The Dr. John Delony Show - My Kid’s Travel Sport Is Taking Over Our Lives

Episode Date: April 3, 2024

On this episode, we hear about: -       A parent stunned by the time and money she spends on youth sports -       A mom wondering how to parent her kids spiritually after leaving the Mormon church -       A woman unsure if she should get back together with her baby’s father Next Steps  📝 We want to know what you think—take our show survey! https://ramsey.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bEMr4fI8ChJQTRk?source=pd  📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or click here! 📚 Get Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Take the Anxiety Test  📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future  ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards  💭 John's Free Guided Meditation   Offers From Today's Sponsors ·      10% off your first month of therapy at BetterHelp   ·      3 free months of Hallow  ·      25% off Thorne orders  ·      15% off the Apollo wearables ·      Up to $400 in savings on an Eight Sleep bundle  ·      20% Off on Organifi Products![KB1]    Listen to More From Ramsey Network  🎙️ The Ramsey Show   🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. About three years ago, I left the Mormon church. I feel like I'm not holding up to the values and commitments that we started when we first got married. But at the same time, I can't go back there now that I know that it's not true. Respect doesn't mean I agree with everything you say. What up, what up, what up? This is John with Dr. John Deloney's show talking about your marriage,

your mental health, your kids, your life, whatever's going on in your world. For the last two decades, I've been sitting with people struggling with mental health challenges, with emotional health issues, with trying to figure out, oh no, I just did this thing. I violated my own conscience. I violated the norms of this group, and now I got to figure out how to find my way back. So here's my promise on this show. I may not have the right answer for

you, but I promise I'll sit with you and we will figure out what to do next. If you want to be on the show, real callers from real places going through real challenging times, give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K.

Squad to Indianapolis. Did I say that right? Indianapolis, Indiana, and talk to Chelsea. What's up, Chelsea? What's going on? What are you doing? I'm sitting in my car hiding from my kids, so it's quiet. If you want to, you can just hang up and just put the seat back and just

sleep for a little while. That'd be awesome. This conversation is for sure going to take at least an hour and a half. Excellent. I'm in. I'm in. Let's do it. So what's up? Perfect. We were wondering, my husband and I, we are kind of sick in the life of travel ball with our 10-year-old. Oh, good. Yeah. And so I'm wondering, in the long run, are we going to regret the amount of time and brain space and finances we spend on softball? What is bringing you... Why is this question bubbling up? So I am like, we have four kids and we kind of like parent with a later is longer,

you know, like we get you as adults far later, hopefully than we do as kids. And so, you know, my goal, we want to raise a functioning family unit that later we can still be functioning.

There's too many dysfunctional adult kids running around. Not the goal. Well, don't do too good of a job because you're going to put me out of a job. I'm just playing. I think I've got plenty of work to do. There's plenty of people out there that need you. I think

we look at the amount of time we put in. She's 10. She has really big dreams. And I always want to support that, right? We always want to support them in their dreams and their endeavors. We are in some form practicing six, seven days a week. It is a lot of family time. And so, and as the others get a little older, I don't even know how it would be feasible to do this for four of them. You know what I mean? Right, right. What are her dreams?

What are your 10-year-old's dreams? Currently, she wants to play for Oklahoma because what 10-year-old softball player doesn't, right? Any softball kid from Texas does not want to play for Oklahoma. That's fair. That was just my Red River joke. But, okay, so she wants to go to college and play, and she wants to play at the highest, highest level.

Right. And, by the way, she wants to play at the highest level that exists right now through her 10-year-old lens, right? Right. Or let me put it this way. There's 0% chance that in eight years, Oklahoma is still the number one team in the world, right? Or in the country or whatever.

Correct. But she wants to go to college. Right. So I am, I'm just going to go ahead and get myself canceled. Okay. And I'm saying this as a sports fanatic, as somebody who played the, what I would call the early origins of travel ball before it just became this high, high dollar business that we, that we, it's like a big fire in the wood that we use our children. Right. And the fire is not for the kids. It's for the adults.

And so I would tell you, I have a 13-year-old and I've got an 8-year-old. I also would love for them to play college sports if they wanted to. I also require them to do one physical activity every semester or every trimester, if you will. So my son runs. I ran track in college. He's a cross-country kid. My daughter has done gymnastics. Now she's in taekwondo. My son will end up in track in college. He's a cross-country kid. My daughter has done gymnastics. Now she's in taekwondo. My son will end up in jiu-jitsu class.

So all these things are important. So I'm saying that as a context to also say travel sports are destroying American families, period. Okay. Period. And you, as a well-tuned-in mom, are feeling the pressure, if you don't do this, from these external coaches. If you don't do this, then your kid's not going to make this team. And if they don't make this team, there's no way they're going to get on this. And if they're not on this team, then how are they going to, right? You feel that.

Right. And it makes sense. And you have a 10-year-old telling you, I love this. I love it. I love it. I want to do it. I want to do it. I want to do it, I want to do it, I want to do it.

