SR 860: Graduation and Beyond: Showing Kids a Thriving Marriage – Rachael Carman, Part 3 (Through the Years Series)

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I think it’s better, especially with our adult children,

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to seek to really understand. So, asking open

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ended questions, can you help me understand? Would you be willing to unpack

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that a little further and what you’re doing and

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not a manipulative way? You’re actually helping them think through the problem

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or the question or the situation or the issue. Right.

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Without solving it for them. Hey, everyone, this is Yvette

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Hampton. Welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rocked podcast. I am back with

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Rachael Carman, and we’re talking about the after years. This is part of

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our homeschooling through the years series. So if you missed the last two

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episodes with Rachael, go back and listen to those, because then today’s episode will make

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a little bit more sense to you. But if you’ve missed the whole series, go

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back and listen. We’ve been on this for several weeks now, and we’ve

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talked about all the different phases of your kids childhood.

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So from preschool all the way through high school, we’ve broken them up by,

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you know, preschool, elementary, middle school, high school. And now we’re

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talking about the after years, which is where we are right now. We’re just

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at the very, very. We’re at the door. Um, the. The door is open.

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We have walked through with Brooklyn. She graduated in May,

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and so we are just walking or a few steps into the adult years,

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and it so far has been fun. But as we talked about yesterday, I mean,

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it can come with all kinds of challenges, but God is still so

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faithful, and we know that he is. And so we get to lean on him,

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we get to hold tight to him. And if you are not walking with the

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Lord, let me just tell you, life can be so much better when you do.

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I don’t know how people get through this life without Jesus. I just don’t know.

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I literally don’t know. My husband and I were talking about this the other day,

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and I was like, without God, we would be so hopeless. I mean, there’s just

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no hope in this world apart from him. And so, you

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know, as we’re just navigating this crazy world we’re living in and this weird

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election season and all this stuff, who cares about any of that? Because we

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know that God, he is victorious, and

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we get to be on his team. We get to be part of team

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Jesus, and I’m so grateful. The winning team. Yep. We know who wins in the

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end. So we get to be on his team. We get to serve him. We

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get to surrender to him and obey him and lead our kids to

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hopefully do the same. So, uh, anyway, we’re going to get back into the conversation,

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but before we do, I want to say thank you to our sponsor, BJU Press

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Homeschool. You guys have heard me say it lots and lots, but I’ll say it

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again. If you’re looking for a great homeschool curriculum for any grade, any age, any

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subject, check them out at bjupresshomeschool.com.

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and they will help you homeschool. They will walk you through whatever it is that

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you need. If you’re not sure, call them up, talk to one of their consultants,

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and give them a try. BJU Press Homeschool.com.

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and again, thank you to Rachael and Davis for

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just their incredible support of the Schoolhouse Rocked ministry. We are so thankful for

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Apologia and just for your partnership with us. You guys are

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amazing. So we’re grateful to be with you. Yeah, we love it. All

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part of the body of Christ. That’s right. That’s right. Well, we’ve talked

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about how to prepare ourselves, how to prepare our kids.

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You know, talked about how our adult kids still need us. They

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do. One of the things that I am

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finding to be a little bit difficult, and I would love to hear

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your take on this, as you’ve now launched seven kids,

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is how do we. How do we let go

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and navigate not being controlling and overbearing with our

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kids? Because it’s hard to know. It’s hard to find that

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balance. I’m finding that right now. It’s hard to find that balance of having an

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adult child. That sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it?

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An adult child. An adult child in the home

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and not wanting to control her.

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I. Or be overbearing, but still wanting to give

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wise counsel and direct her in some ways.

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Yeah. How did you do that with your kids? How do you let go but

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not let go completely? Because you gotta just let those reins out just a little

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bit at a time. Yeah. I mean. I mean, that’s really tough. I mean, it’s.

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There’s not a formula. I still have not gotten into selling

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magic wands or pixie dust. You know, I think that would be so convenient

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if I had a magic pill I could just give everyone. Yeah. Because even from

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child to child, it’s different. Right? I mean, even when you were disciplining your children,

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there wasn’t one method that worked for all of your children. It just. It

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doesn’t work that way. I mean, I remember with our first child, I thought, well,

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I know what to do with the next one. Well, no. They were

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so different. So different. And the fourth was

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different still. And so it’s the same with

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this. You know, what one child thinks is a controlling,

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manipulative statement by mom. The other one thinks is a word of

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encouragement. I mean, give me a break, you know?

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I mean, it’s. It’s really tough, and I think the

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key is to be. I

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think we’ve got to dare to really be engaged in the moment, in the

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conversation, and not try to be, you

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know, typing our grocery list or a text to somebody else. I

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think we need to dare to be present in the

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conversation. And one of the things that I think really goes a

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long way with adult children is listen more than you speak. Oh, yeah.

