November 13, 2025 • 33 mins
In this episode, Mary Katharine Ham and Karol Markowicz dive into some of America’s most pressing cultural and political issues—from Trump’s immigration policies and the lingering Epstein controversy to the troubling decline in education standards across the country. As the holiday season approaches, they reflect on the importance of rebuilding strong, supportive communities and the challenges modern parents face in fostering resilience and connection. Normally is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Thursday.
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, guys, I'm back on normally. There's what normalist takes
for when the news gets weird. I am Mary Caton and.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Carol mark Witz. How are you? Mary Catherine? What
day is it?
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Who even knows? It feels late in the way it's insanct.
I got my Dolly shirt on, so that's I love
the Dolly today.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Love it very cool. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not
really sure what day it is. I don't know. Sometimes,
like right before Thanksgiving, things start to move very quickly,
and like the Christmas lights are up in our part
of Florida and TJ Max is playing Christmas music, which
makes me feel like it's post Thanksgiving. I'm very confused.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yeah, I know this is like a discussion everyone has.
I am more of a wait till post Thanksgiving person
for Christmas stuff because I feel like my days move
fast enough as it is. Guys. I'm not sure that
I need to speed this.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Up, right, But I love like yesterday actually happened to
be like a chilly day in Florida, so hearing it's
beginning to look a lot like Christmas at my local
TJ Max.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
When I was enjoyed that sixty five and everybody was freezing.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Todath that was really cool. I couldn't watch my son's
soccer last night.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
I was so cold.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I had to go wait in the car.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, I understand. Wow, wow, Yeah. So I'm holding off
for a little while. Not on Christmas present buying. I
actually did start that nice. So you're welcome, economy, right,
But the decorating, I will hold off till a little
at least I will start gathering a little bit before Thanksgiving,
and I'll try to hold off until post Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I love it. Keep us posted. By the way, everybody,
Thanksgiving is two weeks from tomorrow, two weeks today. If
you're hearing it on Thursday, two weeks from today. Friends,
get your turkey.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
It's happening too fast.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Okay, all right, let's do it. Donald Trump, what is
going on with him? Yeah? I don't know. He had
an interview with Laura Ingram on Fox News. You would
expect that interview to be fairly friendly. It got pretty contentious.
And it's on the issue that you and I often
(02:18):
say Donald Trump is a liberal on which is immigration,
which is there's a lot of irony there. Right, He's
the build a wall, make Mexico pay for it, mass deportations,
all of that. But whenever he has the opportunity, he's like,
let's let in a bunch of you know, Chinese college students,
Let's do like three hundred thousand of them or things
(02:39):
like that. And it is it's confusing, but that's that's
our Donald Trump, and that's where we are. Let's play
the clip from Laura's show and then discuss it.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Republicans have to talk about it.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
And does that mean the H one B visa thing
will not be a big priority for your administration because
if you want to raise wages for American workers, you
can't flood the country with with tens of thousands or hundreds.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
I agree, but we also do have to bring in
talent when we.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Country talent and I know you don't know, you don't
we don't have talent.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Now you don't have you don't have certain talents, and
you have to people have to learn. You can't take
people off an unimploiment like an unemployment line and say
I'm going to put you into a factory who we're
going to make missiles or I'm going to put w Do.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
We ever do it before?
Speaker 5 (03:22):
Well?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
And I I'll give you an example. In Georgia they
raided because they wanted illegal immigrants. They had people from
from South Korea that made batteries all their lives. You know,
making batteries are very complicated. It's not an easy thing
and very dangerous, a lot of explosions, a lot of problems.
They had like five or six hundred people early stages
(03:44):
to make batteries and to teach people how to do it. Well,
they wanted them to get out of the country.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
You're going to need that lure.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I mean, I know you and I disagree on this.
You can't just say a country's coming in, going to
invest ten billion dollars to build a plant and going
to take people off an unemployment line who haven't worked
in five years, and they're going to start making the missiles.
It doesn't work that well.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
It doesn't work though americ Catherine.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Well Trump has a way, despite being a like in
some ways a phenomenal communicator, will stumble on phrases that
are like oh no, sir, yes, like no, you don't
have talent in this country. Yeah, he's not a thing. Yeah, yeah,
what we're trying to say. It was extremely.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Cringey and yet it's like, you know, he got defensive
and he doesn't really mean that, but yes.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
It was.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
You know what it remind you know what it reminded
me of. It's like when he gets in his tough
love love vibe and some of that I like, because
people do need to hear. As you and I agree,
there are some very specialized things that you need folks
for and sometimes they can come from other countries and
that's fine. It reminded me of his tough love moment
when he was like, you know, kids will just have
(04:52):
two dolls instead of thirty dollars, and I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no,
we do not like that messaging in the United States
of America, your adults. So now he's doing it, is
doing it on the economy. And look, I think whether
it's immigration or the economy in general, or affordability, if
you sort of shush people about their very real concerns
about their livelihoods and their affordability and their ability to
(05:16):
shop and all of these things, you will get in
trouble no matter what party you're in or how much
they like you.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Absolutely, And look, the HB one thing like there is
a moderate path here which is you need some number
of specialized people on the HB one visa, you keep
that number really small because Laura's right, we did used
to do this somehow, right.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
We did. You would train people to do it for
the jobs.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Right, you kind of have to figure out how you
make batteries or we do it. We actually did do it,
and we should do it. And if we need some
tiny number of specialized people in the meantime, that's fine.
That's not what's going on here. There's been so many
ours and so many people speaking out about HB one abuses.
(06:03):
You and I covered it on previous episodes of the show.
There is a lot of abuse of this program. It
needs to be reformed. It cannot continue the way it is. Well.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I think Trump is a person who if he were
giving a consistent message about how he's vetting this system,
how he's making sure it's working properly. But in this situation,
he's specifically saying, no, we need these people, and then
he goes on a little mini rant in there about
the Hyundai plant. I just want to point out that
when he says they went to go get these specialized
(06:35):
workers that you need to make batteries, the they is
ice under Donald Trump's administration. So if we indeed need
those workers, many of which had short term visas, I
don't know how many of them were actually in here
illegally and how many had permits that I think the
federal government said the permits weren't exactly correct for them
to be here. Whatever it was, it disrupted that plant immensely.
(07:00):
And again it was his immigration enforcement, right.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
He's really mad at the people who did this.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
To be consistent about it, so people can trust you
to vet the system properly. And then, as you said,
we're open to the idea that you do need some people,
but that American companies shouldn't be faking like they're trying
to hire Americans when they're really not doing that, which
is some of what we've seen in the right.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, I hate that people try to fit Donald Trump,
you know, triangle into a round peg. He is who
he is, and he says who he is. I don't
think he ran as a different person. I think this
is who he's been and you and I were calling
him out in so many different ways. I mean, even
just like the million dollar green card or any of
(07:47):
these things, it's a very specific type of immigration argument
that Donald Trump is making. I don't agree with it,
but this is who he is. Because I see people
on X being like, which are Stafford gave him this information?