And then you got that feeling in your mom gut that like something's off. Right. Fair? Yeah, I mean, I think it's fair. That's kind of where I'm at is that she takes the initiative and wants to practice

and wants to put in the extra work. And I love that it's teaching her that hard work pays off. And I love some of the lessons, but it is, you know, I, you're right. My mom got his thing. Is this steering us in the direction we want to go? You know, this is not every kid. Okay. But this is many, many, I would say the vast majority of kids find themselves in what a strange, the nerd word is recursive relationship with the adults in their life. Their bodies are highly, highly, highly attuned

to when the safe adults in their life, you and your husband, look at them and your eyes get that very particular size that says, oh yeah, I'm proud of you. Or, and it starts at a very, very young age. And kids become so attuned to that and they will chase it and chase it and chase it and chase it.

It's similar to, I have inadvertently, I didn't mean to do this because I eat really clean most of the time in our house. I'm here for that. When I go get a donut or an ice cream or something like that, I always bring my kids. I'm like, let's go break the bank. And they're like, ah, you know what I've trained them? Is that special times require poisoning yourself. Close connection with dad equals this. And so what they do is they're always asking,

can I have some ice cream? Can I have some ice cream? Can I have some ice cream? And yes, ice cream's good. The sugar's good and addictive and blah, blah, blah. What they're really asking is, I want to connect with dad and I know how to do that. Right.

See what I'm saying? It's a pattern now. It's a pattern, but the pattern is not about ball. The pattern is about, I want to make mom and dad see me and love me. And I found the way to do it. And all the other adults in the world and, you know, and my fellow classmates. So it begins to expand really quickly. Yeah. And your 10 year old finds herself as the head of household. She decides what's,

what the family's doing on the weekend. decides where the money is spent she decides what y'all eat and you see what i'm saying yeah i mean it's a lot like i when i think about how much money we've spent for a fourth grade and elementary schoolers softball hobby it's laughable right if you just invested that into 529 you'd be able to pay outright for oklahoma and she could be the best intramural softball player in the whole right? So here's my thought on it. It's our job to ignite passion in our kids, to support them and to set boundaries for them.

Right. And so I'm all like I say, my kids have to do something athletic, something outside, something as a part of a team. That's so good. And they also have to know this house does not revolve around you. You have a seat in the middle or the back of the bus that is driving because it revolves around me and your mom. I like that.

But that means you got to say no. Yeah. That means you got to say, I'm going to take some time off now. Here's some physiology and um, this isn't just me Trying to make social science arguments. This is coming directly from my close friends and i've been at multiple universities and friends that are athletic trainers And what they are screaming To to a chorus of no one, no one will listen to them, is that these kids who become really good at a young age, they show some proclivity to soccer or to baseball or to softball or whatever it is. And they just, their whole world shrinks overnight to that sport.

And they get a batting coach and a pitching coach. They get on a travel team. They play fall ball, summer ball, spring ball. What they're finding is overuse, joint overuse injuries in 18-year-olds that are usually reserved for geriatric populations. Hey, we have a 10-year-old with perineal tendonitis right now. That is, right? And so here's the way to avoid that is they have to take some time off from that sport. Right. Right.

Right. Yeah. Tendonitis in a 10-year-old is not, I mean, that's all you need right there. Her body is saying no. Right. Right. Her body's saying no. And the way you combat that is soccer.

Tell her to go play YMCA soccer or tell her to go do a taekwondo class move your body but do it differently use different muscles different movements lateral patterns instead of front and back all okay you see what i'm saying it's about treating this whole person not professionalizing a 10 year old so your mom instincts are right on that's what yeah i've been struggling. I don't want to crush your little dreams, but I'm also... It's a lot for 10. I don't know of... And again, I don't have the data in front of me.

If you have something different, email it to the show, johndeloney.com. I want to know the meta-analysis. Put the link to the paper in that note and send it to me if you have it. I'm talking to the listeners out there. I know of none, zero studies that suggest travel ball equals college scholarship. Over and above a regular kid who develops normally, who then goes on to perform at college.

And I'm not even, like, the amount of players that get scholarships anyways are so small. That's not even in my mind for something like softball because... Well, can I tell you something? It's actually not true. Tons of kids get scholarships. For softball, really. But at D2 schools, at 1A, you know, D1, 2A schools, DA, right? The NAI schools.

It's not NAI anymore, but there's so many opportunities to play. So many. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And who knows what happens when she blows her knee out in her junior year of high school or like me, I dropped the baton in first place as a, um, anchoring the mile relay team my senior year. And I never wanted to run again. Yeah. And I went to college and I farted around for a year. I trained with the team, never ran a meet. And then I ended up moving on. It,

it absolutely sucked the soul out of me and not so much like, oh, you got to get back on the horse. It just, I realized, I'm not passionate about this anymore. I don't want back on this horse. Yeah, it wasn't like I couldn't get back on. I just didn't want to.

Right, right. And it took a earth shattering moment to bring me to that. All that to say is, I'll reiterate it. The obsession with travel to use sports is pulling our families apart. It's disintegrating. I would put it right underneath social media as a cancer. It's not good. I don't see in 10 years that it's still functioning in the same way. Parents can't afford it. You got three other kids down the pipeline. You can't,

it just, the math on the calendar doesn't work. Right? It's just chaos. It's chaos. Yeah. Season is chaos. So I'm glad to hear. I mean.

