← Them Before Us
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- [00:02]
A
Welcome to Them Before Us on American Family Radio where we strive to put children before adults. Our goal is to educate the public on a child centric perspective of marriage and family and represent the rights of children on policy matters. Now here's the host and founder of Them Before Us, Katie Foust.
- [00:21]
B
Welcome to Them Before Us Radio. I'm your host, Katie Foust, founder and president of Them Before Us here with my executive director, Josh Wood. We're gonna talk through a few pretty significant milestones this week and some trending news, but we always start off with a little bit of Bible time. And I was like, you know, the Bible time for today is great for the two milestones that I want to hit on. The first one is this is our 100th episode of sharing with you a perspective that centers the rights and well being of children on all matters of marriage and family with American Family Radio. So we are so thankful that they provide a platform for us to advocate on behalf of children and hopefully shepherd and shape how you think about marriage and family not just as a spiritual relationship, not just as an institution that is good for adults, but as a primary driver of justice for children. The second milestone that I wanted to mark was this week. I celebrated my 50th birthday. That would be half century. You know, on my way to one of my friends said, have a great second, third, as if I'm going to make it to 150. I'm like, I'll take it. I'll go all the way to America's 400th anniversary. Yes, I will. But I spent a lot of time in Psalm 18 this week. It just captured me. And it's all about war. It's all about going up against incredibly strong adversaries. And I was listening to it over and over at the gym on the morning of my birthday. And it just speaks to, I think, where a lot of Christians feel they are and maybe need to be, which is up against the world. I think that there's things in our own personal lives, but definitely in culture where we are facing down armies that by the world's standards are so much stronger than we are. So here's the verses that really stood out to me, the God who equipped me with strength and made my way blameless. So the Lord has to equip you and make you blameless. By him we can run up against the truth. By my God, I can leap over a wall. Like it's speaking of these incredible feats that most people would say, how are you this one person going to go up against an entire troop of adversaries. And then it talks about how God trains our arm for war so that we can bend a bow of bronze like it's giving us all of these physical pictures of great adversaries that are true for us in the spiritual realm. So we have a lot of work to do as it relates to defending children. And in many ways, this is a war. Not that we war against flesh and blood, but make no mistake, we are at war. We are at war against some of the most nefarious ideas and spiritual powers that are seeking to destroy the thing that God loves the most, which is imago dei, his people, and specifically his vulnerable children. So as we look forward to the next 200, 300, 1,000 episodes, as you look forward in your own life about the struggles and the challenges that you are facing down today, allow the Lord to. To make you blameless so that his right hand can support you, so his gentleness can make you great. Let God put you in a wide place so that your steps under you don't slip. God is able and willing to do that when you fix your eyes on the things that he loves and cares about and are willing to go to war for the things that he loves. Josh, any reflections on this, our 100th episode of Them Before Us radio or the spiritual fight that we have before us today?
- [04:29]
C
Well, it was funny. So we have a staff group chat, like, I'm sure many of you do have a family group chat. And we. I sent through a couple articles today that were contrasting two different opinions which are actually on this subject. Are we in a war? And one side said, you know, it's important that we think about the renewal of institutions and the small platoon and just focus on your family. And they called it something. I forget what the term was like. Dignified losers that we understand we're going to lose the battle, but we're going to do so with dignity. Fighting for the right things. We're not even fighting, Pursuing the right things, trying to take hold of the institutions God puts in front of us. Raising good kids, having good marriages. And the other was, you're in a war, the only reason you have the opportunity to have your small platoon is because others have shed blood on your behalf and wake up for the fight. And it was contrasting these, you know, the one was looking down on the other saying, their tactics, you know, the dignified losers were looking down on these culture warriors saying, you know, your tactics are ruining our good name. On and on it goes. And it was Something to wrestle with. I don't think that they're so wrong that in fighting these battles on behalf of children like we do, we can't lose ourselves. I don't think we can descend into, for example, mockery or cruelty. I. I think that, well, mockery can sometimes actually be a really helpful thing. But I agree we can't lose our souls in the process of fighting a monster. You know, you don't want to become one or become what you're fighting. But I also think we so take for granted the amount of shalom, the amount of peace that exists within our society because people before us faced up to those monsters. And I think we exist in the fruit of that. And so when I think about psalms, when I think about war, and I think our. Our reticence to label what we are in right now war is a. A lack of representation of the victims. So many of them aren't here to say, that was war and I lost my life. They're often, in our case, embryos or their kids being placed into these situations that are unjust. Or it's. It's people who. Who don't have a taste for what this all could turn into, don't have vision for that. And they will realize too late.
