From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Q & A With The Duffys: The Relationship Advice You Need

Episode Date: May 6, 2023

Sean and Rachel sit down to answer all of the questions the listeners have about marriage and love and share what they believe is the right time to bring your significant other home to meet the parents. Later, they discuss how to handle fights in a relationship, the things they have clashed over in their marriage, and answer questions about the duo's future in the world of politics.   Follow Sean and Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Visa and OpenTable are dishing up something new. Get access to primetime dining reservations by adding your Visa Infinite Privilege Card to your OpenTable account. From there, you'll unlock first-come, first-served spots at select top restaurants when booking through OpenTable. Learn more at OpenTable.ca forward slash Visa Dining. 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. Sean, it's great to be here, and I tell you, this is going to be a fun episode. Yes, it is. Because we've been wanting to do this.

We added this third episode because people have always had a lot of questions about life, about Fox, about marriage, and kids, and schedules, and so we said, listen, send us your questions. And we had some great questions some like basic stuffs deep stuff let's just get right to it yeah so here's the deal though as we do this Rachel went through the questions so she's seen them I have not seen the questions yet so she's probably had a chance to think about that I have because there's so many I literally like saw them and I would just like screenshot the questions I thought were good so anyway let's let's get to it so some of the first questions we got were about and I thought we screenshot the questions that I thought were good. So anyway, let's get to it.

So some of the first questions we got were about, and I thought it would be good to get some of these out of the way, our episode on dating and how to find love and what to do, because we think that's the most important thing in life, is finding love and everything else will work itself out. And we think that dating apps and using tech and all that stuff is actually hindering people's ability to do that. So people love that episode. It went viral, but they had more questions. So I thought we could address some of those.

Okay. And then some love questions and then get to it. Okay. So when should you introduce your date to your family? And when did you end up meeting each other's families? That's interesting. That's a good question. It's a good question. So you brought me – so first of all, let's address when you should do it. I mean, I think getting to know – I wish I had met your family earlier than I did, and I bet you probably wish you had met my family earlier.

I think it's a great insight into who that person is. And I think it's very instructive to meet the family. And I ended up, Sean tricked me. Let's just say this. I did trick her. Sean tricked me. So he knew that if he was going to marry me, he wanted to be in Wisconsin. I did.

I love Wisconsin. I didn't know much about Wisconsin at all. And Sean did a very sneaky thing, and he brought me to Wisconsin in August to his parents' cabin by the lake. Have you ever seen on Golden Pond, you know, these idyllic, you know, white families that live on lakes. That was it. I've never experienced that before. And they have this beautiful family of, you know, he has, a lot of people don't realize Sean has 10 brothers and sisters.

He's number 10 in 11 people. And so I went out on this beautiful weekend and I met all of his family. I think one of your sisters was getting married. Yes. It was a second marriage, so it was kind of a really low-key thing, but it was really beautiful. And I think your dad officiated that second marriage, if I recall correctly. You have a great memory. I don't know.

I know. But anyway, I went. I got to see this little town for the first time, and I got to meet your parents. We all went to the cabin and hung out for the day and I just thought I was fascinated I was fascinated I thought I had a big family because I have three brothers two brothers and one sister there's four of us I'd never seen anything like it um everyone goes to the coffee shop um at least once or twice a week and they all meet there and your mom keeps her own coffee cup at the coffee shop. And it just was like, it was a throwback to another era.

I got to meet his family and understand where you came from. And I thought that was really instructive for me. It made me a lot more interested in you. Yeah, and I think, yeah, you got to know who I am, where I'm from, who my family is. And by the way, just to go back to the lake, you thought that's kind of Wisconsin until you came. Yeah, that was the trick. He brought me in August, and it wasn't until after we were married that I experienced, you know, 20 below. January in Wisconsin, which is especially for my girl from Wisconsin.

Oh, a girl from Arizona. A girl from Arizona. So to get to the question, and I'll talk about meeting your family as well, but I think if you think that you are in a place where this could actually go somewhere, this is someone that you actually could marry, right? If you're at that phase, you're thinking about that, I think it's important to go, hey, I want to meet your family. You should meet mine.

But if you don't think you're going to be with this person, bringing loads of boyfriends or girlfriends home to meet your parents, I think that's exhausting. I'm a parent myself don't exhaust me don't make me go through better be serious yeah if you're serious and it doesn't have to it doesn't have to end up in marriage but if you're in your mind you are there like this could be real bring them home and don't wait bring them home as soon as you can i i agree with that. I agree that it should be serious. And by the way, if the person that you are starting to feel serious about doesn't want you to meet their family, it could be a red flag. It could be because the person that you're thinking about marrying, a lot of their traits, a lot of their idiosyncratic behavior comes from their parents. A lot of the wonderful qualities, but also the dysfunctional qualities will come from

their family. And so actually, and we all have those. Yeah, every family is dysfunctional. But you want to kind of see how deep those dysfunctions really go. What about somebody who is a great person, you know, has somehow overcome, you know, maybe some really awful things in their family. And they are, so this is an interesting thing because they may not want you to meet their family because they don't want you to judge them by their family. But meeting their family is getting to know them as well. That's part of opening up and are you willing to share? And I think what's important is... And are you willing to accept all the good and the bad? Yeah. And I think, I mean, some people might go, hey, listen, I have some dysfunction in my family. But if you can talk about it and go, listen, I get this is

here. I've been working on trying to do it a little bit differently. You're going to probably see this with my family. I recognize it. And I want to try to do things a little bit differently. That can be a positive as well. But I think most families are great. Most families are wonderful. And to see where someone comes from, I think, will bring the two of you closer together. Or actually, it might actually drive you further apart. But usually, it will bring you closer together.