Is really misguided. Bro, It was no Staffer, this was
Donald Trump being Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah. Well, I do think this is one of those
issues where if you're concerned about losing the more isolationist
America first wing of the party, if you're looking to
speak to the young men in that segment about their
future economically, this is ground on which you should tread carefully. Yeah,
(08:29):
because those folks were looking to you to make their
economic prospects better, and you have to explain to them
that the H one B visas or the Chinese nationals
will not be causing the problems they think they will cause.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yeah. Absolutely, But again they voted for him being this guy. Like,
I don't think anything new has happened since his election.
I think that this is who he is. He has
this impulse of you know, I'll bring in it could
be millions of people, but they'll be the best people.
But we're like, but that would still harm the best
people that we have here. It's sort of like he
(09:05):
doesn't see the next thing that happens just over the horizon,
what problems could happen with this?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
No, he is often the fastest path guy, Right, He's like,
here's the fastest path. In the last week or two,
the fastest path in his brain was my team gets
rid of the filibuster. We get this thing done. Yep.
That wasn't the correct path, but it could have been.
It was the most efficient in Donald Trump's brain to
solve the problem. Yeah, but it turned out like you
(09:33):
don't need to do that, and you shouldn't do that.
But he often will make that decision like this is
the fastest path to getting these batteries made right.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
In other Donald Trump news, the headlines today are about
Donald Trump's connection to Jeffrey Epstein. And yes, look, you
know it's hard when you defend somebody in a story
that's developing. But all of the evidence up until now
do not have Donald Trump in any compromising positions with
(10:04):
Jeffrey Epstein, and the story today is no different. In fact,
I think that it's just it's almost cowardly in how
it's being presented, in how the left is making their
case that Donald Trump had something to do with anything
with Jeffrey Epstein here.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
But you know, these.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Emails that were released do not show anything that the
headlines promised to show. So it's an exchange between Michael Wolfe,
who has written a Trump biography that had a lot
of questionable parts in it that people call possibly made up,
but he's considered largely a fabulous and let's just you know,
(10:44):
say that. But so in this email, Michael Wolfe is
emailing with Jeffrey Epstein and he says, I hear CNN
planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you,
either on air or in the scrum afterwards. So already
he's got inside information from CNN, really shady stuff, like
they're coordinating how to get Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
And this is destate on This is twenty sixteen, right.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Twenty fifteen, December twenty fifteen. So Trump has, you know,
just recently announced and he's running, and clearly they want
to have just the final nail in the Trump campaign Coffin.
They're trying to get him on this. And so Jeffrey
Epstein responds, if we were able to craft an answer
for him, what do you think it should be? Wolf responds,
(11:31):
I think you should let him hang himself. If he
says he hasn't been on the plane or to the house,
then that gives you a valuable pr and political currency.
You can hang him in a way that potentially generates
a positive benefit for you, or if it really looks
like he could win, you could save him generating a debt.
Of course, it is possible that when asked, he'll say
Jeffrey's a great guy and has gotten a raw deal
(11:53):
and is a victim of political correctness, which is to
be outlawed in a Trump regime. I mean, Trump pretty came.
I don't think he says Jeffrey's a great guy, but
I think he does say the raw deal part. Yea,
So you know, Wolf kind of got that right. But
this is a plan to get Donald Trump. So anybody
reading this and telling me that this is some kind
(12:14):
of smoking gun, didn't read this. That's just what I
have to come up with here.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Well, I look, this is one of the costs of
having everyone lied systematically about Donald Trump or the entirety
of his first term, and then afterwards many times about
many things, is that I do have to evaluate all
of these quite closely. And one of the things I
wonder is if we had this information in twenty sixteen,
(12:40):
or there's another email looks like dated a little bit
somewhat earlier that's about him spending time at a at
a house with a victim. Is what the claim is if.
But my question is if we had all of these emails,
and if Wolf in particular had these emails, or the
Biden administration had these and all these people have been
(13:02):
desirous to foil Trump from day one, why have we
not seen them until now?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, because there's nothing, there's no there There another email
October twenty sixteen from Michael Wolf. There's an opportunity to
come forward this week and talk about Trump in such
a way that could garner you great sympathy and help
finish him interested. I mean, this is the guy that
they're turning to. This is the guy that they're saying
they have some sort of smoking gun. It's just it's
(13:31):
crazy to me, And you know, I also.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah, with this story, I never want to discount there
were true victims here who are sometimes under they are
still subject to NDA's many of them. We won't hear
their full stories. They were abused by people. This is
a real tragic story and I have been frustrated from
day one that Epstein seems to have gotten a sweetheart
deal and then he left this earth before all of
(13:55):
this was adjudicated in a way that we felt like
we had answers. It's always been strange, and as a result,
I think there are people who didn't get justice. I agree. However,
in this process, it does seem like a lot of
people care about this case who never cared about it
before and are bringing me things that if they were
indeed as damning as they claim. Yeah, I think they
(14:18):
would have used them in twenty ten, eleven, fifteen, sixteen, eighteen, twenty,
like what any of those time?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Yes, yeah, Look, the question is do you want justice
for the victims or do you want to get Donald Trump?
And all of the people reporting on these bs emails
today just want to get Donald Trump, Speaking of which
our friend Brian Stelter he tweets Jeffrey Epstein mentioned Trump
in private emails. Is the lead story across most major
news websites this morning. Nothing on the Fox News page
(14:47):
homepage yet though, and no mention on Fox News TV
at either permise snapstream search. Fox should go ahead and
mention it, because this is a nonsense story and they
should shoot it down. And that's it. The fact that
Brian Stelter's like box should be covering this nonsense story
that we made up to hurt Trump is very Brian Stelter.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Speaking of unreliable narrators, Brian Steltzer the other day wrote
about this, We actually should put it on our list
to talk about. There's this blockbuster BBC internal report about
all the things it has done horribly wrong, including its
pervasive bias on the Israel Gaza issue, and it edited
(15:29):
in a documentary Trump to look as if he were saying,
we shall go to the Capitol together and all fight
like hell, which is not. It was all cobbled together
in a way to make it seem like he had
said something he hadn't said of It was very dishonest
and several executives resigned over it. And I read Brian
Stelter's story on it, and it was not until the
(15:49):
first paragraph that I was informed of the bad edit
that he referred to in the first two paragraphs that
told me how dishonest the VBC had been, And instead
I was learning a lot about how the BBC was
overreacting because Trump threats.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Right right I believe that.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yeah, I think the head I just do their job correctly.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Maybe I mean imagine that, but I think the headline
or his tweet on it was like BBC in a
vulnerable position, Like, yeah, they're in a vulnerable, vulnerable position
because they are terrible at the job that the British
public actually pays them to do. They are a publicly
funded TV station, news station in Britain that lied to
(16:32):
the British people, completely lied to them, and not just
on one occasion, on many occasions. And so yeah, people
resigned because they were liars and they allowed this to
go on. Brian Stelter's like, I'm rettal concerned about that, lying, lying, lying,
liar's news station.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Just come on, man, yeah, no accountability zero.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
CNN would love to be BBC, you know, lying and
being paid by the public.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Oh my gosh, they love my money. But nope, now
that's going to happen in America.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yes, God bless the USA. We'll be right back with
more on normally. We are back on normally where this
has become our pet issue, I think, and I love
that we keep covering it because the kids they can't
read good.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
No, and they also can't do math, it turns.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Out, yeah, yeah, no no math and no reading going
on in our schools. It's a real problem. How big
of a problem is it?
