Creative Mountain Mama

Wisdom from a Supermom: Raising Boys Well

• Cicily Fisk • Season 1 • Episode 3

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Ever wondered how a mum of three energetic boys manages life and even finds time to advocate for at-risk youth? Meet our Brittany, the supermom who juggles parenting, motherhood, and ministry with grace. Join us as she shares hilarious yet insightful stories from her everyday life, lessons from her ministry, and her three content pillars. She sheds a light on the intentionality behind raising  boys well and the profound impact nature and outdoor activities can have on a person’s life.

Dive deeper into the conversation as we explore how Brittany teaches her boys to express their emotions. We discuss how outdoor activities like hiking can provide an affordable way for children to experience nature, and how something as simple as asking, "how was your day," can have a significant impact. The episode wouldn't be complete without discussing the therapeutic power of nature and its role in peace and healing. Plus, Brittany shares a special bible verse, Proverbs 14:4, that perfectly ties together the theme of our conversation.

We promise you an engaging session packed with laughter, learning, and an exploration of life's many adventures!

Proverbs 14:4 – “Where no oxen are, the trough is clean; but increase comes by the strength of an ox.”

Support Brittany on her missionary page: https://app.aplos.com/aws/give/FlyingHYouthRanch/Powellfamilysupport

Stay updated on her journey: https://mailchi.mp/8ae7d395be1f/powell-ministry-updates

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Cicily Fisk:

Hi, welcome everyone. I am super excited to be joined by Brittany. She is a mama of three. We are going to be talking about parenting, motherhood as well as what we can learn from outdoor living. I am excited to talk about her ministry efforts as well. Hi. Brittany how are you? Thanks for joining me.

Brittney Powell:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm good. How are you?

Cicily Fisk:

Really excited to be here with you. What's been going on lately? What's new?

Brittney Powell:

That means a lot. Well, lately, my husband has been gone for the last five days. He sells knives on the side he's doing the blade show. I've been watching the three little ones by myself the last few days. I don't know what it is with little boys, but they are in everything about butt and poop stage right now. I'm pretty much at least 50% of my conversations the last five days have been about that area of the body.

Brittney Powell:

We went to a restaurant the other day. My youngest who's 30, started standing up and turning around, facing his backside towards there. He just starts smacking away and dancing. The older two instantly joined up and followed Next thing. You know I'm trying to get them to sit down while everyone is standing up, or everyone's looking at them and laughing while they're all just dancing around shaking their rear ends and slapping it. Yesterday I was changing a diaper and my three-year-old said what color poop is it? I was like brown. He said light brown, medium brown, dark brown. I was like I don't know, just brown. I don't really want to look at it.

Brittney Powell:

That's been my life lately. I wouldn't trade it for anything, but yeah.

Cicily Fisk:

So you are boy mom through and through. Do you mind diving a little bit into your three pillars and a little bit about you and your values and your background?

Brittney Powell:

Yeah, absolutely Okay. So, long story short, I grew up, went to college, went to a Bible college and majored in counseling psychology. When my husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, he graduated in outdoor leadership in a northeast Georgia college, with a huge waterfall on campus it's absolutely beautiful and we married and every time we had a free time off, which wasn't much, because we were crazy busy at work and doing everything we could to pay bills. At that time, as newlyweds, we would just go hiking on the weekends and that was became our new favorite thing to do. But, fast forwarding several years, we ended up having three boys in three years Not necessarily intentional, but when.

Brittney Powell:

Again wouldn't trade it for anything, and I just was blown away, like I always expected I'd have a daughter, I expected I'd be a girl mom and I can touch based on that later, like dealing through that. But God was very clear, like all boys. And and then, if, as if that wasn't enough, we felt called to go to Texas for the last four years and serve taking care of teenage boys from at-risk use situations, crisis situations, and live in the same house with them. So one of the reasons I named my account, brittany and the boys is because I was the only girl in the home of at least 10 boys at a time between my husband, my three little boys and then six plus teenagers, guy, teenage guys all at once. Yeah, I just ended up like it's a whole different world when I'm not used to and there's always interesting stories from that and everything. But more than anything, I really enjoyed taking the time to get to know teenage boys from all sorts of different backgrounds and live life through with them and talk with them through all the hard and heavy stuff but also cheer with them through all their wins too.

Brittney Powell:

And we just closed the chapter on that season.

