“My Experience Growing Up As a Tolpin”

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Episode Summary

Get ready to hear Drew’s perspective on family Bible time, manhood, and what he loves most about his mom.

Isaac invites his 15-year-old son Drew onto the show asking him candid questions on what it’s like to grow up in the Tolpin home. Get a candid perspective from Drew on: what it’s like being in the Tolpin Family, what he thinks manhood means, his favorite part of homeschooling, what it means to be a Tolpin, and most importantly; what he appreciates about his Mom. 

Main Points in This Episode:

  1. Drew’s definition of manhood
  2. The importance of family culture
  3. Why “I can’t” is worse than a swear word in the Tolpin home
  4. The importance of having morning meetings and bible time as a family

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Scripture in This Episode:

Deuteronomy 11:19-20 –And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates:”

Proverbs 31:25-28 –Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.”

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Full Transcript:

Note: This is an automated transcript and misspells or grammar errors may be present.

Welcome to Courageous Parenting podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from courageous

Mom and I’m Isaac from Resolute Man.

We’ve been married for twenty one years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the

Bible, we can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18, and it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting and the fall. Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. I got Drew to open here, special guest on the big podcasts. How are you doing?

I’m doing good. How are you guys?

So we’re excited to talk about growing up with the Dolphins. We’re having a discussion here so you can get a bird’s eye view now. You may have heard of Drew on the Kids podcast if you heard some of those episodes. Those are all now in the app. Be courageous in the App Store. Feel free to download it. Plus powerful community and all kinds of things. It really supports the ministry. It’s eight ninety nine a month with hundreds of really strong believers, great people in their sharing wisdom, answering each other’s questions, spurring each other on. We have groups based on topics. You create a profile. It’s much like Facebook profile with the News Feed and all those different things. So it is a social media site, but it’s private just for the ministry and the people that want to be involved in a bigger inner circle way. So check out the app. It’s super exciting to be in there, and you and I are in there all of the time and enjoying it, but we’re dedicated as ever, getting this Tuesday episode out to everybody in our social media platforms and everything. Nothing’s changed with all of that. And so also just check out courageous parenting and courageous moms for any of the resources. And we have new shops, the be courageous shop and the resolute man shop at Resolute Man Now, too. So anyways, we appreciate you all being part of the movement today. We’re going to dive into some things with Drew and just get his input on things. So first of all, Drew, you know, what is it like to, you know, being a 15 year old boy in our family?

Well, for example, my older brother, Austin, he just moved out, and it’s it’s definitely takes responsibility and the knowledge of knowing that you are an older sibling now and you have a big role to play in your siblings experiences and the way they treat one another by example.

That’s so cool, and you’re super good example. Thanks. You have a humble heart and you really tend to lead by example. But you know, you’ll also let people know when they’ve gone too far, you know, bothering you and so forth. But you tend to do it in a good way. Thanks. I appreciate that about you. Side note There’s some exciting news isn’t there in the in the chicken house,

The chicken house. Yeah. What just happened? Yeah, we had some chicks hatch on their own. It was pretty fantastic, actually. How many for just about four. Yeah, it was great.

So you started with how many chickens?

We started with twenty three

And then you lost one recently, right?

We lost one.

And then you gained four, right?

So we’re in the positive, that’s for sure.

That’s pretty cool out here. By the way, people told us, Hey, don’t even try. I mean, there’s so many critters, big critters that will eat your chickens. Mm hmm. So so far, so good.

Yeah, it’s going pretty well.

So anyways, I bring that up because Drew has really taken upon himself to really fully take care of those chickens. The other kids help a bit, but he really is the main shepherd of the chickens, and that’s when you were saying leading by example. That’s another way that I’ve seen you lead by example. But you know, what’s what’s it like being in our family, though? Give them kind of an inside scoop of the day in life and being in our family?

Well, it’s interesting. You wake up in the morning and there’s always it’s never boring. You get out of bed. The boys are up. They’re active, and there’s always they might ask me like, Hey, can you give me some cereal? And the most important thing to do is the is the patience and to help them with getting their cereal in the morning because they several meals every day. Yeah, it’s

Kind of funny, isn’t it? Yeah, they kind of eat the early meal and then we a lot of times I’ll have oatmeal together. I’ll get up and make oatmeal or mom will, right?

Yes. But going through the day, it’s very it’s very fun because you go through the day you start, I go down to the chicken coop, take care of them. I come back, do some school and we will do Bible time as a family. And it’s great because my dad will just bring scripture and we’ll all learn something through it and we’ll spend Bible time together. And it’s I highly encouraged. Do that with your families to start off the day together. That’s like the most important thing to do.

