Raising Kids with Purpose: Guiding Sons & Daughters Toward Their Calling w/Rhonda Stoppe

Episode 233: 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

Dr. Jeff Myers interviews Rhonda Stoppe about parenting, with a specific focus on mothers raising sons. Stoppe argues that a mother’s success is not measured by her child’s achievements but by her own faithfulness. She discusses the importance of giving boys a vision for manhood to prevent them from fighting for it, the dangers of people-pleasing, and the need to avoid trying to control outcomes. Using personal anecdotes and biblical examples like Jochebed, she emphasizes the power of a parent’s genuine faith and the necessity of allowing children to face uncomfortable situations to build resilience and character.

Episode Transcript

Rhonda Stoppe (00:00):
See, we’re not trying to raise perfect kids. We’re trying to raise kids that know how to recover when they fail. They know how to repent. They know how to take those thoughts captive. They know how to respond under the roof of our home so we can talk them through that. But we have to allow them relationships, we have to allow them experiences that maybe are uncomfortable.

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:25):
Hey dads, you’re welcome to listen in too. I am going to learn a lot from this next guest, but I want to speak specifically to moms for just a moment. How do you measure the success of motherhood? Do you measure it by your child’s accomplishments? Do you measure it by their performance? Do you measure it by how well behaved they are or do you measure it by your own quiet faithfulness?

I mean, in a culture that’s obsessed with achievement and performance, is it possible to raise godly kids? And we’re going to specifically talk about raising godly boys. Is it possible to do it in a godly way in our own culture today? So our conversation is going to challenge a lot of the pressure packed expectations that we place on ourselves. We’re going to uncover some deeper purpose behind parenting, specifically parenting boys to become men who love Jesus.

(01:30):
I’m Dr. Jeff Myers, your host. Welcome to the Truth Changes Everything podcast. We are exploring where God is at work. He is changing everything through Jesus, who is the incarnation of the truth. And today we’re going to drill down on how the truth changes the way moms see success, not through their son’s achievements, but through faithful obedience to God and the everyday moments of parenting.

My guest today is Rhonda Stoppe. Rhonda is a bestselling author. She’s a popular speaker, motivational humorist, master of ceremonies at different events, podcast host. She’s going to tell you about that podcast. She’s got 40 years of experience in helping women build “no regrets” lives. So she’s become a sought after voice in the Christian community and contributes articles for the popular media. She’s been on the 700 Club, Family Life Today, Adobson’s Family Talk. Her interviews at Focus on the Family have been named in their best episodes of 2021 and 2023.

(02:30):
So let’s welcome Rhonda Stoppe to the Truth Changes Everything Podcast. Rhonda Stoppe, welcome to the Truth Changes Everything Podcast.

Rhonda Stoppe (02:38):
Thanks. I’m so happy to be with you.

Dr. Jeff Myers (02:40):
You and I met at the Legacy Coalition, as you got to put in a word about that organization. It is for grandparents who want to help raise godly grandkids.

Rhonda Stoppe (02:52):
Yes. Intentional grandparenting is kind of their buzz phrase.

Dr. Jeff Myers (02:58):
Intentional grandparenting. It’s such a great organization, such a great event. It reminded me, what’s the television commercial series? We can’t prevent you from turning into your parents, but we can get you a good rate on insurance or whatever. I don’t know if you’ve seen those commercials. They always play during football games. Anyway, it was sort of like that turned into an event, which was hilarious and fun. I mean, so much fun. Because these grandparents.

Rhonda Stoppe (03:28):
I was just going to say, I always spoke at youth camps, and my husband and I spoke at youth camps. Now we speak at grandma and grandpa camp. I’m like, “But I’ll take it.”

Dr. Jeff Myers (03:35):
That’s right. Whatever life stage you’re in, there you go.

Rhonda Stoppe (03:39):
That’s it. Yeah.

Dr. Jeff Myers (03:40):
Well, one thing you and I talked about in the green room there that has gotten my attention, so that was months ago, maybe six months ago. And I’ve been mulling this over ever since because you raised boys and girls. You have lots of grandkids. They’re mostly girls, but you actually wrote a book called Moms Raising Sons to Be Men. And there are some things about that book that struck me at a very deep level.

I’m a dad. My two sons are in their 20s now and there’s still parenting that goes on, but it’s different. But raising sons is different. And I just remember a conversation I had at a conference where mom came up to me and said, “Look, I don’t think I know what I’m doing as a parent.” And my boys are, they’re out of control. I don’t know what to do with them.

(04:36):
They do the most random things. They take these risks that make no sense to me at all. And I said, “Hey, did you have any brothers growing up?” She said, “No, only sisters.” I said, “Mom, guess what? It’s totally normal. It’s totally normal. That’s just what it’s like to raise boys.” So you and I get to talk about this a little bit. Now, if somebody’s not raising a son right now, they’re like, “Going on to the next podcast.”

