Dad: Teaching our Children to PROTECT, Part 3: Protecting our Connections with People

As we work through the final aspect of the  HelpTeachProtect (Please consider catching up with those and returning to today's blog), today I'd like to offer some perspective on protecting our connections with others even as we teach and model doing this for our children. 


Attacks Against Our Connection With People

child smiles up at a man who looks toward him or her
Photo by Humphrey Muleba on Unsplash

We were made, in part, for people. To connect with them, talk with them, survive with them.  We were made to relate well to them.  Isolation is a desperately cruel punishment.  Being an outcast causes trauma on the human heart.  Othering is a verb of shame, a process of making a soul feel less worthy for an arbitrary reason like skin color, income, zip code or facial features, et cetera..  No one wants to be out of the mainstream but it happens all the time.  Any elementary school playground will prove this.  We want to belong, to know, and be known (in safety) by people.  Individuals don’t survive long, and reality TV, sad as it is, proves that teaming up, even if only for a moment, is more powerful than being a lone wolf.  If we are going to fight well in the internal attack against our connection to people, we have huge work cut out for us, and we will need allies.  They desperately need us, too.

Categories of Connection

Jesus offers some categories for us as we think about how we relate to our Father in heaven:  clay, sheep, servants, follower, friend, beloved.  We can (and often) idolize anyone or anything but God, and can become clay, sheep, servant, follower, friend, or lover to that person or thing.  We must consider how we are connected and to whom we are connected if we are going to teach our children to protect themselves and others.  We gotta do our inner work first to check for idols and priorities that should not be there.

Questions to Ask Ourselves if We Would Protect Those We Love

Greeks have 3 different words for love: agape (unconditional, self-sacrificial love) eros (erotic, sexual love), and phileo (brotherly affection, as shared among friends).  

Agape: Who are we loving with agape?  For whom do we inconvenience ourselves?  How and with whom do we set boundaries? (see Cloud and Townsend's classic book on this topic if need be) How patient are we with those we share a home with?  Agape is patient, agape is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast... See I Corinthians 13:4-7 for a refresher, and discuss with your children.  It will protect them from counterfeit love or other lesser loves.

What gets our eros attention?  What do we let arouse us?  How vigilant are we to the dizzying increase in the sexualization of young girls in our society?  How do we talk about porn and objectifying people with our sons and daughters? When will we expose our children to ugly truths about human trafficking?  If we are to protect our children and ourselves from over eroticism and sensuality that is out of control, we have to consider these questions deeply and in prayer.

Who are our phileo friends?  Who loves us as a great buddy would?  Who calls when we miss work or class, and who do we laugh, cry, bleed, sweat, and work with?  These are our brothers and sisters.  They are indispensable.  How do we help our children distinguish punks from phileo friends?

Protecting is Teaching our Children to Distinguish Simpletons, Fools, and Evil People

There are 3 types of people we relate to, according to Allender and Longman's Bold Love):  Evil peopleFools, and Simple sinners.  Their book is incredibly helpful in understanding precisely what happens to our connections with people in a fallen world, and how to offer a real connection to all those folks we live and work and worship with.  Allender also offers a podcast series on how to live with “difficult people” that is wonderfully helpful and insightful (Allender Center Podcast). John Eldredge offers several podcasts per year to help us all thrive and walk with God as we relate to other kinds of people, and attempt to bring God’s kingdom into relationships with them.  Studying these categories, reading, and/or listening to these resources will be helpful to fight wisely the attack on our connections with people.  Because connection is good and built into our design, it is opposed.  Because it is opposed, it is going to require inner work and long, hard work with resources bigger than us, like our Father in heaven, and spiritual community.

Overcoming Obstacles to Connection: The Three Bs

man looking down near a window in grayscale
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Some other internal attacks against our connections with people occur when our biases, bigotry, and blind spots are revealed, triggered, or expressed. That’s a whopping list, I know, but we need to name and reject these enemies if we might have any breakthrough in dealing with those internal attacks that keep us and our children from connecting well with others. We have always thought certain people do certain things that irk us (biases).  If we don’t talk about biases, we will just think some folks are just “too loud”, “annoying”, or “entitled”.  When we interact with folks, they either confirm or challenge our biases. A lot of this is subtle and is rarely discussed.  I’m bringing it up now because there are so many powerful reasons to do so.  

There's never a bad time to consider how to be more wise and kind.

If we don’t name it, we don’t think about it.  

If we don’t think about it, it won’t change, and people (to whom we have bias(es), act bigoted, or are blind) feel like we are jerks.  Or we feel they are. 

If we don’t work against the Three Bs, we will consistently blow past (or dismiss) people thoughtlessly in conversation, or attack folks (via microaggressions or more overt aggressions) who are doing the best they can.  

Bigotry is associated typically with intercultural and interethnic relationships. But I offer you this: bigotry is like bias in motion.  It is something ugly we believe about any person or any group that sets in motion something we say or do to dismiss or disrespect them (as opposed to bias, which is often unconscious and less kinetic).  Bias is like the foundation, Bigotry is the visible building.  Bigotry happens all the time in big and little ways.  For example, I think I’m a better driver when I’m cut off on the road.  I can’t stand that this entitled yahoo speeds up the left side and skirts to the left on the on-ramp, and he’s ahead of me.  That’s in traffic, but how about at home?  

