Rachel Cram – What is family and how do we best care for one another?

Roy Salmond – How do we help each other flourish and what gives us resilience in difficult times?

Rachel Cram – From our earliest years to our last days, how we live life together shapes who we are and how we thrive.

Roy Salmond – And all of this happens in the context of family.

Music 

Rachel Cram – Well Roy, you and I have done multiple projects together before.

Roy Salmond – We sure have. Yes.

Rachel Cram – But, this is our first podcast.

Roy Salmond – It is our first podcast. And we both know each other so well. We know our respective strengths in our different fields.

Rachel Cram – You are an award winning music producer.

Roy Salmond – Well, well, well, well.

Rachel Cram – You are. Claim it.

Roy Salmond –  And you Rachel, are the Founding Director of Wind & Tide, a large thriving educational community. And you have about 3000 families that come through your programs every year.

Rachel Cram – We do and that is actually what led to this podcast. Because raising children is difficult. And even on marriages or partnerships, children are the biggest stress in family life. Which is kind of ironic because,

Roy Salmond – it’s kind of the fruit of our love for each other.

Rachel Cram – Well, ya, there you go. So as parents we need encouragement. We need to hear how normal our struggles are. And we need, we need a broadening perspective.

Roy Salmond – About what it means to be family to each other. Because family is not always just the nuclear family, it’s our friends,

Rachel Cram – it’s community,

Roy Salmond –  it’s our community, our colleagues at work.

Rachel Cram – Yeah. So that birth this podcast.

Sound bites of intros to guests…

• Our guest today is Australia’s Queen of common sense, Maggie Dent.
• Dr Gordon Neufeld, thank you so much for allowing us to come into your home.
• Dr Vanessa Lapointe is the author of the best selling book, Discipline Without Damage.
• Jamil Popatia, you are a therapist and a learned man.
• Musician and activist Steve Bell is an artistic purveyor of truth in both his.
• David Loyst is a speech and autism specialist.
• Dr. Malcolm gate is a renowned Cambridge professor, philosopher and poet.

Rachel Cram – I’m Rachel Cram

Roy Salmond – And I’m Roy Salmond and welcome to Family360

Rachel Cram – Conversations exploring life together.

Roy Salmond – We have had so many interesting conversations this year.

Rachel Cram – We have. Interesting conversations with interesting people, which has been our goal.

Roy Salmond – It has.

Rachel Cram – As we gather these interviews, we realized our guests fall into three key categories. We’ve had interviews with specialists and interviews with artists and interviews with storytellers. In this launched to Family360 we want to introduce a few minutes of each and we’re going to start with a storytelling episode.

Roy Salmond – Brian Doerksen is a well-known singer and songwriter for spiritually focused communities but this interview is dialed more into his family’s story. Alongside his wife Joyce, The Doerksen’s are parents to six children impacted by a genetic disorder called Fragile X.

Rachel Cram – They generously and authentically shared their story of birthing and raising their children in the midst of what they realized were shifting expectations and dreams.

Segment from episode interview with Brian and Joyce Doerksen…

Rachel Cram – When we start to raise children you can have a lot of hopes and dreams. And as your family grows those hopes and dreams will shift. Can you talk a little bit about how that process has carried on as you’ve raised your six children?

Brian Doerksen – Well the really big shift started when we had our third child and we started seeing signs that he wasn’t hitting milestones. That he had communication issues. And we found out that that was fragile X syndrome and that he would require support for the rest of his life. So that was, kapow. You know, you talk about a shift.

Joyce Doerksen – When we found out his diagnosis our twin girls had just been born.

Rachel Cram – So you had two girls and then you had your son.

Joyce Doerksen – Isaiah. And then, because it was very new, it’s the most common cause of inherited mental disability. Down’s Syndrome is not inherited. That’s the most common cause and fragile X is the biggest form of an inherited mental disability.

And I’m the carrier of it, which we did not know at all until after our five children were born. And they all carry different degrees of it. And it wasn’t until Isaiah that we found out that he as well had it.

Rachel Cram – So how did that land when that information became evident?

Joyce Doerksen – I think for me, when you have your child in your arms you don’t know any different. So of course your life just keeps going. But at the same time there was this crushing disappointment that we wouldn’t have a normal family, that our children wouldn’t develop normally the way we had hoped they would.

