The Importance of Fathers in Family Life with Olaolu Ogunyemi

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to the podcast ABC's of Parenting Adult Children. Please join us as we discuss parenting adult children and the unique struggles that it comes along with.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Hello and welcome to another episode of ABC's A Parenting Adult Children podcast. My name is James Moffat, and I'll be your host. Today I'm honored to have Olalu with me. Olalu is not only a U.S. Marine officer, but also a dedicated husband, father, and author who has a passion for strengthening families. Through his writing and speaking, he inspires parents to lead with love, discipline, and purpose. In our conversation today, we'll explore the changes and opportunities of parenting adult children, and I know you'll be encouraged by Ulalu's wisdom and perspective. I'm doing well, James. How are you doing today? Yeah, I think I'm gonna call you Lou from here on out. That's perfect. I've gotten a name my whole life. Hey, uh, thank you for being on the episode today and taking the time out to share your uh experience and knowledge and wisdom with my listening audience. Do me a favor and introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Yeah, absolutely. So, like you said, I'm Olalu Oganyemi. I'm a U.S. Marine Corps officer. I'm a husband. I have three children 15-year-old daughter, an 11-year-old son, and a six-year-old girl. Um, I've written three children's books. Uh Crow from the Shadows, the one that uh won an award. And I I'm glad to talk about that any anytime. Um I'm also in the process of publishing my first leadership book, which is called Lead Last. Uh, it's going through the developmental editing phase uh at Amplify Publishing Group, so very excited about that. I grew up the fifth of six children, uh very large family, four boys. We were spread out by about two years until my younger brothers five years later, and uh two girls. They're they're older. So my older sisters are 14 years older than me and 12 years older than me. So very wide range, but a very close-knit family. We talk every single day, uh, and I've learned I'm learning a lot from them and my 23, 24 uh nephews and nieces. So it's it's a very big family, but very close knit. So very excited to have an opportunity to talk to you today. Uh James, it's gonna be a wonderful conversation.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Absolutely. I'm excited that I have a uh a father uh on the episode today. We I don't have a lot of fathers. Um a lot of most most of the time it's uh we and uh there's nothing wrong with that, but it's nice to hear something from the other other side of the equation. And uh I think you'll agree with me in saying that children desperately need father figures in their lives. And uh they they I'm a little bit of old fashioned, and I'll say that I I believe in the nuclear family, and I believe in husbands and wives, moms and dads. And uh I know we live in a society that encourages other family dynamics, and I know there are a lot of single mothers out there, and uh, this is not dissing them. I know they they uh have a hard task at hand and they they have to wear the hat for both mom and dad, and and I applaud them and thank them for the job that they are attempting to do, and I'm sure some of them do a wonderful job. However, I think that I think our children, our future leaders, will be much better, will be more balanced and be have a a better chance at being successful in life as adults.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Yeah, I think that's something that I I saw, which is part of why I started Parent Child Connect. Growing up, we there's several guys in my area that just didn't have a father at home. A lot of them were in prison. And the problem that we were having that you saw is that the moms are just trying their best to make ends meet. And they're they I don't think they're superheroes. To be honest with you, I don't know how people can do a single family home, a parent home. I think I think they're that's just amazing that they even have the ability to attempt that. Uh, but what I was seeing though, uh especially in my hometown, is that a lot of these uh mothers were working three or four jobs just trying to make ends meet. And their child was still being raised. They've still had a male role model in their life. But the unfortunate thing is that male role model was somebody slightly older who was just trying to find them quick money or quick ways to make money or get in trouble. And so a lot of them are in the prison system right now. They have children, and the cycle continues. So that's one of the reasons I started Parent Child Connect. So I'm right on board with you, James.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

Yeah, I I interviewed a gentleman, I can't think of his um Richard O'Keefe is his name. I was gonna say I didn't remember his name, and all of a sudden it popped into my head. And uh he he's in the correctional facility, uh, or he's in the correctional institution realm. He works there, and uh he sees a lot of young men, and uh he talks about you know identity and uh acceptance and validation, and uh those young men, a lot of them are have are fatherless, and so they wind up turning to gangs to get the things uh that they're seeking love, identity, acceptance, validation, sense of family, and a sense of acceptance. And of course, you know, a gang environment is probably the worst uh environment that they could be in. And um because they're getting a lot of false love, they're getting, you know, they're the authority figure that's uh in a gang is is uh you know of questionable character, you know, they're doing, you know, they're breaking laws and doing criminal activities, and and uh sometimes when you get into those gangs, it's hard to get out of them. And uh so he was talking about how these young men wind up in in incarcerated for long periods of time. And uh he started a ministry or a program, I forget what it's called, that helps to address those issues.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

That's awesome. Because my dad was in pris prison ministry for years because he's uh also a pastor, and that was one of the things when I traveled with him. Uh I would go whenever I was old enough, I can't remember the uh minimum age, but as soon as I was old enough, my dad started taking me with him. And I don't know if it was one of those cases where he was just trying to scare me straight or if he he was just trying to uh allow me to see uh be a part of the ministry. But in any case, uh one of the things that just blew my mind was talking to all the fathers in there. And I'm not talking about fathers of one kid that they didn't, I'm I'm talking fathers that had three or four children and they have been in prison, some of them have been in prison already 10 years and had another 10, 15 years to go, which means they are out of their child's life for their entire lifetime. I mean, it's that that child doesn't know them. And what we don't sometimes account for, aside from um the fact that they have mentors that may be in gangs or maybe in the streets or whatever, but what we don't account for is sometimes that when that child sees that, they still have that connection to them. Uh they still have that idea that, okay, well, that's that's my future, especially when people are telling them, oh, you're acting like your dad, you're acting like your dad. Right. You see dad behind bars. So now you're telling him that you're acting like a criminal. And what you're doing is you're now training his mind to say that, well, that must be the only thing that I'm good at. I mean, I can I may not be able to be a good at school, but you know what, I can sneak in somebody's establishment and steal. And so these are things that I I learned. And uh a lot of those guys were in there, they said it never failed. A lot of them told me, hey, may your dad listen to your dad. You I didn't have my dad in my life. I mean, I wish I could have, I wish I was keeping count of how many guys told me that. And then the rest of them told me, yeah, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And that literally that was the consistent message. So you're talking about an important message here that uh right off the bat is uh I do believe that fathers being in a home is a is a huge issue. Um and if they're not there, uh if they're not if they're there and they're not present, uh fully engaged, or if they're just not there at all, uh I think that is a leading cause to a lot of the issues that we see today.

