From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Are Bigger Families The Key To A Happy Marriage?

Episode Date: April 13, 2023

Sean and Rachel weigh in on a new study from Ohio State University that revealed that having more siblings in your family decreases your likelihood of getting divorced later in life. Sean shares his experience growing up with ten brothers and sisters, how that shaped his life, and the lessons learned from his youth. Later, Sean and Rachel recount stories from when they were newlyweds, as they celebrate their 24th wedding anniversary.   Follow Sean and Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the world's population grows, so does the need for resources like potash to support sustainable food production. This is why BHP is building one of the world's most sustainable potash mines in Canada. Essential resources responsibly produced. This is what BHP has committed to Canada. The future is clear. It's happening now at BHP, a future resources company. To discover how, visit bhp.com slash better future. Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table.

I'm Sean Duffy, along with my co-host for the podcast and my wife, Rachel Campos Duffy. It's great to be back, Sean. This week we celebrated our anniversary. We did. 24 years. 24 years and nine kids, which is kind of plays into the topic we have because there's a new study out of the University of Ohio and it examined couples and saw that if the couple, the spouses, the more siblings they had in their childhood,

the less likely they are to divorce. So kids, big families might be the solution to the divorce rate, which in the United States right now is at 45% of all marriages end in divorce. Yeah. And when we read the study, it makes a lot of sense, right? That if you're raised in a home with more kids, more siblings, there are skills that you learn as a child. You learn how to fight, how to argue, how to forgive, how to debate. And when you go through this complicated life of childhood, it doesn't end, right? You're part of a family and you can't get away. You can't leave.

You can't ask to be put up for adoption. You can't divorce your siblings. You can't divorce them. You have to learn to work it out. And the skill sets that you garner in that early childhood with other siblings is really effective in helping you navigate your own marriage when you get to that place in your life. You know, it really plays out, I think, in our marriage. And I've seen it through the years. So for those who don't know, Sean is the 10th of 11 kids. So I'm one of four.

And I thought we were kind of a big family growing up. But we weren't. You have, you know, 11 kids in your family. And when I met you, and by the way, my dad is one of 15. So it's not like I didn't see big families. And instantly, when I met you, one of the things, especially after we got married, is in our marriage, I think you have played a very effective role of managing our arguments and our fights, which is part of being married, right? And I have always attributed that to the fact that you have a lot of siblings, that when you have a big family and lots of different personalities, and by the way, the number one thing you realize when you have a lot of kids is how different each one of them are.

It doesn't mean, they're the same family and they're so very, very different. And so that's- Same seeds, same family, and really different kids, which is really remarkable. And you have, when you have 11 kids in your family, you have to manage 11 different personalities. And I have always felt that that was something that you brought to our marriage. Can I take a side trip here?

Sure. You were reading the comments on the article that came out. This was on the Daily Mail. Yeah, this is so funny. So this article, I love the Daily Mail. I'm not going to lie. I love the Daily Mail. And what I love the most about the Daily Mail are the comments. So I, if I love an article, I can't wait to get through the articles. So I get to the comments.

I read the comments in this article and a lot of people were like, I don't believe this study. One woman said, my husband was one of, you know, nine kids. And I think because he never got enough attention in his own family, he's a selfish bastard now. So there were definitely people that, I mean, look, there's exceptions to every rule. Right. And so I will note that being raised in a big family, oftentimes you don't feel like you you're hurt or there's not enough attention of the parents to go around to all the kids. And even in our family with nine kids, sometimes they feel like there's not enough of two parents to go around. And it's a very real thing. And by the way, I think in this age of very entitled kids, I think that's not necessarily

the worst thing that can happen that, you know, you don't think you're the center of the universe and that everything has to drop because you said a word or you want something. But, you know, it can be challenging to try and spread yourself out. And there are definitely times when a kid needs you and you probably aren't there at the level you need to be because there's a lot of you and there's a lot going on. That said, I still think that there is real power to this story. And so they say, you know, that if you're surrounded by a large family, you're honing social skills from a very young age. The study believes that the results are because those spouses that come out of these big families tend to be more resilient and better able to cope with the ups and downs of relationships. And boy, I have to say, I think it's true.

