The Matt Walsh Show - August 14, 2026


Matt Walsh Explains The Dark Reality Of A Stay-At-Home Husband


Episode Stats


Length

33 minutes

Words per minute

175.01

Word count

5,853

Sentence count

356


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.480 Recently, our company's softball team lost the big game by one run.
00:00:04.800 Then Dale tried to console us with the quote,
00:00:07.200 winning isn't everything.
00:00:09.060 Well, Dale and I are very different.
00:00:12.740 I get early payout from Bet365.
00:00:14.680 If my team goes up big, I get paid out instantly,
00:00:17.480 even if they blow the lead later.
00:00:19.540 Sound familiar, Dale?
00:00:21.280 Thanks, Bet365.
00:00:22.920 Must be 19 or older, Ontario only.
00:00:24.420 Please play responsibly.
00:00:25.240 If you have questions or concerns about your gambling
00:00:26.660 or the gambling of someone close to you,
00:00:27.720 please go to connexontario.ca TNC Supply.
00:00:30.000 well you younger folks won't remember this but there was a time not very long ago when we had
00:00:39.680 certain words we would use to describe useless men who sit around all day doing nothing we would
00:00:45.740 call them deadbeats bums losers if they were particularly lazy and incompetent we'd call
00:00:50.780 them congressmen these days there's another term that has suddenly entered common parlance the
00:00:55.960 media have been breathlessly reporting about the rise of so-called stay-at-home boyfriends.
00:01:01.920 The Daily Mail has this headline this week,
00:01:05.000 Stay-at-home boyfriend becomes the new housewife as women outnumber men in the workforce for the
00:01:10.480 third time in history. Now, as for how many of the men who've left the workforce have now embraced
00:01:16.000 the unseemly life of a stay-at-home boyfriend, the Daily Mail provides no data. Fortune also
00:01:22.560 reports this month that stay-at-home boyfriends have become an economic trend but again they're
00:01:27.400 kind of light on actual data here's how they describe the phenomenon watch the stay-at-home
00:01:32.380 boyfriend is someone who has either intentionally left the workforce or someone who has either never
00:01:36.640 tried or really has felt dejected that they wouldn't even be able to get into it in the first
00:01:41.340 place since 1990 we've had seven million jobs where men outnumbered women and now that's gone
00:01:46.480 to basically zero this is a non-temporary adjustment only three times it's happened in
00:01:51.100 history. According to Laura Ulrich, the economist, indeed, it's not going to be a temporary thing.
00:01:56.420 It's going to be permanent. Women will outnumber men. Now, it would seem quite unfair to assume
00:02:00.860 that every man not currently employed is a stay-at-home boyfriend or a stay-at-home man
00:02:06.680 of any kind. The stay-at-home man isn't just any man who happened to lose his job. He is a man who
00:02:13.380 has made a lifestyle choice. He has decided to drop out of the workforce on a permanent or
00:02:19.500 long-term basis so that a woman can provide for him. Now, in fairness, it's hard to tabulate the
00:02:25.540 precise number of stay-at-home boyfriends. For one thing, there is no official census that quantifies
00:02:30.560 this particular demographic. And for another, a man who is not married, has no kids, and stays at
00:02:37.680 home while his girlfriend takes care of him can only barely be said to exist at all in the first
00:02:43.940 place. I mean, this is a man so flimsy and frail, a man of such little consequence, that it would be
00:02:51.300 hard to count him or notice him, even if he were sitting in the room with you. So the lack of data
00:02:56.620 is understandable. Stay-at-home husbands, on the other hand, can be counted. There are over 2
00:03:02.200 million stay-at-home husbands in America, according to the latest survey. They now make up 20% of all
00:03:08.000 stay-at-home parents, and this proportion has doubled over the last few decades. We can extrapolate
00:03:13.140 from the sharp uptick in stay-at-home husbands that the community of stay-at-home boyfriends
00:03:17.460 has also expanded. There probably is some overlap here. A stay-at-home boyfriend graduates in some
00:03:24.780 cases to a stay-at-home husband, and then when he dies, he reincarnates into a barnacle, and then
00:03:31.100 when he dies again, he goes back to being a stay-at-home boyfriend. It's kind of like this
00:03:34.480 cosmic cycle that repeats infinitely. Now, I'm going to have some harsh criticism, which is out
00:03:39.700 character for me, I realize, towards the house boyfriends and the house husbands. I can see that
00:03:44.920 the latter group is less offensive than the former, though still problematic for reasons I will
00:03:49.080 explain. But before I critique the men, and in the interests of equity and inclusion, which are
00:03:55.580 values I hold close to my heart, as you know, I must lecture the women. Because if I know anything
00:04:01.140 about women, it's that they enjoy being lectured by men, especially by men who are podcasters. So
00:04:05.660 this will be a very satisfying experience for the women in the audience. And much of the
00:04:10.340 commentary about the stay-at-home man trend has been distinctly insulting and condescending in
00:04:15.840 tone, which includes the commentary you're currently listening to. But it's interesting
00:04:20.380 to note that women, especially women in media, have been especially harsh about it. Unashamedly
00:04:28.820 So watch. The stay at home boyfriend is now an economic trend as more women than men go to work.
