From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Q & A With The Duffys: The Indescribable Role Of A Father

Episode Date: June 17, 2023

Happy Father's Day from Sean & Rachel! Sean answers a question on how his parenting style has evolved from their eldest to the youngest child, and Rachel commends him for how he loves and caters to each child. Then, Rachel reflects on how they balanced parenting responsibilities while Sean was serving in Congress, emphasizing that his absence affirmed the irreplaceable role of fathers in the home. Plus, Sean & Rachel share their parenting mission statement and how it sets the framework for their familial relationships. Follow Sean and Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Gold tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too.

Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hey, everyone. Welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm Sean Duffy, along with my co-host for the podcast, my partner in life and my wife, Rachel Campos Duffy. Great to be back at the kitchen table, Sean. And this coming weekend is Father's Day. So what a great time to do our weekly Q&A, our viewer Q&A on dads. And to celebrate me as well. And celebrate,

you were celebrating you. Celebrate. We're going to kind of talk about fatherhood in general, but you in specific. Well, thank you. So let's just. Is this a podcast dedicated to me and fathers? Yes, it sure is. Wow, I'm going to take that to the bank. One day a year. One day a year. Enjoy it. All right. Let's get, let's get going on this because I think there's some really great questions that have come in. So the first question we have is, how did your parent, you know what, before I get to that, can I ask my question? Sure. What do you love about fatherhood? Right. I've been a father for the last 23 years.

We've had a lot of kids and to have an impact on another human being's life, to actually mold, to give to, to help raise and hopefully raise well, share some of our values and morals and our way of life with with our children. I think it's I mean, it's one of the most meaningful things that you do in your life. And again, for the two of us, we have dedicated a lot of our life to our kids. Not many people have nine kids or the span of time that we've had kids 20 years. Most of the people our age are starting to have fun. They're kicking back.

Most people at the latest stop having kids at like 40. Not us. We went to what, 48? 48. So we still have one in diapers. We do. And we have a dog that's making me like, I'm just about to kill the dog. Rachel's about to kill Skippy.

He's peed on the floor and he's pooped on the floor as of this morning. Oh, sorry. It's been a, it's been a, he's been these angry. We were following, because we got an electric fence because we want to save the dog from dying. On the road. On the road. And he's mad.

He's got to be able to travel around. Yeah, he wanted to be the mayor of the neighborhood, but he's, you know, almost gotten hit. And so we got the electric fence because to keep him from wandering. And now he's, he's angry and he's. Rebelling. Rebelling by pooping and peeing.

And it's making my life miserable because he's peeing on carpets and stuff. And I hold myself out as a good communicator, but Skippy and I, we have some language barriers and he's not understanding- Let's just put it this way. I'm having more success with potty training, you know, or attempting to start to potty train Valentina,

who has downs, it's a little bit harder than the others, but boy. It's so appropriate that we talk about our dog. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He's like another member of the family and he's been driving. So one thing on that was, so when we got married, we had a dog together and the dog's name was Pippi and- No, Ula. I mean, Ula, gosh, Pippi was after Ula. He was the after. together and uh the dog's name was pippi and no ula i mean ula gosh pippi was after so ula was um like we love that dog and um that dog was given to me by the way by puck my roommate from the

from the real world and it was a chihuahua and i love that dog and listen we didn't like the dog came everywhere with us it was like it was our family and we didn't, like, the dog came everywhere with us. It was like, it was our family. And we didn't think we could love anything as much as we loved that dog. And then we had Evita. And we kind of, it's kind of sad. We forgot about the dog. And the dog, Ula would jump in the car seat like he was. We loved Ula, but, I mean, the priority became the baby.

And Ula definitely felt like, Ula felt the drop in the hierarchy there like I mean we we took care of Ula we loved Ula but Ula definitely wished he was the baby the new baby instead so but it's a good it's a good segue into just how important kids are and how consuming they are and how important they are in our lives so again you love being a dad you love being a dad. I love being a dad and I love our kids and I love our family. And I think my life would not be full, would not be as full as if I didn't have all of these kids and you around me to share my life with and share my hobbies with, share my perspective with. What's interesting as they get older, they get their own minds and they'll push back, they'll fight back, they'll rebel, which is okay. That's part of growing up, right?

