00:00:00.000Hello, Malcolm. I'm excited to be speaking with you today because we are going to be talking about
00:00:03.860a New York Times article published in The Cut called I Regret Having Children, telling the
00:00:09.640very dramatic stories of three mothers who genuinely regret becoming mothers and have
00:00:14.700these dark and very ominous tales. And most of the conservative commentators I've seen covering it,
00:00:20.540basically, I feel like I'm seeing this everywhere online, so we have to talk about it.
00:00:24.300What I love about this is so many people, they're like, oh, Malcolm and Simone,
00:00:28.740think about how it's going to affect your kids that it is really publicly documented that you
00:00:33.220really wanted to have them and love them i'm like what what what about these people's kids
00:00:37.780like this is part of the the story well it's anonymous so the idea is that hopefully these
00:00:43.520children will never see it and even the mothers have said this like they wouldn't want their
00:00:46.840children to know how much they resent this but most of the people who are talking about it
00:00:51.660was one of them you no no actually but a lot of the people are saying this is antinatalist and
00:01:00.300this is terrible or like brett cooper thinks that the the discourse is really about unsupported
00:01:05.740isolated mothers and bad matching in marriage and not really about mothers hitting their kids
00:01:09.820whereas i think really everyone's missing the point and here's the thing i actually think this
00:01:13.940article is fantastic and that the the accounts that these mothers give are actually really
00:01:18.740important and that anyone who is really serious about kids should read these and read a lot more.
00:01:25.960And here's why. Basically the best way to get through the tough parts of having kids and having
00:01:30.380kids isn't necessarily easy is to have a strong reason for having kids and also know ahead of
00:01:36.020time, everything is going to go wrong. And you and I did exactly this, but not with kids with
00:01:40.260getting married. Remember we went instead of on like regretful parenting subreddit, we went on
00:01:45.160the relationship subreddit and we very misfestivously cataloged everything that could
00:01:49.420possibly go wrong with our relationship and we built plans contingency plans around those things
00:01:56.180and documents but the thing is is this is different because the people don't know what their kids are
00:02:00.800going to be like right oh no they do and we're going to get into that no they super do and that's
00:02:05.080the thing i mean genetically our kids are just us and this show and again in these stories so we're
00:02:09.680going to go over the stories but the bigger story here is no this is good we should be talking about
00:02:14.520this these problems are real but they're also very easy to navigate in fact many of the things
00:02:18.600that these mothers talk about these nightmare scenarios are things that at least on a similar
00:02:23.540level we are have as parents experienced this is not they're not like having universally terrible
00:02:28.980experiences they're just going through the rough parts of being early parents and most of these
00:02:32.980have kids like you know that are still in their toddler years it can be rough at times and the
00:02:38.160point is you should be talking about this people shouldn't have a different parenting i have a
00:02:42.520different reason why i like articles like this and i do like reading articles like this because
00:02:46.320you love the snark reason i'm like really into like red pill content about how horrible somebody's
00:02:52.480girlfriend was to them or something like that because it just makes me appreciate you more
00:02:56.360and make you feel like more of a treasure oh and how like before you'd love to see what happened
00:03:00.740to like old classmates on facebook so you could be feel yeah just like okay okay no but no i think
00:03:06.800a lot of people they think that like i'm watching like super misogynistic content and it's gonna
00:03:10.980make me misogynistic. And it's like, no, I just makes me appreciate how unique and special you
00:03:17.160are as a wife. And I think our kids are pretty unique and special too. So hopefully this,
00:03:20.760this reframes that as well. But I think for a lot of people, when they end up hating their
00:03:24.760children or being parents, it's because they don't really like their partner. They don't
00:03:27.560really like themselves because there's a lot of that in that, in this mix of the two of you
00:03:32.440personality wise. Like when I see my kids play, it's just me plus Simone. Like there's, there's
00:03:37.060not a lot of exogenous personality in there. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's, that's one of
00:03:43.120the really big themes in this actually, that we don't talk about enough as a society, but the
00:03:48.720article itself opens with parent regret is more common than you might think the are regretful
00:03:54.940parents subreddit alone gets around 70,000 weekly visitors who anonymously commiserate
00:03:59.800through stigma, makes it hard to admit it in real life below three moms of young children talk about
00:04:05.040why they wish they could go back to their old lives. And so I'm going to just pull some highlights
00:04:10.620from each mother who gives their account. And we're going to talk about how this, this is stuff
00:04:17.280that people actually really should be planning around and talking about. And that if you do
00:04:21.480adequately plan for these things, either one, you could just avoid becoming a parent if it's really
00:04:26.140not for you. But two, you can really make something that could be terrible, totally surmountable by
00:04:32.380just planning for it because it's pretty like the writing was on the wall for most of these issues
00:04:36.680that these women encountered. And that's a really big thing. And the most common problem for all of0.89
00:04:42.600these women is that they lacked a strong reason for having kids. So let's start with a 34-year-old1.00
00:04:47.160Rhode Island mother of a six-year-old and a three-year-old. First off, she did not have a1.00
00:04:51.580strong reason for wanting to have kids. She wrote, when my husband and I were dating, his deal breaker
00:04:55.860was having kids. Totally relatable, right? I didn't feel the same way, but I didn't see life1.00
00:05:00.660without children as an option. It always felt like the next stage of life for us. I remember telling
00:05:04.740my husband, I'm worried. I love our life now. And I'm not sure what it's going to look like with a
00:05:09.980child. And I think this is one super, super common. I mean, you, we can tell from the polling that
00:05:16.640women are far more ambivalent around having children than men are men put having a child
00:05:23.120and, and becoming a parent is one of the top things that they need for a fulfilling life.
