3 - Patriotism and Modesty: We can hand them both down to our kids.

Have you ever gone on a couple's getaway that didn't meet your expectations, i.e., a cruise? We discuss that...and some ways to keep modesty and patriotism alive amidst a culture hellbent on stifling them. 

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Transcript

   All right. Welcome back to home is where the truth is. I'm Matt. And I'm Maeve. And we, we are  parents who have about five kids. About  here or there. We have some kids and we're trying to raise 'em up in the  ways of the Lord.  Let's talk about that. Well, it's not an easy job and , This podcast sucks so far. 

This is what, maybe, maybe we should have went off the script. We sounded way better. This is what happens after eating at Waffle House for breakfast on a Sunday mid-morning. Oh yeah. We're straight from Waffle House after mass. And what did you get on your hash browns all the way? Baby scattered, mother chunk, top dice capped.

Oh gosh. I didn't get the. gravy. I stopped at that. I don't put any same person in a coma. Well, I'm glad we chose to split the pecan waffle then that you wanted to eat all to yourself. Yeah, and I had that pecan waffle, so  it was pretty good.  Pecan. Pecan. I guess it depends where you're from, right? But you can't go wrong.

So yeah, we've got, , Cannonballs in our stomach right now  and , okay. We wanna update you with the pregnant woman who almost gave birth in church. If you wanna listen to episode two for those details. Right. We got a text, one of those kind of flock note texts  baby was delivered fine and mom and baby are doing great.

So, good for, that's good. That's good. , and update for a win.   Episode two  was a big struggle we talked about, and I wanna tell you guys about some wins. So if you're listening to our , third episode, we thank you because it's super hard to produce a podcast. And I don't know how all these people are doing it, but we're learning as we go.

Mm-hmm. And one of the things I had to do,  we're starting a brand here. Wanna  Sell the book I've written and get this message out that when you homeschool your children and raise them in the ways of the Lord and teach them how to understand and defend their Catholic Christian faith, , it's an amazing  and fruitful, rewarding life.

And that's the message we're trying to get out.  My book,  Home is Where the Truth is.  Of course you gotta do a podcast to,  market the book. Okay, I mean, that's not just our sole reason why we're doing this, but  you're giving away all the trade secrets, dude, you're putting too much information out there.

I thought that was our thing, is  we're giving people information. Oh, okay.  I mean, they don't need to know how the hotdog's made, bro. No, we're gonna be completely. Transparent. Okay. Because  our dear listeners are on this journey with us.  And the win I wanna talk about is that I actually made an Instagram and Facebook  linked it together and made the first post, oh, which was sweet, scary.

Okay. Super scary. And because you can't take it back. Well. 'cause yeah, when you wanna, when you're gonna do something and try to stand up for truth on social media mean it's like getting that tattoo on your face. It's like you're putting it out there for the world to see and you can't smudge it off.  Yes.

Okay.  Just checking. Get so no tattoos on your face. Kids. Okay. Yeah, I think you're just trying to  throw out as many. Analogies as you can in the first five minutes. That's what I'm giving. That's what I do. Our listeners can't even  figure out what you're talking about right now, but I will say this about Matt.

. He likes to speak in cliches and analogies. Love, love a cliche. And as a, I should just make a t-shirt company of just cliches  wells as a, as a journalist major. Okay. Who I got my degree  ago. , we learned one of the first things is you don't. Right with cliches.

And so I married a man who literally, that's his native language, is cliches. They come so easy. Well, what a cliche is really saying is , I can't think of my own words, so I'm just gonna throw this in here. Hey, reinvent the wheel. But I will say I perseverated over the title of my book for , The whole time I was writing it, I'm like, what am I gonna name this book?

It had to be something about Truth and Homeschooling. Homeschooling, yes. And  all of a sudden, one day, I mean this, the title was holding up the production of the book because I had it  fully written and everything, and then this man who loves cliches , He's like, you know, the cliche home is where the heart is.

Mm. And he just changed that one word. Boom. Yep. So I, he's already done.  Y'all are working too hard.  Somebody already put in the work.  Yeah. So I appreciate that about the cliches, . So that was a big win for us.  This is coming from the person who takes 30 minutes to go through a Chipotle line to order her food, because there's so many different options, she can't make up her mind.

