Sherri Lynn and special cohost Jackie Nickel are back in this 2nd episode of Mom to Mom, the first series on the new podcast Snacks & Good Company! First off, you’ll hear about favorite snacks and why snacks are delicious and important (Yes, they are important!). Today Tammye Hamilton is here and we are so excited to talk about her 8 kids and the things she learned along the way, with some nuggets that we can all apply to parenting when raising successful kids who love Jesus.
Special Co-host: Jackie Nickel
Special thanks to Redemption Press for sponsoring the Snacks And Good Company Podcast!
Find Sherri: Online | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Transcription:
Speaker 1 [00:00:02] Purposely. Your life, God’s purpose. Listen at onpurposely.com.
Speaker 2 [00:00:09] I remember one particular day, and we were reading about Joshua and God telling Joshua to be strong and courageous. And my son, who was 11 at the time, was sitting. He had to sit right next to me because he couldn’t really sit in a chair. He was so active and he was set up on the chair on. He could get the chair on one leg and then kind of bounce, and that’s what he would do. While I was reading the Bible, and I never knew if he was hearing what I was saying or getting it really, you know? And I was reading this about Joshua, and I started to see his face kind of light up, and he got a little bit emotional, which was kind of unusual. And he was like, “Mom, I want to be like Joshua.”
Speaker 3 [00:00:46] Aww.
[00:00:46] And I was like, Oh.
Sherri [00:00:55] 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. And this is a place where we tackle tough topics with humility, humor and, of course, snacks. My favorite is popcorn. That’s well-documented. Jackie, we found out yours is a…Is a chocolate chip cookie?
Jackie [00:01:17] Yeah, but I could go for popcorn. I’m in a popcorn mood today.
Sherri [00:01:19] Not your nutrition. This is totally off topic, guys. We’re getting to the parents stuff. It’s mom to mom. We have Tammy Hamilton on the show today. She’s absolutely amazing. Mom of eight adult children. When you talk to her, you’re going to get a lot out of that. But before that, Jackie is a fitness person. Nutrition.
Jackie [00:01:36] Yeah,.
Sherri [00:01:37] All of that stuff. You study that?
Jackie [00:01:38] Yes.
Sherri [00:01:39] Okay. The popcorn thing, everyone told me that’s a healthy snack?
Jackie [00:01:43] Yeah, I can be.
Sherri [00:01:45] It can be.
Jackie [00:01:46] It can be it. Depending on what you put on it.
Sherri [00:01:48] That can be to me what makes it not healthy as a snack.
Jackie [00:01:50] Like when you just put a ton of butter on it or.
Sherri [00:01:54] Okay, how about how you cook it, like in the oil or something?
Jackie [00:01:57] Yeah, in the oil or. Yeah. I mean, the bags aren’t that great either. If you just air pop it is probably better too. Am I ruining your life right now?
Speaker 3 [00:02:04] You know you’re ruining my life. Everything’s falling apart right in front of me because I was eating popcorn, thinking like I was demolishing these bags, guys. Publix, which is a grocery store where I live, has these deli bags of popcorn.
Jackie [00:02:21] Oh, yeah.
Sherri [00:02:22] Now, I don’t know how they popped it, because you’re saying if they popped in, in like, oil and stuff like that, that would make it fattening. Is that true?
Jackie [00:02:29] I mean, I guess it depends on it just there’s a lot of things that go into it.
Sherri [00:02:33] So I don’t know what they did.
Jackie [00:02:34] If you’re indulging in it once in a while I wouldn’t worry about it.
Sherri [00:02:37] Jackie. I could eat this whole bag of popcorn in about 11 seconds.
Jackie [00:02:43] Oh.
Sherri [00:02:44] And it’s huge. It’s massive. And like, literally, you know how they have those big bags of feed that they put in front of a horse or something? They stick their snout in there and just.
[00:02:55] Yeah, that’s you?
[00:02:56] That’s how I eat that popcorn no bull.
Jackie [00:02:58] I can’t really picture that. But at the same time I can.
Sherri [00:03:01] I have my whole face in the bag. And so I. Oh gosh, this is so much yall, I hope we’re getting to Tammy. Tammy, we’re coming. I have always had I don’t even want to say I struggle with weight because if you are struggling, you’d either win or lose, right? So I’m like, yeah, it’s always and it’s always been an issue. How about that? Okay, So they’re like, Well, weigh yourself every day and I would do that. And then it’s like, “Okay, what was different from yesterday/today, okay? And the big deciding factor of when the weight kind of sticks around or goes up was the popcorn.
Jackie [00:03:38] The trough size bag of popcorn.
Sherri [00:03:43] With one word. You describe why there’s a problem, a trough.
Sherri [00:03:48] So let me get this straight here. You’re shocked because you ate a trough full of popcorn and put on 2 lbs. That’s what you want me to decipher what the actual issue is? That’s what you’re saying. Okay, so I got it. All right. Thanks for unpacking that for me.
Jackie [00:04:02] Yes, of course. Anything.
Sherri [00:04:03] All right. So we’re going to Tammy. Tammy Hamilton, in full disclosure, is the wife of my boss. My day job is a producer and co-host for the show, The Brian Hansen Show and the Brant and Sherri podcast. And my boss is Jon Hamilton, one of the most magnificent men I’ve ever met. Not saying that for a raise.
Jackie [00:04:22] He actually is, he’s great.
Sherri [00:04:24] He’s an amazing man and his wife is amazing and they have a wonderful life. And I was telling you about it one day when we were at a work event. I was at a work event. And so, you know what? We unpack all of that and how Tammy is the catalyst for this podcast in many ways. And so Jackie starts with that whenever we’re talking to Tammy.
Jackie [00:04:44] I want to preface this whole entire thing by letting you know that you’re the inspiration for this whole podcast, only because a year and a half ago I came down to Florida with Bridget and, and Cherry for one of you guy’s events.
Sherri [00:04:56] Hey, Bridget.
Jackie [00:04:58] Shout out to bridget.
