Order of Man - July 26, 2022


DR. WARREN FARRELL | The Dangers of Dad-Deprivation


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 17 minutes

Words per Minute

173.90538

Word Count

13,483

Sentence Count

715

Misogynist Sentences

28

Hate Speech Sentences

15


Summary

Dr. Warren Farrell is the author of The Boy Crisis and many other books written to explore society from the lens of both women and men. Today, we talk about the dangers of lacking structure and purpose, how the quote-unquote dad style of parenting actually creates awareness and empathy, and how dopamine and other physiological responses assist boys and men in doing the right thing, and also the dangers and destructive results of dad deprivation.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 I think whether you're willing to acknowledge it or not, we are most definitely facing a crisis
00:00:05.720 of our young men from incarceration and suicide rates to substance abuse issues to failing and
00:00:13.180 lagging societal metrics. It's safe and also extremely tragic to say that our boys are
00:00:19.520 fighting an uphill battle. My guest today is Dr. Warren Farrell, the author of The Boy Crisis
00:00:25.080 and many other books written to explore society from the lens of both women and men. Today,
00:00:33.800 we talk about the dangers of lacking structure and purpose, how the quote-unquote dad style versus
00:00:40.820 the quote-unquote mom style of parenting actually creates awareness and empathy, how dopamine
00:00:47.220 secretion and other physiological responses assist boys and men in doing the right thing,
00:00:52.660 and also the dangers and destructive results of dad deprivation. You're a man of action. You live
00:00:59.680 life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down,
00:01:05.160 you get back up one more time. Every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient.
00:01:12.280 Strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day,
00:01:18.360 and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today?
00:01:24.220 My name is Ryan Mickler. I'm the host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement.
00:01:30.100 Welcome here. Guys, the conversation I have today with Dr. Warren Farrell is one of my favorite
00:01:36.920 conversations. Anytime I get to talk about boys and young men and men and how we interact with and
00:01:43.460 show up in the world and how we can serve ourselves and our families and communities better,
00:01:46.920 I love it because that's what this podcast is all about. It's all about giving you the tools
00:01:51.620 and resources, conversations, et cetera, to help you become a more effective, capable man.
00:02:00.420 And isn't that what society needs? Isn't that what you want to be? And isn't that what people
00:02:06.120 need of you? So I'm going to get into it with Dr. Warren Farrell here in a minute. Before I do,
00:02:12.120 just want to mention very quickly, my friends, my good friends, my jujitsu training partners,
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00:03:56.720 Check out their hunt line. All right, guys, with that said, let's get to my friend and somebody,
00:04:02.880 man, I just deeply, deeply admire and respect this individual. His name is Dr. Warren Farrell.
00:04:08.940 He is the author of The Boy Crisis and many other books. His insight is, it's enlightening.
00:04:15.980 It's fascinating when it comes to the dangers of not only what our young men are facing, but then how
00:04:20.580 that translates into, to put it mildly, less than desirable outcomes for society as a whole.
00:04:27.480 He's been featured on CNN, Good Morning America, The New York Times, Forbes, Wall Street Journal,
00:04:34.100 and has proven to be an incredible, incredible resource for parents and the young men who seem
00:04:40.500 to be struggling so much. Again, in his book, The Boy Crisis, he lays it all out there with regards to
00:04:45.740 how our young men are struggling, and more importantly, what we as men can do about it.
00:04:50.740 Guys, I always enjoy my talks with Dr. Farrell and his incredible insight. I know you will as well.
00:04:59.280 Warren, it's so good to see you again. I was looking at it. We had a conversation,
00:05:03.800 believe it or not, it's almost been four years. I can't believe that it's, I thought it would have
00:05:10.080 been two, but I cannot believe that it's been four years since we had our initial conversation.
00:05:14.940 It's a sign of aging. The older you get, the shorter the period of time appears to be.
00:05:20.840 We were talking about trading some red with some gray. I think we can work something out here, but
00:05:25.440 a little bit still, a little bit of gray in there.
00:05:29.980 I don't see it yet, but it's really great. Your beard is admirable. Yeah, I think it was four years
00:05:37.020 ago because I know The Boy Crisis book came out about four years ago. So I think we, you did one of the
00:05:41.880 early interviews with me and you were in Utah, weren't you? Yeah, I was in Utah. We moved out
00:05:48.500 here to Maine about three years ago and it just, when we talked, it probably wasn't even on my radar
00:05:55.040 to come out here, but it's just been such a great thing for my wife and my three boys and my daughter
00:06:00.020 and we just love it. Oh, that's wonderful. How old are your boys now?
00:06:03.820 So I've got a, let me think, it's going to take me a second. I've got a 14-year-old,
00:06:09.560 an 11-year-old, my daughter is eight, almost nine, and then my youngest son is six. So I got a full
00:06:17.660 house over here. You have a full house. Well, and you will, and has The Boy Crisis book, has that been
00:06:24.300 helpful for you in raising your son? Oh, incredibly helpful. In fact, your book and some other
00:06:33.080 information that we have access to and books and things that we've read, we decided when we moved
00:06:38.600 out here that we would pull our children out of public school. So when we moved here now, so it's
00:06:45.040 been three years, about a year before COVID and the reaction to COVID, we decided that we would
00:06:49.540 homeschool our children for some very deliberate and intentional reasons. And I know you talk a lot
00:06:56.100 about the school system being stacked against our young men and set up for our young ladies.
00:07:01.500 And that coupled with some other thoughts that we had, my wife and I made the decision to pull our
00:07:07.020 kids out of public school and start homeschooling or home-based education.
00:07:11.220 And how has that been? How has that been for the development of the kids?
00:07:14.720 That's been great. I mean, it's been great. The beautiful thing about homeschool, and I talk a lot
00:07:18.820 about this with the guys is that instead of having 25, 30, 35 kids in the classroom, we have four.
00:07:25.860 We know them obviously intimately. My daughter is dyslexic. I didn't know that until we started
00:07:32.580 homeschooling. My wife would say the same thing. And then we can cater their experience and their
00:07:38.000 learning and education based on some aptitude that they may have for certain things versus others.
00:07:43.320 And so it's a beautiful... I don't have any problem with school teachers. I really have a problem with
00:07:48.940 the system in general that made us make that decision. It's been really good.
00:07:54.620 Oh, I'm very glad to hear that. How do you give them good social skill training, meeting other kids,
00:08:00.840 meeting strangers, meeting kids they don't like? How does that work in with homeschooling?
00:08:05.460 I'm... That's one of the biggest questions that we get. So they're very involved and active in
00:08:14.320 physical activity. So it's through powerlifting. My two oldest boys do powerlifting with about five to
00:08:20.620 six other young men in the community. My two oldest boys also play football. So they're very active in
00:08:27.400 football with their teams and whatnot. My daughter is very involved in dance. And then we have a very
00:08:32.340 tight-knit CrossFit community and friends that we spend a lot of time with. We invite them over.
00:08:37.460 We have barbecues and dinners and things together. And then we're actually working... This year will be
00:08:43.000 our first year with a co-op where there's five other families in the community who are all home-based
00:08:49.080 education, where they're going to be learning from other parents involved with other kids. Because
00:08:54.880 that was my biggest concern is how do you make sure they get the social interaction? And I really like
00:09:00.700 that you said kids they don't like. That's one of the things that I think a lot of people overlook
00:09:07.400 because that interpersonal dynamic is huge. And I think a lot of home-based education parents
00:09:13.460 overlook the importance of that. Yes. And it's important, you know, when you're homeschooling
00:09:20.040 somebody, you're almost always going to train your son and your daughters, but especially your sons,
00:09:24.580 not to be bullies. But it's all as important to make sure that they know how to handle bullies
00:09:30.320 and not just handle them by beating them up, but handle them by respecting the bullies need to be
00:09:37.040 respected. And understanding that under almost all anger and abusiveness is vulnerability. And so being
00:09:43.740 able to connect to that vulnerability. I remember in the Boy Crisis book, I think you may remember reading
00:09:50.120 where I said I learned that sort of almost intuitively as a kid and I was in about eighth grade and I had
00:09:57.680 moved over from another school district, another town to the town that we lived in. The town we lived
00:10:03.760 in was much more working class. The new town was much more working class. And I sort of stood out as a
00:10:09.920 student. And one of the boys really, who was a sort of gang leader, he really sort of thought of me as
00:10:17.760 being sort of the goody two shoes. And he confronted me one day and he had a brick in his hand. And he
00:10:24.480 was ready to throw that brick right through my head. And he just really basically wanted to get rid of
00:10:30.420 me. And I said to him, you know, that, you know, it was really great that he was the leader of this
00:10:38.500 gang. And because, you know, and what did I think, what did he think that the leadership skills that he
00:10:45.180 had, that led to him being selected as a leader and being able to sustain himself as a leader?
