From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Family Ties: How The Royals Can Teach Everyone A Lesson

Episode Date: January 19, 2023

On this episode, Sean and Rachel sit down to discuss Prince Harry's new book Spare, and the impact the book has had on the already large rift between Harry and his brother Prince William.   Later, they talk about the lessons that every family can learn from the Royal drama, how important it is to form strong family bonds at a young age and share parenting tips from their own experience. Follow Sean and Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rachel Campos Duffy. Sean, it's so great to be here back at the kitchen table. I know you're not the hugest fan of the Royal family. You certainly aren't someone who bought the book, but a lot of people did. I mean, millions. It is now the fastest growing, I guess, nonfiction out there. It's sold. Let me get you the number here because it's incredible.

1.4 million copies. It's basically. Let me get you the number here because it's incredible. 1.4 million copies. It's basically set a Guinness record as the fastest selling nonfiction book of all time. Now, remember, that's not the only source of income for Harry and Meghan. They've made upwards of $100 million on their Netflix documentary, that docu-series that you did watch with me. documentary, that docu-series that you did watch with me. And also they have the Spotify deal, which is another 25 million. So it makes me sad that you can make that much money off of trashing your family. But in the process, I think, and every time you think it can't get any worse, it gets worse with every interview. He is absolutely dishing it to sell this thing. And it's working. And we've already heard,

Sean, that there are going to be more books coming. He said he actually cut out a lot because he didn't think his father and brother would ever forgive him if he put that stuff in. But says he has all kinds of other material. Now we also heard that Meghan Markle has a book. So just when you think there's no more appetite for what they have to offer, the money is telling the publishers that, yeah, there is. Yeah, you know, I look at this, and I've been in this conversation, kicking and screaming most the whole way, Rachel. But again, there is an appetite for these two individuals, for the royal family.

And, you know, they're getting filthy rich off it. But it costs a lot of money to fly around in private planes and talk about global warming. That's true. And have massive homes in the States. And big cars. And you also need a staff to take care of your kids. So that costs cash. And if you have to trash your family to pay for all those basic life necessities as a royal, well, there you have it. But for this, I think this is a more fascinating conversation because it is about the royals, but it's really about families. And I think there's a lot to learn from the royal family, not about what to do, but what not to do as a family.

And if you're doing what the Royals are doing, take a second look to go, well, maybe that's not the right path for our family because the Royals do the same thing. And you mentioned Evita's article. You're right. She wrote a great piece at the Federalist, which by the way, just as a side note, I'm really proud of because I think every family is messy and crazy and especially ours with nine kids. But I read this and I go, you know what, I feel really proud of the young woman that we raised because I think she gets the heart of family and life as she wrote this wonderful piece. It's called The Five Valuable Lessons Families Can Learn from Harry and Meghan's Royal Rift. It's at the Federalist. You can, you know, look up, you know, just put that into your Google search and you will find it. And she discusses these five lessons that we can all learn, because what's the point of hearing all of this if we don't learn anything from it? And so the first thing that she says is that in a family, the parents relationship comes first. And that's

something, Sean, that you and I, we're pretty good about that. We've always sort of very early on realized that we were going to be a united front when the kids try to divide us, because that's what kids try to do when they want to get their way. But we're going to be a united front. You've probably been the best person of the two of us about making sure that we go on, you know, away, we get away, not just for date night, but you love the idea of us getting away several times a year, just the two of us. And we've been blessed that my mom, when we were younger, could help us with that. And my mom

and dad would take our kids as many as we wanted, as long as we wanted. So we can go on vacation together and and and remember why we got married um but now we actually have older kids who will come back so we can get away for a little holiday but we've always been pretty good about saying this is the most important thing and what she notices in what she discusses in this article writes about is that obviously i mean that's the first thing you realize when you hear any of this stuff from from Harry is that he's still very much broken up about his not just his mom and dad's death, but clearly upset about the divorce and the fact that he remarried Camilla and actually begged.

