The media has been claiming that Trump's rhetoric is to blame for violence. Yet they never blamed Democrats for the many examples of liberal violence over the last few years. Also, we'll talk about Megyn Kelly getting canned by NBC, and I'll share the top two things I've learned about marriage in seven years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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| Today on the show, the media is, of course, blaming President Trump for violence, but is that fair? | |
| What sort of rhetoric can actually be blamed for violence? | |
| We'll talk about that. | |
| Also, we'll talk about the Megyn Kelly firing at NBC and why everyone seems to hate this woman so, so much. | |
| Finally, as I celebrate my seventh wedding anniversary, I'll share the two most important lessons I've learned about marriage. | |
| All of that coming up. | |
| Well, the media and the left and Democrats, I mean, these are all the same people, of course, but they have exercised no restraint this week when it comes to blaming President Trump for the pipe bombs that have been mailed to, I think we're up to about 12 different people now at this point. | |
| They blamed Trump, they blamed Republicans generally for the rhetoric, which allegedly has led to this. | |
| And in fact, CNN even announced What they had up on their screen yesterday, it said that the intended recipients of the bombs were Trump's targets. | |
| That's the words they used. | |
| That the bomber was sending these bombs to Trump's targets. | |
| As if Trump had contracted this person, whoever it is, to send these To send these bombs up. | |
| NBC ran a headline today saying, their headline was, Trump slams pipe bomb recipient CNN in overnight tweet. | |
| Pipe bomb recipient CNN. | |
| That's quite an interesting way to describe CNN. | |
| Obviously trying to insinuate that there's something reckless or something wrong with Trump criticizing CNN because someone mailed a pipe bomb to them. | |
| I gotta tell you, I don't really see the connection there. | |
| I think it's bad that somebody mailed a pipe bomb to CNN. | |
| I don't approve of that. | |
| I think it's a very terrible, evil thing. | |
| But just because that happened, that doesn't mean that now we're not allowed to criticize CNN. | |
| What kind of mentality is that? | |
| I mean, it's absolutely absurd, but this is what we're getting from the media. | |
| An MSNBC anchor yesterday insisted Very directly, that this culture of toxic rhetoric started with Trump. | |
| That's what she said. | |
| He started it. | |
| It all began with him. | |
| It was a utopia before him. | |
| Everyone agreed. | |
| Everyone got along. | |
| There was no disagreement. | |
| And there was no toxic rhetoric. | |
| And then Trump came along and he started all of it. | |
| Didn't exist before him. | |
| This is all his fault. | |
| That's what the left is saying. | |
| Judging by the media's reaction to the story this week, you might think, if you didn't know any better, if you just dropped here from outer space and you were looking around and you were looking at the news coverage of these devices that have been sent around, you might think that this is the first example of political violence, or attempted violence anyway, in years. | |
| And you might think that every example has been committed at the hands of right-wingers. | |
| That's what you would think from the reaction. | |
| That's what you would probably think. | |
| But of course, you would think wrong. | |
| There are many examples we could point to of left-wing violence. | |
| And this is not whataboutism. | |
| Okay, this is not like... That's not what this is about. | |
| This is about being honest and also understanding the scope of the problem. | |
| And also getting an idea of how our media operates. | |
| So let's just run through a few examples here, because the point is, these examples I'm going to give, although these things happened, the media didn't want to have any conversation about toxic rhetoric back then. | |
| They didn't blame it on the Democrats, nothing like that. | |
| Even though, let's just go through, let's go through, well, here's a recent one that was, I think it was in the news for about 12.5 seconds, but Ricin was sent to President Trump and other administration officials. | |
| This happened just a few weeks ago. | |
| As I said, it was in the news for a very brief time and then it was forgotten. | |
| Now, Of course, Trump was he was never in any danger. | |
| His mail is screened, of course, and there's no chance that a letter containing poison is ever going to make it to Trump's desk. | |
