In this episode of the Fatherless Crisis podcast, I sit down with my good friend Alec to talk about fatherlessness in America. Alec is a father of four and a diesel engine mechanic on the railroad. He talks about his journey to becoming a father and how fatherhood has impacted his life. He also talks about the stigma of being a father in America and how it affects him and the other fathers in his community. I hope you enjoy this episode and share it with a friend or family member who is a dad, friend, or even a coworker who is struggling with a lack of self-confidence. I know I know mine is not the only one who is having a hard time with this, but it s something we can all relate to. Thank you Alec for coming on the show and sharing his story and experience with me. I really appreciate it and I hope it inspires you to be a better Dad and a better human being. I know that you are not alone in this struggle. We all have a lot of Dadless Dads out there who are going through a similar situation and are fighting for their kids to have a safe and good fatherhood. You are a rockstar in this world and I know you will be a rock star in your own way. Thanks for being a Dadless Dad! -Alec and I appreciate you and I love you so much. -Vivek and I am so proud of you! -P.S. - Thank you for joining us in this episode. -Vavek & I appreciate the support you have given to our Dadless Podcast! We appreciate you! -VIVEk and the support we've given to us by our community! -Alyssa and I m so grateful for all the support that we have received. Vavek and appreciate all the love and support we ve gotten over the past few years! - Vivek & his hard work! -Thank you for supporting us! - - Vaveh and Veeh and the love you've given us. -Alicia , Veeg Veek I hope we can continue to support you, thank you, Veee and I will continue to do what we can do! Viveh Podcast - Veev podcast - we are so much! - P.A. podcast - Veeda
Transcript
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00:00:27.000But, you know, we were just starting to chat.
00:00:30.000I didn't actually have much knowledge about what your other background was outside of the podcast, other than knowing your dad of four.
00:00:37.000And that's what we ended up talking most about was fatherhood.
00:00:40.000But tell me a little bit about your career, and then we'll get into the topic of self-confidence in America, which is what I wanted to talk to you about today.
00:02:10.000I think you're totally right about it.
00:02:12.000I don't remember that existing in the 90s.
00:02:15.000I guess I don't remember when that changed, but I guess it just did.
00:02:18.000Right, and it's just like now if you're a mother that's – now they stay home as if that's something abnormal, then it's like, well, that's all you do, you know?
00:02:26.000So that's – In fact, if you're – it's actually an interesting topic.
00:02:32.000If anything, like I kind of remember, and maybe it was unique to my experience, but tell me if you feel differently.
00:02:39.000You know, in the 90s, it almost was the other way.
00:02:42.000Like there was a stigma if you were like a mom with kids, but you were like a, you know, working woman or early 90s.
00:02:49.000I just remember because my mom, I felt like ran into some of that.
00:02:51.000Maybe it was in our, more of our cultural norms in our, you know, community, but maybe it was more general.
00:02:57.000But either way, that was the direction that if there was a stigma, it ran in the other direction.
00:03:00.000Now it's, now it's in the direction of, I'm just wondering what's going on in the culture.
00:03:06.000I don't know, but I think it's definitely one of the prime movers in the fact that so many of our family units in this country are broken apart.
00:03:12.000I mean, you have both—even the families that are intact, you have both—on the average, you have the mother and the father working full-time jobs.
00:03:20.000And so a lot of times, neither one of them are home, and the kids are being raised a lot of times by the school system, which is atrocious right now.
00:03:26.000So if you're a family that can't afford to get your kids into the Catholic school or private school and they're subject to this public school system— You're in a lot of trouble with that.
00:03:44.000I talk about it all the time because even I was down at CPAC there with you over the weekend or last weekend, wherever it was.
00:03:52.000And everyone talks about policies and changes.
00:03:55.000But if we don't solve the problem of the fatherless crisis in this country, none of the other stuff that we're going to try to fix is going to matter.
00:04:02.000It's like trying to fill the Fix the top of the building without strengthening the foundation.
00:04:15.000Well, get to how we do that, but can you actually quantify for me the fatherlessness crisis in the US? I'm sure if anybody knows about this, it's you.
00:04:23.000I have a rough sense of observing it particularly.
00:04:27.000I've familiarized myself with that being one of the issues in the black community, but let's talk about it more generally in America.
00:04:33.000Can you educate me on this a little bit?
00:04:35.000It's in every community, Vivek, and yes, the African-American community.
00:04:39.000Actually, Barack Obama gave a great Father's Day speech.