00:04:36.160 And the reason they found is that fewer young men, Maggie, are entering the workforce than their their fathers, their parents were.
00:04:43.060 Is this a trend that you are noticing personally? And what do you think about this?
00:04:47.120 Well, on the Internet, we call those men neat. So they're not in education, employment or training.
00:04:53.560 I think a lot of men feel really comfortable sitting online all day long.
00:04:58.840 That's a very comforting space for them.
00:05:01.100 And if they're being financially supported, whether by parents or a girlfriend,
00:05:06.140 God knows why that woman chose them, then, of course, they can continue to do that.
00:05:11.280 I think that's very disturbing.
00:05:12.580 I would not have a stay-at-home boyfriend personally.
00:05:15.720 We're getting more of the jobs.
00:05:17.360 We're earning more of the paychecks.
00:05:19.360 It's on our shoulders, this responsibility.
00:05:21.740 The idea that a boyfriend would live with me and that I would support him.
00:05:27.560 What's he doing all day? Bonbons on the sofa, watching soap opera?
00:05:30.660 That would never fly.
00:05:31.580 I don't think so, but that's just me.
00:05:33.820 If you listen to Destiny's Child, ladies, leave your man at home.
00:05:37.300 Probably because he can't afford a night out.
00:05:40.020 Because there's also the old school, ain't nothing going on but the rent.
00:05:44.220 Got to have a J-O-B if you want to be with me.
00:05:48.040 It's a no for me, y'all. It's so hard out here.
00:05:50.560 Is it hard? You are a beautiful, successful woman.
00:05:53.760 Single woman.
00:05:55.700 You know what I have found?
00:05:57.160 And don't send me, don't at me, don't send me the emails.
00:06:00.200 Nine times out of ten, a man is intimidated by a woman that has more money than them.
00:06:06.840 But then there's this new generation of men that are looking for a sugar mama.
00:06:11.780 They're looking for a lady to take care of them.
00:06:14.360 And they want to be kind of like, look, the men in here are all human.
00:06:17.820 No, because no is his plan.
00:06:19.420 I'll be the first to admit that stay-at-home moms have dealt with contempt and condescension from the girl-boss feminist types,
00:06:27.580 but rarely anything as explicit and unabashed as this.
00:06:33.320 Certainly not from news anchors and commentators on TV.
00:06:37.780 You're not going to hear anybody on a mainstream news channel say about women who stay home
00:06:42.820 what these women just said about men who stay home.
00:06:45.980 What are you doing all day? Eating bonbons? You bums?
00:06:49.420 go get jobs you deadbeats what you just want a man to take care of you you need a job if you
00:06:57.440 want to be with me now this again is the kind of open scorn and ridicule that would only ever be
00:07:03.660 heaped on men and it's very interesting considering the source i mean all of these
00:07:08.140 modern empowered feminist women got exactly what they said they wanted and now they're complaining
00:07:14.260 about it. They whined that men were the ones who got to go out and earn a living. Men had the fun
00:07:21.720 job. They were able to leave the house and work for a company somewhere. Oh, working for a company,
00:07:28.040 that's got to be so much. You get to go work for a company. You don't have to stay home. You get
00:07:33.440 to go work in a building for a company. You get like a W-2 income. You get to fill out a W-9.
