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Moms War at the Supreme Court · Mom Wars

0:01
Speaker 1: From the front lines of The Mom Wars. Here's Bethany
0:04
Speaker 1: Mandel and Kara Kennedy.
0:09
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another episode of your favorite unreliable podcast.
0:17
Speaker 2: Sorry about that, everyone, This is The mom Wars. I
0:20
Speaker 2: am your co host, the American lun One, the Bethany Mandel,
0:26
Speaker 2: and I am joined by.
0:27
Speaker 3: Horror Kannity, also American trying to be I think I'm
0:33
Speaker 3: getting there. Every time I see an American fact now
0:36
Speaker 3: I get kind of emotional. So I feel like.
0:39
Speaker 4: I'm on my way, But are you on your way? Like,
0:42
Speaker 4: what is your deal?
0:44
Speaker 3: I can pie for the citizenship. I think June of
0:46
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six. Oh okay, so it's pretty soon. But
0:52
Speaker 3: it's like a long process and an expensive one.
0:54
Speaker 2: So I think, do they require that you stop saying process?
1:00
Speaker 3: I'm never that and I'm never gonna say I just
1:04
Speaker 3: can't do that.
1:05
Speaker 4: Herb, Yeah, Herb, I can't. I can't do it, all right.
1:13
Speaker 4: I guess that maybe that I'll leave that offic citizenship test.
1:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't. I hope no immigration officer listens to them. Okay.
1:24
Speaker 2: I knew people that faked being married for their citizenship
1:30
Speaker 2: and it was bizarro to watch. They would like go
1:34
Speaker 2: on vacations so they could document it together.
1:36
Speaker 4: And that's fine. I mean they put so much effort
1:39
Speaker 4: into it. I was like, y'all earn this, just.
1:42
Speaker 3: Be married to this. But I know people who married
1:47
Speaker 3: like a random person and then never saw them again.
1:50
Speaker 3: But this is like thirty forty years ago, so they
1:54
Speaker 3: would last straight then they didn't really care.
1:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, these people like would hang out together. I mean
1:59
Speaker 2: they were they were good friends, and so they'd go
2:01
Speaker 2: on vacations together just so they have pictures.
2:05
Speaker 3: You're gonna get, like said pend from.
2:07
Speaker 2: I don't remember who they were, to be totally honest,
2:11
Speaker 2: it was it was from Cambodia, and there was there
2:14
Speaker 2: was so much weirdness in my Cambodia days. I lived
2:16
Speaker 2: in Cambodia, I don't know, only fifteen years ago. Man,
2:20
Speaker 2: that place is weird that it's like I lived. I
2:23
Speaker 2: lived there for a full year, and the stories and
2:26
Speaker 2: the weird like myself included. I'm including myself in this category.
2:31
Speaker 2: To be a Westerner and up and move to Cambodia,
2:34
Speaker 2: you've got some stuff going on that you really need
2:37
Speaker 2: to work through. Not in Cambodia. And so the personalities
2:41
Speaker 2: I met there were top notch. Yeah no, no, no, no, no,
2:47
Speaker 2: no no no, that was Budapest, in a bathhouse in Budapest,
2:50
Speaker 2: but it was I still had stuff to work through.
2:53
Speaker 2: I worked my way through my stuff across the continents.
2:59
Speaker 3: Then I said, very busy week, how we say?
3:02
Speaker 2: Then exhausted beyond words. I am not an insomniac. And
3:07
Speaker 2: I was up until three o'clock last night for no
3:10
Speaker 2: reason I can't explain it.
3:12
Speaker 4: I was driving home.
3:13
Speaker 2: We went to a passover program in Connecticut, and I
3:17
Speaker 2: get carsick and so I have to drive. So I
3:21
Speaker 2: was driving the whole time, the whole day long, from
3:26
Speaker 2: like I don't know, nine am to six pm, I
3:29
Speaker 2: was driving. We stopped twice. One of them was for dinner,
3:33
Speaker 2: like it was like a real stop. But yeah, no,
3:35
Speaker 2: it was a real brutal trip.
3:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, and a lot. Wait, where was the where were
3:40
Speaker 3: you driving to?
3:41
Speaker 2: So we were at a passover program in Connecticut. Passover
3:45
Speaker 2: programs are this like fascinating thing of American Judaism. They
3:50
Speaker 2: have them other places like across the world, but like
3:53
Speaker 2: they're they're quite popular in America. Jews like will own
3:58
Speaker 2: a business and it's a passover program and they'll take
4:00
Speaker 2: over the entire hotel. They'll buy out the whole hotel
4:05
Speaker 2: and then they make the whole thing kosher and so
4:08
Speaker 2: meals are served. They have a tea room that food
4:12
Speaker 2: is always available. They we were looking at the schedule
4:15
Speaker 2: and breakfast was from seven thirty to eleven, and then
4:21
Speaker 2: kiddish was from eleven thirty, which is like just it's
4:24
Speaker 2: supposed to be just like Nash but like really it's
4:27
Speaker 2: like a full meal, right, and then there's like a
4:30
Speaker 2: half an hour break where there's no food being served, right,
4:32
Speaker 2: and then they have kiddish, and then there's another half
4:35
Speaker 2: an hour break, and then it's lunch, and then there's
4:39
Speaker 2: then there's like another thing that happens around three thirty
4:44
Speaker 2: to five o'clock, including like children's dinner, and then at
4:49
Speaker 2: six o'clock dinner is served, and then there's like an
4:51
Speaker 2: eleven thirty. Like it's so I ran into a friend.
4:56
Speaker 2: She was at a like neighboring passover program, Cassie Akiva
5:00
Speaker 2: from The Daily Wire. She came to my program because
5:04
Speaker 2: an incredible rescued hostage came to speak and tell his story,
5:09
Speaker 2: Audrey Cosslove. He was rescued in that mission in June
5:13
Speaker 2: with Noah Argamani. He was one of the four that
5:15
Speaker 2: were rescued, and so he spoke to my program, and
5:18
Speaker 2: so Cassie came and hung out, and she compared it
5:21
Speaker 2: to a stationary cruise ship, and it's a very good comparison.
5:26
Speaker 2: There's always food, there's always entertainment, there's always stuff going on,
5:30
Speaker 2: but it's like Jewish, so there's like a rabbi speaking
5:34
Speaker 2: and like Seth and I have actually been guests at
5:37
Speaker 2: two programs and we spoke about politics and I forced
5:41
Speaker 2: them to let me talk about homeschooling. Two people came,
5:43
Speaker 2: one of whom was like, mentally not quite there.
5:48
Speaker 4: There was like a really sad situation and did that
5:51
Speaker 4: make you feel it was?
5:55
Speaker 2: The owner of the program was very validated because he
5:57
Speaker 2: was like, I don't want you to speak at a
5:58
Speaker 2: homeschooling no one's gonna come. And then no one came
6:01
Speaker 2: and he was like.
6:01
Speaker 3: Did he still speak? Oh you didn't? Gone.
6:07
Speaker 4: Yeah.
6:07
Speaker 2: I mean people like walked in and walked out and
6:09
Speaker 2: they're like, this is this crazy woman talking about him schooling.
6:12
Speaker 4: I go ski.
6:13
Speaker 3: Then nobody turns up and then like somebody takes a
6:15
Speaker 3: video of like the lonely guy with nobody and then
6:18
Speaker 3: his book sells out, So what is it in the end.
6:21
Speaker 3: Maybe it's a mom ga technique.
6:22
Speaker 2: There you go.
6:23
Speaker 3: There you got about somebody to recording.
6:26
Speaker 2: But yeah, so it was it was just non stop.
6:28
Speaker 2: And so my kid and they, for some god known reason,
6:33
Speaker 2: in the tea room they have candy, but it's accessible
6:37
Speaker 2: to a two year old. So our two year old
6:39
Speaker 2: would just like go missing. And like I wasn't worried,
6:42
Speaker 2: Like we're in a hotel, everyone's in the program. Like
6:44
Speaker 2: I was never concerned when we lost him, and he'd
6:47
Speaker 2: turned back up with a coffee cup filled to the
6:50
Speaker 2: top with gummy worms, and I'm like, how are you
6:54
Speaker 2: doing this?
6:54
Speaker 3: Oh my god?
6:56
Speaker 4: And so it was just non stop sugar.
6:58
Speaker 3: He's still like shaken that.
7:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, like no.
7:01
Speaker 2: Sleep and non stop sugar. And it's I think it's
7:04
Speaker 2: there were two connecting rooms, but there's eight of us
7:07
Speaker 2: in two connecting rooms. Yeah, it's a lot no sleep,
7:12
Speaker 2: a lot of sugar, a lot of food.
7:15
Speaker 3: Wait, this is a kind of a perfect side. I
7:17
Speaker 3: kind of want to carry on talking about this, but
7:19
Speaker 3: this is the perfect segway. Did you see this sleep
7:21
Speaker 3: piece this week about those parents who left the child
7:26
Speaker 3: on a cruise ship and I died, and it sparked
7:29
Speaker 3: like a whole disc or.
