The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Are Men Okay?

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

In place of Raging Moderates, we're sharing an episode of The Gray Area featuring the Dawg. Host Sean Illing gets personal when he asks professor and podcast host Scott Galloway: What’s going on with men? There’s a growing body of evidence that men are falling behind in education, the labor market, and other areas. And when you look at the numbers on drug overdoses and deaths by suicide, it’s pretty bleak. Sean and Scott — both of whom are raising sons — talk about the struggles men are facing today, how parents can navigate the current moment, and the chall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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will be over before you know it. Love that chicken for Popeyes. Welcome to another episode of the Prop G Pod. We typically share an episode of Raging Moderates on Tuesdays, but the dog is traveling. So in place of our regularly scheduled programming, we're sharing an episode of The Gray Area, a podcast hosted by Sean Illing, a journalist at Vox Media and the co-author of The Paradox of Democracy, Free Speech, Open Media, and Perilous Persuasion. The episode we're sharing today features yours truly.

We discuss the state of young men, including the struggles men are facing today, how parents can navigate the current moment, and the challenges Sean and I each faced as young men. So with that, here's the gray area. Are men okay? What's going on with men? There's a growing body of evidence that men are falling behind in education, in the labor market, and when you look at the numbers on drug overdoses and deaths by suicide, it's

pretty bleak. And it's not just a problem for men. It's a problem for women and for our culture and our politics. The fact is, we have an alarming number of lonely, alienated, and disaffected young men in this country. And whatever the reasons for that, and however justified they may or may not be, this is something we have to deal with. You can see this playing out on the political front.

Donald Trump made explicit appeals to men and it worked. He gained ground with men, especially younger men, and not just white men, but also black and Latino men. For me, personally, the sort of masculinity that Trump models isn't appealing. I think he's a bully. I think he's a liar. And he projects a kind of strength that's divorced from any sense of restraint or obligation to other people.

But the fact that he appeals to so many men says something important about this cultural moment. I think about this a lot because I'm raising a young son and I ask myself, how do I raise him to be a man who's strong and capable but also compassionate and honest? I'm Sean Elling and this is the Gray Area. Today's guest is Scott Galloway. He's a professor of marketing at NYU and the host of the Professor G-Pod on the Vox Media Podcast Network. And he spent a ton of time researching and thinking about these issues. He's currently working on a book actually about men and masculinity.

I've wanted to talk to Scott for a while about the research he's doing, what he's learning, and how it's changing the way he thinks about his own sons, how he's raising them. It's a conversation I was going to have outside this podcast, you know, just talking to the guy. But I know a lot of you are also wrestling with this question of what makes a man, whether you're parents or not. So I invited Scott onto the show to talk about masculinity,

about the struggles men are facing, and about his advice for parents who are also struggling to navigate this moment. The conversation got pretty personal, which I think is good. If your definition of masculinity includes dudes can't talk about their feelings, well, you're about to be surprised.

Scott Galloway, welcome to the show. Shaun, thanks for having me. I'm really glad you're here. You've been great on this topic and it's something I think about a lot. And I have found that it is a complicated conversation to try and have with people. Men are obviously not the only ones struggling and people are very used to seeing men in power and in charge that it's hard to reframe this conversation

and in a productive way. So I just want to start by trying to understand some of the headwinds here and just give people a snapshot of the data. So when someone wants to know what you mean when you say that men are struggling, how do you sum it up? What do you point to? Well, it's just data. Men are four times as likely to kill themselves. If you walk into a morgue and you see five people who died by suicide, four of them are men. Men are not attaching to school, they're not attaching to relationships, they're not attaching

to work. One in three men under the age of 30 has a girlfriend. Two in three women under the age of 30 has a boyfriend. You think, well, that's mathematically impossible. It's not because women are dating older, because they want more economically and emotionally viable men. And the gag reflex you get from progressives and women

when you start talking about struggling young men is understandable because no one was talking about it. And then some very unproductive voices entered into that void in this kind of manistere emerged where it was more, what I would refer to as thinly veiled misogyny where, you know, it starts off good. It starts off, take control of your life, be more action oriented, be physically fit. And then it starts to go to these really ugly places,

