0:00:08 – Barnabas

Hey, welcome to the Curious Curmudgeon podcast. I am Barnabas Piper, here with my co-curmudgeon, Adam Read. Hello, goodness, that sounded curmudgeonly. It sounded a little bit like Oscar the Grouch. Adam, you and I have both been parents for 18 plus years. We are both preparing to send our oldest children off to college in a matter of months. So over the course, of these decades I know congratulations. 

 

0:00:33 – Adam

Am I that old? You are in fact that old. That’s crazy. I’m also that old. 

 

0:00:38 – Barnabas

I think you’re a little younger than me, a couple of years younger, but like it’s that heard I heard a stand-up comedian say like age is a number okay until you have kids, then it’s just a stage in life, okay, so we’re just old. So like a 27 year old person with no kids is 27, 28 with no kids, but like if you have kids at 24, you’re basically the same age as a 32 year old with kids, like, oh, you know so okay, so stage of life based yeah, almost so you and I are the exact same stage in life both have daughters graduating. 

 

Both have 15-year-olds. We both have 18-year-olds. You have one additional child. I have one on the way, which is going to put me in a different stage in life simultaneously is that like reverse your age? I think it ages you it’s more, more quickly, whatever. Whatever salt and pepper I have on the side is going to be just salt shortly. Ooh, it’s coming, yeah. So anyway, we have learned, I would hope, a few things about parenting over these decades. There’s probably a lot of learning how not to. 

 

0:01:36 – Adam

For sure. 

 

0:01:37 – Barnabas

Hopefully a few, learning some things that work, learning some wisdom, probably learning a fair amount of humility, learning the taste of crow, because we’ve eaten a fair amount of it, all these things. But one thing that is very apparent pun entirely intended is that raising kids is constant transition. So in the theme of this season of major life transitions, like becoming a parent is a transition and it’s like, boy, does your life get turned all the way upside down, but there does not come a point between then and the rest of your life when it stops being transition. Now I think it might. It might slow down at some point, but like I’m watching my parents, you know, my oldest brother is in his fifties. My parents are in their seventies. Brother is in his fifties, my parents are in their seventies, you know. So now they’re having grandkids who are old enough to get married. They’re having grandkids who are adults, who are making their own decisions. So like they’re still, as parents and grandparents, transitioning and going through major life changes, even as they age and hit different tiers. 

 

So all that to say all that to say, like, as we approach a conversation about parenting, we can’t just put things in tidy little boxes. What we’re trying to talk about is the kind of constant rolling changes of things, and that’s what we want to talk about today. And I think the way I want to approach it is just thinking about sort of the phases of transition. And again, not neat and tidy, you can’t put years on it, you can’t put dates on it, but starting with, so just kind of running through these and we’ll just maybe we’ll just talk through these. The first is the transition into parenting. That was a long time ago for us. 

 

0:03:14 – Adam

I’m sure we both have some memories of it in our decrepit brains. 

 

0:03:18 – Barnabas

Then the various age transitions for kids, so like raising babies, then they become young children and then they become middle schoolers, then high schoolers, then now you and I are both about to have college students from their independent adults. Now we don’t know about raising those kids, but we were those kids and we’ve observed that. 

 

Yeah, and then just some things. You know, I want to close up when we get there, just talking about some like some of our values as parents, things that have become more precious to us, things that we maybe thought were important 18 years ago and we go, that was maybe not as big of a deal, and then some hopes for the future, like what are we, what are we asking the Lord for, as well as just kind of looking down the road and going. I’m excited about this, cause a lot of talk about parenting is very much on the negative aspects, which, on the one hand, is understandable because parenting is costly. 

 

But on the other hand, we wouldn’t keep having kids if we hated it. So there are moments that are terrible, but like, we both have multiple children voluntarily. So either we are insane or there’s a lot of good in parenting. So we should probably try to talk about some of those things too. Okay, let’s go in the way back machine. Yeah, thinking back 18 plus years, probably 19 plus years to when we found out we were expecting our first kids. Oh man, we were both pretty young at that point. Let’s just talk about the transition into parenting, and I don’t even know how to approach this, except maybe just sort of snapshot memories of, like man, this was crazy. In this way you go first. 

 

0:04:47 – Adam

Yeah, it’s one of those times in life where you don’t realize how much you don’t know. And the longer I parent I think, the more I realize I really don’t know what I don’t know. 

 

0:04:56 – Barnabas

That’s called wisdom. 

 

0:04:58 – Adam

It was just. I mean it was an exciting time. Obviously, you know first kid coming and all of that. You know parenting an infant is a whole nother experience than you know parenting a kid who has some self-sufficiency, so as an infant, I mean you’re doing everything just to try and keep them alive, right? And I think during that period, for me there’s a lot of questions like I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to take care of a baby. You know there’s no handbook for it. I think the people in your lives are the ones who give you the most input on on how to keep this little human alive. 

 

0:05:31 – Barnabas

Some of it’s even helpful. 

 

0:05:33 – Adam

Some of it’s even helpful and some of it’s not, I know you know, like people walking by and patting my wife’s belly uninvited. That was not helpful and she did not appreciate that. Where did you live when you were expecting your first? What part of the country were you in? We lived in Ohio during that time, not side Toledo. 

 

0:05:52 – Barnabas

Man, I’m telling you, we had a conversation about Ohio in a previous episode and I got questions about how people in Ohio make their decisions. 

 

0:05:59 – Adam

Our first two were born in Ohio. You know they’re Ohioans by birth. 

 

0:06:02 – Barnabas

They flick people off on the road when they get passed. Not Ohio, you know there are Ohioans by birth. 

 

0:06:10 – Adam

They flick people off on the road when they get past Not as of yet, so I hope not only one of them is driving. You’re doing a good job raising them well. So yeah, it’s definitely a different time. I think, as I look at like those early years my wife knew way more than I had a concept of, like she just knew from caring for children that we know were not hers, and babysitting and all that stuff. She just had a whole lot more knowledge of how to take care of a kid, like if it needs, you know, it’s room ready and a crib put together, I can do that, you know. So I’m just learning a lot from her and so just being like recognizing how much I didn’t know, trying to learn from her a lot, and I don’t think I realized and I probably still don’t to the full extent how much of you know carrying a baby and then giving birth to a baby in the months after that affect a woman. 

 

0:06:53 – Barnabas

It’s incredible. I don’t know that a man can wrap our heads around that, but I was just even that much more oblivious to it. 

 

0:07:00 – Adam

all Right, and I remember one night we had our baby. Audrey was at home and I was exhausted my wife had to be more exhausted than me, right, because she has to get up and take care of the baby and feed it, and all that at all hours of the night. And I just got you know the baby would wake up in the night and I’d go back to sleep, right, and I finally got to this one day, I don’t know a couple months into her age, and I woke up to one morning and I’m like man, she slept all through the night. That was amazing. I feel so good now and I got this look from my wife like maybe you should have asked if she slept all through the night. 

 

Yeah maybe don’t speak before I commit an act of violence. Yeah, so those times is, you know, it’s just working to keep the baby alive, obviously, but I think there’s a huge learning curve there. Yeah, and just being a learner and being willing to learn from my wife as far as what needs to be done and how to do it was a lot. 

