Order of Man - The Rise of Vanishing Fatherhood ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

00:00:00.040 Every kid you put on this earth and raise with your values and your discipline and your faith

00:00:07.340 and every man who decides he wants to opt out isn't just losing something for himself,

00:00:11.900 he's forfeiting his seat in that cultural fight.

00:00:15.560 He's letting the other side.

00:00:17.780 He's letting evil, horrible people outbreed him essentially.

00:00:22.380 And so they outnumber him in the one area that actually could decide what this country becomes.

00:00:30.000 I was going through some statistics in the last several weeks, specifically as it relates to fatherhood, and I came across some data that was very interesting.

00:00:39.600 And I think it paints a very important story that we ought to be aware of and be able to combat and actually talk about as men.

00:00:48.560 some of the statistics that I came up with as I was going through this, or not I came up with,

00:00:53.760 but ran across, is that almost one in every two men between the ages of 25 to 45 years old

00:01:02.620 in this country does not have a child. And I want you to think about that for a second,

00:01:08.780 not doesn't want a child yet, not waiting for the right time, but one in two, so almost half.

00:01:15.900 Okay, that number was one in three back in 1980. And so in two generations, it went from most men become fathers to it's basically a coin toss as to whether or not a man is going to have a kid or not.

00:01:35.300 and I want to talk about why that's happening and why the reasons that men are giving for opting out

00:01:43.600 are lying to them and why this just isn't a personal choice. It's actually a national

00:01:51.260 problem at this point that I think a lot of us, the country, society at large, not only in this

00:01:58.800 country but abroad are just sleepwalking ourselves into so we need to talk about the numbers first

00:02:05.740 and then we'll get into the reasons and then we'll get into some of some of the ideas from there

00:02:08.840 but here's what the data actually shows the the share of men again from age 25 to 45 so that's a

00:02:16.460 lot of men who listen to this podcast and of course millions who don't yet who are fathers

00:02:23.080 has dropped again from two-thirds, and I'm just reiterating this, two-thirds from 1980

00:02:28.060 to just over half today. And the number of childless men in that age bracket has more than

00:02:34.960 doubled since that same time. So that means that over 23 million men now, it's an all-time high of

00:02:42.840 men not having children. And here's the detail that I think is really, really important when

00:02:48.240 you break down and you actually go through the data, the biggest predictor of whether a man

00:02:54.420 becomes a father isn't his income. It's not his education. It's what he believes. And I think we

00:03:02.080 inherently, maybe intuitively know that. It's men who hold a traditional, often faith-rooted,

00:03:10.000 family-oriented value system are the ones having kids at a rate nearly double of the men who don't.

00:03:17.520 And that gap has been widening for 40 plus years now.

00:03:23.060 So this really isn't an economic story, even though that's what everybody wants to tell you.

00:03:29.280 Well, we just don't have enough money to have kids.

00:03:31.680 It's a belief story.

00:03:34.520 Men who believe that fatherhood is worth building a life around end up building a life around it.

00:03:42.080 Pretty obvious.

00:03:43.580 But men who've been talked out of that belief, they don't.

00:03:47.520 and here's that lie that I was talking about earlier, and that's the part that gets me is

00:03:54.140 this belief system, because right alongside all of the data about fatherhood and the declining

00:03:59.480 population and birth rates, there's another study that just came out. It's a huge study. I think

00:04:07.480 there's thousands and thousands of fathers interviewed, and nine out of ten of those men

00:04:14.720 interviewed said that fatherhood is one of the deepest sources of happiness in their life.

00:04:21.060 Not, oh, it's worth it in the end. Not, not hard, but rewarding. Not, you know, I guess it's okay.

00:04:27.740 But nine out of 10 said it's the most meaningful thing that they've ever done in their entire life.

00:04:34.820 And I can attest to that. And the researchers ran this study said flat out that they didn't,

00:04:40.400 they didn't expect that number. I wouldn't have expected that number. I would have thought

00:04:43.900 maybe six or seven of those men would say that, but not nine, not over 90%.

