It was a pleasure to sit down with Dorcas Smucker and discuss all kinds of things, not the least of which included parenting.
We spent a good bit of time in the expanded version reflecting on some of the broken systems we’ve been a part of and talking about what to do when we realize we are currently participating in such a system. You can access that version here.
Be sure to check out Dorcas’ blog and her books for yourself.
What are things you’ve learned about parenting? You can share in the comments below.
If you’d like to check out the Dwell App, click here.
Transitional music for this episode has been contributed by Corey Steiner. The opening song is Sunset Drive by Evert Z.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:20] Speaker A: Hello, friends.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Welcome back to Unfained Christianity, where we seek to find culturally wear, biblically nuanced in Jesus embodying responses to current day issues. I’m excited to have Dorcas Smuger on the podcast today. Now, I’m assuming most of you will be familiar with Dorcas Smucker and her work. She is an author. She’s written several different books. I’ll link her blog and books in the show notes, but some of the ones that I remember my mom reading.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: To us kids, or at least reading.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Herself and then talking about it a lot, was upstairs. The peasants are revolting, tea and trouble brewing, fragrant, whiffs of joy, ordinary days. And I know she recently published a book. I think it’s called Coming Home to.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Roost, something like that. She’s written seven books total.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: They’re all about family life and children and things that she processes in all of that.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: And so just very interesting books.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Kind of obviously, anybody raising a family can identify with it. It’s a mixture of laughter and tears.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: And kind of thought provoking thoughts. I’ve enjoyed personally following her blog and.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: Just watching how she interacts with some.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: Sometimes just very basic practical questions, but then other times, like, a little more in depth. And there was an article a few years ago, a couple years ago that she wrote about parenting and breaking a child’s will.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: That really caught my eye.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: We go into it further. That’s kind of the basis that I.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Was like, I just need to have.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: Dorcas on and talk about this. And so I recently reached out to.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Her, and she was gracious enough to oblige.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: We do have a fairly lengthy conversation.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: And so I’m not able to have all of it on for the free version here.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: But if you’re interested in the expanded.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Version, consider becoming a member of Unpaid Christianity. We continue the conversation there as well.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: But in this part of it, we.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Have a good hour talking about parenting, talking about unique experiences of being a pastor’s, wife, teacher’s, wife, and an author. We get into all kinds of stuff.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: I hope, trust, fairly confident you’ll enjoy the conversation here. I’d love to hear at the end of it what you found helpful, what you enjoyed, any questions you have. So if you’re watching this on YouTube.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: Or on the blog, don’t hesitate to leave a comment.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: If you’re listening to this on Apple.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you’re listening.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: To this, feel free to shoot me a message at podcast@asherwhitmer.com and just share your thoughts. Let us know what you think. Here’s my conversation with Dorcas Smucker.
All right, we are here with Dorcas Smucker. Welcome to Unfamed Christianity.
[00:03:29] Speaker C: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: The Smookers from Oregon have been, I don’t know if I’d say, longtime family friends I’ve heard about. My mom has, like, from a very young age, my mom followed your writing. And so I’m not sure that I’ve actually ever personally read any of your books, but my mom would read them to us, or at least significant portions of so so I’m very familiar with your books and have followed your blog.
And in more recent years, I work part time somewhat with your daughter Emily, with the same agency, and then also did some writing for Open Hands, which which your husband Paul is a part of, and so had some connections.
I think one of the most meaningful connection. And you probably may not know this, but as a young, aspiring author, I remember visiting your family I don’t know if I was even 18 yet, but I was wanting to write.
And I remember you made the point forget how you worded it, but something to the effect that whatever you envision for writing, I forget if it was specifically a book or just like, writing career, understand that it will probably take a very different look, and that’s okay. Something along that line of just like being okay with you have a vision when you set out and it’ll turn into something different. Whether that’s self publishing, not necessarily getting a big writing contract, or whether that’s I don’t know what all you meant by that, but I’ve thought about it a lot as I have continued to write, and then it’s been very meaningful. Every now and then you have messaged me and just blessed me in the faithfulness of writing. There. Again, I’m not recalling specifically what you said, but I find that very meaningful, even though I don’t know you super well personally. Just as someone who I look to who has had a successful writing career, probably the closest thing to a direct mentor of mentor figure in that realm in the anabaptist world of just for the long haul, plugging out, continuing to write. And so, yeah, thank you. Thank you for those words. You probably didn’t even realize you were making that big of a difference when you said them, but they’ve been meaningful.
