TRANSCRIPT
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Daniel Lapin 0:00
Welcome to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show where I, your rabbi reveal how the world really works. Thank you for being part of the show. And thank you for all that you do to tell other people about the show, you're doing a great job. Thanks so much. And here we are talking today about, well, the things that you need to know about raising children. Now, that's whether you are raising children, whether you are one day going to whether you have already raised children or whether you're never going to raise children, because reproduction is so much a part of the human experience that whether you yourself have or haven't ever participated in this grand adventure of bringing children into the world, and then raising them. bringing children to the world is relatively easy for for a man, all it takes is about 30 seconds of concentration. And for a woman, well, that can be a few hours of pain. But that's not what I'm talking about.
Daniel Lapin 1:12
I'm talking about what begins after that, the actual process of raising children, because the only way to make sure that you will have children, not just causing a male child to be born or a female child to be born, but that you will go through life actually having children is by following these rules. And I'll give you one example right away a tough part of the rule. One of the rules is that it takes a husband and a wife, it takes a mum and dad on an ongoing basis. And I'll just give you one simple explanation for why that is. And that is that it is absolutely crucial that a child is raised to respect and honor father and mother. Now the problem is that anytime any human being demands respect, that very process instantly, eradicates respect and makes it entirely vanish. Because respect cannot be demanded. But the way it does work is that mom insists that child respect father, that's very important. And Father insists that child respect mother that way, not only does the central lesson of respecting parents come across, but there is an equally important secondary lesson, which is that mom and dad are one unit, they they're looking out for each other. And that begins to penetrate from a very early age and makes a lot of sense. Why is it so important? Why is it so important that children have this attitude of respect and deference and honoring a father and mother? And the answer is because without that, they will never, ever be able to learn the idea of treating authority correctly of being able to be submissive to authority. And now some foolish people will say, well, that's really good. They shouldn't have to be somebody they shouldn't have to be.
Daniel Lapin 3:34
That's not how the world really works. You know, who knows? I mean, perhaps your son will one day want to be part of a military organization? Well, that's not gonna work if he hasn't had any understanding of having the correct attitude towards authority. And you learn that from your parents right at the very outset. How about if perhaps your son might want to attend a school a place of learning a real place of learning? I'm not talking about a gimmick. All right, a government indoctrination camp does not qualify as a school as a real place of learning as an academy Absolutely not. A kindergarten for adults, namely a university or a college. Also not adult kindergartens are not places of learning. But if your child boy or girl wants to one day attend a proper Academy a proper place of learning. Well, again, you can't possibly learn from a teacher for whom you have no respect. And again, if the respect muscle has not been activated, in early childhood by developing the correct approach towards parents, then that child is never going to be able to develop the correct approach towards teachers or any form of authority down the road. So a lot of value in getting that lesson across at the outset, and only possible with a mother and father working in conjunction, because anytime that a father insists on being treated with respect, and honor, he emerges as a buffoon, he not only doesn't get the respect, it's even worse than that he looks pitiful. And, if a mother tries to insist on respect, even if a mother does no more than say, Don't speak to me that way, it's ever so much better for the father to say, I heard you spoke to your mother and acceptably today, now there has to be a consequence so that you have brought a consequence upon yourself, but far better for it to come from the other parent, than from the parent to whom the offense has been perpetrated. Now, I know what some of you are thinking even now, as I speak, there are some of you who's saying, you know, what is he talking about? You know, it doesn't even realize I'm a single mom, you know, none of this is relevant to me. Or it might be a guy saying, hey, you know, what I'm bringing up children by myself, I'm a single dad, it doesn't apply to me. None of this is useful to me. And I really do understand that. But, you know, you will quickly see that there are so many different variations. We all are coping as best we can, we, all of us are playing with their hands with which we were dealt. We're all making do we're all living our lives as best as we can, or at least as best as we see how at the moment. And, we acknowledge that, you know, it's not ideal. And we can even look back, and many of us can say, you know, this is where I went wrong. This is where I made a bad decision. You know, I was 25, or 28, or 22, or 19, or whatever I want. But yeah, that was when I, I took a different turn. And from there, there were fewer options. And so I took the next decision after that, there were even fewer options. You see, it's a little bit like that. Do you remember the old