TRIGGERnometry - How Family Breakdown Destroys Society - Rob Henderson

00:00:00.720 Your first memory is watching your birth mother handcuffed and taken away.

00:00:05.320 You go from foster home to foster home to foster home.

00:00:08.680 I got a front row seat into sort of witnessing what's been happening to families in working

00:00:14.200 class communities.

00:00:15.200 Marriage and commitment and long term bonds.

00:00:19.180 It's just not as pronounced anymore.

00:00:21.760 At what point are we just going to be just really honest and go, we're failing our children?

00:00:28.320 So how does the cycle get broken?

00:00:31.240 All right, Rob, welcome back to the show.

00:00:33.460 Last time you were on, we talked about this concept that you actually pioneered, which

00:00:36.540 is luxury beliefs.

00:00:38.620 Fantastic conversation.

00:00:39.820 You've since written a book conspicuously right in the center of the table, which is absolutely

00:00:44.600 crushing it right now.

00:00:45.780 You've done every podcast in the US before us.

00:00:48.240 So we're obviously annoyed with you.

00:00:50.080 However, we've got the UK first one.

00:00:53.560 Great to have you on.

00:00:54.560 And what a brilliant book it is.

00:00:56.960 And in some ways, I have to say, it probably wasn't that hard to write in that you've had

00:01:00.580 the most remarkable life story of almost anyone that sat in that chair.

00:01:04.720 Yeah, it was.

00:01:05.720 It was.

00:01:06.720 I mean, thank you.

00:01:07.720 Thank you both for having me.

00:01:08.720 It was a struggle, actually, to get the ideas down on the page, the sort of resurfacing all

00:01:15.480 of the experiences, the stories, the memories.

00:01:19.000 And there was a period, especially the first half of the book, where I was surprised at

00:01:25.620 how sort of fresh the feelings were from that period.

00:01:29.760 You know, especially as a guy, you just feel like, oh, I can just get over it.

00:01:32.760 You know, I'm a man now.

00:01:33.760 We move on.

00:01:34.760 I can't can't dwell on all of this stuff.

00:01:36.980 And and I think it can be useful.

00:01:39.380 It can be adaptive as you're sort of striving and advancing in the world.

00:01:42.300 But, you know, that was a strange period.

00:01:43.720 It was the lockdown and everyone was just kind of inside.

00:01:46.280 And so it did give me that time, actually.

00:01:48.960 You know, I managed to use that period to channel my energy toward writing this book.

00:01:56.380 And yeah, I mean, just the way it came together, even in hindsight, you know, I've read it multiple

00:02:00.860 times now going through edits and all that stuff before it came out and, you know, if

00:02:06.980 I had known how difficult it was going to be to write it, I don't know that I actually

00:02:10.900 would have agreed to it.

00:02:11.900 So in a way, I'm actually glad I didn't know what it was going to be like.

00:02:15.500 It's almost like, you know, I don't know, running a marathon or something like that,

00:02:18.220 where you don't actually anticipate just how grueling it's going to be.

00:02:21.660 But then afterwards, you're like, glad you're proud that you did it.

00:02:23.660 And that's kind of how I feel.

00:02:24.660 You've got to give yourself a break, though, because for people who haven't yet read the book,

00:02:27.980 and of course, we recommend that they do, like your first memory is watching your birth

00:02:32.420 mother be handcuffed and taken away. 0.72

00:02:35.980 You go from foster home to foster home to foster home, then you get adopted, you know, that

00:02:41.720 family splits and someone else comes in, someone gets shot, like, then you get your, you drink

00:02:48.180 too much, like, I mean, every terrible experience is pretty much that human beings can have.

00:02:54.720 You've had by the time you're like 20.

00:02:58.160 Yeah, I mean, it's, it was a very kind of interesting, you know, these terrible experiences, to me,

00:03:01.160 they, I've had some difficulty with this, because I've read a lot of great memoirs and biographies

00:03:05.800 of, you know, many guests that you guys have had on your show.

00:03:07.600 And I'm like, you know, I wasn't like, I wasn't a refugee in a totalitarian regime.

00:03:11.880 I wasn't, you know, I wasn't, you know, a poor black person in the Jim Crow era, like I've

00:03:18.280 read very, you know, some of these, some of these stories are just horrific.

00:03:21.720 And, but my book, I think is unique in that I think most people don't anticipate just

00:03:26.640 how difficult the foster care system is in the modern era.

00:03:31.420 I don't think a lot of people are familiar with just how, how much deterioration and disrepair

00:03:38.380 exists in kind of lower class, working class areas in the US.

00:03:42.260 So it's kind of this unfamiliar world.

00:03:43.980 So, you know, when you hear about, you know, someone in a totalitarian regime, you kind of

00:03:48.620 expect, okay, this is going to be horrible.

00:03:50.120 I'm going to read about it, but I know it's going to be bad.

00:03:52.100 Whereas a book like this, you're like, okay, foster care system.

00:03:54.320 You know, I have some thoughts about it, but let me read it.

00:03:56.440 And then I think a lot of people are just shocked at just how unstable, chaotic, neglectful,

00:04:03.280 emotionally difficult it is for kids in those environments.

00:04:08.100 And so, you know, I, I opened my book, the preface of the book going through the kind

00:04:13.540 of origins of my name.

00:04:14.820 And I use that as a device to kind of introduce the reader into kind of what happens to kids

00:04:19.920 who go in the foster care system, you know, these not uncommon experiences.

00:04:23.780 And then, like you mentioned, after the foster care system, I was adopted into this, uh, working

00:04:30.720 class family was settled into this kind of dusty blue collar town in Northern California.

00:04:35.460 And this was the late nineties.

00:04:36.860 And of course, at the time I wasn't aware of this, but, you know, cause I was a little

00:04:41.960 kid, but in hindsight, now I understand after reading kind of interesting sociological studies,

00:04:46.880 ethnographic research that I got a front row seat into sort of witnessing, uh, what's been

00:04:51.740 happening to families in working class communities sort of all across the country.

00:04:56.040 I mean, all across the Western world, really, that this is not a unique just to the U S or

00:04:59.700 even just to the UK.

00:05:00.720 And yeah, just communicating those experiences firsthand.

00:05:04.680 I don't just talk about my experiences either.

00:05:07.740 You know, I didn't want this book to just be this kind of, you know, oh, this bootstrap

00:05:12.200 story, you know, he had a difficult life, but then he, you know, worked really hard and rose

00:05:16.460 above it.

00:05:17.460 And I guess that is one way to look at it, but I wanted people to understand the kind

00:05:22.220 of modal or most common experience of a young male in this kind of environment.

00:05:28.320 And so I had several close friends growing up, uh, in Red Bluff, California, and I described

00:05:36.080 their lives and their experiences and kind of where they ended up.

00:05:40.000 And I wanted the reader to understand that you can't expect, you know, every single kid

00:05:46.460 who grows up this way to have the outcome that I had.

00:05:49.820 These are the outcomes that are statistically the most likely.

00:05:53.300 So, you know, I had most of my friends, they weren't in foster care, raised by single moms.

00:05:57.220 I had a friend raised by a single dad, friend raised by his grandmother because his mom

00:06:00.720 was on drugs and his dad was in prison.

00:06:02.340 And that's kind of a common picture of these communities.

00:06:05.140 And, you know, where did they end up?

00:06:07.300 I mean, I had two friends who went to prison.

00:06:09.400 I had another friend who was shot.

00:06:10.840 I have, you know, the rest of my friends kind of in these, you know, menial jobs that are

00:06:17.120 not particularly satisfying to them.

00:06:18.880 And, you know, friends who have, uh, two children with two different women who they don't speak

00:06:23.980 to.

00:06:24.160 Like, this is not, you know, this is, uh, you know, this is surprisingly and, and, and

00:06:30.100 sadly, it's just, this is common.

00:06:32.220 And Rob, you're talking about your friends who went down a different path.

00:06:38.000 You're obviously a very, really bright guy.

00:06:39.940 You went to an Ivy league college, you went to Cambridge.

00:06:44.900 Do you think that the difference between you and them is intellectual slash academic

00:06:49.520 ability, or do you think it's something else?

00:06:53.060 So, yeah, I get into discussions and friendly debates with people more so on the right, I

00:06:59.720 think, who, I think they, they overvalue the importance of academic ability where they,

00:07:06.520 you know, they read some studies about IQ and intelligence.

00:07:10.140 And then I think like, oh, that, that explains the world now.

00:07:12.700 And I think it's a, it's a piece of the puzzle, but it's not the whole story.

00:07:17.000 Um, so, you know, the, the, the short version is, I think that in intelligence or academic ability

00:07:23.660 is necessary, but not sufficient to do well.

00:07:27.360 And I tell these stories in the book about how my curiosity and my aptitude and my interest

00:07:33.340 in school, it would kind of wax and wane depending on my environment.

00:07:36.520 And so I tell a story in the seventh foster home I lived in, um, you know, I was changing

00:07:42.740 homes every three to six months.

00:07:44.440 I was changing schools all the time.

00:07:45.940 It was just a jumble of, of, of chaos.

00:07:49.180 And so by the time I was in this seventh foster home, the teacher and the social worker and

00:07:55.320 my foster mom, they were so concerned with my lack of academic performance that they, um,

00:08:01.400 had a psychologist come and administer, uh, an IQ test because they thought it might've

00:08:05.080 had a learning disability and I took the test and it was like a very, you know, I, I scored

00:08:10.120 below average overall on the IQ test.

00:08:12.380 Um, and on the verbal portion, I scored something like an 80, which is more than a standard deviation

00:08:19.100 below the average.

00:08:20.060 And that was because no one read to me, um, changing schools all the time.

00:08:24.440 There was no, um, external pressure or guidance or encouragement to pick up a book.

00:08:29.120 And I had to teach myself to read.

00:08:31.860 Um, you know, I was taking this test and I gave it like a kind of half-hearted effort.

00:08:36.660 You know, one of the things that people don't understand about IQ tests is if you score really

00:08:40.260 high on an IQ test, it probably means you're pretty smart.

00:08:43.400 If you score low on IQ tests, that could be for a variety of reasons.

00:08:46.060 It could be because you're not very academically inclined, but it could be because you're tired,

00:08:50.340 you're hungry, you're neglected, your, um, abilities haven't been, yeah, you can't concentrate.

00:08:56.280 Your abilities haven't been cultivated.

00:08:57.740 You're not, uh, attending school.

00:08:59.600 Or if you are, it's the kind of school that I had where it's like, oh, you're changing school

00:09:02.900 district again and again and again.

00:09:04.820 And so I think that that could explain it.

00:09:07.660 Um, and then the other was just effort.

00:09:09.340 Like I had this, um, I describe in the book, this kind of simmering anger and resentment.

00:09:16.060 And rage that I had toward adults.

00:09:19.060 Um, you know, I, I talk about how, you know, after you're let down by so many adults in

00:09:25.180 your early life, eventually you learn to let yourself down.

00:09:28.080 And so this was kind of an outlet for my aggression where the, you know, the psychologist

00:09:33.280 is like, you know, he, he showed me a picture, you know, one of the questions, he showed me

00:09:36.560 this picture of this bald guy and he, he has a comb pressed to his head and he has no hair.

00:09:42.200 And so the psychologist asks me, uh, what's happening in this photo.

00:09:45.660 And I say, um, uh, it's a guy combing his hair or his head.

00:09:50.360 And the psychologist says, well, is there anything unusual about this picture? 0.99

00:09:54.680 And I thought the question was stupid. 1.00

00:09:56.420 And I thought the test was, I was just like this whole, like this whole thing is stupid. 1.00

00:09:59.820 You know, I've never seen this person in my life. 0.99

00:10:02.520 This is like another adult.

00:10:04.360 The system has assigned to help me, even though I never felt like I was being helped.

00:10:09.520 And so I just said, no, it looks, looks fine.

00:10:11.640 And it wasn't because I was dumb or because I didn't understand.

00:10:14.980 It was just like, I know what you want me to say. 0.60

00:10:17.000 I'm not going to say it.

00:10:18.600 Um, and then there were some other parts of the test too, where it was like, you know,

00:10:21.320 here's a picture of a fire truck and they gave me this ruler.

00:10:23.440 They wanted me to measure the truck.

00:10:24.620 I'm like, oh, this is kind of fun.

00:10:25.680 It's interesting.

00:10:26.180 It's tactile.

00:10:26.760 So I would put in an effort for that.

00:10:29.760 Um, but look, all of this is to say that, look, I, I scored very low on this test.

00:10:34.780 And so, but then later on when I was adopted, there were periods of stability in my early

00:10:40.480 life.

00:10:41.100 My grades would improve.

00:10:42.840 Um, I tell this story about how, after I had to teach myself to read, I eventually got

00:10:46.940 third place at the school spelling bee, um, you know, within a very short period of time

00:10:51.180 after I, um, started reading.

00:10:53.240 And then, you know, there was, there were divorces and separations and more disorder and chaos.

00:10:59.480 And my grades would kind of reflect that in school.

00:11:02.240 Uh, and so I think there are probably a lot of kids who are from these kind of deteriorating 1.00

00:11:08.480 neighborhoods who are smart and who would be academically inclined, but they're just weighed

00:11:14.560 down.

00:11:15.220 Not so much by the poverty.

00:11:16.740 You know, I do talk about a bit about the material poverty, but more so by the disorder

00:11:20.640 and the chaos and the uncertainty and instability.

00:11:22.980 I think that's a much stronger, uh, uh, that has a much stronger effect on a child's sort

00:11:29.200 of academic performance.

00:11:30.100 And I, I set research and studies in the book that are reflective of that.

00:11:33.220 It's absolutely true.

00:11:34.700 I remember when I used to teach you, I used to teach kids who were so bright, so smart.

00:11:39.060 And the, the heartbreaking thing was, is that you would see them come in and many of them,

00:11:45.120 the vast majority wouldn't be able to leave their background at the door because they're

00:11:49.320 a kid.

00:11:49.840 There was, you know, the odd one who succeeded in spite of everything, but that was an anomaly.

00:11:54.800 The vast majority were just like you.

00:11:57.060 Yeah.

00:11:57.660 Yeah.

00:11:57.900 And I mean, like I, there are glimmers of this.

00:12:00.480 You know, I tell the stories where I'm interacting with my friends and I'm the only one who reads

00:12:04.280 for pleasure in high school.