SPEAKER_02 7:57

Yeah, and you you hit a key point there in that fathers not only need to be present physically, but they need to be present emotionally, psychologically, spiritually. Uh if you're a person of faith, uh uh, which I am and I think you probably are, uh you know, being a person of faith is uh the uh addressing, you know, a higher power and acknowledging that there's something bigger in this universe than our ourselves and that we don't have all the answers, and we can have faith in a God that loves us and uh provides for us. And uh it's important that fathers are are mentally and emotionally engaged in the lives of their family, right? And I was raised in the you know, I I graduated high school in 1980, and uh so I was a child of the 60s and 70s, and uh, you know, back then well your dad's coming home and don't disturb him because you know he's you know he's been working all day, you know, and he my dad would come home and I'd help take his shoes and socks off and rub his feet, and uh he was in the military for 26 years, and so he liked that. And thinking back on it, I was like, I'm thinking, oh, that's kind of weird, but you know, that was a way that I could serve him, you know, and and show my appreciation for his hard days' work or whatever. But he was a he was a drill instructor and he was really tough on us kids. And uh, you know, I I learned at a very young age to fly underneath the radar with him and not not not piss him off because he was very heavy-handed and very prone to anger and violence. He had a drinking problem. Anyway, he wa he was there and he did provide for us physically and provided the roof over our head, food, new school clothes every year. And uh, you know, my sister and I were adopted out of an orphanage in Germany, so I'm very, very thankful for what my adoptive parents did for me and my sister back then. Yeah. But he they had a problem with understanding how to demonstrate love towards their children. That was the thing that was missing. And when I became a father, I have four children. When I became a father, I recognized a generational curse that I needed to break. I I recognized that I did not need to be heavy-handed, I needed to not be an alcoholic, I needed to not be prone to fits of anger, right? And despite my better efforts, uh or best efforts, there were days I reverted back to his mentality, you know, kids would come to me and say stupid stuff, or they'd wind up doing something stupid, and I'd wind up yelling at them, you know, and being angry, and I'd have to cool off and go back and go, okay, well, I didn't respond to that situation like I should have, and I'm sorry, and and then, you know, try to regroup and address the situation at hand.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Yeah, and I I love what you said there. You said you had a generational curse that you had to break. One thing I learned about uh people who've gone through circumstances, especially men, a lot of times we look at it and say, well, that's a generational curse, and we almost make it um this w we can remove the mysticism when we decide to take ownership of it and say, you know what? Yes, that my father did that. Maybe my father's father did that. Um, but I'm going to decide to break that, and I'm gonna do my best with children uh to show them love and affection. And those words make us make us cringe. Uh, because he, like I said, I have four brothers, and my dad was in the house, and we were all, I mean, the way we show love until we probably got to, I don't know, probably high school, maybe even college. The way we show love was just like battering rams. You know, we backed up and we ran into each other's head head on. And, you know, whoever stood up and didn't fall out first, uh, I guess you were you were the most loved. At least you were the most triumphant. Uh, but what we had to learn over the years is that it's more than that. You know, there there's a lot of things that my brothers and I, we call each other, we tell each other we love. My dad tells us he loves us, we give each other's hugs, excuse me. Um, but these are things that we didn't necessarily do growing up. I saw my dad cry one time, and I I was like, and it just it stopped. Everything stopped. I was like, oh shoot, he's crying. And I was my mind was blown. I was like, why is he crying? Um, but now as he's gotten older, he started, he started reaching out to us and trying to teach us a little bit more about hey, here's what I was hiding from you. Here's why I was hiding it, because this is the example that I had. Uh so now I'm trying to help you understand that that's not necessarily the right answer. He said, I'm an open book. Uh he's trying to teach us to be be better. And so I appreciate that. And I appreciate the fact that you know, and you're you're saying, and that a lot of people can hear it, fathers especially, that you have the ability to break the generational curse. It's not some magic, uh, it's not something that's that's a spell over your life. You have the ability to stop it.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

Yeah, uh I think that fathers of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, you know, they they were they were communicated that men don't cry. Right? Men don't show emotion. You pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you know, the world doesn't owe you a living, you go out and you earn it. And uh a lot of that was good stuff, you know. Uh however, I think fathers were like you said, they were they were raised by fathers and grandfathers generations before them. Uh and that's how we're just hardwired to raise our children the way we were raised, you know, because that's the only example that we have, and that's why it that's why it's so important that we set a good example with our wives and with our children. And when I first started this podcast, I had an introductory episode, and then I I stepped stood back and I thought, we're gonna talk about the family, we're gonna talk about uh raising children, adult children. And I said, before I talk about that, I need to talk about the marriage relationship. And I need to talk about what a what a solid, stable, healthy marriage relationship looks like, what the what the wife looks like, the mother, the father, you know, the kids, children learn respect, empathy, grace, forgiveness, love. They learn those things because parents are modeling that in front of them. And you can't say, do as I do, do as I say, don't do as I do, right? And that was kind of a uh that was kind of a motto, you know, from the you know, from the 70s. And uh so you know, a lot of fathers are emotionally detached. They're uh the emotional intelligence is at zero. You know, they don't know they they're not in touch with their emotions because they've been told for so many years that emotions, especially raw emotions, are not allowed. You know, you're not supposed to show emotion, you know, because that's you're you break your tough guy persona when you do that. You know, you don't want to do that, you you got a reputation to uphold, right? Not only in your family, but outside in the at the workplace, you know. And of course, my dad was a was a drill instructor, you know, for 26 years. And so he was, you know, rough and tough G.I. Joe dude. You know, he he uh you know he was like uh I don't know if you ever played that computer game, uh Duke Newcomb. Yeah. And basically he said, I'm here to kick ass and chew gum, and I'm all out of gum. I played that game for hours on end, man. I love that thing. Did you ever see that game? I did play it. Absolutely. Oh, yeah. Sure did. Yeah, Doom, Doom, Duke Newcomb, all those uh first person shooters. Mm-hmm. But anyway. Wow. So so you talk a lot about leading last. What does that mean and why is it so important in today's world?

