Focus on the Family with Jim Daly

Jim Daly: Hello, I’m Jim Daly for Focus on the Family, and I’d like to talk to you about our Option Ultrasound program. For the past 20 years, we have been, you have been, providing ultrasound technology and training to pregnancy centers all across the United States. As a result, more than half a million women who were considering abortion, have chosen to protect the life of their pre-born baby. That’s an incredible milestone. I’m so thankful for the generosity of friends like you who have partnered with us to rescue these precious moms and their children. But the need is ongoing. It’s not over. There’s so many voices in today’s culture who are relentless about abortion rights. And they’re willing to sacrifice the next generation. We can’t let that happen. We need to be diligent. Speak up for life by giving generously to Option Ultrasound. And we’d love to hear from you by June 30th. Donate to focusonthefamily.com/savelivestoday. Or call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY.

Alli Worthington: God sees us as we are, how good we are, sometimes how bad we are, how we hit the mark some days, how some days we don’t. But He calls us worthy and He calls us enough for our children. He gave us our children intentionally. He knew that we would be the perfect mom for our kids. And every place that we don’t do everything perfect, He’s gonna make up.

John Fuller: That’s Alli Worthington describing a few of the myths that you might’ve heard about motherhood, and she’ll be discussing those today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Thanks for joining us. I’m John Fuller.

Jim: You know, John, in our culture, motherhood seems to have a lot of pressure attached to it. I think I catch a certain percentage of that when Jean was in the throes of raising the boys, the both of us. But, you know, you catch some things as a husband, but moms, there’s a lot going on there-

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: … that we don’t catch.

John: Right.

Jim: And, uh, social media, the mommy influencers giving the tips on how to feed, how to look, how to set the table, (laughs), all that pressure of doing it exactly right. But, uh, that gets exhausting. And here at Focus on the Family, we recognize that while being a mom is a rewarding job, it’s a lot of hard work and we wanna be there for you. That’s our goal. Um, man, we have counselors, (laughs), you could talk with, sometimes that’s needed just to get your feet on the ground and pointed-

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: … in the right direction.

John: Right.

Jim: And so many more resources. And today’s program is gonna be one of those lean into moments so you can better understand what you’re up against.

John: Yeah. Yeah. Alli Worthington has been here before. Uh, she’s a speaker, a business coach, the host of the Alli Worthington Podcast, and a mom of five boys.

Jim: Yay.

John: She’s also an author and has written a terrific book that forms, uh, the foundation for our conversation today. It’s called Remaining You While Raising Them:-

Jim: (laughs).

John: … The Secret Art of Confident Motherhood. And we’ve got copies of the book here at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim: Alli, welcome back to Focus.

Alli: Thank you. It’s great to be here.

Jim: Yeah, it’s good to have you. And I think I’m, again, I’m just in awe that you’re the mother of five boys (laughs). Just, I’ve had two and we had our hands full and we love them and they love us and everything’s turned out really good so far. But man, five boys. Where’d you find, uh, like energy?

Alli: I joke that boys take up all your time. Kids take up all your time.

Jim: Yeah.

Alli: So anything after a couple boys, it’s just an extra piece of chicken or two on the table (laughs).

Jim: I like that. Okay, so let’s get into a story ’cause I thought this was funny. I think the, the house next door was up for sale and you gave your boys some good advice. What was it?

Alli: Well, I saw the real estate agent come in with this very nice looking couple, and I thought-

Jim: (laughs).

Alli: … “I need to warn them about who would be living next to them. I’m not a monster, right?”

Jim: (laughs).

Alli: “They need to know, they need a heads-up.” So I had all the boys go outside and run around in the backyard with lightsabers and toys and, and all of the stuff that they had, because I needed these people to be warned. Because if you are a couple that does not have a child living in the house, and you buy what you think is the dream house-

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Alli: … and then you wake up and realize your neighbors have five sons, you might be angry.

