Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 767 ｜ Hershey's Celebrates Women... By Celebrating a Man ｜ Guest： Bethany Mandel

00:00:00.000 Jon Stewart thinks he made a really good point about drag queens and guns, but did he?

00:00:07.440 Also, Hershey's has decided to use a man in their advertisements to celebrate Women's History Month.

00:00:15.800 Also, my friend Bethany Mandel is here to talk about an incredible book that she co-wrote called Stolen Youth.

00:00:24.240 And it's about how the indoctrination in our schools and the institutional capture that we see in all kinds of institutions in our country is preying upon the innocence of our kids.

00:00:34.720 And she's got some really great tips to fight back. 0.95

00:00:38.280 This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.

00:00:40.760 Go to GoodRanchers.com.

00:00:42.040 Use promo code Allie at checkout. 1.00

00:00:43.340 That's GoodRanchers.com.

00:00:44.400 Code Allie. 1.00

00:00:54.240 All right.

00:00:55.080 Happy International Women's Day.

00:00:58.620 Twitter alerted me that today was that day.

00:01:01.140 Just a reminder that women have XX chromosomes. 1.00

00:01:05.360 That's determined at the point of conception.

00:01:09.020 And that cannot be changed.

00:01:11.100 A woman is not putting on a wig.

00:01:12.700 It's not wearing lipstick.

00:01:14.220 It's not even getting fake breasts or getting any kind of reconstructive surgery.

00:01:19.500 You can do all of those things, but unless you have female genetics, you will never be a female. 1.00

00:01:26.040 These are immutable characteristics, and we should celebrate that.

00:01:31.080 We should celebrate the unique differences between men and women, boys and girls.

00:01:36.420 We should teach people to celebrate their gender, which is interchangeable with sex, by the way.

00:01:42.500 These are not two separate entities in any kind of scientific or realistic sense, rather than telling people that if they're a little bit uncomfortable or a little bit confused or a little bit distressed, that they should try to do the impossible, which is switch your gender.

00:02:00.280 Genesis 127, for the Christian, makes it very clear about what has turned into this culture war issue, that God created them male and female.

00:02:08.760 And we are created in His image as male and female, and again, that cannot be changed.

00:02:14.620 And in fact, to try to change that would not just be an assault on the human being as image bearers of God, but also an affront to God Himself, far be it from us, to question His authority on how He made us.

00:02:30.180 He knit us together perfectly, purposely, intricately in our mother's wombs, as we read in Psalm 139.

00:02:37.600 So let us celebrate being women and all of the unique capabilities and capacities that we have.

00:02:44.660 And also, we can celebrate the uniqueness and wonderful characteristics of men.

00:02:49.500 And we are necessary for each other.

00:02:52.220 We complement one another.

00:02:53.860 Praise God for His creativity and His purposefulness and His mastery in creating the human body the way that He did.

00:03:03.560 So happy International Women's Day to all of us.

00:03:06.960 We've got a lot to talk about today.

00:03:08.440 We've got, along those lines, we've got to talk about some things having to do with gender, as we often do.

00:03:15.220 We're going to react first to this Jon Stewart clip that you've probably seen circulating.

00:03:22.600 He had an exchange with a state senator from Oklahoma, Nathan Dom.

00:03:29.960 He is a Republican from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.

00:03:33.960 And for some reason, the state senator decided that it would be a good idea to go on an episode of The Problem with Jon Stewart.

00:03:41.320 And they debated about gun law because, being a Republican, Senator Dom has tried to loosen restrictions on gun ownership in the state of Oklahoma, as many Republicans do.

00:03:53.260 And so they argued about gun control.

00:03:56.600 And, of course, Senator Dom talked about being an advocate for the Second Amendment.

00:04:01.140 And let's watch this clip that has gone viral on Twitter that a lot of LGBTQ activists are saying is a huge win for gender ideology and just shows the hypocrisy of the right for criticizing things like drag shows.

00:04:17.780 Here's that viral clip.

00:04:20.000 You want to ban drag show readings to children.

00:04:22.840 To minors, yes.

00:04:23.580 Why?

00:04:24.260 Why?

00:04:24.680 What are you protecting?

00:04:25.760 Why can we prohibit children from voting, those under 18, from voting?

00:04:28.820 Why are you banning?

00:04:29.700 But also that.

00:04:30.120 Is that free speech?

00:04:31.700 Are you infringing on that performer's free speech?

00:04:35.000 They can continue to exercise their free speech, just not in front of a child.

00:04:38.080 Why?

00:04:38.800 Because the government does have a responsibility to protect.

00:04:41.340 I'm sorry?

00:04:42.360 The government does have a responsibility in certain instances to protect children.

00:04:44.520 What's the leading cause of death amongst children in this country?

00:04:48.620 And I'm going to give you a hint.

00:04:50.220 It's not drag show readings to children.

00:04:52.720 Correct, yes.

00:04:54.120 So what is it?

00:04:55.520 I'm presuming you're going to say it's firearms.

00:04:56.940 No, I'm not going to say it like it's an opinion.

00:05:00.020 That's what it is.

00:05:01.280 It's firearms.

00:05:02.420 More than cancer, more than car accidents.

00:05:05.180 And what you're telling me is you don't mind infringing free speech to protect children from this amorphous thing that you think of.

00:05:12.780 But when it comes to children that have died, you don't give a flying f*** to stop that because that shall not be infringed. 0.98

00:05:22.240 That is hypocrisy at its highest order. 0.98

00:05:25.860 All right.

00:05:26.640 So there are a couple things to note here.

00:05:29.080 Of course, I know that we want to know the question, is this true?

00:05:32.220 Firearm-related deaths, according to several analyses by the CDC, is the leading cause of death.

00:05:41.640 Now we're talking about arguments.

00:05:43.100 We're talking about accidental firearm interactions or firearm accidents.

00:05:49.780 We're talking about purposeful homicide, which is pretty rare.

00:05:54.720 This is, according to the CDC, a leading cause of death for children.

00:06:00.680 Now, the CDC does say that children is defined by them.

00:06:06.200 I'm not totally sure why, but starting at age one, starting at age one to age 18.

00:06:12.060 Because if you go down to infants, so if you go zero from 18, it's not actually the leading cause of death.

00:06:19.840 There's congenital heart disease.

00:06:21.400 There are different kinds of diseases that are actually the leading cause of death for children.

00:06:26.140 I'm not saying necessarily that there is a nefarious reason that they define childhood that way.

00:06:32.040 Maybe the reason that they're doing that is because those are infant-specific diseases that tend to cause infant fatalities.

00:06:39.720 So they didn't think it was a very good picture of why children are dying in the United States.

00:06:43.960 And so, according to the CDC, Jon Stewart's assertion is mostly true.

00:06:50.060 Now, it is still rare for that to happen, but that's because we have a pretty good childhood survival rate, thankfully, as we should in a first-world country in the United States. 0.87

00:07:01.800 But a leading cause of death, according to the CDC, about 60% of deaths of kids ages 1 to 18 is because of some kind of firearm incident.

00:07:12.660 Which, of course, I agree, is absolutely tragic.

