My conversation with my wife Erica at the YWL Leadership Summit was a phenomenal conversation about dating, marriage, and so much more. I hope you enjoy it and tell your friends to subscribe to our podcast. Thank you so much for being a part of this movement!
00:00:38.000He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:00:44.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
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00:02:16.000We can do that if you want to talk about all that fun stuff.
00:02:19.000Literally just want questions for both of us about relationships and raising kids and getting married and all that stuff that you might have questions about.
00:02:27.000That's what we want to focus this Q ⁇ A on.
00:03:06.000And so it's hard because you're in that in-between of honoring your parents, but also knowing that there's a conviction in your heart to have a family.
00:03:16.000If you want, you can literally write down what your career, what you want that to look like on a piece of paper.
00:03:27.000If you find the right guy, that's 90% of the problem is finding the right person first, then building your life.
00:03:35.000And once you do find the right person and your family loves them, your parents are gonna be way more understanding it into the fact of you having a family.
00:03:46.000I think that's 90% of the You have to choose.
00:04:02.000So for everyone that rose the hand of amazing family, how many of you every single day, it's your purpose for being is finding a husband then?
00:04:15.000But I thought you said you want an amazing family.
00:04:18.000You have to prioritize and aim at what you want the most.
00:04:23.000I might be the only speaker that says this in these next couple of days.
00:04:26.000You just have to make sure that you find the right I know, but you can't be like a heat-seeking missile where you're like, you see a guy in the back room and you're like, hi.
00:04:40.000Like, you can't, there's like some nuance.
00:06:12.000So how do you tell young ladies to navigate the pressures of hookup culture on a college campus where they feel pressured that if they don't get into, let's just say, sexual situations with a male counterpart, then they will not be able to find a boyfriend Or a husband.
00:06:43.000Talk more about how they should go about doing that because the pressures are so enormous from free contraceptives to the podcasts they listen to.
00:06:52.000How many of you feel as if it's very difficult to maintain your purity on a college campus?
00:08:58.000But so how does a young lady know, and is it ever too early to get married?
00:09:06.000If they're 22 and they feel as if they found the right guy, is that too early?
00:09:12.000Well, if you're, either way, whether you're younger, whatever age you are, I think going through, I know it has a stigma, but premarital is amazing.
00:09:21.000You get to learn so much about the person you're with, and I have seen it prevent marriages that should not be happening because they are so young and naive with things and they're so lustful because they haven't gone down the road of having, you know, they're saving themselves, so they're just like salivating.
00:09:42.000When you know he's the one, here's an example.
00:09:45.000When Charlie sat across from me and he said, I want to date you, you want to be with someone who has every intention to not mess with your heart.
00:10:15.000Now, I think that you should both be motivated, but if the woman is much more motivated than the man, would you agree that ends up causing structural issues?
00:10:24.000Right, because the man then ends up leaving his pants on the ground and the woman has to put them on.
00:10:30.000And so then she becomes the breadwinner because then the husband's just chill and is like, I'm fine with not going any further than the level that I'm at, while the woman is aspiring to be more and more and more.
00:10:42.000So then you become uneven and unequally yoked in your relationship or marriage.
00:11:35.000I encourage you all to have a little more humility about that.
00:11:41.000What is one thing young women can do better to make themselves more appealing to men who say that the current dating pool of young women is lackluster?
00:12:24.000Literally, the fire behind your lips is so powerful.
00:12:29.000And if you can find a way to harness your tongue in a way that's biblical and you dress appropriately, you don't have everything hanging out, you will attract a different type of guy.
00:12:42.000Now, if you're going to the club or wherever you're going and you're trying to appease a guy that is...
00:12:54.000Are you going to bring him to your grandparents?
00:12:56.000Like, really just be the type of woman, the godly woman that God needs you to be to attract the man that He made for you.
00:13:11.000We're honored to be partnering with the Allen Jackson Ministries, and today I want to point you to their podcast.
00:13:15.000It's called Culture and Christianity: the Allen Jackson Podcast.
00:13:19.000What makes it unique is Pastor Allen's biblical perspective.
00:13:22.000He takes the truth from the Bible and applies it to issues that we're facing today, gender confusion, abortion, immigration, Doge, Trump, and the White House, issues in the church.
