TLP 432: Control Girl | Shannon Popkin Interview

When we do insert ourselves in these different ways, you know, when we make God's work into our work, sometimes we're producing slaves, not sons, you know, we're producing Ishmael's, not Isaac's.

The Problem of Control in Christian Parenting and Womanhood

Welcome to Truth Love Parent, where we use God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents. Here's your host, AM Brewster.

I'm so glad you're joining us for another interview edition of Truth Love Parent. We put so much time into producing these shows because the resources that I and the TLP review team promote are so incredibly valuable.

That's also why we go out of our way to give you free and discounted stuff. So enjoy today's show with Shannon Popkin and head over to our giveaways page to see what Christ honoring resources you can win.

Right now, you can enter to win a copy of Control Girl, everyone can get the Gospel Tech online course for 50 off until the first week in May, and you have until this Saturday to win a free phone. That's right, win a free phone, but only at truthloveparent .com forward slash giveaways.

Welcome to another Truth Love Parent interview edition, where we bring you some of the best parenting resources available today. There are so many people creating so many resources that it's actually pretty hard for the average dad and mom to decipher whether a book or video curriculum is going to be biblical.

Because unless you purchase it and read it, and unless you know God's Word well enough to rightly compare and contrast it with what you're reading, you may latch onto ideas that are unbiblical, all the while believing that because it was written by a professing Christian, that the advice is godly.

Now, I believe 100 in the priesthood of the believer and our responsibility to be wise, discerning, and test the spirits, but I also know that not everyone has the ability to read all the new books.

Therefore, in those situations, the best thing we can do is ask a trustworthy friend. Yes, any human being can make a mistake, but if you have a friend who's spiritually mature and who has, in the past, led you in the paths of righteousness, then listening to their counsel is a wise way to determine if a resource has value.

Well, we want TLP's review team to be one of those wise friends for you. That's why I and the rest of the review team dedicate as much time as we do to studying God's Word and reading books. We want to personally learn and grow ourselves, but we also want to be able to share those tools with you, and we hope that we've provided biblically trustworthy counsel for you in the past.

Not only that, but, you know, we like giving away free stuff and discounted resources, and today is no different. I have an author with me who has written a wonderful resource about a very real and very difficult topic.

Her name is Shannon Popkin. She's a writer, speaker, and Bible teacher who loves to blend her gifts for storytelling and humor with her passion for Jesus. Shannon regularly speaks at Christian women's events and retreats.

Inviting women to live like God's Word is, you know, actually true. It's crazy, but it's a great, you know, great focus for her to have. She and her husband, Ken, have been married for 25 years, and they have three adult children.

So welcome, Shannon, to the show.

Thanks so much, Aaron. It's so great to be with you.

I'm looking forward to this as well, but before we talk about your book, I just wanted to tell the audience just a little bit about how cool you are. I know, you know, it's weird, but just wait, sit back, relax.

This is good. They need to know this. Here's the story of how I met Shannon, OK? Normally authors and publishing houses send books to the TLP review team. But this time, Kara, a friend of TLP, sent me this book and suggested I read it.

Well, honestly, I fell in love with the book. So when Team TLP reached out to Shannon about coming on the show, they mentioned to her that an admirer of her book had sent us a copy. And Shannon's first response was whether or not there were any particular person that she needed to thank.

Well, she was so gracious and kind that she and I planned a surprise for Kara. I connected with Kara via Zoom, and then a few minutes later, Shannon joined the meeting and it was all squeals and excitement and edification and glorification from there on.

Out.

In fact, here's a picture of their get together. So again, thank you, Shannon, for doing that. It was so sweet. It was so wonderful. Kara connected with me again later to say how the encouragement from that conversation carried her through the next couple of days.

It was super fun, Aaron. Definitely a first for me. And thanks to Kara. So it was so fun to surprise you that day, but it was also just such an honor that you would recommend my book to Aaron. And I'm so excited to continue the conversation.

Well, you think about it, I mean, being able, like you read a book, it works in your heart by God's grace and through the power of the Holy Spirit. And to be able to have a chance just to kind of pick the brain of the person who wrote it was so cool.

I mean, I enjoyed it. I didn't really say it so much, but, you know, everything Kara loved about it, I loved about.

