warren farrell
is the author of books published in 17
languages
they include two award-winning
international bestsellers why men are
the way they are plus the myth of male
power warren has been chosen by the
financial times as one of the world's
top 100 thought leaders
he is currently the chair of the
commission to create a white house
council on boys and men he's the only
man in the u.s to have been elected
three times to the board of the national
organization for women now in new york
city
dr farrell has appeared repeatedly on
oprah today and good morning america and
has been the subject of features on 2020
in forbes the wall street journal people
parade and the new york times
his co-author of his newest book is dr
john gray the author of men are from
mars women are from venus
once again this is the book we're going
to talk not only about
the book today the new one the boy
crisis but also about dr farrell's
career and his goals and his aims and
all of that and so i'd like to introduce
everyone to dr warren farrell and ask
him to tell us what he's up to and why
well i guess what i'm up to is sort of
the evolution of maybe
all that time since 1969 and
when the women's movement surfaced i was
very interested in it and felt that
women really needed to be able to be
equally respected and enter the
workplace and have options open and
i was upset that women were not playing
sports to the degree that i felt that
was creating the benefits to them of
sports and so i started articulating
this and started talking to my
doctoral dissertation advisors about
doing this and their first reaction was
warren the women's movement is just a
fad and i said i don't think so i think
this is the beginning of the change of
of gender roles from both men and for
women and so i
talked with them about that eventually
convinced them that i could change my
dissertation
and that led me to being
seen by now as someone who was a man who
was receptive at a time that the
feminist movement was getting a lot of
um accusations of being man-haters and
so i think i served the purpose of
here's a who here's a man a real-life
flesh man who advocates but we're
advocating here um get up and say what
we're
saying it's going to be harder to call
you a manager and so um the i i started
doing that and then ended up speaking
all around the world on women's issues
and the value of women being secure
enough and competent enough to
be able to share the breadwinning
burdens that men handle um and that was
uh my focus for until the mid 70s and in
the mid 70s i began to see that the
feminist movement um had made a great
deal of progress and
was everyone was sort of getting on
board who was in at least in the sort of
um
middle class above and educated and so
um that was
but it was also a huge number of
divorces occurring and so i began to say
it's important for the children to have
both parents after divorce and
betty friedan and gloria steinem and a
woman named karen de crow agreed with me
but uh now the board i was on the board
of now at that time had gotten elected
as a result of my um advocacy to the
board of now and my fellow um and you
know female
co-workers on the board of now said we
we're at a dilemma here and the dilemma
is that the women are writing us saying
they're going to withdraw from now if
they don't have the option to determine
what happens with the children after
divorce um and uh
we don't want to lose now membership
because it's not only important for
family purposes but for all the other
agendas we have and so i said well the
important thing is not women's rights or
men's rights the important thing is
knowing what's best for the children and
they said yes warren great theory but we
really need to focus on empowering women
and on a broad spectrum and so they
ended up all voting in terms of giving
women the option to be fully involved
with the children or not depending on
under the guise that women know the best
know the children the best and therefore
they know what's best for the children
and so now and i began to have a
significant amount of tension over that
point and betty friedan and gloria
steinem didn't weigh in they weren't on
the board of now and then all the other
boards of nails
around the country began to go the same
way that the new york city now went and
so that led to my um
disengagement um and also i started
forming hundreds of men's groups
one of which i think you know was joined
by john lennon and um and that was uh
that had a big impact on both the people
in the groups and i began to see what
men's pain was and so i began to
articulate men's pain in as well as
women's pain in my um in my
presentations and when i was only
articulating women's pain and women's
challenges i would always almost always
get standing ovations and maybe an
average of three
invitations for a new speaking
engagement and that was helping me live
financially very well um but then when i
started to integrate the perspectives
and feelings of men from the men's
groups there was a lot of i didn't see
those standing ovations why not why not
what fights
for new speaking engagements went from
three to two to one and then eventually
to zero well it seems it seems
self-evident in some sense that if
you're articulating
truthfully and carefully
what would be good for either sex
in some sense you have to be
articulating what would be good for both
i mean unless you view the the
battleground
unless you view reality as a
battleground between the sexes and as
and as a zero-sum game we can't have an
intelligent conversation about what's
good for women or what's good for men we
have to have a conversation about what's
good for men and men and women and women
and men and women
and so why do you think what was your
sense
of why it was when you started to raise
these other issues that you were
that you were immediate immediately
unpopular two questions why do you think
that made you unpopular and
why is it that you so early cottoned on
to the fact that there was something
going on that wasn't exactly
kosher in relationship to
now's push for for
for a particular kind of family
structure and a particular view of
women's rights
yes yeah i i think what happened for me
was um
i i just when i started focusing on what
was best for children and then i began
to
we only had minimal amount of research
up for that at that point in time this
is your early 70s and but we had enough
for me to make a case to the board and
when i saw the resistance the degree to
which um there's there was two things
happening one is we
we don't want to lose our power base we
don't ever want to have a woman say
whatever option she wants should be
closed to her and so i began to see that
the women's movement was caring more
about women than they were caring about
the children that was the first
disillusionment that i had okay so your
first your first ethical point in some
sense is that when you're speaking about
families and you have to balance the
rights and responsibilities of men women
and children that it makes sense to you
to put children's well-being first and
foremost and then to to
place men and women as individuals say
or perhaps even as a couple below that
yes exactly what i was saying was that
freedom of choice is wonderful but when
you make the freedom of choice to have a
child
you then start prioritizing the needs of
the child you made but you knew that
those needs were going to be the child's
needs first
when you made that free choice so it
wasn't like you were coerced into the
into or pressured into making that
choice you made the free choice to have
a child that incorporates the need to
put the child's perspectives before
yours that's part of your free choice
right so it's basically the freedom
there is the freedom to take on a
certain kind of relatively permanent
responsibility and then to abide by that
come hell or high water essentially into
the future
that the children should not respect the
parents needs because part of what i
talked about in the boy crisis is that
uh ain't nobody happy you know um that
everybody has to be happy in a family
and that and that part of choosing a
child to be responsible is to choosing
the child not just to have its needs met
but to also
care about what whether what their moms
or dad's needs are being met as well and
that has to be very primary and primal
and introduced early um but that the uh
and then secondly um i i also felt
and betty ferdan felt this way also that
the women's movement would never go as
far as it could go unless the unless men
were equally involved and proud of being
involved in the fathering role because a
woman who has to take on the entire
response a woman who wants to break
glass ceilings and go as far as she can
but also wants children can't do that
all if the man is working full-time and
she's working full-time either the
children get neglected or um you know or
something something has to go and so
women will often say to me you know i
want to be a habitable woman and i say
you can be a habit all woman revere find
a man who wants to be home full-time
with the children and let's reshape
society so we're saying that that men
are not only worrier warriors that we
that we praise and call heroes when they
go to war and they die for us but
they're also warriors if they choose if
you if you choose a man who wants to be
fully involved with the child let's
honor him and respect him because we
know that the the social bribes that we
gave men to die allowed men to be
willing to sacrifice their lives in
exchange for being called hero uh well
if we if we reframe
being a father as being a different type
of hero men will follow because men
basically go wherever the praise goes
okay okay so in the 70s so you started
to put forward the case for children and
to some degree as well simultaneously
the case for fathers and you received a
fair bit of resistance as a consequence
of that and it sounds like
the way you're setting up the argument
is that the conflict
what was the conflict though was it that
the the women who
were being appealed to by now wanted
untrammeled freedom of choice for them
under all circumstances
the reason i'm asking is because if you
have children obviously half the
children you have are female and you'd
assume that if it was a matter of of
women's opening up what would be best
for women in any kind of medium to
long-term manner that the concerns about
daughters would be perhaps even if it
isn't concerns about sons it would be
concerns about daughters that would
emerge as paramount even over the
concerns of the mother so so what is it
that was i still don't exactly get why
it was that you weren't being successful
because it it doesn't make sense
because the pri
the priority there was two things
happening simultaneously one was such a
strong emphasis on freedom and the
freedom manifested in two areas one is
in the area of divorce in divorce the
women were often saying i i don't like
my husband i want to start a new life i
want to be able to move out of state if
i wish to to get a job that i want or my
new husband my new husband or boyfriend
has a has a wants to move out of state
and so i want to be able to take my
children or child with me um because and
and and i know what's best for my child
which would be like the you know medical
community saying we don't want women to
be participating in the medical
community because we know what's best
for for the patient and not not
not that women might have a separate um