We don't make little mini-me's. They actually become their own personalities, which actually makes it kind of fun as well, these broad conversations we have now with our older kids. It has been interesting to see how different each child is. different each child is. When you have nine, you really realize that, yeah, there's some of it is you, but some of them are just born the way they're born and that is their personality. And that's the way they do things. And they came from the same two people. And they're all so different. And they are wildly different. I think every parent who has more than one will go like, this is nuts how they can be so different and everything be so similar.

Yeah, it's crazy. They come in with their own soul and personality. So the first question, back to it, is how has your parenting style changed from your first child to now? Which is a really good question. It's a really good question. I've thought about that a lot. So I think I was a lot stricter, a lot harder. Maybe if things went wrong, I was a little rougher on the older kids.

And as I've had more come through, I've been able to chill out a little more. Is that because you're older and too tired to do as much? I don't think you get it. Listen, we don't get manuals to be moms and dads. And we make mistakes. And there used to be a time when, you know, families, family units, grandparents and parents and kids all lived either in the same house or very close to each other. We're doing that now. We are. Your parents are here. And there was a lot of help that old parents, grandparents could give to the new parents. And our parents do do that.

They do. But they haven't lived with us like they used to be 150, 200 years ago or 500 years ago. And so you kind of do it on your own and you make mistakes. I think I've put things more into perspective. How serious really is something? What is probably, you know, I'm opposed to what they're doing, but it's a little more age appropriate. And so I don't think I'm as hard of a father now as I was at the beginning. Can you give an example of something you've chilled out on?

Well, I would tell you this, but then I'd be selling some of the bad things out that our kids have done. Okay. You do not want me to give the example of my father in my mind. All right. And I just sit with my own dad. Like, we have 11 kids in my family. And my sister was here for a couple days, my oldest sister, Peggy. She was visiting us.

We love her. And her husband, Bruce. And they talked about the way they were raised as the first kids in my mom and dad's home and the way I was raised. And it was very different. My parents were- Number one versus number 10.

Far more chill. They had more money. They were a little more generous when we went through. But my dad was not as, and my mom were not as strict and as hard. So I think with age, but also with you become a better parent and know what you need to be aggressive on and what you need to let go. Yeah. That's a really long answer to your question, but I do think there's, there's, you get better balance and better perspective.

So this question is, what were some things that you taught your children to do as they were growing up? Like, you know, they mentioned like, for example, riding a bike and that sort of thing, but also maybe life lessons. So here's that horrible thing. So my, my margarita is nine. She's nine, right? And Patrick just turned nine. And he just turned seven. And I was talking about getting them bikes this year. And I'm like, Patrick, I have to show

you how to ride a bike. Right. So don't give me a hard time. He's six turning seven and didn't know how to ride a bike. That's my fault. But then Margarita was like, I don't know how to ride a bike. So this spring they got bikes and I taught both. And they learned so fast. They did learn fast. They picked it up. I have the video. It's so great. They just, yeah. So riding bikes, but I've also, I like, a different, the little ones don't know how to log roll. The older ones do just because we're not in Hayward or close to Hayward any longer, but I've taught them how to log roll.

I've taught them how to ski. I've taught them, you know, how to. Water skiing, yes, is a big deal that, you know, you spend a lot of time. I'm not a great. And she's so patient with the water skiing. I am patient. I'm not a great fisherman, right? But you don't have to be a great fisherman with kids.

So I've taught them how to fish in my really bad fishing ways. But they've learned how to fish with me. They fish off the dock and they figure it out off the boat. But I think, yeah, so those are kind of the big things that I've taught them. But I think that, you know, as we all see, our kids pick up, they pick up our personalities. They pick up our tones. They pick up just a lot from just watching us. So it's not actual instruction on how to ride a bike.

It's how do you behave in your life. And I think they pick up a lot of that from us. What do you think? No, I think that's all great. One of the questions they have is what do I like about you as a father? I think the most important things that you have brought as a dad to the family is that I feel like you have a vision for your family. And very early on, one of the things Sean brought to the family, he like you know i have such great memories of being at the lake as a kid with my family and i want to set us up so that we could

have that and that was not an easy feat because we didn't have a lot of money yeah um and so you know he kind of bought a little piece of land here and there and resold and re-bought trying to figure it out until we- Looking for a deal here, looking for a deal there. Yeah. Until we finally had enough money to buy the place we wanted and then, you know, rebuild it. And we had to rent it out at first because we couldn't afford to pay the mortgage without Airbnb-ing it. No, I had to rent out, I had a VRB on my cabin so I could pay for my daughter's college, the first daughter's college. The first year, yes.

