This is a summary I did in the studio of a live parenting seminar I recently gave for 500 parents in Sydney, Australia.
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Transcript
Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you here.
Speaker:Thanks so much for taking a moment to come and listen to this content.
Speaker:It's a great privilege to, uh, to have the gift of your time.
Speaker:Time is such a commodity in our modern and busy world.
Speaker:So welcome aboard.
Speaker:If you're listening to me, you're here for one or two reasons.
Speaker:You are either in the room recently where I spoke to about 500 parents.
Speaker:And Dave you're listening.
Speaker:When you were in the room.
Speaker:Welcome back.
Speaker:It was a really great night and so good to meet many of you afterwards.
Speaker:If you weren't there, you'll have come across this in another way.
Speaker:So welcome aboard.
Speaker:We are all in one way or another on this parenting journey together,
Speaker:this challenging, complex, demanding journey of parenting.
Speaker:I was thinking recently that, uh, you know, a few years ago I saw
Speaker:this photograph of the space shuttle in, inside on the cockpit and.
Speaker:And you look at that photograph, you can probably Google And, uh, you see this vast
Speaker:array of buttons and switches and dials.
Speaker:And, you know, it's fascinating to look at that complexity, but believe
Speaker:it or not, the space shuttle actually had a manual, an actual manual.
Speaker:You could read on how to pilot and fly
Speaker:And I'm mentioning this because it's interesting to note that something so
Speaker:vastly complicated still had a manual, but guess what else is really complicated and
Speaker:challenging, but doesn't have a manual.
Speaker:And that's your child and my.
Speaker:And my children.
Speaker:Uh, we all, uh, desire to be really good parents, but it
Speaker:doesn't come with a manual.
Speaker:Does it?
Speaker:It's, it's a challenging and, um, and at times frustrating task,
Speaker:but, uh, it is a task with giving a very best if it's two, because the.
Speaker:The results, both for.
Speaker:You know, for, in terms of our own vocations and for the wider culture.
Speaker:I just crucial at this particular moment in history.
Speaker:So friends welcome aboard.
Speaker:I want to talk about a few things.
Speaker:I want to just give a brief summary of the evening.
Speaker:And then I'm going to offer you some, you know, some of the key takeaways, hopefully
Speaker:that are practical for you as well.
Speaker:Karen and I have three children.
Speaker:And as I mentioned to the audience, we weren't able to have
Speaker:children for six and a half years.
Speaker:We were desperate to start a family, but we weren't able to.
Speaker:And eventually Karen was diagnosed with celiac disease.
Speaker:Once that was resolved.
Speaker:I, uh, I like to say we couldn't stop having children.
Speaker:We had three.
Speaker:In three and a half years.
Speaker:And as I record this, they're still quite young.
Speaker:And, uh, but so all I'm saying is we're very much on this journey with you guys.
Speaker:As we try to do our very best and learn as much as we can and, um, hopefully
Speaker:share some of what we're learning and what we've learned over the years.
Speaker:My background, I guess, uh,
Speaker:You know, has been in the education sector.
Speaker:I've got a bunch of postgraduate degrees and, uh, have spent the last
Speaker:kind of, I guess what it must be now two decades, uh, speaking around the
Speaker:world to more than 400,000 people.
Speaker:On all these sorts of topics.
Speaker:And, uh, so that's kind of, what's brought us into this space
Speaker:and let's, uh, let's jump in
Speaker:Look, what I titled the presentation was I called it one big idea
Speaker:in three useful questions.
Speaker:So I want to give you one main idea that kind of permeates the
Speaker:presentation and they're going to frame three useful questions.
Speaker:And then in the end, I'm just going to give you a summary.
Speaker:Of some of the practical ideas that I think we can all put into place.
Speaker:So the one essential, big idea that I'm keen to share with all of us
Speaker:is simply the idea that no one can parent your child better than you.
Speaker:Now I know in the difficulties and challenges of daily life, it
Speaker:can feel that that's not the case.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:You can sometimes feel that you're not getting it right.
Speaker:Or there's all sorts of challenges and problems.
Speaker:And, and, you know, I don't want to digress, but all of
Speaker:us are in a different place.
Speaker:Some of us, you
Speaker:Uh, parenting comes pretty easily to us.
Speaker:We've been blessed with relatively easy kids.
Speaker:Some of us Not in that situation, right.
Speaker:We're dealing with.
Speaker:Often complex, uh, behavioral problems or peer group problems.
Speaker:And, you know, there's a spectrum right?
Speaker:From, from no problems all the way up to extreme problems.
Speaker:But I do want to really encourage us all to remember that no matter how
Speaker:difficult or easy it may feel at times,
Speaker:We've got to hold onto this belief that we're meant to be the particular
Speaker:parent given to our particular children.
Speaker:And that no one can do this better than you because no one could
Speaker:ever be more invested than you.
Speaker:So I'd like to think that God has really chosen and ordained you to be the
Speaker:specific parent of your specific child.
Speaker:And if that's the case, and I've got a relatively diverse audience
Speaker:listening to this summary, but.
Speaker:You know, I like to think in the sense of vocation, if we've
Speaker:been called into a vocation.
Speaker:Such as the vocation of parenting.
Speaker:Then if God calls us into that, then it's his problem to sustain us in it.
Speaker:So by that, I mean that, I think there's a deep, spiritual,
Speaker:sacred aspect to parenting.
