In this episode, we talk about what it means to be a low effort parent and why it's a bad thing. We talk about the benefits of a high effort parenting environment and how it affects the way we raise our kids.
00:00:00.000But I'm thinking, you know, in 20 years, I imagine we will have AI avatars, i.e. robots that are in your basically AI slaves that live in your house that help with like parenting and stuff like that.
00:00:33.440Well, okay, as as when you were younger, or even like when we first met, did you think you were going to be a high effort or a low effort parent?
00:01:39.080And so you never would naturally be a high effort parent.
00:01:42.480But I think that if you were really wealthy and you did have nothing but like nannies, like one nanny for each kid and like a lot of people on them, those kids would experience a high effort parenting environment growing up.
00:01:58.340Meaning that there would be someone micromanaging and helicopter parenting them all the time.
00:02:11.740Like, you know, don't make a big deal out of everything.
00:02:13.800They know that they will be fired or they will be...
00:02:19.660Well, and this is something that we've seen was a lot of the wealthy parents that we know, and it's a big problem that they have with child rearing, is when they create environments where they have somebody else like living in their house and helping raise their kids.
00:02:33.000Especially if they have multiple people who can sort of watch each other to an extent.
00:02:37.120These people are almost sort of forced to overindulge the child because, you know, it's quite one thing to say, oh, I won't give in to a child's tantrum.
00:02:45.620But when you know the mom is looking at you and seeing this child just like absolutely destroyed, it can be really hard to not do anything about it.
00:02:55.280Yeah, or the kid makes a mess and you're like, hey, you know, Jimmy, clean up the mess.
00:03:43.000Actually, we're pretty chill about that.
00:03:44.440We understand because we know how rambunctious our kids are.
00:03:46.760But yeah, so I think that's really, that's an interesting observation here.
00:03:50.420Just specifically that even low effort style parents who like know better or parents who understand that a helicopter parenting or coddling a child is really damaging.
00:04:00.400If they choose to pay other people to raise their kids or they send their kids to a public school, a private school, daycare, et cetera, that kid is going to be coddled.
00:04:09.460I think daycare and public and private school are quite different.
00:04:11.540So one study that people may not be familiar with is typically the kids who get sent to like kindergarten earlier, they did a great like controlled study on this recently because they couldn't take all the kids into this like state paid kindergarten program.
00:04:24.320The kids who got in actually did much worse in terms of their academics long term, their emotional development long term.
00:04:30.540And even though the stereotype is homeschooled kids do worse socially than non homeschooled kids, the reality is that if you look at the meta studies on this, while you'll get things on both sides of the line, the majority seem to trend towards homeschool kids have better social skills than non homeschooled kids and better leadership skills and better emotional control.
00:04:49.060And this is because they learn their socialization from watching adults, whereas the rest of the kids learn their social abilities from like this weird Lord of the Flies situation in this evil bureaucracy you've thrown them in the two.
00:05:04.720I mean, our school system in most of the world is this weird totalitarian bureaucracy you have to like live a portion of your life under, like almost like living in a prison system.
00:05:15.760It is absolutely bizarre that we think that this would have positive social and emotional outcomes.
00:05:23.220Yeah, well, and the kids are also in a highly regimented environment because they have to be to like make everything work.
00:05:29.520And they are being micromanaged a lot more.
00:05:31.560And there are a lot more like sort of strict rules and like here's how it's going to go and I'm going to watch you and I'm going to tell you what to do.
00:05:38.760I mean, in public schools these days, you have very low student to teacher ratios.
00:05:41.980I think that, yeah, but there's still, I'm sorry, you never went to public school, your classes.
00:05:46.560I did go to public school and most of the pressure on kids to behave in certain ways within public school comes from their peer group, not from adults.
00:06:14.880Whether or not you can get up in a room, what are you talking about?
00:06:17.340It's about the way you relate to them emotionally.
00:06:19.880And that is primarily done from their peer group, not from the authorities.
00:06:23.840If you're in a class of like 500 kids to one teacher, the teacher is basically irrelevant in terms of the social and emotional lessons they're teaching the kids.
