0:00

Steven, what is the most important takeaway you want people to

0:03

hear from this show today? The most important takeaway that I want people to take away from this

0:09

show is that in the absence of Rite of Passage, boys are gonna prove their

0:15

manhood to themselves, and that's why it's every father's responsibility,

0:20

because he is the primary example of what it means to be a man in a boy's.

0:26

It's every father's responsibility to tell his son at the appropriate age.

0:30

Son, I just want you to know I no longer consider you to be a boy, but

0:35

in my eyes, I see you as a man now, and that if every father in this country

0:40

did that for their sons, then this country and this world would be a much

0:44

better place because boys would not need to prove their manhood to anybody.

0:50

Here's the million dollar question. How do men like us reach our full potential and grow into the men we

0:56

dream of being while taking care of our responsibilities, working,

1:00

being good husbands, fathers, and still take care of ourselves?

1:06

That's the question in this podcast. We'll help you with those answers.

1:09

My name is Brent and welcome to the Fallible Man Podcast.

1:12

Welcome to the Fallible Man Podcast, your home for all things, man, husband, and father.

1:16

Big shout out to the Fallible Nation. You guys make these podcasts possible and a warm welcome

1:20

to our first time listeners. My name is Brent, and today my special guest is author, father,

1:25

and advocate, Steven Arms. Stephen, welcome to the show.

1:29

Brent. Thank you so much for having me. Now, Steven, I'm not into big intros because.

1:35

I get to research you before the show, but accolades don't mean a

1:38

lot of things to our listeners. So in your own words, today, in this moment, who is

1:43

Stephen Arm Wright? Absolutely.

1:47

So, my name is Stephen Arms. I am a husband and a father and a follower of Christ.

1:54

I was born and raised in California.

1:56

I spent the first 25 years of my life.

1:59

And then met my beautiful bride to be when I was 25 years old and moved up to

2:04

Oregon to pursue my relationship with her.

2:07

And we were married in 2018, and now we have two beautiful children.

2:13

Our daughter is three years old and our son is one, just about turn two here.

2:19

So we definitely have our hands full. But having children is a blessing and I consider myself to be a, a.

2:26

Wealthy man in that regard. Steven, can I ask, what do you, what do you do for a living

2:31

right now? Professionally?

2:33

I actually work as an engineer in the heating and air conditioning business.

2:37

Okay, okay. Yeah. Engineering is a feet, man.

2:41

There's, it's a lot to that, so.

2:44

Wow. Absolutely. Yeah. I think, you know, God gave me this, you know, kind of technical I mind, I'm always

2:50

trying to think about how things work. How to take things apart.

2:53

I, you know, I've been like that ever since I was a kid.

2:56

Legos were all I ever wanted from about four years old to probably 14

3:01

years old, is if you just got me Legos for Christmas, I was a happy boy.

3:06

My daughters are getting more and more into Legos.

3:09

I have to keep reminding them. It's like, okay, if I step on one, it's going in the trash . So, mind,

3:16

mind your sets, they're, they're get starting to put together the pre-built

3:19

sets that you see at the store. Yeah.

3:22

And Lego is proud of those. Wow. . Steven, I, I like to get to know our guests.

3:28

So tell us something just absurd. You like to

3:31

do something absurd.

3:33

I like to do I love to work out, so I actually kind of

3:37

built out my garage into a gym.

3:40

And I'm really into rowing and cycling.

3:43

I also, I have this machine, it's called a ski.

3:46

So it mimics the cross-country skiing motion.

3:50

Really gets your core, your triceps.

3:53

And actually, last year I set the world record in the hundred

3:58

kilometers on the, the skier.

4:01

It's it's about a six and a half hour event.

4:04

But I saw the record posted online and I was like, you know what?

4:07

I think I could beat that. So one day I woke up woke up at 5:00 AM was on the skier by 6:00

4:13

AM and then by about noon that day, I was a world record holder.

4:18

My wife said, you're crazy. I don't know why you do this kind of stuff.

4:21

And I was like, well, I'm not gonna argue with you.

4:23

I am crazy. But I just, I love that kind of stuff.

4:25

I love pushing my body and trying to test the limits of what I can do Physic.

4:31

Okay. Wow. That's, that's very cool, man.

4:34

World record holder. It's funny.

4:37

Thank you. It's funny that people, people don't think about things like

4:40

there's somebody who has a record in almost everything you do, right?

4:45

Yeah. We, we like to measure those accomplishments, so, I never would've

4:49

thought of doing it in the ski yard. And I've been on one of those once and I really would not do six hours on it.

