Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 426 | Jase & Missy Reveal How ‘Duck Dynasty’ Affected Their Kids | Guests: Rachel & Sean Duffy

Episode Date: February 13, 2022

Al and Jase are joined by their wives, Lisa and Missy Robertson, to interview guests Rachel Campos-Duffy and her husband, former United States Rep. Sean Duffy. Sean and Rachel discuss how they have turned down offers to be in reality TV shows to raise their nine kids. Missy recalls an intense family counseling weekend, and Jase explains the impacts on his kids being in the spotlight of the TV show "Duck Dynasty." Watch the Unashamed overtime show, only on BlazeTV: https://BlazeTV.com/Unashamed Get Uncanceled by Phil Robertson, available now: https://www.amazon.com/Uncanceled-Finding-Meaning-Accusations-Condemnation/dp/1400230179 - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So welcome to the Unashamed podcast, Sean and Rachel Duffy. Yay! Rachel Campos Duffy, she's known professionally. But we are super excited to have you guys on Unashame. It's great to be with you guys. Thanks for having us. I know. We're so excited. So Rachel, the last time that Lisa and I saw you, we were freezing.

to death in Washington, D.C. at the March for Life, because you interviewed us for Fox and Friends, and do you remember how cold it was? Do you still remember that? Oh, my God. I don't know where you guys went after your interview, but I was there for hours after. And I really felt like, you know, when I wanted to, I complained a lot, but then I tried to keep myself in check because I knew I was there for a good cause. But that, I've been to the March for Life many times reporting for Fox. That was hands down, the cold is. that I have ever experienced at the March for Life. And it's hugely pretty cold.

And we were out there before daylight. So it was like we were on the Fox and Friends first hit. We were, I guess, the first hit. So it was, I mean, cold. So we went back to the hotel where it was warm, Rachel. And we, but we watched all your hits because they were all right at the same time. But I noticed it was just as cold for everybody else as it was for us. It didn't seem to matter.

But there's no way to start. We hugged. We hugged the whole time. That's right. That's what I was going to say. There's no way to start a friendship better than just snuggling and holding each other in that cold weather. I want to tell you this. Every morning for 60 days, I get up before daylight and it's cold and we go out in this. This is a normal occurrence. Except I do not huddle with my duck hunting partners. Maybe you should try that. Huddling is not allowed in the duck line. That's this thing.

Well, I'm just saying, breaking news, though. I'm out there in the element. here, you know. Well, I realize that. I could have given you some tips about how to stay warm. Yeah, and for a great cause, Jace. Well, table fare. Don't underestimate it. I had layered properly because we were marching later that day, but I noticed Rachel

had to have a certain amount of look. You know, she's on Fox News. So she had to look good, and so, but you have to trade something off for looking good or being warm. It's hard to do both. Yeah. But you did. You look great.

Alan and I looked like bears. and, you know, like a little cub. So I don't know if you guys know this, but Rachel and I actually met on reality TV. We did a show called The Real World on MTV. Don't watch it because it's embarrassing. We're not proud of getting sad in our younger years. We can prove like fine wine.

But we've had a number of people come back and approach us to do reality TV. A lot of people. And we've always turned it down. But I think as I watch what you guys have all done, the presentation of family and faith, I think, is what's truly needed in America right now, because the culture presents all this other garbage. You guys are shining lights out there. And again, it's a conversation that we've had and come to know, to the answer, no.

But it keeps coming up. It seems like every year. Well, with nine kids, I would think that that would be a draw for you to do a reality TV show. Nine kids is a lot. That's a lot of responsibility. Yeah. It's a lot. No one's ever happy at the same time.

I can tell you that. What's interesting is, as we've thought about it, it'd be really interesting to see what you guys say to that. When we did it, we were single. We weren't married. We didn't have kids. And I've just always worried about the kids. And what do you guys say about, you know,

showing the whole family. As Sean said, I think there's absolutely a positive cultural side to that. But what's the drawback? Let's made up the entire podcast Which is really curious Because I was going to ask you guys I read, I saw on the internet That you guys have both been in real world

And that's how you actually met And even though you were in two different cities And I was like, is this real? So I was, because I don't believe so much Of what I read on the internet. So I was like, that was my question to you guys Did that really happen? It was really you guys.

In fact, the first moment we ever met is captured on the show. And we're the first reality to be a couple ever. Ever. So it's a little problem.

Oh, wow. So you got that going for you. We're the most fertile as well. Y'all basically trailblazed the path for us so we appreciate it. Yeah, that's right. Y'all were early.

