Catholic therapist and author of “Beyond the Birds and the Bees,” Dr. Greg Popcak sits down with Trent to talk about how to raise sexually whole and holy kids.
Welcome to the Counsel of Trent Podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
I have front-loaded the episodes here for September, because I know I’m going to have my hands full with baby John Paul, baby John Paul Horn. I put this episode together while we were still just a few weeks away from the little guy being born. I’m so excited. We have not had a baby in the household. Well… Some of my children act like little babies every now and then, they’ll always be my babies. But we haven’t had an actual infant in the home for an extended period of time in over three years, so excited for that. But I figured with my hands being full it’d be good to have some episodes on the deck ready to go. And speaking of children, you’ll enjoy this interview I did with Dr. Gregory Popcak on how to talk to kids about chastity. And by the way, if you’re a premium subscriber at trenthornpodcast.com, go to the podcast website, trenthornpodcast.com, if you’re a premium subscriber, I have bonus content there for you. A chapter from the audio book Made This Way I co-wrote with Leila Miller, which also covers some of these topics, is available there for you. If you want access to those kinds of bonus content, the ability to submit questions for mailbag episodes, to discuss episodes in the comments section, a lot of great stuff, be sure to go to trenthornpodcast.com, where for as little as $5 a month you get access to this bonus content. Now without further ado, here is part one of my interview with Dr. Popcak. Part two will be up on Thursday.
Trent Horn:
And today I’m speaking with Dr. Gregory Popcak, the executive director of the Pastoral Solutions Institute, which is an organization dedicated to helping Catholics find faith filled solutions to tough marriage, family, and personal problems. He’s the author of over a dozen popular books and an expert on the practical applications of theology of the body. So Dr. Popcak, welcome to the show.
Dr. Greg Popcak:
Great to be here.
Trent Horn:
All right. Why don’t we get started? Just tell us a little bit more just about yourself and how you came to be involved in the current work that you’re involved in.
Dr. Greg Popcak:
Sure. Well, I was in a private practice as a just general kind of run of the mill psychotherapist. And in 1999, I had my first book, For Better Forever, A Catholic Guide To Lifelong Marriage come out. And at that point I had started getting calls from Catholics who were looking for faithful approaches to marital counseling, and I didn’t have any place to send them. So I thought, “Well, I’ll do some work on the telephone.” Because of some writing I’d done before, I’d had a few sessions with people on the phone before, and I thought, “Well, this will be my bit for the church,” two, three sessions a week or whatever. And within six months I had to close my face to face private practice and have been doing exclusive telephone counseling ever since. Now I have four associates that work with me full time, and we’ve done almost 20 books and programs actually when you consider second editions all that. And my wife and I cohost More To Life Radio, which is on every day at noon Eastern on about 40 different stations around the country.
Trent Horn:
Great. And in 2012, you and your wife, Lisa, coauthored a book called Beyond the Birds and the Bees, Raising Sexually Whole and Holy Kids. So what motivated you two to write this particular book?
Dr. Greg Popcak:
Well, actually this was a second edition, a sort of revised and expanded edition of Beyond the Birds and the Bees that came out in 2003 through Our Sunday Visitor and Ascension Press wanted us to do an updated version and so took it over from Our Sunday Visitor and re-released it then with all kinds of new information in it and sort of completely retooled, considering the new research that was available on moral development in children, and in particular how our brains make good, healthy, moral decisions and how parenting can help the moral brain develop to its full potential. So really the point of the book isn’t just to talk to kids about sex or raise sexually whole and holy kids, it’s really about raising moral kids. It’s about raising kids from toddlerhood through young adulthood and we do take that developmental approach looking at each of those stages and everything in between on how to make good moral choices so that your kids can do the right thing and be loving people even when you’re not breathing down their necks.
Trent Horn:
Well I think that’s definitely a good insight because I think a lot of parents, maybe they search and find your book online and their reason is just, “Oh no, it’s time. It’s time to have the talk. It’s time to have the talk.” But I think that your approach, what you say, and I really enjoyed reading through your book just starting out saying, “Well look, this goes beyond just the talk, beyond just our sexuality. In order to help to raise our kids to be good moral people, we as parents ourselves have to model that.” So what are just some things that parents often don’t get when it comes to that regard that they need to work on and modeling for their children even long before the talk ever comes up?
