Give me a mic check.

One, two, one, two, one, two, one, two.

Mic check one, two.

Sounds good.

Okay.

Welcome to the to dad from dad podcast where we talk about fatherhood.

What went well, what didn't, what we would go back and tell ourselves if we could, and what wisdom we would hope to share with fathers that are coming behind us.

Today's guest is Mr. Fred.

Fred, welcome.

Hey, I'm.

What a pleasure it is to be here today.

Yeah.

So, Fred, some context about how we know each other.

Several years after Whitney and I got married, we found you and Ms. Cynthia in a young, married Sunday school class, although we weren't supposed to call it a Sunday school class at the time.

So it was.

We knew what, we knew what it was.

It was a class on Sunday morning at church.

Right.

And you know, Fred, that ultimately plugged us in with a lot of our lifelong friends that we made here in Tyler, you and Cynthia included.

Yeah.

And so we've known each other for, gosh, going on 13, 14 years now.

But would you mind just, you know, tell us about.

You just kind of set the stage for us.

Tell us about your wife, Ms. Cynthia and your, and your kiddos, what phase of life you're in.

Grandkids.

Just kind of give us some context there.

Wow.

When you're 70 years old, that's, that's opening up.

Yeah.

Pandora's box.

Box.

A little bit.

Yeah.

I am a 70 year old man.

I've been deeply involved in the church.

It's part of my Christian faith, you know, for many years.

And it has been such a blessing to, to get to know people like you and Whitney and, and other young couples who are just starting out in life as, as we tried to influence those young marrieds and, and, and what a blessing that's been and what deep relationships have come out of that.

And it just warms my heart to hear you say what you're saying about your lifelong friends because that's really what we wanted, the class, a place for people to connect for a lifetime because it's working in church ministry is where I've met my closest friends and have continued to be close friends with them for, you know, well over 40 years now.

So, yeah, I am retired.

Was the president of a company that was.

I was originally one of the founders, but I sold to a, to a European company, a German company, and remained after the acquisition, I stayed on as president for 25 years up until I retired.

My wife and I sent.

Cynthia is my wife, and we met actually in the same church we attend now in 1977 when we got married.

Yeah, see, I think we started dating and Valentine's Day I proposed on March 19.

We got married July 1.

So boom, boom, boom, there you go.

Very quickly.

And, and then not long after we were married, we kind of got involved in church ministry and intended to have a family and we worked our hardest at that.

Yeah.

And, and we're not able to get pregnant.

Just had some fertility issues there and, and just, we decided to just throw our life into our, our ministry and we just worked with teenagers and, and developed some very deep friendships.

In fact, one of those 14 year old girls that we were doing ministry with years ago is tonight coming to our house to spend the night with her, her son and his family and her husband.

And that's been many years.

Yeah, and so.

Yeah.

And so, but after a while those kids we were working with went off to college and, and kind of moved on.

And, and it was at that point I considered adoption and Cynthia had already, was already on the adoption train.

Yeah, I was, I was the one who wouldn't get on the train.

But I think God stirred something in my heart and made me change my, my thinking about that.

And, and yeah, we adopted our first daughter and then a year and a half later we adopted our second daughter and that was in 1990 and 1992.

And man, we became strong advocates for adoption.

We, we were very pro adoption.

Yeah.

And very pro life and, and just really value that that baby from conception and have really been involved in ministries that advocate along that way.

And.

Yeah, so.

But that after that it was just like most other families, except for the fact that when our second daughter was about a month old, my wife got diagnosed with breast cancer and stage three and we had to go through, I say we, she primarily, but it affects all of us.

Yeah.

But she went through nine months of chemotherapy or I guess it was just six months of chemotherapy and then another multiple months of radiation after that.

And she got quite, quite ill as a result of all the treatment.

But hey, that was 1992 and now it's 20, 26.

And she's been cancer free all that time, but has had some other health issues.

Yeah.

Primarily associated with her heart since then, but as a result of the chemo.

But we persevere.

You know, God is good.

Yeah.

How old are your daughters now?

Our oldest daughter is 35.

Yes, 35.

And she'll be 36 in October.

And then our younger daughter is 33.

She'll be 34 and in April.

Okay.

Yeah, great.

And they each have three kids, grandkids.

Okay.

My older daughter has two, two, six year old, a four year old and a two year old boy.

Two girls and a boy.

Yeah.

And then my younger daughter has three girls.

Four, three and about six months.

What's your grandpa name?

Granddaddy.

Granddaddy.

I had a granddaddy.

Yeah, I'm a granddaddy.

I like it.

Yeah.

It's funny how granddad names are, can be kind of familial.

Yeah.

I think we like, we like what we grew up with.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

Okay.

So that, so that's my life story.

It's quite a bit, but I didn't get it all out there.

That's great.

I mean, I have so much to talk to you about, Fred.

So let's, let's go back.

One of the things that I wanted to make sure we cover with you today is I know this about you, but being the president of a company for 25 years, you spent a lot of time traveling because being purchased by a European company, I know that you spent a lot of time going over the pond over the years, but you know, we've talked about this a little bit on the show before is how do you balance the necessity of travel for work, the, the demanding nature of work to, to build something professionally to provide for your family with the fact that you're away from your family and you, you bring the work home, you bring the stress home.