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Though?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
And this new report out of UC San Diego, It
was highlighted for me on X by Steve McGuire. He
is a Paul and Karen Leevy Fellow and Campus Freedom
at Go ACTA. He says the number of entering students
needing remedial math at UC San Diego has exploded from
one in one hundred to one in eight. That is bananas.
(17:58):
They had to create rights. They had to create a
second remedial class covering elementary and middle school math skills
in addition to the one covering gaps from high school.
Read that again. They had to create a second remedial
class at you see San Diego to cover skills that
these kids didn't learn in elementary and middle school, in
(18:19):
addition to the class they already had covering gaps from
high school.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
These are people who have been accepted to a college. Yeah,
they are attending a college. I want to note, look,
I have one of my children in particular, really struggles
with math, and we work together very very hard on it.
And I was struck by the fact that they offer
one of these They offer one of these problems that
(18:47):
twenty five percent of a cohort they tested got wrong.
This question is seven plus two equals blank plus six.
That is terrifying, Terrinty five percent of the students missed
this in the cohort they tested. In college, my daughter,
who struggles with math and with whom I work closely
(19:09):
on this would knock that out of the park, right,
It is scary.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
It's scary. I mean, look, pandemic learning loss only explains
some of this. The education system is failing, is it
is failing on so many different levels. It's like, legitimately scary.
And I just really don't know the example that you
gave the seven plus two equals blank plus six. I mean.
(19:40):
Tommy Schultz, he is the CEO of American Federation for Children.
He points out that in one class, only eighty seven
percent tested at a first grade math level. That means
thirteen percent of kids going to college college and you
see San Diego don't test at first grade math level
and only nineteen percent nineteen percent, I means I'm not
(20:03):
good at math, but eighty one percent do not test
at eighth grade level. These numbers are absolutely bananas.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
No, it's so frightening. And the thing is, as you said,
it's not just pandemic learning loss, although that is a
huge hit. It is years of great inflation. Like honestly,
much of the DEI problem so much college people, people
being picked not for skills, standardized tests being foregone in
(20:31):
order to get people into college. So you don't and
just like general parents and teachers, I think, not having
high expectations and instead papering it all over with fake grades.
And when you paper it all over with fake grades,
you will not learn things. Yeah, and like that, that's
(20:52):
a lesson that's hard for everyone to learn. I mean there,
I was not great at math. I struggled with it
as the same girl, and you had to to push
through and learn the skills. And when you push through
and learn the skills, not only do you learn the skill,
but you learn that you can learn things.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yep, yep. It gives you a sense of pride and
the self esteem that they so claim to want the
kids to have. To let them struggle and then succeed
at something. It's not removing the struggle that brings that
self esteem. Also about the DEI stuff. I maintain that
pushing nonsense curriculums in schools in arkde through twelve schools,
(21:32):
every minute that they spend on land acknowledgements and you know,
pretending that boys can become girls and vice versa, is
a minute that they're not spending on math and reading.
That's why classical education has become so popular across America,
because people are like, I want them to learn how
to read and write and do math and not all
(21:53):
this other stuff that you're pushing.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, it's funny because public school teachers and school boards
and union leaders will tell you all the time that
public school teachers are overwhelmed, that they have a bandwidth
issue there are so many children at so many levels,
and some of that is certainly true. But then they'll
also tell you that gender ideology instruction and social emotional
learning takes nothing away from what they're doing with the
(22:18):
reading and the math, which they're failing at in huge numbers.
I want to say a word about the local Northern
Virginia schools which are in this deep blue area and
are were, before the pandemic, a real crown jewel of
the state. When it came to public education in general,
there were a lot of as some of the best
in the country, but now not so much. And one
(22:41):
of the things that the Virginia Department of Education did
under Yunkin this year is bump up the state end
of grade testing levels that would would be deemed proficient
because they want to set high expectations. They want to
chart accurately where students are. And my local school, of course,
is like this is bad. They have full debate about
(23:05):
how raising these expectations is bad because what they want
to do is have the expectations lower and pretend like
they're succeeding. That is their desire, stated desire in public
at school board meetings, right, is that high expectations would
tell the truth about what they're doing.
Speaker 5 (23:23):
And they don't like yeah, yeah, And I want to
I want to note one guy in particular on our
board who has this insane quote because they're they're complaining
about a decline in student enrollment.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Gee, what could have happened? I want that made the
students leave because they don't get their money when they
don't have enrollment. Yeah, and he says, I'll bet you
dollars to donuts that any public school in our county
will give a kid a better education than homeschooling or
private school, regardless of the school or how qualified the
(23:55):
students are that are teaching.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Sure, that is such an insane statement to make when
you have in front of you the ways you're failing.