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Now, again, I’ve terribly failed

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that on more than one occasion because I am not generally. This will

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shock you. I’m not generally hurting for an opinion, but

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what I’ve learned from my very wise and diplomatic husband is

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not everybody needs to know what that opinion is. I could have

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it, but I don’t always need to share it. And so what I really

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think. I think it’s better, especially with our adult

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children, to seek to really understand,

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to really empathize with where they are,

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to really hear them, and really try to make sure you

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understand. So, asking open ended questions, can you help me understand?

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Would you be willing to unpack that a little further? I

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think I must have missed something. I’m sorry if I’m asking you to repeat, you

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know, whatever to really and what you’re doing

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and not a manipulative way. You’re actually helping them think

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through the problem or the question or the situation or the issue.

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Right. Without solving it for them. You’re trying

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to help them think through. So we currently have one

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of our kids

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who’s in just a really lousy job

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circumstance. I mean, just being micromanaged.

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And if you’re an adult and you’ve ever been micromanaged, it’s

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nothing short of torture to have some. Some other adult think that

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they are privy to all of your personal information and they’re gonna

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control your life, and nothing you do is ever. Right. I mean, it’s just

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at my age, I can see it and go, ugh, I can name it

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at 100 yards. But in their situation,

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they have never experienced this before. And, I mean, calling and

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stressed and panicked and confused and, I mean,

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lots of gaslighting’s going on. I mean, it’s toxic.

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Yeah. And so trying to have these

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conversations and help them see it. Right.

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I mean, I can see it. And there may be a

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time we’ve already passed that time when I can name it and

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say, okay, what I’m hearing you say is,

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and my experience, you know, but that’s after a

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lot of conversation, I think when they’re adult children, what

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they need us to do is help them to think it through. I think that’s

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the most valuable thing we can do, you know, and just

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because I think often they can start to see things

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if we can help them downshift and help me

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understand. And you said this. What did you mean by this? And you

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said this and just thinking it through with them that

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way Davis and I

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endeavor not to give unsolicited advice, and

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that is really hard. And try

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to support. We encourage our

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kids to take their time in making decisions that

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we emphasize the proverbs that talk about a

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multitude of counselors make for wise decisions and

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to talk to a lot of different people and talk to their mentors. So

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often if we feel like someone is rushing

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towards a really lousy decision, we’ll say, well, have you talked to

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your mentor? Have you. When’s the last time you talked to your brother? Have you

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considered, you know, just trying to, you know, have

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you. Are you. You need to be talking to other people about this and

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this? I think that that is a very difficult thing for a lot of parents

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because they want to be the go to, right? Yeah. And they don’t want the

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pastor or the mentor or sibling or anybody else on the planet to

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know more than they know. And. And I’m just going to say in

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these strongest terms, we’ve got to dare to get over ourselves,

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and we’ve got to allow other people to have

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authentic, substantive, meaningful voices in our children’s

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lives. And that’s a good thing.

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It can be really hard to see someone else give

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advice that you’ve been giving and they got credit for.

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I mean, that’s just hard. I’ve said that a million

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times. Yeah. Yeah. A million and one times, you know, for

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18 years. And. But I think. I think our focus needs

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to be on the fact that they heard it. Yeah. And not on what the

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source was. Yes. And I really do believe. And

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so here’s something of comfort. And maybe this is for my own comfort. This is

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my own original thing. I like to believe that it was my 1

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million times that made it possible for them to hear it from that person.

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Now, that may not be true at all, but I really like that idea.

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Yeah. I paved the way. Right. So

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I think that’s really important. And certainly our married kids, we do

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not tell them how to run their marriage. We do not tell them how to

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parenthood. We do not. We

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believe strongly in leave and cleave, and we believe in

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covenant. And they need to cleave, they need to meld, they need

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to do some hard things together. I can say they

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are all done things that I’ve disagreed with.

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But I think if you’re a parent, you

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just back up and think when you first got married, how. You know,

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Davis and I recently. Cause our daughter’s getting married. We recent.

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She wanted to watch our wedding, which we have on

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VHS. Oh, nice. Do you have a VHS player?

