From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Relationship Coach Reveals Why Young People Aren't Finding Love & Happiness

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

Young people are being taught to cherish their career over all else -- leading them to prioritize climbing the corporate ladder over finding the love of their life and building a family. Could valuing work over family be the reason many of today's younger generations are experiencing unprecedented levels of loneliness and depression?   Author and Relationship Coach Suzanne Venker joins Sean & Rachel to explain how instilling the value of family in your children will lead them toward a happy future, why sacrificial love shouldn't get a bad rep, and what steps must be prioritized when searching for your other half.   Follow Sean & Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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 back. And today we're going to talk about one of our favorite topics, marriage, family, men, women, the war on men. We have the perfect person to be with us today. Her name, of course, is Suzanne Venker. She's an author. She's a columnist. She's a relationship expert and coach. And she's basically helping American couples and families sort of achieve their dream, achieve their goals. And it's a chaotic world, as she

says. And so this is a great way for us to start right now. And Suzanne, welcome to the kitchen table. Thanks for having me. Of course. So what is your assessment of the state of, let's just start with marriage first, because I think marriage is the foundation of family. So what's the state of American marriages right now? I mean, we know the divorce rate is, I think about 50-50, but what are people's perceptions of marriage? What do they want to get out of marriage? And where are we? So I think probably the most striking difference between today and say, I don't know, 30 years ago is that I don't think people have a really good grasp of what marriage is supposed to be. And of course, they've been to put it off and to deprioritize it over money and career for so long that they're just almost at a loss for even how to go about being married once they get to the space where they actually want to be married, which is problematic for a lot of reasons to postpone it and come at it later because you've created a life that's very independent minded, that's very

on where you have, I mean, basically just been living by yourself for so long that to try to combine that later in life is very difficult. And I don't think there's a lot of attention paid on that fact alone. So before Sean, so are you saying, are you a fan of early of young marriage? I am a fan of earlier marriage. I would say earlier marriage because I always want to specify. I mean, statistically speaking, we know that people who marry under the age of 25 have a higher divorce rate. However, they combine, that stat combines 18-year-olds with 24-year-olds, which is absurd, of course, because there's a very big difference there. Yes, I agree with that. They don't distinguish. I mean, if you did course, because there's a very big difference there. Yes, I agree with that. They don't distinguish.

I mean, if you did that, you'd have a different rate. But certainly 25 is or 23, 24, 25, 26. Those are ideal ages, in my opinion, certainly for women in particular to get married. And I think there's a lot of people are so scared to talk about the difference between women and men when it comes to marriage. Things that are very unpopular to say, like the fact that, hmm, let's see, a man doesn't get pregnant. And so, therefore, he has a longer time in which to sort of get his affairs in order and can always marry younger if he still wants to have a family. But women can't do that.

And to pretend that that is not a thing is just doing a huge disservice to women. So Rachel and I have talked a lot about family information and the problem in the country, which is one, people aren't getting married. And two, if they do get married, they're not having kids. And I think you bring up a good point that things have changed in the last 30 years. And so today, people aren't getting married or they're waiting longer. Because my question for you is, no matter where people come to the idea of marriage in their life, are they actually coming to the place where maybe I should get married? This is something that my heart yearns for. I want to find a mate, you know, someone to

be with. Are they eventually getting there? Or is there a huge swath of America that goes like, I don't want to be married? Or is it that they're coming to marriage, but just too late? Yeah, bingo, the latter, the latter. What I'm seeing overwhelmingly is that there is this big aha moment for the average woman, not all women, I'm going to hone in on women here again, because their priorities and their desires change dramatically from 20 to 30, or let's say from 23 to 33 even. So in that span of time, they are, what I'm seeing is just shocked to be overwhelmed with a desire to nest around the age of 30 that nobody prepped them for and feels so differently to them than their lives previous to that. And so they're

stuck having made a lot of relational, financial and professional decisions as though that was not going to be the case. And then they are stuck because maybe they want to get married, but they can't find a marriageable man. Or maybe they are married, but they can't afford to stay home because they made all these plans on a different set of priorities. Yeah, it's what you're saying is so fascinating because we've heard forever. We've heard the biological clock. It turns out the biological clock wasn't some old wives tale. It's true.

And you're right that women experience that desire for something else, something bigger than themselves, that desire for something else, something bigger than themselves, probably more deeply and certainly much quicker than I think the existential nature of it is for men. And a lot of it is, it's unfair, right? I mean, guys can, you know, be 40 and marry a 25 year old and the chances that the reverse will happen is just, it's just just statistically not going to happen. I also know some people, Suzanne, who are younger women, like maybe in their mid to late 20s, who marry guys who are 8, 9, 10 or more years older than them. And I'm a big fan of a lesser age gap because I feel like those men really have settled in and they are very clear about what they like and what their preferences are. And they're very used to their independence. And it's very hard to kind of meld those lives together in a way that's satisfying for a lot of women. And I've seen that happen over and over.