He disclosed in the book that he begged him and William both begged his dad not to marry her, Camilla, because, you know, obviously they didn't want that. They didn't want to step mom. You know, divorces are real. Families get broken up. It's, it's, it's a reality of, of a reality of life. It happens, but in this family and in every family, the, the example that the parents set for the children is really the only example oftentimes that they have. Now, they might see grandparents, but the closest example of a family is the family that their parents have with them. And as you mentioned, the Royals, their family was absolutely shattered. And it wasn't shattered even in a private sense. It was shattered incredibly publicly,

and it was written about and talked about. There was no hiding what was happening inside the family because it was global news. And I look at, I just look at us, Rachel, and yeah, we try to get away, which is really nice. We'll try to do date nights. We should do more of it, but we make that effort. But what I find is just a very simple thing that we do is if we've both been going crazy, you're here and I'm there and we're crisscrossing, when we get back together, we miss our kids, we want to update from the kids, but oftentimes you and I will sit down

and you and I will prioritize the two of us catching up. Where have we been? What have we been doing? And after we're caught up, then we'll start to catch up with the kids. And I think they get frustrated by that sometimes. But it also shows that this bond between you and me are the most important thing. And I think that example, though, sometimes they're like, hey, I got stories to tell you.

And I want to tell. But they also go, hey, when I get married, I want to have a repeat of the example that I had from my parents. And it doesn't come from osmosis. It comes from learning. If the parents fall apart, the whole system falls apart. And that's why it's most important. It's not that kids aren't important. It's not that their needs aren't important, but if the mom and dad are not together and united, you know, whether it's in a in a in a divorce situation or an intact family marriage, that has to be the center.

And the kids come from there. In the case of Harry, of Diana and Charles, it wasn't just that it was a very public divorce that obviously the tabloids were interested in, but that the parents were using the tabloids against each other, which was also, you know, causing much more drama than needed. And there are lots of problems going on. So the next thing that Evita says in her, you know, five lessons is that family dinner is important. you know, five lessons is that family dinner is important. So in the case of the royal, Sean, there wasn't much chance for a family dinner because it wasn't just because of the divorce and all that. It's at the age of eight, these kids were taken to boarding school. And so that they were, and there was always a history in these royal families of the, you know, Queen Elizabeth was raised by, you know, a nanny and staff. And the same thing happened with with Charles. And then, of course, it carries on with these kids.

And in the case of the kids, as soon as they, you know, the mother died or even during the divorce, they probably needed their parents more than ever to help navigate that. And it's one of these times that if you, if you do it often that people gather around as human beings, there's, we're very social around food. It's time that you, when you have your fork and your knife in your hand. You can't have a phone in your hand, right? It's really good. It's the business of eating and talking. And it's consistent, whether it's 20 minutes or 40 minutes, you're all together. And lives and culture today are so busy and so fast, so much is going on. It's hard. So Evita, who wrote this, we did this all the time when she was growing up until I went to Congress. And oftentimes I was gone for family dinners.

We still had our weekend family dinners. And we still, I made sure that even when you weren't there, that me and the kids had a dinner together, sit down dinner. We're really big on that. And there's a lot of studies on the benefits of family dinner. It's not just family bonding, which obviously is so important, but they've actually shown that kids who have at least multiple times a week, even just one time a week of sit-down family dinner, they're less likely to do drugs. They have better grades.

They're less likely to have premarital sex. I mean, there's the statistics on it is actually astounding the benefit that comes from family dinner. And I think in the case of, you know, if you just listen to the interviews with Harry and a little bit you get from the other half of the family, it's very clear that, you know, they're an important family historically, but there were a lot of missing pieces in terms of that kind of bonding. And I think the most basic was if your kid's in boarding school, it's probably hard to do a family dinner. Yeah. But I bet when they came home from boarding school, they probably still didn't have dinner together. Or before they went to boarding school, I'm sure Charles and Diana were not having dinner together. They probably, what it appears,

they didn't like each other a whole lot. I think it's important too. You may not have dinner every night together because it's just crazy. But if you're able to have a family dinner, whether it's two or four times, five, five, you can try to do it as much as you can. Even if it's just once.