00:04:51.220 Okay, the researchers, what they said is that they expected exhaustion. They expected regret

00:04:58.560 because that's what society says. Oh, being a father or being a mother for our female 0.97

00:05:03.960 counterparts is exhausting and you'll regret it in the end. I saw a social media post that some

00:05:10.580 some idiot said that most women end up regretting having children at some point along the way. I've 0.99

00:05:17.000 never heard that in my entire life. I've never heard a woman say, I really regret having children.

00:05:21.720 What I have heard is I regret not having children. And the same is true for us as men.

00:05:27.900 So when the research has expected this exhaustion and frustration and potential regret, what they

00:05:33.720 actually were met with was joy. So, so let's break, let's break this down. Okay. We've got

00:05:38.700 a generation of men, 23 million men, opting out of fatherhood in record numbers. And I predict

00:05:47.400 that that number will only go up. And at the same time, the men who are fathers tell us,

00:05:53.900 and you can attest to this as well, if you are, that it's the best thing to ever happen to them.

00:06:00.080 Okay, that's, it's not a coincidence that those two sets of data exist. That's what we would call

00:06:07.360 a con, a lie, deceit. Somewhere along the way, men got sold this story that a kid, having

00:06:16.960 a kid, having a child is constricting. It's a cage. That fatherhood is the thing standing

00:06:26.660 between you and the life that you actually want. And there are hurdles that needs to

00:06:31.560 be overcome. That the freedom in your life looks like fewer obligations, fewer people depending on

00:06:39.920 you, fewer reasons to have to show up on a bad day. And guess what? Millions and millions of

00:06:45.440 men bought into it. Not because it's true, but because it's easy to believe that the alternative,

00:06:52.780 which is that building something in your life that outlasts you, a legacy,

00:06:57.540 it takes everything you've got and a lot of men aren't sure if they've got it

00:07:04.640 and i want to tell you why i think first of all it's it's it's horrible it's horrific

00:07:11.800 and it's also bad for individual men men choosing to opt out of this incredible opportunity to have

00:07:21.220 children so let's start in the home first and then we'll we'll zoom out we'll talk about the country

00:07:26.440 but what is opting out of being a father actually cost a man well purpose for one right that's what

00:07:32.420 the study suggested suggested excuse me fathers report even anecdotally you know this but let's

00:07:40.800 just go with the data fathers report a sense of purpose at roughly double the rate of men without

00:07:47.840 kids not not because again parenting is easy it's not it's very challenging it's it's one of the

00:07:56.020 most challenging things he'll do. But I'm sure you know this. I hope you know this because one

00:08:01.700 of the questions we often get asked here is how does a man find his purpose? And what I think is

00:08:07.560 happening is that young men, even boys are growing up to be men, believing that purpose comes knocking

00:08:15.660 on your door and you don't have to go out and struggle or suffer or sacrifice for it. But you

00:08:20.560 know right it comes from carrying and shouldering the weight of something bigger than than that

00:08:27.160 comfort and if you strip all of that away you don't get a man who has more freedom you get a

00:08:34.340 man with more time on his hands and less of a reason to get out of bed and as my mom when she

00:08:41.160 was raising me and her grandmother or excuse me her mom and my grandmother used to say idle hands

00:08:46.260 are the devil's workshop. And I'm sure you've heard something very similar. This is a very

00:08:51.560 satanic plan. I've said this before, and I'll keep saying it. Comfort is not the goal in life.

00:08:57.820 Comfort is the trap. It's the trap that too many men, myself included, in aspects and times in my

00:09:03.500 life that we fall into. A guy who builds his entire life around avoiding weight, avoiding

00:09:12.000 discomfort, avoiding struggle, avoiding hardship, meaningful hardship, purpose-driven hardship,

00:09:17.580 ends up light and weak and fragile. And light, weak, fragile men don't make a mark on anything.

00:09:28.020 They drift around. They get tossed to and fro by what I call the doctrine of popular culture.

00:09:35.000 They're aimless. They're rudderless. I mean, you've probably felt that in your own life.

