[00:00:06] Speaker A: Hi.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: My name is Katie Malone, and I'm Brendan, the husband.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: And you're listening to The Little Flock, the podcast that offers practical insights about living a counterculture of goodness, truth and beauty in a world of increasingly hostile secularism and indifference.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: So if you're looking to learn from two imperfect followers of Christ about how to live like the wheat amongst the darnell, this is definitely the podcast for you.
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Little Flock podcast.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Great to be back again.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: It is, isn't it? Katie, it's been a long break between drinks. Let us explain, please, sir. I forgot to do my homework and here's my excuse. So basically what happened was last year Katie took a temporary contract, a little bit of part time work, just to help with the family income and all that kind of thing, those important things. And family has to come first. And so with that on top of everything else, we just didn't have time to record episodes. So we made the difficult decision to hit pause and then come back this year. So we are back, brighter than ever.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Oh, I don't know. What month is it?
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. We're ready for something.
Before we jump into the topics of conversation and your questions, we got lots to actually talk about today, lots of interesting stuff.
Please share and subscribe. If you are not already a subscriber to the podcast, and if your podcast platform, whatever you're listening on right now, whatever platform you are listening on, if it allows you to give us a rating, some stars, a comment, if you could do that, that would be really, really helpful. All that kind of stuff helps the show. Now, if you want to support the work that we're doing, you can do that as well. And there's two ways to do that. One
[email protected] leftfoot media, and you can become a regular monthly patron to help support these episodes and all of the other content that we produce. Or if you go directly to our Lifenet.org NZ website, which, by the way, has had a massive makeover, finally, we've finished the makeover. I had to make some time for that. We've finished it. So the LifeNet website now is looking really good, if I do say so myself. And Katie didn't have to do too much proofreading or anything, so that's good. I didn't make too many mistakes. But on that website, you will find our donate option and it gives you the details for the bank account. And if you're in New Zealand, that means that if you use your name anyway, we can track your donations and you can get a tax receipt at the end of the year. So those are the two ways to support us. And last but not least, before we jump into the conversation, Katie, which I know you are rearing itching to get out of the gates with, is we obviously want to answer and respond to your questions and talk about topics that you want to talk about. You can do that or send us your questions. And the easiest way to do that is by going to either Lifenet.org NZ, that's probably the quickest way, actually. And you will see on the homepage now, there's a scrolling little banner across the top that says, ask your questions or send your questions, something like that, to the Little Flock podcast. And there's a brand new form we were previously using, a Google form. We've now got a form, a direct contact form on that website, and so that's the quickest and easiest way to do that. So lifenet.org. NZ, fill in the form. You can do it anonymously. You don't have to add your name if you don't want to. If it's something a bit more sensitive.
[00:03:33] Speaker A: There'S no silly questions.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: No, yeah, there are no wrong questions.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Silly answer.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: You might get some of those.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: So please, and I know already, one of the questions we're going to talk about today actually came to us courtesy of that brand new form. So thank you to that person first to use it before we'd even announced it. So someone was looking onto it, keeping an eye on things. All right, so let's just jump straight into it, shall we?
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: No better way to start than to actually start at the beginning. And the only way out of this podcast is by getting through it. So let's just jump straight in. We got a couple of articles we want to discuss before we respond to your questions. And of course, as you know, if you're new here, you won't know this, but each month we do a little moment of goodness, truth or beauty, and a little scripture reflection as well. That something that, for each of us, has meant something this past month. So, first article. Seth rogen. Do you know who Seth Rogen is, Katie?
[00:04:31] Speaker A: I do.
[00:04:33] Speaker B: Unfortunately, I do.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: I mean, we're not BFFs or anything, as the kids would say, as the youths would say.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: Is he cool? He's a bit weird at times. I mean, he's probably a lovely we.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: Keep a Virginia around for yeah, that's right.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: He's probably a lovely chat. He definitely is. I think he's had his heyday, like, he was big, what, ten years ago? There was movies like what was it? Yeah, the 2010s. Super Bad knocked up those what's his name? I can't remember. The filmmaker now who used to make all those movies. But Seth Rogen was always, like, his.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: Go to funny guy.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Yeah, funny guy.
But he was also a bit of a stoner, it's fair to say. And it seems that that character he played may be, I don't know, closer to home for him in some ways, based on this article, this guy. Those who don't know Seth Rogen's work, I assume some of you, or many of you maybe will, but those who know it was the sort of basically, he was the man boy.
Yeah. He's the grown up man who's still acting like an adolescent, drug smoker, irresponsible dude. And usually the plots well, usually when they weren't Stoner movies, they revolved around him being unable to maintain adult relationships. Right. Because he was still acting like an adolescent boy with no virtue. So this article has been published. She did an interview recently on a podcast, and Seth Rogen, let me read you from the article, claims his life is happier. Not just happier, because that's the measure these days. Are you happy and better, apparently, overall. So that's a big, bold claim. I'm not just happier, I'm better than you overall, because he and his wife, Lauren Miller, decided not to have any children.
So not an untypical sentiment. Sadly, we hear it a lot more commonly today, right?
[00:06:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: Let me give you some of the comments, he said, and then we'll have a conversation about it. He said, there's a whole huge thing I'm not doing, which is raising children. The actor said when host Stephen Bartlett asked Rogan if his life would have been happier with kids, the Freaks and geeks, alum. That's how the cool kids say alumni, isn't it? Alum said that it would not.
I don't think it would. Rogan replied, I've been around, obviously, a lot of children. I'm not ignorant to what it's like. That's a funny reply. I've seen those small humans, so I know all about parenting now. That's not how that works. I used to think that way. It's not how it works. Everyone I know has kids. I'm 40, you know. I know. This is me quoting him.
Some of my friends have had kids for decades. Some people want kids, some people don't want kids. I mean, a lot of people have kids before they even think about it. From what I've seen, honestly, you were just told, you go through life, you get married, you have kids. It's what happens. Me and my wife, neither of us were like that. He said, honestly, the older we get, the more happy and reaffirmed we are with our choice to not have kids. That sounds like someone's trying to reassure themselves, doesn't it?
[00:07:34] Speaker A: A little bit justification, yeah.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Why do you keep revisiting of it? He's so happy. Like, my wife and I, we don't keep going back and going, oh, should we have had kids?
There's no questioning. So the fact that we reaffirm suggests that maybe they do. It plays on their mind a bit.
Reaffirmed we are with our choice to not have kids. It was something we kind of talked about more, and we were like, have we made the right choice? Are we short? Those sound like reaffirmed questions people, don't they, now, more than anything, the conversation is like, honestly, thank God we don't have children. We get to do whatever we want.
Well, that sums it up, doesn't it? Yeah. They finally last little bit. They say this Rogan went on, we are in the prime of our lives. We are smarter than we've ever been.
I know. This is it.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: Man newsflash, guys. Not having children makes you smarter.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: Seth rogen.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: Yeah. So what? You're happier, better than us and smarter than us. This is just brilliant. We understand ourselves more than we ever have. Well, that's debatable, I think, isn't it? Isn't it? We have the capacity to achieve a level of work and a level of communication and care for one another and a lifestyle. We can live with one another that we've never been able to live before. And we can just do that. And we don't have to raise a child, which the world does not need right now.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: I don't know if the world's missing Seth Rogen Jr. To be honest.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: Well, I don't know. I disagree.
I think Seth Rogen's missing Seth Rogen Jr. Because imagine our lives without the profound school of love that is, I think I don't know about you, but I would not be the person that I am today. I'd be a lot worse.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: I would still be smarter, though.
Be in the prime of your life.
[00:09:29] Speaker B: This is so funny, isn't it? Because there's a lot tied up in this. But basically, I mean, the honest moment where you said the quiet part out loud was when he said we get to do whatever we want. It's probably it right.
And I don't want to be judgmental.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: This is too hard to live the lifestyle I want to live.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: I don't want to be judgmental, but I am going to be judgmental. So strap in.
It's a funny thing in our culture because you can see what's happening. You can see the sort of loss of family tradition, the breakdown of family, and how this is a very and it's gone from people sort of just saying quietly not having kids to now, like, this is hezeko is actually celebrating.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: It advertising. He's marketing for it.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's almost there's a moral superiority. There's like an ear of moral superiority, too.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: Yeah. I've made a better decision.
[00:10:21] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm betterer than you.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: Smarter.
I also argue that having children helps you to understand yourselves better. I mean, how can he say he understands himself more than he ever has? Maybe he does, but having children gives you a more reflective you're more likely to reflect on your own character and how you behave and treat other people and how you model for your children. And they give us that mirror that you don't otherwise get. Your spouse can't be your mirror for you.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: No, that's so true. And that's funny enough. That's something that really stuck out to me. It's like, well, how do you know.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: That he probably does understand himself. Surely by the time you're 40, hopefully you've done some self reflection and maybe you do understand yourself better. But having children gives you another level.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: Of I don't know, though.
I think about me as 40 and now versus 47, I think the massive level, even between 40 and 45, I'm Supreme Commander Brendan.
You know what the cause of it was? It's family. It's children, the demands they make of you and as they get older. Yeah, and it's like all of that's missing.
It's a funny thing when you think you've got it all figured out at 40 anyway. But I mean, to be fair, he doesn't really seem to be saying he's got it figured out, but he's sort of acting like a guy who's like no, the funny thing is, too, though, is how is it he able to say this with such confidence that my life is happier?
You don't know the answer.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: Like, when you're 20 and you're like, my children will never it's the same thing if you haven't parented, you don't know, right? Yeah.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: So you can't actually know. Like, he's making a claim that he cannot possibly make. My life is happier, and it's better because I don't have children. Well, you've never had children, so you don't know whether that's true. I would argue, on the flip side, those of us who've got kids and who haven't had kids previously, I think we can answer that question to a certain degree because you could say, well, what if maybe you were 40? I mean, I don't know what it's like to be 40 without kids because I was 40 when I had kids. I mean, I had kids through my 40s, for example. But I think in another way, I can say, well, I know what life is like without them, and I know what life is like with them.