Well, I listened to your marriage podcast that you did just a few weeks ago and I listened to it on my way home from Tennessee. yesterday. And what I caught from the very first point you made about being intentional. I'm all about being intentional in a lot of things in a lot of areas of my life. But talk about the hard stuff about filming with your family and a reality TV show is I would say those years, what you call our little duck show, those years that we filmed that, Jason and I were very intentional about our

marriage and about our kids. And it was a daily meet, almost, I would say daily. We had some type of a conversation about where are you, where are you at, where are we at, where are the kids at? Because we saw other families and how it happened to them. We saw even parts of our families struggling with it. And we would always come back together and be very intentional about it. And I mean like, not just where are you, because we need to say that today, but it was about what exactly is going on on a daily and weekly basis and let's flesh it out, which is something that I wasn't used to growing up, all those hard conversations, but the Robertson family is, and then Jace is also very intentional.

So I would say, you might not agree with me, babe, but I would say during that time was one of the times in our marriage that we got closer as a couple. Oh, I agree. Yeah, I agree. I mean, because kids are obviously not mature enough to. handle the fact that if a bunch of people like you on social media that means nothing or they follow you so i would ask them like where are y'all going you got this many for they come hold out i got 150 more followers in like four miles like where are y'all going where are you headed it's like do what

it's like it's all a mirage you know if you if you get to thinking your personal worth is based on how many people like you and follow you. This is a dead end road. I mean, it may not even be real people. But that was the biggest problem, I think, is it's just hard for immature people to handle fame. So that is why we were having to be intentional. And how did the kids do?

Overall, I think, I mean, I can speak for our kids. Overall, I think they did very well. If I could go back, my boys aren't even on social media. They just saw that it. It was a means to an end. Mia, who is 18 now, was eight whenever we started filming. So 10 years ago, we started filming on A&E. But, you know, they had been used to cameras for longer than that.

But she had the most problem with it, but she also has, you know, she was born with craniofacial issues, cleft lip and palate, she has other issues that went along with all of that. But overall, I think that they understand. the dangers of social media. And if I would, if I could go back 10 years, social media would not have entered into the equation for any of my minor children at all. They would not have had a phone.

Yeah, I agree. So we've had the same conclusion, Sean. Yeah, so the first two kids, we have nine. The older ones all have phones, but we've now made, again, with having so many kids, you can figure out what you did wrong with young ones. Yep. Yeah. Yes.

Yeah. So I'm an eighth grader now who's like, I need a phone. I want a phone. And we've been like new. No, you don't need one. Nobody. Nobody that age needs one. Nobody needs one really other than you.

Maybe a flip phone, but you can't get social media on that. And you can take 10 minutes to try to text me a sentence. That's fine. Did you guys do like an exit interview with the kids? Because sometimes the two that have left our house, we've done exit interviews to go, okay, what do we do well as parents? What do we? What can we improve upon?

Have you had a conversation? Yeah. Once the show, was this worth it? Did you enjoy it? Did we make a good decision to expose our family? Or do you wish we hadn't done this at all? Or done it differently? Yeah.

Well, we had ex-up interviews, but they weren't planned. Yeah, it was more of a crash. Yeah, it was a crash. And while the flames were burning, we had a meeting. And they were like, this is what you did wrong. Yeah, we had them, and I think, to Missy, your credit and mine, I just thought, you know what, we got to fall on the sword. We did make mistakes here and there, and I look back on it. And so I just thought I'm going to own everything that they come up with, even some things, I didn't even really understand what their point was.

but most of the things they came up with, I thought, yeah, you know what, I could have done better. But they were shocked. And I was like, you're going to have to live a faithful life and have integrity and character in spite of some of the mistakes that I made. But overall, I love you. We've had just about six months ago, I'll say this, we had a very intense family counseling weekend. And we saw that coming.

We saw, we had, I had a friend of mine who, was specialized in trauma and she came to our house and after a day and a half she told us that we did eight weeks worth of counseling in a day and a half the boys my my boys flew in and we just knuckled down because we saw some problems in our family that needed to be taken care of and so we did it and I was super proud of us doing that and the the siblings had you know Mia had held some things against her older brothers basically for leaving abandoning her you know but without really abandoning her. They grew up and moved out.

They left, you know. But there were so many issues that we thought we were dealing with, but we actually were not and didn't really know how to deal with. And so we had, this was the crash. This was the big crash weekend about six months ago. And it was the best thing we've ever done for our family. And even, you know, we just had a brand new baby, grandbaby. So we're first time grandparents.

And when Reed and Brighton had the baby, I don't even know if I told you this, babe, it was during duck season. So, but, but like two or three days after they brought Maris home, Reed's text to me, Reed sends me this text and says, Mom, I don't appreciate your passive aggressiveness. And we're dealing with a lot right now. And I looked at this text and I was like, what? What? What just happened?

