In this follow-up episode, Liz and Jesse open up about parenting after faith deconstruction, an experience filled with both healing and unlearning. They reflect on how leaving a high-control church reshaped their ideas of authority, discipline, and what it means to raise kids with curiosity instead of fear. Through personal stories, they share the challenges of guiding children who question everything and the beauty in watching them form their own beliefs. Together, they unpack the shift from obedience to openness, from control to connection, and the daily work of letting their kids feel the full range of being human - joy, pain, doubt, wonder, all of it. It’s a heartfelt conversation about breaking cycles, choosing authenticity, and raising children who feel free to be fully themselves.

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I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work, the Gundagara land and people. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

I also want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which you, our listeners, are joining us from today.

I recognize the deep connection that first nations people have to this land, their enduring culture, and their commitment to the preservation and care for their country. This land was never ceded, and it always was and always will be aboriginal land.

Hey there, and welcome to beyond the Surface, the podcast where we explore the stories of people who have survived religious trauma, left high control occult communities, and are deconstructing their faith.

FOREIGN I'm your host, Sam, and each week I'll talk with individuals who have taken the brave step to start shifting their beliefs that might have once controlled and defined their lives. Join us as we dig into their experiences, the challenges they've faced, and the insights they've gained.

Whether you're on a similar journey or you're just curious about these powerful stories, you're in the right place. This is beyond the surface.

Okay, let's talk about the parenting and shift into a completely different avenue.

You've already sort of, like, highlighted and, and thrown around a few different things about, about the kids in last week's episode, but for some context, tell us a little bit what, you know, kids looks like in your home and what the family structure looks like to the point that, you know, know you both are comfy. And obviously the kids are comfy because consent matters, even when they're kids. Just FYI for everybody listening.

But I'm asking that, knowing that there is a bit of context, that some of the kids spent a lot of time in church and others didn't. So much. And so what did that look like in your family?

Yeah, the oldest two spent most of their lives up to about the age of five or six. You church, and we then even post church, we sent them to a Christian school, like a fair, like a Baptist Christian school.

And it wasn't until there were a few things that, like, we were kind of okay with it. Like, we were like, chew the meat, spit out the bones.

Yeah.

And then there were just a few instances where they came home and we were like, actually, we're not comfortable with that.

We were having our third kid, actually, and the Christian Baptist school was a long way from our house, and it was a bit of a trek every day and we thought a third kid in the mix is going to also compound that. Just the physical dynamic, like the logistics dynamic of getting the kids to school.

But then there was some stuff going on at school, like, for us personally, that we didn't.

We didn't like.

It was a bit fundamentalist in its approach, which we were really moving our lives away from. And so, yeah, we kind of pulled them out of that. And then we've always, you know, our.

It's interesting because Liz has probably talked about this, but our youngest has had.

Zero church full heathen.

And.

I love this kiddo.

You would love him. Everyone loves him.

He is, like, crazy wild. Like. Like, you kind of feel like the kid thing's gonna get easier, like, as you experience, you know, the difficulty.

Oh, yeah, I know what I've experienced now. Like, he's just a whole different dynamic.

He breaks all the rules and breaks all.

Yeah.

Which is beautiful.

He's an Aquarius. And so, like. And it's got a lot of Aquarius in his. In his houses and whatever the things are. And, like, he brings out Aquarius.

Aquarians are, like, up. Like, they are the mainstayer themselves.

And he'll rule the world one day.

He'll just do whatever.

He'll just do what he wants. Think he'll rule.

He'll throw himself off. He'll just. He's just absolutely crazy. But at the same time, he loves home and he feels very. He needs the security of the.

It's so weird because he's, like, this rebellious, but also.

He's such a lover.

But he.

And it's interesting because we've just sent him to a private Catholic school and he's coming home going, we went to church today and I got the ash on my forehead and, no, no, no, no, no.

So we've just been to Bali, and in a lot of the restaurants and stuff, they'll have as a decoration a little bowl of water with a flower in it. It's a very spiritual place. So we. Ollie's just been to Easter at his Catholic school, and they've done the Ash Wednesday mark of the cross.

So whenever we went to a cafe in Bali and they had this water, here we go, oh, Holy water.

And he dip his finger in the water and do the cross on his forehead and then, like, sprinkle everybody and then be like, if you don't believe in Jesus, you're gonna go to hell. Like, you know, so.

Oh, my gosh.

We had him. We had two kids close together, a boy and a girl. We Were done. We're very smug about it. Very smug about it.

But didn't do anything practically.

But didn't do anything practically because I was quite chronically ill and I thought it could have been any number of things contributing to that illness. So I went off all forms of contraception and didn't think that I could even get pregnant because my period could go into all of that history.

But we don't. We don't need to. And we kind of got pregnant and I fell pregnant and was absolutely terrified. And because there's a big gap. What's the gap?

Also the middle child. She was in school.

Both the kids are in school.

Sleeping in her own bed.

I mean, you're restarting all over again.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

We got rid of all the car seats and baby stuff and all kind.

Of stuff and everything.

We went back to sleepless nights. Like we were getting full nights of sleep and stuff.

Well, I had chronic insomnia when I was ill. So part of having a baby again, I thought, I've just gotten my health back together. I've just started sleeping and now.

But then I, you know, I. I allowed myself to feel what I felt.

Yeah.

And then one of the things we.

Considered like an abortion, like, it was, like, it was interesting because you're navigating your post Christian worldview going, yeah, well, you know, and I personally were fine with it, but I just felt with our youngest that he was meant to be here. He was a.

There was something quite divine about it.

And so I didn't. Yeah. Didn't want to go. I mean, we probably wouldn't hesitate now.

Okay.

We're not having a fourth in the Malami household.

But no, he was, he was quite the surprise. And yeah, you know, I was very scared at the beginning and we both were, but he has just been an absolute up type of delight. Love it. Yeah.

And the more like he was a rerun for me too. Like I. I could.

This is a good point. Yeah.

