Currents: the Big Ocean Women Podcast

Andrew Young has worked for XBox, DreamWorks, and other kids entertainment companies. He has seen firsthand how deliberate decisions to insert specific scenes and vocabulary take place. He talks about his experiences with what he found out about social engineering when he worked as an animator at DreamWorks, the effects we see in our society, and what we can do to counteract it as we stand for faith, family, and motherhood. Quotable quotes from Andrew Young during this discussion on social engineering in media, the devastating results of turning from traditional values, the power of families and audiences, and how to work toward a better future: “If you are a church listening, if you are a tech company, if you are a media company, if you are a family, you have got to return to your anchored North Star vision of how you provide value.” “The families have never had the opportunity to be explained, that, ‘By the way, we are providing you a movie… and it is laced with a political, anti-religious, anti-conservative, anti-male message.’” “The reason I’m doing this is to try to help people understand what is happening.” “This is why it’s very difficult for a parent to work against a professional storyteller propagandizing… a parent doesn’t know this technique, so let me explain it so you do.” “If you want your kids to be able to weather everything that is going to hit them like a mountain and the winds just won’t topple it, they have got to know their identity.” “Let’s do some deprogramming… I took all of these based on things we were socially engineering in movies, and I reversed them: Men and women, not in worth, but in design are not equal, meaning you can’t trade one for the other. They are complimentary. They’re not being told that. Take a man and a woman and join them together in marriage, and they become something greater than either could become alone.” “A family - A man is designed to lead, provide, protect, and fill the need that a woman has: security. You want men to provide security… I’m talking about physically, I’m talking about emotionally, and I’m talking about financially.” “So in turn, the woman does what no man can, and what even the world cannot do without her. And it’s not succeeding in an amazing career. It is that she gives life… The world can’t do it without her. And it has been socially engineered to be something that is negative and anyone who does it [is shown to be] someone who is frazzled, or doesn’t have it together. And it is the most rewarding and most consequential and most powerful thing a woman could ever do.” “We need, children need, to understand this transparently and have the choice to say I don’t agree with that or agree with that. They are getting the opposite, non transparent, and not having the choice whether to agree with it or not.” “Our culture is not prioritizing childbirth, families, marriages, it’s prioritizing wealth, and everyone’s in debt.” “Number one: have kids. You can’t train the next generation if you’re not having one. Have kids, take care of them, and make them the priority. You can’t have that successfully without marriage, ok, so you have to get married and you have to commit … You have got to commit to the marriage and then you will be able to commit to the children.” “One of the social engineering things we have lied to everyone about is that children know best. They do not know best. They do not have experience. They do not have the guidance and they don’t have the maturity that an adult has. An adult has to assume the role as leader and help rear them. In every single media we create, the adults are idiots. The tradition is worthless. The religion is not helpful.” “If you want to let [your children] go and go on their hero’s journey, prepare them through structure, through those one on one meetings weekly, through those family dinners, through those trips.” “The next one is time. You have got to be the parent or the person,...

Danna Robb, Shelli Spotts, and Gloria Ezeonyeasi discuss being a woman of faith. “Our faith tenet with Big Ocean really focuses on the fact that through our faith, we feel inspired to act in our communities and to be involved.” - Shelli Spotts “That’s how we grew up . . . knowing that our faith is everything that we have; God is everything. [My mother] taught us to depend on God completely.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi “I can’t imagine a life without faith. Because when you’re faced with a challenge, where do you go for that … peace of mind?” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi “I’m convinced that there’s nothing better than my faith, so it’s a treasure. It’s something that I treasure so much.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi “Faith should unify us, and not divide us really.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi “I think God has a very wonderful way of leading us down the path that he wants us to go.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi “I do think we grapple with those kinds of questions, of what are you willing to give up for your faith? … As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve decided I actually think living with your faith is almost more of an ask for me as an adult, right? How am I living my faith in my everyday, and dedicating myself every day to this faith and to changing the world around me and trying to make it better and looking at the world with hope?” - Shelli Spotts “If I’m a good mom and a good wife it is because of my faith, because my faith will remind me to forgive, to love without any reservation. So again, everything I am and I’m able to do in this relationship with my husband, with my children, is all deeply rooted in my faith.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi “The faith aspect of the Big Ocean Women stood out, and I liked how that was wrapped in with motherhood and family life and how with your faith as a woman, how you can actually challenge some of the thing that you see in your society, in your community and how you can stand in solidarity with other women of faith.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi “Whenever I talk about the Big Ocean Women, the first I say to people that I’m trying to get to join, I say to them, this is a group about faith. It’s a group about faith, about women and our faith. And the fact that it’s not just the Christian faith is also very liberating. So I don’t have to worry about somebody saying to me, ‘Oh, I want to join, but I don’t, I’m not a Christian.’ I’m free to say, ‘Oh, yes, of course you can join us. You don’t have to be a Catholic or a Christian to be part of us.’ But you need to be authentic in your faith.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi “We may not have exactly the same faith, and we may practice our faith differently, but we are all drawn together by the fact that our faith tells us that we can act to strengthen our families, and we can act to strengthen our communities, and that globally we can change things by acting together, and that we make real change happen.” Shelli Spotts “Let’s use our faith to unite us and to work together. We can accomplish so much more when we are united. Even if we have differences, we find those commonalities and we work together.” - Dana Robb Gloria Ezeonyeasi is 51 years old and married with daughters aged 23, 21, 20 and a 17 years old son. She has lived in London, UK since 1993. She has a Masters degree and presently works as a Social Worker with Children and Families. She is an active member of her Church and has the privilege of serving in different groups in the parish. She has an unwavering passion for education and lifelong learning. She has a special love for young people and the whole family. Her mission as a Big Ocean Women WAVE leader, is to empower women and girls to live their fullest potential as women. Her vision is to start a WAVE wherever she goes. Whenever presented with the opportunity for adventure, Dana Robb is all in. Currently, this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and...