Bias, bigotry, and blind spots (also known as ignorance, or simple lack of knowledge) have coalesced in marriage spats with my wife that you might relate to: I just can’t understand why my wife responds to our sons so differently to a problem our boys had at school with punky kids making fun of my boys' skin color or some playground issue.  I say, “Babe, I think you really need to chill” or “Maybe they were just joking like punky boys do in grade school”, but my heart is hollering bigoted things much uglier, based on my bias: 

I know better than you.  I’m the man.  Chill out, mama bear.  It is so inconvenient, annoying, and irritating to deal with you when you are like this.  Don’t you get it?  I was raised to resent anything that impinges on my comfort or quick solutions.  Plus, why do you have to have so many negative things to say about living in suburbia?  It’s not that bad.  I’m sure that kid didn’t mean to say that about our sons(s).

Now, let’s look at this situation through the lens of help, teach, protect both for what I need to see and stop, and what I need to do better:  

In this example, there is some bigotry towards my wife’s gender, her experience, and her maternal instinct.  There is also some bias that life is usually good and safe, and some real pride, too, that I know better.  It is based on culture and socioeconomics of how we grew up differently, too.  So the net effect of the bias is not helpful, it is ignorant and dismissive.  What is helpful is to listen, and let her perspective be true for a few minutes.  And it's helpful to ask clarifying questions like, "Babe, why is this so important to you?" or, "How is this connected to your story growing up?"  Remember, whether your children or your spouse, ask the questions with genuine curiosity and no condescension.  This requires mindfulness, care, and genuine curiosity.  So often I am blind to the fact that my wife, a Latina, grew up in a very different setting, dismissed by most educators and adults because of the color of her skin, and her first language.  I have been just happy and ignorant as can be for so much of my life, and this has only begun to change in the past several years.  

It is not teaching a good example of listening, even if I do let her tell me what happened without interruption.  So I’m not teaching my boys (who watch and listen when my wife and I argue) well.  I want to teach my boys to disarm arguments with curiosity, and listening fully to the other person with patience.  I want to teach my sons that all arguments do not have to be settled or resolved this evening.  There is beauty in the time I give my wife or others to sit with their feelings when we disagree.  I don't like the discomfort of arguments and disagreements and would like to remove the funk as soon as possible, but it's better to wait.  It's loving to wait for folks to be ready to talk than to exasperate them with my talking.  Whew, I have a long way to go to be a better teacher in this regard.

Finally, in the above disagreement about the boys getting bothered at school, I’m leaving my wife alone and unprotected.  Her boys are not protected by me, either, because I’m so laissez-faire about the situation.  I’m blind and disconnected to her experiences, her biases, her love of her boys, and her pain that is causing her to react so differently to the situation than me.  If I don’t have the language and awareness to see this happening, how many decades of bias and bigotry and blindness will my wife have to put up with? We ought to love our spouses better, moving away from the Three Bs and towards helping, teaching, and protecting.  Help, teach, and protect offers a way to undo a really damaging habit.  The way to protect those you love when it comes to connections is situational awareness.  Facts, not the story I'm telling myself, are critical in protecting others.  Anyone who works with folks dealing with trauma will tell you that the memory of trauma or a sense of danger can have the same effect as the actual danger.  Facts and perceptions are lived, embodied, psychosomatic realities when we are dealing with fear. I have to accept that my story is usually wrong but based on some facts.  Sadly, I don't protect my family in my normal mode of believing my own story and begrudging facts that I can't deny and didn't account for.  Once I see my error, get over my embarrassment for missing the critical issue or finally see the danger, I do show up and protect.  I need to model all of this helping, teaching, and protecting better than I currently do.  Technology and "easy everywhere" is making my sons (and even myself) believe that life shouldn't be so hard.  That belief is dangerous and will not support my sons growing up to protect those they love nor themselves when they are older.

With the right supports, language (including definitions of buzzwords), examples, illustrations, mentors, courageous conversations, and relationships, I might have a chance of growing in my skill to fight the Three Bs.  And that will free me to have peace as I deal with folks who are different than me. In other words, I get along better with every person I interact with, just like my hero, Jesus.  Conversations about categories like biases, bigotry, and blind spots are necessary if we are to grow and honor folks we interact with and know ourselves better. In short, whether about bias, bigotry, or blind spots, these are potentially redeeming conversations, and life-giving moments.  They can be like seeds that lead to other conversations with other people that lead to other conversations, and so on.

Protecting Those We Love with Humility and Our Resources

The truth is, we have all of the junk in the “Three Bs” list, and more, lurking within us.  Our hearts have been darkened by our internal battles, even if we are having some breakthroughs.  And we won’t be done until we pass from this life.  Our world is sick with all the items in the list above.  The world does damage to us, our kids, and those who love us. And the damage lingers within, roiling, attacking us inside, and causing fights and quarrels among us and within each of us.  We contribute to those internal attacks, and attack others, even if only in our imaginations.  Others influence the battle within us, even as they are swept along by their subjective struggles.  When the attack is within, we must look outside of ourselves.  God is a resource to help.  Our experience can be a resource. Our brothers and sisters can help if there is trust there, as can our spiritual community. Our parents and mentors can help, as can our leaders.  Our spouses, with whom we share a deep committed love, have an amazing power to build us up and protect us.  And finally, our followers, be they our children or our direct reports at work, can help us learn to protect them if we are humble enough to talk with them about helping, teaching, and protecting in our role(s) with them.

Thank you for reading!  Please comment, as this makes the whole experience more interactive, and I love communicating with my readers.  This series on HelpTeachProtect is a multi-blog series, so hunt around manyroles.com for more content or use the tags below this post to find more content, or listen to the podcast every Friday.

More blog content Mondays and Wednesdays, new podcasts Fridays.  Follow @maninmanyroles on Twitter.  Subscribe to email notifications using the button at the top of this page. Please comment below what was helpful to you. I will do my best to inspire you to live as a great father in many roles. 


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