00:05:06.000I know Jesse Jackson was caught on a hot mic saying he wanted to cut off his genitals and he was like, we're never going to, you know, they came at him hard after he made that speech, but it was an important one to have.
00:05:18.000As far as the fatherless crisis goes, We lead the world in fatherless households, right?
00:05:24.000Pew Research had a study that was done in 2019 where America is leading the world in single-parent households and the majority, overwhelming majority of our single-parent households are single-mom households.
00:05:37.000So it goes, and you know what, the impact of this, there's over 20 million kids that are living in this country right now with no father in the home, and it impacts every aspect of our society.
00:05:46.000So if you want to have the poverty conversation or the homeless conversation, 90% of all homeless and runaway kids are coming from fatherless households.
00:05:54.000If you want to start having the crime conversation, 85% of all the youths that are sitting right now in a penitentiary or in a facility, a disciplined facility, they're all coming from fatherless households.
00:06:05.000It's the same thing when you look at the drug abuse, when you look at teenage suicide, teenage pregnancy.
00:06:09.000Every category statistically at the root of it, you're going to find the fatherless crisis aligning with that.
00:06:15.000And this goes to – if you look at the four – It's interesting because I think that I spent a lot of time talking to – I mean running for president, educating myself on different facets of how to address the cultural cancer in America.
00:06:29.000And I'll hear – I believe and I'm persuaded by accounts of the role of social media, accounts of the role of toxic ideologies taught in our schools, but you would actually pin a lot of those to be just symptoms of a deeper crisis of – Fatherlessness.
00:06:51.000So do you have like stats on that or, you know, just in terms of like how many – how do you define fatherlessness and then what does that – well, what does that mean actually?
00:07:00.000What you call – does it mean dad is in the family but it's just not present or do you just literally mean dad's out of the house?
00:07:31.000Now, also, too, if you look at prior to the civil rights movement in this country and prior to the feminism movement in this country, the two-parent household was intact.
00:07:44.000This is why, Vivek, when they start talking about the shootings that are going on and they right away have the gun conversation— The percentage of gun owners in this country hasn't changed since 1972. 44%, 45%.
00:08:14.000The African American community was some of the strongest.
00:08:17.000I think they were at like 13% back in the 50s.
00:08:20.000They had some of the strongest nuclear families in our country since the civil rights movement.
00:08:24.000And when you had the no man at home started to come in and you started to have moms become married to the government or co-parent with the government, co-parent with the taxpayer in a sense, all of a sudden you saw the shift happen in the African American community.
00:08:38.000And that's why President Obama addressed it.
00:08:41.000And that's why it needs to be talked about.
00:08:43.000So also, too, if you look at this, Vivek, if you look at – it has the other effect, too, the positive effect.
00:08:48.000If you look at the top four demographics – Let's get those facts on black Americans for a second.
00:08:54.000So – That number was as low as 12% in the 50s?
00:09:16.000Michael Irvin, who's in the hot seat right now for some nonsense that they dropped him from the NFL Network in the whole bit over something he's suing them about.
00:10:43.000That holds true with teenage pregnancy.
00:10:45.000At the top, African American, Hispanic, Caucasian, Asian.
00:10:48.000All of these numbers all coincide, and there's one...
00:10:52.000We are filling up the prison systems in this country, Vivek, with one particular type of character, and that is a young man who grew up with no father in the home.
00:12:13.000Well, you have to look at a number of factors here.
00:12:15.000And like I said, it goes back to the civil rights movement.
00:12:17.000It goes back to the feminist movement that happened in the 60s and 70s when you started to have the no man at home laws that started to come in where women, mothers were getting farther reimbursements For not having a man.
00:12:31.000They would even have people do the no man at home check.
00:12:33.000They'd go to the house to make sure there's no man living in the home.
00:12:36.000So that kind of was the beginning where we saw this happen.
00:12:38.000You also have- So you're saying we subsidized it?
00:12:46.000They were incentivized to not have the father in the home.
00:12:49.000And so also too, here's the other big one that's happening, Vivek, and it's the family court system.
00:12:54.000The family court system in this country is heavily slanted against men.
00:12:58.000I get one email more than I get from any other dad in this country.
00:13:01.000It's dads that reach out to me and tell me their horror story about how they got humiliated, how they went broke, trying to get custody or some type of time with their kids through a custody battle.
00:13:12.000And it is a nightmare for so many dads.