00:07:16.280 And if someone on the left can point us to, which maybe, you know, some have, but point us to the exact policy and the exact piece of legislation that would prevent these deaths,

00:07:27.700 I think a lot of Republicans and conservatives would come to the table and also show how things like constitutional carry

00:07:34.340 or being able to easily get your concealed carry license leads to or precipitates these deaths among young people.

00:07:42.840 Because very often what is actually happening is that these firearm deaths are because someone has already broken the law.

00:07:50.500 They've already broken the law.

00:07:52.400 They have already broken the law by murdering someone.

00:07:55.740 They have already broken the law by going in a place where a gun is not permitted or they illegally own a firearm.

00:08:04.940 So it's hard to kind of imagine how another restriction would be an impediment to lawbreakers killing someone else.

00:08:16.680 And so I agree, obviously, this is absolutely tragic.

00:08:20.660 However, the real leading cause of death for children, if you are to extend it to really the beginning of adolescent life,

00:08:29.600 which is the moment of conception, the leading cause of death is actually abortion.

00:08:35.460 So if we're going to do this, if we're going to look at the importance of things based on how many people it kills,

00:08:42.080 then let's talk about abortion. 0.71

00:08:44.440 Abortion kills about a thousand children every day, or at least that's what was happening before the overturning of Roe v. Wade. 1.00

00:08:51.840 And so abortion is killing thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people in this country,

00:08:58.720 millions and millions of people around the world.

00:09:02.240 And if you're unconvinced by that, if for some reason you think that babies in the womb aren't humans or aren't alive,

00:09:08.300 please go back and listen to my million episodes breaking down just the illogic of the pro-choice or pro-abortion position.

00:09:16.200 So really, he's wrong.

00:09:19.640 He's wrong if you are looking at the actual scientific definition of adolescence, which starts at the moment of conception.

00:09:26.500 Really, the leading cause of death in children is abortion.

00:09:31.360 But also, if we are looking at the argumentation strategy here that is being employed by Jon Stewart,

00:09:40.040 this is a fallacious way to engage in a kind of debate.

00:09:43.640 So this is what you do when you know that you don't really have a good point.

00:09:48.860 And when you're in the position of power, like he is obviously going to be rhetorically more savvy.

00:09:54.720 He's done this for a living for a very long time.

00:09:57.460 And so he knows that he is going to be able to manipulate the conversation.

00:10:01.120 So this is what he does.

00:10:02.520 Rather than talking about the drag queen issue,

00:10:05.740 rather than answering, because I could tell that State Senator Rahm was about to,

00:10:10.120 was trying to ask him this question.

00:10:11.400 Rather than answering the question, why do you think kids should have an audience,

00:10:16.120 or should be in the audience when a man, scantily clad, is twerking for them for money?

00:10:21.500 Why do you think that's beneficial?

00:10:23.220 Why do you think that should be legal?

00:10:24.840 Why do you think that should be celebrated?

00:10:26.600 Why shouldn't the government do something about that?

00:10:28.420 And no, it has nothing to do with the First Amendment.

00:10:30.320 We're not saying that drag queens can't be drag queens. 0.74

00:10:33.100 We're not saying that drag queens can't talk, 1.00

00:10:36.140 or that they can't even perform for adults.

00:10:39.960 But of course, there are restrictions on what you can show a child.

00:10:44.420 That doesn't have to do with the First Amendment.

00:10:46.600 And as we talked about yesterday, I do think that the state has a place to step in and say,

00:10:51.520 no, these kinds of things, this kind of content is actually not appropriate for children.

00:10:56.400 And it's got to be ages 21 or 18 and up.

00:10:59.660 Sorry.

00:11:00.120 And so Jon Stewart simply wasn't equipped to have that conversation 0.91

00:11:05.120 of why he actually thinks it's a good thing for a man in fishnets and fake boobs 0.71

00:11:08.720 to be twerking for a child. 0.93

00:11:10.080 Why he thinks that that is beneficial.

00:11:12.820 Instead, he says, well, how many people have been killed by a drag queen?

00:11:15.620 That's not really the argument, is it?

00:11:17.380 That's not the argument that this state senator is making.

00:11:19.480 That's not the argument that any of us are making.

00:11:21.580 None of us are saying that drag queens are going around and killing these children,

00:11:24.680 or even necessarily that they are physically always preying upon these children.

00:11:28.920 We're saying in the same way that it's wrong to show a child pornography,

00:11:33.180 in the same way that it is wrong or a similar way that it's wrong to bring a child to Hooters,

00:11:37.520 that this should not be happening.

00:11:39.460 This shouldn't be presented to young people.

00:11:41.320 This shouldn't be presented to infants.

00:11:42.660 This shouldn't be presented to toddlers.

00:11:44.320 It is inappropriate.

00:11:45.400 Yes, there is something innately sexual about a man dressing up like a caricature of a woman.

00:11:53.440 Yes, there is.

00:11:54.520 Don't gaslight us into thinking that there's none.

00:11:57.680 There absolutely is.

00:11:58.600 Beyond that, I will just say it's inappropriate for a man to pretend to be a woman and to present 0.99

00:12:05.100 that to kids.

00:12:05.800 That's not just perverse.

00:12:07.200 It's also confusing.

00:12:08.860 If parents are going to continue to demand these kinds of shows, I do think that there is a place

00:12:14.000 for states to say, you know what?

00:12:15.940 We have to restrict these kinds of shows to venues that only allow people ages 21 and up

00:12:23.380 to go there.

00:12:24.420 I wish that we didn't even have to have this conversation.

00:12:27.200 I wish that there wasn't a law necessary, but apparently there is.

00:12:32.220 Apparently, they can't be content with just performing for adults.

00:12:37.400 They also have to be performing for toddlers, too, which is very disturbing in and of itself.

00:12:41.800 So that's what Jon Stewart here does here.

00:12:44.460 It's a little bait and switch.

00:12:46.120 He's not actually interested in having the conversation about drag queens.

00:12:49.820 And so you see how he very quickly, very stealthily pivots to something else.

00:12:56.160 And so it's not actually a way of having a conversation.

00:12:59.460 It's not actually a way of arguing the substance of what the other person is saying because the

00:13:04.700 state senator was making a point.

00:13:07.140 Instead, he pivots to something else.

00:13:09.760 And he said, well, because that thing isn't killing you, you shouldn't care about it.

00:13:16.200 But again, that's not the reason that we care about these perverse drag shows that are being

00:13:20.640 performed for kids.

00:13:22.020 Just because something isn't killing you or harming you the same way something else is

00:13:27.600 doesn't mean that we shouldn't care about it.

00:13:29.820 Doesn't mean that we can't care about it.

00:13:31.160 It's so funny because far leftists like Jon Stewart, they think that the government should

00:13:36.100 step in to do anything and everything.

00:13:38.860 I mean, they believe that the government should care about us so much that they should actually

00:13:42.360 force us to get a vaccine that many of us did not want or even need.

00:13:47.700 They believe that the government should force us to wear masks, should force us inside our

00:13:52.280 homes for our own good.

00:13:53.760 But when it comes to protecting the innocence of children, all of a sudden, that's just a step

00:13:57.780 too far.

