¶ Intro / Opening
Hey, everybody. Welcome back. I'm here with Chris Cirillo. Chris, thanks for joining me today. Yeah. Happy to be here. So Chris and I are going to dive into some conversations around sons. So I think this is going to be helpful for moms and dads, but I hear Chris, you have some sons you're dealing with. A few.
Another great podcast for dads that. He's got some great interviews on there. So they dive into a topic here that I think will be really helpful for you guys. So we will play this. Full time, some of them have to go to work full time. So it's gotten pushed back. So preschool is really daycare. It's not preschool.
And even little girls can sit in circle time. How distinct is the boy versus the girl in terms of these impulses? Because I know it's not wholly separate, there's an overlap, right? Little boys who are between 3 and 5 years old have surges of testosterone, almost as much as an adolescence. Wow. That was a very surprising.
circle time, the frustration tolerance is not there. That's another phrase I thought was really helpful. Frustration tolerance. How much frustration tolerance does a little boy have? Not a lot. Good line. So we're doing that to little boys and we're labeling them. And then if they can sit in circle time, the school calls parents and says, your child is ADHD.
That seems really backwards. Play, in the word kindergarten, meant garden of children. That's what it means. A garden of children is not sitting in circle time, learning letters and numbers. A garden of children He really hates circle times. She's like, ten times she's like, pissed on this thing. So, a garden of children, I like that.
So you talked about how boys are getting feminized, which is For many going to sound inflammatory. Wouldn't be the first time I said something that was inflammatory. What's happening for girls or girls? I mean, okay, so we're going to stick with the boys conversation here. And I love some of the stuff they dive into with daughters as well.
Yeah. What is, what are your thoughts about that? Yeah, this is a really challenging topic for, for me as I'm kind of the boy that she is describing as a little kid. So I was, I was the adventurer. I was always dressing up as an army man and like, disappearing in the woods and coming back six hours later like covered in mud and doing all that stuff and at school myself and another boy we were actually like the most quote unquote troublemaker kids in the school and my parents had put us in this christian school and they had a lot more freedom in terms of the way that they managed children so I vividly remember like first grade This friend of mine, Taryn, and we were, we were both kind of the troublemakers because we were so active.
I have, I can attest as a homeschool, as homeschool parents, like if, if our kids get outside to have free play, explore, to fight with sticks, to imagine that they're a Star Wars character or an army guy or whatever it is that they're doing, something like that. The whole day just goes totally different.
And once I was able to label like, Oh, literally like we label it now in our home, they want to conquer that. And it totally like changes my level of resistance against those things. And like, it allows me to more comfortably just let that stuff happen, which has been really interesting to watch. That's really good, man.
That's amazing. Yeah, I think, I think that at the root of a lot of this confusion is really a very, very basic question. I think people have to answer and that is if masculinity is primarily a social construct, then why not just tear every boy down and build them up in the image of whatever. Our preferred sort of description of society should be.
Really, it's a, it's a conquering strategy. It's a world domination strategy. It's not done through violence. It's not done involuntarily. It's a very nuanced strategy. But it is a strategy that requires us to think about how do we do the fruitful, multiply, fill, subdue, and rule as followers of Jesus. And so, these mandates, I think, are really helpful.
So, man, this is where, yeah, I think trying to get down to like theological, have a feel theology of what masculinity is all about, really starting all the way back to that first description of the purpose of the family. And the father being the one who ultimately needs to, uh, really lead the charge when it comes to those five things, you start to see why boys are made the way they are.
How else would you describe the way that this sort of plays itself out in your home? Yeah. So first I'll call out just the challenge that this is for parents, especially if you were brought up in that system that, because it, Even though I resist against it, now that I kind of see things through a different light, it's trained in me.
And I think we realized how strong that was when, okay, we homeschool, they don't have a ton of social interaction with like people outside of, you know, our extended family, we don't show them TV shows and movies and all these things with this stuff yet, they still somehow pick up a stick and they think it's a gun or they, you know, want a sword fight or all these things.