Speaker:And if we're caught into it,
Speaker:Part of our journey will be trusting that we are supposed to be there.
Speaker:I spoke in Boise, Idaho a few years ago and I never forget
Speaker:what the, the Bishop said.
Speaker:He was introducing me to a teaching convention.
Speaker:And, uh, I remember him famously saying, he said, everybody,
Speaker:you've got to stop trying to make Jesus unemployed, who has liked
Speaker:So for me, there's a deep, um, spiritual basis to what we're doing here and
Speaker:that God wants to support us in it.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:As I mentioned before, there's a lot of differences for us, uh, in
Speaker:difference in our life experiences.
Speaker:So some of us, you know, there may be some single parents There'll be some of
Speaker:us listening where everything's going well, as I said, some of us listening, we
Speaker:everything's a challenge and difficulty.
Speaker:But despite the differences that we have.
Speaker:And the other difference I mentioned on the night too, I should recall.
Speaker:Is our own experiences of being parented.
Speaker:So, you know, our own experience of our own childhoods.
Speaker:Some of us had a really straightforward, easy childhood.
Speaker:Some of us had extremely difficult childhoods.
Speaker:And therefore, you know, the, uh, The experiences that we've had
Speaker:really shaped our parenting and, and create either blessings or
Speaker:challenges for us on the journey.
Speaker:But despite the differences.
Speaker:I was really keen to say that what unites us all as parents, the one thing that
Speaker:we could say, despite our differences.
Speaker:What unites all of us as parents is that we desire the good of our children,
Speaker:that we love them, that we desire.
Speaker:Good for them.
Speaker:Uh, in my post-grad work in philosophical anthropology, we did a lot of work on.
Speaker:Understanding The deeper meaning of human love.
Speaker:And it's been highly sentimentalize in our culture into a purely emotive
Speaker:construct, but decide that you love your children really means that yes,
Speaker:there can be an affective component.
Speaker:Boredom really means that we desire good happens to them for their
Speaker:own sake, for their own good.
Speaker:So what unites every one of us is that if we could wave
Speaker:a magic wand, we would, will.
Speaker:That good happens to them, not just that.
Speaker:They have good experiences, but that they become good on this journey of life.
Speaker:And the last kind of opening point I made was to remind us all.
Speaker:There'll be nothing more significant.
Speaker:I think that we'll ever do in this life.
Speaker:Everything else can be taken from you, right?
Speaker:Every, every bit of success that you've had in your life, whether it's career
Speaker:success, financial, professional, whatever it is, you know, you can be.
Speaker:General secretary of the United nations, you know, whatever you could be president,
Speaker:but all of these things can be taken away.
Speaker:And all of these things are susceptible to the ravages of time, sooner or later,
Speaker:all of these things can be taken from us.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:What I like to say to people is.
Speaker:In the final moments of our lives, you know, it really, what will
Speaker:be most significant to us will be the people in the room with us in
Speaker:those final moments of our lives.
Speaker:You know, and, and I quoted Saint John of the cross who famously said
Speaker:at the sunset of our lives, we will be judged on how we have loved.
Speaker:You know, so in the daily battle of life and all the complexities that we're
Speaker:all living through, the busy-ness, the overwhelm, all of that, that defines so
Speaker:much modern life and modern parenting hold onto the fact that really.
Speaker:You know, in the day-to-day daily grind, everything's screaming at us, right?
Speaker:There's so many emergencies, there's so many contingencies and
Speaker:things you've got to deal with.
Speaker:But let's try and hold onto this truth that this parenting journey
Speaker:is just about the most significant thing that we're going to be doing.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So let's move on to these three useful questions.
Speaker:So we've got the one big idea, which is that you're meant to be doing this.
Speaker:You're uniquely positioned to be doing this.
Speaker:No one can do this better than you.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:The three useful questions that I framed these number one, what is your deepest
Speaker:desire as a parent for your child?
Speaker:Where's the deepest desire that you have for them.
Speaker:Second question was what stops you from achieving that desire?
Speaker:And finally, uh, what can we do to more closely realize our desire for
Speaker:our children's growth and flourishing?
Speaker:So what is it that we want?
Speaker:What stops us, getting what we want and what can we do to make it more frequent,
Speaker:having more frequent experience of.
Speaker:Of approximating what we truly desire in this parenting journey.
Speaker:So I'm going to step through those quickly and then I'll give you the, um,
Speaker:the, what I come up with in the end, I came up with eight practical things or.
Speaker:You know, a mix of theoretical and practical things we can do.
Speaker:Are you ready?
Speaker:We're almost, uh, we, we, we're almost there.
Speaker:It's a short summary.
Speaker:Uh, time is precious.
Speaker:So let's do it the first useful question.
Speaker:What's your deepest desire as a parent for your child I did an, this sort of
Speaker:experiment in the room where I said, if you ask most people, you ask the, the
Speaker:man or woman on the street, the average person, the average parent, most people
Speaker:tend to say something along the lines of.
Speaker:That they want their child to be happy.
Speaker:So, what I said on the night again, was that's problematic for a few reasons.
Speaker:One is, you know, at least without going deep down this rabbit hole.
Speaker:The meaning of the word, happiness has undergone a rather seismic.
Speaker:Uh, transformation since around the time of the French revolution.
Speaker:Before that.
Speaker:If you asked somebody about happiness or what it meant to be happy.
Speaker:They would not have conceptualized it as necessarily a feeling state.
