Lila Rose

Through God, All Things Are Possible

Lila Rose — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 18:52:26 GMT

They say women can’t do it all.

And they are right — by ourselves we can’t.

But when you’re walking in His calling, He makes a way.

I’m the mother to these children, these eternal souls, breathtakingly beautiful, entrusted to me. Beside God and their father, they are my greatest gifts.

They bring endless joy and surprises. They teach me patience. They call out my presence. They are the embodiment of love, pure love, and wonder.

And I’m also helping lead a movement, build organizations, host a show, advise others, and help negotiate change behind the scenes.

This work has quietly grown for over 20 years. The through line is defending life, cultural change and helping people LIVE, to live truly and fully.

My children are first. But they were given to a mother with an additional mission.

They see their father working hard to support them, and her, and the mission. They experience him teaching them again and again, what this life is for and how we are to live (always growing, serving, giving).

In their own child-like lens, they see the dreaming, the generosity, the need, the adventure, and the risk.

I hope they share it one day, in their own God given way.

In the mean time, they inspire it and inspire me.

Thank you God for this life and its bountiful purpose. Thank you for these souls you’ve entrusted us with.

May this life be a training ground, by the grace of Jesus Christ, so our hearts expand beyond what we can comprehend and we may one day receive His perfect love face to face.

half a million souls

Lila Rose — Wed, 06 May 2026 15:57:41 GMT

When I started The Lila Rose Show, it was with a simple goal: to learn from the best of the best—and to share those conversations with you. The people who are truly helping others live excellent lives by putting truth, beauty, and goodness first.

What I didn’t fully realize at the beginning was just how special this community would become.

You’ve tuned in, shared episodes, supported our work, and helped us grow into something far bigger than a podcast. You’ve made this a place where thoughtful conversations can still happen—where we can ask real questions, challenge assumptions, and pursue what’s actually good for our lives, our families, and our culture.

And that matters more than ever.

We’ve had incredible guests. We’ve had meaningful, sometimes difficult conversations. And through it all, you’ve been here—listening, engaging, and helping carry this mission forward.

I truly couldn’t have reached this milestone without you.

So thank you—for watching, for sharing, for believing in what we’re building.

This is just the beginning.

With so much gratitude,
Lila ❤

Available for iOS and Android

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Sex scenes are 100% unneccesary

Lila Rose — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 16:35:51 GMT

Hot take: sex scenes are 100% unnecessary in film.

I said as much on X this week, and it was apparently a controversial thing to say! Let me explain.

We have become so desensitized to pornographic content that it’s easy to forget, but showing the most intimate, intense and beautiful act imaginable for the world to see isn’t just a violation of our senses—it degrades our respect for the institution of marriage, human dignity, and sex itself.

Sex is designed for two people who are, through the lifelong commitment of marriage, baring body, heart and soul to one another. Sex is designed to bring couples close to one another—not onlookers. It’s also the sacred way God brings new life into the world—the greatest mystery of human existence. These aspects of sex—the “unitive” and “procreative” elements—are meant to be private precisely because they are so sacred. Sacred things require reverence.

Decades ago, even Hollywood understood that sex was sacred. Before 1968, The Hays code was a set of film industry moral guidelines that enforced decency standards in American cinema. It prohibited profanity, suggestive nudity, ridicule of clergy, and detailed depictions of crime or sexual perversion, aiming to maintain moral standards in films. Directors could still indicate in their storylines that a sexual encounter happened—but this was done in a way to protect both the actors and the audience watching. Some of the greatest romances of all time, the great Hollywood classics, were filmed during this era. This was a Golden Era for Hollywood, when audiences were introduced to truly excellent films from Casablanca to Roman Holiday to Gone with the Wind. Love, passion and romance were depicted without vulgarity or pornography.

Modern films have accomplished this, too, despite the push today to include sex scenes. Millions of people have fallen in love with the Pride and Prejudice films (the BBC series and the Keira Knightley adaption) because they depicted Jane Austen’s brilliant story of love, longing, fear of loss, and romance in a gorgeous way. Zero sex scenes. There’s hardly even kissing in the BBC version.

After my X post began to go viral, I was challenged to debate the matter publicly by a popular film producer (I agreed, and I will let you know if that takes place), accused of hating sex, and called a “prude.”

Quite the opposite is true. A prude sees sex as dirty, ugly or embarrassing—rejecting or diminishing the importance of sex. I believe that sex is so important, sacred and special that it deserves to be valued more, not less.

Our culture doesn’t value sex enough.

The reality is that restraint doesn’t weaken storytelling, it strengthens it. It forces filmmakers to do the harder, more meaningful work of building love from the inside out: through sacrifice, tension, devotion, and difficult choices.

What do you think?

In Honor of St. Joseph

Lila Rose — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 21:28:58 GMT

Today, people all over the world are celebrating Saint Joseph—the foster father of Jesus.