The first two kids, I was just involved in church life or work. And so Liz, kind of like I just handed the responsibility to Liz and I went and did all the stuff.

Jesse, you were working 70 hour weeks.

Yeah, some weeks. It was ridiculous.

Yeah.

And then I felt like, oh, with our youngest, I can. I can do all the things that I. So, like, I. Literally from the day he was born, I walked with him every day on my chest. Like with a.

Okay.

Yeah, whatever the thing is called. I did swim. I did. I don't think you did one swimming lesson with him. Did you?

I did a couple.

Did you? Okay.

No, I don't think I did, actually. I don't think I did any.

He won't sleep with me. He still. He's like breastfed until he was four. He's so, like. And it was so hard to get off the boot, like, so. And loves his mum.

Loves his mum so much. But so anything that I could do for him that he absolutely wouldn't refuse me doing it. Like, if I can lay, it's still even today, though.

Like, I'll try and lay in bed with him and he'll lay with me for two minutes. He's like, I want mom. But like, swimming lessons. I ride him to school on the back of the bike. Like, I try for while the kids are at school.

And I would have. We called Daddy daycare day. So one day a week we do swimming lessons and we just do anything. We'd go park hopping, we'd go to.

And I just never did that with the other kids. And it was unreal.

It was nice. I love.

It was a chance to do some things when the other two were born, the older two, my dad left when my eldest was four months old and then we left church when our middle daughter was like two or something like that. So we were experiencing very high levels of stress when they were very, very little and very traumatic things, and they were very, very little.

And so the chance to experience, experience parenthood like newborn baby world again in a different way and in a different environment was very healing for both of us in different ways.

That's changed my perspective of parenthood too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, how did it impact, you know, we talked about the, like, the big emotional fallout and, and like the, the storm, so to speak, in the other episode. But how did that impact the parenting and, and the, the, the way that you parented?

And also because I know that, you know, one of the biggest things is like, depending on the age of the child, like, what do we tell. There's so much chaos and change happening. Like, how do we tell them in a way that is age appropriate, developmental, all of those sorts of things.

That means that they don't start absorbing all of this themselves, but also they're part of the family as well and they're seeing and experiencing the change as well. And so how did you do that with your eldest too, when it was all sort of happening over that number of years?

Yeah, it was a really interesting experience because growing up in my house, I never saw my parents fight ever. And I never heard them have serious conversations about marriage and family.

I would hear some like, tantrums being thrown, but that was more about outside situations, you know, members of the congregation and the atmosphere of my home was very highly stressed, but nobody talked about anything. And so even when we were in the church, we wanted a different experience for our kids.

And I guess one of the lucky, another lucky thing that happened to us is that eldest really didn't like event style church. So when he was a toddler, that's when we got smoke machines at church and lights and the music was really, really loud. He just hated all of that.

And so I ended up in the, in the crater in the foyer with him a lot of the time anyway because it was just sensory overload. And I, I guess that really helped me question things from, we do it like this, but it's not for everybody.

Like, it wasn't like he was like, take me back to church, mom. I miss it so much, you know, like, oh, thank God. Yeah. And also I was told what I had to believe.

I remember when I was a teenager going, I don't want to go to church. And the response was, while you're under my roof, you will believe this and you will come to church.

And I just wanted to have more faith in my kids than that. And so we did things a little bit differently.

And I think, like, because you can tell by this podcast so far, we're very much talkers and communicators, so we are not. Weren't afraid to have open conversations at home with each other in front of the kids.

Like, obviously if something wasn't age appropriate, we wouldn't talk about it. But like, mostly everything was somewhat age appropriate.

And I want them to see us going through our highs and our lows because that's how they learn resilience.

We.

What they. You can see it if you just look around enough, you can see kids replicating their parents and the upbringing they had because of what they see.

You know what I mean? Like, so we had to demonstrate to them resilience is talking, communicating, you know, puzzling over the problem.

And well, I just remember like being completely humiliated when my parents lit up and not seeing it coming. And I just didn't want my kids to be bamboozled like that. I felt bamboozled and I felt humiliated.

And so when my dad left, even because that was a hot topic for many, many years, you know, we lived with my mum and there was lots of family dynamics to navigate. I think in the beginning I was too exhausted to hide it from Them I couldn't save face.

And there was so much crying happening in the house from different family members. There was no hiding, as even if I tried, I just would have been even more exhausting myself.

So I lost the will to, to save face pretty early on because I was already traumatized and exhausted myself. And we probably crossed the line. I, you know, we may have overcorrected a few times, but we've always told the truth.

When the kids would ask about their grandfather or my dad, we would, we would be age appropriate, truthful, you know, with them about that situation. And then when the kids started asking more questions, well, like if Nana and granddad separated, are you guys going to get divorced?

And I think the first inkling when you have kids is to protect them and you want to go, no, of course we're never going to get divorced. But because that feeling of humiliation was so strong for me in not seeing it coming from my parents, I would always.

And then having your parents with divorce when you were young as well, I just would say to them, look, the plan is that we're going to stay together forever, but there are no guarantees. But you will always be loved and we will always try and work everything out.

I felt like that, that saying something along though, which we've always said, yeah, said to them, the charge in that.

But like, I saw the wisdom in.

It and so, yeah, I just didn't. Yeah, I couldn't, not again. It was just, I was so bamboozled.

My parents never fought and my dad had been cheating on them since I was like two or three months old. So I didn't want them to have that experience that informed me so much that, you know, then when it was, well, do you believe in God?

Like all of that, that idea of being truthful and honest with the kids and then letting them ask questions and find their own place, being brought up with not being allowed to think anything other than what I was told to think. I had lots of secret obsessions, lots of secret ideas that I never told anybody in fear of getting in trouble. And I just did not want that.

The, the wanting my kids to be free over. I don't know how to say this properly, overrode the idea of wanting my kids to be perfect or to have a perfect answer.

And I mean, I think there's a lot of parents out there who will say, and I have parents sitting in my office going like, I want my kids to be able to ask questions. I want them to be able to come to me with those things and yet they're not all the time.

