Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 569 | Kim & Kanye, 'Conscious Co-Parenting' & Disrupting God’s Order | Guest: Delano Squires

Episode Date: February 22, 2022

Today we're talking to Delano Squires, a BlazeTV contributor and contributor to "Fearless with Jason Whitlock." We're discussing several trending cultural stories and how they represent not only a society in moral decline, but also a society that is turning farther away from God. Following her split with Kanye West, Kim Kardashian has announced that she's chosen "herself" as her next partner, an excellent example of how we glorify self-centeredness. CNN's Van Jones told the world that he will be raising his kid as a "conscious co-parent," showing that people no longer understand the importance of the nuclear family. And, we couldn't talk about Clown World without bringing up Lia Thomas, who is blowing the competition out of the water all but literally. This probably has something to do with the fact that Lia is a grown man competing against women.  --- Today's Sponsors: Annie's Kit Clubs sends their Genius Box to your young scientists - each month they'll receive a new box bursting with 3 hands-on activities to explore an exciting STEM theme like geology, chemistry, aerodynamics & more. Perfect for kids ages 7-12. Go to AnniesKitClubs.com/ALLIE to save 50% off your first box! Chamonix by Genucel's new Ultra Retinol Cream uses clinical concentrations of a natural alternative to correct red-inflamed skin, visibly reduce wrinkles, and even out skin tone. Made for sensitive skin, it's effective hydration for all skin types ... & perfect for men & women! Go to Genucel.com/ALLIE to get their Ultra Retinol Cream FREE when you order their most popular package at over 60% off! Plus get an extra discount by entering promo code 'ALLIE' at checkout — and if you bundle your skin care favorites at the new Genucel.com, you'll save an extra 10%. And ... free priority shipping for a limited time! Good Ranchers sells 100% American meat & having them in your fridge makes meal time easy, convenient, & less stressful. Right now, get $30 off your order at GoodRanchers.com/ALLIE & use promo code 'ALLIE!' Good Ranchers: American meat delivered. --- Previous Episode Mentioned: Ep 565: The Women Saving Women's Sports | Guest: Ainsley Erzen https://apple.co/35i8RZc --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed.

You can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey, guys, welcome to relatable. Happy Tuesday. This episode is brought to you by Good Ranchers, Better Than Organic Chicken Craft Beef, shipped right to your front door. That is American Meat delivered. Go to Good Ranchers.com slash All right, guys.

Today, we are talking to Delano Squires. He is a contributor for The Blaze and he is a writer. He's got so much insight that he is going to share with us today. We are talking about Van Jones and his announcement that he just had a child, not with his ex-wife, who he has two children with, but with another woman, they are calling it conscious co-parenting because they're not actually romantically involved. They are just friends who wanted to have a child.

So he's going to tell us, what is, that mean about our culture and how we view family? Why is this problematic? We're also going to talk about Kim and Kanye. And then we're going to talk about Leah Thomas, this swimmer that we've talked about several times, and how the rejection of God's created order as is demonstrated in all of these stories is damaging to our society. He is such a wise person. And guys, when I say that he speaks our language in the things that he says and how he talks about them, I mean it. You are going to love him and love this conversation. So without further ado, here is our friend Delano Squires. Delano, thank you so much for joining us. For those who may not know,

can you tell everyone who you are and what you do? Sure. My name is Delano Squires. I am a contributor here at the Blaze. They know me as Professor D. I'm known as Professor D on Fearless with Jason Whitlock. I'm a Christian. I'm a husband, father of three, homeschool dad, and I've been writing for public consumption for the better part of the last 10 years. First with a site called Black and Married with Kids, then I wrote for the root, a couple pieces on the griot, then I had my own blog for a period of time, and then I wrote for the Federalist, and I've been with the Blaze since last July.

Wow. And one thing that I want to talk to you about, just briefly, before we get into what we will actually be discussing today. You're a homeschool dad of three. We have a lot of homeschool parents out there. A lot of people who are considering homeschool, especially over the past couple of years, they're kind of intimidated by the prospect. Can you tell us how you and your wife decided that you wanted to homeschool your kids and what that looks like on a day-to-day basis? Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. Our oldest is six. So we have a six-year-old, a three-year-old who turn four in July and then our last just turned two last week. So really our oldest is the one

who gets the bulk of the instruction. Yes. But we really decided it honestly after just a number of years of discussing how we're going to do child care and school. My wife is actually, prior to coming home, she worked as a social worker. And we realized that right before the pandemic, right before our third was supposed to be born, that the prospect of paying for daycare for a second child meant that she was going to be spending her entire day taking care of other people's children, and we were going to be paying someone to take care of ours. So part of it was a practical decision, you know, sort of based on dollars and cents, but honestly, a big part of it was just us growing in our faith, and particularly me,

