Episode 22: Family Values vs. Valuing Family

DJ Stutz  0:00  
You're listening to Episode 22 of Imperfect Heroes, Insights Into Parenting, the perfect podcast where imperfect parents look into find joy in their experience of raising children in an imperfect world. I'm your host DJ Stutz. We often talk about family values, and what are the values that your family has. But there's the opposite, or at least when we switch the words around of valuing family, and that is, how do we raise children who value family value that family time, value the relationships within their family, and continue that on into adulthood. Today's episode, we're going to talk about exactly that, how to help our children value their family. There's so much to learn. So let's get started.

Before we get going, I want to tell you about our sponsor, Little Hearts Academy USA, and every Tuesday at 7pm. Mountain Time. I do a Facebook Live on my little hearts Academy USA page. I talk about my podcast topic for the week. But here you have the opportunity to ask questions, and I am happy to answer them. I love connecting with my listener and finding ways to help out. Check it out this Tuesday. I'll put the link in the show notes. Or you can just go to Facebook and visit me at Little Hearts Academy USA. Be sure to follow me. That would be a good thing. All right. Well, before we get started on today's show, I want to give a shout out to my listener of the week. Brittany Lee Brittany, listen to episode 20. That was with Renee Fick. And here is what she posted on Facebook. Tonight, Ali played donation bingo to give toys he no longer plays with to less fortunate kids this holiday season. He won bingo and wanted to give a car toy, a brown toy, a wooden toy, a costume and a book to kids that will be needing them. But instead he went the extra mile with it and ended up overfilling the box. He is so excited to share with other kids. And now he can see to the bottom of his toy box. And we are decluttering in time for the upcoming holiday season. Now, I may have to start doing this with my crafting supplies at low l Thank you DJ studs for sharing fellow podcaster Renee fix great idea about giving and simplifying on your podcast, imperfect heroes, you are always such a great resource. Thank you so much Brittany. And you're gonna have to check out my Facebook page, Little Hearts Academy USA to see pictures of her beautiful little boy and his bingo card. So adorable. Brittany, I have a gift for you on the way. And I'd love to hear other stories about how you have simplified your holiday season. And who knows you might be a future listener of the week. So

I grew up in a crazy family. I'm the oldest of seven children, I have just one sister with whom I have never had an argument. We grew up in Los Angeles and all of my grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins lived in Oregon. But somehow we were all very, very close. And I spent every summer either with my auntie Val or my auntie honey. And I dearly loved all of my aunts and uncles, my cousins were my favorite friends. In fact, I met my husband while on vacation, visiting my cousin and he was my cousin's best friend. For so long. Our families on my mom's side would get together, um, every other summer or so for a week and just enjoy each other. My kids knew their cousins and their second cousins. My dad's brother and sister would often just come and join us and everyone got along great. We had a wonderful time. And even though we are spread between six states, my siblings visit each other and we get together every few years. And I am amazed by the family I come from. I have five children and 12 grandchildren and they are spread between five states. But they talk with each other and we have family group texts that makes me laugh humblest, every day. We are widespread in beliefs of faith and church as well as politics. My two children who will argue the most about politics live less than three hours apart. And in spite of their differences, they managed to see each other every couple of months, and my daughter's children love talking about going to Uncle shallows farm, and playing with the animals and getting to ride on the four wheeler and the tractor. The truth is, family is as important as you make it. Every family is different. We have different dynamics, hobbies and interests. Some families are very close and functional. However, each family really does deal with their own kind of dysfunction, while others are downright toxic. And then there's everything in between. And while you have to decide where the family you grew up in fits into your current life, it is your responsibility to make a difference in the family you create. So years ago, there was a lady who had a radio show, and then she went on, she had a television show as well, for a little while. Her name was Dr. Laura. And she said something that really says stuck with me through the years, she said that you have the opportunity to be part of two families in your life, the one you grew up in, and the one you create, and you don't have much control over how the first one works. But you do have the opportunity to make the one that you create to be what you want it to be. One of the key elements of families that remain close is loyalty to each other. It's a commitment, right? The family that I grew up in was not perfect, in fact, far from it. But we had each other the kids numbers five and six, were twins. They're 10 years younger than I am. Well, they're still twins, I guess. And, and then there was seven years between the twins. And my youngest brother Dan. And Danny wanted to play city basketball when he was, you know, young, the twins were in high school, I forget if they were juniors or seniors, but around that age, but Danny's team did not have a coach. Our dad was very busy. He was a professor at the college and had all of these labs and students and all of that. And so the twins decided, well, we'll coach your team. And so they went and spent just tons of time working with the kids developing relationships, and being there so that Danny could enjoy the sport. That was kind of a key sport for our entire family growing up basketball, and football. Those were the things that brought us together. But when you think about kids at that age, juniors or seniors in high school, having the commitment and the value, that my little brother needs some help to do something that he wants to do. Dad can't help. So we're gonna help. And they stepped in and put in just a ton of work on their already busy schedule. They were you doing everything with school, they were busy with church. They also were on Student Government in their high school. And they also played basketball. Well, one of them did. I'll tell you that story in a minute. But they played basketball with high school, they ran cross country. We were just this busy family. But the twins decided it was important enough to our littlest brother to take the time and invest in him. So I always thought that was pretty amazing. Here's another story about these twins.