But they want to project all of that on anyone
who left the system to escape their incompetence.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
It's crazy because there are numbers on this kind of stuff,
and it's not homeschooling kids showing up to college not
knowing extremely basic math from first grade.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
We got a lot of work to do. The Mississippi
miracle needs to move on to math, and we got
to have it all over the country eventually because we
are losing ground and the section connected to that H
one B issue as well. Right right you are if
you are sending people to college who can't do first
grade math, yes, we are going to have a smaller
(24:46):
pool coming out of those education systems that can do
the things we need them to do. Period.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah absolutely, woof Yeah, all right, the kids they need
to read good.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
That's it. We're putting our foot down on it.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah, all right, we'll be right back with more on
normally do we need a village to raise the children.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Maybe all right, we are back on normally with a
discussion of does it take a village. There's a piece
in the Atlantic this week called the most useless piece
of parenting advice, The problem with telling moms quote it
takes a village. And it's a writer who complains that, like, look,
(25:27):
she had some help here and there, but in fact,
building a village is hard or nearly impossible for many
women once they have kids. She says, not every mother
is able to create a village of free or cheap
helpers whom they already know. Times have changed since millennials
were little and neighborhoods had lots of stay at home
moms available to pitch in. For nearly seventy percent of
(25:48):
kids under six, today, both parents work, compared with half
in nineteen eighty five. Your friends with kids might not
be able to do school pick up in an emergency
because they too might be working. We just don't have
as many people around, Elliott Haspell, a childcare researcher who
has written for the Atlantic, told me there were just
fewer people physically available to call. So she's saying, like, great,
(26:09):
thanks for telling me to build a village. This feels
like yet another thing on my to do list that
I cannot do. And I'm just wondering what your take
is on the village, Carol.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
So it's funny because I had a village. I have
a village, but less of one in Florida, but I
absolutely had the village in Brooklyn. My mom was super involved.
My brother would literally pick up the kids from school
several days a week before he had his own kids.
My in laws were incredible and super involved. My sister
(26:40):
in law, my husband's sister, also was super involved, and
his brother as well. We had that, we had it,
and we had it because we had family that lived
close together and there were certain expectations. It also helped
we had the only grandchildren at the time, right, But there, yeah,
look in our culture, there are certain expectations. My mother
(27:00):
and I never discussed it, but when I had my
second child and she saw that I was drowning, she
started coming to my house every day at six in
the morning with no discussion. Now, the problem with the village,
I mean, there's several problems with it. When my mother
would give them Swedish fish in the middle of the
day or chocolate or cookies. I could say, please, don't
(27:21):
do that, and she could wave her hand at me, like,
I'm going to do that anyway, because part of the
thing of an unpaid village is you do things the
way they want sometimes, so you have to give in
a little bit. Otherwise you can. And she addresses this
in the piece. She could say that you could.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Buy a village.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
You know, I don't have a village, so I buy one,
she writes. Some of these moms have nannies, house cleaners,
dog walkers, and house managers that they have less expensive villagers.
Various moms told me that the mc donald's drive through,
Instacart and door dash, where their village paying people, is
a remedy for not having a village, And indeed it's
the one that I chose. But it's hardly a solution
for everyone, or even for most people. But for me,
(28:01):
I'd rather have my family than a nanny that I hire,
and I know that that's not the case for a
lot of people. I was willing to bend on the
things that I don't like in order to have people
that I you know, I'm related to be the caretakers
of my children. And I say to my own kids.
If you stay close to where I am, I promise
(28:22):
to be there in the same capacity. I will be
the person you can count on when you're you know,
to pick up the kids from school, or to really
show up at your house in the morning, get them
off to school, all of it. I'll be there if
you stay close to me.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
This piece sort of misses the trade off bit, and
I do think that's what keeps a lot like. There's
a geography problem where many young families don't work close
to extended family anymore, and that's sort of the case
with us. But we have two wonderful sets of grandparents
who will travel here to hang out with our kids,
sometimes for an overnight or a weekend, and that is wonderful.
(28:57):
We also can go to them pretty easily, and they're
fit and able to do that. You do give something
in a village situation, right, if you have a mother
in law who lives in your home, for instance, as
one of my friends does, you're giving up some autonomy.
You're giving up the ability to dictate everything that happens
with your children. You're giving up some space, some you know,
(29:19):
the privacy, all these things. I think that's sort of
missed in these discussions, as is the idea that, like
a lot of people are in a community, say you
don't have your extended family around you, and your desire
is that once you've had a baby, that immediately a
village should show up for you, right right. And the
thing is you got to work on that before you're
(29:40):
in the moment. Yeah. So, for instance, I've fallen into
this group of lovely military spouses, marine and army moms
who live near me, and they are fantastic at actively
creating community because they have to move around and create
a community everywhere they go every two years. So when
(30:01):
they land, they hit the ground running. They are in
a church, they are in Scouts, they are in the school.
And because I've fallen in with them, and because I
think I had my own crisis in my own life
where people really showed up for me, I have adopted
better habits of when I know someone's in a place,
let me be the person who takes the thing over.
(30:23):
Let me be the person who says, let me grab
your kids and take them to the park. Would that
help you out? If you're not depositing in the.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Bank, exactly, you really can't withdraw yeah, it's tough. I
think it was Tim Carney. I didn't look this up,
but I think it was Tim Karney, who actually talks
about the village often. But he said, you know, if
you are hoping for somebody to help you with childcare
in your village, you're going to have to help like
the old man on your street, move like you're gonna
you know, you have to participate in the village. You
(30:53):
can't just be like, all right, guys, I need child care.
Who's in it?
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Of things that I need? And y'all just come to me?
Now there are like I would say, in my crisis
situation when my husband died in twenty fifteen, that was
such a dire situation that a village kind of did
form around me that was much bigger than the one
that I had probably established before that. I also learned
to ask for help and to accept help in different
(31:20):
forms than I might otherwise have dictated, because I was
placed where I needed that. And so I do think
this piece and a lot of these pieces missed the
part where you got to like do some of that right. Absolutely,
And it is tough. You got a lot on your plate.
But if it's also good for you to do this
kind of thing. I would also like to note that
(31:40):
this same author wrote a piece called how baby led
weaning Ruined My Life, which you should not let any
parenting philosophy ruin your life. And I would just say,
maybe she has a tough time with these kinds of concepts.
It is a puzzle in these modern times, but there
are ways you can improve situation.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yes, you have to bend. I mean that's really that's
where it comes down to. You have to bend to
get all of these things that you hear about and
keep seeing these pieces about people needing a village, build
the village, build it.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Well.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
One more thing that I would say, and I'm sure
you have experience with this in your immigrant community. One
of the things I think in the type of community
that this author lives in, I think there's a lot
of like apprehension about can I bring a lasagna to
your door? Do you have eighteen dietary restrictions? Yeah, to
some extent, you got to pushy your way right past
(32:37):
the social boundaries and just do the thing. The mill
spouse community is also Southern, which means we're like very
natural going to take food to people.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
They sound awesome.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
They are truly awesome, and I actually ask them for
some of their tips and those like the joining the church,
having a Scout group.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Forming community. Wow, who would have? Well?
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, also just diving in and I think that's part
of it, like you have to just do the thing,
even though you're busy, even though it's hard, even though
it feels weird to show up on someone's doorstep, but
you gotta do it.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I'm going to start making lasagna as a showing up
on doorsteps. I really am. I fool like that. I
need to do a little better in Florida. I'm, you know, trying,
but you need to try a little harder.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Yep, I get it.