00:06:31.660Yeah, but the student is subject to a system which is like a big brother.
00:06:34.600And that's why you have all these kids who are constantly appealing to authority instead of actually like.
00:06:39.560So, for example, we have this issue of a lot of kids now who don't know their own limitations and boundaries and don't know others limitations and boundaries.
00:06:47.520Because when they get hurt by someone or wronged by someone, they get to appeal to this bureaucratic system of rules.
00:06:54.700And that person gets a timeout and every time something goes wrong, they don't have to figure out how to navigate that interpersonally as kids.
00:07:01.340They get to figure out how to navigate that bureaucratically as parts of the system.
00:07:06.120And that's what I would really agree with this.
00:07:19.600Or if somebody has hurt your feelings in any way, then they get punished.
00:07:24.380And so kids learn to utilize this as a tool at a very young age.
00:07:29.760If I can convincingly argue to a person in a position of authority that somebody hurt my feelings, then I get to use the violence of the state, basically.
00:07:37.980The violence of the authority, i.e. the power of the authority on whoever I can convince hurt my feelings.
00:07:44.440And so it creates this mindset where – and also keep in mind, like what do kids get punished for?
00:07:51.020They get punished for, quote-unquote, hurting other kids, whether that's their feelings or their bodies, which for kids makes them believe that in a society the number one thing of value is not being hurt.
00:08:02.980This is where you get was in this left community, like ultra-lefty community-minded individual, this belief in negative utilitarianism because that's a belief that's implicitly taught through the power structures of our school systems.
00:08:16.040The way that you call down upon the ultimate authority, like power on someone, like your God in this system, like I'm going to call down lightning on somebody else, is by claiming to have been hurt physically or emotionally, which then to an individual makes them think, like I deserve as a right in society to never be emotionally or physically hurt, like even after they leave the school system.
00:09:03.440They are learning internal resilience and they're learning where other people's boundaries are, at least like other – not species, but like other people or other –
00:09:16.240And when you don't learn that, like if, for example, you don't get a chance like a homeschool kid might to like get punched by a brother and the mom's too busy to like realize it and have to deal with justice on your own, you aren't going to learn how to deal with that.
00:09:32.340You're only going to learn how to appeal to authority.
00:09:34.140So that's the other important thing is I think that there is some level of emotional regulation that also comes out of this.
00:09:39.140It's just learning that like, hey, sometimes life isn't fair.
00:09:42.100I don't always get to file a complaint and have justice take place when I'm wronged.
00:09:46.220Sometimes I just have to figure out how to deal with the fact that people can be dicks to me and I'm going to, over time, learn from that and avoid people who are going to punch me when mom isn't looking.
00:09:56.700So I think that's another really big problem of that.
00:09:59.840But I do think this is an interesting thing in that we – what we came into this conversation planning to talk about was that low-effort parenting is inherently prenatalist.
00:10:09.180But actually it can be difficult to actually gift your child with low-effort parenting in modern society, even if you yourself are a low-effort parent.
00:11:55.580Like I could go – Mr. Grimley, like anyone who does like anything tied to cryptids or missing 401s or other types of mysteries, I absolutely love listening to.
00:12:07.180So – but it also terrifies me of like letting my kids go play in the woods because so many of us like, well, I was watching them and I turned away for a few seconds.
00:12:14.140And the next time I looked, toddlers were all gone.
00:13:46.540Like I saw him from the moment he fell in.
00:13:49.360I had plenty of time to walk over and not get wet.
00:13:53.060And he wasn't going to drown in that period of time.
00:13:56.620And he was learning a valuable lesson about falling into ponds.
00:13:59.940But, you know, I think a lot of people are just like anything that threatens, you know, you must immediately go out and run and panic and have a huge emotional situation over.
00:14:09.800And I don't think that would have served his benefit at all.
00:14:12.560But I think that that's, you know, probably not a conscious decision I made.
00:14:16.820It was just like the way I'm genetically coded to, like, look at the situation and be like, is this going to kill him?
