Join us on Fatherhood Fables for an intimate and inspiring conversation with my dear friend David Noroña. Listen in as we journey through David’s transformation from actor to educator and co-founder of the Bethel Conservatory of the Arts. With a mix of humor and wisdom, David opens up about his experience raising four children, ranging from a lively five-year-old to three teenagers, and celebrating over a quarter-century of marriage. We touch on the magic of storytelling, and David shares a powerful exercise that identifies the ‘title’ of one’s life story, which, for him, encapsulates the essence of being a ‘creative father fathering creatives.’ This profound concept shapes our discussion, highlighting the significant role storytelling plays in both our personal and professional lives.
Please enjoy this transcript of the episode. It may contain a few typos—sorry if we missed any minor errors. Thanks for listening!
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RYAN BRAUN : All right, welcome, everyone. This is the first inaugural episode of Fatherhood Fables. This has been about a year coming for me. This idea came January of last year and took me a year to get everything going, but here I am. You know, fatherhood life is busy, so I think a year is not, not too shabby, but I am super excited to start this thing out with one of my absolute favorites. We go back, I don’t even know how many years now, but definitely a handful of projects. And at one point, we were working on two films back to back, and he’d always make the joke that we were seeing more of each other for that time period than we saw of our wives. So we’ve gotten to know each other, really through some of my hardest moments a couple of years back, and he was just a constant friend and someone I really look up to. And he’s actually the founder, co founder of BCA, which is Bethel conservatory of the arts, which I know was a dream in his heart for many years. And it’s been beautiful to see that thing happen over the last couple years and just flourish. And we’re going to hear a little bit about that and what he’s up to now and about his kids and stuff. So. David Naroña, welcome to fatherhood Fables. So excited to have you, man.
DAVID NOROÑA: Man, I’m so excited to be here and to hang out with you.
Awesome, bro. So just tell us a little bit about yourself, what you’re up to, how many kids you have, all that good stuff.
Well, yeah, man, we’ll start with the kids. I joke that I’m almost amish because I’ve got four kids and kind of like Abraham and Sarah. I span from five year old all the way up to my three teenage boys, eldest being 18. Been married to my wife for going on 26 years this summer, man. Super proud of that. She’s still the hottest girl I know, to me. And, yeah, man, on the creative side and kind of on the business side, man, I co founded BCA, the Bethel Conservatory of the Arts, and that’s kind of been my labor of love. This is after serving as a producer at Bethel Media and directing films with you and Bethel music. And that’s really my history, man, is that I started off as an artist, as an actor when I was 17 years old, and, yeah, I don’t think I get through one day without thinking about story or artists or art, man. It’s just kind of what makes me tick.
Yeah, that’s beautiful. When I was thinking about this interview last night, I was actually thinking about the few times I’ve heard you talk about story and just the impact that’s had on me as a creative, as a storyteller. We’ll hit a little bit more on some fatherhood stuff, but I’d love for you just to kind of delve a little bit into the impact of story, how that’s impacted your life as you’ve kind of carved this thing out of story is central to who you are, both as a creative, I’m sure your story of where you came from, your dad, your family, all of that. So just maybe that’s not a very poignant question, but I love you. Just to kind of inside of the wrapper of story, what has that done for you?
