Timeless Wisdom: Raising Good Kids (Part 2)

Your dog and a stranger are drowning. You can only save one. Who do you choose? Dennis Prager says your answer reveals everything about how you define right and wrong. In his new book, If There Is No God, Prager exposes the danger of emotion-based morality and why, without objective truth, society descends into chaos. This isn't a religious book. It's a rational case for moral clarity in a confused age. If There Is No God, from Dennis Prager. Order now at PragerStore.com. 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.

And finally, behavior over feelings.

Is a key to character development.

Behavior over feelings.

You can't— just as you have to fight your nature, part of it is fighting your feelings. How you feel is interesting, but how you act is infinitely more important. What are you doing, not what are you feeling.

We all have every sort of feeling in the world.

Good feelings, bad feelings, Look, a person could have immense good feelings and not do any good. There are other people whose minds are filled with a lot of bad thoughts and they do a lot of good because they know that they have to fight their feelings.

Feelings are feelings and actions are actions. And building character is building actions. So your child has to know, and here is a rule of life it's worth telling your kid, it's worth telling yourself by the way, most of what we want is not good for us.

It's a terrible law of life.

But, you know, but it's a fact. This is what I call the brain-mind conflict. The brain is the seat of bad things.

It is the seat of unhappiness. It is the seat—

it's the animal part of us, the brain. Brain wants cheesecake.

Mind says maybe not, right? I mean, Brain wants prohibited sex, and mind hopefully says, gee, that's not right.

Whatever it is, it's mind versus brain, and the earlier you know you have to fight what you want, the better it is.

So the kid is certainly allowed to express what he wants, but if he thinks that he will get whatever he wants while you have bought at the price of his happiness and his goodness, or her happiness and her goodness, You have bought a moment of peace.

We want our kids to smile, don't we? We do.

It's a joy to give them a gift.

'Cause, well, we were good in their eyes, they're happy for that moment. But what happens the next moment?

The gift has to be increased. It has to be more frequent. It's why you should set limits on the gifts that you give to your kid, by the way.

In my opinion, you should, you should relegate it to whatever it will be, whatever, like Christmas or any other holiday that you want to give a gift on, a birthday, and special events, confirmation, graduation, and that's it.

That's it.

It's tough to raise a good person. If it were easy, it would be a nice world, wouldn't it? It's not such a nice world. There's a lot of bad in it. It's a lot of bad in it, and it begins in the way that kids are raised. And you wouldn't be here tonight if you didn't want to—

didn't care deeply about this issue. Why would you be here tonight? The very fact that you're here is living proof that this matters to you. But even if it matters to us, it's still tough. It's not enough to want it.

It's like if you want to be a good baseball player, you still have to learn the mechanics of baseball. We have to learn the mechanics of raising good kids, and it's a lot harder to be a good parent than a good first baseman.

It's harder to be a good person than a good first baseman. And so that's the—

that's— these are the suggestions that I have for you, and they're all difficult to enact.

It is a real challenge, but I just need to tell you that the The rewards are awesome.

I'll end with one interesting revelation that came to me in the course of doing my radio show, and it is an unbelievable instructor, my radio show.

And if you haven't heard it, how come you're here?

But aside from that, if you haven't, it's 9 to noon, 870 KRLA here in Los Angeles, or prageradio.com. Oh, you could hear it at any hour of the day. And I have learned more there than at my Ivy League graduate school 50 times over, what I have learned doing this. Here's an example of something that occurred to me and with which I will conclude. And, uh, it has to do with something I read in the Los Angeles Times about 15, 20 years ago about the increasing, to the best of our knowledge, increasing number of adults who do not speak to one or both of their parents. And as a parent, I thought, "Oh, I can't think of anything more painful.

My child acting dead or acting like I'm dead." It's one thing for your child to be angry at you.

It's another to cut off all communication. I don't mean infrequent. I mean all communication.

So I raised this on the radio, and I said, if you don't talk to a parent, you're an adult who does not talk to your parent, please give me a call. And the lights lit up immediately, all the lights.

And I'll never forget one that particularly got to me. It was a 26, I think, 26-year-old young woman. Said, I don't talk to my mother.

I haven't talked to her for 8 years.