00:13:58.560 All of a sudden, they're libertarians.

00:14:00.300 Isn't that interesting?

00:14:03.080 And by the way, there's not a constitutional right to perform drag in front of kids.

00:14:07.920 There is a constitutional right to own a gun.

00:14:10.060 There's a reason for that.

00:14:11.800 OK, and so I would love for Chuck Schumer or not for Chuck Schumer, the article I have

00:14:17.200 up has Chuck Schumer's name in it.

00:14:19.180 I would love for Jon Stewart to actually debate someone who is willing to match his tenacity

00:14:26.120 and also to call him out on his manipulation because that's what this clip was.

00:14:31.640 This clip does nothing to prove that drag shows for children is good or beneficial or

00:14:37.000 not psychologically and spiritually and emotionally and sexually harmful for kids.

00:14:42.180 Those two things really don't have anything to do with each other.

00:14:44.980 So, I mean, good job for getting the viral clip by using rhetorical manipulation, but

00:14:50.600 you didn't do anything to actually defend the morality of drag shows for children.

00:14:56.140 So whenever you say things like this and whenever you think, oh, this is a victory for them, just

00:15:00.260 start asking questions.

00:15:01.660 You see people share this.

00:15:03.180 Ask questions. 0.99

00:15:04.400 What do you what benefit do you think that kids get from seeing men in fake boobs twerking? 1.00

00:15:08.740 Let me let me know. 0.96

00:15:10.680 I would love to know.

00:15:12.840 No one would have said this even five years ago. 0.93

00:15:15.680 People are people are absurd. 0.63

00:15:17.440 All right. 0.60

00:15:17.660 We've got another absurd story that I know that you've you've heard people talk about,

00:15:21.680 but I haven't had a chance to talk about it yet.

00:15:23.240 And that is that a crazy Hershey story.

00:15:26.800 OK, I wasn't able to talk about this last week when it happened, so I just wanted to 0.55

00:15:40.640 quickly touch on this ridiculous story of Hershey of Hershey's.

00:15:46.080 Sorry, the you know, who makes the chocolate and stuff and they own a bunch of other candy

00:15:51.040 brands as well for Women's History Month and International Women's Day, which is March

00:15:58.400 8th, apparently tomorrow.

00:16:00.560 So they came out with a little punny candy bar, Hershey, Hershey.

00:16:07.880 Get it?

00:16:08.560 Like not just Hershey, but Hershey, like the pronouns.

00:16:13.360 And in 2022, they celebrated women for International Women's Day, like Billie Jean King, Catherine

00:16:20.940 Johnson, Catherine Switzer, Gloria Stein.

00:16:25.120 I'm not saying I like all these people.

00:16:26.620 Alicia Garza, co-founder of BLM.

00:16:29.500 But at least all of these people were women, right? 1.00

00:16:32.180 Like at least as far as we know, all of these people are actually women. 1.00

00:16:36.920 But in 2023, they celebrated four actual women in their campaign for this.

00:16:42.860 And then a guy who calls himself a woman.

00:16:44.740 So several people or several women who have done different things, activists, left-wing

00:16:51.440 activists, but women.

00:16:53.580 And then in their commercial, they also showed this person named Faye Johnstone, previously

00:17:00.500 known as Zach Johnstone.

00:17:02.760 And he calls himself a 2SLGBTQIA plus advocate. 0.72

00:17:07.120 2S stands for two spirit, whatever that is.

00:17:11.460 And so this guy is an advocate.

00:17:15.340 And not too long ago, like within the past couple years, he decided that he is going to

00:17:21.480 be that he's going to be a woman.

00:17:25.220 So he grew his hair out and I guess started taking hormones, but it's still very obviously

00:17:29.540 a guy.

00:17:30.720 And here is Hershey's ad celebrating him as a woman that we should uphold, lift up as some

00:17:38.080 kind of women's rights hero. 1.00

00:17:39.760 My name is Faye Johnstone.

00:17:42.400 I'm the executive director of Wisdom to Action.

00:17:44.840 We can create a world where everyone is able to live in public space as their honest and

00:17:50.560 authentic selves.

00:17:51.760 See the woman changing how we see the future at Hershey's Canada. 1.00

00:17:55.960 So Matt Walsh posted a Twitter thread just showing this person's, um, showing this person's

00:18:02.000 history.

00:18:02.500 In 2015, he called himself a cis male, which cisgender is a nonsensical term that doesn't actually

00:18:09.380 mean anything, but it is, it means like you are the gender that you actually are.

00:18:16.360 So you're born a woman, you identify as a woman. 0.94

00:18:19.000 That's what they call cisgender. 0.90

00:18:21.380 And remember, these terms were created by perverse sexologists in the 60s and 70s that

00:18:27.540 also happened.

00:18:28.420 And this is always a common thread who also happened to advocate for things like pedophilia.

00:18:33.160 So you can just reject the legitimacy of all of these terms, but he talked about his own

00:18:38.580 cis privilege spells privilege incorrectly.

00:18:41.420 In 2014, he was calling himself a gay boy and a queer boy.

00:18:45.840 In 2017, he decided that he was non-binary.

00:18:50.600 And 2017, he also called for militant organized queers to fight back against Trump.

00:18:56.780 Um, in 2021, he was arguing that TERFs called trans exclusionary radical feminists, or, you

00:19:03.940 know, just people who don't believe that men can be women, uh, shouldn't be allowed to speak

00:19:08.060 or share their opinions in public and should be shut down.

00:19:12.460 In 2022, he argued that parents shouldn't have rights over their children.

00:19:16.580 He said, fund dedicated supports for trans and gender diverse students in schools, work with

00:19:20.660 school boards to establish and implement best practices to ensure all students learn about

00:19:24.520 accepting trans people.

00:19:25.540 Parents do not have absolute rights over their children.

00:19:28.760 Okay.

00:19:30.020 Um, another gentle reminder for the children's rights sector.

00:19:33.380 We need you to speak up for trans kids now more than ever.

00:19:36.860 Now it is of course true that parents can't do absolutely anything that they want, that

00:19:41.080 children do and should have legal protections.

00:19:44.160 But he is talking about separating parents from their children because a parent doesn't believe

00:19:48.880 that their little 12 year old daughter, Sally, should be able to go on hormones and

00:19:53.180 become Jack with the help of her school and the state, which happens in almost every single

00:19:59.200 state, by the way.

00:20:01.000 In 2023, this year, he argued that men who raped women and children, but claimed to be 0.95

00:20:06.940 women should be allowed in women's prisons. 1.00

00:20:09.420 He went back and forth on Twitter.

00:20:10.900 We'll put up these screenshots on YouTube.

00:20:12.680 He went back with a reporter named Peter Tatchell, who is a left wing reporter.

00:20:16.960 This reporter actually apologized for misgendering this person who identifies as transgender. 0.56

00:20:25.480 He was jailed with women because he said that he was a woman and he was in jail for raping 0.97

00:20:31.860 for raping women. 0.70

00:20:35.360 And Faye Johnstone, who is being elevated as a female heroine by Hershey's, is saying that 0.96

00:20:43.900 he is hurt by this because not because this person misgendered this prisoner, but actually

00:20:52.740 because this journalist does not believe this male rapist should be in prison with women

00:20:58.300 just because he identifies as a woman.