4:54

You are crazy just, yeah, I, I saw all the records for the shorter events, you know, the 2000

5:00

meters, the 5,000 meters, and it was like, I'm nowhere close to those times,

5:04

but once you start getting that to the hundred K, then a lot of people aren't

5:08

interested in, in competing that anymore. So I was like, you know what?

5:11

I think I can do. That's because that's a special

5:14

brand of torture. That's . Yeah.

5:17

Well, you said absurd, right? That's absurd. That is.

5:19

That is, but that's a very cool fact.

5:22

Steven, what purchase of a hundred dollars or less have you made in the

5:25

last year this had the most impact on your life? Well, I'm gonna stretch the limits.

5:31

I actually just bought a a new Garmin it's type, kind of like a Fitbit watch.

5:37

It was 150 bucks, but they do have a $99 model, so I could

5:41

have got the cheaper one. But what I love about this is that it'll track your sleep.

5:45

So it'll tell you, you know, how many hours of REM sleep you got, and then

5:49

it'll also track your resting heart rate.

5:51

So if if I'm going through a cold or, you know, if I've had covid a couple times now

5:58

it'll show you, you know, how your resting heart rate increases when you're sick.

6:02

I, I love that kind of data, you know, being able to track my, my

6:05

heart rate and my sleep quality. So for me, that's been a really cool purchase that I've got in the last year.

6:10

It's like you have an engineering mind or something.

6:13

Data weird.

6:16

. So weird. I, I laugh.

6:18

One of my best friends is a I'm not even sure what the right word is.

6:22

He's in a software.

6:26

and so like he lives on data, dude, like he's, he's got three watches

6:30

strapped to him and he is got things monitoring everything and there

6:34

is never too big of a data set. He'll data data, right?

6:37

Yeah. It's like, oh, engineers, I know these people.

6:41

Yes. Yeah, that's very cool.

6:44

Now guys, it's just how we're wired, man. It's just the way that God made us

6:48

guys, we're going to spend some time.

6:52

Understanding what this conversation is really about as

6:55

we get into rights of passage. But for a minute, I want to have a hardhearted with you

6:59

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8:41

Now, Steven, for people who aren't familiar with the.

8:45

What is a rite of passage? So in our context, a rite of passage is an event that a boy can look

8:53

back on in his life and know that was the moment that I became a man.

8:59

When we look at other cultures, we see these rights of passage around the age

9:03

of 13, these coming of age ceremonies.

9:05

The most well known is probably the Jewish Bar Mitzvah.

9:09

That's the ceremony and the Jewish faith where a boy can achieve the status of.

9:14

Another example would be the the walkabout in aboriginal Australian society.

9:21

And in that rite of passage, a boy is sent off into the wilderness for three to six

9:27

months at a time to survive on his own.

9:30

And when he comes back, he's no longer considered to be a boy, but

9:33

he's considered to be a man of the tribe and he's eligible for marriage.

9:38

And modern Western society doesn't really have an equivalent coming of age event.

9:45

And so that's one reason why our family in this book, we advocate for fathers to

9:51

hold a right of passage for their sons.

9:54

Okay. And guys, just so I, I didn't throw it out there right at the beginning, we're

9:59

actually gonna be talking about milestone to manhood, and we're gonna

10:02

get deeper into the book as we go. But I just wanna set the stage because you need to understand the

10:08

core behind what this is, because the book is about a Christian rite

10:12

of passage for 13 year old boys, and it's incredible as a great blueprint.

10:17

Like I said, we'll tell you more about it as we go, but we gotta

10:19

understand the basis of it. Steven, why do you think we don't see Rice passage as a normal part of life as

10:27

often in the rest, Western and modern?

10:31

That's a good question. I think that we don't have rights of passage today.

10:36

I think it was a victim of the Industrial Revolution and you know, don't get me

10:41

wrong, there were a lot of good things that came from the Industrial Revolution.

10:44

You know, you and I are talking here on a computer one state away from each other.

10:48

You know, that's none of that would've been possible without the

10:51

Industrial Revolution, but, One downside of it was that it kind of

10:56

broke up the nuclear family, right? So, before the whole family would work together on the farm

11:01

or the whole family would work together in the Smith shop, right?

11:05

That's why we have people with the last name of Smith because

11:07

their whole family were Smiths. If your dad was a a blacksmith, the son would become a blacksmith.

11:12

But with the industrial Revolut, Boys were left, boys were sent off to school, and

11:19

dad was sent off to work in a factory.

11:21

So there wasn't this as much time spent together as a nuclear family.

