Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - "The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling & What We Can Do About It." - with Dr. Warren Farrell Ph.D.

Episode Date: November 4, 2022

We're always hearing about the "war on women," but who REALLY faces more obstacles in society today: boys or girls? Dr. Warren Farrell has spent years studying what he calls "The Boy Crisis" and how we can best raise boys to grow up and be outstanding men. In this necessary episode, Alex Clark and Dr. Farrell discuss what modern feminism gets wrong, questions and concerns surrounding circumcision, the crucial difference between moms and dads, what motivates boys in the classroom, and, as a bo...

I don't care what the feminists say. They're wrong. The world needs men. Good men. I need a good man, a strong, sweaty man. That was too far. Men are so undervalued in this country, and I'm sick of it. And that is why Turning Point USA puts on the events it does to reach men and women from all across America with the truth.

So I'm going to let you in on a little secret. This December 17th through 20th here in Phoenix, Arizona, America Fest is coming to town and it will be filled with like-minded people. Why? Because it's the most exciting conservative event of the year. There will be phenomenal speakers. The very people that you look up to or who shows you listen in on. They will be there live. Charlie Kirk, Jack Posobic, Senator Josh Hawley, Steve Bannon, the list goes on. Also, there will be live musical guests. This is the very big deal. So listen to me. You have to go to amfest.com right now. Tickets are going to go, go, go, go, go. And even better, you. Use code Poplitics to get 25% off your general admission tickets. The world needs more manly men and women, just like you, who stand for American values and truth. What better way to make new friends learn from major speakers and celebrate America than by going

to America Fest. Get your tickets today, AMFest.com with Code Pauplitics. For my entire life, I've seen all this stuff about the war on women and the future is female. It's like, oh my gosh, are men chop liver or something? and yet, you know, sometimes, shocker, but even men have a crisis. So, look, for years I've been wondering, you know, if the conversation is actually about equality, why does the message scream that women and our needs are greater than men? And more importantly, what is actually going on with men and why?

That's when I read a book by today's guest talking all about boys in America and the crisis that they are currently in. Whether you're dating, married, a parent, or want to be in a relationship and have kids someday, this episode is the perfect listen to give you insight into boys and men because today's guest has written all about the topic. He's an author of multiple books, including The Boy Crisis, Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It. He is such an expert on the topic of men that he's gone on over a thousand television shows and been featured in major news publications. He also teaches communication courses for couples. So I actually really like that about him. His message is very powerful. And I am so thrilled to have him here with me so that I can pick his brain.

I hope you are prepared for a super intellectual conversation. Please welcome Dr. Warren Farrell on the spillover. So here's what I've noticed in my 20s, Dr. Farrell. It seems like girls are becoming women. We're maturing a lot faster than boys and men. I don't think that's super groundbreaking. But it seems like so many men, what I've dealt with, are very anxious. They're afraid about historically what would be normal male responsibilities and roles.

They're scared of being a protector, a provider, having the sense of purpose, leading very scared of commitment. That's the biggest one. And it seems like, you know, they're just terrified of that pressure. And so I'm wondering is what I'm describing a symptom of American society just forgetting about boys. Yes, it is a symptom of that. It's not the only reason for those things. Before American society sort of forgot about boys, boys used to have two senses of purpose. One was to be disposable on the battlefield.

Each generation had its war. And boys were told that you would be heroes if you fought to prevent the United States from being taken over by the Nazis. And boys learned to be willing to die if they were needed to be to save others, to save women and to save children. to save other men and so on. And the second sense of purpose was it was their responsibility to provide the income. And the good news is we have fewer men dying in war.

And the other good news is that women are taking more responsibility for the sharing of income. And those men who are married with children, a higher percentage of them are taking more responsibility for the children and cooking and things like that. So there's more fluidity of roles. But the huge gap has been that in the last half century, the women's movement has said, women, be who you want to be. When children come along, you have three options. Option one is to take care of the children full-time, assuming you're married in a middle-class family or above.

Option one is to take care of the children full-time. Option two is to work full-time. Option three is to do some combination of both. And in fact, 40% of women with children who are married, in middle class or above, 40% of them do work full-time, but they cut back usually on their full-time hours, maybe from 45 hours to 35 hours, which is considered full-time. And then 40% are full-time with the children, and 20% are part-work part-time. Whereas the man usually says when he's married in that type of situation, he says to himself, well, I have three options, two. Option one is to

work full time and option two is to work full time and option three is to work full time or if he's or if he's a middle class man like a white collar worker to work with more responsibility and more hours if he's a working class man oftentimes two jobs but what happens the huge gap that happens we often hear that you know men get paid more than women for the same work not actually true yeah Explain how the wage gap stuff is BS. Yes. Here's how and why. There's,

I wrote a book called Why Men Earn More and what women can do about it. And what I discovered in the seven years of research from Why Men Earn More was that there are 25 differences in decisions that men and women make in their balance between work life and family life. Each of those decisions leads to men earning more money. But each of those decisions all. also leads, women's decisions leads to, lead to women having a more balanced life. And for the most part, people with balanced lives tend to be happier. And so really men should be learning from women about how to balance their lives. Because when we present to women, other things being equal, the hazardous jobs,

93% of the people that die in the workplace are males. And if you say, well, women, you know, you can make more money collecting garbage or being a construction worker or being a logger or, you know, putting pesticides over, over plans. But you'll be likely to die earlier from the feedback from the pesticides. Most women are intelligent enough to say thank you, but no, thank you. Yes. I'll pass. Right, exactly. And so, but an uneducated man, you know, will then, well, who's even less.

doing something common like collecting garbage, gets up at three or four in the morning in Wisconsin with, you know, sleet and snow, et cetera. He hates it, but he's getting paid more than he otherwise would be getting paid for somebody that maybe didn't graduate from college by doing that. And so the female who's in maybe a non-graduate position, her equivalent might be to work in a supermarket and a checkout counter, but she doesn't have a job that's more likely to kill her. And so it's hundreds of decisions, well, actually, 25 significant decisions like that that do not lead to men earning more than women for the same work, but men earning more than women for different types of work.