And I said to her, well, did she abuse you? Oh no, not at all. Did she molest you?

No, no, no.

She loved me up. So I'm entering the world of cognitive dissonance here. I feel like I'm entering the Twilight Zone, for that matter. I said, let me understand something.

Your mother loved you up? Never mistreated you in any serious way, and you have not spoken to her in 8 years. Why not?

She said, well, if I let my mother back in my life, she would dominate it.

So she— her mother has a dominating personality, and she has opted to never talk to her.

Why am I telling you the story? I have a theory that religious people—

and by religious I mean active in Judaism or Christianity in any, in any of their manifestations—

that's, that's the working definition I'm giving here—

who feel bound to the Ten Commandments, and specifically honor your father and mother, are less likely to ever do this to a parent than those who do not feel bound to that commandment. This is a classic example of behavior over feelings.

Religiously raised kids get angry at parents, or even often may have reason to be angry at a parent, just as much as secular kids do.

But if you believe that God said honor your father and your mother, you will find it a lot harder to dishonor your father or mother and hurt them in that way. This is a very powerful example of how religion can make better people. Just that commandment alone, I am convinced, and I raised this with a psychologist from San Francisco who just wrote a book on children who don't speak to parents.

He just wrote a whole book on it, it's becoming so common.

And he wants to figure out ways of reconciling parents and children using psychology, and he's a wonderful man. And I said to him on my show, "Doctor, I am curious, have you ever thought about this? That perhaps adults who believe that God said honor your father and mother are more likely, or if you will, less likely to abandon a parent that way." He said, "I never thought of that, but you may have a real point there." I mean, he had never thought of that because they're taught in a secular university and religion is nonsense. It's never thought of as a vehicle to goodness. But this teaches the great lesson of feeling bound to a system larger than my feelings. Most people at some point are very angry at a parent.

And would find it very easy to stop communicating.

But not someone who thinks, you know what, whatever it is—

and I learned this from my father, I'll never forget this— my father would call his mother every night, call her on the phone. His mother was, may she rest in peace and forgive me, not an easy woman.

In fact, she would yell at him the entire conversation.

How do I know?

Because he would put the phone on the kitchen table and I would hear the yelling.

And what he would do he would pick up the phone periodically and go, "Yeah, Ma.

Yeah, Ma." And then put it back down. And she'd just yell at him.

And I'll never forget, she was in her way great, but a difficult woman. When I was about 9, she told me my mother was Hitler. I thought my mother was a fascist, but not a Nazi.

She was tough.

You know, after my mother would make— every Sunday they brought her over with my, uh, this was my father's mother, and they brought my mother's parents as well. They'd come over for lunch. My mother would make like this 6-course meal, and then this grandmother would compliment my mother on the cantaloupe. She was a tough woman, but my father called her every day. And he called her every day because, not because of love, not because he wanted to talk to her, but because it's the right thing to do. And the sooner we teach our kids it's the right thing to do whether or not you want to do it, the better chance we have that they'll call us when they're angry at us. Good luck. Thank you very much. By the way, the operative, the most operative words in my whole talk were good luck.

And I'll tell you why.

This is a, it's a sobering thought, and you'll just do with it what you want. When all is said and done, there's still luck in how your kids turn out.

Okay?

Just know that. There are some really miserable parents whose kids are angels. And I, you know, that's part of my 10 questions for God.

How did these jerks produce such a wonderful kid?

And there are some wonderful parents who have a jerk.

I mean, I did that for a number of shows.

Call me up if, you know, let's say you have 4 kids and 3 of you are wonderful and one is terrible. And again, the lines lit up, you know, like the proverbial Christmas tree. And then people were just saying, yeah, you could have twins, one is in jail and one is volunteering to help the poor.

So when all is said and done, you still don't have a guarantee, but these maximized your chances.

Now, two things. One is, I will now happily— is— did you say that there were microphones set up?

Is that right?

Okay, so please line up there if you'd like to ask me anything or just say something.

And the other is, if you would like, I make my speeches available to the public. You could subscribe to getting one every other month. You could just get this one.

But give me your email address.

We will not bombard you, I promise, with free offers for land in Florida or anything.

