March 20, 2024 • 40 mins
In this episode, Tudor discusses the challenges of parenting and how our culture has made it even harder. She is joined by Tim Carney, author of 'Family Unfriendly', who shares his insights on the intensive parenting culture and the negative effects of over-scheduling and high expectations. They also discuss the decline of walkable communities and the importance of independent play. The fear of letting kids play alone and the influence of social media and fear are also explored. The episode concludes with a discussion on the benefits of having multiple children and the need for balanced parenting. The Tudor Dixon Podcast is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday, Wednesday, & Friday. For more information visit TudorDixonPodcast.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. As you all know,
we spend a lot of time on this podcast talking
about family and raising kids and the challenges with raising kids.
And I know the challenges of raising kids because obviously
I have four children, And just last night I was
at an event and I'm talking about the challenges of
getting kids every place, and like driving kids from school
(00:23):
and to home and then back to school to get
a different kid, and then to a different school to
get a different kid. And I'm like, man, this is
really hard. And then I think about my generation is
actually making parenting like way harder, and I think the
reason we're making parenting harder is honestly because there are
things like Pinterest. So I suddenly over the weekend find
(00:43):
myself spending the weekend trying to catch a leprechaun. And
I know that this is because I've made parenting harder,
and so I decided I would bring in an expert
to tell me that I am definitely making parenting harder,
and we all are probably making parenting harder, but this
is really to make us feel like there's a better
way of doing things. So I am excited because Tim
Carney is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
(01:06):
and a columnist at the Washington Examiner, and he's with
me today. His latest book is called Family Unfriendly. I'm
going to hold it up here, how our culture made
raising kits much harder than it needs to be. And
it was just released on March nineteenth. Thank you so
much for being here with me today. Tell me how
(01:27):
bad is it?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
What are we doing wrong?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Thank you?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
And definitely stop chasing leprechauns for all sorts of reasons.
But so to start with, I mean, I think that
there's a broad cultural problem. You see it in childhood anxiety,
which has been declared an epidemic. You see it in
rising adult stress levels. You see it in falling birth rates,
record low birth rates in the United States. And some
(01:49):
people think it's just about economics. I don't think that's right.
I think that's part of the story. Some people think
it's about the young people today are just selfish. I
also don't think that's right. I think it's our culture
and foods, parenting culture. It also includes how much our
culture supports families, and it includes mating and dating culture,
which prevents twenty year olds from getting married. We can
talk about those later, but the parenting culture is just
(02:12):
it's way too intensive. First of all, the league gives
way to intensive and expensive travel sports, and then there's helicoptering,
and then there's the what I call the mom fluencers
who set these crazy expectations of.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
All the chasing leprechauns, even.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Worse than chasing leprechauns, and the idea that your children
should always be in perfectly match outfits, and that your
house is always clean. But you know that it's all
naturally posed because they're at a farmhouse with exposed rafters,
so it must just be normal to be a ballerina
who makes homemade grilled cheese sandwiches for your kids every day.
All of these expectations add to the anxiety for parents
(02:50):
and kids.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
No, it is true because if we as parents today,
we are constantly bombarded with the Bento box lunch where
the kids are eating like this perfect lunch and mom
has made cucumber sandwiches and homemade hummus and everything that
she somehow whipped up that morning and put into the
Meno box. And you see that as a mom, and
if you can't meet those standards, you feel like, oh
(03:14):
my gosh, I'm missing out on something, and so we're constantly,
I think, as parents today, we're constantly being pushed to.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
The next level.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
And it's not something that I grew up with because
my mom was never seeing what was inside of the
mom's house next door. She literally never saw it, and
I wasn't coming home and being like, you know, Kathy
came to school with a lunch.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Box filled with special like toothpicks that were the shapes
of unicorns inside of her kprase salad for a seven
year old, you know, which is not it's not unheard of.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
These are the things that I see, and as a mom,
I'm shocked. But also at the same time, as kids
are getting older, I sort of had this like weird
expectation that, you know, four kids when my kids were
little was a lot because my youngest are twins, so
it's like, you know, two tiny people, and then it's
like twenty four months, twenty two months to the next one,
(04:11):
and then twenty four months to the next one. So
everybody is about two years apart in my family, and
I kept thinking, this gets easier at some point, but
then you add in these sports and it's suddenly like
we have sports all week long. And I mean, obviously,
with four kids, you have more than the average two
(04:32):
person or two child family. But some of these sports
are getting really out of control. But the pressure to
have them in these sports because we're told they can't
get into college, they'll never have a future if they're
not in these sports, even though likely these sports will
never be in their life when they're adults.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
No, And so part of the problem is we forget
the point of youth sports. And the first point is
that they're fun. And you know little league obviously, but
still sports are supposed to be fun for kids when
they get a little older. They are fun to watch.
I love going to my kids baseball games and that
sort of thing. And when I got to coach kindergarten
(05:07):
girls basketball, that was a different sort of fun. It
was hilarious. It was hard to stop laughing. But what
you forget sometimes is that the point isn't to make
them into all stars. The point isn't to get them
view one scholarship. It's that sports builds virtue. Sports gets
them running around. Sports gives them an idea of teamwork.
It gives them coaches who are other possible adult role
(05:29):
models who haven't spent all day telling them to clean
their room and do their homeworketc. And so what I
write about my chapter one writes about the travel team
track that these local sports coached by volunteer mom and
dads get replaced by intensive, expensive sports that can destroy
(05:50):
family culture because suddenly there's a tournament every other weekend
over in Wisconsin. Yes, that's absolutely disruptive to the family,
the family culture. So I'm all in favor of kids,
you know, being busy playing all these sports, but sometimes
you have to think what is the best team for
my kid? My argument is the best team for your
(06:12):
kid is the one that practices across the street or
the one that practices after school so you don't have
to drive them to another practice.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Well, and what is that doing to the other kids
in the family, Because I've just started to kind of
step back and look at this. When we have one
of our kids that we're going on weekend trips with,
we always have a child who's not playing that sport,
that gets dragged along, and then that spent that time
outside with friends, that time just exploring, that time crafting,
(06:42):
all of that time is now in the car now
in the hotel room. It just seems like it is
taking away something from my other child if I'm doing
this with these exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
And I actually my son used to play baseball with
this kid who explained that they never get to go
to their lake house because he plays travel baseball in
two different teams all summer. So imagine that you own
a lake house in the summer, you don't get to
use it because of this. And so those experiences of
long lazy summer days to get lost, or the experience
(07:15):
of trying a new sport or just playing a pickup game,
or just being bored at home, those get lost with
these intensive childhood And in fact, the Journal of Pediatrics
recently came out with the study saying the rise in
childhood anxiety is caused it's not so much pressure from parents,
it's the lack of independent play free from adult supervision. So,
(07:37):
in other words, an essential element to healthy childhood is
being bored or wandering around or making up your own
stupid game with a whiffle ball and a basketball hoop
in a tennis racket or something.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
I actually am gonna call out my own relative here
because we went to visit my mom and my sister.
In February, we had winter break, and so we went
down to Florida to spend and time with them. And
we live in a neighborhood where the kids do just
go out and play, and my mom and my sister
live in the same neighborhood. So we said, we're going
to go over to her house. And we walked over
(08:11):
there and we got there and my sister was like,
how did.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
You get here? And I'm like, we walked over here.
She was like, what do you mean you walked? Why
would you walk?
Speaker 1 (08:20):
And I was like, you know, it's just so because
I think we've spent and you commented on this in
your book, and you wrote about this, and I thought,
we have spent so much time focused on getting in
the car and getting to the next place that we
have forgotten. And I think from Michigan going to Florida
in Michigan so rare that we do get to just
(08:43):
walk some place because it's freezing half of the time.
We're like, we're going to take advantage of this and walk,
you know, But we've become a culture that you don't
do that anymore. And you also talk about how communities
aren't really built for that. And I will say, as
much as my kids go out and play in our community,
we are on a main road and there are no
(09:03):
sidewalks in our community, and so when they're playing, they're
riding bikes in the street and they don't leave the
neighborhood because they don't go on the main road.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
How did that happen to us?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
So I think there's just this obsession with efficiency that
we decided and this is I think the planner, the
central planner mindst And there are novels, I mean historical
books about Robert Moses building the highwaysist building the suburbs,
but building the suburbs to be car centric, and that
roads cars should travel fast, and your neighborhood should just
(09:34):
be a neighborhood and a couple of culed the sacks
connected to each other. If there's enough kids. It's this
great little world that can be awesome for kids, but
it's cutting them off from the rest of the world.