childhood game of hangman, where, as I recall it, your friend would draw a stick of a stickman. And there'd be a gallows and then he'd put like, say, five blanks, or six blanks. And, and he would say this is a six-letter word. And then you'd say Okay, I'm gonna guess it has an E. And then if it has an E, he put it he'd replaced one of the blanks with an E. And n, if you get the letter if you come up with a legend says, No, there's there's no X and that word, well, then he'd draw in another part of the Hanged Man. And I forget how many chances you have. But eventually, the stick figure is complete, dangling from the gallows, and you lose. Or alternatively, you actually get the word but here's the thing. You know, at this point, let's say it's a five or six letter, word, whatever it is, you've got, there's so many options. There's so many different words that could be you know, how many five-letter words there are in the English language? Over 100,000? Yeah, over 100,000 5-letter words. It's incredible, but it's true. And now that includes plurals, and, you know, past and future. But still, it's a lot of words. And, you that's how many options they are. But let's say you now say okay, an L, and he puts in an L in in, you know, the the last second to last position. At this point. Now, they are far, far fewer words that have an L in the second last position. I don't know how many, but let's for argument's sake, and let's say there's 75 of them. Well, all of a sudden, 100,000 options has, you know, drilled down to 75. Much less. So now, as soon as you make your first decision. You've got fewer decisions after that. Now you call your second letter, you say, you know, hey, he said, Yeah, the second from the front is an A, and, well now, you've got a five letter word where you know, the second letter is an A and the second last letter is an L. Now, you don't have any you don't have a choice of 75 words anymore. You now probably have to Words of maybe four or five or six words. And so it goes.
Daniel Lapin 10:03
And this is really a very good metaphor for life in the sense that as we make decisions, subsequent decisions diminish. And that explains why decisions are important. You can't always recover from a bad decision, because you are already on a certain track from which it is no longer possible to get back onto another fork of the railway system, if you know what I mean. So so that is really something we try and do not only with ourselves, but we try and help our children understand that the decisions that they make, the choices that they make, should be always even from the youngest age, the result of a thoughtful process, not an instinctive process. And it isn't easy. Look, it's not even easy. For adults, there are so many adults who have grown up on the assumption that you do what you feel like doing, you act on feelings, the whole idea of acting on decisions, the whole idea of controlling an impulse is so important. It's almost indescribably important. Now, this is something that is really important to think about, because you were looking at probably two generations and maybe more already, where people have grown up hearing their parents say I just want you to be happy. I just want you to be happy. And that's a really bad idea. Because telling a child I just want you to be happy is a very different story, from real happiness. Because for a child, happiness is synonymous with doing whatever I feel like doing. And, look, I've told you in the past, as you know, as a child, while I was an early teenager, I remember my mother shouting at me because I was walking around with a miserable, long, whiny, glooby face. And she, she said, You're living with other people, stop tormenting them with your horrible mood, and stop making your unhappiness spread out over the whole house. So I said you want me to be happy? She said yes. I said, well get me a motorcycle. Well, she didn't get to be a motorcycle. But what she did give me his four fingers across my cheek. And I was absolutely shocked for a moment I was literally immobilized, almost paralyzed by stupid cat stupefaction. And then she, she, she then explained and said, Look, your happiness is not my problem, it's yours, you have to be happy. And it has nothing to do with whether you have a motorcycle or not. It has nothing to do with anything external. It's an internal mood that you can control. And you have to do that. So this was something that was a huge shock for me. But it was an early understanding of that. Acting in order to be happy, is not a good thing. It's certainly not a good way to raise a child. The child thinks I just mother or father says I want you to be happy. No, I want you to always do the right thing. I want you to always have an inbuilt system of values that you can always check in with and say, Hey, what should I be doing now? Now, that flows to a large extent, from having an identity. But wait, you know, how do you have an identity, not talking about having self-esteem? God forbid, I'm absolutely not talking about self-esteem. I'm not even talking about self-respect. Now, self-respect, is much more important than self-esteem. Self-esteem is training a child to feel good about himself or herself, regardless of accomplishments, self-respect is at least a step up. But that's something we're talking about at all. No, we're talking about a child's identity. Now, here is the way it used to be when people were closer to a traditional Bible-based system of child raising. It was understood that for society to work, and for families to function, and for children to be raised, there needed to be -- call them cultural guardrails -- that helped to create and then to cement a child's identity. And that was always done in relationship to other things or other entities.