And so, like, practically speaking, like, how did you create that environment for them as parents so that they could come to you and ask those questions?

And particularly those big sort of like, existential questions around, like, God and religion and faith and spirituality and all of that sort of thing.

Yeah, it's. It's a practice. Like, it's one of those stupid and nauseating answers where there is no answer. You just have to do the hard shit every day.

Yeah. I think it's starting with the small things, like allowing the kids to come to you with the small stuff.

Yeah.

You know, builds up to asking and. And being okay with it and not being surprised by things.

We, you know, often kids have asked us questions, and we've had to hide our surprise in the question to come and ask. Do you know what I'm saying?

Like, the first biggest one for me was when our eldest realized that people die. Yeah. Oh, I'm going to get emotional thinking about it, but I'll never forget it.

Ah.

Because he would sleep on the top bunk and I just heard him cry, like, sobbing. Do you remember? And he just realized that one day we're gonna die, and it's devastating for them.

And I don't remember having that moment with my parents because I think it was the focus on heaven was just so great that it shut up everybody's questions. And even the thought of being afraid of death was. Or you don't have any faith if you're afraid of death because you're going to go to heaven.

But when he was having this moment, such an emotional moment about death, I couldn't dismiss it, and I couldn't lie. I couldn't bring myself to lie to him. And I think in that moment, I didn't even know what I was really doing.

I didn't know that it was some wise good thing. I think I was just like, I've got a choice. I can either make this quick so I can get out of here and he stops crying and we feel comfortable.

Or.

Or I can be present. I can, like, just show up to what's happening. And I said, yep, one day I'll die and you'll die, and everybody you love will die. And it's really sad.

In the same way, Liz is always like, the plan is that we live for a really long time, but we have no ideas. Like, we have no guarantees. That's been the consistent answer that we've given our kids whenever they've asked us about death and us dying.

I remember the Older one coming out in the middle of the night, probably about age 6 and saying this is. He started to find his own spirituality from a young age.

Yeah, it's quite an old soul. Like, he's.

And we've always felt that. And even into his teenage years, he continues to show us that he's an old soul. Very wise.

But I remember him coming out at age 6 and he was crying again and he's like, like, what are you crying for, bud? And he's like, I don't want to go to heaven. Like, what?

So kids.

And like, what? He's like, I can't stand the idea of being somewhere forever. It sounds.

Sounds like a prison.

Sounds horrible to me. And so he. Then he's like, what else can I believe?

And so we kind of just opened up some interpretations and he really feels settled with this idea of reincarnation. And so we're like, you believe that? Like, yeah.

And I mean, we don't. They just started deconstructing at the time.

Yeah.

But I think because we were able to be honest with each other about how harmful some of our upbringings were in the fundamentalist mechanism of belief that we were able to give the kids a bit of rope. I think a lot of parenting is done from a place of fear. And I know a lot of people who keep their kids in church.

They purely do it so that they don't. Their idea is, well, if they're in church, they're less likely to try drugs, drink, have sex before married, get all of.

They're trying to behavior modify and control the best way that they know how, like in things that worked for them. But like I even said in our podcast about marriage, all Purity culture did for me was make me too afraid to have sex with before marriage.

It wasn't a healthy, conscious choice that I made. It was out of fear. And I think a lot of people, there's a lot. Like, being a parent is such a terrifying thing to do. And the.

The temptation to parent out of that fear is. Is real. Especially when this day and age when both parents have to work because you can't afford to leave online income. And so there's.

Even our time preference is so low to be able to talk to our children about the big topics and let them explore and to stay up late at night. Like, we live in such an urgent society where if the kid gets up at 2am crying, saying, I don't want to go to heaven. It's just like, go back to bed.

We all need sleep. Like, so it's it's a really hard gig to parent these days. And I think fear drives a lot of that parenting fear and low time preference. But.

And so I can't have lost my train of thought.

That's okay. Sorry. Most I ask, ask a question, it's out of my head and I wouldn't remember it even if I tried.

But I mean, some of those big topic conversations are also connected to your own stuff and your own conditioning and all of that that you've received as well.

And so how do you then have those conversations in a way that honors where you're at but also honors what the kids need in terms of conversations around sex and consent and alcohol and drugs and, you know, like bodily autonomy and, you know, all of those different things that you just don't get in those high control spaces whilst also knowing that this is also kind of like some of my own that I'm having to have conversations about.

Oh yeah, do you want to or.

Do you want me to?

Okay. One of the things that we had to learn early on between each other when we were deconstructing was trust.

Yeah.

And I think what a lot of people, what's really hard to do as a parent is to trust your kid. And I was never taught to trust my kids. I, you know, or I wasn't trusted as a child either. So.

And maybe being a woman, we have a unique experience of this as well, of not being believed, of being seen as overly emotional and sensitive. And so everything that we say gets taken down a notch or two. And I just didn't want our children to have that experience.

And I allowed that to really inform how I approach their questions. But in saying that our eldest camera, I've had this experience in different ways with the older two.

He woke up again one night and said, I don't believe in God. I'm an atheist. And that was. I was still wouldn't have categorized myself as a Christian when he said that to myself.

A lot of people probably would have, but I still considered myself very spiritual, had beliefs around Jesus and God and, and I didn't want him to be an atheist. My, you know, desire for him, my default desire because I got a lot of value out of my spirituality.

I didn't want him to be an atheist, but I really had to trust. If I let this kid, if I show him, he probably would have been 10 when he said that. But if I can show him, mate, you believe what you.

And I just remember so much being told, you will go to church and you will Believe what I believe. And not having any of that freedom and I still turned out okay in the end. Like, what if I gave my kid a little bit of freedom?

What if I said to him, be an atheist, honey. Like, he's 10. It's not set. And forget at 10. Hasn't even lived a life yet. Like, probably doesn't even really understand.

Yeah.

Fully what he's. What he's saying. And I'm like, oh, so you know, you don't believe in God and I just can't see how God exists. Like, it just doesn't make any sense.

