Healing the Wounds Your Parents Left

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On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom.

Woman just came over to me at my speech and this was very, very moving. Dennis Prager and I almost in tears. I want you to know your Happiness Book changed my life. I want to read to you the paragraph that did it. Not having received appropriate love from a parent is a real hole in a child's life. It is, to use the term I use in Chapter 9, a missing tile. But as I suggest in that, in that chapter, when there is a missing tile in your life, you must either find the tile or look elsewhere. If you cannot change your parent and you usually cannot look elsewhere for love.

That's coming up on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

If you're eating less, staying disciplined, and the weight still isn't coming off, the problem may not be your effort. It may be your metabolism. After years of stress, dieting, and lack of sleep, the body adapts. It slows down and holds on to fat. That's why PhD Weight Loss focuses on your metabolism first so your body stops working against you. Mention Prager today and receive 2 free weeks plus free food, a $1,500 value, call 864-644-1900. That's 864-644-1900.

Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com.

What do you mean wrong theme? It's not the wrong theme. Unbelievable. I didn't even notice. You know, this is not funny. I gotta tell everybody what happened here. Let's get the theme here. It's the happy, happy, happy, happy hour.

Yes, it is.

It's the happiness hour on the Dennis Prager Show every Friday. This is the one hour—

not—

there are sometimes other hours, but there is no politics, nothing, nothing like that, nothing. Whatever side of the political spectrum, whatever your religion, no religion, whatever, anything, whether you are male, female, unsure, in the middle of change, it doesn't matter. In this hour, I just care about your happiness. It is, if you will, another side of me, although I think there's—

there—

this is the same me, but It is an hour where it's truly we leave the world and enter the critically important realm of your happiness. I wrote a book on happiness. I want to tell you a story. A woman just came over to me at my speech, and this was very, very moving. Dennis Prager, and I almost in tears, I want you to know your happiness book changed my life. And I hear that a lot, and it's meant to. I spent 10 years writing a book. The purpose was to change your life. By the way, it's called Happiness Is a Serious Problem. And she said, I want you to know, I said, well, I said, and I often ask, what specifically? And she said, I could tell you, page 68. I've never had that where somebody was so specific. Yes, what you wrote on page 68 changed my life. I would say the woman was about 45 years old. I mean, maybe 40, maybe 50. I, I don't know. It's, it's hard to exactly recall. Early middle age, I think that's fair to say. I want to read to you the paragraph that, that, that did it. Not having received appropriate love from a parent is a real hole in a child's life. This is chapter 14 on the family as a possible obstacle to happiness. We all know about how the family can be a vehicle to happiness, but remember, my book is Happiness Is a Serious Problem. I am honest. Very often the family is a reason that— a reason for people's unhappiness. Unhappiness. So now listen, this is what changed one woman's life, so I decided I'd read it to you. And I have never dealt with this particular part of my book on the Happiness Hour. Not having received appropriate love from a parent is a real hole in a child's life. It is, to use the term I use in Chapter 9, a missing tile. But as I suggest in that chapter, when there is a missing tile in your life, you must either find the tile or look elsewhere. If you cannot change your parent, and you usually cannot, Look elsewhere for love. While nothing will precisely replace the missing love of a parent, life gives us many— life gives many of us a chance to fill the emotional holes of our childhood. You can greatly compensate for the missing love of your parent by loving your child. Becoming a loving parent gives many of us a second chance to have a home filled with love. You can also bask in the love of your husband or wife, in the love of friends, or in the love of relatives other than your parents. We need parental love, but that is not the only love available to us or the only love that can fill our heart. Now, it is very instructive that it was a grown woman who told me that this page, this paragraph, changed her life. I am convinced that more women, more grown women than men, are— pursue their parent— parental love forever. Most men, I think, if they didn't get it, that's it. I didn't get it. I wish I did, but my mother was not capable, or my father was not capable, or was not there, or whatever it is. And they move on because they are male. I have met so many grown women who spend so much of their energy their emotional energy, even their time pursuing their parent. And it is— sometimes it may work, and I'd like to hear from you if indeed it has, but overwhelmingly it has just been a source of frustration, anger, sadness. Because if your parent didn't love you until you're 40 or 50 There's a good chance they're not going to do so tomorrow. 1-8-PRAGER-776. 1-8-PRAGER-776. Does this resonate with you? I wrote it because I knew how many people, especially, especially grown women, are still trying to make things good with their mom. They're 45 years old and they're still working on mom, hoping against hope that things are going to work out. This is one of the, one of the beauties of the female of the species. They are very, very bonded. They, they can't have emotional disorder. It is also one of the prices that a female pays for being a female, that she is still pursuing this. Against all odds of it working out, uh, with her mother or her father after all this time. It is one of the reasons I suspect that, that adult adoptee— adoptees who are female are more likely to go on a search for a biological parent than are male adoptees, thinking somehow there is more love out there Women want love. Men want love too, by the way. Don't get me wrong, and there are men who do this too. And men need love just as much as women need love. But the centrality of love to their lives is so, so, so clear to the female that this thing, you know, I didn't get it from my parents, so I have to do it. I have to, I have to, I have to get my mother to finally say a kind thing to me. Why? Give up. That doesn't mean stop talking to her. I am always opposed to breaking off relations entirely with a parent. There's a middle road. You have civil relations, and that's hard, I know, I know, but, uh, but not particularly warm. But you still— it's still your parent. So I'm for neither extreme. You don't— let me just tell you And that's the good news here. This may sound like bad news. It's all good news. The good news is, yes, you can give up on your parent, but there's other love to be had in life. That is— I always think of making a new family, making a family, as your second chance at love. That, and that, that's really what it is. It is very interesting to me It's really very interesting that people who came from a home that was not emotionally healthy— and every home has emotional non-health, every home. No home's emotionally perfect. But people who come from a home that was emotionally unhealthy, unloving, or whatever, and then will say, "Oh, I don't want to get married. I saw 'What a lousy marriage my parents had,' or 'My mother is married 3 times,' or 'My father is this,' instead of saying, 'Boy, do I want to do it right.' It is so bizarre and self-destructive, in my opinion, when people think like that. The beauty of making a family now that you are out of your parents' home is that now you have a chance to make the loving home you didn't have. That, that's the beauty of it. It's so bizarre to me to have the reaction, well, my home was really, you know, my parents, they didn't know how to love or anything, and their marriage was awful, and so I'm not going to get married, I'm not going to make a family. It's like saying, well, you know, my father was unemployed, or my mother couldn't hold a job, So I don't think I'll pursue a job. But what does one have to do with the other? The point is you can fill a lot of those emotional holes in the world that you make as an adult with a spouse, with children, with friends, with other relatives. That's the point. If you really want love, then pursue it. We'll be there— we'll be back in a moment.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

