When you have a large family, some people find it offensive. They ask, What are you doing to the environment? How can you handle it? How do you deal with the criticism of having more than one or even multiple kids?
00:00:00.00040% of the calls to our hotline are men. Men are natural providers and protectors. They want to help that woman. It could be the father of the baby, it could be the boyfriend, could be the husband. We work with over 3,000 agencies across the United States and Canada and as far away as Puerto Rico, we get calls and we can send them to a local agency that will offer pro-life, pro-family help, not anything that includes contraception or abortion.
00:00:30.760When you have a large family, some people find that offensive. They might even ask you, what are you doing to the environment? How dare you? Well, it's interesting because how do you answer that question? I've got a fairly large family. We had eight children. My wife calls herself just eight on her email. But so this is where we're at. And how do we answer those questions? What about contraception and having a large family?
00:00:59.300Is that a crazy thing to do? Well, we've got someone with us who's actually proven that you can have many children and survive. Often that's a question. Yeah, you talk, you're the guy, who cares? What about the woman in the equation?
00:01:13.660Is she still alive? Well, we've got with us someone who had seven children naturally and then adopted another six. So a mother of 13. We've got Marianne Kuharski here, whom you probably all know as the head and founder of Pro-Life Across America. This is the John Henry Weston Show. Stay tuned.
00:02:04.280Honored to be asked, John Henry. It's good to talk with you again.
00:02:07.980Let's begin, as you always do, with the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
00:02:14.960I know you must have for many, many years been asked this question about having a large family because every time, you know, parents are out there, young parents even, they only have three or maybe four children with them and they're shopping or they're doing whatever.
00:02:30.400How can you have that many children? What do you respond?
00:02:34.380Actually, I even wrote a whole chapter in one of my books about having a large family and how to answer some of those criticisms. Some of it, you know, I guess I would just say, in fact, one of the titles of my books is Raising Kids with Humor and Prayer.
00:02:47.900Because you really need to have both a sense of humor and I would say pray. Pray for the people who do not understand about raising a family.
00:02:55.540But, I mean, we've heard all sorts of things like, don't you know how to stop that? And isn't that enough? And how come you're always pregnant or you always have a baby with you or whatever?
00:03:04.920And sometimes I would just say to people, well, when you're good at something, you're good at it. But you have to have it. I have other comments, too.
00:03:13.960But you just really do have to have a sense of humor and just know that this is what God is calling us to do.
00:03:20.020And you get kind of tough skinned about it, but we have to be very gentle with those people who really, really don't understand.
00:03:26.140It's amazing to me that we would never go up to someone and ask, don't you feel kind of selfish about owning that great big yacht of yours or that big million dollar mansion?
00:03:35.440We don't ever, ever accuse somebody of being selfish or being greedy or whatever.
00:03:40.620And yet people don't think, I've had people step out of their grocery line and come over to mine when they saw me with an armful of kids and say, are these all your kids?
00:03:49.020And I'll say yes. And they'd say, well, that's disgusting.
00:03:51.340I mean, how do you even answer that except to just smile and pray?
00:03:55.240One time I just said to a lady, well, if you think this is something, you should see all the ones at home because you have to have a sense of humor about it.
00:04:02.940But but then pray for them because they really don't know the real true treasures of life are our children.
00:04:09.580I think my my wife took a page out of one of your books because when asked one time, don't you know what causes that?
00:04:15.920She says, oh, yes, but we've chosen to keep our toothbrushes in separate glasses now.
00:04:21.340So one of the common, you know, arguments is that, well, you can use contraception and that will solve all your problems.
00:04:34.000What for you in your married life, in your experience, says why you shouldn't use contraception?
00:04:40.960You know, there's something that happens. And of course, we've had our we had our surprise babies.
00:04:45.580We we actually had two children born to us and then started adopting.
00:04:50.700We adopted for what they called special need kids from Vietnam and the Philippines or whatever.