In this archive episode from 2020, Carolina Allen and Shelli Spotts discuss the origin and roots of the gift economy, and the way maternal feminism rests on an alternative structure, a way of living that does not depend on getting ahead but the responsibility to lift everyone up. "We are born into a gift economy, one that starts with our own mothers. It is a far more natural way of living that does not depend on the economy of exchange, but on trust and generosity." Genevieve Vaughn Genevieve Vaughan was born in Texas in 1939. She is an independent researcher. After finishing college in Pennsylvania in 1963 she married philosopher and semiotician Ferruccio Rossi-Landi and moved with him to Italy where they had three daughters. The couple participated in the beginnings of the Semiotics movement in Italy as well as in the Italian Left, where Genevieve got her political consciousness raised. After her divorce in 1978 Vaughan became a feminist, participating in the Italian and international feminist movements. She began to see the fact of women’s free labor in the home as a gift economy, the unacknowledged free economy of women from which communication and community derive. Her two early essays ‘Communication and exchange’ (Semiotica 1980) and ‘Saussure and Vigotsky via Marx’(1981) deal with language and economics, a theme introduced by her husband but which she elaborated in alternative directions, and which she has been working on throughout the rest of her life. In 1983, Vaughan returned to Texas where she started the Foundation for a Compassionate Society, a multicultural all-women activist foundation which initiated many innovative projects for social change based on the political use of ‘women’s gifting values’. The Foundation closed its doors in 2005 after two final international conferences: A Radically Different Worldview is Possible: The Gift Economy Inside and Outside Patriarchal Capitalism, 2004 and Societies of Peace: the Second Congress of Matriarchal Studies (under the guidance of Heide Goettner Abendroth), 2005. Several other conferences have been held including one in Toronto in 2011 called A (M)otherworld is Possible in collaboration with Goettner-Abendroth and in conjunction with the Association for Research on Mothering. Carolina is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player. ShelliRae Spotts is an essayist, advocacy writer, screenwriter, and sometime poet who teaches creative writing and composition at Brigham Young University. She is passionate about exploring the ways we use stories to build bridges within our communities and her essays delve into the connections we discover through languaging our lived experiences. Shelli has attended the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women as an advocacy writer for the last several years, and is dedicated to social justice and environmental causes. She was the co-director and writing mentor for "Words for Water: Dancing the Stories of our Home Waters," a collaborative writing/dance advocacy project focusing attention on the challenges facing our rural river watersheds. She is the author of a forthcoming essay collection, "Radical Creativity: On a New Economy of Care." When she is not teaching, writing, or reading, Shelli loves to spend time with her husband and four adult children watching great movies, attending live theatre, or dragging everyone outside to “look at the sky.”

As Big Ocean women, we value our identities as women of faith. We represent 83% of women who identify with a faith tradition. This figure is considerably higher in women than in men, which might suggest that many of us are intrinsically connected with religion and naturally experience the world through a faith-filled lens. Of the many women of the world who carry children, families, communities, and nations upon their shoulders– and with such strength, courage, and grace– it can be said that they are each women of faith. The language of faith is intuitive to women. It’s how we communicate and lift each other up. The faith-filled and religious voice is our voice. It is imperative then, that as women, we advocate for our freedom to live and worship as we see fit. Not only within the walls of our homes, but also in the public square. The freedom of conscience is inseparably connected to many other freedoms that will improve the lives of women, their families, and communities. Therefore, we must organize, speak up, and lead out on this critical social issue. "Faith is integral to he way we seek to get involved in our communities and our neighborhoods, the way we serve our families." Shelli Spotts "Without faith we do not recognize our own power and our own sense of worth." Carolina Allen Carolina is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player. ShelliRae Spotts is an essayist, advocacy writer, screenwriter, and sometime poet who teaches creative writing and composition at Brigham Young University. She is passionate about exploring the ways we use stories to build bridges within our communities and her essays delve into the connections we discover through languaging our lived experiences. Shelli has attended the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women as an advocacy writer for the last several years, and is dedicated to social justice and environmental causes. She was the co-director and writing mentor for "Words for Water: Dancing the Stories of our Home Waters," a collaborative writing/dance advocacy project focusing attention on the challenges facing our rural river watersheds. She is the author of a forthcoming essay collection, "Radical Creativity: On a New Economy of Care." When she is not teaching, writing, or reading, Shelli loves to spend time with her husband and four adult children watching great movies, attending live theatre, or dragging everyone outside to “look at the sky.”

“Epicurus said that it’s not what we have, but what we enjoy constitutes abundance. And I really love that because it takes it out of the material realm. We're not talking about an abundance of money or an abundance of possessions or properties. We're talking about the things that make our life fulfilling and joyful and purposeful and bring light to us.” -Martha. “If we can find a way to focus on what we can do and what we can control in our life right now, then that's where we can find that joy. So for me, last year during the holidays, I decided to stop using social media. Because I was feeling a lot of jealousy and contention in my life because of that. And so I cut it out for a year. And for me, that was one solution that fit really well with my needs so that I wasn't constantly bombarding myself with jealousy for things that other people had, but choosing to focus instead on my own family and the people around me and what I do have in my life right now.” -Vanessa “Find meaningful things to do with the people I've got right here. That is what is going to help me feel abundance and what God has blessed me with and give me that sense of gratitude and joy and what he's given me.” -Vanessa “The idea of abundance has to come within…it starts with yourself and then it extends to our families, whatever your family culture looks like, and then it extends to our communities and in doing that, we do have power to change the world. So many people in the world think they don't have the power to make a difference. But if you start with yourself, you can.” -Shannon “Sometimes it's counterintuitive and we think that until we feel enough abundance in ourselves, then we can't go out and either help out, serve other people or encourage other people or anything, but in my life, most often, even when I feel like I am not enough, if I can look outward, there just seems to be abundance that flows back and forth from the people that I am associating with in my community back to me. So it becomes this multiplying effect that increases to everybody.” -Angela “My mom when we were kids, if we were unhappy in some way, she would say, well, you need to serve someone else. So you can serve me and do the dishes, which sounds ridiculous, but it invariably changed our mindsets. It made us look outward and also affected how we felt inside.” -Angela “For me being open to revelation that says something needs to change and following that did bring me greater abundance, even though it meant giving up something that I had really prized or enjoyed.” -Martha “The culture of abundance is like that. It's something we foster within ourselves, but it never stays there. It is meant to radiate out to those around us, and then the idea for them to then radiate and the radiation to keep going so that we become bright and help one another in a way that is pleasing to our Higher Power.” -Shannon