because when she first floated the idea of coming home years ago, I thought she was joking about it. And I realize now that my mind had been justice conditioned by sort of, you know, feminist thought around women's primary place being in the workplace and being wage earners, that I just didn't consider the impact of having her home with our children, particularly in their early years. So part of it was just, you know, our faith developing, listening to, you know, people like Pastor Voddy Bakum, who I know you are a big fan of, and your audience is probably a big fan of,

hearing him explain that when Christians send their children to be educated by Caesar, that we shouldn't be surprised when they come home acting like Romans. And we start to see with our oldest at her public charter school, they had up some materials, you know, around Black Lives Matter. They had A is for activists in the school library. And even though I don't think it touched her classroom because, I mean, she was in the youngest, she was in the pre-K three class. And I think her teachers were, you know, really dedicated to helping the children develop,

like those basic building blocks. When I emailed the principal and asked, hey, do you all know what these groups stand for? What is your position on them? I never heard a response. So that was one of the final straws for me, but a big part of it was just thinking about my duty, particularly as a Christian father, to educate our children. And I see education is equal parts, scholarship and discipleship. So once I started to reframe the issue that way, making that decision with my wife became

a lot easier. And you mentioned that this happened as your faith grew, and you grew. and wisdom and understanding. And of course, as we grow in the fear of the Lord, we do grow in wisdom. And that means a lot of things change. I'm curious if your politics also changed. You mentioned that you wrote for The Root, which is a pretty left-wing publication. I'm not sure what the subject of your articles was.

But have your politics changed as your faith and worldview have evolved? That's a great question. in some ways they have. 2020 was the first time I ever voted for a Republican, you know, in any election. Part of it, I mean, I grew up in New York City. There weren't that many Republicans to vote for. And I didn't become, you know, eligible to vote until I went off to college anyway. But I was raised in a home, raised by a church-going family.

So I've always been in and around the church as a kid. And I would say that the personal views of, you know, my parents and relatives and church family members have always would be considered conservative, even if, you know, their voting record wasn't. So, so in some respects, my politics have changed. I think the biggest part of it is just trying to, you know, apply a biblical worldview to every issue I encounter. So even the interesting thing is that even when I wrote for the route, my articles were on. One was the lessons my father taught me. So that was like a Father's Day tribute. One was talking about Bill Cosby and the fact that members of the left really started to have disdain for Cosby after his pound cake speech. It wasn't the allegations of sexual assault.

And another one was a critique of Republicans, particularly black Republicans, but particularly black Republicans. based on how they would do outreach to potential black voters. And long before people heard of Candace Owens, there was a woman named Crystal Wright, known as GOP Black Chick. And on the first day, I think it was February 1st, 2016, so it was basically the first day of Black History Month. She was on, you know, Fox and Friends and called black people, I think it was politically ignorant, political dummies.

That's what it was. And I sort of get the point she was making in terms of her thoughts that, you know, black voters were being abused by the left. But I just thought that was a totally wrong way to go about it. So I was calling balls and strikes, you know, even back then. But, you know, to your question, I think in some ways my politics have evolved. And I think more than anything, I have started to see more clearly the types of the impact of the policies that the left pushes, and particularly in the black community. So even something, for instance, like President Obama's opposition to the voucher program in D.C., you know, where I'm located, you know, when he came into

office, he said his daughters couldn't go to D.C. public schools. And then the first thing he did when he got in office was try to cut a voucher program that actually served low-income residents in the city. And I started to realize that the left's promotion of diversity is really superficial representation masking as, you know, legitimate, you know, political interests. Right. And once I realized that, I said, like, this is just smoke and mirrors. A lot of times these policies don't really benefit us. They really serve the politicians who are promoting them and their interests, the teachers' unions.

and in the case of, you know, abortion, plant parenthood, and so on and so forth. So I think over the last couple of years, I've just evolved in some of those areas. And for lack of a better term, the scales have been lifted off of my eyes. Yeah, I think that happens for all of us in one way or another as we try to apply more accurately a biblical worldview. That doesn't necessarily mean we come to all of the same conclusions when it comes to different policy issues, but we certainly see about a number of ideas that the things that we thought before just weren't true or we saw them in the wrong way and we see a fuller picture now.

It really is amazing how biblical wisdom really dies enlighten us and the practical and the political and the social as well. One area that I think that you are just so strong in that you really have been a beacon of light in is talking about the family, not just, you know, the black family, but the family in general, the family that God created mom, dad, children, and the importance of the cohesion of the family. And I came across one of your articles that you shared on Twitter for The Blaze talking about Van Jones and his friends deciding to engage in what he is calling conscious co-parenting. So he was married. He had two kids with his wife. He divorced her. in 2018 or they got a divorce in 2018.