contribution to make on the other hand
there was the
that there was women who wanted to have
the freedom to be able to have children
without being married um and so 53 of
women under 30 today who have children
in the united states have children
without being married and the belief was
again that women knew what was best for
the children so
we could they they could take this on if
they wanted to and if they couldn't find
a man that they really wanted that they
could raise the child by themselves or
the children by themselves okay so so
part of it was actually driven by
questioning the necessity of the nuclear
family as the smallest viable unit
and part of that
hey that's correct but and b
the feminist community started um when
when i would go to feminist rallies and
so on uh there would be many books about
you know lenin and the the
nuclear family being the the
patriarchal
that were oppressing women and so there
so i think the feminist the feminist
movement grew out of two huge iterations
one was the civil rights movement where
there was an oppressor and an oppressed
then there was the um the the
the movement of um
not just civil rights but um
after the fem after the civil rights
movement came the
the
marxism and the belief that there were
oppressors and oppressed in among
marxists and a lot of the feminist
movement the early feminist movement was
very we had groups like red stockings
and many other groups like that that
were socialist worker party type
feminists that very much believed in
marxism and they had the dichotomy of
oppressor versus oppressed so when it
came to men men because we earned more
we because our biological not our
biological but our socialized and
biological responsibility was to earn
the money and do that type of nature of
providing
the feminist movement looked at the fact
that we earned more money once we had
children and so therefore we must be the
oppressor like those
like the bourgeoisie of marxism and
women must be the oppressed so you have
two things happening simultaneously this
belief that the oppressors are wanting
to be equally involved with the children
and then secondly men having no idea
why they had value
third men who the very few men that did
study the value of being a father and
how important it was to children
um didn't speak up about it and women
can't hear what men don't say so
we had this world then where women were
sharing the burden of about breadwinning
but no one was even interested in asking
the question about whether men could
share the burden from women of of of
earning of providing equally for the
family and and women weren't even
interested in that because they were so
focused on their freedom and saw men as
the oppressor and so there was no space
to
articulate the value of fathers and men
in the family okay so well you know your
terminology is interesting too because
you're attributing the
the desire of the women who were pushing
against what you were saying say
um you're attributing that to a desire
to freedom but it seems to me that you
could easily use irresponsibility as a
terminology there you know because
free well freedom without concern for
the medium to long-term consequences of
your actions especially when you're
bringing in
when you're dealing with minors when
you're dealing with children that's not
freedom that's irresponsibility
that is absolutely irresponsibility and
that is where we as a society have
failed to come in and say
um you know first of all whenever either
sex wins that is a woman wins custody
for example whenever either sex wins
both sexes lose and it's worse than that
whether whenever either sex wins both
sexes lose and in the case of family the
children lose enormously
and we also need to sort of understand
exactly what is it that that that lead
to children doing so much better when
they have fathers involved i was i
started researching that and they ended
up as you know with the boy crisis ended
up with more than 70 different ways that
when children have
their father involved in it about an
equal way
that they do so much better than well it
would be a lovely thing if you could
detail out some of that now and then
we'll go back to the
the political ideological story here but
but see one of the things that's
happened in ontario recently is that
we've our our government has introduced
legislation that is predicated on on the
idea that all families are equal
and the
the idea behind that you could argue is
laudable
i i wouldn't argue that but you could
argue it
that
you know people have a variety of ways
of solving the problem of having
children and that there's a variety of
viable solutions to that problem and
that no one family
organizational type should be
privileged above the others i mean i
suppose with the exception of
multi-partner marriages which we we
still
don't approve of let's say
the problem with that as far as i can
tell is that it does appear from the
research that the nuclear family is this
my smallest viable unit which is not to
say that
there aren't single mothers or single
fathers who do an admirable job under
trying conditions but part of the
problem this is a deep problem is that
whenever you
whenever you posit something as a value
so you might say well we want intact
families mother and father that's that
that's the value we're heading for
because that seems to be best for the
children then you produce a rank order
of accordance with that and the people
who aren't in accordance with that value
you can easily make a case that they're
being discriminated against and we're in
a situation in our society now where
even if the discrimination occurs let's
say because of the pursuit of an
admirable value it's regarded as
prejudicial and i think that's fed by
that underlying hypothesis that was
anti-nuclear family that
any sort of hierarchical structure is
part of the tyrannical patriarchy it's
something like that that's running
underneath it so anyways let's review if
you would it'd be very helpful i think
for everyone some of the many ways that
it's necessary for children to have
fathers why that's better and and
perhaps also first for society as well
not just for children
absolutely
children that have a lot about an equal
or more than equal father involvement
have a number of things in common as a
rule and obviously there's reversals of
this and and not every everyone fits
this this pattern
but the
first is they're far more likely to have
postponed gratification and i'll
elaborate on that a little bit more
postponed gratification is probably the
single most
important quality to becoming successful
and becoming successful especially being
employed in a job that has some meaning
for you is one of the most important um
ingredients in happiness um and a sense
of purpose and a sense of motivation and
a sense of willingness to get up in the
morning and so um in a little while i'll
be happy to just trace back how that
postponed gratification happens more
when you have a father yeah because i'm
really interested in hearing about that
second second layer this far
children that have an equal amount of
father involvement are far less likely
to be depressed they're far less more
likely to
be assertive and not aggressive which is
something you usually think of men as
being you know aggressive but actually
the children of both girls and boys
whose fathers are involved are far more
likely to understand the distinction
between being assertive and being
aggressive and choose assertiveness
boys another surprising one for me
in doing the research was finding that
boys and girls who are raised with about
an equal amount of father involvement
are far more likely to be empathetic
because i always thought of empathy
coming predominantly from moms and i'll
be happy to explain in a bit
why it does come more from moms but why
the outcome for the child is not more
empathy the outcome for the child is
less empathy so a little bit more on
that later yeah sure
far more likely both boys and girls
should drop out of school if there isn't
far uh father involvement uh far more
likely when um
when a relationship breaks up um a child
that has not had significant father
involvement is much more likely to be
depressed and be withdrawn and be feel
alienated um far more likely to be
addicted to video games far more likely
to be addicted to video porn
far less more likely to have few social
skills few emotional skills to do worse
in
every academic area but especially in
reading and writing which are the two
biggest predictors of success
far more likely to have a lower sperm
count have um and here's an amazing
thing i just discovered toward the end
of
the research for the boy crisis i saw in
pediatrics magazine and
that children who by the age of nine
don't have a significant amount of
father involvement
both girls and boys were likely to have
shorter telomeres and as most of us know
the telomeres are pivotal in predicting
life expectancy so
boys and girls the average shorter
telomere for a nine-year-old boy or girl
without father involvement was 14
uh i'm sorry it was uh yes uh
14 shorter
but the boys telomeres were then again
40
shorter than the girls so here this was
predicting about a 14 shorter life
expectancy for the average child without
father involvement by the age of nine
already and yet the boys were suffering
more so two things fascinated me there
is you know if
all the things like you know dropping
out of school and things like that i ask
myself
well maybe this is because boys with
father involvement um just have better
um you know better neighborhoods um
the fathers earn more the families earn
more maybe it's a matter of poverty
versus not poverty so i started looking
at
boys and girls growing up in good quote
good neighborhoods with quote good
schools and comparing them with boys and
girls growing up in poor neighborhoods
in poor schools and found that the that
boys and girls growing up in
good neighborhoods with poor schools
that did not have significant father
involvement did about the same as boys
and girls growing up in poor
neighborhoods
with poor schools that did have father
involvement that father involvement was
really as as good a predictor of success
um as the quality of the school system
the quality of the neighborhood and the
socio-economic class and this is what's
led to um you know
to the psychologist
gathering together behind people like
warsha
100 psychologists and researchers saying
you know this is not a correlation the
involvement of father this is not a
matter of socioeconomic issues this is a
matter of actual father's father's
father's involvement especially the
biological father's involvement
actually makes a significant difference
we have been wrong about the assumption
that this was probably just a
correlation and so the more i looked the
more i found just every nightmare of a
parent
to be so increased
when there was not a significant amount
of father involvement and i was seeing i
was dating between before i married liz
the woman you just met just before we
got on
before we got married
14 years ago
i was dating a number of women almost
every woman had was a single mother and
these every single woman was working her
rear off trying to balance her life
every woman used the word overwhelmed by
the way she felt
every almost every woman said well i'd
like my dad and the dad involved but
um but when the but i started listening
to the butts of the women and then
listening to