7:30
Speaker 2: Yes, I saw that right before I went to the
7:33
Speaker 2: passover program, and I was like, oh, I'm about to
7:34
Speaker 2: go do that.
7:35
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, okay, so this is good. Let's talk about it.
7:38
Speaker 3: Because I left my baby in a hotel room when
7:42
Speaker 3: we went to the hotel restaurant for the first time
7:45
Speaker 3: this weekend. I'm like, it's fine. It's like so obviously fine.
7:49
Speaker 3: There should be no yeah, he went about it. I
7:52
Speaker 3: was so scared because because Nick was like, no, you
7:54
Speaker 3: can do this, it's fine, And then I was saying
7:56
Speaker 3: I had like a full tacklist of stuff that would
7:58
Speaker 3: have to be in place the baby. It has to
8:00
Speaker 3: be in range, the room has to be close. It
8:04
Speaker 3: can't be like an adjoining build in restaurant and an
8:08
Speaker 3: adjoining building. It has to be in the same building.
8:10
Speaker 3: And that was one hotel and it was it was
8:13
Speaker 3: all of those things. So I was like, yeah, I'll
8:14
Speaker 3: do it, and it was totally fine. Tosting.
8:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you have a baby monitor, do it up.
8:18
Speaker 1: Man.
8:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't see any The nice thing about where
8:23
Speaker 2: I am in my parenting life is that I could
8:26
Speaker 2: leave my older kid.
8:28
Speaker 4: When we did a passover program.
8:31
Speaker 2: Golly, five years ago, I was I could tell you
8:33
Speaker 2: I was pregnant with my fifth so this was four
8:42
Speaker 2: years ago. Yeah, he's three, so this was four years ago.
8:45
Speaker 2: So my oldest was only seven, and I left all
8:50
Speaker 2: of our kids and I left the seven year old
8:53
Speaker 2: in charge, and we by the way, this is passover
8:56
Speaker 2: and like, I'm not allowed to use a phone. I'm
8:58
Speaker 2: not allowed to use anything, and so I don't my
9:01
Speaker 2: seven year old is. I was like, if anything happens,
9:04
Speaker 2: first of all, there's a woman who's standing in the
9:07
Speaker 2: hallway because she's there to push the elevator buttons for people.
9:11
Speaker 2: I was like, go to Becky. Yeah, And so Becky,
9:15
Speaker 2: I think, was like, I didn't sign up to be
9:17
Speaker 2: a babysitter. I just signed up to be an elevator pusher.
9:21
Speaker 2: And I was like, right, but you're here and you're
9:25
Speaker 2: like a breathing adult. Yeah, so if they need anything,
9:28
Speaker 2: they can come to you, and they can come down
9:31
Speaker 2: and get me and I'll come back up and I'll
9:32
Speaker 2: be like thirty five seconds. But yeah, no, we left,
9:36
Speaker 2: and it was funny because the passover program. People were like,
9:39
Speaker 2: so did you get a babysitter? And we were like, no,
9:43
Speaker 2: why would we do that. We have a seven year old,
9:45
Speaker 2: why would we need a babysitter. We're living a life,
9:48
Speaker 2: but now with an eleven year old, forget it.
9:50
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, well yeah, I was kind of annoying with Nick.
9:53
Speaker 3: Please we went down and he was saying talent. The
9:56
Speaker 3: restaurant person I got, yeah, baby's up stayed in the room.
9:59
Speaker 3: I was like, don't tell that, no, shut up.
10:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, don't tell anyone that. We shouldn't even record
10:06
Speaker 2: this podcast. We should just burn it. No, I mean
10:09
Speaker 2: I think it's fine.
10:10
Speaker 3: The only thing in the Slate piece and I mean
10:12
Speaker 3: she was like unapologetic the way. Yeah. It was a
10:16
Speaker 3: great piece, and it went into like the history of
10:18
Speaker 3: baby monitors, which is very interesting because before, like twenty
10:22
Speaker 3: years ago, you couldn't do monitor. Yeah. She said that
10:27
Speaker 3: they kind of tested it to its limits and instead
10:31
Speaker 3: of using a baby monitor, they would call each other's
10:33
Speaker 3: phone and leave one phone on FaceTime.
10:36
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I remember saying that.
10:39
Speaker 3: And then but she said that she would go like
10:42
Speaker 3: down the street to like a restaurant like down this street,
10:47
Speaker 3: like not like them she'd be a little Yeah, at
10:52
Speaker 3: that point, I was thing.
10:53
Speaker 2: But but honestly, this, this kind of discourse is what
10:57
Speaker 2: scares people away from having children, Like, yeah, all of
11:01
Speaker 2: the things that are leading to this birth crisis. It's
11:04
Speaker 2: that like you can't do anything without being judged, and like,
11:08
Speaker 2: I think back to my childhood, like let me, let
11:11
Speaker 2: me tell you something that I'm sure was child abuse,
11:14
Speaker 2: and people will like be.
11:16
Speaker 4: Horrified of the story.
11:17
Speaker 2: My mom had tickets to a Melissa Ethridge show at
11:22
Speaker 2: Jones Beach on Long Island, and she couldn't find a babysitter.
11:26
Speaker 2: I couldn't afford a babysitter who really knows. So she
11:31
Speaker 2: brings me to Jones Beach, hiding on the floor of
11:36
Speaker 2: the back seat with a blanket over me. She drives
11:38
Speaker 2: me in and I don't have a ticket to get
11:40
Speaker 2: into the arena, and so she says, you stay in
11:44
Speaker 2: the car. I'm going to go to the concert. Here's
11:46
Speaker 2: a sandwich, here's a flashlight, here's a book. Lock the door.
11:50
Speaker 2: I'll be back when the concert's over. And I cannot
11:55
Speaker 2: listen to come to my window without feeling terrified because
12:02
Speaker 2: I was alone in a car in a parking lot
12:04
Speaker 2: at a beach for like four hours. Yeah, I was
12:08
Speaker 2: like seven eight maybe, And so I mean, was that
12:14
Speaker 2: abusive by like nineteen ninety standards, I think.
12:18
Speaker 3: So it's on the line.
12:20
Speaker 4: It's on the line.
12:21
Speaker 2: But now I think I'm like, I left my kids
12:24
Speaker 2: alone in a hotel room with a lady like literally
12:28
Speaker 2: four doors down. Yeah, and they come and I was
12:31
Speaker 2: in the same building.
12:32
Speaker 3: Like obviously I'm good.
12:35
Speaker 2: But that's the nice thing about having a low key,
12:37
Speaker 2: neglectful parent, like childhood, is that anything I do, I'm.
12:42
Speaker 4: Like, well, yeah, moving up.
12:45
Speaker 3: My mom tells the story of one because her dad
12:47
Speaker 3: was an alcoholic and like going on drying and when
12:50
Speaker 3: she was a kid, and then recreating the same drive
12:54
Speaker 3: when she was an adult and realizing that, like the
12:57
Speaker 3: drive when you took forty five minutes, but the reason
12:59
Speaker 3: it took them five hours is because my grandfather would
13:02
Speaker 3: stop in every path along the way and he would
13:05
Speaker 3: be so drunk by the end of the drive that
13:07
Speaker 3: like he would be driving like ten miles an hour
13:09
Speaker 3: because yeah, no, shit, based.
13:11
Speaker 4: Yeah no, I had that.
13:12
Speaker 2: I like my dad being absolutely stoned and high out
13:17
Speaker 2: of his mind in the car. That was actually one
13:19
Speaker 2: of the reasons why he lost visitation was because he
13:21
Speaker 2: drove me in a van that didn't have seats and
13:24
Speaker 2: everyone in it was high.
13:28
Speaker 4: And I got out of the car.
13:29
Speaker 2: I got out of the van and my dad dropped
13:31
Speaker 2: me back off at my mom's house, and she's like,
13:33
Speaker 2: where are the seats and why does she smell like pot?
13:36
Speaker 4: My dad was like, well, she's here, isn't she delivered?
13:40
Speaker 3: But to go back to the hotel point, I think
13:42
Speaker 3: I think the reason that maybe we're add into this
13:48
Speaker 3: the reason the parents is well non parents are so
13:51
Speaker 3: scared to have kids is because it used to be
13:54
Speaker 3: that they were just like a gentleman's agreement between parents
13:58
Speaker 3: that you would do some of this stuff and just
14:00
Speaker 3: I've never talked about it, but I.
14:02
Speaker 2: Like, no, I think the difference is it used to
14:06
Speaker 2: be normal back then and everyone is just overthinking it
14:09
Speaker 2: now and like everything has to be harder than it
14:13
Speaker 2: has to be, Like why can't parents go out to
14:16
Speaker 2: eat at a hotel room in a hotel, which, by
14:20
Speaker 2: the way, we have the technology to make this completely fine.
14:24
Speaker 2: And the scenarios that people put forth of like what
14:27
Speaker 2: could happen are so absurd that I'm like, if that happens,
14:32
Speaker 2: like when people give me the hypotheticals of like I
14:35
Speaker 2: left my kid half an aisle down because I ran
14:39
Speaker 2: back to grab something, and what if someone stole my child?
14:42
Speaker 4: Oh, this was a good one.
