 Welcome to dad talk today the podcast for dads facing some of the toughest moments of their lives we are here to walk with men through divorce keep them connected to their kids help them understand their rights and work for change and family law courts moms you are always welcome to we are all about advocating for shared parenting and doing what is best for our kids here is your host Eric Carol Hey everybody welcome to dad talk today I am honored to be with Dr. Ben Carson today Dr. Carson how you doing? I'm doing very well good to be with you again. Yes sir so Dr. Carson you know we talk a little bit about what's going on with the fatherless issue and I know you're no stranger to that could you tell us what it was like and your experience and growing up as a child without a father what was very difficult and in those days divorce wasn't nearly as common as it is today and when you were from a broken home you were in the minority that has changed at this time very significantly but you know not having that guiding influence of a father and an authority figure is very detrimental to many young men particularly now in my case my mother was a very authoritarian figure so it kind of made up for it a little bit but but to a degree a lot of it had to do with the fact that we were believers and believed that we had obligations to God and I think that kept both me and my brother out of a lot of trouble that we would have gotten in otherwise because my mother was gone all the time you know she worked two or three jobs at a time would leave the house at five in the morning get back at midnight so you know we frequently didn't see her except on the weekends so we had to have some kind of a strong commitment to doing right to keep us out of all kind of trouble there's no question about that but you know having a complete nuclear family is obviously the optimal situation and a lot of the culture today tries to negate the benefits of that and they tell you that any kind of situation and any kind of association is okay it's not true you derive your value system from your family and if you don't get it from them you get it from the outside and frequently what you get from the outside is not conducive to success or to good behavior yes sir and we see the breakdown in the nuclear family and family values being attacked every single day why do you think that has become such a target especially in today's society well you know Nikita truth Kuscha 60 years ago said of America your grandchildren's children will live under communism and we will not have to fire one shot and then if you look at the writings of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin and all those people and they talk about the United States and how to bring it into subjection and how to make it into a communist nation they agreed that we were too strong and that our families were strong and that our Judeo-Christian values were strong and that if in fact you were to be able to bring down America you had to attack those pillars you had to attack their family you had to attack their faith and then you saw it begin you know it started with you know trying to redefine the role of men and what families really were you saw a lot of particularly poking fun at men and sitcoms and things like that and now you have this attack on masculinity and the role of men you had children being taught you know even when you go down to the pre kindergarten level I saw one of the books they're teaching the kids about worms these two worms and you know it's not really a male worm or a female worm it can go either way and it really doesn't matter you know they start very early with this propaganda and with the diffusion of the roles of men and women and obviously that can be very confusing to a young child I looked at some of the fourth and fifth grade materials in Lee County Florida some of the things that the children were being exposed to I was shocked and there was absolute pornography in those books and you know how are little kids supposed to be able to deal with this and to deal with people telling them are you really a girl are you really a boy you know that's it really matter and confusing the roles of mothers and fathers is is there any wonder that our society is heading in the direction that it is so quickly and people are astonished with what's happening to us and that we don't seem to have any common sense anymore and and it's one of the reasons I say to people speak up don't just go along with this stuff if it if it is contrary to the values that you have to the beliefs and to your common sense don't just sit there quietly in a corner and hope that nobody notices you you gotta have courage you gotta be brave you we cannot be the land of the free if we're not the home of the friends yes sir and you hit the nail on the head I tell these guys all the time the world can't hear what you don't say and if you're going through these problems and you're not brave enough to stand up speak up for yourself it's going to continue to get worse in talking about the gender confusion dr. Carson I don't know if you've heard about the case of Jeff Younger in Texas he was on our show a little over a week ago they have been trying to gender transition his son since he was seven years old now in my that is child abuse you know and then we see the creation of this new gender council that Biden has pushing the one thing he didn't mention was men and they just did it reluctantly in a press conference they they named everything gay trans women and then it was like and men you know but you could tell that was not a focus of his he talked about the the stimulus checks coming out and how that means seven thousand dollars for a single mom before and men and fathers are left out at every turn what do you think that is I think there's a deep desire to confuse us and to divert our attention away from the things that are important and that's part of destroying the fabric of our nation so that you can substitute something else there are those who want to fundamentally change America