Welcome to the Upside-Down Parenting podcast from Summit Ministries. Parenting can feel overwhelming and disorienting. But you don’t have to do it alone. We’re here to walk with you as you raise your kids to embrace God’s counter-cultural truth, his upside-down kingdom, and champion a biblical worldview.
In today’s episode, we’re honored to have Kate Watson join us. Kate is the Publisher at Axis, an organization that aims to bridge the generational gap, enabling kids and adults to have sincere, open, and honest conversations about their day-to-day lives. Kate, welcome to the Upside-Down Parenting podcast!
Episode 11: Summary & Transcript
Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Episode Summary
This interview features Kate Watson, the publisher at Axis, an organization dedicated to helping parents and kids have meaningful conversations. Watson explains Axis’ mission to bridge the generational gap by creating free content that encourages curiosity over fear regarding youth culture. She discusses the unique challenges of modern parenting, including rapid technological change and a polarized cultural environment. Watson shares personal anecdotes and cites data to argue for the importance of engaging with kids’ culture as a means of discipleship.
Episode Transcript
Gabriel Pagel (00:00):
Welcome to the Upside Down Parenting Podcast from Summit Ministries. Sometimes parenting can feel overwhelming and disorienting, but we don’t have to do it alone. We’re here to walk with you as you raise your kids to embrace God’s countercultural truth, his upside down kingdom and champion a biblical worldview. Today, Elizabeth and I are honored to have Kate Watson with us. Kate is the publisher at Axis, an organization that aims to bridge the generational gap, enabling kids and adults to have sincere, open and honest conversations about their day-to-day lives. Kate, welcome to the Upside Down Parenting Podcast.
Kate Watson (00:39):
Thank you guys so much for having me, Gabriel and Elizabeth. I am so excited to have this conversation today.
Gabriel Pagel (00:47):
Me too.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (00:48):
Glad to talk with you and looking forward to it.
Gabriel Pagel (00:51):
Yeah, very much.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (00:52):
Yeah. Just to get us started, Kate, can you tell our parents who are listening, we have a lot of parents listening. Can you explain just a little more about what is the vision of Axis and your purpose in trying to help parents and kids have conversations and kind of what’s the heartbeat behind Axis? They may have never heard of it before.
Kate Watson (01:12):
Axis is a nonprofit organization based in Colorado Springs, and we are a digital media company that distributes and creates content based on helping parents connect with their kids. All of our content is given away for free thanks to a community of very generous donors who enable us to make things because just because free doesn’t mean it’s free to make. Right.
And we often talk about what’s going on in culture. We really try though to talk about what’s going on in culture in a way that is empowering and equipping, and we really believe in stepping away from a spirit of fear about what goes on in culture and instead embracing this posture of curiosity and how we can connect with our kids through asking really good questions.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (02:05):
I love that. Good question. Asking should be a skill that we all, an ongoing class we take as parents and as people, right, to learn how to ask good questions and how to enter in with our students. What do you think makes that challenging?
Kate Watson (02:26):
I think there’s two things that make that really challenging, at least two things. One is the fact that we are raising children, myself included. I have three kids in a time when technology is moving with unprecedented speed. So of course parents throughout generations, the parents who came before us that were believers, they had to deal with different things coming up in culture that they had never experienced.
But we are raising a generation that is so immersed in this digital culture, encountering new technologies all the time, and sometimes it makes that generation gap feel exaggerated. It makes it feel harder to sort of bridge the gap when I don’t even understand what my kid is using to communicate the new app that they’re on or how to keep them safe when they’re using things like YouTube. So I think that makes it hard.
I also think that it’s doubly hard when we’re living in an environment where the culture seems really overheated sometimes. Sometimes it feels like any conversation we want to step into or any wisdom we want to offer, it just makes people mad or maybe there’s a lot of context that’s buried in everything that we talk about, a lot of hot buttons, so to speak. So the fact that we live in a culture that feels a little quick to judge also makes, I think the conversations parents are having now feel more complicated than they might have for the generation before us.
