didn't bother getting anybody else out of bed, that's for sure. Let them sleep. [00:04:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't worry, we won't wake you up for your nightmare. We wake you up from the nightmare. Yeah, it's funny. Yeah, it's probably. I was thinking about this. It's probably the first opening ceremony where, like, families have had to sort of. Just, like, people had to tune out. It's kind of weird. Like, that's gotta be some sort of. I can't remember any other time. Maybe there's. I was just trying to think where there's scary moments. Not anti family, but that's where it got a bit freaky. [00:04:57] Speaker A: That's enough dances or, you know, like. Got a bit tedious. Cause it does go on and on. [00:05:02] Speaker B: Yeah. But that's not anti family or anti family friendly, though, is it? [00:05:06] Speaker A: No, that's right. [00:05:07] Speaker B: I think I remember something when I was a kid about some alien or spaceman one. Maybe I'm remembering this might've been LA or somewhere. I can't remember where it was, but I remember there was a bit of. A. Bit of a brouhaha about it being a little bit freaky, this one little moment, but it was not. It wasn't intended to be just like little kids, like the alien invasion. But. Yeah, it's kind of funny, eh? Because it's like the Olympics. Two is our last big moment of human fraternity, where it's not. It was, up until this one, it was just. It wasn't political. There was politics around the ages, but it was not political. Or the politics was like, you know, is South Africa allowed to attend this year because of apartheid? It was like genuine issues. But now it's become politicized in a major way this year, which is a bit of a shame. [00:05:55] Speaker A: Yeah. It was just a bit empty of substance, really, I felt. Yeah. [00:05:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And that whole thing of fraternity, you know, it's something lost to humanity when we don't have that ability to just come together and I guess focus on something other than. [00:06:09] Speaker A: Yeah. I certainly wouldn't have called it a celebration of unity or sporting achievements or anything. [00:06:15] Speaker B: No. Yeah, it was. Yeah. It was just weird when blue Smurf demon man. I was like, oh, my gosh. Cause they had those women rising out of the water. Now that could have been really cool. Like, the concept is interesting, although you're coming out of the dirty. [00:06:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:33] Speaker B: So I saw an article yesterday with a female triathlete who had to swim in that river for the. For the race. And she said, when I swam under that bridge, she said there were things I should have never seen or touched. And she said I was taking antibiotics and all sorts of things before I got in. [00:06:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Did you not see one of the belgian team has pulled out of some relay, the triathlon relay or something? Because one of those sports people has got e. Coli. [00:06:57] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. [00:06:59] Speaker A: So potentially from warm ups or whatever. Yeah, that river practically. [00:07:03] Speaker B: So the river of filth. But anyway, out of the river of filth came these ten statues. And the idea is quite artistically impressive. [00:07:10] Speaker A: It looks really cool, but we were a little bit like, who are these Galton people? [00:07:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And ten women. And of the ten women who came out, one was a sportswoman and the other nine, of the other nine, three were like really militant pro abortion activists involved in reshaping laws in a pro abortion way in France. And there was a fourth lady who was a anarchist who promoted class warfare in acts of political violence. So. [00:07:43] Speaker A: Yep, culture, french culture. [00:07:45] Speaker B: It's weird you think of it. It's just weird. It's so weird. You know, let's come together. Oh, boy. But anyway, the Olympics is underway. We won't spend too much time talking about that because we've got this interesting article to talk about how schools can help end the phone based childhood. And this is often a bit of a conversation in our house, right. Because we've got five catalits and the imposition of technology, it seems like we've sort of, I feel like we've run the spectrum a little bit. [00:08:19] Speaker A: Yes. [00:08:19] Speaker B: Like our oldest now is 1717. [00:08:24] Speaker A: She's a 17. [00:08:25] Speaker B: Yeah, she should be 18. Yeah, 18. Yddeh youngest is eight. And so we've sort of run the gamut of. And seeing how quickly it's just becomes like, it seems each year it's become more intrusive. And it sort of went from, oh, here's a device every now and then to like, you've got to have this thing stuck to your face. And our kids are being told, no, it's better not to write, it's better to type at a keyboard. And, yeah, you know, the expansion has been massive. Right. [00:08:55] Speaker A: Yeah, it was quite nice. Last night. Maddie came to me and said she was going to go to bed, I think it was, or she was going to go upstairs and it was not quite 07:00 and everybody else was kind of like, how late can I, how, like, can I push mum and dad's boundaries of staying up on a Sunday night? And she said, I've got to go upstairs because I've got some paper homework I have to do. And I was like, rejoice for the paper homework? [00:09:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Wow, man. Old school. [00:09:16] Speaker A: Two reasons to rejoice. The first that she had paper homework in. The second that she actually wanted to go and do it. [00:09:21] Speaker B: Well, the thing is that I think there's got to be a change. There's a reckoning coming. [00:09:25] Speaker A: I hope so. [00:09:26] Speaker B: Well, I'm seeing more and more like, it seems there's certain, and there's differences again between males and females here, apparently, like, particularly for boys. Sorry, sorry, you've been watching too much. [00:09:38] Speaker A: Of the Olympics. [00:09:41] Speaker B: But yeah, there's for everybody, this is true. But it seems, particularly for boys, the fact that they hold a writing instrument in their hands to do creative writing and they're connected to the paper directly. It seems to help and in a really big way, I think, for females as well. But I think the studies seem to indicate for boys in particular, there's something about that. Maybe it's the way their brains, tangibleness. [00:10:04] Speaker A: Of it or something. [00:10:05] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. The way they work. But we know, like, you can't put that down and suppress that forever. You can't ignore that human reality. Sooner or later there's going to be a reckoning. [00:10:17] Speaker A: Well, it's coming, right? [00:10:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I can't see, like, it seems to me there is a momentum of parents too, who are saying, hey, yeah, we kind of want better from the schools. Don't just stick our kids on a device. Which is how we came across this article here, which is a great sub stack article, how schools can help end the phone based childhood. And they reference Jonathan Haidtley and he's a great author and he's got a new book which explores all of this. And I can't remember the name of his new book. Yeah, it's come up a few years, the anxious generation. I was thinking of his other books that are really good, like his book about coddling of the american mind about fragility, and he talks a bit about that in there and also the righteous mind, which is a great one. But yeah, this is the latest one. It's called the anxious generation. And his recommendation is basically, don't let your kids have a cell phone until 16. [00:11:14] Speaker A: Yep. [00:11:15] Speaker B: And I think we would say we probably made a bit of a mistake there, didn't we, with our eldest? We let her have it a year earlier than that, thinking, oh, yes, she was ready because she really was quite. [00:11:24] Speaker A: Mature at 15, because she'd been asking since she was like eleven. [00:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And she seemed to be more mature at 15 and we thought she was ready. But I would say we've definitely seen things that I think habits creep in, that we're nothing and it's happened. [00:11:39] Speaker A: And she's probably better than the majority of people, kids her age, to be fair, but we still see that kind of isolation. [00:11:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's interesting to see, like looking at our twins, who were a little bit gutted when they found out they. [00:11:57] Speaker A: Weren'T gonna get one at 15. [00:11:58] Speaker B: Yeah. But it's interesting to see you can see a difference and sort of what's going on there, even though, you know, there's not much of an age difference between them. It's the technology gap that's the interesting thing. But basically, the article written by Caroline Brick, I think it's not spelled brick, though. Spelled b I polish yk might be brick or something like that, has basically got four, five things. Sorry about how we can. Schools can actually help end the phone based childhood. And the first one is schools must come together. And I think that's kind of obvious, right? You've got to have. So if you're a teacher who's listening or a staff member or a board member and you want to have some influence, I would say trying to get groups of schools together does make sense. Right? Solidarity and togetherness and strength and numbers and all that. But it probably means that you've got this, like, united front in your neighbourhood where it's not like one school's doing it, the other. The rest are nothing. [00:13:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:04] Speaker B: Which maybe makes them seem weird. I don't know. Or maybe it might attract more students to them. Step number two, schools must go phone free. And they're obviously not saying, like, all devices, but phone free. And I don't see why they couldn't. [00:13:21] Speaker A: No. Well, they can. And New Zealand, they're supposed to now. [00:13:24] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. [00:13:26] Speaker A: I would argue that it's not being implemented. It's not easy to implement and it's possibly not being implemented as well as it could be. For instance, I just had a text from our 17 year old and she, in turn, was receiving texts from a friend at another school, which is also supposed to be even more phone free than her school. So clearly students are not stupid in these ways around these things. I think it talks in this article about how these kids, and this is at high school, right, have to lock away all personal devices. They get locked away for the day, and some of them have permission to have them at lunchtime, but not all of them at our daughter's school, they're supposed to have. There's like ten minutes in a particular location where they can use their phones at lunchtime. [00:14:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:09] Speaker A: Which is great, but obviously they're able to access them. And I think it's just if you get caught, I don't know what the consequences are. If you get caught, though. I don't