| Like, that's not going to happen. | |
| Right. | |
| So, you might argue that, well, that's the reason why it got very little attention. | |
| And it really got, I mean, I'm saying this right now, I think there are probably a lot of people watching this or listening to this that didn't even hear about it. | |
| This might be the first time you're hearing of it, but it really did happen. | |
| Recently, someone mailed, tried to mail a poison to President Trump. | |
| And maybe the reason will be given for why it wasn't news, well, because it was screened out, it never made it anywhere near him, you know, so it was, so, It wasn't big news. | |
| Okay, but the pipe bombs were also not any threat to their targets. | |
| The people screaming Barack Obama's mail or Hillary Clinton's mail, they're not going to hand them a suspicious envelope with a heavy object in the shape of a pipe bomb protruding out the sides of it. | |
| I mean, whoever mailed this device mailed it in an envelope, in a suspicious envelope, so that you could even see the shape of what appeared to be a pipe bomb. | |
| So there was just 0.0% chance that those envelopes were ever going to get anywhere near Obama or Hillary or any of the other targets. | |
| But interestingly enough, the fact that the attempt was a dud Was reason enough to ignore the story in Trump's case, but not in the case of Obama's and Hillary's. | |
| Another example, there was an attack on the GOP at a congressional baseball game. | |
| Hopefully you remember this. | |
| An outspoken Bernie Sanders supporter went to the game with a hit list of Republican names. | |
| With a loaded gun and a hit list of Republican names, he got to the game, you know, he saw that there was some, one of the teams was out on the field practicing. | |
| He asked somebody, which party is that? | |
| Is that Republicans or Democrats out on the field? | |
| And the person said, Republicans. | |
| And then the guy opened fire. | |
| Representative Steve Scalise was nearly killed in the assault. | |
| So this was a politically motivated pre-planned mass assassination attempt targeting dozens of GOP lawmakers at once. | |
| This was far more serious than the pipe bomb thing because, number one, a politician was nearly killed in the attempt and these were live bullets being sprayed directly at You know, at GOP politicians. | |
| But, you know, the media, there was never any discussion about toxic rhetoric. | |
| MSNBC, they told us that toxic rhetoric began with Trump. | |
| Well, then how do you explain this? | |
| See, this had nothing to do with rhetoric, they said. | |
| Nancy Pelosi was even asked. | |
| At the time, do you think that the overheated rhetoric on the part of Democrats may have played a part? | |
| And she was outraged. | |
| She was indignant that anyone would even suggest such a thing. | |
| She was the victim because of that suggestion. | |
| How dare you even suggest that? | |
| Another example, you may remember in 2016, there was a mass murder of police officers at a Black Lives Matter rally in Dallas. | |
| A murderous radical went on a rampage during a BLM protest, shot 14 police officers, killed five of them. | |
| But the media took great pains to clarify that the killer had nothing to do with Black Lives Matter, liberals, Democrats, nothing to do with it. | |
| Even though many prominent leftists had spent years up to that point claiming that racist, bigoted, murderous police officers are on the prowl hunting down innocent black men and executing them in broad daylight in the middle of the street. | |
| That's what they were telling us. | |
| Still, we were told that although people have been saying that had nothing to do, nothing to do with the mass murder of police officers at a Black Lives Matter protest. | |
| Um, and then, and then finally, uh, well, this is just, I mean, I say finally, but just, this is just one other example I'm going to cite. | |
| I could have cite many more, but remember the riots in Ferguson and Baltimore. | |
| This was violence gripping the streets of Ferguson and Baltimore for days on end. | |
| Buildings were burned to the ground. | |
| Stores were looted. | |
| Cars were set on fire. | |
| Homes were vandalized. | |
| People were assaulted by mobs. | |
| I mean, it was a lawless chaos in the street. | |
| And in those, in these, especially with Ferguson, but Baltimore too, but especially with Ferguson, Which was the beginning of this trend of riots and so on. | |
| We can say without a doubt that left-wing rhetoric fueled and encouraged the violence, because liberals and Democrats, people in the media, they were the ones spreading the patently false hands-up-don't-shoot myth, which became the rallying cry of the rioters. | |
