From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - The Key to Raising Christian Kids In A Secular World

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

This Holy Week, Christian families across the world are commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ -- but how can we portray such complex messages to our kids? And when they’re no longer living at home, what can we do to ensure they keep their faith without going to church with the family? Sean and Rachel discuss how they teach their kids about the story of Jesus, their favorite holiday traditions that keep Christ at the center of their family, and why they believe their adult children continue engaging with the Church and their faith even though they've fled the nest. Follow Sean & Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Mejuri. From November 25th to December 2nd, get 25% off everything on orders over $150 in Mejuri's biggest sale ever. From bold hoops to minimalist stacks, Mejuri has something for everyone. Mejuri makes handcrafted fine jewelry for every day made with responsibly sourced materials.

So you can look and feel good about gifting and wearing them. Shop your wishlist 25% off at Mijeri.com today. 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. It's great to be back, Sean. It's Holy Week. We just had Palm Sunday a couple days ago and we're approaching the three holiest days, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, then the eve of Easter and moving into Easter and the resurrection of our Lord. And these are the holiest days of the year. I mean, Christmas is fun. It's my favorite part time of year for a lot of reasons. We all get together and there's gifts and there's joyfulness.

But this is really the heart of what our religion is about. And we started talking about our children and how much they know. We were sharing some stories about what our children know about this week and talking to them every night of prayer night this past week. We started thinking, how do you keep your kids active, faithful Christians, even beyond when they leave your own house? And we have older kids. Yeah. So it's a struggle to make sure you raise kids that carry on the faith. And so we have our advice on what we've done to keep our kids Catholic. And by the way, our three older ones who are out of the house are faithful Catholics. They go to church on Sunday.

No one's forcing them. They practice the faith. We're not there telling them they have to go, which is interesting. And so after we kind of give our advice of what we think we do to make sure we're raising good Catholic or Christian kids,

we asked our older kids, what did they think we did well to make them faithful Catholics? Which is one of the beauty of having older kids. By the way, we call this our exit interviews. We do this whenever a child of ours is about to graduate or just graduated from high school is moving on to college. We sit them down and do exit interviews because when you have a lot of kids, you actually

have a lot of chances to improve your game, what we call do-overs, right? Right. And so we'll sit our kids down and say, game, what we call do-overs, right? And so we'll sit our kids down and say, hey, what did we do right? What could we improve on? And we've had amazing answers from them. And it's actually really helped us do a better job because the older ones are kind of guinea pigs, right? In the end, I mean, we don't know what we're doing. We're kind of feeling it out and trying our best. But then when you get that feedback, it's really interesting. And so what could be more important? I mean, we always say, Sean, that our job isn't to get our kids into Harvard.

It's to get them into heaven. So this is the most important work that we're doing. Yeah, and I think what's nice on the Exeter interview is, again, they take it seriously. They actually give us the best answers that they can. And sometimes we don't like their answers. Yeah, it's hard to hear sometimes. Yeah, but normally they're pretty insightful. And most of the time we can agree with the advice they give as they exit the house. And there's some overlap, by the way, Sean, when they said what we said. On this one, there is. And sometimes there's consistent themes that the older kids have on what went well or didn't go well in the house so sometimes i wonder were they colluding did they talk exactly

talk amongst each other this is what you guys are doing wrong we have to but but but also to your exit interview point we didn't like this is another exit interview that we've done with all of them in preparation for this podcast um spiritual so the the exit interview can continue for years, if not maybe decades. We're going to keep getting exit interviews. I want to make the pitch again. What's beautiful is when you have a big family, you can do an exit interview with old ones and improve your game with the little ones you still have in your house. And you can only do that if you have a lot of kids that stretch say like 20 years like us yeah yeah we've had nine kids over 20 years we have three kids out of the house for those who don't know um they're they're 24 to 20 um those three so 24 to 24 the three that are out of the house are 20 22 22, and 24, correct? Okay, yes.

And so, as we said, all of them go to church on their own. We know that just because, you know, they don't have to tell us that they do, but we know they do. And we have active, you know, conversations and text messages, family text conversations about the faith. So we know that they're very active. So some of the stuff overlaps. So the first thing is the basics, right? Get the basics, right? Go to church on Sunday. In our case, we're Catholic, go to mass. And, and, and you want to do that consistently, no matter where you're at. And I was thinking about this, Even when we travel, we make a point of going, okay, we're in this new city. What time is mass? And it's, it's like automatic, like the kids aren't even surprised

that we're going to mass in some strange city, because we go to mass wherever we run. That's what makes the church universal, right? You can get the mass in Cleveland, in New York, it's the same mass. And we don't even get any pushback on vacation. No. That we're going to go. They're like, yeah, they know we're going to do it. Now, there's been a couple of times in our travels, listen, have we missed a Sunday mass? Yeah, we missed a Sunday mass when things have gotten crazy. Yeah, this, like everybody, life kind of consumes you. Kids are sick, something happens. Well, we're all sick. Yeah. But what happens also for us, if we don't make it to

church, what we'll always do is we have some of our favorite priests that put their masses online, and so we'll watch it as a family. Yeah, it's not like a throwaway day. We still pray the rosary, and we do that so that our kids know. But again, they know it's an extreme circumstance when that happens, and it's very rare. So it's very simple. If you want your kids to be practicing Christians or Catholics, set them up for success and go to church with them. So if you don't go to church with them when they get older, they're probably not going to go to church. You mean when they're younger?