Yeah, man. It’s funny. I’ll start with this thing that every story has a title, or usually every story has a title. And this connects with the theme of your podcast about fatherhood, because I asked the Lord a while ago, what is the title over my life? And it’s actually an exercise that I do with my writers, and I encourage a lot of our artists to do it as well. It’s like if your life is a story, then it should have a title, and the title tells you what the story is about. A great title encapsulates, and it’s almost, you can think of it as like the mustard seed of the story. In the title, you get a sense of what the theme, the type of story, the tone, the focus, the objective of the hero and the protagonist. All of that should kind of be felt or hinted at in the title and the title over my life. When I asked the Lord that, he said to me, you are creative father fathering creatives. A creative father fathering creatives. I’m a creative father because I happen to be a father. But there’s different types of fathers. There’s a protector father, there’s a warrior father, there’s a provider father. There’s different kind of qualifiers or descriptors or adjectives that you can throw in front of father, and they’re all valid and they’re all beautiful. And I think every father has a superpower or something that they’re really great at that they just have this God given gift at. And mine happens to land in this particular thing. But it also describes for me then my own needs and my own wants for me to live and breathe. I have to stay and be creative. But then it also describes what kind of father I’m going to be. So how that plays out for me is we read and we tell a lot of stories. Like, one of the currencies in my home is stories, whether it’s watching something with one of my sons or my daughters, or talking about it or having read bedtime story in my house was like the holy of Holies. So I’m a creative father, but then the second half of the title over my life is fathering creatives. And that gives me my mission statement. It gives me my objective day to day here at BCA. I know that what I need to be is a father to creatives. So not only am I described, but I get my mission statement just from the title. And that’s just, we could talk on and on about story. If you look at the hero’s journey, all I’ll say about that is God did it first through the gospel. So when you actually study the hero’s journey, there are points in it called the supreme ordeal. Well, that’s him in know sweating blood. The resurrection is literally a step in the hero’s journey. Like, you can’t echo the gospel more clearly than actually what we’ve come to call the hero’s journey, which is really Christ’s journey. And nt. Wright says that basically every story is an echo of the gospel. And so I could talk on and on about story. I think it’s human currency. I actually think that outside of breathing, drinking water and eating, if we actually count the amount of hours that we take in and or create content, it is probably the thing that human beings do forth most every single day of their lives.
So, fascinating. Yeah, it’s true. When you start to think about, like, I was just thinking social media to any of these, obviously, I think in media terms because it’s just what I work in. But even hearing about my son’s day when he comes home from school. Right. It’s like it’s all telling story. Yeah. And so I think that’s the beautiful power of being a storyteller, right. When you see yourself that way. So maybe just like, walk us through quickly. I love, one of my favorite things is whenever we were taking a break in the suite at suite, and to be moments where you’d share little stories about your life and be like, I never knew that. So maybe, obviously, just doesn’t have to be a lengthy thing, but just a little bit of how you grew up and your relationship with your father and how that impacted who you are.
Yeah, man, it was babies making babies. My parents had me. My dad was 15, and my mom was 17 when I was born.
Wow.
So he was a boy, he was a young man who got with a girl and surprise, surprise, along came me.
Didn’t your dad jump out a window or something?
Say again, man?
Didn’t your dad jump out of a window or like when you got.
Well, yeah, at one point I think my uncle or my grandfather came home and caught them both together. They were teenagers, not yet married, but they fell in love. And I was a surprise. And he was so young he literally couldn’t get up to date. He had to get like parental consent to come up to see me get born. That’s how he was. He did the best that he could. My parents are amazing, amazing people. We had some rough patches. My dad. Most of my childhood there was addiction. There was pot and cocaine and lsd. It was the 70s going into the 80s, but now he’s like vegan and better shape than me and completely clean. He doesn’t even drink. If parenting had like a high school yearbook, my dad would definitely win most improved. We have a deep and beautiful connection now, my mom and I, she’s moving town. But my childhood, man, was pretty. My parents and I, we talked about this like, we’re all good. I’ve done the counseling thing, we’ve done the reconciliation and forgiveness thing. But I grew up figuring out how to raise myself as well. Not because I wasn’t fed and I had parents around, but it was a little bit chaotic. They were just trying to figure themselves out. And so that was, I think, probably my childhood as everybody does, I think was probably the most formative thing. And I’m still walking out both the good, bad and the ugly of that formation because sometimes we form ourselves around the gnarls and the curves and we then later on have to discover, hey, I think that maybe worked to survive when I was nine or ten, but maybe not great for raising my kids. But yeah, man, I mean that was my journey as a teenager. Growing up in the barrio. We were working class, poor people. First time I ever got on a plane was to go to Carnegie to study and to go to conservatory and to become an actor. And my journey to fatherhood, know half of it happened at first without the Lord. And so I made a lot of mistakes and it was rough and it was tough. And I’m still figuring out parts of me that aren’t always great and trying to understand why that is what it is. But my wife and I, one of the things I am proud of because we both came from divorce is we fought for our marriage, fought for healing and for growth. And yeah, dude, I mean, we’re still standing strong on the same team as I like to say. We’ve decided to stand on the same team. And we’re walking out the teenage years, which is a conversation in and of itself.