11:27

And I think that's one reason why we don't see rights of passage today

11:32

was because we, we as parents, we sometimes we tend to think, well,

11:35

that's the school's job, right? To, to do that kind of stuff.

11:40

. In reality, a school is never gonna give your son a meaningful right of passage

11:44

that he can look back on and say, that was the moment that I became a man.

11:48

Right? So I think that's why we as a society don't have these rights of passage.

11:55

And when you look at the societies that do have rights of passage, they're

11:58

always these communities that, where the family is very strong, right?

12:02

Mm-hmm. , whether it's aboriginal Australian society, or tribes in Africa

12:08

or in Brazil, It's these very tight-knit communities that, that

12:11

are still practicing this tradition. I was thinking about it a lot as I read through your book and

12:18

you guys did an excellent job. The book's very good.

12:22

I was thinking about it. Cause I live in a highly Hispanic culture where I live in central Washington.

12:27

Yeah. And so I was, I was really, I started searching my brain.

12:29

It's like, what do we, so young women in the Hispanic culture have a quinceanera?

12:36

Mm-hmm. at I believe 15. And it's becoming of age.

12:39

And I, I grew up around the area with that.

12:42

And so like the first time I went to one, I mean talk about it, is,

12:45

it is second only to a wedding. I mean, it is a spectacular event.

12:49

And at the same time, my brain went, wow, I'm glad that's not my culture

12:54

because the price on that is insane.

12:56

And I have two daughters. Yeah. But I was thinking about it right outside of a Jewish bar, mizvah or Aquita.

13:02

I just, you don't see it very often in modern Western.

13:07

And so it was like, Hmm, what are we missing by taking these things out?

13:13

That used to be much more commonplace. You know, I would say that the closest thing that we have in modern Western

13:21

culture to a rite of passage is probably the Sweet 16, and there's a few reason

13:27

when we talk about that in the book, but there's a few reasons why a Sweet 16

13:32

party is not an actual rite of passage.

13:35

For a, for a real rite of passage to occur, there has to be three elements.

13:40

There has to be the separation of the boy outside of his normal support system.

13:45

Mm-hmm. . So he has to be removed from his regular day-to-day life.

13:50

And then the second thing there has to be a challenge, something

13:53

for him to overcome, something for him to prove himself as a man.

13:57

And then the third part is the reincorporation back into.

14:02

And typically there's, you know, a big celebration, a party involved in it.

14:07

And I would argue that a sweet 16, it has the, the after party,

14:11

the party element, but it doesn't have those first two elements.

14:14

It doesn't have the withdrawing pulling the boy out of his normal life.

14:20

It doesn't have a challenge for him to overcome, to prove himself as a man.

14:24

So a sweet 16 is not really a rite of passage.

14:27

It's definitely not a meaningful rite of passage.

14:30

Because it doesn't, it doesn't give a boy an event that says, that,

14:34

says, that's when I became a man. You know what boy would say, oh, my sweet 16 party pool

14:40

party was my rite of passage. That just, it doesn't happen today.

14:46

So you pinned this book with your father.

14:48

How was that experience of doing this project together,

14:50

guys? So, yeah, my dad and I wrote the book together.

14:55

It was really wonderful. You know, I, I've always had a really strong relationship with my dad.

15:00

My dad obviously organized my rite of passage for me when I was 13 years old.

15:06

And that was something that helped us to grow together.

15:09

Writing the book, I. Helped us to grow even closer.

15:14

One reason why we wanted to do it was because we wanted to have both

15:17

the fathers and the sons perspective.

15:20

So my dad wrote about why he wanted to hold a rite of passage for all of his

15:25

sons and how this tradition got started.

15:28

And then I write about what my rite of passage weekend was like as a 13

15:33

year old, and some of the thoughts and the feelings going through my.

15:37

As my dad and my grandfather and my uncles were kinda sharing this

15:41

advice about what it means to be a man, what it means to be a good man.

15:45

So, writing the book together was, it was amazing.

15:49

Well, let, let's dive into a little bit of your dad's side here.

15:54

Let's talk about the why behind, why this started.

15:58

Why, why did your dad fill the need to build this rite of path?

16:04

So my dad actually grew up in a household without a father figure.

16:09

My dad between the ages of five years old and 17, he only

16:14

visited his father three times.

16:17

So my paternal grandfather, my dad's dad was diagnosed with multiple

16:23

sclerosis when my dad was five years. And he actually separated from my grandmother and moved down to Mexico

16:30

where he could afford 24-hour healthcare.