John: (laughs).

Alli: So they didn’t come back for three months. She comes back three months later as they’re moving in and I walk down the back steps. We meet in our yards. There’s not a fence between the yards. Again, why she needed to know what she was living next to.

Jim: (laughs). And this is a couple with no kids?

Alli: No kids.

Jim: (laughs).

Alli: And I said, “Oh, we didn’t scare you off.” And she’s, I said, “With all these children.” She said, “Oh no, I raised a couple of boys myself.” And then she looks over my shoulder and she starts laughing because my three-year-old is coming down the back stairs in a pair of blue crocs and nothing else.

Jim: Oh, I love boys.

Alli: (laughs).

Jim: (laughs). That’s perfect. Well, that was phase two of your warding off of the neighbor.

Alli: Yeah.

Jim: But it didn’t faze them, I guess.

Alli: She, she said, “Oh, I’ve been through it. I know how it is. It doesn’t bother me at all.”

Jim: That’s great. Did you stay in touch years after (laughs)? Did you guys have barbecues together?

Alli: We sure did.

Jim: Oh, that’s, that’s great. That’s a good outcome. Uh, describe how the system of motherhood is broken. I didn’t even know there was a system-

Alli: Yeah.

Jim: … I mean, that you could codify, I guess. Uh, but how does it, uh, create false expectations, this system?

Alli: Well, I think motherhood has always been hard. You know, I mean, it’s no-

Jim: Well, I don’t know personally, but I’ve observed it.

Alli: (laughs).

John: (laughs).

Jim: Yeah. Seriously.

Alli: It’s no joke that motherhood is hard.

Jim: Yeah.

Alli: It is, for me, I was surprised when I became a mother raising young kids. I was a stay home mom in those early years. How-

Jim: A work at home mom.

Alli: Yes.

Jim: Because it is work.

Alli: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Jim: (laughs).

Alli: Stay at home and working at home. Um, it, it was at both physically exhausting, but intellectually unstimulating.

Jim: Huh.

Alli: And that was a real challenge for me because no one ever warned me of that. And when I’ve kind of verbalized that to mom’s, moms say, “Oh yes, I never knew how to, I never knew how to verbalize that in the, and words,” because it’s the most wonderful joy field experience to be a mom. But at the same time, it is exhausting every day. It’s, I can’t believe there’s this human that I get to love and take care of and teach all about life. But why in the world do I have to fish so much poop out of the bathtub-

Jim: (laughs).

Alli: … all at the same time? Right.

Jim: Wow.

Alli: I mean-

Jim: That’s a good question. Did you ever find an answer?

Alli: It’s, it’s quite a visual.

Jim: (laughs).

Alli: Unfortunately, it’s toddlerhood. But what I think is really breaking moms right now in a new way that’s never happened before is social media. I sent out a survey to my audience trying to figure out, okay, what kind of a problem is mom guilt for us? Is it just me? Is it other people? 96% of women said they’re racked with mom guilt. And the number one cause, it wasn’t a mother-in-law, it wasn’t themselves, it wasn’t their spouse, it was social media. That they’re going along, going through their day, having a good day, you know, quote unquote good day craziness of being a mom, and then they open up their phone and they’re inundated with posts of women who look like they get it right.

Jim: Huh.

Alli: So these pictures are, you know, kids who are dressed in all white and they’re not stained. Um, the dog is smiling in the photos, the house is spotless. And meanwhile, every woman who’s living in the real world, we haven’t washed our hair in three days and the dog has just thrown up on the carpet and we wanna throw our phones across the room. So this issue with social media, I think is really destroying the happiness and the peace and the joy-

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Alli: … that moms can feel.

Jim: Well, and that mom guilt, um, boy, it just, it rises for so many different reasons. And I, I don’t think it’s a gender thing.

Alli: Mm-hmm.