But if you can, you want to write your name and clearly the email address. If just one letter is not clear, email addresses are useless. I would be happy to send you information on this lecture and others that I have given.

Anybody like to line up? I'll wait a minute.

There's always a hesitation before the first question, and if there were no questions, then we'll go home earlier. But usually there are.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

Gold and silver recently soared to record highs, then pulled back. So, are precious metals still a good buy? Many Wall Street experts predict higher prices ahead.

Why?

Because we still have trillions in national debt, a declining dollar, and inflation that keeps shrinking our savings. Even with corrections along the way, gold remains a historical hedge for wealth protection. That's why Morgan Stanley's Chief Investment Officer ditched the 60/40 stock and bonds portfolio and recommended up to 20% in precious metals.

They're getting educated, and you should too.

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-2255 for your free gold investment kit and learn how you could qualify for up to $20,000 in bonus gold. Lear Capital has over $3 billion in transactions and thousands of 5-star reviews.

Call 800-992-2255. That's 800-992-2255, or visit learalex.com.

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

Yes, sir.

So my question is, you know, our faith is important to us, and I reflect on it that it's been handed down for me from my parents and my grandparents, and people have died for our faith. And I've got— I've had this faith handed down to me for generations that I don't even know about. And it hurts me when my— one of my adult children is said, I don't want to do this anymore, and it's gone to another Christian denomination.

And I just, you know, how do you deal with that?

Is there a way to bring it back?

Wow.

Oh, did you all hear the question?

This, uh, this question is something I have given an immense amount of thought to about your child has abandoned your faith and taken on another one, or taken on none, right?

Would the question be just as fair in that case?

All right, fair. Folks, here, let me give you a—

how do you handle it was the question.

That's a micro question. First, I'll give you a macro answer. This is the price we pay for a free society, and it's a price I am willing to pay rather than live in an enclosed world where there were no options for our children. So please know that in advance. I mean, you can And of course there are all sorts of reactions. There are denominations where if the child abandons the faith of the parent, they sever all contact with the child. I don't want to mention the denominations, but they exist. I have met such people, and I don't think you would support that. You have to do your best.

and then you let the chips fall where they may, because at some point you can't any longer direct your child's life. I don't mean can't in the sense of prohibited, you are— can't in the sense of incapable.

And all one can ask for then is that they be aware of how—

of the strength of your commitment that they are allowed to know that this is an ongoing pain in your life, but at the same time, you are still my child and I love you. I mean, it's not like your child has committed mass murder, and then I'm not sure I would ask you to say, "And I still love you." There are moral bounds beyond which a child can even lose the parental, at least, expression of love. All of us have to deal with this. And, um, not all of us have to deal with this.

All of us have to deal with this possibility.

Some people, their kids follow exactly in their faith. It is increasingly not so much the case. Look, somebody must have changed somewhere or nothing would have ever evolved. And so it is just something you have to make peace with.

Because at some point you just have to wish God's blessings on them and yourself. But as I say, it's an inevitability in a free society.

It is an inevitability.

Look, if you know, you were talking about another Christian denomination, so I'm assuming, for example, where in your case it was a child who went— or not necessarily your case, but the case you're thinking of— become a Protestant. Yeah, leave the church and become a Protestant. I mean, look, you know, this may not be a consolation, but it could have been worse.

I have about 10 scenarios in my mind at this time.

So just to be, I guess, not to offend anybody here, but let's say your kid became a Wiccan. You know, father, that would be worse. Is that fair to say? Maybe there's nothing worse than a Protestant.

I don't know.

Listen, you know, I have no dog in this race.

You know, I can look at this very neutrally. But listen, you know, in Jewish life, my God, if you're Jewish and your child drops out of the faith and doesn't live a Jewish life, and even just intermarries, it's a very, very serious matter in family life.

And not only that, if you're Orthodox and your kid becomes Conservative or Reform, it's a huge issue.

So we all face this either in our family or in the extended part of the family. The only answer is to raise your children in a ghetto. We have opted not to, and that's— freedom will bring with it choices that we're not thrilled that they make. There is one other consolation, though, that I want you to think of, and that is that all children are your children. And I mean this, and I'm not a poet, I don't mean this poetically. I really do believe that we should see all children as in some way our children.