But, yeah, this is the thing of our age, because there's this confident, bold assertion, but it's not grounded in anything beyond his own personal belief. It's purely him believing this is better and he is happier. He doesn't know it.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: I think there's also an argument for we know people that can't have children and would love to have children, and that's a sadness and a grief in their lives. I think it's just that unwillingness to give yourself to something else or to someone else. So the people I know that haven't been able to have children or have the family size they've wanted go outside of themselves and find their fulfillment, giving and serving. And I think that's really important, that I mean, who knows? Hopefully Seth Rogen's doing some charity work.
But that's what helps you to grow. That's what helps you to understand yourself and be a better person and be smarter and more empathetic is because you choose to give in whatever way.
And if you're someone who's unable to have a family, that you should be finding an outlet for that and finding a good finding a way to be a better human, essentially.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: It's a funny we'll come back to that in a second because one of the things he talks about here is all the things they've been able to achieve, but I didn't list any of them.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: Really.
[00:14:07] Speaker B: Well, it's funny, isn't it? Well, I think about well, the implication is that somehow children are an inferior thing to have a legacy that's inferior to making a movie or having smashed avocado on Sunday morning and getting out of bed, rolling out of bed at 11:00 a.m. Because no one's asking you for breakfast at nine. Do you know what I mean? Mummy, mummy, mummy, daddy. To get my thing. The implication is that somehow what he's doing is a better achievement.
But I know this is the funny thing, and you probably know who I'm talking about here, but we've got friends of ours, a couple. They had their children married young by today's standards, but not really young young, but they married young by today's standards. Had their children and then their children were all at the youngest was at school and they were in their 30s sort of thing. And they were really in the prime of life. They didn't lose anything. They were still able to do that stuff. And I look at our lives and the creativity and the output of our beyond just our family, and I think my creative output has improved massively. And I think having leveled up, I've leveled up.
[00:15:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I need like a video game.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: You do? We need little sound effects.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: Well, I've got one here, but I don't know if it's appropriate. Come on, man. So that's Joe Biden saying come on, man. But maybe that's what Joe Biden would say to Seth Rogen. Come on, man.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: I think also maybe he's not sad about not having children now, but when he sees his friends with their grandchildren, might be where the sadness know that, oh, actually, it's not just children of my own that I've missed out on, it's actually I'm already looking forward to having grandkids.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right.
And I think, too, as you get older, not that we have children, so that we'll get something out of it, but as you get older, I think it would be a terrible tragedy to die alone. The world of liberal Enlightenment enlightenment, sorry, liberal Enlightenment liberalism. It seems fun when you're young and just doing what you self gratifying, but then as you get older and you start to reprioritize and realize as you get wiser because you do what is truly important in life. And then when you realize, well, all these other people are out partying and they don't want me around because I'm an old fuddy daddy and I've got no one around me, no family, no community.
I imagine for a lot of people at that moment, the true reality of that decision. I don't know if too many of them would be going, yeah, we made the right decision. It was definitely as they're sitting alone, maybe in a rest home in their 70s or 80s with absolutely no one around them and no sense of my life.
My legacy will live on.
It's not enough to say, by the way, there's a dog barking outside. For those who are wondering what that noise is.
The neighbor's dog, man.
It's not enough to say, well, okay, well, I made a whole lot of stoner comedies, or even if he goes on to make the greatest film that the world has ever seen, that as great a legacy as that would be. It's still not as great as the legacy of someone else. I will live on in a very profound way through my own children and grandchildren. That's a profound sort of gap in his life.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: As the Orthodox say, memory eternal. Who's going to be here to have that for him?
[00:17:33] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. It's exactly right. One of the last things he says here, and this will lead us into the next article, is he says about not having to raise a child. And he said, which the world does not need right now.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: That's a very nihilistic closing statement. The world doesn't need the world doesn't need people.
Yeah. The seals and the snails and the icebergs will live on happily without us. Yeah, of course they will. Which actually leads really well into the next article, which is these two articles we decided to look at because they actually, as we're going, getting ready for today, katie said, why haven't we got anything positive to talk about? It's a positive article.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: So we have space people.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Watch the space. And we've also got a TikTok article coming up. We want to talk to you about TikTok next month. We'll do that, and that's something that I think to consider. But right now, the second article, which is very, very closely related to Seth Rogen saying, well, I'm happier and I'm better without kids. This was an article that appeared in the New Zealand Herald. Five big ethical questions to ask yourself before having a baby. Did you even ask one?
[00:18:41] Speaker A: I think it's one ethical question. It's the usual one.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:45] Speaker A: Don't you love the environment, though? Isn't that what the question boils down to?
[00:18:49] Speaker B: Yeah. The question is, are you a filthy, polluting, carbon emitting, deviant, dirty human being? You disgust me. You should hate yourself. Don't you dare reproduce.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: Pretty much.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: Now, what's your answer to that question? But you're right, that is really what it boils down to. But here's the funny thing to us thinking about this, I was thinking, well, what an absurdity. Like, we didn't ask ourselves, and nor should you, I don't think. Well, the question is, am I married? Probably. That's a good question. From a Christian perspective, there's obvious little questions you might think about, like, okay, what's our current health situation? Or is there a serious health complication in our life right now?
Are there serious financial burdens? Those kinds of questions sort of float around. But if you have to go through a tick box exercise about whether or not you should have a child, I think you've lost sight of the beauty and the joy and the wonder of what it is to a make a baby that's really quite wonderful and joyful and also the whole wonder if it's like, okay, get the clipboard there.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: Yeah, we can't do it this month.
[00:20:02] Speaker B: Before we consummate parts per, whatever.
Before we consummate, we must check our carbon emissions. It's like, what is wrong with this mental sort of technocratic imposition on the joy of mums and dads and having babies?
[00:20:20] Speaker A: I found the irony was he does talk about overpopulation. And there's a bit where it says for everybody in the world to live in comfort, the ideal population of the world is 3 billion. And so there's 5 billion people too many. And then he goes on to say, if the climate crisis continues, millions people will die. And I was like, Wasn't that going to solve your problem?
Which not having babies isn't the solution. Just let the climate crisis take care of it.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: As a friend of mine always used to say, when people would start talking like this, there's too many people. We've got too many people we can't have. We got to do something about it's. Like well okay. You first.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: Yeah, what are you doing about it?
[00:20:55] Speaker B: Why don't you jump off that cliff over there?
[00:20:56] Speaker A: And who are we saving the planet for if we're not going to have babies?
[00:20:59] Speaker B: Well, we're saving it for what? 3 billion elite, urban elite, smashed avocado, toast eating, late sipping liberals. You know what I mean? What exactly is this? What is this vision? Like I said, it's a vision that's anti human, I would argue, in lots of ways. Let's read from the article and then look at the questions that are put to us that apparently we failed to ask. So we are clearly immoral parents. I am a PhD candidate at a Manash Bioethics center. And as soon as I saw Manash, I was like, oh, not Manash again. They've had some crazy stuff come out of there. You might remember a few years back, there were a couple of academics attached to Manash University who were proposing that infanticide could be a good idea. So it's like, oh, here we go. I researched the ethics of procreation in a time of climate change.
So not the ethics of procreation, but the ethics of procreation in a time of climate change. Somehow procreation has become something else just because people are freaking out about the climate. I found there's no simple yes or no answer to whether we should produce more children when the Earth is in such dire straits. Okay, well, then this whole article is pointless. That would seem to suggest that, right? But I'm about to give you some yes no answers.
People who want to have children are faced with a dilemma. Well, we weren't.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: We didn't have this article to draw from, darling.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: No, that's right. We didn't know. We were ignorant and I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Gods and high priests of climate. I'm just so sorry. Creating a child who would be responsible for high emissions over their lifetime requires others to stay in poverty if the planet is to operate within its physical limits, this, it can easily be argued, furthers injustice and inequality. He's wrong, by the way, on these points. We'll talk about that in just a second. Many people argue that the world has an overpopulation problem. Overpopulation has been defined as the state where there are more people than can live on Earth in comfort, happiness and health and still leave the world a fit place for future generations. Well, I would even dispute that claim because is that really overpopulation? Like, what is your measure of comfort, happiness and health?
[00:23:10] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:23:11] Speaker B: Because that is a very arbitrary and constantly shifting thanks to technology set of goalposts and what is comfort and also very yeah, yeah.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: I mean, obviously there's people living in Africa and Asia in extreme poverty and yeah. I don't know if we can argue they're not healthy. Not happy, rather.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:30] Speaker A: And we should be doing our best to care for those people 100%.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So we want to be responsible stewards. We don't want to be irresponsible or immoral in our behaviors that would cause harm to others.
But here's the thing. If you ask that's a great example of an African family. What does it mean to you to be happy?
[00:23:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: And I guarantee you they're not going to say, well, I can go out for smashed avocado toast and I've got a five bedroom house and I've got an iPhone and my kids are going to the best school. I guarantee you they'll be saying, I've got a family, I've got a community, there's peace.
Yeah. And for eons, for almost all of our human history until really the last hundred years or so, even probably less than that, we have defined human flourishing in a much more, I think, authentic and wholesome and true way than what we do now. It's very superficial now, at least he admits that when he says this, but this definition is open to interpretation. Overpopulation is not just because he actually wants to get worse and make an even worse definition of overpopulation. Overpopulation is not just about numbers, but also values.