00:05:26.880whereas well especially conservative men whereas progressive men and all women polls recently that
00:05:32.120showed that conservative men having a kid is the number one thing in terms of life fulfillment and
00:05:36.740progressive women it was like the absolute bottom and i mean i mean that culture is just going to go
00:05:41.520extinct right like that's that's what happens when you which is a weird place to be where you can see
00:05:48.360that the cultures that we're opposing and the people we're opposing control elite institutions
00:05:52.280and have power within our society but their failure is also inevitable which makes things
00:05:58.500feel so weirdly comforting because i like being both the underdog in a fight but i also don't
00:06:04.220want the risk of thinking that we could lose yeah the other really big thing and i'm so glad you
00:06:10.280pointed to this is that if you hate yourself or you hate your partner you're going to have a lot
00:06:15.660of trouble with your kids and this also shows up in all three of the stories so this particular
00:06:20.340Rhode Island mother. What? If you hate yourself, adopt. I guess. Yeah. If you hate yourself,
00:06:27.160you are a good candidate for adoption. This particular mother had personal issues that
00:06:31.020now she is contending with in her kids. Like it's super obvious. She says she struggled with1.00
00:06:35.200postpartum depression. She's a perfectionist. She got diagnosed with ADHD after suspecting
00:06:40.360her eldest had it. And then, you know, she turns out she had it too. But she wrote when my younger
00:06:44.720daughter struggles to get dressed, I try to distract her or make compromises. But in the
00:06:48.960end she's screaming and I don't know how to make it stop so I just shut down and so one yeah you
00:06:54.420could adopt two you could genuinely like you could just do polygenic risk score selection like we did
00:06:59.520and select for different behavioral traits you can do that I mean like risks of behavioral traits
00:07:04.500but I think more importantly than that actually is and I have to be careful about how I say this
00:07:11.300right because we're not we're not big on therapy culture we're not big on like working through like
00:07:15.580your mental health issues. But like, how can I put it? Raising kids has forced me to give myself
00:07:24.280a lot of grace and forgiveness around, for example, my sensory issues, my autism. And
00:07:29.600while there's a world in which I could have seen that in my children and freaked out and everything
00:07:34.520got way worse. Instead, I see it in my children and it teaches me how to be more forgiving with
00:07:39.040myself and also way more understanding of my children. And I think for parents who do things
00:07:43.520struggle with depression and frustration and perfectionism like she does for example
00:07:46.880she has chosen to like have this turn into this vortex of pain and suffering for herself of like
00:07:53.440oh my daughter's experiencing because her daughter's her like her daughter has her same tendencies
00:07:57.220because you know they're very I want to you know illustrate for the fans what you mean when you say
00:08:02.240this because it's something that you you know focus on a lot is we'll see some behavior in
00:08:07.000our kids like the way they're picking this food in x way or yeah really into systematizing or
00:08:11.380or something else. And you will reflect on, Oh, like I can be more forgiving of myself for those
00:08:18.860traits because that was genetic. That wasn't like a personal failing on my part. Yeah. Like it helps
00:08:24.360me hate myself less for that. And I, with this mother, for example, if I were speaking with her
00:08:29.600in person, I'd be like, I mean, wow, this is, you know, an amazing way to give yourself grace
00:08:34.980for struggling with these things and just kind of deal with it together. And you get getting a
00:08:39.900little i know i i don't getting a little therapy as as they would say in the gamer rooms getting0.89
00:08:46.540a 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
00:08:55.380it's kind of it can be beautiful i'm just saying like the way you contextualize things really0.72
00:08:58.880affects how you can process it and there's a world in which this mother would be able to navigate her
00:09:04.300own struggles with perfectionism and depression as her daughter struggles with them in a way where
00:09:08.520they can both navigate it better and there's also a world in which it's worse but anyway
00:09:12.080the other the other part is again she has a six-year-old and a three-year-old like especially
00:09:16.440three-year-olds are really difficult start so because she has a really young kid it's also
00:09:21.740just going to suck and the problem is i mean after both her kids are over six years old things are
00:09:25.740going to get a lot easier and i think it's really unfair for this is where i think it's unfair with0.97
00:09:31.200the media and also probably our regretful parenting is riddled with parents who have
00:09:35.180toddlers and probably doesn't have a lot of older kids back i mean imagine how much that must make
00:09:40.980you dislike your kids to be constantly in an environment like a facebook group or regretful
00:09:47.020parenting where this hatred is being both rewarded and reinforced by the community you have chosen to
