← Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey
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Hope everybody is coming off of a great Fourth of July weekend celebrating America's 250th anniversary and that you had a good time with your family and that you were able to celebrate and you didn't pay attention to all the negativity that was out there by some of the mainstream media and some of the liberal hacks that are always try to ruin everything that's celebratory about America. Now I am a little bit disappointed this morning as we're recording this. It'll come out, you know, a few days later that our men's soccer team lost last night and that's very disappointing. But they did have a good run and we're proud of what they've done. I wish they would have won last night, but that's the way it goes. There's a lot of good soccer teams in the world. And just so cool to see watching some of that game last night and just so cool to see the stands even in a place like Seattle filled with red, white and blue and singing and chanting. I just think that was really cool to see the fans be so patriotic and what have you. And we'll finish watching the World Cup. We'll see who wins. Never know who it's going to be, but it's going to be exciting and so cool that it is here in America on our 250th anniversary. And also some of the the positive statements that have been made by the fans that have come from all over the world about America. That's that's cool. I'm sure that made a lot of the libs mad, but I thought that was pretty cool thing. Also, I want to remind you that it's still not too late to buy your share of the Arrows tickets, folks. Relate a bros out there. Why don't you do something unexpected for your wife and go ahead and buy that. Not for a birthday, not for Mother's Day. Go ahead and do something nice for your wife. She does stuff, something nice for us every day. So why don't you go ahead and do that. And I think she'd be very, very happy for that. We'll look forward to seeing her. I'll be there for part of the time walking around, meeting people and I know that Lisa, my wife will be there, of course and Allie and her husband, chief related bro will be there. So anyway, it's going to be fun. Also, before I get into today's full get into session, I'll tell you about, I will tell you, we have just spent a couple of weeks with our six grandkids and, and we have a little place in the mountains and we spent some time with them and it's been really, really good. Now, I will tell you, it's a little bit more chaotic than what I'm used to with just Lisa and I and Daniel at home. But it's been really nice just kind of watching them interact as cousins and, and brothers and sisters and things like that. And of course, our house is just probably just like yours is that sometimes they argue, sometimes, you know, they're crying, whatever. But it's really been a great time and we enjoyed being able to spend with them. And their parents were up here as well. So we've just really had a really good last couple of weeks. And now it's just Lisa and I and Daniel here. We do have one of our oldest grandson. Peter's here with us, and so it's good to spend time with him. He's becoming a nice young man and they grow up very fast. So spending time with them when you can is certainly a good thing to do. Now, let's get into today's session. We're going to talk about three or four things. One of the things we're going to talk about, the first thing are Trump accounts that's been in the news lately. I don't care what you call them. You don't have to call them a Trump account if you don't want to. It was his administration's idea. And the thought is, is that people need to do more savings on their own and starting that as early as possible. I know that when each one of our grandkids were born, Lisa and I put some money aside in a 529 account, which is specifically for education, and we're happy to have done that. That has all of those accounts have grown because the stock market's been pretty good. Think about it. When Peter was born 14 years ago, the market had a pretty good run in the last 14 years. So they have performed very well. But the Trump account's a little bit different. It actually is not simply for education. And it's something that not only you can contribute to, your friends can contribute to. In fact, for some, the government's going to make a contribution to nonprofits can contribute to. So let's get into it and talk a little bit more about it. You know, we had some listener questions that the very first question that came out was the Trump account worth it for 12 to 15 year olds? And we're going to answer that. So just Stay with us on that. And our 529 is a better idea. We're going to get into those details as well. But they officially launched the Trump Accounts app. So I'd encourage you to download that app and allows families to open Tax Advantage investment accounts. What that Tax Advantage means is that you're not taxed on the growth of those accounts during the time that the money is in there. And it's for children under age 18. In fact, President Trump explains it in SOT1. Parents, loved ones, churches and generous companies and individuals will be able to contribute funds to these accounts to grow throughout the child's life. And again, if we have a good market like we do now, they're going to become actually very rich. They'll have hundreds of thousands of