From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - The Theology Of Home: How To Save Your Family From Society's Woke Culture

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

Sean and Rachel are joined by the founders of Theology Of Home, Carrie Gress and Noelle Mering to discuss the mission of their organization. They also reflect on how the nuclear family has come under attack by modern feminism and woke ideology, and how everyone can regain the American tradition by starting in their own homes.  Later, Carrie and Noelle talk about the new book in the Theology of Home series, Theology of Home III: At The Sea, how gender roles help create stronger homes, and what role A.I. could play in the disruption of the traditional family. Follow Sean and Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Sean Duffy along with my co-host for the podcast, my partner in life and my wife, Rachel Campos Duffy. It's so great to be back here on the podcast at the kitchen table. And today I'm excited because I have the authors of a series of books that have been, there are some of my, there are two of my favorite books. They have a third coming out. They're on my coffee table. I've seen them on the house all the time.

All the time. They're the coffee tables you actually pick up and read. They're awesome. And they're called Theology of the Home, part one, part two, and now they have Theology of the Home by the Sea coming out. So with no further ado, let's welcome Keri Grass and Noelle Maring. Keri and Noelle, thank you for being on the podcast. Thank you for writing these books, which I believe are love letters to women, mothers,

homemakers, people who care for their families every single day. And you sort of force us through these books to take a pause and philosophize a little bit and think about what we're doing every day and why we do it and how important it is. I love it. You both come from a philosophy background. So maybe I'll start with you, Noelle. Tell us a little bit about the book and a little bit about yourself and where this all kind of came from and why it's so important, particularly at this moment. First of all, thank you so much, Rachel and Sean, for having us on. We both are fans of you both. So we are delighted to be able to talk to you today about our favorite subject, home. Carrie and I actually both come from a philosophy

background. As you said, we met in grad school, I went off and got married to my college boyfriend, we have six children in California. And Carrie went off to get a PhD, we reconnected. And she came up with this phrase, theology of home. And I think one of the things that was dear to our hearts is that we both are in our different ways fighting feminism, wokeism, idea, progressive ideology, and realize that, you know, there's a way in which women are intuiting how important home is, we see it in the billion dollar remodeling and realize that, you know, there is a way in which women are intuiting how important home is. We see it in the billion dollar remodeling and decorating industry. We see in this return to domestic arts through making bone broth, kitchen gardens, having chickens. But we've not connected

the dots between why we care so deeply about this and the kind of foundation of why home is so important. And so I think because this ideology has been telling us for decades, home is sort of secondary. It doesn't really matter your public life, your career. These are the real stuff of life that make you fulfilled. Home won't fulfill you. I think we felt that our care for our home was sort of trivial and not realize that there's actually deep foundational reasons why we care about it. And we need to give that attention because it's really what builds civilization. So Carrie, I want to go to the deep foundational reasons in a second, but as Noelle just mentioned, you're fighting feminism and wokeism and you're talking about the home at the same time. What's the connection on how is the home fighting wokeism and feminism?

Yeah. No, I think there are several different reasons, but one of the things that I noticed explicitly when I was doing research on, for one of my books, um, anti-marriage exposed was really to recognize how the left has destroyed us by taking on everything about the home, really everything about the culture. And we really just haven't engaged it. And it finally occurred to me, like, why are we not putting out beautiful images with our own message? We've got magazines all the time and we sort of hold our nose and, you know, flip through them. And I thought we could do this. We have an amazing message and people find it really compelling. And, you know, we talk about these these forbidden pictures that are in our books of men that look competent. And, you know, men who chop wood i by the way i this really resonated with me because when i first met sean we lived in a home that needed wood to keep it hot and like sean

would go out and chop wood i know it sounds super antiquated but it was very sexy i didn't have the money ladies i could i had to chop wood and heat the house. Kind of like a little house in a prairie. Yes. Yeah. Yes. It's so interesting because you're right. We do look at magazines. We all love, you know, Pinterest and we all look at magazines. But what's different about these books, and I'm going to hold them up.

They're just beautiful. What's different about it is it's not just about the aesthetics. And Sean will throw some pictures up here. But it's not just the aesthetics. It's the meaning behind what we do. And I don't know. I find myself more and more drawn to the home, the more chaotic and out of my control the rest of the world is.

I found myself just yesterday, I walked out to my garden, there's some bougainvilleas that are growing by a shed in my backyard. And I cut them, and I put them in a little ceramic vase that reminds me of my daughter because she's taking ceramics at at in in college and i put it in front of a picture of mary um that i got at a flea market in sevilla spain of the american conception it's like it is it was this tiny little thing that i did it brought me so much joy it kind of took me away and i'm like it's those tiny little moments that we have that we connect to that I think are so important in the midst of what's happening, both in terms of feminism and where that's taking us in terms of trans world, but also just in terms of the entire political landscape, which seems just really hard to wrap our hands around these days. really hard to wrap our hands around these days. I should say, just to reiterate, I think that you're right that there's, you know, love is in the details. So when you walk into a home, you have that certain care, intention, mindfulness, you really sense it. It's not just walking into sort of a museum show place. There's a difference between luxury and beauty. And I think beauty

