Markets 
As a mother of nine, Rachel Campos-Duffy has certainly had practice at pulling off Mother’s Day without a hitch.
And she’ll certainly be front and center when the family celebrates today with a brunch at a friend’s house — although not until she’s finished her shift co-hosting “Fox and Friends.”
“It’s the same for all moms. The kids will make me cards and give me flowers. We’ll go out to brunch, but try to do too much work,” she told The Post in an interview.
Life in her and husband Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s main home in New Jersey is often hectic, but they are used to it.
Duffy is one of 11 and Campos-Duffy has three siblings, but said she never thought much about their kid count, adding she was: “MAHA [Make America Healthy Again] before MAHA. I was Catholic and not on birth control.”
Her nine children, who range in age from 27 to six are: Evita, Jack, Lucia-Belén, John-Paul, Paloma, Maria-Victoria, Margarita, Patrick and Valentina.
Campos-Duffy also has a message for younger people who are being cautious about having kids, bemoaning the “weird idea that only rich people should have kids. It’s silly.”
Referring to a New York Times article which profiled couples who were rethinking having children because of the high cost of living, mortgage rates and economic uncertainty, she explained: “That article is speaking of materialism and this idea that somehow being able to lounge on a Saturday and afford to buy a $10 latte will fulfill you.”
The host stresses having children will lead to fulfillment over a lifetime, joking that if she waited until she was “ready” she would have been having her first kid at 50.
Instead of looking at her bank account, Campos-Duffy trusted in her mother who always said babies “all come with a little loaf of bread under their arm.” In other words, when a new bundle of joy arrived, they were usually accompanied by something fortuitous, like a business deal.
“We always just trusted in Providence. And it worked out,” she said.
As for entertaining the whole family, Campos-Duffy said they have recently been hitting the road to celebrate our country’s 250th birthday, inspired by President Donald Trump, who asked his Cabinet Secretaries to find a special way to celebrate the milestone.
“So, my husband decided he was going to bring back the great American road trip.” As a family, they picked out a few short trips that could fit into Duffy’s hectic schedule, including a visit to the Grand Canyon’s Phantom Ranch, replicating a trek he took as a child.
Piling into a car and watching the world go by is also a great activity for family bonding as well as gaining a renewed pride in our great American experiment.
“You load the kids, you take their phones and throw them in the glove compartment. You sing songs. You play music from the 80s that they’re gagging over, then you play some of their stuff. Suddenly you’re talking and we’re all not on our devices,” Campos-Duffy said.
Its also familiar territory for Campos-Duffy, who first rose to fame when she was cast in MTVs “The Real World: San Franscisco” in 1994. She then met Duffy — who himself had starred in “The Real World: Boston” — on camera when they were both cast in “Road Rules: All Stars” in 1998, travelling around the country in an RV. They married the following year.
For destinations, they didn’t have to look far for inspiration.
Campos-Duffy’s new book “All American Patriotism: Celebrating 250 Years of American Greatness,” is a great travel brochure for the US.
In the collection of essays, Campos-Duffy and her Fox News colleagues pen their own love letters to our nation, offering glimpses into their formative moments from their respective corners of the US.
Will Cain writes about his Texas childhood under the Friday Night Lights, Conn. native Jesse Waters recounts his summers in Maine, while Benjamin Hall tells the inspiring story of American troops rescuing his father in the Philippines during WW II, then later rescuing him after he was gravely injured while covering the war in Ukraine.
Campos-Duffy, 54, whose father is Mexican American and her mother from Spain, writes of her own “American dream” origin story. She recalled her parents taking her and her siblings to Philadelphia for the 200th anniversary of the US declaration of Independence in 1976 and her feeling of immense love for the nation.
“We went to see the Liberty Bell. It was so formative to me because my parents were saying how lucky we were.”
But today, kids are hearing the exact opposite. They’re being taught that our country is irredeemable and racist. To heal, we need to tear down its studs and rebuild as some new Marxist project. It can feel quite jarring.
“We can’t ignore the poll numbers that show that people under the age of 30 have half the rate of patriotism of Gen Xers and Boomers. We even have trigger warnings on our founding documents inside of the archives,” she said.
Campos-Duffy says “reversing these narratives” is imperative — and it falls on family to do so.
“We’ve allowed the public school system and culture to tell the story of who we are,” she said. “Ultimately as parents, we have way more influence than we give ourselves credit for.”
Campos-Duffy adds she’s learned a great deal herself by being mother to her youngest, Valentina, who has Down Syndrome.
The bubbly 6-year-old always seems to be in the center of the action. She’s been photographed next to President Trump in the Oval Office; and in an adorable clip that went viral, she’s hugging astronaut Victor Glover, who picks her up and declares her part of the Artemis II crew.
“She’s the best thing that happened to this family,” she said. “You know 90 percent of people with Down Syndrome are being aborted. It’s really tragic how genetic testing has caused their demise”
Campos-Duffy said she’s been stopped on the street by other parents of children with Down Syndrome to tell them how Valentina affected their own journey. “They’ll say, ‘because of Valentina, I wasn’t afraid to have that baby’. And there is nothing better than that. She’s just happy. She loves life.”
And on Friday, she announced a new arrival coming in June: the family’s reality show debut.
Over the years Campos-Duffy said her family had turned down all offers to film together until doing their mini road trips.
“We’ve been married 27 years, everyone from the Kardashian producers, the producers of ‘The Real World’ and [network] TLC has approached us.”
To come full circle, the show couple tapped the “Real World” team to produce the show, which will air on YouTube.
She hopes the book and show encourage people to reconnect with their families and their country.
“Even if one family takes a road trip and discovers somewhere or something interesting in America, I will feel like we did our job.”
Read the full article here
