Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 735 | WE’RE BACK! The Secret to Happiness for Women

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

We're back, Relata-belles and Relata-bros! Today, we're starting by asking the question: Should Christians concern themselves with setting New Year's resolutions? We discuss the need for renewed hope in addition to stability, routine, and sameness. Then, we take a look at an article on motherhood, which denounces toxic mommy culture and states that marriage and motherhood tend to actually be intertwined with happiness. Children are not deterrents to our happiness; they're gifts with the capacity to multiply joy and fulfillment. We look at a study on antidepressants, which shows that older white women account for the majority of people who take them. We talk about why this makes sense when we consider the kind of mixed messages that are shoved into their faces. Then, a little update from Clown World as we break down the most confusing headline of late, and we give an update on a speaking engagement and reiterate why satire is so important. --- Timecodes: (00:50) Intro (03:00) New Year's Resolutions (14:27) What was the best thing you ate over Christmas/New Year's? (17:54) Motherhood multiplies joy in women (30:01) Antidepressants (39:24) Gender confusion nonsense (44:00) Church rescinds invitation to Allie --- Today's Sponsors: Carly Jean Los Angeles — use promo code 'ALLIEB' to save 20% off your first order at CarlyJeanLosAngeles.com! Birch Gold — protect your future with gold. Text 'ALLIE' to 989898 for a free, zero obligation info kit on diversifying and protecting your savings with gold. ExpressVPN — have more anonymity online. Go to ExpressVPN.com/ALLIE and get three extra months FREE. --- Links: The Atlantic: "The Married-Mom Advantage" https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/motherhood-marriage-pandemic-covid-children/672563/ New York Times: "Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit" https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/07/health/antidepressants-withdrawal-prozac-cymbalta.html --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 656 | The ‘Family Diversity’ Myth | Guest: Dr. Brad Wilcox https://apple.co/3Zl4bJI --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: 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. Happy New Year, relatable family. We're back. Well, motherhood makes you happy. That's what the data says.

And white women above 45 are most likely to be on long-term depressants. We'll look at some recent data and analyze why that is. Also, a church disinvited me from their conference, and I will explain why at the end of this episode, but we'll start with some thoughts and encouragement around the new year and then we will get into the rest. I've got nothing to say about any advertiser at the top of this show, so we'll just play the music and then get into the episode. Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday, January 9th, 2020. This is our first new show of the year.

I'm so excited to be back. It's always really hard being away and not being able to talk about all of the things that I want to talk about. I know we did have some new episodes come out over the past few weeks, but we had pre-recorded those. So my team and I could take a nice long break, and that's exactly what we did. It was some much needed rest and reprieve from the craziness of the world. I really wasn't online that much. I didn't even really use that as an outlet to talk about the things going on. A lot of you have been asking, for example, what's going on with the whole speaker of the house thing?

Dude, I am just now kind of catching up with that. Kevin McCarthy is speaker of the house. I kind of was just like, you know what? Just wake me up when we find out what exactly is going on, what the demands were to make him speaker at the house, all that stuff. I just wasn't in the mood to wade into the complexities and the chaos of that. But now we're here. And this show, as ever, is going to help you make sense of the chaos and the craziness of the world. That's what Relatable is about.

That's what you guys love about Relatable. I did have a lot of time over the past few weeks talking to so many of you who love Relatable and who by the grace of God have been influenced and impacted and whose minds and hearts have changed. have changed because of what God has done through relatable. And so that is just reinvigorating and re-inspiring for me to make sure that we are a place of yes, relatability, of course, as I am navigating with you all of the craziness in the world, but also a place hopefully of clarity. Now, today, I am not going to get into the Speaker of the House thing. We will be talking politics this week and some of the news stories. But I kind of just want to reorient us. And,

give us some perspective for the start of the new year, at least starting out in this episode. I had some thoughts about New Year's resolutions the other day. There's some discourse. I don't know if you have seen this, heard this within the kind of Christian online world about New Year's resolutions. Should Christians be making New Year's resolutions? Is that really what we should be focusing on? Should we be making these fitness goals at the start of the year, professional goals, should we have a list of potential successes, accomplishments that we want to reach? Or should we just be resting in God's sovereignty, his goodness, and simply commit by his grace to pursuing him and glorifying him in all that we do? And it's kind of presented sometimes

as a binary, as what I think is a false choice between making goals and making resolutions and simply resting in the Lord and being content in him what he's done for you and being sanctified by the Holy Spirit. I don't think that there's anything wrong. This is my opinion. So take that as it is. I don't think there's anything wrong with setting goals and making resolutions. I know that people say there's nothing magical about January 1st.

