364 | Bedtime Blessings, Birthday Letters, and 5 Simple but Life-Changing Habits (Justin Whitmel Earley: Part 1)
Episode Description
Justin Whitmel Earley is back with creative fatherhood tips, powerful daily rituals, and his top five habits for dads. From writing yearly letters to your kids to starting every day with Scripture, this episode is packed with wisdom to help you lead your family with love and intentionality.
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Justin Whitmel Earley is a lawyer, author, and speaker from Richmond, Virginia. His books include The Common Rule, Habits of the Household, Made for People, and more. Justin is married to Lauren and has four sons: Whit, Asher, Coulter, and Shep.
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· You are a citizen of Heaven.
· Write a yearly letter to your child on their birthday that you can give to them when they’re older.
· Your primary responsibility is to lead your family with confidence in God's love and sovereignty over your lives.
· Read Scripture before you look at your phone each morning.
· Taking care of your body is a spiritual task.
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· Send a Voice Message to DadAwesome
· Apply to join the next DadAwesome Accelerator Cohort: Email awesome@dadawesome.org
· Subscribe to DadAwesome Messages: Text the word “Dad” to (651) 370-8618
· The Common Rule by Justin Whitmel Earley
· Habits of the Household by Justin Whitmel Earley
· Made for People by Justin Whitmel Earley
· Subscribe to Justin’s Newsletter
· 253 | Reframing Your Parenting with New Habits (Justin Earley)
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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 me 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.
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:00:39] For those nights that had gone sideways when things were not going as planned. We still want to do a short bedtime prayer. It was going to be quick and it was going to be funny. And we would just say, Dear Lord may this boy laugh for joy all his days. And as as we were doing it, just tickle at first, Yeah, until you get the I can't breathe signal, dear Lord, may this boy laugh for joy all his days. Amen.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:01:05] Welcome back to DadAwesome. Guys, my name is Jeff Zaugg and today, Episode 364, it's the first half of my conversation with Justin Whitmel Earley. Justin was with us a couple of years ago. Very popular, very helpful, very downloaded episode, like there's so much helpful wisdom. In fact, we share his resources, his book, Habits of the Household, his his book Made For People, his different challenges, his email list. I'm always sharing his content. And it was like, Man, it's been a couple of years, let's get it back on for some targeted DadAwesome advice, wisdom. And this is a fire hose, guys. That's why we broke into two parts. So, we got about 22 minutes today and then 22 more minutes next week for episode 365. Two quick invitations for you guys as we head into today's conversation. The first is the DadAwesome Accelerator. Seven years of what we've learned at DadAwesome, condensed down into a six week sprint. So, we only invite ten dads to be a part of this. So it's a cohort of ten dads and we're going to journey for six weeks with just a one hour zoom call, once a week, and then you'll have about three hours of homework, put it into action, grow in being DadAwesome for your family. We extended the deadlines. The applications are due at the end of this month, the end of January, you need to apply, prayerfully apply, and then we will be launching that in early February. So we pushed it back a little bit, the new Year, Christmas, busy season. And we just want to give you guys a chance to apply, be a part of this next cohort. So email awesome@dadawesome.org to get all the information about the DadAwesome Accelerator. The second quick invitation is if you're not receiving text messages from DadAwesome, we would love to make sure you're in the loop. We're going to start ramping up the helpful, quick, short nuggets, these short text messages that will encourage you to be DadAwesome and it's free. You just have to text the number 651-370-8618. Of course this is in the show notes, so it's just fun as a radio voice to do it 651-370-8618, and just text the word "DAD" and you will be subscribed and we will hook you up with some ongoing encouragement right to your text message. Okay, let's jump in, this the first half, this is episode 364 with Justin Whitmel Earley. Thought as a fun launch in point, this conversation is to go to Shanghai, China, and I'm not sure there may or may not be parallels to the dad life, cultural things or anything you may have picked up. How many years did you live there, Justin?
