Speaking at Iowa State University on Wednesday night, Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro passionately defended the traditional two-parent home comprised of a mother and father when asked for parenting advice, saying, “When it comes to defending our own values, it’s not that I deserve the liberty to raise my family as I see fit, it’s that my system for raising my family is correct, and it should be defended, and it deserves defense on its merits.”
A young man at the Q&A following Shapiro’s speech, titled “American Wokeness Must Be Destroyed,” asked, “I got a little question for all the amazing men and women out in the crowd today who are looking to be parents in the future. Because in a world that is becoming exponentially more and more liberal and woke, how might we go about raising the next generation, especially since we can’t shield them from everything?”
“I mean, this is my chief concern, so as I say, I have three kids, 8, 5 and 2, and they are the only thing I care about in life,” Shapiro replied, joking to the SRO crowd of thousands, “I love you guys, but I care about my kids.”
“And the only thing I care about when it comes to my kids is protecting their innocence and protecting the value system that I wish to transmit to them,” he continued. “That means that I live in a community of like-minded people. I think that is deeply, deeply important.”
“I’m a big fan of the Big Sort,” he said, referring to the idea that Americans would migrate to areas where politically like-minded people live. “I think it’s a really good thing. I think that people who have conservative values should live in areas where people reflect those values and send their kids to schools that reflect those values. That’s why I send my kids to a private Jewish day school. That’s why I’m a big fan of school vouchers. That’s why I think that what Ron DeSantis did in Florida with the Parental Rights in Education Bill is extraordinarily important.”
Then he segued to some advice for parents: “The biggest thing that I would say is actually a piece of advice that my parents gave me, which is always take your kids seriously. If you take your kids seriously from the time that they’re very little and take their concerns seriously, they’ll keep talking to you as you get older.” Shapiro then referred to the possibility of that not happening, which he said “is my great fear.”
“You know, I’m not really in a position to give full parenting advice because my oldest is 8 years old; we’ll see how they turn out when they’re 25,” he admitted. “To the point where they are right now, keeping open communication and also setting very clear rules, and making clear that there are societal roles that are necessary to be filled. I think that human happiness, too often we tie human happiness to various systems of ethics — you have virtue ethics, which is sort of Aristotelian ideals about virtue and the Golden Mean and trying to cultivate in yourself characteristics that make you a better human being. And then you have deontological ethics, which is sort of Kantian ethics — you just apply this rule and this rule, then our kids will be okay.”
“What I really think is that the way you bring up kids is to fulfill certain roles, which means putting responsibility on them very early,” he asserted. “So, for my kids, they take care of each other. For my kids, they go out and do charity events. For my kids, they go to synagogue, and they go on a regular basis. Giving them things to do and teaching them that these roles in life are very important. That the role of mommy, which they see when they see my wife operate in that role every single day, modeling that, is supremely important for my daughters. And the role of father, which is what my son — if you ask my son what he wants to be, it’s the cutest thing in the world, if you ask my son what he wants to be today, he always says a daddy. That is his number one answer.”
“And that’s what all young boys should say,” he declared. “So, bottom line is, you preserve those roles. I think we should be very aggressive in defending these roles, by the way. I think one of the mistakes that the Right makes when it comes to defending values is very often, we speak in terms of liberty, and that’s great when it comes to the government. But when it comes to defending our own values, it’s not that I deserve the liberty to raise my family as I see fit, it’s that my system for raising my family is correct, and it should be defended, and it deserves defense on its merits.”