The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - 7 Tips for Raising Daughters

Episode Date: March 17, 2017

You might not know this, but Jeff is a father to all daughters. In this episode, Jeff is joined by Steve Motyl, who is also a father to all girls, to talk about what they’ve learned from their daughters. You won’t want to miss hearing them discuss a passage from the letter of James that reveals the seven marks of a wise father. Find the shownotes at: http://ascensionpresents.com/raisingdaughters/

You're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show. Episode 7. Seven Tips for Raising Daughters. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavans. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general.

It's the Jeff Kaven Show. And I want to welcome you to the show. Good to have you with us once again. Great show up ahead. we're going to be talking about, well, something that's near and dear to my heart. You know, every single day at home, I walk around the house and I see pictures on the walls of my three girls, my three daughters. That's all I've got.

I've got all girls. And my wife's a girl. Our dog is a girl. I imagine the fisher girls, too. But I have all girls in the family. And we're going to talk about raising daughters today on the show. That's exactly what we're going to talk about. raising daughters on the show. Hey, I want to welcome you, but also thank you for the great

feedback that we have been receiving on the previous shows. It really is a blessing to hear from you. And I want to encourage you to continue that. You can get in touch with us very easily by going to ascensionpresents.com forward slash podcasts. And guess what's waiting for you there? The show notes. We got a great crew. We got a great crew and they've been putting together show notes for all of the episodes. Real detail. Last few shows, we've been talking about a lot of scriptures. They're all there waiting for you because you're driving down the road. We don't want you to be taking notes on the road. So when you get home, you can go and you can just print out these notes. It's kind of a

gift. And I'm grateful for the staff and our team that's doing that for you. So you can find out Bible verses photos, links to my favorite resources, all of those things. at ascensionpresents.com forward slash podcast. Now, when you get there, you'll see a picture of the three most recent shows. And if you want to see all the shows, just click on the title, The Jeff Kaven Show, and then suddenly you will see all of our episodes, and you can go to any one of them. Encourage you to share it with your friends. You can email me personally at the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com.

You can also go to iTunes and subscribe. Do me a favor. Rate the show. It will help me reach more people with the message of the gospel. Well, joining me today in just a few minutes is going to be Steve Motel. Steve Motel is the director of product development at Ascension Press. We work together for many years. We even go way back to the EWTN days nearly 20 years ago.

And I've asked him to join me today because he, like me, has three daughters. He has three daughters. And so, Steve, welcome. Welcome to our show. You got five daughters. I got five. What am I forgetting here? You got five. You beat me. Just forgetting math. And you don't like to lose a competition. I understand completely. Three, five. What's the difference? Did I say three? I meant six. Like you, I say all the time too. I have six. I count my wife. We always had a female dog. We have two female cats. We've got, I think, six or eight female sheep. So like you, I am blessed among women. Well, yes, that's the phrase I use often, too. You know, I am aware, I am very aware that raising girls is different than raising boys.

I mean, it has to be, it has to be different. So they tell us. Yeah, so they tell us, yeah. And I really do enjoy my girls. I remember the very first day, my three girls are Carly. Carly is now an anesthetist. She is married. She has two boys, my grandchildren.

And I have a daughter in college, and I have a daughter in high school. So I have a daughter in every area of life right now. You know, I'm dealing with that, which is kind of interesting. But I remember the very first day of all three. And I'll just review that real quickly with you. I remember the day that Carly was born. And as a new dad, I was a wreck. I'm like, I'm looking at her, you know, I'm watching her to see if her little chest is

moving, if she's breathing still, you know, every little thing. And the nurse came in, and the nurse used a word that I'd never heard before. She said, jaundice. And I'm like, what, what, what, what, what, what's jaundice? And I said to the nurse, I took her to the side, I said, nurse, sounded like a drama on television nurse, be frank with me, how bad can jaundice be? What's the worst that could happen? And the nurse, without any bedside manner, said, well, they could die. I mean, they could die. Thank you. They could die. So I stayed next to that crib, almost the entire. time to make sure that jaundice, whatever that is, didn't kill her. And you still haven't left her side.

I haven't. But the thing I remember the most is when Emily and I left the hospital, we put that little car seat in the back, squarely in the middle, in case there was a car accident on either side. And at that time, the babies were facing the front. They weren't facing the back, like a lot of the car seats now. And I put the rear view mirror down so that I could see her the entire way home. And I drove all the way home, road, look at the mirror. Road, look at the mirror, watching to make sure she was okay.

