‘The Kylee Cast’ With Kylee Griswold, Ep. 8: Which Is Worse? Birth Control Or Tim Kaine

On this episode of ‘The Kylee Cast,’ Kylee Griswold discusses ‘Christian Nationalism’ and debunks Tim Kaine’s ignorant argument that our rights come from government, not God. Plus, media discover Trump is alive! (Duh.) And special guests Joy Pullmann and Elle Purnell talk birth control, marriage, motherhood, and more.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The corporate media obsess over the minutia of Trump's health
after propping up human corpse Joe Biden for years, Plus
how many ways is hormonal birth control screwing up your
body and our marriage and motherhood really a drag? All
that and more on the Kylie Cast. Hi everybody, and

(00:30):
welcome to the Kylie Cast. I am Kylie Griswold, Managing
editor at The Federalist. Please like and subscribe wherever you
get your podcasts, and better yet, if you're just listening
to the show, be sure to check out the full
video version on my personal YouTube channel or the Federalist
channel on Rumble. If you'd like to email the show,
as always, you can do so at radio at the

(00:51):
Federalist dot com. We always love to hear from you.
So it turns out Donald Trump is not dead, no
matter how much Rabbit Anti Trump and Tim Walls wish
he were.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
You get up in the morning and you doom scroll
through things. And although I will say this, the last
few days you woke up thinking there might be news,
just saying, just saying there will be news sometimes just
so you know there will be news.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
The New York Times is out with a piece this
week from Katie Rogers, heralding this news that should be obvious,
Trump is alive, but she does more than that. She
takes a deep dive into the minutia of Trump's bill
of health, including his high cholesterol, a bruise he has,
and the fact that he takes aspirin and sometimes asks
reporters to repeat themselves if he's in a large room

(01:41):
with lots of background noise and doesn't hear them the
first time. Really hard hitting journalism here, But if you
look super closely, you might just catch a slight difference
in the way the media are covering Trump's health versus
how they covered Biden's health just a few years ago.
Rogers writes, quote, For years, justifiable concerns and questions about

(02:02):
mister Trump's health have often been met with obfuscation or
minimal explanation from the people around him. Mister Trump's physicians
have not taken questions from reporters in years, and there
were no medical briefings held after an assassination attempt against
him in Butler, Pennsylvania, last summer end. Quote not to mention,
sometimes Trump covers up a bruise on his hand, and

(02:25):
you can tell because he uses slightly the wrong shade
of Mabe Lee New York. It's all part of a
cover up, you see. This is some really good investigative
work there. Meanwhile, when Joe Biden was nine months older
than Trump is now, the New York Times went with
this framing for the former president quote President Biden is
turning eighty. Experts say age is more than a number.

(02:47):
End quote. Seriously, get a load of this quote. But
when the risk of life threatening diseases, dementia and death
rises faster with each passing decade of a person's life,
experts and geriatrics say that peace people in their eighties
who are active, engaged, and have a sense of purpose
can remain productive and healthy, and that wisdom and experience
are important factors to consider. The New York Times spoke

(03:10):
to ten experts in aging to paint a picture of
what the next six years might look like for a
person of the president's age, speaking of Joe Biden. Of course,
these experts have not examined or traded mister Biden, though
they have looked at publicly available information, including a medical
report issued by the White House last year a day
before his seventy ninth birthday, mister Biden, these experts agreed,

(03:34):
has a lot going in his favor. He is highly educated,
has plenty of social interaction, a stimulating job that requires
a lot of thinking, is married, and has a strong
family network, all factors that study show are protective against
dementia and conducive to healthy aging. He does not smoke
or drink alcohol, and according to the White House, he

(03:56):
exercises five times a week. He also has top notch
medical care. End quote. Oh well, if the experts say so,
The Times continued. Quote. Scientists who study aging stress that
chronological age is not the same as biological age in
people who are active. Experts say, there are the experts again.

(04:17):
The brain continues to evolve, and some brain functions can
even improve. End quote. Here's another from the New York
Times in February of twenty twenty three, with the headline quote,
Biden's doctor says he is healthy and vigorous. Here it
goes quote. Administration officials and others who meet with him
privately say he asks pointed, relevant questions and engages in lengthy,

(04:39):
sometimes highly detailed discussions about the policy challenges facing the country.
Reassurances from the president's doctor and top aids are unlikely
to significantly ease concerns among some of his supporters, and
Republicans are poised to use the president's age as a
political vulnerability, no matter what his doctors say. End quote.

(05:00):
In other words, Biden is doing amazing, He's sharp as ever,
but Republicans will pounce. Here's an Axios headline from October
twenty twenty three. Quote Trump has his own age problem
as he mocks eighty year old Biden's fitness end quote.
And here's the lead quote, Joe Biden's age is a
big theme of the twenty twenty four campaign. But if

(05:21):
Donald Trump wins the presidency, he'd also be the oldest
person ever to be inaugurated, and his campaign has disclosed
far less about his health than the White House has
about the president end quote. The kicker is this article
was written the exact same month as Biden's infamous interview
with Special Counsel Robert Hurr about his classified documents scandal.

(05:42):
You know, the interview that led her not to recommend
charges to the Department of Justice, in part because he
said quote Biden would likely present himself to the jury,
as he did during our interview with him. As a sympathetic,
well meaning elderly man with a poor memory. End quote.
According to her, remember Biden couldn't remember significant facts in

(06:03):
their interview, like when he was vice president or even
when his son Bo had died. Her said, Biden's memory
quote appeared to have significant limitations end quote. But it
gets even better. This Axios article is written by none
other than Alex Thompson, who co authored the book Original
Sin with Jake Tapper about President Biden's decline and its

(06:25):
cover up. Hmmm, kind of seems like you were in
on the cover up there, Alex. This is par for
the course for the corporate media. They lie, and they lie,
and they lie some more. It's why they noted after
the latest transgender school shooting last week that Donald Trump
had been written on the gun, as if to suggest
that the killer was a pro Trump fanatic, even though
what the gun actually said was kill Donald Trump. It's

(06:49):
why they churn out bogus fact checks that add ridiculous context.
It's why they pairrot terrorist propaganda from the Gaza health ministry,
rely on anonymous sources and so called experts, and why
they hide blockbuster news under boring headlines and give nothing
Burger News the most salacious headlines imaginable because for legacy media,

(07:09):
it's not about telling the truth, it's about doing the
best darn public relations. For Democrats, they possibly can. You know,
maybe the fact that Trump is the president they have
to write about once again tells you a little something
about how that pr is going.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
Are more people learning how to game the system?

