Latest / The Lila Rose Show / Shia Labeouf Stirs Controversy & Is 9 Kids Too Many? | LIVE

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Shia Labeouf Stirs Controversy & Is 9 Kids Too Many? | LIVE · The Lila Rose Show

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One of my favorite childhood actors, Shia La Boeuf, went
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viral in the last few days for getting in a fight on the
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streets of New Orleans. But what he said in an interview
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right afterwards, I think there's a lot of takeaways for
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all of us. Also breaking news, Pope Leo
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came out today against looks Maxing.
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The Vatican has actually put out a document that includes
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commentary about the dangers, the perils of plastic surgery.
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I think that this is actually really valuable and important.
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I'm going to talk about that. And then one of my favorite
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influencers, Hannah Neilman, also known as Ballerina Farms,
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just announced that she is pregnant with their 9th baby.
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And I think this opens up an entire can of worms and cultural
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commentary that we're seeing on all different sides right now
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about big families. Welcome.
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Back to the Lila Rose show. All right, so a lot of you have
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seen these clips. If you are clipped in and
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looking at social media or if you're off of social media for
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Lent, I'm very proud of you. Keep it up.
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Or if you're like lowering your social media consumption, that
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is really good. By the way, how's everyone's
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Lent going? My Lent has been tough.
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I'm trying to do no phones in our bedroom in the morning and
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at night and also working to make sure I pray every single
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day and make that special time for God.
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It has been more of a temptation.
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I feel that even before Lent. That's how it happens.
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But if you fell off the Lent wagon bandwagon, get back on it.
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It is never too late to start again.
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But I can look at my phone and my computer, obviously during
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work day. That's what I'm doing here now
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and. Shia la boeuf.
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Was my favorite childhood actor this is even Stevens let's pull
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up a picture of this show this is one of the few shows I
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watched growing up. So I'm one of eight kids we
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didn't really have TV except when there was an election
1:48
cycle. My mom would sign up for the
1:50
network television so she could watch like the political
1:52
debates. And that's when we would watch
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cartoons like on, you know, the afternoons or the weekends.
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This even Stevens show was my favorite show.
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So I've always liked following Shea LaBeouf actually would pray
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for him. And I was so delighted when I
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found out that he had become Catholic and had had this big,
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beautiful conversion. He was on Bishop Barron's show
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and had this beautiful conversation with Bishop Barron,
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who I admire about his faith. All of this was really
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beautiful. So I was sad to see news
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circulating in the last week about how in New Orleans, famous
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French Quarter during the city's annual Mardi Gras celebrations,
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actor Shia LaBeouf was arrested and charged with two counts of
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battery. This happened obviously, during
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Mardi Gras, so before Lent started.
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But then he was taken into custody and then he was out on
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bail. And then he gave a interview, an
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interview with a local reporter. And I want to watch some clips
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from it now. It's interesting that the media
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really caught fire around the story because of what Shia said
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in the interview about people who maybe identify as homosexual
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or have same sex attraction. He said in the interview that he
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basically has these very negative views of people who are
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gay, that's he called them homosexuals.
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We're going to watch this clip. This is the one that again is
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getting all the criticism. He had been taken into custody
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after he had attacked somebody, according to reports, and and
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was allegedly shouting homophobic, homophobic slurs.
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So here is a little clip of what he said in this interview about
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that. Let's take a listen.
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But I'll be honest with you, big gay people are scary to me.
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What do you mean? When I'm like standing by myself
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and three gay dudes are next to me touching my leg, I get
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scared. I'm sorry, if that's homophobic
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then I then I'm that. So he goes on to say like, oh,
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my lawyer though, says that, you know, I need to be careful what
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I say. And then he says something about
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how he's a Christian and that he believes what's in the Bible and
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that God says no to homosexuality.
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Now, obviously, if this is just pure homophobia in that you have
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deep seated hatred towards somebody because they seem to be
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same sex attracted or even they're acting out on same sex
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attraction, but you have a special hatred for them that is
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obviously antithetical to our faith.
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We love everybody. We can judge the action, but we
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never judge the sinner's heart. That's not for us to do.
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And we can call moral wrongs morally wrong, of course, and
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call evil evil, but we should never have hatred toward
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individual people. And that's why, you know,
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obviously there's a neat media narrative that oh, people who
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are LGBTQ or whatever, they get all this extra hate, etcetera.
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But there's there's something else going on here, which
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there's been a lot of Internet commentary about this, that it
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appears that this whole story is not out here yet.
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We don't know exactly what happened except that it seems
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like Shia is indicating that he was having some sort of an
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encounter with people that he believed were homosexual and he
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felt uncomfortable and then he lashed out.
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Now, it's obviously never OK to lash out, especially if it's not
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in some form of self-defense. It's just pure lashing out.
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But what I thought was the most compelling about this interview,
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setting that aside, it's very clear as Christians what we're
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called to believe and how we're called to behave towards all
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people with love, with charity, and never to have special hatred
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or any hatred for any person, regardless of how they identify
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or their behaviors. But this interview was actually
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very, I I thought it showed a tremendous amount of humility
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from Shia, even though he seems to be in a broken state.
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Obviously he's just been out on bail for potentially attacking.
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Somebody which? Which is not OK.
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But let's take a look at this clip, which is I think something
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that is actually instructive, I believe for me and for really
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everybody listening to this live, live right now.
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Let's take a listen to something else he said to this
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interviewer. Again, he's in this pretty raw
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state. He's just gotten out on bail.
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Let's take a listen. What?
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Would you say to Jesus if you could meet him?
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I want to say shit. Really.
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But I'll kiss God, kiss so much, kiss, kiss me.
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Don't say nothing. So here Shia is being asked what
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do you what would you say to Jesus?
