Growing Pains Podcast

Today we are joined by our friend and former seminary classmate, Marcus Privitt. Marcus is a husband, programmer, Star Wars enthusiast, weightroom devotee, and former pastor. We dive right into a very controversial topic: how our generation defines (or has yet to define) masculinity and femininity. Marcus shares his own story of awakening to and growing into his masculinity, and his fears of how that will be received and perceived. We discuss the crisis of masculinity, including male mental health, and why Jordan Peterson has captured an audience of millennial men.

Gennie Musau is a former missionary, social worker, and college soccer star. She is an early childhood educator, wife, mom, and devotee of Law & Order: SVU. Gen shares how her career trajectory grew out of her sense of calling and God-given gifts, and how meeting and marrying Muoki ultimately changed the ways she chooses to live out that calling. We discuss the tension between having too many expectations (which risks disappointment), and no expectations (which risks a stagnant, directionless life). Gen and Muoki talk about the challenge of merging their goals for their lives and dreaming new dreams together.

Today we continue our conversation about the American Dream. Anne shares how her root canal led to a mini-existential crisis pertaining to the American Dream. Muoki asks the question, “What is enough?” We discuss legacy more in-depth, and what legacy means for our generation. We talk about the realization that we never “arrive,” and finding the balance of contentment without falling into complacency. We attempt to develop a working definition of the American Dream suitable for Millennials, and Muoki leaves us with a gem about creativity.

Music by Jack Holloway: jackholloway.bandcamp.com

In this episode, we talk about the Millennial boogeyman: the American Dream. We begin by sharing our respective awakenings to the American Dream and trying to define it according to our generation’s perception. Anne traces the historical roots of the American Dream’s mythology (spoiler, it has to do with colonialism), and we attempt to hash out why Millennials are resistant to it. Annie Dukes and GK Chesterton get a shout out, and Muoki concludes Part 1 by dropping some wisdom about legacy.

(Recorded November 1, 2020.) We continue discussing Muoki’s Wisdom Equation (knowledge + reflection + experience = wisdom), this time talking about what happens when reflection is missing from the equation, and how this relates to the 2020 election cycle. Muoki talks about Hush Harbors in the Antebellum South as places where enslaved people were formed by the Wisdom Equation. We discuss the multiple layers and dimensions of proper reflection, and how Millennials need new rites of passage. Langston Hughes and Dave Chappelle get a shout-out, as do our therapists.

In this episode, we are joined by our friend and former classmate Denicia Ratley, Director of Religious and Spiritual Life at Babson College. Denicia defines adolescence for us, and we each reflect on when we transitioned from adolescents to men and women. Denicia shares about being “a practicing Black woman,” and how identity is a dynamic thing that is meant to be practiced. We talk about living according to others’ expectations instead of living according to our own values, the importance of mental health, and how to develop and practice resilience.

Anne and Muoki introduce themselves, talk about their shared love and longing for dogs, and explain the origins of the Growing Pains Podcast. We talk about Muoki’s Wisdom Equation and the Dunning Kruger Effect. We discuss the all-or-nothing way that we Millennials tend to construct our identities, how we cultivate relationships that contribute to self-deception, and how to get ourselves out of this trap.

(alternate title: TL;DT: The Twitter Effect)

In this episode, we continue with Muoki’s Wisdom Equation (knowledge + reflection + experience = wisdom), this time talking about what happens when reflection and experience are absent from the equation. We talk about how this approach to connection and identity has proliferated due to social media (Too Long; Didn’t Think), and how it ends up resulting in isolation. We talk about the fears at the root of this mindset, and how to find the courage to move beyond those fears.

Continuing on Muoki’s Wisdom Equation (knowledge + reflection + experience = wisdom), we discuss what happens when knowledge is missing from the equation. We share our own experience of growing up in settings where our own, highly subjective, and suggestible experience became definitive. We attempt to tease out the difference between experience as a teacher and experience as the pursuit of an emotional high. We discuss how communities formed around this iteration of the Wisdom Equation tend to be fragile communities, and Stanley Hauerwas gets a shout-out.