points us to something greater, something beyond ourselves, whereas luxury is sort of self-referential. It's about showing off how great I am at decorating or something. But love really is care for others. It's service. And I think that's probably what you were sensing, your family sensed in that taking that care to cut those flowers, that love is in those small details that transport us and transcend us to things beyond. So I spent nine years in Congress, and I realized that if I want to change America, if I want to change the course of our country, even as a member of Congress, I can't do that. The only thing I have control over is my family. And if I want to save America, my motto is save my family, save your family. And it seems like this fits in line with that,

especially at a time when culture says, you know what? Families don't matter. Spouses don't matter. Kids don't matter. Pursue your dreams at work. Marry your corporation. Marry your job. And in the end, you'll be happy. And I think what people are finding is they're getting older and they're lonely. They haven't built the things that last. And it seems like having a beautiful home, which you guys talk about, kind of lends itself to this really kind of happy place that we build and share our lives. A sanctuary. A sanctuary. Thank you, Rachel. Sanctuaries. Yeah. Carrie?

No, and I think that was really the goal. I mean, the main question we asked specifically in the first book is really not how to make our homes beautiful, but why we have this desire to make them beautiful. And we sort of look at really the nuts and bolts of that, the deeper meaning behind it, you know, things like safety and nourishment, comfort, you know, what are all these elements that go into creating a sanctuary instead of like what Noel said, just kind of a beautiful museum, something that's living and breathing and giving life to people where they end up becoming the people that they're meant to be instead of, you know, being stifled, or it's just kind of a hotel where people are fed and eat at night, and then their real life is outside the home. So it's really to help us refocus on that and figure out how to do it,

because I think so many of us didn't grow up in homes like that, or we just don't understand, you know the the pieces of it we've seen the how to decorate but going beyond that i think is has really been lost and that's what we're trying yeah i think that that's really important i mean exactly there's a difference between beauty and luxury there's a difference between seeing a home that looks curated by an interior designer and one that reflects the personality, not just of the homemaker, of the mom, for example, but of the family, you know, and you, you, you're so right, Noel, you sense that when you come in, I think one of the, the greatest compliments I've, I mean,

like I'm on TV, I do all this, the greatest compliment to me is when people come into my house and they love the food they eat and they like, they don't want to leave the table or the counter where we're eating, or they want to stay in the kitchen or they want to, you know, that is for, it's still for me, the greatest source of, of, of pride about my home. And I think that, um, I think Sean, you touched on it so well in that I think people, because they're being told to focus so much on career and on success, and especially women are being told that they're just not finding that sense of fulfillment at the end of it. And I think that's why you rightfully bring up that, you know, the industry is growing in terms of the home, but you have to get to the purpose of it, the meaning. Exactly right. I think that's exactly right. And part of that, I think, is,

you know, speaks to what Sean was talking about. You know, if you want to change the world, change yourself, change your family, and love your family. I think we've made love abstract. I need to love humankind or mankind. Well, I need to love the person in front of me, and the person in front of me and the child that's crying and you know, my husband that's working hard. And I think husbands having that purpose, unity of purpose with the wives really ennobles the whole project, right? So my husband works full time. I was a stay at home mom for a long time. I'm working more now. But when I was a stay at home mom, it made all the world of difference that I sense that when

he came home, he knew this is the important part of my day. I'm driving home from a long day of work and this is when my day really starts because this is what matters. This is where the rubber meets the road. And I think when men don't have that sense of purpose, then it's easy for the wife who's staying home to think, well, this isn't really what life's about. It's out there. That's what I want. And I think that has created some of that distortion. So I love hearing husbands that have that sense that actually I might have the urgency of work in my day, but this is where my heart really is. This is what really matters. Mother Teresa actually said, and it was beautiful, somebody came to her and was like, I want to do this and I want to do that and you're doing this.

And she said, you want to change the world? Go home and love your family. Go home and love your family is the greatest way to change the world. And I do feel really blessed to have a husband, I think, who, like you, Noelle, my path is very similar. I was an at-home mom for 14 years before I started entering, you know, slowly into the workforce. But every day that I was an at-home mom, Sean would come home. before I started entering slowly into the workforce. But every day that I was an at-home mom, Sean would come home, and I kid you not,

he would say, thank you for staying home and making, you know, help with our kids and making dinner and all those things. And it was really important for me to get that validation. Carrie, help us walk a little bit back to where this started, this idea that, because it used to be that on the homestead, husband and wife worked together all the time. And then the industrial revolution comes and men start to go to work and women are home. And then Betty Friedan comes along in, I guess, the early 60s, right? And she's the one who basically makes women start to feel bad about what they're doing in the home. Yeah, no, this has been a fascinating thing to research. And it's going to be in my forthcoming book called The End of Woman that will be out in August.

But no, absolutely. Betty Friedan was very much into the idea that women would not be complete until they left the home. She was a communist. She loved that idea unwittingly. Hitler's idea of, I'll buy to mock fly. That work will make us free. But she knew that she couldn't just come out and say it that way. Certainly not in German.