And if you, in your case as a Catholic, can help keep other kids Catholic or bring others to Catholicism who now have nothing, let's say, then you should have a great deal of consolation in that, that you have kept your church alive and, and you have kept your faith alive, but not necessarily through a blood relative. But in the final analysis, The non-blood relative is as precious to God and to the church as your child. So think of it that way.

It's a very important thing to get joy from touching other children, not only your own. Think of that outside of even just religion. It's a very—

there are people who have been immensely successful with nephews and nieces or with grandchildren or with friends' kids more so than their own. Why is that less valuable?

It's, it's less emotional perhaps for you, but it's not less valuable to the world or to God. Okay, yes please.

Thank you, Mr. Prager. I'd like your thoughts on, um, as a child is getting older, when should a parent ought to start backing off on insisting on their authority over the child versus letting the child have more freedom, even if you know they're going to Well, since I don't know the specific area that you're thinking of, as a general rule, you can say this: so long as I legally and financially support you, the rules of this house shall be obeyed.

Come back, you're allowed to respond.

It's not—

yeah. I don't mean it in, you know, laying down the law in my house or anything like that. I just want my child to grow into an adult in as smooth a way as possible. Well, society says you're under your parents' authority the day you had your 18th birthday, you're on your own. And that's not the way—

Well, they're not on their own if you're still supporting them on their 18th birthday.

They're only on their own in that they have certain legal rights that they didn't have vis-à-vis the society. But if you're still their Listen, if at 18 your kid gets a job and is self-supporting, you've done a great job.

You know, you should take a cruise.

You know, I want to know your technique, man.

So no, I mean, it's very fair to say, look, these are my laws. You want to put a ring through your nipple? I'm sorry, when you are independent and make your own money and wish to distort your body in that way and look like a Neanderthal, that is your prerogative, but until that day, your nipples will remain whole.

That's it.

And your tongue, and your eyelid, and your lips, And that's—

you're allowed to say that.

And if it rushes them into independence financially, by golly, you did a great job.

In the meantime, I see more and more ads on Ventura Boulevard, where I was just last week, for now laser tattoo removal.

The ads for tattoo removal are now as ubiquitous as the ads for tattoo placement. So next time your kid wants a tattoo, if you're not a big fan of tattoos— I happen not to be a big fan of tattoos, which puts me in a very small minority of Americans today.

My dear producer Alan Estrin has a very great thought on this when he watches an NBA game, which only happens under duress, but on occasion he will see it. So if you ask him, "What team do you root for?" his answer is the same all all the time, the one with fewer tattoos.

Yes.

Oh, there is someone here. Hi.

It's not a question, it's—

Statements are fine.

I want to say thank you because it's very rare, in my life anyway, that I'm affirmed in the quality of childbearing that I've done. And I came here tonight thinking, oh, I can I was hoping to learn something new, you know.

And you didn't.

Well, no. I must say, this is the most left-handed compliment.

Mr. Prager, I want to thank you for coming here and telling me nothing new.

No, no, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that.

You heard it. You heard it.

Yes.

You asked that question and you gave us the 4 options and I would have picked happy walking in. I want my children to be happy. That's what I thought I wanted. Right. But after you told me what making my children good people are, that's what I'm doing.

Mm-hmm.

And that's not what's supported by society.

No, not at all.

It's very hard to keep making those choices for the kids. Like, no R-rated movies.

No, we're going to cut down on TV and cut down on Everything.

And society is so opposed to that. A school like this is for that, and that's why we're here. But to hear someone like you on the radio—

and I will listen to you now because I didn't know of you before.

What have you been listening to for 9 years? I'm sorry, wait, what? Tell me, tell me, I'm curious.

That's fine.

No, no, I was curious. That, that's, that's fine with me.

Yeah.

Yes.

Anyway, thank you.

Thank you very much. Just a quick comment on that. You see, even if you do the right things, what I wanted to do— and thank you, I really appreciate what you said— is the consciousness of the goodness issue.

You have to be conscious.

Some things—

I'm sure all of you have done some of these things. It's the consciousness of the priority issue. Have your priorities intact.

