On this episode of the Bespoke Parenting Hour, host Julie Gunlock talks to lifelong Fairfax County resident Casey Chalk about his Federalist article, in which he describes how Northern Virginia has become an unwelcome place for conservative and religious families. Chalk, who actually taught in Fairfax County schools, now homeschools his own children and is considering a move away from NOVA in order to protect them from the relentless woke and anti-Christian messages that have become ubiquitous in the region.
Casey Chalk is a Senior Contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review.
TRANSCRIPT
Julie Gunlock:
Hey, everyone. I’m Julie Gunlock, host of The Bespoke Parenting Hour. For those new to this program, this podcast is focused on how parents should custom tailor their parenting style to fit what’s best for their families, themselves, and most importantly, their kids. Today I’m joined by Casey Chalk. He is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at the New Oxford Review. He has a bachelor’s in history and a master’s in teaching from the University of Virginia, and a master’s in theology from Christendom College. Thanks, Casey, for joining me.
Casey Chalk:
My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on, Julie.
Julie Gunlock:
So I love your writing, but I was particularly struck a few months ago when you wrote a pretty provocative piece at The Federalist titled “Christians Increasingly Unwelcome in Places Like Northern Virginia.” And then you said, “As each year passes, and the aggressiveness of the leftist ideology becomes more acute, I wonder how long my family can last here.” Casey, this struck me so hard because I felt like I was reading something that I could’ve written, and at least—and probably not written, as I don’t mean to say I could’ve written it because I’m so impressive—I mean it was beautifully written, but I definitely share your concerns about raising kids and really living here.
Tell me why you wanted to … Was there something that happened? Or have you just been feeling this for a long time? Kind of give me a little bit of information on why you wanted to write it, and sort of give the listeners sort of a summary of what you wrote.
Casey Chalk:
Sure. So the background for this piece is that I am one of the few people in the very transient Northern Virginia area who has deep roots here, so both my parents’ families attended Fairfax County Public Schools, which is one of the largest and wealthiest school districts in the country. And then I, myself, taught high school history in Fairfax County Public Schools for a brief time. And I had a very positive experience in FCPS, as did my parents’ families. And my mom was also in the school system for her entire career. But over the last 10 to 15 years, even though I was no longer teaching, and my children were not in public schools … Actually, I didn’t have kids that long ago, but I was perceiving a very dramatic ideological shift in FCPS.
And I was also noticing that shift as we had kids and started to think about where we were going to send them, and the culture of the county more broadly, across the libraries and other public institutions. And so there just started to become a lot more pressure placed upon my wife and I and our kids as they were growing up. And yeah, it sort of reached a boiling point where I wanted to write something about this.
Julie Gunlock:
Well, I’m glad you did.
Casey Chalk:
Go ahead.
Julie Gunlock:
No, I just want to say I’m glad you did. And I think that there are a lot of people that share your views, and this really, like I said, was something or is something that I’ve been feeling for a long time. I didn’t grow up here. It’s interesting to have the perspective of someone who has grown up here because I feel like especially in the last five years, it has, this sort of lurch leftward has gotten … Just the pace has picked up so much, to the point that I really don’t even recognize the place where I settled here 25 years ago. I ended up having children—getting married and having children—in this area and chose Alexandria because I did feel comfortable here. But I no longer do, and it’s really frustrating.
And I think for you, you have real roots here in your article. And you just mentioned now that I think it goes back to your great-grandfather, your great, great, I don’t know. But you are a long-standing family in this community, and even you now are feeling this. Are you able to kind of get a sense of why this is? What has happened? And I think I want to talk to you too about some developments that have happened since you wrote your article. I want to get your position on that, or your opinion on that. But why do you think this has happened so quickly? Virginia has been making national headlines as sort of this sort of crazy woke place. Do you track that to a certain something that happened, or a trend, or a political election? What happened?