And it's sharing this part of your life. Sharing the good, the bad. Because you can't hide your family forever anyway. You're sharing the childhood. You're sharing the adolescence. You're sharing your upbringing, which these people are such a big part of. I mean, I also think your parents might know you in a certain sense. And your boyfriend or girlfriend might know you in a different sense.

It's kind of interesting to meld those two worlds together. Right? So I think as soon as you think it's real. For me, going to your town, because I had never experienced like that kind of, I mean, it really is a throwback. It's really a wonderful place, Hayward, Wisconsin. And it really explained, it filled in a lot of the gaps and things about you and why you really, it was so, when we were dating, I could tell you really wanted to be in Wisconsin. And I've kind of lived all over the world because my dad was in the military.

So I'm from Arizona, but I never felt like I have to live in Arizona. But when I went to your town and realized just how deep those roots are, it made sense to me. When I went to your town and realized just how deep those roots are, it made sense to me. And it allowed me in some way to start to begin to wrap my head around the fact that if I do end up with this guy, there's going to be a lot of pressure to be near this state, to be near this town and be near his family because his family, most of the family still lives in that town. And what I know with your family, family is important, right? So they all weren't in one town like my family was. But it's very evident and obvious that your mom and dad believe that family is important. Your siblings believe that family is important. Your mom's an immigrant.

Your dad's Mexican-American. Listen, by the way, this is not my background, right? I don't, I, this is, I come from Northern Wisconsin. So I, it took some getting used to, but I really, I really enjoy your family. We spent Christmas at your parents' house. We spent a lot of holidays with your mom and dad. Your mom and dad have come and stayed with us at our house. I really enjoy them. I like their brothers and sisters. Yeah. But it's just I wasn't used to that. And it was good to see that side of you that when I met you, I never saw that. We were like partying in L.A. And like you didn't know that side of me.

And, you know, it was an interesting thing that both of us care about family, but it comes in different ways because my family was a military family. My siblings all lived in different places. But we all call each other, like my mom in different places. But we all call each other. Like my mom and my sister and I, we call each other. I mean, just before the podcast, I was on the phone on a three-way call with my sister and my mom. I mean, we call each other not just every day, multiple times a day, which is a very Hispanic thing to do, especially among the women in the family. They're very connected no matter where they are. They call each other all the time.

And so you probably were able to pick that up quickly. Well, because when I was – before I met your parents, you were calling your mom all the time. Yeah. And I was with you anyway. So it was all very interesting. One of the questions that somebody asked was, what do you fight about? And one of the first, like, big fights we would get into was I would go to visit my family. We were living in Wisconsin as a married couple. And I would go to Arizona to visit my family. And then I would come home

and he would pick me up from the airport, which was two and a half hours away from this little town we lived in. And as soon as I would get in the car, because my mom would say, you have to call me as soon as you get in. And I would call my mom. And my mom would, and I would just keep talking. And Sean would get so mad. He's like, I drove two and a half hours. I haven't seen you for so many days. Sometimes it could be a couple weeks that I stayed there. And you would say, you're calling your mom?

You were just with her? I just came to pick you up. You haven't seen me. You haven't seen me. And I'm like, it's my mom. I have to call my mom. Wildly offended at that. And I'm like, listen, I'm like, call your mom. I don't care. But when I haven't seen you for a week and you've been with your mom, don't get in the car with me and call your mom. I mean, what the hell is going on

here? Yeah. So we've remedied that since then. We'll have more of this conversation after this oh interrupting their playlist to talk about defying gravity are we that's right newton with a bronco and bronco sport gravity has met its match huh maybe that apple hit me a little harder than i thought yeah you should get that checked out with standard 4x4. Broncos keep going up and up. Now get up to $6,000 in rebates on eligible 2024 Bronco family models. Visit your Toronto area Ford store or Ford.ca. All right. So let me go to some other questions that I got here that were so good about,

about relationships. So again, what do you guys fight about? What do we fight about? You know, I would say that when we were married in the earlier years and money was really tight, we did argue a lot more about money. Can I explain the fight? Yeah, I thought he was being cheap. So here's the problem.

I didn't have any money, right? And so Rachel would be like, because listen, I was I had a kid then, too. And I was I worked in my dad's law office. Then I was a state prosecutor and I kept having kids. And and so Rachel was like, we want to do this or we want to get that. And I'd be like, no. And she'd be like, I can't believe you won't let us do this or get that. You are so cheap.

And I'm like, I'm not cheap. We just don't have the money to get the stuff. And if we put it on the credit card, we're going to have to pay it back. And that means we're going to have less money in the future. And so am I cheap? No, no, I'm not. Once we had money, he's never good. And he brings that up a lot. It's actually, it was a really great lesson to me. I'm quite generous. But it's just that when you don't have it. But I think it's important for couples to go, where are you both coming from? Yeah, you never question what I buy anymore. But that's because we have money.

