On this episode of the Bespoke Parenting Podcast, host Julie Gunlock talks to Mary Vought, an IWF visiting fellow, public relations executive, and the only female serving as a Presidential Appointee on the National Council of Disability, where she advocates for those in the disability community, including her youngest daughter, who has cystic fibrosis.
TRANSCRIPT
Julie Gunlock:
Hey everyone, I’m Julie Gunlock. I’m the 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 that fits their families, themselves, and most importantly, their kids. Today I’m super excited to be joined by Mary Vought. Mary is a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum. Hey, Mary.
Mary Vought:
Hey, thanks for having me.
Julie Gunlock:
She is the president and founder of Vought Strategies, a Washington DC based PR firm, and she’s also the executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund. Lastly, Mary is a presidential appointee on the National Council of Disability. She’s the only female council member, and she advocates for those in the disability community, including her youngest daughter, Porter, who’s only eight years old. She has cystic fibrosis.
Mary is a contributor to the New York Post, the Federalist, the Washington Examiner, the Hill, and she’s been published in the Washington Post, USA Today, Fox News, Newsweek, and Wall Street Journal. I never miss a Mary Vought column. You should all follow her, and she will tell you where to follow her later. Mary lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and two children, so that means she is a Northern Virginia mom. Oh, that’s provocative, Mary. Thanks for coming on.
Mary Vought:
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Julie Gunlock:
So I have so many questions to ask you, but I try to start off talking to each guest about the parenting style they employ. You may not have a parenting style. There’s… Okay, that was my doorbell, which I’m going to ignore. So just if my dog goes crazy. So some people have a parenting style, some people don’t. I make it up as I go along. What would you say your parenting style is?
Mary Vought:
Yikes. I know we value honesty, so I’m going to be really honest in that it is definitely probably some form of a hover mother. I’m just pretty protective of my girls. They’re young. My sister’s a police officer, so it’s just the things I hear about in this world. And so, I believe one day I’m going to be held responsible to God for how I raise them, and so I’m pretty strict with them. I want them to be good, responsible, respectful adults. And I do think I’m probably a little overprotective and hover over them maybe a little too much at times, if I’m being honest.
Julie Gunlock:
Well, I have a lot of podcast episodes where I talk about the joys of free ranging parents, and it’s funny because some people call that neglectful parenting.
Mary Vought:
No, no, it’s definitely not. I wish I could be more free range.
Julie Gunlock:
Well, I think honestly, when my kids were younger, I might have been a little bit more nervous about things, but I also have three boys. I don’t know if there’s… It’s interesting. That would be an interesting podcast about the differences of parenting boys and being a boy mom versus being a girl mom. Because I have friends who definitely agree with the free range movement and the principles of letting your kid explore and figure out their own limits and how that makes them a stronger person. But at the same time, they have girls, and they’re much like you. They just are a little bit more nervous. So anyway, that’s a different podcast. Maybe you can come back and we can talk about that.
But you are a huge advocate for the disability community. In the intro, I mentioned you have an eight-year-old daughter named Porter. She has cystic fibrosis. I think I’d like to hear a little bit about that disease. I’m not totally familiar with it. What is that disease, how does it impact her, and how does it impact you as a parent?
Mary Vought:
Definitely. I loved in the intro how you said she was only eight because I feel like she’s going on 18 at times. I’m like, “Oh, she is only eight.” That’s a good reminder to me. She’s only eight.
Julie Gunlock:
Yeah.
Mary Vought:
So yes, cystic fibrosis, sometimes known as CF, it is a life-threatening genetic condition, and it affects… Basically in layman’s terms, the mucus in an individual’s body. So in the lungs, in the digestive system and in the reproductive system. And so in a normal human being, there’s a way in your gene that salt is able to pass through and break down mucus in your body, so that when you get a cold and you have mucus, your body’s able to break it down and cough it out or fight against it.
Well, with CF, that’s really difficult. And so you have a lot of buildup of mucus, and with the buildup of mucus in the lungs and in the digestive system, you have a lot of complications. You have lung infections. She has to take digestive enzymes when she eats anything with fat to help break it down. Her baseline when she’s not sick, fighting a cold or an infection, she has two breathing treatments a day and two chest physical therapy episodes a day, plus the numerous medications and drugs that she takes.
Julie Gunlock:
Wow. Wow. Now I’m curious, did you know… are they able to determine if a child has cystic fibrosis in the womb? Is this something that you knew beforehand and were able to prepare for? I’m interested in your journey as a new mom, discovering this.