So that that way I can kind of train into their subconscious that when they fight, It's for a very noble and specific and good purpose. We're not going to fight just to fight. We're not going to fight for bad things, you know, but we want to be really intentional about how we're doing that. Yeah. And then, you know, you see things stir up like the dinner table.
And those are really challenging things to figure out in the moment. I would say I get it wrong probably a lot more than I get it right. And I, I have a tendency, like I said, with the, Being shaped by the system I came up in to just want to shut those things down and that's been really hard. Yeah, yeah, that that's a really difficult year description when yeah Like you start you start to assume a certain level of order is is normal and a certain level of disorder And you do want to figure out yeah, how do you how do you curb that?
So what's really odd about school is that it's really designed around the work schedule of adults. Like why are kids. Who are maybe six years old spending seven hours a day and oftentimes, you know, much more than that if they're after school things or they can start much earlier if they're in daycare, why are they spending that much time in a hyper ordered world and where the training and the teaching and the education they're getting is designed around kind of this industrial scale where you have to figure out how to create enough order so that one teacher can educate 30, you know, plus children.
We, it is time for us to learn some academic things. So how have you thought about like transitioning into those realms and what is the appropriate amount of time? Like, like how have you guys thought about. Okay. This is just asking too much versus no, this is, this is an appropriate amount of order to expect from a boy at this stage at this age.
And that seems like the sweet spot. It's pretty hard to keep kids in the zone and actually learning. And it, and it feels like you're the diminishing returns are, are significant. Right. And it's like the more you kind of press in, it's almost like the, the idea of people who work, uh, over 50 hours a week.
But if we're not training our boys on how to, to utilize that part of their brain, I think we're doing a disservice even to their walk with Jesus, because it becomes about information and intellectualism rather than experiencing a living God. And so that's definitely a tension. One of the big ways that we create order in spaces that need order is what we do.
And that has been really, like, I think, helpful in transitioning from some of the chaos modes that you might have with little boys to some form of order. Yeah, I think those transitions are really difficult for young boys. It's, it's, it seems so obvious, like, what was, it was okay for me to do this? Just five minutes ago and now it's not and that just seems arbitrary and unusual and then it also just sort of invites a test.
This, yeah, I'm fascinated too by the left brain, right brain. You know, I've listened a lot to Ian McGilchrist, who is really the top scholar on hemispheric sort of brain. Um, research and he has talked a lot about, like, the left brain is this hyper focused sort of like when you are trying to get something done and so much of what we do with within an educational environment is that hyper focus, whereas the right brain is much more, like you said, imaginative, much more expansive, like it's taking taking a lot more data.
And a lot of the polarization we're seeing is this sort of left brain training that we've all undergone in these more hyper focused industrial style educational systems that really rely on totally focusing somebody on the left brain. Whereas right brain is you just let them play. You got to let them explore.
Because I think that sometimes we as adults want to think, well, where do I feel most comfortable living? You know, what, what, what is, what is, and obviously there's a lot of. Reasons why sometimes you, you just don't have a choice, you know, because of your job, you just, you can only afford certain places or you can only really consider certain options, but you know, there are oftentimes larger options.
So how, how has that impacted your boys as you've seen, you know, through these moves you guys have made, you know, how does, how does space and environment impact this conversation? Yeah, it's huge. So when we, for those listening, we, we were in Oregon, we left Oregon and moved to Texas, and then we recently moved back.
And so they go out and they just adventure and they climb trees and they've got. A hammock, you know, hanging up on one of the trees and they swing on it and they climb, you know, all the stuff, but we have, we have a vision for kind of an intermediate space where there's something like this where there's multiple acres, 5 to 10 acres, preferably.