And I'm like, oh, what does make sense to you? Like, you know, what other things could make sense? I think we get so fixated on that. What's right and what's wrong.

Like the cut and dry we don't explore in and around it.

Because often when children say things, it could be close to what they're trying to say, but not spot on because they don't have the experience or the language.

Yeah.

All the tools to fully explain what they're feeling in their body, what they're thinking about in their minds, and the convergence of the two. So you've got to do some work on trying to tease out what it is they actually mean and what they're. What they're actually trying to say.

I think what our eldest was trying to say in that moment, his understanding of God up until that point, which was largely informed by the Christian school that he went to and the first five years of his life in church, he couldn't reconcile. And that wasn't a set and forget thing. So when you can let go of the fear and your pre.

I don't know your ideas and what you want for your kid and understand that they are their own person. And figuring out their autonomy both bodily and intellectually begins the day that they're born, not when they.

Not when they're 18 and they become an adult. Like, they learn this stuff now and they can learn it safely in our homes by questioning. By saying things that we question.

Like being. Yeah, like our parenting.

Not just me, but I mean, all of us as parents will dictate whether they feel safe or not to ask questions in the home environment. That's really important to make them feel safe when they question things. I'm definitely a question asker.

I challenge things and I'm critical in my thought about things. And so, like, I would want that for my child. I want them to think. I don't want to tell them what I've discovered.

And I think one of the things that we always find is usually I look at my parents and I'm like, why the fuck didn't they do a better job of parenting me? And, yeah, and also, also, I recognize that when my eldest grows up and all my kids grow up, at some point they're going to go, what the fuck?

Didn't my parents parent me better? Because there's more. They've got more access to information, better quality, understanding how the brain works, the body works, everything works.

That's naturally going to happen. So we've got to allow, like, I can't prevent. I don't want them. I actually feel like, probably failed.

If we get to the point where they're like, oh, I've had the perfect parents, or whatever. Like, I think it's really important that they.

Because that means they've evolved to the next level and they're going to take the human experience for society to the next level, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

I mean, but part of that, like, as you're talking, I'm going. Part of that requires, like, something within both of you to go. We also want them to question us as well. Like, and to ask. Ask questions.

And that's just, like, not allowed in church spaces because, like, the parents are the head of the house. Right. And you don't question them and you don't get to go, well, why, like, why is that rule in place? Why are you telling me that I can't do that?

That, like, and just, you know, giving them permission to even do that is huge in itself. But that requires something of both of you as well. Right?

Look, it's so annoying because we've raised these kids who question.

Yeah.

And so now we're like, clean your room. Why? What's it mean, why? Like, why? So, like, we're still figuring it out. Like, we've never had teenagers before, so we're figuring it out as we go.

But, like, I think some of my core memories as a child inform why I do what I do.

And I often say this to my friends and to Milani, and I say it to other mums whose kids are in the same kind of crossroads that my teenagers are at the moment. I remember being 16, blackout drunk in the back of someone's car, no idea who. And I remember coming to in this car.

My best friend was in the front seat. Then I blacked out again. And I woke up on a farm.

Yeah.

And they're in a chair. No idea how I got in that chair. And then I blacked out. Again. And I have no.

The scariest thing about that was not that I blacked out in a strange place was that I knew I could not call home for help if I was in trouble. And I just knew all through those. Because kids, the own the way that they learn is to mess up and fail and try again. Like trial and error.

Experience is how we learn. We can lecture and we can tell people what to do all we want. But even for my life, for your life, for our lives, we learn through experience.

And so to. I just was so afraid I knew I could never call home and I didn't want that experience for my kids. But for them to trust me enough to.

For them to be able to come to me when they know they could, when they're doing something wrong and they could potentially be in trouble, that takes work to get to. And. And so you've got to allow them to have independent thought, to be able to voice what they think without being shut down.

If they can't do that, they're not coming to you.

Yeah.

About anything. So there's some risk and some uncomfortability that you have to wade into to be able to have this experience. Experience with your kids.

And it is really annoying. Like it's so annoying when they question. But also really important.

And the natural imperative, I mean I'm not sure like we're a bit older as parents now, probably younger parents are a bit more aware of this from a psychological standpoint. But the default tendency is when a kid doesn't do what you say is to clip their wings.

And it's challenging to go, hey, it's challenging within yourself to say this is a really good personality trait of them because they're going to question the world, not just take the world hook, line and sinker and then submit themselves like so then pushing back on you at home is really good practice for them when they go out pushing back in the world which is important for them to be critical thinkers and to question things and to forge their own identity in a true self way in the world around them.

Well, and I think deconstruction really taught us how to do that because that's when we really started questioning our church leaders. We started questioning our beliefs. Then that translated into questioning society, questioning why some rules are in place and feeling like we can.

It's. It's actually our responsibility to do that. Not that we're problematic, that we do that.

So it helped deconstructing and adopting some of those practices to then translate it into parenting. I mean look we're not perfect.

Our neighbors, when we first moved in here, had a massive out couple of hours long, you know, session with one of the children that everybody in the neighborhood got to hear.

So, you know, it's not all sunshine and rainbows, but I think if you do the hard work and you could be bothered to fight with the kids a little bit, to tussle it out with the kids a little bit, to let them be a bit disruptive, it does pay off.

Because now our eldest is making some pretty big life decisions and is, you know, coming to that place where he's really figuring out who he is and he's got some gumption, he's got some runs on the board, he's knows what his values are or he's like doing some good things to try and figure out what his values are and what he wants. And he's not afraid that he's going to get it wrong as much as what we might have been when we were kids.

It's like a really good metaphor is like when you have a toddler, you stand there and you watch them walk and you're there to catch them if they fall.

Sometimes you kind of let them fall a little bit so they get the feeling of falling and hurting themselves and then you're there to pick up the pieces. And I think that's essentially what happens at home. If they can ask questions, you can help them ask questions in a. In a healthy way.

Well, and I think too. Sorry, Sam, we're just talking and talking and talking again.