Why do you like starting together? I it wasn’t. I didn’t know you going to talk about that. Why do you like that?

Well, what I like about that is that, well, I get to see what everyone’s up to and I get to. I get a little bit of the Bible from my dad, and I really like that for sure, especially from him, because he’s such a great teacher and it and it makes me understand the Bible more when he’s teaching, too.

No, it’s cool. I like that. I mean, gets everybody on the same page. I know Angie appreciates it, too, because we’re all together. She can also set expectations for the day. It just seems when we do that, everything goes so much better. We’ve been fed with the word of God. We’ve discuss things, we set expectations, we had a good time together, which is great, and I wouldn’t say we do it every single day, but we do it most days. It’s really an important thing in our family. Obviously, things happen sometimes, right? That’s cool. So those are some some cool little inside scoops. I you just curious, you know, you’re at the you’re 15 and you’re the oldest son in the house. Megan’s the oldest child and people respect her and look up to her. But there are a lot of boys in the family, so they definitely are looking to you as well for leadership and you’re in that transition period of becoming a man. We will be planning a manhood ceremony for Drew in the near future. So we’re excited about that. But what are some thoughts on top of your head becoming a man?

Well, for me, what that means to me for sure is that is to put away childish things and to want and to thirst, to grow more spiritually and emotionally, and also to be a great example to the younger siblings. And but by example is in teaching them is to be just by example is like in the morning, maybe cleaning up your room, making your bed, being helpful to mom, especially because she’s taking care of the baby. And she’s not always she’s not always super energetic when she gets up, so it’s important to help her in the morning, especially and also manhood as like learning how to teach the Bible. I’m just diving into that. So but it’s super. I’m enjoying it and it’s super fun. And that’s like one of the most important things, in my opinion, that goes along also with protecting the family for sure. Like my siblings, when we’re out and about being aware and discernment and trying to be as be as wise as possible, and what goes on with wisdom is discernment and experience and knowledge. Those all tie together and they’re all super important. You only learn those by time and appreciation for learning.

Wow. Well said really well said. You know it’s so fun, intervened drew here. Because, as you know, there’s no script involved. We have a basic whiteboard with maybe eight words on it up there, but in scripture references. But that’s it. I mean, we’re just chilling talking about this, and I appreciate you just being transparent about your thoughts about that. It’s cool. During the manhood ceremony, you’ll get to, you know, kind of share back with the men around the table, your thoughts about being a man and what you want to be held accountable to and things like that. So I’m looking forward to that. But you’re definitely rising up as a as a strong man of God, and I’m so proud of you for that and appreciate all your help and with the family. I know mom does too. I know people probably have. You mentioned school a little bit, but what’s your favorite part of being homeschooled? As you guys all probably know, we we homeschool all of our kids and everybody gets taught a little differently and has sometimes some different curriculum and things they’re doing, and sometimes the same based on who they are. But what’s your favorite part of being home schooled?

Probably my favorite part is the ability to have experience in learning, such as remodeling the house. I had time to do that because I was home schooling and I learned a ton through it that you can’t learn from, say, a classroom. I learned experience through that. I also like, right now, I’m getting experience in public, speaking by podcasting, I’m learning all the sorts of stuff that you can’t learn from a classroom, and that’s probably my favorite part.

Ok. And just so everybody knows you’re still learning math and reading and

All of all of

It, all the things, right? But he loves the experience side. He’s always been that way, by the way. I remember when you were young your mom would like teach you, and I’ll probably get the time a little off, but she’ll teach you for like you did home school for like 30 or 40 minutes. And then she would give you like 20 minutes to go, run around and then come back because you’re a doer. Right? That’s your personality, is to do things with your hands and see things and exercise and all those kinds of things. But you’re super academic, too. You’re really smart. It’s just that those breaks are really valuable. So I’m not surprised, he said. Experiences. So this is something that’s really good scripture right here. Deuteronomy 11 19 through 20 right here. So we have you shall teach them to your children. Speaking of them, when you sit in your house, when you walk, by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up and you should write them on the door post of your house and on your gates that you’re, you know. So basically, this is talking about teaching scripture the ways of God to your kids, obviously right there. But it’s also, I think of homeschooling is you’re always teaching, meaning you’re not always there’s times for fun and just hanging out and those kind of. Things, too, but as parents, you’re looking for those teaching opportunities, so whether wherever you put your schools, I’m just an encouragement to everybody is to think about, well, what do you want your kids to know? And make sure they know those things, not just book knowledge of it, but experientially. It’s part of the reason we do RV trips and we do lots of the different things we do. It’s how we geared the Christmas presents we gave our kids. What did you get for Christmas, by the way?