Sherri [00:04:58] Bridget told us not to say have to say her name. Sheila, right? Yeah.
Jackie [00:05:04] So we were all sitting there and she was like my boss’s wife they have eight kids and they’re all successful. And I was like, “Man, that is a woman I would want to talk to and just gather some nuggets for, you know, my parenting journey” because we’re in the thick of it right now right.
Tammy [00:05:18] You’re in the messy middle I call it.
Jackie [00:05:20] Yeah. And, you know, in general, Parenthood is hard, but I was like eight kids. That’s amazing. I really want to talk to her and Sherri goes, “You know, that would be a great podcast.” And I was like…
Sherri [00:05:29] Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
Tammy [00:05:32] She’s the idea person. The idea genius.
Jackie [00:05:34] I was like, “You’re nuts. I just want to meet her and talk to her and ask her some quesitons.
Sherri [00:05:38] So she dragged into this. So if you guys are listening to this and you’re like, “Sherri’s a big ham, but Jackie seems like she’s just that kind of down to earth. It just wants to talk. That is the dynamics. She only wanted this. She just wanted to go to lunch with Tammy. Yeah, and I made it into a six part series. Yeah so…
Jackie [00:05:55] So thank you for your inspiration. I do love it, though. She’s, like, pulling me out of my comfort zone and and getting me to talk to a bunch of different people that I probably wouldn’t ever have the experience of. So yeah.
Tammy [00:06:06] It’s great. We can all learn from each other.
Jackie [00:06:08] Yeah. yeah.
Sherri [00:06:10] The point of the whole thing.
Jackie [00:06:10] Yeah. I guess I want to start off by asking you, like, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your family and how just how things started? And did you always want eight kids?
Tammy [00:06:21] No
Sherri [00:06:23] Well, there’s that.
Tammy [00:06:24] I didn’t even, wasn’t even really sure I wanted to get married when I was young. There was too much, the world was too big and there was too much to do and see.
Sherri [00:06:31] And how old were you when you got married?
Tammy [00:06:33] I was actually only 21 because things don’t go as planned often.
Sherri [00:06:38] Yeah. And here we are.
Tammy [00:06:41] And that happened. And we, John and I met at church. My dad was a pastor and I was pretty much a rule follower for the most part. I obeyed most of the Yeah. You know, youth group kids. Right? It was kind of typical. Well, John broke all of the rules. I was not is paradigm at all. And but we as we became young parents, we became believers. We really wanted for our kids to have a different experience than we had had because we were church kids. We, you know, knew what was right and wrong, but we didn’t always make the right choices. And, you know, roads have destinations. And if you start to make bad choices in your life when you’re young, you can get on a road that you can figure out how to get off of. And so we wanted our kids to be on the right road for them, God’s plan for them, their destiny. And so we just began to kind of make a plan. Learn from older people who had gone before us. We study the Word for ourselves. What does the Bible say about parenting? What does the Bible say about how we should raise our kids? And just came up with some ideas. We just kind of muddled our way through it. We had three children and I’d had to talk John into the third one, so. I wasn’t sure how that was going to go. But fortunately, God spoke to both of us and we just decided to see what God would do. And he gave us seven children and we thought that was it. And eight years later we had the eight. And so they’re from 41 to 19. They live all over the world. They all love Jesus. They’ve all found their own way. Yeah, but that’s who we are.
Jackie [00:08:24] I guess one of the questions I wanted to ask you, too, is where were you and your husband Always on the same page through every season?
Tammy [00:08:30] Nooooo. Not the same page. We were on the same team.
Jackie [00:08:36] Yes, I loved that.
Jackie [00:08:37] We’re on the same team and we were very different. And we always had very different perspectives. We had different upbringings, so that gave us different perspectives on parenting. And again, because our our plan wasn’t my plan or his plan, but God’s plan, it was easy for us to kind of reconcile with what maybe one of us felt differently about than the other. Well, what does God say? And so we’re going to do what God says and we’re going to follow Him. And you know, it’s worked pretty well.
Tammy [00:09:11] Yeah, I’m not going to say that we don’t have conflict because Sheri knows we do. But we’re always even though we’re done raising our kids, we’re on the same team. You know, we made a covenant with each other that we were going to figure it out even when it was hard. So.
Jackie [00:09:27] Y’know, you and I kind of talked off the air about the first child being, you know, maybe not I won’t say the most difficult, but like the most challenging, I guess in ways where they’re just kind of like, “Whoa, I wasn’t expecting this.” Like, Yes. How did you approach that?
Tammy [00:09:41] Oh my.
Sherri [00:09:42] I’ll just remind everyone and I’m a first child.
Tammy [00:09:44] Oh, yeah.
Sherri [00:09:45] As you as you plow down this road just remember that I’m sitting here.
Tammy [00:09:48] And it will all be very appropriate.
Sherri [00:09:49] It’s all going to be relate? Okay.
Tammy [00:09:53] So we had this experience with our oldest child when she was about two and a half. Maybe she was sleeping in a regular bed, right? We could not keep her in the bed. We would go in. We go through our routine. We did everything they say to do to have a nighttime routine, and we would tell the Bible story and we’d do the cuddle, we’d do everything, drink a water, four trips to the bathroom. All that’s done. Okay, Good night. Stay in your bed. And then we would leave. And a few seconds later out, she’d come out the door.
Jackie [00:10:21] My son. Yeah.
Tammy [00:10:23] All right. So at first, you know, you just think, Oh, well, they just didn’t realize it was time to go to bed. So we put her back in bed. Well, it would keep happening, but her back in the bed close the door here she’d come and this would go on for way too long. And so eventually, I don’t know, maybe it had been five or six times.
Sherri [00:10:45] Mm hmm.
Tammy [00:10:46] He’s. He’s not showing his anger. I’m sure he was failing and not showing it. He’s just going through the process. And we hear the door slam open and she goes, “RAHHHHH”, Like hulked out on us.
Jackie [00:11:03] Oh, my gosh.
