Unshackled Love: Parenting in Faith
Unshackled Love: Parenting in Faith
012: Breeding Competitors
In this episode, Bruce and Kaila address their children's many accomplishments and the drive for wanting to be the best by giving your best and, as parents, the importance of having expectations for effort.
Scripture Citations
- “A slacker’s craving will kill him because his hands refuse to work.” (Proverbs 21:25 CSB)
- “There is profit in all hard work, but endless talk leads only to poverty.” (Proverbs 14:23 CSB)
- “Don’t you know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way to win the prize. Now everyone who competes exercises self-control in everything. They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable crown.” (1 Corinthians 9:24-25 CSB)
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Music Intro/Exit: Unshackled by David Upton (listen on Spotify)
Welcome to episode 12 of her Unshackled Love podcast. I am Bruce Payne sitting here with my twinkling into her eye; gorgeous wife, Kaila Payne.
Kaila:For those of you who are just joining us, Bruce and I are two teachers in the greater Austin area, and we're teachers by day, but we are parents to nine by night, so we have nine children. Our oldest just graduated high school and our little ones promoted from kindergarten.
Bruce:I think my favorite comment that you just made was, that we are parents by night. And actually right now for anyone who has kids, it is the beginning of the summertime. And I will say this, it is easier to go to work all day than it is to be home with nine kids. And right now I have been blessed with the opportunity to go teach summer school, whereas my wife is actually a parent by day and by night right now.
Kaila:Yeah, he's got it easy. You know, sometimes I feel bad for him cuz I'm like, oh, you just need a break from school and you need time to decompress. But then I'm home with the little ones all day and it's like, oh yeah, he's definitely got it easier.
Bruce:And for those of you who know us, I often joke like, hey, People always ask me, what does your wife do for a living? Like she's a teacher and actually she's a real teacher. She's really good at what she does as a teacher, whereas in I'm a great babysitter. And so even though I'm the one at school right now, I mean, I would love to be at home messing around with kids. But that being said, I also know my wife as a great educator needs her time away from the actual classroom. So it kind of works out both ways.
Kaila:While we're talking about our kids it wouldn't be a good conversation without bragging on our kids a little bit and kind of talking about why it's so demanding parenting them. We have out of our nine children, we can go down the line. We have at least three who finished with a 4.0 or higher this year. We have another three that finished ab honor roll, not including the little three that don't have real grades yet, we have two that play on a national level with competitive soccer. They are the best of the best of their age and the age above. They play up with kids who are older than them. We also have three more younger ones who are playing on the top teams for their age in the greater Austin area. And so, you know, driving them to practice, we drive them into the center of town because that's the central location. So they're practicing and playing with the best and they're on the best teams. Whether it's in the classroom getting their A's and B's, or whether it's on the soccer field. Our kids work hard and often we get asked the question, how do you instill that in them? Like how do you get them to be so competitive? How did you train them? Or like, when did you start, what do you do extra? And I don't think it's as much as what we do extra, because there are plenty of parents that you see that are taking their kids to do the extra things and usually they're paying somebody else. So they're paying a private coach, they're paying a private tutor, they're paying for extra camps or programs. And my husband and I have really done it mostly on our own. Not to pat ourselves on the back, but I mean, we do, we spent a lot of time with our kids, and this whole podcast episode is really going to be about breeding competitors.
Bruce:Yeah. And real quick, I do wanna give props to our kids coaches who actually have done a lot throughout the team trainings and stuff like that. But in terms of extra work, outside a handful of coaches who have worked with our kids and say goalkeepers over the years, the majority of the training outside of team activities is done by my wife and I, and so going through both the grades and the classroom and as well as our kids and how they've done in sports, I think it all comes down to expectations. My wife and I throughout, Our marriage and over the course of parenting the last handful of years is we have expectations for our kids. And not just expectations that we've come up with, but expectations that we feel are biblical. So Proverbs 21: 25, it says,"A slackers craving will kill him because his hands refuse to work." And for me, a as a dad, it's, it's one of those things that I try to instill in our kids on a daily basis, or my wife as well, is work ethic. You know, what is your work ethic? What is your work ethic in terms of brushing your teeth? Are you gonna do it three days a week or seven days a week? What is your work ethic in terms of eating healthy? Are you gonna get up and have a granola bar cuz it's easy? Or are you gonna get up and make eggs because that's what your body needs. If you're gonna go be a warrior at night. What's your work ethic in the classroom? Are you gonna sit there and do the bare minimum? Or are you gonna sit there and do the best you possibly can with what God has given you to work with. On the soccer field? Hey, if you have to run a hundred yards sprint, are you gonna sit there? What's your work ethic say? We're gonna jog 60 and Sprint 40, or is your best, you're able to sit there and run a hundred yards. And so for us, there's no days off. I mean, yes, there's somewhat of a Sabbath for us, but in terms of the other six days of the week, there are no days off. You wake up. God gave you those breaths in your lungs, you might as well use'em to the best of your God-given ability.
