Order of Man - September 22, 2023


10 Rules for Single Fatherhood ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES


Episode Stats


Length

33 minutes

Words per minute

191.88065

Word count

6,521

Sentence count

412

Harmful content

Misogyny

7

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Ryan Michler talks about his experience as a single father and shares 10 rules he has attempted to implement in his own life to be a better one. He also talks about the importance of a good coparenting relationship.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00.000 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart
00:00:04.940 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.
00:00:10.360 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong. This is your life. This is who
00:00:17.020 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,
00:00:22.540 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler.
00:00:27.360 I'm your host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement, where we are
00:00:31.840 dedicated to giving you the tools, resources, and conversations that you need to thrive as
00:00:37.040 a husband, father, business owner, community leader, just a man in general. And my mission
00:00:42.400 is to fight, to reclaim, and restore masculinity to its rightful place where it once was, where
00:00:48.260 men were respected and honored, but also they were doing the work required to garner that
00:00:53.000 respect and admiration and influence in other people. So today is your Friday Field Notes.
00:00:58.960 When I do these episodes, it's basically my thoughts and ideas from throughout the week.
00:01:04.180 If you're new, we also do an interview show where I interview incredible men, entrepreneurs,
00:01:08.900 New York Times bestselling authors, scholars, athletes, warriors, whoever has a good story to
00:01:14.040 share with us and impart some of their wisdom on us. And then we, of course, do our Ask Me Anything,
00:01:20.020 where we're answering and fielding your questions. Today's the Friday Field Notes. I want to talk with
00:01:24.520 you specifically today about 10 rules for single fatherhood. As if I have this all figured out,
00:01:30.540 I don't. Many of you know that earlier in the year, I went through a divorce. And so I found myself
00:01:37.180 in a position that I never thought I would find myself in. And that is one of a single father.
00:01:42.080 We've had ups and downs with my kids and highs and lows, and we're trying to work through this,
00:01:46.700 their transition, my transition, and everybody's trying to work together as best we can. I'm going
00:01:51.320 to share with you 10 tips that I have been attempting to implement to varying degrees
00:01:55.760 and varying success in my own life. And so I want to throw that disclaimer out there is that I'm not
00:02:01.020 posing it as an expert in this. I'm not telling you that I have something figured out that you may
00:02:05.200 not already have figured out, but these are things that seem to be working for me. And also they're
00:02:10.180 going to apply, I believe, even if you are not a single father, if you are a father of a family
00:02:16.040 that's still together and your wife and you are raising your kids and hopefully righteousness
00:02:20.040 and you're doing your part as a man, I think these tips will help as well. Before I get to that today,
00:02:25.180 I do want to let you know that our brotherhood, our fraternal organization and brotherhood,
00:02:29.400 the Iron Council is finally back open after being closed for about three months. So we are accepting
00:02:35.720 new members and enrolling new members as we speak. If you are interested in a deeper dive into this
00:02:42.500 topic, fatherhood or marriage or fitness or nutrition or finances or entrepreneurship or
00:02:48.040 firearms or outdoor living or survival, whatever your thing is, we're having detailed, hyper-specific,
00:02:56.260 hyper-focused with accountability type conversations inside of the Iron Council with over 1,000 men
00:03:01.860 who are all working together to help each other become better men. This is not glorified social media.
00:03:06.840 This is not even social media on steroids. It's completely different. We don't use social media.
00:03:12.280 We're having engaged, tailored conversations and we're holding each other accountable. So we keep all the
00:03:17.980 nonsense from social media out of there and we're hyper-focused on results. So if you're interested,
00:03:23.360 check it out at orderofman.com slash Iron Council. Again, that's orderofman.com slash Iron Council.
00:03:29.840 All right, let me get to my tips. These are in no particular order today, but again, this is 10 rules for
00:03:34.680 single fatherhood. Number one is do not neglect yourself. It's very easy. I found, again, I'm just
00:03:42.700 sharing with you my personal experience and knowledge. It's very easy, especially early in a
00:03:48.240 divorce to hyper-focus on everything else except for yourself. It's the relationship that you may have,
00:03:55.980 the co-parenting relationship, or maybe even you're trying to salvage a relationship. It's pouring fully
00:04:01.600 into the kids. Hopefully, you're spending time with them. You're engaged in their schooling and
00:04:06.600 homework. You're engaged in their extracurricular activities. Of course, you still have work. And then
00:04:11.920 on top of that, your schedule is changing, right? Now you have to worry about when you get the kids and
00:04:16.740 when they're going to be with you and when they're not. And there's just so much going on in the changes
00:04:21.900 in your schedule that at times, from experience, it's become very, very overwhelming.