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Basically he's bringing up Shias faith and he said I wouldn't say
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anything, I would just kiss his feet.
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And I think that this is the posture of all of us as sinners.
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And again, I'm not saying all sin is equal, all sinners are
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behaving the same. That's not the case.
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What I'm saying here is it moved me because it made me imagine as
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this interviewer was kind of getting Shia to imagine what
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would I do if I had the opportunity to meet Jesus face
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to face. And I believe I see Jesus face
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to face when I go to Holy Mass and I get to receive Holy
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Communion. Like that's Jesus's body, blood,
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soul and divinity. So that's incredibly intimate
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with our Lord. But I'm thinking about that day,
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I hope one day and I'm in heaven and I get to meet our Lord in
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that way or at judgment. I get to see our Lord.
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What would I do? I would just say have mercy on
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me. And I would like Shia saying
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just want to kiss him and kiss his feet.
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And, you know, we haven't, we have this thing, I think in our
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culture to idolize people or to see people as the worst of the
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worst. We want people to either be
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perfect or we want them to be all bad.
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And this is especially tempting when it comes to media and
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influencers, actors, you know, podcasters, people that are
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politicians, people that are these larger than life figures
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that we've never maybe met in person person.
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But we see them online or we see them in videos or we see them
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give speeches or we see them on podcasts or in movies.
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And we want them to either be somebody that just has nothing
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good to say and they're all wrong.
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And we reject what they who they are and what they believe, or
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they're just amazing and we love them and that we're the biggest
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fan ever, right? And the reality is it's usually
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a lot more complicated than that in that these are people that
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are struggling. And particularly in Shia's case,
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and he's been very public about this.
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He's had in his history a lot of challenges, even abusive
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behavior, alcoholism, which seems to be linked to this
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latest incident where he was potentially drunk under the
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influence. He was having a relapse from
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being sober. He talked about.
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Sobriety, I think with Bishop Baron and he's struggling and so
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I think some people who may be Catholics or Christians are
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like, OK, well, he was supposed to be converted and like baked
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and done and not be involved in anything terrible and bad.
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And that's true. I mean, we are called to a high
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standard as Christians 100%. But the reality is conversion
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for many people, especially if there's other issues, traumas,
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addictions, behavioral issues and long lasting bad habits can
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be a journey. And so what's the right view of
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all this? I think it's to take what is
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good, reject what is bad in terms of the modeling of
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behaviors that we can look to and recognize that conversions
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can be messy. And we should refrain from
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idolizing people who convert or putting them on a pedestal and
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saying now they're our champion so quickly.
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We should give them time to bake, give them time to develop
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new habits and a new life of grace.
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I think about Saint Augustine, this is a beautiful image here
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of if we can pull up Augustine out, I think about Saint
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Augustine and this is a beautiful image of him and he's
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praying in the garden. And you know, Saint Augustine's
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Confessions as a spiritual classic and masterpiece and he's
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the has this famous quote from Saint Augustine, grant me
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chastity and continents, but not yet.
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You've probably heard this quote Grant me chastity and
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continents, but not yet. The message here is I know
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what's right. I want to even.
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There's a part of me that desires what is good, but
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there's a part of me that's warring against it.
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And I don't want to do it because it's hard and I have to
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give up pleasures or habits that I am so bound up in.
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And he had a wild youth, Saint Augustine.
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Full of drunkenness and lust, he struggled with his faith.
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His mother, remember Saint Monica was praying for him
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faithfully. That was her job was pray, pray,
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pray, pray for him. And his conversion ended up
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happening in phases, beginning with dialogues with St.
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Ambrose, shout out to Saint Ambrose, amazing Church Father,
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and culminating in a moment. Where God whispered to him in
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the garden and he cried and he hit his rock bottom and then he
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ended up finally being baptized and then his conversion really
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commenced. So the we there is an ethical
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problem for us, for anyone I believe and certainly us as
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Christians, to make an idol of new converts and to rush to
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platform them as some sort of example.
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We can still engage them and have them tell their stories
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maybe, but we should be wary of putting this pressure on them
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that they are now the example to the rest of the world of how we
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should be. And I think we also have an
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ethical problem. If someone's in a very
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vulnerable state that is unresolved, like Shia here,
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having a, you know, relapse after addiction to alcoholism
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and coming out of jail to having them be interviewed in that
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tender state. Now, I get the interest of the
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interviewer to want to do that, but it makes me think about
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Kanye West and how he would go on these bipolar episodes,
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right? He has bipolar.
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He's been public about that and he would have these.
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Public. Rants and rages where he would
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say just terrible things. He would be interviewed and just
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kind of like say things that later on he would apologize for.
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And I do think it's the responsibility of an
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interviewer. And I take this seriously and I
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want to make sure I do a good job of this.
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I'm sure I'll make mistakes, but I want to try to do a good job
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that when you're having someone in your seat and you're
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interviewing them, that they are somebody that is not in such a
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vulnerable position that they would regret what they would say
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later on because they were like under the influence, God forbid,
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or they're having some sort of breakdown or episode, you know,
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mental health episode. So warning message for us for
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how to view public conversion, how to embrace people who want
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to become people of faith or who already are on their way, but
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then to treat it with a respect and really a privacy so that.
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They are not thrown up on a pedestal where they can't.
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There to stay, I mean, how can anyone stay on a little
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pedestal, especially when you're still finding your knees, right?
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So let's pray for Shia and thank you Shia for being such a fun
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actor. And I'm so happy for your faith
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and I'm going to pray for you and I'm going to pray for the
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other people involved in this incident.
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And we should all pray for each other.
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That's our job as Christians is to pray for one another and love
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one another. All right, before we move on to
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Hannah Neilman, one of my favorite influencers and this
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crazy discourse happening right now about big families.