Speaker 5 (33:25):
Well.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Thanks for joining us on Normally Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get
in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail dot com.
Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally
Hey, guys, I'm back on normally. There's what normalist takes
for when the news gets weird. I am Mary Caton and.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Carol mark Witz. How are you? Mary Catherine? What
day is it?
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Who even knows? It feels late in the way it's insanct.
I got my Dolly shirt on, so that's I love
the Dolly today.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Love it very cool. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not
really sure what day it is. I don't know. Sometimes,
like right before Thanksgiving, things start to move very quickly,
and like the Christmas lights are up in our part
of Florida and TJ Max is playing Christmas music, which
makes me feel like it's post Thanksgiving. I'm very confused.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yeah, I know this is like a discussion everyone has.
I am more of a wait till post Thanksgiving person
for Christmas stuff because I feel like my days move
fast enough as it is. Guys. I'm not sure that
I need to speed this.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Up, right, But I love like yesterday actually happened to
be like a chilly day in Florida, so hearing it's
beginning to look a lot like Christmas at my local
TJ Max.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
When I was enjoyed that sixty five and everybody was freezing.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Todath that was really cool. I couldn't watch my son's
soccer last night.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
I was so cold.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I had to go wait in the car.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, I understand. Wow, wow, Yeah. So I'm holding off
for a little while. Not on Christmas present buying. I
actually did start that nice. So you're welcome, economy, right,
But the decorating, I will hold off till a little
at least I will start gathering a little bit before Thanksgiving,
and I'll try to hold off until post Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I love it. Keep us posted. By the way, everybody,
Thanksgiving is two weeks from tomorrow, two weeks today. If
you're hearing it on Thursday, two weeks from today. Friends,
get your turkey.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
It's happening too fast.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Okay, all right, let's do it. Donald Trump, what is
going on with him? Yeah? I don't know. He had
an interview with Laura Ingram on Fox News. You would
expect that interview to be fairly friendly. It got pretty contentious.
And it's on the issue that you and I often
(02:18):
say Donald Trump is a liberal on which is immigration,
which is there's a lot of irony there. Right, He's
the build a wall, make Mexico pay for it, mass deportations,
all of that. But whenever he has the opportunity, he's like,
let's let in a bunch of you know, Chinese college students,
Let's do like three hundred thousand of them or things
(02:39):
like that. And it is it's confusing, but that's that's
our Donald Trump, and that's where we are. Let's play
the clip from Laura's show and then discuss it.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Republicans have to talk about it.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
And does that mean the H one B visa thing
will not be a big priority for your administration because
if you want to raise wages for American workers, you
can't flood the country with with tens of thousands or hundreds.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
I agree, but we also do have to bring in
talent when we.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Country talent and I know you don't know, you don't
we don't have talent.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Now you don't have you don't have certain talents, and
you have to people have to learn. You can't take
people off an unimploiment like an unemployment line and say
I'm going to put you into a factory who we're
going to make missiles or I'm going to put w Do.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
We ever do it before?
Speaker 5 (03:22):
Well?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
And I I'll give you an example. In Georgia they
raided because they wanted illegal immigrants. They had people from
from South Korea that made batteries all their lives. You know,
making batteries are very complicated. It's not an easy thing
and very dangerous, a lot of explosions, a lot of problems.
They had like five or six hundred people early stages
(03:44):
to make batteries and to teach people how to do it. Well,
they wanted them to get out of the country.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
You're going to need that lure.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I mean, I know you and I disagree on this.
You can't just say a country's coming in, going to
invest ten billion dollars to build a plant and going
to take people off an unemployment line who haven't worked
in five years, and they're going to start making the missiles.
It doesn't work that well.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
It doesn't work though americ Catherine.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Well Trump has a way, despite being a like in
some ways a phenomenal communicator, will stumble on phrases that
are like oh no, sir, yes, like no, you don't
have talent in this country. Yeah, he's not a thing. Yeah, yeah,
what we're trying to say. It was extremely.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Cringey and yet it's like, you know, he got defensive
and he doesn't really mean that, but yes.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
It was.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
You know what it remind you know what it reminded
me of. It's like when he gets in his tough
love love vibe and some of that I like, because
people do need to hear. As you and I agree,
there are some very specialized things that you need folks
for and sometimes they can come from other countries and
that's fine. It reminded me of his tough love moment
when he was like, you know, kids will just have
(04:52):
two dolls instead of thirty dollars, and I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no,
we do not like that messaging in the United States
of America, your adults. So now he's doing it, is
doing it on the economy. And look, I think whether
it's immigration or the economy in general, or affordability, if
you sort of shush people about their very real concerns
about their livelihoods and their affordability and their ability to
(05:16):
shop and all of these things, you will get in
trouble no matter what party you're in or how much
they like you.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Absolutely, And look, the HB one thing like there is
a moderate path here which is you need some number
of specialized people on the HB one visa, you keep
that number really small because Laura's right, we did used
to do this somehow, right.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
We did. You would train people to do it for
the jobs.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Right, you kind of have to figure out how you
make batteries or we do it. We actually did do it,
and we should do it. And if we need some
tiny number of specialized people in the meantime, that's fine.
That's not what's going on here. There's been so many
ours and so many people speaking out about HB one abuses.
(06:03):
You and I covered it on previous episodes of the show.
There is a lot of abuse of this program. It
needs to be reformed. It cannot continue the way it is. Well.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I think Trump is a person who if he were
giving a consistent message about how he's vetting this system,
how he's making sure it's working properly. But in this situation,
he's specifically saying, no, we need these people, and then
he goes on a little mini rant in there about
the Hyundai plant. I just want to point out that
when he says they went to go get these specialized
(06:35):
workers that you need to make batteries, the they is
ice under Donald Trump's administration. So if we indeed need
those workers, many of which had short term visas, I
don't know how many of them were actually in here
illegally and how many had permits that I think the
federal government said the permits weren't exactly correct for them
to be here. Whatever it was, it disrupted that plant immensely.
(07:00):
And again it was his immigration enforcement, right.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
He's really mad at the people who did this.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
To be consistent about it, so people can trust you
to vet the system properly. And then, as you said,
we're open to the idea that you do need some people,
but that American companies shouldn't be faking like they're trying
to hire Americans when they're really not doing that, which
is some of what we've seen in the right.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, I hate that people try to fit Donald Trump,
you know, triangle into a round peg. He is who
he is, and he says who he is. I don't
think he ran as a different person. I think this
is who he's been and you and I were calling
him out in so many different ways. I mean, even
just like the million dollar green card or any of
(07:47):
these things, it's a very specific type of immigration argument
that Donald Trump is making. I don't agree with it,
but this is who he is. Because I see people
on X being like, which are Stafford gave him this information?