Oh, my gosh. Now I can’t even imagine. My oldest is six. And sometimes the conversations we’re starting to have, I’m like, oh, my word, just opinions. He’s the sweetest. But the opinions are just becoming more firm. And I can’t imagine another six years, seven years when he’s a teenager. And just all the things you learn along the way. Maybe I’d love to hear a little bit more about that because obviously it gives me perspective going into I’m away as a way, but as fathers, I think sometimes I’ll say this with Aiden, I’ve realized, because he is very much like me, and I’m sure you probably have one of your kids that’s a little bit more like you than it’s like parenting yourself.
You’re literally looking at yourself going, oh, my gosh.
And it’s such a challenge sometimes it creates compassion towards him from me, but at the same time, I’m like, oh, I have to ask the question sometimes. What would I have needed that I didn’t get? As your kids have gotten older, one’s 18, maybe about to go to college, and he’s a man. What are some of the parenting and fathering things you’ve had to kind of recalibrate, change perspective for the better? What are some of those things you’ve learned in the recent years?
I mean, the biggest thing I’ve had to confront is that apparently free will still exists, and it exists in my home and in my children. It wasn’t just in the garden. It wasn’t just Adam and Eve. It was like, apparently that is still there. And frankly, we’re in a whole reconfiguration right now because I’ve got literally a 14, a 16, and a soon to be 18 year old, all boys, and they’re all taller and fitter than me. So there’s that reality. I’m no longer the biggest, strongest man in the house. And not just physical change, but they are self determining now. And a lot of the tools of, like, even the love and logic and the Danny soak stuff, it’s like, that’s served me greatly. It still informs how I try to parent, but I’ve hit the wall of the limitations of certain kinds of influence that I at least thought I had. One of the big things I want to say out loud is I believed the delusion that the teenage challenge was going to fly over my house like the passover spirit, and I somehow wasn’t going to have to actually deal with the gnarliness of teens. I really thought that because it hadn’t yet happened. And then all of a sudden, it landed in my house full force three times over, and I was like, oh, okay. So it’s been incredibly humbling. Sometimes hard to go, oh, okay. All those things I thought I had figured out, frankly, it’s even been humbling of, like, I thought I had been a better parent than maybe I am. You start to realize maybe some of the mistakes and things in you that have played out, that now you’ve got three very strong, in every sense of the word, saying, hey, pointing out where you’ve missed the mark. And then in the midst of that, this is the most complicated thing, is not only are they pointing out things in you, but you’re talking to three human beings that are fully convinced that they’re right, like teenage boys. And maybe all teenagers are 100% convinced that they are right, and sometimes on a bad date, that not only are they right, but you’re an idiot. And so now you’re confronted with. And then here’s a crazy stat. But the male brain doesn’t actually fully form till the age of 25.
That’s wild.
Yeah, the age of 25. And I say this lovingly and respectfully because my three sons are amazing guys, very bright, very ambitious, very driven, each in their own ways. But I just say this from a physiological standpoint. I am literally talking to somebody that has a half finished brain who is convinced that they’re 100% right. Then in addition to that, I’m having to confront that I thought I was right about maybe more than I am. And now I’m being told by people who I love and I respect. But again, with everything else that I’ve just said and I’m trying to figure out right now, I’m in the trenches of figuring out what’s the truth, what is helpful. Where do I need to change? Where do I, as a father, need to continue to love, but to require and that balance, as a modern dad, of bringing both the connection, the affection, all of the warms and the fuzzies and the nice side, but then also, like, where’s the lion? Where’s the firmness? Where’s the alpha? Who says, that’s not the culture of my home? And that equation, I’m walking through that right now, and it’s probably one of the most complicated things emotionally and psychologically I’ve ever had to walk through.