But you’re also going to talk about the significance of moms in scripture, how it was really moms who helped drive so much of the narrative of our spiritual development through time starting in scripture. So we’re going to be digging into that as well. But there’s something that you said in your book, and I’ve asked you this three times. I’m still going to have to ask you how it’s actually phrased.

(05:35):
You said something to the effect of, moms, you have to help your sons get a vision for what it means to be a man, or they will fight you to prove that they are becoming a man. Tell us and start with that because to me, if I could just get one thing out to boy moms, it would be this.

Rhonda Stoppe (05:59):
Yes. And hang with us girl moms because I’m a girl mom too. So we’re going to talk all about lots of things. When my son … We were in youth ministry for 18 years. My husband actually just retired as a senior pastor after 25 years. We’ve been in ministry for a super long time and we have watched this phenomenon of a young child turning into a man.

And when you’re in youth ministry, you watch these little boys start pushing their moms away, you watch them get their attitudes and you see the moms freak out and try to control them harder. And honestly, when my son, Brandon, my oldest son, Tony, didn’t come to our family until he was 15 years old. So his story’s a little different. He was from a very abusive home life. And so I had to learn to connect with him as a mom in a different way.

(06:43):
But when Brandon, who was my buddy, all of a sudden he started pushing me away. And we’re talking like 10, 11, maybe 12, but you’ll know when it starts to happen because they start smelling funky and they just get this attitude. But I was like, wait a minute, it’s you and me against the world, buddy. What’s going on? But what I’ve learned is there’s no coming of man ritual in our culture except don’t be a mama’s boy.

And so what I’ve seen moms do when their sons start to push them away, they try to control them. And there’s a section in mom’s raising sons to be men called, control freaks raise freaks. Because the harder we try to control them, one of two things happens. They get angry and they push you away, they rebel, or they become a mama’s boy and one day you’re going to have a daughter-in-law that can’t stand you because your son’s a mama’s boy.

(07:36):
But when Brandon started, we live in the country, we have a big house that my husband built. One of his jobs was to sweep the kitchen floor. No big deal. Well, one day it was beneath him. He didn’t want to do it anymore. I remember pushing back and there was just several things that kind of started happening like that.

And one day my husband came home from work and I was in tears and he said, “You know what? He doesn’t work for you anymore. He works for me.” And he goes, “But you’ve got to stay out of this.” And I’m like, “Okay.” And here’s what moms do. “Oh, he’s being so bad.” And then dad steps in and then you go, “Oh, it’s not that bad. Don’t be too hard on him.” But Steve said, “If you’re going to let me do this, you’ve got to let me do this.”

(08:17):
“He answers to you and he answers to me.” I’m like, “Okay.” So he sat Brandon down and said, “Your mom, you don’t work for her anymore.” And Brandon kind of puffed out his chest like, “God, she’s crazy. I’m happy.” He said, “You work for me and I am a tough taskmaster.” And he said, “Tomorrow morning I want you to get up. I want you to dig a ditch from the house over to the barn.” And it was about a half a football field away.

And he said, “And I want you to do that and I’m not going to ask your mom to remind you. I need it to be on you to do that work.” And I thought the next morning that Brandon was going to be angry that he had to go do this job. He didn’t talk to me, ate his breakfast, and Steve has said, “Don’t remind him.”

(08:54):
“If he doesn’t do it, he will answer to me when I get home.” And again, the mom in you was like, “Oh, buddy, make sure you do what you’re supposed to do.” But I didn’t say anything. And Brandon went out and started digging his ditch, pick and shovel, hard ground. And when Steve came home that night, Brandon was like, “Dad, come here. I’m going to show you how far I got. I can’t wait to show you this.”

And I’m like, “Who is this child who didn’t want to sweep the kitchen floor?” And he had blisters on his hands and he’s a musician. He grew up to be a worship pastor. Then he said, “I need gloves because tomorrow I’m going to get farther, but I got to play a guitar on Sunday and my hands are going to be ripped up.” And I’m like, “What is happening right now?”

(09:32):
But here’s the thing, they’re always going to have men they have to answer to. They are always going to have men that they want to work hard for. And when we understand that as a mom, we hand them over and maybe you’re a single mom, maybe you don’t have that in your life. My husband was a youth pastor for 18 years. You find a godly mentor for your son. That’s how our son Tony ended up being our son because Steve began to be his mentor and finally he moved in with us.

But when you hand them their manhood, they don’t have to fight you for it. So you have to step back and say,” Hey buddy, I got some groceries in the back of the car and they’re pretty heavy. Can you help me? “And maybe they will and maybe they won’t. And if they don’t, do it yourself and let dad deal with it later. That to me is your hill to die on and hand them their manhood so that you don’t have to be becoming a man ritual.

(10:24):
I wish we could just tell them to go walk on hot coals, pee on a rock, kill the fatted calf. You’re a man. I wish that was the ritual, but it’s not. So moms hand them their manhood when they start turning into men, celebrate their manhood and don’t make them fight you for it.

