Order of Man - The 'Quiet Quit' is Destroying Your Family ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

00:00:00.000 Your physical presence in the home and genuine engagement in the home are not the same thing.

00:00:06.680 And the data that we have on physical absence doesn't really capture the entire picture of the emotional, the relational, the mental weight of men who are technically in the house, but they're functionally, practically gone.

00:00:25.060 And that's what I'm calling the quiet quit.

00:00:26.720 you have heard the term quiet quitting uh it has become a very popular buzzword probably what a few

00:00:35.280 years ago uh when employees started doing the bare minimum work showing up collecting their

00:00:42.500 paycheck of course they're not going to quit on that uh but they're completely checked out

00:00:46.640 there's no initiative there's no investment just occupying space uh we talked about it we

00:00:55.380 criticized it. Maybe a lot of us probably looked at those guys and thought, you know, that's not

00:01:00.680 me. I would not do that. But here's what I want to challenge you with today. A lot of men who

00:01:07.280 would never quiet, quick, quit, excuse me, at work, they're doing the exact same thing at home

00:01:14.000 and they probably don't even realize it. You know, they're there physically. They're present.

00:01:19.860 technically they're there present uh they're in the house they're at dinner they're you know

00:01:25.860 sitting on the couch but they're somewhere else entirely and if i think you're being honest you

00:01:30.500 probably would agree with that you're checked out to some degree or at least maybe you have been

00:01:35.500 you're coasting you're doing just enough to avoid the fight with your wife or avoid a tough

00:01:42.040 conversation or avoid the discomfort of actually showing up and being engaged administering

00:01:49.220 disciplined, having deep conversations, having challenging confrontations. And that's what I'm

00:01:55.920 calling the quiet quit at home. And I think it's one of the most dangerous, and I'm not even being

00:02:04.880 hyperbolic here, one of the most dangerous and probably underdiagnosed problems that are facing

00:02:10.920 men today. And I'm going to share some statistics with you and tell you why this matters. And so

00:02:17.000 let's start with the numbers because i want you to understand the stakes before we get into the why

00:02:21.780 this is happening and then also the fix which is what i'm going to address with you today and

00:02:25.620 and we talk a lot about absent fathers in the quote-unquote manosphere but most of the time

00:02:31.960 we mean physically absent we don't mean mentally or emotionally absent it's men who walked out

00:02:39.880 it's men who stepped away from their families it's men who aren't even in the picture and yes

00:02:44.600 that's definitely a crisis. The U.S. Census Bureau says that nearly one in four American children,

00:02:53.260 which would be around 19 million kids, are growing up in a household without a father.

00:03:01.420 The United States, this one's sobering, has the highest rate of fatherlessness homes of any nation

00:03:08.460 on earth. And I want you to think about that. The U.S. has the highest rate of fatherless homes

00:03:13.620 of any nation on the planet and and what is the outcome what is the result they're they're

00:03:20.260 devastating children from father absent homes account for about 85 percent of the youth in

00:03:30.020 prison they account for about 70 percent of high school dropouts they account for about 65 percent

00:03:37.740 of youth suicides. They're twice as likely to suffer depression, four times more likely to

00:03:45.780 live in poverty. And check this out, 90% of runaway children came from homes where dad isn't present.

00:03:55.680 So father absence doesn't just hurt kids, it permeates all of society. And research shows

00:04:02.920 that women who grew up without present fathers are more likely to have children who also grow up

00:04:08.160 without present fathers. This is not a surprise. The wound that we create when we're not present 0.88

00:04:13.640 travels across generations of men. And I think we're only now beginning to slip into the

00:04:21.660 ramifications of what that looks like. Now, hopefully most of you are listening and most

00:04:28.420 of you I think are probably not that guy you're in the home right you didn't leave and you deserve

00:04:36.620 credit for that because it's challenging and it's hard but here's the here's the truth and I really

00:04:41.820 want you to sit with this your physical presence in the home and genuine engagement in the home

00:04:50.500 are not the same thing and the data that we have on physical absence doesn't really capture the

00:04:57.460 entire picture of the emotional uh the relational the mental weight of men who are technically

00:05:05.440 in the house but they're functionally practically gone and that's what i'm calling the quiet quit

00:05:13.640 and it's happening in homes all over the country including maybe yours

00:05:18.580 but why if that's the case is it so hard to see what what is the problem well i'd say it's hard

00:05:28.360 because it's very intangible and here's what makes this so destructive and hard to see