men who had wanted to be more involved
with their children and listening to
what the differences were between what
left the mid what made the men feel not
wanted what made the men feel excluded
and why the women felt that they needed
to not have the man involved and i saw
this entire set of misunderstandings
here and if i hope the boy crisis does
anything is
to sort of explain you know here are the
10 major things that dads do that
that sort of annoy women or make women
feel that they're not protecting their
children adequately
which when they understand the purpose
of these things and when dads get their
homework done enough to articulate to
the moms the purpose of these things
that will realize that the the these are
necessary ingredients in a child's life
okay so that's a good that's a good
place to go next so you laid out a whole
slew of reasons a slew of consequences
of fatherlessness and we'll return back
to the causal relationship between what
men do and these beneficial outcomes but
if you could go on now to tell us
what it is that men are doing at a micro
level then we could return to the causal
link between that and the positive
outcomes
and you said those also caused some
contention in the household
yes yeah i'll give one example for
example will be
a father is roughhousing with the kids
and the moms looking over and saying
looking at scans and thinking okay when
should i interfere when should i not
interfere and the mom's saying to
herself
jimmy uh you know um please keep the
kids away from the the credenza there
keep the kids away from the couch
because you they could hit their head
there
why don't you wait happy to
tomorrow when you can take this outside
i feel much safer with the kids
and then the mother is sort of
hesitating to not be overly controlling
and yet at the same time she's feeling
she has to monitor um the husband as
well as monitor the husband with the
kids and she's feeling in the back of
her mind like
i
sooner or later there's going to be a
there's going to be an accident here and
i'm going to be upset with myself for
not being stricter but on the other hand
the kids seem to be having fun so i
should let things go well you know
there's a there's a psychobiologist
named yak pancep who is one of the
world's great biological psychologists
and he studied rough and tumble play in
in animals so rats for example a huge
part of the the socialization process
that's key to the development of the
prefrontal cortex in juvenile male
routes in particular
emerges and matures as a consequence of
rough and tumble play and one of the
amazing things that panks have
discovered and this truly is an amazing
thing is that
um
if you if you pair two rats together
and then let them play repeated bouts
the big rat will dominate the little rat
to begin with
in the first bout but if the big rat
doesn't let the little rat win about 30
percent of the time in repeated play
bouts then the little rat won't play
anymore
so you get an emergent morality in
emergent play centered morality even
among rats as a consequence of rough and
humble play and that rough and tumble i
did a fair bit of research on rough and
tumble play about oh it's probably 20
years ago now 15 years ago anyways and
it's really quite clear that rough and
tumble play helps children parameterize
their bodies so that they know how they
extend and and and also what limits
there is in the use of physical
interactions with another person what's
fun what's provocative what's pushing it
too far
what's painful and of course kids love
rough and tumble play as well
they're just absolutely starving for it
and we've squeezed it out of the
kindergartens the nursery schools the
elementary schools the junior high
schools all of that and for and for bid
and what pang sepp also found was that
if you deprived juvenile rats of the
opportunity to engage in active rough
and tumble play
that they showed symptoms that were
broadly analogous to those of attention
deficit disorder in human boys and that
you could also treat that with ritalin
the same way in rats as you could with
boys so there's that rough and tumble
play issue you know and you might think
too the question is one question is
why might a mother be distrustful of the
rough and tumble play
episode and some of that might be
sensitivity with regards to the kids but
a huge part of that also is trust on her
trust with regards to the father you
know because it's rambunctious and noisy
and if she trusts
let's say that that act of masculinity
that plays rough then she'll stay away
and let the fun happen but if there's
distrust running through the family then
then she'll stand between the kids and
the father and then he won't get to
involve himself in that way and then
he'll turn off and i've seen that happen
many many families okay so there's rough
and tumble play that's a big one what
else did what else do you see let me
take the the evolution of how rough and
tumble play goes and all the the the
dimensions of where it go with the
slippery slope that it leads to
so the
the father the what the mom
what neither the mom nor the dad know is
that this rough and tumble play leads to
the types of things that you just
mentioned which are also evident in you
know and elephants and so on yeah but it
also leads to the distinction between a
child being able to distinguish between
being assertive versus aggressive so the
so the kid starts for example maybe um
kicking the dad in the wrong place or
poking the dad in the eyes or pulling
the dad's hair and the dad says um
sweetie you can fake you can fake eye
contact to the left and then move to the
right to win in this wrestling match or
you can um you know you can do this this
and this but you can't do these things
yes and if you do do these things we'll
stop the rough housing yeah so there so
there's a really important issue there
so two things there so imagine that
imagine that a rough and tumble bout is
like a dance
okay and and the point of the dance is
so that both people are having a good
time while it's happening
because otherwise it's not play right
and as soon as either party is no longer
having a good time you've actually
snapped out of the psychobiological
function of the play circuit so
basically what you're telling the child
by putting those rules on is
we can interact physically within a very
limited set of parameters and you what
you have to learn to do is to be
a sophisticated player within that set
of parameters and you want to learn how
to push the boundaries right because the
most fun rough and tumble play is right
on the edge between assertiveness and
aggression
so and you can see kids like i used to
work in daycare centers when i was a kid
when i was 18 19 and
the kids would line up to rough and
tumble play with me because that was
still allowable then and they were so
desperate for it it was just ridiculous
and i could really tell the difference
between the kids who had engaged in that
sort of play and the ones that hadn't
and the ones that hadn't were painfully
awkward
and they would hurt themselves
and you when you wrestled with them
they'd put their thumb in your eye or
and they would cry often too when they
got surprised but not hurt you know
because they couldn't tell the
difference between just being startled
and being hurt and so they were fragile
and that also made them not fun to play
with
and the thing that's so interesting
about that too is that piaget talked
about this when he talked about the
development of children is that
you know the more sophisticated pretend
play
and then sophisticated cognitive play
that emerges say between five and seven
and then with the cognitive play older
than that is that unless you have that
underlying psychomotor embodied dance
down you don't get to really proceed in
a sophisticated way to those higher
levels of play because other people
don't want to play with you
so
the rough and tumble play the importance
of that can hardly be overstated so
absolutely and and the framework here is
that when you set up a system where
you've said that you know men are part
of the patriarchy their their their
their desire is to dominate women and
make rules to benefit men at the expense
of them
at the
benefit men at the expense of women you
have a framework a an emotional setting
which does not is not conducive to men
saying here's my value
or women saying let me see what the
checks and balances of parenting is that
leads to the best of you coming out and
the best of me coming out all of that
has sort of we've skipped over an
inherent sense of father knows best who
father knows less um and and and we've
and and so
the the
the process that i'll be sharing in a
moment of what rough housing leads to
and and the slippery slope that happens
when it doesn't happen um is is what has
not even been um nurtured as a
possibility to be articulated in this
culture at this time i also think too
you know that if you have a
a partner
who hasn't been played with
then that partner can't tell the
difference between boisterous
rambunctiousness and aggression and if
there's a hypothesis about domination
and the patriarchy running its course
underneath that then there's going to be
conceptual confusion about the physical
interactions that have the appearance of
submission and dominance because that's
part of the
roughhousing play routine it's gonna
that that is going to be viewed through
a lens of tyrannical interaction rather
than just good fun
and i mean you can tell the difference
because if the kids are rough and tumble
playing they're unbelievably
enthusiastic about it and engaged and
laughing and giggling and like they'll
play right to the point of exhaustion
because they need it they need it so
much but that's a hard thing to observe
from the outside if you're not
accustomed to that
and if you don't have that framework of
of um
of men having and dads having a value to
begin with absolutely not so here's
here's maybe what what might ring
be helpful for a mom to understand at
the rough and tumble
play we now know helps children
distinguish between being assertive and
aggressive but a number of other things
all
also happen during that to play which is
the is a bond that is created between
the father and the child and in almost
every i've in doing expert witness work
to help children have both parents have
to divorce i've observed more than 50
families and um and usually the father
interacting with with the children and
in almost every case every case actually
actually i believe that i have seen this
is this bond is used by the father to
say things like okay um we're no more
rough housing now tell you what um you
get your homework done you get your
chores done you get all ready for bed
brush teeth teeth brush well and um the
bedtime is nine o'clock whenever you get
all that done we'll have between the
time you get it done and the time of
nine o'clock in order for you to have
some more fun either with rough housing
or reading my favorites your favorite
story or whatever whatever you prefer
it's your choice well you know with with
pancep's work too he found that the
little rats the rats will work to enter
a play arena
because because play you think play is a
so panks established very very clearly
that there is a primary play circuit in
mammals it's a separate psychobiological
circuit it's not exploration it's a
whole different motivational drive
but that the ac but activity in that
circuit is intrinsically pleasurable and