Dr. Greg Popcak:
Well I think that a lot of parents really just sort of assume that everything’s going along just fine until now I need to have, like you said, the talk. And now I need to provide information about sex and relationship and babies and all of that. What people don’t realize is that, and this is both a scientific principle as well as a position of the church, that sexuality really is a representation of the whole person. It’s the way I communicate my whole personhood to another whole person. And so in order for me to have a healthy sexuality, I’ve got to be a healthy, well-formed person in every dimension of my life. It’s not just about knowing the rules, it’s about how able I am to relate in healthy ways to other people, how I am able to be vulnerable in healthy ways with other people, how empathic I am, how much I really reflect on how my behavior affects you and vice versa, how really just tuned in I am to the need for me to use my gifts and talents to work for your good, and to really sort of see that… and be the kind of person that’s looking for opportunities to do that all day long. I talk about eight different qualities, we talk about eight different qualities, in Beyond the Birds and the Bees that help a child, really any person, have a healthy sexuality. Qualities like faith, like responsibility, like authentic love meaning working for the good of others, like joy, and several other qualities as well. Personhood is another one. Where if there’s any kind of deficit in any of those eight qualities, then you’re going to see struggles with chastity, because chastity isn’t just about keeping everything under lock and key until you say I do, it’s about being the kind of person who knows how to be fully loving in whatever context you find yourself in. How to be fully and appropriately loving in whatever context you find yourself in. So chastity orders all of your relationships, not just your sexual relationships. So chastity is really about the formation of the whole person, not just holding myself to some rigid rules and white knuckling it until the wedding day.
Trent Horn:
No, I think that’s so helpful. A lot of us, I think parents out there wish they could get that. I know it’s not the most appropriate movie, but you know, we get the chastity belt from Robin Hood Men in Tights, just lock and key and that’s all what it’s about. But what you’re saying is that by living moral lives that are oriented towards God, there’s a freedom from that and that’s what’s more crucial. So let’s dive in a little bit into your book and some of the topics that you bring up, and for parents of this who are listening who’d like to read it more in depth, it’s called Beyond the Birds and the Bees, raising sexually whole and holy kids and it’s available from Ascension Press. So we’re talking about this big picture, looking at how to raise children, not just having the talk one uncomfortable Saturday afternoon, but the big picture. And you begin talking about an acronym, RESPECT. So I really would like to go through with you each part of this acronym when it talks about how to raise sexually whole and holy kids. So let’s go through RESPECT. R, realize what your child needs to know and when. So what does that mean?
Dr. Greg Popcak:
Well, it’s all about being sensitive to both your child’s questions and perhaps the questions your child isn’t asking. I think we all to think as parents, “If my kid isn’t asking me a question, then I’ve dodged the bullet another day.” But we need as parents to be tuned in to what’s going on in our kid’s life and what’s going on in our kids’ friends’ lives as much as we can, and that means taking time to really talk with my kid and having that one on one time so I know their heart and I know what questions maybe that I would have if I were in their position and saying, “Have you ever thought about this?” if they’re not bringing questions to me. Then sort of delicately broaching topics in a way that leaves the door open for them to ask follow up questions without stamping all over their innocence. There’s a delicate balance there that I have to strike, but if I know my child, if I’ve put the time in to build that relationship and that connection, then I have a pretty clear sense of what they need to know when, and that they have a sense that whatever they want to talk to me about, it’s safe to bring up. As parents we often, we’ll say to our children, “You can talk to me about anything you want. You know that, right?” And the kid dutifully nods and then proceeds to go off and not talk to us about anything, and a lot of times that’s because we just really haven’t put the time in, that kind of one-on-one working side by side, playing with them, being with them, just as Pope Francis likes to put it, waste time with your children. We haven’t put that waste time into it. It’s that wasting time that gives kids the sense of us and lets them know they can approach us about these delicate and sensitive and embarrassing topics and come to us honestly, and that also gives us the sense that they’re not asking us things that maybe they ought to with all this stuff that’s going on around them that I notice right now. So we’ve got to realize what our kids need to know and when, and then be able to provide that information.
Trent Horn:
I think that leads in well because sometimes they may not want to be as forthright about that when they need to discuss these issues. So that was R. E, elicit your child’s thoughts, attitudes, and feelings. Now, why should we do that?