00:05:34.240 work for example and fitness for example they give you feedback right you can get feedback from work

00:05:43.000 from your finances from your fitness but you can't necessarily get it as easily at home

00:05:47.400 so think about your job there's there's metrics there's deliverables there's deadlines there's

00:05:52.740 quotas your boss tells you when something isn't good enough you get a performance review you you

00:06:00.320 close the deal or you don't you lose the client or you get one the feedback loop is it's tight

00:06:05.440 it's consistent and then think about your fitness you either hit that lift or you miss it you either

00:06:12.760 lifted more this week than you did last week or you didn't. You either ran those miles or you

00:06:18.280 didn't. That bar does not lie. It's objective. It's the same weight regardless of how you show

00:06:26.960 up. The scale doesn't lie. Your reflection in the mirror, it doesn't lie. Progress in those realms

00:06:33.820 is measurable. It's visible even. And the regression that you might have is also visible

00:06:39.840 and measurable. Now think about being a husband and a father. What, what are the metrics?

00:06:49.500 When's the last time you got a performance review on your presence as a dad?

00:06:55.240 How do you know if you're actually showing up emotionally for your wife? There's no dashboard.

00:07:02.120 There's no quarterly report. There's no scale that you can jump on. There's no number on a

00:07:06.720 screen telling you that your engagement score dropped 12% this month. The feedback that you

00:07:14.660 might receive at home, it's a little bit softer. It's delayed. And it's also easy to rationalize

00:07:20.560 away. You didn't hit little Timmy's baseball game because you were working. So you can rationalize

00:07:24.680 that away. Maybe your kid seems fine. Maybe your wife isn't complaining. Or if she is, you've gotten

00:07:31.680 really good at explaining it away or ignoring it nothing's on fire so you tell yourself that

00:07:39.480 things are good and this happened to me i thought i was doing really really well until one day my

00:07:43.700 ex asked for a divorce and that's the danger of a system with no clear metrics you don't know that

00:07:51.680 you're failing until the damage is already done and by the time a kid stops trying to talk to you

00:07:58.120 or he stopped trying to connect with you.

00:08:04.840 That was years ago.

00:08:06.140 By the time your wife feels like a roommate

00:08:08.700 or that she wants a divorce,

00:08:10.740 that distance built up inch by inch,

00:08:14.400 cut by cut, day by day,

00:08:16.220 over a really long period of time. 1.00

00:08:18.260 The statistics say that once a woman

00:08:20.360 finally admits to her husband

00:08:22.460 that she wants a divorce,

00:08:24.040 she's been thinking about it for two plus years.

00:08:26.260 so you've had two years that she's been evaluating whether or not she should be

00:08:35.480 engaged in that relationship with you and look i'm not here to tell you that's that's right it's

00:08:40.080 not it's wrong she should be a big girl and communicate effectively with you but now that

00:08:45.900 becomes your problem this quiet quit doesn't just announce itself it just quietly hollows out it

00:08:54.740 roots out the most important things in your life while you're busy hopefully performing in other

00:09:00.760 areas of life where performance is easier to measure we we as men i believe are are hardwired

00:09:09.140 to pursue mastery we want to be good at what we do but when that scoreboard isn't visible

00:09:17.240 a lot of us unconsciously redirect our energy to the arenas that we actually can score so it's work

00:09:26.100 it's the gym it's the hobbies it's the the finances and we under invest in that arena that

00:09:33.460 matters most because it offers the least feedback that's what it means the less feedback we have

00:09:41.880 the less inclined we are to attempt to improve it and that's not weakness guys that's just human

00:09:47.300 nature but if you understand it then it means you can actually fight it you can you can fight it

00:09:51.960 and so what is this what does this quiet quit look like so i'm going to get specific with you

00:09:58.800 so you can self-diagnose in a way that quiet quit at home doesn't look like neglect what it looks

00:10:07.360 like is that you come home and your first move is your phone. It's not your kid, not your wife.