00:14:56.000I totally, I say this to young men all the time, that a young lady cares more that if you can control your impulses and control your desires, because that is a signal of what?
00:15:12.000And a young lady, whether she can articulate it or not, when she sees maturity in a man, she knows that when there's chaos, that man will be able to navigate the family, the relationship through that kind of environment.
00:15:25.000Young ladies need to be willing to submit to a godly man when you meet one.
00:15:31.000And if you're not willing to do that, then you got to pray about that.
00:15:35.000Because a lot of young men in the dating pool say, I don't want to be bossed around all the time.
00:15:40.000I'm just telling you what I hear from men all the time.
00:15:43.000The hyper-toxic feminism is very, very off-putting to young men.
00:15:48.000And I know this is contrary to what a lot of people here on college campuses.
00:15:51.000You know, you have to assert your dominance.
00:16:07.000They're called, you know, who needs men, the patriarchy.
00:16:10.000And so then they just largely disengage.
00:16:13.000Or they do even a worse thing, which is they get involved like, I'm just going to sleep with a bunch of women, but I'm not going to marry them, right?
00:16:19.000The problem is on both sides, in my personal opinion.
00:16:22.000And again, I think that Erica hit it perfectly.
00:16:25.000Last thing I'll say, and then we'll do some questions, is men want what they cannot have.
00:16:31.000Men will do anything to solve the problem of scarcity.
00:16:56.000And as women have not been saving themselves for marriage, and men too, in the last 30 or 40 years, we've seen marriage rates collapse.
00:17:05.000There is a one-to-one correlation on those two things.
00:17:07.000And so all that to say that young lady, everybody in this room, you have more power than I think you could ever imagine.
00:17:17.000If everybody in this room collectively said that we are only going to save ourselves for our future husbands, men will grow up in a way that you would never imagine.
00:17:37.000And then women will just throw themselves at them and they could stay as grown infants for the rest of their life.
00:17:42.000And unfortunately, it does a lot of damage to young ladies, a lot.
00:17:46.000It does a lot of psychological damage and a lot of spiritual damage.
00:17:49.000So if everyone here basically said, nope, we're going to combine our power and be pure and trust in Jesus and in God for our future husband, you would be shocked at how much the dating pool improves.
00:18:02.000Okay, I want to tell you about one thing and then we'll do a question line.
00:18:06.000We have a special, who would love to meet Erica Riley-Gaines and get a picture with me?
00:18:11.000I'm sure that would be a lot of fun, right?
00:18:13.000All right, so we have a special giveaway.
00:18:16.000If you guys follow the QR codes on our screen, subscribe to the podcast and then email at freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:18:23.000We will pick 10 winners, but you have to follow that QR code in the next couple minutes.
00:18:28.000So follow that QR code, subscribe, and email us proof of subscription, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:18:41.000Men, if you guys, one of the most important things that I can leave you with before we go to questions, if you want to find your future soulmate, you must desire to humbly know male nature.
00:18:56.000How many people here think you know male nature?
00:19:38.000If two people are talking on a college campus, and I told you they were talking about sports, they were talking about the stock market or politics, is it more likely to be a man, two men or two women?
00:19:52.000If I tell you that two people on a college campus are talking about their relationships, the conversations they had earlier in the day, and what fellow classmates were wearing, is it two men or two women?
00:20:08.000You must understand that a man might forget to shower for three days because he's too worried that we're going to go to a nuclear war with Iran.
00:20:18.000Men are obsessed with the macro and they often forget the micro.
00:20:23.000This is why corporations want to hire you so badly.
00:20:27.000Understand this, because you are incredibly good at micro tasks.
00:20:33.000That is why young women have been so well paid in the corporate environment, because when it comes to getting details done, women are much better than men.
00:20:39.000Know male nature, and you'll be in a much better chance to find your future husband.
00:21:08.000But as the wife, I will say I have seen it transform.
00:21:13.000I already, I love my husband and he's amazing and an intentional father and husband.
00:21:18.000But him honoring the Sabbath, I have seen it transform him in a way that is so powerful that when he turns his phone off and it goes in that drawer and I know that it's, you know, he's all on for the family.
00:21:32.000There is no distractions and he finally gets to reset his brain.
00:21:39.000And as a wife, there is nothing more precious than my husband's sanity when it comes to the echo chamber and everything that he's dealing with in his world.