And that's true. It is just as any other day. It is a day that the Lord has made. We are to rejoice and be glad in it. just like any other day, we are to simply do the next right thing in faith with excellence and for the glory of God. All you have to do today, as Elizabeth Elliott says or said, and as I take comfort in often, all you have to do today is the will of God.

And that is simply the next right thing in faith with excellence and for the glory of God. So all of that is true that a new year isn't any different than the last year. And yet, I think that God made humans. to need that turn of the calendar, that change in the year, that fresh start. I think we inherently long for, crave, and even need the change that comes with dawn, that comes with days, that comes with weeks, that comes with seasons, that comes with holidays, that comes with the new year. Even if there is no magic and all of the ideas.

about the new year giving you some kind of fresh opportunity or a little bit superstitious. I do think God created us to need renewal, to need rejuvenation, and to need change. One of the most demoralizing parts of COVID was the monotony that came with being locked inside, not being able to enjoy the things that we enjoy around the holidays, around summertime, the ceremonies that came with graduation and prom and all of that. We look forward to those things because I think that God actually created us to need them. Like we need those mile markers. Sometimes we need those things to look forward to.

And monotony and sameness really has a way of discouraging us. Like think about the employee in a dead end job, the cubicle guy that doesn't see any light at the end of the tunnel, doesn't see any kind of new. opportunity on the horizon, how he just kind of gets dejected and loses not only a sense of purpose, but just a sense of self in his place in the world. Or think about the animals in Narnia, how they were stuck in this perpetual winter without any hope of Christmas. That kind of monotony, that kind of sameness, really has a way at harming us.

It has a way at discouraging us. So I think that God knows that we need something new. So I think it's okay if we look at a new year or a new month or a Monday with renewed hope. To say, you know what, this is the day that I'm going to make a different commitment. This is the start of something new for me. That doesn't mean there's magic or superstition behind it. That doesn't mean that there's any guarantee that you're going to be able to reach your goals. It doesn't mean that we make those goals idle.

But I do think it's okay for us to kind of tap into the nature that we have as human beings to need change. But here's the other thing is that human beings also need security. We also need stability. We also do need routine. And we also do need some sameness. I mean, you see this especially with kids. Kids need that kind of predictability when you throw their lives into constant instability, when they're going from home to home from place to place, from kids.

caregiver to caregiver and they don't have anything that they can expect the next day. They don't have any kind of person that they can really rely on. That's called trauma. And that negatively impacts them for the rest of their life. And that's also, I know I talked about the monotony with COVID, but the chaos of the immorality of this world that is constantly undulating and in some ways completely unpredictable, that also has a negative impact. I think not just on our kids, but on us too. Human beings do not deal well, rather, with anarchy. Like, we need some kind of order. We don't do well with disorder. And so I think that the longing that we all have, both for newness and for freshness and for renewal, rejuvenation, and stability and security, I think those are

parts of being made in God's image. And really, whether it's a new year or a new week or just any day of the year. The only place truly that we can find the, the perfect wedding of those things is in God himself. I mean, this is a God who in Hebrews 138 says that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He also tells us in Lamentations 322 through 23 that his mercies are new every morning. So I think that is like the perfect depiction of God's sameness and security, but also showing us our need for renewal. So his mercies are new every morning. His faithfulness is the same, never waxes or wanes.

He doesn't love us anymore or any less based on what we do. And yet that mercy that he offers us is actually renewing every day. This is the God who never changes, who never shifts, and who never evolves yet changes is the times and the seasons, Daniel, to 21. And so I don't think that we need to kind of present this false choices, Christians. Do I make these goals? Do I try to be a quote, unquote, better person? Whether that's more organized or whether that's texting people back or whether that's having a better routine or spending more time with your kids, less time on your phone. And on the other hand, simply just resting in the security and the sovereignty and the stability of the Lord. We do both of those

things because that's how God created us all for the glory of God, knowing that ultimately God is in control and that our goals don't make or break us. But I do think it's totally okay to use this opportunity to have new goals. I do. I have some goals this year. Not very many, but I have a few goals. One of them, as I talked about a couple weeks ago, to get better responding to people. And so I think that's okay. I don't think Christians necessarily need to need to run from that. So all that to say, happy new year and praise God that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, today, and forever. And with all the craziness that this year will bring, because it will be a lot of craziness, we know that that one thing is for sure. We can handle the