00:21:00.980 Faye Johnstone said that including trans women and LGBTI liberation means that men who identify

00:21:10.880 as women, even if they're rapists, should be able to go into women's prison. 1.00

00:21:15.200 So this apparently is the guy, the guy who believes that male rapists should be in prison

00:21:21.960 with women who just transitioned so-called in the past couple of years after calling himself

00:21:28.640 a cis queer boy for several years.

00:21:30.960 This is the person that we should be elevating to our daughters and pointing to and saying,

00:21:35.560 yes, this is a great example. 0.89

00:21:37.720 I mean, this is someone who hates women. 1.00

00:21:39.360 This is someone who knows nothing about femininity whatsoever, who has had no female experiences, 0.89

00:21:46.000 who has had no female thoughts, has no female cell in his body.

00:21:50.180 So basically, we're just telling women, all you have to do is grow your hair out and call 1.00

00:21:54.900 yourself a woman.

00:21:55.700 And that is what it means to be a female. 0.99

00:22:00.120 That's what Hershey's is telling us.

00:22:03.120 That's what we're supposed to teach our daughters. 1.00

00:22:05.500 No, no, never.

00:22:07.280 I'm never playing along with this lie.

00:22:09.460 This isn't this is a grift.

00:22:11.180 I actually explained this very succinctly to someone who came after me on Instagram and

00:22:16.160 who was like, why does this bother you?

00:22:17.920 Why does this Hershey's campaign even affect your life?

00:22:20.640 And I said, look, this person has been a man his whole life, has never had female experiences 0.88

00:22:26.100 and now is grifting, identifying as the opposite sex.

00:22:30.540 And you call yourself a feminist. 1.00

00:22:32.120 Is that a win for women's rights? 1.00

00:22:33.980 No, I don't call myself a feminist.

00:22:36.680 But because I don't identify with any of the ways of feminism and everything that they fought 0.97

00:22:40.900 for, including abortion.

00:22:42.200 But of course, I believe that women have the right to sex exclusive spaces, sex exclusive 1.00

00:22:47.300 rights, sex exclusive protections, sex exclusive teams.

00:22:51.560 And if you believe that, then you cannot go along with this lie that a man can become

00:22:55.920 a woman.

00:22:56.700 And this person, to her credit, who started off very fiery and kind of rude, all she said 1.00

00:23:02.280 in response was, thank you for sending this.

00:23:04.800 You know what?

00:23:05.260 I appreciate that a lot.

00:23:06.820 And I don't know if she agrees with me, but maybe she thought about it a little bit.

00:23:10.060 And that's the most we can do.

00:23:11.280 That's why these conversations matter.

00:23:13.040 And yes, I believe that we should be really, really clear on them.

00:23:16.220 Even if people tone police you, even if other evangelicals and Christians say that you're

00:23:21.080 being mean, the truth is, I think that this Faye Johnstone person is made in the image

00:23:25.960 of God, that God created him to be male at conception, that God sent his son to die for

00:23:32.040 him just as much as he sent his son to die for me.

00:23:35.080 I want this person to come to repentance, to accept who they are, to love the body, the

00:23:39.740 identity that God gave them.

00:23:41.520 Stop denying God's creation.

00:23:43.560 Stop denying nature.

00:23:44.900 And I want him to come to know Christ.

00:23:47.360 Like, I don't want ill for this person.

00:23:49.240 I don't want bad for him.

00:23:50.660 I think this person is extremely valuable.

00:23:52.960 Of course, has innate worth, innate value as an image bearer of God.

00:23:57.900 And it is for that reason that I am so adamant about this, not just for him, but also for

00:24:05.420 society as a whole.

00:24:06.260 Because yes, accepting this idea that men can become women and boys can become girls is

00:24:12.120 actually damaging, not just to the individual, but to society as a whole.

00:24:15.620 It's always damaging to have to accept the lie.

00:24:17.840 And then you talk about all of the different unfair things that go on in discriminating against

00:24:24.080 women when it comes to favoring men who identify as women, as we just talked about. 0.53

00:24:27.520 So Hershey's is playing along with the propaganda that is so harmful.

00:24:32.380 And if things continue to go, how they are going, I actually think that things are going

00:24:37.020 very badly for gender ideology.

00:24:39.920 I think it's really breaking down, especially when you start coming after children.

00:24:43.700 They will be embarrassed one day.

00:24:45.540 Hopefully, 10, 20 years, they'll look back and they will cringe at what they actually supported.

00:24:50.520 All right, now we're going to talk to my friend, Bethany Mandel.

00:25:04.660 Bethany is a contributing writer for Deseret News and Ricochet.

00:25:08.680 She is a homeschooling mother of six children.

00:25:12.980 She doesn't homeschool her youngest yet because he's brand new.

00:25:16.840 But she is a homeschooling mom of six, and she is the co-author of Stolen Youth, How Radicals

00:25:22.780 Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating the Generation. 0.99

00:25:26.020 And you are going to love, love this conversation.

00:25:30.760 Bethany, thanks so much for joining us again.

00:25:33.940 This time, we're talking about your new book with Carol, Stolen Youth.

00:25:38.800 Tell us, just go ahead and tell us what this is about and why you guys wrote it.

00:25:42.900 Yeah, absolutely.

00:25:43.740 So thank you so much for having me.

00:25:44.800 So it's basically about the woke assault on childhood.

00:25:49.080 And we came at it from a lot of different angles.

00:25:51.860 We wanted to sort of talk about the woke assault in education and classrooms.

00:25:57.720 We broke it up into sections.

00:25:59.400 And so there's the woke assault on institutions, which is the chapters that I wrote that I personally

00:26:05.360 found to be the most terrifying, on medical associations, medical schools, pediatric associations.

00:26:12.080 There's been a lot of books written about sort of the woke virus and how it's impacting, you

00:26:18.280 know, law and business.

00:26:21.500 And all of those things are extremely important.

00:26:23.700 But we wanted to tackle it from the early childhood perspective, because really, the first 0.98

00:26:27.740 time that you see any conversation about woke indoctrination, it's in colleges and on

00:26:32.260 college campuses.

00:26:32.840 And we wanted to tackle it from sort of the lower years.

00:26:38.260 And we also have a lot of chapters in there about the media and, you know, Disney and Scholastic.

00:26:45.780 Um, and then sort of the, the end chapter is really about how all of these, uh, sort of woke talking points

00:26:55.440 and, and indoctrination, how that impacts, uh, resiliency and innocence.

00:27:00.720 And that's what it comes down to is that all of this is sort of aimed at stripping children of their

00:27:05.760 resiliency and their innocence.

00:27:06.940 Yeah, you know, we're kind of gaslit when it comes to this, when a parent has a problem with

00:27:12.360 LGBTQ curriculum in first grade or their child going to drag queen story hour, or just going

00:27:18.580 into the library and seeing a book about trans kids, so called or whatever, we're told that,

00:27:24.760 wow, you're making that sexual that has nothing to do with sexuality.

00:27:28.620 Why are you being weird about it?