[00:06:21] Speaker C: No, I did not know that. But I have enjoyed following you and of course, just felt that connection with your mom for many years because we got to know each other when we were in Canada, and she and I both had babies. And it’s not that we were close friends, but we just connected every so.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: For I think my audience is going to be fairly familiar with you, but Dorcasmucker is the name of your blog. Just dorcasmucker it’s.
[00:06:51] Speaker C: Life in the shoe.
Life in the shoe or the blog is dorcasmucker blogspot.com.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah.
So Life in the Shoe, was that the name of one of your books, one of your first books?
[00:07:06] Speaker C: No.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:08] Speaker C: No, it just kind of evolved as a blog name.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the book that I remember the most that mom would have read out of was Upstairs the Peasants Are Revolting or something like that.
I don’t want to get your titles wrong, but yeah, I remember her reading quite a bit of that. And you’ve written how many books total have you written?
[00:07:34] Speaker C: Seven.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: Seven, okay.
[00:07:36] Speaker C: Seven that are all collections of essays and family life stories. Just published the last one, and it probably will be the last one because the kids are all adults, and so it’s a different dynamic with writing about them and telling their stories like you just can’t do it when they were 13.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
So the last one about your kids or the last book, period?
[00:08:03] Speaker C: The last one about my kids. I have lots of ideas for other books.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: Yeah. I was going to say just some of the back and forth that we’ve had even in prep for this podcast.
Hopefully, maybe one day you’ll write on some of those things as well.
What’s the name of your most recent book? I should have gathered that.
[00:08:26] Speaker C: Coming home to Roost.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: Yeah, that’s right.
[00:08:30] Speaker C: With a theme of chickens, adult children, you know, the things that come home to roost. Life choices.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: Yeah, that’s good.
A lot of your writing has been about family, about life as a family. The different paul, your husband is currently or has been a pastor and teacher. I’m not sure if he’s still currently in those roles.
[00:08:57] Speaker C: Pastor and teacher for many years, pastor for 25 years. And then it all came to a very abrupt end when he was seriously injured three years ago. So we’ve been regrouping and trying to figure out what we’re supposed to do now. And it’s been quite a journey. That might be a book someday. Just when your life changes in an instant.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So I follow your writing, your blog. Every now and then I’ll see an article that really catches my eye and read it. It’s interesting. I write I don’t know if you find this or not. I do writing and I do a fair amount of podcasting, at least recently, but I actually am consuming not as many blog blogs or podcasts as maybe I put out, I’m not sure. Or at least what I do consume is fairly targeted in a topic I’m writing on or something.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: So I don’t get to all your.
[00:09:58] Speaker A: Articles, but I really enjoy, first of all, just your writing style is something that I have often thought that, man, if I could one day write like dorcas, then I think I will have arrived. Just the way you’re able to make fairly profound points in almost like backhanded ways in telling a story, the way of setting up a point in story form. And that’s something I feel I’m far from.
[00:10:29] Speaker C: But let me just say, please make sure that you sound like Asher.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I’m sure.
I mean that as a compliment, but I know what it’s like to read somebody else and it sounds like they’re trying to be somebody else too, and that doesn’t have the same effect either.
[00:10:55] Speaker C: But I accept the compliment. I appreciate it.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: Have you been blessed by the work of Unfained Christianity? If so, I invite you to go.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Deeper by becoming a member of Unfained Christianity on Patreon. All of our work is designed to help Christians find culturally aware biblically nuanced and Jesus embodying responses to current day issues, and we could not do it without the support of our members.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: As a part of the membership, you.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: Get to go deeper into sorting through.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: What does it look like to faithfully.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Embody Jesus in a world and in our culture and time.
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[00:11:33] Speaker B: If you become an advanced member, which.
