Dudes and Dads features Joel Miller on maintaining relationships with adult children. He shares insights: support individual paths, show unconditional love, celebrate accomplishments, and prioritize listening. Learn to keep influence and avoid "parental divorce". Sponsored by Everance Financial.

Tonight on the Dudes and Dads podcast, we're talking with our friend Joel Miller, another

Joel about maintaining relationships with your adult kids.

Joel Andrew Joel DeMott.

I should specify that.

There's two Joel's tonight.

There's so much

Joel in this room.

There's more Joel in this room than I've ever been a part of.

Wow.

That's a lot of Joel.

Andy, how are you doing?

Good.

Warm.

It was a busy weekend.

time with my family. Yeah, it was good.

Now we're here recording and we're doing this.

We've been on the hot on the baseball trail these past few days and got some wins, got

some losses, but at the end of the day, had the opportunity to sit out in 95 degree heat

with other parents

cheering

our children on. What could be better? What could be better?

I could think of a few things, but nevertheless, it was a fun time.

And and now we're we're approaching the fourth of July already.

Already. It's almost my my birthday month is in July.

Let's remember that. So I'm going to claim that all month.

I'm going to be like, hey, guys, it's my birthday.

Let's go. Let's do the birthday month.

When you're when you're in middle age, I think you should just spread that out

to a month. I'm going to. Why limit it to a single day?

Also, absolutely. Well, welcome. Well, hey, yes.

Tonight, Andy really excited to talk with our friend, the other jewel.

Joel, number one for some people, Joel, number two for others.

Well, I mean, he is older than you are.

So he did

come. He did came first.

He did come first. That's true.

He existed before I did quite some time.

Wow. He just called

you.

I didn't I didn't say that.

It was a spell.

There was a significant amount of time passed before the second jewel came around.

But yeah, we are looking forward to a conversation.

And I always love it when we get to have, you know, we always say on the show, we want

to share our friends with the rest of our friends, our listening audience, and Joel's

a good friend.

And we're going to say, whether he is or not, he's a longtime supporter of the show.

We're just going

to...

We're going to say

that.

We're going to say that absolutely.

But, hey, everybody, we always want to say a big thank you to our supporters.

That includes our friends over at Everence Financial.

Support for our show comes from Everence.

They're dedicated to helping to make Medicare an easy step through free educational seminars

and individual consultations.

Learn more at everance.com/medicare-monday.

Securities offered through Concourse Financial Group, Securities Incorporated, member FINRA,

SIPC.

Awesome.

Well, Joel, welcome to the

show.

Hi, Joel.

Thank you.

It is an honor to be here.

That's

good.

Even if he insulted you a minute ago.

I don't think it was an insult. I think

it was a chronologically accurate statement. I think we need to go out and race

He'd win in short and long distance which reminds me are you are you you're on the road you running you doing this once in a

While I do run. Yeah, yeah, yeah

He's a serious runner. You can tell serious runners by their shoes. I've seen his shoes

I'm not a runner not a runner. I run uh-huh, but I'm not a runner. There's a big difference. Oh,

okay

Tell us how it's well

I

Love to eat. Oh, so therefore I run

got it,

but so you're

not good

at it

You're

an eater who runs so I have the shoes and it looks like a certain way

But if you actually

see me run, okay, you probably think differently. Okay.

Well, don't don't ruin the illusion for me

As far as I'm concerned, I've seen you preparing to run

I've not seen you physically run but preparing to run you look to the part and so in my mind

Well years ago my daughter actually biked beside

me. Oh, okay, ran. Yeah, and she looked over at me and she said dad

You must love to run. Oh, and that's when I said no, I love

to eat got it

And then you run you run as a result of that that makes that makes sense. Yeah, so

Joel reason we have you on the show is

It's several fold number one. We like again sharing our friends with other friends good life stories. You're at this interesting stage of life

With these we'll call them still I think this isn't this they're young adults. Let's do dudes our

dads dads

Yeah, yeah, tell us yeah a little bit about you yourself your family

You know how long have you been married how many kids you have that the basics all the stuff you want out on the internet

Yeah,

okay, okay? Well I come from a family of five of us kids. Oh, yeah

I have two brothers and two sisters one of those brothers is a twin brother mm-hmm Jeff

Yes, and so I'm the youngest and I'm the youngest of the twins mm-hmm dead last

But I have been married to Angela

who

only has

one sister yes, so it's a different

Families sure

for 33 years

33 years I knew that was coming when I dropped that one out goodness gracious

Congratulations,

Oh keeping with threes. I have three kids.

That's good. Okay three three three three three

Run us through the children. How old are they and well?

They've got some of them well one of them has a family of their of their

own

And the

other one has

a podcast as but

dreams to be a podcaster herself yes

Yes, tell

us all about them so starting with the oldest is Bryce, and he is 27 27

Yeah, he's been married to Darla for about three four almost going five years

Yeah, I'm going to say five,

but they have brought us our first grandchild

Four months old Walter yes been a great new

Thing in our lives that we've enjoyed that's awesome

And then I have another son in the middle is Dustin,

and he is currently trying to finish up

architecture at Ball State doing a great job.

Awesome. Really impressed with the stuff he does.

3D printing, all that.

A lot of fun. Crazy.

See a new technology.

And then Mariah, who finished up at EMU last year.

Eastern Mennonite University for those outside of our

Mennonite University in

Virginia, in Virginia.

And actually, this past year has been driving around in a van

down

by the river.

Thank you.

Thank

you.

I'm glad we got to say it.

I was wondering.

Actually, the first

spot was in at Virginia, and she had her van parked down by the river

at a friend of my house, Eric

Beck.

Did did does she get the reference?

Have you shared the video with her?

Because the kids these days, they don't they don't know the power of the Chris Farley van

down by the river.

Mariah, if you haven't seen it, you need to because it'll it'll offer special significance

To what you're doing.

Those are the three kids.

That's kind of where they're at.

Yeah.

So the we go back and I think of and I should say full full disclosure.

So just for context, Mariah, I've had all three of Joel's kids as a youth pastor.

So I met them

in there.

You are old.

I

am.

Thank you.

Yes.

when I started my role as the youth pastor

here at Clint Frames.

So I have also seen them grow up over the last decade.

Well, it's been a decade.

And they've all taken very, as kids do,

'cause you're like, we raised them all in the same house,

but boy, oh boy, are they different, right?