Speaker 4 (07:29):
The Watch Dot on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski
Every day Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and
the economy and how it affects your wallet.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal one point one million
Americans have become disabled in the last three months, over
two hundred thousand alone in July. Is America really as
disabled as the data shows?

Speaker 4 (07:49):
Whether it's happening in DC or down on Wall Street,
it's affecting you financially. Be informed. Check out the Watchdot
on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify
or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
It's a day ending and why so. The corporate media
are out in full force with their absolute worst feminist
takes on marriage, sex, birth control, parenthood, you name it
here to discuss why the media scolds are wrong as
usual are Federalist Executive Editor Joy Pullman and Federalist Assignment
Editor El Pernell, who you've seen before. She's a favorite,

(08:23):
and she's back. Welcome to both of you.

Speaker 5 (08:25):
Good to see you, Kylie.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Thanks great to have you. So I want to start
talking about a birth control article that I saw this
week from the New York Times that really it kind
of stopped me in my tracks. It was kind of
a rough, weird article. Here's what it was called, who
am I without birth control? Which is crazy that there

(08:48):
are so many women now who have to ask that question.
And this article it follows a woman who had been
on hormonal birth control for a decade and she goes
off of it to see who she is without it,
which again is a valid question. If our hormones help
determine who we are, our personalities and the way that
we act and the way that we think, then if

(09:09):
you've been on this cocktail of synthetic hormones for a decade,
you might wonder who you are without them. And so
she comes off these hormonal birth control pills and she
has a baby, and the New York Times author then
talks about lots of birth control misinformation, which a lot
of it is not misinformation at all. It's very valid

(09:29):
concerns that women have and things that have been demonstrably
true side effects of hormonal birth control. And then she
ends the article by painting this dire picture of motherhood
using the woman who is the subject of the article,
and she's just had her baby, and in the end
she reveals that she goes back on hormonal birth control anyway,
even though she felt better off of it because quote,

(09:52):
I don't want to get pregnant again, end quote. Just
a really crazy and sad story, but also pretty eye
opening because it talks a lot about how many women
are feeling clinics. Women are going into clinics all of
the time saying, hey, I saw this thing on social media,
or I'm on birth control and I don't like how
it's making me feel. And I had some of these
experiences too, where I got to the point, after being

(10:14):
on hormonal birth control for not even that long, to
treat something that had nothing to do with contraception, and
shortly after I got married, I realized I don't feel
anything like myself. This isn't me, and there's no explanation
for it except for this one little pill that I
ingest every day. There's a lot of women that feel
that way. And I'm curious how both of you felt
after reading the article. Maybe what resonated with you and

(10:36):
also what propaganda did you see in the article. I'll
I'll start with you.

Speaker 6 (10:40):
Yeah, So, I mean the.

Speaker 5 (10:41):
First the article opens describing this young lady Ashley's experienced
the doctor and the way that The New York Times
describes it. I don't know that they intended this to
be so obvious, but it's very obvious that the doctor
is pressuring her. Doctor keep saying, what do you mean,
why are you trying to get off control? Well, why

(11:01):
would you do that?

Speaker 6 (11:02):
Why?

Speaker 5 (11:02):
Why on earth would you choose to stop putting the
synthetic hormone in your body if it, you know, if
it's not making you violently ill every day. So that
was striking just kind of the way that The New
York Times just accepted that that that was the way
that the medical establishment treats women and questions women. And
then the other thing was the the article is obviously

(11:24):
trying to paint this picture of this woman. She was
on birth control, on hormonal birth control, and then decided
to come off of it oops, she got pregnant, and
she you know, that was this like negative, negative consequence
of her irresponsible decision. And then she goes back on it.

(11:44):
But I think didn't say the article that, like, didn't
she admit that she wasn't, like without getting too into
graphic detail, that she wasn't really trying an alternative.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
So like that's correct.

Speaker 5 (11:55):
It's kind of funny, Like it's so clear that The
New York Times was trying to paint this as hormonal
contraception is the only option for women, and then like
it's it very much was not the case what they
were trying to portray of This woman was trying very hard,
you know, not to get pregnant in whoops. But yeah,
I mean they portrayed her getting pregnant as this this horrible,

(12:18):
like worst possible option, which I mean it sounds like
you kind of have to piece together with an outlet
like the New York Times, like figure out what the person,
how the person actually feels, and what the full story
is because the New York Times will cherry pick what
they say kind of paint their preferred narrative, and so
if you couldn't read between those lines, doesn't sound like,

(12:40):
this woman is devastated at the fact that she has
a child, as much as The New.

Speaker 6 (12:44):
York Times is trying to paint her that way.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
M Yeah, their quotes that they used at the end
when they talk about her pregnancy are very selective, very
very interesting. Joy, What was your thought after reading the piece?
And also, I think you've dug in some want to
to the side effects, the very real side effects of
birth control, and in the article it paints a lot
of these things as misinformation, but they're absolutely not anxiety depression.

(13:11):
I mean, the list goes on and on very serious
health issues. So that that really stood out to me,
and I assume it probably did for you too, because that.

Speaker 6 (13:20):
Was one of the things that stood out to me,
especially since you know, not to put too fine a
point on it. I have a little bit more life
experience than both of you, So I have more use
of accumulated experiences with girlfriends, you know, getting really you know,
you know, gritty about talking about our challenges with hormones, health, fertility,
all of those issues, you know. So I mean, so
I'm thinking, you know, twenty years of that for me.