So I guess the answer is if you don't want to fight about money, get some money. That's not easy. For years we didn't. So here's the problem also. So I would say, we don't have money. And she would say, let's get this. And then I would say, well, let's look at the budget. I'll show you how much money comes in where it's going and she wouldn't look at it Well, I would and then I would fall asleep right so she doesn't work at it looking at the budget

Literally, I don't know what happens to me as soon as we talk about finances It's like I've just taken 10 sleeping pills and I just get drowsy. So now Sean will say, okay, I'm only going to talk about it for one minute. Or two minutes. We've got two minutes. Two minutes. You have to stay awake for these two minutes. I have to explain something that's happening in the finances that we need to work on. Whatever. However, if I have to listen to the housewives, I have to be alert and attentive. If I have to explain something. Which is more boring than finances. About the real housewives, yes. Yeah, I don't know what it is about finances.

Listen, I will say this. One, it's true. Once we had enough money, it's true. You're not cheap. You're very generous. It's just, okay, the second thing I was going to say is I fully, and my mother would be on your side about this, that I am fully like 1950s wise when it comes to the finances. I don't want to know about it. If

there's not enough money, just go make more, honey. Because I don't like to hear about it. I don't want to, and I make money. I make money. And then that would make me mad. I'd be like, make money. And then I make money. Just make it all happen. I make money. You make money. Let's just make it happen. But here was the problem with that. So the money that I made was our money.

And the money that she made, she thought was her money. That's not the way this works. That's not true. It all goes into the same pot. So can I, I don't know. We didn't talk about this before. I don't know what we can and can't talk about. I don't know. We didn't talk about this before.

I don't know what we can and can't talk about. So one of the first fights we had is, so Rachel, from a certain set of circumstances, had a little bit of money, and she bought herself a car. It was a little. I had like a little fund. Little white cabriolet Volkswagen convertible, cute little California, a convertible, because my childhood hero is Nancy Drew. I always wanted to be Nancy Drew. And so I don't think it's a coincidence that my first car that I bought was a convertible because I was always so enamored by her. I thought she was so brave and amazing.

It was a great car for Southern California. Probably not the most practical when you moved to Wisconsin with me. And I think, did I have the white Ford Taurus or a Concor or whatever those were called? I did not have a cool car. I was a very practical car. And I

was doing a lot of travel when I was a young attorney. And so at one point I'm like, we should sell your car. We need the money. Oh, I ran into a buzzsaw on that. They were like, heck no. Well, because I didn't want to have one car. I wanted to have freedom in my own car.

If you were stuck at home. Yeah, I was not. I was an at-home mom at the time. And I'm like, I'm not going to not have a car. Like, hell no. And my mom backed me up on that. She was like, no, you can't get rid of your car. You need freedom, girl.

But we actually kind of fought through that, and we lent it. But here's the thing. Eventually, we had so many kids that it really was impractical, and it was absolutely ridiculous to have a convertible cabrio in Wisconsin in 20 Below. And then one day, I had to go to a dealership. It was all arranged for me. And I had to drive my Cabrio. And then I drove off the lot with the minivan.

And my life has never been the same. Was that the minivan that you got? Yes. Yes. I drove off with the minivan. I thought that was the Mitsubishi Montero. No, no. Not the minivan.

It was the minivan. We're never going to get to these questions. We have to keep going. By the way, I love my minivan. The minivan with the sliding doors was the damn best vehicle. That's how uncool I am. Okay, so... Okay, so we've totally...

There's a couple more fights. I know, there's a couple more. Maybe in the future I'll tell you a couple more. You know, here's an interesting one. They said, how is Valentina? Is she able to walk or talk?

I have a sister with cerebral palsy. I love Valentina. So Valentina is a little over three and a half years old. And so she's delayed in how she has done things. But she walks. She runs. She's trying to talk. She's starting to say a few words because she gets speech therapy and physical therapy and occupational therapy at school. She can say hi very well. She says hi very well. She's starting

to say school. She can say, I think she says dad. She goes, yes. Yes. So she babbles a lot. She's trying to say stuff, but sometimes it's just not understandable. But she is a force of personality. She is really engaged in our house and who's doing what. And by the way, she has a really sweet personality.

She's really fun. She is. So she does some sign language too. So she'll tell us when she wants to eat. Okay, she has a really sweet personality. She's really fun. She is. So she does some sign language too. So she'll tell us when she wants to eat. Okay, here's a question for you, Sean. I was talking about Valentina. Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, no.

I heard the dog barking and I'm like, oh my God, I think that someone's here at the door. So anyway, I want to keep going. But yes, Valentina. Doing well. I want to move through these. Okay. Sean, would you consider a run for president of the United States or vice president? She did not vet these questions for me before she asked them.

Listen, I'm going to tell you what. I love my country, and I love politics. And I love every part of it. I love the campaign. I love the service. I mean, as I've said this many times, when I left Congress, I literally had to go to events that were scheduled when I announced I was leaving. And I would stand up and speak for 30

seconds and I'd actually start to bawl. I mean, I was really like, it was the most embarrassing thing. I'm like, and then I have to stop and walk away. I love politics. And I think this kind of service and politics is so important. I love being home with you and the kids. I missed a lot of that in Congress. And so I'm really happy with where I'm at. I have no plans. But this podcast and talking about questions that I didn't get vetted. One day.