12:49
Are big families good? How do we know that they are
12:52
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Lila for free months today. Is it possible to give adequate
14:42
love, care and attention to seven kids?
14:46
Eight kids? How about 9 kids?
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This is the question a lot of people are asking about Hannah
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Neilman, who is a beautiful young influencer.
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She's the founder with her husband of Ballerina Farms.
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You may have seen it. It's this huge brand online and
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she recently announced that she's pregnant with baby #9
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Here's a little video that's so sweet where she talks about
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this. Let's take a listen.
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Date night. We didn't get a picture on date
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night. OK.
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She's not so much talking about it.
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So she's showing, I should say she's showing that she's very
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pregnant. I think she's probably 8 or 9.
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She might be 8 or 9 months pregnant here.
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So in her third trimester, and she announced this in a viral ad
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that was promoting Ballerina Farms, her brand.
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But she's walking, watching ballerinas dance, and she is
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showing her stomach, you know, announcing basically, yes, I'm
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pregnant now. I believe Hannah is in her early
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30s. She's a young mom.
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I don't even know that she's 31 yet.
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Actually. Chat, let me know how old Hannah
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Neilman is. Someone can Google that.
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It's either early 30s or she just turned 30.
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She's a very young mom, and she's already on her ninth
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child. Now the responses to this have
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been wild. There has been some celebration
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of Hannahs new baby. There has also been a lot of
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backlash about Hannahs new baby. Here is an example of that
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backlash. Let's pull this up.
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This was a tweet that went viral.
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This is from a woman named Rebecca Reed.
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She's a playwright. She says you cannot give nine
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children adequate time, attention and connection.
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You are unquestionably with nine children, spending less time
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with your children than a working parent with two kids.
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By the way, Aunt Hannah is 35. That does make more sense than
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being 30 if you have nine children.
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Even though she did get married very young.
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She's 35 years old. So she's a, she's a someone
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who's been very fruitful. She and her husband and number
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baby #9 is on the way. But Rebecca Reed here is saying
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you cannot give nine children adequate time.
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It's being, it's as if you are a working parent working full time
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and you have just two kids. That's how much attention
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they're going to get. That's going to be their quality
17:02
of life. And we have had on this show
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people like Erica Commissar, who is a therapist, and she's a
17:10
psychoanalyst, and I think she has wonderful things to say
17:13
about the importance of being present with your children.
17:17
She wrote the famous book Being There, The Importance of the
17:19
First three years. And I've noticed her be very
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careful with the advice she gives because she's trying not
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to be discouraging of people or make it seem like it's
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impossible. But when I was talking with her,
17:30
she indicated to me that it is difficult, in her view, to have
17:34
more children. Somehow they're going to be able
17:36
to thrive less. They may have less attention.
17:38
Again, she's not prescribing that for people.
17:40
She's hesitant to do that, understandably so.
17:43
But she was sort of indicating, well, yeah, the ideal would be a
17:45
smaller group of children so you can just and space them out, you
17:48
know, 2-3 years. So you can just give them your
17:50
full. Attention as a mother and I have
17:54
a response to that and there's actually data that backs up my
17:57
response because although there is AI think a good push in
18:03
modern parenting today to be there for your kids, which is
18:06
very important. They are the priority besides
18:09
God and marriage. In my view, for any person who's
18:11
a parent, there is a reality that children don't just need
18:16
mom or dad to sit with them all day and play toys with them.
18:21
Children need a thriving family and community, and siblings can
18:25
be an incredibly important part of that experience of a child's
18:30
childhood and their development. And I think in this sense, it is
18:35
actually a great gift, a generous gift for parents to
18:40
give their other children more siblings.
18:44
In fact, siblings are a secret, I would say, to child
18:48
development, to a thriving and healthy both childhood and adult
18:54
life that most people don't realize in the modern world
18:57
because most people are from families of just one, two or
18:59
three kids. You know, the birth rate in the
19:02
United States, I think, is at 1.6 right now, below replacement
19:07
rate, meaning people are having like a kid and a half.
19:09
That's what Americans have. They have one or two.
19:11
Kids. Europe, it's mostly the same.
19:13
They either have no kids or they have one or two.
19:15
Maybe 3/3 is a lot. It's very rare to see big
19:19
families anymore, and I think that is a huge tragedy.
19:23
Why? Why is it a huge tragedy?
19:25
Well, let's explore this a little bit more.
19:28
The claim is that more kids equal less love, that somehow
19:31
you are a finite amount of love. And therefore, if you have more
19:35
kids, your heart, in a sense, almost shrinks for each child.
19:40
And in that sense, the modern attitude treats families like
19:43
fractions, where you all get a slice and the bigger the
19:48
denominator, the smaller the slice.
19:50
This was a very interesting little graph.
19:52
This is from Simon Sarris, who has himself a big family, a
19:55
growing family. He's another influencer.
19:57
My husband actually really likes his stuff.
20:00
He's got some beautiful photography of the life that
20:02
they're building. I believe they're in Maine.
20:04
But this is a a little graph. Let's pull this up.
20:08
He says every child you add makes many more connections for
20:11
the entire family. The graph of love is not a bunch
20:14
of arrows pointing only to mom. They will all have a long
20:18
childhood of playing together. And so he shows these, this
20:22
graph of it's not just mom to child and mom to the second
20:25
child, mom to the third child, but it's mom to child number
20:28
one, mom to child #2 now there's a line from child number one to
20:31
child #2 if there's a third child.
20:33
Now they all have their individual relationships with
20:35
each other and how they behave in a group, etcetera, etcetera,
20:37
etcetera. And there is a beautiful
20:41
expanding of love in the household.