Daniel Lapin 15:26
And this is one of the important things you have to understand when it comes to a child. A child cannot form its identity, without relationships. Without connections of those connections, I'm going to talk about three. The first one is family, initially mother and father, and then perhaps siblings, and after that, uncles and aunts and cousins, etc. But initially, family, this is the first and most important part of forming a child's identity. And so, you might think, well, a child is no different from a puppy, or a baby llama are a little camel, and all it needs is food, and shelter. And everything is going to be fine. And so you know, you might think, well, a child doesn't have to be raised by its family, as long as a child, it could be an institutionalized child, all that child needs is, is food and water and maintenance and regulation of body temperature, and everything is fine. And we discover that no, that actually doesn't work with children. Children that are not raised with a family are diminished. Now, you're not supposed to say this kind of thing today. But I have to say it. Because it's the truth. I don't want to massage you with warm butter. I don't want to shelter you from reality, I want to show you how the world really works. And children that are raised without a mother and without a father is all without a father. In other words, children who are raised with only a mother or only a father usually end up defective, it becomes much harder for that child to achieve the state of normality. Now, I realize this is very hard to hear for a single mom, for a single dad.
Daniel Lapin 17:39
Sometimes Look, I know situations where grandparents who thought that they were settling into a comfortable and well-earned retirement, suddenly discover that they're in the position of having to raise a grandchild. This happens quite often, I know of cases. And these grandparents become heroic. I realized that a lot of unusual situations. But here is what I'm saying. My job is to teach you the timeless truths and the permanent principles of how the world really works. Now reproduction is an absolutely essential part of how the world really works, right. And so you have to know about things. Now, if you were unfortunate enough to attend a gig yourself, or if you have children attending a gig, then in all probability, they're going to be spending time in a class that focuses on reproduction. But only on the sexual side. It's a plumbing course, essentially, it's a course on biology. And it gets worse than that. It's actually become in many Guix around the world today. The sex ed class has become a sex indoctrination class. It is a program designed to prematurely sexualize your children. And the proof of this is that we now know and the data is completely persuasive. We now know that children who attend kick sex ed classes tend to be sexually active prematurely, whereas homeschooling children who do not have that kind of approach, do much better. Now there are other factors, obviously I get it, but you see, you hear the argument being made that children should attend sex ed classes, because they're gonna do it anyway. They may as well know how to do it safely. Don't you think that argument It would also work very well for gun Ed, certainly in the United States of America, where the Second Amendment guarantees the right of people to own firearms. Hey, people have firearms at home. Why don't we do gun ed in school? Right? It's not as if the school day, and the school week is so packed with high-quality education in the critical subjects that they can't be 45 minutes a week on gun Ed. And we'd say the same thing. Hey, schools, why don't you do something on Ghana? What, you know, people sometimes find the parents gun accidents happen, they may as well, you know, guns are going to happen. Why don't we teach them? And the answer, the real answer is that the edge you Kratts will tell you that we don't want to encourage children to play with guns. And we know that if we had a gun ed class, every Wednesday of every week, children would begin to feel that guns are normal. And they would be even more inclined to want to play with a parent's gun, or they would be fascinated by having a gun. And so we don't want to do that. We don't want to normalize guns for them. And so we don't get to do a gun ed class. Bingo, you said it, we do want to have sex ed class, right? You know why? Because we want to normalize sex for the children. That is exactly what we're trying to do. And that is exactly what actually happens. We also know that as sex ed began to make its way into public education in America, it didn't come to all of America at once, because the education used to be a lot less centralized than it used to be. It used to be much more in the local control. And, and so different schools introduced sex ed at different times. And so we were able to watch how children