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Orthodox Christian Parenting, hosted by Faithtree Resources Executive Director (and mom of four!) Michelle Moujaes, is a weekly podcast for parents and grandparents navigating the holy struggle of raising kids in the Orthodox Faith. Each episode offers honesty, encouragement, and practical wisdom from the Church—creating space to exhale, freedom from the pressure to be perfect, and openness to grow as you raise children who are deepening their knowledge and love of Christ.
Welcome to Orthodox Christian Parenting, where we bring the church's timeless wisdom into the everyday chaos of raising kids. I'm Michelle Mujaias, and I have a question I want you to sit with for just a second. What is the greatest but potentially most untapped resource you have as a parent trying to raise children who love Christ and his church? Have you ever thought about that? Is it more books?
Michelle Moujaes:Better home rhythms? Maybe a stronger parish community. Listen, all of those things matter, but I wanna suggest something that may be sitting right in front of you, something God has already placed in your life that you may be leaning into, but perhaps you might want to choose to grow in. Either way, this resource can absolutely change the game in raising kids who love Christ and who love the Holy Orthodox faith. It's grandparents.
Michelle Moujaes:We were never meant to raise our children alone. God's design for handing down the faith has always been multigenerational, and yet so many of us are carrying that weight almost entirely by ourselves, and we're wondering why it feels so heavy. Today, we're gonna talk about how to change that, and I wanna be honest. We're going to go to some tender places because for some of you, your parents are your greatest allies. But for others, it's complicated.
Michelle Moujaes:Maybe there are different values. Maybe there's real distance, or even for some, maybe there's estrangement. Or maybe your parents love your kids so much, but they're just simply too tired in this season of life, and the involvement that you hoped for just hasn't come. We're talking about all of it today, the beauty and the complexity, because the vision is worth it. The vision of parents and grandparents locking arms together around the souls of the next generation who have decided together this is the most important ministry entrusted to us.
Michelle Moujaes:To help us get there, I'm joined by Doctor. Josh Mulvihill. Josh is the executive director of church and family ministry at Renew a Nation. He is a pastor of nearly twenty years and holds a PhD in family ministry. And he's the author or editor of 10 books on parenting and grandparenting, including a book called biblical grandparenting.
Michelle Moujaes:He and his wife, Jen, homeschool their five kids on a farm in Minnesota where apparently they also raise cooney cooney pigs, heritage chickens, and a black lab named Liberty. And, yes, I had to look up Cooney Cooney pigs. Josh, welcome. I've been looking forward to this so much.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Yeah. It's great to be here. Man, this sounds your intro there, this sounds like it's gonna be a great show.
Michelle Moujaes:I can't wait to get into it. And I have to start before we even dive in. Let me just ask you, like, how did you end up here where you've really dedicated so much of your life and your scholarship and your work to this idea of grandparents pouring into the next generation? Like, how did you get there?
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:So I was in my mid thirties at the time, obviously not a grandparent, and, you know, decided I think this is something that could be a pretty significant help to a lot of people. And I did a little bit of research on how many how many grandparents are in America and how many of those would fall into, know, just really loosely into the a Christian category. And I found there somewhere around 60,000,000 in The United States alone, and then of those, about 30,000,000 would, you know, in on some spectrum claim to be Christian. And so you think 30,000,000 Christian grandparents with very little as far as resources towards them, and I thought, okay. This is a pretty significant thing.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:The average grandparent has between five and six grandchildren. So you kinda do the math in your head. That's a lot of kids that can be impacted by something. And so I kinda dove in deep, and I did what I did in my PhD was my dissertation was on the biblical role of grandparents. And it was probably the hardest thing I've ever written because I haven't you know, I couldn't rely on my own experience.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:All I had was Sure. The Bible and all the research that and there wasn't a ton of research either, so it was, you it was it was difficult. But what came out was it has turned out to be really helpful for a lot of people.
