Ep 30: Loyalty & Charlie Kirk

If you're a parent looking for sound, solid advice on how to raise your child in an ever-increasing dangerous world, then this podcast is for you. So here's your host, Richard Ramos.

If you take nothing else away from reading this book, please hear me on this. It is the crux, the bottom line, the heart and soul of my POM message. Every parent in America, and likely around the world, must realize that they are in a daily competition, or as some have told me, Richard, it's a daily war, for the heart, mind, and loyalty of their children. Loyalty. That's the issue. If you don't recognize this or remain unaware of it, you're not even in the game. So, Mom and Dad, stepparents, it's time to step up and get in the game, because what's at stake is your child's loyalty. And thus, the real question The challenge you need to focus on is this: Who will win the battle for loyalty? Assuming it will automatically be you is a dangerous mistake. Hello everybody, I'm Richard Ramos and welcome to the Parent Whisperer podcast. You know, when I recorded last week, it was right after Charlie Kirk had been shot. And I wasn't sure at the time of— it was so fresh, so shocking that I found out, like everybody else did, that he had been shot. At that time, I was hoping maybe there was hope that he would survive it. But tragically, as we all know, he didn't. So I didn't know at the time whether he was going to live or not, and I thought about maybe I should say something, but I decided not to, and I just went ahead and did, uh, just a regular episode. But today's not going to be a regular episode because I just feel remiss if I Don't say something. Don't share my heart, like so many people have done. I did share a post on Facebook, but my post was from a parent perspective. That's what I felt was important to speak to. How do you talk to your kids about stuff like this? Because it's all over social media. I mean. Probably still even the actual video of him getting shot and killed. It's awful. So it's this is something that everybody around the world is aware of what happened. It was a planned assassination, and you know there's a lot to say, but and there's a lot to say, and then what do you say? But again. A couple of things. The first one is I wanted to give parents just a little guidance about what do you say to your kids. And I don't have it in front of me right now, and I'm not quoting it verbatim, but basically what I was saying was this is a time to pause and think about what happened here and not make a point. And everybody rushing to politicize this thing on the right, on the left, blaming all of that stuff. It's not time for that. Maybe now a lot of information is coming out, but at the time, a human being—that's the main thing—a human being, a good man, a father, a husband. A Christian was assassinated. Everything else is beside the point. Yeah, he may maybe he said some things that you don't like. Maybe he took a stand that you don't like. But isn't that what America is about? That we have a First Amendment right to speak our mind, and that's what he did. I can't condemn because I didn't— I only knew of Charlie Kirk. I never really knew about it, really what he did. I kind of knew what he did, but I never followed him. I never listened to him. I never went to an event of his. I just knew of him, that he was a guy on college campuses debating college students. That's about all I knew. And I knew he— I know he's a Republican. I know he's a Christian. I knew that. But it wasn't time for all of that. And if our kids are asking us, hey, what about that? Or look what happened, or what do you think? Or, you know, if they're hearing other people— and that is really my point— they're reading and hearing all this ugliness. And, and I'm sure it's still happening, all the ugly things that came out and people cheering and celebrating. He got what he deserved and saying all this kind of stuff simply because he believed something other than what they believe. And that's just wrong. It's ugly. And is that the kind of society we want to raise children to become? Full of hate? An intolerance for people who are different than they are, don't look like us, don't think like us, don't talk like us. They have different opinion, different perspective, different worldview. And so what? It's okay to kill them? So that was one thing I was trying to give some guidance that this is a time to choose dignity, not division. This is the time to Have empathy for a wife and children that have lost their father in a horrible way. This is a time to think of the humanity of this. Forget about the politics; that's gonna go on anyway. So that's number one: helping our kids have a correct understanding and the hurt, the pain, the wrong. Act that it was to take somebody's life because you don't like them or agree with them. But the second thing I want to emphasize here is the issue of loyalty, because when these things happen, and because of the work that I've been doing, and my whole point of Parents on a Mission is again, who is going to win the loyalty of your child's heart? Because this young man And as more stuff comes out of his life about his family that he was raised in— again, I don't want to speak out of turn. I don't know his parents, and I've heard some things about who they are, but just the fact that the father turned him in, that tells me something right there of the character. Imagine the father learning that it was his son that assassinated this other young man and then turning him in. So something went wrong there, that he didn't win the loyalty of his son's heart, I would say, because that does not seem to be the kind of parents that he had that was raising him to be full of hatred and things like that. See, and what's happening in society today, and especially through the social media and social media influencers, as they're called, they're targeting your child's heart. You got to know that the movies, the music, the magazines, the media is targeting your child's heart, and they're targeting their heart away from you, away from our family values, away from our authority. We're being undermined in this country, whether it's through the The schools, whether it's through the courts, whether it's through the universities, whether it's through politics and government. You gotta wake up, mom and dad. It's about the winning the loyalty of our children's hearts so that they embrace our faith, embrace our values, embrace our love for people and our service and kindness to people, especially people that are less fortunate than we are. So let me read a little bit more. What I read to you at the beginning is out of my book in the 15th chapter, the last chapter of the book, How Stepparents Win Loyalty: Leading Your Blended Family to Success. Here's another excerpt from that, from my book. The deliberate undermining of parental authority in many public schools today is almost unbelievable. The