And there's some social intelligence that comes from being in a big family. You can read a situation. And I know my own, our own kids, there's kids that will read a situation and try to calm it down. And I have other kids that will read a bad situation try to calm it down. And I have other kids that will read a bad situation and try to throw fuel on the fire, but they're very socially smart. They know how to read and navigate situations. And you get that with the craziness with the more kids. And you learn to navigate lots of different personalities. So like if you're an only child, you know, your dad has one personality, your mom has one personality, you have one personality.

So you learn to manage three. But just think, you learn to manage 12, 13 personalities, your mom, your dad, all your siblings, and how they interact and also how those personalities interact with each other. Let me just speak on my own family. So my mom and my dad were Republicans growing up. This is not a political commentary, but my mom was kind of, she was always a liberal at heart, a little granola. So, but like she was eating Nori rolls and sushi, you know, in the 80s, had to do some counseling because of one of my brothers. And they did develop a lot of good skill sets in how to communicate and how to argue and how to fight. And, you know, whether it's listening, right? You have one mouth in two years. When you get in a fight, you can't actually just yell over each other.

You have to have enough respect. And I need to listen to what you're saying and hear what you're saying and then be able to respond to it and ask for the same respect from you. Very simple things in fighting that people don't do. There were two stages in the family. So it's interesting because I'm fascinated, especially when I met the Duffies, I became even more fascinated with birth order. So there were eight kids in Sean's family that were born in the span of 10 years. And now that I'm a mom, I'm like, I think your mom is a saint. Eight kids in 10 years. And there was a gap. And then there were three more.

And Sean is part of that last bit of the litter, right? He's the end of the litter. He's the second to last of the 11. Best place to be. Yes. And what's interesting is what you just said, that in between, before they had this last set of litter, of the litter, of the brood, they had this situation in the family occur where the family ended up going to counseling

and really kind of unpacked a lot of really bad habits and different kinds of communication skills that they could improve on. And they actually to the your parent and parents and your family's credit they actually took it to heart it was a serious issue and they took it to heart and realized there was something kind of dysfunctional not happening right in the family and they made these massive changes um in in the way the family ran and then then Sean being in the, you know, coming after that really was the beneficiary of some really great changes in his family. You know, by the way, kudos to counseling. It does work. Um, it does work. Yes. You're having trouble. Go to counseling. It can work for you. Get skill sets that are necessary to navigate the person that you love

and the relationship that you have with them. I talked about this in a previous podcast, but this was the timeframe in which my dad came home. I don't know if I was like seven or eight years old and hugged me for the first time. And I was like, wow, this is really weird. My dad's hugging me. And now Sean's a big hugger. And ever since then, we've become, we're a very hugging family. But before that time, like no one hugged him. My mom would give me a hug, but my dad doesn't hug anybody. It was really bizarre when he started. He's still a kind of awkward hugger. But he hugs.

He's a hugger. Yeah, so am I. And we hug our kids. But you're not an awkward hugger. No, I'm not. I dive right in. You know, but some of our kids are awkward huggers. We hug a lot too.

So I think that that's really interesting. But what's fascinating about the message of this study, that more kids are actually an anecdote to the, not an anecdote, a prescription. A little Teflon to America. The solution to divorce in America is just more kids. A little Teflon to America. The solution to divorce in America is just more kids. And so it's interesting because this is the opposite message that's being sent in the culture. Right now, by the way, our culture advocates for if you're married, don't have kids. But if preferable, don't get married at all. The number one song right now is Miley Cyrus.