20:44
Now this is actually a profoundly profound
20:47
philosophical reality that Holy Scripture tells us about when
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Adam and Eve are given the command in Genesis to be
20:55
fruitful and to multiply. Because you could argue, well,
20:59
why would you be fruitful and multiply when if you have just
21:03
one or two? And if you go beyond that, you
21:06
can just keep the love within a small structure and just have a
21:09
few. Well, the idea is more is good.
21:11
We want more, more is better. We want we want abundance here.
21:15
And the abundance of human beings is directly implied there
21:20
because in order to multiply, it's not multiply until you get
21:23
to 1,000,000 people. That wasn't the command in
21:25
Genesis. Or multiply till you get to 1
21:27
billion people, or multiply till you get to 8 billion people,
21:30
which is roughly where the world is at today.
21:32
It was just multiply. Keep going, guys, keep going.
21:35
You got this. And I see obviously Ballerina
21:39
Farm, Hannah Neilman and her husband taking this seriously.
21:42
That's what they're doing. And they have certainly
21:44
resources. There's not serious health
21:47
conditions that we're aware of. There's no reason why they would
21:49
stop. There's no good reason why they
21:51
would stop that we are aware of. And certainly they don't believe
21:53
so either. Because you could argue, well,
21:55
if there's serious health issues or financial ruin, it could make
22:00
the case for taking a break and using natural plant family
22:03
planning, not contraception, but taking a break and avoiding
22:06
intimacy when the woman is fertile so that you space
22:09
children. There could be grave reasons to
22:12
do that. And some people do that and
22:13
there's good reason for it, but typically speaking, the command
22:17
is be fruitful, multiply. And the reason behind that is
22:20
because love multiplies. Love multiplies and a home
22:25
that's full of souls is a home full of love.
22:27
It's it's full of the opportunity for love.
22:31
This is a study that's really fascinating.
22:34
I want to pull this up next. This is from Let's pull up.
22:39
There's a few things. Well, let me let's pull up this
22:41
one first. Let's pull up this interesting
22:43
tweet from this gentleman. If you've you've got a Harris.
22:48
Yep. So this is a gentleman on X.
22:53
He has some interesting takes, but this is a take that he has.
22:56
And then he's referencing a study I'm going to talk about.
22:58
But he says she's measuring the wrong variable.
23:01
Speaking about Reed, who said that you can't give nine kids I
23:04
get adequate time. Time spent with your kids is not
23:07
what raises them, he claims. The research is clear.
23:10
Judith Rich Harris laid it out decades ago.
23:12
Peer socialization is the dominant force in childhood
23:15
development. Not parental attention, not
23:18
quality time. The peer group does the work.
23:20
Now, I think this is a little extreme.
23:22
I'll explain more in a moment. But there's a there's a truth
23:25
here that is real that we need to return to.
23:29
He goes on. 9 kids create something most modern modern
23:32
families cannot buy a stratified age group under one roof.
23:36
Older siblings teaching younger ones.
23:38
Conflict resolution, social hierarchy, cooperation.
23:41
Kids learning how to negotiate with two, five with people 2-5
23:44
and eight years ahead of them. This is how humans raise
23:47
children for 2000 years. Mixed age groups figuring it out
23:50
together will adults handled adult problems the tribe does
23:53
the heavy lifting nine siblings as a tribe.
23:56
The tribe raises the children. It's always been this way now
23:59
there is social data that proves that in households with their
24:02
being stratified age groups different numbers of children.
24:05
It is actually, actually more. It helps.
24:07
It helps protect against anxiety, It helps to protect
24:12
against mental health challenges.
24:14
We had Noel hearing on the show talking about the gift of big
24:19
families and how actually having, you know, families in
24:24
the home helps the family, helps lots of children them helps the
24:27
family. We had the author of Hannah's
24:31
children here and she did a very beautiful job talking about she
24:36
was actually, excuse me, Noel marrying gave a wonderful
24:40
interview. But Catherine Pakolak, excuse
24:42
me, talked about Hannah's children, her book.
24:45
She interviewed all of these families that had multiple
24:48
children, big families 5 and +5 and more.
24:52
And she found that there was this, this really, it's not been
24:57
studied enough, but this added value of having other people in
25:01
the home to love, to spend time with, to learn from, to grow
25:06
with. And teenagers in these homes
25:09
often were thriving because they had both all of this love and
25:14
family connection. And they also had these
25:16
responsibilities that involved called other human beings, their
25:19
own siblings. And this has been my experience
25:21
as well. When I was when I was born, I
25:28
had two older brothers and then I had five younger siblings, one
25:32
after the next, of course. And I was the oldest, of course,
25:35
of those five kids. And it was an incredible
25:39
childhood to be one of eight kids.
25:42
I'm so grateful to my parents. I am so grateful to my parents
25:46
that they did not stop after me. I can't even imagine my life if
25:50
my parents had stopped at 3 and not had my brother and then my
25:54
other brother, my other brother and then my 2 little sisters.
25:56
Or if they stopped at six because I'm in between 5 boys
26:00
and I never would have had the two sisters that I adore with my
26:03
whole heart and who are two of my best friends.
26:05
I can't even. Imagine that world.
26:07
These were my best friends growing up.
26:09
These were the my playmates. They taught me things my older
26:14
siblings taught me things. I learned from my younger
26:16
siblings. There's also other huge benefits
26:20
of having when you're an older child, of having younger
26:22
siblings, you learn so much. I learned such a comfortability
26:26
with children, how to even help take care of children.
26:30
I think a lot of women today are not prepared for modern
26:32
motherhood because they didn't grow up with little babies.