dollars. Think of that. So yeah, that's true. All you got to think about, and we'll talk about this in a few minutes, as well as compounding over time how well that works. And they're going to be invested in a broad based US Stock market. I've always talked about how a lot of the money that I have, we invest in the s and P500, which is a index of 500 of the biggest companies in the United States. And the Trump accounts are invested similarly to that. And then there's a, you'll see on the screen here, those of you that are watching this goes through exactly how the Trump accounts work and what you have to do. Contributions are generally limited to about $5,000 a year and they can include up to $2,500 from employers. So if you, if you really want to talk about a great employee benefit, if you're interested in keeping your employees loyal to you, what about putting some money and it doesn't have to be the whole 2500. You could put in $100 or $1,000. But for your employees, children under 18 put in some money in one of their Trump accounts. Would that be awesome thing to do? How loyal do you think your employees would be? I hear all the time, especially for the boards I sit on, how hard it is to attract good employees. And this would be another good way to do that. So I encourage you think about that. But it also doesn't have to be an employer. You can, we can, you can do it as moms and dads, your parents can do it, friends can even do it. In fact, we'll talk about in a minute. The government is going to do it for some people and then also nonprofits can do it. And we'll see what Michael Dell and his wife have done here pretty soon a fellow Texan. But Jenny Johnson, who is head of Franklin Templeton investment firm, had an interview on CNBC talking about what this can mean for young children and actually infants as to what it will mean over their lifetime. Here's thought two, the power of compounding. If you invest $5,000 a year, $1,000 a year for 10 years at age 20, when you retire at 60, you will have more money than a person who starts to invest at age 30 and invest the same amount per year for 30 years. That's the power compounding. And so if you look at with the Trump accounts, we're now starting at birth and being able to compound, I think it's, it's incredibly powerful. So, yeah, I mean, compound interest is, they've called it one of this seven wonders of the world, right, Is compound interest. And I certainly, I certainly agree with that. Individual contributions can be made by families and friends. As I said earlier with after tax dollars. Now, those aren't tax deductible, but that's okay. You're not doing it for the tax deduction. You're doing it to help out your children or grandchildren or maybe even some friends. Maybe you have some friends that are not as fortunate as you financially and you want to help their kids out as well. I think that would be a great idea. The other cool thing is there's no limit for contributions from nonprofits and governments. Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Computers, and you remember his story, he started in his college dorm, Dell Computers, and is now one of the largest computer companies in the world. He's one of the wealthiest people in the world. He's a big benefactor of a lot of different great programs down in Austin and around the country. He and his wife plan to donate more than $6 billion to Trump accounts. $6 billion out of their nonprofit, they're going to give to Trump accounts. And that'll be up to $250 to each eligible child under age 10 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of US independence. Now, isn't that a very cool, patriotic thing to do? I don't know how many people in the mainstream media are talking about that and celebrating that, but I think that's very cool. I don't have any idea if Michael Dell's a Republican or Democrat. Doesn't even matter. He's an American and I appreciate him doing that. Also, the gift is available to children who live in a zip code with a median family income of $150,000. Or less and who do not qualify for the federal $1,000 Treasury C contribution for children born between 2025 and 2028. So make sure you understand that children born between 2025 and 2028, the federal government's going to put $1,000 in their account to start with. Now, there are some income qualifications on that and what have you. You'll have to look those up. It'll tell you on the app. But for those children that aren't eligible for that, okay then. But they live in zip codes where the median family income is less than $150,000. The Dell foundation is putting in this 6 billion dollar investment or $250 each for those children. So what a, what an awesome thing to do. And I'll tell you, this is such a great program because one of the things that I think you and I probably understand intellectually is that we can't depend on Social Security to be our only source of retirement income. We need to be saving on our own. And what a better way than to incentivize people to do the same thing. Trump account, TrumpAccounts.gov estimates that the thousand dollar seed contribution from the treasury could potentially grow to $240,000 by the time they're 865. Just that one $1,000. And that's, there's some assumptions in there on how much investment will earn and what have you, but that's a good, that's really kind of cool. The period before the child turns 18 is known as the growth period