00:14:22.280No, we both have this sort of reaction where your reaction is just sort of practically pick them up and take care of them and, like, dust them off but, like, not freak out.
00:14:31.260And my natural reaction is to do the same thing but then laugh hysterically at them.
00:14:37.140Like, one of our sons last night thought he would be absolutely hilarious when he was taking a bath, like, taking a little cup of water and then, like, drinking it in a really weird and annoying way.
00:14:49.120But then immediately this backfired because he inhaled a ton of water.
00:14:52.660And then he just starts, like, coughing like he's an old man, like, and I'm just, like, dying of laughter.
00:15:00.460And, you know, I think a lot of other parents might be like, oh, no, my son is, he swallowed water the wrong way.
00:15:07.340Like, he's choking on it and I'm just sitting here, like, dying.
00:15:10.260I mean, historically, lots of families have, like, 15 kids.
00:15:15.160I'm not okay with any of our kids ever getting hurt or dying.
00:15:18.140I mean, I am very safety conscious, as are you, which is why you're so paranoid.
00:15:21.660I mean, watch all this, like, 401, like, missing person.
00:15:24.420But, I mean, I think that, you know, if you're not raising your kid in a way and you're not treating them with the level of care that they would receive in a family of 15,
00:15:32.560then you're not treating them in a sustainable way or in a way that is aligned with our evolutionary history.
00:15:39.200Like, why is low effort parenting prenatalist and important?
00:15:43.500I think the big one is we've already talked about this here and we've already alluded to this a lot.
00:15:48.220When you have low effort parenting, you are giving children an opportunity to develop their own sense of internal regulation, socialization, and independence.
00:15:57.860And if you don't do that, you're not going to have independent kids.
00:16:00.460Second, it is the only way to make parenting sustainable for parents.
00:16:03.600And we say to our friends all the time, there is nothing harder than having just one kid.
00:16:07.660Because with one kid, everything's a big deal.
00:16:10.320You also kind of feel obligated to make everything a big deal.
00:16:12.780I think two is slightly harder than one.
00:16:13.880I think where it really starts getting easier, three, four, et cetera.
00:16:16.680Well, but with one, it's like you're really freaking out about it, about everything.
00:16:27.880Yeah, and now that you're at two kids, because, you know, you grew up an only child.
00:16:31.520I think a lot of people, you know, before they have a couple of kids, they don't realize how, I would see it as abusive it is to only have one child.
00:16:38.600Yeah, because as soon as they also start entertaining each other.
00:16:41.860Even if they look like they're fighting, they're entertaining each other and they're not clinging to you for momentary needs of entertainment, which is really important.
00:16:50.660But, yeah, also, yeah, the mindset of just knowing that you're going to have a lot of kids, which causes more low effort parenting, is incredibly valuable because you start asking yourself, even if you've only at that point had two or three or four kids, is this something that I'm going to be able to handle when I have five, six or seven kids?
00:17:08.900And if the answer is no, well, then we're just not going to make a really big deal out of this.
00:17:12.620You know, we're just going to have to, you know, be chill.
00:17:16.340And it makes you much calmer as a parent.
00:17:20.660And then, of course, we've always argued again and again that the amount of money that parents spend on kids is absolutely insane between the camps they send them to, the schools they send them to, the products they get for them, the brand new clothes.
00:17:36.120And this happens at every level of income, I've noticed.
00:17:38.280This is not just something that, like, wealthy or middle class families do.
00:17:41.500Like, everyone spends unreasonable amounts of money on kids, especially on, like, special kid foods.
00:17:46.020And I think when you are a low effort parent, you're instead thinking about, like, crockpot meals and you're thinking about buying in bulk and you're thinking about, like, cooking the same way I learned how to cook as, like, a river guide when I was a kid where you're, like, cooking these bulk meals.
00:18:00.480And they're actually very healthy and they're very affordable and they're probably healthier than, like, the hyper-processed baby food that you used to buy when you had only one child, right?
00:18:08.380And our kids love going to the toy store, except they don't know that the toy store that we take them to is just the local dollar store.