Dr. Jeff Myers (10:40):
Yeah, that’s the key phrase right there to me is that they will fight you. They will fight you to prove that they are men. But what you’re saying is so wise because there is something in a boy who wants to help to be a rescuer, to be a warrior. If you give them something to fight for, then they don’t have to fight against you, but the fighting is going to happen.

Rhonda Stoppe (11:09):
Yeah. Right. And then let’s just stop there for a second. I just listened to your last podcast with Arlene, a friend of mine, Arlene Pellecane, and she was talking about virtual stuff. Well, let’s talk about video games right here in this slot because it’s easier to give your junior high moody boy a video game and let him spend hours in his room conquering the world virtually. And it’s a pseudo satisfaction for that longing to become a man.

And for moms, it’s like, oh good. It’s almost like giving a baby an iPad and just they’ll stop crying in the restaurant if we just give them something to do. But for moms who’ve got a moody son who’s not getting along with his siblings, good. He’s just locked in his room playing video games. At least he’s not creating chaos in our family. And you steal from them that God given longing to conquer, to protect, to be a man. I know men that are married that still their wives can’t get them to come and engage with the family because they’re up all night playing video games online with their friends.

Dr. Jeff Myers (12:11):
My goodness. Yeah, it’s a horrifying thought. But yeah, it’s very common because a man’s going to look for some way that he can do something that he views as significant at which he can be successful. And I guess from that perspective, it makes perfect sense. If there isn’t something outside, then there’s going to be something like that. One of the things you write is, because I want to talk to moms right now.

You write this, “Your success as a mother does not depend upon what your son chooses to do with his life.” I thought that is how we measure ourselves as parents. Did our kids launch well into something that we’re happy to tell our friends about? I think most of parenting is organized around that idea, but you’re actually saying something very different.

Rhonda Stoppe (13:13):
Yeah. This is a crucial point because I see moms that are so absolutely destroying themselves and their relationships with their kids because they’re trying to control the outcomes that we were never meant to control in the first place. When our children rise up and want to, we see things that they’re good at.

My son was a musician. My other son wanted to be a fighter pilot. He grew up and he was a fighter pilot, but when we see, this is what their success is going to be and now I’m going to do everything I can to help them get there, we miss the reality of what we really are creating them for is to understand. The Bible says that we are created for God’s glory. God’s glory means to be an exact representation of his character, but what we do is we kind of become idolaters.

(14:01):
We want our kids to represent our character. We want them to be created for our glory. How does that play out? What do you mean you didn’t do your homework? What’s your teacher going to think of me that I didn’t get you to do your homework last night? My husband’s a pastor. You’re talking in church with your friends. What are people going to think of your dad if you’re talking in church? And we make it about our reputation.

And that might work for a little while till they hit about junior high. And when they figure out this is your kingdom, your glory that you’re trying to establish your reputation with your friends, which is nothing more than peer pressure, you’re training them, number one, to succumb to. We live for the glory of others affirming us. And number two, they will rebel against you when they realize this isn’t about me.

(14:48):
When we moved back, we lived in Texas. We planted a church in Austin. It was very casual. We met in a school. The church just exploded. It was so much fun. It was a great ministry opportunity. 200 teenagers in our house every Wednesday night coming to Jesus in the Bible belt and they were coming to church and they were wearing their blue jeans. We lived on a lake. They would come with their bathing suits under their clothes so we could all go water skiing afterwards. Very casual.

And my husband took a job as a senior pastor in California, which, we’re from California, so we came back and the church was not as casual. And my teenage daughter, she was a junior in high school, would wear jeans to church and she was not immodest, but she would wear her jeans to church, not shorty shorts, just jeans, maybe have a hole or two and then eat, whatever.

(15:31):
And there were some people that were highly disturbed that the pastor’s daughter was wearing jeans to church because I make my kids wear dresses to church, my daughters. And if you don’t make your daughter set the example, my kids are going to rebel against me. Wow. Okay. As a pastor’s wife, PKs can be okay, but not if you set them up to be the standard that everyone’s kids have to live up to. Don’t do that to your children.

And so we had to prayerfully consider, here’s my daughter, loves the Lord, grew up. She went to master’s college, married a husband that went to seminary. She loves Jesus. And was I going to force her to fit into an expectation so that we looked good? No, that would push her into a rebellion. So we very kindly said, “Before the Lord, we don’t have a conviction about this.”

(16:19):
“If you do, then you should have your daughters wear dresses to church. You follow the conviction that God puts on your heart. But for our family, we don’t have a conviction about this and we’re not going to ask her to live up to the standard that you have for your family.” When you do that for your kids, you become their confidant, their rescuer. My mom and dad have my, all my kids have grown up to follow their father in ministry because they love ministry, but it was because they weren’t expected to be that perfect kid that everybody else measured themselves up to. Does that make sense?