00:27:30.280 And we're told, well, it's just about inclusion.

00:27:33.020 What's wrong with this?

00:27:33.940 And then I honestly think a lot of parents kind of are manipulated by that effectively.

00:27:39.960 They're like, oh, well, maybe I am just being a bigot.

00:27:42.360 Maybe I am being weird about it.

00:27:44.360 Like, what do you say to that?

00:27:46.160 What's, what's the response of a parent who's like, well, I just don't, I don't know how to

00:27:50.160 defend myself in those kinds of situations.

00:27:52.560 I don't know how to say why I don't want my kid learning about that kind of thing.

00:27:56.480 And that's exactly sort of in their playbook.

00:27:59.020 And so, you know, drag queen story hour is, is a perfect example because they are creating 1.00

00:28:04.800 a situation in which you're a bigot if you don't want your child to go to drag queen story

00:28:08.560 hour, or if you don't think that drag queen story hour is appropriate. 1.00

00:28:11.660 And they've done it by sort of using a gay man who dresses in drag in order to make them 0.99

00:28:18.620 unassailable.

00:28:19.660 You cannot possibly reject.

00:28:21.580 But would you ever bring your child to stripper story hour?

00:28:25.180 What makes it any different?

00:28:26.880 It is not different, but the drag queen aspect of it makes it so that you're a bigot if you

00:28:32.040 can possibly complain or are not comfortable with it.

00:28:35.600 And it's this, this sort of backdoor way that they're trying to emotionally make parents

00:28:42.980 uncomfortable enough with the sexualization of their children by sort of scaring them into

00:28:47.820 saying, well, if you're a bigot, if you're not comfortable with it.

00:28:50.540 There was a great tweet by Blair White, who's a transgender adult who said, no one had any

00:28:56.340 issue with drag shows until they brought in kids. 0.99

00:28:59.160 No one had any issues with medical transition until they brought in kids.

00:29:02.800 It's the kids that are the problem.

00:29:04.980 And I think that a lot of us in the conservative movement, with very few exceptions, saw this

00:29:11.460 coming, that sort of the lessons that we learned from the gay marriage fight, that they would 1.00

00:29:17.960 then sort of, we would be then made to care.

00:29:20.500 That's like Eric Erickson's famous line, you will be made to care.

00:29:23.780 And this was something that I saw and I was writing about at the Federalist, I don't know,

00:29:28.520 eight, nine years ago.

00:29:29.440 And I said, I am not comfortable with the transgender crusade because we will be made to care. 1.00

00:29:35.000 And how they're making us care is they're aiming all of this messaging towards our kids.

00:29:39.220 And they're doing it.

00:29:40.220 And we talk about it in Stolen Youth.

00:29:41.840 They do it in the libraries, in all the books.

00:29:45.160 But it's also in the books that the librarians hand to our children.

00:29:49.520 On TV, the examples are myriad.

00:29:54.040 And the end result is that they're trying to indoctrinate our children because that's

00:29:58.280 the end goal here.

00:29:59.780 You can't, you see it sort of in communist societies where they go for the kids.

00:30:06.180 And that's what we're doing here.

00:30:07.460 This is the revolution.

00:30:09.260 Yeah.

00:30:09.520 And you know, I think a lot of people, they still just delude themselves into thinking,

00:30:13.100 well, so what if your kid sees some library book or is taught about this in school?

00:30:18.940 They're taught about, you know, straight couples in school or families like that.

00:30:22.380 And I'm like, look, whether you think so or not, a lot of families think that,

00:30:27.320 and a lot of parents think that there is a moral question about sexuality and about the

00:30:32.500 makeup of families and about marriage and about whether or not you can change genders.

00:30:37.080 You might not agree with the morality that a family has, but it is a moral question.

00:30:42.120 It is very complicated for families.

00:30:44.000 It's a matter of identity.

00:30:45.240 It is a matter of sexuality and private parts and things like that.

00:30:49.120 Therefore, that should not be introduced to kids at school.

00:30:52.920 That should be something that parents have the authority to first introduce to their kids.

00:30:58.880 So yes, it does have something to do with taking away their innocence.

00:31:02.440 I think some people don't see that connection, but it does.

00:31:05.980 When you have a stranger in authority, like a teacher telling a kid about switching their

00:31:10.000 gender or even about a different makeup of a family, they are not then equipped to answer

00:31:14.800 all of the moral and scientific questions that that kid then has.

00:31:19.300 That's what worries me is taking away the authority of the parents, the opportunity from the parents

00:31:24.280 to be the first ones to talk to their kids about that kind of thing, and then allowing

00:31:28.280 strangers in the school system to do it who not only aren't equipped to do it, they also

00:31:32.820 don't love your child the way that you do.

00:31:34.660 It's dangerous.

00:31:35.860 Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:31:37.160 I mean, they think ultimately that our children belong to them and they belong to the collective.

00:31:41.360 And so they have to educate this because, you know, it won't happen in our houses because

00:31:46.480 we're all bigots, and so they try to take over.

00:31:49.540 But a lot of my concern with all of these issues is also that we're training children

00:31:55.400 that, and this is happening in school districts across the country, even in red areas, that

00:32:01.200 they can talk about sexual topics and sexuality with adults and that they should do this behind

00:32:09.000 their parents' backs.

00:32:10.080 And this is something that we've seen time and time again.

00:32:12.220 And there's a name for this, and I know that it's become sort of an insult that has

00:32:17.780 been lobbed around, I think, way too easily.

00:32:21.680 But it is literally the definition of grooming.

00:32:24.120 And in Soul and Youth, I write, like, this is the definition of grooming.

00:32:28.120 And talking to a child about sexuality is inherently dangerous.

00:32:33.040 And they're sort of developing minds to teach them that, yes, you can keep secrets from your

00:32:38.320 parents about sexuality.

00:32:39.560 All of these things are happening behind your parents' backs, and we know better than your

00:32:44.160 parents.

00:32:44.920 That leads to tragedy.

00:32:46.820 And, you know, outside of any ideological sort of indoctrination that parents have concerns

00:32:52.820 over, which, I mean, obviously I find very valid because I wrote an entire book about it.

00:32:57.200 But outside of that is the fact that we're teaching young people that they should have this exposure

00:33:03.920 about sex way too early with strangers instead of, you know, in the comfort of their homes,

00:33:09.100 where these conversations should occur safely.

00:33:12.280 Yep.

00:33:12.640 I remember there was this Psychology Today article, and actually I just looked it up and I can

00:33:18.460 still, I can see some of it.

00:33:21.120 So, I mean, this is the psychological definition of what grooming is.

00:33:26.860 It's gaining access to and then isolating the minor from the people most influential and who

00:33:33.180 have authority in their life, like a parent, developing trust with the minor, and then other

00:33:38.780 adults in the minor's life, desensitizing the child to sexual content, which we're seeing in a lot of

00:33:45.040 these books.

00:33:46.080 Gender queer. 0.83

00:33:46.960 We're told, oh, no, this is just an innocent story. 0.99

00:33:48.900 You literally see graphic depictions of fellatio with, like, transgender people. 0.99

00:33:54.260 And we're told that, oh, yeah, this is fine for a middle schooler. 0.99

00:33:56.700 So, desensitizing the child to sexual content and physical contact.