What is husband going to say? Oh, he's the best. Are you kidding? I mean, he's, I think that, you know, we're big onto like moving your body and eating healthy and he loves supporting her. But I think that we both feel like maybe it's a little out of balance right now. So I think, I think we know, you know, it's just a matter of trying to still let her do what she loves maybe in a not as intense form. Well, and I think letting her know, Hey, if you do want to go play college ball, what the college sports professionals and even the professional coach professionals will tell you.

They meet people always want to feel like LeBron around, right? To move LeBron off. He is an N equals one. There's only one LeBron, right? Right. They'll tell you, I don't know anything about you at 10 years old. Right. Purity changes everything. Passion changes everything. Dad gets sick when she's

a freshman in high school, changes everything. I mean, who knows what happens? College is basically half her life away. And the idea that we are trying to invest in this thing. And so I think letting her know, oh, if you want to go to college, the best thing to do is you got to play a bunch of different sports. Like, oh, okay, cool. And you got to do some really intensely and some just go be silly and have fun with your friends. Right. And letting her know, no, if you're still working

towards your goals, not as though you're cashing out on your goal. But if that's the path forward, because the other path is just going to lead you to shoulder surgery at the age of 17, a knee surgery at the age of 18, and then you're going to have knee replacement and hip replacement surgery in your 40s. We're not doing that. I love you too much. Yeah. Is that fair? Yeah. I mean, when you said the other day on our show, love your kids with boundaries, why are you afraid to love your kids with boundaries?

And that has stuck with me because I'm like, that's definitely not a strong point of mine. Well, it's hard. And especially when the chorus of parents and coaches around us tell us, if you don't do this, you're failing your kid. Yeah. And that dreaded phrase for every parent, your kid's going to get behind. And all of us have felt behind at one time or another, and we never want our kids to feel that. And I want to tell you, that's a myth. It's not true, especially for a 10-year-old. 18-year-old, she's 18 and decides to take off her senior year. Yeah,

going to college is going to be really hard on a college scholarship right it's gonna be hard if she's there and she wants she's all in she's on the varsity team she's all state dude go all in on that i'm i'm all about that but but she's 10 we've tried like reframing it for her like you have to give room for your dreams to change because when i was 10 like i couldn't even dream up what I wanted to do. You know what I mean? So you're 10, you've got to, you have to allow the space for like your dream to change and that to be okay.

Like don't grip that so tightly. Um, we try to hammer home so much like who you are is more important than what you do. Yes. Good. Good on you guys. That means y'all do.

I mean, y'all are doing it right. And let me promise you one last thing. I don't know much, but I can guarantee you the NCAA looks different if he, if it even exists at all in eight to 10 years. Yeah, this isn't sustainable at all. It will be different with the NIL, all the money that's flown in. It's, it's just

going to change. It will not exist in its current iteration. None of that matters. What matters is, you know what? My kids would eat ice cream 24-7, 365. They would sit there and rot their brains on social media if I gave it to them. If I taught my kids how to drink alcohol early

on, they would begin to crave it. More than likely. So, why do I tell you that? What my 10-year-old really wants to do and wants to do, wants to do is not going to drive every action, every dollar, every minute of our family. Because my 10-year-old, what they want to do, that has to come in a boundary that I, as their parent, am looking at saying, here's what's best for you. I appreciate what you want to do. I hear you. But here's what's best for you.

So here's what we're going to do. Moms and dads, take a season off. Play a different sport. Be present with your kids. Show up. Don't burn the family financial stature to the ground over a nine-year-old soccer game. I love what you said, Chelsea. I want to create a sustainable family unit that goes into adulthood. You are right on. Good for you. We'll be right back.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes. And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own families. We even do this with ourselves.

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for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. All right, let's go out to San Diego, California and talk to Emma. What's up, Emma? Hi, Dr. John. How are you? I'm great. How about you? I'm doing good. Awesome. The weather's perfect. Can't complain. Of course it is. You're in San Diego. It's always freaking perfect out there. What's up?

So my question to you is about three years ago, I left the Mormon church. I was born and raised. My husband and I got married in the temple, the whole deal. We've been married about 15 years. And I left. It had been happening, like my deconstruction had been happening for a long time. And I finally had enough and I told him I wanted to leave and he was very supportive and has been from that time. My question is, how do I handle our children? They're getting older, they ask questions, and every time he leaves for church alone, I feel bad, like I'm not supporting him. And sorry, I'm going to get emotional. I really didn't want to. That's all right. You're good. You're good. I appreciate your, your honesty here.

Yeah. Um, every time, cause he still goes, he's still active. Um, and every time he leaves by himself, I feel bad. You know, I feel like I'm not holding up to the values and commitments that we started when we first got married. But at the same time, I can't go back there now that I know that it's not true. So I just want some advice on how to handle raising a family in an interfaith marriage, I guess. Have you found a... It sounds like you've done the deconstruction part, but it sounds like you're still sitting in the ash. Yeah.

It is a hard transition. Are you interested in any sort of new faith community? Is that something you're exploring? I am, and I would like to. And when I first brought up that I didn't want to go to church anymore, and I don't know how much detail we want to get in with that, I kind of blew up my marriage at the same time. Like with an affair? home that we were, that we had. He is an active duty military and he had some trouble that he wasn't willing to work with at the time that came out and just, he was never abusive or anything

like that, but he was mad a lot and he was angry and tired. And I just said, I wasn't willing to do that anymore. And I asked for a divorce. And then he was like, is this about church? If you don't want to go to church, you don't have to. And I said, it's not about church, but also I don't want to do that either. And at the time, he was like, we can go somewhere else. We can go somewhere else. But I think he was just trying to have me stay, you know? And then once we worked through all of that, which we have, and we have a wonderful marriage now, he was like, I'm actually not comfortable with that.

