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June 15, 2021 - Dennis Prager Show
09:39
The Happiness Hour: Dysfunctional Families
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It's the happy, happy, happy, happy hour, my friends.
Happiness!
The great founders, the founders of this country, giants.
These were giants.
I know that we don't like using the word, but I'm not using it about small people.
You know who hate giants?
Midgets.
I don't mean this physically.
I mean it.
Morally, intellectually, etc.
That's why they're torn down by very small people.
Anyway, it is the happiness hour, and it is really important.
Happy people do make the world better.
So today's subject is...
Family life is normatively filled with problems.
I was going to say dysfunctional, but that might be too severe a word.
The purpose of this hour is to tell you that if you have some big issue in your family, welcome to the human race.
If you have no big issues in your family, thank God, every day, you dodged a bullet.
Because some of the finest people in the world have serious family problems.
I ask people about their family life whenever I meet them.
I'm not particularly good at small talk.
And I'll tell you why.
Among other reasons, I lose interest immediately, and then I tune out, which is not a good thing to tune out of a conversation with somebody you've just met or at whose table you're seated.
I don't have a long attention span for what I consider boring.
So I ask people about their lives.
I'll give you an example of what I ask.
I ask people, if let's say the parents have traditional American Judeo-Christian values, how many children do you have?
They give me a number, and then I ask, do they all share your values?
No one, by the way, has ever even hinted at it's none of your business.
I have never gotten your it's none of your business as a response to asking people about their lives.
I think one of the reasons is they know I don't have a bad motive.
I think another reason is people like to open up about their lives.
And why shouldn't they?
And why hide it?
And so often, I will hear so often, more often than not, I hear about people who have very difficult relations with at least one of their children.
I'm not talking about their teenager.
Talk about their 30-year-old.
One of the greatest ideas I ever heard from a caller, I heard talking about difficult children.
A woman who touched my life with this comment, and I have spread it far and wide.
Dennis, I have a very troubled...
I think she used the word miserable, 35-year-old daughter.
And one day I awakened and I realized I didn't break her.
I can't fix her.
If that woman were present, I would have given her a hug.
I hug a lot of people.
I'm a hugger.
And she would have gotten a big one.
What a brilliant insight, and it's been so helpful to so many people I've told it to.
You didn't break your child, and you can't fix your child.
If your child wants to fix him or herself, he or she, or now they, will do so.
Another point that I make about The problems of families and dysfunctionality and how normal it is is that I consider the book of Genesis in the Bible to be a gift to humanity.
The book of Genesis is largely about families from Adam and Eve to Jacob and Joseph and every single family in Genesis is either truly dysfunctional Or highly troubled?
Starts out with Adam and Eve.
One son kills the other.
Now you've got to admit, compared to Adam and Eve's family, your family's doing fine.
If one of your children didn't kill the other, you're ahead of Adam and Eve.
How's that for a troubled family?
Noah?
Noah is, after Noah leaves the ark, Noah has the terrible problem of being in some way sexually humiliated by one of his sons.
That's pretty severe.
Of course, we jump to Jacob, the third of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.
And his favorite son, first of all, the fact that he had a favorite son was a terrible indictment of his fathering abilities.
If you have a favorite child, you have a favorite child.
But to show it?
That's very damaging.
And what do the siblings do?
They throw him in a pit to die, or sell him to be a slave.
So, it's a pretty difficult world out there for children.
I mean, I could go on, obviously.
Do you know what happens to Lot?
Lot survives the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
This is Abraham's, what is it, his cousin?
Nephew, right, his nephew.
And the daughters of Lot.
First of all, he was prepared to give his daughters over to guys at the door who wanted to rape the men who were visiting.
So he said, no, don't take the men.
My daughters are virgins.
Take them and rape them.
This is actually in there.
How would you feel if you were Lot's daughter?
One of the reasons I love the Torah is its honesty.
The Torah of the first five books, it's what I'm writing my commentary on.
And Deuteronomy, the third of my five volumes, the fifth of the five books, is coming out shortly.
And I would ask you to help me get the word out, it's the best book ever written, and help you with your life by pre-ordering it at Amazon.
We're getting it when it comes out of Costco.
That Costco ordered 25,000 copies of the commentary on Deuteronomy?
It's one of the few bright lights at this moment.
Thank you.
Thumbs up is right.
Double.
Double thumbs up.
Thank you.
I mean, the point is, and I don't have to go on, A dysfunctional family in almost every chapter in Genesis.
This is, I believe, God's way, if you prefer Moses' way, if you prefer somebody's way, of conveying to you that that is the norm.
If you have a happy and loving relationship with your parents, your children, your siblings, you are Probably an outlier.
There are many who do, but it is not the norm.
That is the subject and the message of this Happiness Hour.
It's very important.
That way you can celebrate the good that you have in your life and in your family and not walk around thinking, woe unto me.
When it's in fact something normative to the human condition.
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