It.

So it was a double whammy for us. But as we transition now to talk about the actual book, there is this big, uncomfortable elephant in the room we kind of have to discuss, okay? You wrote a book called Control Girl.

Now it's got this great, fantastic, I just forgot the word I was looking for, a subtitle. There it is. Lessons on...

Subtitle.

Yeah, subtitle. Because that's a hard word. Control Girl, Lessons on Surrendering Your Burden of Control from Seven Women in the.

Bible.

And, you know, if we remove that subtitle, boom, Control Girl, it kind of has a little bit of an issue because from what I believe, what I've seen, you kind of just, by naming it that, made yourself the enemy of this massive cultural phenomenon in this world.

I'll give an example of what I mean, and I'm not sure if you've ever noticed this, but I've heard a lot of people wonder why on Father's Day the pastor will often kind of rip into the men. Guys, you got to be more godly.

You got to lead your families. Come on, you know. But on Mother's Day, all we hear about is how wonderful moms are. How sweet and wonderful and beautiful they are. And that's been this cultural phenomenon for as long as I can remember.

It's kind of like people are not allowed to say anything even remotely disparaging or critical about women. Now, I'm not saying that we should be tearing people down and being pejorative, but it's just like the idea that you would even be like constructively critical is just completely not allowed.

So for this reason and many more, when it comes to books, whether it's written by a man or by a woman, it seems as if so much of the content for women is affirming and edifying and upbeat as if it were absolutely heretical to suggest that women have struggles and temptations or that women actually, you know, would give in to those temptations.

And yet you go and write a book about control girls, women who are controlling. What on earth made you want to paint that target on yourself?

Well, you know, I I have said before, I don't think it was marketing genius to write my very first book on a topic that nobody sees as their problem. Right. And second of all, like if they do see it in other people, they oh, they don't feel comfortable calling that out.

And so I definitely, from what you're saying, I guess I was just glad I was naive enough to try.

And I'm so glad you did. So glad you did. But you're right, though. It's like, it's like, here, you really need this book. I can see how that would be just as difficult as.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't even know to even think about that stuff when it was my first book.

So.

And the publishing house went for it, too. Was there was there nobody there who was. Like, it's an interesting topic for your.

Book?

You know what? I'm just glad they believed in me.

I'm so glad they did, because if, you know, if it had been overthought in any way and people decided maybe not to go, I mean, it just we would have a treasured resource would not be available to us. But seriously, though, OK, so as we as we move from the the painted painted target on your back, what really was convinced you that that this was the topic about what you needed to write?

Well, you know, I was really looking for answers for myself. Erin, you know, God was opening my eyes to this problem that I had with control. And I felt like it was even helpful just to put language to the problem, you know, to say I am a control girl or I am simply controlling.

I want to control things that are not mine to control. Just, you know, getting over that hurdle of actually admitting and calling out the problem was kind of half the battle. And I, you know, I started seeing this problem not just in myself, but everywhere.

I was noticing it just, you know, I would go out for coffee with a friend and say, you know, God's really been convicting me of this control thing. And I'm kind of seeing it everywhere. And I would say, do you have any controlling women in your family?

And they'd kind of lean in and say, how did you know, how did you know? And there's just this irony because nobody talks about it. Nobody, like, I don't think I've ever been in a Bible study where someone said, hey, please pray for me.

I'm a very controlling woman. You know, we don't we don't usually put that language to this problem, and we certainly don't hear it out in the world. I have a Google alert set for the the the phrase controlling woman.

So I get these, you know, updates every time that there is a new release of a magazine article or a news, you know, something in the news about a controlling woman. And I find it so ironic, Erin, that I hardly ever get one of those where it's talking about a real life person.

They're always like movie reviews or a play review, you know, so we're very happy to talk about these controlling women who are fictional. But in real life, please don't ever call a real woman controlling.

And, you know, I just think that is not serving us well to never talk about the topic, to never put language to it, especially as Christians. You know, we need to really, I think, lean in on this because it is far more prevalent than we might recognize.

I wonder what you think about this. I would imagine that a controlling person could oftentimes be a bully, maybe not every controlling person is a bully, but I imagine that's kind of a character trait you'd find among them.