for the Trump accounts. And that's the way it should be, is that this is not money. They're going to be pulling out before their age 18. But after 18, they can put them out for a variety of reasons such as education or birth or adoption expenses, up to $5,000 a child, say if they get married and they need some help, maybe they're going to adopt or maybe they need some help with their medical expenses if they're pregnant, they can do that. Also emergency personal expenses up to $1,000 a year or buying the first home so it can help with your down payment, up to $10,000. And these are subject to different tax rules. In other words, when you pull it out, whatever the earnings are, there'll be taxes on that, but it won't be, it won't be taxes on the entire account as long as that money stays in there. And then the maximum annual, if you think about this, if you put in the maximum annual contribution, which is $5,000 a year and historical market returns, which they're probably assuming about a 10% rate of return. That's about what the s and P500 has done over the last hundred years or so. 890 years. The TrumpAccounts.gov website projections show an account could grow to approximately $13 million by age 55. So just think about that. And again, it may be very hard to put in 5,000 a year. There are plenty of times that I couldn't have done that when our kids were little. But whatever it is you can do is going to be a positive for your kids. And if they keep doing that, okay, even after age 18, that's going to be, that's going to be really, really good. Now, the question came up earlier, one of the listeners asked about should I do a Trump account or 529 or do both? Well, you know, even for older children that don't get the thousand dollar seed contribution, they can still benefit from having a Trump account because they, you can still put money in on their behalf and that will, they'll have however many years. For example, Peter would have four more years. My oldest grandson would have four more years of tax deferred growth. And that's. The fees are low and they can build some more wealth outside of their 529 account because I could put in $5,000 a year for him or his mom and dad could. But for newborns and for, for both newborns and older children, if a family's main goal of saving and investing is paying for college, then a 529 plan might be the better choice. All right. Because withdrawals are limited to education and are tax free in a 529 account. But if you want to have both because it's limited to education, that's how the tax free status comes in. But in the Trump account, it's not limited to just paying for education and so it can be used for more things after age 18. So you just have to decide, I think if you can afford it, then I would do both of them. I don't think there's any question about it. And it can actually create a pretty sizable savings account for your, for your kids. That's what I would do. So anyway, I think it's a good thing and we'll see how the response is. And I think it'll be, I think it'll be awesome.
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Next thing I want to talk about is the housing crisis because we know that it's been very diffic, especially for young people to buy homes. In fact saw a stat the other day that the average age now for the first time home buyer is 40 years old. And you might think what has gone on and all of us have seen prices go up and interest rates went up, but what we may not really fully understand and again this is just background, it's not necessarily something that you can do about it per se, but you need to understand where things come from and that the housing prices went up significantly during the time that Biden was president. And a lot of that or some of that anyway was due to the illegal immigration surge. And they it triggered at least a 30% rise in home prices and a 20% rise in rents. And this is according not to some partisan organization, but this is according to the Dallas Fed. You heard of the Federal Reserve Board and there's different offices around the country and Dallas is one of those. And the Dallas Fed put out a paper that talks about the impacts of unauthorized immigration in the US labor and housing markets. New evidence from the administrative microdata and this is their research department working paper, the papers from the Dallas Federal Reserve bank suggests that the surges in illegal immigration during the Biden administration may have played a significant role in illegal immigration and rising house costs. The researchers examined immigration court records and government data to study the effects of large immigration, unauthorized immigration between 21 and 24, and that they found that while the influx of workers boosted employment with little measurable impact on wages, it also increased demand for housing in areas where supply was already limited. So places that are growing fast, like Texas and a lot of the other red states, there have been a pressure on housing because it's growing faster than we can build houses, and the illegal immigration has contributed to that. The economist estimates that unauthorized immigration accounted for roughly 30% employment growth and about 30% of home price growth and 20% of rent growth, as I said earlier, in the average metropolitan area during that period, some more, some less, depending on where you were. And Vice President Vance talks about