April 17, 2025 • 23 mins
Power couple and parents of six, DJ Envy and Gia Casey talk about their book on parenting.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Public Library Podcast. Sorry, here's your host
and podcast librarian award winning PUET, future bestselling author and
host of one of the most listened to radio shows
in America, Helen Little.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hello, book lovers, Welcome to another episode of the Public
Library Podcast. Got a great book for you today, Real Life,
Real Family, and I'm here with authors DJ Envy and
Gia Casey. Thank you guys for being here, Thank you
for having us. I'm so excited because I love your love,
first of all, and I love how you share it
(00:37):
and how you share your love and your family with
other people to hopefully make their lives better. And what's
a better purpose in life than to do something like that?
So thank you for sharing this. But first let's start
about talking about I know this is your second book together, correct,
Why did you decide to write this book?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
You know, well, we wrote the first book, Real Life,
Real Love. It was all about our relationships, if you
don't know, backstory.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
Again and I have been together thirty one years, we've
been married twenty four we have six kids, which range
from twenty three, twenty one, eleven, ten.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Eight, and three. And when we talked about the relationship book,
there were so many people. We were very vulnerable. We
talked about things most people wouldn't and so many people
hit us on.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
DMS or stopped us in the street and said, your
book saved our marriage, saved our relationship. And the reason
they said that is they were like, you guys were
so vulnerable. I realized that it just wasn't me that
was going through the things that you were talking about.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
And it opened up a conversation that me and my
husband or me and.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
My wife can talk about. And we wanted to do
the same thing with kids. We know it's not easy
having kids. When your kids are born, you don't have
they don't you know, your kid doesn't pop out and
they give you instructure manual like it doesn't work, Like
you have to figure it out and you have to
believe in society or other parents and things like that.
And with us, we said, wow, we have six kids.
I think we have a little experience with that. You know,
(01:54):
people always come up to us and say, you know what,
your kids are amazing? You know, your kids are so polite,
so respectful, the big The one story I always tell
is our ten year old son.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
We went to a STEM night back to school night thing,
and a grown man came up to me. Wasn't a teacher,
wasn't my son's teacher, and he was like, I.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Just want to tell you your son, Jackson, has done something
that no parent or student has ever done to me.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
So at first I'm like, oh boy, what did this
kid do?
Speaker 4 (02:18):
And he was like, you know, I was walking down
the hallway and he stopped me and he says, oh,
you're okay, and I said, uh yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
He was like, no, you just don't look happy like
you usually do. There's something wrong or something going on.
You can talk to me. We can talk. I won't
let anybody know, but I just want you to feel
happy again. So if you're having a problem, shoot, come
talk to me. Really, Like, nobody has ever said that
to me.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
So that just shows the way that you're raising him
is raising him to be a good person.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
And we was like, we have to do a book.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I love that. I mean, that's a calling right there.
One of the things that I found obviously on the
cover of the book, you have your mission statement, And
I'm like, I never thought of that, doing a mission
statement for your family. I would love that in my
own family growing up. I'm from one of six as well,
So we'll talk a little bit about that as well.
But where does the idea of the mission statement come from?
Speaker 5 (03:08):
So it kind of stemmed from the idea of a
vision board, if you will. A lot of adults will
make a vision board, and on that vision board you
put your goals, your aspirations, things that you want to attain,
and how you plan on getting there where you want
to see yourself in five years. There's an end goal
to a vision board. When you have a family, realistically,
(03:30):
it's no different. You know, you start a family with
a goal. We have the ability and the authority to
cultivate and to create the families that we want and desire,
but you have to see it first. You have to
have in mind what it is that you want the
type of children that you want your kids to be.
(03:50):
And we said, you know what, We're going to create
a mission statement. At first, we did it just him
and I when my kids were younger, but then when
they got older, we incorporated everybody the mission statement and
we wanted to say, how do you guys see our family?
How do you identify us as a family, what's important
to you? What do you want to see us achieve
as a family. We had a big family meeting and
(04:12):
we came up with the remixed version of our original
mission statement. And it's because the articulation of putting something
in writing it always gives someone something to refer back to.
It's always a reminder. It's your mind's eye, and when
you're acting in a way that's not in alignment with that,
that mission statement calls you back to center. It's because
(04:33):
you have something concrete as a reference.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
That was one of my favorite things. And I like
that you hit it early in the books. Yes, because
it's something that's so simple mm hmm. But how many
people have ever thought of it? Right? I mean, like
I said, I'm from one of six and we're spread
out to almost like two families. Because me and my
younger sister often talked about we had different parents. They
(04:59):
had strict parents. We had those that were like tired
by the time we came along. Yes, it's a real thing. Yes,
but what do your kids think of this book?