Good is number one, and I want you, my child, to know that. If you are the, the, the football team captain, but I don't think you're a good-hearted person, I don't, I don't think you're ethical in the way you deal in money matters or on tests, I have no joy from your being the quarterback, none. If you are valedictorian, I have no joy from that if you are not these other things.

And that's that. And they hear you.

They make believe they don't hear you, but they hear you.

That's what also you need to know. They make believe they don't hear you, but by golly, they hear you. Yes.

First of all, Mr. Prager, I want to thank you for convincing my wife to vote for you.

Is your wife here?

Is your wife here?

Yes.

Okay, good.

Did I—

where is she? Where is she? So how do you feel?

Is he speaking, uh, truth right now?

Yeah, I knew it.

That's why I wondered if she was here, because, you know.

But I do have a question. When you talk about about being good, and there's the underlying motivation for being good. And they, you know, the word is good for goodness' sakes. But in raising children, sometimes you have to give them motivations to get them to provide good behavior. And you talk about the teasing, and you have to tell them, okay, you tease your brother one more time, you lose your cell phone for a week.

That's right.

That's exactly right.

And they're motivated by either punishment or That's right. Do you think eventually, after years of going through that, they finally start to make it a habit?

That's correct. That's exactly right.

Yes, yes. By the way, I have no issue at all with punishment and reward.

In my book of essays, I have one of the essays on is it okay to pay kids for grades?

And, and I've never heard a single good argument against of paying kids for good grades.

Now, if they do it for free, that's lovely. I'm not saying you should offer in the beginning, but first of all, I don't know how to raise kids without bribes. It may reflect poorly on me, but I just want you to know that.

But I just want to understand something. Why do whatever you do for a living, that gets paid, but what they do for a living doesn't get paid?

They say, well, they get room and board.

Well, they get room and board because if you didn't give that to them, you would be arrested.

Okay?

It is not a virtue that you give them room and board, alright?

Let's be honest.

So I see nothing wrong with that. I, after all, we even use that language. Look, you should, this is your work school. Okay, then pay me. Okay, fine. If that's important to you, those grades, and then I don't see any problem with that, to be rewarded for doing Good work is fine. Now, I happen to be a poor example.

I graduated, as I often point out, in my high school in the top 80% of my class.

Did anybody miss where I graduated? If you're in the top 80, you're in the bottom 20.

You realize that, okay, fine. And my parents were sure I would end up a no-goodnik. I mean, they were certain of it.

But by the way, there's another thing. If your kid is not doing schoolwork, I can live with that, providing I know what they're doing when they're not doing schoolwork.

When I didn't do schoolwork, and I did no schoolwork, I'm amazed I graduated. It's one of the arguments I often give in my speech, Arguments for God's Existence.

And, uh, yeah.

I, however, when I wasn't doing schoolwork, which was the whole time, I was learning to conduct orchestral scores, and I now conduct orchestras. That is an avocation of mine, is conducting classical music. I taught myself how to do that instead of doing schoolwork, because school bored me to death. Bored the living daylights out of me, and I loved music. I would read, I would go to bookstores, I would go to museums.

I mean, I was learning. I had a great hobby of shortwave radio, listening to foreign radio broadcasts. I started studying Russian. So, if you're— I want to know what your kid is doing. If your kid is partying or watching TV instead of schoolwork, that's bad. That has to stop. But, but, uh, it's not schoolwork per se, but if you value it and it's important, I see no reason not to have a reward, uh, for that. On the other hand, I am against tremendous pressure on children to get great grades.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

Gold and silver recently soared to record highs.

then pulled back.

So, are precious metals still a good buy? Many Wall Street experts predict higher prices ahead. Why? Because we still have trillions in national debt, a declining dollar, and inflation that keeps shrinking our savings. Even with corrections along the way, gold remains a historical hedge for wealth protection. That's why Morgan Stanley's Chief Investment Officer ditched the 60/40 stock and bonds portfolio and recommended up to 20% in precious metals.

They're getting educated, and you should too.

Call Lear Capital at 800-992-2255 for your free gold investment kit and learn how you could qualify for up to $20,000 in bonus gold.

Lear Capital has over $3 billion in transactions and thousands of 5-star reviews.