(13:41):
You know, I know a lot of young women just
like you who are using the pill, not for who
have used or are using it for not contraceptive reasons,
but because to deal with other kind of issues that
they have. And I mean and and but the problem is,
as you mentioned, it does have a lot of side effects.
And I thought the New York Times article really was
kind of speaking about both sides of its mouth there,
because they were struggling to both kind of I mean,

(14:03):
they mentioned, oh, it says on the side effects list
that all of those things will happen. Right, So it
is confirmed by this very people who are selling these
birth control products to people that they have to put,
you know, on the warning label the actual potential negative
consequences of having birth control, you know, hormonal birth control,
which do include you know, weight fluctuations, mood changes, anxiety,

(14:26):
you know when, which of course can have all kinds
of ramifications such as kind of problems with your partner
or with your family, or changing who you feel like
you are. And so so, while while the New York
Times really wants you to take away that you should
be on hormonal birth control, it also has to kind
of be grudgingly admit that there are these real, legitimate
thing issues that women do have while taking that synthetic,

(14:48):
you know, a ray of hormones, and they can mess
with many other aspects of not just your health, but
of course, you know, since your health is part of
who you are, who you are as a person. And
so I've seen that kind of experienced women will talk
about this privately, and I've really fund it really shameful
that The New York Times would really join with a certain,
you know, kind of group basically big pharma and really
kind of telling women that their own perceptions and their

(15:11):
feelings and their experiences are not real, that they must
be in their head. They're faking them, they're making them
up because you know, the quote unquote science you know
tells you that, I mean, women do and not only
do women have legitimate experiences that, like you said, you know,
I'm on the pill, I have these changes happen. I'm
off the pill, the changes go away. Right. But also
there are you know, mainstream, well regarded, best selling New

(15:34):
York Times authors who are doctors who have built entire
careers and helping women detox from having used hormonal birth control,
dealing with the side effects and sometimes the lifelong consequences
of really trying to interrupt what is and should be
a completely natural process for a moment of having a cycle.
And so while I did, I like everyone, right, fertility

(15:56):
is both a blessing and a challenge. It is really
you know, baby is a really big commitments and so
you know, people really want to have a lot more
handle on that commitment than we really actually do. It
is a part of life that is really you know,
we have so many other things that we can manicure
and control an ai out, but we still really can
barely suppress you know, what nature does with women's bodies,

(16:17):
which is make babies. You know, if you're healthy or
you know, if you're if you're not able to make babies,
typically your body is in a really bad state of health,
and that's something that you want to fix as well. Right,
Fertility is a sign of health for men and for women,
and so we should all really want to be as
fertile as possible just in order to really live our
best lives inside our bodies. So but I mean, but
the point of that being, you know, there are there.

(16:39):
I really don't like the denial of women's experiences because
they're not just in their head, it is in their bodies.
There are biological changes in markers that are well documented,
even in the warning labels on these products, you know,
And like I said, there's an entire industry of credential
doctors who are helping women deal with these side expects,
and you know, so and women are seeking that sort

(16:59):
of information because we don't like those side effects and
having to deal with them, so you know, right, so
sometimes maybe the hormonal birth control can solve one problem,
which I don't really I don't like, Like Ell said,
the idea of casting a baby as a problem is
really problematic for me. And you know, but so you
know that that is a major part part of this
as as you mentioned, the really anti life and I

(17:20):
think being anti fertility is also being anti woman because
women are the we have the wounds, right, womb and right,
it's right in the word, we are the ones who
just saved and grown new life. And so if you're
trying to neuter and deny that capacity, you're really trying
to neuter what it is to be a female human being.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
Right.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
But it's not even just casting pregnancy or having a
baby as as something that's a problem to be avoided.
It's it's also those hormonal fluctuations that you mentioned, and
there's there's something really beautiful and conservative about saying the
truth that women's hormonal fluctuations are actually good and normal
and healthy. And you know, there's there are incentives in

(17:58):
corporate America and among feminists, and you know, the people
selling the pill to basically even out women and make
them more like men and give them these synthetic hormones
that sort of flatten all of those fluctuations, and they
make us infertile, yes, either while we're on the pill,
but then also sometimes for those effects are lasting, but

(18:19):
it also makes us more like men. And I heard
a really interesting podcast. I heard it quite a while ago,
but I really listened to it recently with Jordan Peterson
and doctor Sarah Hill, and she talked about the fact
that men and others will often paint women as dramatic
or hormonal or unpredictable, and she talks about the fact

(18:40):
that that's a very male centric way to look at
how hormones function, because women are actually very predictable. She said,
if you bring in a woman and you tell me
her age, and you tell me her last menstrual cycle
the dates of that, she's like I can tell you
exactly what's happening in that woman's body and with her hormones.
But if you bring in a man, she can't tell
anything about what's happening with his hormones because men's testosterone
fluctuates based on you know, what they've eaten or what

(19:03):
they just saw. You know, it's it's or whether they're
sports team just won or lost. You know, women's hormonal
fluctuations are beautiful, and there's like an incredibly wonderful and
profound and like beautifully creative thing about the way our
bodies function that just gets completely taken out when you
when you put hormonal birth control into the equation. Oh,

(19:23):
I think I cut you off, and I will.

Speaker 6 (19:24):
Say mother as a mother, I noticed, I mean, there
is something about kind of the cyclical nature of i mean,
just growing life and being involved with life.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
Right.

Speaker 6 (19:33):
So, you know, I was talking with a friend about
this the other day, friend of the podcast, but I
won't name since it was a private conversation, but we
were talking about kind of the change of having you know,
basically your young kids grown to teenagers and then't head
off to college. And the comment that she made to
me was, you know, a friend of mine and who
is just a couple of years ahead of us in
this stage you know, basically said, oh, it's kind of

(19:53):
like the newborn stage again. And for me, having been
through the newborn stage six times, I know exactly what
that means.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
The newborn.