Where we used to live in Maryland, you couldn't get
anywhere without crossing four lanes in either direction. So then
we find it A. We're driving our kids because they're
going further away. B were driving them because it's unsafe
(09:54):
for them to walk and see, then this creates a
culture in which fewer CA kids are out there playing.
So yeah, thankfully my wife and I have six kids,
so they can kind of make their own three on
three game if we sick them out in the backyard.
But it really is we started prioritizing cars over kids.
And in some place in one of my old neighborhoods,
(10:16):
they objected to sidewalks in this one neighborhood and one parents,
I just want my kid to be able to walk
to school, not in the road somebody else. Yeah, this
will chop down my cherry trees if you do this.
So what about my kids? And so your kids shouldn't
be walking to school alone anyway.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Oh no, this is the new.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
I mean, this is how it is because so, I,
like I said, I'm a I'm a gen x or
so I grew up where you know, you could do whatever.
Your parents just told me to come in when it
was dark.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
So we lived in this neighborhood called Green Trails, and
there were literally trails through all the houses where you
could walk, you could ride your bike, and it was
a huge I mean, you know when you're a kid,
you think something's huge, but when I mean it really
was a huge expansive area where there were trails for
miles and we could actually but we did. We went
(11:09):
up to the four way stop that was you know,
four lanes of traffic, and we crossed the road and
I can remember even going there was this store that
was like a seven to eleven. It was called the
White Hen Pantry, and we would take money from my mom.
She would give us a few bucks. We would go
up there and buy lemons, and I can remember getting
yelled at by the woman who would sell me the
lemons because she was like.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Does your mother know you're up here? This is going
to ruin the enamel on your teeth.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Like that is so funny to me now because now
they would freak out that I went to the White
Hen Pantry by myself, Like she would be like, how
why would your mother let you come up here?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
You know, and back then she was afraid that you
were subsisting on a diet of citrus only.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yes, I was like, oh my gosh, this is the
worst thing you could possibly do. How could your mother
be so.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
So I've lived in neighborhoods where the police get called
because parents left there ten year old with their little
brother walked to the playground alone, and so that needs
to change. In some places. Utah passed a basic law
basically legalizing free range parenting, but in other states, in Connecticut,
for instance, you couldn't leave your fourteen year old to
babysit your twelve year old. That would be called childliglack.
(12:19):
And so some states haven't. I don't know Florida if
they haven't done something should be more explicit that a
parent can't be held liable for doing something that's basically safe,
just because there's some people who are going to freak
out about it.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
That when my girls were really little, so the twins
were tiny, and they were still napping, and my oldest
was outside plane she was probably like four years old,
and she was on the play set in our backyard
and I was in the window and the twins were
in front of me and their little bassinet sleeping, and
I'm watching her. And I had a neighbor come to
(12:51):
the front door and say, I'm going to have to
call the police if you allow your child to play
outside by herself again, and I might I'm watching her.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
That is insane. And so this is exactly what I
mean by family unfriendly, This bizarre expectation that the parents
are the secret service agents constantly hovering over kids. You
see this in There was recently a study showing that
how much the school closures harmed kids and didn't prevent
anybody from getting COVID. And when some of us started
(13:24):
commenting on this, back came the comments we were getting
in twenty twenty saying, Oh, I'm sorry that you have
to spend time with your children, or hey, you're admitting
that's spending too much time with you is bad for
your kids. And we're saying, we're admitting that kids need
to get out, they need to talk to other people,
they need more than just two adults in their lives.
But so that insane expectation that parenting is a twenty
(13:46):
four to seven constant source of stress that gets put
throughout media and social media, that does actually deter people
from raising from having kids. I conducted while writing this book.
I conducted focus groups and multiple of the young men
who don't yet have kids said, well, I don't want
to just give them the bare minimum, or I don't
(14:06):
want to be the absentee mom who misses my daughter's
softball game. So that expectation, some of it through social media,
as you're saying, trickles down and makes parenting seem so
much harder. They need to be given expectation that well.
Time with kids is sometimes like playing basketball against your kids,
which is awesome when your kid is you know, barely
comes up to your chest and you can dunk on
(14:28):
them all day. But it's also going to barbecues and
your kids run around the neighborhood and then when you
whistle at the end of the night, they come home
and you get in the car and go home. That
these that parenting isn't this twenty four to seven slog
and that children actually need independence. Those messages I think
would make young people more open to having kids and
having more kids.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Let's take a quick commercial break. Will continue next on
a Tutor Dixon podcast. How much is this that we
see terrible and terrible things are highlighted now more so
than ever before because you have this constant flow of
information on your phone, whether it's on X or Instagram
(15:09):
or whatever.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
You see these kids get taken.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Or something happens and there's a fight in the street
or something that parents are just they become these helicopter parents.
And honestly, I do think that probably you see the
same thing with having six having four kids. Once you
have four kids, you're like, I mean, there's more of
you than me, So we're gonna let you guys play
a little bit and kind of you know, I gave
(15:34):
birth to four of you to play together, have fun,
go outside. But I do think that people are having
fewer children, and then when you just have one or two,
you become sort of obsessed with that.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
So the causality always goes in both ways, that these
demands for helicopter and these over ambitious parenting leads people
to have fewer kids, and then having fewer kids leads
people to do more of this far too intensive parenting.
And that absolutely happens. And I point in the book
to study sort of establishing that that's a circle. And
(16:08):
then sociologists think this is good. I quote Isabel saw
all the sociologists at workings institutions saying falling birth rates
in a wealthy country are a good sign that parents
are having fewer kids and investing more in them, choosing
quality over quantity. So the implication there tutors that you
and I went the quantity route rather than the quality route.
(16:30):
But also it's not high quality. It's bad for the
pot and bad for the kids.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
I mean, I could see I can see that argument.
But at the same time, I see the girls. I
have four girls, so I see them having to learn
how to negotiate with one another, having to learn how
to have conversations on their level and kind of get
each other to do what they want because there's there's
always a little conflict that they have to figure out
(17:00):
on their own, which can be incredibly frustrating. But at
the same time, I think that's teaching them a lot.
And I also think I get that, you know, they
would have had more. I mean, I remember when my
oldest was a newborn. The amount of attention that I
spent with her was insane. And I remember my husband
walking in and looking at him and I had been
(17:21):
looking at this tiny face all day and I looked
at him and I was like, oh, my gosh, your
face is huge, like because I had only looked at
her all day long, and it was like my sole focus,
you know. And so from that standpoint, I'm like, I
could have become completely obsessed with just her but then
by the time I have her and another one and
then twins. I mean with the twins. I remember at
(17:44):
one point like if my oldest had eaten dog food,
I would have like completely freaked out right. And at
one point the twins were eating the dog for my moms, like,
they're eating the dog food, and I was like, I
mean the dog eats it, how bad could it be?
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Absolutely, it's what I called good spoiling of kids. Now
I do some bad spoiling. My seven year old he
was carrying her downstairs the other day, and my oldest said,
when I was seven, I was carrying the other two downstairs.
So that's the case where I'm like, Okay, I need
to give her a little more independence. But if the
spoiling is ignoring them and letting them be, and that's
a good spoiling. You know, they're picking up more germs
(18:20):
and building up their immune system, they're learning, they're broadening
their palate by eating dog food. But also they're one
of the women I quote in the book, one of
the moms says, boredom is a muse in my house.
It's the it's the muse of coming up with new ideas.
Guess what. We have many bookshelves in this house. Grab
(18:41):
a book or just sit down. My kids will invent
their own board games. Most of them are terrible, but
they come up with them and they learn about it
and or they write. Or just the other day, my son,
you know, we have our very early bedtime family, just
because I like to go to bed early. But he's
never tired, and so we stayed up. The internet's and off.
