Based Camp - NY Mag Promotes Regretting Having Kids (Simone Thinks It’s A Good Idea)

00:00:00.000 Hello, Malcolm. I'm excited to be speaking with you today because we are going to be talking about

00:00:03.860 a New York Times article published in The Cut called I Regret Having Children, telling the

00:00:09.640 very dramatic stories of three mothers who genuinely regret becoming mothers and have

00:00:14.700 these dark and very ominous tales. And most of the conservative commentators I've seen covering it,

00:00:20.540 basically, I feel like I'm seeing this everywhere online, so we have to talk about it.

00:00:24.300 What I love about this is so many people, they're like, oh, Malcolm and Simone,

00:00:28.740 think about how it's going to affect your kids that it is really publicly documented that you

00:00:33.220 really wanted to have them and love them i'm like what what what about these people's kids

00:00:37.780 like this is part of the the story well it's anonymous so the idea is that hopefully these

00:00:43.520 children will never see it and even the mothers have said this like they wouldn't want their

00:00:46.840 children to know how much they resent this but most of the people who are talking about it

00:00:51.660 was one of them you no no actually but a lot of the people are saying this is antinatalist and

00:01:00.300 this is terrible or like brett cooper thinks that the the discourse is really about unsupported

00:01:05.740 isolated mothers and bad matching in marriage and not really about mothers hitting their kids

00:01:09.820 whereas i think really everyone's missing the point and here's the thing i actually think this

00:01:13.940 article is fantastic and that the the accounts that these mothers give are actually really

00:01:18.740 important and that anyone who is really serious about kids should read these and read a lot more.

00:01:25.960 And here's why. Basically the best way to get through the tough parts of having kids and having

00:01:30.380 kids isn't necessarily easy is to have a strong reason for having kids and also know ahead of

00:01:36.020 time, everything is going to go wrong. And you and I did exactly this, but not with kids with

00:01:40.260 getting married. Remember we went instead of on like regretful parenting subreddit, we went on

00:01:45.160 the relationship subreddit and we very misfestivously cataloged everything that could

00:01:49.420 possibly go wrong with our relationship and we built plans contingency plans around those things

00:01:56.180 and documents but the thing is is this is different because the people don't know what their kids are

00:02:00.800 going to be like right oh no they do and we're going to get into that no they super do and that's

00:02:05.080 the thing i mean genetically our kids are just us and this show and again in these stories so we're

00:02:09.680 going to go over the stories but the bigger story here is no this is good we should be talking about

00:02:14.520 this these problems are real but they're also very easy to navigate in fact many of the things

00:02:18.600 that these mothers talk about these nightmare scenarios are things that at least on a similar

00:02:23.540 level we are have as parents experienced this is not they're not like having universally terrible

00:02:28.980 experiences they're just going through the rough parts of being early parents and most of these

00:02:32.980 have kids like you know that are still in their toddler years it can be rough at times and the

00:02:38.160 point is you should be talking about this people shouldn't have a different parenting i have a

00:02:42.520 different reason why i like articles like this and i do like reading articles like this because

00:02:46.320 you love the snark reason i'm like really into like red pill content about how horrible somebody's

00:02:52.480 girlfriend was to them or something like that because it just makes me appreciate you more

00:02:56.360 and make you feel like more of a treasure oh and how like before you'd love to see what happened

00:03:00.740 to like old classmates on facebook so you could be feel yeah just like okay okay no but no i think

00:03:06.800 a lot of people they think that like i'm watching like super misogynistic content and it's gonna

00:03:10.980 make me misogynistic. And it's like, no, I just makes me appreciate how unique and special you

00:03:17.160 are as a wife. And I think our kids are pretty unique and special too. So hopefully this,

00:03:20.760 this reframes that as well. But I think for a lot of people, when they end up hating their

00:03:24.760 children or being parents, it's because they don't really like their partner. They don't

00:03:27.560 really like themselves because there's a lot of that in that, in this mix of the two of you

00:03:32.440 personality wise. Like when I see my kids play, it's just me plus Simone. Like there's, there's

00:03:37.060 not a lot of exogenous personality in there. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's, that's one of

00:03:43.120 the really big themes in this actually, that we don't talk about enough as a society, but the

00:03:48.720 article itself opens with parent regret is more common than you might think the are regretful

00:03:54.940 parents subreddit alone gets around 70,000 weekly visitors who anonymously commiserate

00:03:59.800 through stigma, makes it hard to admit it in real life below three moms of young children talk about

00:04:05.040 why they wish they could go back to their old lives. And so I'm going to just pull some highlights

00:04:10.620 from each mother who gives their account. And we're going to talk about how this, this is stuff

00:04:17.280 that people actually really should be planning around and talking about. And that if you do

00:04:21.480 adequately plan for these things, either one, you could just avoid becoming a parent if it's really

00:04:26.140 not for you. But two, you can really make something that could be terrible, totally surmountable by

00:04:32.380 just planning for it because it's pretty like the writing was on the wall for most of these issues

00:04:36.680 that these women encountered. And that's a really big thing. And the most common problem for all of 0.89

00:04:42.600 these women is that they lacked a strong reason for having kids. So let's start with a 34-year-old 1.00

00:04:47.160 Rhode Island mother of a six-year-old and a three-year-old. First off, she did not have a 1.00

00:04:51.580 strong reason for wanting to have kids. She wrote, when my husband and I were dating, his deal breaker

00:04:55.860 was having kids. Totally relatable, right? I didn't feel the same way, but I didn't see life 1.00

00:05:00.660 without children as an option. It always felt like the next stage of life for us. I remember telling

00:05:04.740 my husband, I'm worried. I love our life now. And I'm not sure what it's going to look like with a

00:05:09.980 child. And I think this is one super, super common. I mean, you, we can tell from the polling that

00:05:16.640 women are far more ambivalent around having children than men are men put having a child

00:05:23.120 and, and becoming a parent is one of the top things that they need for a fulfilling life.