Kaila:Yeah, and that's something that we've instilled even from a young age. It's not that we expect our kids to I wanna say be the best, but to give their best. And so, yes, they are on high level teams, or yes, my daughter is in the top 10 of her class. Like not even top 10% like her mommy, but like top 10. And so for her, those are not, it's not pressure that we put on her, it's not pressure that we put on our kids to be the best but we expect them to give their best effort. And so I just remember our Finn, when she was probably about five or six, she came off of the field after practice. And I love our practice facility because there's gates around the entire field. And so parents actually drop off their kids, send them out to their field, and so you can watch from outside the gate, but there's no hovering. And so, of course I watch and I can see, and then we would talk about, after we'd kind of have these conversations of, you know, what did you do really well? What did you enjoy? What did you like, what went good? But then, okay, what didn't go so well? What was hard? What do you need to work on next time? And we've been having these conversations pretty much since they started playing soccer. Um, and some people might say like, that in itself is crazy. It should all be about fun. But I think that's the problem with today's society is that we've gotten too much to, oh, let's just have fun. And everybody gets a medal and everyone's a winner. And we're all just here to have a good time. And if we are just having a good time skipping down the sidelines, picking flowers, like we've missed the point. And so my daughter, I remember this one particular time, she came off the field of practice and her face was beat red. And you know, all her little hairs were sticking to her face cuz she was sweating. And she said, mommy, did you see I had such good effort tonight? And I was like, yeah, you did. Yeah.
Bruce:Yeah. And I think for us, you know, Effort is the number one thing that we sit there and talk to our kids about. It's the one thing that you can control regardless of everything else going on in life. As a little kid, your effort is what you can control. You can control whether or not you want to give a hundred percent or not. And I understand it's important for kids to have fun. I mean, when our kids leave our car, it always ends with you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. or you can sit there and do all things through and they will come back and say Christ who strengthens you. And we'll always say, Hey, have fun and be a leader. Right? You have to have fun and be a leader. The reality is, for most people, losing's not very fun, right? And so when you have these little kids who come home crying cuz they lost, well, guess what? Maybe you should have done better in practice during the week to not be a loser on the weekend. And that's a whole other conversation. But that's how our kids feel. They don't like to lose. The reality is they don't even like winning as much as they don't like to lose. That comes back from the work ethic and the effort put in. And I think the other thing that we've instilled over the course of parenting them is perseverance. I mean, they have been blessed with God-given abilities both in the classroom on the field, but that being said, they've learned to persevere. And if a kid doesn't learn how to persevere, it doesn't matter how much talent they have because the moment they come up against anything that's challenging or difficult, they're gonna give up. And my wife and I, we've been through a lot ourselves, but we have preach perseverance regardless of the circumstances. It doesn't matter you're about your coach, it doesn't matter about the field you're playing on. It doesn't matter how hard that geometry test might be, you are gonna put the work in to be successful. Cuz if you don't, someone else is putting that work in and someone else is gonna be better than you. And I think the other natural thing with having as many kids as we have is that there's already natural competition in our house, and it's almost like survival of the fittest on a daily basis and everything that they do. And so there has to be perseverance on a regular basis, not just on the fields, but at home as well, which translates both into the classroom and onto the field.