basically treating women as property, showing them who's boss. You would never let, I would never let my girlfriend go to the club alone, buying some sort of expensive douchey like super car and by the way, take my crypto university and learn how to be a baller. And so the voices that entered this discussion initially were really unproductive voices. So I think the natural gag reflex was somewhat understandable. The conversation has become much more productive because one, the data continues to get worse. And two, the conversation is now being led or inspired by a demographic that has more credibility

and that is mothers. And that is you see a lot of mothers who consider themselves feminists saying, there's just no getting around it. I have three kids, two daughters, one son, one daughter at Penn, one daughter in PR in Chicago, and my son is in the basement vaping and playing video games. And the data is just overwhelming. And you need to acknowledge that one, men have had a 2000 year head start. So you can understand why people don't feel sorry for young men on a kind of macro level basis. But also to recognize that empathy is not a zero sum game.

Civil rights didn't hurt white people, gay marriage didn't hurt heteronormative marriage, and while acknowledging that women still face a lot of challenges, to have empathy for the very real and increasing struggles young men are facing, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. And a 19-year-old kid in Appalachia who's being raised by a single mother, has no male role models, has very few economic opportunities, or on ramps into the middle class, is struggling perhaps, or has gambling apps on his phone, sending him notifications 50 times a day to bet on the Kansas City Chiefs game, who has social media, addicting him and maybe radicalizing him, has a few meeting opportunities. It's okay to have empathy for that kid, recognizing that,

yeah, maybe Scott Galloway and maybe even Sean, you're younger than me, had more advantage than they deserved. But should that 19-year-old male pay the price for the advantage I registered? So I think the conversation actually over the last five or seven years has become much more productive. And if you want to understand why we should be thinking about it, just look at the data. We are not, women are not going to continue to flourish nor is the nation if men are flailing. Why do you think it's so hard to accept this idea that empathy doesn't have to be a zero sum game? I think a lot of it is our fault.

I mean, when I say our, I mean, progressives, there is a certain, I think, sort of, okay, these people have advantage and are naturally more likely and prone to be oppressors than the oppressed. And there's very little empathy for them in a society that is dramatically changing where men don't have the same economic role they used to or the same economic opportunities, there are some second order effects we need to talk about. And that is, if we're going to have an honest conversation around mating,

we have to have an honest conversation around mating. So men mate socioeconomically horizontally and down, women horizontally and up. Three-quarters of women say economic viability is key to a mate, only a quarter of men, now I think it's a third, say it's key to a mate. How many times have we heard, I know all of these great women who are high character, attractive, have their act together, but they can't find a man? Well, actually they can, they just can't find a man they want to date. So what you have is more and more reasons, including political bifurcation, where young people aren't connecting, falling in love, and mating, and

forming households. And we have declining birth rates. If it wasn't for immigration, we'd be in decline. And I think it leads to a lot of second order effects around loneliness, and depression, and anxiety. And then, just to wrap up here, it's different for men than women, And I think it leads to a lot of second order effects around loneliness and depression and anxiety. And then just to wrap up here, it's different for men than women because when women don't have a romantic relationship, oftentimes they will channel that additional energy into relationships

with friends, family, and their work. When men don't have the prospect of a romantic relationship, they kind of come off the rails. They're less likely to be employed. They're more likely to engage in misogynistic content. And some, without the prospect of a romantic relationship, men become shitty citizens. Women don't have an obligation to mate with anyone. I'm not suggesting they lower their standards. But the reality is we're producing the most dangerous person in the world by the millions, and that is a young, lonely, broke man. And the question is, all right, what does that mean for society?

Because the thing that the most violent, unstable societies have in common is a disproportion of young men who feel as if they have nothing to lose because they have no economic or romantic opportunities. So I think this is a big issue for society and I just come back to the same thing. Empathy is not a zero-sum game. We could acknowledge that women still face a lot of challenges and we should be focused on those. We should do nothing to get in the way of their progress, but at the same time we can recognize that a young man should not be paying for the advantage I received by

not acknowledging the data around just how many headwinds young men are facing in our society. I suspect that, you know, the numbers on so-called deaths of despair, drug addiction, suicide, these sorts of things have always tilted in the direction of men disproportionately. But how much is that gap growing? And how much is it growing particularly among young, younger men? It's staggering.

