Family Unfriendly: Do Americans Hate Children? | Timothy P. Carney

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Tim Carney, thank you for joining me on Commitment to Reality.
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Thank you man.
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Yeah, right before we started, I was telling you how
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much I love your book Family Unfriendly, And I really
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think that you put your finger on the pulse of
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a problem that we're experiencing as a society, but we
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don't know it. I don't. We might know that we're
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experiencing problem, but we don't know what it is or why.
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And I want to start by telling a story. So
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a couple of years ago, my wife was pregnant, about
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seven eight months pregnant, and we had a two year old.
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We still have him, he's just older now. And we
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were looking for somewhere to go on vacation. And so
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you know, I'm a big travel I've traveled a lot
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in my life. Thinking where do you want to go
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with a two year old and a backpack and a
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pregnant wife? And I start doing some research and I
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a country kept coming up, Portugal, Portugal, Portugal, And I thought, okay,
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what it says Portugal they love children? And I thought,
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well what country hates children?
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Yeah?
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Right, long story short. We go to Portugal and it
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was illuminating. I mean, it's similar to some of the
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stories of countries that you tell in your book. I mean,
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the squares are built for a society, for families, for everybody.
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But you bring our kids into the restaurant, and you
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know in America, sometimes your guard goes up, you start clinching.
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You're like, oh, they're getting a little wild there. We're
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going to be judged and we're not going to be welcome.
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And you know, the waiter would take our kid and
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just disappear. Or we're standing at the bar, you know,
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eating something and having a drink and the bartender grabs
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our son and brings him back there and he's pouring
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a drink while holding our kid, and we're like, Okay,
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now I'm starting to see what they meant when they
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said Portuguese people love children. It's not just that they
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tolerate them. It's that they find joy in them, that
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they incorporate them in their day to day lives. And
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then so that's one thing. The other that really was
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illuminating for us is anytime, whether you're in line for
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a museum, to get groceries, anything in line, whether there's
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a sign or not, it's just it's part of the
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cultural stream. Pregnant women elderly, are disabled, or people with
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kids go to the front of the line, and there's
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no grumbling like I've been waiting. It's like we knew
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that after a couple of days being in the country,
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but we still kind of felt uncomfortable jumping the line,
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and people would look at us like, what are you doing?
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Get to the front, you kids, your wife is pregnant,
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Come on. And so I tell you that as a
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story to say, I didn't understand how family unfriendly America
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and much of the West wasn't is until I saw
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a different example. Right, it's the straight and crooked stick.
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And I came home thinking, we've got work to do.
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And I mean, all the specifics you're talking about really matter,
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but if you think about it, what's underlying this is
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a philosophy. Not a philosophy, just a moral view of
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the human person. So one of the things that makes
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America great is our individualism. Right. I was once in Germany,
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like twenty years ago, and there's this cabinet minister who
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told me Europe historically was populated with two kinds of people.
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There were the go getters and the resk takers, and
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there were the people who were sort of reliable rule followers.
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But the first kind of people all got on a
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boat and went to America. And so our individualism is
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a great trait. If you've read like Alexis to Tokville
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Democracy in America, you know that individualism has always traditionally
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been in the context of tightly nick communities. We have
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a lot less of that now. We should talk about that.
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But I think our individualism has sort of without us
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realizing it has taken over. So why does that matter?
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Because let's say, what you're asking, if you're asking people
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to let you cut to the front of the line,
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or what people are doing, they are saying that is
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not just a group of four or five people there,
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that that is a family unit. They're thinking of you
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as a family unit that has special needs. We think
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that we try to be sort of very neutral and
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treat everybody equally here, and that's a good extent, but
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at a certain point, your two year old is not equal.
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Your two year old's legs are short, his understanding of
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the environment, his ability, his patience is shorter. And appreciating
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that and then what it goes to step further in
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a family friendly culture, they're not saying, oh, well, you
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know what, you made the decision to have kids, you
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got to live with them. Kids are understood in some
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cultures to be a natural part of life. You finish school,
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get a job, you get married, and you have kids.
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Not that everybody had to do that, not that everybody
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got to do not that life always went smoothly for everybody.
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But if that's the expected course of action, then you say,
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the people who are raising kids are doing something extraordinary,
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and they're doing it for a greater good. A. It's
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natural and B we need it.
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Yeah, it's the foundational building block of a civil society
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is get married, have kids. And now, I mean, you
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give a lot of reasons why, but that's a lifestyle choice. Now,
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to get married, have kids. Tim Writing a book isn't easy,
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you know that, Yes, So you have to really care
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about something or feel like it's really worthwhile to do it.
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Why this book, I mean, what was it? I mean
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because you also, I guess, have the audacity to think
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that writing this book might actually change some.
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So I'd written a prior book called Alienated America last decade,
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and it was about the collapse of community, about how
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we're less likely to know our neighbors about how we
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go to church. Last, you know, people are less involved
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in their local libraries. So if you've read Robert Putnam's
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Bowling Alone that he wrote in two thousand and that
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was more true in twenty fifteen when I was writing
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Alienated America, and I came at it from a more
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religious perspective, because the most important institution of civil society
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and in America has always been the church. And so
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I wrote that book. And when I was saying about
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the most important consequences of the collapse of community, I
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realized it was a collapse in marriage and family formation. Because,
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as a wise woman wants put it takes a village
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to raise a child, right, we really do need and
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whatever politicians mean when they say that, anybody who's raised
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kids knows you need like Little League coaches, you need teachers,
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You need neighbor, the neighbor family with three girls who
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will babysit your kid. You need all all of that.
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Right now, my next door neighbor is on vacation. We
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used to feed their fish. Their fish died. I don't
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think that was our fault. But now there's another neighbor
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family that just I see is kind of exploring their
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backyard and like bouncing on their trampoline. I'm just saying,
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only one person on our block needs to get a
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trampoline because everybody all the kids can use it. But like,
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we're also money. No, you're right.
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My wife wanted us to get a trampoline. I was like, hey,
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our neighbors have one. They use it all the time.
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It's okay, everybody's wealthier because all this stuff that's nice
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when you're like a regular adult without kids is absolutely
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crucial the community. Then, looking ahead, I think how we're
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becoming less family focused is the biggest story of the
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next thirty years and it shows up in declining marriage rates,
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declining birth rates, pandemic of childhood and adolescent anxiety, all
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of those things. I think that's the biggest story of
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the next thirty years. And you're supposed to write what
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you know, right. I don't know everything about democrat demography
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sometimes confuses me. I don't know everything about parenting. My
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wife and I have raised six kids and our oldest
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is in college, and so I figure I have changed
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more diapers than ninety nine percent of American males, So
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I know something about those and that I think a
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lot of really well meaning people just because of again
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what's sort of the underlying worldview and our culture think
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of family as just another, as you said, another lifestyle choice,
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and if they have a family, they think they're imposing.
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Because I've had that feeling too, where you're like, I'm sorry,
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I'm bringing my kids, and so trying to change that mindset.
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And there's this book, this children's book, illustrated children's book
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called Babies Everywhere. I don't even have this book, but
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every once in a while I tweet out the cover
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of it, like that would be my view of like
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a healthier society. If I'm in the coffee stop writing
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and somebody brings in a baby, I don't get upset.
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In fact, if I wanted to be quiet, it's my
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obligation to like put in my nose noise canceling headphones.
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But I probably wouldn't do that. I'd probably turn away
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from the article I'm writing and start like making faces
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at the baby and talking to the.
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Mom being present. I mean, you allude to it, and
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I agree with you. I mean, I love kids. I
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love kids. I mean, if you ask me what I
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wanted to do when I grow up, I more often
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than not. Didn't know if you're talking about profession. But
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I always knew that I wanted a family. I always
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knew that I wanted to and I see the face
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of God in children. I mean. Somebody asked me the
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other day, somebody from our church. He texted me. He said,
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how do I balance my love for God with loving
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my family and my newborn child and my responsibilities there?
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How do I balance the two? And I thought to myself, well,
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it's an interesting question. But the more I pondered, I thought,
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I think it's a false dichotomy. I think you love
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God through your children, Well, isn't.
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I mean, so when Jesus was asked what is the
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greatest commandment? And somebody's looking for one of the tank commandments,
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and he comes in and he quotes the shame of
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the prayer juice say every day of love God with
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all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. I
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remember the first time I read that, because I grew
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up secular, and so I first read the Bible in
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college and before I came into the Catholic Church shortly
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after college. But the first time I read that, and
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they said, what is the greatest I was like, it's
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fine for him to throw back to, you know, outside
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of the tank commandments. But he gave two, right, he
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said love God and love your neighbor. And it was
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only while writing Family and Friendly that I realized exactly
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what you're saying. If Jesus says that's one thing, that's
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one thing. And so much of my understanding of the
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cosmos is that while it's infinitely complex, I think the
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way God sees it is actually more simple than we
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see it. We like break things, and I mean just
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think I'm sorry to get weird and nerdy, but like
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heat and life, heat and light are both solar magnetic radiation, right,
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They're both just radiation. They're like just different frequencies. We
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experience it totally differently. So we experience loving God and
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loving our neighbor as two different things, and we can't
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exclude one of them. We have to do both of them.
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If we're going to do either of them. That's of
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exactly what you just said. And so now Family and Friendly,
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if you read it, you know I'm writing I'm I
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begin with sort of a Christian anthropology, but I try
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to make the case for it with like sociology and stuff.
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It's just proven that when kids are around, people are better.
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And it's tough to say this sometimes because it can
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sound like I'm saying dads are better than people without kids,
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which is and I'm notxious saying to say, you know,
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if you're somebody who wants to have kids and doesn't
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have them or just isn't called for, that to the
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vocation of fatherhood. But so I'm not saying dads are
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better than non dads. I'm saying when kids are around,
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when we have obligations to care for people who start
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off totally helpless and then need lots of our guidance,
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it makes us better. Like the first selfless things I
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did was when I got married.
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That's the key word selfless. I mean you begin to
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see somebody else is more. I mean that's marriage, that's parenthood,
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that's a good healthy society, and it trickles out.
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I think that's that married parents learn the skill of
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putting another person first from being married parents. We should.
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You know, you'd like to think that at age sixteen,
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you're like, Okay, now I'm gonna put everybody first, But
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it's really hard, and then it becomes natural when you
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have a family, and then ideally then you spread beyond
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just your family in that in that skill and.
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Like I said, you know, the getting back to the
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false dichotomy of loving God versus loving your family or
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your child and their responsibilities. And nothing has made me
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understand God's love for us and in consequence help me
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develop a greater love for God than being a father. Now,
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once again we get into tricky territory when we start
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saying that because it's oh, well I don't have a child,
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does that mean that I don't know God? No, But
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you understand that that it's just wow. I mean I
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didn't think that I could love something this much, this unconditionally,
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which then gets into you know, theology and doctrine all
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that if you want to get into it, but go ahead.
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Well, so, I mean a sort of salvation history. A
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lot of the big beats are children. It's like Abraham,
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You're gonna have children, the Nativity, like these these are
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very big moments, and these are the in some ways
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the founding of our religion as a Catholic. We always
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say the Annunciation when Mary says, be it done to
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me according to that will, that that was the most
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important decision in human history, like I, I will carry
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a child, And another way I put it is, I
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don't know if you're gen X, you're probably a little
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younger than I am, a little bit younger. Video game
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a my age will and I might get it wrong,
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but I think it was left left, right, right, abab
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select start. It's a Konami code. It was a cheat
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code for Nintendo video games and the I sometimes joke
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that parenthood is a cheat code for virtue. Anybody can
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and should and has an obligation to be a virtuous person,
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to follow God's commandments, to be a good person, to
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grow in virtue throughout their life. Not everybody, I believe,
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is called to marriage and parenthood, but those of a
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and not everybody can attain it. Those of us who
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can attain it a lot of family and friendly I argue,
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like we should make raising kids easier than it is.
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But then, if you're honest, it's the hardest thing you're
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ever going to do, but it's the easiest path if
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where you're trying to go is a high enough peak.
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In other words, like sainthood being a man or I'm
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in a virtue that's a hard place to get to,
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and I think the path of parenthood is like kind
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of not the short cup, but the gentler path that
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And I think this is someone what Saint Paul was
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talking about in his epistles, that it can be a
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harder thing. Maybe it's a higher calling or something to
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go a different route, but parenthood the Bible says to
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feed the hungry and clothe the naked. You and I
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wake up there are hungry naked people in our house.