Casey Chalk:
I think some of it is certainly cultural. Northern Virginia looks a lot different even than it did when I was a kid, and certainly when my parents were here in the ’60s and ’70s, in that it used to still be certainly majority white, but also predominantly Christian. And so I mentioned in my article, as recently as 2000, Fairfax County voted Republican in presidential elections. I mean, that’s laughable now to think that Fairfax County would do that. It’s very sad. So I think to some degree, it has to do with cultural shifts that have happened in that Northern Virginia is a much more diverse place—which and diversity in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing—but there’s less cultural cohesion around sort of a common Christian identity, and something had to fill the void. And I’ve talked about this in a lot of my other writings.
When religion is no longer sort of the guiding principle of culture and family lives, and even not necessarily that people are really devout and pious people, but more that it sort of serves as a broader context in which people understand everything they do, even if it’s not conscious, is that there needs to be something else in its place. And I think the woke ideology, whether we’re talking about race, or sex, or gender identity, has come in to replace that.
Julie Gunlock:
Well, it’s … Go ahead. I’m sorry.
Casey Chalk:
I was going to say, combined with that too is just the nature of the education system itself. I mean, as someone who went through … University of Virginia has one of the best education programs in the country for teachers. And the program is very decidedly liberal. Right? And many of the teachers in Northern Virginia are being influenced by programs like UVA’s and many others, so that’s the doctrines regarding understanding of American history and culture and sex that they’re being fed as graduate students, so then they push it on their students.
Julie Gunlock:
Yeah. We have seen a real shift, you’re right, in the educational system, where teachers now see themselves as activists and also responsible for turning their students into activists, so that’s a very good point. You mentioned this in your article, these little sort of islands where conservatives can still feel comfortable, and that has a lot to do with the church, the Catholic church particular offering these sort of very traditional educational, or traditional schools. I actually have pulled my children. One of them got pulled, or two of them got pulled out two years ago, and my youngest just this year. And they’re attending a private Catholic classical education, classical curriculum Catholic school in the city, and it is amazing the sort of weight that has been lifted off my shoulders, and I’m really grateful for that.
But a lot of private schools, other private schools that are not the Catholic schools, some religious schools are still offering a more traditional education. But I’ve heard from people myself that even some of the private schools have sort of gone woke, so it’s no guarantee if you pull your children out of the public school. I mean, the public schools are definitely woke at this point, and I think are not offering good educations around here, but some of the private schools too. So you can’t necessarily skip it. You have to be very, very careful with the schools that you choose. Do you see any breaking down of that? Is there pressure on these other private schools that are still offering traditional education? Do you sense that? Do you sense any kind of fear that these institutions will also change?
Casey Chalk:
I’m not necessarily tracking a lot of the Evangelical or more like classical private schools in the area. I know that there are many that are strong right now. I think what I can comment on, as someone myself, who’s a former Evangelical, is that a lot of the same anti-racist and sort of progressive sexual ideologies that are common in the liberal mainstream culture are seeping their way into Evangelical, and to a certain extent, even Catholic culture as well. A very prominent former pastor of mine has written a book on racial reparations that has attracted a lot of attention nationally. And so I think that there is going to be more pressure for even, yes, even a lot of the private schools to embrace those sorts of ideologies, unfortunately.
Julie Gunlock:
Well, I want to get this also. You talk about even beyond the schools. You talk about the grocery stores. You talk about these displays, pride displays in grocery stores, or food companies now, they all have to get in on this stuff, and on the political activism. And you mentioned libraries, where you homeschool your children; your wife goes to the library, and she’s inundated with these, probably, book displays showing the books that we would rather our children not see. That is another part of it. It feels like there’s no respite from it. As a mom, I really do want to protect my children from certain images and certain things. And it does feel like you say, you just can’t escape it. Is that one of the reasons that you sort of ask yourself, “How long can I stay here?”