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Well, it's exactly what we're talking about. It's it's now changing what we learned. Uh so what we learned as leaders is that you walk in a room and you command the room. We like to think of ourselves as leaders, especially in the Marine Corps, as you walk when you stand out in front of your your formation, people are looking at you as, oh man, that is the shining image of what we're supposed to do. And sometimes that can get to your head. Now that that makes you almost gives a perception that, you know, wherever I go, I I walk on water and these people are here to serve me. Um so when I'm talking about Lee last, I'm flipping that on his head a bit. And I'm saying your job as a leader, you still have command presence, but now it's to serve others. You have to focus and prioritize, giving them the resources so that they can now take your spot and be better than you are. And the second part of that is to create a leadership and an environment where the impact lasts beyond uh you being in the company, the organization, or even being on this earth. So that's what lead last means. It's it's providing a bit of a counterintuitive way of looking at life from things that we may have learned as leaders coming into organizations like like the Marine Corps, for example. I'm knowing that now we need to flip that on his head, and and it's not about being the loudest one in the room, but it's being the quiet force that pushes everybody forward.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

So you're talking basically about servant lead servant leadership. That's right. Our ultimate example of that was Jesus, you know, and he watched the disciples' feet and he he led them by serving them, you know, and he taught them the importance of being a servant, a servant leader. That's that's absolutely what fathers need to be in their families. They need to be the uh you know, breadwinner, you know, and that's a lot of times that's uh shared between mom and dad, you know, especially exp how expensive the world is now to live in. And and the father needs to be a spiritual leader in the household, and he needs to set a spiritual example to the for the for the for the mom and for the kids. And you know, he me he needs to be the one that says, you know, on Saturday night, like, okay, we need to go to sleep early, and because we're gonna go to church tomorrow, and and it's important that we go to church, and this is why it's important. And, you know, initially the kids may not understand that, but if you if you raise them in an environment that is conducive to spiritual leadership, that'll go a long way for them as they become adults.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Yeah, absolutely. And what you're talking about is modeling that servant leadership. And I love the example of Jesus washing feet because that that's an example of humility and forgiveness even before something happened. Uh, because when you're talking about that example, really washing feet was reserved for the lowest of the low, the servants, the slaves. They did that because their feet were completely filthy from walking around. Uh, and what I love about that is uh when Jesus washed feet, and not only did he watch Peter when Peter was saying, I'm not you, you know, I'm not gonna allow you to do it, but he watched Judas's feet, knowing good and well that Jewish is about to go out and betray him. And so these are the kind of examples that you sort of look at the Bible and you're trying to learn how to be a better father for your family. You have to look at those kind of things. Like, what was Jesus doing, knowing that he was about to be betrayed, why would he go and serve somebody who is knowingly going to do him wrong? And at the end of the day, we we know that as parents, we know that our kids are gonna do something that's just ridiculous. My dad knew that when I was especially coming up uh as a rebellious teen. He knew I was gonna do some rebellious things, um, but he still knew he had to serve me, and just like all fathers, we know we have to serve our children and make put them in the best positions to write. And but we all learn that from Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Right. And we have to, uh when when children make mistakes, we have to approach that from a position of grace and forgiveness. Certainly there is instruction, and certainly there is, you know, a opportunity to train uh and provide a better path. And uh but you have to you just have to be try to come at it from a position of grace and forgiveness. Yeah. Versus authority and and demanding and and control and all of that.

unknown 19:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

I mean, you give them an opportunity to reconcile. Uh, because that that's one thing I had to learn uh because as you said, we learned something growing up, and one of the things I learned was, you know, like punish you, and we'll move on after that. Uh, but sometimes when you're going down this down spiral, uh, if you don't have an opportunity to reconcile and and to show that, okay, I'm I'm done with that and I want to go a different route, um, what you tend to do is you're gonna continue to go on that down spiral. You put them in a corner, and anybody that's back into a corner is going to fight their way out. That's just our nature. Uh so if you put your child in an unwinnable situation, they will always choose the path of least resistance. And the path of least resistance is always gonna be the wrong answer. The right thing is for them to fight back and to find a way to make something that they did, a mistake they made, right. But you have to create that opportunity for them.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