00:10:13.380 It's your phone or the game. You know, you're sitting at dinner, but you're thinking about

00:10:17.540 a work problem and everybody in the family knows it. You might even ask, well, how was your day

00:10:24.240 guys? But you're not actually listening to the answer. You're physically in the room while your

00:10:30.660 kids does homework but you're not engaged you're not available and and that's a difference maybe

00:10:41.040 your wife tries to have an actual conversation with you and and you give short one word answers

00:10:48.260 until she just stops trying and then you question why doesn't she connect with me anymore she's been

00:10:54.300 trying bro she's been trying maybe you opt out of difficult conversations because you're tired

00:11:03.220 or maybe you'll get to it later or because there's always tomorrow hopefully

00:11:08.920 you know you tell yourself and this is this was my trap you tell yourself you're providing

00:11:14.520 financially maybe logistically maybe physically you put food on the table roof over the family's

00:11:21.800 head you go on vacations you've got your 401k you've got your Roth IRA and you're just living

00:11:26.580 you know the perfect little charmed life and you're confusing provision with actually being

00:11:32.080 present we talked about this last week the seven realms of masculine provision so does any of that

00:11:37.520 hit home for you and and if it does good I'm not I'm not here to shame you about it I'm not here

00:11:43.740 to tell you I have it all figured out it's here to wake you up because the fact that you're listening

00:11:51.000 to this message and this podcast tells me that you're the kind of man who actually wants to do

00:11:57.120 better in your life. That quiet quitter in the office doesn't really seek out self-improvement

00:12:05.840 on a Friday morning when I release this podcast, but you do. So what's the root of this? Well,

00:12:13.300 there's a few things that I think are driving this and I want to name them plainly so we can

00:12:18.580 begin to put a face on the enemy. So number one, exhaustion. So many men are just exhausted.

00:12:27.820 You're giving everything you have to your work, your business, your other obligations. And by the

00:12:33.980 time you walk through that front door of your house, the tank is empty and I get it. But here's

00:12:42.420 what I've learned is that your family doesn't need you to have a full tank. You don't actually have

00:12:47.200 to have a full tank. They just need your attention for a little bit. It's just a little bit of

00:12:54.360 presence, a little bit of awareness, a little bit of how was your day, a little bit of like being

00:12:57.820 engaged and attention. Unlike energy is just a choice. You just decide I'm going to give this

00:13:07.440 some attention. I can be tired, but I can be engaged. Number two is avoidance because at home

00:13:15.020 is where a lot of real conversations live

00:13:17.820 and it's where a lot of our inadequacies are exposed.

00:13:21.980 It's where your kid is struggling

00:13:23.660 and you don't really know what to say.

00:13:27.860 It's where your marriage has friction and fractures

00:13:32.500 that you haven't addressed.

00:13:35.360 It's scrolling through your phone

00:13:36.880 or losing yourself in a project.

00:13:39.340 You know, maybe you're working on the bathroom,

00:13:40.660 remodeling the bathroom

00:13:41.680 because that's easier than sitting in the discomfort

00:13:44.820 of a relationship that needs attention so what do we do as men we check out it's not malicious by

00:13:52.740 the way it's just avoidance we check out and we think well i'm doing my job i'm remodeling the

00:13:56.620 bathroom so they should just be happy with this well they're not and you're not either by the way

00:14:03.260 all right the next one is what i would say is a sense of misplaced identity

00:14:11.860 because a lot of us as men derive our identity and confidence from external performance right

00:14:18.280 so it's our career it's our physique it's our bank account it's the amount of friends that we have

00:14:24.820 it's the car that we drive those things are real but if that's where your sense of worth comes from

00:14:30.520 or your validation comes from you're always going to be drawn towards the the the factors of life

00:14:37.520 that you can score points

00:14:42.640 and it's going to be drawn away from the areas of life

00:14:48.000 where the score is intangible or invisible.

00:14:50.920 Like what does it actually mean to be a better father?

00:14:53.360 I have some answers to that

00:14:54.720 and we'll talk about that in the future.

00:14:55.940 But if you don't know what that means,

00:14:58.060 then how are you going to improve?

00:15:00.320 The next guys is no standard.

00:15:02.060 Most men were never taught what excellent fatherhood

00:15:05.840 and being a husband actually looks like as a daily practice they know the big things protect

00:15:12.980 provide preside showing up for the game don't cheat on your wife uh provide financially put

00:15:19.440 the roof over the head but the granular daily standard no most men don't understand it they're

00:15:27.160 just winging it and when you don't have a standard what do you default to whatever's comfortable

00:15:33.320 the path of least resistance, physics one-on-one. So you've got to identify a standard. So here's

00:15:41.560 some action steps for you. And here's how you begin to re-engage with the people that you love.

00:15:46.500 So I want to get really practical. There's five things that I think you can start implementing

00:15:50.540 right now today. So number one is to actually build a home performance standard because you

00:15:56.600 have those standards at work. You know what a good day looks like professionally. Do the same

00:16:00.700 at home. Write it down. Get out your notepad. I've got a notepad right here. I write in every

00:16:05.580 single day. What does being an excellent husband look like this week specifically? Is it the amount

00:16:14.180 of minutes that you talk with your wife? Is it the amount of intimate moments? Is it date night?