behaved in school districts that had already introduced sex ed, and school districts that had not. And so we saw that it was undeniably a bad thing. And yet, it never stopped because it was part of the anti-family indoctrination. That was at Foundation, the essence of the public education project, certainly in the United States, but also in many other Western societies as well. So if the guiding principle of child-rearing is I want the child to be happy, well, it's very difficult to deny the child sexual enjoyment. On what basis? Are you going to do that? I certainly think that if that ever would have been a debate between me and my parents, which I can assure you, it never was. And they would have we would have had discussions about whether I should be able to hang out with girlfriends and have unsupervised time alone with with with a girl. And I would have said to my parents, well, don't you want me to be happy? And this will make me happy. And so I mean, yes, any child, any young male child would say that, of course. But any wise parent would also know that it's likely to make the young boy very unhappy, in due course. So this is clearly not the way to raise children. The grand adventure of raising children is not based on oh, I want you to be happy. That's the main thing. No, that's not true at all. And while, there are all these aberrations in child rearing going on. As I said, we everyone's doing their best you cope with how with what you have to in life, there were decisions you made that led you down a certain path that made other decisions more likely, and other decisions less likely. And whatever it is, here you are, and you have to do the best, right? So why am I speaking about an idealized set of circumstances? Why am I speaking about, you know what it's like when a great husband and a great wife have a great marriage, and they together, bring a child into the world and they collaborate on educating and raising their child to successful adulthood? Hey, you know, that's not 100% of us. True That's absolutely so however, my job, as I said, is to present the permanent principles and leave it to you to adapt them to your circumstances. But if you don't know what the principles are, then your handicaps, it's very difficult. And it's not possible to present material in all the hundreds of different variations, that the complexity of human society would demand. And so the way this works best is for me to present the permanent principles, even Yes, in an idealized set of circumstances, and then for you to say, here is a way in which my own life circumstances are different. I can't do that. But let me think about what is the goal, in that ideal set of circumstances? What are we trying to achieve? So maybe I can find another way to do my best to come closest to that desirable goal, even if I can't take exactly the path that he's talking about in this podcast. And that is a simple reality. So for instance, if we were talking about building a structure, and I'd say, Okay, you're going to, first of all, dig a trench around the perimeter of what's going to be this house. And then we're going to cost concrete into the trench in order to build the footings of this. And then we're going to go up, and we're going to start attaching
Daniel Lapin 26:55
the way to start building the framing and ends and then we're going to put in the plumbing. And then we're going to set up the second floor. And this is where the stairs are going to be. And you know, you may well be saying to me, Well, wait a second, you know, I'm doing nothing but building a cabin in the woods. And I said, Yeah, all right, I understand. But at least knowing the ideal way to construct, you may well say to yourself, you know what, mine, I'm building a temporary cabin, it's not going to have a second or third floor, it's only one floor. So I don't need or for one reason or another, I'm not going to be able to do all those things, or else you know, I don't have I can't get concrete. Yes, I can't do a concrete foundation. Okay, fine. But once you know that, that is the goal. And the reason that we try and have a concrete foundation, you're gonna say, Okay, well, here's the next best thing I can do in order to achieve the same desirable goal. That's all this is about. Now, a moment ago, I alluded to a child's identity being formed by his or her relationship to family. But there are another two aspects of the relationship we're going to talk about as well. And family comes first mother and father and then extended family, but it's in that connection, that the child's identity is formed. Now, the, the next to what comes after family, I'm going to tell you, again, it's an idealized, it's how it should work. And happily, many, many people can do it. Many people have to take the next best thing, because if you can't manage the best approach, well, then the second best approach becomes the best approach.