- Very.

- I mean, I think your kids are a fantastic example

of like different interests, different personalities,

like all of that.

You know, one thing we did pretty on Angel and I

is we really wanted to allow them

to have their own interests.

And we could pigeon hole them pretty much

and say, well, you know, you're all good at basketball.

We're gonna have you do that.

But we really gave an open door.

For whatever you wanna do,

don't feel like you need to do what makes mom and dad happy.

So we tried to focus on that

as much as we could for their sake.

- Yeah, and so - And

they went all different places.

- Boy,

they did.

So Bryce graduates high school and he says, "Mom, Dad, here's what I'm doing."

What was his first launching out from the nest?

You know, Bryce was focused on agriculture.

He's a farmer and he really enjoyed it.

He finished up at Fairfield and actually got into the program at Purdue.

He was really excited.

He worked hard at getting into the program and started his first semester at Purdue.

excited about it, but very adult. He's always hung around adults. He's an old soul. He's

an old

soul. He came home

after, I think it was his first semester, and he sat down on

the couch and he looked at Angela and I and he just said, "You know, we've been at Purdue,"

and he was at the farmhouse fraternity,

which he had gotten into,

and he just said, "You're

not gonna like and I'm not gonna like the boy that comes out of here in

four years if

I stay.

- Wow.

- Oh,

yeah.

- Now mom and I wanted college to be, and we really tried to push him, but if you have

a young adult, son, child that comes in and can recognize the push that he's getting and

is not comfortable with it, yeah, get out.

You gotta bless that and be grateful.

- Yeah,

'cause he was studying what ag sales, right?

And so again, everything, I mean, on paper aligns,

like has these passions in the agricultural industry.

I mean, the kid could sell, you

know,

- Ice to an

Eskimo.

- Ice to an Eskimo, like, you know,

very much the right personality for that.

- It was his dream.

- Yeah.

- And he knew he was giving that up.

- Yeah.

- But he also knew that that wasn't a path for him.

And you know, it goes,

I go back to something that Angela and I worked on really young, before we even had kids,

we went through a parenting class kind of with my brothers and sisters.

We were all together.

And one of the things they really talked about was implanting the morals into their moral

warehouse

that

you do that young and they'll grasp it eventually.

You might

not always see it.

And I think for us, that was one of those moments that, you know what, they're doing

what we prayed about before we were born.

Yeah, as much as we dream and want him to go to college. Yeah, he's not feeling it. Yeah

Because of that right and I think as a parent you go, okay

I'm super glad that he recognized the fact that like not only is are you guys not gonna like it if he says

But he's not gonna like it like that. Let's take that takes adult like

Processing to pry I know a lot of adults. I can't even do that

Yeah,

and for him to do

that and recognize that right away like that was that was great

While it was a tough moment, it was a really good moment.

Well,

okay, so

Bryce tells you this you have the come to Jesus conversation in the in the living room. We're sitting down on the couch

What

What's the conversation you Angela have after that because I know there's a probably a talk after the the talk after the talk

What are?

What are the feelings? What are the concerns? What are the hopes?

Following that conversation,

you know, it's really interesting

We immediately go to what we think it needs to happen

And it's one thing we start to recognize as our kids get older. They don't always align

Sure,

we're so we're so focused on that. We got to get an education

And that was part of that conversation. It was really important. It's it's been important

in both of our families

And we also look as parents to the future and family business and understand there's sometimes

You know requirements and things like oh, you don't want to just let this go

but

The thing that is really hard as a parent to continue to focus on is what is eternal?

Yeah,

and what just isn't

what is what

everyone around us is gonna think

that's

what we're worried about

Mm-hmm

Is that what we're gonna focus on and we're gonna make decisions based off of

yeah

Or

is it what's going to be best for the heart of your child?

And that

becomes very difficult.

So that conversation was, I'm going to be honest, was a little less the heart of the

child and more

of, well, you know, we got to, we got to give him the best advantage

that he's going to have in life.

And we get too focused on that.

And that's what, unfortunately, probably was our pushing conversation.

We on this show, I mean, the mantra we hear is we're just, we're worried about making

sure our kids don't end up living under a bridge, right?

We have this

kind of like worse or a number ever. I don't know. Yeah, I just want to retire

on one of them. Yeah

Architects do really well. So no,

we're holding up.

No, uh, the I

Would imagine in my mind because I've already been there in my mind, you know

My kids already been graduated from high school yet of kind of this like, okay

if they don't do this, then this is going to happen.

And then, and then this, and then, oh my gosh, how will,

I think it's easy to kind of be catastrophic about the

whole thing.

Really,

really, really, really quick.

And we love our kids so much and we want to see them succeed. And we think,

I mean, I, I like to think I know the best of my kids. Like I know,

I think I've got a pretty decent idea, not fully,

but like what they're capable of. And I have a high view of that.

We should all as parents,

like we

all should be like, yeah,

my kid can do amazing things if they put their mind to it.

Right. That's, I think a really great mentality to have.

So I'm wondering then

following all of that, how?

Because it's clear to me that you guys decided to support.

And you kept your support.

You said, hey, we're one way that we're in your corner, Bryce.

So then.

What was it that you did to support, like

coming back on the back after that,

probably if you took a deep breath and maybe had a couple of cry sessions and

prayed a lot and did all of that, then what was coming when you came back to him?

What was, what was the step?

Sure.

You know, and the way I think we turned our conversation to was,

you know, from the beginning, we've said,

let's allow them to do what their heart desires and wants them to do.

Uh, as long as it's right. You know, in

some way. Yeah.

And again,

that was back in with sports they're picking and now it's life.

Yeah.

So we're going to, we're going to follow that same path.

And we told Bryce, you know, he,

he told us what he was looking to do in possibly going out West and, you know,

farming was still a thing. And so we actually, uh,

worked with some of the people we knew, uh, even in this church, uh,

to get a connection for him to be able to do that.

So we accepted it and we dug in and worked together on

finding his next adventure. Uh, that one was in Colorado.

Yeah. He gets connections as well.

But we we said, yeah, let's do that.

We helped him move out.

We physically

did the things

that made it possible for him

to be able to make that trip and move away.

Yeah. And he was he was in, you know,

there's parts of Colorado.

I mean, I've only been to certain parts of Colorado

because of where my family lives out there.

