The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - Resilience, Trust, Discipline, and Balancing Ambition ｜ Nick Freitas EP 195

00:00:00.000 When we gave our kids a phone, we told them like, this is not your phone.

00:00:03.920 This is my phone. I'm letting you use this phone.

00:00:06.280 Oh, wow.

00:00:07.360 And I don't do that because I'm being draconian or I'm being mean because I afforded them their privacy.

00:00:12.120 But what they needed to know was

00:00:13.840 objective right or wrong can't be objective right or wrong because dad says so because mom says so.

00:00:20.180 It has to be right or wrong because it is.

00:00:21.700 Which means that at some point, your kids are going to reach a certain level of cognition and comprehension

00:00:27.420 to where they're going to find you doing the thing that you told them was wrong.

00:00:31.600 She goes, Daddy, I don't think you handled that very well.

00:00:34.080 And she's about like 13, 14 years old.

00:00:36.100 I could remember for a split second that kind of pride welling up in me like,

00:00:40.660 oh, you don't think I handled something very well.

00:00:42.840 Well, pray tell.

00:00:44.720 Here's a cheat code for dads.

00:00:47.600 Nick Freitas, welcome to my podcast.

00:00:50.140 Thank you very much for having me.

00:00:51.660 So you got these cups, but like what's the story behind the cups?

00:00:55.580 So one day, I know I was making some sort of smart aleck observation about something that

00:01:01.520 was going on in the news. And I just took a sip of my coffee at the end of it because I was

00:01:07.000 standing out on my front porch. And people apparently thought it was funny because every

00:01:12.140 other reel I did after that, people would ask, where's your coffee mug? It doesn't hit the same

00:01:16.740 without the coffee mug. And before I knew it, people were sending me coffee mugs. And so yeah,

00:01:21.900 that's, that's become a thing now at the end of our reels and our YouTube shorts is I usually

00:01:25.920 have some sort of a witty statement on a coffee mug or something like that, that, that I'll finish

00:01:31.860 off the reel with. Well, it's funny. I've been very entertained. I think, so I wanted to do this

00:01:38.700 podcast and kind of focus it on kids. Cause I've seen that like a lot of your content on Instagram

00:01:43.720 is how to raise children properly. And I haven't done a podcast on that before. And I'm ridiculously

00:01:51.680 pregnant right now. So I'm just kind of in line with what I'm thinking about, but I thought we

00:01:56.380 could cover a bunch of kid questions. But before that, just a brief background about who you are,

00:02:04.660 because I read that you've got, well, I'm going to just butcher my description. So you should go,

00:02:10.780 but you're a green beret. I don't even know what that means. So we could start there.

00:02:14.620 Sure. So, well, I'll, I kind of started, I, my wife and I met in high school. We got married,

00:02:20.220 gosh, less than a year out of high school. I was 19. She was 20. She doesn't like when I remind

00:02:26.260 people that she's nine months older than me. But got married out of high school. I was in the 82nd

00:02:31.560 Airborne Division in the United States Army at that point. When 9-11 kicked off, I volunteered

00:02:36.840 for Army Special Forces, better known as Green Berets. And kind of what makes Green Berets unique

00:02:42.400 within the military is we focus a lot on unconventional warfare, counterinsurgency,

00:02:47.220 counter-terrorism. But we work by, through, and with the local population. So we operate in small

00:02:52.820 12-man teams. And we usually, like for instance, when I did my tours in Iraq,

00:02:58.620 I worked with Iraqi military, Iraqi militia, Iraqi police. When I wasn't in Iraq, we'd be in

00:03:05.580 a different foreign country training everyone from Korean special missions group to Bangladeshi

00:03:10.700 border guards. So that was really our role as Green Berets, is we went all over the world

00:03:15.900 working with America's allies, providing host nation capacity and working by, through, and with

00:03:22.880 the local population when it came to conducting combat operations. But I did that for a while,

00:03:28.680 got out in 2009, shortly after my second tour in Iraq. My wife and I have three kids. All of

00:03:34.780 them were born when I was in the military. My oldest daughter now is 21 and about to get married

00:03:38.420 herself. My son just turned 18 and my youngest daughter is about to turn 16. And when I got in

00:03:46.500 the military, I still did some work kind of within the defense area. We've also homeschooled for

00:03:52.040 quite a while, which I have to give my wife the vast majority of the credit for that.

00:03:57.520 And I also, you know, although I don't like to admit it in public, I'm also an elected official.

00:04:03.360 So I serve in the Virginia House of Delegates as a state legislator. And I always joke that

00:04:08.000 But yeah, I once was a soldier,

00:04:11.600 which I considered an honorable profession. 0.96

00:04:13.340 And then I became a filthy politician. 1.00

00:04:16.220 Hey, guess who's not pregnant? 1.00

00:04:19.340 This girl. 1.00

00:04:20.740 That's right.

00:04:21.500 I'll update you guys about the baby soon in a Q&A.

00:04:24.120 He is so cute.

00:04:26.480 I can't stand it.

00:04:28.440 And I'm so tired.

00:04:30.300 I have enough energy for ads and that's it.

00:04:32.880 That's why this episode was delayed a week.

00:04:34.440 so check out after party buy it for christmas and the holidays and new years and you will thank me

00:04:42.180 buy it for people you like and not for people you want to have alcohol induced brain damage

00:04:46.400 i'm joking it's hard to believe something actually works for hangovers but this works

00:04:51.540 and it helps save your brain from any alcohol consumption which is not good for you even small

00:04:56.460 amounts but it's fun sometimes anyway fullerhealth.com code xmas 20 for 20 off i also haven't

00:05:05.980 mentioned this but it can be taken before you drink to reduce the amount you drink at least

00:05:11.040 that's what it does if you give it to rats so if you're trying to drink less take it before you

00:05:15.660 drink and after and in the morning and if you don't want to reduce how much you drink take it

00:05:20.840 as directed linked in the comments fullerhealth.com there's a money back guarantee so you can give

00:05:26.140 them a shot with no worries on refunds. Have a very Merry Christmas. My parents are here. I have

00:05:31.040 a new baby. My hormones are more normal. I like my husband again after a few months of pregnancy

00:05:36.260 hormones. Life is good. Talk to you guys soon. So I was talking, we were watching this show

00:05:42.260 the other day, my husband and I, and it's called The Patriot. And

00:05:48.140 how did you and your wife negotiate you going into the army? Like, I don't think I could imagine

00:05:55.100 myself marrying someone, then then they decide to go, I mean, serve their country. I don't know

00:06:00.800 if I could handle that. So was that something that you discussed with her beforehand? Or had

00:06:05.200 you had that plan for a long time? Because you said you volunteered after 9-11. Was that a

00:06:10.260 I had actually joined before I had actually joined before. So my wife and I were high school

00:06:14.440 sweethearts. We started dating our senior high school and she knew I wanted to go into the

00:06:18.440 military. And so two weeks after high school graduation, I was on my way to Fort Benning,

00:06:24.340 Georgia to go through infantry, basic training and airborne school. And, um, we got married.

00:06:29.980 Let me, that was in, oh, I left in June of 98, uh, to go into the military. And then we got

00:06:36.260 married in May of 99. And so when she came out, I was, uh, I was a private in the military. Uh,

00:06:43.360 she came out to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, was looking for work. We were like totally dirt poor.

00:06:47.640 It was a good times. Um, but she knew I wanted to be in the military, but for,

00:06:52.400 it was a peacetime army at that point. And we thought we were actually going to get out.

00:06:56.620 And then we reenlisted one more time because when you, at that point, when you reenlisted the first

00:07:01.220 time, you can kind of pick your duty station. And so we decided to get stationed in Hawaii.

00:07:06.500 And shortly after getting to Hawaii, 9-11 took place. And I remember looking at Tina there and

00:07:12.080 going, well, I want to volunteer to go army special forces. Because, you know, my attitude

00:07:18.060 was if there's going to be a war, um, I'm going to be in it. And, um, that was, that was, um,

00:07:25.800 obviously tough for, but by the same token, I don't think she didn't have any expectations that

00:07:31.660 I was going to do anything different. Uh, once that, once that took place. And, and I, and I have

00:07:36.940 to say, uh, the first 10 years of our marriage, if you add up all the time away on, on training,

00:07:42.040 on, uh, combat tours, on everything else, I probably spent half of it away from home.

00:07:48.060 And so there were times where, you know, we had for my first deployment, we had two kids,

00:07:52.340 my third or my second deployment, we had three kids.

00:07:56.280 She had to, she had to go through a lot.

00:07:58.960 And I always tell people the reason, the reason why I believe I have such a good relationship

00:08:03.560 with all my children is in large part to the work that she did on the home front when I

00:08:08.540 was overseas and when I was gone for training, because it would have been really easy for

00:08:12.820 her to get upset or bitter or angry or feel kind of left. And she didn't. She always looked at it

00:08:22.080 as we're both serving. We're just serving in different ways. And when I would go off to Iraq,

00:08:28.960 she would make little shirts for the kids with my face on them. And she would send videos of them

00:08:36.080 telling them how much they love their daddy. And I would try to send videos back. But

00:08:39.920 she always reinforced to the kids that look daddy's got to be away not because he doesn't

00:08:44.080 love you but because he has an important job to do and our job is to support him and so when I

00:08:48.240 came home I didn't I didn't receive any bitterness or sense of abandonment from my children they were

00:08:54.360 just happy to see me and and had Tina not put in the work that she did I don't think that would

00:08:58.720 have happened wow well good for you guys that's really incredible to be able to navigate that in

00:09:06.300 relationship. Like I said, I was watching a show the other day and I was like, I don't know.