I have a special love for St. Joseph. Not a single word of St. Joseph’s is recorded in the Gospels. And yet this quiet man’s obedience, protectiveness, and devotion is central to Jesus Christ’s coming—and all of salvation history.

Called a “righteous man” in Scripture, St. Joseph would welcome Mary, who had already conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit, as his wife. He would protect baby Jesus from Herod, leading his little family in flight to Egypt.

In my own life, developing a relationship with the saints has been one of the most beautiful parts of my journey of faith after I entered the Catholic Church while I was a college student. I think it can be easy today to misunderstand the Christian tradition of prayer to the saints as somehow ignoring or misplacing trust in God. The reality is, all power comes from God alone. Every answered prayer comes from Him. But for nearly 2,000 years, Christians have asked the saints—those already in heaven, closer to God than we are—to pray for us. In the same way we might ask a dear friend or our community here on earth to lift us up in prayer, we can ask the holy men and women who have gone before us to intercede on our behalf.

Saint Joseph is known as a powerful intercessor. He was especially close to our Lord Jesus—God chose Joseph to help raise His own Son.

Saint Joseph is often seen as a patron of family and marriage.

I once heard a story about a woman in her late 30s who was anxious to be married, but wasn’t having any luck. She prayed regularly for God’s help and felt in her heart that she was meant to be married, but the right man had not yet come. So she began a 30-day novena to Saint Joseph, asking for his prayers. Days passed. Then weeks. On the 30th day—still with no apparent answer—she grew frustrated and, in a moment of frustration, threw her Saint Joseph medal out the window.

It ended up hitting a man walking across the street; that man would later become her husband.

Recently, a group of friends, my husband, and I prayed a novena asking for St. Joseph’s intercession to help with an urgent need. It was a situation where we were told a bad outcome (involving some beloved children) was 99% likely. Miraculously, on the 9th day of the novena, what we were praying for happened inexplicably. Children were protected from danger. It was nothing short of a miracle.

This wasn’t the first time I have personally experienced the power of St. Joseph’s prayers. I asked St. Joseph to help find me my future husband when I was single—and so did my little sister. Now we are both happily married; me, to an amazing man named Joseph!

Here’s a picture from my sister Antonina’s wedding last fall:

Nina is a singer and songwriter and has a new single out—an original song dedicated to St. Joseph. The lyrics are so beautiful; here are some of my favorite lines from the chorus:

David sang him songs,

You sing him to sleep,

Not one word was recalled in all of history,

But I would like to hear your voice one of these days,

Joseph, can you tell me that all will be okay?

Please listen to it, enjoy, and follow her on Instagram!

Saint Joseph, pray for us and for our families.

Love,
Lila

Available for iOS and Android

Is Nine Kids Too Many?

Lila Rose — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 23:17:48 GMT

When Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm announced this week that she gave birth to her ninth child, both the celebration and the backlash was immediate.

It all felt personal to me, as both my husband and I come from families of eight children. I remember my own mother facing criticism for her decision to be open to life at our church growing up, and the raised eyebrows of other families at the playground. Thankfully, I think the path my mom and dad helped forge as homeschool parents of 8 children in the 90s has helped make having a big family (and homeschooling) much less weird today.

One critic, Rebecca Reid, tweeted:

“You cannot give nine children adequate time, attention and connection. You are, unquestionably, with nine children, spending less time with your children than a working parent with two kids.”

This argument sounds practical, even compassionate. It is also profoundly wrong, and it reveals something much deeper about how modern culture misunderstands love, childhood, and family itself.

The False Math of Modern Parenting

Reid’s critique assumes love is a finite commodity like money or time. In this framework, having nine children leaves everyone with less love. That’s how fractions work; the larger your denominator gets, the smaller your piece of the pie.

But families aren’t simple equations. Love is not a zero-sum game. We can’t flatten the reality of family life like that and expect it to make sense. Simon Sarris framed it best: “Every child you add makes many more connections for the entire family. The graph of love is not a bunch of arrows pointing only to mom. They will all have a long childhood of playing together.”

While the science does indicate that there can be some tradeoffs between family size and educational attainment, but crucially, these effects are mostly mitigated by the presence of a stable marriage. In other words, the love of an already happy home is magnified by additional children. If it was unstable in the first place, dysfunction may attend additional children. But for strong, capable, loving parents, siblings are a blessing to their existing children.

Large families create thick and multidimensional relationships and social opportunities. As one of eight, I can speak from experience. In big families, your siblings become best friends. There is always someone to play with, to talk with, to experience life with. You’re never alone unless you intentionally seek solitude. My parents were always very busy, but we spent time together as a family often and we discovered our own personalities, interests, dreams and everything else in an environment that was rich in relationships.

Older kids learn to help care for younger kids. This helps teenagers not be so self-absorbed. Younger kids learn to play with even younger kids, learning cooperation and gentleness from a young age. It’s not always dependent on mom to play with, entertain, and provide 100% of all care for every kid all the time. In big families, kids learn that life isn’t only about them—and that’s a good thing. Life is about loving and being loved by other people. With so many siblings, you learn real skills, like how to relate to and work with people.