He will play the guitar by himself. And the other
(19:03):
day he just drew and he learned. He figured out
that he could draw a person running and it wasn't
some intensive tweet arts and crafts, and he drew a
picture of a baseball player. But he was like, wow, Dad,
look what I figured out because I was bored.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
But there is this I have to say, there is
this moment in your like you sometimes you catch in
your breath or you're in your heart when you are
out with your kids and it's like, okay, I'm going
to run over here, and you're at a store and
you go, you have to come with me. You know
that helicopter parenting It does sometimes kick in, and maybe
(19:38):
that's instinct when you're in a place like that, but
there are times when I think, if I'm too lax
with them and something happens, I live with that the
rest of my life. So how do you how do
how do you internalize? Like how do you make that
balance okay?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
As a parent.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
So it's really tough because there's the I think it's
just confusing the emotion. So I tell the stories of
the times I lost my son Sean. I think I've
lost kids five times in my life, and four of
them were the same kid.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
For that sounds right.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
And so it's some of the emotion really was a
fear of being judged when I lost him and at
the US Marine Corps Museum, and the phone call was
clearly from the US Marine Corps Museum. They're thinking, am
I going to get in troubles? He's going to be
a marine? And then but it was Shawn on the
(20:34):
phone be like where are you dead? And so that's
part of the emotion. And then the other part that
you just expressed perfectly is that you wouldn't forgive yourself.
There's a one to ten million chance that something bad
is going to happen, but if it happened because you
did something that you're told you're not supposed to do.
You wouldn't forgive yourself for My question is always is
this a reasonable request? And what are the off setting
(21:01):
threats or dangers or just negativities. Never ever, ever, ever
leave your kid in a car. Well, it makes sense
if it's a hot day, so it makes sense if
it's like just a solo baby. But if you left
a six year old a four year old in a
car together for five minutes on a cool day where
you can lock the car, it's not actually a danger.
And in fact, walking them across the parking lot might
(21:23):
be a bigger danger. So if you do that and
you just say, okay, I know that. What I'm afraid
of is these horror stories. And if you were pointing
out earlier, what media allows us to do, and probably
social media even more, is taking every horrible thing that
happened in America and it u should just be in
the last month. But now these social media stories pop
(21:44):
up with terror stories from ten years ago, and they're
told like they're brand new. So a lot of parents
probably think that a kid gets abducted by a stranger
and disappears, you know, constantly, every every day in every
state in America, and that's just not true, and it's
definitely not on the rise. And the latest numbers probably
(22:05):
estimate that that stereotypical abduction there's one hundred of them
a year in the United States, absolutely horrific. That means
there's a one in a million chance of it happening
to you, and you can't really guard against a one
in a million chance.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
So let me ask you this.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
As a mom, you talk about mothers a lot because
you say that there's a problem in American culture that
mothers today are more more often so they're working, so
they're professionals, and that seems to be cutting down on
their parenting time. However, they're spending fifty percent more time
on parenting tasks than their grandmothers actually did.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
And I have to tell you that there.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Was a time when I thought to myself, because the
girls were so close together, that I was so used
to doing something for the youngest that I kept doing
it for the oldest well passed when the oldest could
do it on her own, and then I became like
this crutch of I'm going to take care of everything
for you constantly, and I still see myself doing that,
(23:06):
And then I will be like, you are old enough
to fold your own laundry and put it away, and
then the laundry piles up in their room and I'm like,
should I do it?
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Do I not do it? And I and I think
that my.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Mom the laundry would have just gone away, and I'm like,
now I'm failing you know, So how do you go
through that in your head?
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Yeah? So my first chapter is literally called have lower
Expectations for your kids. And that's a joke. It's a
tongue in cheek thing. It's because you should have lower
expectations for sports and that sort of thing. But it's
a joke because I'm a Catholic. I want my kids
to get to have it. My expectations for them, my
hopes or that they become Saints, right, but not that
(23:48):
they become D one baseball players or But chapter two,
called Lose your Children More, is about having lower expectations
for yourselves. And so for me, I get too upset
is exactly when I expect them to be orderly, because people, oh,
six kids, you must run a real tight ship. Yes,
(24:08):
yes I do. I'm a drill sergeant and there are
times that I just say, I say tally hoe, which
means it's signed for us to all leave and they'll
run behind me, and it makes me feel really cool.
And then there are other times that I'm like, I
have told you thirty two times to put away your shoes,
and you have and that's where I become a bad dad,
(24:29):
and I yell at them and I rather than just
sort of handling it calmly. So that's part of it
is just to realize this is a long haul that
we're doing as parents. And so I have this one
time who have already mentionined who can't sit down still
during dinner, And right before dinner started last night, I said,
I want you this this dinner. The only thing I
(24:51):
want you to work on is not getting up until
you've asked to be excused. He says, okay, okay, we
say grace. Within ten seconds he's standing up and running
into the cour the dining room. Somehow I magically kept
my calm. I was like, Okay, the good thing is
you get a second chance at this, Sean, and you're
you're nine, and so by the time you're eighteen, I
think you will be able to sit down at a
(25:12):
table without without getting up, not to say that that's gone.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
That is a really good point, I think, because.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
You know, even in our own household, I see sometimes
where my husband will be like, I've told them this
a million times, why aren't they doing it? But it's
just like I give more grace to a puppy than
an older dog. I give more grace to a child
than I do an adult because they're learning. And you
like when we had when we bring a puppy into
(25:42):
the house and it chews all the shoes up. We're like, okay,
but the puppy doesn't know any better. But you know,
the child is not that different. They're still learning too.
And as much as I've seen in my life that
I sit at the table and eat like a normal
person and I chat with the people around me, their
minds are going a million miles a minute and they
just have to be told time and time again. But
(26:04):
I think we're so used to this society where it's
like instant gratification. I want you to do do something,
and you're going to do it. We also believe that
the father knows best generation, that kids just were seen
and not heard, you know, like when dad came home
from work, the meal was on the table. The kids
sat there perfectly and never misbehaved. And maybe that was true,
(26:26):
I don't know, but for some reason that's not true
in my house, and I have to remember to give
them grace as they grow and learn.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
And so why are we more stressed about this now?
I think one reason is that we are an increasingly
secular society, and the idea that we're raising kids. We
agonize over it, we delay, we postpone, and then in
the end we're very intentional about having children, and so
(26:57):
then it becomes this much more burden something, and you
lose the idea that's true in all the major faiths
that just humans. You know, we're falling. We make all
sorts of distincts. But it's good. It's good to be
fruitful and multiplied humans are. It's family also is sort
of a natural thing you do. So once we abandon
(27:19):
the idea, the custom, the tradition, the norm, frankly, that
you have kids, and once you abandon a more spiritual
idea of a human being, then you have to be
a success as a parent, and you have to turn
your kid into a total success. And I quote lots
of writers mothers who came to realize that what was
causing them so much stress was that everything was chosen.
(27:41):
How is my kid spending the next hour? That's my decision.
So maybe I should have him listen to Mozart, or
maybe i should have him do a puzzle, but certainly
I'm not going to let him just bounce a whiffle
ball off the ceiling.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
a Tutor Dixon podcast. I remember when the girls were little,
there was this thing called my Baby can Read, And
it was like, you are going to spend a strenuous
amount of time teaching a baby to read, even though
they can't tell you what they're reading. Somehow you're going
(28:15):
to know. And it's like these flash cards and you
were going to teach, and my grandmother ordered this. And
then the immense pressure of me teaching my child, who
is not verbal yet because they're a baby, to actually
read right And I would know she was going to
read because she would set out, point to something and
know what the word meant. And I'm not going to lie.
(28:36):
I'm like, I have this, we have this time. I'm
going to spend this teaching this baby who can't talk
to me.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yet to read.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
And I think back on that, how ridiculous. But that
is the kind of pressure that is put on you.
And you know, your grandmother sees this. Your child's going
to be a genius and they're going to go to Harvard.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Who knew.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
I wouldn't want my kids to go to Harvard one day,
but they are going to be these amazing adults. And now,
I honestly, I'm like, you talk about faith a lot,
and I want to get to that really quick. I
know I've kept you a little bit, but I want
to get to that because now as I've seen my
kids grow in faith, and that's been really neat. As
they've gotten a little older and they see faith for themselves,
(29:19):
I'm like, man, all of these things that I thought
were important.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
At the end of the day, I.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Want them to find someone that shares faith with them
and shares values with them, and I want them to
understand that life is about what you're able to together
as a couple, create through life and raise yourself. You know,
I mean, isn't that I always say. When my dad
(29:47):
was at the end of his life, he had been
in this amazing steel guide run a multi million dollar
one hundred multi hundred million dollar corporation with factories all
over the world. And he was a genius in his
field of rail castings, and at the end of his
(30:07):
life he wanted his daughters by his side. He didn't
care about any of the accolades of how many rail
castings he had made, or what a genius he was.