00:07:42.080 Those damned men got to escape the home and go gallivanting around their cubicle,
00:07:46.720 free as gazelles, you know, prancing through a field.
00:07:49.940 Those men with their jobs and their financial responsibilities.
00:07:53.440 It's not fair.
00:07:55.300 And the feminists wanted in on that action.
00:07:58.440 Right?
00:07:58.620 There's no reason why men should be the breadwinners.
00:08:00.520 Women can be breadwinners, too.
00:08:02.200 Well, here you go, feminists.
00:08:04.280 Your wish has been granted.
00:08:06.860 And guess what?
00:08:08.700 You hate it.
00:08:09.780 you hate everything and you also hate this. So I suppose that should come as no surprise.
00:08:15.660 Here's what happened. Women looked at the meal that men had been eating for millennia
00:08:19.640 and demanded that they be served the exact same food in the exact same portions.
00:08:25.940 And then they got a taste of it and they nearly vomited from the taste. So it's a little bit like
00:08:31.140 when I was a kid and I would always ask my dad for a sip of his beer because it looked frothy
00:08:38.580 and delicious. Like it looked like a milkshake. I always thought like it looks like a milkshake.
00:08:43.100 And he would always say no until one day he finally said, all right, fine, here, take a sip.
00:08:47.900 And I took one sip and I was horrified. I was scared. I was confused. It was bitter. It was
00:08:54.580 awful. It tastes nothing like a milkshake. And I think a very similar process is playing out
00:09:01.100 right now with feminists in the workforce. You know, it's not just these random women on cable
00:09:06.340 news, by the way, the statistics consistently bear this out. So for marriages where the woman
00:09:12.640 is the primary breadwinner, the divorce rate is three times higher than marriages where the male
00:09:19.040 is the primary breadwinner. And that's just when the woman earns more money, even when the man is
00:09:23.640 also earning a living. In cases where the woman is the sole breadwinner, the divorce rate is five
00:09:29.480 times higher. So feminists got the thing they said they wanted, to play the role of a man,
00:09:37.700 to be the patriarch, right? To bring home the bacon, to reverse the gender roles once in for all.
00:09:45.080 And now they don't want it anymore. A tale as old as time. And why don't they want it?
00:09:50.680 Well, because they've realized that being the provider, carrying the weight of that obligation is a burden. It is an act of service. It is a duty. It is not a perk.
00:10:08.120 It's actually not necessarily fun.
00:10:13.120 When you are the one who leaves the house and earns a living and you support the family,
00:10:20.300 the financial future of the family, everything, the house, the food, all rests on you.
00:10:28.000 Well, it turns out that that's actually really hard.
00:10:31.060 That's actually difficult.
00:10:32.580 That actually requires a lot of sacrifice.
00:10:34.620 Now, if you're a woman who detests the very thought of being the breadwinner in your household, and most women do detest the thought of that, whether they say it out loud or not, they detest it.
00:10:47.240 Well, you should consider why you detest it so much.
00:10:51.520 It's because it seems like a burden to you.
00:10:53.880 It seems like an expectation placed unevenly on your shoulders.
00:10:58.220 And you're not wrong to see it that way.
00:10:59.940 And you're not wrong to recoil at the idea of being the breadwinner for a man.
00:11:03.980 It doesn't make you selfish. It actually just makes you normal.
00:11:08.520 But it should give you a deeper appreciation, at least, for what men have been doing for many centuries.
00:11:14.640 What many men still do today.
00:11:17.840 They have been carrying that uneven expectation, that burden, mostly without complaint.
00:11:23.560 And not only that, but men, the good ones anyway, actually find deep joy in carrying that load and providing for the ones they love.
00:11:35.300 You know, you've got these feminists on that we just saw there that like they can't even imagine finding joy in that.
00:11:41.120 Finding joy in that I have to provide for all these people who aren't me.
00:11:46.540 They can't even imagine that.
00:11:47.920 And yet, of course, that has not prompted feminists to reevaluate their assessment of the patriarchy and the traditional role that men played in society, even though they've now seen firsthand that the man's role was one of service, of love, of sacrifice.
00:12:07.440 It's not actually a vacation to leave the house and work a job.
00:12:12.420 It's not a source of unending thrills and amusement.
00:12:16.520 It's work. It's hard.