So that's another kind of interesting factor. Do you agree with that? I mean, yeah, I mean, I guess I, this is really interesting. You know how it used to be a thing to go to college to find a spouse, right? Yeah. Get your MRS. And I mean, it goes both ways. If you're going to find an MRS, the guy's trying to find a wife too, right? Yeah, sure. We don't say that often. I mean, it is the best time to be surrounded by people who have not created a lot of baggage in their lives or a huge history of whatever. And why is that so bad to talk about looking at that stage of life for a

spouse? Look, it used to be that when you got married, you had children, they were part of the package. This is pre-birth control, when people had larger families, they would get married and have children right away at, let's say, 23. Well, you know, getting married doesn't necessarily meaning having a family right then. You could find your person and wait five years if you wanted. So that the understanding is that having children is a much different, that's going to affect your life in a much more dramatic way than the marriage itself. And you're better off finding your person as soon as you can. better off finding your person as soon as you can, because it's really hard to have children that that starts to, it could sort of, I don't like to phrase it that way, but interrupt the plans that you've got going on and you're going to have to rearrange. But once you have your person,

that, that's a huge piece because, well, it's everything because down the road, it's much harder to do that. Yeah. You know, one thing I think is interesting for it's everything's just so much harder for young people today. It is. I you know, you're talking about we're talking about timing issues. Right. And timing issues, maybe they're more complicated now in that, you know, all these cultural forces, whether it's the climate or, you know, social media, whatever. All these things are pushing people to wait till later to make that decision. But I was talking to some young women recently, and they said something to me that really startled me. And I wondered if you had encountered this as you're going around talking

and writing about marriage and family. They said, you know, one of the biggest problems we have, these were young women, in finding a male partner, is that so many of them are addicted to porn and that it changes the nature of the relationship. Some of them were finding just even in the courtship period that just weird stuff was happening because these men's minds were warped by pornography and were expecting them to do things that they didn't feel comfortable with and didn't think it was normal. Some of these girls actually were saying, I thought that was normal.

And then my girlfriends were like, that's not normal. But I just thought, you know, that a thing like an addiction to porn could get only worse if you're with a guy who's been single for, you know, till his late 40s, you know, late 30s, because young men are being introduced to porn as young as the average age now is 11 years old i just think this is changing relationships in ways that we don't even we can't even grasp it is it absolutely is that's not a topic that i have spent a lot of time on but i'm very aware of it and um it is a problem. There's no question. I mean, I think you can kind of vet for that right away, you know. Yeah. Another thing to vet for.

I mean, yeah, right, right, right. How much more? You had to add that to the equation. But one of the problems is both men and women are watching porn. That's true. It's happening on all sides of the aisle. And I do think it's it's it is warping relationships. And frankly, it's a lot easier to be satisfied on your screen than maybe the hardship of a relationship, which is. Now it's AI too. It's like getting gotten really.

But I want to I want to talk about what you do as you talk to people, because, you know, you're right. We talked about this before and you mentioned it here. The people in their young years, they focus on their bank account and their careers and their progression professionally. And the human heart doesn't yearn for the bank account. The human heart doesn't yearn for the career path. It yearns for companionship and relationship and connecting with someone. And so, I mean, how do you advise people? How do people come into your

life to go, Hey, is it, is it, is it, is it parents? We're not going to change TikTok or Instagram that promote a message that, you know, isn't going to make people happy. How do, how do things change? So young people go, I know the culture is telling me one thing, but I know if I want to be happy, I need to do something else. I'm going to listen to Suzanne. She says, do this. Yeah. So the biggest argument I've ever made for how to overturn this is parenting. I really don't know any other way that's more effective given how overwhelmed we are. We can't stop the culture from doing what it's going to do. And I know that people who have been raised counterculture, counterculturally, which means fighting the culture every step of the way from the time you have a baby, is crucial in getting your children to be able to think differently about these issues so that when they are bombarded with that,

they can brush it off or whatever. Because it's very difficult when everybody's doing something one way for you to do it another. So it's hard no matter what. But you have to at least hear it from somebody. And I just don't know where that's going to be besides parenting. So I'm very big on parents being so open about all of these issues that they're afraid to say because it's as politically incorrect for them to say it as it is for their kids to hear it. So the kind of things that we're talking to say because it's as politically incorrect for them to say it as it is for their kids to hear it. So the kind of things that we're talking about, like prioritizing marriage, dating differently, date for marriage, think about it earlier rather than later, prioritize love and family over career,

and figure out a way to map out your life so that you get the core family, if that's what you want, and for most people it is, at the center, and then the career kind of orbits around that rather than the other way around, which is how they're taught to do it now. You have to actually teach your kids that. And you can't have a conversation when your kids are 22. No. Or even probably 19. Yeah, right.

It's probably a conversation to craft the way they think about love and marriage at a much earlier age. So as they kind of come into those formative years, they already have some set ideas on what they're looking for and what they want, as opposed to it's too late at 22, right? I don't even know if it's so much of a conversation. So we talk exactly. It's like, are you modeling a healthy, happy marriage? And I think if you're modeling a healthy, happy marriage, if you're making sure that your children are exposed to, you know, the joy of marriage. I mean, Sean and I have this debate all the time. Like, we talk about marriage and stuff and relationships and how to fight

and all these things on our podcast. And sometimes I'm like, Sean, we don't talk enough about the joys of marriage. Like, there are hard parts about marriage. And I think it's, you know, because we're in sort of like a self-help and problem solving, you know, platforms, it's, it's just, it, it, it's natural to go, okay, here is a problem and here's how we solve it. It's, it seems almost like bragging or self-inflated to talk about the joys of marriage but when young people are getting so much negativity culturally about marriage we really can't let let that stop us from from modeling because men are toxic suzanne men are toxic why would you want to be

with one of them oh it's so awful. It's so awful. And now we have to throw in divorce here. Remember, these young adults are a product of divorce. Many of them. So many of them. Most of the people who come to me for coaching, I'm a coach and I see this weekly and they're mostly products of divorce. So they don't even know what that looks like to have a good marriage. Forget just like any marriage.