00:34:00.960 Physical contact isn't always there in these kinds of education situations, but certainly

00:34:05.580 the sexual content.

00:34:07.660 Maintenance behaviors following the commission of abuse.

00:34:11.980 And then very often they also manipulate them into thinking that if you don't like talking

00:34:16.820 about this stuff, if this makes you uncomfortable, something is wrong with you.

00:34:20.500 Like you said, keeping a secret from their parents.

00:34:23.540 And so, I mean, they get mad when we call this grooming.

00:34:26.620 This is, as you said, literally the textbook definition of grooming.

00:34:30.320 And it doesn't always lead to necessarily physical abuse by the person who is teaching

00:34:36.780 in this.

00:34:37.200 But I do think it actually makes kids more susceptible to sexual confusion and sexual

00:34:42.640 abuse later on.

00:34:44.060 Yes.

00:34:44.360 No, that's absolutely right.

00:34:45.440 And that last point is something that I hit on a lot in Stolen Youth.

00:34:48.760 Kids are scared about speaking up about their discomfort.

00:34:53.900 I mean, if you look at what's happening to all these young girls who are objecting to

00:34:57.800 being exposed to male genitalia in locker rooms, whether they be in spas or locker rooms, they 0.92

00:35:04.040 are being told on a national stage that they are bigots for not wanting to see someone's genitalia 0.98

00:35:10.120 of an opposite sex.

00:35:12.400 One of the girls that I spoke with in the book, well, actually, I spoke to her mother.

00:35:16.560 This was sort of one of the stories that really exemplifies, like, this is exactly why we wrote

00:35:21.960 this book.

00:35:22.540 Um, she went to a school program on an overnight trip, um, and she stayed in cabins.

00:35:30.140 It was sort of a summer camp situation, but with her school and she stayed there over the

00:35:34.400 weekend and her mom had heard that there were sort of issues of males being in female bunks 1.00

00:35:41.400 and vice versa.

00:35:42.060 And she talked to the school and the school told her, well, you know, we're following

00:35:46.140 California state law and, you know, we only house people according to their gender identity.

00:35:51.220 And the mom didn't understand. 0.78

00:35:52.740 She's like, okay, fine.

00:35:54.340 Okay.

00:35:54.580 That sounds good.

00:35:55.280 Cause they, they sort of said it in a reassuring voice.

00:35:58.000 And so she sent her kid off and her daughter came back traumatized and exhausted because

00:36:03.280 she literally didn't sleep.

00:36:04.400 And she said, mommy, there was someone in my bunk, one of the counselors.

00:36:08.440 I don't know if it was a man or a woman.

00:36:10.400 They had facial hair.

00:36:11.880 They went by the name, Nick, they had a full sleeve of tattoos and rotting teeth.

00:36:16.000 And I was literally too scared to sleep.

00:36:18.360 And the mom was like, honey, why didn't you say something?

00:36:21.260 Why didn't you say something to your teachers or the principal who knew about the whole trip?

00:36:25.500 There were so many other adults there.

00:36:27.280 And she said, I was scared because a couple of weeks ago, uh, she was getting into a text

00:36:33.040 message fight with one of her classmates. 0.83

00:36:34.920 And the classmate said as an insult, as you know, middle schoolers do, well, you're a lesbian. 1.00

00:36:39.460 And she's, she sort of lobbed back, well, you're gay. 0.92

00:36:42.580 And that was, I mean, middle school taunts, like it's 101 and the text messages were brought 0.97

00:36:48.320 to the principal and the principal said, wow, you really crossed a line here and you are

00:36:53.540 no longer a class president.

00:36:54.780 And so she was stripped of being class president publicly because of this text message exchange. 0.78

00:37:01.420 And so she learned from that experience, I can never say anything about sex or gender

00:37:07.420 or anything like that ever again.

00:37:09.960 And so she took that lesson to the summer camp experience and she just sat there terrified

00:37:16.160 for two nights and didn't sleep.

00:37:18.360 And the mom went to the school and said, what on earth were you thinking?

00:37:22.480 You reassured me that this wouldn't happen.

00:37:24.700 I came to you with this specific concern.

00:37:26.680 And you told me that, that it was fine in California state law.

00:37:30.760 I don't know what you told me, but you told me I was being crazy.

00:37:33.220 And they said, well, no, ma'am, we told you it was California state law that we would house

00:37:37.480 people according to their gender identity.

00:37:39.420 And that means that the school had to let Nick into her daughter's bunk.

00:37:44.720 And that message that you have to quiet that little internal alarm wasn't just sent to that

00:37:50.720 little girl.

00:37:51.320 It was also sent to the teachers and the principal, all of these people in positions of power who

00:37:56.620 should have known better and should have spoken up and said, we don't think that Nick with

00:38:01.620 rotting teeth and facial hair should be in charge of a bunk of seventh grade girls. 1.00

00:38:07.260 And no one said a word because everyone was afraid.

00:38:10.440 And that's exactly why we wrote Stolen Youth, because that is happening across the country,

00:38:14.780 not just in California, but across the country.

00:38:26.620 Silencing that little alarm.

00:38:30.260 I think that's a really great way to put it and actually a very terrifying way to put

00:38:33.520 it, because as moms and just as human beings, we do kind of have that instinct of something's

00:38:38.460 not right.

00:38:39.080 I don't feel safe.

00:38:40.480 This isn't correct.

00:38:41.600 And yet we are told that even if we have that little alarm or we let it sound off at

00:38:46.080 all, then you're a terrible person. 0.78

00:38:47.940 And people actually care more about not seeming like a terrible person than they do keeping 0.94

00:38:53.220 themselves or their family safe.

00:38:54.900 Sometimes it's because they want to keep their job.

00:38:56.540 Sometimes it's just because they want to keep their reputation.

00:39:00.360 But man, I mean, I just can't even imagine.

00:39:03.860 But the innocence aspect, I think about a lot now that I have, you know, I've got two toddlers

00:39:10.380 and, you know, the toddler stage as a mom of six, they're so observant and they're trying

00:39:14.800 to figure out like what goes in what category, like what is labeled this?

00:39:18.960 What is labeled this?

00:39:19.720 When is this OK?

00:39:21.100 When is this not OK?

00:39:22.240 Where do people go?

00:39:23.140 Part of that is male and female observing mommy, daddy, Grammy, grandpa, like, oh, girls

00:39:29.220 go in the girls bathroom, boys go in the boys bathroom. 0.96

00:39:31.600 All of that, I think, is so important to their sense of self.

00:39:35.680 They're making sense of a world that is very new and very big and very chaotic and confusing

00:39:42.120 to them.

00:39:42.620 Like the other day we were in the bathroom and there was a legitimate boy in the bathroom

00:39:47.040 and, you know, he was with his mommy.

00:39:48.640 So it was fine.

00:39:49.680 But for my daughter, it was still very confusing to her.

00:39:52.500 I had to talk to her that, OK, you know, he's little, but she still was trying to make

00:39:57.400 sense of why something seemed out of place to her.