Michelle Moujaes:I love that. So okay. Walk me through it. With that as a backdrop, is there a vision for grandparenting of Christian children that you just wish everyone would know about and subscribe to? Like, what would that look like?
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:I I I think so. Yeah. So scripturally, I started with the question, what's the role of a grandparent according to the Bible? And the Bible's really clear on if you're a husband, a wife, a child, the Bible gets really clear on what those roles are. So husband, we could summarize by with the word head.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Wife, we could summarize with the word helpmate. And child, we could summarize with the word honor. Honor and obey your parents. I thought, you know, if the Bible gets that specific with those roles, and if if God created grandparenting, then he also defined it. If God designed it, he defined it.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:So what what would that be? So I did an I did an exhaustive study literally cover to cover the Bible, and I summarized that with the word heritage. So those four h's, head, helpmate, honor, and heritage. Grandparents are called by God to pass on a heritage of faith in Christ to the next generation. So kind of the idea of making disciples.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:And when I say that, it sounds really basic, but my research through my PhD stuff found that only about one out of four Christian grandparents that that's actually the kind of purpose that they have for their own grandparenting. They would be doing other things with their time and energy and attention. So how do how do I engage with my parents and their grandparents to partner together in the faith formation of of of our children, and, the Bible gets really specific about that.
Michelle Moujaes:So I grew up in a household where our grandparents were, you know, our whole world. They were our king and queen of our family, the matriarch and patriarch, and had quite a bit of influence over both my brother's spiritual life, my spiritual life, and I would say all of their grandchildren, all of our cousins, their children. They left a strong heritage, to use your word, that formed us. But now as I look with my own kids who are enjoying that, thank God, with both they have no grandfathers, but both my husband and I have lost our fathers. But with both their grandmothers, super entrenched in that.
Michelle Moujaes:But I couldn't actually tell you what it is that's making that a success other than they see them praying, they are invested in relationship with their grandkids, and there's time spent there. But when we talk to our audience, there's a huge spectrum of kind of that grandparenting and what it looks like. You you have, some that are completely, I don't wanna say the word enmeshed, but maybe let's use that word where it's there's a super entrenched relationship, and then you have all the way to estrangement. And I wonder if you could walk through with us, like, how do you find this sweet spot for your family? Because I imagine it would be different for every family.
Michelle Moujaes:Correct?
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Yeah.
Michelle Moujaes:Is there, like, a picture perfect, like, this is what it should be, and so do these things? Help help us understand a little bit. How do you find that sweet spot?
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Well, grandparenting takes two to tango because you have to you know, it's a partnership between an adult child and the grandparents, and it's, you know, it's typically relationship based. The strength of the relationship, it's trust based. And so if there are relational challenges, of course, that trickles down into grandparent engagement with grandchildren. And so, you know, largely, often it's even the the mother or the the mother-in-law, you know, that relationship between the ladies ends up dictating and driving a lot. As far as the percentage, my guess is 25 to 35% are you know, engagement's great, and it's pretty healthy, and there's you know, generally, it's a it's a solid engagement.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:I I've never I've been speaking on this now for, I don't know, close to fifteen years, and I regularly ask groups that I'm with, how many of you raise your hands if you have a prodigal child or grandchild, and I've never once ever ever had a group with less than 50% of their hands go up. Wow. It is is a it's an epidemic. And then you mentioned the estrangement piece that's growing more and more today, and that's happening often because of different political beliefs, different you know, it might not even be major stuff in in previous generations. A lot of generations would have worked through some of these this conflict.