I mean, I don't think, I guess the door's not closed, right? For doing future things in politics? Yeah, I might get back involved in politics. At what level, what way, I don't know. But I do enjoy what I'm doing now. I could have run for governor of Wisconsin in the last cycle, and I chose not to. I think this goes back to the theme that we always have. The most important job we have is raising our families and having a good relationship as a couple.

And politics really is a zap on your time with your family in the campaign, but also the service takes you away from your family. And so we made a choice to go, hey, we got to be together right now and we'll see what comes around the corner. Sean always says, if you want to save America, save your family. So that's where we're at. All right. So would you ever do a real-world reunion? Hold on a second. Would you run for office? I've always said when I'm a grandma, I might really consider that. So tell everyone who you look up to.

I always say when I grew up, I'm going to be Marsha Blackburn. I did, listen, I love grandmas in Congress. I'm obsessed with them. They all know it. All the grandmas in Congress on the Republican side know that I'm obsessed with them. They all know it. All the grandmas in Congress on the Republican side know that I'm obsessed with them. I love them. I think that third act is something that, you know, didn't exist a few generations ago, but women are healthier and able to, you know, you know, do more in their latter years because of their because they're healthier

yes because the kids are grown and i actually did a fox and friends segment where i went to the capitol i met with all these and i was blown away i mean they're doing amazing things they have an amazing perspective um a sense of history a sense of family, a sense of where the country was and where it's at that I think some of the newer members don't have. And I admire them. And one of these days, in a different phase of my life, when I'm a grandma, I will definitely think about it because I love this country. But right now, that's not what God's calling me to do.

But I love it. I'm going to tell you one of my favorites is Virginia Foxx. Oh, Virginia Foxx. I'm her to tell you one of my favorites is Virginia Fox. Oh, Virginia Fox. Can I just start her fan club? She throws heat like no other, and she doesn't give a damn. She is an amazing human, and I love her. I want to be the president of her fan club. Virginia Fox is an amazing congresswoman.

From North Carolina. From North Carolina. If you don't know her, you should. Check her out. Yeah. No one gives a better tour of the Capitol, by the way, than Virginia Fox. an amazing congresswoman. From North Carolina. From North Carolina. If you don't know her, you should. Yeah. Check her out. Yeah. No one gives a better tour of the Capitol, by the way, than Virginia Fox. This is true.

All right. So the next is, who is your favorite child? Isn't that a funny question to ask? That's funny. You know, there's only one answer to that. I don't have a favorite child. But you know what? Even Jesus had a favorite apostle, remember, John.

So here's the deal. You can love all of your children equally, but at different phases, like I love four. Four years old is like, for me, the best. Four, five, six, seven. I love these ages so much because the children are very affectionate at that age. They're very, I don't know, there's just something about it. So I don't, at different phases, different ones are favorites. And at different phases, some of them are my least favorite. So I can just admit that. That doesn't mean I don't love them

all equally, but. And that's how the kids, that's the age. So the late tweeny, teeny kind of stage is challenging in lots of ways. I don't know. They're just more annoying, I think. But it is interesting that in the Bible, John is always referred to as the one that Jesus loved the most. Now, however, not to be repeated right here, but our kids will tell us that Rachel has a favorite, and they'll say that I have a favorite. Yeah. And they'll call us out, and I'm like, we're not going to accept that. But it changes.

Like, sometimes they're like, oh, of course, John Paul is your favorite. Or, of course, Patrick is your favorite. Or, of course, Lucy is your favorite. So depending on, they all think somebody else is the favorite. Which is a good thing. I'll tell you the one thing we all agree on, the family favorite is? Valentina. Valentina.

Everyone loves Valentina the most. She can't talk back. Not yet. Not yet. What was it like working with Barbara Walters? That was obviously for me. For Barbara Walters, one of the— What was it like?

You know what? It was a great honor. I always feel like in my career as a broadcaster, I always feel lucky that I've worked with closely with Maria Bartiromo and Barbara Walters those are two icons of the industry for women who broke all kinds of barriers and I've always felt really blessed I was as nervous getting to work with Barbara Walters for the first time as I was with Maria Bartiromo I still still, when Maria comes on the set, everyone knows that I'm like, you know, a fangirl of Maria Bartiromo. And so everyone, or sometimes there's a question

of who's going to do the interview with Maria. And the boys know that I'm obsessed with her. And so when people go, Rachel will do it because they know I want to do the interviews with Maria Bartiromo. So Barbara Walters was very elegant. She was also, I think because she was older in age when I met her, she was also very honest. I think she was extremely perplexed by my life choices, by the fact that I married you, and to a great extent, I gave up my broadcasting potential that I had in my early 20s or my late 20s when I met her. As a young woman, instead of pursuing TV, you moved to Wisconsin with me and we had a lot of kids.

I pursued babies. That was mind-blowing for Barbara. She would have never made that choice herself and was shocked that you were making it. And in the end, I would argue it worked out pretty well for you. By the way, I think it would have been really challenging for us had we moved to New York and we

kind of talked about that. I think it would have been difficult. Probably for me more. I think it would have made our marriage a lot more difficult. I could be happy in Hayward, Wisconsin and raising babies. And you were. And I was. And I think it would have been harder for you at that age to move to New York and sort of follow what I was doing, whatever I was doing.