But being close enough to the city where kind of ministry and relationships and things like that can still thrive. Yeah. And that's a really interesting tension to try to figure out. But I do think to your point, it would be probably the wrong move for our family to go into the city. Even if we had maybe a half an acre or something, it just wouldn't be enough for what those boys need when it comes to creative play and exploration and tree climbing and you name it.
And, you know, we, we had these kids, the Lord blessed us with them, and now we're responsible for doing the shaping. And so we've got to figure out how to make that happen. Yeah, I know that too. One of the concepts that really struck me, Tim Keller talked about, you know, raising his sons in, um, Manhattan. And one of the things he mentioned was the front nine and the back nine and the front nine being when your kids are, especially boys are nine and under, having that realm of replay is more critical.
So that's really helpful. And you mentioned, Chris, and we're going to transition to this other video. And I want to think about, you know, this broader topic of masculinity and as we're thinking about this, as fathers are raising sons to really what are some of the definitions of that, but you, you'd mentioned just that you had this experience of, you know, being medicated and like kind of being diagnosed and then kind of coming out of that and realizing, okay, this is going to actually, Is this really true and is this going to hamper the calling that God has on my life?
And then, yeah, I'd love to get your take on this next, this next clip, but go ahead. Yeah, I think the only thing that to add. And on that conversation is just, there's things that we see as detriments that I think are actually gifts. And so I think it's, it's highly possible that I have what might be considered a clinical level of ADHD, but when it's, when you create the right systems and kind of boundaries for yourself, you can actually leverage that more as I think a superpower, right?
I think it's just rethinking how it gets used. Okay, yeah, that's really good. Yeah, really being thoughtful about is there an actual advantage so so many Disadvantages have advantages like there's two sides of the coin and if you assume that one environment like an academic environment is the primary way or lens through which you decide if something is primarily an advantage or disadvantage, then you might just be in the wrong arena or that particular skill.
And Richard Reeves of Boys and Men fame has this great frame, and that is adding surplus value. I teach my boys, I'm like, you're negative value right now. Your mom spends a ton of time, we spend a ton of money on you, we give you more love than you give us. You go to school. This incredible infrastructure is spending time and energy to educate you.
But I think men need to ask this question. And I think that there's, there's going to be a lot of bristling about like, this does seem contrary to the nature of the gospel. Like, we essentially are just granted through grace, this amazing gift of eternal life. And that we're granted this identity as sons.
So he teases out some more and I think this is a really great conversation to have with sons in a family context. I love that frame. At some point in the service of others, are you actually giving more than you're taking? You know, that's our economy is based on that companies that take in resources and then
I have a very complicated relationship with my father. He wasn't very good to me or my mom, but here's the thing. He was much better to me than his dad was to him. And I'm like, okay, he's checked the box in the universe. He's added surplus value, but I think that's a great frame for men. It's important to say, like the way he's describing this is really, there's two, two calculations he's describing.
Then there's this much more macro question he's, he's like teasing out and he's saying from the perspective of my multi generational family. Am I actually providing more value to my family downstream than my father provided for me when I was, that's a really good question to ask, you know, I think I've, I've seen in certain situations that again, it really balances the scales properly because you have people that really have come from incredibly difficult backgrounds and it's amazing what they're accomplishing.
Okay, so then he's going to finish his thought here. Really think about young men, the resources, the government, your family, our society are investing in you. And at what point does it flip and you're actually adding more value than you're taking. And a lot of men never get there and grow up thinking that the world is just about giving them shit.
And that has to, I think, play out in, in really impactful ways of intentionally shaping the culture around you, shaping, you know, the, the world around you, I agree with you that there's two elements, you know, there's the, the micro and the macro, I would even say like, it's, It's not just even the, the family piece, but it's also like, what, what are these future generations doing to the world?
And I think innate to a man, this, this, this should be something. I mean, this is, we did this in the military. Everywhere we went, there was this often unspoken but sometimes very loudly spoken rule when you needed the reminding that we always leave things better than we found them. And that has really stuck with me.