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:But in our in our social media climate today, you can you can mute someone, block someone, unfollow someone with a click of a button, and essentially, it feels like that's almost been transferred to family relationships where if there's just something that we don't like on some level, we we, you know, that gets played out. Now there are there are some legitimate reasons, and if there's an estrangement situation that's experiencing your family, people don't typically get estranged for no reason. So the question is why? It takes a level of humility to really get to the bottom of this. And I would just say that, you know, we could talk a lot about that topic if you want in greater depth.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:But reconciliation is always the goal. Maintaining a relationship and an openness there, even if there's a lot of conflict and things are kind of dicey, is always the encouragement. So, you know, the relationship might be surface y or there might be topics that are touchy. But as long as there's an openness in the sense that the relationship still exists in some capacity, there's always hope that God can restore and renew. And if there is truly some issues that are really I I like to differentiate between difficult and destructive relationships.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Difficult relationships need they need grace. They need the the one anothers of the Bible. Destructive relationships really probably need some pretty significant boundaries because we do need to protect family if it's, you know, I will just say like an abusive kind of relationship. There does need to be some boundaries there to protect so it doesn't create all kinds of other issues within a family system. And so but those tend to be less the norm, and it's a process, I feel like, of conversations to get to that point with a family.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:You know, I would encourage Christians, we we're not we don't cancel like the culture does. We we always wanna give the benefit of the doubt. It's amazing what the words I'm sorry can do in a relationship, and I would encourage typically, it's not a one-sided affair if there's a lot of conflict. There typically is, you know, some share of that for all parties. And if there is, you know, if there's if there's an estrangement situation or just a lot of relational tension, what would the I sorry look like for you?
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Or what would that what would that mean in the relationship? And it's amazing sometimes how that creates a reciprocal response. Not always, and that doesn't, you know, that's not they're not magical words that heal everything, but but it's amazing what that can do sometimes.
Michelle Moujaes:I love that. I I read a statistic that said, it was from AARP, and they said one out of ten grandparents was estranged from their grandchildren, and that was in 2019, so pre COVID. And then just a year later, I read some research from Cornell that said twenty seven percent were estranged. And I do think to your point, politics, social media, kind of this onslaught of everyone's opinions have played such a huge role. But what you said, I just wanna drill down for our audience because I think it's worth repeating, which is we've gotta discern between difficult relationships, which every relationship is different difficult.
Michelle Moujaes:I mean, my husband deserves an award. I'm a huge lift, but difficult is not destructive. And so I think that's a great call out that we really have to think through if we always have to set a boundary. Right? Where do we give grace?
Michelle Moujaes:Where you know, in the Orthodox church, we're all about forgiveness and repentance and humility, and those things I think can buy us a lot of exhale in relationships. So I think that's amazing. I love it. So what would that look like if you were a parent? And I really do think that parents were kind of the gatekeepers.
Michelle Moujaes:And the moms you you made a call out between the mom and the mother-in-law is like, you know, there's a lot of weight in what the relationships will look like based on the women in a household. I do think that's true. But what would we do if we wanted to nail it? Just rock it and be so good at navigating even the difficult times.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Yeah. There's a I'll call it the secret question, and this could be initiated from adult children to parents or grandparents down to adult children. I like to call it the talk, and it simply is grabbing coffee, get together for a meal. If long distance is there, you you know, can't get in same proximity, a phone call, works. But the secret question for the talk is simply this, how can we help or how can you help?