You know, so I go to call and I'm like, did you tell him anything? He's like, what are you talking about? Mia said, mom, call him up. If we learned anything about in counseling, let's just lay it out on the table and get it all out. And so. Good job, Mia. Yeah, I called him and he was like, I'm sorry. That was, you know, we're just like a sleep and the baby's not sleeping and, you know, first time parents.

And so that helped in so many more ways than just getting the stuff out that we needed to, but it also helped us learn to communicate better going forward. Yeah, you know. Go ahead. You guys do eight months of counseling and a day and a half. Eight weeks. Eight weeks. Still, I mean, in a short time, was it just everyone was really open and willing to share?

It was about. Hang on, miss it. Hang on. Let's take a break. The counseling session that happened that weekend, she came in and basically started on Friday night with two sessions with Mia. And then the next day it was just like one session with her, one session with me, one session with me and Jace, one session with Mia and the boys.

And then Sunday morning it was a session and it was like we were exhausted. We were completely mentally exhausted. But what we had decided when we brought her in was we're going to give her everything that we have because we want our family to heal in the ways that we feel we are lacking. And moving forward to one, we want it to be better. Yeah, a lot of it was not like there was some big glaring problem. But just when you're in the limelight and you're scattered, in every direction and then your kids grow up and they they move on it just becomes weird it's a new normal and so we were just seeing through attitude i guess and just we would get together they were

just like what what what was something's not right we did have a glaring we did have a glaring problem with with mea who was acting out at the time and i want her to be able to tell her story at some point so i'm i'm not going to do that for her well but but it was It was time. Something had to happen, you know, for us to be able to function going forward. But it's when you have a special needs kid is what I'm saying. So with her, it was like, how can we help her, you know? Because when you're famous and you have facial challenges and you're constantly changing,

well, you just think about putting a kid in that spotlight. Well, we felt horrible for that because, you know, kids can be mean. And so we're like, how do we best handle this situation? Because we felt partly responsible. She didn't ask to be famous. but she is so I think that's where the counseling came from it was a great idea I mean I was like oh oh counselor I don't know about this

but it was actually awesome what were you going to say so I think it's really interesting because um there is so much stigma around around getting counseling I could relate a lot to what you were saying when Sean was in Congress I felt like you know the congressmen political families They get a lot of, you know, criticism and, oh, you know, you really, you can't complain about it because you're supposed to be super honored that you get to serve.

And it's great. Yes. But it's very taxing on a family, especially a family of our size. And there was a lot of, I just felt like we were on a hamster wheel until he got out. And there were, you know, there are things that fell in the cracks, you know, when that happens. And I think that we also felt coming out of that. and our own, you know, we are public figures as well, that it can be hard on kids. And when I hear you talk about it, I'm like, maybe we need this counselor.

My question to be on that is obviously you're a public family. And so trust with a counselor is really important, right? You want to share and, you know, you want to feel comfortable getting through kind of the, you know, deep things that are bugging the family. Do you have a hard time finding someone that you could trust and be called and load on? Because you don't want to go to just anybody because. Because if they expose you, you don't want that year. That was huge for me. Well, that was huge.

We did have this couple that were really good friends with. Yeah. It's basically she was a friend of, she's a friend of mine, and she's trained in this area and works for actually Texas A&M in counseling. And I was just, you know, telling her about this and kind of venting, like, I need some help as a mom. Like, I'm not really sure how to handle this. And so people are recommending counselors. I'm like, you know, we've been through so much with her. This was a spiritual decision.

This was a spiritual problem. And I cannot hand my child over to someone without me knowing exactly what kind of advice they're going to give my 18-year-old, newly adult child in the spiritual world. And also, you know, is she going to tell them the truth? And this is this counselor who doesn't know us going to believe her. There are so many factors. And so when I talked to my friends, And she was like, you know what, we're just going to, I'm just going to bring my husband and kids and we're going to spend the weekend with y'all.

And I just started crying on the phone. I was like, you would do that for us? And she said, yes. And since she was specializing in trauma, this was basically a trauma situation with Mia having 13 surgeries and going all through this without any siblings in the home and many reasons. And so I do not regret that at all. and now I'm like a proponent for if you need it, you get it done, get it done, but with someone that you know. Well, yeah.

Well, you have to get over the idea about the counseling. But what hit me as a believer, you know, Jesus himself, when he was on the earth, he was like, I'm not going to leave you alone. I'm going to send you a counselor speaking of the Holy Spirit to be with you forever. And I'm like, I mean, if the creator of the universe is like pro-counseling, what am I doing here? I don't have to have most of the time people go to a counselor as a last resort. And I'm like, it's way too late in the process at that point, not to say it can't be healed then.