At 6 years old, I was changing diapers and helping play with my youngest siblings. I remember the pure joy of sitting with my younger brother in his playpen and reading him baby books. I first babysat five kids alone when I turned 12. I learned to feel confident taking care of children and I experienced what I’ve discovered is an extremely rare blessing: never feeling lonely. I had no idea what it really meant to be lonely until I went to college, where I learned what loneliness felt like freshman year.

In hiring for my organizations, I’ve discovered some of the best employees come from big families. When I learned my program manager was the oldest of nine kids, it confirmed everything I saw about her in the interview process: an amazing heart, great attitude, incredible competence and reliability, flexible, and very easy to work with. She’s become one of our very best hires.

The Loneliness Epidemic

The irony is this: We live in the most “child-optimized,” hyper-attentive parenting era in history — and we are simultaneously facing an epidemic of loneliness. We have smaller families, more structured childhoods, more adult supervision, and more curated “quality time.”

And yet—we also have more mental health problems and more isolation. Loneliness is a common experience; as many as 80% of those under 18 years of age and 40% of adults over 65 years of age report being lonely. A study conducted by Harvard found that nearly a third of people describe “existential loneliness,” or a “fundamental sense of disconnection from others or the world.” Of those who were lonely, for example, 65% said they felt “fundamentally separate or disconnected from others or the world,” and 57% said they were unable to share their true selves with others. As for the leading causes of loneliness, respondents named technology (73%) and insufficient time with family (66%) as the top two reasons for their own loneliness.

What if the problem isn’t insufficient one-on-one attention from parents? What if the problem is insufficient relationship networks—which are improved by sibling love?

The 80+ year Harvard Study of Adult Development confirms that strong social connections are the single most important predictor of long-term happiness, health, and longevity. While there is no doubt that sibling relationships can be fraught, they also often provide a level of support that is difficult to find elsewhere.

Mother Teresa once said, “How can you say there are too many children? It’s like saying there are too many flowers.”

The modern world is so accustomed to material wealth and so afraid of scarcity that we have forgotten the beauty of human life. Abundance comes in many forms, the most important of which is in humanity. So, congratulations to Hannah Neeleman on her baby. The world needs more life, not less.

This was one of the topics of discussion for our new Wednesday Live Show this week! If you’re not already subscribed to the show on Youtube, do that now and hit the notification bell so you never miss another.

Also, don’t miss this week’s episode with Tim Tebow and, fittingly, my brother and sister, whom I love very much.

Have a great weekend.

Love, Lila

The Mark of the Christian

Lila Rose — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 21:33:08 GMT

In a collection of letters entitled The Habit of Being, Flannery O’Connor once wrote:

“From 15 to 18 is an age at which one is very sensitive to the sins of others, as I know from recollections of myself. At that age you don’t look for what is hidden. It is a sign of maturity not to be scandalized and to try to find explanations in charity.”

That line has been in my head lately, partly because it feels so out of step with the moment we’re living in. In politics in 2026, everyone assumes the worst. Everyone is convinced that they are defending the truth and are quick to use the mistakes of others to humiliate them online. Somewhere along the way, in our rush to “stand firm,” we’ve made a mistake: we’ve begun treating individual people as stand-ins for ideologies, flattening them into villains, exaggerating their defects, and rushing to judgment without evidence.

Can we name falsehood without straw manning our opponent? Can we hold leaders accountable without applying radically different standards depending on who’s on our “team?” Can we speak for moral clarity without publicly humiliating those who might fall short?

Colossians 4:6 reads, “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer each one.”

Christians are not permitted to believe the worst about people by default. We are not allowed to reduce our neighbors to caricatures. We are not free to justify cruelty because the target “deserves it.” And we do not get a pass on charity just because the current political situation is intense.

We all know we wouldn’t tolerate our neighbor screaming epithets at us over the fence. So why do we tolerate it when it comes from elected officials or public figures? God forbid our children hear it and repeat that behavior on the playground. Normalizing these antics because they get clicks or make us feel holier-than-thou is wrong and bad for the future.

So how do we change direction?

As a young man, George Washington wrote Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour into a notebook—110 maxims governing speech, posture, disagreement, and restraint.

Rule #58 reads: “Let your Conversation be without Malice or Envy, for ‘tis a Sig[n o]f a Tractable and Commendable Nature: And in all Causes of Passion [ad]mit Reason to Govern.” Washington understood that self-government begins with self-command, and that a republic cannot survive if its citizens—and especially its leaders—lack the discipline to govern their tongues, their tempers, and their treatment of others. Manners were not a substitute for virtue; they were a training ground for it.

Science actually supports this point. In a study conducted by The University of Zurich, charitable, respectful communication was shown to be psychologically functional: affection promotes emotional regulation, preserves connection under strain, and creates conditions in which truth, disagreement, and correction can occur without relational collapse.