And then the big gap between men and women is not between men and women. It's between dads and moms. What happens when a child is born is that dads oftentimes, in that three set scenario of work full time, work full time, workful time, Dad will often say, let's say he's an elementary school teacher or a junior high school teacher, and he loves teaching, even a high school teacher, and that's his passion. But when children come, he realizes that he can make twice as much money as a superintendent of schools or a principal. So he starts taking a master's degree to get to be a principal, and then he goes into administration.

But most people who love teaching hate being an administrator. But when the children are born, he says, okay, It was wonderful for me to be a musician or an elementary school teacher before children were born. I could do my passion. But passions almost always pay less. Yes. The more fulfilling the job, the more the supply of people competing to do that job in relation to the demand. Therefore, the price goes down for people love to teach.

But they don't like to be administrators. And they don't like to work year round when they could work. nine months out of the year. And so, and so therefore the man often gives, the dad, the dad often gives up doing what he loves to do to do what he feels he needs to do in order to make life better for the family. And that includes making more money to move into a, a better neighborhood where the school district is better, but that usually means a more costly home and more costly insurance, you know, property tax, all the rest. And so then he ends up oftentimes being very happy he had a child, but oftentimes he experiences the dad's, the father's catch 22, which is that he learns he

he learns he can love the family by being away from the love of the family. He used to sell product X in Phoenix, but now he has an opportunity to sell product X nationwide. He doesn't want to be traveling and away from the children, but he's making twice as much money. so he gives up doing what he wants to do, be local, be home off in the evening to be with the children, to do something that he feels is needed by the family. And so you have this book called The Boy Crisis. It's your belief that America is seeing a crisis amongst our boys. Explain what the Boy Crisis is. Boy Crisis is a global crisis, first of all.

In all 63 of the largest developed nations, boys are falling behind girls in every single academic subject, but especially in reading and writing, which are the two biggest predictors of success, which makes pretty good sense. So boys today, in the next few years, we've heard this statistic that boys will be 64. 40% of the people going to college, girls will be 60%. That statistic is going to be modified in this way in the next two or three years. Girls and women will be twice as likely to graduate from college as boys and men. The reason for that is that boys and men are far more likely to drop out of college. And the problem with all this, I mean aside from that part of the problem, is that most women are not interested, who are college graduates,

are not interested in marrying dropouts and dropouts from college or dropouts from high school. Boys without dads are likely to do much, much worse and academically much more likely to drop out of high school, much more likely to be depressive, depressed, alcoholics, drug addicts, be suicidal. And if they drop out of high school, if they drop out of high school, more than 20% of boys who drop out of high school are

unemployed during most of their 20s. And boys today are 66% more likely to live back with their parents after either high school or college than are their sisters of the same age. And so if you think of this from a woman's perspective, very few women are interested in marrying a man who will be a father to their children who, and they don't, they don't, women like this do not tend to search unemployment lines in the basements of parents. Right. Or for dropouts if they've been, if they're graduates. Can I pause you right here and just interject and say, is there something to be said for the emphasis

on colleges and getting a college degree and the de-emphasis on trade school? Yes and no. There is a huge mistake being made in American culture now, which is that with all of these boys not graduating from college, many of these young men could make very decent livings as plumbers or as electricians doing a number of things that the vocational schools could train people for. The potential there is best seen in Japan. In Japan, about 25% of students are in a vocational track. Of those that graduate in a vocational track, 99.6% get jobs immediately after graduating. The United States has de-emphasized vocational education in high school, and the result is that many boys who are much less likely to be academically inclined than girls are,

and boys are much more motivated by being a doer. So, for example, a boy may not be interested academically. And so he has no interest in physics or mathematics. But he learns that a welder who makes a good amount of money has to have a little bit of physics and a little bit of chemistry to be a really effective welder. So when you tell a boy that if he takes physics and some chemistry, he can then be a welder, he becomes motivated. He has a purpose. and whereas if you just give him a class in physics or math, he is not motivated because this is too academic and abstract for him.

Right. Well, and, you know, here's the other thing, too, is that people hear you, oh, this guy, he writes a whole book about how boys are suffering in America, you know, what kind of crock is this. And what I find ironic is that you actually were super heavily involved in women's rights. So it's, it's, you are involved in like the progressive women's movement, right? And that's where you started seeing, okay, wait a minute. This is, this is actually a problem. I am always have been and always will be a supporter of women being as empowered as they can be.

And the, and so when the women's movement surfaced back in the late 1960s, I did my doctor dissertation on it. I joined the national organization for women in New York City. They elected me to their board of directors. I spoke all around the world on the importance of women's issues, started some 250 women's groups, and other 300 men's groups. And it was the starting of the men's groups where I began, and plus, you know, traveling in other countries where I would be speaking on the women's movement and a Japanese teacher was the first one that I remember, came up to me and said, Dr. Farrell, I really loved your presentation,

but, you know, there's also in my class, you know, boys are having more problems than girls are. you know, can you talk to me about that? And that started putting that on my radar. My sister was an elementary school teacher, and she said, you know, after, particularly after there's divorces, it seems like there's some of the boys, both boys and girls are having many more problems, but the boys especially seem to be having a lot of problems. So I started looking into this. And what, you know, when I first proposed the boy crisis book to my publisher, I had 10 causes

of the boy crisis. And when I started examining each of the causes, I saw that by far in a way, the most important cause was the absence of fathers. I saw that the boy crisis resides where dads do not reside. Yes. And so I started asking myself, why are dads that important? You know, this is, now intuitively, I knew that dads were important, but I didn't know that there's about 10 or 11 different parenting styles that

dads, on average, tend to do versus moms tend to do. and that moms and dads needed to know how to communicate. Well, first of all, dads needed to know what those different parenting styles were and be why they were useful and productive. So very few dads, for example, we'll say something like, you know, sweetie to the mom, to the mother. You know, I want to do some rough housing with the kids because, you know, rough housing helps the children become more empathetic.