Casey Chalk:
Yeah, that’s exactly right. As a Northern Virginia native, it is very frustrating because it has … Really, yeah, it is a seismic cultural shift. The grocery store I think is one of the bizarre examples of this, that I got into my local Giant, which, you know, local chain in the DC area, and many months of the year are now celebrating various kinds of pride, some of which, okay, fine, yeah, Hispanic Heritage Month, I can get behind that. I support that, and Latino Americans should be proud of their heritage. But the Pride Month is a little bit more of an unnerving one, I think even for people who don’t necessarily have issues with that sexual lifestyle. It’s just very aggressive. Frankly, I think that the grocery stores and the Michaels and a lot of other stores, I think they’re celebrating Pride Month far more than they are Fourth of July, or Halloween, or Christmas.
And it is, like you said, it’s hard to shield my children from that. My children are still fairly young. My oldest is eight. So to some degree, she doesn’t really have a strong understanding of what’s going on when she sees the rainbow flags everywhere. I don’t necessarily think that it correlates. But as she gets older, I’m sure that it will. Yeah, they’re going to be scratching their heads. I mean, also, I don’t mention it in this particular Federalist article, but there’s another one where I talk about Asian Pride Month, and how the grocery stores now advertise all of the products that are Asian owned, even though most of them aren’t even Asian American. It’s companies that are from India and China. Why would I want to prioritize food products-
Julie Gunlock:
China.
Casey Chalk:
That are not even made in this country.
Julie Gunlock:
Right, right. I’ve raised my kids in this neighborhood, and I live in Alexandria, Virginia. And I have experienced tremendous difficulty. We have a very strong Moms Demand Action movement here. And there were some walkouts here in Alexandria that were essentially encouraged by the public schools. And at the time, my child was in the elementary school. All three of my children were in this elementary school, where there was this very big sort of news-making walkout, that of course was really generated by parents. It wasn’t really kid-generated. It was parents wanting to use their children as props. And in fact, they did that. And so I was asked to go on Fox News and talk about that, which I did. And I went on Fox News, and I defended the Second Amendment, and I was very respectful of these kids that were involved in this walkout. But I certainly had some words about how I don’t think this should be in the schools. I don’t think schools should be encouraging walkouts during class. You used to get suspended for that. Right?
And so as a result, my child, one of the Moms Demand Actions moms, instructed her child to be mean to my child and it was … And this child was viciously mean to my child at the direction of her mother, or his mother. And I remember that just, at that point, I was so shocked. And I know this because she ended up bragging about it. And I remember at that point just saying, “I am in la la land here.” This is not normal behavior that a parent would behave that way, and sort of seek revenge on someone for a political position, and for having a different position, and get to them by getting to their child was just a whole ‘nother level of cruelty. And yet, that was sort of, she was an activist. And she thought this was an appropriate way to behave. And she wasn’t really denounced for that. And I remember just at that point going, kind of asking what you asked. How much longer can I stay here?
And I do think that conservatives and Republicans and religious people are treated uniquely badly in Northern Virginia. Have you had any experiences like that? Do you feel … Well, you may not want to get into personal conversations like this. But have your children, do you feel like your children are sort of set aside, or treated differently, or in any way, are they sort of singled out for you being more conservative and your family being more religious?
Casey Chalk:
I think to some degree, they’re shielded from that just because they have not had to experience public school in Northern Virginia. They were originally in Catholic school, and then we made a decision during COVID with Zoom classes and just the circus that Zoom classes were, even for a good Catholic school, to make the transition to homeschooling. And we haven’t looked back, I’m not sure that we will. We love it. So they’re shielded from it, thankfully. But yes, I think we see it more just in that they’re increasingly so different from the other kids around them and other activities you do, that they participate in, whether it’s my kids’ little league baseball or ballet school. All the other kids are on their devices. They’re being exposed to a lot of alternative sexual ideologies much earlier.