 

0:07:53 – Barnabas

Yeah, when I think back on those days, I mean a lot of it’s a blur, which I think is God’s kindness. I mean because of those early days of parenting are mostly marked by exhaustion. Yeah, you know, people are like cherish every moment. I’m like, nah, that’s insane, like just some of this, you just survive. And also there’s nothing worth cherishing about, like 3am screaming fit by an inconsolable baby, like that’s not cherishable. 

 

0:08:17 – Adam

You don’t know what to do and you want to help them. 

 

0:08:19 – Barnabas

But yeah, that’s just terrible and the child is cherishable.

 

Oh, for sure just terrible and the child is cherishable, oh for sure. That moment not so much. And so my recollection was twofold. One is I remember so I was 22 when my oldest daughter was born pretty young, and I just remember having this realization of how thankful I was that my parents had raised me to just do what was necessary, and so I didn’t know what I was doing, but I did know that you just do whatever’s necessary, and so, like, working hard, sleeping less, at that point we were in a financial position which was generously be called broke, but also realized that, like, if my wife had gone back to work, at that point she would have been working a job and basically just endorsing her paychecks over to child care because we just it wasn’t something where, like, we had margin. 

 

So she stayed home, which was it was a value we had, but also like it just didn’t make sense in the math for her to go work as you know a receptionist and then not actually child care, then not actually bring home. 

 

We’d be losing out on the benefit of her being home and we don’t gain any money out of this. So what a waste, which just meant that I worked a ton, a couple of jobs and different things, and I don’t remember hating it, I don’t remember resenting it and I think so much of that is because, well, a I love my family but, b my parents had instilled in me. There’s a responsibility you take on and you just do what it takes, and I watch the thought process of young parents today, or people considering becoming parents, and that’s not part of the calculus. There’s sort of a like how do we build in margin, financially or time-wise and whatever, and like that’s a luxury if you can do it, yeah, but there’s a certain amount of like take the risk, go for it and then just do what it takes. That’s what every mom does. 

 

0:10:12 – Adam

Like you know whether she’s? 

 

0:10:13 – Barnabas

whether she’s working, whether she stay at home, whatever, like those months when there’s midnight feedings and exhaustion and like everything around the house is kind of piling up because infants demand an enormous amount of attention? 

 

0:10:25 – Adam

Yeah, for sure. 

 

0:10:26 – Barnabas

Like mom’s just doing what it takes and so, like dad, just do what it takes, pitch in. And the other thing in retrospect and I didn’t realize I was learning it at the time is just the value of selflessness. I mean I don’t think I was particularly selfless then, but when I say value I mean like it’s sort of the tide that lifts all boats. If you can just sort of go I’m exhausted, you’re exhausted. We’re not going to compete over who’s most exhausted. You go, sit down on the couch, I’ll do the dishes kind of thing and the receiving of that, because you know the value when somebody else does it for you, when you can share it. That then can bleed into the rest of parenting and the rest of marriage, such that that becomes particularly as a dad. If you can be selfless, you are setting your family up for a different kind of success and peace and unity. But yeah, man, the transition to parenting was like going from one dimension into another. Every decision that was made was made with different calculus. Now, yeah, right. 

 

0:11:25 – Adam

There’s a whole nother number in that equation that was not there before. 

 

0:11:29 – Barnabas

Yeah, I’m really thankful in retrospect and I know this is not true for everybody I’m really thankful that a lot of those decisions I did not have a hard time making. You know, you’d spend a ton of time with friends, stay out late, whatever, and then like had a kid and was like, well, no, home is where I’m supposed to be yeah, unless it really works for the family, like if it’s not burdening my wife, et cetera, you know. And the flip side is like she’s been home with his baby all the time. If she needs an evening with some friends, like okay, I can give a bottle and put a baby down, that’s not so hard. Those were decisions that I didn’t begrudge them. I don’t know why, I don’t know if it is God’s kindness for sure, but I watch other young families and I think that transition to moving out of, like losing your freedom, is seen as a real loss and I’m like I don’t know. It just didn’t seem like a loss to me. It seemed like a gain. 

 

0:12:17 – Adam

So it’s. Maybe it’s like in one aspect you lose personal freedom, but you gain something so much more valuable on the other side of that coin, right? 

 

0:12:26 – Barnabas

Well, yeah. And the thing is, I don’t even think it’s right to think of it as an exchange, because then we’re turning this into a transactional reality, which is how people approach parenting before their parents. What am I going to lose? What am I going to gain? And the answer is I mean you’re asking in the wrong language, like this isn’t even the right concept, because what you’re going to gain as a human life, yeah. How do you compare that to the freedom to go to happy hour after work? 

 

0:12:48 – Adam

There is no comparison, for sure. 

 

0:12:51 – Barnabas

Yeah, there is genuine loss, but also not comparable loss or comparable I don’t know what the word is so it has been shaping for me throughout the years, like parenting has been difficult, because it just is, but I’m so thankful to the Lord that at no point have I resented being a parent. I have definitely resented aspects of my kids’ lives. So what I’m not doing is tooting my own horn as much as I’m going, maybe because I came into it so young I didn’t know any better. I hadn’t lived enough life to be established in a way like a pattern that I was like. No, I’m not giving this up. You know, if you become a parent at 30 or 35, you have a lot of adult values, habits, life and really good things, often like genuine friendships, patterns et cetera, and that changes and that’s probably a lot harder than at 22 going all right well we’ll just do it this way. 

 

0:13:47 – Adam

Yeah so, our first child. I was 26. So a little older than when you were in that, but I do think that it’s easy to hear in the world this idea of like I need a break from my kids, like my kids annoy me, and sometimes, you’ll see, even on Facebook. 

 

0:14:00 – Barnabas

Oh dude, the parenting memes on social media are the most like insidious in how they train our minds to think about the interactions and transactions of parenting. It’s terrible. 

 

0:14:17 – Adam

Like I get some of the jokes you know, like I can understand some of it to have this life that we are able to speak into and influence and hopefully God draws their hearts to him and uses them for his kingdom. Like there is this incredible value in that and I think that’s even reflected like the love of God, the father for God, the son right, there’s no rejection in that, or like I wish this would have been different, I don’t get to do my thing. There’s this unity in that and I think as parents, we have to make sure that, because it’s super easy to fall into this idea that like this is yes, it’s hard and there are hard days, but it is so worth it. 

 

Like the positive end is so blown away by the negatives and the opportunity we’re given. And I don’t even use the word negatives, but just as you’re saying, you know like having to say I’m not going to do this, or saying no to things that we want in order so we can provide for our children. 

 

0:15:15 – Barnabas

And that’s so worth it. And that’s why I use the term like it’s a different dimension, because every point of comparison that we know how to make without kids does not apply to life with kids. That might be a slight overstatement, but the idea that, like I’m going to lose so much, no, you’re going to be a different person. Yeah, so like Gain so much. 

 

If you don’t cling to the old life, yeah, now that’s a hard thing to give up, potentially, but if you fully embrace, okay, the Lord has moved me into this. It’s not that you added something to your life and now you’re trying to juggle all these things. That economy of parenting is so trash. I’ve added children to my life, so now I have to juggle these dreams and this fun and this margin with these humans who are an obstacle. 