00:09:10.780 I feel like I would get resentful. Like I know my personality. I don't know if I could handle that

00:09:16.580 as a woman. I don't know if I could handle it. So that's really impressive. And that kind of,

00:09:24.240 that kind of segues into some of the questions I wanted to ask you because I talked to my followers

00:09:30.920 on Instagram because I usually ask if they have questions to see what's poking around in people's

00:09:34.760 unconscious. And there were a lot of women who asked questions about raising strong men. If the

00:09:42.920 dad was either away or not involved, I was actually surprised at the number of women who didn't seem

00:09:50.380 to have a man in their life that were saying, Hey, I realized that this isn't an ideal situation.

00:09:55.660 How do I make sure I don't raise, you know, how do I make sure I raise a strong man? So if you

00:10:02.100 were away for part of the periods of childhood, that means Tina, your wife, I guess would have

00:10:08.880 handled discipline in those instances, maybe when they were younger. So how do you think you guys

00:10:15.180 managed it? Well, I think there's a couple of things. We actually, we get asked this so much

00:10:21.000 on Instagram that we finally did a video on it where we just said what they don't tell,

00:10:24.540 what they don't tell moms about raising young men. And both Tina and I grew up in homes where

00:10:30.860 our parents were divorced. And my father was still very influential in my life, but I got to see my

00:10:36.560 dad during the summers primarily. And then he would come up for various events or holidays

00:10:40.740 or things like that. But I would go down to Southern California and spend the time with my

00:10:44.500 dad. And so I didn't get to see my dad as much as I would have liked. He didn't get to see me as

00:10:49.060 much as he would have liked, but he was still involved. And so that, that put a, you know,

00:10:53.880 that put some additional stress on, on my mom. One of the things that was very beneficial for

00:10:58.620 that is I had great grandfathers. My grandfathers were outstanding and so were my grandmothers as

00:11:03.640 well. But when it came to being able to provide a positive male role model and influence in my life,

00:11:09.720 both of my grandfathers were critical of that purpose. And I think that's one of the things

00:11:16.020 that I would tell women that are growing up or that are trying to raise young men in a less than

00:11:21.260 ideal situation. Because that's the other thing I don't want to sugarcoat here. Anybody that tells

00:11:25.300 you that, oh, it's fine. You can do it. You just got to be strong. No, it's not ideal. It wasn't

00:11:29.860 meant to be this way. You weren't supposed to have to raise your son without a father in the

00:11:33.980 household to both assist you and help you and help your son become a man and also help your

00:11:39.320 daughters understand what it is, what a positive relationship with a man looks like. So it is

00:11:46.100 difficult for moms to try to find those positive male role models. Sometimes it's in the form of 1.00

00:11:50.740 a pastor. Sometimes it's in the form of a coach. Sometimes it's in a form of a family member,

00:11:56.680 like an uncle or a grandfather. Sometimes it's in the form of your son's friend who has a great

00:12:04.440 dad in his life that is willing to help kind of play that role and help provide some of that

00:12:08.460 guidance. The one thing that I will tell single moms, and I don't say this to scare them, I say

00:12:14.080 just because it's a fact, it's a reality, is that there are other men that will see that as a

00:12:20.560 vulnerable situation and attempt to take advantage of it. And so the mother does have to play a role

00:12:25.940 where she is protective of her son's innocence, especially when he's in those vulnerable formative

00:12:31.120 years. And it isn't able to discern what a threat looks like in the form of another man.

00:12:36.500 So I would just tell single moms, it is possible. My mom did an excellent job of it. I have a

00:12:43.020 wonderful relationship with my mother. I'm eternally grateful for her. That's one of the

00:12:46.240 things I talked about in that video about women raising young men was how grateful I was for some

00:12:52.180 of the things that my mom did. So try to find those positive male role models. They're necessary.

00:12:57.960 You know, a father cannot be completely replaced by a mother any more than a mother can be replaced

00:13:03.020 by a father. The other thing I will say is that one of the things that happens, I think, between,

00:13:09.960 and I say this obviously not based off of my own experience from a mother's perspective,

00:13:14.200 but talking to my own mother, talking to my wife. My wife was nervous about having a little boy.

00:13:22.460 She was nervous about it. We had our oldest daughter first, and so she wasn't sure.

00:13:29.360 And the moment he was born, oh my gosh, that little boy stole her heart like you would not

00:13:33.780 believe. That was her little man. And there's this thing when a little boy is small, his mother

00:13:42.880 is Wonder Woman, right? She's the most beautiful, wonderful, incredible human being on the planet.

00:13:51.140 And he's who she goes to, to make the world better, right? When it doesn't make sense to him,

00:13:55.800 when he gets hurt, whatever it is, right? You know, mommy can pick you up, snuggle you,

00:13:59.600 give you a kiss on the boo-boo and all of a sudden it's healed, right? She's just,

00:14:03.440 it really is somewhat like magical. When your little boy starts to get older though,

00:14:08.980 a lot of the things that made your little boy feel loved or supported or safe or secure when

00:14:15.520 they were little starts to make them feel weak or vulnerable as they get older. And this, this

00:14:21.740 varies based off of the boy and the situation that they're growing up in. But I would say for,

00:14:26.480 for most of them, it's probably around junior high, maybe a little bit earlier for some,

00:14:31.220 maybe a little bit older for others. A lot of it depends on, on the environment they're in when

00:14:35.440 they're, you know, going to school, they're educated, um, what they're exposed to and what,

00:14:40.560 at what age, um, if you can protect your, your son's innocence, um, for as long as you can,

00:14:47.340 which, and, and by protecting the innocence, I don't mean not exposing them to things that are

00:14:51.100 age appropriate or difficulties or challenges that needs to happen. It's part of their development,

00:14:55.340 but about things that are not age appropriate. Um, but at some point they're going to get their

00:15:01.000 butt kicked at school or something's going to happen or they're getting in a fight. And the 0.97

00:15:05.820 instinct that mom has is I'm going to step in and I'm going to protect them. And look, if there's

00:15:12.380 something dangerous going on, you need to do that. I'm not suggesting otherwise. However,

00:15:17.120 your little boy doesn't want the bully to be afraid of mom. He doesn't want the bully to

00:15:21.120 be afraid of the principal. He wants the bully to be afraid of him. He wants to feel strong and

00:15:26.180 capable. And so there's things that a mom can do that can kind of call out that protector and that

00:15:31.540 provider that are components of being a good man. I don't care what the new gender norms say about 1.00

00:15:39.100 what we're supposed to do. I could care less about the studies coming out of the sociology

00:15:42.980 department at Cal Berkeley. A good man can protect and a good man can provide. And one of the ways

00:15:48.900 that my mom did that for me when I was growing up was simple stuff, right? When I was, you know,

00:15:54.200 eight, nine, 10 years old, it was helping her carry heavy things. Um, it was, you know, get

00:15:59.700 a little older, it's opening up the jar. It's, um, you know, when you and mom are walking down

00:16:04.800 the street and, and he's 13, 14 years old, he should walk on the street side. He should be

00:16:10.340 opening the door for mom. Um, he should be treating her. He should have, start to develop 1.00

00:16:15.160 an awareness, um, uh, of protecting and providing. Um, and, and again, the father can teach them

00:16:23.300 how to do that, but the mother's the first person they actually get to, for lack of a better term,

00:16:29.320 practice with. And it's very important for their development. So calling out that protector and

00:16:36.740 provider in your son, when they get into that, those 12, 13, 14 years old, 15 years old,

00:16:43.620 where you expect it of them and you reward them when they do it, whether it be with simple praise

00:16:50.920 or with just saying, you know, hey, thank you for doing that.

00:16:53.320 Or, you know, hey, I appreciate you, you know, protecting mommy

00:16:56.540 or taking care of mommy or whatnot.

00:16:59.220 What that's doing is it's reinforcing in his mind

00:17:02.600 that there's an expectation that he does this

00:17:04.660 and that when he does it, it's appreciated.

00:17:07.240 And that when he does it with respect and nobility, it's appreciated.

00:17:12.000 And that all prepares him to be able to perform with courage

00:17:17.020 in the moments when that's necessary.