“It's one of my son's birthdays today. And I was saying to my husband, I have never given him a present he actually likes. I don't know how to do that. And I felt kind of discouraged by that because I just can't figure it out. And he is old enough now. He has his own career. He doesn't really need something from me. But I realized as I was driving other kids around today that he gives him actually his love language. And so once I put that together, I realized, oh, I can give him the things that he needs or wants in some ways. There are other ways to give. He loves hearing how awesome he is. He calls us every week. And I make time for that. And so where I could focus on the scarcity mentality of I am never enough in this one area, I then, if I switch it around and think, Oh, there's another way to have abundance with him.” -Angela “When I was a kid my [parents] had four of us and they quickly had another child in about nine months. And two years in, my dad was getting his PhD and my mom was getting her bachelor's degree. So there really wasn't any money. And we all talk about this one Christmas where our presents were, I got a jar of pickles, two of my siblings got ketchup, and one sibling got some cereal. It was all our own. And that is one of our favorite, favorite Christmases. We always talk about that. So out of this time when I'm sure my parents felt like we have nothing to give these kids. They actually turned it into this abundant experience that has lasted. Those memories have lasted almost 40 years now.” -Angela “That's what abundance is. It's about expanding what you believe is possible. Right. And so when you're living in a constant state of scarcity, and we all get there sometimes, I feel like that's a natural feeling you've all expressed and maybe some doubts or thoughts or concerns you've had specifically during these holidays. And I think that's appropriate and normal. And there's nothing that makes you different from anyone else in that respect, but believing what is possible is a difference. If you're staying in that lane of I can't, I don't, I won't, I should not mentality versus shifting to what is possible, anything is possible if I believe it to be so.” -Shannon “Many years ago, we were having kind of a rough time in our family, and I was praying a lot, so fervently, to know what our family needed, and specifically, specific children in my family needed. And I feel like I received very clear inspiration that our family should get involved in refugee work here in the United States. And so that is something that is really important in our family culture and that we've been doing over the years.” -Vanessa “Last year we were having Christmas and I'm [had] the mindset: I'm going to completely rethink Christmas, like from the bottom up, what's really important for our family for Christmas this year. And I felt inspired that first we should do homemade Christmas. So everyone in the family was making, making gifts for everyone else in the family. I am not a crafty person. So this was like a huge goal for me to help all five of my children, 15 and under make crafts for each other, but we can do it. We can do it. And that was a really beautiful part of our Christmas.” -Vanessa “The other idea that I felt that our family should do is we did a giving tree in years past, I've been involved in helping resettle refugees into apartments in our community. And when we, when they move into their apartment, there's so many things that they need. They need beds and pillows and blankets and pans and bowls and plates and deodorant and razors and just everything, everything. They need everything. We got a Christmas tree and we got all these little ornaments and on every ornament, these little dollar tree ornaments, we wrote one thing that a refugee family would need to set up an apartment. A rice cooker or a rug or A vacuum, things like that. And we put them on a tree and we took them to our neighborhood...

Dana Robb and Carolina Allen are joined by Sharon Slater to discuss the Model of Powerful Impact. “If you have a willing heart, somehow God puts you at the right place at the right time with the right tools.” - Carolina Allen “Just one individual can make such a difference when you … take opportunities and just think, ‘What if my gifts and my talents and my willingness were to be used for a greater purpose?’” - Carolina Allen FamilyWatch.org Stop Comprehensive Sexuality Education “We’ve got to immunize our children against this by helping them understand the threats, understand who’s behind it, understand where this goes.” - Sharon Slater “The number one defense is to find out what is happening at your school. And if you find something offensive, go to the Stop CSE website and go through the tools and start with a Stop CSE action plan. It will take you step by step. It even gives you talking points to use at a board meeting, at your school, or wherever you need to be.” - Sharon Slater “Just be aware. Become aware. Educate yourself. Find all the information you can.” - Sharon Slater “We can reframe those challenges, and we can use that knowledge and information to have heart to heart conversations in the sanctity and safety of our homes with our children. We can talk to them about their value that they have as [future] mothers and fathers. And we can talk about reproduction; we can talk about sex. We can talk about all of these things that other people would have us outsource to more professional people, but that we can share those things in a very personal way and in a way that really honors our value system, and that we can strengthen our children to be able to understand and then also stand for their values when they are faced with challenges.” - Carolina Allen “There’s a lot of things - just spending time with our children - that can immunize them, just our influence and our power and our love, like you said, which can continue through the generations.” - Sharon Slater “It’s worth it. Our children need us, they need our time, and that’s my message.” - Sharon Slater Whenever presented with the opportunity for adventure, Dana Robb is all in. Currently, this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore with her six kids. She is drawn to the opportunities being involved with Big Ocean Women provides. Dana loves connecting to a global sisterhood where women’s issues are being addressed through reframing and an abundance mindset. Carolina Allen is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player. Sharon Slater is the president of Family Watch International (FamilyWatch.org), a nonprofit organization in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. She also chairs the UN Family Rights Caucus (UNFamilyRightsCaucus.org) and is a consultant to multiple UN Member States. Sharon writes a regular column for “The Family Watch,” an online publication read in over 170 countries, and she has authored numerous policy briefs on family issues. She also chairs the Global Family Policy Forum for UN ambassadors and delegates held annually. She her husband Greg are the parents of seven children, including three siblings from Mozambique orphaned by HIV/AIDS whom they adopted, and they have five grandchildren.

Dana and Gloria discuss the Model of Powerful Impact “We do live in difficult times, and there’s so much conflict in the world and there’s a lot of divisiveness… there’s never been a greater opportunity to do good, to influence others in a positive way across the globe.” - Dana Robb “You think, well, there's 7 billion people. And who are you? You're just one little dust mote among that 7 billion. So it doesn't really matter what you do or don't do, but that's simply not the case. It's the wrong model because you're at the center of a network. You're a node in a network. Of course, that's even more true now that we have social media, you'll know 1000 people, at least over the course of your life, and they'll know 1000 people each, and that puts you one person away from a million. And two persons away from a billion. That's how you're connected. And the things you do, they're like dropping a stone in a pond. The ripples move outward and they affect things in ways that you can't fully comprehend. And it means that the things that you do and that you don't do are far more important than you think.” - Jordan Peterson “I know that I've been a huge influence in the lives of my children because I see my role as a mother as a huge vocation and responsibility that I actually take quite seriously, but with a lot of joy, a lot of hope, um, a lot of dedication and consistency.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi “When I see a person, I think of a family, I think of what they can bring to their family or even to the larger community, because even the community itself, we’re one family, so that's who I am, really.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi “And you strengthen a family and that will strengthen the community.” - Dana Robb “We all have different time frames when we have the time and the ability to serve. And I think that's a beautiful thing [to] just present it and make it available. And I think that also plays into our impact that sometimes it takes time for our impact to be seen.” - Dana Robb “I don't like the idea of holding everything onto myself and, and just think I can be the one and only source. No, I can actually fill up and make somebody else the reservoir and that person can fill up.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi “You empower somebody else to be a leader in their community, and as they grow as a leader, then they're going to empower somebody else to be a leader. And that just ripples out, and the effect really becomes so much greater than if you tried to do it all yourself.” - Dana Robb “Each one, teach one.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi “Sometimes you might think you can't do something, but if somebody is there to sort of hold your hand, encourage you, and you can see other women and look up to them [and think] that they've done it. You'll be propelled, you'll be motivated and empowered to also step out and do something that you thought you could never do before.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi “I find creating the time to do things for other people as a ‘me’ time is a refreshing time. And I can only say that that's how I create the time; you have to create time for, for others.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi “I don't want to ever be indispensable, and that's why I like empowering others. Any group I am in, and I see somebody trying to make themselves indispensable, I tell them, I tell them upfront, you know, you cannot be indispensable. Nobody should make anybody else less capable of doing things. Let's empower each other. Let's encourage each other…Empower each other, equip each other, encourage each other, so that if I'm not there, somebody else can step in and do even better than I could have done.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi “I think there's a huge need, and it's crucial, crucially important that we empower each other, we equip each other so that we're all able and ready and available to serve the community really, you know, to serve wherever we are.” - Gloria Ezeonyeasi Gloria Ezeonyeasi is 51 years old and married with daughters aged 23, 21, 20 and...