00:18:16.640So we know that they can't accidentally get attached to anything that's too expensive.
00:20:22.020A lot of people do not have more kids now or do not think they can have kids or wait too long to have kids because they expect to spend insane amounts on their children when, in reality, children really don't cost that much.
00:20:36.580Number one, our biggest expense for kids is what do you think?
00:20:54.260So that is our, like, but yeah, I mean, aside from that, and if you have good insurance through an employer and we have kind of shitty insurance, so it's super, super high deductible or, you know, they're like, oh yeah, spend $10,000.
00:21:08.460And then maybe we'll talk about covering your health expenses.
00:21:32.920And that's one of our plans for this year also for ourselves.
00:21:35.400It's just, like, switch to chat GPT plus, like, those really detailed blood panel lists, like, where we get, like, a very detailed blood panel from ourselves, for ourselves at least to start.
00:21:45.620We're going to experiment on ourselves first before we do this with our kids.
00:21:49.000But then use that as, like, a marker plus, like, really detailed analysis plus, you know, things like Ezra scans where we're getting, like, a-
00:21:55.780And to point out here, anyone who thinks you're being irresponsible, I have a degree of medical training because of my academic background.
00:22:01.300And doctors are profoundly less educated than you imagine them to be.
00:22:08.960Or if you – it's one of those things where when you know about a profession and then you see people on air and you can immediately tell, like, how much they don't know about the profession.
00:22:19.760The moment I learned about this profession at, like, any sort of, like, academic level, then I see people in mass media or, like, a famous person on, like, a show talking about it.
00:22:29.920And you're like, ooh, he's pronouncing all the words wrong.
00:22:32.240And he's, you know – you know, it's the same with doctors.
00:22:34.660Well, that – I think many of the medical professionals people come into contact with have extremely specific and narrow ranges of focus where they are incredibly good and they have amazing pattern recognition, but only in one specific area.
00:22:51.100Like, a nurse that was helping to take care of me after I delivered one of our kids, like, started just veering the tiniest bit outside of, like, labor and delivery and, like, very, very newborns and abysmal advice.
00:23:06.220And I'm like, wait, like, where are the studies about this?
00:23:08.760And she's like, oh, no, no, I heard this in, like, a parenting book or a parenting Facebook group for moms.
00:23:13.560And I'm like, oh, of medical professionals?
00:23:26.000So, yeah, I mean, I think there's just also that, that, like, it is – there's so much to know in the medical profession.
00:23:32.780And then you kind of get into your niche and you really, really know it.
00:23:35.600But that doesn't mean that you know everything about the human body.
00:23:38.500But AI is actually really good at answering questions like that.
00:23:40.720But, yeah, no, so kids don't have to be that expensive and a major, major, major pro-natalist issue has to pivot around this concept of shifting the way that people parent from expecting to be a helicopter parent who spends insane amounts of money on their kid to being a parent who trusts their kid to learn really important lessons while still providing guide rails so they don't die or get really hurt.
00:24:04.260And who, you know, doesn't spend a ton of money on them because, frankly, you know, when we give our kids presents, half the time they prefer the box.
00:24:13.260Well, I mean, I'm just thinking about where parenting is going to be in, like, 20 years because I was thinking about, you know, you're mentioning AI in terms of, you know, helping with this advice on parenting.
00:24:23.900But I'm thinking, you know, in 20 years, I imagine we will have AI avatars, i.e. robots that are in your, basically AI slaves that live in your house that help with, like, parenting and stuff like that.
00:24:55.460I saw, like, Grimes on her Instagram, like, promoting this a while ago.
00:25:01.160I'll dig through it and find the company that she was in partnership with.
00:25:03.940I mean, of course, like, Grimes is both, like, a parent of children and, like, a super futurist is going to be someone promoting something like this.
00:26:51.740We know some people who could modify them to follow the kids into the woods and keep them safe.
00:26:55.720I think this sci-fi that I read once with, like, teens that were highly irresponsible in it, they wore belts that would kind of inflate into giant bouncy things when they were ever, like, fell off a building or something, which they, you know...