this, and even though he makes a statement that may seem to be pretty outrageous, the liberal organization politifact rated it as true. So here's what Vice President Vance had to say. We're also getting all of those illegal aliens out of our country, and you're already seeing it start to pay some dividends. Let me give you a very clear statistical example. Under the Biden administration, the price of a new home literally doubled in four years. It went up 100%. Under the Trump administration, housing and rent prices are up about 1 to 2%. That's, that's actually in line with what you would like to see now. Of course, the challenge is, even though they're only up 1 or 2%, they're up 1. They're up only 1 or 2% over the doubling, or according to Vice President Vance, the doubling of House process during the Biden administration. So while it's, it's gone a lot better since we've removed most of the illegal immigrants or a lot of the illegal immigrants that are in this country. I wouldn't say most of them by any means, but a lot of them. And we certainly have shut down the border, I think as low as it has been since 1970, which is incredible, over the last 50, what, 55 years, it's the lowest it's ever been. But the increase is an increase on an already higher price. So that still makes it difficult. We still need interest rates to come down for people to be able to afford to buy a home at current prices. The other thing that, again, I encourage you is to, is to look for places to live that aren't so expensive. And I understand what your job scenario is that you may not be able to do that, but a lot of people have opportunity to work remotely. And if you can do that and then move to a place where it's less expensive to live. That would be a good thing to do. And again, we're going to be living in our homes longer. I don't think you're going to see a bunch of trading in houses as much as, as we did in the past because you're not going to be able to, you know, jump in and jump out and make money every time. It's probably going to get to what would be a more traditional market where people buy a home, stay in it for quite a long time. And you see that a lot where people, when they're looking to buy a home, you hear talking about on some of these home shows to be their forever home. And I certainly understand that. Here's a good example of proving what has happened. If you remember the Supreme Court, one of the cases that they settled or they opinioned on or pined on and gave a settlement on is the ability for the White House to cancel foreigners temporary protected status called tps that Trump has been wanting to do that. Some federal judges stopped him from doing it. But then the Supreme Court says, yeah, the executive, the executive department of the government has the ability to do that. And this affected about 330,000 Haitians that remember we had allowed to come over here temporarily. And of course they've continued to stay. In fact, 30% of the Haitians living in the US are homeowners after years of extensions of their TPS. So that's an example of how non citizens and in these cases, these people were here legally. Okay, I want to make sure that you understand that. But they shouldn't have had their temporary status continue to be extended once the earthquake hurricane crisis over down there. They should have been forced to go back or either come through the legal manner for immigration here. 63%, here's another stat for you. 63% of non citizen households also are on welfare programs, compared to just 35% of citizen households, which is. So not only are they having a drain, illegal aliens have a drain on our housing system and cause you and I to pay more. They also are have a drain on our whole economic, financial system, entitlement system because 63% of them get some type of free government benefit, which is amazing. I don't think illegal immigrants should get any government benefits. I'm sorry, that's not the role that we should do. I know some of the courts disagree and some court rulings have disagreed with me on that. But I, I believe that very, very strongly. 7.2 million illegals entered under Biden. And that doesn't include the gotaways. Remember that just include what they recorded. And that doesn't include all the got aways. And to put that in perspective, a Yale MIT study, this was back in 2018, said there were 22 million illegals in the US that number some people believe is as high as 40 million today, which puts a big strain on our economy. And yes, they do provide some services. I know that a lot of them are just hard working people and we need to have a better way for them to get here legally. But until that time, people need to come through the system. In fact, if we would make them come through the system, then I promise you the system would change pretty quickly because we do need to have a more efficient process. No question about that. So that's kind of the one of the big reasons for the housing prices the way that they are. I don't see them going backwards unless the country goes into a huge recession. And that has a lot of other negative implications to that and I don't see that happening. But housing prices are a problem. And one of the ways that we can help solve the problem is by first of all, keeping out illegals, secondly, building more houses, and thirdly, reducing interest rates. And all of these things, you know, all these things take time.