 

0:16:04 – Adam

No, that overflows into how you treat them and how they view life and how they view. 

 

0:16:08 – Barnabas

How they view everything in their lives, and so what I’m not saying is you have kids and then life centers around the kids, right? 

 

0:16:15 – Adam

That’s a whole other discussion there. 

 

0:16:17 – Barnabas

Both of these extremes are expressions of idolatry. I’m either idolizing my freedoms, margin, et cetera, or I’m idolizing my kids. At the other end, neither of those. When I say God makes you a new person, like when you become a parent, in the same way that like when you stand at the altar and you say I do, you’re not adding somebody to your life, your life just completely revolutionized into an entirely new reality of we are now one and everything we do henceforth is supposed to work with and for the other. And we’re sinful. And boy do we screw that up. 

 

And I’ve been through that, but as a parent it’s not so dissimilar. You bring a child into the world, you’re holding this little shriveled up, plum colored, screaming slime ball. And you didn’t add that to your life. Your life just fundamentally changed in every way. 

 

0:17:06 – Adam

Yeah. 

 

0:17:07 – Barnabas

And when we accept that parenting doesn’t get easier, but we stop butting our heads against the wrong things. You know, like I’m not fighting against my resentfulness of losing freedom, I’m more just like I’m exhausted or this human doesn’t want to listen to me. Yeah, that’s difficult, but at least we’re playing in the right sandbox now yeah right, I totally agree, All right. 

 

So let’s just run through real quick thinking back on our time as a parent, some of those transitions, maybe, things that we learned along the way, or how our interactions with our kids changed from you know, we just kind of talked about raising an infant and you use the phrase keeping them alive. I think that’s pretty apt. I mean, that’s what you’re doing right. Basically up until the child is talking. There’s a fair amount of we’re keeping them alive and we’re showing a lot of affection, right? 

 

You’re just trying to help them to feel know that they’re loved right. 

 

0:17:54 – Adam

And cherished. 

 

0:17:55 – Barnabas

And I’m sure developmental psychologists would tell me all the important things that are happening in the child at that time, and I believe them. But also as a parent, mostly what you’re doing is showering them in love and don’t fall off the deck, don’t run in the street, kind of thing, yeah. But then you know, once they become like we’re talking preschool, elementary school how does parenting change then? What do you remember about that? The sweet moments, the difficult moments? What have we learned that kind of that little window of time? 

 

0:18:19 – Adam

Yeah, I mean that time of life is beautiful because they are like the kids are learning to experience new things as they get into, you know, elementary age, school and all that. So it’s fun because they’re making new friends and they’re having a grand time on the playground or whatever it is, you know and and you have, you know, teaching them to share and all that stuff. But it’s also a critical time in life because they learn in new ways, in ways that they haven’t previously seen, that the world has fallen and as, as we’ve parented, you know, we’re talking about the different stages like, yeah, we’ve kind of looked at that younger stage as like the really young stage, like you have to isolate them from a lot of the pain in the world, like you’re just trying to keep them alive and they don’t understand, nor will they fully grasp, all that’s in the world. 

 

0:19:06 – Barnabas

They don’t even have the capacity to navigate some of that stuff. 

 

0:19:09 – Adam

Some of that is just like, okay, you’re, you’re very protective at that age, right, you’re just watching over, making sure that they’re safe and they’re cared for. But as they get into elementary school, that isolation at some point in there different for every kid, every you know, know every family we kind of like got to a point where, okay, you, you help them to start interpreting things in an insulated way, so they’re like they’re still involved in life, but they understand that there’s hurt in the world and you’re trying to help them understand the argument between her and sally that they had. And how do you work through that and what is a good response and what’s a selfish’s? 

 

0:19:41 – Barnabas

kind of fallenness to scale. 

 

So this is like my friend said mean things about me behind my back, like that’s fallenness to scale for an elementary school students, right, whereas like that’s called betrayal. That’s a whole concept of pain that you’re going to hopefully not experience too much of but you’re definitely going to experience at a grand scale as you get older. So, yeah, I like that idea of sort of exposing them and helping them navigate at the kind of the age appropriate level I think about like you watch a nature documentary and you see like a mother lion teaching a lion cub to hunt because they like catch a little lizard and then you get so they’re like learning to hunt on a small scale so that they can then handle the big risks later on, little microcosm on of life Right. 

 

A lot of the things that I remember about that, like thinking elementary school are. This is an amazing thing about parenting is so much of the difficulty kind of washes away with time and what you remember are a lot more of the sweet times, the good times, the meaningful times. 

 

I remember my kids’ personalities coming out and they showed early, like infancy, but like they’re starting to talk, they’re starting to ask questions, they’re starting to navigate social situations, learning real quick that, like my, my older daughter, when we were figuring, like you have to figure out how to discipline your kids when they’re two, three, four, five years old and the kind of discipline that worked with my younger daughter caused major resentment in my older daughter. So my younger daughter would respond with remorse and we could talk through things and my older daughter would be like clam up, get stiff necked genuinely like mad. 

 

So we had to. What works with her? And the answer is send her to a room, make her fold her hands and sit on her bed and be quiet, and that was like five to 10 minutes of that was effective, because that like being with people was everything. 

 

So even just learning some of those things like okay, that’s personality, there’s discipline. I remember that the kinds of questions that they asked. Like kids don’t realize how brilliant they are and they pose questions that have stumped like the greatest theologians and philosophers for all of history, and they always do it at bedtime. Why is that? Because they’re savage little geniuses who understand that if I ask dad, a theological, question he can’t turn the lights off. 

 

Yeah, if I ask him, why is the sky blue? He will turn the light off so fast and be like I don’t care. Yeah, it’s not, it’s black, which is why your eyes should be closed. Not, it’s black, which is why your eyes should be closed. Go to sleep. Um, but if I’m like, hey, if, uh, if god is good and in control, why did he let Adam and Eve sin, right? Well, doggone it. 

 

0:22:14 – Adam

Now we’re gonna have a 15-minute conversation and bedtime gets delayed, and that’s going to spur another question. And here you are, an hour after bedtime. 

 

0:22:21 – Barnabas

You just yeah, about 30 minutes in and you pause mid-sentence and you’re like you little scam artist. 

 

0:22:25 – Adam

I see what you’re doing. Yeah, I know, I figured it out. 

 

0:22:27 – Barnabas

And so but like. But there’s also a ton of really honest questions too. Yeah, just statements about God, or you kind of see light bulbs go on. I remember. 

 

I don’t remember a lot of them, but, yeah, light bulbs about just the connections of ideas or truths. As my kids got older, I’ve enjoyed being a parent more the older my kids get. I think some of that is my own maturing and some of that is their maturing, like I just I like talking with them more than I liked doing baby stuff. Yeah, yeah, I just I. My recollection is that it seemed like sort of an upward trajectory of enjoyment for the most part, yeah, along with an upward trajectory of enjoyment for the most part, yeah, Along with an upward trajectory and complications. Kids, little kids, are way simpler than the ages that follow. 