00:27:11.200I mean, when you were at St. Andrews, like, a certain number of students would die each year falling off the cliffs when they got drunk, right?
00:27:16.520Yeah, which was, you know, really useful.
00:28:23.940I never came close to jumping off a cliff.
00:28:25.740Well, and it's actually really impressive when you think about it, how few people in St. Andrews are dying.
00:28:30.740Because there's traditions like the May Dip, where you stay up all night, you get crazy drunk, and then you run into the ocean with a giant crowd of people.
00:29:02.140So the local university clubs would...
00:29:04.560This is actually an interesting change if you talk about, like, the degradation of our society.
00:29:09.360Where we understood it was the job of the prestigious clubs on campus, and they could earn additional social status by setting up protective and comforting things around May Dip.
00:29:20.900So they do things like hand out toasties, which are like little grilled sandwiches.
00:29:55.580When I went to see May Dip again, for anyone who's from St. Andrews, if you haven't seen it, like, recently, there was not a girl at that school I would snog.
00:30:04.640And this is me, like, as a 30-year-old man looking at, like, younger college women where you'd think I'd be interested.
00:30:11.620Like, I was looking, and I'd be honest, my genitals were afraid of what I was doing.
00:30:17.780Well, my assumption, too, by the way, was that you just weren't drunk enough, and, like, back in the day you were.
00:30:25.260But then we checked with your brother and sister, and they were like, no, no, no.
00:30:28.000Like, yeah, everyone was super hot when we were there, because you were there at the same time as your brother and sister.
00:30:31.620Yeah, well, I mean, we were there right after Will and Kate were there, so within, like, a couple years.
00:30:35.700So, you know, we were, people don't know, like, the Prince and the, yeah, anyway.
00:30:42.260No, no, no, there is an episode on The Crown about just that, that I'm watching right now with great enjoyment, because I get to see St. Andrews.
00:30:48.000I think there's even a shot of the Sainsbury's.
00:30:52.680And fun aside, so on this night of May Dip, everyone, of course, goes to the local grocery store, Sainsbury's, and completely clears out all the alcohol, obviously,
00:31:02.740because you have to get immensely drunk to be able to stay up all night and then get into the ocean.
00:31:08.840And we're walking down the aisle, and we didn't realize it was May Dip Night until we walked past the alcohol shelves, and it was only, like, 5 p.m.
00:31:17.160And then there were these two St. Andrews guys who, in the most posh English accent you can imagine, one turns to the other and says, this is Daya.
00:34:01.760Like, you cannot have pronatalism in helicopter parenting.
00:34:04.800And I think there are some people out there who believe themselves to be pronatalist who are also helicopter parents.
00:34:10.700And if you do not come to terms with the fact that you're going to have to get way more chill in order to be not only a pronatalist parent, but also a good parent that does not raise emotionally stunted, infantilized children, you're going to have to learn low effort.
00:34:29.920And I will say, I have tendencies toward this.
00:34:32.500And, Malcolm, sometimes you have been, not sometimes, sorry, frequently, you have been the one to encourage me to not be such a tight ass about things.
00:34:41.860I'm sorry if I ever press you too hard.
00:34:48.200And quite frankly, the reason why I personally did helicopter parenting stuff was not because I genuinely believed it would create better outcomes.
00:34:58.660I did it because I was neurotic and parents should not be imposing their neuroticism on their own children.
00:35:16.500And I would love for people in the comments to share their favorite low effort parenting tip so that we can learn from them.
00:35:25.640Because I bet there's some low effort parents out there.
00:35:27.240Oh, also, God, okay, I hate doing this.
00:35:30.160But if anyone has access to some kind of Apple device and can leave a five-star review for our podcast on Apple, it would probably make a big difference for us and or like this video and or subscribe.
00:36:20.220Actually, if you look at our view numbers, we're probably up to about, between the various platforms, around 1,000 hours a day now in terms of watch time.
00:36:27.600Which I know people, you know, they see these small channel numbers in the context of a social media age.