00:04:56.780And then we had our surprise pregnancy. And I hadn't had a baby in nine years.
00:05:00.720We had to start all over again. And there was a blessing that happened.
00:05:05.860Both my husband and I looked at each other and thought, wow, there's a reason why God is calling us to live differently than other people.
00:05:12.660And it changed our whole life. We saw more miracles than we would have ever seen before.
00:05:18.040I just encourage people. I always feel bad when they go ahead and get sterilized or get on the pill or think that's enough.
00:05:25.620And I always tell them, you know, the the joy is anything after three is a wash.
00:05:30.420It's it becomes easy because you become the expert and you now know that you're the best judge of your family and your children and what you should do rather than all those who write the the so-called expert books on parenting.
00:05:44.000But it is a matter of trusting God. And if you don't have that trust, you're going to miss some joys in life.
00:05:49.240And I I can't tell you, John Henry, how many people I've met, even as I was raising my kids who said later, I wish I hadn't done what I had done.
00:05:57.960We stopped at four. We stopped at three or we stopped at two. And it's too late for us.
00:06:04.140But when I see how much fun you're having with your kids, I have to say it keeps you young.
00:06:09.920You have to stay young. You have to know what they're listening to. You have to know what they're what they're learning in school.
00:06:15.540You can't you have no time for old age. You really don't because you have to keep young with them.
00:06:21.200So it's a lot of fun. They kept me young.
00:06:23.940That is another question. I think what happens is once they get OK, well, we can be open to life.
00:06:30.540What are we going to do about raising kids?
00:06:34.900It's a challenge to conceive of having a large family just by itself.
00:06:39.260But how are you supposed to raise a child?
00:06:41.980How are you supposed to have enough love for for the one child and for a second child?
00:06:45.940Often in the very beginning, they think that.
00:06:48.260But beyond that comes the issue of raising children and teenagers in our day and age.
00:07:24.840And I think that is the point about parenting.
00:07:26.960If we love our children, what's our number one goal?
00:07:30.280What is our number one goal for our kids?
00:07:32.280And it isn't a college education and it isn't a bike of their own or clothes of their own or a room of their own, which my kids thought they, you know, missed in life because they didn't have a room of their own or they had somebody else's bike or clothes or whatever.
00:07:44.620Our number one goal is to get them to heaven.
00:07:47.140And in mind, that means we really have to be very forceful and aggressive about what we want.
00:08:03.200We want to have we want to know what our kids are learning, what our kids are watching, and we may have to supervise it or in some cases have them be too busy so they can't get involved in something we know that will hurt them.
00:08:15.660And so both John and I made up our minds that we were going to we watch what schools we send our kids to.
00:08:22.720In fact, I didn't like the television, and so I started buying old movies.
00:08:27.320And our kids at first went crazy that we were going to watch all these old black and white movies.
00:08:31.700But now I had a kid in the seminary in Rome, and he, for Christmas, requested that I send him all the old movies so he could show the other guys, the other seminarians, the old movies.
00:08:44.160And so to a son that's now living in New York City, I always kid him and call him Mr. Hotshot because he lives in New York City.
00:08:51.740And yet what did he ask for Christmas with some of the old movies.
00:08:55.320So there's, you know, there's good lessons to be learned.
00:08:58.420There's things that we can do as parents, even in this day and age of the cell phone, which I don't recommend parents give to their kids, that can control their environment and make them feel.
00:09:08.560Oftentimes kids join gangs, they get pregnant, they do other things, because it's their way of feeling a sense of belonging.
00:09:17.080And we as Catholic parents want our kids to know you belong to us.
00:09:40.900We have to be, let them know that we're so nuts about you that we're going to ground you if we have to, in order to protect you from something that we think will hurt you.
00:09:50.520I hope people hear you. The wisdom of that is so profound. It might sound really simple, but it is so profound.