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We're going to talk about the Kids Act. I don't know how many of you have been following this. We talked about it a little bit in the past. In fact, I had my former colleague and good friend Giovanni Capriglion, who was a state representative in Texas that authored the cybersecurity legislation and also legislation protecting rules around AI and social media and what it does with children and what have you. So we've talked about this in the past, but I want to talk a little bit more about it today because there's actually a bill in the U.S. house that was passed, bipartisan actually by called the Kids act by a vote of 267 to 117. And what it would do prohibit companies from using minors personal data for targeted advertising and place new rules on how AI chatbots and online games interact with children. I think that's important. We'll talk about some of the people that disagree with that in just a minute. It would also require pornography websites to verify users agents before allowing the access and with the goal is to reduce children's exposure to explicit content. There was a Senate version of this that also included something called a duty of care that would have legally required online platforms to take responsible steps to prevent or reduce foreseeable harms to children, such as promoting dangerous content, addictive features or exploitation. The House bill doesn't have it in that, of course the social media and online companies lobbied strongly, strongly against that and the House version left it out and we'll see what the Senate does with it as it goes over because eventually they'll have to come to some type of understanding. And the critics argue that taking the duty of care out weakens the protections for children. I can see why they would say that. However, there are some senators that you know and congressmen that don't, don't agree with that. In fact, our friend Thomas Massie, who, you know, when I say a little bit tongue in cheek, although I know a lot of you people like Thomas Massie and I like some of the stuff he does, I just think he goes about it sometimes in the wrong way, but he was against it for sure. And there's. Here's a screen of his statement and I'll read it for you. This is a dangerous anti privacy bill, identity verification that the House of Representatives might try to pass by voice vote this afternoon, which they did pass, but not by voice vote. Before many of us are even in town. Senators like Mike Lee, Rand Paul and Ron Wyden voted against a similar bill in the Senate two years ago. So anyway, he's against that because he thinks it's too much government intrusion. And I understand that One of the challenges that you have is anytime you want more security, you will absolutely give up liberty. All right. That's what happened after 9, 11, when all the TSA stuff at the airports, we gave up some of our freedom in order to get more security. And there's always a battle for that. And I don't, I come down on different sides depending on the issue. I actually do think that we need to have protections for our children because they need to be able to use the Internet for their school, for what they do for work and just it's part of our lives. So therefore we need to protect it. Just like if you remember, this is a, maybe a small thing, but I can remember when our kids were little, when Justin was little, they started mandating seat belts in cars and that for people to have to wear seat belts. And that was a big issue. People thought that was too much government intrusion. I know when I was a little kid, I don't think we ever wore seat belts as far as I can remember. But again, the bill passed in exchange for losing some liberty. We got more safety and security. And that's one of the things obviously now I wouldn't ever think about getting in the car without buckling my seatbelt, certainly not having the seat belts buckled by the kids and what have you. And that's one of those things that I think was for the betterment of the country and betterment of society. And so that's what this is about. We'll see how it ends up working out. I do believe something will pass. One of the questions were what was the thoughts on the kids act passing? And I absolutely think it will pass. Now let's talk about some more viewer questions. We always get a bunch of questions. And again, you guys have great questions. And if you've emailed me a personal question I haven't gotten back to you, please resend it to me so that I can get back to you. But the first question we're going to go over is politics related. And you know, in the Republican Party and the Democrat Party, honestly there is a lot of fracturing going on. You know, we've seen these so called Democrat socialists, which are really just communists that have been elected in the Democrat Party running up in November against Republicans and we'll see in November how those turn out. But we've also seen on the Republican side some more far right side people winning in their primaries against what would be considered more more standard or conservative. What we'd say conserve standard conservative Republicans. In fact, in Texas there's the GOP is kind of split a little bit because we have people that don't like Paxton, who's going to be our Senate nominee. They don't like a gentleman named Beau French that's going to be running for our railroad commission, which oddly enough, even though it's called railroad commission side note, it actually oversees our oil and gas industry in Texas. And then Don Huffines, who is going to be our comptroller, who basically takes care of the money for the state. And people said what? What are my thoughts on that? Well, I think that we fight that out in the primary and once the nominee's picked that Republicans should all come together and vote for our nominee. And yes, there are people, we are human. Every there's no candidate that's going to be perfect. In fact, Jesus Christ is not on the ballot and we have flawed candidates. There's flawed people throughout history. Think about King David, man after God's own heart. How flawed was he in some of his own human activities And Solomon, the wisest of all in some of his activities. Activities and how God responded to some of that and how he grieved God. But we have the same thing in our politicians. But what we have to do, as I've said before, it comes down to a binary choice. It needs to be able. You have to pick between what is the best alternative. Okay. Of the two or the better alternative of the two. And I think Republican policies, as I said, in the general election, you're voting for policies, not as much people that we should come together and vote for the party that has the best policies. And there's no question in my mind that Republicans have the best policies. If you care about biblical worldview, if you care about traditional family values, if you care about protecting life, if you care about conservative government, the Republicans have the best opportunity to deliver on that. And so I'm not sure why there's such a split, but there is a split and we need to make sure that we come together on that again. We fight it out over people in the primaries. We vote for policy in the general elections.
