340 | DA+3 Group Guide: Jeremy Pryor
Episode Description
The way you parent today impacts multiple generations. In this week’s DA+3 Group Guide, you’ll hear Jeremy Pryor’s vision for multi-generational families with a clear identity. Get instant ideas to foster family relationships, train your children for their future roles, and integrate your work into your fatherhood role.
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Jeremy Pryor is a business owner, creative entrepreneur, author, podcaster, and builder of multiple movements with family at the core. Jeremy and his wife have five children and reside in a multigenerational home near Cincinnati, Ohio.
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· Multi-Generational Family: Raise your children to be excellent parents to your grandchildren. Parent with that third generation in mind.
· The Need for a Fatherhood Archetype: Scripture provides a blueprint for the ideal father, and it’s not always what today’s culture praises.
· Training: Approach fatherhood like a coach, training your children for their future roles rather than just focusing on short-term behavior correction.
· Integrate Work and Family Identity: View your work as an extension of your role within your family, not as a separate identity.
· Family Friendships: Socialize your children within family and community settings, not just with peers.
DA+3 Group Guide Discussion Questions:
When you think about your kids becoming parents, what parenting characteristics do you want them to have?
What specific actions do you need to take to raise your kids to be great parents to your grandkids?
How do you think society views the role of a father in today’s culture?
What characteristics of Abraham do you think are most important to emulate as a dad?
What shifts do you need to make to train your children for their future roles rather than focusing on short-term behavior corrections?
How can you ensure that your family’s values are a central part of your family identity?
Have you ever fallen into the trap of viewing your work as a separate identity instead of an extension of your role within your family?
Why do you think integrating your work and family identity is important?
How can we encourage our children to build strong relationships with their siblings and family members?
What are some practical ways to socialize your kids within your family and community—instead of just with peers and friends their own age?
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Podcast Intro: [00:00:01] Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a Dad I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where He teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm gonna give it my all.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:00:38] What's up guys? Welcome back to DadAwesome. Episode 340, coming at you with the next part of our DA+3 group guides. So this is our summer series, activating you to get some other Dads together, the DadAwesome way, is in brotherhood, having conversations, encouraging one another, challenging one another, sharing the wins, sharing the heartaches. Guys, we are better dads if we take this theme, this topic, this growth area into conversations, into groups. And we've designed this short summer series to help be a tool to get you guys having some great conversations. So, episode 340, today, we have Jeremy Pryor. Now last summer I did a two part series, these were actually both long parts. It was like an hour and a half of content between the two episodes. Such, I mean, there are so many takeaways. This was difficult for me to look back through and say, what are my top five? But here's my top five takeaways from Jeremy Pryor. And the links to the full episode is going to be in the show notes. You certainly can check that out. By the way, before I hit the top five, I'm wearing my Spartan, this Spartan Super 10K t shirt, I'm wearing my Dad, my Fathers for the Fatherless hat. We've just released two opportunities in Dallas, Texas. So if you're in Texas or are within an airplane flight of Texas, Dallas is like the easiest city to fly in to ever. We're, we're launching two Fathers for the Fatherless events. One on Saturday, October 19th and one on Sunday, October 20th. I'm going to take part in both of them. This is the 10K, the 6 mile, Spartan event. We'll have a team doing that event. And then the beast is the half marathon obstacle course race. Guys, join me, we've got a team in Dallas, but we're also, I already know of guys in Minnesota and guys in Northeast Florida flying in to join. This will be our last event of the year, likely the event that will push our team over the $1 million raised for our partners who directly serve the fatherless. And it's going to be our 32nd Fathers for the Fatherless event over the last six years. So just want to encourage you guys, the link's in the show notes, we'll have all the information, but the registration is now open to join our Spartan team. Okay, here we go, top five takeaways. Top five. The first one is multi-generational family. This is like when you talk to Jeremy Pryor, when you read any of his stuff, he's thinking multi-generational. He said the goal here, the aim as parents is to help raise children that are