Gabriel Pagel (03:58):
That’s really good. I was just talking with some people about, you said you want to empower parents and all of that, and I was just talking with them about trying to parent in certain ways from a position of strength. I was looking through the Axis website a little bit earlier and I followed Axis for a really long time. Tell us about the one conversation model because at one time you can hear oh, one conversation and I think that you guys use that to just kind of pull people in and it’s not exactly what people think it will be, right?
Kate Watson (04:39):
Well, that is such a great question, Gabriel. The one conversation is our discipleship model. It comes from an idea that our co-founder, David Eaton, got from a mentor of his, basically this idea that we’re not looking to have this one big conversation with our kid when we want to cover a tough topic like sexuality, we don’t want to have one big conversation about technology and then we’re done. We don’t want to have one big conversation about what content is appropriate and then we’re done. We want to be so engaged with our kids that it just feels like one conversation that lasts a whole lifetime parenting.
It starts obviously not just at the hospital when your kid arrives, but before that, the preparation you do to become a parent, and by that same token, parenting doesn’t end when your kid turns 18. You want to be equipped to continue to pour into them and guide them and be there for them into their adulthood. So the one conversation methodology is really just about seeing every question that you ask your teenager or your tween as an investment. Not every question’s going to land, but you have to keep asking them.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (05:58):
People will often even kind of ask me, when do you have the birds and the bees conversation or when do you introduce the topic about transgenderism or these different topics? And it’s like, I love the way you express that, and I feel like I’m commonly often saying, yeah, you start the conversation at a certain time, but you don’t end it. It’s just like open-ended because it’s too much to just be like, hey, we had the conversation, now we’re done.
And it really shuts down the relationship that way. Well, we already can’t ask questions. We already had that conversation instead of opening it up like, Hey, let’s just keep it open, come to me anytime. My parents, and especially my mom modeled that really well for us where she was like, come anytime. You can always ask me any question. I’m a safe space to ask that question.
(06:46):
So I mean, I had friends I remember in college, he’d be laughing. You talked about that with your mom because it was just, yeah, we could sit around with my siblings, brothers, sister, all mixed, and have conversations about difficult topics or things that might feel like, this isn’t something you talk about with your mom. And she just made that space and my dad did as well, but she homeschooled us during that time, so she was available to just go, yeah, anytime. Let’s talk about it.
And it made it where you could come when you were thinking about something at a weird time and you were getting into the conversation. You weren’t having to start it for the first time. And so I love how you explained that as one giant conversation that lasts your whole lifetime.
Kate Watson (07:29):
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think most of us, if not all of us as parents, want to be that person that you described, Elizabeth. We want to be that person who our kids are able to come to us with hard questions, but I think sometimes parents really count themselves out, especially as their kids grow into 12, 13, 14, they think I’m not the person they’re listening to anymore. They think I’m lame now. I don’t understand what’s going on in culture.
But the truth is what we know from really high quality studies is that parents continue to be the biggest influence, especially spiritually on their kids’ lives. So they might not be telling you, Hey mom, you’re really influencing me right now. We know that if you look over the lifespan, you continue to have that influence. Even if they’re not expressing it to you.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (08:26):
They probably won’t express it when they’re 12 or 13.
Gabriel Pagel (08:28):
Yeah, that’s so good. So if we’re wanting to have those conversations, what does Axis offer to help this ongoing conversation continue and start from even before they’re born, like you were saying, all the way to the whole life.
Kate Watson (08:48):
Gabriel, I’m so glad you asked. Thank you for teeing me up to talk about what Axis does. So we have a couple of, and like I said, everything is always free. We have a YouTube channel where we host a show called The Conversation Starter and episodes of the Conversation Starter are all designed to be watched with your kid, maybe let’s say 14 to 16, but really you can watch one episode and get a vibe and see if it’s at your discretion.
If your kid is ready, they’re six to eight minute videos and they all have a conversation starter in them where you can just turn to your kid and say, hey, what do you think about this? And they’re all built on really timely things. We have one that just came out about engaging with AI chatbots and why do people do that and what does that mean?