14:43
Speaker 2: I was on Fox and I left my baby with
14:47
Speaker 2: a producer and someone was like, how dare you leave
14:50
Speaker 2: your baby with a stranger? What if she had stolen it?
14:53
Speaker 2: And I replied, if that producer had a game plan
14:57
Speaker 2: of like being in Lloyd by Fox News but waiting
15:02
Speaker 2: for the day that she could watch a baby during
15:06
Speaker 2: a four minute segment, get that baby out of the
15:09
Speaker 2: building and into Washington, DC and care for it. She's
15:14
Speaker 2: earned that baby, and I think she should keep the baby. Yeah,
15:17
Speaker 2: she deserves it and she.
15:18
Speaker 3: Should keep it.
15:20
Speaker 2: They don't hear themselves talk about how insanely implausible the
15:25
Speaker 2: scenarios are. That they're like hypothesizing We're fine. Everything is fine, Like,
15:31
Speaker 2: stop catastrophizing everything, We're all fine.
15:36
Speaker 3: I was talking to a dad the other day who
15:37
Speaker 3: summarized this in a very intelligent sentence, and I'm going
15:41
Speaker 3: to butcher it, but he said something along the linesays,
15:44
Speaker 3: the last twenty years of parent in the trade offs
15:49
Speaker 3: have been very detrimental to the mother, and I mean
15:53
Speaker 3: for the child, because children like like with my baby
15:59
Speaker 3: now and staff, well, we've previously done stuff that's psychi
16:04
Speaker 3: super cautious and then we've stopped doing it and it's fine,
16:07
Speaker 3: and it's like what we do at want.
16:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's a lot of that manifests in
16:11
Speaker 2: like the early years, in like birth and everything where
16:15
Speaker 2: like for example, like the rooming in stuff like the
16:18
Speaker 2: baby friendly hospitals and making babies sleep in the room
16:21
Speaker 2: with the mom all the time. You've just gone through
16:24
Speaker 2: physical trauma. Yeah, and they won't take the baby into
16:29
Speaker 2: a nursery because the baby might want you, and they
16:32
Speaker 2: maybe shouldn't have to wait sixty seconds for them to
16:35
Speaker 2: bring you from the nursery, bring the baby from the
16:38
Speaker 2: nursery to you. But like no consideration of the physical
16:42
Speaker 2: trauma that this woman has gone through, and like she
16:45
Speaker 2: just needs a minute, she needs a three hour nap,
16:48
Speaker 2: and like the concern for the mother is just non existent.
16:53
Speaker 2: It's marginal, marginal maybe benefit for the baby to extreme
17:01
Speaker 2: detriment of the mother, which by the way, then is
17:06
Speaker 2: to the detriment of the child, because a nurse holding
17:11
Speaker 2: a baby in a nursery is much safer than a
17:14
Speaker 2: mom who's just had a c section and hasn't slept
17:17
Speaker 2: in seventy two hours holding a baby. She's better with
17:20
Speaker 2: a nurse.
17:21
Speaker 3: Yeah.
17:25
Speaker 2: So I want to take a quick break before we
17:27
Speaker 2: jump into our next conversation about the craziness that happened
17:31
Speaker 2: in Montgomery County today because it was a day for
17:34
Speaker 2: the record books.
17:45
Speaker 1: Hello, I'm James Lenwix and I'm at the diner. You know,
17:48
Speaker 1: classic American diner chrome long boomerang pattern for Michael County
17:52
Speaker 1: with little A jukeboxes. We love these and you can
17:55
Speaker 1: join me here every Saturday when we talk about whatever
17:58
Speaker 1: happens to spring into my mind at the moment. There's
18:00
Speaker 1: no predicting where it will go, except that it'll be
18:02
Speaker 1: done in about thirty minutes. Join me, won't you, every
18:05
Speaker 1: Saturday from the Ricochet Audio.
18:07
Speaker 3: Network Ricochet, Yeah, join the conversation.
18:20
Speaker 4: Today, my county became famous.
18:25
Speaker 2: Montgomery County, Maryland went to Montgomery County Public Schools went
18:30
Speaker 2: to the Supreme Court because the schools decided that it
18:36
Speaker 2: would become mandatory for children to have to read books
18:40
Speaker 2: like Pride Puppy at age three, and the case went
18:44
Speaker 2: all the way to the Supreme Court, because the conversation
18:49
Speaker 2: is should parents be able to opt their own children
18:52
Speaker 2: out of extreme gender sexuality curriculum. I've been covering it
18:59
Speaker 2: for two years. I remember very vividly driving by the
19:03
Speaker 2: protests outside of the school board and I saw all
19:06
Speaker 2: these he jobs and I was like, what on earth
19:08
Speaker 2: is going on? And like they're holding up signs like
19:11
Speaker 2: freedom and parental rights, and it's all these sea job
19:14
Speaker 2: parents and I was like, what's the key job the
19:17
Speaker 2: Muslim it's the Muslim head dress for women. Yeah, mostly
19:23
Speaker 2: Muslim parents did this?
19:25
Speaker 3: What saying that the kids shouldn't be reading these books
19:28
Speaker 3: so that they should should not of course, yeah, that's right. Yeah.
19:31
Speaker 2: So they were protesting outside the Supreme Court, or i'm sorry,
19:35
Speaker 2: outside the Montgomery County school Board, saying we want the
19:38
Speaker 2: right to opt our children out of this curriculum. And
19:41
Speaker 2: so I drove by it, and I remember I was
19:44
Speaker 2: driving to the car wash and I pulled a Yui
19:48
Speaker 2: and I was like, what's And I read all the
19:51
Speaker 2: signs and I was like, this is my jam. Liberty,
19:54
Speaker 2: freedom like not being forced to read books on gender
19:58
Speaker 2: and sexuality to show like who are you people, and
20:01
Speaker 2: so I got out and I had like a bunch
20:04
Speaker 2: of kids in the car who really wanted to go
20:05
Speaker 2: to the car wash, and so I got like the
20:07
Speaker 2: short version of the story. I was like, why are
20:10
Speaker 2: you here and who are you? And there was no
20:12
Speaker 2: reporting done on it anywhere. I hadn't heard anything about it.
20:15
Speaker 2: And they said we'd come back every single school board meeting,
20:19
Speaker 2: and so I was like, so you'll be here next
20:20
Speaker 2: month and they said yes. So I made a plan
20:23
Speaker 2: to come back and actually report on it, and there
20:26
Speaker 2: were It was a Muslim fast day. It was in
20:29
Speaker 2: the middle of the summer of twenty twenty two, no
20:32
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, sorry.
20:33
Speaker 5: And.
20:35
Speaker 2: It was a fast day and it was so hot
20:39
Speaker 2: and everyone there. There's probably six seven hundred people there
20:44
Speaker 2: protesting outside the school board. Vast majority of them were Muslim.
20:48
Speaker 2: There was a lot of Ethiopian Christians, some white Catholics,
20:53
Speaker 2: but not many. I was like, I would say, like
20:55
Speaker 2: seventy percent Muslim.
20:57
Speaker 3: Wow.
20:58
Speaker 2: And I got to know a lot of the parents.
21:00
Speaker 2: And I've been reporting on this for two and a
21:03
Speaker 2: half two years, I guess now two years. And I
21:07
Speaker 2: remember saying then like right from the start at that
21:10
Speaker 2: first schooler meeting that I was actually like really reporting
21:14
Speaker 2: on it, and I reported on it for the Free
21:15
Speaker 2: Press at the time. I said, this is going to
21:17
Speaker 2: go to this from court, like they this is unconstitutional.
21:20
Speaker 2: There's no way they can get away with this. And
21:24
Speaker 2: it was so validating listening to the oral arguments today
21:28
Speaker 2: because they were like Alito was like, I read those
21:32
Speaker 2: books and there's a lot of things in there that hmm.
21:37
Speaker 2: And one thing that bothered me that I wish he
21:39
Speaker 2: had said was that they talked about how these books
21:43
Speaker 2: are in the English Language curriculum, and I was like, yeah,
21:47
Speaker 2: that's because they have to offer an opt out if
21:50
Speaker 2: it's put in the in the sexuality curriculum, but they
21:53
Speaker 2: don't have to offer it if it's in so they
21:56
Speaker 2: just they made it part of English Language Instruction, the LA,
22:00
Speaker 2: because then they don't have to offer a knockout.
22:02
Speaker 3: So how has the story changed in the past two
22:06
Speaker 3: and a half years. It's somebody that's only become interested
22:09
Speaker 3: in this recently. Now I have a child and I'm
22:11
Speaker 3: buying children's books, and I'm walking into like what I
22:15
Speaker 3: think is like a normal bookshop, and then I see
22:18
Speaker 3: and then every single book is like propaganda, and I'm like,
22:21
Speaker 3: are you going crazy?
22:24
Speaker 2: I wrote about this in Stolen Youth, my book that
22:26
Speaker 2: I wrote, I guess like two three years, two years
22:30
Speaker 2: ago because I had a newborn, so I wrote I
22:32
Speaker 2: wrote Stolen Youth two years ago. And basically, like, the
22:35
Speaker 2: incentive structure in publishing is for these books because schools
22:41
Speaker 2: and libraries, all with our tax dollars, buy these books
22:44
Speaker 2: in bulk, and so they've created an incentive for these
22:49
Speaker 2: crazy books. And it's all paid for with our tax dollars.