16:33

Cause it's a lot cheaper down there. Unfortunately, you know, my dad, because of that, my dad really grew

16:38

up without having a man in the house. And so when he grew up, he told himself, you know, I want to give my

16:46

kids what I didn't have growing up. I want to give my kids a lifelong, an example of a lifelong loving marriage.

16:53

And I wanna be a father who plays an active role in my son's lives.

16:59

I don't wanna be an absent father like my dad.

17:01

So fast forward 20 years when my dad had, you know, the four of us boys

17:08

I have, I come from a family of four boys and my older brother was turning

17:13

13 years old, and my dad wanted to do something special for his birthday

17:18

to mark his entrance into man. You know, my dad knew that the teenage years were not gonna be easy, and that

17:24

teenage boys especially do crazy things.

17:27

But he thought, you know, if we can, if we can connect with the boy, if

17:33

we can affirm his masculine identity and show how much he's loved in this

17:37

family, then maybe he won't feel the need to try to prove himself and do

17:41

these crazy stunts as a teenager.

17:44

So my dad actually went to his father-in-law, my maternal grandfather.

17:51

and he said, you know, I want to do something special for my

17:54

son's 13th birthday, but I'm not really sure what to do.

17:57

And it was my maternal grandfather who said, well, you know, in these

18:00

other cultures they have these rights of passage tra traditions.

18:04

What if we came up with a Christian version of one of those?

18:08

So that's really where they started to brainstorm.

18:11

Well, what would that look like? What would a meaningful rite of passage look like for a Christian

18:15

boy growing up in the early 2000?

18:18

And that's kind of how the weekend got started. Okay.

18:22

Now you went through this process at 13.

18:26

How did your own rite of impact or rite of passage really impact you for the better?

18:31

Like in hindsight, looking back today, what difference do you

18:35

think that made for you? Yeah, so I had a rite of passage when I was 13 years old.

18:40

It was a weekend trip that involved my dad, my grandfather, and two of my uncle.

18:46

And I think the way that my rite of passage benefited me was really twofold.

18:52

For one, I was growing up, I was really confident in my masculine identity.

18:57

And I don't mean to say that, you know, as a teenager I had like

19:01

huge biceps or a puffed up chest, like I was a man at 13 years old.

19:05

But, but I do mean to say is that anytime someone outside of the family,

19:10

whether it was a teacher or another parent, you know, at Boy Scout.

19:14

Anytime they kind of referred to me as a boy, like if the teacher of the class

19:18

would say, boys, boys, settle down. Then immediately the first thought in my mind was, I'm not a boy.

19:25

I'm a man because my dad told me. Right?

19:28

So I never questioned my status as a man.

19:31

I never thought, you know, when is, when am I gonna become a man?

19:34

When is this gonna kick in? And I didn't realize what a gift that was until probably my early twenties when I.

19:42

A friend who was engaged and getting married, and I write about it in the

19:47

book, how we had this interaction where we were actually doing some chores.

19:52

We were doing some handy work around his house, some construction projects, and

19:56

he kind of stopped me halfway through and he was like, Steve, when was the first

20:01

time you considered yourself to be a man?

20:04

I, I told him about this Rite of Passage weekend as a 13 year old, and

20:09

he was like, wow, that's incredible. You know?

20:11

And here he is engaged to a engaged to an awesome woman, you know, potentially

20:16

having kids in the near future. He has a job.

20:19

He has an awesome relationship with his parents, you know, and he's still

20:23

questioning his identity as a man. He's not sure if he's a man or he's a boy.

20:28

And it was that conversation with my friend in my early twenties when I.

20:33

Wow. This rite of passage was a real gift for me to, to have this clear

20:38

event in my, in my mind, that I can look back on and say, you know,

20:41

that's when manhood began for me. It wasn't, wasn't prom night for me.

20:45

It wasn't the the day where my wife and I got married.

20:50

It wasn't the, the birth of our daughter. For me, it was 13 years old when my dad and my grandfather told

20:55

me that you are a man in this. So I think the first way that it benefited me was I was always

21:01

confident in my masculine identity.

21:03

The second way that it benefited me was that I, growing up, I really

21:08

felt like I could talk to my dad, my grandfather, and my uncles about anything.

21:13

I felt very accepted and loved by this kind of tribe of men in my family.

21:20

You know, one thing that kind of gets said during the weekend inevitably

21:24

is, From the men, the boy, they say, you know, we love you unconditionally.

21:31

If you ever have questions or are going through kind of a tough spot

21:36

in life, please come to us for advice because we love you unconditionally.

21:41

We have your best interests at heart, and more than likely we've gone

21:45

through whatever you're going through. We can help you.

21:48

You know, as a 13 year old, during my Rite of Passage weekend, I was like, I just

21:52

kind of shook my head up and down and. Thanks.