Richard Reeves, who started my Yoda on this and kind of inspired my thinking on this, but Richard did this analysis and he looked at deaths of despair, overdoses, drunk driving, accidents, getting way too drunk and then doing something stupid, suicide. The incremental increase in deaths of despair amongst men since 2004. This isn't how many men have died since 2004 based on the percentage of people that were dying from deaths of despair to that point, but the increase in the number of deaths of despair since 2004 has taken the lives of 400,000 American men. That's how many men we lost in World War II.

So the incremental deaths of despair amongst young men over the last 20 years has taken as many lives as World War II. And if you were to reverse engineer all of this to where a boy or young man kind of comes off the tracks, like where did these problems start? You can typically reverse engineer it to one point in their life and it's the following. When they lose a male role model. I think the ultimate expression of masculinity is to take an interest in the life of a boy that isn't yours. And

unfortunately, I was on Bill Maher, and I said, I made this speech about men need to get involved in boys' lives. And he said, whoa, I get involved in a 15-year-old boy's lives, and everyone's gonna say, well, what's he doing? What's wrong? And because of the Catholic Church and Michael Jackson,

there's now this feeling that if a man wants to get involved in a young boy's life, that there's something wrong with him, that he might be a pedophile. And this just isn't true. There are a lot of great men out there who have loved to give fraternal and paternal love and would like to coach a young man. And they don't need to be ballers. They just need to be trying to live a virtuous life, because I can attest to this as the father of two boys. It is not hard to help them. Why did you decide to go to school without

shoes today? Basic question. So I'm coaching another young man who's decided he's going to quit a decent job and move to Alaska. And I'm like, why are you moving to Alaska? And he's like, well, I saw a program out and it looks cool. I'm like, so you're going to give up your job? You're going to give up your support system

and you're just going to move to Alaska? I mean, it's not that hard to add a lot of value to a lot of young men's lives right now. So I think we need to stop the suspicion and the demonization of anybody who wants to get involved and help a young man or get involved in a young boy's life and suspect them of something much more malicious and create a culture of mentorship and helping young boys.

So one call out is if you're a man who has love to give and there's a lot of them out there, you don't have to be a baller just living a good life. There are young men everywhere and boys that need your guidance. Well, to your point about the most dangerous person in the world being a young man who's broken and alone, I think we have this loneliness crisis intersecting with the rise of digital technology and it really is impossible to overstate how ugly some of these online spaces are. If you've seen an Andrew Tate video,

you know what I mean, and someone like Tate is a weak man's idea of a strongman in the same way that Trump is a poor person's idea of a very rich person but the reality is that Tate is the dominant model you're going to encounter online and if you're trying to make sense of this journey people take from loneliness to resentment to conspiracism and fascism, just put on some fucking gloves and scroll through Tate's social media feeds and see how easily it drops you into this whole constellation of bad ideas and shitty politics and more and more people are being sucked into that

abyss. Yeah, and I do think there's actually, at this point, I think Andrew Tate is just kind of an irrelevant footnote in history. I think he's going away almost as quickly as he's popped up. I think a lot of people have realized that this kid, you know, spending time three months in a Romanian prison for sex trafficking is not anyone's ideal of a successful person.

And all this bullshit, this grift of join my crypto university, it's not even worth the oxygen talking about. I actually think the Trump and to a certain extent, Elon Musk are a bigger problem for young men because these individuals have taught young men that coarseness and cruelty is conflated with masculinity. And their success, especially Elon Musk's success, is so impressive and inspiring for

young men. I get why he is and should be a role model on many levels for young men. At the same time, attacking people online, disavowing your transgender daughter, saying that she's dead to me. You know, it's just Trump, that being, you know, this is an insurrectionist, 34 felony counts, and people say, you have Trump derangement syndrome. No, I have democracy addiction is what I suffer from. And at the same time, inspiring an insurrection. These are just not great role models for men. I worry that this vision of masculinity has been conflated with some very ugly attributes, coarseness, cruelty, misogyny, that's basically what it is, and attacking, always on the attack.