00:21:48.000So I have seen it change him and impact our family in one of the most beautiful ways.
00:22:13.000What does matter is I think that to our own detriment and to our own failure, we as Christians have decided to cast away resting on one of the seven days.
00:23:42.000This is Lila Esther, and we have another one on the way in January.
00:23:48.000So I did find my godly man, and we are making more babies.
00:23:53.000My question for you is, we want to have a lot of kids, and I'm wondering what your best advice is for young couples with small children on how to prioritize and nurture their marriage amidst the busy day-to-day life of kids.
00:24:08.000That's a very good question because your marriage came first.
00:24:11.000And your husband is very important because your kids, you're raising them to fly.
00:24:16.000You're raising them to leave the nest.
00:24:19.000And once they do, I think that's why people get empty nest syndrome because they look at their husband in an empty living room and they're like, who are you?
00:24:30.000That is going to be very acrobatic at times, even if that means locking yourself in a closet with your husband for just an hour to say, can I breathe with you?
00:24:40.000Can I just, five minutes, can I just have a second to look at you?
00:24:44.000Something that Charlie does that's really sweet that I love is that sometimes, especially when he's traveling, we don't obviously, we figure out the dynamic of at least having a date night at least once a month, at least.
00:24:56.000But there'll be moments where he's literally about to rush out the door and I won't see him for several days.
00:25:01.000Kids are wreaking havoc in the kitchen, pulling things out all over, and he just grabs me and he's like, one minute.
00:25:07.000And we just literally stare at each other for a minute and say, like, I love you, whatever you need to say.
00:25:11.000But you just, we have that one minute together to reset our hearts.
00:25:15.000And honestly, that is something that we, that helps recharge the bucket until you get that date night.
00:25:21.000So just being really intentional about little moments that will build into a greater, greater good for the relationship.
00:27:02.000Again, they don't care what your credit score is.
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00:27:24.000I'm 18 years old and I was homeschooled and I just graduated high school.
00:27:28.000And with graduating high school comes the question of, so what are you going to do?
00:27:35.000And to be honest, my career, like, I want to be a mom and I want to have kids and I want to homeschool them and I want to stay at home with them.
00:27:41.000And that's just not a really acceptable answer.
00:27:44.000And I'm struggling to really know what I want to do in the meantime while I'm waiting to get married and have kids because I'm not dating and I don't see anybody that I really want to date.
00:27:55.000And so I'm just, I'm in, and I have a lot of friends who are in this same position too of being in this weird waiting period where I don't want to go to college and I don't want to commit to a career that I know that I'm going to abandon once I have kids.
00:28:06.000So I was just wondering if y'all had any advice for that and if you had any advice with dealing with criticism because I'm having some from an extended family.
00:28:15.000What I know we talk about don't follow your don't follow your heart and all that.
00:28:58.000I mean, like, so I could give you a million ideas, but the first thing is you're already thinking about this correctly, which is your aim, you got your aim, right?
00:29:30.000And Dallas actually has a huge infrastructure of like new Maha small businesses.
00:29:34.000You could work at those kind of around that kind of genre and that outreach.
00:29:40.000I will say, though, that don't, if you find your future husband and he is godly and it passes premarital counseling, which Erica's exactly right, do not appease extended family.
00:29:51.000You only really have one thing to worry about, which is the fear of the Lord, right?
00:29:55.000Now, let me just, can we riff on premarital counseling for a second?
00:29:59.000It's very, very important, and it shouldn't get a bad taboo.
00:30:04.000If you are, anybody currently engaged right now, I'm sure there's some.
00:30:55.000Who here grew up in an open house where all the kids would come by in the neighborhood?
00:30:59.000You know what I'm talking about, right?
00:31:00.000How many of you was raised in a closed house Has anyone ever told you when you look in a spouse to ask that question, were you raised in an open or closed house?
00:31:54.000I could go on, but that's like, you just have to, what premarital counseling should do, which it does a bad job of in most churches, is you must really know the nature of your spouse.
00:34:48.000This is important because you might think you know your spouse, and all of a sudden you book like a seven-day cruise in the Caribbean, and it's non-refundable.
00:35:44.000So essentially, I am facing visa delays.