00:10:51.040 And he like started to get into that. And he told me what he thought his leadership skills were.
00:10:58.040 And as he did that, his brick just dropped and, you know, the hand dropped and then the brick just
00:11:04.520 dropped to the ground. And it was like, you know, I was and what I was and, you know, I didn't have,
00:11:10.460 you know, I hadn't read books like The Boy Crisis. And, you know, that told me here's a good way to
00:11:14.720 approach a bully. But, you know, it was sort of like, I guess it was a survival instinct that led
00:11:19.580 me to just reaching for that. And, you know, or else I may not have been around here today to talk
00:11:25.760 about it. Well, you know, it's interesting. I think this is where our past might diverge a little
00:11:30.760 bit, because when I hear you tell that story, my immediate reaction is, I would tell that guy,
00:11:37.140 you have one shot. And if you miss, you're dead. So it's a very interesting thing when you come at
00:11:43.800 at it from this perspective, which obviously worked, clearly worked. And there's so many
00:11:49.160 different ways to approach the situation. I'm always trying to figure out the balance between
00:11:55.260 toughness and assertiveness with my young men specifically, maybe more so than my daughter,
00:12:06.200 and the balance between that and tenderness and care and empathy, which I think is what you
00:12:12.060 exhibited here in this story you're sharing. Yes. And at the same, first of all, you've put your
00:12:17.260 finger now exactly on the biggest point that is a value, I think, which is the the word balance.
00:12:26.120 And it's having the skill sets to both be able to confront. And at the same time, the skill set to be
00:12:33.820 able to understand that bullies and bullies, the both the bully and the bullied, have in common,
00:12:42.840 oftentimes, low self-esteem, feelings of insecurity. And so it is interesting that the opposite behaviors
00:12:50.860 are manifested with the underlying similar personality characteristics. And so there's sort of two ways of
00:12:58.140 approaching sort of a bully, if you will. One is the way I just shared. And the other way, my father,
00:13:05.140 and this worked at a different time in my growing up, my father had always said, basically, you have
00:13:13.160 to stand up to a bully, just like you were just talking about, right, let it know that you just
00:13:17.100 can't be pushed around, and that you need to be respected, basically. And my father had taught me to
00:13:22.680 box and to wrestle. But in the eighth grade, in this school, also, that I just was talking about
00:13:29.000 moving to, there was another guy there that was a sort of muscle leader. And he had the same type,
00:13:34.500 he was a muscle builder. And he was very respected and absolutely gorgeous. And he was, you know,
00:13:42.360 very much known for being a bully. And my father had taught me both to box and to wrestle. And but I
00:13:49.420 knew I couldn't outbox this guy. So and he sort of kept confronting me and sort of sort of calling
00:13:55.600 me chicken to, you know, sort of encounter with him. And I did agree to wrestle with him. And my father
00:14:02.560 taught me well enough that I was able to pin him down in a few seconds. And when I had him pinned down,
00:14:09.640 he said, please let me up. I'll always support you. And I let him up. And two things happened there.
00:14:18.600 One is he did follow through. He always supported me after that. And B, what was the deepest sadness
00:14:25.600 for me is even though I was good in my schoolwork, etc, and generally decent in sports, the I got more
00:14:35.400 respect from my classmates from being able to pin him down than I did from anything else I did. And for
00:14:44.260 me, that was very, very sad. You know, that the respect came to me from being able to be somebody
00:14:53.260 who won at a wrestling match, rather than, you know, made contributions through being good at school or
00:15:00.060 somewhat decent in sports. I was not never a standout, but I was good at sports. And, and I had
00:15:07.140 started the soccer team in my school, etc. And yet that didn't command as much respect as, you know,
00:15:13.960 as, as this little wrestling match. And do you think, so a question on that, because I don't,
00:15:22.140 I don't disagree. I can certainly see why men will respect another man or young boy in this case with
00:15:31.020 some sort of physical aptitude. But as we get older, don't you think the same level of respect
00:15:36.500 would be commanded if you became the CEO of a fortune 500 company, or you were maybe a more
00:15:44.260 superficial metric would be you drive around a Lamborghini or you wear, you know, the $10,000
00:15:50.980 watch. Don't you think that the same level of respect would be granted on some other metrics that
00:15:57.620 might be a better metric of aptitude as you get older and more mature?
00:16:01.320 Yes. And I would say even the, those metrics are really sad metrics also, um, because, um,
00:16:09.640 for us to be evaluating for, for me to evaluate myself, um, on the, you know, on the Lamborghini,
00:16:17.260 which I do not have, or the other, you know, uh, equivalent measures, or even, you know,
00:16:25.640 oh, this is Warren Farrell. He wrote X number of books and right. New York times, bestselling
00:16:30.120 authors, these sort of titles, right? Yes, exactly. And, you know, um, and, and I hope
00:16:36.420 that as the more mature I become, um, that the more I look for, um, respecting people who
00:16:45.060 can listen, who can not be concerned with themselves, who can not be focused on what
00:16:50.980 type of home they have. And, and, you know, you want to live in a nice home in a nice place,
00:16:55.620 but that not, that should not be our definition of ourselves, how well you're raising your
00:17:01.580 children, uh, your devotion to them in homeschooling, the way you communicate with your wife,
00:17:06.560 the way you, you're here, you listen to your wife. Um, and the, the way, um, you, um, give space
00:17:14.520 to each of your kids to speak up and share what's inside of them. Um, as you know, in the boy crisis
00:17:19.180 book, I have a whole section on family dinner night, and particularly on how to prevent family
00:17:23.880 dinner nights from becoming family dinner nightmares. And, you know, and one of the important
00:17:28.780 things about family dinner nights is not only teaching the parents how to listen to the kids
00:17:33.160 and be empathetic with the kids stories and not interrupt the kids stories, but also making
00:17:38.440 sure that the kids are required to listen to the parents stories as parents versions and
00:17:44.420 not interrupt the, the, um, uh, the parents stories. One of the ways to make sure that children
00:17:50.740 are not empathetic is to always be empathetic toward the children, as opposed to both being
00:18:00.400 empathetic toward the children and also requiring the children to be able to demonstrate empathy
00:18:06.860 toward the parents and to their brothers and sisters. So you have to allow them the opportunity
00:18:12.140 to be empathetic is what you're saying. And more so than even allow, allow them the opportunity
00:18:18.500 to be would be ideal. Most kids when they're younger do not pursue that opportunity. They have to be
00:18:27.240 required to develop the discipline, to move from a self-centered space, uh, to a balance between
00:18:34.080 self-centered and other centered space. Interesting. Required versus allowed. That's interesting because
00:18:41.060 I see a lot of this manifest itself in society today. And I think it started with the whole,
00:18:48.380 you know, the, the, the phrase we all hear. And, and this may be more indicative of when you were
00:18:52.400 younger, cause you're a bit older than I am is, you know, kids should be seen and not heard. No,
00:18:57.160 no, no, of course. Right. And then you graduate to this newer age version of parenting, which is where
00:19:05.480 no kids now can dictate their gender and they can dictate what time they should go to bed and what
00:19:12.440 activities they should be involved in. And I think both are opposite ends of the extremes,
00:19:17.100 the spectrum. And, and I don't think either are correct. I would, I have three perspectives on that.
00:19:24.720 Yes. Yes. And yes. So totally agree with you. Um, and, and it really is, um, you know, we've,
00:19:32.240 we've jumped from one extreme to the other and both extremes are really very damaging to the
00:19:36.800 children. Hmm. I'm very curious about this, uh, this way that young boys approach their self-esteem
00:19:47.800 issues. You said it manifests itself. And I, and I'm sure again, there's a spectrum, but it manifests
00:19:53.400 itself potentially as the weak link, right? The coward who's timid and passive and lets himself get
00:20:00.720 railroaded. And then you have the bully who asserts himself and attempts to dominate not through
00:20:05.340 capability, but through intimidation. Is that a nature thing that more young men are designed to act
00:20:15.140 one way or the other? Or is that something that's nurtured through their environment, through parenting
00:20:21.040 or lack thereof and exposure to other stimulus that makes them behave one way or the other?