change, though. We can handle the craziness by God's grace because God created us to kind of endure that change. And he offers us the stability that we are longing for. All right. Now, I've got a sponsor to read. Also, oh, I didn't even mention. I didn't even mention if you're watching this. I know I said I was going to be on a different temporary set today, but I'm not. I'm on this set. Also, we are building a new set. We are building a new set. Isn't that exciting? I know this set is great. I love this set. The set is like super cute and very us, but we're going to have an even cooler set. It's going to be like even more casual. The biggest thing I'm excited about is we're going to have. We're going to have. have some lighting changes that we've been talking about for a long time, which is going to be awesome. And you guys are going to love it. But I think tomorrow we are going to be on a temporary set that is not very relatable brand, but that's okay. We got to wait until the other set is like built and good to go. And then we'll be back on that. Also, if you're watching this, I am wearing my UGA t-shirt. I'm sorry, all you T-CU fans out there. I'm sure there's a lot of TCU fans out

there. But as we're recording this, it's before the national championship game tonight, UGA. TCU. I'm from I'm from DFW area but live you know I've lived in Georgia and my husband went to UGA. I went to little old Furman. I don't think anyone is worried about the threat that the paladins posed to any football team out there. Sorry. So I am a UGA fan because of my husband. So I am rooting for the dogs tonight. Go dogs. I think a lot of people are rooting for TCU. because I think TCO is the underdog, but just remember that UGA did not win a national championship for like 40 years before last year. And so they can still be considered the underdog, even as they are the top dog, as it were.

And make sure that you tune in tonight to Twitter and Instagram, I will be giving what is always extremely insightful football commentary. And by extremely insightful, I mean I will give commentary as someone who knows absolutely nothing about football, but he wants to be there to support my husband. And so make sure to tune into that. All right. 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. All right. Before we get into a segment about mothers and happiness and women and things like that, I just wanted to ask a little question to my team over there. And I can answer it first.

What was, this is my question, and all of you listening and watching, you can answer it to, what was the best thing that you ate over Christmas slash New Year break? I will say, I think that my favorite thing, it's really difficult. It's really tough. It's really tough. But I think that my favorite thing was probably my aunt makes something called, it's either there's some tension in our family about what it's called chocolate delight or mississippi mud and it's like a gram cracker crust and then chocolate and then like a whipped cream thing on top

and it's not a pie it's like almost like a casserole type thing oh my gosh it is so so good that's the first thing that came to mind when i thought about the best thing that i ate and now my stomach is growling um brey what was the best thing that you ate over your break okay so my mom Mom makes breakfast casserole on Christmas morning. And it's like really simple. It's like you put potatoes at the bottom. Oh, that sounds so good. Already.

That's all you need. Just potatoes. You got me. You put like tater tots or hash browns at the bottom. And then you like fill it with egg, like scrambled egg mixture. And then you put bacon on top. And then you put cheese on top. And it all kind of melts together and it comes out as a casserole.

And it's so good. And we have it every year, but only on Christmas. so we like build up the height. That sounds amazing. Have you ever tried to make it yourself? No, I mean I could, but I save it for Christmas and she just makes it. It's a treat. Oh, that sounds so good.

Kayla? So on Christmas Day, we had people over and hosted everyone at the house. And I roasted duck for the first time by yourself. Yeah, so I made two ducks and they turned out really, really well. I mean, I think everyone ate it. There was no duck left. What did you put on it? it um so i did like i found a recipe that was like a honey um glaze like honey soy lemon juice olive oil glaze and so i

just like roasted it with um onions and garlic and lemon inside the cavity and then uh like in the last 45 minutes you pour over the like the honey you know glaze and then bake it for the last 45 and it wow kela crispy and beautiful i'm so impressed. Did you know when you cooked duck, you have to flip it? I've never cooked duck, so I did not know. You have to flip it. You have to flip it twice. Now you know. Wow. Okay. Good to know. That sounds good. Dylan. My mom makes cinnamon rolls every Christmas day, so that was far in a way the best thing I ate. Is it like from scratch? No. Does she have a special recipe? No. They're just store-bought ones,

but they're still the best thing. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Sounds good. All right. I just wanted to hear from you guys on that. I'm obsessed with. food and none of my resolutions this year have to do with eating any differently than I do because I just love food too much. I love food too much. All right. Let's get into this next segment about this story that I saw tweeted by Brad Wilcox. Brad Wilcox is the professor and director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. I've done an episode with him before about this family diversity theory that he just completely debunks. The family diversity theory says that no matter what people make up your family,