Dana Robb and Carolina Allen discuss the Model of Powerful Impact with Karen Ashton. “I really have a perspective that maybe a lot of people don’t have, and the longer I live, the more I understand how rich our life is when we take care of that which is most important, which is our relationships within our very own families.” - Karen Ashton “It is so difficult for us to make the changes that [coming into motherhood] requires that sometimes we can be a little bit resentful over that kind of sacrifice. I think it’s an honest thing to openly say that. Because suddenly your life is not your own. Your body is not your own, and that’s a significant thing, and someone else is depending on you totally and absolutely for their nourishment and for every blessing that they can have. So you really need the perspective that comes from somebody really old, the old woman in the tribe, the one that’s sitting in her tent far away all by herself. She might have something really wonderful to tell you, mostly what I think she would tell you is, ‘Give some time, take some time to look at what you are really doing, and value it, because it is so glorious and so beautiful to welcome the soul, a soul from God into your home, and to watch the unfolding of a human soul is really a remarkable experience.’” - Karen Ashton “I try to tell young women that this change from being a single woman to a kind of shared intimacy in marriage and then this shared intimacy with a child is a sacred and a holy thing. It might feel oppressive to you, but it’s such a blessing in the end.” - Karen Ashton “I decided every morning when I got up, and you do have to decide, that I was going to love someone that day. And I think when we express our love openly to our children, it gives them wings.” - Karen Ashton “Don’t ever give out participation awards for your children, because they know what participation awards are. What they want is for you to have noticed something beautiful and unique about them.” - Karen Ashton “As mothers, we need to know how influential we are, and that maybe there’s somebody at home who needs to know that we are cheering for them. It’s such a powerful position to be in life, and you will give them the wings that they will carry with them, and use all of their life.” - Karen Ashton “There have been many moments where I have healed myself by being generous to my children.” - Carolina Allen “What is it that you would have wished someone had done for you as a child? Make sure it doesn’t go undone for your children.” - Karen Ashton “When we talk about creating a home, it really has nothing to do with the sofas or the furniture we put in our house. A home is this feeling of safety some place, or encouragement, or praise.” - Karen Ashton “Love is an amazing thing. The more you express it, the more you give it away, the more it grows inside the walls of your own home.” - Karen Ashton “You’re a wise woman if you know what replenishes you yourself, what gives you back, but you’ve got to be so careful, because if you spend so much time with your friends away from home, you’re going to start feeling worse, not better.” - Karen Ashton “We need to trust that giving up something doesn’t mean letting go, but it’s actually opening the door for something different that might even be better than what we’re currently experiencing.” - Dana Robb “It is your intentional development of an atmosphere, that’s what a home is.” - Karen Ashton “The little child who can call out, “Mom!” and she answers, is the richest kid on the block.” - Karen Ashton https://www.youtube.com/@MakingHomeWithGrammie Instagram: makinghomewithgrammie Books by Karen Ashton: The Christmas That Changed Everything Growin’ Christmas Eat Flies! Karen Ashton was born and raised in Salt Lake City. She met her future husband, Alan, on a blind date and they were married on March 15, 1968, in the Salt Lake City Temple. Karen is the mother of 11 children and...

Carol and Kim discuss the Model of Powerful Impact. Powerful Impact is the idea that we can make the greatest impact when we prioritize and allow for a natural flow of energy to do its thing, essentially. We have outlined three very key ways that we can do that and will discuss it through the month, “…but the very first one, the greatest and deepest and most profound kind of impact we can make is when we are filled, when we are impacted ourselves, by the source of all energy itself, which is God. So it’s the idea that when we can reach out to God, or allow God to influence us, that that creates the very impetus for all other ways that we can impact.” - Carolina Allen “...Mahatma Gandhi said you’ve got to be the change you want to see in the world, but it supersedes that … it’s not just the individual and the power of the individual, which, it’s clearly important, but it’s the ability of the divine source to work within humanity on an individual level that then impacts the greater community…” - Kim Landeen “When your family knows that you’re prioritizing them, you have this inner confidence that things are in order, even though they’re imperfect.” - Carolina Allen “Things don’t have to be perfect to be awesome.” - Carolina Allen “When you prioritize that first impact that you have, everything else ripples out in a very orderly way - that’s this energy flow - it is productive, and that’s where the influence comes from.” - Carolina Allen “It is important that people stand up. It is important that people that are centered are standing up. People that are centered in faith and family, and motherhood.” - Kim Landeen “God wants to give me all within His power to allow me to succeed. And so even if I’m in a moment of drought or a moment of distance from God, God still loves me and wants me to succeed.” - Carolina Allen “Gracefully Broken” “As Big Ocean Women, we are women of faith, and that needs to be more than just a statement. That needs to be more than just a tenet that’s on our walls. That needs to be the very core of who we are.” - Kim Landeen “The big thing I think that we need to recognize in the world today that I see that could change everything is if women stepped into this power and because of who we are, we know the price of life. We know intimately how sacred it is, and we would move mountains to preserve peace on earth for all of our children.” Carolina Allen “You don’t need to feel worthy of your calling. In fact, it’s often those that feel least worthy that are the most powerful in the way they interact.” - Kim Landeen If you are interested in being part of a WAVE, please reach out! www.BigOceanWomen.org “I think Kim and I speak from just every fiber of our being that when we can align ourselves with this natural flow of energy, with the impact we have, it may take a little while for us to recognize the impact, but it transcends space and time. …there’s no greater influence you can have than generational impact.” - Carolina Allen Carolina is the founder and leader of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Carolina holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Utah with an emphasis in cultural religions and philosophy of science. Her inspirational and philosophical work has been presented at various international U.N. conferences. She is a native of Brazil, and a fluent trilingual. She and her husband Kawika are parents to 7 children. She is an avid soccer fan and had a brief career as a semi-professional player. Kim Landeen is a founding member and a Global Team Director of Big Ocean Women, the international maternal feminist organization representing perspectives of faith, family, and motherhood throughout civil society. Kim has a deep love for the natural world. She lives in Alaska with her family where she enjoys spending the slower paced life with her...

