Mom to Mom: Focusing Their Light Without Dimming It

How do you encourage kids in their God-given gifts? How do you do this well? That is the question posed for this last episode in the Mom to Mom series on Snacks & Good Company. Hear from moms young and old as we look at how we cultivate and teach our kids to embrace who they are meant to be.

Special Co-host: Jackie Nickel

Special thanks to Redemption Press for sponsoring the Snacks And Good Company Podcast!

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Transcription:

Jackie [00:00:03] When they were interested in like, activities and stuff. Did you let them…

Bev [00:00:07] Encourage them?

Jackie [00:00:07] Yeah.

Bev [00:00:08] Yes, I think I did.

Sherri [00:00:10] Okay, now I got discouraged sometimes. You discouraged me sometimes. Say it mom.

Bev [00:00:16] I did. Because she wanted to do too much. She I think she played every instrument in the band. Now stop it. Pick one!

Sherri [00:00:42] Greetings, friends, and welcome to Snacks and Good Company. Brought to you by Redemption Press. I am Sherri Lynn and my co-host is Jackie Nicole.

Jackie [00:00:51] Hi, friends.

Sherri [00:00:52] How do you feel about this being our last episode? Oh, it doesn’t feel like it. To be honest with you guys, because we’re pre-recording. So I think once we’re listening to them in real time with you all, we’ll feel like, Oh, man. But you can feel that like when we started this and all you really want, it was just wisdom for the mom journey. And we’re now at the end of this process, which took about what? Year and a half?

Jackie [00:01:19] Yeah, I’d say I think it’s a year and a half. Actually, the idea I’m just telling you this the other day. It happened exactly two years ago I think within the last week that this whole idea even transpired.

Sherri [00:01:31] Yeah, I guess so. In February.

Jackie [00:01:33] And then we didn’t start until, like September, October that year.

Sherri [00:01:36] That is right. Because you were interviewing your aunt and your uncle and I flew to Baltimore to meet you there. That’s right. So, this has been a long process. And we’re here at the end of this series and Snacks and Good Company is a limited podcast series. So we take on a topic for about five or six episodes. We disappear, we come back with another topic and five or six more episodes. So this is the final episode of Mom to Mom, older moms giving wisdom to younger moms. And in this one, I thought this was so interesting because again, this was a question that I would never think of, but that you thought of, which is “How do I encourage my kids in their gifts?” Like, how does that even come to your mind of that was something that you felt like you needed to do and needed to know how to do it well?

Jackie [00:02:21] I’m not even sure because, I mean, when I first thought of it, when I was thinking of all the questions I would have for somebody I was interviewing, I think mainly for Tammy, because, you know, she had so many children that end up doing something successful or something that, you know, maybe that they’ve always wanted to do. But I think of the interests and the talents that my kids have now and like, I don’t want to, like, push them to do something and they get burnt out or something, but I just want to learn how to like…like in a way that they can grow and develop and that on their own, you know?

Sherri [00:02:56] Yes. In that vein, during our young moms roundtable discussion with snacks. I don’t know if you remember this or not, but Kara was talking about how her daughter, she’s 13 years old and she can really, really sing. And to your point, it’s like you don’t want to push.

Jackie [00:03:12] Right.

Sherri [00:03:13] But when the kid is like, “I don’t feel like it.” And you’re like, “But you’re so good at this.” Kara kind of goes into her struggle with that.

Kara [00:03:21] So my daughter, she’s gifted to sing. I am, too. Right now she’s going through I don’t want to sing. And it’s like, but no, you have to do this because this is what’s your graced to do. And you don’t even realize that. Like, I’m here to cultivate that in you and to teach you what you need to know. And it breaks my heart because it’s like, girl, you don’t even know. And it’s not like it’s she’s anointed to sing. Like she can sing at 13 years old. She can sing. Yeah. And she doesn’t get it. She doesn’t. She doesn’t realize it.

Sherri [00:03:59] All right. So that’s Kara talking about how difficult it is, knowing that your kid is really, really talented in something and they don’t want to do it and you don’t want to push them because then they’ll hate it, right? But you’re also like, you’re good at this and this is what I feel you should be doing. I think your Aunt Nicki had a really, really good take on that.