Dr. Jeff Myers (16:53):
It sure does. Yeah. Yeah. And it allows them to develop their own conscience because this is one of the biggest things all young adults that we work with face is you’re in a culture where people, if they really knew what you really believed, they would hate you. You either are quiet about it or they hate you and you have to learn, no, this is what my conscience tells me is true. Though I like the way you phrase that, this is not a conviction we have before the Lord. If you have it, you should live by it. You should do what your conscience is telling you to do. But our family is going to be like this and we’re not setting our children up to have to be models somehow.

Rhonda Stoppe (17:40):
There’s a section in the book called People Pleasing Isn’t Pleasing. I’m a middle child. I want to please everybody. I want peace at any cost. I will become invisible if there’s conflict.That’s who I am. And so when you’re a people pleaser, it can spill over into your parenting because I want to please people. Excuse me. I got allergies today. I want to please people and have them believe the best about me by the way my kids represent.

And so it’s important to have older mentors in your life. And I know you always say your friends should have old people. My podcast is called Old Ladies Know Stuff because Titus two women are called to teach the younger, but your kids need older people, but so do we. And I can recall when my daughter only had one child and she was about three years old skipping through the church.

(18:25):
After church, we were visiting with some people that we had asked to mentor us and she was loud and I kept shushing her, getting more and more irritated. And she was with her friends, having fun. And finally, this friend said, “Why do you care?” And I said, “Well, she’s being loud.” And he said, “Do you have a conviction about noise in the sanctuary?” It wasn’t during church service, it was afterward. Do you feel like it’s a holy place that she shouldn’t? “No, I just don’t want her to do it. Why don’t you want her to do it?”

He kept pressing me till I said, “Because I don’t want people to think I’m a bad mom.” And he went, “Don’t ever raise your children for what people think of you, you will ruin your children.” That was gold. And if I had not had that older mentor in my life, I don’t know that I would have known not to do that with my kids.

(19:06):
And so make friends with old people, make friends with old ladies because I got to tell you, we’ve walked, we’ve made mistakes and I went to a woman’s Bible study when I had a young baby, no young women in that Bible study at all but me. It was a precept study. It was five hours of homework a week. I didn’t even know how I was going to get the homework done, but a friend of mine named Gail was like, “Just try.” And it transformed me.

The word of God, which is, truth changes everything is what you’ll never see yourself more clearly than through the lens of scripture and you’ll see your parenting differently, you’ll see your relationships differently and you’ll be convicted because the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than a sword. So yes, I make friends with old people because they have insights that are gold.

Dr. Jeff Myers (19:51):
I love it. I love it. I just three or four days ago was reciting that theme with our students here at Summit Ministries and they repeat after me, “I need old people and they need me.” It is a family reunion.That’s really what life is like. It’s not like a class where everybody’s the same age.

Well, let’s talk about moms in the Bible for a minute because this is something that you’re writing on right now. I think you just finished a book on this so people can anticipate that this might come out soon, but I want to talk about moms in the Bible. I remember I have a book on my shelf somewhere called Moms of Famous Men. Nobody knows about the mothers, but we would not have these famous men without the mothers. Talk a little bit about moms in the Bible.

Rhonda Stoppe (20:45):
So yes, my new book, actually the Moms Raising Sons To Men, I’ll hold it up. Moms Raising Sons to be Men. And I’ll hold up this one too because I love this book.

Dr. Jeff Myers (20:53):
Oh, the Raising…

Rhonda Stoppe (20:54):
Raising Gender Confident Kids. I quoted you guys several times in my new book called Moms of the Bible: Life Changing Lessons from the Fearless, Flawed, and Faithful. That’s the new book coming out. Moms Raising Sons to Be Men is written in three sections. The first section is Moms of the Bible and it was so popular. This book became a bestseller. It was republished in a 10-year anniversary edition because it’s just such a valuable resource. But I was like, there are no books out that celebrate the moms of the Bible. That’s right. And interestingly enough.

(21:23):
The last section of the moms in my new book is called Moms with No Name. There are moms in history that are the architects of the next generation that God has called to raise up godly men world changers. Think of David in the Bible. We don’t know David’s mom’s name. What now? The king? We don’t know her name.

My oldest son is a fighter pilot, flew the F-22 raptor, if that matters to you. And my husband and I were on base with him one time. They were living in Hawaii and he wasn’t in uniform, but when we went through the security and people realized he was a lieutenant colonel, they started saluting this guy and left. And I rarely see him in that situation. And I was kind of impressed by how impressed they were with him. But I’m like, “I’m his mama. I’m his mama.” They don’t care. They don’t care.

(22:18):
“But knowing that the influence that moms have, David’s mom had an influence on him that we don’t even know her name. And that’s where most of us lie. We are the mom with no name that God has called in history for this time in this generation to do this ministry of motherhood. It’s so much more than just wiping boogers and bums all day long. This is molding the character. This is living in a manner worthy of your calling, right?