| It was the reason why there was a riot. | |
| And it was a lie. | |
| We could also talk about the various Antifa riots. | |
| We could talk about the Republican politicians who have been accosted by mobs, chased out of restaurants, and so on. | |
| But none of these events prompted a national conversation about dangerous rhetoric. | |
| CNN never blamed Obama for the Ferguson riots or the Dallas massacre. | |
| MSNBC never made Nancy Pelosi or Maxine Waters or Chuck Schumer or any other Democrat answer for the shooting spree at a congressional baseball game. | |
| The media rejected the idea that anyone other than the specific perpetrators themselves could be responsible for these attacks. | |
| And only now have they changed their mind on that. | |
| Now they're finally saying, oh, well, actually rhetoric could be to blame. | |
| It's truly despicable what they're doing. | |
| And we can't let them get away with it. | |
| And unfortunately, calling them out and calling them out for the dishonesty, if you do that, it's going to open you to charges of whataboutism. | |
| But I think the accusation of whataboutism, that's one of the cheapest things that people do. | |
| If someone is making a claim and saying, well, this is the first time this has ever happened, then I'm allowed to say, well, no, actually, here's some other times as well. | |
| And if someone is saying, well, Trump is creating this unique environment of toxicity, well, if you're claiming that, then I don't have to just sit here and listen to that lie. | |
| I'm going to point out, well, no, what are you talking about, GOP-based? | |
| Like, I can bring that up. | |
| I don't have to just sit here and allow you to spread that false information and that propaganda. | |
| Now, am I saying that every attack by a liberal is the fault of democratic rhetoric? | |
| No. | |
| Am I saying that any attack could be entirely the fault of rhetoric? | |
| No. | |
| But am I saying that violent attacks and rhetoric are two separate issues that have no relationship at all? | |
| No, I'm not saying that either. | |
| So let me tell you what I am saying. | |
| On this issue of rhetoric, let's just talk about that for a minute. | |
| First, it should be stated that whenever somebody commits a violent act, | |
| the fault for that action lies completely on the shoulders of the person who committed it. | |
| You know, of course. | |
| Even the most irresponsible rhetoric in the world can't physically cause someone to go out and shoot up a baseball game or mail a pipe bomb or whatever, so we know that. | |
| We can never lose sight of free will, personal agency, personal responsibility. | |
| However, it is also absurd, I think, to pretend that our words always have zero influence and are therefore never a part of the story. | |
| I don't think that's true either. | |
| There is personal responsibility to go around here. | |
| Everyone has personal responsibility and we all have to be responsible for our words. | |
| So I do think that certain kinds of rhetoric can contribute to encourage, foment, gin up Violence and unrest. | |
| And people who engage in that kind of talk, when the violence happens, when the unrest happens, should also be given some of the blame. | |
| The people who commit the violent actions, they get 100% of the blame. | |
| But if someone did really encourage this stuff, they also get a certain portion of blame. | |
| So what kind of talk are we Are we talking about, what kind of talk am I referring to? | |
| What kind of talk, what kind of rhetoric could legitimately be partially blamed for violence? | |
| Well, first of all, talk rhetoric that is incendiary and dishonest. | |
| Okay? | |
| So the problem with the hands up, don't shoot narrative is that it was untrue. | |
| It was a lie. | |
| It was a false narrative. | |
| People who knew better were deliberately spreading a lie that they knew would stir up and was stirring up outrage and violence and mobs. | |
| So do they share moral blame for the ensuing outrage and the mobs and the violence that they incurred? | |
| Yeah, of course they do. | |
| These were malicious lies. | |
| So maybe that's the way I put it. | |
| A certain sort of rhetoric That can be partially blamed for violence. | |
| Malicious lies. | |
| When you're telling lies maliciously, trying to get people angry and upset. | |
| So that was the thing that was so evil and so terrible and why we should never forget about what happened with Ferguson because the media, they were deliberately lying about what happened. | |
