100% Dad Episode 006- Interviews with Dads- Trey Morgan

Welcome to episode 6 of 100% Dad podcast interview with dads. Today we got Trey Morgan, minister, pastor, great dad, knows more about marriage than you know about your hairline. With no further ado, here we go. 100% Dad podcast interviews with dads. Trey Morgan, how are you?

Honored to be here.

We're just talking about RVs. How long have you guys had yours?

Well, we've had two. We had, we had one when our boys were small and sold it after they kind of got a little older and we started having to chase them around doing sports. And then once they're just almost out of the house and we have a little bit more time and not chasing quite as much, we bought a second. We've had it for about a year and a half now.

Cool. How far do you guys go? Real far? Are you just keeping it local?

Uh, we, we actually use it a lot as a spare bedroom when a bunch of our kids and stuff come home, and we'll, we'll, uh, that makes sense. We'll drag it to the house and let a couple of them stay in it. It works really well.

Yeah, it's not a bad idea. Um, let's introduce yourself. Trey Morgan, who are you?

Uh, my name is Trey Morgan. I am a, uh, uh, a minister, a pastor, Um, whatever you want to call it, have been most all of my life in some kind of ministry. Uh, my wife and I do, uh, marriage and family workshops all over, uh, the U.S. Uh, currently right now during the quarantine time, we have kind of shut down and holding off. We've got one, we've canceled a couple, got one scheduled for July. We're holding out to see if that works. Been married 31 years. I have 4 boys that range from age 30 down to 18. We're about to be empty nesters. We're, we're just a few months away as our last one's going off to college. And so this is kind of a new time for my wife and I, uh, as we are both a little nervous and excited about a change in who we are. We've got our first grandchild on the way, which we're really excited about too.

Nice. Wow. So I didn't know you were a minister or a pastor.

I am, yes.

So you didn't specify, so what denomination is that?

Uh, I preach for a non-denominational church. It is a Church of Christ in a little community. I live in a little community about 6,000 people and, uh, preach for a church here that's, uh, it's a good healthy church, uh, in just every form and fashion. Just good, just good healthy church. Very, very kind, very welcoming, very loving, good leadership. We have a, we have a packed house every Sunday, and that's going to cause a little bit of issues in a sense of, uh, once we start meeting back together, how are we going to do that? So we're, we're, we're in the process of figuring out how that goes. But, uh, I've been teaching and speaking since I was about 20 years old, and that's a little over 30 years.

Cool. What part of the country are you guys?

We are in the panhandle of Texas. And so, yeah, my Texas reference. Yeah, well, I caught that. I just thought you knew. Yeah, no, we grew up in Texas and have never wandered very far. We love small-town living. Our little community of 6,000, the biggest— the biggest— well, the closest mall is 2 hours away or an hour and 45 away from us.

You're real rural.

We are very rural, and, and we've enjoyed raising kids in a community like this. We know their teachers, their principals, their friends, their friends' parents. Um, it has been a good, a good place to live. And, and now that all our boys have moved— well, they all live about 2 hours from us, and even the one that's going to college, he'll go to college where his brothers live. And so we're all kind of, uh People are saying, are y'all going to move? Are y'all going to move? We, we, we really like where we live and, and probably will stay right where we're at. 2 hours is not a bad drive.

No, not at all. Uh, so what part of Texas? I don't know, I'm not familiar with what—

you're all right, right up at the very, very top. Um, close to an Oklahoma border, but, but we are up toward the top, close to Amarillo. Um, between Amarillo and Wichita Falls, Texas. I don't know if that helps at all.

Amarillo, I feel like that was in a TV show or a movie somewhere.

Yeah, I think there's been a lot of country western songs about, uh, Amarillo by Morning and stuff. So yeah, Amarillo is, uh, pretty good. We're 3 hours from Dallas. That's usually where we have to drive to to fly out of.

Okay, and Dallas would be east of you?

It would be, yes.

Okay. Okay, I know where that is. That's what we should lead with from now on. We are 3 hours west of Dallas. End of discussion. Really? No, that's what I'm saying you should say.

Ah, well, I got you.

That's the reference point. No one knows where Armadillo or Amarillo is.

Uh, well, a lot of folks know the Panhandle, but, uh, but you're probably right. We just need to say 3 hours east of Dallas. That's a way— pretty good way to look at it.

West of Dallas.

West of Dallas, yes. Or, or close to a couple hours from Lubbock, Texas. I mean, there's at least— there's a university there.

All right, so you got 4 kids, oldest 30, youngest 18. Uh, how'd you guys do college?

We, uh, all of our kids have done college. Our last one's about to. Um, the first 2, um, well, our oldest son— let me just start there for a second. Our oldest son went to college for a couple of years, said, I'm just not sure what I want to do and I'm wasting your time and my time. And he said, I'm single, let's go do something fun. And so he, against his mother and father's wishes at that time, he went into the Army and said, I want to make an Army Ranger. And we said, that's not going to happen. There's fewer Army Rangers than there are Navy SEALs, and that's just not something that's going to happen. We told him, said, find a— "Find a job in the Army that you can get out and do." And he said, "But that wouldn't be fun." Well—

So you were okay with the Army, just not maybe the Special Forces track.

Exactly. And he did exactly what— he's kind of a strong-willed, hard-headed kid, and he did exactly what he said he'd do. And he made Army Ranger, and he was a Ranger for 4 years and did 3 tours and about 30 to 40 night missions. That was his job. He went in and hunted folks down and brought them back with a team of guys.

He was just—

He was on the Strike Force team. So, uh, it was a good experience. He's home, he's back in college. Um, the government's paying for college and he's doing well. He's married. Life is good for Taylor. He is, he is enjoying, uh, what he does, which is school. And he is actually selling home and life insurance. He loves people. He's a real people person. So that really fits his wheelhouse well.

Uh, I feel like— because I feel like Special Force guys usually stay military or go private contractor.

Yeah, and, and that was something he talked about, you know. He talked about that and had some opportunities because he had a lot of clearance in what that he— what he did. Now, he didn't want to stay military because that's, you know, an Army Ranger is not the healthiest emotionally, mentally, and even physically to stay into for a long period of time. I mean, they put you out there right there. And so, uh, he could have rolled into something different, um, but he just decided— he looked at, uh, Homeland Security, he looked at several things like that, but he got married and he's fallen in love. He's been married for, uh, nearly a year now, and, and the last thing he wants to do is to take off and go somewhere, uh, that's not anywhere close to his new bride. And he's smart. I, you know, personally, I feel like that's a smart thing to do, leaving for 6 months at a time not a smart thing, but he's enjoying what he's doing. But, uh, he's got a lot of past skill, life experience for a 30-year-old man, and a lot of incredible, a lot of incredible stories.

That's the one about to give you a grandchild, I assume?