 

0:23:13 – Adam

Yeah, that’s true. I know a lot of people are like the teenage years are so hard and man, there’s been hard times and some of that’s my own doing. But I look back and I’m like man, this is a fun stage because the conversations you can have are just so much deeper and their personalities and who they are is coming out in new ways and it’s like those light bulb moments you referred to. I just I love those moments and you’re like something just clicked in their mind or in their heart and it’s this just became more real to them and it’s super exciting. It’s not that there aren’t times that I’m like what happened to the five-point harness in the car seat that I could just stick them into and they’d stay there until I got back. 

 

0:23:54 – Barnabas

No, can we have those for teenagers, so I know where they are. 

 

0:23:57 – Adam

I think all stages are exciting and God’s blessed me with some amazing children, so I can’t take credit for the work he’s done in them. Certainly I’ve messed a whole lot of things up, but as they get older, being able to see them, you know. So installation, interpretation, like as they’ve gotten older, trying to help them interpret the big things in life, and then just watching them start to do that and just listening to how they’re processing, like that’s been really exciting for us, as we’ve been able to see, okay they’re. They’re putting some good thought into these decisions and they’re not just aimlessly choosing something. 

 

0:24:31 – Barnabas

Yeah, they get out of elementary school, they go into middle school. I feel like middle school is is sort of a twilight zone where and I’ve talked to like a legitimate child psychologist who’s like just mush, like that, that that’s what’s going on in the brain and like that’s why so much doesn’t make sense it’s the most they’ve kind of grown out of, like the freedom of childhood in terms of like children. They’re just like they don’t care what they look like nearly as much. They’re just sort of like they’re going to be friends with whoever they want to be friends with. There’s no calculation of reputation or cool or anything like that. All that changes in middle school. 

 

I found the middle school years to be the hardest for that reason because the outside influences and them having no capacity to navigate it was a lot. But what I realized in middle school and again, this is something I look at and I go I don’t know where I got this perspective from, but it was probably from wise mentors who passed something on to me and then, just the Lord’s kindness to me, when my kids were really little I realized I want to create an environment in my home so that when they do not have to come home and see me. They still want to. So, starting when they were toddlers, thinking someday they’re going to be 30. Yeah, and they do not need to come see dad. Do they still want to? Can I create an environment so that this isn’t a place they dread? This is a place where there’s, there’s enjoyment, there’s love, there’s you know, probably plenty of things that I will need to apologize for, but like apologize for them that way that there’s, there’s, there’s. 

 

There’s not bitterness, there’s not those kinds of resentment, those kinds of things. And I didn’t have like a game plan as much as it was. I want this home to be marked by joy. I want it to be marked by respect. Like they better respect me. I’m their dad, they better mind me when I say to do something, you need to do it. Obedience matters, but so does forgiveness and mercy, you know. So, like I don’t want to be heavy handed, I do want to have high standards and just kind of building that so that they know what the expectations are. There’s not confusion. I’m not moving the bullseye on them. They know what love looks like. So, even if they really screw up and I’m going to get kicked out of this house and telling them that it does not matter to me what you have done, this is your home. You are welcome here. 

 

We will work through some disappointments if we need to. That came very much into play in middle school, cause middle school is when my children were both, at various points, of the least likable, and I don’t mean that I hated them or that they were awful, but just like they’re so wrapped up in the fog of self at 12, 13 years old, sixth grade felt like a transition into it, seventh grade felt like hell on earth and eighth grade felt like the fog was clearing for me. 

 

0:27:10 – Adam

I mean with both kids. 

 

0:27:12 – Barnabas

And you know, and then also finding those snapshots of grace from people outside the home. You know, so you hear from other parents who are like oh it’s so great to have your kid over. They’re so respectful. I was like really, that’s amazing, that’s awesome. 

 

I didn’t know my parenting was working at all and that’s kind of my. That’s kind of my. My sense on on middle school was just creating that environment of acceptance. Welcome. Would there still like? There are times when the fog blows away and you know like you’re sitting in the car on an hour long drive and you have a really good conversation about life or boys or aspirations or insecurities or faith or whatever it is, and you’re like, okay, there’s a whole human being formed in there, and then the fog comes back over and they stop talking to you again. 

 

0:27:56 – Adam

And they’re kind of like okay, well, that’s so. Thankful for those little moments of grace like that, though, that just help you to to see like there’s something going on and the Lord is at work and moving. That’s just a difficult time in life. I think they’re still trying to figure out who they are, you know, and how they fit, and it’s just it’s a difficult time for them as well. And I think a lot of times we look at different stages in in our kids and we’re like well, why can’t they just be like this? Why? 

 

0:28:24 – Barnabas

can’t they just do this? 

 

0:28:25 – Adam

When, in reality, there’s so much more going on below the surface that we need to give some grace for those things and understand. Like this is part of the maturation process, this is part of who they are and growing into a human being, an adult and I don’t always take time to pause for those things right and really give it the thought that it needs. Like okay, yeah, they may I may not feel like I’m connecting, I may not feel like it’s what I’m doing is working, but yet they’re also going through a whole lot and just trying to keep that open communication as much as you can, even though they may not be able to process all their work, their thoughts and how they feel, trying to help them learn to put words to those things. My wife’s really good at that. Like okay, so is this what you’re feeling? We need to put words to this and help us to understand so that we can help you. 

 

0:29:15 – Barnabas

I feel a particular responsibility to do what you just described as a dad, because I’m going to go ahead and gender stereotype a little bit here, because I do think God designed men and women in distinct ways. Men, our sinful gravitation is very often towards either aggression or passivity, kind of the extremes. 

 

And so aggression is, you know my seventh grader is a royal pain in the butt. And so I’m going to like I will make them do what I say and become very overbearing, and that was a temptation for me. I failed in that kind of you know, the loss of temper. Like you will not talk to me that way, there’s no place for this. Blah, blah, blah. And like then I have to go back and apologize for being an overbearing jerk. And they’ve done that. 

 

And then the passivity side is like they’re so difficult to talk to, like fine, whatever tap out. And I was talking to another dad who I know good Christian man, complicated family situation, but like really loves his kids and he’s got some kids about the same age as my kids, and he was just like I don’t know how to talk to my daughter and like they had a major fracture in their relationship because like he just wouldn’t talk to her outside of like functional communication. And I was just like talk to her, like you, the one thing that God gave us all was personality, yeah, and so like that doesn’t mean it’s perfect by any means, but but like God made us a certain way and then he put us together in a family, which means that we are intended to be in relationship with those people, exactly so. So, as a dad, especially keeping those doors of communication open, even if it feels like you’re just shouting into a void for whatever number of months or years. 

 

0:30:50 – Adam

Okay fine. 

 

0:30:52 – Barnabas

But, like, talk to them, like you talk to them about the stuff that you, that you are passionate about, invite them into, like all of that. Just don’t lose your temper or, if you do, apologize, but definitely try not to and don’t be passive. Don’t tap out on your middle school kids, especially your daughters. I only have daughters. I don’t know a lot about raising sons other than having been raised. It is different but it’s great. But I can say and I want to be careful here Like my parents are from a generation where relational connectedness with your kids was not nurtured in them and so it didn’t come naturally to them and so it didn’t come naturally to them and so they. 