Speaker:As in an emotive feeling state.
Speaker:So what I say to people to help them understand initially is the problem
Speaker:with saying that your desire is happiness, or you want your child,
Speaker:or you want someone to be happy.
Speaker:You have to remember that.
Speaker:Ax murderers and psychopaths.
Speaker:Uh, capable of experiencing the emotive reaction of happiness.
Speaker:Regardless of how abberant their behaviors are.
Speaker:So if our greatest desire for our children is nothing other than a
Speaker:feeling state that's problematic, right?
Speaker:Because.
Speaker:You know, It means they're the goal state of their being is very much at
Speaker:risk of the vicissitudes of life, right?
Speaker:Like they hacked.
Speaker:Well, I have this feeling state if they experienced loss or suffering.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:What does happiness really mean?
Speaker:So I took the audience back to the deepest roots of it, which probably go back to.
Speaker:You'd say probably maybe 500 BC.
Speaker:You know, classical Athens kind of thing.
Speaker:Where.
Speaker:The idea of happiness was based on the Greek philosophical idea
Speaker:of what they called a Damon.
Speaker:Not a demon, a Damon, which was this idea that the Greeks had, that we all
Speaker:carry within us a, like an imprint upon our soul, which you can understand as
Speaker:like software code or computer code.
Speaker:And the goal of life is to take that source code.
Speaker:And actualize it into the world, right?
Speaker:To bring out all your potentiality, all the courage.
Speaker:You could have all the compassion.
Speaker:You could have all the creativity you could
Speaker:And take that code and bring it out into the world.
Speaker:And if you did that, the Greeks would refer to you as a, you de Mon or you would
Speaker:experience what they call the eudaimonia.
Speaker:And for the Greeks, that was kind of the goal of the good life.
Speaker:Was to take the natural potential for good within you
Speaker:and bring it out into the world.
Speaker:So, and the vehicle for it, the modality, the way that they did it
Speaker:was through what they call virtue.
Speaker:That the way that you brought this thing out into the world was living virtuously.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So that's the end of the philosophy philosophy lesson.
Speaker:But my point is if our desire for our children is happiness, what it really
Speaker:means is that our desire should be for what the Greeks would say is true.
Speaker:Human flourishing.
Speaker:All of the potentiality in your child coming out into the world over the
Speaker:life course over their life journey.
Speaker:So it's the development of character then becoming all that they could
Speaker:be not in the kind of Oprah new age sense where it's all about.
Speaker:You know, self-actualization often say that I, I think, uh, Maslow was wrong.
Speaker:You'd all be familiar with the idea of, you know, that the Maslow's.
Speaker:Hierarchy of needs and self actualization was the pinnacle.
Speaker:I think he was fundamentally wrong.
Speaker:And if you read biographies of his life, he was pretty strange cat.
Speaker:I mean, to be honest, go have a look.
Speaker:Uh, I don't discount everything he said, but the idea that self actualization
Speaker:was a pinnacle is I think incorrect.
Speaker:Uh, the.
Speaker:Pinnacle of the human experience is something that,
Speaker:um, you know, if you look at.
Speaker:For example, Thomas Merton's book, the seven story mountain.
Speaker:He makes the point that that the ultimate point is not self,
Speaker:you know, Self actualization.
Speaker:Self-transcendence it's to go beyond the self to take all that you are
Speaker:and offer it up into the world in, in the gift of yourself, to the
Speaker:world and to relationships and to creativity, into building the common
Speaker:good, all those sorts of ideas.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Well, I guess what I'm getting at here, and I apologize if I've just,
Speaker:Fall and tripped over and falling down the philosophy rabbit hole.
Speaker:But I think we need to get some of this back.
Speaker:I think we need to think deeply about what is a fundamental desire for parenting.
Speaker:I find it sometimes when we have to deal with consequences
Speaker:in our own parenting, right.
Speaker:We have to set boundaries for our kids.
Speaker:And I don't know if you do this, but I can second guess myself, am I being too hard?
Speaker:Am I being too easy?
Speaker:What's the, you know, what's the right mix here.
Speaker:And then I remind myself, you know what I'm trying to do here.
Speaker:Is form character.
Speaker:What I'm trying to do here is what the Greeks were saying
Speaker:is to take this imprint.
Speaker:And use the vehicle of virtue and character development.
Speaker:So that child flourishes in life.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:I hope that's useful that what we want is their happiness, but that hair happiness
Speaker:conceptualized as human flourishing.
Speaker:Potentiality through the vehicle of virtue and character development.
Speaker:That's what we're after.
Speaker:And the last thing is
Speaker:As an answer to question one, what should deepest desire as a parent for your child?
Speaker:Is I shared a story of my oldest child, Olivia, who is a.
Speaker:You know, we've we, we took her out of formal schooling and she's been home
Speaker:educated and just doing a phenomenal job.
Speaker:Like she's, she's just achieving.
Speaker:You know, amazing
Speaker:Doing a kind of great books, classical education program out of the U S.
Speaker:And a few weeks ago, my oldest brother was over with his family.
Speaker:We were having lunch on a Sunday and afterwards everyone was sitting around.
Speaker:He asked me how Olivia was going.
Speaker:And I just raved.
Speaker:I said, mate, I said, she's You know, in this beautiful space she's doing so well.
Speaker:She's reading.
Speaker:You know, to talk feels, uh, Democracy in America, she's
Speaker:reading the Federalist papers.