That the end of his life was about his kids.
And I'm like, why are we not telling our kids that.
I mean, you talk about these young people who don't
think that they want to have kids in it. To
(30:29):
be honest, I've had friends of mine who have said,
you know, my friends just got married and they're in
their twenties and thirties and they're talking about not having
kids because they just don't know what the world is
going to be like for those kids. And I think, man,
we're terrifying people with the climate's going to be this,
and there's going to be a nuclear war, and it's
just not worth it, and everything's so expensive.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
But at the end of life, what have you done
if you don't.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Have those little people beside you that have loved you
and become a part of your every day.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Absolutely, it's beautiful, It's true. And it really is a sadness.
I think sadness causes us to have fewer children and
to be more afraid of it. And then when we
have your children, we're sadder because we don't have somebody
by us at the end of the day. And that's
what I'm hoping is if you sort of can portray
(31:21):
a fun, positive view of parenthood and argue that some
of the threats you're talking about our imaginary and some
of them can really be addressed through you know, better sidewalks, etc.
More playgrounds, then you can turn the tie. If there's
a vicious circle of more sadness, less children, more sadness,
then there could be a virtuous circle of more children,
(31:44):
more happiness, more children.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
And not to say that, I don't want people to
believe that to fulfill yourself you'll have children, because it
is a hard journey. I mean, there are days when
I'm like, oh my gosh, everything is going wrong and
you're all fighting and it's so hard and how.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Could you've lost your shoes again?
Speaker 1 (32:06):
You know, it's like all of these things that you
go through as a parent, and it's a hard journey.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
One shoe, It's always just one shoe.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Yes, right.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
I have actually had a child get someplace to a
destination with one shoe in the winter when we walked
to the car that was parked in the snow, and
I'm like, how did you even get to the car
with one shoe?
Speaker 2 (32:26):
And those are the moments where you're like, this is
really hard.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
And it's not to say that it's going to be like, Oh,
this is going to fulfill me and it's going to
be joyful all the time. There is a joy about it.
And we've talked about this before. There's a difference between
happiness and joy. Happiness is that feeling you feel in
the moment when you have something great happen and it's
just you're really happy about it.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
But there's an.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Inner joy that comes from having a family and being
a family, and it's something that I think as society,
we've gotten away from that joy of family and we've
instead instilled a fear of family, which is the worst
possible thing to do. And I think that's what has
led to I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong,
but I think that's a part of what has led
(33:08):
to not only once people have kids becoming obsessed with
what's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Are they safe? Are they sick?
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Is it should I take them to the hospital instead
of just letting that common cold run its course and
then you go back to school.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
No, that's right. And the way I put it, because
so many of the things I write about in the
book are is trying to say, here's how a family
friendly culture would make it easier to raise kids. But
guess what, it will always be the hardest thing you're
ever going to do. But it's the easiest path to
take if what you're aiming for is an actual, high
(33:42):
and worthy goal. In other words, if you're aiming for
something beyond just self satisfaction and having sort of diversions
and fun, then parenting is the easiest path. It's sort
of a cheat code for virtue. The Bible says feed
the hungry, clothe the naked. I wake up, there are
hungry naked people in my house.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Right, that's right, Yes, that's true. You can create your
own and constantly have to feed. They do eat all
the time. That is another thing that you do have
to feed them. But you know, it's funny because they
get to Every stage is different, and when you go
through parenting, you never know that that stage is about
to end. And I think that's the joy in having
(34:21):
many kids, because you then when you get to the
last child that you're going to raise, you know those
stages are about to end, and like, this could be
the last time this baby falls asleep in my chest,
and then this is the last time I have to
tie their shoe, and there are just these there's a
joy in them moving on, and there's a grief in
losing that stage. But I also think it's the most
(34:44):
exciting thing because as they grow up, Like today, my
daughter texted me and one of the girls that works
with me, and she was like, we have to have
a girl's afternoon because I have something to share with
you guys. And I'm like, how cool is this that
my fort teen year old wants to just spend an
afternoon with us, you know. And so I think that
(35:06):
you have to understand that people will say, oh, you
can't be friends with your kids. There is you do
have a friendship with your kids, and even though you
are that person of authority in their lives, you're also
that first person that teaches them the value of sharing
and being honest and open with someone else and having
that connection it's just such a fun experience and I
(35:28):
really I hate the thought of people missing out on
it because culture in America today has said limit the
number of children you have, or don't.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Do it at all.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Absolutely, So I want everybody to know tell them a
little bit about your book. It is called family unfriendly,
and I don't want people to be turned off by
family unfriendly because the point is you don't have to
We don't have to make it so hard.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
We don't have to challenge ourselves.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
We don't have to see the elf on the shelf
on Pinterest and make December a miserable month because we're
trying to outdo the neighbor or out do the other
kids at school. Parenting should be joyful. There are stressful moments,
we don't have to overstress. Tell us about the book
really quick.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
So yeah, that's the argument is that the stress and
anxiety of kids is caused by cultural forces and the
family unfriendly cultural forces, but a lot of them we
can overcome, in partase by immersing ourselves in communities that
support family. So a church community or something like that,
(36:37):
it's more likely to support you. Part of it is
just by resisting and stop them doing it stop, you know,
unfollow all the influencers, stop helicoptering, and realize that your
kids getting you know, B pluses is not the end
of the world. And partly, you know, sometimes it's decisions
like if you don't have to give your kids a smartphone,
(36:57):
you don't have to do a lot of the things
that people say you have to do. And when you
do that and you just confront the kids as sort
of beautiful and wonderful in themselves, that turns it around,
and that makes parenting the meaningful joy, the cheat code
for becoming a better person that it can be. And
the problem is our culture's expectations. But you can fight
(37:20):
those and overcome that.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
I think there's so much more that we can talk about.
We'll have to talk again because there's also this even
with younger people, not necessarily with parents, but the influence
of what you said, unfollowed the mo influencers. It's not
just that. I mean, I have people in my life
who are in their twenties and they live their life
(37:42):
by the trends that they see online, and it's become
an obsession. And I think too oftentimes we're looking into
other people's lives and saying how can I live into
what they're living. I think that's where faith is really important.
And as we've grown away from faith, we're looking for, well,
what is that source that can lead to me? And
so we're looking for humans to lead us. And it's
(38:03):
exactly what the Bible is telling us not to do.
Don't covet your neighbor, don't watch and see what the
next trend is. I mean, you know, if you're really
reading the word, that's what it's telling you. And so
how how do we take this culture and say leave
that alone and focus on what's important? And that's hard,
but we could, I'm sure we could have a whole
(38:23):
other conversation about that.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Yeah, and it's it's certainly the case. And I start
off with the travel sports and by the end of
the book I am talking more about spiritual things. How
do you see human beings? Do you see life as
something that you can absolutely control every detail? Are you
afraid of commitment to relationships because you value autonomy above
all other things? And it's trying to make it easier
(38:47):
for the readers to say, Okay, here's the way in
which I'm letting the culture seep in and steal joy
from me and that resists. Ing that and overcoming that
is totally possible as long as we know what's going on.
That's what I'm trying to do with the book is
to drive them. These are the cultural sicknesses and you
can overcome them.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
It's I mean, we are.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
It's almost like in all cases there's this striving for
a perfection that doesn't exist. And we just were reading
an article here today about young women now botox, going
from you know, people in their forties who are trying
to hold on to that wrinkle free look to suddenly
the highest demographic that is getting injections into their face
(39:32):
are there people in their low twenties. And it's just
like this striving for constant perfection. It's just like the
mom who's trying to get the Bento box perfect. And
you know, there's the there are massive pressures on us
today that certainly my mom didn't feel. And so I
appreciate you talking to us again. For you folks out there,
get the book. It's going to help you. It's called
(39:54):
Family Unfriendly. Tim Carney is the author. Thank you Tim
for being here today, Thank you tutor, and thank you
all for joining us. On the Tutor Dixon Podcast. For
this episode and others, go to tutordisonpodcast dot com. You
can subscribe right there, or head over to the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and join
us next time on the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Have a blessing,
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. As you all know,
we spend a lot of time on this podcast talking
about family and raising kids and the challenges with raising kids.