And I remember bringing her in. Were you thinking the same thing I was thinking in that moment? I can't believe they're letting me take her home. Yeah. I have no clue what I'm doing. And when I got home, I thought, I can't believe I did this. Now I got a responsibility for 18 years, you know. But your eyes have not, you've not taken your eyes out of the river mirror.

I mean, no. No, I haven't. No, I haven't. And she's as beautiful as the day that we brought her home in. And my daughter, that's Carly, my middle daughter, Jackie, my youngest Tony. Same thing. At the hospital, I remember picking up Jackie after 20 minutes after she was born. And I held her and I said, I don't know why I said it, but I guess I felt it.

I said, I would die for you. And with Tony, I remember looking and saying, we have chosen you. You are chosen by God. And so the beginning of all three were really, really special. What was your experience with the birth of five baby girls? Yeah, we're five, and we've got quite a range. They're 25 down to 10. So we've got, Hannah is our oldest, and she is a full-time teacher now,

graduate at Franciscan University last year. Bethany is a senior at Franciscan. And we've got two in high school, Jenna and Juliet. And then Felicity's our little one at 10, and she definitely keeps us young. Because she's really cool, because she's into all kinds of stuff, but she's still into the dolls and the fun little girl stuff, so she really keeps us young and all kinds of girls.

great ways but um the range is great i again just like you jeff i don't know in any other way you know i don't have sons and so my life is daughters and i i love it i absolutely love it i it's just the greatest gift in the world not only being a dad but being a dad to girls i tell all my guy friends like i don't know if every man needs a son but every man needs a daughter it is just it is just such a gift they're so good to me the first thing i noticed you asked you know the first thing i noticed was wow they don't look like me they don't talk like me they don't act like me. And the second thought I had was, well, thank God, you know, because I prayed for that. I want them to look like their mother and talk like their mother and act like their mother.

There's such pretty girls. If they had beards, I mean, that's not right. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, they are. They're beautiful in every way. And they're all so unique. I'm sure you've experienced the same thing. It's like same environment, same upbringing, same mom and dad. It's all so different in so many ways. But, you know, but they are, you know, they challenge me in all kinds of good ways because they stretch me to go beyond the sort of typical masculine modality, you know, to understand the feminine heart. And I think, and I know you well, Jeff, and I know you, because I know you share this as well. And I wonder, did God give us girls because we had a heart for them or did God give us a heart for girls because he knew we were

going to have them? And I don't think it matters. Or did you give us girls because you know we'd beat up the boys? There you go. Exactly. That's also possible. I do have a lot of nephews and I'm pretty rough on them. But it's great. I just love the way in which girls act and communicate. Well, we're going to look into talk about some wisdom for raising girls and some tips for our listeners on raising girls because we're both at the veteran level now, and we have learned some ways the hard way. And to go back, I think it's safe to say that any dad, and we're talking from a dad's perspective, any dad, once he has raised his daughters, most of them would say, if I could do it again, I would do something different. I would, my attitude might be different and that type of thing. We're going to talk about that. In fact, we're going to compare, we're going to compare raising daughters with the adjectives that James uses in his document, in his letter on wisdom.

And we're going to talk about those for a moment. But one of the things I want to establish at the beginning is this scripture that says in Proverbs 226, train up a child in the way that they should go. And when they grow old, they won't depart from it. And one of the misnomer's there is that when your five daughters came into your life and my three daughters came into my life, that they came in as blank slates, like a hard drive that needed to be filled and that God put them in our life and said, fill that hard drive, make them up any way you want. Train them up in the way that they should go.

And in the Hebrew, it's not that way at all. In the Hebrew, it actually means train up a child in the way that they are going. and when they grow old, they will not depart from it. And you mentioned this earlier, Steve, that every one of your daughters is different. You can't train them all up identical. They're different. That's a great point. They're different.

So off the bat, we need to establish that between the two of us, we've got eight girls, we've got eight gifts, eight packages from God that are all different and different nuances, different likes, different talents, different temperaments, emotions, all of that. But we do find some commonality in them, I think, but the differences are definitely there. So our role as dads is to teach. And in fact, the scriptures talk to us about teach the Word of God to your children. But we're also observers that they're all different. What have you observed about your five daughters as far as their difference in one another?