amazing parents to your grandkids. So if you think about your grandkids, instead of thinking about just raising great kids, think about raising great parents of your future grandkids. He also talked about the idea that often the second generation is spoiled. So, he says the first generation works with the second generation to bless the third generation. He designed and has named his entire real estate arm of what he does, he does is Third Generation Rentals, or Third Generation Real Estate. All in mind, of he's thinking about the third generation. He's trying to build strategically, he's building a root structure. He talked about creating a family identity and having stories, pass down stories that help create, man, this is our identity. This is what makes my family, the family that I have. So, so this idea of storytelling, passing down and hard work is a part of this. He really wants to instill hard work in a longer generational time frame thinking. So there's a lot there with multigenerational family. The second takeaway is the need for a fatherhood archetype. And he's got a great example here of, I ask a couple questions about Bluey, the cartoon Bluey versus Abraham in the Bible being this, this fatherhood like archetype. So here's what Jeremy has to say about that. The Australian cartoon Bluey, as I think about that cartoon and my girls, my daughters watching and, the playfulness, the, also even some of the work that we've done at DadAwesome of just celebrating dads, getting down on their hands and knees and playing, looking their kids in the eyes, like really being present and playful. There is many movements, there's an overcompensating and there's a oh, there's too much focus here and not enough long term. That's a lot of short term focus, is the playful dad. And now instead of the deadbeat dad or maybe that's not the right term, but the dad who's hardly around or or is angry, right. Now we have playful dad. And then, but you're calling for a longer vision of third generation thinking, fatherhood. Can you share a little bit about some of the shadow side to the Bluey dad, which his name is Bandit, right?
Jeremy Pryor: [00:05:24] Right, Bandit. Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:25] Yeah. Would you take us into a little of that?
Jeremy Pryor: [00:05:27] Yeah. Well, I think, I think as fathers, especially for men who are trying to be fathers who have maybe not had a great experience with their dads. We need an archetype, as a father, to follow. We need a, we need a picture. Because I don't know, I don't know what this is. I know what this role looks like. And so I just, one of the things I, I have latched onto very strongly is Abraham as that archetype of a father. I've studied over and over and over again all the narratives in the scriptures about Abraham. Again, you have to every time you read Abraham, you have to hear the word father Ab in Hebrew is Father Abraham, exalted Father Abraham, father of many nations. When Jesus referred to Abraham, He called him Father Abraham. And, and so this is, this is the way we should think of him. I say that because most Protestants, you know, most Christians, we don't see Abraham primarily as a father. We see him as a sort of a character or a man of faith, that's really how I was often, you know, sort of he was described. And so when you're marinating in, in a, in an archetypal father, and I don't think that Abraham is the perfect father, he's the meta father. He, his, his failures and his, his successes were really indicative of of fatherhood and the way that fathers work and relate to God especially, but also to their families. So then you, you're, you're marinating in that, trying to figure out what that looks like, you know, really immersed in cultures in the Middle East where you're seeing these kinds of fathers just naturally as a part of the culture. And then you see another archetype. You see you see a Bandit, and it's like instantly very dissonant. But I, but then when I talk to most dads in our culture, they're like, no, that's like they nailed it. Like, Bandit is like the perfect father. And so I'm like wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, yes, he's way better than that neglectful father that I think was being promoted. And so, is this progress? Absolutely. Like, I think it's great that, you know, we have shows now where, where fathers aren't being denigrated, where they're being celebrated. And so there's a lot of things I think are cool about Bluey. But, but is he a good archetypal father? No, he's a good archetypal mother. And that's, that's what I, that's that's what people need to understand. If we have a blueprint or a map for what this looks like, and then I think that's immediately very offensive to people, they're like, there is no such thing as an archetypal father or an archetypal mother. And I'm like, yeah, not if you, but if you're a believer, we have that in Scripture. And so, not not to put like huge restrictions or too much into this, but in terms of like, we don't want to put so much into that archetype that, that it restricts people, in some way that they're wired to do things by the Lord. But I do think that when you look at the trend, I've basically been tracking a trend over the, you know, the last like ten years. And the trend has been to represent the new ideal father as the traditional mother, right. So the traditional mother was very present, you know, very empathetic, you know, right there meeting the needs of kids. And, and so this, this idea of that traditional mother, I began to see that when, when there have been positive descriptions or symbolic, positive descriptions of the father, he would be, that that mother.