So she wrote The F the feminine mystique and it's just an amazing book to read because you can see how she's using psychology and all these different ways to really hit on that part of a woman's heart where we react, we feel like we're missing out on something or we're not getting something that we should be getting or you know, just that victimization. She really dials in. FOMO, it's FOMO, fear of missing out, right? You think like everything else is happening out there. Look, I don't want to return to the 50s. I definitely love the idea that women have choices and, you know, technology has done so much to help every one of us women here talking, you know, be both connected to our home and yet have our pulse on what's going out there. So it's not meant to undermine that, but it is still important to understand the prioritization that ultimately what really

matters. I mean, the older I get, the more kids I have, the more I realize that my job is a means to an end, right? Like I love my job and I love the people I work with and I have a lot of fun at my job, but ultimately it's really just a paycheck. So I can be with my family and enjoy my family. And I think most women feel who work outside the home part-time or full-time feel that way at some, on some level. Yeah, no, I think, I think you're right. I mean, we certainly see that in just the, what I call the happiness metrics. When you look at women today, you, 70 and then on. And they wonder what happened to them, you know, why they're not happy and where their life went and where they went wrong. So I think that that's something that we absolutely have to pay attention to. And I

couldn't agree with you more that it's awesome to be able to have this balance, but we have to recognize just what is the largest priority and where do we put our energies first. We'll have more of this conversation after this. As the world's population grows, so does the need for resources like potash to support sustainable food production. This is why BHP is building one of the world's most sustainable potash mines in Canada. Essential resources responsibly produced. This is what BHP has committed to Canada. The future is clear. It's happening now at BHP, a future resources company. To discover how, visit bhp.com slash better future. Okay, so listen, I have not read you guys' book. I'll be honest. But I have seen your books in my house for a very long time. Yeah, I do love it.

I do love them. Now, with that said, I'm going after my own heart here, because your new book, Theology of the Home 3, I'm going to put the cover up here of that. At the Sea. At the Sea, ladies. And now you are speaking my language. He loves the water.

I love my place at the lake. I love it. So I'm not in the sea, I'm loves the water. I love my place at the lake. I love it. So I'm not in the sea. I'm on the lake. And it is some of the best times that my family has together, whether it's a campfire, whether you're swimming or in a canoe or in a boat. Water ski. You're a water ski guy. I love to water ski.

But I think there's something really special about water and family. And I don't know if you guys dig into that in Theology of the Home 3 at the Sea. Tell me about the new book and kind of what lessons can we learn about water and family and home? Yeah, well, I love your example of being at the lake and something that you love that you're sharing now with your family. I think there's something really beautiful about creating a family culture where the natural things you love are passed on because your children sense that exuberance. Yes. We have this third book that came out last year. We actually have a fourth coming out this year.

But the one at the sea, it really wound up being a delight to write. There's so much rich mythology and literary references about the sea for good reason. It's based on the mystery of a human person, the depth of the woman. You know, we have a part on buried treasure about, you know, having to really plunge the depths of who our souls and ponder things in our hearts in order to reveal, you know, who we're supposed to become in relationship to God. And also it speaks to a reverence that we are called to have for nature, right? You hear surfers talking about how if you don't reverence the ocean, it's going to get take you down. We don't we need to

have a reference about our human nature that we have in nature that reverence as well if we want to flourish. And so we talked a lot about that as well. But also the fun stuff, recreation, recreating, you know, that sense of youthfulness that can, you know, entice both the old, the young and the middle aged alike and children. We take our family to the beach every Sunday in summer with all of our friends. And it's a whole day that everyone is delighted and no one's spending any money and everyone's outdoors the whole day. It's wonderful. Yeah. You know, when I think of Sean, so Sean grew up on the lake that we have a little cabin on.

And I never grew up on a lake. I never, you know, had a summer place. His family did. And so we worked really hard as a couple, saving our money until we could finally afford this little place. And then when we had enough, we had to rent it out at first so we could afford to hold on to it. And then eventually we were able to have it to ourselves and renovate it. And we turned the garage, above the garage, we turned into a kid's bunkhouse. It's so great.

Like the kids just have their little space there. But then the kitchen, everything's in the front house. And it's just, when I think about Sean, when he would drive out to the – this is his happy place. I literally – when he was in Congress and he knew that he was going to come to the lake, I felt like he was sort of unzipping this other person. You know, like he would take off whatever the world had on him and the real real sean would come out at the lake and you're right he it is now part of our family culture our children associate all their happiest memories with the lake with their dad teaching them to water ski um with campfires with rainy nights sitting around watching movies um you know with the steel you know the rain on the steel roof

i mean all of those memories. And you're right. We need that time to just unwind. It's part of being human, Carrie, is to have that time. We're coming into summer now. And I think a lot of people are thinking about, what do I want to do this summer? And I think it's an opportunity to think deeper into, you know, and it's not just throw something together, but what does it mean?

But the space that you made. Yeah, I did. She made it. So she kind of. I did put a lot of thought into it. It's a theme that made it. Listen, it's not big at all. Like we're a big family and this is really tight.

Made it a beautiful space, though, that everyone really enjoys the beauty of this little cabin, but also the beauty of the lake and the nature around it. Yeah, no. And I think that's part of it is figuring out what works for your family. Right. In what way, especially if you have a tight space. You know, there's so much that can be done on a shoestring budget as well. And I think it's just a matter of a little bit.