00:13:13.000The entire family court system is corrupt.
00:13:15.000It needs to be revamped because, you know, we talk about equality in this country quite a bit, but in family court, there's no such thing.
00:13:22.000We don't hear the words toxic masculinity in the family court system.
00:13:26.000There it's, oh no, he's the breadwinner.
00:13:30.000He's the guy that we can't survive without him.
00:13:32.000You don't hear that rhetoric anywhere else but inside the family court system.
00:13:35.000So many good dads who have been removed from their kids' lives because lies have been made up about them and they are trying to fight these cases.
00:14:23.000How does that compare to the- because there's a lot of this sort of hand-wringing about the difference between black Americans and white Americans.
00:14:32.000For the same crime being sentenced more.
00:14:34.000It's much more heavily between men and women.
00:16:08.000So that, you think, it was a combination of kind of the economic incentives and the culture that was created for it to be cool, for there not to be a man around.
00:16:16.000Also, too, you started to see entertainment change and start to glorify that kind of stuff, right?
00:16:21.000And even a man's conception of himself was that, too.
00:16:25.000Men have been emasculated in this country.
00:17:18.000We'll get to the future part in a second, but take our best crack.
00:17:23.000I mean, what could we actually do about this?
00:17:25.000Well, you know, I had Governor Ron DeSantis on my podcast when he passed the Fatherhood Initiative Bill down in Florida, which is something I hope many more states are going to follow through with.
00:17:34.000Because even like he said, like, you can't legislate fatherhood.
00:17:39.000There's only so much you can do from a political podium.
00:17:42.000But what he did do was pass this initiative where it gave these organizations access to resources to fund these programs that are trying to educate fathers, that are trying to help fathers and mend these families.
00:17:55.000So they have a resource to go to now to help build the father back up in the family.
00:18:00.000So that's one part of it that is something that I wish every state should have.
00:18:04.000You know, we see a lot of resources for moms all over the place.
00:18:07.000You don't see anywhere near as many as that for dads.
00:18:12.000But one of the things, what I try to do on my show, and which I hope is important and has been making an impact as far as I know, is that I bring out all these guys that are known for other things.
00:18:22.000Super Bowl MVPs, Academy Award winners, Navy SEALs, whatever they accomplish great things in life.
00:18:28.000But when they come on the show, they'll testify that the only thing that's given them any real fulfillment in life Is being a father.
00:18:35.000That's the message that needs to get out there from these guys.
00:19:00.000Maybe get up there and talk about the importance of raising a family and telling them the truth about how it's given you the most fulfillment in your life.
00:19:06.000You have that platform and that podium.
00:19:08.000Shoot for it there, especially the African American actors.
00:19:11.000Get up there and talk about the importance of fatherhood.
00:19:14.000It could do so much for the community.
00:19:15.000It could do so much more because their voice, it carries so much farther and it means something.
00:19:19.000Barack Obama, again, never talked about it again.
00:19:22.000Look at what he could have done to help heal the families in the African American community had he gave that speech every six months.
00:19:28.000I mean, what a difference it would make.
00:19:36.000And even just now, you know, Vivek, I just- I'm trying to think about how we can actually encourage more of these guys to do this.
00:19:41.000You think, I mean, there's different kinds of fear I could imagine, right?
00:19:45.000There's the fear of the political backlash.
00:19:49.000I think Barack Obama is more likely to have encountered that because of where the left is and was than a guy like Matthew McConaughey or, you know, Peyton Manning or whatever.
00:19:58.000I'm just thinking about cultural icons.
00:20:01.000I think for them, what do you think is stopping them?
00:20:04.000Or is it just that they're not thinking about it or do you think that it's a little bit of that cultural fear or is it that they're going to be caught being hypocritical and someone will bring something up in their own life?
00:20:12.000I think they're more willing to talk about their own fatherhood but not to talk about the issue of fatherlessness.
00:20:28.000I get a lot of single moms that reach out and they'll state to me, hey, Alec, I raised two boys by myself with no man and they turned out to be this and they turned out to be that and they're successful.
00:21:14.000I just went to the Super Bowl to interview the players again about fatherhood.
00:21:18.000So I talked to Patrick Mahomes, asked him about his...
00:21:21.000You're a legend in the NFL. You're building a legacy in the NFL, but what kind of legacy are you building as a father?
00:21:25.000And he spoke about how that's the only thing that's going to matter.