So go to church when they're younger, so they'll go to church when they're older. Yeah. But if you don't go to church when they're younger, they're probably not going to go to church when they're older. Simple stuff. Can I tell you a story really quick? When I was in my mid-twenties, I traveled with a friend of mine for three months to India. I stayed in a state, a Catholic state called Kerala, which is in the southwest of india and i live with her family um they were catholic obviously everybody in that in kerala everyone's named tommy sean because saint thomas evangelized this state it's officially considered a catholic state

and so i went there and i in addition to living in and traveling, I volunteered with my friend at Mother Teresa had an old age home there. And there was also an orphanage there that I volunteered at. And it was a really interesting experience because, you know, when you're when you go to India, this I've lived all over the world. I'm a military brat. This was the most exotic place I've ever been. It felt like I had landed in a different planet. It was so extraordinary. And yet, I landed in a place that was Catholic. And so, when I went to Mass, this family was very faithful, very Catholic. I would go to Mass several times a week.

When people would go to this church, it was in Malayalam, which is a language that they speak there. They didn't speak English in the Mass. There were no pews. So everyone sat on the floor and it was divided by gender. So the women sat on the left, the men sat on the right, on the floor, and everyone removed their shoes. So when you go to the church, there are piles, hundreds of shoes outside because you take your shoes off to enter into the church. So there were obviously some differences, different language, different customs, and yet I could follow the mass. And it was a moment, I was 24, 25 years old, where I suddenly very tangibly understood, one, the universality of the church, that wherever you were, literally on the other side of the planet.

And it gave me so much comfort to know, even though I was homesick, that I was at church and my parents and my siblings were that same day hearing the same exact Mass, the same exact readings. The Mass, the liturgy of the Eucharist was exactly the same. It was a really deepening of my faith, being away from them and going to Mass on my own and knowing that I was connected to them through the Mass. Fascinating thing. And I hope I've thought about that with our kids away.

We have one daughter in Rome right now. One is in Florida. The other one is in Los Angeles. And I wonder, do they think of us as well when they're at Mass away from us and that connection that we have? In the exit interview, they didn't say they thought of us at Mass. They didn't say it, but I think they do. I think it's very unifying and transcendent to have that joint experience. It reminds them of their family because we do this as a family.

But also other advice. So we pray together. So at night, there's a few nights we'll miss, but virtually every night we will pray together as a family. And so in that prayer time, we might do an Our Father and a Hail Mary, and then we'll think about people we want to pray for as we do the prayer. But other times we'll do the rosary, or sometimes if it's late at night, we may just do a decade of the rosaries. We'll do a portion of the rosary, and there's some deviation. And what's interesting, Rachel, is even because we've at least done a

decade of the rosary so often, little Valentina will go get the rosaries. She's the best at passing out the rosaries. So she knows what we're going to do. There's a place by our family altar where we hang the rosaries and she passes them out to everybody. And then she sits down with hers on the couch and she's into it and she gets it. She might try to hit her sister in the meantime. Sometimes she hits us with rosaries. Yes. She'll whip us with rosaries. We have to tell her, stop.

But, but, but there's no complaint from the kids actually when we do that. No, if it's late at night and we're going to do a full rosary, they, they might get some complaining. But if, but, but again, it's part of our family tradition. And our faith is part of our family and it's expected that, and it's expected that we're going to do this. And the prayers at night also vary for those who are Catholic or aren't Catholic. We have a liturgical season, so our year is divided into four different seasons. Our altar is decorated differently depending on whether it's the Christmas season or the Advent season, the Christmas season, Easter season, the ordinary time. So it kind of varies, but

some of the prayers you, so like in Advent for the four weeks leading up to Advent, we turn down the lights and we do our prayer time by candlelight. And then we always pray. by candlelight and then we always pray um we always sing um a certain song that that is reminiscent of advent which is okamokam Emmanuel so there are certain things that happen the same way during lent we try and also do the stations of the cross and through the years, when those older kids were younger, we made them, I had them do, where they actually drew their own Stations of the Cross. There's 14 Stations of the Cross. And the best ones I preserved, I laminated. We bring back those drawings.

And it's just kind of fun because some of them are crazy. They're pretty funny drawings. They're pretty funny drawings. It's a pretty serious but it's fun to go back and see what they thought jesus looked like when they were six you know how they drew mary you know weeping at the cross when they were seven and so we bring those back and they're a wonderful memory um but it also gets them back into um again, I think what kids like, Sean, you know, they like routine, they like tradition. It makes them feel safe. And there's no better place to build these traditions

around than your religion. But again, this is also what we think, it's our job to catechize our kids. And again, that's also a really important point, Sean. Our school participates in that, we send them to a Catholic school, but that's our job as well this is this is part of um the conversations that we have with them uh during our prayer time or for the stations of the cross it's part of that process of explaining the faith yeah yeah explain and again think about what families take time to do, you know, sports and clubs that all this stuff. This is a priority. And if you make this a priority, and by the way, if you haven't started this with your family, it's never too late.