Yeah, it's a great question. I think that, you know, they have a real sense of concern and care for one another that I think is genuinely effeminate heart. Yet, yet they'll have conflict, too, because they're broken like we're all broken, and they're all living in the same home together. And they bump into each other, and they'll have conflict. And what I've noticed simultaneously is a gift of them, but also a flaw of my own, is that there's sort of this wiring in us men to just sort of, want to jump in and fix something right you know and and and you don't i i didn't read this somewhere i didn't make this up i just know it's my nature i overreact and i react too quickly and this is um so when you say before like we're going to look back and think well you know what did i what did i

what did i where did i fall down that's one area i i really struggle with and i'm really trying to work on because my girls as they've gotten older i mean jeff this cracks me up every time but in a in a beautiful way i'll hear i'll try to jump in and one of them will say to me, dad, we got this. And I'm like, oh, wow, that's great. My growth do the same thing too. They'll break in him. I'm talking to one of them. The other one will say, dad, she gets it. Yeah, right? Back off. Yeah, back off. Right. So I don't always trust. So I'll kind of back up, but still listen. I'll think, and I'll observe, which again is not my first, my first posture is to jump in, not to observe. But if I give myself the time and I give them the space, boy, they do. They do got it.

They're smart. They've learned a lot and they can interact. I've got to not be afraid to let them walk through and work through some conflict. You want to stand by almost like the guard reels and bowling, you know, in bowling, you know, to protect them as best that you can. But you also have to get them the freedom to make those mistakes, you know, because that's where they grow. And I think that's one of the things as dads, we don't want them to fall off the bike. We don't want them to skin their knee. But that can be a mistake, you know, because we're not letting them experience the fall and the pain.

because joy and beauty and growth comes on the other side of that. So rather than neutering that or stunting it, that opportunity by jumping into quickly, I'm learning in my older years to stay back a little bit. I think that's true with me too. In fact, that's a point that I was reminded of before doing the show today that if I had to do it over again, I would give them more room to make some mistakes and more room. But as you said, as dads, as fathers, we fix things, you know. And I remember my oldest went to Steubenville, too.

In fact, we lived there, and I was teaching at Stubinville. And we lived over by, if anyone's familiar with Steubenville, Holy Rosary Church. I lived right across the street, kitty corner there. And there's a bit of a hill there. And we were teaching Carly how to ride a bike. And she wanted to go down this hill. And I'm like, I don't think so. What's wrong with flat ground, you know?

My daughter's ride bikes on flat grounds, not hills. You know, if I had a boy, he'd take a hill, but the girls are not going to take a hill. Well, she went down that hill, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, my gosh. And then she started screaming out. She couldn't find the break. And I'm going, no, no, no. And she ended up wrecking. Right, right.

But her pretty little face didn't get touched. But it was really, you know, harrowing. It was difficult for me. But you're right. We have a tendency to want to fix everything for them. And at times, they need to fix things for them for themselves. Or, yes, and part of that fixing for themselves is allowing them to go to God and letting him enter in.

Because I think sometimes if we dads jump into quickly, we're also kind of removing unintentionally God from the equation. Like we're not giving God time to move. So, yeah, we fix things too quickly. We need to give them more room, but we're afraid of the room. I am. I'm afraid of, I fear, oh, my gosh, what if I give them more room and more space? Something bad happens, you know?

It is a lack of trust, certainly. So we have to trust more in the fatherhood of God that he's at work here too, you know. And I know as a father, we have a number of basic responsibilities. Number one, we have a responsibility with our daughters to image our heavenly father. And that's the one where I'm glad we get to do that. But to be honest with you, at times I feel like a real failure. And I feel like, listen, honey, I know, and I've told my daughters this. I said, watch me, because I'm going to try to act like your heavenly father.

When they were little, watch me. And when I said that, I thought, oh, man, I wish I wouldn't have said that because I've really put myself on the line here. And there are times where I have had to say with them, I'm sorry. Yes. Dad didn't respond well on that. I'm really, really sorry, which we would think would discount in their eyes our authority and nobility and everything else. But actually, it builds. Yes.