I mean, I have 14 and 17 year old boys. The first role model, the first role model of any child used to be the president. That was the person you were supposed to immediately look to as success. That's what it means to be successful in America. Is that our definition of success now? Get groceries delivered across the GTA from real Canadian superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings.

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And I don't judge these men even though I can see how much destruction they're causing because I can see myself in them. I can see myself tumbling down the same rabbit hole when I was younger. I was pretty lost. I was caught up with drugs. I was close to falling right over the cliff, you know, but I had a family member who said something to me one night that probably saved my life. It was my get your shit together moment and soon after that, I was in the military, and the whole trajectory of my life changed. And that's how close any of us are to going the other way.

I really believe that. Well, but what you just said's really powerful, and it moves to solutions, and I'm trying to be better about proposing solutions because I'm such a glass half empty kind of guy. I think I can articulate the problems really well. I've gotta get better at articulating the solutions, but I think mandatory national

service would benefit America, young people, and especially men. I spent some time in Israel after October the seventh, and I got to spend some time with a battalion or a squadron, I don't know what the term is, about 120 kids from the IDF. And these are 19 year olds, men and women fit, thin, handling semi-automatic weapons, serving in the agency of something bigger than themselves, meeting lifelong friends,

meeting co-founders of businesses, meeting mates, and they all serve in the same uniform. So I think national service, and it doesn't necessarily need to be military service. It can be senior care, it can be planting trees, whatever it might be, helping, you know, kids in low-income neighborhoods. But I think saying to all, all young people, you have to spend 12, 24 months serving the agency of something bigger than yourself with people from

different income groups, ethnic, sexual orientations, recognizing that America is worth investing in. I think that's one idea in terms of a solution for getting around some of these issues. So if it's not Tate, it's not Trump, it's not Musk, what do you think the healthiest model of modern masculinity looks like or ought to look like? I think they're examples, but they're not, unfortunately I don't think there's, you know, I have a tough time, people always say to me, who are the role models?

And I do think there's just millions of men who get up every day, add surplus value. They create more tax revenue than they absorb. They listen to more revenue than they absorb. They listen to more complaints than they complain. They notice other people's lives. They're in great shape. They try to achieve. They plant the trees of which the shade they'll never sit under. I think there's millions of those men around. I mean, this is an odd example. I read Chris Christopherson's obituary. I don't know if you know him, the country singer.

He was a golden glove, played high school football, became a road scholar, got a master's in English from Oxford, and then decided he was going to go serve his country, rose to the level of captain. He was a helicopter pilot, was known as kind of a poet in his music and had this reputation for being very generous with other artists. I mean, a gentle, generous soul who wanted to serve his country was physically robust and outstanding at what he did. Now, I don't think it's realistic to think any of us

are gonna be Chris Christopherson, but I think there are men everywhere who are trying to add surplus value and can be really good role models. I think there's a lot of them in government. I think there's wonderful role models in the service and in services. I think they're everywhere, unfortunately,

because of social media and the algorithms, because of the rage that people feel. I think that we're more drawn to, the media is like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. It's drawn towards movement and violence. And when it sees people making outlandish, provocative, stupid, aggressive mean things, it gives those people more organic reach.

So there's a confluence of really unfortunate factors, and that is the algorithms love Elon Musk accusing an honored serviceman of treason and saying he will pay a price. You just don't, I mean, this is the kind of behavior we never would have tolerated, but now the algorithms love it, and there are now so many people living their own reality that they believe Elon Musk because he inspired the EV race and sends rockets into space that he must be right, that he's onto something. And so I think there's unfortunately the men who are,

gain the most notoriety, the algorithms love their coarseness, their cruelty, and what I would call anti-masculine behavior. And that is, I don't even like to use the word toxic masculinity, because I don't like to put those two words next to each other. But this is anti-masculine behavior. This is deciding that you need to show your toughness by being coarse and cruel and attacking