| Even as city blocks were being burned to the ground, they were still lying. | |
| And they still lie about it to this day. | |
| They still won't admit that this was all based on a lie. | |
| So yes, I blame them at the time. | |
| I still blame them. | |
| Also, rhetoric that explicitly calls upon people to engage in violence. | |
| So obviously if you're out there telling people to do this stuff, then yes, you get part of the blame. | |
| Maxine Waters told her followers to quote, create a crowd and get in the faces of Republicans and make sure they know they aren't welcome anywhere. | |
| There was an editor for Think Progress who said that Republicans should be confronted where they sleep. | |
| Which means at their homes. | |
| He was telling angry mobs to go to people's homes. | |
| So yes, in that case, these people are very clearly, directly encouraging, calling for civil unrest and violence. | |
| And so when it happens, is it partly their fault? | |
| Obviously. | |
| They're specifically asking for it, encouraging it. | |
| So obviously they share part of the blame. | |
| Now, here are some kinds of rhetoric that are sometimes blamed for violence, but in my view, cannot be blamed and do not contribute to violence. | |
| And, you know, people should... To blame it for violence is dishonest, I think. | |
| Tough but honest rhetoric. | |
| Okay, if you're being tough, if you're using strong language, but you're being honest, and what you're saying is true, then no, I don't think you can be blamed for violence. | |
| So I'll give you an example for myself. | |
| Someone wrote to me yesterday, a Democrat wrote to me. | |
| They were respectful about it, but they said that they agree with me that a lot of our political rhetoric these days is toxic and so on and so forth. | |
| But they challenged me and they said, well, what about the things that you say about abortion and about abortion doctors? | |
| You just said a couple days ago that every abortion doctor is really no different from Kermit Gosnell, that they're all murderers, they're baby killers. | |
| Aren't you contributing to this? | |
| And what if someone goes and they shoot up an abortion clinic? | |
| Isn't that partly your fault for saying these things? | |
| And my answer to that is no. | |
| It wouldn't be my fault. | |
| Because what I'm saying is true. | |
| Now, clearly, I don't condone violence. | |
| I don't condone anyone going to an abortion clinic and shooting it up, which is something that, despite how the left presents it, that very, very rarely happens. | |
| There have been only a very few fatal attacks on abortion clinics over the last several decades. | |
| It is a very rare occurrence. | |
| But I don't condone it, don't encourage it, it's evil, it's wrong. | |
| Yet, on occasion, it does happen. | |
| Does that mean that I should stop saying that abortionists are baby killers? | |
| No. | |
| Because it's true, okay? | |
| They're killing babies. | |
| It's not my fault they're killing babies. | |
| I wish they wouldn't. | |
| That's my whole point. | |
| I want them to stop doing it. | |
| But they do it. | |
| And I don't have any obligation to ignore this horrible reality Because if I point out the horrible reality, it may encourage a crazy person to go and do something violent. | |
| No, that's not how that works. | |
| Just like Larry Nassar or Bill Cosby, if they get assaulted in prison, is it going to be the fault of all the people who pointed out that these people are despicable rapists? | |
| You know, if I go around saying that Bill Cosby is a serial rapist, Larry Nassar is a serial child molester, and then someone goes and assaults these guys or kills them in prison, is that my fault because I said that? | |
| No, because it's true! | |
| They are serial rapists! | |
| So, can't be my fault. | |
| Abortion doctors are serial killers. | |
| I'm not going to tone that down. | |
| I don't apologize for saying it because it is true. | |
| And my recommendation to abortion doctors is if you don't want to be called baby killers, stop killing babies. | |
| That's what you could do. | |
| But as long as you do it, that's what I'm going to call you. | |
| I also don't think that we can blame just general partisan rhetoric for violence. | |
| That's part of politics. | |
| A lot of it isn't good. | |
| I don't like a lot of it, but it's always been that way. | |
| That's how politics is. | |
| So I just don't think that if there's an explosion of violence or something, I don't think we can blame partisanship in general. | |
| And then generally just obnoxious rhetoric, okay? | |
| There are plenty of people who say insulting, obnoxious things. | |