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:03:57] I lived in Shanghai for the better part of five years, so like a little over four.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:04:01] Yeah. And you were not a dad? Did you have kids over there? I don't think, until you got back, right?
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:04:05] No, no, no, no. We came back and my wife was pregnant. So my oldest was made in China, as it were. But that might TMI.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:04:13] Was there any, just anything that you reflect back on cultural or just things you may have picked up that you are able to like bring into fatherhood or might be you could draw from and bring a parallel principle for us dads? Anything that, top of mind?
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:04:28] From my time in Shanghai, China?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:04:30] Yeah.
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:04:31] You know, the most significant thing about my time in China was making me realize that I was more of a citizen of heaven than of America because it was the first time that I lived in exile anywhere. You know, and been a minority, so to speak, and it really shaped the way that I interact with America, I think in a great way. You know, it just it made me understand that I'm a citizen of the Kingdom first. And I think often about trying to give my kids that experience at some point. I don't know that's something that you can teach alone. I think you can talk to your kids a lot about your country, patriotism, how to do it well, how it can go too far, why you need it in the first place. But I always want to give them that experience. And the fact is, Jeff, China has changed a lot. I used to think that we would take them back to China, that we'd lived there for a year, maybe at some point their childhood. Right now, I don't think that would be a responsible decision. China has changed a lot and it's actually quite risky to, to go there in a way that it wasn't when I was a missionary there. So that is something I will long to teach my children and long for them to experience. And that's probably the most significant thing that I think of when it comes to China.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:51] Yeah. Yeah. I'm reading with my girls, Pilgrim's Progress and thinking about, you know, thinking about the Celestial City versus like a citizen of where, you know, little, little Christian was from. And I just my heart jumps there of how can I, besides reading to my girls, how can I give them that experience of being in another like a citizen of heaven, but yet living here and...
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:06:14] Yes.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:06:14] All the interplays.
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:06:16] I mean, I think to the extent you can, you know, international missions trips are a wonderful thing to give your children. We haven't done them yet, they're just not quite old enough yet. But my wife and I were actually talking about it just maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago. We were asking, how can we put this on the radar soon? Just take them out of the country to see the global church in another country. And, you know, I think it's a gift. I think in the meantime, reading is a great, is a great way to travel to other lands and reading Pilgrim's Progress, gosh, traveling to other eras and reading other writers. Which version are you reading, by the way?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:06:51] So I wish I had it handy, again, for people that don't know, it's written 400 years ago and it is the kids version, but not the picture, the chapter book. So I'll have to link in the show notes which one. But it's my second time through it with the girls and even my three and a half year old, it's capturing her. And we last night had to do like five chapters because we were in a sequence of chapters that were just too scary we had to read through.
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:07:16] That's wonderful.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:07:17] So just for our listeners who had didn't catch the first time I interviewed you a couple of years ago just as an introduction. I mean, you've got four boys. They're just a little bit older than my four girls. When the questions asked of, Hey, are you bummed you didn't have a girl? Or I get this question to ask the flip side of it all the time. But how do you answer the question of like, four boys? Are you still trying for the girl? How do you answer that?