part of that appears to be because it's
so key to proper socialization that it
it's regarded by by children and by
social mammals as intrinsically valuable
and so it makes perfect sense that that
can be used as a source of primary
reward and i think your comments about
the
the man and the kids binding themselves
together through play is also really
important because one of the things that
i do with young men who you know i think
young men tend to be somewhat alienated
from infants who are under about nine
months old because they're not really
equipped to know what the hell to do
with them i mean they can learn and they
can be good at it but
it's not their domain of natural
expertise but once a kid hits about nine
months and starts to be able to imitate
and to pound and to and to play and to
respond to gentle teasing like that's a
perfect time for the father to swoop in
which is very helpful for a mother by
the way who wants to have another child
and to start really cementing a
relationship that's based on
that interesting combination of of high
energy fun
plus
the disciplined interactions that are
necessary as a precursor to that and if
you interfere with that then you stop
the father from being able to form that
pro from liking his kids really you know
because that's how the liking comes
about is is through play and so it's
it's crucial of crucial
absolutely significance
thank you the the the additional
framework that you're placing on this is
really deepening my own understanding of
it as well
a book called affective neuroscience
written by yak pancep it's on my reading
list on my website and i would highly
recommend that because
he lays out the findings from the animal
literature on the primary place it's
really he should have won a nobel prize
for it i mean discovering an entirely
new motivational system in the brain is
a major major contribution and to also
the other thing that he did that was so
cool and sort of reminded me of jean
piaget's work a little bit is he made a
very strong case that
out of play emerges an ethic
and you know that that's why i was so
interested when you mentioned that
interactions with father actually
increase empathy
because you know if someone has empathy
for you
that means that i mean that can lead to
a certain kind of narcissism right
because you're always the center of
attention you're not empathic unless you
learn to that you're not any more
important than the next person and
particularly the person that you happen
to be playing with so okay so let's
continue with with what fathers are
doing
yeah so in that rough housing what
happens is that the bond that is created
by the dad
allows the dad to say you've got you
know here's we'll continue the rough
housing if you get you know between 8 30
and 9 if you if you have everything done
um but so the the child learns to
postpone gratification from
doing the what it loves to do right then
and there that is be roughhoused with
and deal with what it has to deal with
before it gets more of what it uh what
it needs and so but the bond so that's
interesting so you you actually think
and i wonder if there's been any any see
we don't know much about the origin of
the trait conscientiousness which is at
least in part the ability to delay
gratification and it is after
intelligence it's the best predictor of
long-term life success especially in
managerial and administrative jobs in
algorithmic jobs it's not associated
with creativity but but that's that's a
side issue so your hypothesis is that
the primary way men are socializing that
is by using
work to play as a
as a as a bridge yes that that play
creates a bond so a lot of the problem
is when when moms often talk to say you
know you have to do this you have to do
that you have to do this you have to do
that the mother is often experienced by
the child that's sort of the
disciplinarian who's always making him
or her do things and there's the seeds
of rebellion start to occur i'm sort of
like how much am i going to be myself
how much am i going to do what mom does
do i want to be a mama's boy or it
doesn't even happen consciously but you
know you just sort of feel like you're
being pushed down by all the rules but
with dad
the bond that is or moms who roughhouse
with the children a bond is created and
from that and and you want to return to
that that connection so you it's like a
child going on a roller coaster you
where you know there's an enormous
amount of safety but you also
excitement but also an enormous amount
of safety and so you trust the dad to
combine that both and you want to return
to that so you're willing to focus on
getting done what you need to do your
homework your chores your brush your
teeth or whatever in order to get what
you want to do which is the you know
of postponed gratification but now let's
take the slippery slope when this
doesn't happen so okay so let me let me
just add one more thing to that well the
thing that's so cool about that is that
you've also provided a really
intelligent piece of parenting advice
for for fathers it's like because you're
hi so let's say b.f skinner who is the
famous animal behaviorist demonstrated
quite clearly
that you could train animals with reward
more effectively than with threat or
punishment now threat or punishment is
necessary
obviously we wouldn't have biological
systems subservient those emotions if
they weren't necessary
but but reward is harder to use because
you have to be much more attentive and
and intervene when something good
happens and so you really have to be
watching but your hypothesis here is
look
fathers
spend a bunch of time playing with your
kids and having as much fun as you can
with them because by formulating that
bond you can use that as a as the source
of reward
that will be appreciated by the child
with regards to disciplinary strategies
so it's it's a it's a twofold victory
one is it's fun and you get to like your
kids and have a good time with them but
the second is you have a very positive
means of disciplining them in the best
sense encouraging them and disciplining
them so that's that's a really useful
thing to know practically
so deepening the trust of the kids like
that like you're you're playing and
you're right on the edge that you were
talking about but there's dad to make
sure that the fun doesn't get too hard
for you for him uh for your sister and
so on and so that that's all happening
at the same time now when the right and
that's embodied you can see that two
ways that's embodied trust so if you
toss a little kid up in the air and
catch them i mean it's very exciting to
them both being tossed up because of the
threat but then the relief that occurs
because of the safety that's put in
there so it's it's not abstract it's
really demonstrated and then
our dad tossing that child up and and
then in fact
missing the child quote unquote and the
child lands on the bed and he's like
enormous like oh you know i was missed
so you were going to catch me but you
know also recognized yes well that shows
that that shows that things can happen
that aren't entirely what you predict
but within the confines of a trusting
relationship that's still okay and then
you could also imagine if the if the dad
is wrestling with more than one kid at
the same time then he's also acting as
just referee
right so and then the kids learn how to
be judicious in the distribution of
attention they learn how to play fair
they learn how everybody how everybody
can have a turn and everybody wins at
the same time and so
and that bonding is what is part of what
creates
just everything you just said is part of
what leads the child to have empathy
training and the empathy training came
from no you were too rough on your
sister there if you try it again you
can't be that rough
oh you still continue to be that rough
okay let's no more play that's right
play stops when everyone isn't having
fun what
when when my kids were little we had
this couch that was a sectional in six
pieces
and so we could put the couches facing
each other and then we put up the the uh
the backs all the way around it so it
was like a little wrestling ring and so
then i would take the kids in there and
just wrestle them half to death you know
but one of the things i used to do was
if one of the kids was rough with the
other
and made them cry
then i noticed that the kid who made the
other kid cry wouldn't look at the
crying kid
they'd look away and avoid and so i
always used to say no no no you look
you look and you see what happened
because that that triggers that embodied
empathy and then you can easily have a
conversation and say look you know is
that how you want the game to go
or do you want everybody to have fun and
the thing is once the kid actually looks
then they've got it right because they
can't escape from that empathic
identification
and so
yeah when the child doesn't have that
you know we said we have all this data
now these 70 different areas where
children do so much worse when they
don't have um a father involvement so
let's look at the next stage of that now
when when that father does not do this
rough housing and as just one example of
many and um and does not is not
enforcing boundaries um the child then
doesn't learn to have that postponed
gratification so we have hard data on
this that children
children raised predominantly by dads
are only 15 likely to have adhd children
raised predominantly by moms are 30
likely to have adhd so if we looked at
what we just talked about the children
that are raised by the dads are learning
that they have to postpone that
gratification
in order to get the reward that they
want now you take that capacity to
postpone credit vacation to school the
child without postponed gratification
assigned a homework assignment doesn't
really feel is oftentimes distracted by
a text that's come in distracted by
the opportunity to play video games
distracted by wanting to exchange notes
with other kids is distracted distracted
sure just well yeah well the distraction
thing about the dis there's no need to
explain adhd
what there is a need to do is to explain
why every kid doesn't have it and the
answer is the answer that you just laid
out is that some kids learn how to
control their destruct like
distractibility doesn't require an
explanation because people are
distracted by what's immediately
rewarding and that doesn't require it's
like addiction actually addiction
doesn't require explanation either what
requires explanation is the development
of the resources that allow you to
withstand addictive pressures in the
face of the fact that they're always
they're everywhere and they're powerful
so it's it's it's development of control
that's that's really the curious issue
and i've never heard this
i've never heard anyone make this
connection between
the use of play
as a reward and that delay of
gratification that's a very very
interesting idea that's very interesting
and and then let me take it another step
further if i may so when this
delayed gratification is happening and
or does not happen and then the boy
isn't able to finish homework he starts
beginning um to feel ashamed of himself
um or if he's maybe athletic and his
parents believe that it's really going
to be helpful to the child to have
beautiful dreams sweetie you want to be
an nba player and you're tall and you
you know you continue practicing you
could be an
nba player and you can have your dreams
but the post he doesn't have that