Daniel Lapin 28:55
But first of all, please make sure that you are a member of our happy warrior community. Let's see if we can't have that community growing as beautifully as we have the audience of this podcast growing. To do that, all you got to do is go to my website RabbiDanielLapin.com. And you will see there are happy warriors click on the top where you see Happy Warrior. Look at the options and away we go. And that way we become a community of like minded people, which clearly becomes increasingly important, as the society in which we live, begins to drift away from healthy living, wholesome living and successful living, the possibility of societies functioning in durable ways. In every way this even impacts economic Next, you know, don't don't think that that inflation is just because somebody at the Federal Reserve, somebody at some hidden governmental office, pressed the wrong button or wrote the wrong number down. And so that's why we have inflation. No, it's a moral failing at the highest levels of a society. That's what it is. It is a moral failing to want to borrow from the future. And for everybody, everybody recognizes that debt is a terrible problem in life. And that one of the things that indeed is a part of successful child raising, is to try and train the child to be able to stay out of debt, to not succumb to the incredible, seductive allure, of being able to buy things on on, on on credit, says that a debt load begins to pile up on the person's shoulders. Alright, it's a wonderful thing to be able to get a child to understand that early. And so all of these, all of these ideas are things that you you gain strength from being in collaboration with other people. And that is exactly what the happy warrior community is intended to be. So do join us and Susan Lapin and I and all the other happy warriors out here, there and everywhere around the world are going to be thrilled to see you and welcome you to our community of like minded people, people who, roughly speaking, look at the world the same way, who are trying to achieve the same things, who more or less in one way or another, are trying to improve their five F's, just as you are trying to build your family and Grow It, Try to build and grow your finances, to build and nurture your friendships, to build and nurture your own body and to develop its strength and endurance. And to be able to also develop and maintain a lively and helpful spiritual reality too. So all of that said, RabbiDanielLapin.com, that's our website, www dot RabbiDanielLapin.com. And you join us and we'll be able to celebrate your participation in the happy warrior community. Now, child developing an identity as a parent, you playing a huge role right off the bat at the very beginning, you are already helping that child simply by holding the child on your lap, that child begins to get a little bit older and you're reading stories from a book to the child, you're going for walks a child goes with you shopping you the contemporary belief that children do really well in daycare or childcare. Big mistake, children really need extended time with their mothers and with their fathers. The reason you keep hearing about how good daycare is for kids, it helps them develop independence, and it helps them with socialization. That's because of the social structure that we have brought into being is designed to diminish the connection between mother and child and to turn the raising of the child into into a social institutionalized function. And more and more you find people thinking that providing childcare is the government's job or it's the job of my employer. No. The reality is that your employer would really like to hire your husband, and let your husband know that you are at home taking care of his children so he can focus on his job. That's what your employer would really like. But of course, he'd be canceled if you were to say that say he would never say that. And we get that of course. And what is the next point of connection for a child? Family is first. The next is religion. That's right. and it is if it weren't such an incredibly awkward and, and emotionally tense topic, largely because we've we've seen in the United States 60 years of, of sects of secular indoctrination. But once upon a time, it was perfectly ordinary is perfectly natural. There was even a moment of prayer in most public schools before they turned into gigs. And, and so yeah, religion is a second point of contact for the formation of a child's identity. And how is this helpful? Well, in very practical terms, child is going to be facing so much in the way of temptation. Now you're trying to educate the child with a certain set of moral values. And yet, in the world that your child grows up in, there are a lot of attractions that our country I mean, even if it's just basic things like honesty, things, you know, your child is going to, shockingly early if your child has to attend a gig and I understand if your child has to attend a gig. It's shocking how early your child will discover shoplifting. And it is an enormous help in in the terms of the child's identity and the child's ability to cope with everything that's going on. It's enormously helpful for a child to be able to say, either to himself or to others.