00:04:26.680 And what I've found in these moments for me is that it's very easy for me to let go of taking care of
00:04:33.900 myself. And specifically what that means is time for my mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual
00:04:41.420 well-being. The gym goes out the window. The journaling goes by the wayside. There's very little
00:04:47.380 time to read, it seems like. And so what I would suggest to you is that you carve out time in your day
00:04:53.180 that might be waking up 15 minutes early, that might mean catering your schedule or adjusting
00:04:58.060 your schedule so that you have time to work out maybe on a lunch break, that you're reading
00:05:03.980 scripture if that's something you're interested in doing, but that you're maintaining all of the
00:05:08.760 elements to improve your overall health and well-being. I've once heard it referred to as a noble
00:05:16.420 obstacle. And what that means is an obstacle that is noble and righteous in principle, meaning spending
00:05:23.620 all your time on your kids. It's noble, but it's an obstacle because it presents a barrier to taking
00:05:30.220 care of yourself. And as we all know, if we don't take care of ourselves, then of course, we're only
00:05:36.180 going to be able to take care of the people that we care about in this situation, our children for so
00:05:40.900 long before we burn out, we burn up, we get frustrated. Maybe we lose our cool. Maybe we do
00:05:45.840 something dumb, or maybe we disengage from the things that are important to us because we're just
00:05:50.060 burnt out. So guys, figure it out. I'm not here to tell you what that schedule looks like. It's
00:05:55.020 different for everybody. I wake up, I go to the gym. Even when my kids are with me, I go to the gym in the
00:06:01.000 morning. They're old enough that I can leave them here for an hour or whatever it might be. And I can go to
00:06:04.940 the gym. I can get my workout in. Once I put the kids in bed, I typically read. I'm journaling all
00:06:11.760 the time. Every day I'm writing in my journal. And then throughout the day, I'm creating buffers and
00:06:17.180 margin in my day so that I don't have back-to-back-to-back-to-back meetings so that I can
00:06:21.700 focus on even something as simple as getting a few push-ups in or taking a phone call on a walk or
00:06:28.800 writing something down in my journal or reading a few pages of the book that I'm reading between
00:06:33.400 appointments. Whatever you can do to continue to take care of your own health will pay huge dividends
00:06:38.660 as it pertains to you being a better, more engaged, more righteous father. Number two is we have to now
00:06:47.080 learn to stack time, right? We are inundated. As a single father, you've lost a partner who's helping
00:06:53.960 you with these things. And so a lot of the responsibilities now fall upon you that maybe
00:07:00.120 didn't fall upon you before. That could be cooking meals. It could be taking care of the
00:07:04.660 house. It could be doing laundry. It could be making sure that they're getting cleaned up and
00:07:09.200 showered. I don't know what that is for you, but a lot of the duties that my ex-wife helped with 1.00
00:07:14.280 are now my responsibility in addition to everything that I have going on throughout the day.