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So far, No, and you even went so far as
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to say that, you know, it's a cheat code for sainthood.
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Now we've talked a lot about that on this podcast.
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To a degree, sainthood, what does it mean? I mean
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it feels like unattainable and almost feels like something that
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you shouldn't aspire to, like, well, saints are separate, they're better,
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like you know it almost I can't. I can't aspire
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to be a saint. But that's what we're called to.
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Do, all of us, every one of us, yep.
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And we have to recover that. I think I think
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a lot of it. I mean, you talk about civilizational sadness,
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I would equate that to a soul sickness that as
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a civilization, we suffer from a sickness of the soul,
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and a lot of that has to do with a
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lack of meaning. But even those of us who who
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subscribe to a faith but you're Catholic, I'm an Orthodox Christian,
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saints are very important in our faith traditions. Yeah, we
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kind of ignore it as something that we can attain,
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and I think we kind of need to get back
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to bringing virtues to the forefront. That's something that you
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can critique, right, because one of the core emphasis on
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this podcast is a commitment to reality that truth exists.
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That yeah, you can have your opinion, but there is
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a truth that we can aspire to understand and that
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only you know. And along with that comes the virtues
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that they Hey, you are not living a virtuous life
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something that we can talk about as a society. But
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because we don't, I think that our soul sickness only grows.
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I think that's right. I think virtues is sometimes I
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think that that would be an easier concept to sort
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of reintroduce because it's really close to something that a
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lot of secular especially sort of secular elites, college educated
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people who are career focused. They'll talk about acquiring skills
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and best practices and those that's pretty close to virtue.
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It's not as loaded of a term, but it is like,
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if you're an excellent, you know whatever, a banker, and
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you're really good at it, you've understood that you need
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to develop good habits and that Aristotle's explanation of virtues,
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I fully subscribe to virtue is a habit that you're
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so I don't think we're very very far. I think
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we can reintroduce that idea, but I think the vocabulary
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matters to make it be something that's about a deeper
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human excellence and not just sort of success in these
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measurable ways, not just success in your career or your
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own you know, personal finance or whatever. And so virtue,
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I really think does need to be reintroduced. And it
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is connected to the sadness because because we're fallen creatures,
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we constantly fail in ways that can be super depressing,
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and then we realize a developing good habits can make
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us less likely to fail, but be still going to fail,
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and every time we fail, we're still made in the
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image of God. So I think a lot of the
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sadness is people who think that through their own effort,
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they can overcome their fallen nature failing to do so.
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And I mean, I remember, as I was writing this book,
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I was on social media and somebody said something like,
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why the heck would I want to have kids and
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pass on all my messed upness? Somebody who was very
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professionally successful, so to some degree had their self together.
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This person wasn't a person who had, you know, was
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born with an addiction to crack or something like that.
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They just had had a rough childhood or felt bad
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about herself. And I said, well, you know, however rough
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your life is, you're you're a good person. And people
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shot back and said, you don't know me. Don't go
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saying a person you have no idea. I obviously was
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coming from a perspective of a Christian anthropology. I'd think
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of humans as being good but fallen. That idea makes
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it easier to sort of keep your head up in
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this world where we're constantly confronted with our own failures
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and the sort of the difficult of dealing with other people.
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Well, yeah, and you talk about other people in an
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interesting way because on one hand, you say that we
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need to do the most Unamerican thing possible, which is
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depend more on others. But and I want you to
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kind of help me figure this out. You say we
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need to depend more on others, but we also need
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others to leave us alone. How do we square that circle?
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Because a lot of the problems And I feel this
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in my core because my wife and I are both
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pretty convinced that we're doing the right thing by kind
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of being more free range with our parenting. But man,
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people who are not free range parents really don't like that.
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I have heard stories of these problems in my neighborhood.
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It hasn't it hasn't happened. But we let our lucky
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man Tim Well, we let our kids roam around and yeah,
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we haven't gotten a you know, what are you doing?
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You have to keep track of that. I wouldn't say
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we need people to leave us alone, because again, that's
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returning to sort of the individualism we need kids to.
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Raising a kid is like your your child is in
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a walled garden. This is a bad metaphor because it
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doesn't quite make sense. But slowly you make the walls
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wider and lower. So I have an college freshman right now,
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so she has tons of freedom. She's nineteen, she's legally
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an adult. So like, if we just follow the lall
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to say, I have no say over her except that
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you know, we're paying her room and board a college.
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But then when she she's having a semester in Europe,
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she wants to go to a Formula one race, which,
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by the way, it's like ridiculous to me. I've never
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watched a Formula one race in my life. I raised
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my kids, so like, you're American, it's baseball, basketball, football,
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and hockey during the Worlds. And so she wants you're
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going to travel from one city in Italy to another city,
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Like I have a little bit of control over her,
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and I was like, I don't think this, and we
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talk about it, and in the end, I let her
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do the thing that I don't think is a good idea.
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With a one year old, you're probably not gonna let
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them do the thing that they think is a good idea.
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They're going to try to shove they see a dog
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poop on the ground and they want to shove it
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in their mouth, and you stop them so slowly from
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like you have no freedom you live in North Korea
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because you're one to like age nineteen, age twenty whatever.
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When they get married, there's a steady increase of freedom
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that you have to give them. Why that that just
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basic framework I don't think is obvious to a lot
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of popular culture, and a lot of it is that
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the people, a lot of people don't have kids or
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haven't had kids in a long time. And then within
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that framework, how much freedom a six year older an
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eight year old can handle is not agreed upon. But
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then the final factor is is the culture and the
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built environment providing the right walls for that garden or
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enough a safeguarden. So do you have neighbors who will
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when they see the kids like chasing after a copperhead snake?
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Be like, no, not that snake. Do you have neighbors
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who how many, especially guys my age, would say we
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were allowed to wander free. My parents let us do that.
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But one time one guy told me that he and
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his friend were chucking gravel at a dog and some
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neighbor woman. It's like, what the heck are you doing?
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And they realized that this neighbor woman was probably about
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two phone calls away from calling their mom. So they
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hop back on their bikes, go back to their separate
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home to try to get to their mom to explain
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it before the so is there a mom on a
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front porch? Is there? And then my old neighborhood in Maryland,
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there was some great stuff right next to us, but
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we were surrounded by these roads that were three lanes
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in each direction, and so our kids couldn't go to
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the grocery store that they could see because just it
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was too dangerous for them to cross that road until
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they were teenagers, basically. And so the built environment, the
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culture need to accommodate free rangeness. And part of it,
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as you're saying, is like, are they gonna call? My
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wife said, I'm not afraid of kidnappers, I'm afraid of
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child protective servant CPS.
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Like, well, and that's I didn't mean leave leave us alone.
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That might have been too strong the verbiage, but it's
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just especially with the helicopter parents right where if you're
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a helicopter parent and somebody else is not helicopter parenting,
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they typically say something and that's that's kind of what
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I meant, tongue in cheek about leave me alone. You know,
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it's not as though we're actively being irresponsible. This is
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by design.
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But the reason I was sensitive to that phrase by
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the way. A lot of what we're talking about is
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leaving kids alone, and that's important. We can talk about that.
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But there was a story I forget where it took place.
441
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It might have been near DC because they were talking
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about on our local radio station, and the cops got
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called because this kid came home from school and you know,
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his parents were still at work. He was like twelve,
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so he was supposed to just let himself in. The
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doors were locked and the key wasn't where it was
447
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supposed to be, so he's just shooting hoops in his driveway.
448
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But it was super sunny, and it was June or something,
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it was pretty hot, and eventually he's sweating and he's
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sitting in the shade of the tree. In two hours
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he's out there. Some neighbor woman calls the police and says,
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these parents have a bandoned their kid. And the callers
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into the radio show all disapproved of what the neighbor
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woman did, but half of them said she should mind
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her own business. And I thought, no, Yeah, go out
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there with some gatorade and I ball stop ice and
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say hey, do you need this? And then if she
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knows her neighbors be like, hey, buddy, come on in.
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And when I suggested that once on social media, people
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like you sound like an abductor the complete collapse in
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social trust and the norm of help. Like that bartender
462
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taking your kid, a helicopter dad might freak out. Some
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bartender who doesn't even speak English is grabbing me. So
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that our duty to care for kids is is worn
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away by our hyper individualism mindset that other people's kids
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are not our problem. That mindset that leads to the
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helicopter parent.
468
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Well, yeah, it's a lack of trust in others, and
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it's a lack of civilizational responsibility, so you know, they're
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My wife started reading your book and she loves it,
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and it was partially due to, you know, her feeling
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the pressure of helicopter parents disliking our free range parent
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And it's really hard because you want to keep the peace.
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But as you say in the book, I mean, there
475
00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:32.799
are long term consequences when you don't give your children
476
00:28:32.960 --> 00:28:36.720
certain amounts of risk and independence and responsibility. And I
477
00:28:36.759 --> 00:28:40.240
want to talk about that, but about the kind of
478
00:28:40.279 --> 00:28:45.680
cultural responsibility. There's an expert that you quote in the
479
00:28:45.720 --> 00:28:49.200
book and she says, oh, I remember that I listened
480
00:28:49.200 --> 00:28:52.680
to a podcast with this person, and I think the
481
00:28:52.720 --> 00:28:56.119
person was advocating that kindergarteners should be able to walk
482
00:28:56.200 --> 00:29:01.440
to school by themselves, and I thought, huh, well, I
483
00:29:01.480 --> 00:29:04.880
wouldn't trust my six year old, Like, okay, so you
484
00:29:04.920 --> 00:29:07.920
go down there, turn left once you get to the dog,
485
00:29:08.400 --> 00:29:11.519
you know, at the red house, then you'll turn right. Now,
486
00:29:11.680 --> 00:29:13.839
you model it for them, you teach them how to
487
00:29:13.880 --> 00:29:17.640
do it, and then I think I would probably trust
488
00:29:17.720 --> 00:29:23.160
him to do it. But there's the other component, which
489
00:29:23.200 --> 00:29:25.480
is what you're talking about, that you would like to
490
00:29:25.559 --> 00:29:28.400
hope that society wouldn't see him and go, oh, that
491
00:29:28.559 --> 00:29:33.319
kid shouldn't be alone. If there's an issue, help him
492
00:29:33.359 --> 00:29:37.160
with it, guide him. Oh you're going to school, here's
493
00:29:37.160 --> 00:29:39.920
the way to school, or oh you need help, what's
494
00:29:39.960 --> 00:29:41.559
your address? I mean, you try and teach your kids
495
00:29:42.240 --> 00:29:45.319
where they live. I mean, that's the big one. But
496
00:29:45.839 --> 00:29:48.720
we've addicated that responsibility as a society because we don't
497
00:29:48.759 --> 00:29:50.920
think that it's ours that's right.
498
00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:52.960
And so this is why the central chapter of my
499
00:29:53.039 --> 00:29:59.240
book is about Israel. So I did a religious pilgrimage
500
00:29:59.240 --> 00:30:01.119
to Israel. It was great. It's all the holy sites.
501
00:30:01.160 --> 00:30:03.759
It changes how you know, how you read the Bible.
502
00:30:03.880 --> 00:30:07.440
When you've been there, it's real. There's those and mountains
503
00:30:07.480 --> 00:30:10.440
they were going up with steeper than I expected. But
504
00:30:10.799 --> 00:30:13.079
so then I suck around for an extra two days
505
00:30:13.119 --> 00:30:15.960
to try to interview just random people in the streets.
506
00:30:16.240 --> 00:30:17.640
And I told my wife at first, I said, I'm
507
00:30:17.640 --> 00:30:20.160
not sure two days is long enough. But let me
508
00:30:20.240 --> 00:30:23.759
tell you as a New Yorker, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
509
00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:27.359
rival New Yorkers and their willingness to share their opinions
510
00:30:27.400 --> 00:30:31.400
with a stranger. So everywhere, and so there's this one
511
00:30:31.480 --> 00:30:34.680
guy who he had two kids, who's like, I want
512
00:30:34.720 --> 00:30:36.559
to have nine. It's like, okay, that's great, and he's
513
00:30:36.640 --> 00:30:39.519
rushing to like a photo shoot with their new baby.