as long as the kid feels loved, then they're totally fine. The data does not show that that's true. Kids thrive most with their mother and their father. So go back and listen to that episode with him. So he's tweeting a lot of different statistics and studies and stories about, marriage and the impact of marriage and the impact of the formation of the family on society. And he wrote this article in the Atlantic with Wendy Wang called The Married Mom Advantage. And I thought that this article and its findings were so interesting because it bucks against

everything that we hear about motherhood these days. We've talked a lot about toxic mommy culture. Mom's complaining about kids, which I'll talk a little bit more about. in a second. But the findings that they summarize in this article are completely opposed to that. They actually show that motherhood multiplies joy and satisfaction in women a great deal. So they started out talking about kind of the toxic mommy culture that we referred to in this article. They say, judging by its press since COVID began, you might think that married motherhood is a pathway to misery and immiseration. married heterosexual motherhood in America, especially in the past two years, is a game no one wins,

wrote Amy Shurn in one of many New York Times op-eds about the difficulties of marriage in the time of COVID. Moms are not okay. Pandemic triples anxiety and depression symptoms and new mothers. Read a headline in Forbes. Bloomberg was so far as to suggest that family life was a financial dead end for women. In an article headlined, women who stay single and don't have kids are getting richer. So toxic mommy culture. For those of you who don't know, I wrote about this in my book, you're not enough, and that's okay escaping the toxic culture of self-love.

It is a culture of negativity surrounding motherhood, especially by mothers, referring to kids as brats and burdens or even worse. It's different from just honestly and transparently talking about the struggles and the difficulties of motherhood. I think that can be very good. but this is really depicting yourself as a constant victim of motherhood, complaining about kids, especially as a joke just to get a laugh. They'll say, oh my gosh, I'm just kidding around, learn to lighten up or whatever.

But really, they are denigrating their children publicly for the affirmation of strangers. So on social media for likes. That is part of what toxic mommy culture is. But so are some of the headlines that they are listing here. They go on to say, as tough as motherhood was during COVID, mothers were both happier and more financially secure than childless women during the pandemic. This gap existed before COVID, but it continued during the worst days of the pandemic and has remained since then. This phenomenon is especially noteworthy because moms and parents more generally used to be less happy than childless adults as recently as the 2000s. That's interesting.

That is an interesting change. That doesn't really surprise me that much. I do think our society has become more isolated, more individualized and lonelier than it was 20 plus years ago. And so our sense of community is just not as strong as it was decades ago. And so the people that have kind of built in community with children, with husbands, with family, are going to feel happier probably than the people who feel like they're just waiting through the world by themselves. In 2020, they go on to say, 69% of mothers, ages 18 to 55, were completely are somewhat satisfied with their life compared to 61% of childless women at the same age. I also appreciate that they are using the word childless. I've heard the word child free a lot recently to try to really, I don't know, paint parenthood is something that is a trap or something that you need to be liberated from.

They say women saw their happiness dip from 2019 to 2020 as COVID set in, but this dip was more acute among childless women, according to the survey. Challenging as they were to care for while many schools were closed, kids seemed to have brought a sense of direction, connection, and joy to the average mother's life during the pandemic at a time when so many other social ties were cut off. So that kind of speaks to what I was saying. As other social ties are cut off, the ones that are built in can be really helpful. and joy-inducing. They say, and despite all the media coverage, discounting or minimizing the importance of marriage during COVID, mothers with partners were generally happier. In 2020, 75% of married mothers were somewhat or completely satisfied with their lives versus 58% of their unmarried peers. They also say that class plays a big role here. Unmarried moms are more likely to

be poor. If you're poor, you're more likely to be unhappy. That's what the data says. Unhappy because they're poor unhappy because they're statistically, again, according to this data of lonelier, there's little support system there. And so all of that can contribute to discontentment. They say they conclude this way, which I think is really poignant. If the data tell us anything, it's that at least for most American women, the pathway to happiness runs through married motherhood, not away from it. The pathway to happiness, statistically, runs through married motherhood, not away from it. Wow. That is the opposite of what we hear from the secular world. We hear that kids take away your identity, that they make you lose sight of

who you really are. You lose yourself. They get in the way of your goals. They ruin your body. They're bad for the environment. That's why we keep hearing from these Malthusian crazy people. We hear that the key to fulfillment is to just focus on. on you. Just travel, just work really hard, just have sex with whoever, do everything you want to do completely child free, and then try to satisfy that natural drive that you have for nurturing and your pets and your plants. And it's a lie. It's a lie that this is going to be, that that is going to be the exclusive or the best path to happiness. I'm not saying that you cannot have happiness outside of motherhood. Of course. I know that there's a lot of you out there who want to be mothers.