Call 800-992-2255. That's 800-992-2255. 55 or visit learalex.com.

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

Uh, I, I, uh, here's a theory I have that I, I have no idea if it's true, and then I'll take more of your questions. Uh, but it's, it's, it, it's a theory. I always wonder why I have never experienced for even a day burnout.

If you knew how much I work, I'll just give you one example. I remember speaking to guys who went around the country lecturing.

I remember one man 30 years ago, he was then about what my age is now, and he said, Dennis, I am so tired. You know, it was exciting in the beginning traveling, but now it it's just a hassle, and it's another audience, another lecture, another trip, another airport.

I am as excited to give a speech today as I was when I began in my 20s. I'm as excited to fly to a place.

The actual flying isn't exciting anymore because they're now Greyhound buses in the air.

But it is still— I get an invitation from Pittsburgh, I'm as excited to I'm as happy today as I was in my 20s when I began lecturing. And I think that part of the reason I have no burnout is because I followed Ecclesiastes.

Now, I don't mean consciously. You know, there's a time to cry and a time to laugh, a time to die, a time to live.

It's like there's a time to work very hard and a time to be a kid. I took my time being a kid. And when I was ready to work, I was ready to work. Kids who are pushed in kindergarten to produce excellence, I worry about them when they're 25 and 55.

I really, really do.

I don't give a damn about kids doing well in kindergarten.

I remember when my older boy was 5 years old and a woman woman that I knew, a mother of another kid his age, who they played sometimes, she said to me, you know, Danny knows he can name all the primates.

And I immediately thought, what the hell's a primate?

I really, I'm sorry to say, I admit it, I didn't know what a primate was, let alone name them.

And I felt bad for that kid. You know, parents showing flashcards to their 5-year-old. It's important now to send kids to school when they're 4. Why is it important? If they just want to play ball at 4, or stare out into the air at 4, that's great. That's what 4 is meant for. You know what I mean? So there's a real middle road here about what we pressure our kids.

I pressure them on goodness, not scholastics, and not to waste their time on TV. Which—

was I at that microphone?

Yes, please.

I'll address you as Dennis because I feel like—

Absolutely, feel free.

I have listened to you since Religion on the Line.

You were a kid.

Yeah, I was a kid.

I moved out of the home. Right.

And it was a great comfort to me and comfort to the other parent whose child left the religion. Where I was kind of distant from my Catholic religion and I enjoyed searching for something while listening to someone who was Jewish. And eventually having 4 kids, 4 boys, Catholic school, Catholic high school, and I'm so thankful to you. I just to you every single day my job allows me to since you've been on the radio. 3 hours a day, every day. And I just want to say thank you because you provide many issues and subjects and things to think about that I bring to my boys when we talk about it.

Thank you.

And it really helps me.

Thank you for telling me.

That's very, very kind.

Thank you. By the way, since I have this old-fashioned belief that the lecturer should leave before the audience does, we'll take these last two questions and then class dismissed. Again, if you want to give me your email address to find out about getting this or any other of my lectures, just come over with a very clearly written name and email address. I'm very touched by what you told me, and I thank you. I look at it this way: I have brought so many people back to so many different religious denominations and faiths.

Whoever is right, I'm okay with God.

That's how I look at it.

Because I can— well, Dennis, you were wrong in that, but yeah, but I brought this guy back to his Catholic tribe, you know. But so I have— this is a little sacrilegious what I'm saying.

I fully understand that.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

Gold and silver recently soared to record highs, then pulled back. So are precious metals still a good buy? Many Wall Street experts predict higher prices ahead.

Why?

Because we still have trillions in national debt, a declining dollar, and inflation that keeps shrinking our savings. Even with corrections along the way, gold remains a historical hedge for wealth protection. That's why Morgan Stanley's Chief Investment Officer ditched the 60/40 stock and bonds portfolio and recommended up to 20% in precious metals.

They're getting educated, and you should too.

Call Lear Capital at 800-992-2255 for your free gold investment kit and learn how you could qualify for up to $20,000 in bonus gold.

Lear Capital has over $3 billion in transactions and thousands of 5-star reviews.