The part of I would say the the part of Colorado he was in,

call it a call it the the trails less less driven.

Remote, remote, rural is almost an understatement.

You know, we tried to take a motorhome out to

his house to visit.

And I remember this motorhome has never been the same.

He lived on such dirt roads that every time we had a pull a car,

we pulled behind every time we went out to town and back, we had flat tires.

Oh

man, just

his nearest neighbor was literally six and a half miles away like he was by himself

It's hard. It was a little hard on a parent.

Yeah, you know man. You're out here by yourself

Yeah, and

a

child you know like

you're saying

you know your child's strengths their weaknesses

And you know that he needs to have yeah people people mm-hmm

What a what a growing experience for him, but we went out with

Angela's mom and sister and well whole gang of us stayed a week with him out there, but saw what he was living in is

shooting rattlesnakes and

Go to town to talk to people

he said

he could go to church on Sunday and by Wednesday

I had to go into town talk to people the

cows didn't talk back. That's right. That's right

What it what an experience that's probably a little bit hard to keep in

Communication with him also too because he probably doesn't have a whole lot of internet out there

Maybe not even good cell phone

service, so it's

hard to hard to keep good

conversations with a time was not really

yeah,

right

Yeah, right

So fast forward for him because we you got still got two other children. I wanna I

wanna make sure you

talk about but

Typical typical firstborn gets the gets the intro conversation. That's how that's how that goes

So fast forward a little bit

Bryce finds himself finds himself a woman yes a

Quality young lady. Thank goodness. Thank goodness

that you pray for that long before

That prayer is answered. Yes. Blessing. Yeah,

it is. Um, and then that obviously as it does, uh,

That starts shaping the next direction of life. So they they

They end up moving and i've probably lost track of the number of places that they went or

where they went a bunch of places

but yeah,

how so

that kind of was the

Marriage and then kind of next next chapter.

What is the what does he end up doing and how in that process?

What were you how are you guys walking alongside?

You know, it's interesting.

They got married.

They were here for just a little bit and decided to move to Montana

as one of a friend from, you know, Fairfield to high school or whatever,

and got a job working on a farm again, agriculture, which is where his heart's at.

So, you know, we want to support that.

And usually support means moving somebody.

Colorado wasn't far enough.

[laughter]

We're going to haul it out to Montana.

Yeah,

yeah.

So, you know, we enjoy being with them.

Hopefully, they enjoy being with us too,

but it gets to be a lot of time.

And so, we moved them out there.

We were also able to go out,

spend a week at a time with them,

which was great when it's one-on-one

with your kids at that

older

age,

you're able to be able to do that

and share experiences together,

get to know both of them.

And for them to be a way

and build that life maybe out from under mom and dad

is just huge.

Whether it's her mom and dad or his,

it's really, I think, a good marriage experience.

I don't, you can't always require that,

but to do it on your own, count on each other,

rely on each other, and you can't go back

and just go back to mom and dad's.

You're annoying me, I'm out.

- Yeah.

- You gotta be together.

I think it was good for them.

- It's good.

on us. Yeah. And so, so from Montana to then North Dakota. North Dakota. I'm missing. I

was like, I'm missing a state. Yeah.

I think they might've made that move without us. Okay.

Wow. All right. Not that we didn't support it.

Yes. But I just didn't need to go out

and make a move. You

didn't get roped in. Okay. We're not coming out again. Yeah. Uh,

Tennessee, Tennessee. Yep. Uh, like Bryce bought a truck from a guy in Tennessee and

for him. I'm telling you. And he's a podcaster. Well, no, you know, he's a, what would you call that?

A YouTuber. YouTuber. I'm

so sorry. I show

my age.

That was for you. That's okay.

That's thanks. Thank you. So I spent a lot of time on YouTube as well as fixing

trucks and working on trucks. I know they're passionate. And I, you know, you love to

see your kids just follow their passion. Yeah. And be able to do that. Yep.

Sometimes, some folks aren't in a position or a place to do that or their

parents won't allow them and like, Hey, let's do that while you can, while you're

young for sure. And you never know what you hit.

Yep.

That's the risk you take.

Cause if they really love it and hit it, they might not come home. Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. It's their home then.

And I think it's easy even maybe subconsciously I, cause I,

I know parents that have done this and I'm trying hard not to myself where you

can kind of sabotage your kids opportunities a little bit,

right. To make,

to make sure

to make sure that they stay close and that they,

you know, and I think for us in this area, like where we live,

it feels like, uh, many of us go away for a time,

but we always end up back here. There there's, I mean, this is in our culture.

It's very like the home, the, the family, the, the,

your biological family and all of that are really,

really important and just being part of a family and coming back to the family

is important, especially when you raise, raise, when you're raising kids and you

And you want like for Jackie and I, and I know for y'all as well,

like having grandparents nearby has been a big determining factor, right?

In the decision we've made.

- It's interesting that Bryce and Darla found friends, good friends,

a really good church, especially in Tennessee,

that they felt really comfortable with and hard to leave.

- Yeah.

- But that true friendship of the people that are here.

- Yeah.

- I mean, family is important too, but I think also friendships.

There's something about the area, the Bible Belt,

whatever, it

can be a bit different.

And they learn that on their own is so much better than us trying to tell.

And hopefully they have that desire come out in their heart.

Sometimes

it doesn't, but we're fortunate.

You know, when they wanted to have kids, I think they felt like they wanted to be here

with family, which is

good for

you.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

You get to, you get the grandchild nice and near, which is a really fun thing.

For sure.

And, and now I think, you know, when you look, when you look back, we can't always, you know,

it's easy to Monday morning quarterback with, with Bryce's, with all those things that came

back.

Do you feel like if you give yourself a scorecard and you kind of look back and you say, yeah,

I think we made the right choices,

even if we didn't know we were making,

maybe we meant the right time.

I mean, were there be things that you would say,

like, I would have changed this a little bit,

or maybe a posture of heart that you had,

or a perspective that you had?

- Yeah.

You know, we can't tell what would have happened.

There are things you think,

well, I wonder if I would have pushed here,

would

that have made a difference?

But as far as changing how we supported Bryce

in the decisions that he was making,

You know I think Angela might answer that different.

Angela will have you on a separate

episode.

Right, right.

Yeah.

But you know I it'd be interesting to see how he answers that.

Yeah.