So I had gone- With the church part? Yes, with changing churches for him. Okay, I want to stop you right here for a second, okay? I want you to breathe through something with me, all right? Just because your marriage got right to the edge doesn't mean you failed him as a wife.

And I'll go as far to say just because his behavior got up to the edge doesn't mean he failed you as a husband. Yeah. And we really did the work. I know you have. It's an amazing...

I'm proud of you. I'm so proud of you. But listen, my marriage has gotten to the brink several times. Yeah. And we both said, all right, we're going to figure out what's new and we're going to go build that. And that's where you are. It sounds like you're having a hard time choosing guilt over resentment. You don't feel bad when he leaves. You feel guilty. Right. Because you have this old picture of what this duty, a dutiful wife was supposed to look like.

You burned that picture, but you didn't replace it with something new. Here's how I've seen interfaith marriages work. One person goes to one place.. One person goes to one place, the other person goes to another place, takes the kids, and then they all meet up for lunch

and they talk about what they learned because we're not scared of ideas. And our values, maybe at one time we thought the values are we're people of faith. The beliefs are going to change. That's life. That's scary.

But that's the way the world works. That's why I read books. That's why I listen to podcasts. So my beliefs on things change. My values are the same. Right. And so if you value into a behavior, if you try to anchor into like,

we are this, insert political party, then your beliefs change. Your understandings change. You burn everything to the ground. But if your values are based in, here's who we are. Here's how we treat each other. Here's how we explore things. Here's how we come back together after we, you know, the nerd word is repair. Here's how we repair the relationship after we've had a fight or a season where it's almost, it gets real precarious. Cool.

That's awesome. What you haven't done though, is replace that old picture that you burned, that you deconstructed with a new picture. Right. And most of the time, my problem with the deconstruction movement, I think questioning everything is great. It's really important. Most people deconstruct based on feeling.

I don't feel this is right. And that's a dangerous place to deconstruct to because your finish line always moves. Right. And you want this transition to feel a certain way. It's not going to until you've been doing this new thing for a long time. Right. And you want this transition to feel a certain way. It's not going to until you've been doing this new thing for a long time. Right. So the path forward is I don't want to feel good. I don't feel good at this new church. I don't feel, that's not how the path is. The path is for six months, I'm going to pick a building. I'm going to pick a box and we're going to go

there. I'm going to get involved and I'm going to meet people building. I'm going to pick a box and we're going to go there. I'm going to get involved and I'm going to meet people and my kids are going to come with me or they're going to go with him. I mean, y'all decide that. And then we're going to all meet up for lunch. That's what I need help with because I don't want them to be there. Okay.

I don't want them to grow up. I have and they don't go. They don't want them to grow up I have And they don't go They don't go with him But it feels hypocritical of me To be like they can't go there But I'm going to take them here I don't know how to handle Why is that hypocritical hun?

I don't know It just feels like That's the wrong word It's not hypocritical What you don't have Did you just feels like... It's not. That's the wrong word. It's not hypocritical. Okay. It's not hypocritical. What you don't have, did you grow up in that faith? Yes. Yeah. You don't have a picture of what growing up outside of that faith looks like. You've never seen it. That questions and I'm not going to lie to them. And so I just say, you know, Hey, like I just realized I didn't think any of this was true.

And, but as they're getting older, they're asking more pointed questions and I just don't know how to navigate his beliefs with mine, but being respectful of him. But go over the top of it. Meaning, one of the greatest gifts I can give my kids is letting them see me and their mom are ride or die. We love each other till the end of time. Yeah. And we disagree on things.

That's a good gift to them. And my wife, the way she speaks respectfully of me is she'll tell my son, I can't, but he's asking very pointed questions about things. She'll say, I believe this particular thing says this. And here's what that means. Here's how I act that out in life. Your dad reads it this way. And then she looks at my son and says, how do you read it as a 13 year old? Yeah. Right?

So now he's coming into the question. And sometimes she'll do it with our minister, JP Conway. She'll be like, hey, so Dr. Conway, what do you think about this? Because this is how I see it. This is how John sees it. What do you think? Because he's got training in this area that i don't have right right so the respect is respect doesn't mean i agree with everything you say right

respect is how i talk about you and how you've come to these beliefs. Yeah. Why does that scare you? I guess because in the past we have avoided hard conversations and things are really good. They're not. They're not. Emma, they're not.

Can I tell you what I think think you tell me if I'm wrong I would love to be wrong here okay I think you want to love him with all your being and you can't because I don't think you respect the fact that he still

worships there believes those things and is involved in those ways. I don't necessarily think that's true. I do. I adore him. I think that I am lucky. You know, we got married so young. Yep. And somehow we have made it.

And I do. I adore him. I love everything about him and he doesn't push those things on me he never brings it up he doesn't I don't think he holds out hope that I will come back and so

I'm so I'm like almost getting choked up I'm glad to be wrong so you've convinced me you love this guy why don't you love Emma in the same way? I don't know. What I'm going to say is, I'm just going to cut right to it. Deconstruction is the easy part. Burning a building down, I can take down a whole building with a rag soaked in gasoline and a match.