My wife this summer had the kids in swim team, and the other parents were talking about how there was this really great gay babysitter, and he’ll babysit your kids. And I want my kids to be old enough to be able to think through those things on their own accord, and not have certain different ideological visions pressed upon them. And having those kinds of alternative lifestyles normalized through babysitting or anything else, they’re going to make up their mind very quickly about it. It’s going to be very confusing. Yeah, not as bad as you, but certainly, we feel it.
Julie Gunlock:
Since you’ve written here, you wrote your article, I can’t remember the month that it came out. But it’s been a couple months, right? I think it was in August.
Casey Chalk:
Yeah. It’s been about six weeks.
Julie Gunlock:
Since you wrote that article, I feel like there have been so many updates and I want to get your opinion on a couple really newsworthy issues. I’m sure you’ve seen the news of the Loudoun County father who was arrested. His case was actually used by Merrick Garland in that letter from the National Association of School Boards, sent to Merrick Garland. Merrick Garland then turned around and wrote a letter to the FBI saying, “All these parents are so violent.” Well, the father, again, one of the examples of this so-called parent violence was this father who had gone to the Loudoun County school board meeting in order to talk to the school board about his daughter, who was raped by a transgender, a female-identifying, biological-male student, who was wearing a skirt, who went into the bathroom after her, and who raped her. And there have been charges filed. And then in response, Loudoun County simply transferred the student. There wasn’t any kind of warning sent to the broader school community. They transferred that student to another school, and there was another sexual assault at that school by that same student. And again, parents were in the dark.
So I’d like to talk, get your thoughts on this. I know that Fairfax, Loudoun, have all instituted these transgender rules, which would allow males to enter the girls’ bathroom. I mean, we talk about how people are feeling unwelcome. But why don’t people know that it’s not just feeling unwelcome. These policies are dangerous, and dangerous to kids. Why is that news only reported on conservative—it seems like only conservative—media outlets? And how can parents really become more aware of this stuff?
Casey Chalk:
I think a lot of this has to do with a narrative that liberal media are just very adamant in trying to preserve the sanctity of, which is that people who are transgender and LGBTQ and all the rest of the acronyms that go along with it, all the people that identify according to that identity, that they’re not a threat to children, to society at large. So of course, any of those stories are not going to get any press. And people who, like the father, who tried to make, broaden people’s awareness about those stories, they’re going to be silenced or ignored. So I think that just has a lot to do with the state of liberal media. And sadly, the Washington Post is the local source for media in the DC area, so yeah, of course, those stories aren’t getting any press.
Julie Gunlock:
Well, it was interesting, the Washington Post, Hannah Natanson, she is on the education beat essentially for the Washington Post. They reported on this. God bless them. Right? Oh, yay, they finally reported on this. And they entirely left out the fact that this was a boy who identified as a girl, who had a skirt on and walked into that girls’ bathroom. They totally ignored that, and reported that there was just a sexual assault. One student walked into the bathroom, a male student walked into … They completely left out that this male student was identifying as a female, was wearing a skirt, and so which again, the reason this student could do this is because of the transgender policies that these schools have passed with the support of a lot of parents, who again think, oh, there’s never any harms from that. There’s never any harms, but there are. And so again, that’s why they wanted to keep this secret because it gets in the way of that narrative that this isn’t a dangerous thing that they’re considering. So it is really, really disturbing.
We’ve also seen a lot of stuff wanted to ask your opinion on. I believe this was Fairfax County. Who knows? Could be Loudoun, they’re all rotten. But one of these district schools recently, a mother went into the library and found what is … Okay, I actually saw this book. It is 100% pornography, 100% pornography. This isn’t some ‘how babies are made’ with bubble people. This is serious and also not just pornographic, but very strange. There was sexual violence. There was really bizarre sort of pictures in it. I’m sure you’ve seen the coverage of this. And this mother goes to the school board and she shows them the pictures and they shut her down. And there’s other cases of this. There were other sort of viral videos of parents actually reading some of the books that are assigned to kids. What possible reason? You have an education. You have a master’s in education from the best schools in the country. What in the world possible reason could the teaching community feel that this is necessary to have these books and to actually assign some of these in literature classes? Do you know why they do this?