So people were kind of surprised that, okay, he had another kid, a girl, just recently, and that he says that he is parenting with a woman who he's just friends with. Tell me your take on this. Is this, you know, a fine alternative to a married mom and dad having kids together? That was a nice alley-up, Ali. I mean, I think what the ideas that Van Jones is promoting are incredibly harmful because in his announcement, he didn't just say, I'm doing this. This is a private decision, you know, between me and my friend. He said, this is a model for parenting that I think other people should explore. And I think that was really one of the most harmful things about it. And what I've written before for the lays and in other venues is that issues around family, you're right, it's not just the black family, but I focus in that area for particular reasons, and I can mention those really quickly.

Yeah. But, you know, this issue in terms of family breakdown to me is the single biggest social issue facing our country today. And when people like Van Jones or other celebrities on the left erode the natural family, one man, one woman for one lifetime, you know, committed to each other and the well-being of their progeny, it really has impacts that go, that reverberate far outside of their households. So I think it's one of these things where, you know, sometimes people and celebrities do this a lot where they will adopt an alternative lifestyle, quote unquote, and then try to come up with language and new concepts to try to try to try to. try to justify it for the masses. This almost never happens in the reverse, right? So a lot of the things that we've accepted, even some of the issues around, you know,

sex and gender identity have only found firm footing in our society because of who's promoting them, right? If transgender ideology and gender theory was being pushed up from mechanics at the Jiffy Lou, nobody would take them seriously. But because they come from the Ivy Tower and the academy, then people, you know, grant them a level of legitimacy that they, that they shouldn't have. So I think what Van Jones is doing is extremely harmful. And I hope it's not something that catches on, and particularly in this day and age where I said so many children across ethnic groups are being raised by parents who aren't married. And I'm of the position that, and this is where I want to be

specific in terms of, you know, what I'm saying, I don't equate not married to father absence or father abandonment. And sometimes on the right people will use those terms interchangeably. They'll say, for instance, you know, 80% of black kids are abandoned by their fathers. And that's not true. Now, what you can say is between 70, 75% of black children are born to unmarried parents. Now, that is true. And that, again, you can chart, you can see that rise in non-marital birth across groups. But I think it's good to be to be specific about what we're talking about. And as I said, I think what Van Jones is doing is pretty, pretty destructive.

Yeah. And, you know, I raise some questions on Twitter. What happens if one of them gets a new job and has to move away? What happens if one of them decides to get married and wants to have kids with someone else? And so there are all kinds of different logistical questions about this. and of course some pushback that I got was, all right, but that could happen with anyone.

That's true if any relationship, that could happen in a marriage, or that could happen, you know, with any two people. And my response would be, well, that's actually the point, whether they're dating or not anytime, especially. This, I think, brings it to another ethical and moral level in a problematic way that they are purposely creating a child outside the bonds of marriage. It's not that, oh, this was a surprise pregnancy.

or, oh, you know, they were married. They had a child and something happened. You know, circumstances happen. That's unfortunate. They're purposely creating a child outside the bonds of marriage. And my point is in bringing up all these questions, what if this happens, what if this happens, is not to say, okay, this particular scenario is, you know, practically different than if they were dating. My point is that, yeah, these are the questions you have to ask anytime you bring life into the world when you're not married.

Marriage is a child-friendly. institution. As you talked about in this article, the data has been in for decades that when kids are born to a present mother and father, when the mother and father are in the home, they simply have a greater chance of emotional and social and even financial success. That doesn't mean that the child that is born to a single mom or who is even abandoned by mom, whatever it is, can't have a successful life or that they won't thrive and have a wonderful family and be productive one day. But the best foundation for a child is a married mother and father. To me, it is unethical. It is entirely unethical in immoral to, like I said, deliberately bring a child into a situation that is going to be

inherently unstable and insecure, going from house to house, not really knowing fully who they belong to, knowing that your parents don't love each other. And it just goes back to me to this narcissistic age that we live in, that we believe that we have a right to have a child, we don't have a right to have a child, that we basically view having children is just kind of something that if we want to, we can check it off the box and we imagine that children are just, you know, endlessly adaptable, that they can just do whatever we say, oh, they'll be fine, they'll be fine, they'll be fine. But it's not true. Children are not fine.

They actually need some kind of stability and security in their life that is really brought to them by marriage. Absolutely. I mean, you hit on so many key points. I use this analogy, right? There's a difference between, you know, someone on a road trip who gets a flat tire and has to drive from, I don't know, Houston to Dallas on a spare and going in and purchasing a brand new car, right, that already has a spare tire on it and going to the manufacturer.

and saying, hey, what's going on in this vehicle? And they say, well, we've decided since it's possible to drive long distances with a spare, that for the sake of, you know, cost-cutting measures, we're going to start building all of our cars that way. Because we all know intuitively that the best way to get, you know, efficient usage out of your vehicle is for it to have four fully functional tires. Now, you can, again, you can ride on a spare for a period of time. But no one would advise that you build cars that way.