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Our kids trust us, okay, and they love us, and
people always ask well, how did you gain that trust
and why? And I think it was parenting styles and
Gia and my parenting style that is totally different.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I was raised.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
I say it all the time. My dad was a
retired police officer, ex military, so it was his way
or the highway. So his answer was because I said so,
and that's the way I grew up.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Dad.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
Can I know why? Because I said so, I left
it alone. Gil was a little different. Gia has more patient.
Gia likes to explain why. So if a kid, as
you know, can I have this? Gia says no, And
this is the reason why. Well, because you know, you
can't go to the mall at this time because there's
a lot of teens at the mall and it's Friday
night and they might be drinking, and nobody's there around
(05:57):
to protect you. And she explained, so the kids understand.
So now when we say a reason or something, the
kids understand and they trust us. So when we doing
this book and we're talking about some of our personal stuff,
our kids trust us.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
What do you love most about parenting and what do
you love least?
Speaker 4 (06:16):
I love most about seeing this smile. I love seeing
their growth. I love seeing them happy. I like seeing
them fall and learning from their mistakes. Those are the
things that I really enjoy. Now, what I like least
is probably not having enough time. And the reason I
say that is, you know, we're in this industry, and
(06:36):
this industry is a work, work, work, work, work, So
it's those moments. So one thing I would say I
admire or I would say I'm jealous a little bit
of Gear is she has more time than I do.
A lot of times I'm sleepy, I'm up at four
o'clock in the morning. She's upright behind me getting the
kids ready. But with her, she has the time to listen.
You know, when our kids sitting at the foot of
(06:58):
the bed and they they, you know, talk about my
locker was this, and today I had this at math,
and this girl ate this, and this boy did this,
and then when I was on a potty this happened.
She has the patience and the time and the wherewithal
to just sit there and understand and enjoy me. I'm like,
maybe the NIX is on, can you can you can
come back? In fifteen minutes? My giants have beaten the well,
(07:21):
they're not beating the eagles, but hey, but the giants on,
can you come back? But Gear stops everything for the kids.
I haven't I'm starting to, but I just wish I
had more.
Speaker 5 (07:30):
Time for me. Being a mother is what I do best.
So I'm good at being a wife, but I think
I'm better at being a mother because the tools that
you need as a mother, for most women, it comes naturally.
It's inherent in our fiber. So I really revel in
(07:52):
that that is my happy place. The best thing, it's
a little bit of a two part answer. The best
thing about being a my is seeing everything that we
pour into them as parents come to fruition. It's like
when you're cultivating a garden and then you start seeing
those fruits and those vegetables grow and emerge from the
(08:13):
earth and be beautiful and be plump and ripe and sweet.
That's what being a mother feels like to me. And
the second thing not that you ask, but I'm going
to say it is and I'm thinking about it because
my oldest, my twenty three year old Madison, she has
a boyfriend, and we were just talking about her future
plans and we're in the kitchen. We have a big kitchen,
(08:35):
and every two seconds another kid was running into the
kitchen and asking a question or showing us something or
doing a handstand. Walking into the kitchen and it's just
so full of life and excitement and liveliness and noise
and joy and happiness. And I said to her, I said,
can you imagine having a home where you're standing in
(08:57):
your kitchen and there's not a bunch of kids. She said, honestly,
I can't. She said, I love this too much. And
I think that for me, that's the nail on the head.
It's the joy that having a big family, all these
fruits and they all come together in your garden. What
that feels like.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I know what it feels like. And as I'm listening
to you, it's just bringing me such a Oh. Yes,
I only wish that we had been had a nickname
like the Chew Crew. Yes, so you guys wrote this
book together. You've been together forever. Did what was that process?
(09:33):
Do you like sit down and do it with each other?
Do you take your part and go right here and
your go right here? What was that process? I'm fascinated
by that.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
It's a little bit of both.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
I think it's a little bit of both. We talked
about where the value was going to lay, like what
is the most important things that we want to convey?
What are the most important lessons that we've learned over
our time together parents, where did we fail, where did
we succeed? What can we extract from our lives that's
(10:07):
going to be the most beneficial for our readers to
be as successful as they can be with our guidance.
And we came out with an outline and we talked.
We mulled over it night after night, because it's not
something that we talk about. It's something that you kind
of just do, with the exception of the mission statement
(10:28):
unless you butt heads and you got to talk that out.
But when everything's going great, it's not really something that
you talk about. So we had to really understand where
our parenting styles came from and how we came to
the ends of all of these roads, because that's like
a dialing back process to figure out exactly how is
it that we ended up where we are. So we
(10:49):
did that for months and then we would just take
notes and then we talked about what parts each of
us were best suited to cover. And then we did
that and we conferred with each other on each other's
parts as well. But it was really a meeting of
the minds and it actually brought us closer together as
a couple and as parents.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And that was one of the things that I noticed
too about this book is that it's a workbook. Yes,
you're engaged in the process, you're a part of the process.
You leave places for you to take notes and then
highlight points as well that offer tips. Yeah, why did
you choose that direction?