 

I don’t remember any deep personal conversations with my parents during the middle school and high school years, a lot of informational ones, a lot of ones that felt sort of sermonic or like coaching, which just didn’t sit well with me, cause I don’t love being told what to do. I don’t know very many people that do. There are people who are just more inclined to do what they’re told Right, and so if they get instruction they’re like yes, sir, and I’m more inclined to be like, why make me At least I was then. 

 

Hopefully I’ve grown up a touch since then. So just the realization that, like, okay with my kids, it’s important for me to have a different, still be an authority, still be very clear about what our standards are, still have consequences for inappropriate actions, sins, things like that, but the relational openness that you just described, so as as our kids have grown up now. So let’s say, like I’m thinking of mine, they come out of the fog of middle school. For both my girls it felt like once they started high school it’s like the lights came on in their personality and and a lot of that had to do with the fact, I mean, some of it’s moving out of middle school, but like they go to a fairly good size high school 18, 17, 1800 students maybe a little bit smaller than that, but like it’s not a tiny high school, that’s a good size, which means that they have the freedom to kind of find their place Right.

 

There’s not sort of a an in crowd and an out crowd. It’s like fine, you can go be an artist or in drama or in sports or in you know whatever. And so they’ve kind of found their groove a little bit and it feels like the personality aspect has really started to flourish in the last few years. Yeah, a greater sense of who they are, what motivates them, et cetera. Is that kind of what you’ve seen to some degree with yours? 

 

0:33:04 – Adam

Yeah, definitely, seeing them like come to grips with, yeah, who they are, like okay, these are things that I do enjoy and these things that I’ve attempted in the past, like as a parent. You’re like, I tried to invest in that in you in a while and it wasn’t just never collect Right, and now there’s something that it’s like oh man, I really like that. That’s fun, and they learn that they don’t have to be each other too. I mean, you have two kids, both girls. I have two girls, same, all same ages. So I think there’s always this tension between, like this one is good at this, like I should be good at that too. And in high school, I feel like we’re working through this, like you’re, not them, like it’s okay to not be them. 

 

0:33:42 – Barnabas

That’s funny. I don’t see that nearly as much with my girls. Cause I think cause they’re so different. 

 

0:33:47 – Adam

They just kind of look at the other and they’re like nope not for me and mine are very different, but for some reason it’s. There’s this tension there sometimes and I don’t want that for them. Like I want them to understand like God made you who he wants you to be, with exactly the talents and gifts he’s given you, and we want to help those things flourish. And so I just seeing them try out new things and then actually get to the point later in high school where you talk through things and you’re like you know I could do this and this could be fun, but really this needs to be more of a priority. And like they come to these realizations on their own and you can just kind of be a cheerleader for them and that’s super exciting. And then coming to, hopefully, to an understanding that, like the way we’ve instructed them and tried to discipline over the over the years is not for not cause. We like authority, yeah, it’s not just cause I want my way and I want someone to serve me. Like it’s because I had your good in mind, right, and so seeing some of those light bulbs come on, that like, oh okay, that’s why this was the case, you know, I think back to a time when I was a kid I was probably 11 years old or so, so not in high school yet, but I remember we were working at a friend’s house on his car. 

 

Well, I wasn’t, I was watching. I just I love mechanical stuff. So I was watching my stepdad and a buddy take an engine out of a car and they were doing something to it. So they pulled the entire engine out and I’m just enamored by this engine. Right, it’s sitting on like a cherry picker, so it’s kind of like a little crane yeah and I’m sitting there just like right up next to it, wanting to look at it. 

 

So I actually just sat down on the cherry picker and I was just like staring at the thing and my legs were underneath it, underneath the engine and, it’s know, hoisted up in the air, and I just was sitting there and like winning on over you know what’s this? What’s that, you know? And just this is the thing that makes the car run, you know. And my stepdad said, hey, Adam, you need to get up. You know this thing might fall. And the second I got, I mean I obeyed instantly, praise the Lord. And the second I got up, the engine did fall. And like that could have been the end of me and realizing that, yeah, At least the end of your mobility, Right, I mean, I certainly would have been able to walk again. So realizing like that obedience at that point was like, oh, he had my good in mind, Right, Right. 

 

And I think as we get older and progress, we see that more and more different ways, different facets of okay, they weren’t just trying to be a. You know, my, my dad’s not just trying to be a pain, you know, he’s actually trying to instill something useful in me, Um, and I, I like, I like seeing that, which I mean. Maybe that’s self-satisfying, but it’s also that I send up, like, okay, they’re hopefully going to be a productive, useful human. 

 

0:36:23 – Barnabas

It’s self-satisfying, maybe, but also like you think, like the example you just gave, you think back to your own youth and and the realizations you had at various points of like, oh, like mom was right, dad was right, like I should have listened to them, or that’s why they said that, because it kind of you kind of grow into the realizations of things I will say in high school, one of the things that has been a challenge for me is the the transition from obey me right now because I’m in charge, which is appropriate with little kids. Like I have told you to do something, you must do it. To obedience is still appropriate for adolescents, but the enforcement of obedience begins to look very different because if you keep that sort of like, if you don’t do this, I will X consequence Like at some point you’re driving a wedge in and you have to let them kind of grow into we were talking about this yesterday Like you want, you want to have a critically thinking human who you’re raising, so they want to know the rationale. 

 

Okay, what’s the appropriate balance between them asking why and me saying you need to do this? And in some instances it’s like do it, then we’ll talk about it. In other instances it’s like I need you to do this for this reason, right. And in other instances it says it’s like I don’t care if you understand my reasoning at all you will do you have to do this yeah and so balancing that which wasn’t a balancing act when they were seven is, is a challenge. 

 

I’ve heard somebody give the example of. You know these various stages. You go from nurse to drill sergeant, to coach, coaches, sort of middle school, high school then to cheerleader when they’re independent, and I don’t love the labels but I kind of get the concept behind it the pattern. 

 

Yeah, I think, yeah, the high school years have been. High school years have been. High school years have been have been really fascinating, I think. One one of the things that has been both rewarding and difficult is, you know, you start to give out a little bit more freedom and what do kids do with it? Yeah, sometimes really dumb stuff hopefully not harmful stuff but then also when they start to make decisions. 

 

So both of my daughters, in the space of a couple of years, made the decision to stop doing something that they had committed a lot of their years and energy to, so one was one had been a dancer, one had been a swimmer, yeah, and they both just were like I don’t, I don’t want to do it anymore, it’s not for me, with varying levels of difficulty, because there’s a they’d been invested in it, they had loved it. 

 

Yeah, and they both just made the decision to stop. And so, thinking through those kinds of decisions and you know we were talking earlier about sort of the uh, exposing them on a small scale to the difficulties in the world this felt like that at a what is, ultimately it’s pretty low stakes, but to them it felt very high stakes. 

 

That was a big part of their life A decision on how to, how to weigh the future, how to weigh the past, how to value things and so like really rewarding in the navigation of it, and they’re both really happy with their decision. But again there’s just sort of these like you have this microcosm of of these things, but now we find ourselves ready to put a child out into the world. 