Speaker 6 (20:00):
You know, the babies basically change. You're basically just like women,
You're always trying to just stay ahead of the next
change with the baby. Right, So first there you know,
for a week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, you
know they're sleeping this way. And then just as soon
as you think I understand what the baby's doing this
is the pattern, then the baby changes, is right, Teething
is happening, some growth and you know, neural development, and

(20:20):
it's the same thing as a mother. It may not
be you know, I think it kind of evens out
in lengthens a little bit as the children grow older.
But you know, with every single child, they have their
own life cycle, you know they have you know they're
in some you know, one child maybe in a challenging
point in life period. You know, then you have to
kind of lean into that and help that child and
support them and think about where they are now. Another
child may be doing really great and certain you know

(20:40):
that in the same family, same environment, you know, but
that the other child may be doing really great and
having the best time of it for you know, a
couple of months until he's going to run it in
his growth block. So life is is way way more
you know, cyclical, and it's involves a lot of waves
and things that you just have to be kind of
ready to pivot to. And that's one of the things
that I think women and having this sort of a

(21:01):
you know, ocean like nature, no ebbs and flows and
tides and sort of things. You know, we I think
we may be you know, better suited for handling that
sort of thing, or being at least, you know, instinctively
aware of the ebb and flow that comes with a
normal life in a family, you know, than men who
are more constant productivity, always on, you know, straightforward, et cetera.

(21:22):
And by the way, my husband, my husband just mentioned
to me, healer men have a cycle too, but it's
a daily cycle, you know, Where women have a monthly cycle,
men have a daily one. And so I just think
you know that really things like that, those little scientific
facts do tell us something about the differences between men
and women and the ways that we can work together
for the good of everybody.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Mm hmm. Yeah. I want to pivot to another article
I saw this week about marriage, as you mentioned your
husband Joy, but this one specifically relates to Taylor Swift
and Travis Kelcey. And I'm sorry for bringing up Taylor
Swift two weeks in a row, but I couldn't help it.
It's MSNBC's fault. Their headline is Taylor Swift here. Let
me pull it up for us. Here, Taylor Swift's about

(22:03):
to find out what a lot of married women already know.
And then it goes on to say, in many ways,
marriage creates more problems than it solves. Hot take. No
one knows that more than well people who are married.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
Elle.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
You wrote on this, so I want to get your thoughts,
But I just have to say I was appalled at
how negatively this author, her name is Christina Wyman, how
negatively she paints her own marriage and just short of
like shrugs at her husband, like she says negative things
about him and can't really say all that much positive.
I just I would love to get your thoughts.

Speaker 5 (22:36):
Yeah, it's my thoughts are similar to yours. I think.
I mean, she says she's happily married, which you know,
I see the headline and lead of that article, and
I think, like, oh, maybe this is from a woman
who's never been married or like he's in a very
unhappy one. But she says she's happily married. But then
she goes on to talk about how disappointing her marriage

(22:59):
is and how single women are happier than married women,
and she's you know, kind of writing this whole article
as a war, a big red warning flag, like, hey,
Taylor Swift, before you get married, here's what you should know.
And I think it actually is important to have conversations
that prepare young people, men and women for marriage. I
know a lot of people do go into marriage ill informed,

(23:22):
but but the way to prepare them for it is
not to tell to scare them off about like it
being horrible, because it's not horrible.

Speaker 6 (23:29):
It's wonderful.

Speaker 5 (23:31):
And I think the mistake that a lot of people
make it and I go into this in my piece,
is a lot of people expect that they confuse love
and marriage for having a feeling of happiness and another
person that that is, you know, makes them feel happy,
and it should, you know, marriage, your spouse should make
you feel happy often. But but that's that's not sufficient.

(23:54):
You know that that's that's that's necessary, but not sufficient
ingredient for marriage. It's not just about marrying somebody because
they make you feel good. You entered in a marriage.
It's a covenant. It's a you know, a relationship where
you agree to each put the other person first, and
you you know, you're not seeing this person as kind
of a tool for your own happiness and self satisfaction,

(24:15):
but as someone to invest in and to mutually assist
in each to their sanctification. And that's beautiful. It's very rich.
It's much richer than kind of the the anemic version
that this author describes in the article. So I wish
for and her husband the best. I hope they get
the help that they need, because the way to solve

(24:37):
problems in your marriage is not to air them in
an article on MSNBC.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
Or in right right. This is the way she describes
her marriage, and one one particular paragraph that just stuck out,
stuck out to me like a sort of thumb. It
was so awful, she says, despite our love and commitment
to each other. Most of our days together are marked
by drudgery, negotiation, mild arguments, odd smells, and tedium with
a healthy dose of my numbing irritation that has made

(25:03):
me want to throw in the towel more times than
I can recall. Yet she describes herself as happily married,
and I'm just like, not that there aren't hard days
or not that there aren't, you know, disagreements or healthy conflict.
I mean, that's that's like any relationship. But I can't
say I relate to that description of what happily married
looks like.

Speaker 5 (25:22):
Well, I also could want to know what she suggests
as an alternative, because she says that so she and
her husband married at she was thirty nine, and when
they got engaged, she says that he's been dating for
six years, and the way that she describes it, it
doesn't sound like she was content in that six year
dating period. Like she says that she was happy, not overjoyed.

(25:43):
She caveats she wasn't overjoyed, but she was happy when
her now has been proposed. But so I don't think
she necessarily would prefer this kind of permanent state of dating.
I don't think that she would recommend several marriages, you know,
like marriage and then divorcement and other you know. So

(26:04):
I'm not sure what she thinks would be better, but
it is. It does seem clear that she's unhappy in
her marriage, and I from the way that she you know,
I would wager to guess that if she's going to
talk about her husband this way publicly, he's probably pretty
unhappy too.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
I agree. I agree. I'm also curious, and I have
no way of knowing this, but she talks about the
fact that they're in marriage counseling or a couple's therapy
or something. I forget how she phraises it. And I'm
just curious whether the marriage therapist that they're saying, because
I don't. I am not of the belief that therapy
or counseling is a vitamin. Like I don't think it's

(26:44):
something that everyone needs. It's something that is like very specific.
I think it can actually make you more unhappy or
more discontent, or talk you into problems, and I wonder
if that's what's happening here. Like I don't think happily
married couples need to go to marriage therapy or marriage counseling,
and so I'm just curious, like, if you are actually married,
your therapist talking you into that, boy, go ahead, joy.

