MUSIC Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. Life can seem crazy sometimes.
Many of us feel pulled in a thousand different directions. On our show today, we're going to take a break from our usual Family Policy wonks and talk to someone who has a lifetime of practical experience keeping her own family rooted and connected in the midst of great change and uncertainty. Billy Joust has been married to a Major League Baseball coach for over 30 years, and together they raised three sons in the midst of moves all around not just the country, but the world.
And as if that's not enough, she's authored three books. And bonus, she's a North Carolina native. Billy Joust, welcome to Family Policy Matters. Thank you so much for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. We'll be right back.
We'll be right back. So it was sort of mandatory for our family. People often ask me, didn't the boys argue with you when you packed them up and moved them for the summer when they were in school or when you packed them up and moved them for three, four times a year during the season?
And honestly, my boys never complained because it was more of, hey, we're going with dad. This is our family. This is where home is. This is what we're doing.
And so I guess I never gave them a choice. I don't know. I just sort of said this is the next adventure. And when they were little, they'd wake up some mornings going, are we on an airplane today?
What ballpark are we at today? So I made it fun. Sometimes it did cause me great anxiety, especially the first time we were moving out of the country. We were going to Venezuela.
There was some political unrest. And I was just a little concerned, like, what are we getting into here? I'm from eastern North Carolina. Like, my family's in Edgecombe County.
They don't really go a whole lot of places back then. And here I am packing and moving to Venezuela. So there was anxiety. But I really tried not to allow that anxiety to be present to my boys. Now, if they said they were worried about something, I'd be like, yeah, you know, I get that way, too. But let's look at it this way.
And I give them a positive alternative to it. So I felt like that really prepared my kids to be open for whatever adventure may come. So how old are your boys? And how are they doing now?
Oh, my boys. My boys are 34, 32 and 28. And I prayed for many years that they would not go into baseball because it's not that easy on the wives as we're talking about now. And all three work in baseball. Our oldest is an area scout for the San Francisco Giants, and he is an area scout in the Carolinas. So if any of your parents listening have kids that are playing high school or college ball in the Carolinas, you may have seen D.J.
around a ballpark. And then our middle son is a mental performance coach. And he reads, writes and speaks Spanish fluently. So he oversees a cultural integration program with the Arizona Diamondbacks as a mental performance coach. And then our youngest son is now the head pitching coach at Penn State University. They love baseball. They love the life they're living.
I was not happy they were going into baseball, but they found some great women in their lives that are ready for the adventure. All right. So is there a lesson?
I know there is in there for those of us who maybe worry about the chaos in our lives. I'm hearing that mom's attitude can go a long way. Yeah. You know, I encourage my baseball wives because those are the ones we've been in pro ball now 37 years. So we've been married 35 years.
And over those years, I've sat in the stands with a lot of different women. And the thing that I always tell them is to pause, pause and see where God has you. There may be a lot of chaos going on. I joke around with my girls.
I'm like, look at us. We have these kids running around crazy, but we can sit and find moments of peace where we are, because, of course, peace is provided by God. And when our eyes are focused on him, no matter what the chaos is going on around us, we can find peace in those moments. And so that is where I feel like for the boys and for me and the craziness of raising three boys when dad's gone eight months a year. So it's really allowing my kids to see that I can pause and I can find peace in the chaos of what's going on around me. And then I can take one step forward. Well, let's talk about the relationship with your husband, because that has got to be a challenge as well when he's gone a lot, as you said, and also very distracted. That's a high profile job.
And it's also has a lot of pressure. Do you have some tips for us on how you stay connected with your husband through all of that? You know, our biggest thing over the years, because we went through a time in our marriage where our marriage was falling apart.
It was because he was chasing his job and I was chasing the kids and we didn't connect. And then once we came back together and, hey, we need to check ourselves on this. The number one thing we started to do was to pray for one another, because when we say, oh, I'll pray for you about that, we don't always get around to it.
The other person doesn't know if we did or not. So we would pause again and take five minutes and say, what can I pray for you? And pray exactly what they ask for. And then in turn, they ask, what can I pray for you? And they pray exactly what you're asking for, not interjecting any backhanded prayer of, Lord, I wish he'd clean off those countertops when he saw him or whatever it may be.
You really do just pray for what it is they're asking prayer for. And in that, I can say that was a big turnaround for our marriage because I knew my husband, he was going to the Lord for me and I was going to the Lord for him. And then the other thing is date nights. And we didn't always have nights. We still don't have a lot of nights that we can go out on a date because he's still working in professional baseball.
