Calm Parenting Podcast - Dads Only: How To Really Get Respect

Episode Date: October 22, 2021

Dads Only: How To Really Get RespectI was raised by a career military father who used the fear and intimidation approach to relationships. The discipline I learned from my Dad helped me build my career, but I never learned how to build relationships. You're a good man who has worked hard and you have a nice house, but your home may be falling apart from the inside out. I have one simple challenge for men, one simple question to ask your wife. No guilt, no blame, but also no excuses! FREE LIVE EVENTS in Northern Virginia, Indiana, and Kansas City in the next few weeks. Visit https://celebratecalm.com/attend-live-events/ to see our full schedule!  Our Fall Sale ends next week. Take advantage of huge discounts on the Get Everything Package & Calm Parenting Package  this month with our Fall Sale.  Want to book a LIVE EVENT in 2021/2022?! We are now booking IN PERSON and Zoom events for schools, PTAs, churches, synagogues, corporations, and agencies! Simply email Casey@CelebrateCalm with LIVE in the subject line and he'll share a one-page proposal within hours. It's EASY!  Questions? Need help deciding on the best tools for your family? Email [e-mail] and Casey will help you personally! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Calm Parenting Podcast listeners get an exclusive 20% off an IXL membership when you sign up today at ixl.com slash kirk. Visit ixl.com slash kirk to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. So this is a short podcast for the guys out there who are like me, who struggle at times being a dad, being a husband. We tend to be very good at work, right? I can handle anything at the office. I walk through the front door of my home and it's just hard. There's disorder there. There's stuff all over the floor. Things aren't like the way I want them to be. If you're an engineer or you have an engineering kind of brain, disorder messes with you and it irritates

you. See, at the office, I can control everything to some extent, right? And when things go wrong, I know how to fix them. Again, if you're like a software engineer your entire world is like zeros and ones It's very binary. There's right and there's wrong, but when you get into human relationships There are great areas and it's the great areas where life exists and where things either blow up and escalate and fall apart or Where you learn to understand some nuance and you learn how to navigate those things because otherwise what you're going to do is come home every night and you're not going to be pleased because there's stuff all over the place the kids haven't picked

up they don't always listen to you the first time your wife may be uh struggling with something she may be a little bit more emotional she may be very very rational like you. And so you two go at it over very rational stuff. Or you may be a more emotional, impulsive person, right? And so you just want to go free flowing in the home. And like, you don't think you don't want to worry about anything. And anytime your wife brings something up about the kids, you're like, oh, it's no big deal. Let's not even deal with it. And what I want you to know is we've got to deal with this stuff. So look, my name is Kirk Martin. I'm founder of Celebrate Calm. If you're interested, look us up.

But here's my background. My dad, our dad, I've got three brothers, was career military. We grew up in a home where it was very rigid, where my dad used fear and intimidation was his primary discipline tool. It was my way or the highway. My dad had a terrible anger. He was a very scary man. And the truth is we didn't respect our dad. We feared our dad, right? Now, that works really well when you want to control other people's behavior. And for some of us, including myself, before I changed, that's just what I try to do. Well, if I just control everybody else's behavior, well, then I

can watch what I'm really doing. What I'm really saying to my wife, to my kids, is I need you to behave so that I can actually behave. Otherwise, I'm going to lose my you- what. So that's how I felt about my dad, that we feared him. So guess what? I didn't have a relationship with my dad, and neither did either of my three brothers. And the sad part of that is the reason that men want respect most of all. Now, some of it's selfish. We want respect because then we don't have to deal with the hard things in life. True?

It's very true. Because it's a lot more convenient when everybody just does what we tell them to do. Then I don't have to actually grow up or deal with anything. You just do what I told you to do and life's very convenient. The deeper reason that we as men want respect is because we want to pass along our wisdom. We want to pass along a legacy. We know what it takes to be successful out in the real world. You've got to work for it. You've got to scratch and claw and you've got to be disciplined. And you don't see those qualities in your kids right now.

Unless they're playing video games in which they can concentrate and focus for hours at a time. But that doesn't count, right? And so we know what it takes. And we don't want our kids to make the same mistakes that we made. So we come down on them all the time. But watch what happens. We know what it takes, and we don't want our kids to make the same mistakes that we made, so we come down on them all the time. But watch what happens. I have no relationship with my dad, and guess what happened?