00:07:20.060 So my duties and role with what I have to do as a father didn't change. I'm still protecting. I'm still
00:07:25.620 providing. I'm still working full time. And now on top of that, at least half the time, because of
00:07:31.260 our custody arrangement, I'm now doing these other things that weren't normally the things that I was
00:07:36.280 doing. So that creates some time pressure for everybody. And what I found is that if you can stack
00:07:42.800 time, and I'll explain what that means in a minute, then you're going to have a lot more success getting
00:07:47.360 things done, but also acknowledging and recognizing and honoring the fact that your kids need your time and
00:07:52.480 attention. So an example of stacking time might be doing two things at once. It isn't ideal because
00:07:58.840 you can't focus fully on one thing. As Ron Swanson might say, never half-ass anything, always whole-ass
00:08:05.520 one thing. I like the concept in theory. Impracticality, sometimes that doesn't work. So for example, I have
00:08:14.940 my youngest son's football game this evening, which I'm going to take my family to, and I might take
00:08:20.780 some cards to bring with me to play with my daughter, or I might think of a game that we can
00:08:27.940 do together. But whatever you can do to stack time, meaning doing two things at once. So another example
00:08:34.440 might be, instead of going on a walk by yourself in the morning, it's still important that you get
00:08:40.180 your exercise in, and alone time is important too. But maybe every couple of days, you can take all of
00:08:45.420 your kids with you. Now you're stacking time. You're getting your exercise, you're getting moving,
00:08:50.840 you're getting ready for the day, but you're also engaged in spending time with your kids. They're
00:08:55.460 seeing how important it is to work out and to move your body and to be outdoors and soak up those sun rays
00:09:01.740 and get the vitamins that we need as human beings. You get time spent with them. You can ask them
00:09:05.980 questions, be engaged, be involved, but look for opportunities to stack time. One word of caution on that
00:09:12.340 though, is be aware of making your kids feel unimportant because you're not fully paying
00:09:20.200 attention to the one thing that you might be doing. And I think it's safe to say that if you're doing it
00:09:25.060 in the right spirit, which is to stack time for their activities and that you're not stacking time
00:09:30.820 for your own selfish pursuits, then you're going to have an easier time with that.
00:09:34.580 Number three is discipline and consistency trumps everything else. I believe as men,
00:09:42.260 we bring a certain level of discipline, hopefully a level of emotional confidence and clarity and
00:09:49.280 control. And we have the ability to do things that are good for us and other people, even though they
00:09:56.860 might not always feel comfortable for long and sustained periods of time. I've got older children
00:10:03.080 and I've got younger children. My younger children, they're a little bit more lenient and forgiving
00:10:07.420 with what's going on in the dynamic of the change. My older children are not. It's harder for older
00:10:13.020 children because they're used to doing it a certain way. They're trying to exert some level
00:10:17.340 of independence. They're trying to figure out, especially with my two oldest boys, trying to
00:10:22.420 figure out what is the balance between being under the quote unquote rule of my father's rules and
00:10:28.860 what can I get away with? And what can I do in my own life to control and have some autonomy over my
00:10:34.500 own life, which is completely healthy. It's completely natural. But in these environments,
00:10:40.160 we need to be the beacon and the pillar of stability and strength and discipline. It's easy to let them
00:10:46.520 waffle. It's easy even at times, again, this is my own experience to be more lenient with
00:10:52.580 curfews and activities and maybe even the way that they talk to you because you're worried about how
00:10:59.720 it may come across and you don't want to lose your kids. So you sacrifice some of that discipline and
00:11:07.560 you sacrifice some of that consistency. And I would advise against that. You don't need to be a tyrant.
00:11:15.440 You don't need to be a dictator. You certainly don't need to be an asshole. But I think it's very
00:11:19.980 crucial, especially because of our lack of complete presence in our children's lives in the midst of a
00:11:25.400 divorce and separation, that we stand as the rock that they need in a father. And that means
00:11:32.360 communicating expectations, communicating boundaries, making sure that those expectations are met,
00:11:39.440 those boundaries are not crossed. And then also, if needs be, exerting some level of discipline
00:11:46.060 or allowing the consequences to play out if expectations are not met and if boundaries are
00:11:53.140 crossed. I think we can be reasonable in what these things are, and we certainly should. Again,
00:11:58.020 we don't want to be tyrants, but they're going to look to us even subconsciously for us as fathers to be
00:12:04.300 the rock, the pillar, the foundation that doesn't move, that is immovable, unshakable, and won't be
00:12:11.680 deterred based on current circumstances. All right. Number four, this one's hard for a lot
00:12:17.280 of guys. I don't personally have this issue because my ex-wife and I are amicable, and I still think
00:12:22.060 very, very highly of her as a woman and as the mother of my children. But I know there's a lot
00:12:27.300 of contention and animosity in certain relationships. And what I would say to you is point number four,
00:12:34.520 speak well of their mother. I'm not saying that you need to make things up. I'm not saying that you
00:12:39.760 need to shower down praises upon her and bow down at the altar to worship her. That's not at all what
00:12:46.300 I'm saying. But you know what? Regardless of the situation you're in, and regardless of how you may
00:12:52.000 feel about your ex-wife, the mother of your children, she has some redeeming qualities.
