sSara 00:00

That political parties have built platforms, campaign platforms on, that is not the direction we’re going in today. So why don’t you guide us to head the direction we do want to go with this stuff?

SShawna (00:42)

Absolutely, because family values can mean a political term, but it can also mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. And it’s unique as your family, right? And you and I have different family dynamics where, you know, I raised my daughter very much alone. It was just her and I. And you have a more now traditional, both parents do work, but you have both parents in the home. You have 2-3 children. Family values.

SShawna (01:12)

What does that mean to you?

sSara (01:14)

So, taking back just the word value, value to me, I mean, look up the definition of something is what is it worth, right? The worth of something. And so, when we’re talking about it from a personal place, not a monetary place, it’s what’s important to you? What’s something that you’re willing to sacrifice something else for to gain a benefit, right? Like, when we’re talking about money, I give up.

A certain value of money in order in exchange for some an item that is more desirable than that money. A personal value is giving up belief systems, actions, behaviors in order to achieve something of greater value or importance to you. So what is important to you? What you what is worth to you to put aside maybe some patterns to put aside?

Other programming. One of the most important ways I think of a value is a personal value is Who do you want to be versus where are you now or have you been? It’s something we’re striving for. So then we put it into the family. Now, we will talk about this in another episode, but our family very much operates the same as a business. And I do believe that any group of people that come together in a household

Whatever that dynamic is, can operate under like a business. A business has what? HAs a mission statement, it has values, and it is what brings a group of people together to say we are all headed from A to B with these values. And that’s a very important piece to us as a family. Our family values are as a family, who do we want to be? My last name is Cackey. Who do the Khakis want to be? What is the legacy the Khakis want?

Leave behind? How do they want to leave the world back behind a better place? So yes, my husband’s Egyptian, I’m Iranian, we live in America, we have so many different things we could dive into our background, culturally, religiously, ethnicity wise, but that’s not where I believe personally, the values or place come from. I think that’s where most people go and dig out their values from. You know,

We’re Persian, so big is better and bigger is better and more the merrier and food, food, food, right? And that can be very commonly how people find their values. But I believe values is not about where have you been or where are you now. It’s more about who do you wanna be? And if we’re a team, like our family is, and we’re traveling from point A to B, and let’s say our family, point B is the summit. That’s the pinnacle of what we wanna achieve together.

Whether that’s something personal, spiritual, legacy wise, dOes it matter to us how we got to the summit? When we get to the summit, do we want to be able to talk about how we got there? Some people, this is a value based issue, right? The means justify the ends. And some people, the ends justify the means. That’s a value thing, how we got here matters. And to some people, it doesn’t matter.

Just get to the summit. That’s your value, right? Achieve the goal. Our family, we actually believe that the ends don’t always justify the means. The means matter to us of how we got there. That’s part of, we believe our legacy. And where does that come from? Well, in our family, because we are a nuclear traditional family, it comes from the essence of who Hisham and I have always strived to be as people. And that is what we have to offer our children.

It’s not about a house or bank account or a car or even the amazing adventures we take these kids on. The most important thing God has given us, which is what I believe personally, say universe or whatever divine power you believe or don’t believe in, has given us to uniquely give our children is this core values where the shaman and I on a Venn diagram meet that essence.

That has kept us together and discovering that together, the two of us, then translating that into as with the other, with the children involved, where do we want to take this family and how are the, what are the means we want to use to get there? So we have something called the khaki code because we are nerds and we would come up with the khaki nerd. We had several family meetings when

sShawna (06:02)

I love this.

sSara (06:07)

Our two eldest were old enough to have this discussion. And that age for us was really, know, some families did a lot of fun stuff during COVID, like they did arts and crafts together. This is the sort of thing my family did during COVID when we had all that time together. Like, let’s come up with our family values. And it was actually a really wonderful thing we did. We created an entire methodology together. Everybody’s gonna come up with.

Things that they matters to them, that is of value to them, that’s worth it to them to make sacrifices for and write it down. Our daughter at that point was five and our son was eight. And then we had a baby who did not, that just got to come along for the ride. God bless him. And then we voted on them. Yes, we actually voted on them. And then we came up with eight. So we have a khaki code. And then what comes next? Well,

Not making it just a pretty poster in the house, talking about it, engaging in it. When kids have conflict at school or with their friends or with an extracurricular activity or amongst each other, we come back to The khaki code.

sShawna (07:15)

Fascinated by this. This is the first time I’ve heard you speak about the khaki code. It doesn’t surprise me at all. This first time I’ve heard to speak about it. You had like you said, an eight and five year old at that point in time. Curious what values did they come up with?

sSara (07:31)

So the kids are gonna, for sure, they’re influenced by what they heard us talk about. Of course. Right? So One of the big things we always talk about at home is integrity. So they came up with the word true. Hannah’s values came from Mulan and that obviously comes from her mom because Mulan’s my favorite Disney princess and as Loyal, and true Are top three khaki codes and they come straight from a Disney movie that Hannah was like,

We gotta have these three and I’m like, I am voting for that because I’m totally on board with you on that. But then what do they mean? So loyalty, for instance, we have to define them, right? So we decided to us that means family first. We as a family, put each other first. We are Intentional about prioritizing each other and each other’s needs first over all of us. And that has created a very, very strong

sShawna (08:14)

Okay.

sSara (08:29)

Bond amongst us, which is usually noticed by other people because our kids love doing things with their friends. They love doing things with other family members, but they’re ever so often where they’re like, let’s just do something, the five of us. And that’s, think, where that idea comes from. I think teaching them certain, because every value, I don’t think any value is an absolute good back.