Like what? Rough housing helps the children become more empathetic. like that's the most counterintuitive statement you could imagine. Yeah. And yet the science shows that in the way that dads do do rough housing, it does lead to the children having to consider whether their brother or sister is being hurt in the process. And so they are, otherwise, dads will stop the rough housing if somebody gets hurt and they'll lose what they really want the rough housing.

So they begrudgingly pay attention to their sisters or brothers. feelings and so they begin to be required in order to get what they want the rough housing to have to think of what their brother and sister wants well there are dozens of examples like this the problem is that you know the mom often freaks out when the dad is rough housing and the dad often doesn't say to mom you know this actually will increase empathy it will increase postpone gratification it will increase the children's bond with me it will increase the children's ability to distinguish between what's aggressive and what's assertive

and I've never heard a dad say any of those things to a children. And I don't blame dads because you can't read about that in any parenting magazine or any parenting book. Yeah, I've never heard that before until I read your book. Yes, exactly. And then I'm not blaming, I can't blame moms either because dads can't hear what moms don't say. And so everybody is feeling that the other one is, you know, the dads are feeling the moms are too protective. The moms are feeling that the dads are too careless. and that leads to a feeling of like, well, maybe we're just not meant to be parents together

that leads to divorces that often leads to children having less and less of their dads, and then that leads to the boy crisis. And then even deeper than that is I started, for 30 years, I've been doing couples communication workshops to help because I found that nobody was able to handle personal criticism without becoming defensive. Yeah. So both moms and dads felt that they were walking on eggshells to bring up something that was of concern to them about their partner that might be interpreted as criticism. And nobody knew how to handle criticism. So I started developing a procedure that allowed both men and women to hear each other's concerns and criticisms without becoming defensive.

I'm very interested in that. And I have questions for you about some of your couples therapy stuff that you've done and different techniques and stuff. because I find it fascinating. When the term toxic masculinity entered the public lexicon, what was your initial thoughts? My initial thought was there was two things that were entering the public lexicon simultaneously. Toxic masculinity and male privilege. Yes. And it was assumed that toxic masculinity was sort of something that, you know, guys, men could get away with because that was.

part of male privilege and boys will be boys and that type of thing. Those two things coupled together creates enormous misinterpretations. There is definitely such a thing as toxic masculinity. However, it does not emanate from male privilege. It emanates from male sacrifice. What do you mean by that? As a result of having to give up, be willing to give up their lives to be a hero in war, the boy went to, you know, had to learn things like, all right, I'm at, I'm at camp here. I'm at, sorry, boot camp here. And the sergeant is making a negative comment about, you know, Christians or Jews or whatever. And, you know, the guy raises his hand and says, you know, but I'm a Christian, sir. And I believe in God or I'm a Jew. And so,

and the, the job of the sergeant is to say, isn't that sweet. He's a Christian. He's a Christian. He's a Jew. Why don't you do 20 push-ups and see if you're still a Jew or Christian? And the other guys laugh at him for being a wimp. So what guys learned to do was to keep their feelings and their fears to themselves. Up to a point, that's fine. But you take that too far. And guys, they unbecame human beings. They just became human doings.

They learned that the sergeant's job was learning that you had to train each of these boys to just be a, cog in the war machine and that squeaky wheels do not allow the war machine to operate most efficiently. Therefore, I don't want to hear of any problem that you have. Tough it out. If you die in the process, you will probably have been more help to the war machine than you will for the little boy that said, I'm a Christian, be careful about what you say, that type of thing. So these types of keeping feelings to themselves led boys and men to keep. keep feelings inside and inside and inside and then they turned to drinking, they turned to drugs,

or they kept it all inside and it came out as a volcano, and they were suddenly violent to their partner or their children or in different ways, violent to themselves. And so those created toxicities. But they created toxicities because of what men were expected to give up in order to become human doings. If that man had to climb to the top of a corporate ladder. In Japan, they have a game called Korochi. Korochi means death from overwork or death at the desk. So all the kids have in this game a little Korochi toy. And the game is such that the person who climbs to the top of the corporate ladder, the business ladder, the religious ladder, whatever ladder first, and gets to the top first. He wins the game. And what is his reward? He commits

suicide. What? Not in real life. Right. And so, and what's the message there? The message is that I have gotten to the top of the ladder. I have become a human doing and I've completely lost myself as a human being. That is, I've committed suicide to the human being part of myself in exchange for being a supposedly more powerful person. So what men, what our sons often learn is that we feel that, that we have learned to define power as feeling obligated or expected to earn money that often somebody else spends while we die sooner. That's so, I mean that it's really scary, shocking, and heartbreaking, but that is American

culture. Yes. And it's the culture for the most part around the developed nations part of the world and in undeveloped nations, it's actually fairly much the same way in terms of preparing men for war, and then it's more complex and underdeveloped white nations in other way. Could you talk about why feminism failed to understand the workforce, since we're speaking about the workforce? Absolutely.

What we as feminists did, we came, feminism became very sort of noticeable in the culture in the late 60s. we'd already been through civil rights movement. And the civil rights movement, we had a dichotomy. The dichotomy was oppressor and oppressed. And then we had a lot of the early feminists were Marxists in their orientation. They looked at the world from the oppressors who had more money and then the oppressed. And so it seemed like since men earned more money, it was interpreted that we had more money or we had more privileged to get that money when in fact that was our obligation,

just like raising children was raising was women's obligation, raising money was ours. Wow. But we as feminists didn't say, thank you men, for giving up what you love to do in order to do something you didn't like to do as much in order to be able to protect the family better. A lot of feminists are going to hear you say that, Dr. Farrell, and they're going to get uncomfortable, you know, but that's like a hard truth. Yes, it really is. And as I started doing those 300 men's groups that I talked about, I heard man after man after man eventually come to this understanding about what he himself did.