- [07:05]
B
So I am a nice woman, generally. I really like to get along with all different kinds of people, even if we disagree. But there is something about victimizing the most vulnerable that makes me want to war. War and rage and sometimes do violence. I don't, but I want to. And one of those things is when children are denied their rights and needs so adults can have what they want. Sometimes the adults don't realize the impact that it's having on the kids. Sometimes they just don't care. But either way, children are harmed not just when they lose their right to life through abortion or through reproductive technologies, which we spend a lot of time talking about. But children are harmed when they lose their mother. And that is something that we are only starting to talk about in our culture. Part of it is because mother loss is very difficult for our species. It is hard to have a motherless baby. Before there were bottles, before there was nicus. You know, if a child lost their mother, the child lost, child's dead. So now we've developed these technologies to separate children from their mothers through surrogacy. And thankfully, we've been able to keep children alive even if their mother dies in childbirth. But that motherless baby is a rarity for our species. And yet our culture, law, and our technology are increasingly Moving towards places where we are telling children that their own mother is optional in their life. So as we are celebrating Mother's Day this weekend, our non profit, them before us, has put out some resources to drive home exactly why this singular relationship is so important to children. One of those is this video that we just debuted of a woman named Samantha who was raised by her father and his boyfriend. Well loved. She would say I was very well cared for. You know, my father was more of the rough and tumble guy, and Billy, my husband, my father's boyfriend, was more nurturing and more motherly. And I was happy. And I had a roof over my head. I had food in my stomach. I was going to school, I had a little brother. And yet I desperately wanted a mother. I hungered for a mother. I longed for a mother. So it's very important for us to humanize the real victims in these conversations. It's not adults who can't have what they want. It's children who are denied their needs. So, Josh, you want to tell us a little bit about that story, why we captured it? What was your impressions when you first saw it?
- [09:42]
C
Well, it cuts through a lot of the. Well, it's good timing, right? We're going into Mother's Day and you watch that story and you do realize that there exists this, like, malaise or this like, cultural agreement that we're not going to actually name what's occurring when these situations happen. And so when people say you just need two parents, you. What you see with Samantha and her story is that in real life, she just had two parents. She doesn't. And it wasn't okay like that. That. That's the part that cuts through the noise. We're man. She talks about whether or not you have two people in your life. Not having that person. It's not just a number, it's not a quantity. Three isn't better than two. Five doesn't make more than three. It's two specific people that if you don't have that, it just wrecks you. And her talking about that, it's such a good. It kind of pierces through what culture has tried to lay, to kind of lay on us that. That. Would you stop with the two people? Would you stop with mothers and fathers? Kids just need some people around them that are gonna put a roof over the head, give them clothes and food, and then they're gonna be fine. It's like you see it in real life here and that you. It cuts right through the line.
- [11:04]
B
If you wanna watch that video, you can go to GreaterThancampaign.com right on the homepage, you'll see a pop up about Mother's Day where we're going to put in some res Mother's Day. I want you to watch Samantha's story because we have them before us. We can talk about the maternal deprivation that kids experience and the studies on rodent populations about how that's going to permanently alter the structure of their brain because the bond between mother and child is so critical. And we can talk about destroying the studies that supposedly show that kids with two moms or two dads fare no different or even better than children raised by a heterosexual couple. And we can destroy the methodologies of those studies.
- [11:43]
D
And.
- [11:43]
B
And none of it is going to make this as clear as listening to the testimony of a child who was raised without a mother or a father when you hear from their own lips. I was harmed by this. I did not just need two guardians or two caregivers or two loving adults. I needed my father and I needed my mother. I did not have a mother. I didn't even know what a mother was until I was five years old. And once I realized that there was a thing called mother and it was a parent who was a woman, I started to ask every woman in my life, every female teacher, every aunt, every lesbian friend of my father if they would be my mother. And I struggled to understand myself as a woman without having a mother in my life. So go to GreaterThancampaign.com and look. Samantha's video should pop up. Watch it nine minutes, take it in, and never again believe that any two will do. Or if the adults are happy, the kids will be happy. Or kids don't need a mom and dad. They just need loving guardians. Lies. God and his design got this exactly right. It takes a man and a woman to make a baby. And the baby needs that man and woman all day, every day, all their life.