Dr. Greg Popcak:
Well, it’s always good to know where to start. I actually reference I think in the book a cartoon that Lisa and I saw years ago, I think it was The Born Loser. And the mom and the dad are in the frame and they hear their kid speaking outside the panel and the kid’s saying, “Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex. That’s all the teacher wants to talk about. Sex, sex, sex.” And of course the parents flip out and they’re ready to go to the school and start bringing torches and burning down the place. And the next frame, the kid walks in, “Sex plus one is seven. Sex plus two is eight. Sex plus three is nine.” So the point being of course that we often think the kid is talking about one thing when they’re talking about something very different. And it’s really helpful to get the lay of the land before we start marching in with our charts and graphs and PowerPoints, to be able to say, “Well, tell me a little bit more about why you’re asking that? How did that come up? What do you think it means?” And if I can just ask those simple questions to get the lay of the land, so to speak, then I can know what my kid knows, what they think they know, what they’re really talking about, what they need to know and I can provide thoughtful, helpful information that as I said before simultaneously doesn’t trample all over their innocence.
Trent Horn:
All right so that was R and E. S, speak the truth. So maybe not cabbage patches and storks bringing babies, is that where maybe we shouldn’t go?
Dr. Greg Popcak:
Well, yeah. And don’t hem and haw. I think the thing is that we need to really show our kids that our faith isn’t so weak that it can be blown away by a direct conversation about sex. We tend to get so intimidated by these discussions and we send the message, the unconscious and inadvertent message, to our children that first of all it’s not safe to talk to us, because they don’t want to embarrass us. They’re embarrassed enough as it is. They certainly don’t want to put up with our embarrassment and they don’t want to feel like they’ve done something wrong in bringing it up with us. And the more I go, “Oh my gosh, ugh,” the more I make them feel awkward about it. And then also since we’re tying this into our faith, it kind of seems like somehow the faith is making me feel awkward or embarrassed about talking about these things when in reality it should make me bolder to talk about these things because this is God’s creation. This is God’s doing. St. John Chrysostom used to talk about marriage and sexuality in his sermons and people would give him a hard time about it and he would say, “It’s you who are calling these holy things unholy and it’s because of your own sinfulness.” He kind of let people have it right between the eyes. Being a Christian and talking about sex means we’re going to speak the truth. We’re not going to be afraid to present what the child needs to know, how the child needs to know it, and not back away or back down from those difficult conversations. We can swallow hard, say a quick prayer, and then dive in.
Trent Horn:
And as we speak the truth, that leads into P. So what we speak to them is P, present a positive Christian attitude towards sex. What are some of the bad attitudes, even some Christians end up presenting that they shouldn’t?
Dr. Greg Popcak:
Well, in a different book, Holy Sex, Catholic Guide to Toe Curling, Mind Blowing and Fallible Loving, I talk about two false schools of Catholic sexuality. The first one is the “keep God out of the bedroom” school. That’s the school that says that as long as I say my prayers and contribute to the church collection, I can do whatever I want to do with my body. This approach that we take with kids would be the parent who says just don’t tell me about it. If you’re going to masturbate, do it in your room. If you’re going to have sex, then use protection, I don’t want to hear about it. So that’s the “keep God out of my bedroom” school. Then there’s the other school, which I like to call it “The Aunt McGillicuddy’s Antique Urn of School of Catholic Sexuality”, and this is the more kind of Irish Jansenist stick approach, which is also not really Catholic, but a lot of Catholics think it is, where sex is holy with a capital Holy in the sense of kind of its grotesque and gothic sort of way and it’s dangerous. And like Aunt McGillicuddy’s antique urn, we only touch it if we have to dust it and then only once a month or so.” This idea that sex is somehow this mysterious, dangerous, scary thing that is bad if you mess with it too much. The thing about either of those approaches is they’re completely divorced from a healthy, integrated Christian sense of the body and why God gave us a body. It’s important to really talk about how Christians really have the answer to what the world is looking for. You can even reference, you see a lot of stuff in the world, kid, in magazines, on television, whatever about people wanting love and they want connection and they seem to want it through sex. But they don’t seem to ever be able to get what they’re really looking for and that’s because we, as Catholic Christians, we have the answer for what they’re looking for. And what you’re really looking for is a love that doesn’t fail, that lasts forever, a love that’s freely given, a love that’s total, a love that’s fruitful, and a love that really enables you to feel better and stronger and healthier because