Speaker 5 (11:29):
Because a lot of people don't even understand their own
parenting style because they haven't really taken the time to
think about it. A lot of parent parent one of
two ways in the way that they were parented, so
they're just continuing what it was that they learned. They
don't think about it. They just say no because their
(11:50):
parents said no to them. They just follow suit. And
then some people despised the way that they were parented,
so they parent in the exact opposite way. But a
lot of people don't put a lot of thought into it.
So for us, it was very important to be mindful
and very thoughtful in provoking people to be very mindful
(12:11):
and thoughtful in their process.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
What do you really hope people take away from this book?
Speaker 4 (12:19):
For myself, I want people to be open, honest, and
to learn. Okay, hopefully some of the things that we
said in this book can help people on their journey,
whether they have one child, a bunch of children, or
they're thinking about having children. Like I said, there is
no instruction manual when you get a kid. There is
(12:39):
no guide. You just have to figure it out on
your own. And for a lot of people it's very difficult.
Thank god, I have my parents, I had gear, We
had Gea's parents that were able to help us. But
it was also being vulnerable and being open.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Right.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
If I raised my kids the same way that I
was raised, which was great, I didn't necessarily get the
most out of as I should, meaning my parents were
so strict that I hated it. I wanted to leave
as soon as I turned eighteen. I wanted to get
out of that house. But I didn't understand what my
parents were doing until I started having the kids. Why
(13:14):
he was so protective, why he was so scared, right,
And we came up in a different error than these kids.
You know, these kids, Yes, they have social media, but
we had the crack eerr, we had the drug era,
we had the you know, all this growing up in
New York. And my dad, who was a police officer,
wanted me to stay out of that, you know, so
he wanted to be on my next, so I was
in the house. He wanted to be on my next,
(13:34):
so he didn't see some of the kids that he
arrested or some of the kids that he's seemed killed.
So having those conversations with my kids makes them understand earlier.
I really didn't understand until I had my kids and
I was like, oh, my dad was right. This is
the reason. And I thank God every day that my
dad didn't pass away and I was able to say, Dad,
I love you, thank you. You know, because when I'm
(13:55):
a child and I'm eighteen nineteen, I just wanted to
get out of the house. I mean, I need to get
out this house. So I want them to see the
ways of raising kids, and hopefully our way is helps
you out as much as possible in your guy.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
If nothing, it makes you think yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
For me, I want people to understand that they are
their child's biggest example. You are your children's most common denominator.
You are the ones that are the biggest predictor of
your children's future, how your children are going to turn out,
(14:29):
book turn out because they are watching you every day.
They are learning from you, good or bad every single day.
So as parents. It's lost on most people that they
should be deliberate and very purposeful and intentional in the
way that they parent, Yes, but the way that they
(14:49):
carry on the way that they genuinely are around their kids,
because our kids are sponges and they're absorbing everything. If
you curse in front of you your children regularly, you
were going to have children more than likely that curse
because they think it's okay, and to them that resonates
as normal. In our household, you're not even allowed to
(15:11):
the younger children are not allowed to say bad words.
And by bad words, i'm not talking about your common
curse words. You're not allowed to say fat, ugly, annoying
things like that, because those are all words with negative connotations.
And I want them to learn from home that we
don't ever look at other people and ingest, that we
don't identify ugly, or you don't call your sister annoying
(15:35):
because what is that? That's a hit, that's a blow.
And then what happens in your home, your younger child
will start to identify themselves as annoying. Oh I'm annoying,
or oh I talk too much. I never want my
children to have negative connotations about themselves. So you have
to be very, very deliberate in the way that you
interact with your kids and how you teach your kids.
(15:55):
And I just think that that's lost on a lot
of people in the broader scope.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It It's funny that made me remember as kids, we
could not say the word fool. Fool was a bad
Your book covers many virtues when it comes to what
you want to instill in your kids. If you were
to pick one virtue from all the chapters in this
(16:21):
book that you wish each and every one of your
kids had over all of them, what would that virtue be?
Speaker 5 (16:27):
I would want them to have a strong self identity, Okay,
because with that everything else follows. Having a strong sense
of self and being able to earn the right to
validate yourself because you've already been validated within your home
and by the people that are most important to you,
that love you deeply and that support you. Once you
(16:50):
have that validation, you can conquer most things that life
throws at you because you're not looking for validation outside
of the home. You're not looking for those outside of
the home to tell you who you are or what
you should be. You don't succumb to the whims of others,
and that's where a lot of people fail. That's where
(17:11):
self consciousness comes into play. That's where lack of confidence
comes into play. That's where lack of empowerment comes into play.
You want your child to be able to walk into
any room and know that they belong there because they
decided to walk into it. You want children that feel
as though they're worthy of being heard. When I speak,
(17:33):
I'm worthy of being heard. And where do you get
that from the home? From parents that pay attention to you,
parents that are interested in you, parents that ask you questions.