So just the other night at a speech, a woman comes over to me. Welcome back to the Happiness Hour on the Dennis Prager Show. Every, uh, every week at this time, subject is happiness. Said, "Your book changed my life." And I said, "Good, I'm so happy to hear that." And I said, "What in particular?" She said, "The chapter on the family, and specifically page 68." I never had that, where someone just said the page. So I read to you what it was. And it's very powerful, and it's very indicative and representative that it was a grown woman who said it to me. Virtually every woman that I have known well at all, has, uh, has pursued a parent, has wanted to work out things with a parent throughout their adult lives. There are emotional holes that many parents leave in children. That is the way it is in the world. And my argument is that while they can never be fully filled— they can't, a parent's love is that important— Nevertheless, you have a second chance to have a home filled with love by making a home. That is why to me it is so bizarre how many young people, uh, decide not to marry because they had a bad family experience through divorce or through abandonment or what have you. It would seem to me logic would suggest the opposite. It is so important a familial love, to make a happy loving home, that I, I want it even more than somebody else. By the way, do you know, this is a— Alan, we should do this. I want to do this, uh, one time. You know, I have a theory. I never, I never would have imagined this but for the fact that I've met some men like this. I have met a couple of men in my life who were so loved that they decided never to marry. Isn't that interesting? See, they— it's the opposite. Hey, I have no holes to fill, so why should I, why should I bother? There is a way as an adult to try to undo, or you can't undo, but there is a way to fill the holes. Like, that's the way I use it, by making your new family. All right, let's go to some of your calls here. And let's go to Mary in Los Angeles on KRLA. Hello, Mary. Dennis Prager.

Hi, Dennis.

Good morning. It's an honor to speak with you.

Thank you so much.

Well, I called in because you, like, are reading my whole life. Like, you're just writing it out. When I was little, my parents got divorced after my dad returned from Vietnam. My mom said he changed. He was not able to be there for any of us, and it left maybe more than one missing tile in myself and my brother and my sister who are both younger. And we grew up and I didn't think I was really affected by it until after I got married and started having kids and suddenly I just wanted it to be like perfect, you know, Grandma and Grandpa and the whole, you know, loving thing. And so I reached— I was confused, I didn't know what to do, so I probably went through some phases of depression and drinking and I did finally reach out to my dad. It was really hard and he tried to make it like it was okay, but he really is not able to emotionally be there.