So we were more doing a preemptive strike, I think, because it didn't. I mean, I think the big stuff was fine. But really between the cell phone and technology, because all of our kids struggled with the cell phone making good decisions. Of course, we're paying for the phone. So at any time, I would go in there. and say, hand me your phone. And from all our time being in TV and being around these weird soundboard guys, no offense, but I'm like, I have access to these people who can pull up things that you think are deleted.

And so every time I would look at the phone, I'd say, is there anything in here? Jesus wouldn't approve. They'd usually say, oh, no, it's fine. Five minutes later, I'm like, what is this? And so, but during that period, what I was going to say is when I took my daughter's phone a way, which is something I should have done with my boys, I said, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to go with you, I'm going to walk with you on this. I'm not going to go to social media. I mean, I still have my phone to make calls, but that's it. And then I realized I was spending

way too much time looking at how many followers I had. And so that was the most freeing experience from the whole thing. And it made me realize, you know, we're all humans. And that, that's a trap. So yeah my my co-worker Pete Hegseth Um got rid of Twitter so he's still on a couple other platforms that you know It's hard in our business we kind of get a lot of news through those platforms too But anyway he got rid of Twitter and he said my mental health just got better like I just made a happier person without it And um I'm I keep saying keep threatening I'm going to do that too I will say that I did see a show once a a

They literally laid out the mental health of kids, of teenagers over the years. And it was like this. Then phone gets introduced, like where social media and phones get introduced through the years. And then it spikes up. So you can overlay the introduction of the phone and social media and rates of anxiety and depression on children. And loneliness and alienation and isolation. and it just spikes up it. It's so, it is so weird that we as parents hand our children,

and we struggle with it so much too. We hand our children something that we know is not good for them that's going to make them sadder or, you know, have more anxiety or have more self-doubt that takes them away from real relationships and connectedness, which is where happiness really comes from. But the problem that we've had is like all their friends, the whole community, especially with young people on social media,

that's not us as much. we still call each other and go have dinner with people. But for kids, that is their whole life and sort of take it away. You're almost taking away their whole social structure. And it's a balance on, do we take that away? Do we give it to them? How do we navigate it? We took it away.

We took it away. It was too bad. Too many bad things. I mean, look, I've shared this story before. I went way down over and beyond. And look, my daughter was bitter at me for a while because of what I did. I think when she got older, she realized where my heart was. You know, when I got her phone, I went into her social media platforms and posed as her for a couple days and got to know her friends really well.

And after a while, they figured it out. But I then said, look, she's going to make some changes, which I said, this is actually her dad. But she's going to make some changes. And you've got to make a decision. Are you going to help her be a better person? or you're going to influence her, you know, in a negative way. If you're going to influence her negative way, you may go now. But, and I invited them to come to our house or that relationship was going to end.

And we had, I don't know how many. Six out of eight that you contacted. Six of her friends brought their mom to our house because I basically offered an ultimatum, either make better decisions. But I was surprised at how they were willing to make better decisions to save the friendship. Can you imagine the expletives that were said when they realized it was you were her dad? We don't have to imagine. I mean, I don't want to imagine them. I could have to just scroll back and I were right there. That's why they knew it. Yeah. I was seeing them already. They're there from a

teenage kids perspective. Let's take a break. Well, and you guys like, you've gone through major, you mentioned, and I listened to the podcast too, the ones you did about marriage. So I picked up a lot from that as well. But you've made major changes, right? I mean, because now, you know, when you were in Congress, so is that why you got out, John, was basically for your family? Was that, or is that the main reason you? Yeah, so I was in, I was in for nine years. And when you run for Congress, when you serve in Congress, the whole family serves. And so as I was going back and forth to Washington, D.C., Rachel was at home with all the kids. And we kept having kids. So it kept getting stop. So in my ninth year, we were pregnant with our ninth baby, and in this little one,

we found out was going to have a heart condition. She was going to have Down syndrome. And at that point, I was like, listen, this is not going to work for her. I can't be gone. And it was an interesting debate that the two of us had is because she wanted me to stay in. She didn't want to make the decision for us to leave. And usually she makes the decisions. I don't wear the pants But that was the one time, like, listen. It is the first time we had a marriage decision, a big decision that we weren't on the same page. I think I was pregnant, very far along. And I just didn't want to change.