Oh, we were on a shoestring budget, I tell you. But bunk rooms, so far, you know, it's amazing how, how much you can stretch a space with those. And so absolutely finding those things that, that are meaningful, but also, you know, photographs of, of, and memories and all of that, that much richness that don't, you know, cost an arm or a leg too. So if I think that a lot of, especially younger people are like, listen, this has not been the focus of my life. I have not done what you two have done in the theology of the home. And so if a young couple or a young individual is listening to our podcast, what are the couple things they could start to do to go, you know what? I'm going to pay attention to this space around me to make it a better place. What advice do the two of you have on some first steps that people can

take to buy into the theology of the home? I mean, I think the first step is to understand why it's so important, you know, and to understand that there's both mission and fun that you can inculcate in the home. I think it's underrated to say, make your family life and your marriage fun. And part of that, I hear that through what Rachel talked about, spending so much time thinking about how can I facilitate this smaller role for a big family in ways that will be orderly, but also enable us to be together, to have those long periods of time where it's the in-between times where you kind of establish the threads that weave a tapestry of family life through memories and small conversations and the random questions that come up around the dinner table, those very concrete moments. So I think think thinking about I've got a mission here I

want to have a fun family but I also want to have some order I want to have some structure how can I be intentional you know if you don't have particularly skills in interior design sometimes women say I'll tell women ask your most stylish friend exactly Exactly. Yeah. And listen, I love interior design, but I have a friend named Carolina whose dad was an architect. And so just, she's just infused. She just grew up around space. So when I was renovating anything, I never ran, I never did a move without running it by Carolina who, by the way, also had nine kids. So she understood a lot of the things that I was dealing with in terms of space and number of people. But yeah, there's absolutely tap into your best friends to think about these things. And I have always, you know, even in our poorest

days, you know, when, you know, I was an at-home mom and Sean was barely, you know, we're barely surviving. I always felt like I'm home and I understood that my environment affected me. And so I always wanted to do the best I could with whatever I had, because I am very aesthetically like affected. Like I want to be in the prettiest, most comfortable, nice space I could. And I was always drawn to that. And I've always made that a priority in my life, no matter what income I was at. I tried to make it the best I could. And I think that's part of being, I mean, they talk about a homemaker as a bad thing. I think it's a wonderful title to have. I think it's an amazing title to have. And so I took a lot of pride in that. Carrie, I want to talk a little bit about theology of the home, but also the idea of the domestic church, because that really resonated with me as a Catholic. But maybe there's people listening who aren't Catholic, who don't understand

that concept, the domestic church, which is the home. Yeah, I think it's a fascinating question. And a lot of people haven't thought about it because what the idea of the domestic church is, is that it is really an extension of the main church. And you can see similarities. And we go into this again in the first book. Things like light. You know, how important is light? You know,

we look at how much money has been spent on stained glass windows and even Gothic architecture. All of that is to bring more light in. And what is most popular right now, you know, in our homes is having a lot of light. So you can see kind of these trends. And we know that in heaven, there's also light. So you have these elements that sort of extend through, you can say them in different ways, but you can say them about heaven. You can say them about the church and you say them about the home. And that's, you know, again, words like forgiveness, words like safety. Nourishment is another really big one that happens, you know, obviously in our churches. So I think the idea is really to, instead of seeing the churches as a place that we

go and sort of serves us, we become an extension of it. And, you know, hospitality is one of those great ways that we live this out as well. So it's just kind of a micro version of it. But I think, you know, speaking about these young couples too, thinking about how you can think about how important it is to see the family as actually, Noel just used this phrase last week as a cathedral, that it's, there's something that people aren't seeing and they're not used to seeing. And this is one of the reasons why I think hospitality is so important is bringing people into our homes. You know, like you said, people don't want to leave the table and there's something that happens at those tables, but there's a large family and a lot of people, ideas are exchanged and people go away from that table feeling like they know themselves better and the world is a

bit better. And there's something very edifying about it when you have a family that's really trying to live out that domestic church idea. So it's an important one. I think about light. I love natural light. When you don't have natural light, I tell you, when it comes to light bulbs, I am pro-choice. I really hate those LED lights. I just like, I hate them. And lighting is so important. I think another point, Sean, I am a big fan of roundtables. I am obsessed with roundtables for families. I think it facilitates conversation better. No one feels left out. Even our big family has.

We have a roundtable for our daily. But it's a problem. You need a big table when you have a lot of kids and parents to sit around it. So I don't know. What's your take on roundtables? I love roundtables. I'm obsessed. We have a lot.

By the way, we have a long formal table for like thanksgiving i never feel like the conversation is good as good around that you know long rectangle which we have to have because we'll have guests and our round table literally just fits the 11 of us um but the the the long one fits you know all my sister's family and and my brother's. And so we have to do it. So what is it? I just was at our kids' school gala and we had a mix of rectangular 10 tops and round 10 tops. And I kept thinking, please let us be at the round one. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I was thinking too, you know, about the start of the young couple starting out. I remember when we were starting starting out i think i had maybe a budget of ten dollars a month or something to decorate

powering craigslist garage sales i would get used furniture i was a big painter of furniture too yeah there has to be a lot of trial and error until you find your style you can't it's not going to be perfect when you're 22 and starting out but you're going to just start trying things i would tell you a couple too yeah there was a phase in our marriage where rachel was painting so much i thought she was going to pay me that's how that's how crazy she was with painting so talk to us about what what is the theme of the of the fourth book and when does it come out so So the fourth book is actually flowers and flowers as far as decorating and growing. You know, there's so many themes, rich themes between the garden and just the pattern of our lives and the season. So we actually didn't write it. Our good friend,

Emily Malloy wrote it and she's just this amazing, like a Martha Stewart, but so, so talented. She was a florist. She's a cook. She's a baker. She's a stay-at-home mom. Anyway, she raises chickens. I mean, she's just incredible. So we actually did all the photography and it's just a gorgeous, gorgeous book. It was so fun to watch it come together. And so that'll be out in September and it's called Theology of Home Four, Arranging the Seasons. You know, there's such great books. I mean, we're coming up on Mother's Day. There's such a great book for Mother's Day.