And I didn't save for college because I didn't have any money to save for college. That's true. But after she went to college and I saw that bill and what I was in for, I opened up the 529 accounts for the younger ones to go, listen, this can't happen again. And then eventually, what we did here, we Airbnb-ed it and try to make some somebody so we could afford it and all the other

things we had to pay for and now we have this place and that the memories that our kids have um you know i think when our kids think about their family they think a lot about the time we spend up at the cabin and sean it isn't just that he, you know, organized our finances and our lives so we could afford to have that time and even open that schedule up in our lives so we spend as much time as we can up at the lake house. But also, he puts a lot of thought into what are we going to do up there? And so he's the one making sure that the boat's ready so that the kids can go water skiing and, you know, making sure that the licenses are up to date. So we, you know, and for the, everything that needs to happen, I don't do anything. I just show up at the lake and it's done and we have a great time. And I think I really came here. It was all done.

Yes. The lawn is mowed. Yeah. So this, one of the things I really do love, that you've done that for our family and for our kids. And I think as a dad, that time up there, I mean, even when Sean was in Congress and had this hard charging schedule, even then it became really important for you to have that time up there. It can literally, the drive, we lived about two and a half hours at that time from the cabin. And I felt like the drive to the cabin, I almost felt like Sean was wearing some sort of suit that covered his head and he could unzip it. And the real Sean came out on the way to the cabin. It's your happy place. Yeah. Congress was stressful and it was busy. And I loved going up there and the peace that came from it. But I think everyone...

Yeah, there's a peacefulness that you have when you're up there. It's really true. I think maybe the day-to-day, you do a way better job than I do of keeping everything organized and straightened up.

But I even think about a vacation with our kids. Where are we going to go? What are we going to do? Yeah, you do. You plan all the vacations. Yeah, and they've been able to change over time but the smallest vacation to a little more raucous vacation i put and it doesn't because we're so big it doesn't happen i can't be i can't be like hey next weekend let's go to wherever can't do that it actually takes

months um to think through kind of what we're going to do where we're going to go how do we get the best tickets yeah can i afford the tickets where we're going to go. How do we get the best tickets? Yeah, can I afford the tickets? Where are we going to stay? What points do I have to get to that place? So, yeah, I do a lot of that as well. I mean, yeah. Yeah, I think that's probably one of the important. I look now how important fathers are in their home.

And we might even see this too. We have different perspectives, different, I don't want to say energy, but just different philosophies. And when I was out of the house a lot in Congress, we would see a differential when we were both there. And when I was part of, when I was part of, you know, whether it was disciplining or helping around the house, just has a better balance with a mom and a dad. And I think it's really good for our boys and our girls to see a male in the home and how does a male behave. And I mean, even I think what's, I mean, this is basic. It's important for kids to see their father go to work and to work hard and to provide for their family. That's an unspoken lesson, but they realize that men work,

That's a, that's an unspoken lesson, but they realize that men work and provide men have responsibility. Um, and if you don't see that sometimes you have nothing to emulate. Um, and I think that's a, I mean, we've worked hard. Both of us have worked hard, um, over the course of having our kids. And that's one, one unspoken lesson that we've showed them is you work hard and you provide. And by the way, we show that we're a team. I'm not an oppressive husband. No, no, I think, let me come back to that in a second. But I would say that one of the blessings, one of the things that I learned from your time in Congress was that that balance between mom and dad in the home, because you were gone so much because of your job, it was not ideal.

And I told Sean, I realized, you know, I don't know how single moms do it. I mean, I at least had to come back at some point, you know, during the week. And it was hard to, you know, catch up on everything that you miss, but you miss a lot when you're not there. And so for us, it was, as you mentioned earlier, when you have a lot of kids, you get a lot of second chances. Congress and the sacrifices our family made while you were in Congress, the balance that we have now as parents is, is just substantially, it's just better. It's just better. And so it is what it is again, no regrets, but like, I mean, I just, it's very apparent to me, kids need a mom and a dad present at home, you know, as much as they can. And I think that's just, it was meant to be that way. And I think that you don't always get balance at every moment in your

life. You look at over the course of maybe it's a decade or two decades, you have to find that balance and we found a better balance now. And sometimes families are stuck in a situation where they're doing what they have to do. You have to do right to put bread on the table or whatever. You got to make it work. And this is the mission. And that's why we say. But it's good to know what the ideal is so that you can attempt to reach that as much as you can. That there isn't yet to work towards that balance. And there is, I don't care what people say about, you know, gender is just a social construct.