00:12:18.540 Which is why feminists got the briefest glimpse of life on the other side of the fence and are horrified.
00:12:24.580 Now, if you were very naive, you might hope that this would indeed at least give feminists a newfound appreciation for men.
00:12:31.660 But feminists are not capable of appreciating anything, least of all men.
00:12:36.660 So they'll hate you because they've never walked a mile in your shoes.
00:12:41.520 And then they'll walk a mile in your shoes and they'll complain about how much their feet hurt.
00:12:45.660 And they'll take the shoes off and they'll fling them at your head and demand that you put them back on.
00:12:50.720 And through the whole process, they will never develop even the faintest hint of empathy for you.
00:12:57.680 That's the feminist way.
00:12:59.400 So now that we've dealt with the feminists, let's flip the conversation over to the men.
00:13:03.560 I'm not going to spend any more time addressing stay-at-home boyfriends specifically because
00:13:08.160 I take it as utterly self-evident that men who aren't married and have no kids and choose
00:13:13.960 to live off of the patronage of their girlfriends are ridiculous creatures who bring shame to
00:13:19.020 themselves and their entire ancestral lineage.
00:13:21.860 Truly, if you are a stay-at-home boyfriend and your great-grandfather could have peered
00:13:26.620 into the future to see what would become of his bloodline, he almost certainly would
00:13:31.080 have flung himself into the sea, and nobody could have blamed him for doing so. That's all that
00:13:36.680 really can be said about such men, and I use the term men about as loosely as it can be used.
00:13:42.260 So instead, let's deal with stay-at-home husbands. Now, as established, it's much easier to quantify
00:13:48.540 this population. We know that their ranks are expanding rapidly and have been for many years
00:13:54.560 now. The stay-at-home husband at least might have children to care for, usually. So he does
00:14:02.760 something. He plays a role in the family. But it is still disordered. It is still upside down and
00:14:10.700 backwards for a man to embrace this role as a lifestyle choice on a full-time basis. Now,
00:14:19.140 caveats. Obviously, we're not talking about temporary unemployment. We're not talking about
00:14:26.320 a situation where disability or sickness or some other unforeseen, uncontrollable thing
00:14:32.700 has forced a man to leave the workforce. We're not talking about that. And clearly, we're not
00:14:37.920 defining a stay-at-home husband as a husband who is at home because he works from home.
00:14:42.160 Not talking about that either.
00:14:44.260 Here we mean, or at least I mean, a man who has chosen by his own free will to leave the workforce and be a house husband while his wife takes over as breadwinner.
00:14:57.100 And I know that we're supposed to be very tolerant and very accepting of those kinds of arrangements these days.
00:15:02.780 But tolerance and acceptance have never been my strong suits.
00:15:06.420 And besides, even if I could learn to stop worrying and love the stay-at-home-husband trend and I can't, the fact remains that women, the wives who have to bring home the bacon, they don't love it.
00:15:19.380 Some of them might say they do, but the divorce rate speaks for itself.
00:15:24.580 Marriages are much, much more likely to fall apart if the man is not working.
00:15:30.720 That is the reality, and there is a reason for that.
00:15:34.080 So let's explore those reasons.
00:15:36.420 take a look at your phone bill not because it's interesting it obviously isn't look at it because
00:15:41.060 there's a decent chance you've been paying the same company every month for years without asking
00:15:47.060 am i paying too much pure talk is currently making that question very easy to answer for
00:15:52.980 your first three months any pure talk plan is only fifteen dollars a month not their cheapest plan
00:15:59.380 this is for any plan unlimited high-speed data included in this even their top tier
00:16:04.340 $65 plan is $15 a month for your first three months. That's $150 in savings, and you're not
00:16:11.480 signing your life away either to get it. There's no service contract. There's no cancellation fee.
00:16:16.860 Pure Talk also has 100% US-based customer service if you need help. So you can keep automatically
00:16:23.160 paying the wireless bill you've stopped thinking about, or you can spend about 10 minutes looking
00:16:28.660 at whether a $15 a month plan makes sense.
00:16:32.020 And it does.
00:16:33.320 Spoiler.
00:16:33.960 For a limited time,
00:16:34.700 you can get any Pure Talk plan,
00:16:36.300 including unlimited data for just $15 a month
00:16:38.540 for your first three months.
