State of the Family with Mike McCune:
Welcome to the Life Renovation Podcast.
We are your co-host, Glendie Loranger and Elizabeth Morrison, and together we're breaking down the walls that divide us through meaningful conversations around the big three, faith, family, and sexuality.
Good morning, Elizabeth.
Good morning.
We have a guest in the studio with us this morning, our friend Mike McCune.
Morning, Mike.
Morning.
We are going to continue on with our series that we've been doing called State of.
We've done State of the Church or State of Faith, State of Sexuality with Joanna Hyatt.
And this morning, Mike is here to talk to us about the state of the family.
So we have a mutual friend, your wife.
Yeah, that kind of got us connected.
Yeah, we were in a life group together and it started as a young married, no kids group and we invited a couple older couples in and.
Did you just call me old?
Older.
Oh, we're starting off great.
Anyway, so we had some good, great mentors in that group, Glendie and her husband, John and Mike and Tisa Meade kind of mentored us as young parents.
We didn't, we're one of the parents at that time, no kids, no kids.
And then people in our group started having kids.
We had to kick them out.
Yeah, it was about two or three years ago.
We kind of got too big to be one group and kind of split up.
And now we're in a group with all kids.
Oh my gosh, all the young families.
Just in case you're wondering, okay, this guy's got kids and a wife and what and I'm single and this is all about family.
We are choosing to interview Mike.
He is a public school educator and administrator.
And so we are going to focus in on families through the lens of kids.
And so you'll learn Mike has kind of a variety of experiences with kids.
And we're going to try to get a lens of what the typical family looks like.
And so if you're single out there, maybe you're divorced, maybe you don't have kids or yours are all out of the house.
We know that you have interaction with other families that have kids.
And that really gives us a great picture of what's going on in the current family.
And that's what we want to focus on in this episode.
What are current families dealing with?
Mike, let me see if I can do the rundown.
So you are, I said, public school teacher, high school administrator.
But you also work at Whitworth University.
I teach a couple of courses at Whitworth.
Adjunct instructor.
Adjunct instructor and math guru.
So math and leadership.
That's correct.
So he's my numbers guy friend.
And then you're an athletic director.
Correct.
Holy cow.
And how old are you?
I'm 32.
You already had a heck of a career.
And then you also volunteer as life group leader, right?
I volunteer as a life group leader with my wife.
And then I'm also on the security team.
That's awesome.
Tell us what it's like to volunteer as a life group leader.
What does that look like?
It's been a really interesting journey.
Our founding pastor at North Church, Mike Meade, actually came up to Quincy and I and said, you should lead my life group.
And he said, I'll lead it with you.
And then after one session, he's like, OK, you guys got it.
You guys got it.
So that's literally what happened.
So we're kind of thrown into it.
And, you know, we're in a group now where we meet once a week.
We've been going over different texts.
We just finished Screwtape Letters a month ago.
So now we're just kind of following along our church's reading plan.
God's redemption story.
CS.
Lewis took a lot out of us.
I think we're taking a break now to just ease into some things and some discussions.
But it's been really great.
As we said before, we were in one group and kind of split up and, you know, multiplication, I think, is the word we use, and it's tough.
It's tough to really try to dive into people's lives and do life with them and then grow it to a point where we have to split up.
Yeah, we have a great group.
We have a lot of high school people, high school teachers and administrators in our group and elementary school teacher and then a doctor.
And anyway, so a lot of different professions and we have one, two, three, four, five kids in our group that just run around and yeah, it's great.
I love that.
Can you give our listeners just a snapshot of who is Mike McCune and kind of what makes you tick?
Yeah, absolutely.
Originally from the West Side, grew up in a family of four.
I'm the youngest of four of a twin brother.
He's seven minutes older than me.
So that is amazing.
And then I have a twin brother too.
You know, right.
And my brother and sister are also twins and they are two years older than us.
So my mom had four.
My mom and dad had four under two, which is just insane.
Which is why you're the perfect person to actually maybe we should be interviewing your mom.
Should be better than me.
Yes.
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The State of the Family: Parenting, Faith, and Raising Children in a Changing Culture
All about family.
So grew up, played football, basketball and baseball in high school.
I was recruited to a lot of Division three schools to play football.
I actually chose Washington State out of high school and went there for a semester.
And when I was signing up and selecting like a roommate preference, I selected no preference.
And I thought that meant I had no preference.
My roommate was what it actually meant was my preference is to have no roommate.
So yeah, I went to Pullman, had no roommate for a semester.