It's never too late. Start tomorrow. Start this holy week. But when you carve that time out. So for us, we've had to, since Sean got this job with Fox Business, we've had to move it later than we would like, but we still do it. We wait for Sean to come home and then we do our prayer time. And that carved out time, that prioritization that we make sends a message. It's just, it's, it's through osmosis. You don't even have to say it anymore. The fact that

when Sean comes home, we've prioritized prayer time, sends a message to the kids that this is something that we as a family value. And I think that's really important. So if you outsource your values to somebody else, your kids will have the values of somebody else. Yeah. So I think it's important that we take, again, how do we treat each other as a family? What's important to our family? How do we spend our time together as a family? And some people send their kids to Catholic school and say, well, the Catholic school's got it.

Yeah. But you have to back it up in your home, right? And it's nice to have both, a Catholic school or a Christian school, and it's then backed up and reinforced in your home. That's the best scenario, which is what we've tried to replicate with all the kids. And we've been very successful at that because we've been blessed with very good Catholic schools, some better than others in the places that we've lived. But again, whether it's politics, what's happening in the world, faith, all of those, by the way, all those things actually can come up during prayer time. It's interesting.

Sometimes they do. Again, sometimes it's at the dinner table and sometimes at prayer time. But that time that you spend together, it's interesting what your kids are thinking about and what they want to pray about, who they care about that might be in need, what's on their mind. You get to know them a lot better because they'll say some things that are like, huh, I didn't know. I'm okay. Well, we'll pray for that. Right. We'll go around and say, what are you praying for today? Who do you want to lift up in prayer? What are you grateful for? And those conversations, you're right. who do you want to lift up in prayer? What are you grateful for? And those conversations,

you're right. Sometimes you didn't realize they were thinking about something and it comes up in that context. And this idea that we're surrendering whatever our needs are, whatever our thoughts are up to God in this moment. So like these problems that we have, these problems in the world, we can't really solve them. We have to lift them up. Somebody else is going to deal with it. And I think that's also very reassuring. You see all these kids today, Sean, that have a lot of stress about climate change, you know, and they feel like the world's going to end and they don't want to have kids. And there's a lot of mental health anxiety that has been given to a lot of kids about climate change. And a lot of the problems in our world, whatever they are,

I think it's reassuring for kids to know that's not their problem to solve necessarily, right? But in the end, turn it over to God. You wrote something interesting. I think there's a lot of people who haven't thought about this, and their kids might be older. And I think it's never too late. That was a really important point. Because even if your kids are out of your home, and you start going to church on Sunday, or when they do come home, and you're like, you know what, we're going to, you know, I'm not going to beat them over the head,

but we're going to pray together. Again, as parents, your kids look up to you, right? They obviously love you. You love them. You've raised them. And if they see they're 22 years old and they see their mom and dad going to church, they might be like, huh, mom and dad are going to church. And they're actually praying together.

What's that about? What's that about? And they might just go, maybe I'm going to church and they're actually praying together. What is, and you, what's that about? What's that about? And you might, they might just go, maybe I'm going to, I'm going to check it out as well. And you can give them a little incentive, a little push to go. And I think that that can be, that can be life-changing for even your older kids to lead by example, how you live your life. And, and they might go, huh, I'm going to try that same thing that mom and dad are doing. And if they're not into that routine, and if you're not in that routine, what you can do is

also build incentives around it. So I don't think it's a bad idea to say, Hey guys, why don't we go to church today? This Sunday, we'll all go out to brunch later. And now you created this tradition of we go to mass, we go to brunch, or or we go to we go to mass and then we go to grandma's house for coffee and donuts or whatever whatever that is building things around it that are social and family oriented because it is a day of rest sunday is a day of rest we go to mass just go we're gonna get donuts when i come home yeah and they're like and every day they go to we're going to mass and we're getting donuts and that's what gets them going at first. So be it.

So be it. And the other thing about prayer, before we move on from this point, because I think it's one of the most important points, is also prayer at mealtime. Whether you're in the house or you're eating out, that example of praying before your meal and giving thanks for that. Being grateful. I was telling this today. Again, I always say the simplest things.

It's like that we have a roof over our head that doesn't rain on us, that we have heat in our home, that we have food here. I mean, there's a lot of people who may not have that or there's generations before us who didn't have it. And we should be blessed and give thanks for those very simple things that we have in our lives and our health, by the way, if you're not healthy, it's really hard. It's hard. Okay.

All right. Know your faith because your kids will ask you questions. So you had Patrick asking you questions this week. Yeah, but why did Jesus suffer? Why didn't he say, I don't want to suffer? Why did God make him suffer? Right? And then we had to talk about, well, actually, he didn't want to suffer.