22:55
Speaker 2: And that's why when you walk into Barnes and Noble
22:57
Speaker 2: you see all of these inclusive books, but also like
23:01
Speaker 2: you know, the the editors and the writers and everything,
23:04
Speaker 2: everyone is ideologically captured by this.
23:07
Speaker 4: And so.
23:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's why you see that in Barnes and Noble.
23:12
Speaker 2: But in this case in Montgomery County, they had been
23:17
Speaker 2: they actually said this in oral arguments today. They had
23:20
Speaker 2: been offering an opt out, but so many parents, according
23:23
Speaker 2: to Montgomery County, took advantage of the opt out and
23:27
Speaker 2: pulled their kids out of instruction that it became too difficult.
23:30
Speaker 4: For them to manage. So then they removed.
23:33
Speaker 2: They're like, so wait a second, So your response to
23:36
Speaker 2: so many parents saying I don't want my kids to
23:38
Speaker 2: learn this is to remove their ability to say I
23:40
Speaker 2: don't want my kids to learn this, not like hmm,
23:43
Speaker 2: maybe we should evaluate what we're doing here.
23:48
Speaker 3: You think that it's still what is ended up this
23:52
Speaker 3: way in the Supreme courte if Trump was an precident,
23:57
Speaker 3: and I think if Harris wan.
24:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the Supreme Court is six three, it's still
24:05
Speaker 2: you know, hasn't changed. But this was a really, really
24:09
Speaker 2: glaring violation of parental rights that is quite clear if
24:13
Speaker 2: you look at the case that you know, sets sort
24:16
Speaker 2: of the case law of parental rights in public education
24:20
Speaker 2: very clearly sides with parents Yoder versus Wisconsin, and like
24:23
Speaker 2: the early seventies, I think it was nineteen seventy two,
24:26
Speaker 2: it's it very clearly is much more egregious than that case,
24:30
Speaker 2: and the court sided with the parents then.
24:33
Speaker 4: And it's wild to.
24:33
Speaker 2: Me that Montgomery and actually Justice Kavanaugh said this today
24:37
Speaker 2: in oral arguments. He said, you know, given the fact
24:40
Speaker 2: that Maryland, the state of Maryland, was founded on religious liberty,
24:46
Speaker 2: you know, Christians fleeing persecution in England, the fact that
24:50
Speaker 2: this is the hill that Montgomery County public Schools is
24:52
Speaker 2: dying on is inexplicable, and it's crazy, like all these
24:56
Speaker 2: people are asking for is the ability to opt their
24:59
Speaker 2: own child out of this instruction. They're not asking for
25:01
Speaker 2: it to be removed or changed or anything. And it
25:04
Speaker 2: was crazy to see all the signs because you know,
25:07
Speaker 2: it was like inclusivity for everyone, love everyone, and I
25:11
Speaker 2: wanted to be like, yeah, I agree, I agree. Inclusivity
25:15
Speaker 2: for that mom over there, inclusivity for that dad, Like
25:19
Speaker 2: why why you? And it's because they've turned it into
25:23
Speaker 2: a religion. And there were like multiple people who were
25:27
Speaker 2: call themselves like clerics or priests or whatever. They were
25:31
Speaker 2: religious figures who had rainbow clerical bands down their necks
25:36
Speaker 2: and rainbow like cloths around their shoulders, like it is
25:41
Speaker 2: their religion. This is their religion.
25:44
Speaker 3: And it's also fine if it's their religion.
25:46
Speaker 4: It's not going to be my kids correct voice.
25:49
Speaker 2: And it's wild to me because one of the justices said, like,
25:52
Speaker 2: why don't you just send a private school? And it's like, oh,
25:55
Speaker 2: are we making an argument for school choice now, because
25:57
Speaker 2: I'm down with that, but we don't ever hear check
26:01
Speaker 2: your privilege. And what was really frustrating talking to these parents.
26:05
Speaker 2: I spoke to I don't know, two dozen of them
26:08
Speaker 2: over the course of the last several years. The vast
26:11
Speaker 2: majority of them are not financial means. They're mostly immigrants,
26:15
Speaker 2: either from Ethiopia or from Middle Eastern countries, and they're
26:18
Speaker 2: devout Muslims. They don't have the resources. And so there's
26:22
Speaker 2: been a couple of dads, honestly Muslim dads who have
26:26
Speaker 2: really stepped up, who are like second generation, who have
26:30
Speaker 2: the command of the English, who have the financial resources
26:34
Speaker 2: to devote some time to doing this, and they you know,
26:39
Speaker 2: they've taken on this mantle, but they're just like, these
26:43
Speaker 2: are people who are really disenfranchised and feel really helpless,
26:47
Speaker 2: and it's really, it's honestly, really heartbreaking. I spoke to
26:51
Speaker 2: one woman, I guess he was two years ago now,
26:53
Speaker 2: and her daughter had kind of, you know, her Muslim
26:56
Speaker 2: daughter had gotten mixed up in this gender ideology because
27:00
Speaker 2: she was autistic, and she came from a neighboring county
27:04
Speaker 2: and she was protesting outside every single Montgomery County event
27:08
Speaker 2: in not just a he job, but also in a
27:10
Speaker 2: face in a veil covering. And she said it was
27:13
Speaker 2: in part because she wanted to hide her identity because
27:15
Speaker 2: if there were pictures taken of the rally, she didn't
27:18
Speaker 2: want her daughter to know she was there. She's like,
27:21
Speaker 2: I normally actually don't wear this veil. I normally just
27:24
Speaker 2: wear a hey job. But I'm wearing this veil to
27:26
Speaker 2: shield my identity from my daughter. And she's like, I
27:29
Speaker 2: just I don't want any other parent.
27:30
Speaker 4: To go through what I've gone through.
27:32
Speaker 2: And it's really really difficult, and it was really frustrating
27:35
Speaker 2: listening to the speakers. On the other side, there was
27:38
Speaker 2: a guy there who was you know, I'm Muslim and
27:42
Speaker 2: these people are using hate and I'm like, I mean
27:45
Speaker 2: I go down that road all the time with Jews,
27:48
Speaker 2: and I'm.
27:48
Speaker 4: Like, god, it feels so bad for these people like that.
27:52
Speaker 2: You would you not represent ninety nine percent of Muslims
27:55
Speaker 2: in America. And then there was it was interesting there
27:58
Speaker 2: was a girl there who was like fourteen fifteen years old,
28:01
Speaker 2: and everyone else sort of got the script of like
28:04
Speaker 2: talking in generalities love and inclusion and da da da,
28:08
Speaker 2: and this was like a fourteen fifteen year old girl
28:11
Speaker 2: and she stood up and said, these parents were teaching
28:14
Speaker 2: their kids the wrong thing and it's our responsibility to
28:17
Speaker 2: teach them the right thing and to deprogram them from
28:21
Speaker 2: their parents. And I was like, that's she she's she
28:26
Speaker 2: missed the she missed the lecture. Yeah, but this is
28:30
Speaker 2: what they all believe and they just know better not
28:33
Speaker 2: to say it. And she just missed the memo on
28:35
Speaker 2: the talking points.
28:36
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. How did the coverage of this change and
28:42
Speaker 3: the kind of campaign when you started reporting on it?
28:45
Speaker 3: Because I guessed you must have been either the first
28:50
Speaker 3: or I was the first, the biggest person to do.
28:53
Speaker 1: Yeah.
28:53
Speaker 2: I wrote about it for the Free Press, and I
28:55
Speaker 2: was I was the first. And then you know, when
28:57
Speaker 2: it got bumped up to the Supreme Court, then we
28:59
Speaker 2: really started to see national coverage. Vox has been sort
29:03
Speaker 2: of freaking out apparently for weeks about this case. There
29:06
Speaker 2: was a there was a wild headline that that was
29:09
Speaker 2: basically like the Supreme Court seems to favor denying inclusion
29:15
Speaker 2: or something like that. And it's wild because you know,
29:20
Speaker 2: the only thing that these parents said over and over
29:22
Speaker 2: and over was I want to be included too, like
29:26
Speaker 2: I want my religious.
29:27
Speaker 3: Place to be when they rise in those headlines like
29:30
Speaker 3: how can you really take yourself seriously?
29:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it was.
29:35
Speaker 2: It was wild because like and this actually came up
29:37
Speaker 2: in oral arguments as well. One of my favorite things
29:40
Speaker 2: that happened was the most progressive member of the Montgomery
29:44
Speaker 2: County Council, her name is Kristin Mink, compared compared the parents,
29:49
Speaker 2: these Muslim parents to white supremacists and bigots, and stop
29:55
Speaker 2: doing this.
29:56
Speaker 3: I don't stop doing this psych a couple of years.
29:58
Speaker 2: Ago, she just she doesn't know how to like she
29:59
Speaker 2: does and not how to process the fact that these
30:01
Speaker 2: people are not white and not whatever. So and then
30:04
Speaker 2: there was another very liberal member of the school board,
30:07
Speaker 2: Lynn Harris, who when a when a young Muslim student said,
30:12
Speaker 2: I don't want to be forced to read these books.