It's called Flowers. I want to read you the lyrics of this. She says in her song, I can take myself dancing. I can hold my own hand. By the way, this is a play off of that Bruno Mars song. I should have brought your flowers, held your hand. So it's kind of got the same lyrics and and and tune to it but it's very catchy by the way i love my start is the song it's great um but listen to the message the message is i can

take myself dancing i can hold my help my own hand i can love me better than you can there were some other lyrics in there um let me see if i can find it again can you really hold your own hand is it more fun to go dancing alone sean do i have the rest of the rest of the rest of the lyrics i can buy myself flowers do you really i mean listen sometimes i buy myself flowers but i prefer when sean buys me flowers but again do you want to go dancing on your own? Do you want, and that's the message. You look at so many articles now saying, you know, is marriage necessary? And then there's these TikTok videos. You and I talked about them before, where all these married but without kids, there's some sort of acronym for them, I can't remember.

But married people, no kids, making TikTok videos of just how relaxing and awesome their life is. And frankly, I looked at the first few seconds of them waking, like they all get to sleep in on Saturdays. I don't ever get to sleep in on Saturdays anyway anymore because of my job. But there was a time that I could have. And I never did because we had all these little kids. So the first part of the TikTok video where they're getting to sleep in i could i was like yeah but then as the tiktok video went on and they're making themselves lattes and they're you know deciding where they want it what they want

to do and they go to movies alone and also i mean it seems so boring well so i think when you look at that you'd say empty i think the soul is the evidence when you do studies would show that if you lead a single life only focused on yourself, buying yourself flowers, taking yourself dancing, waking up late on a Saturday, making yourself a latte, you can present it as very glamorous on TikTok or in a song. But if you look at studies on who are the most happy people in America. Yeah. And there have been studies like longterm studies, University of Chicago. Tell us about the studies, Rachel. University of Chicago and also Brigham Young have done the studies. And as they look at them, the happiest subgroup in America are married conservative women.

Oh my goodness, married conservative women. And who are the least happy group in that? Why don't I take you through the category? So happiest are married conservative women. Then conservative men come next. Then liberal women, least happy liberal men. And I think what that is, is in the sense that if you have a family and you have kids and you give of yourself and your time, there's something that fulfills the human heart when you do that. And, um, when you just live for yourself, it becomes very empty. God made us in a way that says, you're just, you're not there to live for yourself and you will not be fulfilled if that's the road you take.

be fulfilled if that's the road you take. Actually give of yourself to others and to your family and to your spouse. And when you do that, people are filled up and even people of faith, because your faith will teach you that you shouldn't be selfish. You should actually volunteer your time. You should give your time away to others. You should serve others, not yourself. And Christians actually do that and they find themselves to be more happy when they do do it. who made a professional sacrifice. So they basically sacrificed their own professional advancement for the sake of their family reported higher levels of happiness. That is the opposite of what you remember. Sheryl Sandberg, I think she was the CFO of Facebook. She wrote that famous book, Lean In.

And she would tell young women, you know, at commencement addresses, put your foot on the gas pedal and go, go, go, go, go. And it was all like, you know, really advance yourself. That's the key to happiness is your career and, you know, advancing yourself professionally. And yet when you look at happiness studies, those who, you know, didn't do that report higher levels of happiness. And so I think it kind of goes back to... Because what's sad about that is you only get one life. You only get, you know, you only get 121, you only get 128, 133. You don't get to redo these. And so if you listen to the culture, if you listen to Miley Cyrus or you listen to Sheryl Sandberg, you might

make choices in your life that later on in your life, you'll look back and reflect on it and go, I'm not happy. I wish I would have done something else. And you can't go back and relive it. And I was just a story from our marriage in our life. Rachel was up for The View with Barbara Walters. She was auditioning live. We were just married. And Rachel, we made a deal. If Rachel got the view, we talked about this in a previous podcast, but if Rachel got the view, we would move to New York. If she didn't get the view, she had to come with me to Wisconsin. That was the bet.