We missed out on my dad's lifetime of wisdom because he did have a lifetime of wisdom. He was born in 1923. His early years were spent during the Depression in the South. First person in his family to go to college, goes right in, goes over to World War II in Europe, serves in the military, in military intelligence over in Germany. Interesting, interesting history and guy who'd seen a lot, but he didn't know how to communicate. He didn't know how to have relationships. And so we never got the benefit of that. Now we did learn from my dad. We learned discipline and we learned how to work hard. And that's awesome. And there's a good legacy there.

But what we didn't learn was how to have human relationships. And I've talked to enough people. We've worked with about a million families. So I've worked with enough people to know, guys, some of you are losing your wife and your kids. And part of it is she can't trust you with her kids because there's nothing that a mom will ever love in life like she loves her children.

She will never love you as much as she loves her kids. If it comes down to a choice between the two, adios, hubby, I can find another one, or it may be just easier to do it on my own. It's what we think sometimes, but you're not leaving our kids, right? And she can't trust you because when she leaves you with the kids, it tends to always escalate. There's always something because y'all disrespected me because we as men, we interpret everything as disrespect. And I'll just have to be blunt with you. You've got to stop that and

grow up because we're men. I'm a man. I'm a grownup. Oh, well, my child was speaking disrespectfully. What are you for? Right? I don't mean to be, I do mean to be a little bit tough with you actually. I don't want to be flippant, but you got to grow up. Well, my child is, I know I'm a grown man. I can take it, right? My job is to lead my child and I can show you how to grow up. Well, my child is, I know I'm a grown man. I can take it, right? My job is to lead my child and I can show you how to deal with the disrespect. I don't put up with disrespect from my son. I'm not putting up with that, but I'm also not going to lose my stuff and get all upset and ruin the relationship because of my perceived disrespect or real disrespect. I can actually forge a deeper relationship despite that disrespect, right?

And I can show you how to do that sometime, but that's not the point of this. The other point I wanted to make in dealing with men is this, and in dealing with myself, I'm 55. You and I have issues from our childhood that we haven't dealt with. You're like, oh, that doesn't affect me. Yes, it does.

You just don't know it yet. But it's driving so much of what you do. I just realized recently, when I get up in the middle of the night, I tiptoe. My son and I travel a lot for work. So we're in hotels all the time. He's like, dad, you're like a ghost. And my wife is like, oh, you're like a ghost.

Like, I don't hear you. What's that about? I'm like, I don't know. I'm just being respectful so I don't wake people up. You know what it really was? My dad, we lived in a split level home with wooden floors that would creak. And if you got up in the middle of the night when you were a little kid to go to the bathroom and my dad heard it, you would hear that booming, angry voice, who's up? And it would scare you. It wasn't funny. It was scary when you're a little kid. So you know what you do? You run, you dive under the covers and your heart's pounding because you don't want that anger from your dad coming at you at any time. So to this day, as a successful,

grown, confident, competent man, I tiptoe at times because somewhere deep inside that brain I don't want to make my dad angry. You have stuff that's there. Now some of you fortunately, great relationship with your dad, awesome, but many of you either didn't have a dad, parents got divorced, maybe your dad was an alcoholic, but you didn't have that relationship and you set out to prove yourself. And so you've built your business, you've built your corporate career and you're successful. And what I want you to know is, good, your dad would be proud of you if he could see you. And if he's alive now, he's not, he should be proud of you because you've

worked your butt off and you made sacrifices and you did part of this for your family. Now, don't hide behind that thing. Oh, I do everything for you guys. I work so hard for you. BS. Some of it is for your family because you're a good man and you want your wife and kids to live in a nice house in a good neighborhood so they can go to good schools. But you're not doing it all for them. You're doing a lot of it for you because that's what we do as men. And it feels really good to be successful. And it's one thing in life that many of us feel like we actually have some measure of control over. But I don't want you to lie to yourself and to your family like, oh, I sacrifice everything for you. No, it's not. We're doing a lot of it for ourselves. But I do want you