Building a building, reconstruction, that's hard. And I'll tell you what I've had to do in my personal life. That's the best wisdom I can give you, okay? I hired a former theology professor who was a theology professor for 20 years. And I hired him this year and we meet every week. And what I said was, I've gotten to a place in my life.

I travel all over the country. I meet people of all different faiths. I can pull apart just about anybody. And I've spent my whole career with theologians across the board that have just been my friends, my nacho-eating, beer-drinking buddies, like just buddies. And so I know all the arguments. I know all the conversations. But what I now have is a 13-year-old and an 8-year-old staring me in the eye and saying, yeah, but what do you believe and why? Yeah, and that's hard. That's real hard. So I hired a professor.

Now I've got the resources to do that. I'm in a weird little space, right? It's not, everybody can do that. I get that. But I decided I'm going to put my money where my mouth is because the most important thing I can do right now is to look at my eight-year-old and say, to look at my 13-year-old and say, look at myself in the mirror and say, look at my wife and say, here's what I believe and here's why. I already know what I believe. I know.

But I want to be able to say it in a way to distill it down in a way that an eight-year-old can understand it. Because that means I've internalized it. That means it's in my DNA, in my mitochondria, right? Right. And so the reconstruction part of this is your adventure.

What do you believe and why? And taking your kids on that journey is not a bad thing. If you give them a platform, I believe in God. I believe in something bigger than me. I believe, fill in the blank. With what you believe. And then say. And I am working every day. To figure out how it all works together.

Right. Is that fair? Yeah. That's fair. And I guess I just focus on like the. Things that don't line up. But the reality is like we do have things that overlap. Like we believe in God, we believe in Jesus. And I guess I just need to focus more on the commonalities than.

You need to create, spend some time creating a picture of what does, what is the role that I'm going to play in my home? What's the whole role of a wife and mom and co-earner and co-manager and co-intimacy partner? Like, what's the role I'm going to play here? Because you had a picture outlined for you and you took that one apart. And you told me you had to do it. So I trust you. You said you had to do it. Okay. So it's been taken apart. Now you got to build back. Then what is this picture going to be? Because right now you're living aimlessly. You're just living not that. And it's very similar to our political parties Our political parties aren't giving us any direction to where we want to go. All they're giving us is we're not them

And everybody's running in circles screaming louder and louder and louder. It's not a direction. It's not a place to go And so create the picture co-create with your husband in light of this What do we believe it's the? Where do we begin to diverge and not, well, it feels like, I'm not going to do feels. I'm going to do discipline. I'm going to get up and go. I'm going to find a place that sounds like from their website, we align sort of somewhat, and I'm just going to start showing up there and start connecting with human beings, period. And the kids are going to come with me. And then we're going to start showing up there and start connecting with human beings. Period. And the kids are going to come with me, and then we're going to all meet for lunch.

We're going to talk about it. And it's going to be awkward. It's going to be uncomfortable. It's going to be, well, I believe this, and your dad believes that. What do you guys think? And we're going to slowly come together. Interfaith marriages are very hard. They're very, very hard.

And they take some highly intentional coordination. And it sounds like, unlike most I talk to, you've got a husband that's a pretty amazing guy. So y'all create a picture and begin to live into it. And it's going to shift and morph, and that's okay. But have something to aim towards. Time to get up out of the ash. You took it apart. Start building something new.

You're probably going to need a guide of some sort. Seek that guide. Seek that spiritual wisdom with all you got. Go get it. Give me a call anytime. Anytime. We'll be right back Hey good folks, let's talk about hallow. All right. I say this all the time It's important to get away for times of prayer and meditation by yourself with no one else around But one thing you might not think about though is maintaining a sense of community when you pray or meditate And this is especially if you don't consider yourself religious, if you question things, or if you've been burned by a church experience in the past, it's hard to want to get together with other people.

And that's another reason why I love Hallow. You can personalize your prayer experience with Hallow and they give you three free months to do it. You can pray or meditate by yourself, or you can connect with friends, with family, a prayer group, or some other community that you choose. And this way you can share prayers, share meditations. You can even share journal reflections to grow in your faith together with others.

And with Hallow, there are other ways you can personalize the app. They have downloadable offline sessions and links ranging from one minute up to an hour, and you can listen where it works for your schedule. You can choose your guide, your background music. You can create your own personal prayer plan and more. I've made it a personal point to begin my day every single day with the hallow meditation on the scripture of the day. It's a discipline and it's a practice, and here's what I'm learning. As with anything of importance and meaning, prayer takes intentionality, practice,

and showing up even when I don't feel like it and even I don't want to. This is discipline. Sometimes you do this by yourself and sometimes you do this with a group and Hallow helps you with both. Download the number one prayer app on planet earth, Hallow, right now.

And listen, viewers and listeners of this show, get three free months when you go to halo.com slash deloney. It's amazing. Three free months of the app when you go to halo.com slash deloney. Go right now and change your life. All right, let's go out to Bowling Green, Kentucky, and talk to Jade. Hey, Jade, what's up? Hello, how are you?