00:12:57.260 There's something redeeming about her. You saw it in her when you decided to marry her. And although
00:13:02.480 maybe she changed, maybe you changed, she's still got some redeeming qualities. And I'd be willing to bet
00:13:07.700 that for the majority of us here listening to this podcast and involved in this movement,
00:13:12.240 we know that those women really do care about their children. And they probably still care about 1.00
00:13:20.360 us in a lot of ways. Maybe not in love, as the saying goes, still love, but not in love.
00:13:25.700 But there's still a lot of care. And there's still a lot of desire to do right and to live a meaningful
00:13:31.540 life. And if you can look for the good in your ex, not only is it good for her, and I don't really
00:13:39.380 know that that's a huge consideration necessarily, but that it's good for you because it allows you to
00:13:45.580 purge the resentment and contention and animosity that might be holding you back mentally, emotionally,
00:13:51.620 and spiritually. But it's also good for your kids. They need to see you in a difficult circumstance,
00:13:58.720 honoring something. They need to see you being able to compartmentalize what actually happened
00:14:05.460 in the marriage versus how you're responding and how you're reacting. We've all heard, be the bigger
00:14:10.780 man. That's what I'm talking about here. Again, you don't need to unsolicited bring up all of this
00:14:15.820 stuff about how great and wonderful she is. I don't know if that's necessary or even appropriate,
00:14:20.100 but if there's a moment or an opportunity, or maybe one of your kids talks ill about their mother
00:14:26.220 or doesn't like something, that's a moment in time for you to pay some respect to that woman,
00:14:33.800 to support her to the best you can in trying to do what she can do as a mother to raise your kids,
00:14:40.380 regardless of how often or frequent they're with you or her. I think it's crucial. I see so much
00:14:47.960 toxicity ooze into men's lives because they can't be decent. They can't be respectful. And some guys will
00:14:55.960 say, well, she doesn't deserve my respect and she's not decent. I believe as a human being,
00:15:01.280 there's some level of respect that we ought to just afford to everybody. And that's just the
00:15:06.840 default level of respect. And I believe that's true about an ex. You made a commitment to her
00:15:13.420 to respect and honor and cherish. And the relationship dynamic obviously has changed,
00:15:18.280 but there's still some, in my mind anyways, there's still some sense of duty and obligation
00:15:25.600 to, at a minimum, pay her the respect that she deserves, which is that she's the mother of your
00:15:30.740 children. Support her. She's raising those kids half the time or whatever your arrangement is. 0.97
00:15:37.020 Support her by speaking well of her and backing her up when you get the chance for the reasons I
00:15:42.340 shared. Number five, I labeled this one as greasing the grooves, greasing the grooves for the relationship,
00:15:50.480 greasing the grooves for their time spent with you. If you're anything like me, sometimes the kids are
00:15:56.520 a little resistant to come over and spend time with me because of the way it might be different than it
00:16:01.860 is with their mom. Maybe they get more disciplined here, or maybe we don't have all of the amenities,
00:16:08.940 or maybe I don't cook as well as their mother does. It's all of these things that come up and there
00:16:15.480 might be some hesitancy. And we can strong arm and we can manipulate and coerce and force, and we can
00:16:21.180 do all of that. But at the end of the day, I really want my kids to want to be here. And in order to do
00:16:27.140 that, I have to grease the grooves, which means that I need to make sure that I'm creating a healthy,
00:16:33.080 fun, clean, enjoyable environment. I have to let my kids know through my words and actions that I'm
00:16:40.760 here and I'm available to talk about nothing and to talk about everything, to talk about the trivial
00:16:47.260 and to talk about the deep stuff. I'm here and you've got to grease the grooves. And although we
00:16:54.760 may not see the results of that reconciliation and relationships, especially I think, again,
00:17:00.260 applies more to older children, I think planting the seed and allowing the relationship to develop
00:17:06.500 and to grow and to nurture and to foster is going to pay dividends. It's a lot like planting a garden.