00:20:25.900 The answer to that is yes. Meaning it's, it's, it's nature and nurture, um, combined. Um, and you
00:20:33.520 know, if, if I were to get percentages about 70% nature and about 70% nurture, meaning that it's so
00:20:39.520 inter that, that as you, you know, as you, you're a veteran. And so, you know, as you trained in the
00:20:46.360 military, um, even if you went into the military and you were over protected, which you probably
00:20:52.240 weren't, but as you know, many people in the military, um, um, chill boys who have a single
00:20:59.340 mothers, um, they have a higher percentage chance of joining the military than any other single, um,
00:21:05.440 uh, parenting, parenting group. And that's actually, yes. And that's actually quite useful because
00:21:11.080 oftentimes the single mothers, um, um, do not do as much boundary enforcement as, um, they, as
00:21:18.620 the children would have, if they had both fathers and mothers, um, and an active father, which
00:21:24.820 usually, who usually requires more boundary enforcement. So the, both the child, but both
00:21:29.960 the boy and the pair and the mother sort of sense that the boy needs structure and, um, and is,
00:21:36.560 and is without it. And the military, as you know, creates that structure. So the boy going into the
00:21:43.620 military and it also creates requirements. So you, you know, you weren't given the option of, um, you
00:21:51.200 know, of, of doing, uh, getting up at a certain time, doing certain things, uh, running certain
00:21:56.720 paths, you know, uh, training in certain ways you were required to do that. And as you're required
00:22:02.160 to do that, different synapses develop in your brain, uh, that begin to change what you would think
00:22:08.920 of as nature. Um, but it's, it's, it's in our nature to be able to adapt to social, um, to social
00:22:16.880 messages. That's why it's 70% nature and 70% nurture. Um, one of the things along those lines
00:22:23.520 that is fascinating is that, you know, many people think of mothers as being more biologically
00:22:29.180 oriented toward raising children, uh, than dads are. Um, but children raised by dads, um, and well,
00:22:37.040 children raised by dads and moms together tend to do the best on average, but children raised by
00:22:42.560 fathers only do, um, better than children raised by mothers only. And what, what do you mean by do
00:22:49.400 the best? What, when you say do the best, what metrics are we mentioning? We're talking about,
00:22:55.660 um, having postponed gratification, which is the biggest, um, predictor of success or failure,
00:23:01.420 uh, being able to have discipline, being able to have, um, a warm and open and loving personality
00:23:08.120 that other people can connect with, being able to listen, being able to have social skills. So for
00:23:13.180 example, um, to be concrete about it, um, a typical, uh, one, I, one of the things that I found that
00:23:20.040 when I did the research for the boy crisis that I found was in no parenting magazine and no other
00:23:25.220 parenting book was helping parents understand the difference between what I came to call mom-style
00:23:31.720 parenting and dad-style parenting. And mom-style parenting tends to be more identifying the
00:23:37.940 children's strong points, helping the children, um, feel, um, proud of themselves because they're a
00:23:45.060 good singer or they have a good basketball skills or, you know, or they're a good scholar or whatever
00:23:49.640 and encouraging, encouraging them to sort of pursue that. And, you know, sweetie, you want to be an
00:23:55.620 Olympic gymnast, like you just saw, um, um, you know, uh, Simon, uh, Simona Biles, uh, be, um, yes,
00:24:02.480 you can, you can do that. That's fine. Um, but then oftentimes the children will start to do that and
00:24:07.860 they'll get a tutor and, uh, but they won't follow through. They'll get distracted by a new video game
00:24:13.780 if they're a male in particular, or, um, in a social engagement or somebody's birthday party,
00:24:18.420 and they're not putting in the discipline to go there. Dads are more likely to sort of require,
00:24:23.480 say, yo, listen, you want to be a best, an NBA player, or you want to be an actor or a writer
00:24:28.580 or whatever. Um, or you want to be in the Olympics, you've got to focus on that. And if we're going to
00:24:33.600 take you to practice, and if we're going to make our investment in your time, then you've got to
00:24:39.000 return that. Um, we're, you know, we're working overtime to be able to pay for a tutor to make sure
00:24:44.480 that you're, or a coach to get you to be better at this, this, like you want your dream
00:24:48.360 is, uh, that requires something from you. And moms will often say some version of, well, sweetie,
00:24:54.340 you're being a little tough on, you know, um, Mary or John, they, you know, it's good for them
00:24:58.660 to go to their, their part, um, somebody's birthday party. And he says, I agree that it's good for them
00:25:04.300 to go to somebody's birthday party, but they're not going to become an Olympic gymnast if they're
00:25:09.480 going to a lot of birthday parties, because the people who are Olympic gymnasts are ones that are
00:25:13.620 focused only on that. And they make a trade-off. They give up a lot of the rest of their life
00:25:18.320 for that. And that trade-off is not necessarily healthy, but let's make a decision here. Do we
00:25:24.900 want to go for something? And, um, and you know, what level do we want to go for this at? And so
00:25:30.340 it's this type of dialogue or another example that's, I think a better example is typically speaking,
00:25:36.860 um, dads will be far more likely to rough house than moms will be. Um, you know, and the dad will
00:25:42.900 start the rough housing with the kids. Like you have three boys and a girl, right? Is that correct?
00:25:46.920 That's correct. Right. Yeah. And you might throw all three boys and the girl on the couch and, um,
00:25:52.940 and, and say, all right, the game here is to, you know, the four of you, um, you could try to pin me
00:25:57.960 down before I pin the four of you down. And, um, and the kids go, yeah, right. All right. That's a great
00:26:03.500 dad. And, you know, mom was looking on and saying, oh my God, I feel like I have just one more child
00:26:07.780 to monitor. Um, you know, and husband, our home, Dr. Literally in our home. And, um, and the, and the,
00:26:17.320 and the mom is saying to herself, okay, you know, but the kids seem to be having a lot of fun. Um,
00:26:22.460 I don't want to be controlling. I don't want to interfere too much. On the other hand, I just fear
00:26:27.000 that, um, somebody is going to get hurt sooner or later and sooner or later, she's about 99% likely
00:26:33.380 to be right. Somebody's going to get hurt. Of course, of course it's going to happen.
00:26:37.380 And, and then she's, she says to herself, no, I feel really guilty. I didn't interfere before
00:26:42.280 and prevent this from, um, from somebody getting hurt. On the other hand, at least now Ryan's
00:26:46.860 going to understand, uh, that he can't do this, um, because somebody is going to get hurt. But Ryan
00:26:51.380 doesn't understand that or he doesn't look at it that way. He says, you know, um, uh, Jimmy or, uh,
00:26:57.040 whatever one of your son's name is. Yeah. You can't stick your, um, elbow in Kathy's eye.
00:27:02.660 That's what I was thinking. Well, you shouldn't have done that. Do better next time.
00:27:05.700 Exactly. And the kids will say, yes, yes, dad, I'm sorry. No problem. I'll do better. But the next
00:27:10.360 time they don't do that much better because you've only told them to do better. There was no price to
00:27:17.320 pay if they didn't. So why do they adapt or postpone gratification if there's no price to pay by just
00:27:24.800 pushing sister or brother aside. But when most dads, the second time after the children are
00:27:31.460 warned, they, they say, okay, I gave you a warning. Now there's no more roughhousing. Now the next time
00:27:39.400 you roughhouse. And then, so dad goes ahead and says, okay, well, you know, no roughhousing tonight,
00:27:44.500 maybe tomorrow night or the next night we'll roughhouse. And mom was looking on going, oh my
00:27:48.000 God, you know, hasn't he learned his lesson after twice the kids have gotten hurt. But the, but the
00:27:53.500 important difference between dad and mom style parenting happens the third time. And that third
00:27:59.560 time, the children now know that the last time daddy said that there, if they, if they were too
00:28:06.680 aggressive or too rough, uh, they're going to lose their roughhousing. The last time daddy said that
00:28:12.520 we lost our roughhousing when we were that way. And it's now that the kids get their beginning, their
00:28:20.100 first step in postponed gratification. I want to push my brother or sister aside, but if I do that, I'm
00:28:28.180 going to lose what I really want. Um, so I have to postpone the gratification of winning immediately in a
00:28:35.700 way that is too aggressive or too unsympathetic to the children that my brothers and sisters
00:28:42.160 needs. Um, and I have to focus on doing what I need to do to get that, uh, roughhousing,
00:28:49.760 the roughhousing that we all want. Um, and so this is so, this is so, uh, one of the common
00:28:56.360 phrases I hear a lot and that's specifically directed towards the government. I think in
00:29:00.160 general is the PSYOP, right? This is a PSYOP against the American people, but, but I'm kind of
00:29:06.680 hearing you say, correct me if I'm wrong, that there's a PSYOP with, with our children too. And we
00:29:11.820 need to be aware of the game that's being played and what they're being taught outside of just the
00:29:16.400 words that we're using and the behaviors that we're trying to mold.