Brittney Powell:

But we're moving on to a very similar season where we are going to be in Washington state and take care of more teenage guys, except they won't be living in our house, they'll just be living on properties. It's a little different in that way, but it we're like right nestled in mountains in Washington state when we get to incorporate more outdoor leadership hikes and training and learning and all of that. And so we're so excited, through this long journey, to finally be able to incorporate like two of our passions together, which is like youth and ministry with youth and also the outdoors and put it together, because I think there's just something so beautiful and healing and refreshing about being outside, no matter what season life you're going through. And so my three content pillars I picked today were ministry with boys like boy, mom life, all things boys and then ministry with youth, especially from all sorts of different backgrounds and high risk situations, and then the outdoors in like the way that can be so refreshing again, regardless with whatever season you are going through. So, yeah, Wonderful.

Cicily Fisk:

I want to dive a little bit deeper into your takeaways. We have you at a really awesome time on this podcast because you are, like you said, closing a chapter and you're going to do it a little bit differently, but you're going to be doing the same thing in Washington. Can you go a little bit into what you've learned, your takeaways and what's helped communicate to these boys the most?

Brittney Powell:

Absolutely, absolutely. So I felt like I got a master class in parenting teenagers. So hopefully I'm prepared when my boys become teenagers We'll see, but let's see. The biggest things I've learned is just how impactful it is even in utero, like how you treat and take care of your little ones, or if you have adopted children, how important it is even from before birth, like how what you're doing while someone's pregnant can really impact their view of life, the way they handle things. So many things about that. And then when they're baby, even as soon as, like the day they're born, like how many things you're actually communicating with them From the second they're born. That teaches them how to shape life, how to be life, like should I be scared? Should I trust? Like all the important things there. You know, I for a while thought naively going into all of this and we're still considering adoption. We've considered adoption for years but like beforehand we were like, oh yeah, I can just adopt a kid and you know, with how we're going to raise them, he's going to be just fine, which sounds really silly now in hindsight. But like there is so many important factors, even if you dropped from birth, like you got to take into consideration. So that's one thing.

Brittney Powell:

A second thing is how to communicate, which I'm huge on like just communicating with relationships of all kinds and family and little ones and all that, but like with specifically at risk youth. Like two things that really helped were reduce and reconciliation. So all their behaviors, good and bad, are communicating something and so it's really important to think about that before you go straight to like getting on to them really hard if they did something that was not great. Usually there's a huge behavior or some feel like there's a feeling going on under all that behavior and trying to get to the heart of that. So sometimes, when they say something really sassy, we give them the opportunity to do a radio before we instantly start like talking like hey, like that is not appropriate, not respectful, and talking all of the things about that. First we give them a chance to redo and most of the time they take it and then reconciliation is so important, just like not leaving things where they're at, communicating and talk through it, see what's going on inside, getting to the heart of things and like what steps can both sides take to reconcile and make sure we're in a great place afterwards? There's no bitterness, no harboring anything at the end of it and yeah, so those are some really important things through the guys and just like again trying to analyze, like what is their behavior saying? For example, you could have a child that has issues with stealing food all the time and one way to be like, hmm, this kid is like really really hungry all the time and we can dive into why this is kid was hungry all the time. Is it something physical? Is it something you know deeper than that from his history and all that? So that was really really interesting To dive into and learn more about.

Brittney Powell:

As we worked through teenagers, learning to have a lot of grace like obviously, as loving parents, we give lots of grace to our children it felt very different, on a whole different level, when it came to teenagers. You again like most of them came from trauma, so they they unfortunately came with baggage that's not their fault at all and learning to work through that and giving grace. But also like on the positive side, all the love they give and all the lessons they taught me, like it's just I could talk for days about it and then I'll get emotional, but they've taught me way more than I feel like I've ever taught them sometimes about life and forgiveness and how they continue to want to trust people. Like regardless of how many times they've been hurt, they still want to feel like they can depend on somebody anybody. They want to be recognized. They want people cheering for them at the games. They want to have that support system, even if they're given the body language that they're fine by themselves. They don't need anybody.

Brittney Powell:

Trust me, they do, and some of them have harder shells than others and it take a long time to break through them. But yeah, like I again, you'll have to cut at some point, because I could talk all day just on that alone and share story after story after story. But yeah, they're there. I'm so excited to continue working on that. There's something that's so special about pouring your heart into a teenager that's been through a lot, and it's not just about me teaching them and guiding them and giving them advice and walking with them through the hardships, but also what they give me in return. It's something I can't fully explain, but it's amazing.