I'm good. How about you? Pretty good. What's up? How can I help? So I just recently found out that I was pregnant and I'm pretty young. How old are you? I'm not. I'm 20. 20, okay. Okay. Yeah.

And this is my first pregnancy. Is dad in the picture? He is. That's actually what I'm calling about. He's a very good guy. We were casually dating, and then I kind of had ended things before I found out just because like our communication it was there really wasn't anything wrong the communication just wasn't very good on either side and it was just I just thought it'd be better not to and then I found out and now he

wants to be together and like he wants to have like he wants to move so fast he wants to be together and like he wants to have, like he wants to move so fast. He wants to move in together. He wants to actually be together officially. And I guess my question is like, is it worth it? Like, is it just because like, is it worth being with someone just because there's a kid coming? That's a, that's a multifaceted question. A lot of the answers I'm going to give you are not popular, and they're the best I got with the data that we have, okay?

Okay. And some of it's going to sound conflicting, all right? Know this. There's a book called Promises I Can Keep, which is a, it's basically a qualitative inquiry into single moms and why, it's a deep dive.

It's by Catherine Eden and Maria, I think it's Cofalis. I think it is Eden and Maria. I think it's Cephalis. I think it is Cephalis. Anyway, that's not important. What's important, I mean, the book's important, but it won't help you in your situation right now. The reason it's important is they talk about this thing called a magic moment,

where couples that find themselves pregnant, they've broken up or they're separated. It has this pregnancy, the having the baby, the holding the baby often, not always, but often brings people back and seems to, the light around this event is so bright, it covers up all the shadows everywhere else. And so your husband, I mean, your husband, your, your, your boyfriend, your, I'm just gonna call him your boyfriend. Cause it makes it easier for us to have this conversation, but I know he's not your boyfriend right now, but, um, boyfriend is, um, his feelings are supernatural. I mean, they're very, very normal. Um, you even wondering, should I take him him back makes me think that light is starting to get brighter and brighter let me ask you

yes why would you even consider having him back if you've already broken up with him well i guess because my my biggest issue was like our community like we weren't different shifts. That's why it was so hard to have a normal relationship, I guess. Now everything's so different. As soon as he found out, he instantly asked to go on day shifts at work. His communication is so much better than mine even is. I guess that's why. he is putting in the effort. He is a good guy. Like there is nothing wrong with him.

It's just, we just, I guess it's just, we don't, we haven't been dating for that long. And that's, I just feel like I don't know him very well. And now I feel like now I realize like my whole life is going to be like, he's going to be in my life forever now. Yes. And I, I think that's the part you need to metabolize. That there's not a life apart from him. That doesn't mean you have to be romantically involved with him. That doesn't mean he's a safe person or a person worthy of X, Y, and Z, but he is in your life for the rest of your life.

And so whether you join him romantically or not, y'all coming together and learning how to communicate and talk and make decisions is going to be an integral part of the rest of your life. So the more work you put in on that side now, the better. Right. Here's some of the data. Being a 20-year-old single mom, do you have a high school education? I do. College? No. Okay. It's going to be very hard. Very, very hard financially. It's going to be very hard. This illustrious life of the single mom,

looking at the data only, it is hard. And living in a chaotic, unsafe, two people who refuse to do the work to learn how to communicate with each other marriage, creating a electric household is not good for a kid either. Do you have support outside of this guy? Are you all on your own? Do you have mom, dad, cousins, sisters, people who lean in and help? Yeah, I have a strong support system like I that's that's the reason why I'm so like I know I would be fine it's just I guess maybe it's just like it's not what I imagined like always had a plan of like how my life would be yeah and that that plan's gone right yeah that plan's gone um the other data and this isn't

popular is that a kid who grows up with two parents who are on the same page working towards the same goal um does really well statistically speaking yeah that's honestly, that's what, I didn't grow up in a household like that. And like, my mom had like men in and out of our lives and all that. And like, that's the one thing I always wanted, a two-parent household. So if you're my sister, if you're my daughter, here's what I would tell you to do. I would be very, very clear-eyed about the financial realities of this. The where are we going to live? How are we going to pay our bills?

How much I would sit down with somebody and find out how much diapers cost. How much food for the house is going to cost. Because it's not an insignificant trivial amount. How much childcare costs? Childcare is so astoundingly expensive. And so I would sit down and look at the real raw numbers. I would also, if you can afford it, go get a, I'll say marriage counselor counselor but a relationship counselor and y'all

two go and you begin to learn to communicate and i would tell them up front this doesn't mean this goes into that we're headed towards a romantic relationship this is us understanding that we are connected now for the rest of our adult lives. Right. And the best we can... Go ahead. Sorry. He just kind of, like, made the decision kind of, like, he was just like, it's better if we're together, and, like, then has, like, made it seem like we are.

Okay. And, like, just... And I think the sentence you gave me that is really clarifying and instructive is, I don't know him. I slept with him. I'm having this baby, but I don't know him. Right? Yeah. And so we're going to get to know each other.

And you can look at his activity, what he's done, two different ways. You can look at him finding out and saying, I am in this baby's life, changing my shift. I'm changing how I do my life. I am all in. You can look at that and go, oh, why didn't you think I was worth that? You can do that. Or you could say, all right, I'm having a man's baby. And at the outset, he's a man of integrity thus far. He is a man who wants to do what's right. And that, if he's sitting in front of me, if y'all two are sitting with me and he said, no, the moment I found out, I went and changed my shift. I got a second job. I'm putting money in the bank. Went open a checking account. I would love to marry her if she'll have me. I'm going to try went and changed my shift. I got a second job. I'm putting money in the bank. Went open a checking account.

