Dennis Prager Show - The Happiness Hour: Dysfunctional Families
Aired: 2021-06-15
Duration: 09:39


=== Happy People's Family Struggles (09:08) ===

[00:00:00]  It's the happy, happy, happy, happy hour, my friends.
[00:00:05]  Happiness!
[00:00:07]  The great founders, the founders of this country, giants.
[00:00:10]  These were giants.
[00:00:12]  I know that we don't like using the word, but I'm not using it about small people.
[00:00:20]  You know who hate giants?
[00:00:22]  Midgets.
[00:00:23]  I don't mean this physically.
[00:00:26]  I mean it.
[00:00:27]  Morally, intellectually, etc.
[00:00:31]  That's why they're torn down by very small people.
[00:00:35]  Anyway, it is the happiness hour, and it is really important.
[00:00:45]  Happy people do make the world better.
[00:00:50]  So today's subject is...
[00:00:56]  Family life is normatively filled with problems.
[00:01:06]  I was going to say dysfunctional, but that might be too severe a word.
[00:01:13]  The purpose of this hour is to tell you that if you have some big issue in your family, welcome to the human race.
[00:01:25]  If you have no big issues in your family, thank God, every day, you dodged a bullet.
[00:01:35]  Because some of the finest people in the world have serious family problems.
[00:01:44]  I ask people about their family life whenever I meet them.
[00:01:50]  I'm not particularly good at small talk.
[00:01:52]  And I'll tell you why.
[00:01:54]  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.
[00:02:11]  I don't have a long attention span for what I consider boring.
[00:02:20]  So I ask people about their lives.
[00:02:23]  I'll give you an example of what I ask.
[00:02:24]  I ask people, if let's say the parents have traditional American Judeo-Christian values, how many children do you have?
[00:02:33]  They give me a number, and then I ask, do they all share your values?
[00:02:38]  No one, by the way, has ever even hinted at it's none of your business.
[00:02:43]  I have never gotten your it's none of your business as a response to asking people about their lives.
[00:02:51]  I think one of the reasons is they know I don't have a bad motive.
[00:02:55]  I think another reason is people like to open up about their lives.
[00:03:00]  And why shouldn't they?
[00:03:03]  And why hide it?
[00:03:07]  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.
[00:03:18]  I'm not talking about their teenager.
[00:03:21]  Talk about their 30-year-old.
[00:03:26]  One of the greatest ideas I ever heard from a caller, I heard talking about difficult children.
[00:03:36]  A woman who touched my life with this comment, and I have spread it far and wide.
[00:03:45]  Dennis, I have a very troubled...
[00:03:49]  I think she used the word miserable, 35-year-old daughter.
[00:03:54]  And one day I awakened and I realized I didn't break her.
[00:04:01]  I can't fix her.
[00:04:06]  If that woman were present, I would have given her a hug.
[00:04:11]  I hug a lot of people.
[00:04:13]  I'm a hugger.
[00:04:16]  And she would have gotten a big one.
[00:04:20]  What a brilliant insight, and it's been so helpful to so many people I've told it to.
[00:04:27]  You didn't break your child, and you can't fix your child.
[00:04:31]  If your child wants to fix him or herself, he or she, or now they, will do so.
[00:04:43]  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.
[00:04:59]  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?
[00:05:18]  Starts out with Adam and Eve.
[00:05:20]  One son kills the other.
[00:05:23]  Now you've got to admit, compared to Adam and Eve's family, your family's doing fine.
[00:05:30]  If one of your children didn't kill the other, you're ahead of Adam and Eve.
[00:05:37]  How's that for a troubled family?
[00:05:42]  Noah?
[00:05:43]  Noah is, after Noah leaves the ark, Noah has the terrible problem of being in some way sexually humiliated by one of his sons.
[00:06:00]  That's pretty severe.
[00:06:03]  Of course, we jump to Jacob, the third of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.
[00:06:11]  And his favorite son, first of all, the fact that he had a favorite son was a terrible indictment of his fathering abilities.
[00:06:22]  If you have a favorite child, you have a favorite child.
[00:06:26]  But to show it?
[00:06:29]  That's very damaging.
[00:06:33]  And what do the siblings do?
[00:06:38]  They throw him in a pit to die, or sell him to be a slave.
[00:06:47]  So, it's a pretty difficult world out there for children.
[00:06:53]  I mean, I could go on, obviously.
[00:06:56]  Do you know what happens to Lot?
[00:07:01]  Lot survives the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
[00:07:07]  This is Abraham's, what is it, his cousin?
[00:07:11]  Nephew, right, his nephew.
[00:07:15]  And the daughters of Lot.
[00:07:18]  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.
[00:07:27]  So he said, no, don't take the men.
[00:07:29]  My daughters are virgins.
[00:07:31]  Take them and rape them.
[00:07:32]  This is actually in there.
[00:07:34]  How would you feel if you were Lot's daughter?
[00:07:38]  One of the reasons I love the Torah is its honesty.
[00:07:43]  The Torah of the first five books, it's what I'm writing my commentary on.
[00:07:48]  And Deuteronomy, the third of my five volumes, the fifth of the five books, is coming out shortly.
[00:07:54]  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.
[00:08:07]  We're getting it when it comes out of Costco.
[00:08:10]  That Costco ordered 25,000 copies of the commentary on Deuteronomy?
[00:08:17]  It's one of the few bright lights at this moment.
[00:08:25]  Thank you.
[00:08:25]  Thumbs up is right.
[00:08:27]  Double.
[00:08:28]  Double thumbs up.
[00:08:29]  Thank you.
[00:08:31]  I mean, the point is, and I don't have to go on, A dysfunctional family in almost every chapter in Genesis.
[00:08:43]  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.

=== Celebrate Your Blessings (00:46) ===

[00:08:56]  If you have a happy and loving relationship with your parents, your children, your siblings, you are Probably an outlier.
[00:09:09]  There are many who do, but it is not the norm.
[00:09:14]  That is the subject and the message of this Happiness Hour.
[00:09:21]  It's very important.
[00:09:24]  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.
[00:09:35]  When it's in fact something normative to the human condition.