Cicily Fisk:

I think when we first talked I mentioned your boots on the ground, which I really respect and admire. For ladies out there that might be dealing with hardship in their own home with their own teenagers, could you speak a little bit to what to focus on with boys, particularly when they're taught to shut down their emotions, can you provide some words of solace?

Brittney Powell:

Thank you, yeah, so one thing I'm really passionate about as a boy, mom and also, just like I have brother, I have husband and talking through them and other guys as well is that I feel like men, boys, have been raised whether it's through public school or society, whatever so where they feel like they cannot communicate everything because they always have to give the impression that they need to be strong, like if you cry, you're showing a sign of weakness, if you express her feelings about something, you're being a wint. Get over it, man up All those negative things. And I'm sure sometimes when people tell them those things, then it's not intentional to make them feel inferior, but what it can be doing is causing them to like suppress things inside and bury things and feel like okay, well, I need to give this impression that I've always got everything together, I'm strong, nothing's gonna bother me, I don't cry, don't show weakness, et cetera. And so I am so passionate with from the little boys to the big teenagers, to my husband and even to you know, my dad is like communicate, like if you're hurt, if you're upset, it's okay, this is a safe place. This is not you showing weakness, you're not wimpy, you're strong, you're brave and like learning to process things and not just bury things and repress them inside, cause that can lead to additional issues, as I'm sure people can know, when you just repress things or just hold it in and refuse to share with anybody. So yeah, that is one thing I'm incredibly passionate about.

Brittney Powell:

With raising boys, and just boys in general, I've also learned they can be just as dramatic as girls, I think. In general people think that girls are more drama and sometimes I'm sure girls are way more dramatic, but I think that boys can be just as dramatic, again from little to older. So that was an interesting observation as well. But yeah, they're just like anyway, they want to love, they want to be loved, they want to have a safe space to process their emotions and still be encouraged that they are brave and strong, like men are. But that doesn't mean you have to hide things or you know that if you're showing emotion, that's weakness, absolutely.

Cicily Fisk:

Is there any stories or anecdotes that you could share about seeing this in action? Or you know situations flipped around from what you and your husband have been doing?

Brittney Powell:

Several stories I can think about Most of the time when the guys go where we were living at in Texas, they did not want to be there. Of course, they want to go back home, whether they understood the situation as to why they came there or not. So most of the time, especially when they first come, we hear a lot of negatives about you know, don't want to be here, you know, not my mom, like this place stinks. I just want to go home. I can't, I be home and all of that. And when you're thinking with that mindset, it's really easy not to like, fully participate and open up. But that did not stop me because I love digging in, I love talking deep, especially with boys, because I feel like they just don't get that as much as girls sometimes and some of them would take like a year to crack, some of them shorter, some of them longer. So, yeah, by the end of it, whether they graduated or whether they got holds by their guardians or you know if they made a really horrible choice and they got dismissed from the program for safety reasons we have had several guys come back and be like wow, I'm so sorry that I came in with this like super negative attitude, that I came in like hating the world and hating everybody. Like you know, I feel like nobody supports me or likes me, and you guys showed that, and it means the world. We've got to the point where one of the guys wants to call Brian my husband, his dad, which is like so humbling. And of course, we're not doing this for us, we're not doing this for our own praise. Like honestly, most of the time we were there, we were wondering if we were even making a difference, no matter how hard we tried, because, like I mean, some of them were very, very stubborn about like I don't want to be here, this isn't fun, be a downer on every fun thing we try to do, et cetera. And then I think they were just not at life and just taking that out on everything, which is very understandable, and I would hear many, many events about like how life was not fair and everything like that.

Brittney Powell:

But, yeah, we've had guys who gone from making really poor choices and wanting to run away and all of that too, and, wow, I didn't realize what I had until I was gone. The support system they had One boy in particular is a great example is when he walked in the house from school every day and the first thing we always say while we greet him in the door is hi, how was your day at school, how was your day? And he said you know, no one's ever asked me about my day before before coming here. So, stephen, something as little as that was really eye-opening. And just how important it is to communicate, even the little things. And just even if you don't think it's a big deal, like you don't think you're even being that supportive, just asking the question, like you'd never know what it means on the other side.

Cicily Fisk:

So huge communication for boys. That's a great takeaway. Can you talk a little bit about what you guys do in the outdoors and how that has shaped and changed your approach?