But anyway, Barbara Walters was not shy about saying, why would you give up what she called a promising broadcasting career. She said to my face as I was holding a baby. And I said, look, Barbara, being a mom is the greatest job I ever had. That was on air, actually. And I admire her. I think she made a lot of choices, but just not the choices I would make. I was more interested in having a family and a husband than I was in having a career to her at her heights. And the truth is, she went to the top of her game. And I think it's really hard to

have nine kids and a family and be at the top, top, top of your game at the level of Barbara Walters. I eventually found my way back into broadcasting after having a bunch of kids much later in life and wouldn't change a darn thing. So Rachel also met Florence Henderson, Mrs. Brady from the Brady Bunch. I worked with her. I got to do a show with Florence Henderson. I never met her, but you spent a week and did a show with her. I spent about eight or nine days with her like 24-7.

It was a show that we were shooting like 26 episodes in the span of eight weeks at a spa. Pretty nice cushy job. It was amazing, except I had just had a baby. So I was nursing. I had a five-week baby with me. But it was incredible to meet her because I have to say I did that show with the Lifetime Network. And it was called Lifetime Television for Women. And I will give this network credit. Fox or Lifetime? Lifetime.

Well, Fox has been great for me as a mom as well. But at that time, my first experience as, you know, I had my third child. She was only five weeks old. They hired me for this job knowing that I was about to have a baby when they offered me the job. And they made it so baby friendly for me to do that show. In my contract, I could bring someone out to help care for the baby because Sean was at work at the time and taking care of the other children. And I had a sitter who came out with me, was with me. I was able to take breaks to nurse.

They allowed me to be a nursing mom on set and made accommodations, even though they had a really tight schedule. But what I learned through doing that was I heard the stories from Florence Henderson, who is an amazing woman. By the way, another hero of mine growing up, I think that's why I ended up having so many kids. My favorite show was the Brady Bunch. I loved her. I loved the Brady Bunch. I loved the whole family thing. And which is why I think I was so fascinated with your family when I got to meet your family, this, you know, giant families. And they were not family friendly back in the 70s when she was shooting this late 60s and 70s and she told me so many of the hardships that she had because she was a mom and she was playing a mom but they

didn't want her mom problems um interfering with their schedules and so forth so learned so much from um from florence henderson carol brady and that was amazing uh for me uh okay let me get to another one here for you sean okay this is a good one you both look amazing what's your workout schedule and i this is a good one for sean okay so i grew up doing lumberjack shows competitions because he's a better at working out than i am and that's all i did right and so in the summer i was buff and strong and in the winter I would kind of get a little softer. But you could keep that muscle because you were a young man. And then, I mean, going into Congress, I was still fit.

And I'm going to get to where we are now. And then I had the congressman slide where I didn't work out. Is that the official name for it? I don't know, but that's what I call it. And you put on 20 pounds. And, I mean, it's just, there's a lot of food. You'll have a glass of wine, you'll have a beer and there's, so you just put on weight. And like Paul Ryan worked out every day, every morning. I didn't

have the Paul Ryan schedule or discipline, so I didn't work out. I got fat. And I look back at pictures. I'm like, Rachel, why didn't you tell me I was putting on so much weight? And she's like, I did tell you. So here's what I've done. So about two years ago, I'm like, Rachel, why didn't you tell me I was putting on so much weight? And she's like, I did tell you. So here's what I've done. So about two years ago, I'm like, you know what? I'm done. I'm going to get in shape before I'm 50. And so I started just doing the things that I knew from high school. And then my daughter, my oldest daughter, Evita, works for the Federalist. Who's a highly disciplined girl. She works out like a beast,

her and her husband. So she's like, do you want to really know how to work out, dad? So basically she was watching you work out and she was judging and saying, that is not going to work. So that's not going to have results. So she and her husband developed a workout plan for me, which I was working out six days a week for probably an hour and 20 minutes a day, a lot. And by the way, it was nice to get the results of that. I didn't do cardio because I think men have to actually lift and I wasn't doing legs. And they were aghast that I wasn't doing legs and the workout. I'm going too far in this, I know. No, that's okay. I love it. Anyway, on New Year's, Dan Bongino, I saw Dan Bongino on New Year's with Fox. Was it the New Year's show?

Yeah. Or was it Fox Nation show? No, no. It was New Year's. I was there, and he was like, I've got the best workout. I'm going to text it to you, which he texted to me right then. He's like, I've perfected this where it's three days a week, and it takes me about 45 to 50 minutes and it's legs we hit every category I don't do four sets of everything I only do two I tell you what it's a super

efficient limited days shorter time I spend less time and have better results with the Dan Bongino workout but in but so then with Rachel we I tried to do the day so he put Dan put Paula on the Dan Bongino workout. And Paula's doing great. Paula gave me the Dan Bongino workout, and I did it for like a minute. And I was like, I can't do this. I gave up. So Rachel does a lot of Peloton, right?

She likes to get on the bike. But I – I love cardio. I think the older you get, I mean you get, you start to lose muscle. And you have to work out by lifting. And so we've done a number of different exercises for Rachel. And she doesn't like it. She'll complain a little bit.