know. We'll tell you. [00:14:19] Speaker B: Parents. [00:14:19] Speaker A: I'm not sure. [00:14:20] Speaker B: I think the interesting thing, too, is that it's like the. Your messenger isn't just on your phone anymore, so you can have your phone locked away and you can still access a lot of those ads. [00:14:30] Speaker A: I regularly hear from our children from their laptops during the day, the ones that don't have phones. And I know from a friend who is a teacher, laptops are probably almost as big an issue, if not a bigger issue, than phones, because he's like, I can't monitor 30 laptops in a classroom during the day. I don't know what other tabs they've got open than the one they're supposed to have open. I can't see every screen. Yeah, simultaneously, you know, he can walk around the classroom. They can have that software where they can check in and see what people are looking at. But you can't use that all the time. [00:15:01] Speaker B: No, it's a fantasy, too. I remember telling someone, they were like, they said to me, oh, this is a school person who said, look, no, but we've got. This teacher's got the supervision software that brings up every single screen up on their screen in front of them. I'm like, what a. That's impossible. No human being can monitor that much web based traffic constantly, let alone, for, what, four or five periods a day. And secondly, there's just no way that that teacher, they're not superhuman. They've got other things to do and other things that will distract them. And all it takes is five minutes of some kid who's a bit crook and they have to step out for a moment, or can you sign the role? And anything can come into that classroom. The portal's, like, already open. It's just, honestly, it's like someone. It is like the little boy in the dark, right? I've got my finger in the hole. It's fine. You know, it's not. It's not going to fix it. And I think this is the, you know, we're talking about a sort of a reckoning. I think the reckoning that's coming is they're going to have to say, part of the problem is it's not simply the technology, it's the social media component. And secondly, because when we were growing up, we had technology in school, like computers. Yeah, but we weren't on the Internet. [00:16:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:14] Speaker B: We were learning typing. We were learning programming. We weren't had. Didn't have an open gateway to the outside world. And so that's a factor. And I think, secondly is, like, social media is definitely an issue. And thirdly is there's probably gonna be this reckoning where they go, well, we can't actually. We just can't have technology as much as we're using at the moment, we have to probably go back to the fundamentals of a pen in your hand. An expert. A Texas book. [00:16:46] Speaker A: Oh, you're having a great day today. [00:16:48] Speaker B: Exercise book. [00:16:49] Speaker A: What kinds of new words? [00:16:50] Speaker B: Oh, man. Talking about going phone free. I'm going dictionary free. But, yeah, you know, you go back to those fundamentals, they're probably. That's gonna be a big reckoning, because it seems to me that, yeah, it's like, in our experience, it's not just enough to go phone free. [00:17:07] Speaker A: It's a whole cultural massive issue with laptops and classrooms, aside from all the things we've just talked about, like, our kids are carrying these around on their backs all day. Our children walk home from school. [00:17:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:19] Speaker A: What are we doing to their physical bodies? Making them carry a laptop and other things around. You know, my backpack was heavy enough without one when I was a teenager, and I just don't think it's going to be good. In ten years time, we're going to be seeing a whole lot of issues from this. [00:17:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, too, that it's just now we are, like, at a very young age, they are now attached to a device constantly. Yeah, constantly. It is now seen as. And it's kind of crazy, because, in actual fact, what we really need is tactile. Like, we need you to get out in the world. We need you to interact with the world. We don't need you to be stuck in front of a pixel producing machine. And I don't think we want a workforce either. It's funny, in the workforce, people are trying to get away from that sort of mentality. Yeah, yeah. We're strapping our kids to these things. It is so silly. The more you think about them, the more you realize, man, this is such an emperor's new clothes. But it's persistently and stubbornly clinging in, I think, because the adults in the room, unfortunately, have become, and I include myself in this, we've become addicted to technology, and I think we instinctively know if we force our children to let go, that means we have to let go, too. [00:18:35] Speaker A: That's true. [00:18:35] Speaker B: And I think we're not willing to probably do that. [00:18:37] Speaker A: And it does make life easier. And I'm not just talking about, like, I love being able to look up a recipe for dinner. You know, you don't need recipe books. Everything's at the touch of a finger. But I said to you yesterday, when we said to Eleanor and Nathaniel, they had lost their game time because they had got laptops out without permission that morning. [00:18:53] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. [00:18:54] Speaker A: And so the consequence was you don't get them so much game time. And so instead of having game time, while the rest of us were watching netball game, they were doing science experiments, which. Fabulous, great, awesome. Yay. Learning. Yay, science. But could you clean up the 300 dishes you made and wipe up the baking soda and vinegar? [00:19:13] Speaker B: And you said, right? [00:19:14] Speaker A: You said, you see why parents do it. [00:19:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's what you said. You said, it's easy. [00:19:17] Speaker A: You just want a quiet life. Right? [00:19:19] Speaker B: It is. And this device promises you this sweet, alluring temptation of comfort and you won't have to parent your kids, even at the netball. [00:19:27] Speaker A: We were watching our daughter's netball game on Saturday, and the two of them, soon as they got there. Can I have your phone or play games? Can I do this? [00:19:34] Speaker B: Nah. [00:19:34] Speaker A: You sit and watch and you just have to put up with them in the air the whole time. I'm bored. I'm hungry. I want this, I want that. Too bad. You know, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. [00:19:43] Speaker B: I think that's. Yeah, it's so true. The adults in the room, which is step number three, parents must be part of the solution, too. [00:19:49] Speaker A: And I think that's where part, a big part of our problem lies. I think the schools would be happy, not necessarily with a laptop issue, but if you're talking about phones, which is what the article's about, I think the majority of parents would prefer that their kids don't have access to their phone during the day, apart from the ones that are like, but how will I know if little Tomece got on the bus? Okay, yeah, little Timmy in 1980 did fine. So, yeah, I think that the teachers would be quite happy with them not to have phones at school. It's a vocal parent minority that think that my child should have access to that at all times. [00:20:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. And I think also, though, too, is that parents, I think, feel a little bit. We've now burdened people with the age of technocracy. Trust the experts, the technocrats. They know what's best. And so a lot of parents are timid about parenting now because they're like, well, what do the experts tell me? I've got to tell, you know, like, whereas probably our grandparents, our parents would have just said, nah, get stuffed. We're doing what we do in our family home, you know, like, and we've got a bit of that in our home. We've. We've got that. We're nothing, you know, bowing down to the God of technocracy, where you actually have got enough of an awareness to know, yeah, parenting is about relationship. As long as you're a virtuous person, you know, trust your instincts, keep working at it. You'll make mistakes, but you'll get there sort of thing, you know, we don't need some childless super nanny to give us instructions about parenting. I'm sorry, just to me that's never made any sort of sense. And so the thing though is, I think a lot of parents, they're now sort of. They've been kowtowed by technocracy and then the technocrats are telling them these devices are amazing. So they're sort of. It's almost like they're trapped. It's like, well, we can't really say no to this or the experts saying they need this. [00:21:33] Speaker A: It does talk in there about the whole, like, I don't want my child to be the only one without one. And that is definitely. That's a massive thing. That is a massive thing. And I know, like, our twins have struggled with that. I think there's them and one other kid in their class that doesn't have a phone at 15, which is pretty unusual. [00:21:51] Speaker B: Very unusual. [00:21:52] Speaker A: Most kids in New Zealand, I would say, have one by the time they start high school. [00:21:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, very, very. [00:21:58] Speaker A: Not in that first year of high school, which, depending on where your kid goes to high school, you can kind of understand to some extent, but our children don't need it. Go to high school locally. There's no reason. And they have access to a cell phone to text or message friends in the family home. [00:22:14] Speaker B: Yeah. And if they needed to go out somewhere and they needed the phone for, like, literally, it's a dumb phone for just sending messages or calls, just keeping in touch. Yeah, yeah. [00:22:24] Speaker A: You know, there's definitely a value and. [00:22:25] Speaker B: There'S moments where that's relevant. But then I also think part of this is we've got to let go of our fears. We've, like, I think, well, our parents did it. They just. The thing, it's interesting thing was our parents didn't have that option on the table. [00:22:38] Speaker A: No, that's right. [00:22:38] Speaker B: So they didn't have a cell phone to give you. So it wasn't like. And it's interesting how the supposed advanced thing that's supposed to make everyone safer and more comfortable actually introduces a new fear. It's like, if you don't have that, what will happen to your kids if they don't have a cellphone? And what will happen to your kids if they can't call you? So now that actually ironically, it ramps. It doesn't really help you much. It just. It's funny. It's kind of. So part of it is, I think, as parents, we got to figure out where is it appropriate to have a phone available and what is just over the top that they actually don't need? Do they really need a phone to go and play with their kids? Do they need a phone to their friends? Sorry, their mates. Do they need a phone, really, to walk around town with their mates and get on and off the bus? Well, we never had that. And our parents didn't seem to freak out too much if they're babysitting on their own. Yeah, that makes sense. You know, like, or they need