Brittney Powell:

Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up traveling like normal vacation travel with my parents and I loved that. My husband grew up more with like camping and hypes and he was an Eagle Scout and all the outdoor wilderness things. But I, despite all my travels, I did love mountains. I had a thing for mountains. I always wanted to see like the real Rocky Mountains, because I grew up in Georgia and so we have like hills. Some people call them mountains, but to me the Rockies are like big old hills and so I always want to see the West Coast, wanted to see Colorado, glacier, washington, and then worldwide too, all the others.

Brittney Powell:

So, yeah, and when we came together, he's the one that like, all right, well, here's a great way to experience the outdoors without paying a bunch of money and it's through hiking. And so he was the one that took me on hiking and I remember it was so funny when I first started, like we were just crossing this little creek it wasn't a big deal at all, it wasn't deep or anything and I slipped and I fell in the water and it was like winter and he's laughing so hard. So I'm such an amateur and yeah, but like throughout the years, like I became all right, like I love hiking. There's something about it so not just the destination, but walking through the trail, something about like the repetitiveness and the views, the whole way, the smells, the sounds, like just being fully immersed in nature, nature around, things that are untouched by man.

Brittney Powell:

There's something about it that's really hard to put into words for one but two, when you do get to predestinations whether it's a waterfall and, my personal favorite, like a mountain and like an alpine lake around like that just makes me feel like Like this has got to be what heaven looks like, like I could spend all day here, when the heart, especially when there's hardly any people around it feels like just you and your person and the whole world.

Brittney Powell:

And I loved it so much that one of the things my husband and I love doing too is taking other people into that, people who have not experienced hiking or backpacking or canoeing or kayaking, and taking them to the great outdoors and showing them, like how refreshing it is, like no matter what you're going through in life, like you can go on a hike because, besides, like gas and you know, bring a picnic or whatever it's pretty efficient and it feels like you're in another world sometimes and it's like healing and relaxing for your soul, like I get some people, hiking is just not their thing because it's a lot of exercise and energy and climbing up hills and all of that.

Brittney Powell:

So I get it. But just even like if you didn't hike and just went to a local lake or a local waterfall, like, and just sit there for like at least an hour, there's something about it you know, I'm sure you understand. It's just like impossible to explain. So we love taking new people on that and helping them refresh. Especially you love doing it with their teenage guys, because they were at high risk for wanting to do underage drinking, underage smoking, underage drugs of any kind. You know, when they're older, when they do become of legal age, it's something there you know some of them would express they wanted to do.

Brittney Powell:

You know a lot of them chose escaping through video games, like my escape, the hardships of their life through video games. So just getting them out of something like that and finding a different, healthier kind of escape was by changing for them. Like we talked way too much about mountains with them and then the first summer we took them to the North Carolina Mountains in the Blue Ridge and they walked. We walked on top of the mountain, got a photo shoot there together. And one of them said OK, now I understand why you guys are talking about mountains so much.

Brittney Powell:

And then you know, for those who do consider themselves like believers of the Lord, like I don't know how I can look at something like that and not believe that there's God, like how wild for him to make these things, that they're just so breathtaking and I feel closest to God when I'm out in nature, away from all the hustle and bustle.

Brittney Powell:

I think it's a reminder of like sometimes I think we make our lives way too busy and like to put ourselves in a slower pace. And that does that for me, and we love doing it to other people. And so if people don't know even the first step of like what to bring or pack or prepare, we love taking newbies, so yeah, and we love tying it into you, love tying it into our little boys, tying it into yourselves, and it's not like you know our boys grow up in. They are not into it. We would not be disappointed in that at all. So it's not like that, but just a great, I believe, healthy way to reset, refresh when life gets too hard, and it's a affordable option as well 399, separate the supplies.

Cicily Fisk:

I guess Is there any Bible verse that you want to share? Or that you share inspired by.

Brittney Powell:

Sure, so it's a weird one. Most people don't know much about it, but yeah, so I'm going to butcher it unless you want to pull it up. But it's Proverbs 14-4 and it says you know, like, where there are no oxen, the tro was clean, but great, like fruit. Basically, great harvest comes through the strength of an ox. So I took that to mean, like, you know, when you're in your comfort zone, like, and not doing hard work, because, like, honestly, the work it did was hard, like there were a lot of tears, a lot of ministry, and that's just for us. I know it could be anything for anybody.