00:05:26.880 whereas well especially conservative men whereas progressive men and all women polls recently that

00:05:32.120 showed that conservative men having a kid is the number one thing in terms of life fulfillment and

00:05:36.740 progressive women it was like the absolute bottom and i mean i mean that culture is just going to go

00:05:41.520 extinct right like that's that's what happens when you which is a weird place to be where you can see

00:05:48.360 that the cultures that we're opposing and the people we're opposing control elite institutions

00:05:52.280 and have power within our society but their failure is also inevitable which makes things

00:05:58.500 feel so weirdly comforting because i like being both the underdog in a fight but i also don't

00:06:04.220 want the risk of thinking that we could lose yeah the other really big thing and i'm so glad you

00:06:10.280 pointed to this is that if you hate yourself or you hate your partner you're going to have a lot

00:06:15.660 of trouble with your kids and this also shows up in all three of the stories so this particular

00:06:20.340 Rhode Island mother. What? If you hate yourself, adopt. I guess. Yeah. If you hate yourself,

00:06:27.160 you are a good candidate for adoption. This particular mother had personal issues that

00:06:31.020 now she is contending with in her kids. Like it's super obvious. She says she struggled with 1.00

00:06:35.200 postpartum depression. She's a perfectionist. She got diagnosed with ADHD after suspecting

00:06:40.360 her eldest had it. And then, you know, she turns out she had it too. But she wrote when my younger

00:06:44.720 daughter struggles to get dressed, I try to distract her or make compromises. But in the

00:06:48.960 end she's screaming and I don't know how to make it stop so I just shut down and so one yeah you

00:06:54.420 could adopt two you could genuinely like you could just do polygenic risk score selection like we did

00:06:59.520 and select for different behavioral traits you can do that I mean like risks of behavioral traits

00:07:04.500 but I think more importantly than that actually is and I have to be careful about how I say this

00:07:11.300 right because we're not we're not big on therapy culture we're not big on like working through like

00:07:15.580 your mental health issues. But like, how can I put it? Raising kids has forced me to give myself

00:07:24.280 a lot of grace and forgiveness around, for example, my sensory issues, my autism. And

00:07:29.600 while there's a world in which I could have seen that in my children and freaked out and everything

00:07:34.520 got way worse. Instead, I see it in my children and it teaches me how to be more forgiving with

00:07:39.040 myself and also way more understanding of my children. And I think for parents who do things

00:07:43.520 struggle with depression and frustration and perfectionism like she does for example

00:07:46.880 she has chosen to like have this turn into this vortex of pain and suffering for herself of like

00:07:53.440 oh my daughter's experiencing because her daughter's her like her daughter has her same tendencies

00:07:57.220 because you know they're very I want to you know illustrate for the fans what you mean when you say

00:08:02.240 this because it's something that you you know focus on a lot is we'll see some behavior in

00:08:07.000 our kids like the way they're picking this food in x way or yeah really into systematizing or

00:08:11.380 or something else. And you will reflect on, Oh, like I can be more forgiving of myself for those

00:08:18.860 traits because that was genetic. That wasn't like a personal failing on my part. Yeah. Like it helps

00:08:24.360 me hate myself less for that. And I, with this mother, for example, if I were speaking with her

00:08:29.600 in person, I'd be like, I mean, wow, this is, you know, an amazing way to give yourself grace

00:08:34.980 for struggling with these things and just kind of deal with it together. And you get getting a

00:08:39.900 little i know i i don't getting a little therapy as as they would say in the gamer rooms getting 0.89

00:08:46.540 a little gay here samoa i'm gay it's a it's a it's a little fake and gay but also like it's

00:08:55.380 it's kind of it can be beautiful i'm just saying like the way you contextualize things really 0.72

00:08:58.880 affects how you can process it and there's a world in which this mother would be able to navigate her

00:09:04.300 own struggles with perfectionism and depression as her daughter struggles with them in a way where

00:09:08.520 they can both navigate it better and there's also a world in which it's worse but anyway

00:09:12.080 the other the other part is again she has a six-year-old and a three-year-old like especially

00:09:16.440 three-year-olds are really difficult start so because she has a really young kid it's also

00:09:21.740 just going to suck and the problem is i mean after both her kids are over six years old things are

00:09:25.740 going to get a lot easier and i think it's really unfair for this is where i think it's unfair with 0.97

00:09:31.200 the media and also probably our regretful parenting is riddled with parents who have

00:09:35.180 toddlers and probably doesn't have a lot of older kids back i mean imagine how much that must make

00:09:40.980 you dislike your kids to be constantly in an environment like a facebook group or regretful

00:09:47.020 parenting where this hatred is being both rewarded and reinforced by the community you have chosen to

00:09:53.480 surround yourself with if the water cooler talk every day is how much you hate your kids you're

00:09:58.620 going to begin to hate your kids more and more the same thing happens with partners if you surround

00:10:04.140 yourself with a community that's core conversation point is how much you don't like your partners or

00:10:09.860 even you get social credit for challenging yourself or for being the beleaguered mother

00:10:15.320 then you're going to project that more but let's get to what the actual article says

00:10:19.460 okay we'll move on to the i just want to point out though like you're missing my point that

00:10:25.000 when you actually look at these parents and being like oh my god i'm not happy and that's bad

00:10:30.300 one it's a very short term period where on average parents especially women are less happy

00:10:36.180 and that's specifically when they they have really young children and it passes and it

00:10:41.520 should be just better understood that this isn't a period that's like necessarily full of joy okay

00:10:46.420 so moving on to the 30 year old european mother of a three-year-old she says that she grew up

00:10:51.240 sheltered with a stay-at-home mom she married at 22 her mother said that she'd help out with a new

00:10:55.940 baby which turned out to not be so true she felt like she was one she had a terrible pregnancy and

00:11:01.820 delivery experience she was constrained to bed rest in her first trimester she had a horrible

00:11:06.300 recovery from birth like it was painful to move there was something like an incision made that

00:11:10.700 was just incredibly painful everybody who's had a number of kids always has a few bad pregnancy

00:11:15.320 stories i think when people are like i stopped having kids because of a bad pregnancy then you

00:11:20.340 were never going to be in a sustainable population if that was what prevented you from having kids

00:11:24.820 you've had really terrible pregnancies in the past yeah and again it comes down to contextualization

00:11:30.320 she i think experiences in an isolated way where people were kind of gaslighting her into like

00:11:35.400 everything's going to be great everything's wonderful it's all magic and the worst thing