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[00:11:49] Speaker A: Now, here’s the really good deal.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: When you do an annual membership, you get 16% off.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: If you’d like to see more details.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: Just visit asherwhitmer.com member.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: You published an article a few years ago, and again, I was going to look up the title because I’m not sure the title does the title have to do with parenting?
Do you remember the article I’m talking about?
[00:12:17] Speaker C: Was it about breaking the will? Was it that one?
[00:12:21] Speaker A: Maybe yeah, maybe it was something about breaking the will. Actually, I think it was like you were doing Ask Aunt Dorcas articles or something.
I think it may have been one of those. So a question that had been submitted to you, you were responding well. Yeah. What I was going to say let me back up the different things that you write about. I’m often really encouraged and challenged. I’m sure, like myself, I’m sure you’ve dealt with fair amount of criticism.
You maybe don’t get into as openly controversial things as I do sometimes, but you’ve been doing it for a lot longer. And so I’m sure sometimes when you hear, oh, I read your blog, or I follow your blog, the question in the back of your mind can be, are you one of those critics or one of those people who has benefited from it or appreciates it? But I’ve really benefited from it.
This article that came out, feels like it was a couple of years ago about parenting was one that both my wife and I read, and it may have as much to do with the season of life we were in at the moment as anything you actually said, but I came away wanting to cry. And I don’t mean that as a slam against you. I don’t remember if I did cry. I may have, but I just remember Dorcas was writing about parenting and she gives so many refreshing and new insights that are often helpful. And then the insight that she gave in that article as sort of a new approach to parenting in contrast to the maybe a little more controlling style of parenting and being sure to break their will and so forth. Whatever your contrast to it was, either we had already tried or with some of our children in mind, we knew the outcome. And it just felt like because I think I told you, for me, it’s honestly been a long time since I’ve read a parenting book, partly because I’ve read a number of them.
They’re great, they’re helpful, but it doesn’t answer my situation or I’m facing situation with my kids that it’s like, how is that supposed to work here? Or it didn’t work like the book said.
And so the desire to cry or the feeling of crying was more like even Dorcas couldn’t solve all my problems.
And so, yeah, for a while I’ve been thinking I should talk with Dorcas about this. And so more recently, I’ve been getting back into podcasting and working up courage of getting people on to interview that interact with things that I don’t necessarily already have kind of a settled conclusion on and stuff. And so I was like, Well, I should reach out to Dorcas and see if there’s a ton of stuff that we could get into, we’ll probably get into. But I think we’ll start just kind of with parenting in this. I think I sent you the yeah, how do you teach children to honor, to obey without controlling them? I think maybe we’ll start that as the launching pad and that’ll lead to various conversation, various follow up questions and so forth. But, yeah, maybe I’ll just let you go from there.
[00:16:17] Speaker C: It was good to hear from you about your situation and how my advice did not fit. And I think that’s important because it’s not a formula. And we have six children, and I used to say we needed a completely different manual for each one because they were so different. And so I hope anything that I say or write that people know, this is my perspective, but I’m not the you know, you’re a grown up with the Holy Spirit and you don’t have to agree with me.
You can it’s I don’t set myself up as an know. And I realized also that I base my conclusions on how I was raised and what affected me both positively and negatively and also with our children and how our parenting evolved over the course of time from the oldest to the youngest.
Now, one thing that I’m adamant about is that ultimately it’s about yourself and you parent out of who you are. And if you are unhealed, unhealthy, that will affect your parenting in profound ways.
And a lot of the details, I mean, parenting is tough, especially if you have very active, curious, strong willed children.
It’s really challenging, and you give yourself points for surviving because it’s not easy.
My conclusions came from okay, so my parents came from the Amish. They were Amish from way back. And so shame is a big part of that. Culture. And I think my parents also felt they were older when they got married. They were more educated than most, and so I think they felt pressure to be an example and to do it right. And I came along, and I was just a lot. And one thing I remember is I was the child that was always saying things out loud. Like, my family tells the story of my mom was pregnant with my youngest sister, and I was six years old. I had no clue what was happening, but I made the statement, mom is fat. And I feel like that was so typical because there were all these unspoken things that you were not supposed to say, and nobody ever said, don’t say this out loud. It was just understood. And if you said the things, you were an embarrassment and you were ashamed for that. So that was kind of the story of my life. And so that became a goal with my children, that you are allowed to say things out loud like what you see and hear.