Jim: But, uh, it’s probably a more personality thing. But some parents can disassociate in a healthy way, I think-

Alli: Yeah.

Jim: … that, “This behavior is not mine. I don’t own this. That these are kids. I don’t feel guilty.” But so many moms do take that as a representation of their parenting ability or inability, whatever it might be. So that mom guilt, trying to get a hold of that is really important, isn’t it?

Alli: Oh, it is. I’ll tell you a quick little story if that’s okay.

Jim: Yeah.

Alli: When my oldest two boys were five and three, I was taking care of the baby inside and letting them play in the yard. The yard didn’t have a fence. We backed up to another yard with a very shallow koi pond. They had butterfly nets. The 5-year-old convinced the 3-year-old to fish a, a fish out of the neighbor’s koi pond. They had been watching this nature documentary about cavemen. So they were being cavemen. They had, they had painted their bodies with finger paint as little boys do. They get the fish out and the fish is moving around and they panic. And for some reason they don’t put the fish back in. They bury it under the rocks.

Jim: Oh.

Alli: They come back in, they fess up to what they have done. And I am devastated because-

Jim: (laughs).

Alli: … I’m like, I tell the neighbor, “I am in so much trouble. I have ruined these children. These children are abusing animals. They are going to prison one day.”

Jim: (laughs).

Alli: And she just laughs at me ’cause she had raised a bunch of kids. And she said, “Do you think everything your children do is about you?”

Jim: Hmm. Wow. What a great question.

Alli: And I said… Right?

Jim: Yeah. Wow.

Alli: And I said, “Well, I, I’m their mother. I’m, they’re with me all day long. So obviously I have gone off the mark. I thought I was training them up and the way they should go, but I’m raising fish killers.”

Jim: (laughs).

Alli: And she laughed (laughs).

Jim: We always talk about ax murders, but I think fish killer is good (laughs).

Alli: Either way.

Jim: Yeah.

Alli: And she laughed and she said, “No, your kids are gonna do stuff because they’re kids. If you keep raising them thinking everything they do is a reflection of your mothering and your parenting, you’re gonna be miserable. Do you think that every time you do something wrong, that God is a bad father?” And I said, “Oh no, God is a perfect father.” And she said, “Well, do you hold yourself up to different standards than God?”

John: Hmm.

Jim: Man, what a great neighbor.

Alli: Right.

Jim: (laughs).

Alli: She was brilliant. And that changed my perspective on, on things with my boys. ‘Cause I realized I could do quote unquote everything right as a mom, and kids are just gonna be kids because sometimes they need to grow, grow and test boundaries and, you know, make mistakes.

Jim: It’s such a hard leap though, uh, because that guilt feeling comes so naturally. I mean, it’s just part of we’re, our wiring. And, uh, particularly for moms, I think they do wear a lot of the responsibility that, “My kids aren’t behaving perfectly.” And so h- had, was this a growth thing over years for you or your neighbor, you know, just in that moment of fence talk got through to you? But, you know, what was that mechanism to be able to go, “Okay, I gotta rethink this?” Because some women will struggle breaking the bonds of that guilt. It’s there every time. Every time.

Alli: Yeah. I think a lot of it is personality, like you mentioned earlier. There are some personalities that are gonna feel more responsible. Some just the natural way that God created us, that we’re gonna be able to compartmentalize a little bit more. But I think it’s continual growth and arming ourselves with wisdom. One thing that helped me as I was writing this book is I went through studies that had happened over decades where people studied parenting and children and, and as children aged to see what mattered and what doesn’t matter.

Jim: Hmm.

Alli: And so I put a lot of the results of that research in the book because I not only wanted my opinion, I wanted research that had been done for decades. So I think when we arm ourselves with wisdom of what matters, what doesn’t matter, what’s a major, what’s a minor, so we can focus on the major and realize all of the little minors sometimes don’t matter. I was talking to a woman recently and she was telling me that she felt so guilty that she wasn’t optimizing things for her kids and, you know, learning experiences and all of these little things. And I said, “Well, let me ask you a question.” Her kids were little. “What was your favorite gift that you got for Christmas when you were four?”