So they both go to try out for the varsity basketball team. They are identical. I mean, stinking identical twins. I still get them. We just all got together in June. And we had all of the siblings there. We had a ton of the grandkids, you know, our our kids. And I think there was like 75 of us there that were able to get together wasn't all of us. But you know, it was a lot of us. And I still couldn't tell twins apart half the time. I was calling Chuck Ted and Ted Chuck. And like, it was just hysterical. So they are very much alike. And Ted made the team Chuck did not know Chuck could have been really upset about that. And I'm sure he was, but he still wanted to be able to support his brother. So he went to the coach. And he said, Hey, I know I didn't make the team. But is there any way that I could be a manager, a team manager, and that would allow me to get to all the games, away games, and I can watch my brother play. He wanted to be there to support his twin, even though he didn't make the team. Now, I will tell you that the year after they graduated, one of my mom's friends was at a party and this coach happened to be at the party. And they were all talking and he mentioned How the he had these twins that had tried out a couple of years ago. And he could not tell them apart. And he hated that. And so he flipped a coin and chose which twin was going to make the team and which twin would not. He didn't want to have identical boys on the team. And she was livid. She called my mom and talking and actually I was offended as well. I was thinking, What a rude thing, because both those boys were really good players. And both of them would have been an asset to the team just as Ted was. So I thought that was amazing that Chuck would take that initiative even when he was hurt and could have been very jealous. But he didn't want to miss his brothers games. And so he went. Now let's take Danny that youngest. He was five years old when he became an uncle. And I had Candace. And then two years later, I had Shiloh so now Danny is seven. So when you think about that, there's the same age difference between Danny and Shiloh as there was between Danny and the twins. Well, Danny is a rough and tumble kid, and he's still a rough and tumble kid. And you could hear him talk. I think it's Episode Three raising strong daughters. That is Danny with his daughter, sonny. But Danny always included Shiloh, so he would go out with friends. And yeah, Shiloh come along. And Shiloh is all excited. You know, he's going with this cool, older uncle. And one time he had some friends like, man, does the kid have to come? And he's like, Yeah, you don't have to come if you don't want, but I'm bringing him. So if you don't like it, don't come. And I just remember him doing that. I mean, he he played rough. I'm not gonna sugarcoat that. But it was a special thing, though, a special bond with Danny and Shiloh. And that was something that was really cool. One last story about our family. So I have a brother dawn. Let's see, we did a double session with Don, trying to remember the number of episodes, but it was about being present with your family. So if you want to go back and listen to those, Don's a therapist. Anyway, when we were growing up, it just seemed to be a family tradition that whatever I said I wanted for Christmas, I did not get I got anything but that I don't know why it worked out that way. But it did. And I remember I was in junior high. So Don is like four years younger than me.