Mary Vought:
Definitely, yeah. In Virginia, when you find out you’re pregnant and you go in to get the blood test to confirm, they test you for a whole host of disabilities, really without your knowledge. I had no idea. And so I knew with our first daughter that my husband and I were both carriers, based on some tests. And my first daughter doesn’t have CF. My older daughter, she’s 10, she’s a carrier. And so we knew that there was a 25% chance that our second, if we had another kid, that they would have CF. And it was confirmed during some blood tests that she in fact did have it.
Julie Gunlock:
What is the current medical research on CF? Is there an end to this? It sounds… You already talked about the treatments, which that’s tough. That’s a lot of time for her to get those treatments. But what is the future hold for CF, people who struggle with CF?
Mary Vought:
This is actually an exciting question because in 2019 there was a breakthrough medication called Trikafta that came out that really is changing the life for people with CF. Before Trikafta, her life expectancy was probably mid to late 30s. Now on Trikafta, she can live likely a full life because of this miracle drug. And in 2019, the Washington Post did a story at the end of the year of the top 19 things that happened in the world. Not just medical things, but the top 19 things. And this drug was one of the 19 things because it is that groundbreaking and that life-changing. And so it’s able to help correct the gene that is wrong with CF.
Julie Gunlock:
Wow.
Mary Vought:
And so she started taking that a couple years ago, actually on the 4th of July, and she’s been free of some lung infection diseases that she’s had to fight in the past. She’s gaining weight, putting on weight. It is very, very, very hopeful. Yeah.
Julie Gunlock:
Oh, that’s wonderful. That really is wonderful, Mary. Let’s switch gears a little bit. I want to talk to you about advocacy, the advocacy you’re doing through that presidential appointment, and talk a little bit about what that board does. But I also want to talk about learning loss and the advocacy you’re doing for special needs kids who have suffered the most it during COVID, post COVID. But let’s get to your appointment. Tell us a little bit about your work with that organization.
Mary Vought:
A lot of times, I think the Left, their solution is that we just throw money at the problem. And we don’t look at the individual and we don’t actually look at how the policies affect them. And so I really think of it as my job as a mom of a child with a disability to do whatever I can to advocate for her.
And so for example, let’s talk about California for a minute. We know Gavin Newsom is pushing hard to ban all oil cars in California, and we know that they have a terrible electricity grid. Nobody is talking about the fact that there are people with disabilities in California reliant on medical machines.
Julie Gunlock:
Right.
Mary Vought:
What’s going to happen to them when their electricity grid goes out? And so, some people are so focused on this green policy or pushing this political agenda, they’re not actually looking at the ramifications. And so I feel like it’s my job to stand up and point those out and say, “Hey, yeah. Great. Teslas are great, but they’re also really quiet cars, and people that have hearing issues or are blind, they’re not going to be able to see them or hear them as they’re crossing the street.” These are things that we need to fix that can help the disability community.
Julie Gunlock:
It’s so interesting that you bring this up because during COVID, because of the unemployment benefits that were extended over and over again, one of the more horrifying things that I read about, and actually, IWF actually did a film on this and highlighted the case of a disabled man who lived in California… Actually, I’m not sure about that. I think he lived in Idaho. Anyway, he couldn’t get home healthcare nurses to come into his house and help him. And this is a man who literally needs help getting out of his bed and into a chair so that he can go to the bathroom. And it turned out he was holding his pee for hours and hours and hours, sometimes up to 16 hours, 18 hours, until someone could finally come in. And luckily, he has a neighbor who is sometimes able to help him.
And you have to ask, if these home healthcare nurses were not making as much money as what the government was offering them to stay home. And so it’s a really complicated issue. But some of these government programs… And this is a lingering problem. Disability community is really struggling in this economy. Tell us what you’ve heard within the disability community about how this economy is really making it hard for these people to survive.
Mary Vought:
And oftentimes, what you find from government is the solution is more money. Let’s just send some money, fund this program that actually doesn’t get to the individual, that actually doesn’t look at the problem that that person is facing and see them as a human being. And so, it’s just a one size fits all. Let’s throw more taxpayer money at a problem and hope that it’s a solution.
And there needs to be accountability. And there’s not. And a lot of times, these funds are misused. We’ve seen that with the OPOs, the organ procurement system, which is run by bureaucrats, and they determine who gets a liver and who doesn’t. And there’s been numerous stories. I wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal about how they’ve misused these funds. But they’re the ones that control the monopoly on that. And sick people, the sickest among us, are the ones that are suffering.