Call 800 992-2255. That's 800-992-2255, or visit learalex.com.

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

Okay, please.

I, I have a question, but I also just wanted to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much. My younger son was 4 when I started listening to you about 6 years years ago, and I cannot tell you how many times what came out of your mouth on the radio during the day came out of my mouth that evening.

Well, he hates me.

You know how many kids hate me?

You have no idea.

And he knows exactly who you were.

He asked if he could come with me tonight because he wanted to see you. Oh, that would be nice. How old is he now?

He's 10 now.

That's really nice.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. And thank you for getting me through the elections. I can't tell you how much that helps.

Good, good.

I'm a nervous wreck. Anyway, he's 10 and he goes to a Christian school and they're pretty strict about bullying. Nevertheless, you always will find bullies. And lately, even though he's very tall and big for his age and very athletic, he is pretty confident in general, but lately he's been bullied by, you know, certain kids who particularly don't like him for whatever reason. For no reason, and it's in front of groups of boys sometimes. And it's been happening more lately, and he's so afraid to stand up for himself. He wants to so much, and he's only done it one time. So we've been discussing different things that he can say that will help him, that he can have the courage to say, and that will help put the bully, you know, set him back and give him the courage to keep standing up for himself. And I don't know if I've come up with a couple of ideas.

Give me one of your ideas. I'm curious.

Pardon?

Give me one of your ideas that you've given him.

Well, I just— knowing— well, I had to deal with who he is and what he can do. We've come up with different things, but he just couldn't do it. So I finally came up with him just— I just said, just look at the boy in front of all the other kids and say, why do you have to be so mean? And one time he had the nerve to say it, and the boy actually shut up, and he didn't have an answer.

But he's It's very hard to stand up to a bully.

It's hard for an adult to do so. The fact that you got a 10-year-old to even say once, "Why are you so mean?" It's a tremendous victory for you and for your child.

I think you're doing a very good thing.

Now, we're talking about verbal bullies or physical bullies?

Yeah, well, then if it's verbal bullies, then a verbal response is a good one.

And it'll give him tremendous strength. I think you're doing perfectly. The question that I'm asked a lot is, what if a kid is hit by another kid?

Generally, I think the kid should be smashed into smithereens, but I represent the eye for an eye tradition.

Good old Testament, you know.

Yeah, well, this is the thing that drives me a little nuts, and this I have said a lot on the radio. You might have heard it on one or two occasions. When I was a kid, I hated when a parent or teacher would see two kids fighting and say, "I don't care who started." And I say, for people who think that that's a good thing for kids to hear—

now, of course, you want to stop the fight. Then you find that— see, I understand, first you stop the fight.

I agree.

But don't ever say, "I don't care who started." That's a very important thing.

Imagine, let us say that there was, you know, God could come down the day after Pearl Harbor and look at America and Japan fighting and say, "Look, I don't care who started." Well, I care who started.

Right and wrong care who started. Justice cares who started. Who started is pretty important It's almost everything. So response to bad needs to take place. How that response is, is different parents and different traditions will give different thoughts.

But you're doing great. Thank you very, very much. Final, please.

You talk about children being, their innocence is affected by sexuality.

Right.

And so I think it's very important to important to talk to our children about sex, and we're very fortunate with faith to talk about it in the context of marriage and sexuality as being a gift from God. At what age do you think it's important to approach this?

And wait, at what age is it important to approach discussion of it? Hmm. Well, first of all, different kids will, will learn things at different ages and can assimilate things at a different time. And the parent could pretty much monitor. First of all, every question a kid asks must be answered. So sometimes you get the tip-off because the kid will ask.

Sometimes they won't.

A lot of kids won't ask, and they'll just learn it in the street, which, by the way, is not so awful.

It's not the worst possible thing.

That's where most of us have learned a lot of things in life as well, from other other kids.

That's understandable.

But you still teach what the ideal is. You say, look, this is the ideal, and this is the way God wants us to live. There are many things that people can do that go contrary to that ideal, and your religion teaches you how to talk to your kids.

Also, your school will tell them—

I mean, I suspect that You know, condoms on bananas is not a feature of most Catholic schools.