Wow, called my mom after like two weeks and was like, yeah, this is not for me.
So I transferred to Whitworth in January of 2011 and played football there for four years.
I had a great career, not in terms of stats and all those things.
Just I just loved playing the game with a bunch of guys.
I just also loved to play football, studied math.
After that, I got a job at West Valley High School and taught there for a while.
And then I left the K-12 role to become a college football coach.
I coach full time at Whitworth for two years.
I was at Eastern for a cup of coffee, like a month and a half.
My dream always to be a college football coach during that time, I got married to Quincy and it just was not a sustainable lifestyle.
I just worked a lot, didn't see her much.
And so I made the decision to get out of college coaching and back in the K-12 world.
That's a little bit about my professional side.
We've mentioned my wife, Quincy.
She's a worship director at North Church and she's been in that role for several years now.
She's been volunteering for a long time.
She's phenomenal.
We have two children.
Cooper is two.
He's 27 months old and he's awesome.
And then Chandler, who would have celebrated her birthday next Wednesday.
Actually, we don't know if Chandler was a boy or girl because they died when they were like 16 weeks.
So those are two kids.
We've lived in Spokane for 15 years.
So we just kind of stuck over here.
Quincy is from Tucson.
Originally, she went to Whitworth and we just love Spokane.
So it's a great chance we stayed here.
Yeah, that's kind of a little bit about us.
We love playing games or big game family.
That's the one thing about our life group.
Like we would have game night and Quincy and Mike would drive game night, you guys.
And then they'd bring these games like saboteur or stuff that we'd never heard.
And we would laugh.
You're just a little bit competitive.
Just a little bit.
Just a little bit.
I hate to lose.
I couldn't tell that with the football background.
Right.
Right.
In fact, there were days when Quincy and I would be driving to life group.
And the loragers hosted usually.
And we're like, I hope no one else is there because if no one else showed up, we just played games.
Yes, we did.
We didn't tell anyone that we've all been in those groups where you're like, okay, really though, if no one shows up, this is what we're doing.
Yeah.
So we just play a lot of games.
Cribbage.
And I'm going to tell on you one of the other really cool things when my youngest was in high school and he played football January and February, he was playing wide receiver and you went out and just threw for him all the time.
And that was just such a cool gift to us and to Adam.
We should probably get to our topic.
Mike, we really wanted to just hone in on some of your experiences as a teacher in the multitude of settings you've been in as a coach, because you see kids, thus you see what they're dealing with.
Thus you have a snapshot of families that most people don't ever get.
And so I think I just wanted to start with this.
When somebody my age in their 50s thinks of family, I think of like the 80s traditional family, right, 2.25 kids, nuclear family, that kind of thing.
Is that a snapshot of the current family or doesn't feel like it?
Yeah, I think it's a great question.
I think the way you kind of let us off is something we should probably talk about, because I think some cultures do a really beautiful job of having like multi-generational families, right?
Yeah.
Where they include grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles, other cultures, like I had a lot of Hawaiian friends at Whitworth and they include a lot of friends and they call them aunties and uncles, right?
And that's the ohana or the family.
So, I think for our purposes, it's probably best just to focus on the nuclear family, right?
So, for the next half hour, we're going to be talking about, you know, one or two parents and their adoptive or biological children.
And so, when we say family, that's what I'm approaching it as.
Just some pictures for us to look at.
In the state of Washington, the average size of family is 3.08 people, which puts us kind of in the middle of the country and just below the national average, which I think is around 3.2.
And then I had one other stat that I thought was interesting is that when they surveyed parents and families, 84% say it's important to eat dinner together.
Oh, that makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, which was much higher than I thought.
I think it's important, but they only end up eating about 50% of their dinners together is what the stats show.
But they think it's important.
I think it's important.
Why Strong Families, Christian Community, and Intentional Parenting Matter More Than Ever
And I know for me growing up, that was so important in our family.
We ate dinner together all the time and we didn't think anything of it because it's just what we did.
Right.
And a lot of people have since told my parents like, wow, I think that made a big difference in what happened, so those are some stats to look at.
I can't paint a picture of like what a typical family looks like, but it might be useful for us to think about like, what are typical family experiences?
What are common family experiences for the American family?
And I think we can look at common struggles we all have to provide for our families in some way, shape or form.
There's so many expectations on the family in terms of, you know, what what do kids want to do?
How do I support my kids in doing that?
You know, how do I get one kid here, one kid there, make dinner for the family, spend time together?