And they're respectful. Dad, thank you for saying that. My brother, Jeff, I am so, so glad you said that because I feel the exact same way. And I tell men, you know, my wife and I do a lot of work with engaged couples and one thing to tell them, you know, you do not, yes, your number one job is to image the father and the responsibility and the awe and the joy and the gift that comes with that, but you're, but you are imperfect. You're going to make mistakes. So don't be afraid. it's unique between with daughters because again we don't have sons but i find it very um helpful and healthy and even easy to for me to just tell the girls look dad made a mistake i i'm sorry please forgive me i jumped in too quick i've reacted i made a decision without getting all the information

whatever it might have been and i do i believe i think it it it actually has borne a lot of good fruit more trust more respect you know among us and don't be afraid to i want to encourage you who are listening too. You know, you've got daughters. It's a process, you know, that we're raising our daughters, we're raising our children, and there are times where you have to take stock, how am I doing, and make the adjustments. And there's nothing wrong with admitting, you know, talk to your wife and to say, I think I'm being a little

hard, or I'm, maybe I'm provoking them to anger. In fact, Steve, I'm talking with Steve Motel about this because he has five daughters. Steve is the director of product development at ascension press and we have this in common for sure we have all girls Steve there's two texts that I'm thinking of before we take our first break one is ephesion six four where Paul says fathers do not provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord what would that mean to you I mean if you ever had an

opportunity where you thought maybe I am provoking them to anger because I have a few times Yeah. Yeah. Too many times. And I think, and again, I don't know if it's just a girl thing or not, but my girls are not shy about letting me know. You know, they're not shy about letting me know when they think I've made a mistake or, again, I've overreacted. I provoke them, whatever. And my wife uses that scripture quote with me probably too often, you know, more than I care to admit. But it's a good reminder. It's an important moment because that's not what I want to do. We want to create a space where the girls feel completely free and liberated to discover who God. calling them to be. And I think when we provoke them to anger for whatever, we're being too hard on them, too critical, you know, projecting onto them. Sarcasm. Sarcasm. All of that. I think, yeah, biting comments like that, absolutely. It certainly chips, it chips away at the very fabric of what we're actually trying to build

in the home. Right. And I think it's important to remember as fathers that you're not owners. You don't own them. Amen. You don't own them. They are gods and you are a steward and they, you have been given this gift for a period of time as a steward to train them up, love them, you know, and protect them. I was actually mentioning this earlier several things. One is, we have been called to image our Heavenly Father to them. We have been called to protect them. We have been called to teach them and to nurture them, you know, and to lead them. And these are the things that we have been called to as dads. And I can still remember I know why now when I dropped them off Carly at Steubenville and I had to drive away from

Steubenville, a two-day ride back to Minnesota from Ohio, I can tell you right now it was the hardest day of my life. As I dropped her off at that cross at Franciscan University, we left her at the cross. We prayed with her and left her at the cross. And Emily and I got back in the car and we both looked forward and we didn't talk for almost two hours. We couldn't. We were crying. Wow. And for me as a father, it was different than Emily as a mother. For me as a father, I'm called to protect her. I'm called to nurture her, to image the heavenly father.

And I'm driving away. Yeah. I'm driving away. And that is really, really hard. And you know what? I wrote her a letter that day. And I prayed and I said, God, I would give my right arm for one more year at home. just one more year at home.

And I can tell you my friends who are joining us today, you've got girls, you've got girls, and maybe there are two years away from college, four or five years away from college, the day will come where you will wish you had one more year. Now, some of you are saying, uh-uh, one less, but no, most of the time, it's one more year. Hey, we're going to take a break when we come back, Steve.

I want to talk about some adjectives from James chapter, three, where he talks about wisdom, and I think that this sums up the wisdom of Jesus, but I think it's going to give us some information to talk about how to be a better father to our daughters, and I think it will be interesting. My friend, I want to remind you, all the show notes are available to you, all the scriptures we're giving any pictures, any links we mentioned. We're doing it all for you. You can go to ascensionpresents.com forward slash podcast. You'll see the Jeff Kaven show at the top. The most recent, Three shows will be at the top.

Click, if you want more, click on the Jeff Kaven show. All of them will show up. I think you'll be surprised at just how many notes we're giving you and how we want to help to equip you to walk as a disciple of Jesus today. And that's what this show is all about. It's about practical living, the Christian life, and what it means to be a disciple. What it means to be a disciple.

So, hey, let me also say this to you as well. check out ascensionpress.com all of the Bible studies now and you know I've been involved in the great adventure and oh boy I don't know how many Bible studies we have now we have so many that are available to you we've changed everything now it used to be that you would buy the DVDs and bring them to your church well you can still do that but everything has changed and if you go there you can sign up if you've got four people that constitutes a group and if you can get four people and you can get them to sign up at ascensionpress.com, then guess what? We're going to give you the videos absolutely free.