One of the things I learned early on, I read a lot of books from Chuck Swindah. He has a lot of help books, little small help books. And one of them that I learned was the book on compassion. And in the front of my Bible, I've got a statement that he he coined the phrase, I think, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Right? And uh my pastor, one of my pastors uh from years gone by, he taught taught me about the psychology of need. And I was like, I you know, I didn't know what that meant. And he was like, Have you heard of that? And I said, No. He said, Well, so we're the church, you know, we invite people to church, we accept them with open arms, we don't judge them because Jesus loves everybody, right? No matter, no matter your skin color, no matter what your past is, no matter what your sin is, no matter what your faults are, mistakes, yada yada yada. You know, we uh we open the church doors and invite everybody to come in so that they can feel and see the love of Jesus, right? And he said this, he said the psychology of need is that we don't focus so much on beating them over the head with the with the scripture or with a good book. He says we focus on feeding them, putting a roof over their heads. We we meet them where they're at. The psychology of need says we as hands and feet of Jesus, we meet them where they're at and we provide, you know, whatever assistance we can that's practical within the the church capabilities, right? And or calling 211 for United Way or or getting them help out in the community, right? But we have to meet their physical needs and emotional needs first so that they'll know that we really care about them. You know, and he says once you do these things, then the a door is open to where you can share the spiritual side of things and you can you can instruct them uh and and lead them, you know, to grace, right? And uh that meant a lot to me, and that that's helped to hopefully shape my who I am as a person, as a as a husband, as a father. Uh you know, am I perfect? Do I you know, I have a lot of head knowledge. Having a lot of head knowledge doesn't necessarily transfer to the heart all the time, you know, and so that's that's that's where we you know The sanctification process of our salvation requires that we walk, you know, day by day, learning lessons one at a time, you know, putting one foot in front of the other and slowly but surely, hopefully becoming more and more like our savior, you know. Uh and so anyway.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Now that's beautiful because I was thinking about a quote that I heard from somebody, and they they talked about how a church is in the hood, uh, but they never come and speak. And what that that sort of spoke volumes to me because what that's saying is the church was there and people would go, but they never went out and tried to serve the community, never went out to meet people and see what they need, never provided the resources for them, so they don't know anything about them. Uh all they knew is that there's somebody there in that environment in the church and this organization that's doing something. And they they have these signs up, they don't want people touching their property, but they're not doing anything to really bring the community together or make a change. But there's many change agents out there. But in this particular case, I I thought it was it was resounding to hear that there's a church in the area and people had no idea where uh there is even a church there, uh, let alone have any have any idea of what the church is doing to meet people where they need to serve them in the way that they need to be served. So I agree. That's that's the way, and that that's also the way that Jesus replicated or exemplified for us so that way we can go out and replicate what he provided for us. He met people where they were, he met the fishermen on the boat. Uh he did everything that we're you're talking about. He he went out. Uh, he didn't just set stand in the synagogue and wait for people to come to him. So that's a beautiful day.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Yeah, organized organized religion over the decades and centuries has done more damage to humanity than than good, I think. And uh so anyway, your children's book, Crow from the Shadow, was born from a very personal place. What inspired it and how was it how has it impacted your own parenting journey?

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Great question. So, Crow from the Shadow, uh, first of all, I always like to highlight that the Crow is not uh necessarily your your figure that you would pick for a heroic character, a main character in a children's book. I did it for a reason. I did it because it's least likely to be your main character. A crow is annoying, they pick through your trash, they make a lot of noise. Um, and that's where a lot of us find ourselves in life. We we find ourselves probably more related, if we be honest, more relating to a crow than an eagle or anything else that's a little more majestic. Um that's first of all why I chose the crow. The idea of the story is that I introduced this concept called the shadow. The shadow is a person, place, or thing that tells you that you cannot be or you cannot do something. Whereas the shadow now is presented uh to others to let them know that, hey, you can be what you want to be. So in the story of Crow from the Shadow, what you see is a crow who's saying that I would love to wear blue, but the crow tells the shadow tells me I have to wear black. I would love to play sports, I would love to join the military, I would love to do all these things, but the shadow tells me I cannot do that. So the message I'm trying to convey uh to children, and this is why I believe in parents sitting down with children to help them get this message. But the message we're trying to convey is that you can achieve whatever you put your mind to. Uh, the last sentence is only one can determine my future. That one is me. And so we're doing is giving people ownership, giving children ownership of their lives again uh by conversation with their parents, guiding them along the way. So that's what Crow from the Shadow is. It's an opportunity for parents to sit down with their children and teach them a lifelong lesson using Crow as let's just call it the framework to teach them how to do that.

SPEAKER_02 25:33

Well, that's awesome. I'll have to get you to send me a copy of that book. No, thank you, for sure. Yeah. You've mentioned that you could have easily ended up in prison or worse if it weren't for the key influences in your life. What turned things around for you?

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Yeah, so for one, my dad was always there to prevent me from going out. There's it's like he had this intuition, if you will. He knew that there's going to be a time when I messed up. He knew that if I'm hanging out with these guys, there's always going to be a time when they're doing something crazy. It was so much so that one day my father's business works on campus. He's an educator. And he works, he works on campus, he's been there for almost 40 years at this point. Uh but one day we're sitting in class and my buddy comes and tells me, Hey man, I saw a picture of you. And I'm thinking, where in the world have you seen a baby picture of me? He's like, I know exactly. He explains it perfectly. And I'm like, Well, that's strange. And then come to find out, I went home and my dad is like sort of stressed out because the building had just been robbed, and the only office that wasn't touched was his. And so now you're they're putting two and two together, like, well, if it wasn't you, you have sons. So where were your sons last night? But luckily, uh, we all had alibi because we were all at church where we spent a lot of our time. And he always did that. He always pulled us in. Uh, when it seemed like we were about to do the dumb, make the dumbest decisions, the ones that would have put us in prison for a long time. He always pulled us in. And so I would say the turning point for me was recognizing the sacrifices that he was making and he made in his own career so that we had a better life. And it didn't dawn on me probably until I was uh, I would say probably about 17 or 18, uh, because I went through a phase where I didn't think I needed him. I thought that I was better off. Uh, I was a grown man, I could handle my own self. I even told him that, you know, you did a great job. You did a great job. I I was making $30 a Sunday playing the bass guitar. And I told him, you did a great job, but you know, I'll take it from here, thinking that I somehow could pay bills. But, you know, I I think the turning point was when I learned that he's not there to to ruin my life or or any of my mentors who were there to try to guide me along the way. They weren't there to ruin my life. They were there to help me to grow uh beyond where I was because I did have dreams. I actually we all had dreams to be honest with you. All had dreams to make it big. But somehow they were able to get through my mind and help me to accept that yeah, I can actually do it if I just if I focus and stop doing the things that would derail my life.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