514
00:30:40.599 --> 00:30:43.599
And he tells me, he says, you want to understand
515
00:30:44.839 --> 00:30:50.000
why in Israel so many people have kids, including the
516
00:30:50.079 --> 00:30:53.880
birth rate among secular Jews in Israel is two point zero,
517
00:30:54.079 --> 00:30:56.160
to give you an idea, US is below one point six.
518
00:30:56.240 --> 00:30:58.119
The rest of Europe is below one point five. So
519
00:30:58.240 --> 00:31:00.640
this is people who are not religiou like the kind
520
00:31:00.640 --> 00:31:04.640
of people I talk to, eating like bacon cheeseburgers on
521
00:31:04.839 --> 00:31:07.160
the Sabbath at a burger jorn in Tel Aviv. They
522
00:31:07.240 --> 00:31:10.240
have two kids. So this guy who has two and
523
00:31:10.359 --> 00:31:13.039
once nine told me, he said, you want to understand Jerusalem.
524
00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:17.119
Look around on a school day in the morning, and
525
00:31:17.160 --> 00:31:20.000
I had seen six year olds walking to school like
526
00:31:20.039 --> 00:31:23.200
they've got their little door, the explorer backpack that's too big,
527
00:31:23.359 --> 00:31:25.720
and they're they're out. Went through the street and says,
528
00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:31.319
when you get to a street that's like an actual street,
529
00:31:31.720 --> 00:31:33.920
you will see them waiting on the corner because they
530
00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:36.279
have all been told you are not allowed to cross
531
00:31:36.359 --> 00:31:39.759
these big streets by yourself. But if their parents aren't there,
532
00:31:39.759 --> 00:31:41.920
who are they waiting for. They're waiting for the next
533
00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:45.200
adult or middle school or high school kid to come
534
00:31:45.279 --> 00:31:48.319
by and take their hands and cross the street with them.
535
00:31:49.319 --> 00:31:52.720
So on so many levels, that's foreign here, right, Like
536
00:31:53.279 --> 00:31:56.240
I I would feel a little uncomfortable if I saw
537
00:31:56.279 --> 00:31:58.160
a kid I didn't know and being like, hey, let
538
00:31:58.240 --> 00:32:00.799
me hold your hand into it. Somebody would think I
539
00:32:00.880 --> 00:32:04.279
was a kidnapper. Right, But so the whole cultural foundation
540
00:32:04.440 --> 00:32:07.200
there is not only are you're not weird for doing that,
541
00:32:07.319 --> 00:32:11.200
you would be inconsidered if you didn't help that kid across.
542
00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:17.680
And then but then so that duty, as you're talking
543
00:32:17.720 --> 00:32:22.559
about sort of civilizational responsibility that duty. To some extent,
544
00:32:22.640 --> 00:32:27.319
it's obvious, right, Like to us a disabled person, you
545
00:32:27.480 --> 00:32:32.119
owe them opening the door for them. Nobody would think like, well,
546
00:32:32.200 --> 00:32:33.920
it's your fault you're disabled, I'm not going to open
547
00:32:33.960 --> 00:32:34.400
the door for you.
548
00:32:36.079 --> 00:32:41.160
Elderly, you say it's obvious, Tim, But I I can
549
00:32:41.279 --> 00:32:45.680
just hear somebody calling you an able list. You don't
550
00:32:45.720 --> 00:32:48.279
think that they're able to do it. But that's that's
551
00:32:48.319 --> 00:32:51.039
where we've gotten, where everything is an offense, everything is
552
00:32:51.480 --> 00:32:55.920
is controversial, everything is well yeah, but yeah, lost common
553
00:32:56.000 --> 00:32:57.559
sense are not always obvious.
554
00:32:57.799 --> 00:33:00.319
But so then, but we should talk about what you said,
555
00:33:00.319 --> 00:33:03.559
which is definitely true. We owe our children freedom, and
556
00:33:03.640 --> 00:33:06.000
when we don't give them enough freedom, it harms them.
557
00:33:06.079 --> 00:33:10.279
And so I cite pediatricians writing in medical journals saying
558
00:33:11.119 --> 00:33:15.039
there is an epidemic of childhood anxiety and adolescent anxiety,
559
00:33:15.319 --> 00:33:19.759
and the root cause is a lack of unstructured, unsupervised play.
560
00:33:21.640 --> 00:33:25.799
And so the root of that we've talked about helicopter parenting,
561
00:33:25.880 --> 00:33:27.640
but we haven't talked enough about the other root of that,
562
00:33:28.039 --> 00:33:32.319
which is overscheduling and overplanning. So I focus on travel
563
00:33:32.359 --> 00:33:34.519
sports replacing like the Little League that I would ride
564
00:33:34.559 --> 00:33:36.799
my bike to But even more than Little League, like
565
00:33:37.720 --> 00:33:42.160
pickup stickball or kids inventing their own game so that
566
00:33:42.319 --> 00:33:47.359
they're like they're that they're bored. I mean, boredom is amuse.
567
00:33:47.960 --> 00:33:52.599
Boredom is it spurs creativity. But also like figuring out
568
00:33:52.640 --> 00:33:55.200
what to do when you're kind of in a situation,
569
00:33:55.880 --> 00:34:00.240
is how you deal with adulthood. And that starting with
570
00:34:01.400 --> 00:34:05.039
the parents and millennials where they're like, well, we're going
571
00:34:05.240 --> 00:34:07.759
to make sure that our kid has the best of everything.
572
00:34:07.960 --> 00:34:12.840
So after school there's piano, then there's tutors, after dinner
573
00:34:12.880 --> 00:34:16.400
there's taekwon do any one of those things is good.
574
00:34:16.519 --> 00:34:18.800
Like I'm I wish we had given all six of
575
00:34:18.840 --> 00:34:20.519
our kids piano lessons. We gave like two and a
576
00:34:20.559 --> 00:34:23.519
half of them piano lessons, and I think that's great. Well,
577
00:34:23.760 --> 00:34:25.079
what we have given all kids that.
578
00:34:25.119 --> 00:34:26.440
Fourth one would have been a prodigy.
579
00:34:28.639 --> 00:34:31.639
What we have given our kids that's good is a
580
00:34:31.719 --> 00:34:35.559
bunch of siblings and a bunch of freedom. And so
581
00:34:36.239 --> 00:34:39.119
that trade off between the freedom and the good things.
582
00:34:39.199 --> 00:34:41.000
And then some of the good things become so intensive
583
00:34:41.039 --> 00:34:44.599
that they become bad. And that's my view on travel sports,
584
00:34:46.440 --> 00:34:50.599
but that that lack of freedom comes from not just helicoptering,
585
00:34:50.840 --> 00:34:54.280
but the belief that we need to do maximum effort
586
00:34:54.599 --> 00:34:59.280
intensive parenting. I mean, I just remember these books I
587
00:34:59.360 --> 00:35:01.840
was reading, and we were expecting our first that you
588
00:35:01.880 --> 00:35:04.800
should play classical music for the baby, like I like
589
00:35:05.079 --> 00:35:08.800
classical music, you should play classical music for yourself. Playing
590
00:35:08.800 --> 00:35:10.880
classical music for the in utero baby.
591
00:35:11.679 --> 00:35:16.199
Yeah, we played my wife got pregnant when we were
592
00:35:16.199 --> 00:35:18.159
living in Colombia and South America, so it was a
593
00:35:18.239 --> 00:35:21.760
lot of like bachata. And maybe that's why it's crazy.
594
00:35:21.960 --> 00:35:25.760
Or just so experiment one two children who are exposed
595
00:35:25.800 --> 00:35:26.559
to but chata in.
596
00:35:28.920 --> 00:35:31.880
But I mean, I think what you're hitting on is
597
00:35:31.960 --> 00:35:36.559
that we view everything in economic terms. And what you
598
00:35:36.639 --> 00:35:40.400
were saying earlier about kind of hacking, right, like virtue
599
00:35:40.440 --> 00:35:42.199
hacking in a sense. You didn't use those words, but
600
00:35:42.239 --> 00:35:44.800
I'm gonna put them in your mouth. But that's oh
601
00:35:45.320 --> 00:35:48.719
the virtues that it's a it's a life hack, and
602
00:35:48.960 --> 00:35:50.199
more often than not, I see a lot of these
603
00:35:50.280 --> 00:35:53.039
life hacks the missing element is a wife and kids.
604
00:35:53.960 --> 00:35:57.039
So it's really you sit there like, yeah, you could
605
00:35:57.039 --> 00:35:58.599
do the cold bloge and this and that, but like
606
00:35:59.039 --> 00:36:02.440
when it's my aunts I'm like ow, or like what.
607
00:36:03.960 --> 00:36:06.239
How much is the morning routine where there's no other
608
00:36:06.360 --> 00:36:08.599
human being in there? I told my daughter it was
609
00:36:08.840 --> 00:36:10.840
from college. We need to make my morning routine where
610
00:36:10.880 --> 00:36:13.320
I got up, I make coffee for my wife, I
611
00:36:13.400 --> 00:36:16.039
wake up the kids, my wife like you know. Now,
612
00:36:16.039 --> 00:36:17.880
we don't even pack lunches anymore because the all this
613
00:36:18.039 --> 00:36:21.840
is not like our morning routine is entirely person to person.
614
00:36:22.079 --> 00:36:26.400
There's no ice bath, there's no like facial evaluation, peels.
615
00:36:27.599 --> 00:36:31.079
It's filled with humanity. It's real. And that's the thing
616
00:36:31.639 --> 00:36:34.719
I mean, Okay, with all these life hacks, I watch
617
00:36:34.800 --> 00:36:38.039
it great, you might live to one hundred and thirty,
618
00:36:38.920 --> 00:36:43.360
but what are you living for? And that I mean
619
00:36:43.920 --> 00:36:46.760
to you and me that seems obvious, but I feel
620
00:36:46.800 --> 00:36:50.079
like people will laugh at us. You're the ones you
621
00:36:50.159 --> 00:36:51.599
know you're going to die of a heart attack as
622
00:36:51.599 --> 00:36:52.079
your kid or what.
623
00:36:52.880 --> 00:36:53.039
Well.
624
00:36:53.079 --> 00:36:56.159
I just feel like we've lost the meaning of life now.
625
00:36:56.239 --> 00:36:58.440
And so that's the thing that's part of the reason
626
00:36:58.519 --> 00:37:00.760
I use the idea of a chie code or different
627
00:37:00.800 --> 00:37:07.599
paths to the same thing. We're obligated to serve our families,
628
00:37:07.920 --> 00:37:11.239
but we're obligated all humans are obligated to serve other people,
629
00:37:11.840 --> 00:37:14.280
and that you can live for other people even if
630
00:37:14.320 --> 00:37:16.840
you never get married and never have kids. It's just
631
00:37:16.920 --> 00:37:20.719
a little more obvious when they're literally not going to
632
00:37:20.800 --> 00:37:23.760
have food if you don't you know, feed them, and
633
00:37:24.039 --> 00:37:26.519
so but that I think you're right, that we're lost,
634
00:37:26.599 --> 00:37:29.400
that we're that idea of not living for other people.
635
00:37:29.480 --> 00:37:33.599
You will read all these op eds in places like
636
00:37:33.679 --> 00:37:36.960
the New York Times about how you need to set
637
00:37:37.039 --> 00:37:40.360
up boundaries and social media is worse. Set up boundaries,
638
00:37:40.719 --> 00:37:45.039
get toxic people out of your life. The word autonomy,
639
00:37:45.079 --> 00:37:47.320
all of these things that point at things that are important.
640
00:37:47.320 --> 00:37:51.280
Family that you choose with, chosen, real family. All of
641
00:37:51.360 --> 00:37:55.559
these things can be good, but when they become the
642
00:37:55.679 --> 00:38:01.440
centerpiece of someone's worldview, they become it basically becomes I
643
00:38:02.039 --> 00:38:05.760
am not going to accept anything unchosen. And so this
644
00:38:05.880 --> 00:38:08.079
is part of the interesting thing about Israel again too.