And I was in junior high. And all I wanted for Christmas was a purse. I just wanted a purse to take to school have my stuff in and did not get it. For Christmas. Don's birthday is January 6, no fifth. So his birthday. We're celebrating it. And we had all these little traditions of celebrating birthdays in the family. And we didn't have big parties. It was seven kids, you're not gonna have big parties. But Dawn was opening his presence. And he opened this one present and looked at it. He goes, Oh, yeah, who would give me this? I don't want this. And he held it up. And he looked at me goes here, this is better for you. And threw me a brand new purse. Well, I found out later that evening, my mom told me that they were looking, you know, what did he want for his birthday and blah, blah, blah. And Don said, I want to use one of my gifts. And I want to buy DJ a purse, because she's really sad that she didn't get a purse at Christmas. And so I want to give her a purse. And so mom said, Yeah, that sounds like a really nice thing to do. And so I got that's how I got my purse, my first, you know, really nice purse to take to school. I don't know, it's probably all 13 bucks, but it was precious to me. And that is a memory that is very strong, and defines, in many ways my relationship with my brother Don. So talk with your children about what is great about their siblings. And what are the strengths that make them special and someone to be proud of? And what do your children see when you are talking about or visiting with your family? Do you make an effort to be there for them and know what's going on in their lives? Are you showing up for maybe some games of your nephews and nieces? Or are you making it to big events like baptisms or christenings or graduations of those cute little elementary plays or the horrible boring and long concerts. Your niece or nephew has like, three minutes solo, and the rest of the two and a half hours, you're just banging your head against the wall. You're so important. But you come because it's important to that niece or nephew. And your children learn when they see you making that effort taking them along, be sure to plan for them, of their younger kids, you know, they'll need things to keep them busy during whatever event it is. But they know that we go and support our family in every way that we can. And if your family doesn't live by you isn't close to you physically. It's okay to get your kids involved with making videos or there's Marco Polo, and there's FaceTime, and there's zoom calls. And there are a lot of ways now to get together and to be supportive, even though you may be a long distance away. And these are things that were not available as we were younger. You want to think about how do I sound when I'm talking about my brother, or my sister or my mom and dad? How do I talk when I'm talking about maybe even my cousins? Do my children know, my cousins? Do they know they're second cousins? That would be the children of your cousins, by the way? How are you in graining all of this with them? Because all of this means something to them? Is someone getting an award? And are you going to be there for that? And then make it fun, make it fun for the kids and you're cheering and we go out to dinner and we're celebrating and we're happy and we're happy for this person that is getting some kind of award or thing. We're not jealous because we're not the center of attention. We're giving that attention to someone in our family who has deserved it, and has worked hard and earned it and we are proud of them. You know, it was a funny thing. My mom.

My mom was just a goofball. And she would share at games, embarrassingly. So she was decision was loud, would be an understatement. She and she would share on she had chairs, one of the kids from the opposite team made a really good play, she would say that was a great play. That was wonderful. You looked great. And all the parents on our team would look at her and she's like, it's a good play. He's a kid, he needs to know he did a good job. And I remember she would come out to my kids little games, you know. And I remember my son, Christian. So he's my youngest son, loved to play baseball. And my mom would come out to all the games and rah rah cheer chair. And she was a noisy chair, cheerleader. And one year, the coach, we had our awards night, and mom actually helped do some cooking and bringing stuff food for the banquet night, and the awards night. And he actually gave her a trophy. As the number one fan and everybody clap for her. Oh my gosh, she was so excited over that. I think she had it with her well for a long time. And that's a fun memory to have. My dad, again, always busy with his college and his students. And he ran the Ph. D program in electro chemical engineering, and he had students who came from all over the world, just to study under him. He had a wide and good reputation. But my dad couldn't coach he couldn't be involved in that part. But he loved when he would go to the games. And he would do everything he could to get on the chain gang for the football game. So he could be down. He could hear what the coaches were saying to the kids and how they were talking. And he could see these good plays, and he would talk to whomever any of the boys who were playing. They all played football. And oh, did you see this? And this play? And did you see this player and his strength is here and he would get really involved with that. But it was always funny watching my dad out there with the chain gang and it would be really cold sometimes and he'd be there with his glove and yeah, well LA called. We thought it was freezing. But it's LA. Anyway, he'd be out with his coat and his gloves and stuff and doing the chain gang and those were her strong memories. For me. Watching dad be involved in the lives of my siblings. It was pretty cool. What are some things that you can celebrate with your kids celebrate maybe getting an A on a spelling test? Or maybe they got only 50% right last time but we got 60% This time, wow, we improved and we're going to celebrate with our other siblings. You know maybe a time that a sibling is proud of themselves. Let's build on that and encourage our kids to be Be proud of their siblings, one of the most important things that you can do to bring that family together and, and have them have us value each other is just to laugh together, and to be able to be goofy with one another. And my family was very good at that. Dawn, again, Dawn, he was the family clown. And there were a lot of really hard times with my family. And my parents, and Don could always make it better by making us laugh. Another thing is my mom would do goofy things, she would wrestle with the boys, I mean, down on the carpet wrestling out in the backyard, we would be doing dishes, and all of a sudden she'd start a sword fight with, with with a fork or a table knife. Number one time, she was like, on guard, and

