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To live a life of freedom machos make a stand. Have your own lifestyles and ideals. Possess
the strength of confidence; that's the skill. You can best believe that *he's* a macho man. Macho,
macho man. I want to be... a macho man. But what does it all mean?! Can it go too far?!
It can! Let's kick into it
welcome back everyone episode four of four on dad parents today though what happens if the dad goes
a little too hard in the paint what happens if dad slides into home and is a little bit too much dad
am i going a little too hard on the sports metaphors here i think i am everyone knows
the traditional american dad from the 20th century right you're picturing it in your head right now
you're sitting in a dark study working or whatever probably got glasses probably wearing a button-up
maybe even still wearing your tie at home for some reason ignoring the kids calling the nanny
or the mom anytime the kids want to interact with them shouting at them to get out of my
study today we have a different broader idea of what a dad is and can be and i like to think of
yondu from guardians of the galaxy too subtitle the one about daddy issues when yondu said he may
have been your father boy but it wasn't daddy oh that hit me he said i'm mary poppins y'all
i legit ugly laugh cried intergalactic smuggler or no the best ones do right by their kids and
are present engaged and involved even if they're gruff sometimes distant no parent is perfect and
they're struggling to share their emotional baggage with their children and make sure
that the kids understand where they're coming from and yondu he wanted to share he wanted to connect
he struggled with it and he worked on it and in no universe marvel cinematic or 616 or our
own would we say that yondu was a model father but you can't say he didn't have that direct
involvement you can't say that he wasn't present involved and engaged being a man
being manly those are stereotypes the mary poppins line is funny in part because mary poppins is a
female character the problem is when we get to stereotypes because they can affect how kids are
raised even subconsciously stereotypes would have you think that the men have to be manly as manly
can be they affect how we see the world how we see each other and how we see ourselves in the 1970s
there was this new parenting theory it was growing in popularity it's called attachment theory
during this they studied the infant mother bond and they felt that this bonding moment was not
just the most significant time for attachments in a human's life it was paramount that they protect
it and that mom would be the primary relationship for the baby period that's it they were entirely
focused on mother baby bonding and what they missed is the other parent dad infinite attachment
they didn't really think it was that important and more research is always needed as i like
to say but do you think that those researchers were all men ignoring involvement because of
their own biases and stereotypes they'd go to work and they'd study how infants bond and then
they would go home to their own kids and chase them out of their studies i mean i don't know
but maybe this attachment theory resulted in more and more research showing that birthing
parents were important in raising children and it wasn't until later that they started to realize
the importance of their non-birthing partners and we internalized these stereotypes in the meantime
and we continue them today many people still believe that men don't really have much to do
when it comes to parenting and they could not be more wrong science has now said that men are
involved right from the get-go if you haven't seen parts one and two go back because it turns out
dad's non-birthing partners affect things even before the birth happens and stereotypes hurt
non-birthing parents quote men might think they're not very communal and thus wouldn't
be very good at taking care of a baby i call this the one provider stereotype the stereotype is men
should be at work it keeps relationships detached it discourages emotional attachment so you're just
at work and you indirectly provide for the kid we know from science that that means you're not
present engaged and involved you're not there so maybe you're not harming the kids but you're also
not giving them the benefits of being present engaged and involved children are learning how
the world works in reality men should be there for child rearing at least at the beginning and
it's much better to learn from two teachers than one because they have different views of
the world i have hit this basketball into the hoop i hope again and again there are types of mental
physical and emotional interactions that two parents will provide better another stereotype
that we need to break down is the women's work stereotype i started the whole series with this
the stereotype says that men don't raise kids that's women's work but women do so many things in
our society and in reality men should be raising kids too many cultures globally align with that
not with men don't raise kids they just give them to somebody else and some animals even have males
raising kids like in mountain gorillas males they spend time with infant gorillas who are and aren't
their own grooming and playing and resting and those gorillas who do the most grooming
and resting and playing with infants sire more young long term a lot of people don't
associate higher primates with having men in the picture the gorillas they're there for
us the evidence is way back in part one there's huge cognitive social and economic benefits for
our offspring that last their entire life when their non-birthing parent shows up especially
early on the last stereotype i wanted to highlight is the break them stereotype as i call it
this is the stereotype that babies are delicate little lumps of helplessness and in reality babies
