Why Strong Marriages Shape Strong Families and Stronger Adult Children

SPEAKER_00 0:06

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

SPEAKER_01 0:30

So welcome back to the podcast. Today I'm joined by Pastor and author Scott Lapierre. Did I say that right? Yes, sir. Joined by Pastor and Author Scott Lapierre, known for his clear biblical teaching and his impactful books on marriage, family, and Christian living. Scott brings practical, faith-rooted wisdom that helps parents navigate the shifting dynamics of raising adult children with grace, humility, and hope. I'm grateful to have him here. Let's jump into the conversation. Scott, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me, James. Glad to be here. Yeah, do me a favor and introduce yourself to the listening audience.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Okay, so I'm a teaching pastor at Woodland Christian Church, where we've been since 2010, and we have 11 children. And I started turning my sermons into books probably almost 10 years ago and do some speaking to invitations I received from my books. And my wife and I grew up together in Northern California. And so between ministry and writing in my family, that takes up most of my time. I would imagine so. So you have 11 children? Yes, sir. People are always surprised to hear that. And I'm like, well, that makes two of us.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

So we uh not I have to ask you, uh, from father to father, do you you realize what causes that, right? Yep, that's pretty much why there's so many of them. There you go. So uh so tell us a little bit about your uh marriage and fatherhood.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Okay, so I think I mentioned my wife and I grew up together in Northern California, and we reconnected after high school. We were not Christians in high school and found out the each other had become Christians, and that was really exciting. And then as we, you know, were talking more, she was she was kind of meeting the requirements I had, and I suspect I was meeting the requirements she had. And so I I was looking for a woman that would be committed to being a pastor's wife because I expected to be a pastor at some point. Uh, wanted to homeschool and let God be in charge of how many kids we had. And and I think that's probably just one thing I would add that people hear that we have 11 children and they say, well, you must have wanted to have a lot of children. And I don't really phrase it that way. I basically say I just wanted God in charge of that area of our lives. And so it could have been, you know, five kids or seven or three or whatever. And uh so it wasn't ever trying to reach a certain amount or anything like that. It was just let letting God be in control. And so those three things rolled out most of the girls that I met, you know, they didn't want to be pastors wives or they didn't want to homeschool or they didn't want to let God be in charge of how many children they'd have. And so when Katie and I were Katie and I were talking and she she thought all those things sounded good, and then we got married in 2006. This will be our 20-year anniversary this year. And yeah, it's been been wonderful. We we got married in California, and we came here in 2010 to Washington, and she's been a great pastor's wife and mother and real asset to to the ministry at the church and especially taking care of our home and our children. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

What did you say her name was? Her name is Katie. That's interesting. My name, my wife's name is Katie as well.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

And she runs a ministry. I was just gonna say she runs a ministry called Eternally Minded Mamas for any women that are looking for a biblical, wonderful uh ministry. I think my my wife runs one and has a lot of real encouraging content, so they could they could check it out. But I think I interrupted you, James. You were saying you guys have been married 39 years.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

36 years. We have uh four children. We're empty nesters. And I was gonna tell you, with eleven children, you have enough for almost two baseball teams, right? Or a full baseball team and and and some pinch hitters. Yeah. Forgive me, I'm not making fun of the fact you have 11 kids. I just was it was just uh a poor attempt at humor.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

No offense taken.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

So Yeah. Scott, what sh what shaped your heart for teaching and strengthening families?

