Sam Sorbo is passionate about faith and family. She and her husband, Kevin, have been strong proponents of marriage, family, and faith, in the shifting sands of Hollywood and the notoriously family-unfriendly movie industry. We had the chance to sit down for an interview with Sam for The Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast, in which Sam shared some of the keys to preserving and strengthening her family and living out her faith. Please enjoy this transcript of their heart-felt and encouraging conversation.
Sam Sorbo studied biomedical engineering at Duke University before pursuing a career in entertainment. An award-winning actress, author, radio host, international model, and home-schooling mom to three children with Kevin Sorbo, Sam Sorbo seeks to inspire parents to home educate. Her books, They’re YOUR Kids: An Inspirational Journey from Self-Doubter to Home School Advocate (Reveille Press) and Teach from Love: A School Year Devotional for Families (Broadstreet Publishing), are available at SamSorbo.com. Sam co-wrote, produced, and co-starred in the 2017 feature film Let There Be Light(executive producer, Sean Hannity; director, Kevin Sorbo.) To correspond with the film, Sam and Kevin wrote their devotional, Share the Light. Their newest film, Miracle in East Texas, due in theaters in 2020. Sam and Kevin have teamed up on a new book, True Faith: Embracing Adversity to Walk in God’s Light, due out early 2020.
Yvette Hampton: Hey everyone, this is Yvette Hampton. Welcome back to part two of the podcast with Sam Sorbo. And we are having so much fun with her. I love talking to you, Sam. I love your heart for families, for culture, for homeschooling, and for your children. It is very evident that you have a deep passion for shifting the needle a little bit and the direction that our culture needs to be headed.
Sam Sorbo: Yeah.
Yvette Hampton: And so I want to talk a little bit about that. You actually have a new book, it’s just now released called True Faith. And you wrote that with your husband Kevin Sorbo.
Sam Sorbo: Yep.
Yvette Hampton: Tell us a little bit about your book.
Sam Sorbo: So right before we got married, Kevin suffered three strokes and nearly died. And it was a three year recovery. We got married anyway, it was a three year recovery. It was a very difficult recovery. He had myriad symptoms that were terribly debilitating. And he battled through, he is the strongest man in the world.
Yvette Hampton: He’s a real Hercules.
Sam Sorbo: And he was going through this while he was playing Hercules, exactly. And so I nagged him long and hard and he finally wrote the book about his recovery, because I saw it as a way to minister to people, who were also going through hardship. Any kind of overwhelming struggle, right? It’s always good to hear someone else’s story and say, “Oh well. My story’s not that bad”. Or “My story is just as bad, but different. But look how they overcame and there’s hope for me”. That kind of thing. And so this book is sort of the next step in that. So I have a little bit of a bigger role. And in this book we kind of went halves and we just tell the story of working together. A lot of people ask us what’s it like to be conservative in Hollywood? What’s it like to work as Christians in that industry?
Sam Sorbo: And so we just set out to answer some of those questions to give you a little bit of insight into our life together. And it’s very difficult for us to get pregnant. We talk about that journey. And that’s actually part of the reason that I eventually figured out that I needed to home educate my kids, because I was just sending them off to a stranger every day.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah.
Sam Sorbo: And I’ll tell you a quick story. When we moved for the schools, we moved to the really good schools, and my son went through first grade, and second grade. And the first grade teacher that he was assigned, I was not allowed to change. I had to accept what they gave him. I had no idea who the teachers were. Somebody said to me, “Oh, you’ve got a really good teacher. Oh, you got the good one, she’s awesome.” And I’m like, “Great”. Do you know why she’s awesome? Because she keeps a bowl of candy in her classroom.
Yvette Hampton: Oh, gosh.
Sam Sorbo: And so all the kids at every age level who know that come and hug her and get pieces of candy. And I didn’t realize that was sort of the modus operandi for her until halfway through second grade.
Sam Sorbo: When I saw it happen again and it was just this one time and I was like… It was the 10th time or whatever. But I was like, “Huh, that’s why”. Do you know what I mean?
Yvette Hampton: Sure.