Kaila:And even just going back to the whole idea of like this participation medal, it's almost like in society we give medals because we want kids to be okay with losing. Like, it's okay to lose. Here, feel good about yourself and here's a big shiny metal. It's okay. You did a good job. And when the reality is, I love how you said it, losing should not be a good feeling. Like we should not be okay with losing. If I lose and I don't like that feeling, that's gonna push me and drive me to, if you don't like that feeling, you don't like to lose, what are you gonna do to make sure that you win next time?
Bruce:I think a couple of my favorite stories that you just made these pop into my head as you're sitting there and saying what you're saying was if anybody who knows our Zoe, she's the most mild meek girl. She has a little bit of feistiness in her. She has a little back talk every once in a while, but she has a sweetheart with an awesome, God-fearing heart. She's the one who wants to glorify God in almost all she does. I've said it multiple times. If I could choose to have my moral compass mirror anyone, it would be hers. But anyways, when she was in eighth grade, I'll never forget, she's a straight A kid and she was given an A/B honor roll. A/B honor roll and for a lot of kids A's and B's, that's the best they possibly can do. And she knew for her that it was not okay. And as she got this award, she told the council beforehand, I don't want this. And the counselor's like, it's a good job, Zoe. It's okay. You did a great job. You can have it. And then the next thing you know, she goes across the stage, not even smiling. She shakes the person's hand, she takes it, and as soon as she walks off the stage, she threw it in the trash. And I was a teacher at the school that this happened at. And I said, what was that all about? She goes, dad, it was A/B honor roll. Bs aren't acceptable. And it was like at that point in time, I understand that she was gonna be just okay in school. And now she's a top 10, not 10%, but top 10 kid in her graduating class. Based on moments like that that have built her up to who she is today. I mean, we've had other moments where kids have been given second place, trophies and or ribbons or metals and they've gone straight to the trash as well. Like we're not bringing that home to our house and we just laugh and we don't even say much of anything else other than just smile. And guess what? By one kid doing that, the rest of the kids in our brood of children sit there and say, Hey, we don't want second place either. And so they just compete naturally. And so it is very important for kids to want to be successful and to know what it feels like, not just to be successful, but to feel the failure as well, that allows you to become successful. Cause without that failure, you don't know what it means to be truly successful in the end.
Kaila:And all of this that we're saying, we really feel that competition is biblical. Bruce mentioned earlier in Proverbs when we refuse to work, it's ultimately gonna lead into tragedy, tragedy. But also, you know, Paul says in the New Testament,"don't you know that the runners in a stadium all race. Only one receives the prize. So run in such a way to win the prize." So our life in general, you're not gonna win first place by pacing yourself on the first lap. Like that's just not gonna happen. You've gotta run the race to win. And then I love how in, 1 Corinthians 9:25 the verse right after that actually says,"now anyone who competes exercises, self-control in everything". And so for our kids, and it kind of goes back to that whole idea of effort is a choice. And when we're giving our best, that's really exercising self-control because we're controlling the urge to be lazy and the urge to be comfortable because those are sins that we face. And so since those are natural temptations that we want to be lazy, we wanna be comfortable, we want to take the scenic route. We want our lives to be comfortable. When we talk about working out, most people would say the reason that they don't work out is because, It's hard work, like it hurts and you know you're gonna sweat and you know you're gonna have to push your body to limits that don't feel good. But then I would say 95% of people after they go work out, they're like, oh, I'm so glad I did. Like, you feel good after the fact. And so I think that's the same thing here. It's like you need to exercise self-control. You need to be able to put yourself in those situations to either push yourself or to work harder or to persevere through a problem. And these are just things that we're instilling in our kids now, whether it's school or sports. But the reality is, is these traits are gonna carry on with them into their adult lives. And I think for Bruce and I, it's how do you compete in life? How do you be a competitor and you don't give up when your marriage gets hard? You don't just quit your job because your boss is asking you to do, a hard project or you have conflict with a coworker and you run away with it because you're afraid to face that confrontation. There's a lot of things that happen in life and we either are gonna man up. And we're gonna face it, and we're gonna persevere through that, and we're gonna still exercise self-control because ultimately the race that we're fighting doesn't say play dirty. So God still has other expectations that the way that we present ourself during that race. But, you know, we're raising adults and so keeping that always in mind too.