I would love to marry her if she'll have me. I'm going to try to do this thing right. We did it out of order. We created chaos. But now I am getting my house in order so that I can be a calm in this storm that's coming. I would look at him and say, like, I'm proud of you. Right. But you are going to have to have that same fervor.

How far along are you? Three months. Okay. Are you working more shifts than normal? No, I have a full-time 40-hour job. Jade, you're about to be a single mother. Yeah.

I'm telling you this because I love you. There is a financial reality coming that is going to be a hurricane in the harbor that makes a landfall. Have you sat down and done the math on this thing everything from how much birth is going to cost

what my monthly budget is going to look like I have tried I sat down and was even already looking at my doctor visit and that was already so like it adds up so quick so quick so quick here's quick. So quick.

Here's what I'm going to do. You know who my boss is? I don't know. My boss is Dave Ramsey. Does that name ring a bell to you? Yes. Okay. He helps people take care of their money.

I'm going to hook you up with a couple of free sessions with a financial coach. I'm going to pay for up with a couple of free sessions with a financial coach. I'm going to pay for it. Okay? Okay. And they're going to walk you through your budget. They're going to walk you through how much you make and how to allocate this stuff and begin to come up with a plan. I'm also going to give you the EveryDollar app, the premium version for one year as my baby gift. Okay.

Okay. It's a way you can start to track your expenses and that way doesn't feel so chaotic. And if you end up with this, with boyfriend, baby daddy, as your, as your permanent person,

then working to get y'all can both use the same app. You work together and you can see these expenses. But what y'all have to do is sit down and come up with a plan because this, hey, I got a doctor visit tomorrow. It's $400. And he's like, okay, I'll get $400. Like that's going to make y'all, that's a recipe for burning your relationship to the ground. It's thing response, thing reaction, thing reaction. And let's sit down and go with the plan. I'm going to have this many doctor visits. Hopefully everything goes okay. Here's what it's going to cost. Do you have insurance through your job? Yes. Okay. Let's sit down with your HR director at your job and let's go ahead and map it all out. I need to know end point, what's this going to cost?

And now you have six months to come up with that money. Whether mom helps you out, grandma helps you out, he helps you out, you earn it by working a second job even though you're exhausted and you've got morning sickness. It's just, you're a single mom.

Right. Right. Right? And let's see if there's any sort of employee assistance program to help with a lot of businesses now will cover counseling. If they don't, I'm going to set you up with BetterHelp for three months for free that y'all can do relationship counseling with a licensed therapist online. That way you don't even have to miss a shift. Okay? Okay. And together y'all can talk through it.

So I don't recommend, if you're my sister, if you are my daughter, I would not recommend y'all moving in together and just playing house with strangers. I think your intuition there is right. Okay. But I also think

your intuition that this guy's going to be in my life for the rest of my life. And I grew up in a single parent home. And so I'm going to put the time in now to connect with this person, learn how to communicate. We're going to start working through at least a birth budget together. We're going to begin having these hard conversations of what life's going to look like. If I get sick, how do you want me to let you know? If you need something, how do you want me to let you know? And we're going to begin to connect this way

and learn how to communicate together. That doesn't mean we end up, you know, all of us in one big happy family behind a white picket fence, but it does mean we can communicate. My hope is, as your friend, as your neighbor, my hope is that this guy continues to show up as a person of integrity and that you're able to

be as invested in the relationship as he is, and it works out, that'd be awesome. That'd be a cool story. Yeah. And long-term for that kid, that appears to be what the data says is the best benefit. Does that mean if you're a single mom that something bad's going to happen to your kid? No. That means they're going to be swimming that something bad is going to happen to your kid? No.

That means they're going to be swimming upstream. Things are going to be hard. How does all this sound? I threw a lot at you. How does it all sound? It does make me think differently about things. I don't know. It's a lot to think about, I guess. What is?

Basically, everything that you said is what I've thought already. I don't know. It's just so scary. I think that's what it is. I guess I realize that it's so real. Yeah. Let me put it like this. You're a mom now.

And your job for at least the next foreseeable future is to give that kid the best chance it got. Right. The greatest gift you can give that kid the best chance it got. Right. The greatest gift you can give that kid is mama being okay. You're going to have to run towards the scary on behalf of this kid. Yeah, I think that that's what... And see, it's not even that I didn't want to be with them or anything like that. I think maybe it was the communication, but I was also really scared.

This is like my second real, like, I wouldn't even call it a real, it's awful to say since we are having a kid together, but like I wouldn't even consider that a real relationship. I've only ever been in one and like that was longer and like it turned he was very abusive and i think that that might be what's scaring me also is like is this guy abusive no no he is he's amazing okay then set those bricks down from the old relationship and look this guy across the table in the eye and say hey we're having a kid there's a financial a kid. There's a financial reality to this. There's a social reality to this. Like, where's this kid going to live? Where's this kid going to go to school?

Who's going to take care of this baby? Your mom, my mom, we're going to split childcare. There's all that. And then there's the romantic interest slash communication interest. Right. And we're having a baby. We made a human. And that human's coming.

