[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to feeding them out the bite you, a weekly podcast guide on parenting teams and launching them into the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Cynthia Gannonff, and as always, I'm joined by psychologists and author Dr. Ken Wilgus.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, feeding them out parents.
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope that your summer continues to go well, and this week we, as promised, will continue with the second part of my interview with Dr. Kelly Capic in his book, Your Only Human, have a great rest of your summer.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that leads to the other big thing, which is in recognizing our limitations, you talk about that, that that means knowing our need for each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: At one point, I think you said humility does not simply say, I'm sorry, or please forgive me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Military also says, I don't know, can you help me and how should I do this?
[SPEAKER_02]: The language of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of,
[SPEAKER_02]: dependence on each other and interaction in that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you say more about the concern about that and how that kind of is maybe an antidote to some of this over expectation?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the chapter on humility is fun to kind of rethink how we've misunderstood it, I think, because, you know, we buy in large no, we should be humble.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a positive thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when you ask, you know, like when you ask Christians,
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't give them a lot of chance to think about what like, why should we be humble?
[SPEAKER_01]: Our deep fault is often will because we're sinners.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is true we're sinners in the fact that we're sinners should contribute to us being humble.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when you build the idea of humility on the foundation of sin, it actually distorts the whole thing, so that the way you then think you can grow in humility is by focusing on what a bad sinner you are.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that really screws up.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of the quickest way I think I have to get it, this is to ask folks, before there was any sinner fall in the world,
[SPEAKER_01]: We're Adam and Eve in the biblical narrative, where they meant to be humble, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: In other words, it is humility only after the fall.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you start to think about it, you realize, yes, they were.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's because in this gets to your actual question.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's because even before there was any center fall, we were made to be dependent on God, dependent on others, and dependent on creation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what's interesting to think in our culture, right, if I'm someone who says, hey,
[SPEAKER_01]: you know I got to know kennel a bit he's like super depend on a lot of people that's never a positive in our culture it's true it is that like I've just said something really negative but but but basically that's part of the good way god made us i need you you need me we are made for that but still fundamentally
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, how in the world, and I'm dependent on God, how in the world can you do Christian discipleship when culturally the idea of dependence which is fundamental to being a greater and God's image?
[SPEAKER_01]: Dependence is a good and we think it's our whole goal is to be autonomous in an independent.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, that's really funny.
[SPEAKER_02]: The term co-dependent gets used misused all the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: People, you know, I was in a co-dependent marriage.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, co-dependent actually comes from Alcoholics and Anonymous where the discovery was that, wow, these alcoholics usually men actually got sober and their marriage fell apart.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was the discovery that there's such thing as a relationship where there's another person dependent on this person's dependency.
[SPEAKER_02]: That has nothing to do with the way it's used like you're talking about more often which is you really shouldn't be dependent on each other even in marriage
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, then I don't know what marriage is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think you're saying that exactly right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So can I ask you something, then?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of the ways I, because that's super helpful, even the way you're describing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because I do get asked about the co-dependency thing quite a bit, and one of the responses I tend to think about and you can talk more on this if you want is, yeah, co-dependence is different than what we're talking about is proper dependence in that we were made
[SPEAKER_01]: our dependence on one another was meant for flourishing and shalom.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a wholeness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And co-dependence.
[SPEAKER_01]: The reason why co-dependence is a problem is because it
[SPEAKER_01]: it is a distorted relationship where you're undermining people's proper flourishing and the experience of shalom.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: That sound fair is that.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I love the way you put that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I, you know, ironically, the, this is how we got here, that what's trying to be described is not a relationship where the people are too dependent on each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: it's a relationship where you're dependent on trying to make your spouse into the way you think they should be and there's conflict with each other because of the fact that we're not comfortable with my part of this duality is important and yours is important.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't have to be nothing and all about you right the other way around it's it's both being part of a whole and so when it doesn't
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, a proper dependence, it comes out from a kind of dependence on I need you to be like this for me and the application is I know how things should be because I'm kind of God like myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's what that's usually what that comes from.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And given given your particular focus on this podcast, it's interesting how we do that with our kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I do think that's what's amazing, like part of what's amazing about God is he's very comfortable with us not being in God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it sounds silly, but it's significant, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's very important, like you said, in a marriage to love another be united, but to be comfortable with them not being you and you're just so hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and same with children to let the children.
[SPEAKER_01]: who are from you, not be you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Which we talk about is sort of the story of Abraham and Isaac.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we all have an ideal parent, you know, our own little Abraham and an ideal child.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so certain stories biblical, they're not only true, but they're so true, they're archetypal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then that God had the right to say I want you to
[SPEAKER_02]: sacrifice that child for me and an Abraham understood we're going to go worship worship God is more important than my child and will return to you which is the the whole learning that when you sacrifice to God when you give up what you expect you're not letting go of anything the Abraham thought God would raise that boy from the dead that's he was never but but at that whole point of of letting our children be who they are instead of a scoreboard for how I did as a parent
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's harder now than I think it's ever been.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you do see that, I mean, in college, you deal with a lot of kids who are now realizing some of these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they have been carrying the weight of mom and dad, sometimes mom and dad's marriage, sometimes just the
[SPEAKER_01]: is a challenge and teaching them community as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: You also mentioned in what this what we're talking about.