You know because we have a perspective that we think

yeah and

we have a good relationship.

Yep.

And so there's some of those things that say couldn't have been all bad.

Yeah.

And sometimes you don't know.

Yeah.

It's hard sometimes to be intimate enough to understand some of the things you either

said or did that may have either hurt or helped in those situations.

And you will find those out later maybe.

But it's not something that guys necessarily talk about.

I think sometimes a daughter and a mom might get closer to that.

We have to work pretty hard if we get into an intimate relationship of knowing, you know,

we have supported you differently? What would you have

wanted

us to do?

Yeah.

And I, I wonder, like, and this is fresh off of my brother and I having a conversation

recently and my brother will be 40, I'm 41. And we're just now talking about like, uh,

maybe how we're doing things a little bit different than our parents, but you know,

here we are, we both have four kids and we're like, we're just now having the conversation

where we feel like we have some element of perspective on what we really appreciated

about how our parents did or and then how we would how we would do it different.

So even even now like there's still a lot of a lot of life to live before I

think you could even be like hmm here's

here's how we're making maybe

some new

paths you know it's it takes

it takes time. One big thing personally that I

would change if I could it's a bit of who I am and a personality. I'm extremely

driven

and

when good things happen I'm grateful but I see what needs to still

be done

yeah and

I don't celebrate

yeah there we go I don't celebrate and I

don't

say I'm so proud of you here mm-hmm because I see what we have to do

I'm focused on what we have to do not what we've gotten

done sure and

I I do

it in life and I'm now conscious of it more but if I could have been better at

at celebrating, we know we all want approval of our fathers.

Are we holding back the approval of our kids?

Are we actually telling them how proud we are of them?

Because we're afraid if we tell them how proud we are, they won't go to that degree?

Come on.

Guilty.

Guilty.

I just wish it was, I wasn't that driven.

that

I could focus on how proud I am of my kids, all of them.

- Absolutely, yeah.

- And it doesn't come out easy 'cause I'm afraid

they're not gonna be driven or

something.

That's

my big wish I would have

been different.

- Son number two, Dustin, to not overly summarize,

but Dustin, very, I mean, as you say,

architectural school now, performing arts,

like very gifted in those areas.

I remember like school plays and things like this.

And that was a bit of an, I mean,

that's a bit of an intersecting point for you guys, you guys as well.

I think back to like, you know,

your days of putting on productions and things like that and being involved in

that, which this is, I don't know if everybody thinks when I think of Joel Miller,

I don't know if everybody thinks of this, but they're like,

there's a creative side

in your,

in your family that like

sort of comes

alive.

Talk to me about how you guys intersected in those places and kind of how,

as, as Dustin is finding his, his way in the world. Um,

cause cause again, all of our kids are so different.

It feels a little bit like parenting whiplash

sometimes when

you're like,

like I got a right brain kid over here, a left brain kid over here, one,

who's more concrete, one who's more abstract,

you

know? Uh, cause,

cause just like me, like, man, the difference between one and two is,

is considerable. How'd you adjust? How'd you find, how'd you find the,

the place to meet him.

Really good question. I think like you say with Bryce a lot of a lot of folks viewed us and like

Oh, it's like a little mini me

And he followed me around and did everything I did

Dustin is super intelligent lots of reading and

Was who he was not necessarily a duplicate of me, which is great

Yeah, no problem with it, but when the middle child hears that it

can

be maybe interpreted a different way

Yeah. And I think he heard a lot about sports accolades and whatever else for me

and had very much a good athlete as well as very interested in arts and music and

You know play guitar. I've loved singing president the choir. Yeah. Yeah cool. So I've enjoyed those things

Although I don't think he heard a lot of

that. Yeah, and

so I think he felt maybe a little different

But we loved it. We supported in every way and I think

He doesn't see that maybe in Bryce or myself as much but are my mom and super music my you know

Anita was the team. Yeah leader

here for 20 years my extended family moms

Siblings super talented. Yeah, he fits right in with those which you know for me when we would go to family gatherings

I'm like, ah, yeah, here's Dustin

Here's mine, yeah, yeah

just

it up so fast. It was super and yet athletic too. I remember I tried to run with him one

time and we were getting over to the S-curves and I always, you know, I'm proud that I can

kind of keep the same speed on the S-curves. He was like a gazelle.

It's just gone.

And

I'm like, it didn't even look like he was trying.

Yeah. For

those out of our immediate listening audience, my hometown, Joel's hometown of

Middlebury, we've got this lovely S-curve road up. I mean, it's a

significant

grade

for

a

significant

amount of time.

- For us in

Indiana,

yes.

- Yeah, yeah,

yeah.

It's like, guys, when we have a valley,

any sort of valley, and there can be a hill,

we could take great pride in it.

But that's, yeah, to truck up that thing is no small thing.

So yeah, that's--

- But you know, hindsight with Dustin,

I think too, that pushing and that maybe not giving him

what maybe he needs and saying that dad's proud of you,

was probably more of a gap for him

and more difficult. And, you know, we don't all,

we don't know what all happens to our kids when they're younger.

And we think,

we assume we can fill in the blank because we're so smart. What it,

what it is and what it's going to do and what they're going to do. And we don't,

and we don't know that sometimes till it's too late.

And I think that's probably one of those with Dustin, but just loving.

And Dustin, we had a difficult situation with Dustin

and life was not easy for him.

I don't know if we necessarily recognize that,

but there became a point where, you know,

I'm looking at this percentage up here and I'm pushing

and I had to decide, and Angela too,

we're not gonna focus on this anymore.

I'm not sure our kid knows

that he's loved unconditionally.

- Yeah, mm-hmm, yep.

- I'm just not sure.

And of all things, that's number one.

- Yeah, yeah.

- We've got to allow him to know

like God loves me unconditionally.

I'm gonna have to show you that.

And I don't care what it takes.

I don't care what it takes.

That's all I'm going to show you from now.

- Yeah,

yeah.

- And what you do with it, you're an adult.

And we're gonna work with that.

It's not eternal and other things.

And so we just need to make sure that that's the case.

And so Andrew and I made a decision,

like this is what we're going to focus on now.

And when we come down,

I would make a trip down to Ball State when he's in school.

I'm not going to talk one second about this.

- Yeah, yeah.

- He'll get it

from his counselors

and advisors.

- Yeah,

yeah.

