Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2575: Raising Resilient Children With Jen Cohen

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

The Secret to Raising Mentally Strong Kids in a Fragile World with Jen Cohen The reasoning behind her latest Ted talk. (2:02) Characteristics of a “gentle” parent. (4:52) Why aren’t parents letting their kids struggle? (7:51) The two things that have CRUSHED mental resilience in kids. (11:37) The barrier to entry to date a person is so low. (18:11) How kids mimic what they see. (20:22) Building life skills through challenge. (22:08) If you have too many options, you end up with nothing. (25:20) Sports and kids: The good, the bad, and the ugly. (27:33) Creating a ‘Lord of the Flies’ scenario with our kids. (34:47) The root of ‘woke’ culture. (38:59) How to avoid your kids feeling isolated as a parent. (47:58) Alarming statistics in our current culture. (50:41) There is a light at the end of the tunnel. (54:55) Allowing your children to overcome challenges in an age-appropriate way. (1:01:51) Have traditional values around gender roles played a part in these issues? (1:06:25) The importance of banding together as parents. (1:16:53) Related Links/Products Mentioned The Secret to Raising Mentally Strong Kids in a Fragile World | Jennifer Cohen | TEDxCoral Springs Visit Transcend for this month’s exclusive Mind Pump offer! ** 25% Off All GHRPs (April 7 – April 30). Tesamorelin (Troches + Injections), Hexarelin (Capsules + Injections), IGF-1 LR3, and Sermorelin. Bundle Options: 2-Month Bundle & 4-Month Bundle. ** April Special: MAPS HIIT or Extreme Fitness Bundle 50% off! ** Code APRIL50 at checkout ** Smartphones and Kids: Massive Evidence of Harm 1. Children's engagement with digital devices, screen time Survey: 26% of Gen Zers Brought a Parent to a Job Interview Mind Pump #2277: The Five Best Sports for Kids Inmates Spend More Time Outside Than Kids Mind Pump #2342: The Porn Addiction Solution With Sathiya Sam Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked – Book by Adam Alter Unplugged: Evolve from Technology to Upgrade Your Fitness, Performance & Consciousness iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us The Reason Why Children Are 800% Worse When Their Mothers Are Around Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources Featured Guest/People Mentioned Jen Cohen (@therealjencohen) Instagram Habits & Hustle Podcast Jordan B. Peterson (@JordanBPeterson) X/Twitter  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, we had our friend, Jen Cohen, back on the show. And in this episode, we talked about raising resilient children. She did a very popular talk at TEDx. The title of that was The Secret to Raising Mentally Strong Kids in a Fragile World. We're all fathers. She's a mother. It was a great discussion around raising children in today's world. By the

way, you could find Jen at TheRealJenE-N on Instagram. She's great. Go check it out. This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, mphormones.com. So if you're looking into hormone replacement therapy or you want to benefit from peptide therapy, go to mphormones.com. Real doctors prescribing real compounds, not gray market stuff. By the way, they have a huge discount on growth hormone releasing peptides happening from April 7th to April 30th. 25% off all of them, including Tessa Maryland,

Hexarelin, IGF-1, LR3, Samarilin. It's awesome, they also have bundle options, two month and four month bundle options. Again, it's MPphormones.com. We also have a sale on some programs. MAPS HIIT and the Extreme Fitness Bundle are both 50% off. If you're interested, go to MAPSfitnessproducts.com and then use the code April 50 for that 50% off discount.

Here comes the show. Jen, welcome back to the show. We have so much fun with you. Thank you. I have so much fun with you too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You look great by the way. You're all super shredded from the last time I saw you. Really? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Thank you. It's called stress. I'm not saying anything different. Stress diet or something. It is. That's basically the best way to lose weight. That's like

mind pump in like nutshell. You could have your whole podcast in one sentence. It's like, you know, be stressed, lose weight. So you're one of the few people, there's very few people that will ask to come on our show. We don't ask them why or what. We're just like, yes. Really? Yes, that's why when you came in. You had no clue. I'm like, so what do you want to talk about?

I know, you're like, oh, why are you here? So you, okay, so you did a talk, you did a Ted talk. You've done a few. I've done it, I'm actually doing a third one. I just did my second one three and a half, four months ago. Yeah. So what's cool about that, by the way, and we'll get to the subject, but what's cool about that is that you had a fear of public speaking and now you're doing these talks,

getting millions of views. We talked about this before, how you got over that fear and kind of the practice and you go through it. So I think that's pretty remarkable. But the last talk you did, I'm very interested in because that's due with raising children. It is. And we're all parents.

Yes. I mean, this is the thing, right? Like I don't, I don't tell my, I don't, I'm not a psychologist. Um, I'm a parent. So I think anybody who is a parent there, then that makes them an expert, right? Cause they're dealing with parenting day in, day

out. And, you know, I really thought it was an important topic, which is I wanted to, it was called the secret to raising mentally strong kids in a fragile world. Yeah. And the reason why I did it was I have two small kids, 10 and one's going to be 10 next

week, another one's 12. You guys all have kids as well. And what I've been noticing as, you know, through the, throughout the years is over time, kids are becoming more and more fragile, more and more frail. And it's really the onus is on the parent. And I think this whole culture of gentle parenting has really made our kids weaker. And so I wanted to have a platform or create some type of platform where we can kind of come together, unite and create mental resilience in our younger generation. And so to me also, if you want to be a mentally strong person, why not start when you are a child? Like these are habits and tools that are important throughout

your life. So why would you're like what 21, 25, then you start to learn how to be mentally resilient? Start when you're a kid and get the foundation, prime your brain, prime yourself for failure, for resilience, because life's not easy. Life isn't easy. And if we coddle our children, which is what a lot of people are doing now in this time, it's actually you're doing a disservice in a real way. So this is a great topic.

But there's a quote you just reminded me of. I think it was Frederick Douglass that said, it's easier to raise strong children than it is to fix broken men. And I think it was Frederick Douglass. Maybe Doug can look that up, make sure I'm not messing that up, but let's go back for a second, because I understand gentle parenting very well. Are you a gentle parent?

But a lot of people misunderstand what it means. So I want to know from you what you're referring to, to when you because it's like intuitive dieting like when I say intuitive dieting people have this completely... You're talking about helicopter parenting? Skewed view of what it is. So what do you what are the characteristics of what you're talking about of this coddling type of parent that raises these? Because by the way and I know you have the data to support this. Yeah. I'm familiar with it. It's true. We are raising children that are more fragile and less resilient. But let's-

Than ever before. Yes. Let me just start by answering your question of what in my belief is gentle parenting. Gentle parenting, in my opinion, is snow plowing all difficulty away from your children. Yeah, that's not- see, okay, great. I'm sorry, I said that. And snow plowing challenges. We've created a culture of caudal culture

versus challenge culture. And challenge is what makes you stronger and makes you more resilient. So let's start with that. Uh, I would also say part of this stuff is helicopter parenting, participation trophies, creating a space where there's safe spaces and triggers. All of this lingo and language, in my opinion, is creating a soft child, which then creates

a soft teenager, a soft adult, which by the way, I will tell you, some of this is causing suicidal rates to increase, anxiety is through the roof, depression is through the roof. When you don't feel competent and capable of taking care of yourself and having any form of self-efficacy, what happens to you as a human being is beyond detrimental, right?

Yeah. And we've seen it. I mean, the reason why, like, the reason why, we were all raised in a very different time, where independence was very much a thing. We took risk. We were kind of like thrown into independence because our parents weren't watching our every single move. And another big one is boredom. We've

eliminated boredom from our children's lives where we are over scheduling everything because we're so nervous of our kids missing out on anything. When the reality is, boredom is where creativity lives. It's where kids think for themselves and figure shit out. And if we're eliminating all of these things, what is our child left to do? They're not thinking for themselves, they're not acting on their own, their parents are getting them out of every uncomfortable, challenging situation, and we're left with basically a blob of a human being.

That's what we're left with. Yeah. You know why, by the way? Why do you think parents are doing that? Why do you think parents aren't letting their kids be bored? Why do you think parents are not letting their kids struggle? I think what's happened because over time, we've evolved to a place where parents rather be their child's friend than being their parent.

