A Preview of the Teenage Years
Adam is a few years out from the teenage season with his own boys, so when Deacon Michael Halbrook sat down on the show, Adam went looking for a preview. Deacon Michael’s second son had just left for Air Force basic training, which made him a useful man to ask.
The questions were direct: What did you expect to happen that did not? What was the most surprising joy of raising boys through those years? Deacon Michael answered with a story about his own father instead of a straight list.
Just Do What I Did
Early in fatherhood, Deacon Michael had asked his dad essentially the same question Adam was asking him: What do I even do here? His father’s answer was simple. Do you think you turned out okay? Of course the answer was yes. So his dad said, just do what I did.
That answer works when you had a good father, and Deacon Michael was quick to say he did. But he did not stop there. The real surprise was not that the formula worked. It was how receptive his boys were to something much simpler than he expected: watching him continue to be a man of God and point them toward God, rather than depending on a particular technique or program.
Faith Formation Is Not Always a Straight Line
That is notable because Deacon Michael’s own story was not a straight line of faith from childhood onward. He fell away from the Church for a few years as a younger man and eventually experienced his own reversion.
His father was not Catholic at the time. Years later, Deacon Michael got to sponsor his own dad into the Church, which he described as a small miracle. Faith formation in that family was not tidy or linear, and yet it still landed. A father’s witness can keep bearing fruit through seasons when the result is not immediately visible.
You Do Not Need Every Answer
The bigger surprise may have been how much Deacon Michael learned from his sons. When he stays open to it, his boys say things, challenge him, and ask honest questions about the faith that he cannot always answer.
That is fine. Sometimes the right response is simply, ‘I don’t know. Let’s go find out together.’ Modeling the search alongside them mattered more than always having the answer ready. Teenage boys do not need a father who pretends omniscience. They need one who loves the truth enough to pursue it honestly.
Stepping Back as Sons Become Men
A strange kind of parity appears as boys get older. Deacon Michael described reaching a point with each son when he realized they were standing at roughly the same point on the journey he was on, only decades apart.
That dynamic felt easier for him to accept than it did for his wife. Fathers and mothers can carry different instincts here. His job increasingly felt like stepping back so a son could become his own man. Her instinct remained rooted in sheltering and protecting. Neither instinct is meaningless, but the season demands a new kind of trust.
The Alarm Clock Named Master Sergeant
One almost comic story captured the transition. At home, Matthew used to snooze his alarm every morning. It was loud enough that Deacon Michael could hear it from the chapel next door during his holy hour.
When Matthew called home for the first time from Air Force basic training, he mentioned that he had a new alarm clock. Its name was Master Sergeant, and it did not allow snoozing.
It is a small detail, but it tells a father that his son is being formed into someone new, right on schedule, just not by him directly anymore.
Presence Matters More Than Control
The surprise was not simply that fatherhood became harder as the boys grew older. It became less about controlling outcomes and more about remaining present, admitting what he did not know, and trusting that the formation already given would continue its work.
Raising teenage sons asks a father to lead without clutching, answer without bluffing, and step back without disappearing. The program is not complicated. Continue becoming a man of God. Point them toward God. Stay close enough to search for the answer together. Then trust that grace can keep working when a Master Sergeant takes over the morning routine.
Listen and Support
For the rest of this conversation with Deacon Michael Halbrook on fatherhood, discernment, and the family prayer app he built.