You can say that, but I feel like I did not begin to process some of my own childhood trauma and shame until I was a lot older. And so my older children, very much, they were damaged by that because I was way too concerned about what people thought. I did not give much grace. I spanked way too much.
Okay, so my advice for parents now comes out of that experience rather than what I’m seeing or practicing with young I don’t have young children. I don’t have grandchildren. Yeah. So I think that the big thing for me is that you pursue personal healing. And if you find yourself just reacting just out of proportion, these huge emotions and this feeling of shame and this paralyzing fear and this feeling like everybody else gets to say what’s true about your child or you as a parent. I mean, all those things are triggers and you probably need some healing. The other thing with shame is that shame does not acknowledge what’s age appropriate for a child.
So if you have a two year old who’s tired and hungry and they’re crying and fussy and frustrated, a shaming parent will just act like they’re a freak and they’re embarrassing and they’re naughty for acting how two year olds act. And it’s not that you should excuse any behavior. It’s like you approach it from the sense of, this is normal for this age. I don’t need to freak out. What do they need? Do they need some to be taken out of the situation for a bit? Are they not ready for this situation, like church, family gathering, restaurant meal, whatever?
Because I feel like parents have a way of putting young children in situations that they’re not at all ready for. And I did that anyway. So those are looking back, those are the big things that stand out to me. Yeah, the whole thing of grace.
I feel like when I had young children, there is this prevalent teaching that, oh, my goodness, you have got to win this battle today or it’s a lost cause. Your child’s going to end up on the streets addicted to drugs. Like, you have to win this battle today.
Well, that’s not true. That’s absolutely not true. And there’s a lot of grace. There’s a lot of second chances. And so if you’re working with a child on a behavior or attitude or whatever and what you’re doing isn’t working, it’s okay to back off, ask for help, talk to your spouse, reevaluate, try something else. There are lots of second chances.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I appreciate that point.
I’m not sure if it’s fair. I can’t recall a quote or a specific saying that communicated this. So maybe it’s just my own misreading, but it seems like there can be this tendency or this feeling from a lot of Christian parenting books or teachers that you have to get it right and then you have to be consistent and any changing is inconsistency and then that ruins the whole process. And I know I’ve lived with some of that pressure, and yet I agree. I’ve seen even some of the most powerful parenting times I think have actually been in the moment, like, realizing on the face of my child that my tone must be something that I’m not intending it to be because it’s shutting them down and just stopping in the moment, apologizing and totally changing courses. And so I agree.
I think there’s a lot more space for brokenness and kind of navigating it altogether than maybe what we’ve sometimes give can be given. Hey friends.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: This podcast is brought to you in partnership with the Dwell app. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the Dwell Audio Bible app, but this app is phenomenal. It’s changed my life in several different ways.
As a Bible college student, I do tremendous amounts of Bible reading throughout the semester, more than I normally do. And I’m not a fast reader. And so one of the ways that I have been able to keep on top of the Bible reading is through the Dwell app.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: One of the things I really like.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: About it is there’s very meditative, reflective music played in the background of the reader. So it’s not dramatized. Some audio Bible apps are dramatized, and that’s a little, I don’t know, not my cup of tea, but it’s a very calming and just peaceful way of having the Bible read to you. There’s at least 15. I think there’s close to 30 by now. Different voices that you can choose from. There’s many different translations you can choose from. For the ESV, I think there’s maybe two or three voices, if that makes sense. But there’s over 15 voices for sure. And so you can have a female voice, you can have a male voice. You could have a British accent. You could have an American accent. You can have a Canadian accent or a well, I like the British accent.