to be picked up at a certain time from sports and they need to contact us. That makes sense. So I think we've got to sort of figure out as parents, where's the balance there. Yeah. Yeah. And how much of the technology are we sort of. We're becoming dependent on ourselves because they'll follow our lead, I think, realistically. Point number four, they said leaders must step up here and they're just talking about, I guess, community leaders in general. Right. Having a. And I think that's true, but it's an interesting, what they're really getting at, ironically, is that there's a whole lot of, like, the community needs to own this. But the funny thing is you also need almost like, what needs to happen is there needs to be a leader who just says, no, we're not going to put up with this anymore. And then it gives other people the confidence to go, yeah, I like that guy, that girl. I like the cut of their jib. We'll follow them. [00:24:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:27] Speaker B: And at the moment, we're in that weird place where people know there's a problem, but there's not many courageous people. [00:24:34] Speaker A: Who I think people also don't think it's a big enough problem. [00:24:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:37] Speaker A: You know? [00:24:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:39] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't think they see the potential. [00:24:42] Speaker B: Future consequences of, well, maybe also we've forgotten, like, we've forgotten what a life without these devices looks like. And again, I go back to the fact as parents, we're so addicted, we're afraid. We know that it means we're probably going to have to surrender some of our own device. And I think that's, that's challenging because I think the fixation on devices and kids is half of an important conversation. The other half is us as parents. We are like you and I. Let's be honest about it. We do have our devices a lot now. And they are great tools. And like you say, you want to look up a recipe, that's a great tool. But then also, it's also very easy to then sit there and scroll. Twitter or Instagram. [00:25:22] Speaker A: Like, I try not to read ebooks very often. I much prefer a real book for lots and lots of reasons. But one of the reasons is that if I do sometimes read one, if I can't get hold of from the library, I'll often read it on my library app. And I hate it because the temptation, it's too easy to be like you're in the middle of a chapter. I'll just go look that thing up or I'll just check Facebook or it's. [00:25:46] Speaker B: That's why I have moved to Kindle. [00:25:48] Speaker A: Kindle? [00:25:48] Speaker B: Yeah, because a, I can carry lots of books on the go and I can flick in and out of them when I'm traveling and stuff, which is helpful. But b, it's just that, yeah, there's no distraction. No, I mean, it's just, it is great. There's no, it is distraction free reading and it's designed for readers. But yeah, that's. You're right. That is so. Cause I had my Kindle app and I know exactly what you mean. Even reading articles and PDF's. Next thing, boomf, something pops up or you go, oh, while I'm here. Yeah, I'll just, you know, this line of dialogue in this particular camera can. [00:26:19] Speaker A: Go to your phone. Like, I do this all the time. I go to my phone thinking I've got to put x on my shopping list. Now this is a great, the phone is a great tool for that. [00:26:25] Speaker B: Sure. [00:26:26] Speaker A: Right. Because I don't have to remember a paper list. It's always with me. [00:26:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:29] Speaker A: You know, but I go to put something on my shopping list, open my phone and, oh, there's a message and messenger and then you've forgotten the thing. [00:26:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:37] Speaker A: You know, and then there's no shampoo because you forgot because you got distracted by messenger or Instagram or whatever. [00:26:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:44] Speaker B: I think that that's so true. And that's the nature of the devices. They pull you and it's hard not to. I did that this very morning. [00:26:52] Speaker A: This very morning, this very day, I have done this. [00:26:54] Speaker B: I have. Upon the early morning, the dawn chorus was singing to me and this very morning, Katy, I got on my device and I went to put something on a list and literally I went straight from that to checking a message and then I went straight from that to checking Twitter and then I went straight from that to what else? Is there something else? I'll check my email. It was, like, four or five things. [00:27:16] Speaker A: Not good. [00:27:17] Speaker B: No. And so I think we've got to take ownership for that. And I think we do have. Like, I've decided. I haven't told you about this yet, but I've. I've decided. [00:27:26] Speaker A: You're hearing it first here, folks. [00:27:27] Speaker B: Yeah. This is first time, folks. This could go badly. [00:27:30] Speaker A: Insight into one of our conversations. [00:27:32] Speaker B: Yeah. I've decided yesterday, you know what? I'm going to start a new evening routine, and I'm going to make sure that I have actually logged off any device interaction, whether it's just watching Netflix, like, on a screen of any kind, or being on social media, anything like that. And for at least an hour before I go to bed, and so that I will just be reading for that hour. Or maybe writing's fine or something else, but just my brain is actually doing what it's supposed to be doing and not, you know, even sitting, having a whiskey, listening to a bit of jazz or something. [00:28:08] Speaker A: It's not jazz discompobulation. [00:28:09] Speaker B: Katie does not like jazz. But I do. But you know what I mean. [00:28:13] Speaker A: Anything other than, like, cell phone music. [00:28:16] Speaker B: To my brain, the right jazz is just beautiful. [00:28:19] Speaker A: But anyway, it's like all the apps open at once. [00:28:26] Speaker B: Verbal discombobulation. Poor old Katie. Every time jazz goes, I know it. I put on a jazz lp on our record player, and I just know. [00:28:34] Speaker A: You know, it's gonna be a bad dinner tonight. Cause she can't focus. [00:28:36] Speaker B: What did you call it? [00:28:38] Speaker A: Discompopulation? [00:28:38] Speaker B: No, you called it something else the other time. [00:28:41] Speaker A: Yeah, you said a witty term for it. [00:28:42] Speaker B: Yeah. It's just all this noise and stuff happening. [00:28:48] Speaker A: My life is noisy enough, mate. I don't need music as a musician. [00:28:52] Speaker B: I'm just like. I'm hearing the parts. I love it. But anyway. But the point I was making is that, yeah, I've actually got to be disciplined about this. [00:29:00] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:29:01] Speaker B: And I think I've realized now, over the last couple of years, and this is a big moment of realization for me, knowing it, but actually doing something about it, getting to that stage of my bedtime, my nighttime has been taken over by the device, two devices. And a lot of the work has been good. It's been. It hasn't been just random, errant stuff, but my bedtime has got later and later, and it's none of that's good. [00:29:28] Speaker A: And it's harder and harder to wind down because you're busy looking at it as well. [00:29:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And ironically, you're just robbing Peter to pay poor because the next day, you can't be there doing what you need to be doing, or you can't be present with your family because you're like, oh, I've got to do this other thing. Or, like, it would be far better in some ways if we just strapped our devices to our desks at work or whatever, and then. Or they were stuck in our car and you had to leave them and go into the home. Yeah, yeah. Like, finding a way to do that. That will be. [00:29:58] Speaker A: Let me be the first to say to everybody out there in Internet land, nothing's going to happen on the Internet after 10:00 p.m. like 99% of the time that you cannot deal with tomorrow. [00:30:09] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. And I think someone, and it won't take long for someone to figure out a really snazzy piece of technology that does that, basically, almost like a digital Faraday cage. Faraday Cage is a metal cage where devices don't work, signals can't come in and out of it. So I would say you might end up with a situation where people will. There will be a device, an app or something that you walk into the house and certain apps will just voomphenite in this particular zone. [00:30:36] Speaker A: Can it make that noise? Because I quite like that shut down. [00:30:40] Speaker B: So, yeah, parents, we got to stay here and last. Oh, yeah, yeah. This is the point number five. I think this is a great point that often gets lost. We must. Point number five is we must think beyond the school and build healthier communal norms. And that's true because, like, if it's one thing saying to you, like, this is the Jesus in the Gospels says, if you cast out a demon out of a house and leave it empty, what happens to seven more come along and fill up an empty house? So it's not enough just to say, no phone time, kids, and no devices, but what's actually filling your house instead? So that when those temptations come, there's no room for them. Your house is filled with goodness, truth and beauty. Your life has communal. It's like you're actually out with other families. I was at a conference I spoke at last weekend, weekend before, and a young lady stepped up to the microphone during Q and A, and it was a panel of us answering questions, and she said, oh, well, you know, you talked about community and the importance of community. What can I do practically? And I gave her some ideas, and then one of the other panelists made a really good point. And this person said, look, it's also up to the rest of the community to actually adopt you as a young person and like, you know, look out for the young single people in your church. Bring them into your family home. Just create those normal, not structured, not planned, but just normal communal norms. I read, literally just this morning, actually, I read a piece of commentary from someone who was saying, they're sort of a bit more well known and they're in the States, and they said, we've been away on a family holiday, and our family holiday, there's been no. Not only has there been no signal for devices, so devices have been no good. They haven't been working at all. But there was a couple of tvs in the place they were staying, but they're old and ratty and it just hasn't been working. So after a day or so, they just gave up on tv as well. And the kids were like, they said their kids were like, oh, my gosh, there's no devices and no tv. And he said it was just amazing. It took about 24, 48 hours or so, but then what they did was they discovered the world of play and exploring and everything else without the device. And it's thinking, man. Yeah. When was the last time that. I mean, even with people who've got devices under control, social media under control, just technology itself. [00:32:47] Speaker A: And