They're so scared of being disliked by their child that they're just like not parenting anymore. They're not disciplining anymore. They're so scared of that particular thing when the reality is our job as a parent isn't to be liked all the time, isn't to make our kids happy all the time. It's actually the opposite. Our job as a parent is to make our kid resilient, make them competent, make them capable. We are taking away everything from our kids. Chores are no longer even in most homes anymore. When I was a kid, there was no chance that I was not going to be forced to make my bed, put my dishes away.

When I was 12 years old, I had a job. I was working at the Olive Garden by 12. In today's time, kids aren't even babysitting anymore. There's no more babysitting. How old are your kids? Yeah, so, well I have four. I have two older ones and two younger ones. So 19, 15, and then four and two.

Okay. But you know, when you mentioned, you said confidence, independence, that all goes down to security, right? When a kid feels secure, then they can do all those things. They don't feel secure when they don't feel like they can tackle a challenge. It feels insecure.

Well, also because there's a couple of things. There's that learning space in the middle. You have on one side not knowing how to do something and then the other side you have having the ability and competence to do something. But in the middle, it's like that learning, I can't do, I can't do. And so it's very frustrating, even as an adult. If I can't figure something out, I get super anxious and frustrated. But I've learned that it's part of growing is like being comfortable enough in that frustration to try and

try again, which is why I talk all about like that 10% target that I usually come on and talk about, which is making 10 attempts. We've eliminated that from our children, which is how people get comfortable with failure. And so we are so uncomfortable as a parent or as an adult watching our kids struggle. That's it. Right? We're so uncomfortable from the struggle that we'll just do it for them. And so our kids don't know what to do when they feel frustrated.

So they get super anxious and then in that anxiety spirals versus understanding and teaching your child that you know what like this is a normal feeling you know it's it's okay to feel frustrated it's okay to feel like I don't know how to do it but that's part of getting from not knowing to knowing is that process in the middle right like any good athlete there's a lot of hours of practice that go in from being like bad at something to being really good. And it's us as a parent explaining and executing on that message saying, you know what, me doing your homework or doing your science

project isn't gonna make you better, isn't to make you feel confident, it's not going to raise your self-esteem, it's not going to do any of those things. All it does is make me as a parent compete with the other parent for the gold star of the science project. And what does that do for you? Absolutely nothing. Do you think that if you're looking back at like generations, especially baby boomers and you know, it was a very

high authoritarian type of parenting in the house. And sometimes there's love involved with that. Sometimes there's probably an absence of love with that. And this is something I talk about even with some of my friends who are parents because their natural reaction to that was to do the opposite in terms of, you know, not forcing their kids to do anything and they're trying to approach it with a different perspective. But do you think that might have played a role in terms of how culture shifted in terms

of the style of parenting? Okay. I think two things happened. I think people growing up in the 70s, I's say 80s, there was a massive shift after having your birthday in 1993, I believe it was, or 1995. I think a couple of things. I think that smart, in 2010 actually was a big one, when smartphones became a big thing, that's the first

thing. Because instead of going outside to play and ride your bike and do all sorts of adventures and climbing trees, we've all, the kids have now migrated to being inside on an iPad, playing video games alone. So the whole act of socialization just dissipated at, from 2010 on. When that dissipated, anxiety, depression, suicide all skyrocketed.

That's one thing. The other thing that happened was if I were to be honest with you, I think it's the woke culture. I think the woke culture has crushed mental resilience in kids. Period. Full stop. Because that's when all of this gentle parenting, the helicopter parenting, the participation trophy, safe spaces, all crept up into society where that became the new norm. And if you're somebody who is on that side of the fence, that's what you do. You know, you meant, so when you say gentle parenting, I want to interject because there

is a massive misunderstanding. And this is what a lot of people do with their quote unquote gentle parenting is they think it means always being nice, never nothing hard, letting you do whatever you want to do. The child kind of leads what's going on. What the real gentle parenting was, was firm with boundaries and structure and consistency, but not through anger or fear. Because what you end up getting are children that obey, not because they think it's the right thing to do, but because they're scared. So this is like the girl who,

I'm scared of my dad, I'm not going to do anything, but then the right thing to do, but because they're scared. So this is like the girl who, oh, I'm scared of my dad, but then the second she gets out, she's like, I'm free to do whatever I want. But what you're talking about is, like I'll give you an example. Parents who don't let their kids be bored are parents who never let themselves be bored. It's uncomfortable.

Being with little kids in the house, you know this, you got little kids in the house, they're bored. It's uncomfortable having them be bored because it puts it on me. Then you ask the parent, when's the last time you went to the bathroom without your phone? When's the last time you stood in line without looking at your phone?

When's the last time you did nothing? Totally true. I mean, I would actually, I would make, even though I'm not a fan of woke culture, I would actually point almost all of this towards the introduction of phones with kids at such an early age. I think that so much of what you describe that we're not doing happens in play. When you go outside and you play with the kids, you lose some games, you don't get to play what you want to play sometimes. You get hurt. There's so much of this.

And, and because we took that away from our kids and allowed them to be glued to a phone or an iPad or a television all day long, we robbed them of those experiences. And then you compile well culture or this attitude of parents who don't know what to do and instead I don't want my kid to be any more anxious or depressed. And so I'd rather be play on the safer side and go the gentle parenting route. Because I'm afraid to over correct the other. I really think the phones cause so much of this because there is so much to learn. I mean, Jordan Peterson talks about those ages between three and five and how important

If they don't develop social skills. If they don't do it, then they don't get it. So let me tell you something, a couple of things. You know, by the age of eight, children would have now spent a year of their lives on a smartphone. Yeah. Oh, I believe that. By the age of eight, that's one year completely eliminated from their life by just the amount of time they spent on their phone. And I bet that stat was pre-COVID because COVID exacerbated that. Yes. And then the thing about play beyond what you just said is the inability to know how

to socialize, it has been detrimental. Do you know another crazy stat is 26% of Gen Z are taking their parents to an interview. I know, I saw. We brought this stat up on the show the other day. How can you not be embarrassed by that? But by the way, this is the part that's even more embarrassing that it's actually been considered okay. There's nobody is kind of like pushing back on that. I won't hire you. If you come with your parent, you're not getting hired. Yeah, I'd laugh the other way.

By the way, let me tell you something. Forget about even that. No way you're getting hired. But I don't know about you because you guys have a very like, you guys run a tight ship here, but people don't want to hire people from Gen Z anymore. They're like, if they see that person coming or if it's on their resume, they just won't hire them. Or from people who are woke because there's too much liability with it. You know what's interesting, Jen, about that?

So the data is really fascinating with that. There seems to be a schism that's happening with Gen Z where, and this is recent, where a lot of these kids are adopting more of these conservative hard work, whatever you wanna label them, values, because I think that they're like, this isn't working for me. I don't know what the hell is happening.

Isn't it split by sex? Isn't that what the research is showing? Boys in particular, the girls seem to be going the opposite direction. Polar. Yeah, and there's lots of speculation. So you're saying girls are? Are getting more towards the woke, more towards, and the boys are going in the opposite direction.

Oh yeah, and the boys are going towards, I saw that. And that, yes, I think I saw that. The other thing I wanted to tell you what was very interesting, I can't remember when you were saying and I turned to, oh yes, the other thing about play was what I wanted to mention, which is I think really important just in terms of interconnectedness is nobody's dating anymore. Yeah, nobody is like going out and like dating No one knows how to act with the opposite sex. So porn is up like a thousand percent Nobody's talking about that. That is a huge problem huge problem. It's causing so many issues Have you ever heard of me tell the story of our intern who was working for us when he was 16, 17?

No. Okay, so we had an intern. This was like five, six years ago. And he was 16, 17 years old. I can't remember how he was young, right? He was just at a high school. And we were asking him questions about what's high school like and hanging out and do they have parties on weekends and this and that?