I think like a big issue in society that I feel we have is this inability to be uncomfortable or to be in pain. And nobody wants to be in pain. I want to be well 100% of the time.

But when you are in pain, wanting to get better in a flash, wanting a silver bullet, that's not how you build health and wholeness in your life.

I think the most healthy and wholesome one can be is to let the rhythms happen, to ride the highs and the lows, to be enjoy when you're comfortable and to learn to be present with it when you're uncomfortable. Problem with kids is that we try to control them.

One, we don't want them to experience pain because they're precious and wonderful and it's heartbreaking when they experience pain. And on the flip side, it's inconvenient because we're busy. We're all time poor. We've all got multifocuses.

So to have a child having a meltdown and some existential crisis at 10 may seem insignificant to us, but for them it's everything. And letting them be in pain. When the eldest was like, everyone's gonna die. I could have said, oh no. Like, there's heaven.

Bypass it.

Yeah, bypass it. But to go, yeah, and it sucks. And I hate that we're gonna die. Then my middle child recently went through a little breakup and is devastated.

And the temptation to go, I, it was nothing. You're a kid. Like, it didn't mean anything. Like high school drama, like, get over it. But it's, it's meaningful to, it's their whole world.

Like, for her, even though it's small to us, we can hold it back.

Just, you know, like we, when we're away. I found it. I know she wouldn't mind me saying this, so it's okay. Found her crying and I'm like, what's wrong?

She's like, I just really miss this person. And I'm like, I'm so sorry. That sucks. Yeah. Like to let them have that. I.

Sometimes we get so busy trying to make everything perfect for them and there's so many reasons why we do that. Like culturally, society, like our societal pressures and all of the different influences that are on us.

But just to let our kids be messy, let them be uncomfortable, it's not dangerous to let them have those experiences. And that's what actually builds resilience.

Yeah, I mean, well, you're also helping them build a regulated nervous system. Right. Like a regulated system is not like flatlined. That's death.

Like, it's like it's going to be up and down and it's being able to sit with the up and down and to not be consumed by it. And so like, it's also letting them know that like when you don't bypass the pain, you still survive it. It's not exactly consume you.

You are not going to, you know, be in this place forever.

But if you never experience that, then that's the perception you are potentially going to age with as you get older, when there are big, massive, life changing situations that happen and you don't have any skills to regulate your nervous system through that pain. Which is why I have a whole podcast of people who landed in those spaces. Spaces. Including us, so.

Including us.

Yeah, exactly.

So I mean, I was just told to pray about everything and bring everything to Jesus. Yeah. And that has landed me. I. I can't remember if I said it on your podcast or to a friend.

I just felt like a child that in my mid-30s, learning everything for the first time. Learning how to regulate my nervous system, learning how to be critically aware and to question things, learning how to be emotionally intelligent.

Like, I just. I prayed about everything, gave everything to God, just wished and hoped, tied. That was my part. Yeah. So I want my kids to grow up with some tools.

Yeah.

So that what they go through, I want them to have a healthy sense of self, a sense of connection to their environment, to people, the earth, whatever they want to call God. Because I think that that helps them be integrated beings and not just purely focused on themselves. And I want them to be able to ask questions.

So those things together, I think those values, when you can figure out what your values are and what you want for your kids, that really helps you navigate some of these trickier situations a little more consciously.

Well, we call it the human experience. So the human experience isn't holidays and good times.

It's heartbreak, it's sorrow, it's pain, it's breaking your arm, it's being violently ill in bed for three days. And it's interesting if you can, I think, post my Christianity I've landed on. There's a sense of oneness outside of the human experience.

I don't know if you've heard. Who's that guy? That Irish. No, Peter. He. What's his name? Ah, Pete. No, not Pete. Another.

Anyway, there's this guy, he's Irish, and his name's Pete.

Rob Bell used to have him on his podcast a bit.

Anyway, I remember he actually came to Australia and I went and saw him and he said he was very, very philosophical, like, came from a very philosophical understanding, like, would unpack the Christian experience in a really philosophical way, then try and explain it in a secular way.

But I remember him saying at this one event that I went and saw him at, he said, if heaven is utter bliss, if it's like an orgasm after an orgasm, after an orgasm, after an orgasm, after an orgasm, at some point that's gonna become really tiresome and not very joyful.

Sounds fucking exhausting, to be fair.

Exhausting.

And so, like, it really gave. I was like, that's actually what the oneness experience would be like. If we're all this one big pool of joy, like, then.

Then at some point there would be a desire in the universe, all oneness, to experience some form of separateness so that it could understand what the joy. Like, it would have it. And so that's what human, to me, my mind, that's what the human experience is.

It's the universe experiencing itself, which means you've got to have the low. You've got to be in bed for three days in. On a Bali holiday, you know, coming out of both ends and.

And feeling like absolute shit to understand what it feels like to sit in the sunlight on a beautiful day. Do you know what I mean? And so then if we don't teach our kids, if we shelter our kids from the. From the.

How are they going to understand what it's like to have the human experience? Yeah, so. Yeah, that's my.

Yeah.

And so then, I mean, that's prompted a different question than what I was going to ask before, but I'll go back to that because then how do you balance, like, within your family, how do you balance protecting them and also allowing them to experience at the same time? Because, you know, and also not overcorrecting in that space because that's a whole lot of like, like tightrope balance.

I think first thing is, you gotta recognize that you're imperfect, so you're never gonna get it right.

So sometimes you're gonna be on the tightrope and you're gonna fall off the tightrope, and other times you're gonna be, like, holding onto them too tight on the tightrope. You know what I mean? Like, it's this, like. And that's okay. You've gotta give yourself the grace, and you've gotta give them the grace. Like.

Well, and practically speaking, too, like, we always say to our children, you're allowed to push back, but you need to be respectful. Yeah. So you can say, I don't agree with you, but we're not having a yelling match. You're going to.

We're going to sit down and we're going to talk about this. And we went through this a little bit ago with one of the kids. We said no to something that they wanted and they didn't understand.