21:55

You know, I, I didn't know what to make of it, but it really wasn't until I got into

22:00

college where, you know, I started meeting people who were raised very different than

22:04

me, who had very different values than me.

22:07

And that made me really question the way that I was raised and my own beliefs.

22:12

And in college I was really concerned, you know, I was really I started to

22:17

question my belief in God, whether I believed in God or I wanted to.

22:21

The faith that my parents raised me in. And I remember being very nervous to talk to my parents about, about it

22:29

because I wasn't sure how they would've react if I told 'em, you know, I'm

22:33

not sure if I believe in God anymore. I didn't wanna disappoint them, right?

22:37

Mm-hmm. . But in college, I remembered back that 13 year old rite of passage

22:42

this weekend and how all the men. If you have questions, if you're going through a tough time in

22:47

life, please come to us for advice.

22:49

We won't judge you. We will love you unconditionally.

22:52

We have your best interest at heart. And that gave me the confidence, the trust, to go back to these guys,

22:59

to go back to my dad, to go to my grandfather and say, dad, grandpa,

23:04

I'm not sure if I believe in God. Why do you believe in God?

23:07

You know? And I think it was at that moment, for a lot of people, college is really kind

23:12

of a make or break moment in your faith. And it certainly was for me and I, you know, hindsight is 2020.

23:19

But I would say if it wasn't for this rite of passage weekend, there's a

23:23

good chance that I would not be a practicing Christian today without it.

23:28

Okay. I love that it open up the lines of communication in your family.

23:32

That is a very difficult thing for young men to feel comfortable communicating with

23:38

those in their family and, and drawing that line in this hand cuz it really.

23:43

Your book had me thinking a lot. . The wheels were just turning in my head like a hamster going nuts, man.

23:49

As I was reading through the book and it was like, wow, we have

23:52

really just kind of failed our young men because it is right there.

23:56

There's all these different benchmarks of, well, 18, you

24:00

can smoke and join the military. At 17, you can join the military with your parents' re mission.

24:05

But at 21 you can drink and do this, but at 25 you can do this.

24:09

Right? We, we have all these different bench like, but none of that

24:12

actually tells them or affirms. You are now a valuable member of society.

24:18

You are now a man. It's time for you to stand on your own feet because you, you need

24:23

that line in the sand too, right? We have too many 27 year olds still living at home, sucking off a mom and dad.

24:31

Because they were never told, Hey, you're a man.

24:35

It, it is time to take that next step on your own.

24:38

So y y'all's book got me thinking a lot.

24:41

Let's talk, well, go ahead. No, thank, I was just gonna say thank you.

24:45

You know, it's true that I think today we're, in general, we're not raising

24:50

boys to be like virtuously masculine men.

24:53

And a big reason is that most men today have never been.

24:58

By another man that you are a man and that manhood has begun.

25:03

You know, manhood has probably begun a long time ago for most of

25:06

these guys, and because they've never been told that they're a man,

25:10

then they essentially act like boys into their twenties and into their

25:14

thirties like you were talking about. So that's kind of the, the beauty of a rite of passage is that it gives the boy a

25:21

clear moment that he can look back on and. That was the moment.

25:25

That was the weekend that I became a man because that's when

25:28

my dad told me that I was a man. So let's talk milestone to manhood.

25:33

This become a full family event. I know according to your book, the women and family help you guys prepare and

25:39

get things in order and then help you celebrate also when you get home, right?

25:43

They take part in recognizing that this young man has become a.

25:48

And you know, that's, that's an important part is the young man gets that

25:51

affirmation as well when he gets home that this weekend has changed his status.

25:57

Mm-hmm. , how many times, you said you're one of four brothers, how many

26:00

times have y'all done this now? So, right.

26:04

I'm one of four brothers. So me and my brothers, we all got these rite of passage weekends, and

26:09

then my male cousins did as well.

26:11

So, I have two younger male cousins.

26:13

So for. I had a write-off passage weekend that was organized for me, but also once I

26:19

became, you know, an official man in the family, I was eligible to be one of those

26:25

male mentors to go along the weekends.

26:28

So I had a write-up passage for myself that I experienced as a 13 year old, but

26:33

I also attended four other Rite of passage weekends for my two younger brother.

26:38

My two younger cousins and I will say, I'll add in that the woman

26:42

of the family, the girls did get a rite of passage weekend as well.

26:46

So, I don't have any sisters, but my girl cousins did get a rite of passage.

26:50

So in total there were 12 of these rite of passage weekends that we held as a family.