| It's not good. | |
| We shouldn't do that. | |
| But that kind of thing, I don't think you can blame that for violence either. | |
| I think, again, that the rhetoric that we blame for violence is the rhetoric that explicitly encourages it or the rhetoric that is dishonest, that is maliciously dishonest and clearly intended to get the crowd stirred up and all that. | |
| All right. | |
| Switching gears here for a minute, I wanted to also talk about I want to say something briefly about this Megyn Kelly situation. | |
| The news is that Megyn Kelly is done at NBC. | |
| They're negotiating her exit right now. | |
| The excuse they're using, it seems, the catalyst for this, according to NBC, are her comments about blackface on her show this week. | |
| Now, let me just say that this is this is farcical. | |
| And first of all, general comment here, but I think Megyn Kelly is the most unfairly maligned person in all of media. | |
| She's hated on both sides with an intensity that is just weird and kind of grotesque. | |
| There's no reason for people to despise this woman the way they do. | |
| Every Megyn Kelly controversy, every excuse people have used to dump on her has been laughably weak, in my opinion. | |
| I mean, going back, I remember years ago, the first one I can remember, I can think of, is years ago when she said that Santa Claus is white. | |
| And this became this huge thing that everyone was outraged about. | |
| It was ridiculous. | |
| And ever since then, it seems that people are looking to rip this woman to shreds for any reason they can find. | |
| And it just seems unfair to me. | |
| What was the thing, one of the first controversies on our news show, where she was interviewing Jane Fonda, and she asked her something about her plastic surgery, or something like that. | |
| Megyn Kelly asked Jane Fonda about something that Jane Fonda has spoken about regularly, publicly. | |
| But all of a sudden, she was supposed to know, it's off limits, you're not allowed to ask me that anymore. | |
| And everyone dumped on her for that. | |
| I don't know. | |
| It seems like there may be a bit of envy at work here. | |
| I can't otherwise explain the ridiculous hatred for this woman. | |
| There are a lot of very unlikable people in media, okay? | |
| I fully agree with that. | |
| There are a lot of people in media who you just viscerally are unlikable. | |
| I don't think Megyn Kelly makes even a top 50 list in that regard. | |
| And as to this particular controversy over her Halloween costumes, it seems we have somehow managed to enter a new level of PC insanity. | |
| You know, we keep thinking that it's gotten as bad as it could possibly get, and then it gets even worse yet again. | |
| I mean, that she would lose her job over this, or partly over this, or ostensibly over this, is preposterous. | |
| There is nothing wrong with what she said. | |
| All she said was that a white person may sometimes dress up like a black person for Halloween or something as a tribute, not to mock black people. | |
| That's the point she was trying to make, is that yes, there are examples in history of people wearing so-called blackface To mock and demean. | |
| But she said, well, what if, in the year 2018, a white person wants to dress as someone from a different ethnicity, culture, race, but out of affection, to pay tribute? | |
| What's wrong with that? | |
| Now, you could disagree. | |
| You could strongly disagree. | |
| But to act like her comments were somehow delusional or completely beyond the pale or fueled by blind racial hatred, well, that is a gross and willful misconstrual of what she said. | |
| I know people never think about this. | |
| You know, they never put themselves in the shoes of the person being ganged up on by the faux outrage mob, but maybe they should, because I'll tell you, if this is enough to destroy a career, If this comment about Halloween costumes is now enough, if an innocent, innocuous opinion about Halloween costumes can now destroy a career, well then, who knows? | |
| You could be next. | |
| If this is enough, and you agree with this, then you are helping to set a precedent that you're not gonna like when it's turned around on you. | |
| And if you're cheering this on, Then when the mob does come for you over some innocuous, innocent thing that you said, and the mob destroys you and your life and your career, well then you know something? | |
| You'll deserve it. | |
| You will deserve it when it happens to you. | |
| The people acting like Megyn Kelly really deserves to lose her job over an opinion about a Halloween costume. | |
| Every single one of them. | |