Mm-hmm. So you can only imagine what she's going through with this  title of this book because you know mm-hmm.  It was just, yes, it has to be too much for you. Yes. Yes. Okay. So,  That was a win that I made a Instagram and Facebook post. It took me two and a half hours literally to do one post, but kudos.

Okay. 

We're going to tell you some ways that God's grace and mercy peeked through the clouds of disappointment while we were stuck on a boat on a very lackluster anniversary weekend getaway. Also, modesty. Teaching it to our daughters  and how I got my courage up with prayer to advocate for it at the CrossFit Games Regionals of all places.

  We are also going to talk about instilling patriotism in our children in a way that my kids surprised me even with their engagement in our nation's electoral system. Thanks for being with us.    

  📍  Last week  we mentioned the cruise, and so we said, let's tell our listeners about the cruise. We went on. And it was for our 18th anniversary. Our, most recent one,  so I already had said I'm not a cruise person, even though I've never been on a cruise.

I can just tell that's  not my thing. But we prayed a lot about it. We hemmed and hawed and we said, fine. Let's do the cruise. We are both in agreeance. Right. Plus it was perfect timing as far as the dates. It was just a. Quick, let's just dip our toe in the water. Let's not go nuts. You know, just a little three day over to Bimini, Bahamas.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Perfect. Hour drive to the port,  leaving when we could.  How can you go wrong? Well, from the minute we got there, it just seemed like a debacle, the whole thing. 

 They require on the boat. It's either a passport, a enhanced driver's license or your birth certificate.

I mean, breaking out your birth certificate is like trying to find your social security card. I mean, who carries that with 'em anymore? 

 So we get there, we get there early, and I got, , this instant boarding pass,  

And so we could bypass the main line checking in, which was cool. And we got in there and she checked mine. I was golden. She checked.  Maeve's passport she's like, eh, it's saying you need a birth certificate. No. It's just like, oh, it's not working. Yeah, it's, she just keeps scanning it.

She just keeps scanning and looking at her tablet, oh no, not working. Do you have a birth certificate? I'm like, no.  So far for like five or 10 minutes. , We're sitting there fiddling with it, she's gotta go talk to her manager. So this whole time I'm thinking  am I even gonna get on this boat?

 But my passport works. Yeah. Finally kicked in. Finally kicks in. Whew.

We get through there. Okay. Oh yeah. There's people everywhere. You're , Being herded like cattle. We get on the boat, the,  we're not on the boat for five minutes and we come up to  the eating area and there's a  dude having a panic attack right there in a booth laid out, right?

Whole crew around him. He's sweaty, he's clammy. His eyes are as big as fried eggs. Okay? So just layer after layer of  this is crazy. This is making, that's how you start a weekend right there. Nervous. , Then what? Okay, so you can't even relax. Barely. , what else? The main pool, it was like 20 feet by 20 feet, right? 

There's 3000 people on this boat, people, and the main pool is 20 feet by 20 feet.  I mean, this was the, there were two or three poles. Okay. There. It was  one of the oldest boats in their fleet. Right? One of the smaller boats in their fleet. The cheapest cruise we got at the last minute. Basically, it was like if you went into Walmart at 4:00 AM and was like, come, let's go on a cruise.

Everybody. That's who, that's who was on it. Yeah. That's who was on it. It was , it was a menagerie of people, , and all there is to do. Is eat, drink, and gamble.   Right. And then not necessarily in that order either. , but most people did. There was a, there was a comedy show. We went to the comedy show.

It was okay. There was a, one thing that was cool was the Rock of Ages, and so it was this great rock and roll show of all the classic rock, like nineties rock. I mean, it was over many decades. Really Well choreographed pyrotechnics. These people gave it their all.  So that was good. Except  the guys in that show, they couldn't really sing.

They couldn't hit the notes properly. Yeah.  It was like the B squad. Yeah. You know, coming in, you would think you have like thinking Las Vegas style show. These guys were just gonna belt it. And they tried. Yeah. It just, it was like, Eh,  it's kinda like, you know, the,  the horn goes,  the women could sing.

Yeah. They were amazing, but ugh, I, yeah. But there, there is a major highlight to that. They played, it was our, it was our anniversary and they played in that Rock of Ages show.  Our song we dance to at our wedding. Right. , what are the odds of that? It, what is it? The cars. Cars. Yeah. Driven. Who's gonna drive you home?

