Everyone knows that Glenn isn't always the most fun person to be around. After all, this is a guy who spends his free time studying World War 2 and the rise of a caliphate in the Middle East. Who doesn't want to be around that all the time? (Please, note the sarcasm). Anyway, what was a recent dinner like between Glenn and his daughter Hannah? And why is this the conversation you need to be having with your own kids?
Below is an edited transcript of this segment
I was having dinner with my kids, I think it was last Sunday and, you know, you don't always want to have dinner at my house. It's not always a pleasant experience. I know it's hard to believe. It's not always a pleasant experience. Call 'em crazy.
And my children know because my daughter Hannah started, along with Mary, started to track my predictions when they were young. They wanted to see if dad was right. And they started when any I was in music radio, and I would say, this is going to be the next hit, and they're going to release this one and this one and this one. And they started doing it with Britney Spears records, believe it or not. And then they started watching all the other things I would say would come, and they would track them, and unbeknownst to me, until they were like 16.
And then when I said, look, I don't know if you guys believe me. This is when we're getting ready to go to FOX. And I said, 'I have to have a family meeting. Do you believe what I say is coming to pass because this is going to change all of our lives and not necessarily for the better? Do you believe it?'
And that's when my girls told me: 'Yes, dad. We believe you. We've been tracking you since we were little. Yes. '
They didn't tell me that.
So a couple of weeks ago, last week or the week before, we were having dinner on Sunday, and we all get together as a family and we're all sitting around talking, and my daughter Hannah said:
Hannah: So, dad.Glenn: Yes.
Hannah: I got to talk to you about ISIS and what's happening here.
Glenn: Okay.
Hannah: You said the other day that it's going to be too late soon.
Glenn: Yes.
Hannah: What exactly does that mean?
Now, she said it like that because the undercurrent of the conversation, the unspoken words, were 'I don't know if I really want you to tell me the answer'. And I said to her what I would say to you now:
Glenn: Honey, I did my best. I did my best to warn. I did everything I could. But there were too many people asleep and too many that don't want to see this. And so what I'm telling you now is the world is about to change. I don't know when. But it's about to change.Hannah (pause): Right. And that's the part I would like you to clarify.
Glenn: I don't know if I can. I just know it's not good on how things are going to change, but how we deal with it has to be good. I just know that we're not all going to be walking around the way we are now feeling as secure as we do now, having the things that we have now. Life, as we know it, this age, is about to pass. A new one is about to dawn. How we all react as a society is going to set the course for the next chapter.
If we pull together, if we stand as one, if we forget about our individual religion and start living our individual faith, and that as Ben Franklin used call the American religion, there is a God. He is going to judge us. The best way to serve him is to serve your fellow man.
If we start to do the right thing and actually live what we are learning in church or synagogue or on the mountaintop and we start to unite and be good to one another and help one another, we're going to make it and be fine.
I took my kids four years ago to Auschwitz, and I told them: Now is the time to decide who we are going to be. The world goes insane, who are we going to be? Are we going to be the Oskar Schindlers? Are we going to be the righteous among the nations? We met one, Paullina, who saved as a kid, who saved Jews, her and her family. Who are we going to be when the time comes? The time is almost here. So who are we going to be?
That's the conversations that we should be having with our families.
Hands of Paulina, one of the Righteous Among the Nations. Photo by George Lange/Lange Studio