00:11:38.720 for her and this is one of those things where had she looked at everything could that it could go

00:11:43.540 wrong and actually looked at regretful parenting before she had her baby she could have basically

00:11:48.960 headed this off but she was in a situation where both her mother and her husband didn't help that

00:11:53.360 much she wrote my husband had a month and a half of paternity leave but the only helpful thing he

00:11:57.820 did during that time was change her diapers though he did it with a reluctant expression on his face

00:12:02.440 I had the feeling he never never believed how much pain I was in my mom helped but she didn't

00:12:06.880 like being disturbed at night and even during the day was afraid of holding the baby or changing her

00:12:11.100 I hallucinated from lack of sleep it felt like I'd been tricked into this everyone who wanted

00:12:15.800 me to have a child my husband my family knew they weren't going to lose much while my freedom and

00:12:20.680 my identity went down the toilet and that's something that she could have if they'd all

00:12:26.280 discussed it anticipated and headed off like i think it's horrible what happened to her

00:12:29.880 and it didn't know i mean i think that's an i'm gonna be honest we tried to do for the younger

00:12:36.200 years with kids do more gender equal breakdown in terms of care and it just doesn't work very well

00:12:42.140 it ends up being so contrived the way you do the split care for the infant yeah like infants really

00:12:48.780 was in our house the infant is always Simone's like total responsibility and I'm in charge of

00:12:55.040 the fallback for anyone over that age and that works really well but if you're just going into

00:12:59.840 this and you just have one kid and you're in that infant stage when the mom bears and it is hard I

00:13:06.180 mean you've got to remember guys if you're watching this what it's like to be a new mother

00:13:10.800 you are in enormous pain often because you just underwent some form of surgery or something like

00:13:16.380 that the kid could die at any moment because kids of that age do die just die randomly it's

00:13:22.120 horrifying yeah especially when you're a first-time parent and you you don't necessarily i mean if you

00:13:26.160 didn't grow up with very young siblings you also have no idea what you're doing and you're like oh

00:13:29.440 my god this is the human and i feel like i'm gonna kill this you're not sleeping like at all because

00:13:33.780 you have to stay up over all night and day yeah if you're breastfeeding that is very painful it can 0.94

00:13:39.840 be for some people they just love it but for a lot of people it's not the best so the the you

00:13:46.260 know you are in both constant pain but also your brain is hypersensitized to the needs of the baby

00:13:51.120 i can see in simone's face how distressed she gets when we have the infants i think the reason why

00:13:58.260 you don't contextualize all this is as horrible as she is contextualizing it is one you know that

00:14:03.720 your sacrifice is appreciated which is really important for guys to make sure that you are

00:14:07.840 signaling that that you understand and it is appreciated and that's the thing she pointed out

00:14:11.360 right that like her husband didn't seem to really believe her that it was like yeah for her and two

00:14:16.940 you see the outcome in the the older children like when i i see my kids i hug my kids my kids

00:14:24.300 jump on me i see how awesome this what to me is honestly a very boring stage of life the infants

00:14:30.540 i've i've been i do not like zero interest but i love toddlers like but i mean parents should talk

00:14:37.120 about that because i think that that also some women may grow up exposed to what i call like

00:14:42.480 baby men who just like there's five to ten percent of men just seem to be baby crazy like they

00:14:47.840 absolutely love babies i want to hold the baby they're the baby whisperers and then every other

00:14:52.880 man like zero interest like they you know like they'd rather hold a wet stray dog covered in

00:15:00.980 trash you know babies disgust I'm not a fan of babies yeah newspapers when when I first said

00:15:06.960 that as you said you know we need to normalize it you can feel like I'm not a big fan of babies 0.92

00:15:10.800 but I it's worth it for when they're toddlers newspapers when that went viral for me saying

00:15:15.760 that they're like oh he doesn't even like his children he doesn't even you know like being

00:15:19.220 around them or enjoy parenting and I'm like what a sick reason to have kids because you're going to 1.00

00:15:23.920 enjoy it right like this but also again women need to be aware of this like women shouldn't 0.98

00:15:28.460 be gaslit about like oh yeah you know like your your husband's gonna be in love and also like

00:15:33.700 keep in mind the the men who are referenced in by these women in this article typically were like

00:15:39.100 yeah i really want to have kids like kids are a must for me like they act like they really want

00:15:43.620 to have kids but then they're not into kids below three years like that's actually super normal and

00:15:48.980 that doesn't mean they don't want to have kids that actually they're probably going to be great

00:15:51.900 dads is this with the dog and chickens the dog and chick oh you you always right malcolm has been

00:16:00.760 the one who's pulled the trigger ultimately on us getting a bunch of pets and then who ends up being

00:16:06.140 the only person who takes care of the pet who feeds the pet i'm sorry simone i will endeavor

00:16:13.060 to lighten your load there where i can yeah sure it's been how many years now

00:16:19.620 okay it is it is appreciated though Simone and I'm just I'm just airing that so that you know

00:16:26.960 that I I know that you likely feel similar to them just in other domains of our life

00:16:31.920 no well no but also like you're not into babies like you don't have you've changed I guess when

00:16:38.500 you you do you do take text to the diaper so you've changed his sorry to the doctor so you've

00:16:42.900 changed his diaper then but you don't you have not we started was kid number one we shared by

00:16:47.920 diaper changing, but we stopped doing that pretty soon after.