It really breeds a self of a sense of belonging
and strong self identity.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Yeah, and I totally agree. I mean, I'm from a
different world with social media, and I don't want my
kids to look for any type of anything from the
outside world. I think, you know, a lot of time
social media is it's it's a great place for what
it was created for, hopefully, but it turned into a
negative place and it turned to a place of bullying.
And you see so many kids with depression and suicide
(18:12):
and anxiety and all that from people that they don't know,
people that are doing this just to make themselves feel better.
So if they can get that self esteem, that good
self esteem, that that confidence from the home, you ain't got.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
To worry about that. The empowerment.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Yeah, I love that. So when it comes to books
that might have helped you, were there any books that
you guys read? No, well that's good to know. No,
now you talk about then yes, yes, And I'm gonna
be hon I'm gonna be perfectly honest with you. We're
not big readers. I don't have the time.
Speaker 5 (18:44):
With six kids and a husband, I don't have the time.
Every time I try to crack a book at the
end of the night, I wound up falling asleep. As
good as the book is as much, I wound up
not being much of a reader because I don't have
the energy. And that's where audible is that. Yeah, that's
that's a great thing. Because now when I'm in my car,
you can listen to a book on my way to
(19:06):
work or home, or on the way to dropping my
kids off of school. I can grab little bites of
a book. But no, we've we've This is all just
drawn from our experience in our lives.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Do you too voice the audible?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (19:19):
We do.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
We do, and I want to add that at the
end of the book. We have a friend and she's
also our business manager. Her name is Mercedes. She's very
very close to our family. She goes on vacations with
us and everything, and we asked her if she would
do us the honor of being the source of our
bonus content at the end. We said, will you interview
all of our children? Will you come up with the questions?
(19:42):
You interview them with us not there, and we want
to get their genuine answers of whatever it is that
you choose to ask because you know us best. So
there is bonus content at the end of the audible.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Oh that sounds really cool. I love that. Yes, you know,
because when you write a book about your kids and
it's like how much are they a part of it? Yeah,
that's there. You get your answers and.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
You know what's value about it? Like these are little kids,
you know, these are eleven, ten, eight. The three year
old might have said a couple of words, so as
a listener, you would know they couldn't have been coached
through it.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Do you know what I mean? You can't.
Speaker 5 (20:19):
You can't coach an eight year old like sing your
parents praises, so you know, it's it's authentic, it's authentic,
it's it's and it's good. It's good.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
And if people want to find out more about your book,
obviously you get all the normal places, but you also
have a podcast where you basically extend what you're doing.
Yes in this book, Yes, tell us about that real quick.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
So it's the Casey Crew podcast, and we talk about relationships.
We talk about family. Anything to do with family relationships
we dive into and we don't hold back. It's not
all the glitz and glamor.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
We talk about everything.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Well, we'll jump into sex, we'll jump into infidelity.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Well, Jo, you're in the podcast.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
No no, no, not why we're in the podcast. They're
talking about self este about ady d Ady HD. We
talk about all that, you know, any everything wrapped in
that somebody would have a question, problem, concern. We dive
into it and we take the gloves off and we
break it down to the t where sometimes Gi and
(21:20):
I go back and forth and we have a difference
of opinions, but we settle it right there on the podcast.
Very entertaining, great and.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
You can find that obviously on the iHeartRadio of course.
And if people want to follow you, do you have
a specific page for your writing, your books or however
you want to share.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
We put everything on Instagram. So I'm Gia Underscore Casey.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
And I'm just at dj MV and that's on Twitter,
that's or x whatever you want to call it. Instagram, Facebook,
and on TikTok. So you can follow us, love us,
leave a drop a comment. We gear reads every single
come learn from you. Yes, they learn as well. And
just to tell you, Gear reads every comment. I don't,
but Gia will read every single comment.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
Yes, yes, I just find that if someone does you
the honor of following you and takes time to leave
a comment, at the very least, I'm going to take
the time to read it. I try to respond as
much as I can, but the very least if it's
a nice comment, I always like it. But I like
to be interactive with people that invest in me.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Yes, sometimes the comments aren't nice. This is true. This
is true.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
This is true.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Well, thank you guys so much for coming on with
you today. Thank you so much. I love what you're doing.
I do, I love love. I'm a hopeless romantic. I'm
hopeful romantic. Definitely not hopeless. And the idea that you
started so young as a couple and have endured, and
then you've produced six beautiful lives and souls that are
going out to make the world a better place, makes
(22:50):
it even better. So it's my honor to spend this
time talking to you. Is there another book on the way?
I'm waiting for the sibling book next.
Speaker 5 (22:58):
We were talking about this in the car yesterday.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
We might, we might.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
I mean, we enjoy writing and we enjoy sharing as
much as we can to people. So we have a
couple of ideas for a bunch of different things. So hopefully, okay,
hopefully it's in the cards.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
All right, Well, let us know and keep us posted.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Thank you so much, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Alrighty, another show in the books. Join us for the
next episode of the Public Library Podcast, a place to
check out books.
