Hope for Multigenerational Families

you know, and that is the gospel. Lived out is walking forward, misstepping, failing, repenting, standing back up with courage and moving forward. And if your kids don't see that happening, they're not gonna want to be a Christian. Yes. They're not gonna want to, they're not gonna want to perpetuate that. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the family teams podcast. It is a beautiful Memorial day weekend. And I'm joined with by a bunch of members of the same family, the Stewart family. I wrote a, an essay about five generations of. Trying to, trying to like April and I were having conversation too on a podcast, trying to imagine what, what it would look like for, for us to think about what, what this, we're into our third generation in terms of living in Fort Thomas, actually four, if you, my parents are living here as well, but we've kind of started to imagine what a multi generational family in five generations in one location, one area, really with the same vision, what that could look like.

you know, and that is the gospel. Lived out is walking forward, misstepping, failing, repenting, standing back up with courage and moving forward. And if your kids don't see that happening, they're not gonna want to be a Christian. Yes. They're not gonna want to, they're not gonna want to perpetuate that. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the family teams podcast. It is a beautiful Memorial day weekend. And I'm joined with by a bunch of members of the same family, the Stewart family. I wrote a, an essay about five generations of. Trying to, trying to like April and I were having conversation too on a podcast, trying to imagine what, what it would look like for, for us to think about what, what this, we're into our third generation in terms of living in Fort Thomas, actually four, if you, my parents are living here as well, but we've kind of started to imagine what a multi generational family in five generations in one location, one area, really with the same vision, what that could look like.

So I'm excited to be joined by Jim and Jennifer Stewart, who are Brooke's parents and also Tyson and Casey, who are along with Brooke, they're, they're adult children. And so we just want to have a conversation. I'm here with April. We just want to like. Ask you guys some questions, hear the story. And as fellow travelers trying to figure out how in this kind of hyper individualistic Western culture, do you raise a multigenerational family that, that has that kind of a cohesive culture.

I never left that area. So this, do you want me to just dive right in? Yeah, let's talk about it. Like, how, what did it say? You, how did you start to think this way? You guys obviously chose to have a larger family and what was, what was the impetus? Right. So it's a process. It wasn't a, an intentional starting point.

Very new. Right? And there was a small group of people doing it and they had just started having like. some conventions where you could go and meet with other homeschooling families. So there was a whole mindset about how you raised your kid biblically, what that looked like, and it was kind of new ground.

So, that kind of started the process of placing value on children well, and God's word says that children are a blessing and, you know, we're learning all this. As well, at that time, and as far as homeschooling, we, you know, we also were kind of like, not sure about certain medical things. We tended to want to do more alternative things.

So, then, at that time, also to 1 Casey started homeschooling, we started homeschooling, or we started to attend church. Full time, all the time. That was kind of one of the requirements of being in that program at the time, the homeschool program. And so they said, if in order for this to really work as under God, you really need to be, you know, working under the Lord's leadership, you know, not just out on your own.

And it's not essentially radical thinking, I wouldn't say, but it's biblical thinking. And you can consider that radical if you want, but I don't. I consider that normal. It should be a normal way of life. So, essentially, to make a long story short, that set the framework for essentially how we viewed our family, and we both happened to be self employed.

And so then We developed a chore system and we started going to conventions and selling it and doing workshops and teaching people how to, how to homeschool their children. As we learned, we helped others. And so our children grew up going to homeschool conventions and actually sitting in the booth while I was speaking or selling books.

But we actually did, as we did believe the Bible and saw the children were a blessing. We thought, wow, what if our children all grew up and married? Kingdom builder, dedicated Christians who love the Lord and each of their households became an embassy for the kingdom. How many people could they actually reach out and touch that?

That each one has married a God loving, God fearing spouse, and they have built their homes like that. And so we are, we were just like, oh, that we would be so rich if that happened. And so we are rich in that way. So, yeah. And even that was a process with our family. You know, as you know, with children, one of the most important things is finding the right spouse, you know, to spend your life with.

You, because you can't just say you need to do this. even though it might be right, they have to, it has to be of their own volition to follow that. And you have to try to set the parameter that that's what's best for them. If you do these things, you'll have a good outcome. And God's word says that. So you look at that principle, you act on it and you instruct your children that way in a loving way, especially if you can, you know, so basically.