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:07:41] Yeah, you get asked a lot. I'm absolutely bummed that I don't have a girl. I was really, really hoping we'd have a girl on number three and number four, so I'll get pretty misty eyed when I see other dads talk about, you know, walking down there, walking their daughters down the aisle or thinking about that stuff/ but at the same time, it feels like this calling to figure out how to raise men and to speak into that, which has been a tremendous joy. So, yes, I'm sad we don't have a girl, on the other hand, I'm very excited, energized by I feel like the prompting from the Lord to lean into how to raise boys and how to form men. And while my oldest is only 12, you know, we're really at the beginning of that journey. I think about that a lot. I look forward to almost certainly one day trying to write about masculinity and forming boys into men. So it's a lot of fun, Jeff, I mean, we have a ton of fun in our house where we've adopted the mantle of being like the the dynamic of the single gender family, as I'm sure you with four girls. You know, it's a thing, you know, when you have a single gender family like that.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:08:56] Yeah. I always say it's like, it's my best life like a biked to the coffee shop with the girls this morning walking in, they're like, Wait, you have four daughters? It's like, yeah, and loving it and loving it. But yeah, I actually pray a lot. I pray more often for dads of boys than I pray for, you know, dads of girls. Cause I'm like, I'm just praying like, that's part of why I started DadAwesome. Like, selfishly, I'm just like, God, I want to see dads, see this role is such a gift and see the role of raising specifically those dads of boys. There's four boys out there that I'm praying for often. And yeah, anyway, that aside. I want to talk about tickling for a moment. And, and the...
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:09:34] I would love to.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:09:35] Of course there's wrestling, there's tickling. But you specifically have brought tickling in with some intentionality around blessing your boys. Can you talk about that tickle blessing concept?
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:09:46] Well, we do bedtime blessings a lot, and those have just been a gift. If anybody's read my book, Habits of the Household, you'll know this, we sort of start with the story of bedtime and blessings. But for anybody who hasn't, you know, I started writing about parenting because of a bedtime gone wrong, really.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:10:01] Yeah. Yeah.
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:10:02] And realizing at bedtime that there was, you know, everybody is on their worst behavior, including me and everybody's tired. And it was a time that so often triggered my frustration and anger and just general, like, impatience with them. And doing bedtime blessings was not only really helpful for them because kids love routines, especially embodied ones to the extent that bedtime blessings can and lots of them do involve touching or tucking in. But they were really helped me too. They really helped me because I needed this sort of, I would call it habit as a liturgy to shape my spirit into a meaningful moment of patience and love with them. And so, they've been super helpful in general, but the reality is that bed times are still bed times and you know, you can try to send them a sentimental all you want, but lots of them are still really messy and difficult. And so one of the ways that I started to realize, I could both control the moment, but with a lot of laughter was actually just by tickling because they at least my boys, I think this is probably true of most kids. They love to be arrested. They love to be wrestled. They love to be handled. They love to be loved. They love to be held close. And tickling accomplishes a lot of that at once. And so one of the ways that I was finding at bedtime, instead of getting gruff and being angry, if if they weren't listening or they're trying to escape, is I just take them a tick them, you know, put them in their bed and just start tickling them. As sort of a way to win the fight, but with a lot of laughter. And then we started actually incorporating it into blessings. So we have a couple of bedtime blessings. So. we we have one that's a blessing for the body. We have one that's a gospel blessing. We have other sorts of, tons of blessings I could, I could tell you about. But one of them became the tickle blessing, which was just for those nights that had gone sideways where things were not going as planned. We still want to do a short bedtime prayer, but it was going to be quick and it was getting funny. And we would just say, Dear Lord, make this boy laugh for joy all his days. And as, as we were doing, just tickle first, yeah, until you get the I can't breathe signal. And I don't know, one, I just love that because lots of times they'll ask for it. Like my little, my littlest, Shepherd, will often be like, Can we do tickle blessing? Like he'll just say, get ready, he's like, Can we do it? So it's been so, it's so good for us. And I don't know, I think there's a real spark of truth there that, like, I'm often hoping what I'm praying for them as I'm praying, but sometimes I'm not ,and tickel blessing is one way you really get to just watch them laugh for joy. And it's sort of a prayer where you say, I hope this sort of mirth, excitement and love bubbles up into the rest of their life and not just in childhood. So, tickling is a great tool, and it's also a great liturgy.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:13:03] Yes. I feel like when my, when my daughters are not taking tickling too far because that they don't like me at that point. But when it's just like this delightful squealing, laughter, I like physically and deep in my heart and in my eyes and the way I'm gazing like I'm enjoying them, I am enjoying them in that moment. And so to add with your words, can you, one more time, say what you pray for them as you tickle?