And he actually asked God to take the cup away from him. But he said, your will be done. So he said, if you want me to do it, I'll do it. But if you ask me, I prefer not to have to go through this horrible death. And so we had a conversation about that. And then it kind of went off into different directions. But he's seven. And it's a really good questions and thoughtful questions about, well, why would he do this?

We'll be back with much more after this. This episode is brought to you by Mejuri. From November 25th to December 2nd, get 25% off everything on orders over $150 in Mejuri's biggest sale ever. From bold hoops to minimalist stacks, Mejuri has something for everyone. Mejuri makes handcrafted fine jewelry for every day made with responsibly sourced materials.

So you can look and feel good about gifting and wearing them. Shop your wishlist 25% off at Mijeri.com today. I think that as parents, and for me, this was, I had a book once that talked about the spiritual capacity of potential of children. And, you know, adults often underestimate the potential of children to enter into a spiritual life and to understand these spiritual concepts and actually not only do they underestimate the spiritual potential of children but they actually don't realize that in some ways children by their nature and their innocence are actually able to enter into this more easily than us and And that if we sit back, if we give them the information,

and then we listen, we can actually learn spiritual lessons from our own children. I had this experience once, ironically, during a holy week. Our daughter Margarita was probably only maybe four years old. She's very little and maybe less she could have been three or four i can't remember extremely young and um it was it was one of these you know i had seven at that point i probably had seven eight kids under yeah i mean probably eight eight little kids um all living under the house at that point. You can imagine how busy. That sounds like so many.

I know. Right now we just have six in the house. At the time it was eight, I believe, and maybe seven. I can't remember. But in any case, it's busy. When you have Holy Week, and for us, we go to Holy Thursday Mass, and we have to go to the service on Friday, and then we either go on Saturday or Sunday, the eve of Holy Week, and for us, we go to Holy Thursday Mass, and we have to go to the service on Friday, and then we either go on Saturday or Sunday, the eve of Holy Saturday, or we go on Easter Sunday.

And we have special meals on Thursday, and we have activities that we do on Friday, religious activities. So it's a very busy time. And as a mom, I was getting really caught up in the to-do list this is my this is my own cross that I carry my to-do list and I you know trying to get through stuff instead of letting things just unfold and of course I have that burden as a mom if I don't do it it's not going to get done so I'm sure I was thinking about the meal if we had to get to mass and I thought we were running late we're all the stuff and you know she came up to me, Margarita, and she said, I need a purse. I need a person like, why do we need a purse right now? Trying to get your shoes on. We're trying to get off the door.

We're running late. I need a purse. And so just to shut her up, I said, go get her a purse. Somebody, I sent somebody else to go get her a purse. And then she was like, I need band-aids. I need band-aids. Kids love band-aids. And I said, okay, okay, okay. And I had no idea what she was doing. And then I see her with the purse. I see her with the band-aids.

And I was so exasperated. I'm like, we're going to mass. Why do you need a purse and band-aid? We're really running late. Why do you need a person band-aid? We're really running late. And she said, what I hadn't realized is that our older daughter had been reading to her while all of this getting ready was happening to occupy her and had read to her from a Catholic book that had beautiful pictures.

And so she had seen really and absorbed for the first time the passion of Christ, right? Jesus getting whipped and the crown of thorns and being crucified. And she had seen these very beautiful but very graphic, very Catholic photos of Jesus bleeding after having been whipped and put on the crown of thorns. And in my rush, I had not known that, but in my rush, like, why are you doing this? Why do you need this purse? Why do you need the Band-Aids? She said, because I'm going to church and I want to give the Band-Aids to Jesus and his owies. And I finally was able to piece all this together.

Imagine this little girl, three, four years old, absorbing this so deeply that she wanted to do something to make Jesus's pain go away. Wow. Made me feel about this little, I certainly hadn't entered into that mystery on that level, but this little girl had. And then in that moment, three four year old i think she was maybe three and a half four taught me how to absorb and take in holy week better those are the kind of moments that we live for as parents so thank goodness in those busy moments where you just want to just want to get things done it's actually able to take a moment and actually realize what you're saying kind of you talked lot about, a little bit about tradition as well as we try to raise good kids.

So in my house when I grew up, we did Easter baskets. So we would dye eggs and lo and behold, there'd be, you know, chocolate eggs and jelly beans in our hidden basket. We got a little older. jelly beans in our hidden basket. We got a little older, there'd be a communal, you know, wood bowl with the fake grass in it and eggs and, you know, all the candy in there. And then we'd all kind of share as a family when we woke up and we didn't want to look for Easter baskets. But Rachel kind of changed that tradition in our new household together. And so instead of an Easter basket, Rachel, to try to keep a meaning of this season alive and well, you now do, this goes back to when Avita was little. We've done this for all the years of having kids,

which is, I think, really cool. Yeah, so I'll tell you what I did. And thank you for that reminder, because I actually think I posted it last year on Instagram and people loved it and I'm going to repost it actually today so that people there's still time to do it so what you do is on holy Thursday you sit with your kids and you have them draw what they think Jesus looks like on the cross okay and? And, again, fascinating experience to see what they look. I save all of these, by the way.

