Fivefold Fathers #1: Marco Tejeda
Today we’re releasing the first episode of the “Fivefold Fathers” series of the One More Soul podcast, in which I am interviewing fathers of five or more children. This series can be a resource for young couples looking for guidance and inspiration for welcoming multiple children. The full video is available on YouTube. Here is an edited transcript.
David Stiennon, Chairman of One More Soul: I’m happy to be joined here today by my nephew Marco Tejeda who’s the executive director of Two by Two, which is a marriage coaching apostolate. Thank you, Marco for joining me. Tell me, how many kids do you have?
Marco Tejeda: My wife and I have been married for coming up on 25 years and we have six children ages 21 down to 6 years old at this point.
OMS: So how did that come about? When you were first considering marriage was that in your mind?
Marco: It’s hard to think back to 25 years younger, but I always loved my younger cousins. But I would say that there’s a pretty significant shift for me. I think it’s actually very different for everybody. For my wife, I know that she was very fond of all children. So, she was ready to have children. I was not always keen. I didn’t have this thought in my mind that I wanted lots of children. That wasn’t at all how my story unfolded.
OMS: And how did having your first child change your attitude?
Marco: I’d like to talk a little bit about even right before that. So, when we were first married, my wife was ready to have kids and I was not ready to have kids. And so, there was that beautiful process that is often--in addition to being beautiful-- difficult. It took some time for us to come together and to be on the same page. But, once the first child comes along, at first it’s everything you can do to just kind of keep daily life together. So you don’t start thinking about number two right away. You don’t think about number two while your wife is pregnant. You don’t think about number two when the new one comes along. It’s many months down the road before you start thinking about it. In my case, I remember when my wife got pregnant with baby number two, I remember looking into the bedroom where the one-year-old was and thinking, “Oh my gosh, this was so perfect and so lovely and so delightful…What have we done? We’ve disturbed this glorious ship that we have!” I remember that there was a fear in me that we were messing with success. That concern persisted even up till the day that the second child was born but evaporated instantly with a tremendous wave of gratitude when the older sister meets the younger sister and immediately I see how there is love that just gets multiplied in my home. Love that I didn’t cause directly but that is part of the home indirectly. So, yeah, one child at a time I think is wise. Things that I would pluck out of my own story as worth sharing would be: one day at a time and remain connected with your spouse.
OMS: Well, how did having two children change your whole life?
Marco: I think that each child adjusts your life as they come along. I never anticipated having six children. Like I said, with the second child I could see that they had this community and after that point I don’t remember having a fear of anything. It was just kind of natural to keep adding children. Until child number five and then I felt completely drowning and overwhelmed.
OMS: How do you think you have changed from before you had children?
Marco: That’s a very delightful part of the story of having children. I could explain to my own very self what it was like to have children and I wouldn’t believe me! You could say: This is going to cost you a lot. And whether you’re talking about money (which actually I don’t believe it costs very much money), but it will cost you a lot of effort. It will cost you a lot of sleep. It will cost you a lot of time. It will cost you a lot of love. But you can’t comprehend how much it’s going to cost because it’s going to cost more than you’ve ever had. And so what’s going to happen is that this is the work that the Lord is about. He’s expanding our hearts to be closer to be like his heart. You can’t imagine how much sleep you can go without until you have this two-month-old who is your two-month-old and it’s your wife who’s sick and needs to sleep through the night. And so there’s nobody left except me on this particular night. (On other nights it was my wife.) You would never volunteer for this. But instead there is this scenario that you participate in creating and I’m the only one who’s going to keep the opposing team from scoring a goal. So I’m going to just stay up with this baby who needs to sleep vertically because otherwise they cough themselves awake and then nobody gets sleep. So I’m upright for many hours. This is just a little example of how your capacities get expanded beyond what you ever thought they would and it’s very delightful even though it costs a lot and it’s very painful at the same time.
OMS: How do you lean on your wife and how does she lean on you to make this possible?
Marco: I had a friend once who pointed out how necessary it is that there are two of us. I can name right off the top of my head how we lean on each other. Certainly I just mentioned one: you take turns with who gets to sleep. You sometimes divide by zones: dinner is mine and breakfast is yours. Certainly in our case my wife wanted to nurse the children. So nursing the little babies meant that the toddlers were on me while she was nursing them. Of course when I went off to work, which is another thing that we decided together, when I was off to work, she was on duty full-time. When I look back I can’t imagine all the different discussions and assumptions that were made. A lot of it is assumptions based on what you saw your parents doing and sometimes you have to go back and correct those, because one of us was assuming something that the other one wasn’t okay with. That itself is also another challenge whereby one of the spouses doesn’t volunteer that they’re not okay with the assumptions until they’ve grown some resentment and now you have some forgiveness to do. I really have a much more profound heart for anybody who has to try to raise a child without a spouse by their side, just because there is so much, you know, when I have respiratory flu for three days, my wife does everything. I have no idea how it’s done otherwise. Even as a couple, there are times where you have to call in the reinforcements from the previous generation or your neighbors. There’s just a lot of work to be done and there’s a shared sense of accomplishment, right? We can look back and say, “Wow, these are our kids!” It’s really not a case that it’s one or the other because the influence is plain as day that we both were working together that whole time.