26:35
There's this viral video going around of a woman, I don't know
26:38
if we have this in the chat here, Harris, or we have this in
26:40
the document. This woman who was handed a baby
26:42
for the first time in her life and she was in shock.
26:46
She didn't know what to make of it or what to do with it.
26:49
And she said, oh, now I want to have a baby.
26:51
I'm so excited because I actually am holding one and
26:54
they're so amazing. If you don't grow up with
26:56
babies, it's hard to imagine what to do with a baby.
27:00
If you don't grow up taking care of babies, it's hard to know how
27:02
to take care of babies. And if you don't grow up with
27:05
other people in the household, it can be harder to learn skills
27:08
like collaboration, how to be generous.
27:14
If life is not always about you, you have to share how to
27:17
communicate well, conflict resolution, and so much more.
27:21
Now, of course, it's possible to have a lot of kids and do
27:24
nothing to parent them or take care of them, and then there's
27:27
chaos in the home. I'm not saying having a lot of
27:30
kids means automatically everything's going to be great.
27:32
The parents have to do the work. They have to help create the
27:34
environment of love and care. You should have faith in the
27:36
family. You should have discipline in
27:38
the family. You should have great education
27:40
in the family. But there's such a rich
27:42
environment that is created in a in a household with a big
27:46
family. And I believe the best gift that
27:49
you can give a child besides a strong marriage and faith is
27:53
another sibling you have built in friendships for life.
27:56
I remember when I went to college, I was 18 years old.
28:01
I had been mostly homeschooled. I did Community College classes
28:05
and we had a classical hybrid school.
28:07
So I did go to school, but not full time.
28:09
And I went to college. I went away to college and I'm
28:12
so I'm from the Bay Area. I went down to Los Angeles and
28:14
went to UCLA. And I remember my freshman year
28:17
experiencing loneliness like I had never, I had never even have
28:21
been lonely in my life. I had never felt lonely in my
28:24
life until I went to college. That just shows how privileged I
28:27
was. Like, that's not like a, you
28:29
know, I'm so strong or I'm so special.
28:31
It's more like I, I was really privileged because I grew up
28:35
with so many people around me who became my best friends, my
28:38
siblings. And so I never had that
28:40
experience of being lonely, which is what I felt freshman
28:42
year. And so I share that because I
28:47
hope that if someone is considering right now you're
28:50
married and you're considering, should we be open to life?
28:53
Should we be open to one more? I hope your answer is just yes.
28:57
I hope it's yes because you can never regret another life.
29:02
I think the only regret you can have is not being open to that
29:05
other life. And it's funny, my mom, you
29:08
know, sometimes to this day she'll say, I wish we'd had
29:09
another. I wish we'd had more.
29:12
She wasn't able to have more because she had menopause.
29:15
She wasn't able to have more kids obviously after she had had
29:18
the 8, but she was expressing just how beautiful it was that
29:22
they had the children that they were blessed with and how she
29:25
wished she could even have more in a big family.
29:28
You learn that life is about love and being loved, but that
29:32
life isn't always about you and what you want.
29:34
That you have to learn to love other people and be loved by
29:37
them. And again, this is not to throw
29:39
shade on smaller families. There's a lot of beautiful
29:42
families that are smaller. That's all that God gives us.
29:45
One or two kids. Some families, they're not
29:47
blessed with any kids yet and they may be struggling with
29:50
that. You know that burden of
29:52
infertility. God is going to meet you.
29:54
Whatever your family sighs, God will meet you.
29:57
God has a plan for you. But let's say yes to life and
30:01
new life because kids are always a blessing.
30:04
They are such a blessing. There's also some studies.
30:07
I, I want to do one more study here.
30:09
Let's pull this up. Harris, this is from the
30:12
Institute for Family Studies. And this says a new working
30:17
paper by three economists contained grim news for the
30:20
parents of many kids gaining, sibling gaining.
30:23
This is the this is the negative here.
30:26
This is the claim that there is the negative.
30:28
It says that it can modestly reduce a child's educational
30:32
attainment but boost their social skills is what this is
30:36
claiming. Now, again, there's context here
30:38
for how is the education being done.
30:40
But this is like the best evidence that can be out there
30:43
against. Do these kids actually fare
30:44
worse? But it's saying, well, it may
30:47
modestly reduce the children's the child's educational
30:50
attainment. It will boost their social
30:53
skills. And it says that married people.
30:56
So the headline here looks really scary.
30:58
It's saying that, you know, bad news for kids with large
31:01
families or kids with large families.
31:02
There's pros and cons. The greatest con here is it may
31:05
modestly reduce the child's educational attainment, but it
31:08
boosts their social skills. Married people who grew up with
31:11
more siblings are less likely to divorce.
31:13
The minor negative effects of each additional child is
31:15
mitigated by whether or not the parents are married.
31:18
And according to the science, the quality of sibling
31:21
relationships matter. Parents must cultivate a
31:24
positive environment at home for the good effects of the siblings
31:27
to be true. So again, it's not like just
31:29
have kids and everything's going to work out.
31:31
You need to have kids, be intentional, create a household
31:34
of love and a household of good habits and a household of faith
31:38
and make sure that each child is getting what they need education
31:42
wise. I think because I was
31:44
homeschooled, my parents were so clued in on what I was doing for
31:49
school and I think that made a big difference for me and I feel
31:53
very blessed by that. So if you're in a larger family
31:55
that's homeschooling, there's actually, I would say even more
31:58
time to focus on those kids, especially if you have tutors or
32:02
a Co-op or other resources to help grow the family, to help
32:07
help with the family's education and how the family is going to
32:10
make sure all the kids needs are met.
32:12
So if you're going to home school in a big family, I think
32:16
having the help having help is key.
32:19
I don't think parents are supposed to do it on their own.