00:09:53.480surround yourself with if the water cooler talk every day is how much you hate your kids you're
00:09:58.620going to begin to hate your kids more and more the same thing happens with partners if you surround
00:10:04.140yourself with a community that's core conversation point is how much you don't like your partners or
00:10:09.860even you get social credit for challenging yourself or for being the beleaguered mother
00:10:15.320then you're going to project that more but let's get to what the actual article says
00:10:19.460okay we'll move on to the i just want to point out though like you're missing my point that
00:10:25.000when you actually look at these parents and being like oh my god i'm not happy and that's bad
00:10:30.300one it's a very short term period where on average parents especially women are less happy
00:10:36.180and that's specifically when they they have really young children and it passes and it
00:10:41.520should be just better understood that this isn't a period that's like necessarily full of joy okay
00:10:46.420so moving on to the 30 year old european mother of a three-year-old she says that she grew up
00:10:51.240sheltered with a stay-at-home mom she married at 22 her mother said that she'd help out with a new
00:10:55.940baby which turned out to not be so true she felt like she was one she had a terrible pregnancy and
00:11:01.820delivery experience she was constrained to bed rest in her first trimester she had a horrible
00:11:06.300recovery from birth like it was painful to move there was something like an incision made that
00:11:10.700was just incredibly painful everybody who's had a number of kids always has a few bad pregnancy
00:11:15.320stories i think when people are like i stopped having kids because of a bad pregnancy then you
00:11:20.340were never going to be in a sustainable population if that was what prevented you from having kids
00:11:24.820you've had really terrible pregnancies in the past yeah and again it comes down to contextualization
00:11:30.320she i think experiences in an isolated way where people were kind of gaslighting her into like
00:11:35.400everything's going to be great everything's wonderful it's all magic and the worst thing
00:11:38.720for her and this is one of those things where had she looked at everything could that it could go
00:11:43.540wrong and actually looked at regretful parenting before she had her baby she could have basically
00:11:48.960headed this off but she was in a situation where both her mother and her husband didn't help that
00:11:53.360much she wrote my husband had a month and a half of paternity leave but the only helpful thing he
00:11:57.820did during that time was change her diapers though he did it with a reluctant expression on his face
00:12:02.440I had the feeling he never never believed how much pain I was in my mom helped but she didn't
00:12:06.880like being disturbed at night and even during the day was afraid of holding the baby or changing her
00:12:11.100I hallucinated from lack of sleep it felt like I'd been tricked into this everyone who wanted
00:12:15.800me to have a child my husband my family knew they weren't going to lose much while my freedom and
00:12:20.680my identity went down the toilet and that's something that she could have if they'd all
00:12:26.280discussed it anticipated and headed off like i think it's horrible what happened to her
00:12:29.880and it didn't know i mean i think that's an i'm gonna be honest we tried to do for the younger
00:12:36.200years with kids do more gender equal breakdown in terms of care and it just doesn't work very well
00:12:42.140it ends up being so contrived the way you do the split care for the infant yeah like infants really
00:12:48.780was in our house the infant is always Simone's like total responsibility and I'm in charge of
00:12:55.040the fallback for anyone over that age and that works really well but if you're just going into
00:12:59.840this and you just have one kid and you're in that infant stage when the mom bears and it is hard I
00:13:06.180mean you've got to remember guys if you're watching this what it's like to be a new mother
00:13:10.800you are in enormous pain often because you just underwent some form of surgery or something like
00:13:16.380that the kid could die at any moment because kids of that age do die just die randomly it's
00:13:22.120horrifying yeah especially when you're a first-time parent and you you don't necessarily i mean if you
00:13:26.160didn't grow up with very young siblings you also have no idea what you're doing and you're like oh
00:13:29.440my god this is the human and i feel like i'm gonna kill this you're not sleeping like at all because
00:13:33.780you have to stay up over all night and day yeah if you're breastfeeding that is very painful it can0.94
00:13:39.840be for some people they just love it but for a lot of people it's not the best so the the you
00:13:46.260know you are in both constant pain but also your brain is hypersensitized to the needs of the baby
00:13:51.120i can see in simone's face how distressed she gets when we have the infants i think the reason why
00:13:58.260you don't contextualize all this is as horrible as she is contextualizing it is one you know that
00:14:03.720your sacrifice is appreciated which is really important for guys to make sure that you are