It's not. There are certain things that Sean brings to this home and this family by virtue of the fact that he is a man and that I bring by virtue of the fact that I'm a woman now. And we talk a lot about our dinners, right? So we have, we don't, it doesn't happen all the time, but we try to do- But listen, no, we are pretty darn good about family dinners. And I'll tell you this, family dinners, really quick to establish that before you bring that in, the studies on the benefits of family dinners are so incredible. Like if our government just put out the stats on the way it changes kids and families when they have regular and consistent family dinners, boy, it could change the society. Children are better connected with their parents.

They have higher grades. They're less likely to have premarital sex, less likely to do drugs and experiment with alcohol. Same for pornography. Everything that you think could go wrong with your kids, statistically, data proves it, will get better if you have family dinners and start to make that happen. I don't care if it's three times a week or just on Sundays after church or whatever. Have those family dinners. They are so important. We'll be back with much more after this. It's winter and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost,

almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats, but meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls. Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No, but moose head? Yes, because that's alcohol and we deliver that too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. knows there was no phones. We're sitting here. Even if you finish early, I say, nope, you can't get up. You're not excused. You're going to sit around. I'm not hungry. I don't care. I don't care. You're going to sit down and we're all going to sit here. And what ends up happening is, like I said, there's a detail to the conversation that just would not happen if you were, as you said, just passing each other in the hall in the house or sitting around somewhere else. There's something about eating, sharing a meal and like hearing all these stories. And then all of a sudden you and I can kind of almost kind of can sit back and we watch this interaction between all

of them and stories come out. It's just so fun. The bonding that happens for them, the laughter and the storytelling and a little bit of mocking and teasing that'll happen within the stories. They'll call each other out for some things that might've happened. And it's been fun to watch my parents. And then when your sister and her husband, Bruce, were here, Peggy and Bruce were here, and they joined us for family dinner. We've had my parents for now over a month sharing, or sharing or about a month sharing their their stories with us the intergenerational part of it is super great as well um what else what also we do too is we uh it doesn't happen all the time because sometimes i get home too late from uh the bottom line on fox business which if you don't watch you should um but i'm having dinner

with the kids and my parents but we'll do it we'll do a prayer time. And sometimes it'll be a little bit longer. Sometimes it might be our Father Hail Mary. But almost every time we'll go around and ask them what they're grateful for or who they want to pray for or what they want to pray for. And it's interesting to see what they're grateful for or what they want to pray for. We get some pretty unique answers, even from the little ones. Yeah. And I love that Sean has taken a leadership role with that, too. likelihood that a child is going to grow up, male or female, is going to continue on with the faith traditions in the family is not whether it's whether the father is the spiritual leader of the home. That as wonderful it is to have a spiritual mother, and of course, many people

are impacted by the spirituality and the religious formation that their mothers give them, so important. But the chances that they will transmit that to the next generation, those values, those traditions, religious traditions, is whether the father is actively leading that. Prayer life. Yeah. Yeah, spiritual life. Isn't that interesting? That is fascinating. What else?

Again, and the unspoken things that kids see. And again, it's funny, when your kids get older, they'll come back and tell us things that we did wrong or why we weren't good parents on this or that. We actually do it. We do an exit interview with our kids as they leave the house. So we say, what do we do? Well, okay.

You're going off to college. Here's what we want to know. What did we do? Well, what, what did we not do? Well, what do we need to improve on? Because we have a bunch of kids coming up and we can actually use that feedback. Yeah. But I think one of the, and I've heard our kids, what again, they'll, they'll might give

us some, some light complaints, some serious complaints of what was good, what was bad. But what they'll always talk about is our relationship. They'll say that, you know, I know you guys love each other. And I know I would like to have a relationship with my spouse like you guys have. And again, Rachel and I will fight. We'll get angry at each other like every marriage. We're not unique in that respect. No, heck no.