This is as true for marriage as it is for politics. A nation cannot remain unified if its citizens and leaders treat every conflict as an opportunity to morally annihilate the other side. When political speech abandons affection, it fractures us, which is exactly what we now see online and in public life. By contrast, maintaining charitable regard, even while naming error, creates the emotional conditions necessary for persuasion, accountability, and self-government. In this sense, manners are not weakness and restraint is not cowardice: they are the emotional infrastructure of a republic.

Reason and faith must work hand in hand. The truth is not just correct positions; it is human dignity, moral order, and love. A society that claims to love truth while abandoning manners is not actually living in the truth. At the same time, a society obsessed with “niceness” but detached from truth hurts people badly—it is not nice at all. The mark of a Christian today is not how quickly or aggressively we can denounce error, but the degree of our charity, faith, and hope while doing so. We are called to find that delicate between truth and love. Our souls—and our future—depends on it.

Don’t miss this week’s interviews, including my sit-down with Katy Faust, children’s rights activist and founder of Them Before Us, and Chrissy Horton, mother of seven who shares with us her amazing testimony of giving her fertility to God.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Love,

Lila

Happy New Year!

Lila Rose — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 15:16:46 GMT

I’m late to the party but as I’ve spent the last few days reflecting on 2025, discussing it with Joe, dreaming about the new year, and praying, I wanted to share a quick round up:

2025 was a year of beauty.

There was beauty in watching our little ones grow and wonder at the world. Beauty in seeing brokenness become healed. Beauty in having another year of our marriage, built on a Love that holds us up like a net no matter what we are going through individually, both the amazing and the hard, a never ending opportunity to fall more deeply in love with each other. Beauty in watching Faith and Hope shine through even in the face of murder, death, and destruction.

I got to work with an amazing (and growing) team of people, tackling our biggest cultural and human rights problems with excellence and compassion.

I took more risks this year—which felt overwhelming at times—starting new projects and organizations, some which I haven’t shared about yet but am so excited to share in 2026.

It was so much fun to film 120+ more episodes of the podcast, to reach millions of people with our episodes. It still amazes me that I get to talk to the most fascinating, the most brave, the most faithful, and the most wise people as part of my *work*, and then share that with millions of you. Seriously, thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who listens, shares, comments, and is part of the show family. I love you all.

We saw historic gains for the pro-life and pro-family movement—although, there is so much more to do.

Live Action grew, with over 700 million video views this year alone, with thousands of people attending our conferences and training events, with Baby Olivia laws helping students see the beautiful humanity of every life, from fertilization onwards. Hearts and minds are changing on abortion and human dignity. I’m so grateful for our incredible, generous supporters and our brave team.

Abortion facilities closed down, and thousands of women chose life and were supported and celebrated by pregnancy resource centers and the amazing volunteers and teams that staff them.

I saw two of my sisters get married to the loves of their lives. Babies were born to family members and dear friends.

I had the best “work” trip of my life — my toddler Gigi, my sister in law, and I went together to Rome, where I had the privilege of speaking at the Vatican’s Jubilee for Digital Missionariies, and Gigi got her blessing from Papa Leo.

What more can I ask for? Another year? God is so good.

My 2026 Resolutions…

In our livestream episode last week on the morality of looksmaxxing, I shared my resolutions for 2026. I hope you consider joining me. If this list feels challenging, start with one thing. God is not waiting for you to get it all right—He’s waiting for you to show up.

Be angry at evil. Show no contempt.
Righteous anger can fuel courage, but contempt kills charity. Hate the sin. Love the sinner. Everyone bears God’s image.
Make a daily act of surrender.
List what brings you joy, fear, pain, or dread (3–20 items). Say: “I surrender this fully to You, God.” Do it daily. It changes everything.
Ask God for a vision for your life.
We often want too little. God has a calling—but you have to ask, listen, and act on His promptings.

Forgive.
Forgiveness doesn’t erase boundaries—it releases the grip of harm. Scripture is clear: forgiveness is the path to freedom.
Move your body every day.
Fifteen minutes is enough. Walk. Get outside. God often speaks when we move.
Put the phone away.
We lose years of life to scrolling. Give your full attention to your spouse, kids, and friends—at least an hour a day.
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Pray daily.
Set a timer. Minimum: 10 minutes. Ideal: 30. Speak. Listen. Let God reshape your life.
Cut out toxic content.
Mocking, sleazy, hateful, self-obsessed content deadens the soul. Block what tears you down.
Respect the Sabbath.
Go to church. Rest. Don’t make others work unnecessarily. Let Sunday reorient your loves.
Go to Daily Mass (if you can).
Hearing the Gospel every day is grounding, transformative, and life-giving.

Thank you Jesus for this life. May Your Will be done.

Love you all and happy new year!