00:14:07.840signaling that that you understand and it is appreciated and that's the thing she pointed out
00:14:11.360right that like her husband didn't seem to really believe her that it was like yeah for her and two
00:14:16.940you see the outcome in the the older children like when i i see my kids i hug my kids my kids
00:14:24.300jump on me i see how awesome this what to me is honestly a very boring stage of life the infants
00:14:30.540i've i've been i do not like zero interest but i love toddlers like but i mean parents should talk
00:14:37.120about that because i think that that also some women may grow up exposed to what i call like
00:14:42.480baby men who just like there's five to ten percent of men just seem to be baby crazy like they
00:14:47.840absolutely love babies i want to hold the baby they're the baby whisperers and then every other
00:14:52.880man like zero interest like they you know like they'd rather hold a wet stray dog covered in
00:15:00.980trash you know babies disgust I'm not a fan of babies yeah newspapers when when I first said
00:15:06.960that as you said you know we need to normalize it you can feel like I'm not a big fan of babies0.92
00:15:10.800but I it's worth it for when they're toddlers newspapers when that went viral for me saying
00:15:15.760that they're like oh he doesn't even like his children he doesn't even you know like being
00:15:19.220around them or enjoy parenting and I'm like what a sick reason to have kids because you're going to1.00
00:15:23.920enjoy it right like this but also again women need to be aware of this like women shouldn't0.98
00:15:28.460be gaslit about like oh yeah you know like your your husband's gonna be in love and also like
00:15:33.700keep in mind the the men who are referenced in by these women in this article typically were like
00:15:39.100yeah i really want to have kids like kids are a must for me like they act like they really want
00:15:43.620to have kids but then they're not into kids below three years like that's actually super normal and
00:15:48.980that doesn't mean they don't want to have kids that actually they're probably going to be great
00:15:51.900dads is this with the dog and chickens the dog and chick oh you you always right malcolm has been
00:16:00.760the one who's pulled the trigger ultimately on us getting a bunch of pets and then who ends up being
00:16:06.140the only person who takes care of the pet who feeds the pet i'm sorry simone i will endeavor
00:16:13.060to lighten your load there where i can yeah sure it's been how many years now
00:16:19.620okay it is it is appreciated though Simone and I'm just I'm just airing that so that you know
00:16:26.960that I I know that you likely feel similar to them just in other domains of our life
00:16:31.920no well no but also like you're not into babies like you don't have you've changed I guess when
00:16:38.500you you do you do take text to the diaper so you've changed his sorry to the doctor so you've
00:16:42.900changed his diaper then but you don't you have not we started was kid number one we shared by
00:16:47.920diaper changing, but we stopped doing that pretty soon after.
00:16:50.800We just dropped it. Yeah. Like, cause it didn't make sense, but it's, I just, I, I think it's
00:16:54.540great that this is being discussed because it should be discussed because if you, here's the
00:17:01.260thing. So we had on the podcast at one point, the author of Hannah's children, Dr. Catherine Ruth
00:17:06.540Bukalik, she interviewed academically and then published a book on college educated mothers of
00:17:12.140five plus children. And she told us that the top factor determining whether or not someone was like,
00:17:17.620oh my god I am all in this I want to have so many kids was whether or not they had a good
00:17:23.780experience with their first kid um and if they felt you know well supported and it was you know
00:17:29.760what they wanted and they had a great experience they were way more likely to want to have a lot
00:17:34.500of kids even if like they came into it being like I really like keep I will I mean you didn't read
00:17:38.780the book but many of the mothers who were interviewed in the book had similar starting
00:17:43.900points to these three women who regret becoming parents. We're like, I don't know. Like, okay,
00:17:49.600let's, let's get to the next one. But my point is though, that like, if you come into it the right
00:17:53.740way, you know, if you come in prepared, you can be super into it. So anyway, so she had this
00:17:58.760terrible experience. Her husband and mother didn't help much, but another common thread here,
00:18:03.540she had a history of depression and anxiety. And I think, again, if you've got a lot of mental
00:18:08.760health problems especially as a woman i i do think that you need to plan extra for that well this is
00:18:15.620i think one of the biggest arguments for polygenic selection is a lot of people who have major
00:18:21.060depressive disorders or anxiety disorders these are the things that i have heard the technology
00:18:26.400being used for the most is ensuring that they do not pass major depression onto your kids people
00:18:31.600are out there imagining that it's going to be people like us selecting against autism or something
00:18:36.200we're like no we don't select against autism like or selecting against you know some sort of like