And then they cut it out. They cut out their picture of Jesus, whether it's Jesus on the cross, Jesus risen, however they want to see Jesus. And then I get a wooden box. This is like from a craft store. Yeah. You go to Michael's or Walmart, you get a little wooden box. You could even use a shoe box.

You could use a cardboard shoe box. It doesn't matter. A box. And then, because we've talked about what happens over these three days, so now we're going to put Jesus in the box on Good Friday, and then we're going to put Jesus in the box on Good Friday. And then we're going to cover Jesus with a cloth,

just as he was covered before he was put into the tomb. And then we put the lid over the box. And then I send them outside. Find your favorite rock. Because remember, the tomb was covered with the rock. And then... They put a rock on top of the box. That's right. On top of the tomb was covered with a rock. They put a rock on top of the box. That's right. On top of the tomb. On top of the tomb. Right. So we're recreating what we're actually celebrating. Jesus coming down from the cross, being put into a tomb, covered in the cloth, lid over,

rock on top, just like the rock that covered Jesus' tomb. And then on Easter Sunday, when they wake up. Lo and behold, the rock is not on top of the tomb the rock is on the side the side and when they open up their tomb their little Jesus that they made is gone it's gone just like Jesus resurrected however there is candy yeah chocolate and eggs inside their tomb right so I think it's it's a it's again getting rid of the getting rid of the Easter Bunny. Some people are attached to the Easter bunny. I always found it problematic. We're doing the same thing that I did when I was little. It's just, there's far more meaning behind

it. Right. And so again, little things like that, I think are really important and impactful for, especially the little ones in the house, but by the way, the older ones, they love it when they're home for Easter, make no mistake. They want their box. They have a box and they draw Jesus. I have seen 20 year olds cut out their Jesus, put it in the box, wrap it in tissue paper and put their rock on top of the box. So they like it. And by the way, Sean, I remember one Easter,

we went to Florida on vacation, and in our hotel room they did the same thing. So they had the same experience. I showed this idea to Pete Hegseth last year, and he said, the Easter Bunny is fired. You're fired, Easter Bunny. This is now his family's tradition. So you can introduce this at any time.

I'm going to put it on my Instagram so you can do that. So then we asked our kids, okay, so I texted on a group chat our older kids, what were the things that we did? They all said Catholic school. By the way, she did. She texted all three of the older ones to get this feedback, but I wasn't included on the text. Sorry.

Yeah, so she got the feedback, and she shared it with me, but I wasn't included on the text. Sorry. Yeah. So she got the feedback and she shared it with me. I should have included you. You should have included me. I should have included you. But I got the feedback from them. So here's some of the things that they said that made a big difference for them and why they are still actively Catholic, Christian, and faithful.

They said Catholic school was impactful. They were a lot more picky about the school. So our kids have gone to three different Catholic schools. One of them was a rural, very traditional Catholic school in St. Adelbert school in in Rochelle. So first they went to Our Lady of the Lake up in Ashland. Yeah, they did. I'm sorry. Then to Rochelle. And the one in Rochelle was a traditional classical school. And it was hard to get there. Forty five minutes away. I found another Catholic family that could share with the ride because I knew it was going to be on my own. Sean was in Congress at the time. They told me that those years that they spent at that school was deeply formative for them.

spent at that school was deeply formative for them. So for those Catholic priests out there who wonder if a little tiny rural school in the farmland of, this is a tiny town, how small do you think this town is? Listen, there's like, Rochelt? God bless that priest that did that. There's 1,200 people in Rochelt, 1,500 people. Rochelt's small. I mean, it's 2,000 people. It's a small little farm community. Tiny town. And there's more population around Rochelle, but they had this amazing little school that we knew it was a great school. We, families partnered together to go down and make the effort to get our kids in this amazing school. And by the way, we had a fantastic priest there who drove this school.

And again, sometimes like, do I have an impact? Am I making an impact in the world as a priest? And I would just go, yes, you have, because these kids are wonderful practicing Catholics, and they'll attribute it back to the little school that you helped create. Yeah, they remember that. And the families that it attracted were amazing Catholic families. So that was one.

Eventually we had to go to a different school because we moved and it was too hard to have some kids in this. This only went to I think 8th grade. And the other ones went to high school and they had a lot of comments about how they didn't like the wishy-washy Catholic high school that they ended of comments about how they didn't like the wishy-washy Catholic white Catholic high school that

they ended up going to. And they, and they didn't love it. But then fast forward, we moved to New Jersey and we were able to find an amazing, amazing classical Catholic school. And again, they're getting it.

It is the best thing about New Jersey. It's Catholic. It's not the Texas. It's not the crappy roads. No, there's a lot of bad thing about New Jersey. It's the Catholic school. The Catholic school is the best thing in the Rappaport family. It's not the taxes. It's not the crappy roads. No, there's a lot of bad stuff about New Jersey. They have great pizza, and we found a great school. They have great pizza in New Jersey.