00:35:49.000How do I deal with the disappointment and the feeling of sadness of having to plan for a peak winter wedding in the state of Wisconsin?
00:36:03.000Wait, so okay, is it a visa question or is it?
00:36:06.000It's so basically because of the visa delays, which is beyond anyone's, beyond pretty much anyone's control, how do I plan for, okay, I am going to have a wedding in the peak winter when there's snow outside, when it's really, really cold, like, and I'm feeling disappointed and sad about it.
00:36:37.000You can wear a really beautiful shawl over yourself.
00:36:40.000There's way more options for winter attire than the typical, think of it this way, your wedding's going to be amazing because you're not having to have the florals and the things.
00:37:36.000So just hold true to the fact that what matters the most, regardless of the season, is the man and the woman standing at the altar and that covenant you're making.
00:38:44.000I mean, as far as like having kids or the relationship or?
00:38:52.000Because when I tell people, like my parents are really supportive about it, but when I tell other people, like in church or outside of church, I want to get married young, they look down on me like, why?
00:39:02.000They tell me to, you know, get go to college and get a career.
00:39:05.000So like, what is like a good response to that?
00:39:49.000And I think it's because they didn't have good examples to look towards themselves.
00:39:57.000So they either settled or they're not happy because either something in their life they didn't settle and get fixed prior to getting married.
00:40:51.000And it's not going to be those sleepless nights.
00:40:55.000Yeah, one day your kid's probably not going to come home until midnight.
00:40:58.000So the sleepless nights gets like a little bit construed, but you will sleep again.
00:41:03.000You will have, you know, your time again.
00:41:06.000But I feel so bad for the women not being able to have people to look towards for marriage and motherhood because they just are complaining about it mostly, which is sad.
00:41:20.000If you want to make sense of the change and the chaos happening around us, you're going to need God's help.
00:41:24.000That's why Alan Jackson Ministries, a friend of mine, created the Culture and Christianity Podcast, the Culture and Christianity Conference, and their weeknight news show, Alan Jackson Now.
00:41:36.000Millions of people also listen to Pastor Alan Jackson's powerful sermons each week.
00:41:40.000I do, on radio, television, satellite, and online.
00:41:43.000In today's world, there is desperate need for truth.
00:41:47.000And Alan Jackson Ministries feels a sense of urgency to deliver God's truth and a biblical perspective to anyone who will listen.
00:41:58.000Their mission is to help people become more fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ, which is the most important thing, giving your life to the Lord, including here on the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:43:42.000But I do have a really strong desire as a Christian to eventually get married and have children.
00:43:47.000And I want to homeschool my kids as well eventually.
00:43:49.000So I'm wondering what your advice is for balancing those two desires and what to prioritize at what stage of your life since women can't have it all.
00:44:41.000What you're building now is not going to get destroyed.
00:44:43.000I think that's what a lot of people get misconstrued as thinking like, okay, what I'm building now is going to be worthless once I have a family.
00:44:49.000He'll turn it into whatever it needs to turn into.
00:44:52.000Pray on it because it's not always super clear, but it will come to you.
00:44:56.000And I think that, yes, every season is going to come and have its own time and turn, but if this is what you're focusing on right now, like that's what you're focusing on.
00:45:29.000So One thing is a piece of advice I'd love.
00:45:31.000The other is a question, whichever one you guys have time for.
00:45:35.000So first of all, with gentle parenting, and then you have like abusive homes, what is the balance of biblical discipline and love?
00:45:42.000And also, I would love advice for if you have a godly guy in your life, you guys agree on a lot of things spiritually and politically, but you still feel like there's a little bit more maturity that needs to go, how do you wait on the Lord and how do you go about that?
00:46:00.000I'll take the first one too, but I want to hear, I mean, it's powerful to hear from a father.
00:46:03.000The most important thing as a parent is that you must instill self-control, not self-esteem, for your kid.
00:46:10.000Whatever it takes, you must have them understand the power of restraint, which is a fruit of the spirit.
00:46:16.000Remember, self-control is a fruit of the spirit.
00:46:19.000It's much easier said than done, right?
00:46:23.000I could tell you more about what not to do and what we're not doing than what we're doing, because we're still figuring it out, but we know what not to do.
00:46:29.000It is a civilizational tragedy when Eric and I go out with our two kids to eat, and we go look at another family, and everyone has their eyes on a screen.