you’ve experienced that love. Not a love that tears you down and makes you feel lonelier because you’ve experienced it. And so we have the real deal and a lot of people settle for less and the church doesn’t want you to settle for less. So let’s talk about how what we believe as Catholic Christians is a positive option to the world’s unhealthy alternative. I think that practically speaking, the other piece of that is having a healthy sense of what sin is. I just gave an interview with the Huffington Post before we got on the phone here and one of the things they’re like, “Well, what are Catholics not allowed to do?” was the question that she put to me. And I said, “Well, let’s back up a second here. Let’s talk about what Catholics are called to do instead.” “Sin,” I said, “Is settling for less than what God wants to give you. Basically that’s what sin is.” Augustine said it’s the privation of the good. But that means that you’re settling for less than what God wants to give you. So sin is sort of like going onto a cruise ship, staring at the huge banquet they’ve put before you, and saying, “I’m going to go sit over here in the corner with my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and my glass of water. I don’t want to have the banquet. Thank you very much. I’m good with.” We just settle for so much less. And so if we can talk to kids about sin in those terms instead of saying, “Oh sin is something that bad people do in dark alleys with Satan after midnight.” It’s not about that. It’s about God wants to give you so much and we don’t believe it’s possible for us so we settle for less, and that’s what the world wants you to do. So I’m going to talk to you about how to have everything that God wants you to have in love and especially in sexuality. And that’s I think ultimately what it means to present that positive Christian attitude.
Trent Horn:
It’s not the forbidden urn, it’s not the dangerous thing, it’s not toxic radioactive waste to carry in a hazmat suit, it’s something beautiful but to use in a proper way, which we will discuss here shortly. The E, expect to talk about your own struggles when and to the degree it is appropriate. So how do we walk this line between being on the one hand relatable, you don’t want to be so unrelatable to your children, but on the other hand not wanting to scandalize them? How do we walk parents through that?
Dr. Greg Popcak:
Yeah. I mean it may be just fine to say, “You know, I had to learn this the hard way. Nobody ever sat me down and talked me through all this or showed me the truth about Catholic sexuality. I made a lot of mistakes and I got hurt along the way, and I don’t want you to ever experience those kinds of things.” And if they say, “Well, what did you do?” You might just have to say, “Well, I’m just not comfortable talking about that. I’ve shared those things with my confessor and I’ve been forgiven for them and set free and those things need to be left in the past. But I want you to know that there’s more for you and just like I want to give you the best of everything, and even though I didn’t have it growing up, I want to be able to give that to you and God’s really shown me something that I wish I had when I was your age, and I want to talk you through how to do that.” That can be enough. In other situations with an older kid, you might need to get into a little more detail, but again, it comes back to that whole idea of if you’re building a relationship with the child where these conversations seem natural, which is really the hanging point for most families. I think most families really don’t have a good sense of rapport and relationship. They kind of think that family is a bunch of people living under the same roof and sharing a data plan. Family life is what happens when we’re schlepping the kids in the back of the car to the next important thing. We don’t take time to really get to know our children well. But if you’re putting that time in, you’ve got a rapport and you’ve got a relationship that gives you a good sense of how much you can share and how much you shouldn’t share, but you want to be off honest and authentic. Because I think that a lot of times parents are ashamed. They say, “I didn’t have this or I made stupid choices,” and they either buy into the kids got to be kids and they’re going to do the same thing, whatever you do, they’re going to do whatever they want. Or they fall into the kind of they like to pretend that they’re saints. “I’m perfectly perfect in every way and you should be too. And here are the rules. Follow the rules. Now go away and don’t talk to me.” And our kids know, they see through that. They know that we’re trying to snow them. So it’s fine to just say, “You know, look I had to learn this the hard way. I didn’t come to this naturally,” or, “I struggled with this particular thing and I had to work really hard and God’s really helped me through that and I want to save you from that.” Even that’s enough, but just being able to be real and honest about the challenge of living this out too.
Trent Horn:
You’re saying that this can be a helpful response, especially to parents who may have the attitude, “Well, look. Who am I to tell my kids they can’t do this or they shouldn’t do this? When I was their age, I was doing X, Y, and Z. So how can I have the moral authority to tell them what to do?” You say that this can be a good approach when parents have this kind of self doubt.