Welcome to the Public Library Podcast. Sorry, here's your host
and podcast librarian award winning PUET, future bestselling author and
host of one of the most listened to radio shows
in America, Helen Little.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hello, book lovers, Welcome to another episode of the Public
Library Podcast. Got a great book for you today, Real Life,
Real Family, and I'm here with authors DJ Envy and
Gia Casey. Thank you guys for being here, Thank you
for having us. I'm so excited because I love your love,
first of all, and I love how you share it
(00:37):
and how you share your love and your family with
other people to hopefully make their lives better. And what's
a better purpose in life than to do something like that?
So thank you for sharing this. But first let's start
about talking about I know this is your second book together, correct,
Why did you decide to write this book?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
You know, well, we wrote the first book, Real Life,
Real Love. It was all about our relationships, if you
don't know, backstory.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
Again and I have been together thirty one years, we've
been married twenty four we have six kids, which range
from twenty three, twenty one, eleven, ten.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Eight, and three. And when we talked about the relationship book,
there were so many people. We were very vulnerable. We
talked about things most people wouldn't and so many people
hit us on.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
DMS or stopped us in the street and said, your
book saved our marriage, saved our relationship. And the reason
they said that is they were like, you guys were
so vulnerable. I realized that it just wasn't me that
was going through the things that you were talking about.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
And it opened up a conversation that me and my
husband or me and.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
My wife can talk about. And we wanted to do
the same thing with kids. We know it's not easy
having kids. When your kids are born, you don't have
they don't you know, your kid doesn't pop out and
they give you instructure manual like it doesn't work, Like
you have to figure it out and you have to
believe in society or other parents and things like that.
And with us, we said, wow, we have six kids.
I think we have a little experience with that. You know,
(01:54):
people always come up to us and say, you know what,
your kids are amazing? You know, your kids are so polite,
so respectful, the big The one story I always tell
is our ten year old son.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
We went to a STEM night back to school night thing,
and a grown man came up to me. Wasn't a teacher,
wasn't my son's teacher, and he was like, I.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Just want to tell you your son, Jackson, has done something
that no parent or student has ever done to me.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
So at first I'm like, oh boy, what did this
kid do?
Speaker 4 (02:18):
And he was like, you know, I was walking down
the hallway and he stopped me and he says, oh,
you're okay, and I said, uh yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
He was like, no, you just don't look happy like
you usually do. There's something wrong or something going on.
You can talk to me. We can talk. I won't
let anybody know, but I just want you to feel
happy again. So if you're having a problem, shoot, come
talk to me. Really, Like, nobody has ever said that
to me.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
So that just shows the way that you're raising him
is raising him to be a good person.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
And we was like, we have to do a book.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I love that. I mean, that's a calling right there.
One of the things that I found obviously on the
cover of the book, you have your mission statement, And
I'm like, I never thought of that, doing a mission
statement for your family. I would love that in my
own family growing up. I'm from one of six as well,
So we'll talk a little bit about that as well.
But where does the idea of the mission statement come from?
Speaker 5 (03:08):
So it kind of stemmed from the idea of a
vision board, if you will. A lot of adults will
make a vision board, and on that vision board you
put your goals, your aspirations, things that you want to attain,
and how you plan on getting there where you want
to see yourself in five years. There's an end goal
to a vision board. When you have a family, realistically,
(03:30):
it's no different. You know, you start a family with
a goal. We have the ability and the authority to
cultivate and to create the families that we want and desire,
but you have to see it first. You have to
have in mind what it is that you want the
type of children that you want your kids to be.
(03:50):
And we said, you know what, We're going to create
a mission statement. At first, we did it just him
and I when my kids were younger, but then when
they got older, we incorporated everybody the mission statement and
we wanted to say, how do you guys see our family?
How do you identify us as a family, what's important
to you? What do you want to see us achieve
as a family. We had a big family meeting and
(04:12):
we came up with the remixed version of our original
mission statement. And it's because the articulation of putting something
in writing it always gives someone something to refer back to.
It's always a reminder. It's your mind's eye, and when
you're acting in a way that's not in alignment with that,
that mission statement calls you back to center. It's because
(04:33):
you have something concrete as a reference.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
That was one of my favorite things. And I like
that you hit it early in the books. Yes, because
it's something that's so simple mm hmm. But how many
people have ever thought of it? Right? I mean, like
I said, I'm from one of six and we're spread
out to almost like two families. Because me and my
younger sister often talked about we had different parents. They
(04:59):
had strict parents. We had those that were like tired
by the time we came along. Yes, it's a real thing. Yes,
but what do your kids think of this book?
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Our kids trust us, okay, and they love us, and
people always ask well, how did you gain that trust
and why? And I think it was parenting styles and
Gia and my parenting style that is totally different.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I was raised.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
I say it all the time. My dad was a
retired police officer, ex military, so it was his way
or the highway. So his answer was because I said so,
and that's the way I grew up.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Dad.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
Can I know why? Because I said so, I left
it alone. Gil was a little different. Gia has more patient.