You're right. Even if it's just once a week. Maybe your family is so crazy that you just can't do it except Sundays. But it has to become safer. 30% of families in America eat together. That means, you know, the rest don't. And so that's a big deal. And people have a lot of extracurricular activities.

You know, Sean, how I feel about extracurricular activities. If they interfere with family dinners, I think family dinners are way more important. And a lot of people are running around, you know, that's controversial in this sports-centric country that we live in. And, you know, so many families, you know, they don't even just have one sport for their kids. Their kids are in multiple things. And what ends up happening is that mom and dad become chauffeurs and that sense of family starts to break down. I think that's one of the hardest things to do as parents is to find that balance and to make sure that all of these other demands that are pretty recent, you know, you know, a couple of generations ago, people didn't have four different sports. They did, you know what I mean? And there weren't know what i mean and there weren't practices every single day and there weren't you know travel soccer teams i mean this is a lot of stuff that and then try if you add in the distractions that come from social media i mean where do families find that time to bond so that i think is one of the one of the really important lessons that we

could learn from that family they just don't seem sufficiently bonded enough. And maybe it's as simple as a dinner. And I think if you start doing family, if you don't have family dinners, but you start doing them, what you'll probably find is your kids will, after you do it for, you know, whether it's a month or two months, they will love it. And if you don't do it, then they'll go, hey, why don't we have family dinner again? Uh, so you really, you really touch them when they didn't complain about all they want. But if you stop, they're like, Hey, what's going on? Why are we

having family dinner tonight? Or what's going on? You bring up a good point that if they haven't, if you haven't done that in a while with your family, maybe the first few times may not, may be rough, you know, but you just got to stick with it because they're, they may not be used to that and it may be awkward. So maybe you want to have, I just saw a thing on Instagram. It was so great. They actually talked about some of the questions that you and I asked, but it was like five ways to, you know,

five different questions you can ask at family dinner. I just saw it on Instagram. Several of the questions were questions that we've asked our kids, like, you know, what's, what's the best thing and the worst thing that happened to you today? Or, you know, what's, if you were, if you were an animal, what animal would you be, you know, kind of depending on the ages of the kids, but you really learn a lot about your kids, not just what they did that day, but you want to get to know your child. And sometimes just sitting down with no pressure, enjoying a nice meal, there's just no substitute for that. There's a lot of laughter that comes, a lot of jokes that come, funny experiences that came from the day.

Stories you didn't know about that happened at school that suddenly come out. I mean, that's how you learn. You're hearing about their friends, who they are, what they do, how they interact, which is wonderful. And they're learning how to communicate and how to be in those settings, which is a life skill. It really is. I thought the next issue that Avita brought up was fascinating is that you are your brother's keeper. And so if we look at these, you know, Harry and William, obviously this brotherhood is broken. There's a lot of animosity, a lot of family history and angst between the two of them. And now it's obviously playing out publicly. I just, I, again, I know

you're going to talk more about the Royals, Rachel, but I find what's fascinating. You have probably your closest friend is your sister. And what Revita mentions, and this is so true in the piece, is no one has the experience, the life experience that you have with your siblings. The home that you're raised in, the boarding school trips that you went off to if you're a royal, your mother dying, a parental divorce. No one lived that like you except for your siblings. And that bond of experience is very real and really important. And when they get broken, I think it's tragic because in really difficult times, whether it's in work or in health or in life or in marriage,

whether it's, you know, in work or in health or in life or in marriage, to rely on your family members who know you the best is really important. And they don't really have that together now, which I think is really shameful. It's really sad because and here's the thing is we don't know the whole story. I mean, and by the way, we'll play a clip here. You know, let's play this clip right here of Prince Harry in one of his interviews. Let's play that. This is the other side of the story, right? After 38 years, they've told their side of the story. This is the other side of the story.