I'm just saying. And so at this school, Sean, what I love is you talked about we're the first teachers for our children. We're the main instructors. But to have a school that 100% fully partners with you in the religious upbringing of your child is imperative. I don't have to waste my nights on Thursday fighting

gender theory. I don't have to do any of that. I can just send them there and know that they care about and love Jesus the same way our family does. We don't have to rewire them. We don't have to reeducate them when they come home from school. Actually, it's...

Deprogram them. Yeah, and we're on the same page. Like, what we teach in our home is what they learn in school. And it makes it so much easier to raise kids. Again, like, we're not fighting queer gender theory in school. In fourth grade. Right. Or talking about, you you know what am i what

am i in my question like what's your gender and remember the there was in massachusetts they had all the children close their eyes little elementary kids say what gender do you think you are i mean this is the kind of crazy stuff that's happening so catholic school was a big deal a big deal for them and there are lots of statistics on kids who go to catholic schools um are more likely to remain catholic and active and going to mass yes so that there's an absolute connection one thing i will say and and we'll save this for a different podcast i just want to know you keep saying catholic because we're catholic but yeah i mean this applies to everything across the the the spectrum but we're again bear with us because we are catholic and we're using our yeah all of this applies to whether you're protestants i i

would have this discussion with pete hegg said pete two things pete would say pick the school then your house that was really great advice the best advice we haven't taken that advice and we have a lot of regret. He gave us the advice after we bought our house and picked a school. Yeah. Right? He's like, oh, no, you're supposed to pick the school first and then buy our house. Pick the school, then the house.

That is important. So we're like 40 minutes from the school. The other thing is, really, and this came out in the discussion that I had with my kids in their text. Not every Christian or Catholic school is the same. So, in fact, this Catholic light school that they went to, they all said they found, they said it was soul crushing. That was their quote. It was soul crushing. They really want the truth.

They don't want watered down faith. They don't want watered-down faith, and they want teachers and faculty who are on fire for the Lord, who are passing on the traditions of the church, who are giving. So right now you can go to very expensive private Catholic schools that don't even do weekly Mass. I've seen those schools. Their school that they go to have Mass every week, benediction and adoration every week confession every week um you know these are the kinds of things you want to look for if you want to really infuse your children with their faith so that it's just part of who they are it's not something they just do on sunday it's totally infused into the their culture at home and at school. And by the way, the education around that is classical and the education outside of the faith component is remarkable. And we've made this pitch a lot of

times about if you can get your kids out of public school, do it. Ask if you can't do it yourself, ask whoever you can to help you out, save your kids and to your point there's there's there every every school is not the same right yeah and pick the best one but even the not-so-great Catholic schools that our kids went to the kids have said it was better than going to public school they would have preferred the soul-crushing Catholic school as opposed to going to public school. And so I think that's always important. You can't always get perfection because you don't live near perfection.

But you've got to take the best of what your community offers you and the schools that are available to you. And I would say, again, back to the original school that we had talked about, it was worth that drive. And you know what? I always wondered. You know what? talked about, it was worth that drive. And you know what? I always wondered, you know what? I wondered if it was worth, it was really hard on us to do that drop in. I had little kids, Sean was gone all the time and we had to do this drive.

And oh my gosh, like it was so heartening to hear in their text chain how much that school impacted them. And I thought, oh, all those long, that long commute was worth it. And so, you know, you might not know in the moment when you're doing that commute, but how wonderful to hear this many years later. So the other family we worked with, and it was the Brownells, but it was a family that actually took the lead. They bought a big old long van.

They wanted all the kids to fit into. took the lead. They bought a big old long van that all the kids could fit into. And that was a ministry of themselves that were making sure that those Catholic families that wanted to go to this wonderful school, they helped organize and orchestrate this movement from up in Wausau, where we were down to St. Adelbert's. And so what a great lesson that is for people too. Like you may have the ability or the knowledge that this is the best place. And you may have a family like ours who was sort of on the cusp, like, should we really do this?

We're taking on a lot. And they made that possible for us by buying that van and agreeing to do this. We all helped pay for the gas, but they were wonderful. They were amazing. And they helped us make that move. And now our family is bearing the fruit from all of their work. All of us have ways that we can help other parents make these kind of choices. I love that point.

Okay, so what else did they say? I would tell you all, but I wasn't on the text chain. I wrote some of them. They were so good. Okay, they said, They were so good. Okay, they said, thank you for exposing us to the beauty of religious art and music. And I'm going to be a little biased here for those who aren't Catholic listening.