people that are less powerful than you. For me, the problem isn't toughness. It's not warrior culture. It's not the celebration of strength and fitness, which is now stupidly coded as right wing. The problem, as you're saying or have said, is that when all of this gets unmoored from any sense of purpose or community, any sense of service to people and things beyond yourself, and that's part of the reason why I think the loneliness crisis is so central to this whole conversation, not just about men,

but really everyone. It's practically a civilizational crisis at this point. Yeah, look, but I have a couple of questions for you because I don't know much about you. You said you suffered from addiction and then you went into the service. What was your addiction and what branch of the armed services did you serve in

and how long did you serve? I wouldn't say it was addiction. I was using a lot of drugs. I was selling drugs. And I was 18, left home, and I joined the Air Force. I did my just under four years and I got out and I went to school. But obviously, so you're selling drugs and using and something went off that said, okay, I need to get my shit together. And you turn to the Air Force.

And by the way, I think that's a great, that's a way out. That's a way to get your life back on track. And unfortunately, something like 60 or 70% of the people now, of the men who decide, I want to take that path, can't because they can't pass a physical fitness test because of obesity or a mental wellness test because of anxiety and depression. But that for you, it sounds like that was really kind of the turning point in your life.

Is that accurate? Yeah, I was living in a shitty apartment, uh, with a bunch of drugged out people that I was, uh, valet parking cars at the casino with. And I had an older cousin who grew up next door to me. Um, I was an only child, but he was basically my brother, my older brother, the closest thing I've ever had to one. And he came over and dragged my ass out of the apartment and pushed me up against the car and just said, you're better than this.

I'm embarrassed for you. I'm embarrassed for our family. Get your shit together. And I went back in the apartment, sat in the corner and looked around and said, nope, where's the rip cord? But here's what you had. You had a man in your life who had an irrational passion for

your wellbeing and was willing to have a very uncomfortable, like no upside conversation other than hoping it was going to impact your life. And that's what's really missing with a lot of these young men. It doesn't sound like you had a lot of male role models, like me, single mother, not a lot of economic or romantic possibilities, but what you with a lot of these young men. It doesn't sound like you had a lot of male role models, like me, single mother,

not a lot of economic or romantic possibilities, but what you had was a man who cared about you. And there's just certain things. It's hard for your mom to push you up against a car and physically intimidate you and scare, kind of scare you straight. That's hard for your mom. Moms can provide other things,

they can provide love and nurturing and a sense of confidence, but young men need men. And so what you had, or what I would, what I would diagnose is the drug that saved your life was having a man in your life that cared about you and cared so much they were willing to have a very uncomfortable conversation. He had to plan out what he was going to say, he had to go over, man in your life that cared about you and cared so much, they were willing to have a very uncomfortable conversation. He had to plan out what he was going to say, he had to go over, he had to know you might not ever speak to him again, a non-zero probability, probably a better than likely opportunity, you were going to ignore him. That's like all down, almost all downside for him other than wanting to help you because he cared about you. That emotion is what's in short supply. That person who has the strength and the willingness to find someone,

to go over to that guy's apartment and tell him to get his shit together and do it out of love and concern. That is quite frankly, what we, we don't need more fucking AI. That is what we need. We don't need more, we don't need the SMP and the Dow to hit more highs. We need more men who have the relationships and the strength and the will to go have those conversations with other young men. So I think a lot about this, but the path you took, think about that, that's a great story, right? So the question is, how do we create more of those moments where when men come off the tracks,

there's someone and an organization there, for you it was older cousin in the Air Force that quite frankly saved your ass. And it had to be him. I had a relationship with my dad, I still do. But you know, you have all these hangups. And there's all this bullshit macho posturing between sons and fathers. I needed an older male in my life who I didn't have those hangups with, who could shake me out of my stupor. And that goes to this point you're making about having more male

mentors in our lives that aren't necessarily our fathers. And the question for you is do we have the cultural infrastructure to facilitate that? Are we doing anything politically, socially, culturally, economically, to make that more likely, to make that more of a thing, to make that more of an opportunity for more people in more places? But even conversations like this, I think there's a lot of men probably listening to this podcast. The first thing I ask men is who have their act together, I'm like, do you mentor or coach any young men? And they'll say, well, and they pause and they're like,