they don't even know what that looks like to have a good marriage. Forget just like, like any marriage, you know? Um, so they're really coming at it with, um, clean slate and just not having any knowledge. So when, when, when, when a typical person comes to you who comes from divorce, I love this conversation because so many children are coming from broken homes. What kinds of fears are they bringing to marriage? What, I just be curious, like, what is it that, that, that, that they come to you wanting you to help them work through? The overwhelming dynamic is a woman's inability to trust. Well, let me go back. I mean, a woman and a man, if you're a product of divorce is going to struggle with trust. No question about it. But for women, they have a double whammy because not only do you have

the natural difficulties of not being able to trust because you're a product of divorce, but you're also absorbing all that stuff from the culture about men and what you were just saying about men being toxic. So they've got a double whammy. So they're coming in like, I've got to be my own person. I got to keep my own money. I got to never subsume my needs to a man and all of that crap. And it's infiltrating into their marriage. And then the man is sort of stepping back to allow her her space because he's been taught that, you know, he's bad and she's been oppressed or suffering all these years. So I'm supposed to hold back my needs for her. And it's just, it's kind of a mess, to be honest with you. And so they- It's so fascinating because it's like 50% of the population. But I mean, if you don't trust someone, if you have, I mean, and again, it's probably

a very rational feeling to see what happened to your own parents and the trust issues that comes from that. How do you get people to actually go hold on a second there is a way that you need to work through this people humans can trust humans men can trust women in a relationship it doesn't have to be like your parents how do you get them to see through all of these roadblocks they have to relationships and and actually to be an open in a marriage if that they are married to to coming through that those trust issues and really building a strong bond. Because if you don't do that, you're going to have couples go in opposite directions and it's going to end in divorce as well. I mean, you're going to you got to build your life together as opposed to building them separately.

Otherwise, it doesn't work. So the number one thing I think is just knowing just just being able to hear another way that's countercultural is so huge like the common thing i hear over and over is like i've never heard anyone even say what you're saying like you might as well be talking a foreign language to me so that's number one just being exposed to it just general awareness um but then also understanding look if you bring them back to what they felt growing up and if 99 of them say well I don't want what my parents had, or I don't want the life that I had growing up. So then the number one thing you want, presumably, is a family that's working and functioning opposite of what you had growing up. So in order to do that, step one is to trust and to assume that you've chosen well.

And this is assuming you have chosen well. And most of the time, I think people have. Obviously, there's cases where you haven't, and that's problematic. But if you're talking about somebody who is trustworthy, you have to really exercise a muscle that you're not used to, and that takes a very long time, and it takes a leap of faith, and it really takes understanding that your parent's story doesn't have to be yours, that you make a choice. You know, you have two families in this world, the one you're born into and the one that you create. And if you didn't like the one you had, you have an opportunity then to have what you as a child wished you had. We'll be back with much more after this.

Fox News Radio On Demand on the Fox News app. Download the app and just click listen. When you swipe left, you can listen to your favorite Fox News talk shows live. Swipe right for the latest Fox News Radio newscasts on demand. Fox News Radio on the Fox News app. Download it today. I think what you're saying and the work you're doing with these people is so important with these young couples and these young individuals. You know, we talk about modeling it as parents, but, you know, divorce is so prevalent and it's such a part of our culture, like so many people are experiencing it, that within any family, you know, extended family unit, there's going to be other families, you know, siblings that you have

whose families are divorced. And if you have an intact, happy marriage, functioning family, you have an opportunity to bring those children into your life for events and occasions and vacations and things to model that it is possible. I think it is important for people to see that it is possible to have a long lasting marriage and it's and it's really incumbent on other family members to recognize that there are other children from divorced homes in their sort of extended family unit and to and to try and be that that example to them because i think that's easier for them to grasp than trying to imagine it on their own you know what I mean to try and create it completely did you know what did you agree with me Suzanne I oh I definitely agree with you and it's incumbent upon Hollywood in my opinion also to start putting up shows that are more like in keeping with what we saw not to leave it to be

fake stuff but there was some great stuff in the 80s um i mean absolutely show right off the top of my head let's not worry about bill cosby's story but just just just a wonderful family story yes growing pain growing pain you're gonna take it to the 80s what what else sean can i tell you what was highly influential for me we'll go back a little further now i was a i was in high school watching those shows in the 80s. Dallas. Dallas. No, not Dallas.

Sean doesn't realize. That's fantasy, Sean. Fantasy Island. I love both. He doesn't realize. He does know this now because he knows me. When Dallas was on, I was living in Spain because my father was a military guy and we were living.

So I didn't know him as J.R. I watched Dallas in Spanish. We subbed over. So he was Jota. He was Jota. But I watched Dallas as, you know, in Spanish subbed over. But I was very influenced by the Brady Bunch. And I'm absolutely convinced that's why I had so many kids.

