145. Putting Children’s Needs Before Adults’ Desires with Katy Faust

In today's episode, I spoke with Katy Faust, founder and president of Them Before Us, a global movement defending children's right to their mother and father. She's also the author of three books: "Them Before Us," "Raising Conservative Kids in a Woke City," and "Pro-Child Politics."

I began by sharing my personal perspective as a stepparent, acknowledging that while my own family structure isn't ideal from the perspective of children's rights, it's important that we can discuss what's best for children without adults becoming defensive. I expressed how Katy's work resonates with me despite sometimes being difficult to hear, as it challenges us to put children's needs before adult desires.

We explored Katy's concept of natural rights, which she explained through three key criteria: they must exist pre-government, nobody has to provide them, and they're distributed equally. She made a compelling case for how conservative values address the root causes of issues that liberals care about, demonstrating how family breakdown underlies many social problems like teen homelessness, incarceration rates, and suicide.

A significant portion of our conversation focused on Katy's approach to raising children with strong values in challenging environments. She outlined three developmental phases - grammar, logic, and rhetoric - and explained how parents should adjust their approach during each phase. The grammar phase (elementary school) focuses on exposing children to truth and beauty while filtering out harmful content. The logic phase (middle school) involves purposefully introducing and discussing societal distortions. The rhetoric phase (high school) emphasizes emotional connection over teaching.

We discussed practical strategies for parents who may have missed earlier opportunities to lay foundational worldview groundwork with their children. Katy stressed the importance of maximizing emotional connection through physical proximity and becoming knowledgeable about issues their children care about, rather than trying to force ideological discussions.

The conversation concluded with insights about how parents can handle their fears about raising children with conservative values in progressive environments, and the importance of what Katy calls the "slow worldview handoff" - a four-step process of teaching children that moves from "I do, you watch" to "you do, I watch.”

Katy Faust is Founder and President of Them Before Us, a global movement defending children’s right to their mother and father, and author of the book by the same name. She publishes, speaks and testifies widely on why marriage and family are matters of justice for children. Her articles have appeared in Newsweek, USA Today, The Federalist, Public Discourse, WORLD Magazine, The Daily Signal, the Washington Examiner, the American Mind, and the American Conservative. She is on the advisory board for the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. Katy helped design the teen edition of CanaVox which studies sex, marriage and relationships from a natural law perspective. Katy and co-author Stacy Manning detailed their philosophy of worldview transmission in their second book, Raising Conservative Kids in a Woke City. Her third book, Pro-Child Politics was published September 2024. She and her husband are raising their four children in Seattle.

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