And perhaps maybe that's why we have such a hard time pointing out, regardless of whether it's male or female, because to point out to someone that they're controlling would be almost to invite that the bully wrath to come down.

Yeah. And so we'd want to tiptoe around the most controlling person in the room. We don't want to upset her. But, you know, a lot of times our controlling natures aren't as overt. They're a little bit more subvertive.

They're manipulative. They're kind of flying under the radar. And, you know, all under the name of good intentions, you know, the most invested women in their families or in their careers or communities.

And I think, you know, we don't want to, we only want to call out what's good, especially in women, because ours is a culture that wants to celebrate the liberated woman, right? We want to celebrate our freedoms and our, you know, wide open doors for opportunities.

And yet there is a restraint. There is, you know, there are boundaries that we need to hold ourselves accountable for, especially as Christians. I think our problem with control is acting like we're God, you know, like we're actually the ones who are in control and nobody who steps in for God does a very good.

Job of it.

Oh, so true. So true. And I promise you, we're going to get canceled for this video. It's just going to happen. Well, Control Girl, like I said, is an amazing book and we're going to talk about it some more, but I want the listeners to know that if they stick around to the end of the interview, I'm going to share with you how you can win a free copy for yourself or for someone you love who you don't want to tell them they're controlling, but maybe you'll package it up and hand it to them and then run.

I don't know, but how you can win a free copy. So stick to the end for that. Now, I've often have to remind my male listeners that I share the books I do because I believe there's value for the moms and for the dads.

As a dad myself, Control Girl was so insightful for me. And honestly, I really wasn't super excited at first of reading it, discovering whether or not I was a control girl, but I read it because Kara had sent it.

So, and I'm so glad that I did. And that's the whole point. I want the guys out there to realize that this was really very valuable because it's just as easy for me to want to manipulate and control my family into doing and being what I want them to do and to be.

So it may be novel, uh, to hear someone suggest that women struggle with these control issues.

Okay.

But honestly, women or men, it's inherent in the human condition, regardless of your sex. But I think control issues are even harder for parents. All right. And really, I guess I should say anyone in authority, because the idea is that it's our job to be in control.

So Shannon, let me ask you this question. I've received it a numerous times as a biblical counselor. Doesn't good parenting require us to be in control of our kids? I mean, don't we look at parents and we say, oh man, their kids are out of control.

What do you think about that?

Yeah.

I mean, yes, good parents maintain control of their kids. Um, as, as good parents, we need to invest in having self-control because, you know, if our kids are completely wild and out of control, that means probably we aren't doing our job.

But, um, I like to, to kind of use a principle. I call it the hold and fold principle. So if you can kind of picture your hands holding or like cupping responsibility for yourself. So we need to, as parents hold responsibility, but then fold our hands and surrender to God with all of the things that are not ours to control.

So how does that work with parenting? Well, I think when we get our little newborn baby, uh, we are as parents completely holding, you know, we're completely responsible for this child. Uh, and then as parents of adult children, we're, we're.

Pretty much doing just folding. Like it's not our job to pick out their clothes anymore or their food or any of those sorts of things. Yes, exactly. Uh, and so, but, but how do we move from completely holding to completely folding?

It's, you know, I think it's different with every child and with every situation, there are hundreds and hundreds of things that we move from holding responsibility as parents to folding and, you know, surrendering our child to God.

And a good rule of thumb is, is if your child is little enough to climb into your lap, you know, where you can hold them in your lap. You're still mostly holding, you know, you're still mostly as a responsible parent, you're choosing, you're making lots of choices for them.

You're instructing them, you're, you're taking control, but then when they get too big to sit in your lap, well, then you're, it's, you know, you're starting to work on this idea of folding and surrender to God's authority where God is their father and you're directing them more, uh, to him.

And, you know, I think it's, I, I now am a mom of adult kids. And when I look back and think of how short a time that I had, where I was the one completely in control, it's pretty minimal, Aaron, like it really flew by so quickly.

And I did, I did, I w I was a good young mom or a mom of littles. I mean, cause I liked to be in control and that was my sweet spot, you know, controlling all of the options. I was really good at that.

What I've struggled far more with is the letting go and surrendering and giving God control, trusting him with their safety and their choices and, you know, his work in their lives versus my work in their life.