If people in affluent countries value their lifestyles and the opportunity for others to have the same lifestyle, then the world is overpopulated. Well, do you want others to have the same lifestyle? I actually don't know if I do. I want them to have stability and peace and these beautiful things we enjoy here that are fundamentals. But to be honest with you, I wouldn't want to inflict Western lifestyles upon people in Africa who have strong family and local community culture because that would be a disaster for them. Because I don't want them to have what we have with broken families as a common norm, with families who don't live in community, with communities that are not functioning at all. So there's authentic communities missing. Yeah. I don't want to inflict that on them. He goes on to say this. Indeed, estimates by ecologists and philosophers, okay, the philosopher's Stone show a person born in the developed world can enjoy their lifestyle only if there are no more than two or 3 billion people on the planet. There are now more than 8 billion. Well, I know, for example, economists, economists. I was going to say economists. Economists who completely disagree with you and who would say, well, in actual fact, you need according to the current economic model we're living, you need people actually working and earning and spending and doing things like that. So New Zealand, for example, some years ago, there was a clear acknowledgment that we were missing about 500,000 people from our economy. It's probably even more than that now. And by the way, that statement was being made around the same time that our total number of abortions since the late 1970s had hit 500,000 missing.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: What a coincidence.
[00:26:23] Speaker B: Human beings, right?
But he's also wrong. There's some interesting books that have been written lately by academics who have looked at the data and who are now saying, look, no, the world's not actually facing an overpopulation crisis. We're about to have a massive depopulation crisis because we haven't had enough children. It's happening all over the planet. And so what that means is, going forward, one of these academics is quite interesting. In the book that he wrote, he talked about the fact that people who are really worried about climate change, like this guy, the problem will actually resolve well, the problem of emissions will resolve itself because there just won't be enough people to emit high levels of carbon, if that's your concern. And in fact, these people are warning that we're in trouble because we don't have enough kids. And going forward, that's going to be a real problem. And economies will implode because they won't have enough young taxpayers to support retiring populations. So, yeah, maybe he needs to do.
[00:27:24] Speaker A: He says here, if Global fertility rates drop by only 0.5 births per woman, you could go on he goes on to say, you could save all this carbon.
But the reality is, in a lot of countries, if they dropped by 0.5 births per woman, they wouldn't be having no hardly any babies, no under one in a lot of places.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: Yeah. In New Zealand now, that would mean we would be having less than one child. Our fertility rate would drop beneath one if that became the norm, and that would be disaster. So we're not even already in New Zealand, we're not even replicating ourselves. And that's not you don't have to be a rocket. Scientist to know that you haven't got a future if you're not replacing yourself.
So, yeah, if you dropped it even further yeah. This is where I think you have this bizarre, again, this vision of reality that's just sort of grounded in the here and now and nothing more that I think is overly worrisome about things.
And also really, let's be honest, these ideas are grounded in his notion that we should all be living like, probably I mean, he talks about being an urban elite sort of person. He's quite open about that, that living that lifestyle. But maybe if we were living a different, more simple kind of lifestyle and we just looked to a more communal, simple style of living, then maybe this wouldn't even be an issue.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: He says here I should acknowledge here that I don't have the lived experience of being a woman or person who can carry a child.
Okay, so what are these persons who can carry children who are not women?
[00:28:57] Speaker A: There was a name for that.
[00:28:58] Speaker B: Yeah, if only there was a name for so woman or other bizarre alien creatures who live among us who can have babies. Come on, man, this is just ideology, mate. There's only one way you can have a woman have a woman have a baby, and that is by being a woman. And please don't denigrate my wife by suggesting otherwise.
He then goes on to say this anyone who with the means to control their fertility now has an obligation to ask themselves the following five questions. That's a pretty bold statement, Patty.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: An obligation.
[00:29:29] Speaker B: This is a moral obligation. It's funny, isn't it? In an age where we're like, he.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: Doesn'T say moral because that would well.
[00:29:36] Speaker B: Everything else in the article, because this is all about ethics, he's saying true really does imply quite strongly this is a moral obligation. In an age where it's like just you do you, you do what feels good, but you do have a moral obligation when it comes to having babies in the club. It's like that one thing you can't do is have children.
[00:29:55] Speaker A: Or you should really think hard about it.
[00:29:58] Speaker B: You can be a polyamorous, multi partnered, open marriage couple, but, oh no, you better not have children. You've got an obligation to think about that. It's like, okay, here are the questions that he poses. Will my child have a high emissions lifestyle?
Will this mean others must live in poverty? If so, is this justifiable? Well, we can tell you from experience the first few years of your child's life will be high emission and so you're going to be changing a lot of nappies, pal.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: I use cloth nappies for twins. We were really for the environment.
[00:30:38] Speaker B: I didn't realize this until recently. Someone said to me, yeah, they said, your wife really is a hippie. And I was like, no, I'm not going to tell you who said that, but they're like your wife. And I was like, no, she's not. She's from the north shore of Auckland.
And they're like, no, trust me, because she's been telling my wife all this stuff about cloth nappies and natural this and natural that. I was like, oh, yeah, I suppose she is. Want to be happy, but yeah. Will my child have high emissions? What's the high emissions lifestyle?
[00:31:05] Speaker A: Well, living in inner city Melbourne, isn't it going on the.
[00:31:11] Speaker B: That would mean just about anyone, but basically everyone should stop having well, if they live on a farm and you've got lots of cows. No, lots of cows.
[00:31:19] Speaker A: The people who have high emissions lifestyle should try and lower their emissions so that the people in poverty can have a high emissions lifestyle, which they need to get out of poverty.
We should have less children in the city so that all the people in Africa no.
Can be allowed more emissions.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: But here's the thing, though. When you think about that as a proposal, this is why I was trying to get my head around it and sort of figure out what he's meaning. So you've got no children and you live in the inner city instead of.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: Two children, but you've one and a half children.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: But again, let's imagine this. You've got no children, you live in the inner city and you drive places.
You now have one child, and then maybe you have two children. You still get in that same car and drive to places.
How has the child increased in emissions? It hasn't increased emissions in any meaningful way, I would argue.
Yeah. Honestly, this to me, feels like this bizarre economic scheme of how many light bulbs will you need on in your house if you have an extra child? How much heating? Like, it's this weird spreadsheet for that kind of yeah, that shouldn't exist.
[00:32:26] Speaker A: Have you done your emission spreadsheet?
[00:32:29] Speaker B: Maybe I'm feeling guilty.
I'm an unethical man. Next question. Do I have biological parenting desires? That is, the desire to parent someone who has my genes that's G-E-N-E-S by the way. Or do I simply have parenting desires?
What? That is the desire to raise someone in a loving environment according to my values, regardless of their genes.
Were they blue jeans or chinos? Do you have I don't really understand.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: Why that's an ethical question.
[00:33:04] Speaker B: It's not. And it's a dumb question, isn't it?
[00:33:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:07] Speaker B: I mean, if your mother your father to a child, an adopted child, are you still mother father? Does your fatherly instinct, your motherly instinct? There are some differences with your own.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: Biological but all of these last four questions are essentially one question yeah, with that same topic.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: So let's go on with those, then. Next question. Even if I might discover a strong biological connection once I have a child, so the implications you don't have one now.
Could I be fulfilled in my life if I raised someone who is not biologically connected to me. Well, by my 40 year old next door neighbor became dad to him.
Is that a question about adoption? Is that what they're trying to get into?
[00:33:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: Okay, next question then.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: There's too many people in the world, so get somebody else's people.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: Borrow someone else's.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: Don't have your own one. Because then you won't be making more people and just be looking after the ones that are already here.
[00:34:02] Speaker B: This is hilarious.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: This is some weird which is not ethical commune. And I've got no problem with that. Absolutely. Foster mentor adopt if you can. Adoption is basically impossible in most countries now.
[00:34:17] Speaker B: We're not looking at anybody or you in particular, abortion, but anyway.
[00:34:21] Speaker A: Carrier well, yeah. It's also sort of frowned upon.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: Certainly in New Zealand, it's home for life or open, kind of. Fostering there's very few adoptions in the classic way that we would understand it because cultural sort of beliefs and stuff. But that's great. Do that. Absolutely. Foster if you can. There's nothing wrong with that.
[00:34:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:45] Speaker A: But sort of I think he's proposing it as a solution to making more people. Because more people equals bad for the environment. Yeah, I've got no problem with looking after the environment. Absolutely wish we're doing that. My ethical question is what will my child add to the world?
[00:34:59] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:35:00] Speaker A: What would my future child give to the world? Maybe they'll solve the climate crisis and you've decided not to have them.
[00:35:06] Speaker B: Do you?
You've done gone stuffed up cletus.
[00:35:11] Speaker A: It comes back to Seth again. I mean, with a slightly more moral angle, but it definitely comes back to that.
It's about me. It's about me and the planet I live in. And yes, wanting to handle on a planet that's in decent shape. Absolutely. But we have to remember having a child. You're talking about more than one person in that equation.
[00:35:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Because that's the next question he asked, right? You've just said it there. If I have only parenting desires, can this be satisfied in other ways? Fostering teaching, mentoring. Mentoring is great, but that's not parenting. And I'm sorry, yeah, teaching is great, but that's not parenting. And the last question is, does satisfying my parenting desires in other ways particularly apply to me if I already have one biological child? So now he seems to be saying it's a one child policy.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:56] Speaker B: So, okay, Katie, you've had your limit now. Now's time to start doing other things. It's so weird, eh? Because the contradiction, of course, is we live in the age of liberalism and you can do what you want to do. My body, my choice. But oh, no, hold on, hold on. You got one child. Stop that right there. We don't anymore.
Yeah, you're right. This whole thing is really it's actually incoherent when you think about it. There's one big question and one other question about high emissions, which you can't even answer. Like, will my child have a high emissions lifestyle.