Brittney Powell:

So this doesn't just have to apply to youth ministry. But whatever you're doing, like if you are, you know it's meaningful or purposeful in some way. Yeah, like it's very easy to just like sit back and not challenge yourself to do something that could be really hard but important, and that would be the trial being clean. But there is great harvest that comes through strength of an ox. So, like that means you got to be willing to get dirty. If you're willing to get dirty, there can be a lot of beauty that comes from stuff that otherwise wouldn't have been there had you not bring the oxen.

Brittney Powell:

I'm sure it sticks if you bring oxen in to do hard work metaphorically, but when it does happen, beautiful, beautiful things can happen, and so what we do is not easy by any means. I'm sure what so many people do like you, what you do that you're so passionate about, can be a lot of work and really hard and mentally draining and all the things, and you know, learning to balance it out between work life. Or you know your mission and your baby, yeah, but like when we do it, like there is so much that can come out of it. So, yeah, it's not my favorite verse, but it's one of my favorites. It's so hard to pick a favorite and so I picked one that I think ties into everything here.

Cicily Fisk:

Wonderful conclusion. Can you tell listeners a little bit about supporting you and where they'll go after they click the show link?

Brittney Powell:

Sure, so right now where we are is back in Georgia with family because as we transition the place in Texas they gave us a paycheck, but where we're heading to in Washington state is technically considered a missionary position. So we are raising our support. So the link I'll provide definitely would take us, take you straight to the portal if you felt led to send either a monthly support or a one time support. 100% of it goes to us and it's tax deductible. So if you want to put that in your tax to its nonprofit and it would go to us, just like being able to afford the cost of living there. So they provide us with a home, but like bills and just groceries and all of that. It would be for that.

Brittney Powell:

And the reason they do that, that they don't give us a paycheck is so that they can make the teenage guys that are there more affordable for them to be there for their families, like they really wanted to cut a deal to their parents, because most programs like that can cost like literally like 80 grand, 100 grand, and this makes it really, really affordable for parents who really want to put their guys here, which again has the place we're going to the purposes family reconciliation, so that you know, if they're having a hard time with their son, their teenage son, put them here and we work with their families, give them a safe place to stay and take care of them and help them like, slowly reconnect with their parents and get them to a point where they are great together again, because that's what we want.

Brittney Powell:

We want to see families flourish and if there's a bump in a road and they just feel like they have no other option, like this is a place for that. So that is why we raise our support and that's why they're not giving us a paycheck, although they are providing us with a home.

Brittney Powell:

So that's if you felt like, if you don't feel led to support financially at all, I totally understand, but we do have an email list link that I can send as well, and then you can just join in on our blog and have all the updates about that. And, if you don't mind, I have one closing thought I'd love to share too for everyone for being here, and that's that if you feel like you're in a rut of any kind, like in the throes of motherhood, but feeling like you're not doing anything meaningful, like, first of all, you are like you're raising the next generation you could be impacting literally like 10 generations and you don't even know it. But I also, you know, wanted to share, like you know, go outside for a hike if you want, like try it if you haven't tried it before. Or find something. If you feel like you know you're just working and doing family life and again, that's beautiful. Family life is absolutely beautiful. Working with the right for your family is beautiful but just feel like you're in a rut for some reason. Like I challenge you to either like go outside somewhere gorgeous or find something that you enjoy doing that purposeful, whether it's like volunteering at an animal shelter if you love animals or you know things like that.

Brittney Powell:

Like that's helped me a lot here, because I've definitely dealt with postpartum depression and anxiety through my boys and even though, like, my whole life was just taking care of other boys, like sometimes I still got in a rut, feeling like you know, what am I doing? Like I need to refresh and take care of myself, but also like, so what I'm doing like am I doing the best I can? Am I helping people and wondering about the people of that? And yeah, even when I was in the throes of living life with 10 boys in the house. So going outside and just spending time outside was a great refresher, putting things back in perspective. And then, like, now that we're in this period without teenage guys, I'm so ready to get back into it. Like that's what we find fun, that is like I do it for free, like and it's so meaningful to us. So you just find what's meaningful to you. And and if you haven't considered, like, go in the hike of state park, try it, see how you feel, see if it refreshes your, teaches you anything in any way, so yeah, Thank you so much, brittany.

Cicily Fisk:

It's been amazing to have you on this podcast. I just have to make the relation between the oxen and the sneaky boy. We started the episode with that all the poop stories, and if you stick in there and you have babies or you invite you into your home, yes, it might be stinky, but the harvest is going to be absolutely worth it. So thank you for your time and we will ensure those links are included in the show notes. We appreciate you for coming on.

Brittney Powell:

Thank you so much.

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Cicily Fisk

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