and they could not do that as long as we were strong and had strong values and a strong identity but how did you destroy someone's identity you destroy their history and you see there's been a big emphasis on that back before we destroyed ISIS well you know when they would go into places what would they do they would tear down the statues they would burn the museums and the libraries they would try to get rid of people's history because your history gives you your identity and your identities give you your beliefs so if you can destroy that then you have a tabla rasa a blank slate and you can start all over indoctrinating people the way that you want them to go it's all part of the plan it's been done for hundreds if not thousands of years to different societies it's happening to us you wouldn't have thought that it could happen to America but if you let down your guard if you don't recognize that you have to fight for freedom all the time you cannot let your guard down because you see how quickly this is changing we see what men are going through inside a family court and some of the tooth and nail to be inside of their child's life how does that make you feel knowing I mean you grew up without a father but we've got out here that are trying so hard 85% of the time they're going to be non-custodial parents seeing their kids once every other week or once a month as a full-time father that's just something I can't imagine I'm curious your thoughts on that well it can be hard what I would say is men be responsible fathers you know don't go doing things that might cause you to have a child that you don't intend to have or create a list of relationship long-term that you didn't intend to have you do have the ability to control that so that's the first thing that I want to say don't get yourself in the situation in the first place and some people say but I can't help it oh she was just so beautiful come on give me a break you know you have a brain and you know the Bible says in 1st Corinthians 1013 there have no temptation taking you but such as common to man but God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted above that you are able but with with the temptation also make a way to escape that you may be able to bear in other words you can deal with it you don't have to make excuses and then it is very unfair when that situation does occur where that divorce or that separation occurs and you have a child and you actually care about that child and you want to be a part of that child's life and so often you are excluded from that it's not fair there is a natural bias toward women in that situation and I think you know men shouldn't just capitulate I mean if you want to take care of that child you should make the case of how you're going to do it what provisions you have made and I think you'll have a reasonable chance if you're willing to do that but most men just capitulate and they give up and that child in the family and so often also if you if you don't have the ability to take care of the child but you want to be a part of that child's life talk to the mother and arrange a mechanism whereby you can be part of that child's life and where you can be responsible for some of the financial things that that child's going to need in their life and I think most women would welcome that so the original thing I said don't get yourself in that situation in the first place and you know make sure that you're marrying for the right reason and you know don't be selfish don't think about how to make me feel this is my situation don't do that if if you learn how to put others first it makes all the difference in the world yes sir I believe prevention is better than the cure so if we don't get ourselves in that situation you know unfortunately we're seeing marriage at a 55% divorce rate right now and that really breaks my heart because I saw my mom and dad they went through struggles but they did everything to stay together and you know I believe you know not just the breakdown of the nuclear family but marriages that we don't have enough emphasis on what's going on in case it does that what we've been trying to get is some type of shared parenting legislation that says if divorce does happen mom and dad would be created an equal it would be a starting point a rebuttable presumption that if mom and dad are fit willing and able they would do what's in the best interest of the child I'm curious your thoughts on that and if that could be something you could get behind dr garson I can you know as as the secondary option obviously I think the first option is communication you know have you ever noticed that before people get divorced they stop talking to each other you know in the beginning they couldn't stand to be away from each other and they shared everything they communicated and then they stopped communicating and the next thing you know their spouse is the devil incarnate that's what happens when you stop talking that's what's happening to our society at large you know people get into their respective corners and they throw hand grenades at each other and they don't sit down and discuss things the fact of the matter is we as Americans have a lot more in common than we have that separates us but we allow the media and we allow politicians to take those things that separate us and blow those up just like in the divorce situation you know the voice lawyers will frequently exacerbate the situation because you know they don't really want the marriage to succeed you know their their their benefit from the marriage not succeeding and there are many others the benefit from that so you know stop and think about that person that you're getting ready to to ask a divorce from remember how wonderful they were before remember how you just couldn't even stand to be away from the same person so uh you know open up the lines of communication we need to think about the fact that marriage is for keeps it and you know don't go into it with the thought well if it doesn't work out yeah don't even think that way in the