Who's gonna drive you home? Ours. But we're we're just even a notch kind of more on the cool side because ours is the version from 51st dates. Yeah. So it's got like a reggae vibe to it. Right. They didn't play the reggae vibe, but, but. That was God, that was God's gift to us on our, he was saying, chill out people.

It's not so bad. Look, I'll even throw you a bone hair. But, and you know what else? Last year on our anniversary, the same thing happened. We were at Margaritaville. Listen, God resting his God rest his soul. Jimmy Buffett. Oh  God rest. What are they saying rest in paradise. Jimmy Buffett. Yes, he is. We were at Margaritaville.

Did you know who Jimmy Buffett was? Catholic.  Yeah, I read that. Yeah. And went to Catholic high school. Okay. And college. Cool.  May he let, may he rest in peace with the Lord Jesus. Mm-hmm. Well, so the same exact thing happened on our anniversary last year at Margaritaville. We're just sitting in the lounge listening to this beautiful, oh yeah.

Live music. And they played our song again on our anniversary. Right. It's like God does that for us. He blesses. He sees our wedding and our, our marriage and  he shows us that he's in it. , we could be on a deserted island celebrating our anniversary next year and there's gonna be a guy come out of the woods with a ukulele playing our song just because.

Yes. Yeah, because God, he sees us. Okay. So, , so yeah  what else was okay? And . That boat smells like a campground dump station where you dump, like remember when we were camping for a week and one of our kids dropped a deuce in the camper? Oh gosh. That's what it smelled like. You could just be walking anywhere and that's the smell you smell on the boat.

I mean, it's gotta go somewhere.  , so,  and then one night,  they had the pictures.   This is where people, that's their money maker. That's the money maker. People come, right? People come to do their Christmas card photos on this cruise 'cause they have  the backdrops and.  . This is like their, their decade family photo album right here.

Oh, yeah. This is like, yeah, this is it. These families take it really serious. Like there was a formal night, so some, , like 20 people wore a formal dress on the whole cruise. Oh, yeah. And , it was black and white. You could be formal or wear black and white. Yeah. And so all the men who were wearing all white  you could, they.

Their, their shirts, like dress shirts literally just came out of the package. It had the folded,  yeah.  Still everyone's back had the square fold in it on the shirts where they just bought this on Amazon and took it right out of the package. Oh yeah. You're thinking. Just at least  wrinkle, spray it or hit it with something, hang it in the shower while you're showering and the steam let it out.

It's like, I want these crisp, clean, clear lines still on my shirt in  squares. Oh, we were pointing 'em out. It was so tacky. ,  and this is how old the boat was, is they didn't even go, they were taking pictures of us and Matt and I were thinking, Well, how do they know? Is there a face recognition technology?

Because you know, if you go to a theme park or something, they might scan your right band and , here's all your pictures.  They didn't even go digital. These people. It was old school. You didn't go to a and look at your pictures on a screen. They printed them out, they printed the whole package out, and you just.

Go and look through your pictures and yeah, whether you want 'em or not, they're like eight by tens. There you are. Front and center. So we saw one a guy proposing, oh my gosh. Oh yeah. With a backdrop of like, what was the backdrop? The city, yes.  City or I'm, I'm sure it was,  and the photographer got the reaction.

It's gosh, oh yeah, this is done. Hey, why spend a thousand bucks to get a photographer to come to your house when you're on the boat? You just get it for the 10 bucks that it's on the print.  That's golden. That's genius.  So by night two, we were so bored. We're like, fine, we're gonna take pictures too. 

I had my wife beater on and my hat, we didn't care. We're like, we just want pictures. Yeah. We just went and took pictures and tried to be funny with it. , that was fun. Yeah. Well, so Bimini, the weird thing about it is you don't, you don't have any internet. You don't have any, you can't text, you can't message your family.

You're off the grid. Okay. And,  If you were to go to the island of Bimini on, say, your own boat from the coast of Florida, leaving Cocoa Beach to, to Bimini Island in The Bahamas, it's 53 miles fifth.  So we left on a Friday morning.  They, yeah, it could, it takes maybe two hours, right? Mm-hmm.  They have a day at sea, quote unquote.

So they get, they go one mile an hour until you get to a Bimini. You, they sit, park the boat, and you just are on the boat.  Doing whatever sitting down the middle of the lake, you know, just chilling. Yeah, it's, except you can't get off the boat and jump in the water. Nope. And so then you pull into Bimini, which is a fishing island.