00:17:19.000 and again it's it's difficult i'm not pretending it's easy um but i can remember the first time

00:17:25.840 that my son found himself in a situation where it wasn't dangerous to his well-being but it was

00:17:31.840 difficult and it was it was you know potentially physical and um me telling tina is like he's got

00:17:39.760 to figure this out he said well well but i i can call up i just want to talk to the the you know

00:17:45.000 the other mom about like, nope, he gets to figure it out. Um, how old was he? He was probably,

00:17:52.100 I think he was 12 at that point. He's got to figure it out. And it doesn't mean they're always

00:17:58.900 going to win the fight. That's important. Um, but it's one of those things where I'm, Hey,

00:18:04.420 I'm proud of you for standing up for yourself. I'm proud of you for standing up for that other

00:18:07.800 child. I'm proud of you, you know, for doing that. Now, again, that doesn't mean if it's a

00:18:12.460 dangerous situation. You can't still call the principal and say, I just want you to be aware

00:18:15.460 of this, but don't create a false sense of security in your son's mind that when something

00:18:21.140 goes bad, mommy takes care of it for him. Because one of two things is going to happen. He's either

00:18:27.220 going to have this expectation where he never develops the necessary skill sets, both verbal

00:18:31.260 and physical. Or he's going to grow a sense of entitlement to where whenever there's a challenge,

00:18:37.520 well, that's mommy's job to take care of. And you don't want to raise a little narcissist and you

00:18:41.680 don't want to raise a coward. And you certainly don't want to raise a cowardly narcissist. Oh my 1.00

00:18:45.420 gosh. Um, but those are just some of the things that you can do to, again, what I, what I call

00:18:50.580 calling out the protector and provider and your son. Um, and, and I, those are just a couple,

00:18:56.600 obviously this is not comprehensive, but those are a couple of things that I think can help, um,

00:19:00.960 help us a mom or a single mom kind of work those, those issues and also help maintain that positive

00:19:06.460 relationship with her, with her son as he gets older, because the way, all right, I'm gonna have

00:19:12.140 to say this without choking up. The way I ended that video is I explained that when my wife was

00:19:18.820 having our first child, it was a very difficult delivery. And when Lily was born, she'd had the

00:19:28.560 umbilical cord wrapped around her neck twice. When she was, when she, they finally got her out,

00:19:34.340 she wasn't breathing. She wasn't moving. And, uh, Tina was bleeding and they couldn't stop it.

00:19:41.100 And my mom was an OB nurse and she was there with us. And I remember, um,

00:19:47.940 feeling about as helpless as I possibly could. And to give you some, to give you some background

00:19:53.080 at this point, feeling helpless was not a sensation I was familiar with. Um, I, at this

00:19:59.640 point, I was, I was an infantryman. I was ranger school, sniper school, airborne school. I had

00:20:04.580 just passed special forces, uh, selection. I was about to go become a green beret. I was an infantry

00:20:09.240 squad leader. Like I, I was pretty confident in my ability to handle myself and take care of

00:20:13.540 situations. And now I found myself in a situation where I could do nothing. My little girl is not

00:20:19.700 breathing. My wife is potentially bleeding out on the table and I'm sitting there helpless.

00:20:24.780 dang and there was there was my mom right there's my mom being being there being strong like honey

00:20:32.520 it's going to be okay they know what they're doing don't worry I'm watching over here sweetheart

00:20:35.740 holding his hand you but so even at that point through all of that through all the work that

00:20:41.300 she had done to develop me into the sort of man that she wanted me to be and I appreciated that

00:20:48.040 at that moment i was still just a big guy that that wanted uh wanted assurance from his his

00:20:55.980 mother and uh there she was to provide it so yeah oh man that almost got me

00:21:03.500 gets me every time oh wow um how much of that information that you just gave out regarding

00:21:14.580 specifically raising boys can be converted over if you have a daughter like i've always wondered

00:21:20.640 because so i have a six-year-old girl um and i know how i was raised and i think you know i'm

00:21:28.440 i'm alive things are pretty good so i think that worked out well but uh i was definitely left to

00:21:34.440 my own devices to figure out tougher situations than i think i would be comfortable leaving to

00:21:40.560 my daughter, but I'm also not to like pat myself on the back, but I don't get stressed out very

00:21:46.940 easily. And stressful situations have to be pretty life and death before I get stressed out,

00:21:51.880 which I think is because I was left to solve situations that I was extremely uncomfortable

00:21:56.040 with. So at one point, do you just follow the same steps, raising a boy and a girl and letting

00:22:02.940 her figure out these tough situations? Do you think it's similar or should they be more protected?

00:22:09.060 i think there's uh very similar principles there's very different applications um so here's what i

00:22:16.080 mean by that um my oldest daughter when she was in fifth grade fifth or i think it was fifth grade

00:22:21.500 she had a little girl that um kept threatening her at school and this is this is we we had put

00:22:27.420 our kids back in public school for a year and then immediately took them back out again we're like now

00:22:31.220 we're done yeah but she had this little girl that um and and i remember talking to lily about it i

00:22:37.420 said, sweetheart, here's the first thing I want you to understand. I said, the way this little

00:22:40.720 girl is behaving and the way she's talking to you and the things she's saying probably suggests that

00:22:44.660 things are pretty bad at home. So I want you to have a certain element of grace for that.

00:22:53.080 But if she lays a hand on you, that's a different story. And she said, well, you know, daddy, our

00:22:58.860 school doesn't let us fight. Now we called and said, hey, look, this is a problem. But we also

00:23:03.820 knew that just because we told the school it was a problem doesn't mean this girl wasn't going to 0.80

00:23:07.060 hit my daughter at lunch. And I remember taking Lily and I said, well, sweetheart, you got to 0.85

00:23:12.460 learn how to, you got to learn how to fight. You got to learn how to defend yourself. So let's walk

00:23:15.380 through that. And we spent the rest of the night just kind of going through like, okay, how do you

00:23:19.180 get your hands up? How do you, how do you throw hands? How do you block? How do you defend yourself?

00:23:22.940 And I remember the first thing she said was, well, daddy, the school doesn't let us fight. I said,

00:23:26.940 you don't worry about that. I'll deal with the school, but nobody has a right to lay hands on

00:23:31.340 you and you don't have the right to defend yourself. That's not a thing. So I'll deal with

00:23:35.040 administrators. You just, you just worry about defending yourself. And, um, and so we went through

00:23:39.780 that whole process and, um, and it was, it was funny because toward the end of it, she felt very

00:23:46.380 confident that she knew what to do. She was going to show up to school the next day and she knew what

00:23:49.280 she was going to do. She went to start a fight. She wasn't going to try to be mean. She was going 1.00

00:23:52.180 to have, you know, grace and mercy toward this girl. But the moment she got hit, she was taking

00:23:57.660 her out and that was it. And she knew daddy had her back and mommy had her back and nobody, she

00:24:02.080 was not going to get in trouble for doing that. Now, if a boy had been doing that to her, that

00:24:09.360 would have been a different story. I would have been, I would have been down there at the school.

00:24:13.260 And if I would have needed to, I would have called up that boy's parents. And like, I'm letting you

00:24:16.720 know that if your son lays a hand on my daughter, I'm coming for you. We're not going to let a school

00:24:20.580 handle it. You and I'll handle it. So my daughter's always, my daughter, the thing I always

00:24:29.100 reinforced to my girls is that I wanted them to be strong and I wanted them to be able to stick

00:24:32.580 up for themselves. I taught my kids how to shoot at a very young age. And one of the reasons why

00:24:36.240 I taught my daughters how to shoot at a very young age is because firearms are an equalizer 1.00

00:24:39.440 for women. Most women are not going to be able to effectively physically defend themselves against 1.00

00:24:45.440 a determined man that is bigger than them. It's just not a thing. But if they can shoot, well, 0.96

00:24:50.340 then it doesn't matter how big he is. And I always wanted my girls to understand that you have a

00:24:55.220 right to be able to live in this world. And you have a right to be able to pursue your dreams and

00:24:59.220 do the things that you want to do without having to live in fear of the fact that you can't

00:25:02.520 physically overpower a man. Now let's give you some of the tools that you'll need to be confident

00:25:06.600 in being able to provide for your own security. Not because I think they should go through life

00:25:10.900 having to do that. Not because I want them to live in a world where it may be necessary,

00:25:15.140 but because I'm not naive to the world we actually occupy. And I want my girls to be

00:25:19.920 able to defend themselves. And so from a very young age, they become very comfortable with it.

00:25:25.220 But the other thing that I would say with raising my daughters is I always thought that one of the most important roles I played on that was making sure that I did spend quality time with them.

00:25:39.360 And by quality, I mean paying attention, listening when they were really little, you know, having a little tea parties and stuff like that, even though I still had to be gone a lot.

00:25:48.380 I also thought it was really important that they knew that daddy was there to protect them

00:25:55.500 both physically and emotionally. And one of the ways I did that was by spending the time with

00:26:01.740 them. But another way that I did that, and this is also relevant for sons, is with the way I treat

00:26:07.280 their mother. Now, I treat my wife with love, dignity, and respect because she is owed that

00:26:13.680 from me. But I'm also very cognizant of the fact that what I'm also demonstrating is I'm showing

00:26:19.220 my son how he should behave and treat his wife one day. And I'm showing my daughters, I'm

00:26:25.760 demonstrating for them how they deserve to be treated by a man that they will potentially let

00:26:30.640 into their lives. And I think that's very important. Not that it's not also important

00:26:39.100 for sons, but I do think it's very important for fathers to be able to play that role for their

00:26:42.520 daughters. The other thing I always encourage dads to do is I said, look, as much as your little

00:26:50.980 girl might be embarrassed or your daughter might be embarrassed by the idea of you threatening to

00:26:54.760 beat up the boyfriend or whatnot, she wants to know that you would do it. By the same token,

00:27:00.360 she doesn't want you to flip out when a boy likes her. And one of the things that I used to tell my

00:27:07.480 girls when they were getting a little bit older and boys were taking an interest was I would always

00:27:12.100 tell them I said look we got some strict rules with respect to dating and you know that but I

00:27:16.100 want you to understand that the reason why we have these rules is not because we're trying to

00:27:20.000 deprive you of something it's because we want you to have the sort of relationship that your

00:27:26.920 mother and I have we want you to be in a relationship that is safe and that is secure

00:27:30.540 but that is also exciting and passionate and there's certain things that facilitate that

00:27:36.160 And then there's certain things that hamper or harm that.