they're fine-tuned eating and learning machines growing more synapses in their brains than we do
in a day they grow like hundreds and we know that many the resilient surprisingly strong baby is
the reality not the stereotype 19th century researchers dangled babies from sticks no
joke this really happened and the newborns could hold and support their own weight the weakest for
several seconds and the strongest for several minutes i might even struggle to do that at the
gym but a baby right out of the womb can do it they can swim they can hold their breath while
under water this is instinct you put a baby in the water they'll dog paddle these are the realities
babies can do a lot more than you think you're not gonna break it and these stereotypes have affected
me personally because i used to believe babies were scary they have soft spots and they cry and
they can't tell you what's wrong which is all true but you're not gonna break it that baby wants to
be alive they're gonna try and live you just have to learn how to communicate with them the baby
could not care less about your sex organs chromosomes or gender identity you're not less
of a man if you change a diaper you could actually argue you're more present engaged and involved and
thus you're more of a man though i don't like that because i don't think anybody can ever be less of
a man ever like seriously whatever example you're thinking of like oh that guy's less of a man
no they're the same amount of a man what they are is different and maybe in this case they're more
well-rounded and more skilled more skills better at life better at family better at community
present engaged and involved you're not less of what you were you're more of something new but
unfortunately we hang on to these stereotypes and when we do that it hurts us and it can hurt the
kids partners can endorse gender stereotypes too it's not just men what i'm saying is
we humans stereotype this is a symptom of what we would call the patriarchy or toxic
masculinity which by the way is not men are bad tm is the idea that some traits are harmful period
it's like queen britney saying a guy like you should wear a warning because you're toxic
and you're slipping under but instead of britney it's kevin shafer richard petz and lee essign
better good work kings these sociology nerds found that there are some very beneficial aspects of
masculinity play loyalty goal-oriented attitudes i talked about these in the first three parts but
there are also some toxic traits aggression detached relationships not showing emotion
failing to ask for help and the research suggests that these toxic traits can hurt families
how lower academic achievement more behavioral issues kids are less happy and meanwhile men
who kept their toxic traits in check raised offspring with fewer behavioral problems higher
psychological well-being and better academic outcomes it's a correlation but it's a good
one almost 3 000 dads were used in this 2018 study that found it out i know this is a lot but knowing
this hopefully we can combat these stereotypes and there are a lot of levels to unpack but to unpack
them you're going to need time how do we make sure that dads can be present engaged and involved if
they can't be present if they don't have leave to come home non-birthing parents need to be able to
take time off to be present dads want other dads to be dads 90 out of 187 countries offer paid
leave for dads the usa is not one of them we actually don't offer any paid leave for anyone
and as per usual in the world especially the developed world we're going han solo
not in a good way meanwhile in canada a nearby country with a similar economy
plans range from 15 to 76 weeks of paid required parental leave that is more than a year remind me
is the canadian economy breaking down is it trash because of this or canadians
somehow less manly let's go to the tape here is a wonderland of nature breathtaking in its grand
don't do it for yourself though
seems pretty great even in countries that do offer paid leave less than half of dads actually take
that leave and why again stereotypes in one survey of over 500 us fathers two-thirds
admitted that there was an unspoken rule that men at their jobs should not take full paternity leave
to quote the morgan roth if other people are taking parental leave at a specific company
it shows that taking parental leave is normal and acceptable and at this point when i was coming up
with this episode my psych brain tingled i have a behavioral psychology degree and i remembered
something from college it's called the sick social cycle or the victims escape model your boss
wants you to work you want to go on leave and your boss will lose a worker which is a
negative thing for them so the boss makes fun of you and then you don't take leave
when the boss makes fun of you and you don't take leave you're no longer made fun of so
it encourages you to not take leave this is called again the sick social cycle put technically
aversive behavior is reinforced by the attention approval or compliance of another person
the aversive behavior in this case is the boss stereotyping and making fun of you
and you not going on leave this kind of stuff is like seeing the code in the matrix i love it one
more quote for you men who take parental leave can face a backlash and can be seen as weak lacking
work commitment which can result in consequences at work such as being demoted or not being taken
seriously that is ridiculous and that sick social cycle is what keeps men from going on leave
even when leave is offered and it often is and instead they said in this survey taking as little
leave as possible was a badge of honor but they admitted that they felt pressured to leave the
kid and come back to work that's the sick social cycle and these men wanted to stay home with
their kids but they felt like they couldn't why stereotypes they don't want these stereotypes but