Gia likes to explain why. So if a kid, as
you know, can I have this? Gia says no, And
this is the reason why. Well, because you know, you
can't go to the mall at this time because there's
a lot of teens at the mall and it's Friday
night and they might be drinking, and nobody's there around
(05:57):
to protect you. And she explained, so the kids understand.
So now when we say a reason or something, the
kids understand and they trust us. So when we doing
this book and we're talking about some of our personal stuff,
our kids trust us.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
What do you love most about parenting and what do
you love least?
Speaker 4 (06:16):
I love most about seeing this smile. I love seeing
their growth. I love seeing them happy. I like seeing
them fall and learning from their mistakes. Those are the
things that I really enjoy. Now, what I like least
is probably not having enough time. And the reason I
say that is, you know, we're in this industry, and
(06:36):
this industry is a work, work, work, work, work, So
it's those moments. So one thing I would say I
admire or I would say I'm jealous a little bit
of Gear is she has more time than I do.
A lot of times I'm sleepy, I'm up at four
o'clock in the morning. She's upright behind me getting the
kids ready. But with her, she has the time to listen.
You know, when our kids sitting at the foot of
(06:58):
the bed and they they, you know, talk about my
locker was this, and today I had this at math,
and this girl ate this, and this boy did this,
and then when I was on a potty this happened.
She has the patience and the time and the wherewithal
to just sit there and understand and enjoy me. I'm like,
maybe the NIX is on, can you can you can
come back? In fifteen minutes? My giants have beaten the well,
(07:21):
they're not beating the eagles, but hey, but the giants on,
can you come back? But Gear stops everything for the kids.
I haven't I'm starting to, but I just wish I
had more.
Speaker 5 (07:30):
Time for me. Being a mother is what I do best.
So I'm good at being a wife, but I think
I'm better at being a mother because the tools that
you need as a mother, for most women, it comes naturally.
It's inherent in our fiber. So I really revel in
(07:52):
that that is my happy place. The best thing, it's
a little bit of a two part answer. The best
thing about being a my is seeing everything that we
pour into them as parents come to fruition. It's like
when you're cultivating a garden and then you start seeing
those fruits and those vegetables grow and emerge from the
(08:13):
earth and be beautiful and be plump and ripe and sweet.
That's what being a mother feels like to me. And
the second thing not that you ask, but I'm going
to say it is and I'm thinking about it because
my oldest, my twenty three year old Madison, she has
a boyfriend, and we were just talking about her future
plans and we're in the kitchen. We have a big kitchen,
(08:35):
and every two seconds another kid was running into the
kitchen and asking a question or showing us something or
doing a handstand. Walking into the kitchen and it's just
so full of life and excitement and liveliness and noise
and joy and happiness. And I said to her, I said,
can you imagine having a home where you're standing in
(08:57):
your kitchen and there's not a bunch of kids. She said, honestly,
I can't. She said, I love this too much. And
I think that for me, that's the nail on the head.
It's the joy that having a big family, all these
fruits and they all come together in your garden. What
that feels like.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I know what it feels like. And as I'm listening
to you, it's just bringing me such a Oh. Yes,
I only wish that we had been had a nickname
like the Chew Crew. Yes, so you guys wrote this
book together. You've been together forever. Did what was that process?
(09:33):
Do you like sit down and do it with each other?
Do you take your part and go right here and
your go right here? What was that process? I'm fascinated
by that.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
It's a little bit of both.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
I think it's a little bit of both. We talked
about where the value was going to lay, like what
is the most important things that we want to convey?
What are the most important lessons that we've learned over
our time together parents, where did we fail, where did
we succeed? What can we extract from our lives that's
(10:07):
going to be the most beneficial for our readers to
be as successful as they can be with our guidance.
And we came out with an outline and we talked.
We mulled over it night after night, because it's not
something that we talk about. It's something that you kind
of just do, with the exception of the mission statement
(10:28):
unless you butt heads and you got to talk that out.
But when everything's going great, it's not really something that
you talk about. So we had to really understand where
our parenting styles came from and how we came to
the ends of all of these roads, because that's like
a dialing back process to figure out exactly how is
it that we ended up where we are. So we
(10:49):
did that for months and then we would just take
notes and then we talked about what parts each of
us were best suited to cover. And then we did
that and we conferred with each other on each other's
parts as well. But it was really a meeting of
the minds and it actually brought us closer together as
a couple and as parents.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And that was one of the things that I noticed
too about this book is that it's a workbook. Yes,
you're engaged in the process, you're a part of the process.
You leave places for you to take notes and then
highlight points as well that offer tips. Yeah, why did
you choose that direction?
