Our families can bring us the greatest joy and the greatest aggravation. Welcoming you to In Support of Families, hosts Emmalou and David Penrod talk about family life and its rewards and challenges. In this episode, they introduce a new direction to providing information and resources to strengthen families. Learn about how Emmalou and David work hand in hand to keep their household together and raising their seven kids. They engage in insightful discussions about family life and offer great advice on parenting and more.
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The Rewards and Challenges of Family Life
Welcome to In Support of Families. This is Emmalou Penrod.
With David Penrod.
We’re starting this podcast show together. We’ve known each other for some time.
You like to say that.
We’ve been married for many years. We’ve raised a family of seven children. We both within the past years have retired from full-time careers and now we’re self-employed. Sometimes we get a surprised look from friends wondering, “Why are you still working?” We want to talk about that. David, tell me if you agree that our values could be summed up in God, country and family.
That covers the three most important areas.
They’re very important to us. It’s also safe to say we have integrity. Everything we do, we want to come from a point of integrity, honesty and service.
If you know someone who is firmly committed to their beliefs, then you can believe and trust them when they tell you they love you. Click To TweetIf one is not compliant with everything that they believe, then you don’t know what to expect out of them. If you know someone who is firmly committed to their beliefs and God and honesty are at the root of everything, then you can believe your spouse when they tell you they love you, and they are true to you. You can trust even a politician if you know he is firmly committed to God and honesty. On the other hand, if he tells you one thing before you vote and does something completely different after the vote, you’ll know that that was a campaign issue. He was being a typical politician doing whatever is needed to get elected, not necessarily to do what is best.
That applies to any business relationship, personal relationships and any of those. You develop trust by having integrity, by saying what you mean and by following through on what you said you would do. I feel like that’s one of the keys to our longstanding marriage. We have learned to trust each other. We’ve been honest with each other, and I’m convinced that has made a difference. I’m impressed with anyone who has faith and a higher power. They may not worship the way I do, but I respect that humility in accepting a higher source and seeing a plan for our lives that involves more than asking, “What am I going to do?” It is also a value for me to take action. It’s one thing to say, “I want to serve others,” but I need to do it. Another value I have is setting goals and taking action.
I’ve watched you do that with admiring eyes. You do have a concern for others whether be family members, neighbors or someone you knew living in another state. I’ve seen you find those issues that make you aware of something that you can do to make that better. You do, you put that on your bucket list and is not just sitting on the shelf. It’s placed on your daily planning and you come up with ways that you can make it happen.
I’ve seen you do that too. It is heartwarming to me. If you listen to the news, it sounds bleak and miserable. I love seeing people who are getting involved, seeing a need and working to help meet that need, to make the situation better. I applaud that and it’s important to me to be part of that, but it’s that saying, “If you’re not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.”
It covers the issue. I have heard it expressed many different ways, but it all boils down to those things. Those who live life without looking around and recognizing that not all is well with everyone, they miss a lot of opportunities that they could bless the lives of people around them in some way. Even if it’s a smile and wave, sometimes that’s all people need. They’re not in good space with themselves and they don’t see value in themselves that day. If someone smiles, waves, and says hi and takes a few minutes to talk to them, it can make a big difference in their day.
I would love to encourage everyone to try that every day. Make it a point to reach out to as many people as you can even if it’s with a smile and an encouraging word. Sometimes you are at the grocery store, you may see a mother with young children who’s looking stressed trying to keep them under control, a kind word about her beautiful children can make a difference. Never miss an opportunity to lift another person. Based on these values, we’ve become entrepreneurs and we are following our passions both together with this podcast and separately.
When I first retired from the post office where I had to go in every morning at a certain time, I knew I was going to be there for at least eight hours, sometimes more and work hard. That was my duty and I did it. I enjoyed many aspects of it, especially the customers that I had and I could say hi to them and sometimes brighten their day with a good word. When I first came to the conclusion that it was time for me to leave and I retired, the first thought was, “No school day. I get to stay at home and watch TV,” and I did. I binge-watched some shows and things, but I soon got tired of that. With not having something positive to do, it became old quickly.
I remember that. It did not last long at all and you begin pursuing your passions. You retired four years before I did. Following your example, learning from you, I began planning in advance of retirement, even a year before. Knowing I wanted to follow my passion for supporting children with special needs. I had been a special education teacher for 23 years. I had many occasions to work with parents who are supporting their children. I could see that quite often there is a breakdown in communication between parents and the schools. I did my best to listen to parents to understand their needs, let them know that they know more about their children than anyone else. As a professional, I was there to support them.