00:17:13.680 You go out there, you plant seeds, and then you water it for days, weeks, maybe even months before it
00:17:20.700 yields any fruit. Do you give up a week after you planted it because you don't see the stem or it's
00:17:27.020 not bearing fruit? No, because you have faith that if you continue to water the plant over time,
00:17:32.560 it will grow, it'll blossom, it'll flourish, and it'll produce great fruit. I think the relationship
00:17:39.560 with you and your children is very much the same way. They have resentment, they have contention,
00:17:45.560 they have animosity. And I've heard this is that oftentimes one of the parents gets painted as the
00:17:52.460 quote unquote bad guy. And it seems to me that more often than not, it's the dad who gets painted
00:17:57.300 as the bad guy. And I'm not going to get into all the details as to why that is, but I've seen
00:18:02.420 data and information that supports that. So you're fighting an uphill battle, but it's a battle worth
00:18:11.360 fighting because it's a battle for your kids, not just the relationship you have with them, but their
00:18:16.000 own wellbeing and their own ability to succeed and grow and thrive in their life. Grease the grooves,
00:18:22.460 look for opportunities to serve, look for opportunities to make it more comfortable.
00:18:27.400 Again, we don't want to take it too far by making it easy for them all the time.
00:18:31.220 Cause then that's just appeasing things that are not going to actually serve them,
00:18:34.380 but making it comfortable, having a beautiful living space. Like it took me a long time to get a
00:18:39.560 dining room table and get the dining room set up. I wish I would have done that so much earlier.
00:18:43.580 That's a example of me not greasing the grooves. I finally did when I went out and got a dining
00:18:51.640 table. I finally did when I spent a little money on decorations and making sure that the house was
00:18:57.880 clean and that it's being cleaned. And then I'm cooking dinner and that they have clothes that are
00:19:03.220 here that they like. These are all ways that we can do that. Number six, guys, we need to learn to
00:19:09.440 keep it lighthearted. And this is something I struggle with. I need to hear this advice more
00:19:14.100 than anybody else. I'm always willing to have a deep, meaningful, significant conversation.
00:19:20.040 Maybe that's just an innate with me. Maybe I realized the importance of having those types
00:19:24.480 of conversations, but I'm also learning that not every conversation needs to be deep and meaningful
00:19:30.920 and significant. Because if we do that, then that's not enjoyable. And that goes back to our
00:19:36.680 point. That doesn't grease the grooves. If anything, you're pouring sand and grit in the grooves and it
00:19:41.860 makes it harder to move the relationship forward. So what I'm working on and what I would suggest that
00:19:47.380 you work on as a single father is make it lighthearted. Have some fun. One of my sons and I were having a
00:19:53.040 conversation the other day and it wasn't going well. It was a deeper, meaningful conversation about the time
00:19:59.600 spent with his mom versus the time spent with me. And we both walked away from the conversation
00:20:05.600 frustrated. And not long after I realized I needed to go to the grocery store. So I invited my son to
00:20:12.160 the grocery store. And when I did, I thought, well, maybe we can talk more about this. And I'm sure
00:20:17.180 that's what he was thinking that, oh, dad wants to get me in the car or get me alone so that we can talk
00:20:21.480 about this stuff. And in that moment, I realized that we don't really need to have that conversation
00:20:28.300 right now. We already had the deep and meaningful conversation. We both walked away frustrated.
00:20:32.680 There wasn't really a conclusion to it, but you know what? We have time planting the seeds,
00:20:37.360 watering the seeds. So instead I decided to make our conversation lighthearted about football and
00:20:43.160 about dating and about the things that he wanted to talk about and the things that he was excited
00:20:47.780 about. And it was amazing how much the relationship developed in a very short period of time, 30 minutes
00:20:54.260 maybe while we went to the grocery store and came back because I didn't have the hard conversation
00:20:59.000 because I didn't have that like significant heavy weighted discussion with him. And instead it was
00:21:05.580 casual. It was light. It was fun. We joked around with each other a little bit. And that's what a
00:21:12.160 relationship needs too. I know that you might be depressed and you might be frustrated and you might be
00:21:18.040 angry and have contention. And you might want to solve all the problems within the family dynamic
00:21:22.500 today. I get exactly what that's like, but I don't think that helps. Sure. Those conversations
00:21:29.040 need to be had at some point, but they don't need to be had in every single conversation in every
00:21:34.360 single moment. Lighten the mood a little bit. Number seven, shine as an example. All right.