And you're not yet. You can't yet. You just haven't been given that opportunity yet. So don't hear me say that there is no happiness outside of motherhood. But I am trying to combat this secular cultural narrative that motherhood diminishes happiness. That's a lie. Yes, motherhood is hard. Yes, your body changes. Yes, your schedule is completely thrown for a loop. you're tired, you sleep a lot less, you've got a lot more responsibility, a lot more people and a lot more things to think about. You are changed and stretched in ways that you would never have chosen for yourself. You would have never done those things voluntarily before kids. But here's the thing. And here's why I think happiness is maybe, I don't know, ironically, in some ways intertwined with all

of those things because human beings were not actually made. We were not built for ease and self-service. We were not made to just travel and sip lattes and binge Netflix. We might enjoy those things. They might feel good, but we don't actually function well long term on them. Like just like your body might feel nice in the moment sitting on the couch. Your muscles weren't actually just made to sit on the couch all day. They were made to move. They were made to stretch. They were made to lift heavy things and to endure a degree of pain that builds strength. That is actually what they are for.

And if your muscles, if your body is not used and stretched and strengthened, your muscles atrophy. They deteriorate. They become unusable. And I think that's what happens to humans in general, the human spirit, if you want to call it that. Like when we are not stretched and pulled and challenged and made to carry weight heavier than we previously thought that we could. It is what we are for. We were actually

made to work and to work hard. Like think in the Genesis' creation account, even before the fall, before sin entered the world, Adam is placed in the garden by God to what? To work and to keep it. Hard work is not a result of the fall. It is not a consequence of sin. It is actually a part of God's perfect plan and motherhood is work. And work that God has ordained is good. And we know that this is work that God has ordained because also before the fall, God tells Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. So children are a gift. We don't have a right to them. We don't have a guarantee that God will give them to us. They are not necessary to glorify God to be a Christian or to be a fulfilled woman because married or not, mother or not, our satisfaction can only ever be multiplied by children

and our husband. But our source of joy, the author and initiator of it, is always Christ, who loves us unconditionally, no matter what, no matter how many children we have, no matter our marital status. But the point is, is that children, contrary to what the world says, they are not burdens. They are not deterrents to our house. happiness. They are purposeful gifts with the capacity to multiply our joy and our fulfillment. And once again, once again, the data proves what God has always already said is true. Isn't that amazing how it works out like that? It's almost like the creator of the universe knows what he's talking about. Okay, I wanted to highlight this study that I saw tweeted recently by

Nancy Piercy. She's an amazing professor and author. She wrote the book, Love Thy Body of had her on two a couple years ago. Highly recommend that book if you haven't read it already. So she tweeted this study, which, as it turns out, is actually from 2018. And it's from a New York Times article. And if you're listening to this, I'll explain it. Demographics of long-term antidepressants. Older white women account for 58% of adults who have used antidepressants for at least five years.

So white women, over the age of 45, take the lion's share of the people who take antidepressants for a long period of time. Second is white men over the age of 45. And then it's younger adults. And then under that, it's minority women, 45 plus. And then under that is minority men, 45 plus. But, man, there are millions. And this was actually the latest year that they have is, two, So I would guess that that's probably a lot higher.

It's like millions and millions of white women taking these long-term antidepressants far more than white men, younger adults, any other demographic, white women over the age of 45 millions and millions of them taking antidepressants long term. And I just wonder, I thought about for a little bit, like, what is the reason for this discrepancy. I mean, we could analyze why all different kinds of people take antidepressants. And I think the reasons are multifaceted and they can change obviously from person to person. But if we are just to look in general at this. And here's my amateur assessment, all right? My assessment is that the older white liberal childless woman or older white liberal mother who has come to resent motherhood,

is the least likely to be happy. Doesn't mean that they're all unhappy. I'm not saying that. It certainly doesn't mean that other kinds of women are not also unhappy. I mean, there are plenty of young, conservative mothers who also may be on antidepressants. So I'm not saying that. But in my assessment, the reason for this discrepancy, why it is so high among this demographic, is probably that a lot of these women are childless or they,

resent their station or they and they're liberal. And I think that there are a lot of reasons why this particular group is the least happy. There are lots of reasons. But I wonder if at least one of them is the kind of messages that are shoved in white women's faces constantly, in particular the liberal white woman that breeds discontentment. So on the one hand, you're a Karen. You're suffering from internalized white supremacy that you will never, no matter how many Robin DiAngelo books you read can be sanctified from.