And there's a lot in here that, you know, perhaps makes people feel uncomfortable and scared. Yeah, I mean, you can tell Charles and William archer of what else he's got up his sleeve but you notice how he says it's them versus us so it's william harry kate camila versus megan and harry and it didn't appear early on that that was always the case um there was um you know the brothers were tight uh they only had each other to, as you mentioned, who else has been through this experience, not just this very public, horrible divorce that their parents went through, embarrassing in many ways because of the stuff that each side divulged about each other. and William and Harry were super, super tight, it appeared. And then when William married Kate, it was sort of like they were, the three of them seemed really powerful.

And then Meghan entered into the scene and perhaps some of the cracks started to show more or maybe she created some of them. We'll never really know the full story. But the point is that as Evita brings up in this excellent piece, you know, they're making lots of celebrity friends out there in Hollywood. the way his family does, and specifically the way his sibling. And I think most people who look at the sadness around what has happened in this rift, I think what they really are reacting to is seeing these two brothers who should love each other, who should have each other's back, separated. And in the case of Harry, really throwing out some things that are really hard to take back. out some things that are really hard to take back. Now, Harry would say, Sean, that William,

through his press office, was doing what his father used to do to his mother, which is, you know, feeding stories to the press to make himself look better and make his brother look worse. That's what that's Harry's side of the story, for sure. But in any case, seeing siblings for sure. But in any case, seeing siblings trash each other like this is just really sad. No, it isn't. I think the lesson here for any family is make sure you encourage those brotherly and sisterly bonds. And every family, right? We all fight with our siblings, right? That's part of growing up. We fight and tease and that happens. But it's, and we see this in our own family, and you're really good about this. You tell our kids when they're fighting and being mean to each other that your best friends will, in 20 years or 30 years from now, will not be your best friends in seventh grade right now. It'll be your sisters that you're being so mean to right now. And, um, again, there's a number of different ways, but trying to make sure that they have experiences

together, um, and, and bonding, um, through all kinds of different avenues, whether it's the, the family dinner, whether it's traditions that we have, which we talked about on other podcasts, whether it's at, you know, Easter and Christmas and Thanksgiving and the 4th of July or every Sunday, those traditions bond them and connect them. And that through life is incredibly important. And I do think it's natural for siblings to be bound, but it's also important for parents to help facilitate that, especially in those relationships of siblings where they can be pretty gnarly.

One sibling can be a lot meaner to the sibling that's four years younger or five years younger and they can tease them all the time. Making sure that you're stepping in and helping navigate that to curate this really strong relationship, I think is the lesson and the takeaway of what didn't happen between these two brothers.

We'll have more of this conversation after this. You've always wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself. You live for experience and lead by example. You want the most out of life and realize what you're looking for is already in you. This is for you. The Canadian Armed Forces, a message from the government of Canada. And I love how you talk about the example that parents can set.

So, you know, my sister is my best my best friend, your brother, Pat, I'd say is your best friend. And they see us all the time talking to them. They also see, see me and my sister get in fights. And I remember once one of our siblings, you know, I got in a big fight with my sister and they're like, why are you still talking? I'm like, she's my sister. You don't just like, you know, that's your sister. You, you fight, you get mad at each other. Maybe you cool off for a day or two, and then you call each other to talk about what shoes are on sale that she needs to get. That's just how it should be in families. You don't get to choose your family. That's the family you get. And they're in your, they're in your life for a reason. God put,

I always tell us to the kids, God put that sister that you're, you know, struggling with getting along with so bad. She's in your life for a reason. You're supposed to learn something from her. God gave her to you and you to her. And so you guys are going to have to work this out because these are lifelong relationships. I think the trip that we took, Sean, recently, we took a little family vacation with our kids. And to me, it was a beautiful location. It was a beautiful vacation.