And I'm really difficult to get along with. Sometimes. Only there's certain points that she gets to be really hard. I'm feisty. But they go, we love to be with each other. We love to be with the kids. And that shows. And I think they want to find a spouse also

that has that same kind of, they can build that same kind of friendship and love with together. And that's an unspoken thing that you and I do together unintentionally, but I know that they pick up because they've mentioned it. Yeah. It is one of the nicest compliments our kids, and you don't get a lot of compliments from your kids, you know, so you hold on to the ones you get. But the one that consistently comes back is that we're a good team. Um, and, and that we love each other and that they love, they love the security of that.

And I think that's great. Okay, so one of the questions is very good. It's actually a question I asked on a mom show that I did when I had a mom show on Fox Nation. But the question is, what is your parenting philosophy? So I think that actually it's a fascinating question. I don't know that I've broken it down to a philosophy, but I know that you and I have sat when I say it, and you'll remember, you'll go, oh, yeah, Sean agrees with it. Mine is, my job is not to get you into Harvard.

It's to get you into heaven. And I think if you use that as your mission in life as a parent, everything just kind of starts to get easier. It falls into line. Your priorities are set. And so that is, I know Ainsley Earhart has stolen that one. She loved that one too. And so she said it's hers now too. And everyone go ahead, feel free to see it.

But yes, I thought it was really a good idea for us to have a mission statement, just like a company would, right? Because we kind of run this a little bit like a company. And we worked on, this was very early in our marriage. The kids were very young and we worked on this family mission statement. And we actually have it hung in our, it's typed out. It's hung. The original one, which is behind the one in front, because I made a copy because the other one got so old, was signed by every single child.

So it says Duffy family mission statement. If you're watching, here it is, the Duffy Family Mission Statement. Why don't you go ahead and read it, Sean? No, you can. No, no, no, go ahead. Read the top. Our family exists to love and serve God and each other. We believe that each member of our family was especially chosen to be here,

and we promise to treat each other and ourselves as gifts from God. To this family, every day we will strive to. Then we have a list. then we have a list. Then we have a list. And it says, one, we strive every day to, one, practice our Catholic faith and traditions. Number two, express our love for each other in words, deeds, and affection. Three, spend quality and quantity time together in prayer, play, and family meals. Four, have honest and open, good communication. Five, forgive one another often. Six, do our part to create, maintain a warm, inviting, clean home. I put in the clean, you know that. That was Rachel. That was my edit. Seven, laugh often, especially at ourselves.

Eight, encourage and support each other's talents and dreams. Nine, put my family relationships ahead of distractions from social media and mobile devices, which is interesting because that was written before this really started to take over. And 10, not tease my siblings. That was a big issue at the time of the original. It still kind of is. Actually, there's still a couple that we're dealing with. But that is the mission statement. Every now and then, it's really good to kind of revisit and go, listen, this is who we are as a family. And this is what we stand for. And this is what we want to transmit to you guys. And I think to be really intentional about it. And I think, Sean, as a dad, you have been very intentional. And I think you've been a good example in that regard. I think this statement, by the way, can I tell you this really quick before I we invited Will

and Pete to come over to our house and we went to dinner. And Rick. And Rick came over as well. But as they were touring the house, they saw this hanging I know Will saw it hanging in the kitchen and I saw him taking a picture of it and he goes, I'm sending this to to my wife and then later on I found out that Pete also saw it and he

had taken a picture of it and it was now building his own based on this one that of course Matt every family's mission statement is going to be a little different but he is has a mission statement now for his family. And so, I mean, listen, I think everyone should, I think it's really important to be intentional. Listen, corporations do it because it works, right? And it's like, what are we here for? What are we doing? And if this is important enough to do for a corporation or an enterprise, this is the most important enterprise we have that we're part of. And so we should do a mission statement for the most important enterprise of our life, which is our family. So again, we decided to do this. And again, are we perfect? No, but it's a good

set of principles by which we live. To strive towards, right? Yeah. And so we spent a lot of time in the kitchen. There's a lot of cooking. There's a lot of cleaning. So this sits in the kitchen. Yeah, it's on the wall in the kitchen. And all our houses, it's been there. Yeah, it's been there. I think it's funny that they said, this one was insane. Like, yeah, yeah. Their old ratted, tatted one. Behind it. It's like the old constitution that everyone used to learn when they put it in the fresh printout. But you know what, it made me think we really should take it out. Maybe we'll do that on Father's Day. Well, we revisit the family mission statement and have a new signature ceremony. Have them all sign it. Yeah. Yeah. There's a few that are a little too young to sign, but we'll help them out. But yeah, I think that the first line is the most important. Our family exists to love and serve God and each other. I mean, that really comes down to it. And serve.