Tammy [00:11:04] And we’re like, “Okay, God, we’re really going to need You with this kid.”.
Jackie [00:11:07] Yeah.
Tammy [00:11:09] So she was always strong willed. But, you know, when you train them young like that, I think that you there comes a time when you don’t have to deal with that anymore because they learn self-control. And you know what I know now looking back or what I started to realize as they started to grow up is that God puts that will in them so that they will change their world. You know, He has He had a big calling for her. And if she wasn’t strong, she wouldn’t have been able to accomplish the things that she has that He’s called her to do.
Sherri [00:11:40] Yeah, I hear she a warrior.
Tammy [00:11:42] She is a warrior
Jackie [00:11:42] Yeah, I think I think too, because my son is so similar, I never want him to feel like he can’t be that and how to harness that energy and thing into it. Like, how did you foster that?
Jackie [00:11:57] Well, yeah, well, we always told her she had a destiny and that she was exactly the way God intended for her to be. Now, of course, she had to learn to obey. And by learning to obey us, she learned to obey God. When she was seven years old. She was kind of moping around. And that was unusual for her because she was very bright and cheery. And I noticed she was moping. And so I said, Her name’s Naomi. “Naomi, what? What’s going on? You know, there’s something up or what? Something’s happening?” And she said, “Yes, mom.” She said, “I know that God has called me to be a missionary. I just don’t know if I’m supposed to go now or wait until I’m grown up.”
Sherri [00:12:34] What? She was seven?
Tammy [00:12:36] She was seven years old.
Sherri [00:12:37] Wooo!
Tammy [00:12:38] So from that point on, I won’t say that we, like, you know, made a plan. Oh, she’s going to be a missionary because we didn’t know what was going to happen. That might be her seven year old heart. That might not be her 17 or 20 year old heart. But she stayed focused on that. And as she wanted to develop and she decided she wanted to be a nurse and then she wanted to be a midwife and she is a nurse midwife. And she went to the Philippines and founded Safe Refuge International, which rescues women and children from human trafficking.
Jackie [00:13:05] Amazing.
Tammy [00:13:06] Extreme poverty. So, yeah, we always told her she had a destiny. And I think it really made a difference when she came into those teen years and she wanted to be accepted by her friends. She wanted to do what everybody else was doing and she would had for herself without us there making the decisions for she had to say to herself, “I can’t do the things my peers are doing because I have a destiny. I have something God has for me to do. And if I do those things, I might get off track in doing these things.” So yeah, I think you’re exactly right that we we want to shepherd it. We don’t want to crush it, but we certainly want them to learn obedience, because if we don’t, eventually that strong will will cause them to make the choices that they in the moment want to make.
Jackie [00:13:50] Right
Tammy [00:13:50] They want to party with their friends. They they want to goof off instead of getting their education or whatever.
Jackie [00:13:56] Yeah, I see little things like that in my son, where, I mean, even his teacher will be like having to remind him, like, “Now Mason, even though these people are making choices, that doesn’t mean you need to be making the same choices.”
Jackie [00:14:09] We always said to our kids one of the mantras they would tell you mantras, how ever you say that. I say that way that they would tell you if you asked them as we would say, “Others may, you may not.”
Jackie [00:14:18] I like that. Hold on let me note that. Others may, you may not.
Sherri [00:14:25] Grandma would say, “Others can. You can’t.”
Tammy [00:14:27] Right.
Sherri [00:14:28] And she would always say, “Dare to be a Daniel. Dare to stand alone.”.
Tammy [00:14:33] Wow.
Sherri [00:14:34] She would say that.
Tammy [00:14:34] Oh, I love that.
Sherri [00:14:35] She would say that to all of her kids. Yes. And then they in turn said it.
Tammy [00:14:40] So that brings into it that she was teaching you what the people in the Bible did. Who were imperfect people who made mistakes. And because we certainly want to allow for the fact that our kids will do that, we did. They will. But in the long run, those that obey God, we read about now and we read about their destinies and what God had for them. Yeah.
Sherri [00:15:00] I love Tammy so much. Can I say that?
Jackie [00:15:03] Yeah, I learned so much from her.
Sherri [00:15:05] Yeah, I almost felt like we were recording that and I almost felt like I should leave the room. Like I really felt like a mom was talking to a mom. And here I am in the middle, like, you know what else? Sherri, let this mom talk to this mom. I think it felt like in the moment you got a lot about identifying this is how my kid is. This is like knowing this is how my kid is and then shepherding that.
Jackie [00:15:32] Yeah. Yeah. Because I feel like, you know, we both had have kids that have like very strong personalities and it’s like, you don’t want to dim their light. Yeah, but how to…
Sherri [00:15:44] Focus the light
Jackie [00:15:45] Yeah, focus.
Sherri [00:15:47] Ooo, y’all better write that down. I don’t want to dim their light. I want to focus it.
Jackie [00:15:50] Yes.
Sherri [00:15:51] Jackie, you’re not even writing, You know, I’m like, “What am I writing for?” I don’t have any kids.
Jackie [00:15:57] I have a little note thing.
Sherri [00:15:59] Yeah, okay, you’re writing that down?
Jackie [00:15:59] Yeah.
Sherri [00:16:00] We don’t want to dim their light. We want to focus it. All right. Tammy has more stuff to talk to us about, like social media, parenting, like comparison. And we’ll talk more about personalities as well. So let’s say stick around, But it’s kind of weird you say that on radio because a person can turn so quickly to something else to say, “Stick around” on a podcast is weird because technically after that long popcorn drawn out open, you probably turned it off anyway.
Jackie [00:16:28] Yeah, I hope not.
Sherri [00:16:29] If you’re still here, stick around. We’ll have more with Tammy Hamilton on Snacks and Good Company coming up friends.
Sherri [00:16:42] Let me ask you a question, friend. Do you have a book in you? I bet you do. Like, have you ever end of the night writing in your journal and then look at what you wrote me like, “Ooh, that’s a 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. Go check them out right now! Redemptionpress.com.