00:16:39.760 Simply go to puretalk.com slash Walsh
00:16:41.640 to claim this offer again.
00:16:43.000 That's puretalk.com slash Walsh
00:16:45.480 to start saving today.
00:16:48.300 Recently, our company's softball team
00:16:50.260 lost the big game by one run.
00:16:52.280 Then Dale tried to console us with the quote,
00:16:55.060 winning isn't everything.
00:16:56.920 Well, Dale and I are very different.
00:17:00.600 I get early payout from Bet365.
00:17:02.660 If my team goes up big, I get paid out instantly, even if they blow the lead later.
00:17:07.340 Sound familiar, Dale?
00:17:09.140 Thanks, Bet365.
00:17:10.740 Must be 19 or older, Ontario only.
00:17:12.280 Please play responsibly.
00:17:13.100 If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you,
00:17:15.600 please go to connexontario.ca TNC Supply.
00:17:18.560 The reasons can perhaps best be explored through real-world examples, I think.
00:17:22.540 You know, there's a considerable volume of stay at home husband videos on social media, especially TikTok.
00:17:28.800 And they are very helpful, though, of course, you know, unintentional in illustrating the problems with this arrangement like this one.
00:17:38.140 Watch as a full time stay at home dad.
00:17:40.380 Most days I spend hours at a time.
00:17:45.000 Like this.
00:17:46.600 When my house looks like this.
00:17:52.540 before long i'm in my head i'm spiraling i'm telling myself i'm worthless that i don't do
00:17:58.700 anything but then i remember that i do i provide for her needs if you find yourself in a similar
00:18:04.380 situation then you deserve that grace and compassion as well hold your babies when they
00:18:08.480 sleep taking that with them it's really good for you both well your house is disgusting first of
00:18:13.880 all it looks like a third world refugee encampment it looks like you haven't used a vacuum since the
00:18:18.700 Bush administration. Your house resembles the inside of a homeless guy's tent, and you kind
00:18:24.620 of resemble the homeless guy in the tent, so I guess that makes sense. Now, in fairness, this
00:18:28.780 kind of video is not unique to the stay-at-home dad genre. There are plenty of videos like this
00:18:33.840 posted by stay-at-home moms, and those videos are a subgenre in a larger category of videos that
00:18:40.740 people make intended to advertise their shortcomings, hoping that their shamelessness
00:18:45.940 will be mistaken for honesty and that the supportive comments, all from other people
00:18:51.500 also looking to excuse their own vices, will make them feel better about being so dysfunctional
00:18:57.440 and lazy. People love doing that these days. That's what so much of social media is now.
00:19:02.380 I mean, a lot of people still say that the thing with social media is everyone tries to present
00:19:05.600 their life like they're perfect. Everybody wants to present this perfect life. And there is a lot
00:19:11.600 of that on social media, but the opposite also happens and is worse because the opposite is what
00:19:16.640 we just saw. The opposite is somebody making a video saying, look how terrible I am. Look what
00:19:21.840 a slob I am. Look how awful. Look at me not doing anything. My life is in total disarray and
00:19:28.460 disrepair. Look at that, everybody. And the reason they do that again is they are trying to normalize
00:19:35.220 it within themselves. They want to do that and they want to get comments and they want
00:19:41.520 the comments to say, oh, I'm not the only one. Oh, you're so brave for being honest. Oh, this
00:19:46.680 is just real. Thank you for being so real and genuine. And then they can say, oh, I guess it's
00:19:52.020 okay. Like, I guess, oh, you know, I'm not lazy for refusing to clean up the living room and run
00:19:57.600 a vacuum. I'm actually brave. I'm a real, genuine, bold, brave person. That's the idea. Now, the truth
00:20:06.900 is that it's unacceptable to live like a slob. To live like that is a moral failing. And you don't
00:20:13.280 need to sit on your couch all day to hold the baby, by the way. The baby doesn't need to be
00:20:17.920 held every second of the day. Baby really doesn't need that. In fact, it's much healthier for the
00:20:24.320 baby to be put down in a crib or on a mat on the ground if the trade-off is that she isn't forced
00:20:30.680 to live in a nuclear waste zone. If you want to prioritize your daughter, stop forcing her to grow
00:20:36.400 up in a landfill. If you're staying at home, you are the homemaker. The home has to be made every
00:20:45.260 day. It is unmade and made over and over again. Putting it back together is your job. Maintaining
00:20:52.940 it, seeing to it, making sure that it is clean and organized and functional and a pleasant place to
00:20:59.460 live is your whole responsibility. But this guy isn't trying to present an argument in defense