And I know the challenges of raising kids because obviously
I have four children, And just last night I was
at an event and I'm talking about the challenges of
getting kids every place, and like driving kids from school
(00:23):
and to home and then back to school to get
a different kid, and then to a different school to
get a different kid. And I'm like, man, this is
really hard. And then I think about my generation is
actually making parenting like way harder, and I think the
reason we're making parenting harder is honestly because there are
things like Pinterest. So I suddenly over the weekend find
(00:43):
myself spending the weekend trying to catch a leprechaun. And
I know that this is because I've made parenting harder,
and so I decided I would bring in an expert
to tell me that I am definitely making parenting harder,
and we all are probably making parenting harder, but this
is really to make us feel like there's a better
way of doing things. So I am excited because Tim
Carney is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
(01:06):
and a columnist at the Washington Examiner, and he's with
me today. His latest book is called Family Unfriendly. I'm
going to hold it up here, how our culture made
raising kits much harder than it needs to be. And
it was just released on March nineteenth. Thank you so
much for being here with me today. Tell me how
(01:27):
bad is it?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
What are we doing wrong?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Thank you?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
And definitely stop chasing leprechauns for all sorts of reasons.
But so to start with, I mean, I think that
there's a broad cultural problem. You see it in childhood anxiety,
which has been declared an epidemic. You see it in
rising adult stress levels. You see it in falling birth rates,
record low birth rates in the United States. And some
(01:49):
people think it's just about economics. I don't think that's right.
I think that's part of the story. Some people think
it's about the young people today are just selfish. I
also don't think that's right. I think it's our culture
and foods, parenting culture. It also includes how much our
culture supports families, and it includes mating and dating culture,
which prevents twenty year olds from getting married. We can
talk about those later, but the parenting culture is just
(02:12):
it's way too intensive. First of all, the league gives
way to intensive and expensive travel sports, and then there's helicoptering,
and then there's the what I call the mom fluencers
who set these crazy expectations of.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
All the chasing leprechauns, even.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Worse than chasing leprechauns, and the idea that your children
should always be in perfectly match outfits, and that your
house is always clean. But you know that it's all
naturally posed because they're at a farmhouse with exposed rafters,
so it must just be normal to be a ballerina
who makes homemade grilled cheese sandwiches for your kids every day.
All of these expectations add to the anxiety for parents
(02:50):
and kids.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
No, it is true because if we as parents today,
we are constantly bombarded with the Bento box lunch where
the kids are eating like this perfect lunch and mom
has made cucumber sandwiches and homemade hummus and everything that
she somehow whipped up that morning and put into the
Meno box. And you see that as a mom, and
if you can't meet those standards, you feel like, oh
(03:14):
my gosh, I'm missing out on something, and so we're constantly,
I think, as parents today, we're constantly being pushed to.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
The next level.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
And it's not something that I grew up with because
my mom was never seeing what was inside of the
mom's house next door. She literally never saw it, and
I wasn't coming home and being like, you know, Kathy
came to school with a lunch.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Box filled with special like toothpicks that were the shapes
of unicorns inside of her kprase salad for a seven
year old, you know, which is not it's not unheard of.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
These are the things that I see, and as a mom,
I'm shocked. But also at the same time, as kids
are getting older, I sort of had this like weird
expectation that, you know, four kids when my kids were
little was a lot because my youngest are twins, so
it's like, you know, two tiny people, and then it's
like twenty four months, twenty two months to the next one,
(04:11):
and then twenty four months to the next one. So
everybody is about two years apart in my family, and
I kept thinking, this gets easier at some point, but
then you add in these sports and it's suddenly like
we have sports all week long. And I mean, obviously,
with four kids, you have more than the average two
(04:32):
person or two child family. But some of these sports
are getting really out of control. But the pressure to
have them in these sports because we're told they can't
get into college, they'll never have a future if they're
not in these sports, even though likely these sports will
never be in their life when they're adults.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
No, And so part of the problem is we forget
the point of youth sports. And the first point is
that they're fun. And you know little league obviously, but
still sports are supposed to be fun for kids when
they get a little older. They are fun to watch.
I love going to my kids baseball games and that
sort of thing. And when I got to coach kindergarten
(05:07):
girls basketball, that was a different sort of fun. It
was hilarious. It was hard to stop laughing. But what
you forget sometimes is that the point isn't to make
them into all stars. The point isn't to get them
view one scholarship. It's that sports builds virtue. Sports gets
them running around. Sports gives them an idea of teamwork.
It gives them coaches who are other possible adult role
(05:29):
models who haven't spent all day telling them to clean
their room and do their homeworketc. And so what I
write about my chapter one writes about the travel team
track that these local sports coached by volunteer mom and
dads get replaced by intensive, expensive sports that can destroy
(05:50):
family culture because suddenly there's a tournament every other weekend
over in Wisconsin. Yes, that's absolutely disruptive to the family,
the family culture. So I'm all in favor of kids,
you know, being busy playing all these sports, but sometimes
you have to think what is the best team for
my kid? My argument is the best team for your
(06:12):
kid is the one that practices across the street or
the one that practices after school so you don't have
to drive them to another practice.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Well, and what is that doing to the other kids
in the family, Because I've just started to kind of
step back and look at this. When we have one
of our kids that we're going on weekend trips with,
we always have a child who's not playing that sport,
that gets dragged along, and then that spent that time
outside with friends, that time just exploring, that time crafting,
(06:42):
all of that time is now in the car now
in the hotel room. It just seems like it is
taking away something from my other child if I'm doing
this with these exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
And I actually my son used to play baseball with
this kid who explained that they never get to go
to their lake house because he plays travel baseball in
two different teams all summer. So imagine that you own
a lake house in the summer, you don't get to
use it because of this. And so those experiences of
long lazy summer days to get lost, or the experience
(07:15):
of trying a new sport or just playing a pickup game,
or just being bored at home, those get lost with
these intensive childhood And in fact, the Journal of Pediatrics
recently came out with the study saying the rise in
childhood anxiety is caused it's not so much pressure from parents,
it's the lack of independent play free from adult supervision. So,
(07:37):
in other words, an essential element to healthy childhood is
being bored or wandering around or making up your own
stupid game with a whiffle ball and a basketball hoop
in a tennis racket or something.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
I actually am gonna call out my own relative here
because we went to visit my mom and my sister.
In February, we had winter break, and so we went
down to Florida to spend and time with them. And
we live in a neighborhood where the kids do just
go out and play, and my mom and my sister
live in the same neighborhood. So we said, we're going
to go over to her house. And we walked over
(08:11):
there and we got there and my sister was like,
how did.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
You get here? And I'm like, we walked over here.
She was like, what do you mean you walked? Why
would you walk?
Speaker 1 (08:20):
And I was like, you know, it's just so because
I think we've spent and you commented on this in
your book, and you wrote about this, and I thought,
we have spent so much time focused on getting in
the car and getting to the next place that we
have forgotten. And I think from Michigan going to Florida
in Michigan so rare that we do get to just
(08:43):
walk some place because it's freezing half of the time.
We're like, we're going to take advantage of this and walk,
you know, But we've become a culture that you don't
do that anymore. And you also talk about how communities
aren't really built for that. And I will say, as
much as my kids go out and play in our community,
we are on a main road and there are no
(09:03):
sidewalks in our community, and so when they're playing, they're
riding bikes in the street and they don't leave the
neighborhood because they don't go on the main road.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
How did that happen to us?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
So I think there's just this obsession with efficiency that
we decided and this is I think the planner, the
central planner mindst And there are novels, I mean historical
books about Robert Moses building the highwaysist building the suburbs,
but building the suburbs to be car centric, and that
roads cars should travel fast, and your neighborhood should just
(09:34):
be a neighborhood and a couple of culed the sacks
connected to each other. If there's enough kids. It's this
great little world that can be awesome for kids, but
it's cutting them off from the rest of the world.