[SPEAKER_02]: God designed the person for community and community for the person.
[SPEAKER_02]: How's that going in a college setting with those younger people who I often say live life like they're in their own sitcom and the sporting cast for chapter four season three is a completely different supporting cast from season one.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know that their own little life that it community at that age is
[SPEAKER_01]: It is, and it is, and, you know, there's a temple in foundation I do work with.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lots of psychologists and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you know, there's just going to be so many studies.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're already starting to happen, but COVID and how COVID has started everything in the isolation.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, just as an example, though, I started teaching at Covenant in 2001.
[SPEAKER_01]: And not many years into it, I remember, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: Students who move in with their parents, yeah, it's faculty sometimes we help out and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember talking to an administrator who does student development and they have same.
[SPEAKER_01]: more and more they were finding and now it's totally common but they were finding they were moving students and who this was their first time ever having someone live in the same bedroom.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because they had grown up in homes where they had home and that's kind of things that parents we don't even think about like you they're I guarantee their parents listening to this who are thinking if my kid doesn't have their own room I'm being a negligent parent.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and what's fascinating is it's just not true, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so also you've got an 18 year old who's the first time having to be in a room where someone breeze really heavy at night and they're, you know, they don't like the same things and you don't get to dictate it all the decisions, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so living in community, it's interesting to place like covenant part of why I love it is a residential college that's, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: deep Christian Orthodox ideas, heavily engaging culture, though, is trying to say it's not just what you learn in the classroom, but we're trying to help shape and form you for life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And part of that is...
[SPEAKER_01]: learning to live in community and life together, kind of Dietrich Bonhoeffers.
[SPEAKER_02]: How great to be able to say that part out loud.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's what they're in for.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, part of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: So do you think it's kind of a chicken in the egg?
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you?
[SPEAKER_02]: do you think people are more overburdened than ever because of the isolation or they burdened they're overburdened with their own expectations, adds to the isolation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you think it's kind of both probably, you know how to get help from other people really?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean I, well let me
[SPEAKER_01]: Given what was just said, let me build on that for once again, it is interesting that like my experience at Covenant, it's very common that say about October.
[SPEAKER_01]: Students are getting freshmen are getting called, they're calling their parents and saying, I want to go home.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is really hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't really like my roommate.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know people here.
[SPEAKER_01]: and I cannot tell you how many parents have told me this and then that same kid by February or March is like I'm not I don't want to come home like you know unless they went home and not sober exactly and that's what happens is parents sometimes will pull those kids out one weekend.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're like, you got to push through and then they pushed you and they're finally experiencing the complex beauty of community.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's so important.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but it's so hard to push through.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sympathetic with the kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's kind of like you've probably seen some of this data where I saw this maybe it's two years old now or year old, but.
[SPEAKER_01]: things like teen pre pre marital sex is gone down drug use caractin and and in some ways are like this is amazing and then you realize oh it's because they're all staying home in their bedrooms all by themselves on their technology and then it's super depressing it is it knows
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, through.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got a lot going on that we've got to think through for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you know, because feeding them out about you by college age, I call the relationship a parents have is a benevolent bank that you're you're willing to support certain things.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like a bank.
[SPEAKER_02]: The bank doesn't come and check on you and make sure you're doing it right.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is your deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when kids call home and they're suffering and struggling.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, virtually everywhere the kid is there's mental health support where the kid is.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: But parents will say, well, we just felt like we've maybe needed to bring him home.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'll always say, which home?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you mean your home?
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you going to let him go back to your home?
[SPEAKER_02]: Your home is not as early as home.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, it doesn't have to be up even explaining.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not a technique that, you know, we promise that by February they'll be fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really more of this is their burden.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what they have to know how to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think, generationally, that's been just really difficult.
[SPEAKER_02]: Parents really feel obligated that, you know, their kids are much better at expressing their inner life than they used to.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they'll use the anxieties and depression and stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then they're used to, they'll be an adult at home that will really want to hear all that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's ironic.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't have adults that wanted to hear all that my parents were great.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I didn't feel like I could call home and say I'm feeling really lonely this weekend.
[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't really their business.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that's really hard to kind of communicate with really involved in caring parents.
[SPEAKER_02]: If there was, is that the thing, if there's one thing that you could tell all the parents of the incoming freshmen in college, what's the thing that you'd want them to know?