Like, as hard as it was, the change and the unknown felt scary to me. Because I already felt stressed about, I didn't know what was going to happen. You know, I never had a child with special needs. I knew she was going to need this big surgery. I just felt like the last thing we needed was to throw another wrench into this. But he felt really strongly that we had just stretched the bandwidth too far. He literally said, God's giving us so many signs. Like we'd seen signs with our other kids just not doing as well as they were doing years before.

Then this happened. And he literally looked at me, he said, what do you want? What more signs do you want from God? Do you want someone to die? And that's what I said. Yeah, you're right. There are signs and I'm not listening. And so then we did it.

We got out. And in kind of hindsight, Donald Trump was very mad about this, by the way. I think of the second or one for governor in Wisconsin. I'd be like, listen, this is not, maybe politics later, but not right now. But, you know, when I saw I'm a U.S. congressman and you think you have more power than most people to serve in this great institution, in this great government. And I realized it's really hard to change things in Congress.

I mean, you're one of 135 in the House. And we've kind of had this moment of saying, if you're really going to change America, you're not going to do it through your government. You're going to do it through your family. And I think if conservatives, I made this point quite a bit, if families actually focus on raising good kids,

faithful, moral, honorable young people to go out into the world, that change continues. And it's conservatives who are having, kids. And so we all have to focus on our families. And if we do that, we're going to save this country. But it's not coming from one. And it's not coming from the House or the Senate. It's coming from every family making that decision to make sure their kids aren't getting wokeified on social media or in the classroom. Or if they are getting wokenified, how are you talking to them back

at the kitchen table? If you can't get them into a classical education or a Christian education, how are you talking to them to make sure that you're raising good little people as opposed to the little Marxists that social media and schools are trying to, you know, drive into our children. And so we think that, again, serving in Congress, our greatest movement is the family, the family movement for us. Yeah, it was hard. But I think in the end, that was, that what, it was like, we can't save America as one person in Fort, with, in, in, in the house of representatives. But we can save our family. And we can feel the strains on our family. And so then when we really, when it came down to brass tax, we just, God was giving us all the signs.

I just wasn't listening. One last thing. So when I love, I love being a congressman. I mean, I love the work. I love the people. I mean, I'm, and I'm good at it. I was, I loved it. I got out and I made the decision, right?

I told you that. I had to go to a number of different events. And the next week, like every event I went to, I couldn't say anything because I'd start crying. Oh, yeah. I was just bawling because it was really meaningful. I mean, I really enjoyed it. He loved his job. He loved it.

And again, loving a job is not as important as loving your family. Yeah, exactly. If you ever run again, I'm voting for you. I feel like I want to jump up and down because everything you just said, Sean, I mean, everything you just said, that's what I feel at my heart. That's what I know as to be truth. And I have said, I've learned this that, you know, people say, well, is parenting hard? You know, well, parenting is not hard.

Millions of people do it every day. It must not be hard. Good parenting is really hard. And you have to be really intentional. And that takes hard, hard work. And a lot of people are just not willing to put in that hard work and intentionality. And it shows. That's why they hand them screens when they're two years old at the dinner table.

All of these things, because it's easy and it makes life easy for you at the the time. But what a friend of mine said about who works with drug addicts is play that tape out. If you do this now, play that tape out what's it going to look like in a year, two years, three years, ten years for your child and your family. So good parenting is really hard, and I stand by that. And my mom will tell me all the time, I don't envy you. You know, it's just it's harder now. You know, there are just so many more forces, so much. many more cultural forces that make it harder. And we all get so busy. I mean, again, like, now that we're, I mean, we work hard at, you know, at our jobs right now, but there was a hamster

wheel about what was happening. I mean, he was gone four days a week. Then he'd come back. We had this giant district. He had to go to this thing. You had to go to that thing. And you just get into this thing. And it, like I said, it's wonderful. You know you're trying hard. You're trying to make a difference. I try to do what I could as a political spouse. I try to, you know, take care of everything at home, but at some point, you just can't do it all. And I think a lot of Americans, we're hardworking people. And I think we do get into that Hampshire wheel and forget what, why we're working. We're really working so we can be with our families. And so if you're not being with your family, then you have figure out what you're doing wrong with the work side. And maybe on that point, too, like, if I think so often

we talk about marriage as marriage is easy, right? And I think a lot of young people go into marriage thinking it's this great union and it's going to be fun. And anything we do this great, whether you're going to become a college athlete or a pro athlete or you're going to start a business or you're going to run for Congress, it takes a lot of work to have success in anything that we do. And marriage is also hard work. And I think letting people know that it's kind of hard, that we'll fight and we'll to fight through it is really important because people can't think it's always roses and sunshine and unicorns. It's a difficult engagement, but it's really rewarding. It's one of the most rewarding things that in our lives is having a good marriage and being good parents. But if you don't

understand the work that goes into it, I think that's why marriage has failed. Well, Rachel, what Rachel said on the podcast about when you come in and you're disappointed because the house isn't the way that you wanted it to be, if he would have gone, you know, you would have had the homemade soup on the stove and everything cleaned and put in place, you know, but then he reminds you, you didn't marry yourself. Yeah. When he says you didn't marry yourself.