postponed gratification so cannot do the
boring repetition that comes with all
success including being an olympic star
or an nba player or anything else or
playing the piano or learning to read or
a great example certainly the violin um
and so you so anything that is his dream
the bigger the dream the bigger the
disappointment and it's not just
disappointment that he fears he'll will
happen to his parents uh but also the
the sense that he says he's going to do
one thing in school uh his p his
teachers his
peers are not respecting him as much
yeah
um he ca
the cheerleaders aren't going first and
ten in a concussion again to him they're
doing it to somebody else at first and
then do it again
and so the the boy is beginning to feel
shame yeah well you think you think
shame look here here's the precondition
for shame
so let's say that
you are attracted by a goal
naturally and you know maybe that's
scaffolded by your parents maybe it's
scaffolded by your peers but it's
something that you're naturally turning
your attention towards it grips you in
some sense
okay and and we'll assume that it's a
difficult goal
and so then there's an ethic that
emerges out of that which is that if
that goal is valuable and it's difficult
then there's sacrifices that have to be
made
delays of gratification that have to be
implemented in order for you to be
worthy to attain that goal
okay that's all part of the game if you
think about it as a game well then then
if you observe yourself unable to play
the rules of the game play by the rules
then how can you not have any how can
you not suffer shame and self-contempt
because you've already adopted an
ethical framework which is this is worth
attaining and if you observe in yourself
then the inability to attain it because
you're constantly being distracted then
you're you're going to have contempt for
yourself
and then the way out of that this is
something i learned from nietzsche
here's the terrible thing about that
because that's a great pathway to
nihilism because let's say you posit
four goals in succession that you find
valuable and then you observe yourself
unable to discipline yourself to attain
the goals well the most
after four successive failures
it's like
homer simpson said to bart he said to
bart um
you tried and you failed
and then you tried and you failed again
what did you learn
and homer says
to bart the conclusion is never try
right and so if you fail
a few times at attaining something of
importance because you see that you have
no discipline
then the a logical
response to that is to cease positing
goals
absolutely and that's a that's exactly
what happens and but we have
through technology sort of a perfect
escape and that escape is into video
games where you can identify with a hero
and you can lose the game as often as
you wish to with nobody noticing um and
then as you begin to get better with
certain you know with certain
manipulations you can play that game
with certain types of people and and
increase your your uh skill set at the
game um but you're never able to
translate that into everyday life uh
where you know
and so you start becoming addicted to
that game which is you know which are
designed to increase your dopamine
without having to actually achieve
anything well the thing about the games
that's that's different like the video
games what's different
so
a game for a little kid has to be
immediately rewarding
that's why rough and tumble play works
for example has to be immediately
rewarding and then the game shades into
real life but as the game shades into
real life what happens is the rewards
are deferred and you get more and more
disciplined at not being immediately
rewarded like when you're learning to
read or play the piano for the long term
goal the thing about video games is that
they do require the development of skill
but
but the immediate reward is built in
along with the delayed reward because
otherwise the game wouldn't be fun for
someone who's learning and so
the problem is is that a lot of real
life games aren't necessarily fun while
you're learning them because you have to
attain a certain level of mastery and
that requires discipline that's also
what's wrong with the idea that children
can just learn in keeping with what
they're spontaneously interested in it's
like there's some truth in that because
why not follow a child's interests but
the problem is is that
many highly skilled endeavors virtually
any endeavor that it's going to be of
economic or productive utility requires
a apprenticeship where
there's a lot of grinding there's a lot
of just disciplinary
disciplined repetition
and so
okay well
all right so
and then one more dimension of that is
that that as the boy gets to boy girl
age if he's had her if he begins to
sense that he's heterosexual um he
notices that the girls are far more
interested in going out with the
quarterbacks or the student body
presidents or the the performer type
boys that are sort of honored in the
school um system and in life in general
and so he begins to start withdrawing
and fearing that he can't attract those
girls especially the ones he's most um
biologically addicted to beautiful ones
the cheerleader types
he starts with drawing into porn and a
little bit of porn is not a huge issue
but the the the porn basically is is
stimula is
is
based on uh the dopamine increasing with
each new stimulus you have and so as he
gets addicted to that dopamine he begins
to get addicted to only being able to be
stimulated when the risk-taking is
higher and higher so finally so finally
he succeeds in one girl woman
being able to come over to his house and
be sexual with her but he's so unable to
be turned on just by the mere maybe
light touch of a hand um or turned on by
just being fascinated by what she's
saying in the interaction or some
combination of the drama of being with
her combined with a little bit of touch
he's so used to a huge amount of
stimulus that occurs and he's and when
he gets to be trusting him for a little
bit she said he says you know can you be
this way can you do this can you act
this way and she feels like just some
piece of object that is being traded in
for the poor and eventually gets
disgusted with him withdraws and he
begins to say you know all right this
convinces me i am as worthless as i
thought i was and the only thing that
will give me satisfaction is back to the
porn and what became a little bit of an
addiction becomes more of an addiction
even as he's also becoming
simultaneously frequently addicted to
the video games at the same time and so
all of this is that slippery slope
from the the roughhousing that the
father is not able to articulate to the
mother about the value of that um
combined with the trust that you were
integrating with that combined with the
the lack of post the bond
combined with the postponed
gratification being taught
and then when the postgrad postponed
gratification is not taught the slippery
slope down the hill to shame
self-disgust
and uh fear that if that if he tries
anything he's just going to prove to
himself and everybody around him that
he's one more failure and the degree to
which he articulates the desire to try
something is the announcement publicly
to a group of people uh that he's really
pretty much going to
say today i'm going to try this and
tomorrow it's going to be a failure
until he until he becomes enormously
shamed in worst case scenarios this can
lead to such depression that it creates
a desire to commit suicide and in the
very worst case scenarios it's a belief
i believe we always we've seen school
shooters yeah well that brews resentment
absolutely man that brews resentment and
anger like nothing else
and and who will they get resentment and
anger about who are the people that have
rejected him who it's the
it's the classmates it's the teachers
nobody appreciates that sweet
sensitivity inside of him um and sees
him well i am so angry at that and one
day i'll just wan i i have a desperate
need to get their attention and say i
count i matter pay attention to me and
you know in worst case scenarios only a
very small percentage but in worst case
scenarios you can understand the school
shirt shooting emerging from that yeah
well for every for every kid who goes
and shoots up a school there's a
thousand who are fantasizing in a
direction that's headed that way
you know and that and some of that's at
the beginning of that it's something
like well i'm very angry at people
because they don't see the value in me
but if they get to the point where
they're doing something like fantasy
extreme violence they're so far past
that even they think they've developed a
real hatred for everything and and a
wish to see it obliterated and and
that's you know that's well obviously
that's the most terrible of the terrible
outcomes that might be generated okay so
you talked about
you talked about rough and tumble plan
delay of gratification you tied empathy
into that
what are there other cardinal things
that you're seeing fathers do because
that's pretty early on in life right so
you're looking at the interaction with
kids there between say a year old and
five six years old seven years old
something like that
um
what do you what else do you see
happening with fathers both at the early
stages and then also later on
yes another important thing is is the
concept of hangout time now for for a
mom listening to this who has a daughter
uh we now know that children who uh
daughters who have a significant amount
of hangout time with with with their
dads um that creates more psychological
centeredness than any other single
phenomenon with uh with boys it's also
very important so for example
let's say you're in a divorce situation
and a father has the child um
for a short period of time let's say on
a
saturday and he picks his child up from
a soccer game and says to um
let's say josh uh josh how did the game
go and the kid is more like you know the
boy especially is more likely to say
okay
it was okay
well tell me more josh
it was just okay dad
and so but they if ca so if at that time
the dad has to drop the boy off to
to to mom's because it's the end of a
visitation time
there's nothing that happens beyond that
right well and the boy is gonna be you
know people kids in particular i think
although it also happens with couples is
that
you know
one of the things that you do to the
person that you're with
to test if they care
is to be somewhat withholding of
information that might be relevant to
see
to what degree you'll be pursued
because you know if you ask me
whether i've done something
how it went one of the things i'm going
to want to know is do you really care
and if you're my father i'm really going
to want to know that and so one of the
ways i can i can
gauge that is by asking you but that
that's
that assumes that your answer is going
to be reflective of your actual being
and there's no reason to assume that a
better way of doing it is for me to be a
little bit withholding and a little bit
resistant because then i can see you
know are you going to poke me a bit
because that's a fun thing to do if
you're kind of teasy you can say look
kid you know
poke him in the chest a few times it's
like
loosen up and talk to me you know and
usually if you do that with a kid even
an adolescent they'll laugh and you know
kind of push your hand away and go dad
but they're happy to have that
additional
prodding right to bring them out of
their shell and it's a demonstration