Right.

Well, my sister ended up, uh, being in a committed relationship with a significant other partner, and she called me almost a year ago, which was hard for me. I didn't know how to deal with it with my kids. I didn't want to lose my sister. We had finally become friends after not having any relationship at all, but this was too much. She called and told me she and her partner were having a baby. Her partner was pregnant. I told her, "Look, I can't deal with this. I have little kids. I'm a conservative, traditional, valued person. I belong to my synagogue. My kids are raised not Orthodox, but I was kosher for a very long time. We are very traditional." I said, "I can't handle this. You're going to have to do this on your own. I love you. Be happy, but I can't have this be an example in my life for my children. I don't know how to deal with it. I have to raise my kids, and maybe I'll get back to you, but I don't know." Sure enough, that was not good enough, and between her drama and emotion, my father ended up yelling at me that she was my sister and how could I do this. And never mind that I was the only one that married Jewish, had 4 kids, intact family. My kids are fantastic. My 20-year-old is finishing his Pierce College, and he may actually in turn for a rival radio show of you on a different station. And my daughter's graduating high school, another one's gonna graduate junior high. They're straight-A students. My, my senior has a 3.8 GPA and a job. My little boy's in kindergarten, he's fantastic, he's doing very well. I don't wanna mess this up. I can't— I couldn't handle this, but they couldn't let me just go away.

You have raised many issues.

I haven't spoken to my father in 6 months.

Right.

Are you still Are you still trying to reconcile with him or have you given up?

I, I don't know what to do.

I want to give up. Give up.

I want him to call me.

He won't.

He won't.

All right, this is it.

This is a birthday card. Okay, his wife birthday.

Good. You are—

you're me. All right, Mary, Mary, exactly what you said in the beginning is true. You are the perfect example of what I'm saying. Now there are other issues there about how you dealt with your sister that I would love in fact to deal with, but I don't have the time now. Because, uh, your sister's life is your sister's life, and you can't throw her out of your life. That you, that you object to the fact— I object to the fact too. I don't think that they should— the fact that she's living with another woman, that is, that is, that is her issue. But I, I don't think that they should make a family without a father, the live— that it's deliberate absence of a father. Okay, that— so I don't agree with that. Having said that, Uh, it is your sister, and that there are certain duties. You see, here's the irony: you have duties to her like your dad has duties to you. But I can't, I can't go there right now because of the time factor. All I want to say is it's time to give up on Dad. Now, a lot of you may disagree with me, but I believe you are so wracked, you should be celebrating the love of your family, Mary. You described a wonderful family. I trust you love your husband. And this, this is where your concentration of joy, of emotional joy, must be. And if you have friends with friends and anybody else, Dad is gone. That's it. You send him a birthday card. If he doesn't respond, he doesn't respond. He has his own demons to deal with. I can't understand. I can't. As a father, I can't understand ignoring a child. I can't. It is— oh, it's like asking me to ignore my hand. That, that it is so beyond my understanding. I mean, I love up my children, I can't do it enough. So I don't understand your father, but your father's had— obviously has his demons. Have sympathy. It is so unnatural to ignore your child that only God knows what pain and what suffering and what sickness must wrack that man. So that's it. That's it. But one must— we use the term too often in America, move on, but we must at some point, at least emotionally, I don't say ignore him, keep Trying, but don't depend on it. Don't depend on it. And if he gives you a hug one day, it's not going to fix everything anyway. It won't fix everything anyway. Nothing fixes everything. That's, that's part of being human and knowing nothing fixes everything. But some things fix a lot. And the more love in your life, the more it can compensate for that father who didn't love you. We'll be back in a moment. I'm Dennis Prager.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

If you're eating less, staying disciplined, and the weight still isn't coming off, the problem may not be your effort. It may be your metabolism. After years of stress, dieting, and lack of sleep, the body adapts. It slows down and holds on to fat. That's why PhD Weight Loss focuses on your metabolism first, so your body stops working against you. Mention Prager today and receive 2 free weeks plus free food, a $1,500 value. Call 864-644-1900. That's 864-644-1900.

Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.