No, actually, the, the, the second oldest, uh, he's the one. He, he, he's been married for several— 4 years, 4 or 5 years now, and he's a Texas Tech graduate. We put him through school Um, took him 5 years when it should have been 4, but it took him a little while to figure out what he was going to do. And, uh, we applied for every scholarship we could. He's an English teacher, a high school English teacher, and he and his wife Abby, uh, have been married for about 4 and a half years, and, and she's an RN, expecting. And, uh, September we got a grandbaby coming, and we're— we have been waiting for that forever.

Oh yeah, I bet.

And then the last two aren't married. Connor, Connor's our third oldest and he's 24. He was our, I don't know if I've seen your kids, but I don't know if you've got one, but Connor was our strong-willed child. Do you got a strong-willed child?

Oh yeah.

Okay, yeah, Connor's our strong-willed child. He was always the one who, I will do it, you know, tell me I can't and I will. I mean, he, had we had him first, we might not have had the other ones, you know, is what I'm trying to say. But, uh, he, he said, I'm gonna go to school and I'm gonna work from home. And we, we told him, said, nobody gets a job where you work from home right out of, right out of college. He did, because that's what he said he was going to do. And so he loves his job, he works from home, he's a computer guy, builds online stuff for companies, and, uh, uh, just a great guy and, and makes it— keeps us laughing all the time.

Youngest is, uh, what, senior in high school?

He's 18, he's a senior in high school. Found out yesterday they won't be having a graduation, of course. Yeah, they're going to pretty much just have the family come up to the gym and kind of give them their, their diplomas. And so, you know, this group of kids, it's interesting, this group of kids that are graduating now that won't graduate are leaving high school in kind of a weird time, but they also are the same kids that came in in the, you know, not— Cooper was born 9/11 or 2001. He's a— this graduating class came into the world when, right after, either right before, right after 9/11. And so it's kind of interesting to me that this group of kids that came into the world in a crazy time will go out of high school the same way.

That's a unique take. I hadn't even thought about that before.

Yeah, they, they came into— yeah, I remember when he was born, we thought, what are we bringing a kid into? And then we've got a grandchild that I know my son and daughter-in-law have been going, what are we bringing this grandkid into right now?

It'll get better.

It will.

It'll get better. So, uh, 18-year-old about to go to school, not going to go to school. What's been going on?

College. Uh, he is going to college and he's going to study biology, going to do something medical.

He's thinking, uh Uh, doctor, find the cure for COVID, please.

Yeah, yeah, physician's assistant, pharmacy something. He likes that really well, and, and he's a smart kid. He'll do fine in whatever direction like that he wants to go. He takes after his mama.

So I'm so used to being on the other end of the spectrum with, you know, we just got out of diapers. We've had a decade of diapers, and so we're like thrilled that that's ending for us. And you're completely on the other end of the stage, so Um, I just know college is a big, a big thing for a lot of parents in terms of cost, in terms of, uh, you know, there's some parents forcing their kids to go to school when they don't want to be there, and some kids trying to get them to go and the kids don't want to go there, or just going straight to trades, or, uh, yes, I guess. What were your discussions like with your kids? Was it just like an assumed thing?

Well, we don't— we've always gave them the option We've never told them they have to go to college. If they wanted to go to a trade school, we'd have been happy with that. We have worked hard at saving money in order to help put them through school. We've looked for scholarships, grants, things like that to help with school. Thankfully, and I give credit to my wife who is, and maybe Dave Ramsey, our kids have got out of school with very, very, very little debt. And we've done the same thing. We've been able to get our kids through school with, to this point, don't know how this last one's gonna do, but to this point, our kids, we've got them through school and they hadn't come out with tons of debt like a lot of other college kids, but they've all chosen to go through school and get a degree. And we had always told them, we'll help you if you're willing to go, you gotta stay in school, you gotta stay out of trouble. You know, we did things like we rented apartments instead of staying on campus. We always looked for ways to, ways to, to save money any way we could, uh, in, in education. But, uh, yeah, it's been a big deal, and we're, we're again at that stage trying to figure out, all right, so how are we going to do this putting a kiddo through school?

Yeah, because I mean, that's potential if you got 4 kids, so 16 years of tuition and books and dorms, and I feel like that can add up pretty dang quick.

And it has, and it really has. There are times when it does add up, and we're trying to figure out how do we How do we make this work?

So your oldest one, so he goes to college, I assume your first one in college. So you guys are really proud and you feel like everything's going right. He comes back and says he doesn't want to do it anymore. I don't know what the grades were like or if you just knew it was coming. Was it like a shock when he came in or was that just something? Yeah, it was having evolved.

Yeah, we, uh, he came in, he started talking about it, we were like, are you sure? And we kept thinking it would go away. When he started talking Army and started talking about taking an ASVAB test, that's where they place you. He made good grades. In fact, he, on his ASVAB test for the Army or the military, he scored so well, they told him, said, "You can do anything you want. Whatever you wanna do in Army, you scored good enough, you're bright enough, we'll train you to do everything." And that's when we were going, "Let's do something in communications. If you're gonna go, let's do something that you can take this skill out." after the Army is over and, and use it in real-life setting. And that wasn't what he wanted to do. He was wanting to jump out airplanes and do that.

I'm assuming they all want to do that.

Well, this one, this one's always been a risk-taker. The oldest always seems to be your risk-taker, and he's the one that has always been willing to take the risk and try something. I'm always the one that sits back going, man, are you sure? But it was tough. It was tough on both of us because here was our oldest going off to the Army, and we were like, I don't know if he knows what he's doing, uh, but he pulled it off. You know, we, we had our doubts, but man, he, he pulled it off and fought through some really hard times in the way of training. Uh, basic training was a— man, that was a, that was a, a resort compared to what they put you through for Ranger training.

Yeah, I've heard Special Force training is, uh, it's pretty intense. It was really trying to get you to quit.

Yeah. Oh, they are. And they started out with, uh, man, I think they started out in his class with maybe 200 trying out and, and wound up with maybe 8, 12, or 15 is all. And, uh, yeah, it was, it was, it was crazy. They, they— it is amazing what they put you through trying to get you to quit.

So what was mom and dad's perspective on that? I mean, were you guys like supportive of a transition to military or dropping out of school? Were you trying to get him to go the other way?

Well, we—

I assume every parent's got to have fear of, well, you go to the military, you know, you risk.