Sometimes you're faced with decisions to, to miss things because work's going on.

And man, I just wanted your perspective on how do you, how did you view that?

How did you, did you have any tips, tricks, any things that you tried to do as a result of that?

But could you talk about that a little?

Yeah.

It's certainly painful to be gone as much as I was gone.

And now working for an international company, I had two board meetings every year I had to go to.

And one of them was always in December.

It's always like in the first or second week of December.

And it was always whenever the kids were doing a Christmas play at their school.

So I don't think I ever saw their Christmas place, you know?

Yeah.

And I can think of a couple of soccer games where my daughter was in a really intense competition and, and I was actually the assistant coach for the team.

But sometimes I had to be gone.

And I remember missing those.

Those were painful.

And so without a doubt.

Yeah.

It's just your, sometimes your career requires you to miss things.

Yeah.

But you know, my, you know, my view was always you Know, you make the.

When you're, when you're there, you be there.

You know, you be present and you make the, make the time count.

I. I don't think my daughters really suffered.

Yeah.

From how much I was gone.

I mean, I wasn't gone every week or that's probably gone maybe a week, a month, or maybe a little more than a week.

A month.

Yeah.

But my dad traveled a lot.

He was a chemical engineer and he, he worked for a.

He was actually responsible for sales for a company that sold globally.

And so he traveled all over the world.

And I was like, growing up, I'm like, I don't ever want to travel.

Yeah, I want to.

I'm a kind of a homebody.

My heart did not want to travel.

And.

And I guess the Lord had different plans for me because he put me in a situation where I had to do exactly what my dad did, travel all over the world.

And, and.

But yeah, you know, there are things that probably I missed because my dad traveled so much.

But I say one thing, my wife has been extremely diligent and making sure that all the bases were covered when I was gone, you know.

Yeah.

And.

And that's.

That really helps when you have a wife who is really attentive to making sure the kids are having fun when Daddy's gone and that they're not really missing anything.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Was that ever.

Was the travel ever a point of contention between you and Cynthia?

Like.

No, I don't think so.

I think she understood that was, you know, part of the job, and it was a good job.

You know, I mean.

Yeah, we were.

She didn't, she didn't have to work and, you know, so she was very grateful that I had a job that allowed for her to be home with the kids.

Yeah.

And.

And that's just came along with it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, there's a guy, the folks listening, there's a gentleman.

His name's Stephen, Steve Rinella.

He has a podcast, the Meteor Podcast.

It's a huge.

He's an avid outdoorsman.

He said something that really stuck with me.

I don't travel as much in, in terms of nights away from home now, but there was a period in my career where I was gone, you know, 40, 50, 60 nights a year for probably a four year stint.

And Stephen Rinella said that if you don't want it to be a big deal when you leave, don't expect it to be a big deal when you come home.

And I don't know why, but I really Kind of struggled with that for a while.

But, you know, Whitney and I kind of talked about that.

And during that period of my life, you know, we really tried to focus on not making it a big deal when I would leave and when I would come home.

You know, of course the kids were happy to see me.

And that was that you can't do anything, you know, you know you want.

That is very blessed to have that.

But you know, for really for Whitney more than anything, it was kind of like, hey, we're, you know, know it's not going to be a big thing when I leave and I don't expect a big thing when I come back.

I'm just going to, I'm going to have to step away and then I'm going to have to step right back in.

And the, the thing that stuck with me was, you know, just because I've been gone working for two or three days doesn't mean that when I get home I have a couple of hours to decompress, you know.

Yeah.

Like the decompression time is the three or four hours or the 12 hour flight to get back home.

And then when you walk in the door, it's time to be dad.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Totally agree.

I remember I made one trip to China.

I was gonna be gone for two weeks and Cynthia, they took me to the airport because I just want to leave a car there for two weeks at Tyler Poundsville Airport.

And, and we did not anticipate how our daughters were going to react.

They were very, very upset and very crying and that really made it hard to leave when that happened.

And then when, when I came back, they had, I mean, they're, you know, four, five, six years old.

So they're, they're little minds.

They, they had built.

Created a jail to put me in to confine me.

Yeah.

So that I wouldn't leave again.

Yeah.

You know, so I could tell it, it really, they really, they really missed me on that trip.

But two weeks is a lot longer than four or five days or.

Yeah.

You know, which is more typical.

Yeah.

Well, you mentioned your dad was a chemical engineer.

Let's talk about your dad for a minute.

Sure.

So.

Since we're meeting in the house.

That he built, I was just about to say, for those that are watching, we are actually in a mobile pop up recording studio.

And really fun fact, but we are in a detached garage building that has an office space in it.

And this home site that we're on is actually the house that your dad Built.

Yeah.

Which is really cool.

Back in 1978.

And yeah.

And this, this is extension he built later than that.

He built it kind of so he'd have an office to meet in.

And now our, now our friend office is here.

That's right.

Yeah.

So, you know, when you reflect back on your dad, one of the things that I, I, as we kind of reflect back on, on our dads, one of the things I'm most curious about, Fred, is like what, what, what did you, what was your dad really good at?

Like what, what's what?

