Air Date: Feb 10, 2021

Published: Feb. 11, 2022

In this episode of the Ruth Institute Podcast, we listen to Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse who is interviewed by Erin Kunkle and Sarah Stonestreet on their show, the Strong Women Podcast sponsored by the Colson Center.

Dr. Morse explains her upbringing, family history, and what the Ruth Institute is and its mission in the fight against the Sexual Revolution.

She describes being the mother of two – one biological, the other by adoption – and having the ability to conduct informal controlled experiments because of this difference. She talks of developmental milestones, such as playing peek-a-boo, that were experienced differently between her two children.

All of these interactions taught her firmly that children need their parents.

Dr. Morse explains that if a child misses a developmental window, it is a lot of work to go back later and try to fix. A child only has one year to be one year old; only one year to be two years old, etc. Her adopted son missed a lot of developmental interactions in his first two years of life and Dr. Morse tells of some of the things she and her husband did to make up for it.

In addition, Dr. Morse comments on the secular culture today that has hollowed out the meaning of important Christian words like equality, freedom, and love, and has replaced them with new meanings. For instance, when St. Paul speaks of freedom he means the ‘ability to do what one ought’.

But by far, the most misunderstood word today is love. Far from being a mere feeling that one experiences with someone they like, Dr. Morse teaches that love, as conceived by great minds like St. Thomas Aquinas, is the pursuit of a greater good for the other, which points away from feelings to a concrete objective decision. It is in the will and not the fleeting emotions.

And love is very important for the family. Children need their parents to learn what love is.

Dr. Morse shares some wise words on St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, and posits that women are the nurturers of life, and nurturing can take on many forms. She demonstrates this premise by sharing that she loves to cook for others and see them enjoy the food she makes. This does not necessarily entail raising a child, although mothers often cook for their children, but shows the beauty of womanhood and its many various forms of nurturing everyone.

Finally, Dr. Morse shares what she considers a profound truth: doing God’s will is what makes us happy. She explains that this is in direct contradiction to the ideologue’s ideas of equality. How? Listen to find out.

Listen to original, un-cut version here: Ep. 32, Do Families Matter?