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:13:32] Yeah. It's, it's very short. We say, Dear Lord, may this boy laugh for joy all his days. Amen. And the tickling comes in and between.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:13:42] Yes.
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:13:42] You know, as much as you want.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:13:44] Yes. And I mean, to go the deeper side of that, though, I think was Proverbs 31 talks about we'll laugh at the times, like basically like joy's a choice, Valley moments and like success like, rocking it moments and, and that would be deep within them of like if they're going to laugh with joy not laugh with perfect circumstances. Yeah, that's, yes that's so good. Another just tactical like a lot of this conversation, Justin, I'm just grateful to be able to pick and choose from your, a couple of your books that I've read to some other kind of initiatives you've watched and shared. I'm on your email list, so I'm gathering insights from you all the time, and I recommend it to all of our, all of our dads. But the letter to your boys on their birthday in the process of fun and interview, almost like a like a playful interview, right. And then into a keep forever letter or keep until you give when they're older. Would you explain kind of how, how, how long have you been doing that? I mean and, and then what is kind of the process?
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:14:42] Yeah, probably 4 or 5 years, if I'm remembering right. We've been doing a birthday tradition and we just go out to breakfast. This is the beginning of the birthday tradition, which kind of like tickle blessing, I think you'll see a Marriage of, you know, the fun of childhood and the meaning of parenting. And I think that's some of our best parenting habits. And that's, you know, what I write about and think about most habits that turn into traditions, that turn into the normal culture of your family. How they can take the fun and overlay it with meaning such that you're doing something that you've wanted to do, or your kids are doing something that they enjoy. And so the birthday tradition starts with just a pancake breakfast. I mean, so for, you know, one of the four boys, it's kind of a privilege to get to go out with one of the parents. I mean, doesn't happen often. You know, usually we're traveling with a pack. So already it's kind of special. Then it's like, you know, order whatever you want. You do hot chocolate with extra whipped cream, the pancakes with the sprinkles. We usually, we go to IHOP or First Watch or some other local breakfast place in Richmond. And so they're having a blast just in general, and they always look forward to their birthday breakfast. And I am, in the meantime, I always bring my journal and at that breakfast they know that the price of admission is they get all these pancakes because they're going to have to answer my questions. And while we eat, I ask them simple questions like, What is your favorite food? Who's your favorite brother to play with right now? What's your favorite game? What's your favorite sport? What's your favorite book to read with Mama? Just all these sorts of like favorites, like Best and Worst just thinks superlatives. Ask them tons of just fun questions. They start to track a little deeper as we go and then say, you know, who's your best friend right now at school or who's somebody you're having trouble with right now at school? What do you, what are you afraid of when you lay down or what do you dream about? What, what tends to, you know, as they sort of get older, I'll try to ask them questions like what, what makes you nervous? What do you worry about? What do you think God thinks of you? I often ask them, I think every year I ask them what expression is God wearing on His face when you picture Him? And just try to start to get at some of the deeper stuff in their life to be, to be clear, you know, in the younger years, they're not great at answering this stuff, but that's okay. You know, they can just be like, I don't know if that's fine. But I take all that and later that night or maybe a week later, I'll write them a letter and some of it will just be telling them back, you know, their lives. Like, here's what you loved. Here's what you said you were worried about. Here's what you said you dreamed about. Here's, you know, even at the age of four, you said God was smiling when you picture Him. Fun stuff like that. But I'll also just tell them about what we're doing in life. You know, I tell them like, okay, we're, we moved this year, you might not even remember our old house. You know, me and Mama were stressed about this or that. We, we've, we've worked through this. We've been praying for this. And the key is I'm trying to write a letter to their adult selves. One, to give them a history of themselves to remember, but two, to just start a almost dialog legacy of, you know, talking to them like the friend that I hope they become, you know, like the brother in Christ that I hope they become. And this has been a practice for me to expect that to pass on that legacy. I've given, I'll give them to them when it feels right. I think probably around the age of 18 or 20, I don't know, it could be earlier. But what I want to do, one day is hand them a childhood of letters and say, Here you can read about yourself and, you know, hopfully I keep writing them. I don't know. But it's been a really, really wonderful way to mark their birthdays with some rich meaning and connection.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:36] Thanks for kind of walking us through the process. And of course, every dad can make this their own, but the intentionality of the moment and then with creating something for a future moment.