to know your dad would be proud of you and should be proud of you because you've done a good job. But you've built this house now. Maybe you've built a big house because you want to prove like I can do it. But your home is falling apart. Your wife probably feels very lonely in this new house because she doesn't have that emotional connection with you. And she keeps bringing stuff up. She keeps tiptoeing around it. Because many of you, many of you out there, and I was like this very much. My wife could not bring things up to me. And look at all the things that we do. One, I would deny that there's an issue. Many of you do that. You just think it's going to go away. It's not going to go away. Your kids have some issues. Your marriage has issues. Why? Because you're a normal human

being and you should have issues in your marriage because marriage is hard. It's a union of two basically selfish people with their own agendas, having to negotiate and compromise and work through things and work through conflict. And you never learned how to work through conflict and neither did I. Now, some of you during conflict, you're just a bull in a china shop

and you just roll right over your wife and over other people and use that fear and intimidation so that they stop bringing things up. You get very gruff. You just make everything unpleasant. So your wife and your kids don't even ask you to do any things anymore, right? My way, I was the third child. What I learned to do is hide and avoid conflict. See, I learned to let my two older brothers take the brunt of my dad's anger so I would hide. And so guess what I would do when my wife brought up something? I'd disappear to the basement.

I'd disappear in my work as an excuse because I was 35, 40 years old and didn't know how to handle this stuff. And most of you don't either. I don't want you to feel guilt for that. There's no guiltiness. There's no condemnation. There's no blame. I'm asking you, I'm asking you to do what you demand of your children. Kids, no excuses. Own up to your issues. Be responsible for yourself. I'm just simply asking you to own up to your stuff. I don't need it. I get nothing out of you changing. Who it ultimately benefits is you and beyond you, your kids. Look, the truth is I don't really care that much about you and your wife. I do, but you're grown adults. If you want to mess up your own life, go for it.

If you want to have a crappy relationship, go for it. Except that you two decided to have children. They didn't get to choose your immaturity because that's what part of it is. They didn't get to choose your response. You do. You brought the kids into the world. You've got to step up now. You don't get to go off on all these four-day weekends and all these different things that you want to do all the time when you have little kids. You don't get to do that because you have children now and you're responsible to them, right? And so that's why I want you to own up to this stuff. Now, as a human being, as a nice guy, I want good things for you, right? I want good things for your

wife and I want you to marriage work out. But what I really want is for your kids to grow up in a home where one, it's very stable, where they feel secure, and where they get to watch two adults learn how to handle conflict so they don't have to repeat the same pattern. See, if you don't want to do this for yourself or your marriage because you don't care about your wife anymore, about your spouse, I understand that because sometimes the feelings are just gone after a while and you're like, I don't care. But I want you to do it for your kids so that when they're older, when they're your age, they know how to do this so their life and family doesn't crumble apart. And you play a big role in that. So let's go through this. What else? We dismiss,

you dismiss your wife's concerns, right? So she walks away feeling like she's crazy, but she's not. And stop making her feel that way because that's what happens. Oh, you're just overreacting. There's nothing. You're just crazy. You're just making things up. Sure, you may be married to someone who creates a little bit more drama than you, who may be a little bit more sensitive.

Good. That's probably why you married her because she is a little bit more sensitive. You don't want two hard-charging, insensitive people together that's not much of a relationship you're there to you're there to balance each other and she needs look she needs a little bit possibly a little bit of your firmness in the in the marriage and in the parenting you don't have to do it all like her way that's not what I'm saying which can't be blustering about all the time escalating everything you need a balance of both of you a little bit of not to do it all like her way. That's not what I'm saying. You can't be blustering about all the time,

escalating everything. You need a balance of both of you. A little bit of maybe your old school, firm, tough approach where you're like, hey, if you're disappointed some, it's okay. Welcome to life. But I'm not going to fix everything for you. See, I like that. I like a little bit of that old school. But you also have to have a little bit of the compassionate, merciful side which says, yeah, my son's melting down now. And it's not because he's a jerk. It's because he's struggling with a lot of anxiety or something else is going on.