So I think really always have your why ready and be able to explain it to them. And I had to explain to them, I, like, this is. I've never had someone your age before and I've never been through this before.

And this is the best way I know how to navigate this. And this is why ABCD was really important.

I think, like, if your boss, if you work in an environment and your boss says, do this job, and you're like, why? And they say, don't ask me why, just do it.

Yeah.

What kind of respect do you have for the boss? Like, you don't have. The boss can go, well, I do it because of this reason.

And this reason and this reason, I understand that, or I don't agree with that. But if you want it that way, perhaps could we do it this way? Like, like there's that bit of it's on the table. Everything's open for negotiation.

Like negotiation with some logic and collaboration there.

Collaboration even at the end of the day, like I said to our kid, I said, like, I don't know if I'm making the right choice or not. This is what my instinct tells me and this is why. But because I bothered to, in a calm manner, have the conversation, they're going to feel loved.

At the end of the day, they might not agree with my choice.

Yeah.

And they might grow up and be on a podcast one day and say, my parents did this to me.

I'll book them in like 10 years time, 20 years time to chat to.

Them that they'll be able to say, but you know, my mum sat me down and she said, I'm doing this because I, I love you. And this is the best way I know how to get, you know, to go through this. And I think, I do think there's bigger issues at play here. I do.

Families have never been more time poor.

Yeah.

And we have a lot of resources, but we also don't have a lot of resources. There's a real lack in the space of connection and support for real life matters and some of the nuance.

And because we are time poor, the tendency that does the default position is like, I'll outsource that to church. Like the youth group.

Yeah.

My kid. And I'll give them all the models they need. Or I'll outsource them to school or whatever or to society.

Or I'll just say no to my kid without an explanation because I'm too busy and I'm too tired. I've got to. I understand. And look, I've had those moments with it, with them as well because it. There's.

I just don't think we've ever lived in an age like this where we have been so unavailable to our kids. And I think it's a real problem and I don't know how to, to fix it. And I, I feel terrible.

Like I can't have a parenting conversation without mentioning that because I feel like a lot of families really are.

Both are at work. Then they've got to commute.

Yeah.

And then they've got to pick the kids up for sport.

Like they're parenting with their hands behind their back.

I mean, since the 70s, essentially, we've gone from one parent at home all the time. It's literally now to. Most households have both parents not at home. And so that is a really big.

Problem, which we're not. We're not advocating for women not working.

No, not at all.

Whatever. I just mean there's a gap.

There's not even a choice for one parent to be at home anymore. It just has to be both parents at work.

Yeah.

And so that.

It's hard.

That's challenging for the parenting role. So like Liz said, you've got one hand or both hands tied behind your back trying to do this incredibly hard thing. Yeah.

Yeah.

Have you both always been on the same page with, like, the way that you parented and, like, discipline and boundaries with the kids and things like that? Because I'm also thinking, like, throughout that deconstruction period.

Period, like, discipline in the church with families looks very different, like, for when those families come out of that space. And if you are at different points in your deconstruction with different beliefs and. And things like that.

Have you always been on the same page with the way that you've parented?

Nope.

We haven't really been on the same page as anything. Like, on the same page. No, no. Like, we agree about a lot of things, but we've never been on. Exactly. We've never been fully aligned with everything.

Yeah.

Since. Since church, I would say. And, like. And even when we're at church, I think some of that was just masking and pushing down.

But definitely post church, we've always had our own ideas. It's interesting. I feel like this is where society has to go. We have to be individuals or individuation.

Integrated individuals.

Integrated so that the collective can function. But that's how a marriage is. Or a partnership is just a microcosm of the macrocosm.

So, like, we have to figure out our own selves and who we are, and that's going to be different to another person. And we also have to figure out how to integrate that with other people.

Yeah.

In order to move forward as a society and humanity.

So I think the way that we navigate that, because we do have different ideas. I mean, I grew up being smacked like a lot of other Pentecostal children probably. Were you? Oh, yeah.

I grew up being smacked. Yeah, Yeah.

I mean, I had secular parents and I was still smacked.

Yes. It was very much something that happened back in that day and age.

And that is not something that we do now and not something we've done in our own home. Even when we were on staff. Pastors at a real hesitation about spanking my children. I would get spanked in the. I'm doing this because I love you.

I just never felt loved. I felt behavior controlled. So when it comes to discipline, we've. We have different ideas and different. We've come at things from different avenues.

And I guess. I guess there's been times where I've said to Jesse, and I mean, our youngest has probably been the.

The most challenging, where I've got, like, I've really got a feeling about this. Can you let me give this a try? And vice versa. Where we'll, you know, we have these times where we're aligned and then kind of we move like this.

And when we're like this, it. You really have to have the conversation of. This is what I think most of the time, both of us will have a why.

Yeah.

Sometimes it'll be an instinct. Like, I just really feel.

And I guess it takes trust, the ebb and flow of trust and then the ability to say, that didn't fucking work, so now it's your turn. Like, which has happened before, too.

I want to caveat the whole trust thing, because we're throwing the word trust around a lot. Yeah. We say this to our kids. Like, we just was literally saying this to our youngest this morning after he.

Pocketed a heap of my money to take to the canteen.

So. And we said this to all our kids. Trust is a wall that you build with every little decision and choice.

You're putting a brick in the wall, and then you can knock a whole bunch of those bricks out with one decision. And sometimes you can knock the whole wall down with one decision.

In our own marriage, we haven't got to this magical trust state because we've clicked our fingers. I think we've built trust through the hard times and the good times. And then that gives you a secure foundation then to parent from that trust.

Well, and I think you figure out what trust is really about, because trust isn't really about everything working out, even the way that you say it, the way that you intend it. I think to really trust somebody is to trust who they are. So I might say, trust me, I know what to do with my kid. Right.

To Jesse, I know how to handle this situation. It might go awry.

Yeah.