00:10:00.880They do want to know where they belong. And being part of the family gang is just incredible.
00:10:07.400It's true. In fact, I used to tell them I'm Italian, so this is our mafia.
00:10:11.700And the kids at first didn't understand, and then they would laugh because they would say to my mother, in fact, a couple of my kids, I heard they would tell some of their friends,
00:10:19.580you know, I would like to do this, but if you knew my mom, it isn't worth it because they knew they would be grounded.
00:10:26.400You know, I had some cardinal rules I'd like to share, and I use them when I give presentations to other people.
00:10:32.420But I always say that my cardinal rules were that we want to play together.
00:10:36.680We want to take time to play with our kids. And I don't mean trips to Disneyland.
00:10:41.520I mean, even just going to the local park or taking a vacation.
00:10:45.260We took vacations with our kids every year. That sounds crazy, but we'd have this great, big, huge van.
00:10:50.520Sometimes we'd have to have two cars, and we would go on vacations.
00:10:54.120We had wonderful trips, my kids still remember. And I think our kids have seen more sites than anyway.
00:10:58.900So play together, pray together. And that means mass together.
00:11:02.580And that means you may not concentrate much in mass because you're watching all these other kids or trying to keep them controlled.
00:11:08.920Sit in the front pew so that kids can see what we're really worshiping and what we're doing.
00:11:14.100But we need to let our kids know there's nothing more powerful than a kid scene, not the mother, but the father on his knees and the father leading prayer.
00:11:23.240That will stick with kids no matter what happens.
00:11:26.220So I always say pray together, play together, eat together.
00:11:30.020You know, John Henry, if I leave your audience with anything, that is a lost art.
00:11:35.100I give whole presentations now on why eating together is so important.
00:11:39.480In fact, there's secular magazines that now prove that kids that eat with their parents and their families at least several times a week are less likely to join gangs or drugs or pregnancies.
00:11:50.820So we Catholics, I think our Lord set the tone for us at what the first miracle and even the last miracle, the last supper and the miracle at Cana.
00:12:00.180I think he was trying to let us know that being together as family and rejoicing and celebrating and eating together is very, very good.
00:12:08.700And then, of course, my fourth point is discipline is love.
00:12:12.240If we love our kids and we're really nuts about them, then we won't let harm come to them, which means we might not be liked.
00:12:19.840I always say to my kids, I'm not your friend, I'm your mother, you know.
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00:14:04.660I always tell the story of my brother who was married three times, and even my own mother was upset with me because I wouldn't go to the wedding.
00:14:11.960And I said, I have 13 good reasons why I can't go to my brother's wedding, because all those eyes are looking at John and I,
00:14:18.940and if we accept that third marriage as being an okay marriage in some, you know, judge's office, that's not going to, that's, doesn't.
00:14:27.480But I called my brother and said, you know, I love you.
00:14:31.440I'm praying you come back to the faith, and we have to let our kids know that, too.
00:14:35.360Whether it's a homosexual relationship or an invalid marriage or they've just decided to leave the church, there's nothing more heartbreaking to a parent.
00:14:45.880Nothing more heartbreaking than knowing that your kids are not following the church teaching or they're not living their Catholic faith after, you know, all you think of after all we've done.
00:15:15.520And so it was a big swallow, John Henry, of humility for me to know I couldn't control my adult kids.
00:15:22.540But I can love them, and I can pray for them.
00:15:25.900And once in a while, the old Marianne will slip up.
00:15:28.800And if I see an article that I think might touch them, like once in a while, there's an annual Lenten series that comes out on 10 good reasons to come back to the Catholic Church or 10 good reasons to go to confession.
00:16:05.480We can send our guardian angels to their guardian angels to pray for them.
00:16:09.200We have mass that we can participate in every single day.
00:16:12.360We have the greatest gift, the rosary from the Blessed Mother, that we can be saying for our children.
00:16:18.360My kids all know I use every one of those weapons every single day.