I think there's so many things that that to me is the more typical in the picture that we look at is just like what experiences does a typical family have?
There's some compelling research coming out now just about the two parent privilege.
There's actually a book by Melissa Kearney, just looking at the socio economic impacts of having two parents privilege, privilege and we'll link that in the show notes and a lot of work can be kind of triggering.
But there's just a lot of research behind the fact that it allows for social mobility and future financial implications on the family.
So I think that's an important piece to maybe look at.
Vivek Ramaswamy was a presidential candidate in the Republican Party.
He's actually still on the ticket in Washington, but he dropped out weeks ago.
Anyways, he talks a lot about how he believes the nuclear family is the best form of government.
That's like one of his catchphrases.
And then he talks about how having two parents is one of the greatest privileges that people can have.
But I don't mean any ill will.
If you are a single parent and you're doing an awesome job and that's not what I'm saying, but there's just some interesting research out there regarding the difference between two and one and future outcomes.
It's interesting that it's called privilege because I think of that almost as an entitlement thing, but you're saying that there's actually a privilege that is given to the kids to have those two parents.
Yeah, that's what this new research would suggest.
And I think lastly, what I would probably say about the family is it should be a place of your deepest love and affection, right?
Like this should be my safest place to be is with my family.
And unfortunately, I think for a lot of people, it can also be a place of deep pain.
I recently read Educated, I don't know if you guys have read that, a memoir, Tara Westover, incredible story, right?
It's a hard story.
Really hard, but she talks about essentially the gaslighting and the abuse that happened within the family.
And I think that's an all too real a reality for a lot of people is that this should be a safe space and when that's taken away, the vulnerability and the pain that people experience.
When we look at the family, like it really should be a place of beauty and love and encouragement.
And I think it is for a lot of people, but it's also a place of just deep pain.
I know, just hearing that and hearing the statistics, it's easy to feel that privilege from a person who came from a two parent family, but at the same time, there's a grieving inside of me for those who didn't.
You shared a little bit about the privileges, you shared a little bit about how families can also be a great source of pain.
In your professional experience, what do you see kids that you work with facing today?
What are the issues that come up in their lives?
Yeah, that's a great question.
When I talk about kids, they're humans, they're just humans.
And I think they have, in some ways, the same issues, the same struggles that we all have as a human race.
It's just maybe they're amplified because developmentally, obviously, they're not mature.
And then there's some different pressures and things we don't necessarily have to deal with as adults that add fuel to the fire.
But all humans have the innate need to be seen and to be heard.
All humans have a deep desire to belong.
And particularly when we're young, we go to great lengths to find that belonging.
And when those needs aren't met, when things like anxiety and depression come up, I don't belong anywhere.
I don't feel seen.
I don't feel heard by my family, by my peers, by people around me, etc.
I mean, I think loneliness and isolation is a real issue right now.
I spoke to some factors that amplify this, and I think certainly social media is huge.
In fact, I just deleted it this month, and it's just been so refreshing.
There's so much on there that none of us at this table had to deal with.
We didn't see people that we had to compare to and compare our lives to.
And even though people put their best selves on that platform, we don't see the whole reality.
Yeah, even people who find their identity and belonging in Christ, we still look for belonging and encouragement in places outside of Christ because I think it's just human.
We're still on social media.
It's just human.
And then not having that, I think, adds to the hole in your heart or however you want to look at that image.
Can I ask you, as an administrator, how often do you have to deal with issues pertaining to social media or pertaining to phones or cyberbullying?
There's very few days where we don't have to.
And one of the encouragements I would have to parents is to really sit down and think about at what age will they get a phone and how are we going to monitor what their activity is on that device.
We're all older and I struggle with the addiction to this thing.
I mean, I really do.
I can't even watch a movie without picking it up every five minutes and checking something silly.
And so then when we think about these young people whose brains aren't fully formed, and of course, they're going to struggle with it too.
Yeah, I mean, that's a huge avenue of pain for our kids.
Certainly it's a great tool for sure.
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It has a lot of great advantages, but I think we really need to look as parents and families like how can we wrap arms around these kids and help them navigate how to use it appropriately.
And in some cases, that may just be not allowing them to have it.
And we'll have other episodes on cell phone usage and all of that.
It's interesting that you talk about the cell phone and the social media.
I remember when Adam, our youngest, got Snapchat.
I think it was a senior year and I walked in.
I couldn't figure out what the buzzing was.
I heard I walked in.
He sound asleep in his room, but his phone's going bzz, bzz, bzz, bzz.