And, you know, I, I think it's kind of funny. I think God could have created it so that our kids grew up a lot slower. You know, maybe they were babies for their first 10 years or whatever. I think he, he made them grow up as quickly as they do, because he knew that we needed far more work as parents in, in releasing control of our kids than we did in, you know, trying to take control, that's been far more of a challenge to me.

Well, I think that's a fantastic answer. And I love how you're focusing primarily on the positive aspects of control. Um, the things that we, as parents do have control over, you know, I'm, you know, making the, putting the correct amount of jelly on that peanut butter and jelly sandwich, um, we do have a level of control over that.

And I think that that's wise and valuable. But in my counseling, what I found too, is that there's this, um, there's this misunderstanding about what parents do control. Yeah, we control, you know, the diapers we purchase.

We control oftentimes what our little kids watch on the television. But there's one thing that no parent in the history of the world has ever controlled, and that is the other person's heart. We can't control our kids.

And yet so many parents desperately want to, we, we do what we do. We parent in the way that we parent, because we're trying to control their reactions, control, uh, their, their heart posture toward God and toward ourselves.

And that's just something that I think we all need to recognize that there will never be a time when God has given us the ability to control that. That is His to control. The only thing that we can control in that regard is our own hearts and our own responses to God, and we need to fit in there, but like you said, in those areas that we can control, even then we lose the control in those areas over time.

That's, that was beautifully put.

Yeah, I completely agree, Erin. I think we have this happy ending in our minds and it involves our kids loving God. Like that, we know that that's, what's going to be best for them. And when they're so little, you know, we, we, it's almost like this facade.

We have such influence over them and we feel like we know them so well. And, and we're just going to be able to create this happy union between them and and we sometimes forget, yeah, our hearts or their heart is not held by our hand.

It's really God's sovereignty over their life. And our job is to entrust them, lead them to Him, but entrust their hearts to God.

Now, one of the things I want to mention about Control Girl is that it is not specifically a parenting book. All right. It is, it deals with, obviously there's application to parenting and children, but it's not necessarily just for parenting.

If you are married, but you don't have children or you're not married at all, this book would be an awesome book for you. Most of the books we deal with, you know, are on parenting and marriage and things like that.

This is not, but oh man, oh man, are the applications there. And as you can see from what Shannon and I were just talking about, it's important understanding the control that God's given us and the control He hasn't given us.

Now, specifically about the format of the book, it's, it's format in such a way that you use multiple examples from the scripture about women who themselves had control issues. You use their stories and you help us to learn really valuable lessons about the consequences of believing that we have to be in control by teaching us the lessons that God taught them.

And I really saw your storytelling ability to come out through that. It was, it was fantastic. But I need to ask you, which is your favorite Control Girl account from the Bible? You know, which one is the most relevant and practical for you?

I love the story of Sarah Aaron. She just, I, I so relate to Sarah because she had this promise from God, right? God was going to make her family of two into a nation and she, she had the promise, but then she felt this urgency to take control and make the promise come true.

Right.

And the Bible talks negatively about the way that Abraham listened to the voice of Sarah and in the same way that Adam had listened to the voice of his wife. God, you know, said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and then spoke the curse over his creation.

And, and I, you know, I see that in myself too. I want my husband to listen to the voice of Shannon and what I have in mind rather than, you know, deferring for my husband to defer to God and listen to his voice.

So, you know, we as women, we want for these, these promises to come true for our families in the same way that Sarah wanted the promise of God to come true for her family. And there's this little scene where I feel like Sarah is just coming to the realization of what she's done.

And Isaac, baby Isaac is three years old now, and they're having a party. And he, you know, he is being teased by his teenage half-brother Ishmael. And Sarah's in her nineties at this point. And I just get the sense that she is looking on as her, you know, as the half brother is now mocking the true son of Israel and she's getting this sense, okay, this isn't going to end.

She, you know, she's picturing maybe I will be dead and gone soon. And this is, this is always going to be in play. This half brother is always going to be mocking and this inheritance entrusted to Isaac is always going to be threatened.

And that's when Sarah says, get them out, get the slave woman and her son out of, out of my home. And, and the irony is this was Sarah's idea in the first place. She's the one who introduced Hagar into the situation.