I had the opportunity to take a course on hypnotherapy, taught by a good friend of mine, a woman I have a great deal of respect for, Martha Harrison. This was offered through the National Guild of Hypnotists, and I started taking the class with the idea of using this to help myself. As I went to the class, I saw how much it could benefit anyone, parents who are stressed out and struggling with maintaining control of their emotions so they can raise their children effectively. Even students who are struggling with maintaining concentration, understanding how to make and keep friends, understanding how to succeed in school.
My passion is helping people become better, to reach their goals, especially families. I’d love to strengthen families. I feel like families are under attack in this day and age. Most families have either two working parents or a single parent, and it’s not easy. It’s extremely hard, especially if you have a child with special needs and that’s becoming more common. My passion is in helping these families and helping people who want to set and reach goals, helping them to understand their selves better, and why sometimes we sabotage ourselves. We may have the best of intentions but we don’t always follow through.
It’s probably even more important now than it was as we were raising our kids. When we were raising our kids, there were shows on television that we could trust to let our kids watch like Mr. Rogers who taught friendship, value and respect. Whereas these day’s cartoons and other shows that the kids are drawn to seemed to be either totally inane without any good message or the message they are sending is probably the opposite of what you would like to have instilled in your children.
We’ve seen that as we watch shows with our grandchildren. I’ve been rather dismayed at the quality there. Whereas it may have been safe to let watch TV, there were times of the day when you knew there wouldn’t be anything harmful to them. I’m seeing more pornography creeping in and being presented as the norm. Research shows that pornography alters the wiring in a child’s brain. They lose the ability to feel compassion for others. They start to view other people as objects. It’s damaging and I totally disagree with the concept that pornography is a victimless crime. It does create victims. It does harm. Parents need to be vigilant to keep it out of their homes.
You develop trust by having integrity, by saying what you mean, and by following through on what you said. Click To TweetEven if the effect of pornography doesn’t lead one to commit a sexual scene or sexual abuse of someone, that concept of seeing other people as objects to be taken advantage of, that affects businesspeople, that affects politicians, it affects neighbors. “How can I gain an advantage over the other person?” That is causing our society to decay into us against them mentality or me first. You look back in the history of various things that have happened, whether it was a war or king versus subjects or whatever strife has happened. A lot of that boils down to not seeing the other person as a person of value that you should get to know and get to work with instead you take advantage of.
We’re fortunate to live in a community where the neighbors watch out for each other and I love seeing this. I love seeing people doing little acts of kindness for each other, a quick call, “I’m running into town, is there anything I can get you while I’m in there?” Knowing that a neighbor is struggling with getting their trashcan back in and taking it in for them and building each other. That’s the society I want to live in and I want my children and grandchildren to be able to live in. I want to promote a society where we care about each other, we see each other as people and we accept everyone even if they don’t have the same background. Even if they don’t dress like us, even if they are from a different country, we’re all human beings. We all have a right to be here on this earth. I’ve also learned that everyone I meet has something to teach me, so I want to take the time to listen.
A lot of times if you reach out and say hi to someone or engage in a conversation in a store or on the street or sit next to someone you don’t know in a restaurant, you are often surprised at what you can learn from this new person that you brought in to your life for a brief period of time. Sometimes it’s worthwhile that you don’t bring him in for a short period of time. You are bringing them in on a more friendship basis that something that you can do partnership in business, teach each other something or network in some fashion with them in their interest.
This is the way to treat children. They are not objects. They are human beings. It’s important to listen to them, understand what’s important to them and understand how they respond to the world. We are authority figures in our children’s lives. We’re programming their subconscious. We are teaching them what to believe about themselves and about the world around them. Are we teaching them that they are worthwhile, capable and have something to contribute to the world? Are we teaching them that the world is a fearful place? Are we teaching them to be positive?
Children want immediacy and strive to get that. They will start throwing a temper tantrum, they will be persistent in wanting your attention, some response from you. Parents are not always in control. Sometimes they have had a bad day or they are tired. It’s important to learn how to diffuse the situation rather than make it worse by raising your voice and say, “Can’t you see that I’m busy with something? You talk to me later.” Instead, you can calmly say, “Can you give me a couple of minutes to get collected and we can talk about this?” Diffuse the situation, don’t escalate it.
Our why is that we are following our passion. We want to support families. We want to reach out to parents. I know when we were raising our children, it was good to hear from someone who had been through the challenge we were facing. We would love to hear any comments, questions and topics that you would like to hear discussed. We welcome that.
We would really encourage your questions, the things you would like to hear, the subject matter, the detail that we did not get in here. If we have succeeded in stimulating thought or a question, please let us know. Subscribe and send in your questions. We would be glad to review them and address them in the future episode.
We hope you all have a great day.