And it was all the snaps.
And I asked him how many snaps he got a day and it was upwards of five, six hundred.
Who can keep up with that?
It's just it's crazy.
And so huge impact on what families have to deal with.
We're talking about State of the Family.
We'll talk about what you see in the church when we come back.
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We're back with Mike McCune on the Life Renovation Podcast.
So Mike, you had said that the issues in the schools are social media and just anxiety, depression.
Do you feel like these are the same issues that you're seeing in the church that you lead in as well?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I think when we meet as a life group, these very same things come up.
And when we accept Jesus into our life, our identity changes, but our circumstances don't.
So we're not immune to any of these struggles and any of these realities of human life.
I think really what I hope to see in the church, I think we do see in the church, is like how do we respond to adversity when these things happen?
Yeah, because that's really when we could be the salt of the earth.
Like that's when we can really show what makes us different.
When things are going well, whether you're agnostic, atheist, if you're a believer, it may be tough to tell.
If you have a heart of gratitude and you're always giving glory to God, perhaps different.
But when things are going well, for most people, I think it's difficult to tell.
True.
It's a real test of a person's integrity and character.
And it's interesting.
I see and I would imagine that there's conversation about character and integrity, especially at the college level.
But really where we see it taught and where it's discipled is when it's in the church.
And the core is God's Word through a Christian worldview.
Not that you can't learn character and integrity outside of the church.
You know, our podcast is really built from a Christian worldview.
And so being able to dive in to how do you handle adversity from a scriptural Christ-like perspective?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I'm really grateful I got to teach leadership at Whitworth because we spent a whole week talking about leadership of Jesus.
Nice.
We need to look no further than the greatest leader of all time in terms of servant leadership, in terms of how he loved people, even as far as self-care.
And because I think that's a huge thing in leadership now is burnout, right?
Like Jesus was awesome at like, OK, I'm going to go be with my father and be in a quiet space and I'll see you guys soon.
Yeah, my wife and I are watching The Chosen right now.
I think we just happen to see the episode where he sits everyone down and says, right, you're going to go do this.
I'll be back.
See you.
Peace out.
So coming back to the parenting, you get to have conversations with parents all the time.
I know you did when you were coaching and as a teacher administrator, what are some of the joys that you see in somebody who's parenting high school or younger kids?
Can you give us a little joy and challenge?
Yeah, absolutely.
Perhaps the greatest challenge in parenting is finding this balance between autonomy of your children and laissez-faire approach.
How much autonomy will I give them and how much control I want to have over them?
And on the flip side, when something does happen, how much do I feel that?
How much do I wear that?
Yeah.
You know, Glendie has grown children.
It's like I think you still probably something you struggle with if they make a bad decision or whatever.
It's like how much do I wear that?
And I think there's a healthy amount to that and an unhealthy.
It's really interesting just to look at people and be like, oh, you're at the same family, the same rules and how different humans can turn out.
So I think that is a huge challenge is just autonomy versus control.
You know, one of my mentors talked a lot about and Glendie and I talked about this is allowing your children to fail while they're in your home and not preparing the way for them, but allowing them to fail and then talking about it and creating an environment in which they feel like they can and that they can learn from it and we still love them through it all.
Right.
So I think that's a huge challenge.
The joy is I just love seeing as a parent and then seeing other parents celebrate in their children, finding their passions, finding what makes them tick.
I think it's huge and other joys just like obviously seeing your children succeed and whatever they set out to.
That's a huge joy.
We're in a season of life now where I literally come home from work and Cooper has learned something new every day.
We went for a walk just before this podcast and we were walking past this lady with her dog and Cooper stops riding his bike and he says, Hi, what's your dog's name?
She's like, Oh, this is Caesar.
He's like, OK, well, this is Zona and Sammy pointing to our dog.
Yeah.
And he's like, See you later.
I mean, how much joy do you feel with that?
It's like so awesome.
Joy and a little bit of pride there, Papa.
Yeah, he's very smart.
Takes up for his mom, I think.
But the joys, they're just nothing that can compare to that.
Quince and I have talked a lot about how, speaking of the joys, when we lost Chandler, we knew we could feel how much that that loss meant to us because we knew the joys that came from Cooper.
That's incredible.
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And if it wasn't for our first child, you know, obviously we still would have felt an immense amount of sadness, but we would not have known what the joy of being a parent felt like.
Yeah.
And just the blessing that can be.
And when we got back from the hospital, Cooper still woke up at seven o'clock and still he's been traumatized.