That was the deal. Yeah, she didn't get the view, and she came to Wisconsin. In hindsight, I might go, you know, even though she didn't get the view, she could have had a very prosperous career in TV because everyone was watching this live audition get the view, she could have had a very prosperous career in TV because everyone was watching this live audition on the view. And, you know, you could have, maybe not the view, but you would have gone somewhere else. And instead you made a sacrifice and you came and focused on our family, our new baby. And you focused on my career, which was very helpful to

me. We were very poor. But in but it, in the end it worked out. You had some delayed gratification. You talk about being the Betty White of television. I eventually got back into TV, but I was almost 50 at the time. Yeah. And here you, but I got nine kids along the way and I have a lot of life experience and you got to live in a lot of places and you got to do what you love right now. And so you, you kind of were able to come full circle and, and get it all, which is really cool. Um, and had you made a different set of choices at 50 years old, you might have professionally been in a different place. You mean at 25 or whenever? If you'd made a different choice when you were 25,

when you're now at 50, you might have a different life, a totally different life. And I would hope to think that you think this one is pretty good after 24 years of marriage, but I think I made the right choice for sure. And look, everybody has to make the choice that works for them. And I think the only message that I hope people take from this is, you know, be careful about the message that are being sent out in the culture. They're very powerful. I mean, you see Miley Cyrus's videos, she's dancing around in her really amazing house and very powerful. I mean, you see Miley Cyrus's videos. She's dancing around in her really amazing house and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Or you see these TikTok videos or you read these articles that are denigrating marriage and basically saying, you know, here's all the benefits of going solo. But in the end, you know, at the end of life, if you want to move all the way back, you know, to the end, you know, who's going to be around you and holding your hand and in that final moment, you know, is it going to be a nurse that you don't know, or is it going to be, it's definitely not

going to be your boss. Your corporations don't love you. I tell this to young people all the time. You know, it's great to have a great job and work for a company or have a nice boss. It's a wonderful thing. It's a blessing. It's, you know, it's how to have a great job and work for a company or have a nice boss. It's a wonderful thing. It's a blessing. It's, you know, it's how we put food on the table. But just understand, your corporation doesn't love you. They're never, it's not meant to love you. People will love you. Children will love you.

Friends will love you. Your husband will love you. Your wife will love you. And in the end of life, you know, these are things that you need to think about. And we have a good friend who was, who is a cardiologist. And who do you think I was? I was talking about our friend who's a cardiologist who is around people who are, you know, near the end of death, end of life. And he says, biggest, I asked him one time, I said, what's the biggest regret people have when they're at the end of life? And he said, they regret not having had more kids.

Yeah. And hospice care workers will often say, listen, it might be, I wish I would have not been as focused on my career and spent more time with my family. I would have taken more time off and had more time raising my kids. I wish I would have had more kids. kids. I wish I would have had more kids. But rarely, I don't think ever, do you see hospice care workers go as they serve people at the end of life where someone's like, you know, I wish I would have been more selfish. I wish I would have spent more time on me. I wish I would have made more money. I wish I would have had a higher promotion. And that's when I left Congress, I kind of made that assessment. I'm like, at the end of life, do I want to be like, hey, listen, I passed that bill and I got elected so many times and I got this percent of vote, but my kids didn't know me and I'm not around as much as I would like to be.

Or do I want to make a decision where, you know, what's the most important thing in life? And it's being with your family. And we all have jobs. We all have to work. But if you don't have time in your life because your job has taken you away from your family, you should reassess that. And I was, by the way, I love Congress. I loved it. It was such an honor to serve and we served together. But at one point, again, people will bash members of Congress, but you do give a lot of your time. A lot of your life is away. Oh, I don't think people understand how much time it takes to be, to have that job. And it's a wonderful, wonderful honor to serve, but it does take away from your family. And

I wanted to go back to my family. And that, that kind of happened for me when we had Valentina, she was on, she was on the way. We knew she was going to have Down syndrome. She was going to have a heart condition. You're already home with eight kids and we're going to put this one on the plate and me be gone. We'll have more of this conversation after this. Shop Cyber Monday deals now on Amazon with up to 35 percent off home goods to deck their halls, toys to stuff their stocking and electronics like noise canceling headphones to silent their night. Shop Amazon Cyber Monday deals now. You know, also, we didn't know people in Congress who had been there a long, long, long time and had made. I think, you know, it just became who they were. And I think. Yeah. And they they also lost a lot family wise. And so it was also interesting to be in that position to kind of see people who made different kinds of choices and go, what do I want to do?