Yeah, we were very, we were very fearful. Um, and, and we— once he, once he went in and decided, no, I'm going, we didn't have any more options. I mean, I mean, it was like accept it or, or don't. And so we didn't have a clue. We've never had, we've never had anyone close to us that's done this. And so we, we went to educate educating ourselves really quickly on what this was. We started talking to other parents who had done Army. We'd start talking to other parents who had done Airborne, which is jumping out of planes. And then we had one friend that we were able to find that had done— they had a kid that had done Rangers. And so we talked to them and asked them lots of questions. We started checking out books in the library because Taylor would use language and vocabulary of words that we just didn't understand. This was not our life. It did not make sense to us. And so we, we educated ourselves on, on what he was doing, what we could expect. And it was, it was amazing. Some of the things. But, you know, after looking back, they put him in very dangerous places, but they trained him amazingly and they put him around some of the most trained people in the world. So it's like, we're going to put your son out there, but we're going to put him in a group that we have spent an amazing amount of time training and preparing for this situation. So at least they had him in a situation to where they weren't throwing him out there with some guys who barely knew how to shoot a gun. They, they, they trained those guys. And so, yeah, it was fearful, especially when he'd take off and go do tours and disappear in Afghanistan for you know, months at a time. And I'd wake up at night and check a cell phone to see if I'd heard a text from him or a phone call. And, and, uh, yeah, I spent a lot of nights where you just have to say a prayer and roll back over and go to sleep because there's just not much you can do about it.

Yeah, that's definitely not much you can do about it. I like, uh, you know, the fact that you recognize you guys' own ignorance to it and just, you know, took it in your own hands and went out and started reading books and interviewing and, uh, getting to know it. I feel like that's a step a lot of people miss, is kind of sit in that lack of knowledge and just worry and fret and, yeah, panic. And I feel like that's where a lot of anxiety comes from.

We ask a lot of questions, and, and like I said, we just wanted to understand what he was doing. And, and whether, whether your kid's an Army Ranger or a doctor or an English teacher, if you can at least educate yourself on what they're doing to have conversations with that, that's a healthy thing. And we still— I love to bring stuff up and ask him today. He loves talking about it. You know, tell me about— tell me some stories. He's got some incredible stories of things that they did, places they saw, you know, adventures, missions they went on that were incredible. And yeah, it's amazing.

Yeah, I feel like when you talk about like man skills, like what makes a man, Like, military guys just know, like, all the things, you know. They know how to, you know, big survivalist skills and mechanical skills, and they just get so well-rounded in that world. Uh, yeah, my brother-in-law was in— is he in the Navy? Yeah, I think he was in the Navy, and he just, you know, jack of all trades and just, you know, kind of like a man's man, which I wasn't in the military, so I didn't— I know a little bit of it just from, you know, hacking around on my own, but nothing like those guys do.

Yeah. And I'm always impressed with his— you know, we, we'll take a gun and go out and shoot, and I'm always impressed at his skills of handling a gun and shooting and just knowing what he's doing. But more than that, I think I'm impressed with his, his mental, his mental preparation. Meaning, you know, I mean, when he came back, went to college, I asked him, I said, you're gonna be all right? Can you do this? You know? And he was like, man, I've slept in the dirt for you know, 6 days at a time in a hole, I can definitely handle college. Uh, so it pretty much prepared him that there, there's nothing that the world can throw at him that he's not going to be ready for, um, because they pretty much put him through everything bad already.

Uh, growing up, so you're, uh, I would make, uh, some presumptions on what it's like to grow up with a pastor as a father. Of, you know, just kind of that cookie cutter— or not maybe cookie cutter, wrong— that like standard home. Mom and dad there, you know, taffy. It's— there's a routine, uh, you have normal work hours, you know, Sundays at church, um, you know, very involved with community. Uh, so I guess what was life like growing up? Uh, you know, from— I guess from the boys' perspective, where were mom and dad?

Well, they—

specifically dad, because this is a dad podcast, so we should be focused.

There's going to be pros and cons, I will tell you that. Uh, they would tell you there are pros and cons. We didn't have And they, they've never had normal weekends in a sense, you know. How many, how many families go, hey, long weekend, let's take off and go somewhere? I, I work on Sundays. It don't happen, you know. And so we didn't get the normal, let's take off and go somewhere this weekend, do something like that. We were home on weekends, uh, and so they had to deal with that. There were a few times that we would have a crisis and I'd have to go, hey, we got to cut this short, I got to go home. But for the most part, I think I did a good job. My wife and I did a good job at protecting them from some of the, you know, anybody that's got a job, there's always dirt that comes with a job. There's always bad things that come with a job. And we didn't always have to feel like, you know, all of my kids still, you know, they still, call themselves a Christian. They still go to church. So it's not like any of them grew up going, man, I hate what my dad did. Um, but it was different, um, in a sense along those lines. But I will tell you, my kids are no different than anybody else's kids just because they grew up in a home, uh, where we did ministry. Uh, we're— our kids are just like the, the kids next door and across the street. My kids all got in trouble like anybody else's kids, and And the worst thing you can do is kind of put your kids on a platform sometime and say, you know, my— you know, we learned a long time ago, don't you ever say my kids won't do that because they're going to do whatever you do. So my kids are just like anybody else's kids. They've made mistakes. We've had struggles. We've had battles. But for the most part, you know, it's been a good experience for them. None of my kids were interested in doing what their dad does. It didn't bother me at all. My oldest loves to fill in and teach and teach class. And if he gets a chance to speak somewhere, he'll do that. That's kind of his comfort zone. But the rest of them were like, we don't want anything to do with being in full-time ministry. And we're okay with that. That's, that's not what, you know, do what you love to do. And as long as you do what you love to do and you're happy and you do what's right, we don't care what you do. You can drive a truck, you know, you can be a doctor. We just don't care.

And I'm assuming you told them that growing up.

All the time. All the time. We didn't care if they became a doctor or drove a trash truck. And my apologies to the trash truck drivers out there. I'm not trying to say from one extent to the other, but we told them, as long as you're happy and you do the right thing in this world, we don't care what you do.

Uh, when I was little, the one thing I— and I still would do it, I think, uh, the one thing I wanted to be desperately when I was little, to about age 10, was be a trash guy and just hang off the back of the truck and, and get the scope out all the neighborhoods and first dibs on all the treasure people are throwing away. I mean, I would go out and just wait for them and help them load the truck. I think that's— so my kids have actually tried to help out and they won't let them out. I lost you on that.

Oh, sorry. I, I was simply saying I think every kid in the world watches those guys and go, that's really cool, I'd like to do that at some point in my life.

Yeah, I mean, on our street we got lots of boys on our streets, young kids, um, and they all, they all go out there. And, uh, that— the only downside I don't like is, you know, we're in such a litigious world now that, uh, they, they won't let the kids help out. But I just remember doing this again. I just love that. I would throw the bags in there, they'd let me pull the handle and watch that big— not a claw, but that big thing come down and scoop and push the trash in. I just love that as a kid.

But I hear you, and they make good—

they make really good money in the big cities. I don't know about rural places, but those union guys up in New York, those are six-figure trash guys. I mean, they're—

wow, I didn't realize that. Maybe I do— would like— maybe I would like my kids to be a— to drive a trash truck.

Yeah, I don't know how that is in, in Amarillo, Texas. I don't know how it is in our county either, but, uh, I know up there they were, they were making real bank because they're union. I guess everyone— although New York, you know, it might be different, uh, very possible. So, uh, what else we got? So you do marriage classes, you said?