At the beginning of the men's group, he didn't even see this. He didn't even understand this. But after hearing this again and again, I heard it clearly. And when I began to introduce that to my presentations, sponsored by feminist movements, my standing ovations went from 100% to about 3%. Oh my gosh. I soon realized that if I were to explain the boys and men's positions in the world,

that I would lose all my feminist referrals and therefore, you know, you lose ultimately millions of dollars. Well, you know, what do you think it means for the boy crisis when we tell boys that they can be women? Well, do you mean like women as in trans? Yeah. Yes. Well, there's... The gender's on a spectrum and, you know, if you have certain interests, well, you might be a girl.

Like how does that contribute to the boy crisis in your opinion? Because what happened was that it sort of skips over the boy crisis. We went from women's issues and girls' issues right. to trans issues and gender fluidity, and no one is spending the half century focused on what is happening to boys and men who are average boys and men who are not that interest, who are interested in girls and women, but their issue is not even being discussed in school. Instead, it's being reversed disgust when boys are referred to its toxic masculinity. If boys try to explain, if boys keep their feelings to themselves, they're repressing and toxic.

if they express their feelings, they're mansplaining. If they take it and they begin to get to be 13, 14, there's feelings, sexual feelings. If they move too quickly, they're called a sexual harasser. If they don't move quickly enough, women call them a wimp. And the boys, you know, they're 14, 15 years of age. And they're learning they can't win. They cannot win. And they are, as you said at the right beginning of this podcast, you said right up front

exactly what is true. the boys are less mature than the girls, but the boys are the ones expected to risk rejection sexually. And they're having all these hormones and feelings of wanting to be sexual with at least half the women in the class. But if they reach out to a woman, particularly if they're not really good looking tall and the quarterback at the school or some other standout person, that their fear of rejection of the women that are the most attractive to them, is enormous.

And they notice that the boys that are most successful are not the shy boys. Not the ones that are reading all the rules in California. And in 26 other states in California, there is an affirmative consent law. And if a boy in college takes out a girl or woman and the girl or woman says yes, and he reaches over to take her hand without asking her permission to, as she is saying, him saying, may i take your hand and her saying yes you may take my hand if he reaches out and takes her hand without asking that question he can be considered a sexual harasser um but on the other hand if he

asked that question may i take your hand may i kiss you on the cheek may i kiss you on the lips may maybe do a tongue kiss and you know don't know the the woman feels she's dealing with some type of wimpy robot and it's not a real sexual turn on for any woman that i know except maybe a very strong feminist um but they hit so the but and the boy's are looking around and saying that, seeing that the boys that are most successful with women sure aren't doing that method, but the ones that aren't are risking being sexual harassers. And so this is the law in California. And it's in the legislatures of 26 states in the United States.

Some things men are just better than women at. And other things women are better than men at. But one thing men beat women on every time is their ability to grill a thick mouth-watering steak. This isn't a subjective truth. it's universally true. And you know what else is a universal truth? Good Ranchers is one of the best tasting, affordable, and morally upstanding meat subscription companies you could use. Their meat is 100% American-made, superior steakhouse quality, no added hormones or antibiotics, and it's all sourced sustainably and locally. Good Ranchers cows are grass-fed as they grow up, and they're

introduced to a custom, all-natural, 100-per-vegetarian grain blend. This gives the meat a more tender and rich flavor as well as increasing the amounts of marbling, which gives you the best eating experience. Good Ranchers also describes their meat as better than organic, and if you're wondering, what the heck does that even mean? Let me learn you a thing. The word organic in the meat industry is a really watered down label that doesn't carry the weight that most of us hope or think it does. When Good Ranchers was sourcing their chicken, specifically, they wanted to be better than the organic standard. Instead of sourcing from organic farms that do the minimum to earn a label,

Good Ranchers made sure to work with farms who do the most to earn your trust. That's better than organic. And that's Good Ranchers. There are all beef, all chicken, and all seafood boxes, or a combination of them on goodranters.com slash Clark with code Clark. If you use my code, you'll get $20 off and two pounds of chicken breast for free. That's good ranchers.com slash Clark with Code Clark. Good Ranchers.

American Meat delivered. Okay, so this is going to be, to my listeners, they're going to be like, what? But I swear this is a real thing recently. And so just to give a little behind the scenes, Dr. Farrell, I'm not married yet. I'm not a mom yet. So I haven't entered that chapter of my life.

But I'm fascinating with learning. Obviously, this is where I'm talking to you. I love talking parenting and kind of just preparing for that kind of stuff. and learning as much as I can before I'm in that part of my life, God willing. And so one thing that I have started doing so much research on very randomly is circumcision with baby boys in the United States. Is it necessary? And I was so interested and excited when I saw that you covered this in your book.

And so you talk about how that there was never a time when our daughters, when young girls are growing up when we don't hear a woman's body, a woman's choice. And our sons never hear the same thing when it comes to their bodies. We never say, like, it's your body to a boy. It's your choice. Like, we make that choice for them when it comes to circumcision. And so you talk about how maybe we should be rethinking circumcision for baby boys. I 100% agree with this. Could you expand on this idea for my listeners that are hearing this for the first time? Yes. Best we can tell from this, first of all, the, the big discrimination for a long time was that we never even studied what the impact of circumcision was. And so now we do have some studies that seem to indicate that when boys are circumcised, that this is a, this creates a type of PTSD type of trauma. And probably some boys can handle this reasonably well, but some boys it appears cannot. and they are sort of disconnected from their feelings as a result of of the circumcision at an early age.

Even as a newborn baby. Well, this is what we never knew, but it appears that this is the case, that there is an impact on boys that is negative, that it disconnects one from the feelings you're having to, you know, your boys usually when they're circumcised. When I say boys, I mean infants, when they're circumcised, are usually, They usually cry enormously, but we just accept that. And we don't anymore think about that as being okay to do to our daughters. And so it's part of what, but we don't realize that historically, circumcision was part of the process that the more a nation was a warrior nation that is constantly in war,

the longer they waited to do circumcision so that when a boy became a man, he was often paraded out into the middle of the community and expected to be circumcised without anesthesia in the middle of the community. And then if he winced, he was considered not worthy of being a boy. And therefore, he was disconnected from all the attractive girls and considered a loser in the community. Where was this? Where was this happening?