(09:38):
And we had an episode before that about why is Minecraft the most popular game of all time? Is there actually something in us innately that makes us want to create worlds because we’re made in the image of God? So those are the types of videos that are on there. We also have a newsletter called the Culture Translator, which I help edit, and really this thing is like Culture Lightning in a bottle.
Every single week we sit down and consult with a team of culture researchers who happen to be in college, and they tell us what’s cool, which is really important because I am the squarest person alive, and then we distill what they tell us alongside other feedback that we’re getting from our parent audience to their pain points. We put together a newsletter, Hey, here’s what everybody wants for back to school. Everybody’s buying this one top from Hollister called the Baby Doll Top, and it ties in the back and it went viral, and actually why not have a conversation about this top, things like that that are very practical and useful and that you can try in the car.
Gabriel Pagel (10:42):
Yeah, I know that a couple months ago I really enjoyed the discussion on K-Pop demon hunters. My family really enjoys that, and I wouldn’t have known that it would’ve been a decent thing to look at without having seen the culture translated.
Kate Watson (10:58):
That’s so funny that you say that because one of our researchers, my team member, had to really sell me on that, uncovering that. I was like, oh, but he was right. It was the biggest thing this summer. It was such a hit, so I’m glad you enjoyed that.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (11:12):
I love the Culture Translator. It’s such a great tool for parents because the culture is changing quickly, but it’s also easy to feel like, I don’t even know what they’re saying, all these expressions and things, and they’re laughing and I don’t know what they’re laughing at. It makes you feel so old and outdated to understand, and so I love that y’all make it bite-size for parents to go, Hey, here’s how you can understand what’s going on and what their slang terminology is, and not so you can use it, laugh at you, but so you can understand and bridge that generational gap and meet them where they’re at.
Kate Watson (11:49):
Yeah, and I mean, we know I’m a parent too. We know most parents don’t have time to deeply engage in culture. Most parents don’t have time to watch every episode of the summer. I turn pretty and decide if their 17 year olds should watch it. Right. I have people on my team who have time to do that. I’ve really, really, as my kids have grown older, seen, I didn’t invent the culture translator. I was just happy to come on the team at the right time. I’ve been so blessed by the research that we do in my own parenting and the fact that it’s accessible and it’s not like, hey, I know you don’t have three hours to research culture, but it doesn’t mean you have to disengage completely.
Gabriel Pagel (12:31):
Right. That’s so good.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (12:34):
Yeah, it was funny. I had just a lighthearted conversation with some students at Summit or some teenagers or something. I can’t even remember where it was now, but everyone talks about rizz and he’s rizzin’ her up or all this stuff, and this was a couple years ago, and I said something and they’re like, how do you know what that is? And I was like, well, rizz is actually just a new slang for charisma, which has been around. And so I explained charisma, and they’re like, yeah, that’s exactly what rizz is. I didn’t know it was like an older thing and it was this cool funny moment that they thought was funny and I thought was funny, and it was just actually connected generations.
Kate Watson (13:12):
Yeah. Elizabeth, you were doing culture translation. That’s exactly it.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (13:14):
Yeah, I was translating it for them. Yeah. Your grandparents would’ve talked about charisma and this is what that means. Welcome to the club. So, it’s fun. And it’s fun when you can help them to bridge that gap too, because sometimes students I think feel like we are in this whole different culture and y’all get it. I think it’s helpful when they see, yes, things are different, but we can still get it. We don’t get everything. We don’t have the exact situation. We didn’t have the technology you have, but we still had to navigate things that were new.
I mean, we had to go from no technology to technology in some cases. I mean, for me, that was the case. I didn’t have a cell phone in high school, but then you switched and then no one had iPhones and all of that. So I’m like, there’s still a learning, and I think it helps students because students want to feel connected with parents and grandparents. I think they do.
Kate Watson (14:06):
I think they do too. That’s such a good point because the culture translation, it goes both ways sometimes. My kids are looking at me and I know they want to understand, but where do I begin? It’s really difficult sometimes.