What I find is, again, these books are, you can take them in small pieces, right? So it's not like you have to sit down and read the whole book. You can take it in small pieces. You sit down with a cup of coffee and maybe read the whole book. You can take it in small pieces. You sit down with a cup of coffee and maybe read a few pages. There's so much because you guys come from this philosophy background. You take, again, the ordinary and find that deeper meaning in it. And it allows me to ponder and feel better about what I'm doing and more intentional about what I'm doing in the daily. I want to show some of the pictures because the books are beautiful. This is one that really touched me because we do this.

This is a Catholic tradition. On Epiphany, we write the year and the first letter of each of the three wise men's names and the year that's over our doorway. And Sean blesses our home on that day. Every room, ladies. Every room. The kids love it. Yeah.

Even the bathrooms, the kids love that. He blesses. We take, we actually, our family tradition is because we leave our tree up until Epiphany because we celebrate as good as Hispanic. He's Irish, but I'm Hispanic, so we love our Three Kings Day. And he'll cut the—we always have a live tree because he's from Wisconsin. And he cuts a branch and uses that branch with holy water to bless our home. And then he goes outside in the snow.

It's almost always snowing at that time of year. And puts that over our door, and it's a way to mark our home. And so I love that picture. I love this picture, too, of this beautiful family. Big families seem to be coming back. What do you think, Noelle and Carrie? Yeah, I mean, I think so. I think that, you know, there's a way in which we've become a sterile culture, you know, metaphorically and sort of literally. And I think there's something that's so humanly attractive about fruitfulness, both literally and metaphorically. And I think the big family really exemplifies that. And it's sort of a contradiction to the world, right?

It's a conversation of something that's a very different way of living that, you know, people are naturally curious about. And so I always think, you know, my husband and i we almost are become evangelists without even trying because someone finds out we've got children or you know and um all with each other and it's actually curious and then more questions start to come so it it does it does become a really interesting kind of flash point i think in the culture that i think is having a renaissance now. Yeah. So I don't, again, just in our own marriage, I don't know how all couples work, but I'm not an interior decorator. I'm not as interested as Rachel is in this topic. I have my own roles that I take in the house, but what is this? You hang things. I do hang things, sometimes not so well.

But what is the role for men? What is men's role in the theology of the home? Oh, I love that. Yeah, Noel, I'm going to let you answer this because you've written so beautifully on this much more than I have. Yeah, no, I read that book in a chapter in the first book called Balance, and it really is about that idea that the theology know, the theology of home is for men, too. I mean, as it is for working women, you know, in their second book, Profile for Women, women who are spiritual mothers, but not biological mothers. The idea being that it's not a strict stay at home mom that is going to care about theology of home. It really is all of us because we all are human. And home is a very human and supernatural

experience, right? Where we get the sense of belonging, being rooted in our history and our ancestry, but also being pointed towards something beyond, you know, it's both speaks to belonging, but also a longing, you know, that longing for the perfect home in us deeply and innately. And I think it's not just about the four walls of a beautiful home. It's about a longing to finally be able to just be, be at rest, be perfectly happy, be in a place of love. And there's, you know, deep spiritual connotations there. So I think that it's for everyone because it speaks to something in everyone. And it's a team effort then? I mean, obviously, the different roles, but both. Complimentary. male and female. Yeah, I think that, you know, my husband, even though he's been the work, you know, we're a career man all of his life. And I was a stay

at home mom, even in those days, it felt very much like a team effort. It took me a bit to get there. Because I remember thinking, oh, he's doing all the fun stuff. I'm, you know, stuck here. And I was complaining a lot. And the kids are crying and this and that. The house is a mess and I can't stay on top of it. And then finally I realized, you know, how does that feel to come home to me? It's awful. I can relate to that. You're saying I don't have to look at fabrics.

No, no. You know, go ahead, Noel. So he cooks a lot, but he does not look at fabrics. You don't have to do things that you can't do. You know, this idea of being human, that the home is really where we're most human, I just keep thinking how important that is, Carrie, especially as we enter into this new age of AI. I mean, what are the limits of that? And like how much more important is what humans can do

and only humans can do? You know, I know they were talking about AI companions and we're all going to have this AI concierge who's going to, you know, be sort of like our friend. I mean, it's just so scary because in the end, and I don't think it's that scary, actually, because I don't think it will ever truly replicate what we are, what we bring into our homes, what we give to our family and children. What Sean and I have together can never be duplicated by some, you know, artificial intelligence. Yeah. No, I think, I mean, the whole idea of Theology at Home actually really came from the idea that we're trying to get our, everyone that we love to home, which is heaven. I mean, that's really the goal in life. That was what animated all of it. And,