00:16:50.800 We just dropped it. Yeah. Like, cause it didn't make sense, but it's, I just, I, I think it's

00:16:54.540 great that this is being discussed because it should be discussed because if you, here's the

00:17:01.260 thing. So we had on the podcast at one point, the author of Hannah's children, Dr. Catherine Ruth

00:17:06.540 Bukalik, she interviewed academically and then published a book on college educated mothers of

00:17:12.140 five plus children. And she told us that the top factor determining whether or not someone was like,

00:17:17.620 oh my god I am all in this I want to have so many kids was whether or not they had a good

00:17:23.780 experience with their first kid um and if they felt you know well supported and it was you know

00:17:29.760 what they wanted and they had a great experience they were way more likely to want to have a lot

00:17:34.500 of kids even if like they came into it being like I really like keep I will I mean you didn't read

00:17:38.780 the book but many of the mothers who were interviewed in the book had similar starting

00:17:43.900 points to these three women who regret becoming parents. We're like, I don't know. Like, okay,

00:17:49.600 let's, let's get to the next one. But my point is though, that like, if you come into it the right

00:17:53.740 way, you know, if you come in prepared, you can be super into it. So anyway, so she had this

00:17:58.760 terrible experience. Her husband and mother didn't help much, but another common thread here,

00:18:03.540 she had a history of depression and anxiety. And I think, again, if you've got a lot of mental

00:18:08.760 health problems especially as a woman i i do think that you need to plan extra for that well this is

00:18:15.620 i think one of the biggest arguments for polygenic selection is a lot of people who have major

00:18:21.060 depressive disorders or anxiety disorders these are the things that i have heard the technology

00:18:26.400 being used for the most is ensuring that they do not pass major depression onto your kids people

00:18:31.600 are out there imagining that it's going to be people like us selecting against autism or something

00:18:36.200 we're like no we don't select against autism like or selecting against you know some sort of like

00:18:40.700 ethnicity or something and it's like no it's people who have gone through some sort of major

00:18:45.440 psychological challenge in their own life who do not want to bring kids to undergo because depression

00:18:51.980 isn't like a cool like nobody's like oh they're they're trying to genocide depression people

00:18:56.100 everyone who's actually undergone like depression or anxiety or something like that understands why

00:19:01.240 you may not want your kids like like that is an uncontroversial thing to not want to pass that

00:19:06.260 down well and here's the really tough thing is is it's one thing to deal with ongoing like with

00:19:11.100 postpartum depression and then with the anxiety of being a new parent like that that you can kind

00:19:15.220 of anticipate if that's already your tendency it's going to happen to you as a new parent especially

00:19:18.880 because you're under all this additional stress also dealing with that in your kid like having

00:19:23.620 it magnified in that way is really rough and like yeah they're depressed and you're ready for that

00:19:28.360 or you need to you know like do yeah try to reduce the odds of it happening in the first place

00:19:34.460 something like polygenic risk or selection but actually this is interesting because you have

00:19:38.380 traits that people could contextualize negatively while it's not depression you need an incredibly

00:19:42.620 controlled environment or you become very stressed about things yeah and that can be seen in the

00:19:47.520 setup of our house and the way that we make decisions but it's also it's it's something

00:19:51.180 that's so cool i've been able to adapt with our children yeah well i don't think it's maladaptive

00:19:56.720 for a modern society like actually it's much it's much easier for people like me to get by so I

00:20:02.220 don't think it's it's like a bad thing to bring children in with those traits but like it makes

00:20:06.640 me as a parent really you know I'm able to anticipate that in them and accommodate it I

00:20:13.160 take custom orders for everyone's dinner every night like everyone gets to do a lot of things

00:20:16.960 in their own special unique way that they have to do them because I know that that's how they

00:20:20.580 need it to be and they'll be happy as long as that's the case and they are like it's good yeah

00:20:25.540 so number three woman number three she's a 27 year old in north carolina and she's the mother 0.54

00:20:30.760 of a one-year-old and she is the most dark ending she don't start there when you're talking about

00:20:35.680 kids come on oh well okay yeah not not not simone trigger dark meaning that like your child is

00:20:41.160 getting hurt it's actually the the outcome is best for the children but it's still pretty dark

00:20:44.600 for the child she didn't want kids she wrote my husband and i met in middle school he was always

00:20:49.440 interested in having a big family and i told him i wasn't quite sure so already kind of a warning

00:20:54.480 signs. Like really, if, if you're not into it, you know, it's, it's, you should get through that

00:20:59.020 first before you, you weren't into it either. And now you're super, no, but you, you convinced me

00:21:04.020 and I was like, yeah, I'm all in based on the conditions. And that was it. We were all set.

00:21:09.620 I was 100% bought in. What happened to her though, was she got a positive pregnancy test and she's

00:21:14.400 like, well, I guess I'm doing this. Her husband was like, I really, really, really want you to

00:21:18.760 keep the baby. Like, I think she was even thinking about having an abortion. She has a history like

00:21:23.720 the others of depression and is now dealing probably dealing with in our son she wrote my

00:21:28.940 son has a low tolerance for frustration and doesn't communicate other than whining screaming

00:21:33.000 crying throwing things and pulling my hair so again like this is one of those things

00:21:37.300 just to highlight how you contextualize it but i mean i guess you could say like octavian constantly

00:21:41.540 climbing on me and hitting me and everything like that is like this horrible thing well but you

00:21:45.320 contextualize it positively and there's an even better example with her in contextualization

00:21:49.340 because she has she has body dysmorphia issues she wrote during pregnancy I felt embarrassed I've

00:21:54.880 had body dysmorphia issues since I was a kid and I felt so massive I used to be a track athlete

00:22:00.380 and have always been fit and active so I didn't like feeling so heavy and restricted when trying

00:22:06.020 to do the things I've always done like hiking during my third trimester I didn't want to leave

00:22:10.020 the house so that people wouldn't see me so she like I also have body dysmorphia I hate the way

00:22:15.280 have looked. I've always hated my body, but like the way I contextualize pregnancy is like, well, 0.58

00:22:19.720 all right, I am stuck in this body. I'm resentful of it. I am going to like wear this thing into

00:22:25.540 the ground. Like it is the ultimate revenge of like, all right, well, we're just gonna

00:22:29.480 wear like, you know, use it to the full capacity until I literally break it until I break my

00:22:34.320 uterus until I break everything, which is ultimately more satisfying for me than like

00:22:38.080 getting a hysterectomy, which is the first thing I thought about doing before I met you.