| If it ever happens to them, they will deserve it. | |
| If you join in the mob dishonestly to take someone's livelihood from them and their job for a reason that you know is completely bogus, then one of these days when the mob turns around on you, you will absolutely deserve it. | |
| Final thing I want to mention, getting away from the news for a minute. | |
| Monday is my seventh anniversary with my wife. | |
| Seven years, I realize, is not quite long enough to go into wise sage mode and start doling out marital advice. | |
| I think you have to hit probably the quarter century mark for that, so I'm pretty far away from it still. | |
| Quarter century or when your first kid graduates high school. | |
| Whichever comes first. | |
| That's when you can start being the wise sage and doling out advice. | |
| So I'm not there. | |
| I'm not even close to that. | |
| But I have learned a couple of things through seven years and three kids. | |
| And I thought that maybe I could mark this occasion by passing on just the top two things that I've learned about marriage in seven years. | |
| And so if you've been married a while, if you've been married longer than me, then there's no need to listen to this. | |
| You can just turn it off and stop listening. | |
| This is advice or insights that I intend only for those who haven't been married at all or haven't been married very long because they can't disagree with me. | |
| They just have to accept whatever I'm saying and assume I'm right. | |
| All right, so two things that I've learned. | |
| I think I've learned probably more than two things, but I'll give you two. | |
| The top two, the most important two. | |
| Number one, the first thing that I've learned about marriage in seven years, probably the most important, is that women love pillows. | |
| Women love pillows so much. | |
| And if you're a guy and you haven't been married yet, you just don't understand it. | |
| You don't understand how much women love pillows. | |
| I have so many pillows in my house. | |
| So many pillows. | |
| Our bed is covered in pillows. | |
| Our couch, pillows are everywhere. | |
| We are drowning in pillows. | |
| And now my daughter, five years old, she's picked up the pillow addiction as well. | |
| There's a switch that flips in the female brain at some point, very early, where all of a sudden they become pillow obsessed. | |
| I don't even know where my daughter gets her pillows. | |
| I'm not sure who her pillow supplier is, but she has 19 pillows on her bed. | |
| She's already gone down the route of her mother. | |
| And here's the thing. | |
| Many of these pillows are not to be used. | |
| They are decorative pillows. | |
| Decorative pillows. | |
| A pillow that sits on a bed or a couch for no reason and has no function. | |
| Think about a decorative pillow on your bed that nobody will see besides you. | |
| So my wife puts pillows on our bed that are only there for her to look at for 10 seconds before she takes them off the bed so that we can go to bed. | |
| This is, you know, the decorative pillow industry is 100% driven by females. | |
| If every woman on earth was beamed into space by aliens tomorrow, the decorative pillow industry, along with the wrapping paper industry and the Greek yogurt industry and the fancy soap industry, they would all collapse overnight because this is completely a female thing. | |
| It is a, there's something biological, neurological about it. | |
| I don't understand it, but it's a female thing. | |
| So we've been drowning in pillows because women love pillows. | |
| When I lived alone as a bachelor for five years, I had one pillow to my name. | |
| Just one. | |
| And I used it on the couch, and then I brought it to bed at night. | |
| That was my pillow. | |
| I could have said to you, well, here's my pillow, because I just had one. | |
| And me and that pillow, we had a bond. | |
| It was me and my pillow against the world. | |
| I didn't need any more pillows. | |
| You know, I had the one pillow. | |
| But then I got married and at some point very early on, probably like in the first week of our marriage, my wife apparently rented a dump truck and went to the home goods distribution center and bought every single decorative pillow in the region. | |
| And then came and dumped them into our house. | |
| And my life has been overtaken by pillows ever since. | |
| So that's the first thing. | |
| Especially if you're a man, really, this is advice for men. | |
| If you're getting married, just realize that your life will be overtaken by pillows. | |
| And never, ever, ever assume that you're actually allowed to use any of those pillows. | |