645
00:38:08.920 --> 00:38:10.639
It was after I wrote the book, I was doing
646
00:38:10.679 --> 00:38:15.239
a podcast with Jewish editor who has lived in Israel,
647
00:38:16.199 --> 00:38:20.760
and he sort of guided me towards It was one
648
00:38:20.800 --> 00:38:23.400
of those those things where I the guy read my
649
00:38:23.440 --> 00:38:25.719
book and he saw things I didn't see. I'm like, yes,
650
00:38:25.800 --> 00:38:28.719
I definitely intended that theme that you pulled out, But
651
00:38:29.599 --> 00:38:33.599
it was the idea that for Jews, the idea of
652
00:38:33.639 --> 00:38:40.920
an inheritance that brings both goods, benefits and burdens. That
653
00:38:41.079 --> 00:38:44.960
that is how they understand themselves. Somebody who has inherited something.
654
00:38:45.280 --> 00:38:50.679
Our hyper individualistic, transactional, materialistic culture is different. Like if
655
00:38:50.719 --> 00:38:53.719
you inherit a ton of money, like in today's culture,
656
00:38:53.840 --> 00:38:56.320
like you didn't earn that, Like that's not yours. And
657
00:38:56.400 --> 00:39:00.840
then if you inherit a burden like a a property,
658
00:39:01.639 --> 00:39:04.039
a pet of something else, you're like, I didn't ask
659
00:39:04.119 --> 00:39:06.639
for that, So I have no obligation to that. That
660
00:39:06.800 --> 00:39:11.039
individualistic taken over, and so we we've lost the idea
661
00:39:11.119 --> 00:39:14.280
that there can be burdens placed on you that you
662
00:39:14.400 --> 00:39:16.800
did not choose and you still have an obligation to them.
663
00:39:17.280 --> 00:39:20.079
That says, I mean, that's I don't that's not even
664
00:39:20.079 --> 00:39:23.920
a microaggression. That's a system of oppression or something in
665
00:39:24.039 --> 00:39:24.920
today's society.
666
00:39:26.559 --> 00:39:29.119
No, you're right, And I mean when you talk about inheritance,
667
00:39:29.679 --> 00:39:32.000
my dad brings that up all the time and says,
668
00:39:32.039 --> 00:39:35.239
a good man leaves an inheritance. And I always you know,
669
00:39:35.679 --> 00:39:38.039
my second son I named after my grandfather to my
670
00:39:38.119 --> 00:39:42.960
dad's death. And for me, the inheritance is the belief structure.
671
00:39:43.199 --> 00:39:46.280
I mean you it's it's the I don't know if
672
00:39:46.320 --> 00:39:48.039
you would agree, but I feel like the focal point
673
00:39:48.039 --> 00:39:53.280
of your book is belief matters. It will make you happier, healthier,
674
00:39:53.559 --> 00:39:56.880
it will give you purpose in life. And every single
675
00:39:57.000 --> 00:40:01.679
one of my grandfather's children and then stream their children's children,
676
00:40:02.320 --> 00:40:05.400
for the most part, are you know, I say, for
677
00:40:05.440 --> 00:40:08.159
the most part, I can't think of anybody that isn't
678
00:40:08.199 --> 00:40:11.880
involved in church, that doesn't have a church life, and
679
00:40:12.119 --> 00:40:12.880
that is rare.
680
00:40:13.400 --> 00:40:13.559
I have.
681
00:40:13.960 --> 00:40:20.239
This is almost un unthinkable. That's an inheritance. That is
682
00:40:20.280 --> 00:40:23.360
an inheritance, and it is because it was never nominal.
683
00:40:24.599 --> 00:40:28.000
It was always something that mattered. And I think that
684
00:40:28.119 --> 00:40:31.360
that's a huge issue, even for religious people, is that
685
00:40:31.480 --> 00:40:35.440
we've imbibed a secular concept ourselves, where faith is something
686
00:40:35.519 --> 00:40:38.239
that you can park when you go into the secular world,
687
00:40:38.599 --> 00:40:41.159
as though there's a I really firmly believe there's no
688
00:40:41.400 --> 00:40:44.320
such thing as neutrality in the public square. You're always
689
00:40:44.400 --> 00:40:51.199
bringing your world view in and yeah, but you're right,
690
00:40:51.239 --> 00:40:53.920
it's rare. It's rare, and it's because it always mattered,
691
00:40:53.960 --> 00:40:56.440
and it was always impacting. You talk about a burden
692
00:40:56.880 --> 00:40:58.800
for me, that felt like a burden. Is that something
693
00:40:58.840 --> 00:41:01.480
that I did not want? It was a macro aggression.
694
00:41:02.079 --> 00:41:04.760
I don't want your faith keep it away, and I
695
00:41:04.920 --> 00:41:07.440
did keep it away for a long time. But I mean,
696
00:41:07.519 --> 00:41:10.559
you know, as a parent, kids come back if you
697
00:41:10.880 --> 00:41:13.000
give them healthy boundaries. I'm not saying they always will.
698
00:41:13.000 --> 00:41:15.639
I mean their free will is real. And you have six,
699
00:41:15.679 --> 00:41:17.920
I have two. I'm trying to get on your level.
700
00:41:19.480 --> 00:41:21.920
You don't do much different. And they're so different.
701
00:41:22.559 --> 00:41:26.000
That's especially with a girl and a boy. I can
702
00:41:26.079 --> 00:41:27.719
see the differences. But then we had a boy again,
703
00:41:27.760 --> 00:41:29.719
and they're back to back rates right now, they're eleventh
704
00:41:29.760 --> 00:41:33.760
and tenth grade. They are so different, like they're they
705
00:41:33.840 --> 00:41:35.960
were both had the same Latin teacher and the Latin teachers,
706
00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:38.719
like do they live in the same house because they
707
00:41:39.079 --> 00:41:44.679
personalities are different. But I think you're You're very right.
708
00:41:45.639 --> 00:41:48.880
One of the stories I tell about when my oldest
709
00:41:49.039 --> 00:41:51.480
was born, we had like we'd picked out her name
710
00:41:51.519 --> 00:41:54.039
speaking of inheritance, because it was my mom's name, it
711
00:41:54.119 --> 00:41:56.159
was my grandma's name. Is my great grandma's name, Like
712
00:41:56.280 --> 00:42:00.719
going back almost to like the mayflower. When the wasps
713
00:42:00.800 --> 00:42:04.159
of my family came over and we knew that was
714
00:42:04.199 --> 00:42:06.480
going to be your name. I'd even joke that in
715
00:42:06.800 --> 00:42:08.320
addition to a name, I was going to give you
716
00:42:08.360 --> 00:42:10.679
to them a number like in sports. I said, we
717
00:42:10.760 --> 00:42:12.880
were giving to lose some Jackie Robinson's number because and
718
00:42:12.960 --> 00:42:15.599
she's like, why why give her that? Well, because you
719
00:42:15.599 --> 00:42:17.480
can't give it to a boy because it's been retired
720
00:42:17.480 --> 00:42:20.119
from Major League Baseball, so they can't carry it when
721
00:42:20.159 --> 00:42:22.079
they when they make the bigs. My daughter thought that
722
00:42:22.199 --> 00:42:25.320
was a little absurd, my wife. But so anyway, so
723
00:42:25.559 --> 00:42:28.400
we had, you know, decorated her nursery, and then she's
724
00:42:28.480 --> 00:42:31.519
born and I look at her, I'm like, I've never
725
00:42:31.599 --> 00:42:37.079
met you before. You're a stranger. And so one of
726
00:42:37.159 --> 00:42:39.480
the quotes I have in the book is every child
727
00:42:39.599 --> 00:42:46.159
is unchosen. Like maybe one day genetic modification and in
728
00:42:46.320 --> 00:42:48.159
vitro will get to the point where this isn't true,
729
00:42:48.239 --> 00:42:51.440
but it's still true even if you do it that way,
730
00:42:52.039 --> 00:42:57.519
that there's infinite question mark and mystery in we try it.
731
00:42:58.639 --> 00:43:01.199
That is again part of that, like you don't get
732
00:43:01.280 --> 00:43:05.639
to pick to some extent, you pick your friends, you
733
00:43:05.719 --> 00:43:09.679
pick your spouse. You don't get to pick your children.
734
00:43:09.840 --> 00:43:11.519
You don't get to pick your siblings too, which is
735
00:43:11.559 --> 00:43:16.639
another part of why that like autonomy focused world doesn't
736
00:43:16.719 --> 00:43:18.760
like it. And so then there's another idea related to
737
00:43:18.880 --> 00:43:21.760
that picking of the siblings, which is so there's a
738
00:43:21.880 --> 00:43:27.400
concept that psychiatrists started worrying about long ago and they
739
00:43:27.400 --> 00:43:30.280
gave it the name parentification. And this was if you
740
00:43:30.400 --> 00:43:35.519
grew up, imagine your dad is a non functional alcoholic,
741
00:43:35.679 --> 00:43:38.000
and so the oldest daughter suddenly has to take on
742
00:43:38.079 --> 00:43:40.679
all these duties and has to try to like make
743
00:43:40.840 --> 00:43:43.800
sure dad makes it to work on time, and at
744
00:43:43.880 --> 00:43:47.159
age ten is feeding all that like a really dysfunctional,
745
00:43:47.199 --> 00:43:50.440
abusive household. This often falls on an oldest child or
746
00:43:50.440 --> 00:43:54.599
an oldest daughter. That concept have been expanded and now
747
00:43:54.679 --> 00:43:57.880
there was a recent article on parentification a few years
748
00:43:57.920 --> 00:44:01.719
ago that described the twelve year old having to make
749
00:44:02.239 --> 00:44:06.400
lunch for her younger siblings. It's like what or you know,
750
00:44:06.559 --> 00:44:10.079
the eight year old having to change diapers. That's called
751
00:44:10.760 --> 00:44:15.400
being part of a family. Absolutely, but the child didn't
752
00:44:15.480 --> 00:44:20.800
choose that, and so you are giving them a job
753
00:44:21.119 --> 00:44:22.639
and it's not going to be equal, right if you
754
00:44:22.719 --> 00:44:27.639
care about equality, the youngest might never change diapers, and
755
00:44:27.880 --> 00:44:31.159
so how how is that equal if they get different
756
00:44:31.239 --> 00:44:34.440
assignments based on their age order, YadA YadA, Especially if
757
00:44:34.440 --> 00:44:36.960
you're given the girls different responsibility than the boys. Oh gosh,
758
00:44:37.960 --> 00:44:40.400
that's all sorts of awful. And so part of the
759
00:44:40.440 --> 00:44:43.599
push towards a one or two kids is to make
760
00:44:43.679 --> 00:44:45.719
sure that each of your kids can be a free agent.
761
00:44:46.280 --> 00:44:50.119
And so now tell the pursuit of virtue. If your
762
00:44:50.320 --> 00:44:56.480
kid is training to be, you know, an excellent pitcher,
763
00:44:57.159 --> 00:44:59.119
that's going to have all sorts of great things. He
764
00:44:59.280 --> 00:45:02.480
I love baseball, though I hated it when my son pitched,
765
00:45:02.480 --> 00:45:05.039
I would get as far away as I could. I
766
00:45:05.159 --> 00:45:09.559
still want it. But he's going to learn how persistence
767
00:45:09.639 --> 00:45:11.280
pays off. He's going to have to learn, I mean,
768
00:45:11.400 --> 00:45:15.800
especially pitching, how to deal with adversity. YadA, YadA. There
769
00:45:15.840 --> 00:45:17.800
will be lots of good things. But then he's like,
770
00:45:18.119 --> 00:45:19.840
and now I have to watch my diet. That's a
771
00:45:19.880 --> 00:45:21.960
good thing. And now I have to lift weights, that's
772
00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:24.920
a good thing. And now I can't, you know, have
773
00:45:25.039 --> 00:45:28.119
a catch with my little brother because I have to
774
00:45:28.199 --> 00:45:30.199
rest my arm. And now I'm not going to eat
775
00:45:30.199 --> 00:45:32.320
what you're serving for dinner because that's not in my diet.
776
00:45:32.639 --> 00:45:35.679
And now I'm going to miss my you know, my
777
00:45:36.079 --> 00:45:39.440
sister's birthday because we're doing an extra training session. And
778
00:45:39.519 --> 00:45:42.920
you realize that that individual pursuit of virtue taken too
779
00:45:43.039 --> 00:45:48.519
far from other family obligations. That's one of the hardest
780
00:45:48.519 --> 00:45:50.679
things for well meaning parents in our modern world.