00:12:05.440 I'm the only one who regularly visits the school library, but my grades were the same

00:12:09.700 and we were all kind of C minus students.

00:12:12.760 Um, and you know, like I, I did the bare minimum.

00:12:17.060 I was kind of a C minus slacker stoner kid in high school.

00:12:20.400 And I just didn't feel like I needed to put in an, uh, an effort once I kind of decided

00:12:25.980 that college wasn't in the cards for me, you know, I knew we couldn't afford it.

00:12:30.360 And I, you know, it wasn't a common ambition of the people around me.

00:12:34.480 I talk about, there's one kid who I was kind of friendly with.

00:12:37.540 We weren't close, but he went off to, uh, kind of a local state school and he was the

00:12:42.020 straight A student.

00:12:42.920 He was the smartest kid that we thought of in our client.

00:12:45.660 Who's this, this, this guy.

00:12:46.540 And he went off to a state school, but I wasn't, you know, I didn't see myself in that way.

00:12:52.780 And so once I realized, oh, I'm not going to go to college, I just, you know, kind of

00:12:55.980 mailed it in and didn't even think about my future, um, until kind of the last minute.

00:13:01.000 But yeah, I mean, it's, it's just one of the points I, I, I also make in the book is

00:13:06.200 that, you know, even if, even if every single kid who grew up the way that I did goes off

00:13:15.300 to some, you know, fancy Ivy league school and attains the kind of conventional badges

00:13:22.480 of success that we're also focused on when we talk about social mobility, educational

00:13:26.960 attainment, occupational prestige, future earnings, you know, even if they do attain

00:13:32.620 all of those things, it's not going to suddenly, uh, heal the wounds or the scars of their early

00:13:39.340 life.

00:13:40.120 Um, you know, I came to this realization at some point that, you know, it's nice.

00:13:44.420 It's better than not having those things, but you know, it's not worth the trade-off.

00:13:49.280 You know, there's this common line.

00:13:50.300 I'm so glad I went through everything I went through because it made me who I am today.

00:13:52.920 And I kind of have this, the opposite view where I think most of the time people who

00:13:57.960 live through very difficult early life circumstances and, and then later achieve some level of success

00:14:03.620 and flourishing, I think they succeed despite those experiences, not because of them.

00:14:08.240 Um, cause you know, very few people would wish those experiences on their loved ones or their

00:14:13.400 own children or the people around them.

00:14:15.220 Um, I certainly wouldn't.

00:14:16.340 Um, so, you know, I, I think that we focus too much on what happens after the age of 18

00:14:23.220 of, okay, where do these kids go off?

00:14:25.000 You know, kids from poor or poor homes, foster homes, and so on.

00:14:28.920 Where do they go next after they graduate high school or if they graduate high school and

00:14:32.340 what's next?

00:14:33.200 Whereas I'm focused more on, you know, this is kind of a coming of age memoir.

00:14:36.780 And I talk about zero to 17 or 18 and how, you know, my friends, I'm not entirely certain

00:14:44.340 that even in the best of environments that they would have gone on to some, you know,

00:14:50.060 fancy school.

00:14:51.240 I, they weren't, they weren't interested in school.

00:14:53.460 And I'm not entirely convinced that even if they were raised by two parents, stable home,

00:14:57.740 upper middle-class area, if they, their interests would have changed that much.

00:15:01.680 But I do think that even if they don't go off to college, um, you know, they, they still

00:15:07.520 would have deserved to have a stable, safe, secure childhood where they're not surrounded

00:15:12.440 by poverty and addiction and substance abuse and people making self-defeating decisions

00:15:17.360 and neglect and just sort of day-to-day chaos.

00:15:21.500 Um, it's still important to try to minimize those experiences regardless of how the future

00:15:26.800 looks for them.

00:15:28.140 And so, and the other thing is like, you know, even if social mobility were our goal, social

00:15:34.600 mobility in the sense of conventional badges of success, education and earnings and so

00:15:39.120 on, one of the number, actually the number one predictor of whether or not someone graduates

00:15:45.200 from college is if they were raised by, by two parents.

00:15:48.620 And so even if we wanted them to go to college and that was our goal, which I'm not convinced

00:15:52.220 that should be our goal, but even if it were, um, yeah, sort of promoting and cultivating

00:15:57.340 stable family, stable community, stable environments.

00:15:59.480 I mean, I tell you guys a story that I eventually, uh, left on the cutting room floor.

00:16:05.640 Um, so it's not in the book, but it was in an early draft of the manuscript where, you

00:16:11.380 know, I, uh, there, there are a couple of stories.

00:16:13.560 So, so one was, um, so my sister might watch this, but I'll tell it anyway.

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00:16:47.680 So my, my younger sister, my adoptive sister, uh, Hannah, who I write about in the book,

00:16:51.720 um, she was really picky eater. 0.99

00:16:54.720 And, you know, there, there was a period where, um, my, our adoptive mom was single for a while.

00:17:00.080 There was a divorce.

00:17:00.680 And so my adoptive mom raised us for a little while and my mom was working full time.

00:17:06.180 And, you know, so she'd work long hours, try to pay the bills. 1.00

00:17:09.460 She had other obligations.

00:17:10.440 Her attention and resources were spread very thin.

00:17:13.400 And so then, you know, she'd come home, she'd make dinner for us.

00:17:16.400 And my sister would, you know, she'd make some chicken and some rice and some, 0.98

00:17:20.520 you know, broccoli or something, or a salad, something healthy, nutritious.

00:17:24.020 And my sister would say, you know, I want chicken nuggets. 0.85

00:17:26.800 You know, I want pizza.

00:17:28.040 I want corn dogs, you know, kind of the, you know, junk food that American kids like to eat. 0.97

00:17:32.460 And, you know, sometimes my mom would give in because she was tired because she, you know,

00:17:37.200 understandably so.

00:17:38.180 Okay, here you go.

00:17:39.060 But then later, when my mom fell in love with a woman named Shelly, who I read about in the book,

00:17:45.600 they would give in less frequently because it's different when you have two parents present.

00:17:49.780 And suddenly, you can kind of negotiate, you can tag team, like, I'm frazzled, I'm tired,

00:17:54.320 can you handle this?

00:17:55.220 And then the other parent can kind of, you can sort of switch off that way.

00:17:58.060 And so when people talk about things like childhood obesity and how it's particularly

00:18:02.560 prevalent in low-income communities, I don't think people are thinking about that.

00:18:06.260 That when you have a single mom who's frazzled. 1.00

00:18:08.160 And the other thing is, like, this didn't exist when I was a kid, but the shocking difference

00:18:14.660 in terms of screen use.

00:18:16.460 So kids in the U.S. from families who earn $35,000 or less per year spend two hours more

00:18:21.500 per day on screens than kids from families who earn $100,000 or more per year.

00:18:25.300 So basically, poor kids spend two hours using screens more per day than kids from rich families.

00:18:30.220 And I think that's part of it, that if you're a lone parent, you don't have a lot of money,

00:18:33.560 you don't have a lot of income, and your kid is, you know, being disruptive, misbehaving,

00:18:38.360 you just give them an iPad and say, hey, chill out, here you go.

00:18:41.360 But if you have two parents, you're thinking, okay, interact with the kid.

00:18:43.960 Again, you can sort of trade off in that way.

00:18:46.480 Well, you've basically got more time between the two of you.

00:18:49.700 Twice as much.

00:18:50.480 Twice as much.

00:18:51.020 But I think it's even more than that.

00:18:52.480 I mean, even just having those little breaks can go a long way.

00:18:54.820 Yeah.

00:18:56.180 Yeah, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts kind of thing.

00:18:58.780 Yeah.

00:18:58.960 The other story is that I left out of the book was, you know, there was a, when I was 13,

00:19:05.340 I had this friend, Christian, and he was raised by a single mom.

00:19:08.960 His dad was in prison.

00:19:11.100 And one day, him and his mom got in a fight.

00:19:14.780 They got in a huge yelling match in the middle of the night.

00:19:17.300 He was 13.

00:19:18.940 And, you know, she said something like, you know, if you don't want to live here,

00:19:21.480 get the hell out of here or something. 0.91

00:19:22.800 And he was, you know, he thought he was this tough 13-year-old kid.

00:19:25.040 So he's like, fine.

00:19:25.780 And he walks out of their apartment and then suddenly he realizes he has nowhere to go.

00:19:31.420 And, you know, he has a few friends.

00:19:33.720 And at that time, when we were 13, I was the only one who had two parents.

00:19:37.700 I had my mom and I had Shelly.

00:19:38.900 And we had our house.

00:19:39.920 And, you know, it was a small house, but we had two parents.

00:19:42.480 And of the five friends he could have called, he called me.

00:19:46.900 And he came over to our house.

00:19:48.880 And, you know, this is the middle of the night.

00:19:51.200 My mom and Shelly sit him down and ask what happened.

00:19:53.220 And they sort of speak with him and say, hey, you know, you can stay with us.

00:19:56.400 But we're going to have to call your mom.

00:19:57.700 She has a right to know where you are, that kind of thing.

00:19:59.400 And he stayed with us for about two weeks.

00:20:01.380 And, you know, at the time, I thought it was just cool that I had my friends staying over.

00:20:04.800 But in hindsight, I think that the reason he chose to stay with us rather than our other friends is because he felt safer.

00:20:11.000 When you have two adults present who trust one another and care about one another, kids can sense that and they feel safer.

00:20:17.920 And it creates a sort of space for kids to express themselves, to trust not just the adults, but the other kids around them.

00:20:26.860 And the whole sort of atmosphere changes when you have two adults present who have a strong bond with one another versus just the one by themselves, just one adult and a bunch of kids, just completely different.

00:20:37.600 And, yeah, he stayed with us and he felt better.

00:20:40.780 And so if you multiply that across like a neighborhood of two-parent families versus one-parent families, the whole vibe changes in that area, right?

00:20:49.160 And so I think that's something else that people don't really think about is it's not just the resources that the other parent brings, but it's the kind of intangible benefits of emotional trust and security in those things as well.

00:21:01.720 And, Rob, one of the things I love about your book is in addition to talking about your personal story, you weave it into culture and politics and the social fabric of what's going on.

00:21:11.060 And I think people will have a flavor now from what you've just talked about, about essentially some of the issues that you're highlighting that have become very difficult to talk about.

00:21:21.360 I mean, I remember I was recently on Question Time in this country and I was asked a question about knife crime.

00:21:27.480 And I talked about the fact that as long as we've got a skyrocketing divorce rate and lots of young men are growing up without dads, this is going to happen.

00:21:35.560 And the internet basically said, oh, he's a racist.

00:21:39.760 And I didn't mention anyone's race, but this is how we now think about it.

00:21:43.780 And, you know, it's so sad to me because you're not a parent yet.

00:21:48.440 No.

00:21:48.920 You aren't.

00:21:50.340 When my son was born, you get these visits from the health visitor to come and see it.

00:21:56.000 And, like, my wife and I, we don't have any family living nearby.

00:21:59.200 It was basically just me and her, which is really hard with a baby, especially the first time.

00:22:04.500 You have no idea what you're doing.

00:22:06.520 So we were kind of, like, basically surviving, coping.

00:22:11.280 We were still doing okay, but basically we felt like we were having a hard time of it.

00:22:15.840 And then this health visitor came around and she was there for, like, 10 minutes.

00:22:19.060 And she said, oh, it's amazing what you guys have because so few children have this nowadays.

00:22:24.080 And our subjective experience was that we were struggling, but her experience from the outside was, like, oh, this is rare now.

00:22:30.800 And I was like, I don't envy those other kids.

00:22:33.220 And so the thing that you're raising really is that we now live in a society where increasing number of children are effectively having a worse and worse and worse childhood experience because of the breakdown of the family.

00:22:47.260 Yeah. And the breakdown of the family is primarily in kind of lower income, kind of working class areas.

00:22:54.440 I mean, so we hear about these snapshot aggregate statistics.

00:22:57.680 And they roughly, you know, they're roughly the same in the U.S. and the U.K.

00:23:01.860 Something on the order of 40 to 45 percent of children in both countries are raised by unmarried parents.

00:23:09.060 But, you know, that's 40 to 45 percent.

00:23:13.400 But then, you know, it's funny.

00:23:14.100 Like, I speak with college educated people now and they're like 40 percent.

00:23:17.640 Like, I can't think of a single friend.

00:23:19.440 Or maybe they have one.

00:23:20.180 They have, like, the one token divorced friend or the one token.

00:23:22.340 Like the problem of one.

00:23:23.140 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:23:24.020 You know, so they have a group.

00:23:25.060 But then, and so that's their experience.

00:23:27.700 But, you know, these things are very strongly divided along class lines.

00:23:31.020 And so in the U.S., like where I grew up in California, it's everyone.

00:23:35.260 Like, it's not even, like, I can't even, no, no, no.

00:23:37.180 You know what?

00:23:37.420 I had one friend with married parents.

00:23:38.640 But even they had some, there was some infidelity and some issues there.

00:23:41.960 But that was like, so it's the reverse experience where you have a bunch of people raised in various kind of family configurations.

00:23:48.080 And then you have, like, the one token friend who has two parents.

00:23:52.060 And, yeah, so, you know, I cite some statistics in the book about how in 1960,

00:23:57.980 95% of children in the U.S. were raised by both of their birth parents.

00:24:01.780 And by 2005, it had dropped slightly for the upper class from 95% to 85%.

00:24:06.360 And for working class, children born and working class families, it dropped from 95% to 30% by 2005.

00:24:13.220 And my guess is today it's even more pronounced, sort of that gap, the magnitude of that gap.

00:24:18.600 And it's funny, you know, people who say that this is like a racist statement to point out, I mean, where I grew up.

00:24:24.760 So the foster homes I lived in, it was very sort of mixed race.

00:24:27.580 You know, you had Hispanic kids, you know, a couple Asian kids, black kids, white.

00:24:31.000 It was very sort of mixed.

00:24:33.140 But when I moved to Red Bluff, this town in Northern California, located in one of the poorest counties in the state,

00:24:40.000 it's a part of California no one even knows about.

00:24:42.040 It's just completely overlooked, kind of, you know, forgotten.

00:24:45.300 And it's majority white with a very strong kind of Hispanic population as well.

00:24:51.020 I mean, my high school was probably roughly like 60% white, 30-something percent Hispanic.

00:24:57.480 And then we had a handful of black and Asian kids.

00:24:59.760 But most of my friends were white and Hispanic.