I got a nice set of DeWalt tools. I was pretty fantastic. I’m so stoked about that.

So awesome. So, you know, like a skill saw right to drills.

Yeah, some power tools, power tools.

So literally, he has this bag that he can take to a worksite and help, you know, build a house or remodel. Yeah. And I think that would be a fun project for us to do sometimes is to maybe remodel a house or do something like that as a family. So that’s something on our dreams list is to be able to purchase a small place that needs fixing up and fix it up and sell it, or Airbnb or something like that. So anyways, that’s in our sights. Potentially, Drew’s going to be my right hand man and doing that. But yeah, it was so cool to to see when he opened his gift and he got the tools. It’s like he was overjoyed. It wasn’t like you were searching for a toy to be there or something like that or a video game, right? It’s not that you don’t play video games. There’s some video games you like, but I just really appreciate you that you enjoyed getting the tools for equipping. Ok, so finally, we’re going to talk about. What do you appreciate about your mom?

Well, that’s just about the most important topic, in my opinion. She is amazing. She she’s so packed full of wisdom and that’s like, that’s a very important thing to me because whenever I’m like needing wisdom or something, even though my dad has so much wisdom to my mom, my mom is she’s so she’s so she’s like a walking bible. She she really knows what to say in the moment and is so I’m so appreciate that about my mom. Also, I appreciate her patience for me, especially because I get migraines and she is so patient and she helps me and she’s so guiding, and she’s just taught me so much through that. And I’ve learned, especially through my mom, because she has the same situation is to be not a complainer, but to appreciate what you have through that. And I’ve learned so much through my mom and all of it, and she is such a diligent woman, which I also very much appreciate. That’s just the main things about my mom, for sure.

So when you say diligent people, you know, sometimes go, I wish I could be a fly on the wall while Angie’s, you know, doing her rhythms throughout the day and see what she’s doing. When you say diligent, what do you what do you see? What do you experience with your mom being diligent?

Well, with my mom, she’s definitely not a lazy person. She she gets up in the morning and she makes everything. She helps us. She makes everything getting going. Either my mom or her, my dad or her sorry will make us oatmeal or eggs. And then she’ll get going on her day and she’ll get everything, everyone running and going, and she’ll help us through our school. She’ll she never complains about anything that she does, and she’s so diligent through it, and she goes through the whole day, just super energetic. And even if she’s not feeling super well, she acts like she’s just fine and she helps us through everything that we need.

It is really remarkable. She just keeps on going. I think the best thing I can do as a husband is to help her stop sometimes, and the kids do that too. Drew does that as well, but we have to literally try to slow her down sometimes. Yeah, so so she doesn’t burn out. And if we don’t do that, she’ll she’ll hit a wall. So we we need to be proactive and helpful to do that. And you know, we could always get better at that right. But we try, we try to do that. So that’s great. What do you think? What do you think it means to be at open? Here’s what I didn’t say. We’re going to talk about what does it mean to be at open?

Well, what does it mean to be told me, OK, well, something my dad’s always said is that toppings don’t give up. We don’t say, no, we don’t give up. That’s what I’ve grown up learning as to be as open as to not give up and to try your absolute hardest. Because my parents, they always have told me they’ll always be proud of me as long as I do my absolute best, and that whenever I’m taking on a project, that’s what I think about is to do my absolute best. And that’s, in my opinion, what it means to be an open, for sure.

Well, in, you know, in the kids podcast you shot earlier, that’ll be in the app you talked about, you shared the scripture, no corrupting talk coming out of your mouth. Right? And it’s funny because the worst bad word our kids could say is the word was two words I can’t. So that’s profanity in the open house is to say I can’t. Now do people still say I can’t in the open house? They do, but I remind them I go, That’s a bad word, right? Just like if if we watch a movie with the olders and there’s if we didn’t know it, but there’s a bad word in there, I always say, Hey, bad word, everybody, because I don’t want to just let it go by. I want to bring attention to that is a word we don’t use. We don’t let corrupt talk, come out of our mouths, and we don’t just watch it and let it be received as if we’re going to do it. Well, the words I can’t. Are the worst words. They’re the absolute worst words in my mind. Now, is it OK to not be able to do something? Absolutely. Is it good to get help? Yes, but I’ve always found the words I can’t are immediately limiting, and that goes along with what you’re saying. I think that you might have got part of that from that.

Oh yeah.

Anything else? I mean, there’s a lot of things we talk about, but maybe another nugget of what it means to be a Tolton.