Gabriel Pagel (14:19):
Yeah. So that makes me wonder if we’re going to be culture translators both ways and have these sorts of conversations. Do you have any examples of how maybe you or someone in the Axis family or used everyday life situations, some current event or something to guide their teens into a deeper understanding of the gospel?
Kate Watson (14:48):
I’m only going to be speaking from my own example. I don’t have any team members here that I can ask if it’s okay if I share on their behalf. But I will say that having the ability to sit down with my own kids and say, actually I watch Mr. Beast with them every single, well, it’s not every single because he drops a new episode every Saturday, but every Sunday we sit down and we watch what he uploads and he uploads a lot of things that are charity based.
Like right now, Mr. Beast just did a whole initiative to create wells and water, clean water accessibility all over the world, and he has this giant fundraising goal. And we were able through watching Mr. Beast together to talk about philanthropy and giving and why people do it and why some people don’t give it and what it means to be a good steward and all these really maybe complicated conversations.
Why would I have been talking to my eight and 11-year-old about charitable giving and how important it is to tithe and choose what we’re going to give to if we’d not been sitting there and equipped, if I had been sitting watching Mr. Beast scared the whole time about what might come on screen. But I felt very prepared to have that conversation and a step into their world.
Gabriel Pagel (16:09):
Yeah, that’s actually hilarious you bring that up because I have this book that I go through with my kids that tries to get them into these old historical philosophers ideas and things, and we came upon Moses Maimonides and one of the questions they ask is like, is it your duty to give to charity and all of these different things? And what makes it hilarious you bring that up is my son who doesn’t get to watch Mr. Beast as much as he wants, but that’s what he was like, that’s what Mr. Beast does. He’s always giving stuff away, and I would’ve never understood that, but then he points it out when we’re talking about Moses Maimonides. So yeah, that’s interesting.
Kate Watson (16:53):
There really are so many cultural correlations from the Bible and what we’re experiencing right now, and obviously we all, I think we are maybe dimly aware of that just coming from a Christian worldview, but to really dig into it is something different. And I happen to believe that God equips us, not just as Christians dropped into a vacuum living at some point in time.
I believe that God assigned me this point of time that I live in and that this is the point of time that my soul was supposed to inhabit this body. So if that’s true, then I have a responsibility to understand what’s going on around me, not just in this sort of obscure way and not even in a political way, but in a very cultural way.
Gabriel Pagel (17:46):
Yeah.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (17:47):
So how would you, for the parent who’s listening right now, and they’re going, man, this is awesome. Yes, I want to do that. I want to talk to my kids that way. I want to have these conversations. I just feel so disconnected and I don’t even really know where to start. How would you encourage them on where to start? Obviously you’ve mentioned your resources, but even just some practical, what could they do today? How could they try to bridge that gap in connecting with their teens?
Kate Watson (18:11):
Well, I’m going to give an example that is something my dad did when I was in high school. So when I grew up, I was really into bands. You guys, you listeners can’t see, I’m wearing.
Gabriel Pagel (18:25):
Smashing Pumpkins.
Kate Watson (18:26):
I’m wearing a Smashing shirt right now. I guess it never really changed, but I just wanted to go to shows and I wanted to go to shows in bars. I wanted to go to shows in bars in Brooklyn, and I’m 14, newly minted 14, living in New York City begging my dad to go to these shows in bars. My dad is a pastor and he was really, I think, conflicted about allowing me to be in certain environments, but then I think he was also playing it out in his head, what would happen if I said, no? What’s the trade off if I keep her from this thing?
And I will never forget my dad walking with me into this really disgusting punk rock show sitting there. And my dad, he doesn’t drink or anything. My dad, just sitting there having a Coke, watching three or four guys in a mosh pit so that I could hang out there with my friends and actually pretend he wasn’t there. He said, I’m just going to go and you can just not even say hi. And I did. I went and I sat on a disgusting, decrepit old box because there wasn’t any seating in that place. I felt like that was such a powerful example of my father being willing to step forward into culture with me.
