Shifting Tides in Schooling, Parental Sacrifice, and the Push for Change

Navigating the complex currents of school voucher systems, we're joined by Dr. Good, who, alongside Josh Warmbrodt and Brandon Ricks, sheds light on how these policies are shaping the educational opportunities for children of color and those with special needs. Our journey begins with a casual chat about the festive season, swiftly moving into the heart of educational reform debates. We'll uncover the realities behind voucher programs—unpacking ideologies, policies, and the real-world implications for communities seeking the best for their kids.

The quest for the ideal education takes us through the experiences of parents wrestling with public schooling options. We reveal the lengths to which some families will go—charter and magnet schools, homeschooling, co-ops—to find that resonant learning environment. You'll hear firsthand from parents who've made significant sacrifices, dedicating time and resources for their children's future. The episode is not just a discussion but a tribute to these parents' unwavering commitment and the diverse educational paths they forge.

As we peer through the lens of time, comparing the cultural and economic landscapes of 1980 with 2020, you'll grasp the seismic generational shifts affecting family dynamics today. The discussion traverses the financial pressures, the digital influx shaping young minds, and the challenges in maintaining discipline within educational environments. With a keen eye on the present and a nod to the past, we explore the daunting task of raising children against a backdrop of societal change, seeking solutions for an education system in dire need of innovation and adaptability.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello and welcome to our podcast series, the Father Factor Podcast. I'm your host, byron Ricks, and joining me is my co-host and good friend, josh Wombrock. The objective is to give a voice to fathers who are not able to be with their kids, mothers who are raising kids without fathers, and children who, unfortunately, are growing up without fathers in their lives.

Speaker 3: 0:25

It take more than names to be a man oh yeah. It take more than sex to be a dad oh yeah. It take more than good to be the bad oh yeah, it take more.

Speaker 1: 0:42

It take more, more, more, more and welcome back to the Father Factor. I'm Byron Ricks. My co-host today is Josh. Wombrock and writing shotgun guest.

Speaker 5: 0:53

Brandy Ricks.

Speaker 1: 0:54

Brandy Ricks. Okay, we are not going to waste much time today. We are getting close to the holidays, close to the holidays as they come. Oh, I got to ask this question, gentlemen are you have gifts in line for your wives, or what?

Speaker 5: 1:11

Yes, for what?

Speaker 1: 1:12

Christmas coming up, man it is October man, christmas, have you not been to Costco?

Speaker 5: 1:20

Man.

Speaker 1: 1:21

I what do you see? It's October, it's you see Christmas tree, all right.

Speaker 5: 1:24

I don't subscribe to that foolishness it is October.

Speaker 1: 1:26

We have to start thinking now about what we are going to get for our wives.

Speaker 5: 1:30

I can't be programmed by the system, sir. Oh, there you go programmed by the system.

Speaker 1: 1:35

Okay, speaking of the system and programming, Dr Good has come back with us and if you listened last show, we were talking about school vouchers. It began to get a little deep and we want to continue that. We left off with Nicholas J Fuentes, who is a white supremacist, and his role in the voucher program, and the politicians he's met with, and Brandon had a question about the reasoning for this. What's behind it? We know the vouchers are, the legislation is out there, but what caused it? The legislation, who caused it? Et cetera, et cetera. So with that, without further ado, Dr Good, how are you today?

Speaker 2: 2:20

I'm fine, thank you.

Speaker 1: 2:21

Well, welcome back, thanks for bringing me back.

Speaker 1: 2:23

Welcome back. Thank you, not a problem, I always love to have you back. And your last show, as I said, we talked about you had a great monologue on the importance of fathers being raised in the home with their boys and, as I said, when I put that clip out there, it just got a lot of clips, a lot of feedback, a lot of hits. So you hit the nail right on the head there. But what I'm going to do here is I'm going to acquiesce to my co-host, brandon, because he is excited about this particular topic and subject matter and he want to unpack some things with you.