00:16:19.500 Is it how she's feeling? What does it actually look like? What does it look like to be a fully

00:16:27.060 present father. Does it mean they're having conversations? Is it an amount of time? Is it

00:16:33.440 coaching your kid's game? Is it going to your daughter's recital? What does it actually look

00:16:38.360 like? And it doesn't have to be elaborate. It could be even something as simple as

00:16:42.540 I will put my phone away for the first 30 minutes I'm at home. If you can do that,

00:16:49.460 great. You're winning. Another one is I will initiate one real conversation with my wife

00:16:55.340 today so after the kids go to bed maybe you talk to her and you're like hey babe tell me about your

00:17:01.060 day what was the hardest part of your day what was the best part of your day what are you doing

00:17:06.220 tomorrow what are your goals for next week what are you afraid of another one might be i will do

00:17:12.660 one intentional thing with my kid this evening so maybe you take little timmy out and you play catch

00:17:18.000 maybe you watch your daughter play the the piano or do her dance recital or maybe you play catch

00:17:25.040 with her maybe you build lego with your son because he loves lego my youngest happens to

00:17:30.760 love lego and so that's what we do because if you're going to be vague in your interpretation

00:17:35.860 of what are results then you're going to have vague results specificity is the power of this

00:17:43.780 All right. Number two is create what I call a threshold ritual. So what you need to do is decide

00:17:50.000 that the moment you cross the threshold of your front door, you are all in, not 80% in

00:17:57.780 with a part of your brain still at work. I'm talking all in. Now, some guys might do this

00:18:03.680 physically. Maybe you'll sit in the driveway for five minutes and just decompress and consciously

00:18:10.220 transition. I had a friend who would quite literally hang for about 30 to 60 seconds on

00:18:16.400 the tree limb of his tree in his front yard. Before he walked in the door, I asked him why

00:18:20.300 he did it. And he said, because I'm hanging my troubles at the door. When I started doing this

00:18:26.700 right, I would transition from work to family life because I had about a 30 minute commute

00:18:32.620 and I wouldn't listen to any music, no podcasting, no CDs, no book on tape, none of that kind of

00:18:37.460 stuff. And I would just sit in quiet and think about what being a present father and husband

00:18:42.200 actually look like. Some guys will just say a phrase to themselves, whatever works. I don't

00:18:48.940 care, but you need to be deliberate about that mental transition between your work self and your

00:18:56.100 home self, because walking in distracted and calling it presence, that doesn't cut it guys.

00:19:01.520 and you know it all right number three audit your attention not not just your time but your

00:19:07.460 attention because you might be spending plenty of hours at home and almost none of it actually

00:19:13.420 counts it's like doing push-ups but not extending yourself further far enough or going all the way

00:19:20.180 down or doing a pull-up but not putting your chin above the bar you just come up to your forehead

00:19:24.480 You're doing work. It just doesn't count. Make the reps count. Stop counting the hours and start

00:19:33.440 evaluating the quality. Where were you actually engaged? Were you there and present during dinner?

00:19:38.780 Were you asking good questions? Did you hear what your kids said? Or did you hear the noise

00:19:44.300 of what they said? There's a difference. Those of you who are fathers know that.

00:19:48.780 attention is what i would call the currency of connection

00:19:53.080 time without attention is just proximity and there's some value in that but it isn't as

00:19:59.900 efficient as it otherwise could be number four schedule difficult and hard conversations

00:20:05.820 one of the biggest drivers of quiet quitting at home is emotional avoidance

00:20:10.900 you know there might be something unresolved with your wife and you just kind of let it bubble under

00:20:17.200 the surface or your teenager or yourself. And it's just way easier as a man to stay busy than

00:20:23.660 to deal with it. So just schedule it, literally block out the time, tell your wife, Hey, babe,

00:20:30.740 I'd like to sit down and talk through some things on Thursday night. And maybe even more specific,

00:20:35.820 I'd like to talk about how I'm showing up as a father, or I'd like to talk about how I'm showing

00:20:41.740 up as a husband on Thursday night, what works for you. And she says, well, yeah, that sounds

00:20:47.180 great. How about Thursday at nine o'clock after the kids go to bed? Great. Done. Put it in the

00:20:52.580 calendar because that forces accountability and it signals to your wife and your kids that you're

00:20:57.740 not going to keep kicking the can down the road. Schedule it. Number five, last one here, get

00:21:02.900 accountability outside of the home. Every man needs brothers who can call him out on his blind

00:21:08.500 spots. I have guys that I talk with literally every single day inside the iron council and we

00:21:15.040 sent a message every single morning. It's ritualistic. Hey, here's what I did yesterday.