Nicki [00:04:21] I think I pushed my kids too much in some ways. I have a child who’s really good at singing, and I think I annoyed them so much that they were just like, “eye roll, eye roll, eye roll.” Right? So you want to encourage, but at the same time, you just have to step back and say whenever they’re ready, they’re going to do it. You know, God created us. He gave us gifts. And, you know, the more we get to know God, the more we grow with God, the more we become who He’s made us to be. And it is in using those gifts. Right?

Sherri [00:04:59] So much wisdom your Aunt Nicki has.

Jackie [00:05:02] Right?

Sherri [00:05:02] All the moms.

Jackie [00:05:03] Yeah, true.

Sherri [00:05:03] All I just want to say that, like, I’m sure we’ll do it in a wrap up of the episode and then of the series itself. But just all the moms, just so much wisdom. My prayer is, is that people heard this and just like, “Wow, that’s a lot of wisdom.” That they passed it on to other people. “Hey, you should listen to this podcast because there’s a lot of wisdom and a lot of truth and a lot of honesty.” Then that you would listen to it again. That’s my prayer. Like, let me go back to that and remember what they said. Yeah, I hope that’s what happens. Anyway, speaking of wisdom, we’re just going to kind of go through here. My mom’s going to talk about how she encouraged and discouraged our gifts. And Tammy Hamilton is going to talk about we’re going to go to her and then my mom, Tammy is going to talk about identifying those gifts, identifying those personalities, and then encouraging them in that way. And then you’ll hear my mom right after Tammy.

Jackie [00:05:58] So with the difference of personalities and interests and so like that, how did you find yourself encouraging them in their interests?

Tammy [00:06:07] Okay, well, homeschooling is great for that again, because you have more time to be flexible. I think you can do it anyway. All parents can do it. But for us, I think it gave us a lot of time when they they would have an interest. You know, I believe in letting kids dabble in things. Now, if they make a commitment to a team sport of some kind, they need to see it to the end of the season or whatever. But if your child wants to dance when they’re five, they don’t have to dance till they’re 12 if they don’t want to or do gymnastics, you know? Yeah, I mean, some kids, they put these cute little kids in gymnastics and they and then they grow to be five feet 10.

Jackie [00:06:43] That’s my daughter. She loves gymnastics, she loves dance. Now she wants to do cheerleading. And I was like, all of those combined and you are way girlier than me and I have no idea.

Tammy [00:06:55] So we let them dabble, but we we would never let those things take over our lives. Our boys are accomplished athletes. And so once you put them in the sports, and they see that they’re talented, it’ll start to take over their lives. We made a decision not to let that happen. So we would let them play on a recreational level, but when they wanted to put them on the travel teams that played on Sundays, well, no we go to church on Sunday. Some things just have to be, you know, decided ahead of time. But our daughter Naomi that I was mentioning when we knew she wanted to be a nurse. So when she was in high school, probably 15, maybe 14 or 15, she started volunteering as a teenage volunteer at the hospital, working in the labor and delivery part of the hospital. And at the time she graduated from nursing school because she did it all the way through nursing school, she had nearly 1000 hours, volunteer hours at the hospital, so she was able to really know that was what she wanted to do because she could be in that field. Our son Paul always wanted to build things. He was very out of the box, little guy, and he was always drawing log cabins and buildings and building with the Legos. He was very hands on. And so we knew he wanted to build things. We didn’t know what I was going to do with that. But when he was a young teenager, he started to informally apprentice with friends of ours who are contractors and you know had a workshop, and he would go build things in the workshop. They would invite him over and he would have fun doing that. And now 15. I don’t I was trying to think today, 15 or 18 years later, he’s 30. He works for that same family as a project manager, manager and marketing director. He went to college, got his degree and went right back to building things because that’s what he always wanted to do. So yeah, you just kind of look for what they want to do. I would caution against and I think people are learning this about getting overinvolved and doing too many things. We would sometimes say there were seasons when there were seven of them who were all in that age. Pick one thing. This year, pick one thing. We’re going to do that one thing this year, and then the next year you can pick something different or you can keep doing that. You know, to the extent that it fits into our family life, always coming back to our family is not going to revolve around football or dance. Our family revolves around Jesus.

Jackie [00:09:14] How did you encourage their interest in things?

Bev [00:09:17] Well, I just did. I wanted to be supportive of them. And then when I felt like “No, you’re not doing that.” There has to be boundaries and boundaries. This one had none.

Sherri [00:09:37] She’s talking about me y’all when she said this and she pointed over me.