30:14
Speaker 2: I feel uncomfortable. It makes me, you know, I'm this
30:19
Speaker 2: is wrong because it's so prescriptive. But anyway, so he
30:25
Speaker 2: says he testifies or she. I don't remember if it
30:28
Speaker 2: was a he or she. And then Lynn Harris, the
30:30
Speaker 2: school board member, says, you know, I feel bad because
30:34
Speaker 2: I don't know to what degree the student is parroting
30:36
Speaker 2: dogma from their parents. And and I was so I
30:40
Speaker 2: ran for school board and I confronted her directly in
30:44
Speaker 2: a school board meeting, like not a meeting, but like
30:46
Speaker 2: one of these, you know, campaign events, And I confronted
30:52
Speaker 2: her and she denied it, and I was like, I'm
30:54
Speaker 2: quoting CARE, like the Council for American like American Islamic Relations,
30:59
Speaker 2: Like do you think that I, as an Orthodox, do that?
31:01
Speaker 2: Willy nilly, just citing CARE, but like that CARE wrote
31:06
Speaker 2: a press release about both of those incidents. It's just
31:09
Speaker 2: it's wild. It's really wild, the fractures that they've created
31:14
Speaker 2: and the alliances that they've created. On the Five today,
31:18
Speaker 2: Greg Gottfeld was like what or no, it was Jesse Waters.
31:21
Speaker 2: Jesse Waters said like, do you know how hard it
31:24
Speaker 2: is to get Catholics, Muslims and Jews to agree on anything?
31:29
Speaker 4: There we are.
31:32
Speaker 2: It's crazy, but it's just so validating that to hear
31:36
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court justices cross crossing the MCPS, which, by
31:40
Speaker 2: the way, MCPS has probably spent well north of a
31:45
Speaker 2: million dollars to bring this case to the Supreme Court
31:49
Speaker 2: about forcing parents to make like to force to read
31:54
Speaker 2: children books and to have children read books, over a million,
31:59
Speaker 2: well north of a million dollars of my tax dollars.
32:02
Speaker 2: Fifty five percent of MCPS students are reading on grade
32:06
Speaker 2: level and instead of spending that million and a half
32:10
Speaker 2: dollars whatever it is on teaching kids to read. They're like, no, no, no,
32:16
Speaker 2: you're those of you who can read can only read this.
32:24
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess that's the comforting thing. Only half,
32:26
Speaker 2: the only half the students in Montgomery County public schools
32:29
Speaker 2: can actually because the other half they can't read.
32:35
Speaker 3: Oh my god. It's so this is the I know
32:38
Speaker 3: what my kids goes to school.
32:41
Speaker 2: What's really funny is that as a homeschooler, guess who
32:45
Speaker 2: I report to you? No MCPSH. Yeah, I have to
32:51
Speaker 2: register with them. And I'm like yeah, And I'm like,
32:55
Speaker 2: do you think maybe it's kind of crazy that the
32:58
Speaker 2: people who are failing are overseeing the people who are not.
33:02
Speaker 2: Don't you think there should be another supervisor?
33:04
Speaker 3: Do you have to lie tell them that you read
33:06
Speaker 3: the readio.
33:08
Speaker 2: I don't have to do that as a homeschool or
33:10
Speaker 2: not yet. Anyway, I think that's coming, which is part
33:12
Speaker 2: of why I've been so outspoken, because Montgomery County is
33:15
Speaker 2: used as a testing ground for a lot of these things,
33:18
Speaker 2: and I think that that's next down the pike, and
33:21
Speaker 2: I am not interested in that. Pike.
33:25
Speaker 3: He was very an American that you have to Yeah,
33:29
Speaker 3: not good. Yeah, Hi, this is a young Culter. Welcome
33:37
Speaker 3: to my Ricochet podcast.
33:39
Speaker 1: And Coulter every week on Ricochet.
33:42
Speaker 3: You're home to Center Right conversation. Hey, that was pretty good.
33:54
Speaker 3: Do you want to talk about RFKA Junior and that
33:59
Speaker 3: whole thing?
34:00
Speaker 4: What about him?
34:01
Speaker 2: Keep in mind that I've been like more or less
34:04
Speaker 2: offline for like four days, and I might not know
34:06
Speaker 2: what you're talking about.
34:08
Speaker 5: The viral speech about how autism I he is as
34:19
Speaker 5: he's like a bull in a china shop. Why like
34:24
Speaker 5: doesn't he have people writing things that are like in
34:26
Speaker 5: any way sensitive?
34:29
Speaker 3: I agree that. So why I'm bringing it up is
34:32
Speaker 3: because I don't know anything about this entire debate. But
34:34
Speaker 3: what what is what I've seen so much of in
34:37
Speaker 3: the past week or so is a lot of people saying, like, oh,
34:41
Speaker 3: thank god, somebody is speaking from my children who was
34:45
Speaker 3: really autistic and can't go to the toilet unassisted or
34:48
Speaker 3: even assisted. And I just thought that was like an
34:50
Speaker 3: interest in perspective.
34:53
Speaker 2: So what's frustrating and this is not our case fault
34:56
Speaker 2: that autism is way too sweeping of a diagnosis. You
35:00
Speaker 2: go from Elon Musk to that and that is all autistic.
35:05
Speaker 4: And it's not.
35:06
Speaker 2: It's like severe autism is a whole other animal. And
35:11
Speaker 2: what I didn't like about how Rfk spoke was that
35:16
Speaker 2: everyone is made in the image of God, and to
35:20
Speaker 2: speak about these children like they are a burden and
35:24
Speaker 2: they are beasts and sub human really rubbed me the
35:29
Speaker 2: wrong way. As a human being of faith be so
35:35
Speaker 2: difficult and these children do not deserve it, and these
35:38
Speaker 2: parents do not deserve it, and it's a tragedy, and
35:41
Speaker 2: we want to help make sure that other families don't
35:44
Speaker 2: have this, which, by the way, like his whole idea
35:48
Speaker 2: of like the vaccines caused it.
35:50
Speaker 4: Whatever.
35:52
Speaker 2: There's a really interesting book about the history of autism
35:54
Speaker 2: called NeuroTribes by Steve Silberman, who recently passed away, and
36:00
Speaker 2: it gives the whole history of autism. But the TLDR
36:03
Speaker 2: is that throughout the history of autism, mothers have been
36:07
Speaker 2: blamed always, and so if you go back then, it
36:13
Speaker 2: was no like their behavior caused their children to be
36:17
Speaker 2: like this, and so they were called refrigerator moms back then,
36:20
Speaker 2: moms who just hung out by the refrigerator and didn't
36:23
Speaker 2: care for their children, And to me, I hear it
36:26
Speaker 2: as as a mother, like you, you submitted your child
36:31
Speaker 2: to this vaccine and you caused the autism. Like there's
36:36
Speaker 2: no like, there's no evidence that vaccines cause autism. There's
36:41
Speaker 2: it seems like a lot of evidence to the contrary.
36:44
Speaker 2: I agree we should, you know, we should get to
36:46
Speaker 2: the bottom of it. But I think that it's a
36:49
Speaker 2: waste of resources to to be spending time investigating a
36:54
Speaker 2: link with vaccines.
36:56
Speaker 4: But go ahead, like.
36:56
Speaker 2: Whatever, investigation like we've we've researched, like like seahorses that
37:01
Speaker 2: are bisexual for five hundred million dollars like whatever, Fine,
37:05
Speaker 2: investigate vaccines to your hearts content. I don't care. But
37:09
Speaker 2: what bothers me also about And there's an autism organization
37:13
Speaker 2: called Autism Speaks, and they one of their huge missions
37:20
Speaker 2: is to find a genetic cause to it. And that's
37:23
Speaker 2: just eugenics, like and that you'll you'll cut out elon
37:29
Speaker 2: musk along with.
37:32
Speaker 4: That.
37:32
Speaker 2: That really I so I think that he really poorly
37:37
Speaker 2: spoke and and it just sounds like eugenist and hateful.
37:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it could be a lot more thoughtful.
37:45
Speaker 3: It was just interesting to see because I've kind of
37:47
Speaker 3: only ever seen the like autism is my superpower. I
37:52
Speaker 3: kind of and when I think of autism, I kind
37:54
Speaker 3: of think it's like an aw good guy in a bar.
37:56
Speaker 3: I don't think of somebody that's like.
37:58
Speaker 4: It's changed a lot ten years.
38:00
Speaker 3: I think congrastated from it. So I just thought that
38:03
Speaker 3: was interesting. I feel like we should definite even talk
38:06
Speaker 3: about the Trump administration weighed in war on anti nationalism,
38:16
Speaker 3: because I feel like that's kind of like the reason
38:18
Speaker 3: that we solved this podcast. Like people hear about like
38:21
Speaker 3: the positive things that come along with it.
38:23
Speaker 2: So as someone who just got my complete butt handed
38:28
Speaker 2: to me by the IRS, this five thousand dollars baby bonus,
38:32
Speaker 2: can I get it retroactive.