Speaker 5: 3:06

Yeah, absolutely, and I think that it's important just to have these conversations and break down the presuppositions that create action, and we all have fundamental beliefs that we are driven by, and so when we hear these conversations about we got to hurry up and vote for this or that or agree with this or that most people are not spending enough time intellectually kind of diving into their ideological beliefs. And so when you talk about Nick Fuentes, he is an ideologue right, and if he's meeting with individuals within a political space because he's trying to bring something to fruition. Now, apart from Nick Fuentes, there are others that have other beliefs, and I think that it's important for us to talk about those types of beliefs that are circulating throughout our country, that are driving policy, whether it be for school or otherwise. And so the voucher program to me is a manifestation of what's happening in America at large, with the segmentation of the culture and people seeing how to go about living in very different ways, which is what drives people to want to have their children go into a different environment or to be able to choose and dictate what environment their kids go into, and so I think that that's important for us to talk about before we can even get to a point to whether a voucher is a good idea or not.

Speaker 5: 4:41

We don't have enough information about why we should vote in one way or the other, and I don't want to appeal to emotion or sentiment as the reason why I make a decision. If I feel bad about a disabled child not having an opportunity, that's a bad thing and I don't want that to happen. But I don't want my feelings or emotions to be the reason why I make a decision. I think that Dr Good is correct that all children should have an opportunity and education, but also, too, I'm not willing to have my child be exposed necessarily to something that is to their detriment, so that another kid can have an opportunity. So there is a balance in this conversation that we need to have in good faith.

Speaker 1: 5:29

Dr Good.

Speaker 2: 5:32

So I think, brendan, you're right. You made reference in the last show to not all parents are being driven to wanting a wider school environment, and you're right. You have concerned parents of color who are concerned about their neighborhood school enough to, for right now, explore other options like charter schools or private schools or even homeschooling. Right, so you're absolutely right. But what we're seeing in Texas, that is, the drive for charters, to bring charters to Texas, is not being driven by concerned parents. It's being driven by big packs of far right money to fund campaign that campaign funds for Republicans who will vote a certain way, in this case vote for charters, I'm sorry, for vouchers. So I don't want to minimize the fact that you do have very concerned parents who want a better place for their child, not necessarily a Christian environment, but just one that will instruct them better. And as far as the data was concerned, when states did do pilot small voucher programs, especially with kids of color or from poverty, special needs, they did have some success. There wasn't it wasn't huge successes, but there was some higher graduation rates, some higher going on to college rates for those kids who wouldn't have normally been able to afford the private school.

Speaker 2: 7:34

But after 20 years of study and I can give you a couple of professors' names who have been studying this.

Speaker 2: 7:44

What they're seeing is that when states roll out big programs, when they move from the small pilot program into a statewide voucher program, that's when things start breaking down. Also, what they're seeing is, when you see studies that show that voucher programs are successful, they are oftentimes funded by those people who wanted vouchers in the first place, so the data is biased. Again, I can give you names. Dr Joshua Cohen. He's a professor of educational policy in Michigan State University. He wrote an article about the fact that he's been studying voucher program for 20 years and he used to be for them. He's not for them anymore because after studying them for 20 years and seeing the lack of impact that it's had and oftentimes to a detrimental point on kids, he is no longer for vouchers. Matter of fact, he has shown studies where kids of color and kids from poverty, when they go back to their homeschool from a private setting, actually do better in their public ed setting because they're more comfortable and they feel seen there, where they don't feel seen in a private school setting.

Speaker 5: 9:09

Okay. So then, the question that I have for you, then, is that let's just say that we scrap the voucher program. The problem of public schools still exists, and funding to those schools doesn't necessarily solve all of those problems that some parents are having with public schools. The education and you mentioned a word on the last episode. You talked about the acronym, you talked about CRT. You talked about quote unquote wokeism, whatever that is.

Speaker 5: 9:49

That's been hijacked. How we use it is not even what it was meant to be. It was a term that was created by African Americans to talk about something completely different. That was hijacked by the political sphere, but we won't get into that. But when you look at some of the things that are being taught within public schools, there are parents that have legitimate concerns with the curriculum and also the culture that is being espoused in the public school system. What do you say to those parents that say we need an alternative, because our kids are spending six to seven hours a day in an environment and they're coming home with beliefs and ideas that we do not espouse, and we're spending the rest of the time having to unravel and untie what they're learning in school?