The cocktails were good. That was not it. For me, the best part of our family vacation that we needed, because boy, did we work hard over the Christmas break, filling in for a lot of people here at Fox. But we took that time off with our family. The best part for me was watching the kids interact with each other, seeing how much they took care of each other and hung out and laughed and shared stories from their childhood. To me, it was absolutely priceless.

Yeah, we took time away. And again, it was important because some of our kids are out of the house, making sure they have time to all bond together in the same place is important. But kids are bonding, whether they're playing dolls together or they're playing, you know, they're building forts together outside in the summer or playing sports together in the back lawn with the neighborhood. Kids, I mean, all of that is what, again, bonds people together. And so, again, I think it's always important as parents how important that is. And you notice it when it doesn't. We always expect that it's going to happen. But when it doesn't, it's shocking, like we see here with

the two royals. And so make sure you're aware of that and facilitate that with the kids in your life. I thought this next point that Avita brought up, Rachel. She hears that a lot in our house, doesn't she? She didn't come up with this one. This is a theme that we talk about. Who you marry is the most important decision you will make. And we talk about this with our kids a lot because we full-heartedly agree with this point. And by the way, we also think it's a crapshoot as well, right? Yeah, this is a double-edged sword on that. Yeah, like I'm making the most important decision of my life, but I don't really have all the

facts. I'm kind of, you know, I'm jumping off a ledge here and I hope this damn thing works, but I don't know. And as everyone can attest, you know, in their own life or people that they know, it's like, oh, this person is going to be wonderful, you know, in this, in this marriage. And all of a sudden, two years later, they're divorced. It fell apart. But who you marry matters.

And as we see with, with Harry and Meghan Markle, it fell apart. But who you marry matters. And as we see with Harry and Meghan Markle, it does matter. And the points that Evita bring up is, and we talk about this a lot in our own family, you want a spouse who, when something goes wrong in the family, in your family, you want your spouse to step in and go,

now, hold on, honey. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's take it from their side and let's try to build peace and civility as we go through some of these stressful, contentious times in families. That's what a really good spouse will do. A not so good spouse will throw more fuel on the fire when you're angry at your family. They'll be like, yes, and not only that, do you remember four years ago at Christmas when they did blah, blah? Listen, that's not what a spouse needs to do

because it's in everyone's best interest that we kind of get through these challenging times. And you want an ally that's going to fight for peace and resolution, not for more anger and hate in these fights. And it seems like Meghan Markle has not been one who's tried to bring peace. She's tried to bring probably more acrimony and more vitriol for Harry as he thinks about his own family. So I interviewed Piers Morgan this week on the topic of Harry and Meghan, and he says, you know, Meghan's a smooth operator. And, you know, it's easy to take that tack. It could be true.

She's a smooth operator. She wanted to marry the prince. She didn't want to do the work. And she just wanted to get rich from it. And she found the perfect guy, this beta male who's, you know, emotionally fragile. And she's just worked this whole thing. You know, there's another take.

And you and I have talked about this before in prior podcasts about this. And that is that Meghan Markle simply doesn't know how to be in a family. She has siblings, but they're like 17 years older than her. She's from a divorced family. Those siblings are half siblings that didn't necessarily grow up, grew up, grow up with her in this, in the house. And so she was like an only child, you know, living in her mom's house and then an only child living in her father's house, um, per the divorce, um, settlements and the, and the arrangements that they made. And so she had this fantasy and she talks about this often, but she always wished she had this big family. She always wished she had all these siblings. She didn't seem to build a relationship with the siblings she's had. She has, even though they're older now as an adult, she didn't seem to be building that. But she says that that's what she wanted. And she was really excited about entering into the royal family with this, you know, story, you know, big traditional history. And they do get together, you know, as a big group for, you know, really important events and Christmas and that sort of thing.