she's acting like she's sword fighting me. And she actually stabbed in the leg with the fork, and oh my gosh, she felt so horrible. And so sighs that's fine. I got some good treatment for a couple of days for that. But I that's another memory I have is my mum, stabbing me with a fork, just while playing. She wasn't being mean or anything. But you know, there are fun times that you can laugh about and joke about. And if you're out doing something, and things just go wrong. Are you going to get upset and frustrated with it? Or are you just gonna laugh and say, Oh, my gosh, look at this, this will be a story to tell, right? How you look at things is really going to have an effect on how your family interacts with each other in a positive or negative way. If we find problems with everything that we're doing, every time we turn around, there's this problem, that problem, whatever, and we're focusing on the problems, that's what our kids are going to focus on. And the chances are greater that they're going to find problems within each other. If you are able to look at the positive things that are going on. That's what your children will learn to do. And so it's just something that's really interesting. And there are times when someone will really struggle. And either they had a disappointing outcome of something that they worked hard on maybe they worked hard on this project, and it did wasn't up to snuff. And they are like, Oh, I worked so hard. Why didn't I get the grade? Well, there could be a lot of things. Maybe they had a breakup with a boyfriend or girlfriend, or you know, a friend moved away that they really were close to there are struggling times for all kinds of reasons within our family when someone is struggling. Do we make it worse? Do we get mad at them for being grumpy or whatever? Or do we rally around them? And find ways to try and help them be successful and to enjoy life and say, Oh, well, my best friend moved away. But you got me, right. Let's go do something fun together. And that's really key is when you see problems within the family and your siblings or your children are working to help the one that is down and build them up and encourage them do kind things for them. You know you're on the right track. Again, I remind you that my family that I grew up in was far from perfect. And in fact, it was very toxic in many ways. But my mom was very good at rallying us all together. She could just get us going and we're going to help this we're going to do that. We're and and she could get us excited about things. And to this day. We are all very close both of our parents have passed on now. But all seven of us are still close. And we're interested in each other and wanting to help each other and make sure that we try to visit each other and get two big things that are going on. You can imagine with all the nieces and nephews that we've got. There are a lot of big things and can't make it to everything. But we make it to whatever we can as much as we can. And we do make sacrifices to get there and be supportive. And my own family myself, my husband, my kids, we are also far from perfect, but we do love each other. And I sometimes think of families who go through difficult times can actually be more close than those who have not. It's not 100% of the time, but it happens and there are studies that support this. Families that work hard to support each other through traumatic, sometimes very traumatic encounters and episodes will often be much closer than those who just kind of slide through it And they overly protect their kids, their kids never see that there was a problem. They hide everything from the kids and, and the kids grow up with unrealistic expectations about what adult life would be like. And so that's something to think about. Another thing that is great piece is knowing the stories of where you came from. And this gives them a sense of how they fit into the world. So again, with my own crazy family, I come from two very different families. My mom's family I've mentioned in some of the other podcasts. She was raised by lumberjacks, which I always say is one step up from wolves. They were wild and wooly. And they had a lot of fun. They had some difficulties with them growing up.