Daniel Lapin 36:43
It's against my religion, I can't do that. My religion doesn't allow me to shoplift, or, you know, 100 other different things that go on. So family, religion, and lastly, nation. The idea is, you know, I am a Ghanaian I am a Croatian, I am a Brit, I'm an Australian, I'm an American, that is supposed to mean something. And again, helping to establish an identity of the child. So yes, it's parents, it's school, it used to be a legitimate part of that. It isn't anymore Church used to be a part of that. And then country. And that was that was how a child saw himself or herself. You know, the child knows who his mother and father is, knows who the siblings are. And he's part of an entity there which, which creates a cocoon of security, and the formation of an identity, who you are. And if you, if you are somebody, you know, if you were brought up by a single parent, I am sure you will feel and you will be capable of remembering defects in the formation of your identity, a sense of who you really are. And, you know, you realize you actually took longer than some of your friends who grew up in intact, wonderful families, you actually took longer, in order to sort of develop a sense of your identity, a sense of who you really were. That's right. And it's also true if you emigrated if you move to a new country while you were very young. If you were like, say eight, 9, 10, 11, 12 years old, and you shifted countries, it then does become a little harder for you to develop your identity, it takes a little bit longer, because family, religion and nation all help in the forming of your identity. Now, what is it now again, I'm looking at the worst of worst situations, which is in a GIC. And your child is now being indoctrinated into a materialistic view of identity. It's no longer family because there isn't even such a thing. We don't even speak about that. It's school church. You gotta be kidding. Country. Know, there are schools where they don't allow the Pledge of Allegiance. They don't. They don't sing the anthem, there's no flag, because we don't want to make people feel uncomfortable without realizing that is that it is the presence of an identity of a national identity. That really matters that helps. And so what has been replaced by, well, race, class and gender. You're now being told that you have your identity is your skin color. And people with a different skin color are your enemies. That's literally what children like little children I've been told class. Right? The rich people are bad. Poor people are good, rich people are bad. And engender. That's right gender is you know, the. And this is where of course, transgender comes in as well. It's all based on getting rid of family, religion, and nation. So what you're left with is race, class and gender, which I call materialistic. But in a way, it's also animalistic.
Daniel Lapin 40:52
In other words, categorizing people on the basis of race class and gender means that you view people as just another form of animal, right? That's what it means. Imagine you're a farmer purchasing livestock, you need to those breed. That's its race. You got to know its productivity, its cost, you know, how much milk does this cow produce? That's its class, and you got to know gender, right? You're not going to buy a bull if you want a cow. And that's all that matters. And the second thing is, if you're buying a puppy, right, you decide what breed of puppy, you decide whether you want a male puppy or a female puppy, all of these are are materialistic things that apply to animals, human beings. It's not how it works for the human beings race. Just think about this for a second. I have several friends who are black pastors, guys. One of them, unfortunately, Ken Hutchison in the state of Washington, passed away tragically a few years back. And but we were very close friends. We related so well. And and I have now why do I mention this? Because I want to ask you, do you think I have more in common with my black male pastor friend than I do with a female white woman? If you think that you're not thinking, because it's simply not true. You see, the idea that race is the key distinction between human beings. It's weird. It's evil. It's worse than weird. Yeah, it is evil. Now, I have much more in common with I had with Ken Hutchison. Because we first of all, both shared a very similar set of values a Judeo-Christian, Bible-based set of values. We both felt very patriotic. And we were both guys. And when you get right down to it that you know that that is certainly much more important than race.
Daniel Lapin 43:28
But anyway, race, class and gender. That is what children are being told down. This is their identity. Do I have more in common with a black pastor friend that I have with white man, Joe Biden? No. Skin color is irrelevant. It's the value system. I'm friends with people with whom I share a value system. I find it very hard. Impossible. This is true for everybody. I mean, you have to admit it, and you have to acknowledge it. It's very hard to be friendly with somebody with whom you do not share a value system. hard, if not impossible. Gender, I mean, really, the idea that most wives care more about other women than about their husbands. It's crazy. It's not true. And that's why this whole distinction tends to be the domain of single women. This is mostly an area in which single women play. Married women realize they have much more interest and concern and alignment of interests with their husbands than they do with other women. What sort of question is there about it? So None whatsoever. Class really, again, if the value system is there, you should have no problem enjoying friendship with people who have far more dollars than you do or far less for that matter. If you have shared values, and shared interests, my goodness, I have been friends with people who have tiny little boats. And we stop and talk on the dock. And we don't even do the same kind of boating. But we have a common interest in a beautiful structure that keeps the water on one side called a boat. Or in the talking on the dock with it with a crewman on a you know, 100-foot splendid yacht, obviously, far wealthier somebody who's who's really got enormous resources, and it doesn't matter. You know, people in Newport Beach, California, have told me of how friendly they were with John Wayne, you know why? Because he kept his boat, the Wild Goose on a dock in Newport Beach Harbor, California, and they used