I'm totally convinced that's why I had so many kids. I'm totally convinced that's why I had so many kids. I grew up with four kids in my family. Sean had 11. He's one of 11. But I grew up with four. I love the Brady Bunch. And when I had kids, I had my kids all know the Brady Bunch. All the episodes, Hawaii, all of it, because they grew up watching the old reruns of the Brady punch, but you're right. In the eighties, we had some

examples coming out of Hollywood of sort of these aspirational families that people could look up to. And even people, if you're so right, even people who came from broken homes could look at the hospitals and say, you know what? That's what I want. And I was convinced that lots of parents did Suzanne. It's so important to have that out there and there is nothing not anymore and that's making it way worse because you still had product divorce like you said in the 80s but at least they had that yes you know Suzanne I again I want to come to the point of sacrifice yeah because I think in today's culture it's all about me and like we just did we were just uh in Italy, and I'm seeing these ladies sitting on the outside of some little cafe in Rome by themselves, like taking these selfie pictures, like looking glam, eating their pasta. I'm like, that looks so, it probably looks great on Instagram, but it looks so boring.

They're by themselves. And I think what happens is, was it Mother Teresa who made the quote about, you know, people giving to save the poor and the poor giving to save, they're still saving each other. What was the quote? The quote was, let me see if I get this right. Mother Teresa said, essentially, that the poor, the rich needed to give charity to save the poor, but ultimately the poor would save the rich, right? Yes. And so to that, thank you for their souls right and so i look at this and i do think um you can think about it through sacrifice right yeah i'm going to sacrifice maybe part of my career i might sacrifice part of my bank account i might sacrifice my sunday and saturday mornings and my every morning because i'm getting up with a crying

baby. Like there's sacrifice in children. There's sacrifice in marriage. And Rachel and I had like a mini fight about how I talk about marriage because sometimes I'll talk about it being hard. And I want to be so hard to be married. And I want to be positive. I think marriage is awesome.

I have a great time in marriage, but there are points that are hard. There are certain times. It's not always roses and sunshine. There are tough points you have to get through. But by and large, it's really wonderful to be married to such a fantastic, funny, smart, beautiful, motherly. I love it. But getting people to think about the sacrifice of giving to someone else or giving to something else and what you get back out of it is so much more than what you actually gave yeah i think it's because we forgot we've

forgotten sacrificial love like the whole concept of it i mean where would you hear it where on earth do you hear anything like church but but you know but now that's taking a nosedive so where is the exposure to why sacrifice uh hurts quote unquote, hurts in the inner, in the moment or whatever, if that's not even the word. But that you get, there's a reward from that. It's not monetary, but it's of life of meaning and value that you could never find in the marketplace. So where do you ever hear that? They think sacrifice is a bad word. No one's ever, especially women, never supposed to sacrifice anything of themselves for someone else because that's subsuming their real identity and all this,

you know, hocus pocus. I mean, it's just, well, that's a lot about that. That is, I mean, and we've had lots of discussions about this. I just think feminism has the ideology behind, you know, what's actually really behind feminism, which is, you know, which is Marxism, which is communism, the whole purpose of feminism. It was a it was a communist movement. And the purpose was to turn people into into workers and into tools of the state and of the party. And the purpose of, you know, one of the missions of communism was to break down the family because it was a threat to the state and to break down the bonds within family because that was the threat to the state. And so people never really got it and they got caught up and, you know, um, you know, all the feminist magazines and, and all the, and, and, and all the things that they were telling us about what independence looked like and what, what women, um, you know,

elevated careers to being, uh, meaningful rather than just something you get that's work that you get a paycheck for. It's not something that's going to fill your school. Thank you. I just posted a picture. We were, as Sean said, we saved up some money. We brought our kids to Italy a couple weeks ago. And I posted a picture about it. And I said, this is such a reminder that we work to live and not the other way around. I mean, that's why I'm working

so I can have these moments, um, with my family. Um, I'm not, my, my company doesn't love me. Corporations don't love you. Um, you know, I have people I love inside my company. I do have really close friends there, but the company doesn't love me. The only thing that's worthwhile is my family. Well, and an easy way to sort of see that visually, I think for people is imagine your life with, with the company and not your family. Right. And then reverse it. Which one, which one is, is, is it's a slam dunk, which one you'd rather live if you had to choose between those two. Which one could I do without yeah right in these in your when you have these conversations um and i don't know how these young people think anymore they they baffle me and you and you get it because you talk to me no i don't

i think they still baffle me but is does it come do you talk about about happiness do you talk about look at look at do you do you talk about anyone else you look at lives of people who have done you know again we're gonna have to trust and if you and if you trust and you get to this point look at what you can build yeah if you don't get to that point you know look at look at the the the woman or the man that gave their life to their corporation and look at them not just at at 29 but look at them at 42 and 62 and what their lives are like and what do you want for your life? Because it does come back to, I mean, the family and the relationship and the bond will

make people happier and more fulfilled. Does that come up in the conversations? And is that motivating if it does? It just came up recently. Actually, funny, you should mention that. So there's a new biography out about Barbara Walters. And I just finished it a couple weeks ago. Really really i didn't know that that just came out rachel knew barbara i knew barbara and i have a lot of thoughts on this i'm so curious to see what you're gonna say

go ahead so it's called the rule breaker and it's fascinating and a very easy biography to read if people aren't really into biographies this is kind of an easy one um and really well done and the the gist of it really is that here's this woman who succeeded beyond all measure right and she's really the face of really news at least at one point in time and and feminism suzanne yes and feminism sort of the triumph and the pinn. Although she didn't get out on the front lines with it, more people wanted her to use that or use her life as an example of that. And I'm sure she did to some extent concede to all that, but she didn't get really heavy with it.

