(LifeSiteNews) — Joining me on this episode of The John Henry Westen Show is CEO of TAN Books, Conor Gallagher. We discussed his forthcoming book about raising a holy family in our modern age, Well-Ordered Family: The Family Management System.
I opened the episode by asking Gallagher what inspired him to write this book. He emphasized that he has seen many devout Catholic families still damaged by our modern society, even though they regularly attend Mass, pray the family Rosary, and send their children to Catholic schools.
“The unnatural technology, the unnatural social order of things, the unnatural influences that they’re receiving from pop culture, it ruins it. And so the grace from the sacraments [doesn’t] have any place to land,” Gallagher said. “I think families sometimes miss the natural order because they say, ‘Oh, we just pray and everything will be okay’ … No! God has an order and structure to the universe.”
“And so over time, my wife and I were very conscious to try to make sure that the natural order of our household was running smoothly,” he added.
Gallagher explained that while running TAN Books, he realized that many of the principles used to run a business can also be applied to running a household.
“People would say, ‘Oh, I have two kids and can barely handle it. How do you do it?’ … Over time, I ended up saying, ‘Well, look, I don’t really raise 15, 16 kids, I manage environments,’” he said. “Just like I don’t really manage every employee that I have, I manage systems and environments so that each person can flourish.”
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“Now, if an employee needs something, I zoom in like a hawk and focus on them. If a kid needs something, same thing,” he added. “That usually leads to an interesting conversation with families about, ‘You need to think about building environments and the structure and order of your family life, not just your kitchen and not just getting the laundry done, but the educational structure, your church structure, your worship structure, your liturgical life, the devotional life, society, technology’ … all of these things are environments that all come together to make an ecosystem that are feeding off each other.”
I jumped in to ask Gallagher specifically about technology use, as many parents don’t know how to manage their children’s technology use. He first highlighted that, given how harmful technology can be to children’s souls if used improperly, parents need to be firm and precise with the rules regarding their children’s technology use.
“You need crystal clarity on technology. … You need precision, like nuclear reactor oversight precision. Like the people looking over the nuclear reactors, every detail is critical,” he said. “So with the digital technology in your teenagers’ and middle schoolers’ hands, you need complete and total precision because it’s that important. Their soul, their eternal soul, is on the line.”
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Gallagher further stressed the importance of tracking children’s device activity.
“You have to love your children, and you also have to not trust them. And that sounds hard for people, but I have every right to take the device out of my teenager’s hand who lives in my house and take a look and check his history and see what he’s doing,” he said. “And if you start that [while they’re] young, you realize it’s not like an invasion of their privacy because they don’t really deserve privacy in my home.”
“It’s not a question of like individual rights by some liberal judge,” he added. “It’s not bad at all. I [as a father] am here to help you remain virtuous.”
To hear more from Conor Gallagher, tune in to this episode of The John-Henry Westen Show.
To pre-order Gallagher’s book Well-Ordered Family: The Family Management System, click HERE.
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