Maybe a different way to say that Fred is like what is something that your dad did that you wanted to make sure to carry on or you wanted to be equally as good at?

Does anything stand out to you?

Well, I, I tell you what I had, I was blessed with loving parents.

My dad, you know, he taught me how to fish, taught me how to hunt, enjoyed having me when, even when I was, I mean he put a 22 rifle in my hands when I probably should not have had a 22R in my hands.

You know, I'd be walking behind him.

I'm thinking, I'm not sure I'd want an 11 year old kid with a.22 rifle walking behind me, you know, but.

Yeah, but he, he made, he made a real effort to, to give me a great childhood, you know, and now there, you know, there were times I felt like, sometimes I felt like I was missing out on what other kids were doing.

But it really wasn't so much because he traveled as much as it's because our family, not my family, I mean my extended family, my cousins and have an uncle who's, who's three years older than me and, and we were just so incredibly tight and all lived here in Tyler and just, you know, every weekend did stuff together.

And so my world kind of consisted of my family and so I didn't really have any friendships at school.

And, and I remember one time the, some kids at school were talking about baseball practice.

I'm kind of like, baseball practice?

What's, what's that about?

Yeah, what's that about?

I like to play baseball and.

But I think we're so wrapped up with our family that we didn't, they didn't really expose me to other things that were going on, you know, in the, the community that a boy my age might have been involved in.

Yeah.

So.

Well, you know, same, same question, but kind of the inverse is when you have reflected back on your upbringing, you know, maybe not specifically your dad or your, you know, what, what did you, Was there, Was there anything that you wanted to do differently and that.

Look, I want to be clear, that doesn't mean that your parents did anything wrong, but, like, was there.

Can you, you know, tough question.

I tell you what.

Well, I. I tell you what.

Both of my parents were just such great parents, and they, they really, they loved us and they showed that love by, I mean, we're always doing fun things.

My parents were the fun parents, you know.

Yeah.

You know, whether it's at church or, you know, wherever, you know, with family, whatever.

They were, you know, playing ping pong or, or bumper pool, we had all these games that, you know, people would come over our house and play, and so we.

It was a fun house.

Yeah, we had, we had a lot of fun.

Yeah.

And.

And they certainly introduced me to the Lord at an early age.

Yeah.

You know, and, and, yeah, I really can't think of anything significant that I would do differently.

And, and, you know, I talked about my extended family, how, you know, the downside of that.

But I tell you what, there's a big upside.

Yeah.

Because to this day, you know, I just love my cousins.

You know, we get together when we can and.

Yeah.

Talk.

Even though they live in Dallas and beyond.

Yeah.

All right, this is a new question to the podcast, but you have any weird family traditions?

Who.

Weird thing, I would just say just we're a weird family.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My wife, in particular says I'm weird all the time.

Yeah.

And my daughters think I'm weird, so.

But I think they're weird.

Yeah.

So.

But I, I, No, I, I don't think we really have any.

I think we do pretty much the, you know, traditional things that people do at holidays and.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No.

Okay.

I don't think we have any.

I don't think we're.

Yeah.

That different.

Okay.

Most.

Yeah.

So.

All right,.

Well, hey, let's, let's talk about.

Let's talk about breast cancer a little bit.

Yeah.

1992 Is when Ms. Cynthia was diagnosed with breast cancer.

I haven't talked about this much on the podcast, but you know what's, what's really crazy about that, Fred, is 1993 or 1994 was when my mom received her first breast cancer diagnosis and, you know, ended up having a double radical mastectomy and lots of chemotherapy and radiation.

Maybe radiation.

I don't know if radiation was a thing back then, but it was.

Yeah.

And, you know, for her, immediately followed by that was some, Some heart disease, some genetic heart disease that she struggled with for years.

But, you know, my mom lived for 19 or 20 years after that.

I guess it was 20 years after that in remission.

And then my mom passed away in 2013 when the breast cancer had come back and gone undetected and had spread to, you know, her lungs and pancreas and all of the internal organs.

And at that point, it, it was really just about buying time more than anything.

And then ultimately, you know, she passed away on April 3rd of 2013.

And so I, I really just kind of want to open up the conversation for.

What was it like having a two month old and miss Cynthia getting diagnosed with, you know, breast cancer?

And could you talk a little bit more about that?

Oh, yeah.

Well, man, that was a hard, hard time in life.

Probably, I guess the hardest time of.

I've ever experienced.

And I remember taking our older daughter out on a.

Just strolling through the neighborhood, you know, in the midst of all that and just talking to God and telling, telling God, you know, if Cynthia doesn't live, I, I don't want to live.

Yeah.

Either.

And, and then I just remember there's not many times I can say I felt like I heard God talking to me so directly, but I, I just kind of heard his voice in my mind say, my relationship is with you and my deal is with you.

And so whatever happens with Cynthia, you know, that's between me and her.

But you and I have our own thing.

Yeah.

You know, and I realized as much as I.

The two shall become one, and as much as I felt that oneness with Cynthia, that.

And, you know, God was telling me, you know, I'm not, I don't have the luxury of checking out when she checks out.

And so.

Yeah.

And fortunately, he didn't take her, you know, and so, but it, but it did impress upon me just the importance of, you know, just maintaining that commitment to God.