What she did do, though, is she was incredibly competitive. Obviously, you'd have to be. And she liked the spotlight. But at the end of the day, she was extremely successful and really didn't know when to leave, which is interesting at the end. But she sacrificed three marriages and a healthy relationship with her daughter, her only daughter. And that was the trade-off. It's very, very clear in the, in the book. It's very, very sad for me as someone with my worldview and what I do and reading. And I'm like, I want to say, this is it. This is what I'm trying to tell you guys. This is not a life you want to aspire to. And even she would say that she actually said, I don't have the exact quote, but, um,

say that she actually said i don't have the exact quote but um something to the effect of um that she lives with great pain it's very private because of what um the trade-offs meant for her on a personal level so fascinating yeah it's so arbor walters would have regret to go you did all that she did now wait, wait a minute. On her, this is interesting, on her what do you call it when you get buried? What's the thing? Her obituary. No. On her gravestone. Yeah, her gravestone. Her epitaph.

Yes, yes. On her gravestone it says, I have no regrets. On her gravestone. But in the book, that's not at all what you would get from like that does not marry with what or jive with what you learn in the book so it's very fascinating i highly recommend yeah i i have a i have a good friend who um happened to be um near her apartment you know her like fancy you know i her like fancy, you know,

I don't know what neighborhood in New York and saw her being wheeled out to lunch, um, you know, with a caretaker. Um, yeah, my understanding, if I'm correct, is that, um, you know, she was somewhat estranged from, from her daughter. Um, she became a recluse and didn't want at the end and was very bitter and didn't want anybody, um, seeing her in the state that she was and i i think just because she was very pretty vain right wanted wanted to look and have a certain image and uphold that um so when i was they got into her childhood and her relationship with her father and why she always needed to

right and there was something there for sure as well. Rachel just told me today to age with grace. Yeah, that's a really important thing. You're not a day over 40, right? Right. Thank you. I was going to say like 34, but I'll go with 40. As we talk about watching the Brady Bunch, sure. So it's interesting.

I knew Barbara Walters, and she was actually very formative in my career because, um, when I was in my early, my, uh, mid twenties, um, she flew me out and I was, I had a sort of year long, decade long relationship with the view, even though I times and made it to the finals. And so I was sort of like brought back every now and then as a guest, I got to know Barbara Walters very early on. When I was sort of dating Sean, and we were about to get married. And I was worried about, you know, how this might affect my, my career, my life, all this kind of stuff. It's a little bit of a complicated story, but I re I was speaking to somebody who was intimately close to her, like somebody in her very intimate, close circle of friends. And that person told me she's the most miserable person. I know you get married. You know, she said, he said,

is he good looking? And I said, he's very good looking. And he said, you love him. Yeah, he was 26. He said, do you love him? And I said, I love him a lot. He's like, you just get married and don't look back. She is the most miserable person I know. And I never did look back. And when I went, um, I, I, I, I ended up leaving. I, I, uh, you know, I didn't get the show. I went, I ended up leaving. I didn't get the show. I went back to Wisconsin. I had all these babies. And then every time I would come back to the show, I'd have another baby. And Barb would be like, what are you doing?

What are you doing? And then finally, Sean was elected to Congress. And they said, well, let's have them both back now that Sean's a congressman. And I had just, of course, had yet another baby. Right. And the baby was sitting. I was live on the view. The baby is sitting on my lap. My husband, newly elected congressman of Wisconsin, sitting next to me. I'm an at home mom at this point. And they brought me back to do like a you know, where is she now? And he's he's the congressman. And they went through this. And then she says to me on live TV, she's like,

you had such a promising career. Oh! It was so good. And you decided to go back to Wisconsin with this man that you love. Any regrets? She asked me that, and the baby's sitting on my lap and i said oh this is a moment this is such a moment they cannot even conceive of what you have they can't even your world is so different from there

yeah it's like you're a foreign person like how could you yeah you know how could you give this up and Suzanne it was just like that every time I would come to the show because I was on you know I think I've been on like 25 times so like she would see me periodically and every time she'd see me and we would I would send her a Christmas card every year so every time she you know she would know that there was yet another baby and another baby. And I basically had a baby every two years. And so when she finally saw me with that baby on my lap and Sean elected, I now had, this was my sixth child, which in New York city is like, I mean, I might as well have been like the 18 and 20 lady, right? Like, right. I'm Amish. I'm like cultish. So, but anyway, she said any regrets. And I looked

at her and said, Oh, Barbara being a mother is the best, you know, is the best thing. And then she was like, oh, of course, you know, blah, blah, blah. But truly she, you know, she was very loving and kind to me. Very, I can't say anything bad about her because she never did anything bad, but be very kind and give me opportunities. But she absolutely thought that I was like a very strange exotic creature for having chosen this life and i'll never forget what that man said to me