That's right. I don't know if you guys could look at the way Jay's is looking at missing right now. Are we doing this now? No, I'm just saying. I love it. Hang out. Let's take a break. No, but, you know, Sean, before I knew you guys from Fox,

you know, I remember, you know, the news when you were stepping out and you had done an interview on something. And I didn't know much about you at that time because you're a congressman from Wisconsin. But I remember thinking, man, I really respect this guy because family matters to. It reminded me we've got a baseball friend, Adam LaRoche, that's a good friend of our family. And, you know, he retired basically, you know, over a deal because his kid wasn't accepted in the clubhouse. And so he was like, he walked away from millions of dollars a game. he loved that he was really good at because he said you know what if you if my family can't be a part of this then I'm not going to be a part of this and I remember thinking the same thing about Adam I mean

I thought what that's a man right there I mean that's a guy who's willing to go all in for a family and so I mean you guys had so you got reality TV uh government and then you had now your own media cable media I don't know that you could have more difficult you guys have picked the chat the path you've chosen how could it be any more difficult. I got one. I know how. What's that?

Maybe you could go into ministry. Yeah. That's anything that you're lacking. Yeah. That's exactly right. And then film it all. Film it all at the same time. Yeah.

Because ministry is so much like the politics, what you were talking about. Because when you're in ministry, the wife is not employed, but she's still doing all the work, you know, that the preacher's doing. So, yeah. So it's the same thing. People are very, you know. know, people are looking in, it's very judgy, you know, it can be that way. There's a lot, there's a lot there's a lot there. I really love Lisa now, your story. We talked in the cold about, you know, your story. And I just think that there's so much, there's so much hope

in your story because I think, as Sean said, marriage is hard. And to know that, you know, we talked a little bit about when you have a lot of kids that you get these second chances with, you know, that God is a God who renews all things. And I just, I went back after I spoke with you guys and went through and looked at videos and went online to learn more about your story. And I just was blown away. I found it wildly inspirational for everybody. And I just, I'm amazed by it.

I really am. I just have so much respect. Agreing. Yeah, we were essentially, because we were, when you guys were talking, we've talked mostly about parenting, but, you know, you said it, Sean, a marriage, when your marriage falls apart, obviously your children are, I mean, they're the casualties through no fault of their own. And so one of the things that Lisa and I is we're staring down the double barrel shotgun of divorce, one of the things we realized was us trying to grapple with that in counseling and the ways we did it was there's going to be two victims here either way. I mean, even if we can somehow work it out, we've got a lot of damage to repair. And, of course, our daughters are adults now and have their own children.

But we still see the signs and the things from all that difficulty that we had. So, I mean, just speaking as a couple who totally lost it and then found our way back, your kids, they're going to benefit most if your relationship is what it should be. And that's one thing I loved about your podcast. You guys really were talking about even through all the processes of being friends first, of having your faith at the forefront, all the things you have to do to have strong marriage, because you're never going to be a good parent. At first, you don't have a good relationship with each other.

I mean, that's the basis of everything, can you say? Yeah, well, and I would say first, your relationship with Christ has to be the most important. And then the husband and wife relationship is next. but if any of those get out of the position that they're supposed to be in, of course you're going to have, you know, major struggles. And, you know, the do-overs, we only had two kids, so we didn't have nine that we could, you know, do over at the end. But now we have six grandkids. So I feel like, because we all live in a compound area together, you know. That sounds so weird.

We all live about 100 yards from each other. It's probably normal neighborhood. Yeah, it is. But I mean, but we get to share this with our grandkids, you know, and we get to help our kids parent better than we did. And I always tell my kids, look, I know I was not the best mom. There's not anything I can do about that now. But I can be a great grandmother for your children. And I will do, I will work that as hard as I can to be the best that I could be.

And even with social media, our granddaughter had had some problems with that too. So that affects everybody. It doesn't matter what kind of family they're in. It doesn't matter what their parents do or who their parents are. That is going to affect everybody if you put it in their hands too early. I would say, first of all, I think one of the greatest things that you guys are modeling is this intergenerational living. And I am such a big fan of it. I want it so bad in my own family.