SPEAKER_02 4:31

Yeah, so I'm probably more naturally a teacher than anything else. And so I I was an elementary school teacher. So actually, maybe I could imagine this earlier, but I went through college, was in ROTC, became an army officer, got out of the military and started teaching elementary school, and that's when I became a Christian. And I've just always really enjoyed teaching. And being an officer in the military involved a lot of teaching, and obviously being an elementary school teacher and coach did. And then when I became a Christian, I was really passionate about telling people uh, you know, what God's word said, and I really wanted to tell people to open their Bibles versus telling students to open their school books. And so then God opened the door for me to go go into pastoring. I really had really still enjoyed preaching, but there was a series on marriage I did at our church because I developed a strong burden for people to have strong, healthy marriages. And I I have I'm pretty convinced that strong marriages make strong families, strong families make strong churches, strong churches make a strong society. And so I think that's why marriage is under such attack. And so, I mean, if you can improve any areas of your church, you know, then there's not many areas you're gonna put ahead of marriage. And so I was supposed to preach on marriage for about a month. It was gonna be the marriage month, and it ended up being that marriage year because I just kept preaching on marriage, and people, I was enjoying the studying, people seemed to enjoy the sermons, and my wife told me, you know, you need to, she'd been telling me for a while that I needed to write some books, and because she saw me pouring my heart into my sermons. Uh, some pastors maybe kind of have abbreviated notes, but I've always manuscripted my sermons, written them out really thoroughly, worked on them all week, the notes polishing and refining them. So by the time I preach on Sunday, I've got a pr a pretty polished manuscript. But I I kept putting my wife off when she was telling me to write books because I already had so much going on I wasn't looking for for more to do. But then when I preached that that marriage series, and then uh she said, you know, this really needs to be your first book. And so we took some time and I put that book together and it went well, and I learned the process, and then I started doing marriage conferences, which I really enjoyed. Those invitations have continued. I get about six to eight invitations per year to do marriage conferences throughout the country and I'm delivering a delivering a lot of the same material, but I'm still as passionate about it. It doesn't get old to me. I I'm still very uh motivated to see husbands and wives fulfill biblical roles, and so and I I'm just convinced of the benefit of that, as I said earlier, is you know, strong marriages make strong families. So there's not many things I would want to strengthen more in my ministry than marriages.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

So, how has your own experience as a pastor and father influenced your approach to parenting adult children?