Julie Gunlock:
It really is a lingering problem. And I’m really glad that the National Council for Disability is focusing on this and you are as well. And I think that really… What you said about it’s always just throw more money at it, which is a common refrain we also hear with the public schools.
And I want to get back to the learning loss, as I mentioned. We know that kids with special needs and economically disadvantaged kids were hit the hardest. And you think about it, there were an awful lot of families like my own, where my husband was working from home, I was working from home, we were able to… I love how Mary Katherine Ham put it, Zoom butler our kids for the length of the time that they were home. And we were there to help them with assignments and talk to the teachers and make sure that everything was… But there was an awful lot of people who just obviously didn’t have the ability to stay home with their kids.
And then special needs kids. I think one of the most revolting things I’ve ever seen is in Alexandria, the Alexandria City Public School System has a particular program for kids that have severe disabilities. They’re blind, they’re deaf, they’re very nonverbal autistic or severe ADHD, self harm, things like this. And there’s only about 300 of them in the whole city of Alexandria, and they wouldn’t even bring those kids back. They certainly had the space. Because they were always saying, “We have to keep the schools closed because we can’t put all these kids in one place. We can’t have six feet.” But they could have with only 300 kids. And they even refused to bring that demographic of kids. And they had all the PPE, all the COVID funding. They could have built whatever systems they needed to help that very small group of kids.
And what’s really shocking, Mary, is the head of the Alexandria City Public Schools, the school board, the chairwoman of the school board, is a special needs teacher by trade. She, by the way, also sends her kids to a private Catholic school that wasn’t shut during the… So it’s just galling.
As a parent who had to deal with this, it’s just the stories, when you hear that combination of things. She knows the unique needs of the special needs community, of these kids, of this. And again, I’m not asking that every kid with an IEP be brought back to the school, but just that very small group who really need in person services is… For instance, the National Council for Disabilities, are they going to look at this? Because I feel like, and I know I’m going on too long here, I feel like we’re about… For some people, it’s like we’ve entered this era of amnesia where will there be accountability? If the Republicans take over, will they do investigations into this? I’d love to get your opinion on will this happen again because we didn’t look back and say, “Why did it happen in the first place?”
Mary Vought:
Absolutely. That’s a great question. I hope that there are a whole host of organizations, individuals, hopefully legal lawsuits of individuals looking into this issue because it is outrageous. What we saw was it was about politics and it was about bowing to the teachers unions. That’s what it was about. And our children were left out in the cold. And like you said, particularly those with disabilities that were reliant on those services that they received at school. And we saw that’s what really spring boarded Governor Glenn Youngkin to win the election is because parents, moderates, Democrats, conservatives, were frustrated with these kind of rulings. They saw early on it wasn’t about taking care of the kids, it wasn’t about the wellbeing of the children, it was about the teachers unions and a political agenda. And that was frustrating to so many people.
So I hope that there will be some investigations. I hope some people will look into it. I know Eric Schmitt, he’s a senate candidate, hopefully the new senator from Missouri, current AG there, he sued about 47 school districts in Missouri for the mask mandate. He said there were literally young children bringing a letter to their school saying that Attorney General says I don’t have to wear a mask. And we saw how masks affect those with speech impediments, those that needed to see a teacher’s mouth in order to help with speech. And so these delays that we’ve seen with kids is absolutely infuriating. It didn’t need to happen. And I think we’re going to be paying for this for years to come.
Julie Gunlock:
It’s interesting that you bring up the mask. I wonder about your situation, your daughter, little Porter having to wear a mask. She’s got a condition where if she coughs… You’re trying to keep her airways free. You’re trying to keep her free from infection. And I know that there… It’s interesting because COVID probably was very terrifying for you. I’m sure that was terrifying. And she obviously was vulnerable. These are… To breathing issues. And then at the same time, masking probably presented its own unique problems as well. How did you handle those months of when COVID was raging and everyone was in lockdown, and then after? What was your experience with COVID?
Mary Vought:
That’s a great question. So early on, we were absolutely terrified and we did lock down. We were watching all of the news and following the protocols, but we learned pretty quickly that this disease just… It didn’t affect young children, even those with CF. There was a newborn baby with CF that got COVID that was perfectly fine.