that reminds me of something else that happened yesterday when we went post the laptop debacle where we said, no, you're not allowed. That. You didn't have permission. [00:32:56] Speaker B: That's right. [00:32:56] Speaker A: What did Eleanor do? What was she making, like a relaxation zone or something? She got all the couch cushions, so. [00:33:04] Speaker B: You got to sit on the couch, all the cushions gone, because she's taken. [00:33:07] Speaker A: She's made some kind of, like, I don't want to say massage parlour, but like some kind of day spa. [00:33:11] Speaker B: Day spa. [00:33:13] Speaker A: And she'd come into the kitchen and made herself a fruit salad, and she was sitting in this day spa eating her fruit salad. [00:33:20] Speaker B: Eight year old Eleanor, life was good. She's literally taken the two massive couch seat cushions off our main couch, propped them up against each other like a tent. Like a teepee. [00:33:28] Speaker A: Like a teepee, yeah. [00:33:29] Speaker B: And then there's couch cushions, the smaller ones all on the floor to lie on. And there's a chair beside us, some books. You're right. A bowl of fruit that she's made a fan. She would have got the fan or made me go and get the fan, plugged it in. It's winter. It's negative three or four yesterday morning. [00:33:44] Speaker A: I have a fan in a day. [00:33:45] Speaker B: And she's running the fan there. It's just hilarious, Mandy. But. But that's the price you have to pay. [00:33:51] Speaker A: You do. Because she didn't want to tidy it up after lunch. [00:33:52] Speaker B: No. And she didn't want to take it down. She's like, this is my thing, but that is the price you have to pay. You just have to. And I think this is where it's harder for us as parents. Yeah. [00:34:01] Speaker A: I think that's partly where we could go on forever about this topic. But that's. That is one of the issues that parents don't want. I don't know, like, I feel like our house was always. There was mess, but then we tied up and then we met more mess, and then we tidy that up. And that was just the circle of life of a house, you know? And my mum was always really good. Like you'd say, my mum has a pretty ordered, tidy house. It's not perfect. It's not like a magazine house, you know, it's just not how we roll. But it's tidy and ordered. And it was like that when I was a kid as well. There was never, like, I would never have said our house was dirty or always messy. But she didn't freak out when we made kid mess, because that was the norm. We had play doh, we had toys. We jumped around to Jesus Christ superstar on the couches in the lounge. That's what we did for fun. [00:34:47] Speaker B: But even if you did have mess, that's okay. [00:34:50] Speaker A: Yeah. It's not the end of the world. [00:34:52] Speaker B: No. And I think that's the thing. As parents, we've got a. [00:34:54] Speaker A: People want these perfect houses all the time now. [00:34:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think we also want, like, a controlled parenting. And I think part of it is we probably have. Let's be fair, this is where this communal norm comes into it. We have built unhealthy, not just non communal, but far too busy. We're constantly, constantly on the go. And as parents, that means. And to be fair, it's the mums who carry the brunt of it, no doubt in that, I would say, in most homes. But as parents too, like, we have to actually facilitate that madness. The driving around, the chauffeuring, the this, the that, the everything else, the entertaining, all that sort of stuff. And so devices come along and they say, hey, you get an hour or two of freedom here, even a day, if you just stick them on this thing. And it's very, very tempting and so that's why it's not just communal norms, but it's like, okay, maybe we've made our lives just too darn busy. [00:35:46] Speaker A: It's not true for Adam either, though, because after that hour, you still have to get up and do the parenting and do the making the meal. And sometimes that's almost harder because you haven't actually relaxed yourself. You kind of must take advantage of this time while the little ones are plugged in. [00:36:01] Speaker B: What I'm realizing more and more now is that what's in front of you is actually really important. I was talking to someone else about this on Friday, actually, and I'm just even in my ministry work now. I had this idea, and I like, maybe we might talk about this on a future episode, but I started out this year with this plan and this very structured two year, three year plan, and what I was going to do and execute this and that and this whole big, far reaching, which seems like the right way to do it. And I pretty much. I almost burnt myself out. It was pretty crazy what happened. And what I was talking to someone on Friday about this over lunch was realizing that you've actually just got to stop. Funnily enough, I think I've become more productive and fruitful since that. Going to that precipice and just dialing everything back. It's kind of crazy. Like, what was I producing at this great rate of knots when I had all this stuff on my plate? In actual fact, I was producing less than what I was, what I am now, by just saying, okay, what's in front of you? What's important today? What's important in the moment? [00:37:04] Speaker A: What's actually achievable. [00:37:05] Speaker B: Yeah. What do we need to be doing versus what are we not? I don't think families ask themselves that enough. We talk about it at work and other areas. Right. But in family life, what do we actually need to be doing and what are we doing and what. Can we let it go off? [00:37:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:20] Speaker B: How often do family. [00:37:20] Speaker A: Well, I've always had that rule. Since the kids are at school, everybody gets one extracurricular. Because by the time you have five kids doing an extracurricular, that's five things a week that you're adding to your family life. [00:37:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:31] Speaker A: So our poor children, sorry, never had swimming lessons outside of school. We just can't. I mean, apart from the money side of things, we can't commit to a thing every day after school, and nor should we. [00:37:43] Speaker B: It's a weird sort of sense of. I think it's the false urgency of the immediacy. We've got to achieve it now in the next two years. Or like certain things, like swimming is important. If they weren't getting swimming in school, then we would take them elsewhere to learn swim because we're an island nation. That's a skill, but that's essential. Right. But so much else of it is like, our kids need to be doing everything right now. Like, a great example of this, I think, is this new phenomenon of having these end of year formals at every year level now. So what? Why does the primary schoolers don't need functions? [00:38:18] Speaker A: I can understand a year eight something when they move on from. [00:38:21] Speaker B: Yeah, leave his dinner. That kind of makes sense. Doesn't have to be big and flashy. I think in the senior year of high school, that's how it used to be. Right. It was a privileged thing. Not everyone got it. Now everyone's got to have it because otherwise it's quite unquote, not fair. And it's all got to be done in the immediacy of now. And it's like, but no, it doesn't. You don't actually have to do that. You're just layering on all of these demands and all these work related busyness that's just distracting from the relational and. Yeah, I think if we sort of stripped away a lot of that stuff and just got back to the fundamentals. [00:38:55] Speaker A: Yeah. How many events are we doing just for the photos for Instagram? [00:38:59] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Or because someone's told us we've got to be there or it's not like it's not a genuine communal bond I have. It's a, it's some other weird thing that's going on. And I don't think it's necessarily easy because we've talked about this, even in our home, it's not easy to strip back. No, you just have sometimes where it's like, oh, it's just you got this many kids, they're playing sport. [00:39:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, we're in that season, you know, it is just like may to August at the Malone house. Just a bit crazy. [00:39:28] Speaker B: But then you have to figure out, okay, well, what, how do we make that function properly so that it's nothing. It doesn't destroy family life as we know it, but it becomes the busyness of family life. Does that make sense? Yeah, the family life is still present in a meaningful way. Yeah. Gosh, fun times. But yeah, I think there's some good points in this article and, yeah, I think those, the key things. I think in particular the idea of better communal norms. And I think that would give us empowerment to say, you know what? We're just not doing that. [00:40:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:01] Speaker B: We just don't do that around here because we've found a better way. [00:40:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:03] Speaker B: It's a bit hard to say to people, oh, don't look at phones, don't use the technology, and then leave them effectively resourceless. And the biggest thing they need is community around them so they can actually go and be with people and. [00:40:15] Speaker A: That's right. [00:40:16] Speaker B: And have a life. Okay. So, yes, we should move on. Really, Katie, shouldn't we? We had another article that we were planning to look at, but we were like, we did a redouble take this morning. It was like, maybe not quite. It was about children's literature, but we realized that wasn't quite. [00:40:34] Speaker A: The angle was a bit interesting. [00:40:37] Speaker B: Okay. It was a little bit. What's the word? [00:40:39] Speaker A: I think we do owe. We do owe at least one person some recommendations for children that are just. Maybe we should put together and we'll find a good article. [00:40:47] Speaker B: We will trust us, we will get. [00:40:49] Speaker A: We'll hunt and gather a good article. [00:40:50] Speaker B: We'll definitely do that. Alrighty, Katie. So that music means it's time for our moment of goodness, truth and beauty, and our scripture reflections for the month. What about you? Do you have a moment of goodness? [00:41:20] Speaker A: Actually, this has been a story I've been following on the Insta. [00:41:24] Speaker B: Oh, going back to technology. [00:41:25] Speaker A: We're going back to technology. But it's beautiful story. [00:41:28] Speaker B: Couldn't break the shackles. [00:41:29] Speaker A: I don't often. I don't often. [00:41:31] Speaker B: No, no, that's true. You know, you don't often. [00:41:33] Speaker A: Usually, it's for my own life. But I felt like this was worth sharing because last time we talked about motherhood and it kind of linked into that. So there's a mum in the States, her name's Breeze. And earlier this year, I think February. Don't quote me. Go to Insta and find it. She was 27 weeks pregnant with her third wee boy and she felt unwell. She's a nurse, so she knew. Okay, I need to do something about this. I'm not feeling good. So she went to the hospital and it turned out that she had streptococcal toxic shock syndrome, which