And, and no matter what storm you face.

Yeah, he's gotcha.

You know, it's been me and.

Me and him.

Yeah.

And another time, I think two times I really felt like I heard God talking to me.

And another time was not long after that, maybe it was a, maybe a year later, Cynthia was still going through some health things and, and, and I remember looking at a woman in the grocery store, just typical woman.

I mean, but I don't know why I was looking at her, but I remember thinking this thought in my mind.

I thought, how come Cynthia can't, you know, be doing what that woman's doing, you know, today?

Shopping and.

Because at that time, Cynthia Was just not doing well physically and couldn't really get out.

And then I heard God's voice again say, you don't know what other issues that woman may be dealing with.

Yeah.

You know, and kind of convicted me not to, I guess, in a sense, covet.

Yeah.

Another man's wife.

Not.

Not in a sexual way, but, yeah, I was coveting her good health.

Yeah.

And.

And I think God was admonishing me a little bit, you know, to stay in my lane and.

And.

And not.

Not compare or covet.

Yeah.

In any way.

And.

But.

And, you know, at one point we thought, you know, she.

She developed this breathing issue with her lungs just not long after all the chemo and thought she was.

We thought she was gonna.

Well, they did a biopsy of her lungs, and they went in and looked at her lungs and.

And pulmonologists talked to me afterwards, and he said, it does not look good.

Yeah.

And an anesthesiologist friend of us who had been in the room during the.

During the process also came to me and said, yeah, it doesn't look good, friend.

And so we went home that night and really expecting to hear the next day that, you know, the cancer had spread into her lungs.

And anesthesiologist friend called us that morning, said, no cancer.

We were like, oh, we felt like she'd been.

We felt like God had healed her, because all during that night, we were making plans for, you know, what.

You know, how we were going to manage life as a single dad.

And, you know, we were already, you know, in that mode, and we just felt like, you know, we just received this abundant blessing from the Lord.

And then she started getting, you know, started getting better after that.

And.

Yeah.

And.

And.

And most of, you know, in the last few years, she's.

She's really.

Her.

She has a weakness of her heart, and it's kind of manifesting itself, you know, a lot of ways.

But most of our kids.

Childhood, up until their.

You know, up.

Up through their 20s, really, they.

You know, she's been a typical mom.

Yeah.

Still is.

Still a great moment.

Yeah.

And great mom.

Grandmom.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Listening to you tell the.

The story, the coveting story.

There's a great friend that I have at work who.

He says this all the time.

He says, you know, anytime you're feeling that way, he says, hey, I'd be glad.

No, how does he say it?

He says, if we all lined up and put all of our problems in a pile, I'd be willing to bet that you'd pay Anything to just be able to get just your problems back.

That's pretty good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Absolutely.

Okay, so let's.

Let's kind of.

Let's talk about infertility a little bit.

You know, I know that we've had the opportunity, you know, Jimmy is going to come on the podcast in a few episodes as well.

And, you know, I know that there's an organization here in Tyler that we've had the opportunity to go to some fundraising events and we've learned a lot about, but, you know, talk to us about the infertility journey.

And then, you know, one thing specifically, I'm really curious is he.

You said earlier that there came a point where you decided that you were interested in adoption.

You know, but Cynthia had been sold on it for a while.

You know, Whitney and I talked about adoption for a while.

We were able to have kids, but had several pretty difficult miscarriages as well, but ultimately ended up with two beautifully healthy children.

But there was a period where we were talking about adoption as well, and I had a really hard time with it.

I. I mean, I just.

I just couldn't get there in my head and it.

And I. I dealt with a lot of, you know, just some shame and some guilt because I really felt like Whitney wanted it, and I was being extremely selfish, not wanting to entertain the conversation.

So.

But, yeah, just talk to us about that journey for you guys.

Yeah, this was 1980s.

Okay, mid-1980s, I guess, and.

And we had done a lot of tests.

The fertility issues were really my issues, and gone through, you know, all the tests and some treatments and surgeries and different things to try and, you know, get the things like they're supposed to be.

And.

And, yeah, and it's just.

Nothing seemed to be working and.

And the next step would have been, you know, travel to Houston or somewhere.

And at that time, you know, IVF was just probably in the experimental stage, if even that.

You know, back then, it was.

There just were not a lot of options, you know, available.

And so we said, okay, well, we'll just throw our life into our ministry and that we were so involved.

When we get involved in things, we get really involved, you know, like, with our.

Like with the class that y' all were in, you know, that was those.

Those folks become our family, you know.

Yeah.

And so we were.

We were so involved with youth work, you know, kids at our house all the time, and just loving on them, encouraging them, and helping them walk through difficult times.

And.

And that was, you know, that was very fulfilling ministry.

And it was nice.

We didn't have kids at that time because it gave us so much more mobility and flexibility, you know, to do that, that ministry.

And.

But I remember one, you know, this was.

You know, a lot of those kids had gone off to college, and our life had slowed down quite a bit.

And I was over at our friends Scott D. Pierce's house, and.

You're going to interview Scott tomorrow, I understand.

Yeah.

Some of our closest friends.

And.

And I was over there, and Cynthia wasn't.

For some reason.