Speaker 2: 10:40

So again, let's say we don't have vouchers and we have parents who have concerns about what's being taught in the curriculum at their child's public school. They still have choices. Right now they can find a charter school that has a mission and vision that aligns more with the parents' belief system. They can also explore schools within the school district of their public ISD. Many ISDs have magnet schools. They have niche schools and a lot of parents don't realize that they could move and transfer their kids within the ISD system, depending on how big it is. There are also choices that there are parents who can take their child, and it happens in Dallas right now. You have kids from Plano and all over who can if there's room at the performance high school in Dallas, the one that's, I believe, off Ross.

Speaker 5: 11:33

Yeah, Bishop Arts.

Speaker 2: 11:34

Can't think of them. Which one?

Speaker 5: 11:35

Bishop Arts.

Speaker 2: 11:38

Yeah, no, not Bishop Arts Further down. They're very famous Performance arts. It belongs to Dallas ISD and if there is room, because I've had a friend whose daughter went from Plano and drove herself down there and she paid a tuition. So Dallas ISD pays, allows tuition kids to pay to go to their school from other school districts.

Speaker 5: 12:00

Booker T, washington's name is school. Yes, booker T.

Speaker 2: 12:03

Yes. So there are choices more choices than maybe parents realize, without needing to go to a voucher system. And again, you've got homeschool co-ops If the kids are old enough. Let's say, parents are working but you've got late middle school to high school kids who are responsible and you are part of a high school co-op. That means that the kids can do independent work at home while the parents are working. And then on the weekends you have parents who are experts in certain areas, hold classroom setting meetings with kids who need help in certain sciences, certain maths and so forth. I mean there are already lots of parent choices out there without having to bring a voucher system that could disrupt and defund our schools.

Speaker 5: 12:52

now, I guess the argument would be that's a lot of work for the parents, right? So let's say, you know Booker T Washington, if I live in Plano, or if I live in the you know northern sector of the city, and I say, okay, well, I want to send my kid to Booker T Washington, which is an art school it's still a DISD school so but now I'm commuting Right, that's more money out of my pocket every day commuting. It's more time. Maybe I could do well with a few thousand dollars extra a year to be able to make that happen.

Speaker 5: 13:22

You know so I guess that's the other side of the coin, is that? You know even the admissions that you mentioned in terms of the whole home school option? That's time. Now I have to be in a certain type of household dynamic to be able to spend time teaching my kids at home or spend time on the weekend, when parents are already pressed for time. You know. So where do you find the time and the resources to be able to take advantage to some of these alternative options outside of the ISD without having to make huge sacrifices of your time or your resources as a parent?

Speaker 2: 13:58

All I can tell you is people are doing it now. They think their kids are worth that time and effort, and that's happening as we speak. There are thousands of homeschool kids enrolled in co-ops all over the country because their parents are finding that it aligns better with their belief system. As far as what their kids are learning every day, I'll say that I had to take my daughter.

Speaker 4: 14:22

I had to take Jelena, you know, to. I put her in the charter school at one point. My son stayed in the public schools, but there was a specific reason why we needed to do that. There were there are issues in that ISD Really the school she was in, being one of the only, I guess, exotic looking girls and developing for STEM. We had some issues and we got just timely opportunity for her to be able to go over to Westlake Academy, which is a charter school, and I'm telling you it was the most inconvenient, frustrating thing in the world for me, because I'm having to start my day differently to get her there, because I don't do buses right and drop her off in a horrific line. That's only one way in, one way out and go back in time to pick her up.