Sam Sorbo: And then you start discovering other things. And I’ll tell you something, if you just take a moment and say, “I’m just going to try it for a semester”, and the bond you’ll have with your child is improved by miles. Because what happens is when you drop your child off at the school house gates, you’re tacitly telling the child, “My authority stops here. You are now under the school’s authority”. When your child comes home and says, “Mommy, mommy, you have to sign this. The teacher says you have to sign this”. And you take it, “Okay, let me sign it”. You are under the teacher’s authority. So now anything that the teacher says that disagrees with you, whatever it might be, the teacher says, “Oh, plastic bags kill dolphins”. And your child says, “Mommy, plastic bags kill dolphins”. And you say, “Oh, that’s not really true, because whatever”, right?
Sam Sorbo: No. Now you… Now, here’s the problem with that, right? Either your authority prevails, in which case there’s a huge conflict of interest.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah.
Sam Sorbo: And you were lying when you dropped them off at the school and said their authority prevails.
Yvette Hampton: Right.
Sam Sorbo: Right? There’s a huge conflict of interest in it. It can’t end well. It’s not in good scenario.
Sam Sorbo: So we talk a little bit about that. We talk about politics, how we became more political. You know what, I just, I love the truth. And the Bible tells me that I have to adhere to the truth as thou shall not lie, thou shalt not bear false witness. Right? And so we just started to hunker down into our values, and that’s what brought us out into the limelight, I suppose you would say, right? And it’s sad the number of people in this nation who are enamored by lies.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah. Well, it is sad. And you know, I want to go back really quick to where you were talking about giving up that parental authority, when we send our kids off to school. And it goes so much further and deeper than that, in that in public school… Most parents don’t realize this, but when you drop your child off at a public school, and actually I shouldn’t just say public, I believe private as well would fall under this, that school becomes their legal guardian (in loco parentis) during the time that your child is in that school. And that is the reason why in many States if your 13 year old daughter goes to their school nurse and says, “I just found out I’m pregnant”, that school can take that young innocent girl who doesn’t know anything about what she’s doing and they can take her to have an abortion and murder her baby without the parent’s consent or knowledge.
Yvette Hampton: In the state of California it is illegal for the school to inform the parents of what has gone on with their very own daughter, because the school has become their legal guardian during the school hours that we’ve dropped them off. (see In Loco Parentis)
Aby Rinella: But I would actually challenge that to say that you ARE giving them consent when you drop your kids off.
Yvette Hampton: Sure.
Aby Rinella: But when I drop my kids off with someone else, I’m handing over my consent.
Yvette Hampton: Sure. Right.
Aby Rinella: So parents need to also take responsibility to say they didn’t do this without me knowing, because when you get handed your child over to them, that’s a little bit on you.
Yvette Hampton: Right.
Sam Sorbo: But guess what? The schools don’t actually bear the responsibility for educating the child. And there have been court cases where parents have sued the schools, because the children didn’t learn to read or what have you. And the judge always sides in favor of the school, that it’s the parent’s responsibility to teach the child to read.
Yvette Hampton: Right.
Sam Sorbo: It’s absurd. What kind of subcontractor do you have in your house, who leaves you homework?
Yvette Hampton: Right.
Sam Sorbo: Do you have somebody come clean your house, but she leaves dishes in the sink? Right? Why are we giving, why are these children coming home with homework? It just… And it was the salami tactic. It was just a little bit, and a little bit, and a little bit, and then… And pretty soon… I mean, when you’re a child, and you’re four years old or five years old, and you’re shipped off to kindergarten, and your parents are all, “Oh, you’re going to kindergarten. It’s going to be so good. And don’t cry and whatever”. And so you’re taught “No, no, be complacent. Do what you’re told and just go with the flow. Don’t raise a ruckus.”. Right?
Yvette Hampton: Yeah.
Sam Sorbo: And so now parents, they go, “Oh my gosh, the homework for my child is terrible”. And I’m like, “Yeah, that’s not a problem for me”. They say, “I have to go into the school and meet with the teacher.” Yeah, I did that this morning in the mirror. It’s so much better.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah.
Sam Sorbo: And we talked earlier about this idea that people look at you like you think you’re better than they are.
Yvette Hampton: Right.
Sam Sorbo: And here’s the problem with that. Of course you think you’ve got the better solution.
Yvette Hampton: Right. Or else you wouldn’t be doing it.
Sam Sorbo: We don’t think we are a superior human being. No.
Yvette Hampton: Right.