Casey Chalk:
I think, in some respects, they view the sexual revolution as an extension of the civil rights movements. I think they view them as sort of pushing the same sort of goals of equality and tolerance. But I mean, yeah, sexual ideology is a totally different animal than race or ethnicity. So I think that’s probably where some of the confusion lies. But more insidiously, I think that a lot of people recognize that if they can persuade children, even children whose parents would disagree with these alternative ideologies, if they can just get some of these ideas into kids’ heads, that can be enough to totally alter the course of a child’s life and how they view themselves and how they view other people. Right? And there have been studies done that unfortunately, also the media have suppressed, where once transgender-ism is introduced into school curriculums, the number of kids who start saying, “I want to identify as something different than my biological sex,” the numbers skyrocket. Right?
Julie Gunlock:
Yes.
Casey Chalk:
The left will say, “Well, see, that’s why all these kids really were transgender and just didn’t know any better.”
Julie Gunlock:
Right.
Casey Chalk:
I mean, I just don’t know how anybody could believe some sort of nonsensical idea like that. I mean, this is obviously being pressed upon impressionable children who are eager to be affirmed and celebrated. And if they recognize that some sort of change in their sexual or gender identity will result in accolades, especially in the social media culture, where we’re addicted to our devices and we’re addicted to the likes that we get on Facebook and other social media applications, of course kids are going to be enticed by this and deceived by it.
Julie Gunlock:
Yeah. They are. It is really interesting to see the determination that many of these teachers have some of the most sort of radical content, both from a race perspective and sexual perspective. It’s definitely creepy. There’s no other way to say it. What is your advice to parents? Think of a parent like me who, a couple years ago, all my kids were in the public schools. And I was totally panicked, I mean, I will say I pulled them out. The thing, the final straw, we had already pulled my son out, my oldest. And I am actually homeschooling, so yay for homeschoolers. I’m homeschooling my oldest, and then my middle son, he had finished elementary school. And during his open house, it was a virtual open house because it was doing COVID, for sixth grade, the dean of his class shows up with one of these, we believe, Black Lives Matter, LGBT, all this stuff behind him as his background.
And I turned to Darren, my husband, and I said, “I’m done. We’re done.” And at that point, we pulled him out the next day and we enrolled him in a Catholic school, which thankfully was still taking students, and my youngest followed up as well. But I was really terrified and I was really scared of these changes. What advice would you give to parents who are kind of at that panic stage, and they know they need to get their kids out, but don’t know what to do?
Casey Chalk:
The Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, he would say, “Parents shouldn’t be telling schools what they should be teaching.”
Julie Gunlock:
That’s right.
Casey Chalk:
But I totally disagree with former Governor McAuliffe. What I would urge parents to do is be very proactive in getting an understanding of what kind of curriculum your children are being exposed to. Oftentimes, as a lot of parents across the country with the critical race theory ideology are discovering, it’s a lot more radical and a lot more racist than they would’ve imagined. The same is true for much of the sexual curriculum that’s being imposed even on young elementary school students, in things like the transgender storybook hour and whatnot. But I mean, as someone in Northern Virginia, any parent who wants to put up a fight at a school board meeting and really complain about these things and make a lot of noise and pray the rosary, as a lot of parents have been doing at some of these things, I say more power to them. God bless them.
But I think there are some districts where I think that you’re really going to be swimming against a strong current that’s going to be very difficult to overcome. And like I said, children, especially young children, elementary school-aged kids, what I know about child development, kids are so impressionable. I would be terrified to have my kids spend even a few weeks in a Fairfax County public school at this point.
Julie Gunlock:
I agree. I agree.