Yes.

So what does that entail?

Well, we, uh, my wife and I for years have done workshops and retreats and marriage seminars. We just didn't get real serious about it because we had kids at home. And so for the longest time, we have not done— you know, we might do one or two a year for a church or a group of people that said, hey, come do a marriage seminar for us. But once our kids have gotten older, in the last, uh, 8 years or so, we're where we can do it more often. Uh, we, we do all over the United States all the time. Um, we actually try to keep it— because I have a full-time job— we try to keep it to about one workshop a month. We all— we probably could do one a weekend if we wanted somewhere. Uh, we stay booked up about a year and a half to— we're actually booked up. We have dates in 2022 nearly full and are taking dates in 2023 right now for, for workshops and conferences. And so, uh, We wrote a book recently on, on marriage, and, uh, but we, we do marriage and family workshops and seminars everywhere. We love it. That's kind of, kind of our wheelhouse. We really like to. Now my wife's a little bit different than that. She's, she's a little on the introverted side, which is fine, and she'll do them with me, but she still tries to figure out how I've talked her into doing that kind of stuff.

Uh, did you guys publish a book?

We did.

What's it called?

Book is called 10 Ways to a Stronger Marriage. It is available on Amazon.

Ebook or is it paper?

You can get it through Kindle, but it's on paper. That's, that's the one that's most popular. And it's done incredibly well. We have been very, very blessed at how well that thing has done because we self-published. We, we pushed it with publishers and we had some folks that were interested, but they were all you know, we might can get it out in a couple of years type thing. And we were like, no, we got this written, we're ready to roll. And so we just did it ourselves, and it has done really well.

There's just no need to go through the publishing houses anymore.

So I don't think so. Uh, I had a guy tell me the other day that he was getting ready to publish a book, and I said, that sounds great. He said, well, it's going to cost me about— I think he said $6,800 to go with the publisher. And I— he said, what'd yours cost? I said, mine didn't cost me anything. And he said, he said, what do you mean nothing? I said, I said, we had friends that proofed it. Um, we, we actually had a couple of guys that were a little more professional proof it, and we bought them a gift card. But man, I spent no money. Uh, and so everything was a profit. And then, and then that guy's publisher is still going to take a percentage off of it.

Yeah, yeah, they don't do what they say they're going to do and what actually is the end result. I just feel like it's Exactly.

And we kind of feel that way. And but it has— that was a good thing for us. It worked really well. We'll probably do another one next year and we'll do a part 2 and we'll probably do this one on family, 10 Ways to a Stronger Family.

And we—

a lot of our workshop material that we put in there that deals with parenting and blended families and things along those lines.

Sounds fun. So how long were you guys married before kids? Just one year?

Yeah, one year. We actually were high school sweethearts. We got married— Lee had graduated from high school and we got married two months later. She was just turned 18. And we said we were going to wait for five years to have kids. And about five months later, the first one was on the way. Thankfully, thankfully, uh, we had dated for 4 years, so we had had some time to spend together before we came. So that was a healthy thing.

But, uh, yeah, we, we, we didn't plan that real well, but we wouldn't change anything because that's a biblical premise of, uh, you know, spend a year without kids and without moving and, and all that kind of stuff to really get to know each other.

It's a, it's a healthy thing. I, I think our, our second oldest son Parker and his wife Abby have done well. They've been married for 4 years Uh, saved money, got to know each other, been all over the world looking around, and now they've said, okay, it's time. And so I think that's a good way to do things.

Yeah, I agree, I agree, because having kids definitely throws a wrench into it. And then you're going to get to your scenario where then kids are out of the house and you still have got, you know, 40, 50 years. Yes, with this person. Hopefully, you know, decently.

So yeah, and that's, that's one of the things we talk about in our workshop is you better be prepared for when the kids leave, because if you've just been mom and dad and you have not been husband and wife for the past however many years it's been, you're going to have some adjusting to do. Now we're prepared, we're ready. But there's a, there's actually a spike in the divorce rate for couples in mid-20s to late 20s, years-wise, where they've been married, because it's when the kids leave home and they're kind kind of like, I don't even know who this guy is, or, you know, I don't know. Yeah. And so it's kind of tough on a lot of couples because kids leave the home and there they look at each other and go, I don't know who you are. And so you better, you better wear the mom and dad hat, but you better also wear the husband-wife hat.

Yeah, we've put out a few posts on that where, uh, in a sense we're saying relationship with mom is paramount to relationship with kids. It's almost more important. Yes, because it affects the relationship with the kids.

Yes, I have seen those posts. I've seen those posts, and you are 100% right. At least in our book, we believe that, uh, if you put your kids first, uh, your kids will suffer and your marriage will suffer. But if you put your marriage first, your kids will be blessed and your marriage will be blessed. Um, we think that's the way it's designed to work.

Yeah, uh, you probably— if you've ever put that information out, you see a lot of people, a lot of parents feel opposite.

Yes, they do.

That's completely wrong.

They do.

Usually they're usually struggling in their relationships.

Yes. And, and we've also noticed that a lot of times, uh, you get a, a— let's just take a mama for a second. Maybe she's had a couple of really bummer of a husbands. And the only thing that's been faithful to her in the past 10 years has been those kids. And she comes along and she goes, there's no way I'm going to put my husband over— a husband over my kids because, you know, none of those have been faithful to me. Only thing's been faithful to me is my kids. And we can understand that. That's a, that's a tough situation.

Well, you're getting into a stepparent relationship at that point.

That's true. That is true.

That does change the dynamic.

I think that is exactly right. And it very, very much so. But yeah, you've got that marriage needs to be there.

No, 100%. Uh, let's see what else. So you guys probably, uh, you probably did pre-marriage counseling and all that. Were you in the ministry the whole time, like out of high school?

Pretty much. As soon as we got out of high school, we went to, uh, uh, seminary, I guess a good way to put that, uh, Bible college where we trained to do ministry. And so, uh, we, we immediately went into that. It's really the only thing we've ever known. And we started very young. And so we did some premarital counseling. Back then, that was not a big— people didn't know back then how important that was. But I'm thankful that I had somebody kind of stepped in our life and said, "Have you had any premarital counseling?" And I said, "No, not really." And he said, "Here's a book. Here's some cassette tapes." And my wife and I— well, my fiancée and I at the time— were on some trips and we were able to listen and read some stuff, and that really did help us.

Yeah, we had a— we had some good older role models because we got married as teenagers as well. But we were Catholic, so our church, if you wanted to get married there, they made you go— I forget what it was called. I think it's called Engaged Encounter, where it's just like a 3-day trip. It was overnight and everything. They cover a lot of things and make sure you're communicating on all levels and That is really the wise thing.

In fact, if I do a wedding today, I require— if you're going to ask me to do it, you're going to do some counseling, premarital counseling with me before you do that. So, and we've kind of made that a requisite with most—

Lucky them, they get the guy who wrote the book on marriage to give them the counseling.