well, my nephew. I'm like, look at what an impressive man you are. It would be so easy for you 30, 60 minutes a week. I coach three young men at a time. And they get intimidated. When they're embarrassed to do that for fear that people are gonna think something's up with them. We need to start our culture of that and to create a society where the moment you become a virtuous

man who's on the right path, your obligation is to try and pull a few people behind you. And what you said about your relationship with your father is very typical. There's a very healthy hormone or instinct with young men where they kind of rebel against their dad because they have to leave the tribe, the nest, the pack. What's interesting is that oftentimes a 16, 18, 22 year old boy slash man will listen to his dad's friends more than his dad. And there's a lot of men, young men, who the dad isn't around. My dad wasn't really around. I mean, and the other thing is we need single moms and moms and churches and family courts to recognize the moment there's a divorce and there are kids, specifically boys who no longer have a male role model living with that young boy, there needs to

be an infrastructure for maintaining male presence in that boy's life. And even that is a controversial statement. Well, what do you mean? Are women able? Well, of course they are. Women are important to a young man's life. My mother lived and died as secretary, lied in my life.

But my mom always made sure I had men in my life. Two of her boyfriends that she only went out with for two or three years each stayed involved in my life and she encouraged it. There was a guy across the hall, he and his girlfriend used to take me horseback riding and then he would just every weekend roll over to me and come with me and wash my car.

And my mom always made sure I had men in my life. And that was hugely important for me. My mom's boyfriend gave me 200 bucks and said, go buy stock. I started asking about the stock market. I was 13. And he said, there's go to one of those fancy brokerages in the village, Westwood village.

And if you don't buy stock by Monday afternoon, I'm taking the 200 bucks back. I'd never seen $200 in my life. I went down to Dean Winter. I sat in the lobby. I met this guy named Sy Sarrow. I had $200. I bought,

12 shares of Columbia Pictures at 16. I wasn't very popular in junior high school, I used to go to the phone booth every day, put in two dimes, call Sy, and he'd give me a 10 minute lecture on the market. So, close encounters of the third kind is a hit, that's why the stock's up today. Why is it up?

There's more people who wanna buy it than sell it, so they have to raise the price to get enough sellers interested in selling. I've made, and I'm flexing now, tens of millions of dollars in the market. And a large part of it is I have been buying stocks since I was 13. And I still get probably monthly a text message from Cy 46 years later. You know, a fantastic male role model for me. It taught me about the markets. But we have to have a culture of ensuring, and I think Family Court plays a role,

I think Religious Institute, the moment you see a boy without a male role model, it is the community's responsibility to inject male leadership, male mentorship into that boy's life. Support for PropG comes from Vanta. If you're a startup founder, finding product market fit is probably your number one priority. But to land bigger customers, you also need security compliance. And obtaining your SOC 2 ISO 27001 certification can take a valuable time and energy, pulling you away from building and shipping. That's where Vanta comes in. Vanta is the all-in-one compliance solution helping startups like yours get audit ready and build a strong security foundation quickly and painlessly. Vanta automates the manual security tasks that slow you down, helping you streamline your audit. And the platform connects you with

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pull up the classics on Prime Video. Whatever you're into this holiday season, from streaming to shopping, it's on Prime. Visit amazon.com slash prime to get more out of whatever you're into. I'm not here to tell anyone to have children or start a family, and that's a choice everyone is free to make, should be free to make. But do you think we'd have better, healthier, more productive men if more of us became fathers? I mean, all I can say is that it was transformative for me and my life. I badly needed to care about someone else's life

more than my own. Some people just aren't ready for kids. They're not economically secure. They're not emotionally ready for kids. My life up until I had kids, I had kids later in life. I didn't have my first child when I was 42. My life was about more. I want more money.

I want more fame. I want more recognition. I want to party with cooler people. I want to date more women. I want to have more sex, more money, more cool. It's just like, oh, I have this much money. Well, I can have more. Well, I'm in this fabulous scene. Well, all right, I'm on an amazing party in St. Barts.