781
00:45:50.760 --> 00:45:57.440
I think, yeah, no, I completely agree that it's I
782
00:45:57.519 --> 00:46:02.159
think you put it to have lower ambitions for your kids,
783
00:46:04.280 --> 00:46:06.199
which I mean, there are a lot of things that
784
00:46:06.239 --> 00:46:08.239
you say in this book that like when you if
785
00:46:08.280 --> 00:46:12.840
you just read the sentence without any context, it's like, huh,
786
00:46:13.440 --> 00:46:17.559
it's have lower ambitions, but teach them to aim higher.
787
00:46:18.000 --> 00:46:21.599
I mean, there's there's there's a perception of paradox, but
788
00:46:21.719 --> 00:46:22.320
it's it's.
789
00:46:23.360 --> 00:46:27.840
My son who's a baseball player. I think his ambitions
790
00:46:27.880 --> 00:46:30.599
were like major leagues as recently as like seventh grade, right,
791
00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:34.280
I just thought, I hope he can make the varsity team.
792
00:46:34.519 --> 00:46:37.239
And now he's like yesterday and the day before he
793
00:46:37.320 --> 00:46:40.039
started in left field and was batting ninth I was
794
00:46:40.079 --> 00:46:44.039
like that, that makes me proud. That was me, and
795
00:46:44.559 --> 00:46:48.519
so that's great. Another son whose sport now is climbing,
796
00:46:49.639 --> 00:46:52.119
he once came up to me and Charlie the old
797
00:46:52.239 --> 00:46:54.480
his older brother, at the beginning of the summer, and
798
00:46:54.559 --> 00:46:56.960
he said, I want to learn how to catch a
799
00:46:57.079 --> 00:47:00.639
football just well enough that if one we're playing gym
800
00:47:00.719 --> 00:47:03.239
football and I'm open and they pass it to me,
801
00:47:03.360 --> 00:47:05.840
I don't drop it. Because what had happened is a
802
00:47:05.960 --> 00:47:08.559
quarterback had been like, don't throw to Carney, He's gonna
803
00:47:08.599 --> 00:47:13.079
drop it. And so Charlie just work with Brendan on
804
00:47:13.159 --> 00:47:15.679
that all summer, and then there's a new kid in school.
805
00:47:15.760 --> 00:47:17.840
He didn't know not to pass it to Brennan. Throws
806
00:47:17.880 --> 00:47:20.559
it to Brennan, who's uncovered because the defense is like
807
00:47:20.639 --> 00:47:23.199
Carney KG, it catches and he runs for TuS. That
808
00:47:23.480 --> 00:47:26.880
was my height of like my aspiration for you be
809
00:47:27.039 --> 00:47:30.159
the guy. If you're open, the quarterback will still pass
810
00:47:30.239 --> 00:47:33.480
you the ball. So those are my low ambitions. My
811
00:47:33.599 --> 00:47:37.760
high ambition we already talked about it, sainthood. There's no
812
00:47:37.880 --> 00:47:42.679
higher ambition. And your son getting into a D one
813
00:47:42.760 --> 00:47:46.639
school is great, it's something he should be proud of.
814
00:47:46.719 --> 00:47:48.800
You should be proud of. But if what you had
815
00:47:48.880 --> 00:47:52.840
to do to get there took away the ass, then
816
00:47:53.000 --> 00:47:53.679
that was a mistake.
817
00:47:54.840 --> 00:47:59.079
Yeah, No, completely agree that you once again, you have
818
00:47:59.159 --> 00:48:04.280
to maintain your humanity at every juncture, you know, and
819
00:48:04.559 --> 00:48:07.159
that these things sports in and of themselves are not bad.
820
00:48:07.360 --> 00:48:10.960
You know, sometimes people get hyper religious and they try
821
00:48:11.039 --> 00:48:13.760
and leave the world behind in every way. I can
822
00:48:13.800 --> 00:48:17.760
already tell you're a sports fan, and I sit there, Okay,
823
00:48:17.920 --> 00:48:21.760
oh this league or that league is demonic. We could
824
00:48:21.760 --> 00:48:24.599
sit here and talk about my problems with pro sports
825
00:48:24.639 --> 00:48:27.880
all day long. You know, I think that, you know,
826
00:48:28.159 --> 00:48:30.400
I've thought that there should be a book written on
827
00:48:30.519 --> 00:48:34.519
this where you just talk about how professional sports can
828
00:48:34.599 --> 00:48:39.280
you talk about culture? Professional sports lead a lot of culture,
829
00:48:39.639 --> 00:48:40.920
way more than we realize.
830
00:48:41.400 --> 00:48:41.559
You know.
831
00:48:41.719 --> 00:48:43.159
I just I got to take care of me and
832
00:48:43.239 --> 00:48:44.920
my family. I got to do what's right for me
833
00:48:45.039 --> 00:48:48.519
and my family. That is the promotion on a lot
834
00:48:48.559 --> 00:48:53.559
of levels of selfishness, of greed of but it's been
835
00:48:54.039 --> 00:48:57.639
turned into a cultural norm where no, that's the way
836
00:48:57.719 --> 00:49:01.119
things should be. Now, that's not an order of loves.
837
00:49:01.599 --> 00:49:05.280
I've got to take care because especially when we're talking
838
00:49:05.280 --> 00:49:07.199
about professional sports and the money and everything like that.
839
00:49:07.880 --> 00:49:13.320
But I digress. Some of the best moments that I've
840
00:49:13.400 --> 00:49:16.079
had with my six year old are is there a
841
00:49:16.119 --> 00:49:19.920
Hornets game tonight, and just sitting there and watching sports
842
00:49:19.960 --> 00:49:24.039
together and seeing him develop a love for sports like that.
843
00:49:24.199 --> 00:49:26.960
I mean, it's it's not all bad.
844
00:49:27.519 --> 00:49:29.360
I didn't think I would get into watching football. I've
845
00:49:29.440 --> 00:49:32.480
never been. If the weather's nice, I don't spend Sunday
846
00:49:32.480 --> 00:49:34.719
watching football. But when it's horrible weather, it's like, what
847
00:49:34.840 --> 00:49:36.920
can I do with my kids? It's watch football and
848
00:49:37.039 --> 00:49:40.440
just putting the things in their place. It's all you
849
00:49:40.519 --> 00:49:44.000
have to do. But football, football on Saturdays and Sundays
850
00:49:44.039 --> 00:49:48.440
can become all consumed. It becomes a command performance. And
851
00:49:48.480 --> 00:49:50.599
if a guy has a nine to five job Monday
852
00:49:50.639 --> 00:49:54.039
through Friday, well then there's not a lot of time
853
00:49:54.760 --> 00:49:59.039
outside of his obligations. If one of them is Nebraska football.
854
00:50:00.559 --> 00:50:03.360
Yeah, this the Saturday and the Sunday, depending on which
855
00:50:03.360 --> 00:50:05.800
side you follow. And then if you have both and
856
00:50:05.920 --> 00:50:10.360
help us, whose responsibility is it to raise kids? Because
857
00:50:10.760 --> 00:50:13.199
in a lot of you know, I was talking to
858
00:50:13.239 --> 00:50:15.880
my wife and she said, well, what's the big takeaway?
859
00:50:15.920 --> 00:50:17.840
What's the big takeaway from the book? And I could
860
00:50:17.880 --> 00:50:20.840
ask you and I will ask you, But you know,
861
00:50:22.559 --> 00:50:26.719
you talk about how money matters. You know, sometimes just
862
00:50:26.840 --> 00:50:30.920
giving cash is actually helpful. No strings attached. It's not
863
00:50:31.320 --> 00:50:34.559
cat because I'll tell you a story real quick. Just
864
00:50:34.760 --> 00:50:40.960
it's it's a symptom of the sickness. So your HSA
865
00:50:41.159 --> 00:50:47.199
FSA whatever where you can spend it on childcare. But
866
00:50:47.360 --> 00:50:51.039
it got rejected because the childcare receipt that I sent
867
00:50:51.119 --> 00:50:55.400
in said something about school and oh no, we won't pay.
868
00:50:56.239 --> 00:50:58.199
So if they're learning, you won't pay for it. It
869
00:50:58.360 --> 00:51:00.719
just has to be pure, like makeing sure that they're
870
00:51:00.800 --> 00:51:05.639
not dying or like that's a sign of the sickness.
871
00:51:05.679 --> 00:51:09.480
You talk about how money matters. Okay, I think that's true,
872
00:51:10.440 --> 00:51:16.000
but I think you're more important. Kind of solution is
873
00:51:16.079 --> 00:51:22.280
that cultural institutions matter that government and economics. While they
874
00:51:22.440 --> 00:51:26.079
may be helpful, you're not really going to solve the
875
00:51:26.159 --> 00:51:29.800
problem unless the cultural institutions step up in a way
876
00:51:29.880 --> 00:51:34.519
that they've become dormant, whether it's by the state not
877
00:51:34.679 --> 00:51:38.239
allowing them to do it, like with certain Catholic charities
878
00:51:38.320 --> 00:51:41.239
or Christian charities. I know the state sometimes comes in
879
00:51:41.360 --> 00:51:44.639
and undercuts them, but I really do agree with you.
880
00:51:44.880 --> 00:51:48.039
If you agree with me that culture institutions have to
881
00:51:48.079 --> 00:51:49.320
step up, that's right.
882
00:51:49.360 --> 00:51:51.840
And the subtitle of Family and Friendly is how our
883
00:51:51.880 --> 00:51:54.320
culture made raising children harder than it needs to be.
884
00:51:54.440 --> 00:51:56.639
When I posted the cover on Facebook, one of my
885
00:51:56.719 --> 00:51:59.280
high school friends says, I will buy this to see
886
00:51:59.280 --> 00:52:02.239
why you say coldulture and not economy, and another one
887
00:52:02.320 --> 00:52:06.559
said a government. They thought that should have been the subtimee.
888
00:52:06.760 --> 00:52:08.960
I think the economy and the government matter, but to
889
00:52:09.079 --> 00:52:12.559
the degree that they shaped the culture. And so you
890
00:52:12.679 --> 00:52:16.760
talked about neutrality earlier. It took me a while to
891
00:52:16.800 --> 00:52:20.159
realize what I'm saying is, well, I believe in a
892
00:52:20.239 --> 00:52:24.440
lot of neutrality. The government should not establish a religion.
893
00:52:24.559 --> 00:52:27.119
We shouldn't. You know, there's lots of discrimination that we
894
00:52:27.239 --> 00:52:32.400
shouldn't do. We can't be neutral on kids. Like kids
895
00:52:32.480 --> 00:52:34.760
and parents are good, We're going to be pro them,
896
00:52:35.800 --> 00:52:39.800
and so you know that means an employer might be
897
00:52:40.920 --> 00:52:43.000
I think I tell this story in the book of
898
00:52:43.920 --> 00:52:47.360
when I was an editor of a small opinion page
899
00:52:47.360 --> 00:52:50.760
about nine people, and we would debate policy. But then
900
00:52:51.119 --> 00:52:53.840
it trickled into like company policy. It was about like
901
00:52:53.960 --> 00:52:57.400
pregnancy discrimination, and some guy was like, well, if you're
902
00:52:57.400 --> 00:52:59.440
getting pregnant and you're going to take time off, that
903
00:52:59.559 --> 00:53:02.039
hurts the company, so you should be allowed to discriminate
904
00:53:02.079 --> 00:53:03.679
against them. And I said, I understand what you're saying,
905
00:53:04.079 --> 00:53:08.239
but we should be four people having families. And he said, well,
906
00:53:08.559 --> 00:53:14.119
it's interesting, Tim, because you I take off the end
907
00:53:14.159 --> 00:53:17.679
of Holy Week at least Thursday and Friday, if not Wednesday. Says,
908
00:53:17.719 --> 00:53:20.360
you take off for that and the te ball league
909
00:53:20.400 --> 00:53:23.079
I talk about in the book that I founded. I
910
00:53:23.159 --> 00:53:26.679
had to be there, you know, early on Friday, and
911
00:53:27.440 --> 00:53:29.920
I would leave work when I was the editor, regularly
912
00:53:29.960 --> 00:53:32.000
at five o'clock to make sure that I was home
913
00:53:32.039 --> 00:53:34.159
for family dinner. And then he pointed to the editor
914
00:53:34.159 --> 00:53:37.800
of the magazine, who was observant to it, said the
915
00:53:37.920 --> 00:53:40.119
deadline for the magazine is Thursday, so that he doesn't
916
00:53:40.159 --> 00:53:43.079
have to put the mag to bed on Friday and
917
00:53:43.360 --> 00:53:47.480
worry about being ready for the start of the Sabbath.