38:33
Speaker 3: An maybe backdated? Yeah?
38:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm curious. Come on, that's it's not enough.
38:42
Speaker 2: No, I mean listen, like, I don't think that there's
38:44
Speaker 2: any real financial incentive structure that can be put into place.
38:49
Speaker 2: Hungary has tried it, Lots of Asian countries have tried it.
38:53
Speaker 2: It's a culture problem, and again that's why we started
38:55
Speaker 2: this podcast. Yeah, but there's it's not like I mean,
38:59
Speaker 2: I'm conservative because I don't think government is a solution.
39:02
Speaker 4: Really, I don't think it's a solution.
39:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, I see, I see that. I mean a lot
39:05
Speaker 3: of my friends, particularly like in London, would always say
39:11
Speaker 3: the single reason that I'm non pregnant right now, it's
39:14
Speaker 3: because of money, and I've always kind of thought, I
39:16
Speaker 3: don't think that's the only reason.
39:18
Speaker 6: Yeah, So it would be interested to see if a
39:22
Speaker 6: financial incentive would do anything, because so many people online
39:28
Speaker 6: blame finances for.
39:31
Speaker 4: How poor you were. You grew up poor, right.
39:33
Speaker 3: Littlu single mother, dad was in prison. Yeah, yeah, and
39:39
Speaker 3: my mom was twenty years old and she did it.
39:41
Speaker 1: Yeah.
39:42
Speaker 4: No, it's not it's not poor.
39:43
Speaker 3: It's just but we have we have like a different
39:45
Speaker 3: mentality when it comes to comfort and money now, like
39:48
Speaker 3: there are just different baseline levels of uncomfortable that people
39:53
Speaker 3: are women to be. But that's a huge part of it,
39:57
Speaker 3: I think.
39:59
Speaker 2: I mean, I think also like it's different. I think
40:03
Speaker 2: it's different for our generation in a lot of ways.
40:05
Speaker 2: I think that the birth crisis is actually a marriage crisis.
40:09
Speaker 2: I think of like everyone I went to high school
40:12
Speaker 2: with the number of people that I know that are
40:14
Speaker 2: married who have children five oh right, maybe no people
40:22
Speaker 2: who are not married and have children three dozen, and
40:27
Speaker 2: then the rest like want it, but haven't met the
40:29
Speaker 2: right person, and they've decided I think rightly that the
40:33
Speaker 2: person needs to precede the baby making.
40:37
Speaker 7: Yeah yeah, I mean wait, so I come from a
40:41
Speaker 7: pool Parst of Wales and everybody I know has kids
40:45
Speaker 7: multiple They all started having kids at twenty twenty one.
40:49
Speaker 3: None of them are married. Tell us what that's not
40:50
Speaker 3: all saying to be married Now, I'm like the sacond
40:52
Speaker 3: those third kid, which is interesting, but I mean they
40:56
Speaker 3: have the kids, so yeah, it's not that I want
41:00
Speaker 3: to prop them.
41:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it's so hard.
41:02
Speaker 2: Like again, I only know what I know of from
41:05
Speaker 2: social media because I don't keep in touch with any
41:07
Speaker 2: of these people.
41:08
Speaker 4: But their lives look really hard in a way that
41:11
Speaker 4: mine is not.
41:12
Speaker 3: Well, like having kids and not being married. Yes, yeah,
41:15
Speaker 3: I mean logistically, it's not like having a different name
41:19
Speaker 3: to your kid is like it's bad thing, I think.
41:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's it's so much more than that. It's
41:24
Speaker 2: just like they don't have the support. They don't have,
41:27
Speaker 2: Like I mean, when they don't have the dad around,
41:31
Speaker 2: it's because the dad pieced out, so like they're a
41:34
Speaker 2: single parent, right, and like it's just I can't imagine.
41:39
Speaker 2: I mean like listen, you and I were both raised
41:40
Speaker 2: by single moms. Like I don't know how my mom
41:42
Speaker 2: did it.
41:43
Speaker 3: Yes, I don't know.
41:44
Speaker 4: I really don't.
41:45
Speaker 2: I mean, and just from the emotional stand like not
41:47
Speaker 2: even the I mean, I know that my mom had
41:49
Speaker 2: a really difficult time financially, and like that pressure of
41:52
Speaker 2: like being the soul breadwinners must have been terrifying. Yeah,
41:56
Speaker 2: but I think reflecting on it as a mom, now,
42:00
Speaker 2: what I think would be even more difficult, honestly, is
42:03
Speaker 2: like having someone to bounce stuff off of, Like Bethany
42:06
Speaker 2: said this today, like what.
42:07
Speaker 4: Should I do?
42:09
Speaker 2: Bethany was so cute when she did that. Oh my god,
42:12
Speaker 2: Like the number of times that Seth and I are like.
42:15
Speaker 3: Oh, we love them so much.
42:18
Speaker 2: To not have someone to share that with must be
42:20
Speaker 2: really difficult.
42:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, And just to have five minutes yourself just to
42:23
Speaker 3: be able alone, like thinking of like when you're sick,
42:27
Speaker 3: now what I need an hour to myself? And I
42:30
Speaker 3: can always tell when Nick needs it out to himself.
42:33
Speaker 3: Then one of us will be like, oh gosh, how
42:34
Speaker 3: I go do this? Do that? Just like have an
42:37
Speaker 3: allergy yourself.
42:38
Speaker 2: And when you're sick, yeah, be like tap you in yeah,
42:43
Speaker 2: see you in thirty six hours.
42:44
Speaker 3: That just give me a flashback. I remember once my
42:47
Speaker 3: mom had slipped a disk in who back and was
42:50
Speaker 3: just like on the floor, writhing in agony. And I
42:54
Speaker 3: must have been like five or six years old, just
42:57
Speaker 3: like sat next.
42:59
Speaker 2: I think we had the same time I did that.
43:01
Speaker 2: I think we had the same childhood, like across the
43:03
Speaker 2: ocean in tenure. Yeah, and my mom was very sick.
43:07
Speaker 2: I mean she died when I was sixteen, Like I
43:09
Speaker 2: was her sole caregiver until from ten to sixteen.
43:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was rough.
43:15
Speaker 3: It's pretty hard. Yeah, I'm just how a big person
43:18
Speaker 3: they would have with help. Oh my god.
43:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, like night and day.
43:24
Speaker 2: I feel really bad for my friends who don't have that,
43:26
Speaker 2: who are just parenting alone. And yeah, I mean I
43:31
Speaker 2: think I think you know, give that do the five
43:34
Speaker 2: thousand dollars marriage bonus.
43:36
Speaker 4: Yeah, that actually could make a difference.
43:39
Speaker 3: Nick and I always talk every couple of weeks. We
43:42
Speaker 3: talk about this woman who just before I was about
43:45
Speaker 3: to give birth, she was also just about to give birth.
43:48
Speaker 3: We met in the car door like the prenatal censor
43:52
Speaker 3: that we'll both go into, and just in the elevated ride,
43:57
Speaker 3: she was asking us about the baby. How we were
44:00
Speaker 3: feed in and we were talking and she was like, yeah,
44:02
Speaker 3: I mean, my assband just got to goal. She's like
44:04
Speaker 3: just about to give birth and she's like yeah, and
44:06
Speaker 3: I'm gonna have to do this all by myself. And
44:08
Speaker 3: I'm terrified. Oh my god, I thought we just anosaur Again.
44:11
Speaker 3: I think about it all as I'm oh my god, yeah,
44:15
Speaker 3: just like imagine giving bood alone. Well, I guess maybe
44:18
Speaker 3: you've done that because.
44:19
Speaker 2: So none no, no, I think about that a lot
44:23
Speaker 2: with like the Israeli hostages there was And this is
44:27
Speaker 2: what really annoys me about the Mahmud Khalil thing when
44:29
Speaker 2: they're talking about how his wife gave birth alone, but
44:32
Speaker 2: she just did like a couple days ago. And I'm like,
44:34
Speaker 2: Sigi Deklhen's wife gave birth alone. Nohing, He's an American citizen,
44:40
Speaker 2: no one, no one cared. He got home to Israel
44:44
Speaker 2: and his baby was a year old, and he asked
44:46
Speaker 2: his wife, what is our baby's name because they hadn't
44:49
Speaker 2: settled on it yet, and she had to name the
44:51
Speaker 2: baby alone. And by the way, she was lucky because
44:53
Speaker 2: there was another Israeli hostage, Alex Lubinov, his wife was
44:56
Speaker 2: pregnant with their second child and she gave birth alone,
45:00
Speaker 2: and then he was executed under RAFA with like five
45:03
Speaker 2: other hostages at the end of August, So like where
45:08
Speaker 2: where was the sympathy there? For Like, the American media
45:12
Speaker 2: is like consumed with the fact that, like, she gave
45:14
Speaker 2: birth alone, and I'm like, sid Gi decl Hen was
45:17
Speaker 2: literally an American citizen whose wife gave birth alone. Trying
45:21
Speaker 2: to nobody knows their.
45:22
Speaker 4: Names works well, yeah.