You know, your head start on the principles and different things like that. So, you know, Jim says we talked to our kids a lot and, you know, it's just, it's not just like. We wrestled through all kinds of things with them, you know, and we have six girls. So I'd say, Oh, go talk to your dad. I mean, he just, he was sounding board, you know, because I was more emotional as a woman and there's lots of working through stuff and wrestling with stuff.

And, you know, I was kind of like that fearful thing, like, what if she goes some wacky way? And, and, you know, but then you just have to believe that you did the best you could have giving them the foundation and the Lord is going to be faithful, you know, so. That's so good. Well, so, you know, the, one of the things that I, one of the questions I love to try to understand is, What is your hypothesis for why things worked out well for your family and why things tend to, I mean, I think the current statistics or something like 80 percent of evangelical kids fall away from their faith.

And therefore there's going to be a huge fallout generationally. And so we don't believe that we're certainly not seeing that with our adult kids. So it has caused me to think that there is, there are things that maybe we're doing that are, we're kind of, that a lot of people are going along with the culture that, that is making it very difficult for their family to, to kind of move forward generationally.

They were intentional. So, for example, we went to church every Sunday and it was a rhythm and it was a part of our life, but we didn't have to go to church. So sometimes dad would say, Let's go for a drive today. And we would go on a family drive and then we'd have this family day together and we'd have lunch and we'd go through old bookstores or we'd, we'd do fun things as a family.

And then because my parents had just this open mentality of hospitality, and it wasn't like our house had to be perfect to have people over, my mom would just cook an extra lasagna and we would have the missionaries over for lunch. And so we would spend our Sunday afternoons, many Sunday afternoons, sitting around the table visiting with missionaries.

It wasn't just something that my parents were making me do. It was something that I actually wanted to be a part of. So, oh, that's really good. That was a rhythm that I think was just really a blessing. That's great. Wow. Yeah. That being able to see through kind of that portal, all these different places where God's moving, I'm sure that that does something to your faith to interact and to have that done through the home.

Realizes they're going to fail a lot at keeping the hyper legalistic standards. And so they just become a black sheep and it really rips the family apart because you start to see, you know, a lot of these unhealthy roles develop amongst your children that we've talked a lot about that, like. but at the same time you can't be just like completely unintentional and just say, Oh, like the answer is to have no structure and to have no leadership.

It really can cause like a lot of disintegration to happen. I'd love to hear a tie from you, Tyson. What are, what are, what did this start for you? Any, anything that you noticed in growing up that you think would be helpful? Why did, why did this work in your family's case? And what have you seen maybe in other families where they really struggled to pull this off?

And, you know, I, my parents, they, Dealt with problems, you know, they, they, they drag them out in the open and they deal with them. And I don't think that very many people do that, you know, they, they communicate, they talk about it as painful as it is to do and hard as it is to do. That was, that was huge. And they continue to do that to this day, you know, and that, that's, that's a, I would say that's probably one of the foundational things that has perpetuated our faith.

You know, maybe when they're little, a little bit, but as they grow and observe, they're going to know everything and, you know, for, for parents to not be willing to, to deal with things and to think somehow, whether it's intentional or subconscious that maybe this will go away if I don't deal with it. It's going to come back up later.

You're going to fail. You're going to make poor decisions at different times. You're going to, you're going to give into things, you know, and that, that is the gospel. Lived out is walking forward, misstepping, failing, repenting, standing back up with courage and moving forward. And if your kids don't see that happening, you're, they're not gonna, they're not gonna want to be a Christian.

You know, the, the outworking of a lot of those things that we're talking about right now, me going to work with my dad, you know, my parents marriage, you know, it being a journey like dad was talking about, it wasn't like you sat down and wrote this map out, you know, that's the Christian walk. I'm doing the primal path with my boys right now.

He wants you to be good at being a family. He doesn't want you to be, have a good marriage. He wants you to be good at marriage. And that is. Failing, repenting, standing back up with courage and moving forward. Wow, that's really good. And I would just add to that, Ty, one thing that I've seen too is that, as we have each failed or gone through suffering, we have been there for each other.

Oftentimes work in the short term are devastating to families in the long term. And we've talked a lot about that. Yeah, I think it's, it's so encouraging to hear all of you share. So our. Our kids are, we have five kids ages 24 down to 15. And so our oldest two are married and we're new grandparents as of a year ago.