And we're asking, oh yeah, you know, sometimes they do not a lot, you know, but occasionally there's a party and I'm like, okay, well then when you go there and you see a girl you like, like, how does that play out? Like any, and when he told me, and this is like how all his friends do would handle this situation. If there was a girl at a high school party that you were interested in, it's in the same party as you are, you wouldn't walk over to her and say anything to her. You would pull your phone out, add her as a friend on Facebook and wait to see if she adds you back. If she

adds you back, then you then engage with her on DM her on Facebook. And then if she responds you then, then you would go over and potentially talk to her. That's how you would handle that situation. I thought that was so crazy that you would do that when someone's 10 feet away. You don't find that to be, like that to me is like crazy. Socially abnormal. Beyond crazy.

It's also, if you're a young man listening right now, the, like you can be such an, it's such an easy way. Yeah, you're a stud if you just go over and say hi. Just go say hi to. If you're the guy who has the balls to go over and just say hi and be willing to fail. Think about it, the barrier to entry right now today, the person is so, the bar is so low,

if you just go up to them, like right away, that's all you need to do. But that to me is like, doesn't that tell you something about where our society, our culture is going? Yeah, what this points to for me, because I can use fitness as an example, is when you have obese, unhealthy kids, you almost always have obese, unhealthy parents.

So children who are anxious, depressed, they can't be bored, they're always on devices, they never go out, they don't also have parents who are doing the same thing. Right. And there's so much research that backs that, that kids learn 73%… I mean, I have all these crazy stats in my head from doing the TED Talk, right? Because I researched the hell out of this whole thing. But it was like 73% better by watching versus

listening because after a while nobody's listening, like everything, everything kind of, just kind of just blends after a while, you're not paying attention. So kids mimic what they see. Oh yeah. So for an example, right, all four of us were big workout people, right?

So most likely our kids are going to like adopt some of those habits. If you want your kid to be active, you as a parent should be active. If you want your kid to really understand nutrition, then you need to be eating a certain way. Kids will follow what you do. Not to mention, I think that the fitness element is crucial because what fitness does and was done for me and I'm sure it's done for you is it taught me accountability, it taught me discipline, it taught me delayed gratification. These are

core life skills that are transferable in every walk of life And if your kid is doing that at a young age, then they're taking those with them. Yeah. Yeah. I think a big problem with this or challenge, I say not problem, is that there's so much value in the real world, but it requires more work. And what we've created are cheap substitutes

Totally. for the real world. So like you talk about pornography, as a teenage boy, you know, I had drivers to go talk to girls. Very overwhelming, powerful driver. Teenage boy understands this. Now I couldn't relieve those drivers

with pornography every five seconds, with extreme novelty. I didn't have it. When I was 14 years old, you know, you could trade a bike for a dirty magazine. That's how hard they were to get. It was so strictly regulated. So I had to muster the courage because these drivers are actually, in particular for young

men, they're drivers for creativity. They're drivers to get you out of fear because it's scary. You're 14 years old. You're going to go talk to a girl that you're interested in, and that is scary. She's gonna say no, she probably will, you're gonna feel like a piece of crap, you gotta go talk to her friends around her, your friends are watching you, what am I gonna do?

But to do that, you end up building these incredible life skills through this challenge. And speaking for young men now, because I think for women it's different, but I also think they develop skills out of this as well. For a young man to be attractive to other girls, that's not nothing. You gotta learn how to kind of grow up,

you gotta clean up a little bit, you gotta present yourself, not like a creep. Feedback. You gotta kind of be funny, so you gotta learn a little bit of skill, you gotta learn how to communicate properly, you gotta show some courage, these are all things that girls value.

So I gotta develop all that. Well, if I was a 14 year old with a smartphone in my room with more sexual novelty than kings a thousand years ago didn't even have, like that drive is gone. I have no drive. Cause I'm just in my room stuck and there's no girl that could even match that artificial

process, you know, whatever. Can I say one more thing? Can I just interject? Also, because of that phone, you're not learning that failure piece, right? So you're so fearful of rejection. You don't even have to worry about rejection. There's no such thing as rejection if you're just stuck on a phone watching porn. So you'd rather do that.

And now with AI, you can have a fake girlfriend who just talks really nice. You can pick the voice you want. You can pick the voice. You can pick the answers. You can pick how she speaks to you, what she says to you, what dirty talk you like. It's making it like it's literally eliminating any ability for any type of rejection and human contact. That's right.

The only question I have with the AI piece, which I have not yet figured out and maybe because maybe my mind is limited in this way, how do you have sex with an AI creature? Are you just jacking off with listening to the voice? No, they'll make dolls. They're already making dolls that are very realistic. Are you just like, are you just jacking off with like listening to the voice? No, no, no. They're already in, yeah, they're already making dolls that are very realistic. Yeah, they'll make dolls, but you know, it could get real twisted when you're talking about that lustful drive.

It could get real twisted. We were just talking about this today before you got here. This was part of our conversation and just that this is the direction we're going. The inevitable is going to happen though. And we've also draw the, drew the parallel to 3D printing and be able to have all these consumer goods. We're in our lifetime or definitely in our kids' lifetime, you are going to be able to have access to almost anything and everything you could possibly want. And what we're going to find out is we'll be more miserable and more unhappy than we've ever been

in our life, yet we have access and availability of anything and everything we want. Well, that's what's happening now. But look what's happening also, like look at the fact that like we have, I think overconsumption or haven't you ever heard, like my mother would always say to me, too many, you know, if you have too many options,

you end up with nothing, right? Like that's why the prettiest girl always ends up alone, right? Cause she can pick from everything. She becomes so particular and picky that she ends up with no date. And all her friends who are mediocre or not that great are all married, happily living with like boyfriends, husbands, kids. And the prettiest girl is alone because too many options

almost always leaves you with nothing because of that. But, okay, go ahead. No, no, I was gonna say with girls, with the dating apps, what's happened with young women is it can continue, it reinforces this idea that they're, because you get on a dating app, I don't care what kind of girl you are, especially if you're offering sex,

you're gonna get a million and one different requests. And they're 99% gonna be invisible to you, going to get a million and one different requests. Right, 100%. And they're 99% going to be invisible to you except for that one dude that's over six foot tall, makes over six figures. Caught the biggest fish. And the data on that's funny. It's like 5% of men fit in this category. It actually is 2%.

Yeah, it's crazy, I know. And so it's creating this really distorted world of what's happening. Meanwhile, while people are not interacting in the real world, and to what Adam said, the social interactions, the social skills, the brain is very plastic when you're a child. So like learning a language, you can learn multiple languages as a child and never develop an accent.

You can speak them all fluently. You learn them as an adult, and you can tell which one's your native language and which one you learned as an adult. Social skills, the ability to approach people, talk to them, deal with situations, fail, whatever. You don't develop those as a kid, you're permanently disabled. I mean, I feel like sports, play, working out are the three things that we have to find

a way to get our kids involved in. So you did listen to my TED Talk. Is that what you thought? I nailed it with a little bit of a... I say that fitness, huge. Team sports, huge. Anyone who's not putting their kids in team sports between the ages of, let's say, three to 10 is doing a major disservice to your kid because that's where you learn all these team building things. If you are going to allow them to use the phone and iPads and tools like that,

you have to at least counterbalance. You have to. Otherwise, you are almost for sure signing them up to have social anxiety, depression, and all those things. If they, you allow that and you don't put them in those because there's hope if they at least get a team sport because they're gonna learn You know what I love about sports is you're gonna fail. You're someone's gonna be better than you It's merit. You're gonna have to communicate. I think you just said the key thing though. Somebody is gonna be better than you This is what we have not spoken about yet guys, which is in life. There are winners. There are losers there are people who are average there are people who are better than average and guess what? You may not have great talent, but if you work your ass off, you can move yourself from

a three to a seven. That's where you learn these things. This is where parents really are screwing up their kids because they want to tell their kids, oh, you're amazing, you're the best, you're the best. Worst thing you can do. By telling your kid how great they are, worst thing you can do. No, praise their work.