But we would find a time once a week where we could sit together alone, be that in the backyard, at a park, on a bench, whatever it was, just to catch up with one another. What is it that's going on in your life? What's important to you right now? What are you struggling with? What are you finding excitement in?
Where can we go together in this? And those are really the two things over 35 years of marriage that have kept us growing closer together. Wow. Great advice.
And pretty simple, really. So thank you. That's great. It's just doing it, right? It's just making the time. Right. So talk about these relationships that you make when you move to new communities, because that's got to be a difficult thing.
Here I go again for you and the rest of your family. Talk about why that has been important for you guys. For us, it's really been important to love the people that God puts in front of us wherever he places us. And so in that, it's really seeing every person that is in front of you. I categorize them in four different categories. One is accidental acquaintance, that person you meet in passing that you may never see again. For me, it's an Uber driver, somebody I'm traveling on a plane with, people in the stadium. The next is your social circle. Who are the people that you're in more contact with?
That for me is wives in the stands, the ushers, the security, the ticket taker, those people that I'm seeing over and over again. And then the next category is kindred spirits. And those are the ones you are in your social circle and you're like, hey, I like you. There's something about you that I want to connect on a deeper level. And you get to know them.
You ask deeper questions. You spend time with them away from that social circle setting. And you're more intentional on the time that you're spending with them. And then the fourth category is a forever family. And I like to say that your forever family are the people that will go to war for you when you don't even know you're in a war. Those are the people that have your back through everything. And each of those categories are different types of people, different groups of people, different numbers of people. Your accidental acquaintance is going to be much larger than your forever family.
So those are the way I categorize. And it gives me such freedom to know I can love that person that's in front of me right now. But I don't have to divulge every bit of my personal information and love on them on the same way that I would love on a kindred spirit. But it gives me freedom to be able to put these people in these categories and know that I can still intentionally show them love when we are in each other's presence. So you mentioned that you're not real thrilled that your children went into baseball. I think some parents get pretty caught up in pushing their kids. Talk about that a little bit. How important is that?
Are we placing too much importance on that, do you think? You know, that is such a family to family thing for us being in pro sports. I was always really cautious to push my kids because I didn't want them to think they had to be major league players or their life was a complete failure. And there are a lot of baseball families that put such pressure on their kids that you're going to be better than dad was. You're going to be do this. You're going to do that, that they end up not even liking baseball.
So I really watched what was going on around me and made some decisions early on. I had an old scout tell me one time I was at a game and I'm like, so tell me what I need to say to my kid after he comes off the field. He goes, Billy, never coach your kids between the lines of the baseball field. You never coach your kids when they're in the dugouts. You never coach your kids when they're on the field.
And that's hard for some dads. But this guy was telling me, he goes, the best person to coach your kid is someone else. And you don't coach your kids then you wait till they get off the field. And the best time to talk to kids in sports is when you're driving.
You're both looking straight ahead and you just ask a question and they ask a question or they vent and you try to redirect them in that. So I never put pressure on my kids about having to play at a certain level. The way that baseball is now and having a son that is a professional scout and having a son who is a college recruiter. It's two totally different views of what they need to see and how they need to see it. And in that, if you're going to get picked up by a college recruiter or a professional scout, you have to be playing in leagues and levels that you're being seen.
That falls into the category of how much do we spend on that and how much time do we take for that? I am still to this day, and both of my boys that do recruiting and scouting agree with me wholeheartedly on this, is the well-balanced athlete. When you focus on one sport and one sport only, there's so much in the way that you play that one sport that doesn't get tapped into as if you played a different sport. My son this past fall was driving somewhere and I'm like, where are you going? Is you going to a baseball game? He goes, no, I'm going to a basketball game.
I'm like, D, you're a professional baseball scout. Why are you going to a high school basketball game? He goes, because I'd love to see how they interact with other players in a sport they might not be as good at. I want to see how they interact with their parents after. I want to see the whole picture.
And that was a confirmation to me of other sports develop them just as much as that sport does. Well, we're just about out of time. Before we go, Billie Joust, where can our listeners go to find your podcast, get copies of your books, and just in general follow what you do? My website's the best place to get all of that information. It's billiejoust.com.
B-I-L-L-I-E-J-A-U-S-S.com. All right. Thank you so much for being with us today on Family Policy Matters. Thank you for listening to Family Policy Matters.
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and leave us a review. To learn more about NC Family and the work we do to promote and preserve faith and family in North Carolina, visit our website at ncfamily.org. That's ncfamily.org. And check us out on social media at NC Family Policy. Thanks and may God bless you and your family.