Margo Watson and Ann Takasaki are joined by Kathie Horman, LaReita Berky, and Dennis Lifferth to discuss the Model of Powerful Impact and the power of charitable giving. “Charity, being charitable, is critical to our well being, our soul, who we are as people, and being part of the human race.” - Margo Watson “I have MS, and I struggle with it, but I’m doing great. And I thought I can give what I can while I still can. And so it’s been a real joy to me… I just love doing it, is what it boils down to.” - Kathie Horman “When you meet these people who come in with different objectives, some are providing for others and some are picking them (computers) up, and you see the spark of hope and happiness in their lives, it just makes you want to do it again. … And so I’m grateful for this idea, that within each person is this spark of divinity. And if we can see that and help them feel better when they leave, with a little more confidence, it makes this effort well worthwhile.” - Dennis Lifferth “I know we have a duty. That’s true. We all have a duty to help one another. But there’s more to it than just a duty. There’s the feeling that comes when we’re of service to somebody else.” - Dennis Lifferth “It takes a lot of people to make a system work, and they all make a very important contribution.” - Dennis Lifferth “This is an actual part of our family mode. This is what we do. We help. We help where we can help, when we can help, with what we can help with.” - LaReita Berky “Some people are able to give large donations. Some give small, some just give monthly, and some just give frequent flier miles. I mean, there’s all kinds of ways to donate.” - Margo Watson “I’ve given a lot of time. And when I developed MS, I could no longer play my violin … so I donated it to a student who didn’t have one. And she’s been so thrilled. … There are definitely ways you can help. Sometimes it’s just a pat on the back or a hug.” - Kathie Horman “The main body of human beings on this earth are so grateful to be tied to each other through family.” - Ann Takasaki “When people think, “donation,” the immediate thought is cash, right? Card, cash, check. But there’s so many other types of donations. There’s the in-kind donations, which is what Dennis is doing with the laptops. There’s, for our organization, we receive book donations because our focus is literacy, because we believe that when a woman is empowered and knows how to read, then that changes her life and her family’s trajectory, of what’s going to become of them. You know, reading opens up a world of possibilities.” - LaReita Berky “Receiving donations for what an organization is needing, not just cash, cash is always appreciated, but for what specifically an organization needs, not just what you think they need, but ask, “What do you need?” That’s one of the greatest things.” - LaReita Berky “Other ways that people can donate besides the money … is time. Is there something that you can do to help the organization with donating an hour or two a week or more if you are able?” - LaReita Berky “I think one of the fears people have in donating their time is they don’t feel like they’re qualified, when in fact, the one on one is very simple, just to listen, just to help. Most people are grateful for any attention they may receive. … To volunteer doesn’t take money, doesn’t take thing, but sometimes it’s just your time and your interest in that person.” - Dennis Lifferth “It combats depression when you see that you can help somebody else. It combats self absorption. It just makes you a better person when you can help somebody else realize their dreams.” - Margo Watson Margo Watson is the Director of Outreach Marketing and Fundraising for Big Ocean Women. Her background is quite diverse. She has a Masters of Fine Arts Degree in Theatre and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communications and Music. Her dynamic talents led her first to critically acclaimed...

Christy by Catherine Marshall is a historical fiction book that follows the fictional character of Christy who decides to serve as a teacher in the Appalachian Mountains. It was based partially on reality and the experiences of Catherine Marshall’s mother. She goes thinking she has so much to give and ends up finding there is so much more for her to learn. “I love how she goes in with the intent of, ‘I’m going to help these people,’ and ultimately, it’s them helping her.” - Dana Robb “It’s one of the reasons I love this book because it’s a really good look, and a really honest look at what richness and abundance people have within themselves and within their communities that people from the outside maybe don’t recognize because it doesn’t look like the richness and abundance that they have in their lives, and so because it’s different and it’s dissimilar, they assume that somehow these people are lacking, and that’s not always the case, and it’s not always true.” - Shelli Spotts “Our journey is not always going to look like everyone else’s.” - Shelli Spotts “I love that it kind of tells you a little bit of the kind of feelings you might have with that internal compass, and that once she decides to go with it, she never wavers in that decision.” - Monica Anderson “I really see this book as a journey that she goes on to connect with her inner compass, to connect with God.” - Dana Robb “We have to allow love to guide our reactions to people, and then we don’t see them as problems, and we don’t see them as projects, and we don’t see them as obstacles to be overcome, but we see them as they are: human!” - Shelli Spotts “I love thinking about the multiplying power of love.” - Dana Robb “And that’s going to happen when you’re inviting God into your life more, you’re listening to your inner compass more, your love is growing, when you’ve got Him on your side, that power is immense.” - Monica Anderson “I just love this idea that something very simple can make a huge difference.” - Shelli Spotts “Frequently, what a community needs is not someone coming in from without to change them, but help to change themselves.” - Shelli Spotts “This assumption that you’re the one that has something to teach and that you don’t have anything to learn, I think devalues great stores of wisdom and knowledge that other people have. We do have to go into situations where we’re open to reciprocation, and we’re open to learning just as much as we’re hoping to teach others.” - Shelli Spotts “Every interaction we have can be a type of ministry, and especially this theme of love. We can minister with love, we can minister love.” - Shelli Spotts “By the end of the book, it just changed me. I felt like I walked there … seeing those delightful moments … I couldn’t help but be affected by it.” - Monica Anderson “I realized, by reading this book, that my imperfect effort is enough. What I have to offer, it’s going to be enough, and that it’s better to fumble on my way through, then to not offer anything at all.” - Dana Robb Christy by Catherine Marshall Multipliers by Liz Wiseman Monica Anderson married her high school sweetheart. They have 3 children together, girl, boy, girl. She loves to spend time with her family and friends. She also loves working with animals, especially dogs and cats. She is continuing her education to gain more wisdom and knowledge so she can share that with others through teaching, mentoring, or discussions. This last passion is actually a new found love when she decided to invest in herself and took a Mission Driven Mom class. Monica is naturally happy, positive, courteous, and helpful. That being said, she also suffered greatly from victim mentality. She learned about many great tools to help her to be a better person for herself and those around her. Ironically enough one of the books required for the course was Christy. She fell in love with this book! Whenever Dana Robb is...