that the kid actually cares and you do
need time for that so absolutely
so that the kid if he's done well or
she's done well um is very happy to say
ah i scored three goals today that's
more than has ever been scored in the
history of our school isn't that
incredible no problem they'll share that
right away but the reason for the
hesitation
on
saying something that they're ashamed of
like i remember one father was saying
that the boy came home and he had been
the goalie the week before but the
following week he was not um chosen to
be goalie and he couldn't understand why
and so that he hesitates to say
something for his dad because he doesn't
want the dad to sort of either lecture
him or disapprove of him or be
disappointed in him
or be um you know sort of like feel like
that's not my son you know i want my son
to have scored the goals um so with all
those fears the child especially the boy
when it comes to performance will keep
any failure to perform effectively to
himself but now if if the dad drops the
child off at moms that never gets sorted
through if the dad has hangout time with
the children let's say they're doing
homework together and dad maybe is
watching a tv and the kid is doing
homework and then they appear about the
same time getting something from the
refrigerator and they have a little
discussion about what he wants for
dinner and they and the dad asks him to
help make dinner with him rather than
just sit and do take no responsibility
which dads tend to do um they ask the
children to be helpful with the dinner
making and preparing not to serve them
and so in that process of the child
chopping up stuff and doing that type of
boring
thing the child will tend to say you
know dad you know i was goalie last week
but i wasn't going this week what's that
about and the dad will and and what the
[ __ ] and the child might say that to the
mom even more quickly but the child's
expectations with the mom is the mom
will give the child assurance the ch and
say sweetie it's no problem you're
you're fine you're wonderful you're a
very good goalie maybe this coach wanted
to give the other the other kids a
chance because you're so good et cetera
et cetera whereas they expect from to
add a bit more confrontation a bit more
questioning well one of the things i've
noticed in talking to my clinical
clients about their intimate
relationships is i've been trying to
gauge rules of thumb for minimal
necessary interaction time to maintain a
relationship and with couples i've
observed that they need like one or two
sessions of intimate time together a
week at minimum something like that or
things start to go south but they also
need as far as i've been able to tell
about 90 minutes of communication time
across a single week just to keep each
other updated in relationship to their
stories
and so
two two questions one is do you have
some sense of
how you would characterize hangout time
and how much of it there is how much of
it there needs to be in order to not
below go below you know a dangerous
minimum and then the other thing i'd
like to pick up on is you had talked
a little bit about um
the more
confrontational approach that a father
might take when discussing
a failure or an inadequacy or something
like that on the part of a child and so
i wanted to relate something that i've
learned about talking to
majority male audiences in the last year
and a half two years about
responsibility and discipline and all of
that
see
you might think that calling someone on
their failure is harsh and judgmental
but and it is in a sense
but it's not harsh and judgmental about
their potential
you know so if your kid comes to you and
says you know i screwed up and here's
what i did and it didn't go so well and
you say that's okay you're a wonderful
kid then the kid's stuck in a bind
because they're not feeling so wonderful
and they failed but if you say well look
you know you're that was stupid like
what the hell's wrong with you here's
what you could do like you're better
than that man get it together a little
bit let's come up with some strategies
so that you can figure out how that's
never going to happen to you again and
so instead of putting your faith in who
the child is right now which i would say
in some sense is the heart is the
hallmark of impulsive empathy you put
your faith in who the child could be
and that's encouragement and i would say
in in circumstances of failure
especially where the child is motivated
to try again encouragement beats
it beats
impulsive empathy hands down as a mark
of faith in who the child might be
yes and it takes a while for the child
to both reveal its vulnerability and
also to have a faith that the the parent
um that that the the child tends to open
up like a flower to the great to the
greater
to when
she or he realizes that the security
that the father is creating by being
with them and talking the problem
through
is there now an ideal setting uh a
father who's wise or a mother who's wise
will not give a solution right away
we'll ask the kids something like um so
you know what did you observe what's
your best guess as to what happened last
week versus this week what do you think
was the judge's it was the coach's best
intent
and let the and oftentimes inside of the
child um is a willingness or is a sense
of probably what really did happen but a
fear of sort of acknowledging it to
himself or herself and especially
acknowledging it to anyone else because
the person who they might acknowledge it
to will not have respect for them and so
being able to sort of give have the
hangout time facilitates enough time to
feel both that large
basket of
those large arms of security um and
nurturance surrounding him or her the
the fact that the father is not going to
give up on time
with me
will be here for me and i can and then
when the father or the mother
facilitates the exploration inside of
himself about what the problem might be
let's let's him help in a you know carl
rogers in a rogerian type of sense um to
to find out the part of him that already
knows the answer then the child is
experiencing both respect and a
willingness to be confronted by
if i don't have the answer inside of me
my father will tell me the truth about
what i might be
need to do next and he'll have and that
telling me the truth about what he needs
to do next is his way of respecting me
without even saying he's respecting me
because he wouldn't be confronting me
with the truth if he didn't respect me
yeah and more specifically not not so
not even more specifically than me if he
didn't respect my intrinsic ability to
overcome obstacles and to grow right
which is the best the best answer to
someone who says i have a problem is
well i have faith that you can overcome
that
right not that you don't have a problem
or that you're okay the way you are it's
like yeah yeah that's a problem man but
you know and then you know there's
another thing that you're talking about
that's very much in keeping with i would
say
standard but relatively deep clinical
wisdom which is that
um
people are much more likely to follow a
set of injunctions if they generate them
themselves
and so we've had some really interesting
experiences with this program we design
designed called the future authoring
program and it helps people come up with
a life plan so they have to craft a
vision for their operations across the
six or seven basic dimensions of life
like intimate relationships and family
and career ambitions and education and
resistance to temptation drugs and
alcohol care of mental and physical
health and so on those fundamental
dimensions use of productive use of time
outside of work
to ask themselves
what they would want if they could have
what they wanted to need along those
domains three to five years down the
road to craft a vision based on that
um on that array of wants and desires
and also to write a counter vision which
is where could you be if you allowed
yourself to fail catastrophically where
what might that look like in three to
five years and then to produce a plan
and it's had remarkable effects
particularly now young men are doing
worse than young women in academic
environments
so the program doesn't seem to have as
much effect for young women but that
might be because they're already doing
better but it has a walloping effect on
young men in fact for in vocational
junior college settings our latest piece
of data which was generated was
published last year
showed that we could reduce dropout
among young men especially aimless ones
who hadn't done very well in high school
we could drop their dropout rate 50
percent
and so and and one of the things i've
observed about young men and this might
be because they're more disagreeable and
confrontational than young women is that
unless they have formulated their own
plan
they're unlikely to do something so when
you're talking i think this is true with
with young women as well you want to
talk to them and say well look what
what do you think about what happened
and how you're going to get out of it
which is an excellent question because
it says to the child you can think about
what happened and be accurate and you
can think of a way out of it and that's
encouragement right and that's what you
want is to you don't want to protect or
shelter your child you want to encourage
them
and so that collaborative problem
solving is a great way to do that
absolutely right and and i've seen this
over and over again and certainly the
data that i gathered for the boy crisis
very much
shows that as well and he said the
hangout time is part of what helps to do
that but also the the
the checks and balances of parenting is
so um pivotal for mothers and fathers to
understand and right along the lines of
what you're talking about uh is is um so
mother and father let's say have the
child come home and and from school and
say um and and the child says you know
mrs myers she hates me she hates me i i
can't i can't be okay in school and
maybe the child's in second or third
grade and a mother's sort of
reaction will tend to be more likely to
be something like oh sweetie let me hear
more and then when the child complains
more about how much mrs myers hates the
child the the
mom will tend to come up with the
solution like let me talk wait till next
week on monday i'll talk to i'll make an
appointment with the principal and we'll
talk about seeing whether you can get
into a different class than mrs myers
dad will
dads will tend to say to a greater
degree um sweetie in life you have to
learn to get along with people who can't
get along with you um you know what do
you think is is making mrs myers upset
about you and the child may or may not
be revealing and so the child will say
well you know um
do you want me to talk to mrs meyers
about it no no no no no so well if i
talk with mrs meyers about it you know
what do you think mrs myers would say
and then the child under the threat of
possibly the dad talking or the mom
talking with mrs myers will begin to say
what a little bit of what mrs myers
feels and then
then negotiate a a an opportunity to
talk to mrs meyers and then bring mrs
meyers and the child together have a
discussion together and so to see
whether the child and mrs meyers can
work out an understanding where the
child begins to understand no it is not
that mrs meyer is inherently innate um
hates jimmy um it is that there's
something else going on here and so the