Praise their work and their effort. Don't tell them how great they are. You know why that's a problem? The reason why that's an issue is if you, this happened to me as a kid, if you constantly tell a kid, you're so smart, you're so smart, or you're so pretty,, you're so smart, you're so smart, or you're so pretty, or you're so great, you're so great,

the second they encounter a challenge that counters that, they'll crumble. They'll flee. This happened to me as a kid. I was always told how smart I was. You're so smart, you're so smart, you're so smart. And then I got into. Oh, I did that to you too.

And then I'm, that's okay, as an adult, you can say it all you want, except figure this out. But then when I encountered actual challenges, I'm like, oh, I'm struggling, and I can't even try. Because I don't want to destroy the image of how smart I was versus, wow, I can see

you really worked hard at that. I can see you enjoy that. Or see, look, I say that to my daughter all the time. I'm like, look, you put so much effort into that, you worked so hard on that, and now look at the results of this versus basically praising that effort versus just like, oh, you're so wonderful. Anything you do is great. Or the coach doesn't like you, screw him. Let's go to another team.

Soon they grow. Because that's what's happening. Parents are pulling their kids off of teams of sports because their kids are not getting enough playtime. The coaches are benching them, which is happening all the time. And so basically, the parents are moving them to different teams. And where the coaches now are like, it becomes this whole thing where coaches are so scared and fearful of losing these players, losing the money, where now everybody's going to have equal amount of time to play. Equal amount of time.

Are you familiar with how NIL is doing that to college sports right now? No. It's a nightmare. Right now there's this huge problem in college sports with the introduction of NIL, which is basically kids that can get paid now for sports. Oh yeah.

And because they have these options, you have scenarios where a college football team or college basketball team goes and shops all the other schools that are willing to set them up with better NIDL deals. And then the whole team leaves at once. So literally the coach comes in the next season and all of his players are looking to move out somewhere else because they've been able to shop other people. The grass is greener on the other side.

Someone else is willing to pay them. Someone else is willing. And so we haven't even figured out how we're going to solve this. When I was coaching, it was like, dude, I had never heard of kids transferring just to get to another school because they thought they had a better opportunity. Sorry, you live here, you go to this school. And it was like this loyalty, there's no loyalty anymore. The coaches are having to face that. No, it's terrible. Well, here's what you, so this is the thing about sports that I think a lot of people don't realize because we're listing all the attributes, but really the reason why sports

exist in the first place, the reason why games exist in the first place, is what games are is games are life, but boiled down to an hour or an hour and a half with specific rules so we can play the game of life in this sport or this game. It's a microcosm. That's all it is, that's all it is. And so you're practicing life is what you're doing. And what we've done, two things that we've done with sports that have, in my opinion, ruined it.

One is everybody wins, nobody loses, which is stupid. Not keeping score. Because there is, because they're not learning life in that sense, because life is because life hits you all the time, okay? The other thing is we've, on the other extreme, is we've boiled sports into money. You make money, that's what's good about this. So now these kids who are getting paid

aren't learning life. They're just learning it's about money. Yeah, totally. Which is equally terrible. So when you put your kids in sports, what you need to think about is, my child is practicing the game of life for the next 45 minutes.

That's all they're doing. And so if they sit on the bench, what does that show about life? Sometimes you can't participate. Sometimes you can't participate, but they need to support because that's how life is. Or when they're playing and they're winning, there's lessons there too.

Hey, you did a good job. Oh, your pride is building up. Let's talk about that for a second. You're not a badass like you think you are. Make sure you support your other teammates. Or they get their asses kicked and they lose. Great lessons in losing because that's what life's going to show you. They learn how to work with other people. They need to learn how to work with difficult people. That's it. It's all of that. It's conflict resolution. It's conflict resolution is a big one. And also it shows you who are nationally born leaders and where you are in the slot of life. I think it's a very teachable moment, right? I think that you can learn a lot about your own dynamic, what makes kids likeable versus

not likeable, how you treat others, how you will be then treated or whatever these things are. These are fundamental qualities that are just being completely decimated. I love that you said that about leadership because what's great about that, and so you got to think about as a parent again, think about life for a second. I think when we think of sports, we think the automatic leader is the best player on the team. There are many teams where the worst player is the leader of the team because they're the one that pull the team forward. They're the ones like that, what's that movie, Rudy? Where you got that kid on the team that sucks, but everybody rallies around them because of their spirit, because they bring everybody together. So it's not about your kid being the best or the

worst or in the middle. It's so much more complicated. The problem with it is it seems simple. And so we relegated it to, oh, it's just you've scored a goal or you don't, maybe we shouldn't have them lose because the kids cry when they lose and we don't want that type of deal. No, no, no. It is way more complex. And as long as society has existed, games have existed.

And the reason why they've existed is because they're extremely, extremely valuable, so putting your kids in them is incredibly important. Games have existed and the reason why they've existed is because they're extremely extremely valuable So putting your kids in them is incredibly important and then back to like challenging with your kids We've talked about this right our kids are growing up very Privileged from a worldly sense right my kids have way more money than I did as a kid they live in a nicer house It's like you know they have to worry about a lot of things that I did So how am I gonna help them become resilient? You know what I'm gonna do?

Because they're still gonna have challenges. They're gonna get frustrated when they try to build something that doesn't work. They're gonna get upset when something happens they don't want. They're gonna go play with the kid that they don't like or whatever. I don't jump in.

I let them feel it. I'll just go say that. So I create this kind of Lord of the Flies type of scenario, right? That's a little far. Where I feel like the survive, what we should do with our kids. It's the truth though. We should create a Lord of the Flies

scenario with our kids and the survival of the fittest, right? Like I don't jump in. I want my kid to, I want to see how they fend for themselves without me getting involved. That's socially. Yes. That's with a lot of stuff. There's been a ton of situations recently with my daughter, right?

Because girls can be horrid. Okay, girls are worse than boys. And it starts young, right? With social and all these other emotional social. You guys are born more socially intelligent. That's why. You understand social complexity. So girls do the whole like... Well, girls are catty at any age. Well, they build their alliances.

They build their alliances like Lord of the Flies. I'm telling you, it's very much like Lord of the Flies. And it's so easy for, especially because you don't want to see your kid hurting. It's like horrible, right? Yeah. Right. To not jump in, right? Right. But like the second you jump in, you're taking that game and you're like, the game is over, right? Mm-hmm. You need to see how your kid can actually

fend for themselves in that environment. With girls especially, it's a doggy dog world out there for these girls. Yeah. Let's see how you survive or how you fed for yourself. So I like to just sit back and watch. Now, as much as it kills me, because I want to like tear the head off of some of these 10 year

old girls, I swear I would if I wasn't going to be put in jail. But at the same time, like that's how they build grit. Like that's how they build toughness. That's how you really build toughness when you really step away as a parent and say, you know what, you're doing this on your own. You're going to take care of that fight by

yourself. You're going to go, if you want to go on that dance group, if you want to be on that soccer team, you got to practice or you're going to be booted out. Put them in places where it's hard. Make them do shit that they don't want to do. Put them on teams they don't want to be on and see how they fend for themselves.

That social integration piece that you're describing, if there's conflict amongst the peers and the groups, they have to learn how to interact with each other and resolve it themselves. They will if you stay out of the way. They absolutely will. And this is what I've learned from my observation and meeting a bazillion people I know, and I'm sure you guys too have maybe found the same thing. The people that had the most challenges as kids

were the best adults. They were the coolest. They were the most resourceful. They were the strongest. They were the most like able, like willing and abled, for people who had true success in life. You know, you're right. The root of this, you gotta see, this is important though.

The root of this is a child has to feel secure with their parent and that's because they have a home base that they feel secure with. Yes. They can take these risks. Unless they just boot them out and be like, bye, you're not coming back home. No, but the people are like,

what's that security look like? The security looks like this. I have a consistent parent there who's consistent with me. They're not sometimes gonna scream at me when I do something. They're just very consistent. They're fair and honest. They're fair, they're honest. They're there for me emotionally,

so I'm gonna go to them and be like, the soccer team won't let me play. And mom's like, that sucks, you know, I'm here for you. But mom's not going to go talk to the coach. Well, that's the thing. I'm not going to fix it for you, but I'm here to provide you with that security. So they feel secure with that home base. That's the truth. That's a very good point.