Bev [00:09:42] You have to set boundaries, but then, you know? Then, you have to let them make their own mistakes, too. You know, you’re they’re watching and make sure they don’t go too far. But if you don’t, if you’re there at every turn, then they’re going to depend on mommy and not on the Lord.

Jackie [00:10:00] Yeah.

Bev [00:10:01] You know?

Jackie [00:10:02] They’ll they’ll probably grow up feeling like they can’t go out on their own.

Bev [00:10:05] Right. Yeah, right, Right.

Jackie [00:10:07] Or they don’t feel confident enough to try things without…

Bev [00:10:09] Exactly. Yeah.

Jackie [00:10:12] So as a single mom and having these two kids with two very different personalities. When they were interested in activities and stuff, did you let them encourage them?

Bev [00:10:24] Yeah. Yes, I did. I did.

Sherri [00:10:26] Okay. I got discouraged sometimes. You discouraged me sometimes.

Bev [00:10:31] I did.

Sherri [00:10:31] Say it, Mom.

Bev [00:10:32] Well I did. Because, she wanted to do too much. I think she played every instrument in the band. Now, stop. Pick one. But Juan, he wasn’t like her in as much as he loved football, you know? He loved being with his friends and things like that. But he didn’t have this whole array of things that he wanted to do.

Sherri [00:11:06] I would just pick these things out. But then, you know, I’m creative, right? So the band teacher, the music teacher could see that I could do it. So then they give me instruments and so I’d come traipsing home with another instrument. She’d be like, “What??”.

Jackie [00:11:20] I wish everyone can see Ms. Bev’s face right now.

Sherri [00:11:25] And then I would be like, She’d be like, “Now, what is that?” “It’s a bassoon mom. I’m going to try to play this real quick, okay?”

Jackie [00:11:37] Just try?

Sherri [00:11:37] And Nana was always for it. “All right, well, let’s try and see.” What’s this now, because she can read music, but she’d be like, “What’s this note?” She was always there for trying to get it through, but my mom would just shake her head like, “Here’s another thing.” So the phrase that I said on the other podcast, and I’ll say it here is what she said is you sat me down and you said, “You can do anything you want. You cannot do everything you want. We’re not going to basketball games and in track meets and then Trivial Pursuit Club and then the ski club and then now you over in the symphonic manager, now you’re in a marching band. We’re not doing all of that. No, Sherri, you can’t be in the ski club. You don’t have any skis and we’re not flying skis and black people shouldn’t be on the snow slopes anyway. So pick a few things.” And they my family’s very, very supportive in, “Okay, what is so-and-so doing?” The whole family shows up for us, right? That’s how we are. It’s true. Like I know it’s my understanding, I don’t know because I don’t have kids that during this kind of culture and generation that we’re in, it’s like, let the child make the choices right? Think about somebody like me. I would have never finished anything. Because once she let me make the choice, then they held me to it, right?

Jackie [00:12:57] And you had to fall through.

Sherri [00:12:59] I have to follow through with it. There’s boundaries there. You have to complete it. I know she knew you can’t complete 50 things, so you’re not going to do 50 things, right? Saying when she said, “No, that’s enough.” I felt that like right now when she said because that’s true. And that’s something I don’t think people want to say now.

Jackie [00:13:18] Were you disappointed?

Bev [00:13:20] Yeah, She was. But that’s not changing anything. I said, no and I mean, no.

Sherri [00:13:26] Yeah, see? See her tone? That’s something we’re scared to do now, Right? Like it almost feel no feels unloving.

Bev [00:13:35] Yeah.

Sherri [00:13:37] And that’s why we can’t even have a mentality that God would tell us no about something. You know what I mean?

Jackie [00:13:44] Oh, yeah. I mean, I feel that’s what I say to my kids when I say no, I mean no. But then I’m mean. Then no parent wants to be…I’m not speaking for myself when I say this. You know, no parent wants to be mean. So I feel like they give in a little easier.

Sherri [00:13:59] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jackie [00:14:00] Or I’m like, whatever. I don’t care if you think I mean.

Sherri [00:14:02] But yeah, no, that’s, that’s right.

Bev [00:14:04] That’s the right attitude. See?

Sherri [00:14:09] 100%.

Jackie [00:14:09] Next time they say, I mean I’m going to say, “We’re calling Ms. Bev.”

Sherri [00:14:12] Yeah. Put her on speaker.

Jackie [00:14:13] Ms. Bev will tell you.