So I I see the books behind you. You want to show them to the to the audience? Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Let me let me get go ahead and grab them real quick. One second. All right, so uh all three. So I'll start with uh Crow from the Shadow. Uh like I said, that was the one. It was actually an award-winning book. It started off as just my my attempt to show the children for my children to sit down and read a book, create a book, but then I realized that there's other fathers out there, other mothers out there who need to learn how to sit down with their children. So that's Crow from the Shadow. Uh the second one is called Billy Dipper's Time to Shine. Similar to Crow from the Shadow, but it's different in that uh we're talking about self-worth. So the main character there is called Billy Dipper. Now, this one is a shining star, but he's the difference is he's there about to do something. People are proud of him. He's very confident, and then he has this big event that happens in his life that causes him to start losing his identity and forget his self-worth. So again, that's Billy Dipper's time to shine. It's all about self-worth. The last one is actually called Horse the Horsefly. This is my uh the funniest one for me because I had written those other two books a little bit deep, but it's a decent story for parents to sit down and have conversations. Horse the horsefly is for my younger readers, uh, age two to five. It's it literally is about animal sounds and sight words. Uh, there's no there's no real heavy theme there aside from friendship, speaking to others, and having fun while you're reading. Now, the unique thing about all three books is that I do have what's called continue the conversation questions in the back. And what this is, is again, it's an opportunity for parents, because the idea is that parents are sitting down with their children or teachers, mentors, caregivers, really the community sitting down with their children. And the idea is that uh they they have the opportunity to sit down and just go through these questions. And it's opening the door for them to go through and learn. So I'll show you that. Uh, it's hard to read. Oh, nice. Yeah, there you go. It's just five questions. Uh, how would you describe Crow? How would you describe the shadow? Just an example of two of the questions. Uh, but again, it's just to get parents to sit down and start those conversations, and you'll be surprised uh what these children are telling their parents and how much they're learning from their children, and more importantly, uh how much parents are able to teach their children through these stories. So, really, that's that's all three. Uh, very, very proud of these uh projects. It was again, it was something I started uh for myself, for my family, um, and it just sort of grew from there.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

What I mean, what inspired you to do that? You just woke up one day and said, Hey, I need to write three children's books.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

So, what inspired me was uh number one, I was sitting in traffic in uh San Diego. So I was sitting on the five, and uh I was like, all right, I want to do something other than listen to music for two hours. And so I started thinking about uh how I could start writing. Um, but really I wanted to find a way to create a moment with my children. So my mom always sat down and read with us. Uh we were a huge reading family, uh huge education family. My mom loved sitting down with us and and reading with us and engaging. And of course, there's books out there. I I grew up a huge Dr. Seuss, Marilyn Sattler fan. I have those books on my on my um on my bookshelf today. Um I grew up on the Hardy Boys. I love Nancy Drew. Like these are all the things I grew up on, and and I just loved it. But I wanted to make sure that not only did my children have the opportunity to enjoy reading, um, but that was a part of that. Um and so I started off just reading uh, not just reading, but reading Dr. Seuss and those kind of books, you know, Cat in the Hat is always your your go-to, uh redfish, one fish, two fish, redfish, bluefish, always your go-tos. Uh, but then I was like, well, you know, I actually have an idea for a story. And like I said, I was sending traffic and started putting it together and it all started flowing a little bit better. And I was like, okay, well, how about I print this? Uh, you know, I was gonna just print it from my computer. Uh, then I was like, oh, well, I could print it for free with Amazon uh Kindle Direct program. So I decided to do that. And then once I did that, I was like, well, there's other dads out there that probably want to have an opportunity to do the same thing. And so I decided to, you know, at least start marketing to those dads. And then, like I said, it just grew from there. And once I had that, I saw success with the first one. I decided to continue to go from there. And it, like I said, it's just been a wonderful thing.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

That's awesome, man. And I love the covers. The covers are very uh I can see where it would attract young minds, you know, children. You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

And I have to give my brother credit, Joshua O'Ganyemi. He's the one, he's the illustrator for my two older books, A Crow from the Shadow and Billy Dipper's Time to Shine. So that was also a wonderful thing for people to see that two brothers are able to pursue their dreams. My my brother never was an illustrator before my book, so I have to say that I gave him the breakout for his uh talent. But yeah, he came. I mean, he he's always been talented, and I told him, hey man, let's do this project. And he was right on board. So uh he definitely is my illustrator for both of those.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

That's awesome. So, what practical advice do you have for parents who want to raise resilient, emotionally healthy kids in a chaotic world?