Right. And in the same way, it takes two people to make a child, but somehow our society has been convinced that it only takes one to raise them. And I also think that this discussion would be entirely different if, for instance, 40% of mothers lived separately from their children. because no one debates the importance of mothers when it comes to the rearing of children, but somehow for fathers, they become expendable in some respects. And I think a big part of that has to do with, you know, financial security. And financial security is important, right? I believe every child is entitled to be, you know, supported by both mother and father.

But when you look at men as just a paycheck, what you end up doing is sort of supporting the argument of people who say, well, single motherhood or single parenthood in generally is not as is not particularly bad if the woman in question has the resources to support a child. Right. And what you end up doing is losing the part of fatherhood that's about, you know, the protection of your child, the affirmation of their worth and dignity, the types, the ways in which fathers interact with children differently. We play differently.

We encourage them to take more risks. Sometimes we discipline differently. And children need both of those things. But for some reason, we've convinced ourselves that, you know, dads don't particularly matter. We're like the cultural appendix, right? Great if you have one, but not particularly necessary. Yeah.

And I think that's a really, really bad move. Hey, this is Steve Dase. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular.

This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. You know, gosh, that's a really good point that fathers are seeing as more expendable, it seems like, than mothers. And yet, you know, because I have talked recently and have had a few guests on talking about really the corruption that's in the surrogacy industry.

And also I had I had someone who is an advocate for the right of children to have a mother. and a father. There are a lot of ethical and moral problems with the reproduction industry. And one of them is that through a lot of these processes, a child is taken away from either their biological mother or their biological father to be raised by two moms or to be raised by two dads. And because of that, you're actually seeing a phenomenon that we've never seen before in human history and that is motherlessness. So you have a child that is being raised by two dads. They, you know, picked a surrogate and an egg donor maybe out of the catalog and they have this child because like a lot of people today like Van Jones, they think they have a right to have a child,

no matter the ethical questions. And so now you are creating a generation of kids who their mother is actually seen as expendable. That is, I'm not saying that that's better or worse than the father being seen as expendable. I'm just saying, I don't even think that we have seen the repercussions of that long term. We've kind of seen, unfortunately, fatherlessness throughout history. It's much more difficult for a woman to do that just because she's physically attached to her child. There's even more bonding that happens when that child is born.

So we've seen, unfortunately, the damaging effects. of fatherlessness throughout history. Now we are actually manufacturing motherlessness, which just goes to show that when we view children as basically, you know, possessions, when we don't take the formation of the family seriously, which I think goes back to not taking God seriously, as the authority over and the creator of all of these things, there's going to be really serious consequences for kids who, by the way, don't consent to any of this and unfortunately are forced into a situation where they don't know their mom or dad. Yeah, and I said that in the articles, like the adults want to reap the benefits, but the children are the ones who pay the cost.

Yeah. I mean, you hit the nail on the head again. I think in many respects, our culture sees children as trinkets, as barbles, as, you know, a capstone on a self. you know, self-fulfilled life. And I think all of those things, as you said, have a tremendous impact on the fabric of society, on the well-being of children. You know, I also mentioned in the column how in generations past, the children of divorced parents would be seen as sympathetic, you know, sort of victims in some respects, collateral damage of the fallout and breakdown of relationship between a mom and a dad. But now with the genre of divorce made me better essays and books, primarily by women, children don't even factor into that. So when the woman who wrote that recent

essay in the Atlantic said that she destroyed her family, I mean, the children really were an afterthought. They were only mentioned to the extent that, you know, she said, well, now we have, two apartments and the kids go in between both. But who knows how that is going to affect children and her children, both now and in long term. And a lot of times people focus on obviously the well-being, the financial security for kids. But one of the key benefits of marriage, and particularly in family formation in the way that God designed it, is that it has incredible modeling benefits for children. When kids get to see mom and dad up close, negotiating their relationship, loving and respecting one another, and seeing what the type of

security and safety that brings, that gives them something to model their own relationships after. But if all they know is adults who either don't or can't commit to one another or adults who commit to one another and then break up because one of them says, I don't feel fulfilled. I'm tired of being known only as your mom or dad or, you know, your wife or husband. I think it makes it a lot more difficult for those children to then want to have, you know, marriages of their own. And I think that's part of the reason we're starting to see this,

and particularly among millennials, who grew up hearing, you know, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage. And now our living, if I had to make a new rhyme, I'd say, you know, Chris and Jessica staring at their screens, T-E-X-T-I-N-G, first comes sex, then comes baby, then comes marriage, but that's a big maybe, right? The paradigm is completely sure.