00:21:29.000That's what he's going to leave behind, and that's what's going to be really remembered about him.
00:21:32.000So he talked about his own fatherhood journey, and it's important.
00:21:36.000The NFL tried it, and you heard an analysis from the NFL try to say, we have two black quarterbacks in the Super Bowl for the first time playing against each other, and they both had a father in their life.
00:21:47.000This dispels the myth about black fatherhood.
00:21:57.000But again, going back to the point, I think the reason why they won't speak about the issue is I think it looks as if it's an attack on single moms, which it's not.
00:22:06.000So your answer is more kind of cultural, making it cool to be a dad in the household again, both from the standpoint of the dads but also in the standpoint of even women and the culture to say that this is – this isn't some sort of weird antiquated idea.
00:22:53.000So the whole idea is what I'm trying to do is change that narrative around.
00:22:56.000I'm just trying to change that mindset around for these young guys that are coming up now and saying, hey, listen, this is the only thing there is.
00:23:02.000This is what you need to shoot for in life.
00:23:12.000You saying it is probably one of the more impactful things that somebody's doing in America about it because I think a politician, you can't legislate that into existence.
00:23:41.000We're talking a lot of stats at the high level, but let's go into the family.
00:23:44.000One of the themes of this podcast, by the way, is rebuilding self-confidence in America.
00:23:49.000I just think America has lost as a nation our sense of self-confidence.
00:23:54.000But I think a nation loses its self-confidence when the people who live in that nation individually don't have confidence in themselves anymore.
00:24:03.000And I think that – I think reading between the lines of what you're saying, a big part of that starts with fatherless homes where kids lack the kind of grounding, the kind of certainty in themselves, the kind of self-assuredness, that self-confidence that you get from growing up in a two-parent that self-confidence that you get from growing up in a two-parent Talk to me in your thoughts.
00:24:26.000I'm a father, but you're a father, but the difference is you've also made this your, you know, an important part of your life's work.
00:24:34.000Talk to me about what you think it is about the nature of that connection, not the statistics, but actually what is it about having a dad in the home?
00:24:42.000What impact does that have on a kid's ability to believe in himself and what he's able to achieve in life?
00:24:48.000It has got a major impact on self-confidence.
00:24:59.000And it even goes, you know, if you say Proverbs 22.6, raise up a child the way he should go and when he gets old, he'll never depart from it.
00:25:08.000The father not only is the leader in the household, but he's also the spiritual leader for the family.
00:25:12.000When you look at just the spiritual journey of kids in this country, if the father takes the kid to church, they're three times or four times more likely to go to church when they're adults.
00:25:26.000Far more than they are if just the mom takes them to church.
00:25:30.000The father has such an impact on what the children are doing.
00:25:32.000That applies to even if it's a daughter, not just father-son.
00:25:55.000They say you become the average of the five people you hang around with the most.
00:25:58.000So if you're hanging around with the wrong crowd and you don't have somebody to pull you back and say, hey, that's the wrong crowd, you shouldn't be hanging out with that crowd.
00:26:22.000They get with the local guy that's in a similar situation.
00:26:25.000Now he feels like he's a part of something.
00:26:27.000He feels like he has someone to look up to, a male role model to look up to.
00:26:30.000That's why I say to single moms, the most important thing you could do, especially for your young man, is to find a father figure for him to get around.
00:26:58.000For the kids who didn't – I mean, it sounds like in the black community, even in the Hispanic community, the majority of kids growing up in these fatherless households – Yeah, we've got to fix that problem for the future.
00:27:15.000But for those kids, based on what we know of what they're missing, what can we do to help them?
00:27:45.000Like, I know I had Buster Douglas on the podcast who knocked out Mike Tyson 30 years ago.
00:27:50.000And he's one that now has a boxing gym.
00:27:52.000And he says a lot of the people that are coming in are single moms that are bringing their young men in to the boxing facility so they can learn some discipline, learn some self-defense, but also have positive male role models around them.
00:28:05.000So Teddy Atlas is another guy that's done a ton of this work.
00:28:12.000But a lot of guys have been able to open the door up for these kids that have no father in the home.
00:28:17.000And we need more of that from the local guys, not just the guys that have the ability to open businesses, but the ones that can help steer the kids.
00:28:24.000There's a lot of programs that are involved.
00:28:25.000I know Dads of Great Students is one down in the South that does that, where dads in the school will come into the school and be that father presence for kids that don't have it.