32:22
I don't think that it's healthy for them to try to go it fully
32:25
alone. Having a Co-op, having classes
32:28
or other tutors or other parents involved is key.
32:31
Bottom line is I'm a huge advocate for big families.
32:34
If you say yes to life and are open to life, God will just give
32:37
what God will give. And one more soul, one more life
32:41
is always, always going to be a blessing.
32:44
All right, before we get to Pope Leo now and some of your
32:47
questions and comments, the chat is going.
32:49
We're going to say thank you to our last sponsor of the episode
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33:34
All right, so Pope Leo has come out today against looks maxing.
33:39
That's kind of what's happening here, which is hilarious and
33:42
also awesome. We actually did an episode on
33:44
this a few weeks ago, if you guys remember, and we talked
33:48
about this huge trend of looks maxing how to look as perfect as
33:51
you possibly can and take advantage of plastic surgery,
33:55
Botox, fillers, whatever it is. And I'm all about, yes, present
33:59
yourself well, invest in taking care of yourself.
34:03
Your body is a temple of God. You should want to dress well,
34:07
dress beautifully. That's all good.
34:10
But taking it to an obsessive level, or in this case, the the
34:13
pro, you know, the the words of warning from Pope Leo are
34:16
against plastic surgery is perhaps a bridge too far.
34:20
Now, to be clear, this is a document coming out of the
34:23
Vatican Theological Commission. So it's been studying what
34:27
happens when we replace God with a world governed by machines.
34:31
And this document is actually talking mostly about
34:34
transhumanism, artificial intelligence and other topics.
34:39
But it has commentary about plastic surgery.
34:42
So let's read what it says on that front.
34:45
It says in a text approved by Pope Leo, a top Vatican
34:49
Commission warned the 1.4 billion Catholics against using
34:53
cosmetic surgery, saying it can lead to the cult of the body.
34:57
Is the language that's being used here.
34:59
By the way, I don't think the translated version is it.
35:02
Is that the Italian? Oh, this is the Google
35:05
Translate. I think the official version is
35:08
an Italian though, right? So we had to Google Translate
35:10
this guys. But anyways, it's saying that
35:13
you had because it just came out this morning.
35:14
It's just this is fresh news for you guys here.
35:16
You heard it first on the show, Coplio says we should be careful
35:22
not to create the cult of the body that we're so obsessed with
35:25
our bodies and how we look. It says, quote, advances in
35:29
cosmetic surgery offer tools that significantly change the
35:34
relationship. With one's corporeality, one's
35:37
our bodily life experience. A widespread cult of the body
35:42
follows, tending toward a frantic search for a perfect
35:46
figure, always fit, young and beautiful.
35:50
The Catholic Church teaches that the human body is made in the
35:52
image of God. And while the church does not
35:55
prohibit cosmetic surgery, it says that Catholics should not
35:59
pursue procedures merely to suit their vanity.
36:03
I think that's such a wonderful thing that the church has done
36:07
today to put this in writing for us through this Commission.
36:11
I think we could have ascertained that this was
36:13
Christian teaching even without this document.
36:16
I mean that if you look at what else the church has said in the
36:18
past and we again, we did a whole live on this.
36:21
But to say specifically that there is this move towards a
36:25
cult of the body today, people are so obsessed with looks
36:28
maxing. It's so, so much of an obsession
36:30
on the superficial that this can be a, an area for people to lose
36:35
heart of their own humanity and the humanity of other people.
36:40
And what does it teach us to do right?
36:41
If it's all about let's look as perfect as we can, then we're
36:44
valuing people who don't. We're valuing people who don't
36:48
look as perfect less. That's what it's doing by
36:51
default. We're valuing people who are
36:54
elderly with wrinkles. If we're like fighting every
36:56
wrinkle constantly Botoxing the face so that there's never a
36:59
wrinkle, we're saying that wrinkles are bad.
37:03
Wrinkles are should not be valued.
37:05
The person who gets wrinkles, there's something negative about
37:07
this right when that's not true. This is a part of growth.
37:12
This is a part of aging. This is a part of growth to of
37:15
the soul to not just look at the physical feature and make a
37:19
judgment to but to look deeper into the soul.
37:22
And that's how we're called to live as Christians.
37:24
So thank you, Pope Leo, for pushing back against looks.
37:27
Maxine, we needed that from you, and I think it's good for us to
37:33
just take a break from vanity sometimes.
37:36
I know that for me, because I'm on this camera all the time.
37:38
We're always doing the show and everything else.
37:41
And I can. There have certainly been times
37:43
in my life where I've been too worried about my imperfections,
37:47
like, oh, I don't like the way this looks.
37:49
I don't like the way that looks. This would look more perfect if
37:51
I did get looks maxed more if I went and got plastic surgery or
37:56
went and got a filter filler, not a filter, a filler or
37:58
whatever they do. Yeah, it could look more maybe
38:02
objectively perfect. But is that what I'm supposed to
38:05
do? Is that is that kind of really
38:07
help people? Oh, she looks even she looks
38:10
perfect. So therefore what?
38:12
Therefore people will listen. There are people that look very
38:16
perfect and unfortunately their souls or the work of their
38:21
hands, the, the, the, the things they're putting on the world are
38:24
not good for the world. I think we need to encourage
38:26
people to look more to the soul. Aesthetics matter.
38:30
Your body matters. Beauty is beautiful and good,
38:33
but beauty is not just what you can see on the surface.
38:37
Beauty is, of course, much more than skin deep.
38:39
Beauty is the soul. That is the ultimate.
38:41
Beauty is the soul. And that is something that we
38:45
can grow on. We can, we can develop through
38:48
our prayer, through our virtue, through loving other people.