It was her idea. Abraham listened to Sarah as she's trying to make this promise come true. She has no children. She has no way to produce a child anymore. So she does what she has, or she uses what she has, which is this slave woman.

And she gives Hagar to her husband as another wife. She started out with this noble goal of wanting to make God's promise come true. She wants to turn her family into God's chosen people, but Ishmael is, is what she could do on her own.

Isaac represented what only God can do. And that's where the rub is for me. You know, as a parent, I want to turn my little family into God's, God's people also, and it feels like I can do it. You know, it feels like, Ooh, I think I can, I think I can put enough restrictions in place and I can teach them Bible stories and I can get access to their little hearts and I can produce these children of God.

But the reality is, no, I can't, you know, I can produce an Ishmael. I can produce a slave child, but those are not the ones who stick around in the family.

Of God. Yeah, I see this.

So true.

Yeah.

I see this, just this problem. Some of the godliest family, godliest looking families, I'll say, are those with a mom who's really trying to control it all. But really that's, that's a facade. We can't ultimately create sons of God.

This is ultimately God's work in our families. And when we do insert ourselves in these different ways, you know, when we make God's work into our work, sometimes we're producing slaves, not sons. You know, we're producing Ishmael's, not Isaac's.

And I think God wants us to recognize that this is his work. Even as we do our work, he is the one who ultimately produces true sons of God.

Oh, and that is something that we just need to really grasp. And my brain is going so many different directions because you said so many fantastic things just then. One of those is that if we're controlling people and we're trying to push our own agenda, then we're probably going to find ourselves later on having to be controlling people to undo the consequences of our first controlling, you know, attempts.

That's one really powerful thing that we think, I see. Number two, as a biblical counselor, and please listen, everyone, if you've been listening to TLP for long enough, you've heard me say this before, but I still need to say, you know, you need to hear me out on this one.

I understand that all human beings have a temptation to be controlling, okay? That's, I'm not throwing anyone under the bus right here and right now. But I will say that in the marriage counseling that I do, 80 to 90 of the time, we have a woman who is desperately trying to control the issue, who sees her husband as the problem and who doesn't see herself as the problem at all.

And again, generally speaking, the husband does have an issue. He's a sinner, right? Just like I'm a sinner. But it's interesting that the women so often come into it from the perspective of he needs fixing.

He's the issue. If we just get him on board, everything will be okay. Completely missing the fact that even that approach to the difficulty is revealing the fact that she's got a control girl problem.

And then the other thing I was thinking is that, um, speaking of throwing people under the bus, um, you don't just throw all these biblical characters under the bus and you don't, you actually do a great job of revealing the choices that they made.

And I love how Hagar herself ends up being a control girl that needs to be revealed as well, even though she was the victim in this moment, it's so great how you handle all of it, but you also deal a lot with yourself.

And as you were talking about Sarah, my brain, actually, I remember, I was really proud of myself. I read so many books, but I was proud of myself because I'm like, I'm pretty sure that's where she talked about herself and the kitchen edition.

Um, it was a kitchen edition, right? Or was it an addition to something?

Yeah.

Yes.

Tell us, give us a little glimpse into that because I think it was in that chapter where you talked about that. And that's kind of a story from your own life. Give us a glimpse into what happened with the kitchen edition.

Yeah, absolutely. So I just had this vision in my head. I wanted a bigger kitchen and I felt like, you know, my husband, like, Oh, Aaron, I'm so relating to what you're saying. I really thought he was the problem in so many of our early years of marriage and, and just really did not see that my desire for control was, was really injecting so much hurt and strife into my family.

And you are exactly right. I am still, as a mom of adult kids, I am still having to lay down, um, you know, just surrender to God and, and ask him to help undo so much of the damage that I've created and, you know, so many of the tensions in my relationships are due to trying to be in control completely and trying to be perfect in so many ways.

Um, so if I can just appeal to younger women, um, like just to, to take a look in the mirror and look at what this control issue is doing. Um, so yeah, so, you know, our house was, I, I called it our dream house when we moved in, but then I started realizing, well, the kitchen really isn't as big as I'd like it to be.

And so I was asking my husband, you know, come on, please. Could we, could we, um, save up for an addition? Could we, you know, could we add on? And he was just quietly saying, well, if we saved enough money and then there was this time where, I don't know, I think we got, um, an inheritance check and a tax return or whatever.