- [13:01]
C
Well, it does strike you that mom is not a negotiable title. The adults who construct the family, the two dads scare quotes, the two men who acquire a child, they can label that specific woman egg donor if they want. That does not change the fact that to that child, she is mom. That's not a negotiable. That's not a. And I think some of that truth comes through. We, we read stories, all these comments of. I mean, you go to our Instagram page at them before us, you'll see the adults chiming in saying, she's just an egg donor. Like, get over it. She wasn't Mom. Like, it's good to remember the kid doesn't care what you label the woman who gave her life, period. We see this with surrogacy, too. People say it's just a bun in the oven. It doesn't. Whoa, whoa, whoa. The child is the one that gets to determine the significance of the. Of someone gestating them for nine months carrying that bond. You don't. And, and we can't, as a society bend to that and start going with the culture to allow them to rename these critical roles.
- [14:11]
B
Yeah. I love how somebody's lived experience is the authority in almost every other situation. You know, if somebody feels like they experience some kind of misogyny or economic disparity, it's because there's some kind of systemic discrimination. That's my lived experience, even if it doesn't align with the evidence or the empirical data. And yet when kids say, my lived experience is, I was desperate for a mother and I feel like she sold me, we tell them to shut up and be grateful to be alive because you wouldn't exist without these technologies. Wrong. Children have a mother and a father. They have a right to them. They need them. They long for them. And this Mother's Day, we can either recognize it or we can victimize children by denying it.
- [14:57]
D
Foreign.
- [15:02]
A
Welcome back to Them Before Us on American Family Radio.
- [15:06]
B
Welcome back to them before U.S. radio. I'm your host, Katie Foust, founder and president of Them Before Us, here with my executive director, Josh Wood. We're going to be talking a little bit about trends among women and trends among kids as it relates to screen time, because there is an awful lot changing as it relates to humanity, men and women, their understanding of the world, the way they're moving through the world, the choices that they're making, and certainly children, and the way that technology is infiltrating and undermining their adolescence and their early years. First, let's talk about this tweet that Gabriella Hoffman wrote. She's with the Independent Women's Forum, and she's talking about how women are trending left. What she means is more and more women are adopting a progressive political identity, a little bit more left leaning, rejecting conservative principles as it relates to both the social and the economic. And she goes through a few reasons why she thinks that is. So, Josh, do you want to take us through, you know, what she was saying is the problem? And she doesn't want women to be trending left. She wants them to at least come back to the center Maybe even trend politically or economically conservative. What does she feel like is really at the root of this leftward lurch that so many young women are experiencing?
- [16:34]
C
Well, I think we probably have some. She kind of offers five solutions, but man, I would, I'd also just be curious, Katie, to hear if like, that feels consistent with your experience. Do you, do you think this is something where there are things that the culture is doing that are forcing women left or, or do you. And maybe we as conservatives or, you know, Christians need to change our language and adjust or, you know, or is this more of an intentional strategic project by certain people to actually recruit and radicalize and pull them? I'm always just a little hesitant to say, if you don't like what someone's doing, here's what you need to do to change to get women back or get men back. I'm like, well, you know, I, I just think that that logic has a certain endpoint. But here are the five she lists and I like these. Refrain from repeal the 19th amendment talk. You do see that from some circles on X.
- [17:30]
B
So this is number two, say, like, I don't think most people in the mainstream are even aware that people are debating repealing the 19th amendment that is giving women the vote. It is definitely an attention grabber on X. I don't think so much on like Instagram or the other channels, but X is a little more like hyper political. So I'm like, I don't know. I know that that kind of bugs you when people say it. I don't think that has any kind of on generally how women are feeling as it relates to political alignment. But you know, that's just my. What do you think, Josh? Like, let just hit that point.
- [18:05]
C
Well, okay, I saw someone the other day say if, if the number one issue for women, and I forget what election they were citing, it might have been 2020. The number one issue was reproductive rights. And X percent, it was over 50% said that they wanted to have the ability to end the life of their child in the womb. And that person used that as the justification to say, look, that, that's a good example of why the 19th amendment should be repealed. Look, and that's, that's a terrible solution to what is a cultural rot in our society. We don't need to end the vote for women. What we do need is to figure out why or what caused us to as a society, you know, embrace the, the killing of our unborn children. And, and we've brainwashed a whole generation of women, multiple generations at this point, to accept that. I don't know, Katie, if you saw Ali Beth Stuckey's interview with David French the other day, he throws out this line that, well, actually, if you support, if you're pro life, you actually need to go with Obama because abortions decline more during his term than anyone else's, and that is bogus. I actually pulled it on my own substack. Looked at the trend line for the last 50 years since Jimmy Carter, and it's, it's. It has been trending down ever since. And you know when it started going back up, when the Democrats in 2016 decided to drop half, I think it was 500, half a billion dollars in campaign ads on one specific issue, reproductive health, because they wanted that to be the campaign issue. They went, and what happened? And then you legalized mifepistrone. So you can do abortion by mail. And even though you get the repeal of Roe v. Wade, abortions have continued to tick up to where the largest increase was not under a Republican. When David French probably said that last, it was Donald Trump. Well, since Biden took over, it went up even more. Just shows you our culture, not a Republican president. Not if you give women more money, they'll stop having an abortion. And our culture has accepted this brainwashing, that it's somehow okay and that actually pregnancy is scary, it's a condition. You don't want a family. Abortion is all right, you can do it via pill. I mean, we just had this whole cultural messaging oriented around that. And guess what? It worked. It worked. And all of us, it gets to this whole discussion here that the way a culture messages its people can have a real impact. And I think people are seeing that and getting, getting depressed about, do we really have a generation of women who are okay with abortion like that, that that speaks to our spiritual sickness?