And it's like, those are those little things. And I think that accelerates as you get older into thinking about business, like he said. If you do, if you're extracting more value from customers than you are giving them, then your business is inevitable to fail. And if you're giving more value, this is why Alex Hormozy is blowing up because the guy is just giving exponential amount of value everywhere that he can turn.
Like, and I, kids just generally, I think they're magically in a world where they can just create an endless amount of chaos and that somebody is going to be running after them, picking up all these things. And to actually just get back to even, I think, I think the intuitions that we have, what it takes to get back to even is like, well, if I, if I throw a couple of dishes in the dishwasher, I'm basically.
It's really my responsibility to make sure that I am giving them surplus value endlessly. That doesn't help kids at all. They're there living in a world in which as soon as they have the power to create that value, you want to begin to give them avenues for doing that. And then Raise the bar properly and create that expectation that this is what it means In for you to to be a really contributing person And I do think that this is a a really important topic as well when it comes to business, right?
Then a lot of people are just attracted to that kind of way of, of producing income and, and they're, they're looking for the easiest possible way. And I think that we need to aim at value creation. And it's not that that investing doesn't create some kind of value, but it isn't a great way to primarily think about how you're going to create value in the world.
And so that basic calculation I think is really helpful. I think it's important lens through which to, to, to be training boys and also expecting from, from men in general, we, we are the creators of, of that surplus value. So yeah, anything else that that stirs up for you as you think about that principle?
And it's like, I think we're a little bit, and I say this for myself, a little delusional at times about how much it actually takes to get back to even, because I'm lacking the kind of head on a swivel awareness of like what's going on around me. And so I haven't quite figured out how do I train that better in myself or in the boys, but I think that's a critical piece.
Like I want to do this, you know, and I, I just want to go back to, to the last thing that he mentioned, which is, I, and I, I, I struggle with exactly how much to really push into this, but if you're going to have grace in that macro sense for the father who, um, Was maybe abused by his father and then he raises a family that where he's not abusive I think that is such a huge accomplishment and we need to understand and acknowledge that But at the same time if we're going to do that we also have to become aware and i've i've And and I think this is a challenge and I I wonder how this is going to be How this is sort of absorbed like by my son or by your sons chris You know, there's a different level of challenge when, when men like us, we are really, really trying to do, to, to do everything we can to help our families succeed and bless our future generations.
And then, then we're, the bar is now much higher for, you know, your sons, you know, and for my son for it, for them to create surplus value of my ceiling is their floor. Then they need to, and I think part of what the way I think about how. I'm going to help my son create surplus value is I'm not going to lay this ridiculous expectation on his shoulders and say, I know this is going to be really hard, you know, but I need you to constantly compare yourself to me.
How do we how do we do this in a nuanced way? That doesn't. But, uh, like a undue burden on them, but appropriately like motivates them to think about, okay, what does this look like in my generation, given what I have been given by the previous generation? Yeah, I think the only way that I know how to even wrap my mind around that is, is.
Because it might not look financially or economically or, or excuse me, like from a business standpoint, like the same, or even from a church standpoint or whatever. And so that's something that, yeah, because otherwise. Otherwise, you're just imposing a specific set of standards, uh, around how things need to look that may or may not actually be suited for those next generations.
Your heavenly father and to the extent that they're embracing that and exploring that, then this surplus value thing sort of takes care of itself, right? At some level. And I like what you're saying to about, we have to be really careful not to sort of obsess about the measures that are really easy to measure.
You know, and I think that, uh, I think that we aren't going to be able to ultimately calculate the kind of impact we're, we're having. Um, but I think that, I think to your point, yeah, let's follow the Holy Spirit. And let, let God give us a vision for what that looks like in each generation. And as we're setting each generation up to really maximize whatever God is, whatever adventure, whatever expansion, whatever fruitfulness God has for that generation, then yeah, this is, this is gonna, this is going to be done just through them leaning into what that looks like in their, in their life.