Alrighty, my friends, this is, uh, the Double H, the Happiness Hour on the Dennis Prager Show. By the way, if any of you listening can pinpoint a page or paragraph that has deeply affected you in my book on happiness, I will, I will probably have even greater ability to bring these topics to the Happiness Hour because I don't know what exactly will touch person X or Y. So you can do a great service to others, like this woman who came to my speech in Phoenix, uh, did for you and me by saying exactly, page 68 changed my life. She had been trying to repair relations with— I don't remember if it was her mother or father— for so long in her life, and then realized what you do is it's not going to work at a given point. I do want to say though, obviously, to those of you who are parents, there is no way to overstate the significance of parental love. And, uh, you hear it all the time, but you need to hear it. We all need to hear it again and again. And one of the reasons I am so angry about the way divorce works— I am not angry about divorce, I am angry about post-divorce. I mean, I wish there were no divorces. I wish— I have a lot of wishes. I wish there were no bee stings, but that's the way it is, uh, and, and we can reduce it, and I know ways of reducing it, and that— but that's another subject. But what, what hurts children is what happens afterwards when a parent leaves. And by the way, a parent could leave and stay married. You can emotionally leave and stay married. There are a lot of kids who have done better, uh, with divorce than have— than other kids who have had intact parents. I mean, obviously Intact home doesn't mean you— it's a loving home or a happy home. Now, all things equal, obviously intact, happy, loving's the best. But after divorce, all these abandoning fathers, in part because of angry mothers wanting the father out of the kid's life, is an insurance of permanent scarring emotionally of a child. But I don't want to get off track here. There is a time to give up on pursuing a parent or a parent's love. There's a time to do so. You continue to talk, you continue to be loving, but inside of you, you, you, you, you use your emotional energy with the ones who love you. Your husband, hopefully. Your children, hopefully. Your friends, hopefully. Whoever it is, that's what you do. Alrighty, let's go to some of your calls here, and that'll be David in Tucson, Arizona on KVOI. Hello, David. Dennis Prager.

Hey, Dennis. Awesome to talk to you.

Thanks so much.

I work out here every day on a tractor. I listen to you the whole time you're on.

Oh, wonderful.

I feel like I know you.

You do. You do, actually.

Well, what I wanted to say, be as brief as possible without giving you my whole life history, but, um, I do want to just tell you that I came from a family that had divorced and my mother remarried a man who was very abusive, sexually abusive to my sisters and physically abusive to me and to my mother. And I had seen things growing up that I look back on now that no kid should ever have to see, and things that still, still haunt me, um, to this day. But my, uh, my stepfather, eventually he killed himself, and then my mother couldn't handle the situation and she buried herself in a bottle and prescription medication and men and And, uh, wow. Anyway, a few years ago she drank herself to death. I hadn't seen her in years, and I had to go out to this place where she was and take care of burying her. And it was, it was horrible. But there was a lot of— there was issues that I had with her that I felt like, and issues that I had with this man who'd done so much wrong to us, and they had checked out of this world without me getting to really ever confront them on it. And, you know, to get an apology or whatever it was that I was looking for. I don't know what I was looking for.

Yeah, you were. You were looking for an I'm sorry.

But it wouldn't have been good enough.

It wouldn't have been.

I realize now that—

That's right. That's really not what I want. Are you married?

Yes, I am married.

And you have kids?

Yes, I have 4 great kids.

All right. And are they filling some of the hole?

That since I had these children—

Oh, I need an answer to that. I need an answer in a moment.

Jennifer Horn. Oh my gosh, I listen to you every day. I listen to Dennis Prager. I've listened to him for years, and now I listen to him at 10 o'clock at night on my AM 870. I absolutely love and adore you, Jim. Listen to you every Monday through Friday. I listen to all you guys all day long, all day and night. So anyway, hugs, love you.

Thank you.

Bye.

Are you enjoying Timeless Wisdom? We'd love to hear from you. Call 877-243-7776 and leave a review, share your thoughts, or just even an encouraging word for Dennis Prager. Your voicemail might just make it on the show. That's 877-243-7776. That's 877-243-7776. Thanks for listening and for your support.

All right, I'm in suspense. So David, just tell me, has having a family, kids that you love, a wife that you love, helped fill in the holes that your parents left?

Yes, definitely. But, but I guess what I really wanted to say about that too was that it was finally— I don't know at what point— I believe that it was, that it was God himself that did it for me, showed me forgiveness and just how to, how to forgive.

That's wonderful. That is wonderful.

Thank you.