The— this— what has been done in our secular society to sex, I feel pity for the kids. Pity. The most passionate aspect of human existence has been reduced to pure animal biology.

I mean, it takes a secular society to screw sex. I'm using my words very carefully.

That's what they have done. They have raped it of its joy.

I am confident beyond a doubt that in my generation, when 16-year-olds would sneak a kiss in a movie theater, there was more excitement sexual excitement than when kids go the whole way today at 16.

There's a movie, by the way, out now, Juno. You should see Juno.

First of all, it's— I can't believe it's a feature film. Well, it was an independent, but it's very well received. It's clearly anti-abortion, and it's clearly pro-adoption, and it's actually— it's even pro-adulthood. It's almost a mistake.

And there is— a kid can see this. I don't know what it's rated, but I, by the way, I don't go by R alone because they now, if somebody smokes, they make it R.

People didn't see Schindler's List because there was nudity, but if If the nudity in Schindler's List was a sexual turn-on, you need therapy.

No, I mean, it was about marching naked Jews to the gas chambers. That's what happened. And that should be seen. That's what they did. And it's not a close-up anyway. But so, R is not enough of a guideline. There are R movies I would want your kids to see, and PG-13 I wouldn't want your kids kids to see. It depends on the movie. But in, in this movie, uh, there is a scene, and there's— it's not at all graphic, it's not at all—

where the girl gets pregnant.

She's a, she's a, I don't know, 15, 16, out of 16 years old, high school girl. I mean, she's a 20-year-old actress, but she plays a 16-year-old.

And, uh, there is a scene where she gets pregnant.

You see nothing, but the beauty of that scene is how loveless and mechanical. It is like anti-erotic, anti-sexual, and that's the way it is for a lot of high school kids today. It's really, it's not erotic. It's another biological thing. You know, one urinates, one defecates, one eats, one fellates. I mean, that's really what it's come to. And only a secular society could have such a great achievement to reduce sex to a non-pleasure.

To, to, uh, now there was some pleasure obviously, but, but it is overwhelmingly more non-pleasurable, certainly afterwards.

Why there are so many girls going to therapists at universities depressed, because while they think they're boys because they've been taught and the age of stupidity inaugurated by my generation, that boys and girls are the same in sexual nature. They're not. Boys can have 50 partners and just go through life dancing. A girl with 50 partners doesn't go through life dancing. And is probably not going to be terribly happy, and it probably reflects, usually, not the most intimate relationship with with her dad. The greatest antidote to girls' promiscuity is a healthy, loving relationship with her father. That's the—

in general, there are always exceptions, but in general, that's—

everybody knows this, secular or religious.

That's why it's so important for a father to love his daughter and reciprocate, and for it to have not a scintilla of sexual overtone even as a joke. It must be a completely de-eroticized place, the house, completely.

And so, uh, that's, that's, you know, what has happened for these kids.

Your point therefore is well taken.

I will just end by telling you it's very hard.

It is very, very hard today.

My parents To be perfectly honest, my parents didn't have to do almost anything to raise good kids.

My brother and I are good kids, and, you know, they were—

obviously there were good ethical rules, there was important emphasis placed on values and on religion, but I, like my parents, was raised by a decent society. Hillary Clinton was right. It does take a village to raise a child. I don't happen to share many of her village's values, but it in fact is correct. Conservatives knocked her title, and they're wrong. Parents never have raised children alone. You can't. I can't.

And we are battling our village now, and this is new.

My father's parents didn't speak English. They were Orthodox Jews from Russia who didn't speak English, who sent their sons and daughters to public school knowing that at public school they would get the identical moral values that they got in their home, a religious Jewish home, not even Christian home, and they knew that in public school their kids would get the same values. What a different world, what an utterly different world we have today. There was no TV in the house.

They would pay a nickel to go, or a dime to go to a movie, and what would they see in the movies?

Look at the movies from when my parents grew up. It was no trick to raise a decent person in that society. Room and board was really all a parent had to give by and large, and not and not abuse the child, obviously.

And the same with my generation, but not us raising our kids.

So whatever I said comes with respect that you would come to hear this, and empathy about how hard the task is. And that's why I'll end like I ended the talk: good luck, my friends. Thank you very much.

This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.

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