result of working all that through
um is a way of
facilitating the child to discover um
its own solutions to a problem talking
it rather than getting a solution uh
rather than being enabled um by the by
the system to and by the parent who will
eventually disappear from the child's
life or
worse yet not disappear from the child's
life and so
and so and so these um these are
but oftentimes the mom says you know the
child is having a problem here uh why
are you being so insensitive are you
blaming um you know jimmy for for
creating this problem um he's he's
telling you that not only does mrs
meyers hate him but he also she other
kids hate mrs meyers as well and so it's
not jimmy's fault that are you and so
the mom will feel dad as being
insensitive when in fact dad is being
differently sensitive um and um and and
sort of long-term postponed
gratification sensitive yeah well that's
that's the thing and that that's a lot
colder a virtue
you know because and and it also sounds
very much like it's grounded in these
psychobiological at least partially
psychobiological differences between men
and women so women are higher in
negative emotion and they're more
empathic and that's that short-term
empathy and so that's perfectly in
keeping with the approach that you just
described and the advantage see that's a
particularly advantageous approach to
very very young children especially
infants because
to be wired properly to take care of
infants the infant is always right hey
up till about nine months of age or
maybe a year of age the right response
to your infant if that person is crying
is
there's something you should do about it
as fast as possible
we've talked a fair bit about what
fathers can do to to help um
their children learn to delay
gratification and so on we've talked a
little bit about what
what mothers can understand about how to
facilitate that and how to trust it
maybe we could talk a little bit about
what families might do in order to
improve the
improve the performance of their boys
and their girls you talked a little bit
in your book about family dinner nights
and their
importance yes um
the most important
we already know that family dinner
nights are important but what make
family dinner nights even more valuable
is when they don't become family dinner
nightmares and knowing how to structure
them so they don't become family dinner
nightmares
when somebody comes up to me after a
presentation and says
you know i can't get my children to give
up electronics at dinner i already know
the beginning of the problem that is
that the children are in charge of the
parents um that you know that and well
what can i do to encourage my children
to get involved with you know to to
leave the the um
the electronics behind and you know
number one answer is to require them to
it is not an option to sit down at
dinner but maybe some nights you'll want
it to be some nice not but if you're
having a family dinner night especially
structured family dinner night the
number one rule is no electronics at
dinner
if that rule isn't violated then the
electronics are taken away for a
reasonable period of time and taken away
right away for a reasonable period of
time once the rule is understood
right and you can imagine that
instigating wars in various households
yes exactly and so um and then you begin
to structure that family dinner night so
that everyone has an opportunity to talk
and everyone has at the beginning um a
structured amount of time that they can
check in to just say how their week went
or how the week was going since the last
time so everyone knows that it's not
40 minutes for so and so and one minute
for me
the interest in family dinner night be
zero for the one that's one minute
well that's an extension of the idea of
a fair game too and a refereed fair game
everyone has had that you're that as a
family our job is to make sure
everyone's needs are being handled
thought of and cared about which is the
way empathy is created empathy is not
created by a parent who's always
empathetic with a child's needs or
desires when a parent is always
empathetic with a child's needs and
desires the child becomes narcissistic
not empathetic
and that's one of the things that we
have made a mistake with you could say
that three or four times in a row i
think and that would be really good
yes yes
right because that's so crucially
important because
you know
if if what you're learning is to put
other people's feelings at the same
level of importance as your own then
obviously that's associated very tightly
with delay of gratification with
learning how to listen with turn taking
with fair play with a with a refereed
interaction all of that and so so the
other the other thing that that happens
too and you see this with couples is
that if they have that time together
something analogous to family dinner
night although i think the family dinner
idea is a really good one for reasons
i'll mention here in a moment is that
what what you're doing imagine your
family has a story and the story is
where we came from where we are and
where we're going together as a unit
and then so and then each of the
individuals within that story has a
story and then what you're doing in
those family dinners that interaction
time is you're taking the individual
threads of
the individual story threads and you're
weaving them together to make the
collective story and that keeps everyone
up to date and on the same page and and
able to
and able to empathize in also a deep
manner because if i don't know where you
are or what you're up to i can't figure
out what you're thinking or feeling and
so i have to know what story you're
acting out right now and so do you and
in order for you to know that for me to
know it you have to be able to tell your
story and i have to be able to ask you
questions about it then i think the
other thing that's really important
about the shared meal is that you know
human beings are really weird creatures
because we seriously share food and
we're social eaters people don't eat
well if they eat on their own and so
it's deeply rooted into us that idea of
sharing food and so
part of the extended process of
socialization is to get everybody to sit
down around food to be polite and
thankful for the fact of the food to
enjoy that but then also to to be able
to give and take while that's being
shared and that's i would say if the
most fundamental element of
socialization is something like the
embodiment of rough and tumble play the
next layer on top of that would be the
ability to sit down and share food and
have a civilized and have civilized
discourse absolutely and that civilized
discourse really needs to
um ha the respect for story is so cr um
so pivotal so what i teach as you
probably know couples communication
courses around the country and one of
the one of the dimensions of it the
single most important um thing that
kills marriages or almost all
relationships is our biologically
oriented
inability to handle personal criticism
without becoming defensive uh so my
first job is to teach couples how to get
around that biological propensity to
become defensive when they hear
criticism one of the many steps in that
process which is much too long to go
into now but
is to give them a picture of of a
picture of a person happens to be mario
cuomo the former governor of new york uh
that was take that was done by four
artists of a picture that was taken at
the exact same time same place etc and
there are four different types of um
artists that paint this um uh this
picture of him like andy warhol and
modigliani and so on and so the and uh
work with every couple to understand
that when you hear your partner's story
you will all even though you're all
looking at the same thing there will be
a different picture that is being um
that is being created by each person at
the table and so the job of couples is
to understand how much of a sacrifice
each person would make so the other
person would live and yet how we're
often not able to handle personal
criticism and to sort of reorient
ourselves before we handle personal
criticism to move ourselves into a place
of really being fascinated by our
partner story but at a fail but at a
family dinner table um that has to
happen with every single member of the
family that that when i say why
when person a says but something's what
what were you talking about in school
and somebody says well we're talking
about the metoo movement and person a
says oh the me too movement is stupid
some person b says the metoo movement is
the best most progressive thing that's
ever happened um and so it is it is very
important that the person who says it's
the best thing that ever has happened is
listened to fully by the person who is
uh who believes is stupid and vice versa
and that there is no there is that there
that there is facilitative questions
that the family trains people to ask now
this is right so part of it is know the
story before you offer criticism
and no carl
carl rogers had good advice about that
eh and and you probably already know
this but it's worth reiterating for
people who don't so roger's rule was
when you're listening to someone
then first of all don't assume that
either you or they know what they're
talking about or what they're going to
say
because people think by
right right
people think by talking so you've got to
give them a chance to get it all out
before you jump on it because they might
change their own mind in the mid in mid
stream
but so so that's important let them
formulate the problem before you jump in
with the criticism but then the next
thing is and this i really love this i
think it's really useful which is that
once the person has laid out their story
you get to say
this is what i heard you say do you
agree with my formulation
because that stops the list first of all
it indicates to the speaker that the
listener actually listened
or if if if there's an error then the
speaker can say no that's not what i
meant at all and then there can be some
clarification but it also forces the
listener to not turn the speaker into a
straw man
because it isn't only that i have to
summarize what you said i have to
summarize what you said in a way that
you agree with
and you know that that's also a useful
technique if there happens to be some
wide variation in verbal ability among
the participants and there might be
because of age for example and so you
know because it might be that
even if you're somewhat incoherent and
stuttering and and partial in your
formulation if i'm an older sibling say
i might be able to summarize it back for
you in a way that's actually helpful to
you from the perspective of a cognitive
scaffold
and so yeah so so the thing
you know we know that human beings
organize their personalities at the
highest level through narrative
and that narrative is not only thought
it's spoken
and so you speak your personality into
being in these sorts of shared
environments that you're describing and
without that your story is fragmented
and incoherent and so are you and so you
can see why those shared social
look if shared meals weren't so damn
important people wouldn't have evolved
the capacity to engage in them right i
mean they're central to our social life
and to have that abandoned in the family
is really a catastrophe i think so
it really is and i i everything you said
absolutely every part of it i so agree
with you and you know when you say did i
distort something oftentimes someone