Well, is there a more amazing party in the south of France? It was always more. And the only time I've ever felt sort of sated and thought this is enough was when I have, occasionally I have that moment with my boys, and let's be, let's be honest, kids can be awful, it's a lot of stress. But occasionally, last night, I'm watching the Liverpool Man City game, my kids just naturally, 17 and 14, come in, throw their legs over mine just naturally, and I'm like, dogs come in, I'm like, okay, this is enough. I can't imagine anything more than this. It also got me, like you said, it's almost sort of relaxing.

When I was single, it was on Friday, it's like, where am I gonna have brunch? What cool people am I hanging out with? What hot woman am I gonna go out with? And then all of a sudden, your weekends are like, you know what you're doing. You're taking your kid to soccer practice and you're going to some lame ass birthday party on Sunday where you want to like, you gather with all the other dads and just roll your eyes like, Jesus, how did we end up here? But it's sort of relaxing. It's like, okay, I got something else that's more important than me all the fucking time. And also for me professionally, it got me very

focused. I always, I always made enough money to live a pretty good life, to at least have full wealth, have a nice apartment, a big screen TV, take nice vacations, go on, you know, do cool things. But once I had a kid, it was like, okay, shit just got real. I got to get very focused. And I also get tremendous reward at night when I know my kids are warm and safe and well taken care of and going to good schools and I'm raising them with a competent partner. That makes me feel very strong. It gives me a sense of gratification. That is where, that's the only time in my life I've ever felt whole, like really whole, like, okay, I get it. I'm here for a reason.

I'm doing something. So I feel the same way you do. I'm remiss to tell people that the answer is, you know, have kids. But what I can say is personally is nothing. I was never sated. I was never satisfied fully until I had kids. And I think that's a whole shooting match. And I think we need more public policy that stuffs more money into the pockets of young people so they can afford to have kids. 60% of 30-year-olds used to have a child in the house. Now it's 27%. So I'm a big believer in child tax credit, tax holiday like Portugal, age 20 to 30, no federal tax, more third spaces, give more people, more young people a chance to meet each other and fall in love

and have kids and make sure that when you have a kid, it's not as economically stressful as it's become. I know we have lots of parents who listen to the show and they're all trying to navigate these waters with their kids in their own ways. Do you have any words of advice for them? I think it's such an individual, I think I've read most parenting books and the thing they all have in common is they all contradict each other. I mean, you know the basics, right? Firm but gentle, you know?

I'm looking for your approach, not the approach. Yeah, look, what I try and do is, Ryan Holiday is this wonderful podcaster, young man. I'm learning so much from so many of these young men who talks about stoicism. He talks about garbage time. And that is, you know, the myth of quality time. Well, I work all the time, but I spend time, I have quality time with my kids. There's no such thing as quality time. The biggest moments, the most important moments with my kids have been unexpected.

I'm driving them to school, I'm not looking them in the eye, and they say, Dad, there's a girl I like at school, this happened, what do you think? You pray for those moments as a dad. I think my kids have asked me for advice maybe three times in their life, and they happen when they're least expected. You know, garbage time, as much time as you can. Having said that when they're young, I didn't spend a lot of time with them because I was focused on building economic security. And I think that was the right decision.

I think that trying to ensure that the household has an absence of stress by getting to a certain level of economic security. And then with any remaining time, just garbage time with your kids. Just be an Uber driver, hang out with them, you know, just a ton of time with them, play games with them, because you never know when those kinds of moments are going to happen. And then the other thing I think you can do as a man is try and be as loving and supportive of your partner as possible.

I think they see that. I think they see that. I think they see this is how I should treat women. I think they see, wow, dad really loves mom and is thinking about her a lot, and I'm gonna be that way when I'm a man. I think that some of my faults when it comes to women have been quite frankly, because my model for how to treat women,

my father, who's been for how to treat women, my father who's been married and divorced four times was not a great role model. So economic security, as much garbage time as you can muster and try and be a really loving, visibly loving and supportive of your partner such that your kids notice. Yeah, I really do believe that the best thing you can do as a father for your kids is to love their mother. And I really like what you say about framing our lives in terms of

negative and surplus value, which sounds like sterile economic language, but I don't think it is in this case. My dad wasn't perfect. He made a lot of mistakes, but he did his best and he did a little bit better than his dad. And I'm committed to doing a little better than him. And I expect my son will be better than me. And that's the whole game, man. Like, that's it. That's the ethos we have to instill in young people, whether it's in the context of being a dad or being a husband or a partner or a friend

or whatever the most important role in your life is. Attack it with that mindset and the world will be better for it. Yeah, there's two great points in there. This notion of, a huge unlock for me was, I used to look at relationships as a transaction. Am I getting as much joy and camaraderie from this friendship as I'm giving?