Well, that's not a question related to whether or not you should have kids. Maybe like, if you really freak out about climate issues. That's a question of do I need to actually become a better steward of the environment? Not Should I have kids? Right. That's a different question. Yeah, he says this as well. Often people who choose not to have children feel the need to explain the decision to others, which maybe this article feels a lot like because he says he's got kids. The above approach would mean the reverse, requiring sorry. That people who wish to ethically bring someone into the world must themselves address difficult questions.
You filthy, filthy breeders.
I would argue this is Repackaged. Eugenic Elitism from the early 19 hundreds and late 18 hundreds. You won't believe all the paupers having babies.
Christine. I have been down the main street and I have seen them. It's disgusting. They hang off them like leeches. The wrong people are having all the children. It's got that kind of vibe to it, like they should have to justify why they're having kids.
US people not having kids and then expecting, by the way, the system to look after us in our retirement.
That's right. Who is the system that does this? It's all the kids of the people who had the babies.
[00:37:55] Speaker A: If you didn't have any babies, I suppose you've just saved all your money and you've got lots of it for.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: Retirement, which is great until your society collapses because you've got all these dependents. No one can actually do that.
This thing is like and you haven't solved the problem like you said. There's a problem here. Okay, Katie, why haven't you had kids?
But then I'll solve that problem by just flipping the script. That's not solving the problem. All you're doing is changing.
The power game's different now. Well, I'll be the one in power who gets to ask the questions around here.
Like I said, it feels so inhuman.
[00:38:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:31] Speaker B: The joy of a child is part of it is that it's the fruit of the sexual life, the life giving, self giving sexual love of a marriage.
It's not an exercise in utilitarian, mathematics and mission outputs, and it's just none of those things. Life is hard.
Life is tough. Kids are the most beautiful cross that you'll ever carry, but they are still a cross. So get over it and get on with it.
[00:38:59] Speaker A: And even by only having one, you can't guarantee that they'll live in comfort, health, happiness for their whole entire life, just like you can't guarantee that for anyone. No, by not having a child, you're not guaranteeing that someone overseas is also going to comfort, happiness.
[00:39:14] Speaker B: Well, also, what happens if you like, okay, well, we've done this equation. Yes, we will have our 0.5 child at one child, and I'll give our child the perfect life, and that child grows up to be an absolute psychopath and some economic woman corporate overlord who just mistreats his employees and gobbles up a whole lot of resources. You see, there's things you can't control and this seems to be like, well, this is a guarantee of ethical behavior, but it's absolutely not. And ethical good outcomes for everybody. But this is the problem with utilitarianism ultimately, is that it wants you to answer a question you can never answer. What will your action today? What will the results of it be in the future? Will you bring about greater good in the world in future? You can't answer that question because you don't know. Yeah, you can't know. So I guess what's the answer here then is just to love your husband, love your wife, be open to new life. It's a beautiful gift from God, even when it's hard and challenging.
And this is why community matters, because we've got this whole thing and this is what both of these articles really point to, is this individualistic liberalism and then we have two individualistic liberals who go, well, Katie, you will gratify me and I will gratify you. So we should make this official. We'll form a marriage partnership and then they become two and they become this little nuclear family. And if they have kids, it's their family. But I would argue that model is all wrong. That's why I don't talk about the nuclear family anymore. Because right up until very recently, we understood that family and community, they are all sort of one they flow out of you can't have families struggling on their own.
[00:40:49] Speaker A: No, that's right.
[00:40:51] Speaker B: We need each other. Because I mean, you and you could probably rattle off 100 different examples of incidents where just the basic community of other mums around you makes all the difference in the world when you're struggling.
[00:41:04] Speaker A: Definitely. Yep.
[00:41:05] Speaker B: And funnily enough, it probably reduces your emissions.
So that beautiful piece of music there that you've just heard means that it's time for our moment of goodness, truth or beauty. Katie, would you like to go first?
[00:41:35] Speaker A: You have done a lot of talking.
[00:41:37] Speaker B: I have actually. I've talked my head off this episode. I'm so sorry folks. If you came here for Katie, I'm sorry.
[00:41:42] Speaker A: Now's your chance.
[00:41:43] Speaker B: I'm so sorry. My emissions have been high.
[00:41:45] Speaker A: My moment is not a on hold on.
[00:41:50] Speaker B: Yeah, go.
[00:41:51] Speaker A: I don't think yours is either. Just looking at what's written on wanted to I was thinking about this and I was like, oh what's really know? Because it's been a long time and I'm sure there's been a lot of good, true and beautiful things in the last few months. But our oldest daughter has just started not just has been working in a rest home, she's 15, she'll be 16 in May. And she's been working in the local rest home, which is about a block away. She started at the end of last year. And this is a kid who her ick factor is pretty her bar for ick is pretty low because I had this conversation with a friend the other day about how my bar for ick is actually quite high. I can handle gross things, which I'm quite proud of.
[00:42:37] Speaker B: Blood and guts.
[00:42:38] Speaker A: I had to think the whole day, I was like, what? Icks me out. I had to spend the whole day thinking about it. I was like, There are a few things, but even now I can't remember what they were, the ones I identified.
[00:42:46] Speaker B: So I'll let you send us your potential X factor.
[00:42:49] Speaker A: Patty. We'll do, like, a one to ten next episode, like a Pack and Save survey.
Anyway, I just wanted to acknowledge how proud I am of her, because at 15, she's doing some pretty icky things. That for a kid who doesn't like.
[00:43:06] Speaker B: It'S been beautiful, right? To see the way she's changed.
[00:43:08] Speaker A: She's absolutely flourished. She's already pretty cool, but she's definitely flourished. And she's grown.
[00:43:13] Speaker B: We do have cool kids.
[00:43:14] Speaker A: We do.
[00:43:17] Speaker B: Our kids are really cool.
[00:43:19] Speaker A: Slightly nerdy, but I tend to think that's kind of cool. That's an indication they're coolness. They're absolutely cool. Anyway, she's really come into herself and she serves those people in that rest home so beautifully, and she actually really enjoys it. And she gets a lot out of it. She comes home happy.
She comes home with great stories people with a high IQ factor will appreciate.
And she says she's happy to go to work. She gets herself up at 06:00 A.m. On the weekend. This last weekend, she did three days in a row.
[00:43:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. Crazy.
[00:43:50] Speaker A: 07:00 a.m. Shifts, and there's no complaints. She just gets up, she goes, sorts herself out, and she comes home and tells you all about the beautiful people in the rest time and whether they liked the dinner that was cooked for them or not. And I worked in a rest time when I was 18, but I'm just so amazed at her ability to do it at this young age and to really give herself to that. It kind of comes back to what we're talking about. She's giving outside of herself, and it's definitely been a good thing for her. Not to mention it's pretty good money.
[00:44:20] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I would say, look, based on the back of our experience, if your kids who are, well, probably 15 and up, really, if they're looking for a job, I would say this is a really meaningful thing she's found. Like, it's also just talking to her about her future prospects, and it's starting to give her clarity about what she'd like to do.
This is not simply a make a burger, make a buck type thing. It's a community of care. And it's really changed her whole outlook. And I've been so impressed by the way she's just you're right. The way she's flourished and the way she talks about an adult.
[00:44:58] Speaker A: Right. Like, she's had to really work on those interpersonal relationships, working with other people that are the people who work in that restaurant are pretty tired, pretty run down for the last few years. They're often short staffed.
She's had to really kind of work her way through all of that as well.
[00:45:15] Speaker B: Yeah, she's taken to it like a duck to water, though. It's quite a beautiful that's a good one.
[00:45:21] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:45:21] Speaker B: You stole what was going to be my idea for a future. But yeah, I've got something else, actually. That's good. We'll call that divine.
[00:45:28] Speaker A: We had a big conversation from her about whether or not she could work on a Sunday that's right. And came to the conclusion that because it wasn't Burger King or McDonald's, but not every teenager wants to go to work on a Sunday and white bums and feed people and deal with people that are a bit grumpy. And I thought, well, vocationally speaking, it's necessary work. Someone has to do it.
[00:45:48] Speaker B: I think she's actually got she's growing into your lack of ick factor.
[00:45:52] Speaker A: You think so?
[00:45:53] Speaker B: Well, she told me a story I picked up from it the other day, and she was telling me a story about something, and I won't repeat it here and here, and she was just like she just dealt with it was like so definitely, I thought she got that from you.
Well, my moment of goodness, truth of beauty, which I thought was actually quite a good one now, feels a bit pale insignificance to yours?
Well, no, mine's actually a group, a musical group, if you like. Some people call them bands. These guys are not a band, but they produce original music on Spotify. They are awesome. I'm pretty sure they're all Catholics.
So you get this beautiful Christian music with often a very traditional flavor. They are a group or an outfit, an ensemble called Clamave de Profundus. You can look them up on YouTube. It's three words.
Clamave is clamavi. And then day is d E or D Profundus. It might be, yeah. And then profundus is P-R-O-F-U-N-D-I-S clamave de profundus. And it's just awesome. Our kids have started going here. This is quite cool. They produce two types of music. You get these beautiful sort of Gregorian chants and sacred hymns. They do. So it's these sort of Latin traditional chants.
And like at Christmas last year, they did a beautiful version of Come Emanuel, and it's really beautiful. It's not cheesy. It's not like pentatonics. No.
[00:47:42] Speaker A: You're going to lose some people.
[00:47:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. If anybody loves the pentatonics, I'll love them with you.
But it will be a chore for me to love them. I will love them because Jesus commands me to love my enemies and pray for those who discourage me.
So they're not like that. They're not cheesy.
So they do that. And then their other output is this really beautiful folk musical renditions of Tolkien's poetry and the kids love them, and they really are good. I've heard sort of what you might call Tolkien Lord of the Rings fan music type stuff, and you're OOH, the production values aren't high, or it's know, there's a good effort. It's a good effort. These guys are not like that.