Speaker:She's reading Plato's Republic.
Speaker:She's 15.
Speaker:And, you know, I said, she's just amazing, you know, she's, she's got,
Speaker:she's working, she's done all this stuff.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:He said something.
Speaker:It really stuck with me.
Speaker:And trust me, there's no, triumphalism in this.
Speaker:You know, it's like, we've, we've been, we, we prayed a lot.
Speaker:We've worked hard.
Speaker:We've tried to do what we can.
Speaker:But he said to me, he said, oh, it's because she's taken on your values.
Speaker:She's taken on your values.
Speaker:And it really struck me.
Speaker:I suddenly realized I went he's right.
Speaker:Like she's actually.
Speaker:Looked at Karen and I and our view of the world and what we value
Speaker:and believe is worth valuing.
Speaker:What is worth.
Speaker:You know, what's true.
Speaker:Good and beautiful.
Speaker:And she has.
Speaker:I guess witnessed Considered And taken it on as, as appropriate for her.
Speaker:So at this point, I guess some people can push back and say, well, have you
Speaker:just created an automate on if you just created a robot carbon copy of
Speaker:yourself in Canada, it's not true at all.
Speaker:I don't think that's remotely what's happened.
Speaker:I think that she has.
Speaker:Just observed and thought and read and experienced and it has and taken it on.
Speaker:And if people still resist that I say to them, well, it as a parent, I guess,
Speaker:because you could say, well, you know, you children should encounter the world
Speaker:and meet all these different people and make their own value judgements over time.
Speaker:I go.
Speaker:I don't know, friends.
Speaker:Think about it this way.
Speaker:If you do not want your child to take on your values.
Speaker:Exactly whose values do you want them to take That's a pretty
Speaker:confronting question, right?
Speaker:Because if you do not want your child to take on your values, we've got a
Speaker:problem here because for that to be true, you would have to believe that
Speaker:either your values aren't that good and there's better one somewhere else.
Speaker:And that's a pretty.
Speaker:Depressing thought to be honest.
Speaker:You know, I think we should, as parents have some, you know, some courage in
Speaker:the, the significance of what we believe to be true and what we've experienced.
Speaker:I think just try not to go down the rabbit hole, but I think one of the In
Speaker:post-modernity is the idea that, that, that young people are inherently wise
Speaker:and they are the equal of their elders.
Speaker:That can't be, you got to live long enough, like, um,
Speaker:You know, I remember my forties now and I'm like, you I still figuring it out.
Speaker:Like you have to live long enough.
Speaker:You have to have a lot of experience.
Speaker:You have to suffer and file and have some wins and live life to kind of
Speaker:frame what you know, to be true.
Speaker:And what is worth valuing.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:I think we can be, it is okay for, to want your child to take on your values.
Speaker:I really do.
Speaker:You know, and the last thing I'll say about that For a long time, Olivia and
Speaker:I would get up every Saturday morning.
Speaker:We drive two hours to the coast.
Speaker:Uh, cause she loves surfing and we got into surfing.
Speaker:And unless two hours there, we would just talk and listen to interesting
Speaker:podcasts about the world and history and geopolitics, and talk about
Speaker:Then we drive back for two hours and I look back at that time and it was tiring.
Speaker:It was exhausting.
Speaker:It was a lot of driving, but I really see that time as formative in shaping.
Speaker:So I just want to say to you, what's your deepest desire for your child?
Speaker:Flourishing character development virtue, and that they.
Speaker:Take on the best of your values, maybe they didn't take on absolutely everything,
Speaker:but the best of what you value.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Number two.
Speaker:What stops us from getting what we desire for our child and.
Speaker:You know what I said?
Speaker:There's, there's three factors.
Speaker:The first two, I mentioned a briefly, the third, I talked about a bit more.
Speaker:The first factor that stops us.
Speaker:Like our hearts are full of hope for our kids.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So what stops it from working?
Speaker:Number one is the surrounding culture itself.
Speaker:Uh, I refer to this as.
Speaker:Uh, you know, I just, I sort of said to the audience, I don't want to spend the
Speaker:next half an hour on a whiteboard listing.
Speaker:All the things that you know are really wrong with our culture.
Speaker:I think that happens a lot.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:We list.
Speaker:Body image and social media and pornography and all these
Speaker:things that affect our kids.
Speaker:And they're all real.
Speaker:And then we need to talk about them in, In the right context.
Speaker:But I just said, look, the culture around us in general is inimical to the values
Speaker:that most of us hold for parenting.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:It's just, it just is.
Speaker:So my synopsis of the culture, what I think is happening is what we've
Speaker:got is essentially late stage hyper consumerist, technocratic capitalism.
Speaker:Infused with a kind of Nietzschean, nihilism and endemic cultural Marxism.
Speaker:I think that's basically a.
Speaker:A good synopsis.
Speaker:We've got a huge regulatory capture.
Speaker:We've kind of got the fusing of huge corporations, the political
Speaker:Millia and, uh, legacy media, those three things reinforce and
Speaker:feed off each other financially.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:And, and we've got You know, this Nietzschean nihilism still floating
Speaker:around that nothing can be truly known that there's no, you know,
Speaker:the good and evil are purely, um, relative and the will to power.
Speaker:And then you've got cultural Marxism with its inherent focus on victim groups and
Speaker:creating sorts of cultural evolution.
Speaker:I think that's all over the place.