But hey, so finding the joys in this season is really easy.
Yeah.
But when we choose to make whatever season life ran our favorite, that's a choice that we can make.
Yeah.
Glendie's an empty nest or mode right now.
It's like you can choose to make that your favorite.
Right.
Yeah.
And love on your kids from afar rather than right there at home.
Can I just pause for a minute, Mike?
And thank you.
There's not many people this close to a loss like you and Quincy losing Chandler.
Who would be able to talk about that or be willing to?
I know that was incredibly painful for you too.
And yet you're here and being vulnerable.
Thanks for pointing us back to the joy that you know Chandler's in heaven and that you've got Cooper.
So from that aspect, you were talking about the season that we're in.
What encouragement would you have for families or parents out there who are in a tough season?
What I would say is I really believe, obviously there's exceptions to this, but I really believe that parents and families are doing the best that they possibly can with what they have and what they know.
Maya Angelou has a beautiful quote that says do the best you can and when you know better, do better.
So the encouragement I would have is I don't see you, I don't know you, whoever's listening to this, but I know for a fact that you are doing the best that you can for your children.
And to that, I would just commend you and say thank you for doing that.
I don't want to gloss over the fact that there are broken families and I just want to commend the people who are living into that.
God calls us to do that.
And so I would just start with that encouragement.
One of my biggest pet peeves and Quentin and I both share this.
When you first get married, people ask you, oh, do you still love them?
What?
Yeah, just like jokingly, right?
Or like when you first have a kid, they're like, oh, just wait until they're not sleeping.
And it's like people, this is hard work.
You know, I get it's a good fun.
But I just wish people could just encourage more and just be like, hey, you're killing this.
This is a really hard job.
And I just wish people could hear that more of like, you know what?
You're doing an absolute best you can.
And I think, you know, I talked about social media pressure with kids.
It's the same with parents.
When you flip this thing on, it's like, well, your kids shouldn't be eating that.
They shouldn't be watching that.
You know, they shouldn't be doing that.
You shouldn't be parenting.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's all over the place.
Yeah.
And the wealth of information can be good, but I think it's also just good to hear.
You're doing the best you can with what you have.
And I really believe that.
That's all we can ask for, right?
The best you can.
Yeah.
I was kind of thinking through the lens of somebody out there who doesn't have kids at home.
What an incredible encouragement.
Whether you are a grandparent, whether you are single, how cool to look at the families around you and to really encourage a parent.
It's not easy.
Do you guys listen to Ben Rector ever?
Elizabeth listens to everything.
So Ben Rector is my favorite artist and he's got this song called The Men That Drive Me Places.
Just talking about humility.
I just would like to read some lyrics because I think it's applicable to families as they're going through this.
What it says is, isn't that just the way it goes?
You're dealt a good hand and you get celebrated.
How am I the only one who knows I'm half the man of the men that drive me places?
Then he goes on to say, I think this is the bridge, Quincy would know, but whatever.
It's just the next section of the song.
Everything's not given.
I work hard to make a living, but I'll give credit where I think the credits do.
Maybe you got dealt a good hand.
Maybe you play it the best that you can, but I don't know how far I'd walk without these cards, he says, and Howard or Denny's working shoes.
I just think it's such a beautiful reminder that we don't know the battles that other people are going through.
And you know, when I look back on my life, I have been dealt a good hand and I don't deserve that at all.
And I think if we can just rally around each other that are going through this whatever season you're in, like, hey, I see you and I'm giving good credits.
And I'm not saying that people don't work hard for what they have and all of those things.
But man, just we don't know what people are going through.
So I guess that would be the encouragement.
You're doing it.
What an incredible place to wrap this up on.
We can all say that to each other.
I see you keep going.
Elizabeth, any final thoughts?
I love what you said about the seasons that people are in and that we need to support people in those seasons.
And I know that in the Life Renovation Podcast, we're going to cover a lot of hard topics because that's where renovations mostly need to happen.
But in covering those hard topics, it doesn't mean that that's the only thing that people are going through.
So as you keep listening to this, we don't want this to be a downer of a podcast.
We just want to encourage people that whatever season you're in, whether you're parenting, whether you're empty nesters, whether you're single, there is work to become a better person and that there are people around you that can support you in that.
And so that's our heart for this podcast.
Thank you for joining us today.
If you guys would like it and rate it and share it with your community, that would be amazing to get the word out.
We'll be back with another episode soon.
Until then, see you.
Bye.
See you.
Bye.
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