Where we used to live in Maryland, you couldn't get
anywhere without crossing four lanes in either direction. So then
we find it A. We're driving our kids because they're
going further away. B were driving them because it's unsafe
(09:54):
for them to walk and see, then this creates a
culture in which fewer CA kids are out there playing.
So yeah, thankfully my wife and I have six kids,
so they can kind of make their own three on
three game if we sick them out in the backyard.
But it really is we started prioritizing cars over kids.
And in some place in one of my old neighborhoods,
(10:16):
they objected to sidewalks in this one neighborhood and one parents,
I just want my kid to be able to walk
to school, not in the road somebody else. Yeah, this
will chop down my cherry trees if you do this.
So what about my kids? And so your kids shouldn't
be walking to school alone anyway.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Oh no, this is the new.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
I mean, this is how it is because so, I,
like I said, I'm a I'm a gen x or
so I grew up where you know, you could do whatever.
Your parents just told me to come in when it
was dark.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
So we lived in this neighborhood called Green Trails, and
there were literally trails through all the houses where you
could walk, you could ride your bike, and it was
a huge I mean, you know when you're a kid,
you think something's huge, but when I mean it really
was a huge expansive area where there were trails for
miles and we could actually but we did. We went
(11:09):
up to the four way stop that was you know,
four lanes of traffic, and we crossed the road and
I can remember even going there was this store that
was like a seven to eleven. It was called the
White Hen Pantry, and we would take money from my mom.
She would give us a few bucks. We would go
up there and buy lemons, and I can remember getting
yelled at by the woman who would sell me the
lemons because she was like.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Does your mother know you're up here? This is going
to ruin the enamel on your teeth.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Like that is so funny to me now because now
they would freak out that I went to the White
Hen Pantry by myself, Like she would be like, how
why would your mother let you come up here?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
You know, and back then she was afraid that you
were subsisting on a diet of citrus only.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yes, I was like, oh my gosh, this is the
worst thing you could possibly do. How could your mother
be so.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
So I've lived in neighborhoods where the police get called
because parents left there ten year old with their little
brother walked to the playground alone, and so that needs
to change. In some places. Utah passed a basic law
basically legalizing free range parenting, but in other states, in Connecticut,
for instance, you couldn't leave your fourteen year old to
babysit your twelve year old. That would be called childliglack.
(12:19):
And so some states haven't. I don't know Florida if
they haven't done something should be more explicit that a
parent can't be held liable for doing something that's basically safe,
just because there's some people who are going to freak
out about it.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
That when my girls were really little, so the twins
were tiny, and they were still napping, and my oldest
was outside plane she was probably like four years old,
and she was on the play set in our backyard
and I was in the window and the twins were
in front of me and their little bassinet sleeping, and
I'm watching her. And I had a neighbor come to
(12:51):
the front door and say, I'm going to have to
call the police if you allow your child to play
outside by herself again, and I might I'm watching her.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
That is insane. And so this is exactly what I
mean by family unfriendly, This bizarre expectation that the parents
are the secret service agents constantly hovering over kids. You
see this in There was recently a study showing that
how much the school closures harmed kids and didn't prevent
anybody from getting COVID. And when some of us started
(13:24):
commenting on this, back came the comments we were getting
in twenty twenty saying, Oh, I'm sorry that you have
to spend time with your children, or hey, you're admitting
that's spending too much time with you is bad for
your kids. And we're saying, we're admitting that kids need
to get out, they need to talk to other people,
they need more than just two adults in their lives.
But so that insane expectation that parenting is a twenty
(13:46):
four to seven constant source of stress that gets put
throughout media and social media, that does actually deter people
from raising from having kids. I conducted while writing this book.
I conducted focus groups and multiple of the young men
who don't yet have kids said, well, I don't want
to just give them the bare minimum, or I don't
(14:06):
want to be the absentee mom who misses my daughter's
softball game. So that expectation, some of it through social media,
as you're saying, trickles down and makes parenting seem so
much harder. They need to be given expectation that well.
Time with kids is sometimes like playing basketball against your kids,
which is awesome when your kid is you know, barely
comes up to your chest and you can dunk on
(14:28):
them all day. But it's also going to barbecues and
your kids run around the neighborhood and then when you
whistle at the end of the night, they come home
and you get in the car and go home. That
these that parenting isn't this twenty four to seven slog
and that children actually need independence. Those messages I think
would make young people more open to having kids and
having more kids.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Let's take a quick commercial break. Will continue next on
a Tutor Dixon podcast. How much is this that we
see terrible and terrible things are highlighted now more so
than ever before because you have this constant flow of
information on your phone, whether it's on X or Instagram
(15:09):
or whatever.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
You see these kids get taken.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Or something happens and there's a fight in the street
or something that parents are just they become these helicopter parents.
And honestly, I do think that probably you see the
same thing with having six having four kids. Once you
have four kids, you're like, I mean, there's more of
you than me, So we're gonna let you guys play
a little bit and kind of you know, I gave
(15:34):
birth to four of you to play together, have fun,
go outside. But I do think that people are having
fewer children, and then when you just have one or two,
you become sort of obsessed with that.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
So the causality always goes in both ways, that these
demands for helicopter and these over ambitious parenting leads people
to have fewer kids, and then having fewer kids leads
people to do more of this far too intensive parenting.
And that absolutely happens. And I point in the book
to study sort of establishing that that's a circle. And
(16:08):
then sociologists think this is good. I quote Isabel saw
all the sociologists at workings institutions saying falling birth rates
in a wealthy country are a good sign that parents
are having fewer kids and investing more in them, choosing
quality over quantity. So the implication there tutors that you
and I went the quantity route rather than the quality route.
(16:30):
But also it's not high quality. It's bad for the
pot and bad for the kids.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
I mean, I could see I can see that argument.
But at the same time, I see the girls. I
have four girls, so I see them having to learn
how to negotiate with one another, having to learn how
to have conversations on their level and kind of get
each other to do what they want because there's there's
always a little conflict that they have to figure out
(17:00):
on their own, which can be incredibly frustrating. But at
the same time, I think that's teaching them a lot.
And I also think I get that, you know, they
would have had more. I mean, I remember when my
oldest was a newborn. The amount of attention that I
spent with her was insane. And I remember my husband
walking in and looking at him and I had been
(17:21):
looking at this tiny face all day and I looked
at him and I was like, oh, my gosh, your
face is huge, like because I had only looked at
her all day long, and it was like my sole focus,
you know. And so from that standpoint, I'm like, I
could have become completely obsessed with just her but then
by the time I have her and another one and
then twins. I mean with the twins. I remember at
(17:44):
one point like if my oldest had eaten dog food,
I would have like completely freaked out right. And at
one point the twins were eating the dog for my moms, like,
they're eating the dog food, and I was like, I
mean the dog eats it, how bad could it be?
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Absolutely, it's what I called good spoiling of kids. Now
I do some bad spoiling. My seven year old he
was carrying her downstairs the other day, and my oldest said,
when I was seven, I was carrying the other two downstairs.
So that's the case where I'm like, Okay, I need
to give her a little more independence. But if the
spoiling is ignoring them and letting them be, and that's
a good spoiling. You know, they're picking up more germs
(18:20):
and building up their immune system, they're learning, they're broadening
their palate by eating dog food. But also they're one
of the women I quote in the book, one of
the moms says, boredom is a muse in my house.
It's the it's the muse of coming up with new ideas.
Guess what. We have many bookshelves in this house. Grab
(18:41):
a book or just sit down. My kids will invent
their own board games. Most of them are terrible, but
they come up with them and they learn about it
and or they write. Or just the other day, my son,
you know, we have our very early bedtime family, just
because I like to go to bed early. But he's
never tired, and so we stayed up. The internet's and off.