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:18:49] Yeah and I think, I think getting in the habit of writing to your children is a really significant thing. It's not something you tend to think about when they're young. You start to think about it when they're older. That's why I think this is such a gift and you can use birthdays, you can do it in any way, but you can use birthdays as a way to spark it. And really, if you think about it, one letter to a child a year is not a big ask.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:19:11] Right?.
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:19:12] It'll mean the world to them one day to know who you were at that time and to know how you talked and how you relate.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:19:20] Right. Thank you for kind of outlining and inspiring all of us with that yearly rhythm with each your boy's. Last conversation, a couple of years ago, we had really focused on Habits of the Household, this book and all of the, all that was within that. I actually did a special kind of for small groups of dads, for dads to come together and dialog, I did my top five takeaways of seven, eight episodes last summer, so I picked yours as one of them and just as a quick fly over. Yeah, it was, it was fun for me to relisten and say what are my takeaways? And, and so they were new day, new start. They were pause prayers, morning huddles, bedtime rituals and reconciliation rituals. So those were, as I kind of dialed in our last conversation, some of the top, some of my top takeaways and then explained and kind of explained how those would apply. And of course, all the dads can go back and listen to either that or the first conversation.
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:20:15] Yeah. Go back and listen to that. Those are all, those are all great things that have been super helpful to me.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:20:20] Well, they're, and you've written a whole book that encompasses and then you chatted, of course, with me and shared those. But then shortly after I recorded that, you released Hey, if I'm a Dad, he's like, for the dads out there, here's my top five, like, hey, like these are for me, my top five habits. And I thought we'd spend a little time dialoging on your top five from all the research you've done and multiple books written on habits. So you said read every morning, exercise most days, pray at morning, noon, night, see friends once a week and date your wife. Which at a first pass, it's like, well, somebody listening might say, you know, there's nothing brilliant there. But would you just unpack a little bit of why distilling to simple habits for dads and how the ripple effect of why these five have made such a difference for you?
Justin Whitmel Earley: [00:21:10] Yes, And I would echo the voice of whoever, you know, out there saying that there's nothing brilliant there. It's true. There's nothing, there's nothing brilliant there. But they are simple fundamentals that we mostly don't do because, like because we're looking for something more brilliant. Reading every morning, one of the most important flips in my life has been what I call scripture before phone as a daily ritual. And if, you know, I talked to, you know, friends who aren't believers, I give talks at law firms and corporations on mental health and habits and, you know, in that case, I'll just say read before you go to your phone. But it's, there's an incredibly formative flip to say, I'm not going to start in the inbox or in social media or in the news, which are all sort of answering some kind of question of what's going on today. What do I need to do today? Which is a very, honestly, very unhealthy way to start your day. Because our hearts, you know, we have a God shaped hole in our heart. And we're constantly wondering over and over, particularly at the beginning of the day, you know, who am I today and who do I need to become today in order to be loved or lovable? And if we start with those things in our face, a lot of times we think that's what we need to do. You know, we need to accomplish this or that at work to feel good about our day. So starting in Scripture, it's been an incredibly formative habit to say that I am loved, thus I can go out and return love to the world. I don't need to go out to earn it. Not in my job, not in my family, not in my marriage, not in anything. I can go out and give love because I am first love. And that is a, I would say as a dad, that is probably your first responsibility to walk into the world of your family, sas someone who is confident in the love of Jesus and the sovereignty of God over your life and your children's lives so that you can be that non anxious presence of love. Because if you're not caring for yourself that way, better put, if you're not letting yourself be discipled by Jesus in that way, then gosh, it's