Speaker:It's everywhere.
Speaker:It's just.
Speaker:You know, I think for myself having written study very deeply, I just kind
Speaker:of say to people, I feel like it's the last scene of wizard of Oz and I
Speaker:pulled back the curtain and I've seen what's going on behind the curtain
Speaker:Um, like, oh, that's what's going on.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Well, um, I'm going to click my heels together and head off somewhere Uh,
Speaker:by that, I just mean that, you know, this is a culture that is not going to
Speaker:be doing you any favors in parenting.
Speaker:So I don't mean that we, that we run to the Hills.
Speaker:We're here.
Speaker:We got to make the best of it.
Speaker:We've got to try and transform what we can reasonably transform.
Speaker:But let's just be alert to the fact that.
Speaker:And I would say vast swathes of the education system.
Speaker:Uh, immersed in forms of cultural Marxism, whether they know it or not.
Speaker:Uh, so you gotta be highly selective and attuned to where your kids are at school.
Speaker:And that's why it was great to, to be row was a 10
Speaker:I was real pleasure to be there.
Speaker:Uh, because I think they get it and they know they get it.
Speaker:So those are the, the first thing is the surrounding culture.
Speaker:The second thing is the reality of evil itself.
Speaker:Um, and then most of my audience are people of faith.
Speaker:So I think the reality of evil of Satan and his desire, I sort of said to the
Speaker:audience, we always gotta remind ourselves that the devil is not the equal of God.
Speaker:They are not rivals.
Speaker:For a whole bunch of reasons.
Speaker:If you look at the, you know, If you look in scripture, God didn't
Speaker:throw the devil out of heaven.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It was just wasn't even, you Michael did it.
Speaker:It's like, you know, Satan was an angel that just, you know, I sort of said,
Speaker:got it handed to him by Michael and thrown out and took a third with him.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:You know, Satan doesn't get to win any kind of ultimate battle.
Speaker:So there's no great big, final.
Speaker:Well, there is.
Speaker:Final showdown, but it's not as if God's there.
Speaker:Some of the Trinity is going, what are we going to do?
Speaker:Do you think we can pull this off?
Speaker:It's like, no, it's all done.
Speaker:It's done and dusted this.
Speaker:There's no final victory for evil.
Speaker:It just isn't.
Speaker:So, um, the only thing that the devil can do is to deprive God of individual souls.
Speaker:That's that that's the game, right?
Speaker:It isn't about is Satan running some incredible strategy where he's
Speaker:going to sneak up on the Trinity and somehow, you know, risk, cosmic power.
Speaker:That's not going to happen.
Speaker:What is going to happen is genuine.
Speaker:Evil is going to target marriage and family.
Speaker:It's going to target people of faith.
Speaker:It's going to target parenting.
Speaker:It's going to target kids, all of it in the simple attempt
Speaker:to separate souls from God.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:So I really want us all to be switched on to that truth.
Speaker:I think in the last, whatever period of time.
Speaker:You know, we've sort of.
Speaker:I think we've stopped remembering that, and we need to remember it
Speaker:again and begin to pray into that.
Speaker:Begin to be spiritually very aware of it.
Speaker:Be very much praying for our kids.
Speaker:Uh, trying to grow spiritually ourselves.
Speaker:And, uh, so that's the second part.
Speaker:And look finally, the third thing that stops us from getting what we want.
Speaker:Is what I talked about in lot more detail, which was our own
Speaker:woundedness pain and past failures.
Speaker:And in some ways that was the focus of the evening because.
Speaker:We forget that.
Speaker:No matter, even if we were parented almost perfectly, every
Speaker:single one of us carries wounds.
Speaker:So again, we've got a spectrum from people who are experienced profound abuse and
Speaker:trauma and violence and abandonment.
Speaker:All the way to people who felt they were parented really well, but still carry.
Speaker:You know, the little scrapes and bumps of human family life and still,
Speaker:you know, carry some things around.
Speaker:We all do.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:One of the things we need to be vigilant about as parents is
Speaker:simply that we carry woundedness.
Speaker:We carry brokenness.
Speaker:And what I said next was.
Speaker:I asked the audience, the question.
Speaker:What do you think is God's ultimate purpose in cosmic history?
Speaker:Like, if you look at the great sweep of spiritual history,
Speaker:What do you think God's doing?
Speaker:Like what, what what's, what's the macro view?
Speaker:What's the, the meta-narrative of all spirituality and faith.
Speaker:And what I believe it to be.
Speaker:And what a lot of theologians would say is it's all about redemption.
Speaker:At the whole thing.
Speaker:Is got offered.
Speaker:Relationship, relationship was broken and then go, just went to
Speaker:work, to restore relationship.
Speaker:So the entire.
Speaker:Sweep of cosmic history is about healing.
Speaker:It's about redemption and it's about restoration, That's what
Speaker:the incarnation is, right?
Speaker:Like CS Lewis said that the incarnation is a daring raid on enemy held territory.
Speaker:That's what it's about.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:We need to remember that.
Speaker:All the wounds and the brokenness that we carry.
Speaker:God is very much interested in healing.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:What we need to do is be aware of our need for healing.
Speaker:And pursue it.
Speaker:So there's a whole bunch of ways you might do that.
Speaker:Some people don't want to do that through counseling and, and possibly
Speaker:therapy and working through trauma.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:You know, I recommended stuff like the Catholic.