to chat with them, and they'd share fishing and boating stories. Right, and there was, and it was a friendship, right, it had nothing to do with class. It had to do with shared interests. So this is downright evil, it is incredibly destructive. And you have to be aware of it that you are raising children, you got to be aware that race, class and gender are what they are being filled with. And what today is providing a sense of a child's identity instead of family, religion, and nation, completely different. Now, it's your responsibility to educate your children obviously. And that responsibility does not end with putting your child on the yellow school bus every morning. And I think a lot of parents, particularly in the United States, now and Canada, are beginning to realize that dark and dangerous things happen. Once your child leaves the confines of his family, and moves to spend the rest of the day at school. And things are happening, that are destructive and damaging to your child and to your family. And you need to take responsibility, you got to know the education of your children is your responsibility. And you got to remember that an incredibly important part of education is having a conversation with your ancestors. In other words, a child and this is again, right part of family, part of religion, and patination. A child is part of a family and in the family, you part of the education is you tell your child about your life story and your spouse's life story. And you speak about grandparents and great-grandparents, and you introduce your child to your religion. And so there are people of years gone by to talk about. All of these things are essential elements of a child's education, and the formation of a child's sense of self and identity, try and diminish. If you can't completely eliminate the amount of time your child spends in front of a screen. Don't let media and entertainment educate your child. And the power of the screen. can't be underestimated, can't be overestimated don't for a moment think that a child isn't drawn powerfully to those flashing images, and the music and the values that are thereby depicted. You really are far better off and it's very difficult, but at least you got to think about it. That you can't just be dormant and passive. When it comes to the tendency for the screen to take over from you the privilege of educating your child. You can't do that. These are things you and your spouse really needs to spend time talking about, you know, we speak about date nights, and we speak about talking. It's these are things that you can be discussing with your spouse, what could be more exciting than trying to figure out how best and how most effectively, you can educate your children. Make sure you're treating your sons and your daughters differently. Boys and girls are different. Make sure you treat them differently. Make sure that you are putting your daughters on a track to becoming young women and your sons to becoming young men. And men and women are very different. And young men and young women are very different. And so you've got to combat the common tendency in the culture right now around the world, to try and tell children that not only is there no difference between men and women, but they can actually choose which one they want to be. There is a whole lot of work you got to do. And you and your spouse have to be very thoughtful about these things. Something else you want to try and debunk fear. Your children are being indoctrinated to be frightened, frightened of climate change, frightened of rising sea levels, frightened of overpopulation. For that marriages, frightened of strangers all the time, try and debunk fear. Now, you've obviously got to make sure that your children are safe. But try not to surround your children with an atmosphere of terror and tension. Try and avoid that. Make sure your children I'm speaking now primarily to fathers, make sure your children know about your work. And make sure your children understand and hear mothers come into the game very strongly make sure your children understand the connection between dinner on the table and dad being at work. Now, it's very difficult because even if you imagine your child go shopping with you, let's say you're your mom, you're taking your child's shopping, we're saying this, we're going to go and shop again. So we can get dinner ready for this evening. And you load up all these wonderful things into the trolley in the market and you go to the checkout counter. And then there's some magic goes on you wave a little piece of plastic in front of a box, and out you go. And you've got to realize that to a child, the disconnect is real. And so when children are young, there is a lot to be said for using cash. You know when nowadays with people use their phones, for paying for so many things. I've seen young teenagers actually have smartphones, on which payment systems payment apps are set up. And so I've seen that when a young teenager, a teenager is making a purchase. I've seen them wave their phones over the checkout device. And there is absolutely no connection in their minds between the hard work that Dad is doing, and their ability to buy those things. So you know, you've got to think about it. If this is an added complexity to life. Is there enough wiggle room in your life to accommodate it or not? If not, then fine. But be aware if you can accommodate it, switch to cash for a lot of things. If it comes to certainly for you know, I don't recommend allowances, I recommend that your children are paid for things that they do for the family. I think children also have to have things they do for the family for which they're not paid. They just do because they're part of the family. But there are extra things that children can do in order to get money and that money obviously, obviously should be cash. So there must be an understanding of the benefits and delights that the family enjoys. Because dad is at work. And yes, the majority by far today, the majority of families do need two incomes. I really understand it. I know that but I'm still depicting an ideal. I'm depicting an ideal, where we recognize that every single job in the economy is a two-person job, one person to show up at the job and do the work, and another person at home as the backing up person to the person doing the job. So as the person doing the job can actually focus and concentrate on doing the job. I think I've told you that in years gone by.