00:29:21.380 Exactly. And so here's the, the, that exactly what happens with that dynamic. So now the, you have
00:29:30.060 said this new dynamic of, you can't be aggressive and you have to think of your brothers and sisters
00:29:35.320 needs. And the kids are, are now saying, I'm going to, I know I'm going to lose my roughhousing if I'm
00:29:42.120 that aggressive. So I'm going to stop and I'm not going to be that aggressive. I'm going to think of
00:29:46.560 my brothers and sisters needs. Now, a number of things are happening here. The kids are, um, are,
00:29:52.100 are understanding that they have to have the postponed gratification. They also have to think of
00:29:57.720 their brothers and sisters needs. And what the data shows is that children who do this are now
00:30:04.780 required to think of their brothers and sisters needs in order to get what they want. So empathy
00:30:11.660 becomes a selfish, uh, it's in their self-interest to become empathetic. It's in their self-interest
00:30:19.100 to not be too aggressive. Um, do you think though, that when, so I wrote this question down and I know
00:30:25.540 I keep interrupting you, that's because I have a thousand questions. I've got some, I have more
00:30:29.360 questions than we have time for. So I wrote down here, putting the needs of others above our own.
00:30:34.600 So I'm hearing you say that that's a learned trait. Do you think that there's any sort of inherent
00:30:40.640 nature in putting other people's needs above our own or is that entirely learned?
00:30:47.680 It's learned. And it's also, once it's learned, there's something in our nature, which is the RCZ,
00:30:53.780 the rostral cingulate zone of our brain, that when we do something like think of others,
00:31:00.820 others give us positive feedback and that positive feedback increases the feel good drug dopamine
00:31:06.500 in our brain. And this is why I say everything is nature and nurture. It is, we have evolved over
00:31:13.960 millions of years. And if you take it back to, you know, to the evolution at the beginning,
00:31:19.060 we're talking about probably billions of years of evolution to have this enormously sophisticated
00:31:24.940 system of being able to know how to survive and to know how to survive, we had to get along with
00:31:32.580 others. The people that didn't, they usually were defeated by being too divided.
00:31:39.780 And so,
00:31:40.000 So, can I share a personal story on that?
00:31:42.600 Absolutely.
00:31:43.520 The reason I ask this is because I've been actually thinking about this today. So,
00:31:47.840 about three or four hours ago, I was sitting in my office and I was sending out emails and I heard
00:31:54.280 a crash outside of our home on the corner. The corner that we live on happens to be a pretty
00:31:58.760 dangerous intersection. I heard a crash. I knew the distinct sound. I knew exactly what had happened.
00:32:02.800 So, I ran out and I told my kids, stay here, son, you call 911. I got to run out here and do this.
00:32:08.360 And I ran out and I saw this little blue sedan that had probably traveled 40 yards after it had
00:32:16.420 gotten hit. And there was a young woman in the driver's side of the vehicle. And so,
00:32:24.800 I ran over there. I was barefoot because I just came out. I ran over there and she was bleeding
00:32:29.080 from her head and she was such, it's stuck with me for about four or five hours now. It's pretty
00:32:35.520 touching actually. Just a sweet young woman. She was probably in her late teens, early 20s. I could
00:32:42.640 tell she had a backpack and some other things. So, I think she was probably a student at the college
00:32:46.580 here. And she was bleeding from her head and just red blood had just drenched her top, a white striped
00:32:56.300 shirt that she was wearing. And, oh, I just had this, like, I just felt so bad. And so, I grabbed
00:33:05.100 some napkins. I threw them on her head. I applied pressure. I asked her what her name was. I asked
00:33:09.280 her if she was okay. And her biggest concern was, did I break the rules? That's one thing she said.
00:33:16.020 Did I break the rules of driving? I'm like, I don't know. I didn't see it, but we're going to get you
00:33:20.320 taken care of. And she's fine. She had a couple of minor lacerations on her head. She's fine.
00:33:25.480 And I thought to myself, well, you know, like I did that because that's the right thing to do.
00:33:30.660 That's what we do. That's the right thing to do. But now as you're saying this,
00:33:35.940 maybe it's not that I did it because it's the right thing to do. Maybe I did it because I feel
00:33:41.700 really good about my ability to do so. And so, maybe it's, and I'm not saying this in a bad way,
00:33:50.780 but maybe there's some selfish reasons behind it. And it's that dopamine hit or whatever it is in
00:33:57.080 our chemical makeup that makes us do what I think we all objectively would agree is the right thing to
00:34:04.000 do. Yeah, no, that's absolutely the case. And, and if you, especially if you are trained, if you are
00:34:11.680 trained to look at it that way, and you know, it's, there's a, the way we're, if we're always trained
00:34:18.600 to just think of ourselves, then we don't get the dopamine hits from doing things for others. So we
00:34:25.040 don't have that experience of being looking forward to the dopamine hits by doing something for others.
00:34:31.080 And so part of what the military does for, for, for men is to say that, you know, that it's a training
00:34:39.460 to be, to allow yourself to know that even being completely disposable, being completely dead,
00:34:48.180 you are, that you have, you have served, that you've done something for others. And that's,
00:34:54.280 that's even worth your life. And I mean, it's one of the reasons why, you know, and so that begins
00:35:01.040 to get programmed into you. And it also, these things lead to other fascinating dynamics between
00:35:08.700 moms and dads. We were talking before about the roughhousing and, and, and, you know, and you're,
00:35:13.680 you mentioned something about, you know, that when you say something like that, that dad, that the
00:35:20.860 children oftentimes obey, or maybe I suggested that, I don't know. And, but moms will oftentimes
00:35:27.140 looking at this, that situation of, you know, you, you say, okay, you can't be too aggressive now
00:35:32.480 and you're, you can't, you know, do this to your brother or your sister. And moms will often look on
00:35:37.620 and say, after this has developed, the relationship has developed with your kids. I don't get this.
00:35:43.080 I tell the kids the same thing that Ryan tells the kids, but they respond to me better. I don't know
00:35:50.940 whether it's his deeper voice or he's bigger or what the story is, but it's, but what the findings
00:35:56.520 show is that it's not Ryan's deeper voice or that he's bigger. That is that, that, that when you tell
00:36:03.500 kids to behave a certain way, and there's no consequence, if they don't behave that way, or you
00:36:10.060 suggest a consequence, but then you give them another chance and another chance. The kids will keep
00:36:15.220 taking that other chance until they exhaust, exhaust the, the energy of the mom. And then the mom will
00:36:21.920 oftentimes, so, so that there's no downside in not paying attention to the mom. There is a downside
00:36:29.660 in not paying attention to the dad when dad is a good boundary enforcer. Now, sometimes, sometimes this
00:36:34.960 is reversed. The mom is the boundary enforcer and the dad isn't. And sometimes both are good boundary
00:36:40.360 enforcers and sometimes both are bad boundary enforcers. But as a rule, this is the, this is a
00:36:46.920 difference in what I call dad style parenting and mom style parenting. And so what I started talking
00:36:52.200 about in the boy crisis book is all those differences and all the misunderstandings between
00:36:59.020 moms and dads that come from not understanding those differences. And then once you understand those
00:37:05.740 differences, how to do what leads children to having the best upbringing, which is not to do dad style
00:37:12.540 parenting or mom style parenting only, but to do checks and balance parenting and checks and balance
00:37:18.300 parenting requires really good communication and respect from the mom about dad style parenting and
00:37:24.580 its contribution and from the dad about mom style parenting and its respective contribution. And so that
00:37:30.860 is, and so that is a core part of the boy crisis book is how to communicate the best intent. But most dads
00:37:40.780 don't know that they can say to moms, you know, the data shows that when I require the children to think of
00:37:48.900 their brothers and sisters needs, and to be assertive, but not aggressive, those children grow up more
00:37:55.280 empathetic, and they grow up more assertive, but not aggressive. And therefore, as a result of that,
00:38:01.200 they have more friends at school, because they have social skills. And the more friends at school
00:38:05.660 they have, the more less likely they are to be depressed. And, and the more motivated they are to be
00:38:11.320 good to go to school and to study well, and so on. And all of these things are connected. And when boys and
00:38:17.340 girls don't have these, particularly boys that don't have good social skills, they oftentimes become
00:38:23.360 depressed and withdraw into video games, and then become addicted to the video games, which only
00:38:28.580 makes them feel more like a player in the video games and less like a player of being able to have
00:38:34.440 nuanced social interaction in school.