is extremely severe and concerning in pregnancy. So they did an immediate c section for the baby who's born prem at 27 weeks. She said her last memory is being put under for the c section. And she woke up ten days later. She'd been in a coma for ten days. There was a 10% chance she would live, but that she'd make it through the first night. And her husband, they started on instagram. I don't think she had one before this. And they just sort of shared the story day by day. Absolutely amazing to follow this story. This beautiful woman who's a nurse, so obviously knows exactly what's going on, the chances of all the worst things possible happening. And as the weeks went by, she basically, what happens with toxic shock syndrome is that your body can go septic, so you start to lose bits of you. [00:42:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:52] Speaker A: So over the next half, many months, maybe three months, she had both arms and one leg partially amputated at the elbow and at the knee and one leg fully removed. [00:43:02] Speaker B: Wow. [00:43:03] Speaker A: She's alive. [00:43:04] Speaker B: So she woke up to that. [00:43:05] Speaker A: She woke up, and I think she still had all her limbs when she woke up, but everything sort of started dying gradually. She was extremely unwell, and, well, she was probably intubated for a while, so she was awake, but she wasn't communicating, you know, and, yeah, basically over three months, just bit by bit, they kept saying, oh, nope, that one's still dying. We've got to take a bit more of that leg off, just gradually. [00:43:28] Speaker B: Imagine that. [00:43:29] Speaker A: And she went into rehab, and then she went back to hospital because she had a relapse. And then she went back to rehab. And then I think in, like, June, she went home. The Instagram handle is boambry Beau and b r I e, so you can go and see. But the beautiful thing I wanted to share was that they said to her, somebody, she's got this amazing support system, obviously. And she just seems like a really beautiful person, naturally, perhaps quite optimistic. And they were videoing her the day before she went home, and they said, what are you most looking forward to about going home? And I was going, oh, sleeping in your own bed, eating your own boat? And she said, looking after my children. [00:44:08] Speaker B: Oh, that's. [00:44:09] Speaker A: And I thought, how beautiful is that? That what she wants to do the most is care for her children with no arms and no legs. [00:44:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Wow. [00:44:17] Speaker A: Like, just outstanding. Yeah. [00:44:20] Speaker B: And it makes you realize in those moments, you're like, yeah, I am so complaining. Whoosh, man. [00:44:26] Speaker A: What's important? She wants to serve. [00:44:30] Speaker B: I read those kind of stories, you. [00:44:32] Speaker A: Know, like, and I see. [00:44:33] Speaker B: I see those kind of moments, and I think, man, I complain far too much. I just. These people are saintly. And it makes me realize, man, my own deficiencies. That is amazing. [00:44:46] Speaker A: And I'm sure, like, they weren't. They didn't hold anything back, you know, like, they shared when there were hard days. They shared when, like christians, right? I think so. From what I've seen since she got home, I think maybe. But there was no. It's not overtly. There's bits where they said, thanks be to God and, you know, but they haven't been overtly, like, hey, Jesus saved me. But, yeah, I mean, the neighborhood seemed pretty. The whole neighbourhood came out to welcome her home and she'd been in hospital for five months. Right. The whole neighbourhood. [00:45:11] Speaker B: But I gotta be honest with you, if, you know, someone's saying stuff like that and there's a certain, you know, the fruits of the spirit and a genuine christian life will emanate a certain aroma and beauty and I. There's a vision that emanates from it that it's, like, unmistakable. And it is very different. Very different. [00:45:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:32] Speaker B: And so, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised to discover there's a strong faith because, I mean, that's just, what, a thing to say. [00:45:37] Speaker A: I'm looking forward and a strong community. [00:45:38] Speaker B: I'm looking after my kids. [00:45:39] Speaker A: Amazing community around her. [00:45:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Wow. [00:45:44] Speaker A: Beautiful, man. [00:45:46] Speaker B: So that is. That is. Yeah, that's a. That's a beautiful moment. Mine's but simpler, really. And I'm determined maybe in future episodes I'll be able to tell you the good news that we've got family game night, actual board game. Katie is not. This is one of the challenges of getting off device. [00:46:00] Speaker A: We'll just jazz while we do it. [00:46:02] Speaker B: No, we won't. You can pick the music and we'll try and find fun games. We got cluedo the other day. I remember when I was a kid, I had, like, I grew up in a very poor family home. And one of the things, like, when you're really poor, you remember certain gifts because they were like treasures, you know? And one of the treasures I had in my childhood was one Christmas we got. I can't remember who my mum and dad had saved really, really hard or whether it was someone else in the family who got it for us. But we got Cluedo, the old school. It's been around. It's been around forever, that game. And it was like, whoa, this is amazing. And I remember it, and it's funny, watching my kids. It was quite joyful for me, watching. [00:46:41] Speaker A: My kids, watching all the older kids. Let Eleanor win the time. [00:46:45] Speaker B: Yeah. But they also. They flocked to this new, politically correct, new and improved version of Cluedo. It's the murderers, potential murderers span the spectrum of gender and race. Now it's quite interesting. But it was quite interesting watching them. But anyway, we're trying to get fountain board game night going. But the royal we. The royal we, that's me. I want us to start playing risk and the other one is settlers of Catan. You're not going to believe this because I actually went and spoke at a conference in Dunedin a couple of weeks ago and I met this lovely gentleman there who was a participant at the conference, an attendee and him. And he had a business partner. And in Dunedin they run like a game shop with gaming and board games and all that sort of stuff. And he was right into it. I was like, look, I need your advice. What's a great game? So he actually gave me some really good advice. So, yeah, we might have some updates in future. Katie. She's looking at me with Demi. [00:47:36] Speaker A: Quite busy that day. [00:47:37] Speaker B: Yes, I'm busy. What date is it again? I'm busy all of those days. I'll be washing my hair. [00:47:43] Speaker A: I play balderdash. [00:47:44] Speaker B: Oh, yeah? [00:47:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:45] Speaker B: Oh, you didn't tell me that. [00:47:47] Speaker A: It's like the only game I like. [00:47:49] Speaker B: Okay. [00:47:49] Speaker A: Because it's about words. [00:47:50] Speaker B: So, yeah. So what we'll do is we'll have a variety of games. No jazz. A variety of games that appeal to people and. Yeah. But anyway, my eldest daughter Lucy and I have found a tv series, an old school series from the early two thousands that we can. [00:48:09] Speaker A: Vintage. Vintage. [00:48:11] Speaker B: Not quite that far back, is it? Right. But it's interesting watching a tv series too, from back there. And you're like, oh, where's all the identity politics? And yeah, there's little moments of it in the early two thousands, but it's more around the stuff around, you know, don't judge a person by their sexuality. That was sort of. But it wasn't. Every now and then it would pop up. [00:48:35] Speaker A: But not because I'm rewatching erde for like the third time because I never watched it. So I've got to make up for, you know, three times to make up for never watching the first time. And I think I last watched it during lockdown maybe, actually. [00:48:45] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:48:46] Speaker A: But, you know, it's 15 seasons so it takes you a little while. But yeah, it's really interesting to see the. The change between season one and like the late nineties and season, I think up to season 13 now. Yeah, that change. [00:48:57] Speaker B: And how many seasons were there? [00:48:58] Speaker A: 15. [00:48:59] Speaker B: That's a lot of time. [00:49:00] Speaker A: It's not the longest running medical drama anymore because Grey's Anatomy, which, you know, started but wouldn't Shortland street. [00:49:07] Speaker B: Beat it out. [00:49:08] Speaker A: Oh, I'm talking american one. [00:49:09] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. [00:49:10] Speaker A: Shortland street. Is it medical? [00:49:11] Speaker B: Still going? They euthanized one of their characters recently. Cost saving, literal cost, the whole show. [00:49:20] Speaker A: Anyway, back to your moment of goodness. [00:49:22] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, but my moment of goodness. No, but you're going to tell us about Grey's anatomy with you or something. [00:49:26] Speaker A: I was going to say that. Yeah. Has just. It's just the way it's changed to, like, in 97, all the issues were like, AIDS. AIDS is bad. [00:49:32] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, true. [00:49:33] Speaker A: And get tested and all that. And then. And everybody's smoking away to now when it's like, there you can see the diversity quota is starting to creep in a little bit. But they never, like, it's never as overt as it is now. Right now, it's like it was just right in your face because they can't get funding unless it's like, it's got to be criteria. Don't know what half people's genders are. Yeah, I. That seems to me to have taken over from the story and I think that's why, er has held its own since the late nineties. But, you know, it lives up to today's standards because it's a good drama and a good story. [00:50:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:07] Speaker A: And it's not in your face with all its. [00:50:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Funny eye. [00:50:10] Speaker A: Well, its quota of meeting everything, you. [00:50:12] Speaker B: Know, gone are the days of good stories. But anyway, my oldest daughter and I, we found a tv series today that we can share together. So we're watching the tv series and it's just great. It's like. And good old Americans, they don't know when to stop. So there's so many seasons of it that we're likely to be able to keep watching it for a while yet. And it's good. It's just great sharing something with her that you experienced. I'm hoping to get her onto X Files actually, next because that was great fun when I was younger, but anyway. But it's great to be able to share something with her and also get her out of her sort of like. And like it is a trap. You get into these screen zones. Everyone goes into this screen zone after bedtime. Yeah. Little weeds go to bed, mum and dad go and do their thing and someone plonks themselves down. They're old enough now. They plonk