Speaker 6 (27:06):
Well, the thing I think is like marriage, people who
are in marriage counseling, which I fully support people you know,
going and getting help if they're in a rough time,
and every therapist is not a great choice. So I
also recommend people maybe try out a few if they're
not clicking or getting really in traction within the first
couple of visits with someone. So I'm you know, I'm
pro seeking out help, you know, when you have difficulties

(27:26):
in life, although not every therapist is going to be
actually that helpful. But people who are in that rough
time in life really are not in a good place
to be kind of opining about the value of marriage
when they are clearly not doing it very well. And
it's just, you know, so the same thing. I mean,
if someone was really not a skilled parent, we were
really like hav you know, needing mentoring or having someone

(27:47):
to guide them, that's great. They should absolutely you know,
be apprenticed in learning, but we don't ask the apprentices
the people who don't are demonstrating the skills, you know,
to be teaching the rest of people. The skills that
they don't have. And so, you know, frankly, this really
is one article that you know, the editors should never
have recruited or run because the person kind of disqualifies
herself in the course of writing the article that they published.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
Right, that's a great point, Joy, And I don't mean to.
I don't mean to talk badly about marriage counseling or therapy,
because I my point is that it's not you know,
some people say everyone should be in therapy, and all
I'm saying is I don't think that that's true. Like
I view it as a prescription drug that's that's there
to solve a problem with an off ramp, rather than

(28:29):
like a vitamin supplement that everyone should be taking because
it's just like good for everyone, you know. So anyway,
but I completely agree that you shouldn't look to those
people for telling you what a what a happy, healthy
marriage necessarily looks like.

Speaker 5 (28:42):
She also, just real quick, here's what I mean. I
don't I'm not a therapist, thank goodness, but just just
for me, the article like if I were Ziger for
a free piece of you know, marriage advice. Like not
that I'm some long standing marriage expert, but the way
she talks about her problems with their hesan. You know,
she says, oh, we have our share of conflict. Sure

(29:03):
everybody does, Like every husband and wife have arguments, but
you know, we're simple people. But the way that she
says this, and then she she describes the origin of
many of their conflicts, and she describes it as like, well,
I'm this assertive, confident New Yorker and my husband is
conflict avoidance. And everybody knows that conflict avoidant people are

(29:25):
not good at handling conflict.

Speaker 6 (29:26):
And so because of my husband's conflict avoidance.

Speaker 5 (29:29):
We aren't, you know, we weren't able to work for it.
Like she's just very clearly blaming their fights on her husband.
That's not a good faith position to start from. So
you know, if you're having a problem, it might be
because you're quickly blaming it on your spouse.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
Right. She's also just totally wrong about not only what
marriage is for, but also the research behind marriage and happiness.
She says that married people are not happier than single people.
But that's just not true, and the data shows that
that's not true. And there was a good reminder of
that this week also with an Atlantic article written by

(30:06):
Gene Twine, called the marriage effect. A common narrative has
it that commitment and motherhood make women unhappy, but new
data suggests the opposite is true, and Elle in your
piece you write. According to the survey, forty three percent
of married women without children reported that their lives were enjoyable,

(30:26):
compared to only thirty four percent of unmarried childless women.
For married mothers, the number was even higher, at forty
seven percent. Married mothers were nearly twice as likely to
report being very happy as their single, childless counterparts. And
it's worth noting that this was not just a random,
one off throwaway study. This was a survey of three

(30:48):
thousand American women between ages twenty five and fifty five,
so a pretty comprehensive study. And I think everyone here
would agree that married mothers and fathers are just happier
across the board than unmarried childless counterparts here.

Speaker 5 (31:04):
So maybe what this MSNBC lady needs is a baby, right, Well,
you know, I think, so I followed.

Speaker 6 (31:14):
You know, doctor Twainy is really well known in social
science research, and she's done a lot of really well,
you know, popular studies and books. So I followed her
for a long time, but I think her article underscores
kind of a longstanding understanding of the classic philosophers. No,
she doesn't refer to them, but it made me think
of the classic Aristotelian you know, understanding of happiness, which
I think is so different from what people today think

(31:35):
of it. People today tend, I think, think of happiness
as temporary personal comfort and ease, when really, you know,
classically and Christian, you know, in the Christian tradition, happiness
is I mean, Aristotle will famously define it as the
activity of the soul in accord with virtue. The idea
of being that of course, you know, are the way
that we feel our passions are fleeting, but something that

(31:55):
endures and enduring, you know, state of the soul that
is inconstant with in that harmony with nature, with God,
with God. Is somebody who's who's trying to order their
lives in alignment with you know, the precepts that God
and Nature have set out for them. And this is
something that is of course classically American as well. We
have you know, the pursuit of happiness as part of
our founding documents. But the founders and in aligned with

(32:16):
those classical philosophers really thought of happiness not as making
myself feel comfortable every bit of every day, but really,
you know, what is it that I am doing to
become a better and more perfect person? And I really
think it's very evident that, you know, if if you
were to frame this whole question that way, which of
course the studied author didn't do. They just let people
define their own happiness, which is fine, But I think

(32:39):
if they did a little bit more dialed into the
concept of happiness, and they would, they would I think
it even higher numbers for married and mothers, because, as uh,
you know, doctor twenty points out in her article, marriage
and motherhood may not be comfortable. They are definitely way
more challenging than being a single person. But they also
call you to a higher version of yourself, and they