38:52
So there you go guys. Let me know what you think about
38:55
that. Are you going to get Botox now?
38:57
Ladies, don't do it. I'll be honest with you if I
39:00
ever do it, but I I don't think we're going to go that route,
39:03
especially after this letter from Pope Leo.
39:06
OK, so before we hit the chat, I need to share one more thing.
39:12
I meant to say this earlier, but I really want you guys to be
39:15
aware of it. We're going to do a whole live
39:17
covering this later, but it's on foster care.
39:21
And let's just pull up the story really quick.
39:22
Harris, do you have it? This is a story that came out of
39:26
LA last week and it matters to me a lot.
39:31
This is LA County Department of Children and Family Services was
39:35
just sued over an infant's brutal death.
39:38
This is a little girl who her mother lost custody, I believe
39:41
it was because of addiction. And you can Scroll down, there's
39:45
a beautiful picture of this Angel.
39:47
And the Los Angeles Social Services gave this girl to her
39:54
biological father who had just gotten out of prison and who was
39:58
with a woman who was he was living with, who was also out of
40:02
prison. After being convicted of child
40:04
abuse and they gave this innocent little 11 month old
40:08
girl who was smiling and happy and healthy and she ended up
40:12
being tortured to death by this couple now, and this was after
40:16
prolonged abuse. And this is here, this is in
40:19
Long Beach, not far from where we are right now.
40:21
We're in Orange County area. And so now there is a lawsuit
40:26
against the Los Angeles Social Services, the LA Department of
40:29
Children and Family Services, DCFS, because they completely
40:34
were derelict in calling balls and strikes on who was going to
40:38
have custody of this precious little girl named Tilly.
40:43
Tilly was beautiful and healthy. And when her mother lost custody
40:48
and her biological father took on custody, all the signs were
40:52
there for why this was a bad idea.
40:54
All the signs were there. There was actually a safe
40:56
grandparent that was willing to take Tilly.
40:59
I'll take care of her. And no, they give them to the
41:01
biological father. And I got to tell you guys, I
41:09
have heard the most horrible stories in the last several
41:13
weeks because I've just felt inspired to look into foster
41:15
care. And the horrible stories aren't
41:18
about foster care per SE, because there are some amazing
41:22
foster families. It's about how social workers
41:25
and judges are calling balls and strikes about children and their
41:30
welfare, because right now our system is focused on family
41:34
reunification first and sometimes at the without the
41:39
child's best interest at heart. And those are the kinds of
41:43
horror stories I'm hearing where parents that shouldn't have
41:47
custody because of abuse or other severe situations, or even
41:52
relatives that shouldn't have custody because of criminal
41:55
convictions, things like this are being given custody in the
41:59
name of family unity. Now, families should be
42:03
together. I am a big believer that we
42:05
should fight for families. We should fight for parents to
42:08
be healthier so they can raise their kids.
42:10
I think that is the ideal. But if there are clear warning
42:13
signs, the child's needs need to come first.
42:17
And that's sometimes what is being completely ignored and was
42:20
severely ignored. The child's needs, little
42:23
Tilly's needs in this case, coming out of Los Angeles.
42:27
So we're going to be discussing this more in the show in the
42:29
future, but it matters a lot. There are thousands of children
42:32
in foster care, hundreds of thousands across the country.
42:36
And they have 0 voice like unborn babies, they have 0
42:38
voice. And there is very little
42:41
advocacy that is being done on their behalf because it's such a
42:45
tough world where there's not really many incentives for
42:49
people to try to help these kids.
42:51
But there are amazing families that are helping these children.
42:53
I, I know many of them and these families need more of our
42:57
support as well as we should be raising awareness about the
43:03
defects in our foster care system, especially among the
43:08
bureaucracies that are supposed to be protecting these kids.
43:12
So if you have a foster care story, I put out this on X
43:16
recently and I got just hundreds of responses from you guys.
43:19
I want to hear from you. You can e-mail me at
43:21
lila@gtbmedia.com or of course, you can reach out to
43:26
liveactionthatslila@gtbmedia.com. All right, you guys, let's look
43:31
here at some of these comments from everybody.
43:35
Hi everyone. So we've got a comment here.
43:41
This is from Ocean 229. This is so blown out of
43:44
proportion. This is about Shia La Boeuf, the
43:47
story we talked about earlier. This is so blown out of
43:50
proportion. I have same sex attraction and
43:53
Shia is 150% valid for feeling that way.
43:57
I've been touched by straight women being weird too.
43:59
No one should do that, period. So they're saying that Shia, you
44:04
know, acting out against being touched by a potential
44:07
homosexual man, making him super uncomfortable.
44:11
He should be kind of given a bit of a pass here or we should not
44:14
make such a big deal out of it. Now, obviously, if shy is
44:16
punching the person, that's a problem.
44:18
So that's what's kind of, you know, being contested here.
44:21
But I agree it's normal to be uncomfortable if somebody is
44:25
making an advance on you and especially if they are someone
44:29
of the same sex. But I would say it's also
44:32
uncomfortable if you're married or if you're in a relationship
44:34
as well. I mean, as a married woman, I'm
44:36
certainly uncomfortable if there's somebody that I believe
44:40
is being inappropriate in any way, you know, and I'm very
44:43
careful to get good boundaries to try to avoid those sorts of
44:46
people. And I think that that's
44:47
obviously a good a good thing generally.
44:50
Here's another comment. We have 9 kids.
44:53
We have been listening to people complain and criticize us for
44:57
the last 28 years. But the kids are great.
45:01
Truly God's gifts, obviously with many difficulties in life.
45:05
A huge congratulations to you and your beautiful family.
45:07
Thank you for being generous and saying yes to life.
45:09
And Congrats on your nine beautiful children.