This is understanding if God’s called me to this ministry, I need my heart to be pure. I need to be regularly saying, “Search me. Oh God, know my heart, try me, know my anxious thoughts. See if there’s any wicked way in me, lead me in the way of her lasting. Lord, give me discernment and wisdom and let the words of my mouth, meditation on my heart be acceptable in your sight.”

(23:02):
We have a lot of work to do in our hearts if we’re going to be the missionary to this generation through the raising of our children. So one mom that I talk about in Moms Raising Sons to be Men is Jochebed. Jochebed was Moses’ mother. And it’s interesting because people say, “Oh, there’s never been a harder time in history to raise a son than right now.” I think Jochebed would beg to differ.

Dr. Jeff Myers (23:23):
That’s right.

Rhonda Stoppe (23:24):
She had to hide him.

Dr. Jeff Myers (23:27):
She was supposed to kill him.

Rhonda Stoppe (23:28):
Yes. And even when the midwives said, “Oh, the Hebrew women have their babies too fast and we can’t get there in time.” She hid him and then the Pharaoh said, “Then Egyptians, you take those babies, rip that baby out of that mom’s arms and throw it in the Nile River.” How terrifying. But when she did not know what to do, she waited on the Lord and he put a plan in her heart to put this baby in a basket to cover it with pitch and to let go of him.

And you think about the faith that she had to let go of that basket and just watch it drift away. I cry every time I tell that story. I have grandchildren that I cannot imagine a little three-month-old baby floating away bouncing in the reeds where there’s all kinds of danger. And sometimes mom, you may be a single mom that has to let your child go.

(24:19):
You have to let your child go visitation with an ungodly father. You may have to put your kid into a public school that you know is trying to indoctrinate them. You may not have an option, but you can be the mom of prayer and you can be the mom that does the next thing. And that’s what Jochebed did. The next thing God put into her heart. And then of course, we know Moses floated into the very arms of Pharaoh’s daughter.

And think about this, Jochebed, if you don’t know the story, it’s great. You’ve got to read it. But Jochebed got to nurse her own son for maybe four years. Never underestimate the value of those first four years of your child’s life. So much of their character is defined in those first four years of you. If you got to work, you make sure that that child is being cared for by a godly person, someone who loves Jesus, someone who’s going to impart them a biblical worldview.

(25:09):
Don’t just stick them in a daycare and hope for the best. But think of it. She let that baby go to the arms of a mom who worshiped cats. That’s where Moses landed. But this woman, you know she prayed over him. You know what she poured into him for those first four years and it implanted in him a longing to rescue his people.

Now first he acted out to rescue his people when he killed that Egyptian because I think sometimes God puts in our hearts to do something and we might go ahead of God and do it the wrong way, which is what Moses did. And then later after he was exiled and God brought him back in his middle of his midlife crisis, God brought him back and he was the man. But the influence of Jokobed in those very short years is what raised up a godly leader in his generation.

Dr. Jeff Myers (25:56):
That’s such a remarkable story. And I let Moses off the hook a little bit. He did kill an Egyptian. There’s no question. But the way the text is framed, there’s an attribute that he displayed that’s worthy. He looked around and saw not a man. The word for man there is manly man. He looked around and didn’t see a single man who would stand for justice in that situation. And so he decided to be the one to stand for it.

Then he did something unjust in the process of trying to pursue justice. But yeah, you’re right. There was something formed in him. There’s something formed in him in those early days. So I want to thread this needle pretty carefully. I think there are a lot of people watching or listening are like, oh, so it’s up till age four. Yeah, I missed, I missed it.

(26:43):
Swinging to miss. Without producing guilt or shame for the things that we did in the past because we can’t redo that, help us understand for the moms and the grandmas who have those little ones right now, what kinds of things can they do? Can you give us examples of things that you can do with children up to age four, say, that will help form character in that way?

Rhonda Stoppe (27:12):
Yeah. And I would like to visit with that too. I just celebrated my dad’s 84th birthday and I actually wrote the dedication to my dad in my new book and I put it in a frame so he could hang it on his wall. And my dad came to Christ when I was four years old.

(27:26):
Was not raised in a Christian home and he was raised in a very abusive, harsh environment as a child. But when he came to Christ, he lived out what he believed. He was a genuine Christ follower. In 18 years of youth ministry, the number one thing that has driven kids away from their faith, from their parents’ faith is hypocrisy in the Christian home.

My mom was not a believer. She did not live out her faith and my parents were teenagers when they had us, so they were just surviving. And I was not raised the way that I’m saying is important to raise a child. And yet my dad’s genuine love for Christ was what made me want to follow Christ too. And it’s what made me want to live the life I saw him live. So yes, wherever you find yourself, don’t beat yourself up.