Speaker 4: 15:13

So I was cutting out my a lot of my business day in order to ensure that she what she got, what she needed and what she needed. It wasn't about for me, it had nothing to do with what people teach, and all that because I really don't care, because I'm going to get my kids where they need to go right. It was the emotional support, the lack of what's the word? Protection that came in the hallways for certain races, certain developments, certain whatever. We had issues where teachers were bullying her and we had proof of it because of the way we you know cell phones in our house, we got control, we can, the button is off. So we had a lot of issues and where my daughter's emotional health was at that time it was worth me making that drive. Now she's back in normal public school. She's good. That was. She needed that for that season just to kind of get caught back up, get right, get her footing. And what I liked about that school was before they were worried about how she was doing academically, they were more concerned about how she was doing socially, because if she's not doing well socially she has a even much lower chance of doing well academically, whereas the other schools it was really opposite.

Speaker 4: 16:33

So I mean, I think it really depends to Brandon's point. You know we wasn't, you know we wasn't white flight, you know we only have white right. But it was like what my daughter needed at the time that that specific school couldn't offer. But the school district did a lot better. At the next school, up into the high school it was better than the middle school. So in that situation I was making a drive. It did cost me a lot of time, it cost me a lot of money. It also created issues between me and the kids because I was tired of them fighting with them, arguing after school, all of that. So I mean there's two sides to the coin and I can see the benefit as to why for my daughter, because I wanted to raise a successful adult, not just give her a chummy childhood. So I can seek to Brandon's point. You know, driving from playing at a book or tease by a pain, but it's, it's an investment into the child's future.

Speaker 1: 17:27

You know, guys, I've been a little quiet here because I've been listening and learning. Get Brandon.

Speaker 1: 17:35

You said something earlier and I've been hearing this echo, even in the school that I'm affiliated with, about how parents time has been infringed, their time has been infringed, and that's such a foreign term to me, having raised two kids and participated in the growth of other kids. You know what, when I was raising my kids, I will admit it was tough, especially when Brandon was born in California and we didn't know anybody there, we just moved there. You know he had to wait to be in California and be born. It could be born while I had support and so we had no support in trying to find babysitters in schools and those things were very tough, but they are what you do as a parent. You have to make those sacrifices as a parent when you have kids. So I have very little empathy for a parent who tells me that they don't have time. They need to make time to do something or do what's best for their kid. That may sound harsh, doesn't is not intended to, but that's just who I am.

Speaker 4: 18:52

Well, I'll give you a different perspective to that, though, because it's a very different time now financially.

Speaker 5: 18:58

Yeah, I was gonna make that point.

Speaker 4: 18:59

We don't. There's like time. You gotta think people are having to work extra. They're having to do a whole lot. I know people that are doing click list and all of this extra stuff and it's because of, again, finance money, inflation, whatever the case is, and so when you have somebody that's stressed out, they're already trying to make it that, yes, there's little empathy.

Speaker 1: 19:22

however, we had more money before than we have now.

Speaker 5: 19:26

Yeah, absolutely. So we know that the dollar oh, come on. Yeah, it's true.

Speaker 1: 19:29

That's not true. Well, it is true because we no, it's not true. Okay, well, economics Well, what's the-? Economist say that it's true. The dollar Economist say I was broke. I mean we was poor.

Speaker 4: 19:37

I mean we're poor but we're working but think about like we were working class, my wife and I were working.

Speaker 1: 19:41

Hold on, hold on. Are you talking about less money? Hold on with all sincerity okay. I'm being sincere.

Speaker 5: 19:46

With all sincerity, if you look at all the economists, there's not a single one that will disagree that the dollar, okay, stretch a lot further in 1980 than it does in 2020. That's one thing. Second thing, let's Okay, I grew up in some of the best school districts in the nation. Okay, so you didn't have to worry about what I was being taught in school. I grew up in three of the highest rated school districts in the country and, furthermore, when I was not in school, even though you and mom were working and grinding and doing your thing, you taught me things outside of school that I was required to do and you had a structure that was in place, but you didn't have to worry about the ISD that I was going to. There was also a very different culture in 1980s than there is in 2020, in terms of ideological beliefs and things that are being espoused in the culture, so you didn't have to battle culture wars. Our generation is having to constantly battle culture wars. So our kids come home, not to mention the access to information and technology. There was no ability for me to gain access to the types of dialogue that kids can access now, so teachers are fatigued. I can count, in the last year, 10 teachers across my three kids' schools that have quit. That have quit. Teachers are tired, they're fatigued, they have no tolerance anymore because the kids come to school with less and less discipline. The fabric of our society has broken down. So when you look at 1985 to 2023, there is a world of difference in how Americans are behaving and interacting. The amount of emails that I get from school school-wide about children's behavior across the board is vastly different.

