When the Loudest Voices Say the Least

We were sitting around the family room, just getting ready for our family scripture study, but somehow got on the topic of dating with our fifteen-year-old son. It started out light-hearted enough, with stories from my wife and me about going to movies, dances, and group dates when we were his age. We told him how dating in those years isn’t about finding “the one,” but about learning who you are around different people. It’s a time to discover likes and dislikes, what matters to you, and what doesn’t.

He wasn’t buying it.

He was adamant that you should find one person, date them, marry them, and stay together forever. I agree there’s a time and place for that; it’s how it should work. But he wanted to dismiss the process of experimenting, of trial and error. “No wasted time,” as he put it.

The discussion was mostly calm. My wife was pushing back against his personal philosophy. Then he got belligerent with my wife. He crossed a line he knows I will not tolerate. Ever. And I felt the emotion rise in me like pressure under a lid.

I almost never yell. I’ve spent most of my life afraid of what happens when I do. There have been a few moments when I’ve lost control. It’s only a handful of moments, but they haunt me. That night, the lid came off.

“STOP TALKING RIGHT NOW! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT!”

The silence that followed landed so heavy. He froze, my wife stared down at her hands, and I could feel the echo of my own voice bouncing around inside me.

How fast it shifted from anger to disappointment! I was kind of disappointed in him, but mostly in myself. I took a breath and said, calmer now, “Look, man. You can’t speak from a position of authority here because you have no experience. You’re going to have to trust us that locking yourself into a single relationship when you’re so young has high potential for disaster. Not always. But high.”

“Okay.”

That’s all he said. We moved on with our scripture study.

Nice work, Aaron. Way to set the tone for a spiritual discussion.

For the rest of the night, I thought about what we’d all said, and what I’d shouted. The irony stung. I dated the same girl through most of high school. Back then, I was certain we would marry someday. We talked about it often. Then we broke up at the beginning of our senior year, and I remember how lost I felt. It was like I had misplaced my identity.

It was five more years and a few more failed relationships before I started dating the woman who would become my wife. In hindsight, every relationship taught me something I couldn’t have learned by theory or advice. But I didn’t learn any of that because someone yelled it at me.

Parenting has this way of exposing how loud your fears are. You tell yourself you’re speaking from wisdom, but often you’re just afraid your kid will make the same mistakes you did. Or worse, you’re afraid they won’t need your wisdom at all. That fear can sound a lot like conviction.

I think about that when I watch the world around us today. There are so many loud voices filling the air — politicians, commentators, influencers — everyone seems convinced that once they have a platform, their volume equals truth. The pattern is easy to mock in others. I’m exceptional at it, yet I have a harder time seeing it in myself. My outburst from my spot on the floor in the family room wasn’t that much different from those talking heads on TV and social media. It came from the same impulse: the need to be right, to protect my narrative, and to make sure my voice carried farther than the one challenging it.

The thing is, truth almost never shouts. Truth has a lot of patience. It’s good at waiting.

In the days after that argument, I talked to my son again without trying to lead with advice. I actually approached it in the right way, asking him questions without shaming him, to understand his “one person” idea. He shrugged, said that to him it just seemed right, and that maybe he didn’t want to get hurt. I told him I understood. And I meant it.

He didn’t need me to correct him; he needed me to listen.

“You’re a good dad,” my wife said to me last night as we were lying in bed just before I fell asleep.

“You think so?” I questioned.

I fell asleep before I heard her response.

I still fight the belief that being a good father means saying the right thing at the right time, delivering advice that unlocks understanding. But I’m also starting to see it differently. It’s less about the words and more about the quiet that follows. It’s that space that tells them they’re loved, no matter who is right or wrong. Sometimes we can both be right or wrong together.

We live in a culture that rewards noise. Hot takes. Declarations. Certainty dressed as wisdom. But I’m learning to appreciate that most of what matters grows in much quieter soil. Patience, humility, peacekeeping, and the willingness to let someone find their way without trying to control or narrate every step are the best fertilizer to help someone grow.

In parenting and leadership, it’s important to establish guardrails around known dangers. Even so, I wish I hadn’t yelled that night. But maybe that moment taught me something I wouldn’t have learned any other way. That even the loudest voice in the room can say the least. That love sometimes needs to sound like silence.

Volume is rarely clarity. Certainty is hardly ever wisdom. And sometimes, the best I can do is give my kids space to hear their own voice without mine drowning it out.

And that is enough.