00:21:06.320 being a stay-at-home husband he's just kind of showing us a slice of stay-at-home husband life
00:21:11.760 and that slice of life is so horrible that i've been plunged into a state of secondhand despair
00:21:17.680 just by looking at it and there are a lot of these types of videos on tiktok some of them are are much
00:21:22.400 glossier much more put together uh less visible filth in the frame and yet still somehow no less
00:21:29.840 despair inducing watch welcome back to my morning routine as a stay-at-home dad so i get the day
00:21:34.480 rolling with our normal routine but today the kids weren't interested in listening to tony's instead
00:21:38.480 they just wanted to play with some of their animal toys it was time to feed bell and then we decided
00:21:42.400 what was for breakfast so we got it rolling and we threw in some turkey bacon some eggs scramble
00:21:46.560 those bad boys up charlie had to help of course and let me tell you these two kids can make a
00:21:51.040 pretty good breakfast it always feels good to kick start the week on a good note and i love
00:21:55.520 our monday mornings together so i got both of them dressed then it was my turn to tackle charlie's
00:21:59.280 harris's mom was still getting ready for the day you want me to try and do a braid okay
00:22:17.920 she was so cute this morning i didn't even have to start her affirmations she decided to hop on
00:22:21.760 the sink and just start screaming them at the mirror she is definitely her mama's daughter
00:22:25.440 She's so confident and I love it.
00:22:27.140 I love seeing how much she's just like her mama.
00:22:29.220 After we dropped off some coffee,
00:22:30.480 it was time to head outside
00:22:31.440 and do a little walk around the neighborhood.
00:22:33.300 Then we headed home to play around
00:22:34.640 in the front yard for a little bit.
00:22:37.860 Now look, I'm sure this guy is a nice guy.
00:22:41.120 Cute kids, they seem happy.
00:22:43.880 He keeps the house clean at least.
00:22:45.240 At least when he's making a TikTok video, he does.
00:22:48.060 But when you see the house husband
00:22:49.720 spending his day brushing hair,
00:22:53.020 making breakfast,
00:22:53.700 taking the kids to the park, bringing drinks and meals to his wife. It was like sitting at
00:23:00.960 the computer doing a job. You immediately recognize it as somehow disordered, wrong,
00:23:08.580 unnatural. Now, you might feel bad for recognizing that. I don't, but you might.
00:23:15.100 But you do recognize it. And that is not some idle bigotry. It's thousands of years of
00:23:23.500 human experience. In every society that has ever existed from ancient times until today,
00:23:30.040 men have always been tasked with providing material sustenance for the family. That has
00:23:36.900 always been, always, fundamentally the man's job. Whether they were going out to hunt or farm or
00:23:45.620 earn a paycheck, men have for thousands of years left the house, gone out into the world or down
00:23:53.980 to the field or into the woods to fight and kill and provide. That has always been the man's role
00:24:00.760 everywhere in one form or another. Now, the fact that it's always been that way is a pretty good
00:24:07.040 indication, perhaps not always decisive on its own, but a pretty good indication that it's meant
00:24:13.460 to be that way. Or at the very least, if something has always been a certain way,
00:24:19.640 always, always, always for thousands of years, before you change it, you should be very clear
00:24:28.060 about why it was that way before and why you're changing it. I think it's G.K. Chester that makes
00:24:34.720 this point about you're walking along and there's a fence. Just because a fence is there, does that
00:24:40.120 mean the fence should be there forever? Every fence that's ever been erected, does that mean
00:24:43.280 that none of them should ever be torn down? Not necessarily. But before you start tearing down
00:24:48.000 that fence, you better be damn well sure why the fence was, who put it there? How long has it been
00:24:55.240 there? And why is it there? And if you don't know why the fence is there, you are a fool for tearing
00:25:01.660 it down. Okay. You're going to get your face mulled off by a pit bull if you're tearing down
00:25:07.260 the fence without knowing why it's there. And of course, our society has been doing a version of
00:25:11.940 that for many years. Just coming across every fence we see, except for actual fences like
00:25:18.720 border walls, but every metaphorical fence we see in our culture, we just say, oh, that shouldn't
00:25:23.300 be there. Oh, that's like a restriction. That's a thing that's telling me what to do. It must be
00:25:28.100 wrong. Now, can we go against our biology and nature and experience and the wisdom of our
00:25:35.740 ancestors and totally rewrite the program, flipping these gender roles upside down? Yes, we can.