It's just a poor little fishing island.  There is a big hotel now that's, you know, here come Americans, let's, let's make it a tourist trap. So we get off the boat and we're standing in this 200 person line that's gonna, there's a tram apparently, but we didn't pay for the tram, so we're not getting priority.

Right. We're standing there and they're letting the other line go  as  tram after tram comes and we are not getting let go. So who screamed at the dude? Saying, what's the deal here? Me? Yeah. Oh yeah, that's right. I will. And I said, and he, I said, why aren't you letting us on? And he's like, they paid, they have priority.

I said, that's bull crap. I said that right to his face.  He is like, I don't care. 'cause I see a million you guys a. Day. Yeah. And you're not the first one to complain, so deal with it. Well, it was only a six minute walk to where you're Exactly. So it was like you spent more energy late this dude up than it would've taken just to get to the end of the dock.

Well, and here's the thing is I had already asked the bartenders on the boat, is there a Sunday service? Do you have any kind of, there's no service or Sunday service on that boat, so, As I, I go from berating the guy at the line and walking. We we're like, we're walking fine. So we come up to this information, Hutt and I realize, well, it's Sunday morning.

So the first thing I go up and ask her is,  is there a Catholic church on the island? And she said, yeah, the Catholic mass starts at 9:00 AM you're gonna have to take a a taxi though. And it was 8 47. Mm-hmm. So we go get a taxi.  And go to the Catholic mass, which was really cool. Actually. It wasn't a mass, right?

It was a prayer service and a deacon. And they had consecrated hosts. Yeah. There was no pastor there. Right. And.  No priest. This was another God nod because I love to know about the history of somewhere that we are visiting and, and because that's always a way to learn and, and especially when you're traveling with the kids, we always wanna know what's the history.

Yeah. Well it was Emancipation Day. It was Emancipation Day 186 years ago on that day, queen.  Elizabeth Sure. One of the queens had emancipated the  British slaves on those islands. Yep. We never would've known that if we didn't go to mass or, and, and, and so we celebrated emancipation days with the locals in the church.

That was awesome. Yeah. The little, just like open air church. There was like a little pyramid inside. It was super, you know, super small islandy. Yeah. Yeah. Very islandy, you know, fans. No ac. No ac, yeah. And. What, who shows up? A family of nine kids show up and they're all wearing the cruise bracelets too.

Mm-hmm. A an 11 person Catholic family had also found the mass right from our ship, and as soon as they walked in, it was so neat because you're like,  we are a community. You know, like these people.  As soon as you see them, you know, hey, not only are they on our boat, they're Catholic and they're putting their faith first, and they've got nine kids, right, that they have rented.

Two go-kart golf carts. Golf carts full  eight, seater golf carts, and  it was just, So cute, really nice people from like the, the age, like Wisconsin or something. They went from yeah, the Minnesota, the ages rain from literally a one year old up to an 18 year old. Yeah. And, and so that was so neat to see that someone else took their faith to.

Two families on that entire ship. Mm-hmm. Took their Catholic faith serious enough to make that a priority to find the Catholic church on Bimini Island. Yeah. So that was great.  But overall, yeah, you really didn't like it. And is vow to never go on, never a cruise again. Again, I could be persuaded to go on a Greek Islands cruise, but No, I'll, no, I'll never.

Go on a cruise again. It's just,  it's all, it's a place where it's like, Gluttony, drunkenness and modesty is just, is everywhere. And I'm stuck on that and I, and maybe I am checking off some of those boxes too. Okay. I'm not perfect, but I mean, we got the drink package, we're gonna use it,  you know. Oh, the drink package.

The guy in the pool, he had his beer cans and he would just crunch his beer cans and throw 'em to the edge on the ledge.  He wouldn't even get out to throw away beer cans. So you think he's getting out to go to the, to pee? No, it's gross. Okay. This dude was on vacation. Yeah. He wasn't lifting a finger.

Right. Well, listen. So,   drunkenness, imm modesty. Let's talk about.  Well, let's talk about a imodesty, because this is a battle that parents, we are going to have to protect  our children from. And literally every time we leave the house are gonna be faced with it. Like for instance, we have a swimmer and we're at swim meets.

And.  The girls are wearing G-string to race in their whole entire, I wouldn't go that far. Yes, they're probably, they're cheeky, they're not G-string like you would, there's nothing covering anything. And I have my little five-year-old and 10 year old son there, and this is the, like, this is okay, this is what is happening.