It was around Christmas time, and they were doing, you know, family Christmas stuff, and I was just kind of over there hanging out.

That's.

We often did.

We often hung out at Scott and D's house.

And I don't know, it just struck me as I was watching them do their family thing, I thought, man, I want.

I want this.

And maybe.

Maybe adoptions would not be that bad a thing, you know, and.

Because at that time, it was just.

It's not that I ever thought adoption was bad, really.

It's just that it just seemed so foreign, you know, just unfamiliar.

And, you know, you heard horror stories about adoptions gone bad and.

And, you know, a level of drama that I'd just prefer to stay away from.

And so.

But anyway, I feel like God stirred my heart a little bit that night, and I went home and told Cynthia, I said, maybe we should pursue adoption.

And I'm sure inside she was going to praise the Lord, you know.

Yeah.

And.

And then we began working with the agency, Living Alternatives here in town.

And Cynthia had already been a volunteer there doing crisis pregnancy counseling, testing and counseling.

And so they.

They knew her, and.

And they put us in the system.

And nine months later, we had a baby.

Wow.

So, you know, today there's a lot of home studies and application processes and all of that.

Was it similar back then?

It was maybe.

Maybe.

You know, it's.

The nature of life is that as time goes by, things always get more complicated and burdensome.

Yeah, but.

But we did.

Yeah.

There was certainly a case study done, home inspection.

We had to make sure we had fire extinguishers everywhere.

And all the things that you're supposed to do, we probably should be doing anyway, but now that forced us to do what we ought to be doing.

Right.

And.

But it was not.

It was not burdensome at all.

And.

And we.

We became, you know, very close to the Living Alternatives Ministry, and that's why I'm vice president of their board of directors now.

Yeah.

30, You know, 35 years later, you know, I'm really.

Once you get connected with the pates, you stay connected.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And.

Yeah, it was.

Yeah, man, it was a wonderful process and how they cared for the birth mom.

Yeah.

And.

And we were, you know, we were praying for the birth mom and as she was kind of, you know, going through her journey and.

And we got to meet.

We eventually got to meet both of our birth moms.

Yeah.

When our daughters turned 18.

And yeah, they wanted to see the birth moms.

The birth moms were willing, so we set up a time for them to come to Tyler and.

And they got to meet.

And I would say that they have.

Haven't become super close, but.

But they are.

They.

They communicate, you know, on a regular basis.

Yeah.

And are very, I think, very appreciative of each other.

You know, I think.

I think the birth moms value what.

How we've raised our daughters and.

And I think our daughters have great appreciation as we do, for those birth moms and decisions they made.

Yeah.

You mentioned the.

The care of the moms with Living Alternatives, and that's one of the things that always really, when we would go to the fundraisers, that really just blew me away because, you know, a lot of adoption, the circumstance around it is.

Can be incredibly traumatic, incredibly painful.

You know, it can be very early in life or, you know, whatever the circumstances.

But most of the moms at that time are in a period of just significant instability, whether that's emotional or financial, just life in general.

And one of the things that Living Alternatives does is they.

They.

They care for the mom, you know, as.

As.

As much so or more.

I don't know.

I don't know if you would agree with that, but as much so or more until the baby's birth.

And then there's support that exists after as well.

Yeah, as long.

As long as they need it, you know, and are willing to receive it.

And it's not at all.

I mean, people sometimes envision, you know, adoption agencies is kind of like baby mills or something.

Yeah.

All they care about is the baby, and then.

Yeah, that's right.

Sayonara.

But, yeah, that is certainly not the case.

I think with most.

Most.

For most of them, it's.

It's a ministry, you know.

Yeah.

They want to minister to the whole person and.

And not just until the baby's born, but, you know, as long as ministry is needed.

And that's why Living Alternatives, we have an aftercare program where a lot of moms decide not to place their child for adoption.

And.

And so We.

We keep the mom and baby and.

Yeah.

And, you know, help them kind of get on their feet and learn how to provide and take care of your baby and.

Yeah.

So I think the myth that's.

That's out there is that, you know, all we care is about stopping abortion and we don't care about anything else.

Right.

That's right.

It couldn't be further from the truth.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, hey, let's.

Let's talk about granddaddy being a granddad.

Ah, it's one of my favorite topics.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, hey, I'll just open it up there, you know.

Yeah.

I don't know.

What.

What's something that surprised you the most about being a granddad?

Wow.

Just, you know, how much you love them.

I. I guess I knew I would love them, but, you know, you don't really understand the depth of that love until you're actually there, you know?

And we just.

Man, we just.

Cynthia and I both just adore our grandkids, and Amazon Bill has gone way up, and it's.

It was bad timing.

And, you know, this.

This online purchasing coming just as we became grandparents, you know, But.

But, yeah.

So Cynthia's always asking me, what do you think about these socks?

Or how does this toboggan look?

Or, yeah, how about this jacket?

And I'm like, they'll love it.

Yeah, sweetie.

Yeah, whatever.

You get them.

They'll love it.

And, yeah, we see that.

Both just totally adore our grandkids and are so thrilled that they.

They're all six here in Tyler, because our one daugh College Station, she's a pa. Yeah.

Our other daughter lived in Nashville, and her husband was from Nashville and actually Smyrna, to be technically correct, where they were living.