Speaker 5 (11:29):
Because a lot of people don't even understand their own
parenting style because they haven't really taken the time to
think about it. A lot of parent parent one of
two ways in the way that they were parented, so
they're just continuing what it was that they learned. They
don't think about it. They just say no because their
(11:50):
parents said no to them. They just follow suit. And
then some people despised the way that they were parented,
so they parent in the exact opposite way. But a
lot of people don't put a lot of thought into it.
So for us, it was very important to be mindful
and very thoughtful in provoking people to be very mindful
(12:11):
and thoughtful in their process.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
What do you really hope people take away from this book?
Speaker 4 (12:19):
For myself, I want people to be open, honest, and
to learn. Okay, hopefully some of the things that we
said in this book can help people on their journey,
whether they have one child, a bunch of children, or
they're thinking about having children. Like I said, there is
no instruction manual when you get a kid. There is
(12:39):
no guide. You just have to figure it out on
your own. And for a lot of people it's very difficult.
Thank god, I have my parents, I had gear, We
had Gea's parents that were able to help us. But
it was also being vulnerable and being open.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Right.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
If I raised my kids the same way that I
was raised, which was great, I didn't necessarily get the
most out of as I should, meaning my parents were
so strict that I hated it. I wanted to leave
as soon as I turned eighteen. I wanted to get
out of that house. But I didn't understand what my
parents were doing until I started having the kids. Why
(13:14):
he was so protective, why he was so scared, right,
And we came up in a different error than these kids.
You know, these kids, Yes, they have social media, but
we had the crack eerr, we had the drug era,
we had the you know, all this growing up in
New York. And my dad, who was a police officer,
wanted me to stay out of that, you know, so
he wanted to be on my next, so I was
in the house. He wanted to be on my next,
(13:34):
so he didn't see some of the kids that he
arrested or some of the kids that he's seemed killed.
So having those conversations with my kids makes them understand earlier.
I really didn't understand until I had my kids and
I was like, oh, my dad was right. This is
the reason. And I thank God every day that my
dad didn't pass away and I was able to say, Dad,
I love you, thank you. You know, because when I'm
(13:55):
a child and I'm eighteen nineteen, I just wanted to
get out of the house. I mean, I need to get
out this house. So I want them to see the
ways of raising kids, and hopefully our way is helps
you out as much as possible in your guy.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
If nothing, it makes you think yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
For me, I want people to understand that they are
their child's biggest example. You are your children's most common denominator.
You are the ones that are the biggest predictor of
your children's future, how your children are going to turn out,
(14:29):
book turn out because they are watching you every day.
They are learning from you, good or bad every single day.
So as parents. It's lost on most people that they
should be deliberate and very purposeful and intentional in the
way that they parent, Yes, but the way that they
(14:49):
carry on the way that they genuinely are around their kids,
because our kids are sponges and they're absorbing everything. If
you curse in front of you your children regularly, you
were going to have children more than likely that curse
because they think it's okay, and to them that resonates
as normal. In our household, you're not even allowed to
(15:11):
the younger children are not allowed to say bad words.
And by bad words, i'm not talking about your common
curse words. You're not allowed to say fat, ugly, annoying
things like that, because those are all words with negative connotations.
And I want them to learn from home that we
don't ever look at other people and ingest, that we
don't identify ugly, or you don't call your sister annoying
(15:35):
because what is that? That's a hit, that's a blow.
And then what happens in your home, your younger child
will start to identify themselves as annoying. Oh I'm annoying,
or oh I talk too much. I never want my
children to have negative connotations about themselves. So you have
to be very, very deliberate in the way that you
interact with your kids and how you teach your kids.
(15:55):
And I just think that that's lost on a lot
of people in the broader scope.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It It's funny that made me remember as kids, we
could not say the word fool. Fool was a bad
Your book covers many virtues when it comes to what
you want to instill in your kids. If you were
to pick one virtue from all the chapters in this
(16:21):
book that you wish each and every one of your
kids had over all of them, what would that virtue be?
Speaker 5 (16:27):
I would want them to have a strong self identity, Okay,
because with that everything else follows. Having a strong sense
of self and being able to earn the right to
validate yourself because you've already been validated within your home
and by the people that are most important to you,
that love you deeply and that support you. Once you
(16:50):
have that validation, you can conquer most things that life
throws at you because you're not looking for validation outside
of the home. You're not looking for those outside of
the home to tell you who you are or what
you should be. You don't succumb to the whims of others,
and that's where a lot of people fail. That's where
(17:11):
self consciousness comes into play. That's where lack of confidence
comes into play. That's where lack of empowerment comes into play.
You want your child to be able to walk into
any room and know that they belong there because they
decided to walk into it. You want children that feel
as though they're worthy of being heard. When I speak,
(17:33):
I'm worthy of being heard. And where do you get
that from the home? From parents that pay attention to you,
parents that are interested in you, parents that ask you questions.