00:16:22.520In fact, I'm blessed to be a third-order Carmelite, so I can reach into that arsenal as well.
00:16:28.940And it just reminds me to keep those prayers focused on my family and on my community and, of course, our nation, which needs it very much.
00:17:35.820I came from an orphanage when I was nine months old.
00:17:38.600And I just tell my kids, I'll not go to my grave and not know I did everything I could to oppose this terrible, terrible law that struck down all of the gnaws we had that protected both moms and babies and gave us abortion to live birth in the United States.
00:19:11.840Number one, the outdoor ad company wouldn't let us put a picture of a bloody baby on a billboard.
00:19:16.040But number two, about half or more of the people who call our hotline, and we now average about 400 to 450 calls a month to our hotline, from all of our ads, our billboard, our radio, our internet ads all feature a hotline.
00:19:31.980About half of those callers are people who've been through one abortion experience already.
00:19:36.000So we need to want to rope them into the pro-life family.
00:19:41.040And we thought the tenderness, we had a woman who called from Portland, Oregon, and she said, I just felt by the tenderness of your ad, you would help me too.
00:19:49.100She'd never told another soul she had an abortion 35 years ago and was suffering from it.
00:19:54.380The most interesting thing, John Henry, 40% of the calls to our hotline are men.
00:19:59.740Men are natural providers and protectors.
00:20:18.320So we work with over 3,000 agencies across the United States and Canada and as far away as Puerto Rico.
00:20:25.840We get calls and we can send them to a local agency that will offer pro-life, pro-family help, not anything that includes contraception or abortion.
00:20:44.980I have strong feelings on politics, but we're totally here to be education and service to those who need our help.
00:20:52.480And again, it was because we tried to help people and they didn't know we existed.
00:20:56.540So we're kind of the, what can I say, the visual aid of all those pregnancy centers, pro-life pregnancy centers that need a voice or need a vocal or a visual.
00:21:07.500So when people call our hotline, we send them to that local agency.
00:21:11.760So oftentimes I speak at those agencies for fundraisers for those pro-life groups.
00:21:17.120So it's, it's a joy to see who we're connecting with.
00:21:20.880One of the things I'd like to ask you about is your children's involvement in your pro-life work.
00:21:31.320As you mentioned earlier, the example of the father in praying, in being a spiritual leader of the home is absolutely fundamental in the practice of the faith of the children afterward.
00:21:40.520But one of the things, one of the findings from a study that I read once detailed, not only in praying, but also in an active apostolate or ministry life.
00:21:52.480That tends to solidify the children in terms of their practice of faith.
00:21:57.420They're sticking to the beliefs in life and family and so on.
00:25:11.880They're advertising all of the states that you can now go to.
00:25:15.560And, of course, the corporate America is following suit because they know it's cheaper to kill a little baby and keep that mother working than to help pay for time off and the things that the mother would need in order to nurture the child and give birth to the child.
00:25:34.580But we actually were on a freeze until two weeks ago.
00:25:38.140Finally, I wrote a letter to all of our big supporters and just said, we're on a freeze.
00:25:43.280This is the first fall we've been through that we can't have a new fall campaign because the funds are just not there for us.
00:25:50.380We have to be sure we can pay the bills we have.
00:25:52.620So we've been hurting a little bit, and we're kind of just getting a little bit of the advertising, not dollars out there again, but not enough to really do a full-fledged campaign nationwide.
00:26:06.020You can go to LifeFunder.com, and you'll be able to fund these awesome billboards all around America.
00:26:13.220Marianne Kaharski, I can't thank you enough for coming on the show, for doing what you're doing, for sharing with us your beautiful reflections on your life, on your openness to life, and on your great pro-life apostolate.
00:26:46.940And to see more like this, be sure to hit the subscribe button below to get all the latest content from LifeSite News.
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00:27:05.140Thanks for watching, and may God bless you.