Digital delivery. It's a new world. It's a new time. It's what Tevia said when his girls were going to get married. It's a new world, love. So we need to talk about Tevia when we talk about our daughters too, because that's a whole other study. But go to Ascensionpress.com. Get your group signed up.

It's free. no sign-up fees, no monthly fees. It's a new world study. We'll be back in just a moment you're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. It's hard to live out your Catholic faith on your own. In fact, the Bible reveals that we need a community of people to help us on our journey of faith. If you're interested in finding that community by joining or starting a small group study, visit ascensionpress.com and sign up for a free Ascension account. With your account, you'll get all the tools you need to start walking with others towards Christ. Welcome back to the Jeff Kaven Show. I'm Jeff. And it's so good to be with you.

We're talking about raising daughters. And I brought in on the show here, a very good friend of mine and a colleague at Ascension Press, and he's the director of production or product development, the director of product development. That's Steve Motel. And Steve, It is always fun to talk about our daughters because Steve has five girls, no sons. I have three girls, no sons. His wife's a girl, mine is two. And so it's really a lot of fun to talk about it. We could consider ourselves, I guess, the Christian Tevias.

That's right. You know, living in Anatevka. And we have Golda's at home, and we've got daughters who are in a new strange world and strange ideas about love and everything else. and here we are. I feel his pain and his joy. Every time I watch the movie, yeah. Hey, we're going to take James Chapter 3,

and this is in the show notes, if you are listening to this on the road. James Chapter 3 versus 13 through 18 gives, it gives seven adjectives that describe wisdom, and I think for every father that's raising girls, this is a good outline for you to follow on top of some of the things we've already mentioned, about train up a child in the way that they should go. And when they grow old, they will not

depart from it. And don't provoke your children to anger. Teach your children the Word of God. There's also these great adjectives. So let's dive in and take a look at them. James gives this great description. He says, love, or wisdom is. And he describes wisdom. And the first thing he says is that wisdom is pure. So if a father is going to walk in pure, wisdom, wisdom with his daughters, it's going to be pure. In other words, it doesn't have ulterior motives, and it's not manipulative. It's not manipulative. That's a good idea for us as fathers to be wise with our daughters in the sense of being pure. There's no ulterior motives. We're very, very transparent with them. Yeah, amen. I think for me, one thing, a hard lesson to learn,

and I'm sure you can share this pain with me as well, is that we, rather than trying to project onto them, the life that we think we want them to have or they should have, we want to listen to their hearts. We want to try to listen and what does God put in them? What are the gifts, the talents and joy? Unwrap that package. Unwrap it. It's really a privilege to be a dad of a daughter

to be able to participate in that to kind of foster that, not manipulate it, not control it, which is what we fall into every day. We fall into the trap and trying to manipulate or control it. I think you should go to this school. I think you should do this or date this guy or not to anybody. I didn't have a son, so you are playing hockey. Exactly. Exactly.

Hang up those ballet slippers. You're picking up the skates. And that's a daily challenge for a dad. And again, maybe it is for a dad of boys, but certainly for girls because we really have to exercise the listening ability. to really listen to their hearts. And I think that's where I've gotten myself in trouble so many times. I remember one time Genevieve, who's now 18, and she's our self-professed mid-kid. She's right in the middle, number three or five, and she's clearly the most passionate in every way.

And I know I've talked with you about her, Jeff. She's the girl that when she walks into a room, the room is going to change. It's either going to go up in joy or it's going to get heavy. It's one of the two. She has a gift that she's going to change the room and tell her, baby, you've got a gift. but you know careful how you use it but um so when she says things i kind of take note right and one day i don't know what i was doing on the laptop doing dishes whatever i was doing in the moment and she was trying to speak to me trying to say something and and um she just grabbed me i could

hear it it went right to my heart she just said dad you're not listening and jeff i've heard that so many times before dad you're not listening but there was something in that moment that just pierced my heart because i realize she's she's right she's right i'm right i'm right i'm I'm not, this girl has earned the right to be captivated, but to have my attention, that she's captured my attention. And so I stopped what I was doing. I said, baby, you're absolutely right. We multitask, too, as men, right?