(28:13):
Satan loves shame and to beat ourselves up. My son Tony didn’t come to our family until he was 15. His whole life was a mess. And yet the short number of years we had with him before he went away to college, he saw genuine faith lived out in our home. He saw a marriage where two people loved each other, genuinely forgave one another and lived it out.

So the best advice I have wherever you find yourself, whether it’s a newborn or whether it’s however old your child is now, or maybe it’s a stepchild that you just now got into your family, you live a genuine love for Christ. Jesus said, “The priority of life is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. That’s your whole being.” And then the second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself.

So what we try to do is beat ourselves up that we don’t love better and we try harder, but Jesus is like, “You can’t go back and fall in love with me with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, all of your strength. And then I will spill my selfless love out of your heart and onto your children, your family, and love covers a multitude of sins and genuine heartfelt love for God is a testimony your children cannot ignore.”

Dr. Jeff Myers (29:28):
What does that look like? I mean, because there are those days where it is just bums and boogers. I like the way you phrased that. It is. It’s from one thing to the next, especially when you’re raising boys, there’s no limit to the trouble that they can get themselves into. And so you do feel like you are playing defense constantly, but what you’re talking about is something different. It’s something that you’re going to have to be proactive, but what? I mean, can you just give some examples? Give me a couple things that I could set a goal to do differently today.

Rhonda Stoppe (30:12):
Okay. First of all, your home is the laboratory of learning. You teach your children in your home how to relate to other people by how they relate to their siblings. An example, when Brandon and Kayla were little, she was three, she was probably two, he was probably four and she had him up against the refrigerator. Steve and I were in the kitchen and she said, “Brandon, don’t make me make your nose bleed. You know I can.” And she had bumped his nose a couple days earlier and his nose had bled.

And Steve and I are dying trying not to laugh at this circumstance and we’re turned away, but Brandon has his hands up against the refrigerator with his head back and he’s looking at Steve like, “Are you going to do something here? She’s losing her mind.” And when we compose ourselves, we’re like, “Kayla, you cannot blah, blah, blah.”

(31:00):
You cannot treat him like that. Brandon, we’re so proud of you that you did not hit your sister. We’re so proud of you that you did not retaliate against your sister. If you allow your son to hit his sister, it’s going to feel pretty comfortable if one day his wife mouths off to him that he might hit his wife.

And so when your son does hit his little sister, you teach him, hey, we never hit girls. You’re stronger than they are and God wants you to be a protector of the women in this family. So if we allow you to hit Kayla, two things are going to happen. You’re going to grow up and probably one day not have the self-control and you’ll probably hit your wife or your daughters. And does your daddy do that? No. We don’t want you to grow up to do that.

(31:46):
And here’s the other thing that will happen. It will become familiar to Kayla that boys hit girls and Kayla just might grow up and marry a man that hits her, and little Brandon’s little chest spins. God, his little sister, I’m going to defend my sister. But it was a, walk them down the road. This character quality is being established now because of the man we want you to become.

And we know how easily you can get used to doing something and it becomes so familiar. Another story, a young man, I was talking to him through a window, he had been arrested and he was some kid that had grown up in our church. And I said, “How did you get here?” And he had driven a getaway car for a robbery.

(32:31):
He said, “You know what? ” He said, “I’ve been taking things all my life, which he had stolen $300 from our house at one time. And I tried to tell his mother and his mother refused to believe that it was him until she found it in his backpack later and had to bring it back.” And a lot of times it’s like we’re so blinded to, the Bible says, raise up your child according to their bent.

We have to pay attention to them and see what it is that their bent is toward the things that they might do. Doesn’t mean we’re always suspicious of them, but we all have things that, we have to work on our character. He said, “When I was five years old, I stole a root beer from someone’s lunchbox at school and I got away with it. And then I just realized I can take whatever I want and I can get away with it.”

(33:12):
And he was a very charming kid. So he’d been stealing things his whole life until one day he ended up in jail for driving a getaway car. So, well, what do we do with that? Well, when your little one is like, “Did you take a cookie?” “No, mom.” Chocolate all over their lips. “I know you took that cookie. Did you take it?”

Okay, first of all, if they’re not a believer, they’re a dirty, rotten little sinner and they’re going to defend themselves any way possible and you’re baiting them to be a liar. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. Instead, say, “I know you ate that cookie and now you don’t get one after dinner.” Now, if that child chooses to now say, “No, I didn’t,” now you have to deal with their propensity to lie, but don’t bait them to become a liar. Does that make sense?

(33:55):
Instead, say, “Okay, the Bible talks about being a man of your word, being honest. Let your yay be yay, your nay be nay.” If you start out telling lies, you’re going to become a liar, someone who will never believe. You just constantly, and this is where you’re wiping boogers and bums and I get it’s exhausting, especially when you’re hormonal and exhausted on top of it, but keep the end goal in mind.