00:27:40.180 And if a boy likes you, then for me what that says is that at least,

00:27:45.600 at the very least, he's got reasonably good judgment because he likes you

00:27:49.600 and you are beautiful and you're intelligent and you're wonderful

00:27:53.020 and what boy wouldn't like you.

00:27:55.140 But the reason why we tell you that it's appropriate to wait,

00:27:58.520 and we had the same rules for my son, was because we want someone worthy of you.

00:28:02.760 and when you meet the person worthy of you, you want to be worthy of them.

00:28:07.700 And so that means thinking about this

00:28:10.160 and not looking so much at what you can't have right now

00:28:14.580 but looking forward to what you will have one day if you do this right.

00:28:18.960 And so I think all of those things packaged together

00:28:21.660 from a father's perspective helped, you know, again,

00:28:28.340 and I still have to give my wife the majority of the credit for everything,

00:28:31.400 but I think it did help create an atmosphere with my daughters

00:28:34.720 where they knew that I loved them.

00:28:37.620 They knew I would tell them the truth even when it was difficult.

00:28:41.060 They knew that I also expected them to be able to think through things

00:28:45.800 and figure out their own problems,

00:28:48.020 but that I would still always be there for them

00:28:51.400 even if they had to tell me something that I didn't want to hear

00:28:54.060 because ultimately I'm on their side no matter what.

00:28:57.620 um and so that that's you know some of the things that i've i've learned and i've i hope i faithfully

00:29:05.000 executed with with my own daughters that was beautiful all my i think these pregnancy hormones

00:29:14.180 are gonna be more emotion than i usually have that was really nice hey guys if you're still

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00:30:23.080 in i hope you enjoy the rest of this episode my dad told me when i was little this was a joke

00:30:29.160 actually but i was in kindergarten and he goes okay first day of kindergarten class find the

00:30:34.360 biggest kid in your class and sock him then you'll be on top and get the friends over yeah that was

00:30:42.920 anyway, that was a joke, obviously, but in grade two, I did, I did get like people, public school

00:30:48.200 is crazy. Public school is a crazy place. Um, my daughter's not in a public school because

00:30:54.360 it wasn't great. You really get thrown in with everybody and it wasn't a good experience for me,

00:30:59.820 but I had somebody, uh, some girl in grade two, I was in grade two or three that came over and

00:31:06.160 gave me like a good kick just out of the blue. She was just the mean girl in class. She just 1.00

00:31:11.780 walloped me and I like turned around and I kicked her as hard as I could like directly right back

00:31:17.340 and then we were on that was it that was the bullying she was like okay and then we were

00:31:22.760 she was kind of friendly to me after that it was just this and I've had so many I've got quite a

00:31:28.780 few liberal friends who are now having kids whose kids are getting like bullied in in daycare a

00:31:35.540 little bit being pushed around and they're being taught, go get a teacher. I was like, I don't

00:31:42.200 know. I don't think the go get a teacher, especially if you're a little boy, like you were

00:31:45.740 saying, it's like, no, you've got to fix these problems right away. Kids don't care what the

00:31:51.160 teachers are going to say. If they're already being bad, they're already in the bad zone.

00:31:55.140 Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's funny. Whenever, whenever somebody asks a homeschooler about what

00:32:00.140 about socialization? I'm like, have you looked at public schools lately? Are you, are you

00:32:03.920 comfortable with that socialization. Um, that's very true. Okay. That that's very true. I know.

00:32:11.780 Um, I didn't understand when I was in it, but looking back on it, I went to like an art school

00:32:16.580 and, uh, I was exposed to so many things that I wouldn't be comfortable with exposing my kids to.

00:32:24.940 It was just like a downtown public school, but it was like, Whoa, people were doing drugs. And

00:32:29.080 like when they were 13 that's actually doesn't happen at every school or you're like you can

00:32:34.260 actually have that not happen to a kid it doesn't have to happen to a kid anyway I turned out just

00:32:38.600 fine but uh it was a wild ride that's for sure okay taking a bit of a different direction and

00:32:46.720 this is something I've struggled with I think as a woman because I was raised by a stay-at-home mom

00:32:50.920 uh and so I always grew up thinking if I was going to be a good mom I had to be a stay-at-home mom

00:32:57.600 and then when i felt like i was missing doing other things i had this horrible guilt complex of

00:33:05.140 well i'm supposed to be completely fulfilled being a stay-at-home mom and i'm not and i'm

00:33:09.460 getting resentful and i can feel that and i'm very aware of that emotion because it just destroys

00:33:13.440 your life you can't especially as a more agreeable person you don't want resentment to take over your

00:33:18.660 life um and so i've managed to like make it where i have a six-year-old we have a great relationship

00:33:23.100 everything's fine now, but how as a parent, do you balance ambition and doing things for yourself

00:33:31.660 to fulfill yourself as well as being the parent at home that your children need?

00:33:38.660 Sure. Well, and, and look at this point, my wife has managed the home pretty much since we've,

00:33:46.020 we've had kids. So she, she worked before we had kids and we had talked about this before we got

00:33:51.260 married. And I had always asked, you know, I said, I look at it as my job as being the primary

00:33:55.760 breadwinner in the home. That's not to say that my wife can't work or have an income or anything

00:33:59.820 like that, but I still look at it as my primary responsibility. And, um, and she said, well,

00:34:05.660 that's great. I agree. And, uh, when we have kids, I don't want to have to work. Like if,

00:34:10.620 if I might still, but I don't want to have to, I said, okay, so my job is to make enough money

00:34:16.140 to where you don't have to do that. And we didn't count on homeschooling originally when we had

00:34:21.760 talked about this. This is something that just kind of happened initially when I got out of the

00:34:24.780 military as a practical matter. And then it became something of a moral matter as we looked at what

00:34:29.680 was going on within the school system. Now, I will say that I think that there are, I think there's

00:34:36.480 some women that, I think most women as something of a, maybe a stereotype, but one that plays out 0.78

00:34:44.180 generally have, um, a significant nurturing capability. Um, and, and they want to be able 1.00

00:34:51.860 to exercise that. Now, some people are entirely content with managing a home. And I like to refer

00:34:59.240 to it that way because some people, you know, I've never really been comfortable with a stay

00:35:03.040 at home mom. And I realize it's the common vernacular, but I always say that Tina manages

00:35:07.200 the home because when it comes to our home and the fact that we kind of, you know, we have animals

00:35:11.580 and we have a pretty extensive garden and we kind of end with the homestead culture and whatnot.

00:35:16.500 There's a lot that goes with that. The other funny thing is that my wife is the,

00:35:20.340 I'm going to totally lose points for this. My wife's the handyman in the house. Like I, 1.00

00:35:25.640 she's, she's the one that where I remember when we, when we moved in to the last house we had,

00:35:32.620 there was a water issue and she's like, I'm not paying $6,000 for someone to come in and put this

00:35:37.520 filter. I can figure it out on YouTube. And she did like it. She's just incredibly, uh, handy when

00:35:44.220 it comes to that, like the table that I'm sitting at right now, she built because we couldn't find

00:35:48.380 one that we wanted. And she's like, I'll build it. And so she never built one before. She's like,

00:35:52.720 I can figure it out. I like, I like doing this. So she has found things that, uh, that allow her

00:35:58.820 to, um, to continue to develop the sort of skills for which she has an interest that are also either

00:36:05.320 marketable or just incredibly valuable to the house, to the business, to everything that we do

00:36:12.980 at the same time that it allows her to be able to assist with our kids on the homeschooling

00:36:18.160 and maintaining the house and everything else. So I think what's important is, is that as you

00:36:23.880 look at your kids, and again, I was raised by a single mom who was a nurse. She was working quite

00:36:27.760 a bit. I have a great relationship with my mom. It's not like I felt like I missed out on everything

00:36:32.100 because my mom wasn't there when I got home from school every day. Um, but I do think you have to

00:36:36.840 look at the personality of your kids and, and part of, part of getting married and part of having

00:36:41.740 children is they become part of your ambition. They become part of your, your life's mission

00:36:47.320 and your journey. Um, people ask me sometimes, why'd you get married so young? I was like,

00:36:51.640 because I wanted to build a life with her, right? I didn't, I didn't want to go out and do a bunch

00:36:57.220 stuff and then get married. I wanted to do these things with her. Like my, my life is so much more

00:37:02.300 enriched with her being a part of all of it. And then when you have kids, it's there's, it's the

00:37:09.720 same thing, but once again, aspects of your life's ambition change and there are sacrifices that have

00:37:16.440 to be made. There's no question about that. The thing that I have found is that the, the sacrifices

00:37:23.060 or maybe the things that you give up or aspects.