Catholic art and music, we're pretty good at that. We're just pretty good at that. Catholic art, Catholic architecture, all of them say that they now, when they move to a new city, and each of them have moved to different places or traveled to different places, they seek out the most beautiful traditional church they can have access to and find. Oh, did that make my heart just jump for joy. They seek, because one of the things, Sean, when little kids are little, and I think some people sometimes criticize Catholics for their emphasis on the churches. And I've heard people say,

oh, if they spent their money on charity instead of these beautiful churches, the whole purpose of the church is to get us connected to God. And the way churches are built, the art, not only do they bring us lifting up, that's why we have these high ceilings and that's why we have incense that rises and all these, but the artwork. When your children are very little, and I found this as a mom so heartening, I love the bells and the smells and the sights in a Catholic church because it encompasses all of their senses. So you have a little child that maybe is too young to understand everything that's going on in the liturgy, but I see them

staring at stained glass windows and looking at statues of the saints and looking up and taking in all of these and asking me questions about what they hear, or they hear the bell that rings at the moment of consecration and they go, what's happening? Why is that bell? And we can say, that's the moment Jesus is here. Jesus is in the Eucharist right now. So I think that Catholic art,

Catholic architecture is, um, is so beautiful and we are attracted to truth. If you're a Protestant listening, don't be offended. No, I'm sorry. is so beautiful. And we are attracted to truth and beauty. If you're a Protestant listening... Don't be offended. I'm sorry, you're going to have to eat that Catholics have way better arcs. We go back way

further than you do. It's your history too, by the way, if you're a Protestant. I think you're going to get major objection to say you have better music. They're going to argue with you. I love praise and worship, but when I say music, I don't mean the 70s music of the

Novus Ordo, like the modern Catholic Church. I say Gregorian chant, because that is the music of the church. Gregorian chant, Latin music, that is the... Well, the Pete Hegseth I Love Jesus music may actually...

I tease Pete all the time. I say, we have Gregorian chant, and you have Jesus is my boyfriend music. That's sad. I love gospel music. I love... I mean, we have, as you know, Sean, we have Fox and Faith Sunday during Lent. We have the best Christian music in the country, in the world

come to our set, and it puts my heart on fire. I love it, so I am not dissing it at all. I want to make sure that you guys know that. I love it. I get to watch it from home, and it is fantastic. The most talented musicians in the country

and Christian music come to our studio. It's a blessing. We'll have more of this conversation after this. Let's talk about this. I find this fascinating. You told me this before. The kids talked about going to a very traditional Latin mass. They love it. In our community, which we were blessed with in Wausau to have that offering for the kids.

And again, this is the real deal. So you talk about smells and bells and Latin mass. It was amazing that we had this church in our community. It was St. Mary's in Wausau that they were introduced to it. They actually said that was important for them. It was actually surprising to me. Yeah, they said it was pivotal for their formation. Again, that's Ken and Huberfeld who ran that church.

And actually Cardinal Burke, who authorized for that church to be built in Wausau when he was the Bishop of La Crosse. That was really important, which brings me to another point. They said they loved that we had the exposure to, we have deep friendships with priests and nuns. And they said that was very meaningful for them, that they felt like it gave them an insight into vocations and into the church. It didn't feel like the priest was this person that they didn't know and didn't understand that these priests would come to our house for dinner, that we would go out to dinner with Cardinal Burke, for example, or, you know, different priests that were like Father Frank in Ashland.

Wonderful. A wonderful priest who was like a very close family friend of ours. And they all had beautiful things to say about the conversations they had with him. And the level of friendship he had with our family was meaningful. Incredibly meaningful. But I think they see in all points of our life, the priest was not someone who is far off and stand away and the only, you know, see at the altar. Having a personal relationship with the priest or your pastor, I think, demystifies in a good way what happens, you know, during the Mass. And again, I think it helps bring them closer to the faith as well.

And that surprised me too. They said that those friendships were important for them. Lucia said that she can remember that we would be talking after church with people and that she asked Father Frank if she could see all the vestments. These are what the priest wears. And they have different colors

for different feast days and so forth. And she saw a pink one, which, of course, they wear on Gaudete Sunday, which is the Sunday right before Christmas. And anyway, she said, Father, would you wear this on my birthday? Would you wear your pink one? And she remembered having that conversation with him. I don't think he wore the pink one

on her birthday, did he? I think he, knowing Father Frank, he just might have. He was so awesome. Alright, so the other thing they said was that we never shied away from deep conversations. Whether it was at dinner or at prayer time or whenever, that when deep theological spiritual conversations even the ones that delved into politics as it related to our spiritual life they said they always appreciated that we didn't dumb things down for them or or childproof it they really enjoyed that we we did that and um that was great to hear and then then the last one, Sean, that I heard that was really powerful.

And this one, boy, our Protestant brothers and sisters are going to be able to relate to this one because they're really good at this, too, which is that we did not shy away from talking very explicitly about the devil and evil. And they said, knowing that demons were real, that spirituality and the light and the dark, the devil was real, that evil truly existed, raised the stakes for them. And that, that, that, that, that was actually, you know, we live in a world that tries to say everything is neutral. There's no devil. It's just, you know, be good. You know, like, no, no, no, no, no. There's evil and there's good. I thought that was fascinating. We could have scared the hell out of them, right?