Right. , but you know what we. Have taught our kids, our daughter, that, , that's improper to  show yourself off like that. And you know, luckily our daughter doesn't wanna wear that and won't wear that kind of thing 

there's this pamphlet about immodesty that we read to her, that we had our daughters read. That was really good that I found at a Catholic church. We were traveling. Just grab one of the pamphlets. 

 I'm going to read just a little bit from the pamphlet. It says without a word, modesty invites men to realize that women have more to offer than just their bodies because the beauty of the woman can be intoxicating to a man. He... Doesn't know what your name means?  It does mean that. Maeve means makes men feel intoxicated.

So, seems like, , what's the word?  Hypocritical. 

Are you leading me on or are you not?  I'm trying to figure it out. Well, I'm just trying to read from this pamphlet that  That has been very helpful.  And yes, my name does fit me. So, okay. But, okay, so,  Modesty does him the favor of concealing what he is not yet worthy to see. When the woman veils her body with modest clothing, she is not hiding herself from men.

On  the contrary, she's revealing her dignity to them.  So this has been a good pamphlet. It also addresses, well, guys should respect me no matter how I dress. Or, oh, if the modern culture that says, if your body's so great, show it, girl., Says the lady who invented, , leggings? For pants?

Probably, right?  Okay. ,  I'm going to try to figure out how to do show notes, but this pamphlet,  could be found at chastity. com  modesty. What's the point? It's been very helpful for us as parents. 

  And anywhere you go  when we're in the gym , there's a lot of immodesty there.

Recently the CrossFit semi-finals were in our town.  CrossFit, they came to Orlando and That's awesome. , you would get to see all these amazing athletes. Oh yeah. The best of the best. And. So Matt and I went  and wow. Ha It is that, that's another place where Im modesty is just flown out the window.

There's more spandex there than the tour to France. Okay? Oh yeah. And now spandex is, it works it, you need, you do need spandex to work out in because. I've, I've gone back and forth in my head with this, like, if you're doing the row machine, you have to have something tight on, or you're, you're  running shorts or your loose shorts are just gonna  bag up and you could be showing off more than you would've if you had spandex on.

So it's kind of like, yes, they're necessary, but , You got tiny one inch in seams that's gonna show  cheeks and all that. You got girls doing burpees and you can see, , their butts hanging out , or have you guys seen this  now? It's not enough to have spandex.  You gotta have a seam going up your butt. 

To accentuate your butt cheeks.  Have you seen these? Okay.  Matt got me a pair of these. Oh,  the worst thing you could ever put on. They were these yoga pants that had like a, a seam to cinch up to go up your butt crack. And they sold me on it. They're like, this is the best thing since sliced bread. And I believed them.

You might as well take a pair. What is it? 80 grit sandpaper folded in half the long way and  just , put it back there. And that's about how it feels. Okay. I mean, you're not supposed to be running a marathon of these things. You're just supposed to be lounging. So not only doing yoga. No, no. These women we're, people are working out in these.

Okay. And it's, no, it's like, why? Why are we calling attention?  Why are we being that?  What's the word? Calling attention to that one, , body part. Then why do you work it out so hard?  Yeah, I wanna look good. Oh, okay. Just checking.  Yeah. I'm gonna do squats. Exactly. Well, because , I wanna stay fit and, and do look nice in the clothes I wear, but So  it's just, just going too far.

It's too far and it's a complete double standard. You don't see men in this kind of stuff? No, they're never, their butts are never hanging out. They're never in these. So,  I come across, we're at the regionals and I come across, what is it called? The tent area? The expo. It's where the vendors are.

Yeah, the vendors. The vendors. And there's this really neat vendor tent. It's something like Elevate Clothing, and they have bible verses. On their clothing. Mm-hmm. And one of the Bible verses is, I must decrease. So he can  is what John the Baptist said, I must decrease he can increase. Right.

And I look over on this, they've got a great message. They're a Christian clothing company.  You know what they're selling?  They are. So the same ones, I got you the same shorts with the seam up the butt, so you can look at the jiggly butt cheeks. So  you know what I did at that point? I just started praying and I said, Lord, , if you wanna use me to talk to  these people help me use me Lord, because I had truth for them 

and I prayed , and long story short, he did make it possible that I could go up to that booth and a talk with the owner in a loving, kind way. Mm-hmm. And I said to her,  I like your message. I love your message. Your shirt says I must increase, decrease. So he can increase,  but you have. A product that is contradictory to your message.