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of them are gonna be, this is the last summer, some of my listeners that their kids will be heading off.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: You want them to know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh boy, there's a lot there.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a phrase and it's originally went back to an economist and Mark Sayers, I think he's done something with this as well, but in some ways, I think I would encourage parents to try and be a non-anxious presence, a non-anxious presence, because, well, it's like, you know, we have a dog and whenever we're packing to go somewhere,
[SPEAKER_01]: The dog figures it out, and the dog's just mad around.
[SPEAKER_01]: He can feel the anxiety, and it increases.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I do think we pass on our anxieties on these kids, a lot, and that are already feeling anxious.
[SPEAKER_01]: And part of what you were saying earlier, I do think this stuff is hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone once said that, you may even know who originally said this, but I remember hearing someone say, we tend to parent to the holes in our childhood.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is where that pendulum constantly swings.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you had parents who were, you know, I was the youngest of three boys and by the time I was, you know, 16, I was doing the grocery shopping and no one knew where I was.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like, and that, you know, I love my parents.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a great relationship with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, that was probably for various historical and other reasons.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I was, I was a little too much on my own.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you, but you have a lot of parents or kids, people who are parents now who went through that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lachke, et cetera, and so the pendulum so swung to, I'm now your psychologist, your best friend.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm, you know, you've heard of,
[SPEAKER_01]: the helicopter parent and now I'm not sure if you've heard of the phrase, but now we don't even talk about helicopter we talk about bulldozing parent.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they're always looking for a new new illustration.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so now we're going to not even just be there to land the helicopter to rescue.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to actually try and get rid of all the barriers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so college professors all over, it sounds ludicrous.
[SPEAKER_01]: It hasn't happened to me, but it has happened to some colleagues in mine
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll occasionally get an email or a phone call from a parent.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we remind, first of all, you're not legally, you don't legally have the ability or right to tell the parents anything, because these are not children, they're adults, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And young adults, and they often still treat like, but it's fascinating, but one of the other things is,
[SPEAKER_01]: learning to pray for these kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I do think part of what, I mean, I'm going through this myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were never in control, but when they're smaller, the myth of control is pretty powerful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well said.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now all of a sudden, it's like, ah, they're gone, and that myth and you realize you really got prayer and you hope and pray they come to you for advice and wisdom and you know, feedback,
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's like, oh, I really do have to believe that there's a good God and who I can't imagine this, but somehow loves them more than I do and that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: What I really like is you're talking about a parent being a non anxious present present not because I have checked my checklist and I know it's great.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's parents who truly believe that this child has always been in God's control and I get peace from that and we we believe that but we don't really
[SPEAKER_02]: know how to, I would also like to have checked all the boxes and know I did well.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's what's so great about your book.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, that doesn't really happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're your finite and finitude is not sin.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just thought that was the best thing ever for parents and other people here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's it's, thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just a, I wrote a book or two with a economist named Brian maker at some of your listeners point we know because he wrote a bestseller called when helping hurts.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, but he and I were just doing something and he was just talking about this very dynamic of you know in the data.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where it's this amazing thing was we all know anxiety levels are up and everything and one of the main points of data for anxiety is we are very nervous about finances.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you just step back and hit economists, this PhD from yelling, he's like, here's the it's just crazy because you have.
[SPEAKER_01]: these higher than ever levels of anxiety.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the most prosperous, prosperous, the most theest people that have ever existed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's counter to because we, and that's what I like about what you said.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not about the checklist.
[SPEAKER_01]: We kind of buy in the myth.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I just get my kid enough money, if I get them into the right school, if I provide them these anxieties go away.
[SPEAKER_01]: And empirically, the data is actually, it's hard to believe, but it's not that you can have more resources and your anxiety will go up.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've got to get off that treadmill.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is weird how I think even when you say that, which I really hope everyone hears that, it'll what last an hour and a half and then you go right back to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's just an idea too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, Kelly, this is great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Kelly Capic, who is the author of your only human, how your limits reflect God's design, and why that's good news, Kelly's written other stuff as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: You probably know from embodied hope of theological meditation on pain and suffering, which in so many of our, I think evangelical churches is not.
[SPEAKER_02]: really thought about enough and I anyway.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, but I just want to thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: This book was great.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I really thought about our parents as well who are defeating the mouth parents really are striving and are aware of this need to let go.
[SPEAKER_02]: giving and recognizing freedoms that really are there because these are young adults and I think this is just fit fully into that that for the Christian listener.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's also important to know that we really need to confess how much we expected from ourselves not what we did in the accomplish.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not always God's will for us.
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just think this is so great.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really appreciate you talking to us.
[SPEAKER_02]: You got it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for having me.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a bit fun.
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope that interview meant as much to you as it did to us.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is just so important for us to rethink how we pressure ourselves in ways that other parents are not expecting of us and pressure ourselves in a way that's not not even good for your kids.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I hope you'll consider what we talked about this week and last week and we'll see you soon.