So it was definitely a big adjustment for us. Like I said at the beginning though, when they’re in your arms, you still love them and just who they are. So both emotions are still working together.

Brian Doerksen – There’s so much processing and shifting of expectations. You know, my dad’s in his 80s and I’ll go have breakfast with him and we talk about philosophy and life and you know, we’re we’re thinking. You know, I have dreams I’m gonna have a son I want to be able to do that with my son when he grows up and all of those expectations come crashing to a halt when you get a diagnosis like this. But like Joyce has said, when you look them in the face or you hold them to comfort them or whatever, you just love them. And you accept who they are.

So you have incredible joy being with them and then you also have the weight that for the rest of their life they’re going to require full time support. So you have to manage all of those things. You have to factor in their unique situation into every decision you’re making.

Musical ending to first interview segment 

Rachel Cram – Poet Emily Dickinson famously remarked, “Tell the truth but tell it slant.” And artists bring their unique perspective to our life together. Marcus Mosley is an award winning singer songwriter and producer. He grew up in the southern states under the oppression of racism and poverty.

Roy Salmond – His childhood shapes his artistic and civil commitment to seeing commonality into appreciating diversity. Here’s the opening segment to our interview with Marcus Mosley.

Segment from episode interview with Marcus Mosley…

Rachel Cram – Marcus, thank you so much for coming into the studio today.

Marcus Mosley – Thank you for having me.

Rachel Cram – I’m really looking forward to this conversation.  Now, as I was preparing for this interview, I have discovered you as somebody who I believe has a deep desire for bringing unity between people. But at the same time you have quite a diverse background, so I’m looking forward to digging into that. So you are a singer, an actor, a writer, a producer.  You lead and a 60 voice choir and you were recently inducted into the Entertainment Hall of Fame.

Marcus Mosley – Wow

Rachel Cram – It is Wow, isn’t it?

Marcus Mosley – Who is that guy?

Rachel Cram – Well it’s a pretty awesome guy. But then you’ve also been a chaplain during the Vietnam War, working with people with drug addictions. And you were homeless.

Marcus Mosley – I was. Yes.

Rachel Cram – So you’re complex.

Marcus Mosley – Yeah yeah. One of my favorite quotes from Maya Angelo, it’s a phrase from Terrence Africanas, he was an African who was enslaved back in the 13th century, I think. And he bought his freedom and became a free man. But he said, “I am human, therefore, nothing human is alien to me.” And that’s my mantra in many ways. Anything that comes out of your heart can come out of mind. Both good and bad. That’s our commonality.

And when we can see that, then we can begin to relate to each other. When I can see that there is nothing, I can never point my finger at you and say, “I would never do that,” because that’s in me. But the thing is is to choose another way.

So rather than judging say, “Okay, I got that in me. How do I respond.”

Rachel Cram – Well, you have a lot in you because you’ve experienced a lot. So,

Marcus Mosley – 66 years.

Rachel Cram – Are you 66?

Marcus Mosley – Yes.

Rachel Cram – Okay, well just for the listening audience, you do not look like your 66. I would say like 50.  But anyways, I am going to start

Marcus – Oh stop, stop.

Rachel Cram – Marcus before we go into all these conversations, can I start with an opening question that we use just to give a background to who you are? Are you ready? You’re breathing deeply. Here’s the question, Aristotle stated, “Give me a child until they’re seven and I will show you the adult. Is there a story or experience from your childhood that has shaped the adult that you are today?

Marcus Mosley – Yeah, when you mentioned this before I had a couple of things that came to mind and I’ve been sort of vacillating back and forth. But the one that keeps coming and it wasn’t exactly at 7, it was a little bit earlier,

Rachel Cram – That’s ok.

Marcus Mosley – but I lived on a farm when I was a child and I never knew my biological father. He and my mom separated before I was born. But she had another partner and he was my, quote, stepfather. And I remember as a child trying to figure out how to bond with him. But I didn’t know how to do that.
Rachel Cram – We were not even aware that you were trying to do that?

Marcus Mosley – Yeah, yeah, I was.  Yeah I was trying to get close to him. And this is in pre-civil-rights Texas. So it was Jim Crow Texas. Very dangerous. Very hostile place.