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The next question was, why is Texas allowing all the moss to be built? Well, listen, under our law, it is a freedom of religion. We cannot stop mosque from being built. Now you can put some ordinances in on where they can be built, but be just like your church. Okay, on where, what church you go to. Now, I don't agree with anything about what is taught under Islam, as you know. But if they are here legally, they go through all the same process and procedures that we go through, let's say in a Baptist church or a Methodist church or a non denominational church. We can't stop them from having. Now if they're having an establishment, having a building where they go to church. Now if they're carrying on illegal activities, we can certainly do something about that. But I don't see under the current scenario how we could Stop that. If they meet all of the, the particular criteria. I don't like it any more than you do, but I don't know how we could stop that from a secular standpoint. Next question. Thoughts on Vice President Vance's future. He seems so guarded. What does he stand for? Well, I think if you go back, and you probably have, but I think if you listen to Ali's interview with him and watch that, that you'll learn a lot about where his heart is. And I think he stands for a conservative government. I don't think think he'll be quite the populist that Trump was, if I had to guess. But I think he stands for, he stands for life. He stands for conservative government. He stands for a strong military. I think he stands for lower interest rates. I think he stands for a secure border. I think he stands for all the main things that you and I stand for. Doesn't mean he's going to be the nominee. Doesn't mean that I'm going to support him, because there are probably other people that stand for similar things and maybe I'll align more with them. We'll just have to see how that works out over the next couple of years. Next question is, should conservatives be more proactive in our marketing messaging to young women? Absolutely. And I think Allie is one of the leading people that do that as a conservative, not as a Republican, but as a conservative. We need to be filling the airwaves as much as we can for young women, suburban women, rural women about why it makes sense to follow conservative policies. In fact, one of the best things that you could do for someone, a friend of yours or people in your family that may struggle with that, is make sure that they get Ali's book, Toxic Empathy, because it talks about how the media and liberals use our own empathy, which we should have empathy. They use that against us. And that's something that we end up having a guilt complex over. And we need to make sure that people need to make sure that they understand what toxic empathy is. And I believe that her book does a really good job at that. Next question is people always ask, why don't Republicans want to take care of the poor? Well, that's certainly not an accurate statement. Republicans want to take care of the poor. They just don't believe that government is the best way to do that. In fact, the stat I talked about earlier in this particular episode, that 63% of non citizens are on welfare, that's not a, that's, that's not a good program. That's not help. That's not giving a hand up, that's giving a hand out. What Republicans believe is that we should and I've been involved in a lot of these still involved in a big program on called alliance for Opportunity with several think tanks where we want to make sure that there are incentives for people to be self sufficient. And yes, we are called on to take care of the orphans and the widows. I'm not sure the government's called on to do that. But we as Christians are and we should do as much of that through our churches and our Christian and religious nonprofits that we can. But we absolutely want to help them. In fact, probably if you look at the stats, if you could look at the stats of people that give money to organizations that help the poor, talking about non profits, then you, I would almost guarantee you that conservatives give more money than liberals do in those particular organizations. I don't know that for sure because I'm not sure exactly how you check that out. But my guess is that would be the case just based on how I know conservatives are actually very generous people. Next question. How can a couple with young children make it on one income? I do think it's difficult. Lisa and I did that for several years. But I think you can do it. I think if your priority is that