themselves down on the screen on their own. [00:50:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:56] Speaker B: So let's get something communal going. So. So that's been a real joy for me, actually. It's just been great sharing that. That stuff with. I tried to get our twins, who are a bit younger, slightly younger down, you know, to get involved in, but it wasn't for them. But, you know, it's. Yeah, it's. It was. It's been a real joy. So that's my moment of. Pretty simple. But, you know, lovely, lovely dear mom. [00:51:21] Speaker A: And something about the. As they get older, the kind of more friendship moments that you have with them. [00:51:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. It's a great a. We're in the crossover period at the moment where it's like friendship, but, hey, hold on, still. Boundaries. Cause I'm dad and that's mum. And, you know, you're not just a flat bay here. So we're riding that sort of, you know, we're both. [00:51:40] Speaker A: I mean, we can start charging you rent at any time, sweetheart. [00:51:44] Speaker B: We're both parties learning the ropes. What about your scripture, Katie? What's your scripture for the month? [00:51:48] Speaker A: I had to really think about this because I had one and I forgot what it was because we were supposed to record last week, but Brendan was unwell. [00:51:54] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. [00:51:55] Speaker A: It wasn't 100%, but I was thinking about that verse. You believe because you have seen happier those who have not seen and yet believe. But it actually made me think further than that and I had to look it up. The verse from Hebrews. Actually, the whole chapter eleven is great. Just saying. But the first verse is now, faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not, which I think is beautiful. Like, ties into that. Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe. Like the faith in how we have to. Like faith. Something you have to work at. [00:52:35] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:52:36] Speaker A: And if you go and read the rest of the chapter, it was quite cool. I read it this morning. I thought that's actually just salvation history right there. Like all the people throughout God's plan that just believed. [00:52:45] Speaker B: Yeah. And they dedicated their life to it. That's what faith is. It's not this weird sort of longing or hoping and, you know, looking into the abyss and going, I think there's something there. It's actually dedicating yourself to knowing and growing in relationship with Christ. And that's how faith has nurtured us. Yeah. And that's why you can have moments, like I was saying to a group recently, to an audience I was speaking to. It's kind of just like marriage. You don't every day wake up and feel in faith. And in those days, you do what you do when you're married. You fake it till you make it. But you go, yeah, you know, like, I don't feel like I'm really in love with this guy or this girl. I don't feel like being a husband or, I don't feel like being a mum today, but you just, you gotta do it. And then once you do it, you go, oh, yeah, I'm back into it again. You know, that's what carries you through for me. Mine was Ephesians four. And man, this really spoke to me and convicted me in a big way. And it related to a conversation, conversation I actually ended up having with a friend on Friday. We caught up for lunch and we're just chatting over ministry related stuff, and this. Something very similar sort of came up. But Ephesians four says, you must give up your old way of life. You must put aside your old self. And this is the bit which really spoke to me, which gets corrupted by following illusory desires. And I was like, man, that is just really, how many of those illusory desires, these false, delusional things that we follow and cling on to your mind, must be renewed by a spiritual revolution so that you can put on the new self that has been created in God's way, in the goodness and holiness of the truth. And, you know, in our ministry, we often talk about goodness, truth and beauty. That's our big thing. But this is really getting to the heart of it, is you've actually got to put off the old self. And the old self is just so it's about money, it's about prestige, it's about doing all the right stuff. It's about having the perfect family life on the outside, all that, all those things. You could name a million illusory desires, desire for comfort. But, you know, we're called to something completely different. You know, your mind must be renewed by a spiritual revolution so that you can. And like, a revolution is quite serious. It's a tearing down of the old and replacing with something new so that you can put on the new self that has been created in God's way and the goodness and holiness of truth. So live in the truth. Reject the illusory desires. You know, we talk about, you know, live not by lies, but that's not just rejecting lies, that's also proactively living in truth. And it just. Yeah, beautiful and really, really convicting. And I've even been thinking the last week, really well, what are my illusory desires? I need to start actually thinking and putting myself to this deliberate, intentional audit of my own life. What are those things a life audit? And I'm kind of scared to actually do that. Cause I think. Yeah. I mean, yeah, so much. My friend who I had lunch with, we were talking about ministry stuff on Friday and he said. He said, like, he realized recently that, like, we just. We consistently lie to God. Even. We don't mean to, but we just. We put on this presentation of what we think God wants of us instead of just being with him and allowing him to transform us. Yeah, man. [00:55:58] Speaker A: There's a beautiful bit in Narnia. You make me think quoting the book of Narnia back to the book of Narnia isn't my own religion. [00:56:05] Speaker B: That's in the Anglican Bible. [00:56:09] Speaker A: Where Aslan looks at one of the characters and the character tries to lie to him. And Aslan just keeps looking at him and he's like, oh, yeah, he knows. He knows. [00:56:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's the. Just as you're saying that it realized. It dawned on me again, that's the importance of just allowing yourself to be not busy in the presence of God, because just let him gaze at you. And it is like that Aslam moment. It's like, yeah, but if you are like, okay, God, I'm here for my five minutes or my 20 minutes or my half an hour of devotional, and you've got a whole big screed and you just don't stop. You can keep the lie. You just go in there, say a holo stuff and then talk at God and then leave. [00:56:49] Speaker A: Talk at God. [00:56:49] Speaker B: That's been my problem, you know, just stopping to actually say, okay, look at me. [00:56:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:57:07] Speaker B: Alrighty, Katie. So that music means that we are done now with our moment of goodness, truth or beauty for the month. And we've got two questions today. Not three, not thrice, not one, but two. So we have two questions. Number one, how can we engage? And this is relevant to what the answer. [00:57:26] Speaker A: See what you've done there. [00:57:27] Speaker B: How can we engage our school effectively if we have concerns about technology use? And to be fair, this would apply, I think, to any concerns in a school. But if we have concerns about technology use, how can we engage with our school effectively? I guess not make a meal of it. [00:57:44] Speaker A: Yeah, good question. Do you have some advice, Bryn? [00:57:49] Speaker B: Well, I think, yeah, you gotta be prudent, I guess. What I think the thing is that my senses, and, like my brother is I've got a couple of brothers in education. You've got parents who've both been in education and also we've been involved in school communities and had sort of involvement. And my sense is that for, particularly for the school management, all they really hear from often is the parents who want to complain or who want to go on their kids school camps because that's fun. But then when they need help or they need them around the school, often those same parents are not there. And I think in a sense, if you're actually invested in your school community, it a gives you the social credit. You've earned credit to actually be able. [00:58:33] Speaker A: To tackle them on these things, voice your concerns. [00:58:35] Speaker B: You're not just a complaining one off. I'm here to complain. See you later. I'll see you next year when I got my next complaint. You're actually part of the community and, you know, you've earned the right, effectively to say, hey, look, I'm part of this community and I've got concerns. And I think also it probably means that you're going to be able to recruit other allies, potentially if you know other people in the school community who share those concerns. And that always helps if it's more than just one voice. What about you? [00:59:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, obviously the, you need to follow the chain of command. Yeah, yeah. And don't just be this. Don't just be the annoying squeaky wheel that actually back yourself up with reasons not just, oh, look, we think they're on computers too much. [00:59:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:17] Speaker A: Like, what are your reasons for that? Why do you think that's a bad thing? Because teachers might be finding this really useful or that really useful. [00:59:24] Speaker B: So present hard data. [00:59:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:59:28] Speaker B: It's funny really, because what got us into this mess with technology in schools was actually a lack of data. There was no data. There was no sound research to back up the imposition of technology. What happened was the technology companies, it's. [00:59:41] Speaker A: Kind of creeped in. Right? [00:59:42] Speaker B: Yeah. And the tech companies turn up and they say, hey, this will make learning easier and better. And it's like, okay, it's going to make our job easier. We're going to become more effective teachers, and our kids are going to learn better. Who, what's not to like? And it sort of seems, because technology is like, ooh, it's amazing, you know, and it's like, yeah, it seems to, it seems to offer everything that we want and, you know, everyone jumped in with both feet. But now you do have to present data to sort of say, hey, look, there's an issue here. Yeah, I think probably bringing practical solutions, too. [01:00:13] Speaker A: Yes. [01:00:14] Speaker B: Like if you can think of a, you can say, hey, look, this school's doing this or this school's doing that. You know, like you can actually bring them something practical and tangible to work with rather than just saying, hey, here's a problem for you. You need to now go and solve it. [01:00:27] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. [01:00:28] Speaker B: Okay, well, what if I help you? [01:00:30] Speaker A: Yeah, and you have to bear in mind that schools are a little bit hemmed in sometimes by, well, certainly New Zealand by what funding they'll get from the Ministry for what? You know, like they don't necessarily get the funding for the things that you might