This was in a number of tribes around the world and that had. I talk about the specific tribes and communities and groups in the boy crisis book, but I don't remember them often. Yeah, yeah. And so, but the value of what I just shared is to understand that circumcision had a function in helping the community discovering which boys were willing to disconnect from all their feelings, that is, have toxic masculinity in order to be willing to die for the community. and they were rewarded with the women who were considered the most attractive and valued in the community. And also they were rewarded with respect, the social bribe of being called a future hero. And so it's a very reasonable argument to say that there's no good positive purpose for circumcision. There are cleanliness issues and things like that, but any boy can learn how to clean himself.

Right, but also isn't America really the only country that is still circumcising baby boys aren't most other countries, developed countries not doing circumcision anymore? Yes, it's not a zero to a hundred, but America is with circumcision the most frequent of like among all the other European and mostly developed countries are less. likely to circumcise their infant males. How much correlation do you see between the brokenness with boys in America and the pharmaceutical companies, prescription drug companies? Well, certainly, I mean, the prescription drug companies like the gun manufacturers, they're all

the secondary issue. When boys are already broken, when they don't have good mom, dad, connective people. parenting, they're likely to be depressed. And then the pharmaceutical industries will take advantage of that, you know, or if the pharmaceutical industries would say, we're giving a solution to that, so they don't have to suffer from depression. They have Zoloft instead. And up to a point that's true.

But as we've seen with opioids in particular, there was, you know, a very significant campaign on the part of Purdue and other places to not make, to not make people aware of the dangers of opioids and so opioid overdose became a real conspiracy of the part of the Purdue and other pharmaceutical companies that took the already problem of boys, that boys were having particularly dad-deprived boys who were going into depression and made them much more vulnerable to having to take pharmaceuticals that would eventually lead to addiction that would eventually lead to their death and boys are far more likely to die from overdoses of opioids than girls are. And this is true with a number of different pharmaceuticals among those lines.

Is it true that in most cases of ADHD, there is not an actual deficit of attention at all? That's hard to say. Probably if you are a boy, you are a boy, you are much less, likely to be able to listen for a long period of time in a classroom, take notes, you're much less likely to incline, much less inclined to memorize those notes and feed them back on a test. If you're a boy, you're much more likely to be motivated by doing things. As a teacher, when I was prepared to be a high school teacher originally, I did my student teaching and I was naturally oriented toward getting the class of the people, the students in my class to do things. I was surprised and I didn't even know the meaning of it when my my supervising

teacher told me at the end, you know, the kids love that you got them all involved in these activities, but what I'm not, what I'm really discovering here is that we have three boys in the class that were really doing terribly before that have suddenly started doing really well. And that was just a passing comment. I didn't even think anything of it. As I got to know more about what leads to boys being motivated, I saw that boys were far more motivated by doing things rather than listening and giving feedback. So if you give boys a chemistry project or a project, I was teaching politics, political science, and I had half the kids become Republicans and half the kids become Democrats

and have them argue against each other and form all sorts of things. and then I'd have them halfway through the process reverse. So all the Republicans had to become Democrats, all the Democrats had to become Republicans so they could learn to listen to somebody else's perspective other than their own. But the kids loved this. And as I said, this was just my teaching style.

I had no idea at the time that it was so much more. The girls loved it, but the boys went from being often dysfunctional to functional as a result. Interesting. Okay, so I love to. You have a lot of practical tips and solutions to how you can help your boys in the family unit, in the home, what we could be doing differently. And you talk a lot about checks and balance parents.

It's a term that you refer to a lot in the boy crisis. What is that? Dads and moms have about 10, 11 different parenting styles. I mentioned one like the rough housing. Dads are more likely to tease children. and dads are more likely to encourage children or be okay with children taking risks, have them, you know, if they're camping, have them stay out overnight, maybe they get wet. And moms are more feeling like, well, we better not keep them out too late at night because,

I mean, you're too here because it may be raining. Women are a little more risk averse is what you're saying. Exactly. And so, but the really important thing is that that dads have not talked about. about the value of their style of parenting. Therefore, having been able to communicate it well to moms, moms have often therefore felt that dads were just being neglectful. Why are you letting the kid climb the tree that way?

Why are you letting him stay in the school yard past dark and when he could get into a fight or something negative could happen? Why weren't you there by him? Why didn't you pick him up and take him home sooner? And so moms and dads get into a huge number of fights about these things. But what I was able to report in the boy crisis is what were the what is the positive value to the children in the long term of each of the things that dad's style parenting does? We already know the positive value of most things that mom style parenting does. The value of being protected is pretty obvious. And but the but most many parents get into these huge fights feeling that the other one is like turning the children into a baby or just doesn't care,

cares more about watching the football game than watching the children. And so what a core part of the Boy Crisis book is about is teaching parents how to be able to hear each other's perspectives and in a way that gives the mother and the father both an opportunity to first hear each other's best intent and then value each other's best intent and then come to creative conclusions like mom wants the children not to climb the tree in the backyard. Dad feels it's okay. Well, maybe a checks and balance parenting approach would be letting the child climb the tree up to a certain point, but not beyond a certain point, not in certain branches that are especially weak and to have dad out there under the tree in case the child falls. And not, and dad,

you know, let me have your iPhone so you don't get preoccupied with the iPhone while you're under that tree. And so then the child gets the best of both worlds. She or he gets a chance to climb the tree, which very few dads explain actually doing that increases children's ability to do risk assessment and increases in the process children's IQs by climbing trees and being able to have the synapses fire about what's safe, what's not safe and things like that. All these things have never been talked about in a parenting book before that it's so important. because both dads and moms have so much of value to contribute. And we should not be leaving moms with the overwhelm of taking care of the children without help and support from dads.