Speaker 5: 22:08

I grew up in Irvine, california, carmel, indiana and Plano, texas. It's three of the most phenomenal ISDs in America, so it wasn't something that you and mom had to worry about in that regard. Nor did I have the access to the amount of information that kids have now. Okay, that is swaying beliefs. So you could teach me something and I went to school and I came home with that exact belief that you taught me I wasn't getting access to. Right now, I can go, look at Nick Fuentes and I can be 13 years old and find 20,000 YouTube videos on white supremacist ideology or white national ideology, and I can find it on Islam. I can find it on whatever else, and so now I'm battling this coming to school. Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 2: 22:54

So, Brandon, I'm curious you caused me. They want to ask you and John, how do you feel about your kids' education at the public, IED or your kids' education?

Speaker 5: 23:05

I feel that it's lacking. To be quite frank, I feel that it's lacking in veracity in a lot of ways. When they come home and they especially on the historical side of things they come home and there's a lot of revisionist history. There's a lot of access to content that I don't think is appropriate for kids. There's far too much LGBTQIA plus content in the library systems. There's two. What's the word I'm looking for? There's not enough accountability for holding other children accountable for their poor behavior.

Speaker 5: 23:46

There's a lot of acceptance of just asinine activities that teachers don't seem to have either the courage or the authority to enforce, and so you get kids acting amuck in class. That distracts other kids. There's not the diversity in curriculum for kids that don't fit into the very boxed type of this period, that period, that period, and you're squeezing into this time space and you don't have a flexibility for kids that think differently, and so those kids end up becoming categorized in a certain way, let's say they are ADHD or whatever else, and they get put in that special needs box. But they're not special needs, they're just kids that don't necessarily confine into this very, very systematic way of class period structure. Well, and so there's for me, yeah.

Speaker 5: 24:40

I see adequacies in all those areas.

Speaker 2: 24:43

So what are you doing about it? Are you on the PTA?

Speaker 1: 24:47

Dr Good, dr Good. You asked Brandon and Josh, so I'm curious. Okay, then let me circle back.

Speaker 2: 24:53

Okay, Josh, Okay, Josh go ahead.

Speaker 4: 24:56

Well, here's my full-on truth the education system's doing exactly what was designed to do to create a bunch of workers that are enslaved by this nation. Ouch, so I can't say it's failed because it's succeeded by design. However, what I hate it? I hate the education system because it's not creating successful adults to make it through this time Exactly, it's creating funds and workerbies and tests for them to fall into a certain space.

Speaker 4: 25:33

We got so focused on higher education that now there's a lack of tradesmen. Each child, each person has a different purpose and passion, right. So if we want everybody to conform and I was the kid Brandon was talking about the whole education system failed me. I went to 12 schools in my education system, k through 12. And I graduated with a 1.7 GPA. No foreign language, no finals you got kicked out.

Speaker 1: 26:00

You didn't graduate. You came to the department and said peace, You're out of here, right?

Speaker 4: 26:05

So they failed it because I didn't think the way. They thought I was a certain way, but the reality is is that each person has their own thoughts and belief system. They have a lot of ideology, like Brandon says, and I believe that the school system should be a place to help bring out the best of the child, their purpose, so that they can have a good trajectory in a positive life. What I am seeing across this nation now is more and more people that are hopeless, frustrated and struggling. So, like in 1980s, the average home price was $47,000. Now the average home price is $400,000.

Speaker 5: 26:44

Yes, that is a fact, and the rates are completely different.