shifted where we're putting the cart before the horse and the kid has totally dropped off the cart. So, you know, I think it's one of those things where we are doing a lot of social experimentation in this country around gender, gender identity, sex, sexuality, family formation. And we have no idea what the doors we're opening will bring forward in the, you know, years to come. Yep, absolutely. We say a lot on this show that children are always the unconsenting subjects of progressive social experiments, whether it is the redefinition of marriage and the family, whether it's reproductive technology, a lot of forms of reproduction, reproductive technology,

whether it is COVID policy, whether it's gender ideology, or whether it's abortion. Children are always the one placed on the altar of basically adults' whims. And it just takes a lot of hubris, a lot of pride. I think it's the result of people believing that they are their own God. And so they can take people who don't have the power to know or say otherwise and say, well, I want you to live, how I want you to live in the context that I find convenient and good for myself, and you'll just be fine. And unfortunately, I do. don't know that we will get a whole lot of research out of intelligentsia of the true consequences of this because they're bought and paid for by politics. They're driven by

ideology. And so at the end of the day for the Christian, even though data is important, facts are important, studies are important, what we can trust in is that we can trust in Genesis 1. We can trust that the family is supposed to be a certain way because God created it that way. And any time we go from what's natural to what's possible, there are going to be questions that Christians really need to grapple with. That doesn't mean that what's possible through technology or, you know, social change is bad. It just means that there are always going to be questions, especially when kids are involved. And that kind of transitions into, and if you have comments on that, I would love to hear them, but that kind of does transition us into what I want to talk to

you about next, which kind of just emphasizes everything we're talking about, which is Kim and Kanye, based on what you just said. Like, you talked about that Atlantic article and how these articles are mostly written by women, that they're liberated from their past life of motherhood and marriage and all of this stuff. I mean, it's just really sad and bitter to me. But Kim Kardashian recently said, according to Vogue, that I've chosen myself. She said, for so long, I did what made other people happy. The 41-year-old explains. And I think in the last two years, I decided I'm going to make myself happy. And that feels really good. And even if that created changes and caused my divorce, I think it's important to be honest with yourself about what really makes you

happy. I've chosen myself. I think it's okay to choose you. And of course, they have two children, or four children together. And so this whole thing as well as the public drama that has unfolded has really made me sad. What's your reaction to all of that? Yeah. So I mean, I wanted to touch on your first point because actually I have the benefit of being connected to a great local church and in our men's theology class this past Friday we were talking about

common grace and we talked about why believers need to have discernment when it comes to things like scientific advances in medical technology because if we have no limit if everything that science produces we see as an an unadulterated good, then when scientists begin to play God, the Christian has no basis on which to say,

okay, that far and not a step further. Exactly. So whether it's the reproductive technology or certain types of stem cell research, if we don't have a biblical worldview on these things, we're going to get swept up you know, with, you know, the rest of the mainstream. And I think it's one of the most disappointing sort of aspects, and particularly the last two years, um, with the rise of, you know, some social justice movements and, and, and BLM and racial, talk of racial reckonings. Um, I have seen prominent evangelicals who spend more time talking about what white conservative

Christians thought about, you know, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, then they do talking about the impacts of the Equality Act of 2021. Right. And it's one of those things where I understand you want to address the past. And I'm off of studying history, primarily to learn from it, not to relitigate it. But the silence of, in many respects, the Davos evangelical crowd means that we are compromising the future of our children. And to me, that's much more important than whether you can get, you know, the members of your

church to mimic three words and say, yes, I, you know, I believe in racial justice. Okay, well, first of all, what does that even mean? And two, how is, you know, how are the things that the people you are following, how do they swear with the scripture? And what I found over the last couple of years is that a lot of pastors, theologians, public intellectuals who identify as Christian have just been asleep at the wheel. So that's on that point. Under Kim and Kanye stuff, I mean, I think we're seeing, you know, that passage you read from

Kim Kardashian squares perfectly with what I see every single day. And again, men have their own challenges around family a couple generations ago. the mid-level manager, madman type of ad exec who runs off with a secretary to start a new life was sort of a well-worn archetype. But now what we have is the generation of me-first mommies. And obviously, you know this. Man, you are speaking our language. Yes. My wife read your book. She loves it. But I see it all the time. It's always about me. you know, finding myself and my truth and my happiness. And I think that that follows that

pattern of general narcissism in our country, which is a bipartisan sort of fair across all, you know, ideological lines where everything is about how I is an individual feel, always about rights, never about responsibilities. And as I said, and we're both saying, you know, the kids are the ones who end up getting left in the lurch. So, I'm not particularly surprised, you know, by Kim and Kanye. And as a dad, there's some things that Kanye West has done that I just find extremely concerning and disappointing. Just being able to have private conversations with your spouse or potentially soon-to-be-ex-wife

without leaking them to the media. So he has his own challenges, but nothing about her statement surprised me, given the moment that we're in right now. Yeah, and you know, this is not about, at least on this show, we're not even getting into like the details of the back and forth and the drama. We're saying that, you know, their marriage was great and that it's like you said that Kanye is without fault. It's not about that at all. Unfortunately, I mean, it's been really sad, honestly, to watch all of this unfold and to get, to see their kids caught in the crosshair. I know one thing, I don't even know.