Sherri [00:14:14] Put her on speakerphone. She has the words to deliver. Have you done that yet? Do you threaten your kids with my mom?

Jackie [00:14:21] I have, but we just haven’t actually called her yet.

Sherri [00:14:25] You should.

Jackie [00:14:26] Ms. Bev will tell you.

Sherri [00:14:27] Ms. Bev WILL tell you. All right. So we talked about gifting. I forgot about this. In this episode, we are also going to talk about how you fill your cup as a mom. And that was another question that was specifically from you. Does your cup feel empty often?

Jackie [00:14:44] I mean, I think when you’re a mom, it is drained a lot. Yeah. And I remember one of the terms that my kids would learn in preschool is like, you’re either a bucket dipper or a bucket like filler. So you’re either.

Sherri [00:14:56] They were teaching the preschool kid that?

Jackie [00:15:00] Mason would be like, “Please don’t be such a bucket dipper.”

Sherri [00:15:07] The babies were talking about bucket dipper or bucket filler?

Jackie [00:15:10] Yeah.

Sherri [00:15:11] That is so profound to be teaching three year olds and four year olds. Okay, So, you’re saying a lot of people are dipping out of your bucket and it’s losing liquid quickly?

Jackie [00:15:21] Yeah. So I guess I think it just came from like, you know, it all happens. It happens to all moms, but everyone fills our cup up differently. So if maybe there’s a mom out there struggling and they just don’t know, well I can resonate with that one, maybe that mom, whatever she’s doing might help me.

Sherri [00:15:37] Okay, Fill your cup, bucket dipping, bucket draining, all of that coming up.

Sherri [00:15:50] Let me ask you a question, friend. Do you have a book in you? I bet you do. Like, have you ever ended the night writing in your journal and then look at what you wrote, like, “Woo hoo! That’s the story to tell.” Well, why not tell it? Seriously, why not? Redemption Press is here to help you not only find that story, but help you tell that story and give you a community of support while you’re on the journey. Listen, if you ever felt like you wanted to write a book and you just didn’t know where to start. Redemption Press will help you with that. They have a professional editorial staff. They’re all believers. They’re ministry minded, supportive and trustworthy. Reach out to them. Why not? Redemption Press. Find out how you can start telling your story now. Your message is their mission. I love that. Well, check them out right now. Redemption press dot com.

Jackie [00:16:46] What are your go to verses?

Nicki [00:16:48] One of my biggest go to verses with my kids. I was a single parent for several years and God had given me a very special verse going through my really difficult times, those dark and painful times. So my children’s father is Norwegian and the verse starts, “I will bring them from the North country.” Even when I say it now, I can just break because God gave me that verse. He gave me that promise and He said, “And they will come with weeping and I will lead them by rivers of water and they will not stumble and I will be a Father to them.” Like it still is so intense. And I embrace that promise through every stage of their life.

Tammy [00:17:37] Right now, this may seem strange, but this is the one I’m camped out on right now that I find myself sharing with people all the time. Is James 1:5, “if any of you lacks wisdom, should ask God who gives liberally without finding fault to all.” He helped us give you the wisdom. I love that because it keeps me from looking backwards. It keeps me looking forwards, keeps me from saying, If I go to God and I ask for wisdom, He’s going to go, “Yeah, but you did that.” Or “You should have listened to me there.” It’s not what He does. He does it without finding fault. He’ll give me wisdom. So I think in parenting, that’s very important too. That when you show up to say, “God, I feel like I really screwed up with my kids.” He’s like, “You have it now. You can do this. Now tell him this. Now teach them that. Now you know, go give them hugs and now you know, those kind of things.

Speaker 7 [00:18:22] So this is a verse that has just become my parenting verse 2 Thessalonians 3:3-5, that “the Lord is faithful and He will establish you and guard you from the evil one. And we have confidence in the Lord that you are doing and will continue to do what we command. The Lord directs your heart into God’s love in Christ persevering.”

Sherri [00:18:52] And that’s what you believe for your kids?

Speaker 7 [00:18:55] Absolutely. Yeah. It’s God is faithful.

Sherri [00:18:58] I love that. What’s the verse again? Second Thessalonians?

Speaker 7 [00:19:01] 2 Thessalonians 3:3-5.

Sherri [00:19:17] Snacks and good company. This is Sherri Lynn with my co-host, Jackie Nicole.

Jackie [00:19:22] Hi.

