Jeremy:
We had a really interesting conversation in Homeroom, our online mentorship community about the conversation about men handling postpartum, pregnancy, all the challenges. We’re in a whole month where we were talking about sexual intimacy in Homeroom, and it’s really been a good conversation.

But one of the… There was a thread in this conversation I thought would be really good to bring into the podcast, which was, we talk a lot about how much we love kids. How much a blessing we see from having families, and how much I think it’s important for dads to embrace the possibility that they could be called a father of a large family.

But I did want to throw out one little cautionary note on that conversation. And that is that it’s so important that when a dad – let’s say they become very alive and excited about getting to coach a family, lead a family team, build up a multi-generational family – that you keep in mind that as you’re pushing down this path, which could mean having more kids and even more kids back to back, that you remember your first responsibility is to love your wife, and that loving your wife comes before building your family.

And that means that if your excitement about building an epic family is completely coming at the cost of your wife’s physical health, of your wife’s psychological health, of your wife’s spiritual health, it’s your job to notice that and to put on the brakes.

And so we just talked about that and how important that could be in the process of getting excited about families. And I just sort of said this because I do have friends who I think have discovered this and kind of regretted, maybe pushing too hard down this path and had to put on the brakes, who felt like maybe they should have done it a little bit earlier.

And that it’s okay to factor that in, because I think sometimes we go from maybe hyper planning a family and trying to have the 2.5 kids and to zero planning and a hundred percent just having lots of kids and saying, it’s our job to absorb everything. And then maybe even foster kids and on and on.

And there’s some families that have just enormous capacity for this, but it’s your job as the father to be aware particularly of where those limits are, and if it’s becoming unhealthy for your family, particularly for your wife, but yeah. Jeff, what are your thoughts about that?

Jeff:
Yeah, I hundred percent agree. It’s so hard because I mean, I don’t want to use the cop out answer, but just you have to be spirit-led and if you’re not spirit-led, then you just start making dumb decisions. You know what I mean?

You just start making very bad decisions in regards to pushing a law, put making something… Like the spirit is the law, that’s the New Testament ethic. That’s literally what it says in multiple places, rather than the law’s the law.

And I think so many of us, we want the rule to then allow us to push forward so that we don’t need the spirit in a dynamic way every single day. Because if we just have a rule, then we can just move on. So, that’s one part here that I think is problematic.

And then, I think the two things that… One thing that tends to solve a lot of family problems is just keeping a hyper micro pulse on the health of the family. Families that do that really well, almost everything thrives. Families that don’t do that really well, start teetering into burnout on at least some areas.

And what I mean by that is keep a pulse on who’s thriving? Who’s doing okay? Who’s living? You know what I mean? Who’s owning it? Who’s healthy? Who’s flourishing? And so that’s one that I would say is another big one.

And then yeah, family size too. It’s really important to… Another word I would say is stewardship. Where like stewardship is really, really important. So I love how you, yeah, it’s usually the American one is two kids, hyper planet, it’s going to be exact science. Another one is, oh, we don’t care and we don’t plan because that’s God’s way.

And that’s not the definition of stewardship on either of those. Stewardship is kind of receiving, while also planning, while also ordering, while also naming, while also domaining. And so, I think all of that combined is really, really helpful in the conversation.