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:And it's a nonthreatening kind of question for all parties involved. My encouragement is say yes if it's at all reasonable. Aim for easy wins that, you know, you don't want a bad experience early on where, let's say, grandparents are watching grandkids, and it's just a bad experience for everybody.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. It's a
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:crash and burn, and then, know, then kids, of course, are like, I don't wanna do that again. And so it's just it's those easy wins. It's small stuff. But sometimes I think this gets into the realm of explaining, you know, what are what are what are we trying to accomplish as parents with our kids? Where are areas that we're just feeling the weight as parents, and it would be nice to have some added support.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:And the great thing for grandparents, if you you know, if you're a grandparent that's listening, time equals influence. And time is is the mechanism by which you gain trust, you get to be part of life, and then it's and then as you're just doing life together, those become the Deuteronomy six opportunities where, you know, we ask as kids, hey, dad or mom, what do you think about, you know, those kinds of you know, we're having a life decision or we're dealing with this thing with one of our kids and, you know, I'd love your wisdom on this this topic, dad. What do you think? Or you're just there with grandkids as they're walking through life, and it's those opportunities to speak into just to be part of in real time. So time equals influence, and, you know, you might feel like sometimes, well, I don't know if I wanna help with, like, the home repair thing or the babysitting thing.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:And we have questions about how do you navigate these these times of life. We're all facing new parenting things for the first time, and it's just really helpful to have the engagement of grandparents in life to speak into, you know, into all those areas. So so that'd be my encouragement. How can we help? See what individuals say.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Do whatever you can to say yes if at all reasonable. I feel like, you know, this is the season for a lot of grandparents of its availability. You have availability. I know many grandparents are still working, but many aren't. And many have many have flexibility that we don't have in this season of life.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:You know, I'm I'm working. We can't travel very easy. We've got a pretty busy family schedule with five kids, and so just the availability is huge for younger families. And I'd I'd say one last piece I'll say to this, be an encouragement to if you're listening to this as a grandparent to your adult children, you know, they're looking for even though, you know, I'm almost 50, I'm looking for the affirmation of good job, Josh. You're doing a great job as a parent.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Not in a, you
Michelle Moujaes:know Yes.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Not in a sinful way. Don't affirm sin in your adult children, but affirm the the other wonderful things they're doing, and that'll, you know, that'll go a long way. We still want that as adult children, don't we?
Michelle Moujaes:That's so good. And it's actually one of the biggest gifts I know my own mother gives me when she says, oh, your instincts are so good on that, or, oh, you know, everybody likes to have a little bit of affirmation because it tells us that we're kind of in the zone. And another thing that you said, which I think is really important, so I'm gonna call it out for our audience so we don't miss it. And that's this idea that it does take two to tango. So for parents, invite your parents to have some input.
Michelle Moujaes:Invite them. Like, our kids always ask, you know, what if you don't like who we marry? That's a question they always like to play that game. And one of the things my husband and I always say is, we sure hope you'll ask us before you get ready to marry someone. Like, we hope you'll invite our wisdom and know that we love you and we want you to be happy and so that it won't, you know, be a conversation that's lacking.
Michelle Moujaes:So in the same way, I think it's important for us as adults to invite our parents to share their wisdom or their life's lessons. And then on the other side, what I heard you say, it's kinda Jim Burns. And if any of you in the audience don't know, there's a book called doing life with your adult children, which is a really great resource from a guy named Jim Burns. And what he says is grandparents or parents, make sure that you are mindful that most often unsolicited advice is taken as criticism. And so be patient.
Michelle Moujaes:You know? You know? I can see myself as a grandparent being like, what do you why are you diapering the baby that way? Or why are you doing this or that? And so I'm already prepping myself to keep calm and quiet with, the amount of unsolicited advice I offer because it it can be hard.
Michelle Moujaes:Right? It can be hard. So that's a great call out on both fronts. Let me ask you this. Is there a place where, you shift from just the support of a family, which grandparents can bring so beautifully and really lean into the spiritual discipling of the next generation?
Michelle Moujaes:Like, what does that look like?