00:21:21.020 Here's how many points I got for what I'm trying to do. Here's the thing that's keeping me up at

00:21:24.460 night. Here's the thing I want to accomplish. And here's my win for the day. I do that every

00:21:28.100 single day with my guys. There's five of us. And one of the biggest blind spots that you have is

00:21:35.560 how you show up at home. And not surprisingly, I had a call with these guys today. I'm just

00:21:43.320 trying to think about it here yeah every single one of us our biggest issue was something about

00:21:50.420 the family and home dynamic it wasn't work it wasn't physique it wasn't any of that stuff it

00:21:54.260 was the family dynamic so i know this is real you know your wife can tell you to do things or ask

00:22:00.660 that you do things but that creates a dynamic where like she's your accountability coach is

00:22:05.200 as if you're accountable to your wife it's not fair to her and it puts you on the defensive

00:22:11.000 and it weakens your position of authority and influence so find a brother a friend a man inside

00:22:17.520 again the iron council or mentor somebody a coach somebody you've hired and just be ruthlessly

00:22:22.520 honest about it tell them where you're slipping let them ask you hard and challenging questions

00:22:30.220 because systems beat the willpower in brotherhood i i believe is one of the most powerful systems

00:22:36.320 available to men so guys here's what i want to leave you with we know that the data on fatherless

00:22:43.760 homes is horrific it's tragic but i argue that quiet quitting happening in intact homes in homes

00:22:54.140 where you as a dad are physically present but relationally checked out is just as dangerous

00:22:59.180 and far less discussed because at least when a man leaves there's there's a clear problem to

00:23:07.660 address right like he's gone he's out of the picture there's a clear problem we got to address

00:23:11.840 it but when he stays when you stick around but you check out the damage that happens is invisible

00:23:17.840 until it isn't and your wife says i want a divorce or your kids say they don't want to

00:23:24.060 talk with you anymore. Your family doesn't need you to be a perfect man. They just need you to

00:23:29.580 be a present one. They need you to be a dad who walks in the door and chooses them. Not because

00:23:36.720 it's easy. Not because that, that scoreboard is clear, but because you decide that this is the

00:23:44.240 arena, this family, these people, my wife, my kids, these are the people worth my very best.

00:23:50.000 not your clients sure they are but your family more than anything clients come and go bosses

00:23:55.680 come and go employees come and go your family could be there forever if you do it correctly

00:24:00.260 so man don't quiet quit on the people who matter most that's what i've got for you today think 0.99

00:24:08.320 about that this weekend how are you going to show up you're going to plop your ass on the couch and 0.97

00:24:12.200 watch a bunch of games or you're going to go throw the baseball are you going to jump on social media 0.96

00:24:19.200 and doom scroll or are you going to actually get engaged with your kids and your wife 0.96

00:24:23.040 are you going to pull up those little pixels on the screen and watch pornography of a fake woman

00:24:29.320 that you fantasize about or are you actually going to take your wife on a date and then be

00:24:33.540 intimate with her that's up to you those people in your life need need to hear from you they need

00:24:41.720 to be with you so my my challenge to you is just to go be the man your family needs you to be

00:24:48.640 in the meantime guys if you would please drop some comments uh in in the comment section below

00:24:55.140 over on youtube you can go to youtube.com order of man if you're not already following i'm trying

00:25:00.720 to grow that channel to 500 000 men across the planet so we can all be better and start talking

00:25:05.660 about these things collectively we're at 350 ish thousand people so we've got 150 000 people to go

00:25:11.820 this year uh would love to have you be part of that drop your comments below tell me what else

00:25:16.100 is working for you when it comes to quiet quitting or specifically what you might be

00:25:20.180 struggling with. Also, in the meantime, check out the Iron Council at orderofman.com slash

00:25:25.900 Iron Council. All right, guys, I'll be back with you next week. Until then, go out there,

00:25:30.180 take action, become a man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man

00:25:35.600 podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

00:25:40.380 We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

00:25:46.100 Thank you.

Order of Man - April 17, 2026

The 'Quiet Quit' is Destroying Your Family ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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