SPEAKER_02 7:22

Well, when you're I mean, there's a there's a few ways. That's a really good question, James. So pretty much every night I pray with my kids before they go to bed, especially my younger children who want to be tucked in and have me pray with them. And I'm praying for them to grow up to be godly spouses, godly husbands or wives themselves, but also praying that God brings them wonderful husbands and wives at the right time. And so, you know, my two of my girls, my youngest girls, Ruby and Lydia, I'm praying with them each night, and they're four and six, praying that God brings them a wonderful husband at the right time. And so if you have a burden for marriage, or just imagine this for a moment, I'm at marriage conferences regularly and women come up to me and they talk to me about how bad their marriage is. I don't usually hear from guys complaining about their wives, but I often hear from wives complaining about their husbands. And I wouldn't, and when I say complaining, I don't mean necessarily gossiping, because I I wouldn't want to engage in any gossip. I'm saying women who are generally frustrated that their husband won't be a spiritual leader or doesn't go to church, and they want to know what they can do about it. What is my advice to them? And the thing is, James, that's a really tough thing to be asked. I mean, if you picture I'm at a marriage conference, I've got 10, 15 minutes between messages, I'm hanging out at my book table, and some um some woman comes up to me and says, My husband doesn't really go to church, you know, what am I supposed to do? I can't tell her something in 15 minutes that's gonna fix that situation. The reality is that she married an unspiritual man, possibly an unbeliever, or maybe an very immature believer. Because if if someone isn't committed to going to church, we're not saved by going to church, but there's not many more foundational things than worshiping, worshiping Sunday morning with our family, you know, worshiping on the Lord's Day with our brothers and sisters in Christ. And so when a man isn't doing one of those most basic things, it is concerning to me where he's at spiritually. So a woman comes up and shares this with me, wants to know what I think. And the reality is if I was going to be really brutally honest with her, I would just say, you know, I'm sorry, but this is who you married. You married an unspiritual man, and he he might be an unspiritual man throughout your marriage. He might never change. And you ask women, you know, or they I don't know if you really ask them, like, why did you marry this guy? But they can tell you you're probably wondering that. And so you get these women, they'll tell you, they'll say, you know, I really hoped he would change, I really hoped he would grow, I really hoped he would be a spiritual man later. But people have their best foot forward before they're married, you know, when you're trying to get someone's attention or want someone to want to marry you, you've got your best foot forward. That's you're not seeing the worths yet. And so if your husband, if he doesn't look good, looks spiritual before you marry him, there's not much chance he's suddenly gonna shoot up and become this giant of the faith after you're married to him. And so to get back to your question, James, which I thought was a good one, to get back to that I could be parenting and not thinking about my children, the husbands and wives I want them to grow up to be, and the husbands and wives I want them to marry. So a lot of parenting is modeling. I mean, you can kind of that idea there's a lot more that's caught than taught. And so I can talk to my sons about being spiritual leaders, I can tell them what they should do, but it's even more important that they see me leading our family in prayer, leading our family in Bible study, having family worship. Those are the things that are really gonna stick with them. And and it's nothing fancy. You know, I have a lot of guys that say, I don't know if I can read the Bible with my family. You know, and my response is if you can read, you can read the Bible with your family. And so it doesn't, and women, that's where women come into play too, because women need to understand that their husband is likely not a pastor, he doesn't get to study God's word 40 hours a week like I do, you know, put sermons together every week and Bible studies. And so she needs to understand that he's he's working, and as long as if if all he's doing is reading the word with his family, that's doing something incredible. She can't expect a John MacArthur sermon or Billy Graham crusade every time her husband opens the Bible because that's just incredibly unreasonable for for most men. And so there was some years ago I was invited to speak at this women's conference, which sounds kind of funny, right? And the women, you know, I even made a joke about it when I started to speak that all the women are probably wondering what I'm doing there. And but the reason I was invited was I was able to help these women understand how their husbands feel. And for many, I do believe it was eye-opening because let's face it, you know, guys don't guys understand guys because they are guys, but they don't understand women as well. Women understand women, women don't understand men as well. And so I thought it was very good that I was invited and able to share with these women, hey, here's how your husband feels. You know, he's nervous about praying with you, he's nervous about reading the Bible with you, he's afraid he's not gonna know what to say, he's afraid he's not gonna know how to answer the questions. Because I I put on these marriage conferences, and we tend to project. And if I'm talking too much, just go ahead and let me know, James. No, you're fine. Go ahead. Okay, so there's projection. And what I mean by that is I'm unable, I'm just not handy. I'm not good at maintenance working on things. You know, I spent most of my life going to school or getting degrees, and now I spend a lot of time, and it's how I enjoy it studying, reading at my desk, using, writing out sermons, writing books. So when I see guys that work on cars or build houses, I'm like super impressed with them. And because I'm not able to do those things. Well, other guys look at me and they're impressed that I can get up behind a pulpit and preach clearly, and because that's something that they're not able to do. Well, because we project, I assumed that because that's easy for me, it's pretty easy for me to get up and preach. You know, I was nervous years ago, but it's pretty comfortable now, or it's pretty easy for me to do Bible studies with my family. And so you just project and assume that it must be easier for every other guy out there. So I'm doing these marriage conferences and I'm finding lots of guys coming and telling me, you know, I remember one guy, he pulled me aside and he said, Hey, I'm terri I'm listening to what you're saying. I want to be a godly man, I want to be a spiritual leader. And but the word he used, he said, I'm terrified to read the Bible with my wife. You know, what if I don't know what to say? What if my kids laugh at me? What if and I was like, it's kind of eye-opening. And then I heard that same comment, that same sentiment many times, and finally understood that, wow, there's a there's a real nervousness or anxiety for men associated with doing this. And so that's something important to tell women. And so I'll tell women, hey, you know, you can make a withdrawal, but you better make a bunch of deposits. And you can't expect your husband to sound like the guy on the radio or sound like the pastor at church because that's not that's not what he does for a living. And you just need to encourage him and and even praise him just for being a godly man that's going to read the word with his family. And so a lot of a lot of women don't think, hadn't really thought of that before, but that's why I think it's really important for them to understand the part they play in their husband's leadership and being successful.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Yeah, that's awesome. Just get whatever you can read and run with it and go for it and learn together. You know, that's the whole point, right? Is is learning about who God is in your lives and in your families and in your marriage relationship and all of that. And that's what reading the word's gonna do for you.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Yeah, we we have immense resources available to us. I mean, the study Bibles we have, the commentary that's in them, uh, or you if you're reading through a book with your family, you can buy the commentary. I mean, if you're reading, reading through Matthew, go buy Matthew commentary if you need it. Or I I don't think there's anything wrong with telling your family, I don't know, because I'm, you know, I'm a pastor, I don't know everything, and there's no pastor that knows everything. So there's there's no way that a father is going to be able to know everything. And so a father that's not reading studying the word, you know, 40 hours a week. And so you can tell your family, I don't, I don't know the answer to that. I'll try to get back to you, or let's look in our Bibles. If your family has to study Bibles, let's see what our what our notes say. That's modeling humility. That's a good thing for kids to see that it's okay to say, I don't know. Or if if the answer is not in the notes and you're in your Bible, then to say, I'll I'll get back to you. I'll find this out and then I'll let you know. And then that that man can either study it out on his own or he can go to church and he can ask one of the elders, and then the elders can equip him and then he can relay that information to his family. Right, right. Fall it tumble into a pool. So you're controlling in their in their um, you know, for their good. Then your kids become teenagers, they get more freedom, so they get more freedom, more freedom, more freedom. But you're they're they're also not doing the things that you want, or maybe not doing them the way you would want them. Hopefully they're doing the things you want in terms of walking with the Lord. You know, they're not making sinful decisions, but they might spend money differently than you want. Maybe they dress a little differently or listen to music, and it's not, you know, if it's horror, if it's we should still address some clothing music movies. So I'm not saying it's licensed for just kids to listen to whatever they want or watch whatever they want, you never say anything to them, or spend money however they want. But I'm saying you watch them make decisions, it's not what you would recommend necessarily, but you've just got to let them do some of these things, unless it's super far out there. You know, you're not gonna let your kids get drunk or go party, but but you're allowing them to make these decisions, grow into adulthood.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