Well, and we do that a lot. Read the book and we're going to talk about it. And so that's a really beneficial thing to for premarital counseling.

Nice. Um, I'm going through my notes here. So I'm skipping because you're in such a different age bracket or a time.

I know, I know it.

Are you the kind of dad, uh, you fix stuff around the house or you hire that out? Are you the handy guy?

I'm a handy guy. Uh, Maybe that's because my wife is— she likes to remodel and redo and paint and fix, and it was like, you better learn how to do those things or you'll never have any money in life. So we— during the quarantine, yeah, during the quarantine, we have gutted a kitchen and remodeled it, and we're close to having it done. We've done all the work. And what's that, the house or the camper? No, the house. We did the house. We've done the house in the past month. And so we put in new countertops and I built a new vent hood and we've just gutted everything and redone it, put in some new sheetrock, kind of cleared, kind of opened it up. And so I've had YouTube videos. You can teach yourself to do a lot of stuff through YouTube videos.

That's a totally different world. I remember when I was a kid, my dad had a book. Basically how to do general household repair, but it was like a book, like encyclopedia. You just change out light switch and all this other— all these different things, you just flip to the page and that's how he would do tasks. And nowadays we just got 100 YouTube videos to show us exactly how to do it and the problems that you're going to run into, which is what I really enjoy.

Yeah, I agree. I don't do anything, even if I've done it before, you know, I've, I've tiled before, I've done a lot of tiling, and, uh, we've redone a couple of bathrooms, but before I sit down and tiled my kitchen backsplash, I sat down and rewatched videos on YouTube. I mean, you can learn about how to lay flooring, how to be a good dad, how to be a good husband. I mean, there's just— the information's out there if we just choose not to be lazy and spend some time looking at it.

Yeah. I guess I already know the answer to this one, but we're gonna ask him anyway. So if you die, are you leaving your family in a mess? Do you have your will in place? Do you have life insurance?

That has not always been the case early in marriage. Um, well, early, early in marriage, that was not the case. But, but yes, uh, in the past 20 years, everything's good. We have life insurance. We preach that, um, in a sense of we tell folks— I get frustrated with people, you know, if you can afford a a new pair of tennis shoes and a cell phone contract, you can afford some term life insurance so that your family is not going to be holding the bag at your death at trying to pay for funeral expenses and your bills. But we've got wheels. We need to update a couple of things in our wheel, but we do have a wheel that has been done. Now that our kids are much older, we just need to change kind of some stuff. But if we passed, we would feel very comfortable with with everything and how it goes. But man, that's something that we need to keep preaching, uh, that you need to keep talking about, because dads need to have that in order. And we meet folks all the time that, you know, little families— breaks my heart. Hey, we got to do a GoFundMe because my dad died, or somebody in our family died and we didn't have any insurance. Man, you could have got insurance for $12 a month.

Yeah, I just don't think people understand how messy it gets when you die without the legal documents in place.

Yes.

How your family kind of goes from being, you know, shocked, sad, to then being mad pretty much at you because you've now left them in a mess regardless of, you know, how it happened. You put them in a situation, you've left them just in a complete, complete wreck. We just had that to some friends of friends of ours, and the guy was 30, uh, 36, 37, something like that. I mean ridiculously young. Shanata died, don't even know how it happened, but he was on a business trip and never came back. And it's just, everything was in his name. Uh, the probate courts took forever, just tied it. It just, it created a complete mess for the, for the wife. And I think they had 2 or 3 kids. Uh, yeah, so, you know, they had some assets, it was just everything was in his name. And it just, for I think a solid 2-3 months, it was just a living nightmare of just trying to live. Um, yeah, I gotta get her on the podcast.

Yeah, on top of trying to deal with the grief of losing a, a loved one, which is— it's just not fair.

It's a horrible time to be making decisions. Yes, you know, everything's panic, everything's fear.

Yeah, and the best thing you can do is, uh, talk about your funeral, everything from your funeral to, uh You know, my wife comes in oftentimes and goes, here's where I have all the— she's the one that takes care of the bills and, and knows where all the stuff is, the, the important stuff. And she'll come in and go, now don't forget that I keep these right here. Uh, and we kind of make sure everybody knows where stuff is. And, and, but yeah, we've just seen— I think we've seen too many times people that have gone through it and done it wrong, and we've decided we want to make sure we do things right.

Yeah, you probably see all the bad side, you know, being a pastor, because you have to obviously be inserted in those scenarios.

Yeah, and sometimes those are really, really tough.

Yeah, I imagine.

But I'm glad you asked that question. That's a question that needs to be asked every single dad. Yep.

And the way it's so easy, the life insurance— I guess sometimes you have money issues, but It's so cheap.

Term life insurance is so cheap, and, and there's no reason unless you've got some past physical problems, um, you know, and I've had some of those, uh, I'm— I've had cancer in my past, and, and so my insurance is a little higher, but I can still— man, you still find term insurance that, that can— that you can afford out there.

Yeah. So when you guys— I'm going to take you back 30 years now. When you guys were just getting into, uh, having kids. Uh, did you guys both come from— you and your wife, uh, I guess, what were your households? Do you both come from mom and dad there? Anybody from, uh, divorced or single-parent households?

No, Lee comes from a, a, uh, traditional or nuclear family, as they call it today. Mom and dad, that sort of thing. I came from a blended family, but my blended family was a little bit different. Uh, my, my father died of cancer when I was a little boy, probably 4. And, uh, and so my mom was a widow, and, and then she remarried a man several years later who was a widower whose wife had died in a car accident. And we, we made a family, or we combined and blended a family of 9. And so I grew up in a, in a very large family for as far back as I can remember. Um, I've had you know, 6 siblings and, and 2 parents, and we lived in a 3-bedroom house with 1— with 2 bathrooms. And so it was, uh, it was an experience, but it was a good thing.

That's cool. Well, circumstances aren't cool, but it's an interesting family dynamic. Certainly it is.

And I, I was very blessed to, uh, I was very blessed to have a father that I consider my father and not my stepdad that he, he took me in as his son and raised me as his son and treated me no different than he treated any of his actual kids who were his blood kids. And so, um, blended families is kind of one of those things that's really tough today and a very big topic today. Nearly, nearly as many blended families out there as there are nuclear traditional families out there.

So I haven't heard that term. Why is it called nuclear?

I think, I think the PC people, the politically correct people, don't like the traditional, you know, well, you— that's— I don't think they like the word traditional because it sounds a little bit like this is the way it's supposed to be. And so they have changed it to nuclear in order to make it not sound like, well, if you're not in a traditional family, then you're not anything special. Okay, so yeah, those PC folks out there, they, they keep us hopping with trying to make sure we're, we're doing the right thing and saying it the right way.