Margo Watson, Debbie Hart, and Dr. Tabitha Campbell discuss the tenet, “We seek after knowledge and wisdom.” “Education is power, and it also helps us to overcome fear. Oftentimes we have fear of the unknown. So the more that we know, the better prepared we are.” - Debbie Hart “You have to take care of your physical health in order to take care of your mental health and vice versa.” - Dr. Tabitha Campbell “Education is truly a springboard for opportunity.” - Margo Watson “Wisdom comes with experience. And as you have more experience, you gain wisdom. You can read about something and learn about it, but until you kind of experience it and go through it in your life, then I think that becomes wisdom. When you have knowledge, it leads to making choices that take you down a path in your life, often brings you personal success and personal fulfillment, and joy and happiness. With that, you gain the wisdom of those years of doing the things that you learned to do.” - Debbie Hart “There is an infusion of problem solving that comes with self reliance.” - Margo Watson “I think it is important that women recognize that you don’t necessarily have to go to University to get an education. There are great programs and technical programs and other ways to gain education and to gain professional ability that you might use. … Look around and see where the opportunities are … to get an education.” - Debbie Hart “Really find something that you may be passionate about, it may be something completely out of left field, but there is a way that you can gain knowledge and gain power and wisdom through that passion.” - Dr. Tabitha Campbell Debbie Hart is a devoted wife, mother and grandmother. She and her husband Keven have been married 47 years. They have 5 adult children plus their spouses and 11 grandchildren. She and her husband recently retired and are enjoying traveling to many countries around the world. They love seeing the UNESCO World Heritage sites and learning about world history, civilizations and religions. They enjoy meeting people of other cultures and diverse backgrounds. They feel like travel is another form of education and personal development. Debbie says that she has discovered that most people around the world have many of the same desires to find joy and happiness in their families. Dr. Tabitha Campbell received her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Kansas City Medical and Biosciences School. She currently is working on her post doctoral education in Neuropsychology, testing the behaviors that result following traumas. Tabitha is an avid horse rider, outdoor enthusiast and traveler. She and her husband Jake are parents to their darling 2 1/2 year old son Matix. Margo Watson is the Marketing Director for Big Ocean Women. With a Bachelors in Communications and a Masters in Fine Arts/Media, Margo hopes to expand this new division of Big Ocean Women with creative, resourceful individuals, coordinating with the Communications Division to give BOW more exposure. A few goals include finding raving fans in businesses, media, fundraising donors that share similar values that society is better when safeguarding Faith, Family and Motherhood and empowering Men to protect those entities. Margo has worked for 35 years in Marketing, Public Relations, Advertising, Politics, Theater, Television, Production, Real Estate and the Arts. She is a former soloist with national orchestras and musicals, pageant judge, and a former Mrs. Utah. She has five talented, married children and nine irresistible grandchildren. She passionately wants them to have a Great America like she had so volunteers in political outreach as well. Her husband Jay D. Blades is a constant support!

Dana Robb, Shannon Russell, Andrea Garn, and Grace Raje discuss the tenet, “We recognize and follow our internal compass to speak and act with integrity.” “One thing is certain, [this internal compass] is like your own personal language, if you will. The more you learn to understand this language, speak it, and more importantly, act upon it, the better your choices become.” – Shannon Russell “Choosing to listen to your inner compass will help you to heal, and it will allow you to feel the most beautiful joy that there is to offer in your life.” – Shannon Russell “That’s what we want most, isn’t it? As moms is that our kids find their compass and find their connection with love.” –Andrea Garn “As we’re talking about finding your inner compass and learning to listen to it, I thought it would be really important to bring that up for any listeners to maybe be able to identify times of dissociation in their life, especially if they’ve been through some trauma.” – Grace Raje “Grace and I felt like this really goes along with finding your inner compass because it’s hard to listen to what your body is telling you when there’s dissociation, when there’s trauma. It takes more practice and more love to get those answers.” – Andrea Garn “In eating disorder recovery, even just with like basic anxiety management, understanding my body’s cues has been one of the most helpful things.” – Grace Raje “Everything is a system. You know, the universe is a system, our society, our family, and inside of ourselves. We are the manager of our heart and of our emotions, and of the parts of us that are holding onto the trauma and the parts that are protecting ourselves by holding on in different ways. And so as we find that inner compass, we’re able to create safety in all of the systems and creating safety in our internal system, can create it in our family and in the world.” – Andrea Garn “Sometimes we look to external sources, and those are important when you’re trying to gather tools, right? But sometimes we put so much into the external sources that we deplete our own empowerment… we have that within us to heal.” – Shannon Russell “It’s really the way we can heal. Nothing outside of us can do it for us. It’s our work to do, and that’s very empowering and beautiful.” – Andrea Garn “Take deep breaths, take time in nature, find out what things help you feel calm and help you feel better and feed you just like you would find out what your child likes or what your plant needs to grow” – Andrea Garn “When you take a walk to sort something out, that is literally therapy, because the movement of your feet back and forth is helping your mind untangle and process emotions and thoughts and feelings.” – Andrea Garn “As you listen to your inner compass and take action on that, the voices will get stronger. You’ll start to notice and pay attention to when you’re feeling calm, when you’re feeling connected to nature, connected to your family, connected to your higher power.” – Andrea Garn “Surrounding yourself with people who are intentionally trying to tap into that inner compass is a huge support” – Grace Raje Andrea Garn, LCSW, has been a supporter and participant in Big Ocean Women for 7 years. She is trained in trauma and EMDR therapy, Internal Family Systems, and specializes in supporting periods of transition in hospice care and as a licensed birth doula. She believes finding our inner compass is the way to heal ourselves, our families, and the world. Grace Raje has been a leader with Big Ocean Women for 7 years occupying various roles along the way. She is passionate about the global sisterhood Big Ocean Women has built and loves nothing more than connecting with new women wherever and whenever she can. Whenever presented with the opportunity for adventure, Dana is all in. Currently, this includes riding the local mountain biking trails with her husband, canyoneering, and climbing the hills of southern Utah. She loves to learn and explore...