OMS: What do you think has been the best thing about having and nurturing children?
Marco: I would say that the absolute best thing is how your life just becomes not about yourself. Certainly it’s a decision, right? We spoke in the beginning that we chose very clearly, okay, we’d like to start trying to have children and soon after became pregnant, so certainly it is a choice. But the best thing about having kids and nurturing them and raising them is how, one, you really are given the heart of God, the same heart that God has for us, we have quite naturally for our children. It’s as if the Lord wouldn’t be satisfied with telling me about his love for me or giving his love to me. He wants me to experience his experience--the very love that he has for me--by giving me that same love for my children. And so, that’s pretty high up there on my list. The other thing that’s really, really, high on my list would be these relationships that you have with these little people that are becoming big people. You have this front row seat to this unfolding of this eternal being. In a very special way their childhood is a gift to the parents because they don’t remember being one. But I’m sitting across the table from a 19-year-old and she looks exactly like she did when she was nursing her mother, nursing at her mother’s breast. You have this incredible honor of seeing this thing unfold and as you get older your time perception shifts and so it feels like just a little while ago that you were a little baby. And then I’d say the third thing that is just the most profound honor is to watch these children fall in love with one another and support one another and craft their own secret society. It’s an incredible honor to be excluded from the sibling society. So those are my top three.
OMS: Yes, very beautiful. That reminds me of that I can do the same for you Marco. I remember when you were a tiny baby. What would you say is the hardest thing about having and nurturing children?
Marco: I think the hardest thing is that, when I was a 25-year-old father, I am only a 25-year-old human being. Periodically you will look back and you say, “Oh my gosh, what a mess! Because as you grow--let’s just make up a scenario. I guess there’s things right now that I am learning about myself, how to have more self-control, how to not be so quick to to act like I know how the family ought to run. I have these adult children coming online and they have their own philosophies on life. They can see things that I cannot see about myself. They can see me in a light that I can’t see myself, but they also see things about their jobs and about their schooling and about their dreams. When I look back, it’s difficult to see that I screwed up and there’s nothing I can do about it. It is now stitched into the fabric of my family. I would say that that’s just been an opportunity to speak it into existence, to speak that mistake of mine, and to be very clear like to my children: Hey, I messed this up. I’m really sorry. I guess that’s one thing that’s difficult. The other thing that’s difficult um, and I would say this one isn’t so much difficult, but I think a lot of people would call it difficult, is to no longer be in charge of the family. However, I have found it is coming at a time when I’m not as young and energetic and I can see that calling the shots or who’s on the front lines of the family is now being shifted to the next generation, and that’s actually quite delightful. It is a little bit difficult to catch or to notice that that’s what’s happening and to do so wholeheartedly and to hand over the reins of the family or the helm of the ship of the family to my sons and daughters. Um, but it’s actually quite delightful as you can step into it. I’m reminded of a time I went sailing on a really big ship and the captain of the ship never raised his voice above a mild tone, and it was howling 30 mph winds, but he never raised his voice. If you wanted to know what orders he was giving you had to look him right in the eyes and watch his lips. I feel like in a way that’s an image for me, for the kind of father that I’d like to be. I’m going to speak what I think is a good direction for the family, but I’m not in charge of the whole ship anymore. You guys are the sailors and you guys can call the shots. You get to make the decision as to who you’re going to marry and where you’re going to live and what kind of career you’re going to go after.
OMS: You raise a good point there--there’s more to be done in raising a family of five or six kids than two people can do. To what extent do you have to rely on the children for the practicalities of doing it?
Marco: My current vision is that when you have a family of eight people as we do, there’s eight people’s worth of work to get done. And it’s just not going to work unless we are able to do the things that are required to have eight people working. By working, I just mean picking up the meals, keeping a nice house put together. And yes, sometimes it’s even going outside of the home and earning cash. So one thing that I think we’ve done really well is identifying at what point on each little project is it necessary that the child take over that specific task. I remember we were behind the ball on the first child that she didn’t start actually really helping until she was about eight. I think I’ve witnessed families where they have the three-year-olds helping in the kitchen and I think that’s terrific. Womewhere in there, between three and eight, you really need to bring online that new capacity. A three-year-old is not a net asset to cleaning the kitchen, but by the time that three-year-old is eight, you’re going to need their help because they’ve been making dirty dishes since the moment they were born. And so, yeah, so that’s kind of the vision. That’s how my wife and I worked it out. There’s other ways to work it out. I have an uncle who claims that you can’t have more than four unless unless you train the children how to participate in all the work that a family is.
OMS: How do you think your view of God has changed due to family life?