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Yeah, so the chaotic world piece of that is is actually something that we have to pay attention to. Because what I realize is that there's always influences around us, around them, that are t attempting to take their eyes off of what's supposed to be important. So that's the first thing. Recognize as the things that are influencing them. So take a look at their shows, figure out what they're reading, take a look at their friend group, uh, start paying attention to your children's surroundings. Don't start talking yet. Uh, because a lot of parents uh immediately, the first thing that we like to do is jump in and start talking and trying to guide and lecture them. But I advise that the first thing you should do is take a look at what's surrounding them, what's influencing them, what kind of words are they saying and where's that coming from? What's their attitude like? And where's that coming from? Right. Uh, because you may be surprised it's coming from you, or you may be surprised it's coming from uh YouTube kids, for example, which that used to be a very uh educational thing, but now uh it's turned into something. It's just, I mean, there's literally something on there called brain rot, James. I'm not making this up. Uh and the kids love this, it's quite frankly called brain rot. And so just pay attention to where your kids are and what they're doing. Uh the second thing I would say is uh become more empathetic towards them. I think a lot of us grew up in a home, especially fathers, uh, to where we just were not, that just wasn't a thing. So recognize that and start working on it. Uh be empathetic towards them and pay and focus on emotional intelligence. That's not something that it's not just a buzzword for the day. Uh, that's actually something that we have to focus on. Uh, for example, in my home, I started practicing this. Uh, we started off just with open-ended questions. Hey, how was school? Uh, they used to say good, and I'll be like, okay, so what was your favorite part of the day? And now I've gone beyond that, and I started asking them, hey, how did you feel about your first day at school? And that's the key word. That's a key question. How did you feel? And what I'm trying to teach them to do is to be more in touch with their emotions. First of all, identify what their emotion is. So, for example, uh, my daughter's youngest was having a little bit of trouble on the bus. Some kid was messing with her, and you know, I say, okay, how do you feel about that? Or how do you feel about your first day of school or your day at school? And she'll say, Well, I was happy. I think things were really going well. This is a first grader. Things were really going well, learned a lot from my teacher. But after the bus ride, I was actually a little bit disappointed because I one of my friends was starting to make fun of me. And I thought, I didn't think he should do that. And so when we talked through that, I had I had the ability now to coach her through it. And the very next day, she went and talked to the guy. She said, Hey, I didn't like when you did that. And surprisingly, and I just have to give credit to other parents potentially, surprisingly, she said the young man was very receptive and said, Yeah, I'm sorry. I shouldn't ever said that to you. I was just trying to have fun. I apologize. And these are the kind of things that if we had adults that were thinking like this and had the ability to have that kind of communication, I think the world would be a lot, a lot better. It wouldn't be as chaotic. So I would say probably those are just to give a brief, I have a lot of practical advice, but just briefly, uh, a couple things we start looking at. Uh really look at what's influencing them and start looking at um being more empathetic. And then lastly, start looking at trying to improve your emotional intelligence and uh improve theirs as well.

SPEAKER_02 35:37

So I think one of the things that parents of today need to be uh a little more in tune with is social media. Because there's a lot of there's a lot of negative influences. There's a lot of there are predators out there that would prey on our children, sexual predators, and it's it's important. We have you know, we have Facebook, we got TikTok, we got Snapchat, we have all sorts of social media portals that are full of there are some good things on social media, but there's also some bad things, and and that's that's the thing that we need to be aware of and we need to to instruct our children uh in say, you know, scrolling, you know, TikTok videos for hours on end, getting that dopamine hit is not necessarily a good thing, right? You talk you want to talk about brain rot, that'll do it. And that goes for adults too, you know. We have to be cognizant of the fact that there's a lot of garbage out there on social media, there's not a lot of negativity, there's a lot of you know, talk about on the political spectrum, on the religious spectrum, and all other areas of life, right? Everybody it's like you know, the World Wide Web personified, you know, you know, back in the 80s we had the World Wide Web, you know, and we had Netscape and we had Firefox browsers, and that's how we interfaced with the internet, and now we've got smart apps on our telephones, and we have, you know, Facebook and Snapchat and TikTok and Instagram and a whole myriad of applications that that our kids I mean I didn't have my first cell phone until I was an adult, right? Because cell phones were really expensive, you know, especially in the eighties. Uh now, you know, I I see you know, I I work security part-time just uh to make ends meet because I'm retired and I have I see families getting out of vehicles, you know, the father or whoever, the adults driving the car, dropping off the mom and the kids or whatever. The kids will get out of the car, they'll be little toddlers, they'll be like, you know, no more than four foot tall, and they got a big smartphone in their hand. And I'm like, what? When did that happen? Because I don't know. I I'm thinking the the parent, I'm thinking that, you know, if you want if you want your child to have a cell phone for the purpose of staying in communications with them, get them a flip phone. They don't need a smartphone, get them a flip phone with your pre-programmed numbers in there, and then if they need to call for help, they pick up the flip phone and then just call you. They don't need a twelve hundred dollar iPhone that has all these apps on it and access to stuff that they are not prepared to handle or and don't understand, you know? And so I think it's I think it's uh I think the parents need to be the watchman on the tower. They need to be they need to be the protector, right? And we need to uh you know it's not about control, it's not about controlling our children, it's about protecting our children and providing them with a safe environment for them to grow up in. And so I think that uh unfortunately, you know, um mom and dad, nine times out of ten, when they have computer problems, who do they go to?

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Their children.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

They're to go to their children. Hey Johnny, come over here and help me reset my password on Facebook, or I can't get into my email, or I can't get to this website. You know, kids kids grow up with technology in their hands, right? And and so I think it's I think there's an onus on parents to to learn, you know, learn the technology. Take classes, take free you can get free computer classes, just take classes and and research and learn about all these social media portals that our kids are exposed to. And there there's like I heard the other day there's a a program, an A AI program that will talk to you. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it is because people are lonely, right? People are lonely, especially children, you know, and you like, you know, and I and I don't know the name of the application or whatever, but I heard about it and I was like, wow, that's that's dangerous, right? Because you don't know who's on the other end manipulating that thing, right? And uh and you you know, you hear about human trafficking and you hear about all these insidious, horrible criminal enterprises that are just take take advantage of. Can you believe it's 2025 and human trafficking and human human trafficking is still a thing? Mm-hmm. It's gotten worse. Yeah, it's gotten worse. And so it's our job as parents to to safeguard our children from predators and and to help guide them, teach them moderation, like, okay, you know, spend thirty minutes on Facebook, you know, after your homework is done, and then we can talk about what you're talking about on there or whatever. And kids are gonna be, you know, they're gonna they're going to be a little bit rebellious about that. Well, that's none of your business. That's my world, not your world. And you're like, well, you know, as long as there's a parent-child relationship there and they're not a d they're not adults yet, your job is to safeguard them and to help them understand what they're interacting with and why. I could talk for hours on that. You probably can't tell that, right?