00:25:02.160 And they were blue-collar, working class.

00:25:04.280 And their families look rough.

00:25:06.220 I mean, you know, I don't know if you could call someone racist for pointing this out,

00:25:09.400 that white, working-class families in the U.S. look very unstable. 0.99

00:25:14.800 And they continue to sort of deteriorate like this.

00:25:19.400 And, you know, it's funny.

00:25:20.540 Like, my...

00:25:22.100 So I learned a new piece of information since the last time I spoke to you guys.

00:25:26.060 So I knew that my mom, my birth mother, was Korean.

00:25:30.360 So I know it was Korean on her side.

00:25:31.500 She was from Seoul.

00:25:32.900 She came to the U.S. 0.79

00:25:33.740 And I grew up thinking, okay, I'm like mixed-race Asian.

00:25:38.520 I didn't really know anything about my dad.

00:25:41.460 Supposedly, I was named after him.

00:25:43.300 But that's the only information that I have.

00:25:45.400 So some forensic psychologist interviewed my mom.

00:25:47.540 And his name was Robert.

00:25:48.520 But she didn't know anything else about him.

00:25:53.480 And so I took a 23andMe genetic ancestry test last year

00:25:57.960 and discovered that I'm half Hispanic on my father's side.

00:26:01.920 And, you know, in hindsight, it's like, you know, I was born in L.A.

00:26:05.800 It's like, you know, it's okay.

00:26:07.120 I'm half Mexican.

00:26:08.060 Yeah.

00:26:08.320 Well, big surprise.

00:26:10.720 And so I didn't know this about myself.

00:26:13.320 But, you know, like, it's...

00:26:15.840 I just think, like, the whole preoccupation with race is misguided

00:26:20.400 because I went my whole life not really caring

00:26:22.260 or not really thinking that much about it.

00:26:24.720 And, you know, but people seem to think it matters now.

00:26:27.480 People will ask me about it.

00:26:28.700 And it's like, it's interesting, kind of the, like, racial consciousness

00:26:31.900 or preoccupation with race is actually higher in more educated environments.

00:26:35.720 Like, I didn't even think of myself as, like, a half Asian person

00:26:40.100 until I stepped foot on campus.

00:26:42.460 And then suddenly it's like, you know, people are, like, asking me

00:26:45.300 about my experiences.

00:26:46.840 And, like, this becomes...

00:26:47.720 But, you know, when you're in a poor environment,

00:26:49.860 like, the thing that matters most is that you don't have money.

00:26:51.740 Like, that's kind of the commonality.

00:26:53.260 It's like, you don't have enough money.

00:26:54.480 And that sort of bonds people together.

00:26:57.760 But, yeah, the line that I use now is, you know,

00:27:00.740 I didn't know I was half Hispanic.

00:27:02.160 I just thought I was Asian.

00:27:02.980 So I went to bed white adjacent

00:27:04.800 and then I woke up as an underrepresented minority.

00:27:08.280 But, you know, we joke about this.

00:27:10.660 And obviously it's funny.

00:27:11.920 But do you think sometimes our over-focus on race

00:27:15.820 is the fact that we've lost our roots?

00:27:19.460 We kind of don't know who we are anymore.

00:27:21.900 So we kind of attach or grasp at these certain things,

00:27:26.780 you know, like race, like gender.

00:27:28.760 But like you were saying yourself,

00:27:31.420 the race wasn't important.

00:27:32.760 What was important is where you grew up, your roots.

00:27:35.580 Those are actually what made you.

00:27:37.980 Yeah.

00:27:38.600 Yeah, I think that's...

00:27:40.140 Yeah, that we...

00:27:41.660 I think now we're kind of grasping for identity now.

00:27:44.820 That's an interesting point that if you're...

00:27:46.260 So most people who grow up in low-income communities

00:27:49.240 actually never leave.

00:27:50.420 And so it's like, this is my hometown.

00:27:52.080 These are my people.

00:27:52.920 This is my family.

00:27:54.200 And so they have that sense of connectedness.

00:27:56.460 But for a lot of people who go off to college,

00:27:59.480 you know, they go to another state or another city

00:28:01.540 and they feel maybe kind of unmoored from their roots

00:28:04.560 or they never really had them to begin with,

00:28:08.040 you're sort of floundering around

00:28:09.640 trying to find out who am I.

00:28:11.060 And, you know, unfortunately,

00:28:14.160 a lot of people get sort of obsessed with race.

00:28:16.980 And it's like sort of this reverse kind of...

00:28:19.880 We kind of went full circle back to racial consciousness.

00:28:22.180 But from like this stance of sympathy or something,

00:28:24.400 I just heard this story.

00:28:25.200 I don't remember which college this was in the U.S.

00:28:26.700 where...

00:28:27.840 This was a university, unsurprisingly.

00:28:29.720 And they were like, you know,

00:28:30.760 the white professors and students and academics,

00:28:33.280 there was something like, you know,

00:28:34.780 only white people can attend this meeting.

00:28:36.780 And the reasoning was something like,

00:28:40.200 because people of color had...

00:28:42.320 Can you swear?

00:28:43.240 Can you swear?

00:28:43.640 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 1.00

00:28:44.360 Basically, like, people of color have had enough of our shit 1.00

00:28:47.060 and we don't need to subject them to us. 1.00

00:28:49.540 So we're just going to have a white people meeting.

00:28:51.120 And I'm like, do you guys realize what this sounds like?

00:28:53.260 That like, we're just going to have white people only at this meeting.

00:28:56.020 And it's like, they sort of like reverse rationalize themselves

00:28:59.820 into this position of like racial segregation again.

00:29:02.880 And it's just mind-blowing just how, like, narrow-minded

00:29:08.500 and just sort of...

00:29:11.300 I mean, I think, like, ultimately, this could be very dangerous,

00:29:13.660 this way of thinking in a multi-ethnic democracy

00:29:15.240 where suddenly we're talking about race

00:29:16.920 and how race is so salient and important.

00:29:18.780 But I think, yeah, the connectedness and roots

00:29:20.900 have something to do with it.

00:29:21.620 No, no, I totally agree with you.

00:29:23.040 And one of my favorite Thomas Sowell quotes

00:29:25.760 is when he talks about how I was...

00:29:27.840 You know, racism never worked.

00:29:29.620 And that's why I didn't support it.

00:29:31.340 And that's why I don't want to put it under new management.

00:29:34.680 You know what I mean?

00:29:35.580 And that's kind of what we're doing.

00:29:37.120 But, you know, interesting, just I wanted to come back a little bit

00:29:39.980 because one of the things you talked about

00:29:42.160 was the deterioration of working-class communities.

00:29:46.920 And I suppose the inevitable question is,

00:29:50.180 like, why is this happening?

00:29:52.980 Why it's been such a powerful drive

00:29:55.520 that has pulled, you know, families apart

00:29:58.080 or people have just got to a point where,

00:30:00.480 as you say, and particularly in poorer communities,

00:30:03.420 you're much less likely to be growing up

00:30:05.860 with a single parent raising you

00:30:08.060 than a more typical family.

00:30:11.700 Yeah, yeah.

00:30:12.300 And it's, yeah, it's a good question.

00:30:14.800 You know, I think that the kind of received wisdom

00:30:18.840 in the U.S.

00:30:20.880 and probably in Western countries overall is poverty,

00:30:24.140 that when you don't have money,

00:30:25.920 that it just becomes harder to find a partner

00:30:28.280 and form a stable marriage,

00:30:29.740 and there's just added stress.

00:30:31.760 And I think that's probably part of the story.

00:30:34.540 But again, you know,

00:30:36.320 to cite that earlier statistic,

00:30:37.700 in 1960, kids across the social classes,

00:30:41.320 95% of them were born to married parents.

00:30:44.220 Poor people existed in 1960,

00:30:45.740 and arguably they were poorer than they are now

00:30:48.340 because that was before the rise of,

00:30:52.420 like, the Great Society programs

00:30:53.920 and state benefits and all of these things.

00:30:56.980 You know, I read this article in The New Yorker

00:30:58.620 a couple of years ago,

00:30:59.680 and they, you know,

00:31:00.460 it was kind of this interesting excerpt,

00:31:01.880 especially in a publication like The New Yorker,

00:31:03.720 where they said, you know,

00:31:05.080 back decades ago, if you were poor,

00:31:07.480 it meant that you couldn't eat,

00:31:09.340 whereas now if you're poor,

00:31:10.400 it means you have access to state benefits

00:31:13.080 and food stamps.

00:31:14.260 And it's not, you know,

00:31:15.100 it's not fun to be on food stamps,

00:31:16.780 and it's not, you know,

00:31:17.500 that's not like your ideal way of life,

00:31:19.160 but it's better than not, you know,

00:31:20.340 going like days without food.

00:31:23.420 And so I don't think poverty is the whole story,

00:31:25.900 and especially if you visit other countries.

00:31:27.580 So I've spent some time in developing countries,

00:31:30.520 and I've seen that families don't look the same.

00:31:33.360 The other day, I was walking through an airport.

00:31:35.040 This guy from Kenya recognized me,

00:31:36.820 and he was like, yeah,

00:31:37.980 I agree with you that it's not just poverty,

00:31:39.460 because when I go home to Kenya,

00:31:41.440 like, our families are, like, we're poor,

00:31:43.320 but, like, the families are intact,

00:31:44.740 and people, like, know their neighbors,

00:31:46.660 and, you know, they,

00:31:47.620 so I think that culture has a big

00:31:51.720 and important role to play here,

00:31:53.460 that, you know, decades ago,

00:31:55.400 I'm thinking about, like,

00:31:56.300 my adoptive grandparents,

00:31:58.880 that generation.

00:31:59.900 So my grandfather,

00:32:01.340 he dropped out of school

00:32:02.360 when he was in eighth grade,

00:32:03.780 and, you know,

00:32:05.400 he and my grandmother got married

00:32:06.600 when they were very young

00:32:07.440 and very poor,

00:32:08.900 and they lived, you know,

00:32:09.940 through the sort of

00:32:10.640 back end of the Great Depression,

00:32:12.020 and they had kids,

00:32:13.480 and, you know,

00:32:14.160 despite the material poverty,

00:32:15.400 there was still this sort of culture,

00:32:16.980 this norm around them

00:32:17.840 to stay together,

00:32:18.880 you know,

00:32:19.020 take care of your kids,

00:32:19.820 take care of your family,

00:32:20.740 and then, you know,

00:32:22.360 as the generations kind of wore on,

00:32:24.360 it's like, you know,

00:32:24.880 their kids,

00:32:26.040 you know,

00:32:26.720 my sort of,

00:32:27.540 my adoptive mom

00:32:28.740 and aunts and uncles

00:32:29.700 in that generation,

00:32:31.520 all of them got married

00:32:32.340 and all of them have kids,

00:32:33.280 and then all of them got divorced,

00:32:34.540 and this is kind of

00:32:35.080 working class life, right?

00:32:36.680 And now they have kids,

00:32:37.800 like my generation,

00:32:38.880 my cousins,

00:32:39.860 and they have kids

00:32:41.040 and they've never been married.

00:32:42.500 And so it's like,

00:32:43.600 you can sort of see

00:32:44.580 the cultural shifts over time

00:32:46.840 where marriage gradually

00:32:48.300 becomes less important.

00:32:49.280 People are still kind of having kids,

00:32:50.500 but just out of wedlock.

00:32:52.040 And so that's,

00:32:53.460 I think that's part

00:32:54.180 of what's going on here

00:32:55.040 is that marriage

00:32:56.120 and commitment

00:32:56.800 and long-term bonds,

00:32:59.940 it's just not as pronounced anymore.

00:33:03.260 I mean, it's interesting.

00:33:03.820 If you look at the statistics over time,

00:33:06.060 starting in the early 1960s,

00:33:07.660 across classes,

00:33:10.080 divorce rates

00:33:11.660 and single parenthood

00:33:12.500 actually spiked

00:33:13.300 across the socioeconomic ladder.

00:33:15.720 So, you know,

00:33:16.560 rich people,

00:33:17.180 upper-middle-class people,

00:33:18.020 they actually got divorced

00:33:19.320 and started having kids

00:33:20.140 out of wedlock

00:33:20.800 starting in the late 60s

00:33:22.560 throughout the 70s.

00:33:23.960 And by the 1980s, though,

00:33:25.440 they had kind of reverted back

00:33:26.660 to their original figure

00:33:29.720 of, you know,

00:33:30.900 basically getting married

00:33:31.720 and having kids

00:33:32.420 in stable, committed relationships.

00:33:34.500 Whereas for sort of

00:33:35.680 lower-class,

00:33:36.260 working-class communities,

00:33:37.120 they sort of followed.

00:33:38.280 You know,

00:33:38.420 they marched in lockstep

00:33:39.280 with the upper class.

00:33:40.100 They started to get divorced.

00:33:41.660 They started having kids

00:33:42.340 out of wedlock.

00:33:42.900 That was kind of the norm.

00:33:43.820 That was kind of this

00:33:44.440 cool, chic thing to do.

00:33:47.880 And,

00:33:48.360 but by the 1980s,

00:33:50.340 they had never reverted.

00:33:52.220 They just sort of

00:33:52.840 continued to deteriorate

00:33:53.980 and got worse and worse

00:33:54.880 and never recovered.

00:33:55.980 So, you know,

00:33:56.660 the kind of stylized story,

00:33:57.940 I think,

00:33:58.320 is that for educated

00:34:00.140 and affluent people,

00:34:01.040 they kind of experimented a bit

00:34:02.960 and said,

00:34:03.380 well, actually,

00:34:03.760 let's, you know,

00:34:04.220 this might be fun

00:34:05.140 to, like, experiment

00:34:05.840 and have different families

00:34:06.720 and have kids out of wedlock

00:34:07.720 and so on

00:34:08.240 or maybe get divorced.

00:34:10.080 And then they kind of

00:34:11.620 came to their senses

00:34:12.340 and thought,

00:34:12.960 actually,

00:34:13.440 this isn't so good

00:34:14.260 for the kids.

00:34:14.780 It's not so good

00:34:15.240 for the family.

00:34:15.820 Maybe it's not as fun

00:34:16.680 for me as I thought

00:34:17.320 it would be.

00:34:18.180 And they sort of

00:34:18.960 returned back to those norms,

00:34:20.060 whereas for the lower classes,

00:34:21.000 they just kind of fell apart

00:34:22.580 and never came back

00:34:23.400 together again.