Bruce:I think when you sat there and said, it's running the race for life. And I've often said that, the reason why I love sports is it teaches you about how living the game of life, Through sports, through ups and downs, through wins and losses, through triumph, through hard times, whatever it might be. It teaches you how to deal with life. And I think for me over the years is I've always relied on sports, as a way out, as a way to sit there and cope with life, as a way to sit there and deal with life. And it has taught me about life. In many more ways than I could have ever imagined. And I sit here and as we're doing this right now, talking about life and persevering or even working out how you talked about how when you go to workout, you might not want to do it at the beginning, but afterwards it feels really good. There are often times that we sit here and either podcast or whatever it might be, that we're tired. Like we just sat there and parented nine kids and worked as teachers, whatever it might be. And we are tired and don't wanna do it, or maybe I'm tired and don't wanna do it, or maybe it's because I'm a morning person and I'll get up early and do it, but my wife likes to sit there and stay up later at night, and so it just doesn't work out very well. But this last week we had a woman named Elena, who is a sweetheart, who moved my heart when she spoke and talked about her testimony, but it was, it was like one of those sit there. She came in and it was like a coach giving a pep talk to me saying, Hey homie, you gotta do what you're supposed to do, and the God has called you to sit here on podcast, so you should go do it. That's what I got out of everything that she sat there and told me to do was, you better keep doing what you're doing because God is gonna bless many others through what you have to say. And that in itself is why I'm sitting here today doing this one. Even though I just went to summer school and worked to drop kids off at vbs, whatever it might be, I'm sitting here doing this because of what Elena said a few nights ago. I think another thing that gets overlooked, when raising kids and raising kids who are competitors, it has a big deal Who's in your village? And we've talked about our village on numerous occasions, but the reality is, It's hard for your kids to be successful if I'm not hanging out with other kids who are successful. It's hard to have your kids be successful or even me be successful if I'm not hanging out with people who are successful, or people who want the best from your kids. And so, that's why I give a shout to Elena right now and everything that she just did for me. a couple of the guys who I wanna throw out here right now who have played a big part in our kids village and them being successful in terms of competing and everything else would be Chad Aldridge at Round Rock High School. Amazing guy with a servant's heart who has encouraged my daughter, our daughter, and everything that she's been going through this year, but also in terms of being the best her both off the field and on the field. And another one would be Austin Guillen. Another guy who, I mean talked about a guy who calls me up out the middle of nowhere saying, Hey, Can we bring your son with us to South Carolina to play soccer? And he took care of everything else knowing that finances are tight for us during that moment, but it's people who in our village who are like-minded in terms of, they expect the best from their own kids. They expect the best on and off the field and they love God. And so at the end of the day, it's surrounding yourself with people who are like-minded. It's not like we sit there and go seek out these people. It just happens to be that that's who we get along with and that's who we spend a lot of our time with.
Kaila:And also in terms of the village, you know, it's important. Those are people that we're doing life with and I feel it can relate to us in the season we're in cuz we have kids that are the same age. But it's also really important to have good mentors and people to look up to. People that have been there, done that and can really relate to the struggle you're in. But they're giving you that wisdom from the other side. And you know, one of the things with our kids, Expecting the best effort and maybe having tough conversations or it would be really easy for Bruce and I to have a box of granola bars that we get from Costco. That's 90 in a box and say, okay, when you wake up, go get yourself breakfast. It's harder for us to wake up early and make sure that we're making eggs for the kids and that they're getting a nutritious breakfast, because that's the expectation. And so at some point, yes, the goal is that they've seen mom and dad get up and make them breakfast. And then, even my eight year old now is learning how to make eggs for breakfast and scrambled eggs. And we're doing it, we're learning. But the reality is, is it does take sacrifice. Going back to like that idea of like self-control and. Really doing what you don't want to do, but what you know you're supposed to do. And we had a mentor, a second parent to us who said,"parenting is not for pansies"
Bruce:and let's just say they didn't use the word pansies. And these are probably some of the most God-fearing people we know. They use a different word, not pansies.
Kaila:That also starts with a P, and I'm gonna let your imagination fill in the blank.
Bruce:Absolutely. They're like, Hey, there's a reason why parenting is not for, and I was like, oh my goodness, they just said this to me.