He will play the guitar by himself. And the other
(19:03):
day he just drew and he learned. He figured out
that he could draw a person running and it wasn't
some intensive tweet arts and crafts, and he drew a
picture of a baseball player. But he was like, wow, Dad,
look what I figured out because I was bored.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
But there is this I have to say, there is
this moment in your like you sometimes you catch in
your breath or you're in your heart when you are
out with your kids and it's like, okay, I'm going
to run over here, and you're at a store and
you go, you have to come with me. You know
that helicopter parenting It does sometimes kick in, and maybe
(19:38):
that's instinct when you're in a place like that, but
there are times when I think, if I'm too lax
with them and something happens, I live with that the
rest of my life. So how do you how do
how do you internalize? Like how do you make that
balance okay?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
As a parent.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
So it's really tough because there's the I think it's
just confusing the emotion. So I tell the stories of
the times I lost my son Sean. I think I've
lost kids five times in my life, and four of
them were the same kid.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
For that sounds right.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
And so it's some of the emotion really was a
fear of being judged when I lost him and at
the US Marine Corps Museum, and the phone call was
clearly from the US Marine Corps Museum. They're thinking, am
I going to get in troubles? He's going to be
a marine? And then but it was Shawn on the
(20:34):
phone be like where are you dead? And so that's
part of the emotion. And then the other part that
you just expressed perfectly is that you wouldn't forgive yourself.
There's a one to ten million chance that something bad
is going to happen, but if it happened because you
did something that you're told you're not supposed to do.
You wouldn't forgive yourself for My question is always is
this a reasonable request? And what are the off setting
(21:01):
threats or dangers or just negativities. Never ever, ever, ever
leave your kid in a car. Well, it makes sense
if it's a hot day, so it makes sense if
it's like just a solo baby. But if you left
a six year old a four year old in a
car together for five minutes on a cool day where
you can lock the car, it's not actually a danger.
And in fact, walking them across the parking lot might
(21:23):
be a bigger danger. So if you do that and
you just say, okay, I know that. What I'm afraid
of is these horror stories. And if you were pointing
out earlier, what media allows us to do, and probably
social media even more, is taking every horrible thing that
happened in America and it u should just be in
the last month. But now these social media stories pop
(21:44):
up with terror stories from ten years ago, and they're
told like they're brand new. So a lot of parents
probably think that a kid gets abducted by a stranger
and disappears, you know, constantly, every every day in every
state in America, and that's just not true, and it's
definitely not on the rise. And the latest numbers probably
(22:05):
estimate that that stereotypical abduction there's one hundred of them
a year in the United States, absolutely horrific. That means
there's a one in a million chance of it happening
to you, and you can't really guard against a one
in a million chance.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
So let me ask you this.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
As a mom, you talk about mothers a lot because
you say that there's a problem in American culture that
mothers today are more more often so they're working, so
they're professionals, and that seems to be cutting down on
their parenting time. However, they're spending fifty percent more time
on parenting tasks than their grandmothers actually did.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
And I have to tell you that there.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Was a time when I thought to myself, because the
girls were so close together, that I was so used
to doing something for the youngest that I kept doing
it for the oldest well passed when the oldest could
do it on her own, and then I became like
this crutch of I'm going to take care of everything
for you constantly, and I still see myself doing that,
(23:06):
And then I will be like, you are old enough
to fold your own laundry and put it away, and
then the laundry piles up in their room and I'm like,
should I do it?
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Do I not do it? And I and I think
that my.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Mom the laundry would have just gone away, and I'm like,
now I'm failing you know, So how do you go
through that in your head?
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Yeah? So my first chapter is literally called have lower
Expectations for your kids. And that's a joke. It's a
tongue in cheek thing. It's because you should have lower
expectations for sports and that sort of thing. But it's
a joke because I'm a Catholic. I want my kids
to get to have it. My expectations for them, my
hopes or that they become Saints, right, but not that
(23:48):
they become D one baseball players or But chapter two,
called Lose your Children More, is about having lower expectations
for yourselves. And so for me, I get too upset
is exactly when I expect them to be orderly, because people, oh,
six kids, you must run a real tight ship. Yes,
(24:08):
yes I do. I'm a drill sergeant and there are
times that I just say, I say tally hoe, which
means it's signed for us to all leave and they'll
run behind me, and it makes me feel really cool.
And then there are other times that I'm like, I
have told you thirty two times to put away your shoes,
and you have and that's where I become a bad dad,
(24:29):
and I yell at them and I rather than just
sort of handling it calmly. So that's part of it
is just to realize this is a long haul that
we're doing as parents. And so I have this one
time who have already mentionined who can't sit down still
during dinner, And right before dinner started last night, I said,
I want you this this dinner. The only thing I
(24:51):
want you to work on is not getting up until
you've asked to be excused. He says, okay, okay, we
say grace. Within ten seconds he's standing up and running
into the cour the dining room. Somehow I magically kept
my calm. I was like, Okay, the good thing is
you get a second chance at this, Sean, and you're
you're nine, and so by the time you're eighteen, I
think you will be able to sit down at a
(25:12):
table without without getting up, not to say that that's gone.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
That is a really good point, I think, because.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
You know, even in our own household, I see sometimes
where my husband will be like, I've told them this
a million times, why aren't they doing it? But it's
just like I give more grace to a puppy than
an older dog. I give more grace to a child
than I do an adult because they're learning. And you
like when we had when we bring a puppy into
(25:42):
the house and it chews all the shoes up. We're like, okay,
but the puppy doesn't know any better. But you know,
the child is not that different. They're still learning too.
And as much as I've seen in my life that
I sit at the table and eat like a normal
person and I chat with the people around me, their
minds are going a million miles a minute and they
just have to be told time and time again. But
(26:04):
I think we're so used to this society where it's
like instant gratification. I want you to do do something,
and you're going to do it. We also believe that
the father knows best generation, that kids just were seen
and not heard, you know, like when dad came home
from work, the meal was on the table. The kids
sat there perfectly and never misbehaved. And maybe that was true,
(26:26):
I don't know, but for some reason that's not true
in my house, and I have to remember to give
them grace as they grow and learn.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
And so why are we more stressed about this now?
I think one reason is that we are an increasingly
secular society, and the idea that we're raising kids. We
agonize over it, we delay, we postpone, and then in
the end we're very intentional about having children, and so
(26:57):
then it becomes this much more burden something, and you
lose the idea that's true in all the major faiths
that just humans. You know, we're falling. We make all
sorts of distincts. But it's good. It's good to be
fruitful and multiplied humans are. It's family also is sort
of a natural thing you do. So once we abandon
(27:19):
the idea, the custom, the tradition, the norm, frankly, that
you have kids, and once you abandon a more spiritual
idea of a human being, then you have to be
a success as a parent, and you have to turn
your kid into a total success. And I quote lots
of writers mothers who came to realize that what was
causing them so much stress was that everything was chosen.
(27:41):
How is my kid spending the next hour? That's my decision.
So maybe I should have him listen to Mozart, or
maybe i should have him do a puzzle, but certainly
I'm not going to let him just bounce a whiffle
ball off the ceiling.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
a Tutor Dixon podcast. I remember when the girls were little,
there was this thing called my Baby can Read, And
it was like, you are going to spend a strenuous
amount of time teaching a baby to read, even though
they can't tell you what they're reading. Somehow you're going
(28:15):
to know. And it's like these flash cards and you
were going to teach, and my grandmother ordered this. And
then the immense pressure of me teaching my child, who
is not verbal yet because they're a baby, to actually
read right And I would know she was going to
read because she would set out, point to something and
know what the word meant. And I'm not going to lie.
(28:36):
I'm like, I have this, we have this time. I'm
going to spend this teaching this baby who can't talk
to me.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yet to read.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
And I think back on that, how ridiculous. But that
is the kind of pressure that is put on you.
And you know, your grandmother sees this. Your child's going
to be a genius and they're going to go to Harvard.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Who knew.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
I wouldn't want my kids to go to Harvard one day,
but they are going to be these amazing adults. And now,
I honestly, I'm like, you talk about faith a lot,
and I want to get to that really quick. I
know I've kept you a little bit, but I want
to get to that because now as I've seen my
kids grow in faith, and that's been really neat. As
they've gotten a little older and they see faith for themselves,
(29:19):
I'm like, man, all of these things that I thought
were important.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
At the end of the day, I.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Want them to find someone that shares faith with them
and shares values with them, and I want them to
understand that life is about what you're able to together
as a couple, create through life and raise yourself. You know,
I mean, isn't that I always say. When my dad
(29:47):
was at the end of his life, he had been
in this amazing steel guide run a multi million dollar
one hundred multi hundred million dollar corporation with factories all
over the world. And he was a genius in his
field of rail castings, and at the end of his
(30:07):
life he wanted his daughters by his side. He didn't
care about any of the accolades of how many rail
castings he had made, or what a genius he was.