for one of the parents to stay at home with the child, then you have to adjust your lifestyle around that. You have to live in a place that allows you to do that. And you know you're going to not, you're not going to be able to have some of the things that other people have. But if it's important to you that one of the parents stay home, then it's really all about sacrifice. Obviously if you can figure out how to get a side hustle or a side job by the, by the parent, one of the parents or both of the parents that still allows you to stay home most of the time, then I think that's a good thing as well. Maybe an in home business, something like that. But it's difficult. There's no question about it. But I believe that those of you that decide to do that and feel called to do that will be honored for that in the long run. What's the best way to pay off debt? I've always thought the best way to pay off debt is to look at what you have that's charging the highest interest rate and try to load up on that and pay that off as fast as you can, then move to the next thing. That's what I Think you also might need to take a second job until you can get debt paid off. And I. I've seen people do that. I've seen my own mom do that. And I think that's a good thing to do. Let's see here. Building a new house and keeping your marriage strong. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah. I think you have to decide. Lisa and I've been through this a couple of times, actually. We. Yeah, we've been through this a couple of times. We've. We built from the ground up twice and then we finished a home out another time and we've done some remodeling. Lisa loves to remodel stuff. She likes a project and I like projects, too. I think you have to have a clear understanding going in. Usually someone there's one of you that's really thinking about the design and how it's going to look, and the other one's thinking about the budget. You have to have a meeting of the minds up front. And while there will always be some things that don't work out exactly, so it may cost a little more, you need to talk about those things. And you need to have a decision on how much you're willing to spend on whatever it is that you're doing. And each particular area, you can't, it's not going to be right to get into it and then say, well, I really want to do this or I really want to do that. That's just creates animosity and you don't want to do that. But you also got to remember that a house is just a thing. All right? And a thing is not as important as a relationship. And there's going to require some give and take on both of you to be able to get that, you know, to be able to get that done. But don't let a thing come in. But in between people, that would be a negative as far as I can see it. All right, how to leave and cleave when you're the only one taking care of a special needs sibling. I think that what you mean when you leave, you know, you leave home and you're married and now you're leaving and you're cleaving to your husband or your spouse, your wife then. But you have this special needs sibling that you're eventually going to need to take care of, or maybe you need, maybe you're taking care of them. Now that's a discussion that you need to have settled before you got married. Hopefully y' all had that conversation. And while your husband or your wife is now the person that you're taking tied most to. We have a responsibility and you know how I feel about this. We have special needs son and so I do think it's important that, that families take care of those people. It's just, I think it's just one of our obligations to do. It's just like taking care we talked about a minute ago. Widows and orphans, this is even more direct than that. So hopefully your spouse will understand that. I don't think that you should neglect your spouse. Use that as a reason to neglect your spouse. But I think you can come together and figure out what's fair. All right. You can't be totally focused on one and not at all on the other. There has to be a blend there. And again, even the special needs child is not or special needs siblings not going to get everything they want. They would like for you to be with them 100% of the time, but you can't do that. And they may or may not understand it as well, but it has to be that way because you do certainly have an obligation and you have a desire for your spouse and spend time and cleaving to them. I understand that, but I think it's something that you and your spouse have to have a sit down, discuss. You might need some counseling on that, but need to have a discussion on that.