00:38:39.040 Men, let me pull you away from the conversation very quickly. Obviously, we've been talking a lot
00:38:43.400 about how to serve our young men. And I can't think of a better way to do that than to have an engaged,
00:38:49.980 present father in the home. We address that in this conversation. And one of the primary roles
00:38:55.820 of a father is to introduce his son to experiences that are going to last a lifetime and ultimately
00:39:02.240 serve him well as he transitions from boy to man. And that's where the legacy experience comes in.
00:39:09.160 We've taken time tested and proven models throughout the history of mankind, and we've emulated and
00:39:16.260 extracted and built the lessons, the experiences, and ultimately the results that will unequivocally
00:39:23.660 serve your boys as they become men. Now, I just talked with our event coordinator, Chris Gatchko
00:39:27.840 yesterday, and we only have two spots remaining for our legacy. Well, our only legacy event of the
00:39:34.380 year, which is September 22nd through the 25th. So if you have a son between the ages of eight to 15,
00:39:40.220 you need to lock in one of those last two spots, September 22nd through the 25th, 2022. If you want
00:39:48.720 to learn more, you want to watch a video from our last experience, and you want to lock that in,
00:39:53.160 head to order of man.com slash legacy, order of man.com slash legacy. Do that now, or do that right
00:39:59.460 after the show. For now, let's get back to it with Dr. Farrell.
00:40:02.000 You're telling my, you are telling my story. You are telling my, I feel so selfish because all these
00:40:11.260 questions I have are directed for me. You know, let me just, let me just share. I, so my mother
00:40:17.780 primarily raised me and my sister on my own. I joined the military to your, to your statistic
00:40:24.540 earlier. She actually forced me to go play football. I wanted to play football and she said no,
00:40:30.840 because she was concerned. And two years later, she said, no, you actually have to go play football.
00:40:34.980 And I didn't want to, but she forced me to. Uh, and just this idea of social
00:40:45.340 intelligence maybe is, is the word I, I didn't have that. My friends when I was younger called me
00:40:53.480 the hermit. I was the hermit because I didn't go out because I didn't feel confident in spending time
00:40:59.560 with other boys. I had a hard time relating with other boys. Uh, and, and I've since learned,
00:41:03.940 you know, I've had to learn and develop those skills and I know that they are learned. And so
00:41:07.120 I have been able to, um, but oh my goodness, you are telling my story. This is unbelievable.
00:41:13.960 I'm, I'm, I'm very glad. Um, um, you know, it's, it's been such a joy to, um, I guess one of the
00:41:21.120 biggest joys happened recently when, uh, about six months ago or so along the lines of what we're
00:41:26.440 talking about when, um, somebody wrote to me and said that, um, that he had, um, joined, uh, he had
00:41:34.700 been raised by a single mom and, um, who was very devoted to making him happy. Um, and, um, he ended
00:41:43.380 up becoming addicted to video games and not even knowing himself as a human being, um, and began to
00:41:49.940 resent his mom because, um, she felt, um, he was, she wasn't, he wasn't being helped by her and the
00:41:57.000 antagonism between him and his mom became so great that he ended up living then with his aunts and
00:42:02.540 his grandmothers and none of them had men in their lives. Um, and so he felt like he didn't really know
00:42:08.060 how to become a man. And he had two things that he pointed out. He said, I felt I had no structure
00:42:13.680 and I had no purpose. Um, so he said, um, I ended up joining eight Chan, uh, which is a fascist
00:42:21.920 ideological group. Um, and he said there, I found structure and I found purpose. I felt like I had a,
00:42:28.460 could have an ideology that would be, um, you know, that would be superior to any other ideology I'd ever
00:42:34.020 heard of. And these people were all, you know, searching for structure like I was. And he said,
00:42:39.900 so, and they, and eight Chan had, um, nurtured two of the major mass, um, shooters, uh, that the world
00:42:46.740 has known, unfortunately. And, um, he said, so I drew up a 52 page manifesto to carry out my own mass
00:42:55.500 shooting, uh, to show the world that I was somebody that should needed to be reckoned with and paid
00:43:00.040 attention to. Wow. And he said, uh, then I don't know how I did this, but I ran across the boy crisis
00:43:06.580 book and I read it. And when I was reading it, it wasn't so much the data that was important to me,
00:43:13.520 but it felt like, um, what you just said a minute ago, like, like I was a spy in his home. He said that
00:43:21.160 you saw everything I was doing and saying and feeling and fearing that I hadn't been able to put words
00:43:27.780 to. And as, and when I finished reading that and feeling understood and having compassion toward what,
00:43:34.300 who I am, I lost the, that extra anger that it took to carry out the mass shooting. And so I was
00:43:43.740 able to then go to a couple of psychologists and a psychiatrist, one for medication and one for sort
00:43:49.300 of social help. And, um, and I want to write you and say, thank you because the boy crisis, as a result
00:43:56.880 of that, um, I, I saved my own life and save the life, uh, and indirectly you save the life of, um,
00:44:04.100 countless other, um, or spared, right? What, um, so you said with that young, I'm assuming he's a young
00:44:12.960 man, what you said that he wanted to be paid attention to. He probably wanted to be significant
00:44:19.220 in some way. It's very hard personally for me to wrap my head around this idea, but we see these mass
00:44:24.380 shootings and they're always perpetuated by young men. A lot of them lack father structures, uh,
00:44:30.160 whether it's their biological father or a father figure. Uh, a lot of them are addicted to some of
00:44:36.720 these drugs that are mainlined in their veins. And, and we don't quite know all the ramifications of
00:44:41.260 that. Do you find that that's a common theme or thread that they want to be seen? That's hard for
00:44:48.500 me to imagine, but I can't help. I can't deny that that seems to be a common thread.
00:44:55.080 Yes, um, I do. That's exactly what he said to me, but, um, looking at it in a bigger picture
00:45:01.220 framework, um, the, there has been six mass, um, school shooters in the 21st century that have killed
00:45:09.000 10 or more people, um, uh, actually seven. And we know the family backgrounds of six of them.
00:45:15.460 And of those six that we know the family backgrounds for every single one of them has, um, had, has been,
00:45:22.780 uh, deprived, what I call dad deprived, deprived of a significant involvement of it, of the biological
00:45:30.300 father. Unfortunately, the biological father is more important than the stepfather. The stepfather
00:45:36.060 can be very helpful. We can, I'd be happy to dig into how the stepfather can be helpful and what
00:45:41.480 usually prevents the stepfather from being helpful, but, um, it was the biology, it was the absence of
00:45:47.660 the biological father. That was, that was, um, uh, the factor in all those cases, the mother, the,
00:45:53.900 the boy lived with the mother and usually had an antagonistic relationship with the mother,
00:45:59.480 and then was sometimes passed on to a grandmother or an aunt, just like this boy in Uvalde. This is all
00:46:05.740 true of the boy in the last big mass shooter in Uvalde, Texas. Um, and so these, um, and so this is,
00:46:14.920 uh, and what, what, so the boy doesn't feel like he has a father creating that postponed gratification
00:46:24.220 that gives him the discipline, um, to be able to do the things he really wants to do. So I am now
00:46:31.220 communicating back and forth on zoom with this, with this, um, this potential mass shooter who is
00:46:38.360 fortunately averted. And, you know, part of what he had at the very beginning was an enormous amount of
00:46:45.060 anger toward his mom. And so I asked him to role play his mom and what her bet, what her intent was.
00:46:52.720 And when he role played his mom, he said, um, you know, he, he expressed his enormous anger toward
00:46:59.760 his mom, uh, for just letting him, um, play these video games all the time and never learning how to
00:47:05.940 be a human being in the world. And so he said to his mom, why did you do this to me? So I asked him
00:47:11.880 to role play his mom, make believe he was his mom. And she, he said as his mom, uh, because you seemed
00:47:18.600 so happy then. Um, and when I wanted you to be happy and I love you and, you know, and, and this
00:47:25.560 is the only thing that seemed to make you happy. So I didn't want to take this away from you.