Jim: (laughs).

Alli: And she said, “I don’t remember Christmas when I was four.” I said, “Do you remember your favorite summer vacation when you were three?” She said, “No, I have no idea.” And I said, “Kids don’t remember this stuff. You can relax.”

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Alli: Just enjoy them, snuggle with them, read them books, have fun. Not everything needs to be optimized. Even though we’re continually opening up Instagram and TikTok and seeing, “You need to do this and you need to do that, and you need to grow organic wheat in your backyard and make sandwiches and do all these things.” Really, when our kids are little, we need to enjoy them.

Jim: We had another shared experience. I mean, uh, I was laughing at this and people that don’t have these allergies won’t understand or don’t have kids, but one of our boys has a huge peanut allergy. And, you know, I think it’s on a scale of one to four that the, uh, allergist will grade these things and he’s a four plus. So he goes into swelling and difficulty breathing and those kinds of things. He’s only had a, two or three exposures. But when he was two, I gave him a scoop of peanut butter-

Alli: Uh oh.

Jim: … you know, out of the jar with a little teaspoon. And he ate it. And I went about my business and five minutes, you know, I’m looking at him, he’s all broken out in hives. And I didn’t make the connection. So I dialed 911, say, “Man, something’s wrong with my child. I think he was bit by some kind of monster spider.” (laughs).

Alli: (laughs).

Jim: And the person on the other end was so cool and collected. “What have you fed him in the last few minutes?” I said, “A scoop of peanut butter. ‘Okay. Well that’s probably it, (laughs). So let’s just watch him over the next few minutes. If he gets worse, call us back. If he’s, you know, stabilized it, you get a couple of introductions.’” Isn’t that just like the Lord? You know, we get a couple of introductions of that before our body fully reacts to it-

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: … which I thought was amazing. So he mellowed out and came back to normal. But then we knew to carry EpiPens and all that. But you had a, I didn’t feel guilt about that. I mean, I thought, “Oh, that was a mistake. I didn’t know better. And, you know, now we all know.”

Alli: Well, I’m gonna, I’m gonna make a stretch here and say, if you were a mom, you would’ve-

Jim: Well, I, I know.

Alli: … even though you didn’t know.

Jim: So speak to that difference-

Alli: Yeah.

Jim: … so us dads can better understand what, what our wives are going through when those things-

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: … happen.

Alli: I think something-

Jim: And was that your experience? You had a similar one.

Alli: Oh, oh no. I gave him pesto not knowing there was cashews in it. Because who puts cashews in pesto? I mean, seriously. It’s a terrible ingredient for pesto.

Jim: Kraft? I dunno, (laughs).

Alli: I mean, it was a bad idea. I, pine nuts go in pesto, not cashews. That’s I’ll say in my defense. Uh, no, I had to rush up to the emergency room. I couldn’t find his EpiPen, which made the mom guilt even worse.

Jim: Oh, yeah.

Alli: And it’s like a scene from the movie I’m running in the emergency room and I run in the doors and just scream for someone to help me. And so they get ’em on an IV and you know, they, they take care of things. But I remember sitting in that hospital room going, “I’m the world’s worst mother because I literally almost killed my kid.” Something happens with us as moms, whether we are pregnant with our children or we are adopting our children. Because when kids are little, everything is on us to keep them alive-

Jim: Well, that’s true.

Alli: … that it, it, we have the mindset that, “Everything I do matters. And if I make one mistake, it could be terrible.” Right. But as kids get older, it’s hard to shift from that mindset that every little thing I do has massive consequences to as they get older, we kind of separate a little from our kid and we realize now with each year that they get older, every little thing I do doesn’t quite matter as much. And it’s hard to shift that mindset from the early years, um, as your kids get older.