- [20:58]
B
Women are trending left. But let's be clear. It is highly educated women who are single. It is those women that are trending left. They are the most rabidly progressive. And so I think that we're both looking at the diagnosis going, okay, women are trend. And there are some people that are like, well, the problem is single women. So we should repeal the 19th because they are skewing our elections. But the real answer is no, they should get married. Because once women get married, they, number one, have much less, much fewer abortions. They feel like they don't need it as much. It makes them either. Either conservative women marry more or marriage makes them more conservative. Probably both. Probably once you get married and start having children. You realize I don't need the government. I don't want the government. I don't only not need the government to take care of me. I want them nowhere near me or my children or the decisions, educational or medical that I am making for my offspring. And so you get pretty strong red pill when you have babies. And so we're looking at the same problem. Progressive trends among women, the answer is not revoke their right to vote. It is get them back to the place where they're in line with being dependent on a man and vice versa. Men dependent on women. We are an interdependent species, right? Single men are not good for society either. They just tend to do things like acts of despair, mass shootings, drug induced death, and women tend to vote progressive. Okay, so it's like there are disparities. There is going to be deficits in our society when men and women are not pairing off. The solution is not to repeal the 19th. It is to get back in touch with the fundamental natures of what it means to be a man and a woman and recognize it's not good for man or woman to be alone and reinvigorate early, fruitful, healthy marriages. So I would say that first line of look, we can talk about the 19th Amendment. It identifies a real problem. Repealing the 19th is not the right solution.
- [23:04]
C
Well, and just to defend men, I think sometimes we do see the more visible, socially destructive behaviors of men. Like you said with drugs or shootings. We don't often see the, I mean we can't, the 65 million children that have lost their lives, which, that, I mean again, if you're gonna lay, if we're gonna lay so much of that destruction on the, at the feet of men, women have to have that laid at their feet too. And say I, I, I. It's challenging for me when people point to men being so much more violent or so much like, wait a second, we are all a sinful species now. We have different ways of manifesting for sure, but our culture, we have a sickness. And yes, you're right, the solution is not a repeal of the 19th Amendment. It's a return to an embrace of the dignity of life, understanding the value of every human being, regardless of location. And I, I would say nothing does that kind of, that generational thinking or the respect and dignity for unborn life, things like that. Nothing does that like parenthood, like being a mother, being a father, being married. It does make you think about things bigger than yourself.
- [24:24]
B
Gabriella goes on to say Some of the other things she feels is responsible for the leftward lurch of these young women is she says, stop condemning women who work and promote flexible work arrangements that allow women to balance work and home life. Do you think that that is part of driving women to the left?
- [24:44]
C
Oh, I. Well, first off, I think that we have to do those things. Gabriella is right. We cannot condemn women that work. We live in a society today that has almost. I mean, whether it's wages being stagnant or the increased cost of living or all the incentives provided for women who do work, that we're pushing people towards that arrangement where both spouses work, and we can't condemn them for that. We can't. I think we do need to promote how good motherhood and fatherhood can be. And we do need to encourage all employers to value flexible work arrangements that allow people to build families while not having to sacrifice income. Income. Because if. If they can. If you can work asynchronously, or you can work in the morning, in the evening, if your job really allows for that. And the culture's not going to suffer by being in an office versus being home.
- [25:42]
E
Wow.
- [25:43]
C
As employers, we absolutely should try to do those things, and that's important. Do I think that that's driving women left? I'm not so sure. Maybe they feel more supported by some of the progressive policies, like, you know, daycare, child care, early Head Start programs. Maybe that's what she means it. And I can understand that point.