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A
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B
My husband works 3, 4, 3 out of every 4 Sundays I bring kids to church alone. What's your advice? Well, first of all, I'm so proud of you for doing that because the easiest thing to do would be to stay home. But thank you for doing that what I would recommend that you do is have another time. Maybe Sunday evening is when your husband's home from work. It's to sit down and talk about and have the kids around, too, talk about what they talked about at church that day, what did they learn, what questions they have. I don't mean it's not going to be a sermon by your husband or by you, but. But just something y' all talk about. So it kind of brings Sunday back together with everybody participating in it and that he also feels a part of it. That's what I would do. How to be the Christian leader example in your home for your family. As I've talked about before, the number one way to do that is be the same. Be the same at home as you are out. If people, if your kids see you as a hypocrite or your wife see you as a hypocrite, then they're not going to respect you. And so while we need to be doing the things out in public that we do at home and conducting ourselves in the manner. Also, I think your kids knowing that God is important in your house and that they see you in the Word and they know that you're, you know, that you're having a regular quiet time and that you're praying with the family's praying. I told you about how we get together once a week over Zoom because our family's scattered around the country and have a prayer time for the family. The adults do anyway. I look forward to the grandkids as they get older, participate in that. And so doing things like that, I think will be a big positive and setting that example that they'll not forget. What's the best approach for toddler tantrums? Boy, I tell you what, you've hit me at a good time because as I told you in the first part of the episode, we had a lot of our grandkids up here for a while and we heard some tantrums, that's for sure. And here's what I tell you. The best approach is to be a grandparent and you can just walk into the other room, but no joking. You know, I don't know that I'm the best person to ask about that, but I think what Allie would tell you is that in some ways that. And I think Lisa would tell you this, too. In some ways, you have to realize what they are. They're just tantrums. Now, again, you have to have some boundaries that you won't allow. But having a little bit of a fit is not Something that is the end of the world. But I do think that there are boundaries that they need to know that there are consequences to their actions, whether that's going. And Allie used to have what Lisa used to call their crying chair. It'd be little chairs she'd have to go sit in when she couldn't, you know, understand why she couldn't get her way. And she had pitch a fit when she was a little girl. And Lisa would say, okay, you got to go get in your crying chair. Right. And again, I'm not opposed to paddling, if that's what you think is right. Again, you have to do that in the right manner. Don't do it when you're angry. You have to. Don't do it where it'll injure them. But sometimes a pad on the rear end with a wooden spoon or something like that might, might get their attention as opposed to just ignoring them. All right, I told you that we were going to finish up these sessions, hopefully going forward with some good news. And I want a couple of good news stories that I want to go over with you that I think are kind of cool that I ran across this week. I want to really, really praise the state of Indiana and Governor Mike Braun. June was Nuclear Family Month. And if you remember what a nuclear family is, it's where a mom and dad are in the home raising their children and that, you know, so we had all this Pride Month or whatever that was, but Indiana said, I tell you what, we're going to celebrate traditional families. And so they declared June Nuclear Family Month. That is such a good thing, and I hope other states will follow their lead in the future. The sad part is that in our society, only 35% of black children live with their mom and dad, both their mom and dad, as opposed to 70% of white children. And if you want to know why there are challenges in different communities, it usually comes down to the breakdown of the family. Now, I think a part of the reason for the breakdown is the family is what we talked about earlier. And that is we have tried to give people handouts instead of hand ups. And I think people want hand ups. And we have got to figure out a way in our society to do a better job at that. The second thing that I found good news is, is that there's more and more what they call grand families. And that's where grandparents are actively engaged in their grandchildren's lives. In some cases, they're having to raise them. Okay, and praise the Lord for them. That's very difficult to do. Believe me. God made us to have kids when we were younger, little kids anyway, we were younger. And not as we get older, it's much harder on us to do that. But having your grandparents, your parents, your kids, grandparents involved in the last lives of your kids is really important. And I know that one of the best times I ever spent in my growing up age was when I lived with my grandparents one summer. I still remember so many things from that summer. It was so impactful for me. And then having my mom live with us for 17, 18 years that she lived with us and the impact she had on our kids. So just encourage you. Thank you, grandparents. If you're a grandparent out there, get involved with your grandchildren. It's a really cool thing to do. And again, if they, you know, get too out of hand, you can hand them back to your parents and take to your kids and say, hey, Grandma and I are going to dinner. Right? So anyway, thank you for your time today. Appreciate it always. Thank you for supporting. If you're interested in getting my book, you can buy it on Ali's merchandise site, Life Lessons from the Little Red Wagon. If you you want a autographed copy, just email me and I'll be happy to autograph that to you and send it to you. I think it cost 20 bucks, but just let me know again and we'll look forward to seeing you down the road. Hope you have a good rest of the weekend. Have a good day. Sam.