Thank you. I'm letting you go only because of the time factor, because I gave you a lot of time. David has an important call here, folks. This is the Happiness Hour, and I'm talking to you about the woman who said page 68 changed my life. I look it up and I find that it is the ability to have other love fill the emotional holes left by parents. Now again, I am very precise in what I'm talking about, and we have to be, otherwise, especially on subjects like this, we can go into 50 other areas because it could become a therapy show, which, which is— there's nothing wrong with that inherently, it's just that there are so many issues every one of us has. So David dealt with the anger at his parents with the ability to forgive learned from a relationship with God. I, I accept that, and but it's just not my subject. And I'm glad that he said it so people could know maybe that is the only vehicle. But my point is, and this hour is for everybody, secular, religious, whatever, any background you have, that Too many adults, especially women but not only, spend so much emotional energy, expend so much trying to make it good with a parent. You're 50, you're 60, you're still trying to work on your 80, 90, 100-year-old parent to love you. Spend that time with the love of your, of your friends, your husband, your children, your grandchildren. Your nephew, your niece, somebody. There is other love available. I know it, it's not the same as a parent's love, but you're going crazy trying to get what they can't give. You're digging in a well that has no water. That's my point. They didn't show you love for 40 years, and now they're gonna begin 50 years now they'll begin? 60, 70, 80? Maybe. And even then, I don't, I don't know if it will really fill the hole. You needed it when you needed it. Children need to be loved. It doesn't— it helps when you're loved later. It does help. Love is love. But children are the ones who need the love, and if you don't get it at 10, It's not as helpful when you get— when the parent gives it when you're 30. All right, let's go to more of your calls here. And Lori in Glendale, California on 870 KRLA. Hello, Lori. Dennis Prager.

Hi, Dennis. How are you?

Great, thanks.

I actually met you last night. I got the two pictures with you at your speech. I'm calling regarding my mother who—

Well, hi again.

Hi.

Everything my mom has said, everything you have said has hit my mom exactly. She is one girl of four brothers and her parents, her brothers were always in trouble, always doing things wrong. She was the responsible one. Her parents were always very emotionally abusive to her. She's always the one who was picking up after them, doing everything, and to this day, she cries. Like, her parents are passed away now and she can't fill that hole. Like, she never understands. Like I'd see her crying and she'd say, "I just don't know why Grandma never loved me," and, you know, "What did I do wrong?" And I just feel so bad for her because she's such a great person and she can't— this hole, like— and she showered us with love, my brothers and sisters, but she just— no matter how much we tell her we love her or what we do, it just— I feel like we can never fill that hole and make her happy, and it's just— it's sad.

So—

You know what? Your story convinces me. Alan, we have to have Steve Marmer on this issue. I mean, here is— your mother knows how much you love her?

Mm-hmm. Oh, absolutely. I try to tell her.

I mean, I'm sure— Is she married, your mother?

No, she's divorced now. You know, she's had a significant other for a few years now, but I still don't feel— I thought that would help, that she'd meet somebody nice.

And she did meet somebody nice.

It doesn't happen.

You like him, you like him.

He's a nice guy, yes. He's friendly, we all get along with him. Right. He treats her well, but it just—

Right.

She helps him out.

But the home that she made with her husband, your father, is that right?

Pardon, say that again?

The home that she made with her husband who was your father, correct?

Right.

Was that a loving home?

Well, actually, she was always very loving to us. She kind of suffers from alcoholism too, I think, because her parents were, you know, alcoholic.

Oh, well, look, I just have to say, And it's painful to say, I have never met any child of an alcoholic who wasn't adversely affected.

Right, and I see that, and I think she drinks to fill her sadness, but I always tell her, "Mom, it just makes you more sad." You know, like, I see her drink and she's more sad.

Well then, her issues transcend just that of still pursuing, oh, is it her mother?

It's her mother, yeah. It was actually both her father and her mother were both alcoholics and very mean to her. I actually said, I said, Mom, they would do emotionally abusing things like her brothers were always getting in trouble with the police and doing everything wrong.

And my mom was always just— Do you have siblings?

I do. I have a brother and a sister.

Do either of them have an alcoholic problem?

No, they're both younger than me, 18, 24, and I'm 32.

Are they as well adjusted as you?

All well adjusted. And what's interesting—

See, it's amazing. Your mother did such a terrific job in life. Of ending the damage of her parents' alcoholism with herself.

And you know what that is, though, Dennis? I think it comes to what you're saying, is that even though she struggled and sometimes she suffered because her parents were emotionally abusive and mean alcoholics, and she— my mom does have a tinge of that in her. She could be very mean when she drinks. But there was something about even sometimes when she would be mean to us, the next day, like, we— she showered us with so much love.