Speaker 4: 26:47

We talk about like we could look at the Great Depression. We didn't. They didn't have taxes until like we do now, until after the depression. But if you look at the dollar, if you convert it over, I think it's like 80K per household would be what would be a struggling family during the Great Depression time, somewhere around there before taxes. So we're in a worse time than ever and we're still teaching the same curriculum.

Speaker 4: 27:12

And not only are we teaching the same curriculum, but if my child's going to become a welder and I'm not saying my child then there's certain history, there's certain things that they shouldn't be part of. I know that when I was in high school in Ohio, they had JBS. You could leave your high school like, I think, junior year or something like that and move over to another JVS JVS junior vocational school. You can go body shop, you can go like there was trades schools, so that those people and the ones that went to JVS from my neighborhood are actually doing way better than the ones that went through the normal school system, because we're taught to pass the test.

Speaker 4: 27:57

We're taught because we get a dollar, we're taught to learn how to block our schedules for eight hours a day. We have to be doing what somebody else wants us to do and in our off time we'll try to find time for ourselves.

Speaker 5: 28:10

It's crazy, and Josh is 100% right. The amount of tests these kids take is ridiculous. I mean, you got the star test, you got the map test, you got the this test and that test. They're taking several aptitude tests throughout the year To a point where my son is like how many tests? My son is wise enough to say I don't think these tests are not for us, these tests are for them and because school districts are getting money based off of where their student levels are in terms of their aptitude and their testing, so they're constantly testing these kids and blocking off time to test to see where they're at and it's not turning into adults that have the ability to live in society Civics. Where are these kinds of things that were taught when I was younger?

Speaker 2: 29:00

I feel, like civics is gone.

Speaker 5: 29:03

There's a lack of integrity being taught.

Speaker 4: 29:05

Here's the biggest lack. Here's what I think the biggest lack to all that point. Think about it like this we live in an education system that's more concerned with what is the answer than how did you get to the answer. That's a problem for me, because for me, I just need the right answer.

Speaker 2: 29:26

That's the brand that got going on Right.

Speaker 4: 29:28

Versus me sitting in front of that test. I wanted to take the test and the truth is I'm ace most tests. I just didn't do the homework. The point is is that when you sit down I wanted to do a good job Every child I don't care who they are, how bad they are, because I was one of the worst we want to do well, but when we don't do well, the insecurity manifests in different areas, disturbing class anger flare up, whatever the case is. So if I know how to get the answer or how I went wrong getting the answer that I got, that's going to teach me how to think for myself and be more resourceful to ensure that I can find the answer in the future rather than know that's wrong. This is the answer. So, again, I'm trying to raise my children to be resourceful and successful humans so that one day, when I die, they're good.

Speaker 4: 30:26

The school system, though it may be well intended and I love what you said, dr Good, early in the first episode it really completely changed my perspective. The school system really is a lifeblood of a community. I never looked at it that way. Well, your Friday night lights, your choir concerts, your kids are having play dates so that the moms can now talk. The dads are doing business together. It creates a lot of things, but the way that it's being executed. I think that it's time to reanalyze that, because I think we're in a place where we have too many worker bees and not enough opportunities.

Speaker 1: 31:03

Okay, okay, we are really running up against it and I want to give Dr Good an opportunity to respond.

Speaker 2: 31:14

So I almost feel like that's a whole different show right there that we because project based learning is an answer to that when done well, Project first learning is has become an answer to to Evolving our schools to a better place. Okay but again that's a different show. Okay, what I'd like to do. And, brandon, you might want to vote for vouchers then, because in private schools they don't give as many tests, so you might, if you vote for vouchers and get it, and you can send your kids to private schools and they'll only be tested.