But he can trust that I've done it because I love this kid. It doesn't mean just because something failed that I'm untrustworthy. So it's really redefining what trust is. And let it be an ebb and flow situation.

Not a, it can't be static and, and rigid because that's when it shatters. It's got to have a little bit of movement and, and flexing it and switching that idea about trust around has really.

Because in church trust and faith were very interlinked. You just had to believe you couldn't question. And the fact that we question each other is a sign of our deep trust in each other.

To me, because I can trust that I'm not going to get in trouble.

Yeah.

I'm not going to get judged or blacklisted or whatever all of the things are. I'm not going to be thrown out of my belongings. I can trust that I can ask my question.

And that to me is more valuable than trusting that he's always going to do what he says he's gonna do or the kids. Do you know what I mean? I don't know if I'm explaining myself.

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean I think even like from the child perspective, like even that allows them. I don't think 100 trust in any situation is healthy.

That's my opinion. I think we, we were presented with like anything other than 100. Trusting in God is like, is doubt.

And so you get this like mentality of you can't question it because then that means that I don't 100% trust God. And then that's replicated in faith based families where the children have to 100% trust their parents and not, and not question.

And so I think it sort of harps back to, you know, the conversation that we had around like how do you allow your question your kids to question you as well? And that in itself actually builds more trust anyway. Like the irony.

Exactly. It's, it's like that. It's like that. And the more you're vulnerable with them, you don't have to be.

I think bringing down some of those perfectionism ideas that fundamentalist Christianity breeds is really healthy for your parenting. They don't need to think that you're the best and the greatest and that you never get things wrong.

It's actually really important for them to see you fail. Really important for all of my children to see me cry, the boys and the girls to see me cry.

To know that crying is a normal regulating activity and not something that's a sign of witness. Like being vulnerable with your kids and inviting them in on the journey only sets them up for, you know, good things in the future.

I mean, of course there's balance in that and there's being age appropriate and and, and all of that as well. We're all just doing the best we can with what we have.

And so when we fuck up, we say sorry to our kids. Like, we acknowledge the mistake that we made and we say sorry. And I don't recall any of my parents ever saying sorry a lot.

They may have and I just don't remember. But like, I can't. Like, I've said sorry more times to my kids than I can remember my parents ever saying to me ever in my hole. And so.

And then the, the swing or the blowback of that is, or the repercussion of that is like our kids say sorry to us. Like literally the eldest one sent a message this morning. He lost his cool a little bit. Lost his shit with, with Liz.

And on the way on the bus he said, mum, I'm really sorry for this. And like, it's beautiful to experience and to say not in a. It's not a power over, it's a power with situation within.

You're helping them grow into the human experience, if that makes sense.

And mirroring the accountability that just doesn't exist in, in spaces. Right. And you know, accountability is a layered thing in high control space.

You know, the mirroring of that is, is, is I think probably like the beauty aspect of that as well.

In the same way as like I asked you about like in the previous episode about like the joy and the great things that came from deconstructing, like what funny or beautiful or surprising moments came in being able to have more freedom and expansion in the way that you parented post church.

I just think realizing that it's gonna sound silly, but they don't. Like, what am I trying to say? Kids aren't dumb.

Yeah.

And they're really insightful. And sometimes the.

If you allow them space when you're in something, good things and bad things, their perspective can really help you shift your own perspective, can shine light on something. The amount of times one of the kids has just said something and it's made us all laugh hysterically and broken.

That even, like I remember the kids came home from school going to a Christian school, and I think it was the middle child, she wanted to say grace at dinner time.

This is my favorite story.

And what did she say? Our Father? Like, she said she wanted to say the Lord's prayer for grace over dinner.

But she sat in Mudra, right? Like, and then said our Father. So what did she say?

You're in heaven. Hello, be them.

Hello, be your name. Not hello, be your name.

It's like messing with your own. Like, we were like, unpacking our own dogma. And she helped us unpack our dogma even more. Do you know what I mean?

Like, it was beautiful here at the cliche. Your kids are your teachers and they really are like, can they bring so much joy and wisdom to your life?

As much as the questioning and all that can be annoying. They're companions on your journey with you and.

Yeah.

And what they have to give and experience alongside of you is a miracle. It's beautiful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I've been listening to heaps of rum dust lately. Like, I don't know if you know who rum dust is. He's like, the.

Rum liquor.

To be fair. No. R A M D, A double S. Ram Dust.

Monday morning and I'm already thinking about rum. That's a good start for my week.

Let's go.

And he was a psychological. He was a professor of psychology at Stanford or Harvard or one of those. And started experimenting with psychedelics in the 70s and then.

And realized how healing it could be. And then wanted that experience. So then he wanted to feel like he was open to the universe 24 7. So then he traveled to India and met a guru.

And this guru, he gave the guru lsd. And it was like, didn't even do anything to him. He's like, oh, is that all it is?

He's already connected.

So he had this really big epiphany that if I start sit under this guru and he brought all of that teaching back to the west and you can jump on YouTube and listen to a bunch of his lectures. They're unreal. They're so good. But he really. What was I going about? Kids? I'm. I wanted to preface it so I didn't sound. So where's this coming from?

You've been listening to Ram Dass lately.

And where was I going? What are we talking about?

How they. Kids. Kids can be a teacher.

Oh. So he has this thing where he says everything is your guru, like. And. And for me, the. This is where I was going. This is what.

I was going to sound weird if I didn't pref. Preface it with listening to Ram Dass. But literally, I think our souls choose this experience.

My soul, the human experience, the highs and the lows, the ups and the downs. My soul has chosen and Liz's soul has chosen mine. And our souls have chosen our children and our souls have chosen our parents.

And if you open yourself up to that, then you get the fullness of that experience.

Yeah.

And so I Just love his face.

While you're talking about this.

She's like, she's like, want it.

Because I've always been very rigid and think like trying, analytical and try and process the world through my mind, you know, and, and listen to rum dust is really opening up my heart so that I can end this up finally. That's what.

But also the whole choosing experiencing. I'm not quite, quite on that page yet, but I understand what you're trying to say. Like when you look at life as if this is.