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:08:50] The third takeaway, this week, is training. Am I approaching the dad life with a training? Like a coach would approach training my kids training, having a training plan. When you start training, they're not going to be good at it right away. Well, I failed today at training because I brought expectations to my four daughters, in getting out the door. And I've been talking about this, I've drawn up some ideas. How do I train my girls on the getting out the door plan? The rhythm, the way that works as a family to get everyone out the door into the van. I was helping my wife load the girls up, and I found myself being so impatient, so sharp with my words. So just kind of nagging. It's because I haven't trained my girls on the out the door plan. So I'm sharing it with you guys because I need some accountability. I want to train my girls on the out the door plan. Train them, this is how we do dinner together. Train for the bedtime plan. Train my girls. What does it look like to host a family in our house? Hosting. How do I create a training plan? They go from modeling to showing to helping to empowering. Training our kids is a huge takeaway from this conversation. The fourth one is integrating work with our family identity. In his statement, he said, hey, work is an extension of your role within the family. Not a separate identity. So this idea of work, I actually have a friend that lives down in this area of Northeast Florida that has actually restarted his career. He, he, he stopped doing what he was doing, he made a plan, and he launched a new business specifically around wanting to tie together a closer integration between work and family identity. So there's a lot here. He has masterclasses on this topic of man work and family identity and bringing the two together. A lot there, great conversation points, though for you guys around that. The last thing is family relationships, the school structure, what we have in our, in our country and really the school structure globally, has, has put peer relationships, the same age, and it really put a lot of focus on, man, does my ten year old have ten year old friends? Does she have her friends that are the same age and it's elevated the same age friendships versus within the family friendships and he just challenged that. And I've been chewing on this quite a bit. And I've seen as our family lives for about two and a half years in the RV, traveling the country with the ministry DadAwesome, is, is man, I've seen friendships between my daughters blossom, grow so much deeper, so much more laughter between them and encouragement between them and care between them and the friendships are deeper. And I don't think that happens if, if we all have our separate activities in our own separate classes and our own separate, and then again, there's challenges based on where you at and how many kids you have. You have one child and of course that going to need friendships outside. But, he just really encouraged, let's think about the level that we're valuing, inter-friendships between siblings and just the strength of that and just want to challenge and encourage you guys to really pray on, man, how can we foster deeper friendships between our kids? So, regardless of the age gap, like there can be deeper friendships. So those are the top five takeaways from Jeremy Pryor. The ten discussion questions, the group guide part of this is going to be in your podcast app, along with it's right at YouTube. And, and all that information is at dadawesome.org as well. Again, I mentioned this earlier, but I'm wearing this shirt. I'm wearing the hat promoting the Dallas Spartan Fathers for the Fatherless event. Man, we're excited to rally this team to raise funds for our local and global partners that are directly serving the fatherless. So definitely check out the show notes and the link to join that team. Thanks for listening. Have some great conversations with other dads this week.
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· 8:12 - "I've been tracking a trend over the last ten years, and the trend has been to represent the new ideal father as the traditional mother. The traditional mother was very present, very empathetic, right there meeting the needs of kids. This idea of that traditional mother, I began to see that when there have been positive descriptions or symbolic, positive descriptions of the father, he would be that mother."
· 11:45 - "Let's think about the level that we're valuing, inter-friendships between siblings and just the strength of that. I just want to challenge and encourage you guys to really pray on, how can we foster deeper friendships between our kids? Regardless of the age gap there can be deeper friendships."
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