00:34:24.120 And do you think this is caused

00:34:25.540 by the sexual revolution?

00:34:26.840 We've obviously had people

00:34:27.940 like Louise Perrion

00:34:28.900 to talk about this

00:34:29.940 and not to oversimplify

00:34:31.940 her argument

00:34:32.560 because she's a very intelligent,

00:34:34.080 sophisticated thinker,

00:34:35.060 but effectively,

00:34:36.400 once you have the pill

00:34:38.260 and people can have sex 0.79

00:34:41.200 without necessarily

00:34:42.600 the consequences,

00:34:43.940 then you start

00:34:45.620 to develop abortion,

00:34:47.420 which is a method

00:34:48.240 of managing that.

00:34:50.320 And you actually start

00:34:51.180 to see way more abortions

00:34:52.360 as a result.

00:34:54.060 And basically,

00:34:55.360 once you take,

00:34:56.480 you separate sex 0.99

00:34:57.800 from its consequences,

00:34:59.380 actually,

00:35:00.260 what you then end up

00:35:01.240 is a lack of commitment,

00:35:02.700 lack of stability,

00:35:03.760 and that changes the culture.

00:35:06.300 Do you think that's it?

00:35:08.360 There will be other people

00:35:09.880 like the Thomas Sowles,

00:35:11.000 by the way,

00:35:11.420 who will say,

00:35:12.020 well,

00:35:12.220 it was about the government.

00:35:13.080 The government came in

00:35:14.000 and started incentivizing

00:35:15.760 single parenthood

00:35:16.580 by giving money

00:35:17.380 to single women 0.56

00:35:18.160 if they had kids

00:35:18.980 and no man in the house.

00:35:19.900 And on and on it goes.

00:35:22.580 There are different arguments.

00:35:23.680 What do you think

00:35:24.380 really caused

00:35:25.340 this cultural shift

00:35:26.280 that you're talking about?

00:35:27.280 I mean,

00:35:27.520 I think all of those things

00:35:28.420 are kind of intertwined.

00:35:30.420 I do think that the culture

00:35:31.960 shifted before

00:35:33.860 the policies did.

00:35:36.200 I mean,

00:35:36.360 if you sort of look at

00:35:37.560 when the Great Society programs

00:35:39.240 were introduced,

00:35:40.100 I mean,

00:35:40.480 it was all kind of,

00:35:41.260 so the birth control pill

00:35:42.420 was introduced in 1960,

00:35:44.000 but the sort of forces

00:35:46.560 and the raw ingredients

00:35:47.780 of the sexual revolution

00:35:49.240 were kind of already in place

00:35:50.620 where there was sort of

00:35:52.940 this wellspring of support

00:35:55.120 for sexual freedom

00:35:58.020 on college campuses

00:35:59.640 and sort of elite institutions

00:36:02.480 and communities

00:36:03.020 more so among young people,

00:36:04.820 but kind of across the board.

00:36:06.860 And then I think

00:36:07.600 that in turn

00:36:08.140 helps to fuel

00:36:08.860 the policy changes

00:36:09.880 and to support

00:36:10.800 sort of more access

00:36:12.140 to birth control

00:36:12.860 and all those kinds of things.

00:36:13.840 And so,

00:36:15.080 I mean,

00:36:15.360 I think interestingly

00:36:16.160 kind of reproductive technology 1.00

00:36:18.580 may have backfired.

00:36:19.840 You know,

00:36:20.200 there was a really interesting report

00:36:21.800 from Brookings

00:36:23.580 in the 1990s

00:36:24.520 that talked about

00:36:25.180 kind of the decline

00:36:26.920 in marriage rates

00:36:28.200 and shotgun marriage rates

00:36:29.280 in particular

00:36:29.900 about how in the past,

00:36:31.660 you know,

00:36:33.340 when a man got a woman pregnant, 0.60

00:36:35.260 there were all of these

00:36:36.100 sort of cultural forces

00:36:37.040 in place that said

00:36:37.760 you have to marry her, 0.98

00:36:38.540 you have to take care of her,

00:36:39.560 you know,

00:36:39.720 and so on.

00:36:41.000 And then with the introduction

00:36:42.140 of the pill

00:36:43.080 and abortion and so on,

00:36:44.560 then it became,

00:36:47.120 like the norm shifted

00:36:47.980 because suddenly

00:36:48.680 the burden was on the woman.

00:36:50.380 You know,

00:36:50.580 no one forced you

00:36:51.360 to get pregnant.

00:36:52.340 No one's forcing you

00:36:53.200 to carry the child to term.

00:36:54.540 The man felt like

00:36:55.220 he was kind of exonerated.

00:36:56.300 He's off the hook.

00:36:57.420 The entire community

00:36:58.560 kind of became aware

00:36:59.420 that, yeah,

00:36:59.840 she's pregnant, 1.00

00:37:00.680 but, you know,

00:37:01.200 do you really have to force him

00:37:02.020 to marry her

00:37:02.600 because she has all these options

00:37:03.900 for what to do next?

00:37:05.080 And so everything changed

00:37:06.620 after that,

00:37:07.160 whereas before

00:37:07.600 there was a lot of

00:37:08.180 sort of burden

00:37:08.560 and responsibility

00:37:09.120 placed on a man

00:37:09.840 who got a woman pregnant.

00:37:11.240 And I also think

00:37:11.840 it's interesting that,

00:37:12.720 you know,

00:37:12.860 just as a thought experiment,

00:37:13.860 if you were to travel

00:37:16.940 back to 1945, say,

00:37:20.080 and you were to ask people,

00:37:23.660 you know,

00:37:23.880 in the future,

00:37:24.580 there's going to be

00:37:25.420 this pill you can take

00:37:26.520 and women won't get pregnant. 1.00

00:37:27.800 And then even if they do,

00:37:29.400 abortions will be, 0.99

00:37:30.880 you know,

00:37:31.160 more or less accessible.

00:37:32.300 I know that,

00:37:32.680 you know,

00:37:32.840 recent changes and so forth,

00:37:34.240 but far more accessible

00:37:35.040 than in 1945

00:37:35.820 to get an abortion. 1.00

00:37:37.800 But then you ask these people,

00:37:38.820 do you think that there will be

00:37:40.760 more children born out of wedlock

00:37:42.600 or fewer?

00:37:43.780 Do you think that there will be

00:37:44.720 more children in foster homes

00:37:46.880 and orphanages

00:37:47.440 and institutions or fewer?

00:37:49.280 You know,

00:37:49.380 do you think that there will be

00:37:50.280 sort of more divorces 0.82

00:37:51.360 and fewer and so on and so forth?

00:37:52.780 I think most people would say like,

00:37:55.300 oh,

00:37:55.760 like,

00:37:56.420 yeah,

00:37:56.540 that's,

00:37:56.820 that sounds like utopia.

00:37:57.740 Like,

00:37:58.160 you know,

00:37:58.400 no,

00:37:58.720 no parents ever going to have a kid

00:37:59.840 unless they don't want to

00:38:00.860 or if they do or whatever.

00:38:01.860 And,

00:38:02.280 you know,

00:38:03.220 you're not going to have kids

00:38:04.200 sort of flooding

00:38:04.980 these institutions anymore.

00:38:06.720 And actually,

00:38:08.420 yeah,

00:38:08.700 foster children,

00:38:10.180 orphanage,

00:38:10.560 all these things

00:38:11.100 have actually sort of

00:38:12.080 worsened over time.

00:38:13.900 Interestingly,

00:38:14.220 I just saw this statistic

00:38:15.000 the other day

00:38:15.480 that since 2000,

00:38:17.260 the number of kids

00:38:17.840 who've entered foster care

00:38:18.660 in the U.S.

00:38:19.000 has doubled.

00:38:19.860 And this is largely due

00:38:21.000 to drug use and addiction

00:38:22.100 and some of this due

00:38:23.340 to the opioid crisis

00:38:24.160 as well,

00:38:25.180 that more kids

00:38:25.740 are being neglected

00:38:26.460 or abused at home

00:38:27.300 and so then they get

00:38:27.920 placed into care.

00:38:28.740 And so,

00:38:30.040 you know,

00:38:31.380 I think what's going on here,

00:38:32.920 and this is just speculation,

00:38:34.320 I don't know of any research

00:38:36.420 on this question,

00:38:37.400 but it's something like,

00:38:38.820 you know,

00:38:40.100 a lot of people,

00:38:41.500 especially people who,

00:38:42.720 you know,

00:38:42.880 don't have much in the way

00:38:43.580 of resources or education, 0.97

00:38:45.720 they have a lot of sex 0.79

00:38:49.620 with different people. 0.98

00:38:50.600 They have a lot of hookups

00:38:51.400 and they may sort of start out

00:38:53.120 with the best of intentions

00:38:54.000 of, you know,

00:38:54.540 take the birth control,

00:38:55.500 you know,

00:38:55.680 then abortion,

00:38:56.740 all these things.

00:38:57.600 And then there's a pregnancy

00:38:58.900 that occurs

00:38:59.500 and then what ends up happening

00:39:00.800 is that the child

00:39:01.580 is just born anyway

00:39:02.460 and born to unmarried parents

00:39:04.780 and that's,

00:39:06.480 I think that's a lot

00:39:07.460 of what happens here

00:39:08.460 is that it's not as simple

00:39:09.680 as, you know,

00:39:10.440 someone gets pregnant 0.99

00:39:11.140 and then immediately

00:39:11.700 they can find a way

00:39:12.500 to bypass that.

00:39:15.360 There's another point here

00:39:17.320 and I think there's

00:39:18.020 something to this.

00:39:19.420 So, you know,

00:39:20.220 in the book I write

00:39:20.740 about how my mom's partner,

00:39:22.700 Shelly,

00:39:22.920 had three teenage daughters

00:39:24.520 and they all had kids

00:39:25.680 by the time

00:39:26.480 they were 16 years old

00:39:27.380 and none of them were,

00:39:29.900 I mean,

00:39:30.200 they weren't even

00:39:30.980 in a relationship

00:39:31.680 with the child's father,

00:39:32.600 let alone married.

00:39:34.480 But, you know,

00:39:35.840 observing them,

00:39:37.660 you know,

00:39:38.060 in hindsight,

00:39:38.520 I was reading the book,

00:39:39.220 I thought about this,

00:39:40.420 this book I'd read

00:39:42.280 called Promises I Can Keep

00:39:43.360 by these two

00:39:44.060 Princeton sociologists.

00:39:46.900 And in this book,

00:39:47.960 these two sociologists

00:39:48.980 sort of describe

00:39:49.660 their interactions

00:39:50.400 and interviews

00:39:51.060 with single mothers

00:39:53.620 across the U.S.

00:39:54.480 in different communities,

00:39:55.320 white mothers,

00:39:56.160 Hispanic mothers,

00:39:56.880 black mothers. 0.71

00:39:57.820 And one sort of 0.82

00:39:59.060 common feature

00:39:59.680 that these sociologists

00:40:00.800 point out

00:40:01.280 is that these women, 1.00

00:40:02.900 you know,

00:40:04.040 they had really hard lives.

00:40:05.360 Maybe they were raised

00:40:06.020 by a single mom themselves,

00:40:07.140 they grew up poor,

00:40:07.960 they'd been kind of jilted

00:40:09.420 and mistreated

00:40:09.960 by the men in their lives,

00:40:11.040 and then they have a kid

00:40:12.100 and that's like

00:40:13.060 the one person in the world

00:40:14.100 who they can love

00:40:14.980 without reservation

00:40:15.720 and who they know

00:40:16.360 will love them back.

00:40:18.020 And so I thought about this

00:40:19.140 when I was growing up

00:40:20.180 with these teenage moms 1.00

00:40:21.660 and I saw a lot of that,

00:40:22.840 that they were sort of

00:40:24.260 mistreated by these guys

00:40:25.300 who they slept with

00:40:26.720 and they didn't have a lot

00:40:27.340 of guidance in their lives

00:40:28.340 and just a lot

00:40:29.360 of negative experiences,

00:40:30.520 but now they have a baby.

00:40:31.860 And I remember like

00:40:32.940 they were close

00:40:33.480 and they love these kids

00:40:34.320 and so on

00:40:34.740 and they're probably

00:40:35.320 a bit too permissive

00:40:36.220 and bordering on neglect

00:40:37.940 in some cases,

00:40:38.740 but it was like

00:40:40.160 I could see that

00:40:41.980 they were different

00:40:42.520 with the baby

00:40:43.060 than they were

00:40:43.500 with a lot of other people

00:40:44.380 in their lives.

00:40:45.520 And I think that's,

00:40:46.800 you know,

00:40:46.900 there are all of these

00:40:47.460 kind of non-material,

00:40:50.460 sort of non-economic reasons

00:40:51.940 for a lot of this.

00:40:52.620 A lot of it's just

00:40:53.100 sort of psychology,

00:40:54.180 behavior, emotions,

00:40:55.180 all of those things

00:40:56.040 can I think help to explain

00:40:57.200 like why it is that,

00:40:59.580 you know,

00:40:59.780 what other options

00:41:00.400 do you have for fulfillment too

00:41:01.680 other than being a mother,

00:41:03.360 even if it's not

00:41:04.480 in ideal circumstances,

00:41:05.540 whereas if you are educated

00:41:07.100 and affluent,

00:41:07.740 there's so many options

00:41:08.520 ahead of you

00:41:08.960 for how you can live your life

00:41:09.960 and then you can have a family

00:41:10.820 as a kind of capstone

00:41:11.820 to a successful career

00:41:13.340 and it doesn't quite look like that

00:41:14.980 in lower income communities too.

00:41:16.980 So in the absence of norms,

00:41:17.920 you just see these changes.

00:41:19.380 I think it's a really profound point

00:41:21.100 because I remember

00:41:21.660 when I was teaching

00:41:22.400 in those types of communities

00:41:23.680 in East London

00:41:24.680 and Cornwall

00:41:25.260 and other places,

00:41:26.560 one thing that I noticed,

00:41:28.260 particularly actually

00:41:29.000 with the white kids,

00:41:29.720 it may have been different

00:41:30.480 when you,

00:41:31.140 where you grew up

00:41:31.860 because white working class boys 0.98

00:41:33.880 are the lowest achieving 0.50

00:41:34.740 subgroup in education,

00:41:36.180 is there was a sense

00:41:38.420 of hopelessness.

00:41:40.160 They felt you just,

00:41:41.940 it was palpable

00:41:42.680 with these kids.

00:41:43.760 They came from generation 0.76

00:41:45.380 after generation

00:41:46.520 of people

00:41:47.140 who had just given up.

00:41:48.580 So I used to work

00:41:49.860 in a school with,

00:41:50.860 there was a lot

00:41:51.400 of immigrant kids there

00:41:53.200 and the difference

00:41:54.660 in attitude

00:41:55.340 between those kids

00:41:56.580 whose parents

00:41:57.080 had come from Nigeria

00:41:58.140 who were living

00:41:58.780 in the same area

00:42:00.740 and, you know,

00:42:01.260 had the same

00:42:01.860 educational experiences,

00:42:03.660 their attitude,

00:42:05.060 their behaviour,

00:42:06.360 their ambitions,

00:42:08.380 completely different.

00:42:09.220 You would look

00:42:09.620 at these kids

00:42:10.120 and know that

00:42:10.800 they would go on

00:42:11.600 to have a career

00:42:13.180 and they would go on

00:42:13.920 to achieve

00:42:14.400 and, you know,

00:42:15.500 have the best possible

00:42:16.460 life for themselves.

00:42:17.980 But you look

00:42:18.700 at these other kids

00:42:19.560 who'd been in that

00:42:20.320 community for generations

00:42:21.620 and they were lost

00:42:23.440 and it was heartbreaking.

00:42:25.160 Yeah.

00:42:25.600 Yeah, I think that

00:42:26.400 kind of hopelessness

00:42:27.920 is pervasive

00:42:29.300 when you,

00:42:30.760 I mean,

00:42:31.080 you know,

00:42:31.540 when you're

00:42:32.000 in an environment too

00:42:33.220 where people around you

00:42:35.000 aren't very ambitious,

00:42:36.400 where it's just,

00:42:37.500 you know,

00:42:38.940 no one's really thinking

00:42:39.920 about the future too.

00:42:41.340 No one's really thinking

00:42:42.000 that far ahead.

00:42:42.740 I mean,

00:42:42.960 the kind of outlook

00:42:45.320 that I can remember having

00:42:46.320 when I was a teenager,

00:42:47.200 it was kind of like two lenses.

00:42:51.060 One was the immediate present

00:42:53.860 slash like,

00:42:54.760 you know,

00:42:55.160 immediate future.

00:42:56.220 It was like this weekend,

00:42:57.100 basically.

00:42:57.760 And it was like,

00:42:58.740 you know,

00:42:59.520 how are we going to get beer 0.99

00:43:00.480 and get fucked up 0.99

00:43:01.520 this weekend kind of thing. 0.99

00:43:03.400 And then it was like

00:43:04.380 distant,

00:43:04.760 distant future.

00:43:05.460 It was like immediate future

00:43:06.360 and then distant future

00:43:07.280 of like someday

00:43:07.940 I'm going to have a house

00:43:09.740 and a nice car

00:43:10.660 and whatever,

00:43:11.720 an indoor gym

00:43:12.500 and all,

00:43:12.880 you know,

00:43:13.040 all the kind of things

00:43:13.780 that young boys want.

00:43:15.280 But then there was no,

00:43:16.560 no sort of mental image,

00:43:20.460 no way to envision

00:43:21.460 like the bridge

00:43:22.880 between this,

00:43:24.280 you know,

00:43:24.480 now and the weekend

00:43:25.320 and getting drunk

00:43:26.160 and then that future

00:43:27.940 in 20 years

00:43:28.660 of like me living

00:43:29.320 in a nice house

00:43:29.940 with a nice car.

00:43:30.680 Like,

00:43:30.860 how do I get there?

00:43:31.740 It's not going to be spending

00:43:32.680 every weekend

00:43:33.680 just drinking and having fun.

00:43:35.600 But I wasn't connecting

00:43:36.600 those dots.

00:43:37.100 I wasn't thinking in that way.

00:43:38.460 But that is a common way

00:43:39.540 of thinking of just like,

00:43:40.980 you know,

00:43:41.300 as far as it went,

00:43:42.580 I could think of,

00:43:43.240 so I had two jobs

00:43:44.600 in high school.

00:43:45.840 One,

00:43:46.200 I was a dishwasher

00:43:46.860 at a restaurant

00:43:48.220 and then the other,

00:43:48.820 I was a bag boy

00:43:49.420 at a grocery store.

00:43:51.040 And,

00:43:51.440 you know,

00:43:51.780 in these environments,

00:43:53.080 I had like a lot of coworkers

00:43:54.420 and like they would play

00:43:55.440 the lottery

00:43:55.840 and that was kind of

00:43:56.960 like their way

00:43:57.460 to like fantasize

00:43:58.240 about getting rich

00:43:58.880 in the future.

00:44:01.320 And,

00:44:01.840 but yeah,

00:44:02.180 I never,

00:44:02.580 never really sort of

00:44:03.220 interacted with people

00:44:03.880 who were like,

00:44:04.440 well,

00:44:04.700 you know,

00:44:04.900 I'm going to night school,

00:44:05.780 I'm doing this,

00:44:06.280 I'm doing that,

00:44:06.720 I'm trying to improve myself.

00:44:08.160 Very few of those kinds

00:44:09.580 of people.

00:44:11.280 Part of it,

00:44:11.760 I think too is,

00:44:12.660 I think there is a little bit

00:44:13.760 of the phenomenon

00:44:14.440 of,

00:44:14.880 you know,

00:44:15.860 what some people call

00:44:16.480 like brain drain

00:44:17.200 of,

00:44:18.980 and I talk a bit about this

00:44:19.920 in the book too,

00:44:20.640 I criticize this idea

00:44:21.860 of what I call

00:44:23.020 trickle down meritocracy

00:44:24.200 or trickle down diversity

00:44:25.300 of this idea that,

00:44:27.320 you know,

00:44:27.480 somehow if you can get people

00:44:28.840 at the very top

00:44:29.720 to accurately reflect

00:44:31.520 the demographics

00:44:32.080 of the society as a whole,

00:44:33.380 that somehow

00:44:33.720 we've achieved equity.

00:44:35.420 And so it's like,

00:44:36.060 you know,

00:44:36.220 as long as the top,

00:44:37.300 as long as the ruling class

00:44:38.360 is,

00:44:38.620 you know,

00:44:38.980 50% women 0.99

00:44:39.760 and X% LGBT 1.00

00:44:40.940 and X% Asian, 0.92

00:44:42.420 Hispanic and whatever,

00:44:43.800 that somehow

00:44:44.320 we've achieved the goals

00:44:45.740 of social justice.

00:44:47.560 Whereas I'm thinking,

00:44:48.520 okay,

00:44:48.920 well,

00:44:49.260 even if,

00:44:50.040 you know,

00:44:50.260 the seats at Harvard

00:44:51.300 or Yale

00:44:51.820 match the demographics

00:44:53.140 of the country as a whole,

00:44:54.360 what does that mean

00:44:55.260 for the people

00:44:55.720 who are actually

00:44:56.260 at the bottom,

00:44:57.040 who are actually,

00:44:58.020 like,

00:44:58.280 how do those benefits

00:44:59.480 trickle down

00:45:00.320 to the rest of society

00:45:01.720 into these poor communities,

00:45:03.500 low-income communities?

00:45:05.180 And so what happens is

00:45:06.660 I think a lot of these

00:45:07.500 elite institutions

00:45:08.400 kind of strip mine

00:45:09.520 talented people

00:45:10.700 out of these communities

00:45:11.640 and they never go back.

00:45:13.660 So like,

00:45:14.200 you know,

00:45:14.360 I'll just be honest,

00:45:14.880 I'm never going to go back

00:45:15.540 to Red Bluff.

00:45:16.120 I'll visit,

00:45:16.640 but I'm not going to live there.

00:45:18.020 And I noticed this

00:45:19.100 when I think about it,

00:45:20.260 and this is happening

00:45:20.760 across the country.

00:45:21.500 I think it's happening

00:45:21.980 around the world now

00:45:22.700 with ease of geographic mobility

00:45:23.980 is,

00:45:25.400 you know,

00:45:25.800 where I came from,

00:45:26.960 if you had,

00:45:27.640 if you were smart

00:45:28.300 and you had ambition,

00:45:29.060 you went off to college,

00:45:30.340 maybe local state school.

00:45:31.820 And if you,

00:45:32.860 you know,

00:45:33.100 maybe weren't so academically

00:45:34.060 inclined,

00:45:34.580 but you still had some ambition

00:45:35.640 like I did,

00:45:36.420 you go and join the military

00:45:37.560 and then you don't,

00:45:39.460 you know,

00:45:39.600 usually don't go back.

00:45:40.980 And so I think

00:45:41.440 that's happening too,

00:45:42.260 where,

00:45:42.500 you know,

00:45:42.700 a lot of the hopelessness

00:45:43.600 is like a lot of the people

00:45:44.700 who,

00:45:45.240 who are going places

00:45:46.960 and who do have ambition,

00:45:47.960 they just like get out of there

00:45:49.140 as soon as they can.

00:45:49.980 And so more and more

00:45:50.860 you sort of look around

00:45:51.560 and you don't see

00:45:52.120 a lot of good examples.

00:45:53.660 The other thing is,

00:45:54.400 I think you also have

00:45:55.140 a lot of negative examples too,

00:45:56.900 is,

00:45:57.960 you know,

00:45:58.300 when you have people

00:45:59.360 who are criminally inclined

00:46:00.920 and unlawful

00:46:01.700 and they're kind of sticking around.

00:46:03.120 And when you're 15,

00:46:04.460 16,

00:46:04.800 17 years old

00:46:05.420 and you're seeing people

00:46:06.200 do drugs

00:46:06.720 or steal cars

00:46:07.400 or whatever,

00:46:07.740 it's kind of fun.

00:46:08.420 It's kind of exciting.

00:46:09.480 And our culture does very little

00:46:10.880 to combat

00:46:11.600 the kind of romanticism

00:46:13.300 of criminality.

00:46:14.820 And so,

00:46:15.820 you know,

00:46:16.120 it's like easy

00:46:16.680 to sort of get sucked into that

00:46:18.100 and then to sort of

00:46:19.520 fall into these

00:46:20.320 negative behavioral patterns

00:46:21.520 and then never get out.

00:46:23.340 Some people have asked me

00:46:24.120 how I,

00:46:25.320 you know,

00:46:25.480 why was my life different?

00:46:26.800 You know,

00:46:26.900 we talked about

00:46:27.440 the academic stuff.

00:46:29.260 I think part of it

00:46:30.100 was just I got out of there

00:46:30.920 as soon as I could.

00:46:31.520 I was 17.

00:46:32.260 As soon as I graduated

00:46:33.080 high school,

00:46:33.520 I left for basic training

00:46:35.080 in the Air Force

00:46:36.080 and I never went back

00:46:37.540 whereas all of my friends stayed

00:46:38.580 and I could easily imagine

00:46:39.660 my life spiraling out of control

00:46:41.820 if I had stayed in Red Bluff.

00:46:43.500 Like when I was 17,

00:46:44.680 I was drinking

00:46:45.340 and driving a lot.

00:46:46.180 Like if nothing else,

00:46:46.840 that could have destroyed my life

00:46:48.380 was just how frequently

00:46:49.380 I would just like get drunk,

00:46:51.280 blackout drunk

00:46:51.800 and go racing down the highway

00:46:52.940 with my friends or something.

00:46:54.300 That was like a common,

00:46:55.100 common behavior.

00:46:55.660 And so,

00:46:57.160 you know,

00:46:57.400 I think like that,

00:46:59.360 those kind of examples too

00:47:00.620 around you,

00:47:01.140 the sort of absence of positive

00:47:02.300 and then the pervasiveness

00:47:03.180 of the negative contributes.

00:47:04.780 It's such a,

00:47:05.500 it's such a great point

00:47:06.380 because when you talk to kids

00:47:07.820 from this particular area,

00:47:09.100 if they don't have parents,

00:47:11.160 dads who are in medicine

00:47:12.480 or in finance

00:47:13.860 or in insurance

00:47:14.620 or whatever it may be,

00:47:16.100 then how are they going to know

00:47:17.660 to do those particular careers?

00:47:20.460 And the only careers

00:47:21.680 that they can see

00:47:22.420 being viable to them is,

00:47:24.420 oh,

00:47:24.520 someone became an athlete

00:47:25.700 or someone became a soccer player

00:47:27.380 or whatever it was

00:47:28.400 because those were the only people

00:47:30.960 who came from that community

00:47:32.200 and then to make it

00:47:33.440 and are visible.

00:47:34.740 Yeah.

00:47:35.160 Yeah.

00:47:35.560 I think that's right

00:47:36.140 that it's,

00:47:36.680 it goes for careers of course

00:47:38.440 that,

00:47:39.480 you know,

00:47:39.700 what's immediately around you,

00:47:41.300 those are the possibilities you have.

00:47:43.420 I mean,

00:47:43.640 it's funny,

00:47:43.960 like I've written about my,

00:47:45.640 like one reason I think

00:47:46.820 in addition to getting out of there

00:47:47.960 as soon as I could

00:47:48.600 was like why I went off to college

00:47:50.840 was because

00:47:51.440 I watched a lot of TV

00:47:52.720 when I was a kid

00:47:53.500 and a lot of the characters

00:47:54.920 I would see

00:47:55.620 and the shows I would watch,

00:47:56.720 they kind of romanticized

00:47:58.360 and glorified the college experience.

00:48:00.720 You know,

00:48:00.820 like I watched Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

00:48:02.020 and I think it was season three

00:48:03.780 where there's,

00:48:04.820 you know,

00:48:04.960 just plot line after plot line

00:48:06.560 of Will and Carlton,

00:48:07.860 you know,

00:48:08.260 how to apply to college,

00:48:09.800 you know,

00:48:09.960 which college are you going to,

00:48:11.120 that kind of thing.

00:48:11.600 And I'm watching this

00:48:12.260 and I'm like,

00:48:12.660 man,

00:48:12.960 college is so important

00:48:14.500 for these people.

00:48:15.880 And so it planted in my mind

00:48:16.940 that college was something

00:48:17.760 to aspire to.

00:48:18.680 Even if I didn't do it

00:48:19.460 right after high school,

00:48:20.220 it did sort of introduce the idea

00:48:22.520 even,

00:48:23.040 but no one around me

00:48:23.920 was going to college.

00:48:24.940 And I think that may have been

00:48:25.920 why I didn't go immediately.

00:48:27.340 But I think in addition

00:48:28.280 to the career piece,

00:48:29.480 it's also true for the family piece.

00:48:31.600 And this is something

00:48:32.040 I think a lot of people

00:48:32.780 don't think about is,

00:48:33.800 you know,

00:48:36.120 yes,

00:48:36.760 like kids will be less likely

00:48:38.000 to get into lucrative careers

00:48:40.780 if the adults around them

00:48:42.100 aren't doing those kinds of things.

00:48:43.740 But I also think kids

00:48:44.520 are less likely

00:48:45.100 to form families

00:48:46.220 and form committed relationships

00:48:48.500 if they don't see adults

00:48:49.640 around them doing that.

00:48:52.400 And so,

00:48:53.780 you know,

00:48:53.940 you could imagine

00:48:54.700 like a young kid

00:48:57.500 in an upper middle class neighborhood.

00:49:00.140 We'll say he,

00:49:01.380 you know,

00:49:02.080 he has two married parents,

00:49:04.380 all of his friends,

00:49:05.320 two married parents.

00:49:06.420 You know,

00:49:06.560 that's kind of the norm

00:49:07.320 in that area

00:49:08.080 where he lives.

00:49:10.320 And then,

00:49:11.940 okay,

00:49:12.060 so he turns on the TV

00:49:12.960 or he opens up TikTok

00:49:13.880 or a magazine

00:49:14.840 or,

00:49:15.520 you know,

00:49:15.680 just all the pop culture

00:49:16.920 he absorbs.

00:49:18.740 And,

00:49:18.960 you know,

00:49:19.060 he's seeing people

00:49:20.460 in like polycules

00:49:21.420 and he's seeing open marriages

00:49:22.720 and he's seeing a lot of promiscuity

00:49:25.340 in these kind of,

00:49:27.040 these windows

00:49:27.800 into other lifestyles.

00:49:29.660 But the default for this kid is,

00:49:31.700 well,

00:49:31.920 his mom and dad are married

00:49:32.940 and the people around him

00:49:33.840 are married

00:49:34.300 and so that's like a counterweight

00:49:36.460 to what he's seeing

00:49:37.360 in the outside world.

00:49:39.220 But now imagine

00:49:40.180 someone who grows up

00:49:41.080 where I grew up

00:49:41.800 and you're not,

00:49:43.300 you know,

00:49:43.480 you're raised by a single mom

00:49:44.660 or you're raised in foster homes

00:49:45.780 or something like that

00:49:46.640 and then all of your friends

00:49:47.720 are raised in various

00:49:48.960 kind of different family configurations

00:49:50.700 and you're not actually ever seeing

00:49:52.040 what a healthy,

00:49:52.840 committed marriage looks like

00:49:53.860 in your everyday life.

00:49:55.480 And then you open up TikTok

00:49:56.620 and a magazine

00:49:57.660 and pop culture

00:49:58.320 and everything.

00:49:58.660 And again,

00:49:59.120 it's,

00:49:59.380 you know,

00:49:59.520 open marriages

00:50:00.120 and promiscuity 0.80

00:50:00.960 and all these things.

00:50:01.580 And so no matter where you turn,

00:50:03.200 you're not really seeing

00:50:04.180 what a healthy marriage looks like.

00:50:06.420 And I think that too

00:50:07.120 can help to explain

00:50:08.320 what's happening

00:50:08.880 in these low-income areas

00:50:11.000 where marriage

00:50:12.360 is at an all-time low

00:50:13.500 and, you know,

00:50:14.520 families are deteriorating

00:50:15.760 and fragmenting

00:50:16.460 and so on

00:50:16.940 is just,

00:50:17.960 you know,

00:50:18.120 not only are you

00:50:18.760 firsthand not seeing it

00:50:20.120 what a relationship looks like,

00:50:21.500 but even the pop culture

00:50:22.900 and images you consume around you,

00:50:24.280 it's unavailable to you.

00:50:26.060 And not only unavailable,

00:50:27.120 but actually promoting

00:50:28.100 the opposite

00:50:28.680 of what is healthy.

00:50:29.700 And this is what

00:50:30.420 I was going to ask you about

00:50:31.420 because it seems to me

00:50:33.640 that what you're really saying

00:50:34.780 is there's a vicious cycle

00:50:35.960 going on

00:50:36.600 and it's self-reinforcing.

00:50:38.000 So you create

00:50:40.480 a different set

00:50:41.340 of sexual norms

00:50:42.180 in the 60s.

00:50:43.260 More people get divorced.

00:50:44.840 You get more people

00:50:45.640 growing up

00:50:46.200 in the sort of circumstances

00:50:47.240 that you grew up.

00:50:48.620 That's traumatizing to them

00:50:50.180 and, you know,

00:50:50.760 people are wary

00:50:52.120 of saying that.

00:50:52.880 But I imagine,

00:50:53.780 you know,

00:50:54.140 going from foster home

00:50:54.900 to foster home

00:50:55.420 to foster home

00:50:56.060 and many of the other

00:50:56.880 experiences you had,

00:50:57.680 you kind of alluded to it.

00:50:58.660 Like, you wouldn't wish it

00:50:59.900 on your children

00:51:00.820 or probably even

00:51:01.520 your worst enemy, right?

00:51:03.720 So then how do you cope

00:51:05.360 with that?

00:51:05.820 Well,

00:51:06.600 one of the ways

00:51:07.260 you cope with that

00:51:07.820 is taking drugs.

00:51:08.720 So you take drugs,

00:51:09.680 then you have more kids

00:51:10.760 without getting,

00:51:11.540 and it just goes

00:51:12.920 round and round.

00:51:14.420 And the question is,

00:51:15.460 and I think this is

00:51:16.160 really interesting

00:51:16.880 to talk about with you,

00:51:18.020 is how does that cycle

00:51:19.860 get broken?

00:51:20.620 And I use the passive voice

00:51:22.080 deliberately

00:51:22.660 because increasingly

00:51:25.060 we only talk about it

00:51:26.740 in terms of

00:51:28.160 how do we break

00:51:29.200 this cycle?

00:51:29.960 And that means

00:51:30.680 the government

00:51:31.520 has to come in

00:51:32.240 and do something.

00:51:33.440 And I was curious about,

00:51:34.720 I'm not someone

00:51:35.440 who's ideological

00:51:36.120 about this.

00:51:36.860 I don't think

00:51:37.560 the government,

00:51:38.560 you know,

00:51:38.980 the government

00:51:39.360 shouldn't do anything.

00:51:40.600 I think there are

00:51:41.200 lots of areas

00:51:41.920 where the government

00:51:42.500 actually has a massive role

00:51:43.700 to play.

00:51:45.160 For example,

00:51:45.980 science, right?

00:51:46.800 There are areas

00:51:47.580 of human research

00:51:49.080 that are never

00:51:49.700 going to get funded

00:51:50.480 needed to achieve

00:51:51.880 to achieve the results

00:51:52.340 we want

00:51:52.740 unless the government

00:51:53.400 steps in.

00:51:54.060 I mean,

00:51:54.440 Oppenheimer

00:51:54.920 is a very good

00:51:55.620 kind of visual example

00:51:56.780 of that.

00:51:58.660 So how does the cycle

00:51:59.980 get broken

00:52:00.580 in your opinion?

00:52:02.940 Yeah.

00:52:03.400 Yeah,

00:52:03.640 it's a good question.

00:52:04.960 And,

00:52:05.280 you know,

00:52:06.040 I thought about this,

00:52:08.120 you know,

00:52:08.520 what have been

00:52:09.960 other sort of

00:52:10.560 successful

00:52:11.140 cultural shifts?

00:52:14.420 What campaigns

00:52:15.160 have been introduced

00:52:15.880 to change human behavior

00:52:17.060 on a mass scale?

00:52:17.920 One thing that comes

00:52:19.600 to mind is

00:52:20.400 like the changing

00:52:22.180 attitudes around

00:52:22.920 smoking over time.

00:52:24.680 So the number

00:52:25.480 of Americans

00:52:26.000 who smoke,

00:52:27.240 it's dropped by half

00:52:28.140 since the early 1980s,

00:52:30.140 which is like

00:52:30.660 a massive cultural shift.

00:52:32.000 Like smoking used to be

00:52:33.200 like chewing gum.

00:52:35.080 You know,

00:52:35.220 it was just like

00:52:35.580 a sort of a habit

00:52:36.680 that people would do

00:52:37.540 or drinking coffee.

00:52:38.940 It was just a part

00:52:39.700 of your life.

00:52:40.200 You built it in

00:52:40.880 to your daily routine.

00:52:42.800 And now it's like

00:52:44.040 it's weird to smoke.

00:52:45.440 And not only did

00:52:46.420 the government

00:52:46.800 sort of introduce laws

00:52:47.780 and there were regulations

00:52:48.520 about where you could smoke

00:52:49.480 and for how long

00:52:50.140 and how far you had

00:52:50.920 to be from a building

00:52:51.720 and, you know,

00:52:52.900 the warning signs

00:52:53.740 and the labels

00:52:54.240 and everything.

00:52:54.840 But there were also

00:52:55.720 cultural shifts

00:52:57.480 around shame

00:52:58.420 and stigma

00:52:58.960 that, you know,

00:53:00.380 now it's kind of

00:53:01.420 socially acceptable

00:53:02.160 that if someone smokes,

00:53:03.020 you can kind of say

00:53:03.560 like, wow,

00:53:04.160 you know,

00:53:04.420 you know,

00:53:04.680 like,

00:53:04.940 what are you doing?

00:53:06.520 Rob wants to ban

00:53:07.460 single parents from bars.

00:53:09.640 Yeah, yeah,

00:53:09.860 that's what I'm saying.

00:53:10.900 Well, 100 feet,

00:53:11.740 100 feet or meters,

00:53:12.960 you know,

00:53:13.260 from the bar.

00:53:14.560 You stand over there.

00:53:15.540 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:53:16.180 Well, there's the

00:53:16.600 single parent section

00:53:17.420 and make sure

00:53:19.480 that they're outside

00:53:20.160 as well.

00:53:20.780 Yeah.

00:53:21.960 Well, I just remember

00:53:22.880 like in the 90s

00:53:24.360 when I would watch TV shows

00:53:25.660 as a kid,

00:53:26.320 it was like

00:53:26.680 every third commercial

00:53:27.600 was like,

00:53:29.140 you know,

00:53:29.420 like the woman 0.78

00:53:29.980 with the hole in her neck

00:53:31.200 and like,

00:53:31.900 you know,

00:53:32.100 telling you how she had

00:53:33.200 neck cancer

00:53:33.780 or tracheotomy

00:53:34.500 or whatever it is.

00:53:35.300 And I remember this

00:53:36.660 being like,

00:53:37.160 this is kind of disturbing

00:53:38.180 to watch this.

00:53:39.180 And like,

00:53:39.480 I still smoke cigarettes

00:53:40.300 and everything.

00:53:40.740 But I do think like

00:53:41.520 in the aggregate,

00:53:43.200 having all of this messaging

00:53:44.620 around you,

00:53:45.320 it did make it harder.

00:53:46.280 Like,

00:53:46.440 it made it harder

00:53:46.880 to obtain cigarettes.

00:53:47.880 It made it harder

00:53:48.380 to like smoke

00:53:49.020 without people judging you

00:53:50.300 or looking at you,

00:53:50.940 whatever.

00:53:51.300 And I think like,

00:53:52.380 you know,

00:53:52.680 if we could find a way

00:53:54.280 to sort of introduce

00:53:57.100 a similar campaign

00:53:58.140 around sort of children

00:54:00.300 and family

00:54:01.160 and relationships.

00:54:02.000 So,

00:54:02.980 you know,

00:54:03.300 there is that concern,

00:54:05.460 right?

00:54:05.620 Like,

00:54:05.800 you're shaming single parents.

00:54:07.460 You might be shaming

00:54:08.080 single moms. 0.96

00:54:08.680 You don't want to make

00:54:09.100 them feel bad.

00:54:09.880 Single moms work very hard. 1.00

00:54:10.820 I was raised by a single mom

00:54:11.660 for a time.

00:54:12.020 I understand it.

00:54:12.900 And I had friends

00:54:13.620 who were raised

00:54:13.860 by single moms 0.99

00:54:14.540 and I have a lot

00:54:15.060 of respect for them.

00:54:15.960 I had a friend

00:54:16.280 raised by a single dad.

00:54:17.160 Similar story.

00:54:18.240 And I do think

00:54:19.720 there's a,

00:54:20.480 you know,

00:54:20.640 Warren Farrell,

00:54:21.500 you know,

00:54:21.700 he uses this term

00:54:22.940 fatherless homes

00:54:24.200 or father absence.

00:54:25.780 And I think this is a,

00:54:26.860 it's a unique reframe.

00:54:28.340 It's useful

00:54:28.920 because now you're not

00:54:30.560 really putting the burden

00:54:31.680 and the responsibility

00:54:32.500 and the blame so much

00:54:33.460 on the mother

00:54:33.860 who's working hard,

00:54:34.660 but you're putting the,

00:54:35.480 you know,

00:54:35.640 more of the blame

00:54:36.340 or focus at least

00:54:37.560 on the father

00:54:38.220 who's not there,

00:54:39.300 who's not present.

00:54:40.920 And I think that can be useful too.

00:54:42.820 I mean,

00:54:42.980 you probably still get called

00:54:44.040 racist and all these things.

00:54:45.300 Well,

00:54:45.320 this is what I was going to say,

00:54:46.160 Rob.

00:54:46.320 Isn't the problem really,

00:54:47.740 and I don't know

00:54:48.920 if you know Melissa Chen well,

00:54:50.340 but she's a very good

00:54:51.080 friend of ours.

00:54:51.880 And her and I talk about

00:54:52.920 this all the time,

00:54:53.700 which is,

00:54:54.520 you know,

00:54:54.740 she comes from

00:54:55.380 a Singaporean background

00:54:56.540 and the attitudes

00:54:58.200 to shame

00:54:59.460 and stigma

00:55:01.800 are very different

00:55:02.700 in her culture,

00:55:03.380 as they are in mine,

00:55:04.320 by the way,

00:55:04.700 like coming from Russia,

00:55:05.760 I don't have the same.

00:55:07.300 It seems to me

00:55:08.120 that in Western society,

00:55:09.360 we've got a stigma

00:55:10.640 about stigma.

00:55:12.200 Like you cannot,

00:55:13.640 you cannot ever say

00:55:15.360 that anyone should be ashamed

00:55:16.460 of anything.

00:55:17.480 I don't think that's true,

00:55:18.580 though.

00:55:18.920 I think like it's true.

00:55:19.920 Well,

00:55:19.940 except having the wrong opinions

00:55:21.180 about, you know,

00:55:21.920 social justice or whatever.

00:55:23.060 So I think like the shame

00:55:24.020 and stigma has been

00:55:25.140 kind of dismantled

00:55:26.380 for, you know,

00:55:27.840 kind of conventional

00:55:28.980 transgressions,

00:55:29.980 the things that we kind

00:55:30.800 of all know,

00:55:31.680 like, you know,

00:55:32.140 stealing, right?

00:55:32.940 Like shoplifting,

00:55:33.620 we all know,

00:55:33.940 but somehow we removed

00:55:34.900 the stigma from shoplifting.

00:55:36.460 And the criminal charges,

00:55:37.800 yeah.

00:55:38.060 But somehow we reintroduced

00:55:41.000 stigma and shame

00:55:41.900 for, yeah,

00:55:42.500 holding the wrong opinion

00:55:43.400 or for using an outdated term

00:55:46.200 or something like that.

00:55:47.060 And so it does seem like

00:55:48.600 educated and affluent people

00:55:50.240 who, you know,

00:55:51.600 like there's a lot of studies

00:55:52.840 on this,

00:55:53.200 that they do wield

00:55:53.840 disproportionate influence

00:55:54.900 on culture,

00:55:55.660 on policy,

00:55:56.600 on public opinion,

00:55:57.640 all of these kinds of things.

00:55:58.940 I mean,

00:55:59.220 they're not like,

00:56:00.100 you know,

00:56:00.360 puppet man.

00:56:00.760 They can't like completely

00:56:01.460 control it,

00:56:02.020 but they do wield

00:56:02.700 a lot of influence on

00:56:04.140 like,

00:56:04.660 like the defund the police thing.

00:56:06.100 Like there were a lot

00:56:07.080 of police departments

00:56:07.720 that redirected resources

00:56:08.920 and reduced spending

00:56:10.420 on police forces,

00:56:11.540 despite the fact

00:56:12.120 the majority of Americans

00:56:13.040 were not on board

00:56:13.880 with this at all,

00:56:14.480 including the majority

00:56:15.080 of African-Americans.

00:56:16.320 But, you know,

00:56:17.220 the elites were all for it

00:56:18.180 for a little while

00:56:19.020 and suddenly we see

00:56:20.200 this,

00:56:20.680 this outcome.

00:56:21.720 So, so they're perfectly

00:56:24.520 willing though

00:56:25.200 to introduce shame

00:56:26.380 for law enforcement

00:56:27.400 and all these other things.

00:56:28.180 And I think like

00:56:28.780 if we could find a way

00:56:30.520 to get them to understand,

00:56:32.080 and I try to do it

00:56:32.980 with data,

00:56:34.080 statistics,

00:56:34.640 survey research,

00:56:35.160 and stories,

00:56:36.080 not just my stories,

00:56:37.000 but the people

00:56:37.420 I grew up around

00:56:38.080 that maybe over time

00:56:39.980 this can slowly

00:56:40.640 sort of get through

00:56:41.300 to them

00:56:41.760 and get them

00:56:42.820 to understand

00:56:43.260 that, you know,

00:56:43.800 there are,

00:56:44.400 it's important

00:56:45.020 to have standards.

00:56:46.080 And I think

00:56:47.560 there's this sort

00:56:48.080 of mistaken view

00:56:49.000 about holding people

00:56:50.380 up to high standards

00:56:51.200 and expectations

00:56:51.880 that there is this like,

00:56:53.860 oh, well,

00:56:54.120 if you grew up poor

00:56:54.980 and you grew up

00:56:55.480 in these difficult,

00:56:56.600 chaotic circumstances,

00:56:57.640 like you can kind of

00:56:58.560 behave however you want.

00:56:59.520 It's okay because,

00:57:00.940 you know,

00:57:01.440 it's just,

00:57:02.000 you know,

00:57:02.140 you had a hard life,

00:57:03.060 but actually

00:57:03.520 I think the opposite view

00:57:05.700 is more important

00:57:06.360 that actually

00:57:06.880 when your life

00:57:07.420 is chaotic

00:57:07.920 and disorderly

00:57:08.720 and so on,

00:57:09.200 it's actually more important

00:57:10.140 for you to be up,

00:57:10.960 you know,

00:57:11.160 to be held

00:57:12.260 to those standards

00:57:13.080 because that helps you

00:57:16.280 to break out

00:57:16.800 of those negative

00:57:17.360 behavioral patterns.

00:57:19.220 And I write about this.

00:57:20.120 I had this experience

00:57:20.800 in the military

00:57:21.500 about, you know,

00:57:22.880 people will say to me,

00:57:23.840 like, how did you change?

00:57:25.760 And it's like,

00:57:26.500 I spent eight years

00:57:27.220 in the Air Force.

00:57:28.040 I joined when I was 17

00:57:29.280 when I was still,

00:57:30.460 you know,

00:57:30.800 essentially a child

00:57:31.820 and I left when I was 25

00:57:34.040 and those are formative years

00:57:35.660 in any young man's life

00:57:36.800 regardless of how

00:57:37.460 they spend them.

00:57:38.180 But if you spend them

00:57:38.780 in a very kind of

00:57:39.380 rigid environment

00:57:40.120 of high expectations,

00:57:41.940 high standards,

00:57:43.080 you know,

00:57:43.660 demanding,

00:57:44.780 you know,

00:57:45.720 and kind of exacting

00:57:47.660 expectations,

00:57:48.640 like, of course,

00:57:49.700 like you're going

00:57:50.060 to transform

00:57:50.500 from that experience

00:57:51.400 and it prevented me

00:57:52.900 from kind of acting out

00:57:54.280 and, you know,

00:57:55.400 behaving impulsively

00:57:56.800 the way that I would have

00:57:57.500 had I not been

00:57:58.000 in that environment.

00:57:59.240 I tell this story

00:58:00.100 in the book about,

00:58:01.160 so my friend Tyler,

00:58:02.520 he went to prison

00:58:03.620 and I tell this story.

00:58:04.940 So he was sentenced

00:58:05.960 to 18 months.

00:58:06.680 He got out in 12.

00:58:07.540 He was in San Quentin

00:58:08.300 state prison in California.

00:58:10.120 I visited him shortly

00:58:11.240 after he got out of prison

00:58:12.180 and we started talking

00:58:13.240 about our experiences

00:58:14.080 because I had been

00:58:14.680 in the military

00:58:15.160 for a little over a year

00:58:16.440 by this point

00:58:17.140 and so he was like,

00:58:18.920 tell me what the military

00:58:19.520 is like.

00:58:19.860 I said,

00:58:20.040 tell me how prison is like

00:58:20.880 and we both kind of,

00:58:22.020 you know,

00:58:22.140 we're both like,

00:58:22.760 well,

00:58:23.020 like,

00:58:23.320 you know,

00:58:23.460 every aspect of your life

00:58:24.540 is tightly regulated

00:58:25.420 and managed,

00:58:26.280 you know,

00:58:26.740 like by the hour,

00:58:28.060 by the minute,

00:58:28.700 everything you do,

00:58:29.680 you know,

00:58:29.880 this is the time you work out.

00:58:30.880 This is the time

00:58:31.220 you make your bed

00:58:31.720 and this is this,

00:58:32.280 this.

00:58:33.100 And we kind of

00:58:34.260 gradually converged

00:58:35.340 on this point of like,

00:58:36.300 wow,

00:58:36.680 our experiences aren't so different.

00:58:38.200 I'm like,

00:58:38.340 the military is basically prison

00:58:39.580 at least for the first year

00:58:40.940 or so of training.

00:58:42.140 And,

00:58:42.640 and the other interesting

00:58:44.180 thing that came out

00:58:45.180 of that conversation was

00:58:46.180 we both agreed

00:58:47.740 that initially we hated it.

00:58:49.380 Just like having your life

00:58:50.680 so micromanaged

00:58:51.860 where you had

00:58:52.520 almost no freedom.

00:58:54.120 But then we both also agreed

00:58:56.160 that over time

00:58:57.120 we came to like it.

00:58:58.660 And he told me,

00:59:00.020 like he,

00:59:00.300 he disclosed to me

00:59:01.220 he liked it so much

00:59:01.960 that sometimes he fantasized

00:59:03.120 actually about going back

00:59:04.100 that actually

00:59:04.620 this extreme freedom he had

00:59:06.260 wasn't good for him

00:59:07.160 because,

00:59:07.980 you know,

00:59:08.180 unlimited access

00:59:08.880 to alcohol and drugs

00:59:10.400 and he had his car

00:59:11.300 and girls

00:59:12.120 and all this stuff.

00:59:13.260 And he said,

00:59:13.860 sometimes he just missed

00:59:14.740 like being contained

00:59:15.840 in this environment

00:59:16.500 and knowing what each day

00:59:17.520 was going to look like

00:59:18.280 and having that,

00:59:18.980 you know,

00:59:19.260 those,

00:59:19.400 those patterns.

00:59:20.420 And he actually did end up

00:59:21.280 going back to prison

00:59:21.880 by the way.

00:59:22.740 But I thought

00:59:23.660 that was interesting

00:59:24.160 that we were both

00:59:24.760 kind of,

00:59:24.940 Some dreams come true.

00:59:26.760 We were both kind of like,

00:59:28.580 no, no, no, no.

00:59:29.460 I'm just like,

00:59:30.180 you know,

00:59:30.380 we were both 18,

00:59:31.280 19 years old

00:59:31.820 by this point

00:59:32.480 and we both were like,

00:59:34.420 yeah, 0.98

00:59:34.600 it sucks, 0.98

00:59:35.500 but it's kind of good 0.97

00:59:36.640 to have that,

00:59:37.840 those kind of,

00:59:38.740 you know,

00:59:39.180 constraints.

00:59:41.000 At what point

00:59:42.080 are we just going to be

00:59:43.340 just really honest

00:59:44.420 and go,

00:59:45.400 we're failing our children?

00:59:46.940 Because that's what we're doing.

00:59:47.940 And we can dance around it

00:59:49.260 and we can,

00:59:50.060 you know,

00:59:50.400 use fancy words

00:59:51.700 and we can put together

00:59:52.700 nice complex sentences,

00:59:53.980 but let's get down

00:59:55.780 to brass tacks

00:59:56.800 as it were.

00:59:57.680 That's what we're doing.

00:59:58.500 We're failing our kids

00:59:59.620 and we're failing

01:00:00.120 the next generation

01:00:01.000 and we're setting them up,

01:00:02.620 we're setting them up

01:00:03.720 to have a life

01:00:04.760 that is ultimately

01:00:06.520 pretty miserable.

01:00:08.440 Yeah.

01:00:08.880 I mean,

01:00:09.700 I don't,

01:00:10.340 I don't know.

01:00:11.200 It's,

01:00:11.500 it's very strange,

01:00:12.140 like where we,

01:00:14.100 you know,

01:00:14.460 we,

01:00:14.980 I guess,

01:00:15.280 meaning like the,

01:00:16.140 the chattering class,

01:00:17.360 the educated elites,

01:00:18.380 we take this,

01:00:20.160 yeah,

01:00:20.360 this sort of

01:00:20.920 non-judgmental stance.

01:00:22.960 People can live their life.

01:00:24.320 You do you.

01:00:25.240 But again,

01:00:25.860 it's only for things

01:00:26.760 like family,

01:00:27.660 but you know,

01:00:28.060 so,

01:00:28.260 so if you see some,

01:00:30.060 you know,

01:00:30.180 if you see like a deadbeat dad

01:00:31.220 or something,

01:00:31.600 it's like,

01:00:32.000 oh,

01:00:32.160 it's their life,

01:00:32.820 leave them alone,

01:00:33.480 whatever.

01:00:34.080 But then if you see someone,

01:00:36.120 you know,

01:00:36.440 using an outdated term

01:00:37.680 for gender or race

01:00:39.180 or what have you,

01:00:40.280 you know,

01:00:40.420 people are very willing to say like,

01:00:41.560 you can't say that.

01:00:42.480 What do you,

01:00:42.720 they are,

01:00:43.140 it's not like,

01:00:43.820 oh,

01:00:43.900 it's you do you,

01:00:44.680 it's your life.

01:00:45.220 No,

01:00:45.340 no,

01:00:45.440 no,

01:00:45.520 they will interfere.

01:00:46.080 That's such a good point.

01:00:47.000 We will criticize somebody

01:00:48.380 for using a term

01:00:49.600 that was perfectly acceptable

01:00:50.840 10 years ago,

01:00:51.740 but we won't criticize a dad

01:00:53.420 who abandons his three kids

01:00:54.880 and the wife

01:00:55.580 that he had them with.

01:00:57.780 Yeah.

01:00:57.980 That's such a profound point.

01:00:59.380 Yeah.

01:00:59.940 That's such a good point.

01:01:01.480 It's yeah.

01:01:02.120 And,

01:01:02.380 but I think that there is

01:01:03.560 this gradual recognition.

01:01:05.400 I think it's going to take some time.

01:01:07.320 You know,

01:01:07.720 I,

01:01:07.900 I had two conversations recently.

01:01:10.740 These two guys who

01:01:12.640 had these private conversations,

01:01:14.540 they read my substack

01:01:15.460 and they both told me

01:01:17.680 a similar story

01:01:18.580 where they were in their late thirties,

01:01:21.240 they were married,

01:01:21.700 they had a couple of small kids

01:01:23.100 and they were telling me like,

01:01:24.820 you know,

01:01:24.960 Rob,

01:01:25.180 I sometimes I was thinking,

01:01:26.360 you know,

01:01:26.460 like,

01:01:27.560 was marriage really,

01:01:28.540 was it really the right,

01:01:29.380 decision

01:01:29.820 and they were having these second thoughts.

01:01:32.080 They were having some doubts

01:01:32.840 and there was no abuse or mistreatment.

01:01:34.620 It was just this kind of malaise,

01:01:36.800 this boredom.

01:01:37.640 You know,

01:01:38.020 the relationship wasn't as exciting

01:01:39.380 as it used to be.

01:01:40.940 But then they told me

01:01:41.900 that they had read

01:01:42.880 something I had written.

01:01:44.120 You know,

01:01:44.260 maybe it was something,

01:01:44.900 an excerpt from my book

01:01:45.740 or my substack

01:01:46.480 or an essay.

01:01:47.620 And both of them were like,

01:01:49.020 yeah,

01:01:49.120 we decided to recommit

01:01:50.280 to our wives,

01:01:51.440 to our families

01:01:52.080 and,

01:01:52.660 and to really sort of

01:01:54.040 not allow,

01:01:55.320 you know,

01:01:55.460 a bit of boredom,

01:01:56.340 a bit of,

01:01:57.000 you know,

01:01:57.240 second thoughts

01:01:58.060 to interfere

01:01:58.800 with this commitment

01:01:59.520 that we made.

01:02:00.380 And I thought to myself,

01:02:01.740 you know,

01:02:01.880 I'm just a guy

01:02:02.560 with a substack.

01:02:03.840 You know,

01:02:04.040 like,

01:02:04.240 imagine if,

01:02:05.700 like,

01:02:05.900 the cultural messaging

01:02:06.700 in general

01:02:07.400 was this way.

01:02:09.420 If,

01:02:09.980 you know,

01:02:10.160 the op-ed pages

01:02:10.980 of the most prestigious

01:02:12.260 newspapers

01:02:12.880 and magazines

01:02:13.640 and outlets

01:02:14.260 and all of the kind of

01:02:15.460 images that we imbibe,

01:02:17.060 you know,

01:02:17.180 the shows we watch

01:02:17.920 on Netflix,

01:02:18.400 if they kind of

01:02:19.460 reaffirmed this value.

01:02:21.280 Again,

01:02:21.560 like,

01:02:21.740 if there's abuse

01:02:22.240 or mistreatment

01:02:22.740 and so on,

01:02:23.220 obviously,

01:02:23.780 you know,

01:02:24.000 get out of there.

01:02:25.060 But if,

01:02:25.860 you know,

01:02:26.040 just generally speaking,

01:02:27.320 that the default

01:02:28.320 should be,

01:02:29.100 you know,

01:02:29.680 two parents,

01:02:30.780 a kid,

01:02:31.360 you know,

01:02:31.660 and,

01:02:32.480 you know,

01:02:33.380 even if,

01:02:35.080 even if there is divorce

01:02:36.140 and even if there is

01:02:37.000 single parenthood

01:02:37.560 and so on,

01:02:38.160 like,

01:02:38.360 that doesn't mean

01:02:38.920 that it should be normalized.

01:02:40.560 You know,

01:02:41.120 like,

01:02:42.180 the two-parent family

01:02:42.860 is the ideal.

01:02:43.820 And just because

01:02:44.420 we don't always live up

01:02:45.340 to our ideals

01:02:45.900 doesn't mean you discard

01:02:46.720 the ideal.

01:02:47.460 It just,

01:02:47.820 you know,

01:02:48.020 just means,

01:02:48.520 like,

01:02:48.880 some of us struggle

01:02:50.160 and so on.

01:02:51.700 And we have

01:02:52.160 our private difficulties.

01:02:53.240 But,

01:02:53.860 you know,

01:02:54.080 I think that there's

01:02:54.960 also room to understand

01:02:56.240 that,

01:02:56.500 like,

01:02:56.660 yes,

01:02:57.280 this is probably good

01:02:58.060 for most people.

01:02:59.020 The other point is,

01:02:59.680 like,

01:03:00.180 I think,

01:03:00.740 this is maybe more controversial.

01:03:02.520 I think elites should become

01:03:03.240 more comfortable 0.78

01:03:03.660 with hypocrisy.

01:03:06.060 You know, 0.71

01:03:06.660 like,

01:03:07.120 I mean, 0.99

01:03:07.420 they're kind of hypocrites 0.99

01:03:08.180 right now, 0.99

01:03:08.760 but in the wrong direction.

01:03:10.080 In the wrong direction.

01:03:10.660 So I want the old form 0.58

01:03:14.080 of hypocrisy. 0.68

01:03:14.680 The old form of hypocrisy 0.54

01:03:15.700 was someone like 0.81

01:03:16.320 John F. Kennedy

01:03:16.880 where he presented

01:03:18.220 the image

01:03:18.920 of being a good husband

01:03:20.260 and a good father

01:03:21.000 and a good family man.

01:03:21.980 He paid lip service to it,

01:03:23.220 but we all kind of know privately.

01:03:24.520 I think even back then

01:03:25.320 a lot of the kind of elites

01:03:26.420 kind of knew

01:03:27.300 he was philandering

01:03:28.100 and he wasn't the family man

01:03:29.900 he portrayed himself to be.

01:03:31.560 But he still,

01:03:32.460 the elites in general

01:03:33.180 thought it was still important

01:03:34.100 to have that example

01:03:35.260 for the masses.

01:03:37.860 Whereas now,

01:03:39.260 there's kind of two forms.

01:03:40.760 So one is,

01:03:42.080 like,

01:03:42.260 if a highly educated

01:03:44.240 and affluent person

01:03:45.220 behaves privately,

01:03:46.800 you know,

01:03:46.940 they live in a polycule

01:03:47.800 or something like,

01:03:48.380 everyone should do this.

01:03:49.500 And if you don't do it,

01:03:50.360 you're uptight

01:03:50.900 or you're weird 0.92

01:03:51.620 or you're,

01:03:52.600 you know,

01:03:53.040 you have issues

01:03:54.060 with jealousy

01:03:54.560 and insecurity.

01:03:55.620 So that's one form.

01:03:56.880 But then the other form

01:03:57.680 is the reversal of that

01:03:58.960 where privately,

01:03:59.760 they're actually

01:04:00.560 in committed relationships.

01:04:02.640 They kind of live

01:04:03.540 by those conventional

01:04:04.480 or bourgeois lifestyles.

01:04:07.020 But then publicly,

01:04:08.240 they are like,

01:04:09.000 oh, you know,

01:04:09.540 all families are the same

01:04:10.820 and however you want

01:04:11.580 to live your life,

01:04:12.240 you do you.

01:04:13.200 And, you know,

01:04:13.540 if you want to live

01:04:14.180 in an open marriage,

01:04:15.100 like,

01:04:15.260 maybe that's more exciting.

01:04:16.320 It's not for me.

01:04:17.100 I wouldn't do it,

01:04:17.800 but maybe it's fun for you.

01:04:19.700 And, you know,

01:04:20.620 I think we should,

01:04:21.140 yeah, 0.89

01:04:21.240 the old school hypocrisy

01:04:22.440 is actually,

01:04:23.020 I think,

01:04:23.420 a better model.

01:04:24.780 So basically,

01:04:25.660 you want them

01:04:26.020 to virtue signal

01:04:26.840 about different things.

01:04:28.380 Kind of.

01:04:29.060 Yeah.

01:04:29.780 Look,

01:04:30.340 you know what?

01:04:31.000 I think ultimately

01:04:32.180 the point you made

01:04:33.420 about people

01:04:33.920 reading your substack

01:04:34.840 and getting the message

01:04:35.760 is really a very good point

01:04:38.020 to actually think about.

01:04:39.180 And when my son was born,

01:04:40.860 I was posting pictures

01:04:42.060 of him all the time

01:04:42.940 before he kind of

01:04:43.720 got an identifiable face

01:04:45.440 and stuff.

01:04:46.400 And I talk about

01:04:47.260 being a dad all the time

01:04:48.320 because I think people

01:04:49.840 who are out there

01:04:50.880 and are visible in some way

01:04:52.920 really need to start

01:04:54.420 explaining this stuff

01:04:55.500 in a way that's like,

01:04:56.480 this is actually

01:04:56.900 a good thing to do.

01:04:58.260 And yes,

01:04:59.420 life becomes more challenging

01:05:00.900 as a result.

01:05:01.900 And yes,

01:05:02.600 it's no longer

01:05:03.260 all about you.

01:05:04.280 And that's why

01:05:05.120 you will be way more fulfilled.

01:05:06.820 Because the moment

01:05:07.960 your life stops

01:05:08.820 being just about you,

01:05:10.260 that's when it gets

01:05:11.180 really good.

01:05:12.020 And people don't get that

01:05:13.400 because they don't see

01:05:14.140 that around them

01:05:14.740 and no one tells them that.

01:05:15.800 And I think

01:05:16.240 you're doing great work

01:05:17.900 on that.

01:05:18.200 I'm so glad this book

01:05:19.160 is absolutely crushing it.

01:05:21.320 If you haven't read it,

01:05:22.460 which is unlikely

01:05:23.160 at this point,

01:05:23.840 because as I said,

01:05:25.000 not jealous,

01:05:25.600 but he's been on 0.99

01:05:26.060 every fucking podcast 0.99

01:05:26.880 in America. 1.00

01:05:27.960 So you don't believe

01:05:28.840 in being monogamous?

01:05:29.840 No, no.

01:05:30.580 Yeah, exactly.

01:05:31.580 He cheated on us

01:05:32.580 over in America.

01:05:33.820 Polyamorous podcast.

01:05:34.020 What happens in Vegas

01:05:35.020 stays in Vegas.

01:05:36.080 Not as far as I'm concerned, mate.

01:05:37.860 But Rob,

01:05:38.160 it's been great

01:05:38.840 to have you back.

01:05:39.740 These are really

01:05:40.380 important conversations.

01:05:41.860 I hope loads of people

01:05:42.660 read the book.

01:05:43.260 It's been an absolute

01:05:44.120 pleasure talking to you.

01:05:44.940 We're going to ask you

01:05:45.480 a few questions

01:05:46.100 from our local supporters.

01:05:47.720 But for now,

01:05:48.840 what's the one thing

01:05:49.480 we're not talking about

01:05:50.280 that we should be?

01:05:52.060 Before Rob answers,

01:05:53.560 at the end of the interview,

01:05:55.340 make sure to head over

01:05:56.560 to our locals.

01:05:57.680 The link's in the description

01:05:58.800 to see this.

01:06:00.740 How does your upbringing

01:06:01.680 affect your close relationships

01:06:03.160 and how do you overcome

01:06:04.440 that trauma

01:06:05.080 to have a loving relationship

01:06:06.500 that works?

01:06:07.720 What do you make of,

01:06:08.780 I guess,

01:06:09.100 welfare programs

01:06:09.920 as an approach

01:06:10.960 to dealing with poverty?

01:06:11.960 What does it feel like

01:06:13.400 to have invented

01:06:14.140 an expression

01:06:15.100 which has gone

01:06:16.360 into the language

01:06:17.060 everywhere?

01:06:17.920 And do you think

01:06:18.540 that everyone using it

01:06:19.720 understands what you meant

01:06:21.460 by it originally?

01:06:23.300 Well, the second question,

01:06:24.560 no.

01:06:27.020 I mean,

01:06:27.600 I think we've covered

01:06:28.200 a lot of ground

01:06:29.120 in this conversation,

01:06:30.220 but I just wanted

01:06:30.820 to reiterate the point

01:06:32.000 about sort of

01:06:33.740 the images

01:06:34.620 and examples

01:06:35.200 that we see.

01:06:36.680 Again,

01:06:37.160 that sort of

01:06:37.620 thought experiment

01:06:38.700 I gave

01:06:39.320 of the kid

01:06:40.660 who has married parents

01:06:41.780 and the images

01:06:42.380 that he sees

01:06:42.980 in popular culture

01:06:43.920 and that sort of balance,

01:06:45.820 whereas kids

01:06:46.460 in sort of

01:06:46.940 working class,

01:06:48.080 you know,

01:06:48.420 poor neighborhoods,

01:06:50.860 they're not getting it anywhere,

01:06:52.300 you know,

01:06:52.620 whether in their personal lives

01:06:53.980 or the images

01:06:54.720 that they see.

01:06:56.260 And, you know,

01:06:56.660 as I think about,

01:06:57.920 you know,

01:06:58.000 I think back

01:06:58.400 to my early life

01:06:59.480 when I was, again,

01:07:00.060 watching shows

01:07:00.520 like Fresh Prince

01:07:01.260 or, you know,

01:07:01.780 it's like the sitcoms

01:07:03.980 and the shows

01:07:04.340 of that time,

01:07:04.880 they just seem to be

01:07:05.800 like better examples,

01:07:06.960 more holes.

01:07:07.260 I mean,

01:07:07.540 I think even the marriage

01:07:08.680 between Uncle Phil

01:07:09.520 and Aunt Viv

01:07:10.000 in that show

01:07:10.520 was like kind of

01:07:11.640 aspirational in a way.

01:07:12.780 Like there was no cheating,

01:07:13.820 no infidelity.

01:07:14.380 It was just like,

01:07:14.940 wow,

01:07:15.640 you know,

01:07:15.900 even as a little kid,

01:07:16.940 I'm like,

01:07:17.360 you know,

01:07:17.600 how cool would it be

01:07:18.280 to have parents like that?

01:07:19.800 And now kids

01:07:20.580 aren't really getting that

01:07:21.640 like nearly,

01:07:22.320 nearly as often.

01:07:23.500 And I think that's

01:07:24.740 something important

01:07:25.540 to think about

01:07:26.640 is just like the vast difference,

01:07:28.520 not only sort of personally,

01:07:29.820 but just also in terms

01:07:31.620 of like the images

01:07:32.240 that we're exposed to.

01:07:33.580 It's that Mr. Rogers effect,

01:07:35.240 why he's such a beloved figure

01:07:36.460 in America

01:07:36.960 and everyone loves him

01:07:37.840 because he was,

01:07:39.500 you know,

01:07:39.880 that,

01:07:40.220 you know,

01:07:40.420 everyone's dad almost.

01:07:41.540 Yeah,

01:07:41.920 right.

01:07:42.520 Well,

01:07:42.740 we've barely scratched the surface,

01:07:44.200 but like I said,

01:07:44.780 I hope people read the book

01:07:45.640 and of course,

01:07:46.540 make sure to head on over

01:07:47.960 to Locals

01:07:48.400 for the rest of this conversation.

01:07:51.520 Maybe it's too personal.

01:07:53.480 Did Rob's mum

01:07:54.580 ever get off drugs?

01:07:56.160 Does he have any suggestions

01:07:57.360 to help the drug

01:07:58.320 affected people in life?

01:07:59.880 or any suggestions

01:08:01.380 to curb the black market

01:08:02.600 of drugs?

TRIGGERnometry - April 07, 2024

How Family Breakdown Destroys Society - Rob Henderson

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