(33:00):
constantly challenge you to rise to the occasions. So the
difficulties presented to you by needing to love and care
for other people who are in your life who you
cannot get rid of.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
Right, and some of the questions do get to some
of that. I'm recalling this from memory, so I might
be wrong about the exact exact statistic, but they did
ask these women that they surveyed about meaning and purpose,
and so much of that gets to what true happiness is,
which is like, yeah, it's not just about self fulfillment,
it's about like investing in another. And it was something

(33:34):
like thirty percent of married women with children reported having
more of a purpose or meaning and only fifteen percent
of unmarried and childless women reported having the same thing.
And I think that's where some of this happiness, at
least what they're labeling it as happiness, where it comes from.
I'm curious, Joy. Now. I think a lot of people

(33:56):
probably think that this, maybe this meaning and purpose is
what's driving this sort of big family trend. And for
some people, I'm sure that that's the case. There's a book,
Hannah's Children that's relatively new that gets to some of this,
but there are also some other really bizarre social status
symbol reasons that seem to be fueling this new trend

(34:20):
behind big families. Joy, you have a big family, So
I want to get your thoughts on this recent article
by The Financial Times. It's called the ultimate status symbol
A big family. A flex of uber wealth in twenty
twenty five is multiple children all the while preserving pre parenthood, lifestyles, interests,
and physique. Joy. You have six kids, so that's fair

(34:42):
to say that is a big family. I would not
say that the style of this article necessarily describes your family,
because you are not out here on Instagram in a
milk made dress giving us content of you rearing your
six children. So I really want to know what your
thoughts in this article, art, good, bad, or otherwise about

(35:02):
the big family trend.

Speaker 6 (35:05):
I think if anybody sees a picture of me in
a milkmay dress, you can be assured it was.

Speaker 5 (35:09):
Done by AI.

Speaker 6 (35:13):
That ain't never happened in Sista. But I mean so
I think actually this this kind of ties actually back
right into our discussion of the birth control article, because
I personally avoided hormonal birth control just first actually about
concern for the health effects of it. It seemed to
me completely unnatural. I mean, although it sounds great, it
also seemed very curious to just kind of like end

(35:35):
your cycle, you know, or reduce it down to almost
nothing a little bit of spotting occasionally, and so you know,
based on that, I just was suspicious of it from
the beginning. And now I'm so grateful that that kind
of staved me off long enough to get to the
point where I was able to read some research that
really showed that hormonal birth control, including iud's, which is
something I've been considering, have a boredifacient effect. So they

(35:56):
can starve a tiny baby to death inside your body,
which is something for me is completely you know, that
doesn't comport with my ethical values, with my Christian beliefs,
and so I'm so grateful that basically God spared me
from that almost you know, without me having any knowledge
that you know, he was doing that for me. But
the result, of course was six children, because they are right,
when you do the thing that married people do and

(36:18):
you have a relatively healthy body, chances are babies are
going to happen. And so that happened for me and
my husband. And so I mean, I like to tell
people that only one of the kids was all us
five of them or were unplanned, which to me is
very very funny. I was stilling a friend at the
pool the other day, like, basically, I agreed to have

(36:41):
one child, begrudgingly as part of the contract in order
to get my husband to marry me. You know, while
we were dating, he hinted that he wanted children, and
I was planning to really have none. But I really
really was in love with this super handsome guy. And
it turns out that was a great decision for me
because he's a wonderful husband and father and we are
very happy the completely different way than I had expected

(37:02):
when I was that young woman really scared of fertility.
I mean also, I mean, agility is still scared, right,
you know. And if you know, any time like your
body can be commenteered by another being and you're you know,
you have to all of a sudden jump into feeding them,
taking care of them, attending to their needs twenty four
to seven pretty much for the next thirty years.

Speaker 5 (37:22):
You know.

Speaker 6 (37:22):
That's that's a big deal. And I think people are
right to recognize that. But what they don't recognize is
the ever. I mean that just babies are awesome, you know.
So I haven't had a baby for five years, which
is kind of a miracle, because I had the first
six and eight years or sorry, nine years, so I know,
I was I was nursing for like ten and a
half years straight, totally ridiculous.

Speaker 5 (37:44):
But but but.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
So but how many hours, join may so many hours,
so many hours I.

Speaker 4 (37:50):
Liked it to.

Speaker 6 (37:50):
I mean, I think I think probably seventy five percent
of my professional outfit was generated with a baby in
one arm. You know. It's just it's just crazy. So
it's it's a life. And I also, I mean, so
the Financial Times article talks about unlike the Kardashians apparently
have ten housekeepers, nanny's, you know, babysitters, the what's what's
the what's the fake hilaria, the baldwins. You say, yeah,

(38:17):
you say cucumber or whatever's never she's never gonna out
of that one. But but they apparently have like four nanny's.
I've never had a nanny, you know, So I'm doing
it all with the babies around, which is I mean,
I tell you, if we would allow our family to
be a reality show, it would be ridiculous. But we're
not going to do that to our children, our relationship.

(38:38):
But I mean, but I mean, so I don't feel
like it's any kind of status symbol at all, because
just by virtue of not wanting to kill children, this
kind of happened to me. And so rather than you know,
responding with the horror horrors of murder or returning myself
and you know, to a killing field for kids. I decided, well,
you know, I think that is way worse than just
accepting them and their beauty. I mean, I I would

(38:59):
say that my first child was probably my scariest in
terms of like not knowing what I was getting into
and really switching my mind around from like thinking, oh,
I was going to be a career woman with no children,
you know, to Okay, I guess now I'm not going
to do that again. What's it going to look like?
But he, I mean, you know, now fifteen years later,
he's gorgeous, Like he's just so beautiful. He is really smart,

(39:22):
he's really responsible, he loves his family, he's extremely goofy.
You know, like when I look at that child, I
have tears in my euths and I'm so, so so
glad that I had that boy. And I feel that
way about every one of my kids. And I think
if you if you don't come to a place, if
you come to a place where you regret those kids
and you're like you can look them in the eyes
that regret them, then you really need to go see

(39:43):
the psychologist. Because they're beautiful and they're wonderful, and they
change your life. In all the best ways. And I
you know, and even though it's been quite a ride
and it has not been all pleasant every second of
the way, it's you know, still not every day, it's
absolutely worth it.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
I think this podcast just generated a really good idea
for Federalist exclusive subscriber content, and that is a reality
television show that features Joy parenting her six kids. I
think that is a really good idea for I'm gonna
tell we our bosses about that one.

