The Tammy Peterson Podcast

Parental rights in schools are being quietly erased, and most parents have no idea it's happening until it's too late. In this episode I sit down with Kate Anderson, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom and director of its Center for Parental Rights, to talk about the schools that are secretly transitioning kids to a different gender without telling their parents. Kate has spent the last ten years litigating these cases across the country, and she walks me through real stories, a twelve year old girl in Wisconsin, a mother in New York who wasn't told for months, and a family in Michigan who caught it just in time. We talk about the statistic that should alarm every parent, six thousand schools known to have these policies, and what the Supreme Court might do next. If you are raising kids or grandkids and sending them to school, I don't think you can afford to skip this conversation. I would love to hear what you think, so leave a comment, subscribe if you haven't already, and share this with another parent who needs to hear it.
 
Kate is a graduate of Gonzaga University School of Law, where she earned her JD magna cum laude, and she spent her early career litigating civil and criminal cases in Seattle before joining Alliance Defending Freedom about ten years ago. Today she leads a team of six litigators focused entirely on protecting parental rights in schools, and she brings a calm, thoughtful presence to a subject that gets people fired up fast. We spend a lot of time on how school gender transition policies actually work in practice, the gender support plans, the dual naming systems where a child goes by one name with teachers and another at home, and the way some administrators will use one name with the child and deliberately use the child's real name whenever they talk to the parents, just to keep the deception going. Kate walks through the Wisconsin case in real detail, a twelve year old girl whose parents fought to protect her through a difficult season of depression and body image struggles, only to find the school working against them. We talk about the phrase some parents are told, that they could have a live son or a dead daughter, and how that kind of pressure gets used to push families toward decisions they were never given the full picture on. Kate also gets into the medical side of this, how some clinics are providing puberty blockers and hormones to minors without parental involvement, and why the emerging research out of Europe is starting to shift that conversation. We talk about Mahmud v Taylor and the Massachusetts case Kate is hoping the Supreme Court will take up next, and what that could mean for parental rights across the entire country. Underneath all of it is something I keep coming back to, that social transition without parental consent doesn't just cut parents out of a decision, it teaches a child that the adults who love them most can't be trusted, and that breaks something in a family that takes a long time to rebuild. Kate and I also talk about what actually helps, requesting curriculum, showing up at school board meetings, building real community with other parents, and why keeping parents in the dark should never have become normal in the first place.


Find more from Kate:
Website: https://adflegal.org/profile/kate-anderson/
ADF Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alliancedefendingfreedom/
Interview 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QmSlCz5seY
Interview 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CNlXe6qrfM
Interview 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BExqLLH80eo&t=3s
Connect with me:
My website: https://tammympeterson.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tammy.m.peterson
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TammyPetersonPodcast
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tammypetersonpodcast
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tammy1Peterson
Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/TammyPetersonPodcast

An emotionally absent father can be home every single night, and his children can still feel the absence. I know, because I grew up that way. In this conversation, Dr. Warren Farrell, author of The Boy Crisis and Role Mate to Soul Mate, explains what he calls being dad deprived, why boys are falling so far behind, and how the way mothers and fathers each set boundaries shapes a child for life. Warren once served on the board of the National Organization for Women in New York City, and he shares what it cost him to start speaking up for boys and men. We also talk about his practical tools for couples, including how to hear your spouse's criticism without getting defensive, because a strong marriage is one of the greatest gifts we can give our children.
Warren has spent his career studying men, women, and the family. The Financial Times named him one of the world's top 100 thought leaders, his books have been published in 19 languages, and The Boy Crisis helped launch the current conversation about how our sons are doing. That work is now the subject of a documentary, The Boy Crisis, which is screening in Canada next year and in London in summer 2027, and I encourage you to watch the trailer at the link below. He tells me how his work with women's groups led to starting men's groups, and how listening to those men changed everything. Man after man had quietly given up work he loved so his wife and children could have more. When Warren began sharing what he learned, the standing ovations and the television invitations started to disappear.
We talk honestly about the boy crisis and why father involvement matters so much. Warren explains why he never uses the word fatherless, since every child has a father, and why being dad deprived can happen even in a home where Dad never leaves. I share my own story of a father who was always home, yet whose attention I longed for, and how that shaped me. Warren describes what he heard when he asked men in prison about their fathers, and why kids actually get to bed sooner when Dad is in charge, even when Dad sets the later bedtime. He explains why enforced boundaries, paired with the bond that comes from roughhousing, camping, and letting kids take safe risks, build the postponed gratification that helps a child succeed. We also talk about checks and balances parenting, where mom style caution and dad style risk taking work together instead of against each other.
The second half turns to marriage. Warren shares the caring and sharing practice at the heart of his Role Mate to Soul Mate work, including a powerful question he asks every couple: would you risk your life to save your partner, and if so, can you listen to them without becoming defensive? He also explains why understanding your spouse's story is not the same as agreeing with it, and why two different stories can live side by side in a good marriage. I share how Jordan and I began dancing in our living room after our first baby was born, and what I have learned about bringing up hard things. We talk about why so many men stop sharing their feelings with their wives, how to move from civil war to civil dialogue with family members who see politics differently, and how I let go of resentment toward someone I love by widening my view of her.
Warren was clear that reading about these practices is not the same as doing them together. If you and your spouse want to actually practice them, he leads a Role Mate to Soul Mate: The Art and Discipline of Love couples workshop at Esalen, April 2 to 5, 2027, and I have read the book and can tell you it is a process meant to be shared with someone you love. If you have ever wondered why kids need their dads so much, or how to create a home where both parents are truly present, I think this conversation will speak to you.
Watch the trailer for The Boy Crisis documentary:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h3RutRbU-ZHbTueo6sSrlGzg9DXZpPqM/view
Join Warren's Role Mate to Soul Mate couples workshop at Esalen:
https://www.esalen.org/workshops/role-mate-to-soul-mate-the-art-and-discipline-of-love-040227
Learn more about The Boy Crisis documentary:
https://filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org/projects/the-boy-crisis-cancel-warren-farrell