Am I getting as much money from this business partnership or value as I'm giving? Am I getting as much joy, romance, good sex, whatever from this romantic relationship as I think I'm giving? And the moment I felt like I was getting less than I was giving, I was angry, injected expectation of the relationship.

And a huge unlock for me was to stop keeping score. And that is I think, OK, my dad wasn't a very good dad. He wasn't bad. He was much better, to your point, to me than his father was him. His father physically abused him, and my dad tried. He, you know, left me and my mom, moved to Ohio, wasn't that involved in my life,

but he did make an effort much better to me than his father, and the fact that you've recognized that I think is a huge unlock. But the big unlock for me was, and it didn't happen until I was your age, I said stop thinking about relationships as a transaction and just say what kind of son, what kind of partner, what kind of business partner, what kind of investor, what kind of dad do you want to be?

And ignore what you get back. I mean, if you're not enjoying a relationship, I shed friends, that's fine. If at some point it's like you're not getting no value from this thing, then just exit the relationship. But I said, what kind of son do I want to be? I want to be a generous, loving son. And that's what I decided to do. And I stopped thinking, well, my dad wasn't there for me.

My dad could have, my dad basically left me to go to Ohio. I just, I got rid of all that bullshit and I started just being the son I wanted to be. It's really important with your kids. Cause despite what the hallmark channel tells you, you're not going to get as much from your kids as you're going to have to give them. I mean, there's just some days where I feel like I'm a loving, you know, I'm something out of the fucking hallmark channel as a dad and my kids are just total assholes could not be more ungrateful, could

not be less kind to their mother, could not be more expectant, more spo- I mean, it's awful. And I'm like, okay, there's a word for that. Dad, if you feel as if, all right, I'm not getting as much from my kids as I'm giving, that means you're being a father. That's what we're here for. We're here to absorb blows. And I'm not saying be depressed or not in touch with your emotions, but I recognize now that my job, my goal is to add surplus value,

that I wanna give more than I get. And be clear with kids, that's just part of it. You're gonna have to invest way more of your love, emotion, resources than you are. I mean, maybe when I'm older, maybe I'll get more back from them than I'm giving, but I'm not holding my breath. And what you have to realize,

or what has been a big unlock for me is, that's the goal, is to be able to say, I know I'm giving my kids so much more than maybe I'm getting from them. That's it. That means I'm serving that purpose. I'm being a dad. We could go all day, but I know you have to go.

So I will let you go. Scott, this is great. It was a long time coming. I really appreciate you being here and taking the time to do it. Shana, I love your work and I love your story. I think you're just doing great work. I think you're adding real value.

I very much appreciate what you're doing. ["The Time Is Now"] All right. I hope you enjoyed this episode. It got a little more personal than I intended, but ultimately I think that's a good thing. And I know this was a conversation between men, about men, and mostly for men. But my goal was to do it in a way that felt useful to everyone. And I hope it was.

And if it wasn't, I'll do better next time. As always, we wanna know what you think. So drop us a line at thegrayarea at Vox.com. And once you're done with that, please rate and review and subscribe to the pod. This episode was produced by Beth Morrissey, edited by Jorge Just, engineered by Christian Ayala, fact-checked by Anouk Dussault, and Alex Overington wrote our theme music. Also just a heads up, there's a new TGA video that just dropped over on Vox's YouTube channel. It's a long clip from one of our more popular recent episodes, a chat I had with my friend

and Vox colleague Zach Beecham about Trumpism and the direction of American politics. You can check it out at youtube.com slash Vox. The gray area is part of Vox. Support Vox's journalism by joining our membership program today. Go to Vox.com slash members to sign up. And if you do decide to sign up because of this show, let us know.