It's really great, and it's stuff you can put on and reflectively listen to.
It's not thump, thump, thump.
It's good. I would highly recommend it. And especially the Tolkien stuff, but also the Christian stuff. There's some really beautiful stuff that'll help, I think, shape and form your character and your thinking about the world and others and the Tolkien stuff in particular, because it's so deep, what Tolkien wrote, of course, in his poetry. So that was my I didn't have a moment. I suppose it's a whole lot of moments that you can find on Spotify for yourself.
[00:49:15] Speaker A: And the kids will hear it from the office, and they'll say, Dad's playing that thing.
[00:49:17] Speaker B: Yeah, Dad's got that thing on again. But, yeah, if you're looking for something wholesome, wholesome for those family trips in the know when everyone says, I want to put something on Spotify, that's something that is well worth your time. Our scripture reflection for the month. Katie, would you like to go first again? Do you have a scripture on your heart?
[00:49:39] Speaker A: Well, interestingly, this sort of came from the beginning of Lent, where you're going, oh, what am I going to do for Lent? And I've sort of learned in the last few years that I just need to let the Lord show me and not kind of dive in with like 600 things I'm giving up or whatever, but just kind of let him show me. And I don't know if you remember, but we had a little incident with Eleanor, who's our seven year old, who said had some few choice words she'd picked up at school.
[00:50:03] Speaker B: Yes, I do remember.
[00:50:04] Speaker A: And I had just been listening to another podcast, the name of which escapes me. I'm trying to remember.
[00:50:09] Speaker B: It's called what happens when your children say choice words.
[00:50:11] Speaker A: No, it wasn't that. It was something completely different. But one of the things that one of the hosts mentioned was that he was trying to clean up his language and that he know our mouths are made to praise God. And that's why, as Christians, we shouldn't use bad language. Oh, it really struck a chord. Not because I use bad language very often, I don't think. I try not to. But it just really sat with me. And then we had this incident with Eleanor, and so I thought, oh, awesome. This is a good spot for that. I said to her, our mouths are made to praise God. We don't say bad words because that's what our mouths are created for. And it's really just stayed with me. And during Lent. That from Psalm 51. Lord, you will open my lips, and my mouth will declare your great psalm, which is one of my favorite psalms anyway, the whole thing. But that particular verse has really sat with me through Lent, and I think I've really been focusing on that, as my prayer of Lent is not to complain, so much comes into it. Not to complain, not to speak badly of others, that when we open our mouths, what we say should be praiseworthy and should hopefully point people back to God that we speak and love.
[00:51:20] Speaker B: That's a great point and a great practical tip, too, because we often forget this, that the big things that go wrong in life, they are absolutely often fueled by the bad habits in the smaller areas. And we're like, oh, yeah, but I don't abuse people in the street. And every now and then you have a big outburst or whatever that's coming off the back of a habit often. And we don't often think and we often don't encourage each other to think about our smaller habits, like speech. That's a really good point. That's a great one. So psalm 51.
[00:51:55] Speaker A: Yes, Psalm 51. There's quite a bit in there, but verse 16 says, rescue me from violent bloodshed, God my saving God, and my tongue will sing joyfully of your justice, Lord. You will open my lips and my mouth will proclaim your praise. But it's funny when those sometimes when the Lord shows you something like this, it pops up everywhere. So for the first, like two weeks of length, the whole thing, all of the readings are the same thing. And I was like, okay, message reserved.
[00:52:21] Speaker B: I've got a problem. Okay, thank you.
I will make adjustments.
For me, this was something that really struck me over the weekend, actually, from the Gospel of John, chapter four, the story of the Samaritan woman who's at the well. It's such a beautiful, rich encounter with Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well, and there's such a depth, too, to what's going on. It's really quite a profound passage, and we tend to maybe only think of it like a woman who's got all these husbands and is living in adultery, and we sort of see that part of it, but there's actually so much more, and we don't really have time to get into that now. But it really is about the Samaritan people and their break from Israel and the pagan false gods and all that kind of it's all embroiled in that moment, and this is Christ going to try and bring them and reunite them. It's quite a profound thing. But anyway, in that passage it says this, chapter four, verse 39 to 42. Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of the woman's testimony. So after she'd had this encounter, the woman well with Jesus, he told me everything I ever did. That's what she said to them. So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed for two days, and because of his words, many more became believers. This is the key bit. They said to the woman, we no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the savior of the world. And I thought about how profound that was and how if you're a parent, this is such an important reminder for us, but not just for parenting.
Our children, when they're younger, they will embrace belief based on the back of their parents'belief. But there comes a moment when they have to have an encounter with Christ themselves. And I wonder, as families, I've been thinking a bit about this lately. What are we doing to try and foster those moments where they can have that encounter in a way that's real and it's not artificial? Like, okay, now you have turned 15. It is encounter Jesus night, and we have a ceremony, but what are we doing to foster that? So it's more than just, Right, let's do family prayers. But it's like, what is God saying to you right now? Our eldest daughter actually said that to me the other day. She said she talked about what God was doing in her life to me, and I was, like, just about in tears. And I was like, this is awesome, because it's not just, oh, yeah, Mum and dad, we believe because you've told us about this guy, it's like we've actually now heard him for ourselves. So what are we doing to help foster those encounter moments for our kids and encourage them to start that conversation with God?
[00:55:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Eleanor is doing her preparation for First Holy Communion, and part of each lesson is journal with Jesus.
[00:55:22] Speaker B: Cool.
[00:55:23] Speaker A: I'm not supposed to look at those bits, but I do cheat because they're super cute.
I bet they are, but it's nice. Yeah. She really loves that they're doing a bit of prayer journaling at school as well this year, and she says to me how much she really likes that time school.
[00:55:37] Speaker B: Yeah. I think for me, one thing I'm very focused on now is, well, reminding our kids that God has a plan for their lives. And maybe they've been thinking up until now that they're sort of following God's plan for Mum and dad sort of thing. But now that once they've had their teen years, it's like, God has a plan for you. And I think this is important because they're at a time now where identity is starting to become a big deal. And also there's so many corrupting false gospels out there about identity and who you can be, and the best place to do is to say, well, I'm going to land on the rock and I'm going to say, okay, God, well, what am I supposed to be doing? Who am I? And the only way to know that, really, and to know my true identity is. To know who he is and what he's doing in my life. It's so important.
[00:56:24] Speaker A: It kind of comes back to that article about the ethical questions, because I think it reduces people to emitting carbon emitting life forms, carbon based carbon emitters more than that.
[00:56:38] Speaker B: Exactly right. So that's our moment of goodness, truth or beauty, and our scriptural reflection for the month. Let's jump into the questions that have been sent to us, three questions today, and they are really good. These are doozy. So let's just jump straight into it. First one, how do you parent when the parents have differing views regarding sexuality, for example, when one parent holds strong traditional views about homosexuality and the other is more open on that issue, how do you navigate that with kids? And so I would say it's not the other is more open.
I'd encourage people to whoever writes this question to think that the other person has a different ideology on this because it implies that Christianity is not open and it's not true at all. We're open to the fullness of flourishing, the human person. It's the question is, how do you flourish? Do you flourish by simply gratifying every desire you have or by having ordering your desires towards the good so that's know in that regard? So, Katie, have you got any ideas of how would you navigate? Because that's a big one, right?
[00:57:53] Speaker A: We're obviously on the same page, so I would find that quite hard to deal with.
I think the main thing is to remind your kids that we always love, no matter what, that if they came home and said they were struggling with sexuality, questions around sexuality and gender, the first thing is love. Yeah. That you're never going to abandon them.
[00:58:20] Speaker B: You'd have to couple that too, though, right. With authentic love is always guided by truth.
The culture today has unshackled love from truth. It just says love is basically its sentiment. It's what you feel.
[00:58:34] Speaker A: Love.
[00:58:34] Speaker B: Brendan yeah. So whether you want to self gratify or I want to feel happy or I want people to make me feel happy and you don't love me, if you're going to tell me uncomfortable truths. And so I think we've got to say to our kids, we got to speak the truth yeah. And remind our kids and say, look, we absolutely love you and we'd die for you, but the reason we die for you is because we see the truth of Christ. And that's the full truth. And that's including about the fullness of human sexuality and self giving. It's part of that equation, I think a couple of things for me that well, first of all, I think you and your spouse, you've got to have a conversation. You've got to have a sit down conversation and try and figure out I mean, this is a hard situation to be in. I think you've got to figure out exactly what the boundaries are in regards to your children. So it's probably when you're around each other, you have a bit more freedom and flexibility as to how you the disagreement, if you like, between you, how you can but around your children, you have to figure out, well, what the heck does this actually look like? And that's an important I can't stress how important that conversation is.
As soon as you can, you've really got to sit down and say, okay, well, what does this mean for our parenting?
And I think you've got to be brutally honest, and I'm imagining this has been written by the person who is the Christian parent in the equation. And I think you've got to be brutally honest about the because this might be a moment of evangelization for your spouse as well.
[01:00:04] Speaker A: Yeah, it's true.
[01:00:04] Speaker B: Where they suddenly the light of Christ enlightens their heart and mind to a truth, a moral truth that maybe they had not understood previously or had not embraced because no one had ever actually shown it to them.
Like the woman at the well, right.
[01:00:21] Speaker A: That's right.
[01:00:22] Speaker B: The second thing here is actually, as a step back from this is this is a really important reminder of why before you get married yeah. I think there is such merit, and you don't want some weird culty, closed, I only marry people of my own kind, kind of thing. And you don't want a weird checklist, a checkbox list, because no one is perfect in that regard. But there is absolutely profound and important merit in people and more and more so. I think if you have a Christian vision of reality, seeking out a spouse who has that or at the very least says, look, I don't understand it all, but I will absolutely honor that with our children. Because we had some really big, hard questions, didn't we, before?