Is really misguided. Bro, It was no Staffer, this was
Donald Trump being Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah. Well, I do think this is one of those
issues where if you're concerned about losing the more isolationist
America first wing of the party, if you're looking to
speak to the young men in that segment about their
future economically, this is ground on which you should tread carefully. Yeah,
(08:29):
because those folks were looking to you to make their
economic prospects better, and you have to explain to them
that the H one B visas or the Chinese nationals
will not be causing the problems they think they will cause.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yeah. Absolutely, But again they voted for him being this guy. Like,
I don't think anything new has happened since his election.
I think that this is who he is. He has
this impulse of you know, I'll bring in it could
be millions of people, but they'll be the best people.
But we're like, but that would still harm the best
people that we have here. It's sort of like he
(09:05):
doesn't see the next thing that happens just over the horizon,
what problems could happen with this?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
No, he is often the fastest path guy, Right, He's like,
here's the fastest path. In the last week or two,
the fastest path in his brain was my team gets
rid of the filibuster. We get this thing done. Yep.
That wasn't the correct path, but it could have been.
It was the most efficient in Donald Trump's brain to
solve the problem. Yeah, but it turned out like you
(09:33):
don't need to do that, and you shouldn't do that.
But he often will make that decision like this is
the fastest path to getting these batteries made right.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
In other Donald Trump news, the headlines today are about
Donald Trump's connection to Jeffrey Epstein. And yes, look, you
know it's hard when you defend somebody in a story
that's developing. But all of the evidence up until now
do not have Donald Trump in any compromising positions with
(10:04):
Jeffrey Epstein, and the story today is no different. In fact,
I think that it's just it's almost cowardly in how
it's being presented, in how the left is making their
case that Donald Trump had something to do with anything
with Jeffrey Epstein here.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
But you know, these.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Emails that were released do not show anything that the
headlines promised to show. So it's an exchange between Michael Wolfe,
who has written a Trump biography that had a lot
of questionable parts in it that people call possibly made up,
but he's considered largely a fabulous and let's just you know,
(10:44):
say that. But so in this email, Michael Wolfe is
emailing with Jeffrey Epstein and he says, I hear CNN
planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you,
either on air or in the scrum afterwards. So already
he's got inside information from CNN, really shady stuff, like
they're coordinating how to get Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
And this is destate on This is twenty sixteen, right.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Twenty fifteen, December twenty fifteen. So Trump has, you know,
just recently announced and he's running, and clearly they want
to have just the final nail in the Trump campaign Coffin.
They're trying to get him on this. And so Jeffrey
Epstein responds, if we were able to craft an answer
for him, what do you think it should be? Wolf responds,
(11:31):
I think you should let him hang himself. If he
says he hasn't been on the plane or to the house,
then that gives you a valuable pr and political currency.
You can hang him in a way that potentially generates
a positive benefit for you, or if it really looks
like he could win, you could save him generating a debt.
Of course, it is possible that when asked, he'll say
Jeffrey's a great guy and has gotten a raw deal
(11:53):
and is a victim of political correctness, which is to
be outlawed in a Trump regime. I mean, Trump pretty came.
I don't think he says Jeffrey's a great guy, but
I think he does say the raw deal part. Yea,
So you know, Wolf kind of got that right. But
this is a plan to get Donald Trump. So anybody
reading this and telling me that this is some kind
(12:14):
of smoking gun, didn't read this. That's just what I
have to come up with here.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Well, I look, this is one of the costs of
having everyone lied systematically about Donald Trump or the entirety
of his first term, and then afterwards many times about
many things, is that I do have to evaluate all
of these quite closely. And one of the things I
wonder is if we had this information in twenty sixteen,
(12:40):
or there's another email looks like dated a little bit
somewhat earlier that's about him spending time at a at
a house with a victim. Is what the claim is if.
But my question is if we had all of these emails,
and if Wolf in particular had these emails, or the
Biden administration had these and all these people have been
(13:02):
desirous to foil Trump from day one, why have we
not seen them until now?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, because there's nothing, there's no there There another email
October twenty sixteen from Michael Wolf. There's an opportunity to
come forward this week and talk about Trump in such
a way that could garner you great sympathy and help
finish him interested. I mean, this is the guy that
they're turning to. This is the guy that they're saying
they have some sort of smoking gun. It's just it's
(13:31):
crazy to me, And you know, I also.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah, with this story, I never want to discount there
were true victims here who are sometimes under they are
still subject to NDA's many of them. We won't hear
their full stories. They were abused by people. This is
a real tragic story and I have been frustrated from
day one that Epstein seems to have gotten a sweetheart
deal and then he left this earth before all of
(13:55):
this was adjudicated in a way that we felt like
we had answers. It's always been strange, and as a result,
I think there are people who didn't get justice. I agree. However,
in this process, it does seem like a lot of
people care about this case who never cared about it
before and are bringing me things that if they were
indeed as damning as they claim. Yeah, I think they
(14:18):
would have used them in twenty ten, eleven, fifteen, sixteen, eighteen, twenty,
like what any of those time?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Yes, yeah, Look, the question is do you want justice
for the victims or do you want to get Donald Trump?
And all of the people reporting on these bs emails
today just want to get Donald Trump, Speaking of which
our friend Brian Stelter he tweets Jeffrey Epstein mentioned Trump
in private emails. Is the lead story across most major
news websites this morning. Nothing on the Fox News page
(14:47):
homepage yet though, and no mention on Fox News TV
at either permise snapstream search. Fox should go ahead and
mention it, because this is a nonsense story and they
should shoot it down. And that's it. The fact that
Brian Stelter's like box should be covering this nonsense story
that we made up to hurt Trump is very Brian Stelter.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Speaking of unreliable narrators, Brian Steltzer the other day wrote
about this, We actually should put it on our list
to talk about. There's this blockbuster BBC internal report about
all the things it has done horribly wrong, including its
pervasive bias on the Israel Gaza issue, and it edited
(15:29):
in a documentary Trump to look as if he were saying,
we shall go to the Capitol together and all fight
like hell, which is not. It was all cobbled together
in a way to make it seem like he had
said something he hadn't said of It was very dishonest
and several executives resigned over it. And I read Brian
Stelter's story on it, and it was not until the
(15:49):
first paragraph that I was informed of the bad edit
that he referred to in the first two paragraphs that
told me how dishonest the VBC had been, And instead
I was learning a lot about how the BBC was
overreacting because Trump threats.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Right right I believe that.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yeah, I think the head I just do their job correctly.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Maybe I mean imagine that, but I think the headline
or his tweet on it was like BBC in a
vulnerable position, Like, yeah, they're in a vulnerable, vulnerable position
because they are terrible at the job that the British
public actually pays them to do. They are a publicly
funded TV station, news station in Britain that lied to
(16:32):
the British people, completely lied to them, and not just
on one occasion, on many occasions. And so yeah, people
resigned because they were liars and they allowed this to
go on. Brian Stelter's like, I'm rettal concerned about that, lying, lying, lying,
liar's news station.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Just come on, man, yeah, no accountability zero.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
CNN would love to be BBC, you know, lying and
being paid by the public.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Oh my gosh, they love my money. But nope, now
that's going to happen in America.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yes, God bless the USA. We'll be right back with
more on normally. We are back on normally where this
has become our pet issue, I think, and I love
that we keep covering it because the kids they can't
read good.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
No, and they also can't do math, it turns.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Out, yeah, yeah, no no math and no reading going
on in our schools. It's a real problem. How big
of a problem is it?