- I'm going to pour in that you are loved no matter what.

And life throws curves.

This world is tough.

The screen is tough.

What our kids are battling is not what we battled.

It's not even close.

And it is not what we can't even imagine, and we can't perceive how they're receiving

that.

And it's even difficult for us to perceive how they're receiving us.

But they need to know what God's unconditional love is, because they're not told how God

loves him in this world.

- No, they're told where they're not,

where they're falling short, where they're not adding up.

- They don't need another person telling them

that dad

doesn't approve,

that I'm

not proud.

You've got to make that commitment.

It's

number one.

And so that was probably one of the biggest

ahas for us in decision.

Like, let's just do this and we'll see where it

goes.

- Yep.

And that has preserved relationship,

repaired relationship.

Like how do you feel about it

Yeah, you

know the goal was if we don't

We will lose influence mm-hmm and the last thing you want to lose is the relationship and influence

If we think we have an idea what can help and you don't have influence. Well, that's no good

right

So I believe it has allowed us to for him to have faith in us. Yeah

something that's important instead of this.

- Right, right.

- He's open to that.

- Yeah.

- And

we'll work together as opposed to at each other.

- There seems like there's this point,

which hopefully, I mean, hopefully I'll get there

with my kids at the appropriate time.

And I know Andy's, we've talked about this

in the season he's in where our role as parents shifts

with as our kids are getting older,

We're hopefully becoming more of the friend counselor than the parent manager overseer

or the supervisory role.

And I guess that's what I hear.

That's what I hear you saying.

Like there's just like some things have to shift in order to maintain the best outcome.

Yeah.

And you know, you have to realize at an age, you're no more responsible for those areas.

Right.

Too late.

Yeah.

That's hard.

because you want to micromanage

that still.

And you've seen parents that will continue to try to, and it's not,

doesn't work out. Uh, so you do have to decide,

I'm going to stop

micromanaging

that and doing that support.

And it's hard because we're both controllers and, um,

and my kids would say, you're, I'm not one of your employees.

They didn't say that. Yeah. But so much work, but you, you,

you felt it

maybe a few times.

And, and there's, I mean,

there's a lot of conversation going on now. They're article,

I'm just reading a lot of research being done on,

on children cutting their parents out of their life entirely. Like this,

like as a cultural phenomenon going on right now, where

it's just like,

I want,

I like can't deal with you anymore, mom and dad. And we're just,

we're going to act like we were just kind of a divorce there, so to speak.

Yeah. I read a two where the, they would kids,

and this was what really pushed it for us. Cause we were in the same,

like thinking the same thing when kids, uh, either, um, you know,

I'm moving away, I'm doing this. They, you know,

They shocked the parents, but the trend was instead was to,

I'm divorcing you.

- Yeah, right.

- And we didn't want to be one of those parents

that get divorced.

- Yep, yep.

- Because we wouldn't listen to what they wanted to

say

or how

they wanted to let us know.

And so that's a reality.

I think they are, you can say you've been reading about it

or heard about it, it is real.

- It's happening.

- It is absolute reality, that is happening.

That

is what they're told to do.

They're told, that's what they're hearing.

The way to do something.

It's ouchy.

And you do want to avoid that.

So now, yeah, so as Dustin's getting back on the saddle and doing what he loves, and

the architecture piece for me, I mean, it makes a lot of sense.

the very brainy, like studious, scholarly part of that, which makes total sense for

him. And then also the creative artistic and those two things coming together. And it's

by the way, for again, for those of you outside of our Hoosier listening area, Ball State's

architecture program is no joke. No

joke.

Take up your life. That's right. Yeah. And

Going through it and he's doing great. That's awesome.

Which is which is really cool. So cool good. So then your daughter

Yeah, Mariah Mariah

Gosh

You know she uh, she's the tail. He's the one coming up. Yeah, the only the youngest and the only girl

Marching again as youngest children do to the beat of a yet again entirely different

drummer

Yeah

When I when I met when I met Mariah for the first time this is one of the few

eighth grade students who came up immediately to me and introduced herself

and and said hello and I was like a lot of energy there

a

lot of personality

there and love it all

What? From because we can talk about our boys all day long and I'm realizing this

now I mean my daughter's almost nine. Oh yeah. The father to daughter

relationship. Wow. Yes. Yes. How has it been different?

You know it's I think it's funny because my wife would always tell me well you

you treat Mariah differently than you do the boys. I'm like yep. As I should.

"That's not going to work if I

think it's going

to be the same."

And you don't treat any of your kids the same, but you know, "Oh, she gets away with more."

I don't know that it was that.

But that relationship, it's really great.

It hasn't always been.

It's a tough one that we work at.

And I'm learning.

And that's one of the things as parents, we have to dig in to read, to find out.

you don't just know the importance of a father

to a daughter.

- Yeah.

- It's super key and it is a tough road to travel

to not be overbearing, but enough.

And you're a good, you know, it is a tough one.

I think of an experience we had

when Mariah first wanted to date.

She had

a--

- Oh Lord help us.

- She had

a young man and she was of age

now that we allowed it.

And so I said, "Okay, well, I'll allow you on a date,

but he needs to meet with me."

- Yeah.

- So we had a coffee.

- A coffee?

All right.

- I don't remember if he had coffee.

(laughing)

But we talked about what my expectations were,

and she hated.

I mean, it's hard to know if she really did.

I always thought, "Oh yeah, she says that,

but she really loves me about it."

I don't think she loved me at the time.

I was pretty hard on him. I mean, I like, she's like, did you really tell him that if,

if there's an active shooter, he has to get in front of me? I'm like, I told him he had

to do what I did.

Of all the

hypothetical

situations

you could have posed to him, that was the active shooter

situation.

Got it. Okay.

So she was a little mad. I think she wanted to be the active shooter after I talked

to

But you know, our daughters are precious,

our sons

are precious, but our daughters

are vulnerable in a world out there. And I don't shy away or feel a bit bad

about telling a young man, "This isn't the place to do what you're

thinking you're gonna do, not with my daughter. And here's the expectations

that I and God have

for you

and how you're gonna treat his daughter, and

And it isn't going to be the way you're thinking.

And I said, I know this book tells you

you think about sex every three seconds,

and I know it's every second.

The book is wrong.

She didn't like that one either, I think.

Sure.

Well, because again, the daughter is--

let's just be clear--

naive to a certain degree about the nature

of the relationship and about boys, right?