And then she gets a little bit sore. And I'm like, the soreness is good because you're tearing down and you're going to rebuild your muscle. So Rachel's in the process of going from cardio to weightlifting. Trying to add more weight. More weight. And we're going to get there. We're going to get there, but it's hard. I mean, listen, cardiovascularly, when I go to the doctor, I have my heart, everything is going really well. But I am starting to lose muscle. I can see it. Can I tell you the difference between Sean and Rachel? So when it's my day to work out,

it's like I will drop everything that I have to do and I'm going to work out. Because otherwise, it doesn't work. You have to be committed to it. Rachel will say I have to work out and she'll do everything possible before she works out, which means oftentimes she won't work out. And I've got to change the mindset. Which means I'm picking up, I'm cleaning, I'm doing i'm doing this i'm returning calls i'm waiting the dishwasher um but she does walk around in those days in her workout gear and sean will say just because you wear your workout clothes doesn't mean you're working out and she'll tell me to shut up um okay let's do one more let's do one more they want to

know if we work out together do Do you want to answer that one? So when Rachel will get in sync with me, we will work out together. But I'm going to tell you what. I think for couples, and especially if you can get your schedules in sync, you're both motivating for the other. And it's actually fun to work out together. You know, we have different – we're using different weights. Sometimes we're doing different things. but to be in the gym together, I really enjoy that time.

And I think, you know, maybe couples that eat together, stay together. Pray together, stay together. Pray together, stay together and work out together, stay together. Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to do two questions. Speaking of eating together, they want to know if we do date nights. We had a date night last week. We did. So this is something we have to do a better job of. We have to do a better job of it.

Because, so I started to do the bottom line. It's on Fox Business and it's from six to seven. If you haven't watched it yet, you should. But that means that either Rachel has to come to the city and we'll go out after, or when I get home, we have to meet out, right? Or we could do it on the weekends. That's Monday through Friday. And then Rachel gets up at 2.45 on Saturday morning, 2.45 a.m. on Sunday morning for her show, which means she has to go to bed early. So that makes it harder. But we can go out. We can do a 5 o'clock dinner. We could go out like old people and have jello at 4 p.m. at the nursing home. We probably get a date night once a month.

But like the Bonginos, again, a lot of things they do, they do well. And they're in a different phase of their lives. Yeah, their kids are a lot older. But they do date night once a week. Yeah, and they're really adamant about it. They don't break that. They don't take calls during it. They do their thing.

And I think it's been really good for us to hear that because we would plan it and then things would get in the way. And so now we're not quite as, we're not at the stage of our life where we can actually really be committed. Like every Thursday we go out to dinner or every Friday. But we do try and fit it in. And one of the things that's great about the fact that we work at the same job is when we are in the building together, and it does occasionally happen, we'll either have lunch together or have dinner together because we're both in the city. But here's just a – though we may not schedule date night where we get out. So our older kids leave the house at 6.50 in the morning to go to school. We get Valentina then up, fed, dressed, and she gets on her little bus to go to services at about 8.15. And then we'll sit down and have coffee together for a half an hour, 45 minutes.

It's kind of a coffee date. Coffee date. We do. Every morning, we have coffee together. And a lot of times, we'll get the kids to bed and go like, let's hang out together. Yeah. So we spend a lot of time talking. Like, I like her. I like to hang out with her. And a lot of times, we're going in different directions. And we have to make sure we're staying on top of each other's lives.

That's really important for us. And I think for every couple is to really stay connected like that. And we've always talked about we don't want to lead separate lives. Leading separate lives is very dangerous for your marriage. Yeah. You want to lead the same life and share your lives with one another and the people that you associate with and are at work or friends. And we live our lives together. Yeah.

We'll have more of this conversation after this. 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. This is a really deep question. We might have to do one question after this because this one's a really deep one. So this person says, I just recently started bringing up all of your episodes. I personally feel like Rachel and Sean

are couples goals and family goals. Okay, so enough about the gushing. Hopefully, I'm not too late to ask this question. How would both of you react or handle it if one of your children said they felt like they were born in the wrong body or had feelings for someone of the same sex? Interesting question. It is an interesting question. So I'll just bring up on the trans issue in particular. I think we are living in a time where if my child told me that they thought they were in the wrong body, we're living in a time where we're being told by the culture that the compassionate thing to do

is to affirm that and tell them that gender affirm that and tell them and get them on the path to changing their gender. I do not believe that that is the compassionate, responsible, parental thing to do at all. There is pretty good data now on like 90 some percent, well over 90 some percent of children who express some sort of gender dysphoria or questioning will grow out of it. And so this idea that you can take someone 7, 8, 10, 16, you know, even 17 or 18, and affirm that when they might grow out of it and put them on a path to, you know, mutilating their bodies, taking hormones that will make them infertile later, make them have osteoporosis, because their bones don't grow. Or, you know, on the case of men, I mean, their penises won't grow. And if they decide to change back and they change their mind, I mean, these are lifelong, massive implications. And so I believe that I would be compassionate. I think I would be at this point educated enough. I'm educated enough to

know that there is a social contagion factor to this, that there are forces in the culture, in the school and social media that are pushing kids towards this, pushing them to wonder whether, I just saw a study last week, Sean, I think I showed it to you, that says one in four children today, high schoolers, believe that they are either trans, non-binary or gay. Right. These numbers do not make sense at all. There's clearly something happening in the culture. There's clearly forces that are pushing children at this stage to question.