Sherri [00:19:22] How do you fill your cup? Let me tell you why I like this. Self-care, quote unquote, is something that’s talked about a lot. Right? And I liked your question because it’s different than self care. I think the the Bible implies. Now, again, here’s my email address, because people are going to be like, “Sherri, you don’t understand.” So, Sherri, S-H-E-R-R-I at snacks and good company dot com. Again, Sherry at snacks and good company dot com. All right. Self care. The Bible implies everyone takes care of themselves. So the Bible says you dress yourself. You bathe yourself. Like you take care of you. We think it’s that when it says to love people, you know, it’s like, “Well, I have to love myself first.” The Bible says you already love you. There’s nothing in the Bible that says you hate you. And because pride is the original sin, you really do actually, you really do love you a lot, right?

Jackie [00:20:27] Yeah.

Sherri [00:20:27] So self care is like a kind of a weird…That’s a weird space, I think, biblically. Sherry at snacks and good company dot com. Because I hear people say now because you feel your cup made more sense to me. Because it’s like I’m always pouring out.

Jackie [00:20:43] Right.

Sherri [00:20:44] How do I maintain this level of spiritual liquids, so to speak, or how do I maintain so that I always have something to pour out? That made more sense to me. That’s why I like that question.

Jackie [00:20:58] Oh, well, thanks.

Sherri [00:20:59] How do you fill your cup?

Speaker 7 [00:21:01] I have a sister who’s just a little bit crazy, and we used to do moms, and what we called mom stays out. Okay. And you know how you drive down the street and sometimes you think, I wonder what the stores like or that places like. Our husbands, my brother in law and my husband insisted that we would take one Saturday. It wasn’t. It seemed like it was a lot. It’s probably just twice a year, to be honest. We would just go for a day, only for a day because we didn’t have a lot of money or anything. But we would save up and we would go for that day and on a daily basis it was just my friendships, my friendships with other Christian mothers. One of my best friends was she had been raised Mennonite and she had gotten out of the Mennonite faith. We met at church and I don’t she did have a lot of wisdom with her being a mother. She taught me how to can food and just spending that time with them. And a lot of times the kids were around, you know, it wasn’t that I don’t think you necessarily have to leave your kids and run off to fill your cup. You know, sometimes I think it’s just intentional friendships with people who make you feel better about yourself or who make you. Yeah. Make you feel better. Having been with them, having been some time with them, you feel better.

Sherri [00:22:19] I think that is such great wisdom, intentional friendship, because when I talk, when I’ve talked to moms, that seems to be the thing that suffers. Because it’s so much going o., You got to do Saturday, you have to do that. Oh, I was going to try to get to go to her is not going to work. They’re going to but the intentional friendships and that the kids don’t have to go away. We’ll just all have our kids together here.

Speaker 7 [00:22:42] Yes, there was about three other couples and we were just we’ve got videos and now the memories are so special. It’s always noise in the background, somebody’s fighting over a game. Adults. I mean, you know what I’m saying?

Sherri [00:22:57] Yes. Even better.

Speaker 7 [00:22:58] We just do life together. We just it it was very, very intentional. We would say, “Okay, on Sunday after church, we’re going to do this. Saturday afternoon, we’re going to do this.” At the time, I didn’t realize how important it was, but now I know how important it was.

Sherri [00:23:12] What did you do to fill your own cup?

Speaker 8 [00:23:15] Honestly, not a whole lot. I didn’t have a lot of time. I have a big family, but I never felt like it was their responsibility to take care of my kids. So, I mean, I did the occasional I’m going to T.J. Maxx by myself, but. Not really a whole lot. Music for me is is huge. I would say, you know, it is it’s important for me. I’m more of an extrovert and people do fill me up. So any time we could get away and have a date night with other couples or things like that was amazing for me. But I do also know that that, you know, on the daily, that wasn’t possible. And so how do I get through those days and not hurt myself? I mean, that’s just real right now.

Sherri [00:24:15] I get it. I’m sure moms listening will totally understand.

Speaker 7 [00:24:19] And like, when I say that I in all shapes and forms, like all of my children know, like we probably hurt our eardrums, but we crank the music. We listen to all kinds, and then I had my own time. Just it was a way, honestly, to not talk to each other for a while because you get really tired of the questions and everybody just needs a little break. And music was a really good way to do that.

Jackie [00:24:49] When you were in the thick of everything, what did you do for yourself to fill your cup?