Speaker:Uh, the Christian prayer ministry of people like Neil
Speaker:Lazano, who runs the Unbound.
Speaker:Uh, prey ministry.
Speaker:Some people, some of us need to get prayed with.
Speaker:We need to just receive prayer for healing.
Speaker:And, you know, the Unbound ministry is a very gentle non-invasive.
Speaker:Beautiful form of prayer.
Speaker:So I just want to say to everybody listening.
Speaker:Maybe you haven't explored this, but my point is that if we don't get healing
Speaker:for the wounds and the trauma and the things that we've lived through in our
Speaker:own experiences, It is hard, harder.
Speaker:To parent as effectively as we could, you know, if we're carrying around.
Speaker:All this sort of stuff.
Speaker:So whether it's, you know, Rage or addictions or dismissiveness
Speaker:or sarcasm and these things that come out in our parenting or can.
Speaker:Then what are the roots of those?
Speaker:And, you know, you look at the work of people like Dr.
Speaker:Gabor Martay, like on addiction and trauma.
Speaker:And we see how many of the pathologies that come out in life.
Speaker:Uh, coming from pretty deep places within.
Speaker:So healing comes from the sacraments, from prayer, from prayer ministry, from,
Speaker:you know, these days I just go and sit in a church for an hour a day and I
Speaker:Sit there and stare at the tabernacle.
Speaker:And so what I And just, you know, after all these years I'm still
Speaker:seeking healing and restoration.
Speaker:To become a more integrated person to become a healthier wholly, a
Speaker:person that's that's I'm trying to do, like you have to ask the people
Speaker:closest to me, see how I'm doing it.
Speaker:Check the report guard, but.
Speaker:At least I'm aware that, that I need that, that that's a really important thing.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:We're at the 24 minute mark.
Speaker:Give or take.
Speaker:So let's wrap this up.
Speaker:What have we done?
Speaker:We've talked about the one big statement, the one big idea, which is that no
Speaker:one can do your job better than you as a parent and the three questions.
Speaker:What do you want for your child?
Speaker:What stops you?
Speaker:And what can we do to experience it more often?
Speaker:So let's finish up with, with number three, which is I listed kind of
Speaker:eight things that we can go through.
Speaker:So let me spin you through these and wherever you're listening to this.
Speaker:There should be a link to get the PDF.
Speaker:So Karen has done a beautiful PDF if you're a more visual person and you can
Speaker:get all these notes on a PDF, it'll, there'll be a link to click to it.
Speaker:So make sure you get the hard Alright, number one.
Speaker:Reframe the trials and difficulties of parenting and family life
Speaker:as invitations to growth.
Speaker:Holiness and wholeness.
Speaker:The things you see as most difficult.
Speaker:Are often hidden invitations to unexpected growth.
Speaker:I wonder if in parenting, like we often have some of the same
Speaker:battles over and over again.
Speaker:And some of them we need to have and really worth having, but.
Speaker:Sometimes, you know, having coached a lot of people over the years,
Speaker:the power of reframing questions can be quite profound, which is.
Speaker:Instead of just having the same fight over and over again, ask
Speaker:yourself a better question, which is.
Speaker:What's going on here.
Speaker:W what, what, where, where do I, why am I need to change?
Speaker:Maybe it is your child that needs to change.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:But maybe we need to be more gentle.
Speaker:Maybe we need to communicate better.
Speaker:Maybe we need to learn to listen more fully.
Speaker:So when the battles are happening and the trials and difficulties are happening.
Speaker:That can be very debilitating and exhausting over time.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But begin to think.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I remember a nun once famously said, God comes to you disguised as your life.
Speaker:Like I spent years wanting God to speak to me.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I'm going, wasn't gonna speak to me.
Speaker:I want an email from guide.
Speaker:Just go, Jonathan, do this.
Speaker:Here it is.
Speaker:Step 1, 2, 3.
Speaker:Didn't get it.
Speaker:And you begin to realize that he's often talking to us through the
Speaker:circumstances of our lives, through the difficulties and the challenges because
Speaker:they lead us towards reliance upon God and that they lead us towards change.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:If you're facing some difficulties, ask yourself some better questions about them.
Speaker:Where is the invitation to growth?
Speaker:Number two.
Speaker:Reorient your life to this parenting season and live it well.
Speaker:Your time with your children in these formative years is short.
Speaker:So commit to it because you'll not be given this time again, it's a
Speaker:small window and it closes fast.
Speaker:Audit your life and commitments and ask if you are doing all
Speaker:that can be reasonably done.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Just by that.
Speaker:I mean, The incredible business and overwhelm of modern life in the big
Speaker:cities particularly means that we can live kind of like I'll get to it.
Speaker:I'll get to it.
Speaker:I'll get to it.
Speaker:I'll I'll get this time with much heart I'll I'll take them on this camping trip.
Speaker:I'll get to this, I'll have this conversation.
Speaker:I'm going to listen to them next
Speaker:But by reorient our lives, I don't mean in a sort of sycophantic.
Speaker:We're going to completely rebuild reality and make everything about our kids.
Speaker:I just mean.
Speaker:The window.
Speaker:Is pretty small.
Speaker:When I, when my kids were really little, they never slept.
Speaker:And I just thought, man, I can never be harder than this.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:We just didn't sleep for years.
Speaker:Because they were so close in age and now they're kind of 15, 14, 12,
Speaker:and it's a whole different set of challenges and experiences and taxi,
Speaker:driving, and counseling and all these, you know, doing all this stuff.