45:25
Speaker 2: But yeah, no, I think anyway to rewind, I think
45:28
Speaker 2: that a marriage bonus would actually be much more beneficial,
45:32
Speaker 2: and I think it needs to be higher. But also
45:34
Speaker 2: could they raise I was talking to somebody on Capitol Hill.
45:37
Speaker 2: I was like, I will come and talk to your
45:39
Speaker 2: office about raising the child tax credit.
45:42
Speaker 4: Like who do I need to talk to to get
45:44
Speaker 4: it in America?
45:46
Speaker 3: I don't know.
45:47
Speaker 4: It's not high enough.
45:48
Speaker 2: It's like two thousand dollars under Trump. Under Trump before
45:52
Speaker 2: it was thirty six hundred per kid, and then that
45:55
Speaker 2: sixteen hundred of that expired and it went back to
45:57
Speaker 2: the original two thousand, but like just like a month
46:00
Speaker 2: per year, So that means like if you owed five
46:03
Speaker 2: thousand dollars and you have one child, now you owe
46:07
Speaker 2: three thousand dollars.
46:08
Speaker 4: So yeah, you know it's not nothing. But like I got.
46:13
Speaker 2: Cream, and I'd like I'd like a higher child text
46:17
Speaker 2: credit please, and.
46:19
Speaker 3: We want them back day sent please. There were two
46:22
Speaker 3: other incentives that I can't remember. Well, they were the
46:26
Speaker 3: Trump administra.
46:27
Speaker 2: So in Hungary they have something that if you have
46:29
Speaker 2: four kids, you never have to pay income tax again.
46:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's pretty try to do that.
46:34
Speaker 4: Let's try.
46:34
Speaker 2: Let's see how that works out. Okay, So this is
46:38
Speaker 2: what he's recommending, five thousand dollars baby bonus, National Medal
46:43
Speaker 2: of Motherhood. Oh, this is exciting. An honorary award proposed
46:47
Speaker 2: for mothers who have six or more children.
46:49
Speaker 4: I get an award.
46:50
Speaker 3: Oh my god, that's very cool. It's so fun. Mole,
46:54
Speaker 3: Would you have another kid just to get it?
46:56
Speaker 2: I wrote a better for the substack coolm like, whatever
46:59
Speaker 2: about having a seventh Benjon Franklin, people should go back
47:02
Speaker 2: on our substack subscribe read that post. But there's this
47:07
Speaker 2: joke in my family that we all keep getting seven
47:12
Speaker 2: kid plates, seven kid cups, and so tonight Seth when
47:16
Speaker 2: he set the table for dinner, put out seven kid plates,
47:19
Speaker 2: and I'm like, are you trying to tell me something?
47:22
Speaker 4: So I don't know.
47:22
Speaker 2: I've found stupider reasons to have another baby before, so
47:26
Speaker 2: don't put it, ask.
47:27
Speaker 4: Me, okay.
47:29
Speaker 2: Fulbright Scholarship Preference a proposal to reserve thirty percent of
47:32
Speaker 2: Fullbright scholarships for applicants who are married or have children.
47:37
Speaker 2: This one, actually I agree with this. Fertility education programs,
47:42
Speaker 2: government funded initiatives to educate women about their menstrual cycle
47:45
Speaker 2: and fertility. I am totally in favor of that. Expanded
47:49
Speaker 2: access to IVF. How do you feel about IVF.
47:53
Speaker 3: Initial thing about it is it's fine, and if anybody
47:56
Speaker 3: wants a child, they should be able to have one.
47:59
Speaker 3: But when people do like choosing specific children, my opinion changes,
48:06
Speaker 3: you know. So so.
48:12
Speaker 2: I this is where I sort of branch off from
48:15
Speaker 2: like Catholic pro life people, because Jews don't think that
48:20
Speaker 2: life begins at conception at that egg point. Although like,
48:25
Speaker 2: why there's like a flash when that happens.
48:30
Speaker 4: I think that's the other day. Yeah, it's like a
48:33
Speaker 4: godly spark to me.
48:35
Speaker 2: So I have a lot of friends who write about
48:38
Speaker 2: like abandoned embryos and stuff and I'm just gonna be honest.
48:43
Speaker 2: I feel nothing about abandoned embryos. Yeah, like those imagine.
48:51
Speaker 3: Them, they're on the shelf. What do you call it?
48:52
Speaker 3: There's like a stupid thought to have. But I'm crazy,
48:57
Speaker 3: do you know what I mean? They can wait sat
48:59
Speaker 3: there on the shell.
49:01
Speaker 2: And they're like people, and they're just like yeah, they're
49:03
Speaker 2: just like ten.
49:03
Speaker 3: They're pretty bored.
49:04
Speaker 2: You know.
49:06
Speaker 3: Now you don't like that, I don't.
49:09
Speaker 2: I mean, the two things that I said don't make
49:12
Speaker 2: sense together. Like I think that there's like a a
49:18
Speaker 2: like godly spark at that moment, but also I don't
49:22
Speaker 2: really care.
49:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I kind of know what you mean. Like
49:25
Speaker 3: I also feel like this way of an abortion. To
49:27
Speaker 3: be honest, I know you don't. But I flew up
49:31
Speaker 3: tacking abortion was totally fine and everybody should be able
49:34
Speaker 3: to have it, and then I had a baby and
49:36
Speaker 3: was like, oh God, like twenty weeks is.
49:41
Speaker 4: This is really fun?
49:42
Speaker 3: Yeah? It's like the UK is like twenty foy's either
49:45
Speaker 3: twenty two or twenty four weeks.
49:46
Speaker 4: I'm like, yeah, that's too far.
49:48
Speaker 3: You've already fucking by that, you know.
49:50
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't have like a religious or really
49:54
Speaker 2: like honestly emotional position on abortion. I think my position
50:00
Speaker 2: is just more logically based. Like we determine the time
50:05
Speaker 2: of death when your heart stops beating. That's like, there's
50:09
Speaker 2: so many other barometers, like when your brain stops working,
50:13
Speaker 2: when you're when you're like, but we measure the end
50:17
Speaker 2: of death at the cessation of a heartbeat. To me,
50:21
Speaker 2: the logical you know, start of a life is the
50:27
Speaker 2: beginning of a heartbeat. Like that, those are two like
50:31
Speaker 2: very clear benchmarks to me. The start of a heartbeat,
50:33
Speaker 2: the end of a heartbeat, life life, That's it. And
50:35
Speaker 2: nothing outside of those parameters is life. But this is life.
50:39
Speaker 2: But that's very early, Like you start, you know, you
50:42
Speaker 2: have a heartbeat in there two three weeks after this period,
50:46
Speaker 2: it's very early. And that's the other thing that kind
50:49
Speaker 2: of bothers me about what I learned about fertility and
50:54
Speaker 2: birth and all these things, Like everything happens much earlier
50:58
Speaker 2: than I knew I had a baby.
51:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so true, And I think that the thing
51:03
Speaker 3: that upsets me, like do I care if women get
51:07
Speaker 3: abortions now? It actually makes no difference to my days,
51:09
Speaker 3: say life, But what I will say is like I've
51:12
Speaker 3: had friends who had abortions and thought of it as
51:16
Speaker 3: nothing because they were told that every woman should have.
51:20
Speaker 4: The change and it's like a bunch of selves.
51:21
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And then they had the abortion and they
51:25
Speaker 3: have thought about it every single day since, and it's
51:27
Speaker 3: done terrible things to their mental health, to the point
51:30
Speaker 3: that like, if they would have just had the child,
51:32
Speaker 3: they'd probably be happier.
51:33
Speaker 1: Yeah.
51:34
Speaker 3: And I kind of think that in the same way
51:36
Speaker 3: as fertility, Like we pretend that forty two year old
51:39
Speaker 3: women don't have to have a second thought about getting
51:41
Speaker 3: pregnant because it's all fine, and you never have to
51:44
Speaker 3: worry about having a baby because women are super superstars.
51:49
Speaker 3: I can do whatever they want, you know. I just
51:53
Speaker 3: wish that we would have more honest conversations, like I
51:56
Speaker 3: decide and say, it's actually a very traumatic experien to
52:00
Speaker 3: some people, and they'll never forget the day that they
52:02
Speaker 3: took that pill or had the d n see.
52:05
Speaker 2: And one person that I think is like changing the
52:11
Speaker 2: conversation more than maybe anyone else is Lyla Rose from
52:14
Speaker 2: Live Action. She she posted a screenshot of a Reddit
52:21
Speaker 2: not article, but like a Reddit post, I guess from
52:24
Speaker 2: a woman who took an abortion pill. And the woman
52:26
Speaker 2: wasn't very far along. She was like ten eleven weeks,
52:30
Speaker 2: and she described the process of having this you know,
52:34
Speaker 2: abortion pill induced abortion, and she you know, passed this
52:39
Speaker 2: baby in her shower and she said like it was small,
52:44
Speaker 2: but I saw an eye and I was like, oh,
52:47
Speaker 2: And that stayed with me in a way that like
52:51
Speaker 2: was I mean, I read this whatever she posted like
52:53
Speaker 2: weeks ago, and I like that stayed with me. That is, like,
52:59
Speaker 2: if we're talking about like pro life messaging and everything
53:02
Speaker 2: that works, she's very good at it. Yeah, because I
53:07
Speaker 2: kind of feel like you do. Like I am pro life.