And so I had to do my own research, as mothers often do, and just follow individuals with cystic fibrosis that had COVID, monitor it, read the data. And eventually, we decided the mental outcome of locking your child down, of putting them in this bubble was far worse than her getting COVID herself. And so we really only did lock down for a short amount of time. It was really, really, really important to us that she live a normal life and she feel like a normal child.
And I had to push back on her doctors. She sees some of the best pulmonologists in the country, but I just told them, I was like, “Listen, I want her to live a normal life, and I believe that that will help her stay healthy if her mental health is healthy.” And she ended up getting COVID last December. She was perfectly fine. We treated it like we would any other cold, and she was great. But I know it’s different for people with kids with disabilities and they have to look at it a different way. But just for us, outweighing the cost benefits of her just being… We saw suicide rates and depression skyrocket amongst kids and teens because of this. That’s just not normal. We are created to be social beings, interacting with other individuals.
Julie Gunlock:
That’s right. That’s right. It is so great to hear how a mother with a child who’s very vulnerable still reasoned it out, read the articles, tracked things herself, read the data. This is what a lot of us did because we couldn’t rely on public health to be honest with us. I think that is one of the most devastating results of COVID is because I actually am a believer in public health. I think public health can be very good. It can really help warn people about conditions they need to… And lifestyle choices that are healthier. I think that in many cases, public health can be useful, but I don’t know how the public health community is going to improve… Regain the trust of the American public. Again, I keep saying, “Oh, that’s another show,” because it is. It’s such a big subject.
But I do worry about that. And I worry, frankly, I think the public health community can also be helpful for parents, for individuals who have to care for or themselves have a disability. And it worries me that they’ve harmed themselves so much in this country. And again, I don’t know how we tell people, “You should really trust the public health.” And also, I’m a big believer in vaccines, the regular schedule of vaccines. I’ve written about vaccines for years, like you for the Wall Street Journal. And it just is so galling for me that because of how they screwed up with all this COVID stuff and the mandates, I think that we are going to have a whole new generation of anti-vaxxers now because they acted so, I think, inappropriately, and the government mandates turned so many people off. So it’s a problem.
Mary Vought:
Absolutely. Yeah. There’s a lot of trust lost that didn’t need to be lost. There are a lot of poor decisions that were made that we’re going to be seeing the ramifications of for years to come. It’s unfortunate.
Julie Gunlock:
Also, Mary, I also feel like one thing that frustrates me, there’s never any contrition, right?
Mary Vought:
Yeah.
Julie Gunlock:
It’s not like anyone said sorry. Just this week, Anthony Fauci was like, “I might have made some bad decisions.” And you could tell… He didn’t go too far. He was just like, “Well, I might have said something wrong,” or whatever. I think just the haughtiness and the lack of, again, of contrition is what’s really bothered me moving on. I understand everything was crazy, and we didn’t know what was going on, and there were so many questions, but the fact that it doesn’t seem like they’re looking back and reflecting and want to improve the situation, in fact, they’ve still acting like what they did was correct, is a huge part of the problem.
I want to move on a little bit, and before we end this, I want to talk about Governor Youngkin. As I mentioned, you’re a Northern Virginia mom. I’m a Northern Virginia mom. It’s funny because I don’t think people understand how important the Northern Virginia region has been for the entire country, really showing the power of parents and the power of parents to say, “That’s enough. That’s enough. And we’re not going to take this anymore.” I’d like to get your thoughts on Governor Youngkin’s new policy that will really empower parents and keep them informed on the children who are identifying as transgender.
Mary Vought:
Absolutely, yes. I think Governor Glenn Youngkin is doing a fantastic job. The model policy that he put forth, really it’s just about parental rights, allowing the parents to have a say in education and wellbeing of their children. This is very fundamental. This is very basic. But under the previous policy that Governor Ralph Northam put down, it basically said that guidance counselors and teachers, they could help a child, a minor, pursue a different gender without the knowledge of their parent or guardian. That is absolutely ludicrous.
And so what Youngkin did was say, “No, hold on. Parents are those legally responsible for their children. They need to be involved in this process. They need to know what’s going on. And they need to be the ones that make the decisions.” And so, he’s just honoring parental involvement and reaffirming the role of parents. There’s nothing outlandish about this. It’s very basic and it’s why he got elected, as I mentioned earlier, because parents all across political spectrum were frustrated with being told that their opinion doesn’t matter and that teachers know better.