So how can parents stay connected without slipping into control or criticism?

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Yeah, so there has to be some criticism. You know, it's not just like a free-for-all kids get to do whatever they want. So it's a question of balance. It's a question of balance and it's a question of relationship. And what I mean by that is you're gonna offset, kind of like I said, even with women, for you know, you want to make some withdrawals, you need to make plenty of deposits. So you want to make a criticism, try to offer some encouragement, praise. So that's the balance. The other area is relationship. And what I mean by that is children are generally much better able to receive criticism or counsel from parents they have a good relationship with or parents that they know love them. And so that's why, and so there's kind of this saying, rules without relationship equals rebellion. One more time, rules without relationship equals rebellion. So if you have rules, but you don't have a relationship with your children, you're gonna experience rebellion from them. And so it's really important to have your children's hearts. And I think as long as you have your children's hearts, things, um, it's not a guarantee things are gonna be perfect, but as long as they know that you love them, that you're for them, even when there's conflict, you're generally gonna be able to weather that pretty well. And I've watched this, you know, a couple, a couple parent parents we've known, you know, not that Katie and I are perfect parents or not that we haven't made plenty of mistakes with our kids, but we've seen some parents who've lost their children's hearts, and then it became very difficult to parent those kids because the kids didn't want to listen. Whereas if you can keep your children's hearts, then even when you go through really difficult things, you're still gonna have a voice in their life, and they're probably still gonna listen to you somewhat because they believe that you want what's best for them.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

So have you heard of the term helicopter parent?