I'm curious what that looks like for your kids. So like the grandkid level. So from my perspective, the third generation of your family, what does that look like for them? Are they? I know it's probably quite an age range, but are they? With each other often, are they, do you think that they'll turn to each other in times of, you know, building businesses or do they hang out for fun?

We're visiting in Idaho right now. And, but that support system is. Is really huge. And I mean, I don't want to make sound weird by saying it's positive peer pressure, but it's really more of it of knowing that that everyone is there. We have a family text going all the time and so forth for whatever's happening rejoicing or, you know, praying or sorrowing or whatever's happening with each other.

You know, make it so we can stay there and, and make it so that we can grow old there and, you know, manage the property and the, the grass and the lawn and all that. And so, you know, we actually have our grandkids over a lot to help us and we pay them. And I feel like we pay them well, you know, we, we just, but more importantly, We spend time with them a lot doing things like that, and we talk to them all the time, tell them stories, but it leads into something we're able to actually impart to them.

So there's always an opportunity to chat about things like that. Yeah, I'll speak to this just for a second. I it's just kind of a funny story because my daughter is because I'm the middle child. We actually all got married consecutively as well. So Casey got married first and down the line of the eight of us, we all got married consecutively.

Seven months old. So we have, we definitely have clumps. We have some groups of siblings or cousins that are all kind of like they were born in the same year. We have a few, a few clumps like that, but it's hilarious to me because the, the story is that my daughter, especially when she was younger, when we would hang out with friends at church or whatever, at our life group, she would call them her cousins because she believed that every child who was Her age was a cousin because she has so many, so she would need to come to me and clarify, like, mom, are they my cousin or my friend also needing to clarify?

Because I told her at one point, like, you can't you can't marry cousins. So she was like, coming to clarify, like, is that boy my cousin or I don't know if he is. I don't I need to clarify this. So it's definitely there's like, a lot of culture around, like, There, there is a lot of beauty in like our kids growing up with their cousins, but also for me, it's a kind of a cool picture too, because, because I'm the middle child, it's cool because Bella, she, she gets input from her aunts, like my, my oldest daughter's nine.

And Bella is my 9 year old is also looking up to her teenage. Cousins and talking through, like, oh, like, you know, thinking about what they do and how they live. And so, you know, it's kind of cool because I'm like, oh, like, my, my oldest nieces are some of the pure, like, the, the people that my daughter is looking up to.

So like, she's like, you're an in between, you know, like you get to now start being an older person to the younger people. And so, yeah, it's really beautiful. That's so cool. Yeah, that is an awesome man. Yeah, having all of those, that, that incredibly dense relational network. Imagine raising your kids. I just want you guys to understand that people are listening to this, you know, that if you, if you do this faithfully downstream, what happens, the gift you're giving to your children and your grandchildren is a tremendous gift because of that, right?

So, uh, and we're, we're definitely trying to understand that well at this stage in our lives. Yeah. Any, any thoughts about how, How to, how to think about when, when you have a, when someone's marrying into the family, how to make sure that their experience is that they feel like they belong. Well, several of our in laws have been our friends too.

And so we just apply the same principles essentially as with our kids. They they're adults now they're married, they have their own life. And. They will usually come and ask or, and I've talked with my son in laws in different ways before they got married and, and then after they're married, but, you know, they're, they're capable people.

Well, maybe the kids can speak to that about their spouses, but we, we've had a really great wild and crazy and fun loving. Family and have, have had a lot of fun as we interacted and did all kinds of things with parties or, you know, just whatever we do. So, but I think hearing from some of my kids, I think they've kind of felt like our family could be a little intimidating, you know, so I don't know, Brooke, maybe tell them how Matt feels.

I'm standing in a circle with my five sisters and we're like, yeah, and and then the next sister's. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, and then and then and. Because when you grow up in a big family, there's this kind of unspoken law that if you want to talk, you have to talk louder than the person talking. So you, you know, that's how the conversation goes and you just keep going.

He's like, you guys are all very welcoming people. So he's like, I, he's gotten to know, and he's like, I feel like all of your, you know, like my brother in law's in, in, you know, my brothers and the, the people that have married into the family. He's like, I just, we all really like enjoy each other, even though we're all very different.

And, and in our family, it definitely feels like people genuinely are interested in each person as a person and not because we think we're all that, you know. We do think we're pretty fun. We do. I was thinking the same thing. Like, we were just really taught by my parents to really love people. So, even though I'm very close to my sisters and they're some of my best friends in the world, each of us have friends.