and each other. I mean, that really comes down to it. And serve. Yeah. And we, again, we serve God, we serve each other. And I think that this, the family is a great place to learn to serve someone other than yourself. Because it becomes a very unselfish place. You can't be selfish in a family. Yeah. You know, some people go, I need to, I need to leave, you know, travel to go find myself. No, you find yourself in the context of your family. Truly. I mean, I don't care. You can go to Timbuktu. You can go to Bali.

You can go to India. You can go wherever you want. But in the end, you're going to come home because you find yourself, who you are in the context of your family. And that is what has been really interesting about having a lot of kids and being married to someone like you who came from such a big family. You're the number 10 of 11. And how you are with your siblings, how you learn to navigate so many different people, so many different feelings and personalities. That's how you really discover who you are. And just going back to another point, one of my favorite times growing up was at the dinner table. We had family meals all the time and everyone sits down and it felt like it was even more raucous maybe because I was a little kid then, but it was raucous. It was fun. There's these conversations and it's a really enjoyable time and the traditions that come from the family. And if you look at what's happening in this way,

I'm proud to celebrate Father's Day because there is an assault on families. But I think the assault on families is at the tip of the spear is the fathers. Amen. They're going after dads in society and saying, if you're masculine, if you're a man, you're toxic.

And I'm sorry, men are not toxic. Men are beautiful. Men have an important role with women. Men have an important role with children, a critical role. And if you can take the father out, everything starts to crumble. Just like if you take the mother out, the whole unit functions as one. And one piece goes, you still might be able to function, but it doesn't function nearly as well. And you're susceptible to all of these societal pressures that aren't good for you, good for your family, good for that unit. If you don't have that unit strong and the strength comes from both people together. And it's so intentional. I mean, that's what's so interesting.

And what I hope our podcast, you know, if you go back and listen to all of our podcasts, they're always talking about the intention behind what we're seeing happening. this breakdown of society and at its most fundamental level, this breakdown of the family, this didn't just come out. It didn't just happen because it's 2023 and I don't know, it's post-modernism, whatever. There is an intention behind this. If you can take the father out of the home and minimize what his contribution is, something has to fill that vacuum. And it ends up being the government, right? The government wants to be the baby daddy for all these states. I mean, we're faced, you know, just, yes, two days ago at the White House or a few days ago at the White House for their pride festival that they had or celebration, they talked again about these are our children. No, children have mothers and fathers. They have families. And that is the most important

unit. And the role of government is to help those families thrive. That's it. It's not to replace them. It's not to co-parent with us. I don't want to co-parent with the government. You are the father of my children. And thank God it's not Joe Biden. Poor Hunter. And not poor Hunter, but he's got boys behave poorly, all men must be poor. If these boys are toxic, every man must be toxic. And they want to project that out there. Just like if they say someone picked up a gun and shot someone else, all guns are bad. Well, 99% of gun owners are good. Or if one cop does something bad, which they will, all cops must be bad. And that's driven.

That's a narrative that they intentionally promote but if a group of trans activists call a bomb threat into target which they did um they don't say well all trans are bad all trans are radical they didn't even tell anyone that the bomb threats on target were from trans activists um you had to really read between the lines and that's. And this is intentional. They use, you know, little nuggets of truth to then try to drive a larger narrative. And again, in our schools, we see this all the time.

They're trying to make little boys be less little boy. And that's really bad for our culture, really bad for, I mean, that's who these kids are, our little seven-year-old. I mean, he is all boy. He will fight and shoot and jump and play from the moment he gets up to the moment he goes to bed at night. He's amazing. And he's fantastic.

And we didn't create that. God created a little boy, and that's what little boys do. And the role of the dad is to help him be who he's supposed to be. Right. And to know that God didn't make a mistake with him. It's a beautiful little intentional thing that God created. Went right there. We'll have more of this conversation next.