00:21:41.120 We're taught. We're caught. If you're like me, we're talking about things like I'm going to improve
00:21:44.720 and I'm going to get better and I'm going to do this and you're going to see, and we're actually
00:21:47.780 like constantly trying to prove what we're doing to other people. Guys, I think we need to do less
00:21:54.480 of that and do more through our actions. So that means getting up early when your alarm goes off
00:22:01.480 and actually going to the gym. When you do that, you don't need to come home and brag to your kids
00:22:05.600 that you went to the gym. They're going to know you went to the gym. And when they see you lose five
00:22:10.180 or 10 or 15 or 20 pounds, they're going to notice it. They may not even acknowledge it.
00:22:14.420 When you learn to be lighthearted, when you learn to grease the grooves, when you learn new skills
00:22:19.120 and you continue to work on yourself, they're going to see it. They're going to notice it.
00:22:23.720 And they're going to start behaving in different ways because they see that you're serious.
00:22:27.580 Depending on the dynamic of your relationship failure, there might be a lot of things that
00:22:32.220 you need to improve. And there might be a lot of things that you've talked about improving for a
00:22:36.360 long time, but haven't. Now is your moment to improve and to let the results speak for themselves.
00:22:41.920 So we're not going to brag about, I went to the gym. We're not going to brag about how good work's
00:22:47.080 going. We're not going to brag about how good your diet is or how good you're feeling. You don't need
00:22:50.880 to do that. You just need to do the work, which is exercise, read, journal, reflect, eat correct,
00:23:00.060 get your sleep that you need, band with other men, take care of yourself, and let the results speak
00:23:05.920 for themselves. Man, when they see that gut melting away and they see you communicating more
00:23:10.700 effectively and they see you being disciplined with them in a healthy, loving way consistently
00:23:16.480 over weeks and months and years, they're going to acknowledge it, even if it's subconscious and
00:23:22.680 the relationship will improve because you're shining as an example. And they'll see over time
00:23:28.620 that dad is a changed man. If you just pay a lip service, like I'm going to go to the gym
00:23:33.660 and then you don't do it, that's not going to work. And they're going to remember,
00:23:38.760 oh, dad's the same guy. In fact, it's worse to say you're going to do something and not do it
00:23:43.320 than just to keep your mouth shut and not do it at all because you're making promises.
00:23:48.520 And if you fail on those promises, they believe, your kids will believe that those promises that
00:23:54.160 you make to them are less weighted because you can't keep promises to yourself. So if you speak up,
00:24:00.320 you better dang well carry through with what you say you're going to do. Number eight,
00:24:05.240 telling the truth to your children, but not burdening them. All right. There's a lot of
00:24:10.740 emotional and mental weight that comes with a divorce, a breakup, a split. It's heavy. If you
00:24:18.020 guys have been there, you know how heavy it is. You know how difficult it is. You know how lonely
00:24:22.820 it can be at times. You know the suffering. There's contention. There's animosity. There's
00:24:27.780 sorrow and guilt and shame. And there's so much to it. Then there's the moving on. For example,
00:24:34.920 you might be starting to date and you want to shield your children from that because you don't
00:24:39.820 know how they're going to respond or react. These are all things that I went through.
00:24:43.400 And so I tried to shield my kids from that by not telling them anything. I don't think we should do
00:24:48.720 that. I think we should. And I'm trying to do better at this is if you're dating, let your kids know
00:24:54.960 that that's what's going on. Now you don't, you can spare the details. You may not introduce that
00:25:00.940 woman or whoever it is immediately to your kids, but I think it is important that we are more honest
00:25:07.280 about what's going on in our lives. If you're feeling down and sorry or guilt or shame, I think
00:25:13.000 it's okay to explain what is going on in your life. Now we're not going to pretend that our children
00:25:19.020 are therapists. And that's where a lot of people go wrong. A lot of people, single, single people
00:25:24.380 that have children will either treat their children like therapists or treat their children
00:25:29.340 like their former partner, like their daughter, like their wife, or a mother treats her son like,
00:25:36.000 like her husband. That's called parentification. It's not healthy for the parent. It's not healthy 0.91
00:25:43.320 for the child. And it's not a conducive way to raise children. We can be honest and we can be
00:25:50.480 truthful about how we're feeling about things or how we're trying to pick up the pieces and move
00:25:55.860 forward. The things that we're implementing in our life to do so, but we need to be cautious of
00:26:00.880 burdening them with emotional, mental, or physical baggage. They're not meant to carry. They're not
00:26:07.400 physically capable of it. They're not emotionally or mentally capable of it. Literally the brain
00:26:12.440 isn't developed enough to handle some of the things that parents will dump onto their children.