going to be a tough road to hoe discipling your family that way. And so there's just so much of our gift of parenting, a gift of being a husband, a gift to being a father comes first from receiving the gift of God's fatherhood to us. And so, yeah, I'm dwelling for a long time on this, first to read. But honestly, I think there's few things that are more important than right there. Read before you go to your phone, read scripture before you go to your phone. It can be short. Just do it. So that's number one. Number two, and this has become increasingly important to me, Jeff, in the past six, seven years is exercise most days. And if you could take what I just said about kind of shepherding your mind and soul, if you will. I could nuance these terms a lot. But your mind, your mental life, your spiritual life by, by being in the scriptures regularly. You need to steward your physical life because that is not separate from your spiritual life. And so if one of these things were more important than we could leave one of them off, but they're not, you need to take care of both. God made you as a physical and spiritual union of a thing called a human being. We bear a physical life and it matters. It is not to be ignored. And even that, I have to say, it matters, is woefully short of the biblical vision for a human person. I mean, He made us to be embodied. He saved us with our bodies by His body. Let me say that again, He made us with bodies on purpose. He saved us by His body. He's going to redeem us and resurrect us to new bodies. So bodies matter. And taking care of your body so that you can love well is an incredibly spiritual task. And lots of that, I think, for fathers comes through just some sort of regimen of exercise. It doesn't have to be extreme. Our goal is not to become bodybuilders or, you know, the best shape of our lives, but our goal is to be fit to parent, is to be fit to love our families, is to be fit to have a good mood, not to wake up hungover, exhausted, or, you know, in bad eating pattern such that we're just chronically hurting our health, but actually to be fit to the task of loving other people. And then that's, I'll leave it there. You can ask as many questions as you want, but exercise so that you can love other people, period.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:25:36] Guys, thank you for joining us today for episode 364. This is the first half of the conversation, so make sure you tune back in. We are like right in the middle of him bringing his powerful five like, key core habits. So we're going to jump right back in with Justin sharing the additional three habits and a bunch of other practical, helpful dad wisdom. So jump back next week. The show notes for today and the links to his book and links to his social media and other just helpful Dad resources are all going to be at dadawesome.org/podcast and you can find that all at episode 364. Thank you for listening today. Let's put one thing into action. Let's be dads of action versus dads of intent. Let's go after it this week. Cheering for you. Praying for you. We'll see you back next week for part two.
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· 4:33 - "The most significant thing about my time in China was making me realize that I was more of a citizen of heaven than of America because it was the first time that I lived in exile anywhere. Being a minority, so to speak, it really shaped the way that I interact with America, I think in a great way. It made me understand that I'm a citizen of the Kingdom first. I think often about trying to give my kids that experience at some point. I don't know that's something that you can teach alone. I think you can talk to your kids a lot about your country, patriotism, how to do it well, how it can go too far, why you need it in the first place. But I always want to give them that experience. That is something I will long to teach my children and long for them to experience."
· 21:26 - "One of the most important flips in my life has been what I call scripture before phone as a daily ritual. There's an incredibly formative flip to say, I'm not going to start in the inbox or in social media or in the news, which are all sort of answering some kind of question of what's going on today. What do I need to do today? Which is a very unhealthy way to start your day. Because we have a God shaped hole in our heart. And we're constantly wondering over and over, particularly at the beginning of the day, who am I today and who do I need to become today in order to be loved or lovable? If we start with those things in our face, a lot of times we think that's what we need to do. We need to accomplish this or that at work to feel good about our day. So starting in Scripture, it's been an incredibly formative habit to say that I am loved, thus I can go out and return love to the world."
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