26:56

Yeah. Y'all mentioned in the book that there might be a second book coming from

27:00

the women's side of the family. I'm looking forward to that book as well, cuz I have two daughters, so

27:04

I'm, I'm looking forward to that second edition where the women in the family get

27:09

focused on it and share that information.

27:11

Cuz I, I know Yeah. My wife is in the background saying, yes, please.

27:15

We, we want that book. So you have at least a couple people going, yes, please, please do the

27:20

follow up on, you know, women because I, I think we're lacking in this.

27:24

I think there's a lot of validity to. Now, what have you noticed just in the lives of young men, outside of your

27:33

family, maybe like family, friends and stuff, as opposed to you, the

27:38

way you guys were raised with this. What, what are the immediate differences that you guys can see?

27:43

Just contrasting, you said your family is different.

27:45

That's something that you learned in college. I had that same experience.

27:49

There was a point in my life where I started looking around at

27:51

my friends' families and going. My former family isn't normal, the, the way we mm-hmm.

27:55

because we're all very, very tight-knit. My siblings are some of the closest people in the world to me, always have been.

28:01

Right. And I thought that was normal until I started hanging out with other people.

28:04

But as you experienced this and you know, you guys have friends outside

28:09

of the immediate family whose kids weren't put through this process.

28:13

What do you, what do you notice the immediate differences

28:16

in those young people? You know, to be honest, it's tough to say because I consider this

28:22

rite of passage weekend to be a tool in the tool belt, right?

28:25

Mm-hmm. , the rite of passage weekend is not everything.

28:28

I mean, as a father, you have to be a good example of what it means to be a

28:32

man your, for your entire life, right?

28:34

Mm. Mm-hmm. , if you're objectively a bad example of a man, And then you hold one of these rite

28:40

of passage weekends and are talking about virtuous manhood and what it means to

28:44

be a man, then it really means nothing.

28:47

Right? So, I considered this weekend to be just one way that a father can help

28:54

to break through to his son, you know, and to affirm him and to build him up.

28:58

So I think that it, it's tough to compare because of that, because

29:03

it is just one weekend right. But I will say, You know, in the absence of a rite of passage, boys feel the need

29:11

to prove their manhood to themselves.

29:14

And what that might look like, I would say, is the sexual conquest of women.

29:18

So you hear guys saying things like, she made a man out of me.

29:22

Right? You guys trying to sleep around and sexually conquesting conquering women

29:29

to prove their manhood to themselves. Or it could be violence, right?

29:33

Joining a gang or getting into a. When boys are fighting, essentially they're trying to

29:39

prove their manhood to themselves. They're, they're saying, if I can show physically dominate another

29:44

man, then I'm a better man than him.

29:47

Right? So in that way, violence, they're trying to prove their manhood to themselves.

29:53

Or another, you know, really common one would be video game addictions.

29:57

In a lot of video games, you can literally go out and slay a dragon

30:01

or kill a, kill a terrorist. You know, that totally plays into the male ego of proving yourself as

30:07

a warrior, proving yourself as a man. And you know, I have nothing against video games but I am

30:13

against video game addictions. When, when you play video games to the point where you're getting your

30:19

masculine identity, your identity is tied up to your video game character,

30:24

then I think something has gone wrong. In the absence of a rite of passage, boys will try to prove

30:30

their manhood to themselves. And I think that was the difference for me having this weekend, is

30:36

that I had this weekend where my dad, my grandfather, my uncles told

30:41

me, you are a man of this family. So as a teenager, I didn't feel like I had to prove my manhood to anybody else.

30:48

So I think that's probably the biggest difference between what our family

30:52

did and other families who don't have this rite of passage for their kids.

30:57

Okay. I was asking just because you threw out the example of your

31:01

friend at his wedding, right.

31:03

Having to ask that question that in his head, apparently that was still a question

31:08

in something he was still playing with. So I was wondering if you had noticed any other areas where it was

31:13

like, oh, this really divided this.

31:17

Yeah. Now guys, we're gonna roll to one of our sponsors and we will be right

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Now let's go on to the show. Hey, welcome back.

32:05

We're here with Stephen Arms Discussing is a Christian Rite Passage a good idea for.

32:10

Now, if you've missed the first part of the conversation, you absolutely have

32:13

to go back through because we've covered a lot of ground and a lot of details.

32:17

Steven and his family have had this personal experience that they're sharing

32:21

with the world now, guys, the book is Milestone to Manhood and we'll have

32:27

links of course to get that book into the website, so you can check that out.

32:32

We want you to be able to find this book. Personally.

32:35

I love the book. It was a great read. Man, it just got my head spinning.