00:09:39.500 I guarantee you have, and I know you have because I talk with you guys daily.

00:09:44.280 The stretches where you have the least responsibility were the stretches that you felt,

00:09:51.400 excuse me, were, I should say were not the stretches where you felt most like a man.

00:09:58.940 They were the stretches where you felt untethered, maybe even childlike.

00:10:05.640 now there's a second cost to this that a lot of people don't talk about

00:10:10.080 is what happens 20 or 30 years down the road when you get older whether you have kids or not

00:10:21.180 you're going to get older and the question is whether anybody's in the room you know a guy

00:10:26.860 who spent his 30s and 40s optimizing for independence often finds himself at 60 70 80

00:10:35.520 years old with maybe a great resume a paid off truck and and nobody who has to love him nobody

00:10:42.520 who does love him nobody's going to show up as at his funeral nobody's going to carry his his torch

00:10:47.360 nobody's going to pass down the information that he had that he shared nobody's going to take that

00:10:52.180 and make it something greater and build a legacy beyond what he could have imagined that's not

00:10:58.120 freedom we often hear and i wish i knew the book right off hand or maybe it was a speech but a

00:11:05.280 gentleman was talking about interviewing people on their deathbed. And their biggest regret was not

00:11:10.360 that they didn't spend enough time at work. It was that they didn't spend enough time

00:11:14.320 doing things with people they love. Well, what if you don't have anybody to love?

00:11:18.600 Okay. Not having children is just isolation. Yeah. Maybe you've got better furniture.

00:11:24.700 Maybe you went on better trips and you didn't have anybody to share it with.

00:11:30.580 Now, so that's why it's bad for the man. But let's talk also about why it's bad for culture.

00:11:35.280 because this isn't just happening at the individual family level. It's happening to us

00:11:40.600 as a country. And I don't think a lot of people have connected these dots yet.

00:11:46.040 We are in a birth rate collapse, not a slowdown, not a relatively few amount of people aren't

00:11:54.940 having kids anymore. No, it's a collapse. The US fertility rate has been below replacement level

00:12:02.460 for, at this point, I believe it's over a decade, maybe even 15 years. And it just keeps sliding,

00:12:10.300 keeps sliding. Okay, so replacement level is technically, I think I saw that it's 2.1 kids

00:12:17.160 per woman, just to keep the population steady. And we are well under that. And most, frankly,

00:12:25.060 most of the developed world is in that same hole. It's Japan, it's South Korea, most of Europe.

00:12:32.460 And some of those countries are decades further down this road than we are.

00:12:36.220 I mean, they're watching towns empty out, schools are closing. 1.00

00:12:39.680 The economic model is just buckling under the weight because there aren't enough young people to replace the old people. 1.00

00:12:50.480 And here's why that's not just some abstract policy problem. 0.98

00:12:55.440 okay every retiree in this country is currently supported by the labor and taxes of working age

00:13:03.220 people it's one of the greatest scams in the world social security benefits medicare benefits 0.58

00:13:09.260 every hospital every school every road it's all funded the same way and when the ratio of young

00:13:16.600 to old flips the whole structure starts to strain starts to buckle starts to collapse

00:13:22.680 fewer workers less and less taxpayers fewer soldiers to protect what we have

00:13:28.280 it's it's fewer people to build the next version or the better version of this country at all

00:13:36.360 and obviously men are half the equation you can't have a birth rate problem

00:13:41.540 without having a fatherhood problem that strings right along underneath it

00:13:45.480 every father who opts out of it isn't just making his own private decision about his life he's

00:13:53.500 he's one more brick pulled out of this wall that we call a nation and then if you multiply that by

00:13:59.620 23 million people and you start to see a little bit maybe catch a glimpse of the problem that

00:14:06.640 we're actually dealing with and this is this is way bigger than just one man's comfort this is

00:14:11.820 generational you and i and other men making choices today are deciding collectively right

00:14:19.760 all of us together whether there's a next generation of americans at all whether there's