So, uh, discipline in the household, how strict was that? How lax? Uh, were you guys— spanking's a hot topic. Did you guys do spankings? Did you ground them? You know, were mom and dad, uh, uh, facing, I guess, friction in how to do it and when, you know.

We, we believe in— we spanked all our kids, probably not as often as they needed it. And then when it got to the point that we could punish them worse by taking a cell phone or car keys away from them, we would change to grounding. We tried timeouts. We pretty much tried everything in the way of discipline our children. But, uh, they were all different. Uh, all our kids are different. I had a kid I could look at cross-eyed and, and say, you disappointed me, son. And man, I ripped his heart out. That's all it took for discipline, for the most part. And then I'd have another kiddo that, uh, was a little on the strong-willed side, and, and he was like, I don't care if you spank me or not, I'm gonna do it the way I want to do it. And so, uh, we had to learn that discipline doesn't always work the same way with every kid. But, uh, yes, we, we believed in disciplining our kids. Um, they— I would be curious to know what they think about the discipline. Uh, I don't think they got near as many whippings as maybe what I did when I was a kid, but, uh, they all got in trouble and they all— they were all spanked at times, uh, when they were small. And, and like I said, when we learned that there were better ways to punish— when it hurt them I think one of them, one time we said, hey, put your cell phone on the bar and we're going to ground you from it. Or maybe it was car keys. And they said, can you not just spank me instead? We realized we found a better way to discipline. But yeah, we think discipline is important.

So you're tailoring it to what works.

Yeah, we are. And there were times when our kids didn't like us. But God didn't put me in my kids' lives to be their friend or their buddy. I'm their parent, and I've got to raise them., so that they will be adults, uh, and not victims in this world. And so, um, you know, I have a great relationship with all of my kids. Uh, I love all of my boys. Uh, every one of them, if they walk in the door, are going to hug their dad's neck. And, you know, we tell each other that we love each other. Uh, but there, there were times in our past where they would just, you know, they were so mad at us because we're disciplining them and they couldn't understand why. But That's life. We, we felt like that was our job, and it's temporary.

You know, dads have the long-term horizon to think about.

That's true. That is, that's exactly right.

I assume when you're in those— because you're like, we're going back to it because you're a pastor, so I know you do this, uh, when you're laying— if it's a big issue, it's heavy-handed discipline, whatever it was, they're really mad at you, you're probably going into them and having a conversation and saying, this is why, why I feel this, this is why it's serious, this is why we need to correct this behavior. You're probably having that pretty, pretty honest and clear discussion with them so they're not left just confused of, I got, you know, I basically got abused, or I'm getting grounded for nothing, this is stupid, I hate them, right? At least a thought process there to where, uh, it's being ingrained in them, even if they don't fully understand it.

We, we believe that, uh, every kid should have a right to know why they're being disciplined, and we tried really hard to never say, because I said so, or because I'm your dad. We always tried to say, here's why we're disciplining you. And we would explain it. And then if they came back and said, yeah, but I still don't understand, then we would go out with the old phrase of, well, I'm your dad. You're going to trust me on this. But we always tried to explain why we disciplined and whatever it was that they had done.

Wrong.

And there were times, there were times when they'd go, well, I just don't understand. And we'd say, you gotta trust us on this, you know, it's, it's what we think is the right thing. And, and interestingly enough, there were times when our kids would, uh, we'd ask them, what do you think the discipline should be for you doing this? And they would actually try to discipline themselves a whole lot harder than what we were going to.

That's always nice. Mom and dad, I'm assuming, always on the same page when it came to that stuff?

Yep, we, we did. There were times when, uh, there were times when, when we would have to talk one another down from, uh, uh, from being a little frustrated. We tried not to discipline when we were angry. Uh, we had a, we had a kiddo one time, our oldest, one time that, uh, he and a buddy, and, and they went out to the river, which is not far from here. There's not a lot of stuff to do in Childress, Texas. And they got stuck. And it was far enough, they didn't feel like they could walk in 4 or 5 miles in the dark. And so I— they, they always just come in. We've always trusted our kids. They know they'd be in at midnight. That's when you're supposed to be in. And, and we always kind of checked in, and they were always home. But that night, I got a phone call about 3 o'clock in the morning. And, uh, I've always said that you get phone calls at 3 o'clock in the morning for two reasons. One, Someone has— something really bad has happened, or somebody's done something really stupid. One of the two reasons. This was somebody's done something really stupid, which I was glad. But they had got stuck at the river and had just sat out there hoping, hoping that it would turn light and somebody pull them out. And when they called and I told their mama what had happened, she said, "You make them walk home." I said, "I'm not gonna make them. That's nearly 6 miles on a highway. We're not gonna have them walking in the dark." Oh, she was hot. She was so hot. But, uh, yeah, we've, we've always been on the same page pretty much in disciplining our kids. Um, there have been times where we might, you know, disagree a little bit in the way of, of what they need or how much they need, but we've, we've done a good job being on the same page. But, uh, there, there have been some times where, where I've had to remind her, hey, be merciful, you know. Uh, that kid, we'll chew them out when they get home, but don't make them walk.

All right, now did you ever have that conversation with kids growing up of, um, uh, like, even if Dad's mad, even if you know I'll be furious, or, you know, Dad's always going to make you face your consequences, uh, we're not going to necessarily bail you out, but if you ever call me and need me, you know, I, I don't want you to ever not call, if that makes sense. I want you to be able to, uh, reach out if you're in trouble or if you're stuck or if you feel like you're in an uncomfortable scenario. And if it's a 3 in the morning call, uh, sure, you know, and you need your dad's help, you call. I'll be there. I might not like it, but, uh, you know, just never hesitate to do that. Did you ever have those kind of conversations with them?

I did, and, and I think those are good conversations. Uh, we've told our kids oftentimes, you call for anything, you know. Uh, don't ever get in a situation where you don't feel like you can. But we've been kids and we understand that sometimes you, you're gonna make mistakes and the last person you wanna call is your parent to say, "Hey, I've made a mistake." But you know, thinking about relationships and relationships with our kids, we want them to feel like when they get in trouble of, "Oh, I'm in trouble, I need to call my parents," instead of, "Oh, I'm in trouble, I hope my parents don't find out," you know? And so that's what we wanted to happen. There have been times where that didn't happen. And the last thing our kids wanted was for us to find out that they had done something. But, uh, you know, those are all things that, you know, when our kid— we've always said if our kids do something they're not supposed to be doing, we hope they get in trouble, we hope they get caught. And that really frustrated one of our kids, uh, one time when we told him, said, uh, we hope you get caught every time you do something you're not supposed to do. And he was really mad, and he said, why? In fact, I think we even told him we, we prayed one time that if you're doing something you shouldn't do, we ask God that you get caught. And that made him So mad. And, and the reason was, he said, I don't want to get caught. And I'm going, but you will never learn and you will never correct this behavior if you get away with it every time.

Yeah, that's true.