00:25:41.940 Is it a good idea? Does it work? Does it make us happier? Does it make our families stronger, healthier?
00:25:50.320 Well, the proof is in the pudding. Marriages tend to fall apart quicker and more often when the roles are reversed.
00:25:56.560 And multiple studies, including one recently, have found that stay-at-home husbands are more likely to be depressed, more likely to feel isolated, stressed.
00:26:03.900 And the women set off to work jobs outside the home are also more likely to be depressed.
00:26:08.740 as we discussed this week, working moms are more likely, not less, to be on psychiatric drugs
00:26:14.380 than stay-at-home moms. So it turns out that gender roles are not arbitrary. They are in fact
00:26:23.980 reflections of our inherent nature. Women are more suited to the role of homemaker and caretaker.
00:26:32.040 And to begin with, it's not an incidental fact that women are also the ones who bear children.
00:26:37.340 There's a lot of practical reasons why the person in the marriage who carries the child in her womb and then births that child, like that is also the person who stays home with the kids.
00:26:50.080 That makes a lot of sense.
00:26:52.900 Men, on the other hand, are more suited to go out into the world and earn and provide and conquer.
00:26:58.360 That doesn't mean the roles can't be flipped.
00:27:00.240 It doesn't mean the roles can't be shared in some way, as they often are these days, and sometimes you have no choice.
00:27:06.820 It doesn't mean that you can't do things differently.
00:27:09.080 It just means that men and women are, in fact, different.
00:27:12.000 We have different strengths and weaknesses.
00:27:13.760 We are made to complement each other.
00:27:15.360 This is a basic fact of our human nature
00:27:17.300 that the modern world has been desperately trying to escape,
00:27:20.520 but it hasn't escaped it, and it never will.
00:27:23.380 The divorce and depression rates
00:27:24.860 should be evidence enough of that.
00:27:26.700 But apparently it's not enough evidence,
00:27:27.920 at least according to this guy,
00:27:29.240 whose name is Owen Squires, by the way.
00:27:31.700 Watch.
00:27:32.580 Being a stay-at-home dad the last five years
00:27:34.820 has caused me to grow resentful
00:27:36.700 toward other men. I feel like as a guy, the more accomplished you are, the more achievements you
00:27:42.060 have, the more hobbies you're involved in, the better shape you're in, the more likely you ain't
00:27:47.180 shit as a dad. Like being a stay at home parent causes you to see through the bullshit really
00:27:52.320 quick. Like I can have a brief interaction and be like, oh, mom's doing literally all the work in
00:27:57.660 that family. Like most guys, when they ask me what I do for work and I tell them I'm a stay at home
00:28:01.720 dad you can just see him kind of like like you bro like you just listed the 35 things you have
00:28:08.040 going on in life right now that center you like you're still the main character i see what about
00:28:12.620 your kids what about your three kids and your wife being in this role just forces you to see
00:28:18.120 how men collectively myself included have dropped the ball for generations in terms of supporting
00:28:24.760 our wives and our children being a stay-at-home dad forces you to see that like a paycheck equals
00:28:30.560 manhood and as long as you're checking that box you can stay the main character off bro i can
00:28:36.060 fully see why women are no longer choosing us like most of us ain't yeah bro that's right bro
00:28:42.200 let your wife know that men are trash but you aren't like those other men bro that'll keep her
00:28:48.680 from divorcing you bro just tear men down bro tell her how terrible we are bro that'll keep her happy
00:28:55.000 bro at least until she cheats on you with a co-worker which she probably is already doing
00:28:59.140 I'm afraid to say. You know, as a rule of thumb, it's not a good sign as a man when you feel the
00:29:04.920 need to argue that other men who are, and let me make sure I had this right, in good shape and
00:29:11.920 highly accomplished are actually bad. I wonder what his wife says when he goes off on these like
00:29:17.960 pick me rants to her. Hey, honey, isn't it so awful when men are in good shape and have lots
00:29:23.480 of money and accomplishments? Don't you just hate? Don't you just hate that, honey? Don't you just
00:29:28.420 hate men who are ambitious and strong and successful? Don't you just hate men who earn
00:29:32.880 a lot of money and are in good shape and can bench press? Don't you just hate that?