00:37:28.860 Maybe you don't give up the whole thing, but aspects.

00:37:30.720 You give up because now you've got to make time for another human being.

00:37:36.160 I can't think of anything that I've had to give up on

00:37:38.540 that I would go back and trade the relationship I have with my kids for.

00:37:45.440 It's not even close.

00:37:47.880 And so I think part of it is understanding that when I got married,

00:37:53.060 my wife's well-being became paramount to my, whatever ambitions, ambitions I had apart

00:38:01.060 from being her husband. Um, and, and it's not like we slowed down, right? I went off to army

00:38:07.680 special operations. You know, we, we, we've done all this other stuff. We've, we've, we're building

00:38:12.020 a, we're, we're building a building, expanding a business right now. We can do all those things,

00:38:16.600 but it was okay. How do we do this together? And then when you have kids, it's like, okay,

00:38:21.940 how do, how do we make them a part of what we're doing? Um, and homeschooling allows you to do

00:38:27.500 that as well. Like I love it when we, we went to a conference the while back and, um, it was a

00:38:32.660 homesteaders conference and Tina had made her habanero jelly. And my youngest daughter is my

00:38:37.140 total entrepreneur and wherever she works, she'll find another way to do kind of a side hustle and, 1.00

00:38:42.260 and like, you know, make earrings or whatever it is. And, and she did that. And so, you know, 1.00

00:38:47.480 with each one of these things, it's not that your ambition goes away, it expands to include people

00:38:53.120 that you love and care about. And the space that you make to make that all work is worth it.

00:39:03.500 And so that's what I would say is find ways to be able to deliver on the passions or the

00:39:09.380 God-given talents and ambitions that you have. And then find ways that you're going to make

00:39:15.560 room to make sure that the people that you love can actually be a part of that and maybe include

00:39:19.940 it in it and benefit from it as well. Because if you don't do that, what you're going to find

00:39:24.880 is that you're not going to get everything out of maybe your professional ambitions that you wish

00:39:31.460 you could because you're going to feel guilty. And then as you said, guilt easily turns into

00:39:36.380 resentment and treating as if the people that you love the most in this world are somehow holding

00:39:40.680 you back when in reality, there's probably a different version of that dream or ambition,

00:39:45.180 which is every bit as fulfilling and even more so because now they get to be a part of it

00:39:50.140 instead of isolated from it. Yeah, that was great. I think this is probably on the forefront of my

00:39:59.040 mind because I'm about to have another baby and I'm entrepreneurial too. I'm extremely

00:40:05.840 entrepreneurial. So if I don't pursue something, it really eats at me. But I'm also at home all

00:40:12.200 the time. So I'm with, like, I'm with my daughter. And so it's just, I guess, not a way that I

00:40:19.460 thought life was going to turn out. I had this preconceived notion about what being a parent was

00:40:23.980 like. And I don't know if anyone's preconceived notion of what being a parent is like is right,

00:40:29.700 but mine certainly wasn't. So being flexible with homeschooling too is very cool. We could

00:40:36.720 delve into that a little bit. Oh, it's, it's, there's, because one of the things, one of the

00:40:41.160 biggest misconceptions about homeschool is people think that you're replicating public school at

00:40:45.080 home. No, you're not. In fact, I mean, look, I would have left public school just for the

00:40:50.680 socialization aspects and the, and the things that were going into the curriculum and the

00:40:54.040 teaching methods. But, but now I look at it, it was like, well, no, it, it afforded me all these

00:40:58.760 opportunities to be able to adapt an educational model to actually meet the needs of my child,

00:41:04.200 not perform some sort of, you know, dance for the mass production of education. And, and so

00:41:10.820 So I would just say that, you know, it's funny, my wife and I talk and our faith is very important

00:41:17.000 to us. And they always talk about the Proverbs 31 woman in there. And my wife was always like,

00:41:22.720 man, that's, it's intimidating. I'm like, baby, you are that woman. What are you talking about? 1.00

00:41:26.960 Like you, you do all this stuff and, and, and you're creative and you're productive and you're

00:41:31.860 caring and you're nurturing and you're loving and you're doing all of it. And, and so I do think

00:41:37.860 some of the preconceived stereotypes that we have about what, what does it look like? Um, I think

00:41:43.020 it, I think it looks like spending time and investing in your children and, and loving them

00:41:47.420 and knowing that, and, and protecting their innocence and, uh, but also allowing them to

00:41:54.220 be a part of your endeavors. Um, so yeah. When did, so you said one of your kids in particular

00:42:01.660 is entrepreneurial. When did she start? It's a little girl, right? Yeah. Yeah. When, when did

00:42:07.620 she start making things and selling them? So, oh gosh, probably when she was 10 or 11.

00:42:16.420 Um, when she was 10 or 11, she would, you know, and, and all of my kids have, have, um, all of

00:42:22.480 my kids have something of an entrepreneurial streak and can be very, very, um, driven in,

00:42:26.700 in professional stuff. My, we used to tell my oldest daughter, we told all of our kids when

00:42:31.300 they were young, we're like, we don't owe you a college education. That doesn't mean we won't

00:42:35.620 help you, but one, we don't owe it to you. And two, you should probably think about whether or

00:42:40.400 not it actually makes sense for what you want to do with your life. What you need is marketable

00:42:45.160 skills. You need marketable skills. So get the marketable skills that are as close to the dreams

00:42:50.760 and passions and ambitions that you have that will put you in that realm to be able to do what

00:42:54.900 you would really like to do. But as a responsible adult, you need to feed yourself. And I remember

00:43:00.420 my, um, my oldest daughter, she loves theater and she knows that theater is, is a very, very

00:43:06.500 difficult thing to make a living on. So she was looking at, well, I don't want to go to college

00:43:10.620 for a theater degree. I want to go, I want to get a cosmetology license because that puts me in a

00:43:15.180 realm of being able to do hair and makeup and everything else. And we said, okay, that's a

00:43:19.360 great idea. She worked a night shift at McDonald's and then would come home, sleep, get up and work

00:43:24.400 another job. She paid her entire way through it. And she did excellent. She took all of the 0.98

00:43:29.680 additional courses. She got all the different certifications. She paid it off the day she

00:43:33.460 graduated. And that was hers, right? That wasn't something she was... Now, my youngest daughter,

00:43:40.040 very early on, she just had this interest for the entrepreneurial. She liked the idea of making

00:43:45.980 things and selling things and it didn't, which is crazy because for me, I wish I was more

00:43:51.280 entrepreneurial like that. I have such a hard time selling products and stuff. I have a hard time

00:43:56.740 with it. But her whole thing was like, no, I've made something, I've made something of quality

00:44:01.460 that people want. And I'm going to, I'm going to put it out there and see what happens. And then

00:44:06.060 I'm going to learn from what they do. So at 12, 13 years old, she was working at, or I think it

00:44:10.660 was, I think it was 13, 13, 14. She was working at a coffee shop and, um, you know, the, the owner

00:44:16.560 of the coffee shop, wonderful, uh, wonderful young woman, another young entrepreneur. And, uh, she

00:44:22.120 was saying, well, I noticed you sell some other things. Can I bring my earrings in? And she goes,

00:44:25.760 yeah, you can bring your earrings in. She goes, and I will get a cut as the store owner and I'll 0.69

00:44:30.040 take care of the tax and all, and you can do that. And Ali was like, great. So she did that. And then

00:44:34.200 she moved over to a different job, but it was kind of a similar situation. And the lady said,

00:44:39.160 oh, do you want to sell your earrings over here? And Ali said, yeah, that'd be wonderful. She goes,

00:44:43.460 okay. Ali goes, well, what do you want as your percentage? And she goes, oh, you don't have to

00:44:48.260 pay me anything. Ali's like, no, you need to get paid. It's your storefront. It's your clientele.

00:44:53.080 it's your customer base. I'm providing an additional service, but you're providing the

00:44:57.080 storefront. So no, you have to get paid something. Um, so I was just very proud that she, she took

00:45:04.080 that attitude of not just being entrepreneurial, but understanding that this is about mutual

00:45:08.840 benefit. Um, so yeah. Do you think she learned all that from being homeschooled? Just like

00:45:15.700 learning from you guys, or does that naturally happen? It might naturally happen as well.

00:45:19.900 I think she had a natural inclination. The difference was, is that in a homeschooling

00:45:24.480 environment, when you see your kids pick up on something, you don't have to say, oh, that's nice,

00:45:28.900 but we've got to go through six hours of books so you can take a standardized test. We say, oh,

00:45:34.860 that's great. You know what you should do? Let's bring up YouTube and let's watch some stuff on

00:45:39.140 how to do that. And let's talk about how you would do a storefront and whether or not you can get an

00:45:42.980 Etsy account. And so when you're homeschooling, if I would have told my son, sit at this table

00:45:48.960 and study for seven hours a day, he would have lost his mind. And now every once in a while,

00:45:54.200 you have to do that. Sometimes you just got to read the book and you got to take the test.