That the end of his life was about his kids.
And I'm like, why are we not telling our kids that.
I mean, you talk about these young people who don't
think that they want to have kids in it. To
(30:29):
be honest, I've had friends of mine who have said,
you know, my friends just got married and they're in
their twenties and thirties and they're talking about not having
kids because they just don't know what the world is
going to be like for those kids. And I think, man,
we're terrifying people with the climate's going to be this,
and there's going to be a nuclear war, and it's
just not worth it, and everything's so expensive.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
But at the end of life, what have you done
if you don't.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Have those little people beside you that have loved you
and become a part of your every day.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Absolutely, it's beautiful, It's true. And it really is a sadness.
I think sadness causes us to have fewer children and
to be more afraid of it. And then when we
have your children, we're sadder because we don't have somebody
by us at the end of the day. And that's
what I'm hoping is if you sort of can portray
(31:21):
a fun, positive view of parenthood and argue that some
of the threats you're talking about our imaginary and some
of them can really be addressed through you know, better sidewalks, etc.
More playgrounds, then you can turn the tie. If there's
a vicious circle of more sadness, less children, more sadness,
then there could be a virtuous circle of more children,
(31:44):
more happiness, more children.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
And not to say that, I don't want people to
believe that to fulfill yourself you'll have children, because it
is a hard journey. I mean, there are days when
I'm like, oh my gosh, everything is going wrong and
you're all fighting and it's so hard and how.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Could you've lost your shoes again?
Speaker 1 (32:06):
You know, it's like all of these things that you
go through as a parent, and it's a hard journey.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
One shoe, It's always just one shoe.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Yes, right.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
I have actually had a child get someplace to a
destination with one shoe in the winter when we walked
to the car that was parked in the snow, and
I'm like, how did you even get to the car
with one shoe?
Speaker 2 (32:26):
And those are the moments where you're like, this is
really hard.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
And it's not to say that it's going to be like, Oh,
this is going to fulfill me and it's going to
be joyful all the time. There is a joy about it.
And we've talked about this before. There's a difference between
happiness and joy. Happiness is that feeling you feel in
the moment when you have something great happen and it's
just you're really happy about it.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
But there's an.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Inner joy that comes from having a family and being
a family, and it's something that I think as society,
we've gotten away from that joy of family and we've
instead instilled a fear of family, which is the worst
possible thing to do. And I think that's what has
led to I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong,
but I think that's a part of what has led
(33:08):
to not only once people have kids becoming obsessed with
what's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Are they safe? Are they sick?
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Is it should I take them to the hospital instead
of just letting that common cold run its course and
then you go back to school.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
No, that's right. And the way I put it, because
so many of the things I write about in the
book are is trying to say, here's how a family
friendly culture would make it easier to raise kids. But
guess what, it will always be the hardest thing you're
ever going to do. But it's the easiest path to
take if what you're aiming for is an actual, high
(33:42):
and worthy goal. In other words, if you're aiming for
something beyond just self satisfaction and having sort of diversions
and fun, then parenting is the easiest path. It's sort
of a cheat code for virtue. The Bible says feed
the hungry, clothe the naked. I wake up, there are
hungry naked people in my house.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Right, that's right, Yes, that's true. You can create your
own and constantly have to feed. They do eat all
the time. That is another thing that you do have
to feed them. But you know, it's funny because they
get to Every stage is different, and when you go
through parenting, you never know that that stage is about
to end. And I think that's the joy in having
(34:21):
many kids, because you then when you get to the
last child that you're going to raise, you know those
stages are about to end, and like, this could be
the last time this baby falls asleep in my chest,
and then this is the last time I have to
tie their shoe, and there are just these there's a
joy in them moving on, and there's a grief in
losing that stage. But I also think it's the most
(34:44):
exciting thing because as they grow up, Like today, my
daughter texted me and one of the girls that works
with me, and she was like, we have to have
a girl's afternoon because I have something to share with
you guys. And I'm like, how cool is this that
my fort teen year old wants to just spend an
afternoon with us, you know. And so I think that
(35:06):
you have to understand that people will say, oh, you
can't be friends with your kids. There is you do
have a friendship with your kids, and even though you
are that person of authority in their lives, you're also
that first person that teaches them the value of sharing
and being honest and open with someone else and having
that connection it's just such a fun experience and I
(35:28):
really I hate the thought of people missing out on
it because culture in America today has said limit the
number of children you have, or don't.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Do it at all.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Absolutely, So I want everybody to know tell them a
little bit about your book. It is called family unfriendly,
and I don't want people to be turned off by
family unfriendly because the point is you don't have to
We don't have to make it so hard.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
We don't have to challenge ourselves.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
We don't have to see the elf on the shelf
on Pinterest and make December a miserable month because we're
trying to outdo the neighbor or out do the other
kids at school. Parenting should be joyful. There are stressful moments,
we don't have to overstress. Tell us about the book
really quick.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
So yeah, that's the argument is that the stress and
anxiety of kids is caused by cultural forces and the
family unfriendly cultural forces, but a lot of them we
can overcome, in partase by immersing ourselves in communities that
support family. So a church community or something like that,
(36:37):
it's more likely to support you. Part of it is
just by resisting and stop them doing it stop, you know,
unfollow all the influencers, stop helicoptering, and realize that your
kids getting you know, B pluses is not the end
of the world. And partly, you know, sometimes it's decisions
like if you don't have to give your kids a smartphone,
(36:57):
you don't have to do a lot of the things
that people say you have to do. And when you
do that and you just confront the kids as sort
of beautiful and wonderful in themselves, that turns it around,
and that makes parenting the meaningful joy, the cheat code
for becoming a better person that it can be. And
the problem is our culture's expectations. But you can fight
(37:20):
those and overcome that.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
I think there's so much more that we can talk about.
We'll have to talk again because there's also this even
with younger people, not necessarily with parents, but the influence
of what you said, unfollowed the mo influencers. It's not
just that. I mean, I have people in my life
who are in their twenties and they live their life
(37:42):
by the trends that they see online, and it's become
an obsession. And I think too oftentimes we're looking into
other people's lives and saying how can I live into
what they're living. I think that's where faith is really important.
And as we've grown away from faith, we're looking for, well,
what is that source that can lead to me? And
so we're looking for humans to lead us. And it's
(38:03):
exactly what the Bible is telling us not to do.
Don't covet your neighbor, don't watch and see what the
next trend is. I mean, you know, if you're really
reading the word, that's what it's telling you. And so
how how do we take this culture and say leave
that alone and focus on what's important? And that's hard,
but we could, I'm sure we could have a whole
(38:23):
other conversation about that.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Yeah, and it's it's certainly the case. And I start
off with the travel sports and by the end of
the book I am talking more about spiritual things. How
do you see human beings? Do you see life as
something that you can absolutely control every detail? Are you
afraid of commitment to relationships because you value autonomy above
all other things? And it's trying to make it easier
(38:47):
for the readers to say, Okay, here's the way in
which I'm letting the culture seep in and steal joy
from me and that resists. Ing that and overcoming that
is totally possible as long as we know what's going on.
That's what I'm trying to do with the book is
to drive them. These are the cultural sicknesses and you
can overcome them.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
It's I mean, we are.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
It's almost like in all cases there's this striving for
a perfection that doesn't exist. And we just were reading
an article here today about young women now botox, going
from you know, people in their forties who are trying
to hold on to that wrinkle free look to suddenly
the highest demographic that is getting injections into their face
(39:32):
are there people in their low twenties. And it's just
like this striving for constant perfection. It's just like the
mom who's trying to get the Bento box perfect. And
you know, there's the there are massive pressures on us
today that certainly my mom didn't feel. And so I
appreciate you talking to us again. For you folks out there,
get the book. It's going to help you. It's called
(39:54):
Family Unfriendly. Tim Carney is the author. Thank you Tim
for being here today, Thank you tutor, and thank you
all for joining us. On the Tutor Dixon Podcast. For
this episode and others, go to tutordisonpodcast dot com. You
can subscribe right there, or head over to the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and join
us next time on the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Have a blessing,
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