Sherri [00:17:36] Welcome back to Snacks and Good Company. I’m Sherri Lynn and my co-host is Jackie Nicole.
Jackie [00:17:41] Hi.
Sherri [00:17:42] All right. Tammy is fantastic. Just…
Jackie [00:17:45] Wonderful.
Sherri [00:17:46] She just has that kind of personality where you just want to sit and just sponge in everything. Of all the wisdom she has from raising eight kids and homeschooling them all. All of them. Jack.
Jackie [00:17:59] I don’t, I don’t even know.
Sherri [00:18:00] She’s going to talk more about that in this segment. Also, after this segment, we’re going to hear from your Aunt Nicki.
Jackie [00:18:07] Mm hmm.
Sherri [00:18:08] She is someone you wanted to interview for this podcast because you feel like she’s a wise mom and she was an influence in your life, right?
Jackie [00:18:15] Yep, She was an influence in my life.
Jackie [00:18:16] Okay. So we’re going to talk a little bit more about that and talk about her and why you wanted to talk to her. But, we’ll hear some of the things she has to say on the other side of this segment. But right now, we start back with personalities and having eight kids and all their different personalities. How in the world?
Jackie [00:18:35] It’s good stuff.
Sherri [00:18:36] How in the world do you manage that?
Jackie [00:18:38] What other types of personalities did you have?
Tammy [00:18:41] We all eight are very unique and different. Yeah, they’re all strong willed, which God and I are going to talk about when I get to Heaven.
Sherri [00:18:49] But Tammy where’d they come from though?
Tammy [00:18:51] Yes, that’s true.
Sherri [00:18:51] All right. All right.
Tammy [00:18:53] I concede. They didn’t stand a chance. Yes, but they are very if you’re talking about the Enneagram, they’re all the way across the scale. They have all different personalities, different giftings. None of them do the same thing now that they’re adults. For the most part. They’re all focused very much on what God has for them. There’s a lot of missionaries in the bunch, but they were very unique. The first two had complete opposite personalities, like their dad and I, and they were the oldest one was me, and the second one was just like her dad. And so they had the complex that we had, right? So we would see that. So from right off the bat they were different. And then everyone that came after that was different and unique. So that’s one of the things that makes parenting so challenging because what will work with one of your children is not something you necessarily want to do with your other children, except that you always want to bring it back to what are the biblical principles. And yes, there’s going to be some choices you’re going to make based on the child’s personality and drive and whatever. But yeah, they’re all strong willed.
Jackie [00:19:56] What kind of support did you have? An outlet or a village or like mom friends?
Tammy [00:20:03] Things were very different. And when I was raising my children in earlier years, we didn’t have the internet or social media, which was I’ll just go ahead and say it was probably a good thing because I think that while social media can be good, it gives us a false sense of community sometimes. And people are lonelier than ever. I know Brant Hanson talks about that a lot that people it’s just made people lonely. I had mom friends through church mostly, and then once I started homeschooling, I was always involved in homeschooling groups for the kids and for me. And I have a strong family support system. So, yes, you know, there are still times when you feel you’re going to feel lonely if you’re a mom at home with your kids, or even if you’re not home all the time, you’re still going to feel like isolated or like you’re going through things that other people aren’t going through. Now, with social media, you see everybody’s perfect life, right? And so you’re like, “Why don’t my kids behave like that?” Because they’re not showing you what their kids are really doing. Right?
Jackie [00:21:01] So, yeah, I was just going to say that on social media, I find myself comparing myself maybe sometimes and then reminding myself, like, what’s it really like In that house?
Tammy [00:21:11] Yes.
Sherri [00:21:12] All right, I’m going to cut in here. We have more with Tammy. She’s going to talk about homeschooling a little more and what made her want to do it and how in the world do you homeschool that many kids? So we’re going to talk about that. But we’re at a stop here. When you’re talking about comparison, do you feel like, first of all, like give me your oldest child is seven on the front end you did more comparison on the like when he was younger, when the second baby came later. Like, where are you on the comparison chart?
Tammy [00:21:42] I think it’s all the time.
Sherri [00:21:43] Really?
Jackie [00:21:44] Yeah. I think where it mostly comes down to is like if you’re scrolling through social media and you see moms that are in the, you know, the stage that you’re in and you see, I think it was heavily it was more so whenever I had my my first son because my only son. Yeah, But anyway, just because I feel like social media, like especially Instagram, just kind of blew up at that point. Yeah. And like, you know, you follow people that their lives just look so perfect and you’re sitting here like nursing and you’re just like, “This is terrible and it hurts” and it’s, you know, but it took away I think it took away from, like, those beautiful moments that I did have.
Sherri [00:22:25] I think comparison takes away from you.
Jackie [00:22:26] Yeah. It’s what what do they say? It’s the thief of joy.
Sherri [00:22:30] I didn’t know they say that, but that’s good.
Jackie [00:22:31] Yeah, it’s true. It’s true though. And I think that when I did realize that, I’m like, “Oh, I’m wasting so much of my time comparing and it’s not even real.” You know?
Sherri [00:22:43] So good. Okay. So I wanted the reason why I want to break in here is because your your Aunt Nicki had something to say about comparison that I thought was really, really good. So we’ll talk a little bit more about why you want to interview her. Why do you why you wanted her involved in this project. But let’s hear from Aunt Nikki about comparison. This is really good.
Nicki [00:23:00] Definitely, there were times where I would look at another parent and say, “Oh, I wish I had that quality. Oh, I wish I was like that.” But I think I worked very hard to not compare. And here’s why. Because it has to do with trusting God. You know, I might say, “Oh my gosh, I love how that parent does that or I wish.” And once I start saying, “I wish, I wish” it’s an automatic flag for me because it’s like if Jesus is giving me everything I need, if I’m asking for Him to meet my needs and help me raise my children, then I have to be focused on what He is giving me to raise my children and not what somebody else is doing. Of course we can learn from our friends, you know, and I think friendships help us do that. We can see that and go, “Wow, that’s amazing idea. I want to incorporate that.” But I think comparison, it should be a flag. Like, okay, like what is my focus? What is God telling me? Not what is, you know, not what is she doing?