00:46:45.000Maybe they had like a long day at work or something.
00:46:47.000I really find no excuse whatsoever because these kids put on these headphones and they just escape reality staring at these screens all day long.
00:50:12.000I would have him find someone, if you have a solid church that you go to, I would share that with either the pastor or someone within the church that you look up to and have a male figure pour into him.
00:50:24.000Not a stranger or not an uncle or not a brother, someone totally a separate party that's not connected.
00:50:30.000It can be private, but have him go and get mentored once, twice a week, and really just have someone he can look towards to see, like, this is the way to be a biblical person.
00:50:39.000He needs to hear one thing, just one sentence.
00:50:42.000You will lose her if you don't grow up.
00:50:44.000If he hears that, radical change will happen.
00:50:47.000If the right person says that, he doesn't need a whole feeling session.
00:51:19.000And I also know that men are very logical and kind of have a hard time with that.
00:51:25.000So I was wondering, Charlie, what do you do to really nurture Erica's emotional side when your boy brain is like trying to answer every question and be logical with her?
00:51:38.000This is why understanding female nature to the best of our ability as men is very important.
00:51:45.000And again, we've had like different configurations of a men's summit, but I talk to men a lot on campus and through my content and stuff.
00:51:52.000But what I tell them is that you must understand God wired us a lot differently.
00:51:58.000Look, the biggest thing is really time.
00:52:00.000Time with your spouse, time to have your spouse be able to think or talk about that specific situation that has them maybe fired up, right?
00:52:09.000And then also sometimes men look at we have a problem where we think we are the firefighter to put out a fire.
00:52:17.000We see problem, we want to fix it, right?
00:52:21.000We see broken engine, we come to repair it, right?
00:52:25.000Sometimes the solution is just talking about the problem, which for us is like an incomprehensible thing.
00:52:32.000It's like, wait, why would you talk about the problem and not solve the problem?
00:52:36.000Because sometimes the problem is the fact that it hasn't been talked about.
00:52:48.000And similarly for you, when you have husbands, right, it might drive you crazy that you can't, and Eric and I, we talk about this, you can't get out more than three, how was your day?
00:54:09.000And God made us different for a reason.
00:54:12.000And I just want to brag on the women of America, because there's a lot of bashing of feminism, and there should be.
00:54:20.000There's a lot of bashing of women in the country, of like how they veered off track, some of which honestly is warranted.
00:54:26.000But the one thing that is not talked about enough is how women have kept church attendance and the faith alive in the West and a much better job than men the last third.
00:54:59.000By the way, let me just say, for men out there that are listening in the internet, if you do not lead your family to church, it is the number one predictor that your children will not also go to church.
00:55:09.000But it deserves so, women, you deserve so much credit for keeping church attendance alive, for serving in the churches, for volunteering in the churches, for keeping the entire faith robust.
00:55:22.000And now we're seeing a resurgence of young men finally come back.
00:55:25.000That's something I don't think that's always articulated of how the American church has really been saved and strengthened by women in America.
00:55:34.000So something that he does to pour into me emotionally is, or to just check in from that standpoint, is if he comes home, he's tired, how's your day?
00:58:15.000Do not engage in this toxic masculinity bashing of men.
00:58:19.000Not only do we need men, the civilization is, God created man and women.
00:58:23.000And it's very tempting to get into the whole kind of girl-dominant society.
00:58:27.000You do not want to live in that world.
00:58:29.000I'm telling you right now, You do not.
00:58:30.000You want to live in a world where the best of both sexes are equally balanced.
00:58:35.000The other thing I'll say, which is just kind of funnier, it's hard to put into words how much men want just like a return to normal things, like cooking a meal, like serving in those fundamental ways.
00:58:51.000Like that stuff as a husband or even a boyfriend goes beyond measure than I can put into words.
00:59:19.000I get to submit unto my husband because he's submitting himself to the Lord.
00:59:23.000There is a balance and there's something really beautiful about that balance.
00:59:27.000If you have a situation where you don't have someone in your life that you can look towards as a healthy marriage, find, seek that out, whether that's in your church, whether that's in your community, whether that's something online.
00:59:40.000Hold on to that so that you can have some form of an understanding of, okay, this is what I have to look forward to.