But we have stories about how, you know, Pops. And when you think, Gosh, I think he was 65. He died in the early 70s 71, or something like that. When he died. He's around. He was in his late 60s, I guess he had a heart attack. But when he so think of when he was young man and what the world was like back then. But pumps never cared about anything. But Are you honest? Are you dependable? And are you a hard worker? If you had those three things in line, Pop's respected you and He would do anything he could to help you along your way. He didn't care what color you were. He didn't care what your socio economic status was. He didn't care if you were influential or had no friends at all. It was interesting that when Pop's died. The people that came to his funeral was amazing suit and tie. People who owned large businesses and hippies, types with hair, you know, down past their backs and in blue jeans, or overalls. And everyone was welcome. In fact, there were so many people that came to his funeral that they not only filled the, the chapel, and the foyer, they were people milling around and standing outside because there was no room inside to get in. That's the kind of man my pops was. And he would work with whomever. And so when they realized that Pop's was willing to work with those of African American descent, he didn't care. Again, he had his three criteria, right. And if he knew that they fit that criteria, he didn't care what you were. And so he wound up often working with people of minority heritage, because there were others who were in charge of different groups, and they refused to work with minorities back then. And but Pop's didn't care. And he had very successful groups his went out on on outings to track out logging camps or logging areas that would be good. Tracking out where whole stumps were to for safety reasons. They fought fires, they did all this stuff. And he would usually lead a group of men. I don't know what they call their groups but of minority descent, and he loved them and they loved him. And a lot of my attitudes about people and who they are and how we work together came from my pops. My grandpa was hysterical. This is my mom's mom. She was a Spitfire and tended to be a little violent, full time. And we have this story growing up about how they were taking a horse and buggy into town because there was a big boxing match that was taking place in town. And so she wrote in with another family Pop's was coming straight from work from the camp with some guys there and then mom came in with a family on the horse and buggy into town. Well, as they're driving into town, there was some lady that didn't like Graham's for whatever reason and shouted out a an insult and gramps jumped out of the moving carriage and kind of beat the crap. This poor lady Well, she wasn't poor lady. She's gonna have been shouting out bad things, but you don't be out of anyone. But anyway, the story goes, it took like three different men to pull Graham's off of this lady and she goes to the fight onto the fight from there. Doesn't say anything to my grandpa. The neck. It was the next day camp that pops heard. They're talking about this big fight and he thought for quite a while that they were talking about the boxing match. No. They were talking about his wife. So there's a lot of color and goofiness right and wrong

in my family. And then on my dad's side, they were Country Club people, very proper golfing. My grandfather was very much into sports. He actually played college football. And then as he was teaching college at Oregon State go beavers. He was very involved in the athletic program, there was a big supporter. And so that was the one thing I think that drew my mom and dad together was sporting, and they both loved it. I think that's what kept them together. And we've got some great stories about, you know, my third great grandfather, John Benyon, who lived in Wales. And when he was 15, or 16, he decided he didn't want to go to church there was they had the Methodist church down there. And so he skipped church and was hanging out with his friends. And they were walking through the Lord's land. And there was part of his land. That was Publix. But, you know, you could walk along there, but you couldn't pick any of the berries or fruit that grew there. And you certainly couldn't hunt there. Well, one of his friends brought a dog along, and the dog winds up killing a rabbit on the Lord's property. And someone saw this happened and turned the boys in. And so it was going to be either the dungeons or this is like an 18, late 1830s, this happened. So it was either going to be the dungeons or he ran away. So he ran away across the bay, he went up to Liverpool. And it was there that he started an internship. And he met his wife, Esther, they wound up getting married, and they also wound up coming to the United States together, they came in through New Orleans, they came in through the Gulf of Mexico and landed in New Orleans, and headed up the Mississippi River from there. It's really cool having these kinds of stories, to share with our kids, to let them see where they fit in the world and, and the kind of people that they come from. And in what's okay, the so my mom's side, their last name is Rich, but it's with a W. W Ri d GE, which is super rare. We've had a hard time finding much of our family going back, you know, more than just a few generations. But the family story is that the reason we can't find them is era criminals. Were busy trying to hide. busy trying to hide who they were and, and avoid the law. You know, and I don't know if that's true or not. That's just the family story. But that is interesting. And it's you know, it's kind of where who we are and I love that I come from these two really different worlds. What are the stories that you have to tell your kids about your family where you come from, who they were connected to? I have a relative on my side, he was the captain of the USS West Virginia. at Pearl Harbor. His name was Mervyn Benyon. And he died on that ship. On the bridge of the ship. He still had shaving cream on his face. He had been shaving his face getting ready for church, it was on a Sunday. And he still had shaving cream on his face. He'd gone up to the breads and was shouting out barking out orders. And his very last words were about concern for his men and keeping them safe. Another great story for me to relate to in my family. And in fact, if you watch the movie, Pearl Harbor, with Cuba, Jr. Good. Cuba Gooding, Jr. There we go. That was his captain in the movie. And you see when there's the scene with all the caskets and he goes up to pay respects to his captain and it says Marvin Banyan. And so when we first saw that movie with my kids, they were like, oh, you know, they were so excited. And we were able to go back and find his story and, and learn a lot about him. So maybe you've got maybe some letters or diaries from your progenitors. You could always try something like I get the main one I think is ancestry.com. There are some others that are out there. But I think the biggest one is ancestry.com. And you can go on there and find stories do your family line. And in fact, if you put your information in, it'll automatically populate