And what a failure that is, we try and we fail at everything. So I saw in a moment, what, you know, what, what, what, what, I apologize. Again, I'm sorry, you're absolutely right. And I've learned from that is we, we have to, rather than multitask, It's better to say, you know, this sounds really important. Can dad finish what he's doing? And then we can talk or do you want to talk right now? And then, Jeff, I know you've there too.

Eye contact is so important, especially with girls. Make the icon. Use your body language to let the girls know. You're listening. Well, on that point, Steve, women are very relational. And I have a good friend who heads up a women's ministry, Kelly Walquist, and she has talks about how women are radically relational. Radically, I like that.

I like that. And they do want to talk. And feelings are very important. And you can run into a little boy, and it's like, he's not going to sit there and talk about feelings, but necessarily, but the young girls seem to want to talk about their feelings. And I think that we need to pull back and listen and be, you know, quiet and listen to them. It brings me to my next point. James talks about how wisdom is peaceable.

And peaceable really is a right relationship between God and between people that have a right relationship. Godly wisdom always results in right relationships with one another. And godly wisdom does not produce strife or bitterness. And there are times when we can do something that is right, but it's not wise. You know, it's not the right time. It doesn't produce peace. And I'm reminded of that great proverb that says, as apples of gold in a setting of silver, so are the right words and the right circumstances. And I know that there have been

many times where the girls will have their friends over. And that is a point where most girls are like, oh, no, I'm walking on eggshells. Dad is going to embarrass me, which is part of our job. It's our calling. We're very good at that. It's our calling. Totally embarrass your daughters in front of their friends. For example, when I used to have the show on EWTN, I had a regular makeup kit. And my daughter's friends would come over and I'd bring my makeup kit out. And she's like, Dad, get out of here. No, I want to talk about foundation. I use an origin foundation in this particular color.

Like, Dad, leave now. But behind that dad leave now, I think, was a love of, you know, this is my crazy, my crazy dad. Who's engaged in my life, you know? They can't articulate it, but I know that they appreciate that. Well, you know, when you talk about the right words and the right circumstances, and we can do something that's right, but it's not wise. I think that comes into play when our girls have their friends over or there's a couple of guys over to have pizza or whatever it might be. And there's a right time to say something and there's a wrong time to say something.

You can embarrass them or discipline the girls in front of the wrong people. And some dads will do that. They'll just like, well, nope, they need to be disciplined. It's the wrong time. It's the wrong time. You've got to protect their heart. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

And it can't be about shame or embarrasses. You know, and we've all made this mistake, obviously, so, but I do remember early on hearing advice from some other dad that, you know, the discipline should be a private matter. You know, if you can remove the child from the room and go discipline on the room, that's good. If not, then, if it's, if something's on fire, then then just wait, wait for a better time. So, yeah, absolutely, I, I, too, have embarrassed my girls in front of their friends because just pick the wrong time. But even in front of siblings, again, it's not, you know, you want to do it in private and keep that a personal thing. Number three on the list is gentle. Wisdom is gentle.

I'll be honest with you. This is the one that speaks most to me because we all have different personalities as dads. I think I have more of a forceful, louder personality than maybe some dads do. I wish it wasn't that way. I wish I was, you know, the gentle giant, but I have to work on it. But the man who's gentle is the man who knows when it's wrong to apply the strict letter of the law. Gentleness could be described as I've heard before, sweet reasonableness. Gentleness is extending to others the kindness that we really want extended to us.

And I would say, Steve, that of all of these adjectives, that's the one that speaks to me the most as far as my need, is that I think a good father, especially with daughters, needs to be gentle. not lenient gentle and you can be strong and gentle at all at the same time but there are a number of things that happen in men's lives

father's lives that I would call trigger points that trigger points are where dad goes from gentle giant to an idiot and there are these taking business calls at home that might

upset the family you know at that point could be a trigger point another trigger point might be a spending in the checkbook with your wife and maybe your something is spent or the credit card or whatever might be and it it trips you and you become angry and less gentle at that point here's one Steve that I think a lot of fathers really need to take to heart and pay attention to alcohol a man can change after two or three drinks. And he can come home from work and he can be the most gentle, wonderful guy, but after three Manhattans, he can become very hard and strict.