00:47:29.900 And when he began to really get into that, he began to see that his mom's best intent
00:47:35.540 was his love for him, even though she didn't do what he was needed, um, to do what he needed would
00:47:44.400 have made him unhappy. Um, and so she didn't want to make him unhappy in that, um, in that desire to
00:47:52.340 give him immediate gratification. She didn't help him get the structure and the postponed gratification
00:47:58.020 that he needed from being outside of his comfort zone of being just one more figure in the video
00:48:04.360 games. I do want to talk about a couple of things. Stepfathers. I also want to talk about how to help
00:48:11.280 encourage or lead, uh, your wife, uh, when maybe she doesn't see the importance of your role as a man
00:48:20.560 in it, but when you, when you bring it up as a mother's love. And I think generally speaking,
00:48:25.960 that's probably true. What then is a woman's role in the development specifically? Let's talk about
00:48:35.420 young men. What is her role? It's just that you come from a very interesting perspective where
00:48:41.180 you, you, you spent a lot of time in the feminist movement. You spent a lot of time
00:48:45.460 with women's issues. And then more recently have spent a lot of time with focusing on young men and
00:48:52.880 the crisis of boys and masculinity in general. And so I love this perspective. I'm curious what
00:48:58.420 you believe to be the role of a mother in that dynamic of raising the boys.
00:49:05.060 Yes. Well, the boys definitely benefit from mother involvement and sort of being able to sort of,
00:49:12.220 uh, be, um, be seen by their moms for their best talents and being nurtured and having those talents
00:49:20.260 pointed out and having moms brag on them. Um, and, uh, and, and just knowing that, um, in a mom's,
00:49:26.580 um, space, they can, they feel they can say anything to the mom, uh, or the mom at least
00:49:31.840 facilitates them saying anything and, um, and always has their best interests at heart. And is usually
00:49:37.500 concerned about, you know, is, is right there to prepare a meal is to, to make sure that he has the
00:49:42.740 right clothes to wear to school and things like that. Moms contribute so much, uh, including love.
00:49:47.680 Um, but one, how does that counter though, with the 60s version of feminism and the third wave
00:49:56.860 version of feminism? Cause you just said to cook him a meal, to make sure he has the clothes. I think
00:50:01.720 that's a traditionally held notion of femininity and motherhood, but how does that juxtapose with
00:50:07.700 today's perspective of a mother and her role either in the home or community or workforce?
00:50:15.400 Yes. If she's, you know, if she's involved, first of all, it really children that do best
00:50:21.140 do have two highly involved parents. And so, uh, and men and women have a lot of flexibility and
00:50:29.740 fluidity in their, in their, in their roles. And you can have a father raise the children and do the
00:50:37.460 cooking and the, and, and so on. But statistically speaking, men and women are very flexible until they
00:50:44.260 have children. And as they have children, the overwhelm of the responsibilities usually leads
00:50:50.920 to the children, to, to moms being more likely to be in the, uh, involved with the children at home
00:50:57.600 and dads being more likely to go to the workplace. Now that's not an ad, that's not an advocacy on my
00:51:02.880 part because I actually, because children that are raised predominantly by dads do extremely well.
00:51:09.500 And one of the reasons why children raised predominantly by dads do extremely well is
00:51:13.860 because when moms raise children predominantly in the traditional sense, dads sometimes try to supply
00:51:19.640 the money. And in the process of supplying the money, they oftentimes don't pay as much attention
00:51:24.480 to the children as, as would be optimal for the children. Whereas when-
00:51:28.700 I also imagine, correct me if I'm wrong, that if a dad, if it's the dad, that's primarily raising the
00:51:33.980 children that they are by default of our current societal norms going to be exposed to women,
00:51:41.920 whether it's through the public school system or grandma's around. But if you take dad out of the
00:51:48.340 picture, the likelihood of that child, son or daughter being exposed to a fixture, a masculine
00:51:55.800 manly fixture is significantly less than the default of them being exposed to women in education
00:52:01.580 or women in some sort of nurturing role. That's exactly correct. And also to start that's correct
00:52:08.660 at every level. So the first level is that when the dad is the primary breadwinner, oftentimes in
00:52:18.720 order to be able to support the family, especially you have four children to be able to support them
00:52:22.960 in a loving way. If the dad is the primary breadwinner, the mom is largely at home taking care of the
00:52:28.060 children. The dad often keeps accepting jobs to take more and more responsibility, which take him
00:52:33.660 more and more away from home. And also like if he's a salesperson locally, when they were, when they
00:52:38.820 were single and now they have four children, he will oftentimes accept responsibilities to be that
00:52:43.800 salesperson nationally. And so that will take him away from home for weekends and so on. And whereas
00:52:49.560 the mom is less likely to be willing to take those jobs that take her away nationally. And so she can be
00:52:58.100 there for the children's recital, she can be there for the children's birthday party and so on. And so
00:53:03.640 there's a tendency for when the mother is the primary caretaker for the children not to have as much of
00:53:12.620 dad as they need. Whereas when the dad is the primary caretaker, mom is more likely to still
00:53:18.780 remain involved and not take job responsibilities that lead her to break the glass ceiling, but be
00:53:27.580 away from the children too often. And it's one of the reasons why women who are mothers very rarely
00:53:33.160 break glass ceilings unless they have a full-time dad taking care of the children, or they have a full-time
00:53:40.240 nanny, but the children raised by full-time nannies as opposed to full-time dads do not tend to do as
00:53:46.820 well or feel as loved and secure as the children raised by a combination of dad and mom.
00:53:54.060 So tough question, potentially politically incorrect. What would you then suggest to a man who is looking for
00:54:04.900 a lifelong partner and a female? What do the statistics say about a woman who would like to be
00:54:12.320 in the career and pursue a career versus a woman who would like to pursue being a homemaker and finds
00:54:20.320 value in being at home and raising her children and potentially homeschooling her children and that
00:54:24.460 sort of thing? Does that have the play on who we should look to to partner with?
00:54:30.080 Yes. And it depends on who's, rather than it be the traditional way of, you know, of have mom be
00:54:38.180 homemaker and dad be breadwinner. One of the things that we really need to work with our daughters on
00:54:44.140 is to understand that if she wants to be a have-it-all woman, if she wants to break glass
00:54:49.480 ceilings, if she wants to, if she's motivated by her career and those types of challenges, and she also
00:54:57.180 wants to have a happy marriage, a happy marriage, and also have children that are raised well,
00:55:03.480 then what she needs to look for is a man whose propensities are being more of a nurturer connector
00:55:13.260 rather than a provider protector. And, but the, but in order for that to work, the woman has to respect
00:55:21.760 the man for being in that role. Marriages in which men are the primary caretaker fall apart
00:55:30.760 if the man does not feel that she respects the man for being the primary caretaker.
00:55:39.780 Does she generally?
00:55:41.760 No, that is not. Usually not. It is an effort. It is a training. It is a conscious selection process.
00:55:52.440 And women are very much more likely to be at work. And then somebody who's really an outstanding
00:56:00.000 person at work, they have respect for that person. And they're likely to pull away and
00:56:05.400 feelings of attraction to that person. The father will pick it up, pick up that energy, pick up,
00:56:12.040 you know, maybe go to a Christmas party or a holiday party. And, and we'll start seeing the
00:56:17.920 connection between his wife and that man that's more successful. And that, then that will lead to
00:56:23.260 anger and so on. And the woman will feel, well, gee, you're so insecure. And then that will, you know,
00:56:28.720 that will go down a sliding slope of negativity, which is what, one of the reasons why two things
00:56:34.380 are so important is helping women understand that this is the type of, if you have the type of personality
00:56:41.360 that wants to be a habitable woman, you can suggest, you can't allow yourself to fall in love with another
00:56:48.620 superstar type of male and raise children. You can do that if you don't want to raise children.
