The MOST Important Thing You Can Teach Your Kids

One of the things that I've really been aiming for, and I. I've been talking about this with as many men as I can, is like, my aim now is to be a father who is someone that can show that so I can show my son what to do with flaws. You know, that if I can live my life in such a way where I can say, yeah, I'm flawed, you know, I'm not perfect, and. And model what it looks like to be a man who deals with his flaws head on and is able to talk about them and confront them and traverse them and shift through them, I think that that's incredibly valuable because I think for most of us as men and most dads that I talk to, they pressurize themselves. You know, it's like, I got to be perfect for my boy. I got to be perfect for my kids. I have to show them this pristine model of what it looks like to be a man. And it doesn't leave any room for the real cracks in the armor. And I think that that's such an integral part. What would you say is the. Some of the main challenges that you see parents or fathers facing from culture, from society? Because I think that's. We're living through this interesting time where more and more culture and society is. Is influencing how parents parent, how they raise kids. And I think more and more.

There'S this overlapping and intersection of society and culture having a very heavy influence on the family system. So I'm curious to get your take on that.

Yeah, this is a. This is a really, really big question, and I appreciate the question, and I'm going to try to really highlight some things that I think that. That I've seen and we see and that are important. But I think one of the biggest things is that first of all is that perception that you talked about, man. I share that, too. In fact, Connor, I don't know about you, this is the way I feel, but because I sit in this chair and I'm on this microphone and I coach other men, help other men be a more patient father, be a more affectionate, empathetic listener to their wives, better communication, better intimacy, you know, be as physically, mentally and emotionally fit as you possibly can, right?

Create, you know, teach kids about financial literacy, create generational wealth, all those things. I feel like the biggest imposter on the planet when I can't do those things myself or I miss the mark and I can beat myself up relentlessly. There isn't a day that goes by I don't make a Mistake with my kids. There's a day that goes by I don't make a mistake with my wife. Sometimes I'm aware of it and sometimes I have no clue I even did it. But it's there. And what I have to remind myself, and I think we have to remind all men out there is that no one is perfect. I'm a very faith based person and last time I checked there was only one perfect man that walked this earth and we ain't him. But holding this standard that I am going to show my kids that this is what it looks like at all times. You're right, we're missing the mark because we're setting the bar so high or we think we have to set the bar so high that they are now never going to live up to it. We've basically have set the bar so high for something that they might never even mentally or emotionally feel that they, they are going to attain themselves. But if we can show them I'm a flawed, unfinished human being that's going to make mistakes, but I'm also going to continue to learn. I'm going to be better than I was yesterday. I'm going to apologize quickly when I make mistakes because I'm going to make them. I am going to recover and constantly be a student of this whole thing. And I'll never stop learning, ever. I think that's one of the greatest lessons we can teach as far as like society goes. You know, our kids, man.

They'Re up against stuff, man, that.

You and I would have never dreamed of. You know, like, you know, obviously the, a lot of the political unrest that that's going on. I don't care what side of the fence you sit on. There's it's on, it's, it's unrest. Right. But it's always been that way. At the same time, the thing that I think concerns me the most and I send my kids to public schools and I send my kids to public schools here in St. Louis, which quite frankly, if I look at what I see on social media and the news, we're pretty darn conservative. And I don't use conservative as a political term. I use it as in like we don't really see a lot of the craziness that you see on the Internet these days. But I think parents should be really, really, really, really involved with what is going on in their kids school, the conversations that are, that people are having and also be very curious to have these open conversations with your kids. Like so, like for instance, I know that There's a big, there's a big limelight spotlight on gender. Right. And pronouns and whether a kid can claim themselves at 7 years old if they like girls or boys. And all this other stuff which I quite, quite frankly, my view on that is, that's absurd. That's absolutely absurd. I remember being seven years old and all my friends and we thought girls were gross, but that didn't make us gay. Right. That made us little boys that would rather play in the mud than go talk to girls. Right. I mean that. So I think, and I use that as an extreme, kind of funny example. But it's true. It's the same time. But I think you have to be a parent. Like so, like for instance, my older boys, we have these conversations all the time. What's going on in your school? What are your teachers saying? Have they, you know, forced this agenda or that agenda or are they quiet about the whole thing, you know, and, and just being very open. I mean, there's a kid that's in my kids class and luckily this isn't common where we live, which is good. But my oldest is like, yeah, there's a kid in my science class who, he, he's a cat. And I'm like.

And I'm just like, what are your views on that? And my son's words are, you're not a cat, you're a man, you're a boy, you're not a cat. I don't care what you think you are. That is how you were made, period. You know, like, and don't get me wrong, I am not against people who, you know, are attracted to the same sex whatsoever. I have friends of mine who are gay. I have nothing against that. What I do have a problem with is when officials in power and in the school system force this agenda on our kids, saying this is what you are going to believe and this is what you're going to buy into. And if you don't, well then you're this or you're that or you're your hate, your hate or your racist or whatever. I don't buy that. I just don't. So that's just my view on it. And I think parents just need to be very open to have conversations about it and listen to what's going on. Right.

Yeah. I mean it's, it's such a charged topic. And you know, obviously media has contributed to that.

Napalm fire.

Yeah.

Politicians have contributed to that napalm fire. And it is, it's a very touchy subject, you know, like I think on the one hand I'm very compassionate for people who, you know, go through different experiences and I'm very compassionate for, for those who, you know, experience life different than I do. You know, that's, it's just, that's just how, how it is and how I think I was raised. I think one of the things that's been interesting is seeing that the education system has sort of been turned into a battleground, you know, and that to me is not what education is meant to be. It's not meant to be a battleground. And yet there's these ideological, very complex conversations. You know, it's like, yeah, very complex conversations showing up within the education system for our kids. It's like, man, if your kid doesn't know algebra or if your kid, you know, hasn't done division yet and multiplication tables, you know, learning, learning gender identities and, and reading these books where it's, it's talking about, you know, some of these books are pretty graphic. You know, I think that's the interesting thing that I, because I've kind of gone down this rabbit hole a bit to try and look at where I stand on this because I haven't really talked about it and I haven't really, you know.

Just because I haven't been super informed, you know, I don't really know what's getting taught in schools these days. I haven't been in school for a long time. You know, I don't know what the education system is like in America because I, you know, I got educated in Canada, but now that I have a kid and I see everything that's happening on the news, I'm like, well, is it bad? Like, is it really that bad like what's happening? And so it's interesting to have this conversation because I can picture myself being a 7, 8 year old kid and hearing some of these things and have that be very confusing, you know. And I do think that in some ways it is the parent and the family's responsibility to discern what values they're raising their children in. And for that to leak into the education system is challenging. You know, much like if you were trying to force a religious preference or belief, you know, onto a public school. Right. I don't think that that would fly very well. People wouldn't like.