- [26:06]
B
So to me, her list goes on. Number four says, retake affordability messaging. Okay. And then number five, focus on kitchen table issues. So, you know, everything that she's talking about from here on down has to do with money and economy. And she thinks that people talking about those kinds of things or messaging wrong is driving women to the left. It's not. It's just not. The reality is that women have been captured on the left by a form of social contagion that pits them against men, lies to them about their bodies, tells them they have all the time in the world to become mothers and to get married. Many of them end up never getting married and never being mothers, which entrenches them even further into a dependency on the government or feeling like it is me against the entire world, especially those terrible patriarchs. So I think that what she's pointing out is probably more things that grade against conservative women that are successful in the workplace. And she doesn't like hearing other conservatives critiquing some of the social decisions that women are making. I Don't think those messages trickle down to women at large. What young women are hearing is overwhelming feminist messaging that is anti male and anti child and anti marriage. And then everything else simply follows from that. It's not like I cannot see that girls in high school are aware that some conservatives in some spaces are critiquing the fact that women are not at home baking sourdough. No, to me she is being exposed to some arguments kind of in elite political arenas and that is absolutely not the explanation for why women are leaning left. That is profound. Anti child, anti marriage, anti male messaging.
- [27:56]
C
Yep, I think that's true. And it gets back to are we not communicating well to a, an audience that might be convinced or are the institutions, the culture, is it set up in a way right now that women are not going to be exposed to the quite honestly the most pro family experiences like having children. Are we are we set up in a way that's incentivizing the destruction of the family by not making marriage a beneficial thing or by incentivizing you to keep your two incomes because the opportunity cost is so high when child care is already free? I would say far more the structures and the widespread cultural messaging are pushing women that way. Now do we have to get more creative on what is going to be the most effective way to message them? Personally, I think all of the stuff she lists great ideas and examples and we should have really good ways to support women to, to make work flexible for men and women to talk about affordability. We, we do need to care, care about those things. But I think our experiential solutions. How do we get more people around children? How do we create family friendly spaces so people can be aware of the see kids in everyday life and see, you can do this. You can go to the brewery with your kids. You can. How do we get people holding children, make them more, you know, how do we create in our churches, how do we presence more children in worship and those places without shushing them or making them feel like an inconvenience? Those are the radicalizing things. When people get to hold kids, when they get to be around children or they see grandparents with their grandkids, you go, oh my gosh. There's so much more to this than just my life, my work, my corporate ladder.
- [29:43]
B
I was in lancaster, sorry lancaster, PA and around a lot of families with a lot of children. You know, these people were off the charts in terms of their fecundity and it was great. And their kids were getting married early, like sometimes right out of high school. And a lot of them had very good jobs. So like they had set up the school I was talking to, had sort of an internship kind of tradesmen pathways for a lot of them. And because they were saturated, they were around so many other families with little kids. Many of them had little brothers and sisters. They had an incredibly low divorce rate. It's like less than 5% of the kids going to that school had divorced parents. So it was like largely intact family that were had lots of kids where they saw their mother and father adoring and loving each other. And you know what? They were getting married right out of high school or sometimes in their early 20s and then starting to have kids right away. So why. It wasn't because they didn't have any messages there about, you know, it wasn't a 19th amendment kind of question. It was a you become what you behold kind of question. They were allowed to see, they were allowed to behold wonderful, healthy marriages, large, joyous families. They were able to taste and see that marriage and family are good, that having babies is good, having lots of babies is really, really good. That this is not primarily a political messaging problem. It is an experiential problem. We are not experiencing the kind of joys that goes along with marriage and family the way we used to.
- [31:07]
C
Yep. Just it's a good reminder that some of our own children will be the ones that we are going to be messaging to. And where we place our daughters, what schools they go to, who they're around, so that they're in the types of spaces where marriage is. The next step, naturally, is. Is a great step in defending them against that ideology.
- [31:27]
B
Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. Happy Mother's Day to all. All of the kids that wish that they had had a closer relationship with their mother or maybe missed out on one. That longing is good and right. You didn't get something that you were made for. And I pray that the other children in your life, the children that you have, will get to enjoy the fruits of the things that you were denied. And they will if adults do hard things on behalf of kids. Stay with us. We'll be right back. We're going to highlight some of the best moms in literature over the last couple decades in our next segment.
- [32:01]
A
If you'd like to comment on the show. Email comments.
- [32:07]
D
Hey everyone. Welcome to here for the comments a Them Before Us podcast series where we dive into the comments and questions. We get online and unpack the children's rights perspective. We use to answer them. I'm your host, Jen, and I'm joined by Sam, and we are here for the comments.
- [32:21]
E
All right, Jen, what do we have today?
- [32:24]
D
We. It's our hundredth episode, as you guys just heard from Katie and Josh breaking it down, all the cool stuff we've been talking about for the last 100 episodes. And this will be a little bit different edition of here for the comments, because we're coming up on Mother's Day this weekend, or maybe you're listening to this and it is Mother's Day right now, but we wanted to highlight some impressive moms in pop culture. Katie said literature. Sam and I took it a little more casual. We went more for, like, the movies. Movies, TV shows, kids TV shows and stuff. So set us up. Sam, who's our first mom that we want to highlight here?