Jackie [00:24:12] Like when you put you’re saying like when you put that pressure on yourself to do more or instead of like having that faith in the Lord that He has given you everything that you need?
Nicki [00:24:21] Exactly. Exactly, right? It’s like you seek answers from God and then you get your answers from God, and then you focus on that. So if you’re focusing on what you’re receiving from God for your children, then you really don’t have time to like, compare yourself to somebody else.
Sherri [00:24:39] Okay, Yeah. Nicki’s very wise. I see why you wanted her on the show.
Jackie [00:24:42] Isn’t she?
Sherri [00:24:43] Tell me a little bit about, like, your relationship with her. Um, I she has adult children right now.
Jackie [00:24:48] Yes, she is. My cousins are adults now. Okay. I guess one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to her was, well, first of all, she’s my aunt and I’m comfortable around her. But she probably was the most spiritual person in my life that, you know, would kind of direct me sometimes or answer really?
Sherri [00:25:07] Well, spiritual influence.
Jackie [00:25:08] Yeah, spiritual. A spiritual influence. And really, I knew I could call on her any time I had questions or, I don’t know, I just love her so much.
Sherri [00:25:17] She seems to have a very quiet, wise spirit. Yeah. And a calm, wise spirit. I understand why that would be attractive. Like if you’re a mom or anything, even if you’re a teenager or whatever you’re going in, you’re feeling wild emotions. It’s nice to have a calm, wise voice.
Jackie [00:25:34] Yeah. And not just my aunt, but like all of her siblings, they’ve been through a lot. So I feel like for her to be as faithful as she is.
Sherri [00:25:44] Yeah. Spiritually grounded.
Jackie [00:25:46] Spiritually grounded. I just. I admire that and want to collect whatever I can from her.
Sherri [00:25:51] All right. We’re going to collect more from her coming up. But I think we go back to Tammy now. We’re going to go back to Tammy because we cut in there talking about comparison. And I wanted to get at Nicki in, but I want to talk more to Tammy about she’s going to really get into homeschooling here and what made her want to homeschool and then all the challenges of doing that, deciding to do it and then doing it with eight kids.
Sherri [00:26:13] What made you decide to do homeschooling?
Tammy [00:26:16] Okay, so it was 1985 back in the Dark Ages, and I was a reading resource teacher in a Christian school, and I was encountering children that were had been labeled with specific disabilities and challenges. And as I worked with them, I would see that many times they just hadn’t learned how to read or they hadn’t learned how to read systematically or correctly, we would say, in that field. And so I started thinking how I really want to teach my kids to read before they go to school. I want to make sure they have that strong foundation. So it wasn’t really a spiritual inspiration at the time. And then I heard doctors Raymond and Dorothy Moore on a Focus on the Family broadcast on the radio, and they were talking about homeschooling, and I’d never heard of such a thing. I didn’t know anybody who did it. And I thought, you know, if I do that, I can get my kids started with a good foundation before they go to school.
Sherri [00:27:12] Can I ask how many kids, kids you had at that time?
Tammy [00:27:14] Two. Just two.
Sherri [00:27:15] Okay, so you had the two.
Tammy [00:27:16] Just had the two. They weren’t even school age. They were like four and two I think. They were babies.
Sherri [00:27:21] Okay.
Tammy [00:27:22] And so John was okay with it. And so I, I started out doing it. And after after a few years, I realized I really loved it. I love being with my kids. And then it just became our lifestyle. You know, we homeschoolers, we kind of joke, those of us who’ve been doing it for a while, we joke that we go. There was going to be this age we were going to put them in school. You know, they were going to go to school in third grade or fifth grade or, you know, middle school or high school. And but then when you get there, you’re like, oh, no, I don’t think so. No thanks. And some families do. But for us, it just wasn’t we just liked it so much. And so we just did it all the way through and couldn’t imagine. And then as they came along and there were more of them, I couldn’t imagine the carpooling and the dropping off and the picking up. And that with eight kids. Oh, my word.
Sherri [00:28:05] That’s a good point.
Tammy [00:28:06] Yeah. And so for us, we didn’t make the decision really to homeschool because of what was wrong with the schools, but with what was right with homeschooling for us, for our family.
Jackie [00:28:16] Did you see that as an opportunity to disciple in your family?
Tammy [00:28:19] Absolutely. I mean, eventually, you know that again, it started out just wanting to teach them to read. I didn’t I mean, we were thinking we did want to disciple them, but I don’t think we had such a feeling of how important it would be for them to be with us, to get our values. And so that’s one particular case where I would say homeschooling gets quite a bit of credit for why our kids knew who they were and made the choices that they did, because we were the voices in their ear. They had peers, but they didn’t spend all their time with them. They spent most of their time with us. And there becomes a time in their development where that’s very important because they start to listen to those voices. And once they start to become more peer influenced than they are by their place in your family and start to become identified by their peers rather than identified by who God says they are and who you say they are, then that’s a brings a whole new set of challenges.
Jackie [00:29:10] Do you want to come homeschool my kid?
Tammy [00:29:14] Doesn’t work that way Jackie.
Sherri [00:29:17] It’s your home not hers.
Jackie [00:29:18] Yeah, I just wish I had that. Like I. I would say patience, impatience.
Tammy [00:29:25] I know people say people will say to me, You must be so patient. And I’m like, “Well. I am now.” Yeah. No, not naturally patient. I will say that you do homeschool your kids. You just don’t do it full time. I believe every parent is a home schooler because we’re always teaching and training our kids. Right? And so you’re doing that when you have them with you. Every obviously every family can’t or doesn’t feel like they should homeschool. I think everyone can if that’s what God has for them. And a lot more people are homeschooling has just exploded.
Sherri [00:29:57] 2020 showed us that I bet you can. Yeah you may think you can’t, but you are.