00:45:58.060 But, you know, we went to a homeschool conference once and he said, dad, can I take the blacksmithing

00:46:03.240 class? Like, yeah, sure. Why not? Let's, let's take one together. And he really liked it.

00:46:08.980 We've now got a, we've now got an anvil and a small forge at home. And anytime like he's

00:46:15.300 bouncing off the walls. It's like, dude, I want, you're going to go make me a knife or you're

00:46:19.500 going to go make me this. You're going to go make me that. And I remember my wife called me up at

00:46:23.920 one point. Cause I was down in Richmond for the legislature and she goes, Hey babe, I'm really

00:46:28.760 happy that Luke loves, you know, out there blacksmithing, but I'm not thrilled when he's

00:46:33.700 pounding on steel at midnight because you gave him a deadline. Oh, that's funny.

00:46:42.800 Oh, I like the idea, though, of introducing, you know, tools, say blacksmithing, for instance, as a way to, well, to give them something to do to, like, release tension.

00:46:55.900 That's cool.

00:46:57.120 I like that.

00:46:58.020 And we wanted to give them something productive to do while releasing tension.

00:47:02.620 Make some knives. 0.99

00:47:03.940 That's awesome.

00:47:06.800 How did you manage social media in your household?

00:47:10.680 Did you just ban it?

00:47:12.800 did you allow some of it? We allowed some of it. We allowed some of it. And that's one thing too,

00:47:17.460 that I look back sometimes and I'm wondering, okay, how would I, how would I have done this

00:47:20.520 differently? Um, we never had cable really with the kids, um, past the age of like five or

00:47:26.580 something like that. So we did a lot more on managing what they watched. Um, and it was

00:47:32.400 interesting because we were homeschooling and again, they still had a lot of interaction with

00:47:35.640 other kids and everything, but they never, they never got into like pop culture trends. So like

00:47:43.540 our kids were watching, I love Lucy and little house on the Prairie. And they thought it was

00:47:47.760 awesome because it's just what they watched with each other and with mom and dad. And they got

00:47:52.480 invested in the characters. And, um, one of the biggest, here's a cheat code for dads.

00:47:59.100 i had my daughters watching jane austen adaptations so bbc has a bunch of really

00:48:07.120 really good jane austen adaptations my two favorite are sense and sensibility and pride

00:48:10.860 and prejudice now i know this sound like quick story i was at a pub with a bunch of my military

00:48:17.700 buddies and they were having trivia night and one of the questions was name all the jane austen

00:48:22.040 novels that don't have and in the title and i walk over to a table full of women i'm like 0.85

00:48:26.540 yeah, it's, it's Emma and North Ranger Avenue in Mansfield park. And I was never here 0.99

00:48:31.020 because I'm not supposed to know that, right? I'm a dude, but Jane Austen's brilliant.

00:48:35.260 The reason why I tell dads this is because one, the dialogue is incredible. So much dialogue in

00:48:40.740 modern movies suck. Jane Austen was, was brilliant with, with dialogue and her insults were just top 1.00

00:48:48.080 tier stuff, right? Top notch. But I remember my oldest daughter, she was about 12 at the time

00:48:52.900 watching, um, a movie. We'd been watching a lot of Pride and Prejudice and North Ringer Abbey and,

00:48:58.280 and Mansfield park and all this stuff. And she's watching a different movie and she goes,

00:49:02.140 Oh my gosh, daddy, what? He goes, that girl just kissed that boy. I said, what happened? She goes,

00:49:07.780 daddy, they're not engaged. She's going to lose her character. And I'm like, yes, you're right. 1.00

00:49:12.820 That's because daddy, did you kiss mommy before you were engaged? Let's get some ice cream.

00:49:18.280 right? But, um, but the, the, the, and I forgot where I was going with all this. I remember the

00:49:24.820 original question. Um, but anyways, so, so we, we got to control a lot of what their media intake

00:49:32.580 was when they were at their most formative years. Yeah. And then when they got a little bit older

00:49:37.040 and it came time to where, um, they could actually go places, either they could drive or they were

00:49:41.880 going places with their friends or, or whatnot. That's when we gave them a phone. And the moment

00:49:48.800 you give your kids a smartphone, right? There's, there's a certain degree of access that they're

00:49:52.880 going to have to that. And so the way that we managed it was, was very simple. When we gave

00:49:57.760 our kids a phone, we told them like, this is not your phone. This is my phone. I'm letting you use

00:50:03.740 this phone. And I'm letting you use this phone because you're going places. I want you to be

00:50:09.380 able to call me if you ever get yourself in a bed. And it's not like they were going out partying

00:50:13.540 with friends till midnight. This is like going for whatever. They were all going out to the

00:50:19.580 movies and they were going to be home by nine or something. But I still want them to have a phone

00:50:23.300 when they're away from me so that they can call me if they need me. But what that did was it created

00:50:30.480 a whole different set of expectations. And we did this with the rooms as well. Like you don't have

00:50:35.440 a room. I have a room. I let you use the room. Oh, wow. And I don't do that because I'm being

00:50:40.640 draconian or I'm being mean because I afforded them their privacy. But what they needed to know

00:50:45.380 was they were not allowed to do things in my house or on my phone or anywhere else to where

00:50:52.160 if I said, I want to see your phone or I want to see your room. It wasn't, dad, how dare you invade

00:50:59.460 my privacy? Because the expectation was, is they knew it was the room I let them use. It was the

00:51:04.840 phone I let them use. And so the, the expectation of ownership was very different. And so when I

00:51:10.400 said, so now if you're using that phone and you're doing something inappropriate on social media,

00:51:14.800 or you're looking at something inappropriate, I get to check your phone. And oh, by the way,

00:51:19.200 I've got a, I've got a degree in intelligence management and cybersecurity. You ain't hiding

00:51:24.460 anything on your phone that I can't find. Um, but I never really had to, it's not like we,

00:51:30.220 we did a bunch of like spot inspections and, and came into the room once a week and checked

00:51:34.180 everything or lined them up and hand over their phones. We had a close enough relationship with

00:51:38.820 our kids where we can tell when something was off. And every once in a while, I'd be like,

00:51:43.500 hey, I need to see your phone. And it was, here you go. It wasn't, I'm angry. It wasn't, I'm mad.

00:51:50.100 It wasn't, you're spying on me. It wasn't any of that. It was, this is dad's property, dad and

00:51:54.960 mom's property, and they're asking for it back. And they have every right to do that. And as a

00:52:00.300 result, we did let them have limited social media. But once again, we always had the right to check

00:52:06.540 whatever they were due. They would friend us immediately on their accounts. And the funny

00:52:11.760 part was, is that initially, you know, they would do, they love to do like little funny videos and

00:52:17.560 stuff like that. And again, both of my daughters were very into theater. And so it provided another

00:52:22.640 outlet for them to do kind of funny videos and they weren't doing things inappropriate.

00:52:26.320 um now there's going to be some people that watch this and be like oh that guy's just naive

00:52:30.640 okay you can think that if you want um there's no way for me to prove to you that i that that's not

00:52:35.160 the case um all i can tell you is that if if and my daughters have been on my my oldest daughter

00:52:40.760 has been on my podcast before um you're welcome to sit down and and you know watch that and and

00:52:46.880 tell me whether or not you think that she doesn't possess the emotional maturity uh to be able to

00:52:52.420 deal with that and understand that it can be both an advantage and it can also be a horrible

00:52:57.200 disadvantage if it's used inappropriately or wrong. And so I do think that we certainly tried,

00:53:04.780 and I think we achieved it for the most part of establishing a healthy enough relationship with

00:53:09.240 all of our kids that when we told them to stay away from something or they weren't allowed to

00:53:14.000 have something, there wasn't a great deal of questioning on whether or not we were doing it

00:53:18.700 because we love them we were never doing it would be tyrannical um one of the biggest problems i

00:53:23.940 think a lot of parents face right now is they will say things like well we didn't raise you that way

00:53:28.480 whenever their kids rebel especially if they go off to college and i usually have to look at me

00:53:35.940 like well what did what did you do when they asked you questions or they asked you why or they

00:53:39.080 questioned you on something and it's and the parents that say things like well because i say

00:53:43.960 so or because you live under my roof or because I take care of you. I said, well, no, then your

00:53:48.640 kids are doing exactly what you taught them to do, which is to obey authority. It's just,

00:53:52.160 you're not the authority anymore. Yes. So interesting. Okay. So I had a couple of

00:53:59.640 thoughts come up during that. So I know I was quite sick as a teenager. Like I was on medication

00:54:05.260 and I had an autoimmune disorder and I was a mess. Um, so I'm sure that played into a role

00:54:10.120 with instability uh in my life um but i remember getting a phone and i mean nobody had like people

00:54:19.720 didn't really have phones and i had a phone late but i got my own phone and i feel like if my

00:54:24.840 parents had said something like this is my phone you can't have one i would have just because i

00:54:29.600 had a bunch of jobs i would have just figured out how to lie and scheme and get one and then i would

00:54:33.620 have hidden it so it was like how did you avoid having the kind of kids that would just be like

00:54:38.180 you know that would do it anyway but maybe just from i mean i suppose having kids at home and

00:54:45.420 teaching them from home helped oh it helped do you think that was just that was just communication

00:54:51.320 between you guys and like they knew that it was in their best interest what you were telling them

00:54:56.100 was in their best interest it's a combination of factors they i will i will chalk a lot of it up

00:55:00.940 to homeschooling and again what would a lot of people hear when they hear homeschooling is

00:55:04.320 isolation. We didn't isolate our kids. Our kids went all over the place. Like I, I had to campaign

00:55:09.200 across the entire state. My kids went with me. We did stuff they, they used. So it's not like they

00:55:14.460 were unaware of what was going on in the world, but by the same token, I wasn't having to compete

00:55:19.220 with a bunch of, you know, influences like negative influences. You know, like you said,

00:55:23.920 when you show up to a public school classroom, you might have the greatest teacher on the planet.