That is. Now, I'm going to tell, it's going to be controversial, and I'm sure people are going to get mad at this. This is a fact though. I'll argue this all day long. The root of what's happened with what you're labeling is woke Culture or what you're labeling is like this gentle parenting or letting your kids do whatever the root of this because a lot of what you're talking about play risk challenge figure this out kiddo is dad and Dad has been gone. So if you look at the data on what has happened and dad has been gone. So if you look at the data on what has happened culturally,

there are a lot of fatherless homes that have existed, a lot of moms, and moms have tons of value, but what moms don't do nearly as well as dads, and the data's a fact on this, okay, rough and tumble play, and pushing your kids a little bit to take risks, right? Mom's the one that says, don't throw them so high in the air, that's scary,

like, oh wait, don't let them do that thing, and dad's the one that's like, no, no, we'll push them, that's scary. Like, oh wait, don't let them do that thing. And dad's the one that's like, no, no, no, we'll push them a little bit. Let's let them go do this thing a little bit. And so dads have been gone, moms have been going to the games, and it's moms that are saying everybody needs to get a trophy. It's not fair that my kid is crying. It's not fair that my kid isn't playing.

And I'm not blaming moms. Moms are doing the best that they can. Dad's gone. So dad needs to be involved, and it's the dads that provide what you're the best that they can. Dad's gone. So dad needs to be involved and it's the dads that provide what you're talking about that's lacking. So a lot of this is the non-involvement of fathers. When dads are involved, you see a lot of this. That's an interesting- That's very interesting.

Yeah, because if you take like, again, this is anecdotal because my own experience, right, I think right away my two best friends, I go all the way back to their child, they would tell you that their dad couldn't do anything. And they both come from homes, parents are married, stay together forever. Mom ran everything. Mom ran everything. Dad worked, dad worked all day long, did his thing. And I mean, they didn't turn out weak. They both are strong men and successful and figured it out without dad being involved. So I don't know if you can pinpoint it to that. Because mom can do that. Mom could potentially... So here's what the data shows. Dad just being there is a million times better than dad not even being there. No, I agree with you. But what's better than that is a dad that's involved, who's consistent, who

provides those things. Like rough and tumble plays a big deal, right so Playing rough with your kids which dads seem to do I mean, so here's I guess I guess the point that I'm trying to argue because I what you're gonna hear from me And it's just because I have such a strong stance on the iPhone Been screaming it on this podcast for fucking ten years almost now I just think that that takes away so much. You're right. That all these things that you're saying isn't,

you're not wrong, you're right. Cause these trends were happening before the iPhone. Okay, I think you're totally right. So it requires it because otherwise, if, cause let's say you don't have a dad, I mean obviously I didn't have the most consistent parenting stuff going on at my house and figured all this stuff out.

But I played and I interacted with kids and I did sport. And so because I did all that, it filled all those gaps. And without that, I feel like- Have you seen children without fathers who play organized sports and what the coach does for them? Yes. Okay. First of all, this is what's interesting about both of this. You're both right. So if we didn't have smartphones and there's so much data on this, we would be left with hours and hours a day to be bored. We would have to figure shit out. We would have to be like, okay, where's Bobby at? Maybe we can go for a bike ride. Where's Lucy? Maybe we can climb that tree or do this painting because now every time, every minute, even if we're

in an elevator for 27 seconds, we're scrolling our phone because God forbid we have a moment. But if we took away the phone or the smartphones and the iPads, that will leave us with all this time to basically distract ourselves in a good way with actual socialization, dating, doing real things in life. The other thing that you said, Sal, about the lack of fathers is a 1 million percent. If you look at data on that as well, because the dads provide a role that a mother just simply cannot. My question to you is, where did all the dads go now beyond where they were before? Is it because they're working constantly? Are they working more? Are they just like-

It's still a huge fatherless problem. Why? That's true, but why? Well, that's a deeper question. I mean, I think marriage has been devalued. I think that they've lost their sense of community, which you need. As a married couple, that was the church for a long time and then that was you think it's more today than it was 20 years ago? It's about it's maybe a little better but it's still bad. My argument is like I don't think it's any different. I think that your point though that you're making that I agree with is that

because of the introduction of that robbing those kids of so much that his role becomes paramount. It's like your mom, that's not what she gives, that's not her thing. God bless the single moms that have to try and figure both out, but that's not what her strength is. That's dad's strength. And then if he's not going to be playing with friends, playing sports, and things like that, you've got to step the fuck up, or it's almost guaranteed he's gonna get in the wrong. I just think that that phone has robbed these kids of so much of that stuff that you- Of life.

I mean, I look at, this is something where my son, I have a very sensitive son who, like his default is to cry when he doesn't get his way or doesn't like things, he'll start to get sad and he'll cry. And like watching him interact with kids, he's younger than a lot of kids. So a lot of times they're stronger. They take, they dominate a little bit more. So I definitely have this kid who I am trying to build that resiliency and, you know, we'll let that, we'll let it unfold. But the conversations I'm having to have with him a lot

are things like, Max, listen, sometimes you don't get to play what you want. Sometimes you got to play what Timmy wants you to. You don't always get to play what you want to do. And so either one, you play with what they want, you play and do what they want to do for a while, or you go do your own thing, but you don't cry. You don't cry because you don't get to play this way or do that. That's not how you do this. That's not how real. So I'm having to have a lot of conversations like that because of, and thank God we foster that play and making sure he's doing that with kids and he doesn't get all this. But it is, I could see that if you didn't, if I didn't insert myself in those conversations

and teach him that lesson, then he could easily become that really soft kid who just every time he doesn't get what he wants, cries and defaults to that. Yeah, yeah. The fire started with fatherless homes and the gasoline, the social media, the internet and smartphones. But it started before that and now you have a situation where we are trying to, here's the problem. The problem is that parents, you are competing with something that you're going to lose

against. You give the child an opportunity to choose between a smartphone and outside, smartphone is going to win. It's engineered to win. Every time. So it has to be gone and they can't see you on it. That's a big one. They can't see you on it. You also have to, and you think that's hard for you, well guess what it's going to be for your kid. Well, that's the problem because if we're having a hard time with it, can you imagine how a young 10-year-old's going to feel?

The only answer to solving this problem is not giving your kid a phone until 16 years old. You're right. And I'm not kidding you. I wish as a society we would band together on that. I wish we would all come together on that. The same way we don't let kids drive cars until they're 16. We shouldn't allow them to have that kind of access.

That's why I did this stupid Ted Talk. When I say stupid, I mean like that's why I did this Ted Talk because I wanted to band together with parents and educators to come together for this exact message. You know what happened when I tried to do this? Because my kid is now 12 years old and all his friends have phones and I wanted to, I really wanted to kind of stunt that. I didn't want to give him a phone, but all his friends had a phone. So I went to a bunch of moms and said, listen, could we just not give them, like, could we try to maybe just extend the period of time before we give our kids the phones, nobody, nobody was on board.

Not one. And so I was the only mom who gave my kid a phone that's kind of like the equivalent of a flip phone. No social media on the phone, no internet on the phone. It's just a phone where he can text me and he could call me for safety reasons. Right? And the problem with that becomes tenfold, right? Because other parents don't want to do that because their life is easier with the kid has the phone because then they can do whatever the hell

they want a lot of times. And when you work like me or like a lot of other working moms, you kind of need that built-in babysitter to eliminate. The problem is the only answer is when we as a society unite and not give the kids full access. Let me help you out with that because this is really hard because otherwise you're isolated. If you're isolated- And if you're isolated... Exactly, it becomes another problem.

If you're isolated as a parent, you're screwed. So what you need to do is find a group of people who live like you do. And that way they have friends, their kids live like your kids do. So we did this with our church. We've done this with our church because here we found all these people that follow the same values. So it's not weird when my kids are hanging out with these other kids and they're all doing the same thing. Versus if I have other friends who are different, their kids come over and now I've become totally isolated.