So that's just, that's just learning. We, we've made a lot of mistakes as parents and we've learned how to do things better and, and, uh, we've done some things right. But, uh, it's kind of been a fun— now we look back and it's been a fun time, but, uh, there were some times when things were, you know like I said, our kids didn't like us because we told them no on something, or something along those lines.

You see, I'm okay if they don't like me because I know it's going to be temporary. Yep. I mean, it's just gonna be such a short time period, and it's obviously for their benefit. If they don't like me because I'm an actual, you know, turd, but that's a different story. But, um, it just doesn't bother me, I guess. Yeah. Um, so you mentioned— all right, so they had to be back by midnight. I'm assuming that's just teenagers. You don't have 6-year-olds strolling in at midnight, right? What other kind of house rules, I guess, did you guys have that looking back on you felt were like smart and worthwhile?

Yeah, well, we always wanted to know where they were. You know, now as small kids, it's been long enough that I can't remember all our rules, but they were good. I mean, we, we had rules like leave your door open to your room. You know, as teenagers, you'll find out, you know, somebody asked us, how do you deal with teenagers and cell phones and teenagers and computers? We had rules. Computers have got to face, you know, the door to where if we walk in, we can see what you're doing. Mine does the same. You're welcome to look at the browser history on my computer anytime. And as long as I'm paying for your cell phone, then I have a right to see if, you know, and we as a dad, we've had to have, you know, and as parents, we've had to have hard talks. I have to ask even, even today, I asked my 18-year-old Well, I'll explain to him, hey, I'm on Instagram and I get these fake profiles of, of women that, that want to be my friend, and they're just there for me to click on a link. And I'll, I, I go in and I'll go, hey, do you, uh, you know, do you ever get any of those? And, and, and if you do, uh, you do know that that's, uh, not a real woman that's interested in meeting you. And, and so we, we still have those talks, um, but we had rules that curfew on the weekends were midnight and during the week was 11 o'clock. And most of them abided by that really well.

Yeah, so I mean, because your 30-year-old didn't grow up with, uh, cell phones.

No, in fact, it's kind of different in the way that things have changed because, um, our oldest didn't get a cell phone probably until he was— I'm thinking he may have been just out of high school. But now things have changed a little bit. Our youngest got his first, probably in 6th grade, because we have to travel because we live in a small town and our sports teams all travel various places. And we were always trying to figure out what time he's going to be in. So we'd come pick him up at midnight. And we got tired of trying to guess when the bus would be in or where he was. And so we finally got him a— we started with a flip phone and said, here's your flip phone. You can make phone calls and you could text. And, uh, and, and then we went to, uh, you know, a smartphone after a while. But, uh, yeah, their rules have changed and they're going to continue to change with kids and what they can do and what they can see. As you know, my grandkids are going to have new rules that their parents are going to have to deal with, the things that never crossed our, our minds.

Yeah. So I guess, how much control do you, do you have over the phone? Like, do you control what apps are downloaded, or do you have a monitoring software or anything like that because we're not at that age yet, but now that I'm thinking about it, I'm like, man, that's, that's a real issue there.

And it's going to be, uh, with computer, uh, with all of that. We tried some, and, and there were some settings that we could set on computers to where you couldn't accidentally get to a place where you shouldn't be, because that, I mean, that happens all the time. You type in something and click the wrong thing and boom, you're somewhere where you shouldn't be. But we, we tried that. The best thing we did was we just communicated with our kids and we explained to them, here are the rules for your phones and here are the rules for our computers and this is how it's going to work. You are not allowed to delete your browser history, so if we want to get on and look at where you've been and what you've been looking at, if you've deleted it, we're gonna, we're gonna think you've been somewhere where you weren't supposed to. I'm not going to delete what I'm looking at. And, and again, as a, you know, we, we thought we communicated anytime we've asked about, you know, what, what are you downloading on your phone, what are you doing on your phone. Main thing is, is the best thing you can do is just communicate with your kids. And don't ever think, uh, my kids wouldn't do that. And, and as a dad, hard talks are a part of life, and you just have to ask sometimes. You know, I've had to have questions with my kids on sending inappropriate pictures. They, they haven't that I know of, but, but I, as a dad, I sat down, explained, you can't send stuff like that. This is, this is stuff people are going to see. You may think that it's going to be deleted, but you can't unsend stuff. And we're not going to send things that are inappropriate to friends or whoever.

Or let's be clear, the recipient of those things.

That's right. And so you've got to, you know, those are all questions that you just constantly have to try and have with your kids. And communicating is a good thing.

Yes, that's one of the reasons I just don't even want to get my kids a phone or a tablet, at least that they have like unrestricted access to. I think we have one, we have an extra phone on our plan that they get to use. Uh, we let you— if he goes down to a park, we hand it to him, he's allowed to call. Um, but, uh, you know, he doesn't have it and play on it and download apps or anything like that. It's just, it's strictly a, you know, a monitoring device, I guess. Sure. Yeah, once you hand it over, you You have to have that awkward discussion. You have to almost explain pornography and viruses and predators and— yes, that's whatever else is on there. I'm just not thinking about it.

And you know, I had a dad from our community not long ago that came and visited with me, and he had a daughter that was— he's got a daughter that's in— she was in 8th grade, junior high at the time, and there was a high school boy asking her to send some inappropriate pictures. Send me some nudes is basically what he was saying. And, you know, he was going, what do I do with this? And I said, one, don't take it lightly. Number one, you go talk to that boy's parents or somebody. Two, you continually talk to your daughter about this and ask, is this something that happens regularly? It's a different time than what I grew up, but you've got to talk to your kids about those things. And you can't just come along and go, ah, my kid would never do that.

Yeah, because those things were available. It was just much more difficult to get a hold of a magazine, uh, than it is just being right in your, your hand at all times.

You're exactly right about that. Things have changed tremendously than what they used to be.

Yeah. All right, new topic.

There you go. Trying to figure out how to— I'm trying to figure out how to turn the, the noise off on, on a beeper that I've got that keeps going off.

I can't help you with that. This is not tech support.

Yeah, I know it, I know it. I apologize to anybody that's been listening to this. It keeps wondering what is the beeping that occasionally goes off. I can't fix that. I don't know how right at this moment.

Uh, Social Circles, uh Gosh, you guys were in a small town, but, uh, did you ever have to, um, step into your kids' social circle and be like, that's not the type of person we want you hanging out with?

Yeah, there's been, there's been a couple of times. Now again, being in a small town, we know their friends and their friends' parents, and so it was easy for us to go, hey, our son says he's coming to your house, are you good with that? We know where they are and what they're doing, um, and, and you can't get away with a lot in a small town because, uh, everybody's gonna know It just works that way. But there have been times where we've told them, we're a little uncomfortable with this person. We had a kiddo that every time he ran around with this one person, they constantly got him in trouble. I mean, he was always somewhere in trouble. And we kept trying to explain, have you noticed the common denominator that when you're with this person, you are always getting in trouble? And, uh, I think he finally woke up to that somewhat. But, uh, yeah, we've had to step in on a few times and go, hey, you got to be really cautious with this, or we're— we've told them we're a little uncomfortable with this. I, I— there have been a few times where we've had to say that.