Unfortunately, I live in a cold zone, and it's really hard for me to get my parents to leave Arizona. I bet. I beg and I beg. I offer first class tickets to come. They just don't want to be here. But I have decided for myself, and I've talked to Sean, I mean, our goal is to go somewhere warm eventually and make sure that all of our kids are around us because I want to live like that in a compound type situation with all my kids really really close by and one of the things

I want to say too is that on television I talk a lot about CRT and wokeism and everything that's going on in the culture that's hurting our kids talk about all the time and I always talk about grandparents because I think it is one of the most underestimated sources of influence in the lives of children true I think a lot of grandparents don't realize what kind of power they have to first of all kids want to hear what their grandparents' lives were like. They want to feel that connection, that history, that legacy. I just think it's amazing. And I think people underestimate the power of grandparents.

But also as parents, I mean, you don't have any better source of information than your own parents where they can give you advice on the good, the bad, and the ugly, and how do you deal with the situation in your own family today from the wisdom that they have of already gone through it. So, and again, I think we've only just seen this what in the last, you know, 60, 70 years where families now all dissipate and don't live by each other or near each other and that interconnection doesn't exist. And I think that's one of the problems that we do have in families. Again, we talk about counseling. You have no better counselors than your own parents to get

advice from. How you can navigate marriages and families. And when they're wise about it, let's take a last break. When they're wise about it, they also know, Rachel, you tell the story on your podcast, and I want you to tell it to our audience about how your first year of marriage was really difficult and you got and you were like you know you were like I'm that this is a huge mistake right so tell about what you called your mom because you were thinking what you were thinking so one thing about Hispanic women is they're very close to their mothers like Sean can't understand I talked to my mom like five times a day um and another phone with it right before we got a podcast for it break away um and so i yeah i mean our our first year of marriage was difficult i think i i had been

living out in l.a i had my own life he was in law school we had no money i mean i moved into an apartment with him and his best friend it was just and it was not you know horrible i can't even i almost get PTSD thinking about that apartment in porto from Minneapolis but um Yeah, and at one point, I remember calling my mom and I was crying and I said, listen, I, this was a mistake. I don't know what I was thinking. I got to get out of here. I want to come home. And my mother and her thick Spanish accent said, I'm sorry, honey, you don't have a home here anymore.

You need to work this out with your husband. Wow. Honestly, when I think back on it, it was so smart because you do hear about couples like that where the wife is constantly going back to our mom's house, you know, when everything goes back. And it really forced me to go, you know what? I have to work this out with him. And very early on in our marriage, it caused me to have to learn how to work it out. And that's, that was the best thing gift she gave me.

You know that my dad did the exact same thing with me, but it was the weekend that we got married. And he is, he's so like. I knew we were going down this road. What? I'm just saying it was the exact, because. I did not see that this conversation coming because it was before we got married. And he said, I just need to let you.

I remember where I was standing at their house, everything. And he caught me in the hallway and he said, I need to tell you something. And I said, yes, sir. And he said, after you get married, you can't come back here. And I looked at him because he's not a stern man. He's very loving. He's very emotional. He took one look at me and said, you know what, let me just go ahead and make a prophecy here.

And it came out to be true because our first year was bumpy. It was really hard. But he knew from his wisdom that I might want to leave for a little while and come home to mom and dad. And he was letting me know that's not an option. And I didn't realize it at the time. But of course, a few weeks into it, I knew exactly what he was talking about. This marital bliss we now share. Because we have the big stuff down.

But we, you know, Missy and I fight like cats and dogs about all the other stuff. in front of our kids, which I think they find it humorous. Because I'm from the wood. She's from the city. She's booby-trapped the house with all this china and glasses and plates. And so every time I walk around, I'm bumping into something. And the other night, she was going to get a cookie. And I heard a big crash.

She's bleeding. And I'm like, quit booby-trapping the house. She can't even get a cookie without. So, but I think it works because of the power of God. I think when the first years are rough, I can honestly say, I feel like marriage just kept getting better. I feel like... It couldn't get any worse. That's right.

We needed to hang out more. I'm telling you, it's good therapy. Mary can honestly say that. Yeah. Look, I told both my kids... I told both my kids that they couldn't come home, but they did come home, but they brought somebody with them. So both of my kids lived with me after they were married.

So, you know, I talked. Yeah. While they were doing house stuff. I would always say, don't do that. Yeah. But if you made that work. Yeah. You made it work.

It worked. But you know what was interesting, Lisa and I, obviously because of our story, we've worked and helped a lot of couples find hope. Like you were talking about, Rachel, we've discovered that our story was a powerful God's story that needed to be told for other people. And so we've worked with a lot of people. But, you know, when our own kids had difficulties in their marriages, Lisa immediately wanted to go in as like we would do with a couple.