[00:25:04] Speaker A: So I listen to the Bible and.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: The British accent and it’s been a really good way to keep on top of my homework. But also I have found sometimes I’ll be listening to audio Bible as I commute someplace or as I’m doing some other work or even in the morning. Sometimes it’s hard to wake up, you’re tired and to sit down and read it literally feels like an intellectual exercise. It’s like school, like starting your day with school. And I love learning things, but I don’t do well at starting my day with school. And so when you wake up and you’re tired but you want to meditate on the word of God, to just put in my AirPods and listen to the Dwell app is an incredible way to start my morning just in peaceful worship meditation. I hear things differently when I hear it being read than when I read it. I personally think you should read and hear it both. But that’s one thing I like about audio Bible is different things stick out that didn’t stand out before. I’ll listen to it as I’m going on a run or something and I.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: Can’T say enough good about the Dwell app.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: And so if you would like to take your meditation, your Bible reading to another level, you can also, if you’re not able to sleep at night, you can put in your air pods and listen to the scripture being read and fall asleep that way. I’ve used that at times as well. But you can start for free. There’s a link in the description below or you can go ahead and purchase the annual plan which I have. And to me it’s very much worth it just in the way a couple of things, the way it helps me meditate and kind of a fresh view, a fresh experience with scripture and then also the way it helps me keep on top of my homework. It’s been very helpful for me.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: So this whole thing of breaking wills, I don’t even know, you probably know better than I do who popularized that idea or where that teaching came into.
It’s something that I grew up with.
Like you, I was the strong willed, problematic one. I think you said that about yourself.
Maybe I misunderstood you, but I was that in my family.
I grew up very much hearing not from my parents really, just in different teachings and stuff that they would have, whether it was a video or somebody at church. The idea of breaking a child’s will, what’s the saying you’re supposed to break their will but not their spirit is kind of the thing.
And so I’ve taken that into my own parenting. Some especially I taught school a few years and seeing when they’re used to willing getting what they want or negotiating into till it fits their parameters. That can be very frustrating to interact with and relate with. But I do kind of in my own parenting have been on this my wife and I have been on this journey of, like, when are we too controlling in our kids? I think you alluded to it the way God is gracious with us in disciplining us. That’s something I think Bible College has actually been almost more convicting of me in my parenting than any parenting book. And just, like, discovering how God walks with the disobedient and the people of Israel as a whole.
Could you say more on this notion of breaking a child’s will?
What role does that play? How do we train children to is it important to break their will? And if it’s not important to break their will, how do you train a child to honor and to.
[00:29:24] Speaker C: I okay. As far as where that came from, I had thought it came from or some people said it came from Michael and Debbie Pearl, but my husband said that was actually a popular idea when he was a child, so that was way before the pearls. So I’m not sure where it came from. And I think it’s important that children I mean, obeying and respecting and honoring that scripture. And at the end of the day, parents are the adults. Yeah, they’re the adults in the room, and they’re legally and morally responsible. So there is a sense where it has to be taught. I don’t have easy answers there, honestly, because certainly with our oldest child, I attempted to I don’t know if I called it breaking his will, but to just punish him into doing what I said, exactly how I said, and it wasn’t working. And I asked for advice and unfortunately got really terrible advice from older moms. Not sure how that works. And it took me a long time to discover how damaging that was.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: I was just going to clarify how damaging it was just to you, or did you try to implement that advice then, and it damaged your child?
[00:30:45] Speaker C: It damaged my child because I was like, okay, well, if you spank till their cry changes to a submissive cry, that kind of stuff, it just didn’t work. It didn’t change his behavior, and he became very angry. Well, then that’s a whole other thing. So I have a lot of regrets about that. And as far as I think, yeah, it came out of my own desperation and shame and not recognizing what was normal or what was important. With my younger children, I was much more chill as one is by five and six or your fifth and 6th children. It’s like, this will work itself out. You have a much better idea of what will work itself out and what’s concerning, which that’s not much help for you, but basically not everything has to be a battle.
And if whatever you’re doing isn’t working, you don’t keep doing it or you don’t do more of it. But at the same time, like you say, it is important for them to know that they’re not the center of the universe. And if you say that they need to buckle in in the car or an airplane or that this behavior, how they’re treating a friend at school, that’s not okay.
I think so much of it is expectations and modeling.