I'm sure I disagree with Kanye on a lot. But one thing that he said, which again, I agree, he should have handled privately. but he talked about, you know, their eight-year-old daughter being on TikTok and Kim even shared, like, some thoughts about that. That basically it just makes her happy. It makes her daughter happy. That also seems to be an issue among a lot of parents, not just when it comes to social media, but maybe especially when it comes to social media. Well, this makes my child happy. This is what satisfies them right now.

This is what they want to do. It makes them feel good about themselves. So it doesn't really surprise me for. like a mom, if a mom thinks that the highest priority, the only priority in life is doing what makes you happy in the moment, you pass that down to your kids, that manifests itself in potentially like really dangerous behavior. My personal opinion is that kids should not be on social media at all, especially TikTok. So like I got his point there, but all of this kind of makes sense, but it's also like the consequences of a fractured family too. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I mean,

that the type of culture that has created, you know, children's happiness, quote unquote, at all costs. I mean, we've been seeing that play out for a number of years. That's part of what has fueled the, you know, participation trophy generation. And part of the reason I think so many, you know, children are, and young adults are so sensitive and anxious and neurotic and fragile is because they have been trained their entire lives that their happiness is what counts, you know, more than anything. So, um, that part is not a surprise at all. And I share your perspective in terms of social media,

um, or even honestly, just things like screen time in general is just so much of what we're getting from our culture is about instant gratification. And it's hard enough as adults to manage some of these things. And, you know, training and discipling a generation of children in these things is even worse. But, yeah, I mean, ultimately, it's the kids that get caught in the crossfire. I believe they have four children together. I don't doubt that both of them are involved and caring parents. What have I said?

You know, the breakdown of their family is in many respects similar to what we see in other families. It's just they have, you know, way more resources to deal with it. And it's interesting because in some of Kanye's responses, he's. he has talked about himself as, you know, as a black man and a father of black children. And one of the reasons that I've written about the black family specifically is not that the issue is different, but the breakdown of the black family specifically has been attributed to different causes than other families. So if, you know, white liberals and white conservatives

are at a conference and they're talking about, you know, why the non-marital birth rate among white Americans is higher than it was among black Americans when the Moynihan report came out in the mid-60s. None of those people is going to respond that has anything to do with slavery. Right. But that's one of the things that you hear in the black community often. Now, the data suggests that from emancipation up until, you know, the middle of the 20th century,

black Americans, I think, under men and women under 35, were more likely to be married than their white counterparts. So what you see is a trajectory of the black family that obviously was decimated by slavery, that got stronger from emancipation through Jim Crow, reached sort of a tipping point in the mid-6th century, which sort of necessitated the Moynihan report. And at that time, it was 25% of black children were being born to unmarried parents.

And by the time you get it to the mid-80s, it was over 50%. And it's been over 70% for well over the last decade. So the other thing really quick that I think needs to be addressed is it's the fact that in the black community, there are so many intellectuals, academics, media professionals, who aren't just sort of ambivalent about the family, they are actively hostile to the notion of the nuclear family because these are people who have been influenced by Marxism and feminism,

and they see patriarchy as a much more sort of dangerous influence, particularly to black women and black children, than, you know, sort of the loss of the nuclear. family. And I've been in debates for some of these people who will openly say the black family, the black community does not need nuclear families to thrive. This is the same ideology that was sort of mimic in BLM's Black Villages principle that starts out that they are committed to disrupting the Western prescribed nuclear family. And then they go on in that principle to talk about supporting villages, quote unquote, and other family structures to the degree that mothers,

parents, and children are comfortable. That's Black Lives Matter website, yeah. Right. They never, they never mentioned fathers as if fathers don't exist. And I even said this yesterday in response to, you know, a related tweet that for people who think like this, black men are only needed for their seed to create life and for their corpses to fuel activism. Never as a husband or head of his home.

And I think it's important to name that specifically. New phenomenon. Increasingly, women are, and this is not even a racial issue at all, but women are just seen as, you know, as as as, as, as, as, as, um, or I'm not even sure. The term woman has become so arbitrary in the same way that a man and what he actually brings to the table brings to a. family brings uniquely to different spheres of society has kind of been it's been patronized, it's been belittled.

I mean, we saw the father in sitcoms for the past 30 years has been turned into a dunce and silly while the serious mother has been the one who is, you know, actually keeping the family together. That's certainly reflected in society. And then so while male has been belittled, the definition of, female has become completely arbitrary. I don't know if those two things go hand in hand, like the feminization of masculinity has turned into men trying to become women and then the term woman also becoming belittled and arbitrary. I'm just kind of like flush. I don't know if the,

I guess those things come together and maybe this just again goes back to the rejection of God as the creator and the authority and the rejection of Genesis 1. And obviously we're seeing the consequences of that in the family, as we just described, but we're also seeing the consequences of that in men now infiltrating women's spaces. That's not happening the other way around. And you've talked about this recently. So I do, I want to get your take on Leah Thomas, the swimmer that we've talked about several times, previously Will Thomas, a man identifying as a woman, swims for the University of Pennsylvania, was like 462nd, I think, when it came. to collegiate swimmers when he was identifying and presenting as a man and competing against men.