And I told her, I said, babe, we can't do that. I mean, they need help, and I want to guide them to help, but it doesn't need to be us. In this role, in this relationship, we've got to be a support system for them, not their counselor. I mean, they need that, but we need to be a, we're a different role. And I think it was wisdom. You know, it was hard because, you know, you knew things that needed to do.

It really was hard because my, at least one of my daughters is just like me. And so I said, I know what to tell her. I mean, I know how to help her out of this now. I was like, nope, can't be you. You need to be her mom. Can't be me. I think all of us, though, got to remember. I mean, Al, when y'all were going through your difficulty, I was giving you terrible

advice. I was like, leave that woman now. We all were. I was bad that he wouldn't. And, you know, from that situation to even with our special needs daughter when she was born, I mean, Missy and I, we basically felt sorry for ourselves for about three or four months during the pregnancy because we saw it on the ultrasound that there was going to be issues. But, you know, when you look back on it, you realize that all this difficulty and pain

and just the trials that we went through, God was working, you know, us and preparing our hearts for, you know, influencing greater things as a family. And I think that's the deal. You don't quit. You don't cut and run. You just get in there and roll your sleeves up with everyone involved. And it can even change your personality. I mean, I never cried or I was never emotional until we had our special needs daughter. I've been crying ever since. And I thought, well, Jesus wept. So, you know, it was a, but it just changed my whole personality because then I you know, what am I chasing here? What am I trying to do?

And it really makes you focus on this forever family concept that God introduced. He's given us these special blessings. We're kind of leading the ship as we go through the power of God. And it just makes you, you know, change your outlook of it in life. And so when we do this show, you know, I put it in God's hands. I mean, every once in while I'll be getting stressed out. Missy's like, I mean, if God is for this, You can't stop it.

And I'm like, oh, yeah, you're right. Okay. Let's go. There's a little thing when I was thinking about when I'm on my death bat, what will be the meaningful things in my life is I'm making that preparation to hopefully go to the right place. Right. Will I be like I passed that bill or I made this money or I did or is it about is it about my wife and my kids and my family and and kind of the work I did here? And I think that of course, if you think about that moment in your life, it is about this thing.

The feeling you've built, not those other distractions or how many followers I had on social media and how many people like me. That is meaningless. All this stuff is so meaningless when it comes down to brass taxes. It's family and our faith that is no matter. I'd say about a couple months ago, there's been a lot of pressure ever since Sean got out of Congress for him to go back to Wisconsin and run for governor. And we got the polling. Very early on, the polling was through the roof. Like, essentially, you know, and even Sean called the pollster and was like, well, I live in New Jersey now.

He's like, with poll numbers like this, you can live on Mars. You're going to win. And sure enough, Donald Trump must have seen some of the polling. He called. He was like, America needs you. This is the time. This is. And again, I mean, it's exciting.

It's flattering. Also, we both. worry about our country and where it's at right now. And I felt a lot of guilt because, like I said, we got off the hamster. Well, our life is a lot easier right now. It's not perfect, but it's a lot easier. We enjoy each other. We have coffee together every morning. I love it. And I felt guilty. And literally, Donald Trump literally said, your family, because John said, I'm, I don't know, Mr. President, you know, like the, you know, my family, I got to take care of my family and he was like, you're one family. What about the American family? And he laid on the

guilt. And I said to Sean, you know what? I feel guilty. Like, I know you could win. And I see that governors have a lot more influence over, you know, if we're going to save America, it's going to be through the state. That's right. That's the way. And Sean said, when I'm on my deathbed, he goes, I'm going to regret not being governor. I know that. But when I'm on my deathbed, am I going to regret not being governor or am I going to regret losing these precious years with these kids and this responsibility that I have as a father right now? I can be a governor maybe later on if that's what God wants. But right now we have to do this.

And I think it does come down to that. And I listen to what you guys are saying and this whole conversation that we're all having here. And what I hear is family, marriage, it's messy. It's messy. And we lost them. But we lost the Duffy's, but it was a great final point. Yeah, we were literally out of time. We were out of time.

I think she was going to say it's messy, but you can do it. You can do it. So their podcast is called The Kitchen Table. It's on Fox News Radio. If you want to look for that, they do one. It's mostly current events, but they did one on marriage recently. It was really good. So check them out.

Of course, she's on Fox and Friends, and he's a Fox News contributor. So good discussion. Yep. So we're going to overtime with the ladies, and we're going to process everything we've talked about today. So, Jason, let's do some process. So blazTV.com slash Unashamed. If you hadn't subscribed, you want to catch our overtime. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast.

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