 

0:39:24 – Adam

I mean it’s college. So it’s like pseudo world, but it’s still out from under, it all feels really heavy, doesn’t it? Yeah yes and no. I mean, I’m excited in one side, but the other side I’m like man, this is like. Hopefully I’ve trained them for it. 

 

0:39:39 – Barnabas

Right, I think it would feel a lot heavier to me if I had not conscientiously been preparing for this for like 15 years, because, again, like when they were little, I don’t know why, but I just had the perspective of they’re not mine for very long, right, preparing them to leave right. 

 

0:39:56 – Adam

So what do I? 

 

0:39:57 – Barnabas

what do I? And again, I have zero confidence that I have done a great job. I know there’s some things that I’ve done well. I know there are a lot of things I’ve missed opportunities at. Yeah, I’m with you, I there’s some things that I’ve done well. I know there are a lot of things I’ve missed opportunities at. I don’t know that they’re ready. 

 

I also don’t know that there’s a lot more I can do about it and I say they, she, and so there’s that aspect of putting out into, like this child out into the world and the you mentioned it earlier which is the ongoing parenting reality of oh, I don’t know what I’m doing. I mean that feels like I was talking to another parent at church recently and just saying like they were feeling very much like a failure and I was like you’re not a failure, you’re just a parent. Like every day is an exercise of lying down to bed at night and going I don’t know if that worked and then entrusting it to the Lord and going to sleep. And I don’t think it’s different when we send them off to college, except it’s just grand scale. I don’t know if that worked. About 18 years of parenting Right here you go, lord. 

 

0:40:59 – Adam

This one’s yours. So, as you think about that, like I hate to term it successful because I think that carries with it, like a, I personally made this happen, which is so much of not true when you think about the work that god does in their lives, because without him softening their hearts and changing them, anything I do would be futile. Right, yeah, but as you look at, okay, you know we have this idea, like we have this child that’s 18 years approximately, and the goal would be training them to leave right, be a successful, contributing adult to society. What is parenting success? Because that’s a big topic Like, well, we can take that all sorts of different ways, but what if you’re just going to boil it down to like what are the if my kid grows up and he’s not a? She is not some high paid individual and some powerful job, but they love God and they love people. 

 

0:41:55 – Barnabas

Yeah. 

 

0:41:56 – Adam

Is that a success? 

 

0:41:57 – Barnabas

Well, I mean, the short answer is yes, but also, I would say, when it comes to parenting, one of the things that we need to wrap our minds and hearts around is process over results. The American mindset of do this and you will earn this kind of thing has been read back into scripture. So you know, you think about the proverb raise your child in the way he should go, and when he’s old he will not depart from it. Yeah, and when he’s old, he will not depart from it. That’s a proverb, not a promise. 

 

0:42:28 – Adam

Right, what that’s? 

 

0:42:29 – Barnabas

not saying is if you get it exactly right, your child will turn out exactly right. What it is saying is on balance, the majority of parents who invest godly parenting in their kids will have better outcomes. Yeah, totally agree. But there’s so many examples I mean we can, you can just you can run through the list of amazing godly people in this world who came from horrendous homes. 

 

0:42:51 – Adam

Absolutely yeah. 

 

0:42:51 – Barnabas

And then people who very faithfully poured into their kids and their kids are not walking with the Lord or have made a wreck out of their lives. So who failed? The answer is sin. Sin happened. Sin was decided upon by people and so process over results has to be our way in terms of I am going to. The process is I am going to faithfully try to exhibit a love for Jesus to my kids, and I’m going to leave it that broad, because some families are very like diligent family worship families and others aren’t. Some families are like you know there’s catechism and then there’s not catechism, but the idea is like does our home exude following Jesus? Do I exhibit that? And that means grace, repentance, asking for forgiveness, praying together, the relationship with God. Okay, have I communicated to my kids what values are worth pouring our lives into? If what I’ve exhibited is success is bound up in money, possessions, whatever, that’s probably what they’re going to walk in there and value, or they’re going to profoundly resent it. 

 

But if I’ve exhibited it as be this kind of person, the kind of person who’s compassionate, the kind of person who is loving, the kind of person who walks with Jesus, the kind of person who’s humble, the kind of person who walks with Jesus, the kind of person who’s humble, the kind of person who’s contributes and is selfless, those kinds of things, then they’re going to have a lot harder time resenting that, because that’s not a person you can resent, and so the process over results piece has to be it, and that’s where I can sleep at night while sending a child off to college, because I don’t know how the results are going to be. 

 

I don’t have zero idea. She is a strong-willed, bright, young woman with a future that is as bright or as dark as her willingness to walk with the Lord. She’s a professing believer that I see a lot of fruit in her life, and who knows what the future holds. But I do know that, to the best of my ability, I have tried to faithfully raise her, and so I have to trust that the Lord is going to take that process and bear some fruit out of it. I also need to know that the Lord works on his timeframe, not mine. 

 

So if she is immature, which every 18 year old is. 

 

the Lord will mature her on a timeframe that suits him, not me, and so that’s a lot easier to say on a microphone than it is to watch your kids live through. And then I think back and I go. This was a realization that dawned on me maybe six or nine months ago, probably starting senior year. Where I was, I was feeling very much the pressure of trying to turn out a good kid, pressure of boy I only have this much time left. And it was as if God just sort of like lifted my chin and turned my head back in time, like to look back down the timeline of my life. And he’s like, if I could be this gracious to you and I could do all of this in your stubborn, arrogant, hotheaded, selfish life, you don’t think I can do that for your daughter, who’s a lot cooler and nicer and more level headed and is better than you were at her age, like if I could do it for you, why can’t I do it for her? 

 

I don’t know a very good answer to that, so I should probably put a lot more confidence in what God can do. 

 

0:46:10 – Adam

That’s a great point, and I think we tend to look at things as like we want a finished product. That sounds bad right. 

 

0:46:19 – Barnabas

I’m not even a finished product. 

 

0:46:20 – Adam

Right, none of us are, and that’s why I think it’s kind of one of those like what are we expecting? You know, like we’re unfinished, we still have sin and, by God’s grace, hopefully we’re the same person inside our home as we are at church on Sunday, because if you want to throw a blockade to your child loving God, be two different people, right, and it’s not that I don’t fail and I don’t get upset and I have to confess and come back and all those things by the way like one of the things we can do is give our kids input into our business. 

 

0:46:50 – Barnabas

So like, just, especially if you’re in ministry, just ask them be like hey, do you see like? Does it frustrate you Anything that goes on at church about me? Did you see me being different? Am I like? And if you have created an environment where they don’t feel scared of you, they’ll call you on your stuff. They’ll be like actually, yeah, sometimes it feels like you’re like this here or this there, and other times they’ll be like oh no, like this is totally fine, and so they can be your. Your litmus test there. 

 

0:47:15 – Adam

That’s a really good reminder, Cause I I’ve not done it much lately and I really it brings to mind what we used to do, and one of the things we would do is we would take our kids out or just sit down with them at some point We’d just have a casual conversation. Part of it would be is there anything that myself or your mother has done that we’ve sinned against you that we haven’t asked for forgiveness for? 