Tammy [00:30:02] Yeah and it can require some sacrifices with family finances and those kind of things. When we started and we lost my income, it meant we had to have only one car. We lived, I don’t know, 40 miles from John’s work. I think it was an hour commute for him to work. And so if I needed the van that day, I had to drive him an hour to work to go do anything with the homeschooling group. But it was a sacrifice that we made just because we knew that’s what we were supposed to do. And it wasn’t always that way, obviously. But I do think every family is homeschooling you just actually you just have to be diligent and make good use of your time. Be aware of how much time you have with them if they’re going to school. You’re obviously very involved with the school and, you know, the teachers. And I think sometimes people just turn their kids over to the schools. They think that the schools are responsible. They’re learning now. People are learning now. But yeah, yeah. But at that time we were just crazy to not put our kids in schools. You know, it was just people could just couldn’t believe we wouldn’t do that. So, you know, we’ve always kind of gone against the flow. And I think that helped our kids go against the flow too.
Sherri [00:31:10] Tammy Hamilton there. So grateful that she gave us some of her time and a lot of her wisdom. We’re gonna talk with her more in a little bit. But right now, this is LeAnn again. You know, I did some calls and people and LeAnn has two adult children. We heard some from her last episode because I wanted to get this in here, because I think this is instructive about we talk a lot about failure, right? Feeling like a failure. We did that last episode. Yeah. And then you know how that’s so constant. But I wanted to know and I’m going to get her answer and we’ll come back and get yours. What are you doing well? Because I never hear moms saying…
Jackie [00:31:51] That’s true. I feel like when most moms get together and talk, they’re just like, “Ahh”.
Sherri [00:31:54] It’s all the failure.
Tammy [00:31:55] Yeah, it’s all the hard stuff. That’s all the…Yeah.
Sherri [00:31:58] So to get on the other side, can you look back and be like, “You know what I did well, I did this.” And I asked LeAnn that, and here’s what she said.
LeAnn [00:32:06] I quit a job. We live in Tennessee. We’re in Nashville. My kids grew up. We lived in southern Kentucky, and I had a job at the place everybody wanted to work and just kind of fell in my lap and it was a really good job and everybody wanted to work there, good benefits and everything, and I wanted to be home with my kids. I wanted so bad to be a stay at home mom. My mother always worked. My dad was a preacher, and I just wanted to be there for my kids. And I finally quit that job. It took about two years to convince my husband that we could probably make it. And every day when they would come in from school, they would yell, “Mom!” When they walked in the door. And I never take that for granted. It’s like, “Oh, I’m here to hear that.” And then I volunteered at the school that if somebody tell me I had to be a teacher, I would believe in purgatory because I did not other people’s kids. I love my grandkids, but other people’s kids just doesn’t work. But I was going to be known at that school. You know, that’s one thing I’m really glad that I did. I was the coach for the little. My husband and I both coach the little ball teams when they played and when they got older and played, I did the books for the ball team. You know, we were there for all of that. And my parents weren’t when I played sports. And so I feel good about that. I don’t know if they’ve ever appreciated it.
Sherri [00:33:33] No, you know what I think I know that I appreciated that about my mom. She was a essentially single mom. My dad was there, but not really. And she found ways to be at different things. But I like what you’re saying because I think if young moms are listening right now, moms of young kids and there at that age, where there is the Little league and then this and that and that and you can feel kind of stretched. I think it’s good to hear someone say, you know, at the end of the day, I’m glad I did it.
LeAnn [00:34:03] Yes. Yes. And what you and Brant say all the time about or I guess he says about a season, It’s a season. And I’ve actually been trying to use that with some of our neighborhood families because they all have, you know, kids that are that age ten and 12 and like this is a season and everybody says, “Oh, enjoy it because it’s going to go so fast.” But it is going to end and you’re going to have your own life again. I think if mothers can hear that, too, that this is not forever and it’s not just to make you feel like you better soak it in or feel guilty, cause I’m not enjoying it. No, it’s not forever. You get your life back. You become your husband’s wife again instead of the number one job. Feeling like it’s the mother, it’s as you know it can be. It’s going to be fun again. But right now, if they do that, they’re going to not regret it at all. I have no regrets for that. And also still connected with those other mothers who did that. I know we love each other. We don’t talk with those other mothers who were in the concession stand with the baseball field or whatever. There’s a connection that you have with them and their children and the kids whose mothers aren’t there. You know, that you can kind of have a little influence on.
LeAnn [00:35:22] All right. So that’s what LeAnn said she did well, is that she quit her job. They made it on one income and she wanted to be home for her kids. And when they came home, when they, you know, went to practices and all that, she was the one that was the primary influence. Now I’m going to ask you.
Jackie [00:35:39] I relate in that aspect because I was a full time, you know, working mom, but I just felt like I couldn’t give my 100% to anything. To my job, to being a mom, to being a wife, being like that. And ultimately we decided that I could leave my job and it was the best decision good I ever made. And I feel like I am living out my purpose in that aspect.
Sherri [00:36:01] You know? All right. So and I can hear people saying, “Well, I’m a single mom, what do you need me to do Sherri? I understand. Next episode, we are actually talking to my mom, who raised us essentially as a single mom.
Jackie [00:36:12] Yeah. Special lady.
Sherri [00:36:14] And then we also have other single moms that talk, so I’m not leaving you out. But to hear you say, You know what? I did that. Well, I calculated I want to be there for the kids. And I’m sure you and your husband had a discussion on, like, what does that look like financially?
Jackie [00:36:27] Yeah. I mean, it was very hard and it was very hard adjustment at first. But I look back and I don’t regret it. So we’re very blessed.
Sherri [00:36:36] I want you to think about in fact, that’s what I want you to email me, ladies, as you’re listening. What are you doing? Well, as a mom,.
Jackie [00:36:42] Yeah. I like that. Let’s bring the positive.
Sherri [00:36:44] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay so [email protected]. Is that my email address? Is that what I said before?