00:22:41.000 and so there are ways to deal with these things you can have body dysmorphia and respond like

00:22:46.040 she did or you can have body dysmorphia and respond like I did when they're both ways you

00:22:50.240 can deal with it but I think we're having a lot more fun with my method so I'm just saying like

00:22:54.480 contextualization is everything she also had a horrible birth experience I'm not gonna I don't

00:22:59.520 have to describe it unless you want to I can I can read it but like I also have had horrible birth

00:23:03.900 experiences and it sucks and I think that it well you one I would say was all of this you don't know

00:23:09.600 some people just contextualize everything horribly right like yeah yeah you you know

00:23:16.060 whatever their experience is it's going to be a horrible experience because like so her her she

00:23:21.680 had an epidural but like it kept not working i also i didn't have an epidural and i was anyway

00:23:26.940 continue they they had to like jump on her hip to dislodge him from like a place where he was stuck

00:23:34.200 before he entered the birth canal or something and she still felt pain from that so it was it was bad

00:23:38.140 it was like genuinely bad it wasn't just her whining about it malcolm okay but yeah she also

00:23:42.620 more importantly for her is she felt erased as a human being she wrote i felt like i disappeared

00:23:47.800 as a human being clients called me mama friends and family asked me how my son was they told me

00:23:53.760 how excited and overjoyed i must be i tried telling them i wasn't coping well with motherhood

00:23:58.580 and was still processing the birth and they tell me that's what motherhood is one of my friends

00:24:03.380 texted my husband wow she's changed and not in a good way it came from a place of care she and

00:24:08.600 many friends and family told me i had postpartum depression to seek therapy and to go on medication

00:24:13.100 but at the same time they'd quickly flip it back to you need to be there for your son pick yourself

00:24:18.940 up move on it's over with and done everything you went through is just like no big deal because the

00:24:25.560 baby's here your existence doesn't matter and again that's contextualization and i think that

00:24:30.160 one of the most toxic things about our modern society and I do think this has to do more with

00:24:34.380 culture than it does with like preparing is that the more you focus in on yourself and get into

00:24:40.360 your head the more miserable you're going to be so even if you want to optimize for hedonic pleasure

00:24:45.020 doing what she's doing is kind of like an exercise in frustration and suffering and 0.52

00:24:51.540 I mean if she's such a miserable person the idea that she would want to identify more with herself

00:24:56.420 to me so odd you know like you could just become more expansive and identify with your family and

00:25:00.720 enjoy the joys of which is so interesting i mean it's it's

00:25:04.600 you are supposed to stop being the point of your life your kids are the point of your life right

00:25:12.820 like the the focus shifts and for somebody who adopted the urban monoculture that can be

00:25:19.900 horrifying because they're taught in this sort of atomized self being the most important thing

00:25:25.300 And this idea that you would sublimate that either in a marriage or through children is one of the most mortifying things they can imagine.

00:25:32.420 And yet we had already, I mean, when we got married, there was a period where we stayed more atomized at the beginning.

00:25:39.820 I think you were really afraid of this idea of, no, we're just one person now.

00:25:43.900 Yeah, I was much more hesitant around it than you were.

00:25:46.640 I think also, though, because women, one, lose more just traditionally than men do.

00:25:55.300 like physically logistically especially in the younger years like to your point right like i'm 0.99

00:26:00.400 doing most of the infant care your life changes the least as we get a new infant so women women 0.97

00:26:04.500 do feel like they have more to lose especially in the early years and they do but also they've 0.99

00:26:08.760 been uniquely conditioned to be like no don't ever give those things up it's a bad thing if

00:26:13.140 you give those things up whereas men have never really been told that actually hold on this could 1.00

00:26:18.400 be like a whole other episode but you could almost argue that feminism conceptually was 0.99

00:26:24.440 fighting against the the women's role as a mother that societal framing of a woman's position like

00:26:32.660 and and and you see the people who have fully adopted feminist framing you even suggest well

00:26:38.420 that's a woman's role and they freak out right yeah when you can also argue which i think is

00:26:42.840 interesting is that women are so concerned about losing their identity but men never had them like

00:26:48.200 men don't really get to be full men until they have their families and identify as their families

00:26:52.640 which is so weird whereas like yeah they feel like they lose everything by getting their family

00:26:56.840 which is i think a really interesting piece of tension and interplay that you get with

00:27:01.340 relationships it's not so what i would expect but i yeah now that that's kind of that's kind

00:27:06.540 of occurring to me that like men men aren't losing men men don't even get to be anything

00:27:12.140 like an incel is nothing they don't have an identity they mean nothing in society that's

00:27:15.700 actually a really interesting point yeah men do not matter until they're married and and then 0.99

00:27:20.640 really until they have kids from a societal perspective and then sort of women kind of cease 0.56

00:27:24.300 to cease well yeah i don't know like not that they cease to matter but they kind of recede into it and 0.83

00:27:29.580 they feel like they're losing something whereas men feel like they're finally getting their

00:27:32.920 identity it's a very weird thing well and this is seeing that the that the mother is lesser in the

00:27:39.040 eyes of the urban monoculture oh yeah no you definitely take a downgrade that's the the we've

00:27:46.040 read other articles of women like identifying as single even when they're in a relationship 1.00

00:27:50.300 because it's seen as cooler or something yeah or identifying as a divorcee just to be

00:27:56.540 even after she was remarried she still identified primarily as a divorcee my cachet is in rejecting

00:28:03.520 marriage actually speaking of which so she after withdrawing from fellow parents because she just

00:28:10.360 hated so much people identifying with their children decided to leave her husband and

00:28:14.840 actually her son too she wrote my husband and i are taking steps to separate and he's willing to

00:28:19.200 take on the role of a single parent which makes me feel incredibly guilty but i can't live this

00:28:23.580 life with him anymore i'm not the parent my son needs and i one i think it's kind of based like

00:28:28.420 she actually isn't the parent her son she seems to really hate it and that would be not good for

00:28:32.440 a kid to grow up person anyone needs she seems and also yeah yeah no she she she seems genuinely 0.92

00:28:39.000 she needs to work on a lot of things and and i don't think she can do that with her husband and

00:28:43.080 her son also like single dads statistically do really well so i'm not worried for the kid and

00:28:49.520 i'm not worried for the husband and i didn't read these parts but the husband was also incredibly

00:28:53.480 gung-ho about this kid really wanted to be a dad he's super on board with being a single parent

00:28:57.900 so but it's still a very dark ending right this is a woman who rejected parenting so much that

00:29:03.100 she's literally just going to end it she's not going to be i would say that kids more broadly

00:29:09.080 and i really cannot make this point loudly enough is i don't know what this kid is like but like

00:29:14.940 there are bad kids out there right like there are unpleasant kids i've seen our kids i've i've seen