And if you are, you politically lean left, you actually care about this. This is the last thing that you want to be or that you want to be seen as. Your cast is a school marm as a nag and, of course, as a natural racist. and you have so much pressure to prove yourself as cool, as with it, as woke, as, you know, down with the cause to make sure people don't demonize you as a Karen. Make sure that people don't think that you're racist. And so you're constantly striving to do the work as it were and to be seen as an ally. Wow, that's a lot of pressure. And you're basically told to like deny your skin color, deny your age, deny your.

deny your gender so you won't be seen as a Karen. That's a lot of pressure. So you're simultaneously told on the one hand that who you are is naturally bad in something that needs to be changed fundamentally. And on the other hand, you are the target demographic for people like Lenin Doyle and Bray Brown and Rachel Hollis, who are constantly telling you that actually deep inside you is a perfect goddess that can be unleashed if you just love yourself enough if you just go to enough therapy if you work through enough trauma and read enough of their books and really there's no

such thing as sin and all shame that you might feel is bad and your fulfillment and your happiness is all found deep inside you you're perfect the way you are you just have to realize that and you'll finally find all the things that you're looking for opposing messages you're inherently racist and you're actually perfect Of course, neither of these things are true, which is why they lead to such poor and sad and discontent outcomes, in my opinion. And they're certainly not biblical because you're not perfect. So you're a sinner. That much is true. You are a sinner. And you do need a savior. But also, you're not automatically racist just because you're white. The work that needs to be done is an anti-racist work.

which is based on lies, actually, which we've talked about many times, nor is it just loving yourself, but is rather the sanctification that can only be found through Christ in His Word. And in order to be justified, to then be sanctified, you can actually do nothing because the faith that you need for that salvation is a gift of grace as we read in Ephesians 2 8 through 10. You want to know the truth about who you are, your identity, and the problems that you face and the work that needs to be done, read Ephesians 2,8, through 10.

Do not read Robin DiAngelo or Ibrax, Kendi, or Bray Brown, or Rachel Hollis, because they're sending you opposing messages. Sometimes the same people are sending in opposing messages that send you on this hamster wheel of exhaustion and discontentment. And yes, I think anxiety, depression, because no matter what, you never really know who you are and why you're here. I mean, this demographic, the white woman above the age of 45, they are the prime target of these toxic, untrue, contradictory messages. In addition to the increased loneliness, the purposelessness that comes with aging in general, with children moving out of the house if they are moms, with not feeling beautiful or valuable or needed anymore. So all of that and any kind of person can cause kind of like a loss of identity and happiness. But then I also wonder, not just about the messages that we just talked about, but also about how much romance novels and trashy TV induce discontentment in this demographic.

I want to do a whole episode on trashy romance novels and how I think that they can lead to adultery and depression and anxiety and all kinds of marriage problems. But anyway, if you want joy, which we all do, we're going to have to go outside. of ourselves. Like we are not going to find the things that we're looking for. We're not going to find the solutions to our problems and the same place where our problems lie, which is inside of ourselves. So if inside yourself, you find insufficiency, inadequacy, depression, anxiety, you're not going to find the solution to those things in the same place where your problems lie. You're going to have to go outside of yourself. You're going to have to find your identity and your

purpose, which all humans since the beginning of time, have wanted to find, have longed to find. And these things are only found in the God who made you. So he is the source of that purpose of that identity. And as we said at the beginning, isn't it great that he never changes that his mercies are new every morning? What is more joy-inducing than that? And may God give us the grace to believe that? No matter what your demographic, your marital status or your motherhood status is. All right, quick update on clown world because we didn't get into too many news stories today. I just wanted to some people, a lot of people appreciated this on Twitter. And so I wanted to offer my services of translator

of gender nonsense to you as well, because maybe you saw this headline and you had no idea what this meant and you just threw your phone across the room and you were like, I am done. I understand. Unfortunately, and I mean that sincerely, I am so familiar with the language of stupidity that is inherent in progressivism that I understand usually what they're saying and I can see, I can interpret it. So let me read you this headline. All right.

This is from the Daily Mirror. Transgender man gives birth to non-binary partners baby with female sperm donor. What? Transgender man gives birth to non-binary partners baby with female sperm donor. All right. What does this mean? Let me tell you what this means. So a transgender man is a woman.