And now is number one, of course, among collegiate swimmers now that he is competing against women. And then there is also a woman who identifies as a man who has gotten surgery who still gets to compete against women. Why doesn't this person who now goes by Isaac compete against men. It's just kind of funny. But I want to get your take on that after we watch this clip of Leah Thomas dominate smoke his competition. Thomas heads in for the final turn. It's going to be a race for second place.

It might be Penn going one, two with Baroqueur making the turn currently in second place. And over the last half of the pool, nobody will touch Leah Thomas, who will finish at 43732. Thomas Ivy League champion. Wow, Delano, I don't know about you, but I just feel inspired and proud to be a woman with that dainty, lovely lady who is just setting records. It just makes me feel so proud and so feministic and so happy to see a woman be such a dominant athlete. What about you? I mean, I think you framing this in biblical terms, right, in terms of what happens when people reject the truth of God's creation is important, particularly for Christians, because this is exactly what we're seeing, right? And many of us would understand this issue. If, for instance, if someone use their iPhone as a coast,

someone looking at them do that would say, well, that's not the purpose of an iPhone, right? That's not what you use it for. That's not what it was created for. If Steve Jobs was still alive, he would tell you that. He would say, you're using my creation in a way that is outside of my intention. But when it comes to God's creation somehow, we reject it. We think we know better. We think we know better than the manufacturer.

And what we're seeing is, you know, the mouthful. functioning of a society that's using its iPhone as a coaster, basically. So I think there are people who desire an androgynous future where male and female have no particular meaning. And I know, Alie, you've probably seen this. There was a time where when we talked about transgenderism, you would hear about gender dysphoria and mental health and mental illness. That has sort of faded away.

there was a time where people would draw a clear distinction between a person who identified, a male who identified as a woman. And now people are saying that, for instance, someone like Leah Thomas is a female. So when the New York Times says that the deputy secretary of HHS has become the first female admiral, they are capturing sort of rhetorical and cultural territory. that to this point, you know, sort of the normals have had access to, and they're moving us further and further away from God's truth. So yeah, yeah, I've written about Leah Thomas, you know, a number of times and what his victory means, both for women's sports, but really, I think it's a reflection of something I wrote in an article for the Blaze, you know, about a week or so ago. And it's really that I think feminists hate women.

and I hate to put it so boldly but it's hard to claim you care for a group of people when you reject the very things that make those people unique and ultimately

for feminists they want to be wherever the men are and if if and I mean that was the case years ago if the men were in the workplace

they say okay we want to be in the workplace if the men were at certain private clubs, we want to be there. It never goes in reverse. Men don't typically say, we want to break in on women's night at the bowling alley because we say, okay, but women have their own spaces and we respect that. Now what the feminists are doing are saying, we want to get the men into where the women are. And the rise of Leah Thomas and swimming, C.C. Telfer and track, same thing. A biological male who quote unquote transitions. and goes from mediocre racing against men to an NCAA champion racing against women.

Yeah. And it really is sad. It's sad to see so many young girls being forced into enduring the indignity of having to look up at a person they know is a man, smiling with a gold medal around his neck and them having to turn and smile at the camera as well. So that's why I was really inspired by the young lady you had on a couple days ago. Ainsley. She was talking about, correct, her op-ed and the need to protect women's sports. And I think that these young women, girls and women, need voices to speak up for them.

We know that they're not going to get it from corporate media. They're not going to get it from ESPN or, you know, Fox Sports or any of these other. sort of mainstream publications. So they're going to need to get it from traditionalists, from complementarians, from, you know, the toxic patriarchy. Yep. Because for whatever people, whatever issues people may have a patriarchy, one thing patriarchs acknowledge is that men and women are different.

Yeah. And that women deserve protection and that it's on men to provide that. Yeah. So it really is disappointing to see it, but that's why I have a tremendous amount of respect for what you do. I mean, you hold that line way better than anybody at ESPN. And I think, you know, it's to be commended. Well, thank you. I mean, I appreciate that. This is just something that I can't, that I can't budge on because I can't, I really can't think of anything more absurd to say that a man is a woman or that a man can identify as a woman. And, you know, there are. are people who identify as feminist. They're more rare, but who identify its feminist, who even though I disagree with them on almost everything, they do insist. They're mostly in the UK, but who do insist that, okay, a woman is a woman and, you know, a man is a man. So I do, of course, commend them for that. But I think you're right that the people who push this, men and women, it truly does come from a place. And this is typically like a left-wing talking point,