00:29:21.200 our kids interact with them we we have other kids who i i've like oh my god if that was my kid i'd

00:29:26.940 like smother them in their sleep like they are a net burden to society and i don't i mean so you

00:29:33.060 put it that way but like and so what this mother complained about was her son was not meeting the

00:29:37.000 same developmental milestones that her peers children were and that he was in early intervention

00:29:41.340 our kids have been in early intervention our kids have been diagnosed with autism our kids have gone

00:29:45.460 through pretty extensive therapy like at first we were made to feel a lot of shame about that by

00:29:52.480 some people in our family and stuff but then oh no and the wire ultimately realized like oh

00:29:57.360 no you're just messed up like we are and like we all get along really well here um so i think i

00:30:02.520 don't know what's interesting to me as well is and i think you make this point well the things

00:30:06.840 that she complains about are all things i notice that our kids in and love i love the way that

00:30:11.140 they're vitalistic and crawl all over me and fight me and like we're pretty chill about our kids not

00:30:17.180 meeting the developmental milestones of like when i've seen kids and i was just like like the kids

00:30:22.180 that have given me that it it's interesting they've always been like either like genetically

00:30:28.140 obsequious you know like very needy attention wanting clearly like unsure of themselves it's

00:30:35.400 interesting that to me that would be like such a trigger in seeing a kid who's unsure of themselves

00:30:39.820 and being like disgusting or the they are timid and afraid you can't and afraid and that's like

00:30:49.020 a big ick factor for me and it's interesting that i like have kid icks like that i'm like 0.79

00:30:54.280 i now know what women mean when they say this right you know i'm like like that is that that

00:31:00.420 that's cringy to be around that but our kids just don't have any of that and i don't know 0.99

00:31:04.120 how I'd feel if we ever had a kid who was like that, but I also don't know how you and I could

00:31:09.320 produce a kid like that. Yeah. It's unlikely, but I mean, you and I talk about this a lot and I

00:31:13.620 don't know how much we've talked about it on our podcast. We have a little bit, but like,

00:31:17.880 if you do not like your partner or you do not like things about your partner, you're going to

00:31:22.220 really struggle with your kids. Cause those kids are going to exhibit those behaviors.

00:31:26.040 It's going to be really tough for you. Whereas if you love your partner, you're going to be

00:31:30.200 crazy about your kids at least if you're also forgiving of yourself and I think where I struggle

00:31:35.360 most of our kids at times is when they exhibit behaviors that that bother me about myself and I

00:31:42.580 see that in them and I'm like oh no but but then seeing you show grace around that I feel like

00:31:48.920 you're showing me grace and it's just all over again you show me how much you love me this is

00:31:52.780 the other weird thing that I've talked to Simone about when I see her being a really loving mom

00:31:58.300 to our kids and she is she's a phenomenal mother like when i go down on a weekend because she gets

00:32:04.420 the kids first on weekends and she has you know made them all like individual dishes and and music's

00:32:10.180 playing and the kids are all roughhousing around and she's you know reading them a book or something

00:32:14.740 and she's doing all these nice things for them and she does these things for them at least she

00:32:19.640 tells me because you know she likes the kids but somehow my brain doesn't register it is that

00:32:25.800 my brain every time i see her being nice to the kids is seeing her going out of her way to do me

00:32:32.300 a favor well i mean the kids are just like i mean not to sound spiritual or like emotional but like

00:32:40.400 the kids are fragments of our souls and they're they're definitely little pocket malcolms and i

00:32:44.480 i see so much of them in you that yeah i mean if you love your partner you're gonna love your kids

00:32:49.080 and that's i mean you can see this with with these parents i think that these mothers who really

00:32:53.080 regret becoming parents i think are really also struggling with not just themselves it's clear

00:32:58.760 that they have self-hatred issues or depression or anxiety or all of those things but then they're

00:33:03.240 also really struggling with your husband and like imagine what a nightmare that is if you hate

00:33:06.920 yourself if you don't like your husband either and now you're alone with like a version of the

00:33:11.220 two of you magnified and also pooping and you know totally out of control like that that sounds

00:33:16.740 yeah like a complete nightmare and well i also think another thing that's that we've we've

00:33:21.860 started on here, but I think it's really important to drill into is the role of contextualization in

00:33:27.100 all of this. Yes. You know, we had reporters here today asking me about like when people were

00:33:32.760 dogpiling us online for using corporal punishment with our kids and saying that we're child abusers

00:33:36.760 and everything like that. And like asking me, like, do you feel, and I was like, no, I don't

00:33:40.600 really feel bad about that. Like I can choose how I contextualize these things that happen in my life.

00:33:45.080 And when I was in that debate with Stephen Molineux and he kept trying to get me to be like,

00:33:48.660 look at these things your parents did like you should reject them and condemn them and i was

00:33:53.300 like i like who i am as an adult i'm not going to condemn them like it's fine right the outcome was

00:33:57.440 good so yeah and i i realized that like at a pathological level if you look at me and and my

00:34:05.100 outlook on life i just choose not to contextualize things negatively right and i because i don't see

00:34:12.760 any purpose in it right like it doesn't help me and society will reward you for contextualizing

00:34:18.240 things negative because everybody wants a sob story but if you can you know internally within

00:34:23.240 your family culture steal yourself against that you will just be like way happier with your life

00:34:29.660 and way more productive and this is and i think for a lot of these people it's just a choice of

00:34:34.840 negative contextualization right of things that happen to me and you and i can textually and i

00:34:41.460 never have like i never like made some deal with you around that you have to do this but it seems

00:34:47.140 like you have organically adopted this as well we organically did it but what do you think about

00:34:52.980 the idea of like we did with our relationship also doing stuff like this with parenting because

00:34:59.300 it does seem to be a really big deal breaker in life in in a relationship that that people do i

00:35:06.200 mean we did some things like what will we do if our kids ask for porn what will we do if our kids

00:35:11.040 misbehave what religion will we we didn't do it about parenting logistics the idea of parenting

00:35:17.720 choices in a parenting contract being something you create before having kids is a failure really

00:35:26.020 i like the idea so why everything that would be in a parenting contract should be in the outset

00:35:33.840 of the relationship the relationship contract okay that's fair but like instead of just looking