00:29:38.400 Isn't that the worst? Uh, sure, Owen, yeah. Yeah, Owen, oh, I hate that. Anyway, I got my
00:29:46.540 appointment with the physical trainer. Don't wait up. Yeah, it's another one of those long
00:29:51.540 appointments that, yeah, it's over at like 2 a.m. Don't worry about it. That's totally normal.
00:29:55.840 In reality, of course, a man need not choose between being physically strong and professionally
00:30:00.940 accomplished and a good dad. These are things that are all very much related. It's possible
00:30:05.660 for a man to value the first or the second too much at the expense of the third. It's possible
00:30:11.800 for a man to be ambitious to the point of greed. It's possible for a man to value fitness to the
00:30:16.320 point of vanity. But it's also possible for him to be motivated to take care of his body
00:30:21.840 and achieve financial success precisely because he loves his family.
00:30:27.400 And that scenario is not just possible, it is the ideal.
00:30:32.620 And the opposite of that is very bad.
00:30:35.660 Being a man who does not care about your physical fitness at all,
00:30:39.600 doesn't care about achievement at all,
00:30:42.460 doesn't care about accomplishing anything at all, that is bad.
00:30:46.880 It is also grotesque to every woman on the planet.
00:30:51.840 and it's grotesque to your wife if you have one.
00:30:56.060 And if you don't, you'll never get one with an attitude like that.
00:30:58.480 And this is really the point about the house husbands.
00:31:00.960 You know, there may be men who end up staying at home
00:31:02.940 because of circumstances out of their control, as we've covered.
00:31:06.140 There may be men who stay at home by choice,
00:31:08.220 and there may be some of them who find a way to be reasonably happy
00:31:11.660 and to keep their marriages intact and to prevent their wives
00:31:14.200 from losing all respect from them.
00:31:16.280 That is possible.
00:31:18.280 Maybe some of these TikTok husbands have managed to thread that needle.
00:31:23.600 Well, scratch that.
00:31:24.760 I mean, no man who spends his days not only playing the role of house husband, but also
00:31:28.400 documenting it on TikTok could possibly have his wife's respect.
00:31:33.240 So none of these guys have threaded the needle, but maybe some guys who aren't seeking validation
00:31:37.280 on social media have.
00:31:38.560 That is possible.
00:31:40.580 But if you are a young man trying to determine your path in life, you should ask,
00:31:47.280 Not what sort of choices you can get away with, what sort of things you can make work,
00:31:54.180 but rather, what is the ideal?
00:31:57.040 What is the thing you should aspire to?
00:32:00.520 What sort of man should you desire to be?
00:32:03.580 And the answer is a man who can do, and does in fact do, what men have always been called to do,
00:32:12.120 which is to protect and provide.
00:32:14.620 That is a man's unique calling. It always has been. It always will be. There's no way to change
00:32:22.120 it. And we shouldn't try. And that is why the house husbands, and certainly it goes without
00:32:29.560 saying the house boyfriends, are today canceled.
00:32:38.580 Recently, our company's softball team lost the big game by one run. Then Dale tried to console
00:32:44.360 us with the quote, winning isn't everything. Well, Dale and I are very different. I get early
00:32:51.440 payout from Bet365. If my team goes up big, I get paid out instantly, even if they blow the lead
00:32:56.900 later. Sound familiar, Dale? Thanks, Bet365. Must be 19 or older, Ontario only. Please play
00:33:02.920 responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone
00:33:05.520 close to you, please go to connexontario.ca and see supply. Before you knew what a stock was,
00:33:09.920 you traded snacks cards turns that instinct to trade didn't disappear it just grew up with no
00:33:17.140 minimums no monthly fees and 100 free trades TD easy trade taps into that instinct because you
00:33:23.180 are made to trade and TD easy trade is made to help