Literally you are increasing the butt  right? So that you, so if and figuratively, if you are calling attention to that part of a woman's body, by putting that seam there,  you are not glorifying God. And she looked at me with these big, sincere eyes, she said.   Thank you so much for telling me. I had never thought about it like that.

She said, we are not about sending a lukewarm message, and I really appreciate that you , you told me that. So then she blew 'em out at like 45% off the rest of the afternoon just to get rid of. That's like, I'll take a couple of those, I mean, since you're trying to get rid of them. Since you won't be selling any anymore, I'll just, here, here's 20 spot.

Just gimme, gimme two.  . And when I said, you know what, I, I prayed before I came over here because I just wanna say this outta love. And she said, I really feel that, I really feel the Holy Spirit right now. So I hope that is an encouragement not only to stand up for modesty. Modest is hottest, okay?

But , to also speak the truth in love.  And, , encourage people to be strong Christians. Mm-hmm. Not weak.  Stand up for what you believe in. But at the CrossFit. Okay. That competition was amazing to watch what , these athletes are doing.  The, what were they snatching? So the snatch is where you take a barbell from the ground. 

And you just jerk it up over your head and lock your arms straight out. The men were doing three, was it 305 pounds? Yeah, the women were doing 205 pounds. What's your max snatch? . What's your max? The, the women were  snatching more than Matt. Oh yeah, of course. 

I mean, they did this for a living. They just do it for fun and I don't even like to do it.  You're good at it. Yeah. What were some of the other ring muscle ups they were doing where they're hanging from the. Gymnastic rings. Yeah. And they gotta get their whole entire body up there ring. , they were just doing so many of those, right?

They, these workouts were so grueling. Strenuous, yeah. Oh my gosh. So,  and that was another amazing thing. Just watch these athletes that train so hard and go out there and do these amazing physical feats and a lot of them, it.  See, God is alive and working and a lot of 'em . You go look on their Instagram and they're like, I love Jesus.

, it's, it's neat. And then you go look on like one of 'em iss like, oh, I love Jesus. And then you scroll down and there she is in a G-string on her Instagram. It's like, girl, no,  , you're an athlete and you're amazing, but you don't need to post that picture if you love Jesus.

That's not honoring him or you.  Oh, I'm sorry. What?  You didn't mind her posting it? God. Well, yeah, I was trying to find it. Which one you're talking about?  I'm like, who are you talking about? Let real quick.  What's her name? Yeah.

No, I'm just kidding. So there's a very mixed message in,  what's okay as far as. What we can wear. And if you let the world influence your, your kids, then it's gonna be  a spandex that goes up their rear end and a g-string for the pool deck. So, right. You, you know. Well, it's harder, especially 'cause nowadays it's become more normalized.

Oh, completely. So that's just, okay. You know, like, you remember when spandex, , what are those called? Like they're not pants, but they're not  Squirt? No. It's like they go like to your calf. What are the, oh, like Capris Cap Or Capris, yeah. Spandex. Capris. I mean, it's like all of a sudden that just replaced. 

Everything else. Oh yeah.  People are wearing them to church. Yeah. Anything spandex is just the uniform apparently. Yeah. It's easy. No, it's not for everywhere. You know, it's not, it shouldn't, you shouldn't wear spandex to church. I'm just gonna say that outright. Sorry if you're offended, but No, don't wear spandex to church.

Yeah, yoga pants. Church don't wear you're, yeah, don't wear it to a job interview either. I mean, unless you're gonna job interview at a gym or something, but you know. Yeah. You can't just wear spandex anywhere. There's a time and a place and , I'm not holier than now. I wear spandex in the gym. I do.

It's. Necessary.  Some of the stuff Matt wants me to wear is a little flushable. Okay.  I mean, he is like, when he's asking to spot me on a deadlift is like, , okay. , I don't need you to spot me on a deadlift, but I just wanna make sure you're okay. All right. I don't wanna see you struggle over there.

I'm your partner.  Ah, okay.  So that was such a highlight to talk to another Christian in love.  About the truth. And I came home and I shared that story with my kids. They say, good job, mommy. We're proud of you. You know? Mm-hmm. Because I'm always trying to harp on them about, not harp on them, but encourage them in modesty.