[01:01:11] Speaker A: We definitely did. I was very specific about how cutlery is to be put on the plate when you're finished eating.
[01:01:18] Speaker B: Yes. So if that's a reminder, if you're doing marriage prep or you're thinking about marriage prep, these are questions that are worth exploring if you're not already doing that. Okay, second question then, and this is an interesting one, is it okay to discipline other people's children?
Katie, what do you why are you asking me? Well, I don't know. I suspect you know what I'm going to say.
[01:01:40] Speaker A: Well, I don't know if I know what you're going to say.
Yes.
But the way you do it is important.
[01:01:47] Speaker B: Oh, safe. Good answer. Good answer.
Yes, it's okay. But how matter?
[01:01:55] Speaker A: I think it depends who the kids are and who the parents are. Are you friends with them? What's the situation?
I don't know if you call it discipline, but I recently intervened in a situation with a friend where her child was basically beating her up.
[01:02:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:07] Speaker A: Okay. Now, this is a kid that has some learning difficulties and other issues, and she's tiny so it wasn't hard to pick her up, carry her to her bedroom, even though she was thrashing and kicking.
Simply, I now simply intervened because I could see an injury coming to one or both people put her on her bed and said, when you're ready to behave, you can come out of the bedroom. And sure enough, she screamed for about five minutes, was quiet for about ten, and then came out and was quite happy and chatting and said, I came out to say sorry.
[01:02:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:41] Speaker A: So I don't know if you call that discipline.
[01:02:43] Speaker B: That is discipline. That is discipline. It's a correction of a behavior.
[01:02:46] Speaker A: And I think I came home and said to you, I'm not sure if I should have or not.
[01:02:49] Speaker B: No, you did the right thing.
[01:02:50] Speaker A: Yeah. You do question yourself, I think.
[01:02:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:54] Speaker A: I have told a kid to use their manners once, and then I think the thing I always do is that I tell the parents if I've done it.
So I did say to my friend, look, I had to talk to your daughter about this. And she said, that's absolutely fine, I hope that you would do that anytime you felt necessary. But I would never physically discipline another person's child.
[01:03:14] Speaker B: I don't think I would restrain a child if I had to well, picking up the child in fact, I have we had a situation in our house one Christmas, actually, didn't we?
[01:03:21] Speaker A: Oh, yes.
[01:03:22] Speaker B: And I had to pick up a young chap who was being it was not good, so I would physically intervene to restrain it was a child about to beat another child or something, I'd be grabbing them and saying Nut. Or I'd pick a child up and take them out of a place. If they're throwing an absolute tantrum that was really destructive to what was going on and they needed to be alone, I'd probably do that.
I think you're right. That's the key right?
There's not really a yes or no in a sense because in some situations and I think probably most, the answer is yes, but in other situation, the answer could well be no.
[01:04:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:04:07] Speaker B: Do you have a genuine relationship and connection with this child generally? That's probably a good rule of thumb. Like with the family.
Do you know enough to know that you're actually dealing with a disobedient child and not a child maybe, who's got some sort of whether it's psychological or cognitive issue that manifests itself in that way, and then you think, oh, it's bad behavior. But it might not be bad behavior. It might be a faulty mechanism in the brain that means they can't quite behave. Right.
[01:04:35] Speaker A: And you may not know how to handle that.
[01:04:37] Speaker B: Yeah, parent, so you better be real careful about that. I think also, like, context matters. There was a lady, lovely lady, who would come along each week to church by herself with her two kids and the son, just sort of got to that age, became a bit more of a rat bag. And I saw her actually in church, and I could see she just wanted to pray and to be present, and he was just being a little rat bag. And so what I did was I actually came and sat beside her, and I think I said something to her, can I help? Or something like that. And then I just sat beside him and just basically gave him the eye. I didn't say anything.
I didn't give him the thumb. I just looked at him clip around.
[01:05:20] Speaker A: The ear like your dad used to.
[01:05:21] Speaker B: No, nothing like that. And what happened was that because you got that sense of that was what was needed, you could see. And sure enough, that was what was needed. And all of a sudden, that male presence was enough for this young fella to basically just to sort of toe the line. I think I actually even picked him up and might have sat him beside me and distracted him or something like that.
She could actually just pray. And then afterwards she said she apologized. And I was like, no, not at all. And I said to her, Good on you. You're doing an awesome thing. This is important. I made her aware that it was so awesome that she was bringing her child to church. And she was in tears when I said that to her because I think what she was expecting was, oh, you're rowdy little rat bag. Or maybe, here's some advice about how to parent your child. Yeah, that kind of thing.
But it wasn't like I intervened, but it wasn't a disciplinary. It was a distraction intervention. Ultimately, that was exactly what was needed. So prudence matters. And then at other times. But we had an incident recently, actually was with my daughter and I was driving her home and there was this young fella who would have been young high school. And we've got some major roadworks happening around us and they've got all of the cones out to keep people away and such for safety. And he had gone down and knocked over probably 50 meters worth of cones, knocked them all over. And so drivers in low cars can't see the cones. It's supposed to guide them. It's a safety thing. And so I pulled over and I don't know this kid. I got out of the car because I saw him knocking the last of them over. And I walked over them, just crossed around and said, what's your name and where do you live? And he looked at me because he knew he'd been caught and car, and he said, I didn't have to give you that information. So I knew straight away, I'm not going to labor this point. And so I said, I just literally looked and I said, get back there and pick up every single one of those cones. Now, that was the stupidest thing I've seen today. If a car comes along as a result of what you've done, you could actually call someone to have a serious accident. It's dangerous, go and put it right. And I didn't give him any options, no conversation. And he turned around, he grumbled titled young fella, and he went back and then he started to look to walk. And then I got my car and I realized he was about to turn around again. So I actually got out of the I know, I drove the car around the corner and sat across the road and watched. So he knew he was being held accountable and he went and picked them all up and he wasn't happy about it. But I absolutely know that was the right thing to do because I think the danger is if we say, well, no, don't discipline ever other people's kids. I actually think that's a moral indifference. It breeds indifference. It's like you shouldn't care when you see something out of line. It also means there's a communal indifference. It's like if you're in community, that means you should care enough. So when other people's kids maybe do need an intervention and obviously sometimes they don't, it's just if it's just little kids being kids, stop that right now. Little babies, no. And we're talking genuine incidents. But if we're in community, we should care about each other enough to actually say, well, I have a responsibility here to help. Love this kid as well, in a sense, now the parents have to do the big stuff.
So you've said your advice is yes, but how you do it matters. I've added, yes, but also depending on.
[01:08:46] Speaker A: Context, which I think is really important, I think often people, especially as a mum, I struggle with this. Not sure with your mum, but I've heard of other mums that struggle with their parents in law stepping into situations where they maybe shouldn't be getting involved. And that is a fine line. I think my parents are particularly good at just letting us kind of be the ones in charge. And if we're there, they're not going to go disciplining our kids. Like certainly if they're looking after our children, our younger two, I would expect them to be.
[01:09:18] Speaker B: And they do that. They do a good job. I know that.
[01:09:20] Speaker A: But I've heard of stories where mothers or fathers in law may get involved where they don't need to.
[01:09:25] Speaker B: It's a challenge.
[01:09:26] Speaker A: Yeah. That's an important conversation to have to actually say, hey, when we're there, we'll deal with that.
[01:09:32] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a funny one too, because it can go both ways, whereby maybe people don't realize that their parenting is not up to snuff and so the grandparents can see what's going wrong. But then the flip side is, even if that is the case, you've still, I think, got to have a conversation with your adult children about that. You know what I mean?
If I was a grandparent, I wouldn't just sort of step in and go, look, here, Sonny Jim, I'll show you how this is done.
My response would be to, unless it was an emergency that needed an intervention and no one was going to intervene, I would just quietly have a conversation away from any public or kids prying ears and just say, hey, look, that sensation that happened before, can we help? I'd offer to help and sort of put up frame it that way, but yeah, that's a good point. That is a good point. So there you go.
[01:10:23] Speaker A: Careful relationship to manage.
[01:10:24] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. You don't want to put your in laws offside. Final question for the episode and gosh, this is a very meaty one.
This is what the question says. I see an increasing number of articles coming through the media on ENM, which is for those who don't know the acronym, if you're not hip, it stands for ethical non monogamy.
[01:10:51] Speaker A: Yeah, it's an oxymoron.
[01:10:53] Speaker B: There's no such thing. We'll just start there, shall we?
[01:10:56] Speaker A: Never heard of this before.
[01:10:58] Speaker B: It's a euphemism. And euphemisms are used to cloak truth. That's the reality of it's an allwellian way of saying promiscuous or multi partnered relationship or whatever.
[01:11:07] Speaker A: You have open relationships?
[01:11:09] Speaker B: No, because that implies marriages are closed, but then marriages in a sense are closed to other people. But marriages are not closed. They are fully open because both spouses give themselves totally to each other so.
[01:11:18] Speaker A: They can open dating multiple people at the same time.
[01:11:20] Speaker B: That's exactly just checking. Yeah, so it is.
[01:11:22] Speaker A: Never heard of Enem before.
[01:11:23] Speaker B: It's polygamy. People don't like to use the word polygamy because everyone knows there's a moral problem there instinctively. So they're like ethical non monogamy. It's a euphemism, so it's polygamous relationships. Why is the media pushing this agenda? And how would you argue the case for keeping monogamy as the best relationship structure? The articles often say, I read this in The Herald today and I think I know the article that this person's talking about, actually, that you need better interpersonal skills to navigate polygamous relationships and they seem to think this is a pro of these kinds of structures. In other words, you'll be a better person if you're in a polygamous. And this is Seth Rogen Smarter. You'll be better happy not having babies. Yeah. So you'll be better happy and smarter if you're polygamous. Did some Mormon fund. The Herald.