They could have been like, wah! I remember, Sean. But it's an honest and truthful conversation about what our faith teaches us about good and evil and demons. And we would share that with them. And, again, that with them. And again, that can be a motivating factor to be good, to be good. Yeah. Sorry. It works. I remember watching the exorcist when I still don't know why. Um, you know, there's a lot of movies that when we were growing up that were like, why didn't our parents let us watch that? Um, I was probably like 13. And we watched The Exorcist.

And I remember it scared the hell out of me. And at the end of the movie, I was so scared. And I was so scared that I would have to go to bed, you know, and be in the dark after. And I looked over at my mom and I said, Mom, this movie isn't real, right? I mean, it's just a movie, right? And my mom said, Oh, no, this really happens. You can get possessed. You mess with Ouija boards, you do this. And I'm telling you, it scared the heck out of me. But why would we want to lie to our children about that?

But you never probably used a Ouija board. Never. Never. Never. Which is smart. Don't lie to your kids about this because they actually appreciate the truth. But I think that's interesting. This is our story, right?

This is what we've done with our kids and the feedback that we've gotten from them. I think there's a lot of consistent themes that I think work with kids in the conversation we had today. But you've got to look at your own kids and your own life and what fits in and what works. Your own denomination, your own traditions. But making it a priority. Finding room in your life and your day for this part of your kids and how you instruct them, how you raise them is incredibly important. And again, there's a lot of time for soccer, a lot of time for baseball, a lot of time to watch sports on TV. There's a lot of time for yard work, a lot of things there's time for, right? And if you can't say, I'm going to carve out this little bit of time in our life, in our

family for this, which is your faith and your prayer, And what does that, what message does that send your kids about how important this is? And so again, you will drive that in your own family. And it can, this doesn't take the most amount of time every day. It can be five, five or 10 minutes that you spend together. And by the way,

you can really say families that pray together, stay together, pray together, right? Actually pray together and stick marriages where the husband and wife pray together are like 95 percent um less likely to end in divorce um so i mean it's amazing i want i want to say one last thing i think that um if you are married and their husband and wife i think it's really important for the husband

to take a lead in the prayer time as much as possible. Because if not, I think you run the risk of feminizing religion. That's a really good point. So I think in our, I mean, I was gone a lot. I was, and there was a time where you had taken far more of the lead on the religious portion of our family. And we had a conversation about it. It's like, this is going to feminize religion for the kids, and I have to step up. And again, I would always participate, but because I was in and out,

she was able to carry the religious ball in our home consistently, because whether I was there or not, Rachel would lead it. And I've tried more recently to be like, you know, in our, in our home consistently, because whether I was there or not, Rachel would lead it. And I've tried more recently to be like, you know what, I'm, I am going to lead this. Um, so when the kids go to school in the morning, before they leave, they know we're going to pray together. So there's a little prayer we have on our, on our wall, right by the door. I lead that every morning. Oftentimes, we do the rosary, we let Paloma usually does it. She likes being a leader. She's great at it. But if we're not doing the rosary, I'll take the lead on those things. And again, I do think that's really important, especially for boys,

to make sure that religion isn't feminized. And there can be a balance. Both parents can do it, but if only the wife does it, that sends the completely wrong message to the boys in the household. So men have to step up and be part of this, and women should be part of it as well, togetherness. Well, listen, great conversation on this Holy Week. I think it's appropriate, especially after we had the Sidney Sweeney conversation last week. This is way better. Yeah, we're repenting. We're repenting. We're repenting this week.

We talked about Sidney Sweeney last week. And so this week, we're cleaning up our act. We're cleaning up the act. We're coming back to the center. But listen, that was a truthful conversation. And I'm sorry. I'm going to stick by the Sidney Sweeney conversation. I'm sticking by this podcast today.

I want to thank you all for joining us at the kitchen table. If you like our podcast, you can rate, review, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. You can always find us on Fox News Podcast dot com or Fox Podcast dot com. One of those. Am I getting it wrong? Just go to Spotify or Apple Apple podcasts have have from the kitchen table but it's really important that you subscribe if you can please subscribe um and why is that so important well it's important for for our numbers so that you know fox continues to support our

podcast but it's also important for you because you will get a reminder every week. Whenever a podcast drops, you'll be able to see what, what the title is. Maybe it's something you're not that interested in, but maybe it's something you really are fascinated with and want to want to learn more about. And so you'll get little reminders of when it drops and what the topics are. Yes, you will. Listen, thanks for being here again, um, from the kitchen table. We love doing the podcast, love sharing what's on our mind. And until next time, we hope you have a great day. And as you celebrate this Holy Week, you dig into your family and your faith.

And it could be a time of renewal as you kickstart, if you haven't, how you engage your family on what's really important in life, which is the faith, the reasons why we're here, the reasons why we live our life, the reasons why we make the choices that we make come down to this week. So with that, thanks for being here. Till next time. Bye, everybody.

Bye-bye. Listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts and Amazon Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. This is Jimmy Fallon inviting you to join me for Fox Across America, where we'll discuss every single one of the Democrats' dumb ideas. Just kidding. It's only a three-hour show. Listen live at noon Eastern or get the podcast at foxacrossamerica.com.