00:18:40.700ethnicity or something and it's like no it's people who have gone through some sort of major
00:18:45.440psychological challenge in their own life who do not want to bring kids to undergo because depression
00:18:51.980isn't like a cool like nobody's like oh they're they're trying to genocide depression people
00:18:56.100everyone who's actually undergone like depression or anxiety or something like that understands why
00:19:01.240you may not want your kids like like that is an uncontroversial thing to not want to pass that
00:19:06.260down well and here's the really tough thing is is it's one thing to deal with ongoing like with
00:19:11.100postpartum depression and then with the anxiety of being a new parent like that that you can kind
00:19:15.220of anticipate if that's already your tendency it's going to happen to you as a new parent especially
00:19:18.880because you're under all this additional stress also dealing with that in your kid like having
00:19:23.620it magnified in that way is really rough and like yeah they're depressed and you're ready for that
00:19:28.360or you need to you know like do yeah try to reduce the odds of it happening in the first place
00:19:34.460something like polygenic risk or selection but actually this is interesting because you have
00:19:38.380traits that people could contextualize negatively while it's not depression you need an incredibly
00:19:42.620controlled environment or you become very stressed about things yeah and that can be seen in the
00:19:47.520setup of our house and the way that we make decisions but it's also it's it's something
00:19:51.180that's so cool i've been able to adapt with our children yeah well i don't think it's maladaptive
00:19:56.720for a modern society like actually it's much it's much easier for people like me to get by so I
00:20:02.220don't think it's it's like a bad thing to bring children in with those traits but like it makes
00:20:06.640me as a parent really you know I'm able to anticipate that in them and accommodate it I
00:20:13.160take custom orders for everyone's dinner every night like everyone gets to do a lot of things
00:20:16.960in their own special unique way that they have to do them because I know that that's how they
00:20:20.580need it to be and they'll be happy as long as that's the case and they are like it's good yeah
00:20:25.540so number three woman number three she's a 27 year old in north carolina and she's the mother0.54
00:20:30.760of a one-year-old and she is the most dark ending she don't start there when you're talking about
00:20:35.680kids come on oh well okay yeah not not not simone trigger dark meaning that like your child is
00:20:41.160getting hurt it's actually the the outcome is best for the children but it's still pretty dark
00:20:44.600for the child she didn't want kids she wrote my husband and i met in middle school he was always
00:20:49.440interested in having a big family and i told him i wasn't quite sure so already kind of a warning
00:20:54.480signs. Like really, if, if you're not into it, you know, it's, it's, you should get through that
00:20:59.020first before you, you weren't into it either. And now you're super, no, but you, you convinced me
00:21:04.020and I was like, yeah, I'm all in based on the conditions. And that was it. We were all set.
00:21:09.620I was 100% bought in. What happened to her though, was she got a positive pregnancy test and she's
00:21:14.400like, well, I guess I'm doing this. Her husband was like, I really, really, really want you to
00:21:18.760keep the baby. Like, I think she was even thinking about having an abortion. She has a history like
00:21:23.720the others of depression and is now dealing probably dealing with in our son she wrote my
00:21:28.940son has a low tolerance for frustration and doesn't communicate other than whining screaming
00:21:33.000crying throwing things and pulling my hair so again like this is one of those things
00:21:37.300just to highlight how you contextualize it but i mean i guess you could say like octavian constantly
00:21:41.540climbing on me and hitting me and everything like that is like this horrible thing well but you
00:21:45.320contextualize it positively and there's an even better example with her in contextualization
00:21:49.340because she has she has body dysmorphia issues she wrote during pregnancy I felt embarrassed I've
00:21:54.880had body dysmorphia issues since I was a kid and I felt so massive I used to be a track athlete
00:22:00.380and have always been fit and active so I didn't like feeling so heavy and restricted when trying
00:22:06.020to do the things I've always done like hiking during my third trimester I didn't want to leave
00:22:10.020the house so that people wouldn't see me so she like I also have body dysmorphia I hate the way
00:22:15.280have looked. I've always hated my body, but like the way I contextualize pregnancy is like, well,0.58
00:22:19.720all right, I am stuck in this body. I'm resentful of it. I am going to like wear this thing into
00:22:25.540the ground. Like it is the ultimate revenge of like, all right, well, we're just gonna
00:22:29.480wear like, you know, use it to the full capacity until I literally break it until I break my
00:22:34.320uterus until I break everything, which is ultimately more satisfying for me than like
00:22:38.080getting a hysterectomy, which is the first thing I thought about doing before I met you.