It really breeds a self of a sense of belonging
and strong self identity.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Yeah, and I totally agree. I mean, I'm from a
different world with social media, and I don't want my
kids to look for any type of anything from the
outside world. I think, you know, a lot of time
social media is it's it's a great place for what
it was created for, hopefully, but it turned into a
negative place and it turned to a place of bullying.
And you see so many kids with depression and suicide
(18:12):
and anxiety and all that from people that they don't know,
people that are doing this just to make themselves feel better.
So if they can get that self esteem, that good
self esteem, that that confidence from the home, you ain't got.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
To worry about that. The empowerment.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Yeah, I love that. So when it comes to books
that might have helped you, were there any books that
you guys read? No, well that's good to know. No,
now you talk about then yes, yes, And I'm gonna
be hon I'm gonna be perfectly honest with you. We're
not big readers. I don't have the time.
Speaker 5 (18:44):
With six kids and a husband, I don't have the time.
Every time I try to crack a book at the
end of the night, I wound up falling asleep. As
good as the book is as much, I wound up
not being much of a reader because I don't have
the energy. And that's where audible is that. Yeah, that's
that's a great thing. Because now when I'm in my car,
you can listen to a book on my way to
(19:06):
work or home, or on the way to dropping my
kids off of school. I can grab little bites of
a book. But no, we've we've This is all just
drawn from our experience in our lives.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Do you too voice the audible?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (19:19):
We do.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
We do, and I want to add that at the
end of the book. We have a friend and she's
also our business manager. Her name is Mercedes. She's very
very close to our family. She goes on vacations with
us and everything, and we asked her if she would
do us the honor of being the source of our
bonus content at the end. We said, will you interview
all of our children? Will you come up with the questions?
(19:42):
You interview them with us not there, and we want
to get their genuine answers of whatever it is that
you choose to ask because you know us best. So
there is bonus content at the end of the audible.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Oh that sounds really cool. I love that. Yes, you know,
because when you write a book about your kids and
it's like how much are they a part of it? Yeah,
that's there. You get your answers and.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
You know what's value about it? Like these are little kids,
you know, these are eleven, ten, eight. The three year
old might have said a couple of words, so as
a listener, you would know they couldn't have been coached
through it.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Do you know what I mean? You can't.
Speaker 5 (20:19):
You can't coach an eight year old like sing your
parents praises, so you know, it's it's authentic, it's authentic,
it's it's and it's good. It's good.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
And if people want to find out more about your book,
obviously you get all the normal places, but you also
have a podcast where you basically extend what you're doing.
Yes in this book, Yes, tell us about that real quick.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
So it's the Casey Crew podcast, and we talk about relationships.
We talk about family. Anything to do with family relationships
we dive into and we don't hold back. It's not
all the glitz and glamor.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
We talk about everything.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Well, we'll jump into sex, we'll jump into infidelity.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Well, Jo, you're in the podcast.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
No no, no, not why we're in the podcast. They're
talking about self este about ady d Ady HD. We
talk about all that, you know, any everything wrapped in
that somebody would have a question, problem, concern. We dive
into it and we take the gloves off and we
break it down to the t where sometimes Gi and
(21:20):
I go back and forth and we have a difference
of opinions, but we settle it right there on the podcast.
Very entertaining, great and.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
You can find that obviously on the iHeartRadio of course.
And if people want to follow you, do you have
a specific page for your writing, your books or however
you want to share.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
We put everything on Instagram. So I'm Gia Underscore Casey.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
And I'm just at dj MV and that's on Twitter,
that's or x whatever you want to call it. Instagram, Facebook,
and on TikTok. So you can follow us, love us,
leave a drop a comment. We gear reads every single
come learn from you. Yes, they learn as well. And
just to tell you, Gear reads every comment. I don't,
but Gia will read every single comment.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
Yes, yes, I just find that if someone does you
the honor of following you and takes time to leave
a comment, at the very least, I'm going to take
the time to read it. I try to respond as
much as I can, but the very least if it's
a nice comment, I always like it. But I like
to be interactive with people that invest in me.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Yes, sometimes the comments aren't nice. This is true. This
is true.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
This is true.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Well, thank you guys so much for coming on with
you today. Thank you so much. I love what you're doing.
I do, I love love. I'm a hopeless romantic. I'm
hopeful romantic. Definitely not hopeless. And the idea that you
started so young as a couple and have endured, and
then you've produced six beautiful lives and souls that are
going out to make the world a better place, makes
(22:50):
it even better. So it's my honor to spend this
time talking to you. Is there another book on the way?
I'm waiting for the sibling book next.
Speaker 5 (22:58):
We were talking about this in the car yesterday.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
We might, we might.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
I mean, we enjoy writing and we enjoy sharing as
much as we can to people. So we have a
couple of ideas for a bunch of different things. So hopefully, okay,
hopefully it's in the cards.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
All right, Well, let us know and keep us posted.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Thank you so much, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Alrighty, another show in the books. Join us for the
next episode of the Public Library Podcast, a place to
check out books.
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