918
00:53:48.880 --> 00:53:52.360
He said, you guys get these accommodations for your family
919
00:53:52.440 --> 00:53:56.039
and your religion. I don't get any special accommodation. This
920
00:53:56.119 --> 00:53:58.159
guy at the time was secular. He didn't have a family.
921
00:53:59.480 --> 00:54:01.400
And I started to say, well, no, you get and
922
00:54:01.440 --> 00:54:05.119
then I said, yeah, you're right. We value faith and
923
00:54:05.199 --> 00:54:07.920
family above other things. That guy got a day off
924
00:54:07.960 --> 00:54:10.800
when his soccer team is like Arsenal or whatever, some
925
00:54:10.920 --> 00:54:13.960
British soccer team had a game because they play at
926
00:54:14.000 --> 00:54:16.320
like ten am. I was like, He's like, I gotta
927
00:54:16.360 --> 00:54:18.519
be honest, I'm gonna be at a pub at ten am.
928
00:54:18.599 --> 00:54:20.440
You don't want me working this day. And it was
929
00:54:20.480 --> 00:54:22.960
a Friday, which is a busier day. And I was like, yeah, okay,
930
00:54:23.000 --> 00:54:26.039
you get that Friday off. So your soccer game gets
931
00:54:26.079 --> 00:54:29.880
you one day all season my kids, and his religion
932
00:54:30.840 --> 00:54:33.840
gets a lot more because we're not being neutral, because
933
00:54:33.880 --> 00:54:37.880
we're saying that these things matter, and so we should
934
00:54:37.920 --> 00:54:43.280
be Our laws should say that. Not there's some levels
935
00:54:43.280 --> 00:54:45.440
of neutrality we want to preserve, but our laws should
936
00:54:45.440 --> 00:54:48.559
say that because the laws form the soul. Both Augustine
937
00:54:48.639 --> 00:54:55.000
and Aquinas say that, but really are broader culture. That
938
00:54:55.159 --> 00:54:58.719
thing about in Israel about like crossing the street with
939
00:54:58.800 --> 00:55:02.840
the little kids, nobody's going to establish that by law.
940
00:55:03.920 --> 00:55:06.599
Minneapolis passing a law saying you have to help six
941
00:55:06.719 --> 00:55:10.559
year olds across the street is not going to established culture.
942
00:55:10.880 --> 00:55:14.320
The culture has to be pro family and pro kid.
943
00:55:14.639 --> 00:55:19.559
So just think about schooling. Our schools are, especially like
944
00:55:19.599 --> 00:55:22.800
the elite public schools are like, what is your career
945
00:55:22.920 --> 00:55:24.639
going to be? Are you going to get into an ivy,
946
00:55:24.760 --> 00:55:27.360
are you going to do this? There's just recently that
947
00:55:27.760 --> 00:55:31.039
I was teaching a class through AI where I'm a
948
00:55:31.079 --> 00:55:36.599
fellow these college kids, and two different people made a
949
00:55:36.719 --> 00:55:39.639
point about made a joke about women going to college
950
00:55:39.719 --> 00:55:45.000
for an mrs degree, you know that, JA and I
951
00:55:45.159 --> 00:55:47.679
sort of chuckled that, and I had heard it and
952
00:55:48.280 --> 00:55:51.239
thought it was funny. And somebody just said, if part
953
00:55:51.280 --> 00:55:54.800
of what I want out of college is forming lasting
954
00:55:55.000 --> 00:55:58.159
friendships and one of those lasting friendships is a marriage,
955
00:55:58.719 --> 00:56:01.920
is that really inferior? Why should you mock that part
956
00:56:02.000 --> 00:56:04.840
of what I And it just instantly changed my life.
957
00:56:04.880 --> 00:56:08.280
I had gone four years of my life thinking that college,
958
00:56:08.639 --> 00:56:10.880
not even that college was about preparation for career. Because
959
00:56:10.880 --> 00:56:13.280
I got a liberal arts degree, we're reading Plato and Aristotle,
960
00:56:13.760 --> 00:56:16.119
which ironically I get to use my job. And then
961
00:56:16.159 --> 00:56:18.840
I thought, one of the reasons I'm always glad I
962
00:56:18.880 --> 00:56:20.480
went to college was because of this group of like
963
00:56:20.559 --> 00:56:24.559
six or seven guys that were just permanently bonded together
964
00:56:24.639 --> 00:56:27.639
and we're close friends intellectually spiritually. One of them was
965
00:56:27.760 --> 00:56:30.320
just his sponsor when he came into the church recently,
966
00:56:31.400 --> 00:56:35.679
and I realized that that interpersonal connection and so in education,
967
00:56:35.760 --> 00:56:39.199
are we teaching people about building lifelong friends, about finding
968
00:56:39.280 --> 00:56:42.559
a spouse, about building a family. All of those things
969
00:56:42.880 --> 00:56:46.840
seem like that's weird religious judges stuff. We're neutral, Let's
970
00:56:46.880 --> 00:56:49.559
keep that out. No, it should be front and center
971
00:56:49.639 --> 00:56:53.480
and every part of education because it's more important than
972
00:56:53.519 --> 00:56:56.239
your career. And why are we not supposed to help
973
00:56:56.280 --> 00:56:57.000
people think about it?
974
00:56:58.039 --> 00:57:02.320
Yeah? Well, so the reason I brought it up in
975
00:57:02.480 --> 00:57:07.760
terms of you know, yes, government economics matters, I still
976
00:57:07.880 --> 00:57:11.880
go back. I mean, I started reading your book, and
977
00:57:12.079 --> 00:57:17.840
when I read the introduction, I don't know if you've
978
00:57:17.880 --> 00:57:19.840
gotten this before. I could have run through a brick wall.
979
00:57:20.079 --> 00:57:23.159
I want what you have. I think what you have
980
00:57:23.360 --> 00:57:26.559
and what you built is the solution to what ails
981
00:57:26.599 --> 00:57:31.639
America and what ails the West. You built a cultural
982
00:57:34.039 --> 00:57:39.519
you built meaning and you know, of course it may
983
00:57:39.599 --> 00:57:41.840
sound like we're preaching to the choir, but I think
984
00:57:41.840 --> 00:57:44.039
we all need to preach a little bit more. I
985
00:57:44.199 --> 00:57:47.800
think that we should be advocates for our religious perspectives
986
00:57:47.840 --> 00:57:50.480
a lot of the time, because we've clearly built our
987
00:57:50.519 --> 00:57:52.119
life around it and we shouldn't be ashamed of it.
988
00:57:52.320 --> 00:57:55.519
Not in a culture war, which once again I think
989
00:57:55.639 --> 00:57:58.400
sometimes culture wars are fought too much in terms of
990
00:57:58.480 --> 00:58:04.079
government win culture wars by building culture, and you build
991
00:58:04.119 --> 00:58:07.239
culture by doing the hard work, and so you talk
992
00:58:07.320 --> 00:58:12.159
about cultural institutions. I want to unpack that a little
993
00:58:12.239 --> 00:58:15.840
bit because sometimes it sounds like you're passing the buck,
994
00:58:16.639 --> 00:58:19.239
like Ah, the pope and then all of the people
995
00:58:19.280 --> 00:58:21.960
beneath him need to start making these changes in these declarations.
996
00:58:22.039 --> 00:58:25.199
It sounds a lot like government, it sounds like bureaucracy.
997
00:58:25.960 --> 00:58:31.159
And what you built, I'm sure it took work, but
998
00:58:31.320 --> 00:58:34.960
it feels organic. It felt like you were building culture.
999
00:58:35.159 --> 00:58:37.800
Could you talk about the Friday night on the field,
1000
00:58:37.880 --> 00:58:40.239
because that's what got me hooked. And that's the main
1001
00:58:40.360 --> 00:58:42.559
reason that I want to talk to you, because I
1002
00:58:42.679 --> 00:58:44.559
want you to help me build the same thing. Because
1003
00:58:44.599 --> 00:58:46.559
I immediately I don't even think I finished your book.
1004
00:58:47.119 --> 00:58:48.880
I went to our priests and I said, I want
1005
00:58:48.920 --> 00:58:52.280
to do this at our church. Well, my wife said,
1006
00:58:52.320 --> 00:58:54.920
you still haven't done it, but hey, it hasn't been
1007
00:58:55.000 --> 00:58:57.760
that long, and I was there's a.
1008
00:58:57.760 --> 00:58:59.239
Lot of ways I can tell the story. One it
1009
00:58:59.400 --> 00:59:04.400
starts out Friday night fish fry and I was in
1010
00:59:04.519 --> 00:59:07.599
sort of an abstract conversation with the younger priests in
1011
00:59:07.639 --> 00:59:11.559
our parish talking about how various things had been that
1012
00:59:11.679 --> 00:59:14.840
parishes used to do have been replaced, like feeding the
1013
00:59:14.960 --> 00:59:20.480
Hungary Montgomery County, Maryland massive government system for that youth
1014
00:59:20.599 --> 00:59:23.199
sports CYO used to be the thing. I mean, there
1015
00:59:23.199 --> 00:59:25.039
are guys my age who described they're like, oh, I
1016
00:59:25.159 --> 00:59:28.559
remember Saint Andrews. That's where I hit the home run
1017
00:59:28.599 --> 00:59:30.440
that put us ahead in the top of the six
1018
00:59:30.599 --> 00:59:35.280
And they always hated me for that anyway. So I said,
1019
00:59:35.320 --> 00:59:37.679
the parishes used to do all these things and they don't.
1020
00:59:37.719 --> 00:59:40.239
And so is Christianity going to move away from the
1021
00:59:40.320 --> 00:59:43.239
idea of the local congregation as being a real source
1022
00:59:43.280 --> 00:59:47.800
of identity into something else for the internet? And the
1023
00:59:48.559 --> 00:59:52.840
priest said, we don't need to return to doing what
1024
00:59:52.960 --> 00:59:56.400
we used to do, in part because we don't. We're
1025
00:59:56.440 --> 01:00:00.360
a nonprofit. We shouldn't be competing against these others share
1026
01:00:00.920 --> 01:00:03.440
if it's not our central mission. The central mission of
1027
01:00:03.480 --> 01:00:07.920
the church is the salvation of souls. But as we're
1028
01:00:07.960 --> 01:00:10.440
talking about, there needs to be what we call corporal
1029
01:00:10.519 --> 01:00:13.039
works of mercy. So what he said, what are the
1030
01:00:13.159 --> 01:00:15.440
unmet needs of the people in this room? And I
1031
01:00:15.519 --> 01:00:18.480
looked around fry this is a pretty diverse parish. We
1032
01:00:18.559 --> 01:00:23.159
had you know Eritrean immigrants, we had fourth generation you
1033
01:00:23.239 --> 01:00:29.360
know Salvadorans. We had you know, lobbyists, we had former congressmen, YadA, YadA,
1034
01:00:30.280 --> 01:00:31.719
And I thought, what do they all have in common?
1035
01:00:32.079 --> 01:00:34.199
Basically everyone who was there was married and had kids.
1036
01:00:34.239 --> 01:00:38.880
And I said, I thought about the suburban culture, and
1037
01:00:38.880 --> 01:00:41.280
I said, we all need places, a place to bring
1038
01:00:41.360 --> 01:00:44.440
our kids and ignore them while we hang out with
1039
01:00:44.519 --> 01:00:49.599
our adults. And then I realized what I had been
1040
01:00:49.679 --> 01:00:53.320
involved with was in neighboring parishes Friday night on the field,
1041
01:00:53.840 --> 01:00:56.519
and what it was was a t ball league and
1042
01:00:56.599 --> 01:01:01.559
the games were one and the the dads were involved,
1043
01:01:01.800 --> 01:01:04.880
but it was set up on the backfield of a
1044
01:01:04.960 --> 01:01:09.000
Catholic parish that had multiple jungle gyms that had places
1045
01:01:09.039 --> 01:01:11.599
for kids to wander, so you bring the whole family.