you know, movies end with home, the hero goes home. There's something about that. And so this idea that we, we are kind of can be robots, or we can become robots, it is not a Christian idea. I mean, this is actually a communist idea. Yes. You know, Polish, it's a robotnik. It's very much, you know, comes from from communism. So the fact that we could even imagine that those doing those sterile things with just a robot is somehow going to fulfill our lives is incredibly sad. And I think that's really just where tech has taken us is this idea that if we just have one more thing, then we're going to be happy. And that's really, those are the things

that are really calling into question. Like, no, that's not fundamentally what what is going to make you happy as a human person. But this idea of struggle and suffering and service and and being a gift and there's being a gift for you. of feminism, because that's what the one thing we've tried to wipe out for women. And for men as well, is there's no responsibility when no one is vulnerable. So really trying to look at the gifts that come from, you know, a newborn baby, and and the all of that beauty that comes, you know, from forming a family, I think is really important in terms of contextualizing AI and it's in its proper sense. I'm glad I didn't get that question, Carrie. I didn't know where that was going to go. Well, no, I mean, I just think like, you know, as I talk, as I think about all of these things, and we've been having a lot of talk about AI on, on, you know, Fox and Friends. I mean, it's, we don't have much time before this really starts

to take over, which is why Elon Musk and those people have weighed in on it and say, hey, we need some ethicists. We need some – I was saying last week, we need some theologians on this before we get down this road. But ultimately, what it makes me want to do, and I have to believe that I'm not the only one, it makes me want to go home. It makes me want to get chickens, even though I hate chickens and I'm afraid of them. And he wants me to get chickens. But it makes me want to get chickens, even though I hate chickens and I'm afraid of them. And he wants me to get chickens, but it makes me want chickens. It makes me want to plant a garden, which we're going to do. And it makes me want to, it makes the things that are real and things that I can touch and feel and the people that I love. It makes all of that so much more important because everything, that other thing is such a facsimile. And so when we talk about the home,

I mean, a lot of times we spend time talking about when we talk about the cabin, Sean, what can we do to take tech out of our home so that we actually have more human experience? Noelle? Yeah, absolutely. In my book, Awake, Not Woke, I talk a lot about how, you know, we can take efforts to try to stop this movement. But first and foremost, we can stop it from coming into our lives, right? As much as possible. And that oftentimes is through technology. Technology is a beast. Once you let it in, you know, every teenager is just going to become almost inevitably addicted to it. And I think it's trying to, you know, take away the hidden, the interior life of

our soul. You know, I think that's part of what the progressive ideology does, is that there's no spiritual life. We're all political. And so we have to be doom scrolling and reading every bit of the news cycle and not having any room left for silence, for prayer, for community with our family. So I think you're absolutely right that it is about coming home, not only to keep all of that out, but also because we're building something within. It's a positive vision of what our life can be. We're not just having a reactionary negative criticism of what's going on out there. No, there's actually something really beautiful that we're building in these four walls that we call home.

You know, I think it's fascinating. We all want to pass our faith off to our kids. We want our kids to get a good education, but they watch everything we do and how we do things and how you set up your home. The philosophy of your home is actually passed off to your kids. And what a great way to kind of, as they go start their own lives, as they get older and they hopefully get married, that they'll actually replicate what you actually started in your own home, setting it up the right way. And how that can actually spread and have positive impacts, not just for these new little families they start, but the friends that come over. I get kind of depressed, you guys, about how the country's going. Rachel hears me all the time talk about this.

And again, if we do go back to faith and family in our homes, I do think that there's a possibility you can save the country. But everyone has to do it. Yeah, and I think it's so simple. We had a panel of psychologists on our show last weekend, and the topic was just these exploding depression rates. And I agreed with some of what some of the psychologists were saying, not with what one of them was saying, whatever. The point was, the thing that came to me, and I kind of blurted it out because that's kind of my nature, is I said, what about just family dinner? I mean, it's so simple. It's kind of my nature.

As I said, what about just family dinner? I mean, it's so simple. I mean, we try and complicate things so much. It's not that hard to make dinner and make everyone sit around. And they have proven that the depression levels for children reduce when they have family dinners multiple times a week, that their grades are higher, that they're less likely to do drugs. They're less likely to have premarital sex. It's like, wow, why isn't that like, you know, front page news? I mean, we could all do it. And it's not always easy with all the sports and everybody. But maybe that's what we need to be grappling is why are we prioritizing, you know, practice six days a week instead of dinner four days or five days a week.

I mean, one night a week or even one night a week. Exactly. Yeah, no, I think you're, you're absolutely right. That what an amazing thing that does. And even bringing in people that are lonely. I know at one point we, my husband and I were living near a gentleman who had just been widowed and he would come to our house every night for dinner and we had a brand new baby and it was just amazing to see how his life was changed and our life was changed too just by having that relationship for you know just a few months of our life um so absolutely and even simple things like a bonfire you know i mean that can go a long way you just need some wood and marshmallows you know this is not a big endeavor and yet um you, that's, that's where just

amazing conversations happen. And, you know, people are just a kind of joy happens there. That doesn't always happen at the dinner table, too. So I think these very simple ways of just being together, you know, around some kind of activity like that goes so far. Well, I just want to thank you both for for writing these books, for creating a space for all of us to talk and think deeply about our family culture. What are we doing? How are we being more intentional? The things we do every day, the meals we make, how it's more than just food, it's nourishing to our souls that there's so much that is contained in these four walls that are so much more important than what the world is offering outside of there.