45:13
OK, here's another comment from Casey.
45:16
Do you have any thought on what's happening in the Middle
45:18
East? Yes, I have lots of thoughts.
45:20
I think it's war is hell and we should always pray for peace.
45:26
Hope Leo has been instructing us to pray for peace and urging
45:29
people to stop throwing bombs and instead to try to have peace
45:34
talks. Ultimately, that's always better
45:35
than bombs. I'm not sure fully the
45:40
justification for the acts of aggression against Iran.
45:43
I understand that it's a very, you know, the leadership of Iran
45:47
is not good leadership. Of course, you know, this is not
45:50
a democracy. The Ayatollah Khamenei before
45:54
the one that was just assassinated by the United
45:56
States was, you know, helped, you know, write Islamic manuals.
46:01
And some of the things that he wrote were absolutely sickening
46:04
about how you can molest little girls, how you can abuse
46:07
children. So, like, I, I just think the
46:09
culture, the Islamic culture of Iran is so disgusting towards
46:13
women and children. Does that mean we should be
46:15
bombing Iran? I don't think that that case
46:18
necessarily follows. And I also think that, you know,
46:21
that's not obviously the justification that the Trump
46:23
administration is using. It's not, that's not why they're
46:25
saying we're going to war. So I think we will discuss this
46:28
in a future live. I have a lot of other thoughts,
46:30
but I would always caution restraint, restraint, restraint.
46:34
I think the lives lost already in the Israel Gaza war, it's a
46:38
horrific tragedy. I think that any life lost,
46:41
especially an innocent person, it's a horrific tragedy.
46:43
And any act of aggression intentionally targeting a
46:45
civilian is always wrong. It's a war crime.
46:49
So that's what's tricky in these situations like is, are they
46:51
being targeted? Are they not?
46:53
And I think that we just have to, I mean, I'm not a public,
46:57
I'm not a foreign policy expert, but I would urge all of us at
47:00
minimum we, we should pray and we will be discussing this more
47:03
in the more in the future. OK, another comment here.
47:07
I think you have as many kids as you can physically, mentally,
47:10
emotionally and financially handle.
47:12
For some that is one kid, others that it's 5 plus kids.
47:15
Some people have the gift of managing large groups, others
47:17
don't. I'd push back on that a little
47:19
bit because if I think if we just went with what we think we
47:23
can do, we're always undersell ourselves.
47:27
I think being married is about being open to life.
47:31
It's not like you get married and you're like, I can handle 2,
47:33
so we're going to have two. I think it's about being
47:35
generous with God. And that's certainly within
47:38
reason because again, if you have some severe health issue or
47:41
there's some big financial calamity, but I think generally
47:44
the posture should be trusting God's Providence and being open
47:47
to life. And I think that is how the Holy
47:50
Spirit just works powerfully in marriages and in families.
47:55
All right, another comment here. Hey Lila, thank you for you, for
48:00
all you and your team do I do appreciate your obvious, I
48:04
appreciate your obvious efforts to avoid calmly and attraction
48:08
and give the benefit of the doubt to those who disagree.
48:10
Great work guys. That is so nice.
48:13
Thank you for that comment. We do try to avoid calumny and
48:18
detraction on this show, and if you guys ever see me doing it,
48:22
you can call me out and I will say sorry because it's never
48:26
okay to do that. I take seriously this is a
48:29
platform. This is a media platform that we
48:31
have, that God has given us and that we have built by God's
48:34
grace, and our job is to use it responsibly.
48:38
And that means to use it for the good of other people and to not
48:41
commit sins of speech on this show, like to actually do the
48:45
show and to do the show actively sinning as part of the show with
48:48
my mouth with sins of speech would be totally
48:52
counterproductive. It's like my job is leading me
48:54
to sin then, right? And I'm doing sin on my job.
48:57
And if you guys see me ever do that, call me out and I will
49:00
apologize if I've missed a flaw. There's obviously flaws I have
49:04
outside of this show, and I'm not always the most prudent.
49:07
You know, that's something also a virtue.
49:09
I want to continue to work on my prudence in judging things with
49:13
justice and treating people with both justice and charity.
49:18
But sins of detraction, sins of slander, if you see it on the
49:24
show, you call me out. And if I don't apologize and I
49:27
did commit that sin, you should unsubscribe.
49:30
You should not listen to the show.
49:32
You should not listen to any show where they're committing
49:35
sins of detraction and slander because those are poisonous for
49:37
our hearts, especially for consuming that as a form of
49:41
entertainment. So thank you.
49:43
I've got a great team here too. Our team Harris here and the
49:46
rest of the team on the show is fantastic.
49:49
And they're all sensitive to this as well.
49:51
And this is what we're working on being sensitive about.
49:53
All right, last comment here. All have sinned and fallen
49:57
short. All of us are saved by faith in
50:00
Christ, His grace, and imputed righteousness.
50:03
Good works don't save and bad works don't take your salvation
50:06
either. Well, you will know them by
50:08
their fruit so well. Yes, it's Jesus Christ who
50:12
saves. Our good works are signs of our
50:15
it is grace in our life. And if we're not living out good
50:19
works in our life, then there's a sign of a spiritual deficit
50:22
there. So there's some truth to this,
50:25
but there's more than what is shared here.
50:28
And that's why, yes, your actions, your behavior as a
50:31
Christian 100% does matter. OK, I'll do one more comics.
50:35
This is a good one. There is a huge difference
50:37
between mild improvements to your looks like makeup or nice
50:40
clothes and getting 30 plastic surgeries to look like Barbie.
50:45
100% agree. You can also unsubscribe if I
50:48
start looking like Barbie on this show.
50:50
All right. Thank you guys so much and we
50:52
will see you next time.