Tammy [00:24:53] Not much. You know, the whole self-care thing is a relatively new concept. We didn’t really have that, but we did. Sometimes people would call it me time. “What do you do for me time?” I’m like “Me time? What is that?”

Sherri [00:25:05] I have all these kids.

Tammy [00:25:07] I was pregnant or nursing for a total of, I figured it up one time, 14 years of my life I was pregnant or nursing. So I like the way you said it, fill your cup. Because when I think of that, I go to a to a biblical concept of having our cups filled. And I there were times there when I would feel like I didn’t even really have the time to seek God, like I wanted to spend time with Him. And one day I had been up all night with a a sick child. Then the baby had woken up early to nurse and I had not had any time with the Lord, I was standing at the sink washing dishes. I remember it so clearly and I was lamenting. I was just like, “Oh Lord, I just don’t have any time to just be with You and I really longed for that.” And I felt the Lord saying to me so clearly, Call me darlin. I think it’s the only time he called me darlin. He said, I heard it so clearly, “Darlin, I’m with you now.” I just, you know, I had to stop washing the dishes for a second. I had this thing in my mind to what it was going to look like to be able to fill my cup, to be able to be with Him. And that did not fit in my life at that time. And so He was letting me know and it just really comforted me. And it started a lifestyle of praying whenever I was doing other things, I would instead of doing something else or thinking about what I had to do or other things, I would try to make my mind focus on, okay, this is going to be a time when I can talk to the Lord. If I could get to the Word, I would nurse the baby and read the Bible. Now I listen to the Word on, you know, Audible all the time when I’m doing other things to make sure that I’m finding that time. Because I think a lot of times when we say we don’t have the time, we’re filling our time with other things. But I just would say to the young mothers that He’s with you and everything you’re doing and you are blessing Him by mothering your children, you are in the center of His well, and He could not be more placed with you.

Sherri [00:27:00] All of our moms talking about how they feel their cup, which is just such a great, great question about staying filled up so that you can give to others. So I’m hoping again that moms will hear that and find one or two of those, whether it’s the date night or the shopping or whatever it is, feel fine, one or two of those that help you and maybe they change in different seasons.

Jackie [00:27:25] I was just going to say that I think it changes with each season and maybe they can just save that for another time, but I just hope they find it encouraging.

Sherri [00:27:31] Yeah. If you have something, here’s how I fill my cup as a mom or keep my cup filled up. You can certainly email me at [email protected]. I want to say thank you so much to everyone who gave us their time. Time is a resource you cannot get back. So when someone spends their time on you, that is more than money because money you can get back, but time you cannot. And thank you, Jackie.

Jackie [00:27:57] Oh, my gosh. Thank you.

Sherri [00:27:59] I mean, these questions, whether it’s what is your go to parenting verse or fill your cup or whatever it is. These questions are so rich. And I realized as I did more interviewing that so many moms struggle with this or have these kinds of questions. So thank you for being so open and so vulnerable with what you’re feeling, what you’re thinking about, what you’re questioning, being okay, being vulnerable with that, knowing that other moms are probably feeling it, too.

Jackie [00:28:25] Well, thank you for pulling this all together and making me do it.

Sherri [00:28:33] Thank you. Sherri. For the gun that you placed at my temple and made me actually do this. So I thank you all who gave us your time and, you know, hung out with us with your snacks. We really, really appreciate that. Last question or last little thought here that you had for Tammy. I’m just going to throw directly there.

Jackie [00:28:53] At what age do you think you can be friends with your kids?

Tammy [00:28:56] Oh, that’s good. That’s really good. Oh, you have such insightful thoughts. I don’t think as long as we’re parenting, we’re friends. And I again, I think it’s very important to communicate love to our kids, but they need to understand that we have parental love for them and that we are responsible for them, and that it’s our job to be their parent, not to be their friend. When they’re adults, I think I’m friends with all of my adult children. So I would think after they’re adults. I think I’m starting to go into the friendzone with Anna, but I’m still her parent because I’m still responsible for her. I still pay her bills. As long as you pay their bills, you’re the parent by the way. And they’re not adults until they’re paying their own bills.

Sherri [00:29:41] Well, I remember the first time I got that electric bill…Like for me.

Tammy [00:29:45] Right.

Sherri [00:29:46] With my name on it.

Tammy [00:29:47] Sudden adulthood.

Jackie [00:29:48] Yeah. You’re like, “Why did I ever wish to be an adult?”