So the moms need dads and children need moms and dads. What are some practical ways that parents who are both working full time or families that have a ton of kids, practical ways that they can connect with their children weekly? first understand that if you're a family of like three or four and you have an income of somewhere between $60,000 and $80,000 depending on where in the United States you live, at about that point, dad's time becomes more important than dad's dime. Children that have problems that go to psychologists are very rarely saying my dad and mom didn't earn enough money if they earned 50, 90,000 or more. They are often saying my dad or mom didn't, you know, didn't tuck me into bed at night, didn't seem to really care, didn't come to my games,

didn't support me in this way or not that. Kids really need the emotional attention of both parents. They also need boundary enforcement. Boundary enforcement is this, which must be distinguished from boundary setting. Both parents set boundaries pretty much the same way. They say you can't have your ice cream until you finish your peas. But children are usually able to manipulate a better deal with mom than with dad. Children will often say, you know, to mom, you know, I had a bad day in school today and I'm really, you know, kind of depressed and I need to do my homework and I have too much homework to do. You know, can I just have those few, some of the ice cream now? And I'll have, I'll have some of the peas tomorrow and mom will feel well you know I'm gonna get it am I

gonna get into a big argument here over a few peas I don't think so that's would be insensitive okay sweetie you can have you know your peas just had this many more peas now then the child negotiates a better deal than having not all those peas but half of those peas and the mom goes all right I'm not gonna argue over six peas so you can have your ice cream whereas dad is more likely to say something like this is a distinction now between boundary setting and boundary enforcement that is more likely to say I'm sorry we have have a deal here. The deal here is no ice cream until you finish your peas. So what's better to do

for the kids' development? Dad's way or mom's way? In this case, dad's way. Okay. If the deal is, if the child, if the father, if the deal is, you can't have your ice cream until you finish your peas, the boundaries that are set must be boundaries that are enforced. Otherwise, the children learn that their incentive is to manipulate better deals. Ooh, I definitely did that. Yes, yes. And that does produce very good future lawyers, but it doesn't produce, and future manipulators,

but it doesn't produce children that learn to focus on doing what they need to do, finish the peas, to get what they want to have the ice cream. And that undermines postponed gratification. Now, conservatives tend to be, I feel like, the most vocal group saying, we need to bring back family dinners. We all need to be eating together as a family. Is that really overrated or is that imperative to children's development? We really do need to be bringing back family dinners.

It's imperative, but with one caveat. So family dinner nights, even in their present form, are highly correlated with children doing better in life. However, family dinner nights can sometimes become family dinner nightmares. And so what I have in the Boy Crisis book is throughout the book, throughout the book in almost every chapter, I look at an issue that's a problem with boys and then discuss how to handle that issue in family dinner nights. And so number one, for example, is make sure that children never have during family dinner nights, which I've, recommend about once a week is to not have electronics at the table. And so then I work with how to enforce that if you think that the children are always saying that they want the electronics at the table. Number two, to make sure that the parent is listening to the child without interrupting and then sharing

with the child what she or he heard and not giving any lectures to the child about what would be better than what they just said. However, that shows enormous empathy from parent to child. However, parents who are empathetic only to the child and don't teach the child how to become empathetic to their siblings and to the parents, that they produce children who are not empathetic. That is, that is if empathy is only a one-way street going from the parent to the child, the child does not learn to become empathetic, he or she learns to become self-centered. So are you saying that if you're at family dinner and the child is opening up and sharing some sort of hardship or needing advice on something, the parent should be prepared to also share

something personal as well. I went through X, Y, and Z at work today. I had a stressful day too. Is that what you're saying? Not quite. Oh, okay. All right. But let's, I'll take that apart.

So the parents' first job is to be able to hear the child's full feelings without interrupting and, you know, or giving advice. And then sharing, the second job is to share with the child. So, sweetie, what I hear you saying is this. Am I distorting anything? And then keep working with the child until the child says nothing has been distorted. Okay. And then saying to the child, did I miss anything?

And then working with the child until the child says, no, mama or dad, you got everything. However, having done that well, then it's also important for the child to listen to the parent in the same way. So when it's time for the parent to say, I had this problem or I had that problem with this challenge at work today, or the parents saying, you know, I worry when I hear you saying that you get together with this kid who bullies other kids, I don't want you to be a bully. now it's time for the children to listen to the parents' perspective on the bullying that the children just admitted that they did a certain amount of. And then for the parents to also make sure that the children do that with their siblings. Often siblings are very dismissive of it. You know,

they just get bored and like just want a discount. Yes. So the process of family dinner night is training everybody to hear everybody until the person, speaking feels fully heard. Now that may require two nights a week to do that in order to in order to complete the process of one issue being discussed. And so there are many dimensions to make really effective family dinner nights. But when family dinner nights are done that way, you'll find that the children are not having long discussions on the phone with their friends and very brief discussions with you because their friends are often, not giving them advice and making them feel like children.

Yeah, they're just listening. They tend to just listen or empathize and say, yeah, I had the same talk of them too, blah, blah, blah. And the children don't have to worry about it so they can talk more fluidly. Also, I talk about parenting, the family dinner nights, as also being able under these types of circumstances to bring up controversial subjects. Ooh. Always love controversy.

They don't like boredom. And it's like their equivalent of a good video game. They like the back and the forth and the tension. But so bringing up controversial topics and allowing children to say whatever they do, I believe in God, I don't believe in God, I think that women have it all. And men don't. I believe that men have it all that women don't. They should be able to say whatever their feelings are without, like you shouldn't talk that way.

Let them have that, let them get completely out with that. Then when it's your turn to share your feelings, say, here's the problems with expressing those things and those types of ways. Here's what the tradeoffs are. Here's the people that we'll alienate. Here's the people. And you can maybe alienate people if you want to, but here's the outcome of alienating people. Now, see, I hear everything you're saying.