SPEAKER_00 40:45

No, you're no you're spot on because that that's the thing. They don't understand. We don't understand technology. Uh, we don't understand uh the algorithm and how artificial intelligence works. Uh a lot of us, we we haven't taken the time to learn it. Um, the thing about artificial intelligence and this algorithm is it's giving you what you ask for, what you want, which is not good for us. It's not good for our ability to think critically or think creatively. Uh it's really destroying, you're talking about brain rot. That's what's happening. It's because uh you really have this idea. You go on Google, which you're, of course, it's tracking what you're searching for. Uh so you go search for this thing, you talk about this thing, and now it just gives you more and more to validate the thing that you just said or the thing that you're asking about. And that's one thing that we don't understand, and our children definitely don't understand. So when they're coming up and they have these extremely one-sided views on the world, uh, it's probably because we just sat there for the years and trained them up, and we trained ourselves to have a one-sided view. We never can think about a situation from multiple angles because we're always looking at it from the perspective of those who agree with us as given to us by the social media algorithm. And then to touch on AI as well, if people think that's safe, I just want to go ahead and say that I've I've studied this a bit, and there's things that call biases that with people who create this AI, which means that if I happen to be a predator and I'm creating AI, and I'm just using that as an example, so she mentioned it, that means that that's the direction I will take the conversation in in some way. AI still still has the same human interaction. Humans created it, humans coded it. That means they still are gonna have that same kind of flaw that humans would have. It just happens to have a little bit more of a broader range of areas it can pull from for information. So talking to AI isn't necessarily safe for those who may think it it's extremely safe. I just want to dispel that rumor. Uh I still recommend talking to human beings who can actually decipher between what you're talking about and they have the ability to have logical, not just logical thought, but human thought. You you can't overcome human thought with any kind of machine or code.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

Yeah, AI will never be able to replicate our reasoning capability. You know, we have the ability to reason and uh we have we have emotions and we have, you know, a whole you know there's no way there's there's no way AI will ever be able to, you know, they're they're working on the scientists are working on mapping the human brain. You know, and I'm like, well that's maybe that's a good thing, or maybe that's a an honorable thing, or maybe that's a uh shoot the moon project, you know, uh a good project to try to figure out. Uh and God made us He made us uh what does the word say? He made it He wonderfully made us. Uh he You know, we're very complex. You know, and AI is never I don't think AI you know, I like to use AI for research. Oh, for sure. You know, uh and things like that. There there are there are uses, solid positive uses, uh constructive uses for AI. Uh you can use it to to add to your knowledge base and to help you research. I use it in podcasting all the time. You know. And uh it's it's a it's a tool like any other thing. It's not a replacement for your brain, though. It's not a replacement for your uh reasoning capability. And it's like you said, it's because it's these LLMs, uh these language models are uh uh put together you know they're scraping the internet and gathering all of this information you know at light speed you know uh faster than any human could do that right but but like you said the person that's programming that language model their bias is going to be included in that you know our you know if our children are feel the need or are attracted to uh talking to an AI robot on their smartphone that would tell me as a parent that that that ai robot is fulfilling a need in their life that we're supposed to be fulfilling right and so so we need to discourage that I think yeah no I I 100% agree.

SPEAKER_00 44:47

That's one thing that there's a book called Hold On to Your Kids by uh let's see Dr. Gabor Mateh I think his name is and there's a second author as well. But one of the things that they talk about is the importance of parents being the people that children look up to and they connect to for guidance. And what he's arguing and that and what they're arguing in that book is that that's starting to not exist. And he wrote that they published that book uh years ago um that was starting not to exist and parents are starting to drift a little bit further away from their children to allow them to explore and learn and that was one of the things I learned in publishing books you'll be surprised that traditional publishers didn't want books where parents are actually teaching their children. They don't want books where parents were telling their children what to do. Instead they want the child to be able to explore and learn from themselves. And the danger is that is that they're not necessarily learning from themselves. They're learning from somebody and in this case what you're talking about is AI. In the case of Hold On to your kids they talked about the the slightly older generation and the problem is they're missing some key things. They're missing missing the need to nurture if they're older children and of course AI has no ability to and they're missing the responsibility to raise this human up to be an impactful leader. And that's where uh AI just doesn't have that responsibility they their responsibility for giving you information uh an older sibling doesn't necessarily have their responsibility they may take care of you they may provide for you but their responsibility isn't necessarily to raise you and make you greater a greater person. They may help you survive but that's just not their responsibility. And so that that's where they're missing those key aspects. So I I think that's right along with the book. I would love to see their their thoughts or hear their thoughts on artificial intelligence and leading or filling a gap that a parent is supposed to fill I have a suspicion that they would believe that that is even worse than having an older sibling uh try to lead their uh child.

SPEAKER_02 46:38

Right. So let's talk about insecurity how can leaders or even parents grow through insecurity instead of being ruled by it?