first place but if you do wind up in that situation communication still becomes very valuable learning to talk you know to your former spouse or partner makes all the difference in the world in terms of the relationship and in terms of the quality of life for the child that the two of you have created that was beautifully put dr. Carson and I agree with you 100 percent you're taking somebody that you once loved you you loved them enough to to marry him and to have a child and unfortunately sometimes there's that breakdown and communication they don't know how to speak to each other anymore now they make their way to family court and they're fussing over the house the dogs and unfortunately a lot of times the child gets caught in the mix and guys that the best thing instead of getting government or getting uh you know family court involved learn to speak to each other I understand that's not always going to be um the solution it might not be something you can do but it should be the number one thing that you try before getting everybody else involved and I I appreciate you saying that but dr. Carson go ahead that's what I'm saying think about think about the children it's so hard on them I remember when my parents got divorced it was it was just so devastating and you know I would just pray all the time the Lord please help them to get back together it never happened but you know as a child I I really didn't know what was behind it it turns out that my father was a bigamist and had another family and of course you know that was devastating for all of us dr. Carson I don't mean to get too personal into your details but what was that like as a kid finding that out and what were some of the struggles that you had to walk through if there's a father out there that's kind of involved in the same thing right now we're a mother uh they're in there in extramarital affairs and this is going on what was that like for you as a kid finding that out about your parent well you know your your father if you're a little boy is it's sort of like your hero and all of a sudden you find out that he's not the person that you thought it was and uh it's it's like someone pull a rug out from underneath you and you're just kind of floundering and that you know it was so painful my mother did everything she could and she because she understood what we were going through and she did everything she could try to be both the mother and the father and to look out for us and make sure we were successful my mother was a very beautiful woman and had no end of potential suitors and she just said you know my dedication is to my son I want to make sure that they become successful people um but you know fathers if if you're about to get divorced and you have children think twice think three times think four times do you really want to do that to your children do you want to really rock their world like that is is is this thing so irreconcilable that you can't fix it and so often and this goes for both men and women it comes down to us thinking about ourselves first you know I used to have a horrible temper problem and you know it could have cost me my freedom it could have cost me my life and unfortunately you know god helped me to see that it was a lot of times the problems were caused by me because I was selfish I was thinking about how did I feel that somebody was in my space somebody did this to me and when I learned to step outside the center of the circle and let it be about other people the temper disappeared I've never had any more problems with it at self discovery is a beautiful thing and I think so many people are afraid to kind of look at themselves from the outside but that's where a lot of my growth came from and it sounds like the same thing for you I'm curious Dr. Carson is uh as a father I mean was there anything that you took from your situation as a child and took it into your parenting nowadays oh without question uh you know I was extraordinarily busy but but first of all you know we didn't have children until we've been married for eight years and the reason for that is uh we got married uh between my second and third year of medical school I still have my whole residency to go through and a neurosurgical residency is brutal I mean you're you're working a hundred hundred and twenty hours a week so I knew that if we had children they wouldn't know who I was they said mom that strange man was here again you know I didn't want that happening so we waited until I was finished with my residency to have children and then I was still incredibly busy traveling all over the world giving lots of lectures doing all kinds of things and I just made it a rule when people invited me to do things that they had to accommodate my whole family so all my kids had free flying numbers for every airline they travel all over the world uh and we had wonderful times together bonding and I think those are just very important lessons to learn because so many people particularly highly successful people the children are the casualties and they don't know their children their children don't know them and it makes for a horrible start in life with those children yes sir and when I first started this show I had never been through any false allegations or paternity fraud issues and I started having these men I mean we grew to a quarter of a million people in a little less than a year and I started realizing how rampant all these problems were and one of them is false allegations that is a huge thing that's going on inside a family court we see it going on inside of politics as well and I know I had read up on you're no stranger that I say that you was once accused of having a child by another woman you said you had never had any relations outside of your wife could you tell everybody a little bit about that to let them know how familiar you are with what they're going through well you know I was in the operating room and the phone rings and uh and the nurse holds the phone up to my ear and the university lawyers uh tell me that you know my