see people who made different kinds of choices and go, what do I want to do? And it's definitely one. And by the way, just a side note, my calendar was full, like every 15 minutes was scheduled in Congress. I mean, literally, I was, you have two schedulers in Congress, one for back at home in your district and one in Congress. Two full-time schedulers to manage. To schedule the day and the life of a member of Congress. When I left, I literally had a dentist appointment on my calendar. That was it. It was the weirdest and scariest thing for me to go. I don't have to be anywhere. No one wants me.

No, I don't have to go anywhere. And it took me a little while to get used to that. But it's then turned into a really great set of years since Congress that we've had more time together as a family. Which is, by the way, well, listen, I love Wisconsin. When you got the job on Fox and Friends, we decided that we would move to New Jersey so we could all be together. So again, I've gone off on a tangent, but again, making decisions that work for your family, for your love, for your kids, at the end of life will make you happier.

Yeah. And also, like, as you're making the, you know, as you know, you're, when you are married, a lot of people think, you know, they see kids as a negative, right? Like you hear AOC talking about, you know, you can't, you know, she's like, we should definitely have a discussion about the ethics of having kids, the ethics of having kids given climate change, right? You had Harry and Meghan Markle. Harry was interviewed in British Vogue and he said, you know, definitely we will not have more than two because, you know, that's what we owe the

earth God, I guess. He said climate change. He didn't say earth God, but, you know, essentially he said it would be irresponsible of me and Megan to have more than two children. That's his arbitrary number, because, you know, the Duffies are environmental terrorists. Right. And we're going to have to offset the Duffy number of children. So there's a lot of forces telling people that it's not just that you're going to have a better life if you have less less kids um i think there was seth uh seth rogan was you know the other day the other day had a interview where he talked about how great it is how much more fun him and his wife are having because they've made the decision not to have kids but also then this thing with aoc and megan marco people actually think they're more virtuous for not having having as many kids and

yet the study says you're actually prepared. The more kids you have, the better prepared those kids are for having long-lasting, happy marriages. And what could be more important than that? Yeah, so the culture is lying to you. And by the way, so we'll go to dinner with all our kids, including Valentina. And sometimes I'm like, listen, wouldn't it be great to just have us go to dinner together? We went to dinner for our anniversary. We did go to dinner yesterday't, we don't do that enough. And I was like, isn't this nice? It was enjoyable to be by ourselves. No one's crying. I'm not cutting

anyone's food. That was enjoyable. But if you did that, if I did that every day, I would miss having dinner and the craziness of having our kids, right? It was more fulfilling. So again, if you're thinking about having kids, one is fulfilling for you, but you're teaching your kids, if you have several of them, how to be better spouses when they grow up and get married. The success of a long-lasting marriage is going to come from giving them siblings to learn how to fight and to argue and to forgive. All of those things are really important if you're going to have a successful marriage, because if you can't fight, you can't argue, and you can't forgive in a marriage, it won't last. So it really, it's kind of a no-brainer. It makes complete sense that those

two things would go together. Yeah. I saw something, I think this comedian who has a Gaffigan, who has like a lot, I think he has like five or six kids, and he said that Gaffigan, who has like a lot, I think he has like five or six kids. And he said that seeing big, he said, he was talking about having a big family and what it's like to be out. And I was thinking about when you're sitting out in public with all your kids. He says, it's kind of like the waterbed. Like back in the day, it seemed it was really cool and everyone had them. And now when you see them, it's really really weird i think that's kind of us um but every now and then when i travel i meet

i do meet people who have a lot of kids and our kids go to a school where there are lots of families with lots of kids um i don't know maybe it's coming back maybe it's not um but a simple thing when we go to church sometimes it's crazy because sometimes we like to pay attention to the mass. It's hard to pay attention with Valentina. She's a terrorist. But I went to the Easter vigil because I did Maria's. Yeah, we had to conquer and divide