Speaker 2: 31:53

There's a national test that usually is done either every year, every other year, and that's about it. But I think I'd like to leave the audience with a couple of thoughts. One is keep reading up on this. See, this is a developing issue, a developing opportunity to understand how your government, your, your state government, is functioning and what what is moving towards. The second thing I want to remind your audience and you all is that, in essence, I could blame you all and your audience for allowing this to happen. If you've not called your legislators, if you've not emailed them about things that you don't like, that are going on, that you've read about, that they're considering passing, and you've not let your voice be heard on a regular basis to your legislators, then they're going to do whatever they want and they're sort of doing it. But if we can get advocacy on the part of society to hold their legislators accountable to what we want, then over time things will change. So, again, we're getting the government that we have allowed to have yeah.

Speaker 1: 33:10

And you know that's something Brandon has always advocated to that we get the government that we allow in that, how we support and not support, how we vote and not vote, or how we voice our opinions and not voice our opinions. I know my wife calls her representatives and she leaves messages and any day now I'm expecting the FBI to be at my door.

Speaker 4: 33:33

Well, you got to give big money. You have to have a big money to get the voice that you want. Typically they're funded by immunity money. Typically, that's true.

Speaker 1: 33:41

And I want to keep this going. But I guess what Dr Good is saying we know. The money issue is there, but it's also the people issue. Ie if enough people raise their voices, that also will begin to get attention. But if you don't have people raising their voices and it's just being driven by big money alone, then big money is going to always win. But if you get enough people raising their voices, then you'll get politicians and big money listening a little bit. But when they don't have that, there's no squeaky wheel, then a lot of times the wheel squeak after the fact Not doing the fact or before the fact, and I think that's what Dr Good is advocating. If you see this happening, then the question becomes what can we do now as parents, as voters in this society? What can we do now, prior to, to be sure that our voices are heard and somehow influence or sway what's happening? Is that correct, Dr Good?

Speaker 2: 34:48

Yes, very much so. Okay, very much so, and you'll get your family and friends doing the same thing. You can just Google, find my Texas legislators and put in your zip code and there you go. There's an email there. Just write it, copy and paste it into all of your legislators your senator, your House of Representatives, your governor, lieutenant Governor and let them know how you feel.

Speaker 1: 35:11

For sure, dr Good, I'd like to thank you again. You always welcome to join the show. You bring a lot of rich content to our show and I just love that. Again, we've got good feedback each time you're on, so hopefully we can have you back again in the future. You have been listening to the Father Factor. I'm your host, byron Ricks. I'm going to ask my co-host do you have any last words? Because you guys are really into this one.

Speaker 5: 35:38

No, yeah, I wish that it was longer. To be quite honest, I felt like we have a lot left on the table that we really didn't dive into. The 30 minutes kind of went a little bit faster than what I thought it was going to be, so there's not really. I think that you know. What I think about this topic is that it requires a lot more in-depth discussion and it's just not something that can be brushed over Each grass to surface.

Speaker 1: 36:02

I agree with that.

Speaker 4: 36:03

No, I agree with that, and what I'll say to wrap up would be, simply, we are I agree with, we are the problem. I personally don't know squeaking the wheels going to do anything that's never worked for me that way but what I do know is that we are in control of our households. So if there's things work, ethics, things that we can do and teach, then we should be doing that along with reaching out to legislation and all that we can't do one or the other, in essence. So make sure that you're not just being a squeaky wheel to your legislations, but you're actually being a lubricant to your children.

Speaker 1: 36:39

Right, we can do both Beautiful. You have been listening to the father factor. Why? Because children count? Well, why Because fathers count?

Speaker 4: 36:48

Children count too.

Speaker 2: 36:49

You know what.

Speaker 1: 36:51

That was good because it brought me back to the point I was making earlier. I'm struggling with parents who say they don't have time for their kids. I know what all you guys said. I know times are hard today maybe harder Inflation, home pricing I get that. But in that said, I still struggle with the parent and I have no empathy when you tell me what I don't have time for my kid, or I don't have enough time to do this, that or other as a parent. You got to make time Again, firing the father factor. Remember, dads, all your children are equally yours. Until next time, hey, thank you. This is Byron the father factor podcast. Thank you for listening. If you like what you heard, subscribe and share and tell us your thoughts. We'd like to hear from you. Perhaps you can be on our show To the fathers out there remember all your children are equally yours.