fact that elected school board members, teachers, and even some judges are actively restricting Parents' rights to be involved in their children's education and curriculum is deeply concerning. One of the most troubling and recent policies is the push to encourage children to keep secrets from their parents about life-altering issues they are facing. This not only erodes trust within families but also places children in vulnerable positions without the guidance and support they need most. The excuse and rationale from the school is that this is being done for the sake of the child, to protect them from the harm that will come if their parents are told about their personal struggles with something as important as gender identity. What an insult! The audacity of the school to keep parents in the dark about such a major and life-challenging issue. But this, amongst other things parents are outraged about, is what is taking place in our day and age of what public education has become. Mom and Dad, whoever you are listening to this podcast, you got to get in the game. We cannot take the loyalty of our children for granted. Think about it. It's a choice. You know, this is not a great example, but just given some of my background, loyalty—it's like joining a gang. Or look at pledging allegiance. Remember that? Remember the Pledge of Allegiance? What were we doing? We were pledging. We were being taught to pledge our allegiance with our hand over our heart. To the flag and to the United States of America. Well, and that's a good thing, but it's the same thing when you're pledging loyalty to a group, to a gang, to drugs, to another person, whatever it is. You're making a choice. You're making a decision. And how do we come to those decisions? Well, pledging loyalty, for example, when you're getting married, you know, those kind of pledges of loyalty are good, or to a team, or to your family, or to to some good cause, but there's also pledging of loyalty to negative lifestyles and things that are not a good cause. And what I'm trying to get across, my point is there's a battle out there for the loyalty of the heart, of the mind, and the loyalty of your children, because our choices are based on our heart, our thoughts, and our mind. In our thoughts, the thoughts that we have in our mind, the thoughts that we have in our heart, and then we choose, we make a decision, we exercise our free will to give ourself away. That's just a normal part of life. But what I'm saying to you is this is purposely happening to children are being targeted to be influenced away from parental authority. And this is just one example— this tragic assassination that took place last week to Charlie Kirk. That's just one example. Something went wrong somewhere, and I've studied Many of these— this wasn't a mass shooter, but many of the mass shooters, the ones who go show up on school campuses or at a post office or at a university or anywhere, whether it's a crowd in Las Vegas— I mean, there's been so many of these just mass shooters. And I remember it kind of all started back with Columbine High School in Colorado. And when you study the lives of all these different people, because as time goes on, things start coming out about who they were. They start researching their life and their diaries and their posts. And these days it's the, you know, their media posts and their friends and all of these kinds of things. And I'm just going to say it this way: in my opinion, something went wrong in the home. Whether it's biological parents or stepparents, something went wrong. And this is why— one of the reasons I wrote my book, the one I'm reading out of, The Art of Stepparenting: How to Blend Families Without Tearing Them Apart, is because a lot of this stuff happens with kids who are abused in stepfamilies. I'm sorry, that's kind of harsh to say, but that's true. The numbers bear it out. And again, I'm not— and Parents on a Mission, we're not blaming parents for everything, but we are naming you as the number one asset in the life of your child, of your children. You are the number one asset. And when we don't take that serious and we take it for granted and we don't invest the time And the relationship and the connection. And as I teach in Parents on a Mission, that starts in the womb, and it's got to continue once the baby's out of the womb and all through the rest of those, especially those first 5 years and then those first 12 years are— the research shows are the crucial time for connection and assuring children of their self-worth. Their emotional stability, their emotional security, all of those things. And also, studies show by other researchers that have interviewed and talked to these criminals and people that commit these kinds of acts, there's always 3 core things, 3 main things that show up in every case. In their childhood. One, two, or all three. Neglect, especially in the early years, abandonment, and abuse, whether it's sexual abuse, physical abuse, or verbal abuse. Neglect, abandonment, and abuse. So, Although this is a sad event, what took place, what can we learn? And that's what I've been trying to do for all these years is look at the tragedy, look at the sad things that happen with children and families, and trying to— what is the safety net? What is the answer? Basically, what is the solution? Well, there's a lot of things we could say, and there's a lot of good people doing a lot of good work to try to prevent these kinds of things from happening. My battlefield is the home. I believe that is the root of the issue for good and bad. It's just like a plant. If the plant is planted in— if a seed is planted in healthy soil, And watered and cultivated, those roots are going to grow deep and they're going to grow strong. And that flower, that tree, whatever it is, is going to grow to its full potential and fruition. Just like a child, a human being, from the moment they're conceived and the mother's taking care of herself, and then the baby's born and comes out of the womb, you're planting Those seeds, you're nurturing and raising that beautiful soul that's going to be healthy and happy and whole. That's our job, Mom and Dad. And I just want to encourage you Right, Dad. to make our children our priority, to be a hero to them, To show up in their crisis or hard times, to be accountable to them, to be authentic with them, and to use our authority as a parent in a proper way. So, in light of what happened, I just. Encourage you, mom and dad. We gotta win the heart, not demand it. Win it. We gotta earn the loyalty of our children, not demand it. Earn it. I'm Richard Ramos. You've been listening to the Parent Whisperer podcast. Thank you for listening. Please visit my website. richardrramos.com for more resources. And always remember, Parents on a Mission is not for bad parents. It's for good parents who want to get better. See you next time.

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