underneath that is is pure envy pure envy i know that that sounds bizarre like do people think they look at the the life in the spotlight and we hold it up uh we value that so much and we prioritize it but really deep down she was trying to fill a void within the marketplace that she was lacking from her own family life that's what you'll get from the biography so people like you represent having gotten that together is extremely threatening and very uh it's just, you don't even know what to do with it because you want it so bad and you're never going to have it. So that's really what those comments were about. Yeah. Can I say to close the knot on the Barbara Walters, when my friend told me he saw her and he described it as like she was a recluse, not that she was like

running into friends for lunching. It was like she was being wheeled out sort of with glasses. And I almost understand that maybe she was having lunch with the caretaker. I just thought it was a real full circle moment for me. Because, you know, I imagine my latter years with a lot of grandkids and a lot of people. So, Suzanne, as we kind of continue with this conversation, we have a wide range of people who listen to our podcast. Yeah. But we're the product of Gen Xers of the 90s. Same.

So a lot of parents as well. Give us your best advice on what advice do you have for parents who are talking to their kids or modeling for their kids? Tell me about what they should be thinking about and doing. And tell me about what young people, because we get a lot of people who will then forward our podcast to their kids. To their grandkids and their kids. What advice do you have for those young people who are in this phase of their life where they should be making one set of choices, but they might be making a different set that won't lead them on the path that we all think is right for them. Okay. So for the parents, do not be afraid to say things that will sound

very politically incorrect, coming, rolling off the tongue. Like, you know what those are. I mean, the opposite of anything that culture teaches. So number one, prioritize marriage over career. Amen. Play the long game. Amen. Date for marriage. Yes. No such thing as hooking up. That's not in your life. Just forget about it. It's bad news. It should never be a part of your life. Forget about it. I mean, these are all things that are so common sense from before, I don't know, 20 years ago. And today it's like, it's like you're saying something profound by just saying something. Yeah. And then to the young people kind of on the same, Yeah. And then to the young people kind of on the same,

the same idea is that the same messaging play the long game. Don't, don't be afraid to be counter-cultural date for marriage, prioritize marriage over career, um, be financially savvy about planning ahead when you're playing that long game. And if you want to be home with your kids down the road, you need to make decisions. Now Those decisions to allow that to happen. That's another thing, by the way, sorry, not to backtrack, but you asked me, we know what some of these big issues are that people are coming with. When they reach their 30s, they desperately want to be with their babies.

The average mom, even working moms, even like this is statistically true, 60% of working mothers who work full time actually prefer and want to work part time. So even those mothers don't want to be in the workforce full time and year round. So most women want the opportunity and the option, let's just say the option or the choice to be home in those early years. And what we're having right now is just a generation of women who cannot do that or who feel they cannot do that because of the decisions that they've made prior to that phase of life that set them up to have to be in the workforce all the time. That's a big problem. So when you hear that from the culture, you want to reject that

and say, no, I am not going to be in the workforce full time and year round my whole life. I'm a woman. My life has seasons. I want to step out. You need to find a career that's flexible, that motherhood can accommodate, that you can move in and out of, that you can do from home, that is part time, that, you know, just. And of course, that's going to knock out some serious careers. And so what? So what? What you're getting is infinitely better than that. And so it's just, it's just having those countercultural messages, really thrown at young people and not being afraid, because I think even older people are afraid to say things that are against the culture, not just younger people. I agree. I agree. Can I say something about what you just said really quick, because I have a real life example of our daughter goes to a Catholic university and went to the, a professor for some guidance in how to select her major. She was at a crossroads between psychology and

teaching and a few other ideas she had. And in the course of the conversation, this teacher who has a lot of kids herself, this professor, a PhD, by the way, herself said, you know, this career psychology, if you are really passionate about it, it's a great career for moms. Cause she knew that my daughter wanted to have moms, right? And she said, it's a great career for moms because you can come in and out of it. You can set up a shop in your home. You can become the counselor at your church. And I just thought this is the best counseling session I could have ever paid for my daughter. This is somebody thinking about her as a, at her 10, 15 years from now. And it is the opposite of the Sheryl Sandberg, put your foot on the pedal, go, go, go and become an associate in the law firm.

put your foot on the pedal, go, go, go and become an associate in the law firm. It is not realistic if you have any intention of having a family. And so I was so I was cheering for days when I heard that this was the counseling session. She was forcing her to think about your point, the long game. The long game. What is the long game of what I want my life to look like? And to your point, which Rachel just made here, too, is that the decisions you make when you're young will most definitely impact the kind of life you can lead when you're older. And so making those right decisions to get to that place. And you never get that kind of counseling at a public secular school ever.

In fact, the counselor would get fired. Absolutely. I mean, the concept of leaning out. I mean, that's really my message is do not be afraid to lean out. Ignore everything that Sheryl Sandberg said. She was totally wrong. So that's just 100 percent. Oh, I love you, Sam. And all those of us who've been married for decades. I'm going to celebrate my 26 next week. that who you marry and how that marriage fares has more effect on your happiness and well-being than any other single decision you ever make. And that includes your career.

And that includes your financial decision. The most important. Well, if we know it's the most important thing and we can vouch for that, why on earth would you put that at the bottom of the list when you're 22? Yes. That makes no sense.