But I just think she didn't know how to do it. I don't think she understands that being in a family, especially in a big family, is complicated. And it means you have to compromise. And it means you have to let grievances, you know, run off your back. And you have to, there's a lot involved. And instead of learning, perhaps from Harry and some of the others, how do I operate in this family? She did what she did with her own family, which is cut them off. And, you know, you saw what happened with her father.

You know, he made one bad move of, you know, taking some money, you know, from a, from some paparazzi, you know, during the, when she first got introduced to all this craziness and she literally cut him out of the wedding, the most important day of her life and had Prince Charles walk her down the aisle instead of her own father. You can imagine how hurtful that was. And by the way, the dad had a heart attack shortly after I was just really, really bad. That said, I want to make this, go ahead, Sean. I want to make a point about culturally what that means. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, you make the point that I'll, I'll jump in after that. Is it, is it, is your point about, about Megan? No. Well,

I just want to say that this, this idea of putting a make of your spouse being the most important decision in your life is totally counter-cultural. This culture says, Hey, you don't have to get married for one. Two, your career is the most important thing in your life. Where you end up going to school, the prestige of that place or, you know, there's there's nothing in the culture right now telling kids that young people who are thinking about romance. I mean, every, you know, lean in, remember that famous book by Sheryl Sandberg, you know, she's held up as like the epitome of, you know, what, what a woman empowered woman looks like. I mean, she says, put your foot on

the gas pedal, don't let go, career, career, career. That's what it's all about. And a lot of girls are taking young women are taking that advice. And they're, you know, throughout their 20s, and all the way into their mid 30s. They're giving their lives over to corporations and companies and their job and their careers. And they're not even making time to date, let alone think about who they're going to marry. And there's nothing more important than creating a life, a personal life, a love life for yourself. And I always tell young women, your love life, you know, if you're in your 20s and 30s, and you're not married, your love life is your number

one issue. That's the most important thing, all your other dreams will happen, if you marry the right person. And so focus on that and pick the right person. I think in the case of Harry, Sean, he picked Meghan Markle, who is gorgeous and beautiful and very smart. And unfortunately, she has her demons and she did not allow him to rise or didn't help him rise to the occasion of some of the conflicts he faced. Instead, she went to the to the little devil on the angel and made some bad choices to justify it. Was it the knight in Raiders of the Lost Ark who was protecting the Holy Grail that said, you chose poorly? Yes, he chose poorly. But Harry does not have a good

example of a family either. And coming into this topic, we both agree that picking a spouse is a crapshoot. But I do think there's some things that you can do to guarantee that you get someone that's going to work for you as you make this most important decision of your life. And, you know, the things that are important, whether it's your faith, whether it's what kind of family structure were they raised in? What are their political beliefs, how do they want to raise their children, where do they want to live? I mean, you think about those things that are most important in life. And if you share the same or similar values, again, in families and faith and where they want to live and kind of how they want their families to be structured. Do they want kids? Do they not want kids? How many kids? Those are, if you are on the same page on most of those things, I think you have a recipe for

success. And oftentimes we hear people say opposites attract. You want to know they don't. And no, they don't. You do not want to have people who have completely different views of the world. no, they don't. You do not want to have people who have completely different views of the world. They might, they might be attracted to each other at a night at a bar or maybe for a month after, but for a long lasting marriage, that doesn't work. Um, because your life will be full of fighting. You're going to fight about everything. Wouldn't it be nice to again, have someone that you have so much in common with and agree with that's such a good compliment for you and your view of the world. And so as I, again, I think this is the most important thing. There's so many things to fight about, Sean, right? There's so many things already to fight about in marriage. Why would you want to fight about the very basic

thing? Why do you want to fight about whether Donald Trump was a great president or a horrible president? Like, let's not fight about that. We agree that he was a great president. Right, I know. But if you had to fight about that, Sean, you got real problems in your home. And so anyway, again, think of it. I love that.