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Oh, my word, I don’t. Davis must have. Yeah, it was originally VHS,

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but I mean, he’s got it now where we watched it. I am looking at

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these two kids and I’m thinking, what a pair of doofuses. I mean,

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yeah, I had no. I don’t know what I was saying. I didn’t know what

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I was promising. I didn’t know a thing about for better or for worse. I

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did. I did not know. And you just think, God,

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thank you. Thank you that I’m not that person. Thank you for

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all of the junk that you’ve redeemed. Thank you for all of the work you’ve

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done, all of the patience you’ve had with me. Thank you for the journey that

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we’ve been on. And I think that if you’re really

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wise as a parent, you can remember how you started

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off and all the answers you had to marriage and all

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the parenting answers that you had. And you can just think,

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you know what? They’re on a journey, and they’re probably gonna

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soften. The most important thing is that they’re following hard after

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Jesus, and that covers a multitude of sin.

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One of our sons and his wife are doing just a

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beautiful job catechizing our grand, their

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grand, their kids, our grandkids. And it’s just such a joy to go

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over there. They have this beautiful evening routine that they’re going through,

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and they’re going through this little catechism book. And when

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we visit, I get to ask the questions, and he answers the questions.

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And I’m thinking, you know what? There’s a lot of things that just fall away

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in this moment, because this is the most important

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thing. It’s not the most important thing that we do everything exactly the

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same. That is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that we

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acknowledge and worship the king of kings and the lord of lords and so I

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think focusing on that and walking in grace of your

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own journey, that goes a long way. Yeah.

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love for learning with Apologia. Discover Apologia

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today at Apologia.com. We are

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back with Rachael. Man, you are so encouraging to me.

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I want to ask one last question. We have a few minutes left,

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and I want to talk about marriage, because this is something that

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I know, especially as homeschoolers, when our kids are with

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us all day, every day. It’s impossible

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for them not to be kind of the center of our world

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because we’re with them all the time. And

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I know we need to work really hard to establish strong marriages while

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our kids are in the home, but I can see it becoming very different.

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And you and Davis are, you’re in that phase now where you’re empty

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nesters and it’s just the two of you. How can

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we prepare ourselves for those years to have a strong marriage? Because you hear

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the stories of parents. You know, who they put everything into

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their kids, and then they look at each other when their kids are gone, and

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they’re like, who are you again? So how can

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we really build strong relationships with our spouses when we

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still have to have our kids kind of. I mean, you know,

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God is the center of our family. Our marriage is the most

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important relationship that we need to display for our kids. But

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our children are just so needy, even in the teen years.

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And so how can we establish strong. A strong

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marriage so that when our kids are all gone,

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they’re living their lives, we can still have a really strong

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relationship with one another. Yeah. You know, I think you’re.

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You’re right. Our kids are really needy. But I think one of the top things

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they need right after Jesus is they need to know that your marriage is a

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priority. And when we were first married, we

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lived in Ohio, and there were five of us young

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families, five on the street, I think that’s right. And we.

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None of us had any money. I mean, we know we didn’t have any money.

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We were trying to pay the, you know, the mortgage. And

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we, all the girls, we had a Thursday night bible study together, and

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we printed what we called baby bucks. And we all

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started off with a certain number of baby bucks, and we used those as

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our currency to watch each other’s children so everyone could go

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on dates. Oh, how fun. And it was perfect because you got a certain

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number based on how many kids you got. And we traded

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off kids all the time so that we could invest in our marriages.

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Your kids need to see you go on dates together.

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They need to see that it’s a priority. Your relationship is a

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priority. And they. I remember the first

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time we got to leave our kids alone by

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themselves. So we had, you know, we got to where we could afford

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a babysitter, but not very often, right? And then we had a regular

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babysitter, and that was out of the park because she was amazing. She always

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did the coolest crafts with the kids, right? She did glitter. And I was an

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anti glitter mother. Me too. But, yeah, I

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confess there should be a support group for us, but she would come over and

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just do the coolest crafts, and that was awesome. But then there came a time

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when our oldest kids were old enough for

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us to go and leave the younger ones with them, which was kind of terrifying

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because we didn’t even have seven yet. We only had six.

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And so I gingerly put my number six in one of those

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saucers, one of those bouncy saucers, and I was like, we’ll be back before

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he’s bored, right? Because I was just like, I’m just. Going to go for coffee

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and come right back. But, you know, it was. It was cool

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because then, you know, for the rest of

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forever, all the other dates that we would go on, they would stay

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there together, and they were really cheap babysitting because we paid

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with chick fil a brownies. That’s not kidding. Which is

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perfect. But I think your kids really need to see

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that. Really, really, really need to see that. And if it means that you

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come along with other couples and you trade off babysitting, do it. If it means

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that there’s an older couple at church that their kids are

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gone and they’re willing to watch your little ones do it,

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find a way. Cause your kids need. Even if it’s putting your kids

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to bed and mommy and daddy are having a date, you

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need to tell them that. Don’t do it. And they don’t know. But say tonight

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you’re gonna go to bed early, and you’re gonna take a couple of

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extra books to bed with you. Or maybe they’re gonna hit the

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goldmine and they can listen to adventures in Odyssey or whatever,

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but you get to go to bed early tonight because I’m taking your mother on

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a date, you know, and you’ve lit candles and you’ve, you know,

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whatever you do. But your kids desperately need that. Yes.