Right? Exactly. Loyalty can get you, gangs are created off of loyalty, right?

sShawna (09:01)

In a lot of games or family.

sSara (09:02)

A lot of things, some Persian families actually operate as such, but so we have to define what does this actually mean and on the spectrum, where do we stand with this guy?

sShawna (09:16)

I’m fascinated about this in, I know your youngest was too young to participate. At what point in time are you going to add to these family values to include them?

sSara (09:27)

A really good point. We’re just hoping he’ll put your all everything will be stuck into his head. If Hannah was five when she was in the conversations and he’s running around the house as we’re having I’m thinking by the age of three or four on a very simple level, very basic level, we can start talking about that, right? The perseverance is one of our family values. That’s a good one to teach him when he’s learning how to ride a bike.

Right? Right. Getting on his tricycle, like the idea of Perseverance. It’s sad, but how quickly kids start saying, I can’t. And that’s just your opportunity. And so it’s so easy to just go in and say, no, don’t say I can’t versus let’s frame that and say, Hey, you’re a khaki. We don’t say I can’t. Right? That’s not part of the khaki code. And we do have.

Intentional family meetings. Have Sunday breakfast together. We try to have as many home meals as we can together. And we use those opportunities to talk about these khaki, the khaki code and our khaki values. For instance, this week, we have a challenge. Every family member has to come back by the end of this week and give an example of an exercise of Gratitude they made this week. Right. So it’s, it’s, so fun to hear what they’re going to say. And sometimes their experience with

sShawna (10:43)

I love that.

sSara (10:49)

These gratitudes with gratitude or any other values kind of blows your mind. You’re like, well, I’ve never even thought about that. But hearing it from a child’s innocent perspective really, really can blow your mind. So Amir at some point is going to have to participate and we’re just watching him. The minute he’s ready, we’re jumping in.

sShawna (11:08)

I would imagine so. And let me go back to what you were talking about, there’s no absolutes. Right. Right? And how loyalty can be used as a wonderful tool and loyalty can be used as a really bad tool. Talk about this perseverance that you just mentioned. And I can’t not be one of the family values, but what about I don’t want to?

sSara (11:27)

Yeah. So I don’t want to, it falls under not quitting. Okay. Right. So if you’ve made, we would have a conversation about that. If my child says, I don’t want to, I am going to commit them to ask them, what did you commit to when you said, for instance, gymnastics, You’re signed up in gymnastics for the season. I don’t want to is not an answer to the fact that you told us you wanted to sign up for this. And we did this for a season.

So you are going to go to gymnastics and when the season’s over, then we decide if we’re recommitting or not. But for this season, I don’t want to is not an option.

sShawna (12:07)

So it’s the commitment part, but not necessarily taking away their choice. They still have a choice to say, I don’t want to sign up for this. That’s not my interest.

sSara (12:17)

100%. Responsibility iS a big part of our code too. And you have to give them the authority to make a choice to then give them the responsibility. Yes. Right? So you have a choice. Do you want to be in gymnastics next season? Yes, I do. Okay. Now my job as a parent is to make sure you live up to that responsibility with perseverance. Even those moments you don’t want to.

sShawna (12:44)

So your kids now are nine, six, and two, is that correct?

sSara (12:48)

10, 7, and 2.

sShawna (12:50)

10, seven and two. So we have 10, seven and two. We’re not quite preteen or teen. Well, I’m gonna push you a little bit because that happens when they rebel against the code. What happens when they’re, for whatever reason, I don’t want your code anymore, mom. What happens then? And I’m not saying it would happen, but it may happen in 18 year.

sSara (13:00)

Shadow this.

Think that the point with values is that not that you’re always going to get it right and perfect, but keeping something that a direction that you’re constantly going back to. I do 100 % expect that the teenage years you’re going to get, they’re going to make fun of it. They’re going to rebel against it. If anything, we might’ve even set ourselves up because they’re going say, this is the khaki code. Let me show you my code kind of thing, right? But I’m also hopeful that

You know, we introduced this at such an early age that it might’ve hit the subconscious. I’ve done, not a psychiatrist, I’m not a psychologist. I have no PhD or MD behind my name, just a JD. But I’ve read enough books on the development of the mind. And up until the age of seven, our subconscious mind is running the show.