Jackie [00:36:53] I think so Sherri. Snacks and Good Company. You didn’t say Good company,.
Sherri [00:36:58] Sherri. S-H-E-R-R-I At snacks and good company dot com. This is what I’m doing well. It’s okay like people don’t I don’t want to be prideful. I don’t want to be both. Well you don’t have a problem talking about failure for 2 hours, right? And I get it. Gratitude is a good part of contentment. To be able to say, I’m grateful that I’ve done this or been able to do this. Okay. So, Sherri, what is it again? Sherri at Snacks and Good Company.
Jackie [00:37:27] Yes.
Sherri [00:37:29] You guys are listening like little the world kind of podcast and my listening to right now. All right. Where are we going after this? We’re going to talk more with Tammy. Coming up on yes, I do know at least the title of the podcast Snacks and Good Company.
Sherri [00:37:56] Snacks and Good Company. This is your host, Sherri Lynn, with my co-host, Jackie Nicole.
Jackie [00:38:01] Hi.
Sherri [00:38:01] We’re having a wonderful time with Tammy, are we not?
Jackie [00:38:04] Yes, I’m loving it.
Sherri [00:38:04] You know what? I honestly did and I don’t say this lightly. I got like goose bumps whenever she was talking just because it just felt so not academic.
Jackie [00:38:15] Yeah.
Sherri [00:38:15] And I don’t mean that in a disparaging way. It just felt so hard. Hard won wisdom.
Jackie [00:38:23] Yeah,.
Sherri [00:38:23] Right?
Jackie [00:38:24] Yeah, It was like the full on experience and you’re like, going through that with her when she was explaining it.
Sherri [00:38:29] Did you any time interviewing her, this has happened to me at any time. Did you forget that it was an interview and you just grab it and everything you can from?
Jackie [00:38:37] Yeah, I wasn’t even looking at my questions anymore. I was just kind of. It was just like we were hanging out.
Sherri [00:38:43] Yeah, that’s nice. Hopefully that’s what you guys are feeling right now in this next segment for Tammy apologizing to your kids. I know you’re big about that. And also about shame as a mother and what happens when that kind of takes hold in your life. Just a lot of a lot of good stuff. It’s already been great, but this is great, too. So I don’t know where we start in this segment and be honest.
Jackie [00:39:04] Well, it’s just jam packed full of good stuff.
Sherri [00:39:06] Yeah. Okay. So I we usually if I were being professional, I would now set up the segment and then the segment with smoothly come in. But I don’t know how to segment.
Jackie [00:39:15] Take it for what it is.
Sherri [00:39:16] Here comes the segment guys.
Jackie [00:39:17] All right. What if you could look back? Is there anything you would change about how you raised the kid?
Tammy [00:39:25] How many hours do you have now, Jackie?
Jackie [00:39:27] I have all the time. I want to know it all.
Tammy [00:39:31] I’ll say right off the bat that I would yell less. I’ll just put that out there. Something practical. I think that when we make things about ourselves as moms and we want our kids to get it right, we find ourselves being very frustrated and I would raise my voice more than I should have.
Jackie [00:39:48] That’s me 100%. And I don’t like the way I feel after that happened.
Tammy [00:39:52] Exactly.
Jackie [00:39:52] And I’m like, This didn’t even fix anything. If anything I feel more worried about, Yeah, I feel worse about this. But one thing I have learned to do and I remember my one friend telling me her, and this is when my kids were little that her dad would always apologize every time he did something wrong. And I was like, “Wow, that’s good.”
Tammy [00:40:12] That’s important.
Jackie [00:40:13] I felt like I carried that nugget with me and I just make sure, like, it’s something I’m like, I need to apologize for that. So I just I’m very intentional about making sure I apologize.
Tammy [00:40:23] That’s so good. I probably wasn’t as good at that. But one of the places that I came to and the feeling badly about when I would lose my temper and when I just got too hard was that then I have to intensify communicating love to them and acceptance. And if I’m yelling, I need to be loving twice as much right now. Because, I mean, obviously it’s better if you don’t do it, but if you are having those moments that you have to apologize for, then you’re you’re making sure that you’re pushing and you’re giving them your time. You’re being intentional about that. John and I just started a series on parenting on our church, where at our church we’re teaching on Sunday mornings. And I told the people on Sunday morning, our congregation speaking specifically to the moms, just let it go. When you make mistakes, you just have to we have to move forward. And I think apologizing is good. But if we let that stuff pile up into shame, then we become paralyzed and unable to parent the way God has called us to parent. You know, he’s a very forgiving God, and we have to forgive ourselves and look forward. What can I do today to make a difference? What can I do intentionally to love my kids? You know, they’re you’re not perfect. They’re not going to be perfect. And teaching them to deal with those things that we you know, the mistakes that we made, whether it’s that yelling at them or or anything else that we might do, that’s a mistake that we make to not focus on those things. You know, Paul said, “I don’t look back. I look forward.” And that’s what we want to do as parents.
Sherri [00:41:53] Are you happy, Jackie?
Jackie [00:41:55] Oh my gosh, yeah. So now how many of your kids are parents now?
Tammy [00:42:00] Six out of the eight are parents.
Jackie [00:42:02] So how many grandkids?
Tammy [00:42:04] 11.
Jackie [00:42:04] Wow.
Tammy [00:42:05] Plus some foster ones that I count.
Jackie [00:42:08] That’s exciting.
Sherri [00:42:09] I can say that one time I was. I forget what anniversary it was, but it was an anniversary and we were all at Universal Studios.
Tammy [00:42:20] Yes and Sherri came to our anniversary dinner and met our family.
Sherri [00:42:22] I came to their anniversary dinner and it was just so wonderful. All the kids are there. I think maybe. Was everybody there?
Tammy [00:42:28] Almost I mean, I think almost. There might be one or two. John. I think John was in China.
Sherri [00:42:33] Yeah and so I did in a moment think what was everyone else thinking? Because it’s like it’s clearly it’s the two parents, all these kids, and there’s this black girl brains on the side. It was like, “Huh?”