will say
um
repeat what they heard heard they say
and then the person and you asked did i
distort anything and the person says yes
i think you just sort of this and then
the other person will argue and say no i
i said that and you know the and the the
rule of the game is the person who is
was speaking whatever makes them feel
heard that's when
you haven't distorted anything and it's
your job it's your job to assist is like
the customer is always right right that
doesn't mean you have to agree with them
it just means you have to have got the
damn story straight
that's right and that's so
that's also important some people really
do make the mistake of thinking that if
i get right correct what they
that they have said that means i agree
with them that no it doesn't mean it
only means you've heard them and and
then you know part of what a family
dinner or night is about is having a
chance to have somebody if it's a
personal criticism or be able to have it
respond to that and have the person who
um
who is listening to who made the
criticism to begin with hear that
response and ask if there's any
distortion on what they've heard to
begin with and the the
the biggest challenge for people almost
everybody i remember i was interviewed
was by npr and they said you know how
can you you know some of the people who
are allied with the men's
movement they are you know they seem
like hateful people and i said well if
you're if you're calling yourself
progressive as liberals do uh and as we
do because i consider myself more on the
liberal side of most things um then our
first job is to
listen when people feel heard they stop
hating um and you know
hating is comes from a a buildup of not
being seen not being heard
being distorted being blamed or or
caricatured in a negative way um before
you're before you're hurt so that is the
job of every um you know of every person
that calls themselves progressive is to
start hearing rather than arguing first
well then at least you can figure out
what to argue about
you know because one of the things that
happens with with crystalline
communication in the family when the
stories are being unfolded is you can
identify what the problems are and what
they're not like if you you know you
might be irritated at having to listen
to your spouse lay out in the stumbling
in their stumbling manner a particular
problem but if you understand at the
same time that they might be dispensing
of 98 problems and only focusing on two
it's worth the wait
and so
okay one other another question for you
um there are people who aren't in the
position where they can have male
involvement with their children let's
say and so what what do you recommend if
anything for single mothers who are
trying to do the best job they can with
their kids but are having a hard time
pulling in male attention what do you
think they can
manage
first of all acknowledge yourself for
the enormous
amount of
multi-faceted job you're undertaking
second
as you look through the differences
between what mothers and fathers do
ask yourself whether there is any way
you have maybe not valued your former
husband in a way that can
that would that would draw him into the
the fold but if the answer to those
questions are you know i have valued him
and i still can't draw him into the fold
he's essentially a deadbeat sorry about
that um then here's some options
the the number one
the the greatest amount of evidence is
that involving your children with cub
scouts um is a very uh has a very well
developed program for developing
character motivation integrity loyalty
um a sense of making promises that you
keep
so very good studies have been done of
children involved in cub scouts for two
years or longer
but this means not just getting your
child involved in cub scouts here or
there
but and if your child doesn't like
something that's happened making sure
your child gets back into the fold and
deals with what um that it shouldn't be
your child's choice to go to cub scouts
or not go to cub scouts as part of your
parental responsibility to get him there
later to boy scouts or it doesn't have
to be cub scouts or boy scouts uh the
why some y's have good good programs
also
for for young boys uh mankind project
has good um programs for young boys now
for the first time they they have a real
good uh help
assistants to help boys with fathering
um the boys clubs have some good
programs with young boys um get your if
you get your child um vet a male mentor
try to get your child to a school that
has a significant number of males in at
the age that your child is especially if
your child is very young it's very
important that a child not go from a mom
only home
to female only schools because the child
will start searching for an identity
from somebody that's usually destructive
like a gang leader that will give will
give false
false identity and so
these are just some of many many things
if you we often think that a child needs
a male mentor yes a child does need a
male mentor try to vet the mentors
carefully obviously
or get your child to a faith if you're
at all involved in faith-based
communities and even if you don't
believe in god god or not
not get your child involved in a
faith-based community
where there's a good male counselor
who has groups for children uh for for
young people oftentimes young people
that are having troubles um the the the
ability to be encouraged to express your
feelings to other males and see that
your son is not just having the is not
isolated in the problems he's facing um
but but there's many other boys about
his age that are having the same
problems getting him to be able to
express his feelings about that his
fears about that to see me to have a
have little experiences done where he
paints a mask of himself and what the
mask says and then what what is really
being said underneath the mask a good
fist male facilitator can be a wonderful
encourager of a boy to express his
feelings rather than repress his
feelings in a society that is as a and
then what we all have a need to do
is to get out there and say
something very damaging has happened in
our society in the last 50 years we
we've had when i started this work with
the government with the commission to
create a white house council on boys and
men i started that after a call from the
white house to say
asking if i wanted to be an advisor to
the white house council on women and
girls because of my background with the
national organization for women and i
said absolutely but there also needs to
be a white house council on boys and men
well for eight years we worked to make
that happen and now we're working with
the trump administration to make that
happen and no one is getting on board
yet but the importance of making that
happen is that there has to be an entire
change in attitude and atmosphere
that we are not just living in a
patriarchal a world dominated by a
patriarchy that the world was dominated
by a need to survive
yeah right absolutely mothers and
mothers both sacrificed so much of their
lives in the hope that their children
would have better lives women made
sacrifices of careers men dads our dads
made sacrifices in their careers there
are very few dads of multiple children
that that follow the glint in their eye
because usually fulfilled occupations
that make you fulfilled
are not occupations that pay well so
most of our fathers gave up fulfillment
in order to do the things they needed to
do um like be a fire fire fighter or a
coal miner or being willing to be
disposable in war in order to be able to
make their generation safer and have
more options and to have all the
sacrifices that our fathers made
called male privilege or male dominance
or is such an underserving of men so
that that
it's entire attitude
underserving of women to state that the
entire cultural structure to date has
been patriarchal in origin
that's right and you know you could
argue what the definition of patriarchy
is but just understand that your father
and grandfather and great-grandfather
all
all did the exact same thing as your
great-grandmothers and so on did they
they
gave their lies in the hope that their
your life and their children's lives
would be better with greater amounts of
opportunities and most of them
sacrificed a great deal my father you
know managed a company and my mother was
very unhappy and he managed his company
in europe my mother was very unhappy
living in europe rather than the united
states which was more comfortable for
her so my father eventually gave up his
job and sold four brushes from door to
door uh for a year in order to be able
to make sure we had enough money at
least to go to a state college and my
mother had a decent home over her head
and so did the children and so
yeah well that's all associated with a
little bit of gratitude for the past it
really is we should be instead of
criticizing the world as being
patriarchal or as parents as being
stupid um we should really be
saying mom dad grandpa grandma thank you
for making our mastery of survival
enough so that we didn't have to focus
so much on survival but let us not
misuse our opportunities
by blaming men for the world that they
created that was destructive uh
understand that we're living uh 50
longer now than we were 120 years ago
and um and that's as a result of all the
all the progress that you have made um
and so you know this is why we're you
know worked so hard to create this white
house council and boys and men while
we've created a patreon account to be
able to sort of make um
begin to raise some money um to be able
to make this happen but whether it
happens by the patreon account or some
other way we need to have a a total
revisiting of the belief of women good
men bad women oppressed
men oppressors and instead of the
monologues of of hashtag me too we need
to have dialogues instead
human resource centers becoming
her rather than hr that is all focused
on her not not him and her we really
need to have dialogues at work about
what's working for women what's not
working for women what's working for men
and what's not working for men and so we
really need to have a fundamental
revisiting of male female and um
and all
all of our gender roles of the past
that's an excellent that's an that's an
excellent place to bring
our conversation to a close i would say
look i'd really like to talk to you
again about probably about pay gap
at some point we we really concentrated
on on what you've been outlining in this
book in your new book in the boy crisis
and i would certainly recommend people
who are interested in this sort of thing
to go out and pick it up it's full of
facts
and that's kind of nice and it's
concentrating on something that's of
crucial importance and i think maybe
that people are starting to recognize as
crucial and as of crucial importance i
certainly hope so and so um your work
has been very useful to me and um i
appreciate it very much the time that
you spent today being able to talk to me
and
um
i hope we get a chance to talk again
i would love to talk about the pay gap
it's really impossible to believe that
there is not a patriarchal world if you
believe that men earn more money than
women do for the same work and so one
has to really start with that
fundamental understanding that's much
much more complex than that um and a
very very different story than pretty
much anybody perceives yes absolutely so
we will definitely schedule that in so
okay well thank you very much