By the way, this is true for all things, okay? So I can bring it back to fitness. Your kids do what everybody else is gonna do. They're gonna be fat and they're gonna be unhealthy and they're gonna have chronic health conditions. They have to kind of be different and if you don't going to be fat and they're going to be unhealthy and they're going to have chronic health conditions. They have to kind of be different. And if you don't want to be isolated, you're going to have to surround yourself with people. So as a parent, it's challenging, but it's always been challenging. But the way that we used to do it in the past was we had big families, big extended families,

and we belonged to communities. And that doesn't happen as much. And so you feel a bit isolated. So you've got to surround yourself with other families that are similar or you're screwed. You'll give in. If your kid's the one that's left out, now you're dealing with this other problem. Well my kid now is left out. Now their friends are all communicating together on Snapchat or whatever. They're having all those conversations, developing friendships and my kid has no friends. So now I'm dealing with the, well do I let them be lonely? That seems worse than allowing them to use Snapchat so they can hang out with their friends. You got to find parents who believe in the same thing so that

your kid doesn't feel isolated. So it's even more difficult. This is a very layered conversation right because? Because it's not just like, just do this and you'll be fine. Like that's not at all what, and by the way, we're all in the same challenges, right? Because we're all working parents, we all understand how we need to make it easy for us to get work done.

There's no easy answer. All I'm saying is that we need to stop giving our kids phones at such an early age. For sure. Because I'm talking even before all of that. I'm talking at three, four, five years old where they become so, their brains become so used to that the way that the phone is, their neuroplasticity will change and adapt to the phone as opposed to knowing about socialization and friendships

and all these other things. You're like, you're taking a mind that's basically like putty and you're creating this dependency on really terrible things. You know what the statistics are? So Adam brought this up the other day. I don't remember what was, what an alarming percentage it was. Prison one? Yeah. How many, what was the percentage? So that the average kid today sees less sunlight and daylight

than a prisoner does. So your average kid today gets outside less than what our prisoners do. How crazy is that? They have two days, the prisoners have two times a day where they get to come out, take a walk outside and do their thing. Yeah. And they on average get more time outside than our children do today. Here's another alarming one. You know what the average age of a kid who sees pornography on the internet is?

What? 10. 10. 10. That's the average age a kid comes across some kind of nudity or pornography on the internet. What was it 20 years ago? Oh, I don't know. I don't know. But, I mean, that's terrible.

Oh, it's... Well, I was in high school when I saw my first dirty magazine, I think. Yeah. But we had like... When we were young, we had Playboy. That's what I mean. That was all I saw my first dirty magazine, I think. Yeah. But we had like, you know, when we were young, we had Playboy. That's what I mean. That was all I... That was all you had.

But you had like five pages of the same, like this kid, if they go on the internet, it's like infinite craziness. Crazy stuff. And so what we didn't say earlier about this was when you guys were young, you guys had Playboy, you looked at what, like some boobs or whatever. You looked at what, like some boobs and whatever. But like now it is so nasty raunchy stuff that like people, guys now believe that's what's like the norm.

So when they actually meet a girl in like, in IRL in real time or whatever, in real life or they, their expectations are so outrageous that nothing will ever match that expectation. So they just rather go back to porn versus like dealing with a girl and her issues and like whatever like, you know, stuff that she has to deal with. It's classic. So it's actually worse than people realize because it has drug-like effects but it's also acting on a very strong natural driver that we need to have.

We're supposed to have this driver. Yeah. So what it's doing is it's manipulating this natural driver and distorting it, and it's got profound negative impacts on our life. And the data on this now is becoming super clear on what it does. But what happens with all drugs, right, caffeine is an example. You have one cup of coffee, I'm zooming. Three days later, if I drink it every day, I need another cup. Totally.

So what's happened, and the stats and the data on this is really interesting, is that pornography has gotten more and more and more extreme to meet consumer demand because of the novelty effect is- Weaker. They got to keep going. And it gets worse and worse and worse to the point now where it's, some of the top viewed things are things that allude to incestual relationships and stuff that is like, what is going on here? Right, just to kind of keep it as-

Violence and yeah. Because you're right, because you become so desensitized to whatever you are watching. It's like caffeine, like you said, it's like, you know, working out. We're wired to seek novelty as creatures. We're wired to go out and if that's no longer novel, seeing gang bangs every day, it's like, I need the next level, the next novel thing. So it just, that's the natural progression.

And I don't think a lot of people, I think it's something that a lot of men are embarrassed about or don't share and don't talk about. And so I think it's something that a lot of men are embarrassed about or don't share and don't talk about. And so I think it's even worse than what we realize. I could look at it right now. I am a grown man. Okay. And I went off, I completely went off pornography over a year ago because I saw the data, all that stuff. Plus I had a spiritual conversion and went off at complete. It was actually great. But I remember trying to go off of it before and it was really challenging as a grown man. I couldn't imagine being a 15 year old boy

with a smartphone. Couldn't imagine what that would have done to me as a 15 year old boy with that kind of access. That would have been, you might as well have handed me cocaine every day and said, here you go, good luck. Let's see what happens. I can't imagine, and this is what's happening, when you're giving your kid a smartphone

You're giving them access to everything the world not everything everything all of its terrible is in there It's really really crazy So do I mean are you guys I there's I'm optimistic I feel like You know the there's there's more and more TED Talks and books that are coming out and more and more parents. We have enough years now behind us and we're seeing all these things unravel and get worse. And so I want to believe that we're in the thick of some of the hardest times when it comes to this because I feel bad for parents like you guys who, like I have a five-year-old. So I had already read the book Irresistible, Unplugged. I read those books before I had him, iGen. So I was very

like on top of that right away. Whereas I can't imagine if I have it, I had a 19-year-old or 15-year-old when iPhone was brand new and everybody was celebrating how great it was, not realizing like, I don't think a lot of parents that have got teenagers right now were thinking about how detrimental this was going to be, where I think it's a conversation now. So I'm optimistic about where we're heading. I think that we're just, we're barely just starting to create a lot of awareness around it. And I want to believe in society will, will figure it out or will be, and I think it'll become more common that when you go to a bunch of parents like that, they're going to, I mean, I just experienced this with my son.

I told these guys on air the other night or the other day that, uh, my, we went up to our truckie place up, up in Tahoe and I, we went with a couple that I'd never hung out with. It was my son's best friend at school. And this is the first time I'm hanging out with them so I don't really know the parents, I'm getting to know them. And we're like on the second or the third day and I make a comment to the dad. I said, Hey, I noticed your son hasn't asked for an iPad or anything this entire time we've been up here. And he's like, Oh yeah, no, he works for Netflix. and he's like, Oh yeah, no, we, we, he works for Netflix and he's like, Oh yeah, we, we, he, we won't even let him watch it or have it. We've not introduced it to him. And I said, I love that. I said, so yeah. So it's so

cool to meet other parents that are aware of that and have just made the conscious choice and not even, and it's so cool because my son and him, they don't even, they don't even think twice about it because we, we regulate that really closely at our house. And then here he is playing with another kid who doesn't. So it's not a problem. It's not hard because he's with another kid who has parents.

So I'm hoping that we'll see more of this. Well, I think also, to your point, Sal, about basically surrounding yourself with people who are like-minded, like building that community is so important because it's very easy when you basically are peer pressured into doing things because as a parent, I also think it depends on where you live, right? Like Los Angeles versus living in maybe Kansas is very, very different in terms of different pressures, what you kind of are around, what you're, you know what I mean? To me, that makes a major difference as well. You're the belly of the beast.

You are the belly of the beast. I am. But what's going to say is what I actually find super interesting too is to what you just said about the guy that you were with who works at Netflix. What I find super curious is why is it that people who work for Metta, who work for TikTok, as I say, isn't that interesting? If you read so- They will not allow their kids on these things. This is what blew my mind when I read Irresistible. There's a great book by Adam Alter called Irresistible. And I remember sharing it on the podcast years ago with these guys. And I was like, dude dude and the guys who created this tech

Don't allow their kids to use it Because they knew how much they were making this to be a big model enough that they wouldn't even allow their own kids You guys and what does that tell you if the creators of it? That's what I find to be so fascinating And if they're at the people who actually created it's actually what you were saying It's it's true. They what they do is they basically mimic slot machines in Vegas. That's how they created it. People don't realize this is-

It has blue light in it. These things are not made for you and I, the users. It's a marketing machine. That's why the algorithm picks up and tracks what you watch to give you more of it so they can make money off of you. This is, they didn't do this out of the goodness of their heart. They didn't create Instagram and TikTok, say, here you go, be entertained for 24 hours a day.