Speaker:But I'm still reminding myself that Jonathan really is about kind of
Speaker:10 years left and that's it like?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You'll still be friends with them.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:You'll still have relationship.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:They'll still be things But this really formative window is short.
Speaker:So let's make sure that we are clear on that.
Speaker:And then we are giving ourselves.
Speaker:The best that we can reasonably give to our kids in the windows that we have.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Number three.
Speaker:Invest in your own wellbeing, health, holiness, and growth.
Speaker:You cannot give what you don't possess.
Speaker:And you cannot give from an empty well, So by this, I mean, The exercise, the
Speaker:sleep, the diet, the hobbies, and a know something you just passed out.
Speaker:I just went, Really?
Speaker:What does he think?
Speaker:This is like, you know,
Speaker:It's just like the sound of music.
Speaker:This is like we, the Von Trapp family We know the kids are going
Speaker:to turn up and peanut falls.
Speaker:And when he's going to lead, I go for picnics.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:I just mean that it's okay to take care of yourself because if you are.
Speaker:Well physiologically as well as you can be.
Speaker:Then you're much more likely to.
Speaker:Parent more effectively.
Speaker:So I do a daily podcast and yesterday I was responding to a listener
Speaker:question about time management and I talk about the non-negotiables.
Speaker:So I have, I probably have three non-negotiables every
Speaker:day, which is exercise.
Speaker:Um, an hour for prayer and then time with Karen, the kids, you know,
Speaker:And shout out to Andy Mullins.
Speaker:He kind of helped me remember too.
Speaker:Give each of my kids, some one-on-one time per day.
Speaker:Even if it's 10 minutes, hopefully a bit longer, but I'm making sure that
Speaker:I'm hitting those non-negotiables so.
Speaker:The exercise things huge for me.
Speaker:So I just wanna encourage you.
Speaker:Like we tell ourselves stories like.
Speaker:Oh, I could never do that.
Speaker:I'm too busy.
Speaker:I can't, I can't, I can't, we don't critique our stories sometimes.
Speaker:The fact is you probably can get better sleep.
Speaker:You can probably eat a little better.
Speaker:You can drink a bit more water.
Speaker:You can do a little bit more exercise.
Speaker:You can reconnect to hobbies and things that give you life
Speaker:because they're not selfish.
Speaker:They're not indulgent.
Speaker:They're ways of balanced living than, than allay to love the people
Speaker:that you care about the most.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So get back onto that part.
Speaker:Number four.
Speaker:Um, if you're married, invest relentlessly in your marriage, it can be really hard.
Speaker:In the struggle and busy-ness of modern life, but it's incredibly important.
Speaker:So both on the marriage part and on the, on the wellbeing part.
Speaker:I remember speaking to people afterwards in this recent live
Speaker:You may have to be creative.
Speaker:I was speaking to one great couple.
Speaker:Who've got five kids under like eight.
Speaker:And they're just trying to find time, you know, for their own wellbeing,
Speaker:exercise and stuff, and then each other, and then everything else.
Speaker:So, what I kept saying to them is you might have to be creative.
Speaker:You'd be surprised what you can come up with if you think it through, um,
Speaker:intelligently and sort of carefully.
Speaker:So I really wanna encourage everybody with that.
Speaker:That, um, It's just in the busy-ness of parenting and modern life.
Speaker:The marriage part can just sort of.
Speaker:I think we can leave as like, oh, well we're married is all good.
Speaker:We're solid.
Speaker:We're just going to put that on the shelf and just get through.
Speaker:It's a bit like being at the beach when you kind of dive and under a big wave
Speaker:and you're just coming up for the next one and the next one, the next one,
Speaker:you're like, we'll just get through it.
Speaker:We'll just get through.
Speaker:And I encourage you that you we've got to step off the conveyor
Speaker:belt and put some time into each other and time into the marriage.
Speaker:So Karen and I like we'll kind of walk.
Speaker:As often as we can, we can just get some time walking, uh, on a daily
Speaker:basis and just read is a talk.
Speaker:It's just talk, talk, talk, talk.
Speaker:We just.
Speaker:You know, some admin to go through, but often it's just checking
Speaker:in what's happening in life.
Speaker:How are we tracking?
Speaker:And, uh, and then, then when we can, we, uh, we locked the children
Speaker:in the house and leave them unsupervised and go away for two days.
Speaker:No, we don't do that.
Speaker:So we don't do that.
Speaker:Nobody called family services and we don't do that.
Speaker:Uh, but occasionally we'll have like grandparents, someone stay over and
Speaker:we'll get away and it's just the best it's like you actually got.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Who are you again?
Speaker:It's like, hello.
Speaker:And, uh, you actually get to reconnect.
Speaker:So those things are really crucial, right?
Speaker:So invest in your marriage.
Speaker:Number five model in life, what you say matters most model in your life.
Speaker:What you say to your children matters most, the way that
Speaker:they take on your values.
Speaker:Is by seeing that, whatever you say, you value, you demonstrate that you value.
Speaker:So I think for me, I've sort of shown, you know, the kids have grown
Speaker:up with me doing ultra-marathons and all sorts of craziness that I do.
Speaker:So they, they see that health and wellbeing is important.
Speaker:You know, they see that books and music and, um, you know, academic,
Speaker:intellectual pursuits are important.