| Second thing I've learned, perhaps on a more serious note, I've learned in marriage, and I know that this will not sound like a revelation, and it's really not, but I have learned the necessity of gratitude. | |
| I think most people, when you ask them what's the most important character trait to bring into a marriage, they'll say patience, they'll say loyalty, they'll say honesty, and those are all very important. | |
| But I think that gratitude can make an argument for belonging next to the big three of fidelity, honesty, and patience. | |
| I think really it's a big four, because I think you've got to put gratitude there. | |
| I think gratitude is just as important as those. | |
| Um, and I think more marriages than we realize have been destroyed for lack of gratitude. | |
| I mean, there could be a marriage where both, both spouses are faithful, honest, even patient, but there's no gratitude and it ruins the marriage. | |
| The thing is, as everyone says, marriage is work. | |
| And it does require sacrifice. | |
| It requires you to serve the other person, to care for the other. | |
| But when you begin to feel that the other person doesn't notice what you're doing, doesn't care, doesn't appreciate, isn't grateful, and when that feeling really metastasizes, on to the marriage like a cancer. | |
| It can be fatal for the marriage. | |
| And I think this is especially the case once kids are involved. | |
| Because the thing about kids is that they require a lot of work and a lot of sacrifice. | |
| And yet they will never be grateful. | |
| That's the thing about kids. | |
| They will never ever be great. | |
| Yes, you teach them to say please and thank you. | |
| But they will simply never understand. | |
| As long as they are children, they will never understand what you do for them, how hard you work for them, how many sacrifices you make for them. | |
| They will never understand the anxiety and the heartbreak and the worry and the stress and everything. | |
| They're not capable of understanding it. | |
| They won't understand it. | |
| And that is actually part of what parents do. | |
| It's part of the burden we carry for our kids is that we, you know, We shoulder these burdens so that our kids can just skip merrily through life, not realizing that really any of it is happening. | |
| And that's what being a kid is all about. | |
| That's what being a kid is supposed to be about. | |
| And they're just so they can't be really grateful for us because they don't understand what we do. | |
| And they're not going to understand it until years down the line when they have kids of their own. | |
| And then they realize that, oh, yeah, right. | |
| So parents, especially mothers, I'll say, get used to expending all of this energy doing so much for their kids and with very little appreciation. | |
| And that's why it's even more important once kids are on the scene for spouses to appreciate each other. | |
| And I'll say in my situation, my wife stays at home with the kids. | |
| And I know that I have to make sure that my wife knows that I appreciate what she does. | |
| Because it's hard work being a mom. | |
| It's emotionally draining. | |
| It's physically taxing. | |
| And, um, uh, and aside from my wife, my, you know, aside from my wife herself, I'm the only other person in the family capable of understanding what she does and the burden she carries and therefore being truly grateful for what, for it. | |
| The kids aren't going to understand it. | |
| The dog and the cat aren't going to understand. | |
| So I'm the only other one that can. | |
| So that's why it's so important for me to be grateful. | |
| Though I know that I still could stand to improve quite a bit in the gratitude department, or at least in the expressed gratitude department. | |
| I'm always eternally grateful for my wife, but part of my job as a husband and father is to express that gratitude, to show it even more importantly, and to communicate it somehow. | |
| And it's also, of course, important for husbands to be appreciated, too. | |
| Fortunately, I do feel appreciated in my family, but my wife does communicate her appreciation. | |
| But I know that there are many families where that's not the case. | |
| I talk to men who feel We talk to men all the time who feel like they go to work, they slave away in a thankless job to provide for their families, they come home and they're immediately thrust back into the father role, which is okay, that's how it goes, right? | |
| But they get very few breaks, they get little rest, they always have the weight of providing and protecting on their minds, on their shoulders, weighing on their souls, and yet some men feel that their wives take all of that completely for granted. | |