Who is the man you want to launch from your home? Who is the boy that you’re looking into his face as this is the man God has asked me? And it doesn’t mean there’s not a role for the dads there is, but you have an opportunity to impart in them to self-evaluate because an unexamined life is a worthless life. We have to have a way for each of us before the Lord to examine our heart so he can show us what he wants to grow in us, convict us of, and transform in us.

(34:53):
If we live like that, that means we go back to our kid and say, “Hey, you heard me gossiping on the phone. That was sin and I shouldn’t have done that. And I’ve asked the Lord to forgive me and I’m going to go ask that friend to forgive me because that is the normal Christian life. We sin, we repent, we ask forgiveness and we move on.” So we live out our faith in a genuine way so that they know how to do that too.

Dr. Jeff Myers (35:16):
Yeah, that’s so powerful. Well, I’m a dad. I’m taking a lot away from this conversation, so thank you. It definitely applies to dads as well as to moms. What specific world do you think moms can play in helping raise resilient kids? This is something we talk about in the Raising Gender Confident Kids book, my co-author, Dr. Kathy Koch and I, helping kids learn to become comfortable, being uncomfortable. And they all know it.

I was with the students at Summit Ministries last night and I talked about that very thing and they all nodded. They’re like, “Yeah, I need to be more resilient. I need to stop seeking a friction-free life.” But it’s one thing to know it intellectually, it’s another thing to actually be that kind of person. What can moms do to help to stop being, oh, what are all the different terms? Helicopter moms, snowplow mom, lawnmower mom, whatever, trying to smooth the path of your child as much as possible. We know that that’s not ideal, but I think it’s kind of an instinctive protective aspect. What should we be doing to help our kids be resilient?

Rhonda Stoppe (36:22):
Well, I think first of all, the root of it is that there is a cultural lie that our children’s happiness is more important than their character. We bought into this idea that if our kids are struggling or uncomfortable, we have to somehow get them out of it or we’ve failed as a parent. And it’s really completely backward from what scripture teaches, right? God puts us in uncomfortable situations. He creates uncomfortable situations to bump us. Iron sharpens iron.

When I’m living in community with other people, I’m going to get bumped. And guess what? Sparks are going to fly. But when I get bumped, what spills out of me is what God wants to transform in me. It’s those words that we say, that anger that’s triggered, that self-doubt, all those things. If we don’t allow our kids to live in community with other people and just keep them under our little shelter, then we don’t allow them to even know how to respond when someone hurts their feelings or if we just unfriend.

(37:21):
We’re in the unfriend generation. The culture is like, “Ah, don’t like you, unfriend you, you’re gone.” We don’t stay in uncomfortable relationships with people that make us not feel good about ourselves. And again, I am not talking about if your child is in a situation where they’re with friends that are going to lead them into sinful life choices. I am not talking about that. I’m talking about being in a youth group.

Steve’s being a youth pastor for years and all of a sudden the mom’s like, “My kid doesn’t want to come to youth group anymore because those people just aren’t nice to him.” And my kid, I remember one homeschooling mom and I speak at homeschool conferences all the time. I’ve homeschooled some of my kids. Some of my kids have gone to public school, some of them have gone to private school. I have done what was needed to be done for each kid for each year in the time.

(38:04):
But I remember a homeschool mom had come to, her kids started coming to youth group. They had never been socialized and there was a huge influx of kids from the public school that were coming to hear about Jesus. And some of these girls were wearing low cut tops and midriff tops, but they were coming and they were coming week after week and they were hearing the gospel and many of them came to Christ.

But I remember this mom of this probably 16-year-old boy, she said, “I’m not going to let my boy come anymore because those girls are not dressing in a way. I don’t want him to see them like that.” And I was like, okay, number one, these girls don’t know Jesus, but God’s drawing them. Number two, this is what the world looks like for your son. And what better place to train him to divert his eyes and to take his thoughts captive than in an environment with Christian friends instead of just hiding away from this, because guess what?

(38:54):
One day he’s going to leave your house and one day he’s going to see these type of dress code girls and he’s not going to know. He hasn’t been equipped. He hasn’t been trained. He hasn’t been taught under your roof. See, we’re not trying to raise perfect kids. We’re trying to raise kids that know how to recover when they fail. They know how to repent. They know how to take those thoughts captive. They know how to respond under the roof of our home so we can talk them through that.

But we have to allow them relationships, we have to allow them experiences that maybe are uncomfortable. My daughter, Meredith, worked at Hume Lake Christian Camp one year and she had worked at camps all over, traveled with camps, but it was the summer after she graduated from high school and she was going to be at that camp right up until four days before she left to go to the master’s university for college.

(39:42):
And she was so homesick. And I’d never seen Meredith. She’s that firstborn girl. I got this, so homesick. And she would call home and she loved her job, but she was also just really wanting to be at home. And I said, “Do you feel like the Lord wants you to come home or are you just uncomfortable that you’re away?” Well, what was happening was she knew this was it. She was going away to college as soon as she came back from camp. She was processing all of that.