And so my answer to the trans in short is I would love them. I would get them help. I would assume that the chances are that they are just at this moment confused, and I would certainly not have them make any physical changes that are permanent and life-changing. On all these issues, is this coming from their heart, or are they picking this up on social media? Are they picking it up at school? Are they picking it up from their friend group? What is driving my child? And again, is it internal or is it external as a driving factor? But I think you mentioned something really important. No matter what, I'm going to love my kids. Of course. No matter,

you know, whatever, I mean, this is what parents do. You love them no matter what. You try to help them navigate and think through and structure. And those are all really important as parents. We're guides. We're chaperones. We're advisors. And we would do that for our child. I think, again, if you look at, you know, stats, those who would say they're born in the wrong body, that percent is very, very, I mean, minuscule. Gay is a far more prevalent, common occurrence compared to transgender. And I guess I would, yeah, I would love and help navigate. I would love my child through all of it. I would always, in the end, again, I think it's really important. I think what's tragic about the trans situation

is that now there, as we would make I think a really loving decision Shawn to help this person help our child work out whatever is going through that there are forces now saying that I should not have my child that that that there are teachers now we had had some on our show just last weekend, who are being punished by their school districts for wanting to tell or telling the parents that the school is transitioning their child through use of pronouns or even through medical drugs. I mean, this idea of separating the child from the parent is a real thing that's happening. And it's a Marxist-driven ideology to separate children from parents. And just by the way,

you and I, this is one of the reasons why we send our children to a classical Christian school is because we don't want these themes and ideas to be driven from the school system into our kids. And if there's issues with our kids, we're going to partner with the school to figure it out as opposed to the school system. Actually, I'm not going to partner with the schools. This is my decision to make as a parent. That's not what I said. If there's problems in the school that the school recognizes, I'm going to be part of the conversation. They're going to reach out to me, and they're going to tell me what's happening. Right. Where in the public school system,

there could be some very dangerous things happening. And they're like, we're not going to tell mom and dad. We're just going to encourage, incentivize and push you on what could be a very destructive path. And so at least I have a school system where my kids are at, where our kids are at that's willing to go, hey, this is what's going on. You know what's interesting, Sean? I'm going to give you full disclosure. I agree. And I didn't mean to call you on that because I know that we both say we don't co-parent with the schools.

We don't co-parent with the government. We're the parents, and we're in charge. But one of the things that's really interesting, because we have all of our kids, our elementary and high school kids are in a classical Catholic academy but Valentina goes to a public school yeah and it is very interesting to me how different our presence at the school so and I know they use like school shootings and all this stuff as as the reason why I do not feel welcome. As a parent, there are barriers to entering. It just feels like I'm not allowed to have that access in the public school. I need to send Valentina there because that's where she gets services. And frankly, the teachers and the people providing the services are amazing.

But the way the rules and regulations and the sense of welcoming parents into the school, it feels like I'm sending her to a place that doesn't want me to be part of it. And I can sense that. And that's no diss on the teachers who have been amazing to Valentina. These are the rules of the district. At our private school. And I understand why, though. There's some reasons why.

I'm just telling you, the private schools are dealing with the same kind of security issues. But I feel like they are wanting me to see what they're doing. They're welcoming me in. They want me to see what's going on. It's a very different experience. And I think it's just cultural. You're putting me in a bad place because I'm going to defend the public school system. Well, I'm going to just say, I think there's a cultural difference that when your child goes to a public school, we got this. We got this.

And at the other school, it feels like more welcoming. In the little Catholic school, the teachers, the person who works at the front desk knows the parents. And if you come in, it's like, oh, that's Rachel Campostaffi. She's coming in. Yeah, I can see she doesn't have a gun on. At the public school, they don't have – there's a ton of kids, a ton of parents. And so if you walk in looking like you do – I get that they need to process me through, Sean. But if you are allowed in because you're a parent and some other guy comes in in a trench coat and it's like,

well, no, you can't come in, dude. He's like, well, I got a student in here as well. I got a child in here as well. Then they're confronted with how do we treat parents differently by how they look and what they're wearing and it gets to be complicated. And that's why I think there's a lot of benefits to going to a school outside of the public system, a little smaller, a little more classical, and a little more faith-based, maybe even a little patriotic. Yeah, and again, I want to make that point. I understand the security system, and every time there's a shooting, the security gets more, and I like it.

I'm just saying the culture of the school, not the process of getting inside the building and showing who you are, proving who you are. I feel like there is an intangible feeling as a parent that it feels like in the public schools to me, as a parent who experiences both, that there is a, your child is here. We got this. And when I'm at the parochial school, at the Catholic school, it feels like we're all in this together. This is just a different thing. Do you have one more question before we go? Okay. Let me get one more here.

We're live looking right now. I know. Live looking. We're going to skip some questions and take others. By the way, we appreciate you all. Because they're not all questions. Some of them are just comments. We appreciate you guys sending us your questions.