[01:12:12] Speaker A: What you need to do to get smarter and have better interpersonal skills is to be a polygamous and have no children.
[01:12:17] Speaker B: No children. Polygamous. And then lastly, the person says this, they also state that the current generation is much less inclined to consider to consider monogamy as the best form of relationship. Right, let's break this down because there's a few things in here. First of all, ethical non monogamy, it doesn't exist. I'm just going to call it it doesn't exist.
If you're in a relationship a promiscuous relationship where you've brought multiple sexual partners together?
I don't know. I mean, I don't want to be crass, but you've got a formalized organized orgy of some kind going on. A long term orgy. Why don't we use that?
[01:12:56] Speaker A: Bring your key.
[01:12:57] Speaker B: Why don't we use that euphemism? I'm in a formalized long term orgy because clearly this is what's going on. I'd argue.
So this is a euphemism. So let's be honest. Use the correct words. Polygamous. I don't know. Promiscuous, multi, partnered. That would be another way of describing it.
[01:13:15] Speaker A: I feel like they still didn't get that diagram at school. If you slept with this person and they've slept with this person.
[01:13:22] Speaker B: They'Re maximizing the risk here.
Why is the media pushing this agenda?
[01:13:28] Speaker A: Because they're the media.
[01:13:29] Speaker B: Well, yeah, it's cool, guys. Two reasons. Number one is because we live in a culture now that has lost the sacred transcendent order. And one of the biggest dysfunctions is in sexuality and identity and human flourishing. And we think self gratification is the path to this. So why can't I self gratify with multiple people? How dare you be a bigot and say that. Be a polyphobe and say there's something wrong with me if I don't have multiple partners.
That's why that's part of it. And also because it is salacious. The media knows that. Oh, what polygamy? Oh, I will click on that article. It's salacious. So there's absolutely a clickbait thing here.
[01:14:11] Speaker A: It's funny how they like this polygamy, but they're not on board with the fundamentalist Latter day Saints polygamy. It's two different things.
[01:14:16] Speaker B: Well, because they talk too much about God.
[01:14:20] Speaker A: I'm on board with either.
[01:14:21] Speaker B: No, but they're confused about Mormonism and they see they wrongly a lot of them think Mormonism is maybe just another branch of Christianity or it's a church or something and they just don't like that. First and foremost, that would be my take.
[01:14:36] Speaker A: If God told you to be a polygamist, that's not allowed. But if you're okay, here's a related.
[01:14:42] Speaker B: Issue to this because sometimes people make this bizarre and absolutely shocking claim. Well, there's polygamy in the old Testament. In the Bible. Listen, folks, this is really important point to understand. There are two types of things well, among others. But there are two this is a basic rule. There are two types of things you will see in scripture. You will see scripture that is prescriptive. It's a moral command. So love your neighbor is a prescription. You must do this thing. The other things you will read in scripture are descriptive accounts. They are simply describing what actually happened. And so when you read about, for example, the polygamy of King Solomon or King David, you are not being told a to do this and you are not being told this is good. In fact, you see very much if you look at the Old Testament, understand that a lot of the issues actually evolve from those polygamous arrangements. And there's also clearly indication that this is not part of God's plan. These people have just strayed off the reservation. And God tolerates, like he does for all of us, he doesn't smite us and he tolerates our sin, but expects us to repent and deal with it before we die.
I'm obviously along the way, not the last minute, but constantly, I mean, if you have to.
So if anyone throws that at you, just say, look, I'm sorry, you're not understanding Christian scripture if you think that it's somehow it's commanding polygamy or saying it's morally okay. It doesn't do that anywhere. In fact, Christ is very clear, one woman, one man, that's God's plan. He very clearly says that in the Gospels.
So this agenda is an anti marriage thing. It's a sexual libertarianism thing. It's a breakdown of sexual identity. And there is also a revolutionary cultural revolutionary element to it because a lot of the early cultural revolutionaries of the sort of the Marxist school, they believed that the family and the traditional family given to us by Christianity was actually a form of oppression that helped to keep the bourgeoisie in control. And so they believed you had to use sexual promiscuity as a revolutionary tool and that if you could overthrow marriage, you would unshackle people from this bondage. And so, of course, what does polygamy do? It's an absolute overthrow of marriage.
There's all that sort of stuff wrapped up in it. Even if people don't realize it. They may have picked up this ideology without understanding where it came from. How would you best argue the case for keeping monogamy?
[01:17:26] Speaker A: It's a stable relationship.
[01:17:28] Speaker B: It's common sense, right?
[01:17:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:17:31] Speaker B: Honestly, I look at these whenever one of these documentaries turns up, trying desperately, god bless its little soul, trying desperately, though, to normalize and make us think that this is normal. It reminds me of the cannabis thing. It's like, look, these cannabis smokers are just like you and I. And then they bring a cannabis smoker onto the camera and they're like, yeah, man, I'm like you. And my brain works. Exactly.
I do rocket science at university, man. And you're like, Dude, I can see your speech is slower and slurred. Your brain's not functioning like normal people's brains does, and you're your own worst advertisement something similar here. So you watch these documentaries, and what do you see consistently? You see one dominant party. So you have, let's say, what do they call them, a thruffle, three people. And you have one dominant party and two vulnerable, needy people who are desperately this is the tragedy of it looking for genuine human connection and affection. And they've effectively got a passive aggressive and manipulative person who is basically using them and is saying, well, I want sex with this person and this person. And you can see that they've got this dominant they keep talking about how it's equal and it's more equal than a marriage and it's that you look at the situation, you watch it for five minutes, and you realize it's not at all. There's always a dominant party.
[01:18:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Why do they call it ethical? Is there something specific about this form of non monogamy that's better than other.
[01:19:03] Speaker B: Forms of non monogamy? Well, they're trying to this is how euphemisms work. It's verbal engineering to try and social engineer. So they're trying to say, well, okay, I'll give you this. There are non ethical forms of monogamy. And they would probably, I would imagine, unethical non monogamy.
[01:19:23] Speaker A: If you're just cheating on people.
[01:19:25] Speaker B: Yes. Or if you've forced someone, you've forced me. So adultery or promiscuity, where you are literally cheating on the relationship that the other party doesn't know, and also where someone's coerced or forced into it, you've captured the village and taken all their woman to be your wives. They would say that's ethical. I would imagine they would say that's unethical, non monogamy. But it's a euphemism. And they're trying to say, well, ours is ethical. No, it's not. It's only ethical if you have abandoned a vision of, I would argue an authentic, self giving, love based vision of human sexuality. Because here's the thing.
How do you argue the case for keeping monogamy? Well, how do you give of yourself fully and totally and completely to more than one person in a marriage? You can't. You can't. The best you can hope for is, I give myself fully for a moment, and then I briefly move on to someone else. And briefly with you, then I'm briefly fully. That's not fully.
[01:20:23] Speaker A: No, that's right.
[01:20:24] Speaker B: I am actually only giving you part of myself. So that's the great lie. And I've seen this. I saw an article. Oh, no, we have a greater capacity for love. No, you don't. You absolutely don't, because you're not fully giving to each other. You're actually carving yourself up amongst multiple people. And at that moment, I would argue it's not authentic, self giving love because the total self can't be given yeah.
[01:20:50] Speaker A: Which comes into that. The articles say that you need better interpersonal skills to navigate these relationships.
I would say a long term marriage needs better personal, surely.
[01:21:01] Speaker B: Well, here's the chances.
[01:21:02] Speaker A: Your interpersonal skills on a daily basis.
[01:21:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And this is where you don't need to be gaslit by these weird deviants sexual they are sexual deviants. Let's call it what it is. It's sexual deviancy. If you've got a problem, come at me. Seriously. I'm not prepared to muck around anymore with half truths. It's sexual deviancy. And what happens is you get these absolute lies told.
We love more fully.
You have to have better interpersonal skills. Well, like you've said, if you're in a multi partnered promiscuous relationship, guess what happens when you're annoyed with one of your sexual partners? You go and find another person to have sex with and you ignore the other partner. Are you telling me that that actually is a better outworking of a better level or higher degree of interpersonal skills than you and I, where I can't run away to another partner, nor can you. And so we have to actually work it out. No, I'm sorry. I don't believe you for 5 seconds. I think you're kidding yourself and everyone else around you. And also the whole notion of somehow there's a I would argue, in fact, in many ways you've probably escaped from like you actually need to be confronted and be challenged to grow in your interpersonal skills.
When you're doing this, you're actually escaping conflict resolution. No.
[01:22:22] Speaker A: Don't have to listen to dad jokes. I could I heard a good one today. Do you want to hear it?
[01:22:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. Far away.
[01:22:29] Speaker A: Where does the hamburger go? To dance.
[01:22:30] Speaker B: Where?
[01:22:31] Speaker A: To the meatball.
[01:22:32] Speaker B: Oh, gosh.
The kids were, like, painful.
That is so painful.
[01:22:39] Speaker A: They even said to me, don't tell dad.
[01:22:41] Speaker B: Oh, it is so painful. It's glorious.
One of the girls told me the other day, this great one that I love now it's become my favorite joke. They said, if you were holding up two rats in front of a mirror, you'd be looking at three of the ugliest things in the world.
I love it. Thank you, children, for giving back to me. I brought you into the world.
[01:23:00] Speaker A: This is what my personal skills have to be.
[01:23:02] Speaker B: You bring me back the jokes. Yeah. So you need better interpersonal skills. That's a big red flag.
What do you mean? You need better skills to only certain.