wages are going to be uh attached for child support I said what are you talking about I have three children I support them very well I said no there's a woman in Florida who says that you are the father of her son and she knows where you went to elementary school and junior high and high high school even has a picture of you in scrubs I said anybody could get that that's that's that's no but uh you know it escalated I had to get my lawyer involved and then they wanted uh me to send a blood specimen so they could do DNA testing and I said there's no way I'm sending you my blood you know it ended up with some murder scene I'll be in jail for the rest of my life so you can't give me my blood and it continued to escalate but you know I held fast and it disappeared because what happens is very frequently particularly somebody who's probably high profile and around in a lot of places they assume that you've been messing around probably with more people than you even can remember and that you're going to just pay the money rather than be exposed and and and have your name tarnished but you know I knew that the only woman I've ever slept with in my whole life was my wife I didn't have to scratch my head and say oh gosh was there a conference you know that's I didn't have to do that and uh you know that's when god gives you certain guidelines of how to lead your life it's not because he's a tyrant it's because he wants to uncomplicate your life he wants you to be able to really concentrate on what you're doing without always worrying about that tap on the shoulder remember this time remember that time now I will say one of the real advantages that we have now that we didn't have you know decades ago was DNA testing you can prove whether you're the father of that child and so when people bring false allegations there is a way of assuming that you really aren't the father of that child if you are you know it works in just the opposite direction proves that you are and if you are just step up to the plate recognize you have a responsibility you did something that created a life and you have a responsibility to help make sure that that life moves in the right direction that's right and you know those allegations can be so dangerous though we saw what happened with Brett Kavanaugh and this is something that was you know a long time ago it's very common inside of family court I'm curious Dr. Carson what are some solutions do you think we could get in place to kind of protect against those because it seems like this person could make this allegation so easy and they don't even have to prove it all they got to do is make the allegation and these are allegations that can ruin someone's whole life and if that person can prove they're self-innocent it seems like at times there's no consequences for the accused well that's what you that that's the key what you just said there's no consequences for false accusations and there needs to be and if there were consequences for you would see a lot of that foolishness stop almost immediately and we need to start advocating for that men you know speak up and uh if you're falsely accused and and it's proven that you're falsely accused uh don't just say but broadcast what just happened to you so that other men know that too that's very important yes sir i just had a father um he was exonerated from those false charges took him three years to prove himself and he was supposed to get his kids back in february for the first time in three years and when he got to the parking lot his ex-father-in-law got out and shot and murdered him you know and mom's still out i mean just it's it's crazy to see what's going on you know but i agree we got to get some consequences in there but dr. karson i know we're getting near the end of the interview and i wanted to talk to you about something before we get out of here you've got something coming out called the american cornerstone institute could you tell us a little bit about that and what purpose it serves uh yes the i i thought you know as uh the job and administration was coming to a close that finally i could retire and relax and and play golf and just into my life but uh you know staying the direction of the country i said i can't do that i can't do that for the sake of children grandchildren all the people who are coming after us i started thinking what made america into such a great country how did we go from a ragtag bunch of militia men to the pinnacle of the world in record time was it just luck was it just the coincidence and i said no it was because there were foundational pillars there were cornerstone elements and those things were life liberty community and faith not necessarily in that order and i said we need to start emphasizing those cornerstone principles once again so we established not only a think tank but a do tank you actually do something so that means like going out one of the things i've learned as HUD secretary was the way you solve problems is you go out into the communities you don't just do everything from washington dc and you have round tables and you bring people of varying opinions varying political persuasions but you put the facts in the middle of the table and you say let's solve this based on the facts not based on your ideology or your political persuasion but on the evidence that we have and we were able to make tremendous progress that way and that's what we need to do now because you know let's look at those four cornerstone principles faith you know our Judeo-Christian values taught us how to relate to our fellow men it said love your neighbor it didn't say cancel your neighbor if if you don't like them if they don't agree with you and so we need to move back toward that and when it comes to liberty we need to recognize that this country was established by principles of freedom and liberty for people's reason that people came here from all over the world they didn't want an oppressive government with their foot on the neck taking all of their resources and trying to control every aspect of their