So, and they're good about it. Yeah.  , another highlight was, , the, was the kids and I watching the Republican debate.  , we've talked about it a little, so I'll be able to splice stuff together. Right. But so let's talk about some other stuff that we are raising Patriots. I will say they are proud Americans who love their country.

Mm-hmm. Like one of the songs, , we play the most on repeat here, around here is the Red, white, and Blue by Toby Keith.  Right. And which he says some great stuff about America. Okay, sure. , how do you raise patriots? Show 'em how great this country is? Yeah. Take 'em to places that have in the history books.

Yes. Forts, we've been, you gotta learn, we've been to a lot of forts. Mm-hmm. , so that not only is it this amazing old fort, but sometimes there's,  period reenactors where they're dressed up and they're talking about it. So it put, the kids know that this country was. Settled by, , strong people who scraped out a, a living just to feed their family and get shelter .

. Remember when we did the pil, let's call it a pilgrimage to, and we went to South Carolina and Oh yeah. . We saw Osceolas grave. Now Osceola Chief Osceola, chief Osceola, if you're a Floridian, you know that name. He was awesome. Now, the  Seminole Indian Wars is the only actual war the American government has ever lost on.

Its on, its. Territory. Mm-hmm. They were trying to push the Indians out of  the Florida swamps and the Everglades, and they couldn't, they actually, the, the Seminoles won. Okay. , but they made a truce or something, right? No. Well, so they tried to get Osceola to sign this paper saying, but we're gonna leave.

You know what Chief Osceola did? He pulls out his dagger and stabs it into the table. On this sheet of paper. Right. Said, I ain't signing nothing. Whatever. So he's a great, who was a great leader. He did get captured and ended up dying at Fort Sumpter, right.

In South Carolina. And his grave is there. And so we had learned about him. Mm-hmm. And you know, learned about a lot about America, the history period. And it was so neat. The kids when they saw his grave. Yeah. It was so poignant, you know, to see this come to light. Well, I mean, not to see this real grave site of somebody that they learned about and .

 A real hero. Right. , but yeah, I think that's important. Learn the, the, your foundation of where you've come from and the people whose lives started it all, you know, and the struggles that they went with and through. It's like, Hey, would you. I wanna go to this far off distant land and start a new colony.

We don't know what you're gonna expect, but here's some supplies. Good luck and, and do it all because you want religious freedom yourself. Yeah. And do it because you love God and that's what , you feel called to do it. Sure. So, so  another thing, we took him to a rodeo one time.  Oh. That's about as America as it gets  , and telling them, just telling them, America is the greatest country founded on Christian principles. 

It was the first country to eradicate, , to wipe out slavery. Even though every civilization in history that has ever been has had slaves, America was the first country to outlaw it.  , And you know, that's the opposite of what's being taught in our, in a lot of schools across America with critical race theory  D E I, diversity, equity, inclusion.

, we have to counter that kind of stuff so that our kids appreciate the freedoms they have and the people who died for them to have those freedoms,  Yeah. It's important. And then, , they feel confident in, in knowing that and being true patriots to this country.  It's important.

 , one of the highlights, extreme highlights  of my week is because there's a great analogy of. Homeschooling is like you're planting a fruit tree and you're pruning and you're teaching and you're doing all this, giving it all, giving these kids all they need, but you're not gonna see fruit for years.

Okay? Right. Some citrus trees take 10 years to produce fruit and so we've been homeschooling for like 14 or 15 years. So we're starting to see some good things. Well,  the The Republican debate, the first debate was on and we went to bed too early. We didn't get the channel. Oh yeah. What was it?

We didn't get the channel or that was Fox 

Business News. Oh, okay. I got, I cut our cable to basic, because we never watched tv. And I'm like, of course, I always cut it right before something big happens. What was the last time? I 

think you cut it before Shark 

Week. Yeah, shark Week.

I heard that for about a month. And then, Another time. I was like, what? Having the Super Bowl or something. Something stupid like that. Yeah, like football season. And , we only get like three channels   

you got so many Streaming. Yeah, 

streaming ones. , we don't even watch tv. So why, why am I spending a hundred and some odd dollars? 

Right. So we didn't get the debate  but since I had given to my candidate that I love Ron DeSantis for President folks 'cause we're Floridians and we love him and he's done amazing stuff in our state.

  Ron text me a link to watch it.  The next morning you and I got about 30 or 40 minutes of it in Right. And it was good. From what you saw. It was very, I mean, riveting and lots of good banter. 