they feel trapped by the sick social cycle so how do we get dads to be present engaged and involved
we take the leave that's it paid parental leave has been implemented over and over and over again
and it's great because it's an experimental condition you didn't have paid leave and then
you did when germany and sweden implemented leave for everyone that they found that the parents were
happier people wanted to have more kids it boosted father's emotional investment and connection with
infants and it didn't economically break the place it actually did fine fun sidebar pfl
actually increases fertility rates they didn't even think about that you probably didn't think
about that little sperm nugget did you that's right if you give people pfl they want to have
more kids so you want to have more people born you can do that people felt like they were safe
to have a family without hurting their incomes their businesses their co-workers or their social
standing and it turns out if you give people just a little stipend they spend it which helps the
economy keeps families out of poverty keeps the kid fed water diapered and entertained and of
course allows the parents to be say it with me now present engaged and involved in 2004 california
rolled out a massive paid family leave program again experimental condition it increased women's
employment and wage earnings it increased employer attachment as in people stayed at their employer
longer it increased time spent with children of course lowered the risk of poverty by 10
increased household income by 4 percent had less food insecurity amongst californians and
fewer people were using social services long term new jersey also implemented a program and found
similar effects in surveys of the population they found here in california 90 percent of businesses
reported a positive or neutral effect on productivity when they implemented this
99 reported neutral to positive employee morale and 96 said the costs did not change at all or
actually went down and it's spreading here in the us because it's good for everyone economically
sociologically pfl it's a big deal and it's awesome being a good dad a good partner and a good
employee all at the same time could you ask for more those couple extra hours every day when dads
or partners take the kids to school deal with them when they're sick you're spreading your parental
resources around by having two parents to do that ultimately if people have paid family leave they
become present engaged in involved parents because they have to be they're home and if more than one
parent is present engaged and involved the kid is gonna benefit and that is why we need to smash
some stereotypes give people leave and let dads be dads even if those dads are not male because
it doesn't matter asking what a dad does for a kid is like asking what grandma does for a kid
or what a mom does for a kid or what a pet does for a kid we want to quantify it but the number
of things are so complex so individual cultural and ethnically influenced socio-economically
dependent that it's impossible to say that dads provide x and i can get that if the dad goes to
work by doing why dads need to be present engaged and involved before i wrap up though here's an
advert please stick around i think the thing i'm taking away from this series most is that
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new stuff which like i said is one of the best gifts we can give each other thanks so much for
watching happy holidays let's wrap this series up okay i don't know how you feel about this series
i don't know if this series is gonna even do well i kind of don't care because i didn't do
this to convince you of anything okay so this is the video i'm literally editing it right now i
needed to reshoot this outro because the original one was out of focus but also i just wanted to
tell you a couple of things one i did this series because i was nervous as hell about being a dad
i cope by learning new things and like soaking up as much information as possible
you probably knew that about me wow that got big really fast i'm getting emotional anyway to be
honest even after all this i'm still nervous i'm worried i'm not going to be a good dad i'm
worried i'm going to [ __ ] it up i'm going to break the kid even though i know that's
a stereotype that i shouldn't worry about it gets ingrained in us just knowing it doesn't magically
make it go away i don't want the kid to grow up and hate me or be weird or whatever but you know
what my dudes we're gonna screw this up that's life the idea is to make a kid as well balanced
as best as we can we're gonna be present we're going to be engaged we're going to be involved
that doesn't automatically make us a good dad but it does mean that we put in the time and the
effort even if you only do it for a few weeks or a few months then it might last forever even after
i'm dead the kid is going to be out there kicking being awesome doing cool stuff and that's going
to be because i was able to be present engaged and involved and you can do the exact same thing
do as much as you can when you can no family no parental unit no man no woman no human
is without issues just try and be there as much as possible that is so important to being a parent
or so i'm about to learn over the next rest of my life which is why i have a second announcement
i'm going to take some time off because if i've learned anything from this series it's
that i got to be present engaged and involved in raising my kid who is right here hi youtube
so me and rafael are gonna take some time off and maybe i'll pop in here and there
i'll always be on twitter because you know i'm still here i'm just not making videos because
i got something else to do right now but i'll be back don't you worry 2022 is gonna be sweet
i got some great ideas raphael probably won't be part of them yet maybe someday
but for now have a happy holiday and i will see y'all in 2022. bye bye