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I think one of the biggest hacks that will make us good parents, good husbands, is if we treat our cell phones like a landline when we are supposed to be doing family time.
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I think this is something that I uh am regularly preaching to myself, that my wife is reminding me of, that I'm not always good at, but it's a goal of mine is to treat my cell phone like a landline.
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And here's why is I find that my phone is a black hole of reasons to not pay attention to my wife and kids.
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It's a black hole of reasons to not be fully present in what I'm doing.
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You're watching NBA and you're on Twitter.
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You're watching a show with your wife and you're checking your email.
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You are uh catch a moment of downtime as the kids pop out of the room and you quickly open up.
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Next thing you know, um your kids are talking to you, but you don't hear them because you're doing a crossword puzzle or refreshing uh to see if that thing popped up you're waiting on.
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And so what I find is whether it's on vacation or the weekends or nights, that in every way my cell phone is a saboteur, not an advantage in my capacity to be an emotionally present father who's trying to love my wife and my kids.
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And there's a sense of, will I miss out on things?
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People texting me, people sending me funny.
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Yeah, I will.
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I will miss out on things.
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But what I'm choosing is do I want to miss out on being present to my kids, or do I want to miss out on what's happening on the internet?
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And so one of the cues I have for myself uh in terms of self-evaluation, how good am I as a father, as a husband, is to what extent did my phone behave like a landline when I was at home?
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And if the answer is low, generally speaking, that's a leading indicator of how present and how available and how playful I was with my wife and my kids.
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And so anytime you're kind of looking for leading versus lagging indicators, I think a good leading indicator is to what extent did I have dominion over my phones?
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And this goes back to Genesis 1, 2, and 3, right?
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God puts Adam in the garden to serve and protect or work and keep.
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He fails to do that.
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The serpent comes in and begins harassing his wife through dialogue, and Adam's just with her, being passive, not interfering.
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And so I do think that husbands need to first have dominion over uh other made things, which is their phone.
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So I need to have a dominion over my phone, but then I also want to create a household culture that does the same thing, where my wife is not zoning off on her phone while I'm trying to engage, or my kids, or eventually they don't have phones yet, or that they're not zoning off, that we are a household, that our our little garden of which we are a steward is having dominion over uh made things, especially the cell phone.
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And so it begins with me.
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And so I want myself and my wife and eventually my kids to treat our cell phones like landlines.
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And if that means that we miss out on stuff, if we're not as engaged with what's happening outside the home, I think that is totally fine.
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I'm going to prioritize uh presence and ministry to my family over and against other people.
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And if that makes them disappointed me, then so be it.
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They can come over to my house and knock on the door if they really need to.
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I can also hack my notifications in such a way, it's not really hack, it's just customized, that it rings when certain people call or do it.
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Like I can set my notification settings for a home that makes sure certain things get to me and other things don't get to me.
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And I just want that to be a priority.
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And so this is half a confession and me telling myself, treat yourself in like a landline, you'll be a better husband and dad.
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But it's also telling you, to the extent you don't treat yourself in like a landline, your kids probably constantly feel like they're fighting for your attention uh and competing with your attention against all the other people who are impinging on you.
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Now, there are times where my son will say, like, what are you looking at?
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And it's like absolutely nothing important.
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And I'll say, like, uh, you know, weightlifting routines.
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He's like, I thought you already have one of those.
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I'm like, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have been doing that.
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And it's kind of this awkward caught in being an idiot moment.
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And I think that if our kids ask us, uh, what are you doing?
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Because half the time I think our fit kids see us, and what they see is Apple looking at them.
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And there's like this fixture of what it looks like in front of them.
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And so it's literally a barrier to connection with our wife and our kids.
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And so have dominion over your digital tech vi uh digital devices, uh, treat them like a landline, and you'll find yourself being itchy and irritable for dopamine hits that you should be able to work through and settle into, and then be a present, non anxious uh father to your kids and a husband to your wife.