You're setting yourself up to fail. We'll have more of this conversation next. Yes. This is like Sean's life motto. Most important thing in your life is who you marry. Is who you marry. Is who you marry. And everything should be directed towards that.

And sometimes it's a game of chance. Sometimes you don't know what you're going to get. Right? But all the factors that you can look at and assess, you should at and assess and then still can be a crapshoot yes you can you know you can my thank you marrying someone wonderful and they're not so great it turns out to be an ax murder right well yeah sometimes they're not so great but then also just stuff comes out right it comes out years later that you didn't even know this idea of finding yourself first and then getting married, I think is hysterical. So there's another cultural meme that you get that is crap. You are constantly growing and changing and you

sometimes don't even know or tap into who you really are until you're like 45 or 55. You know, it's so true. You find yourself in a family. You'll find yourself on a backpacking trip to India. You know, it's just, it's so dumb that people think these things. I mean, yeah, you can have a nice time, but ultimately you find yourself in a marriage where you're constantly challenged to look at yourself in the mirror through somebody else's eyes and you're being challenged. And that's the hard part because you have to look at yourself and go, sometimes I suck. You know, I'm horrible.

And I got to work on this. And I got to work on that. Sometimes my spouse is being horrible, right? Yeah. Yeah. Or sometimes you marry someone perfect. Right. Like Sean.

Sure. Sure. Exactly. Suzanne, you're great. I love this. How can young people find you if they want, you know, this kind of awesome advice? So just everything's at my website, which is just my name. So S-U-Z-A-N-N-E-V-E-N-K-E-R SuzanneBanker.com. And you can, that will funnel you everywhere else.

I love it. You're doing God's work. You're doing incredible stuff. I love this. Saving marriages and families, one client at a time suzanne actually you're saving america honestly honestly honestly if you're safe you know what it's one it's one marriage at a time it's one family unit at a time and and and you're and you're absolutely right this is the this is the is the heart of who America is. We are families. And my motto is, if you want to save America,

I was in Congress, Suzanne. I couldn't save America there. Great position. If you want to save America, save your family. You can't save your family unless you have a family. But first you have to have one. That's right. So find a spouse, get married, and have kids.

That's our message for the day. Get married. Suzanne, I love it. Listen, thank you for being with us in this ultra fun podcast. Yay. We're totally vibing. Yeah, we're totally vibing with you. We appreciate it, Suzanne.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. All right. Great conversation with Suzanne. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. All right. Great conversation with Suzanne. Listen, I love to talk to someone that's like, the things we talk about in this podcast, you're actually right. Yes. Suzanne is a hundred percent right. She was a great guest

and she just simplified. What I love is that she's actually, she actually has clients. I love that she was talking about divorce because, you know, it's 50% of the country. 50% of the country is having trust issues. And that we're addressing that. I never thought about it that way. It's such a great point. It really is. I was like, but actually that's true.

People have a problem trusting each other based on their own family, but also, you know culture tells them especially women what they tell them about men but I actually think it's so it's it's it's you're right I'm not I'm not gonna underestimate the you know men are you know toxic messages and the whole we didn't even talk about the dinks the dual income no kids people on social media who make it seem like all they're doing is having lattes in london and and doing all these fun trips and again it does sometimes sometimes we've talked about that it sounds fun until like you wake up and you're 50 and you have no kids and no prospects of having grandkids and then it's like you know what is what is your purpose what is the meaning in life

and so i think that's that's important but But I do think that when you have something like that blow up at such a young age, like a marriage blow up, and this thing that is so grounding and foundational, a family and a marriage, when that gets broken up, your view of men, if you're a woman, or women, if you're a man, or just of marriage in general, also gets blown up. And so I think that addressing those issues of trust are so important. And I really do stand by all of us have family members who are, you know, nieces and nephews, who are the children of divorce. And those who have intact marriages can play a role in modeling and bringing them in and letting them see that yeah yeah maybe in your case it it didn't work out in your family but that is not that does not mean that marriage as an institution doesn't work i love that there's actually young

people seeking her out me too and they're recognizing i'm having a problem with this whether it's in my dating life or, you know, in my marriage. My relationships. And I need to work through this because these are the problems that I'm having. How smart of people that are grappling with these issues will seek a professional out to go, let's talk about it, let's work through it, and get folks to a healthier place. it's when you sit and let that it will lead you to a life of singlehood and no family or if you're in a marriage it's gonna lead you to divorce actually intervening and getting someone to help you think about it differently so wonderful and that Suzanne actually has a whole client base around this issue I

think is the little gem I'm taking away from this podcast among many gems yeah you know I had no idea she was going to bring up Barbara Walters. And you and I have talked about Barbara Walters, you know, quite a bit around this topic, just sort of to our side. I don't think we've ever talked about it on camera before. But just between you and I, and now between you, I, and all of our listeners, you know, my experience with her was formative because I was at a crossroads in my life and I had an opportunity at a very young age when young women are getting a lot of messages about

what's important in life and career. And it, you know, it's certainly, you know, looked very attractive and I was very, you know, impressed with, I mean, she's a super elegant woman, by the way. And there's a presence about her, obviously, or else she wouldn't be the Barbara Walters that we all know. And yet somehow through all of that, several things happened along the way that allowed me, I think, you know, very blessed to have been able to kind of sift through the fog of all that. And at a very young age, some of it by circumstance, you know, fate,

and some of it by looking at different interactions I had, like with that man who said, you don't want Barbara Walters' life. Let me tell you what I know. And for me, I mean, I'm so glad I was open to hearing that, because maybe I might have brushed that off at such a young age. But I really took that. I really took that in. And it hit me at different levels as I went through my own life journey.