 

Have we offended you in any way and not trying to pry it out of them, right, but just be honest and be like hey, I know I mess up and I’d love to. If there’s a barrier there, I want to know that so that we can have reconciliation, because I want someone who sees me every day of the week, year in and year out, like they can see imperfections in my life for sure they’re part of God’s grace in my life to help me change too, and I think, just as we look at that, I think it’s a great question to ask. I think one of the things I also need to do better is to pray more for my children. I know there are some people I talk to and they’re like they are huge prayer warriors and they like their prayer life for their children is just amazing to me, yeah, and I’m like I could really do way better in this area, like I just can I give you a word of encouragement on that? 

 

0:48:32 – Barnabas

um, there are people who are dedicated prayers for their kids, which is beautiful yeah there’s also a way to be a dedicated prayer for your kid that is not like on your knees 30, 40 minutes a day which, again, none of us would be hurt by doing that but rather to be prayerful in our interactions with them. So is it in James or is it in Ephesians? Pray without ceasing I think that’s in Ephesians, and you can’t pray without ceasing in the on your knees way. That’s true, but you can approach every conversation with your kids from the posture and the mindset of like Lord, would you make this fruitful? So that’s a habit that has to be developed. But the encouragement is a hundred percent. You need to get better at praying for your kids and I know this because 100% of parents need to get better at praying for our kids. 

 

None of us are nailing it Right, but there’s a way to do that that isn’t like where the shortcoming is not so pronounced as compared to these unique saints who are particularly good at it. As much as just can I approach my kids with a posture of prayer and a thought process of handing things over to the Lord. Lord, I’m about to lose my temper, yeah help me out here. Help me have a little more grace and patience, those kinds of things, because like that is praying. 

 

0:50:01 – Adam

It’s more of a lifestyle of prayer than a time period of like transaction transaction, for lack of a better word. 

 

0:50:07 – Barnabas

I mean, and I think those are very valuable things. The dedicated to like. It’s not one or the other, but there is a way to increase our prayer life for our kids. That is more of a like. Think of it like a deflection to God and anxious thought enters our minds or a burden lands on our hearts about our kids deflected to God and just go. Lord, I I can’t solve this, certainly can’t solve it today. This one’s yours. 

 

Hand it off and kind of a pass along to the one who can, who’s got them anyway like they’re, they’re his kids, which is a truth that I’m still getting my head and heart wrapped around. 

 

0:50:42 – Adam

But it does help us to show reliance on him. 

 

0:50:46 – Barnabas

Yeah. 

 

0:50:46 – Adam

And that’s a humbling thing for ourselves that we need in order to be able to parent well. Yes, absolutely. 

 

0:50:53 – Barnabas

Well, that was a substantial conversation about parenting in which we answered none of your questions and probably clarified nothing. Hopefully, what you at least experienced was man. Other people also find parenting to be challenging and we all need to depend on the Lord. But it does bring us to an unrelated but always essential topic and point in these podcasts, and that is our curious question of the week, where we throw out a question that is unrelated to anything and just is kind of and this one’s kind of absurd. Yeah, it’s out there, but absurd is fun. I hope it’s out. There’s kind of absurd. Yeah, this is out there. 

 

But absurd is fun. I hope it’s out there, because if it’s in here this is a zoo, and the question is what animal do you think is especially awesome? Okay, this is. 

 

0:51:33 – Adam

I don’t know why. I just have always loved this animal and it’s, I know like sometimes people say an animal and you’re like well, is that like their kind of like their personality? That like their kind of like their personality, like some people do this you know, spirit animal thing, this is not. 

 

0:51:46 – Barnabas

It. 

 

0:51:46 – Adam

Okay, I don’t know what a spirit animal is. Yeah, I I don’t know really what it is either, I just know sounds pagan. People talk about it. I I just love sloths. I think they’re great. I don’t know if it’s because I always feel like I’m running around with like have you crazy? Have you seen Zootopia?

 

0:52:00 – Barnabas

yeah, yes. 

 

0:52:01 – Adam

Yes, I just feel like this, like the slow nature and they look cool I think, but like the slow nature of them and just there’s some like aspect of it’s peaceful, I guess. 

 

0:52:12 – Barnabas

There is something about a sloth also that says something about God’s sense of humor, like God made an animal that legitimately can’t do anything or protect itself and it’s just funny, yeah, but also it has claws that look terrifying Right, but you could never get hurt by them unless you had zero reflexes. I know Like by the time they squeeze you you could be half a mile away. It’s like the slowest squeeze ever? 

 

0:52:39 – Adam

I don’t know. They’re just neat. My kids actually got me a sloth interaction one Christmas so we got to go and I got to go in the sloth cage and feed them and pet them or whatever. It was cool. It was cool. I just love sloths. 

 

0:52:51 – Barnabas

I don’t know. We went on a cruise a couple of years ago and at one of the stops went to like this adventure park that involved like zip lining and whatever, but part of it was sort of this wild animal sanctuary and you got to hold a sloth and whatever. So, yeah, there and they, they just look happy. 

 

0:53:05 – Adam

Yeah, they just look so chill, chill, and I think that’s part of the draw to them is it’s just like laid back and chill. 

 

0:53:12 – Barnabas

Yeah, yeah. So my my answer to this question I mean, I, I have always loved, I’ve always thought like nature, documentaries and nature, so documentaries and nature, so planet earth, all of these I tend to lean more towards watching ones about predators. Okay, because they’re just fascinating to me. However, my answer to this question hasn’t is not a predator. I have always thought chimpanzees were were both hilarious and fascinating. 

 

Okay, um, just since I was a kid, them and dolphins dolphins, my favorite sea creature, for sure yeah, and, and I think both of them I, I think I’m kind of fascinated by their smartness Like neither of them are human, but they interact with humans at a level that’s like okay, like we’re kind of clicking here. And in some cases, like chimpanzees, will outsmart a human, which says something about the intelligence range of humans. But yeah, I just think the communal aspect, the smarts aspect, it seems like they have a sense of humor, they like to do stuff and then laugh at it. 

 

0:54:09 – Adam

A little fun in them, yeah. 

 

0:54:10 – Barnabas

Yeah, there’s sort of a, and also I probably started enjoying them when I was an elementary school boy, which is a very ape-like phase in general. 

 

0:54:19 – Adam

Yeah, right, everybody knows a monkey. 

 

0:54:21 – Barnabas

Intelligence and hygiene, yeah, and so, yeah, I think the chimpanzee is hilarious. 

 

0:54:27 – Adam

All right, I wouldn’t have picked that, but that’s great. Brings us to our final segment of the podcast, which is the curmudgeon moment yeah, the curmudgeon moment here, and I think you know we’ve both had experiences like this, but I think you do a lot more of this type of travel than I probably do. So tell me about your curmudgeonous attitude regarding airline passengers Airline passengers. 

 

0:54:53 – Barnabas

Well, let me start out by saying airline passengers are not done any favors by anything that happens from the moment you get to the airport. 

 

0:55:03 – Adam

So that is true. You got to take into account like, by the time you’ve gotten on a plane you have had to deal with the TSA who. 

 

0:55:13 – Barnabas

there are a lot of lovely individuals in the TSA, but as an organization and as a general process it’s utterly unpleasant, and I have thoughts on that too. Maybe that’ll be another curmudgeon moment. 