for Easter Sunday. So Sean took how many? You took? I took four, five. I took five. Five kids. And then me and my older daughter went the next day we kept valentina home and as if you're catholic you know the vigil is longer right so it was about a two hour mass which was not as long as it could have been but it was two hours yeah sometimes they're three hours and about 20 minutes in the the six-year-old down and then 20 minutes later

the nine-year-old down on my lap so i I couldn't stand up. I couldn't kneel down. Which is a big part of that Easter vigil is up and down. And then the nine-year-old was like, how long is this mass? I'm getting tired. I'm like, oh, God. I was so. But you know what? When I left the church, Margaret said how well behaved they were.

Because they were sleeping. Maybe that's why. By the way, I had drool on both legs. So they were drooling as they were sleeping on me. But you know what drool on both legs. They were drooling as they were sleeping on me. But you know what? I didn't know that. Yeah, they did. They were drooling.

And we probably should have rethought that. The little one should have gone in the morning with you and should have taken the older one. We don't have to fight about this one. So anyway. Anyway, well, it was an interesting article. A lot to think about. A lot to think about the messages young people are getting. I'm actually going to the University of Dallas this week to talk about sort of related subjects like happiness and the messages that the culture is giving young people and giving them a different way of sort of processing all the information they're getting that I think is not leading to happiness.

I think if you look at the mental health issues kids are having, the depression, suicide. Detachment. The detachment. There's a lot going on. These phones are part of it, but it's also all these other messages going on. And how do we live happy, fulfilling lives that, and so I think it's just a great conversation to have. I'm so happy to have it with these students. Things that are easy, listen, it is easy to sleep in on Saturday. It's easy to make yourself a latte.

Things in life that are hard are the most fulfilling, right? If you study hard and get a good grade on a test, that's fulfilling. Getting a good job and advancing in work is fulfilling. Working hard to accomplish that. Or if you're on a sports team, working hard and accomplishing success in sports, but also working hard to raise a good family, working hard at a good marriage.

Everything that fulfills you takes hard work. And it seems like the culture is, in a lot of ways, saying, take the easy way out. It's a way easier, happier path for you just to skate along. And I think you have to question the culture. And I don't think enough people are questioning the new themes and ideas that are coming out from culture that are bold-faced, flat-out lies. Yeah, and they're also statistically lying because they'll say things like, so one is like, you know, subjective. Are you happier, you know, living for yourself?

Are you happier living, you know, with a husband or wife and, you know, kids? I mean, those are to some degree subjective questions. But they'll also imply that, you know, you'll be more prosperous if you just focus on yourself, if you don't have kids or if you don't get married. And it's a lie. All the data, the census data proves that when, you know, couples are married and when they have children, they actually make more money and it makes sense. They pull resources together. So, you know, you're able, you have these economies of scales that happen because you're pulling resources together, but there is something biological. And this is also very controversial because we're supposed to not believe in resources together. But there is something biological, and this is also very controversial

because we're supposed to not believe in biology anymore, but there is something that is super transformative for men in particular. That's right. When men get married and they become responsible for a woman and children, something in them just shifts. And I saw it with you, Sean. When we got married, we didn't have any, hardly any money at all. Sean was, you know, fresh out of law school, working at his dad's

office. There wasn't enough money to go around and you were doing, still doing lumberjack shows to make money on the weekend, which he was doing before. And in between, this is such a great story. I'm so glad we're talking about this. I wasn't expecting about this. When Sean does a lumberjack show, it usually is three shows in a day. You would go on these weekends. You would go to some location, and they would do three shows a day. In between, and you're tired after you do one of those shows. It's exhausting. You're chopping, you're sawing, you're climbing. It's really intense. How long are those shows? It's about a half an hour show. And it's like, it is an intense workout for a half an hour, three times a day.