Jim: And it’s big.

Alli: Yeah.

Jim: And that’s where, as a couple you can work together to hopefully break that control bond-

Alli: Mm-hmm.

Jim: … that is there. And it’s important, especially for teen boys, you probably saw that.

Alli: Oh yeah.

Jim: Y- you can’t continue to control them. The more you do, the more they push back.

John: Yeah.

Alli: No. One of the best things my husband has done through the years is looked at me and said, “It’s gonna be okay.” It annoys me every time ’cause I think he’s not taking it seriously. And if he took it it seriously, he’d know it’s not gonna be okay. But he’s always right. And I’ve always needed that comfort, of all, you know, of spiraling out and I’m, “This isn’t gonna happen and this is gonna happen.” And he goes, “It’s gonna be okay.”

Jim: Now, now we’re talking.

Alli: (laughs).

Jim: So have you thought, this gets close to home for Jean and I, have you ever said, “You’re just disengaged, that’s why you don’t know (laughs)?”

Alli: Oh, of course. I’ve said the whole thing and he’s like, “The kids are fine.”

Jim: Yeah.

Alli: “They’re abs- Look at the proof in the pudding. They’re okay.”

John: Well, this is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly and our guest today is Alli Worthington. We’re talking about her, uh, her insights into motherhood. And she’s captured so many of those insights and biblical advice in the book Remaining You While Raising Them: The Secret Art of Confident Motherhood. We’d be happy to tell you more about the book and how you can get a copy when you call 800, the letter A and the word FAMILY, or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim: Let me ask you, in the book, you raise a theme that is really interesting and it’s basically the importance of mothering yourself before you can mother your kids. That kind of feels leaning into a little psycho babel-ish. But I know your, your intention is correct. So describe what you mean by that.

Alli: Lemme start with a story. When I was eight years old, I went to a Christmas celebration given by my Aunt Shirley. Aunt Shirley was amazing. We loved Aunt Shirley. But I got there and I knew something was wrong, I didn’t know what was wrong. Aunt Shirley welcomed us, she smiled. Everything should have felt good, but 8-year-old Alli couldn’t figure out what was wrong.

Jim: Huh.

Alli: She had told everyone, you know, she had been cooking for three days. She was so excited, all of that. But it felt tense. And I remember not having a good time.

John: Hmm.

Jim: Huh.

Alli: And I remember going, “Whatever’s going on here, I don’t wanna grow up and do this.” But I had no idea what it was. And it wasn’t until after she passed that, some family members told me that she actually never wanted to do all that cooking. But she felt like for her to be a loving mom and a loving family member to her extended family, that was her role. She never felt like she could raise her hand and go, “Hey everyone bring a dish.” ‘Cause in her mind that’s not being a good mom.

Jim: Huh.

Alli: She never felt like she had permission to raise her hand and say, “Hey, I’ll host this year. You host next year. So it wasn’t so exhausting.” And what happened is she became frustrated through the years that that was her role, and she slowly became bitter about it.

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Alli: So even though she did all the cooking, she welcomed everyone, she smiled that bitterness subtly leaked out and it made most of the people there who paid attention not have a good time.

Jim: And you as an 8-year-old-

Alli: I picked it up.

Jim: … could see it.

Alli: Absolutely.

Jim: That’s, that’s amazing.

Alli: And-

Jim: Yeah, go ahead.

Alli: And it really kind of leans into the truth that if we as moms don’t take care of ourselves and don’t mother ourselves and don’t learn to raise our hand to go, “Hey, this is actually what I need,” no matter if we look and we do the checklist, like, this is what a good mom does, and this is what a good mom does. If we’re not doing well inside, it leaks out onto our families.

Jim: You say it’s vital not to make your children the most important thing. This is another, this will be another common discussion between husband and wife. You know, pillow talk.

Alli: Mm-hmm.