(19:42):
And to say to me without saying to me that I was equipped through my faith for any situation that I would be in, and that he was alongside me and curious with me. Now, whatever any parent listening might think about that judgment call of him choosing to do that is their own discretion. But it meant a lot to me, and I think that as a parent now, I’m always looking for those opportunities.
How do I show up at the dive bar my kid wants to go to? How do I enter into the thing that they’re curious about? Am I being dismissive about this thing that they think is really cool? Why do they think it’s really cool? Why am I not asking myself that? I think that just trying to suspend judgment for as long as possible is a very powerful strategy as a parent, and it helps your kids see you in a way where you’re more of an ally than this combatant who’s trying to keep them from the culture. Let’s be honest, this is where they’re being raised. This is the water they’re swimming in.
Gabriel Pagel (20:45):
Yeah.
Kate Watson (20:45):
So good. Really powerful.
Gabriel Pagel (20:48):
Yeah, I was just going to say what you’re saying is kind of how I ended up approaching that K-Pop Demon Hunters movie, and at the end is one of the most clear pictures of what the church should act like in my mind. And it would be something that I wouldn’t have ever been able to have that conversation with my kids about if I had just seen the word demon and thought, well, I got to go away from it. It’s not for every family and parents get to decide that on their own, but it definitely has been actually very helpful for my kids to know how to be open with the members of the church.
Kate Watson (21:34):
Yeah, I love that you had that moment with your kids. That is so, I mean, the truth is, if our kids don’t know how to engage in culture with us in our own households, what’s going to happen when they’re engaging with people that they want to share the gospel with? They’re going to have disconnection with society. They’re not going to be fully equipped, people fully equipped to share the gospel.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (21:58):
The interesting thing with this too, I mean, some parents are listening and they already have teenagers and they’re like, how do I bridge this? But some might be listening and have little kids, and so they’re not ready for these kinds of conversations. But I think even being really interested in their stuff when they’re little builds that foundation for them to want to tell you when they’re bigger.
Kate Watson (22:20):
Totally.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (22:21):
And that can be kind of hard. I mean, I guess I failed on this the other day, but it was funny. I have a 6-year-old, I have teenagers and I have a 6-year-old, and he has a huge imagination. And so he was outside this, it was a big tunnel, and he’s like, mommy, I’m pretty sure when you go in there, there’s a drop off and it drops down and there’s people down there and this whole thing. And I was telling him we were trying to leave. We’d been at the cross country meet for hours. I was like, come on, we got to go.
And this other mom’s listening and she goes, do you think there’s a kid stuck down there thinking I was not engaging properly? And I was like, he just has a big imagination. It’s fine. And he goes, yeah, I mean, I just think there’s probably some remains down there. Remains. It was making this all huge adventure story. And I was like, that’s so great. Let’s get to the car. And she’s going, wait, are there children stuck in this hole?
But I laughed because it’s like, yeah, you do have to listen to go, Hey, there’s a time that’s going, but now you need to come and I’ll tell me later, and there’s a time to stop and go. Tell me more about this adventure you’re imagining and what’s happening and the remains that are down in this tunnel in the suburbs.
Kate Watson (23:25):
Yeah, that is quite an imagination. I have to ask, so your youngest, is it a boy or a girl?
Elizabeth Stubblefield (23:31):
He’s a boy.
Kate Watson (23:32):
It’s a boy. And then your two teens, what are they?
Elizabeth Stubblefield (23:34):
I have four kids. I have a girl, boy, girl, boy.
Kate Watson (23:37):
Girl, boy, girl, boy.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (23:37):
So I have two teenagers, a preteen and a 6-year-old.
Kate Watson (23:40):
Okay, okay. That’s so funny. My three-year-old is quite a lot younger than my 8-year-old and my 11-year-old. And since my two older ones are boys, the things that she imagines are always quite morbid. She looks, like, pretty as a picture, and she’ll bring down Barbie and she’ll be like, and then she killed him.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (24:01):
With my son, they can have an adventure talking about whatever might be buried deep beneath the cross country field.
Kate Watson (24:06):
She is ready, she’s ready.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (24:08):
But it’s those little moments that build a foundation for them wanting to tell you later. And so I have to remind myself of that a lot at these different ages.