The non-binary partners is also a woman because the thing is non-binary. with female sperm donor. That is just a man. So here's what happened. Two lesbian women used a sperm donor to have a baby. One woman used her eggs. The other used her womb. Now, of course, you guys know what I think about surrogacy and sperm donation and egg donation.

You can go back and listen to some previous episodes. So even without this gender confusion, I have ethical and moral qualms with this. But the confusion and the chaos that the. that these parents are bringing their child into. It's just heartbreaking. Like, as we said at the beginning, like, humans need order. We actually need definitions, as James Lindsay said on this podcast, all understanding lies and distinctions.

Like, it's very important for kids to be able to make sense of the world, to be able to tell the difference between male and female, mom and dad, aunt and uncle, grandma, and grandpa themselves, what they are. All of this is so important for us to orient ourselves in the world. and when you throw humans into a state of anarchy, personal anarchy, familial anarchy, they don't do well. As I've said before, these chickens have not come home to roost. Like we think that this is as bad as it can get.

Wait till the children that are growing up in homes like this, which are homes that are basically built not on seeking the best interest of a child, but seeking validation and affirmation from the existence of that child by adults, which is provisage. verse, when those children grow up, they are going to have problems that we don't even have the, we don't even have the words to diagnose the issues that are going to come from this. Remember, as Christians, whenever something goes from what is natural to what is possible through technology, through cultural change, or whatever, we always have the obligation to say, hang on, hang on a second. And really, that's as conservatives. That's what conservatives.

essentially believe too, but especially as Christians, when people, when things go from what God made to what man can make, sometimes that transition is fine. There are no moral qualms with it, but a lot of times there are. And we need to ask ourselves, okay, what is the impact of this? This, we know what the impact is going to be. Brad Wilcox, as I said, has done the family diversity theory debunking for a very long time. No, kids don't just need parents, three, five, two parents that love them. They need a mom and a dad. Ideally, ideally, they need a mom and a dad. And every policy, in every effort, of course, that we have as Christian should be toward that end to making that as easy as possible to making it as difficult as possible for kids not to have

that ideal situation of a mom and a dad. All right. Just wanted to give a little update on clown world. We have to continue to be a beacon of clarity and of courage, not playing the pronoun game, not sacrificing truth to accommodate people's feelings because that's really the most loving thing we can do. All right. I just wanted to end this in a little quick announcement to end this episode. And I've thought about like how I am going to say this in a way that is simply getting my point across without throwing anyone under the bus or causing any kind of like drama or anything like that. But I feel like it's important to talk about because I know some of you were excited to see me here. So there is a church and I think I just won't say the name of

the church because I don't want there to be any like calls from the audience to this church or like complaints. I don't want to get in the way of what can be like the of good things that can still come from this conference and that will come from this conference. So there's a church conference in Lexington, Kentucky that is happening in February. And a few of you have sent me a message saying, you know, you attend this church or you heard that I was going to be here speaking and that you were excited about this. And I just wanted to let you know that I will no longer be there. And it's not because I flaked out. It's not because I canceled. But I actually had my invitation rescinded, which has never happened before. I've never been invited to speak anywhere.

whether it's a church or a political event and then got my invitation rescinded. And I had been invited to this church event since 2021, which is pretty far in advance for someone to book me at an event. It's typically six months or something like that sometimes even last. But this is a long time. So we've been planning for this and excited for this and all of that. There were some other great women who were going to be speaking there. And then we heard right before Christmas that they're actually rescinding my.

invitation. This is, as I said, a church conference. I speak at a lot of these kind of conferences. I know I talk a lot about politics, but churches will invite me to come in to speak to their, to women, to talk about the importance of what biblical justice versus social justice looks like, or the meology that we see from the Rachel Hollises versus the real, you know, self-denying theology that we see in scripture. So I talk about lots of different things. Sometimes politics, sometimes not, when it comes to these groups, talk to a lot of pro-life organizations that aren't really political about the importance of defending children inside the womb. So anyway, I speak to a lot of these different kinds of groups.

But unfortunately, this church decided a few weeks ago that the satire that I do is not something that they want, I guess, represented at the church. the words used were that it was a distraction, that the satire videos that I do, making front of the Democrats and some of the ridiculous agenda items that they have, that it was a distraction from the purpose of the conference or, I don't know, the message of the gospel, even though I've been doing those since 2017, Apparently, this was just too much at this point. And, you know, it just got me thinking. I thought that it was really unfortunate.