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Though?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
And this new report out of UC San Diego, It
was highlighted for me on X by Steve McGuire. He
is a Paul and Karen Leevy Fellow and Campus Freedom
at Go ACTA. He says the number of entering students
needing remedial math at UC San Diego has exploded from
one in one hundred to one in eight. That is bananas.
(17:58):
They had to create rights. They had to create a
second remedial class covering elementary and middle school math skills
in addition to the one covering gaps from high school.
Read that again. They had to create a second remedial
class at you see San Diego to cover skills that
these kids didn't learn in elementary and middle school, in
(18:19):
addition to the class they already had covering gaps from
high school.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
These are people who have been accepted to a college. Yeah,
they are attending a college. I want to note, look,
I have one of my children in particular, really struggles
with math, and we work together very very hard on it.
And I was struck by the fact that they offer
one of these They offer one of these problems that
(18:47):
twenty five percent of a cohort they tested got wrong.
This question is seven plus two equals blank plus six.
That is terrifying, Terrinty five percent of the students missed
this in the cohort they tested. In college, my daughter,
who struggles with math and with whom I work closely
(19:09):
on this would knock that out of the park, right,
It is scary.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
It's scary. I mean, look, pandemic learning loss only explains
some of this. The education system is failing, is it
is failing on so many different levels. It's like, legitimately scary.
And I just really don't know the example that you
gave the seven plus two equals blank plus six. I mean.
(19:40):
Tommy Schultz, he is the CEO of American Federation for Children.
He points out that in one class, only eighty seven
percent tested at a first grade math level. That means
thirteen percent of kids going to college college and you
see San Diego don't test at first grade math level
and only nineteen percent nineteen percent, I means I'm not
(20:03):
good at math, but eighty one percent do not test
at eighth grade level. These numbers are absolutely bananas.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
No, it's so frightening. And the thing is, as you said,
it's not just pandemic learning loss, although that is a
huge hit. It is years of great inflation. Like honestly,
much of the DEI problem so much college people, people
being picked not for skills, standardized tests being foregone in
(20:31):
order to get people into college. So you don't and
just like general parents and teachers, I think, not having
high expectations and instead papering it all over with fake grades.
And when you paper it all over with fake grades,
you will not learn things. Yeah, and like that, that's
(20:52):
a lesson that's hard for everyone to learn. I mean there,
I was not great at math. I struggled with it
as the same girl, and you had to to push
through and learn the skills. And when you push through
and learn the skills, not only do you learn the skill,
but you learn that you can learn things.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yep, yep. It gives you a sense of pride and
the self esteem that they so claim to want the
kids to have. To let them struggle and then succeed
at something. It's not removing the struggle that brings that
self esteem. Also about the DEI stuff. I maintain that
pushing nonsense curriculums in schools in arkde through twelve schools,
(21:32):
every minute that they spend on land acknowledgements and you know,
pretending that boys can become girls and vice versa, is
a minute that they're not spending on math and reading.
That's why classical education has become so popular across America,
because people are like, I want them to learn how
to read and write and do math and not all
(21:53):
this other stuff that you're pushing.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, it's funny because public school teachers and school boards
and union leaders will tell you all the time that
public school teachers are overwhelmed, that they have a bandwidth
issue there are so many children at so many levels,
and some of that is certainly true. But then they'll
also tell you that gender ideology instruction and social emotional
learning takes nothing away from what they're doing with the
(22:18):
reading and the math, which they're failing at in huge numbers.
I want to say a word about the local Northern
Virginia schools which are in this deep blue area and
are were, before the pandemic, a real crown jewel of
the state. When it came to public education in general,
there were a lot of as some of the best
in the country, but now not so much. And one
(22:41):
of the things that the Virginia Department of Education did
under Yunkin this year is bump up the state end
of grade testing levels that would would be deemed proficient
because they want to set high expectations. They want to
chart accurately where students are. And my local school, of course,
is like this is bad. They have full debate about
(23:05):
how raising these expectations is bad because what they want
to do is have the expectations lower and pretend like
they're succeeding. That is their desire, stated desire in public
at school board meetings, right, is that high expectations would
tell the truth about what they're doing.
Speaker 5 (23:23):
And they don't like yeah, yeah, And I want to
I want to note one guy in particular on our
board who has this insane quote because they're they're complaining
about a decline in student enrollment.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Gee, what could have happened? I want that made the
students leave because they don't get their money when they
don't have enrollment. Yeah, and he says, I'll bet you
dollars to donuts that any public school in our county
will give a kid a better education than homeschooling or
private school, regardless of the school or how qualified the
(23:55):
students are that are teaching.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Sure, that is such an insane statement to make when
you have in front of you the ways you're failing.
But they want to project all of that on anyone
who left the system to escape their incompetence.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
It's crazy because there are numbers on this kind of stuff,
and it's not homeschooling kids showing up to college not
knowing extremely basic math from first grade.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
We got a lot of work to do. The Mississippi
miracle needs to move on to math, and we got
to have it all over the country eventually because we
are losing ground and the section connected to that H
one B issue as well. Right right you are if
you are sending people to college who can't do first
grade math, yes, we are going to have a smaller
(24:46):
pool coming out of those education systems that can do
the things we need them to do. Period.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah absolutely, woof Yeah, all right, the kids they need
to read good.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
That's it. We're putting our foot down on it.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah, all right, we'll be right back with more on
normally do we need a village to raise the children.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Maybe all right, we are back on normally with a
discussion of does it take a village. There's a piece
in the Atlantic this week called the most useless piece
of parenting advice, The problem with telling moms quote it
takes a village. And it's a writer who complains that, like, look,
(25:27):
she had some help here and there, but in fact,
building a village is hard or nearly impossible for many
women once they have kids. She says, not every mother
is able to create a village of free or cheap
helpers whom they already know. Times have changed since millennials
were little and neighborhoods had lots of stay at home
moms available to pitch in. For nearly seventy percent of
(25:48):
kids under six, today, both parents work, compared with half
in nineteen eighty five. Your friends with kids might not
be able to do school pick up in an emergency
because they too might be working. We just don't have
as many people around, Elliott Haspell, a childcare researcher who
has written for the Atlantic, told me there were just
fewer people physically available to call. So she's saying, like, great,
(26:09):
thanks for telling me to build a village. This feels
like yet another thing on my to do list that
I cannot do. And I'm just wondering what your take
is on the village, Carol.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
So it's funny because I had a village. I have
a village, but less of one in Florida, but I
absolutely had the village in Brooklyn. My mom was super involved.