32:40

But I don't wanna go into too much detail about the book because I'd

32:44

love for you to read it because until you actually go through it,

32:47

like I'm not gonna do it justice. But I wanted to touch a couple on a couple things in the book

32:52

especially towards the end. So Steven, how is life with your newly Christian man Posten?

33:01

How does that change? It was an interesting transit.

33:04

In the book, because life has to change, right?

33:07

You can't say you're a man and then go back home and, and life is the same.

33:13

So how does that look? Absolutely.

33:16

So there kind of has to be a balanced approach for life after the weekend,

33:20

you know, ultimately this new man is still a 13 year old, you know?

33:24

So obviously it would not be appropriate to kick him out of the house, tell him

33:28

to go get an apartment and a full-time. It has to be a gradual approach, how you treat him as a man.

33:34

But it is important to treat him differently after his

33:37

rite of passage weekend. You know, certainly increasing responsibilities around the

33:41

house is a good way to do that. I know for me and for my brothers 13 years old was right around the

33:47

time where we were physically big enough to push the lawnmower around.

33:51

So, that became one of our chore. And you know, inevitably whenever you increase the responsibilities, the

33:58

chores for your kids, there's always gonna be some resistance, right?

34:02

They're not gonna like it. But having this rite of passage weekend gives fathers context to have

34:08

those discussions with their sons. Why increasing their responsibility is a good thing.

34:14

So dads don't have to say something like, you need to mow

34:18

the lawn now, because I say so. That's just kind of a, a flex on your authority over him.

34:24

But if you say something like, we want you to mow the lawn now, because when

34:29

you grow up, when you get married and have a family of your own, you're gonna

34:33

have to mow the lawn because we're not, I'm not gonna be there for you.

34:36

So it's really a good thing for you to learn how to do this now

34:39

rather than learning in your twenties or in your thirties.

34:43

Another really cool way that the boy was treated differently.

34:47

After his Rite of Passage weekend, you know, in our family, whenever we gathered

34:52

together for holidays, whether it was Christmas or Easter, you know, it was

34:57

always a, a fairly large gathering.

34:59

And so there were always two tables. You know, there was an adult table in one room and then a kid's table and

35:04

another, and, but once a boy or the, or a girl went through one of these rite of

35:09

passage weekends, they were, they kind of graduated from the kids' table into

35:14

the adults' table, you know, and they. Instead of having the conversation with the kids, they were engaged in

35:19

conversation with the adults and whatever they were talking about over dinner.

35:23

So that was one really cool, kind of physical way to show, you know, you

35:27

were no longer a boy or a girl, you've graduated to manhood or to womanhood.

35:33

Now you guys have put together this, cuz I'm gonna call the

35:36

book more of a blueprint, right? You answered the why's, but then you laid out a very tructure.

35:42

Approach that y'all have found has been very effective for you?

35:46

How does that translate to another father picking up this book?

35:51

How is the best way to apply this book?

35:54

Yeah, so we realized, you know, our family, having organized 12 of these

35:58

rite of passage weekends before, we've really accumulated a lot of best

36:03

practices, a lot of tribal knowledge, how to pull one of these weekends.

36:07

So the book is really a how to guide for fathers who want to organize a rite

36:13

of passage weekend for their own sons.

36:15

And in that way it's very much plug, plug and play, right?

36:18

We give you the exact steps, step by steps, the rituals that we went through

36:23

in our rite of passage weekends. And, you know, certainly we would love it if, if a father wanted to

36:29

just adopt it straight outta the book and use all seven of the same ritual.

36:33

We also give guidance on how you might wanna modify it for your own family.

36:38

You know, if you have family traditions in your own family that you wanna

36:41

add into the weekend, we absolutely would encourage you to add it into

36:46

the weekend and to make it your own. One thing I'd like to add for your audience is that on our website,

36:53

milestone to manhood.com, we've actually put up some email template.

36:57

For fathers to access. So if you're listening to this and you have an 11 or 12 year old son and you

37:03

want to organize a rite of passage for him, you can just go to our website.

37:09

There's a planning section, and you can, there's five steps.

37:12

You can literally go to it, copy the text from the website and paste

37:17

it into the body of an email for the men who you want to invite

37:22

to go onto your right of passage. With you and your son and this weekend, this email explains what a rite of

37:29

passage is, why you want to hold one for your son, and exactly the step by

37:35

steps of the Rite of Passage weekend that our family did for the boys and girls.