00:14:26.500 enough hands to carry what we've built or whether we hand our kids and our grandkids a country

00:14:32.080 that's shrinking and graying and rotting and dying and just running on fumes 0.93

00:14:36.560 but here's a point that i want to make that i think if you're not convinced by the last

00:14:45.260 two points i made that might just be the most compelling okay if if you're serious about the

00:14:51.900 fight for this culture and i think you are because you wouldn't listen to this podcast for very long

00:14:57.000 if you weren't you'd be annoyed and frustrated by me and frankly plenty of people are

00:15:01.600 but I know most of you are serious about the fight for our culture. I hear it every week

00:15:08.400 in our community. I hear it every week in our Brotherhood, the Iron Council. I hear it every

00:15:14.480 week on social media and the circles I run in. It's men who are just fed up watching all the

00:15:21.380 values that they believe get mocked and sidelined and legislated against. And guys, we need to

00:15:30.440 understand something. The most powerful thing that we can do in this fight to reclaim our

00:15:37.680 heritage and our culture isn't a podcast like this. Now, it's a help. It's part of the reason

00:15:44.040 I do this. But it isn't social media. It isn't a comment section. It isn't an argument that you

00:15:52.080 win or lose or draw with online. It's a child. Culture isn't one in a single generation

00:16:00.200 by out arguing the other side it's won over decades and generations by those who actually

00:16:09.060 show up to raise the next generation every kid you put on this earth and raise with your values

00:16:16.340 and your discipline and your faith and your definition of what a man is supposed to be

00:16:22.240 That's a vote that gets cast for the next 40 years or longer.

00:16:30.400 And every man who decides he wants to opt out isn't just losing something for himself.

00:16:35.080 He's forfeiting his seat in that cultural fight.

00:16:40.180 He's letting the other side.

00:16:42.240 He's letting evil, horrible people outbreed him, essentially.

00:16:47.760 And so they outnumber him in the one area that actually could decide what this country becomes.

00:16:58.840 Think about that for a second.

00:17:01.080 If the men like you and me who believe in strength and responsibility and faith and family and Christianity

00:17:11.540 and all the righteous virtues that we do stop having kids at the rate they used to.

00:17:18.620 And the data says they're the only group that's still holding the line, by the way,

00:17:22.320 those family-oriented, faith-based type people,

00:17:25.320 while everyone else around keeps having conversations about identity and false ideology

00:17:31.260 and dangerous economic systems like socialism and communism.

00:17:35.600 We just lose by forfeit.

00:17:37.220 We lose.

00:17:38.360 We give up all of our seats.

00:17:40.100 it's not because we're out argued it's not because our systems are inferior to what those people say

00:17:45.880 it's because we're just outnumbered and we're outvoted

00:17:48.840 by people who understand that raising kids is the actual battlefield

00:17:55.280 and while we were busy fighting it somewhere else

00:18:00.320 if you want to win this nation's culture back don't just post about it

00:18:07.240 build a household that produces the kind of man that culture desperately needs and you know it

00:18:18.380 needs. That's not a side project to this mission. This is the mission, raising righteous children.

00:18:31.560 So here's what I want to leave you with. If you're a man who's been telling yourself,

00:18:35.220 Maybe you're a young man, and I get it. Look, I get it. It is hard, and there are economic concerns, and there are ideologies that have permeated, dangerous ideology that have permeated our culture, and I understand that.

00:18:50.040 But if you're a man who's telling yourself that fatherhood is a problem or a threat to your freedom, I'd actually ask that you look hard at where that belief came from.

00:19:01.400 i think it was ronald reagan who made the case that everyone

00:19:06.000 is something like isn't it convenient that everyone who argues for abortion has already

00:19:12.240 been born okay it's easy to argue and say i don't want to bring kids in the world well guess what

00:19:18.460 you were brought into the world did you arrive at the thought that having kids limits your freedom

00:19:24.940 by default or by real thought? Or did you absorb it from politics and culture and ideology

00:19:34.920 that profits off you staying uncommitted, untethered, unattached,

00:19:42.360 easy to sell things to in this consumeristic type world?