00:55:27.160 The teacher doesn't pick the curriculum, right? You may, you may have parents that you really

00:55:31.580 like. You don't know what's going on in the homes of all the kids that are sharing that classroom

00:55:35.060 and sharing that environment with your child. And you don't know what ideas they're getting

00:55:38.160 exposed to. You don't know what concepts they're getting exposed to. And then the popular culture

00:55:42.780 thing and this expectation of, well, Sally's mom said that, I don't care. I don't really have to

00:55:48.020 deal with that. But by the same token, we didn't shelter our kids. They got a phone. There was just

00:55:56.580 rule is governing the phone. But so much of it was about managing what appropriate expectations

00:56:04.380 look like. And the other thing too, that was really important, and this is something that

00:56:08.760 my parents established with me very early on. If you lie to me, I guarantee you, whatever you've

00:56:15.840 done is nowhere near as bad as if you've done it and lie to me about it. If you tell me the truth,

00:56:21.200 we can work through that. If you lie to me, I can't trust you. And I'm not going to treat you

00:56:25.920 like a responsible person. I'm certainly not going to treat you like an adult as you start

00:56:31.060 to approach those years if you lie to me. And so we never really had a problem with our kids

00:56:36.880 lying in part because, I'm going to chalk it up to two things, in part because we really did try

00:56:43.020 to explain why we were doing what we were doing and we'd let them ask questions. Here was the

00:56:49.520 other thing that was pretty critical. If you teach your kids that there is such a thing as

00:56:56.500 objective right and wrong, objective right or wrong can't be objective right or wrong because

00:57:01.640 dad says so or because mom says so. It has to be right or wrong because it is, which means that at

00:57:06.560 some point your kids are going to reach a certain level of cognition and comprehension to where

00:57:11.980 they're going to find you doing the thing that you told them was wrong. So what happens when

00:57:17.780 they call you on it. And the story I always tell people, because it's, it's just burned in my

00:57:23.940 memory. I came home from work one day. I was very stressed out. I come in, my two youngest kids are

00:57:29.780 in the kitchen. Luke and Allie are in there and they are making a mess, right? That's all I see.

00:57:33.300 They are making a mess of the kitchen and I'm angry because I'm already mad. And I didn't do

00:57:39.240 a good job of leaving work on the doorstep before I came in. So I go in there. I'm like, I don't know

00:57:43.040 what you guys are doing in here, but stop it right now. Clean up the room, clean this up. Well, dad,

00:57:47.160 I don't want to hear it clean it up and then I stormed upstairs so my oldest daughter comes up

00:57:53.300 knocks on the door and uh yeah what is it she goes daddy can I can I talk to you for a minute

00:57:59.280 I said okay what do you need she goes daddy I don't think you handled that very well

00:58:05.520 and she's about like 13 13 14 years old and I could I could remember for a split second

00:58:14.740 that kind of pride welling up in me like, oh, oh, I, you don't think I handled something very

00:58:21.560 well. Well, pray tell I had no idea you were such an expert on these things. And I remember stopping

00:58:27.100 myself and, and it was almost like that moment of like quick prayer where it was like, okay,

00:58:32.720 my daughter just had the courage to knock on the door, ask me if she could talk to me

00:58:37.380 and then had the courage to tell me that she thought I didn't handle something very well.

00:58:42.220 and she's doing this all very respectful she's not being snotty she's not being arrogant

00:58:46.660 she's she's being very respectful and i remember catching myself and going okay what is it

00:58:53.820 and she goes daddy the reason why luke and ali were in the kitchen was because they got

00:58:58.520 permission from mommy to make something for you and that's what they were trying to do

00:59:03.580 and now they're too scared because you're angry to tell you that's what they were doing

00:59:08.560 and i remember just thinking oh my gosh i mean not not only have i just you know lost all my

00:59:16.200 father of the year points with my two youngest children but now my my 13 year old daughter

00:59:20.960 has just confronted me with something when i'm already in a bad mood and she is 100 correct

00:59:28.520 and and i looked at her at that moment and and there but there by the grace of god go i

00:59:35.720 I said, sweetheart, you're right. And I'm wrong. And I'm going to go down. I'm going to apologize

00:59:44.000 to them. I said, but I want to thank you. I want to thank you for having the courage

00:59:50.040 and to do it respectfully. So you did the right thing. I appreciate it. I'll go apologize to Luke

00:59:56.960 alley. And I think what that did, and Lily and I have talked about this since, I think what that

01:00:06.940 did was it helped reinforce the idea that the rules that Tina and I were setting out for our

01:00:12.700 kids were not rules because we said so. They were rules because they were tied to an objective

01:00:21.020 morality. And like I said, our faith is really important to us. And this is always the part

01:00:24.280 where people get upset with me, where I say, look, I don't know how to give you the worldview

01:00:27.860 without telling you about the author of it. So if the rules came from God, then my job is to

01:00:37.180 faithfully execute them and to faithfully raise my children to understand right and wrong and to

01:00:43.860 behave in a trustworthy, honest, noble, loving, and merciful way. And when I violate that,

01:00:52.580 But if my response to my child is, how dare you say this to me?

01:00:56.960 This is my house.

01:00:57.720 I put food in your belly, clothes on your back, and a roof over your head.

01:01:00.860 You don't question me.

01:01:01.600 You don't challenge me.

01:01:02.980 You haven't taught them right or wrong. 0.94

01:01:04.660 You've taught them an unbridled, almost slavish obedience to authority. 0.65

01:01:11.840 And you may think, while they're under your authority, that that works out just fine.

01:01:16.060 But what you've actually taught them is that.

01:01:18.040 And then all of a sudden, one day, you wake up and you find you're not the authority anymore.

01:01:21.620 And it may be a teacher, it may be a professor, it may be a friend group, it may be a boss, it may be a boyfriend or a girlfriend or whatever it is, but then all of a sudden, when they don't know how to handle themselves in a difficult situation, when they don't have the courage, the capability, or the capacity to stand up and tell authority, no, you're wrong, and to do so respectfully, but to do it nonetheless, then you've set your child up for failure.

01:01:45.720 And I'm very grateful for the fact that I've now had an opportunity to witness or hear about from others times when my children have stood up in difficult situations and said, no, I don't think that's right.

01:02:07.260 whether it was to friends whether it was to peer group whether it was to a boss whether it was to

01:02:11.820 a teacher whatever it was to do so respectfully but to do it nonetheless when it could have cost

01:02:16.380 them something and I think that's one of the most important roles that we play as parents

01:02:21.460 and and I have to tell you I it one of the most formative one of the most formative ways you will

01:02:29.380 probably teach your children that and I don't think you should set this up or intentionally

01:02:32.720 do it but one of the most formative ways you will probably teach your children that is when you fail

01:02:35.940 and they respectfully call you on it and you have the presence of mind in that moment to

01:02:41.900 not only admit you were wrong um but thank them thank them for it yeah it's funny so you're

01:02:51.660 talking about faith i was uh i was brought up i wasn't brought up in a in a uh like an atheist

01:02:59.920 household it was more like agnostic understanding the importance of the bible and of christianity

01:03:07.360 but without believing in it if that makes sense sure cultural relevance but yeah cultural relevance

01:03:16.480 but also relevance to why you should act you should try to act like jesus because

01:03:24.240 it makes your life like inexplicably better but without believing yeah it's like hard to explain

01:03:33.420 so it was kind of a noble myth yes exactly exactly that um and so one of the main rules

01:03:41.020 in my household like the rule in my household was do not lie and it was hard to wrap my head

01:03:46.420 around that because i didn't understand especially from a christian perspective i didn't understand

01:03:50.880 the right the difference between right and wrong because i didn't really understand the difference

01:03:55.600 between good and evil that those were actual things in the world i thought things were more

01:04:01.100 nuanced than that um and so i didn't lie i just got in trouble all the time for not doing what

01:04:06.800 i was told to do but then i'd say well well you told me not to lie this is what i'm doing and

01:04:12.540 i'm not going to stop doing it but i'm not going to lie about it so that that's how i was brought

01:04:17.500 up i think it would have been such a relief to be brought up knowing that there was good and evil

01:04:23.940 because it's so hard to understand the world if you don't believe that especially with like in

01:04:30.800 terms of other people because i think i only really figured this out when i was maybe 26 or 27