I love it. And then I think of myself when I was 13, 14, 15. And my parents would be like, how was school? Fine. What happened today? Nothing. You know, go into my room. I was the stereotypical teenager.

I'm a girl, obviously, so I was the girl version, but our teen boys, our middle school age boys do the same thing. So what do parents do when they try to ask these questions during family dinner or just in the family in general and the kids shut them off? Yes, the kids shut them off because when they've spoken up in the past, what they've gotten is an advice, a lecture, and interrupted. And so with that experience, why bring anything up? So how do you fix that? How do you go back? You begin to say, you know, you say to the kids, you know, first of all, like no electronics at the table, and that's a complex thing that I sort of talk about how to enforce that. But then you allow, you move into a step at a time.

You say, you tell the kids right up front, I'm not going to interrupt you. I'm not going to like, I'm not going to, you know, I'm going to make sure I got everything you say correctly. And you demonstrate listening skills that leave the children, realizing. that no matter what they say, they're going to be heard and not distorted, then the parents, then talking about these things at dinner time becomes you're heard better than you are from your woman friend or your boyfriend. And so that becomes something that the kids look forward to more and more. You also really share great advice in the boy crisis about how a single mother can seek out healthy male figures to influence her son's life, life.

What are some practical tips for single mothers? Number one is to make sure that you understand all the differences between dad's style parenting and mom style parenting and what the positive purposes are as well as what the problems occur that occur when they go too far, when teasing goes too far, when roughhousing goes too far, when risk taking goes too far. And knowing how to how to listen to your partner's feelings about that, the checks and balanced parenting. Second, if you can't get the biological dad involved,

the biological dad is important to be involved because when a child is growing up, she or he eventually looks in the mirror and sees that half of my genes, I have eyes just like my dad, have hair like my dad or my mom, and that half of their genes are the genes, genes of the parent that's missing. And if that parent is missing, that half of the child feels like it's missing to itself. They don't understand who they are. We have an adopted daughter, and she once said, you know, my wife adopted the daughter at a former marriage. And she said at

one point, like, I feel like I was a chicken. I was a duck brought up by a chicken. I feel like a totally different species. And so the biological dad has a very, and mom, have a very important purpose in a child's psyche. However, if it's impossible to get the dad involved by sharing with him how much he's needed and how much he's wanted, then a stepdad in the boy crisis book, I talk about all the challenges getting a stepfather to really feel equal so that he's not just an advisor to the biological mom, but is a really equal force in the parenting process.

So that's important to know. But if the stepfather is not somebody that's available, then moving to understanding how to talk to coaches in a way that they can be involved with children, how to get the children involved in a faith-based community where they're talking to other peers, particularly for boys. Boys usually have a mask of masculinity.

On the outside, they appear like strong. On the inside, they're fearful and insecure. When boys find out that every other boy is as in, insecure as he is, that allows every boy to feel much more secure about himself and not have to put on false facades of, because boys, men's weakness is our facade of strength. And boy's weakness is their facade of strength. And so making sure that if you have a boy, that he gets involved with Cub Scouts and that he attends meetings consistently for two years, make sure he gets involved with Boy Scouts, make sure he gets involved with either those things or boys clubs.

Make sure he doesn't only get involved with sports, but he understands the different, that you understand what I call in the Boy Crisis book, the liberal arts of sports, the value of pick up team sports. Pick up team sports are huge contributors to an entrepreneurial personality that are overlooked in the recent years.

That he understands the value of organized team sports and that he understands the value and you understand the value of sports that require a lot of personal discipline like gymnastics or that are largely that you contribute to a team, you contribute to the USA team and gymnastics, you contribute to your tennis team, but a lot of the practice is on your own, not in group form. Each of those sports contributes differently to the child's upbringing. So there's a whole series of things, how to engage mentors, what organization,

are involved that are really important to be part of. Yeah, and then the whole back part of your book, I mean, you have sources and all sorts of different things for all of this, too. I mean, he does a great job in the boy crisis of giving you every resource you could ever need, backing up every statistic. All of that is there, which is super helpful. How can somebody guide their son to find or figure out their mission in life? by constantly looking at your child's skills sets, nourishing, calling them to your child's attention, having your child know that trying out at that is if they, quote,

fail that they really have succeeded just by trying. Now, this is different than giving a person a trophy just for trying, but giving them acknowledgement for trying, even if they don't succeed is very helpful. And making sure that you pay attention to each of the children and the family, even the ones that are not as successful as the others, don't get caught saying to being overheard, talking to a neighbor about how proud you are of your son and not your daughter or vice versa,

that type of thing. And then making sure that your children understand that to succeed in anything takes a lot of discipline and and it takes a trade-off of not being able just to succeed automatically and and working with the children on that discipline and and and understanding that the trade-offs that everything that you accomplish has if you're going to become a top-notch gymnast that makes any money doing that you are going to give up things But on the other hand, if you become somebody who has really good social skills, you may not ever be a great gymnast. And discussing those types of tradeoffs openly with your children and especially at family dinner night.

What happens to American society if we do not reroute this track we're on with the boy crisis? We are in deep doo-doo. That's a really scientific explanation. I love it. Boys who don't graduate from high school, don't graduate from college, they're far more likely to make less income. Those boys are far more likely to be rejected. They're far more likely to be angry. They're far more likely to be depressed.

They're far more likely to be suicidal. Almost all of your mass school shootings, every single. mass school shooting in the 21st century that killed 10 or more people were of boys who had who were dad-deprived boys and so we when I ran for governor of California I spoke to a number of prison populations and I started asking them what what was your dad active and involved with you only 5 to 15 percent depending on the prison said their dad was actively involved in their and their lives growing up. Dad-deprived boys are far more likely to be criminals, far more likely to be in jail. They're far less likely to be productive. It undermines our national security. It undermines

marriages, which it means that women are looking around and saying there's no guy worthy of my love. So I'm going to, you know, raise children by myself. And then she feels overwhelmed, angry at men. boys feel here in school that the future is female. That doesn't make them feel good about their future. They hear about toxic masculinity. They feel caught between rocks and hard places. If they open up their heart, they're told they're mansplaining. There are so many downsides.