SPEAKER_02 18:19

Oh, yeah. I was a school teacher, I saw helicopter parents, I've been a pastor, I see helicopter parents always hovering around, yeah, never letting their children have any freedom or make decisions. Yeah, it's not good.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

And I think one of the I think one of the biggest struggles that a lot of parents have is, and we talk about it on the podcast quite a bit, is when the children turn up, you you become more of a mentor and more of a support system than than an actual you know, the parenting that you've done, you know, for the first 18 year years of their life. You know, in the first 18 years of their life, you should have already taught them a lot of things about how to, you know, screen time, you know, you don't don't go out late at night, you know, all the things, all the protective things and all the you know, we pass on our our morality to them, we we pass on our our belief system to them, teach them right from wrong, you know, all the things that we teach our children for the first 18 years of their life. And so once they start turning into an adult, you have a different role, you know, and it's it's hard for parents to trend do that transition.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

Yeah, I I agree with you completely. And I agree with you from kind of having to learn that the hard way. My wife has told me pretty much those same words from things that she's read and said, hey, you know, uh you can't control them, basically. So anyway, James, I would just repeat what you've said. I I agree completely with those sentiments.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Well, so I'll tell you one of the things I experienced as a as a father and and we experienced as parents. My wife my wife is uh she's got two master's degrees, she's a special education teacher. Gob's a very intelligent woman, and she's been in the education system for almost 30 years. And so our children, you know, saw us working, you know, nine to five, going to s you know, taking online classes after after we got home from work. You know, we we weren't perfect parents. I wasn't a perfect father, you know. I'll admit that to anybody. And my kids at one point dropped out of high school. They just dropped out. I got a phone call at work and uh and this lady called me. I was a IT manager at a Windham Vacation Rentals out on Hilton Head Island, or not Hilton Head, but uh Kiowa Island. But anyway, I got a phone call at the office and this lady was like, Are you James Moffat? And I'm like, Yeah. She said, Is Christina Moffat your your daughter? I'm like, Yeah. Last time I checked. And she said, she said, well, for the longest time, she was getting straight A's, which she was. And uh she said, she just she just quit studying, quit making passing grades, and then she just quit going to coming to school, which I didn't even know she did that. She says, Why what what's going on at home? What what caused this to to happen? And I said, I said, if you figure that out, please call me back and let me know because she's not talking to me. She's not telling us anything. And I said, That's news to us that she quit. Well, I had no idea that she dropped out of high school. Well, she was like two years older than my son. Well, my son did the same thing. And uh they both wound up getting their GEDs, and my son went on to uh he's an attorney now, he's doing really well for himself. He's like 26 years old, my daughter's like 32, 33. And uh so they went, they just went there and they quit going to church. When they when they became old enough to make that decision, 17, 18 years old, they were like, Yeah, we don't believe in that anymore. We're not and I think I think social media had a a huge hand in that. I think that they got access to social media. And Facebook and TikTok and you know, Snapchat and all of that stuff. And they started listening to other voices, you know, other people that were quote unquote an authority figure to them that that was different than what their mom and dad were telling them. And they we took them to church every chance we got, you know, every Sunday we'd go to church and they'd come with us. But anyway, that happens unfortunately.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

Sometimes Yeah, I think I I think one thing I would say, James, is I have pastored long enough, you know, uh 18 years. I know some people have pastored much longer than that, so I'm not saying that's the longest, longest pastor in in the world, but I guess that's kind of the point. I've even it's long enough that I have seen plenty of parents who are better parents than me raise some wonderful kids and then still have a rebellious kid or a kid go off the deep end. And, you know, I don't understand it. I've seen parents with large uh uh with large and have a whole bunch of great kids and then they just have a uh one or a couple kids that rebel. And I don't think it's a reflection of the parenting. It's just the the free free will or free moral agency of those children. And what one of the things that's interesting is if got you know God is a father, and that's how we're to view him, and as a father, he allows his children to make sinful decisions, he allows his children to rebel. One of the most unique insights into God as a father is in the parable of the prodigal son, because that's a that's a parable like uh the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd goes to get the lost sheep, and that shepherd pictures Christ. And the woman searching for the coin is a picture type of Christ, looking for lost sinners. But in the parable of the prodigal son, then the the shift, the focus shifts from the second person of the trying nature of God, from God the Son to God the Father, and the father in that parable is a picture of God the Father, and that father allows his child to leave. He allows them to just take off, squamper the inheritance, make horrible decisions. You know, he receives them back and is waiting every day for that moment and standing there looking, rush, running toward him when this when the son comes home. But the point still is you you've got a good father, or two points. You've got a really good father and a rebellious son. So we see that with God himself, and you've got um a father who allows his son the freedom to make make bad decisions or even leave home. And he didn't try to he didn't tie him up in the basement or put a ball and chain around his ankle to keep him from going anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Right. What would you say to the parent who feels regret about past mistakes?