- [32:59]
E
All right, these are in no order of, like, our favorites or importance. So it's kind of just random ones that we thought of, but we. The first one that we have listed is Sarah Connor. I mean, of course, that had to be one of them. She obviously, like, transformed her entire self into a warrior to protect her son from the end of the world. So I feel like she had to be in top 10. And all throughout the series, every decision she makes is for her child. So I think that she was a great mom.
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D
Yeah. Did you watch the Terminator series when you were growing up?
- [33:34]
E
Not when I was growing up. I watched it as an adult.
- [33:37]
D
Yeah. I think I watched it in reverse order, almost like the more recent ones that came out, I saw and then went back and watched it. And, man, the Terminator stuff was so scary. Right. It was like there's no way to beat them. And so the fact that it's like this time travel kind of thing where these robots from the future are coming back in time to kill her son, who becomes a leader in the military going forward. Like, you're saying she goes from normal mom, normal world to becoming just ba fighter lady. And she's in one of the. The newest one. She comes back, which is very nostalgic for fans, and she's trying to take out another Terminator. But this Terminator is actually sort of an ally because, you know, or an augment of a human. But yeah, everybody loves some time travel mom protection, right?
- [34:26]
E
That's right.
- [34:27]
D
Okay. This was one I just added in because a lot of people have complex feelings about Lorelei Gilmore. If you ever watch this is.
- [34:35]
E
This is like, I feel like people disagree on this or agree. Like, it's either one or the other. You love her or you think that you don't like her.
- [34:42]
D
So, yeah, I was a psychology major, and I think she's a fascinating, like, psychological study in a sense. So if you've never seen Gilmore Girls, Lorelei Gilmer is, you know, raised super wealthy family only child, becomes pregnant at 15 or 16, decides to keep the baby, gets kicked out or leaves her family and, like, grows up and is sort of raised in a small town that's close to where she grew up. And then, so the whole story is about Lorelei, who's only, you know, 16 or so years older than her daughter. They end up being more like roommates and friends in a lot of ways. But that's what I actually really have loved. There were a lot of. First of all, it's the choosing life thing, of course, right? It's that. That thing of where when women feel empowered to know that you can do it, you can take care of your child and get a career and, you know, you can do all the things, maybe not all at once, but you can sacrifice. She does sacrifice for her child. She works at a hotel, works her way up. I believe she starts in, like, maid service or something. When we meet her, she's the manager, general manager of a hotel, has worked her way up, raises her daughter to be a pretty decent person, really pushes her to do well in school, a lot of those things. And you really see some moments they have a lot of friction later on in the show because her mom really puts her foot down of, like, you're not gonna just not go to college after what I've sacrificed for you. And gets really irritated with her wanting to throw her life away on stupid. A stupid boy. Or when she decides she's, like, with someone who's married. Like these. There's these kind of moral distinctions where she goes from being a friend and, like, yeah, we're just chilling and we're vibing together to, like, really putting her foot down and being like, no, I'm your mom and I've sacrificed for you, and I know what's better. I know what's better for you. Don't do that. And so there's some cool moments like that I appreciate. Okay, what's our next one here?
- [36:34]
E
All right, we have Helen Parr. She. I actually love this one. This is from the Incredibles. She's the mom from the Incredibles. And I honestly just love the Incredibles altogether. I think it's so wholesome. I think it's a really good, like, family movie. And both of Them are great, but she just. Obviously she would risk her life to keep her family safe, to save her children's lives. And even when she was, like, in danger and everything was hectic, like, she was able to, like, stay calm and, like, still be super protective of her children. And. Yeah, I actually. I really, really liked that movie. I like her a lot.
- [37:09]
D
Yeah, there's that really iconic clip from the Incredibles, the first movie where she's flying the plane and she's. She's portrayed as this very. She's good at everything. Like, she knows they've worked as, like, spies, superheroes.
- [37:22]
E
Right.
- [37:23]
D
And so she knows how to fly the plane, she knows how to hide, she knows how to fight all this stuff. But then it comes down to this. They're flying the plane, their missiles are being shot at them, and she's, like, fighting for, like, I'm throwing my flares. I'm. I'm trying to call and say, look, we're civilians, or we have children on board. And it gets to this, like, crisis moment. She's yelling at her daughter who has another superpower, put a force field or on the plane. And the little. The girl doesn't know what to do. She doesn't know. And it's like, she's, like, yelling and trying to balance everything. You just picture, like, mom's being stressed in a much less crazy way when you have a million things going on, but then ultimately it comes down to, like, screw the plane runs to the back, grabs everybody, and is able to basically. I don't know. I don't remember how they're. Maybe she. Her daughter is able to do the force field and protects them from that initial blast. And then the mom, or the mom just grabs them and they fly out of the plane when it blows up.
