Ben Sasse is something of a hero of mine. He is the only contemporary politician whom I can imagine present among the Founders. He is both at home in the world of political theory and committed, like George Washington, to the cultivation of the classical virtues and the self-control that goes with them.
Raised in Nebraska farm country, he made it to Harvard, Oxford, St. John's, and Yale, where he earned a PhD in American history, winning two major prizes for his thesis. Prior to being appointed president of Midlands University in his hometown at 37, he had already worked as a consultant for Boston Consulting Group, served as an assistant secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services, and taught at the University of Texas school of government.
After being twice elected to the Senate from Nebraska, Sasse resigned his seat early in his second six-year term, to assume the presidency of the huge University of Florida system, where he felt he could have a greater impact on America's future than as a senator. He was one of the seven Republican senators who voted to impeach President Trump for not trying to restrain the Capitol Hill rioters on January 6, 2021.
The most recent years have been hard ones on Sasse and his family. He felt compelled to resign from the presidency of the University of Florida when his wife was diagnosed with epilepsy and memory issues, in order to help her. He continued to teach at the University of Florida's Hamilton School of Classical and Civic Education. A year later, he was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer.
Though he has already outlived the actuarial tables for his cancer, he is not going quietly into the night. In recent months, he has given numerous speeches and interviews, many with his face covered by scabs as a result of his chemotherapy. Among his recurring subjects is the acceptance of one's mortality and preparation for death.
Along the way, Sasse has also written two books that hint at what is uppermost in his mind: Them: Why We Hate Each Other — and How to Heal (2018) and The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance (2017). The latter might be read as a companion volume to Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff's The Coddling of the American Mind.
Childrearing is a subject close to my heart. So when I saw an article, "How My Father, Ben Sasse, Raised Me," at the Free Press, I was eager to read it. The Sasses homeschooled all three of their children for all or part of their childhoods, which is no doubt a measure of their dissatisfaction with most modern educational models.
Their 22-year-old daughter, Alex Sasse, identifies one central message of her parents' child-raising: "Get out of your messy head and take an aerial view of your life." Being inwardly focused, she writes, is a formula for unhappiness. Human beings are defined by their relationship and their work. Internally focused, navel-gazing is not conducive to either.
Yes, Alex affirms, teach your children that they are amazing and loved and of immeasurable value. But at the same time, let them know that they are not G-d, not the center of the universe. After any success or failure, her father would inevitably demand: "Tell me three true things about yourself." One reaffirming our relationship with G-d; one that reaffirmed our family's unconditional love for us; one that reaffirmed qualities we most valued, like perseverance or grit.
Rav Itzele of Volozhin writes in his introduction to his father's Nefesh HaChaim how the latter always emphasized that we come into the world in order to serve others and better their lives. Nebraska is a long way from Volozhin, but in the Sasse house, the children were asked the same question every day: Not "What did you learn?" but "Whom did you serve?" No matter what the issue — e.g., a mean girl at basketball practice or anxiety over college obligations — the first question was always, "Whom did you serve?"
Alex admits that she did not always like her parents. Not when she was the only one her class without a smartphone. Not when, at 14, she pleaded to return home from a language immersion course in Argentina, and was denied.
Another gift from her father, writes Alex, is to have witnessed that her mother comes before everything in his life — including work and children. She remembers him sleeping in a hospital bed next to her mother for months after she suffered a brain injury. And how, even as he deals with his own imminent mortality, he still sorts her seizure medications. "A strong example of daily, chosen, covenantal commitment in marriage is the best give you can give your children," according to Alex.
Perhaps the thing I enjoyed most about Alex Sasse's article was the recognition of some — not all — of my own parents' child-rearing. My parents could not have articulated their principles of parenting as clearly as Alex or her parents. But they were, or at least so I thought, the strictest parents among those of my peers. And I still remember my requests and demands that my parents denied better than the ones they granted, and I thank them for them.
Similarly, Alex now acknowledges that because she didn't have a smartphone at 12, she can now have long, meaningful conversations with adults. And because she was not allowed to return home early from her language immersion trip, she "was confident going to solo to Tanzania to work in emergency rooms at age 20."
Because her parents taught her and her siblings to be contributors, not consumers, they grew up to be well-adjusted problem-solvers, unlike so many of their peers, who struggle with every hurdle.
And best of all, from her father's point of view, he is still the first one she contacts about good news or bad, whether she is overjoyed or disappointed, exhilarated or mind-numbingly bored. Yes, she likes her parents, but far more importantly, "I love, trust, and respect them. Because they followed through, I take them at their word."