We are all in the same family boat when we pay attention to only one sex and only one sex wins. Then both sexes lose. How can moms and dads be raising our boys and girls to prepare them to be excellent marriage material? The most important single thing is teaching them how to hear personal criticism without becoming defensive. Because communication, almost every marriage that breaks apart, the couple is both saying, I feel like I'm walking on eggshells. If I say this or that to my husband or wife, it's only going to escalate and end up in a big fight.

So I just keep my feelings to myself. And that leads to drinking. That leads to drugs. That leads to affairs. That leads to coming home late because you can't, you don't find happiness at home. It leads to being involved, even sometimes in good projects like the church community or the Kewanis.

But you devote yourself to something that gives you respect outside of your home rather than inside of your home. and so your children feel neglected they feel like you know dad was really respected by other people but he didn't pay any attention to me well how does that make the children feel and so there's huge amounts of damage if you can't communicate lovingly and effectively with each other and nobody the Achilles heel of all human beings is our inability in our inability to handle personal criticism without becoming defensive and so that's you know unfortunately now I've created a an online course that can, if you go to by warrenfarrell.com website and just go to the couples

communication tab, you can get that course for very, very little money and really practice. There's seven sessions there teaching you how to hear personal criticism without becoming defensive, but it requires work and it requires practice because it doesn't come biologically naturally to anybody. All human beings are set up to become defensive because historically, if we heard criticism, it was a possible enemy. And the way we survived was to get up our defenses when an enemy criticized us. And so that was perfect for survival. It's just terrible for love. So speaking of love, one of my absolute favorite things that you've ever said was that falling in love is biologically natural, but sustaining love is biologically unnatural. For boys to grow up and not

fear marriage, they need to see their parents demonstrate how to sustain love. So how do you do that? But that is what the couples communication course is about exactly that. I work with couples to know how to sustain a conflict-free zone 166 hours out of the 168-hour week. I, because hearing personal criticism is biologically unnatural, I teach people how to move into an altered state that is not their natural defensive state before they hear criticism. And I've worked over 30 years to develop mindsets that allow people to see, to begin to hear their partner's criticism and emotionally associate it with an opportunity to be more deeply loved. because if my partner knows that I'm creating a safe environment for her criticism in matter what she says or how she says it, I am not going to be saying you should have said that differently.

That was incorrect or whatever is going to be a completely safe environment for her criticism. She'll feel safer with me and therefore she'll feel more loved by me, more protected by me, and therefore she'll feel more love for me. And so I have couples drop into this type of meditative mindset. So while their partner is criticizing them, they realize that the more their partner is angry or upset and they provide a safe environment nevertheless, the more their partner will feel safe that they can speak from their heart and or their anger. And that what their partner will hear is their vulnerability, not their anger. I teach people how to see vulnerability behind anger because anger is vulnerability's mask.

I explain why that's the case and how to see that. And so those are just some of tip of the iceberg practices that allow people to have a role modeling that their children can see when my daughter was getting into challenges with her boyfriend and I worked with the two of them to communicate with each other better. better, they, my daughter interrupted and said, oh, wait a minute, this is what you and mom do all the time. Got it. You know, and sort of like, because she, she didn't even absorb it on an intellectual level, but she had seen it enough to know that that was what was needed to be done without

knowing that intellectually. I love it. Dr. Warren Farrell, he's like a one-stop shop. Couples therapy, how to raise your boys, how to raise your girls. It's fantastic. I think that your book, The Boy Crisis, one of the most important books. books, if not the most important book of the 21st century. Thank you so much for coming on. Remind everyone what your website is again if they want to do your couples classes or to find your

books. It's Warren Farrell.com. It's not like Will Ferrell. I'm not that funny. F-A as opposed to F-E-F-A-R-R-E-L-L dot com, Warren Farrell. And then just go onto the couples communication tab that you'll see there. And that'll explain what the couples communication course is about. And if for some reason you get it and you don't like it, just my email is on the website. Just email me. I'll refund the money to you right away. Oh, fantastic. Thank you so much, Dr. Farrell, for coming on the spillover. You are wonderful. I love your enthusiasm, your energy, your curiosity and how you're willing to prepare yourself for being a great mom and parent before you actually have the children. That's a lot better than 99% of people do.

Thank you. If only I could get some of these guys I've been dating to realize that same thing. I can't imagine that they would resist you. Oh, thank you so much. It's a real pleasure. Did anyone else get major Jordan Peterson vibes from Dr. Farrell or was it just me? I think it's the way they both talk and just how like intellectual and analytical they are. Maybe it's their style, but they totally remind me of each other. By the way, Dr. Warren's book, The Boy Crisis, would be an excellent gift for someone who's having a boy or has a little boy at home this Christmas.

I love practical, helpful gifts like that that really make a positive difference in a mom's life. I think it really stands out in a baby shower. I'll make sure it's linked in the description of this episode. And by the way, if you loved the educational vibes of this episode and want more, go back and listen to the spillover season one, episode two. That's the one with journalist and author Abigail Schreier, who has looked into the crisis happening with our girls, specifically with the transgender movement. And you will especially enjoy season two episode 14 with Dr. Nicholas Cardaris about how screens are destroying the development of our kids' brains. That is like a cute, sort of at a fan favorite. it. So if you learn something new and enjoy the guests we have on the show, leave a five-star review

telling us how this episode has impacted you, please. The spillover is back next Thursday at 9 p.m. Pacific, midnight eastern, anywhere you get your podcast. Next week's guest worked firsthand on some of the most famous true crime cases in history, specifically by diving for their bodies and body parts. Subscribe to Poplittics on YouTube to watch each interview of The Spillover. And for my daily pop culture show Pop Politics from a conservative perspective, I've got two shows. I got two shows, one for the club and one for the road. I'm Alex Clark, and this is The Spillover. Love you, mean it.