lives and uh even you take something like freedom of speech you have some people say well that can only be taken away by the government not true it can be destroyed by big tech and the media with compliance from the government and that's what we're seeing right now and we have to point that out and we have to fight against it and then with community one of the reasons that we were able to expand and grow and become strong is because we had strong communities people who helped each other you know if it was harvest time and a farmer broke his leg everybody pitched in and harvested his crops they didn't ask what its political persuasion was it was just the way that it was and now we got a situation where someone's lived across the street from you for 20 years peacefully and now they're your enemy because they have a yard sign that's different than yours uh and and that's total manipulation by the media and by politicians and we the people have to be smarter than allow ourselves to be manipulated the house divided against itself cannot stand and then the whole concept of life as we've gotten further away from respecting life from the womb to the tomb would become more callous and crass in our relationships with each other and we have to get back to the point where we respect that baby in a mother's womb where we respect that homeless person on the street who the crack and or who has a mental disturbance and we need to start acting responsibly toward those individuals yes sir i couldn't agree more and thank you for saying that i think a lot of our problem nowadays is stemming from the media social media we have been taught if we disagree with somebody to completely cancel them off of our our facebook pages or whatever now they're putting the fact checkers up on everything it's it's really a sick world we're living in because the media has the power to really help heal the nation and yet it seems like they report on everything to divide us what do you think how much responsibility do you think the media has in all of this nowadays well uh our constitution protects only one business and that is the media and why is that because they were supposed to disseminate unbiased information to the people because our country was supposed to be run on the will of the people but when the media puts their thumb on the scale and decides that they know what's best and they start manipulating people then it distorts the whole foundation of our country and what they don't realize is you know most of the mainstream media seems to be pushing this new socialist type agenda they probably have not read their history uh because if they did they would know that the first thing that socialist and communist governments do is control the media so you know they're cutting their own throats and I think a lot of them don't even realize that they're they're what Vladimir Lenin referred to as useful idiots and uh I always talked to young journalists when I see them and I tell them about what the original role of journalism is and how it has such a vital role to play in maintaining our freedoms and I say you can be right on the forefront you can be one of the people who helps to change the narrative and it's not because they're evil people it's because in many cases they just haven't thought it through yes sir and uh you know my buddy said it best he said when they don't represent you in the media you become the media and that's what we're trying to do we don't get much media behind our issues and uh we're trying to create it and having someone like you dr. Carson I can't tell you how much I respect everything you do I've met a lot of people but you're one of the most humble and genuine people I've met and I just want to say thank you so much for your hard work and for coming on here and talking with us can you tell everybody where they can keep up with you and uh how to get involved with the american cornerstone institution it's very easy american cornerstone dot org and uh there are videos there uh you can go there and read the decoration of independence please do that uh and we're gonna have the constitution up there and we want people to know who we are uh don't don't let somebody else interpret who we are read it for yourself and it's something that you know we as the nation haven't made mistakes we we have because we're composed of people and people are not perfect but we need to learn from the mistakes and move forward and try to cancel everything that's happened in the so american cornerstone dot org please join our effort yes sir uh on our way out on the last question and I'll let you take us out with this question if there's any fathers or mothers out there that are going through some of the issues that we've uh discussed today what's something that you could leave them with dr. Carson some words and encouragement I would say to you don't forget what's on every coin bill in your wallet and in your pocket it says in god we trust our pledge to the legion says we are one nation under god on the wall in the courtrooms many courtrooms are a nation that says in god we trust don't forget about your faith because that really helps you to become the kind of person that we all need everybody has tremendous potential that potential can be used for good or it can be used for evil you get to make the choice dr. Carson thank you so much for coming and speaking with us today and uh god bless you and everything you do it means the world to us so keep doing what you're doing thank you thank you for holding up the truth we believe in you thank you thank you for joining us tonight we are fighting for the rights of parents worldwide if you want to help support our podcast and for us to continue this mission please join us at patreon.com slash dad talk today you will find us on facebook youtube instagram twitter clout hug parlor i heart radio stitcher spotify the podcast app google apple podcast we're a little bit of everywhere and guys every time you like and subscribe you help us continue this mission thank you and we will see you next time