Tammy [00:42:46] She must be adopted.
Sherri [00:42:50] Something happened in this family that I’m not quite sure how to put these pieces together. But I remember John telling the kids, Thank you for coming and everything. And then I remember you saying to him, I just thought it was the sweetest thing. Thank you for making my dreams come true. And I think that’s just to get on the other side of it, Right? You know what I mean? On the other side of the all the things that go on with being a mother to get on the other side. That was a dream. That was beautiful. And I think it’s important for moms to know that time is coming.
Tammy [00:43:25] Yes.
Sherri [00:43:25] Right?
Tammy [00:43:26] Yeah. And quicker than you can even imagine.
Jackie [00:43:28] Oh, I see it. I believe it.
Tammy [00:43:30] Yeah. I feel like I had my last baby a couple of years ago and she’s 19 and away at college. Like, how did that happen? So, yeah, it does. And I know sometimes people get tired of being told, “Oh, it’s going to go by so fast” when they’re in the messy middle, when when they’re in the hard stuff, they don’t feel like that’s what they want to hear. But I will say to them, as a mom coming from that place, what I’m really saying to you is, Oh, enjoy this because you’re going to miss it and so really enjoy it. Don’t wish it away. Sure. You don’t enjoy everything about being a mom. But try to in those times find that joy when you can.
Sherri [00:44:06] I asked if she had one last piece of advice, like if you were standing in front of her, you young mom was standing in front of her. What is the last piece of advice she would want to give you? Kind of goes along with what she just said. It’s so good. She was looking you right in the eye. She said she’d say this.
Tammy [00:44:22] I would say relax. I tell my homeschooling friends this. Like, when we have the responsibility for our children’s education, when we’ve taken that on, we we feel this need for it to be a certain thing. And I think we do that with mothering, too, where it should look like a certain thing. I should be doing this a certain way. I should what we already said about comparison, it should look like this. Instead, we just need to relax, enjoy that season of life, the season of life here, and enjoy your kids. Enjoy the Lord, enjoy what He’s doing, enjoy, enjoy His creation. And I think that not being not being overly concerned that you’re going to mess up because you will just kind of accept it. Yeah, I’m going to mess up. When we dropped Anna off at college and we were discussing what her concerns, where she said, one of the things she said was our and we were trying to take it to its obvious conclusion What’s the worst thing that can happen? “I’ll be a failure.” And we were like, “That’s okay, because we failed a lot.” So as a mom, I think we’re so afraid we’re going to fail our kids. And the reality is, if you’ve entrusted them, entrusted them to the Lord, they’re His anyway. And you can trust Him. You can trust Him that you’re making the right decisions when you know you didn’t make the right decision. You can trust Him. I talk about Him filling in the gaps for me all the time. The times when I was sick, pregnant, and couldn’t really care for them. Like I said, the times when the laundry piled up, you couldn’t get in the laundry room and there was so much laundry to be done that that I could just relax in Him. That was okay. That was just stuff. These are just this is just now. This isn’t forever.
Jackie [00:45:57] Yeah. Oh, that’s so good. I know. I needed that. Thank you.
Sherri [00:46:01] All right, friends, we’re going to end it right here. Now, I have to tell you, next episode is a very, very special episode. All of them are special, but the next episode is with the one and the only Miss Bev.
Jackie [00:46:14] Woo!
Sherri [00:46:15] That’s my momma. And I’ve done this career my whole life, and I don’t think I’ve ever interviewed her once.
Jackie [00:46:21] Really?
Sherri [00:46:22] Never.
Jackie [00:46:23] She does not disappoint.
Sherri [00:46:24] She doesn’t. Were you shocked? I mean, you’ll hear it in a little bit next next week. But were you shocked whenever she sat down and she started talking, I was like, “wow, my mom is actually bringing it. She is doing this.”
Jackie [00:46:36] Yeah. She did not hold back it was a really good conversation.
Sherri [00:46:40] You have had. I mean, obviously we’re friends and we’ve had meals together with my mom and everything, so it wasn’t like the first time you’ve seen her, but she was just really in the moment.
Jackie [00:46:49] Yeah, I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I was very, very thankful that she just opened up.
Sherri [00:46:54] Yeah. So people who listen to the Brant Hanson Show and the Brand Sherri Oddcast, shameless plug. You’ve heard me talk about my mom is Bev and how wise she is. And people have asked, Can you have her on the show? And she’s always said no, right? But she agreed to do this, so she’ll be on next week. And my nana is joining her as well.
Jackie [00:47:17] They are very special ladies.
Sherri [00:47:18] They are my Nana is her sister, but she helped raise us also my godmother. So Miss Bev and Nana next week. You don’t want to miss that. Thanks so much for listening. Guys, we appreciate you. Please, if you would, would you share this with someone, share this series. I hope it’s a blessing to you. I hope you know some moms to whom it will be a blessing. Maybe you’re related to someone who’s in and you’re like, “Whoa, there goes my cousin.” Yes, please share and also subscribe. That helps us out a lot and write us and leave comments. That’s awesome too. If you want to get in touch with me personally, if you’re like, I like this and I like a thing, you said Sherri, S-H-E-R-R-I, at Snacks and Good Company dot com or if you have something nice to say, that’s great as well. Sherri at snacks and good company dot com. This is presented by purposely produced by me sound design by Lauren Tone Kirkland Music by Matt Mason of Mason Haven Music. Thank you Matt. Art designed by Natori Marketing. Social media by Chenessa Scholer. Multimedia and photography by James Brunson. And we recorded the majority of our recording was done in Christian FM studios in Vero Beach, Florida. Thank you all so much and we’ll see you next time.
Sound Design by Lauren Tone Kirkland Music by Matt Mason of Mason Haven Music Art Design by Natori. Marketing Social Media by Janessa Schuller, Multimedia Photography by James Brunson. And we recorded the majority of this podcast in the Christian FM studios in sunny Vero Beach, Florida. Thank you so much for joining us, friends. 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.”
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