00:28:34.000So there's a lot of good work being done.
00:28:36.000We just need to maximize it and highlight it more Yeah, I like that a lot.
00:28:44.000I mean, I think that that allows the people who are already doing a good job of that to double down on it.
00:28:49.000Maybe even men who had veered at different parts of their life, they don't have to just wallow in their guilt.
00:29:04.000I agree with all those things, but I mean I think it's a self-confidence problem in a lot of men who are fathers who just decide to engage in reckless abandon instead.
00:29:18.000How much of this crisis of fatherlessness, if you had to divvy it up between people who would have – who's – Hearts and intentions were in the right place, but due to custody disputes or otherwise were taken out of the picture versus the deadbeat dads.
00:30:39.000And I think a lot of it too, like I said, I think because, you know, back in the day, if there was a girl that was pregnant out of wedlock, It would be like, oh my god, it was a big deal.
00:30:50.000Today you have TV shows dedicated to it.
00:30:52.000Teen mom, and we glorify these things.
00:31:34.000But I mean other than just wanting to give a little spank to get people in line when they're like teenagers and think that this is cool.
00:31:44.000You know, men in their 20s, 30s, whatever, father these, you know, not really father, but, you know, whatever, have these children, get a woman pregnant, get out of the picture.
00:33:58.000But in saying that, this is part of the same thing where, let's face it, the high percentage of abortions in this country are not the ones that they point out where they'll say, oh, what about rape?
00:34:08.000What about the mom's going to die on the operating table?
00:34:14.000The majority of the abortions, 90% of them, I would say, or more, is girls that got pregnant with a guy at the bar, or they want to be able to have the sex without the responsibility.
00:34:29.000Where I was going to go with this, because we were just talking about the deadbeat dad who needs to just be shaken up a little bit and just say, get in the picture, dude.
00:34:57.000If you think about the argument that Clarence Thomas made, right?
00:35:00.000If a woman's assaulted – And the baby dies, should there be an added level, or the unborn fetus dies, should there be an added level of criminal liability?
00:35:27.000So I think most people's intuitions are there, but I think the reason they don't is because of this imbalance between the treatment of men and women.
00:35:34.000So where I'm going with this is just related to the conversation we were having, an idea from a friend of mine, and I'm still wrapping my head around it, but I thought it was pretty interesting, was like, what if you had state-level laws that That said, you know what, if you're, you know, hard pro-life protections ban abortions,
00:35:52.000but you give the woman an equalizing vote at the end, where if the child's born, you get to opt for the father to raise the child at his age.
00:36:10.000And with genetic tests, et cetera, we can establish exactly who it is.
00:36:13.000Does that – on the men side of this, does something like that – because I'm also pro-life, but I also deal with struggling with these issues of male abandonment.
00:36:54.000What troubles me is when you see these pro-choice movements where they are holding up plastic baby dolls covered in blood and spiking them like it's a football and talking about...
00:37:06.000And you see the Freedom Tower in New York get light up pink in celebration of the late-term abortion laws.
00:37:12.000I think we are losing sight and losing our moral compass in the country when you see things like that.
00:37:17.000This is not something to be celebrated at any level.
00:37:20.000There's no winning and losing here when you're talking about Ending the life of the unborn.
00:37:24.000And how do you think that our societal attitudes towards unborn life relate to the fatherlessness crisis?
00:37:37.000It feels to me like there's a linkage there.
00:37:40.000At a moment we live in that says it's okay for the right model for relationships is guy knocks girl up.
00:37:51.000Girl decides she gets to have the sole say on whether or not to abort the unborn fetus.
00:38:00.000I guess the absence of responsibility component in the abortion discussion, which just favors abort the fetus as the right answer...
00:38:09.000I'm just talking through this and thinking through this myself, but it sort of feels like it creates the conditions for, okay, well, if it's an unborn fetus, no responsibility.
00:38:26.000Is this like a popular topic in the world you're in to think about the linkage between these things, or is this a sort of out-of-the-box idea?
00:38:33.000I think they do go together, but I would put it this way.
00:38:36.000How could you continue to press this heavy sexual presence on our culture without the abortion and without the fatherlessness?
00:39:16.000All my son has to do is put in Google naked woman and he's going to get 50,000 hits and he's going to see images that he shouldn't see until he's well into a much older individual.
00:39:27.000He's going to see them at a young age.
00:39:28.000So we are exposing these kids to all this sexual stuff.