00:40:00.340 And I just it would break my heart and it would steal her innocence and also, I think,

00:40:06.200 make her feel very unstable.

00:40:08.480 If I told her there really is no category, there are no definitions, there's no context

00:40:13.820 in which some things are appropriate and some things are not appropriate.

00:40:16.520 There's really no male and female.

00:40:18.140 You can be whatever you want.

00:40:19.520 I mean, that's got to be torture for little kids who are trying to make sense of a very

00:40:23.820 big and very scary world, right?

00:40:25.920 You are preaching to the choir and I give that example almost exactly in the book.

00:40:31.860 What really bothers me also, in addition to all of those super valid things that you just

00:40:36.500 talked about, is the sort of brain science behind it.

00:40:40.020 And so, you know, we have kids the same age and this was how we became friends, three years

00:40:44.300 old.

00:40:44.980 And my three year old now, she sort of says, mommy is a girl, daddy is a boy, Bobby is a

00:40:50.580 girl, Zadie is a boy.

00:40:51.580 And she's like categorizing life in that way.

00:40:54.360 And that's how their brains form.

00:40:57.440 And so when you're taking away that skill, you're also taking away a really important

00:41:00.720 developmental tool.

00:41:02.680 There's so many ways.

00:41:04.180 And one of the chapters is called children as guinea pigs.

00:41:07.560 There's so many ways in which they're sort of by by doing all of these things, they're

00:41:13.720 treating our children as guinea pigs, sociologically, psychologically, a lot of with the gender

00:41:19.080 transition stuff with puberty blockers physically that we're not going to see for an entire

00:41:24.180 generation.

00:41:25.260 We have another chapter about COVID and about masking.

00:41:29.060 And there was never any sort of thought process behind like, what will this do to a developing

00:41:34.720 child's emotional growth or language growth?

00:41:38.540 And we're not going to see that for many years.

00:41:40.860 And it used to be that when you intervene in a child's life, you you have to there are

00:41:47.340 benchmarks that you had to hit.

00:41:49.120 You had to know that it caused no harm.

00:41:51.660 And they don't know any of those things.

00:41:53.280 And instead of sort of admitting, you know, that there that there there might be some question

00:41:59.440 marks, they instead just gaslit us throughout the entire pandemic.

00:42:02.980 No masking is absolutely not detrimental in any way.

00:42:05.960 That's what the American Academy of Pediatrics said.

00:42:08.120 Yeah.

00:42:08.480 Meanwhile, they used to have something on their website for parents of of infants called the

00:42:14.360 importance of FaceTime.

00:42:15.600 And they would talk about engaging with children and making sure that you could see their faces.

00:42:19.880 And that's how little infants learn language.

00:42:24.580 It's how they learn emotion.

00:42:26.080 And now I mean, in the daycares near me, I live outside of Washington, D.C.

00:42:30.220 They're still masking those daycare workers.

00:42:32.640 And that will have serious repercussions on those kids.

00:42:36.340 And we're not going to know about it for, you know, 10, 15 years.

00:42:39.120 Yeah.

00:42:39.680 And, you know, we think we have a mental health crisis now, which we do, by the way, among

00:42:43.940 young people.

00:42:44.800 But I think about everything that we've done over the past few years.

00:42:48.080 And like we've been talking about gender ideology, the sexualization of children, social media,

00:42:52.520 all of that, like those chickens have not even come home to roost yet.

00:42:57.300 Like we still we've got 10 to 20, even 30 years before we really see the long term repercussions,

00:43:05.220 I think, of generations who have been marred by this stuff.

00:43:08.960 But you in the end, you talk about, OK, what we actually do, what do we do?

00:43:14.320 OK, so we've got the problems and y'all really go through all of it.

00:43:17.160 Y'all talk about the sexualization of children and all the different institutions that have

00:43:21.260 been captured by this stuff that were supposed to be about childhood.

00:43:24.540 In a sense, you talk about the masking, you talk about the woke medicine, which, by the

00:43:28.580 way, is terrifying.

00:43:29.900 But then you talk about how to fight back.

00:43:33.140 And for you, you homeschool.

00:43:35.540 You're a mom of six. 0.86

00:43:36.780 You homeschool your kids.

00:43:38.160 Carol, I believe she sends her kids to to public school.

00:43:41.440 And so she's kind of fighting from within.

00:43:43.660 So tell us about I know you can't maybe speak to exactly to her strategy, but tell us just

00:43:49.120 knowing that the audience is in two different places, what that strategy could look like

00:43:54.180 to fight back either by pulling your kids out or staying in.

00:43:57.980 Yeah.

00:43:58.180 So this was something really powerful about Carol and I sort of teaming up because we've

00:44:01.800 taken these two different tracks at the end.

00:44:03.360 Like, how do you how do you deal with this problem?

00:44:06.040 And so Carol moved her her family from Brooklyn to Florida because she wanted her children 1.00

00:44:11.380 to have something resembling a normal childhood in the wake of covid.

00:44:14.560 And it was not an easy decision.

00:44:16.960 And ultimately, she has three children, one of whom goes to private and the other two go

00:44:20.900 to public.

00:44:21.780 And she has a very open dialogue with her kids, teachers and school.

00:44:26.140 She sees their curriculum.

00:44:27.300 She lives in a state where she has a lot more faith in her governor than she did here in

00:44:31.040 New York, which is where I am right now.

00:44:32.300 I say here in New York.

00:44:33.260 Um, and that path is working for her family.

00:44:36.680 But I think that she's open to the fact that, like, you know, life changes and life throws

00:44:40.980 you curveballs.

00:44:41.980 And she was willing to roll with it and pick up her family and move to Florida.

00:44:46.240 In our family, we homeschool.

00:44:48.000 We have six.

00:44:48.820 We've always homeschooled.

00:44:50.220 I'm very grateful for it because during covid, I would have effectively been homeschooling

00:44:54.400 anyway.

00:44:55.420 But we kind of I have the go galt model of, you know, my kids don't really watch a lot

00:45:02.200 of modern media.

00:45:02.920 Their favorite movie is Richie Rich.

00:45:05.200 Their favorite actor is Robin Williams, who died in 2014, going through the whole canon

00:45:11.460 of Robin Williams, because I don't have time to pre-screen, you know, all of the current

00:45:17.180 movies and television shows, nor am I really interested in doing so.

00:45:20.860 Yeah.

00:45:20.960 Um, and we do the same with books.

00:45:23.740 The majority of the books that my kids read are older books.

00:45:27.280 Their favorite book series is, uh, called Freddy and Freddy something.

00:45:32.140 Um, and it was written in the 1950s.

00:45:35.280 It was old enough that my parents read it.

00:45:37.500 Yeah.

00:45:37.800 Um, and so that's sort of what we do.

00:45:39.280 And we, we homeschool and obviously like nothing curriculum wise goes through my children without

00:45:45.380 me knowing it very, very well.

00:45:47.820 Um, so, you know, I, there's a lot of different paths that folks can take and we sort of break

00:45:53.260 it down very specifically.

00:45:55.140 So like in the example of, you know, how do you know if a book is safe?

00:45:58.320 Um, I give, I give the advice of, you should look at the one star reviews on Amazon.