They did it because they knew they can make money, they can sell you all sorts of stupid random shit that you would otherwise never know about. And people just are not realizing this is not for them. That's why people who create and make their businesses on Instagram, the smartest thing you can do

is take your audience and take them off of Instagram. Get them into a different database so you can then, because this is rent and not owned. You don't own Instagram. They're making money off of you, not vice versa. I'm also hopeful too. I'm not big on government policy, but if enough parents band together

and actually start pressuring schools in a lot of these places where, obviously this is affecting kids to a degree where we saw the detriment of cigarettes and we saw the detriment of cigarettes and we saw the detriment of alcohol and we're like, okay, we need more restriction and access here. And so you see a little bit of this in Florida where they're experimenting with like an age for social media at least.

And it seems to me that if this subject keeps coming up, we keep having these kinds of conversations, more people bring that awareness to it. It's like we need to all really start pressuring and affecting policymakers. There's light at the end of the tunnel. So there's a small spike or you're starting to see a small rise in kids who are getting flip phones. They're actually wanting them themselves. You're seeing- I saw, I posted about that the other day. There's a rise in young men who are going off pornography. There's groups online that talk about this. And for the first time in I don't know how many decades,

you've seen declining rates of church attendance and Christianity, right, the main religion in America, has flattened out and started starting to reverse. And the largest growth is in Gen Z. The largest growth in that is Gen Z. And they're going for the more traditional orthodox versions of Christianity, which to me points to the fact they need some structure. They're looking for structure and discipline because they're like, I can do whatever I want. This doesn't feel good. I feel like crap. I like

going to this place that's like, here's how we live. It feels much more secure and better and I'm getting some purpose in my life. So there is some light at the end of the tunnel. There are some schools also who are becoming phone free in Australia. They passed a law that you cannot bring a phone. There's some schools already in the US that have done that. But you know what? It's bringing awareness and the more you talk about

it and the more we educate people on the actual true data and effects that this is having, hopefully the more people will kind of band together and do that. Kids thrive in an environment with a predictable, consistent structure, love, support, and empathy, and where you allow them in an age appropriate way to overcome challenges and obstacles. If you do those three things, you've done like 99% of all of it.

If it's an inconsistent environment with no structure or discipline, you're gonna raise a very anxious kid who doesn't know what to expect. If you raise a kid with no love, that obviously, if anybody understands, that totally screws them up. And if you don't let them encounter challenges and actually feel the struggle of the challenge, you're going to raise a kid that's fragile.

And by the way, one of the ways that parents do this is you got a kid who's crying because they didn't get what they want. And one thing, a big mistake that parents made, I did this with my older kids, is you put on, oh, no, stop really, let's put on your favorite show. And what you did is you taught your child to disassociate from the challenge. They're distracting themselves from whatever they were going through,

and then they become adults that disassociate from challenges, rather than letting them be uncomfortable, which makes you uncomfortable as a parent. So you gotta ask yourself, I do this all the time, like, is it me? My kid's having a fit right now and I'm having problem with it, but I'm uncomfortable with it. So I've got to let them sit through this.

I'll be there with them and I'll sit next to them, but I've got to let them feel this thing. I've got to deal with my own uncomfortable feelings around it. So a lot of this is actually training the parents to be uncomfortable with discomfort also, right? That's what I'm saying. It's very interesting because it's a dual thing here because it is very uncomfortable to watch your kid be uncomfortable and struggle. Nobody likes to see that. And I'm a Jewish mom on top

of it, so you can imagine. So, it's extra hard for me, right? It's extra, extra hard. But I mean, It's extra, extra hard. But I mean, being cognizant of what the issue is and working through it because like I said, it's very easy just to give in. And we've trained our brains at us to know better. And so we just have to kind of apply that with our kids. Yeah. And it's age appropriate stuffate stuff too, right? Like your one-year-old throws food on the floor,

not a big deal. Your 10-year-old throws food on the floor, it's different. Yeah. Right, so like my four-year-old's a great example. Like up until relatively recently, maybe a little while ago, every time we played a game, he would win because he doesn't understand losing.

He just understands if I win, I win, I win. But not around the age of three and a half or four is when they start to figure out or they need to figure out that they can lose. So what do I do with them now? We play Uno, right? And so now we'll play Uno and now every five games I'll win. And he's, oh, okay, I'll try again. Now at two years old, he'll cry, he doesn't know what's going on. I don't want to play anymore. You crush your kid. So there's age-appropriate ways to allow your child to encounter challenges, because you also don't wanna do this.

There's also the authoritative non-loving parent, which raises psychopaths. So it's the parent that's like, and it's the parent that raises the kid, no, no, do it this way and that's it, and you're free, whatever. You raise a psychopath that way. So there is a way to do this

by figuring out the age appropriate ways to, you know, like your kid cries because, uh, they fell off their bike, but they're five, like, okay, that's fine. You're, you're 15 year old falls down and cries every time they fall off their bike. Like we're gonna have to talk about this. Exactly. But you know, just to what you just said, you know, I never let my kids win at games ever, ever, ever.

Yeah. When they were one or two, I'd be like, yeah, you won. Yeah, as they get older. As they get older, I play Rummy Cube with them, I play Uno with them, I play all those things. I'm trying, my kid beats me nine out of 10 times because I've been trained to actually have to put

effort in it because again, that's a microcosm for life. They're not going to win at everything and they're going to have to put effort in it. Because again, that's a microcosm for life. They're not gonna win at everything and they're gonna have to try. And if I just allow them just to kind of beat me every time, what am I really teaching them? It's important to learn this stuff too. The age appropriate like two. Well I didn't do it at two,

but I'm sure as hell doing it at nine. Like two or three year olds playing together. You're like no, you need to share. Two year olds don't understand that. They play in tandem, they play on their own. play on their own parallel play. Yeah for five years olds No, now, you know, you can't always play the way you want you got to play what other people want to so then you start so it's age appropriate is important because what can happen is You can get the parents that are

authoritative and abusive who hear this like yeah, I Am I can't smack them whenever they win? you're not doing the right thing either, buddy. Do you guys think that the traditional values around gender roles and moving away from that has played a role in this also? Totally. When I hear you guys, what we're communicating right now, too, there's a lot of qualities that mom

just does a really good job of doing, and the ones where dad, and it almost allows, you don't have to have this perfect balance. Dad could kind of be the hard ass who's always doing that, maybe isn't the best at showing love and affection because mom comes back behind all the time and picks her son up and makes him feel loved. Yeah, because you know what you have?

You have an inconsistent environment when one person does both. Is mom going to act like a dad or mom today? Is she hard or is she soft today? That's actually interesting and that's very true. You know, it's interesting. When I tell my kids not to do something, I'm like, don't do that. Or if I'm yelling at my kids, but if my husband says it, they listen. They buck up really quickly and they'll listen. And I get so annoyed as a mom. Why would I say it? No one pays attention. But when you say it one time, kids are naturally more scared of their father

than they are of their mom when there's two parents like that. It's true. Like it doesn't matter because I feel like naturally there must be an instinctual, like instinctually moms feel more like safe and comfortable and like the dad, they can't get away with it. They're supposed to. I brought up a stat on, I told the guys the other day, where a kid, they did a study with the teachers, mom, dad, grandma, all these people, who do you think the kid, and they said, is most likely to misbehave in front of? So think of every parent, so mom, dad,

grandparent, teacher, all these people, and they studied all these kids, thousands of kids, and there was one of them that stood out more than any of them that the kid was more likely to misbehave in front of. The mom. Yeah, 900% more. 900%? 900% more. You know what?