Wow, man. Well, thanks for sharing. I think it’s encouraging to hear because I think sometimes I’m a nine on the enneagram. If you don’t know the enneagram, a nine is kind of like the peacekeeper, right? So I kind of do what I feel like I need to do sometimes. And as my oldest son, like I said, he’s only six, but as he’s developing these opinions and these things, I’m like, oh, I am no longer just at a level with him where I have to choose to engage. I mean, obviously, he’s not a man yet, but he’s starting to ask questions about, how valid is my opinion? How strongly can I push up against you without you coming back at me? What kind of level of discussion can we have? These things I’ve started to realize, like, oh, I need to be okay with a bit of mess and even his level of coming back at me sometimes. Obviously, there’s rules and there’s ways that we engage with mom and dad, and especially mom. I always say, hey, that’s my wife. If he gets a little cheeky, but I’m allowing him to kind of have a little bit of that experimental space with me that kind of says, hey, I don’t need you to get things perfect all the time with you. With having three boys, I’m sure the energy sometimes is trying to, like, I heard someone say once, trying to keep, or maybe it was, you, keep the gi joe out of their butt. Please don’t do that. I’d love to hear a little bit, too, with your fourth, being daddy’s daughter, like your baby girl, what’s been the dynamic of that, of, okay, wow, I have my princess. I got three boys. I’m working on being a dad, and we’re in teenage years, but also, like, okay, now I have this part of me that’s like, I think you told me the other day, you guys have watched the mandalorian, what, three times through, and you have this beautiful relationship with her that’s probably, in some ways, contrasted what it is that your boys just maybe how you’ve navigated that. What does that look like for you?
Yeah. Man on the boy thing, real quick. I always felt more comfortable around women because ultimately, after my folks got divorced, I was with my mom and my grandmother a lot. A lot of my mentors in life have been female teachers and stuff. And so it’s like I always had this maternal and then lover relationship with women. Pre lord, it’s like I had a lot of girlfriends and then I had. So women were always a huge component of my life. I didn’t really start figuring out what masculinity looked like with masculinity, like guy relationship, friendship, because it’s just so radically different. And so I always felt more comfortable relating and talking to women. It was always easier for me to do that because it was what I was accustomed to. And then all of a sudden, God pulls this curveball on me and gives me three boys. I was always convinced I’d just get like three daughters or something like this. And I was like, oh, easy, great. I understand that. I thought I did, by the way, I thought I did of with three boys. What I’ve learned is this is like the first place they’re going to wrestle is with dad. And it starts off physical. Now, the irony is I never really had that relationship with my dad. It just wasn’t who he was. And so I never really, like, not that I can remember, play wrestled with my dad. And then all of a sudden, I’ve got these little creatures that are showing me love through physicality. And so much in our society has kiboshed that and kind of crushed it and said, it’s add or it’s bad. And I’m not saying that there aren’t some things that, behaviorally, that we need to look at with boys, but frankly, most of the world just isn’t made for them. I mean, sitting around in school isn’t made for them. Our homes have become these cool little tier one import museums. And so it’s like, where does a boy get to be a boy? Climb trees, break things. Because that’s part of just our nature, is we’re disruptors and builders and we have muscles and strength, and it’s just important. Like, every single one of my boys was always, look at me. Look at me, mommy flexing. Now the three of them are at the gym, and they’re more ripped than I am. I mean, my eldest son comes out of the bathroom, he looks like a freaking cobra. His back’s like. They’re all talking about calorie loading and creatine in my house. My food bill is a mortgage. Right? Now, I’m not joking, but on that thing of Aidan testing with you, what I’ve learned is it starts physically and then it moves to verbal and to psychological. And this idea of testing, there is a form of it that’s rebellion and dishonoring. There is that on the extreme, on the outer curve, it’s that. But there’s a part of it where they’re trying to figure out how to be strong in a healthy way. And if they can’t do that with dad, then they’re going to do it with a girlfriend, or they’re going to do it with a boss or whatever. And so, for me, and I haven’t really had this thought till talking to you, it’s like watching the wrestling and the horseplay as a precursor to figuring out how to be a man and us having the sight to say, I can see what’s happening here. You’re not just against me, you’re trying to figure out how to be a man, how to have tough conversations, ask for what you need, self determine. And so that pushing back, we, as parents, it’s like, it’s hard. Not when you have the big red button on your chest, and I get offended, but if we can have eyes to see that, that’s what’s happening there. My daughter, short version of that, completely different. If my tone of voice even changes a little bit, I can see, and I’m talking like the mildest with my boys. Sometimes it takes me pounding my chest to be heard with my daughter. I whisper, and she’s like, okay, daddy. And I’m like, oh, okay. I better be aware. This is a different creature.