Jim: “You, you don’t wanna make the kids the most important thing. How could you say that (laughs), you know?” Uh, speak to that issue of the importance of that. I, I, it’s kinda like the kid-centric family is typically not a healthy family. A marriage centric family is a healthy family.

Alli: Right.

Jim: But it’s hard to do sometimes.

Alli: I think women subtly get the message that the highest calling in life is to be a mother, which we know isn’t true because God doesn’t call all women to be mothers. It’s a wonderful calling. But women also get the message that the most important thing for them to be focused on is their children. And what happens is we accidentally make loving our children more important than following God because we become a little bit obsessed with our children. And I think that’s so dangerous, not only for our perspective on life, because we tend to lose ourselves in our children. As our children get older, we feel upset because we’re losing our identity because our identity was just in caretaking. But also for marriages, it can become really difficult because husbands feel left out because the women are always focused on the children as opposed to being focused on the husband too.

Jim: Yeah. And I mean, it’s a good reminder. Another myth that you talk about is that good moms don’t get angry. That, that’s probably generally, you know, you don’t wanna walk around angry all day, so it’s good not to be angry. But explain what is the correct biblical response (laughs), when your anger meters a little high.

Alli: Yeah. You don’t wanna walk around yelling all the time at your kids, obviously. But anger is a natural emotion that God gave us. Sometimes we are gonna get angry and so if we only live by the rule that, “I’m always gonna be happy and I’m always gonna be nice and nothing’s ever gonna frustrate me,” eventually we’re gonna blow up. I remember when I was first married, I got a book on how to be a good Christian wife. I can’t remember who wrote it. And so-

Jim: What was that title? (laughs). That’s nice.

Alli: So I read it and every day my husband would come home from work and after a few days he would start picking fights with me. And I was like, “What is, what’s going on? Like, we don’t argue.” So two weeks into it, I finally pressure him like, “What is the deal? Why do you pick fights with me? What is going on?” He goes, “You’re just so vanilla. What happened to you? You lost your personality.” I said, “I’ve read a book on how to be a good Christian wife.” He said, “I need you to stop. You were a good Christian wife before.”

Jim: (laughs). Wow.

Alli: So we have this idea sometimes as a good Christian mom, we never get angry, but sometimes there are things to be angry about.

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: Well, and that can be one of the more guilt ridden moments-

Alli: Right.

Jim: … um, that when you flash at the kids, ’cause you’re at the end of your rope and they’ve just done something that sparks that anger. Then for the next 48 hours, you’re beating yourself up about not being a good mom, “And look what I did and how could I react like that, especially since I love Jesus.” And-

Alli: Yeah.

Jim: … and you just play that tape over and over-

Alli: It’s a down spiral.

Jim: … again. So how does the good mom-

Alli: Yeah.

Jim: … kind of draw back from that miss and get herself together and say, “Okay, that’s okay. I, I had a swing and a miss. Now I gotta try again.” But how do you do that emotionally?

Alli: Well, it, once we kind of lose it and we yell or we get angry or we show our anger in a way that we shouldn’t show it, the best thing to do is immediately go, “Oh, whoops. That’s what’s happened.” And go to your kids and go, “I got angry about this over here.”

Jim: That’s good.

Alli: “It had nothing to do with you. I, I love you,” and reconnect, and let your child know that you’re sorry for what you did. “Here’s what I did wrong and I love you and we are okay.” Because as much as we don’t wanna admit it, that child is gonna go out in the world and have people be angry at them all the time. Right. But let’s, let’s let them not be completely freaked out when people get angry in the real world. So we can prepare them for that. But also because kids don’t have life experience. If kids see their parents get angry, they will internalize it and automatically think that they’ve done something wrong and that they’re guilty. So e- what we need to do every time we lose our temper or something happens, is to let them know we are okay. “This did not have to do with you. Or sometimes it did have to do with you, but I didn’t handle it correctly.” But just letting the kids know that they’re loved and they’re safe and secure and, and, and the relationship with the parent is safe.