Sherri [00:29:51] Wait a minute. Why is it this much?

Tammy [00:29:54] Right. Because we talk to parents who they pay the car payment. They bought him a car. They pay the car payment, they pay the phone bill. They pay all the household bills. But they say, “Well, they’re 18. They’re an adult.” No, no, they’re not an adult. They’re 18. Who decided 18? They are legally an adult. They can make their own legal decisions. But as far as responsibility, they don’t. And long as they’re not paying their own bills, they don’t have the opportunity to make their own decisions.

Sherri [00:30:18] What a good point.

Jackie [00:30:20] Very good point. And at what age do you think parenting gets easier?

Sherri [00:30:24] The kids age.

Tammy [00:30:27] Well, I loved the teenage years. I loved every stage, actually. But I loved the teenage years because then they were really able to grasp more complicated concepts and they really were becoming who they are, you know? And so some people, like, are terrified of the teen years. And there were challenges. I won’t say they weren’t challenging. 14, 15 years old as well. I would like to check out for a few years, come back later. But then those older teen years like now with Anna said to us on the phone the other day from college, she had been to one women’s studies class and she had heard some of the stories of the other women in the class. And she came home to call us and she said, “I just want to thank you guys for being such amazing parents.” My gosh. I was like, “Okay, I love the stage right here.” I love watching them be parents. I said that before watching them raise their own kids, watching them find their way in the world, watching them, watching how God blesses them and uses them. Oh, you have that to look forward to. It’s just amazing.

Jackie [00:31:28] You must be one proud mama.

Tammy [00:31:30] I am. Oh, I’m just so grateful. Grateful is a better word than proud because I know the mistakes I made. I know the things that God had to make up for. But I’m incredibly grateful to God for all He’s done.

Sherri [00:31:43] That is such a good place to end it on gratitude. I think I know, now this I know, I don’t know a lot of stuff that I was talking about on this podcast series cause I don’t have any kids. But this I do know that gratitude is the key to contentment. Yeah, I agree with that. If you want to be content, be grateful to be able to look back and say, “You know what? I had some ups, I had some downs, I made some really stupid mistakes. And this is just in life, not just motherhood, but to be grateful for God’s faithfulness because that’s the one thing that doesn’t change.” I can be grateful for that all the time. I can mention that all the time. I can say all the different ways. He’s been faithful all the time, and that gratitude really establishes contentment in my life. And a content life is a good life. All right, well, that’s that. Thank you guys, for hanging out with us. This was Snacks and Good Company. The next series we will tackle single to single, talking to single people and how they navigate through the church. And it’s a view of singlehood talking to older single people and how they have lived their lives and talking to younger single people with their struggles. I think that’s going to be a good one.

Jackie [00:32:58] Yeah, it sounds really interesting.

Sherri [00:32:59] Going to be exciting, but until then, thank you guys.

Jackie [00:33:01] Thanks, friends.

Sherri [00:33:02] If you love this podcast, make sure you subscribe. Even though this was the last episode of this series, we are coming back, as I said, with another series. So you want to subscribe. So when the first episode of the next series drop, it’ll download directly to your device. So make sure you do that. Also, share this series please. I hope it was a blessing to you. Please share it with other moms and at least they know they’re not alone. That’s why I did this. So please do that. Rate us and give us comments. That’s all great. If you want to email me, you can do that. Sherri @SnacksandGoodCompany.com. That’s S-H-E-R-R-I at snacks and good company dot com. This is presented by Purposely produced by yours truly. Sound Design by Lauren Tone Kirkland. Music by Matt Mason of Mason Haven Music. Art Design is by Natoria Marketing. Social Media by Chenessa Schuller. Multimedia Photography, James Brunson. And we recorded the majority of this podcast in the Christian FM studios in Vero Beach, Florida. Thank you so much, friends. So glad that you joined us for this series. And we’ll see you next time.

About Sherri:

Sherri Lynn has been a radio professional for well over a decade. She has her degree in Communications as well as Biblical Studies. Sherri is a writer, comedienne, and former youth pastor. She wrote and produced a comedy DVD entitled “The Very Funny Church Comedy Show: Together We Laugh”, wrote and starred in the stage play musical “The Bold and the Sanctified” which starred American Idol Winner Ruben Studdard, and authored the book “I Want To Punch You In The Face But I Love Jesus.” She is the producer of The Brant Hansen Show and “The Brant & Sherri Oddcast.”