Find more from Warren:
The Boy Crisis Trailer: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h3RutRbU-ZHbTueo6sSrlGzg9DXZpPqM/view
Role Mate to Soul Mate Workshop at Esalen: https://www.esalen.org/workshops/role-mate-to-soul-mate-the-art-and-discipline-of-love-040227
The Boy Crisis Documentary on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theboycrisisdocumentary/
The Boy Crisis Documentary, British Council Films: https://filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org/projects/the-boy-crisis-cancel-warren-farrell
Connect with me:
My Website: http://tammympeterson.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tammy.m.peterson
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TammyPetersonPodcast
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tammypetersonpodcast
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tammy1Peterson
Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/TammyPetersonPodcast

Childhood trauma and marriage are more connected than most people realize, and no one proves that more than my guest today. I sat down with Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, the man behind the bestselling book Love and Respect and the Love and Respect marriage conferences he and his wife Sarah have led around the world since 1999. But before he was helping millions of couples understand each other, he was a little boy watching his father nearly strangle his mother, a kid sent away to military school at 13, and a young man who didn't tell his own mom what he witnessed until decades later. In this conversation we talk about how that pain shaped his life's work, why he believes most marital conflict comes from honest misunderstanding rather than ill will, and the simple biblical principle that changed how he sees every relationship. If you have ever wondered why two people who fell in love can end up feeling like strangers, this episode is for you.
Dr. Eggerichs holds a PhD in family studies from Michigan State University and spent nearly twenty years as a senior pastor before he and Sarah founded Love and Respect Ministries, where she now serves as vice president. They have been married since 1973 and live in Grand Rapids with their three adult children. His book has sold over 2.3 million copies, and in this conversation he walks through where the whole message actually came from, a single verse in Ephesians that he came across while teaching through the Bible verse by verse. That verse became the foundation for one of the most talked about frameworks in Christian marriage counseling, the idea that a wife's deepest need is love and a husband's deepest need is respect, and that most couples are not fighting because of malice but because they are speaking two different languages without realizing it.
We go deep into his own healing from childhood trauma, including a memory he carried silently for most of his life before finally telling his mother what he had witnessed as a small boy. That wound became the seed of everything he now teaches. From there we unpack his COUPLE and CHAIRS acronyms, the practical differences in what women and men each need to feel secure in a relationship, and why a husband losing his job or sense of purpose can shake him as deeply as a health crisis. I also open up about my own marriage to Jordan, the years it took me to find language for what I was feeling, the season of caregiving we are in right now, and the small rituals, like our weekly date night, that have carried us through the hardest chapters.
This episode is for anyone doing the quiet work of healing from childhood trauma, anyone trying to understand love and respect in marriage, and anyone who needs practical marriage counseling advice that goes beyond surface level tips. We also talk honestly about where this message ends and abuse begins, because Dr. Eggerichs is careful never to let biblical love and respect become an excuse for control or silence. If you have ever felt unseen or misunderstood in your own relationship, or you are simply looking for a deeper way of understanding your spouse, I think this conversation will stay with you long after it ends.
Find more from Emerson:
About Us – Love and Respect Ministries: https://www.loveandrespect.com/about-us
Lightbulb Moments in Marriage – Love and Respect Academy Course: https://www.loveandrespectacademy.com/lightbulb-moments-in-marriage
Connect with me:
My website: https://tammympeterson.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tammy.m.peterson
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TammyPetersonPodcast
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tammypetersonpodcast
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tammy1Peterson
Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/TammyPetersonPodcast