And you can help that child so that he trusts you, right? But stop dismissing. Some of you, including me, this is, look, I only know this because I did all of these things myself. You turn things around on your wife and you make it about her. And that is a brutal, nasty thing. And I guarantee you, if you have a daughter, you do not want your daughter growing up and meeting and marrying a man who, when she brings

things up, he turns it around on her and makes it about her. And yet you're doing that to your wife and you do it to your kids and you're modeling that for that daughter that you love. So stop that, right? Or you do the withdrawal and disappear. See, after I did the initial, like, I'm going to be gruff and I'm going to control, oh, I'm going to prove my point and I'm going to show you, I'm going to respond to everything you say with rational points and prove my points that you just go away. Well, after that didn't work, I just disappeared in the basement, in the workshop, outside, in my job, right? And that's not going to work either, okay? So, and then some of you, and I did this too, you kind of control your wife so she doesn't tell her friends and your friends

about your tantrums that you throw. Because I threw a lot of tantrums. I remember one time kicking my shoe off at the ceiling. I remember once throwing a bowl of spaghetti off the kitchen wall because things just weren't going right. And then I'm ashamed and embarrassed. So I don't want my wife sharing this with her friends. So it's like, oh, Kirk's a freaky one. Oh, he can't believe what he did.

So all these things are happening. And you know what's happening on the other side that you may not know. Your wife is counting down the days until the kids go off to college and then she's out of there. Some of them aren't going to wait that long and they will leave. And some of you are like, oh, that'd be a relief. I can just live in an apartment. I just live in a place by myself. You're not going to like it. Good luck navigating co-parenting and divorce and losing half your money. It is a nasty thing. And guess what will happen at the end of it? You're still the same exact guy, except now you have broken relationships, split home, finances aren't as good. So what I would encourage you to do is let's step up and

own this stuff and I encourage you when your wife comes to you next time just say, will you help me with this? I'm not good at this. I don't like it. I don't really want to do it but I'm going to do it but will you go slowly with me? Can we fix, can we work on one thing at a time? Because I tell wives, don't go and say, we need to change our entire marriage or our entire parenting style. It's too much. Let's start with one thing.

Ask your wife, what is one thing that I could begin doing differently that would mean a lot to you? Ask your wife that question. What is one thing that I could begin doing that would make a difference that would be meaningful to you? Or what is one thing I can stop doing? Ask them. Ask them to make it a simpler one at first, okay? So you can get a win. And then just do what your wife asked you to do. Again, as long as it's reasonable, right? As long as it's within

proper boundaries, just do what she asked you to do. It's not that hard. Get a win. Begin putting some emotional effort and energy into your relationships with your child, with your spouse. That same energy that you put into building your career and your business, put a little bit of that into your wife and your kids. I guarantee you, you will not regret it. I am 55. I was successful in the corporate world.

I've got my own business. It's done really, really well. But what is most gratifying in my life now is my relationships. All the other stuff looking back it's like yeah I worked really hard. That's fairly easy for me. I like working hard. Work is easy to me in a sense. I can overcome issues. Relationships with kids that aren't doing what you want with that spouse who's irritating to you and you're both

older so you're not as good looking anymore and you're not as fun because you're worn down because you've got all these kids and you've got a strong-willed child, yeah, it's harder. I'm asking you to do the hard stuff because it's worth it. And you've told your kids this, anything worth doing in life is going to be hard.

And the stuff that's gratifying is the stuff that you really worked at and you worked at and you didn't give up. I'm asking you to do that with human relationships. I'm not going to sell you anything. I'm going to ask you to listen to, we've got hundreds of podcasts. Begin listening to them. You can do it while you're working out, while you're running, while you're at your job, while you're in the car. Just listen, be open to a different approach and email me. I virtually never give out my personal email address, but I will give it out because I'm going to give you a private one for men. Moms listening, you don't get to use this. So it is Kirk, K-I-R-K, private

at CelebrateCalm.com. Kirk, private at CelebrateCalm.com. That goes only to me. So if you're struggling because men get embarrassed by stuff and you're like, oh, and men are awkward at this stuff. You know how I know? Because I'm an awkward dude and this is hard stuff. I will help you. I'm not going to sell you anything. I want you to listen to the podcast because it's free and you're frugal and cheap because you're a guy. And I know that. And I don't want there to be any barriers. Our podcasts tend to be 10, 15 minutes long. This one's moving on 20. But look, I didn't even do a sound check. I don't know how this sounds. I just rolled with it because I wanted it to come out and be hard-hitting, authentic, and what I'm really thinking. Anyway, if we can help you, Kirk, private,

celebratecalm.com. Look up the podcast. If we can help you, kirkprivatecelebratecolumn.com. Look up the podcast. If we can help you, let us know. Let's do this, men. Let's do this.