- [38:17]
E
Yeah, I think that's what happens. I think it blew up and they, like, she just grabbed them in time. So, like, she jumped out and then she was able to, like, like, parachute herself to let the land slowly. Yeah.
- [38:29]
D
And an actually super sweet moment.
- [38:32]
B
Right.
- [38:32]
D
Her daughter is devastated. Like, I couldn't do it. And she comforts her. She's like, that's okay. That was too. That was too stressful. That's a lot to ask of you. It's. We're fine. And they're, like, in the water. Like, she's comforting everyone. You just do see moms in crisis all over the world that really have to deal with stuff like that. And it's like that mom protection. And then the mom comforting thing is just so huge. So that was really cool. Another one, Molly Weasley. So she is the mom of the Weasley clan in Harry Potter. And yeah, it's. Their house is just pictured as sort of being chaos. Everybody's everywhere. Those older brothers are so rambunctious and they don't have a lot of money. That's like a big, funny storyline is Ron Weasley never has anything cool and he has like his grandma's sweater or dress gown or whatever and. But she just loves her family so well and they love being together. And then it's also really cool because she incorporates and invites Harry, who doesn't have a family, into that love and warmth. Kind of the way you've described your mom and how she took in any of your friends who didn't really have a place to go or had their moms were just busier and stuff. She was always that place people could go to feel that love. So it was awesome.
- [39:46]
E
Joyce Byers.
- [39:47]
D
So I haven't seen Stranger Things.
- [39:49]
E
You're missing out. I love it. I know. I. I don't know anyone who really doesn't like it. I'm not. I'm sure there's people out there, but I don't even want to tell you that much about it because the thing about Stranger Things is it's like so much more exciting and fun. If you don't really have expectations going into it, you're, like, blown away. But I will just say she, at this some point, her son is missing and everyone makes her feel crazy because they're like, you know, he's gone. Like, he's dead. You know, there's no coming back from it. You would need to give up. And then she basically is just like, nope, I'm not going to. And she, they, they call her crazy, but she does, like, literally whatever it takes. As crazy as she looks, she's going to find her son. She knows he's alive. She won't give up hope. And she did. And they eventually reunite and it's fantastic. And so I don't want to say too much more because I don't want to give it away to someone who hasn't seen it and do all the spoiler, but definitely worth watching and definitely, definitely a great mom through the whole series.
- [40:49]
D
So, yeah, that's awesome. Love it. Okay, the next one's Claire Huxtable, who's from the Cosby Show. I've only seen this a few episodes in passing, but my general sense of her as a mom is she balances that warmth, love for her Kids with just the sass and like the sarcastic. When your kids are up to no good and they're just trying to put stuff over on you. It is funny as an adult now and working with teenagers. So I don't have kids, but working with teenagers, you see those moments when they're obviously it's kind of like that does not seem like you're telling me the truth in this moment, but I'm letting it go because it's not my business or I'm letting you deal with that on your own or whatever. You know the ways that you have to interact with your kids when they're being sassy, you know, when they're older where you're not just. You put them in time out anymore. It's like, no, you have to engage with them or they just have to be allowed to do their own shows choices. So that's a funny. She's a good picture of that.
- [41:45]
E
She always reminds me of like, you know how you have those teachers that are known for being really strict and you're a little bit scared of them, but they end up being the best teacher because they have these high expectations of you and it makes you work harder and then you feel so much more accomplished because you're like, wow, I didn't even know that was in me. And they're the ones who brought it out. Like, that's the kind of mom she is. Like, she's so stable and loving, has high expectations and. But also very protective and warm and so I really, really like her. And then, let's see here. Leanne Toy. I don't even know if I can pronounce that last name. Tui. That's a mom from the blind side. I haven't seen that in so long. But I did see it and I did really like it. But basically, like, yeah, she. Even with her own kids, she's like super. Just supportive and helpful and then being able to like bring another person into this and love a child as her own and. And just again, how protective she is and like she just doesn't play when it comes to her kids. And I just have a lot of respect for that.