SPEAKER_02 27:34

I would say if you have not asked for forgiveness or confessed that to God, you should. Well, maybe the first thing I'd say is every parent has mistakes. Nobody is a perfect parent, and all of us look back and wish we'd have done things differently. So that's not that is not an unknown feeling. And now at the same time, I'm not trying to minimize it. I mean, if you if you spent years of your child's life getting drunk or swearing at them or abusing them or beating them, or you were unemployed and lazy or didn't provide, I mean, those are really, really serious sins. And I would distinguish those from you know the mistakes that all of us make as parents. But I would say so, if you have these regrets, uh have you confessed them, you know, to the Lord. And and then second, have you confessed them to the children? Because it's never too late, assuming the child is still alive, even if that child is 30, 40, you know, even 50, to go to that child and say, When I when you were growing up, when I was raising you, I failed you. I didn't do this that I should have done, or I did do this that I shouldn't have done. I failed you in this way. Would you please forgive me?

SPEAKER_01 28:45

So you were talking about regrets, and I and I agree wholehearted with with what you said. So let's talk to the listening audience, the parents that are listening. What's one simple step parents can take this week to improve communications? We'll say they're having a a problem or they have a bad relationship or the kid's being super rebellious or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Mm-hmm. So I I think I'd have two pieces of advice. So, first, you want to communicate with your child, your child's not going to want to listen to you if they're bitter toward you or resentful or they think you're proud. And so we all bring fault to conflict. So one thing we can do is we can go to the our child and we can take responsibility for our fault in the conflict. And, you know, even if the child is 95% at fault, you can take responsibility for your 5% and go to the child and say, hey, I'm sorry I was impatient with you the other day. Would you please forgive me? I would like to talk to you again, but first I want to ask you to forgive me for the way that I interrupted you or I didn't listen to you. And I and now I would like to ask if you would please continue what you were saying, and I will be committed to listening this time and not interrupting. So that so that's one thing. And it actually is kind of both things, because that kind of leads into the second thing. So the first thing is asking for forgiveness, and then the second thing is striving to listen well and not just waiting to talk, not just waiting until your child stops and then you have your turn, but really trying to understand what your child is saying because it's really important for children to feel heard and believe that their parents are striving to understand them.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Amen. I appreciate that. So, Scott, thank you for sharing your wisdom and biblical insight with us today. For those who want to learn more, you can find Scott's books and resources at your marriage godsway.org.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

That's my ministry, Your Marriage Godsway, your marriage godsway.org. My books are there, my speaking engagements, my my messages and social media. So that's in a contact page. I have a free gift for your listeners too called Biblical Insights for Marriage. It's a short read that I just give to your any listeners that head to my website, they can download a free copy of that.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Oh, absolutely. That's wonderful. So to the listening audience, I would say thank you for the privilege of your time. And to every parent listening, remember growth, grace, and connection are always possible. This is the ABC's Parenting Adult Children podcast. Until next time, stay encouraged and stay connected. Scott, thank you for being here. Thanks a lot, James. God bless any listeners.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Please tune in next week for another episode of our podcast on parenting adult children.