Dr. Greg Popcak:
What other thing do we do that with? Like, do I say, “Who am I to tell my children not to be raised in poverty when I was raised in poverty? Who am I to tell my children not to be abused because I was abused when I was a kid?” Who does that? But we do that when it comes to morality. It’s like, “Oh, well. I lived a completely dissolute immoral life and so my children should too.” What? Really? I think we want to give the best to our kids in every area, financially and temporarily and emotionally and spiritually and morally as well. It’s not hypocritical to want to do better and to want our children to do better than we did ourselves.
Trent Horn:
Okay. C, control your temper and the temptations to lecture. So how do we get over that?
Dr. Greg Popcak:
Well, a big part of that honestly while you’re doing E, eliciting your child’s thoughts and attitudes, and feelings, part of that is to buy yourself some time. Because you’re listening to them talk, but you’re also taking some deep breaths and you’re calming yourself down and you’re offering up that little prayer because initially what we want to do, that anxiety that comes over us around these topics makes us want to just kind of go off to the races and start nonstop prattling on about stuff. Or we want to shut down the conversation because I’m uncomfortable discussing this stuff. Or, a lot of times parents might walk in on a child who’s masturbating or who’s looking at inappropriate things on the computer, and then of course they freak out and understandably, but that tends to shut down conversation rather than opening up the doors to a deeper discussion. So just making sure that you’re focusing on the fact that this is really a process of discipleship and conversion. This is not something that you can fix by coming on strong, this is something that you have to address by coming up alongside of. How about that? You can’t come up alongside of somebody if you’re coming at them with a hammer. It’s all about taking that deep breath and remembering that the Holy Spirit is the agent of conversion, not you and not your words and not your emotions. So you take that deep breath and you offer up that little prayer, Lord, help me be who my child needs me to be and say what you need me to say. And then you kind of go in there. So talk to me, what was this all about? When I came in and I saw you on the computer, what’s going on here? What are you thinking? Going back to the eliciting your child’s thoughts and attitudes and feelings while you get control of yourself so you can come alongside and disciple them through whatever they’re going through.
Trent Horn:
All right. And finally, we have T. So R-E-S-P-E-C-T. T is teach your child what the gift of the body is for. And I think a lot of parents when they talk about sexuality with their children, a lot of times frame it as do this or don’t do this. How is the framework of the gift of our bodies, how is that different?
Dr. Greg Popcak:
Well the idea that God has given us, and this is the theology of the body, that God has given us a body for a purpose, to do something. What’s God’s purpose for the body? Well, it’s to build others up. It’s to communicate our love, it’s to do those things that make other people’s lives easier or more pleasant. One of the reasons we take this broader approach where we discuss sexuality from toddlerhood through young adulthood is that you want to be teaching this lesson to your early preschool children. God gave you hands to give me a hug and He gave you hands to help with the chores and He gave you a body to do things to make life a little easier and more pleasant for the people around you, to do those things that help you love and serve all of those in your path. And you kind of encourage that through having a healthy attitude about chores and having a healthy attitude about looking for little ways to try to be present and attentive to each other, both the siblings as well as with mom and dad. And you’re kind of doing this all coming up along the way, by the time you hit adolescence or say junior high, you’re able to talk to the kid about well, what does the gift of their sexuality mean? Okay, just like the rest of your body, you’ve been using it all these years to work for the good of the family by doing shores and by being affectionate and making the loving choice and all that. Well, sexuality is about the same thing. It’s about taking care of another person in a very deep and special way. It’s about using yourself in a way that communicates how much and how deeply you’re committed to and how much and deeply you love this other person and would never, ever do anything that would hurt them or would ever want to do anything that would hurt them and that you’re committing to always helping them be their best self. That special gift that you give that person that you’re committed to for a lifetime to help each other become everything that you were created to be and help each other get to Heaven. So that’s the ultimate way to give yourself to another person just like you’ve been giving yourself in little ways, by doing your chores and by giving us hugs and kisses and listening and being present and using your body in all those other ways to build up relationship all this time.
Trent Horn:
Thanks for listening everyone, and be sure to catch part two of our interview on Thursday this week. Hope you guys have a very blessed day.
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