And that's that's to be expected.

And and there can be this feeling of like.

Oh, hey, Dad, you're you're you're imposing,

you're imposing your beliefs or your preconceived ideas onto this,

on this person, and that is that is unfair and that is that is unkind.

And by the way, it's not super going to be super make me super popular amongst

because inevitably I'm going to guess that Mariah had friends

that were also dating boys who had not had that kind of

conversation.

Right? Why do you make such a big deal?

So you're the weirdo.

Yeah, you're the weirdo

now.

Of

course. Right, you're the weirdo.

Um, are you still happy

you're the weirdo? I'm alright with it.

Fantastic. I'm not changing.

Yeah.

I still

think it's our duty

as men to take it serious and not lightly.

And not

to forget

how

it was and

it can hurt our daughters

in a different way than what

boys can be hurt. And so it is, it's a tough world out there. And they don't quite know

it yet sometimes at that age either. And you don't want them to, you want them to enjoy

life like

we did

for a long

time of thinking

nothing could ever go wrong. And you know,

the world's great. And you want them to have that time of child development and enjoyment

without stress and anxiety and, and

innocence. I mean, there's, there's a, there's a beauty

to that and that's that's a good God-given gift but there there does come a point oh

my goodness there does come a

point next time I'll just remember to tell the boy I don't

want him to tell one word of this tomorrow that was my own ignorance you know what

small

caveat right you and I this

is a conversation

between you and I you don't need to repeat

any of it or I'll be the active

yeah

go ahead I was gonna say so she goes to college then

Graduates college, comes back and says, "Hey, Dad."

What did she say to you there?

- Well, we'll first start when she graduated high school.

- Okay.

- This is probably the,

and I don't think she'll mind me sharing this.

We've had conversations about

it.

- If she does, she can write to us

at

dudesanddadspodcast@gmail

.com

and

we'll

talk it out.

- Yeah, we'll

invite her on the show.

- Yeah, we'll invite her on the show.

- So Mariah went to Bethany

and she was going, had about three schools to decide from

and going to Virginia, we were

like, man, 10 hours.

Well, like we said, we've allowed our kids to choose

the path they've wanted to take.

And for the first time, mom and I kind of decided,

okay, we might need to play the Trump card.

(Ryan laughs)

So I remember being in the family room

and we played that trump card.

Mariah's a sweet girl,

but she was not that sweet that

night.

We had a really growing moment,

but a really hard moment for us.

I knew that the paths that we take,

some bring us closer and some take us further.

I just wasn't ready to be further.

probably selfish on my part and on Angela's maybe too.

And maybe over-worried.

We go down that path in our brains and bring out the worst.

And so that was really hard on our relationship

as his mom and dad and Mariah.

And we've never, we just had never had

anything quite like that.

And I think it was hard for her too.

So going to college kind of had a flavor.

wasn't quite as sweet

as we would have probably wished and hoped.

Because you guys were not on board with her college choice.

Well, not going that far and we wanted her closer and we really wanted her, we wanted

one of our kids to go to our alma mater.

We graduated

from Huntington

and it

worked out and at least get a little discount for

the alumni

discount.

One of them.

That's right.

I worked

hard for this.

So it, yeah, our paths were just, we were afraid we're going to get a little far.

And so about her junior year of college, she asked me if I would help her find an old van

that when she graduates, she wants to go in it and she wants me and her to fix it up.

So I don't know what happened between there and there, but she still loved me.

I was as honored as I've ever been.

Yeah.

So,

so you got this,

you got this great chance,

great opportunity to just spend a bunch of time with your daughter working on

this van.

And you did, I mean, you did work to this thing.

We did work. We

had no

idea what we were doing.

None of us had done anything.

But you're learning, but you're learning together now, right? Like this is,

oh, totally. This is an interesting, like it's kind of,

It's the relationship dynamic is shifting here because it's not like

knowledgeable father and unknowledgeable daughter.

It's two novices coming

together

on

something. Yes.

I like to think I can figure things out, but yeah. Yeah. I mean, everything from,

cause cause Moriah has posted photos of this, of this process.

Now I'm remembering you, correct me if I'm wrong, basically gutted the inside.

It was a convert is

a conversion.

Converted van. And we against my will grunt gutted the whole thing. Yes.

I said, let's leave this and this.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- And I came out. - She's like,

it's all

coming out. - It's down to the man.

- And then you're doing insulation in it.

That's the part that I, this may be in my mind.

- That's the part that cannot get out of my

mind.

- There we go, there we go.

- I went home after I let her spray insulate the

van

and told my

wife that was the hardest thing

I've ever had to do.

- Wow.

- And I realized when she posted the video

that I was facing the camera and my face

tells lots of things.

(laughing)

I always forget the cameras were on.

And she puts everything in.

- Yeah, yeah.

- But I was like, oh no.

Because that, she doesn't listen and she has her own mind

a little bit like her dad.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And that was a very,

she

created the video of that one.

And she said, she called me,

I gotta call you dad, 'cause I just have to say,

I watched the video making it,

you were the most patient

person.

I was horrible.

I would literally tell her,

no, we don't wanna fill that cavity

because it's gonna, she'd fill it.

Well, now there's another one we don't wanna

fill it.

So yes, that was quite experience.

And she videoed everything, you know,

And I'm, I always forget.

So no matter what I said or what I did,

farting, and she'd put it on,

I'm like, "There's a rule here, you can't put farting on."

(laughing)

She has no rules.

And I have my favorite pair of shorts that happened,

I guess, I never see myself from the back,

but it does show maybe in the left cheek or something,

and now I'm blurred out wherever I go.

(laughing)

And so I can no longer wear my favorite shorts

to work on

the van.

- Okay,

okay.

- Wow.

- Yeah, but I was super honored that she wanted to do this.

And I'm telling you, we were in a transition at work.

We merged a couple of companies.

I was swamped.

- Yeah, yeah.

- I didn't have time.

- Yeah.

- But I just kept telling Angela,

I have to make time.

And it hurt.

- Yeah.

- But we did, and I'm so glad I did.

Ended up, Bryce, right at the end,

moved back at the end and he really helped up wrapping some things

up. He had some skills.

Come on boy! So

that was super helpful. We sent her off after she got it done.