I don’t totally endorse the ezos, but I did learn the whole thing from them about teaching your child that they’re very important and what they feel that matters. But everybody is important, and your behavior affects everybody around you. And so you think in terms of, okay, I want to do this, but how does that affect people around me? Like, a young child wants to run around in the foyer at church, and so you well know, because there’s old grandmas here. You don’t want to knock them over. Your behavior affects them. Yeah, I don’t know.
Children are interesting, and they need a lot of guidance in teaching, and some of them just pick up proper behavior and how to treat people, and some have to be taught very much inch by inch. Yeah. I feel like the long, drawn out battles with your child, that does not seem productive. I think, looking back, I would try to have more natural consequences that I don’t know, if you hit your sister, then you’ll have to be separated, like in a different room for a while or more. That kind of consequences. But I don’t have young children.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: And for for my audience, I told dorcas ahead of I i have some fairly raw questions about. So I may ask some things that sound challenging, and it’s just from a genuine, like, trying to work this out, find out how to flesh this out practically in my situation.
And I said I want her to feel free to challenge me and push back on anything that maybe I’m asking the wrong question or looking at the wrong part of this. But your whole mention of, like first of all, I appreciate what you shared, that it was helpful, your mention of a child hitting his sister, so putting them in separate rooms. I have a couple of children that telling them to do that, particularly if they’re worked up to the point where they hit their sibling, they would refuse to do that. They would be very angry.
And so then that can escalate, and you need to go to your room, but they will refuse, and we can strip away different privileges, and it almost makes them double down even more.
We can entice them through rewards, and it’s just like, well, in the moment, they don’t really care about anything other than they’re not going to go to their room.
And so I think that’s one of the things that my wife and I feel somewhat exasperated by sometimes. Because it does feel and for context, we have three boys, one girl, and three boys first and then a girl. And so our home life and parenting has been fairly aggressive in nature, and how do we navigate that without physically restraining them or taking them to their room? And the older it gets, the more I’m conscious of the fact that they do have their own bodies that parent.
Yeah. When are we violating our children by just forcing them to do something? And yet, how do we kind of to your point of the foyer and running around, how do we help them realize their attitude is also affecting the rest of the home?
[00:36:18] Speaker C: I don’t have a specific answer.
One thing is some children, I feel like, have a hard time processing what they’re feeling. And I think, like with our oldest son, some of the anger that I was seeing and just the extreme pushback and frustration was just not maybe a lot of adrenaline or whatever going on and his not being able to resolve that and process it and deal with it and I don’t know. Actually, I think it would not have hurt to pursue therapy.
Okay.
I don’t have an easy answer for you because I think there’s something else going on. When a child reaches that, obviously, it’s not connecting. Like, the logic of it is not connecting, which happens when you’re very emotional. But at the same time, you have to look at the power dynamic between the children and if it’s roughly equal and there’s some scrapping and stuff going on that does not concern me.
Like, if there’s an older one with a lot of power over a younger one physically and verbally, or vice versa, sometimes a younger one can be really sneaky, and an older one with less control of their emotions and stuff can just get so frustrated. So I think that’s something to watch.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
It’s interesting you say that. We definitely have that dynamic where you’re saying, or what I assumed you were referring to is that the younger 1 may be as much or more at fault, but because the older one isn’t as control of their emotions, they’re the one that gets noticed and called out. Yeah.
What do you say? Or maybe I’ll just ask, what have you found to be the most helpful? So you’ve been a mom of six. You’ve been a pastor’s wife, a teacher’s wife, both of those fairly demanding, mentally, emotionally involving, not just for your husband, but even for you.
And in the middle of all that, you’ve managed to have and I have no clue what your daily schedule looks like in terms of writing, but you’ve written seven books. How do you do all of that, navigate all of that, and stay sane? Is it just a personality thing that I stay sane?
Yeah.
[00:38:51] Speaker C: Or how do you regain one thing is that you have to live in your season.
I didn’t do any kind of professional type writing until my oldest was 13.