00:22:41.000and so there are ways to deal with these things you can have body dysmorphia and respond like
00:22:46.040she did or you can have body dysmorphia and respond like I did when they're both ways you
00:22:50.240can deal with it but I think we're having a lot more fun with my method so I'm just saying like
00:22:54.480contextualization is everything she also had a horrible birth experience I'm not gonna I don't
00:22:59.520have to describe it unless you want to I can I can read it but like I also have had horrible birth
00:23:03.900experiences and it sucks and I think that it well you one I would say was all of this you don't know
00:23:09.600some people just contextualize everything horribly right like yeah yeah you you know
00:23:16.060whatever their experience is it's going to be a horrible experience because like so her her she
00:23:21.680had an epidural but like it kept not working i also i didn't have an epidural and i was anyway
00:23:26.940continue they they had to like jump on her hip to dislodge him from like a place where he was stuck
00:23:34.200before he entered the birth canal or something and she still felt pain from that so it was it was bad
00:23:38.140it was like genuinely bad it wasn't just her whining about it malcolm okay but yeah she also
00:23:42.620more importantly for her is she felt erased as a human being she wrote i felt like i disappeared
00:23:47.800as a human being clients called me mama friends and family asked me how my son was they told me
00:23:53.760how excited and overjoyed i must be i tried telling them i wasn't coping well with motherhood
00:23:58.580and was still processing the birth and they tell me that's what motherhood is one of my friends
00:24:03.380texted my husband wow she's changed and not in a good way it came from a place of care she and
00:24:08.600many friends and family told me i had postpartum depression to seek therapy and to go on medication
00:24:13.100but at the same time they'd quickly flip it back to you need to be there for your son pick yourself
00:24:18.940up move on it's over with and done everything you went through is just like no big deal because the
00:24:25.560baby's here your existence doesn't matter and again that's contextualization and i think that
00:24:30.160one of the most toxic things about our modern society and I do think this has to do more with
00:24:34.380culture than it does with like preparing is that the more you focus in on yourself and get into
00:24:40.360your head the more miserable you're going to be so even if you want to optimize for hedonic pleasure
00:24:45.020doing what she's doing is kind of like an exercise in frustration and suffering and0.52
00:24:51.540I mean if she's such a miserable person the idea that she would want to identify more with herself
00:24:56.420to me so odd you know like you could just become more expansive and identify with your family and
00:25:00.720enjoy the joys of which is so interesting i mean it's it's
00:25:04.600you are supposed to stop being the point of your life your kids are the point of your life right
00:25:12.820like the the focus shifts and for somebody who adopted the urban monoculture that can be
00:25:19.900horrifying because they're taught in this sort of atomized self being the most important thing
00:25:25.300And this idea that you would sublimate that either in a marriage or through children is one of the most mortifying things they can imagine.
00:25:32.420And yet we had already, I mean, when we got married, there was a period where we stayed more atomized at the beginning.
00:25:39.820I think you were really afraid of this idea of, no, we're just one person now.
00:25:43.900Yeah, I was much more hesitant around it than you were.
00:25:46.640I think also, though, because women, one, lose more just traditionally than men do.