00:26:17.580 So be honest. If they notice something's off, go ahead and explain what's off. And you might follow
00:26:23.060 it up with what you do in those moments so they can learn and see that dad might have bad days,
00:26:28.140 but he's working towards a solution. That's something that we need to be very, very good at doing,
00:26:34.880 explaining, but working to solutions because we don't want to treat our kids like our therapist
00:26:39.300 or our ex very dangerous for everybody. All right. Number nine is when your kids are not with you,
00:26:48.740 you should still be with them. Let me say that again. When their kid, when your kids are not with
00:26:53.100 you, you need to figure out ways to still be with them. Um, I usually send a daily text or a phone call
00:26:58.800 to my kids. Um, I might give my, my daughter, she just had, uh, her tonsils removed minor surgery. 1.00
00:27:05.860 She's not feeling well. When she's at my house, there's a sweater of mine, a hoodie that she really
00:27:10.840 likes. So I went over, I brought her a little smoothie today. She's at her mother's house. 0.95
00:27:16.060 I brought the smoothie over and I brought her that hoodie. And I said, Hey bud, like,
00:27:20.080 I know you're not feeling well. I know you like to wear this hoodie. Please wear this for the next
00:27:24.480 couple of days. If you want, if that makes you feel better. And she was so excited, just a small
00:27:29.300 little gesture. And I said, just biggest thing, just bring it back when you're, when, when you
00:27:33.880 come back over. Um, you know, what's beautiful about that is that as she wears that over the 1.00
00:27:39.040 next several days, as she's healing and recovering and sleeping, as she's going to look at that hoodie
00:27:43.500 and what is she going to think about? She's going to think about me and she's going to think about me
00:27:48.580 in a healthy, loving, caring, empathetic way. And that's what we need to do as a father,
00:27:55.240 a single father, you lose your kids for 50% of the time or more in a lot of the cases.
00:28:01.600 And how can you continue to be influential to the degree that you want with half of the time
00:28:06.720 available for you to do it? Those gestures go such a long way. Let your kids go to their
00:28:13.840 mother's house with things that remind of you, write notes, let them have your hoodie, um, shoot
00:28:20.820 them a phone call in the beginning of the day. Hey, I hope school goes well. Um,
00:28:25.060 if you happen to be doing something sentiment, take a picture and send it to them. Hey, I'm out here
00:28:30.680 on a hike. And this is the hike that we went on last week. And, um, I'm having a good time,
00:28:35.900 but man, I miss you guys. I hope you're having a great time too. I'm really looking forward to
00:28:39.780 seeing you in a couple of days, whatever you can do to continue to be involved in your kids' lives.
00:28:45.060 If they have sports and things like that, go to their games. It might not be quote unquote,
00:28:49.980 your day, but that's your right as a father to continue to go to their games,
00:28:54.200 to go to their graduation things. Um, if they have dances and proms to have them come over,
00:29:00.060 so you can take pictures or you can see them in your, in their date, like the, however you can be
00:29:04.240 involved, just be involved, even when it's not quote unquote, your day, because you lost a lot
00:29:09.940 of time with your kids through that divorce process. These are ways that we can recover some
00:29:14.460 of them. Um, the last thing here is, and this is just, it's just one I wanted to throw in.
00:29:21.800 Um, it's so important. And I know not everybody values this to the degree I do, but guys, you
00:29:27.620 should be eating dinner with your kids. You should be eating dinner with your kids. And when I say that,
00:29:32.240 I'm not saying in front of a TV, I'm not saying in front of the PlayStation or Xbox or whatever it is
00:29:36.400 you might have, I'm saying cook a meal, sit down with your kids, talk with them about their day,
00:29:43.460 talk about their fears and their doubts and their worries and their questions, talk with them about
00:29:48.040 whatever you can. That's 30 minutes. I mean, 30 minutes is not a lot of time. It's 30 minutes to sit
00:29:54.720 down with them and engage with them, be present, no electronics, no other friends, no other things
00:30:01.380 distracting us just full present in that moment. It's so valuable. And one thing that I started
00:30:07.240 doing, if you've been listening to this podcast, you know, that I do not enjoy cooking. I haven't
00:30:12.600 cooked a real meal for probably close to 20 years now up until my, my divorce. Uh, so this is a skill
00:30:19.600 I've had to learn. So again, improving yourself, right? No, don't neglect yourself, continue to develop
00:30:24.960 new skills. So I started using a service called hello fresh. They send me, uh, four meals a week.