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:I'll tell you how my dad does that. He's been really intentional. And I like that word intentional. We talk a lot about moving from Christian grandparenting to intentional Christian grandparenting. Nice.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:So so those kinds of that kind of intentional deep conversation. Now it took a little while for my dad to get there. Obviously, my kids are teenagers. That would look a little different with younger children. But he does things like he'll take our my sons to granddads and lads, dads and lads.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:It's a weekend retreat. And so he'll when they hit about 11, 12 years old, he does that. And then he on the car ride up, he has written out his testimony, his faith story, and he shares that on the drive, and then he gives them a one page written copy of that. And if you go in their bedrooms, each of them have that displayed as a reminder of God's faithfulness in their life. And a faith story, you know, that's not the point.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:It really is the pointer to make God really great in the eyes of another person, and so it builds it builds their faith. Yes. He's just been really intentional with how he's invested, and it's taken a little bit to get to that point. Obviously, with teens versus children, it's gonna look a little different. And, you know, again, I'll say that this is a lot this is trust based, and I trust my dad a 100% that he's going to we've had conversations about, dad, these are the things that are important to us.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:These are the values that we want passed on to our kids. Please reinforce this. And as that conversation has happened, he said, I'm happy to do that. I'll just even share read a text that my dad sent to me just recently. One of my kids was going through a little bit of a a tough season in school.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:So my dad sent this text. I think it's indicative of the how can we help and what my dad's engagement intentionally has looked like. He asked, is there any topic or focus you would like me to speak into him, one of our sons, and come alongside you and Jen as another trusted voice in his life at this moment. And that so is
Michelle Moujaes:good. That's amazing. And, of course, as a
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:parent, I'm like, yes. Yes. Yes. And I responded with a long text back and things he could engage with. And that's been super helpful to us, to Asher, and my dad's been able to then engage in a pretty deep and significant way.
Michelle Moujaes:That is so, so good. But now the first place that my mind goes to is what if a grandparent isn't quite as, number one, spiritually, mature, or maybe they don't feel confident in their own knowledge of the faith to pass that down. So that's one issue I could see arising. And the other one is the assumption when I hear what your dad just asked you is that you're pretty close to like minded.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Mhmm.
Michelle Moujaes:But that's not always the case. So if a parent is in a position where they aren't quite as like minded, you know, especially in the Orthodox church, have so many people coming to Orthodoxy right now. But for a lot of people, that's foreign and new and worrisome for whatever reason. So how would you navigate those conversations if you're not on the same page?
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Find the areas that you are like minded, and I'm guessing there are. So whether it's help with finances, you know, our kids all growing up need good financial skills, and a lot of grandparents even that may be on different, you know, different value systems with other things could invest financial, you know, financial wisdom, relational wisdom, emotional you know, there's I think there's a whole big category of areas when we start thinking a little more comprehensive than than maybe your core doctrinal kinds of things.
Michelle Moujaes:Let me drill down on what you just said. So you're saying you find the areas of alignment. And as it pertains to the faith, even if you're let's just say a grandparent is not an Orthodox Christian, find those core doctrinal areas where you are aligned and start there.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Core doctrinal areas, life skills, character traits, I think all of those could be areas that could be, utilized as far as partnering with grandparents even if they might not align in some of the kind of core doctrines that we really want from a faith standpoint.
Michelle Moujaes:Knowing that reconciliation and being close and having an engaged relationship that's intentional with parents is always the preference. Culture right now, and I always take a shot at poor Oprah, not not a huge follower of Oprah, but one of the things that I know that she's been talking about a lot is estrangement and setting the boundaries. But now it seems like even Oprah's acknowledging it's gone too far. Is there a place where parents would wanna say, like, that's not reasonable? Outside of abuse or things, but as it pertains to the spiritual life, are there times where we would wanna kind of put boundaries or you can only hang out with grandparents when we're around because they're undoing some of the spiritual lessons you're trying to instill in your children?