Uh, we touched on college a little bit. Uh, if in the event none of them had gone to college, was— did you have a discussion on like what your plan has to be? Like, you either have to have a career, you have to move out, or you don't have like an unfettered path in our basement with a video game system, uh, with mom and dad making you mac and cheese every day, uh, or, or are you okay with that?

Well, we never had that. Most of our kids were, uh, um, they were excited about going off and doing life by themselves, and we have yet to have one that's needed to move back in for any reason. That may come someday when, when but, but it hasn't happened yet. But we, we've kind of always— they've just kind of known, hey, my goal is to get my kids to fly on their own in this world. That's what I want, is I love watching my kids do life without relying on their parents. The only real, the only real discussion we have had about what you can and can't do— there's more than this, but some of it— you, you can't get a tattoo until you're paying all your own bills and I'm not footing the bill for college or anything else. You can't buy a new car as long as I'm footing all the bills and I'm driving an old '99 Chevrolet pickup, uh, you're not going to go buy yourself a new car. So they all understood that going out, that when I get out of the house and I'm out of college—

I've lost you.

Do some things in life that I may want to do, or get a tattoo, or whatever it is.

I like that one. Make sure they're not frivolously spending when you're still subsidizing.

Yeah, if I'm paying for your college bill, you're not going to go out and spend $400 on a— on something crazy.

That's fair.

And so that, that was a discussion that we had many times.

How do you feel if— would you mind if any of them had to move back for any reason? Because I feel like that'd be a thing I'd be torn with of, you know, we have the means I love them. You just don't want it to be forever, I guess.

I think if they had to, uh, you know, we've got a son that— the one that works from home— and if he said, hey, I've taken a job in Childress, can I come live with y'all for a few months while I try to find an apartment? We'd be, come on, you know, we'd love that. But we don't want it to be a, a full-time thing. Um, but, uh, if it, if it happened, then we would probably have to deal with it as it came. But You know, the last thing, the last thing I know he wants to do is come back and live with his mom and dad. That is the last thing he wants to do.

So that's how I was. There was no scenario where I was moving back in with, with parents. It's just no chance was that happening. I wanted to be out and on my own so bad. I feel like I'd rather sleep under a bridge for a few nights.

And I think my kids were the same way, and it wasn't because they didn't like us. They, they just just, you know, yeah, one of them, the day after high school graduation, he was like, can I go ahead and move? And we were like, no, we, we want you to hang around for the summer, you know, we want some time with you before you move. And he was ready to go. He was like, out of here.

Where was he going to go?

Love it, going to go to college. But he was— he wanted to move the day after graduation. I know, but he was ready to roll. I mean, that— he's always been that— that's my strong-willed one. He was, you know, the first two I walked to kindergarten every day of their kindergarten class. I'd walk them to their door every day. On day 2, walking Connor, my strong-willed child, day 2, I start to get out of the car to walk into class. And he goes, what are you doing? And I said, I'm walking you to class. I've done this with all your brothers. He goes, I know where I'm going. I don't need your help. You know? And it was like, okay, they're all very different.

Yeah. Uh, how'd you build up— it seems like they're all confident and, and, you know, you know, respect themselves and have good self-worth and all. How do you— I guess over the long term, how do you build that up in them?

I don't know if I got a good answer for that. We didn't have any— we didn't sit down with a plan to, to say we want to build good quality, uh, confident kids. I, I think one of the— reflect now. Yeah, one of the best things you can do is just model it. We tried really hard to model for our kids a healthy marriage, a healthy home life so that they would know what to expect and what to someday try to build on their own. And that was our goal. And our oldest tells us that all the time. He told us the other day, he said, "You just don't know how much I appreciate growing up in a healthy home where mom and dad loved each other." and, and handled marriage and family, uh, without drama and, and in a very healthy way. And I told him I really appreciated that. And, and I think kids don't realize how important that is, and I think couples don't always realize how important that is, that they're, they're modeling marriage for their kids and how to do family one day.

How old was he when he said that?

It was actually like last week.

Oh, which one was that?

Uh, the oldest. Yeah, he sent us a message last week and, and, and just said around 30. He's around 30. He said, I, I said, I'm, I realized how blessed I am to grow up in a home where a mom and dad loved each other and a family that got along and, and there was not lots of, you know, drama and problems. And in a sense of, uh, you know, it was, uh, we knew how to handle conflict resolution and things along those lines. And he realizes now how important that was.

It's always good to hear.

It is. It always makes— I love getting messages like that from my kids.

That's all I got. Anything you want to put, uh, any just thoughts maybe we haven't talked about, uh, on what I guess being a good dad was for you, or, or what you think the next generation of dad, your kid included, uh, kind of needs to step up and do or think about?

You know, I think, uh, 2 or 3 quick little items I'd love to throw out there is Be present in the life of your kid. They need you there at ball games and to play in the backyard and to wrestle on the floor. They also need you to be more than just a sports dad that just encourages them when you play sports. You need to encourage them in life, in general life skills, not just about how to hit a ball, but also on how to treat a woman, how to be honest, how to be kind, how to be a man. If you've got sons, that it's important that you teach them about good choices and not just, you know, I live in a small community where, man, we eat up kids playing sports. We love that. All my kids played sports. But as a dad, you know, nobody's, you know, very rarely is there a kid that's gonna play sports past high school, but they are gonna be a man or a woman after high school, and you better have trained them to be more than just a kid that can hit a ball.

Good advice.

And that's all I can think of, my friend.

Uh, how do people, uh, find you and your— I guess, what are your handles and website? And, uh, tell them where your book is again.

Uh, you can find, uh, everything you would like to know about us, uh, at strongermarriageworkshops.com. Strongermarriageworkshops.com. And that will send you to every link from books to social media pages, uh, to things like that. Strongermarriageworkshops.com.

Com.

You probably could Google Trey and Lee Morgan and it'll pull it up. But you can find our book on Amazon, 10 Ways to a Stronger Marriage. And we wrote it to be a very simple, practical— we're very practical people. And we wrote that book to be very practical. Here's some things that you can do to better your marriage and better your family and things along those lines. And so that's where you can find us. And we're on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook, and you can find things on marriage and family and things like that there.

Cool. So thanks for coming on.

Enjoyed it, my friend. Thank you.

Have a good one.

Hey, bless you.

And that wraps episode 6 of the 100% Dad podcast interviews with dads with Trey Morgan, Texas dad, minister, pastor, literally wrote the book book on marriage. So check out his stuff and stay tuned as we get better with these podcasts. Again, sorry about the video. We will, we will, will, will improve on these things. Thanks for listening.