And I think that we have lost some of that. And for a lot of people, they can't reach back into their, you know, their parents' life or their grandparents' life because it was already lost by then. But these books are so helpful because I think for people who are just trying to even learn how to do that, how to create traditions, how to create spaces that make families work and converse and share. I think it's beautiful what you've done, that you've taken this deep education that you've had, all the philosophy you've studied, and you've put it into something that lasts, that has true meaning, and that is family and home and faith.

And so it's theology of the home, the spiritual art of homemaking, theology of the home, finding the eternal in the everyday, theology of the home at sea. And there's more coming. I encourage you to get them for Mother's Day. They're really great gifts. And I think you guys are doing amazing work. Just last thought, Noelle, and then I'll go to you, Carrie, for your last thought. Yeah, I was just thinking while you're talking, my father passed away last year, but he had two children, my sister and myself. We each had six, so 12 grandchildren. And those grandchildren are starting to marry and build their own families now.

So you think about even one example of one couple, how much exponentially this spreads and doing it well is the most important endeavor we can, I think, undertake. We're forming our children to those small, everyday actions that build memories and create lives. We also have a website, theologyofhome.com. We've got a blog and a daily email. People want to subscribe for free there, too. But it's been great chatting with you both. And Carrie maybe has some last words, too. Awesome. Yeah, I was just going to say, you know, I think Noelle and I have been really humbled by this, because when this book came out, there was really nothing like it. And we sort of thought, well, it'll do well. It'll just be gone, you know, and it just feels like a snowball. It just keeps

building. In fact, it's, it's being translated into at least four different languages. Now, one of them is Chinese. And, um, we hear we're sort of a mainstay at bridal showers and, and baby showers. And anyway, I think we're just feel very humbled and honored by the experience of being able to help women really understand who they are and kind of creating a new grammar for women to be able to speak of themselves. Because, of course, we know the culture is not providing that. So I think that's been just the greatest honor for both of us. So thank you again.

I've gifted them for wedding gifts as well. So they are great wedding gifts, a great way to start to think about how you start something. Yeah. Carrie Noel, thank you for joining us. And by the way, it's great to have a career path that makes people's lives better and their society richer. So thank you for writing wonderful books. And thanks for joining us on The Kitchen Table. You guys are wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. God bless you both. Great job. Thank you guys. We'll have more of this conversation after this. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans,

and having your unused data roll over to the following month every month. At Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at Fizz.ca. They were amazing guests, Sean. And you know, it's super sincere. I really love what they're doing. I think it's so important for women to really reflect on what they're doing and understand how valuable it is. And they're right. I mean, the culture does not value what we do. And yet it has so much meaning to the people around us, our children.

And, you know, she talked a little bit about, like, having a newborn. She was talking about having a newborn baby and having that neighbor come over. But it just made me think about how much work a newborn baby is. You know, we've done that every single time. But if you focus on just the work part and to just have that space to think about what you're building and what you're growing. And I just feel like their books give women that space to reflect. I just feel like their books give women that space to reflect. You know, there's a lot of themes in culture, especially today, that I think are so destructive, that are so not very healthy.

Yeah. And here you have a couple of ladies who are good, faithful Catholics who are like, you know what? We're going to put out a different set of ideas that can actually make people's lives, homes, families richer. And I think that's so important. I mean, everyone chipping away at this rot of culture and trying to bring light into these different spaces of people's lives, maybe through their home, I think is so cool. And that's why, by the way, I was excited we had them on. Again, I haven't read the books, just to be honest, but Angela has, because I've seen them in my house. I do.

I pick them up if I'm having them. Yeah, yes, I have. And I'm really excited about Theology of the Moon. Sean, I really thought so much when I was, I had talked to them yesterday, knowing that they were going to come on. And that's when I found out that they had this The at the sea, and I had not seen it. And I thought so much about, you know, you mentioned the complementarity of, you know, like what men do in the home versus what women do at home. I think about what you do for a family that, you know, I don't do. Like, I think I do a really good

job of creating this space called home and making it comfortable and making it so that it works. It's not easy to make a homework for nine kids and two adults and now more because Zavida's married and Michael's our son now and all this stuff that's happening. But I think that what you have done, because they talked about family culture, and I think what you've done at the lake, that it was so important to you, even when we didn't think we could afford it, to try and find a way to get a little place on the lake that we could go to and we could kind of create those memories with our kids.

But even vacations, I mean, you are the one that goes, all right, if we don't get the family vacation on the calendar, it's not going to happen because we're all so busy. And, you know, the last vacation we took, you know, we have now three adult kids. And getting them to get home and to the vacation spot and planning that out and trying to gather up your points that you saved so that we could afford the hotel with all these kids and everything that you did. I mean, that and we looked back on those pictures the other day, and it was like, wow, that was such a great time.

But it takes planning, and it takes a father and a mother to go, this matters. This family matters. This time for our family to, you know, recreate and relax and unwind and just have no work and no phones and just hang out. That matters. And I think that's something that, you know, you have done really well for our family. I've lived my whole life in Wisconsin. We moved to New Jersey when you got the weekend show because I wanted us all to be together. But the conversation right now in our house is, when are we going to the cabin?