but I think it's actually true. It comes from a place of misogyny. It comes from a place of really hating women, not just trying to, you know, diminish their accomplishments, but truly victimize them. Women are not just losing competitions, but they're actually truly safe in private spaces are being infiltrated. There was this story that I'm, I'm sure you saw that at a California science camp, they allowed, quote, non-binary men who go by, they them to be housed with fifth grade girl campers. The parents did not know this. They were told by their fifth grade girl. So we're talking 10 and 11 years old. They were told by them when they got home. Of course the parents are livid. The camp confirmed that according to California state law, they have to allow. And we're

talking about counselors, by the way. We're not even talking about other 10 year old boys, which would be a problem. But we're talking about counselors. So teenagers, young adults housed with fifth grade little girls. Parents are not told they're not giving consent. The camp confirmed that that's what they have to do according to California state law. There's this another another terrible story by Fox News, which uses she-her pronouns for men, which I really hate. This man named Hannah Tubbs and will put up a picture for YouTube looks completely like a man. He says he's transgender now.

He sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl in 2014 and is actually caught on tape saying, okay, guys, in court, you've got to call me, she-her, so I can avoid being registered as a sex offender. And I can go into the women's prison. Men are infiltrating women's prisons and places like Washington and California, domestic shelters, bathrooms, locker rooms. The activist side says if this doesn't happen, it's happening every day. You have to hate women and children to allow this kind of stuff. And I think calling a man, she, her actually innate, because you're getting, sorry, I'm on a rant,

but you're giving into the premise. You're giving into the premise that a man can identify as a woman. And so if you're giving into that premise, why shouldn't that, why shouldn't that so-called woman go into a girl's bathroom? Why shouldn't they house with a 10-year-old little girl? If you are saying that a man is a she, then what you're doing is you are enabling the premise that is then enabling those who are actually predators to prey upon these women and girls. And that is why I think it is so important to hold the line on this. Okay, my rant is over. Final commentary before we close this out.

I mean, I agree with you 100%. I mean, it's, I think it's an act of moral cowardice to see how many people, and particularly men, I mean, I couldn't, Ali, I'm a fairly mild manner guy. But if that was my 10-year-old daughter, I mean, my wife would probably be telling me, babe, calm down. Because I would want to flip something over if a school took those types of liberties when it comes to the safety of my child. But so many men have just abandoned their posts.

And I think part of what's going on here is that that cowardice in men has been growing for a long time because, you know, the same type of guy who posts his pronouns and wears his, you know, the future is female type of T-shirt is also the guy who's not going to stand up. for his own daughter because if he can't stand up to women who are promoting bad ideas, he's not going to stand up for women who are being subjected to bad ideas. And I think that cowardice has just spread like a virus throughout our culture. But I'll say one last thing. And I said this on Twitter the other day.

And I said this in my conversation with Jason Willough on Friday is that, obviously we are subjecting women to, you know, the things that we're talking about, right? The invasion of their private spaces by biological males. Obviously, we are engaging in a form of reality distortion by calling women, she, and using terms like birthing person unironically, right? Those things are obvious. But particularly as Christians, we are not being kind and loving when we're, we're not. we affirm someone in a lie. And when you tell someone who is a man that they are a woman, that's exactly what we're doing. And we're making it more difficult for them to come to the

knowledge of the truth. And that's something I just, I can't abide that. I can't for the sake of my own reputation, because that's exactly what this is. This is part of it is cowardice, but part of it is people who don't want to be seen as bigots and haters and the equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan. They are engaging in their own reputation management and are willing to sacrifice the well-being of a generation of children to do so. Because I'm of the position that if we don't get this corrected soon, we're going to have a generation of children who look back in 10 to 20 years and ask us, the adult. why did you let me do this to myself? Why did you let me cut off healthy breast tissue? Why did you let me mutilate my genitals?

Why did you let me pump myself full of hormones? Just because I told you this is how I felt. And the adults in this generation are not going to have an answer. Other than, well, you told me that's how you felt and I want to affirm you. And I'm sorry, but that's just not good enough. Yep. And that goes back to everything that we have been talking about. there is something more important than temporary happiness when it comes to ourselves,

when it comes to our kids, and it all comes back to submitting to the authority of God. Very well said. Thank you so much for all of the insight that you shared. I know people are going to love this conversation. People can follow you on Twitter, follow your writing, and, of course, watch you on Jason's show, correct? Yes. My Twitter handle is at Delano Squires, D-E-L-A-N-O-S-Q-U-I-R-E-S.

same on Instagram. I write twice a week for The Blaze. Typically my columns come out on Tuesday and Friday, and I appear twice a week on Fearless for Jason Whitlock. So they can follow me there. Awesome. Thank you so much, Delano. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Allie. Have a good one. Thanks. Hey, this is Steve Deast. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. Steve Day Show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth,

and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this Steve Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.