00:35:38.660 at how relationships fail also look at how parenting fails exactly that's okay okay so we

00:35:43.260 are on the same page i was like what are you talking and we had done all of that with our

00:35:46.960 relationship contract no not all no what i'm saying is all we did actually was um religion

00:35:54.300 porn and punishment and like where we spend family holidays we didn't do things parenting

00:36:00.080 yeah those are core things that relationships end over but what we we didn't do was like you

00:36:05.880 know how are we going to handle infants what's going to happen you know if i'm really injured

00:36:10.400 in like a pregnancy what what's going to happen like with you know who's going to do overnights

00:36:16.700 etc like what's going to happen now we did have an agreement on like what's going to happen if

00:36:20.320 one person has to be a stay-at-home parent and it was going to be you but like i don't know i feel

00:36:25.040 like we could have done more i just i want my thing is i again i think this article is good i

00:36:29.820 think people should be aware of what can go wrong and i think people should plan for it

00:36:33.060 as they're beginning the outset of a relationship.

00:36:36.760 Do you agree?

00:36:38.800 Yeah, well, it needs to be agreed

00:36:40.260 at the outset of a relationship

00:36:41.240 because the kids are ultimately

00:36:42.600 the purpose of human relationships,

00:36:45.800 sexual relationships, romantic relationships.

00:36:48.540 I mean, per our view,

00:36:49.720 people are welcome to have different objective functions

00:36:52.200 and decide to only do pairings based on-

00:36:54.280 No, no, no, no.

00:36:55.260 Biologically, I'm speaking here.

00:36:56.800 Biologically, yeah, sure.

00:36:58.140 That is why the concept of a relationship evolved.

00:37:01.500 that is why the institution of marriage evolved that is why the institution of dating evolved

00:37:06.120 it was to produce the next generation it has been co-opted as a larp by by other groups but

00:37:13.460 it is fundamentally that's what it's about right yeah now obviously you know you can be like well

00:37:19.080 does this mean that like gay people aren't really in a relationship it's like well actually that

00:37:24.040 could change as science changes right like yeah if they can you know artificial wombs and have 0.72

00:37:29.380 kids on their own then even for them right if a faction of like let's say gay culture survives by 0.93

00:37:35.700 making itself above repopulation rate with most of the cultures that are above repopulation rate 0.52

00:37:39.820 being very you know homophobic transphobic etc but if some faction of a gay culture finds out 0.62

00:37:46.580 how to make itself stable through science from the perspective of that faction of gay culture

00:37:53.540 relationships will still be about kids they'll still be about forming a stable household to

00:37:59.500 bring the kids into actually i think of what i've seen of gay parent social media influencers

00:38:06.540 they may actually be in a better position coming into this because they are approaching parenting

00:38:11.480 from a more thoughtful and first principles approach because instead of just being like

00:38:16.240 oh i guess we're just gonna default to like the gender norms or whatever well and you know huge

00:38:21.640 bonus they don't have to be married to a woman yeah but also like if it's two women they they

00:38:29.760 still you know okay i'll put it this way of the gay parenting influencers i see a lot of wholesome

00:38:35.760 male male partners i do not see many wholesome female female gay parenting influencers there's

00:38:41.640 there's one that i watch a lot they just had a not just but they recently had twins after having

00:38:45.760 one boy and they talk about it a lot she's she's i mean like both of them show up on the podcast

00:38:50.520 but she does a lot of like just cultural commentary i can't remember her name now but

00:38:54.060 she's a disabled ginger vintage fashion wearing woman who's whose look i love i love her look

00:39:01.280 and i'm disabled she talks a lot about her disability otherwise i wouldn't say that if

00:39:06.280 it weren't like part of her identity because otherwise that would seem like i'm i don't know 0.74

00:39:09.540 trying to shame her a weird thing to talk about yeah but no she grew up with like crippling pain 0.87

00:39:14.080 issues and and like i think she's partially deaf perhaps or something like that but then

00:39:17.820 yeah she's just always think of that Everest news clip he made it to the top of Everest 0.95

00:39:24.240 but he's gay I mean he's gay I mean he's blind 0.93

00:39:27.940 right after the break we're going to interview Eric Weyhemayer who climbed the highest mountain 0.99

00:39:35.700 in the world Mount Everest but he's gay I mean he's gay excuse me he's blind so we'll hear about 0.98

00:39:42.260 that coming okay as we head to the break a look at this she is both she's both deaf and gay so 1.00

00:39:47.300 maybe she just needs to climb everest and finally fulfill the prophecy uh the most disabled person 0.99

00:39:53.420 that ever do a thing but so you think that they she comes across as like wholesome very no no no 1.00

00:39:59.420 like they're i mean tired as being a parent of twins but like that's kind of normal when you

00:40:04.820 have like young twins and everything and like they had a complicated pregnancy and everything

00:40:08.540 And they shared a lot about it openly.

00:40:10.640 And I like that people do that.

00:40:12.100 But yeah, they've, I think, very intentionally thought through, you know, how they're going

00:40:15.740 to balance things and how they're going to manage.

00:40:17.740 And I like that.

00:40:19.000 So, you know, that's the great thing about when you, the problem, and this is something

00:40:23.840 we talk a lot about in the Pragmatist Guide to Relationships, is that when people don't

00:40:28.320 explicitly negotiate terms in a relationship, each person is going off a social contract.