Marco: I mentioned a earlier my faith or my understanding of God’s heart has really shifted from kind of an external idea where I’m told that God’s very loving, where I’m told that God would give his only son for me, where I’m told these attributes about God’s character and that has been grafted onto my own heart or transplanted into my own soul because as I said, you can’t help but love your own son and be willing to give everything for him. So, it has really animated my belief in God and helped me understand who he is and how he loves and in what way he loves… and patience too. The patience that he has with our lack of ability to produce good fruits all the time.
OMS: Now, you’re 48.
Marco: Yes.
OMS: And so many 40-year-olds, they’re looking at their children graduating and you have a six-year-old at home.
Marco: Yep.
OMS: What is that like to have a very young child at the end of your group of children?
Marco: I sometimes call our last child a caboose baby. And it’s not all roses. When our youngest daughter was born, the next older sibling was seven years old. So there’s a seven-year gap between the last two…and she was completely intentional. And at the same time we went right back into a heavy work zone. Sleepless nights. A lot of watching a tiny little one who needs a lot of things done for her. The unintended delightful surprise that we received on that count was that as soon as this little baby was brought into the home, all five of her older siblings instantly became, you know, they had their mom or dad gene turned on. And so, as I was mentioning earlier too, when you have a family with a lot of work, we need to share that work because there’s a lot of us. And so it ends up being a net gain. It’s like the multiplication of the Lord. Things seem like they’re going to be more taxing and more, you know, less to go around because there’s more of us, but in fact it’s the opposite where there’s more to go around. And this is a perfect example of it: when I hand this baby daughter to my son, he turns on his dad genes and he plays with her endlessly and he falls in love with her and he really understands what the purpose of his ability to be a man, his ability to father, his ability to craft something with his body that is eternal. So there that was just the incredible gift that it was to watch all of those five older siblings fall in love with their younger sister.
OMS: So many young families are maybe saying, “I don’t know if I could do that. I’m totally maxed out with one or two children.” Do you have anything that you would say to them?
Marco: Oh, certainly. Yeah. I’m excited that that you’re telling me that this might be a series, which I’m really excited about because I think it’s really important that we have these different stories. I’m saying this to the audience because I’m very prone to this when I listen to something. I’m very prone to thinking, “Oh, that’s how my life should be.” You know, when I watch a cool movie about fighter jets, I want to be a fighter pilot that afternoon. But the reality is that the Lord has a beautiful story that he wishes to write with each one of us. I would encourage that family that feels overwhelmed to offer that overwhelm in words to the Lord especially at Mass at the Eucharist. Lord, here’s my mess. Here’s my overwhelm. could you please bless it? And yes, it does feel overwhelming, especially when the babies are first born. And I don’t know at what point... I don’t remember how it worked where we would have two kids and then we would choose to have a third. I don’t remember why. I do remember feeling overwhelmed. I do remember feeling exhausted. It felt the same to me to have a third. Maybe that’s not the best counsel. I’m not sure. But, I would say: stay in the conversation, the very intimate conversation that you personally have with God, with Jesus Christ, about what you’re experiencing. Stay tight and honest and vulnerable with your spouse about what you’re experiencing. And don’t worry too much about whether you’re going to stay at two or move to three. Don’t try to anticipate having six. That’s not how six comes about. At least not in my experience. Six came about one at a time. And as I mentioned, we paused at five because we were very overwhelmed. So yeah, just one at a time, I think.
OMS: Maybe you could say something, Marco, about your marriage coaching apostle. What is a Two by Two?
Marco: Two by Two is our answer to our own story. Marriage is not a cakewalk. It goes up and down as far as how easy it is and how delightfully receptive it is. At years approximately nine and sixteen and also here at year twenty-four it was very difficult. At year sixteen it was so difficult we really weren’t on friendly terms. As sad as that sounds, I know that it also resonates with a good number of people. My prayer at the time was, “Lord please help.” It wasn’t complex. And his answer to that prayer was to send a woman from a different town who was willing to coach with us over the internet. She met with us once a week. She gave us every Thursday evening from 9 to 10 p.m. At the end of that year, she fired us. I felt like we were just starting to get the hang of things. She said, “Well, Marco, you know, you guys are either going to do what I taught you or you aren’t. It’s really not up to me anymore.” From there our marriage completely turned around. I was more united with my wife and she with me than we’d ever been. And, a few years later, as I’m studying with the Apostles of the Interior Life to become a spiritual mentor, the Lord invited me to give away to other married couples what he had given to us through this wonderful accompanist. Two by Two is our offering to the Lord. It’s a ministry where we coach other married couples as a couple. I also do coaching just by myself. What we do is offer the teachings that we have found in our marriage are the practical necessities for how to bring two ways to become one way. How to make two different ways of looking at life, two different ways of looking at a family, two different ways of looking at finances or intimacy into one way that you can both be happy with and that you can both get excited about and that you can go both be united around. And so that’s what we do. So if you’re interested, it’s 2by2mm.org. We’d love to have you reach out and just learn a little bit more about what we do and see if it’s a good fit for you.
OMS: Beautiful. Well, thank you for joining me today, Marco.
Marco: Yeah, thanks for having me.