Everything's a good.

Like everything is a teacher and you really. The choice is about how you interact with your moments. And we have control over that choice.

Yeah.

And. Yeah.

Well, I'm not saying this, I'm not saying this as a silver bullet for every person, but my personal heaven experience in this life has come from waking up in the morning going, my soul chose this experience.

Experience. Yeah.

I. I'm grateful for this experience. And I'm going to live in the fullness of the hurt and the joy.

Yeah.

And. And appreciate it for what it is. So that.

Well, it makes your children rather than being your minions.

Yeah.

They become part. A really important part of the journey.

Like you said, companions. They become your companions.

And you can see the challenge, like the pushback we get from the youngest one or the heartbreak we see, the heartbreak we see them have that we want to shelter. We can feel and experience and, and find meaning, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

My. My personally, I can speak for this really quickly because I can. Like, I just want them to be their true selves. Like I don't want. I want them.

I think a successful human is a human that is true to itself. I think a true self expression of any creation of this universe. Is it something.

It lives as free as it possibly can in the balance of the interconnection it has with all of creation. If that. I don't know how to articulate the.

Earth connection to other people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same. I mean I'm. I want my kids to be happy.

Yeah.

I want them to really enjoy their lives. I want them, really want them to be able to fail and not be Miserable about it. I want them to let themselves experience the full.

The full width and breadth of life. I just remember cutting myself off from so many experiences because I was afraid they make me a sinner. They'd excommunicate me from my community.

I don't. I want them to make good, healthy children. Choices for themselves, informed choices for themselves. I want them to be critically aware.

I want them to question their government. I want them to be awake.

This is. This is feeling like a sermon all of a sudden.

I know. Sorry.

No.

I've got so many good things for them. I don't care. I don't care what they believe. Yeah. I think as long as they are being good to themselves and good to the people around them.

I know plenty of Christians who are horrible, who are abusive, and their faith does not make them treat other people or themselves better. So faith is not the thing having a belief system.

There are Christians who are like that and like. So it's like.

Yeah, but that's because they're connected to their vitality.

It's not the label that makes them that way. Yeah.

They've got a good sense of self. They've got a good sense of their own space in the world and of the space of other people.

And if they're just kind and connective for the rest of their lives. Happy, happy lady. Yeah. I will die a nonna in the hills Making spaghetti with a smile on my face.

Beautiful. Okay, I. I sort of didn't really, like, end the last episode.

Episode the way I would usually, because obviously I knew this one, but also you kind of already answered it, which was like, beautifully done around, like, the. The tips that I would always say, like, what would you say to someone who is navigating this freshly?

And so in this space, what would you say to parents who are navigating their family who are doing this really fresh in real time right now that, like, they are navigating the deep reconstruction storm at the moment? What is your number one tip for those families at the moment?

For me, I've just heard so many people in my own space on the practice co and in my circles, yeah, people who've had abusive and traumatic experiences in church. I think part of the gaslighting of those situations makes them want to keep their kids in that environment.

And when you listen to them, they're saying, I've had this horrible experience in church, but my kids have got to stay in church. So one of. One of the things that I always encourage people to do is listen to your own story. And what has it taught you?

I just knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that church is not somewhere I want my kids. I don't want the church to inform my kids value systems or my kids beliefs.

And I don't necessarily think that a church is any safer than any other place for a child to grow up. The where they're going to learn the most, this is both, both freeing and terrifying.

Where they're going to learn the most about who they are and the world they live in is directly from you.

And so whether you outsource that, and we all have to outsource to a certain degree but when you can understand that putting them in a church environment or putting them in a Christian school school or doing this and doing that isn't the silver bullet to keeping them safe. Being having a healthy connection with you where they can fail and succeed and still be loved in both.

All of the environments in between that's going to inform who they are and what they believe about the world more than anything. And I don't say that as a pressure thing like you better get it right. It's not about getting right, it's about being present to them.

And I think we don't give our kids enough credit. They're smarter. We think they don't know.

They know like they know if we didn't tell the kids about my dad or what we were experiencing in deconstruction, they've got ears, they've got eyes, they've.

Got their bodies, their bodily sensations.

They pick up on, they know. And so honor their wisdom and learn to see that they're not just dumb little people.

In fact, sometimes I think our children are more connected than we are because they haven't yet learned not to be. And so honoring them and their intelligence is a big piece of the journey, I think.

Yeah.

Like the other thing I would say is if you're fresh in deconstruction, imagine you're really sick because what you've got is a lot of trauma going on inside your body. You're not going to get up and go to work every day when you're really sick. You're not going to be this a type personality in a traumatized state.

So give yourself the grace to go through it. It's going to be, it's going to take some time to go through your body. It's going to take some time to work out in your marriage.

It's going to take some time to work out with the kids and the temptation will be to get it right right now, but you're not to keep.

It together in front of them. Yeah.

You know, and so like, I hope that you don't feel put that pressure on yourself if you're listening to this right now.

I hope that you don't put that pressure on yourself and I hope that you give yourself the grace to move through it in the pace and the time that it takes you to move through it.

The kids are going to be okay.

And I think if they come to faith on their own terms, whatever kind of faith that is, and it's a choice that they've made that is more powerful than any, you will believe this because you're in my house situation.

The kid that we mentioned before who said he was an atheist at 12 isn't now because they've got the freedom to explore and be curious and to find connections on their own.

So when you let kids, you know, within context, make some of those connections themselves, it's actually more powerful for them than it is if they just have to ascribe to a set of beliefs. Yeah.

Beautiful.

Thank you both so much for like, carving out such a chunk of time to chat to me, but also just for sharing so openly and vulnerably with everybody about yourselves and also like a little window into your, your family, which is beautiful. So thank you both so much.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of beyond the Surface. I hope you found today's conversation as insightful and inspiring as I did.

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Remember, no matter where you are on your journey, you're not alone. Until next time, keep exploring, keep questioning, and keep moving forward. Take care.