And so we thought, well, we're, you know, we'll see him a few times a year in Tennessee and a little more than that in College Station.

And then our older daughter decided she wanted to come back to Tyler.

That's where she grew up, and she loves it here.

And, yeah, so they moved back to Tyler.

Then our younger daughter, Kelsey, she said, I want to come back to Tyler, too, and.

And be close to the family.

And so her husband was willing.

They.

They moved back to Tyler.

They both live within about a mile of each other in about, you know, four or five miles from us.

And so, yeah, it's.

It's.

It's great.

That's awesome.

What do you feel like?

What's the biggest difference between being a dad versus being a granddad?

You got to know Once again, you got to know your place.

Yeah.

Your role as, you know, sometimes you think you know, how kids ought to be raised, but you just got to let your kids raise them the way that they want to raise them.

Yeah.

You know, and not that it's that much different, you know, but sometimes you just want to intervene or step in and you just have to say, no.

Nope, that's not my role as granddaddy.

I'm just.

Be there to love, to love and encourage and spoil a little bit.

Yeah.

And.

And just let your parents be the parents.

Now, my kids may say he says that, but.

But he does step in sometimes, you know.

Yeah.

So that's.

That's actually one of the questions that I've gotten from a listener is who's a, you know, a dad.

And he said, hey, we're kind of struggling with some boundaries with grandparents, and, you know, they live in very close proximity, and it.

It's.

It can seem like at times that they're, you know, they're.

They're.

Their want to be the grandparent is.

Is sort of undermining the.

The parenting strategy, you know, so, you know, I don't know.

What do you.

What do you think about that?

That could happen really easily.

You know, we don't just drop in a lot, you know, on our.

On our kids, we mostly wait for invites.

Yeah.

But.

But mostly they come over to our house, you know, because we've got, you know, Disneylands in our backyard.

You know, we've got swimming pool and sport cart court.

I just keep buying toys that make them want to come over.

Bought a roller coaster, you know, so now they want to come over and ride the roller coaster.

About to put in a artificial putting green, and so they can come over and want them to learn how to play golf.

And so, yeah, so mostly they come to us.

Yeah.

And.

But we sometimes will go over there if.

If invited or if we have a reason to drop in on them.

But we.

We try to let them kind of be their own family at their.

At their own houses.

Yeah.

And let them do their.

Their thing there.

That.

That brings.

That brings up something that maybe you can help me out with.

Is one of the things that I really worry about, and I've talked about this before on here, is, man, I. I want our kids to want to come home when they're.

When they leave, you know, and the age we are and having kids and having a lot of friends that are our age and have kids, man, there's a lot of families out there that it's not fun going home.

It's a chore.

It's a burden.

And you know, what, what's the secret?

How do you.

How do you create an environment where your kids want to come home?

Oh, that is such a good question.

Really.

I mean, I'm trying, you know, I think.

I think part of it is, is letting your kids have the freedom to be, you know, who they want to be, you know, and not.

Not kind of telling them how to live their lives or not, you know, trying to control them or push them a certain direction, but kind of let them decide what they want to be, you know, and.

And just not being a very judgmental kind of parent where you remind them of bad decisions they made or.

Yes, yes.

You know, you want.

You want your home to be a safe place.

Well, I kind of hate that term safe place now because it's been, you know, hijacked by certain elements.

But you do want a safe space for your kids.

Yeah.

To come home again and, and just kind of get away from, you know, maybe the pressures of life or whatever.

Yeah.

You want it to be an oasis.

Yeah.

For your kids.

And I think, you know, see if.

And I have done a pretty good job with that.

And I think also the city we live in is such a great place to.

To raise a family.

Yeah.

And I think they really enjoyed getting back to a community that was, you know, pretty close knit and have.

Has good schools and good churches and.

Yeah.

And just really a good place to be.

So I would like to think it was all us.

Yeah.

But I think.

I think also the part of it was just coming back to.

Coming back to our city.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you mentioned two things there, and my dad and I have talked about this quite a bit because my grandparents, his parents, who passed away several years ago, the family tried really hard for years to get together and cousins and aunts and uncles tried to get together, but my grandparents were, you know, almost like, obsessive over that when the family's together, the family has to all be together, all doing the same thing.

And it created this environment where, you know, you.

There wasn't a lot of independence when you were there.

You know, it's.

It was strange.

And I guess where I'm going with that is I think one of my hopes is to create an environment where the girls can kind of come and go as they please.

You know, when you come here, I'm not going to hound you.

Like, I'd love to have you stay as long as you want to stay.

You can come and Just sleep here, you know, Because I know that you're going to want to come home and see your friends and you're not going to want to hang out with me the whole time.

Yeah.

Right.

And that's something that I think is really critical.

As I've just kind of reflected and thought about how are we going to do that?

And it's just kind of like, look, if we're just a hotel, that is totally okay.

And I'd love for you to just come and stay here, because we'll get to.

We'll get to spend some time with you.

But there's no expectation that when you come here that we're gonna sit in the floor for three hours and play board games together, you know?

Yeah.

If that happens, great.

I would love that.

I'm grateful that my parents.

You know, I talked earlier about how tight a family we were.