That was the reason why, was because the kid feels safe. Feels safe. More comfortable and safe. He can challenge boundaries. And that's part of life is, his kids are part of raising kids is learning what I can and can't do. They feel the most safe and protected with mom and so they're going to stretch those boundaries. Dad is not that way. Dad is more the authoritarian, more the disciplinary, more that person. And so that's the same thing in my household too. Katrina will drive her crazy. She's reminding him to do something like that

and then all I have to do is step in and say, Max, listen to your mom. And then, and then they listen. Yeah, then he gets right up and she's just like, I just said that to him like seven times and then you come over and do that. So crazy. It's 100%, I didn't know it was 900%, that's crazy.

900% more likely to misbehave in front of mom. Yeah, I think that, I think the challenge with the, why the gender role issue has caused such an issue isn't because it's two reasons. One, we devalue the strengths that each person has and we pretend like there are no weaknesses sometimes either in either side. So we overvalue sometimes mom or dad depending on the, and we don't realize they both have value. They're both very important.

Like, how many times have moms told dads, don't wrestle with the kids before bed, you're gonna rile them up? No, no, no, don't rile them up. What are you doing? Do you know how important it is, or like how valuable it is, that dad gets to do that with their kid,

like the skills that they learn, you know? Or the dad to the mom, oh, come on, stop coddling when he's crying. That's important that mom can provide that. It's okay, because you dad to the mom. Oh, come on, stop coddling when he's crying. That's important that mom can provide that. It's okay, because you provide the other side. Right, so. Well, it's a balance, you say. Yes, that's my point of why, like, do you think,

I believe that it's played a role, and I know that's a controversial thing to say, because we've tried to eliminate traditional gender roles, but there's something to be said about how valuable, how organically it used to happen because dad just was that guy. Dad didn't have to be better about coddling and empathy and doing those things because mom was so good at it.

And so he could get away with being, you know, dad who works all day long and then he just comes around and he disciplines all the time and they still raise a decent kid. Well, yeah, that's because mom did such an organic job, great job of balancing that out and vice versa, right? Like she didn't always have to be the one who's hard disciplinary on time because she knew her husband could come in and do that. And it's, it's unfortunate that we have shamed people for so long about following these kinds of traditional values and gender roles when there's a lot of value that comes from that. And it's not to say that you can't have a dad who has more empathy or a mom that has more discipline. That's not the

point of this conversation. It's just that we've eliminated that so much or we've shamed that so much that, oh my God, that traditional is so old school and so bad. And we point out all the bad. And it's like, well, okay, there was some really good things that used to happen when mom had her role and dad had his role because we are different and we have different strengths and those strengths feed and play into raising a kid. And by the way, like after everything we've just talked about on this show, right? Like there are very, there are gender roles in my opinion for a reason, right? Like there are very, there are gender roles, in my opinion, for a reason, right? I feel like the world works better when that's the case, even with when it comes to dating,

when it comes to socializing, when it comes to raising a child. That's why it's a natural instinct. And what we're trying to do is eliminate their natural instinct and create this other form of being because it's more progressive. And to me, that's when we've had this demise in every walk of life. We've had this demise in raising children. We've had this demise in dating and cohabitating. We've had this, we've in relationships. We've had this demise in work, life, in work, in professional. Like in every way, there's been a demise because we are trying to like, we're trying to create this other instinctual way to be, which is impossible. This is not me being this super hardcore right-wing traditional.

No, I'm super malleable in a lot of ways, but I do believe that there are roles for a reason. For women, we talked about this last time, it was even on the podcast. There are certain traits that women should have and there are certain traits that men should have for the world to work better. In order for a woman to be attracted to a man, men have to have certain traits beyond just being tall. Like you were saying, bravery, leadership, confidence, strength, security. Duh, who wants a weak guy?

I don't really care what you say, right? And women, no matter what, women should have to have some sense of softness, some nurturing, some maternal instincts. You don't have to be a total like, you know, Stepford wife. Obviously not. Like, do I look like a Stepford wife? No. But there are certain things that are, I think-

The world's lied to us a lot and it's sold us a lot of lies. And what it's done is it's over, it's glorified the attributes that men provide and it's completely undervalued. I'm talking about the world, right? Society. Undervalued the attributes that women provide. So it's like, let's celebrate the first woman to build a skyscraper, first female astronaut, first whatever. And so it's like, it's celebrating these big conquests. Meanwhile, moms that raise incredible children

build incredible communities that provide emotional support which women do exceptionally well. All great people were raised probably by a great mother to an extent or there's a great mother there. We've undervalued that. And now I think it's starting to change, but it's to the point where, like, my wife stays at home with the kids.

She doesn't hear this so much. But I remember my mom, my mom would stay at home. She almost felt embarrassed saying that when people would ask, what do you do for a living? Oh, I'm just a, I'm just a homemaker. Because it was so undervalued. I love that, just, you know. It's crazy.

It's crazy. It's like, by the way, I mean, I'm obviously not a homemaker by any stretch, but I will tell you, that's the hardest job in the world. When I have to stay home for two days with my children alone, I'm running back to work. It's the hardest thing in the world. And it's, to raise a good human being, it's incredibly difficult. Is there anything more important? No, there's nothing more important.

No, there's nothing more important. That's what I'm saying. I work so that my wife can raise my kids, most importantly, and my work can change. I'm not going to switch my kids out for better kids or whatever. That's the most important thing. But my point is the world's lied to us, and it's lied to us, and it's undervalued what we tend to do best. There's nothing wrong with being a little more masculine, a little more feminine, whatever you want to label it or whatever. There's nothing wrong with that, but there are tremendous values in these things that

we provide, especially as parents, especially as parents. And that's why I think single parents have it real tough because you're trying to figure out doing both and it makes it a bit inconsistent. I got to be a little bit more like that, but traditionally it's the dads that provided a lot of that discipline, a little bit of that challenge, the rough and tumble play, the tough it up a little bit attitude thing typically came from dads and when dad's not there, mom's got a tough, she's got a real difficult choice. Okay, who am I going to be? And she's probably, she's probably going to default to the thing that she's best at, which is not those things, which is more of the safety and comfort nurturing, which can become by itself without the

other side of it, a little toxic in the sense that now my kid, I fix every problem. I talk to every teacher that my kid has a struggle with. I don't like, oh, they're crying. I mean, just like what would happen if the opposite was true. If the dad with just the discipline and the get up, you're fine attitude with no empathy. Yeah, a bunch of psychopath kids, you know? So, they're both extremely valuable. Just have way more single moms and single dads because dads tend to bounce. But, you know, that's the case. Anyway, good time. Yeah, good time. We'll see how controversial this podcast is. You always have controversial podcasts.

I know, let's see what happens. I'm curious. You know what though? I love talking to you about it because you're not coming from the traditional right wing Stepford mom. You're this business woman like badass and you work your ass off. And so coming from you, it's such a good person to talk about it because it's not like you're over here trying to say to all me just being a mom stay at home is more important.

All these women that go out and work. It's like, no, listen, I crush work. I love business. I do have stuff. But I also recognize that these traditional values that we've had with, you know, the way the woman would run the house and how the man would run the house and why we need each other. And also, thank you. I appreciate that. And I think that's why it's really important,

because I'm not a stay-at-home mom, as you said. And I think that these are challenges that most people in the world face, because most of us have to work, unfortunately. And it's, I'm not saying I'm perfect, like I struggle with these things every day. So if I feel I'm struggling, I'm sure a lot of other people are struggling, which is why I think it's important, like I said, for us to band together and educate and tell people

and build a community around what's really happening so we can better it later on. I agree. I heard this quote, I don't remember who said it, I thought it was incredible. And she said, if you ever want to judge a policy or a shifting culture, there's a real easy way to judge it. How does it affect the kids? So this is good for adults. We're going to do this new thing. How will it affect the kids? So this is good for adults. We're going to do this new thing. How will it affect the children? And that will give you your answer right there.

Wow. Yeah. I like that. By the way, we never even talk, we'll talk about it next time. We didn't even touch upon all this other stuff. Like, well, I'll tell you, we'll actually forget, I'm not going to say anything. We'll talk about it on my podcast and we're going to do next. Okay?

Okay. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, my podcast that we're going to do next. There you go. All right. Okay. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes maps anabolic, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming

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