We lived in a little one room shack in the back of this big white house. Nobody lived in that house. We weren’t allowed to live in it. We had to live in this clapboard kind of shack. I remember the day we put a hole in the wall and put a hydrant in to make running water in the house. That tells you how old and how poor we were. Anyway, to make a long story short, the house had two doors, a screen door and a regular door. And the screen door had a spring on it so that it would close, you know stay closed.

I remember sitting on the floor and in the little shack and my stepfather had just come home for lunch. He had been out in the field plowing and I’d worked up my courage and I remember calling him daddy because, I just wanted to

Rachel Cram – You want to use that name?

Marcus Mosley – I wanted to use that word. To call him daddy. I thought I was doing something special. And he turned it me and yelled at me and said, “I am not your father.” And he turned around and walked out the door and the screen door slammed. And I remember sitting there on the floor and some part of me broke and went up here above my head like an observer. And I began to live my life with that relationship. Sort of an observer, who was on the outside, looking in. And that experience, I think, has influenced and informed a lot of my journey of my life. Becoming an observer. Feeling on the outside and trying to figure out how to get in.

Musical ending to second interview segment 

Rachel Cram – Before we closed this pilot episode we’re going to play one last segment from a specialist.

Roy Salmond – Yes we are.

Rachel Cram – Dr. Gordon Neufeld is a world renowned developmental theorist and author of the international bestseller, Hold Onto Your Kids. His work is instrumental in what we’re discovering about a child’s need for attachment. He’s a brilliant and passionate communicator.

Roy Salmond – Dr. Neufeld explains, “Children do not experience our intentions, no matter how heartfelt. They experience what we manifest in tone and behavior.”

Here is a segment from our two part interview with Dr. Neufeld. We pick up just after he shares a wonderful story of how a parent engages their child through play.

Segment from episode interview with Dr Gordon Neufeld

Rachel Cram – So Gordon, you just made this statement about how we need to see and connect with our child. And you’re describing these very playful responses in how we do that. I’m wondering, is that effected by our ability as adults to be able to play ourselves? Do those two things correlate?

Dr Gordon Neufeld – Yes absolutely. You nailed it. And you used the word playfulness, which is exactly the right word.

Rachel Cram – Oh good.

Dr Gordon Neufled – That it is playful. Now if you’re play-less.  If there is not play in you.

Rachel Cram – Which often as a parent we fall into that state right. We become all function.

Dr Gordon Neufeld – But what does that indicate? That we have lost the place of play in our own lives. And that is hugely significant. That’s going to parallel with all kinds of other things; emotional exhaustion, with a sense of growing older.

If there’s any elixir, if there’s any answer to aging, it’s playfulness.

Rachel Cram – Why do we lose that?

Dr Gordon Neufled – Because we’re in a work obsessed world. It’s all about work. We think that work is about fulfillment. And of course there is no fulfillment in work. It’s about achievement not fulfillment. When you see a child engaged in play, it’s self-fulfilling. It absolutely is there. It’s present when we find our own emotional playgrounds.

I had to find my own music. I used to play piano for the sheer enjoyment of it, and then, and then, I lost it because of you know,

Rachel Cram – Structure.

Dr Gordon Neufeld – Achievement, accomplishment, structure. And I had to rediscover it as a playground for my emotions. Everybody has their bent. As a dancer in movement, as an artist, everybody has their bent. That becomes so important in our lives to find that. But if we lose our own playfulness, it won’t be difficult to see how important playfulness is.

That’s why sometimes it’s easier for grandparents, you know.  It’s just like, they’re finished with the work, right.

Rachel Cram – That’s why we should raise children when we’re grandparents.

Dr Gordon Neufeld – It would make sense from that point of view. I would say

Rachel Cram – If we were not so very tired at that point.

Dr Gordon Neufled – It would make a lot of sense. I’ll tell you, you’re a much different parent as a grandparent than you are as a parent. I think you have a lot better idea of your partnership with nature. Your job is to provide a sense of togetherness, connection, safety and so on and allow nature to do the rest of the unfolding. But when you start off as a parent, you want to do it right. You’re neurotic. You visit all your neuroses on your children. You know, your outcome based theory. All of these kinds of things. And it’s really hard to relax about it.

Rachel Cram – It is hard.

Dr Gordon Neufled – It’s really hard to say wow, you know, my greatest challenge is to put this child into the hands of nature and allow nature to do their work. And of course that is to preserve the place of true play.

Rachel Cram – It’s a lot of trust.