Jim: Um, right here at the end, and I’d like you to come back next time, we’ll keep the, uh, conversation going and we’ll do a part two and we’ll get into some practical things on, uh, for moms to be able to manage these things better. But for that mom that is, uh, struggling with that comparison problem, this is probably one of the biggest things ’cause their friend network, they do things better-

Alli: Mm-hmm.

Jim: … at least she perceives that. Everything is that comparison checklist that runs through her mind every day and what she’s deficient at. W- what word of advice would you have right at the end here for that mom to unplug that record player and (laughs), there’s an old term, and then, you know, re-engage in a healthy way?

Alli: I think it’s important to remember that it’s not a mistake that God has given us the children that we have, that God knew our strengths and God knew our weaknesses and He gave those children to us. God is not in Heaven looking around going, “I had such great plans for this kid, but the mom is messing it all up.” You know, He, He knows what He’s doing. He, we will do stuff wrong. We will make mistakes. We will look and our friends seem like they’re doing everything wonderfully, but it’s okay because God gave us that child to raise knowing full well we’re not gonna do everything perfectly. But I will say we do know that social media is kind of fake. We’re only sharing our highlights. Nobody is sharing the photo of, of fishing the poop out of the tub.

Jim: (laughs).

Alli: They’re sharing the photo of, of the great times happening. But also, uh, just a quick word of sanity when we’re using social media. You mentioned mommy influencers earlier. At anytime you see someone with a large audience and the, they’re talking about motherhood and maybe they’re sharing a discount code and they’re talking about different things, that is a business. And once it becomes a business that’s not real life, that’s the business of motherhood that they’re showing. You can’t compare your real life to someone’s, um, kind of entertainment and business posts that their sharing.

Jim: Well, it does create… I hadn’t thought about it that way, but it’s almost like a false intimacy.

Alli: Exactly.

Jim: A false friendship in that way.

John: Mm-hmm.

Alli: Yeah.

Jim: I mean, they’re, they’re doing what they need to do to express their opinions and-

Alli: Yeah.

Jim: … point to the pasta they love or whatever it might be. But yeah. Take it with a grain of salt-

Alli: Yeah. We-

Jim: … to maintain the food metaphor (laughs), but.

Alli: Yeah. We just have to remember that’s not their real everyday life, it’s a business.

Jim: Yeah. It’s so good.

Alli: Mm-hmm.

Jim: Alli, I look forward to having you back next time and we’ll keep this conversation going. And for the viewer and the listener, I hope you understand what we’re attempting to do. The reason we do these broadcasts is to, and podcasts, is to bring people in that are qualified, uh, many of whom have written a book, a resource that you can get your hands on. But they’re working with us to help you, to help you do a better job, to be in a better place emotionally, spiritually. And if you’re functioning, if you’re hitting on all those cylinders, uh, and we’ve had a little bit, uh, uh, to do with that to help you in that we feel good about, uh, accomplishing our mission.

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: So if that’s where you’re at, or a friend or family member, get ahold of us. If you can make a gift of any amount, uh, it really helps if you can jump on board monthly, that’s how Jean and I support Focus. John and Dena, they support Focus.

John: We do.

Jim: We have many, many people that give $20 a month to help, uh, do the ministry here at Focus on the Family. If you can do that, we’ll send you a copy of the book by Alli, uh, Remaining You While Raising Them: The Secret Art of Confident Motherhood, I think it’s an excellent resource. It’s a win-win. Get in touch with us. If you can’t do it monthly, that’s fine. If you can make a one-time gift, we’ll send it as our way of saying thank you.

John: Yeah. Donate today. Request that book. Our number is 800, the letter A and the word FAMILY. 800-232-6459. Or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast for all the details. Thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller inviting you back as we have Alli back and once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.