Speaker:And very much faith, you know, they've seen that's, I'm somebody
Speaker:who takes my faith really seriously.
Speaker:And, you know, we've raised them to really S to be part of that.
Speaker:So, You know, I can't say to my kids, Hey, get up and go to church.
Speaker:If I never do it, if I don't show them that it's just central to my life.
Speaker:And then, and then they, and they've just taken that on.
Speaker:So we've got a model, what we say matters.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:We've got to model it.
Speaker:Number six.
Speaker:Um, frequently apologize when you make mistakes, right.
Speaker:I've it's just something that I've always done.
Speaker:It's like a grace.
Speaker:I've always, I've really gone off the reservation and got it wrong.
Speaker:I go and apologize and say, Hey.
Speaker:You know, I'm sorry.
Speaker:I do apologize.
Speaker:And I'm really asked them for forgiveness and, and we move on.
Speaker:So, you know, we're going to get it wrong, friends, like, yeah.
Speaker:We're parents and we're trying, and we're the adults, but
Speaker:we're going to make mistakes.
Speaker:We're going to be tired.
Speaker:We're going to be snappy.
Speaker:We're going to get it wrong.
Speaker:Just apologize.
Speaker:Say, Hey, last night when I said that that was out of line, I shouldn't have said it.
Speaker:I'm sorry.
Speaker:I'm just tired.
Speaker:Would you forgive me?
Speaker:So I think that's just a, another useful thing to do.
Speaker:And finally I asked Karen, I said, you know, What are the kind of three
Speaker:things that you think are essential to your role as a mother, as a parent.
Speaker:And then I shared mine for what it's worth, uh,
Speaker:You know, for me, my big three were to serve, protect, and teach.
Speaker:So practically I'm somebody that, and I don't mean this with a shred of arrogance.
Speaker:I just do a lot for the family.
Speaker:I just do a lot, whether it's cooking dishes.
Speaker:You know, working around the house, driving people, I just
Speaker:serve, I just serve and serve.
Speaker:And you know, Karen's dad was like that somebody I really admired.
Speaker:Uh, you know, You know, coming into relationship with Karen,
Speaker:he just, she just served people.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Um, so whether that's, I just think that's really important.
Speaker:I think, uh, you know, especially if I could say this to all the men,
Speaker:like, you know, Yes, we're out there slaying dragons in the workplace, but
Speaker:to serve in the home, just to serve, just to keep giving of your energy,
Speaker:into making the lives of your spouse and children a little bit better.
Speaker:Obviously to protect and that protection can mean, you know, Kaz
Speaker:and I have been, you know, really involved in the kids' peer groups,
Speaker:like just helping them to perceive what a good friend looks like and what.
Speaker:You know, friends who are not so great might be thinking and doing and, and just,
Speaker:you know, to protect them from some of the stuff until they're fully formed and able
Speaker:to make the right choices on their own.
Speaker:And finally for me, it's teaching, like I just talk about everything.
Speaker:Politics, music, history.
Speaker:Uh, you know, all these different things.
Speaker:I just love.
Speaker:I mean, you know, I think by Def by vocation, I'm a natural, I love
Speaker:to teach and say, oh, that's been a big thing with the kids for me.
Speaker:Uh, Karen talked about her three were to provide presence just to be a
Speaker:constant presence to provide nurture.
Speaker:Which means to make home a safe place.
Speaker:And to help guide the kids growing discernment in life.
Speaker:So she said presence, nurture and guide.
Speaker:So I offer you those, those things and you'll have your own.
Speaker:I just want to offer you those as kind of practical things.
Speaker:Uh, that we can be doing, you know, in the daily grind of life.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:That's kind of it.
Speaker:Uh, what else?
Speaker:So there's still no manual.
Speaker:I've offered you a few things, uh, from here.
Speaker:Please check in with this.
Speaker:There'll be links here too.
Speaker:So I do this daily podcast across YouTube and podcasting.
Speaker:And there's a lot of stuff that we'll be doing ongoing for parents, or
Speaker:hopefully somewhere here, I've got a, a link you can check out to, um,
Speaker:you know, to follow up with this.
Speaker:So you can just stay in the loop at least get on my daily podcast list.
Speaker:So you're getting that content.
Speaker:Uh, for all the women, Karen does a remarkable masterclass.
Speaker:She runs an online masterclass women around the world.
Speaker:I think she takes like six women at a time in the masterclass.
Speaker:So there'll be a link here somewhere for that.
Speaker:Go check that out It's um, she's amazing.
Speaker:And she does coaching and obviously, and I take some coaching clients.
Speaker:So if you Um if anybody wants personal coaching with me or they're around
Speaker:business or personal excellence that sort of stuff there should be a link here to
Speaker:my coaching author as well So what else that's kind of it so i just want to bless
Speaker:you i just want to say i hope some of this is useful to you you're never going
Speaker:to do anything more important in You're uniquely to be doing this Karen, and i
Speaker:are going to just press on ahead in the years ahead just trying to put out content
Speaker:like this to bless you and support Because what you're doing is touching the future
Speaker:you are shaping generations In literally what you're doing so May god bless you
Speaker:may god bless your relationships your marriages, your parenting your homes
Speaker:May you flourish in every area of your life thank you for what you're doing
Speaker:day in day Go and check out all these links my name's jonathan doyle god bless
Speaker:you and hopefully i'll see a lot of you on the daily podcast speak soon God