 

Definitely we could talk about that. Then you get into the airport itself, which is filled with people, many of whom apparently have never left home, judging by their utter lostness, their inability to navigate a crowd or to read signage. And then, if you’re hungry or thirsty, you just spent 18 times as much as you would at your local 7-Eleven, for sure, but you can’t bring that drink with you in. 

 

Yeah, you have to get it on the other side, right, which means you spend too much money on it. So yeah, by the time. And then there’s the boarding process on planes, which, aside from Southwest, is just an utter, abject disaster. But let’s just talk about what happens on the airplane. 

 

0:55:59 – Adam

Okay, we’re going to skip all that and go straight to the flight. 

 

0:56:03 – Barnabas

Well, we can start with people who like to do things like yell at the people at the, you know, like the check-in desk. Yeah Right, just being rude. That’s never gained anybody anything ever. Nobody has ever won by yelling. 

 

0:56:16 – Adam

That’s fair. 

 

0:56:16 – Barnabas

You know and you’re annoying, okay, so people get on the plane. I’m just going to list off some things that I have witnessed in the last four flights that I’ve taken. 

 

0:56:25 – Adam

Okay, wow, that’s fairly recent then. Yeah, so this isn’t like that happened once. 

 

0:56:30 – Barnabas

These are recent and it’s usually happened more than once. This one might be particular to flying to Nashville, you know so. I go in and out of Nashville. That’s where, that’s my home base. So, flying back to Nashville, multiple times I’ve witnessed people it’s usually a group of people. They’re getting on a plane, they have a Bluetooth speaker playing music and it’s usually the kind of country music that makes me want to put my face through a cinder block wall loudly and they’re singing along there. They are pre-drunk and pre-partying except everybody else who didn’t opt in. Like we just, we just want to get home. Right, we’ve got to listen to Luke Bryan sing whatever terrible song or Florida Georgia line or whatever. Like my, my temper temperature gets way up there with that one. 

 

0:57:15 – Adam

I think that crosses over outside of airlines too, like the whole people just randomly playing their music loud in public places, at a restaurant or wherever, like at a communal pool or hiking, like that’s one of my woods and you’re wanting to, just you want to enjoy the solace of it. 

 

0:57:32 – Barnabas

Serenity and you’re like playing this obnoxious trash. Yeah, that’s so, that’s one. Um, nobody should ever recline a seat on an air on an airplane period because they have designed the planes for that not to work anymore. Honestly, they should just take that feature out of planes because they’ve crammed everything in there. 

 

0:57:50 – Adam

I’d have to disagree. I think reclining seats are great and they don’t go back but like four inches. But I don’t think it’s bad. But the thing is, once one person does it, the next row kind of has to do to have airspace. 

 

0:58:10 – Barnabas

I’m six foot two, which means planes, planes are already built for people five inches shorter than me. I, inevitably, am trying to use my space to get something done because I’m just trapped in a tin can in the sky. So I use that time to write or read or whatever. And so, like you, can’t use a laptop on the tray table if somebody reclines or seat, because your laptop just half closed. So yeah, that’s like, that’s rude, the armrest thing, like who gets the armrest so this isn’t a question of people doing something wrong. 

 

It’s more just a constant battle in no man’s land. Whose space is this? And the answer is mine, because I win, I establish dominance and I don’t give it up. I don’t, you know, that’s just that’s just a go-to. 

 

0:58:50 – Adam

You just take it. 

 

0:58:51 – Barnabas

This is one that I wouldn’t put any. I wouldn’t put moral value on it. But also I don’t like it when people talk on airplanes. I don’t want to have a conversation with the person next to me. Yeah, I just especially not if I’ve got a book out or headphones in, like it’s one thing if you ask me a question and if you’re like, hey, can you, can I get out? I need to go to the restaurant, that’s. That’s totally fine. 

 

But like you flying, flying home or just visiting doesn’t matter, we’re never going to talk again Like just let it be, Quick question what’s your 30 second take on people not turning off technology? 

 

when they say turn off all technology and devices, oh, I don’t care, because that’s a fake rule, like it doesn’t affect the planes at all that’s, and also they say to do that way, way before you actually need to, and oftentimes you then get stuck on the taxiway for like an hour after they’ve said that. So I usually shut it down around the time. Wheels up, yeah. So like when the plane goes and then it starts to take off, I’m like, okay then I’m going to shut it down. 

 

0:59:53 – Adam

Doesn’t it concern you that, like a little cell phone, they like make it sound like your cell phone could take down the whole plane? Yeah, it’s not true. 

 

1:00:01 – Barnabas

So I just don’t care. All right, that’s fair. 

 

1:00:12 – Adam

So yeah, that one’s one, I think uh people who get mad at crying babies. 

 

1:00:13 – Barnabas

This is my last one. I could go on and on so, like anytime I see. You know this is the episode on parenting, so we’re going to end on a pro parent note here. If you are flying with a, with an infant Now, if you’re flying with a misbehaving young child, like, get that kid in order. 

 

1:00:24 – Adam

Right, that’s a difference. 

 

1:00:25 – Barnabas

This is not a jungle gym. This is the. This aisle is not for racing up and down, but like you’ve got an infant in arms and their ears start to get pressured and they start crying Like people who give them dirty looks. If you are unsympathetic to the parent, particularly the mother of a crying baby, you need to take a long hard look in the mirror because you are being awful. That like I always want. I’m like can I help? Is there? I want to, but again, that’s creepy if you’re a dude to do that and I don’t want to make mom feel uncomfortable, but like I’ll offer to carry stuff periodically if she’s like got three diaper bags and a stroller or whatever, but it’s already hard enough, like they’re already afraid of that right. 

 

Yeah, they already don’t want that to happen. 

 

1:01:06 – Adam

They’re doing everything possible to make it not happen, but there’s always so much you can do. 

 

1:01:09 – Barnabas

Yeah, no, and I’ve been on flights where a baby has cried like behind me for four straight hours and yeah, it is boy. We’ll grind you down. That is not mom’s fault, right? And like not. That that deserves sympathy, not anger. So that’s not very that’s not very curmudgeonly of me, but I’m going to be curmudgeonly at those who make that mom feel poorly about just trying to survive a flight. So that’s my, that’s my curmudgeonly thoughts on airplane passengers. Do you have any to add on that front? 

 

1:01:39 – Adam

I think you’ve covered most all of them, I had my one question there about cell phones, so that was good. But, yeah, definitely there’s a lot of parents trying to do their best and trying to make the flight peaceful for everyone and that’s an unnecessary pressure to those who are giving effort. 

 

1:01:56 – Barnabas

And I’ve seen parents come on and like hand out like goodie bags, like earplugs and stuff, which is really thoughtful, but they shouldn’t have to do that, like I shouldn’t make them have to plan more in advance than already, like how am I going to survive this with a toddler? So be be gracious people. Yeah, all right. Well, this has been episode six of the curious curmudgeon podcast. We hope it has been encouraging, especially to you parents who are just trying to figure it out every day. 

 

We hope it’s been thought provoking, of the good variety, not sort of piling on pressures and at least a little bit entertaining, as we get mad at people who don’t know how to get on airplanes and such. Thanks so much for listening and tune in next week.