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Engagement should still happen on some level. So Okay. We've had this with family members, and what we've done is, our kids can spend time with them when they're with us in the present in our presence. And so that tends to then be holidays and birthdays. You know, our big thing is if it's if it's hurting their spiritual growth and they are or they're living a very ungodly life lifestyle in certain ways, and you'll we'll get that more and more now in our culture.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Then, of course, we, you know, we we don't want that kind of lifestyle influence on a child, a very impressionable child. And so it's hard to have those conversations with, you know, the family member, but I think those are necessary. And it's hard to have the conversation with our child, which would be the grandchild. We can do that in a way, you know, we're called as adult children to honor our parents. So we want to have that conversation in a way that's honoring to our parents, but we still want to point out here, you know, they're making choices that aren't healthy or good.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:I mean, we could be that basic with a young child, and so we're and we still love them, but we, you know, just I'm extrapolating out what that could look like with a little little child. And we don't want to throw them under the bus, but we do help them understand. We want to live in a different way than grandma or grandpa are living, and so therefore, we're, you know, we're gonna limit. I have five categories I think that are helpful parents Oh, good. And grandparents just to have conversations about so that it avoids a lot of maybe a landmine that you walk into from either side unintentionally.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:So those five, I'll just throw them out real quick. One is is food. If kids are going over to grandkids house, have a conversation around what do you want your kids to eat, and grandparents need to honor that. If they're you know, grandparents are known for sugar, and some of that's fine, but in a day and age of a lot of allergies and food preferences, to have that conversation, it'll save headaches. Number two is media choices and what's the cell phone usage?
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:How much? Where can it be used? How much television? How much video games? You're probably gonna save grandparents a lot of heartache and headache have just having that conversation.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:And find a an agreeable, you know, what works for both. Number three is bedtime. What what time do kids go to bed? Some grandparents will let kids stay up super late, and of course, we get kids back and then they're all emotional and moody and for Tracks. A day.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Then we don't wanna do it again because it's like, I don't want this is painful for everybody. Fourth would be discipline. The more time that children spend with grandparents, the more there needs to be a discipline plan. My encouragement is never physical correction. That's only for parents.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:But their but grandparents need some option. So what would that be? Just come up to come up with an agreement what that looks like. And then number five is beliefs. And this is what kinda gets back to the question you asked previously.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Especially if there are differing belief systems, grandparents just need to know where those are, and the expectation is to reinforce what mom and dad believe. And if they're gonna go against that, they know that it's probably gonna have some fallout as a result. And I'd encourage, parents as well not to use grandchildren as weapons. Super painful for grandparents.
Michelle Moujaes:Yes. And and not that unheard of these days. Not that unheard of. Let me ask you. What about the alternative when parents are really anxious for grandparents to be involved, but there's kind of a lack of initiative for whatever reason from the grandparents?
Michelle Moujaes:You know, one of the things we hear is, like, I've done that. Now I kinda wanna live my life and do my thing or have my own. So how do parents navigate that intentionally?
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:I think all you can do is communicate a a desire or preference, do so in love and grace, invite, provide opportunities. Sometimes this is a long process. Either way, you know, you you had mentioned there's a kind of an underlying belief system there with some grandparents. The culture tells grandparents that their role is largely independence and indulgence. So independence, they're to live their life separate of their adult family.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:And then indulgence, their job is largely to spoil their grandkids, and they've done their stuff. So now it's their time to travel and play and rest. And if if grandparents buy into those two things, independence and indulgence, the engagement with adult children and grandchildren is gonna be limited, and it's gonna be on the periphery. And so largely, that's the the belief system that has to be changed in order for a grandparent to say, you know, I I am I have a greater purpose than those things in this life. And so some of that's part of what I've tried to do in some of the writing that I've done is to help grandparents recognize this really isn't a scriptural purpose that God's given to grandparents.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Some will some will be moved by that and others, you know, if they're let's call it what it is. If there's a level of selfishness that they wanna be doing, I don't know if there's anything sometimes that can move them beyond the transformation of God changing their heart. And so we continue to love, continue to invite, continue the relationship, and take what you can get, and sometimes that might be all. Yeah.
Michelle Moujaes:I like it. This one comes from David in Nashville, Tennessee. My dad walked away from the faith when I was a teenager, and now that I have kids of my own, he's back in their lives, but just not back in the church. He's warm. He's present.
Michelle Moujaes:He loves my kids, but he will openly say that he does not believe. My kids adore him. How do I let them have a real relationship with their grandfather without his skepticism quietly undermining everything we do and shaping how they see God?