SPEAKER_00 46:46

So the first thing I would say is uh know that we all had some form of insecurity. For me I I grew up I was overweight I grew up with the name Olaulu Ogunyemi in Ruston Louisiana and not necessarily uh the most popular name uh and so people made fun of me uh and I I so I would say the best thing that you can do is start looking for the signs in your life. If you don't think you're insecure uh then you probably just need to start looking for the signs to see where that's coming out. And for me uh it it was you know if I saw people who were going to themselves or even a team if they were to go to a small portion of the room I'm like okay well maybe they're trying to figure out a way to to get me get me fired or something. It's all all kind of weird thoughts. So I would say first recognize uh that you probably do have some form of insecurities. Second thing is go and start journaling, writing those things down. Try to get to the root of that problem. What caused it uh where is it coming from and so on and so forth. And in my case I I recommended uh taking that uh information that you learned to a counselor and sitting down and talking to uh counselor and that because I believe uh again something that wasn't necessarily big in our community uh growing up uh but it's a nice necessity is having the ability to sit down with a professional counselor uh who can help guide you through some of these things. So that I would say those first couple steps is recognizing that you uh that you have insecurities and start writing down what what triggers it, what are the causes so you can get down to the root of it and then taking that information to somebody who can actually help you through it, help guide you through it. Wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 48:21

So you worked hard to provide practical tools not just inspiration.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

Can you walk us through one of your favorite tools or frameworks for parent-child connection or lead last yeah so one of my favorite tools I I will probably say that my favorite is my three-day mental health guide major pain edition and I I created that it was very early in my in my blogging I created this this guide but what it was is first of all to dispel the the idea of masculinity in in today's society and I watched this movie or this documentary excuse me I call it the Mask We Wear was just talking about how our masculinity is sort of causing us to go down these these dark paths in our lives. So I used the three daily mental health guide uh that you can download off my website and print and use yourself. It's still there. But I use that as an opportunity to teach parents and get parents to sit down with their children and teach them the importance of paying attention to your mental health. I would say the other one that's one of my favorites is I did a a recent journal with my brother. It's called the Lifelong Divorce Journal. And what that journal is exploring is the effects of divorce and not necessarily your divorce but divorces that happened around you the effects that divorce has on your life so for us my younger brother and I, well all of us, we we our parents end up getting divorced. And so we had to learn what impacts that had on us over the years. What what were we still doing that was potentially causing uh leading us in that direction towards divorce or what are we doing to try to prevent divorce from happening all these things that we had to start uh thinking about that we never actually thought about before. So the title of that journal is lifelong uh divorce and I would say that the I don't like saying last but also a very proud partnership for me is the UVersion Bible app. So I'm actually a content partner with the UVersion Bible lab. This is one of those things yeah I am uh it's been a blessing I that was one thing that uh I applied for when they were open uh and they accepted me and I almost fell out of my chair so I've had the opportunity I I think uh I have six plans maybe seven um and I'm working on one or I actually I just submitted one and that's supposed to come out uh the first of November so it's just it's an opportunity to uh help people build their relationship with God and this latest plan uh specifically is talking about uh how leaders it's called the 30-day upside down leadership uh model uh what we're talking about is how Jesus flipped the model of leadership upside down uh and I will say within those Bible plans my uh another favorite is uh it's temptation is for teenagers uh it's talking about how teenagers can get over I can work through temptation so very proud of that uh content partnership I'm very grateful to you Virgin for allowing me to be a part I believe that they're coming up on a billion downloads in November uh so it's really they're doing a phenomenal Life Church is doing a phenomenal job with that app and it's it's been around for for many years now. So uh yeah I would say those are probably some of my my favorite uh tools.

SPEAKER_02 51:16

Awesome. So if there's one thing you hope listeners walk away with after this conversation what is it?

SPEAKER_00 51:22

Yeah I would say and we talked about a lot and we cover a lot of ground uh and that answer the answer is usually easy for me but if there's one thing that we have to walk away with is I would say the most important thing is recognizing how important your role is in your child's life. A lot of times I think we discount that and we discount the conversations and the experiences and the you know sitting at practice in the rain and you know sitting down and listening to play the instruments when they first start and it sounds like a mess. We discount how important that is but in reality your presence and engagement is everything to make that child be successful. So if you can't take away anything else know that you being present in your life and having the the wherewithal to start learning more and to to grow as a parent is very important and I'm I'm very proud to be a small part of your journey.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

So I'm gonna throw you a curveball you're not expecting this probably so so our audience is parents of adult children and so we're talking ages of 18 to 30 so what would your what would your um what would you want parents of of adult children ages to 30, what would you want them to take from this conversation?

SPEAKER_00 52:29

Beautiful so you still are important in your child's life. So I'll tell you that I'm right outside I would say right outside I love to say right outside to make myself feel younger but I'm a little outside that range but my dad in fact I'm gonna go text him after this conversation because he hasn't texted me today to check in on me and uh he's now spoiled me in that way. Uh and same with my my mom. And so it's you still matter uh you still have a very important role and arguably sometimes it could be even more important and uh or equally as important as when the child was growing up because you still have a a role now to mentor and guide that child just in a slightly different way uh than you did when they were younger. So I I believe that being their mentor and their guide is important, especially as they're going through life events that they are just now especially 18 to 30. That means that they've probably been married. If they're married they have probably been married what five to 10 years. And if they're not married they're they're starting to look at it and think about it. These are experiences that you've had for probably the last 20 years. So they need to learn from you now at a place now that they're prepared to learn for about being an adult this is the things that they need to learn from you. So you have a an extremely important role in their lives believe it or not so continue to invest that time. It's not as you may not be as uh engaged as you were but just reach out to them. Reach out and call them and and talk to them hear what they're hear what's going on with their day hear what's going on with their life and if you can be a support just be there for them.

SPEAKER_02 53:52

That's awesome. Thank you. And thank you for being on the podcast episode today. And so that's going to wrap up this episode of ABC's parenting adult children. I hope today's conversation gave you some encouragement and practical steps you can try in your own family. If you found this helpful would you do me a favor hit that subscribe button share this episode with a friend who's also navigating the parenting journey and leave a quick review. It really helps others find this podcast. I'd also love to hear your stories how are you working through these challenges with your adult children send me an email at talkpace at proton.me that's talkpac at proton.me or connect with me on social media links are in the show notes.

SPEAKER_01 54:32

Thanks for listening and remember parenting doesn't stop when they turn 18 it just changes shape and Olu thank you for being here thank you so much for having me James all right buddy and goodbye everybody please tune in next week for another episode of our podcast on parenting adult children