By the way, Sean, we both love Ronald Reagan. We do. We always agreed on that. We always agreed on, you know, faith wise as Catholics. So, yeah, most important decision. When you have agreements on all these things, you're still going to fight. There's still going to have disagreement, right? It's just you're going to have far less of it.

So anyway, I think I think that's interesting. What was the what was the fifth topic that she brought up? It was actually the best. It was give lots of hugs. And so, you know, when Harry was 12 and he lost his mom in that infamous car accident, he revealed in the book that his dad did not hug him. And he said his dad came and gave them the news and it was obviously emotional. But there wasn't a lot of, it was a tough moment,

but there wasn't a lot of emotion showed. He didn't hug the boys, according to Harry. And so I think Harry, if you look at him and look at everything, he does look deprived of affection and there, and it wasn't just Charles. You know, his mother was very affection and there and it wasn't just charles um you know his mother was very affectionate but it wasn't just charles his grandmother i mean that sort of you know british stiff upper lip thing it kind of plays in there but charles complained that you know at other points he's revealed you know that his mother wasn't exceptionally warm towards or tender towards him. And that's sort of maybe a family trait. And I think he saw, you know, in Megan, you know, she,

she says that she's really quick to hug and, you know, it's sort of an American thing, if you will, but again, showing affection. And so her fifth tip is make sure in your family there's lots of hugs sean there's a lot of hugging in our family we do but can i i'm going to tell you guys a little personal story from my own life no i love this story go ahead i was hoping you would tell me thank you for not forcing it on me but i do want to share it because i didn't force it but it's a great story so when i was growing up um my my mom was a little bit of a hugger, but my dad did not hug anybody. It was kind of like this Irish, cold, maybe he'll shake your hand kind of dad. And at one point, I must have been about

eight years old as well, seven, eight, nine years old. And there's 11 kids in our family. And so one of the older kids was having some problems and they, they're just like, we're going to go to counseling. And my mom and dad and my older sibling, they started going to counseling and I'm just too really young to understand what was going on and why they were going. But I knew they were going to counseling. And one day my dad came home from counseling and I was in the kitchen. And I remember he came up and he gave me a hug.

How old were you Sean? I must've been eight or nine. My dad hugged me. And I thought it was the weirdest **** ever. I'm like, ah! Like, I was like this awkward kid that was getting hugged by his dad. It was foreign to me. It wasn't normal for me to have my father hug me.

I got to tell you, though, since that point, my dad is the greatest hugger. He's a hugging guy. He's wonderful. But that was a conscious transition he made. He saw that from his own family that not touching people, not hugging your, the people that you love is kind of strange. And he flipped and switched. And it was great for me because I'm a wonderful hugger. I hug everybody. I'll, you know, but he broke that cycle and his family of cool coldness of, of, of not showing affection with the ones we love by hugging them. Thank God he broke it for me that I didn't have to then figure out that why, I guess I don't hug

my kids and my kids have a dad who doesn't hug them. We broke that cycle thanks to him. Um, but just note that if you don't hug your kids, you should. But if you don't, they're going to be weirded out by it. Because I was. I was like, this is strange. The first time you do it. Yeah. And we all think it's so normal. Everyone hugs and hugs are natural. Well, if you don't get them, it's not a natural thing. And that's probably why Charles, who has never hugged himself, didn't have the capacity to hug poor Harry when his mom died. And it makes you, it breaks your heart. I mean, what a sad story to tell. And is it really Charles's fault? I don't, I mean, that's the way he was raised, but it's one of these things that if that is the story of your

family, break that cycle. Cause there's no better way to show that you love someone and care about someone than giving them a hug. And especially on those bad days, the bad day you have, hugs are awesome. I love that story because it proves that you can learn to hug. You can be the hero that breaks that cycle in your family if you're a parent. Yes. You realize there's not a lot of hugging. I think growing up, when you and I first got married, you are a good hugger,

but I think you were a little weirded out by how much Hispanics kiss their kids. Hugging kiss. It was like, this is a lie. But now you're like that. I was good with hugging and kissing, but the Spanish thing of the, you hug and kiss your kids all day.