We seek after wisdom, and we believe wisdom is the highest possible form of knowledge. Brittany Homer from the Raising Today’s Kids podcast and Project Stand. “I remember when I was young, realizing the importance of giving children a good foundation, how if they are given a good foundation in their life, then there is no limit to their potential.” – Brittany Homer “Anytime you try to change the economy of God, you’re doing it wrong.” – Haitian guide as remembered by Brittany Homer “In order to help children be successful, in order to help them reach their potential, parents have to do their job, and parents have to know how to do their job, and parents have to feel empowered.” – Brittany Homer “If I’m going to prevent human trafficking, I’ve got to address pornography exposure and help people prevent that or address that.” – Brittany Homer “We felt like, in order to keep kids safe from all of these forms of sexual exploitation that are out there, we’ve got to help them be safe online.” – Brittany Homer “Really the most important factor is that parent-child relationship.” – Brittany Homer Some organizations that Brittany mentioned include the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, Fight the New Drug, White Ribbon Week, Defend Young Minds, The Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation, the Utah Coalition Against Pornography, Utah PTA Digital Wellness Committee, and Safeguard Alliance. “I love how we are all in the business of trying to help children and strengthen families.” – Brittany Homer “I feel like God is at the core of everything that I do, and so I find a lot of strength in Him, and I feel like sometimes He guides me to spend some time learning, and sometimes He guides me to just slow down and focus on the people.” – Brittany Homer “Too much screen time can be related to sleep. Problems, aggression, desensitization, nightmares, fear, impulsivity, depression, low self-esteem, anxiety, low attention span. I mean, there's so, so many negative things that are associated with too much screen time.” – Brittany Homer “The more time someone uses social media, the more likely they are to be depressed. Social media increases the risk of bullying, clique forming, sexual experimentation. It leads to privacy issues, Internet addiction, sleep deprivation, anxiety, depression.” – Brittany Homer “Cyberbullying – One in four children has experienced cyberbullying, and cyberbullying victims are two times more likely to commit suicide.” – Brittany Homer “This statistic blew my mind: 27% of all video content online is pornographic.” – Brittany Homer “I’m very hopeful, because I know that children can be resilient.” – Brittany Homer “I believe that an educated parent can just be so powerful in the lives of their kids and protecting them.” – Brittany Homer “I’m just so glad that you followed up those statistics with hope and that idea that if we can teach them to use their screen time wisely, then there’s nothing that they can’t do. I think that’s really encouraging and exciting. It puts a lot of pressure on us parents, but it’s exciting. We can become educated.” – Dana Robb Healthy Technology Path “Take ‘Just a SEC’ – Stop, Evaluate, Choose – whenever you’re going to post or search or share something online.” – Brittany Homer “I love your approach to questions. It’s not accusatory. It’s not assuming that they’re doing something bad or dumb, and you’re allowing them to collaborate with you and to share their inner selves. And I love the section where you focus on values and helping them discover their own. I think, as parents so many times we assume that we’re going to instill in them our values and what’s important to us is going to be important to them, but it’s so much more powerful to discover where they’re at and help them decide on their values, and there’s such a range of good values out there. We don’t have to have all the same things.” – Dana Robb “Parents are the most important protective factor, and you are...

Dana Robb and Becky Rogers discussing the tenet, “We seek after knowledge and wisdom.” Families Mentoring Families has educational tracks for teaching family life skills, basic literacy, academic, vocational skills, leadership, and agriculture. They have 110 literacy centers across Africa, in Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda, and are working to continue to expand. They also have an aftercare program for girls who have been trafficked as well as an education program to help girls avoid the lure of out of country work as domestic servants that actually end up being trafficked. “When you’re educating the current generation, they have that hope that they can make their situation better where they are at, rather than this false hope that something out there that’s enticing them is going to solve their problem.” - Dana Robb “[Education] doesn’t just change that person’s life, it changes the trajectory of their entire family for all the generations to come.” - Becky Rogers “We walked away with nothing, and we showed up here with nothing. Nothing. No money, not knowing what we were going to do. And so if I told you about the miracles, like the growth in our faith — I don't even have words for it, I can’t even describe it except to share stories of the ways that God has come through and provided.” - Becky Rogers “Our perspective in that way, and what else is possible if you don’t kill it yourself, let God do it, and just watch and show up, that is probably the biggest thing, that’s the biggest way that I’ve grown.” - Becky Rogers “God tailors things for us, and when He needs us to learn something, He’s got a plan for it.” - Dana Robb “At the end of the day, when we sit with women from all different cultures, we want the same things. We want a better life for our families and our children. We’ll do whatever it takes to accomplish that, we’re heavily invested in our families, but the powers that be that make policy don’t value those same things. And so it’s a very crucial and important part of Families Mentoring Families that we share with Big Ocean Women in gathering. . . gathering the women to support each other and to create our own voice around the things that we really and truly value.” - Becky Rogers “At the end of the day, we’re all sisters from all different cultures, and there are so many things that we have in common and so many values that we hold the same that we should gather and strengthen each other around that.” - Becky Rogers “Don’t be afraid. Fear takes a lot forms and it stops us from doing lots of things because when we second guess our own abilities we have so many voices trying to tell us we’re not good enough or we can’t fit in one more thing, but if you feel called, God has a purpose and a passion and a mission for you, don’t put it off another minute because you have no idea what you’re missing out on all of the ways that you’ll be blessed, not just for you personally, but also in your family. The blessings that will come to you from following those inspirations and getting good at that practice of promptings, it’s beyond your wildest imagination. So don’t be afraid. Go. Jump in. Don’t spend another minute second guessing yourself or second guessing the promptings. If that’s what you’re feeling called to do, do it.” - Becky Rogers Becky Rogers is a wife and mother of 10 who is passionate about families and education. She is the Founder of Families Mentoring Families, as well as her own personal development company, LIFEstory Transformation. In 2014, she received a u201ccall of the heartu201d to become involved with humanitarian work in Africa. Though it was completely impossible at the time, she followed that inspiration and FMF was born. She is continually in awe of the miracles that show up to move FMF forward, and she is deeply grateful for the love and support of her family & friends who are the backbone of this work. Familiesmentoringfamilies.org Whenever presented with...

We greatly value the unique and contributing role of families. Margo Watson is joined by Gloria Boberg and Dr. Tres Tanner. “Families are the unit in society which is especially comprised of a man and a woman who are husband and wife who are bonded so that they can meet each other's physical and emotional needs as well as to, among other things, have the opportunity to procreate and bring children into the world so they can then care for those children” - Dr. Tanner “The family is the stability of life. When you count on one another, and you form the foundation to build upon and to trust each other and learn from each other. If someone tries to take that apart, to me it’s like they’re trying to pull the power from the family unit.” - Gloria Boberg “When there is a family nucleus, there’s always a strong foundation when we can support each other, love each other unconditionally. We, then have, love and respect for each other. Through communication, we learn how to make a healthy family.” - Gloria Boberg “When a woman goes through nine months of carrying that fetus in her uterus and then birthing that child, that involves a high level of sacrifice and pain and commitment, which leads to the kind of motivation that [other people] will never have the same level of commitment as has a mother.” - Dr. Tanner “One of the cool things about families is that we learn from one another. Parents learn from children as well as children from parents. So it’s a really cool unit of society, where you live together, and you learn together, and you reinforce each other with that unconditional love.” - Dr. Tanner “You have to understand that a human being is not disposable. You don’t throw anyone away.” - Gloria Boberg “One of the central reasons why there are so many problems is because of selfishness, and or, related to that is we live in a very much of an individually focused society and so it’s not natural… for people to think in larger terms, and we need to do that.” - Dr. Tanner “People can and do change, are capable of turning things around… so you need to make sure you always stay focused on the hope that people are capable of learning how to be really strong and effective people, because what happens is once they start to do that, it becomes self reinforcing and they love it and they want to learn more and more and do more things to stay that way.” - Dr Tanner “For people that have no family, or they have dysfunctional families, that does not mean that you can’t be healthy and build your own family, and that’s really important to remember.” - Gloria Boberg “Part of building yourself up is to teach and guide other people to help them learn. We can share these experiences by what we know.” - Gloria Boberg “Going back again to the family unit, it is so critical in the development of individuals, but also in the development of the community around us” - Margo Watson “There are lots of people in this world that are quite alone, and they don’t have these family networks that they can depend upon, nevertheless, even a person, or a single parent, trying to do their very best to work with a child, without any other family support, can learn to become a very effective family unit, just those two of them, and what happens is when they develop that, and the great feeling of relief and satisfaction that comes, because they’re applying correct principles with one another, and they’re getting tremendous satisfaction from that.” - Dr Tanner “Anyone out there can realize there are wonderful things that they can do to make their lives better and really find great satisfaction even if they haven’t had the advantage of having had an initial exposure to that.” - Dr. Tanner “The husband-wife relationship is really the core relationship in life, because if that is going well, they’re in a much better position, that couple, to do a much more effective job of parenting.” - Dr. Tanner Dr. Tanner’s 6 basic practices...