Kate Watson (24:16):
It’s hard when you have a lot of stuff going on. The older your kids get, the more you look around. And I think sometimes the less, I feel like I have time for this. When they were little, I would play Lego video games with them and we would do that for hours. And it was the best. And now I’m trying to learn how to play Fortnite, and I’m like, I don’t know how to do this. Are you kidding me? But I think it’s worth it. I’d rather them play Fortnite with me and me know what the other kids are saying on the screen. Then just say, forget it. This is your thing, I guess.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (24:46):
Well, how do you see Jesus’s example of interacting with the culture and how does that impact and influence your ministry at Axis and how you would encourage parents in the same way?
Kate Watson (25:01):
Well, I can only speak to how I see it, but I think that Jesus was doing culture translation before anyone at Axis would’ve ever known to. I mean, obviously, like, Jesus is very ancient Jesus. But I think that’s what he was doing. He was doing culture translation. He was immersing himself in the culture. And I think what has struck me this year in my spiritual life is the fact that the crucifixion of Jesus, the execution of Jesus was a cultural killing. It was mob justice.
And Jesus could have chosen to spend his time on earth changing the culture so that the mob would not murder him. He could have spent his time on earth trying to make the people in his culture conform. And since he was God, he could have done that. But instead he allowed himself to be murdered by a mob so that his sacrifice could redeem us. And if that’s not really surrendering to the culture you’re in, I don’t know what is.
Gabriel Pagel (26:10):
That’s great. We’re coming up on probably the end of the podcast. And so we’re all about hope here on the Upside Down Parenting podcast. What hope and encouragement can you give parents as they attempt to have these sincere and honest conversations?
Kate Watson (26:30):
Well, I am a journalist by trade, so I’m going to reference some data. If you look up the Gallup survey on what young people are craving, there’s a really interesting study that they did asking young people what they wanted from their parents and asking parents what they didn’t feel equipped to do for their kids.
(26:54):
And the disconnect is really amazing because what the parents wanted to do for the kids and what the kids wanted from their parents, they were the same things. They were just missing each other. Kids were saying, I want physical touch. I want my parents to talk to me about hard topics, basically saying, I want my mom to come into my bedroom and ask me how my day was. And then you have the parents on the other side saying, I feel like I want to do that. I want to offer my kid physical touch. I want to offer them conversation starters, but I don’t know that they want that from me.
(27:29):
So to the parents listening, I think you should believe your kids want you, even though they’re teenagers, they still want you and your instinct to be in their lives and be up in their business. That’s actually what they want. And your silence can feel like abandonment, even if you’re being silent because you feel rejected. So I think understanding your own story, understanding your own reactions to your kids, and believing my kid still wants me, makes such a big difference. It’s been a mindset shift for me for sure. And I hope that other parents can experience it too.
Gabriel Pagel (28:08):
Yeah, that is so encouraging. Thank you.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (28:11):
Yeah, I feel like we could sit and talk for hours and just have enjoyed talking with you, Kate, and having you on the show today. Thank you so much for joining us. I know we could keep going.
Kate Watson (28:21):
Yeah, this is so fun. I actually feel like I took all the air out of the conversation, which I’m from New York, so I’m kind of used to it. But I really appreciate you guys taking the time to chat about this stuff. And yeah, thank you so much for having me on.
Gabriel Pagel (28:35):
Thank you.
Elizabeth Stubblefield (28:36):
That was great. Thank you for joining us on the Upside Down Parenting Podcast, and we appreciate all the work you and your team are doing and the free resources that you offer to parents, which is amazing. So for all you parents listening, if you want to learn more and get involved, go to axis.org. That’s axis.org, and we’ll have it in the show notes as well. So check out the culture translator and the other resources available to you.
If today’s conversation has resonated with you, we’d be so grateful. If you’d subscribe and leave a review, it helps other parents to discover the show and join the conversation. We look forward to continuing this journey together in the next episode. Until then, remember, you’re not alone. Keep going. Stay faithful and keep pointing your kids to the truth.