want them to do. Yeah. Yeah. But like Brennan says, I think get involved. If you can get on the board, that's a great start. [01:00:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:49] Speaker A: A lot of those decisions are made there where you can have your voice heard there. [01:00:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:54] Speaker A: Our school in particular is quite good at surveying. So I remember when we first, maybe when we first started there, maybe the year after, there was a survey about how at what age parents wanted children to have. Bring your own device, which I don't think is necessary at all until you get to high school. Since then. But they. And credit where credit's due, they listened because the parents universally said they don't need it at year three and four. There are plenty of schools in New Zealand that have BYOD from year three and four, which is ridiculous. Yeah. I don't like how eleven year old borrows a laptop from the school. And I don't want to tell you how many times I have seen him throw it on the couch, throw it on the floor or aim for the. [01:01:33] Speaker B: Caption, mister year three and four, they actually need to be engaged. Tactile. [01:01:38] Speaker A: That's right. Yeah. So yeah, I really appreciate that they have listened to their parent community. So if your school sends out a survey, please take the time to answer it because you can't complain that your opinion wasn't listened to if you did not engage. [01:01:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:53] Speaker A: And the communication that your children started. Yeah. [01:01:56] Speaker B: Use, I would say as well, don't be part of the car park mafia. So no matter what happens, try and find, keep finding positive avenues. If one avenue fails, okay. Talk to the teacher. That didn't quite work. What's the next avenue that even you fails? What's the next avenue? There's usually at least three or four avenues in every school that's open to you as a way of engaging with concerns that you have. And I think, yeah, don't become part of the Kaapak mafia that just gossips and, you know, bad mouths, everyone. [01:02:27] Speaker A: You don't make assumptions, you don't know how those decisions were made by vaccines. [01:02:31] Speaker B: Well, here's the thing, too. If they're making bad decisions, just take your kid out of the school, find another school or home school. I'm serious about that. Like, because it's just better, like if you're seriously, if it's that much of a concern that you're having to tell everyone, why haven't you done anything about it? You know, like if it. So, yeah, I think, you know that it's not going to help your cause if you become the unpopular parent by actually deliberately provoking. But what will help your cause is if you are seen to be reasonable and fair minded and charitable in your own conduct. And then what happens is when, you know, you hit brick walls, it's a bit easier. I think there. Yeah, there is a challenge here in general. I have a feeling that what we were talking about reckonings with technology earlier on, I think one of those reckoning moments that will come is and will be the problem of AI because I think what's going to happen is it's actually the more our kids are on devices and our teachers, God bless their little souls, they are just not equipped to be able to recognize and filter for AI. Okay, well, what's been, like, how was this essay written? [01:03:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. [01:03:41] Speaker B: Or was it, was it actually produced by AI? And saying we'll add our own AI fact check isn't going to help the problem because AI is just going to get better. It's a learning model and it's a device that's going to get better at harvesting information and spitting it out in a way that actually doesn't look particularly easy to spot at first. Image replication, all sorts of stuff. It has big implications. So that may well actually force their hand in some ways. Say, well, it's just the technology now is just too burdensome. But yeah, I think maybe hosting too. Like, there's nothing to stop you as a parent, I don't know, booking your local community hall or whatever, or even the school hall after hours and hosting a speaker or someone who can talk about technology issues and maybe get the ball rolling that way. And it, like, we often wait for the school to do it all, but you can do stuff like that. Yeah, you know, and put flyers out and get people along. [01:04:38] Speaker A: And I know it's frustrating for our schools in a lot of ways. Well, certainly for our. Speaking from personal experience with our primary school, I know our principal has organized like cyber safety nights and seven people turn up, you know, like it has gone to effort to organise that and people are like, we want this, we want this. Oh, but we can't come on Wednesday, you know. [01:04:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. That's frustrating for schools. I think, though, the issues now probably deeper than just that. That was initially where we were at probably 1012 years ago, wasn't it? How do I. Because we were all in the mode of thinking, well, how do I keep kids safe? Yeah, it's just going to be the thing now we're at the point where like, maybe this isn't the thing we should be doing. So it's a whole different conversation. It's a bit harder now, but. Yeah, you're right. Why not organise something for parents to engage on these issues, you know, I mean, not. You're not going to get Jonathan Hyde, right. You might have the money and the ability to do that, but probably not. But you might be able to get Jonathan Hyde. Like for example, here in New Zealand, family first had him zoom in to speak at their conference this year and they've made that video available online. And so, you know, you could say, well, let's show that video where he talks about. He's interviewed and it's got a New Zealand sort of flavour to it. Let's show that video and we'll book the hall and we'll put on some wine and cheese and invite people to come, something like that, you know, like, yeah, there's ways to do this and I think recruit people to your cause and a non nefarious. [01:05:56] Speaker A: That's right. [01:05:57] Speaker B: Non carpark mafia. Carpark mafia kind of way. Enunciate. Okay. So you happy there anything else you. [01:06:12] Speaker A: Want to add to that? No, I think that's enough. [01:06:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that's good enough. Question number two. Are there different roles for mothers and fathers to play when disciplining kids in the home? I guess in general, disciplining kids anywhere really, isn't it? [01:06:25] Speaker A: It's harder out of the home. Yeah, yeah. [01:06:28] Speaker B: Gosh. Are there different roles? [01:06:30] Speaker A: Yes, I think so. [01:06:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so too. It's hard for mums though, right? You find this hard that you're. That the dad. The long arm of the dad law is like. The kids go, okay, okay, the dad's doing it. I'll get serious. But often. [01:06:46] Speaker A: Charlie Brown, teacher voices. [01:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. That's not easy. [01:06:49] Speaker A: My mom, my mom, my mom. What? Were you talking to me? I think I told Nathaniel to change his socks four times this morning. That's not discipline. But, you know. But it sort of is. [01:07:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. [01:07:00] Speaker A: Tidy your bedroom, change your socks, do the thing. I don't actually know if he changed his socks in the end or just put the school socks on over the other socks, which is one of his main. [01:07:07] Speaker B: No, he did change them because the other. He then had the other socks. He was flying around, swinging them at people. And so, yeah, I know. They definitely know. [01:07:14] Speaker A: Mornings are fun in our house. Everyone who wants to come watch. No, don't do that, funny man. Yes, there are, there are different roles, I think. Dad. Sometimes kids just need that. Get on with it. [01:07:26] Speaker B: Yeah, they do need that. [01:07:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:07:27] Speaker B: Yeah, dads. I think dads are the. They are the, what would you call it? Supreme court. It's the serious place you go to get hard justice dealt out. There's no. I once heard someone say, and I think this is great advice, he said, there's a period before, he said, you're not friends with your kids. Be charitable, be loving, you, love your kids, but up until they leave home, that's when the friendship really flourishes. And he said, look, basically, really, you've got to be like a bit of a traffic cop. You know, you're the cop. You got to make sure that they're following the rules. And that means at times they're going to not necessarily be your mate. [01:08:04] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. [01:08:05] Speaker B: You just gotta do it. But then if you're not a toxic standoff dad, you know, who's just nothing more than a law man who's like, don't smile at me, kid. That's a problem. But if you actually like, you know, when the, when the moments come and you need to step up, you just say, look, no, that's not good enough. One of the things you hear me talk a lot about, and this is, see, it's interesting. I see the tact even just plays out organically almost in our home. Like, your emotional iq is such that, you know, the female emotional iq is such, you handle it differently. [01:08:37] Speaker A: I am nodding sagely for the audience. [01:08:39] Speaker B: Well, you do the way you handle it differently. And then I'll come in and I've got that male logical, you know, these are the statutes of the law and I'll often talk about with our kids, whereas I don't really hear you taking this approach. But this is the dad's approach is, you know, the fifth commandment, honor your mother and father. No, that is not respectful of your mother. That is not respectful of your father. Go and sit on the step for five minutes and come back and think about how you even just said what you've said, let alone, you know, what you did say the way you said it. And whereas I take that that's a big aspect. I think dads bring that whole sense of. Yeah, well, they do, I guess the parenting law. I don't know. [01:09:19] Speaker A: I think also you don't want to generalize too much because every dad is different, every mom is true. [01:09:23] Speaker B: That is true. [01:09:24] Speaker A: My dad was a much more gentle discipliner than you are and I'm not talking about that in physical at all. But you know how in his temperament and in the way he approached things. [01:09:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:32] Speaker A: Whereas mum was probably more fiery. [01:09:35] Speaker B: One doctrinaire and to the point. Yeah. [01:09:37] Speaker A: So it's interesting, isn't it? But I think so in every home it is different. But I do think that to answer the question, in each home most parents will bring different aspects of discipline to the party. And it's complicated. Right. Because you've got your family of background and family of origin and youre tendencies either to lean in or lean away from how you were disciplined as a