And what's

the goal for, I mean there's some sort of like, is this just a wanderlust of

I want to go and travel the country? I mean because she's been all over and we'll get

a chance to share her, people can see because she's made a vlog essentially and has shared

the kind of journeys, was the idea just to travel and to see all that she could see,

was there kind of another point to this, or was it like, "I'm just gonna go"?

- You know, she had the opportunity to do a lot of hiking in the mountains in Harrisonburg,

and she really wanted to see the world, the West, the United States, and do a lot of hiking.

So this van was more of allowing her to kind of get around from state park to state park

and stop and see family or friends in between.

So that was kind of the like, gist of the idea of how this was going to go as opposed

to just wander.

She really, you know, Park Pass and those

things, and she's

doing lots of hiking.

She just enjoys being in the wilderness and hiking.

And then, which I didn't know she was doing until I actually got to spend some time with

her out there.

often, she's artistic as well, would stop on the trail

every time or every day, every hike she had,

and draw in a way to connect

and find who God is in her life.

You know, at least that's what we're praying anyhow.

- Yeah, yeah.

- See God in a bigger way.

I think that's what she, you know,

growth, understanding that growth can happen from that,

but just, I'll never get another chance to be free,

but also do what she loves.

that's really hiking. So that's kind of the instigator of that. And then allowing to go

and she's social. She likes to see people. She got to be with family that I, she spent

more time now with my uncle than I ever have. And so some of those cool things that have

happened because of her van and because of her trip that she decided to do.

So roughly speaking, where has, where, like, where has she visited? Like all around the

West and?

Yeah, well, she started in the East and went to Alabama and then, you know, well, she was

and other times just down in Florida and then across the lower state, Louisiana,

and North Dakota. Well, not North Dakota, she didn't go that far.

But all around the South and West, visiting in Arizona to New Mexico,

Oklahoma, and just a bunch of states and a bunch of people.

And she's had a few breakdowns. Utah, yes.

There's been a few things have not gone as planned.

You know, we bought an old van

and that's going to be part of the education, I figured.

It's interesting that it's actually done pretty good here.

She's hung in there and, but yeah, we've had a,

I guess it's now a known thing.

I didn't realize that, but spark plugs shoot out of

forks.

They have

the, yeah, and it sure did it.

- Exciting.

- In a terrible

spot in a two foot of snow

in Colorado.

But she happened to have a friend with her at that time,

which was kind of nice.

That's

a whole nother story.

That's a way long story, but

it was good.

She had, yeah, some wheel bearings pouring out.

So it's like, how long have you been hearing that?

Oh no,

just turn the radio up.

I haven't heard it.

[LAUGHTER]

So there's some things that she's learned now to listen

to the heartbeat of her car.

Sure.

Which is good.

Yeah, that's like adulting.

That's future adulting skills.

That's good.

But she's

been, yeah, she hasn't got to California

and Washington and Oregon.

She wants to do that yet.

So she

occasionally returns to base camp back here.

Christmas she was here. That's good. And, uh,

and how has she been financing this, uh, this

trip, Joel? How is it,

how

this

is, you know what,

all these parents are listening right now and they're like,

this sounds fantastic. How in the world is this? How is this possible?

How is it possible?

She's a, she's a, she's pretty smart.

She had a budget those in that sophomore year or junior year college when she

talked to me on her, on her van and she stayed within it,

even though I pushed her a few, you

gotta spend

here. Um,

but she stayed within her budget, she's worked pretty hard,

she's a good waitress

and they get some tips

then she gets

the hours in at work.

And so she's kind of mapped everything out, what she needs,

and then she lives on a dime,

other than

the fuel.

- Yeah.

- I mean, she lives on a dime.

And then of course, at one point, halfway through her trip,

she's down in Florida, as I

told you,

and my brother

offers her a job,

if she'll stay for a month.

And I'm like, Jeff.

Jeff do you realize you're extending Jeff her time out by giving her money

Jeff and it to me

Jeff I mean just so wise he's a smart businessman. He knows he got the talent nearby

Let's look at the right get Mariah on lockdown.

Well Mariah knows it's seasoned

Making bank is that's

good. Yeah, eight-hour shift and bring it at home

What from your perspective what has what what has changed about variah because of this experience yeah?

That's a really good question, and you know when she could answer. I've seen some certain changes

you know when you're by yourself and

You haven't been and everything depends on you

You have to make decisions if you don't you don't get anything done

Yeah, and so decisions and planning because you don't plan yeah

And for Mariah, she had to plan where she went to the bathroom.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So getting up in the morning isn't just as easy as it is for you and I.

Yeah.

And I crack up because some of her decisions as we were talking, you know, I had to decide

whether I'd make coffee or not because it depends on where I'm at.

I love a coffee in the morning, but yeah.

So her ability to critically think as an individual, to figure out, utilize the people or the,

you know, that are around you to get what you need

to have

is just a difference.

And then her being alone, you're alone with your thoughts, you're alone with who you are.

And she has figured out her strengths, figured out what she's good at, figured out what the

The world tells you you're not good at, but what she really is.

And hearing God's voice over everything

else and

recognizing she has really recognized

the voices around her and what they say and that it's not

always

truth.

So I think her ability to decipher truth is probably much sharper, even than college.

I mean college you get any college you go to you're kind of told sure right it's it's yep

You're getting educated so you have to suck in whatever it is. They're putting out no matter what University you go to

Yeah, it's not always about digging deep about

What's truth in and

how it fits in your life? What you're good at well how you fit in and so?

Other than that and learning of course you know how to get your oil changed, and yeah, where the spark plugs are yeah

Yeah, and the dipstick

yeah

She

certainly learned a lot, and you know she could tell you a lot more

I haven't even downloaded although I did get to spend a week with her

She was in Zion. Yeah, gosh. Yeah, I called her and I said stay

Mm-hmm. She's a what I said I can get a ticket tomorrow

And I can be there yeah, and so I flew from South Bend to Vegas

yes the

next day

yes

I

did told work sorry yeah

I'm leaving yeah, and got there on Sunday. I drove two hours to her

So I could fly into Vegas was two hours beautiful as and we spent the next Sunday hiking

that's she loves that's awesome

It was cool. She let me yeah, I'm honored yeah, I

When she first left I said hi, I want to join you and you're not invited. Oh

Yeah, she had to do it.

But the but apparently

she feels like she has done.