Speaker 6 (40:15):
I forget when I was like reality show because my
youngest guy is the most effective at getting around that
I post guards on my door when I'm recording videos,
and that little guy he has gotten around his daddy,
like multiple times. He's gotten through locked doors. So you know,
if we just do enough recordings that there will be

(40:35):
little blonde heads.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Pop it up here, we might catch a glimpse.

Speaker 5 (40:39):
I'll never forget. Like early on when I had recently
joined the Federalists, I think I was having a phone
called Joy and oh yeah, I had a phone put
Joy and she had just come off the radio and
this was like a supposed to have five minute radio hit.
I think they had like kept her on answering questions
for like forty five minutes or something, and as she's
on the radio, her children are like running out and

(41:02):
playing in the mud in the front yard, and then
I think they got stuck, and so like literally she's
on the radio, but during the commercial break, she like
goes outside and picks up her child and like leaves
the underst imagining stop in the mud, and like carries
the child to the bathroom, deposits the child in the bathtub,
and then like it's back on air by the time
the commercial break is over. And so this is the

(41:23):
you know, Joyce selling the record happened, And I was like,
what kind of women am I working?

Speaker 1 (41:33):
That is so awesome? Well, okay, I think that's why
this article I thought it was good and bad because
it talks about the big family being a status symbol.
And it depends how you define status symbol. Like if
you mean rich in life, like in the ways that
we think of being rich, like soul rich and like
rich with experiences and rich with posterity and you know,

(41:53):
all of the things that actually matter, then yeah, a
big family is like the best thing you could ever achieve.
But I think in this article, well, it's talking about
it being a status symbol as like, yeah, look at
all of these rich people who also have all of
these kids, and they can still keep their perfect lifestyles
and their perfect physiques, and you know, they can pay
for all of this child care or whatever. And it's like,
I think, actually, you know, the people who are actually

(42:18):
having big families, like it requires you to sacrifice something
of yourself in a big way, more so than just
having one kid or two kids, you know, more so
than just keeping maybe at the replacement rate. It's like
setting aside those other status things that you maybe would
otherwise want to have to have instead a different be
rich in a very different way. And I think that's

(42:38):
kind of why the article seemed a little bit off
to me, because you know, the Ballerina farm family might
be doing great, but it's like that's not real life.
They're not Yeah, what were you gonna say? Joy?

Speaker 6 (42:51):
I kind of indicated that, you know, it's a baby
is something that requires a vast amount of financial resources.
And look, look, I get that millennial right, the inflation,
the college debt, the home prices. You know, the boomers
have pensions, and we don't like I get all of
that background, right, But at the same time. And my
husband and I are not wealthy, you know, you know,

(43:12):
we provide for our kids great. I'm very grateful, you know,
to the Federalists and to my husband's employment. You know,
we definitely can have food on the table, and I
don't have to worry about that. But you know, we're
not jay Z. You know, we're not Elon Musk by
any stretch of the means. And all the kids are fine,
you know they we but and I know many many
families who are on one income who have as many

(43:33):
or more children than we do, and they have wonderful children.
The children do not need to have, you know, Elon
Musk levels of money. And in fact, I kind of
wonder if I mean, especially Elon Musk case, sometimes having
the money is a barrier to being a good dad,
because it gives you this fiction that you can just
buy a substitute parent. You know, Elon is having his

(43:53):
baby with women that he I mean, how much time
FaceTime can he possibly spend with fourteen children with seven
different mothers. There's just no way that those children are
getting the kind of parenting that my husband is giving
to our six children. And you know, it's spending hours
and hours, you know, personally being with them, and when
they cry, he can hear them, you know, when they

(44:14):
wake up in the middle of the night, his mommy,
our children's mommy and daddy, we are there for them.
That is not true for Elon Musk kids. And you
can and when kids are raising an environment like that,
I look, I wish them the best. I want the
best for them. Sometimes you can escape the odds. But
the odds are that children who are raised in those
environments without their father present for them, married to their mother,
those kids grow up to be very sad, and they're

(44:36):
disp portially represented among every every indicator of depression, anxiety
and violence that exists out there.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Right, children have a natural right to their mother and father,
not one of ten caretakers around the clock in the
Kardashian home, right, all right, and.

Speaker 6 (44:53):
So and that's actually why you know I've chosen to
I mean, because God gave me the kids and we
weren't willing to kill them. And I also know the
children need bonding with their mother, so we don't, you know,
we don't have a nanny because I think the children
need me. And yeah, it means I can't be on
TV it means that I've got a little guy right
now peeking around you know, the door, you know, of
my office, with his eyes very big thinking. Okay, at

(45:14):
least he has enough age and self presence to be
quiet right now.

Speaker 5 (45:17):
Right.