kid. [01:09:59] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. Because if the discipline was bad, yeah. You're going to want to lean away from that 100%. If it was good, you're going to want to lean into it. [01:10:07] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. [01:10:08] Speaker B: Most homes, I'd say, would be a mix of good and mistakes. You know, that's our home. [01:10:13] Speaker A: And some homes home, the percentage of homes would be abusive. Extremes, yeah. Abusive. Yeah, yeah. [01:10:20] Speaker B: So you don't want to imitate that. Yeah, but yeah, I think, I think dads one thing is you can't be bystanders. I have moments every now and then when I'm aware. Oh, hold on a minute. [01:10:31] Speaker A: I'm sitting back when I'm going, Brennan, Brennan. [01:10:34] Speaker B: No, no, when you are, I'm very aware of those moments. Brendan, you can't deal with this. [01:10:39] Speaker A: Are you listening to this? [01:10:41] Speaker B: I'm trying to watch the rugby. [01:10:42] Speaker A: Don't you hear what just happened? [01:10:43] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, sit down. Friday night, watch rugby. Okay, I'll go and do. But there are moments where you realize, oh, okay, Katie's having to deal with this thing. She's dealing with it and I can hear her escalating, spiraling and it's not like in a lunatic way, but it's just like the kids are not and Katie's just getting burdened by it and the danger is you just go, oh, she's got this, she'll let me know. No, that's when you've gotta flies off the handle. Yeah, that's when your moment to be. Okay, you sit down, you stand over there. You go and sit on the thinking step. And don't you dare talk to your mother that way. That whole thing. And I think, too, united front does matter. That's the other thing. We've had a few little niggles, you and I, with that recently, where I'm like, don't. I'll try and give you the look if I can. I hate the look. Well, the look is like. [01:11:33] Speaker A: And when you start mouthing words, I'm. [01:11:35] Speaker B: Like, not in front of the children. Don't do that. Because it's. The united front is broken. When you're like, yeah, but I think maybe, you know, no, no, we'll talk about that later. But it's because as soon as you say the words out loud, the magic is broken. The kids are like, yes, we've broken the marginal line. But, yeah, that's definitely important, I think. And there are moments where I'll go, like, unless. And we have our moments, both of us, we were like, no, I think the other person is being really ott or whatever. And then we do. They're pretty rare. I'll have moments where I think, oh, I wouldn't have necessarily. I would have let them do that. But it's like, no, mum has spoken. She's already issued a command in edict. It's not my job to litigate the edict, even if I think, oh, well, I would have let them have another five minutes. No, no. It's my job, as here is to say, no, five minutes and then get off. You know, like, whatever mum's just said not to, you know. I think that's quite important, even, rather than just what roles you take on, because there are probably moments when you are like. You call it the fun parent. [01:12:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:12:41] Speaker B: The parent who's not having to do the hardcore, intense disciplinarian stuff. And the other one is like, hey, hey, kids, I'm cool. I'm cool, dad, let's talk it through. [01:12:51] Speaker A: Let's watch. And then there are fun trailers before you go to bed. [01:12:53] Speaker B: And then there are other moments where it's like, yeah, that's always a dad thing, though. Dads are kind of naughty, and kids remember that. They're like, remember that time dad let us stay up an extra 20 minutes? And, you know, mum wanted us to get up. [01:13:05] Speaker A: My dad. [01:13:09] Speaker B: The other. But the other thing. What was I saying? There are moments where it's like. Whereas on the flip side, I have to sometimes come in like, no, go to bed, do this. And then mum's like, oh, kids, I'll be the cool, talk it out. [01:13:20] Speaker A: Hardly ever. [01:13:21] Speaker B: No. No way. A lot more than you realize. You're the get alongside and talk and I'm the parent. And it flips around. It does. It. It does. It swaps around. But, yeah, the problem is mums carry the brunt. I think because they are in, generally speaking, this is still the case. I think they are in the parenting business at the coalface more than dads are on a day to day basis. [01:13:48] Speaker A: Yeah. So you mums are running the ship. [01:13:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:51] Speaker A: You know, and you might be the captain, but you need the first officer to be like, right, we got to do these things at this time so the ship can sail on time. [01:13:58] Speaker B: Yeah. And so you do be at the brunt. They just. Mums do. Dads. We've got to try and work on that. And I'm not very good at this. This, I've got to be honest, it's a weakness of mine and it's something I'm trying to. [01:14:09] Speaker A: Also, your weaknesses, that's a good question. [01:14:13] Speaker B: Are my strengths also? Well, how could that be? [01:14:15] Speaker A: The weakness is also your strengths. [01:14:17] Speaker B: Well, I don't know if it can be, but that's breaking the law of non contradictions. [01:14:21] Speaker A: I've not asked Michael Scott. [01:14:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm not around enough, but I am also around lots. So. No, but yeah, it's. The thing is that we've. So we've got to step up, but also, at the same time, unfortunately, it also means mums just do. That's the reality of it. Unless you've got some. Unless you've figured out and cracked that code somehow, some modern parenting code, one parent is going to be at the coalface with the kids more of the day than the other is. Right. [01:14:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:14:48] Speaker B: It's just going to be that way. Yeah. And so you just sort of. I think you just got to figure out and navigate. Okay, well, how do we doing the. [01:14:56] Speaker A: Extremely tough job of solo parenting? [01:14:58] Speaker B: Yeah. And to anyone who's doing that, man, you are doing an admirable job. It's not easy. But again, that's where I know you talk to solo parents, particularly females, and they'll tell you that they became aware pretty quickly they needed a male influence in the lives of their kids. And so there's a recognition that we have, do have roles to play. We do. Otherwise you wouldn't need it if it wasn't there. [01:15:24] Speaker A: So I'll get anybody strong male influence. Not just any male influence. [01:15:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:15:29] Speaker A: Don't just get some guy off the. [01:15:30] Speaker B: Street, I'll come yell at your kids for half an hour. But, yeah, but that shows you that even as a testament to fact. Yeah, we do have these different roles to play, and it does actually matter, otherwise we wouldn't need it. You just, you go, oh, solo parenting, it's easy, you know, it's not. It's a challenge precisely because people have roles to play. And, yeah, I think it's just a matter of stepping up and listening and being aware of where the gaps are. [01:15:56] Speaker A: And if you're struggling to discipline together, then maybe that's a, you know, you need a conversation around that. Maybe you need to find someone who can help. There are some good, quite good courses out there. [01:16:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, that is true. Because it might be. [01:16:08] Speaker A: You're right, because it's okay if you feel like you're not getting it right, like, don't beat yourself up. No, but see, what can I do to actually. [01:16:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:16:16] Speaker A: And we as a couple do to improve this. [01:16:18] Speaker B: And we were talking about this earlier on. So one thing is technocracy, where it's like, oh, the technocrats. Yeah, sure, I don't need super nannies who don't have kids trying to instruct me about what parenting is. But at the same time, I've also got to be not pig headed and stubborn and so stubborn that I'm like, I don't need any help at all. Because, you know, you go to good. Like, some really well run parenting courses have been put together by people who actually know their business and who have been parents themselves and have learned the hard way or just even, even stopping to talk to each other. Yeah, I think that's, for us, has been a consistent. Because we'll problem solve together. We'll put our two minds together and then we go, ah, this is what we'll try this week to solve this particular disciplinary problem. [01:17:00] Speaker A: This is the arbitrary punishment we will dish out. [01:17:03] Speaker B: But there's little like, our chore chart's an example of a slow problem solving process. It was like, okay, mum's constantly burdened with the. That as the kids, particularly getting older and they're producing more dishes and more washing and everything else, and they just dump it on mum, okay, this isn't good enough. And we want to teach our kids virtue, and we don't want them to be lazy bloomin bums who have got a maid and a man servant looking after them. What do we do about this? And this process slowly resulted in a Saturday morning chore family chore day, with everyone divvied up a different chore each week and a nightly chore that changes each week. And so this is this process of, you know, figuring it out and. [01:17:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:17:45] Speaker B: And solving the problem together. So, yeah. Anything else you want to say on that? [01:17:49] Speaker A: No, that's good. [01:17:51] Speaker B: I think that's all you want to say, Katie. Another substantive and excellent podcast episode, if I do say so myself. Yes, folks, don't forget that if you want to support our ministry, you can do [email protected]. dot NZ there is a donate page there where, if you want to find out more about how you can become a regular contributor to the work of Lifenet New Zealand, you can do that. So that's lifenet.org dot nz. The link is in the show notes or go to patreon.com leftfootmedia. Become a monthly patron with $5 or more per month and you'll get access to the daily episode of the Dispatches podcast as well. Last but not least, don't forget you can send us your questions at the littleflockpodcast.org or lifenet.org dot nz. All the links are in the show notes. So that's really all I need to say, isn't it? [01:18:34] Speaker A: Yep, you've done it. [01:18:35] Speaker B: Gosh, I repeat myself a bit. I'm off to look at games that we can buy for family games tonight, and jazz records to go with. That would be worse to be the torture, wouldn't it? Games and and jazz. It's family jazz games now. Okay, do you want to say anything else? [01:18:54] Speaker A: Nope. [01:18:55] Speaker B: Folks, don't forget, live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies. And we'll see you next time on the little flock. [01:19:01] Speaker A: See you then. The little flock is a joint production of the Lifenet charitable trust and left foot media. [01:19:15] 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. [01:19:27] Speaker A: See you next time on the little flock.