37:41

So, you know, we realized, you know, we have all this information, why

37:45

not give it to listeners for free so that they can organize a rite

37:50

of passage as easy as possible. One of the hardest parts is just explaining to people what a rite of

37:56

passage is and why you want to do it. So we realized, why don't we just give that to our listeners for.

38:03

We don't ask for your email address because we know, you know, a lot of

38:06

guys don't wanna be spammed these days.

38:09

I totally get it. I don't want to either. So you literally just go to the website, copy these emails, and paste them into

38:15

the body of an email to send to your team.

38:18

Okay. That's awesome. I love that you guys leave room for customization, right?

38:24

You had some really great ideas, but the fact that you leave room in there say,

38:29

Hey, this is what's been good for us. But, you know, tweak this for your experience as a family.

38:35

It's, it is just incredible. Now, Steven, there are some guys out there right now who are

38:40

listening who are like, uh hmm.

38:43

Is this right for me? What are three questions our listeners should ask themselves to

38:49

decide if this is something they should implement with their sons?

38:52

You know, I would say if you're on the fence, if you're a father on the

38:56

fence, thinking about whether you want to organize one of these weekends for

39:00

your son or not, ultimately, you know, it's you're not doing this for yourself.

39:04

You're doing this for your son. Right? And the truth is, is that not all the responsibility is going to fall on your

39:11

shoulders because you are gonna get other men involved to help to break through to.

39:16

You know, certainly dads are the most important male role model in

39:20

a boy's life, but around the age of 13, there's also this tension that

39:24

develops between father and son, right? The, the boy doesn't necessarily want to listen to dad all the time.

39:30

So that's really the beauty of getting other men involved other

39:34

men who are not his father. So, I would say for one, you're, you're not doing this for yourself.

39:39

You're doing this for your. Number two is you're gonna get a team of men involved.

39:45

And three, really the benefit of it is that you are, by affirming your

39:49

son's masculine identity, you are showing him that he does not have to

39:54

prove his manhood to himself, right.

39:57

Through rebelling, through doing dangerous stunts.

40:00

And so that's what the, the benefit of the weekend for your

40:03

son is that you're giving him a. Moment that he can look back on and say, that was the weekend when I

40:10

became a man in my father's eyes. Stephen, what is the most important takeaway you want people

40:15

to hear from this show today? The most important takeaway that I want people to take away from this show is

40:23

that in the absence of Rite of Passage, boys are gonna prove their manhood to the.

40:29

And that's why it's every father's responsibility because he is the

40:34

primary example of what it means to be a man in a boy's life.

40:38

It's every father's responsibility to tell his son at the appropriate age.

40:43

Son, I just want you to know I no longer consider you to be a boy, but in my eyes,

40:49

I see you as a man now and that if every father in this country did that for their.

40:54

Than this country and this world would be a much better place

40:57

because boys would not need to prove their manhood to anybody else.

41:03

What's next for Steven Arm? That's a great question.

41:08

What's next for me? My wife and I are expecting our third child this year, so that's

41:13

definitely the biggest things. Thank you. That's definitely the biggest thing on our minds.

41:17

That and just getting. Idea of a rite of passage out into the world, sharing it with other families

41:24

so that they can benefit from the weekend in the same way that ours has.

41:29

Right. And guys, I will have a link to their website in the show notes and in the

41:37

description so you can find the book. So you can go find those letters.

41:40

We'll make sure you guys are hooked up with milestone to manhood.com.

41:45

Also, if you go to. Bookshelf on our library, on the website, you'll find a link to their

41:51

book If you are interested in getting this book as well, you can get it on

41:54

their site, you can get on Amazon, whatever is good for you guys, and

41:58

that link will stay up there because I think this book has a lot of value.

42:02

If you are a father looking and working on setting an example, and

42:05

I'm assuming you are because you're listening to this show, right?

42:08

And this is what we're all about here. So if this is what something you're looking for, I wholeheartedly

42:14

recommend pick up copy of this. I'm actually loaning my copy to people.

42:18

I'm like making a list of people I'm handing it to.

42:21

Now that I'm done with it, guys, I would highly encourage you to pick this

42:24

up and consider this whether you have boys or whether you have girls, because

42:29

until we get the book for girls, you can actually change a lot of this over.

42:32

And ladies, you can pick it up too cuz we have a lot of ladies that listen to this

42:36

show and get the baseline for how you can do this with your daughters as well.

42:43

Give it a try. Trust. Trust me there. There are books you need to read.

42:46

You should read this one. Steven, thank you for taking the time to be here with us today

42:50

and to share with our audience. It's been great having you on, guys, as always.

42:55

Be better tomorrow because of what you do today and we'll see you on the next one.

42:59

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43:02

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