We got six months to plan this thing out. Six months to plan it out. And by the way, whatever you plan, I had my first kid all, I mean, we mapped it out. None of it worked out as we planned it but the planning process was what was important the budget was important but the planning process

was what was critical that we practiced planning things together so that when our plans all went to crap then we knew how to make a new plan together but I think you have to

sit down at a table and look across the table at him and said, we're doing this big grown-up thing and I don't know you. We did this out of order and here we are. And we're both shift workers. We're going to have to figure out

all these different variables. And I think you're amazing. I'm just overwhelmed that you've stepped up in the way you have This child is lucky to have you as their dad But I don't know you and so the next six months we're not going to play house. We're going to get to know each other And maybe that means we're going to date. That's probably the right way to say that we're going to date We're going to be together. We're going to get some professional

communication advice We're going to date. We're going to be together. We're going to get some professional communication advice. We're going to work together because we're in each other's lives, whether we're romantic or not. And you can tell them, my dream is that this kid grows up in a two-parent house. My dream is you and I come to know each other, learn to work together. We learn to love each other. But it's going to go in stages and it's going to take time. Hang on the line. We'll hook you up with all that free stuff.

And there's a lot of scary things, but also you're having a baby. You're having a baby. If you do the work now and set the stage, you got six months, you set the stage so this baby comes into a world full of joy and laughter and love. That baby's born into a room of light. Go get them, Jade. We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet

has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful non-anxious life get your copy today at johndeloney.com all right we are back we've got a am i the problem go for it kelly all right this is from mandy from across the pond in the UK.

I usually would do a UK accent. And they're terrible. Knowing you, it would be like a pirate accent. It ends up in a pirate accent. Or Jamaican or something like that. It always ends up, arr, Mandy. It does. So I'm going to let it ride. All right.

Hello, Mandy. I can't help it. So close. Hello, Mandy. Arr. Just don't. All right. How about that? All right. I have a reoccur So close. Hello, Mandy. Just don't. All right. How about that?

All right. I have a reoccurring issue in my 20-year marriage. I would love for my husband to be more of a gentleman. When we were dating, I asked him to open doors for me. He hesitantly began doing it after many months of convincing. Since then, I've asked him to be a little more, like, reach for my hand when we're going in and out of cars. Put your phone away at dinner, especially when we're at a restaurant. Give me a compliment or two.

When I told him that it was important to me, he told me I was asking for too much and that I expected him to be perfect. Oh, this guy sucks. I will go a year or two without bringing it up. But the compliments especially would make me feel loved and appreciated. Am I the problem? No. She would be the problem. If she wanted all these things.

And never told him. And held him accountable. For him not doing the things. But she has given this dude. A road map. To her heart. And probably to her bedroom. And he's like, nah, I'm looking at my phone.

Shut up, lady. Yeah, he's an idiot. An idiot. Men all over planet Earth would kill for this type of roadmap. Are you telling me all I need to do is tell you that you look beautiful? And reach over and grab your hand? And put down my stupid soul-sucking

device? Okay. I mean, literally, that's all-sucking device okay that's all i mean literally that's all it is yeah that's all it is cool i'm in now if she keeps moving the line on him that's a problem then she's the problem like if he does that and she's like well i need to do it four times instead of three or you only gave me three compliments so you start keeping score now i got a problem but no it sounds like she gave him a roadmap to everything and he is too caught up with candy crushed even ah geez what do you think she needs to find herself a nice southern boy he's gonna open doors pull out chairs say yes ma'am no i don't think she's wrong at all because like you said it's not like she's asking for something huge.

This is— Even if she was. Yeah. Just let your needs be known. Right. But she's not. She's asking for, you know, be polite. Human contact.

Hold the door for me. Right. Open my door, you know, and he's not, and so he's oblivious. Nah. She's not wrong at all. Guys, I get a lot of grief on the internets. oblivious. Nah. She's not wrong at all. Guys. I get a lot of grief on the internets.

Hopefully you can see how much it shakes me up. But I get a lot of grief on the internets from guys saying I'm too hard on men. That's probably true to a degree. I just expect a lot of men. But this one, come on, man. Yeah, this one's deserved.

Come on. So what do you think? Is it bad to, I know people are like just dropping off as we speak here, but I have a question here and you can just edit it out

if you don't have it. So is the response that she walks up to a door that he doesn't open for her and just stand there? Or is that passive aggressive? That's passive aggressive. I agree.

I think that... Or she starts screaming, why would you be a man? I mean, what's the right... No, I mean, I think she has to open her own door and, you know, open her, get out of the car.

But I think that it's such a bigger thing than that. Now it's, we need to go get help. And if you're not willing to do this, we need to reevaluate this. Right. Because it's so much bigger than, please open my door for me. Yeah, it's not about the actions anymore.

I have asked you. It's about, I was vulnerable and you used that against me. I've asked you these things and you've told me that I'm asking for too much. Now, yeah, that's right. Now we've got a problem. Good call. All right. Yep.

He's the problem. Not you, Mandy, from across the pond. Arr. Arr. I need to take an accent school. I'll do that in my spare time. I'm sure there's an online teacher. That's the least of our concerns.

I love you guys. Take care. Bye.