And my personal opinion is that it is the wrong decision. And I think satire is a really important tool when done well to highlight points that can't be highlighted through literalism. And just to comfort you all in case you're wondering, am I? going to stop my satirical videos. No, I'm not because I think that they're really important. Like, I can't tell you how many pro-life pregnancy centers, the directors, the volunteers have reached out to me and said, and this sounds crazy. This sounds crazy, but it's, it's not, like how much the Elizabeth Warren video has meant to them. Because in that video where, yeah, I was making fun of Elizabeth Warren, Warren, but more so I was highlighting the amazing work that pregnancy centers do,

that they felt that, okay, someone else gets it. Like someone else is on our side. Like someone is willing to take shots at this powerful politician who was threatening to shut down pro-life pregnancy centers and is simultaneously highlighting the love and amazing service that we do in a way that is different than me just visiting a pregnancy center and saying, hey, this is what pregnancy centers do. It makes a different and even a better and more effective point. And these are not necessarily like,

Republican women reaching out to me. These are just women saying, yes, we do this work and thanks for highlighting that in a way that made us laugh and made us be able to kind of like make fun of Elizabeth Warren too instead of being so scared of her. And I'm like, yes and amen. Because look, and I'm not, I don't say this in like a braggadocious way. I say this in like a very grateful way. There's not very many people that do satire. And there's not very many people that can. And we like have a lot of creative people here and sometimes like our satire videos are better than others. That's just how it goes. But I think it, I honestly believe that it is a tool that God has given me has given us to make important points to convey them in a way that is even more effective than me just

telling you, hey, X, Y, X, Y, C. Like when I'm making fun of the Democratic Party and the things, I'm literally making fun of evil. I am, of evil. I am trying to show people in a way that I hope is convincing because it kind of makes you laugh that, hey, changing a child's gender or trying to is evil. It's evil. Abortion is evil. It is hypocritical. These immigration policies, they are evil.

And I've told you that a million times straight-faced and literally. So let me try to do it in a way that makes you laugh. And we've been doing that since 2007. 17, 2018, and that's not, you know, that's not going to stop. Now, that is, it is every churches and organizations, right, to decide, you know, kind of what they want to represent and what is a distraction and what is not, like, it, it's just like a bummer to me that, okay, making light of these legitimately, objectively, not even politically, but biblically evil things for the purpose of convincing

people that they're evil. Like, that's the thing that's too much. Like, that's the thing. That's the distraction. That's just a bummer. But, you know, that's okay. I understand that I am kind of like in this intersection that I am, we are at this show, like, sometimes too political for those who just consider themselves in the religious camp. And we are too religious, too theological for those in the political camp. I understand us talking about the gospel the way that we do. As talking about the difference between gospels and false gospels is really hard for people a lot of times on the right who are just like, let's just focus on the politics and the culture wars and not talk about any of that stuff. And then talking about the policies and the policy

positions and the politicians and the parties and the differences between the two and like, like what is evil and what is not when it comes to. Politics is really uncomfortable for a lot of Christians, but here I stand. I can do no other. And I will, you know, I will fail a million times in how I do it. Sometimes I am too harsh. Sometimes I'm too sarcastic. Sometimes how I choose to explain something is not effective. And I thought it was going to be. And I've made mistakes. And we talk about those on here. But all that to say, like, I'm thankful for all of you who are in this difficult intersection with me, who are, you're trying to navigate it all. You're trying to navigate the chaos and the craziness of this world with a little bit of humor and with as much grace as you possibly can and with a whole lot of truth and we're doing it

imperfectly but we're trying, which is why this show is called Relatable. And I'm just, I know the show isn't for everyone. It's not. But it is for thousands and thousands of you out there. And I know I'm biased, but I think that I've got the best and smartest and most fun audience in the world. in this sometimes very difficult combination and intersection in space of culture, politics, and theology. But we're here. We're here. And we're going to stay here. And 2023 is going to be an amazingly eventful year that I am sure of.

There's one thing that we can guarantee is that things are not going to be boring. And we've got a lot of fun plans for this year. so thanks for sticking with us. Share the show with your friends. Like I would love your friends who you think would like relatable. Or maybe who would, maybe you don't know if they would agree with me yet. Maybe they're Christian friends that you haven't quite convinced to care about this stuff,

but they eventually will. I love that person. We bring them in and then we make them care about all this craziness. Share this. Leave a five-star review. If you would like to, wherever you listen, subscribe on YouTube if you haven't already. And we will see you back.

You're tomorrow. 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.