Daniel Lapin 55:27
And not only did IBM only hire married men for senior-level positions, and to them was perfectly obvious. But in the interview process, they also interviewed the wife as well, they would invite the husband and wife to, have dinner with the interviewer and they'd sit at a restaurant, and the interviewer and his wife, the candidate for the position may not have been away. So I've probably wasn't aware that this was part of the interview. But it was very much part of the interview, the interviewer, the IBM interview, was trying to make sure that this job candidate had a supportive wife. And if he didn't, they wouldn't hire him. So I'm depicting the ideal. And the reality is today that for many, many, many families, it's very hard. But maybe one of the economic goals of the family is for mom to no longer have to work, or for mom to be able to move to a work-at-home job, I don't know, because I can't possibly speak about all the 1000s of different variations under which people function. And so my best thing is to provide you with an ideal model that is as ideal today as it was in 1950, or 1850, or 1750. And very often, when I speak to groups of people, somebody will, in the q&a session, somebody will say, Rabbi Lapin, you seem to be unaware that we're living in the 21st century? And the answer is, well, you're unaware of how little reality has changed. Don't be fooled into thinking that technology changes everything. It really doesn't. It actually only camouflage us how similar everything really is. And so, you know, I've spoken in the past about countries that are even more egalitarian than America, countries who've gone further down that path, as Sweden and Holland are two that I know of and know about. And in both those countries, there are fewer women in the workforce proportionately than in the United States. In other words, it's a reality that, given the choice, women would love to be able to be formation, managers of the family would love to be playing a lead role in the shaping and sculpting of the home environment. But yeah, I understand for many of us today, it's not really feasible. But know the principle. Because maybe down the road, you and your spouse sit down together. And a discussion takes place of whether it may not be a family priority, perhaps, to have mom at home. Because it's a different kind of child that comes out of a family where mom is at home, I promise you that. And raising great children is the great adventure of life. And so yeah, letting the child know what dad does for work and how that work makes it possible for them to have the things they have. And here's another thing it people, people sometimes talk about, oh, it's so important to be at your child's ballgame. And actually isn't. It's actually more important that your child knows you'd love to have been at his ballgame. But you had to be at work. And that's a good thing. It's not a bad thing. This idea of oh, you know, your child is more important than your job. Yeah, obviously that goes without saying. But one of the ways I make it possible to be a dad to my child is by making sure that the finances are there. And that means work is really really important. You know, a lot of these things are are self-evident for any happy warrior the things about them Uh, you know, you pretty soon realize how important these things are. But at any rate, I just wanted to throw out a whole bunch of them. What I'm hoping very much to do is to stimulate husband and wife dialogue. If, if you've got time to spend time with your spouse, don't go to a movie, don't sit in front of a screen, and watch Netflix, don't do that. Have dinner together and talk and maybe talk about some of these things we're discussing here. Yes, we are living in the 21st century. But please don't think that human nature has changed. It hasn't. Part of the dream of the secular socialist model is to change society, and to change the nature of people, and actually, ultimately, even to change their agenda. That's all part of it. It's all evil, its destructive. And it is all lies. And those words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn from the 70s, as he was moving to the United States of America, live, not by lies. And that's really what I've tried to do in today's show. I've tried to speak about things that are truths. These are permanent principles. These are timeless truths. Even though they are politically incorrect, they conflict with the culture. That's all true, they do. But they are nonetheless true and real. And using these as signposts to how to structure your life and how to raise great children is going to be a far more successful Avenue than conforming to the cultural stereotypes. And so until we get together next week, I am your rabbi, wishing you a week of growth in your family and your finances, your fitness, your faith, and your friendships. Onwards and upwards and God bless you.