00:39:32.000Now, obviously, we know that they're pushing sexual orientation, sexual identity onto kids' kindergarten.
00:39:38.000First, second, they're exposing to it.
00:39:40.000So you can't keep pressing sex on the culture and then not have abortion be a good thing and fatherlessness be a good thing because it's going to be a byproduct of that.
00:39:50.000So what would you do to the – I mean, let's put you in a conversation.
00:39:53.000Have you ever been on the podcast, by the way, in conversation with one of the deadbeat dads?
00:40:35.000You know, unfortunately, what I say wouldn't mean anything.
00:40:39.000It would have to be somebody who's close to him, a buddy of his, a relative, an uncle, a brother, a friend, somebody that he cares about.
00:40:49.000To talk to him and say, hey, your life may be better if you get involved in your kids' lives.
00:40:53.000And that's the thing, too, is a lot of the selfishness will come from, well, what am I getting out of this?
00:40:58.000And the important thing to ask, the important question to ask about fatherhood, about family life, about marriage is not, what are you getting out of it?
00:41:07.000And that's the important question to ask.
00:41:09.000And it will make you a much better man.
00:41:10.000It will make you a much stronger individual by going through and fulfilling your responsibility as a father, as a husband, as a family man.
00:41:18.000I know politicians aren't going to solve this for sure.
00:41:25.000But from a policy perspective, nonetheless, like if you had one wish list, I'm running for president of the United States now, right?
00:41:34.000If you had one wish list for what the next president could do to help address this fatherlessness crisis we have in our country, what would it be?
00:41:51.000But I would say, I would try to do something with the family courts because I know that the family court, and I learned this through dads that have been screwed over in the process, is that the state gets money from the federal government almost on a dollar per dollar portion of the child custody.
00:42:07.000So there's dads that are paying into this and the states are getting reimbursed for On a dollar-for-dollar basis.
00:42:23.000And then all of a sudden, they unsealed his court documents in a divorce case where the mom, his ex-wife, was lying about him mistreating her, mistreating the kids, and threw all shade on him.
00:42:33.000And it forced Sean to have to withdraw his campaign for Senate.
00:42:40.000But they forced him in a situation where now he was going for custody, and then what it came to was they said, well, if you're running for senator, you can't be there for your kids, so therefore either run for senator or not.
00:42:53.000And that's what ended up having him withdraw, because you make him choose between being senator or being a father.
00:43:01.000So I would just say family court has – if there's anything politicians can do, it has to be in the family court system because you can't legislate a deadbeat dad.
00:43:18.000I doubt if that were a woman running for Senate, that would have been used against her.
00:43:21.000You're also talking about, Vivek, a multi-billion dollar industry that you're going against.
00:43:27.000The family court system is a multi-billion dollar industry, and it's been set up and run for years.
00:43:33.000So to come in there and try to upset the apple cart, you're going to tick off a lot of people by doing that, because a lot of people are making money off it.
00:43:44.000Yeah, because if you could do this one thing and get dads back in the home, if you put dad back in the home and God back in society, 90% of all these things we're trying to solve would take care of themselves.
00:45:38.000So whether that be God for you or whatever it is, it's an important step in that program because you can't go to the next step without it.
00:45:46.000And it's the most – your relationship with God or your relationship with whatever you want to call your higher power, for me it's God, for me it's Jesus Christ.
00:45:53.000Without that, you don't have a compass, you know, you're lost.
00:45:57.000And I think it's imperative for kids to have that.
00:45:59.000Yeah, I'm religious too, and it almost brings me back to that earlier conversation to – You know, the kids who didn't, I mean, who didn't grow up in a father-anchored household.
00:46:10.000We talked a little bit about others like you and I stepping up in our community to fill that void.
00:46:15.000But I think God can play a role there too.
00:46:18.000I mean, it's the last best hope we'll have to fill the void that those kids have.
00:46:25.000Are left with because of the decision their father made.
00:46:28.000I mean, you could say our father in the heavenly sense, I think, is always going to be there anyway.
00:46:34.000And I think the revival of that, I think, might be our last best chance.
00:47:37.000I think people – what's culturally cool is what people don't apologize for.
00:47:41.000And I think the more we just embrace that without having to feel like we apologize for it, it's probably the biggest cultural contribution we can make.
00:47:53.000I think that – You're going to probably drive more change in the family in America if more people are hearing from you than any politician ever will.
00:48:03.000And all I can say is keep doing what you're doing.