[01:23:13] Speaker A: People can be ethical non monogamous, Brendan. So what you're telling us is because your interpersonal skills aren't strong.
[01:23:19] Speaker B: Well, what you're actually telling me here is underlying this is the ultimate implication or suggestion that this relationship is a lot harder and therefore you're actually having to juggle something more work. Exactly.
[01:23:33] Speaker A: Funnily enough.
[01:23:34] Speaker B: So why are you having to juggle this? What are you actually doing here?
[01:23:38] Speaker A: Costs a lot more in dates as well.
[01:23:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:23:42] Speaker A: Honestly, practicalities of this are just not.
[01:23:44] Speaker B: Here'S the great lie. Like I said, you watch one of these dockos, and it takes probably ten minutes of screen time, and you start to see if you're astute. And I think I'm reasonably astute at discerning just by watching and observing. And what you start to see are the telltale signs of jealousy that it'll crop up or someone manipulating always crop up.
[01:24:04] Speaker A: Somebody in that relationship is effectively being abused. They're in a position of abuse, and.
[01:24:09] Speaker B: I've seen that too. It's very clear where you've got two people who clearly have got themselves in a position of power over a third party they've dragged into their dysfunction.
Honestly. Yeah. The notion that you need better interpersonal skills implies that there is a greater degree of risk or problems here that you're having to negotiate. Well, why is that problem?
That problem exists because you're doing something you shouldn't be doing.
[01:24:34] Speaker A: And.
[01:24:34] Speaker B: Maybe if you went back to the fundamentals of men and women, you wouldn't need to navigate those problems. And it's also a lie. You don't actually need better interpersonal skills at all because you can run away and, oh, well, let's just add another person. And how do you have better interpersonal skills when you are divided across multiple people? Whereas one on one for a lifetime I really need to hone those skills.
[01:24:55] Speaker A: Some days where we really have to work it out into personal skills and.
[01:24:58] Speaker B: They get better because it's just you and me and, you know, when I'm faking and all that kind of stuff. Whereas each other better if I skip from person to person to person.
Let's say I had a particular issue and it kept cropping up. It's like it keeps coming back and back. Like with you, I can actually deal with it and become better in that part of my interpersonal relational skills. This would actually be a potential for people to not become better because they're spreading themselves too thin. So yeah. Lastly, they also state that the current generation is much less inclined to consider monogamy as the best form of relationship. What do you say to that?
[01:25:33] Speaker A: Current generation's got problems?
[01:25:36] Speaker B: Well, one answer would be the current generation was also eating Tide pods on social media just a couple of years ago, if that's your measure. Honestly, this is again another problem of our age, this very dumb idea that wisdom doesn't mean anything anymore, that age and maturity and wisdom and life learnings don't mean anything and oh, no, they're all dumb. Dumbs and bad people. The old ones, the young ones, haven't they decided, I've got it figured out.
[01:26:03] Speaker A: To full adulthood to 25 now or something?
[01:26:05] Speaker B: Your brain doesn't fully develop until 25.
[01:26:07] Speaker A: Maybe that tells you everything you need to know. But also, I think that there's a fear of relationship bingo. Generation bingo. I know something.
[01:26:15] Speaker B: I think this is a lie. Yeah, I actually think this is an unprovable assertion. Oh, well, the current generation is much.
[01:26:23] Speaker A: Less inclined to how many of the.
[01:26:24] Speaker B: Current how did you figure that out? Yeah, well, okay, well, my partner, my other partner and my son and their daughter in this weird polygamous relationship. They are okay with it. That's all we're we did. And they told us that their friends are as well. So we know, we need to know. I'm sorry, this is nonsense. Because in actual fact, what's interesting is there's some very troubling and interesting trends around young people and relationships and sex at the moment. We know that the younger generation coming through, they're actually having a lot less sex than any other generation. They seem to actually be really resistant to it, which could be you'd think, oh, initially, maybe they've got this figured out or they're cynical, they're jaded. Also. Yes, if you are raised in a dysfunctional culture, you will come to think dysfunction is normal?
Well, if you are raised in a culture of consumerism and sexual consumerism with hookup apps and stuff like that what, you don't value monogamy? Well oh, color me surprised. So if you teach a child to do a certain thing, they'll think it's normal? Yeah. That's not an argument for anything. All you've done is I have observed a particular behavior, but you observing that behavior doesn't or a preference doesn't mean that that preference is right.
[01:27:43] Speaker A: Or what do they mean by current generation as well? Who are we talking about here?
[01:27:46] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what's their current generation that's exactly it.
[01:27:49] Speaker A: We're talking sort of the 20 to 25 year olds or the 25, whatever that is. What are those guys, Gen X's or whatever they are?
[01:27:55] Speaker B: Yeah, that's beyond that now. I can't remember what the new Zoom not Zoom is. What is it? There's a name.
[01:28:03] Speaker A: Because surely we could just look at the stats of how many of them are getting married to see if they think monogamy is a.
[01:28:08] Speaker B: Good yeah, that's a good point.
[01:28:10] Speaker A: Isn't that well, an actual science?
[01:28:13] Speaker B: Well, it's more than that, though. It's like, what about those who I guarantee if you asked the overwhelming majority of people, they might not necessarily say, well, marriage is big on my radar, but I guarantee you they'll say, I would really love it if I found just that perfect person who loved me and I could spend the rest of my life with. I guarantee you the majority would say that. So what does that mean? They want one person?
I guarantee you that only some weird, tiny, little fringe minority might say something like and you probably have to prompt them, too. Well, I hope I end up in a multiparted polygamous relationship. I don't believe that young people actually that is their norm. So even if they're not saying marriage, they might still be saying one monogamous. I guarantee it's one person. That's my experience, anyway.
But also, even if they weren't, it doesn't prove anything.
[01:29:03] Speaker A: No, that doesn't make it right.
[01:29:05] Speaker B: They've been eating Tide pods on social media. So the whole point of youth is it needs to be shaped and formed by wisdom and truth.
Hopefully that's answered the question. But gosh, that was a good one. Yeah, and you're right. I've noticed the same thing myself. I've noticed the prevalence of these articles. It's a culture in dysfunction, sadly. And that's why it's so much it's more important than ever before that we actually live like the name of the podcast, the Little Flock. We form together in little flocks. We support each other. We live this goodness, this truth, and this beauty that we talked about that's in the title of our podcast, goodness, Truth, and Beauty amongst the Dharnal, like amongst the Weeds. Be the Goodness, Truth, and Beauty and model that so that when people realize, oh, no, polygamy is dysfunctional, where do I go to to get better advice? They'll look at you and they'll see you're a person of stability, who's a person of virtue and has got hope and a sense of clarity about your life. That's why this Christian community endeavor really matters so much, right?
[01:30:01] Speaker A: That's right.
[01:30:02] Speaker B: I think that's all we want to say, isn't it, Katie?
[01:30:04] Speaker A: There's plenty.
[01:30:05] Speaker B: Yeah, we did it was a good first episode, so we've made up for the last couple of months missing. We've jammed it all into one episode. Just a couple of quick things before we wrap up, and any last final thoughts from Katie? She might have a word of wisdom for us, I don't know. Again, thank you. It's great to be back with you. We are back every month from here on in, once a month. And I just want to let you know, too, we've got some other little ventures coming and planned. So just if you become a
[email protected] and in order to support this podcast, you will get access to other benefits as well. If you contribute $5 or more per
[email protected], left footmedia, the link is in the show notes. Then you will get access to twice a week. I do commentary podcasts. There's two of those a week, exclusively for our patrons. We've got a new show coming called Conservative Conversations, which is interview conversational style podcast once a month and patrons get the full episode, the whole 1 hour, maybe a little bit longer sometimes. Episode free to air. People get a little snippet, a little teaser, you get the full episode. And we've also got another show. I'm not going to say any more about this other show, but there's a show that I'm working on and have been in discussion with a couple of people about, just for Men. So, yeah, you'll get access to it. So there's some good exclusives. The other way, of course, is go to Lifenet.org NZ, and you can just make a donation, if you want to, to the LifeNet Charitable Trust. And if you're in New Zealand, that means you get your tax back. Don't forget your questions. Send us your questions. Or it might not be a question, it might be a topic.
As you heard today, we'll go anywhere. So send us your topic. Don't be afraid. You can do it without sending your name in, so you can ask. And if you got a struggle in your marriage, ask us. Not that we're perfect. We got plenty of struggles of our own.
[01:31:46] Speaker A: We're still working on our interpersonal.
[01:31:49] Speaker B: And we are we're not better, we're not good, happy people because we've got kids and we're monogamous. But what we will do is we'll do our best because we want to see you flourish. We want you to have, in the midst of your strivings and struggles, we want you to have a good marriage. We want you to have a good stability in your relationship. We want you to have a good strength in your Christian life. And your discipleship with Christ. And if we can help in a little way, no matter whether you're married or unmarried, whoever you are, chuck us your questions. We'll do our best. And if we need to, we'll get a guest on, right? If it's something super curly. But you can do
[email protected] NZ on the website, click on the banner on the homepage, and it'll take you to that new form to fill out. And you can do that anonymously if you want to. Katie, do you want to say anything to wrap up?
[01:32:32] Speaker A: No, I think you've said it all, babe.
[01:32:34] Speaker B: Oh, I talked too much and I've said it all. Folks, it was so good to be back with you again. Don't forget, live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies. And we will see you next time on The Little Flock.
[01:32:47] Speaker A: See you.
The little flock is a joint production of the LifeNet Charitable Trust and Left Foot Media.
[01:33:01] Speaker B: If you enjoyed this show, then please help us to ensure that more of this great content keeps getting made by becoming a patron of the show at Forward slash Left Foot Media.
[01:33:13] Speaker A: Thanks for listening. See you next time on The Little Flock.