1046
01:01:12.159 --> 01:01:14.960
And also there's food. They sold burgers and hot dogs
1047
01:01:15.000 --> 01:01:16.800
from a snackshack, and I said, we need to do
1048
01:01:16.880 --> 01:01:20.199
that at Saint Andrew's and almost just because I didn't
1049
01:01:20.239 --> 01:01:22.039
want to have to like count change, I said, we're
1050
01:01:22.039 --> 01:01:24.800
gonna run it on donations, like throw in the basket
1051
01:01:24.880 --> 01:01:27.039
whatever you can. My kids brought like a little Venmo
1052
01:01:27.199 --> 01:01:30.519
Scan and it more than paid for the costco runs.
1053
01:01:30.760 --> 01:01:33.119
And so every Friday night we had this tea ball
1054
01:01:33.199 --> 01:01:37.039
thing and the parents would show up and the first
1055
01:01:37.079 --> 01:01:39.639
time they would think they were supposed to watch the
1056
01:01:39.719 --> 01:01:42.199
tea ball. It's like, no, you're supposed to go hang
1057
01:01:42.239 --> 01:01:44.480
out with somebody else. And we would grill. We would
1058
01:01:44.559 --> 01:01:47.840
order pizza before Lent and then we would grill burgers
1059
01:01:47.880 --> 01:01:51.480
after that. I tried to be sort of old fashioned.
1060
01:01:51.519 --> 01:01:53.880
I tried giving away salmon burgers because I was like,
1061
01:01:53.920 --> 01:01:56.800
even though it's it's Easter season, it's Friday, right. I
1062
01:01:56.960 --> 01:01:59.119
was the only one whoever ate the salmon burger. It
1063
01:01:59.239 --> 01:02:03.159
was like dune not but the kids are on the playground,
1064
01:02:03.159 --> 01:02:07.800
and then slowly the parents become more free range. I
1065
01:02:07.920 --> 01:02:10.480
still remember when I was I was not coaching the
1066
01:02:10.519 --> 01:02:12.840
baseball I was. I called myself the grill coach. One
1067
01:02:12.920 --> 01:02:16.840
year and I'm flipping the burgers and there's this woman
1068
01:02:16.880 --> 01:02:19.079
and her husband who are talking to me. The woman
1069
01:02:19.199 --> 01:02:21.719
like goes to the playground and then stops and realizes
1070
01:02:21.760 --> 01:02:24.800
that her four year old is surrounded by twenty other kids,
1071
01:02:24.880 --> 01:02:27.599
including some teenagers, and it's gonna be fine. And she
1072
01:02:27.679 --> 01:02:30.199
turns back over and she's like, where'd you get that
1073
01:02:30.280 --> 01:02:32.840
Miller Lite? And they were like semi legal beers, and
1074
01:02:32.920 --> 01:02:35.039
I had to like reach on there, like you know,
1075
01:02:35.159 --> 01:02:37.079
you weren't allowed to advertise it, but you could have
1076
01:02:37.199 --> 01:02:39.400
this set. And I just thought, like, I am so
1077
01:02:39.559 --> 01:02:43.039
proud of this woman. My Friday night thing has just accomplished.
1078
01:02:43.039 --> 01:02:45.880
It's thing that she is now entrusting her children to
1079
01:02:46.000 --> 01:02:49.719
the community and for me and people are getting to
1080
01:02:49.840 --> 01:02:52.760
know each other. They were school parents, they were parish parents,
1081
01:02:53.400 --> 01:02:54.960
and it was a place where we could bring our
1082
01:02:55.039 --> 01:02:57.280
kids and ignore them because it had the built environment,
1083
01:02:57.360 --> 01:03:00.320
the grass field that had a bunch of other parents
1084
01:03:00.360 --> 01:03:03.800
who were involved in the same undertaking, and the t
1085
01:03:04.000 --> 01:03:07.280
ball was almost an excuse. I don't know that any
1086
01:03:07.320 --> 01:03:10.000
of those kids besides my oldest boy, are still playing baseball.
1087
01:03:10.400 --> 01:03:13.440
But the point of it was you're going to get
1088
01:03:13.480 --> 01:03:15.760
your neighbors, You're going to build up the social trust.
1089
01:03:16.119 --> 01:03:18.079
You're going to have excuses to just stop by the
1090
01:03:18.159 --> 01:03:21.000
parish like I would come by and have breake the field,
1091
01:03:21.119 --> 01:03:22.719
and all of a sudden you realize this is what
1092
01:03:22.800 --> 01:03:25.880
it used to be. You'd like be at the parish
1093
01:03:26.039 --> 01:03:29.400
just sort of randomly, not like just set school drop
1094
01:03:29.480 --> 01:03:34.760
off or pickup or just church time. Building that So
1095
01:03:35.199 --> 01:03:38.480
it took work, but also what it took was a
1096
01:03:38.639 --> 01:03:40.599
term I don't use a lot because it's confusing, but
1097
01:03:40.679 --> 01:03:45.760
it was social capital. We were involved in that parish
1098
01:03:45.800 --> 01:03:48.079
in all sorts of ways. Later on I became a
1099
01:03:48.159 --> 01:03:50.760
Sunday school teacher. My wife was on the advisory board.
1100
01:03:51.519 --> 01:03:53.320
One old lady once told me the most important thing
1101
01:03:53.360 --> 01:03:55.199
we ever did, which is put butts in the pews,
1102
01:03:55.440 --> 01:03:57.519
like we showed up on Sunday. We put our kids
1103
01:03:57.559 --> 01:04:00.360
in the school. You know, we didn't pay for tuition,
1104
01:04:00.519 --> 01:04:02.400
so we were probably a net loss because of the
1105
01:04:02.440 --> 01:04:05.039
financial aid. But when I wanted to form this, after
1106
01:04:05.119 --> 01:04:07.559
talking to other dads and talking to the priests, what
1107
01:04:07.719 --> 01:04:09.639
did I do? I emailed the principle. I said, I
1108
01:04:09.679 --> 01:04:12.159
want a list of every kindergartener in first grader's parents
1109
01:04:12.159 --> 01:04:14.719
so I can email. I talked to the pastor. He
1110
01:04:14.840 --> 01:04:17.239
was like, look, cyo sports half of it. They're just
1111
01:04:17.320 --> 01:04:20.000
wearing our name. These kids never show up to church.
1112
01:04:20.039 --> 01:04:21.400
It's just going to be something like that. I said, no,
1113
01:04:21.480 --> 01:04:22.840
this is going to be the opposite. He said, okay.
1114
01:04:24.039 --> 01:04:27.239
Favor to a guy who was a parishioner who was
1115
01:04:27.280 --> 01:04:30.719
a grounds keeper at University of Maryland and says, can
1116
01:04:30.840 --> 01:04:35.000
you come till our infield because it's overgrown and throw
1117
01:04:35.039 --> 01:04:39.480
down dirt? Guy does it at costs, And then we
1118
01:04:39.599 --> 01:04:42.599
get grills from the Knights of Columbus and they're pro pain.
1119
01:04:43.360 --> 01:04:46.880
So the social capitalist we had become part of a
1120
01:04:46.960 --> 01:04:51.320
community almost just by showing up, but also by volunteering,
1121
01:04:51.719 --> 01:04:55.280
and so then we had this massive lever that we
1122
01:04:55.440 --> 01:04:59.480
could then pull to make this thing happen. So what
1123
01:04:59.599 --> 01:05:01.440
did we Obama used to say, you didn't build that,
1124
01:05:01.960 --> 01:05:04.840
someone else made that help. That was absolutely true. I
1125
01:05:04.880 --> 01:05:06.639
didn't build the parish, I didn't build school. I didn't
1126
01:05:06.639 --> 01:05:10.320
build the email list. I didn't turn a grass field
1127
01:05:10.360 --> 01:05:14.760
into a dart infield. But being plugged into a institution
1128
01:05:14.880 --> 01:05:17.960
of civil society made it possible for us to make
1129
01:05:18.079 --> 01:05:20.320
it so that if it was Friday night in the spring,
1130
01:05:21.199 --> 01:05:24.159
you didn't mom didn't have to meal plan unless you
1131
01:05:24.199 --> 01:05:26.079
have going on. Even if you didn't have a t
1132
01:05:26.239 --> 01:05:28.760
ball player, we said, come on down and just eat,
1133
01:05:29.559 --> 01:05:30.199
eat for free.
1134
01:05:31.119 --> 01:05:34.559
Oh, I'd take it one step further. I mean not
1135
01:05:34.679 --> 01:05:36.880
to undercut Friday nights on the field. I don't think
1136
01:05:36.880 --> 01:05:42.960
you need the t ball call me an anarchist, but
1137
01:05:43.400 --> 01:05:46.360
you know, I just like, I'm so consumed by this
1138
01:05:46.559 --> 01:05:48.599
concept because I think that we also fall into the
1139
01:05:48.639 --> 01:05:51.280
trap of and maybe you could weigh in on this,
1140
01:05:53.000 --> 01:05:55.119
and it's one of the reasons that I've kind of
1141
01:05:55.360 --> 01:05:59.119
not initiated what I want to and I'm going to
1142
01:05:59.320 --> 01:06:01.039
follow it and I'm to send you pictures of it,
1143
01:06:01.199 --> 01:06:04.239
And Tim, you did it. You made this happen one
1144
01:06:04.840 --> 01:06:07.400
because culture starts upstream, and it just starts with one
1145
01:06:07.440 --> 01:06:10.039
person at a time, not an institution. Even though we
1146
01:06:10.079 --> 01:06:13.199
say cultural institutions, what that means is the people who
1147
01:06:13.239 --> 01:06:16.800
are members, lay people stepping up, people like you, people
1148
01:06:16.920 --> 01:06:21.079
like me doing this and then kind of initiating a
1149
01:06:21.159 --> 01:06:24.960
contagion of like, hey, I really belong here. And I
1150
01:06:25.079 --> 01:06:28.440
think sometimes we get so bogged down with what's the
1151
01:06:28.559 --> 01:06:31.559
label on this, what do I call this, who's in charge,
1152
01:06:31.599 --> 01:06:34.519
who's running it, that we lose the organic nature of
1153
01:06:34.639 --> 01:06:38.920
just being together without an agenda and doing life together.
1154
01:06:39.599 --> 01:06:44.159
And so that's where that's my goal for whatever happens.
1155
01:06:44.599 --> 01:06:48.800
But doing life together. There's a French verb and then
1156
01:06:48.880 --> 01:06:54.079
there's a Greek verb that Tokeville and Aristotle separately use
1157
01:06:54.159 --> 01:06:58.519
and I remember seeing like living together in Aristotle's politics
1158
01:06:58.559 --> 01:07:00.360
when you're talking about friends, and I was like, what
1159
01:07:00.400 --> 01:07:02.599
does he mean? Does he mean like residing to it?
1160
01:07:02.679 --> 01:07:05.960
But it wasn't residing together, it was like going through
1161
01:07:06.039 --> 01:07:11.199
life together. And then French the word convivial same sort
1162
01:07:11.239 --> 01:07:14.719
of thing. And I was talking to somebody said that
1163
01:07:14.840 --> 01:07:18.480
she had just become obsessed with the notion of conviviality
1164
01:07:18.920 --> 01:07:22.000
and this you joked about the sort of the chosen families,
1165
01:07:22.039 --> 01:07:24.119
and you look at these modern efforts to sort of
1166
01:07:24.280 --> 01:07:27.360
do that and like, you know, group housing, let's build
1167
01:07:27.440 --> 01:07:29.920
the housing so that it's social. And some of these
1168
01:07:29.960 --> 01:07:31.440
might work, some of them might not, but all of
1169
01:07:31.519 --> 01:07:34.599
it is just this natural sense we know God imprints
1170
01:07:34.639 --> 01:07:36.639
on our soul that is not good for man to
1171
01:07:36.719 --> 01:07:40.280
be alone. The message is that a lot of conservatives,
1172
01:07:40.280 --> 01:07:44.920
and a lot of religious conservatives need a nuclear family.
1173
01:07:45.159 --> 01:07:47.679
While it's the most important thing. It's like a cell
1174
01:07:47.719 --> 01:07:50.559
in the body. It is a fundamental building block of society.