Yeah.

And Vance and uncles and cousins, and we were just, you know, super tight.

And when Cynthia came into the picture and I started, you know, seeing her, and then we got married and we got involved in ministry, there were a lot of family activities that Cynthia and I were not taking part in.

And I know that probably caused particularly for my mom.

Probably caused some hurt, you know, and disappointment, but she never.

She never communicated that.

Yeah.

To us.

She gave us the freedom to kind of do our own thing, you know, even within the same city.

I think my sister may have communicated something to me about it at one point.

Yeah.

But they never.

They never said anything to us.

And.

And I think that that really helped preserve a very close relationship.

Yeah.

You know, not having to deal with, you know, jealousy.

Yeah.

In our relationships with others.

Yeah.

You know, something else that you mentioned that I think is a critical element of this is not chastising your kids.

Like, I was either reading about this or listening to this.

But that's one of the most inhospitable places to create as an empty nester is when your kids come home, you're constantly reminding them of the mistakes they've made, or you're constantly chastising them about, you know, why.

Why did you buy a new car?

You can't afford a new car.

Why did you know?

Why are you still working at that dumpy job?

Why don't you.

Do you know, that's not a very fun place to be.

No.

That's not a place that you want to go hang out.

Right.

You'd rather go hang out with your friend and their parents, who are just not that way.

Exactly.

You don't want to be you don't want to be the home that your kids avoid.

You want to be the home.

Right.

Their friends come and hang out.

Right.

They, they've got the cool parents.

That's right.

No, you want to be the cool parent.

Yeah.

And I think that's what, you know, later in life, I think that's what the cool parents ultimately are, is come, come as you are.

Like, this is a, I mean, safe place.

But like, you're welcomed here just the way you came.

Like, you know, there's no expectation and.

That doesn't mean that you're, that it's a more permissive home.

Right.

That those aren't the things that I think kids are really looking for.

I think kids are looking for a home where they feel the love.

That's right.

And the acceptance and concern and care and, and you know, I, I'm sure I probably embarrass my daughters at times because I would engage with their friends and talk to them about things and, But I think the friends, I think the friends kind of liked it.

Yeah.

You know, especially the ones that maybe had troubles at home.

Yeah.

To have at least somebody's dad.

Yeah.

Interested in their life, you know.

Well, you know, just to kind of keep with the theme of the podcast, one of the questions I've, I've tried to ask everybody and maybe, maybe for you, I'll ask this in two phases, which is, or, or you, you kind of guide the question.

So if you could go back and have a conversation with yourself, knowing what you know today, maybe I'll ask it this way.

What, what, what times of your life, maybe would you like to go back and have a conversation with yourself?

And what would you want to say?

You know, I have two wonderful daughters.

They're both very talented.

My oldest, oldest daughter as a physician assistant.

She could have gone to med school if she wanted to.

She's certainly smart enough and, and very, but very determined.

On the soccer field, she was very determined.

On the basketball court, she was very determined.

She's a valedictorian of her class.

She, I think she was second in her PA. School class.

We just found that out the other day.

And, but man, when she was 5, 6, 7 years old, she was tough and sometimes hard on her sister.

And, and I, I remember telling Cynthia, I'm afraid Leslie's going to wind up in prison.

It's like she doesn't have a conscience.

You know, she's just so strong willed and, and sometimes I think I was, I was probably too, too strong on a discipline when she was young.

I remember at one point, that's back when we still spanked the day.

And I remember I spanked her for some.

Probably being mean to her sister, which was, you know, the most common offense.

And.

And then I spanked her and at, you know, by.

By the book, by the textbook.

After you spank a child, they're supposed to be broken and, you know, feel bad and apologize and what.

And I spanked her.

And I looked at.

At her, said, leslie, what are you.

What are you thinking right now?

And she looked at me in the eyes and said, I'm thinking I want to hurt you.

And that's like, whoa, that's creepy.

So I don't think we're going to spank her again.

Yeah.

So that was the end of.

Of corporal punishment for her, and we moved on to making her right sentences.

You know, I will be nice to my sister.

You know, write it 10 times, then 50, then 100, then a thousand.

Because she kept.

She wouldn't, you know, she wouldn't be contrite.

You know, she was so determined.

Yeah.

And I think I. I would tell myself, she's going to be okay.

This is just how she's wired.

Yeah.

And you may just have to give her a little more grace.

You know, you still, you know, you still have to administer punishment.

You know, there still has to be correction.

Yeah.

But.

But don't.

Don't go crazy with it and just realize that she's going to be okay.

This is just how God made her.

You know, she made her.

He made her strong, you know, and our younger daughter, she.

She was.

She just took it too much, and she didn't really fight for herself.

And.

And I think we should have encouraged her to be more like her older sister.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah.

And.

And I think.

I think later.

Later in life, it.

I think that kind of came back to.

To haunt her a little bit, not being a strong enough advocate for herself.

Yeah.

And.

But they're both walking with the Lord now, so we're.

We are so grateful for that.

And.

Yeah.

Both doing extremely well.

Man, we are blessed.

That's amazing.

Well, is there.

You know, I know we debriefed a little bit before we started here, Fred, but is there anything that you wanted to talk about today that we didn't get to.