A discussion with Kimberly Ells The Invincible Family “Sexualizing children is not ok on any level, and the family destructive elements that are tied into the movement to sexualize children is especially concerning.” – Kimberly Ells “The family… is the place of greatest power.” – Kimberly Ells “The family is powerful for many reasons… When new people are born, they’re born as babies, they’re born to mothers in cooperation with fathers, and that matters a lot because then it is the mother and the father who get to impress upon the child what is true and what is right and what is not true and what is not right, and those lessons that are learned in the earliest days of life are crucial and they tend to matter for the rest of a person’s life.” – Kimberly Ells “The task of loving and raising humanity has been given first and foremost, on purpose I believe, to mothers and fathers.” – Kimberly Ells “The fact is babies are born to mothers, and mothers are women, and that puts women in a prime position of power and influence.” – Kimberly Ells “When we cease to recognize that people are either male or female, which they inherently are, then it becomes difficult to recognize any realities that are based on maleness or femaleness which includes motherhood and fatherhood, because being a mother is a sex specific designation; being a father is a sex specific designation, so if sex specific designations don’t matter anymore, how are you going to legally define, first, and then defend motherhood, fatherhood and parental rights?” – Kimberly Ells “I think if women are really introspective that there is a lot of meaning and purpose in family life.” – Carolina Allen “Families are meant to be permanent.” – Kimberly Ells “The solution to women’s empowerment is to see that the family unit is that basic building block and to hold onto it as a society, and women have a central role in that, and we have a huge bargaining power, in a way, in how we want to be treated within the family context, and then socially that influence will impact socially and women will have a much better situation all over the world once we can elevate the matriarchy, once we can elevate the status of motherhood.” – Carolina Allen “The state cannot, and never will, care about a child in the way that a mother and father do.” – Kimberly Ells “Having the family is the best way of being able to ensure that children are going to learn what they need to be their best capable selves.” – Dana Robb “There is very little nobility in doing right because you’re forced to… but there is nobility in greatness, in learning what is right and what is wrong and choosing the right way, choosing the good, the noble.” – Kimberly Ells “It seems very core and very important that people belong to each other.” – Kimberly Ells “There has to be middle ground solutions that protect our children and nurture them in responsible technology use.” – Kimberly Ells “When we hand our children a phone, we’re handing them the device to orient them to somewhere other than us, and that’s kind of the core of the problem.” – Kimberly Ells Kimberly Ells Substack – “We can be aware of global threats but still live joyfully in our families today.”

Carolina Allen and Susan Roylance discussing standing up for the family. “The family is that cellular level of society. And if we don’t preserve it, if we don’t look favorably upon it, it’s really hard to move forward in every aspect of society, and so it’s really critical that we talk about it in Big Ocean Women. It is central to who we are.” - Carolina Allen “That’s kind of been the thing that I contributed or tried to contribute, is bringing together the good language (in UN and Conference documents) and getting into the hands of the people who would do things about it.” - Susan Roylance “I got so tired of talking about poverty and doing nothing, that actually, when I finished the negotiating guide in 2000, I said, ‘Ok, guys, you’ve got this. I’m going to try and do something about poverty, ’ and that’s when my husband and I went to Africa.” - Susan Roylance “I thought that this is something that is really important to share with others: The feminization of poverty: what happens when fathers aren’t present and aren’t providing for their families in a way that supports the family. It turns into the feminization of poverty where it’s women led households carrying the burden of everything on their shoulders, and we see this alot in the world.” - Carolina Allen “I think that it’s really important if we’re even going to begin talking about poverty, and the feminization of poverty, we talk about the second half of our population which is men and fathers.” - Carolina Allen “It’s such a critical point to make that men are part of the solution as well: that men and women working together for the benefit of their children and their future posterity, how everyone has some kind of a contributing role, that they need to be present, that they need to be engaged, that they need to be aware that their absence is really felt, not just at the very local level, but at a national and international level what happens when the family unit breaks down.” - Carolina Allen “There’s so much scientific research that shows that an intact family is the best thing for a child! There are so many measurements that show that the child does better if they are in a home with their biological parents, their father and their mother, and I think that because of the whole feminist movement we have devalued the value of fathers, and fathers are critical to a functioning family. If you care about poverty at all, fathers are the solution. We need to have fathers involved in helping to provide.” - Susan Roylance “I think as pro-family people we need to be more armed with scientific information that shows, just ample data to show that without the biological mother and father in the family, the children are not going to receive the kind of help they need in their growing up process.” - Susan Roylance “I see the value and the presence of good men in the lives of their children, and them striving to be good partners and husbands, and I think that is such a beautiful thing to witness generationally, that little boys can look up to their fathers and to see the things that they’re doing well, and the things that they can then improve on into the future, and hopefully society just improves generation upon generation.” - Carolina Allen “The family unit…as a functioning unit that is healthy and thriving, it is that protective layer that preserves free will, that preserves individuality, that preserves the innate dignity of children in their wholeness, and it can grow them into their most healthy self.” - Carolina Allen “What else do we have? It’s worth saving! The family unit is worth saving, it’s worth investing in, it’s worth talking about.” - Carolina Allen “Creating human civilizations is the greatest power that exists. It’s all centered around that, and we hold that power, and I don’t think that very many women stop and recognize the depth and the magnitude of our power.” - Carolina Allen “As mothers, when we fully embrace our...

Native American Fatherhood & Families Association (NAFFA) began in 2002 with just one father and the mission of bringing men back to strengthening their families. Since then, NAFFA has successfully impacted thousands of lives and families. Listen as Carolina and NAFFA Founder, Al Pooley, take an in-depth look at the challenges that fathers and families face, and the heart of the solution based on NAFFA’s great success!