Them Before Us Podcast

Your LED bulbs, your underwear, and your toast might all be quietly working against your fertility. Harvard-trained epidemiologist Katy Talento is back on our podcast to explain why, and what you can actually do about it.At Them Before Us, we spend a lot of time on what happens downstream: a culture that tells women to delay, then an industry that sells their fertility back to them with another woman's eggs, another woman's womb, and a lab. In this episode, Katy and Jenn go upstream. We cover what modern life is doing to our bodies, why the "career first, babies later" script fails women, and how the choices you make at 19 shape the family your grandkids will grow up in. Children aren't a product to buy back after the fertile years are gone. This one will change how you think about light, college, and your grocery cart.About Katy: Katy Talento is a Harvard-trained epidemiologist, naturopathic doctor, and former Trump White House health policy advisor and Special Assistant to the President. She spent two decades inside the DC healthcare machine, then left to help everyday people and employers outsmart it.Chapters:0:00 Katy Talento returns0:57 Scurvy season and the winter slump3:14 Blue light versus red light5:08 How light affects sleep and fertility6:25 Why you should ditch your LED bulbs7:28 How culture flipped women's fertility upside down10:37 Egg freezing and the ticking clock11:47 Why you shouldn't wait once you find the one12:37 Where you settle shapes future generations14:00 Rethinking the value of college20:04 Why the best men are going into the trades21:50 What government can do about the birth rate22:48 Microplastics and fertility-killing chemicals24:31 The administration's step backward on glyphosate27:05 Why MAHA messaging still matters29:32 Industry pressure inside the White House32:31 Where to find KatyFind Katy:Substack: https://katytalento.comNaturopathic practice: https://allbetter.lifeEmployer health plans: https://allbetter.healthInstagram, X, LinkedIn: @katytalentoFacebook: https://facebook.com/katytalento.ndMentioned in this episode:Katy's first appearance, episode 99: https://youtu.be/41qEL9H-CFU?si=AkUAP-7eEh9rtC8YKaty's guest post for Them Before Us, "Infertile": Them Before Us:Website: thembeforeus.comSubstack: thembeforeus.substack.com#fertility #infertility #MAHA

In 1965, about 24% of Black children were born to unmarried parents, and today that number sits around 70%. Delano Squires [ @squire429⁩ ] is the author of The Vanishing Black Family and director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Human Flourishing at the Heritage Foundation. In his book, he explains how, through slavery and the aftermath, Black Americans demonstrated a great dedication to preserving their marriages and families, but welfare pushed fathers out, and feminism told mothers they didn’t need them. He also lays out a child-first plan to rebuild marriage through the church, the schoolhouse, the state house, and the culture.Get your copy of "The Vanishing Black Family: How Welfare and Feminism Made Marriage Optional and Children Vulnerable here: https://amzn.to/3VCXtkUFollow the author on X: @DelanoSquires

Dr. Josh Herring joins Jenn on the Them Before Us podcast to talk about his new book, Sons of Adam, Daughters of Eve: C.S. Lewis' Images of Gender.Simone de Beauvoir said woman is made, not born. Judith Butler picked that up and ran it all the way to "gender is just a script — write your own." C.S. Lewis saw this coming decades before either of them published a word, and he said the opposite: gender isn't a costume to escape or a stereotype to perform, it's a gift to receive — and it's more fundamental than sex itself. Josh walks Jenn through what Lewis actually believed about masculinity and femininity across Narnia, his letters, and his nonfiction, and why it matters for anyone raising kids, teaching kids, or just tired of a culture that can't define what a woman is.Get the book: https://amzn.to/45pkQjF Learn more about Josh's work at the Logres Institute for Classical Liberal Studies: https://www.logresinstitute.org/About Josh Herring, Ph.D.Dr. Josh Herring spent 13 years working for Thales Academy as a classical instructor, administrator, and college professor. He is the author of Sons of Adam, Daughters of Eve: C.S. Lewis's Images of Gender. He loves helping students of all ages and stages discover their intellectual heritage; he is the founder of the Logres Institute for Classical Liberal Studies, a member of both the Ciceronian Society and the Academy of Philosophy and Letters, and a follower of Jesus. He and his wife Jennifer live in the Raleigh, NC area.

Jenn sits down with Zac Kadau and Alissa Hollander from Life International, a global ministry equipping Christian leaders in over 170 countries, to talk about what defending human dignity actually looks like on the ground. They get into surrogacy recruitment overseas, polygamy, honor and shame cultures, and the story of a pastor whose public repentance changed 36 churches. Find Life International at lifeinternational.com.Get more resources to defend the rights of children:Web: thembeforeus.comSubstack: thembeforeus.substack.comInstagram: @them_before_usX: @thembeforeus

This episode is for the teachers, the homeschool parents, and anyone with a kid in a classroom of any kind. Billy Hutchinson, director of Colson Educators at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, joins the show to break down a simple but powerful idea: nothing about education is neutral. Every teacher, every textbook, and every campus culture is shaped by a worldview, whether anyone says so out loud or not. Billy walks through the three places where worldview actually gets formed in a kid's education: the teacher, the curriculum, and the campus culture. He explains why a "Christian school" can still function just like a secular one, why a secular curriculum isn't automatically the enemy, and what parents should actually look for at graduation season if they want to know what a school truly values.We also get into phones, social media, and AI, and why Christian parents need to think beyond "how do I use this tool better" to the bigger question underneath: what is this doing to my kid's understanding of what it means to be human?If you're a teacher, a homeschool parent, or just someone raising kids in this cultural moment, this conversation will change how you look at every school day.Learn more and access free resources for educators at colsoneducators.org/tbu.