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And because having a good marriage after they’re gone starts before they

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leave, and so really investing in that,

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because all of our kids were like, so what are y’all gonna do? You know?

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Because they had already seen and they really wanted to know

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what we were gonna do. We’re gonna go hiking in the smokies, and I got

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an Airbnb and all this, you know, so they knew that we were going

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to be okay. I think one of the ways that

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parents inadvertently pass on insecurity in their

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kids is when your kids are leaving and they’re afraid that, what are mom gonna

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do? What are mom and dad gonna do? I think one of the ways that

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you can give them more security in going, more confidence in

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going, is they know that their going isn’t gonna destroy

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the two of you. Yeah. And that’s not something you say. That’s

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something you show, by the way, that you engage with each other before

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you leave. And again, I’d say it’s not too late. You can start

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that now and making a priority for that. But your kids, of all the

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things that they need, they need Jesus, and they need to know that

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your marriage is solid and you’re working together, and it’s a priority.

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Yeah, absolutely. So important. I have a

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husband who is so good at flirting with me,

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and he flirts with me in front of my girls. He flirts with me, not

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in front of my girls. Like, and it’s so fun to gross my girls out,

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and we’re not, like, gross in front of them, you know, and we don’t make

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out. It doesn’t take much. Let’s just be honest. It doesn’t take much. Yeah.

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And it’s just. It’s fun. And I love that they get to see a

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dad who is truly. And he’s way better at flirting with me than I am

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at flirting with him. It’s just his nature and mine, you know? But

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it’s just so much fun that they get to see this. And years ago,

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I’m pretty sure it was Brooklyn that drew a picture

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of Garrett and I kissing. And both of the girls

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were, like, hiding behind the wall. And the caption

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from one of the girls said, like, ew, gross or something. And it had,

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like, hearts coming up out of mine and Garrett, you know, and it was so

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funny. And I just was like, praise God for that. I am so thankful that,

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you know, they see us giving each other, you know, a peck on the lips

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and they see us hugging each other and, you know, just. Just

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being loving and flirtatious with one another because they, like you said, they

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need that. They need to see that. They need to know that we see that

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are a priority in that we have. And now it’s easy for us to go

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on dates. You know, we’re in that phase of life where our kids are teenagers.

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We can leave for a whole day if we wanted to,

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and it’s great. We don’t often leave them, but

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we can now we’re in. And for those who have little ones, you’ll get there,

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you know? Exactly. We weren’t always here, but it does happen. And

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so, yeah, the marriage relationship is so, so important because the kids need to

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know that it’s solid. They need that solid foundation of the

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family because it’s really mom and dad who hold the family

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together, you know? Exactly. Right? Don’t underestimate that. Yep.

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Nope. Not at all. Mom, dad. Jesus, that’s it. You know, a family

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can withstand anything, I am convinced.

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Anything if they’re together. So, yeah.

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Rachael, thank you so much for being with us this week. Always a

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pleasure, such a joy. I love, love chatting with you. You’re such an encouragement

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to me. We’ll put links to Rachael Carman in the show notes so that you

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can find her wherever she is. She’s all over the place. You know,

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she often speaks. And so if you. If you’re somewhere and you hear that she’s

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coming to speak. Go listen to her. She is such a

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blast. And come and introduce yourself because I’d love to give you a hug.

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Oh, yeah. I. Yeah. Yes. I love that. I love that you love

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people so much. I do. I do. I really do. Especially the moms. I want

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to hear your story. So come introduce yourself. So good. Well, thank you

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guys for listening. We love you so much and we’re so grateful for you. If

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you’re not signed up for our newsletter, you can go to our website, Schoolhouse Rocked,

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where you can also stream the movie for free. Rachael’s in the movie. She’s one

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00:22:17,022 –> 00:22:20,590
of our cast members. So you can see her in Schoolhouse

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Rocked, but you can stream it for free and sign up for our

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newsletter there so you can hear all the exciting things that we have coming up.

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We don’t send out a lot of newsletters, but probably one every other week or

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so on average and just let you know what, what we’ve got going on, what

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podcasts we’ve had. We have, you know, that have come out and

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any other exciting things we’ve got. So sign up there, have a great

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rest of your week. Stay tuned to the very end to hear what’s coming up

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next week on the podcast, and we will see you back here then. Bye.