Lila

Love Can Save the World

Lila Rose — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 16:55:31 GMT

Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight His paths. — Mark 1:3

Men and women are growing apart. Across social science research, news reporting, and cultural trends, there’s evidence that gender relations today are increasingly defined not simply by disagreement but by disengagement. Some commentators and researchers have given the trend a name, “heteropessimism,” — total disillusionment with heterosexual relationships.

Reporting on young Americans finds that political differences between men and women are increasing dramatically, and they are making dating and matching up harder. A 2023 Survey from the American Enterprise Institute showed 46% of white GenZ women are liberal, while only 28% of men identify as liberal. Meanwhile, dating apps are reporting that more people are sorting matches based on political affiliation.

Something has shifted in how young Americans think about marriage. According to new data analyzed by the Pew Research Center, high school seniors today are far less likely than past generations to say they even want to get married someday—with girls less enthusiastic about the idea than boys! In 1993, about 80 percent of 12th graders expected to marry. By 2023, that number had dropped to 67 percent. And it’s not simply that teens are firmly rejecting marriage—they’re increasingly unsure. Nearly one in four now say they don’t know if they’ll ever get married, a big jump from the early ’90s.

The ripple effects of estrangement between the sexes is also beginning to show. A 2024 study by market research company GlobalWebIndex found 80% of Gen Z respondents said they’d felt lonely in the past year, more than any other generation surveyed. The result is a mentally ill generation, consumed by tech and starved for trust. Romantic and platonic relationships alike are suffering.

Advent offers a radically different vision. In Mary and Joseph, the Christian story shows us what men and women look like when they are true collaborators—listening, trusting, and obeying God together. At the center of the story through which God intended to unite all of humanity, there is a man and a woman, loving one another.

I’ll be thinking and creating more content on this topic in the new year. While it can be a source of great pain, I think the relationship between men and women is also a source of renewal. We human beings need one another! Man and woman were designed for one another. Marriage is the first institution in human history, created by God. Healing starts at home.

The Holy Family, Jose Castrillo

ICYMI

I decided to tackle the thorny issue of immigration and ICE raids in a solo episode this week. The gist: it is entirely possible to support secure, lawful borders paired with a genuinely humane immigration system—one that upholds national sovereignty and the rule of law while treating every person, citizen and migrant alike, with dignity, due process, and compassion. The greater the power, the greater the responsibility to respect human dignity.
We finally had Neeza Powers on! He has an amazing (actually supernatural) testimony and is currently inspiring so many people on Instagram to consider the faith and to get to know God. He is a great follow, and is currently in OCIA. Pray for him and all converts!
Dr. Sears returned to the show this week to talk about all the things you need to know about parenting from 0-3. He had one of the most compassionate answers to the highly contentious topic of sleep training that I’ve ever heard. Check it out here:

Three Things I Learned This Week

Loneliness is a big problem in our society. A study commissioned by Harvard showed that people between 30-44 years of age were the loneliest group. 29% of people in this age range said they were “frequently” or “always” lonely. Among 18–29-year-olds, the rate was 24%. 81% of adults who were lonely also said they suffered from anxiety or depression compared to 29% of those who were less lonely.
You’re happier doing almost anything with friends than alone. A large study recently found that across more than 80 types of everyday activities—from grocery shopping to commuting—people consistently reported higher happiness levels when someone else was with them.
Friendships that cross economic lines boost social mobility. A UK-based study found that children from low-income backgrounds who grew up in areas with more cross-income friendships earned about £5,100 more per year as adults compared to those in less economically diverse networks. Who we know (and who we’re willing to connect with) changes outcomes.

Enjoy the people you love this week. Reach out to someone who might need it. God gives us His love in order to share it! Have a very Merry Christmas!

Love,

Lila

Available for iOS and Android

The Greatest Child Abuse Scandal in Modern History

Lila Rose — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 16:18:39 GMT

“To truly change the culture, it takes regular people standing up.”

Some of my favorite guests we have had on the Lila Rose Show are the people standing up against transgenderism, because it is truly one of the most powerfully destructive trends of our time. This is an ideology that hijacks people’s wounds and leverages their worst fears and insecurities against them, whether the person seeking transition themselves, or all everyone else surrounding them that have been cowed into silence.

This week, a clip from my interview with Chris Elston, a.k.a. Billboard Chris, went viral on X after Elon Musk shared it. In the segment, Chris was explaining how a man who raped a 3-month-old baby and drowned a 3-year-old was given breast implants by the Canadian government and is serving time in the women’s penitentiary—all because he says he’s trans, and because the Canadian government has made “transgender” an identity politics trump card. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard something so horrific.

Chris was your average guy, working in finance, trying to do best by his family when in 2020, he got fed up with the persistent lies and totalitarian silencing of dissent from the Canadian government when it came to transgenderism. To test the reality of the situation, he bought a $3000 billboard that read “ I love JK Rowling”. It lasted one day before the Canadian government forced the company to shut it down. So Chris decided he would start wearing his billboards instead, as well as filming the conversations he’s had since he started. Since then, he estimates he’s had 30,000 conversations with people about transgenderism. With a billion impressions on the internet, it’s impossible to say just how many hearts and minds he’s changed along the way.