Casey Chalk:
And I feel such a sense of desire to protect my kids from that. And let them make up their own minds once their frontal cortex have fully developed. But until then, I am going to circle the wagons, and I’m going to give them the instruction that God has blessed us to be able to have the privilege to do. I think parents need to make really difficult, I acknowledge, very difficult decisions about: Are we going to have to figure out a way to do homeschooling? Are we going to have to figure out a way to increase our income so we can afford private school, or shift things around? And maybe we stop … I mean, my wife and I, we haven’t taken a vacation, besides visiting in-laws, we haven’t taken a vacation in years. And a lot of that is because we’re paying for our children’s future. In my mind, that investment is far more important than going to the beaches, or going overseas, or something like that.
Julie Gunlock:
Casey, I tell you, I feel so good knowing you and your family and your wife are just here in Northern Virginia. I feel like that gives me some relief that you’re here and you’re living in a way that so few are. I certainly am with you. I’m trying hard to balance homeschooling and private school bills and jobs and all sorts of stuff. And it is very difficult. But I think one thing that I also want to tell people, you can do it. I think that there’s a lot of, oh, well, I can’t … I was there. I was there a couple years ago, and I said, “I can’t do it. I just can’t do it.” Well, you do it, and you figure it out. And I think the desire, the urge, the need to protect kids is a very powerful force. And I really do hope that people sort of give into it a little bit and protect their kids.
And I used to be someone who said, “We really need to reform a system, a broken system,” but I’m more on the, we need to lead this system. People need to leave this public school system until there’s school choice that gives families like yours, families like mine, more choices in academics. It’s just we really need to, like you said, take some drastic steps to protect our kids, so thank you so much for coming on and sharing your thoughts on this. I’m going to continue to follow you. If you could tell the listeners. Are you on Twitter? You seem like such a nice person, you probably aren’t on Twitter. But where can they follow you?
Casey Chalk:
Yeah. A lot of my friends do tell me I need to get on Twitter, but I am not. I have a website, caseychalk.com, so if folks want to email me, ask questions about homeschooling. Julie, you’re entirely right, homeschooling is terrifying. And my wife and I very much felt that way, but we’ve fallen in love with it. We love the flexibility and freedom that we have. Sometimes we just take a day off because we’re worn out and we can’t do it anymore, and that’s fine. You just teach a little bit farther into June. Right?
Julie Gunlock:
Exactly.
Casey Chalk:
And you start a little bit earlier, or you teach on Saturday.
Julie Gunlock:
My son got his braces on today, and he came home and he was feeling great about things. I don’t know if you had braces. I suspect you had braces. Do you remember when you got your braces on, and you were doing great? And you kind of thought, “Oh, this is so cool.” And then by about 3:00 in the afternoon, your whole mouth was aching. And so I told him, “You need to finish chapter eight of spelling,” and that was just when the pain kicked in. I said, “You know what, take the day off,” so you’re right. It is great for the flexibility. So I love stories like that, and so you have a website, and you can find your writing also at The Federalist. We’re big fans of The Federalist over here. I write for them as well. So Casey, thanks so much for coming on. I hope you’ll come back. Maybe we could talk just about homeschooling and how to get started.
Casey Chalk:
Sure. Yeah, that would be great. Probably better to have my wife on, she’s [inaudible 00:31:05] on it.
Julie Gunlock:
I would love that.
Casey Chalk:
Yeah. I’m more than happy to do so. Thank you so much for having me on.
Julie Gunlock:
Thanks, Casey. And keep up the great work. I’m glad you’re here in Northern Virginia.
Casey Chalk:
Thank you. You too.
Julie Gunlock:
Thanks, everyone, for being here for another episode of The Bespoke Parenting Hour. If you enjoyed this episode or like the podcast in general, please leave a rating or review on iTunes. This helps ensure that the podcast reaches as many listeners as possible. If you haven’t subscribed to The Bespoke Parenting Hour on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts, please do so, so you won’t miss an episode. Don’t forget to share this episode and let your friends know that they can get Bespoke episodes on their favorite podcast app. From all of us here at the Independent Women’s Forum, thanks for listening.