Yeah, it is. How are we going to get there? How long are we going to be there? Because I have the show on Fox Business, the bottom line. And so I don't have as much freedom and flexibility as I used to have. So I have to kind of navigate this time frame that we get to go spend together. Let's just be honest. When you got the job, there were some moments where he was like, this job is going to interfere with my cabin time.

And you were like, should I take this job? I was wildly honored that I got offered the job. Lack of flexibility. But I was like, that's the one thing I'm like, but it's going to affect my cabin time. Also, I hurt my shoulder speed climbing last summer. Yeah. And I'm supposed to get it fixed. But I'm like, I can't get it fixed in the summer because I've got to spend the summer with the kids in the lake.

And I'll be able to do it in the fall, I think. He literally is supposed to get surgery on his shoulder. And he postponed it until the fall because he didn't want to be out of commission with his shoulder when the kids were at the cabin and he's driving the boat and he's teaching them how to water ski and long roll and all the things we do at the cabin i just think i'm just on that on that space as we all come into the summer um and again whether you're going on a camping trip whether you're doing a staycation where you're doing a little or you're going to the beach for the day or building a campfire when i was young um we'd always in the in our backyard we would build a campfire. Or you're going to the beach for the day. Yeah, beach for the day or building a campfire. When I was young,

when I was in our backyard, we would build a campfire. We'd all go out there and sit around back by the jack pine trees, which are ugly pine trees, but we'd go sit back there. I think it's pretty back there. It's your house back here. Whether we do marshmallows or hot dogs or not even that, we'd just build a fire. You can do that at your house.

And it's such, as the ladies mentioned i think nicole and noelle mentioned this that just the campfire and sitting around the campfire does so much to kind of create a new space for your family to sit and tell stories and philosophize and shoot the breeze or listen to music like it like when we're at the cabin it's so interesting it's like because we have kids from some different ages. And so like we're like listening to their music and then they're listening to our old music. And like just creating those family music memories of.

I'm not a prude, but some of the new music. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, no. No, yeah. You got little kids like, no, no, no. But it is something. Or you created the little gym in the garage at the cabin. And so in the mornings, the garage door goes up.

You and Michael and Evita and working out and listening to music. Or I like to go on walks with the girls. I mean, there's just these things that we do that they seem like they're not important. And yet, they're the most important things we're doing. And every family has those little things that they do. And I think we have to lean into more of those instead of pulling away. And I think the culture, if they beat us, is that they get us to pull away.

And if we all start leaning in and focusing on our family. Well, you said something the other day that was so interesting. You said, you know, the left, the secular progressive left, she talks, you know, Carrie talked about as the communist. A lot of the things that you're seeing happening are very much part of that communist idea of, you know, that, you know, the state must be greater than the family. of, you know, that, you know, the state must be greater than the family. The culture has taken,

the progressive secular leftists have taken over all these different spaces. And the last one to fall is the family. I mean, and they've taken, they've, listen, they've gotten very far in terms of taking over and breaking down the family. But when you see people like Carrie, when you see people like Noel so intentional about the home, these are the true counterculturals. These are the real revolutionaries. To have a large family, to be focused on the home, to be intentional about faith and family bonds, that is revolutionary in our time right now. And that is what we want to focus on. That is what we – this is why these books resonate. We don't use our podcast to sell things ever. I'm telling you, these are some very well thought out. It's just I can't recommend them enough.

So the last line of defense is going to be the family. Yeah. And that's why we have to fortify them. And that's where we relaunch and kind of take back some common sense traditional principles and fight the commies. Fight the commies pushing back. By in your house. By just having a family dinner. You're fighting the communists. Fight the commies by having a campfire. By in your house. By just having a family dinner, you're fighting the communists.

Fight the communists by having a campfire. By having a campfire. You don't have to dig a farm. Just have a campfire. You're beating the communists when you do that. So fight on. Forge on. Fortify the family.

Secure it. Have a family. Have babies. Get married. Can I tell you the other day a friend of mine said, are you worried that your kids, you know, are youngest or oldest, got married at 22 years old, are now an 18-year-old daughter, has, you know, a boyfriend. And they're like, are you worried that they're in serious relationships?

And I'm just like, no. I want my kids to find love, to get married, to have babies. That's what life's about. I don't know. That's what we're on earth to do. So I say jump in, two feet. Sometimes a little later, a little maturity doesn't hurt too. I mean, I'm not saying I'm 22.

I do wonder. I got married at, how old was I? 27, 28. 27, 28. 27, 28. I do wonder if I would have found, if I had met you at 22 and I have married you. I don't know. Maybe. I mean, maybe, maybe, maybe.

I don't think it would have worked. I don't think it would have rolled that way. I actually do. I actually do. Well, I hope so. I hope that's the case because, you know, it's true love. Well, listen, if you like our podcast. It's true love.

Thank you for that. It is true love. Please rate, review, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. We'd appreciate that. We love doing this podcast every week, having a conversation with really cool people that are having an impact on culture and society like Carrie and Noel have done with The Theology of the Home. So we appreciate it. Again, by the way, rating, reviewing, and subscribing. Very important.

Really important. So show us some love. We love each other. We love our families. We love our podcast, too. All right. You can download it at foxnewspodcast.com. Bye-bye.

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