00:25:55.300like physically logistically especially in the younger years like to your point right like i'm0.99
00:26:00.400doing most of the infant care your life changes the least as we get a new infant so women women0.97
00:26:04.500do feel like they have more to lose especially in the early years and they do but also they've0.99
00:26:08.760been uniquely conditioned to be like no don't ever give those things up it's a bad thing if
00:26:13.140you give those things up whereas men have never really been told that actually hold on this could1.00
00:26:18.400be like a whole other episode but you could almost argue that feminism conceptually was0.99
00:26:24.440fighting against the the women's role as a mother that societal framing of a woman's position like
00:26:32.660and and and you see the people who have fully adopted feminist framing you even suggest well
00:26:38.420that's a woman's role and they freak out right yeah when you can also argue which i think is
00:26:42.840interesting is that women are so concerned about losing their identity but men never had them like
00:26:48.200men don't really get to be full men until they have their families and identify as their families
00:26:52.640which is so weird whereas like yeah they feel like they lose everything by getting their family
00:26:56.840which is i think a really interesting piece of tension and interplay that you get with
00:27:01.340relationships it's not so what i would expect but i yeah now that that's kind of that's kind
00:27:06.540of occurring to me that like men men aren't losing men men don't even get to be anything
00:27:12.140like an incel is nothing they don't have an identity they mean nothing in society that's
00:27:15.700actually a really interesting point yeah men do not matter until they're married and and then0.99
00:27:20.640really until they have kids from a societal perspective and then sort of women kind of cease0.56
00:27:24.300to cease well yeah i don't know like not that they cease to matter but they kind of recede into it and0.83
00:27:29.580they feel like they're losing something whereas men feel like they're finally getting their
00:27:32.920identity it's a very weird thing well and this is seeing that the that the mother is lesser in the
00:27:39.040eyes of the urban monoculture oh yeah no you definitely take a downgrade that's the the we've
00:27:46.040read other articles of women like identifying as single even when they're in a relationship1.00
00:27:50.300because it's seen as cooler or something yeah or identifying as a divorcee just to be
00:27:56.540even after she was remarried she still identified primarily as a divorcee my cachet is in rejecting
00:28:03.520marriage actually speaking of which so she after withdrawing from fellow parents because she just
00:28:10.360hated so much people identifying with their children decided to leave her husband and
00:28:14.840actually her son too she wrote my husband and i are taking steps to separate and he's willing to
00:28:19.200take on the role of a single parent which makes me feel incredibly guilty but i can't live this
00:28:23.580life with him anymore i'm not the parent my son needs and i one i think it's kind of based like
00:28:28.420she actually isn't the parent her son she seems to really hate it and that would be not good for
00:28:32.440a kid to grow up person anyone needs she seems and also yeah yeah no she she she seems genuinely0.92
00:28:39.000she needs to work on a lot of things and and i don't think she can do that with her husband and
00:28:43.080her son also like single dads statistically do really well so i'm not worried for the kid and
00:28:49.520i'm not worried for the husband and i didn't read these parts but the husband was also incredibly
00:28:53.480gung-ho about this kid really wanted to be a dad he's super on board with being a single parent
00:28:57.900so but it's still a very dark ending right this is a woman who rejected parenting so much that
00:29:03.100she's literally just going to end it she's not going to be i would say that kids more broadly
00:29:09.080and i really cannot make this point loudly enough is i don't know what this kid is like but like
00:29:14.940there are bad kids out there right like there are unpleasant kids i've seen our kids i've i've seen
00:29:21.200our kids interact with them we we have other kids who i i've like oh my god if that was my kid i'd
00:29:26.940like smother them in their sleep like they are a net burden to society and i don't i mean so you
00:29:33.060put it that way but like and so what this mother complained about was her son was not meeting the
00:29:37.000same developmental milestones that her peers children were and that he was in early intervention
00:29:41.340our kids have been in early intervention our kids have been diagnosed with autism our kids have gone
00:29:45.460through pretty extensive therapy like at first we were made to feel a lot of shame about that by
00:29:52.480some people in our family and stuff but then oh no and the wire ultimately realized like oh
00:29:57.360no you're just messed up like we are and like we all get along really well here um so i think i
00:30:02.520don't know what's interesting to me as well is and i think you make this point well the things
00:30:06.840that she complains about are all things i notice that our kids in and love i love the way that
00:30:11.140they're vitalistic and crawl all over me and fight me and like we're pretty chill about our kids not
00:30:17.180meeting the developmental milestones of like when i've seen kids and i was just like like the kids
00:30:22.180that have given me that it it's interesting they've always been like either like genetically
00:30:28.140obsequious you know like very needy attention wanting clearly like unsure of themselves it's
00:30:35.400interesting that to me that would be like such a trigger in seeing a kid who's unsure of themselves
00:30:39.820and being like disgusting or the they are timid and afraid you can't and afraid and that's like
00:30:49.020a big ick factor for me and it's interesting that i like have kid icks like that i'm like0.79
00:30:54.280i now know what women mean when they say this right you know i'm like like that is that that
00:31:00.420that's cringy to be around that but our kids just don't have any of that and i don't know0.99
00:31:04.120how I'd feel if we ever had a kid who was like that, but I also don't know how you and I could
00:31:09.320produce a kid like that. Yeah. It's unlikely, but I mean, you and I talk about this a lot and I
00:31:13.620don't know how much we've talked about it on our podcast. We have a little bit, but like,
00:31:17.880if you do not like your partner or you do not like things about your partner, you're going to
00:31:22.220really struggle with your kids. Cause those kids are going to exhibit those behaviors.