This is why I see Chris as a true hero, as well as all of the guests I’ve had on who have shared their testimonies about transgenderism, including Neeza Powers, Jessica Rose, Katie Coblentz, Walt Heyer, Chloe Cole, and Dr. Ethan Haim, a whistleblower on children’s transgender surgeries. It takes so much courage to stand up against the government, and to risk losing friends, but, like Chris says, this is the kind of courage we need to start seeing from everyone if we want things to change. It’s time to run for the school board, or the PTA, or local office in order to speak the truth and protect our most vulnerable people from a predatory ideology.

Some facts worth considering:

In a 2020 study, transgender hospital patients were twice as likely to have a mental-health diagnosis. The study found mental disorder diagnoses in 77% of transgender inpatient encounters, compared with 37.8% of cisgender encounters — a dramatic, statistically significant gap. After adjusting for medical conditions, transgender patients still had nearly eight times the odds of any psychiatric diagnosis.
Another study by the NIH found a strong, positive correlation between symptoms of gender dysphoria and social anxiety among transgender youth. Teens reporting gender dysphoria symptoms also had higher levels of social-avoidant behavior and negative self-image, suggesting an overlap of distress related to gender identity and social anxiety. The authors argue that for many young people, social anxiety may be a key part of the psychological burden associated with gender dysphoria. These kids are lonely.
Finally, another NIH study reports that transgender individuals who undergo gender-affirming surgery face a significantly elevated risk of post-operative post-traumatic stress disorder, with nearly an eight-fold increase compared to baseline. The authors raise caution that gender-affirming interventions carry substantial psychological risks, especially for suicide.

Taken together, the data tells a simple story, which Chris and the rest of my amazing guests know: transgender identification doesn’t resolve psychological distress, it tracks with it. Gender dysphoria, social anxiety, chronic mental-health burden, and even severe post-surgical trauma all rise together.

Instead of treating a psychological crisis with scalpels and hormones and enabling, the real science indicates that we should be asking why such extreme distress is present in the first place. More questions follow—why are governments across the world are refusing to see the data for what it is, and why is the medical field hell-bent on making a vulnerable population even more fragile?

I believe that bravery will be the main virtue to bring the breakthroughs our culture so desperately needs. What do you think? Let me know in the comments section here on Substack!

Available for iOS and Android

Designing the Heavenward Collection

Lila Rose — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 17:36:33 GMT

By now, you’ve probably seen that we just launched our first merch collection for the Lila Rose Show! This has been a long time coming. Our team at the show put our hearts into ideation here, and since I know so many of you here on Substack are interested in the creative process, I wanted to offer a little behind-the-scenes look at how we built what we built.

The name Heavenward came first. I’m always thinking about purpose—of marriage, of motherhood, of human life, of my podcast—and in every case, it comes down to one image: heaven. We are made for heaven. We need to keep our eyes focused on heaven. We have to aim there. Everything else about this project grew from that inspiration.

Visual Language

We added three phrases throughout the collection because I wanted the pieces to feel like small reminders you carry throughout the day.

Seek Heaven First — Matthew 6:33 “seek first the kingdom of God,” abridged. Everything else – every good thing – is contained in that goal.
Aim for Heaven — I liked this because it reflects warrior spirit and determination. This life is, after all, a spiritual battle.
Onward and upward — any worthy project will inevitably be challenging. Building anything takes grit. When life gets tough, keep going and keep your eyes on the ultimate prize.

The Art: Ezio Anichini

The artwork is my favorite part.

We built the designs around illustrations by Ezio Anichini, an Italian artist from the early 20th century whose work I fell in love with the moment I saw it. I am a huge fan of Marian artwork (she is, after all, the ultimate feminine role model) and Ezio’s illustrations blew me away. In 1931, he created a series of illustrations inspired by the Litany of Loreto, “Litanie della Madonna: illustrate per la prima Volta da quando l’arte fu ispirata dalla fede cristiana,” each one turning a Marian title into a piece of art—Mystical Rose, Queen of Apostles, Morning Star, Mirror of Justice, and so on. You can browse the full collection in the University of Dayton archives.

Anichini came out of that era when Art Nouveau was fading and modernism was emerging, so his style has this lovely balance: delicate lines, expansive shapes, and a sense of reverence that doesn’t feel dated or old-fashioned. There’s both a feminine strength and radiance in his artwork that I love.

We took several of his pieces and had our amazing designer re-work them for clothing, keeping the spirit of the originals while making them wearable.

Color

We chose an autumn palette—warm, earth-toned, soft. These hues remind me of Italy, play well with Anichini’s linework, and they’re universally flattering. They also have a calmness to them that matched the mood of the collection: grounded, warm, a little nostalgic.

Texture

We went with Comfort Colors for the shirts because they wear the best. They’re thick enough to feel substantial, but not heavy. The garment-dyed process gives them a cozy, broken-in look from the first wear, and they last! If you’ve ever had an old college T-shirt that somehow got softer and better every year—this is that brand.