And it’s the conscious mind hasn’t quite formed yet. It’s what they call the lizard brain. So every belief, every value, everything you introduced to that child prior to the age of seven, goes straight to the subconscious and it’s accepted as a rule of belief or a standard. And then at past the age of seven, more reasoning starts coming in. And then the conscious mind starts.

Forming itself. The subconscious mind had a seven year advantage to the conscious mind. So when you talk about racism, sometimes this is a seven year old child that might’ve been the child of a KKK member who learned that people of a certain religion are evil and people of a certain color are bad. And they form that in their subconscious mind as an acceptable belief system.

Until at some point the conscious mind had to come in and undo that. So that’s my hope that I’ve had enough of an advantage with how young they are now, that even though the conscious mind is going to rebel against all this in the teen years, the subconscious is still running the show. And that when I’m not around, that that’s what we’re hoping for as a parent, right? What happens when I’m not around? That this programming is kicking in.

sShawna (15:38)

One of the things I really like about this is that it’s not based on a particular religion. It’s not based on a particular political belief. It is based on the core values that you and Hashem have come up with for your family, where it is terms that most of us strive for. Most of us strive for perseverance. Most of us strive for loyalty. Those things are things that you don’t have to unlearn.

Right? Because they are programmed in a way that can grow with you into whatever beliefs you happen to have. And I think that is an amazing gift that you’re giving to your family. I’m sitting here writing down notes thinking, gosh, I wish I had done that.

sSara (16:14)

Absolutely.

I mean, I think we all do because I think if you ask somebody, who are you? Very common, say, well, I’m a woman. I’m a Persian Middle Eastern woman, or I’m the daughter of Maryam or I’m the wife of Hisham. Did you choose these things? Right. A lot of these things. Yes, probably at some point we can say if we want to get into deep, deep philosophical conversation, we can say maybe that those things are a choice as well. But

Let’s just keep it more simple. I believe who are you can be a choice of who do I want to be and who do I want to be. The guiding path for that is the values that I choose. And too many of us and myself included have to make that a intentional thing because otherwise we just absorb.

Our values as the ones that our religion handed to us, our parents handed to us, our ethnicity, our country, the political views that are popular right now inherited to us. And we can definitely pick and choose some guiding principles and values from these things. There are many guiding values in all the religions that I think are embedded into what we have in our khaki code, but it’s a choice versus just I inherited it.

sShawna (17:44)

I really love the fact that you made these choices. One of the things when I was talking about, you know, what happens with the teenagers rebel, and all teenagers rebel to a certain extent, but what you’ve given them is these parameters of what does this term mean to you, right? And a lot of times what you see when kids do rebel is because they have these things were subconsciously put into them by the time they were seven, and then they challenge whatever system.

Put them in because they see the flaws of that system. For me, religion was the flaw in the system. A particular religion was the flaw in the system. And so then I rejected all the values. And then you have to kind of create your own and you’re lost for a while. And you see a lot of that when you have the rejection of the systematic, whatever it was that it implemented these things. And everyone’s flawed, right? But I love the fact that you’re using these terms and this is our

Family’s value, right? Instead of finding the flaw in the system, they may try to find the flaw in the family, but at end of the day, you’re still their family and that’s lot different.

sSara (18:54)

You said it’s so important and I’ll wrap it up with this. It’s not so much giving the five-year-old Hannah and eight-year-old Brony and the ongoing conversation that we will keep having. It’s not so much handing them these values and saying, okay, now we have the CACI code. It was the exercise of choosing them. That’s where the true value is because I’ve gone through this as an adult where I questioned.

So many things that were handed to me as beliefs, patterns and rules and values and crack the code in them, crack the mystery in them or couldn’t see what made sense about this. And when I chose to let them go, it was a very dark place until I was able to find what did I want my beliefs to be? What did I want?

Values to be. So I found myself in a dark place and when people find themselves in that dark place where they let go of their old values, they’ve let go of their old beliefs in order to gain higher awareness of themselves, they can revert back into a very bad place. You don’t stick to it until you discover who you want to be. You can actually head to a very, very dark place. So I think the

Bigger gift we’ve given our children isn’t necessarily the specific code, the specific code of perseverance, be true, be honest, but iT’s the exercise in the practice of discovering your values and choosing them. Because that I think, even at times of rebellion, that can take with them. At least I’ve given them a criteria to rebel with, right? Instead of just rebelling for the sake of rebellion. I’m perfectly fine with

Somebody rebelling something that doesn’t make sense. I believe I’ve raised a child that has learned to think for themselves at that point. But I’d like to have given them at least a criteria to rebel with versus just doing it for the sake of rebellion.

sShawna (20:57)

Sara, thank you so much for sharing this. It’s been enlightening and really a nice thing to hear that this is the thing that people can’t do. And you can give your children something that’s going to last them a lifetime.

sSara (21:12)

Thank you.