Dr Gordon Neufled – It is. And not everybody has that kind of trust or belief.  But it’s so easy to manage a preschooler when you’re playful. It is so easy.

Rachel Cram – But, during those years, especially if you have two or three or four kids, all in those preschool years, I’m listening to you as a mom thinking, “How do you find that though? Your own playfulness? How do you prioritize that?”

Dr Gordon Neufled – Well, when do your emotions come out to play?

Rachel Cram – I think with your children they do but I’m sensing you say it needs to be more than that.

Dr Gordon Neufeld – It’s a solitary activity.

Rachel Cram – And that’s a hard thing to find.  The solitary.

Dr Gordon Neufled – Yes. Have you developed a culture to preserve this in your life? So it happens on a weekly basis? It happens to a certain degree on a daily basis?

Is it when you’re painting? Is it when you’re drawing? Is it when you’re dancing?

See, so many of us are at work all the time. And now with the inbox and living in the digital world, there is no break from it. It’s never done. And so we don’t come to a place of true rest. And many of us are losing our place of rest even in our sleep. It’s that it’s not bringing us to that place of rest.

And by the way, emotions don’t rest when they’re asleep because they’re in charge of our dreams. They’re still at work. They’re also in charge of memory encoding. So we find the emotions don’t rest while we’re sleeping. They rest in play.

Musical ending to interview segments 

Rachel Cram – So that’s a brief look at our upcoming season.

Roy Salmond – And we are so excited it.

Rachel Cram – We are. We are. Well, we’ve just had such wonderful guests and we’re excited to showcase them.

Roy Salmond – Yes. Exploring life together with storytellers,

Rachel Cram – artists and specialists

Roy Salmond – and specialists.

Rachel Cram – We hope this pilot entices you to hear more of family360’s interesting conversations with interesting people.

Roy Salmond – So we’re going to give you a few details regarding the family360 podcast.

Rachel Cram – Subscribe and our first three episodes will come to you simultaneously, on Tuesday January 7th.

Roy Salmond – And you’ll find them wherever you find podcasts. Our first three episodes are, Child Psychologist Dr. Vanessa Lapointe,

Rachel Cram – who is wonderfully entertaining and also

Roy Salmond – so fun.

Rachel Cram – Very intelligent. Great conversation.

Roy Salmond – And singer, songwriter and activist, Steve Bell.

Rachel Cram – Who we loved. A very profound man.

Roy Salmond – And adoptee and athlete, Roland Taylor.

Rachel Cram – Who’s our youngest guest.

Roy Salmond – Who brings a youthful wisdom and perspective.

Rachel Cram – She does and she’s wonderful.

Roy Salmond – Our next, is the start of a two part interview with world renowned, developmental theorist, Dr. Gordon Neufeld.

Rachel Cram – Subscribe and it will come to you free every second week as new episodes release.

Roy Salmond – And we have a Website that is full of all sorts of interesting things.

Rachel Cram – Family 3 6 0 podcasts dot com.

Roy Salmond – Yes

Rachel Cram – You’ll find a little more information on Roy and I. And you’ll see a web page for each guest, including a picture of them, their bio, and a transcript of the conversation.

Roy Salmond – And the guests also have commercial offerings, like books that they’ve written,

Rachel Cram – albums,

Roy Salmond – music that they’ve produced and you’ll find links to get more of their product, if you would like.

Rachel Cram – And many of the episodes come with a free musical download because what happens is, while I’m interviewing, Roy is listening and he writes and produces music to accompany each

Roy Salmond – each episode. Yes, everybody is so unique and different. Also, we’d love to hear from you, our listeners. So on our Website is a link where you can write and ask us.

Rachel Cram – Yes, because we want to know, how are these episodes hitting you? What do you want to hear more of?

Roy Salmond – So we need questions and feedback and you can find that info at family 3 6 0 podcasts dot com.

Rachel Cram – So welcome to Family360.

Roy Salmond – Welcome.

Rachel Cram – We’re excited to journey with you.

Music

I’m Rachel Cram.

I’m Roy Salmond. And thank you so much for listening to Family360.

Family360 is recorded and produced at Whitewater Studios and is supported by listeners like you. If you have questions you would like our guests to address in upcoming episodes, topics you’d like to hear covered, or you want a free download of our music from this episode, please connect with us at Family 360Podcast.com. We’d love to hear from you.