00:19:47.540 A man in my mind with a family is harder to manipulate because he's looking at decisions

00:19:53.180 over a longer time of time frame.

00:19:56.320 He's not chasing the next dopamine hit.

00:19:59.200 I'm not simply making a decision today about this podcast

00:20:02.380 or about paying the mortgage

00:20:03.740 or about stepping up in my community

00:20:05.980 or coaching one of my kids' sports teams for myself.

00:20:11.640 I'm doing it because I have children.

00:20:13.560 So I'm making better decisions.

00:20:15.620 Someone at home, someone who needs me steady.

00:20:19.460 That kind of man is bad for a lot of business models,

00:20:22.040 at least temporarily.

00:20:23.180 it's worth asking whose interest it serves for you to believe that kids are a problem

00:20:31.160 that they're a cage and if you're already a father and a lot of you listening are

00:20:37.500 this is your reminder that you're not behind that you're not missing out

00:20:43.440 and you aren't the guy who settled you're the guy who's actually in the arena as Theodore

00:20:48.980 Roosevelt might say, while other men are on the sidelines telling themselves they made the smart

00:20:54.500 move and then they'll end up regretting it. Nine out of 10 of you say it's the best thing you've

00:20:58.340 ever done. Believe that data. And if you don't understand the data, know it before you start

00:21:04.940 making decisions whether or not to bring children in the world. And look, if you're on the fence,

00:21:10.920 not against it, just not sure that you've got what it takes, I'd tell you what I've told

00:21:16.120 thousands of men at this point in this community no no one feels ready i've got four incredible

00:21:23.220 children and every time we brought a child into the world into this world i didn't feel ready

00:21:28.620 you you don't get the courage first and then step up you step up and then that courage

00:21:36.500 shows up because it has to you you have to become a man when you start having kids there's no other

00:21:44.600 alternative. That's how it's always worked. For every man, every single one of us who ever built

00:21:50.880 anything that actually mattered. Again, I'm going to say this about this optimization thing you hear

00:21:56.200 all the time, biohacking, optimization, efficiency, effectiveness. It's good. It has its place. But we

00:22:02.100 don't need a bunch of men optimizing for comfort. What we need is men who are going to carry the

00:22:08.540 to build something that outlasts them, that builds a legacy, and to put kids on the earth

00:22:15.600 who are better equipped than we were. So that's the job. Have kids, raise them righteously,

00:22:25.600 work together in communities and tribes to help raise those kids in righteousness,

00:22:30.040 fend off and thwart the enemy who are, by the way, having kids at a significantly greater rate than

00:22:35.520 us. And if that doesn't scare the daylights out of you, I don't know what will. So those are my

00:22:41.520 thoughts on the rise of vanishing fatherhood. And if you're a father, again, I commend you.

00:22:47.320 You're doing great work. May not always feel like it, but I promise you that you are. You are in

00:22:51.980 the fight. I am in the fight. There are a legion of young men who are trying to decide whether or

00:22:56.600 not they're going to get into the fight. And I would suggest for the sake of all of us that they

00:23:00.940 do. All right, guys, if you have any commentary or thought on this, check it out on YouTube,

00:23:05.760 youtube.com slash order of man, drop a comment below. Tell me you agree. Tell me you disagree.

00:23:11.420 Tell me I'm full of crap. Give me some other data that might support this position or maybe yours, 0.94

00:23:15.620 an alternative position, but I'd love to see it. And if you have questions about fatherhood,

00:23:19.460 let me know as well. I know it can be a scary thing and an intimidating thing,

00:23:23.260 but like nine out of 10 men say in that survey, the most rewarding thing you'll ever do.

00:23:29.180 All right, guys, we'll be back next week for an interview.

00:23:31.720 Until then, go out there, take action, and become the man you were meant to be.

00:23:36.660 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.

00:23:39.640 You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be?

00:23:43.340 We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - July 10, 2026

The Rise of Vanishing Fatherhood ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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