53:11
Speaker 2: I go to the pro life rallies, but like again,
53:16
Speaker 2: I feel differently when it's past twelve weeks. I have
53:18
Speaker 2: differently when it's twenty, like viable, you know all those things.
53:23
Speaker 2: It doesn't keep me up at night.
53:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm there with you. I mean I didn't
53:29
Speaker 3: never had an abution before I had a baby. Well,
53:32
Speaker 3: I've still never had an ebultion, right, Like I probably
53:36
Speaker 3: would have if I would have been one of the
53:39
Speaker 3: people to go pregnant at sixteen or seventeen or eighteen, Yeah,
53:43
Speaker 3: I would have too, And I think it truly would
53:45
Speaker 3: have messed me up for life then having a child,
53:50
Speaker 3: Like I remember every single week that was passing and
53:53
Speaker 3: being Nike. Really have friends who had like ebultions at
53:57
Speaker 3: this point, and like that must have been really hard,
54:00
Speaker 3: and I just kind of dismissed it at the time
54:02
Speaker 3: when they put it all afterwards.
54:04
Speaker 2: But yeah, I have a number of friends who have
54:07
Speaker 2: had abortions and or like family members too, and they
54:10
Speaker 2: were never they were never okay, they were never the same.
54:13
Speaker 2: When I was pregnant with my oldest, I was living
54:15
Speaker 2: in New York and working in New York, and I
54:18
Speaker 2: whenever I would google like this, anything about like size
54:22
Speaker 2: of a baby at eight weeks or whatever, like anything,
54:25
Speaker 2: I was just sitting at my desk board and curious.
54:27
Speaker 2: I would always get an abortion Google ad and it
54:33
Speaker 2: really really started to get to me. Like I at
54:37
Speaker 2: my twenty week ultrasound when I saw her spine and
54:39
Speaker 2: I saw her fingers, and I cried because I had
54:44
Speaker 2: I had googled right before then, like something about the
54:48
Speaker 2: twenty week ultrasound, and it just and an abortion ad
54:50
Speaker 2: popped up, and it was very reassuring. It said, you
54:53
Speaker 2: can get an abortion up to this many weeks in
54:56
Speaker 2: New York City and I was like, and then I
54:58
Speaker 2: went to my appointment, like immediately after, and I cried
55:01
Speaker 2: looking at it.
55:01
Speaker 4: I was like, this is a human frickin' being like this.
55:05
Speaker 3: Is It's so different when you've had a kid, like
55:08
Speaker 3: you know the weeks that line up with the with
55:12
Speaker 3: the week, like, isn't Virginia. I don't even know if
55:14
Speaker 3: I believe this, but Virginia is like unlimited time abortion.
55:18
Speaker 3: What's it called? It sounds right, yeah, but how was
55:20
Speaker 3: that even? But like yeah, yeah, like that's like undeniedly miked.
55:25
Speaker 3: I don't want to sound like like it like it crazy. Yeah, no,
55:30
Speaker 3: it's shortly undeniable. Right.
55:32
Speaker 2: Well, I mean if you look at like the countries
55:35
Speaker 2: and like the abortion laws we are, it's like US,
55:39
Speaker 2: China and like North Korea, like we are real global
55:43
Speaker 2: outliers in what we allow here. I mean to me,
55:46
Speaker 2: like the twelve week mark, ten week mark I was
55:51
Speaker 2: I was talking to I was talking to a family
55:53
Speaker 2: member about abortion, and he was like he was young,
55:57
Speaker 2: he was like eighteen years old and had never thought
55:59
Speaker 2: about it once and like yeah, whatever, like he doesn't
56:02
Speaker 2: care about this, And so I showed him a picture
56:06
Speaker 2: on my on my pregnancy app and I covered the
56:10
Speaker 2: many weeks and I was like, do you think that
56:12
Speaker 2: I should be able to abort this? And he was like, oh,
56:14
Speaker 2: hell no, And I'm like and I kept I kept
56:18
Speaker 2: going back and like at like six weeks he was like, yeah,
56:22
Speaker 2: maybe maybe, but oh yeah, what is that? What is
56:25
Speaker 2: that red thing? And I'm like, that's the hard.
56:28
Speaker 3: That's so obviously fine.
56:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it still looks like a fish.
56:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that. I think. Yeah. I don't like
56:39
Speaker 3: things changed so much when you when you have a baby.
56:42
Speaker 3: It's crazy, Like I would have never said this two
56:45
Speaker 3: years ago.
56:45
Speaker 2: He been, yeah, no, I've really been radicalized since having babies.
56:48
Speaker 4: It's interesting.
56:50
Speaker 3: I was talking.
56:50
Speaker 2: I was talking to my oldest daughter about this and
56:52
Speaker 2: she was like, how could how could moms be okay
56:56
Speaker 2: with it? And I was like, I'll play Devil's advocate
56:59
Speaker 2: and I did it with her too. We know how
57:02
Speaker 2: hard pregnancy is, we know how hard birth is. Should
57:07
Speaker 2: every woman do that? But like we have agency like
57:12
Speaker 2: welcome to twenty twenty five, And when people talk about
57:17
Speaker 2: abortion policy and they're like, well what about the woman
57:21
Speaker 2: that was raped, I'm like, I'm okay with carbon exception
57:24
Speaker 2: for her.
57:24
Speaker 4: Let's do that, right.
57:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's ninety percent of abortions we're saying no to
57:30
Speaker 2: if you're going to use the extreme outliers. And this
57:33
Speaker 2: is the mistake that pro lifers make. They just seed
57:38
Speaker 2: that ground, see it, just say extreme fetal abnormality and
57:44
Speaker 2: rape and incest. Done. Fine, Yeah, that's one percent being
57:50
Speaker 2: generous one percent that There was that Texas case a
57:54
Speaker 2: while back where the woman wanted to abort a baby
57:58
Speaker 2: that had such a had a like fatal fetal abnormality. Yeah,
58:02
Speaker 2: and pro lifers came out and they were like, I
58:06
Speaker 2: gave birth to my terminally ill baby and it was beautiful,
58:10
Speaker 2: and I was like, stop it, stop it. That is
58:15
Speaker 2: not the message. The message is what a tragedy. Let's
58:19
Speaker 2: carve out an exception for it.
58:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, move on, mm hmm. Yeah.
58:24
Speaker 2: Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
58:27
Speaker 3: That's you inspirational that you know who.
58:29
Speaker 4: I took that from Jared Kushner.
58:35
Speaker 3: It is not you're gonna say that.
58:37
Speaker 4: Gone.
58:38
Speaker 2: Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
58:41
Speaker 2: Seed the ground seed, the terminally ill fetal diagnosis seed,
58:45
Speaker 2: the abortion and the the rape and incest.
58:49
Speaker 3: Just leave it.
58:50
Speaker 4: On the table. Give it to them. I think all
58:54
Speaker 4: their emotional manipulation.
58:56
Speaker 3: And I think that we should thank Jared kushnerpirational quotes.
59:03
Speaker 2: I know it didn't come from him, but the first
59:04
Speaker 2: person I heard it from was him, and whenever I
59:07
Speaker 2: say it, I think, thanks Jared.
59:10
Speaker 3: You know that Dadai lama ya, Jared Kushna.
59:16
Speaker 2: There's these these terrible jewelry commercials. I got it, Thanks
59:20
Speaker 2: Jared or like whatever, and so that's what I think.
59:24
Speaker 2: Thanks Jared Kushner. All right, Well, this episode is dedicated
59:29
Speaker 2: to Jared Kushner. Thank you everyone for listening to this
59:36
Speaker 2: very winding conversation.
59:41
Speaker 4: It was a good It was a doozy. It was
59:42
Speaker 4: a good one.
59:43
Speaker 2: Hopefully it tieded you over from the like two weeks
59:45
Speaker 2: that we haven't podcasted. Don't forget to hit subscribe on
59:49
Speaker 2: all your podcast apps and leave us reviews unless they're mean.
59:54
Speaker 4: We should.
59:55
Speaker 2: We should review our own podcast, by the way, let's
59:57
Speaker 2: go do that right now, and everyone can go watch.
1:00:00
Speaker 2: When you go and review us, you'll see our reviews
1:00:03
Speaker 2: of ourselves and it's gonna be really pathetic and thirst.
1:00:07
Speaker 2: No you can't cause it's linked to your Apple account.
1:00:10
Speaker 2: So you'll see the sad, pathetic, thirsty reviews that we've
1:00:13
Speaker 2: left ourselves. Yeah, there you go, And that's also sad
1:00:16
Speaker 2: and pathetic, so when you see a nick, you'll know
1:00:17
Speaker 2: it's still pathetic. So help us not be so pathetic
1:00:21
Speaker 2: and give us a review so we're not the only
1:00:24
Speaker 2: ones reviewing our podcast, all right, until next time, Saddle.
1:00:29
Speaker 3: Upe Ricochet join the conversation.