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Well, I love that they have the relationship with him. I think that is the the private conversation with her father about that very thing. We you know, this is the kind of faith we're trying to raise our kids with. We don't want that undermined. Please, if you can't encourage that, then just don't speak negatively of it.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:And and if the, you know, if the relationship otherwise is relatively healthy and solid, I think it's great to let them spend time and invite them to invest in other ways. You know, they're my grandparents once that for sure wasn't Christian, and and so when we would get together, they they brought a lot of value to my life, just not in building my Christian faith. And so I think that can happen. You know, just be intentional around what that is and and some of the the things that you wanna ensure don't get passed along from your father.
Michelle Moujaes:Love it. Okay. This one comes from Natalia in Chicago, Illinois. And she says, I am the grandparent, and it is breaking my heart. My son and his wife had a falling out with us about three years ago over something that still feels so small to me.
Michelle Moujaes:Since then, I have seen my grandchildren four times. Four times in three years. I pray for them every single day. I send cards that I don't even know if they receive, and I don't know if they know how much I love them. What as a grandparent can I do when the door has been shut from the other side?
Michelle Moujaes:It's painful.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Very painful. I would tell them, you probably have, but if you haven't, I love you. Please forgive me. I would like a relationship with you. What can I do on my end to change things?
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Is there anything that I'm doing that is contributing to this situation? And those are hard questions to ask and sometimes hard to hear, but I do believe that oftentimes there's reasons that people distance themselves from others. And so I think we've got to ask individuals why and what what have I done? What could I do differently? You know, sometimes it's a lot of it's on our plate.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Sometimes it's not, but we never know unless we ask and that takes some humility. So I would start there and see where that leads.
Michelle Moujaes:I love that. I love that. And, again, it goes back to humility and repentance, which is, you know, so core to who we are as Orthodox Christians. And, also, it calls into question the whole difficult versus destructive and really working through, like, is this just a difficulty issue, and what can we overlook and give grace to and and forget about? Mhmm.
Michelle Moujaes:Right? I love that. Okay. Two more. Do you have time for two more?
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Two more sounds great.
Michelle Moujaes:Okay. This one comes from Melissa in Columbus, Ohio. I grew up in a home where my grandparents wore everything. They were at every birthday, every recital. My grandmother taught me how to pray, and my grandfather took me to the divine liturgy when my parents slept in.
Michelle Moujaes:I assumed I genuinely assumed that my parents would be that for my children, but they're not. They visit, but sometimes they forget birthdays. They're not unkind. They're just absent. And the hardest part is that my kids are old enough now to notice it.
Michelle Moujaes:My oldest asked me recently why Yaya and Papu, that's in Greek. That means grandmother and grandfather, never come around. I didn't know what to say. I've grieved this more than I expected to. Can you tell me how I stop wanting for something that may never come, and how do I protect my kids from feeling like they're not worth showing up for?
Michelle Moujaes:That's sad.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:That is very sad. Yeah. And I think sometimes this is just an expectation check we have to put in place that we long for certain things from certain people, and it just, you know, if it doesn't come, we can't do anything about it. I think that, you know, again, it comes back to a conversation. If that hasn't happened yet with your parents, I think that could be a conversation to have had.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:And if it has and and then those hard things have been said, of course, in love again, and it still hasn't changed anything, then, you know, then you keep the door open, but recognize, you know, I I don't know if it's gonna happen, and so then you you move on. One of the things that happened for our kids when we you know, because my mom and mother-in-law died, there was a season where there was not a grandmother influence, a godly grandmother influence. And we have that from Grammy Pammy now, but there was a season when we didn't. And we got we had an adoptive grandmother that adopted our grandkids at our church.