Another nugget. A topic. So it’s to work hard and to be kind to one another and to go through the day joyful. And also like another thing is what we were talking about before is the morning time that we have together. It kind of it seems it feels to me like that’s something I stop and do, especially a lot of other people do that. But it feels something signature to our family that we do for sure.

Yeah. So and so I encourage you guys to do things that are unique to your family and to do them consistently enough to where if you just someone just sporadically asked your kid, What does it mean to be a Johnson? Was it mean to be a Smith? Was that it mean to be a? Um. I don’t know any last name, right? What does it mean to be your family? And when you ask that of the kids, they say something that is unique to your family and that is good and it is bears, fruit and so forth. Obviously, those things aren’t the only things about being a top. There’s lots of things. I mean, it’s about involvement. Most importantly, we want to glorify God in honor God with what we do, and we want to make him known to other people and those things. So, you know, what does it mean to be your last name? And when people ask your kids that, what are they going to say? And I would encourage you to think about that as we’re going into the new year. In fact, our second episode we ever created is, I think the title is creating a family culture. So what is the culture of your family? And the culture is not what you think it is, not what you say it is.

It’s the actual real behaviors that actually exist in your family when nobody’s looking. It’s not when everybody’s at their best. When you have guests over is when no one else is looking. What is your family and what are the real behaviors in your family? And your kids are always going to say how it really is. And so just think about that and think about it as you’re going into twenty twenty two or whenever you’re listening to this, think about the next season ahead of you and go, you know, are the real behaviors of my family, what I want to have in my family and identify a couple that you want improved and then make some family initiatives about that. I was just reflecting actually drew. You might remember some of this. I was reflecting on planning for 2020 and the family initiatives. One of them is producers, not consumers. Yeah, and it doesn’t mean we don’t consume. We consume, we watch good movies. We do things where we consume other people’s information. But and we learn, obviously, we read books and all those things. But one of the things I’ve taught the kids in is an initiative. As in this came about years ago, as I saw media grabbing the hearts and minds of everybody, just social media, just everything.

And I wanted to create a culture in the family engine I did to where they understood that there’s there’s a balance that if I’m consuming more than I’m producing or if that’s out of whack in any way, I’m probably not going to be as happy with myself. And I’m probably not going to be growing in personal development in the same way and not contributing to society in the same way that I would. And I don’t know about your family. I think everybody is probably like this, but us opens. We feel the best when we’re contributing, when we’re producing, when we’re being creative, when we’re doing something that other people appreciate or helps other people. Something I’ve noticed about our family is everybody’s that way, even when they’re two years old, if they can help wash dishes. They love washing dishes because the new responsibility and they love contributing. They love seeing that I did something and things are better because of my actions, and I think God made all of us that way. But I would encourage you, how can you stir up the gifts in your family in and stir up a better culture in your family for this next season? That episode is super helpful. Well, any last thoughts from you?

Drew last thoughts I would just say goes along with you is just to encourage you to keep devoting your family in the word of God in the morning and making that start very, very start of your day. And also to just like you said, like, what’s the culture of your family? Really? Think on that for sure.

And a scripture, I want to make sure we don’t escape. I was going to say it earlier when you were talking about your mom, but this is so important. Proverbs 31 people know it well and just a little piece out of there as 25 through twenty eight, which is strength and honor, are her clothing. She shall rejoice in time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom and on her tongue is the law of kindness. She watches over the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praises her. And that is certainly Angie Toppin, and we’re so appreciative of her. Of course, by the way, the reason she’s not on today is she’s not feeling the greatest. I was down a few days ago. A lot of people prayed for me out there. I appreciate it. I quickly got back. Obviously, Angie helped me with some great natural remedies and all kinds of things and your prayers as well. I was back on it, so Christmas was a little. I was a little. Quiet during Christmas was, yeah, but now Angie is needs to get better, so if you could be praying for her anyways, thank you so much for joining us, Drew. You did a great job today. Thank you. Yeah, so wise, so well-spoken. I’m so proud of you. And it was a joy to do this with you. Thank you. All right. God bless everybody.

Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom for free online workshops, blog posts and best selling courses. Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online parenting mentor program. Isaac and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week, we release a video with a downloadable parenting packet to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible, self-paced program where we cover everything from obedience training to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private online group, live webcasts and the courageous parenting text message line. Ranji and I can send you weekly encouragement straight to your phone

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Written By Angie Tolpin
Angie has been married to Isaac for 19 years and together they have eight children, whom she homeschools. She is the Founder of CourageousMom.com, a doula, the author of the best-selling book Redeeming Childbirth, and the creator of the first ever Christian Postpartum Course. Angie loves ministering to Women and has created a few online Bible Studies on Biblical Friendship and Motherhood.

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