So, you know, I think if you're objective and fair, you could look at your life to go. You left the Barbara Walters experience and we went to Hayward and went to Ashland. Then we went to Wausau and you were able to be at home mom. I was. And then you're able to revive a career. And I think that can seem like a shot in the dark that actually happened. That might not have happened for me. It was a lot of faith. It was. It was. It was faith and it was luck and work, like all those things. a lot of faith it was you it was it was fate and it was luck and work like all those things um and that's your story and i think it's it's a wonderful story but i also think that people can

especially today with technology people do have the ability to write their own stories um and you didn't fully walk away out in the sunset and come back you know 12 years later that's right You're engaging. I kept my fingers in the pie a little bit. A little bit here, a little bit there. Then you re-engage. But everyone has the ability with technology today to keep their fingers in. And a lot of employers, I think, are willing to make sacrifices for good employees.

Being an excellent employee gives you opportunities to craft a schedule that's going to work for you and for your family. And so again, be excellent, try to be the best. So your employers are like, I don't want to lose you. What do I need to make this job work for you and your family? And then you craft a future. And that did happen to me at various points when I worked for the initiative. My boss, Danielle would say, you know, I remember calling him to say, I'm pregnant, I'm having another baby. And he said, how can we keep you? I don't want you to leave. And then when I worked at Fox, they, you know, it's a famous story for me, because I'm always so grateful. I remember

going for my ninth child and saying, I'm going to have my, I went for my seventh. I told them, and they were great. And I went to the eighth, and they were great. And then I went with the ninth. And I remember going to you and I said, surely this will be the end for them. They're just going to think I'm insane. And they're not going to understand how I can make this work. And I told the CEO of the company and I told my immediate boss, both of them females. And both of them had the same answer, which was, OK, I guess we need to get you a new wardrobe. And it was.

Congratulations. Congratulations. And they couldn't have been nicer and more embracing and happier for us and more family friendly. And Fox deserves credit for that. Lifetime Television worked with me when I had a baby. And they couldn't have been more accommodating. And my boss, Daniel, is a champion for women as well as he kept me on. That said, to be fair to Barbara Walters,

she was in a man's world when she was going through that. It was a much different world then than it is now. It was a much different world. She had to clamor. Women in that era, I've talked about it before on the podcast, Sean, with Florence Henderson. These are women who's in the same. Florence Henderson too. Florence Henderson's amazing.

That's Carol Brady. By the way, I love the Brady Bunch. And I got to work with Carol Brady on a show for Lifetime Television for Women. And, you know, that's one of the lessons she taught me. She was so happy for the amount of support that Lifetime had. I was able to take breaks from this show to breastfeed. I was able to take breaks from this show to breastfeed. And she was so happy for me because she said, when I was America's mom, no one wanted my mom problems.

And I had to pretend like I had no mom problems. I had four kids at home and I had mom problems. So Barbara Walters and Florence Henderson, they dealt with a different world. They did make some know, make some decisions and choices in life, I think, that have made things better for women. But I think all of us should look at what Suzanne Benker is saying and look at the end game. What do you want your gravestone to look like at the end of life? And do you want it to be about the

people you're surrounded by people who love you that you have had led a happy life that you've impacted many people and that you have a happy family but your legacy is your family that's right and so making sure you're raising good kids with the right consideration the right thought process as they become young adults and how they engage in the world. And I think culture used to support these countercultural ideas. It doesn't any longer. And so making sure that you and your family support those ideas that support family formation and long-term good, healthy marriages and families.

Because that's going to give you those little grandkids that at one point, I haven't had that yet, but it's going to give you some remarkable joy. Sean, you still talk about, to me, to the kids, about your grandma, Eva. And I've talked to our kids and to you about Grandma Concha, which is my mother's mother. And there are other grandparents that we've we've talked about great grandparents and i just think about that like that's the legacy i mean we know who barbara walters is in in another generation nobody's going to care our kids don't even know who maybe maybe probably not don't even know who barbara walters is and that's the point careers um these things are important but they are not your legacy in the end

and and one of the main reasons why i love congress it's like my district may know me but will my family know me yeah right and i prefer them to know me and to be home and be around a little bit um so listen um great conversation and what i appreciate suzanne joining us um i appreciate hearing all these stories of Rachel's crazy life and all the crazy people that you've met. Not that many, but yeah. So listen, if you like our podcast, first off, thanks for joining us. But if you like it, please subscribe. You can rate, review our podcast.

You can always find us at foxnewspodcast.com. If you want to see the video version, if you're not watching this, you can find us at Fox News Podcast dot com. You want to see the video version. If you're not watching this, you can find us on Fox Nation as well in full color and in full screen. So, yeah, thanks for being with us. We appreciate it. Bye, everybody. Bye. Listen ad free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple podcast and Amazon Prime members can listen to the show ad free on the Amazon Music app.