- [42:45]
D
Yeah, it's so good. I love that show. I mean, it's interesting. I don't even know are we supposed to get into the controversy of it? Because we're trying to keep it positive. But I've been really disappointed to hear how some of that story has gone post. I don't know if it was 2020, if it was BLM, if it was just the advent of you're not allowed to be a white savior. I remember some colleagues in my previous job were talking about white saviorism in the movies. And then he highlighted this movie and Cool Runnings as examples of white saviorism. I was like, first of all, those are true stories. These are things that actually happened. Sorry. That a white family saw someone who needed help and helped him. And this guy. Were you going to be an NFL football player before they helped you and gave you just opportunities you didn't already have? That acting like they did it so they could benefit from him in some way? It's like they're a rich white family. I don't know if they sacrifice and, like, gave, paid for school and, like, loved you and fed you for decades. So, oh, hopefully we can, like, he'll take care of us when we're old. They were already rich. So it's stuff like that. It's just such a bummer. And then the cool runnings one, I was like, bro, cool Runnings does not make the white guy look like the hero of the story.
- [44:02]
E
Have you ever seen that one?
- [44:03]
D
Oh, my gosh. It's based on a true story. It's the Jamaican bobsled team. It's like this white retired coach. I think he's a drunk who comes out of retirement for, like, this long shot. Yeah, Jamaican bobsled. It's a true story. They go to the Olympics, and I don't even think they finish, like, the race. But he. It's portrayed as, like, this group of friends who end up doing the bobsled team, draw him out of the shell and the reclusivity and the alcoholism that he had fallen into. So I was like, that's not white saviorism just because it's a white guy. So anyway, you know, there's just some things like that. But I think it's a beautiful story of sacrifice for someone who's not your biological kid. All right. This is a movie I haven't seen a ton. Maybe once or twice. Have you seen Forrest Gump?
- [44:50]
E
I actually haven't seen a ton either. I have seen it, and this was one that I still think deserved to be on the list. But this is kind of like, on the lower end. There's probably some other ones out there that we missed. But she was just. She just really defended her son and also taught him to really believe in himself, even though, like, how other people treated him. And I think that's so important because, like, having a little bit of confidence in yourself goes a long way. And I feel Like, a lot of it could have gone the other direction, where he had no confidence and wasn't able to achieve anything or, you know, care about himself at all. But I feel like that's what set his whole movie forward with his. Was his mom.
- [45:28]
D
Yeah, well, he had physical and intellectual disabilities. And, you know, you need someone who advocates for you and builds you up so you can reach your potential. Any child does needs those things, but especially when you have the world really looking at you on the outside and being like, you don't have value. You know, you need that person. Okay, Queen Ramonda from Black Panther Wakanda Forever. I want to say she's played by Angela Bassett. He was probably, like, a model or something. But, yeah, I loved. I loved the Wakanda movies or the Black Panther movies. It's funny because a lot of people have pointed out, why would there be this magical, extremely technologically advanced, prosperous African country that refuses to help any of the countries around it. Like, you have all your people, your fellow, like, Africans suffering all over the world, and you could help. You're like, no, we're just going to stay hidden behind this thing. It's like, okay, plot hole. But it's a really cool picture of leadership. She's like, the Queen. Is she the Queen Mother because her husband dies at some point. That's right. And then her son becomes. So, yeah, she's like the. The Queen Mother that's supportive, though, of her son and his leadership, encouraging him when he needs it. You know, you're the. If you think about the mothers of these really famous, influential people, Elon Musk is a good example. That's the person who knows you for real. You're not going to be able to pretend you're someone different. It's like they know you. And when you need to cry for real, like a man, a big, strong man who's in charge of stuff, and you need, like, a person who loves you and cares about you. That's who they turn to. Their mom, you know.
- [47:04]
E
Yeah, I'm gonna skip one real quick because I want to make sure we get it before we end, because I know we're coming to a close soon. But Kala, which is from Tarzan. I love the movie Tarzan. I like it. Kids love that movie. But I think that, again, she chose to raise Tarzan and protect him as her own, even when, like, her husband was like, you know, against it and was like, why are you trying to raise a human? You're not a human. And. But she. She didn't care. Like, she just loved that baby with everything in her. And literally, because of that love, he was able to finally integrate into their whole, you know, little society and become the man that he became.
- [47:44]
D
Yeah.
- [47:45]
E
I love it. He's so sweet.
- [47:48]
D
Well, I think that is all the time we have today, though. So thanks, everyone, for joining us for our sort of here for the comments. But it's our Mother's Day edition, so going through some moms in media and such. Hey, if we missed one that you love, put it in the comments or let us know who you think your favorite mom is, aside from your own mom, of course, which is the gift. But thanks for joining us, and we will catch you guys next time.
- [48:10]
E
See ya.
- [48:11]
B
The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast do not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.