Yeah, there was some good rips in there.

I mean, you always hate to see these guys tear into each other. It's like, folks, we're on the same team here. But okay. There's gonna be some difference of opinion. 

So, I mean, I kinda like that, but whatever. So after you left for work that morning, I was watching the debate on my phone and.  The kids just came and flocked around and sat beside me.

There was an hour left of it.  They sat there with me watching the debate.  Riveted,  when it went to commercial one time my son was like, 'cause I reached for it to forward it. He's like, no, don't turn it off. Don't turn it off.  They were so into it and when someone would ask something they like, is that true mom?

, they were  hungry for the truth   I was so proud of them just for being that interested and into it. Right. And I was thinking back to my childhood.  , I never remember watching a debate except that one between Reagan and Carter, I think  in the eighties.

Yeah, I remember. Remember bits and pieces of it. I didn't care. Two flips about that kind of stuff.   Now this is kind of a fruit of the Lord because you and me , , we don't go help out on elections. We're not what you would think of political people.

Right. But what we are doing is we're teaching our kids. Truth and how to defend it. The truth of what our nation was founded on, the principles of God and that,  God gives us our rights . What else have we done that might have gotten them interested?

Or what has the Lord done through us that got them interested? A 10 year old, you guys interested in watching the debate for an hour?  

Other than the fact they normally wouldn't watch tv, so this was one way for them to get away from doing any kind of homework. So I would probably play into that too, if true a little bit.

If I could do something besides what we're supposed to do, I would've been all over that. 

Yeah, we do limit their screens throughout the week, so they might've been like, okay, well this is a 

screen. Yeah, we'll milk this sucker all for all it's worth, you know, Hey.  Well, I mean,  it always comes up in a lot of conversations like, what's going on today in headline news , talking about the president and 

, or anything woke. Yeah. Because, you know, that's a, all that is just completely against God. And so whenever something comes up that we can identify as woke, we immediately tell our kids, here's the truth, here's how to defend that.

Here's how to talk about that. Right. , and they did talk about some, , Stuff in the debate as far as  what do they call it?   The identity crisis, the mental health crisis. Mm-hmm. That they were referring to. Trans ideology. 





 We go to  the homeschool convention every year. Right. , who came and spoke the last two years at our homeschool convention. Good old Ronnie Ron DeSantis. So they've seen the gov they have from us going to the homeschool convention, which we go to the F P E A. Mm-hmm. Which I found out is the biggest convention in the country. And so we think also in the world.

Yeah. So, so it's the Florida. Parent Florida Parent Educator Association, F P E A. That is a great resource if you wanna go on there.   But Ron DeSantis, governor DeSantis came and talked to , what, five to 8,000 of us? Yeah.  , they see the Secret Service coming in with him.







Yeah. The fact that they were all into that and and understood it and had opinions. , I think our 10 year old asked me the other day, What is, let's go Brandon. Why do they keep saying that?  

Didn't he ask if it was a cuss word? Yeah. I'm like, no, 

no, that's not, that's good.  It's just a saying.  

You didn't tell him what it meant.

Well, yeah, I 

did. Okay. You got it. But like in a, you know, a PG 

version. Okay. Okay. .

. One of the things when they started talking about in the debate education, I paused and I said, okay, let me go ahead and get my notes. I, I wanna hear this, , I need to take some notes.  For education in America is that reading and math scores are down.  There's a chronic absenteeism. 

.  Ramus Swami Vivek Ramus Swami Vivek Ramus Swami, he said some awesome stuff. , One thing he said is that the civil right issue of our times is education. , his parents immigrated here and they had nothing, and now he's started all these billion dollar companies.

Right.  This is what he said,  and I agree, is I think it's brilliant, . He said, I had a mom and a dad. In my house. Mm-hmm. He said the nuclear family is the greatest form of governance known to mankind.  You're not seeing that in a lot of homes. Yeah. , and hallelujah. That's the way the Lord made it.

He made the family where to be the first church for their kids, and like he said, the greatest form of governance is the nuclear family.  So, so kudos to mom and dad's. This has been Home is Where the Truth Is. Thanks for listening. , oh, Instagram. At 

 Maeve Jemison, M A E V E J E M I S O N.  If you love this podcast, leave us a five star review. Yeah. Home is where the truth is. True that. 



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