00:56:54.540 But if you want to raise children and you want to have something other than a nanny take care of the
00:56:58.480 children and, and, and you want your children to feel as internally secure as possible and to feel
00:57:04.120 the love of their mother and father, that in selecting all of this, one has to always remember
00:57:09.840 that a child looks in the mirror and the child when she or he looks in the mirror is half the mother
00:57:16.360 and half the father. And they sense that, I have the, I have the, you know, that thick, beautiful hair
00:57:22.780 of my father. I have my, this quality of my mom. And, you know, and if you're, and if either one of
00:57:28.900 them are not around to love them and, and, but the nanny is wonderful. They, they don't feel the
00:57:35.720 connection from the nanny that is that, that, that is that half of them. And this is not because nannies
00:57:43.280 are bad. It's because the children need to feel that, that, that connection to the biological dad and the
00:57:49.940 biological mom, which is why even though stepdads can be helpful. It's rare that the stepdad is as
00:57:56.860 when I wrote, you know, the boy crisis book and a book before that on this issue. And I was a
00:58:02.500 stepfather. I sent this to the draft of the book to the biological father. He was impacted by it enough
00:58:09.580 to move back from 500 miles away from the children to, to be more with the children, because he saw that
00:58:16.820 it wasn't Warren Farrell stepdad that was really needed by the children. Um, yes, he has all these
00:58:23.580 sort of nurture connector skills, but it makes less difference than, than it does to the children to
00:58:30.140 have me, him, uh, with, with, with them. So I, I take a little bit of an issue with this phrase that
00:58:37.840 you've used of the have it all woman. Yes. I just, I just don't think that's possible. I think,
00:58:44.660 and help, let's talk about this. Let's hash this out a little bit to the degree that we can. I just,
00:58:49.360 when we say that basically what we're telling women is that you can go out and you can pursue
00:58:54.980 this incredible career and you can make partner and you can run this fortune 500 company and you
00:59:01.500 can be the best possible mother. And I just don't think that's the case the same way as a father
00:59:06.660 though, too. I, I, I recognize that although I work at home and I try to be as active as possible,
00:59:12.800 like as I can in my kid's life, there is a sacrifice that I have to make. And I think
00:59:17.740 generally speaking, based on what I've seen, men are more prone to make that sacrifice and women,
00:59:24.620 especially as you get older and, and potentially lose some of their childbearing years, start to hold
00:59:30.600 some regrets and some animosity about some decisions regarding being this quote unquote,
00:59:37.580 have it all type woman. Yes. I actually agree with you. Um, when, uh, if you're a, but, but there's,
00:59:47.320 there's a degree issue here. Um, when women have children, um, and they, they're, they want to have
00:59:54.280 really good careers. They can do that if they are prioritizing their being home for their children
01:00:01.760 and with their children. Um, and so the, but that prioritization of being home with and for their
01:00:09.620 children usually will prevent them from being, from breaking a glass ceiling of being a CEO of a
01:00:16.420 significant company. Um, and if they are a CEO of a significant company, oftentimes that priority of
01:00:24.440 being with their children will begin to get lost in the shuffle. And so you're, you're absolutely right.
01:00:30.800 But you, but have it all in that looser sense of, I want a career and a career is really inspiring to
01:00:39.080 me. Um, as long as you're not, as long as you are also prioritizing the, you know, when there's a
01:00:45.200 conflict between the children and the career, there's enough flexibility there to be with the
01:00:50.000 children to a greater degree. Um, even though the children may have to occasionally miss the mom for
01:00:54.980 this reason or that reason. And a certain amount of that is not bad, but too much of that goes the other
01:01:00.360 way. Um, but that does usually prevent the woman from being have it all in the sense of being a CEO
01:01:07.720 of a significant corporation or doing a startup, uh, that requires usually an enormous amount of time
01:01:14.560 in the early years. Um, so you're absolutely right there. Yeah. I just, I, and, and I, and I'm not
01:01:20.680 putting this just on, I put this on myself. I think about my business. There's been many times
01:01:24.820 where I've throttled the business. Um, maybe there was an opportunity to go speak in public
01:01:31.140 that I could have made five or six figures in the pursuit of doing, and I've decided,
01:01:35.640 thank you, but no, thank you. Yes. They're just choices. And to say that we can have it all
01:01:42.180 is a bit of a misnomer. You can have anything, but you can't have all of it.
01:01:46.540 Yes. If you're taking it, this is a thing of degree. If you're, if you want a career
01:01:52.780 while you're raising children that, and you define have it all that way, that is possible.
01:01:58.980 If you have the father at home helping to raise the children, and particularly if there's less
01:02:05.640 danger as a mom, mom, that you will get carried away because there's less identity. Um, in for,
01:02:13.400 for women, there's less identity and going around saying I'm a CEO because you, you, and if you have
01:02:19.560 children, there'll also be lots of people questioning your, the amount of involvement you have with your
01:02:24.880 children. Whereas you're, if you're a dad and you're a CEO, there's, there's, there's the people
01:02:31.620 will often stop with the admiration for your being that CEO and not take you to, you know, what's your
01:02:37.800 relationship with your children like. And so we, as people, as supporters of healthy children, um, we, we need
01:02:46.280 to be able to make sure that we are, um, talking with fathers and mothers about, um, what's your
01:02:52.740 connection to your children. And in that, in that framework, here's an important thing. Um, once your
01:02:59.080 family has, depending on where in the United States you live, between 50 and $80,000 worth of income for a
01:03:07.540 family of four, once your family has that amount of income per year for a family of four, um, the,
01:03:16.120 the children benefit more from dad's time than dad's dime.
01:03:22.960 Hmm. What was the amount? What did, what amount did you say time versus dime? I like that.
01:03:27.700 Yes. Um, uh, between 50 and 80,000, depending on where in the United States you live, obviously,
01:03:32.480 you know, to live in Maine is a lot less expensive than living, um, you know, in San, in San Francisco
01:03:38.260 or New York city. Sure. Sure. So, um, but, but, um, the children very rarely go to therapists and say,
01:03:46.760 I wish my father or mother spent more money on me. Yes. I imagine that doesn't get brought up a whole
01:03:55.560 lot. No, no. And, and, and, and many people are likely to say, you know, we, we came from a poor
01:04:01.560 background, but I had a lot of love for my mom and dad. And, um, and that allowed me to be resilient
01:04:07.780 or to, to, you know, to get through a lot of things in life and it wasn't so bad. And I appreciate this
01:04:13.720 and that as a result of not having so much money. Yeah. That's a good point. Even in my own, again,
01:04:18.980 anecdotally, you know, some, there were stretches months at a time where, you know, I just didn't see
01:04:25.640 my mom a whole lot and it wasn't because she was out doing her thing. It was because she was
01:04:29.640 working two and three jobs at a time to make sure I never had to question whether it was food on the
01:04:34.080 table or a roof overhead and looking back on it now. And I think, you know, there's probably a lot
01:04:40.300 of nights where my mom was in her bedroom by herself alone, crying herself to sleep and never
01:04:49.480 making a sound that me or my sister could hear. Yeah. Yeah. I would, I would, I would bet you are
01:04:59.640 right. I think there's a big element to what you're talking about, about here with just knowing
01:05:05.800 yourself, right? Knowing what you want, knowing what you're after, and then being willing to make
01:05:10.600 those trades. But I am very interested as we, as we get closer to time here, um, what you would
01:05:18.980 suggest to a man, maybe it's a, uh, uh, a first time marriage, maybe it's a second or third marriage
01:05:27.180 with stepchildren and stepfather situation so that a man could help get his wife on board with
01:05:35.640 understanding his contribution. Although she may not fully understand his contribution to the
01:05:42.080 dynamic of the marriage and the dynamic of raising children. Yes. Very good. Very important question.
01:05:47.800 The most important single thing I can suggest is go to the chapter in the boy crisis, where I talk
01:05:53.800 about the differences between dad style parenting and mom style parenting and, and fill yourself
01:06:01.480 yourself with why your style parenting, your likelihood to tease more, your likelihood to
01:06:07.940 encourage the kids to take risks more. You're likely to, to be okay with the children failing
01:06:12.920 more. You're likelihood to be willing to roughhouse more. You're likely to, to do, um, the sports and
01:06:18.580 activities with the children, um, in which you actually participate, uh, your likelihood to beat the
01:06:24.100 children at the sport when they're not focusing enough and letting them cry and come out the other
01:06:29.600 side of that and still knowing that you were there for them. Dozens of things like that, um, are
01:06:35.560 differences between dad and mom style parenting on average. Again, sometimes it's reversed. And then
01:06:40.800 once you get those under your belt, do not treat them as this makes my style parenting better, but rather
01:06:48.360 that this is a contribution that I offer. And let's talk about your contribution and let's put, let's get
01:06:54.900 the best of both worlds together. So the children want to climb a tree. Mom feels it's too dangerous.
01:07:00.860 Um, maybe in a few years, dad feels it's not so dangerous. Um, you know, the child should be let,
01:07:06.540 allowed to climb the tree and mom and dad negotiate. Okay. The child can climb the tree, but not be past a
01:07:12.360 certain point. And dad, you have to be out underneath the tree without your cell phone to, uh, falls out of
01:07:21.240 the tree. Right. Um, so you can, you can cushion the child and then, but dad has to know that climbing
01:07:28.080 that tree increases risks. Um, risk is, is riskier and risk taking and knowing what risk to take and
01:07:35.640 what risks not to take actually develops synapses in a child's brain, uh, connects them that increases
01:07:42.560 a child's intelligence IQ, literally IQ. And there's, there's so much evidence to show that dad style
01:07:51.380 parenting has something to offer. But to this day, I've never heard a dad say, you know, sweetie,
01:07:56.980 I'd like to do some roughhousing with the kids because I think it'll make them more empathetic.