What I Hope You Feel

I wanted this collection to feel both lovely and cozy, giving you inspiration for that concept of our heavenly home. If you wear these pieces and find yourself encouraged to aim for heaven, always, then we did what we hoped to do!

Thank you for supporting this work. Be sure to explore the collection, and let me know what you think in the comments section. Thank you for loving what’s good, true, and beautiful—and for being a part of the show community!

Sincerely,

Lila

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Newsletter: Sins of Speech Kill

Lila Rose — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 20:13:11 GMT

“Out of an abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”
Matthew 12:34

Welcome back to the newsletter! This week I’ve been reflecting on the idea that even our typed words flow from the heart, and because we’ll answer for them just as we do our spoken ones, Christian speech—online or offline—must be true and marked by the fruits of the Spirit.

Podcast

Father Gregory Pine joins the show to discuss sins of speech and the internet, as well as priestly celibacy, and the differences between millennials and Gen Z.
I did a livestream covering the Mamdani election in New York and the growing political gender divide.
Abbie Halberstadt, content creator and mother of ten, shares why Protestants and Catholics should agree on birth control.

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Three Things I Learned This Week

A new IFS study shows higher-earning women are more likely to marry.
Among women ages 25-39, those in the highest income quintile were about twice as likely to have married in the past year compared with the lowest earner. What struck me: the old narrative that successful women “scare off” men just doesn’t hold up. Instead, both income and especially education (college degree) are strong predictors of new-marriage likelihood. Achievement and relational flourishing aren’t opposite poles — they can go hand in hand. Perhaps promoting motherhood means not choosing between professional influence and family, but figuring out how they can fit with and reinforce each other.
On average, Gen Z spends about 6 hours and 40 minutes online each day. A large cross-sectional study of adolescents found that more screen time was significantly associated with higher levels of anxiety and depression. One recent study found that higher screen time correlated strongly with lower quality of relationships and lower happiness. Pope Leo is making note of these developments; he has been making several comments about the internet and how we should think about moral life, speech, and human relationships mediated by technology. The tech world is different from the analog world, and as Father Pine mentioned on the podcast, it will necessarily affect how we approach moral choices.
Baby Chance is now 8 pounds! The son of Adriana Smith, the Georgia woman who was declared braindead and kept alive in order that Chance could live, was born between 25 and 26 weeks gestation on June 13, weighing just one pound, 13 ounces. He is now four months old and weighs eight pounds, according to an update posted on October 14 on the family’s GoFundMe page by his maternal grandmother, April Newkirk: “He is growing very well. Chance’s lungs are underdeveloped, so he will stay in the NICU unit until his breathing gets better. Chase saw his little brother by video. This was a touching moment. Thank you all for your prayers and support. Keep praying.” Praise God.

➤ Thanks to everyone who joined our community on Substack, where you can engage directly with me and other friends of the show. We plan on experimenting with all sorts of fun new kinds of content here. Make sure to download the app and subscribe!

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Why Women Fear Motherhood

Lila Rose — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 17:44:09 GMT

Two weeks ago, I debated a DINK—“double income, no kids”— on the Ellen Fischer podcast. Her name is Erika, and she runs the Dinky podcast and community. First of all, it was one of the more respectful debates I’ve had recently. I’m grateful for her willingness to have the conversation with me in good faith!

The thrust of Erika’s argument was that many of the DINKs that are part of her community are afraid that they won’t be able to be “good parents,” and sufficiently provide—whether financially, emotionally, or otherwise—for their children. Erika said that she herself is neurodivergent, a category she believes would make her unfit for motherhood. Being a bad parent, she suggested, would be more regretful than forgoing parenthood altogether. Erika presented DINKing as, essentially, a harm-reduction strategy, which is actually a much more thoughtful position than how it’s typically presented, as a matter of pure hedonism.

Still, scratch the surface of these claims, and what you get is a deep sense of fear.

The fear comes in layers.

Women fear men will not step up to the plate: “I’ll be doing everything on my own.”
Women fear poverty: “I can’t afford to take care of them.”
Women fear our own insufficiency: “I’m not enough for my kids.”
Women fear losing our selves, literally and metaphorically: “I’ll disappear into my kids.”
Women fear losing our bodies: “I won’t be beautiful anymore; my husband might lose attraction.”
Women fear losing our status: “I’ll fall behind while everyone else keeps climbing.”

Let me first affirm that none of these fears are strictly silly. They’re top of mind because they’ve been presented as the full story of motherhood, a narrative that was reinforced in every ad, sitcom, and classroom. And they’re plausible because there is a kernel of truth in each. We all know someone who has been hurt by a man, damaged by childbirth, found themselves in a financially precarious situation as a parent, or who feels sad and isolated in motherhood as compared to their previous professional life. We have all felt insufficient as mothers in one way or another. Our deep need for community often goes unmet in the modern world, where so many communities are morally and logistically broken.