We got all the money that I thought we needed to put on this addition. And he took me out to dinner to talk about how we were going to, you know, spend this extra money. We play this little game with extra money where we, you know, I won't go into all the details, but we kind of collaborate on how God might want for us to move forward.

And my husband's idea at this little dinner celebration was completely different than mine. I was thinking, well, of course he's gonna, he's brought me out to dinner to tell me we're going to put on this new addition.

And he instead has this, he's all giddy. He's excited. He's got his spreadsheet and he's got all these different, uh, things in place. And he wants to give away a whole bunch of money to missionaries.

And I was so mad at him.

I'm like, do you know that it's not wrong for us to spend our own money? You know, and, and Aaron, I'm the kind of wife who I really want for my, my husband to hear from the Lord. I want for him to follow God.

Um, I really do. But in this moment, I wanted him following me. I wanted him listening to my voice, not God's voice. And, you know, so as I recall, we left the restaurant and there were stormed, you know, or doors slamming and stormy silence and it was a rough few days.

And, um, eventually God just melted my heart. And I just said, okay, come on, let's talk about this. And my husband said, could we look for a house that would solve the problem that you are wanting with the kitchen?

And so we don't have to go. He did, he really just didn't want to have the disruption of an addition being put on our house. And, um, it's just, it's not who we are. We're not good at making those sorts of decisions.

I think he could foresee this was going to create a whole bunch of tension for everybody. Um, and so that's, that's ultimately what we did. Uh, and we moved into a different house and God provided and, and, uh, but I, I think, you know, I just look back on me in that restaurant and being so angry because I wanted him to listen to me.

And I, I see that also with my kids. I want them to listen to me. I want them to do what I say. I insert myself, but the more I insert myself, I'm trying to create this happy ending, whether it's the dream home that I have in my, in my head, or it's the family situation that I have in worked out the details in my head and the more that I insert myself, the more that I come in and try to take control, uh, out of the hands of other people, the more miserable, you know, we just all become.

So true. So true. And I just want to do say this because I know that there are women who are listening, who have husbands who aren't listening to the voice of God. They are not, um, submitting to his word.

They're not submitting to other, um, spiritual authorities who are trying to guide them and these women are afraid. They're afraid because, uh, they are in a position that they've told as a wife, they need to submit to their husbands, but their husbands are not leading the way God would have them to lead.

And I think that's also a really big temptation on a woman. It's, you know, it's easy sometimes for a woman in that position to look at someone like you or someone else like, well, at least your husband loves the Lord, you know, um, but I, I want everyone to understand that this temptation to, to controlling, um, is not, it's not different regardless of what category you're in.

Things can, you can have a godly spouse or you can have an ungodly spouse and the temptation to control is still going to be there if it, if it's all about me. And to the woman who right now is, has a husband who does not love the Lord and, um, who's, who's torn about whether or not she should submit, um, and, and, and let go of control or whether or not she needs to try to do everything she can to wrangle him, him back in.

I just want to say that first and foremost, you never have to sin.

Okay.

Uh, if anyone's ever telling you you need to sin, uh, you don't ever have to give into that, it's better to obey God rather than man. Uh, second of all, if the situation is a really extreme situation and it involves abuse and whatnot, you need to get help.

You absolutely must do that. For most women listening though, the situation isn't quite that extreme. Your husband is potentially just apathetic, uh, about scripture or they're not a believer and, uh, and they're fine with that.

I still want to encourage you to let God do his job. You can't change your husband.

Okay.

And God didn't give you the authority in many situations to dictate to him what he is to do and what he is not to do. And one of the sweetest things, one of the most beautiful things that I've been told by many women, and I think Shannon, you'd agree with this, is that relinquishing that control back to God is so incredibly freeing.

It doesn't automatically change the situation. It doesn't always automatically result in a, a wash of happy confetti, you know, sparkles and rainbows, but it is an incredibly freeing experience. When we say, okay, God, I'm done doing your job, I'm just going to focus on what you want me to do, and I'm going to trust you with my husband.

Absolutely. And Aaron, I love that 1 Peter 3 is written to women in that situation. Can I just read these verses?