She's accomplished some of the

things because now you're now you're

invited. You're invited.

Well, I wasn't invited, but she did

say

yes.

She didn't allow yourself.

Invitation didn't leave.

That's right. She wanted a shower.

Let's be serious.

That's good.

So, Joe, when you look

at all, when you look at I think

you've just so well described and I

love it and I know your family well

enough. I think you've so well

described just the the

the beautiful idiosyncratic unique nature of your kids and your family.

When you look at all of it, I've really heard you say, and I think this isn't cliche, we

hear it so often, but it is the deep truth of letting your kids know how deeply loved

they are and letting them know, um,

cause, cause, cause that's the path back to relationship. Even as,

even as things, as things change, I, you know,

um, I think about my own, my own parents and it's like, you know,

they both came, my parents both came from,

my dad was not a believer younger came into belief and like, uh,

I always feel like I'm hating on the Baptist, but very, very conservative, very, very conservative,

like a Christian circles.

My mom grew up in a fundamentalist Bible church and they came out of that and they were like,

we cannot let rules control.

They need to know the love of God.

They need to know how we love them.

We can't let rules control their life.

And yet there's been certain times I've heard like where you're like, oh man, I'd like a

few rules to probably

to like to

hop in here.

Right.

That, that challenge.

But at the end of the day, is it the love of God, them knowing the love of God that,

I mean, because I kind of just hear you say that, that's sort of cemented the bridge in

your guys' relationship.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

And part of that, you know, you just have to learn, it's such a hard transition when

you're the knowledge,

you

know what's best, and you need to make those decisions and you

and you continually are doing that and then shifting to,

the biggest thing is, you shift from telling them

to listening.

- Yeah.

- You have to hear them.

And that shift from telling to listening is your influence.

You don't wanna lose your influence.

But if you don't stop and listen to 'em,

you gotta hear where they're at.

You can't assume you know, and it's not where you think.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

because we're so, we do, we get so focused on that and if we don't take the time to listen and hear,

because the perception is different, their world's gonna be different, our world was

different than our parents'. Yeah. And if you don't take the time to find that out and care

enough to swallow your pride and say I'm not gonna even mention anything in this conversation,

I'm gonna only ask questions and I'm gonna find out. Yeah. What they really are at, where they're

And where we could be a help if we can and what they need

From you we need from us. Yeah as opposed to what I think they need

yeah, beautiful.

It's really difficult

Well, Joel you you have been a wealth of knowledge here.

Yeah

Talking

so many things away here. Yeah, got me got me. I've hit the marker on our

record

Yeah, it'll be lots of good memorable clips, but obviously

We cannot let anyone leave this show

Before

and now it's time for the dudes and dads popcorn

Fantastic Joel this is where we ask you random questions you can't prepare for we almost can't prepare for

It doesn't really even have anything to do with anything. It's what it's what comes to us

So we're gonna. We're gonna give it a shot. Well, Andy you go you can do a couple. I'll do a couple

We'll see what happens all right

perfect sounds sounds good. So Gary yeah, yeah

So I'm gonna go easy on you Joel. Thank you right first

We're gonna get warmed up

When you think about going out for dinner, where's one place that you're gonna go oh

I love Mexican nice almost any Mexican which I had for lunch, okay? We had what we call the Ponderosa, Mexico yes

El Rancho Viejo

where

used

to be the

Just so you know you're on to when people call it that and this moment

The moment you said Ponderosa Mexican,

I knew exactly what you were talking about.

It's a good answer.

Question number two, Joel.

Apart from the Bible, we'll say that.

Favorite book you've ever read?

- Purpose Driven Life.

It is not about you.

- There we go.

- You get that, you're way ahead

of the game.

- There we go, okay.

- All right, add that to our list.

- Add it to the list, all right.

Over the years, I know you've had you're wearing a shirt right now about cruising.

So you love cars. Yes.

What's been your favorite car that you've owned?

Oh, you know, I probably would have said I have a 87 Camaro

that I

got

when

I was 17 and dated my wife.

Maybe a couple of other ladies.

So with a car like

that, it makes sense.

I took

care of it, so I've kept it all this time.

I've had it, but recently I get myself a little birthday present

Years back, and it's a another Camaro, but it's you know it's 2010, but it's a super sport

yes

That seems to be more fun. Yeah,

yeah, I don't know what it is about

it. Maybe it's the SS yeah

Probably

that is probably that would be my favorite like you can take all my others, but just give me that one. Yeah,

that's good

Joel if oh

Okay, I'm gonna see Andy uses this one everyone's well Joel if you there were to be a restaurant the name to sandwich after you

The the Joel Miller special what's gonna be on that sandwich? What's what are we looking at?

Well, we'll probably start out with a burger. Of course. It's

gonna be cheese. Yep

Like a little cheese with spice

But you know I actually like pulled pork. Oh as

Chunky barbecue sauce

basically gotcha

okay, and then grilled onions

And I'll even take a little Chipotle spice.

Oh, OK.

So

Chipotle Joel is required.

That's what I'm talking about.

All right, I'm going to order the Joel

Miller next time I

go to the

market.

Joel Miller, I'm

sold.

I'm sold.

Barbecued pulled pork.

Well, congratulations,

Joel.

You have

successfully

passed the Dudes and Dads Pop Quiz with flying colors.

And

brother, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you guys.

It's an honor.

Oh, man, it's so cool.

I hope I told you what not to do.

We've

just we've tucked away so many wealth, a lot of wealth and knowledge.

But yeah, well hey everybody as always if you want to get a hold of us

You can do so over at dudes as podcast at gmail.com with all of your future show suggestions your harsh critiques

Or don't send those to me or bird. Yeah, or

burger recipes

ideas

And we should we should share

We'll share Mariah's her vlog

info

if you want to follow along and see the crazy fun and the old

The old conversion van and so it's worth it's worth a look

What else Andy

if you want to call our voicemail number five seven four five zero one four four six seven

We love to hear your feedback. We do we love it all

Obviously can head over to dudes and dads

calm for all past episodes and current episodes show notes teacher episode your episodes

Merchandise all the good stuff glad glad to send you that way

And as always we want to thank Scott Allen for our theme music keeping it keeping it jazzy

Just saw a clip of him over the Oak Hard Jazz Festival doing his doing his work and so smooth so good

But hey guys, thanks for hanging out with us and until next time we wish you grace and peace

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