1175
01:07:50.840 --> 01:07:53.199
A cell in the body can't survive without the rest
1176
01:07:53.239 --> 01:07:56.760
of the systems. So it is not good for man
1177
01:07:56.840 --> 01:07:58.159
to be alone. And it's not good for man and
1178
01:07:58.239 --> 01:08:00.880
wife and children to be alone. I mean, we need
1179
01:08:00.960 --> 01:08:03.880
lots of alone time. Family dan a, YadA YadA. Why
1180
01:08:04.400 --> 01:08:07.159
I think I should reread the Little House on the
1181
01:08:07.199 --> 01:08:10.599
Prairie books and write about that work because they didn't
1182
01:08:10.760 --> 01:08:12.760
thrive When he was like I'm going to build this
1183
01:08:13.039 --> 01:08:15.039
house with my own acts, all of that stuff was
1184
01:08:15.159 --> 01:08:17.720
like awesome, dude, Like if you could have put that
1185
01:08:17.840 --> 01:08:19.960
on Instagram, that would have been a great real But
1186
01:08:20.039 --> 01:08:23.159
they don't thrive until they're embedded in a community with neighbors.
1187
01:08:23.680 --> 01:08:24.119
Mm hmm.
1188
01:08:24.439 --> 01:08:26.760
Now that's the key, Tim. I want to ask you
1189
01:08:26.800 --> 01:08:29.279
a couple more questions. One, this podcast is called a
1190
01:08:29.319 --> 01:08:33.079
commitment to reality. How is building a family friendly subculture
1191
01:08:33.560 --> 01:08:35.359
related to a commitment to reality?
1192
01:08:36.319 --> 01:08:38.000
What we were just talking about the reality is that
1193
01:08:38.119 --> 01:08:43.800
a couple can't just raise their children without cultural support,
1194
01:08:44.560 --> 01:08:47.880
and that cultural support can't be like the city passes
1195
01:08:47.920 --> 01:08:50.000
a bill and now you have universal childcare. That's not
1196
01:08:50.039 --> 01:08:52.720
going to do the tray. Cultural support is the breath
1197
01:08:52.800 --> 01:08:56.399
of what we were talking about earlier. It's the one
1198
01:08:56.439 --> 01:08:59.279
guy said in Jerusalem, the bus drivers have a real
1199
01:08:59.319 --> 01:09:03.399
affection for the kids. Like that's part of it. Another
1200
01:09:03.479 --> 01:09:05.319
part of it is, again, the way our souls are
1201
01:09:05.399 --> 01:09:11.039
made for most of us. Marriage and parenthood are going
1202
01:09:11.119 --> 01:09:13.039
to be the things that are going to steer us
1203
01:09:13.079 --> 01:09:16.920
towards happiness and towards virtue and towards sainthood. Like that
1204
01:09:17.159 --> 01:09:19.199
is the way we are built. You can't change the
1205
01:09:19.279 --> 01:09:22.720
way we are built. And so both of those things.
1206
01:09:23.479 --> 01:09:26.960
It's possible for somebody to tons of people go through
1207
01:09:27.039 --> 01:09:31.039
life and live for others without marriage or parenthood, but
1208
01:09:31.159 --> 01:09:33.439
the reality is that it's a lot harder to do
1209
01:09:33.600 --> 01:09:38.199
that without living without a spouse and kids.
1210
01:09:39.560 --> 01:09:42.079
Well, I mean, Derek Thompson just tweeted out something this
1211
01:09:42.199 --> 01:09:44.840
morning and you quote him in your book about workism
1212
01:09:44.960 --> 01:09:47.920
being the you know, the main religion in America, and
1213
01:09:48.039 --> 01:09:53.600
it was about his skepticism about these resurgence what I'm
1214
01:09:53.640 --> 01:09:56.640
sure people in your world, in the Catholic world they're
1215
01:09:56.640 --> 01:09:59.199
talking about, they're talking about in the Orthodox world as well,
1216
01:09:59.479 --> 01:10:02.760
we're just getting a surge of converts. And he was
1217
01:10:02.880 --> 01:10:07.600
claiming a skepticism and I just don't I can't believe
1218
01:10:07.640 --> 01:10:10.439
that numbers tell the full story, because you can't tell
1219
01:10:10.520 --> 01:10:12.640
me that my eyes aren't seeing what they're seeing. People
1220
01:10:12.680 --> 01:10:15.159
are coming in and they're not just coming in young
1221
01:10:15.239 --> 01:10:19.000
people are coming in, they're getting married, they're having kids,
1222
01:10:19.560 --> 01:10:23.640
kids plural, like I mean, it's just I can't believe
1223
01:10:23.760 --> 01:10:27.760
how many of these women are having back to back
1224
01:10:27.840 --> 01:10:30.600
to back. It's like it's like the old times are
1225
01:10:30.680 --> 01:10:35.520
new again, and that you cannot measure that statistically. I don't, well,
1226
01:10:35.600 --> 01:10:39.199
not not as quickly as they're trying. Would you agree
1227
01:10:39.199 --> 01:10:39.359
with that?
1228
01:10:40.239 --> 01:10:42.279
You you've got to You've got to see things on
1229
01:10:42.359 --> 01:10:45.079
the ground. And when people ask me about collapsing birth
1230
01:10:45.119 --> 01:10:47.760
rate or marriage rates, a lot of times they think
1231
01:10:47.840 --> 01:10:50.680
there's one answer, there's a million answers, and there's forces
1232
01:10:50.720 --> 01:10:56.199
that move in different directions. Frankly, religiosity is the most
1233
01:10:56.239 --> 01:10:59.239
important and the most consistent predictor of likelihood to get
1234
01:10:59.279 --> 01:11:02.520
married and have children, But there are different forces moving
1235
01:11:02.560 --> 01:11:05.199
in different directions. And I think and so there's a
1236
01:11:05.359 --> 01:11:07.279
really good religion scholar named Ryan Burge.
1237
01:11:07.880 --> 01:11:10.640
That's who it was with Okay that he was quoting.
1238
01:11:11.039 --> 01:11:12.680
I think he had a podcast with Brian Burge.
1239
01:11:13.840 --> 01:11:16.920
I don't always agree with Burge, but I think if
1240
01:11:17.000 --> 01:11:21.680
we said in the Catholic church, because it's so easy
1241
01:11:21.720 --> 01:11:24.600
to still identify as a Catholic without really practicing in
1242
01:11:24.720 --> 01:11:27.520
the Catholic Church. People still identify as a Catholic if
1243
01:11:27.520 --> 01:11:30.479
they're not practicing, and maybe they more of them are
1244
01:11:30.600 --> 01:11:32.880
stopping to identify, ceasing to identify.
1245
01:11:33.319 --> 01:11:33.960
But then.
1246
01:11:35.840 --> 01:11:40.399
That number who already weren't attending disaffiliating. If that's larger
1247
01:11:40.439 --> 01:11:42.159
than the number of people who come into the church,
1248
01:11:42.560 --> 01:11:45.199
that wouldn't surprise me. But what we're seeing with our
1249
01:11:45.239 --> 01:11:49.399
own eyes on every Eastern vigil is this massive influx
1250
01:11:50.000 --> 01:11:54.159
of very serious Catholics, and the people who we haven't
1251
01:11:54.199 --> 01:11:57.319
seen in mass for three years are disaffiliating. I'd still
1252
01:11:57.439 --> 01:12:01.079
rather have, you know, a growing number, that would be better.
1253
01:12:01.439 --> 01:12:04.760
But considering that we're rapidly secularizing, it is a great
1254
01:12:05.520 --> 01:12:08.760
consolation that we're getting this flood of new converts.
1255
01:12:09.439 --> 01:12:13.039
Amen, Where are we most eager to ignore reality?
1256
01:12:14.119 --> 01:12:16.720
Where are we most eager to ignore reality? I think
1257
01:12:16.800 --> 01:12:20.520
part of it is for me. I think I'm capable
1258
01:12:20.600 --> 01:12:25.439
of doing more single handedly than I actually am capable of.
1259
01:12:26.560 --> 01:12:31.439
I don't think I need help from you know, other people,
1260
01:12:31.520 --> 01:12:33.199
and I don't think I need help from God as
1261
01:12:33.319 --> 01:12:38.640
much as I do. And it's a good thing about
1262
01:12:38.720 --> 01:12:43.920
lent or about you know, reading scripture that it reminds you,
1263
01:12:44.399 --> 01:12:47.319
or just occasional suffering that it's like, no, this is
1264
01:12:47.399 --> 01:12:50.319
not you do not have this all under control. So
1265
01:12:50.960 --> 01:12:52.800
I might just be speaking for myself, but I think
1266
01:12:52.840 --> 01:12:57.279
for a lot of men, we think we are more
1267
01:12:57.359 --> 01:13:00.720
capable of doing things on our own than we actually are.
1268
01:13:01.319 --> 01:13:04.079
So for me, that's a big difference between reality and
1269
01:13:05.279 --> 01:13:06.159
what I think through.
1270
01:13:07.800 --> 01:13:12.199
Okay, and in a world that feels increasingly unreal, what
1271
01:13:12.319 --> 01:13:18.000
feels most real to you, what.
1272
01:13:18.119 --> 01:13:21.880
Feels most real to me? I don't know. I was
1273
01:13:21.960 --> 01:13:27.520
just in my backyard laying sod with my sons, and
1274
01:13:27.680 --> 01:13:29.880
we're trying to lay it on a hill, and so
1275
01:13:30.000 --> 01:13:32.760
we have to you can't really stand that's part of
1276
01:13:32.800 --> 01:13:35.960
why we want to sod there. And so I'm like
1277
01:13:36.159 --> 01:13:38.640
sliding down the hill and my son is hauling me
1278
01:13:38.760 --> 01:13:40.399
a roll of sod. I don't know how much this
1279
01:13:40.479 --> 01:13:42.800
same way. It's fifty pounds, and my other son is
1280
01:13:42.880 --> 01:13:45.239
reaching over to hand me like a ground staple to
1281
01:13:45.760 --> 01:13:50.239
drive it in. And in just earlier, I was trying
1282
01:13:50.239 --> 01:13:52.319
to get them to do work, and they were all
1283
01:13:52.640 --> 01:13:55.520
either goofing off or like telling stories. At one point
1284
01:13:55.560 --> 01:13:59.880
they were arguing about about hiding Jews from Nazis and
1285
01:14:00.000 --> 01:14:03.159
and can you outright lie like having ethical debates and
1286
01:14:03.359 --> 01:14:05.840
I'm like, just grab the rake, and then I finally
1287
01:14:05.880 --> 01:14:09.960
calmed down. So my kids at one moment being totally
1288
01:14:10.039 --> 01:14:12.680
inefficient at the job we desperately need to do before
1289
01:14:12.720 --> 01:14:15.239
all the sod dies, and at the next moment it
1290
01:14:15.359 --> 01:14:17.560
being like an action movie and we're like a well
1291
01:14:17.600 --> 01:14:22.960
oiled machine. So that total variance in life where what's
1292
01:14:23.119 --> 01:14:27.399
flat is they're being kids and I'm a grumpy dad
1293
01:14:27.399 --> 01:14:30.960
who wants to get this sodding done. The variation and
1294
01:14:31.039 --> 01:14:36.000
the chaos from well oiled machine to like what are
1295
01:14:36.039 --> 01:14:38.680
you doing? Why are you spraying the hose into your
1296
01:14:38.800 --> 01:14:42.239
mouth instead of watering the sod? That feels very real
1297
01:14:42.319 --> 01:14:42.479
to me.
1298
01:14:44.119 --> 01:14:48.359
Well, Tim, I loved your book. I truly did. Like
1299
01:14:48.439 --> 01:14:53.359
I said, if it was just an essay that was
1300
01:14:53.479 --> 01:14:56.600
the introduction, I think it's worth the price of admission
1301
01:14:56.680 --> 01:15:00.880
because I really do believe that the answer isn't government
1302
01:15:00.960 --> 01:15:04.159
programs this that it's it's getting involved. And so you
1303
01:15:04.479 --> 01:15:08.399
inspired me to do my own variation of Fridays on
1304
01:15:08.479 --> 01:15:10.399
the field. And I can't wait to tell you that
1305
01:15:10.840 --> 01:15:16.359
that I finally did it, and I'll send you a picture. Yes, So, Tim, Carney,
1306
01:15:16.479 --> 01:15:19.000
thank you for joining me on commitment to reality. I
1307
01:15:19.119 --> 01:15:19.960
really appreciate you.
1308
01:15:20.319 --> 01:15:21.319
Pleasure is mine, Dave