So what I did, I said, “Okay, I’ll tell you what, I will come.” It was about a four-hour drive I think for me, maybe less. I said, “I will come to the camp.” And I had three, I had my two daughters, my two youngest children and my niece was living with us at the time. I said, “I will come with the kids in my van and we will sleep there and hang out there a couple days a week and hang out.”

(40:29):
“We’ll just go to the lake.” She worked at the boathouse. It was a super fun job and we’ll just hang out at the lake. And she said, “Are you sure?” And I said, “Yes.” And I said, “And you can tell your friends that your mom’s the weirdo that just can’t be away from you so you don’t have to look like you’re a mama’s girl, that Mrs. Mommy.” And she laughed, but that helped her stay in an uncomfortable situation that she knew she was supposed to be there.

She was genuinely processing, “This is it. I’m launching into the world after this. ” And we had fun. I literally shaved my legs in the bathroom sink at Hume Lake, but what it did was it prepared her. So when she went away to college, the homesickness was already passed. So she stayed in an uncomfortable situation. Did I help her?

(41:15):
Yeah, I’ll drop everything to help my kids if they asked me to, but we didn’t rescue her. God was preparing her for the next thing and that takes discernment, right? It takes wisdom to know you’re not comfortable. I’m coming to get you, baby. Or, okay, this uncomfortable situation might be God’s honing you for the next thing he has in your life.

Dr. Jeff Myers (41:38):
Yeah. And how you react and that situation says an awful lot about your own perspective on comfort or discomfort. I remember times as a dad, especially being a single dad, that I would’ve done anything to rescue my kids because I was hurting. I was actually somehow wanting to rescue them as a way of rescuing myself and really think through my motives on that.

Rhonda Stoppe (42:11):
That speaks volumes. Yeah.

Dr. Jeff Myers (42:14):
Wow. Well, Rhonda, this is so great. Moms Raising Sons to Be Men. And tell us the name of the new book because we want to be on the lookout for that.

Rhonda Stoppe (42:22):
The name of my new book comes out March 2026 and it’s called Moms of the Bible: Life Changing Lessons From the Fearless, Flawed and Faithful. Super long title, but you can’t miss what it’s about. And it is honestly like you’re hanging out with me. When I write, my reader is not a reader. The people I write to are the people that it’ll be out in audio so you can put it in your ears while you’re working out at the gym or carpooling your kids.

Honestly, my heart is just to spend time with the moms that understand this incredible calling that God has lifted them up in this generation. If I can read a final closing from mom’s reading sons to be men. Oh yeah, that’d be great. Yeah, please. In 1950, when missionary Jim Elliot decided to lead the safety of America to take the gospel to the native people of the Ecuadorean jungle, his parents were fearful for his safety.

(43:09):
Confident in his decision that it was directed of the Lord, Jim wrote this letter to his parents. Remember how the Psalmist described children? He said that they are a heritage from the Lord and that every man should be happy who had a quiver full of them and what is a quiver full of but arrows and what are arrows for, but to shoot. So with the strong arms of prayer, draw the bow string back and let the arrows fly all of them straight at the enemy’s hosts.

“Mom, are you doing what it takes to prepare the arrows in your quiver? When it’s time, will you pull back the bow string and release your son? Imagine tearfully watching him leave your bow holding your breath. “I cry every time. Holding your breath, you observe and pray as the Holy Spirit like a mighty rushing wind sovereignly guides him to the bullseye so that he might light on fire the generation in which the Lord ordained that he would live. I can think of no greater way to send my son out into the world. Can you?

Dr. Jeff Myers (44:11):
Yeah. No, so good. Rhonda, thank you. This has been such an encouraging thing and I just can’t wait for moms and dads to just hear from someone who’s in your position, someone a little bit further along, someone who can say, “You got this, you got this. Yes. You’re going to be okay. You got this, you’re going to do it. Set aside all your past mistakes because what we do now is what really matters.”

Rhonda Stoppe (44:41):
Right. And to what God has called you, he will equip you. And if you go to my website, noregretswoman.com, because I hope you build a no regrets life. On the homepage, you can get the first, no, it’s the last chapter of Moms Raising Sons to Be Men for free. And I’ll let you in on a little secret. The last chapter of this book is the highlight reel of the whole book. So if you only get the free chapter, you will get the highlights and it’s a great chapter.

Dr. Jeff Myers (45:05):
Rhonda, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Rhonda Stoppe (45:07):
I really appreciate it. Me too. Thank you.

Dr. Jeff Myers (45:10):
Thank you to my guest, Rhonda Stoppe, for coming on the show. You can go to rhondastoppe.com. That last name is spelled S-T-O-P-P-E, rhondastoppe.com. You can find more of her resources there.

This podcast is a resource of Summit Ministries. Are you a parent who desires a child to grow up following Jesus and embracing God’s truth? Well, we got lots of free resources to help you at summit.org/parents, podcasts, articles, live streams, and more. Check them out. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next week.