My brother would literally pick up the kids from school
several days a week before he had his own kids.
My in laws were incredible and super involved. My sister
(26:40):
in law, my husband's sister, also was super involved, and
his brother as well. We had that, we had it,
and we had it because we had family that lived
close together and there were certain expectations. It also helped
we had the only grandchildren at the time, right, But there, yeah,
look in our culture, there are certain expectations. My mother
(27:00):
and I never discussed it, but when I had my
second child and she saw that I was drowning, she
started coming to my house every day at six in
the morning with no discussion. Now, the problem with the village,
I mean, there's several problems with it. When my mother
would give them Swedish fish in the middle of the
day or chocolate or cookies. I could say, please, don't
(27:21):
do that, and she could wave her hand at me, like,
I'm going to do that anyway, because part of the
thing of an unpaid village is you do things the
way they want sometimes, so you have to give in
a little bit. Otherwise you can. And she addresses this
in the piece. She could say that you could.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Buy a village.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
You know, I don't have a village, so I buy one,
she writes. Some of these moms have nannies, house cleaners,
dog walkers, and house managers that they have less expensive villagers.
Various moms told me that the mc donald's drive through,
Instacart and door dash, where their village paying people, is
a remedy for not having a village, And indeed it's
the one that I chose. But it's hardly a solution
for everyone, or even for most people. But for me,
(28:01):
I'd rather have my family than a nanny that I hire,
and I know that that's not the case for a
lot of people. I was willing to bend on the
things that I don't like in order to have people
that I you know, I'm related to be the caretakers
of my children. And I say to my own kids.
If you stay close to where I am, I promise
(28:22):
to be there in the same capacity. I will be
the person you can count on when you're you know,
to pick up the kids from school, or to really
show up at your house in the morning, get them
off to school, all of it. I'll be there if
you stay close to me.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
This piece sort of misses the trade off bit, and
I do think that's what keeps a lot like. There's
a geography problem where many young families don't work close
to extended family anymore, and that's sort of the case
with us. But we have two wonderful sets of grandparents
who will travel here to hang out with our kids,
sometimes for an overnight or a weekend, and that is wonderful.
(28:57):
We also can go to them pretty easily, and they're
fit and able to do that. You do give something
in a village situation, right, if you have a mother
in law who lives in your home, for instance, as
one of my friends does, you're giving up some autonomy.
You're giving up the ability to dictate everything that happens
with your children. You're giving up some space, some you know,
(29:19):
the privacy, all these things. I think that's sort of
missed in these discussions, as is the idea that, like
a lot of people are in a community, say you
don't have your extended family around you, and your desire
is that once you've had a baby, that immediately a
village should show up for you, right right. And the
thing is you got to work on that before you're
(29:40):
in the moment. Yeah. So, for instance, I've fallen into
this group of lovely military spouses, marine and army moms
who live near me, and they are fantastic at actively
creating community because they have to move around and create
a community everywhere they go every two years. So when
(30:01):
they land, they hit the ground running. They are in
a church, they are in Scouts, they are in the school.
And because I've fallen in with them, and because I
think I had my own crisis in my own life
where people really showed up for me, I have adopted
better habits of when I know someone's in a place,
let me be the person who takes the thing over.
(30:23):
Let me be the person who says, let me grab
your kids and take them to the park. Would that
help you out? If you're not depositing in the.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Bank, exactly, you really can't withdraw yeah, it's tough. I
think it was Tim Carney. I didn't look this up,
but I think it was Tim Karney, who actually talks
about the village often. But he said, you know, if
you are hoping for somebody to help you with childcare
in your village, you're going to have to help like
the old man on your street, move like you're gonna
you know, you have to participate in the village. You
(30:53):
can't just be like, all right, guys, I need child care.
Who's in it?
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Of things that I need? And y'all just come to me?
Now there are like I would say, in my crisis
situation when my husband died in twenty fifteen, that was
such a dire situation that a village kind of did
form around me that was much bigger than the one
that I had probably established before that. I also learned
to ask for help and to accept help in different
(31:20):
forms than I might otherwise have dictated, because I was
placed where I needed that. And so I do think
this piece and a lot of these pieces missed the
part where you got to like do some of that right. Absolutely,
And it is tough. You got a lot on your plate.
But if it's also good for you to do this
kind of thing. I would also like to note that
(31:40):
this same author wrote a piece called how baby led
weaning Ruined My Life, which you should not let any
parenting philosophy ruin your life. And I would just say,
maybe she has a tough time with these kinds of concepts.
It is a puzzle in these modern times, but there
are ways you can improve situation.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yes, you have to bend. I mean that's really that's
where it comes down to. You have to bend to
get all of these things that you hear about and
keep seeing these pieces about people needing a village, build
the village, build it.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Well.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
One more thing that I would say, and I'm sure
you have experience with this in your immigrant community. One
of the things I think in the type of community
that this author lives in, I think there's a lot
of like apprehension about can I bring a lasagna to
your door? Do you have eighteen dietary restrictions? Yeah, to
some extent, you got to pushy your way right past
(32:37):
the social boundaries and just do the thing. The mill
spouse community is also Southern, which means we're like very
natural going to take food to people.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
They sound awesome.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
They are truly awesome, and I actually ask them for
some of their tips and those like the joining the church,
having a Scout group.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Forming community. Wow, who would have? Well?
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, also just diving in and I think that's part
of it, like you have to just do the thing,
even though you're busy, even though it's hard, even though
it feels weird to show up on someone's doorstep, but
you gotta do it.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I'm going to start making lasagna as a showing up
on doorsteps. I really am. I fool like that. I
need to do a little better in Florida. I'm, you know, trying,
but you need to try a little harder.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Yep, I get it.
Speaker 5 (33:25):
Well.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Thanks for joining us on Normally Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get
in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail dot com.
Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally
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Buck Sexton
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