[00:39:03] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:39:04] Speaker C: And also then I wrote once a month. Well, blogging was sort of its own thing, but that was just you could sort of fit that into the corners of your life. But writing for a newspaper, that was once a month for almost 19 years and I felt like Paul and I felt like I could handle that. And I would speak locally once a month and then out of state once a year for probably 20 years. So it was sort of a deliberate limiting.
And I feel like some of us, if you’re a creative person, or if you’re a word person, you really need that outlet and that expression. And so the key is to find some way to make it work. And if you have a spouse that supports you and makes it possible, then you’re really blessed. There were a lot of things that fell through the cracks and a lot of things I did not do. My kids did not do sports. I just did not feel like I had the capacity for running to practice every day and all that.
We ate food, but it was not very complicated gourmet food, but yeah, just that it was a lot. And then looking back, I probably should have set better boundaries, especially as a pastor’s wife. I feel like I took on things that were not my burden to bear, so I would do even less with that than I did.
And also with writing. It’s amazing how it accumulates. Like, if you write 1000 words a month, it might not sound like very much, but every in three years you have a book.
Yeah, I did. It very imperfectly, but you know how it is. If you have that urge to write, it just behooves you to follow.
[00:41:08] Speaker A: Yeah, well, thank you. I appreciate yeah, I enjoyed the conversation and I’m definitely going to have you speaking of parenting, I don’t know if you can hear that, but I have the child in need.
[00:41:24] Speaker C: Well, thank you for having me and for asking good questions and listening. Well, I appreciate it.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: Yeah, well, thank you. Thank you for talking. I hope. The thing about podcasting is it’s fun to do. And as long as I don’t listen to my own episodes, then it’s great.
But every time I listen to an episode, I’m like, asher, you’re talking way too much. So I hope you feel like you had a conversation.
[00:41:50] Speaker C: I enjoyed it and thank you very much.
[00:41:55] Speaker A: Hey, friends, thanks for listening to this. We continue the conversation. I asked some more raw questions about.
[00:42:05] Speaker B: What it’s been like to be an.
[00:42:06] Speaker A: Author as a woman and then kind of a broader conversation of just kind of looking at systems when we discover we’re a part of broken systems and.
[00:42:15] Speaker B: What do we do? She had shared some stuff when we were talking ahead of the podcast. She had shared some stuff about processing.
[00:42:22] Speaker A: Different systems she’s been a part of.
[00:42:24] Speaker B: And looking back and realizing that they are broken, they were a part of causing damage and pain. And so I asked her how she reconciles that, what she does with that.
[00:42:37] Speaker A: And then what do people do today when they’re in the middle of a.
[00:42:42] Speaker B: System and they realize this system is causing damage?
How can we navigate forward in that? So if you’re interested in the expanded portion, it’s a good I think we have close to 30 35 minutes extra of conversation. Consider becoming a member of Unthinked Christianity on Patreon. You can access this expanded version as well as all expanded versions, as well.
[00:43:06] Speaker A: As all our deep dive essays.
[00:43:09] Speaker B: And it’s in the deep dive essays that I’m slowly leaking.
[00:43:11] Speaker A: The next book that I’m working on.
[00:43:13] Speaker B: I kind of flesh out a chapter and then share it with my Patreon members and they can give feedback and so forth. So if you’d like to join in on that, get in on all that fun, consider becoming a basic member. It’s just $10 a month on Patreon. Unpained Christianity on Patreon.
[00:43:28] Speaker A: There’s a link in the show notes.
[00:43:30] Speaker B: Or just go to asherwhitmer.com member and you’ll be able to learn more about that. Thank you for listening.
Unfained Christianity is brought to you by our members at Patreon. As a part of the membership program, you receive two deep dive essays a month and expanded versions of all our podcast interviews. If you would like to become a member, visit WW asherwhitmer.com forward slash member. Unpained Christianity podcast is also a part of two networks the Restorative Faith Collective, where we have conversations about race, perspectives and relationships in an anabaptist context. To learn about more articles and podcasts, visit www.restorativefaithcollective.org. The second network is The Kingdom Outpost, where we talk about what it looks like to live as Jesus’s nation in today’s world. For more podcasts and articles, visit kingdomoutpost.org. Thanks for listening.