Kaila:And it is, it's so true. Like parenting is tough stuff. It's hard to have expectations for your kids. It's hard to monitor what they're doing. It's hard not being able to go to your room and have you time during the day. From the time I wake up and I come downstairs, I'm watching, where are the kids at? What are they doing in the room? Our kids don't really spend time in their rooms because a room is just a place to sleep and I know what they're doing. And that takes a lot of energy and effort to know where your kids are doing and what they're doing and what they're watching. What they're doing on their computer, when they're on their phone, who they're playing with outside, where they're going, when they're outside. Like that takes energy and effort and it would be a lot easier for me. To be like, oh, kids are playing outside. I'm gonna sit on the couch, I'm gonna put on my show. This is me time. Kids aren't bothering me. But the reality is, is that's not good parenting. And you know, if you aren't parenting your kids, the world will. And so, especially in today's day and age where media, social media is telling our kids to do dumb, dumb things and not use their brain. And we see so many poor tragedies coming from different social media challenges or you know, just that children are hearing and they're exposed to so many of these worldly ideas at young, young ages. That's just scary. And we're having to have, mature conversations at younger and younger ages because that's what the kids on the playground are talking about. And it's just one of those things when you're out there, it's like you need to know what your kids, what they're hearing, so that way you can have a conversation about it and you can make sure that you're instilling the right values and morals and what they hear and how to approach those situations instead of just letting like the world kind of take that over.
Bruce:Amen sister, now, to wrap this up. You wanna know what, this is actually different cuz normally my wife wraps it up and I'll still let her do her little thing at the end. But the reality is greatness doesn't happen by accident. You just don't wake up one day and be great. I mean, if you sit there and go through and look at Steph Curry, magic Johnson, Wayne Gretzky, Joe Montana, Tom Brady. The best of the best in every sport. Michael Jordan, they didn't just wake up and were great. I mean, Michael Jordan got cut from his high school basketball team. It took hours and hours and hours of practice. It took hours and hours of being successful and it took even more hours of failure. I mean, if you think about it in this way, a baseball player can strike out seven out of 10 times. If you're taking a math test and you got seven out of 10 wrong, you would get an F. But in baseball, seven out of 10 times gets you to the hall of fame, meaning you have a 300 batting average. Failure is part of life. And like I said, so greatness doesn't happen by accident. It takes failures. And as parents, we've had failures. There's been many things that we've done as parents that weren't the best, and we've learned from it. If you don't learn from it, that's a problem. But if you can learn from it and do it better the next time around, there's a better chance that your kids are gonna be experienced greatness. It takes intentionality. You have to be intentional with how you live your life in order for there to be greatness and not greatness through the world's standards, but greatness through God's standards in terms of your character, in terms of your effort, in terms of your perseverance, in terms of how you live life on a daily basis.
Kaila:And with that, we're gonna end with Proverbs 14:23. It says"There is profit in all hard work, but endless talk leads only to poverty." You can't just talk the talk. You've gotta walk the walk. All right. So, Bruce and I would love to walk alongside of you through this, if you know that maybe you're struggling right now with either your marriage or with a relationship with your children, or maybe your children are struggling to get along and you just don't know how to fix and find that harmonious home. Bruce and I have really started to partner with our village, and we wanna grow our village. We wanna work with you. We wanna help you put God at the center of your home so that your home and your children can continue to thrive and break those generational sins and start to build generational legacy of blessing. So if you want to find out how you can connect with us, please first subscribe to the podcast so that that way you will get notified whenever we release a new podcast and then hop over to growingpaynes.org. The link will be down in the show notes, and there you can see our bios. Read our full story and connect with us. You gonna pray?
Bruce:Nope. I'm gonna let you pray.
Kaila:He always does that. All right, dear Father, God, thank you for this time. Thank you for encouraging us and giving us the strength because this life was never promised to be easy. And in fact, you've said that there are going to be trials and tribulations that we will face for your namesake, but you are such a good father that you provide us your armor and your spirit and we can go forward in confidence. Competing against the world knowing that it's all for your glory, and that one day we'll wear your crown of righteousness. Thank you for loving us and being an awesome father. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Bruce:Amen.