the Have things that other people the work that other people have already done to make those connections, and you can work to make further connections there if you want. But ancestry also has pictures. It's this is not an ad. It's not a paid ad for ancestry. But it's they have pictures, they have stories that were written by other people about them. And so it's pretty cool. We were able through on ancestry, the Benyon, side, we go back to the five hundreds, yeah, five hundreds, we can follow people back that far. And you see, like these crazy names, and, and it's just so interesting. But it gives your family a sense that we are all together in as you know, in this way that we're blessed with one another. This is how we got here. This is how you became who you are. And that might help you with building that value. Valuing families. So family is just a blessing. It's up to you to decide how you're going to make that work. We are who we are, because of our families. And children who have strong families generally become strong adults. And how often do you hear people say, Oh, you sound like my dad, or my dad did this. Or maybe it's in a negative tone, my dad did this, right. But even with the negatives that happened, and there were certainly plenty, I think, really, every family has its negatives, I think that we can hold grudges against our parents, or whatever our siblings, gr isn't that nice that you're mad at them. And they, they're this awful thing. Even if they struggle, and they have their own issues. Certainly, I have my own issues. And, you know, my family could be upset with me over a myriad of things. But we choose to love each other, and work through things with our family, and support each other with kids with each other's kids. It's an amazing thing, how it can work. If that's how you choose, I realized that there are times when you have a family member, that is extremely toxic, and it may be better for you to have that person away from your children out of your life. You know, maybe they're just using people you hear about family members stealing from one another. And it's such a sad story. And such a sad result of what happens for generations to come. And we don't want that. Even if we have a family member that is rather toxic, we can still talk about them. And that, yeah, he's not making good choices. She has a lot of work to do. But let your children hear you pray for them. Let them hear you talk about you know, we want to help them. But they need to be in a place where they can accept our help. And I am waiting for that moment. So that we can be together again, as a loving family. Think about the way that you talk about them. And that's really going to set the tone for your children and how they will look at each other when you're when they're going through issues and, and troubles together. And really think about how you deal with your disappointments in your own parents. And do your children hear you being very negative and judgey holding a grudge against a parent, because I will tell you that very often, if that's the way that you are treating your parents. That's the way that they will treat you. The cat's in the cradle, right. So let's realize our family is a blessing. And that valuing family is so key and so important. And we can help our children be successful in society, in business, and most importantly with their own families if we move forward in a positive direction. So I want to remind you again that this podcast is a product of Little Hearts Academy USA and you can check out our website at www.littleheartsacademyusausa.com and you can

sign up for my free newsletter that comes out about once a week. And I also am more than happy to listen to some of your questions and concerns and help you through that. We do offer some one on one coaching. We do some group coaching. And then I have some of my own. I have actually a lot of my old Facebook lives that are there on different topics if you're looking for help on that. We've also got some other sections that you can look through that are great resources for you and your family. So if you enjoy the podcast, I would love for you to post about it on your social media. Or give us a rate rating five stars is the appropriate number of stars. And give us a review and tell us what you like about it and what you're interested in learning about in the future. You know, we are continuing to grow but more never hurts. And the more you share, the more families that we can reach. So I'm on Instagram at imperfect heroes podcast, or you can find me at Little Hearts Academy. And at Facebook, we're at Little Hearts Academy USA, you can always grab me on my email, DJ Stutz at littleheartsacademyusa.com And all of this information is in our show notes. 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai