351 - Boy Crisis with Author Dr Warren Farrell

Justin talks with author Dr Warren Farrel about the Boy Crisis. 

 

Dr Warren Farrell

http://boycrisis.org

 

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Episode Transcript

(00:12):
Listen to me, listen to ThankGod Chase. That's hello and welcome to

(00:37):
the Dad Podcast. I'm your host, Justin Worsham. With me today is
author doctor all around interesting guy.Can't wait to talk to him about this.
He wrote a book called Boy Crisis, Why our Boys are Struggling and
what we could do about it.Please welcome doctor Warren Farrell. Thank you
very much for being on the show. Doc. I love all that applause.

(01:00):
It makes people feel welcome, andI always find it's helpful to inflate
one's ego just before we start,you know, just a little bit when
when when we start from a reallylow point, it's really helpful to get
to mid level. So I amfascinated by this subject because what I find
very interesting about it, and I'dbe curious to get your take about it

(01:21):
is, is that for me personallyas a dad. I went back and
watched your Ted talk and stuff.And maybe I'm jumping too far ahead for
the listener, but uh, infact, let's do. Let's start there.
Give me the gist of what isthe boy crisis if you don't mind.
Yeah, I discovered the boy crisissort of what I looked at the
fact that all sixty three developed nationswere falling behind. Boys were falling behind

(01:47):
girls in every single academic subject inalmost all those nations, and the and
the ones where they weren't falling behindcompletely, they were falling behind in most
areas, but especially in reading andwriting, and reading and writing out the
two biggest predictors of success. Sothen I started asking, well, what
was that about? And I sawthat in all these developed nations, the

(02:08):
keyword has developed that there was muchmore because survival was not such a core
issue that boys. There was morepermission in the society for divorce and more
permission for moms to raise children withoutbeing married. And in those two groups,
the children of divorce and the childrenwhere moms were raising children without being

(02:30):
married, there was a very highpercentage of boys who didn't have their dads
present. And I started dividing theboys without their dad's present with boys with
their dad's present, and boys witha lot of dad involvement were actually doing
very well. They were not inboy crisis mode at all. But I
discovered that in a way, theboy crisis resides where fathers do not reside,

(02:55):
and fathers do not reside, particularlyin large percentages in among divorced families
and among children who are born tomothers who are not married. And in
the United States, fifty three percentof women under thirty who have children are
have children without being married. That'sfifty three percent. It used to be

(03:17):
in the sixties, it was thethree percent. Now it's fifty three percent.
So you can get a sense ofthis enormous jump in this dad deprivation
in the last of fifty years orso. You know, I've spoken to
another gentleman from the Carolinas and he'sdoing this great thing where men who are

(03:38):
behind on child support in lieu ofspending jail time, he offers a six
month program that the courts are putthese guys through, and basically what he
does is he teaches them to befathers. And it's very interesting because he
kind of speaks to your point ofthat. You know, a lot of
these guys will say, well,I didn't have a father, so I

(03:58):
don't know how to be a goAnd his argument back to them is like,
well, the fact that you didnot have a father around should actually
be proof to you of how importanta father can be because of just you
know, look at the life choicesthat you make. And one of the
things that I really was interested aboutwhat you said is that when the feminist
movement came about and what that didtoo, I guess kind of both genders.

(04:23):
Do you mind speaking to that fora second? Sure, And a
little bit of background this first.I was the only man in the United
States who has ever been elected threetimes to the board of directors of the
Denial Organization. Right. I imagineif your doctor, if you're you,
right, part of this whole thingis saying and it's a It's another why
I love the idea of having youon the show is that, and I
think I hope it goes without sayingwith my audience. But just to be

(04:46):
clear, the doctor is not saying, you know, uh, single moms
are horrible people, right, He'snot saying he's not attacking anybody for any
of that. What he's doing ishe's stating facts, and it is it
is really tough to argue you withfacts. And just because you're a single
mother, right doing what you can, that does not mean that you are
failing your child or anything like that. I think that and allow me if

(05:10):
you would to put words in yourmouth, then then correct me if I'm
wrong, Doc. But the Ithink what you're really getting at is that
it's on us as guys, theguys if you if you separate from the
person you have a child with,you need to make an effort, regardless
of how frustrating or how much stresscan come from it. You have to
stay invested in that kid's life.You can't just leave her alone on an

(05:31):
island. And I think that maybeif you're a single mom, is that
you need to kind of keep yourantenna up for maybe not somebody else.
You don't got to find the nextguy that comes along, but it is
a good thing for your kid tohave some kind of male role model.
Is that Is that a fair assessmentof what you're saying. Yeah, I'm
going to just sign off here becauseyou really are expressing it better than I.

(05:53):
I'm sorry I talk too much,but yeah, no, no,
no, no, I didn't meanthat as a negative. I meant that
is just a playing with you ina positive way. Oh good, because
I really do my It's funny becauseI always argue with I do the same
kind of thing. Is that I'vebeen called a chauvinist and and jokingly like
misogynistic because in my family, Ikind of I kind of call the shots.
Now, that's not to say thatmy wife is you know, browbeaten

(06:16):
in any way, shape or formor you know. It is the quintessential
stereotypical thing where she really has theultimate power because I do everything I can
to take care of her, andI take that responsible responsibility very very seriously.
And my wife, I am morefeminist than my wife could ever be.
My wife, my wife gets uh, she throws up in her mouth

(06:36):
at the idea of feminism. Andthat's not what we're we're saying here,
what what What we're saying here,what you're about to break down is a
very interesting, i believe, unintendedconsequence of the feminist movement that had a
lot of greatness, But there's thisone little element. So go ahead,
doc, I'm sorry for all mydisclaison. No, No, this is

(06:57):
wonderful what you're saying. It's exactlytarget. So first, ye, my
being on the board of now gotme of course allowed me to be and
it was you know, it wasselected myself into it's involvement with it because
I cared so much about expanding women'soptions and I think the feminist movement has
to be given great credit for expandingwomen's options beyond what anyone in the nineteen

(07:19):
fifties sixties could possibly have been imagined. And as a person with two daughters,
and my co author John Gray hasthree daughters, um, you know,
we're just delighted about that. That'sthe good news. The bad news
was that we on the board ofNow did have an understanding that we evolved
out of the civil rights movement andthen from the civil rights movement into them

(07:41):
into the attacks on Marxism on capitalism, and those movements had oppressor groups and
oppressed the rich, the poor,the slave owners, the slaves, and
we took the and there were attacksin the part of Lenin on the nuclear
family, and a lot of theearly feminists were very socialist and radical Red

(08:03):
Stockings Group, Socialist Workers' parties,and we just took the oppressor oppress dichotomy
and said, Okay, men areearning more money than women. That sounds
a lot like the more oppressor group. And women are earning less than men,
that sounds like the oppress group.And we flipped it into that dichotomy
of oppressor oppressed without realizing that yes, it was not men that were earning

(08:28):
more money than women for the samework. And if you need proof of
that, I wrote a whole bookcalled Why Men Earn More and What Women
Can Do About It to explain thatit isn't men earning more money than women.
It is dad's earning more money thanmoms. And dads earn more money
than moms for a reason similar towhat you just said. When a man

(08:50):
becomes a dad, if he wantedto be a musician, or an actor
or an artist, he knows thatthe words associated with let's say artists is
starving artist, an actor, it'swaiter. A musician is usually unemployed.
And that women don't fall in lovewhen women are wanting to have children.
They don't fall in love with beautiful, soft, loving, tender men and

(09:11):
the unemployment line. They fall inlove with men who are able to make
a living. And so we giveup our fantasies are the glint and our
eye, oftentimes to do the thingsthat we know will allow our children to
be able to move, to havehomes and better neighborhoods with better schools,
so that our children will have opportunitiesand advantages that we do not have ourselves.

(09:35):
Now our mothers do the same thing. They risk their lives and childbirth.
They often focus their careers, butsorry, they often sacrifice their careers
to make sure that their children havemore options than they have. But what
we didn't understand in the feminist movementthat while women were making sacrifices of careers,

(09:56):
men were making sacrifices in careers,sacrifice their passion for teaching, going
into becoming administrators or superintendents of schoolsbecause they liked it less being an administrator
than a teacher, but they knewit earned more and that that would supply
better income for their children. Orthey ended up selling insurance nationwide full time,

(10:16):
and they developed what I call thefather's catch twenty two. They learned
to love their family by being awayfrom their love of their family. Now
we took all this sacrifice and devotionand willingness to give up the glint in
our dad's eyes, and we turnedit against dads. If they didn't earn
more money, they were losers.If they did earn more money, they

(10:39):
were part of the patriarchal power structuredesigned to have rules that benefited men at
the expense of women, without anyhaving any understanding that the obligation to earn
money that someone else spends while youdie sooner is not about mail privilege,
and it's not about male power.It's about learning to give up power.

(11:00):
That is, you give power upto the boss's desires or your company's desires.
You learn to give up power inorder to get a different type of
power, and that was the powerto feed your family, protect your family,
and to love your family in away that was complimentary to the way
your wife was loving the family.Yeah, I had a similar kind of
situation. I mean, obviously notas part of women's suffrage or anything along

(11:22):
those lines, but it to me, it's a microcosm of what we're talking
about. Where I was talking tomy brother in law who's on my wife's
side of the family, and whenwe get together, we kind of do
the kind of thing that I thinka lot of guys do where you kind
of jokingly, you know, complainabout your wife or you know, they'll
ball and chain kind of you knowtalk. And I said, you know,
I really, you know, Ido everything I can to make sure

(11:43):
my wife gets everything that she wants, you know, because I've gotten flack
before, not necessarily for people listeningto the show, but friends, because
I manage all of our money,and when times were bad, I basically
told my wife that, you know, she could do what she wants to
do, she just has to askme first, if that makes sense.
Now when you say that, rightto kind of talk to what the social

(12:05):
landminds that we're going to talk abouthere is that when I say my wife
has to ask permission before she doesthing, immediately I get labeled as a
chauvinist massagist that you know, I'mjust oppressing her in every way, shape
or form. But in reality,I have never said no that Really,
all I'm asking is to be notified, right, And maybe the permission word
is the one that is thrown inthere, because all I really say is

(12:28):
you just got to ask let meknow, so I know that this is
gonna be this money is going tobe coming out of our bank account because
not because I want to control mywife's decisions, right, but because my
wife wants nothing to do with ourfinances. She doesn't want to know.
The day today, I've offered tosit down with her, and I have
no problem with that. So whatshe get, what her life is is

(12:50):
that she says, hey, canI go out to lunch today? And
then I look at the budget andgo yes. Or I look at the
budget and go, we're over budget, but I find some other place that
where the money can get moved andgo, yeah, you could do that.
It's fine because you're not doing thisor we're not doing that kind of
a thing. But I never sayno, right And even in times where
it's been tight, I've said,well, we're over budget. It's not

(13:13):
a good idea, but if it'sreally important, that's fine, of course,
you know. So I said tomy brother in law to bring it
back to the stories that I said, I go, you know, she
gets everything she wants. I wishthat I had somebody who got up and
just found a way for everything Iasked for, to just exist and handled
all of the stress and everything.And he goes, well, that's not

(13:35):
the way it is for you.And I said why and he goes,
because you're a man. That's whatit is to be a man. Like
that's and he looked at it likeI see it as like this very weird,
like it just doesn't make sense toit. But he was looking at
me like I was a crazy personfor even walking down the path of thinking.
It was like I was talking aboutthe Earth being the center of the
world, you know what I mean, Like it just didn't even register for

(13:56):
him. And I think that's kindof what we're talking about here, right,
Like this this idea that just becauseI like to use the example there
is there's these kind of hidden benefitsto seeing life a different way. Nobody
wants women to be sitting in ahouse or in an abusive relationship, or
sitting in a house where they can'tdo what they want or have a say
in the way that the family runs, or like I said, an abusive

(14:18):
relationship. Nobody is preaching that.But what we are saying is that when
we can't. When as a societywe said, yes, women can go
work. And this is the fascinatingthing. I'm going to jump ahead on
your ted talk women go to work. Right. We gave women, we
expanded, as you said, doctorFarrell, we expanded their purpose, right,
but we neglected as a society torecognize or even start to expand the

(14:41):
mail purpose. The Maile purpose stillis to this day to earn money.
And that's and even myself, likea guy who's a stay at home Dad.
I'm invested in my kid's life,my wife, my wife is very
happy. But to say that,I've said it on the show, I
would wrestle constantly and sometimes I stilldo with this program. In my brain,
that felt like if I wasn't makingmore money than my wife or any

(15:03):
kind of financial shortcoming that we hadwas entirely my fault. Yes, well,
first of all, you are takingon a lot. Secondly, and
what is your what contribution does yourwife make to the home and the family
and the children. Right now,it's financial, like we've we've actually had
an Interestingly enough, we've kind ofdone the Freaky Friday where I used to

(15:28):
do stand up comedy and I washome all day, and that was kind
of the genesis of this shows.That was my comedy and I did it,
and then it kind of took aturn organically and went down a different
path. And then I realized thatI didn't like being away from my wife
and kids. My comedy crew wasgoing good, I was making good money,
but interestingly enough, I realized thatI was not ever going to make

(15:48):
enough money while we lived in southernCalifornia to where my wife could stay home
with the kids, and that compoundedwith and it's interesting because I think it
speaks to what you're saying. Thatwas the number one thought in my mind
is that I wasn't going to provideenough to where she could take care of
the kids. Yes, that wasthe first thought that my little lizard brain
came up with. And the secondthought was that if I was away from

(16:10):
my wife and kids, I knewI would become depressed and I would be
miserable, that honest to God.And I thought this was the realization I
thought I had in my life,is that I thought that I realized that
more than anything else, more thanmy passion of making people laugh and entertaining
people, which I thought at thetime was a God given talent of mine,
right, more important than that wasthat all I really wanted to be

(16:32):
was a dad to my two kidsand raised them to be really good people
and to have their own families.And so I thought, well, I
gotta change things around so that Icould be home more. And this is
what you're talking about is exactly whatI found among men in what I did
the research for the Boy Crisis book. So, for example, the Pure

(16:52):
Research Center for the first time inhistory asked a large number of men who
were full time working men, whichwould you rather do. Would you rather
be a home full time with yourchildren or would you rather be working full
time? And forty nine percent ofthe men said, I'd prefer to be
home full time, not part time, but full time with the children.
But my family needs the money.And so that when I talked before about

(17:18):
men giving up the glint in theireye, being the comedian in your case,
to do what they felt needed tobe done. That has earned more
money. That's what men's role hasbasically been. And what we as feminists
never understood was we sort of said, oh, the men are in more
money. That means they are youknow, they have male privilege, they
have male power. We are inless money. That means that we're the

(17:41):
powerless ones. And that is reallyyou know, that is that's just proved
that men have run the world andcontrol the world and that type of thing.
But you know what, but noone among us in the feminist movement
understood until I wrote the book TheMyth of Male Power, and I sort
of started piecing together, Wait aminute, power is not should not be

(18:03):
should be defined as control over one'sown life, power should be understood to
be not what most men defined itto be, which is feeling obligated to
earn money that somebody else spends whilewe die sooner. That's not a great
definition of power, and no womanwould be stupid enough to accept that.
But we have been. The socialbribes of our life have trained men to

(18:27):
be disposable as a way of beingmasculine. That is, being disposable as
a way of being masculine, beingdisposable in war, and being disposable as
ninety three percent of the people whodie of in the workplace and almost ninety
eight percent of people who are takethe hazardous jobs in the workplace. And
so we have looked at our livesas doing that type of sacrifice that you

(18:49):
talk about, and that's you know, and sacrificing ourselves was never too big
a burden of masculinity historically. Butnow we're beginning to ask a different question.
We should be What I'm asking inthe Boy Crisis Book is first of
all, for dads to recognize howimportant you are. Secondly, to recognize

(19:11):
why and understand why you're important.That is, what are the nine major
differences between dad's style parenting and momstyle parenting. That leads to children that
have what I call checks and balancedparenting, that is a proper tension between
dad's style and mom style parenting.Those are the children that I discovered do

(19:33):
the best. And almost nobody understandswhat dad's style parenting is, including dads.
And so what I was saying todads is don't blame moms. You
know, read the chapters in TheBoy Crisis on dad's style parenting. Understand
for example, why for example,when moms and dads are together and dads,

(19:53):
let's say, are rough housing,and say dad tosses his three kids
on the couch, and the mandateis for the three kids to jump on
to dad's back and to pin himdown before dad pins all three kids put
together down, and in the process, your mom's looking at the dad and
the three kids, going, ohmy god, I feel like I have
just one more child to monitor here, sort of like um, you know.

(20:18):
But on the other hand, Idon't want to be controlling, and
and they do seem to be havinga lot of fun. But I just
I can I can visualize it.What's going to happen is sooner or later
the kids are going to sort ofhave, you know, crash each other's
heads or somebody's gonna end up cryingand I'm going to feel guilty that I
didn't stop the process sooner. Well, it's about a one hundred percent chance
that she's going to she's right.And then when Dad stops the rough housing

(20:41):
for a moment and says, okay, Jimmy, you can't push you use
your elbow to push Jane, youryounger sister Jane aside like that, You've
got to sort of do leverage andfake her out and do these types of
things in order to be in theprimary kingpin position in the pinning down of
me. Okay, okay, Daddy, I'll that's right, I'll do it.
And then okay, well I'm goingto get we're going to go back

(21:03):
to rough housing. But if youdo that again, that's going to be
the end of rough housing. Ninetyfive percent chance they do it again.
And then Dad says, okay,now, no more rough housing till tomorrow
night. Well, the key learningexperience here is tomorrow night. When Dad
says you can't put an elbow inyour younger sister's face or you know,
push your younger brother aside. Likethat and the dad warns them. The

(21:30):
kids know that there will be anend to rough housing if they don't pay
attention to dad's warning. That givesthem enough incentive to think about their sister's
needs. Therefore, we've the findingsare that children who who do rough housing
with their dad and when dad's enforcedthe boundaries by saying the second night after

(21:53):
the warning, no more rough housing, you violated the agreement that the dad
stops the rough housing. Then thechildren learned that they have to be empathetic
in order to get what they want. That is, they have to think
of someone else's else's needs in orderto get their needs. Bet So,
all the data shows that children whodo rough housing with boundary enforcement dads form

(22:18):
a great bond with dad and excitementwith dad, but also learn to be
more empathetic. They also the childrenlearned a distinction between being assertive versus aggressive.
The difference between using leverage to winyour position as a kingpitner of the
pinnings down of Dad versus using yourelbow or you are pushing or shoving.

(22:41):
That's the difference between being assertive andaggressive. Kids who are empathetic and who
are assertive as opposed to being aggressiveand non empathetic. They end up developing
more friends. The kids who developmore friends are much less likely to feel
depressed. They're more likely to feelengaged. They're also like to learn postpone
gratification when Dad's to the boundary enforcement. That is, Dad's required the children

(23:06):
to do to postpone the gratification ofpushing their sister or brother aside, and
had the postpone gratification of long termsatisfaction from the rough housing while they were
thinking of the needs of others.Postpone gratification is the key to success at
work and success in activities. Sothose kids do better at homework, they

(23:27):
do better at rehearsing for basketball,football teams, cheerleading squad, whatever,
And those children therefore get more praisein school from both peers and from teachers.
They develop more pride at home,they feel better about themselves. They're
much less likely to drift into beingfeeling alone, ashamed of themselves, and

(23:52):
therefore withdrawing into video games, addictionor addiction to porn, and those to
the kids that really do well.So that's what leads to That's just an
example of one of nine differences betweendad's style parenting and mom style parenting that
is very that are very preventive ofthe boy crisis. And to find out

(24:14):
more about that, go to boycrisis dot org. All of this is
in the description of this episode againthe name of the book, Boy Crisis,
Why our boys are struggling, andwhat we could do about it?
Hit pause, go pick it upnow, because it's it's fascinating stuff.
And I know that there are anomaliesof parents that are listening to this.
I'm sure that there are moms whoare kind of seeing themselves as more of
a disciplinary role. But for mepersonally, I just can't help. But

(24:37):
that kind of blew my mind whatyou describe there is because I've never quite
could put my finger on what itis. But when my wife puts the
kids to bed, which is that'sthe routine, right, she puts them
to bed, and then there's alwaysalways and when I say always, doc,
I mean always, there is somekind of mo to the point where

(25:00):
she gets she hits a limit andthen she starts screaming at them. Right
I put them to bed. Ididn't know it, but I was.
I think in my mind I wasdoing that kind of thing where when I
put them to bed, I wouldsay, okay, listen, none of
these questions. So if you gotit now, now's the time. What's
your question? Because if you ain'tthirsty now, or you ain't curious about

(25:22):
something now, then as soon asthis door shuts, that's all bets are
off at til Mignana my friend okay, and they would just go to sleep.
It was never it was not anissue for me, and I just
thought it's because I'm an asshole likethat, but I think it's because also
when they were young, there wasThat's always been my thing and maybe it's
just I think I got it frommy dead but it's like there's a consequence

(25:45):
for everything that has been People likeI think people judge have judged my parenting,
including my wife, have said that, you know, everything seems to
be a big deal to you,Like you know what I mean, And
it's because to me, the smallestthings always have bigger examples when it comes
to their behavior, right, SoI need them to understand that there was
always a consequence to your actions.So when you don't listen, I gotta

(26:07):
take away the blanket. I'm sorry, but this is what I gotta do,
and I'm giving you the choice,and I'm giving you the warning,
and so ultimately it's you deciding.And what I've always until you started saying
this to me, I was justdoing this without really thinking about it.
And I'm not a genius. That'snot what I'm saying here. But I
think I'm speaking to your point ofthese big differences between dads and moms and
what they bring to the table isthat what I was unintentionally doing is saying

(26:30):
that you are in control of yourdecisions, and you are in control of
your emotions to a certain extent.Right, I'm not invalidating your emotions,
but I'm saying that you can't justgo off the off willy nilly without understanding
you're accountable to the people around you. Am I making sense here? Oh
yeah? Making a one hundred percentand just for them all that's listening.

(26:51):
And a couple of things here.First of all, it really is important
for you for dads to share ina loving way to first will learn about
their different So, for example,moms who are predominantly involved with the children
set earlier bedtimes than dads do.But the data shows that the children with
dads actually get to sleep and earlierthan the children with moms, for exactly

(27:15):
the same dynamic that you said,moms can almost always be appealed to Mom.
I'm sorry, but I didn't finishmy homework. You don't want to
go to homework to school tomorrow withoutfinishing my homework, do you well?
Okay, sweete, I told youto do your homework before, but no,
I don't want you to go toschool without finishing your homework. I'll
tell you what. I spend tenminutes finishing your homework. Mom, it's
ten minutes, are up, Iknow, but I'm still not finished with

(27:37):
my homework. Okay, I wantyou to make sure you're finished with your
homework. So the child learns tomanipulate a better deal with mom dad so
the children with moms. The momsreport that they feel far more coerced by
children, far more exhausted with thechildren. The word most single moms us
is the word overwhelmed. So thefirst thing that first single moms to know

(28:00):
is if there's a chance of bringingthe biological dad into the family the way
the best way to do it isto know what he brings that is of
value to the children, Because whendads feel valued and needed, like Uncle
Sam valued the men to die inwar and every generation so men were willing
to die because they felt they wereneeded. When the father of your children

(28:26):
feels that you understand his value andyou understand those nine differences and why they
need to be part of checks andbalance parenting for you and him to work
on every situation your child faces andfigure out what balance do we need here
between mom's style parenting and dad's styleparenting. When you're working with him that

(28:47):
way, he will much more likelybe involved. Now, you may have
a dad that's just as hopeless ordad or in prison and can't be involved.
And so let me just end herewith a few hopeful things for moms
in that position. Number one,getting a stepdad involved is good, but
it's extremely difficult. Read the chapterin The Boy Crisis on how to involve

(29:07):
a stepdad so he doesn't just becomean advisor to you, but becomes an
equal parent to you, so thesetypes of dynamics don't happen in your home.
Second, make sure your school systemis encouraged and lobbied by you to
hire male teachers. Make sure thatyou spend time in the Boy Crisis book

(29:30):
about how to go about getting yourschool system to do that. Make sure
your children are involved with cub Scouts. Make sure they're involved with Boy Scouts
when they get a little bit older. Make sure they're involved with Mankind Project.
If you're at all faith based inyour orientation, get your children involved
in a faith based community where yourminister, priest or rabbi or i mom

(29:52):
is very carefully selected and that whereshe or he is, he knows it
should be a male role model.There isum is involved with getting your son
involved and with talking with other boyshis age about the problems they feel,
the mask they wear versus what's behindthat mask. So your boy and it

(30:15):
reveals alone, isolated, alienated andpurposeless. And so these are just a
few of the many, many examplesof what moms can do. If you're
a mom and a dad or justa mom, make sure you read this
section appendix A on how to setup a family dinner night so a family
dinner night does not become a familydinner nightmare. Make sure and you know

(30:40):
which is very easily can morpham Yes, but there are you talking with families
that have made it work. Thereare very specific things that families do to
make family dinner nights the most powerfulcontribution to stability, love and good listening
skills um for your children and forthe parents of the children. I want

(31:02):
to hit and I know we gotto wrap up here with you soon,
but i'd like to close with yourJohn's story. Who is in your men's
group. I hope you're picking upwhat I'm putting down, but yes,
all right, good. But theother thing I wanted because I didn't,
I don't think I connected it toand it was really impactful in your Ted
talk. In fact, if youwant to see his Ted talk, go
to boy crisis dot org and it'sgot the full Ted talk there. And
this is really interesting going back tothe feminist thing and that part of the

(31:29):
fatherless boys and the boy crisis isis that boys kind of grow up without
a sense of purpose. And that'sa that's a huge to me. I'm
not a psychologist, I'm not adoctor, but I think I'm a guy
who gets people, and I feellike that's probably a really strong predictor for
self confidence and just depression in generals, that if you don't feel like you
got a purpose in life, thenyou're out of it, and to kind

(31:51):
of speak to this growing trend.It's nowhere near I mean right now.
It's actually dipped from in the GreatRecession in two thousand and ten. But
there's only seven percent of dad's outthere are stay at home full time dads,
right, compared to twenty eight percentof stay at home full time moms.
Now, yeah, and correct meif you if my numbers are wrong,
But that's the last research I sawfrom a Pew research or the census

(32:14):
is what I saw that on.But anyway, so there's this idea of
men not having that same purpose ofcare being added to their purpose where you
point out about how even a nursehas if it's a guy, has to
be called a male nurse, andthen you kind of have to walk through
life with a little bit of shameif you are a stay at home dad.
And I just like to throw outthere and you piggyback however you want

(32:37):
on this doc because I'm bas I'mstealing your words all over the place.
But my point is that if youare a stay at home dad and you're
struggling with that insecurity, I thinkit's important that you understand where that insecurity
comes from. And I think thatthe doc has pointed it out to you,
and now you can kind of workto rewire your brain's approach to that
insecurity, that that insecurity is somethingthat was provided to you. It is

(33:00):
not your it is not real.It is a manifestation in your own mind.
And that if you want to bea dad, if that is the
thing that makes you feel good,and your wife wants to go have a
job and work, or if youboth kind of want to be around the
kids, whatever that may be.But my point is is that if your
wife makes more than you, oris better at going out and getting a
job than you, but ultimately youwant to be a dad, let go

(33:22):
of that insecurity, because that insecurityis just becoming an obstacle for you to
do that thing that you love.And it's gonna it's gonna you're gonna burn
so many calories and make yourself.You know, we talk about how when
you have an infant, you're justalways more tired than when you're and then
as your kids get older, youfeel tired. But it's like, but
I used to sleep for like threehours kind of a thing. And I
think it's because there's just so muchfretting. Right, there's so many worrying

(33:45):
and anxiety and all of that stuff. So when you're constantly worrying about your
kid and your marriage, and thenon top of that, you're got this
self loathing burden that you're carrying likea backpack of bullshit around with you to
say like, oh, I'm aI'm not a good enough man for my
wife, I'm not a good enoughfather to my kids. I think that
society has shown that that's not whatwe're saying. Right, women have women

(34:07):
could choose career now, and sotherefore men can choose home life now,
and we got to you gotta startwith making it, making yourself comfortable before
you're going to turn the tides ofeverybody else staring at you around you,
and so let it go. Man, it's all I'm gonna say. Is
anything you want to add to that, doc, I'm sorry I went off
on a rant on your point.That's perfect. First of all, I'll
spend a minute with the concept offather warrior, a minute with the purpose

(34:30):
void, and then a minute withthe John story of you if you wish,
absolutely so, Okay, the fatherWarrior. We as a society,
just like we've made it really verypalatable and rewarded, and talking very positive
ways about women being heroes in theworkplace and CEOs and so on. We

(34:50):
have to create a new sense ofpurpose for men. The old sense of
purpose was be willing to be disposablein war. If we are, we'll
all you're a hero. If youdie in the process of saving somebody else,
will maybe build a statue in yourfavor. These were social bribes to
be willing to be disposable. Thesocial bribes are being called a hero.

(35:13):
Social bribes are being a valued respected. And if you didn't do this in
war disposability, you did it inthe hazardous jobs of the workplace. Well,
today we need fewer men to diein war, and women are sharing
more of the breadwinning burden, sowe need fewer men to die at work,
even though still to this day aboutninety eight percent of the hazardous jobs

(35:36):
are done by men. And sowe are having a place where many boys
are experiencing a purpose void. Andthen these boys are experiencing a purpose void
combined with a dad void. Sothere's not a good male role model to
give them a new sense of purposeto help them discover themselves and to help

(35:57):
them discover what might be a newsense of purpose called being instead of a
soldier warrior, being a father warrior, being somebody who's overcomes all the discriminations
against men being full time dads thatexist in the culture and is willing to
take on those discriminations and have theinternal courage and internal security to battle those

(36:20):
prejudices against him as a dad andto go out there and say I want
to be a full time dad.I am worthy of being a full time
dad, and I can make acontribution that is important enough so that I
can feel comfortable marrying a woman whomaybe earns more than I do. And
while she earns more money in theworkplace, I'll be more full time involved

(36:42):
in the home place, and Ican do and the two of us can
raise children. As she can bea habit all woman, I have it
all a woman being somebody who ishappily married and raises children effectively and has
a very successful career, and Ican be a man who has purpose in
raising children extremely affect because not onlyam I secure, but I also have

(37:02):
good solid knowledge as to why thechildren who do best who are are children
who are raised predominantly by dads withinvolved moms in an intact family. These
children too terrifically and as a rule, and so, and the last thing
I'll do is you asked me toshare the John story. I love the

(37:23):
story. I hope you. Ithank you for indulging me. It's such
as so great on so many levels. I used to form and I still
do, actually formed a lot ofmen's groups, about three hundred of them
so far, and about two hundredwomen's groups. Each time I went to
a presentation, I would circulate apad and paper and ask people to join
the groups and train people afterwards tilloftentimes two in the morning to how to

(37:46):
run the effective men's and women's groups. And so one day, about a
few years I used to write alot from Miss magazine, and Miss Magazine
had a celebration of it's I thinkfifth or ten anniversary. I'm forgetting which
thing with their fifth anniversary. Andthis guy comes up to me at at
the Miss Magazine celebration and says you, Um, that are you Warren Farrell?

(38:10):
And I go yes, and hegoes, well, I joined a
men's group that you that you formed, and um, and I wanted just
to tell you that it changed mylife. And I go, oh,
really, how so? And hegoes, um, well, I gave
up my job and decided to raisemy children, um my son full time.
And I said wow, I said, has that been okay for you?

(38:34):
You know, because I'm thinking tomyself. You know, full time
raising your children often means a lotof negotiation with your with with with the
mom and you know, a negotiationand introspection on the part of yourself and
so on. And he said,I said, how did this happen?
And he said, well, youknow this men's group that you formed.
I was kind of a little bitpooh pooing it at first, because one

(38:55):
of the questions you asked the men'sgroup to ask each person is what's the
biggest hole in your heart? Andwhen it came to me, I realized
that the biggest hole in my heartwas getting a divorce as a result of
being so involved with my career thatI lost contact with my very little contact

(39:15):
with my son, and my wifedidn't like the fact that I wasn't there,
and we ended up getting a divorce, and then I got remarried and
my wife and I and so Ialways always regret that. And one of
the men my men's group said,well, you know, you seem to
be extremely sad about this, John, what's happening? And he said,
well, I guess the fact thatmy wife and I have just have found

(39:38):
out that A my my new wifeis pregnant, and um, we're going
to have a boy. And I'mjust fearing that I'm going to repeat the
whole pattern all over again. AndI really loved my wife and I want
to love, you know, myson. And so the men's group confronted
me and said, well, youknow, have you talked to your wife
about, you know, doing somethingdifferent leave than you did last time?

(40:00):
And no, no, I haven't. I don't think that would be really
cool. What do you mean reallycool? You know? You know this
isn't talk with her. Okay,he talks with her. He comes back
and he says, okay. Shesays, do John, whatever you want
to do. Um, I wantyou to be happy. I want our
children to do well. Okay,But now I have you know, a

(40:22):
large number of legal contracts that areobligating me to be involved for the for
the next couple of years in mywork at least. Um, so John,
break the contracts. I can't breakthese contracts, but I can renegotiate
them. Maybe, But I'm butI don't want to let people down.
Well, you know what you ownis what you own owning you John?

(40:45):
All right? So this forced meinto thinking that through renegotiating my contracts and
um, and eventually I ended upworking out so I could leave my career
for five years and raise my sonfull time. So I said, well,
was this a good decision? Um? And he said, Warren,
it was by far the best decisionof my life. I used to,

(41:07):
you know, write and think alot about love, but I never even
had a clue about love, whatlove really is? Um? You know
when I when I care about whatmy son is being fed, and is
he being fed too much? Toolittle? Can his right hand go into
his right code? Could he walk? Could he? Um? You know?
What do I need to do tokeep him safe? But give him,

(41:28):
you know, opportunities to grow?Um? You know this is I
realized that this is love. Soat this time I had just come back
from my first book tour, andI was on TV a lot, and
somebody comes up and says, um, Um comes up to our table where
we've been talking for about an hourand says, may have your autograph,

(41:49):
and I reach up and say,excuse me, John, but I just
want to do that, and Iget I reach up for his paper and
pen, and the guy goes,well, you know, actually I was
thinking about getting his autograph if Imight first, and then of course I'd
like yours. What is your name? I got the point. I'm feeling
totally embarrassed and the and so hesigns the piece of paper very quickly,

(42:17):
so quickly that I know the guymust be very well known. And I
say, excuse me, but Idon't have it. I haven't had a
TV for the last number of yearsand I don't watch TV because I'm doing
all this other stuff, So um, you must be well known, are
you? And he goes, I'mfine, let's go back to our discussion.
No, no, really tell mewhat's your last name is? John?
And he goes Lennon. I goJohn Lennon and I said, They'll

(42:40):
wait a minute. I recognize thatname. Are you a member of a
singing group? And I'm really feelingproud of myself that like the connected name
and he goes, yes, yes, I am. And what's what's the
name of the singing group. Hegoes the Beatles, at which point,
by level of ignorance did not lower, you know, was not at that
higher level. So I now feeltotally embarrassed. But that was my story

(43:06):
of spending an hour with John Lennonnot knowing who he was. Incredible and
what an interesting thing to to bean impact on a guy who impacted so
many people. Because it's funny becauseoftentimes that song and I don't know a
lot about the history of the song, but just when I saw you tell
that story on the Ted Talk,it was I was so taken aback because

(43:28):
there was a song that that beautifulboy song that he would sing it every
time when my sons were babies andI'd beholding them, it would just come,
it would it hits my head.And so for me personally, that's
why that story really resonated. Tothink that in some way you were indirectly
or even directly a part of himinfluencing his decision is a really cool thing.

(43:49):
So again, not that it needsto be said or that you need
any validation from a guy like me, but but doctor Warren Farrell, thank
you for everything that you do andall the time and research you did and
to get all this information together.It's you're a good dude, and I
appreciate you very very much. Thankyou. It's been a pleasure talking with
you again. Go to boy Crisisdot org. The name of the book

(44:12):
is Boy Crisis, Why our boysare struggling and what we can do about
it. Even if you're a momwith a son, check out this book.
It's it's gonna be an interesting read. You're you're gonna learn a lot
about it. You're gonna learn alot about your sons and and what they
need and just interesting information, justinteresting information all around. Again. Thanks,
thanks again, Doc. I appreciateyou for coming on the show and

(44:34):
just a pleasure talking with you.It's been it's been fun. All Right.
We'll take a little break and comeback with a little moment of the
week. You made them, Youlove them, and sometimes you want to
choke the living shit out of them, but occasionally they give you that one
sweet moment. This is that moment. Moment of the week rot to you

(44:58):
by Dad Gear. All your childtraveling means packed into stylish, practical perfection,
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Go to dad gear dot com anduse promo code dad podcast a checkout for
twenty percent savings made in the USA. Oh thank you so much again to

(45:19):
uh doctor Warren Farrell for coming onthe show. I have a kind of
a quick moment of the week thatyou know, I talked. I got
on a little bit of a soapbox. I want to say it was early
in the school year this year becauseI was really feeling kind of impacted or
by the PTA and Booster club involvementthat I had in the community, in

(45:40):
the neighborhood that I live in.And I had another example of that,
and and I hope that you arelucky enough to have something similar in your
life. If not, I highlyencourage for you to try to seek it
out. And the best way Ifound I do a lot of talking in
circles, and I'm sorry for that. I'm not I'm not very good at
this, but it's interesting. Andthe PTA and Booster upside, they we

(46:00):
get a lot of accusations of beingcliquish, and I've learned that most of
the time I think that clickish becomeskind of a protective like a defense mechanism
where we say that, oh socliquish, you know, because you know,
I can't get into blah blah blah. But in reality, I think
you just gotta learn to kind ofgo up and just say hi, put
yourself out there, and see seewhat you get back. And I was

(46:23):
fortunate enough because when Jacob hit kindergartenthat we had, he made some buddies,
and he did a couple play dates, not a lot, but I
never really interacted with the parents.But when he hit first grade, he
wanted to invite like three of hisbuddies, four of his buddies to the
party. I said sure, Sowe invited four of his friends over and

(46:44):
all the parents and it turned intoalmost a twelve hour party where people were
coming and coming back for They hadplay dates in the afternoon, and we
had good food in the afternoon anddrinks all day, and just realized that
we really connected with these folks,and we've stayed friends with them ever since
and developed traditions and where now wecome everybody comes over for Halloween and then
we all go trick or treating andthen we come back with the little ones

(47:06):
and take a break, and thensome of the parents go back out with
the older ones and my one oftheir dads brings up portable karaoke machine and
plays Halloween music while these seeings andmakes announcements and it's just fun. It's
just all around fun. And somy moment of the week is I talked
about it before with Mark Barlow thatI had felt a little disconnected from not

(47:29):
necessarily my kids, more so mywife. In fact, I've talked to
her about that recently and I tookI took his advice in about Valentine's Day,
and it's it's helped tremendously. Itmakes a big difference if you just
kind of call it for what itis. And I came out and I
said to my wife, I said, I feel a little disconnected. I
don't know if she goes no,I do the same way. I think
we're both just really focused on working, which is okay as long as we

(47:51):
maintain an awareness and also remember tofocus on that kind of stuff. So
anyway, my one of my friendswas watching a couple other of our friends
kids and and she was worried thatmy son would feel left out because he
was kind of one of the onlypeople who wasn't coming over, and so

(48:12):
she, because she's a great person, she reached out and I said,
oh, it's fine, I go, but if you don't want to be
by yourself, you know, kindof managing these kids, I'm more than
happy to come over and just beanother adult who can, you know,
help things along. And and Ilike hanging out with her. She's a
great person. And so we goover there and I brought h my flask
because I like bourbon, and shehad a beer, and so her and

(48:35):
I just hung out with the kids. We played Uno, we played another
game too, and then and we'rejust and it was fun to just chat
with the kids. I found outabout a couple that had broken up,
and it was stuff that I wouldnot have honestly found out about if it
was just in my house, andso it was. It was enlightening in
that sense and just an all aroundsolid afternoon. I talked about her early
on this episode about how I reallyjust wanted to be a dad, Like

(48:59):
that's that more and more I livemy life, the more I realize that,
the more I can make things towhere that's what I'm doing as a
as a priority, I think overall, that's the happier I am. And
it's hard to it's interesting, rightthat that could be such an important thing
and it could be right in frontof your face all the time. And
I think because it's right in frontof your face, you almost come a
little numb to it, and it'seasy to slip away from it and to

(49:22):
fall into like the career, becauseI don't know if you're like me,
But like I said on the episodewith Mark barlow Ware, I just keep
telling myself, well, if Iget this career thing going enough, that'll
give me more time later. AndI'm not so douchey to think, well,
don't don't do now today as apresent. I mean, I get
that concept, but I also understandthat reality is reality, right like that

(49:42):
you gotta work and you got yougotta But it's about the balance. I
think it's what is easy to firstall, to say, but maybe harder
to do. Blah blah blah.Still talking in Circle's justice point is sitting
there playing udo with my son andhis friends was so much fun and so
relaxing and just such a battery recharge. It was so great and so chill,

(50:04):
and then we ended up staying theretill later on the night. I
got pizza for everybody, and Idrank and I don't think this had everything
to do with it, but italso didn't hurt. I probably drank about
a third of a bottle of bourbonbecause I drank my whole flask just throughout
the night, and I did wakeup with a pretty bad hangover, not
horrible, but you know, I'mforty now, so things are different.

(50:24):
But it was just all around agreat time, great laughs, and just
that, you know what I mean, You know what I'm talking about,
right, Those moments in life,And it's why we call these moments of
the week and not just the week, right, because chances are in a
seven day period you're gonna get one, maybe two if you're lucky, let's

(50:44):
be honest, depending on what kindof a situation you got going on in
your life. Because I've been inthose valleys of life where I'm lucky to
have a half a moment or aquarter of a moment, fucking eighth of
a moment, you know what imean, where and so just to have
that moment to kind of care areyou through and to kind of go back
and smile, to it's important.And I know this sounds douchy, and

(51:06):
I want you to say, wheneverI do things where I sound super douchy
or super heavy handed, it's notbecause I say them because I'm saying them
to you because I think you don'tget it. I'm saying them to you
because I've forgotten. And my hopeis is that by you listening to the
show while you're on a walk,or running your errands, or walking through
the grocery store, or whatever itis you do while you listen to the

(51:28):
show, that it gives you thatlittle not that same moment, right,
but it gives you. It realignsyour antenna, so you could go,
you know what I need to Ineed to go home and I need to
I need to kiss my spouse.Right. That's why I say, hump
your loved one. It's a joke, but the point is, go hug
him, kiss him. And maybethat after you listen to the show,
you go home and you kiss yourkid on the head, or you know,

(51:50):
the next time you see him,or maybe you're listening to this while
you're cooking dinner and you know they'rein the other room. Then going there,
give me a little kiss them thehead, tell me you love them,
even if they're teenage and maybe they'reannoyed. I don't know, but
that's why I say it. Isay it because my hope is that maybe
it's it's the same reminder for youthat I need often, that it's not
about me thinking I get it,because trusting you know this from listening to

(52:14):
me for so long, is thatI don't get it. We're all just
making it up as we go,right, We're all just doing the best
we can, hoping that everybody's happyand that and and and interesting enough,
the theme that keeps coming up,especially when I'm talking by myself, is
that chances are if you're worried abouteverybody being happy, everybody's fine. So
just make sure you're not worrying somuch that you forget to be happy yourself.

(52:36):
Yeah, all right, sorry,this is a short one. I'll
make it up to you. I'msure down the roads. And if you
if you're if you're pissed off aboutthe quality of episodes, especially because you're
paying for this, shoot me anemail and just let me know it helps
me. It does help me,and I'm not gonna go well, fuck
you, dick, like, that'snot how I'm wired. But I hope

(52:57):
you're enjoying the show and I appreciateyou very very much, more than you
will ever know. So this isjust Worsham on behalf of Doctor Warren Farrell.
Don't forget boy Crisis dot org.The book is called Boy Crisis,
Why Our Boys are Struggling and whatwe could do about it Boycrisis dot org.
Pick it up, check it out, read it on behalf of Doctor

(53:19):
Warren Farrell. This is just Warshamsaying, hug your kids, hump your
loved one, and stay Frosty myfriend.