Sam Sorbo: But of course you think that it’s a better solution because-
Aby Rinella: Why would you do it if it weren’t?
Sam Sorbo: So we have to get off of that sort of weird societal thing now that’s really just leftism run amuck, frankly.
Aby Rinella: Yeah.Totally. Because they’re offended because you’re doing something they’re not. And it’s the whole offended thing.
Sam Sorbo: Right. I actually, because I do a radio show every day called the Sam Sorbo Show, and I did a story on a young girl who had like a… Is it called a Norplant? It’s a-
Aby Rinella: Oh, yeah. The birth control.
Sam Sorbo: And it got infected, because it was improperly implanted.
Yvette Hampton: Oh.
Sam Sorbo: And so she had to have it surgically removed. And strangely enough, she needed her parental consent to have it surgically removed. They were not aware that she had gotten it done by the nurse facilitator person at the school, not even a nurse, like a non-nurse helper person at the school. These stories are crazy. I did a story the other day, a young girl in Colorado, 11th grade, given a poem… The whole class is given a poem that was at the time, it came out in the ’60s. I think there was even a court case about it, it’s a very controversial poem. And the publisher had seen fit to leave out all of the swear words, because it depicted very graphically, sexual violence of all kinds, as you might imagine. And so the publisher left out all the bad words, the F word, the C word, the other C-word, all of them.
Sam Sorbo: The teacher stood in front of the class and verbatim gave them each of the bad words to write into their version of the poem. And I had the girl on the radio, and we got to the point where she said, “I felt violated”, because because she did. Her parents tromped down to the school and said, “Hey, we need an apology, and you need to reconsider this curriculum because it is not acceptable”. They reconsidered the curriculum. The teacher wrote a “sorry, not sorry letter,” which did nothing.
Sam Sorbo: The school reconsidered the poem and said, “Nope, the poem’s fine. It’s part of teaching. And he wanted to make the point that some artwork can be offensive” or something. I don’t even know what. And so I had her at the end of the program. I had to modify the schedule to accommodate her school classes. I said, “So I understand that you’re back in school now?”. And she said, “Oh yes”. And her dad piped in with, “You know, we’re so proud of her because “salt and light” and she’s witnessing to an atheist girl who’s in her class”. And I said, “Okay. But do you understand that you going back into the same place where you were violated is actually sending the message that Christians don’t mind when they are violated?”.
Yvette Hampton: Right.
Sam Sorbo: And let’s get this straight. It was a sexual violation. Yes it was just words. But I’m sorry, that counts.
Yvette Hampton: Right.
Sam Sorbo: And she’s only in 11th grade.
Aby Rinella: And what is the father telling his daughter?
Aby Rinella: Unbelievable.
Sam Sorbo: And he said to me… “Well, we allowed her to make the choice”. How ’bout you be a parent, how about that?
Yvette Hampton: Right.
Aby Rinella: Yeah. Yeah.
Sam Sorbo: And you protect your your daughter and say, “Not on my watch”!
Aby Rinella: Which is what every little girl needs to hear from a dad is this isn’t okay and this will not happen again. And you don’t have a choice to have this happen again, because I’m going to be here to protect you.
Sam Sorbo: That’s right.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah.
Aby Rinella: Wow.
Yvette Hampton: It’s shocking to me how often I hear from parents, “Well, my child doesn’t want to be homeschooled. My child wants to go to public school”. Okay.
Sam Sorbo: Oh. Oh.
Yvette Hampton: Foolishness! I mean, the Bible says “foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child.”
Aby Rinella: Yeah.
Yvette Hampton: The child does not know what’s best for them. You don’t say, “Well, my four year old wants to go play out in the middle of the street with speeding cars, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings. And so I’m going to let him go do that”. No.
Sam Sorbo: We’re living in the age where parents allow their five-year-old to determine that they are of a different gender.
Yvette Hampton: Right.
Sam Sorbo: That’s crazy. What gets me isn’t that as much as the parents that say, “Yeah, my daughter really wants me to homeschool her”.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah.
Aby Rinella: Yeah, I get that a lot. I’ve heard that so much lately, “My kid would love to be homeschooled, but I”. And I said right there, “But I”. It’s not about you. It’s never been about you when you gave birth to that child. You know? And that’s the part that really gets me. I want to take those kids home with me.