00:31:26.040It's going to be really tough for you. Whereas if you love your partner, you're going to be
00:31:30.200crazy about your kids at least if you're also forgiving of yourself and I think where I struggle
00:31:35.360most of our kids at times is when they exhibit behaviors that that bother me about myself and I
00:31:42.580see that in them and I'm like oh no but but then seeing you show grace around that I feel like
00:31:48.920you're showing me grace and it's just all over again you show me how much you love me this is
00:31:52.780the other weird thing that I've talked to Simone about when I see her being a really loving mom
00:31:58.300to our kids and she is she's a phenomenal mother like when i go down on a weekend because she gets
00:32:04.420the kids first on weekends and she has you know made them all like individual dishes and and music's
00:32:10.180playing and the kids are all roughhousing around and she's you know reading them a book or something
00:32:14.740and she's doing all these nice things for them and she does these things for them at least she
00:32:19.640tells me because you know she likes the kids but somehow my brain doesn't register it is that
00:32:25.800my brain every time i see her being nice to the kids is seeing her going out of her way to do me
00:32:32.300a favor well i mean the kids are just like i mean not to sound spiritual or like emotional but like
00:32:40.400the kids are fragments of our souls and they're they're definitely little pocket malcolms and i
00:32:44.480i see so much of them in you that yeah i mean if you love your partner you're gonna love your kids
00:32:49.080and that's i mean you can see this with with these parents i think that these mothers who really
00:32:53.080regret becoming parents i think are really also struggling with not just themselves it's clear
00:32:58.760that they have self-hatred issues or depression or anxiety or all of those things but then they're
00:33:03.240also really struggling with your husband and like imagine what a nightmare that is if you hate
00:33:06.920yourself if you don't like your husband either and now you're alone with like a version of the
00:33:11.220two of you magnified and also pooping and you know totally out of control like that that sounds
00:33:16.740yeah like a complete nightmare and well i also think another thing that's that we've we've
00:33:21.860started on here, but I think it's really important to drill into is the role of contextualization in
00:33:27.100all of this. Yes. You know, we had reporters here today asking me about like when people were
00:33:32.760dogpiling us online for using corporal punishment with our kids and saying that we're child abusers
00:33:36.760and everything like that. And like asking me, like, do you feel, and I was like, no, I don't
00:33:40.600really feel bad about that. Like I can choose how I contextualize these things that happen in my life.
00:33:45.080And when I was in that debate with Stephen Molineux and he kept trying to get me to be like,
00:33:48.660look at these things your parents did like you should reject them and condemn them and i was
00:33:53.300like i like who i am as an adult i'm not going to condemn them like it's fine right the outcome was
00:33:57.440good so yeah and i i realized that like at a pathological level if you look at me and and my
00:34:05.100outlook on life i just choose not to contextualize things negatively right and i because i don't see
00:34:12.760any purpose in it right like it doesn't help me and society will reward you for contextualizing
00:34:18.240things negative because everybody wants a sob story but if you can you know internally within
00:34:23.240your family culture steal yourself against that you will just be like way happier with your life
00:34:29.660and way more productive and this is and i think for a lot of these people it's just a choice of
00:34:34.840negative contextualization right of things that happen to me and you and i can textually and i
00:34:41.460never have like i never like made some deal with you around that you have to do this but it seems
00:34:47.140like you have organically adopted this as well we organically did it but what do you think about
00:34:52.980the idea of like we did with our relationship also doing stuff like this with parenting because
00:34:59.300it does seem to be a really big deal breaker in life in in a relationship that that people do i
00:35:06.200mean we did some things like what will we do if our kids ask for porn what will we do if our kids
00:35:11.040misbehave what religion will we we didn't do it about parenting logistics the idea of parenting
00:35:17.720choices in a parenting contract being something you create before having kids is a failure really
00:35:26.020i like the idea so why everything that would be in a parenting contract should be in the outset
00:35:33.840of the relationship the relationship contract okay that's fair but like instead of just looking
00:35:38.660at how relationships fail also look at how parenting fails exactly that's okay okay so we
00:35:43.260are on the same page i was like what are you talking and we had done all of that with our
00:35:46.960relationship contract no not all no what i'm saying is all we did actually was um religion
00:35:54.300porn and punishment and like where we spend family holidays we didn't do things parenting
00:36:00.080yeah those are core things that relationships end over but what we we didn't do was like you
00:36:05.880know how are we going to handle infants what's going to happen you know if i'm really injured
00:36:10.400in like a pregnancy what what's going to happen like with you know who's going to do overnights
00:36:16.700etc like what's going to happen now we did have an agreement on like what's going to happen if
00:36:20.320one person has to be a stay-at-home parent and it was going to be you but like i don't know i feel
00:36:25.040like we could have done more i just i want my thing is i again i think this article is good i
00:36:29.820think people should be aware of what can go wrong and i think people should plan for it
00:36:33.060as they're beginning the outset of a relationship.