00:30:32.000 Cause that's how often I have my kids. And I take all of those fresh and amazing ingredients. They
00:30:38.240 give me the recipe. I stack them all up. I follow the recipe and I make these pretty amazing meals.
00:30:44.360 And my kids actually are really engaged with it because it's fun for us. Now it's like, do you like
00:30:49.840 this one? If you had to rank it on a scale from one to 10, yes or no. And it's fun. We have a good,
00:30:55.380 even with the meals they don't like, they're like, yeah, this is like a two dad, but you know, maybe
00:30:59.720 if you did this to it and we have a really good time with it. So I'm not sponsored by hello fresh or
00:31:04.580 they didn't ask me to say anything, but that's a little hack that I think if you don't know how to
00:31:09.660 cook, if you're like me and you don't know how to cook, plus it saves me a ton of time. I don't
00:31:13.580 have to go to the grocery store. Again, now we're talking about, uh, time stacking and freeing up time.
00:31:19.080 I don't have to go to the grocery store and get stuff. It just comes right to me. I cook it right
00:31:23.640 there. And my kids have actually been pretty impressed with my newly budding cooking skills,
00:31:28.280 but the biggest, the most important element of that is sitting down at the dinner table,
00:31:32.680 talking, praying, laughing, joking, conversing, and having a good time. So those are my rules
00:31:39.620 for a single fatherhood. That isn't an exhaustive list of course, but this is the things this is,
00:31:45.140 these are the things that I'm learning, um, how to implement. I'm trying to get
00:31:48.920 better in some of them. I've got some of them nailed and dialed pretty well. Others. I really
00:31:52.780 need to ramp up and get better at, but, um, yeah, I'm not perfect by any means. Uh, I never would
00:31:58.700 want this to come across as I know what the hell I'm doing. I don't most of the time, but here's 10
00:32:03.060 things that are working well for me. And I hope they work for you. If you have additional thoughts
00:32:06.880 and ideas, email me, hit me up on Instagram, follow me on Instagram at Ryan Mickler, trying
00:32:12.480 to grow that presence in that account over there. And I'm a lot more active than I've been over the
00:32:16.100 past year. Follow us on YouTube, youtube.com slash order of man. Let me recap. And then we'll close it
00:32:22.100 out. Number one, don't neglect yourself. Continue to develop new skills. Number two, stack your time,
00:32:28.620 do multiple things at once. As long as you can engage in your kids and get those things done.
00:32:33.240 Number three, discipline and consistency will trump all. Number four, speak well of their mother.
00:32:39.480 Number five, grease the groove for the relationship. Number six, keep those conversations lighthearted.
00:32:45.080 Number seven, shine as an example, not your words, but your deeds. Number eight, tell the truth,
00:32:50.940 but don't unnecessarily burden your children. Number nine, when your kids are not with you,
00:32:56.400 find a way to still be with them. And number 10, eat dinner together. All right, guys. Again,
00:33:02.580 if you want to know more about this and have hyper-focused and specific conversations with
00:33:06.760 systems and accountability built in, and a group of men, thousand plus men at this point,
00:33:12.660 that want to talk about the same things, that want to do the same things, that want to succeed to the
00:33:18.100 level that you do as fathers and husbands and leaders in the community and owners of businesses
00:33:22.120 and men in general, then please go watch a quick video at orderofman.com slash ironcouncil. Join us
00:33:28.620 for a month. Join us for a month. Get engaged, get involved, go all in. And if you like it, stick
00:33:34.100 around. And if you don't, no harm, no foul, but you gave it a shot and you were able to see if it
00:33:39.140 worked for you. Again, orderofman.com slash ironcouncil. All right, guys, we'll be back next week.
00:33:44.600 Until then, go out there, take action, and become the father that your kids need you to be.
00:33:49.060 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge of your life
00:33:53.640 and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.