Sam Sorbo: What’s worse is, and I’ve actually said this to somebody, and I say it sort of generically, because it’s really harsh. If your child wants to be homeschooled and you refuse, then you have to understand that that is you refusing your child, their desire. And either that paints you as too stupid or too uncaring. It’s a no win. You can’t win that one.
Aby Rinella: Well, they’re also crying out. I think those kids are crying out. And then parents are shocked when these girls start cutting, or all these things that they’re doing. And it’s like, but they cried out to you. They told you, “Get me out of this situation”. So don’t be surprised when they have to stand up and read these crazy poems.
Sam Sorbo: Exactly. Yeah, it’s frustrating.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah.
Sam Sorbo: So I’m on a crusade to wake people up. We’re somnambulant, we’re just brainwashed.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah.
Sam Sorbo: [Saying things like] “Who’s winning American idol?”
Aby Rinella: Well, we need more people on that crusade.
Sam Sorbo: And I want to get the message out, because homeschooling is the secret sauce. It’s the most amazing thing. I’ve produced two movies now. I never would’ve produced a movie if I hadn’t started home educating my children.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah.
Sam Sorbo: I’ve written several books. I never would have done that if I hadn’t started home educating my children.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah.
Sam Sorbo: It has empowered me, that’s why the subtitle of my book is an inspirational journey from self-doubt at a homeschool advocate. My job when I wrote this book, the way I saw it was I was going to empower parents to make that choice. And thank God, I’ve had so many people reach out to me and say, “It was through your videos. It was through your book. Thank you lighting a fire under me or guiding me in this process. And thank you for encouraging me and telling me that I could do it”. You don’t have to know everything. In fact, it’s better if you don’t know anything. Because here’s the thing, how best can we teach our children by showing them what it means to learn.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah.
Sam Sorbo: By showing them how learning is done! How do accomplish that? They have something to learn, first of all, right?
Aby Rinella: Right. I’ve told this story on the podcast before, but I’m a former public school teacher [gasps] I know, but do you know what I’m doing with my kids? They never step one foot and one day in a public school. But so many people say, “Oh, you can homeschool because you were a teacher”. And that is probably the most offensive thing to me, because being a public school teacher was my greatest challenge in homeschooling. I had to unlearn all of the brainwashing I got, how to teach a kid, because I realized that’s not how you teach a kid. That’s how you teach a kid that lives in this box. But when you said it’s better to not know everything, I could not echo that more, because I went to four years of school on how to teach a kid and I didn’t have a clue how to teach a kid till I came home and learned what it meant to teach a kid.
Sam Sorbo: Well, and when I criticize the institution, I don’t criticize the teachers, right?
Yvette Hampton: Right.
Aby Rinella: Right.
Sam Sorbo: So many of them really want to serve.
Yvette Hampton: Okay.
Sam Sorbo: A good thing. I mean, they really want to serve. They’ve got a heart for the kids and they want to do the best by them. So for Christian teachers especially who are now really more and more conflicted between their faith and values and what they need to do, so I encourage them to hang out a shingle and become a home educator for other people’s children, because there are plenty of people who… And I had a friend, actually, who had four kids, his wife refused, just steadfastly refused. And he had to work. And so he just hired retired school teachers for a half day every day, one per child. And that was cheaper than sending them to the local private school. And he wasn’t going to send them to the public schools there because that was a nonstarter. And his oldest daughter graduated Harvard. They’re doing great. Well, they had private tutors growing up. It’s a win-win! So If you’re a public school teacher and you’re getting fed up to here with everything, go into business for yourself. Be an entrepreneur.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah, that’s right.
Sam Sorbo: That’s I want to put on the entrepreneurship back in education.
Aby Rinella: Yes.
Sam Sorbo: We should be teaching self-sufficiency.
Yvette Hampton: Well, Sam, I so much appreciate your stance on family and on homeschooling. You and Kevin are a rarity in Hollywood. Garritt worked in the Hollywood movie industry for many, many years and we saw it firsthand just like you have. And I mean, it’s no secret that most marriages in Hollywood fail miserably. And it’s one of the things I respect so much about you. And one of the reasons that I love that you homeschool is because I forget exactly what your role is, but if Kevin’s going to be away for two weeks or more or something like that, then you guys go as a family, right?