She apologized.

She would always apologize.

Yes.

And we— I think we saw that she was just suffering, but we knew that we were loved.

Well, exactly. God bless you, Lori, and I mean it. God bless you. By the way, folks, you know what I have often said? The most powerful words that a parent can say to a child, the most powerful 3 words are often not 'I love you.' Uh-uh. 'I am sorry.' Think of how that might help a lot of you with your parents at whatever age you are. We'll be back in a moment on the Happiness Hour. You are listening to the Dennis Prager Show.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

If you're eating less, staying disciplined, and the weight still isn't coming off, the problem may not be your effort. It may be your metabolism. After years of stress, dieting, and lack of sleep, the body adapts. It slows down. Down and holds on to fat. That's why PhD Weight Loss focuses on your metabolism first so your body stops working against you. Mention Prager today and receive 2 free weeks plus free food, a $1,500 value. Call 864-644-1900. That's 864-644-1900.

Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.

Wow, is this Spent an intense hour on the Happiness Hour. You can get a copy of it, by the way, if you want to play it for yourself or for somebody else who's plagued by this problem. Any of my shows, and there are now ways to subscribe at a totally nominal fee. You get every show downloadable and hearable at any time you want. Go to my website, DennisPrager.com, or call 800-225-8584. 800-225-8584. This is an example of something, huh, we could do hour after hour after hour. Your stories rivet me, I gotta tell you, my friends, they really do. And you know what else? When you folks hear these calls, and so many— and nobody's complaining. See, that's the beauty, the backgrounds. I mean, here we have a pain, you know, this, this man in Tucson whose father was abused, all the children, killed himself, the mother drank herself to death, and he is speaking about, you know, the love he has for his children. There's no self-pity here from you folks, which is so, so impressive to me. But there's another lesson to be learned from these calls, and that is everybody, everyone has pain. It is one of the points that I make in my book that is so helpful, I think, in undermining one of the biggest obstacles to happiness, and that's jealousy. Don't be jealous because the more you know about anybody, the more you know how much pain they have had to overcome and live with, or live with at this moment. That is the nature of our life. That is the nature of this life on this earth. That's why you have to be grateful for every good thing you have, because there is so much pain. But the issue here— the woman who came over to me and said, 'Page 68 in your book changed my life,' and it turns out to be this issue which is so plaguing of so many adults My mother still won't love me, or my father still won't love me, and I have— I need their love. I can't, I can't have a good life without it. But you have no choice. You can't continue to dig in a well that has no water. Go to the wells that have water. Friends, spouse, children, nephews, nieces, cousins, co-workers, anybody. Go where there is love for you. You can't get parental love elsewhere, that's true. But you can get other love elsewhere. And you can often be a parent, if not even to your own child, to a grandchild, to a niece, to a nephew, to a friend's kid. We have a chance to do, to fill holes that we were given. This has been the Happiness Hour on the Dennis Prager Show. Don't go away. On tomorrow's episode of Dennis Teaches the Torah, we start out in life, we are the absolute universe. Me, I, that I, the baby, I am, I am the universe. Even your mother, I mean, this is, you know, classical psychology. Your mother is part of of you. And it's part— why, why is it a tough time to be a baby and grow up? All of a sudden, it's you— as you get older, you realize, uh-oh, Mommy isn't part of me. And, uh, Judith Viorst wrote an excellent book on this, Necessary Losses. Life is a constant necessary losses stage when you lose that comfort of I and Mommy are one. And all of a sudden, you wait Wait a minute, there is another. Would you ever try to explain to a 2-year-old or 3-year-old that you have your own life? Right, you're laughing, it's absurd. You know, trying to reason, you know, you have to understand, Mommy and Daddy have not made love in 2 and a half years and we would really like to this evening, so shut up. You know, that doesn't work. They don't care. The trick in life is to in fact grow up and know, know that you are not the center.

Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles. We want to take just a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast. Go to LifeAudio.com to find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network, including shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.

If you're eating less, staying disciplined, and the weight still isn't coming off, the problem may not be your effort. It may be your metabolism. After years of stress, dieting, and lack of sleep, the body adapts. It slows down and holds on to fat. That's why PhD Weight Loss focuses on your metabolism first, so your body stops working against you. Mention Prager today and receive 2 free weeks plus free food, a $1,500 value. Call 864-644-1900. That's 864-644-1900.