And they're the most amazing things that have ever graced the God's green earth ever was unique to me. But as you know, what to have kids grow up and think they're special is a good thing. I don't want them to think they're special, you know, and they're awesome, you know, when they're not.

But they should have self-esteem that comes with, no matter what happens in my life, my mom and dad are going to love me and they think I'm special. That's a really great feeling for a kid that gives them, I think, gives them confidence and self-esteem, knowing that no matter what happens,

I got two people that love me. I think a child's self-esteem is directly related to the way their parents react to them when they walk into a room. You know, when I think about, you know, little kids, when they walk into a room, the parents light up and they're just like, there he is. And there she is. And come over here and give me that. It's, it's just, you can't explain it, you know, and that is, and I think by the way, that's one of the problems with the phones that you might not even know the kid walked in the room if your head is in the phone. And that's, that's a challenge for all of us parents. And I frankly, I really wish we lived

in a non phone world. That would be my preference. If I if I could change anything about the world, I would change that. Because, you know, that that that's just it's something that's plaguing so many of us. But again, hugging so important family affection. And clearly he was affection deprived and felt like he got whatever he didn't get from his dad or whatever he missed because his mom was pretty affectionate with him. But she lost he lost her very early. It was only eight years old. And I think he got that from someone else. But sadly, with Meghan Markle, she hasn't appealed to his better angels.

And that's the story that we have right now. Again, sad that you can make a lot of money off of trashing your family. But there are some dysfunctional problems in the family that are deep that you and I and everyone else can learn from this rip. And we can just use this opportunity to go, how can we make our own families better instead of just enjoying the gossip and all the stuff that's coming out of there? So just a heads up, sometimes Rachel and I, though we mentioned this, we see the world the same way. We do, we'll argue about certain things, big and small, but one of the things we'll argue about is, do we really have to do another

Harry and Meghan podcast? And so I'm just going to let everyone in on a little secret. Why did I agree to do this podcast again on Harry and Meghan? I did it because my theory, and I've said it before on the podcast, is if you want to save America, save your family. And what we're talking about here is how do we all save our families and the families that we may not even have yet? How are we saving them? What are we doing to make our families stronger, to put Teflon on our families and our kids so these woke lefties can't get them. And again, hugging, having family dinners, picking good spouses, making sure these young kids have this brotherly bond. All of those things are important if we're going to preserve and protect this great nation

and the ideas and values that our founders gave us. So that is the real reason why I did this podcast, Rachel. I love that. One family at a time. One family at a time. You can save America one family at a time. Lessons from the Royal Rift. If you want to read the whole article, it's on The Federalist. Check out that website. They always have great stuff. It's wonderful. And I'm sorry, Sean, that our podcasts have a lot to do with what's trending on the Daily Mail.

But I can't help it. I love it. I know you do. It's a good topic. And again, I think it's always a reminder of how important these things, when they go bad, we realize how important they are in our own lives to go right. So, listen, if you've liked this conversation, we've enjoyed it. this conversation. We've enjoyed it. But you can subscribe, rate, and review this podcast at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you download your podcasts. And you can listen ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show

ad-free on the Amazon Music app. So, wow, a lot of options there. But again, we love doing this. on the Amazon Music app. So, wow, a lot of options there. But again, we love doing this. Thanks for joining us in this really important conversation about Harry and Meghan. Actually, the important conversation. It turned into a really important conversation, Tom. It really did.

I hope everyone subscribes. Thanks for joining us and have a great day, everybody. Bye-bye.