It's, yeah, you got to be in good shape, which I didn't realize until I'm older and fatter. Yeah, no, you were in incredible shape. I mean, it was like amazing. And in between shows, sometimes he would make these little wooden chairs with his chainsaw. He could make these little chairs as part of the show we would we would do this skit where we'd make a a chair and give it to a kid in the crowd and then we would make chairs to sell after the show and people had just seen it in the show and they would make these have these make them in between and then in the next show sell them for

like you know 15 bucks whatever shawn would usually make a few of them and then in the next show sell them for like you know 15 bucks whatever sean would usually make a few of them and then he could you know pocket a little bit of money drinking money right that's what i was before i was married i was drinking money well once we had a vita our first suddenly that money we needed it and so between shows john was making so many chairs and he would come home with all this money for making chairs. Full of sawdust, dirty, my back hurt. But there's no way you would have spent as much time between shows when you're exhausted making that many chairs.

It was like something shifted. You knew you had to take care of this little family. And you had to figure out how to make that money. And that happens to men. And yet, of course, there are some men who don't take care of their kids. But by and large, most men, it's a biological thing. They're built that way. They've got to protect their families.

And so in any way, families end up doing better. People end up having more money. The more, you know, when they're married and the more kids they have, because the husband in particular feels a real pressure. That pressure is really good to make them perform. And again, you'll be better off. And also a wife can help you strategize. Right.

It's like two brains are more than one strategizing on your career. You help me strategize on what I'm going to do with my career. I help you strategize with your career. And that also, and because we think differently, like someone, something might happen in Congress and I'd be like, she's like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Okay. Hold on a second. Let's think that through. Maybe we should take a different approach. Right? So if left to my own devices, I may take one track. I tell Rachel the story and she's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Listen, hold on a second. There's another perspective here.

You should think about it a little bit differently. And I'm better off and more successful because I think I took a smarter track because the advice she was giving me, right? We do that both ways, yeah. We're the best advice givers, counselors for each other. And you're more successful when you have someone else to ping things off of. Of course. And you completely do that. So don't listen to the culture.

If you want to have success, you want to have happiness, talk to people around you who are happy. It's like, if, if you're, if you want to be masculine as a man, look at masculine men and what do they do? Look at Dan Bongino. What does Dan Bongino, what does, um, what does, what's his name? Uh, uh, big bald head. Jocko. What does Jocko do? I mean, look at Jocko. There's a lot of? Big, bald head, Jocko.

What does Jocko do? I mean, look at Jocko. There's a lot of young men that are looking at Jocko. I know, right? So, but see what they do to be masculine. And if you want to go, how do I find happiness? Look to people who are happy and the decisions they've made. And then look to the people who are miserable.

Not faking happiness, but miserable people. And ask them about the choices that they've made. And then look to the people who are miserable, not faking happiness, but miserable people and ask them about the choices that they've made. And I think you'll find that it matches with the study that Rachel just brought up. Get married, have kids, help your kids out, teach them to learn how to fight and argue and forgive. So there'll be better spouses when they get married in the future. All right. Well, it's a great study. I'm glad we got to talk about it a little bit. I'm looking forward got to talk about it a little bit. I'm looking forward to my speech at my daughter's university at University of Dallas. And that's it for today.

Yeah, listen, if you like a podcast... And happy anniversary. Happy anniversary. Ooh, wow. TMI. If you like a podcast, you can rate, review, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts.

I did write that one down for you this time. Did you? I did. I did. I printed it for you. Well, you printed it. So that our producer. Well, it's not here.

Dylan, wouldn't it be a fact that we got it? Oh, here it is. Okay. Here we go. Yeah, there we go. Yes, it is. Yes, here we go. If you've enjoyed the conversation and if you did, let us know.

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God bless. Have a good week. From the Fox News Podcast Network. I'm Ben Domenech, Fox News contributor and editor of the Transom.com daily newsletter. And I'm inviting you to join a conversation every week. It's the Ben Domenech podcast. Subscribe and listen now by going to Fox News Podcasts dot com.