00:46:04.020 Someone sent me a DM the other day on Twitter and said, you know, we have common sense media,

00:46:08.420 which is great.

00:46:09.320 And people should avail themselves of for books and, and, or not books, I'm sorry, for TV

00:46:14.000 shows and movies, but we don't have that equivalent in books.

00:46:17.520 And I said, just look at the one star reviews.

00:46:19.440 And if you look up, um, gender queer, if you look up one of the books that I mentioned in

00:46:23.840 the book is called breakaways.

00:46:25.320 It was a book that my daughter pulled off the shelves from our local library.

00:46:29.120 And it was a graphic novel about girls, soccer players written for, you know, eight, nine

00:46:35.100 year olds, which is what my daughter is.

00:46:36.680 And I thought, oh, that sounds fine.

00:46:38.800 And then another mother in the research for this book alerted me to the fact that there 0.59

00:46:43.280 was a lesbian sex scene at a sleepover in the book.

00:46:46.460 Okay. 0.96

00:46:47.300 For eight to nine year olds.

00:46:49.280 Yeah.

00:46:49.760 Thankfully I'm irresponsible and I forgot to bring the library bag in from my trunk for like

00:46:54.640 a week and a half.

00:46:55.480 So, I mean, the lesson was I should be irresponsible more often, but I looked at the one star reviews

00:47:01.340 on that book.

00:47:02.220 People talked about it and I thought, gosh, this is what I need to do in the future.

00:47:05.860 First of all, we don't go to the library and just randomly pick things off the shelves

00:47:09.160 anymore.

00:47:09.740 So sad that you can't do that.

00:47:11.800 Yeah.

00:47:12.280 Yeah.

00:47:12.480 It's really frustrating.

00:47:13.340 And so that's sort of some of the advice that we give in the book, how you can on a day

00:47:17.360 to day basis, you know, function in this world and raise kids who have a semblance of, you

00:47:22.720 know, innocence and normalcy.

00:47:24.200 But I mean, I'm not saying it's not easy.

00:47:26.000 Like I'm sure another book will come through our doors that I haven't effectively screened.

00:47:30.320 It's, it's, it feels sometimes like you're in a Titanic sinking and you have a, you have

00:47:35.300 a teaspoon and you're just trying to bail out.

00:47:37.540 But for us, we just, my, my perspective is we don't get on the ship.

00:47:47.360 You know, some, some people think about this whole kind of parental rights and anti-woke

00:47:59.380 movement among parents as certainly the left wants to just see it as this white evangelical

00:48:05.260 movement.

00:48:06.100 It's just a bunch of Christian fundamentalists who care about this stuff, but that's not

00:48:11.160 necessarily true for you and Carol, is it?

00:48:14.520 No, I'm an Orthodox Jew.

00:48:16.060 She's, she's not an Orthodox Jew.

00:48:18.120 And neither of us come at this from a, from a religious perspective, very much the opposite.

00:48:23.580 I mean, for me, one of the last chapters that I probably blathered too much about it, but

00:48:27.920 I sort of told my own personal story.

00:48:30.180 And I talked about the fact that like my parents died when I was very young and I was able to

00:48:35.620 sort of power through that because I had some really good therapists who tough loved me.

00:48:41.480 And I think now would that, would that therapist have tough loved me in the same way?

00:48:47.700 If you look at the training for, for people in the mental health field, that's not the

00:48:52.760 perspective that they come from.

00:48:54.400 And that's not the, it's not the perspective that they then bring into patient care.

00:48:58.840 And I think a lot about my childhood as well.

00:49:01.220 I'm a tomboy who like learns how to put makeup on.

00:49:04.900 I'm like, I did this by myself because Fox News doesn't do your makeup anymore, which

00:49:09.440 was like a really scary thing.

00:49:10.760 And I like during an overnight layover in an airport, once I went to like one of those

00:49:15.460 booths and I said, can you teach me how to like put on makeup and I'll buy like everything

00:49:18.720 that you tell me to buy.

00:49:20.100 That's the only way you know how to do makeup. 0.99

00:49:21.580 And if I had grown up in this time now, I've been told that, you know, my hatred of dresses

00:49:29.900 and makeup and nail polish, all these things because I'm a boy and I felt so deeply uncomfortable

00:49:35.660 in my prepubescent body, which like who doesn't when they're going to puberty, I, I can't even

00:49:41.900 imagine the things I would have been told and the things I would have believed coming from

00:49:45.520 people in positions of authority in the media, in my school, in the books that I was reading

00:49:51.200 and my life would have ended up very different.

00:49:53.260 I'm a mother of six who has nursed all her babies throughout, like would I've been put

00:49:58.040 on puberty blockers and rendered, then rendered infertile?

00:50:01.000 Would I have been convinced to chop off my breasts, which I hated and are uncomfortable,

00:50:05.340 but are, you know, a source of nourishment for my children? 0.97

00:50:09.000 Like there's so many different scenarios.

00:50:11.020 I mean, that's really what inspired me.

00:50:12.620 It's not because I'm like a crazy Christian fundamentalist.

00:50:15.100 It's because I, I am scared for the Bethany Mandels who are growing up now,

00:50:20.720 who, you know, I feel like it was a luck of the draw that I grew up when I did.

00:50:25.180 And I want other kids, other girls to have the opportunities that I did to grow up normal.

00:50:30.480 Yeah.

00:50:30.980 I think all of us who were born before 2000 feel that way.

00:50:35.280 I think that we are all thankful that we got to go through our tomboy stage

00:50:39.120 and not want to wear dresses.

00:50:40.760 And we got to go play outside in our neighborhood without technology.

00:50:44.880 And so it's harder today.

00:50:46.120 It's harder today for kids, but that means it's harder today for parents.

00:50:48.780 And that's why everyone needs to go out and buy this book,

00:50:51.520 because I think one of the best ways to keep your sanity

00:50:54.600 and one of the best ways to be encouraged is to remember that you're not alone

00:50:59.640 and that you're not crazy.

00:51:01.080 And that's really what this book is about.

00:51:02.640 You're not alone.

00:51:03.620 You're not crazy.

00:51:04.340 The things that you have an internal alarm about, you're actually right.

00:51:07.860 You're actually right.

00:51:08.840 That's God-given instincts.

00:51:10.460 And also you don't just have to sit there like a sitting duck.

00:51:12.720 There are things to do about it.

00:51:14.280 So this book is sold wherever, right?

00:51:16.300 You can get it on Amazon, all that good stuff.

00:51:18.600 Yep.

00:51:19.080 At Barnes & Noble, I'm actually going to go visit my book in person for the first time.

00:51:22.380 I'm super excited.

00:51:23.100 Oh, that's so exciting.

00:51:24.260 Okay.

00:51:24.840 Stolen Youth, everyone go out, get it.

00:51:27.860 Amazing book.

00:51:28.640 So much insight, but a lot of empowerment too.

00:51:31.200 Bethany, thank you so much for taking the time to come on.

00:51:34.080 Thank you so much, Allie.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - March 08, 2023

Ep 767 ｜ Hershey's Celebrates Women... By Celebrating a Man ｜ Guest： Bethany Mandel

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