Yeah. It’s amazing once you get to know your kids, too. My youngest is one, so I’m just starting to see his personality. But the differences in the way that you parent not just gender, but personalities.
Too, because personalities, you got, like, three or four variables, and there’s never a manual. It’s evolving fluid. It’s like you feel like you’re showing up playing jazz every day, and you’re like, oh, I thought I had it figured out. Oh, no, doesn’t work with you. Oh, no. Doesn’t work this week. Oh, it worked yesterday. It’s like when the kid is like, but I thought you liked PBJ. No, not anymore. You’re like, oh, okay.
My son just told me that, well, it used to be peanut butter and jelly every day, and all of a sudden, it’s like, no, I’ve never liked that. I’m like, you’ve had this for the last two years of your life. Every day at school, he’s like, I only like with peanut butter and butter. And I’m like, okay. But, yeah, it’s ever evolving. Just kind of discovery, which I think that’s one of the most beautiful things about fatherhood that I’ve come to enjoy, is the discovery. I mean, the same can be said of marriage.
Oh, yeah, man.
In marriage, you have to pursue the discovery a little bit because sometimes life just happens and you just kind of get through it. But with kids, obviously, there’s like the growing up years. They’re just blossoming in front of you, and they’re discovering themselves and you’re discovering who they are and opinions and thoughts and likes and the things that they’re into. And in one of these upcoming episodes, I’ll actually give a bit of a backstory to my journey and where fatherhood fables came from and what it is as kind of. It was a bit of an exercise and, like a journaling process for me when it first started. And I realized when I lost my father in 2019 that I, which, again, literally, we were in the trenches 10 hours a day cutting bright ones in the middle of both libs being born and the whole year while my father was struggling with cancer.
Yeah, that was deep, man.
I think to say all that, I discovered a part of having both a father in my life. Honestly, you’re the closest thing I’ve had outside of my father to a father that I’ve just someone that you’re not that much older than me, but I really respect and look up to. And we’ve had lots of just beautiful heart and hard conversations of life. But to kind of go back to what I was saying, where the fatherhood fables really was birthed out of the process of learning to be father by God in two of the hardest seasons of my life. Wow. And I really appreciate you being on the podcast. Obviously not the last time I’m going to have you on here. We’ll have to have, like, every hundred episodes, David, starting the clock again. But yeah, man, I just really appreciate you taking the time. I respect who you are, and I really just love you. And I’d love next time for maybe you to crack open a little bit more of the BCA thing, because I think that one of the things that you have on your life is really, and it’s unique, I’ve never seen it before, is really the ability to father creatives and have a voice with creatives who are discovering who they are. But also, I think, as a whole, I sent you a voice note a couple of weeks ago, but I really think that you have such a God given revelation into fathering creatives and creating a platform, I think, for the next generation and generations of what it looks like to partner with the Holy Spirit and raise up creatives that are aware of who they are in, like I think we’re just on the fringe of seeing the impact of what that looks like, and so know we’ll get into that in a further episode. But I just appreciate you being on here, bro, for your voice and. Yeah, thanks so much.
My pleasure. Proud of you, brother.