And the daughters at that point don't know which dad is going to come home. Yeah, and that can be very scary, I'm sure, for a child. I didn't grow up in an environment of that, but I certainly know quite a few people who have. And it's frightening. I've had good friends tell me, like you just said, I never knew which dad was coming home. I just couldn't imagine living in those kind of circumstances. So we do need to be careful. We need to guard certainly our own tongue and our own attitude

and then avoid things like that that might, you know, lessen our defenses and our ability to be able to control ourselves. I mean, you know, alcohol is one. I mean, my goodness, today's world, pornography is an absolute killer because it prevents men from being who they are. We can't love our wives and our daughters rightly if we're looking at pornography for engaging in any way. at all. Because one thing I pray for all the time, Jeff, I know you do too, is I want to be

pure for my wife and my girls. I want to be a pure vessel. I know that I'm not, but I want that. They deserve that. They earn that. And so my prayers let me be pure. God, please help me to be the man that they need me to be. And so alcohol, pornography, etc., these are things that they keep me from being that man. I think it's an important point to make, and you know, you're listening to the show. And if you're struggling with that right now in your life and you've got girls at home, this goes for boys too, but if you've got girls at home and you're struggling with any of these things, pornography, alcohol, anger issues, trigger points that make you a different dad and cause you not to be gentle. You need to actually do something about it. I'd encourage

you to get help. I really would. And if you're listening right now, this may be the Lord prompting you to get help. And if you reach out, I'm confident that in a year from now, two years or no, we just might get a message from you saying, thank you. By the way, Matt Frad does a great work in this. You're familiar with him? Yeah, yeah, we've worked with him a little bit here. He's actually part of our new U program, which is the Theology of the Body for Teen's new edition. He's got a great piece in that. And we do have, there's a talk by him called The Porn Effect. He's got a website. He's got, you know, he's very connected with Jason Everett as well. Matt's doing a great, great work, just alerting us to the dangers of porn, how it affects us negatively,

the brain and our relationships, and how to break free of this. Because, again, the bottom line I would say is that porn neuters your ability to love rightly. Exactly. And we want to love our wives and daughters rightly. And it's going to affect your ability to be a father to daughters. It really well. Hey, the next one on the list is number four, reasonable. Wisdom is reasonable.

We're reading from James chapter 3 versus 13 through 18. all this is in the show notes of course reasonable not stubborn but we'll listen to others wisdom doesn't insist on its own way another one on the list i need to hear about because how many times as dads do we say honey no this is not what's going to happen this is what you're going to do and then as you think about it you realize i think i was a little too strict there and but i can't go back and change it because it's going to show weakness we've got to be reasonable and not stubborn. And I'll be honest with you, there have been times when I'm raising my three daughters where I made statements and I stuck to them, even though I knew I should have backed off a bit.

And I just stuck to them and said, no, dad has spoken. You know, like, I'm junior God. Dad has spoken. I am the head of this household. But wisdom is reasonable. We need to listen to them. And several times my daughters have said, dad, I don't agree with you. And why not? And they told me and I said, you know, you have a very good point. It's trying to be reasonable. I think that's great. I think that I think if you stick to it, even when you discover that it was wrong, obviously it's rooted in stubbornness and pride and all the things that we're trying hard not to be.

I don't personally believe that, you know, saying, hey, you know what? I thought about this some more or there's new data now. I'm going to rethink it. I think that's actually a sign of strength, not weakness, because it's showing them that dad really. What dad really wants is what's best for me. You know, he made the decision at that. I'll say that often. Look, that decision, everything I do is because I think it's best for you.

You know, but if information has changed or data's changed or I've had a time to think about it some more, that's still my goal. My goal is still wanting what's best for you. So I think being open and listening to them and being willing to consider their thoughts or feelings, I think that helps them to grow and develop because, again, we're talking to them about creating this environment where they feel free to spread their wings, you know, and be safe around dad. Another point. Number five, wisdom in raising daughters is full of mercy and good fruits.

And, of course, Jesus is merciful. But, you know, you have to ask yourself, what is mercy? Does mercy mean, well, you just get by with everything? Okay, you did that wrong and fine. You snuck out in the middle of the night, no big deal, you know. That's not mercy. Mercy is when God's love meets your daughter's pain. And I got to tell you, I don't have boys, but I can tell you,

that my girls have come home from school at different times, different circumstances, crying, so-and-so said this, so-and-so wrote about me this way. I was left out of this group. I didn't that. I was, you know what I mean? And they're hurt. They're hurt. And what they don't need is a tough football halftime talk.