Michelle Moujaes:I love it.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Miss Nancy is her name. And if you go in my kids rooms, you'll see miss Nancy's picture up. You know, she had that kind of presence in their life. So maybe you pursue an adoptive grandparent, recognizing that your kids might not get that biologically, but that's part of why God's given us the church. He, you know, he talks about God places the lonely in families, the body of Christ of the family that we have together.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:And so it never can fully replace, of course, but it can bring pieces of that. And so maybe that's part of the equation.
Michelle Moujaes:I love that so much. And in the Orthodox Church, there is such a beautiful, like, multigenerational body of Christ. It's so so, at every level, you see young ones and old ones. And so I would just make a call out to seek out those people that are sitting in the pews. And if you are someone who's sitting in the pews, keep your eye out for ways that you can serve families that may be going it without, even if it's without grandparents who live close.
Michelle Moujaes:I know when we lived in, Oklahoma City for a few years, we had people at our parish who would just take us and our kids under their wings. I remember everybody knew, you know, auntie Tony was her name, and we were at Easter, and we were at every meal on a Sunday afternoon. And, she really did step in when our parents were not physically close to us. So that's great. Alright.
Michelle Moujaes:This is Carol from Boca Raton, Florida. I love my grandchildren, but I also feel like I already raised my family. I did so many hard years. I sacrificed. I showed up.
Michelle Moujaes:I poured everything I had into my kids. And now that I finally have some peace and freedom, my daughter expects me to be available constantly. She wants me at every event, every school pickup, every holiday tradition, and honestly, she seems to want me to be a second mom more than a grandmother. I feel guilty about it, and I feel guilty for even saying this out loud, but I am tired. Is it wrong for a grandparent to have limits?
Michelle Moujaes:And how do I have that conversation without hurting my daughter or making her feel abandoned?
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Wow. Great question.
Michelle Moujaes:I think that's more common than we might know. You know? I I think I think it's really interesting that there's so many sides to the story as you're navigating grandparents and grandchildren relationships. So what do you say to someone like Carol?
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:I'd say, Carol, you are living the life that a bazillion grandparents dream of. So first of all, count your blessings that you True. Have, like, open access and your your daughter family wants you to be part of their life to that degree. But I think it's you you hit the nail on the head, Carol. It's just a conversation about what's limp what what are the limits?
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:What's feasible for you? Come to an agreement on what what works for both them for and you guys and and and move forward. But I would I would couch that with the love you have for them, how much you enjoy being part of their lives, that you wanna see that continue. But, you know, what does that look like just in a healthy situation for you as well?
Michelle Moujaes:And I also think calendaring can be really helpful in a situation like that where it's if you have that dedicated time that, let's say, your dad has, where it's just once a week, they can count on it so that the expectation is kind of set, but it works for everybody. I do think that kind of helps families navigate around kind of the vacuum of intention. It's not that you're not you know, it's so easy to say, oh, they don't wanna be with me or they don't wanna maybe that's not it. So making an intentional calendar event, however often that is that works for you might be really helpful too.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Yeah.
Michelle Moujaes:Josh, this is so good. I'm grateful. Will you come back and tell us more?
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Sure. Anytime.
Michelle Moujaes:I love it. Okay. Tell our audience where they can find you, Josh.
Dr. Josh Mulvihill:Well, if you want grandparenting stuff, you can go to christiangrandparenting.com. If you want where I live is, renewanation.org, and that's kinda like everything for everybody there.
Michelle Moujaes:I love it. Thank you so much for your time, my friend. You bet. And thanks to you for joining us on Orthodox Christian Parenting. Don't forget to download your free digital discussion guide so that you can dig deeper on the important topic of grandparents as key disciplers for your children, either with your spouse or a friend or with your parent group at church.
Michelle Moujaes:And if you wanna help us get this podcast in front of more people just like you who are in the thick of it, trying to raise kids who know Christ, who love him, and who, God willing, will struggle to be like him their whole lives? Please share this podcast with anyone you think might be blessed by it, and I will see you next time.