And so I, I love that culture and I'm trying to build that with my kids as well. That's good. Well, I, I think, I think one of the things that I I'm curious to about is there's sort of a belief that our culture has been said to me directly before that. The pinnacle of life is sort of like college, and then life just kind of gets hard and goes downhill from there.

How do you experience that meaning? Because I think that, like I said, a lot, a lot of people lose hope. That this is even possible and part of why I wanted to talk to you is because yeah, there's, I would say there's a number of people listening to this that would probably, if you said, hey, you, it's possible right here in America to build a multigenerational family.

So we will be able to see our kids in heaven. And you know, I don't know if you're going to play golf in heaven, or if you're going to write a boat around or, you know, you know what I'm saying? So I'm not trying to be cynical, but I think that the blessing is so tremendous, it's hard to talk about. Yeah.

And you need to place importance on what's important. And, you know, family is important. It's, it's. Yeah. You have the most influence over your children that you do over anybody that you'll ever know. Well, the only things that last forever are the word of God and the soul of man. So that's what you have to build on and upon or toward.

But we can't make it happen. But also, you know, I think about people comment on that, they, they kind of want to know how, you know, and why, and, and Jim and I can't reach all those people, but, but we hear our kids telling others why, and Casey and Aaron are involved in, in adoption orphan care ministry. And so, you know, obviously they have two Ethiopian children and a South Korean child.

Or, you know, You know, God can lead people to do whatever they want to in that regard. But then she's able to actually say why she thinks, you know, even if it's hard, even if, if we don't have a lot of space to raise children, our house is small or whatever, just hearing the stories that they're, they're.

Why are they a blessing? It's just a lot of fun to go to Disneyland with a lot of people. Or, you know, I mean, really, why, why are they a blessing and why is that true? Yeah. Like, as you're describing it's yeah, you've created. The whole army of kingdom expanding, you know, people. So it's like people think that in their own life, what they're doing with their personal effort is what they need to spend time focusing on because we don't understand the law of multiplication and what happens when we invest generationally, how.

Yeah. How are you thinking about. You know, the kinds of, you know, what, what, what is it that you, what, what is it that you place hope in? This is going to keep going down downstream from you. Well, you know, some thoughts I had as we were, as we were talking here the last 20 minutes or so that, you know, the life is in the living it's in, it's in every day, you know, and we tend to, we tend to look forward and go, if only I had this.

A set of parents and a set of kids and their spouses, you know, and we're, we're doing the work in individually with our kids to perpetuate that. You know, if in, in Israel, when they were in Egypt and they, they came into Egypt, there was somewhere between 3, 000 and 10, 000 of them that with Jacob came in with Joseph to Egypt and they, God blessed them and, you know, they were oppressed by the Egyptians, but within whatever period of time that was 125 years, there was two and a half million of them somewhere in that neighborhood, God told them he was going to make them as numerous as the stars.

If they had continued to obey God's commands, that's a, that's a birth rate of reproduction rate of 4. 17 per year. In 195 years, it would have been 10 billion Israelites on the earth. So essentially, you know, God's kingdom won't be established until Christ returns, but he did give a path of obedience and it would only take 195 years for every single person on the face of the earth to be a Christian.

You know, you, you, you're going to have small things every day that you can act that way. And then you're going to have pain and trials where you can really put the rubber to the road and go, I'm going to put my money where my mouth is. And I'm going to act. On the theology that I believe, and I'm going to step out and trust the Lord.

And so, you know, there's a, there's a reality to life that it's, it's an already and a not yet, you know, we take communion at church, Christ, Jesus has won, but yet there's still tears and pain. So there's a, there's a reality of living this life in this, in this suspense of pain and turmoil, but yet tremendous joy and hope.

You know, like we're, like God laid out a blueprint. And he's, he didn't leave us without an understanding that there is a way to do this. And if you, if you follow it, it doesn't mean that there aren't going to be really hard things in your life, like you were saying, Ty. It does mean that, that it, that God's plan is highly functional in its design.

If you're obsessed with getting there in one year or five years, then you're not going to follow this plan. This is a multi generational plan that takes generations to really see out. Generations of faith, generations of obedience, generations of following the Lord. So yeah, thank you guys so much for doing this today, taking some time and sharing your story with us.