They need mercy. They need to know the mercy of God when God's love meets their pain. at that point. Absolutely. I mean, what do we need when we go to confession, right? We want mercy, right? And I don't know the scripture like you do. Nobody knows the scripture like you do, Jeff. But there's that, there's that passage about, you know, mercy and justice show kiss. I love that because God's, you know, God's beautiful attribute is mercy, and he leads with that, and we should lead with that. I mean, the first thing they might need is, like you said, just a shoulder to cry on, just an arm. The first thing I think they need to know is that dad loves them, because this is what

I do, Jeff. I have beat this into my girl's head that there is nothing that you can do to make me love you more, and there's nothing you can do to make me love you less. You have all my love. I can't give you any more. You can't. So in other words, I'm setting myself up. I know for some days where they disappoint me or they do something that maybe breaks my heart, but they need to know that I'm not going to love them less because God doesn't love me any less when I sin. God is merciful, and yet at the same time there's also justice, and the justice is simply, well, okay, now let's talk through what are the consequences of these actions and, you know, see where God wants to take this because it's obviously an opportunity for growth for all of us. Number six, love and wisdom raising our daughters is without uncertainty. Without uncertainty. This is another one that I think is important for dads. If you want to love your daughters and raise your daughters, you need to walk with wisdom and an attitude without uncertainty.

And there was a philosophy that came out of the Middle Ages called nominalism, which meant it really taught that there were no universal truths that God could do anything he wanted, which St. Thomas said, no, he can't. He's bound by who he is, his mercy and his kindness and his justice. And so I think that consistency, and we don't waver in being fathers, is very important from day to day, week to week, is that they know they can count on you to be the same. that the problems of this world, the political elections and everything else, don't change you. My dad doesn't change.

He's so consistent because that's the way God is. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. For the sake of time, let's go into the last one real quick. Number seven, without insincerity. In other words, hypocrisy. Oh, okay, these just get worse for me. Hypocrisy. You know, the word hypocrite is how you say actor.

The word actor is hypocrite. Wisdom is not hypocritical. It doesn't pretend to be someone that you are not. You've got to be authentic as a dad, don't you? Amen. I think it's also why we can't be afraid to face up and own up to our mistakes because, no, I may have been behaving badly, but that's not who I really am. You know, that's not who I really want to be for you.

So if I made a mistake, I'm going to tell you because I want to be authentic. I don't want to pretend to be something I'm not for them. I think it's a great, great insight, Jeff. One last thing I want to mention, and it's something that I've done almost every day growing up with all three of my daughters, and that is I have used Numbers Chapter 6, Numbers Chapter 6 versus 24 and 25. It's called the Aaronic Blessing. And every morning, before they go to school, I lay my hand on their heads. And I say, may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. And my girls have grown up with getting that every single day. And even when I was over in Israel in pilgrimages and I Skyped my youngest daughter, I was talking to her. And she said, Dad, can you give me the blessing? And she put her head next to the computer.

Beautiful. And I gave her the blessing. You know, and I'll wrap up the show with this, Steve. I think that when it's all said and done, our girls need our blessing. Amen. You and I did not speak about this. I don't think ever, but I do the same thing. Not that specific prayer, but not a night we'll go by where I don't bless them with

holy water on their forehead and pray over them. Even if I get home late and they're already sleeping, I'll go in and do that. And if we're traveling the same thing, it'll have them over Skype. It's so good talking to you. We should do it again and talk. We'll talk about granddaughters someday. We'll have a whole show on that. But thanks for joining me.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Jeff. Been talking with the director of product development at Ascension Press, a good buddy. of mine about raising daughters. My friend, it's so good to be with you on these shows, and I hope that they're helpful. Your feedback is very helpful and very positive. I enjoy that. If you want the show notes for this show, you can go to ascensionpresents.com forward slash podcast, and you can see the show notes there. And if you'd like to send me a note and tell me any suggestions for shows, or you have a question, just email me at the Jeff Kaven show.

at ascensionpress.com. You can also subscribe on iTunes. If you do rate us, it helps us in sharing the gospel, and you and I can become partners in doing it. As always, it's great to be with you, and I want to end the show by praying for you, and I look forward to joining you again. Will you join me now in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit? Lord, I lift up to you, my friend, listening right now. And I ask you, Lord, to bless them. And if they have girls, I pray that you would help them become the Father that they have been called to become. And I ask you, Lord, to bless their daughters today, that you would give them health and wisdom and guidance and protection,

both spiritually and physically, and to help them preserve their purity. I pray this all in the name of Jesus. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Have a great day, my friend. Thank you.