But, despite the real potential downsides on the other side of risk, this is not the full picture of motherhood. Living in fear is a terrible life strategy. (This goes for business, too!)

Fear makes us small. It convinces us that safety is the same thing as happiness, that control is the same thing as peace. It tells us to avoid the very things that might transform us.

The truth is, the things we are most afraid of often hold the key to our deepest growth. The woman who fears she’ll lose herself in motherhood might actually find her truest self there. The one who fears her body changing may come to marvel at its strength and purpose. The one who fears falling behind might discover that nothing in life compares to the meaning of raising a child.

Erika and I also talked about regret—parents who regret having children, and how it’s better to regret not having them than having them. Though hesitant to admit it, she supports abortion as the back up contraception. That was a pretty dramatic contrast with one of my interviews from this week with Abbie Halberstadt, a mother of ten, who has seen a much different kind of regret in the women in her community: regret for exerting too much control over their fertility, limiting how many children they have.

There’s a fundamental difference in worldview here. I, like Abbie, believe that life is good by virtue of its existence. I can’t imagine life without any single one of my seven siblings. Life is a gift. And regretting the existence of another person’s life strikes me as a trauma response. That’s the voice of someone who has let fear take dominion over their minds and hearts. “All my fears came true after having a baby; it’s the baby’s fault” is not the thought process of a mature person. A position of love and gratitude for life is a choice, especially when bad things happen. And regret is fear that has marinated.

That said, no matter what, regret is a choice, too. Whatever sadness we feel over our circumstances in life changes the moment we offer it back to God in gratitude. We can and should choose hope every day. Motherhood is the ultimate expression of hope.

We can reframe the story of motherhood in our culture. It isn’t the destruction of a woman’s potential—it’s its fulfillment. It stretches her body, yes, but also her soul. It demands more patience, creativity, and courage than any career or credential ever could. It is the adventure that strips away illusion and reveals what we are really made of.

To courageously choose motherhood is not to give up freedom, but to exercise it—to say yes to love in its most demanding, sanctifying form. Fear tells us to protect ourselves; love tells us to give ourselves away. Only one of those paths leads to joy.

For more interviews about motherhood and mindset, check out my interviews with:

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Newsletter: Why Gentleness Still Matters

Lila Rose — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 12:59:05 GMT

“Love is of its nature reciprocal: he who knows how to receive knows also how to give.”
-John Paul II, Love and Responsibility

Good morning, friends, and welcome to the Monday morning newsletter!

Something’s been bothering me.

The left has long weaponized empathy, kindness, and gentleness, turning virtues into tools for ideology, from open borders to gender transitions. In response, much of the right has overcorrected, rejecting these traits entirely. We call it toughness, but often it’s just hardness.

We recoil from affirmation to avoid affirming sin, flinch at empathy to avoid being used, distrust gentleness because we’ve seen it twisted into permissiveness, and minimize feelings to resist emotionalism. Yet this is the enemy’s oldest trick: to corrupt what is good and confuse our sense of righteousness.

Scripture reminds us, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

When we cut gentleness from our spiritual life, we don’t become holier, just colder and more rigid. The world doesn’t need more Christians who are right but unreachable. It needs those who can look across any divide and say, “I see you. I hear you. I love you.”

Podcast

Jessica Rose joins the show to discuss her there-and-back-again journey through gender transition.
I sat down with Dr. Suzanne Baars to talk about her work as a clinical therapist focused on the concept of affirmation.
Adam Lane Smith returns, this time to talk about fostering strong attachments in the parent-child relationship.

Three Things I Learned This Week

Jessica was incredibly open about the shocking details of the horrific medical procedures involved in transition. The piece of flesh created from a phalloplasty does not have any sensation. Doctors install a pump at the hip that can be used to simulate an erection, but the complications are so frequent and so severe, it usually just ends up being a lifeless (sometimes literally necrotic) ornament on the body. A shocking 76.5% of phalloplasty patients report complications. I was similarly shocked to discover that Kaiser Permanente insurance covers transgender surgery procedures. Jessica’s copay was ten dollars for a mastectomy.
The average U.S. sports family spent $1,016 on their child’s primary sport in 2024, a 46% increase since 2019, according to the Aspen Institute’s latest parent survey. That’s twice the rate of price inflations in the U.S. economy during the same period. Adam and I touch on this in our episode. I have the suspicion that our sports culture is harming families, cutting into family time and finances in ways it never used to be. Something to explore in a future episode…
U.S. support for same-sex marriage has fallen to 46% from 55%, per an Economist/YouGov poll, an impressive cultural development. Support remains fairly strong, but this is a far cry from the post-Obergefell (70% supportive) sentiment.

➤ Join the community we are starting on Substack, where you can engage directly with me and other friends of the show. We plan on experimenting with all sorts of fun new kinds of content over there. Make sure to download the app and subscribe!

Til next time,

Lila

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