01:04:36.020 that regardless of what happens in somebody's past that person can turn into a very bad person

01:04:45.280 even if what made them bad is heartbreaking and almost understandable it doesn't really matter

01:04:51.400 how you got there if what you ended up is is is an evil individual yeah and i think i was

01:04:57.260 completely naive to to people and the evil of people until much more recently although i were

01:05:05.460 you raised were you raised a christian is this something that you grew up with yeah i i was i

01:05:11.260 was raised, I was raised in what you might call a kind of like a charismatic Christianity. And so

01:05:17.120 I always felt that I believed in it, but I also felt like there was something missing. It seemed

01:05:26.100 overly emotional to me. And it wasn't until I was in the military and I had, there was another guy

01:05:33.900 I was, I was serving in the military with who I really respected as a, I really respected as a

01:05:38.220 man i respected him as in sf what we would call an operator um in vernacular terms probably like

01:05:43.960 or in common terms would be like a warrior right that's i respected this guy as a man who could

01:05:48.300 handle himself and do his job and and whatnot and he's very unapologetic in his faith but at the

01:05:54.480 same time it was very um he could debate it he could debate it very effectively on a philosophical

01:06:03.180 level, on a scientific level, on a mathematical level. And, uh, we, we would find ourselves in

01:06:09.300 situations as we were going through this course where, you know, him and I would be debating

01:06:12.620 other people. And he, he looked at me once, he goes, have you ever, have you ever looked into

01:06:15.920 Christian apologetics? I was like, what's that? And, um, he said, I think, I think you would be

01:06:23.000 very interested. And so I went down this rabbit hole of, you know, William Lane Craig and Oz

01:06:28.460 Guinness and, um, I mean, Frank Turek and well, Frank Turek later on and, um, you know, Cornelius

01:06:35.020 Van Til and Greg Bonson. And, and in addition to really pouring into the Bible and attempting to

01:06:40.380 understand it, not just, you know, apply it or say, Oh, this is, this is yes, of course, this is true

01:06:46.840 because this is nice and good. And this is what I've been taught, but really, really critically

01:06:50.460 looking at it and being like, is this true? Does this explain things well? And, um, and, and that's

01:06:57.340 the part where in my own faith, that, that time of testing where it was, I want to believe what's

01:07:02.800 true. I don't, I don't, I don't want to believe what just is utilitarian in nature. Oh, this works

01:07:08.860 because it just does. And let's not get to the bottom of why it does. And what I discovered

01:07:14.420 through a very critical analysis of my own faith was that I believed it. I believed it earlier in

01:07:22.160 life because it was convenient. I believed it later in life because it's true. And because I

01:07:28.060 felt like it did the best job of explaining the human condition. And I found it to be incredibly

01:07:38.180 logically consistent. And all of those things factored in heavily into my faith. Because

01:07:43.340 here's what you end up discovering. If you are believing in Christianity because it's easy, 0.98

01:07:52.160 Christianity, I don't know what Christianity you're subscribed to, but it isn't the one I'm committed to.

01:07:59.880 And I think it was G.K. Chesterton that said that it is not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting.

01:08:07.960 It's that it's been found difficult and left untried.

01:08:12.860 But what it does provide, and again, I don't say this for a utilitarian purpose.

01:08:18.360 I think it actually explains what's going on, not just a perspective of what's going on, but what's going on, is that it does provide an explanation for meaning and purpose and identity and good and evil and what those things mean.

01:08:33.260 And in a time where I feel like the entire country is going through an identity crisis, one of the things I always tell people is like, look, I've had ups and lows.

01:08:43.260 I've had moments where I thought I was going to die and never see my kids again.

01:08:46.100 And I've had moments where marriage was difficult.

01:08:50.580 I've had moments where raising kids was difficult,

01:08:52.720 where I lost a job and I didn't know how I was going to provide for my family.

01:08:56.780 Like I've been through some stuff, harder than some people,

01:09:01.120 nowhere near as hard as many others, but I've been through some stuff.

01:09:03.440 But I've never had a question of my identity.

01:09:06.000 I've never had a question of my meaning or purpose in this life.

01:09:09.520 And when things go wrong, that doesn't surprise me.

01:09:12.240 I expect things to be difficult.

01:09:13.940 I expect there to be challenges.

01:09:15.080 I expect there to be problems to overcome and deal with

01:09:17.480 because I believe we live in a fallen world

01:09:19.280 and I believe that there's injustice in the world

01:09:21.520 and I believe that one of the purposes I have in this world

01:09:26.960 is to confront this and to confront that injustice

01:09:29.780 in a way that actually brings glory to the God that made me.

01:09:35.740 And what it also does is it creates in you,

01:09:39.600 whether it be your marriage, whether it be your parenting,

01:09:41.900 that that relationship that you have with god that relationship you have with christ

01:09:48.500 creates an assurance of one's identity to where it steals you by that i mean it gives you the

01:09:57.780 fortitude to be able to stand up in situations where everybody else is running and it goes to

01:10:03.880 the verse where it says the peace which surpasses all understanding it's not the verse that says

01:10:08.720 the peace which everyone understands because everything's going smoothly. It's the peace

01:10:12.660 which surpasses all understanding. It's that moment in the chaos where

01:10:16.740 you can stand strong, confident in your meaning, your purpose, who you are and what you're here to

01:10:20.680 do where everybody else just sees chaos

01:10:24.100 and say, why does that person have peace in that moment?

01:10:28.960 And that's why. And like I said, I will always get to this point

01:10:32.720 where I'm talking, whether it's to our podcast audience or

01:10:35.760 where people say, no, Nick, I like everything he had to say,

01:10:38.640 but I don't see that God has anything to do with it.

01:10:40.320 I said, well, then you see something I don't.

01:10:42.580 Again, I can't give you the worldview without the author.

01:10:48.640 And all I can say is that for what it's worth,

01:10:50.900 I've come to that conclusion not just through emotional

01:10:54.160 or spiritual conviction,

01:10:55.660 but what I believe to be very rigorous intellectual conviction as well,

01:11:00.520 which makes sense because Scripture doesn't tell you to love God

01:11:04.320 with just all your heart adjust all your emotions it tells you to love them with with your with

01:11:09.560 your strength with your spirit with your mind um and i think when you when you do that and it's a

01:11:15.400 continuous process uh but when you do that all of a sudden things make sense even when it gets bad

01:11:21.620 yeah that was very well said um i like that quote um that you had about christianity not being easy

01:11:30.980 which was my experience because like I said growing up I knew the psychological significance

01:11:36.140 of the biblical stories and I knew the biblical stories pretty well but I never understood what

01:11:40.620 I didn't have the feeling I didn't understand it more than that and I remember looking at people

01:11:46.540 who were Christians mostly and they seemed calmer you know even if things weren't going well around

01:11:53.820 them they just had a type of peace and I started seeing that more and more and then I saw it in my

01:11:59.120 mom. And I was just like, that looks great. Whatever they have looks fantastic. And if I

01:12:05.980 could just get over this hump of understanding, I really want that. I just don't know how to get

01:12:12.220 over it. So I can, uh, and then I, and then I did, thank goodness. Um, just, uh, just a couple

01:12:20.120 of years ago, but I can understand where people are coming from where they're like, I don't get

01:12:23.760 it yeah it'd be not yeah but um that was spot on though it's not easier it wasn't easy how do you

01:12:30.620 that's why no one's been able to like properly explain uh jesus and god to an atheist audience

01:12:40.680 there isn't an elevator like there are elevator pitches but there's no way to just convey the

01:12:45.600 meaning in in all the meaning unfortunately i don't know what has to happen to you i feel like

01:12:51.500 you have to i had to hit rock bottom rock below what i thought rock bottom was for any change to

01:12:57.280 happen to me and then it happened yeah uh so very strange well that was interesting my husband's

01:13:06.660 the one who said hey you should get this nick guy on he looks great well i appreciate it so

01:13:11.080 yeah so that was that was fantastic um thank you very much for coming on no no it really really

01:13:17.880 is my pleasure. I have a great appreciation for what you do and for the topics that you bring up

01:13:23.640 and for your willingness to be able to discuss things. I will tell you, as much as I believe

01:13:29.240 there need to be more men out there providing kind of an alternative to some of the male backlash

01:13:38.340 that's understandably happening against feminism, we need a lot more young women 0.84

01:13:45.080 that are also willing to stand up 1.00

01:13:47.120 and to be able to either share from experiences

01:13:49.260 or to just be able to provide a different version

01:13:53.960 of what being a strong woman looks like.

01:13:57.740 And so I certainly appreciate your willingness

01:13:59.880 to wade into this culture,

01:14:02.200 this cultural environment that we find ourselves

01:14:03.880 that's oftentimes hostile to the stances

01:14:07.560 that you're taking and to make them anyway.

01:14:09.040 So thank you.

01:14:10.520 Wow.

01:14:11.180 Well, thank you very much.

01:14:13.200 It was nice meeting you.

01:14:14.240 You as well.

01:14:15.080 Thank you.

The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - December 20, 2023

Resilience, Trust, Discipline, and Balancing Ambition ｜ Nick Freitas EP 195

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