Speaker 6 (45:17):
But but I mean that, you know, you can't have
a high flying sort of career and be that committed
to that many children. The two are really mutually exclusive.
And so you know, I do what I can. I'm
very grateful that I'm able, you know, to have flexible work.
But the truth is, you know, I can't have the
kind of career that some would have without children. The
two are incompatible. But I mean, I think, I mean,
and look, this is a life that's been given to me, right,

(45:39):
I didn't necessarily choose to have the kids. They've been
given to me as a gift. So it's not just
you know, my job and everybody else's job, you know,
or you know who has children to try to fulfill
that responsibility as best as we can. And but the
point but the bottom line there's I don't begrudge anyone
a high flying career, but I don't think I think
our society would be better off if more people would
put most of their energies into their families as opposed

(46:00):
and used the career as a subsidiary to the family,
the point of the career being to help the family
to flourish, rather than you know, one's particular you know,
ego needs or just financial needs or whatever the case is. Really,
the family should be the reason that we have a career.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
At all, right, And I do think that that starts
with being honest about the reality that women are generally
happier and more fulfilled when they are married and have children.
And I think it was the Atlantic article, but maybe
it was a different one that we talked about. I
read too many, I don't remember, But she talked about
how when she was considering whether to have children, any

(46:36):
everywhere she looked, it was only messaging that was dissuading
her from having children, not that encouraged her about why
it was wonderful. And so I think it's really important
for men and women to hear from people like you,
Joy who have big, full, wonderful lives with six kids,
because sure, there are trade offs, but it's really such
a wonderful thing and it provides so much meaning, and

(46:57):
so yeah, I love to see these surveys, and I
love here from people like you because I think we
need to heards.

Speaker 6 (47:04):
If I couldn't have my job and have my kids,
I would pick the kids every time. But that's now
in hindsight, right. I could have never known that before
all the kids came along, and I think the vast
majority of people, if they were honest, would say the same.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Yeah. Absolutely, and I think the research shows that.

Speaker 6 (47:20):
Well.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
I think we should give her little guy his mom back.
So I'm going to wrap this up, but I've really
enjoyed this conversation and I think there's a lot of
good stuff here. So thank you both for joining me,
and I hope to have you both again very soon.

Speaker 5 (47:32):
Thanks Kylie.

Speaker 6 (47:34):
Time.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
All right, before I wrap up, I have to play
an absolutely absurd statement the Democrat Senator Tim Kaine made
during a confirmation hearing this week.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
Take a look the notion that rights don't come from
laws and don't come from the government, but come from
the creator. That's what the Iranian government believes. It's a
theacre regime that bases its rule on Shia law and
targets sunnies Bahi's, Jews, Christians and other religious minorities, and

(48:11):
they do it because they believe that they understand what
natural rights are from their creator. So the statement that
our rights do not come from our laws or our
governments is extremely troubling.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
As several people have pointed out on x Kin even
gets his facts about Iran wrong, considering that the Iyatola
is the supreme authority on rights, even superseding religious law.
But way more troubling is that this United States senator,
who claims to be a devout Catholic, by the way,
doesn't understand basic doctrines of the Christian faith or this
country's most foundational documents and principles. For crying out loud,

(48:48):
it's right there in some of the opening lines of
the Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be
self evident, that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men,

(49:09):
deriving their powers from the consent of the governed. That
whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the right of the people to alter or
to abolish it, and to institute new government. In other words,
it is obvious that every single person is bestowed with
rights from the Creator that cannot be taken away from them,

(49:30):
and that government's function isn't to give people those rights,
it's to protect the God given rights they naturally have,
including the rights to life and liberty. Tim Kaine also
must have missed the history lesson laying out the debates
between the federalists and the anti federalists, where the anti
federalists insisted that certain rights needed to be explicitly enumerated
because they feared that the government would be tyrannical, whereas

(49:51):
the Federalists argued that these human rights were inherent, that
the Constitution, by limiting the power of the government, inherently
protected rights because those rights didn't come from government in
the first place, they came from God. Of course, they
came to a compromise to gain support for the Constitution,
but they all understood natural law in the fact that
our rights to speak, to assemble, to practice our faith,

(50:14):
and associate with whom we want, the right to life,
the right to defend ourselves and our families, the right
to be secure in our property in persons, these rights
didn't originate from the government. So no, Tim Kaine, the
idea that our rights come from God isn't. What's extremely troubling.
What's troubling is that a prominent US senator from the
other major political party in this country thinks the government

(50:37):
and lawmakers like himself give us our rights. They don't.
But you know, it's really no wonder that people like
Tim Kaine are so keen on taking certain rights away,
like the right to life, the right to keep in
bear arms, the right to call boys boys or girls girls,
or the right to assemble with your local church even
when there's a virus making the rounds. If rights came

(50:57):
from the government, then there's no reason the government can
can't take those rights away. But luckily they don't. I
think a lot of this rhetoric comes from Democrats seeing
Christian nationalism and theocracy everywhere they look. Here's a political
reporter last year saying the same kind of nonsense as
Tim Kane.

Speaker 7 (51:13):
And the one thing that unites all of them, because
there's many different groups orbiting Trump, but the thing that
unites them as Christian nationalists not Christians by the way,
because Christian nationalists is very different, is that they believe
that our rights as Americans, as all human beings, don't
come from any earthly authority. They don't come from Congress,
they don't come from the Supreme Court. They come from God.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
These talking points are false, they're anti Christian, they're historically illiterate,
and they're Unamerican. And anyone who subscribes to these beliefs
is not fit to serve an American government. And to
take this one step further, if you're out there trashing
Tim Kaine but also trashing faithful Christians who desire to
see Biblical morality influence America's laws to protect God given rights,

(51:58):
then you've completely missed the plot. Because neither are God
given rights nor the laws of this country are abstractions.
We can't treat them like they are. Sean Davis made
this point beautifully on X Today. If our rights come
from God, and they do, then the laws protecting those
rights will be consistent with God's standards for human flourishing.
And this reality just exposes the absurdity of believing that

(52:21):
desiring laws that reflect Christian morality is Christian nationalism or
Christian's wrongly pursuing power. It's ridiculous. So yes, Tim Kain
is ignorant to think that the rights of human beings
who are made in the image of God don't come
from their creator. But equally ignorant are the folks who
say that God, the source of our rights, should have
no bearing on the laws and the policies we enact

(52:44):
to secure those rights. On that incredibly light and happy note,
that's all I have for today. Thank you so much
for tuning into this week's episode of The Kili Cast.
I will be right back here next week with more.
Until then, just remember the truth thirds but it will
feel Yeah.