Chronic suffering and faith in God collide in a way that most of us hope we never have to face, but today's guest has lived inside that collision for five years and come out the other side with a hope I found genuinely convicting. My guest today is Sydney Anne Bennett, a writer, disability advocate, and speaker who became disabled almost overnight two weeks after her honeymoon and was later diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder. She lives with daily seizures, chronic pain, and mobility loss, and she has built a community of over 300000 people by being honest about what it actually looks like to keep believing when your body will not cooperate and your prayers do not get answered the way you hoped. In this conversation we talk about what it means to lament honestly before God, how she learned to receive help from her husband Colton without feeling like a burden, and what she has learned about motherhood while raising her daughters Hadassah and Felicity from a wheelchair. I would love to know what stood out most to you, so leave a comment below and let me know, and if this conversation encourages you, please subscribe so you never miss an episode.
Sydney's story starts just after her wedding, when what began as unexplained pain escalated within weeks into paralysis, seizures, hallucinations, and loss of speech, with doctors telling her at one point that she was likely dying from a degenerating brain condition they could not identify. It took about a month before she finally received her diagnosis of Functional Neurological Disorder, a condition where the brain sends faulty signals to the body, causing symptoms that can shift drastically from day to day. Her husband was deployed just three months later, which meant she faced that first year of disability largely on her own, learning to use a wheelchair and manage seizures while still trying to finish school.
We spend a lot of this conversation talking honestly about what faith through chronic illness really looks like, not the version with a tidy resolution, but the version where you keep showing up to God in weakness, day after day, without knowing when or if healing will come. Sydney shares how a mentor taught her that raw, honest lament, the kind we see throughout the Psalms, is not a lack of faith but an act of it, and how that reframing changed the way she prays. We also talk about the difference between the theological answers to suffering she grew up with as a pastor's daughter and the much harder work of actually trusting God in suffering when she is living it herself. She is candid about ongoing struggles with depression and anxiety, about a current flare in her symptoms eight months postpartum, and about learning to respond to fear more quickly instead of spiraling into it. Toward the end we talk about marriage, motherhood, and what it has meant for her to graciously receive her husband's help, and to redefine what being a good mother looks like from a wheelchair, raising her two young daughters with honesty, humor, and hope in Jesus.
Find more from Sydney: the.annegirl (@the.annegirl) • Instagram photos and videos: https://www.instagram.com/the.annegirl/?hl=en the.annegirl - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the.annegirl/videos Sydney Anne Bennett: http://www.sydneyannebennett.com Connect with me: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tammy.m.peterson Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TammyPetersonPodcast TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tammypetersonpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tammy1Peterson Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/TammyPetersonPodcast

Freedom without purpose can quietly turn into its own kind of suffering, and that is exactly what I sat down to talk through in this episode. I am joined by Anne Francis, a former government economist who spent three years studying philosophy and theology in Rome before becoming a high school philosophy teacher and author of a philosophy textbook written for teenagers. We talk through what true freedom actually requires, why chasing whatever we want often leaves us more restless rather than more free, and how purpose and fulfillment are tied together in a way most of us were never taught. Anne draws on Aristotle to explain the real relationship between freedom and duty, and why doing something out of love changes everything about how free we actually feel. If you have ever felt like freedom was supposed to make you happier and it has not, this conversation will give you language for why. I would love to hear what stood out to you, so leave a comment and let me know your own definition of freedom before you watched this.
Anne spent nineteen years working as an economist in the Canadian government before she walked away from a stable and well paying career to study philosophy and theology in Rome for three years. She had no plan for what would come next, only a sense that something else was calling her. That leap eventually led her to teaching philosophy at a Catholic high school in Toronto, where she has spent the past decade helping teenagers wrestle with the biggest questions of their lives. A few years ago she wrote her own philosophy textbook because one simply did not exist for students her age, and that book became the starting point for our conversation.
We spend a good part of this episode on the meaning of freedom, and how easily we confuse doing whatever we want with actually being free. Anne walks through Aristotle's understanding of freedom and duty, and how purpose and fulfillment are inseparable from one another even though our culture tends to treat them as optional extras. We talk about why freedom without direction so often leaves people feeling more lost rather than more alive, and how love, not obligation, is what ultimately makes duty feel like freedom instead of a burden.
From there we move into some of the deeper waters of our conversation, including relativism, the difference between tolerance and simply saying everyone has their own truth, and why Anne believes that confusion is one of the most dangerous ideas being absorbed by teenagers today. We also talk honestly about suffering, about a friend of mine walking through cancer, about my own experience being told I had a year left to live, and about why euthanasia is not the answer our culture often makes it out to be. Anne brings her philosophy training and her Catholic faith into these conversations in a way that never feels heavy handed, and I think you will find, like I did, that these ideas about freedom, purpose, and fulfillment have a way of meeting you exactly where you are.
Find more from Anne:
Hawthorn School for Girls: https://hawthornschool.com/
The Basics of Philosophy – Paulist Press: https://www.paulistpress.com/Products/5800-3/the-basics-of-philosophy.aspx
The Basics of Philosophy – Novalis: https://en.novalis.ca/products/the-basics-of-philosophy?_pos=1&_psq=the+basics+of+ph&_psid=cdf582acf&_ss=e
Connect with me:
My Website: http://tammympeterson.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tammy.m.peterson
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TammyPetersonPodcast
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tammypetersonpodcast
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tammy1Peterson
Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/TammyPetersonPodcast