I do. I really do. What we're going to do is our third podcast every week, we are going to do Q&A. And so a lot of the questions today have come, and they're questions about us and how do we do things. And I'm sure we'll get a lot of other questions on other topics, and we're looking forward to those. And so we had a lot of questions about how other topics and we're looking forward to those and so i was going to be a lot of questions about how do you guys do it who watches your kids oh yeah that's great right and um let's just end it on that one then okay so we have a studio in our

house right that hooks up the fox so sometimes if you see rachel on jesse waters um or you see me on um stewart varney we're at home right we're not we're at home, right? We're not, we're at our, the kids are upstairs. Sometimes you can hear the dog actually barking on TV like you do here. And it's really nerve wracking. Rachel goes to Fox on the weekend and for four hours on Saturday, four hours on Sunday. I go for my show at Fox business Monday through Friday. So one of us is always at home. Now there are some times that there can be a conflicting schedule and that becomes really problematic.

We got to navigate how are we going to do it and how long are we going to be gone? What is that gap? Who's going to pick up Valentina? Like those things do happen. But by and large, you and I are here together or one of us is home.

And occasionally if we have to travel together, whether because we're maybe going on vacation or we have had, we're like, we're all going, we're going to the Patriot Awards together for Fox. We've had work stuff that we've had to do together. What's great about having these adult kids is we'll fly Evita in. And it's great because the kids miss Evita and they want to see her. Or we've flown in Jack, our oldest son, to come in and do that. And same with Lucia, who's now a freshman in college. Our kids, because they've

grown up with so many other kids and helping and doing stuff, are super, they know how to handle it. And they're like better babysitters than a lot of adults would, you know, other adults would be. Especially for Evita. She can do her work from anywhere, right? She's a writer. She's a writer. So she can come in. We can fly her in and she can take care of the situation here. And our son who's in high school drives.

So having kids that are, I mean, we have kids at like every stage of life. So we have kids that we now have four kids who drive. Next year there will be a fifth kid who drives. So hi, that's super helpful. And then they're also very helpful. Like they've had to help a lot and they've been able to do that. You talk about the schedule. So sometimes we're here, sometimes we're at the studio. Also, my parents have been throughout our marriage, have been super helpful. If Sean and I have gone on vacation when we were, you know, had little kids, we would fly them. My mother hates flying. So if we could get the

kids to my mom, she would take them for the year if we let her. So we could go on vacation that way. My parents have also come up and taken care of our kids before as well, which has been really helpful. Can I make a point of the range of our kids that you were talking about? Yeah. So we have one that's married, 23 years old, and we have one in diapers. Yeah. Valentina, by the way, that's a project. You didn't ask that, but we have to get her potty trained.

Usually they're potty trained by two or three, but Valentina's taken a bit. So we have a 20-year range there, which some say it keeps us young. I'm not quite sure about that. Yeah. Can I say that we brought up the diapers? So people sometimes think, like, how do you do all this? Well, I think the secret is delegation, right? Like whether it's delegating some chores to kids to help out because we're a family and we're a team and we have to do that.

I have not potty trained one of my kids. I have not potty trained one of my kids. And that is because whenever a child was getting to two or three years old, me and my mom would determine what was the right, knowing their personalities, what was the right time to, you know, get them potty trained based on that particular child. Then I would fly them to my mom's house and my mom would potty train the child so I have never yet bought potty trained one child and now my mom is probably coming for the summer so you hope so I hope and maybe we'll get Valentina's that is one of the nicest most amazing gifts that my mom has given me because she knows having

had four she's patient she but she knows having had four she's patient she but she knows having had four kids herself how busy and how chaotic it is to have as many as we had and to her credit she is the world's most amazing grandmother and she has helped me in so many different ways and potty training is one of the great gifts my mom gave me. One last quick story. So today, our two little ones, not Valentina, but the two little ones, they're eight and six. And today, they stayed home because they have to go to the doctor. And so Rachel and I were doing something, and she says, okay, you two, I'll unload the dishwasher,

which they don't really unload the dishwasher, but it's part of saying. Well, yeah, Margarita does. But Patrick doesn't. Not so much Patrick, but he knows how to. But they're and then one yells out should i pick up the knife i could cut myself to the bone leave the knife in the dishwasher just do the the plates and the bowls non-sharp silverware but they cleaned the whole kitchen they cleaned the kitchen this best they could you gotta train your kids yeah right they did well for an eight, almost nine and six year old. There's actually a study that came out. I saw this study 20 some years ago and it never left my mind. They studied children who had chores

and children who didn't have chores. And children who had chores were less whiny, were more pleasant to be around. Obviously, they've become more self-sufficient and more confident. And so I've never felt any guilt about giving kids chores. And all of our kids have. I mean, if you told them, what's your memory of your childhood? They would say vacations, a cabin, and chores. That's a pretty good mix.

Yeah. So listen, that's our. Yeah, it's pretty good. So listen, that's our Q&A session for this Friday. We'll pick up some more of them because there's so many. It was really hard to pick up. And send more to us. We would love to answer your questions. Again, whether it's politics or family or whatever's on your mind, send them our way. Whether you want to do it on Facebook, you can find both of us, or on Twitter or Instagram.

I'll put out another note. Another Instagram. I'll put out another note. Another prompt. I'll put out another prompt for next week's. These are fun. Yeah. I like doing it. I'm going to look at the questions first next time, okay? I'm going to do a little better prep.

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