01:08:01.960 That's counterintuitive.
01:08:03.660 Yeah. It's so counterintuitive and moms can't hear what dads don't say. And on the other hand,
01:08:09.620 dads, um, um, need to also listen to what mom's contributions are, you know, what the contribution
01:08:16.320 of making sure that the child has you under the tree when she or he potentially falls and that
01:08:21.660 you're not focused on your cell phone. You're focused on the child, um, falling in your, but
01:08:25.480 on the other hand, that you're not child telling the child everything to do, um, you know, what to
01:08:30.820 do and what not to do as a mom is more likely to do. No, sweetie, don't go there. Uh, the dad is
01:08:35.860 more likely to sit, let the child go there and learn from making a mistake that that was not the
01:08:42.060 place she or he should have gone to. And so all of these things have are balancing acts. So once
01:08:49.000 you understand, now let's say, let me spend a moment with a, with a mom who's a single mom,
01:08:53.320 like your mom was. Um, and so what to do if you are a single mom and you don't have that dad to
01:09:00.000 balance this, uh, number one, ask yourself the question, can you get the biological dad involved
01:09:07.060 again? And if the answer is no, ask yourself a second question of, um, uh, no man well enough
01:09:14.680 to know that when men feel needed, wanted and valued, they almost always appear. Think every
01:09:26.260 generation had its war. When uncle Sam said, we need you to be willing to die so others can be saved
01:09:37.520 and live. Every generation of men stepped forward with so when they were told they were needed,
01:09:44.460 they were willing to die to serve just like, um, like I doubtless you did in the military. And so the,
01:09:53.720 and so if you tell a dad, I have learned what the value of your dad style parenting is. I didn't
01:10:03.100 understand that before the children need this to be part of their life in balance with me. I want to
01:10:10.600 be able to do good communication training with you so I can hear your contribution and have you hear
01:10:16.720 my contribution. I do couples communication workshops all around the country exactly for this
01:10:21.840 reason. If you know, you don't have good communication, you tend to get a divorce. You
01:10:26.400 don't have, you get a divorce. There tends to be less father involvement, less father involvement.
01:10:31.480 There tends to be a boy crisis. They're all connected. And so the first job is to see if you can get the
01:10:37.760 biological dad involved. If you can't get the biological dad involved, um, make sure your children are
01:10:44.180 involved with the liberal arts of sports, which is basically team sports, pickup team sports and
01:10:51.760 individual sports like gymnastics that contribute to a team, but there's a lot of focus on discipline.
01:10:56.860 Um, and then make sure you make contact with the male coaches of your, for your sons to make sure
01:11:03.200 that the end for your daughters to make sure that the, the, the female and your daughter and son
01:11:08.160 has somebody in their life, um, who can, can be, can care for them. That's male, but that's particularly
01:11:15.840 important for your son, because if you're a female and, and he's a male and he has no, um, option of
01:11:22.320 another male role model that leaves him, um, going, going oftentimes, um, from a home to a school with very
01:11:30.260 few female role models. And there's usually not a diversity of male role models at school. Even there's
01:11:36.160 usually a small number, and most of them are nurturer connector type of men rather than provider protector
01:11:42.280 men. Or coaches. And if you're not playing sports, you're not going to be introduced to them.
01:11:47.140 Exactly. Exactly. And so, um, also make sure you get your children involved with faith-based communities.
01:11:52.620 And no matter what your faith is, make sure the, the person, the priest, the rabbi, the, um,
01:11:58.740 the minister or the imam, uh, that he, uh, organizes your son into, um, small groups with other boys his
01:12:06.660 age in which the boys learn to express their feelings confidentially to each other. So your boy sees that
01:12:13.660 his insecurities are not the, uh, are, are not, um, abnormal, that they're not, they're not his alone.
01:12:20.700 And so just spend time, um, in the boy crisis book, looking at all the things you can do to, um, to get
01:12:28.720 your son to have, uh, a stepfather involved, uh, involving a stepfather does not mean your son is
01:12:36.660 going to get the benefits of a stepfather. Learn the difference between the, the multiple types of
01:12:42.000 involvements of a stepfather so that, that allow the stepfather not to be just an advisor that's
01:12:48.280 powerless, but to have an equal balance of power with you, um, even as a stepfather.
01:12:55.480 I have so many more notes. I think we're going to have to do another one if you're open to it.
01:13:01.180 Cause I, I, a couple of things that I want to talk more about with you at a, at a future date is
01:13:07.580 issues like same sex marriage. Um, you know, uh, if there's a boy crisis, is there a girl crisis in,
01:13:18.020 in the lack of fatherhood? I, I got so, I got so many questions. So if you're open to it,
01:13:25.180 I'd love to have another conversation, but this has just been so valuable and I've always appreciated
01:13:29.800 our talks and of course your wisdom. And, um, I heard you on, uh, Jordan Peterson's podcast,
01:13:35.420 several, I think several weeks or a month or so ago, I read your book. Um, I haven't read any of
01:13:41.560 your others. Maybe I need to pick up a few of your others. I've only read the boy crisis,
01:13:44.900 but I've been so enlightened and it's really helped me be a better parent, a better father
01:13:49.240 for my children and leader in the community as well. Oh, thank you very much. I really appreciate
01:13:54.180 that. And so, um, and I, you, you ask great questions, you are personal, you connect to your
01:14:01.000 real life. Um, I assume, and then you listen really well. And so it's just a pleasure, um,
01:14:06.520 um, being interviewed by you and interviewing a little bit, interviewing you as well.
01:14:10.960 Yeah. You asked me some good questions as well. Is there any way good, good, good. I'd love to do
01:14:18.480 that. Is there anywhere that you would direct the guys who are listening to be able to connect with
01:14:22.740 you? Obviously pick up a copy of the boy crisis, uh, any other resources or directions you could
01:14:27.680 give them in? Yes. One thing is I've, I've gotten a lot of positive feedback to the audible version of
01:14:33.480 the boy crisis from a lot of people who are, if you do commuting or you do, um, you know, you're on a
01:14:38.980 treadmill and stuff, doing exercises, uh, often listening to the audible version is, um, very much
01:14:44.500 easier. Um, if you're a reader of the, the, the print version has the value of, um, having all the
01:14:50.300 800 footnotes in the back and to be able to go over it a little bit more easily in that way. So,
01:14:55.580 um, don't shy away from whatever style allows you to learn the best. Uh, the boy crisis,
01:15:01.900 Amazon has it on sale now, but if you're, you know, if you have enough money, just support your local
01:15:06.960 bookstore, um, and, and that. Excellent. Well, we'll sync everything up. We'll let the guys know
01:15:12.300 and Dr. Farrell, again, I appreciate you. Thank you for what you do. You're, you're, and I talked
01:15:18.340 about this, your background is just so diverse and so distinct that I think it gives you a power that
01:15:23.120 a lot of us may not quite have because we haven't seen it from both sides of the equation and you
01:15:28.480 certainly have. So really appreciate you taking some time with us today. Thank you. It's been a real
01:15:33.100 pleasure, um, working with you and talking with you. There you go, man. I hope you enjoyed the
01:15:40.520 conversation as much as I did. What a powerful, powerful discussion. And, uh, as you heard in
01:15:45.760 the podcast, I'm going to be bringing this gentleman back on because we need to, I've got
01:15:50.060 about 17,000 other questions that I need to ask Dr. Farrell. And, uh, if you have any interest
01:15:57.460 in figuring out how I can get your questions answered, then make sure to connect with me
01:16:03.080 on the socials, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and let me know, Hey, I want to hear from Dr.
01:16:08.440 Farrell about X, Y, and Z. I want to hear from Joe Schmo about A, B, and C. I want to hear from
01:16:12.780 whoever it is that you want to hear from and what you want to hear. And I will do my best to give
01:16:18.560 you a voice on this podcast by asking your thoughtful questions. Uh, in the meantime, guys,
01:16:25.320 please connect with Dr. Farrell on Instagram and also Twitter connect with me there. Take a
01:16:30.460 screenshot. Also do me a favor. If you have a father of boys in your life, who, you know, that
01:16:36.900 could be potentially your father. Uh, that could be a friend, a neighborhood or not a neighborhood,
01:16:44.920 excuse me, a neighbor, a relative, whoever it might be. And you think they need to hear this
01:16:48.980 conversation. Please just take a screenshot, send the link over. This is how we do a grassroots
01:16:53.780 movement to build this organization up and ultimately to serve you guys and serve the
01:16:58.660 young men of our community and nation. All right, you guys, you have your marching orders. Make sure
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