| Never express any gratitude. | |
| Never appear to appreciate any of it. | |
| That's how some men feel. | |
| And this again is deadly for a marriage. | |
| The wives of those men, they don't realize what they're doing to their marriage and what they're doing to their husband. | |
| They don't realize that their marriage is on life support because their lack of warmth and their | |
| lack of affection and their lack of gratitude has turned their husbands into shells. | |
| And there are plenty of husbands who don't realize the same about their wives. | |
| And I also think that this is what, you know, when we talk about this destroying a marriage, one of the ways that this destroys a marriage is that this can be a contributor to adultery. | |
| Though of course, again, someone commits adultery, the blame for that is entirely on them. | |
| There's never an excuse for that, but the reality is we're human beings and there are always motivations and reasons behind our actions. | |
| So someone who commits adultery, there's always going to be some things contributing to it and motivating it. | |
| And I think a lack of gratitude can can be a big contributor to that. | |
| Because I tell you what happens, like for the case of a man, doesn't feel appreciated, doesn't feel like his wife really cares, doesn't feel the affection, the warmth from his wife. | |
| And, you know, he lives like that for years. | |
| And then he, you know, meets somebody at work who seems to really appreciate his skills and his talent and seems to take him seriously and seems to take an interest. | |
| And he starts to think, well, I don't get this at home. | |
| And then now you have the seeds of something very, very dangerous for the marriage. | |
| And I think the exact same thing can happen, uh, for women who don't feel appreciated. | |
| And then they meet a man who, Oh, wow. | |
| This man notices me. | |
| He seems to appreciate my presence and my existence and all of that. | |
| So gratitude is very important. | |
| And, um, And let me just say one more thing about marriage, because I don't want to wrap this up without saying this. | |
| I think it's important that, you know, I love being married. | |
| I think being married is great. | |
| I really enjoy it. | |
| I have been single and lived by myself and I've been married. | |
| I was single, lived by myself for five years, married for seven. | |
| So, you know, so far kind of an even Sort of even between the two and I can weigh them and I can say I so much prefer being married over that. | |
| So much prefer it. | |
| And I just think it's important for us to say this because so often when we talk about marriage, we talk about the challenges, we say it's a lot of work, we say all the things that I just said. | |
| But I think, and it's important to say these things because it's true, marriage is work, but I think people who aren't married, they listen to this and to them it sounds like, wow, marriage sounds kind of miserable. | |
| Like all it is is work and sacrifice? | |
| Is there any joy in it? | |
| And so I just want to say, yes, there's a lot of joy and it's great to be married. | |
| And I highly, I recommend it to anyone. | |
| I highly recommend it. | |
| There has never been a moment, I can say honestly, in seven years I have not ever for a moment wished that I was still single. | |
| I travel a lot for work. | |
| I go out and I speak around the country and so I get I guess you could say more time to myself than a lot of married people do because when I travel, most of the time it doesn't work to bring the whole family with me to go speak at fundraising banquets and so forth. | |
| So I'm out on my own, I'm traveling. | |
| And people will ask me, they say, well, you know, that must be, you must really enjoy that, get time to yourself, get away from the family. | |
| And I say, yeah, you know, it's nice to get a little time to yourself on occasion, but no, every single time, whenever I go, whenever I go travel, I always wish that my family was with me. | |
| There's never a night that goes by when I'm traveling where I don't think to myself, wow, I wish I had my family here. | |
| So I highly recommend it. | |
| Don't be fooled into thinking that marriage is nothing but work. | |
| It is work, but there's a lot of joy to be found in the work. | |
| And I think in my experience, all true joy in life comes from work. | |
| So that's it. | |
| That's the end of my fortune cookie reading for today. | |
| Have a great weekend, everybody. | |
| I'll talk to you next week. |