This episode is brought to you by Miller Lite. Miller Lite's all about celebrating friendships, especially during fantasy football season. And there's no better way to show your friends slash fantasy league's last place finisher that you love them than Miller Lite's last placements, where you can get their face on a billboard. Yep, a real billboard. Just go to lastplacements.com to find out how. Miller Lite. Tastes like Miller time. I'm going to take a picture of our mission statement and I'm going to post it on our social media. You can take a look at it and maybe you want to just take ours and maybe it matches your family's values or maybe you want to work and edit it and make it more to match your families. But I do think that intentional parenting, we're all not perfect. We all make mistakes.

As I said, our children are the first to let us know about that. But we're trying. And we all need to try. I think about our family a lot. I know you do. I think about you a lot. I know you do. And so even for us, I'll be like, and we've talked about this in the past, but we haven't gone anywhere. We've got to get away.

We haven't done, and I'll be the one that will implement that. And Rachel's a little bit of a taskmaster. I'm a daily taskmaster, and he thinks ahead. I think ahead. He thinks ahead to what needs to happen for the family or our relationship. I'm very intentional on those things. That's a good thing. We both play different roles in the family.

That's the complementarity of the sexes versus the way the left and feminism wants to make me feel like you're oppressing me or I'm oppressed. It's just not. You never oppress me. I only can oppress you. Yeah, that's right. That's the way that goes. They don't live in our house. But the point is, the point is that

each person has different strengths and we fill in those gaps. And I think that's the way it go. But I think the bottom line is on this episode, it's Father's Day. I'm grateful that my kids get a dad like you. Thank you. And I think everyone has a dad. And every dad may not be perfect. Every dad might make mistakes. I've made mine. My father made... Every dad makes mistakes.

But on this Father's Day, I think you should have a little forgiveness. And if you haven't talked to your dad, if you haven't told them that you love him and you're grateful for them, what a great time to just go, you know what, I'm going to put away my sword and I wouldn't be here today. I wouldn't be who I am, um, as a human being, if it wasn't for, or in part from my father. And I should be, I should be grateful for that. And I'm going to, um, reach out and say, thanks dad. And I love you. And thanks for bringing me into the world. Thanks for choosing life, dad. Thank you. I think that's a really nice, that's a really nice message and that's the right time to do it. And again, not everyone has a perfect relationship with their

father, but also as we talk about, you got to be able to forgive as well. And maybe father's day is a great time to forgive your father if you have any issues. Oh, I believe in new beginnings. Maybe Father's Day is a great time to forgive your father if you have any issues. Oh, I believe in new beginnings. I mean, that's, I mean, of course. You do believe in new beginnings. I believe in new beginnings. You know, people can. You believe in do-overs.

Yeah, do-overs are great. We do our do-overs with the kids all the time. What would we be if it weren't for do-overs? That's why Catholics have confession. It's called a do-over. I love that. Well played. Nice to meet you. Yeah. All right. right well this is this wonderful happy father's day thank you oh i got a kiss out of that one as well listen uh thanks for joining us on this

special edition of question and answer on father's day appreciate your questions i don't know did we get up did we get through most of them yeah um we appreciate you joining us on our podcast hopefully you'll celebrate with your family, with your own father. And if you're a dad yourself, take in the love. Absorb. And you know why? If you don't have people planning something for you. We're planning a barbecue for you, Sean.

I don't know if this is like. Just drop some hints. Just like, so Sunday is coming up. What are we going to do? Or you might you know send some emails with some nice gifts that you want who knows what it might be but don't be forgotten you won't be forgotten we are having a family barbecue and you will be joined by my dad my sister's coming up as well um my mom so yeah listen thanks for joining us on this uh on this

father's day podcast um kudos to all the dads out there. We appreciate you joining us. If you like our podcast, you can rate, review, subscribe. Wherever you get your podcasts, you can go to foxnewspodcast.com as well. You can get us there. Apple. Definitely subscribe.

Then you'll get the notifications and you'll know when the next episode's up. Yeah, we're coming out three times a week, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. So you get the notice. All right. Bye, everybody. Bye-bye.

Listen ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription and Apple podcast. And Amazon Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. 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 FoxNewsPodcast.com.