00:40:33.400 Now, that makes sense if you grew up in some medieval fiefdom where everyone has lived

00:40:37.700 with the same culture in isolation for hundreds of years but when you live in our culture and

00:40:41.980 everyone is dealing with a slightly different tacit social contract you'll get into a marriage

00:40:47.460 and like one person expects like one set of things the other person expects a totally different set

00:40:51.840 of things and then it's this huge shock when you're not on the same page what i find so funny

00:40:55.940 is you know i i have to choose my words because there's different factions in our audience

00:41:00.380 and the ways the different factions relate to ideal marriage setups like there's a huge chunk

00:41:07.260 of like the online right where when we're talking about like a single father raising a kid they're

00:41:11.440 like that's awesome that's the only way to raise kids and it can be a great way to raise kids yeah

00:41:16.280 yeah yeah he is the faction who's like you could never raise kids without a mother and a father

00:41:20.160 on the men who are doing this and they're like that's great and then we're like and and now you

00:41:24.700 have these male male partnerships where they're raising kids oh that's awesome and then the other

00:41:29.060 faction is like no traditional families all the way you know the kids need a mother yeah and we're

00:41:33.820 just like whatever works well i think it was a big thing some people have actually asked us to

00:41:38.340 do a podcast on this there's the famous olympic ice skater who is the daughter one one of five

00:41:45.460 via ivf to a single chinese father who chose all like caucasian jewish women for the egg donors

00:41:52.000 and it's just this very like very great example of like a based single dad just being like yeah

00:41:58.100 i'm gonna like raise five children via ivf and they're all gonna be exceptional and amazing and

00:42:02.660 she has this like olympic gold medal winner who's like super cool as a person too by the way one of

00:42:08.000 these kids became an olympic gold medal yeah no she was like one of the most talked about and 0.97

00:42:12.020 famous people in the entire winter olympics i don't know how you missed this she's super cool

00:42:16.260 did she fight for china team or america team i think she was on china's team but yeah anyway ivf 0.98

00:42:23.360 dad chinese chose caucasian egg donor so she's like mixed that's a pretty good mix we did the

00:42:30.340 episode on average racial attractiveness and asian white from the perspective of many ethnicities 0.82

00:42:37.880 is the top attractiveness with us concluding that the holy grail is japanese irish which many of

00:42:45.120 our viewers have come to agree with what was it i think it was that white people marked them as

00:42:49.540 even more attractive than other white people and generally groups yeah and then just anecdotally

00:42:54.300 like people have sent actually pictures of like their japanese irish friends and they're like

00:42:59.780 just impossibly you know beautiful so who knew but there you go but yeah okay well yeah anyway

00:43:05.820 i'm glad the new york times is is doing this series and i i think that being thoughtful and

00:43:10.360 not sugarcoating things is important so there any any other choice quotes from the article or just

00:43:16.680 no just these these are deeply sad women it's mostly a very depressing article i actually think

00:43:22.140 the bigger takeaway is the toxicity of environments like you know regretful parents where people are

00:43:26.960 like oh these people affirm you but you shouldn't be affirmed for wallowing in this stuff right

00:43:31.180 like that's only going to make things worse for you even if you're really experiencing it

00:43:35.260 although i don't know i i feel conflicted about that because these women were also surrounded by

00:43:39.740 people who said exactly that and who were like man like stop wallowing like snap out of it like

00:43:44.540 be positive think about your kids like enjoy the things they enjoy and it just that didn't work for

00:43:49.960 them so as much as i can empathize with your marriage i also sorry sorry with your with your

00:43:54.980 message i can't it didn't work and i like things that work so i don't know what to say to that

00:44:04.460 like i i the and unfortunately i don't have a solution for women who once they get in this 0.98

00:44:09.260 position aside from like hey maybe you can contextualize this a little bit differently 1.00

00:44:13.300 i think the only real solution is to head off these problems before they become problems

00:44:18.340 unfortunately like there's no saving the ones who have already come to regret becoming parents

00:44:22.580 it's only saving the future parents which is not convenient but that's how i feel

00:44:27.360 so it goes anyway i love you i'm gonna make you bulldog tonight with the mozzarella cheese and if

00:44:34.260 the mozzarella cheese doesn't look good we're doing cheddar instead the mozzarella cheese will

00:44:37.380 be good it's only like a week and a half old uh look if there's mold on mozzarella cheese because

00:44:41.740 it is a soft cheese it just goes all the way through you can't cut it off like you don't

00:44:45.400 really know where it ends the veins of it's not considered safe when it's a hard cheese you can

00:44:50.240 cut off the the mold and you're more it's like easier to safely do but i'm not i'm not doing 0.95

00:44:55.600 that if your mozzarella cheese looks off i don't i don't want to kill you weirdly well you are my 0.95

00:45:01.960 wife so it's one of the things where everyone's always like your wife could die having a kid

00:45:07.160 and i'm like and that's that's like a big problem for me because now i've got five in kids that i'm

00:45:13.680 raising alone right like i would much rather when i think of one of us dying like that's the one who

00:45:19.380 got out of the hardship right like that's that's the if if i died at any point in the next few

00:45:25.880 years i i i feel like i i i screwed over simone right like i got the easy out she's got the hard

00:45:32.300 feeling with five kids you're not allowed to die look you just you're not allowed to die until we

00:45:36.760 have all of our kids are set up and thriving then then like we can go whenever we want but

00:45:40.980 you got to hold on until then octavian like rediscovered his mortality yesterday as we

00:45:46.220 driving back from the doctor he's like wait I'm gonna die and I'm like yeah that's why you need

00:45:50.660 to be careful with how you spend your time and he's like hold on wait actually and I'm like yeah

00:45:57.400 dude you're gonna die and I'm like you're not respawning and he's like whoa it's kind of hard

00:46:05.160 for kids to discover that they think they don't respawn because that's an interesting thing to

00:46:09.820 discuss metaphysically like yeah you're eventually gonna die yeah now he's aware of it I was like

00:46:15.640 you've got like probably considering modern science like about 100 years he's like oh okay

00:46:20.420 whatever like that's a lot of time you know when like one day for them is eternity so he's not too

00:46:27.540 worried about it yet thank goodness but he's like also i don't want you to die that's like that's

00:46:31.020 toasty's way of saying i love you by the way you know how he's always like i love you and i don't

00:46:34.500 want you to die because they've heard me so many times being like please stop jumping off the bed

00:46:41.900 like please stop doing all these things i don't want you to die and they just think that that's 0.99

00:46:45.720 like this generic way of expressing fondness when i'm really like no please stop trying to kill

00:46:51.360 yourself oh anyway i uh i love you and i don't want you to die bye all right we're gonna join

00:47:01.840 the meetup for fans do you have people filming you still uh-huh okay

00:47:07.380 are we going deep into the jungle guys

00:47:14.540 is this a jungle or woods

00:47:19.980 that's called a temperate rainforest guys

Based Camp - May 19, 2026

NY Mag Promotes Regretting Having Kids (Simone Thinks It’s A Good Idea)

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