Sam Sorbo: Yeah. We’re never separated for more than two weeks. That was our rule.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah. And I mean, that’s amazing. And with the career that he has and the career that both of you have had, that you are able to take homeschooling with you, and you’re able to be a family. When we went and filmed with you for Schoolhouse Rocked, we met up with you in St. Pete, Florida, where you and Kevin were both filming a movie there. And it was so much fun. Your kids were there with you. My daughter and your daughter had a great time. They spent the whole day together.
Sam Sorbo: Yeah. That’s right.
Yvette Hampton: And I mean it was just so much fun to just see your family all the way, because at that time you were living in Los Angeles, but you were filming in Florida, so you were all the way on the other side of the country, but your family was together! And you have worked really hard to protect that family unity. And I respect that so much about you, that family is that important to you.
Sam Sorbo: You know what? I think I learned at a fairly young age to prioritize. Right now we say you can have it all. You can’t have it all!
Yvette Hampton: No.
Sam Sorbo: No. No. Sorry. That’s not part of the equation.
Yvette Hampton: Right.
Sam Sorbo: That’s pie in the sky. That doesn’t work. So, prioritize. And so we made it… We became dedicated. We said, “Okay, we’re prioritizing our marriage”. I said, “I’m prioritizing the children” when I realized that it was actually damaging for them to be in the environment of the public school. And what’s great is, when you understand, I’m going to use air quotes, “the sacrifice”, and you sacrifice for something, you imbue it with even more value. And what you get out is so precious.
Yvette Hampton: Yes.
Sam Sorbo: But if we don’t value things, if we’re just like, “Eh, a little bit of that, a little bit of that, a little bit…”, nothing has any value.
Aby Rinella: Right.
Sam Sorbo: And we find ourselves lost at the end of the day, at the end of the year, at the end of the lifetime.
Yvette Hampton: Yes.
Sam Sorbo: So yeah, I mean that’s partly why, that feeds into true faith. We stepped out in faith. Marriage is an act of faith.
Aby Rinella: Yes. Amen.
Sam Sorbo: Marriage is an act of huge faith.
Yvette Hampton: That’s right.
Sam Sorbo: Children are an act of faith. Home education’s an act of faith.
Yvette Hampton: Yes.
Sam Sorbo: Learn how to practice your face every day.
Yvette Hampton: Yes.
Sam Sorbo: And you’ll have a more fruitful, more fulfilling life.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah, that’s right.
Aby Rinella: Absolutely.
Yvette Hampton: Well, that is a perfect way to end this podcast. Sam, you are such a blessing. I am so thankful for you. Thank you for your part in Schoolhouse Rocked. Thank you for your part in the Homegrown Generation Family Expo. We are so excited to have you as part of that event. Thank you.
Aby Rinella: So what day are you speaking and what topic are you speaking on?
Sam Sorbo: I think I’m the last. Am I the last speaker?
Yvette Hampton: You are. You are actually closing it out, as the last solo session, which will be on Friday, February 21st at 4:30 PM, Eastern time.
Aby Rinella: With me again!
Sam Sorbo: Great.
Aby Rinella: I’m going to hang out with you again.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah. You’ll be a part of that last round table panel that we’ve got going on, so we’re so super excited, looking forward to having you as part of that. That last panel will be myself, Aby, you, Kristi Clover, who I know you’re a good friends with.
Sam Sorbo: Yeah.
Yvette Hampton: And James Gottry from the James Dobson Family Institute is going to be joining us as well.
Sam Sorbo: It’s going to be fun! And God bless you for doing that. I think it’s very cool and it’s a great way to reach people. And so I would encourage everybody who’s hearing this, please invite your friends.
Yvette Hampton: Yes.
Sam Sorbo: It’s an easy thing to do. You don’t have to go anywhere. You just sit at your computer, you can peak through everybody who’s speaking and learn a little bit. And maybe you’ll have the epiphany that you need to push you into the right direction with your kid.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, and it is going to be very helpful in getting post-production funded on Schoolhouse Rocked, so that we can get this movie done and into people’s hands. So Sam, thank you so much for your time today. Aby, thank you for being with us again.
Aby Rinella: Thank you.
Yvette Hampton: You both are a blessing. Thank you guys for listening. Have a great rest of your week, and we will see you back here next week.
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