Man, I think I've covered my whole life.

Yeah.

I mean, this is the life of Fred.

Yeah.

And it's been really great talking about it.

And I tell you what, I just love your kids, you know, Love them.

Even if you have to be gone traveling when you get home, like you said, put the.

Put, you know, decompress on the plane or listen to a podcast in the car.

Yeah.

But when you get home, you know, be there for your kids and for your wife.

Yeah, yeah.

And I tell you what, this one thing we haven't talked on about is the importance of the relationship between husband and wife.

Yeah.

And.

And how that impresses, you know, how that's important for the kids to see mom and dad loving each other and valuing each other and encouraging each other.

Yeah.

The kids are.

Man, they're sponges.

They're.

They're taking notes in their head.

And if you want them to have good marriages, you know, really focus on yours.

Yeah, yeah, we've.

We've talked about that a couple times.

Just about the.

You know, your kids are taking cues about what.

And.

And this probably extends more, you know, certainly to marriage, but, you know, your kids are paying attention to how you treat your wife and wives, how you treat your husbands.

And they.

They're, you know, is.

Our.

Our daughters certainly hear me tell Whitney I love you a lot.

We say that a lot in our house, you know, but, you know, the downstream effect of that is this is what love looks like.

You know, dad says he loves me.

Dad says he loves Mom.

How does dad treat Mom?

Oh, yeah.

How does mom treat dad?

Yeah.

Your.

Your actions have to match your words.

That's right.

Yeah.

Because I think a lot of brokenness with relationships stems from not having a good example of what unconditional or.

Or.

Or, you know, at the very minimum, just very, very intentional and committed love to your spouse looks like, you know, and with girls, man, that scares me, you know?

Yeah.

We're both experts on raising daughters, I guess.

Right?

Well, hope.

Yeah.

Hoping to be.

But, you know, just the.

Making sure that the.

That your daughters understand that this is how you should be treated like.

And that's a high bar.

You know, it's always kind of gut wrenching when I say that out loud because it makes me immediately reflect on things that I'm not doing right.

But I should be modeling to my daughters the.

The type of.

Of love and respect and care conversation, intentionality that.

That they will one day you know, leave the house and get married and get from someone else.

Yeah.

You know, it's.

It's funny, Fred.

It's kind of like I've thought about this.

I haven't said this before, but this is gonna sound super weird to say, but a very convicting thing to ask myself is if my Daughters married me, you know, if there was a non biological clone out there in the universe of all of my attributes and character and would I be pleased with that?

Oh, that's.

Now that's a good question.

Yeah.

Well, I hope you, I hope you would say yes.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah, I think they could do.

I, I think they could do worse than marrying a clone of you.

Yeah, no, I, I think, yeah, that's the kind of odd, odd thought I, I would be.

I would have loved it if my daughters had married a clone of me, to be honest.

I don't know if that's arrogance on my part.

Yeah.

But I, I guess I just knowing how much I love my wife and I love my daughters, if they married a guy who loved film and loved their children as much as I, as I do.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'd be pleased with that.

Yeah.

Because I know how I feel.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think they did, to be honest, I think they did good.

And, and they're.

My son in laws are good men.

They're a little weird like I am.

Yeah.

And weird is good.

That's the takeaway from today.

Yeah.

Austin's not the only weird.

Yeah, we can be weird too.

Yeah, that's right.

All right, well, as we wrap up, just a message to those listening.

We've got some, some more great episodes with some, some other grandfathers coming up.

And as always, the best way that you can support the channel is simply just share it with someone who you think would benefit from being a part of this community and being a part of this conversation.

I had a very, very dear friend of mine reach out yesterday after spending some time on a tractor is what he said.

He's, he was working on the tractor and he had had some time to listen to the podcast and he hit me with a very convicting message which was, hey, I love what you're doing, but what's the mission?

You know, what are you trying to accomplish here and in the moment?

You know, running up to this, I, I hadn't really taken the time to put pen to paper, but I'm working on it now and the mission will continue to evolve, but I want to do, I want to just throw it out there that as I'm kind of working through, you know, a formal mission for the, for the show as it stands right now, you know, know, my goal is to create a community and a forum or an archive of dads who, husbands who get together and have real and genuine conversations about what went well and what didn't you know, what they're struggling with, what they did, more of, what they would do less of.

So that there's a resource for other dads out there to listen to at.

At any stage of life.

And that's kind of where it sits right now.

That's way too long to be a mission statement, Fred, but that's what we're working on.

And so more to come on the mission statement as we kind of get clarity to where this is going.

But thank you guys so much for listening.

Please, you know, subscribe, follow what.

Whatever the mechanism is on the.

On the channel or that you're listening and share this with somebody.

Fred, I really appreciate you taking time to come and talk to me.

My pleasure.

Thanks for having me on.

I hope.

Hope somebody benefits from some of this.

Absolutely.

Well, you mean the world to me.

Like I said earlier, you.

You and Cynthia and.

And Scott and D. Have poured countless hours into couples just like me and Whitney.

And I just wanted to say thank you for that dedication and thank you for being here.

Well, you guys are an alpha couple.

I appreciate y'.

All.

Absolutely.

All right.

See ya.