And so, his policy is very common sense. I’m grateful that he is putting it forward. And I know a lot of moms and dads that are grateful for it. They want to have a say in their kids’ life. They’re raising these individuals. They want to be able to decide what’s best for them. I know what’s best for my children, particularly the one that has a disability, better than any teacher that doesn’t know them. It’s crazy.
Julie Gunlock:
Yeah, that’s such a good point, Mary, and it’s so interesting to me because you are a mom who has a child with a very serious medical condition. You deal with it. You mentioned coming… Where the doctors were saying, you have to pull the stuff out of the refrigerator for at a certain time and make sure it comes to room temperature, and then you have to do this and you have to do this. And how… When you were saying that, I was thinking about the first days of me with my child home and how you are truly overwhelmed, and then to have that on top of it.
But it’s interesting because I think about this idea. We know, and this isn’t just from Abigail Shrier’s book and all the data that we do know and some of the more recent… Because we don’t have a lot of data on this… Really, this cult of transgenderism, this thing that’s taken off, this trend, if you want to call it that. We don’t have a lot of data on these kids, but we do know that it affects autistic children more. We do know that it tends to be very trendy among young women. We do know these kinds of data points.
And it’s interesting to me that a lot of these kids that claim to be transgender and identify as transgender suffer from body dysphoria, which is a mental condition, have autism, which again is an issue that can affect development. And so those parents who are dealing with those kids, which is in many cases, these are disabilities, these are things that people have to overcome.
Mary Vought:
Absolutely.
Julie Gunlock:
And so for this demographic, it’s more important than ever that the parents be involved. Because they know the history of the… If they’ve had anxiety, if they’ve had suicidal thoughts, if they’ve had depression, if it’s COVID related, if they have body dysphoria, all of these things.
And the idea that Northam’s administration, it’s the previous administration, Democrat, and his incredibly radically leftist department of education under Northam pushed through these anti-parent policies at the very last of the administration, the very end of the administration, is so dangerous, is so dangerous for these kids who are likely suffering from other issues. And now these schools are giving them gender-affirming care.
In fact, in Alexandria, Virginia, they issued a statement saying not only will they not comply with the governor’s new rules, they said they will continue to give children gender-affirming care. That sounds nice. It’s extremely dangerous. So I think the parent movement isn’t over. The election of Governor Youngkin was a great step in the right direction, but it is not over.
What do you say to parents who are living in these deep, dark blue communities who might feel like they’re outnumbered or it’s really… I think you can agree with me, it’s sometimes tough to live in some of these very liberal areas. What do you say? How do you encourage conservative parents who might live in these areas?
Mary Vought:
Absolutely. You are the one responsible for advocating for your child, and so you take that responsibility seriously and speak out no matter what. If one person hears you, if one million people hear you, you have that responsibility. And we saw with Youngkin in the election that so many individuals that didn’t agree on politics agreed on the parental right issue.
So you’re not alone. Parents should continue to advocate and fight. This whole transgender movement, it’s a political agenda. It’s not a pro child agenda at all. The children are the ones that lose in this entire process. They’re the ones that are harmed. They don’t get the care they need to help with the dysphoria. Instead, we’re cutting off body parts and pumping their bodies full of dangerous medicine that’s going to harm them for the rest of their lives. That’s not care. That’s not compassion. It’s the complete opposite. And so parents should continue to speak out. They should continue to stand up, even if they don’t have a child that suffers from that. We need other parents willing to speak out and join them and support them in order to help it become a bigger movement.
But I think you’re right. The parent movement isn’t over. It’s going to continue. And I just really commend Youngkin and his administration for doing what’s right, regardless of if everyone agrees with you. That’s what leadership is, doing what’s right when it matters.
Julie Gunlock:
Well, Mary, I’m really excited to be in the parent movement with you. I think you are terrific and a wonderful advocate, not only for your own daughter and both of your daughters, but a great leader for all parents. Tell the listeners where they can find your writing, your Twitter and other ways that they can find all of your work.
Mary Vought:
Absolutely. Probably the best way would just be to follow me on Twitter until I get banned probably. So it’s just @maryvought, and I try to tweet and put out all of my recent work there as soon as it comes out. So that would be a great way. And obviously, the IWF website, you guys always cross post and post a lot of my stuff, which is great.
Julie Gunlock:
Well, listen, we said earlier, before we went live on this that we wish we could hang out more because we aren’t, so… We don’t live so far away, so we definitely should. You’re just a real gift to all parents and to this community of concerned parents, so thanks so much for joining us today.
Mary Vought:
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
